#i havee to get this off my chest

[lilmaymayy]

When my friends want to exclude another from secret santa and i have to be the one to tell her☹️☹️☹️

[inkskinned]

it is hard to explain but there is something so unwell about the cultural fear of ugliness. the strange quiet irradiation of any imperfect sight. the pores and the stomachs and the legs displaced into a digital trashbin. somehow this effect spilling over - the removal of a grinning strangers in the back of a picture. of placing more-photogenic clouds into a frame. of cleaning up and arranging breakfast plates so the final image is of a table overflowing with surplus - while nobody eats, and instead mimes food moving towards their mouth like tantalus.

ever-thinner ever-more-muscled ever-prettier. your landlord's sticky white paint sprayed over every surface. girlchildren with get-ready-with-me accounts and skincare routines. beige walls and beige floors and beige toys in toddler hands. AI-generated "imagined prettier" birds and bugs and bees.

pretty! fuckable! impossible! straighten teeth. use facetune and lightroom and four other products. remove the cars along the street from the video remove the spraypaint from the garden wall remove the native plants from their home, welcome grass. welcome pretty. let the lot that walmart-still-owns lay fallow and rotting. don't touch that, it's ugly! close your eyes.

erect anti-homelessness spikes. erect anti-bird spikes. now it looks defensive, which is better than protective. put the ramp at the back of the building, you don't want to ruin the aesthetic of anything.

you are a single person in this world, and in this photo! don't let the lives of other people ruin what would otherwise be a shared moment! erase each person from in front of the tourist trap. erase your comfortable shoes and AI generate platforms. you weren't smiling perfectly, smile again. no matter if you had been genuinely enjoying a moment. you are not in a meadow with friends, you're in a catalogue of your own life! smile again! you know what, forget it.

we will just edit the right face in.

[notsolonedesert]

*Rises from my grave*

...Ithacan siblings....what if...Ctimene's instrument is the harp......

*dies again*

[possumsarenice]

As a multishipper that ships n7 with a handful of people, I’ve noticed a trend with these two in particular

[weepynymph]

are people seriously not understanding that the whole point of colin's arc this season is him trying to be something he's not??

like sure the brothel scenes are a little weird and jarring but like they're meant to be??? because he's not actually that into it, he's just trying to do what all the other men his age are doing so he can fit in??

the writers aren't trying to 'turn him into anthony or simon' or make him a rake because that's what we're used to - HE'S trying to turn HIMSELF into anthony or simon or basically any of the other guys who this comes naturally to; who enjoy sleeping with lots of different people somewhat emotionlessly and don't get lonely because of it (and no judgement to that it's just not him)

he literally kisses Pen ONCE and absolutely loses his mind over it because its obviously never felt like that for him before. that moment is his 'oh so that's what that's supposed to feel like' moment and that's how he knows he's in love with her its literally so good???

i understand people feel like its rushed but honestly to me it feels perfectly in character for him to discover the solution to his loneliness he's been searching for all this time and immediately dive into it headfirst. that moment right at the end of ep4 where he asks her to marry him is the most authentic colin i think we've seen all season. he's sweet and funny and playful and passionate and impulsive - he's finally stopped trying to be someone he's not and now that he knows who he is and what he wants he's all in.

[thebrainrotsreal]

Was pondering how Mark’s rigid ass mask/lens is prob a Budget Thing (since squishy, bendy lens are pretty much a mandate for all hero animated series, like JL, BTAS, TNBA, Spider-Man, etc), and then I was slapped with a vision of Mark in a more JL/BTAS-ish style and I had to see it through. I am a genius btw.

[apricustar]

there's something really important in the way buck grieves in 8x16 that feels like it's being misunderstood. i keep seeing people say he was emotionless--that oliver himself gave us nothing--but i think that silence was the performance; that was the choice-- one made as protection.

last episode, we saw him collapse--on the ground wailing, can't hold himself up, can't draw a breath that doesn't feel like it's tearing him up inside. that was raw, unfiltered. that was what happens when the grief and disbelief hit before he had time to build the walls we see in this episode.

beyond an i love you, bobby's last words to buck were that the team was going to need him. and bobby's words have always carried a significant weight for buck, but these being the last? they clearly landed like a mission. a burden. a plea.

so what we get in 8x16 isn't a lack of emotion--its a man white-knuckling his way through unbearable loss because that's what he thinks he has to do in order to live up to what bobby asked of him. it's buck burying his own grief so deep he won't accidentally spill it on the people around him. it's him becoming that steady presence-- the one bobby said they need--even if it means locking away every part of himself. all the too-sharp edges of his own feelings, all the things he knows might take him under again.

because if he lets go for even a second? i truly think he worries he'll end up back on the ground again: helpless unable to fix or do anything.

oliver didn't give us 'nothing'. he gave us stillness. he gave us restraint. he's carefully calibrated, holding his breath, his posture, holding himself--because he knows if he slips, he might not come back from it. he's holding grief in his throat like it might choke him if he swallows wrong. he's trying to be what the team needs while neglecting what he needs. and it's devastating.

and it's all there if you look at him: the way buck's jaw clenches at times; minute changes to his expression before he smooths it over into careful neutrality; the way his every word feels deliberate and weighted, like he's rolled all them around in his mouth first before he speaks. nothing is effortless, everything is held.

it was heartbreaking to see. and i cant imagine how much more heartbreaking it will be when he finally breaks and lets go.

[void-drawz]

Myrkul is the third wheel of the Dead Three, and you can not change my mind.

Bane and Bhaal hate each other so much, and Myrkul's just there like

"I hate both of you"

and the other two are just busy yelling at one another

I swear Bane and Bhaal are exs, and Myrkul has to now deal with this eternal falling out

I know it's technically about how Bane got the most power and Bhaal is jealous blah blah blah, but this is funnier

They are divorced, your honor

And Myrkul is just there, sick of it

[pokemonblack3white3]

Subway Boss Kieran is constantly haunting my thoughts

[the-phantom-peach]

Meeting the Light Dragon ✨🐉

[tagged as spoilers!]

[bwaindamegd]

funny how everything tends to fleet away from you, bachelor

[kittykatninja321]

For my peace I am interpreting the post crisis attempts at retroactively rewriting Jaybin’s personality as various Bats having their memories of him warped by time and grief and nostalgia. To quote my oomf:

Bruce and Jason’s meeting is rewritten to include Bruce tying him up not because this is how it went down but because this is Dick’s POV and Dick was distant from manor at the time and only vaguely knows the story of Jason’s adoption secondhand

Bruce’s summary of Jason includes that he liked “girls and getting into fights” but post-crisis Jaybin didn’t show any interest in romance and precrisis Jaybin had one (1) crush he was head over heels for. It puts everything in else he says about Jaybin into question. I bet his favorite ice cream flavor was actually strawberry or something

Jason’s brashness and impulsiveness is over exaggerated in the wake of his death in order to victim blame him both on a doylist and watsonian level. On the in-universe character level I personally choose to interpret this as a distortion of memory, both deliberate and unintentional at different times. There are more examples I could go into but I’m cutting the rant short thank you for your time

[watermelonstick]

Sam 60s miniskirt my beloved

[whatdidtheydotomygirljinx]

Jinx just never really liked Vander that much.

One of the things that, to me, seemed like a main theme in Jinx's arc in season 1 was the contrast between her two families, and how her switch from Vander's daughter to Silco's drastically changes the way her personality takes shape.

And I hate that the fandom, and now the show, too, has reduced Silco to an unhealthy influence in Jinx's life, pushing her towards her "bad" side (being Jinx) when, for all his flaws... he gives her a better childhood than she ever had with Vander. The first three episodes of the first season, to me, when I watched them, illustrate quite clearly that Powder feels unhappy in her family life. She is the most mal-adjusted of Vander's kids. Her older brother constantly berates her, and it's quite clearly having a big effect on her self-image. She later takes up the Jinx name and persona once she feels like she has become irredeemable as a person. Her other brother never defends her. Vi is the only one who is there for her, and they care for each other, but at the same time you can see there's still a little insecurity in their relationship. Vi is worried that maybe Powder is indeed too weak, and Powder worries that maybe Vi does indeed see her as a Jinx like her brother does.

And when it comes to Vander... he's just not really all that present in her life. And I don't blame him, the man has four kids to take care of, on top of keeping things running in the Undercity. It's clearly not his intention. But it doesn't change the fact that he's not there for Powder, not as much as she needs. To me, when I watched the first season, it seemed like Vander was a figure that felt far away to Powder, someone that she admired but also feared being completely herself around, and someone that she ultimately wished to be closer to than she actually was. It's worth mentioning that Jinx never says his name post time skip, and he is not a hallucination for her, not until Vi brings him up in the finale. Hell, Claggor is somehow a hallucination for her and he never even speaks. Vander was just not an influential figure in Jinx's life.

I always found the scene at the end of ep3 of s1 fascinating, because Powder never once mourns Vander. She never once cries for him and never once says his name. When she sees his dead body, she becomes shocked and starts crying, but it's not actually what breaks her. What breaks her is Vi's rejection. Had it just been that she accidentally caused the deaths of her brothers and adoptive father, she would not have crumbled mentally. It's Vi's rejection that destroys her. Now, of course, a little girl that cares more about her sister's affection towards her than the lives of her family members is kinda messed up, but that's what makes her character interesting. And we can see that that little girl doesn't go anywhere, as Jinx displays the exact same one-mindness about her sister. Because Jinx and Powder were never really that different, after all.

She is quite clearly placed with her back to Vander's body, that she never turns to, barely looks at, only enough to recognize him and see he's dead, and never says the name of. She's turned towards Vi, calling for Vi, crying because of Vi, and no one else. Heck, Vi had just been crying over his body a few moment ago. Vi is clearly distraught over his death. Vi is devastated, she literally punches her sister and curses her in the exact worst possible way she can, in the way she know it will hurt her sister the most. But Powder... she just honestly dgaf.

So to then hear Jinx say this line in season 2...

...is just straight up jarring. I was pulled out of the story when I heard this. This is Jinx saying this to Vi. This kinda makes it seem like it was Jinx who was most attached to Vander, or at least that she was just as attached to him as Vi was. Which is just not how things seemed in the story at literally any point until this one. And then season 2 continues this way, and somehow makes Jinx seem like the closest daughter to Vander. Flipping Warwick literally acts more attached to Jinx than Vander ever did to Powder. Like literally. Season 1 clearly sets up that Vi is the favorite daughter, and then they just... flip it?? Warwick cares more for Jinx and responds better to her than to Vi. It's actually insane. It's true they sanitized Jinx's character to hell and back this season, but this is a straight-up rewrite. I can't wrap my mind around why they did this. Plus, the entirety of act 2 they set up this weird and pointless arc of Jinx rekindling her relationship with Vander or something... and like literally her story was genuinely never about that.

(This COULD have been Vi's story. And that might have actually been cool, and made sense. Maybe Vi is the one who finds him, and she is the one who helps him calm down. And then she brings Jinx, and maybe Jinx is terrified because she was never that close to Vander, and then she literally killed him, so seeing him again is the last thing she wants. Maybe VI is the one who tells Jinx that "he was your dad, too", which would make A LOT more sense, and maybe that's the first time that Jinx thinks that oh, yeah, he was... And then maybe they have a cute moment where Vander forgives her. Or maybe she sees the state he's in right now and loses it completely. Or maybe they look at each other and they both see the monster each of them has become. And then maybe Vi looks down at the enforcer uniform she's wearing, and, privately, sees it too. Idk. The things we could have had.)

Silco was actually a good dad to Jinx, in all the ways that Vander wasn't. He gives her all the attention that she never had before. He not only listens to her, but actively asks for her side of the story. He never insults her, and he defends her against Sevika. He trusts her and gives her opportunities to prove she's capable. She goes from being one of four siblings, and getting lost in the shuffle and often ending up feeling forgotten and alone, to being the most important child, always taken into consideration and almost put on a pedestal by her dad (this, like, has to have cured some inner wounds, i think).

Silco understands Jinx better than any other character in the show, and I'm genuinely sad that we didn't get to see any flashback of Jinx growing up with him. Because their relationship was so unique, and so integral to Jinx's character and to the rest of the story, that the fact that we never get to see any other glimpse into their bond is just...

As a final note, I'd also like to add that I dislike when people say that Silco "groomed" Jinx. I think a much more realistic analysis is that he enabled her. And as for all the times he tells Jinx that Vi "betrayed her", that's just a reflection of his own trauma, and also because he fears that if Jinx knew Vi was alive, she would go back to her and leave him (which, considering what goes down in the s1 finale, not an unfounded fear). It's wrong that he does that, but it's not out of malicious intent (also tbh Jinx never really seems to believe him anyway).

And for all the people who say that Silco "turned Jinx into a terrorist" (dumbest people in this fandom fr, im sorry), that's just straight up not true. Powder was already like that. That is quite literally why Silco adopts her. Because he sees that she's like him. Silco would not have taken Powder in if he thought she was just a cute, innocent kid who was orphaned (to, what, raise her for years so that, MAYBE when she's older, she MIGHT be useful to him? when they meet he doesn't know she's the one that caused the explosion, he just knows that she's been abandoned by Vi). This is the kid who thought playing around with explosives was a fun hobby. This is the kid who giggled at the thought of hurting others. This is the kid who already suffered from explosive emotions. This is the kid who saw her father and her brothers dead, because of her, and all she cared about was whether her sister was mad at her because of it. This is the kid who throws herself at the first person she sees, someone who her sister hates, who is the cause of all this destruction, and with an anger that shocks most viewers, declares that Vi is not her sister anymore. She is livid in that one moment.

Powder already had it in her from the beginning. And it's also ok to like a character (and to write one) even if they are not 100% morally pure in every single way under the sun, cause that is quite literally what stories are for.

[luxcuriousao3]

Part 4 of asshole ex best friend?

I did not expect anyone to like this enough to actually ask for more lol. I'm flattered that you do anon 💜 here is part four for you

-

“So… I assume we’re not going to have sex,” Parker said after several minutes passed without you saying anything. But the look on his face, it was a question—and you realized that if you said yes right now, after he gave you this ultimatum, he would do it. He would fuck you. Even knowing that this wasn’t what you really wanted. That he’d had to negotiate you into having sex with him.

Had to coerce you.

It hit you all at once, that that’s what he was doing. Why you felt so disgusted, so uncomfortable, so unsafe. It was because he was doing something vile, breaking your trust in the worst possible way, and you didn't even know if he was fully aware of just how predatory he was being.

You hoped to God that he didn't know. You hoped to God you hadn’t been wrong about him, all this time.

You left, then, the tears turning into full-on sobs that you tried to hide as you ran back to your room. When you got there, you sat on the floor, staring blankly at the wall and trying to remember what it was like to feel like your body belonged to you. That it was a part of you, and not just a tasty morsel that men wanted to take a bite of. That men would say and do anything to take a bite of. But try as you might, you couldn't shake the feeling of violation strangling your heart and making your throat close up.

You wouldn’t feel like yourself—like a person—for nearly a week. A week in which you spoke to no one from your team. What were you supposed to say? They were all men, and if this had taught you anything, it was that even the seemingly best men weren't to be trusted. They wouldn't understand the magnitude of what Parker had done. He didn’t touch you, didn’t hold a gun to your head, he let you leave, so what were you so worked up about? You could see it so clearly, what would happen if you told them. They'd believe you, and they’d be disappointed in Parker, but they wouldn’t do anything. Parker would remain on the team, and you would have to work alongside him with the knowledge of what he’d tried to do to you. Never feeling safe. Always feeling like just an object.

You couldn't do it. You didn't want to do it. To tell them what had happened and be so thoroughly disappointed.

So, after another week of agonizing over the decision, you drew up a transfer request. This time, you would be the one to leave. Before you were hurt even worse.

[linka-from-captain-planet]

idk if people are being intentionally obtuse or what but the problem is not that Siuan was killed off - it's the WAY she was killed off

it's not that she was killed, it's that she was betrayed, humiliated, dragged like an object, brutalized, and given the textbook-most-'here's how you dehumanize a human being' dehumanizing death ALL! so the camera could zoom in on Rosamund Pike screaming and crying

that's it

they took the black lesbian character and in that instant, made it crystal clear that her only purpose, value, and point after all this time was to be Moiraine's Girlfriend. in that instant, every second of screen time, every offscreen story beat, every interview or teaser hyping up and praising this character and her relationship, was all recontextualized. all along, there was never a Siuan Sanche in WOT On Prime - only Moiraine's Girlfriend - and now there never will be

it's not an overreaction to be disgusted by the way this character's death was handled. it's not an overreaction to have it sour your outlook on a show that went out of its way to raise a queer relationship from subtext to text - explicitly to give it the care and depth that many felt was missing from the books - only to put Tara in front of the window just so Willow could go off the rails again like 25 god damn years later but with a heaping helping of Disposable Black Girlfriend on top

it would in fact have been possible to kill this black lesbian character in a conscientious and tasteful fashion - even if it was still upsetting, baffling, stupid, or wasteful - and the fact is that the choice was made otherwise

some people saw the writing on the wall and those of us who didn't feel not just like idiots but betrayed idiots too

sure I'm certain some people are just upset their favorite ship got whacked and haven't examined it any deeper than that but it is deeper than that unfortunately!