#i'm definitely not capable

[red-lights-of-doooooom]

the autism university experience is either being so freakishly good at what you do because you finally get to talk endlessly about the thing you and then you get a masters/pHD/professordom/etc.,

...or failing hard because you have so much to say but can't say it, and as a result your life and writing is a mess and you're so drained from academia that you don't even bother with the post-secondary shit, leaving you trapped in an endless dead-end career that isn't related to what you've done.

[nyssasatelier]

Can you please draw when Odysseus realises that Athena was the one who fought for him?

i tried, but i guess i was tired because i ended up with this messy piece

The eye cloud is him making the connection between her scars and Zeus's lightning while the picture in his eye is supposed to show Hermes from Ody's pov when he was telling him that it wasn't him who fought for Odysseus back in "dangerous"

[faerygardenparty]

thinking about markeve rn. when Eve told Mark he's also a victim and therefore allowed to mourn over Chicago. when Mark told Eve he understands what it's like to have a bad father and therefore she isn't alone. they're always there for each other, they understand whats going through the other's heads and know exactly how to support them, god they make me ILL

[irenespring]

Thoughts on Bertha Russell (Many Thoughts)

I am So curious about Bertha Russell's backstory. We have little snippets:

Her father was a potato farmer.

She has lots of mommy issues. (George mentions her mother said she was the only child "worthy of her dreams" to which Bertha angrily responds that her mother's dreams were worthless because she died with nothing which is A Lot)

She has sibling issues. (George offers to invite her sister to a thing and she refuses)

She and George met when they were both poor, they made the fortune together.

She had a distinct learning curve when they first got to New York. She bought The Wrong House and made The Wrong Friends and had to learn and relearn things over a period of years. (I am especially interested about this time, because she would know Nothing, being the ultimate outsider, but she is a tactical genius and viciously ambitious...I want to see young!Bertha in the early stages of the struggle before she knows how to dress/talk/act).

I hope we will learn more about her because more than any of the other characters she wants things. Things that are nebulous, but she doesn't seem to realize are nebulous, because she has clear goals but they don't satisfy her so she has to make another goal. Loving husband doing well? Not enough. They have enough money to hear the call of the guillotine? It's not enough, they need status. They have status? Not enough, they need to beat Lina Astor. Now they've beaten Lina Astor, but I don't think anyone thinks that's going to be enough. George points out multiple times that he is content where he is and content to let their children marry for love to people of what Bertha considers middling station. She's the sole driving force for continued social climbing. And it doesn't matter how high they get, she wants to go higher, she wants to go "all the way" but there isn't an all the way unless I guess you're Empress of the World. But then the moon starts looking awfully conquerable.

She claims she's doing it for their children, but both children have said her suggestions aren't what they want. And it is heavily implied she just sold her only daughter to the Duke so he would attend an opera performance. She wants Gladys to marry the Duke so that she will be grandmother to English nobility. It's for her. So she is willing to use her children, her alleged motivation, as pawns. They aren't her real motivation after all, even if she may think they are. I do think she loves her children and George. I also think that she thinks she's helping Gladys, but I also think there's a limit to that love because it exists beside the yawning void of hunger within her psyche. George outright asks her if his love for her is enough to make her happy early in s1, because her love is enough for him. She says it's "almost enough" and that's significant and enough for him, which is telling, when usually any answer other than "yes of course" would be taken by a love interest as a searing betrayal. Anyway, the point is, her kids/her family are, at least, not her entire motivation and might not factor into her motivation at all, if she is fully honest with herself.

So, the hunger. The call to Rise. The rage that has her hyperventilating in bed alone after her failed party instead of crying in her husband's arms like most television characters would do. The instinct to look upon a room of people and think you will all bow to me you sniveling mortals. Why is it there? Like...why is she Like This? I think some of it has to come from what we can learn just from George's comment about impossibly ambitious, ruthless, low empathy Bertha being the only one "worthy of her mother's dreams." Which means her mother had dreams that were very important to her and that she never achieved. Her mother also guarded said dreams and judged her children harshly, we know Bertha has at least one sister, who is apparently judged not worthy in the eyes of her own mother. We know Bertha does not like talking about this and tries to dismiss it. Was there pressure on Bertha to be worthy? When could that have started and how did it manifest? Circling back to my interest in young!Bertha in NY, if the social rejection was bad in s1, it was probably worse then, and constant social failures would have made her angrier and more determined to both to become the queen of New York society and to see it burn. This is all stuff I want to learn more about in season 3.

HERE IS WHERE I PRETTY MUCH JUST DO PREDICTIONS (WHICH MAY BE TINFOIL, IDK):

Because I think we will finally get to see Bertha Russell: Season Villain. Every season needs a villain, and Bertha has pretty much vanquished all of them. The first couple seasons the overarching villain has been New York Society with its inequalities and pointless social cruelty, if that holds, Bertha is now the head of that system, having beaten Lina Astor and set herself up as the queen. Additionally, side opponents (not really villains) like Agnes also aren't in a position to make major problems for the protagonists because the Van Rhijn household is now the Forte household and cinnamon roll Ada is now in charge. Unless Agnes attempts to usurp her sister in a subplot (which I don't think will happen except for maybe one episode of hijinx) she's not in a powerful spot. The Society character is indisputably Bertha. And Bertha has been up to some serious villain shit. If she did agree to marry Gladys to the Duke, she's now against All the Protagonists---a sure sign of villain status. She's even against her husband, who swore to back Gladys in her choice of love match, and Gladys doesn't like the Duke. If Gladys wants out, Larry will almost certainly help her. And Saint Marian will help Larry either for love reasons or moral reasons, and hopefully Peggy has better things to do but she will probably get dragged into it somehow and if Marian's involved Ada's also involved and you see where this is going.

Also, show pacing wise, Bertha is due for a loss. I love her and I want her to win everything and be declared Empress of Earth and Moon but realistically that isn't going to happen. In a show where villains lose, it checks out. Gladys isn't going to marry the Duke, and if she does, everyone is going to regret it. One reason I think we will learn more about Bertha and her history is because if she loses she's going to Lose It. Dramatic monologue style. When she had a party and no one came she swore eternal vengeance and spent the night Angry Breathing and presumably fantasizing about the Red Wedding. She doesn't handle losing well. A big public loss after achieving every status symbol she could think of would probably break her mind, and she'll probably tell whoever she's talking to (probably George) enough backstory info that we the audience can fill in stuff. This is also where I would guess she and George would reconcile where he would see she is the person he loves and has not transformed into an automaton, she's just Messed Up, which he always knew and loved so he is Back In.

IN CONCLUSION:

This is who Marina was writing about. She is a primadonna girl, and all she ever wanted was the world. She cannot help that she needs it all, in this case the primadonna life: both the rise and the fall. She also knows exactly what she wants and who she wants to be. This is why she walks and talks like a machine. Unfortunately, she is becoming a self-fulfilled prophecy.

Oh, oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh.

[hylianane]

Alphys chose the golden flowers for her determination experiments because they were both "neither human nor monster". Which is making me wonder how the hell, in the nearly inevitable at this point Flower King Dark World, is the Dark Fountain going to react to Asgore's dozens of flowers. Because they're not don't have the sentience of your average lightner, but they are very much living beings, not objects to be changed and reinterpreted by the dark. Neither lightner nor object, what the hell are they then?

[cookingmama-23]

I know I'm on that "Lex definitely baby traps superman" train but something about Clark....makes me think he's supposed to sit in the middle of the room while heavily pregnant and have his harem take care of and coddle him.

Do y'all see the vision?

Or have I just lost it?

[unwavering-devotion]

you don’t enjoy the straight-waistcoat ?

Is this Dr. Seward.

"You don't enjoy the straight-waistcoat?" NO. NO, I DO NOT.

I felt so angry at this that I decided to take my ranting out of the "tags". What kind of question is this?! "You don't enjoy being immobilised?" "You don't enjoy being trapped?" NO!! I THINK THAT'S RATHER OBVIOUS, DON'T YOU!!?

They put you in it for the smallest of reasons, too!! I can understand strapping me into the dreadful thing when I'm hurting myself or someone else, I'm not ignorant, but I swear they do it just because they can!!! "Ohhh, Mr. Renfield, this is for your sake!" "Mr. Renfield, you'll thank me later." NO I WILL NOT!!! I've been put in a straight-waistcoat for simply disobeying!! Or when they unjustly decide that I "looked at them wrong"!!

That thing exists only for them to show off their power!!! They're playing God!!!

When I'm in one, it feels like I can't breathe. Is it supposed to do that??! My mind starts to spin and I can't think. I can't think, I can't move, I can't breathe-

And after that climax settles then I just feel numb. And they stare, and they stare, and they stare. I sit there in the padded cell and I can feel their eyes all over me when they check in. Judging.

They think they're better than me, don't they??! They do!!! They think I'm "mad"!!! They put me in that awful thing just so they could feel "safe" because I'm "insane"!!!

And the worst part is, after a while, I start to think that they're right. Am I allowed to say that here? I hope I'm not too mad. I have to be on my best behaviour for Him, I can't act like a loon!

The straight-waistcoat is the only thing that genuinely makes me think twice about my actions. I try not to do anything too bad, nothing that would warrant me to be trapped inside that Hell. I can't help it sometimes. Other times, I think they put it on me for no reason than to see me squirm. Even when I don't have it on, I can feel it on my skin.

Does that answer your question? I hate it. I don't "enjoy the straight-waistcoat", Anonymous stranger. You wouldn't, either.

[ilovedthestars]

i started reading ancillary justice because so many people said it was like Murderbot and so many people who liked Murderbot liked imperial radch but somehow none of that prepared me for

Page one Breq: “Sometimes I don’t know why I do the things I do. Even after all this time it’s still a new thing for me not to know, not to have orders to follow from one moment to the next.” [decides to stop and help a random half-dead human for "no reason"]

Page three breq: I could kill these annoying humans if I wanted, but I’m prioritizing protecting this other human

Page seven Breq: [paying an enormous amount of conscious attention to her expression]

[decepti-geek]

okay, I'm pretty annoyed by how they handled the fallout of this plotline with Robby, because the setup/initial conflict for it was... a genuinely really traumatising direction to take things? it would have been just as much for a fully-grown adult as it would for a kid, so this weird half-hearted swerve where there's clearly SOME kind of effort to give it emotional depth makes it all the more irritating when the gaps are papered over with the most generic teenage angst stuff imaginable.

[existencebringsonlypain]

you know maybe I CAN be a multishipper

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Loving your updates with how things are going with stoner Romeo 💘

Thank yoooou! And there will be plenty more to come, I'm sure- unless he suddenly decides he's not interested any more or I fuck up in some majorly horrifying way. But I'm trying to stay optimistic! And that's comparatively easy because besides being a sexual delight, he's also very sweet and (very importantly) good at communication!

[transingthoseformers]

Hi hello question for you: if TF characters got dropped into Subnautica just, randomly, who do you think is handling it best VS who do you think dies embarrassingly quickly (to themselves)?

Hmm now that's an interesting question, because I think most bots are a little more durable than humans and their main threats would be chance encounters with leviathans and environmental dangers (see: especially deep depths, actively hostile geology, the goddamn water)

Things would become exceedingly difficult if they can't get their hands on proper water capable altmodes, but if they CAN then I think they'd do better on 4546B than humans might.

We might have a beast wars situation on our hands where the bots have to be in their altmodes 90% of the time outside of base, because otherwise they're going to start running into issues with how long they're in saltwater and more intense depths than any of them are used to (*especially* if they're venturing off the continental shelf)

In my mind, the mecha who already have aquatic or semiaquatic altmodes are probably doing the best. Seaspray and High Tide have this shit covered, and they have it covered well. Mecha who were stationed on Earth or on earthlike exoplanets in general have an advantage over those who weren't.

I'm not sure which characters might die the quickest, but minibots and minicons would be at more risk with the local fauna, and it's going to be harder for mecha with little to no experience with oceans (or even water in general, considering how some depictions of Cybertron do not have water)

[blackhholes]

Teen Wolf as Horror Subgenres

Season two: Possession

[the-hwaelweg]

So the good news is I wrote 1.5k words last night. The bad news it was not on the fic I teased you all with 😅

[pretty-face-breaker]

Apologies if you've already answered this, but Do you see Nick and Hayko being "endgame"? Like do you think they would stay together as their fucked up little dynamic or at least in each other's lives for the rest of their lives? Or is it up to interpretation or undecided?

Personally, I think they will. :)

While I'm definitely not done their story yet, a big part of the appeal for me is this 'blood-bond' aspect of their relationship. That while Hayko was psychologically Nick's captive, they've endured the kind of violence that make them unable to permanently separate from each other. They're just in each other's heads too much and understand each other to too great a degree.

Regardless of how much Hayko hates him.

For me, the post-reunion arc is my desire to see Hayko healthier, more independent, and have him physically and psychologically 'recover' with Vlad as a social safety net, while still developing his and Nick's relationship, albeit on more even grounds. It'll just be through the lens of post-trauma.

I also just want to write Nick being a bit nicer to him, god damn. He's such a demonic bitch. 😭

[hanzajesthanza]

"the michael kandel translation of "the witcher" short story can't hurt you!!"

the michael kandel translation of "the witcher" short story: