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#god the more i read about their ideology the more i realize how fucking full of shit western feminism really is
mittwoch-addams · 4 months
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u and ur tattle tale anons need to grow up. none of u need to visit l chat when u clealry hate the place. if u people didn't encourage that annoying beth mead stan 90% of the ellie trolling there wouldn't even happen. u and ur anons bait and feed her and it makes the trolling against ellie and daan worse but u do it so u can play victim and get ur sassy, snarky little digs in. u have to admit ur own role in perpetuating the abuse too. take a good hard look in the mirror and reflect on what u could do differently.
So many projections and assumptions on this ask, LMAO. Time for an I Ain’t Reading All That response, but you asked for it.
1. Why would I go on LChat? Not that I care to vlog my every day life, but there’s so much more to my world than wasting my time with barbarians on an anonymous, clamorous environment like LChat. I’m not attached enough to sport or faceless discourse to write full think pieces on the internet–of all places–when I can have civilized conversations with football fans offline, who don’t care for such things either.
2. I’ve always been transparent about my staunch distaste for certain systemic ideologies, long before Mead has revealed her nature btw. Club rivalry aside, I’ve expressed my disappointment and disapproval for her politics and Arsenal stan culture, but beyond that, realize I have her muted because I don’t trust her self-censure abilities. You’ll find I don’t have to make any serious effort toward keeping up with what doesn’t pique my interest, or anybody I don’t even find physically and morally attractive. She blows up anyway because she’s behind the steering wheel and buries herself in controversies. TLDR: Anything I know of her, I know against my will. She’s not interesting enough to even bait and typing this up is the most I’ve cared.
3. “If you people didn’t encourage…the Beth stan wouldn’t…” Be for fucking real sweetheart. Beth stans are relentlessly obsessive of Ellie/Daan and that’s unequivocally on them to stop consuming content they know triggers them, LOL. (And why should that trigger them?) These are full grown adults, as are you apparently. I’m honored though how you’ve shifted this responsibility to me.
4. One quick Twitter search will tell you no fan ever needed my encouragement. 1.5K quote tweets on an Arsenal team photo will tell you people with any working mind are antagonized all on their own accord.
Maybe Mead should change her politics? If it affects you so deeply, maybe you should spend less time on LChat? Maybe LChat should do better to tighten up security. Maybe take your own advice and take a hard look in the mirror than whine about the clicks that led you to your computer screen? Be a bit more proactive, yeah? Ignore what you don’t want to see and go out more? Maybe you and any other stan in shambles should hop off my dick and stop inviting yourselves and your narratives into people’s relationships and spaces that aren’t your own? Maybe you all need to learn to look at couples and contrasting opinions without taking it so personally? Maybe you should just stop being offended?
Utilize the block button more, baby. If I’m known for my strong opinions and everyone knows this is my politics, then why deliberately camp on my silly little blog anyway? Why become so distraught when other people find politics like that oppressive and offensive? Am I supposed to “stan” someone I don’t agree with? Should I refrain from voicing my opinions so you don’t cry about it at night? Why should everyone remain the same but it is only I who should change for someone like you? Who made you god?
Anyway, back to my cooking lmao feel free to screenshot and reread as needed. Whatever gets through the crevices of your skull.
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deidremercer · 1 year
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I think it's remarkable how many people will be so anti-JK Rowling yet still enjoy the Harry Potter series. I get there's like nostalgia there but whenever I go back to books or movies I just find more and more to dislike about them. Not to mention that Rowling continues to use the excuse of "people keep consuming my products" as a reason to justify her hateful behavior. Maybe it's just me but going back to Harry Potter media always makes me think "man I wish I was engaging with any media that isn't this." I feel like HP isn't even worth it for the fantasy like all the spells in the series are so lame and being at Hogwarts would suck dude that place is so fucking dangerous all the time, they throw you into a forest full of monsters for breaking the tiniest of rules that shit would not be fun! I also find the whole four houses thing so stupid like, you're really about to group up your students by "Brave, Smart, Evil, and ????" Hufflepuff feels so genuinely like a "oh fuck what if they aren't any of those first three" "fuck it lets make a miscellaneous category" type deal. Also don't try to argue with me that Slytherin isn't just the evil house, their entire thing is being conniving and sneaking around and being little schemers. It also feels a lot like a bunch of the students are just in the wrong house, right? Like you're about to tell me that A. Slytherin isn't just the evil house while simultaneously telling me the B. The weasely twins shouldn't be in Slytherin for being little scheming pranksters. What the hell is that man? If you're going to try and tell me "actually Slytherin's traits are resourcefulness, cunning, ambition, and heritage" I don't fucking care, because they shouldn't be, why give the 4 houses listed characteristics at all if they're all basically the same shit. The thing about the Hogwarts houses is that they're all so fucking broad that anyone could fit into any of them unless we actually take a look at what the subtext tells us about each of them, right? Show don't tell, and Rowling shows that everyone in Slytherin is fucking evil. And even if not, the Weasely twins get to be in Gryffindor? These prank pulling fucks are in the chivalry house? For what purpose? Why isn't Hermione in Ravenclaw? She feels like she would be a much better fit there, but no then our protagonist would have to come from slightly different points of view gods forbid! And if she were in the smart house we couldn't possibly portray her as wrong for thinking slavery is bad. The fucking slavery too, how much do you really need to read into this book to realize just how much of Rowling's awful ideology leaks through. While we're on the topic, I was looking at the wiki just to make sure I didn't fuck up any of this information and one of the traits they list on every character is "blood status" which defines whether or not a character is "pure blooded" or not. Hey what the fuck? Why is that something so important that you feel the need to list it for every character on the wiki? I fucking forgot Harry Potter had a whole eugenics thing going on but low and behold once again as I look back on this series I discover another reason to dislike it! Every turn I take there's a new racist or homophobic or anti-Semitic jumpscare! I'm playing fucking Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion with shitty political views!
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When people take the accountability away from women and decide to place the blame on men like nearly most of the Modern Western Feminists™ for literally ALL of their problems, then they aren’t empowering women; what they are doing is basically relegate women to a victimhood, helpless position and make men have power over them by not holding women accountable for a damn thing. Ironic, isn’t it? 🤔  
#anti sexism#anti misogyny#anti misandry#text#like do these so-called feminists not realize wtf they are doing?#also they have devalued everything female-related and feminine so women wouldn't be valued unless they do something#'masculine' or 'male-centric' like....the amount of sexism in that logic is off the charts but it's perpetuated by people who want to#supposedly help women by reinforcing in them the idea that being a woman just fucking sucks that there is no escape from utter suffering#abuse trauma and silence and that their lives would be far better if they were just men#this is the shit women have been fed for years now#i'm fucking pissed#in their quest to 'help' women they end up fucking them over more than the 'patriarchal' system#when you relegate women to being nothing more than victims of grr Evil Men >:( then what the fuck you bitches are doing?#you are taking the power away from them and give it to men which is what the fuck a lot of y'all say you OPPOSE#like....the cognitive dissonance and contradictions are incredible#god the more i read about their ideology the more i realize how fucking full of shit western feminism really is#western feminists don't even help women they just use us for ideology and attacking Evool Mens >>:(((#fuck them this is why i don't fuck the modern feminist movement it's full of a lot of bs and rampant misogyny aside from misandry#when you really analyze a lot of the viewponts they hold of womanhood and femininity#which they think is inherently patriarchal traumatizing and evil like wow ok misogynist#i don't fuck with sexists that's why i don't fuck with a lot of this so-called female empowerment movement when it tells women#they need to stfu and learn their place IF they dare to have a different opinion and just accept the fact that they are women and that's a#very horrible thing because of all the shitty things that come with it#what a great way to empower women...#🙄🙄🙄🙄
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dongofthewolf · 3 years
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Slowly Learning That Life Is Okay
Abby Anderson x Fem!Blind!Reader
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Sweet sweet fluff about fear of intimacy where Abby rescues the reader and they unexpectedly become closer.
Requested by @rianncreates
Warnings: swearing, fluff, minor violence(?), cute gay shit :)
A/N: I am not visually impaired but I really tried my best to write a character whose lack of sight doesn't define them. I wanted to portray how our differences don't define us; we're all connected in a way (as cheesy as it may sound), and it makes me sad to see small things like not being able to hear/see divide us.
Ever since you were a kid, people have always had a hard time looking you in the eyes. Due to your condition, they appeared hazy and almost grey; something that made a lot of people uncomfortable. In fact, most people don’t even know it, but you can actually tell when someone is turning away so they don’t have to face you. There’s a certain recognizable sound when someone purposely looks away to avoid affording you the basic decency of eye contact, and it’s dehumanizing as fuck. It didn’t matter that you weren’t completely blind, it was enough that you were still alienated from the rest of the world. They didn’t see you as a person, to them you were your blindness–it defined you. It’s the reason people were afraid to interact with you, why kids were always so cruel to you, and why you always kept people at an arm's-length. That is, until you met Abby.
Abby was unlike anyone you had ever met; she was the first person who saw you—truly saw you. While most people knew her to be Isaac’s top scar killer, you knew her as the girl who tended to your wounds after she found you patrolling the city. She was the smell of pine and fresh rain that filled your senses, and her voice was like a soothing ailment when she calmly reassured you that everything would be fine. 
In the WLF infirmary, Abby never left your side. It’s not like your injuries were super severe or anything, but she stayed with you regardless. She wrapped your arms with fresh bandages when they needed changing, and got you desserts from the cafeteria using her connections to Isaac. After a few days, you quickly learned that the two of you had a lot in common and soon she was visiting you almost every day.
It’d been a month now and you’ve officially made the WLF stadium your new home. You and Abby were sitting in your room while she read to you with that same lovely voice. It had become a habit now; Abby had read to you in the infirmary, and ever since then she's been coming over so she can share all her favourite books with you. She was just starting a new chapter when you interrupted her. “Abby?”
Abby instantly stopped reading, and you could feel the bed shift as she sat up to face you. “What’s up?” 
“Can I ask you something?” You were nervous. Although she had been nothing but kind to you, you didn’t want to ruin what happened to be the closest friendship you’ve had in a really long time. 
You could hear her smiling as she answered. “Anything.”
You hesitated; you’d never normally do this with anyone else, but you trusted Abby. As you sat there contemplating your next words, Abby gently took your hand before continuing with that same reassuring tone she had used when you guys first met. “Hey, you know you can always talk to me right?”
Her hands were so warm. It was such a small detail that most people probably wouldn’t notice, but for some reason it was all you could think about in that moment. They were rough and calloused from years of combat but whenever she touched you, it was delicate and light. It was as if she was afraid that she would hurt you, even though you knew she never would. God, why can’t you think straight while she’s holding your hand like that? Fuck, it shouldn’t be that hard.
You struggled to get the words out, like something in your chest was weighing you down. “I just… I don't want things to change.”
“Hey, nothing you say could ever push me away. Okay?” Abby was softly caressing the top of your hand with hers as she set the book aside.
“I was wondering if I could…” Fuck, how were you supposed to say this? You paused trying to decide how to word it, but it still came out wrong. “feel your face?” 
Abby didn’t respond, and if she hadn’t been holding your hand then, you would’ve thought she had left. After waiting for what felt like a whole five minutes (but was probably closer to thirty seconds) you were starting to get nervous. “Abby? You still there?”
Your voice must have snapped her out of it because she responded immediately. “Yeah, sorry I just… I was expecting something a lot worse. Like you murdered some kittens or something.” 
You giggled at the sincerity in her voice, relief flooding through you. “Kittens? God Abby who the fuck do you think I am?”
“I don’t know! I thought you were admitting some deep dark secret.” Abby nervously laughed along with you, her hand never leaving yours. 
As you both settled down, Abby shakily brought your hand to her cheek, silently signalling to you that it was okay. You hesitantly caressed it, softly stroking the lines of her cheekbones with a smile on your face. Your hand then slowly moved up towards her forehead, your fingers tracing the scar above her eyebrow. The scar was thin like from a blade or a scrap piece of metal, and you couldn’t help but wonder how she had gotten the scar–wondered how many scars she had gotten after years of fighting in that senseless war. 
You’d never say it out loud because the WLF had saved your life, but the war with the Seraphites was unnecessary and quite frankly, useless. All of the so-called “sacrifices” being made for the sake of some fucking land was just stupid and greedy. 
You weren’t really a religious person–especially considering the whirlwind of shit you’ve been through–but if this whole virus was a result of some higher being thrusting humans into extinction? You couldn’t blame them. All these survivors were granted a second chance to better themselves, thousands of people by some miracle had survived the outbreak, only for them to revert back to the same tired, old ideology of war and power. You supposed that even after all these years, humans never really change.
Your fingers moved slowly back down, passing the bridge of her nose and her Cupid’s bow before reaching her lips. They were soft and parted slightly when you reached for them, but she still didn’t move.
Abby stayed incredibly still as you took your time feeling her face, exploring every crevice—every detail of her subtle features. You could feel a stray strand of hair hanging next to her face, so you lightly brushed it behind her ear before bringing your hands back down to rest on your lap. But before you could fully pull away, your hand brushed up against something rigid and stiff. It took you a moment before you realized that you were touching her huge bicep, and you were astonished at her strength. It also took you a minute before you realized that you were literally feeling up her muscles, causing a sudden heat to rush towards your cheeks as you quickly retrieved your hands. 
“Oh um… sorry I didn’t mean to- I mean I didn’t realize-” You tried to get the words out but you couldn’t. “Fuck this is awkward.”
Abby chuckled watching you get all flustered from touching her arms, and then out of nowhere it slipped out. “God you’re adorable.”
Then there was a pause, you weren’t sure you had heard her correctly but from the way her laughing suddenly came to a halt, you were sure she had just said what you thought she did.
“Uh, shit. I should… I should go.” Abby began standing up but before she could, you reached out and grabbed her arm. You pulled her towards you again, tracing your hand back towards her cheek as you gently cupped the side of her face with your palm.
“Don’t go.” Abby’s cheeks grew warm under your touch. You wanted more than anything to tell her how you feel–how you’ve felt for her since the moment you two had first met. 
After spending so much of your life consumed by this irrational fear of abandonment and intimacy, you had let someone in. You lowered the barrier that you had spent so long building because of her. And of course it was easy to assume that you liked Abby just because she was one of the only people you hung out with, but it wasn’t like that. Abby wasn’t like the rest of your friends or family because she was never overbearing; most people were quick to treat you like a child or some helpless creature, but she never did. She gave you space when you needed it, but she also never made you feel lonely. Her presence was calming and comforting. Abby gave so much and expected nothing in return.
The possibility that your feelings for her were reciprocated made your heart flutter, but it was also really scary. This was entirely new territory; relationships were never a priority for you by any means, especially since survival has always been your prime concern. But now that you’ve found asylum here with the WLF—with Abby, you were safe. You were free to live, free to enjoy the prospect of a somewhat normal life, and you better believe you were going to take full advantage of this newfound normalcy.
You leaned in towards Abby, your foreheads touching and your lips just millimeters apart. As you placed both of your hands on her cheeks, Abby stayed impossibly still as her nose softly grazed yours. Abby’s hands landed on top of yours as she held them against her face, securing them there like she was afraid you would leave. 
Then–as if it wasn’t the most terrifying thing ever–you kissed her. It was delicate and gentle, and you nearly cried because of how perfect it was. And although you had just felt her lips with your fingers, nothing compared to how they felt against yours. They were so soft you wanted to melt into them, and in that moment you nearly did. Your body involuntarily leaned into her, your arms falling against her broad shoulders in an effort to support yourself, before slowly moving to wrap around the back of her neck, pulling her even closer. All that built up tension from weeks of spending nearly every day together suddenly dissipated the moment you closed that gap, and those tears that had previously threatened to fall suddenly did. Small teardrops fell from both your eyes and wet your cheeks, causing Abby to pull back slightly as she wiped them with the pads of her thumbs. “What’s wrong?”
You gave her a small smile as you chuckled slightly. “Nothing, I just… I really like you Abby.”
As soon as the words fell out, Abby laughed softly before embracing you for a kiss once again. When the two of you finally pulled apart Abby spoke again with that same heavenly voice of hers. “I really like you too Y/N”
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ow-anteater · 3 years
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I’m gonna need more character style analysis, please. 🥺🥺 (maybe Jesse McCree 👉🏻👈🏻)
OH MY GOD I MISSEE THE WORD STYLE HDSJDNISJGXBSJCHSJZ IM SO SORRY I WILL GIVE MORE OUTFIT IDEAS ANYWAY HERES A CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Omg thank you so much, I’m always here to ramble about my fictional people of choice I’m sorry if this is disjointed or repetitive I literally just read the ask, sat down, got possessed by an evil McCree stan and wrote this
So I’ve actually already shared a lot of what informs my McCree in this post, and it hasn’t really changes since then, but I’ll never get tired of talking about him. I’ll also have to add that how I view McCree is largely colored by the fic author Motorghost, their McCree is so vibrant and intelligent and full of depth and reading their fics really made me think more about him? (warning that they do write NSFW fics, if you’re sensitive to seeing sexual themes written in the tags, don’t follow the link to their AO3)
So! I like to think of McCree as a character driven very much by guilt, let me explain:
I believe him to be sarcastic and snappy and kind of sharp, but very good and idealistic deep down. I’m also very fond of the idea that Deadlock didn’t start quite as ‘sinister’ as it has become; that it was more about community and rebellion in the beginning and the practicality of ‘we’ve got to make money somehow and crime is a good business’ really didn’t suit him? He’s idealistic and cares very much about the greater good, Ashe watches out for her own even if at the expense of everybody else - I love the idea that that’s what drove them apart so violently
When he got roped into blackwatch it was unwillingly, but he didn’t ideologically disagree with the broad strokes of what was happening. Here, for the first time, he dared to really truly believe in something and fight tooth and nail for it because here was the possibility to make a difference on a scale that mattered. And it was tough, brutally so, but it was also worth it?
And that’s where that guilt comes in. He believed in something for perhaps the first time in his life and he let it all crumble (Or worse still; he did all he could and it did not matter in the end) - at least that’s how he sees it, let it all sour and become something it was not supposed to be. In the years after the fall I think he’d been heartbroken.
I think his multiple voice lines that hint at being ‘a bad man’ or whatever are super interesting because I don’t think we’ve ever seen him be cruel? His self image is so harshly opposed to his actual actions and I like to believe it’s cause he’s very much struggling with the after shock of having struggled, of having believed wholeheartedly and recklessly and have it all corrupt anyway. So much of his humor and charm reads to me as - yes honest charisma - but also heaps of protectiveness and deflection. I also think this makes sense as the reason why he’s so hesitant to join the recall. He thinks he had his chance and he fucking failed, he’s not deserving of that chance - or capable of bearing that responsibility - and perhaps in that complicated mix of bitter self loathing and hostility towards the whole organization he’s also convinced himself the whole idea of a bright further was naive and unattainable.
And by god I know they probably won’t, but I hope his role in OW2 touches on the possible aching, terrifying idea of going back to something you thought you weren’t deserving of. An idea and a world you would have happily died for, but couldn’t realize.
also McCree struggled with addiction - especially alcohol - in the years after the fall I will hear no other opinions
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Why the “reclaim bimbo” trend has taken off and why I fucking hate it so much
I think most people are familiar by now with the whole Bimbofication trend by now - the movement that says that it’s woke and feminist, actually, to completely lean into sexist and objectifying stereotypes - and now I’m going to try to articulate why I hate it so goddamn much. @classical-dyke already made a great post about how bimbo-ism can be seen as a mainstream cultural response to the VSCO trend, and we all know that corporations will jump on any trend that allows them to sell you stuff (I could argue that Hydroflask and performative environmentalist companies made a killing off of VSCO but whatever) so I’m not gonna talk about those.
What I am gonna attempt to articulate is the way that (white) feminism and performative activism have strayed so far that they’ve circled back to bite themselves in the asses.
Performative activism - emphasis on “perform”
The modern social media landscape has evolved such that it is more important to appear “woke” than to actually be involved in, or even know anything about, the issues you discuss. We all know this. It’s why giant corporations bust out the rainbows every June and why I have to suffer through endless MCU #Girlboss edits.
On an individual level, it means that every single thing you do online has to be tied in to your personal politics, and god help you if those politics aren’t the right ones. Every musician you listen to has to be a shining star of social responsibility. Every show you watch either needs to be completely unproblematic, or you have to prepare a fully sourced essay with MLA-format citations about Why It’s Okay For You To Like This Thing Because It Helps You Process Your Personal Trauma Or Whatever to whip out every time you make a post. The whole CARRD/putting your life story in your bio thing.
And in the case of bimbos, insisting that liking crop tops and glittery eyeshadow means you’re a communist, actually.
I think capitalism sucks and pushing back against the endless waves of advertising and monetizing is great. Every time I see someone selling t-shirts of a current event that happened 5 minutes ago I vomit in my mouth a little. But people have taken it to such extremes now that if you profess to like material goods or anything mainstream, you’re an evil dirty capitalist and also complicit in everything wrong in society.
Nobody is allowed to just like stuff anymore. You either have to loudly and constantly proclaim how horrible it is or loudly and constantly explain why you like your pink lip gloss and why it’s okay and doesn’t conflict with your infallible wokeness. So what we end up with is this group saying that not only is having your tits out on social media leftist, the two are actually intrinsically tied.
Not Like Other Girls, pink flavor
When I was in high school, I wore baggy t-shirts and sneakers instead of makeup and high heels and dresses. I read books and had smart people thoughts instead of listening to pop or having crushes on boys. I was Not Like Other Girls (the unspoken implication here being that I was better than other girls) because I didn’t rely on shallow physical beauty and sex appeal for a sense of self-worth. 
(What I actually was, was fucking gay, but I didn’t realize that until halfway through college. Also, pop music is catchy and fun.)
Bimbos wear lots of makeup and glitter. They like the color pink and tight skirts and mesh tops. They act ditzy and suck at math. They are Not Like Other Girls because they can lean into their femininity and sexuality, even going so far as embracing an insulting stereotype created by the men they profess to hate, without compromising their sense of self-worth. In fact, it’s the source of their empowerment!
Do you see a common thread here?
Targeting impressionable young girls
What we get here is a perfect storm of factors that lead to young girls sexualizing themselves and calling it empowerment.
Being a teen or pre-teen is hard. You’re trying to figure out who you are as a person, how to navigate into adulthood, and all you want is to have some goddamn agency in your decisions. And that’s why the bimbo movement fucking sucks, because it takes attractive social and political ideologies (human rights! gender equality! lgbt inclusivity! making personal choices apart from societal expectations!) and then ties it to a full face of expensive makeup and a Victoria’s Secret push-up bra, and now you have 14-year-olds with their tits on TikTok thinking that they’re participating in some sort of radical self-liberation movement. And they can get away with it because they know the proper buzzwords to say to get the Purity Police off their backs.
In some ways, it feels like a betrayal. One of the big draws of feminist/leftist circles for many women was this idea that you don’t have to look Like That to get respect as a human being. You don’t have to be hot and sexy and flawless to have worth. It was a space where you could learn to divorce yourself from mainstream media expectations, to figure out which choices you made because they actually made you happy vs. the choices you made because you liked the rewards society gave you for conformation. But now here come the bimbos with their flawless contour and their surface-level communist rhetoric, and it just completely muddies those waters.
Tl;dr
You are allowed to like things without having to give a full moral justification for it, and that includes liking mainstream things.
Adhering to modern beauty standards while saying you’re doing it for yourself, actually, isn’t the radical move you think it is.
Encouraging minors to hypersexualize themselves is bad.
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the-littlefangirl · 3 years
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TFATWS episode 1 rewatch commentary
The first scene was so beautiful. I loved that we didn't start directly with the fight sequence. It feels way closer to the quiet beginning of CATWS and I love it so much.
The title is also SO NEAT, music's on point too but hey it’s Henry Jackman the one thing I’m sure it’s going to be great overall is the score.
The choreography is AMAZING, really well shot. Sam shielding himself with only one wing was MA-JES-TIC.
“WHAT'S UP” EXACTLY SAM EXACTLY
I did feel so uncomfortable in regards to the military aspect of it. Not that I was expecting anything else, but both here and in Captain Marvel the military we're good guys < 3 propaganda is so blatant and ugh:/ At least there wasn’t a literal recruitment spot like with CM. 
The yellow filter in the Tunisia scene BYE please stop with the yellow filters 2k21
"I've been working with the Air Force for six months now" So, did Sam even catch a break at all after Endgame? Or did he just throw himself to work like SOMEONE did after being iced for 70 years. Hmmm? Sam????
"Essentially, these people, they want a world that's unified without borders" OH NO! HOW AWFUL, how evil of these bad guys smh
Joaquin: SO about Steve
Sam: :)))))) nope
"Moon stuff" SAAAM
#1 cry with Sam's speech, full on chills.. Fuck. Me. His voice about to break before saying thank you bYE.
Shady politician: "It was the right decision" (FUCKKKKK YOUUU)
Rhodey: *press any key to doubt *
I need someone to analyze the different curation of the two exhibits pretty please
NOT THE PHOTO POST-AZZANO JFC. That photo is my weakness, Bucky sweetie (also I find hilarious that usually when there are articles about Stucky and/or #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend they aaaalways use that photo LMAO)
In case someone wants to read the transcription of the texts about Bucky: "In 1944, while on a mission to thwart a Hydra weapon transport in the Alps, Barnes was thrown from a train and believed to have been killed in action. It wasn't until 2014, over seventy years later, that it was revealed that Barnes was alive, having been found by Hydra operatives. Captain America himself (i can't read) the effort to bring Barnes in only to later aid in a escape from custody having been convinced of his innocence. Steve's loyalty to his old friend, coupled with his refusal to sign the Sokovia Accords, led to the dissolution of the Avengers and drove the Captain into hiding with other like-minded Avengers including Natasha Romanoff, Wanda Maximoff, and Sam Wilson. The current whereabouts of Barnes remains unknown, habing been labeled a fugitive following his escape from custody."
"current wherabout unknown" but not the government, interesting. Also, pretty good summary of CACW from the public's perspective, although one of the things I always wanted to see explored was the public's reaction of the fallout of them going into hiding after Civil War (which I'm hoping we'll get to see a little bit of in Black Widow).
Interesting point about the 70 years without having Captain America. Clearly the sacrifice play wasn't enough this time to fuel the nationalism so they went with a squeaky clean John Walker instead.
Sam saying the shield belongs to Steve I'm going to cry now excuse me. Sam. Sam sweetie.
The No. 1 Captain America comic in the display ugH fuck yes
See this is how you do a cameo that has actual meaning. Thank god for Malcolm Spellman being a competent writer. That scene was so well written.
HAVE YOU PRAISED ANTHONY MACKIE'S PERFORMANCE TODAY?? Holy shit that last shot fucked me up.
I'm loving the use of the wide shots, especially in the flashback. The camera movements are in synch with The Soldier's state of mind and mission focus, so good.
EVERYONE STAND UP FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM aka The Winter Soldier theme composed by Henry Jackman.
Without a doubt the most brutal TWS fight scene there has been, People involved in Punisher and John Wick are involved in this and it SHOWS. 
For the record, still stands that the only time we've seen him chocking someone with his right hand instead of the metal arm remains the Maria Stark assasination. I know it's probably because of blocking and the way the shot was composed but the implications are still bone chilling. God.
Uhhmmmm I'm very ambivalent about the "Hail Hydra". On one hand, it was 100% fanservice and the internet is probably going to go insane over it, and the dead way Sebastian Stan delivered the line. Good shit. Buuut what I love about CATWS is the way Bucky never, ever ever, mouths Hydra rethoric, and even when Pierce tries to gaslight him with it, it's just an empty effort. The Winter Soldier isn't doing anything because of ideological loyalty to Hydra, even if it's product of brainwashing, it's just sheer dehumanization. They don’t need him to say the words because he’s just An Asset. There are people who have put it more eloquently but yeah, I rather go with the fanon interpretation of that aspect.
The music growing louder with the shot of the keys. GOD.
I'm fine this is fine.
#2 cry with the therapy scene of fucking course.
The government monitoring Bucky is noooot going to end well lmao.
"We need to know that you're not gonna * slowmo stabbing motions *
Bucky: * nodding along slowly * 
I laughed out loud.
"It's passive agressive" I love him.
The way this scene just sucker punched me in the face, made me weep and then had me cracking up. Amazing.
Therapist: You can't do anything illegal
Bucky: yup yup check checkity check. What IS considered illegal tho?
*aggresive tablet finger pressing *
"Then why isn't it rule number one?" Bucky your Steve is showing.
I love the close up shot. I'll keep saying it. It's so good.
"I'm James Bucky Barnes" yeah you are🥺
That smile is nightmare fuel LMFAO I love it.
Uhm the way I'm kinning Bucky it's not funny anymore damn
That whole “are you lashing out at me” rambling is really reminiscent of the bar scene in CATFA and how he lashed out at Steve after Peggy left. Uhm yeah fuck.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" "Peace"
"That is UTTER BULLSHIT" "You're a terrible shrink"
yeah ugly crying to ugly laughing speedrun for me
"You're free" "To do what?" jesus. That entire scene. #3 and #4 and #5 cries for moi.
Ugh that Brooklyn shot. Someone needs to do a gifset compairing it to the one in CATFA asap.
"It's like Monique but it's got a "U" in there for uniqueness" "That's absurd" LMAO
"You can't keep fighting with your neighbors" uHM * redacted redacted i'm shifting into 1940s mode abort abort *
"Nobody passed 90" "So young. Such a shame" FGADHGA
🥺🥺 yes flex those flirting skills good for you
"It's a dance to this things. You can't… you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943. Feels like." #6 cry I completely broke down into tears with that.
This Yori storyline is going to punch me in the face with a metal fist. Great!
The TWS theme when he looks at Yori fuuuuuck.
GREAT LET'S GO TO LOUISIANA THAT WAS GETTING HEAVY.
Those shots of Sam in the car. Immaculate. Showstoping. Yes.
Marvel, what if instead of promoting the military industrial complex you put a lot of publicity about cars?
"Uncle Sam!" LMAO subtle.
Everyone trying to have the wings lmao same.
I've only had Sarah for a day but etc. Brooklyn 99 meme
Good mirroring about Steve and Sam family's legacy. Good shit. Goooood shit.
Sam is trying so hard ouch my heart. I can't imagine how painful the scene with them reuniting must have been. He 100% still feels a lot of guilt about being gone for those 5 years (and even longer before that).
"Maybe it is time for us to move on" uuuuuuuuuuh
"To the rescue" "Always" 🥺🥺 i love them so much already
That shot outside the restaurant is so beautiful. Can't wait to see the night scenes in Madripoor tbh.
"I tried the whole online dating thing. It's pretty crazy". Uhm well that is something that Bucky Barnes has now said. In canon. Damn.
"It's a lot" "You sound like my dad" LMAO
Every Bucky fanfic trope speedrun with this scene
"Wow you really can drink" OH you have no idea
Just realized we don't even know her name, well.
"You have any siblings?" "I have a sister" THE WAY I SCREECHED. We're definitely getting Becca
Well that escalated quickly. The important thing is to try?
I can't deal with this BUCKY SWEETIE #8 cry right there fuck
The wardrobe department is KILLING IT, there's such a difference between the outfits of the shows vs how ugly and generic it usually is.
"ThEre is NO such thiNg as on time. You're either EARLY or LATE . picK One" lmao the way he delivered that line
At first I thought the flag smashers had thrown two cars out of a window LMAO
"I don't know how jurisdiction works here, but I'mma have to place you under arrest" uhm yikes. The way they changed Joaquín Torres backstory to just random army nice guy #1 is not sitting well with me, what can I say.
Sam's wings motions I LOVE HIM YOUR HONOR
Fuuuuck this guy.
"Funny how thing's always thighten around us" "Look, I'm on your side. After all, he's a hero". This script is C R I S P as hell, great fucking job.
"I don't care, I'm not gonna quit" "What are you trying to prove? And who you trying to prove it to" SHIT HSIT SHIT!!! UGH amazing. Look it's not necessary to say the show's questions out loud but how they flow between the conversations is still very satisfactory without feeling in your face about it. Inner conflicts have been set up fucking perfectly everyone * claps *
Ugh here we fucking go.  I knew this was how the episode was going to end but my stomach still dropped like a rollercoster. God.
The score is on point. Damn. Damn.
God, Sam.🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
The captain america franchise's visuals in the credits are always so amazing.
Also, does anybody know why Mackie isn't first in the billing?  Uhm what's that about?
ANYWAY CONCLUSION THAT EPISODE WAS SO FUCKING GOOD LIKE HOLY SHIT. I love them so much. The balance between the personal conflicts and the political aspect (although the military aspect is still very much yikes) was on point and it was overall a joy to watch.
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thanksjro · 3 years
Text
Dark Cybertron Chapter 7: Simon Furman and His Lack of a Relationship with the Singular They
The Lost Light is still being attacked by Ammonites, like it has been for the last few issues. Hound’s taken over as acting field commander and is calling all the shots. Chromedome uses his stupid beefy arms to punch things. Trailcutter is screaming. Swerve’s got his My First Blaster™ strapped to the top of his alt, and saves Crosscut.
Crosscut is our toy tie-in character for this issue. He’s a senator, and drafts play scripts. Arguably one of the more interesting tie-in guys, at least in theory. In practice, all he’s doing is forgetting Swerve’s name, which isn’t going to help the guy with his through-the-floor self esteem.
Crosscut points out that Swerve’s communicator is flashing, and while he’s checking his voicemail, all the Ammonites seemingly vanish… at least, until the gang realizes that they’re instead heading for Metroplex.
Inside, it would appear that the Rod Pod Squad aren’t actually dead, though their ride is probably toast. Before everything went to hell, a wall slammed down from the ceiling, protecting everyone from being utterly destroyed. Skids has figured out what all the arrow graffiti is about, earning himself a BOMP from Getaway. Looks like the internal structure of Metroplex has been shifting, and that’s why they got the runaround last issue. Also, Whirl’s gone missing, but we don’t have time to worry about that, because Swerve just called back with some bad news: the admium flakes they saw earlier mean that Metroplex has an alchemical virus.
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Don’t you look at me like that, I’m getting to the explanation.
Alchemical viruses turn the metal of the body into admium, a rare, incredibly soft metal that will break down very easily and also kill you. It’s pretty bad to have. Also, contagious. Fellas better get outta there, posthaste.
The Ammonites are also storming Metroplex, so that’s an additional issue. God, it just never stops, does it?
Over in the Dead Universe-
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Is
Is that a fortress of evil in the shape of Nova Prime’s head?
Is that a goddamned fortress-
Anyway, the center of Nova Prime’s universe is Kup, who was the guy who got oh-so-dramatically revealed at the end of the last issue. Unfortunately, Orion Pax also considers Kup to be very near and dear to his heart, and the whole “being turned into a space bridge” thing is going to be an issue.
This is the weirdest love triangle I’ve ever seen.
How the hell did Kup even get here? Well, in order to know that, you’ve have to had read Infestation, the bullshit zombie crossover comic miniseries that ran in 2011.
But I’m not going to do that.
Because I don’t want to.
After a bit of showboating, Nova Prime orders Nightbeat to take Team -Imus to their cell.
Over on Cybertron, Shockwave is getting real sick of Galvatron’s shit, but Galvatron is too busy posing dramatically to notice. Waspinator, Metalhawk, and Dreadwing float in the air. I’m not sure what they’re up to, but I’m sure it’s important. Jhiaxus shows up with a gaggle of goons, one of which seems to have forgotten his face in the jar by the door.
Galvatron gets shamed for tearing Megatron in half, since that sort of broke the space bridge in his torso, but he’s too busy being classist to care. Waspinator floats in the background. What are you doing back there, pal?
Shockwave orders Waspinator to carry Megatron to his quarters, but Galvatron’s decided that he’s going to be an asshole about everything today, even when he’s being helpful.
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…Okay, Boomer.
Waspinator still ends up hauling Megatron’s ass away, and Shockwave and Jhiaxus have a little chat.
Back in the dead universe, Team -Imus are in their cell, as Nightbeat double-checks the locks or some shit, I dunno. They’re gonna get their sparks ripped out later in the day, so that the space bridge Kup’s got running in his torso finally has enough juice to actually friggin’ work.
Then Rodimus flashes his mystery hand at Nightbeat and makes him fall down. In order for the whole brainwashing thing to work, Nightbeat’s true nature had to be suppressed; however, whenever Rodimus shows off his mystery hand, it makes his brain kickstart back on, messing up the brainwashing.
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Well, you know what, Cyclonus? That’s not my fucking fault. Blame Roberts and Barber. I certainly do.
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ORION PLEASE.
We finally get a look at what Rodimus’ hand mystery is, and if you read Eugenesis, you might know where this is going. It would seem Nightbeat has not- which is for the best, really, given what happens to him in it- but he’s still a pretty smart cookie and can suss it out through the power of deductive reasoning. Here’s what he’s working with:
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After a moment’s deliberation, he asks Rodimus, who he knows to be the captain of a ship, how many folks are riding around in the space yacht. Rodimus tells him 190, and shows off that he’s got his lipgloss on, and it would seem that Nightbeat’s a free man again. He lets everyone out of the cell, and they gear up to go pick up Kup. Orion Pax is confused as to what the hell just happened here, and Rodimus promises to explain why he’s carved a division problem into his palm once they aren’t in immediate danger.
Back on Cybertron, Galvatron and Waspinator are dragging Megatron’s halves towards Shockwave’s quarters, when Bumblebee pops out of nowhere with a gun and a mouth full of swears. He’s here for Megatron, and he’s not taking “no” for an answer. Galvatron thinks that this is super fucking funny, and tosses Megatron like an empty soda can into the wall so he can squash a bug.
It looks pretty grim for ol’ Bumblebee, but suddenly Galvatron realizes he left the oven on that Megatron’s gone missing.
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Oh, there he is!
Megatron blasts Galvatron in the torso, then- in a surprisingly polite manner, at least for him- tells Bumblebee to grab his legs so they can get out of here. As the two of them traverse the burned-out husk that is Cybertron, Megatron decides to be a complete bastard, as he smiles at the idea of Starscream suffering. Like, dude, I know he kept you in weird hamster ball jail and spouted soliloquies in your general direction every single day you were there, but folks are dying right now.
Speaking of Starscream, he’s having a moment, as he sits on his knees and stares at the sky in abject horror while the world burns around him. Scoop comes by to yell at him for being a harbinger of death, and generally being a less than stellar leader, and Starscream halfway calls himself a dumpster fire.
Back inside Metroplex, the Rod Pod Squad are fortifying their defenses against the Ammonites, even though they really need to be getting the hell out of there before they get turned into talcum powder through the power of alchemy. Whirl shows back up, the Ammonite hanger-on in his grasp, and we get the skinny on why the hell the Ammonites are involved with this whole debacle anyway.
The answer is Shockwave.
The answer is always Shockwave.
Then the little dude explodes. It’s fine, they do that sometimes.
Before he went kablooey, little dude uttered the phrase, “if the dead are not enough.” We’ll get to what all that’s about later. Right now there are far more important things going on.
LIKE MOTHERFUCKING LADY ROBOTS.
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But why is this such a big deal? Why is it that non-male coded robots who aren’t Arcee haven’t been seen up until this point? What’s up with that, huh?
Well, in order to understand IDW’s complicated relationship with gender, we’re going to have to do some digging into the history of Transformers as a franchise.
We’re going to have to talk about Simon Furman.
We're going to have to talk about Prime's Rib.
And we’re going to have to talk about Spotlight: Arcee.
Simon Furman wrote a lot of Transformers. You cannot get away from Simon Furman, because the man is so ingrained in the franchise. He was there for Marvel UK, he was there for the back half of Marvel US, he wrote for several other publication runs of Transformers, he worked on the Earth Wars mobile game-
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-and, of course, IDW publishing.
Because Furman is so very well established and known in the industry, he gets the benefit of not being questioned on a lot of the calls he makes.
Which is a problem, because the man is a massive misogynist.
In 1989, Marvel UK #234 came out, containing the story entitled “Prime’s Rib!” in which the Autobots built Arcee in order to appease a group of strawmen feminists. Of course, one female Transformer isn’t enough for them, and they yell at poor Optimus Prime for trying his best. This is the point where Hot Rod is used as a writer avatar to try to smooth things over with the reader, because you see, the Transformers don’t even know what sexual dimorphism and gender identity even is, so of course they wouldn’t have female members of their race! Jazz is used for a breast joke. Arcee acts like a massive, stereotypical bitch the whole time, despite not having been written like that at all in the other issues. It’s a bad comic with hideous ideology leaking out of it, and I'm halfway sorry I read it, so I’ll just give you the essence of this nightmare.
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Oh, those big, mean, scary feminists are bullying the robots for living their lives, huh Furman? Life is just so goddamned unfair when a woman exists in your fucking line of sight.
Furman has gone on record saying that he doesn’t see the point in including the concept of gender in a race of non-sexually reproducing robots. He sees them as “genderless.” Which, if that statement existed in a vacuum, I could perhaps see where he’s coming from.
But Simon Furman does not exist in a vacuum. He exists in a world where sexism exists, something that he’s willingly participated in.
Let me back up that little tidbit with a bit of a disclaimer: I’m not in any way an expert on gender. I didn’t study it in school, I’ve not read an obscene amount of pieces on the topic. I’m not even sure about it on a personal level.
Maybe some of y’all have noticed the whole other set of pronouns I slapped into the bio in the last month or so. It doesn’t really matter, 90% of people don’t read the FAQ/About, I know that, and then 95% of those people only read it once, and this has been a relatively new self-revelation.
BUT ANYWAY.
Let’s be… fair about this. 1989 was a while ago, a lot of research on the concept of gender has taken place, maybe he’s ch-
Oh, what’s that?
Misogyny?
Transphobia?
Transmisogyny?
Treating women as an aberration being forced on Transformers as a whole?
And the writing is clunky and overstuffed?
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Well, that’s just fucking fantastic, Furman, thanks so much.
This was in 2008. Because Furman established that female Transformers weren’t something natural, but rather made, and forcibly at that, and nobody fucking smacked his little hands away from this terrible idea, AND nobody tried to fix it for years, there was a lack of gender diversity within IDW until 2014, with the release of Dark Cybertron Chapter 7. Because we waited six years to fix this nightmare, things couldn’t be done quite the way that Roberts had been hoping, in that he intended for our female robots to not have the whole… fembot build happening. IDW wanted them immediately clockable, because this was very clearly a problem that needed rectifying.
So, in short: because of boys’ club mentality and a lack of understanding of what gender means or why it’s important for roughly 50% of the world’s population to have representation in media, Nautica and Chromia are here now.
And despite the convoluted road they had to take, I love them very much.
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spaceskam · 4 years
Note
92 or 98 for malex? 💗💗💗
92. “I want you to be happy.” & 98. “Take a deep breath.”
ao3
For a king who had been hailed as a genius, Alex found that Michael was a goddamn idiot.
“What is wrong with you?” Alex breathed, tears already covering his face as he stared at the man he loved more than anything. It was late and the rest of the castle was asleep aside from a few guards, leaving them stuck with speaking quietly over candlelight.
Alex Manes had been found as a toddler, abandoned and hungry with an infection on his leg. The queen at the time had taken pity on him and brought him home, letting a doctor do what he needed so he could learn to walk again. With a specially crafted leg funded by the royal family, Queen Nora gave him to her staff as sort of a side project. He grew up inside the castle as the son of 20 different women who doted on him like their own and 20 different men who thought it was their duty to teach him to be a man. It made him skilled in a vast number of trades as the king and queen watched. 
By the time he was 10, they realized how intelligent and capable he was and began letting other, higher staff members teach him things like how to read and write. He was 15 when he was granted tutoring sessions alongside Prince Michael where they became close friends, but things didn’t start becoming complicated until they were 16.
King Heinar died, leaving the throne to Michael who was panicked and sad, but he took on the duty. Alex took it upon himself to help him to the best of his ability, but they soon found that their attraction ran deeper than simply friendship. They talked through royal plans while naked in bed most nights, sharing thoughts and ideas and it never bothered Alex when Michael passed them off as his own.
At 17, Queen Nora suggested that, for appearances' sake, it would be best if Alex officially became a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. It would explain why they were so close without stirring the wrong kind of gossip. There had already been publications of drawings with Michael as a giant baby with Alex spoon-feeding him political ideologies. People were already assuming, so he agreed.
Alex’s duties for the last five years as Gentleman of the Bedchamber was to be Michael’s closest companion, to help him dress, to wait on him when he ate, to guard his chambers when he was most vulnerable. He quite typically did none of that. His sword and prosthetic leg usually laid beside them on the bed for easy access, but no guarding or servent-esque duties took place. Alone, they were equals. That was their rule.
Which worked quite fine until Michael had to begin courting a young princess. He needed heirs after all and that was something Alex couldn’t provide. It made it harder to steal time alone with him, harder to show affection, harder to stop his heart from aching in a way he couldn’t heal. Because as of tomorrow, Michael would be married and he would need to begin working to provide heirs. Loyalty was no longer an option.
“What is wrong with you?” Alex repeated, feeling disgusted not for the first time as he stared at Michael. He looked sad and lost like he did most days lately. “How dare you ask that of me? I know you are a king, but I am not your plaything. I never have been and I refuse to let you treat me as if I am.”
“That’s not what I meant!” Michael insisted, struggling to keep his voice down, “I just need you there, beside me, to give me strength.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Alex scoffed, “What we have is ending tomorrow morning for good and you want me to stand beside you as it happens? You want me to stand in front of everyone as you rip my heart out of my chest?”
Michael stared at him, bottom lip quivering as he let his tears flow freely. Alex assumed he didn’t have any control over them. He gasped a desperate little breath and wiped at his face, but Alex didn’t back down from staring. He knew he had no right to be angry, he knew what he was getting into when he first laid with a king, but, God, he was.
“It’s normal for kings to have mistresses,” Michael said weakly, the same argument he brought up every single time they’d spoke about this since it came apparent that he would need to get married, “It’s normal. We can still be together. I don’t love her, it’s pure politics. I’m sure she’ll have her fair share of men as well.” 
“You don’t understand,” Alex said, shaking his head, “You simply don’t understand. Mistresses are normal because you have power. This is all power. The fact that I am forced to have a title simply to be close to you is all power. And I don’t want a love that has any sort of fucked up imbalance in it any more than I’ve already accepted. I refuse to be some sort of mistress. You either have only me or you don’t have me at all. That’s how it’s been for years and that’s the only way I’ll take you.”
“Alex,” Michael begged, coming closer. Alex took a step back. “Alex, this isn’t an option for me. I have to produce heirs.”
“I know,” Alex said, sniffling as he wiped his eyes, “Which is why I can’t stand beside you at your wedding. I’ll attend, I have to, and I’ll take up duties as the Gentleman of the Bedchamber, but I no longer can be anything more. I can’t take it.”
“Fine!” Michael said, falling to his knees and taking Alex’s hand to place over his heart, “Fine! I won’t touch her! I’ll marry her for appearances and I’ll only touch you. Fuck heirs, fuck it all, nothing matters without you.”
“And what if people find out that your marriage hasn’t been consumated? What happens when she asks you won’t touch her? And what happens when she is publically and ritualistically shamed by your people for not producing heirs? She doesn’t deserve that either,” Alex said, “The only way is to stop. You marry her, you learn to love her, you have children with her.”
“I don’t want that! I want you!”
“Michael,” Alex said, resting his hand on his wet cheek. His face was a wreck from crying and Alex assumed he couldn’t look much different. Still, he looked in his eyes and told him the truth. “I want you to be happy. For that to happen, you need to let go.”
“No,” Michael said, shaking his head, “I can’t be happy without you.”
He dropped his head forward, resting on Alex’s stomach as he wrapped his arms around him. He didn’t seem to have many intentions to let go. It was times like these that Alex realized that, although they’d grown up at the same time under the same roof, they were taught many different things. For example, Alex was taught that all good things come to an end eventually. Like when Sir Aubrey, the only other man he’d met with an artificial leg, died the night he told Alex he had a surprise trick to teach him at his next sword lesson. Years later, Alex still wondered what it was.
And, years from now, he’d wonder what it would be like to have had Michael to himself for eternity.
“I’m going to sabotage my own wedding,” Michael said into his stomach. Alex huffed a humorless laugh, losing a bit of inhibition as he dropped his crutch and combed through Michael’s hair for the last time. Michael held him upright easily. “I-I’ll insult the priest. I’ll forget what I’m meant to say. I’ll trip and need a doctor.”
“Your new wife doesn’t deserve that. Give her a nice day,” Alex insisted. Michael squeezed him.
“Stop it, you’re too kind. If you must push me away like this, you’ll have to make me hate you,” Michael stated firmly. Alex laughed softly, closing his eyes as he slowly started to get to his knees. Michael helped him, eyes still full of sadness as they found themselves face to face. Alex wanted to kiss him, to grab him and run away, to go somewhere that they could be together without consequence.
But Michael was a good leader, the best they’d had in years, and Alex played a crucial role in making that happen. Neither of them could leave for the sake of their country.
“I’ll make you hate me,” Alex promised, taking his face in his hands, “Just you wait.”
“Good luck,” Michael said, chin raised and jaw set in determination despite his wet eyes, “Nothing you could do would make me hate you. I lo-”
“Shh,” Alex said, shaking his head as he put his thumb to those lips that he’d kissed daily since he was 16 years old, “Take a few deep breaths. You need to calm down before you go back to your room.”
Michael shook his head. 
“I’m not leaving until I figure out a way around this,” Michael stated, “We think best together, we always have. If anyone could come up with a way to make this work for everyone, it’s us.”
Alex’s shoulders dropped as well as his hands, scared to touch Michael when he was speaking that way. It was too easy to fall into habits he hadn’t had the chance to break quite yet when he did. He still wanted to touch him, still wanted to find a solution, and it made it harder to stand his ground when Michael wanted to do the same.
“Michael, we’ve already tried. We’ve been trying,” Alex said weakly. Michael looked at him for what felt like an eternity and Alex stared back. It was easy to get lost in his face again and just think about what could’ve been.
But then Michael’s eyes widened.
“We haven’t tried one thing,” Michael said. Alex, refusing to get his hopes up, eyed him suspiciously. “We haven’t tried talking to her.”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked hesitantly.
“I mean,” Michael said, already moving to get to his feet. He grabbed Alex’s crutch on the way before holding out his hand to pull Alex up as well. “We need to talk to my soon-to-be wife. Maybe she has someone I don’t know about that she had to give up for me. Or maybe we can have her fake a pregnancy and adopt. There are other options, but if she’s going to be my wife, she’ll need to be included. And I want to keep you, so we need to ask her. Come on.”
“Come on? Michael, it’s the middle of the night,” Alex said, though his heart was beating in his chest. He knew telling this woman would be a very risky thing and she could easily confirm the suspicions of people, but she was their only option. 
“Yes, and our wedding is in the morning. We’re low on time,” Michael said, pulling him just a little bit closer, “I refuse to lose you, Alexander. You are a gift from God himself and I don’t intend to give you back.”
Michael kissed him to seal his promise and Alex was couldn’t say no. This was their last chance to have a future and if that meant doing something reckless, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much to stand beside him as he married someone else if he knew he was still all his.
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swamp-world · 3 years
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God you know i actually fucking hate internet leftists??? like. jesus christ. get your head out of your “““theory”““ and step out of the fucking echo chamber for a minute. i get that liberals “aid fascism”, and i don’t put that in air quotes because i think it’s false, but because you need to do more than just SAY that. for the LOVE OF GOD PLEASE try interacting with people outside of your own political fucking bubbles. you are NOT going to “overthrow the government and replace it with unionism and a truly democratic system”, you are NOT going to “replace your boss with a coop workplace”--all of which are excellent ideas--if you just sit around going “LIBERALS ARE TERRIBLE”. like, holy FUCK, stop blaming people for being optimistic. no, I also don’t think that capitalism can be reformed, but you don’t fucking LEARN that overnight, you don’t just go from being a fascist bootlicker to being a tankie in the span of 24 hours and a single conversation, it takes TIME and building GENUINE POSITIVE FUCKING CONNECTIONS WITH PEOPLE. no, i’m not telling Black people or queer people or POC or disabled people to go out and debate their own humanity. you do not have to do that. i’m saying that you need to stop taking ““liberals”“ who are genuinely well-meaning and well-intentioned but simply do not have the experience and knowledge that you have, and YELL at them and talk about “hope they learned their lesson” and all of those “woman who voted for face-eating leopard party surprised when leopards eat her face” things because like. fuck. people are human and believe things, im SO sorry that you don’t realize that. were you birthed into this world holding Das Kapital? did you just fucking, pop out of the womb, and your first words were “workers of the world unite”? or did it take you years, possibly decades, to grasp even the basic concepts of this?? let alone actually dive into “the theory” and connect to communities that put that into practice?
stop telling liberals to “go read theory” because that’s useless. you’re not helping people. you’re telling strangers, new to the scene, to dive headfirst into what is genuinely dense political, economic, and philosophical work. i do that full time and it’s fucking draining, bro!! i wouldn’t know where to start if someone said “go read theory”, the only reason i had any idea was legitimately because a professor handed me a book that got me into modern center-left politics, and then a friend lent me Kropotkin, and then I hit the stacks and walked into the library and picked up a book called On Anarchism because it was the first book that I saw that was relevant. theory!! is!! exhausting!!! it’s hard to understand!! and if your first reaction is to go “haha liberal they got what they deserved” when they inevitably get fucked over by the people they believed in? if your first response to someone genuinely trying to get more information, genuinely reaching out and trying to learn? asking questions? is to say “go read theory”? your political position isn’t based on genuinely caring about people, it’s about superiority. you think that you’re SUCH a good person, that you’re SO MUCH BETTER than “those fucking liberal cucks” because you rEaD tHe ThEoRy when you turned 18. if your response is “they got fucked over, hope they learned their lesson” in a condescending way? yes, i understand that harm has been done. but for the love of fucking god, show some compassion. i don’t know what brand of leftist I am. i don’t sit down at my desk staring at seven different ideological streams of philosophy and communism or anarchism. i want people to have food. i want people to have healthcare and childcare. i don’t think people should have to work their asses off just to live and have a roof over their head or not freeze in winter. i think that we can’t trust the government in its current form, and that capitalism is bad, and that workers are exploited by their bosses, and that worker-owned cooperatives or housing cooperatives are great ideas. beyond that, I don’t know. because quite frankly, I don’t consider it my job to know.
listen to me--it’s not my job to have the answers to “what will we do when the glorious revolution comes about?”. What IS my job, is to talk to people. to listen to people. to reach out and help them. my job is to also learn from people, because i am not perfect. LEFTISTS: YOU ARE NOT PERFECT. if you go around thinking that you just need to convince everyone to “the way”, then you are not interested in learning from the people around you, you are interested in converting people without having to challenge your own beliefs, or without having to consider that ACTUALLY most of the world doesn’t understand the concepts of “alienated labour” and like, genuinely, how many people do you actually think understand in a way that can be applied terms like “proletariat”? of COURSE people are freaked out by leftists. of course when you say “Defund the police” white moderates get scared. i agree with MLK--that the white moderate is the biggest threat to justice and equality. but what are you going to do about it? a tyrrany of the (leftist) minority? eliminate the moderates? or are you going to actually reach out a hand and try to help?
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localkatshelter · 3 years
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Okame’s Underbelly: Anticipation |1st|
(Shinso x OC)
Katsumi's POV (localvillageidiot#0870) and Shinso's POV (hecker#8339)
Summary:
 Two people with a common passion meet unexpectedly during one of Shinso's lowest moments. He'd like to forget it ever happened but Katsumi has her own reasons for not letting it go. Through push and pull, they struggle to understand one another, regardless they can't keep away from each other.
Preview: 
| How long have I been staring at myself in the fucking mirror? My eyes look so dead...but don’t they always. I realized the extra lifelessness wasn’t due to my overall apathy or shitty eyeliner; it was due to them being red and puffy. That’s no good. I hurriedly searched through the cabinet for my eye drops. They were usually used for another purpose, but today, they’ll be used to disguise the fact that I had been crying. |
(Katsumi's POV)
My head fell forward for the millionth time as I struggled to stay awake for the last five minutes of my summer remedial science lab. Why does science have to be so boring? This fucking professor always lectures for the full three hours too. How could someone possibly have this much to say about chlorophyll? All I could do was watch the clock tick by until, finally, the class was dismissed. I gathered my things as quickly as possible and headed towards my dorm building. Throwing my things onto the kitchen table, I immediately started to strip and headed towards the bathroom. The silver lining in having to come to campus in the summer for my remedial class? Getting to move in early and having the whole suite to myself. I showered quickly and put on my typical Friday night attire: some broken-in mom jeans that I embroidered and had a friend paint on paired with a comfortable faded band t-shirt I had stolen from a partner I had long forgotten the name of, tucked and held in place with some old belt I fished out of a Good Will bin a few years ago. I hummed as I put on some clear lipgloss and touched up my hair. Perfect. I made sure to set out some dinner for my fat cat who was hiding somewhere in my bedroom, likely in my sheets. For a supposed emotional support animal, I never saw much of her unless she was in the mood to cuddle, which was usually at night.
“Harley, I’m going out. I’ll be back.” I called out.
She meowed from the bed in response. I grabbed my things from the table and tossed them into my bedroom before popping my headphones in and heading out the door. I was on my way to the only place that made my summer Fridays bearable: The Squeaky Wheelhouse.
After a short while, I walked up to a dark and disheveled, yet oddly charming, building. This was my hidden gem, the highlight of my college career, a place where artists gathered to share their work and critique the world around them without fear. Friday nights were open mic nights for spoken word poetry, which I didn’t think I would like until I heard Okame perform. Their words about the plights of the world of heroism and comic book celebrities brought to life really resonated with me. Most of their pieces were critiques on how heroes navigate their jobs and how they are treated by the government, the people, and each other. I admired the way they captured the duality of appreciating heroes for what they are while also not feeling a need to bow to them as if they were gods. It felt so real to me, especially because around the same time I first heard their work, I had started my photojournalism blog on a similar topic. It was really just a love project at first. I would take pictures of heroes in the heat of battle and use them to show how human they really are. Honestly, I'm not even sure if it was me or my quirk that had the idea first. My hyperempathology quirk sometimes had a mind of its own. It was always dragging me into situations that I had no business being in. I always ended up manipulating someone's emotions to make them feel better, which had positive and negative results. On the one hand, I was glad that I could make someone feel better. On the other hand, it made me feel like shit because not only did I manipulate someone’s emotions without permission; I also absorbed the negative emotions I had alleviated. In a strange sense, the blog was my own way of alleviating myself of what I had alleviated. I had never expected it to take off either, but there I was, a month later, still taking pictures of heroes in their most desperate and vulnerable state in an effort to humanize them. I kept at it because, well, they are people after all. They aren’t gods, they have emotions, but the way the media and the government build a hero’s image doesn’t allow for much expression. It’s unfair to them; it's as if they aren't allowed to be people anymore. I had always thought I was alone in that, but apparently, I’m not. My blog has a pretty decent following now, which I am super proud of. Although I’m pretty sure that a lot of people in the hero community despise or at least dislike me for basically being renegade paparazzi.
Oh well. No one knows it’s me who runs the blog. The closest anyone has ever gotten was when someone traced my IP address back to the college campus, but Kyoto University has upwards of 22,000 students enrolled. There’s no way someone would be able to find me out as long as I don’t use my personal electronics to post. Okame had also become a popular performer at the Wheelhouse and had a sort of residency time slot on Friday nights. It was weird, but I was proud of them too. I felt like we were similar, almost connected by our mutual views and creative outlets. On top of that, they used a pseudonym and a ghost performer just like I used a pen name and hid my IP address for my work. All of the aligning characteristics made me think we would get along if we ever met, but that’ll probably never happen.
I walked into the building, waving to the Friday night staff that I had gotten to know over the summer. I took a seat on a comfortable looking armchair near the back corner of the main room that had a decent view of the small performance stage. I opened up a book that I brought with me to read until the performances started. I ordered a large mint tea and settled in, anticipating Okame’s latest insight.
(Shinso's POV)
I had bitten my lips raw at this point. There’s no way it’s actually over. We’ve broken up so many times before, and we’ve always managed to hash it out. But this time felt different. She wasn’t returning my texts with curt responses. She wasn’t posting about me subliminally on her social media to piss me off. She didn’t show up at my house with the gifts I had given her and dramatically throw them at me. No angry voicemails. No tears. No nothing. The strangest part was that her last text wished me well, even though I ended it this time around. All of it almost felt like a real goodbye. But still, there’s no way.
I had to talk to her tonight to make sure. Throughout our whole relationship, despite our arguing, we never missed a Friday at The Squeaky Wheelhouse. That was our way to ease the stress from the strife of the week prior. No matter how mad we were, we would still begrudgingly sit together and enjoy the show. By the end of the night, we would always manage to soften towards each other once again. Even if my piece of the week was bitterly aimed at her, she still respected me enough to put my voice out there and perform it for me. That’s what I loved about her. She knew attention made me squeamish and vulnerability was definitely not my favorite pastime. I shared the document that contained today's piece with her. It was an apology. She could barely squeeze those out of me normally, so she had to know I was deadly serious this time around. I tried not to envision her reaction or dwell on whether or not she would even accept my apology because it made me so anxious that I wanted to jump out of my skin.
How long have I been staring at myself in the fucking mirror? My eyes look so dead...but don’t they always. I realized the extra lifelessness wasn’t due to my overall apathy or shitty eyeliner; it was due to them being red and puffy. That’s no good. I hurriedly searched through the cabinet for my eyedrops. They were usually used for another purpose, but today, they’ll be used to disguise the fact that I had been crying. Save those tears for later, Shinso. She’s seen me cry even less than she’s heard me apologize. Numbness was the best blanket I’ve ever had. But tonight, I’ll avoid covering myself up. I need to show her that I care because I’m known to fucking suck at it. After I applied the drops, I roughly ran my fingers through my torturously messy violet mane, exhaling heavily. I tried to dress up a little this Friday. I know it’s trivial, but I want to be my best for her tonight. My outfit was made up of my typical dark colors, but I dressed it up with a black jean jacket, chelsea boots, and a few bulky rings that she gifted me but were too cumbersome to actually wear. What makes them even more annoying is that I’ve been fiddling with them all evening to distract myself, and let me tell you, it’s not working. I have another hour until I have to leave; I need a better distraction.
I plopped myself down on my bed with my laptop and clicked on my “The Underbelly'' bookmark. I always loved the irony of this blog served as an escape but also as a merciless glimpse into reality for me. My leg bounced as the page loaded—no new posts. Shit...well, it has only been a couple of days. I thoroughly looked forward to the new content because the author and I are eerily like-minded as far as hero ideology. Sometimes I felt as if I wrote a few of the entries myself. They’re the only person that I felt connected to on a philosophical level, and finally having that was comforting, to say the least. It was a bit taboo to criticize heroes so harshly because it was easy to be labeled as ungrateful. I’ve personally always felt like a great way to show appreciation is to continuously try to improve a system that everyone relies on. I guess people just don’t like to make sense. Hero work is honestly one of the few things I actually cared about, and to see people be so dismissive really pissed me off. Then again, people don’t really know I feel this way. I try not to let people get into my head too much. That’s why I created my Okame persona. I wanted to get my views out there without making it about myself at all. I felt it didn’t really hold true to the purpose of my message, with the whole not making hero’s these god-like figureheads simply for doing what’s right. That and...I hate when people look at me for more than a few seconds. My searing glare usually fixed that right quick. Quickly getting over the minor disappointment, I closed my laptop. Well, I didn’t have another alternative distraction, so I decided to say fuck it and head to the kitchen for some liquid courage.
I downed about two shots of rum. I was taking the bus there anyway, so it’s not like it mattered. I checked my watch, 30 more minutes. I wracked my brain for something to alleviate the unbearable anticipation as I blankly stared at the bottle of rum. Oh! I could pick up her favorite soju. It’s super strong, so we usually reserve it for a day where we don’t plan to do shit else but enjoy each other's company. But I feel like if we’re gonna hash all the bullshit out, we might need to be generously buzzed. Liquor store it is. I adjusted my collar before I headed out the door.
I decided on four bottles of the grapefruit soju because she really likes tart flavors. She always made fun of me for liking the sweeter sojus, but I’ll let her think she has the better taste tonight. The drinks were hidden away in a plastic bag tucked under my feet. I tried to settle in my seat towards the back as I checked my watch again for the fifteenth time. It was now 5 minutes after the starting time. Guess both the show and my girlfriend(?) are running late. My hands automatically began scratching at the already chipped polish on my nails. She’s been uncharacteristically calm during this fight; I wonder if she’ll stay that way once she sees me.
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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years
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mtmte liveblog issue 9
back at it again, and its time for the shadowplay arc, HELL yeah
oh I'm so excited i love this arc lets DO this
oooh its nightbeat and quark!! way before they become relevant, which is so cool
‘one of those recepticon fanatics’ lmao imagine if they were...the recepticons. just doesn't have the same ring to it 
god i fucking love all the politics of mtmte. i love how they’re talking about the senate here before we really get to See how bad they were (we heard a bit about it from whirl a few issues ago, and now here)
love how nightbeat is pretty much agreeing with the decepticon ideology here, even if its clear that he isn't Actually a decepticon - it just drives home the fact that, in this story, The Decepticons Were Right About A Lot Of That Stuff (or at least, they had a reason other than ‘destruction’ for rebelling). 
AND THEN THERES RUNG!!!!!!! WITH HIS MODEL OF THE LOST LIGHT....god i fuckgin LOVE the continuity in this story bc the first time reading this ur like oh ok rung is old yea makes sense...but then later all the time travel stuff happens and then its like OHHHHH 
damn poor rung nightbeat can rlly tell he's lonely just by looking at him vbhjdkdfhbjsjkdf geez. also nightbeat that's ur mystery stick bf from the future js!!
quarks extreme POV on all of the stuff is so interesting, and makes so much sense bc of Course he would think that as a non-combatant scientist who, due to his functional value in current society, wouldn't really benefit much from a revolution - in fact, he’d probably lose a lot. and that’s the sort of thing where you’re like, ok well think about everyone else dude, have some perspective - but at the same time, quark did suffer a pretty terrible fate, so his fears weren't entirely unfounded...augh, its so fascinating...im sorry I'm not gonna shut up about space robot politics this Entire time
HOW did nobody notice that dead body before now
ratchet spray-painting the hands he stole from pharma to match his own paintjob is like...kinda gruesome if you think about it hvbhsjkdfbkjdf
i love rewind sooo much oh my god 
he rlly stashed rung’s comatose body in a wheelchair behind the bar hbkjdhfbshjkdf rewind 
rewind and chromedome’s tag-team explanation....ough hhhhh THEM 
wait a sec, rewind, you have medical records in your database? that is, at least according to regular medical laws, very illegal lmao. my favorite long-running theme in mtmte: the fact that hipaa and osha laws on cybertron are either basically nonexistent, or just universally disregarded 
what the actual fuck is up w/cybertronian time units. that shit is wack as hell 
ooh i love how chromedome looks different in the flashback - no shoulder tires! - that's a cool detail
how come prowl just said ‘minute,’ rewind was busting it up w/all the wack ass fantasy time units just a second ago. geez
also goddd i love the scenery of pre-war cybertron, its SUCH a cool setting like, visually and aesthetically and politically
like, i adore details like the sign in the bg that says ‘everyone’s shape serves a purpose.’ really adds to the ‘society on the precipice of civil war currently controlled by an increasingly-desperate faction who are doling out propaganda like crazy in an attempt to maintain their image and control over the populace’ vibe
good ole murder mystery setup. love it!
pre-war prowl is such an interesting character. actually prowl in general is such an interesting character...I kinda wrote him off during my first read of mtmte (and even a little during my second readthru) as just this dude who’s an asshole (espec bc my prev tf experience involved watching tfa as a kid, and this prowl is very different from tfa prowl lol)...but prowl is SUCH a multi-faceted and interesting character, even in the relatively little we see of him in mtmte 
plus it was interesting to learn later that prowl was one of the characters that jro wanted for mtmte and didn't get, and MAN i wish he got prowl bc I would've loved to see what jro would've done w/prowl on the lost light, that would've been amazing. like, just imagine the arc he would have...I have no idea what that arc would BE, but I know it would be awesome. plus I’d be really interested to see how prowl would factor in, relationships-wise, amongst the crew of the lost light. so much potential!
anyways. I'm in a very talky mood tonight it seems. its currently 4 am so that kinda explains it. ok, moving on!
chromedome and prowl bantering....in their own morbid forensic-cop way...
skids bvhjdbsfjasf. speaking what we’re all thinking: is prowl gonna keep showing up in mtmte despite not technically being part of the cast??
swerves drawing of prowl lmaoooo
AND THEN REWIND IN SOME OF MY FAVORITE MTMTE PANELS....fuckgin cracks me up every time god. rewind was rlly about to flip their entire ass table just to demonstrate that prowl is a serial table-flipper...and then he cant even make the table budge and he just stares at his hands like ‘how could you betray me like this’ hvbajkhhsfdhksdf PEAK hilarity
drift hvbshfdjbasdfj his forcibly cheery expression even tho he’s being harassed by rodimus, who is a big whiny toddler w/drift lmao 
rodimus is the type of guy who, upon drift not replying to one of his texts, would post a whole twitter thread being all like ‘these days u cant trust any1 to hav ur back...u think u kno someone and then they just ghost you...(1/14)’
again, rewind, HOW and WHY do you just Have medical reports, oh my god, somebody please call a hipaa agent I’m scared, 
ratchet interrupting the story to give a quick medical PSA....that's Such an on-brand thing for Me to do that I feel like jro is assigning me ratchet kin as I read this
also, hey, its sonic and boom, those two decepticons from delphi! nice little continuity there
AND HERES ORION PAX SUPER COP
can’t believe idw made my dad optimus prime into a cop. smh. shouldn't be that shocked tho, I feel like half the idw characters are cops
orion rlly hit them w/the omae wa mo shinderu arrest strat
orion: I cant believe you're beating this guy up. anyways, now I'm gonna beat YOU up,
when ratchet puts his hand over drifts mouth and then gets spray paint on drifts face bhjdfsvsdjhfgbjdskf
pre-war ratchet and drift ;_; ratchet’s little inspirational speech...the fact that he tells drift that he’s special...the fact that drift remembered all of this even after 4 million+ yrs...it gets me bro it GETS me
ALSO the layers in the fact that drift then goes on to become a well-known murderous decepticon...so this little scene of him and ratchet in the past gives a lot of context to ratchet’s general attitude towards drift - ratchet clearly feels at least somewhat responsible for all the blood on drift’s hands, since he saved drift’s life way back in the day
the whole relinquishment clinic thing is such cool worldbuilding, bc of course that's the kind of thing that would develop in a society of robot aliens who are only allowed to work within the rigid confines of their alt mode 
I love the whole matrix thing bc its kinda like being the pope or st but also you have a ton of political sway, so its a super important position, so of Course the corrupt senate would want full control over that power, and would assassinate the current prime to try to get their own guy in 
god vhbhjsdkbgshjdf rodimus is such a dick lmao poor drift
HHHHH I love that the cybertronian version of an autopsy is taking the dudes body apart into the smallest components and laying them all out. that's so fucking cool
hmmmm chromedome maybe you should Not be interested in mnemology, how about that,
oh god. time to start being sad about op and senator shockwave. oh god
senator shockwave more like senator sexy 
also the first time I read this I thought I had just missed his name and like halfway thru the story I went back and scoured the pages looking for it hbvhsjdfbshgfdsbj then I was like oh ok so we’re maybe supposed to just know who this guy is from another comic? but NOPE it was very deliberate and I only realized very close to the end that they were setting up some sort of reveal
its funny bc normally I'm not a huge fan of stories where politics play a huge role but I fuckgin love it here, the politics and worldbuilding is all so interesting and also balanced out with a healthy dose of cool sci-fi hijinks, so
lmao there's chromedome being obsessed w/people making the ‘pfft’ sound 
also wow yet more hindsight, maybe you Shouldn’t be so interested in the Institute, chromedome, 
OHHHH shit I forgot abt the red alert stuff happening at the same time as this :( :( :( 
AUGHHH what a fucked up situation. god 
oooof i gotta continue now!! what a solid issue, I love the shadowplay arc
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metvmorqhoses · 4 years
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Lis I adore your Sugar Baddie Type analysis! But TOM RIDDLE?!
ok two more anons asked this and you are all really right, this indeed needs some explanations.
to put tom among the “sugar baddies” trope is the consequence of my *more mature* personal opinion about his character, therefore it is for you to decide how right i might be in the end. i was also specifically referring to his dynamic with bellatrix, which never stops to fascinate me. but again, since none or very little of this is clearly mentioned in the books, which are sadly not specifically about him, all this will always be up to interpretations.
tom riddle (and then voldemort consequentially) is one of the most ruthless, fascinating villains ever created, pure in his evil as much as in his ideology, extremely selfish and wicked, so full of hatred, fear, ambition and, yes, desperation as well. so purely evil, in fact, that people too many times tend to oversimplify his character and more importantly his behaviors. to most, voldemort is too evil to do anything else but evil; too evil to be anything else but a full-time fairytale-like villain. we can hardly picture him enjoying a quidditch game, or a pie, or reading a book about anything else but horcruxes-making; we don’t even dare to try to picture him having sex, if not in a degrading way towards his victim, ehrm, partner. and this is all absolutely true, but i love to think there is also… more.
to really strike me, a villain must still possess the shreds, the deformities of what once their humanity was. it’s what i love about ancient mythologies - even gods have human-shaped hearts. but those hearts in their chests are redder, have twisted forms, pulse with more insistence - and they are so much heavier.
i like to think voldemort falls in this category, even if it’s not always easy to come to realize this when you first read the books. after all, as any real myth, and i say this with a bit of pride, there is little or nothing left of the real person behind it, not in the minds of those who come after them, at least.
growing up with the hp books, i had this same idea of tom riddle as well and i think the novels are to some extent to blame for this, after all they are told from harry’s point of view and we can’t really blame him for falling for the fairytale-like monster trick, it’s obvious that tom himself wanted everyone to perceive him like that, to fear him like that, that’s, after all, the very reason he became voldemort in the first place, to get rid of his humanity - and i can’t honestly think of anything more painfully human than that.
yet, when i say “human” i’m not trying to belittle his demi-god aura, or his exceptionality, quite the opposite: i’m endlessly fascinated by his being a finer, higher, more sophisticated kind of human - with the horrors that came with it as well. even when harry tries to consider him as person, even while he watches him as a boy in the orphanage, harry is presented with an inhuman psychopath, but i don’t think it is necessary always the case. i like to think one as intelligent and exceptional (and damaged) as tom could easily go from pure evil to (potentially) pure love in a split second. and that’s absolutely disturbing in a person, and twisted, and really interesting. after all, there are many ways one can be unable to love: being conceived under a love potion doesn’t necessarily make you alien to love, but maybe simply unable to understand or trust it. i think this interpretation fits more tom’s character: he had ALL the capabilities others had, he actually had more than, even the one to love, but his past and choices and consequential fears made him the monster he became.
recently analyzing his character, i found myself intrigued to go past his evil-entity facade, looking at him in a more real person kind of way, trying to understand him more as a real-life dictator with supernatural powers. a man behind the monster, behind the endless power. and i like to think in the end he did enjoy quidditch games, and pies, and music, and literature, and art, and did care, in his twisted and dangerous way of course, about some people - bellatrix, most of all.
he screamed when she died. he tried to avenge her. he had a daughter with her. and in all honesty i can’t really see him having an aseptic one-night-stand sex for some heir-conceiving frenzy, it’s terribly out of character for someone who’s been planning to live forever and being the world’s eternal dictator since he was six years old. i’m sure delphini was a mistake and this means he was actively having sex with bellatrix, the said most loyal lieutenant, whom he tried to avenge, whom he screamed for, to whom he literally entrusted a piece of his own torn soul (how awfully romantic). bellatrix who was basically almost seen as a queen by everyone, incredibly feared and respected. bellatrix who was always behind him, and yet ahead of everyone else in every single battle/meeting/situation - and he let her. do you think someone like voldemort would have allowed anyone to be that annoying if he had not enjoyed it? anyone else would have been killed for much less. bellatrix who had talent, and courage, and the strength to never give up for all those years in azkaban, just to one day see him again. i think him intelligent and deep enough to be fascinated by that, especially if that beautiful mind was as twisted as his own. also i think him intelligent enough to value beauty: the beauty of magic, of nature, of her body. all those sentiments are linked and they absolutely don’t diminish the horrors in my mind, they just magnify them.
but i also think their relationship, as twisted and complicated and unhealthy as it might have been, wasn’t a degraded slave and master one. leaving aside the fact i don’t think he would have enjoyed to fuck a worthless worm at all and that bellatrix can be literally perceived as anything but that, i think he viewed sex as something deeply human, and therefore far beneath him. extremely good-looking as he was, i think he considered women something he would have never lessened himself with.
then why having sex with bellatrix and favor her, even publicly, even if in a really subtle way? the only possible answer is there were sentiments involved, admiration for her, trust in her, desire for her beyond reason, even. i also think he would have only ever allowed himself to appear that human with someone he literally trusted more than his very self. i don’t want to explore here all the possible implications and internal crisis this might have caused them both, but this is why they probably are my favorite fictional couple and that’s why i’m so fascinated by them both. they do fall in the trope, but not as the normal “pure girl saves villain” kind of way, but in a much higher one: what’s really perfect about them is they found each other in darkness, they are kindred spirits in power and terror, and yet this doesn’t mean they can’t love or care, but just that it’s a black kind of love they share. a terrible one.
i think bellatrix was the great woman behind the great man, whom he rewarded publicly, and dashingly and twistingly loved privately. and if we can’t really see him doing any of those things, it’s because he succeeded in making us just see the terrible mask of voldemort, finally becoming the hideous myth that could so safely protect and immortalize the broken, desperate and exceptionally talented tom riddle.
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bladekindeyewear · 4 years
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Bloggin’ bout HS^2′s second upd8 continued.  > (==>)
And it had felt so real, almost like he could have reached out and touched him--
--Yeah, the next page is gonna be BGDirk just standing there like I saw before I read the update, right?
> (==>)
> (==>)
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Two pages. Close enough.
> (==>)
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Hah!  Get fucked, Dirk.  (Even if you’re supposedly one of the better Dirks.)
> (==>)
Yep, all see-thru and everything.
DIRK: You passed out in a puddle of your own drool. And what the fuck is that on your face? JAKE: My face? What do you mean on my face? DIRK: The moustache, Jake. Who’s idea was that. JAKE: Oh! You dont like it? DIRK: I didn’t say that.
Oh come the fuck on.  He looks good in a mustache, Jane-influence or no Jane-influence.
DIRK: We’ve had this conversation before, dingus. I’m you. And I’m me. But I only exist because of your powers. The fact that I’m manifesting here, in the new universe, outside of a dream, is evidence in itself for just how absolutely boned you are.
Now what exactly do you mean by that last part?  How is this a sign of trouble?
--Is it because this Dirk thinks he’s needed?  And therefore shit will be going down?
DIRK: You’ve been a useless sack of shit for two decades. I’m here to kick your ass back into active duty.
...Hm.
I mean, Jake MIGHT be able to help stop this stupid goddamn war, but this IS Dirk trying to help him, so...
JAKE: And what side am i supposed to be fighting on? for jane or against her? DIRK: Against her. Obviously. What the fuck, dude.
Pffff.
JAKE: But you were the one who wanted her to run in the first place! You wrote her bloody speeches! DIRK: Yeah, I did. And every single one of them kicked ass. I wanted Jane to be the democratically elected president. Not a cake-slinging Jeff Bezos with a great rack.
Pfff.  I mean, you didn’t do a great job the first way, either.  It’s heavily implied things in Canon-land were about to go to shit too.
Not as FAR to shit, nor as quickly, but still to shit.  So, really, how DIFFERENT is this from the way you wanted it done, Dirk?  How can you claim this isn’t half YOUR fuck-up too?
DIRK: Don’t worry about it. The point is, you have a chance to make a difference. You’re in the perfect position to infiltrate her operation.
Oh hell no.  Don’t send him back in THERE you utter horse’s ass!  How could THAT be good for his mental health!? What the fuck about Tavros?!?
DIRK: That’s horseshit and we both know it. Jane would take you back in a second. She loves you.
I think Jane’s definition of “taking him back” would be a bit broader than his body or soul could fucking afford.
> (==>)
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Eugh.  You really liked the Condesce’s way of doing things right down to her style, huh?  To think you used to love the spoon.  Is that a fucking spork?  Is that zilly Battlespork your go-to weapon now?
Also, it took me a moment to realize those green and orange silhouettes were Jake and BGDirk.  I was a little like “how did Rose get here?!?”.
> (==>)
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Have I mentioned how good all this art is?  So much attention being paid to the use of color, to making everything look so soft and streamlined?
Looks like she’s going in for at LEAST a hug.  And the art style might be mercifully light on showing us indulgent details of just how asset-laden Jane is supposed to be.  Shots of Jake’s manly bod aside, something in me doesn’t like the traditionally-sexualized stuff pushed like that in a canon that’s been light on it for so long...
> (==>)
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Oh, that... THAT looks fake.  Or like, she’s about to turn around and happily wail on his ass or something.
JANE: Boo hoo hoo! Oh, Jake! Something awful has happened! JAKE: It--it has? You mean more awful than usual? JANE: The opposition has taken Tavros, Jake. They’ve finally shown their true colors. I knew it was only a matter of time before they attacked our family directly!
.....Ah.  Well, that explains it.  She’d never cry like that about HIM returning AFTER STEPPING OUT ON HER.
It’s then that Jake realizes that Jane isn’t mad because she’d never realized he was gone.
Poor pages, huh?  All their most dramatic gestures always undercut.
...It seems like we might see Candy kind of resolved in less of a fucked-up worldstate after all, at this rate?
She seems to have forgotten that she’d been cross with him the last time they met, because now that Gamzee is gone, there’s no one left to talk to.
It’s true. Gamzee’s absence always improves things.
> (==>)
All of it is made worse by the occasional wry glint in her eye, or moment of self-deprecation in the slant of her mouth. It reminds him of the Jane he used to know. Or the Jane he thought he used to know.
Ambition is a hell of a thing.  Seems like she’s drunk of it almost as deeply as Prince Dirk.  I’d imagine this could be a pretty consistent thing with really active Life players when they get actual power, huh?  The way it just gathers to Life players in all its forms -- power over others, status, wealth -- it’s easy to start to leverage it in ways that constitute abuse of power over others from a Riddle perspective.
At first Dirk stands at Jake’s elbow, a one-ghost support staff, before he appears to lose interest in Jane’s rant and wanders off across the office, reading the spines of books and spending way too long staring at a startlingly phallic piece of installation art,
--PLEASE let us see it.
, the provenance of which Jake doesn’t know, but could hazard a guess it wore a codpiece.
Nope, never mind. Interest lost.
> (==>)
Then he settles on Jane’s desk, propping his ghost butt there and sort of just...well. Here’s a picture of what he does.
Um.
Where is this going?
> (==>)
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Oh, so the BEST option, then.  :D
Okay. That’s a bit of an exaggeration.
Boooooo.
> (==>)
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--Alright, forgiven.
he’s thoroughly exhausted from attempting to pay attention to his supervillain wife while trying not to look at the crotch of a ghost man from his brain.
...Okay, hold up.  BGDirk, are you trying to steer him into doing this for self-indulgent, non-comedic purposes? Or is this a bit of Prince Dirk in there?  (I mean... I can’t definitively say Jake wouldn’t have wanted this.)
And I’m still wondering how all of this is going to be relevant.  IF it’s going to be relevant.  Despite promises to the contrary that are seemingly being ignored.
> (==>)
DIRK: All according to keikaku.
Fuck you.
JAKE: i really didnt think id fall off the wagon so quickly. I dont think being here is good for my emotions to be honest. DIRK: Yeah, probably not. But that’s okay. They don’t matter. JAKE: Oh.
Yeah, Dirk, you suck at this more than you know.  This ain’t going to go as well as you “hope” I don’t think.
DIRK: Don’t know anything about stiff lips, dude. But that’s not what I mean. It’s not because you’re a man. You’re a god. JAKE: Oh right. That. DIRK: The world comes first, even at the expense of all your relationships and personal happiness. That’s what being a hero means. JAKE: I guess...i never really thought about it like that.
You’re also not guaranteed to be fucking right, you know.
There are definitely dichotomies where what was best for the world wasn’t best for the person, so far, and vice versa in Homestuck.  But Dirk’s taking his anime-flavored principles as gospel as usual, and ignoring, oh I dunno, the impact of the heart in all of this.  Some people, ESPECIALLY JAKE and other Pages so far, CAN’T operate at their best until they’re at least reasonably healthy and sure of themselves, and investments to that effect are essential to letting them slowly realize their full potential.  Brain Ghost Dirk is likely making the same goddamn mistake he made with his overbearing Dirkbot back on Jake’s island.
> (==>)
DIRK: Think what you want about Jane, but at least she realizes that none of you can ever be normal, and she never bothered to try. Can it really be a god-complex if you’re actually a god? DIRK: People like us don’t get happy endings.
...Yup.  This is the fucked-over part of Dirk’s worldview coming in full play, here.  And he believes in it so strongly that he couldn’t even fucking leave NON-CANON alone anymore.  Fuck.
JAKE: Thats bleak dirk i dont think i could possibly believe that!
Mmmhmm.
DIRK: Yeah. That’s probably more a Dirk thought than a Jake one. I told you, it’s hard to tell sometimes. JAKE: Is...is that really how dirk felt the whole gosh darned time?
Mmmhmm.
> (==>)
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Last page of the upd8.  Well... all I can say is, it’s a good thing he’s a fucking ghost here.  And half Jake, at that.  At least that can limit the damage.  Hopefully giving Jake just enough of a kick in the doing-something direction without being so overbearing that he makes things worse, making for a balance of...
...Wait.
Wait, is that why we’re here?
Maybe that finally makes some sense of all this.  Of this cut, of this small violation of that last sentence in Meat, of--  ah, yeah, I might be on to something here!  Only maybe, but still--!
We’re quite possibly bearing witness to a realm of influence where, through measures outside of his control, Dirk has a balanced impact.  Where this same ideology of his, tempered by Jake’s hopeful mindset and Dirk’s inability to take direct action, might just manage to make things better and actually make everyone happier by the end, while solving Earth C’s fucked-up Candyland state at the same time.  It’s possibly to show the readers (through the lens of a Hope player specializing in positive possibility) that Dirk, had he been restrained, COULD have had a positive impact, even at the same time that we’re shown Prince Dirk at his soul’s most overblown and heinous.
And, if we want to be optimistic..... perhaps this’ll show Dirk, too?
Canon and Non-Canon may not “meet” again.  But that doesn’t stop Dirk, via this fragment of his multiverse-spanning soul, from seeing Non-Canon.  From seeing how well things COULD have worked out, had he held back.  And if we keep cutting like this -- back and forth between the “real” story and these events in Candyverse -- perhaps the moment at which Brain Ghost Dirk realizes what he’s accomplished, realizes how much better things are because he could hold back, will coincide at the end with Prince Dirk finally, belatedly, realizing just how fucked his plan was, and understanding at the very, very end why he has to fucking die?
THAT would be interesting.
I guess we’ll see?  Talk to y’all next upd8.
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jcmorgenstern · 4 years
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@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)
okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.
so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.
to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.
I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.
and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)
not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?
moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).
overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.
this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences,  then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).
anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).
Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.
on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.
anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!
tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions
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bibliotechnician · 4 years
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🖤
Send 🖤 for a forced/harsh/firm kiss.
It made Volk frizz in disgust every time she had to hear the butchered German heard among the Reichers. It disgusted her even further to realize that because of it, she shared something similar with the Reds as well, even if she felt her branch of it was more warranted. Being one of few native Germans in Metro, the sound of the stereotyped staccato heard only in cruel jokes rubbed a few nerves raw.
Which was why she was wondering why she was trapped in the same space as that Reich deserter who had followed her home, stuck listening to him reading something out loud. She didn’t know what it was, since he’d started before she got there to wait for Anna to come meet her for their weekly affair of shroomshine, tea, and general chatter.
What god had she pissed off to be stuck here, she wondered. What karma had she incurred? Maybe this was a lesson in patience from the god the Watchtower was always prattling about? What was taking Anna so long? Why was she so angry about listening to this when she could just ignore it entirely?
That last one sat and simmered in her, and she kept asking the same question to herself as though trying to find the reason in her that she could dislike this guy so much by his repulsive accent alone...
Why?Because she was.Why?Because she was.
Because she was and it was not going to stand, that’s why.
“Hey. Read to yourself, will you.” she finally told him, trying to remain at least somewhat reasonable. It was even-toned and more likely to be received, not as harsh as she normally would have thrown at a situation that made her upset.
It didn’t work. Either he hadn’t heard her or he was pointedly ignoring her, as he didn’t stop or lower his volume or even acknowledge she had spoken to him. He simply continued on.
Instead of coming to terms that maybe he was simply invested in his material, she took it as a slight and repeated herself, louder and maybe a little more forceful. “Hey! Would you mind shutting up.” She added on a, “Please.” as an extra measure, trying to see if maybe her lack of it was a trigger.
When that didn’t seem to work, she lost her patience. The third strike was much less pleasant. “I said shut the fuck up!”
Whether it was the profanity or the fact that she barked it out at him, it finally caught his attention and he started, looking over his shoulder at her. “Mind your own business.” he snarled, making to turn back around.
“Nein, I will not.” she snapped back, turning her head to glare at him as though to drive her point home. “Not when I have to listen to your garbage fire of a speech impediment longer than I have to.”
She wasn’t expecting him to take a small shuffle back from her, staring at her directly in the face. In an attempt to regain the high ground, he spat, “If it’s so fucking garbage, why are you using it!”
Her lip fluttered. It had never done that before, but there were few situations that really got under her skin like this one was starting to. She put her hand down sharp on the table next to her and slowly stood. He reeled back a few more steps in a mix of surprise and what she took as fear as she squared her shoulders out and proceeded to look down at him from her height. The stare intensified with every slow methodical step taken toward him. God, what even was his name? Something German, if Reich had any say on the matter, something that started with the same letters...
It was getting much harder to make herself understood, her natural accent growing more prominent and slurring together with the airy Russian words as she followed him, with him keeping a safe distance to her every step. “I use it because it is my language. I use it because I was actually born there. I use it because it is the last tie I have to my fucking country, and pieces of inhuman shit like you are trying to take it from me! Do you have any idea how many people have turned away from me because of this fucking accent being stolen and fucking weaponized to instill terror! How few people in the last several years actually seek me out anymore for help! Nein! Nein! You don’t! Because your fucking idiot ideologies have told them I’m a fucking bad guy! How dare you spit on and sully the image of my country with your sniveling! Fucking! Drivel!” 
Not that she remembered Germany to any great length, in snippets and fading memories. But he didn’t know that. She could use that and quite clearly did.
She added as a final piece to the rant, having backed him up to a wall in the common room, bracing her hands on either side of his head, “Fuck you! And the fucking dick of Hitler you rode in on!”
She could see it in his eyes more than on his face. He was scared, caught eye to eye with her as she bent over him and gave him no logical escape. And yet, despite all of it, without giving a second thought, he still had a lick of fire left in there.
He pushed up so he butt heads with her and managed to choke out in a low challenging voice, “I don’t give a flying fuck. Fuck me yourself, you fucking co--”
She cut him off. The kiss was anything but chaste, the clatter of whatever he had been reading hitting the floor as he let it go. It wasn’t very long, but it stunned him into a blushing silence just long enough for her to utter final words without interruption, boring her eyes directly into his.
“Dein Akzent ist Schwachsinn.Learn to fucking talk or it’ll be abjectly worse next time.”
“Oi.”
She turned her head to look at the addressee, her features calming considerably when she saw Anna leaning in the doorway to the room. 
“Ready to go finally?” she asked, a distinct shift in demeanour as she left the Reicher alone, secretly reveling in the sight of him slumped silently against the wall, a hand moving toward his mouth.
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry I’m late, but you know Dad doesn’t approve of you flirting in the barracks.”
Volk shrugged, sauntering off to leave with the sniper. “Wasn’t flirting with this one. Just telling him a few things.”
Anna scoffed. “Right. That’s why your tongue was damn near down his throat?”
“Had to put the words there somehow!” Volk snarked back. “Besides. His eyes are kind of pretty when they’re full of fear.”
With a final, “Play nice!” and a playful thwap to the taller woman’s arm, they broke into a roll of laughter on their way to start their evening.
@nodaudaboutitt | @exreichheavy
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