#I think that's the best way to put it

[ministarfruit]

"my oshis graduated" outfit swap

[taketwoinink]

slowly dying every day until the next part of @buggachat 's 'bakery enemies' comic comes out

and then I live for the two minutes it take me to read it four or five times

and then we go back to death

[jaypentaghast]

"I mean, who even are you?" Izzy and mirrors. Our Flag Means Death | Season 2, Episode 4 & Episode 6 (2023)

[musubiki]

danmarch 🐉💎

[wouldntbehim]

mix: firstprince (taylor's version)

[hajihiko]

“oh no people tell me I have no sense of personal space and I'm a man and her unofficial coach what if I've been making her uncomfortable- and Akane is like nah. You're not gonna do anything to me I can feel it. Like hes the only person who can overpower her but he just uses that strength to be there for her” og my god. i need a minute after that ome. god i had a whole long winded analysis of this and i was gonna put it all here but i seriously have no words. this is so real in every possible way and a lil too relatable lmfao

ITMEANS A LOT TO ME OKAY. I too could rsnt but idk where it would go

[grandwretch]

i do think peak comedy is a steve who is absolutely aware of the effect he has on people, but has never felt that way towards anyone else-- the closest he got was with nancy and robin, because he loved them both in different ways, and sometimes he felt like he was going to go insane if he didn't talk to them or touch them right now, but it was never like he had seen other people act about him. robin and nancy made him a better person. they didn't drive him to ridiculous levels of violence and obsession. maybe people in hawkins were just fucking weird.

and then he meets eddie, falls in love with eddie, and he's like... yeah, okay. alright. no, i get it. if anything happened to this guy i would steal the nuclear launch codes.

[gardensofthemoon]

Jiang Cheng is so. Is just so. He’s WWX’s shidi. His Sect Leader. His brother. His not-brother. His best friend. His enemy. His executioner. His most important person. His chance at forgiveness. His childhood sweetheart. His estranged acquaintance. His wife. His ex-wife. His home. Always, always his.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Master manipulator vs Master manipulator

 [First] Prev <–-> Next

[stuckinapril]

Well it may seem like the end of the world but tomorrow’s a new day & the sun will shine just a little brighter with each moment that spring inches closer & you will find the people who cocoon you like a warm wool blanket & you won’t have to cling so hard to those who strip you bare anymore

[medicalunprofessional]

[feroluce]

I've only recently started having my own thoughts about Emanator!Sampo and I think my favorite version of this is that he is technically an Emanator, it's just that he doesn't talk about it because Aha is a dick who only blesses people that don't want it and Sampo hates it here dkjxkdkdck

Aha blessed the Mourning Actors! A whole faction of people who have specifically made it their life's mission to resist Elation! They made a literal worm their Emanator just to see if it would be accepted into the Genius Society! And when it wasn't, Aha just as easily killed it and tossed it aside! So I feel like there is a good possibility that Aha looked down at Sampo, this little oddball who doesn't seem to even like Epsilon or a lot of the Masked Fools and was like.

Hey.

You know what would be really really funny.

And I feel like being an Emanator wouldn't even be a plus for Sampo, because of how he operates. Sampo excels at blending in; he managed to smuggle himself onto a planet

that had been isolated for 700 years,

with only one (1) single city on it,

and going even further, he snuck himself into the Underground,

where the population is even more sparse,

and STILL. Not a single accusation of him being an alien! Not even after the Astral Express lands and proves that interstellar space travel is possible! Sampo is so thoroughly ingrained into Belobog that yeah, some people admit they don't know his origins, but none of it ever comes with the question of whether he actually is a Belobog native or not. Sampo knows exactly how to blend himself into his surroundings in the most subtle way possible. And being an Emanator, something far more powerful than any normal human or Pathstrider could ever hope to be, would only throw in a massive extra variable for him. Sampo would have to be so so careful to keep a lid on his Emanator traits, to keep up the appearance of being totally normal and average at all times. It doesn't help him at all.

And this part is pure indulgence, but I love taking Aha's closeness with mortals, and THEIR tendency to take human form, and twisting it into a case of THEM using Sampo as a vessel.

I want Aha to look at Sampo the same way all of us look at Sampo. A chew toy. A plaything. Something to shove through the meat grinder. Aha thinks Sampo is hilarious and a funny, silly little guy, and THEY want to put him in Situations just to see what he does. Sampo is not a fan.

This though, this is what makes Sampo so wildly entertaining as a vessel. Because Aha knows that Sampo does not want to be a vessel, does not even want to be an Emanator, and THEY find it SO much fun to watch the mental gymnastics he has to pull to convince himself he's ok with it, this is fine actually, because he's not exactly about to tell off a literal god. He doesn't feel like getting a smiting today, please and thank you.

Because squeezing yourself into a human vessel is so different than merely adopting a human disguise, there's already a human soul in there, it's kind of a tight fit. If Sampo doesn't make room, doesn't all but dissociate right out of his own body, it could cause. Consequences.

And so, Aha always gives a warning, just to watch him squirm.

It begins with the sound of bells.

Just little ones, at first. Small, clinking little sounds that could even be considered nice. Something almost gentle, like a wind chime in a pleasant breeze on a warm day. This is the signal for the countdown.

Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Makes himself as small as possible within his own body.

The bells rise and multiply, tinkling wind chimes give way to sleigh bells, to shopkeepers bells, the sound of something inevitable approaching, something entering.

Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Dilutes himself, weaker and weaker concentrations.

The bells rise and rise, multiply and multiply, celebration and tragedy resonating in the sound of church bells, ringing bright and loud, the sounds of weddings and funerals both the same.

Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Becomes like smoke, like vapor. Hollows himself out.

Empty, empty, empty until he echoes, like a bell, like something with the sole purpose of being shaken and rattled around, a thing to be struck, the sounds jarring and punched out and gasping and piercing the air, the lung, the eardrum.

Sampo breathes in.

Beaten he rings, bashed in he sings.

Aha breathes out.

[aquickstart]

ok sure i'll talk about farleigh start. i'll talk about his tragedy of never being enough as it were and then having to deal with fucking oliver. sure. disclaimer: it's about class (and race) and the horrible reality of the rich. the horrible reality of living as farleigh.

another disclaimer: i'm white! and poc definitely pick up on everything i'm talking about here as it is, and better. i was and am specifically interested in farleigh vs. oliver but it's impossible to examine without considering race. definitely let me know if anything abt this sucks!

farleigh and oliver are similar. it's annoying because every intruder that is not himself is annoying, partly because felix's attention swaying from farleigh is dangerous; there is always a threat of being discarded, even if no precedent existed. the potential is terrifying.

but you'd think he's seen this before, every summer (if venetia is telling the truth) or at least often enough to learn to recognize it fast, so he should know this will pass. part of it is i think still the deep anxiety, and i think he hated every boy that was there before, and it is sort of routine.

but definitely a huge factor in farleigh's annoyance is the fact that he's a biracial (black for cattons, that's all they see) man in a white rich household. he's alert and exhausted all the time. of course he's angry at oliver, regardless of whether he's the first to crash at saltburn for the summer or the fifty-first.

but the important thing is this.

farleigh is very jealous of and angry and pissed at oliver because farleigh sees all the similarities between them. outsider, in financial trouble, whatever it is, in need of cattons; and yet oliver is preferred. and farleigh seems to be the only one to really consider it. felix does not pick up on the hint when farleigh brings up the birthday party vs. his mother. felix's clumsy "different or... anything like that" is as much about race as it is about class, of course. the "we've done all that we can" bit is felix absolving himself of guilt because surely they had, surely the mysterious collective cattons that he's not really part of had tried all they could do. to him, farleigh is different from oliver, because farleigh has been helped. felix is rich and white and twofold uncomfortable with farleigh, even if he's nice about it, even if he genuinely enjoys his company; he doesn't look too close at farleigh because he feels too guilty to come too close. and farleigh can't do anything about it. he can't nice himself into it. the fucking tragedy of him is that he's never enough in the world of the ultra-rich white, even if (especially because!) he's born into it.

farleigh is very pissed at oliver because farleigh also sees all the differences between them. you know who can be nice poor white enough to fit in? fucking oliver. felix says "just be yourself, they'll love you" when oliver first moves in. farleigh was also probably told the same thing, and felix also probably believed that farleigh could just be himself, but even if the cattons were magically not racist at all (impossible), it wouldn't make a difference to farleigh. he would still self-censor, keep in check, be in dangerous waters (because racism is not just about the individual, but about the system). we see that he'd won himself leeway by years of trial and error by the way he speaks to the family, but it's still within the boundaries of acceptable, built by the cattons. he's part of them because they allow it, and farleigh is very, very aware.

the annoying thing is oliver can be himself. like, truly, genuinely, he can just be. and farleigh can't help but envy that.

as a side note, oliver is obviously jealous of farleigh in the beginning as well, because regardless of the reality of farleigh's situation, he was born into it, and hence, at least in oliver's mind, has his position solidified. oliver's whole thing is unquenchable thirst and hunger for whatever and everything the cattons have (including themselves!). he wishes to have been a catton from birth. to oliver, at first, there's nothing farleigh can really do to lose it. and until he figures out the cattons completely, he can't help but envy that.

but i think farleigh senses something different about oliver early on. at least on the level of the text, we have "you're almost passing [for] a real, human boy", which is so important because farleigh is the first to point out oliver's weirdness. the next to do so is venetia in the bath scene calling him a freak, but it's too late. farleigh is too early.

and i like to think he clocks oliver too early because he sees the jagged edges that he recognizes in himself. i think that one other thing that farleigh envies is oliver's freedom to let go. freedom to let go is very similar to freedom to be, but not quite the same.

to be is about perception: farleigh knows he cannot fall out of line, but would like to, and oliver does not have to worry about it at all (i mean, he does, because oliver also performs for felix, but farleigh doesn't know that).

to let go is about the self: farleigh is too scared to even want what oliver eventually does, to even consider the possibility. oliver can let himself want. oliver can let himself act. oliver just can do things and want things. i'm not sure farleigh can.

and so in this scene, when oliver's wants and actions have landed him nowhere with farleigh, felix, venetia, the cattons, of course farleigh gloats. he can let himself do that, because if the cattons are slowly discarding him, farleigh can allow himself this one small victory. he's relieved because despite the dangerous similarities, oliver is, thankfully, not really the same as farleigh, right?

but like. this movie is a love letter to all things gothic. oliver is a white man. he prevails. the brief performance that oliver put on did eventually end up more effective than farleigh's lifetime of constraint. my heart fucking breaks for him to be honest.

the issue that remains is the fact of farleigh's survival. i like to think that oliver came to respect him. oliver is smart, but farleigh is clever. he picks up on everything oliver does (to refer back to the karaoke scene, farleigh immediately retaliates in the cleverest way, in the moment), and he's the only one to do so consistently (venetia, again, for example, comes close, but too late; oliver doesn't like that, there's nothing to work with). hence, stay with me for a little longer, the paradox: farleigh survives because he was never enough for the cattons, but he is very worthy of oliver's attention. in his own freaky way, oliver wants him. look at that.

so. farleigh. farleigh might come back. he always comes back. and i think oliver wants to try harder next time.

[fear-no-mort]

i cant get over the whole time in the real world rick just sat there watching over morty and when he woke up finally rick sounded SO happy the way he just yelled his name excitedly the second he woke up,,,

[tvckerwash]

you know, an interpretation of ct that I don't see that I personally really love is that she's a fuck up. like yes she's cool and she has some good fight scenes, but a huge part of her character is that she makes mistakes. the mistakes that she makes are ones that on their own aren't the end of the world, but she keeps making these little mistakes, and they eventually add up until she's out of room to make any more.

a really good example of this phenomenon in action is the actions she took leading up to her final confrontation with carolina and tex.

strike one, she thought she saw something in the water, but when asked by the leader what it was, she brushed it off as nothing when even if it had been nothing, it would've been smart to tell him what she thought she saw.

strike two, she didn't sense or notice florida's presence when the leader did, and she looks at the leader twice, once as she pulled out her magnums, and again after she did a scan of the room, almost like she was looking at him for guidance before he finds florida and takes him out with one good axe throw.

strike three, she couldn't convince the leader to leave when they had the chance to get away, and her cheap tricks were not enough to hold off either tex or carolina in a fight. they were only good for incapacitating her opponents enough for her to get away, which doesn't work when she has no escape.

ct is not tex, or carolina, or south. she is not a one woman army who can get herself out of trouble when she's stuck in tough situations. she needs people who can watch her back, she need a team who can cover her when she does mess up, and the leader and his team were not those people. she couldn't bring herself to trust them, and they couldn't bring themselves to trust her, and that cost all of them their lives.

[arohuacheng]

what people don't get about hualian is that they're literally like. jock and alternative art student. xie lian lives like a frat boy (mattress on the floor and nothing else in his room, no standards for his own well-being, can't cook and ends up eating what could be classified as biohazards) and is really enthusiastic about fighting as a hobby. meanwhile hua cheng rocks up to the function in his cunty little outfits every day of the week, bells on his boots and the red eyeliner slayed, obviously has taste but is soooo in love with his boyfriend who only ever wears cargo shorts and the most fucked up questionable hoodies you've ever seen. hua cheng wants xie lian to have nice things but it's always like. "babe i promise it's no trouble can we please get you a bedframe??" nd xie lian is obviously so enamored with his cool alt boyfriend who wears skirts sometimes and never misses a beat on a bitchy comment that's just the way it is. basically if your hualian concept doesn't have hua cheng as the hot goth gf you just don't get it