#I don't think one would do so for a being that was inherently savage or evil

[saints-who-never-existed]

Ok, maybe this is a really stupid question, but why the hell did Tuunbaq consume souls? What does it do with them? Digest them? Tasty snack nomnomnom? Why not just kill those pesky sailors? I have an understanding of what Tuunbaq represents, but why the soul sucking? Sorry, I still have whiplash from that show…

Anyway, thank you for enlightening me in advance! <3

Not a stupid question at all!

I'm going to give an answer based more on personal knowledge and opinion rather than cold hard fact - apologies in advance if that's not what you're looking for. Rest assured though that this is something I intend to chase up further sources on and think/write a great deal more about in future. :)

For all you couldn't strictly define it as cannibalism, when I think of the Tuunbaq and its consumption of souls, I think of what I know about various cultures throughout the world that have practiced cannibalism historically, and I think about the reasons why they did so.

Often, it was a reverential and sacred practice, enacted in a very focused and particular way. In many cases, specific body parts were eaten with the intention that one would gain characteristics associated with the deceased - eating a man's heart to gain his courage, eating a person's eyes to gain insight or their brain to absorb in some way their wisdom.

I think that's part of why Tuunbaq eats souls. The men are invaders within the landscape who are alien in every conceivable way so it make sense to me that Tuunbaq could gain knowledge of/insight into/power over them by absorbing their souls - the very essence of who they truly are.

But I also see Tuunbaq's consumption of souls as something potentially more akin to exocannibalism - eating one's enemies as an open expression of hostility, the ultimate indignity, the most extreme act of domination. And make no mistake, Franklin's men are enemies.

They've invaded and desecrated the land, killed Silna's father, caused Tuunbaq to go "off" in the first place. It makes sense to me that an enemy of that magnitude would warrant the extra horror and indignity of their soul being consumed as well as their body.

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

I think the point that tgcf tries to make with vol.6/book 4 isn't so much that people are inherently kind/aren't inherently cruel, as it is the fact that they can be driven towards cruelty as much as they can choose kindness.

What do i mean by this?

Spoilers under the cut

Im referring to the 100 swords incident to make my point because this scene (and others) shows us that people don't simply jump at the chance to be cruel.

In fact, at the beginning of the scene, right as White No Face revealed that the cure to Human Face Disease was murder and they could stab Xie Lian fatally and he wouldn't die, thus ensuring immunity, people were still reluctant to stab Xie Lian.

Why? Because it appeared unnecessarily cruel. There were voices in the crowd that said so openly, people debated amongst themselves whether this was right or even worth it. And it was not just the street performer that spoke up, but other nameless figures as well.

In fact, the first person stabbed Xie Lian only after the disease started to manifest in the temple - thus making the threat of contracting it real.

That was the moment when people realized choosing kindness (not stabbing Xie Lian) would cost them more (their lives, their children's lives, their families' etc) than cruelty would (stabbing Xie Lian). Not to mention, there was a lack of finality to their action - Xie Lian wouldn't die. So, it appears simple - they protect themselves from the deadly pandemic without bearing the weight of having taken a life.

A win-win, right?

So, why did they go savage with it so quickly if it was just out of necessity?

That's mob mentality, but also rationalization. At the beginning of the scene, the first few people that stab Xie Lian apologize. They explain to him why they had to do it and that they feel bad about it but they had no choice but to try to ensure their health/survival.

They explain themselves to both Xie Lian and their own consciousness, indirectly.

But the more people then stab Xie Lian, in increasingly cruel ways, for motives whether stated or not, the easier it becomes for the rest of people not to feel guilty for it and do it too.

Why? Because everyone else does it, because they don't want to get the disease, because he won't die anyway, because there is no alternative, because the disease is already here.

They rationalize it to the point that, despite the way Xie Lian visibly and audibly suffers, they don't care about it (to the point of being inconvenienced by his screams even). And that's because he becomes the object of their cruelty rather than the subject of it. They don't see or hear or care because they don't see him as a suffering being so much as a means to avoiding suffering for themselves.

Is this selfish? Yes. Is this cruel? Yes.

Is it justified? Hard to say.

(There is much to say about this scene and how it is so impactful because even though it is instinctual to be revolted with the violence and the mindlessness of the crowd, sympathizing with Xie Lian and his suffering, one cannot help but be faced with this visceral sense of horror - asking themselves whether, placed in the same situation, they would do the same or not.

How many of us would risk contracting a deadly disease if the cure was right in front of us like that, without having to carry the burden of their death, ensuring our survival and our loved ones' at a seemingly small price of injuring someone that's largely a stranger?

How many of us would choose to die like that street performer did?)

And i think that's the reason why, despite the immense suffering Xie Lian went through in that temple, to the point that he wanted so desperately to be able to die so that it would end, he still chose to give humanity a chance, to prove that people weren't only ever cruel.

Because what White No Face had managed to prove to him, as well as to us readers, isn't that human nature is cruel and selfish period, but that it can be driven to be cruel and selfish. The drought, the war, the Human Face Disease outbreak, the temple - all these were exceptional circumstances.

In normal circumstances, in day-to-day life when they aren't threatened or hurt, people choose kindness. Not right away, not always openly - but they do have the capacity to be kind and the consciousness to feel bad about how they didn't reach out to help although they wanted to.

When you're at your lowest, it is easy to see the world in black and white, to be blinded with the need for revenge or the desperation of survival. But on a regular day, though slow to action, people are at worst indifferent - at best, they are kind and remorseful.

What White No Face wasn't able to reconcile with was the fact that, faced with calamity, the reactions of cruelty and violence of humanity aren't its true face - but rather, it's worst face. And even not the only one. People are as capable of kindness as they are of cruelty.

And I think that's why Xie Lian didn't follow in his footsteps after all, because he was willing to see both.

[ewingstan]

The Love Lost interlude was interesting. The flashback to interrogating Jen seemed to be establishing that Nicole was, even before everything, operating on certain specific beliefs and resulting frustrations. She saw the world as filled with people who aren't people but monsters, and was frustrated at how little she could do about it. She couldn't "stop all the bad guys," resented the misconduct statutes that slowed down her ability to send "monsters" to jail, and was at least somewhat aware that punishing them after they already hurt people accomplished little.

All of which helps explain her obsession with Rain: she sees him as an especially heinous monster who's escaped punishment too long. Not dealing with him and the other monsters would be compounding her failures, and the fact that killing him wouldn't accomplish anything doesn't matter that much, since she didn't really see it as accomplishing anything back when she was a cop.

The oddity is how she sees herself as working with another monster to "save the world." Firstly because Rain doesn't seem world-threatening, though maybe she's talking about the Mathers more generally. The whole of their plan still isn't clear to me, I'm not sure why they needed to attack the Navigators. But the bigger thing is that she sees Cradle as a monster, and it seems like the text agrees with her even in a way it didn't for Jen.

And its somewhat weird for the text to agree with that "some people are monsters" framing when this whole chapter is pretty clear that its wrong. Its earlier use in the flashback seems to be purposefully positioning it as wrong and dangerous:

Nicole describing people as inherently monstrous is first given in the context of a cop deciding someone must be guilty, and falsifying evidence on that basis. Its introduced as being part-and-parcel with police misconduct. And later parts pose it as something borderline fascistic:

She sees certain criminals as "not having reasons," as if they're savages who do violence because of some automatic, atavistic urge. Instead of, you know. Doing crimes to get money/revenge/safety/etc. People usually have reasons for doing things. But the fact that she thinks some people don't, and that she uses such a politically charged word as "degenerate" to describe such monsters, all signpost that Nicole is following an overly simplistic ideology with horrific ends. Even if she sees herself and Nailbiter as "very similar people at different points in their journeys," she sees the latter as someone who needs to die.

Then there's the whole Colt thing, that Colt was distressing to Nicole because she straddled the line between "innocent child" and "monster" and her becoming a parahuman pushed her in one direction rather than Colt's own autonomous choices. Colt has from the start been an example of people doing stupid harmful things for understandable reasons, and Nicole recognizes that as a burr in her worldview.

But then the reveal that Cradle has been manipulating the cluster and literally turning them evil for his own ends. Which admittedly I still don't understand at all. Though part of that is that I don't understand Nicoles side either; she wanted to kill all the "rule-breaker capes" but also said that stopping kids from getting into capedom was a worthy goal, and whatever she thought they were doing with March I completely missed. But the last paragraphs of Cradle revelation suddenly reinforces what the rest of the chapter so persistently (and often skillfully) tried to argue against vis-a-vis some people just being monsters. I'd typically say that this means that we have to be due for a humanizing look at Cradle, but nothing I've seen from Wardblr indicates I'll get it. We'll see.

Part of the problem might just be the form of the story: a genuine ideological belief that no human is a true monster gets in the way of having a truly villainous villain. But I'm not sure why this story needed one.

[kaelio]

Macro/micro for the fetish thing 📏

Ok, I know this ask is because of that entry in Anne Rice's journal where she watched Jack & The Beanstalk (she misremembered, I'm pretty sure this was Jack the Giant Slayer) so she could mack on Ian McShane and was annoyed the giants in it weren't hot enough, but obviously this is relevant to me because I draw micro/macro applicable stuff for a couple fandoms, or I have anyway.

The answer to this is, however, complex! Yes, in a way, but also not really, in a different way.

So first off, I like to write pornography, but it can't really get me off if I was the one who wrote it. Same with fanart. It's a writing challenge with a smack of pay-it-forward, or the sex is inherent to something I am trying to capture, but if I write it myself I'm too close to it; I remember too much of the process or mentally go into editing mode.

But as a result I tend to think of fetishes as both multipliers and ingredients.

As a consumer, I tend to think of fetishes as multipliers. Like, something that you're totally neutral on is a 1x. Something you just can't stand at all, total horny-killer, is a 0x. Hypothetically there's no upper bound but, say, 3x would mean the story is 3x hotter to you because it features that fetish. An example for me would be scat. Hard 0x. The second I see it, I'm out. No matter what else is going on, the multiplier is 0; the story is at a level of 0 hotness. The earlier answer on oviposition is like a .1x. I haven't run into a story with it that was good enough to get me off, but Bloodchild got close, so I'm saying with the deftest of hands, it can work. Micro/macro is maybe like a situational 1.2x. It's a little bump but it's not going to be make or break per se. It could be in a story where it added nothing to me.

Because that's where we get into fetishes as ingredients.

When I'm thinking about an effective piece of erotica, it's got components, right? It's expressing some notion. It'll have different ingredients in it that make up the whole, that make for a cohesive work. I do think that micro/macro can enhance some recipes a bit, but more than that, it's a virtually essential ingredient to others. Let's say you're into werewolf porn. If the werewolf is like, same-entity-size.... I dunno. Like I guess. But isn't the werewolf theme usually leaning on some sort of power dynamic that the savage nature of the werewolf highlights? The werewolf is going to be 140 lbs? Sure you don't want it to be a bit more Big? Or, to make a different point, more Small? That might take you in a funnier direction, more like a comedy premise perhaps, but something's being communicated by the inclusion of some kind of noticeable size difference.

Let's now take it over to tentacle porn. God, I tried. I have on an occasional whim thrown my lot in with Kurt Eichenwald and it just does not take. I can't get off to it. I'd love it if I could. But anyway, let's say someone's being pointedly caressed by an octopus. You can't have that be just a regular-size octopus. Kind of pathetic. Obviously, that octopus has to be bigger than an octopus should be. "Well, what if you add more octopuses, like an octopus gangbang?" Sure, that might work for some people. But for me it comes off as lacking in confidence. Oh, you had to bring all your little octopus friends to nail this twink? Sad.

Now, I am a scaley straight-up. The only limiting aspect to this, for me, is that most scalies seem to have gotten into it from like... Spyro the Dragon? And they're really cartoony. Doesn't hit. As a kid, I had books on ancient Egypt, and I was intrigued by Sobek. Also we had a caiman. And my mother would find people in the classified ads who were trying to sell giant snakes and pay for her kids to go pet (but not buy) the giant snakes so we wouldn't be afraid of snakes, like she was, so as a child I was just overwhelmingly exposed to giant (16'+) snakes. My mother would go dump us off at places where big snakes were so we could observe big snakes, like reptile shows and the reptile house at the zoo. The result of this was super funny but suffice to say I am not afraid of snakes. (Not into vore though! Does nothing for me! Responsible owners don't live-feed.) I want to be super clear: I do not want to fuck animals, never have, but I did want to nail Bleu in Breath of Fire more than you can possibly imagine. However, if I'm doing scaley stuff in particular, one simply has to admit that micro/macro is the baking soda in that quickbread. It's not the part that makes that fetish work, but it's certainly more likely to turn out the way you intended if you put a little bit of it in there. When I made Cardassians huge in my DS9 redesigns, however, that was mostly in service of it being funny since I was a major bottom-Garak advocate, the bigger they are the funnier that is. Also like, whiny old queen giant lizardman is just fun and has room to spitball where like, I don't know, a more straightforward big hot lizard man would utterly bore me. It can't all be baking soda.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

You know what would be funny? While the RDA is obsessing over Pandora's resources and providing the rich assholes with ways to extend their wrinkled existence, the rest of humanity goes “Fuck this shit! Time to fix up our planet!” Like full on terraform Earth back to its former glory.

And so, while the RDA is spending billions to send ships to terrorizing the tall, blue people, the rest of the world is having its redemption arc up until like a year after the second movie, where they’re at the point where they can go “Yoooo, wtf is the RDA doing over there? Oh, they got bored with fucking us over so they moved to alien natives? Nah, send in the Balkan people (These mfs are built different I swear, they’ll just take a breath of pandoran air and go “Umm, spicy and refreshing”). They’re sent on their way (Let’s say they arrive in 1 year flat because screw physics, this is a joke post, mf are going 4 times ftl.), beat the ever living shit out of the Ahaa cartoon villains that are the RDA personnel and teach them some, you know, human decency, queue in the best apology video of all time, leave the blue people alone, boom mission accomplished. RDA gets sued to hell and back (You know, war crimes and all of that) and even more funding goes to fixing up Earth until its basically as we know it today.

Later down the line, the na’vi need help because of some disaster, humanity sends said help, some form of actual peace is formed, Spider becomes the ambassador of human/na’vi relationships (Guy had the glow up of the century, which tends to happen when you live in a time of peace again and people actually love and care for you “ahem, Spider Sully”) Human and Na’vi truly learn about each other (Ones aren’t uncivilized savages, but people with a unique cultures and deep history. Others aren’t advanced savages with boom sticks, but, you guessed it, people with a unique cultures and deep history.) and learn from each other.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

The end

(Very unrealistic, I know)  

Ugh, my dream. The terraforming Earth part, not the humans coming back. Because the whole movie is a colonization metaphor, I'm so tentative and iffy on the Na'vi needing or wanting any help or support from humanity.

But regardless, I am obsessed with the idea of humanity healing Earth. I know that we are cynical people and are always like "This is realistic, humans are selfish and would take advantage of Pandora as we did to Earth." And I totally get that, but I also love those humans are inherently good stories. I do think the majority of people care and have empathy about other people and their situations, and the majority of problems in the world are systematic and stem from ignorance. People are uneducated or are struggling with what they have to deal with on their own, and don't have the wherewithal to care about every single other thing that is such a gigantic systematic issue. I would love for people, for everyone, to just be like yeah this isn't okay anymore lets fix it. About anything and then everything. But I digress.

I love the idea of Spider Sully and Jake being a bridge between the Na'vi and humanity. I think Jake would have to be involved as well, because honestly Spider has never been to Earth and has never been with regular humans. My man knows no human culture or traditions, really. He's like, really Na'vi biased in that way, hilariously.

Spider: Na'vi culture is better and more important, obviously.

Someone: well, what is human culture.

Spider: clearly it's test tubes, guns, air lock doors, green paper, Jesus Christ, and also tank tops.

[beardedmrbean]

hey quick question look up jewish expulsions and massacres in all the countries immediately bordering Israel. Look up how many Jew live in Yemen. I support Palestinian freedom, safety, and their right to live - I currently support a two state solution because none of the people advocating for a one-state solution have convinced me that it would be best for any of the people involved. But I think pretty much everyone in the Knesset rn should be hanged for crimes against humanity. But you CANNOT pretend that if someone waved a magic wand and the IDF vanished along with other tools of oppression, that there isn't a problem with Hamas and their "kill all jews" charter (which they changed to look prettier only recently) along with other factions who would want to kill Jews either for revenge or for more power or just because of antisemitism.

I'm going to specify - I don't think there is any inherent Palestinian bloodlust or whatever crock of shit a lot of Zionists peddle. I think that Israeli control of the region clearly models what happens when you have one ethnic group in power over another - I think the human evil we see from Israelis committing atrocities against Palestinians is exactly what we would see if the situation reversed. I don't buy that Palestinians are uniquely savage OR uniquely peaceful. "They just want a land in which to live in peace, and they're willing to fight for it but once they have it there would be no reason for violence" perfectly describes Jews fleeing the Holocaust to try to settle Palestine, and we can see where that logic ends. The myth of a perfectly peaceful pre-Israel Palestine is also not actually the prettiest picture.

I will also clarify that I don't think that 2 ethnic groups can't coexist in one nation as a general rule. I just think that in a region shaped by violence for so long, and such extreme violence right up to now, it is much harder to do so. I think its human nature that when things are so violent, most people aren't going to spend energy making sure they're not being prejudicial, both because energy can be better spent either on survival or joy with your own community, and also because it often feels like your prejudice is keeping you safe, or is proven every time One Of Them attacks One Of You. There are plenty of ways they can try to bridge the gaps, but I don't think that "dissolve Israel immediately and completely" accomplishes any of that

Ya, they're gone from pretty much every MENA nation there is or at least at a handful of their previous population, forced expulsions will do that to your population.

As for the palestenian population, to some degree I think they were ok to stay in Israel as it formed they'd just need to accept Israeli citizenship, there's some issues like the Sheikh Jarrah thing from a few years back that kicked off a short war, Muslim family got evicted from a home they'd been squatting in since before the formation of the country of Israel, people that owned the property had the receipt and deed from when the Ottomans still existed.

Folks still called that stealing their home. I imagine a whole bunch of that happened early on, someone's family had purchased a home of some sort with plans to move there but politics and eventually a war got in the way of that and such.

I would love to see the palestenian types free from the various terror groups that keep starting wars and stealing all the resources meant to aid the standard every day person.

As for the multicultural thing, there's 2 million arabs living in Israel who owing to the fact that they're arabs never need to sign up for military service, where as most every single Jewish citizen does and generally speaking they get along well enough and are even friends.

And to address the ethnic issue

These guys mostly just have 'being Jewish' in common with each other, if they can go and fit in there should be easy enough for anyone that isn't of a mind to start trouble.

If the arabs that identify as palestenian want to stay balkanized that's fine, just stop trying to kill the people that want to live in peace.

(still love the story of the Kaifeng Jews, wild stuff and makes for a good read)

[terapsina]

Question of the hour. Can someone figure out what my shipping type is through ten of my all time favorite OTPs?

I ask because I can't.

1. Swan Queen.

Enemies to Friends to Lovers. Angst. The Evil Queen and the Savior. Divorced Moms Feeling. Co-parenting their kid plus town. Battle Couple. Obsessed With Each Other's Happy Ending.

---

2. Elejah.

Tragically Opposite Sides. Mirrors of Each Other. Loyalty. Family. Betrayal. Humanity. Mutual Respect. Regret. Cruelty. Inherent Understanding of What Makes The Other Tick. Full of Weirdly Reciprocated Awe. Casually Dropping 'Always and Forever' in Basically a Love Letter.

---

3. Pardison.

Utterly Fluffy. Sweet. Friends to Lovers. The Hacker and the Thief. Each Other's Safe Space. Good Communication. Rock-solid Foundation. Completely Without Problematic Aspects and Yet Extremely Interesting.

---

4. Hizzie.

Enemies to Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers. Squabbling Like an Old Married Couple. Bitches Against The World. But Also Very Soft. Actually Kinda Obsessed With Each Other. Would Kill For Each Other. Would Also Occasionally Want to Murder Each Other. Right Person, Wrong Time. More Romantic Than They Think They Are. Multiple Jealousy Scenes.

---

5. Bellarke.

The Sloooooowest of Burns. The Head and The Heart. Everyone Including Their Friends, Their Families, Their Antagonists and Their Separate Love Interests Sees It. Completely In Love With Each Other. Being Apart Breaks Them. Each Other's Weak Spot. Also Each Other's Strength. Absolute Idiots. Not Actually Unrequited.

---

6. Graylora.

My Newest Babes. The Prince Turned Mage and the Destined Empress. Initially Unrequited. Friends to Future Lovers. Inspire Hope in Each Other. Find Strength Through The Other's Faith. Awkward Turtleducks. Seeking Purpose and Fearing Destiny. Torn Apart and Longing To Reunite. Tragic "Death" Scene and Savage Vengeful Reaction.

---

7. Clizzy.

Tactile Agony. No But Seriously So Much Touching. Meet-cute Head Bump. Constant Overt Flirting. BFFs to lovers. Falling For Her Brother's Girlfriend. More Chemistry Than The Canon Wants to Allow. Delicious Vibes Of Undercurrent Longing. Just Kiss You Fools.

---

8. Spuffy.

Enemies to Reluctant Allies to Squabbling Children to Nearly Frenemies to Almost Friends to Doomed Lovers to Actual Friends to Lovers. They're a Comedy. They're a Tragedy. They Don't Work and Yet They Do. They're a Rollercoaster of Pain. They Can Be Alone Together. They Trusted Each Other Even Back Before They Liked Each Other. They've Seen The Best and The Worst Of Each Other. No Other Ship Has Hurt Me As Much as This One. The Slayer and The Vampire Who Got His Soul For Her.

---

9. Kahlan/Cara.

The Mother Confessor and The Mord Sith. Reluctant Allies to Enemies to Friends to Lovers. The Confessor Who Chose to Spare Her Sister's Killer. And The Trained Killer Who Couldn't Make Herself Kill The Confessor Even To Save Her. Even Though She Has Magic Resurrection Powers. TWICE. Sexual Tension Oozing Through The Screen. Kahlan Wouldn't Be Able to Confess Cara Either, Fight Me.

---

10. Green Queens.

Two Sociopathic Queens In Love. Would Totally Enslave The Galaxy If Their Families Didn't Hit Them Over The Heads With Rolled Up Newspapers and Say 'NO! BAD QUEENS! No family dinners for you'. Would Do Cold Blooded Slaughter For Each Other. Kinda Have Actually. Sharing Immortality Because What's The Point of Living Forever if They're Not Together.

---

So that's it. Ten of my favorite ships. Do they have a common element? I don't know, I'VE certainly never been able to identify one.

[romance-of-three-memes]

Anyway there are relatively few things that'll make me throw your book in the trash faster than you leaning into the 'Aztecs were violent savages who piled up mountains of corpses from their wars and sacrificial victims and the Inca were peace loving hippies who never did anything wrong'.

I mean, don't get me wrong. The Aztec empire was violent and expansionist, as all empires are. It's literally the whole point of having an empire, taking everything you possibly can for yourself at the expense of everyone else. The main reason why Cortes et al were able to take over was because they knew they could take advantage of the malcontent among the Aztecs' subject states, so they went 'hey we're new around here but those guys sure do seem like they suck and make your lives a lot harder than they have to be. Man, that's soooo unfair, isn't it? How about you team up with us so we can all take them down together?' Conquistadors did that a lot.

And the Aztecs did perform human sacrifice, yeah, duh they did, you'd have to be a nutjob conspiracy theorist or something to seriously argue that they didn't, but the thing is human sacrifice has been performed just about everywhere in the world at some point or another. Not that that justifies it, but it's very inchresting how they're the ones who always come up when that gets mentioned, and it's because the conquistadors massively exaggerated it in the historical record in order to make themselves look better for conquering them.

People look at how the Inca generally avoided violently taking over other civilizations and they think 'wow, they didn't want to fight, they were so diplomatic and ~peaceful~, they just gave everyone everything they needed and they were all happy' but the thing is that if nothing else worked, if push came to shove, they weren't above bloodying their hands to get what they wanted. There was often an understood implication of 'we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way' when the Inca were bringing new peoples into the fold. It wasn't a friendly suggestion. They would get your stuff one way or another. They actively kept a large army that they could easily grow or replenish since every man of what was considered the appropriate age could be conscripted at any point.

They also conveniently forget to mention that the last Inca king, Atahualpa, fought a whole civil war with one of his brothers over who would be king, and it's often thought that that was part of why it was relatively easy for Pizarro et al to come in and take over, Atahualpa had inadvertently done a lot of the work for them.

Basically this all comes down to 'I think it's stupid and unhelpful to broadly label entire civilizations and cultures as being inherently peaceful or violent and I'm tired of inadvertently coming across books that do that specifically with the Aztecs and Incas, Jesus, at least get a bit more creative if you're gonna try and make me look at this'.

[weebsinstash]

It makes my blood boil just thinking of the infantilization (??) of human lunas or whatever else they call the alpha’s mate. It would be so infuriating, imagine you’re brought into this whole thing against your will and EVERY SINGLE person in the pack thinks you’re made of glass and you’ll break without enough supervision. Like oh you’re so cute 🥺 so weak 🥺 so fragile because you’re human 🥺 and AUGGHHH I would riot.

Haha unfortunately the path that a lot of these stories tend to take is that the human is turned into a werewolf when they are marked so a lot of times humans are kind of lowkey forced to assimilate into werewolf society which bugs me sometimes because like, it depends on the story but pack rankings and auras can literally force you to do things? Like when a human is marked they usually take the rank or aura or whatever of their mate. Imagine being a normal human one day and the next day you're an Omega and you wind up in a pack that considers Omegas servants and you have to mindlessly obey a caste system. You open your mouth to exercise your right to speak and an Alpha or Beta or just anyone above you grows at you and you can no longer physically speak. Being ordered and forced to do things you don't want to, treated as inherently lesser, treated subhuman, like, I can imagine most smart humans would run away the second they realize becoming a werewolf could potentially mean becoming enslaved

Like really think on that for a second, what if your werewolf mate wasn't even an Alpha and you go to his pack and the leaders and upper ranked wolves are all fucking assholes and you realize "yeah I'm not going to be your mate because then I would have to live in this community and tbh you're all illegal sovereign citizen savages who break each others bones and hit kids and have slaves"

God suddenly thinking of alpha werewolf x reader x beta werewolf where the alpha and beta are childhood friends and basically brothers and the Alpha won't let you reject his best friend as your mate, also why do I see that with Bakugo and Midoriya 💀 you reject midoriya because you see what a fucking prick bakugou is and you're like "uh fuck that I'm not living here if I'm going to be forced to respect this guy and do whatever he wants + youre a pussy if you think how he and your pact acts is ok + L + ratio"

To be honest in a lot of these stories sometimes it isn't infantilization its just straight up disdain. They think humans are weak and stupid and too emotional which um is curious considering they all have to form their own communities and governments but the human government is usually still the ones running the country? Werewolves wanna act all high and mighty but most of them are criminals by definition, rapists, child beaters, etc. Like in The Silent Alpha, Christian's father was openly disrespectful of Natalia just because she was a human and decided to stay human and not be turned, he looked down on her even though she did literally everything besides the wolf stuff perfectly. Like holy shit I just now remembered Natalia was such a successful Luna she literally won Luna of the Year award because she was managing the construction of facilities for use by her pack and others, genuinely improving their livelihoods? And in private Christian just shit on her and told her none of it even mattered because her real job was providing him an heir :/ cunt. Your heir Dakota hates you and your pack hates you and your parents hate you and even your own wolf hates you

Have I ever mentioned that in some of these stories, when the bully rejects the protagonist, sometimes his wolf is so pissed he REFUSES to let him shift or use his powers ever again? Good. At least the wolf respects his mate. Even in True Luna, Logan's wolf Leon initially told him that he already rejected Emma as his mate and lost his chance, while other wolves are still snapping amd growling "NO YOURE MINE just ignore that I beat and rejected you already you're still mine my rejection doesn't count ahaha"

Imagine actually having a supportive pack and while you're not essentially the Luna or mated or marked yet you really love your alpha mate and his pack and the community and you love the sense of being home it gives you, youre really considering changing your entire life to stay here with your fated soulmate. for alpha meetings, the Luna is usually expected to attend, so imagine your mate brings you to one just to see how it is, and. You realize your pack is an outlier. Your mate and his pack are large and powerful which means they can make their own rules, but many of the others hate humans, treat their Omegas differently, treat their women and children differently. You all come to sit at the table where you're just going to quietly observe from your mate's side (maybe he even asked you to come since your very presence gives him life and all that) and there are Alphas who refuse to sit down, one of them even glaring at you and then your mate, "you brought a human bitch in here?"

Just growls and snapping teeth and broken bones as your mate flies to attack the other Alpha who dared to insult his mate, much of the room watching with casual nonchalance (some would approve considering they would do the same for their mates) while you're HORRIFIED, there's blood, knocked out teeth, werewolves can heal almost anything and so they often let loose like this and you're absolutely chilled by that realization. Even if YOUR pack may be a community you approve of, some of these others all but re-instituted slavery if not being borderline fascist and authoritarian (some of these stories literally have packs that do not even allow mates and marking, some people are just Designated Breeding Slaves)

Some stories have the Gamma able to sense the Luna's emotions and form their own bond even before any official ceremony (being the Alpha's mate inherently makes him sense you I guess idk?) and your Gamma senses the exact moment you begin to think about going back home, your actual home, your human home. Your Alpha might even refuse to attend the meeting just so he can take you home and try and run damage control but the wheels are already in motion and you're beginning to realize you might not want to stay here anymore. Not that your new pack who loves and adores their Luna oh so much really wants to allow that. You can't make such a flip decision because of one event! You're just scared! That's OK, they know humans can be emotional sometimes :) but you're nice and safe and taken care of here and obviously you belong more with them as their Luna than you do with other humans. Even werewolves can be driven by their emotions you know, so they understand! After all, your Alpha loves you so much and just feels so naturally possessive protective of you that he knows he needs to watch over you and protect you forever even if you don't want him to 🥰

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

America is a Christian nation. So why are you a pagan? It's not very American of you.

yeah i just don't agree with this.

yeah it's true that most americans throughout history were probably christian, at least nominally if not actually, but i think there's a lot more nuance than you're letting on.

one of the earliest controversies in american history was the issue of thomas morton and his merrymount. and obviously, the inhabitants of this land were pagans. the early settlers were obviously aware of this fact and they conceived as the wilderness is devilish and pagan. this land is inherently infused with "paganism." there was the salem witch trials where witchcraft was understood to be a pagan (and therefore satanic) practice. a major driving force in our early history was this conflict between christianity and paganism. paganism was always here lurking beneath the surface of things.

additionally, there are the more obvious and direct examples of the founding father's naturalistic deism which is just a step away from being pagan. america is a "christian country" but there's no mention of christ in the declaration of independence. there is, however, a mention of "Nature's God." american culture was overflowing with pagan symbolism and imagery. in a way, because our founders were nominally christian they didn't take all of the pagan symbolism as serious worship of the gods. this is why we can have statues of pagan gods like minerva and ceres and libertas adorning public buildings. because it's just secular art. not religion. because no one worships these gods seriously, right? go read some revolutionary era poetry and you'll find plenty of references to greek and roman gods. our forefathers spoke of their reverence for the goddess of liberty. there's a fresco in the capital building featuring a pantheon of pagan gods and then george washington himself ascending to godhood. there is the classical architecture, inspired by ancient pagan civilizations. there is the fact that american political ideology and government are inspired by classical civilization.

and there's just how nature-based america has always been. we've always revered nature in a way that previous civilizations hadn't. america is just overflowing with natural wonders so it's not a surprise. maybe it also comes from our interactions with the native americans who we often regarded as noble savages whose lifestyles we admired. so many of our major poets and philosophers placed much emphasis on our relationship to the natural world around us. and obviously we eventually started protecting it, officially making it sacrosanct. and even today we have an explosion of nature based religions and spiritualities. and i'd argue these spiritualities are even common among people who claim to be christian. i would bet a good portion of living christian americans have some heavy pagan tendencies. tendencies that they would have been deemed heretics for had they lived a couple centuries ago. but i'd also say that this is an american tradition that's as american as apple pie. americans have always had complicated relationships with christianity. just talk to some european christians and they'll tell you all about how paganized american christians are. america has a long history of unorthodox christianity and obscure cults with suspiciously pagan influences.

and then there's just the fact that i believe that paganism is the default position of man and that man will always naturally tend toward it and that all things we do and believe in will inherently be influenced by and imbued with varying degrees of paganism. so it's always been here and it will always be here. the gods are real and they live. just because they aren't as consciously or as popularly worshipped as they were in ancient times doesn't change this. we still worship them unconsciously because they are so connected with us.

[the--highlanders]

choose violence ask game (loving the name of that btw) - 8, 16, & 23?

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

(this fandom is so small that I don't want to sound like I'm vagueblogging or @-ing someone or anything so I'm just gonna preface this by saying this also goes for plenty of licensed media)

oh man ok. at risk of sounding like a total killjoy who takes everything too seriously & looks too much into stuff. I'm pretty sensitive about. primitivism in the way jamie gets portrayed?? is the best way I can think to describe it?? anything that implies that where & when he comes from means that he's inherently less intelligent, or equates his lack of knowledge on some things with him being stupid. can't stand him being reduced to dumb guy who hits stuff. idiot who has no critical thinking skills or reasoning.

and like, I get that it's a fairly common assumption, the idea that people from the past weren't as smart because they didn't know as much (even setting aside the devaluing of /different/ ways of knowing & understanding) - but, say, victoria never gets this treatment. despite also being from the past. which then leads you to think, hey, why would people make that assumption about jamie and not about victoria?

and then you get to a bunch of ideas which have been kicking around since. before jamie's time, real-world-historically speaking. which depict the highlands as savage, as populated by 'wild' people, by - well - 'primitives'. speakers of a primitive language. violent, at worst, strong, at best, but never intelligent. & this is all starting to sound a lot like the ideas that buttress colonialism and biological determinism, isn't it?

idk. this is a silly 60s family tv show & a very very small online fandom. it's kind of not that deep. but any time jamie gets written off as being inherently stupid (often /because/ of where he comes from), and any time that idea is the foundation of a joke, it rubs me the wrong way, and this is why.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

gfdhkjsg once again this is a v small fandom so 'so many people' is kinda like..... 2 people max probably. & also I've been sort of keeping more or less to myself for a couple years now in terms of actually discussing thoughts & headcanons (except you obviously and also @ettelwenailinon who is always right about everything despite not being super active in dr who fandom on tumblr anymore <3)

gonna go with shipping jamie and victoria tbh. absolutely no hate if you do bc I can definitely see where it comes from in canon/behind the scenes stuff but it is just,,, not for me at all, and so antithecal to how I write/interpret their characters.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

tenrose?? weirdly?? not that I'd say I actively ship it (there is one (1) tenrose fic in my ao3 bookmarks but it's really there bc it's a pretty charming magical realism au and the voices of all the characters are just so spot on rather than bc I ever crave reading about the ship) but. when I got into dr who in 2013 there felt like there was a pretty solid line between rtd fans and moffat fans. & I have always vibed with moffat's era more (neither of them are above criticism obviously, the scifi fairytale aesthetic/tone of moffat's era is just so so so so tailor-made for me personally).

and for some reason tenrose and elevenriver were kind of. bundled into that opposition?? not sure if that was just in my head or something other people noticed/experienced but I felt like if you were a moffat fan you had to ship elevenriver & if you were an rtd fan you had to ship tenrose, and they were like. rivals. (yes I did try very half-heartedly to enjoy elevenriver. no I never succeeded). so I always had this thing of like, I don't like ten, I don't like tenrose.

like I said I still don't actively ship it, I don't get any warm fuzzy feelings from their relationship, but I did go back into rtd's era looking to actively enjoy stuff (after being tired of really not enjoying uh. recent seasons ajhksglf) and found that I didn't hate the concept of tenrose as much as I used to. I genuinely believed they liked each other, I felt the hubris of their relationship worked and built well narratively. never thought that ship would get a redemption arc in my head but I've definitely gained more appreciation for its role in the narrative.

[mikavlcs]

Hello sweetheart! Good morning from me to you.

Her destination is the only thing on her mind. Don't tell me Wednesday purposely stops investigating to be there for R. If that is where she's going then oh boy. There's no helping her. Wednesday is officially a big ol caring softie. (Don't tell her I said that or she will gut me. Or maybe do tell cause a mad Wednesday is hot...)

Aww just imagine a baby Wednesday being all excited about thunderstorms. If that isn't the cutest thing ever then I don't know what is!

Lol, "unfortunately incredibly low" Wednesdays deadpan humor/opinions are the best. She's naturally so hilarious with her dark and straightforward attitude.

Yup. Wednesday is a huge simp for abandoning her research in favor for being there for R. We love to see it!

Lol Wednesday stop your judgment for one minute. Not everyone is as clean and organized as you, plus R is scared of the storm. Just ignore the messy uniform and comfort R.

I absolutely love it when Wednesday is missing words to describe R or anything related to them. It's just so poetic that the great writer Wednesday is at a complete loss for words when it comes to the person she likes. That is such big lover behavior.

😂 "she hoped it was her therapists office" bitch you are so savage, I absolutely love it!

OMG! Sound the alarm, Wednesday used a pet name!! "My angel of death" Biiiitch that is SO sweet and intimate! Surrreeee Wednesday. Of course you will never say that again. Totally not.

Okay wow. I'm flabbergasted. Not only did Wednesday stop her investigation, used a personal nickname, but now she is letting R hear her manuscript!?!? BITCH! That's true love right here. Wednesday would never ever do that unless she's in deep for someone. When will the wedding take place??

"Of course you do I wrote it" Now that's confidence right there. Only Wednesday can be so assured of herself without coming across as totally cocky. It's very hot...

And yeah, having a thing for angels is totally normal but just imagine the darker and devil version of angels. All hot and sexy with their dark wings. Now that's where it's at!

hello! good afternoon (or whatever it is for you now...)<3

my brain is currently unable to formulate coherent responses to most of these paragraphs, but yes, wednesday is certified Soft in this story lmao. it was interesting trying to balance the inherent sappiness with her actual personality, i think i did alright. i was kinda proud of the humor in this one too. i like to think i'm funny at times (that may or may not be a character flaw)

and the concept of like "fallen angels" or something with black wings is so cool like...don't get me started-

thank you for reading and commenting on everything as always, i love waking up to your messages in my inbox 😭🙏💞

[parola-di-winx]

stupid woman, this is the second time you’ve insulted me. you're definitely an Islamophobe, I don't believe in your support for Palestine. I wrote in arabic so you can see that I'm real.and I didn’t write the second message. you're just stupid

cannibal holocaust is like a mockumentary but the structure is found footage and some might even SAY it's the first of its kind ?!?! isn't that just inherently cool?? to have something that is considered the first time A Thing has ever been done??? like that's always so exciting to me. part of why texas chainsaw massacre is SO elevated in my brain probably. anyway it being the first found footage movie is especially significant because people have never seen that before. you know how blair witch came out and everyone was genuinely looking for these kids lost in the woods? imagine that TWO DECADES EARLIER the director went to COURT bc people thought he was actually distributing REAL people being murdered and worse. he had to ho back to south america and find all the actors and bring them to court with him to prove no one actually died. the worst part abt this movie is also the only part that's real unfort which is the animals that Have been hurt very graphically too for the making of this movie. which is not only fucking sad but so frustrating because none of that was even necessary like they had such good sfx at play and you had to kill animals for real ?? and like for what. none of those scenes were necessary

anyway the mockumentary aspect was film crew going to somewhere in the amazon forest to show Unhinger Wild Barbaric Native Tribes ooooooo isn't it sooooo scary look at all these evil insane things they dooooo........ and then said crew gets Lost. they never come back and a professor who iirc was like an expert in traditions and culture or whatever of people who live in the amazon is sent to find them. they do find the tribe the crew had made contact with and find the footage too. they find the entire film which besides the /documentary/ section also shows how the crew would the worst things to fire up the tribe or straight up Fake rituals and stuff that they would then sell as Evil Insane Scary Rituals . thank God eventually they get got and die horribly 👍👍

a third of the film is cinematically shot and i'm not sure what the excuse for that is. i think they were doing a mockumentary within the mockumentary? like the crew is doing a documentary in the amazon forest and then the professor and His team is doing a documentary about the search for the original crew. but then there are also more cinematic scenes of the professor showing the entire footage to his producers to convince them it shouldn't be aired/should only be aired in full to show the truth. it's kinda like. who is really the barbarian here. who is really the savage. i think it was trying to fly too close to the sun and comes off as slightly pretentious bc aren't you, deodato the real life director of this whole movie, still lowkey exploiting random people from the other side of the world ? like what business do you have trying to woke shame the usamericans ??? idk lmao i don't trust this mans he's done other. sort of equally distasteful Attempts at. something. i don't know what is goal ever is. but. people were traumatized and terrified of this movie when it first aired and i wish i was alive at the time to like. experience the mass hysteria that makes you believe this is true. it's surely a fascinating time capsule and now we have paranormal activity

do you wanna know the real gorey gross bits ? that's what we're here for right ? they had a girl impaled from her genitals to her mouth. it looked INSANE it's i think the most striking visual from the movie and it's done so well it still holds up fine. they had like this huge pole so that it would REALLY look extra painful and the top half was attached to a mouthpiece the actress could like bite into ? and the bottom half had like a bike seat type of end akfkakkf so she could kinda sit on it . insane. really good. i tip my hat

[barbatos-sama]

so like... it's been a minute since i've watched/read but this story was always interesting to me bc it explored what a predator/prey dynamic would be like if animals were put into a human-esque society, in like a unique way that i hadn't seen before. since like, usually you just get stuff like zoo topia where the predators have to prove they're ~nice actually and don't eat prey~ because ppl don't want to have a complicated moral gray area like that, there has to be clear good and bad sides so of course the prey are the good guys and the predators have to prove they're not savages etc. but this story explores it more realistically imo, where morally it's incredibly complex and the society hurts both sides in different ways, and there's no real way for everyone to actually Win in this story because, irl, nature is nature and there's no good/bad because animals don't have a sense of morals, a predator isn't bad because they're just an animal doing their natural behavior. but since you're applying a human sense of morals to it, there's no way for both predator and prey to be happy in the end if they have human morals.

in this world predators are profiled as being inherently dangerous to prey and are often treated poorly as a result, and a potential relationship between a predator and prey is viewed as inherently problematic because of the risk of the predator giving into their instincts and eating their partner. predators often have to go the extra mile to appear friendly and nonthreatening, a big and sad example being the mayor(?) who is a lion, who had his sharp teeth replaced with flat ones to appear more friendly to a prey audience. he had to modify his body to appease prey which is pretty sad. so like, in a different story this would have been framed as the predators being the oppressed and the prey being the oppressors, but this isn't that kind of story. the thing is, yeah predators are discriminated against, but they aren't always the oppressors.

the fact of the matter is that some predators Do eat prey, the prey have a very real logical reason to be cautious of predators. even the most friendly predator can suddenly be betrayed by their own instincts and attack. prey are also often looked down upon by predators due to being less imposing and smaller, as you can imagine predators have a physical advantage over prey so they have power over them in that way. but there's actually a really interesting moment where an elephant was in therapy because they face microaggressions the way a predator would, despite the fact that elephants are herbivores, just because they're so large. so prey do have the advantage of having some really big brethren, which may explain how despite tending to have the physical advantage over prey, predators seem to have gotten the short end of the stick in this world.

predators are forced to survive off a diet of eggs for protein since it's illegal to eat meat as that would obviously be murder, (and perhaps cannibalism?) but it poses the question of whether that's actually Fair or not. their biological needs are repressed and they have to eat things that aren't exactly ideal just to survive. however something you find out a bit into the story is that there's a black market for meat and a lot of predators partake in it. and it leaves you conflicted because, it's horrific to think that there's a big profitable underground market for murdered bodies of prey, or even worse, children raised with the purpose of being livestock.

louis is an interesting character because he is a prey that i believe was either raised as livestock or at least trafficked somehow (can't remember the specifics) but either way he was a victim of predators. but he hates the fact that he is prey, he wishes he could be a predator and have the power that comes with it. he tries to force himself to eat meat but his body simply can't digest it. he hates it, hates being prey.

both sides have ways in which they're oppressed or being oppressed, both have hardships and there is no true right and wrong status in this society, no matter how hard they try to establish one. because the idea of predators and prey simply cannot fit into our own human ideals of what morality is, there are no winners and no way that everyone in this story could have a happy ending. i just think it's an interesting unique exploration of a premise i've seen done before but is always way too simplified and black and white to be realistic

[alharringtonfan]

8pm godposting because i dont ahve a joband this is my blog deal with it

It's deeply unfortunate that humans are so egotistical in nature. I believe it's a self defense mechanism and a way to keep our minds at ease from other vices such as envy and such but when you finally wake up and look back at all the evil thoughts you've had about other people...

I feel disappointment, digust at myself for not being able to control my savage human nature and letting it take power over my rational side. It's like the analogy of a man on an elephant. I know they have to learn how to coexist but I want to keep the elephant locked up forever. I don't like not having control over my human nature. I feel evil deep within because of these thoughts and urges. I won't ever lose control but to just have them is horrible.

We like to think our lives are so much better than of the others we dislike. That we are a better person because of our opinions/values that we consider to be "the ultimate best". It's kind of funny, for one single human to want to control 8 billion people into doing what they deem is correct and to live a certain way they believe is good. I shouldn't be doing that. If they live their lives like that, as long as they are only harming THEMSELVES and being delusional to themselves only, I can't think that I'm better for not being like them because I myself have my own way of living someone else might see as destructive. May it be for their own ideology, group values, etc. Someone might see me having the opinions I have as problematic. But who they are to judge? We have our principles set on the Bible and on the greater common that is set through debates. Not all change is good but how would have we gotten to this point if not for change? I wouldn't be writing this if not for change, but some horrifying side-effects have come along with it. How can I not poison myself with my evil thoughts but also try to engage on this debate for the greater good (that I have assigned myself)? Doing this I will inherently start thinking negatively of the other party, yet I still shouldn't think that I'm better because of that. I should have to be driven by the need to help others in whatever way I feel that's best (which again, a kind of help that I have assigned myself). I fear for the future, because we don't have preassigned follow-ups for each action which means we're taking risks on picking and choosing what's the right agenda to follow. That hasn't turned out well as we can see from recent years, but good stuff has surged with that.

It's a balance. Humanity will never be truly good nor truly evil. It's a grand world made up of shades of black and white, looking mostly gray. I myself am one, so I think we should strive for a lighter shade of gray, not thinking we can ever be fully white... Sometimes, we have to sacrifice a bit of the control over the elephant for stability. I might never be perfect, but the least I can do is hold onto it for as long as possible, as stably as possible. As long as I'm trying with all my might, I feel like God may forgive me.

I mean, I'm a Cesark obsessed loser whose whole identity revolves around politics. I shouldn't be one to talk about someone for using retarded words to describe themselves or for being generally strange. Only the Lord is there to judge. I have to live my life. Which I hope can be a long one. The longest a human can live, I want it.

[liopleurodean]

Season 11, Episode 7: Plush

Oh boy

I guess not

That's creepy as all get out

Spooky

I've never heard of a person that calls it a brewski, unless they're a piece of crap

That's just weird

Sam...

Come on, Dean

It's not much to work off of

Donna!

Dude. Rude much?

Exactly what she said

Missed you, Donna

Interesting

Magic, maybe?

That's good, Donna

I love them

Joe Elliot and Richard Savage are the lead singer and bassist (respectively) of Def Leppard, known for Rock of Ages and Pour Some Sugar On Me.

Donna..?

Awkward

Good idea

She pulled a Bobby!

Oh, fair

Freaky

Yeah

Okay, Dean

What does that mean?

Great movie, Sam. I'm proud of you

Oh!

What's the tattoo?

They've got a lead

Minnesota Tech, it matches the shirt

Poor girl

So, enchanted mask

They believe you

This is a bad idea

She's a cop, man

Donna...

Oh, it's really just that bad

Uh oh

Yikes

Poor kid

Oh, Donna...

Yeah.

Too easy

That's the second drug mention

Five Finger Death Punch. Nice

Cold spots

Sooo... a ghost is possessing masks?

Poor kid

No, it's going after the coach

Huh.

Well...

This is extremely awkward

I'm sorry, but no one would say "getting all swole" in a conversation with federal agents

That's all the reason to know

Dean.

Yikes

Great question

Key word 'maybe'

Interesting

Dean.

Whoa!

Well, it worked

That's not what he meant, Donna

Poor kid

Thanks, Donna!

That's rough

Fantastic

So he could be possessing any of the costumes. Awesome

Time to split the party

Uh oh

Yikes

I don't think clowns are inherently creepy, but that's just unnerving

Oh, poor Sam 😂

This is going well

Great question

Sorry, Donna

Something like that

She's being unnecessarily mean

Right...

I mean. She right. But so is he

Uh oh

OH MY GOSH

I've seen this photo out of context, there's two Impalas there! Obviously Baby on the street, but in the driveway the red car is an Impala from the 90s/early 00s

True

Whoa

Interesting

Mm. That's awkward

Cute

Sure

She's hiding something

It has everything to do with this

Oh boy

That's a valid concern

Oh no

That's horrible

This whole situation is messed up

Max, no!

That's not good

Hurry up

Yikes!

Come on, Sam

He might listen to a kid

Well, it at least delayed him

Yeah, good idea

Hey, cheese curds are great

Yeah

She's so cute, I love her

Aw, yay! She's apologizing

Yeah...

I don't believe that