#feels like ages but clearly i have fucking notion of time

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for being more poetic and vulnerable about fictional ships than I am to my irl boyfriend?

It's basically a core trait of mine that I'm always fixated on *some* pair of fictional guys. I'm also a writer and a pathological content creator, so I'm always got some kind of project or sideblog or something. There's nothing that I care about more than gay romantic love especially *in* fiction because I also love a solid narrative and symbolism, etc - and due to those things, I've always vastly preferred living vicariously through fiction to real life. I tend to essentially kin one character really hard and, through them, be genuinely in love with the guy he's in love with. And my bf definitely knew this before starting to date me because we were friends for like 3 years first (and we've now been dating for 2). The thing is, he used to be like this too, but once he moved in with me and his real life got a lot happier, he basically grew out of fixating as hard as he used to on media bc he no longer needed to live vicariously through it.

He says he understands that it's not something that I'm gonna grow out of and that it's fine. But more and more he's getting upset and genuinely jealous about my current fixation. He all but refuses to watch the show I'm currently into even though it's been a singular obsession of mine for over a year now, though he does read some of the fic I write and look at my sideblog for that show. And sometimes it's fine but other times he brings up romantic headcanons I've posted, upset that I don't ever say/do that kind of stuff for him. Or he'll outright tell me to say "something sweet" to him and when I inevitably can't think of something on the spot, which I NEVER have bc I'm just not that kind of person, he'll be like "[character A] would have something to say for [character B] :((((("

I've tried reassuring him SO many times that it's not a matter of me not loving him, or of me loving fictional characters more, but that I simply am not vulnerable like that in real life and maybe I wish that I could be, but I'm not. I'm not a fictional character, I don't live in a narrative, and I'm way too self-aware, to my own detriment, to feel authentic saying the kind of things that I write about. I'm also in my 20s and I grew up on the internet, as opposed to the middle aged men that I write about. In any case fiction allows a certain veneer between the notion of those feelings and my instinct to cringe. But my bf basically never believes me, and he doesn't say this outright, but he's clearly upset that he isn't enough to make me want to "live in real life." Even though literally nothing and no one ever has been.

As for what could potentially make *him* the asshole: I'm kind of really fucking tired of having to explain this to him. And I hate being made to feel like I'm not allowed to do what makes me happy when it's literally all fiction. I'm literally so depressed any time I don't have a show to be obsessed with and he knows this. I really don't understand why he wants to look at my posts and keep bringing it up when it just causes the same argument every time.

Basically, is his jealousy justified? AITA?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[ranticore]

Chapter 3 - To Be Phocid [Qedivar's research]

It's that time again. Ishmael is a teenage boy, fair warning.

I'm posting this on mobile so I cba linking the previous chapters but go into the siren tag to find them.

x

Following these events, and at Maris’s insistence, Ishmael began to keep a journal. To the delight of this author, his writing was deep, introspective, and highly detailed. From now on, I no longer had to rely on pieced together scraps and reports, but from a primary source. As such, the way these events are related will shift a little, but that is only for events concerning Ishmael.

Cherta, unfortunately, did not keep a journal at this time and remains frustratingly opaque, given Ishmael’s somewhat biased recounting of their activities. Although one must concede to the difficulties of keeping a journal underwater, before the age of sub-aquatic writing systems, and with eighteen other overambitious adolescents in relatively close proximity.

Ishmael’s journal was recorded on a computerified device and was not written by hand, though his deep dream education had serviced to educate him in handwriting skills. This was tested when he was younger, as part of an evaluation to determine the extent of his dexterity. Although the notion of a form of writing which is stored in a purely hypothetical space is very odd, especially in its permanency, it has enabled us to access his thoughts at this day and age, whereas traditional aquatic knot-writing would have long since rotted away.

He wrote in the language of the Predecessors, which I believe to be the root of all air-speaking language families. The translation of these texts is what has taxed me more than any other part of this process, aside from the grievous bodily harm, and it has taken a fantastic span of time to achieve this translation. I cannot credit my sources for fear of implicating them but you can be assured that the finest minds of the Spire collaborated on this project. This Predecessor tongue is what is spoken in all of the videos, enabling me to learn it to a conversational level, though I am hardly fluent.

Some of the journal is rendered untranslatable due to it referring to objects or concepts which were considered common knowledge at the time, requiring no additional definition. These concepts or objects will be clearly marked. However, I believe much of the text to be familiar to many people, telling of the frustration and longing common and recognisable today. That said, I believe it is also important not to take for granted the relatability.

Ishmael is not always familiar to us and existed in a time we would find nigh incomprehensible. Do not take this as reason to doubt his interiority or personhood, and do not fall into the trap of believing that you would have done better in his place, that you would have seen clearly what he obviously did not (and had good reason not to). They may have been phocids, or the predecessors of phocids, but they were new. If you were the first of your kind, could you do better?

I will now present the text in chronological order, starting from the eve of his sixteenth birthday:

-

Entry 1 – I hate seeing that baby siphonid. It’s still moving. It drags itself around on the leg the researchers didn’t take. Now I’m just going to remember this forever, since I wrote it down. Great. I hate that fucking noise. Why can’t they just get it to shut up?

Thank [deity]. They took it away.

Update – it didn’t even taste good.

-

Entry 2 - Maris told me to talk more about my feelings. What does she know? Nobody understands me anyway. I don’t think they can feel all that on their face like me. The sipho noise kept touching me. The researchers are always talking about hydrofoils and antennae but I bet they don’t know what I do - how the siphos talk to each other. I told Callum and he didn’t know what I meant, even though he has a beard.

Talked to Lee again about sex since Dan said he wouldn’t tell me himself. I don’t think Lee told the truth about a lot of that stuff. The other kids sometimes joke around a bit too much, but it is kinda funny I guess.

Update - Dan shouted at me for asking, but now I have proof Lee was wrong.

-

Entry 3 – The phocids click at each other underwater with their tongues.

Dan got so angry after I pulled my face hair out. He made the interns [untranslatable] search my room for the hairs and they actually found them. They didn’t even do anything with it, just put it in a bag and sealed it away. Looks like nobody wants it at all. Dan says Atom spent 120 billion nua making me, so I think one face hair is worth a few million. If I started selling them to the people outside the lab, I could buy my own stake of land on Siren just like them. I wouldn’t let Lee in. My fingers are probably worth a couple billion each.

Should I

-

Entry 4 – Emer (the intern) looked at me like I did something wrong when she changed my pillowcases.

Spilled bile EVERYWHERE when they were testing me. I keep thinking about somehow saving it and trying to sell it. I’m supposed to be a digestive model for Siren food, so my insides are probably worth a lot. I should ask Dan when he calms down.

Callum came around to talk to Dan again. He’s getting really tall, he’s taller than me now even when I stand up straight. He’s so skinny, like the baby siphonids (I can snap one in half with just my teeth now). When Callum was there, he didn’t want to look at me, but I get it. They didn’t even cook the siphonid this time, it was raw and with the shell on. His leg is the same width as one of them.

Emer won’t stop changing my pillowcases. Is there a way to prevent them from smelling like that?? Callum hasn’t been around so I can’t ask. Maris thinks it’s just because people my age start getting sweaty but Dan specifically told me he made me not have sweat glands anywhere but my hands. Then he said the phocids do have sweat glands. I still don’t get the point of sweating if you’re already a stupid wet rat who lives in the

-

Entry 5 – I’m seventeen now. Since I’m an adult, I decided to stop being reticent around the phocids. I want to know if they found a comfortable way to walk without the skin coming off their tails. So I went to talk to them today for the first time. There is a window where you can do it, they let it open ever since the climate control got busted again last month.

Cherta is really weird. I knew they couldn’t stay in the pool for very long because they might have a seizure but apparently it can happen any time, not just underwater. They have a button implant that makes their muscles relax. Anyway, their tails have thicker skin than mine so that was useless. But it is still worthwhile, I think, to meet with the phocids. They remind me why I am a human, and they are not. I kind of pity them because all they're ever going to be is a bunch of test subjects in a tiny swimming pool.

Cherta told me that one of the phocids died a year ago. I don’t remember Dan ever talking about it to me, but they said it was a big deal. Apparently they got pressure sickness when climate control broke the first time. I think Cherta broke it the second time, they sounded too proud to mention it. I don’t get it. Anyway, breaking stuff in the lab is against the rules and I think I’m going to tell Dan about that.

-

Entry 6 – I made the right choice. Cherta got so angry when they found out I told on them that they had another seizure. The other phocids had to pull them out of the pool. Dan thought I did the right thing but I don’t think he liked me going to tell Cherta about it afterwards, told me no one likes a snitch. Well, then, what am I supposed to do? Just let it happen? I hope Cherta chokes on that gross pool water next time.

Dan suggested I go do something other than visit the phocids and I agree, they’re clearly not worth my time. I went to see Callum instead but he wasn’t in. He has a games console, I saw him show it off to Lee the other day. I wonder if he’d let me try it.

[End of Journal Entries]

-

It paints an interesting picture. As Ishmael mentions, Cherta suffered permanent neurological issues as a result of their birth mishaps. This was a point of contention within the lab, beyond Ishmael’s knowledge; the finance manager of the settlement questioned the wisdom of keeping a test subject in an aquatic locomotion study group who could not spend much time underwater. Every time, however, Dan Loris would respond that Cherta now provided essential information about phocid neurology and drowning mechanisms.

The phocid whose death Ishmael mentions was number seventeen, Ambla. It is highly likely that number seventeen’s death was accidental, but the circumstances were not caused by a failure of the lab’s climate system.

I have found the experimental notes from that day; Ambla was brought to an isolated chamber which was controlled by the climate system, with its own test pool, and the quality of the atmosphere was changed to match that of the Precursor home planet. The force of gravity was thus increased. What the Humans did not expect was Ambla’s sudden inability to swim to the surface. They inhaled water, which settled in their lungs and caused them to drown even after they had been pulled out of the pool.

Dan expressed grief in his notes, and surprise. He did not understand why such a thing would occur and blamed the climate system for somehow altering the test beyond his parameters. This is likely what led to Cherta’s misconception that the climate system had killed one of their friends, and their subsequent sabotage of the climate system every few months after that.

But any phocid or selkie reading this will intimately recognise the problem, and I believe the mystery of Ambla’s death may now be solved. The water taken to fill the pool was likely Tel!am’s Blood, a phenomenon all sea-faring people will know about. The Precursors, it seemed, were unfamiliar with it, and had pumped water in to the pool which nobody could swim in. But with the increased gravity, even the fittest phocid would struggle to rise in shallow water.

Regardless, there exists a substantial gap between that last journal entry and the next. Almost a year, in fact, when Ishmael did not write at all, and neither did he participate in Maris’s therapy sessions. I do, however, have a copy of Callum’s journal with me which provides at least half of the narrative, incomplete as it is.

#setting: siren

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

pt IV the wedding dress: crowley's cufflinks

Fuck me the brainrot is UNREAL. As is the amount of time I spent on these buggers. Also, if Arthur asks any of you, you never saw this post, okay? I was off tumblr doing "resting" and "not working" and all those things he told me to do.

Sooo in the previous posts we discussed (I infodumped) the overall top half of the dress, the shirt and the ruffles of said shirt. So now as is the natural pipeline we are discussing the cufflinks of the shirt.

Above is the scrawling I did, I don't know if you remember the day, but I was on a lot of caffeine and crying about the cufflinks while you all told me to go the FUCK to sleep.

VERSION 1 SYMBOLISM: So the first one which we shall call Version 1 (creatively) has the traditional Celtic triquetra knot. I'd looked up Celtic symbols and asked you maggots as well because Scotland has Celtic history and well, Edinburgh episode, David Tennant etc. The triquetra knot had a lot of symbolism of three's: past present future, body mind soul, maiden mother crone, youth adult old age etc.

ALPHA CENTAURI ALLUSION: Also, the three diamonds, one at each tip of the knot: this is because Alpha Centauri, where Crowley wanted to take Aziraphale to and live there together, is a triple star system. Alpha A and Alpha B, the main stars, orbit each other, with Proxima Centauri (so named because it's the closest star to our Sun) orbiting both of them. So the knot does give a kind of orbital path notion, even if not accurate, and the diamonds are the stars. It would probably be in silver, with the underlying base being black.

PROBLEMS WITH VERSION 1: However, there are issues with Version 1. For one thing, the triquetra knot is more common in present day Ireland and England than in Scotland. For another, early Christians adopted (appropriated) the triquetra to symbolise the Holy Trinity. So. Perhaps not.

And clearly we can't have issues with the intricate detail of the fictional cufflink's fictional symbolism in a fictional wedding of a fictional character that is not canon. So then I made changes:

VERSION 2 SYMBOLISM: Version 2, while retaining the Alpha Centauri diamonds and orbit symbolism, has a different Celtic symbol. This is the triskele, a symbol that is more popular in Scotland than the triquetra, as you maggots told me. It has three interlocking spirals, representing the three domains of material existence (earth, water, sky), the cycles of life and reincarnation, and movement of time and the universe. All of which feels exactly like Starmaker's journey to becoming Crowley. The Alpha Centauri stars are now nestled in the spirals of the triskele, with a more rose-like base that could be emerald under the silver.

So. Yes. Those are the cufflinks that I am sure were very highly anticipated /s. Idk why I do this. But I love you Crowley.

Have a wonderful day maggots <3 If you do happen to be interested in the wedding dress, all the wedding posts are tagged on my blog with weirdly the nightingales wed.

#good omens mascot #weirdly specific but ok #weirdly the nightingales wed #asmi #maggots #good omens #good omens fandom #crowley #wedding dress #aziracrow #ineffable spouses #dress design #cufflinks #alpha centauri #good omens brainrot #starmaker #angel!crowley

[comradekatara]

I rewatched “the boy in the iceberg” the other day, and it’s not an episode I revisit often, but when I do, I’m always kind of amazed by the level of insight it provides into katara and sokka’s upbringing, but only when you watch it through the lens of having already seen the entire show.

for example, kanna as a character does not register for the viewer unless you already know her backstory as it’s revealed to us in “the waterbending master,” at which point the fact that she is shown to be unflinchingly harsh and stern and keeps preventing katara from the fun and adventure she clearly yearns for actively signals to us what kind of toll the war must’ve taken on her and the responsibility she feels towards keeping katara out of trouble. the fact that we see kanna push katara from aang, warning her to not pin her hopes on this boy and telling her she needs to do her chores, is really interesting because it frames the fact that katara does a lot of chores not as something she might have volunteered to do, or even is expected to as a girl, but rather something that kanna forces her to do as a distraction method (both from her grief and from her impulsiveness).

it’s clear that kanna sees far more of herself in katara than she does in sokka, but that comes with the acknowledgment that katara has the capacity to be just as adventurous, reckless and impulsive as kanna was at her age, and that means keeping a close eye on her at all times. I’m convinced that if kanna had ever said “sokka, be a man and wash your dirty socks,” sokka would’ve done that shit without question, but instead kanna made katara do all of the laundry because it meant keeping her in their house for longer, where she can keep an eye on her granddaughter and make sure she isn’t running off to go penguin sledding or exploring the ruins of an old fire nation ship (two things she immediately does the second she makes a friend her age) or god knows what else. kanna has no need to keep an eye on sokka because he is extremely cautious, takes his duties very seriously, and refuses to entertain the notion of having fun of any kind, so there’s no chance of him wandering off and getting into trouble.

when sokka says “I knew I shouldn’t have taken you fishing,” because of what he says next (“leave it to a girl to screw things up”) he makes it sound like it’s because he believes that women can’t fish because their tits get in the way or whatever, but I bet that katara begged him to take her because she was bored and was clawing at the walls desperate to go outside and explore, even if it meant putting up with her annoying ass brother (not like she has any other friends her age). she probably went through all her chores really fast and then caught sokka on his way out and did adorable puppy dog eyes and had a whole numbered list ready with reasons she should go until sokka relented (only to immediately realize that fishing is just as boring as doing laundry).

kanna did not approve of the idea of katara going alone with aang to the north pole, but once it was sokka’s idea to go rescue aang and travel the world, (and it was clear he had packed the necessary provisions, unlike katara, whose decision to leave with aang was a spur of the moment thing,) kanna gave them her blessing. and her respective farewells to both of them are also so telling in that regard, because she is giving katara permission to be hopeful, to finally live up to her heroic potential, whereas she tells sokka to look after katara. on their travels, katara does have some practical skills sokka doesn’t (sewing and midwifery being the primary two things sokka is fucking useless at) that she acquired from spending every waking second since kya’s death doing chores with kanna, but she is also constantly getting herself into trouble, with or without aang (or toph) as her accomplice. and every time sokka is just like “yup, classic katara shenanigans. just so you know i disapprove but also will do everything in my power to help you out of this mess.”

watching out for katara, making sure that she doesn’t get herself into trouble, and then helping her out of said trouble, is the exact kind of thing both hakoda and kanna told sokka his primary responsibility was, and it’s clear he takes that responsibility very seriously. it’s also probably why he was way more chill about the consequences of toph’s scamming. like, he told her to be careful after noticing her wanted poster, but he wasn’t mad about it the way he was when katara attracted the wrath of pirates, because he didn’t spend his whole life being shown and told that toph needs someone responsible to keep her in line. and he does feel a level of responsibility and protectiveness towards toph, that much is clear, but he also trusts her judgment because he’s never actually seen her make an actively bad judgment call (excluding katara from the scams was mean and wrong of her, granted, but it’s clear he doesn’t wanna involve himself in their beef).

“never turning his back on katara” is always sokka’s first priority, above anything else, and that shows even when he’s being a dick to her, saying inflammatory shit like “leave it to a girl to screw things up.” again, once you've seen the show in full, it’s pretty clear that sokka is just saying that because he’s insecure that all the warriors left him behind, so he’s projecting his insecurities onto her, but if you don’t have the context to understand how much the idea of “not being a true warrior” means to sokka, it just seems like he thinks boys rule girls drool. and if you don’t realize that kanna is actively making katara do more chores on purpose, whereas she trusts sokka to be responsible for himself, it does seem like katara is taking on an unfair amount of responsibility, in a gendered way. you take that conversation at face value, because you don’t realize (at first) that they’re both projecting their insecurities and blaming their personal frustrations on each other. you don’t realize that sokka is minimizing katara because he sees her as his annoying little sister who always gets into trouble, and you don’t realize that katara is telling herself stories of grand adventure because she feels cooped up at home, because this is the inciting incident where adventure does await, so sokka’s suspicion and exasperation seems out of pocket, whereas katara’s wonder and eagerness seems totally justified.

it’s similar to how when zuko sees the light from the iceberg opening iroh warns them that they’ve gone down this road before and not to have too much hope. kanna tells katara the same thing. both zuko and katara believe in the avatar as their salvation, and are so eager to put their faith in this narrative that they accept it without question. of course, we as the audience know that they’re right, but it’s also perfectly reasonable for sokka and iroh to warn them not to get their hopes up, to be careful and patient. it makes you wonder how many times not only zuko, but also katara have gone looking for the avatar before, firm in their belief that he’s still out their somewhere, and they will be the Chosen One to finally find him (of course, they’re right, but no one had any way of possibly knowing that). katara and zuko are obvious foils whose journeys mirror and intersect, but iroh and sokka are too, and they’re both there to support and guide their younger, less jaded family member, both in giving them the space and encouragement to be the best versions of themselves they can be, and also cautioning them or saving them once they get themselves into trouble due to their shortsighted impulsiveness.

the same way that zuko’s always yelling at iroh that he’s just a lazy old man who doesn’t understand the importance of honor is how i view katara’s rant to sokka that he “doesn’t do anything around camp” and “from now on, he’s on his own.” like, what does she even mean by him “being on his own”? his primary priority at all times is literally protecting her. he’s not the one making her do his laundry, their grandmother is. blame her, katara! (actually ykw i bet she does but just yells at whichever family member is in vicinity in that moment.) katara has every right to be bored and frustrated, but her anger is mostly misplaced (other than calling sokka sexist, that’s fair). and it’s clear that sokka doesn’t take any of what she says to heart anyway, because the entire time she’s ranting he’s just sitting there thinking about how they’re gonna get home without a boat.

what makes kanna so fascinating is that we only ever see her agreeing with sokka, but it’s clear she’s secretly rooting for katara, for her naive, impossible worldview to be somehow, against all odds, right. and when she is, when the avatar is revealed to be alive, kanna thanks her for bringing back the dormant hope she long thought gone for good. sokka, like kanna, has been utterly jaded, all and any sense of wonder pulverized by the war. but aang and katara bring it back, through their sheer optimism against all odds, their sense of adventure, their commitment to justice, and their dedication to preserving their childhoods amidst all the grief and violence they’ve had to suffer.

#katara #sokka #katara&sokka #best siblings best characters #analysis #kanna&katara #kanna #iroh&zuko #katara&zuko #aang&katara #sokka&toph #sorry this post is so long u cant shut me up abt katara & her family i simply have too many Thoughts #also i talk in other posts abt why sokka belittles kataras bending; why sokka is sexist (i sort of touch on it here but not nearly as much) #how kanna mirrors katara in so many ways #and also more abt how 'the runaway' further frames katara & her relationship to her family in general #i should make a longer post abt the iroh sokka parallels #i've been meaning to for ages #bc oh man. #anyway. it rly bothers me when ppl talk abt katara as if she is some Maternal Goddess #when all evidence points to her being a Loud Little Sister #its like ppl took some extremely shallow visual cues & some sentences out of context and Ran with it #the way kanna talks abt katara tho is so telling bc she knows her better than anyone #kanna is so no-nonsense she sees an airbender and she's immediately like 'why arent you dead.' i love her

[atopvisenyashill]

I think a couple of the reasons we didn't see Helaena's birth is that a) it's not plot relevant. All other births either introduce a new status quo or major plot point (i.e Rhaenyra giving birth to Joffrey, as opposed to Jace - that way we can time jump and have all three kids already born but the notion of them being illegitimate is still introduced) or they end in death (Laena, Aemma, Baelon, Visenya).

And then another reason could simply be the optics of having Emily act out a birth scene. Ironic, given all the birth scenes are horrific, but this is a character introduced when she was 14. I don't think she could be more than 16 or 17 when she had Helaena. I can see why they shied away from it, or why it may never have even been a consideration to show it.

Well my argument here is that this whole show is about child birth and the way it affects The Family Unit and if we are establishing rival Family Units, we must include the basis of how the family unit is established, which is childbirth (in the context of feudal systems anyway). This show has a long, drawn out birthing scene with a lot of commentary over how dangerous and violent labor is and how dangerously violent our society treats new mothers with the birth scenes of Aemma, Laena, and Rhaenyra’s two (2) scenes, and these mark the beginning, middle, and end of the season, so it is an odd, frustrating exclusion to not at least attempt to include Alicent starting her labor and to straight up never see Helaena even pregnant at all. And when I said “have the plot happen while Rhaenyra is pregnant” you can easily do that with Alicent imo - if Helaena isn’t relevant enough (though I would argue Alicent birthing a Valyrian daughter is in fact VERY relevant to the status quo, it’s why Helaena is married off at only 13), we can easily futz with the timeline to include Aemond or Daeron’s birth around Rhaenyra’s wedding.

As for the second one……..okay idk how to phrase this without sounding like a sociopath here but if they were worried about “how are audiences going to react to Emily Carrey who is only 17/18 having a baby” my response is git gud ryan!!!!! they’re clearly trying to explore a concept they completely axed in the original, which is Structural Patriarchy And The Pedophilic Sexualization Of Young Girls in hotd, which was why they a) casted milly who was like 20 and has a baby face and b) aged down and casted Emily, who was roughly the same age as Alicent after the first time jump. And if you’re going to explore those themes, you have to EXPLORE those themes and that includes how (in show) Alicent and Helaena are not even of age by THEIR standards when they marry and give birth the first time, and Rhaenyra is massively sexualized and groomed by most of the men around her from the age of like 12 until she’s married at 17. This is the exact same violence that is enacted against Aemma being enacted on Alicent, and I think a more direct parallel of “yes Viserys forcing Alicent to have his kid at 15 is as god awful as Viserys cutting Aemma open” you NEED to have Alicent give birth with the younger actor and make the audience SQUIRM with discomfort, the same way they do when they have baby Laena parrot that stuff about giving Viserys strong sons, and Rhaenys say explicitly that she hates what’s happening.

I get the issue surrounding “emily was very young on set” but a) that’s why this whole series should have been animated and b) you can do this without even showing Alicent too much. One point of criticism I tend to have for another Historical Fantasy Show (Outlander, no one laugh at me, it’s a good fucking show and Catriona has been ROBBED of recognition for it) is how often they just throw in graphic ass rape scenes where I don’t feel it’s necessary but a point i give them credit is that when they got pushback about how often we are seeing People Straight Up Raped On Screen they got creative with how they filmed those scenes.

(spoilers obviously) but for the rape scene involving Brianna, where she enters a room attempting to get her ring back, and is raped as “payment” for it by Bonnett, the camera has Bonnett close the door so all we see is the people outside listening to Brianna scream. Some of them look uncomfortable. Some of them look at the door but do nothing. One woman trips over Bonnett’s boots outside the door and fixes them. The door opens and you just see Brianna in shock, getting her things, and leaving, but you otherwise see Nothing. The scene after that involves Claire being kidnapped from her home and gang raped over the span of a day or two, before being rescued by her family. Every time the rape starts up again, Claire enters a fantasy in her mind. She’s in the present day (in canon she lives in 1700s America, but she came from the 60s) and the family she’s made in the past are at a celebration with her, dressed in the present day. Characters that have died are there and happy. Her adopted son sits next to her biological daughter. The scene shifts and Claire is in her 1700s clothes in her 1960s house with Jamie, her husband, and she’s crying and he cups her cheek and whispers “it’s just the two of us now.” The rape scene ends. Later, as she’s struggling to deal with it, we see the bruises on her body because she is naked in bed with Jamie, wanting to be intimate but scared of sex, and he cradles her and says “you’re a strong thing” as the camera lets us see the damage done to her.

So, you can have it there without us seeing it. You can have Alicent be afraid as her contractions start. Viserys somewhere else not giving a shit. Rhaenyra outside the room wanting to comfort Alicent but not enough to swallow her pride. Otto more worried about the baby and quipping to Rhaenyra than he is about Alicent. Alicent laying in bed, upset, shaking, unable to hold her baby just yet. There’s a lot of freedom to get creative when you’re working with a visual medium!

#asks #anons #hotd critical #once again caveat i am not mad i do understand the pushback here. my ire is aimed at condal and hess lmao #rape cw #child birth cw #idkkkk we’re getting a bit graphic here

[gctchell]

anonymous asked: I can just imagine the potential au out of that niffty alastor Pic you posted.

Anon my brain has been buzzing ever since I saw it this morning, my GOD. The potential is JUICY.

"They say the family you choose is better." I thought this moment was a gross oversight and they completely forgot Niffty, because she is tiny and you can fit her just about anywhere - she'd fit perfectly above Alastor's head. But now that I've seen this little delicious piece of fanart, I'm wondering if it might have been intentional after all! Because Niffty is such a good family member to involve in moments like this, yet..

Also, these little dolls. Originally I assumed they were related to Alastor's practice, but getting a closer look at them.. They're a little cutesy, aren't they? Alastor summons brutal tentacles and shadow creatures that seem more fitting for his personal aesthetic, but then he also summons these little devil doll helpers that feel a little out of place. I'm not saying they couldn't fit him, especially with the dapper aesthetic, but looking at this new theory it feels more like Niffty's style, especially when you look at the expressions.

I can just envision Niffty sitting in her room stitching these things to life. I can see it so clearly.

I've been part of conversations that have thrown around the notion that Niffty is actually an Overlord, as well. In the Pilot, she was right there in the casting of the Overlords alongside Husk, who WE have found out is also an Overlord. There's also this neat Twitter post pointing out she has been in multiple imagery that I did not even notice!

ANYWAYS.

My brain is buzzing with scenarios where Niffty is an Overlord;

What the Hell is going to put Alastor within a deeply binding deal to another? This person has to be pretty damn powerful, wouldn't you think? Or in the least, incredibly crafty and clever. This man is BOUND to whoever has him on a leash and it is driving him up the wall. Before Niffty came down in the 50s, he's been kicking around in Hell since the 30s, he has some time under his belt and he has some experience.. So, what does this upstart have to offer?

Well, what if Niffty was a demonologist & worshipper in life and like him, came down to Hell experienced in a different walk of life? She knew exactly where she was going to wind up and she was polished, excited. This is her chosen afterlife and she adores it. She was ready, and there's nothing quite like a soul who embraces her afterlife with full awareness and embodiment of herself. She knows what she's doing, she knows how Hell works, she is expertly versed in it and an infernal academic. She starts ranking up as she pulls souls beneath her belt (how, I don't know just yet!).

Alastor is the kind of guy who is like 'game recognizes game' and he is quickly enticed by her! She's pleasant enough as a personality, and she's delightfully upbeat to boot. They're both from the Golden Age, so there's some relatability there, as well. Meanwhile, she knows who he is. Niffty is obsessive; she knows all the bad boys that are on the map (and even some who are off), and she knows he's a dealmaker. She's not new to deals, either - she made plenty with various sorts of the damned while she was alive.

Her side of the deal is very simple: You be my special companion, and I'll lend you my power. We'll be so happy together!

Niffty struggles to make friends. She loves hard, but she has a personality that can be seen as completely obnoxious and off-putting, driving people away. She's a chatterbox who can go on and on and on, and Alastor is also a chatterbox who can go on and on and on. That lonely heart of hers clutches this opportunity like a fucking knife and drives the needle home in sewing her deal into Alastor's skin, her way of lending him power, but also binding him so damn fiercely to her there is no breaking it. It's a deal. We're friends forever and always.

This is something that does not really grate on him too much as the arrangement is quite profitable and does not really weigh on him, it's in his favor. She tags along wherever he goes and he has power. Yet, prideful creature that he is, he is starting to feel the pull of the deal as he is woven tight to the hotel.

Why is he tied to the hotel if the one who has the contract is Niffty? Well, Niffty longs for friends, and who loved her people? Lilith. Who is going to accept her and support her? Lilith. Who is Niffty going to be loyal to in return? Lilith.

Lilith blips out of the picture for seven years, and coincidentally, so does Alastor. What if Niffty went MIA for all this time, as well? Whatever happened wove them in tight with the Happy Hotel, and Niffty now has an obligation to Charlie - Lilith's daughter. Who has a better shot of being the more charismatic personality that can weave them into the picture more seamlessly? Alastor.

In Episode 8, we see Alastor finally forming something of a soft spot for the group and he has this tender moment with Niffty, confiding in her this truth. It's very sweet. Then later, after barely surviving Adam, Alastor almost died because of this sentimental attachment bullshit. No way, that's not how he is going to go out. He needs to get out of this deal with Niffty somehow, someway, he just doesn't know how yet.

Niffty is very clingy, as well. She said forever, and she meant forever.

#(( sorry this took a hot minute to answer! irl stuff kept rolling punches lol. )) #(( basically: YES I AGREE. THE AU POTENTIAL IS AMAZING. )) #(( niffty is lonely. it makes sense she would pull something like this. )) #[ asks. ] #[ ooc. ]

[maya-matlin]

Hi! I would love to hear you talk more about Lucas being insecure? I'm not sure I saw him that way, but to be fair I have trouble understanding his character so would love to hear your analysis! You're really brilliant, by the way.

Hi! <3 Aw, you're way too nice! 😊 I'm honestly not. I just have a lot of opinions :p

I see what you mean, because Lucas isn't a character I spend much time analyzing. I feel like he's both misunderstood while also someone that tends to get away with a lot depending on which pairing you like best for him. But in terms of Lucas's insecurities, obviously it all goes back to being abandoned by Dan. Lucas is raised solely by Karen with the help of Keith. It seems like Lucas always knew Keith was his uncle, but not necessarily that he was Dan's brother? According to the pilot, Lucas didn't find out Dan was his biological father until playing in junior leagues. I'm not really sure what age Lucas would have been at the time. I don't know anything about sports, but it seems like this is offered from ages 5-12. I'm going to cautiously assume Lucas and Nathan were around 9-12 at the time. So, Lucas was forced to deal with the fact that Nathan was his brother, meaning his father was willing to raise one son while (as far as he knew) wanting nothing to do with him. This would probably fuck anyone up, but unfortunately Lucas's father was Dan Scott. Dan dealt with his demons, guilt, and complex feelings by lashing out at other people, particularly those weaker than him such as his sons. At a certain point, Dan became aware Lucas knew he was his biological father. Rather than handling any of this delicately or even ignoring Lucas, Dan seemed to double down, going out of his way to make sure Lucas knew he was a mistake, should have never existed, and was inherently lesser than Nathan, his favored son. Any time Dan saw Lucas being successful or even getting along with his brother, Dan did all he could to take that away from Lucas. He repeatedly attempted to undermine Lucas's brotherly bond with Nathan. While both Keith and Karen did what they could to reassure Lucas he was loved and brought them nothing but joy, Dan's constant remarks clearly left Lucas feeling very unsure of himself. Most importantly, unloved and unwanted. This isn't executed especially well considering their nice home, but Lucas and Karen are clearly supposed to be struggling financially at the beginning of the series. There are times when the bills aren't paid in time, meaning Karen is literally forced to wash the shampoo out of her son's hair. Nathan, in contrast, lives the life of luxury with Dan and Deb, never having to worry about money or necessities, knowing his parents will get him whatever he wants. Lucas has no idea that Nathan's life is nothing to envy. Nathan isn't making it known that Dan is a toxic, physically and emotionally abusive parent. Even after Nathan opens up to Lucas in 106, it's clearly still difficult for Lucas to let go of his preconceived notions of Nathan's life. Especially when Nathan has already spent copious amounts of time trying to put Lucas in his place, reminding him that his existence was a mistake and while Dan is successful, Karen is not. Again, debatable since the Lucas/Karen financial strife never comes up after the first season, but the writers were going for a class differences thing in season 1.

I'm sure this is a massively unpopular opinion, but I genuinely think a lot of Lucas's feelings for Peyton early on relate back to the fact she was Nathan's girlfriend. I know. It's a small town, meaning there are only so many people to crush on, but what are the odds? Later seasons establish that Lucas had crushed on Peyton since middle school while Nathan and Peyton had only started dating around their sophomore year. However, so much of the conflict and the Lucas/Peyton connection is wrapped up in how terrible of a boyfriend Nathan is and how Lucas wants Nathan's life. Lucas has this idea that he sees Peyton and understands her in a way Nathan doesn't. Listen, that's not fucking difficult. Nathan treated Peyton as a sex toy for large stretches of their relationship. He was so fixated on himself and his needs that he apparently never noticed all the sketches on her bedroom walls. Most guys would have treated Peyton better than pre-series/early season 1 Nathan. Throughout the first season, Nathan and Lucas are constantly compared to each other. Which one is good? Which one is bad? Which brother has the right to feel more slighted? At the beginning of the series, Lucas is comfortable with the knowledge that while Nathan has the privilege, Lucas is the better man. Only, as the season goes on, we see Nathan going through a tremendous amount of character development while Lucas gives into his worst impulses, becoming a lesser, much more selfish version of himself. Peyton directly calls this out towards the end of the season. "Who knew that you two would switch places?"

Obviously, Lucas didn't intentionally "become Nathan" or a lesser version of himself. It's something that gradually happened once he started making terrible decisions re: his love life. In fact, many OTH fans would say that while Lucas is a great friend, son and brother, he's a terrible romantic partner. Why is that? Unlike Nathan, Lucas had much better influences in Keith and Karen. To me, it all comes back to the "unloved and unwanted" thing. Lucas repeatedly chases down love, desperately craving the validation of a woman's affections because he can't seem to find self love within himself. It all starts with Peyton, Nathan's then-girlfriend who Lucas felt could do so much better. In my opinion, Lucas craves validation specifically from Peyton because of this fantasy of winning her away from his brother. But Peyton has her own feelings and trust issues, so she rejects Lucas. And Lucas is not the greatest at dealing with rejection specifically from Peyton. His ego more so than his heart can't seem to take the rejection. This is complicated because I truly feel like Brucas's bonding in 108 following Peyton's near rape was genuine and kind of a precursor for their season 2 friendship, but at the same time there seemed to be a part of Lucas who wanted to punish Peyton for turning him down. Even after Peyton went to Lucas two episodes later, telling him she wants a real relationship, he chooses to stick with Brooke. It's hard to explain, but it comes across as so petty and unforgiving. It feels like a lot of nice guy bullshit to me. Thankfully, by the time Lucas and Peyton have their affair and hurt Brooke, he seems to be somewhat humbled by the whole experience and is less butthurt over Peyton dumping him. Following Peyton's declaration that Lucas has now taken Nathan's place as the "bad guy," Lucas vows to change his ways.

Season 2 Lucas is off to a much better start. Rather than getting caught up in good vs bad (minus Dan, but that's a massive, other issue) or chasing down romance, Lucas seems to go out of his way to work on himself. To me, the most selfish thing Lucas does in season 2 is probably lie about his HCM results. But in that case, I don't blame him. Lucas is a kid, and at this point in his life he's very attached to basketball. He doesn't want to give that up or deal with the ramifications of having that condition. Otherwise, he's an extremely supportive person, spending a lot of screen time emotionally showing up for Nathan, Brooke, Haley, Karen, Keith, Peyton (although it should be noted he shows up for Brooke far more than Peyton this season), Anna, etc. He doesn't always make the right call. For example, he probably should have told Keith the truth about Jules. The fact Lucas is mainly romance-free means a lot of his more selfish traits don't show up. Back to Lucas's Dan issues. Following Dan's heart attack, he seems to want to make amends with Lucas. Lucas reluctantly allows Dan to be part of life, though not without understandably keeping his guard up. Dan does nothing of substance to be a father figure to Lucas or show true remorse for his behavior for most of Lucas's life. So naturally, Lucas and Dan don't seem to grow much closer aside from in superficial ways. On some level, Dan is using Lucas to get under Nathan's skin. Nathan has successfully gotten away from his parents, choosing to support himself while following his heart by marrying Haley. Dan hates that there's nothing he can do to control Nathan, so he focuses his attention on Lucas. Halfway through the season, it becomes clear that Lucas and Dan are in some bizarre, mental battle where the two repeatedly test each other, doing what they can to manipulate the other. It turns into a whole thing where Lucas is literally searching in the ceiling for a bag of money. I love season 2, but some parts of it weren't my favorite. This was one of them LOL.

During season 2, Lucas realizes he has strong feelings for and wants to be with Brooke instead of Peyton. While the initial reveal of Lucas's feelings and the setup for them could have been better, there's something so genuine about Lucas's love for Brooke in season 2. Lucas seems to acknowledge his feelings to himself with the awareness he can't act on them. After all, Lucas had his chance with Brooke, and he blew it when he cheated with her best friend. Because Lucas keeps his feelings to himself with no expectation for Brooke to reciprocate, his actions and words come across as much more selfless and specifically what Brooke needs from him rather than trying to come across as the good guy. And funnily enough, history is somewhat repeating itself with Brooke, like Peyton in season 1, dating her own asshole in Felix. Lucas has even made an enemy out of Felix, much like Nathan. But unlike with Nathan, Lucas doesn't seem to feel any sort of envy towards Felix. So when Lucas goes to Brooke the night she starts dating Felix, the two things have nothing to do with each other. Of course, Lucas does eventually confess his feelings to Brooke. He also waits an entire summer for her, even though Peyton is physically right there and single.

This has gotten ridiculously long, so I'm going to stop recapping Lucas's entire life and just stick to the relationship/insecurities part LOL

Lucas enters a serious relationship with Brooke in season 3. Yes, one of his biggest desires is still love, but his connection with Brooke still feels very real and related to something he feels in his heart rather than specifically needing validation from dating her. Shit happens. Lucas and Brooke battle Brooke's insecurities for the entirety of season 3. Even though Lucas repeatedly reassures Brooke that he only wants to be with her and that he's all in, Brooke still has doubts about Lucas's past with Peyton. Because sadly, that's exactly where the story is going. Even though Lucas doesn't seem particularly interested in reuniting with Peyton or even entertaining her potential feelings for him (317), the fact Lucas shared a kiss with Peyton during the shooting and Peyton confessed her feelings to Brooke means Brucas 2.0 is doomed. On that note, it somewhat makes sense to me that Lucas finds it easier to confide in Peyton than Brooke at times. Again, he's not the best romantic partner. Part of him struggles to be vulnerable not because he'd rather be with Peyton than Brooke (or Lindsey), but because he just can't go there and has so much stuff to work through in therapy.

Brooke eventually breaks Lucas's heart when she ends their relationship, claiming it's because she stopped missing him. Half of season 4 seems dedicated to tearing down Brooke and showing us how unworthy of Lucas she is compared to Peyton. We get dream sequences that show elderly Peyton at Lucas's grave and heavy handed subtext that LP's love is like Whitey and Camila's, the same way they're later compared to Keith and Karen. Because their love is so epic that unlike Naley, they can't stand on their own and have to be compared to other, better couples. The point is, Peyton is a sure thing. Unlike Brooke who had trust issues specifically because of Lucas's past actions, Peyton has no such baggage in regards to Lucas. While Lucas had come a long way from season 1 Lucas by season 4, part of that little boy who envied his brother's life never went away. And why not? Maybe there was a small part of Lucas that still had feelings for Peyton. Not enough to actually choose her over Brooke, but enough that if Brooke was out of his life for good, he could potentially go back to Peyton. So Lucas conveniently realizes his childhood dream girl, the sure thing, is the one he wants. It helps that college and Lucas's future are looming, meaning he's probably more insecure than usual and finds being with Peyton comforting. They were so close during early 4 that going from friends to boyfriend/girlfriend was probably an effortless jump. Not to mention, Lucas doesn't have to try as hard with Peyton as he did with Brooke. Like, at all. I'd talk about the Lucas/Dan of it all in season 4, but I don't feel like there's enough to analyze. There's an awkward moment where Lucas calls Dan "dad", but it wasn't earned at all. Unlike Dan with Nathan throughout season 4, I don't feel like Dan spent any real time bonding with Lucas or growing close enough to him that I'd buy Lucas would ever in a million years genuinely call him that. Whatever. Dan's a murderer. Lucas nearly kills him. Lucas understandably never forgives Dan. Those insecurities regarding his upbringing remain, but they don't feel as prominent after Dan's incarceration.

Season 5 shows us a Lucas who has massively regressed. This is season 1 Lucas, only worse. You can't blame his teenage naivety or ignorance regarding other people's feelings. In the flashback episode, we see that Lucas is reminded of the day the Ravens won the State Championship when Nathan's team wins their game. Lucas observes Nathan with Haley and Jamie. Obviously, Lucas specifically thinks of Peyton because of the similarities with a team winning their game as confetti falls. But at the same time, Lucas is once again envying Nathan's life. This inspires Lucas to propose to Peyton with little regard to her current life or what she wants. Lucas is first and foremost a romantic who craves love, but his reasoning for popping the question seems to be to fix what he perceives as wrong in their relationship. Lucas and Peyton barely see each other due to living roughly 38 hours apart. At nineteen years old, Peyton isn't an instant success? So Lucas thinks she needs to give up her life and be his wife. Tellingly, Lucas wants Peyton to know that Nathan and Haley were a lot younger than 19 when they got married, so he and Peyton will be fine. Peyton doesn't give Lucas the answer he wants, so he shuts down and grows cold, much like he did back in season 1 where it had to be all or nothing. Not only that, but Lucas pulls a season 1 Lucas and runs straight to Brooke. He spends the night running around town with Brooke, pretending to be an engaged couple. Their night ends with Lucas initiating sex with Brooke, which she rejects. Not long after this, Lucas starts dating Lindsey. Three years later, Peyton returns to town and becomes the sad version of herself where her biggest goal in life is marrying Lucas. But this is about Lucas, so I'll stop. Lucas's motivation in season 5 is intended to be that he's either in denial about his love for Peyton (again?!) or is so devastated by her rejecting his proposal that he's unable to let it go and as a result, feels the need to keep punishing her for it. Somewhere in here, Lucas tears into Peyton for supposedly not believing in his success as a writer. So season 5 unveils a new insecurity of Lucas's. Following the release of his first book, Lucas is afraid he won't be able to write a second. Lucas takes this out on Peyton, accusing her of not believing in him when we know she's one of his staunchest supporters. She supports him to the point she wastes a lot of money buying every physical copy of the book she can find. Lucas can't seem to help but make terrible decisions in his love life, so of course he cheats on Lindsey with Peyton. Lucas never admits to Peyton that he still loves her, just excuses himself, saying he needs to see Lindsey. We don't know what Lucas was going to say to Lindsey, but he proposes after Lindsey promises Lucas that she loves him for him, not because of his profession or success. So clearly, Lindsey's words meant a great deal to him and superseded whatever was going to happen between Lucas and Peyton. Once again, shit happens. Lucas and Lindsey don't get married when she realizes Lucas's new book, The Comet, is actually a love letter to Peyton. Sure, whatever. Following Lucas's breakup with Lindsey, there's some toxicity when he literally assaults a teenager after finding out Lindsey has started dating again. But overall, unlike with Peyton, Lucas is patient, handling her rejection like an adult rather than lashing out. Around this time, Brooke and Lucas seem to grow closer. Everything between them is in the subtext. They're both single in Tree Hill. They find themselves taking care of Angie together. Brooke hasn't loved anyone since Lucas. Lucas wants to be the guy Brooke calls when she needs something, particularly emotional support. But neither one of them ever speaks of (IMO) their mutual feelings. Lucas's subconscious is aware of them, though. Otherwise, Brooke wouldn't be an option when he's fantasizing about possible futures with his three love interests. Oh yeah, and then Lucas tells Peyton he hates her.

#Anonymous #Long post #You asked me one question and it turned into a Lucas Scott deep dive #I'm so sorry #To be continued because I actually typed too much #This is embarrassing but hopefully part 2 will be shorter

[snyrtch]

just saw the scene propositioning polyam with astarion and I really Do Not understand the people going "he clearly is upset by the notion and is just doing whatever the MC wants" rant below

but also! I have not finished his route, and haven't gotten past this point, so these are just my immediate thoughts upon seeing the scene

I myself am traumatized (albeit in a different way, but still sexually) and polyamorous and all he does is go "[I'm fine with this, it seems harmless, but I just need to make sure you're not doing this because of how I feel about sex.]"

Checking that you are enough for your partner does not mean you find polyamory hurtful. Polyamorous relationships are not greedy. They are not splitting affections. They add affection, but they also inherently deal with feelings of inadequacy and jealousy head on. Tav and Astarion's relationship is relatively new, extremely tender, and has to be complex due to the things they've both been through.

Even still, at that point in the story, Astarion who, at the beginning of the relationship had been using an age-old mask that hurts him, shed it privately by this point to be vulnerable in act 3, and was accepted, assuming you did the romance the way I expect most people to.

His brain is telling him "they want to fuck Halsin because you refuse to put out, like you should be, because that's the only thing that keeps them with you."

My interpretation of an unhealthy response to this would be to internalize that voice and start going at it, to throw away the newfangled vulnerability and return to the mask.

Do you know what he does instead? He communicates. He reaches a hand out, even if that's hard. He makes sure that his partner doesn't feel that way. He ignores the destructive inner voice. He's whip-quick to say he "knows he was being foolish," but he wouldn't ask if it wasn't important, and both characters know that. He's still dismissive of the feeling & vulnerability, but he's doing his best.

THAT is a marker of healing to me, and it feels dismissive of his story to say Astarion is some pushover dandy that does whatever his partner wants at this point in his story.

DO I think adding polyamory to a relationship like this at this point is necessarily a good idea? Not really. Wouldn't do it personally. Would take a couple months to really settle into the dynamic with Astarion and make sure we were both feeling good about the decision. I definitely wouldn't go straight from the conversation to go bang Halsin lmfao, BUT this is a video game. And the time is very limited there in act 3. So for what it is, it's fine.

I just really wish people would stop having a HC and treating it like law! People liking Astarion's polyamorous route are not evil. Thanks.

#bg3 act 3 spoilers #bg3 spoilers #astarion #bg3 #mana mumbles

[aeide-thea]

watched witcher 3x03 and it really is just like. this show continues to lurch wildly from scene to unconnected scene. which could work if they were written and costumed and acted well enough that each vignette was compelling in its own right, so that you wanted to keep watching even though nothing quite hangs together or makes sense yet? but they really. aren't.

and they keep introducing all these bit characters, i guess in an attempt to convey that geralt has History and Connections, but it's just feeling to me like, why are we foregrounding all these interactions that should have been background. did i really need to learn all these names.

also i continue to feel like ciri is just. too old. like fundamentally you can't take the naïveté and petulance of a child, or teenager at most, and paste them unaltered onto a twenty-something and expect to garner the same level of sympathy for her! also like. minor point but if they're on the run would she really be religiously applying her clumpy little maybelline every morning. she looks more overtly made up than most of the adult characters on the show, and like, i know we're in fantasyland and not any actual specific historical time period but it does feel distractingly anachronistic to me nonetheless.

also like. you're really asking me to believe that surly taciturn traumatized geralt would open up to this random 'friend of his mother's' about his childhood. like. i get that, again, we're attempting to establish that Geralt Has History, but like. you can't just have him infodump without any consideration of what he's like or who he's talking to??? like—i understand that we basically gave up on any notion of consistent characterization for him, or even a clear throughline to an evolving characterization, after s1, but. why is he opening up to this random druidess as if she were yennefer. what is happening.

like do i want to see jaskier's big gay romance (which based on radovid's beleaguered-weasel characterization so far i cannot imagine doing anything but going up in flames in the back half of the season??? like, clearly radovid is going to fuck them over the second he's caught in a political bind, the only question imo is whether jaskier also fucks them over)? yes. but is the rest of this worth sitting through? extremely debatable.

did love vespula's dress, ditto jaskier's costuming. also yennefer's struggle to balance who she knows how to be in an aretuzan context vs who she wants to be for ciri (and for herself?) was compelling (although, again, i'm really struggling to buy the idea of her as mother to ciri when the two actresses have, like, a seven-year age difference. like i get that it's found family and not literal but. it just doesn't ring true, i'm sorry). but on the whole this really was just. a jumble.

also emhyr is just not icily intimidating enough. like he's supposed to be this always-five-steps-ahead omnipotent manipulator or whatever, as i understand it, but even setting other versions of canon aside, this version of the story needs him to be that! and instead he's like. a potatoface in a molded plastic breastplate. action figure villain.

also okay this really is the last thing but. what is up with all this 'the evil mages all have their faces grotesquely burnt off' shit. can we not do better by real live people with facial differences than that.

#critical #tvblogging #and i guess file it under #kakos kaischros babey!! #for that last item.

[seddm]

Would you please do a little something about Amphibia. I’ve always loved the way you put things in perspective :)

HUGE SPOILERS FOR AMPHIBIA'S FINALE BELOW ALSO MESSY POST I DIDN'T REALLY PROOFREAD KINDA WROTE IT AS A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

I'm still in the middle of FEELING and THINKING and THINKING ABOUT HOW I FEEL, so my ideas might change in the following days; also, while I certainly have a lot of opinions, I didn't dedicate to this show the amount of time I dedicated to SVTFOE, so I don't feel as comfortable analyzing its themes and ideas inside out.

Anyway: the finale hurt. A lot. It's your classic "change happens" finale, which is something completely in line with the themes the show always had. Could they have gone for something different, keeping the dimensions connected, maybe in a partial way but still connected? Probably. By the end of the series, all notions of escapism surrounding the characters and their time in Amphibia had been solved and replaced by more mature and positive feelings, so I don't think keeping the possibility of Anne and Sprig being in contact would have undermined anything. It's just, evidently, not what Matt Braly wanted. What's wrong with this, beyond a more subjective and personal preference for perfectly happy endings goddamnit I wanted to smile fuck? The possibility, the risk of giving the idea that Amphibia, as a place, doesn't deserve its "agency", and that its role was over the moment Anne, Sasha and Marcy went back home. That it was little more than a dream, a fantasy that stops existing the moment the coming of age journey of the characters is over, and they can leave behind their fantasies.

-which clearly doesn't apply to this show. Amphibia is the main setting of the series, it's a second world to the characters, Sprig and Anne are the main characters and their separation was THE climax of the episode. Still, a possible interpretation given the decision to throw the "leaving behind some things" in the larger hat of "CHANGE AS A POSITIVE" of the show.

Earth and Amphibia being separated, probably forever (sure there's Terri with her portals, fans can dream and speculate, but the girls are OLD now compared to the target age for Disney products, their story as far as Amphibia goes is probably over even in the super unlikely possibility of any kind of spinoff or continuation or comic), hurts a lot. I'm livid. But there was also closure in it, a wonderful goodbye that can never be tainted. It'll forever hurt and I'll forever wish they went in the opposite direction, but that won't haunt me. I accept it.

What about the girls? Somehow, that's the part that hurt me the most, and many other viewers like me. And, in my opinion, that's harder to analyze. And to rationalize.

We get this scene giving us some exposition about what happened during the timeskip, and most of the problems stem from this. Did Marcy not physically visit the girls for almost a decade, or it's a "can't believe it's been ten years since our adventure in Amphibia ended!" kind of deal?

Does this line mean Marcy knew so little about the girls' lives for all this time, or it's just a way to allow Sasha to give the viewer some exposition?

If it's the former, then why does she know what Anne is doing? A rekindled and recent interest through social media? Or they did talk during all these years, maybe occasionally, the way a lot of real life friends do even when they're not as long distance as they are? I have no answers, I pray for some kind of Word of God Clarification™ from Matt Braly, but I wouldn't count on it since showrunners rarely like explaining stuff like that. But I can, maybe, analyze some of the issues that are currently hurting me, and possible "solutions".

The show takes place over less than a year, the timeskip lasts ten years. To us viewers, 99.9% of the life of the characters happened during that one year, but to the characters, if you were to imagine them as living people with their own agency, the years of the timeskip - highschool and college and beginning of adult life - clearly represented the majority of their lives. And this is the first layer of the issue, something that can affect every work of fiction, the irreconcilable difference between the viewers' perception of the events, and how the character in the work might reasonably act.

Second layer, the show gave us some incredibly tender moments between the three girls, especially in the last episodes, when they had fixed or come to terms with most of their personal issues, forgiving themselves and each other. This probably made their friendship look stronger than it was.

I use friendship with a very specific meaning in this context, because that's feels like what the show / writing was going for. By the end of their adventure their bond is incredibly strong, more than it has ever been, but as far as friendship goes, the ""problems"" they had before might still exist. Marcy certainly learned to pay more attention to how other are feelings, but that won't magically make Anne and Sasha interested into playing Dungeons & Dragons, and so on.

In a way, this scene told us what we saw in the timeskip.

This applies to Sprig, obviously, but also to the three girls.

Life lead them in different places, maybe different interests -they already had different interests to being with, but they still care about each other more than anything else, even if they might not have (it's an odd sentence I know but it's the best way I can put it) participated in a long time in any of the common rituals of friendship. This much is clear, this scene speaks volume (and that's why I uploaded it as a video, the voice acting and body language is important).

And Matt Braly tweets this

and says in multiple interviews things like

It really allowed me to think about how we grew apart, we grew back together, we grew apart again, and we found each other again. There’s this beauty in life of these relationships that ebb and flow. That’s what I wanted to bottle up. It’s tricky, though!

And at this point I, poor little viewer who was hoping for the three girls to be best friends forever always together often bought in bulk do not separate for the rest of their lives, am forced to let the two wolves inside me fight.

The one who's fucking sad and who can't believe these girls might have fallen out enough to barely talk for multiple years after everything they went through, after all the work and self improvement and shared experiences that forever changed them and who thinks this is all bullshit and that a five seconds long scene that could have easily been dialogue-less soured a whole show and three wonderful characters for me; And the one who tries to understand the intentions of the show. That friendships come in all form and shapes, that we have the perfection of Spranne, ending at an all times high with external circumstances separating them, and the imperfection of the Calamity Trio, three girls who would (did?) die for each other and drop anything and everything to help, but who still took different paths for a part of their lives. And that's normal, happens to a lot of people, friends can not see each other for years and still act like not even a day passed the next time they meet. But it's also jarring, because in the simple world of a cartoon one would have expected more. But that's also not permanent, the show ends with a promise of change to come, Anne's narration talks of things returning in your life, the very last image of the series is one of pure happiness. It's easy to imagine any number of scenarios leading to their relationship bringing once again on the table "the standard rituals of friendship", because the love and affection never left them for a single moment.

Which wolf is going to win? I have no idea. Likely the latter, in time, but it's painful. As anyone who followed me during SVTFOE times knows all too well, understanding the themes and intentions of the writers does very little to change the perception of execution, and the way something subjectively resonated with one's preferences and experiences. Also, an open ending is still open, no matter how positive the outlook might be, and that's fertile ground for the demon that is lack of closure and doubt.

I asked a friend who doesn't watch the show for a somewhat unbiased opinion, and they said

Yeah, I can definitely see how it seems uncontroversially positive from a detached point of view

I guess I'll latch onto that adverb as strongly as I can, at least while I eagerly wait for Matt to benevolently bestow on us, through tweets and interviews and AMAs, any minuscule crumble of Word of God that might bring some manner of comfort to our troubled souls. I don't know, something like "whoops my bad didn't realize Marcy and Sasha's lines would have came across as that bad haha it's not like they became strangers soon after coming back from Amphibia it was gradual they still have a group chat Marcy shares memes every day it's just been a while the avalanche of events from highschool to college to starting to work took them by surprise but now things can change, something new can always begin, they still have decades to be together who knows maybe they'll be roommates for the next five years haha".

A man can dream delude himself...

#amphibia #amphibia spoilers #seddm answers #seddm ramblings

[sonorous-strings]

The mercenary typed something quick to her boy.

wildcatofgreen: Sonar come get your fucking girl. wildcatofgreen: We'll be in the lobby with the dragon girl. She might be out of it.

She didn't bother explaining that it was Corazon--she figured he'd figure it out.

Or die trying anyway.

...Actually she could've texted him with her phone--she has his number.

Oh, whatever. That boy better get there.

Sonar didn't have his phone on him, sadly. Even if he did, he wouldn't have been able to get to Carol immediately like he desperately wanted to.

At least Corazon was there to tend to Carol. That made him feel a little bit better. Against every instinct that screamed at him to go tearing through the Battlesphere looking for her, he stood his ground. Finished his after-performance duties and cleanup. Deal with Zao's bullshit, his admonishing of Sonar's "bias" during the fight, though Sonar's mind was only partially there.

She'd be all right. She's got Corazon.

It felt like ages later when Sonar made it back to his studio to get his phone. He hadn't the foggiest notion where Carol actually was right now, and neither did anyone he asked. He frowned at the notifications. Texts from Carol already?

Wait, no. Clearly these were from Corazon. Why didn't she just use her phone?

sixstringmuse: Couldn't get anywhere I wanted, I am so pissed. I didn't have my phone on me, sorry.

He'd send it to both Corazon and Carol, just in case.

Of course, that's when Corazon's texts come in.

sixstringmuse: oh shit are you guys still in the lobby then? wait right there, I'm on my way

And Sonar bolted from his studio and went at a dead run for the lobby.

He didn't care who was around, all he saw was Carol, nothing else registered. He nearly tackled her to the ground with the hug he practically threw himself into.

"Fucking hell, Carol, can you make a guy any more worried the way do?" he panted. Quick flashbacks to the Bakunawa aftermath. Only this time he got to see what she went through. He wasn't sure if that made it worse. "Are you okay, babe?"

#wildcatofgreen #musical tea

[evadventure]

The ghosts of Barcelona

More or less accidentally, I’m standing on one foot in a train down the coast from Barcelona. Since I can’t do much, just hang on the rail, I can contemplate the weird mix of familiar and strange.

Skies are yellowish-gray, dense with Sahara sand. When I attempted to live here, it rained. But in the last three years, in some places here not a single drop fell.

I still haven’t caught even a glimpse of a big reason Barcelona was calling me back at the end of 2019 — the sea. This beautiful coast — up north it’s Costa Brava, the wild coast (much like patatas bravas can be wild) — used to see us heading to a beach every weekend. The sense of normality amid the covid chaos. Me, desperately doing anything to keep the illusion I was brought here for something more than anxiety, loneliness, and the evergrowing sense of not belonging.

What started as an adventure spiced — by a heavy-handed wrinkled Indian cook who no longer measures the amounts of chilli because he can eat any amount — with the sense of the world vanishing, was followed by careful re-discovery, re-building, re-claiming, re-connection.

And it was easy for a while since there was nothing else to do. As Leonard Cohen sings, I loved every morning and pretended it was new. Or, I tried.

So I’m traveling down the coast to see my friend Dylan and his family and I find relief in the notion that I no longer have to try to fit in. It’s not an age thing, no, this is Spain. A sixty-year old women (who’s in a better shape than me) doesn’t mind taking a seat on the floor in the crowded train. No one around me complains about having to stand. But when I take down my Sony headphones that cancel most of the noise, the world seems somehow quieter than it used to be.

It’s the yellow sky and the sense of doom and the lacking rain. And I don't belong. Have I ever? My dream was to go south, follow the sun, live by the sea. Covid turned it into a nightmare that I slowly recovered from, but I don’t feel like I’ve recovered my travel lust. Fernweh, that I’ve got. The hidden lump of gold in the shit the covid years have been — it’s four years since I moved here and I just can’t fucking believe it — is the fact that the sense of the passing time scares me less. An ability I never had, to prioritize, to embrace I can’t be in all the places at once. Alles was ich immer wollte war alles.

Now we’re passing the rocky coast and it starts to feel as a pleasant memory as I’m no longer really remembering the summer heat with a mask on. The sea reminds me of someone dear, someone I first wanted to bring, but now I’m glad to be alone. This is my world. None of it can be shared. This path alone commemorates all those days here, countless days I can’t tell apart because they all melted together.

I was here because at some point I wanted to change scenery. Run from myself. I’m here now because I wanted to feel the pleasure of changing scenery. Solitude perhaps. How symbolic is it that I chose to come here? (Well, voucher tickets.) It only hits me when I leave the train: I’m here to re-concile with the person I was here.

With the person I failed to be here. I’m here to see ever so clearly what I have found since then. I don’t have to force myself to belong. I no longer need everything.

[collymore]

Unerring proof that there are intelligent life forms across the Universe!

By Stanley Collymore   How many times is this pathetic story   going to be told when in fact it has   been going on both unceasingly   and absolutely increasingly for several   decades now? And, rather basically so   because these very dimwitted, British   pillocks are so self-evidently, literally   self-centred, rather simply nepotistic   and clearly intellectually challenged   idiots, unquestionably and basically   delusional, self-important, morons;   comprised primarily of vile trollops,   racist Karens of all ages, distinctly   and adequately, supplemented by   their simply, generally likeminded   customary piss-artistes Gammon   Queers living essentially the two   sets of them in their very deeply   embedded, naturally evilly state   of self-denial: one lot constantly   pretending to be typical women   while the other, quite laughably   so literally real men! So frankly   let's truly move on, and fittingly   expectantly hope that the likes   of obviously inept, tabloid rags   such as the Daily Mail sensibly   call it a day; since, realistically   there's distinctively nothing at   all really new, or effectively of   any interest whatsoever to be   seen in these cretins actions!   (C) Stanley V. Collymore   4 August 2023.  

Author's Remarks: Accidents are an inherent feature of life; and while it's possible to take apt measures to prevent foreseeable or likely ones there is evidently no real guaranteed process to either forestall or even avoid all accidents.

Laughably, significant numbers of you so up yourself with your fittingly egotistically styled self-importance and quite hard-core delusional notions of your biological racial superiority itself attendant with a staunch belief in your top class social significance or invariably both of these features, are in effect and quite substantially so, evidently  nothing of the kind; and quite clearly and most effectively are cast-iron examples of unequivocal accidents of birth, even if you don't want to accept that hurtful reality, or more likely than not are totally ignorant of that actuality.

A basic one night stand; where those two passing ships never ever, or did ever, really intend to meet up again. A true casual fuck where the unknown man who fathered you didn't like using condoms, as frankly it was distinctively like sucking a lollipop with the wrapper still on it; while having to ejaculate outside your biological mother's fanny was basically like having an urgent shit with his underpants still on. While on your mother's part, she didn't insist on that John using a condom because she liked feeling the real thing; and similarly, intentionally not being on contraceptives literally gave her a huge buzz and made sex much more enjoyable. Evoke any fond memories for you trollope mums out there?

Similarly involved were and still are those whoring, lascivious and adulterous wives and partners, queen, I dare say, of all that they quite earnestly surveyed and wished for. Wilfully gets pregnant by her married lover who either doesn't want to know, or it's actually consensually agreed between them that in such cases, if the woman is herself married or in a clearly meaningful relationship the cuckolded husband or her partner would unknowingly be classed as the baby's father. Significantly however in British monarchical, hereditary and aptly elite circles these cuckolded men actually  know the score; and evidently, appropriate financial payoffs to ameliorate the pain, lol, have them put a zipper on their lips and as well still be openly accepted in these most hallowed circles, do nicely, thank you!

However, for all of those obviously married whores; evidently very untrustworthy live in partners; and distinctly, clearly white racist Karen social climbers, who're undoubtedly, literally unquestionably, not that privileged or societally connected, kids conceived by such women usually go the dustbin or else left on some doorstep route, with the very fortunate few quite physically taken on by a married brother or sister of the evidently unwed mother; and subsequently, in every respect, distinctly brought up as their own child, without that said child ever knowing the true facts concerning either their birth or their real parentage. And a practice that was entrenched across Wales.

And both experience and detailed research have taught me that those who're the most castigatory and quite unwarrantedly so of others: the white racist Karens, their rather  likeminded Gammon equivalents; and also the plethora of sycophantic, odious British plebeian, monarchical serfs that obviously  readily fall into this same category of evilly, toxically verminous and quite malevolently egregious scum, are invariably without fail among the same breed of those who don't have the foggiest idea of who they literally are; and with hosts of them basically dying and never ever finding out they really were; who they quite arrogantly, concertedly and similarly, thoroughly, patently self-servingly made themselves out to be; but effectively and most significantly, truly honestly never essentially were, or really could have been! Such pathetic specimens of humanity, the lot of them! And that's putting it mildly!

As I've previously stated and once again most unequivocally reiterate here, I do emphatically and very convincingly believe that there's extraordinary intelligent life forms, call them beings if you care to, spread across the entirety of the universe of which Earth and our own galaxy, which Homo sapiens although themselves being relatively a very salient part of it, evidently all the same despite having been here for several millennia years, are unquestionably nevertheless still considerably ignorant of; and from this human perspective requisite not only to our own galaxy but likewise the broader universe, humans are undoubtedly and significantly of miniscule importance; the equivalent, in their particular case, of a solitary grain of sand, characteristically to be found on an ideally pristine and ideally tropical Barbadian beach.

Therefore, and crucially so, if any of these super extra-terrestrial beings either care to or have effectively, however temporarily or else perfunctorily, visited Earth in the past, premeditatedly so or purely accidentally as an English ship that literally got lost on the open Atlantic, eventually came across the most easterly of all the Caribbean islands Barbados, docked there - this was in 1625 - and so desperate to emulate the Spanish and Portuguese: the key European powers then with some very formative colonies of their own in South America, in climbing on that same colonial ladder, notwithstanding that Barbados: well populated, undeniably  well known to both these European Iberian powers for over 2 centuries, and who also regularly traded with it but never sought to colonize Barbados, then an integral part of the rather influential Arawak/Carib Empire that evidently stretched across the entirety of the Caribbean; these English sailors, as discernibly there wasn't any realistic entity then called Britain far less so any creation known now as the  United Kingdom so in essence they were English, simply during their respite and hospitality, clearly rather than being grateful their lives were saved thoroughly arrogantly, took to cutting into a neighbouring tree quite near where they actually came ashore in Barbados, these very letters and words:

"James K of E and of this island too." In essence, James King of England and of this island too. That tree with that quite clearly legible inscription on it remained permanently standing in its very original location and significantly also nationally protected until 1955 when it was clearly very obviously significantly damaged by Hurricane Janet and removed. Ironically,  Barbados doesn't lie at all, in the path of Caribbean hurricanes but quite rarely, as happened in 1955, has significantly been unfortunate to get the back end of some of them; and previous to the hurricane of 1955 it was 1898 one.  

Eventually on returning home to England these sailors reported what they found in Barbados; a most glowing report by them that really delighted the authorities within England; to the crucial extent that in 1627 England essentially, arbitrarily decided to colonize Barbados but self-evidently as a self-governing entity, creating the island's own parliament in 1639 that continuously  has been going unbroken ever since then and is the second oldest in the world after the House of Commons located in London England. The rest requisite to Barbados is not simply history, but quite fascinating to say the very least. Go check it out and see for yourselves how deeply and undeniably, considerably indebted most of England as well the entities Britain, and subsequently too the UK, as it became after its creation with Scotland, are to Barbados financially and in myriad other progressive respects!

Those stranded, very dozy English sailors whose lives were distinctively saved when given succour in Barbados in 1625 clearly did nevertheless make it back home thus giving rise ultimately to England becoming the colonial power and empire it ultimately did. Which prompts this question, if such a thing could essentially occur as the direct consequence of basically inept actions on the part of Earth men wasn't the proverbial sky the limit relative to far more advanced and infinitely superior, intelligent beings?

So sensibly, why then would such evidently crucially, distinctly mega-intelligent beings with the clearly, unquestionably enormous, technological skills, resolute determination and, additionally, the essential navigational knowledge and skilled expertise on how to reach Earth, having obviously arrived there only to encounter, either by observation or through physical contact a predominantly very backward species calling themselves Homo sapiens and who not once following their emergence, ever crucially ventured or actually possessed the technological skills that could enable them even temporarily to vacate their earthly home even out of very basic curiosity actually pertaining to what was basically going on around them inside their own galaxy.

Prompting me obviously to essentially ask another very pertinent question. Why then, in a patently absolutely given situation like this one would such very characteristically super, extra-terrestrial beings eventually in decidedly returning home make a point of studiously leaving behind all this valuable technology and doing so with people who significantly hadn't the foggiest idea of what it was, or essentially what to do with it. And if such technology was accidentally or enforcedly through a mishap, like an accident to one of these super beings space crafts, it still doesn't explain why with the technology to essentially get to Earth in the first place, a recovery space craft wasn't dispatched to physically retrieve this crucial technology and likewise the damaged space vehicle?

And why is this allegedly extra-terrestrial, super technology that's being found and also surreptitiously we're quite earnestly led to believe, generally not only located within the USA, but uniquely and literally very obviously exclusively hoarded there too? The USA is only 247 years old. Iran completely in contrast, is fundamentally one of the quite oldest nations basically situated on Earth, with this undoubtedly rather impressive, unbroken history that quite unquestionably clearly dates back tens of thousands of years. Essentially, crucially significantly important as well, China is similarly an ancient civilisation, however as in the case of Iran we never hear of the phenomenal findings, or the discovery of extra-terrestrial technology within these countries or any others for that matter! Just simply the USA.

The equivalent in Earth terms of obviously paying considerably far more attention to what a toddler actually tells you regarding an incident while blissfully either ignoring or actually fundamentally discarding what essentially, clearly seasoned, trustworthy adults basically divulge to you. Prompting another question. Why would undoubtedly significantly, thoroughly obviously, basically super intelligent extra-terrestrials purposely ignore Earth's actually ancient civilisations for all those several millennia of years just to incomprehensively deal with a 247 year old kid, the USA, quite newly on the block? But it's significantly what the West's most dominant power clearly and self-servingly wants the lot of you to obviously think and even believe; and so you idiotically as well as fawningly go along with it!

Which obviously brings me to my very last and significantly, distinctly crucial element in all of this literally contrived, intellectually challenged and pathetic baloney regarding aliens on Earth. However, prior to my quite sensibly and logically doing so let me also Express the very sane view that it wouldn't be in the least either uncommon or simply unnatural for essentially literally genuinely extra-terrestrial beings to in effect actually want to check out Earth residents if rather seriously they thought that in doing so was either crucial to their interests, or evidently significantly beneficial to them in doing so. No different basically, to you checking out new neighbours undoubtedly for your very own personal reasons. Nevertheless such a categorically distinctly, specifically initial association effectively only continues and undeniably essentially prospers if you and your neighbours discernibly basically have much in common actually with each other and do want that relationship to continue; otherwise you go your separate ways.

So what other than rabid arrogance on the part of today's narcissistic Homo sapiens  makes you think that because some of you can now shoot a few fireworks beyond the surface of the Earth, but still haven't as yet acquired the requisite capability to actually even temporarily leave the environment of our galaxy that Homo sapiens are actually of any interest: either real or imaginary, to specifically enlightened and, undoubtedly unquestionably too, really significantly far superior intelligently, aptly extra-terrestrial life forms!

But yes! There are aliens on Mother Earth, several millions of them to be precise that are liberally dotted across our planet. Very noticeably so in Australia, New Zealand, in South Africa, neighbouring Zimbabwe and other parts of Africa; basically throughout the entire region known as Latin America; equally too the Caribbean Islands, Canada and crucially, rather significantly the USA, where at the last official census count in 2020 there were in effect 231.9 million of them.  

These aliens actually well-known generally to the several other indigenous inhabitants of Earth and were themselves undoubtedly preceded there in multiple millennia terms, being in effect distinctly the last beings to arrive on Earth, have a tendency to always want to control everything; invariably quite  delusionally, usually regard themselves as vastly superior to every other living person or thing; actually have a marked penchant for genocide and malevolently odious acts of barbarism in complete conjunction with several other forms of evidently egregious behaviour; love nothing better than clearly, actually and tenaciously clinging on to the countries, lands, other properties and also the wealth, and natural resources of those people that they've brutally purloined them from; yet very conceitedly want that region of Earth where they regard as their own to be inviolate of people who obviously don't look like them! And who exactly are these Aliens? Distinctively white Caucasians!

#inspirational

[rantsintechnicolor]

Dead is an adjective

At the risk of touching a sensitive nerve, I wrote:

Dead is a description. 

One day we will all be dead. Death comes for us all. Sooner. Later. By accident. Wear and tear. Illness. Murder. We all die when it’s our time.

Will we be mad about it? Or will we be fucking relieved? Or will there be nothing? No one has come back to tell us what to expect.

We all assume when someone dies young that it is unfair. We all assume that was not enough time for them. We all assume they did not meet their goals. How do we know? How do we know that person with a shorter life wasn’t happy with what they got to do with the time they had? We don’t. Us humans, as soon as we reach a goal, we set another one; perpetually on the hedonic treadmill. So we will always die with unfinished business, whether that’s graduating the writing program or getting our shambling corpse out of bed to go have breakfast with the other eighty year olds. 

We also assume they wanted to live to be that shambling corpse, live long enough for it to feel like their body is betraying them with incontinence and clearly spoken words, with failing memory, organs, and bent back over a walker. Maybe it’s not so bad to die young or middle aged. 

Perhaps we also assume they were going to grow into as good a person as we thought they were (are we sure they weren’t trash humans? Are we sure?). How do we know that person wouldn’t have become a serial killer later in life? Or a politician that denies minorities their humanity and freedoms? Or become a far right demagogue that wanted to restrict the voting rights of people that don’t agree with them? Or were going to suffer in pain their whole lives because of a wasting degenerative disease, malpractice by doctors, coupled with zero support from family and the state? Or be denied healthcare and disability support by the state and have to sleep in a bathroom because their health is so unstable and their parents won’t continue to clean the bed sheets, blame them for destroying a perfectly good mattress, while their body becomes skeletal and their starved brain unhinged? Or be homeless on the street, reviled and feared by the working class, the class they used to be a part of? How do we know they haven’t been spared great amounts of pain? How do we know we haven’t been spared their inhumane evil?

How do we know what people deserve? Who is the expert on that? And the notion of who deserves to live and die. Well, I think Gandalf summed that up pretty well:

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be so eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the wise cannot see all ends.”

I’m not arguing against mourning. I’m not saying we can’t be sad they are gone. I’m not saying a person's death shouldn’t matter to people. My point is that we don’t question enough what we are taught about death. (We don’t question enough what we are taught about anything.) We really only experience death through our own mourning or someone else's. It’s not fair to us that the person is gone. We are sad we don’t get to hear them laugh or sing karaoke again or hug them or cry with them. We invariably make someone else's death about us and how we feel about it. If we died instead, we might think it was unfair, we didn't finish everything, and that we would have lived to make a positive mark on the world.

My point: examine the value judgment you make around death. I wouldn’t necessarily bring this discussion to a wake or a celebration of life, though thinking about these things may make you approach those of us in mourning differently and able to avoid thoughtless platitudes. Be sensitive with folk. Don’t be a jerk if you can help it. 

#cassie #mo #kenny #karii lynn #think about it #dying young #writing #thought piece #musings #always questioning #death #dying #grief #love #friends #mourning #thoughts #in memorium #hedonic treadmill

[femme-enby]

Blah blah blah, I’m stubborn as a mule, I’m ranting about stupid fandom shit, beating the dead horse into the ground mercilessly.

Short summary- I am not proship apparently and I don’t like people whitewashing characters, or feminizing androgynous characters.

Into the rant…

I am genuinely tired of “Frans” or Frisk and Sans as a couple.

And while yeah, it is the notion of aging up Frisk (or Chara or Kris btw) to pair them with an adult character that irks me most importantly… like… it is fucking weird actually. Especially when it’s written in such a way that whichever child went through the underground or whatever and then LATER the story takes place where they’re an adult…

Because honestly? If any family friend saw me at like… 12, actively watched me grow up, and then decided they had romantic feelings for me, I’d think they’re fuckin weird tbh. Weirder than my middle school orchestra teacher giving me his Snapchat while I was at work years later, after not having seen me that entire time. Yeah that was fuckin weird. Dude taught me for an hour or so like every other day back in middle school. Still fuckin weird.

Now imagine a family friend who would have seen me a lot more often. Mad fuckin weird.

So yeah. I find that weird.

But the other thing, a more minor thing that also grinds my gears?

How incredibly feminized Frisk gets. In such a stereotypically way too!

Frisk is CANONICALLY non-binary. They use they/them pronouns. They present pretty androgynous even for a kid. They “flirt” with anyone they have the option to regardless of that person’s presentation.

Yet!!! Frisk always ends up being incredibly feminized. Not just feminized in a general sense, but almost exclusively Frisk gets turned into a scrawny, busty, white woman with perfectly straight hair and full lips.

This kid turned into that nonsense I be seein??? Idk what people are seeing but if y’all want a WHITE kid…

Boom. Pale yellow for the skin, rosy pink cheeks, wide AF eyes. The chances of Chara being white are infinitely higher.

The aged up Frisk rarely ever even looks LIKE FRISK. It wouldn’t be hard to just name this basically brand new character something like “Alex” if these people still wanted a gender neutral name, but frankly I doubt they would considering what they did to the character.

They whitewash and feminize Frisk, a character who has no gender. We are given no indication to Frisk sex (which would be awfully weird since they are, ya know, a CHILD) so people are really just making a woman OC to ship with Sans (usually) but still choose to to name her Frisk and tie her to a non-binary child.

For what reason?

People were in an uproar about artists making Rose (Steven Universe) skinny. Now the harassment and threats were completely unnecessary, but the general upset wasn’t necessarily wrong in my opinion.

Fat people, POC, LGBT+ people still struggle for representation. If fans want skinny, white, busty characters that they ain’t seeing in the original material… make an OC!! Ain’t nothin wrong with that!

But there ain’t any reason to take an existing character and alter them to fit into eurocentric beauty standards. Not for your preference, not to fit into your fantasy, not for anything.

These people are often amazing artists! Clearly capable of incredible skill, and likely possess impressive imaginations as well! Imagine up a new name at the least!

Seriously- why do I see more diversity in blank face Y/N solid grey placeholders than adult Frisk art? Like yeah I don’t even think it should be a thing when you’re shipping them with one of the adult monsters, but honestly the fact that regardless of how “not frisk” they all look… I KNOW that is SUPPOSED to be adult Frisk because they all look like the same bland ass white lady!!!

Meanwhile they “Y/N” placeholders be chubby, tall, disabled, they’ll have afros and braids, they’ll have more masculine builds, etc.

I ain’t even realize they could be personalized like that! I love it!! Hope to keep seeing more of it even if it comes across my dash in some fandom I don’t even know the name of!!!

#ryan rambles #I’m gonna shut up #but fr #why tf they draw frans to begin with #and why tf their frisk always look the same

[queerstudiesnatural]

i was tagged by @faithdeans my absolute beloved to do this like. 15 fucking years ago i’m sorry :/ anyway here it it

rules: spell your url with songs, then tag as many people as there are letters in your url (i'm not doing that lol)

Q quarter to - radio company U uh huh - julia michaels E eve - kat cunning E evermore - taylor swift ft. bon iver R revolting children - matilda the musical S scotland - the lumineers T the call - regina spektor U under giant trees - agnes obel D depend on it - liam payne I iris - the goo goo dolls E everybody dies - billie eilish S sounds of someday - radio company N no witnesses - keaton henson A abbey - mitski T talk - hozier U unsaid emily - jatp soundtrack R repeat - luke hemmings A arcade - duncan laurence L long live - taylor swift

tagging @sarcasmisalifechoice @purgatorybfs @lesbianjoannaharvelle @cardboardbrother @heartshapedcas

#just checked and it was only two weeks ago #feels like ages but clearly i have fucking notion of time #rain.stuff #these are all good songs btw you should listen to them