#* how to connect with someone;

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Mimic plays pretend with Gregory…

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[0vergrowngraveyard]

blue

[supernovatx]

Obviously “America is Great Again” is a fantastic critique of capitalism and American propaganda, which would be enough to make it an incredible scene on its own. It’s a great song and a great demonstration of the show’s themes, and it’s really well done.

But there’s a tragic layer to that song that really elevates it for me, and that’s because it’s specifically MacNamara singing it.

MacNamara first is introduced to seem like a stereotypical patriotic army guy in the scene where he knocks Paul out. However, he then subverts that in the next scene where we learn his true morals, namely that he believes in love and humanity as his higher purpose and he will put that above the orders of his country if they conflict. He chooses to let Paul live because of that, and when Paul asks if he can save Emma, MacNamara gives him his gun and tells him to go. We learn, as does Paul, that despite his appearance and general vibes, he is a genuinely good person who wants to help and is willing to put his moral code above his patriotism.

But when he gets apotheosized, he becomes the complete opposite. Suddenly his loyalty is to his country only, and his own moral code is erased in service of that, which causes contradictions between the lyrics of AIGA and his thoughts in the scene with Paul. “You can’t run because our borders are closed” when he was helping Paul escape in a helicopter as a human; “Americans should fit a mold” when he didn’t at all fit the “douchey army patriot” mold he was presented with; “There’s only room for right and wrong” when he clearly is able to choose between his own morality and his orders, indicating a more complex outlook instead of a binary. He becomes the stereotype he was subverting, and in doing so he becomes someone that the real MacNamara would have hated. That’s the tragedy of that song, and of the whole show really, is that the people who become part of the hive mind lose their true selves and are only able to act in their stereotypical roles, even if that’s nothing like how they actually were as humans.

There’s also something to be said here about how the us war machine and capitalism corrupts people and makes them into something they would never have been otherwise through a forced loss of personhood but I can’t figure out how to phrase that so

[godbirdart]

「 boys don't cry 」

about suppressed emotions, downplayed heartaches, and the expectations to remain stoically self reliant without the community and connection needed to help open the paths away from isolated self destruction.

[alastorss]

Hello! I'm not sure if you'll be interested in writing something like this, but if your requests are open (and if you're interested), would you be willing to write some fluffy stuff? An Alastor x Shy/anxious reader, perhaps?

a/n: hello!! i'd love to write some alastor comfort fics based off shy/anxious readers but for now here's some good ol' fluff for the soul ♡ (with a mentioned quieter/shy reader)

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

You can always tell when Alastor's smiles are forced.

It's the subtle twitch of his eye, the annoyed little glare he'll stare into empty space with, the way his jaw gets so taut you're afraid it'll snap.

Quiet and observant, you've made it your personal duty to learn Alastor inside and out without stepping on his toes—watching how he grows increasingly annoyed with every brazen sex joke beat into his head from a distance but never actually having the nerves to talk to him.

You think you can read all his little tells by now. How his antlers get a little bigger with every huff of indignation. How his mind is never in the room (he's got a lot of souls screaming in his ears, after all. You learned that, too).

You thought you knew him just by watching, but you were wrong. Dead wrong. Alastor is an enigma, truly one of the great mysteries of Hell. You were foolish to think you could understand even half of him.

He's all bared fangs and glowing eyes right now, a hand squeezing your hip and the other tracing down your face. Waltz music faintly fills the lobby of the hotel where you both stand, but it feels like a million miles away when the static from the Radio Demon is sizzling in your ears.

His smile is impossibly relaxed, not an ounce of irritation in his expression that you've gotten so used to seeing all over his face. You can't comprehend this, can't understand why he's looking at you so softly and cradling your face with so much care.

It's bad enough that he had asked you to dance with him in the first place, and that you'd squeaked out a "yes" before considering the implications of that. He knew you were shyer than the rest of your friends here—perhaps he had been suspicious of you and wanted to get a closer look.

A dreadful chill runs up your spine and you shudder pathetically, eyes screwing shut as you await whatever fate will befall you in the hands of an Overlord.

But your judgement never comes.

Instead, his thumbs gently pull at your cheeks in opposite directions. When your eyes fly back open, you're face-to-face with nothing but warmth.

"You should smile more," he tells you without his usual facade of excitement. "It's wonderful."

You just stare at each other for a long moment, both frozen in place with his hands all over your face and you limply staying in his hold.

Oh no. Oh no no no. You're certain your cheeks are hot as magma right now because of some simple flattery. Then again, you've been watching him from afar for long enough to know that he doesn't flatter just anyone.

You jerk away from him with a nervous cough, but he catches your wrist and pulls you back into his chest. As if nothing had even happened, he guides and strings you along in a waltz once more.

Annoyance, anger, sadistic joy—these are all things that come as easy as breathing to Alastor. But this is a new emotion you're witnessing, with his ears pulled back flat against his head and his eyes avoiding yours even as he dances with you.

It makes you sputter in laughter, head tilting back as you giggle at how embarrassed he seems.

"Thank you."

He softens at this, smile genuine. You'll come to know this side of him, too. You're sure of it.

You don't know why you were ever so afraid of this monster. Not when he's automatically reaching out to trace your smile with his thumb as if it's something he's always wanted to do.

(It is.)

[stephhwing]

reading about dick grayson in fics is like i love giving him crashouts and existential crises like it it's just a normal tuesday babe, but its easy to forget his innate sense of justice and his intrinsic capacity for optimism!! when he had no light he became the light. despite all his performer's tendencies he is naturally witty and charming and he has a thrill for everything to do with life and love!! thats what magnetizes SO MANY people towards him! like devin grayson said he is a person of many contradictions and she was sooo RIGHT. and i feel that even through his debilitating guilt and contritive tendencies he is so full of HOPE and WILL for the better good.

[miasmaghoul]

Swiss got called back to the abbey because Frater Imperator couldn't manage on his own and needed a right hand. Aether was too busy running the infirmary to do it, and Cumulus has never been interested in leadership. Swiss though? Swiss can do it. He can and will do anything for his Papa. He said goodbye in his kiss to V that one night, and then he was gone. Vanished by some clergy underlings.

Aeon, in a small, hollow voice, asks Dew that night if he felt this way when Aether left, a hand over his own heart, and Dew just lets the poor thing cry it out against his chest until he's exhausted and finally asleep.

Then his tears come too.

[thimblings]

viago "fashion police" de riva

[wistfulwatcher]

emily prentiss + her waning tolerance of getting close to killers

[kacievvbbbb]

I love how extreme found family is in one piece. Like they took supernatural line of "Family don't end in blood" and actually made good on it. Because it's not just that the crew found each other even before that only really very briefly Robin, Usopp and Luffy could say that anyone biologically related to them raised them.

Like Luffy had Garp and that's his grandpa but he also had Makino and Shanks and the red hair pirates and they were a family unit and he also had Ace, Sabo Dandan and the bandits and they were a family as well and it's never who mattered more to Luffy or who actually raised him cause they all did. It'd be hard to put him in a nuclear family structure because so many people fill the same roles in his life in different ways and that's great like Kung Fu panda said "that doesn't mean less for one parent it just means more for Luffy"

And that's the thing I think sometime fandom can get very obsessive with trying to pin down who is whose surrogate father/mother how do they fit in the nuclear family structure and while that's fun and there's nothing wrong with head cannon characters that way I also think it's important to remember that not every relationship needs a title or definition sometimes you are just family and that's valid too.

Ace had Luffy and Garp but he also had the whitebeard pirates and his pops same with Sabo and the revolutionaries

Zoro with Kuina and his old kendo master, that was maybe more of a rivals, mentor mentee relationship than whatever Mihawk Zoro and Perona had going on but it's all family none the less.

Chopper with Hiririluk and Kureha. Perona and Moria, Usopp with the little village boys and Kaya. Shanks and Buggy with the Roger Pirates. They might not all have had defined roles with each other but it was still family.

Just like Sanji, Nami, Franky and Law and their more defined Surrogate familes

And people like Vivi Robin Usopp and Shirahoshi who had/have their biological parents/family that love them and raised them.

It's nobody that I've just mentioned properly fitting squarely into any of these categories because it's all complicated family is complicated and its messy and it's big and everyone in your family might not have even met but it's family and it doesn't end in blood and for some people it never started there either.

[youweremygoal]

Family, Food, and Gaiden

a lot of people have already talked at length about the bento scene in gaiden, but I wanted to do it too, and specifically how it, gaiden, and the rest of the manga posit (through naruto himself and outside observers) what family is, and that by that metric nh aren't a true family. namely, food and protection. long post warning i like to talk.

so first let's set the stage and go back to chapter 3, where it's observed by kakashi that naruto has been drinking expired milk:

chapter 3 is a huge chapter for establishing naruto the character, it's early on enough that any information we're presented about him is going to massively affect our perception of the character, where chapter 1 is the turning point in his life through iruka, this is the one that really sets the status quo; naruto has a rivalry with sasuke and a 'crush' on sakura, and we're shown sasuke understands naruto's loneliness. we're shown naruto lives alone and eats alone and the food he eats is expired. we get three panels at the end of this chapter of outsiders (kakashi and hiruzen) commenting on naruto's home, and two are dedicated to pointing out the milk, which makes it the most memorable detail and more likely to affect the readers understanding of naruto. while it's part of the comedic story of the chapter, it also symbolises his loneliness, his lack of a family.

so next is iruka. before iruka protects him, he offers to buy naruto food. while iruka's bodily protection is a very obvious bonding moment between the two, it's the offer of food that sets the stage for them actually bonding:

naruto also reflects specifically on them eating together, rather than physically saving him, when calling iruka his family at vote1:

this is connected later in chapter 536, where iruka reflects that he thinks of naruto as a brother (which also lightly refutes narutos vote1 misunderstanding of their relationship being fatherly, and that it further refutes the sns 'brothers' thing, but that's besides the point)

specifically, he thinks of himself as unable to protect naruto and that that means he's failing to live up to being family. but bee, an outside observer, recognises that they are family regardless:

and this page ends with naruto eating the letter iruka wrote him, emphasising that it's not just protection that makes a family but food.

so let's go to gaiden and talk more about outsiders. there are five people present in the first part of the bento scene, most importantly boruto, sarada, and shikamaru. boruto is the only one who could be considered a part of the nh dynamic, and he's visibly upset about what he sees in that relationship:

sarada's role in this scene is to tell us explicitly the meaning of the food, boruto's is to show his dissatisfaction with the state of his father's relationships to him and hinata, but shikamaru's is to take over what naruto isn't there to say (his apology), just as bee did above with iruka, and to watch the rest unfold, and we see him every three or so panels, reemphasising that his observation is a critical part of this scene. the big difference is he can't offer any true reassurance, he can't help them, he can only give instructions and relay messages, because unlike iruka and naruto's relationship, this one has no solid foundation

gaiden further emphasises the connection between food and family through cho cho. when we first see her and choji in a scene we understand she knows her father well through her observations on his chip habits (and serves to further show sarada's lack of a father). the chips are not just food but symbolic of cho cho's connection with her father

which is why she offers them to sasuke to make up with sarada, even bringing the same flavours as in the above panels. it may come across simplistic, even naive, but it also evokes the lack of connection between sasuke and sarada

speaking of offering food, let's quickly go back to the bento

speaks for itself really but it also parallels iruka as the first change and moment we, the readers, see of bonding between sasuke and naruto is not training together or the bodily protection of the land of waves, but once again the offer of food. he also goes on to eat lunch together with sarada and cho cho, but won't come home for dinner. also the favourite restaurant tidbit:

so it's not just the offering of food but the sharing of food too, we go back to chapter 152, where naruto observes a father and son sharing an icey pole, and even mentions food waiting at home.

it's another physical symbol of his loneliness, and the association of family, through jiraiya, and then connected again to iruka

furthermore, the minato one shot strengthens this connection by having minato and jiraiya share the same food in the same scenario of training the rasengan (which in turn was created for kushina)

kushina and minato are also associated with food in their relationship to naruto, firstly through his name

but more importantly through their few and last moments with him. the first thing kushina says with her last words is her wish for him to eat well, it's an extension of her wish for him to have connection and family.

and in his goodbye to minato, naruto begins by mirroring this speech, listing off the foods he likes; these moments are bookends so obviously they'd mirror each other but it shows an understanding on naruto's part of the role food plays in his relationships, and a deeper connection by him listing specifically foods he likes, letting his father know actual facts about him (something cho cho knew about her father)

he also assures his father he does now have connections:

so back to gaiden once more. when naruto talks about family he says what's most important is love:

when sarada reflects on her mother after this, she's specifically shown eating, because food is connection and family. this was about her yearning for a relationship to her father, while her mother was the one there for her, providing her food

in contrast, nh have never shared food. hinata's offer of food is delivered through boruto and sarada, not from her own hands, and the entire scenario is subject to criticism from the characters and readers. when naruto receives the food he thinks of sasuke instead, someone he has claimed as family over the course of the series, and who is shown through the series to meet the criteria of love and family as food and protection. ergo, nh are not truly family in the eyes of the narrative.

as an addition, ss do not actually share food either. in chapter 173 he physically rejects sakura's offer of food:

when they do end up 'sharing a meal' in gaiden, they're actually not. beyond the fact they both look miserable, this scene is about appeasing sarada, showing her in a naive contrast to boruto from earlier who accurately understands his parents lack of connection. it's the same as the previous scene where she thinks back on her mother, eating her mothers food and wanting a connection with her father. the table shown only seats two either side, in fact we don't even know that as we can't accurately see how wide it is, we see no place set up for sakura, she's not part of this meal beyond making it. and unlike sarada who is obviously ready to eat by the chopsticks in her hand, sasuke has made no move to touch the food. he is not an active participant in this meal, and therefore in this relationship

[yourlocalguardian]

You’ve heard of t4t now get ready for:

✨ C4C ✨

Aka “creature for creature” meaning only date creatures in the foreseeable future

[clea-dessendre]

heinrix and idira become psyker besties, pt. 2

[knockknockitsnickels]

I think this is one of my favorite lines from the Wraith route because of (imo) how much the meaning changes depending on if you got there via Spectre or Nightmare. For Spectre, it honestly strikes me as a genuine question. Why are you doing this to her? If you're on the Spectre route, you presumably already know the Narrator can't really be trusted, since you had to reject his reward to get here. What are you hoping to gain from continuing to hurt her? For Nightmare, it honestly just makes me sad. As the Shifting Mound describes her, "She desires only companionship, but the only thing she knows is how to hurt." This line feels like a plea from someone who genuinely doesn't understand why you keep rejecting her. She wants to be with you, but she just can't understand how to do that in a way which doesn't hurt you.