#Is the comparison superficial? I don't know

[black-klok-youth-pastor]

Same rivalry, Different font

[fragmentedblade]

Not happy with Kafka's take on Nihility. I wonder if this is a thing of hers or if it's the approach of the overall game. Kind of sick of nihilism being regarded as just the negative nihilism in media, when the true nihilism is active nihilism, which aligns with Kafka's words about how they "believe existence has meaning, but that meaning is bestowed by ourselves"

[eff-plays]

Found some really good analysis of Astarion having 10 Charisma on a Youtube video, plus comparisons to a bard Tav because bard supremacy.

Text version under the cut!

Youtube comment from user TF2CrunchyFrog:

Astarion having a default Charisma of only 10 feels like the biggest joke of the entire game. Like, the one characters whose background story as a vampire spawn involves is him having spent the past 170 years being basically prostituted by Cazador his vampire master, being forced to rely on seduction and manipulation to survive, the guy that even various NPCs and even the Narrator remark about how beautiful he is canonically... But instead of the game devs making him a Bard, he's the DEX-based Rogue (I mean, he's a darn good Rogue, but) with the potential Arcane Trickster subclass (which needs INT as base attribute). When I played an Origin run as Astarion, I respecced him slightly and lowered his CON from 15 to 14 and his WIS from 13 to 12 and used that to upgrade his CHA to 12. Astarion being a Rogue is the anomaly here... because when did he learn that? If he was a magistrate while alive -- although the writers chucked the rest of his tentative background story from the earliest stages of the games back in 2020 into the dumpster and changed "corrupt" into "tragic", which gave him more depth, so maybe him claiming at first meeting that he's a magistrate in Baldur's Gate is him serving you a double-lie instead of just a single lie (as he hasn't been whatever profession or status he had while alive for the past nearly 200 years).

BiRios replying to TF2CrunchyFrog:

or all his charm is well…superficial. His skills don’t actually lie there. At least that’s how I took it. He’s all this pomp and circuses but by now it’s just…flat

Raikos100 replying to BiRios:

tbh I agree. Feels like he always not taking things serious, like always joking around, so in a sense you usually don't trust him for anything with his attitude, it's not someone you would trust or take a word irl. Guy tells you "only a sip" and proceeds to suck you dry like a capri sun 😂

samisuhonen9815 replying to TF2CrunchyFrog:

I think he has a 10 in charisma because he is naturally and superficially charming. But in reality, he is not a SKILLED charmer or a smooth talker. Someone who has 16 or more charisma, is a capable of lying, deceiving, performing, even at the cost of one's ego. He/she has the skills to adapt and spin new wild stories on the spot, improvising at all times. I don't think Astarion really has that. He knows how to sound fancy. He knows how to be sarcastic and witty. But he is not someone who can appeal to any person and talk his way out of anything. Say he gets blamed for something. His selfish and defensive instinct would be to insult the person back. A true charisma giga chad is able to see that this sort of behavior will not get him/her what he/she wants. He/she is able to de-escalate the situation and redirect it into a direction that gets the rizzler what he/she wants.

river8783 replying to samisuhonen9815:

Exactly. Playing a bard Tav highlights this difference really well. Half the options listed as solutions during conversations are ones you know Astarion wouldn't think of, or fail miserably at because of all the reasons you listed. He's fun and funny, but also he should thank his lucky stars you're there to talk for him cause he'd be so freakin dead on his own.

[animehouse-moe]

Questions Of Love In Bucchigiri!?

Hiroko Utsumi is no stranger to distilling homoeroticism into their works, but Bucchigiri!? is able to take it a step further as it intertwines with the hypermasculine idea of fighting and gangs. Because of that, Bucchigiri!? poses two questions to the definition of love and how people experience it.

"What is love versus lust?"

Truthfully, it's a rather simple question to answer (at least to someone outside of high school). The point being the depth of feeling. Lust is strong but shallow, while love moves much deeper.

And the second episode in particular expresses this very strongly through the two gang leaders, Marito and Ken.

They don't feel any way in particular about Arajin until they feel their punch. After that, like Marito says, they just can't forget about it. That's all they know about this kid, "his" punch. And that's all they want from him as well.

The point is to express superficial lust towards Arajin because of something they only experience one single time. They believe that they want the strength behind the person no matter what because of a single moment.

And it's a great comparison to make against Matakara's feelings for Arajin.

Matakara doesn't need to feel "Arajin's" strength to know how he feels about him. On the contrary, he only ever needed to fight (really train) beside him to come to understand that emotion. Even more than that is Matakara's understanding of Arajin outside of fights, and he focuses in specifically on Arajin's passivity and carefulness.

Because of that, you can begin to draw the conclusion that "Lust" is represented by actions involving violence and action, while "Love" stems more from passivity and aversion in this context. Which I think is really really great. It's sort a sort of symbolic explanation of the whole point of violence being boorish and shallow while other communication is deeper and more valuable.

"How much is love worth if they don't love you for who you are?"

Super easy example here with this one. Just look at the Love Forever stone Arajin gives Mahoro vs the friendship one that he gave Matakara.

The whole point is that Arajin's love in the hands of someone who doesn't love him isn't valuable at all, nor is it valuable in the hands of someone that doesn't love him for who he is.

Marito and Ken can only feel something for Arajin because of the strength channeled through him by Senya. It's something entirely foreign to Arajin as a person, and represents both how shallow the gang leaders are, but also how shallow Arajin is.

Loving yourself is something that's tricky to do, and obviously especially so for high school kids. I think it's well understood at this point that Arajin struggles to love himself in a meaningful way, and that's expressed by his willingness to take on Senya.

Case and point being that he intentionally used Senya's strength to try and make himself look good in front of Mahoro, and in the same way used it against Ken to the same effect.

He's afraid of being and accepting himself, so he's allowed something else to speak for him. And while that catches the eye of many, including Matakara, Arajin himself already knows that it's nothing more than a farce to save face.

It's just... really great work in terms of narrative as it bundles so many different aspects of love together to create this complicated web that all stems from Arajin's inability to love himself. Matakara loves the current Arajin, but that Arajin is unable to face himself so he runs from the reflection that Matakara offers and buries himself in lust and unrequited romance.

And that all just comes from high school kids duking it out for fun alongside mystical fighting people that can merge with humans.

It's definitely a step up the symbolic ladder in comparison to Sk8 The Infinity, but I think it's allowed Utsumi to express much more in terms of romance through implicit narratives.

These first two episodes have been incredible, and I'm loving every moment and want to share every bit, but the overall production effort Mappa's been putting in leaves me in an awkward spot for sharing stuff like this.

I really love to, and I want to celebrate the efforts of the staff behind the series, but Mappa rains on that parade with its terrible scheduling and work ethic. The credits are a veritable mess that make episodes like this an incredible feat. And I'll celebrate that and share what I want to, but I do also want to call out Mappa for their terrible work as a studio.

[septimusmoonlight]

Anonymous: Idk if you've ever written anything abt this but I love the idea of some small foreign entity crawling inside my womb while I'm asleep and like. Fusing I guess? And just constantly fertilizing me to the point I'm always pumping out its kids. Makes me go straight to Niagara falls lol

I'm sure I have some permapreg like it somewhere around here, but it's always something I'm willing to explore <3

It's just an ordinary night for you, so you manage to get to sleep eventually. That's when your uninvited guest comes out to play. Maybe it was under your bed, or just outside your window, or somewhere else in your room that you don't check often enough. Whatever it is, the thing slinks out from its hiding spot on too many limbs and seeks out your available hole. It knows it has a good project on its hands - you can be turned into a good tool for it, something to pump out not-quite-humans infected with its genes.

Its body secretes sedatives that keep you fast asleep as it opens up your cunt with its tapered body, pulling itself deeper and deeper inside of you until it presses right up against your cervix. With a little extra force, it pops inside, sliding perfectly into place as it latches to the top of your womb. It quickly dissolves a portion of the inner lining so that its body can fuse to yours, and it even incorporates some of your DNA into itself so that your immune system doesn't recognize it as a threat. Within minutes, its skin and your womb flow into each other seamlessly, and it can begin its work.

It takes a little while to get your body up to speed on what the new plan is. The first round of hormones it secretes is meant to prepare its environment for its young in particular - they may be similar to humans in various superficial ways, but they are most certainly not the standard young a human should be bearing, and certainly at a rate far too fast for any human. Then, once your internal workings have been altered to its tastes, it starts releasing its seed into your womb - in fact, with bifurcated genitalia, it can simply insert a long probe directly into your fallopian tubes and bombard your unprotected ovaries with its sperm cells, fertilizing engorged eggs much faster than should be possible. In fact, new eggs are forming just for its purposes, which is normally an incredibly rare event - but, then again, this thing isn't producing humans, so human biology is mostly irrelevant.

The first cells start dividing late in the night while you're still peacefully sleeping, entirely unaware of how you've been changed. Permanently. Forever.

In the morning, you become acutely aware of the new developments when the first hints of labor pull you harshly into the waking world. You gasp and moan, clutching at your rounded, swollen belly. You're so large that you can't even adjust your position properly, and you're left to wonder, terrified, what must have happened last night for you to end up like this. You're not allowed to think much further about it, however, because the pain of a child pressing against your dilated cervix is a distraction from everything else, and you have to follow through on the urge to push before anything else can be done.

Labor is fast, in comparison to how long an active labor normally is, and it's agonizing as a result. Your body isn't used to being stretched open and pulled apart like this, much less from the inside out, so thoroughly claimed by something you can't identify - and yet, despite the pain, pleasure still washes over you, and you can't help but cum multiple times, delaying the birth as you clench hard around the inhuman child still sliding through your birth canal. Your cervix and cunt are stretched wide, wide open, torturous and euphoric at the same time, and you're tempted to linger at the crowning stage just to bask in the horrible, searing burn that comes from something just too big. Your body screams at you to bear down, though, so you do, your legs shaking as you cum again at the sensation of a newborn slipping wetly out of your newly-sloppy cunt.

As you lay back, fighting for breath, you can feel more weight gathering in your lower belly. Placing a hand on your midsection greets you with the sensation of your skin pulling tight under your fingers, an alien mass pushing out from within, filling up your womb with something you didn't ask for - and yet something that makes your skin burn with arousal, makes your eyes roll back in your head and your tongue loll out of your mouth when your cervix hugs another small body on its way out of you. The process seems to be speeding up - even as you're giving birth, another body stretches your insides.

These are just the growing pains as the organism that's taken you over makes sure its systems are in place properly. It's making sure that you can push out as many children as it commands, making sure that you're hyperfertile and loving it, making sure that the elevated pain response you're experiencing is simultaneously translated to pleasure so that it hurts and makes you cum at the same time. So far, everything is going well - but it wants to keep up the test run for a little while, pump out enough children to make up for its time outside of a human womb, when it couldn't produce young.

You're trapped in bed all day, screaming and sobbing through orgasm after orgasm as babies open you wide, an endless chain of children you can't identify, not at all human and yet with the appearances of oversized newborns. The way they can crawl immediately after birth - and climb up the walls, no less - tells you that you're not dealing with a weird human pregnancy; this is something entirely out of your wheelhouse, but you're finding it harder and harder to care as your brain learns more and more to enjoy your new position as a permanent baby factory, a sloppy hole for babies to come out of, an incubator. You're forgetting everything else you had planned for today, for next week, for the upcoming month, the rest of the year. Pleasure and pain, and this implacable urge to give birth over and over again, are quickly wiping out the desire to do anything else.

By the end of the day, things have slowed back down, but you're still giving birth at least once an hour. In between, you're rubbing your cunt, easily sliding a fist into your sloppy hole to keep yourself open for the next child that needs to come out of you. You're all too happy to stay like this, but when there's an extended pause, you take the opportunity to fall back asleep, exhausted without realizing it.

Then, you wake up, and your midsection is larger than it was yesterday morning. The morning sun says hello through your drawn blinds as you wail, squeezing out a batch of easily five or six newborns, apparently left gestating inside of you all night while the thing that took you over let you get some rest. It seems to have a good picture of the human limit, but you have no clue of any of this; all you know is that something happened to you, and it's the best time you've ever had in your life.

[hwnglx]

for jk im curious to know what he means by the way ppl maybe assume he is a player or do they assume other things? I seen ppl assume he could be a cheater in relationships but thats not the case he is loyal asf imho, do u think its down to his people pleasing habits? he reminds me much of bangchan where ppl have said in readings he likes to be of use to ppl and to be able to help them where he can offer it. idk if its the same for jk

but fr when jk meets his fs shit is going to go down so maybe she can help jk even out his mindset towards all the stuff he has achieved which is more than the average korean so u think he would be quite proud to have helped put korea / kpop and in general hes done so much so I hope he is able to somehow feel accomplished. I do get what he means by it seems so superficial but ehh ppl have pushed for fame and fortune since decades ago and it either makes or breaks a person depending on their views of their experiences

well.. so much, if not the entirety of kpop idols' image is manufactured. since these people basically make a living by selling an image to the public, it's something that has to be calculated. your image has to be as appealing to people as possible, so what do you do? you only show off your best, and bury the rest. as an idol, you basically sell yourself as a fantasy, someone who appears to be perfect, but in reality is just as flawed as we all.

in jungkook's case, he's just tired of fame. it's like, the validation and admiration was nice at first, but after a while it just feels vacant and empty, and not real. these people love the manufactured you, they love the role you play in front of cameras. not the real and raw and weird you, with all your flaws and mistakes. and for a while, jk didn't know himself outside of being an idol, because that's all he did since he was a teen. so he was at this stage of “who even am i, when not being bts’ jk?” and easily fell into the impression that, his “normal” self is so insignificant and lacking in comparison. just unlovable. like people wouldn't love him if they knew of his more “unlikable” traits. everyone projects this fantasy onto him, but many don't wanna know his real soul. in his ideal type reading, i remember he had this intense craving for genuine love. not love for the idea of him, but for the real him.

you mentioned bangchan, while they do have similarities in their people-pleasing habits and desires to serve them, jk's energy is honestly much more pure to me personally.

bangchan is “i need you to like me, not just because i'm a person who needs validation, but also because it benefits me and my bag” (i don't blame him that's how shit works lol)

jungkook is “i need you to like me because i need affection and love and i feel empty otherwise”

in fact, jk's energy actually reminds me a lot of felix in this regard. they're surprisingly similar. (they do have similar charts)

[multidimensionalguidance]

SR Chart in-depth Analysis Part 1 🗝️

I thought it would be a good idea to write down an interpretation of how my SR chart might develop during this year, forget about it, and then revisit it during and/or at the end of the year! A fun experiment for me, even though I can honestly say that I've already been seeing the way it has been activating.

Note: please keep in mind I use sidereal and whole house system.

Libra ASC: this was the first thing that stood out to me when I saw the chart. I was already feeling an "upcoming glow up" vibe, and confirming it was hilarious. Even though Libra and Venusians in general are not just about appearance, they value aesthetics A LOT. I've already received comments on how my skin is looking amazing, and overall, just a lot of attention from others being thrown towards my appearance. So, aside from that more obvious aspect, I would say that this rising sign makes one feel more keen to developing and/or creating relationships of all kinds, meaning, that it is expected to become a tad more social during this year. Romantic relationships, creativity, arts, a need to be more diplomatic or neutral, and communication with others will become themes I will engage with a lot.

To give dept to this house, I pay attention to the where Libra sits in my natal chart and where it goes on the SR chart, also, where the lord of the SR ASC sits (strength, aspects, etc.) in the chart.

Example: Libra sits in my 12th house, and becomes the rising sign for SR chart. This tells me that a lot of my subconscious patterns will become more noticeable, particularly for relationships, and that those matters that are usually hidden about me are now put on the spotlight. Now, it's very interesting that the lord of my SR ASC moves to the 12th house, so its like there will still be things that are still kept hidden. Knowing me, I will be content with spending time alone and/or in foreign places, so I don't mind. Venus is debilitated, and I'm assuming that keeping to myself will partly occur from difficulties with possible insecurities, being overly critical or focused on self reflecting. Themes of feeling unworthy, and healing it. A great amount of attention being placed towards looks could definitely make one feel uncomfortable or unsure of why you're receiving it so much, and if it has to do with superficial reasons it can makes you feel unseen, as if others ignore your depth.

Scorpio stellium 2nd house: a focus on transformations occuring around money, resources, values, face area, food or products consumed, luxury, comfort, sensuality, and romance. I would expect a highlight and plenty of motivation to pursue all of these topics, since the Sun sits there conjunct Mars. Scorpios move quietly and under the radar, so there will be lots of secrecy on how I will exercise my power/drive, and also on communications around how I'm making money or managing my finances. Money from others moving directly into my pockets from foreign matters, contracts, writing/communication (9H ruled by Mercury), networking, social media, creative pursuits, romantic partner (11H ruled by Sun), somehow losses that turn into gains, expenditure, spirituality, and foreign residence (12H ruled by Mercury). In general, major important upgrades to the way I relate to Venusian matters.

Sagittarius 3rd house: even if houses are empty in a natal or SR chart they still hold meaningful information, but will of course be felt less in comparison to the houses that have planets. I see that my mindset, near environment, and communication will be a lot about/with foreigners, spiritual topics, traveling, and philosophy. The ruler sits in the 7th house, so it will also be mixed with my romantic life (with a foreigner), business, contracts, and other type of close relationships.

Capricorn 4th house: I don't usually pay much attention to Pluto unless its close to ASC or inner planet (Sun, Moon, Venus) but I will now for the sake of giving more context. There could be a major change of residence occuring or renovations of some sort. Home environment could be a bit chaotic or under frequent changes. Part of Fortune also sits there, so all of those transformations might actually be aligned with blessings or for a better outcome. The ruler sits in the 5th house with the moon, so it will definitely make me feel anxious and emotionally restricted or numbed. Luckily, I've had enough experience with Saturnian energy, so I know how to work through it until I find balance.

Aquarius 5th house: as I already mentioned above, with Moon and Saturn conjunct here it is likely that I will be feeling as if my emotions are harder to access which could cause anxiety, creative blockages, frustrations, or depression. Definitely will incorporate lots of yoga, nature, and emotional regulating activities during this year to keep that on check.

Pisces 6th house: with Rahu sitting there, I could see that my attention will gravitate around how I incorporate work, daily routine, health, and exercise with spirituality, creative endeavors, and abstract thinking. I had already experience gut health issues and almost all of those topics shortly after my birthday, so I can see how wherever Rahu is placed in a SR chart, there is a lot of movement for good or worse. With the ruler of 6H going into the 5H, I could see how work and health matters could exacerbate my emotional challenges.

Aries 7th house: Jupiter is siting here, and even though it is retrograde, the functionality of the planet doesn't suddenly stop occuring. It makes Jupiter have a more inward expression if anything. There will most likely be expansion or growth of romantic suitors (specifically male, since its in Aries), contracts, business, relationships of all type of relationships being upgraded somehow, and in general lots of luck with interpersonal skills. Those with whom I develop close relationships will become like teacher, or enjoy providing protection to me. The ruler sits in the 2nd house conjunct with the Sun, so others will either expand my resources or simply have an influence in it. Since its with the sun, it should be beneficial or empowering.

Alllllriiiight, I shall stop here for now and release the 2nd part at another moment!

[eerna]

I like the analysis the anon gave on the hate Taryn gets in the fota fandom. I liked that they mentioned that the series is also mostly targeted towards teenage girls and yes!! I believe that’s also another reason why she’s mostly hated. I’m not trying to infantilize the younger readers of the series but they do tend to analyze and see things from a more superficial level, specially these types of topics like betrayal. Specially with the whole girls girl TikTok feminism going on (which I despise and I think it’s just another way for women to be awful towards other women in the name of feminism) to them what she did it’s like the worst thing in comparison to other awful things that happened on the books. I also agree that they don’t see her as whole character who’s also dealing with her own issues. That’s why it bothers me that the outcome of the “lost sisters” was more hatred instead of empathy because they just didn’t get it and definitely they didn’t get her as a character.

I also find funny that every time they present the argument of why they hate her it’s always the same one: “well she betrayed her sister” “she did it multiple times” (which in my opinion the second one is debatable) and I’m like dude we know we all read the series. 😅 meanwhile people who defend the character tend to give a well detailed analysis of why she’s a actually a good character and why the hate towards the character feels forced and even exaggerated. And now they tryna do the same with my girl wren too. 😩 leave her alone she’s been through a lot!!!

Yeah, younger readers tend to misinterpret more easily than older ones (saying as an ex young reader), but in this fandom specifically I'd say it's mostly older people being very vocal. I don't doubt the younger ones are also present, but I blacklist all the vocal Taryn haters and so far it was almost all people in their 20s-30s according to their blogs. I think the targeted demographic DOES contribute to the hate, though: readers of any age who mostly read and love YA are used to certain tropes and simplifications (imo it's why NA became so popular - it has the simple format of a YA book, but the smut of an adult book), so when they are faced with a complex situation, they simply don't know how to deal with it. When they see Taryn descending into the jaws of insecurity and loneliness in The Lost Sisters, they feel no empathy, because they don't think someone can do bad things based on those two stereotypical YA protagonist characteristics alone. Usually insecure, lonely girls are nice and get a ton of friends who love them and a boyfriend who makes them feel loved! They don't fall for a bad guy and ruin their relationships and make their emotional issues even worse!! It is SO easy for her not to do bad things, so why is she doing them????

And yeah, you are so correct that her haters act as if she is a girl we all know irl and they have to prove to everyone why she is a bad person. Like, we all know that she did some bad things. We won't stop liking her because you remind us she did them. And sorry, but if I saw a well put together character analysis explaining why a character did something bad, I would be ashamed to descend from nowhere, comment "I don't like her because she did something bad, also I have a sibling", and stop any possible discussion. And yet!! That seems to be the discourse surrounding her!!!!! Tiring, all of these people need feminism 101

[bibastibootz]

Hello! First of all, I love your blog so much, you give off such warm, positive vibes :)

I wanted to ask if you would explain your head canons regarding Basti and Thorsten's sexualities a bit more? I've seen you refer to them as gay/bi respectively quite often and I would love to hear your reasonings and explanations behind that. (Not at all because I disagree, I'm just obsessed with the two of them and I think you'll have some very interesting takes on the topc!)

If you don't want to just ignore me :)

Hi! and thank you for this lovely ask, it put a really big smile on my face!! you're so kind! 😌 and OOHHHH do I have headcanons about Thorsten’s and Sebastian’s sexuality, I hope you’re ready!! 🔥 (I prefer making lists rather than writing articles, so I hope this still reads well enough)

schwuler Thorsten <3 It would be so easy to say that Thorsten is straight because he had a wife and a daughter back in Hamburg, but people who claim that aren't watching the show right. Here's why I think that a reading of him as a gay man is so so so so valid:

Susanne and Lilli: There are many ways to fit his late wife and daughter into this headcanon, so take your pick: He genuinely didn't know he was gay and started a family. He was in denial and started a family anyway. He was well aware of his homosexuality and maybe this was a mutual arrangement between him and Susanne. It was purely superficial.

(lack of) interest in women: Once Thorsten is in Stuttgart, he literally never shows any interest in any woman whatsoever (much to the dismay of his neighbour) and I do not remember him flirting with any woman ever. Also when asked about women, he literally answers, "Keine Ahnung, ich bin da kein Spezialist." A fortuneteller read his hand once and said: "Sie sind ein lebenslang Suchender. Besonders Frauen sind Ihnen ein ewiges Rätsel." and Thorsten replies, "Jetzt wird es vielleicht doch etwas zu persönlich." Hm. . . So Thorsten is sb who still hasn't found himself? And women are a mystery to him? Hm, gay. Also: Another relationship with a woman, much less so marriage, is so far off his radar that he proposed to Sebastian to start a "Alters WG".

often presumed gay: It is almost a running gag that people assume Thorsten is gay (except that the possibility of a gay Thorsten should not be the punchline). Julian Siebert in "Grabenkämpfe" assumes that Thorsten is gay. His boss while undercover in "Freigang" assumes that he's gay: "Bist du schwul oder warum sind hier keine Weiber?" Thorsten replies, "Schwul.", which the boss plays off as a joke.

casual, yet serious about queerness and other queer people: This is particularly striking in comparison to Sebastian because Thorsten seems so #woke about everything. He understands subtle and not so subtle nods and hints from other queer people but does not make a fuss about them and immediately recognizes queerness (as opposed to Sebastian): Once again "Grabenkämpfe," where Thorsten never jokes about Julian Siebert's obvious interest in him. Also in "Hart an der Grenze" Basti treats them playing a gay couple as a fun joke while Thorsten is very much not amused - and there is just sth in the way he treats the topic so seriously that makes it seem as if it real to him. In "Anne und der Tod" they interrogate clients and stand in front of an old man who has pictures of him and another man on his shelf and wall, and while Sebastian very innocently asks whether that's his brother or son, Thorsten's behavior suggests that he caught on instantly that the old man is in fact gay and that those are photos of him and his late partner.

actively against homophobia: When an old man makes a homophobic remark at him and Sebastian, he immediately grabs Sebastians hand to make that man uncomfortable and as a big fuck you and a way of saying, "Yeah people are queer, get over it, old man!!"

never denying, never clarifying: As much as men flirt with him or people assume he's gay, Thorsten never denies it and never clarifies that he is, in fact, heterosexual. Never! Best example is (once again) "Grabenkämpfe" when his neighbour spots Thorsten at a gay bar with another man and says that at least now she knows why he didn't have time for her - and Thorsten does not get defensive and screams sth like, "I'm not gay, I'm here for a case!", he just lets it slide. And remember when the Freigang boss derogatorily asked Thorsten whether he's gay but then later it seems that Thorsten had sex with a woman, to which the boss replies "Na egal, bin ja froh, dass du nicht schwul bist."? Thorsten once again does not outright say, "Genau, bin ich nicht." but instead replies, "Ich weiß." and looks sad and angry at this blatant portrayal of homophobia.

love confession: In "Die Nacht der Kommissare" Thorsten confesses his love to Sebastian while on drugs with a loud and clear "Sebastian? Ich liebe dich." He continues to confess his love to other men in that episode, but this "Ich liebe dich" feels very different, very sincere and from the heart. I like to read this scene as both a platonic and a romantic love confession.

There is probably so much more, but this is just from the top of my head. Moving on!

bi Basti <3 Sebastian is bi because it Just. Makes. Sense.!!!!!

the rise and fall of the Bootz family: I need to start with Julia and the kids because Sebastian is introduced as a happy, young family man who has basically achieved everything, both in his private life and career. His life as a husband and father is basically too perfect when we meet him, and of course it does crumble more and more into pieces with every new episode. We soon see tension in his and Julia's marriage, ultimately leading to their divorce and Sebastian's never-talked-about problem with alcohol and his separation anxiety. I encourage everyone to watch all the eps until "Spiel auf Zeit" as if Sebastian is falling out of love with Julia and in love with Thorsten (. . .is it possible to love two people at once? Good question, Sebastian).

Felix Klare supremacy: Even Felix Klare himself thought that Tatort was lacking diversity in terms of presentation of women and gay people back in 2013 and he advocated for becoming the first gay Tatort duo. Aber Richy wollte nicht. Tja.

bi in another universe: In "Tödliche Tarnung" we learn that Sebastian and Julia were once close to breaking up and Basti wonders how different his life could have been: "Julia, hast du dir schon mal überlegt, wie unser Leben verlaufen wäre, wenn, naja, wenn wir uns damals getrennt hätten?" Cue "Scherbenhaufen": When he is about to go undercover, he has to come up with a backstory for his character. And what does he do? Completely remove a wife and kids out of the picture and then says, "Ehrlich gesagt, ich hab sie dann mit meinem besten Freund betrogen." Kinda bi to make up a scenario in which he gets to be with Thorsten instead of Julia, if you ask me. And he looks so happy about it, too.

weird about queerness: Sebastian has always been weird about political correctness, and to me this reads as a defense mechanism, as a way to distance himself from queerness and treat it as sth "not concerning me". And yes, I do headcanon Basti as having serious internalized homophobia, why do you ask? I have yet to form proper thoughts about Basti's uncharacteristic compassion towards the gay man who has just lost his lover in "Vergebung", it feels so personally affected. What we can nevertheless witness, though, is some personal growth in that Sebastian is more comfortable with and knowledgable about queerness.

heteronormative worldview / hetcomp: Sebastian literally doesn't know that bisexuality exists. When he hears of married men (yes, there have been three such storylines. . . THREE!!!!) who had a secret lover on the side, he always assumes they were gay and never once considers bisexuality. Looping back to the Bootz marriage&divorce as well as the countless "secretly gay married men" trope, Basti is literally describing his life in "Vergebung" without acknowledging the parallels.

flirting with Thorsten: Of course, any straight man can flirt with his friends, but the way Sebastian does it is so "haha just joking!!! . . . unless 👀"-coded. First the pretend gay couple at the adoption agency, then another pretend gay couple in the waiting room, then the queer undercover persona plot twist. And look how flustered he gets when he gets flirted with.

honorable mentions: bi lighting, bi sitting, bi bi bi music.

Again, there is most definitely more and everyone is free to add on to my thoughts! 😌✌️

bonus: Are Thorsten and Sebastian in love? 👀 Yes, and as of February 2024 there are 32 episodes to prove it. Thank you for reading! 🫶

[thegodcomplcx]

i dont know, as someone who likes eleven i still have a hard time recommending it because like. a lot of the hate is less about The Guy and more about steven moffats bad writing. and i think the loud misogyny and heterosexism of elevens era is a huge thorn in its side and i understand why it would be disproportionately disliked (although i know a decent portion of people are also turned off by the Cringe 2010s Geekcore vibe of eleven which is a superficial but not unwarranted reason for dislike)

idk i guess what im trying to say is i dont necessarily Blame people for overwhelmingly disliking elevens era (but i do think that propping up rtd era as the pinnacle of doctor who by comparison is woefully stupid)

i just think its crazy that people will frequently say "eleven's era is rife with misogyny and therefore i can't recommend it and it's objectively badly written" and no one ever says (for example): "ten's era is rife with racism and therefore i can't recommend it and it's badly written"

and i'm not saying anything to the truth of those two statements, only that you hear that the thing about eleven all the time and while i've heard people complain about ten's racism, i've never seen someone say they don't recommend you watch him based on that. also. steven moffat also wrote during nine and ten's run. all of the flaws in his writing are present in RTD era as well. every era of doctor who has it's problems but suddenly eleven is the unwatchable one. okay.

this isn't to say i don't think there are valid reasons to hate eleven (or even, that you need a reason. being a hater based on vibes is fine and encouraged). i would just respect a lot of people more if they could say "i just don't like the vibes" rather than saying "this an objectively bad era" or "this is objectively worse than RTD who"

and! i do think some ppl are committing the sin of not being a REAL HATER and they hate 11 just cus a bunch of other people hate him

[lover-of-mine]

i'm fine with the bt scene being what it was because it showed what is. a shallow superficial relationship that is not being written as endgame so I'm fine with them not having a more emotional connection make it more obvious its BONES in s8.

Okay, I'm gonna say this and I need everyone to know I genuinely mean it, I'm not fine with it. I am tired of the show giving Buck and Eddie love interests that exist to have no agency besides girlfriend/boyfriend or plot device for an exposition dump. I desperately wanted to care about bt. Buck being bi is such incredible representation and I spent the whole season waiting to be convinced I should like T and bt together for anything beyond the fact that they are a queer relationship but I keep coming up empty-handed. I like being a hater right now because no criticism of him is allowed without someone screaming that you're homophobic or hate gay people and that everyone in the show is problematic why doesn't he get a pass too so I am grabbing on to every wrong thing about him the same way people are blowing the good things to justify my aversion to him. But the thing is, T is a character who's being written in a way that is so hard to sympathize with when it comes to Buck. He has this shell that makes him rigid and he has this dry sense of humor and he could be interesting if he was willing to bend a little bit for Buck. That relationship was not something I could get behind when T left Buck on the curb, because while I do believe T was incredibly justified in not liking the situation Buck put them in, he could've communicated that better before he was literally in the car leaving Buck behind, so there Buck was once again in a relationship with someone who left him because they can't handle who he is. That was the impression I got from that first date and I keep waiting for them to be cute for me to move past it and the show is giving me nothing. Why did they make the choice to not let T dress up for the bachelor party and indulge Buck when the job by definition requires for him to change into a uniform so he could've put in some effort? Why did he let Buck walk around with his face covered in soot when they could've shown us a shot of him cleaning Buck's face before they walked into the room holding hands and give the impression that there's more going on there than a few makeout sessions? Why weren't they affectionate at the ceremony? Why wasn't that conversation in the hospital, where it would've shown a level of care and that joke could've been seen as an attempt to make Buck feel better about what was going on? Why are they always two steps to the left of being cute or having any fighting chance? And that's ignoring how intertwined Eddie is with the beginning of their relationship because that's just disturbing. The triangle thing is annoying as fuck if Eddie was not gonna get confirmed as queer and the sides wouldn't actually connect.

I think narratively Buck and Eddie getting together is the thing that makes the most sense for both of their characters, but if that's not gonna happen, I wanna care about the people they're with. I love Buck as a character, I want him to have a nice love story if for whatever reason we are not getting buddie because love is the thing he's been searching for, and whatever bt has going is not it. And the thing that's killing me is that it could be. It's the same thing they did with Taylor because if Taylor was as intense about Buck as she is about the job, they could work, but the show made a choice to use the development of her character to stir away from Buck. And T, he's just there. And it's frustrating. I don't even wanna get into the comparisons between buddie and bt because imma be honest I'm still processing the way the show had T refusing to dress on theme and then had Eddie suggest matching outfits in the next scene, what even was that?? But the way the show constantly takes the chances they have to give depth to their relationship, looks it in the eye, and runs the other direction it's just........... yk? This is Buck's fifth relationship and I can't for the life of me look at it and see where it's going because they are making it seem like it's going nowhere. T parallels Taylor all the time visually, when it comes to screentime he's just a step above Ali, he's nowhere near as developed as Taylor was at this point. I had hopes for that scene when they started to talk about parents, for 20 seconds, I believed they were gonna give emotional depth to them, but they didn't. And I was literally sitting here begging them to give me something to care about when it comes to them if they are gonna keep them together but I have nothing to show for it and I hate it. There's no emotional connection, they will probably breakup at some point during s8 and I'm just gonna be there "oh wow another failed romance what a surprise" while they keep playing up Buck and Eddie's partnership and not letting them go all the way, and it's just tiring.

And this is ignoring the way we keep getting yelled at for not resonating with them. I sincerely don't want to hate them but I can't find a reason to care about them.

[hxhhasmysoul]

Did u see these posts: https://linkspooky.tumblr.com/post/744136721881530368/hello-friend-i-thought-id-use-your-post-as-a . https://linkspooky.tumblr.com/post/744086250489774080/so-i-was-genuinely-surprised-last-week-when-we ? Honestly, I think am starting to dislike the Megumi & Killua comparisons more than I ever maybe did the Killua & Gojo ones (like I also saw a comment saying Megumi is smarter than Killua, and I don't think Megumi is dumb, but like how?). I'm not saying Megumi is a bad character, but he is not (imo) better-written or have a better arc than Killua (who has one of the best arcs ever).

P.S: Off topic from me complaining about Killua getting compared to JJK characters (which I was mostly neutral towards doing, but now, I might be becoming a bit less neutral). Great and pretty Palm, LeoPika, and Illumi's art u just reblogged!

The biggest problem with what that person writes is the value judgement. I don’t necessarily disagree with the stuff they say about Megumi, at least they see that Gojou forced Megumi into being a sorcerer and that’s rare. They also seem to acknowledge Megumi’s character flaws, even if I don’t exactly agree with every argument they make about him. And I especially don’t agree with how they compare Tsumiki to Alluka. 

They are right that Megumi tries to use others, Tsumiki and then Yuuji as justifications for his existence. And it’s true Killua uses the people he loves as a crutch because he has no goals of his own, because all his life the goals of others were forced onto him and he’s really lost at the beginning of HxH. 

The difference is that Killua’s relationships with Gon, Alluka and Nanika are very deep, he also grows close with others: Ikalgo, Palm, Bisky and Leorio, there’s clear potential for him developing a friendship with Canary. Killua also projects to some extent onto Gon, and onto Alluka too. But that’s something everyone does. Killua does it to a normal extent, the Gon in Killua’s mind is partially imagined and greatly coloured by Killua’s crush, but Killua quite often actually understands how Gon feels, or accurately reads the situation between them. The things he tells Gon don’t make Gon worse because they feed into Gon’s issues.

He does enable Gon, and he doesn't know how to help Gon after Kite's death, but his presence still helps Gon in those moments. He doesn't make gon better but he doesn't make him worse either, they are just two kids who are in a situation that's just too much for them to handle.

When Killua tries to enforce what he thinks is best onto Alluka and Nanika, Alluka puts him in his fucking place and he very clearly understands what he did wrong. Because he’s capable of seeing Alluka as a real person, he can see past the image of Alluka that exists in his head. 

Megumi’s relationships with Tsumiki and Yuuji are superficial, bordering on parasocial. The things Megumi tells Yuuji make Yuuji contract Megumi’s cog mentality. Megumi acts like he knows shit, how he's very smart and Yuuji buys into that, because Megumi reads a lot and knows long words. And Megumi also buys into that, and thinks he can talk with authority about who's to blame for what. Or which people deserve to be saved.

Megumi barely spends time with Yuuji in an active way, he just passively tags along and frowns and sighs, and he downright rejects Tsumiki and everything she stood for when she was conscious. He’s upset that Yuuji lashes out at Hana because Yuuji is mourning Nobara so fucking deeply. Megumi is taken aback because he never mourned Nobara, he never tried to get close to her, but more importantly, despite him thinking he cares about Yuuji, he has absolutely no clue how Yuuji is feeling. He projects his own idea as to who Yuuji is onto Yuuji. Yuuji the good selfless person who needs to be protected by Megumi but not engaged with, not reached out to. He has no idea who Yuuji really is or how he feels, nor does Megumi care. He never cared what Tsumiki felt or who she really was, and the whole situation with the bridge showed very clearly that Tsumiki led a life of her own and Megumi didn’t even know, and likely it wasn’t a completely pure and uwu life. But to Megumi what matters are his own made up versions of these two people. 

And this is actually okay, these are flaws and they are a consistent characterisation. I don’t like Megumi much but I will defend his right to be flawed, I will defend him from all the Gojou fans who pretend Gojou didn’t make a child soldier out of a little kid. Or who pretend that it isn’t clear that Gojou left Tsumiki and Megumi to fend for themselves in their daily life and just borrowed Megumi to force him to work so the two kids had a place to live and other necessities. And I will defend Megumi from anyone who tries to deny him his right to a fucking mental breakdow.

But what they write about Killua is extremely shallow, the mentions of Gon and Yuuji, and the paragraph about Maki, those are downright upsetting. They show very clearly that they will write whatever needed to prop up their fav. And I really don’t get what drives people to do this kinda stuff.

They honestly undermine their arguments (some very solid) about how nice Megumi’s arc is, because they can’t just argue their case. No, they need to bring another character into it and attack that character. It’s always a foolish thing to do. I get that they might not like Killua as much or think he’s overrated. But Killua was not needed for their argument. Everything they get wrong about Killua weakens their arguments about Megumi. And Killua’s relationships with his close ones really highlight the issue with Megumi’s. And the person never addresses that. 

I think I’ve seen maybe their posts or similar posts about Megumi, not exactly comparing him to Killua, but for example posts about how he’s the true MC of JJK, where Megumi’s fans argued about how complex Megumi is and how there’s nothing to Yuuji. And this person’s posts are just written to prop up Megumi by dismissing and discrediting other characters. 

The JJK fandom is vicious to most characters that aren’t sexymen. Megumi is much more liked in the fandom than Yuuji, but yeah, one can consider him disliked if one compares him to how people are about Gojou, Getou, Nanami, Touji, Chousou, Higuruma, Sukuna or even Kusakane, Shu and Ino. Also as they rightly notice Megumi isn’t overpowered so he gets a lot of shit, something Yuuta never gets. As to Maki, this person clearly doesn’t give a shit about her, so not only they very clearly didn’t pay attention to Maki post Mai’s death, they also have no idea what the fandom says about Maki. 

They also write as if the way the fandom treats Megumi is unique, when Yuuji gets that far more and over everything. Even Sukuna got that just because in the battle of JJK sexymen, Gojou truly is the strongest and his fans are fucking rabid and allergic to canon and the text of JJK. 

Gege’s love for HxH somehow creates the need in the JJK fans to compare the two stories and their respective characters, and I’ve never seen it done right. In this case it really just cheapens what they were trying to say.

[metanarrates]

Okay i drafted this in docs when i saw the barbie movie yesterday against my will with my family. The Barbie movie isnt bad for what it is per se (summer hollywood blockbuster) but set it against any higher standards and it falls short in almost every department. There's a lot of incredibly tasteless leftist political jabs about the status quo and a comparison of the smallpox genocide that claimed millions of indigenous lives to Patriarchy (because it's not mainstream feminism if we don't elevate the oppression of women at the expense of other marginalizations). The choreography and costumes were nice but in regards to its messaging i cant find a whole lot to compliment. It amounts to "humans establish gender hierarchies because we dont know to think of any other way society could be arranged :( let's all pinky promise to work towards the eradication of ALL sexism***" which is massively reductive and fails to address a plethora of issues, including the fact that patriarchy as an institution is foundationally violent 🫠

***Ken's whole arc is about him resorting to establishing a superficially patriarchal system in Barbieland because he didn't have any other outlet to claim agency for his own person. The role reversal of Ken, the "man", being an accessory who can't exist outside of Barbie, the "woman", was likely intended to highlight gender inequality in a way that would be easier for regular people to sympathize with. Unfortunately I can't help but disagree with the idea that we cling to male supremacy simply because we lack the insight to seek other methods of liberation

Uhmm anywya. I dont even particuarly care for this cultural bandwagon i just needed to be a hater for a minute. If my opinion matters at all

your hater opinions ALWAYS matter to me :) we love thinking about how movies are ideologically messes here

i was talking to a friend last night abt this, but it sounds like the messaging here is very confused. it tries to make a statement abt sexism, but since there's the aforementioned issue of the writer not understanding that patriarchy is a violently enforced system of power, it comes across as the movie ending up positing that men are just Inherently Susceptible to being patriarchial and women likewise are Inherently Susceptible to being victimized by patriarchy. which is um. BAD!

also wtf is up with that smallpox comment. it sounds fucking evil!!!!!

[palmviolet]

true detective s1 rewatch extravaganza: episode 3 edition

— theriot as a point of comparison/foil to rust has been discussed at length by others already, but boy oh boy is it apparent. rust is his own kind of preacher, not only in his philosophical monologues but also in his interrogations, offering his suspects catharsis via the 'language virus' of faith and recognition. (this distance of the 'virus' is questioned as the show goes on, however, as we see in 2002 with charmaine boudreaux and his personal vindictiveness there.) it emphasises the seductive power of rhetoric, and thereby comments on TD's form, as the series continues to be bookended by rust's own seductive monologues and both his and marty's interviews in 2012, which are shown increasingly to be unreliable. rust's rhetoric of pessimism is so captivatingly expressed — and a supposed counterpoint to the religious fervour we see in this episode, which a cosmopolitan audience is less disposed to connect with — as to draw you in, infect you.

— theriot's fervour — and therefore rust's as well — is aligned with the cult of the yellow king. ‘this world is a veil and the face you wear is not your own,' theriot preaches, just as rust describes death as the final liberation from the 'dream' that is selfhood. of course, this echoes the final 'take off your mask', which is a direct reference to the chambers work and has been unpacked wonderfully in a post somewhere on here that i unfortunately can't find right now. but the upshot is: in the end, rust steps out of the circle and does not become the 'little priest', does not turn himself into a prophet for the yellow king. this is a renunciation of institutional corruption as well: the cult is embedded in louisiana governance, education, and law enforcement, but religious institutions independent of it, like theriot's church, echo its rhetoric, and rust trots it out in interrogations, others' and also his own.

— rust makes this connection between religious optimism and the institution explicit: “the ontological fallacy of expecting the light at the end of the tunnel, that’s what the preacher sells. same as the shrink.” i'm considering writing a longer post about TD's treatment of psychiatry but even this has so much to unpack. for rust, psychiatric help is a faulty belief in betterment, betterment that is not possible, that does not exist. this connects to his conversation with maggie after he's mowed the lawn: she (a healthcare professional) is adamant that things get better, that you move forward and change because it's just what you do. rust, meanwhile, considers himself to be better already, as better as he's ever going to get, and he only humours her with wry talk of nurses and good drugs.

— by rust's connecting the shrink and the preacher, the psychiatric institution is demarcated as another bastion of corrupt belief — and rust likely sees it that way, with northshore having been just another instance of lost autonomy that did nothing to help him, only served a superficial and performative benefit for the corrupt institution that employs and controls him. ("psych pension — jackpot, right?") i'm unsure how far the series' anti-psychiatry sentiment goes but we're certainly not meant to look at rust and think 'therapy would fix him' — and this is partly why it's so important that when he and maggie finally have sex, as is foreshadowed in this episode with marty's jealousy and rust's "we know what we want and we don't mind being alone" on the phone, it's framed as detrimental and utterly destructive to the fragile existence rust has carved out for himself here. her intervention (as a healthcare professional — their dynamic is very much framed around her wanting to heal him, to 'make him better', as the kitchen conversation in ep3 makes evident, and she goes about this by encouraging him to open himself up sexually and romantically) only damages him further.

— maggie's role as 'healer' and 'caretaker' actually tends to fail in general. in this episode, marty gives her the sob story about racing towards 40 and diving off a cliff, and it seems to convince her: she tells him yeah, he is fucked up, and embraces him. they have sex and for the moment, as we see at the longhorn, their marriage is 'healed'. but of course this doesn't last, and as we'll see in ep4, the site of their major upcoming conflict is the hospital where she works. she and her colleagues are powerless to remove him — it's rust who has to come along to steer him away. this episode — and this series — tells us that the medical institution is at best powerless in the face of other institutions' corruption or else is corrupt itself.

[hypergamiss]

In your opinion, why do you think men choose unattractive and mean women to be their wives? I know a woman who is over 300lbs and has a horrible attitude, but her husband makes great money and he thinks she's the hottest thing around. Just imagine a very large woman, with a potty mouth, badly done tattoos and a septum piercing. They got married very young, but before him she had plenty of men interested in her. I don't get it.

I knew her briefly and quickly grew tired of being around her because she's not very nice and we just didn't have much in common. The only reason I kept her around for as long as I did, was because the business she had, gave her access to all the elites in our city--she had the best gossip. I learned about the weak spots for a lot of the upper class families, through her. But I got tired of her because every conversation, she had to remind me that she didn't have to work and that she only created her business because she got tired of being in the house all day. She's even aware of the way she comes across because she labels herself as an "asshole". She expressed that she doesn't get along with most women because she's "not interested in the things most women are interested in--like shopping." Her hobbies are smoking weed and nothing else. In other words, she's trashy lol.

Meanwhile, I'm attractive, sweet, funny, educated and have never been in a relationship. I just don't understand men at all. Women who I would think would be considered undesirable and gross by men, have great options. Men say they want a woman who's nice, attractive, and not lazy and then choose the exact opposite. I'm just confused.

She's just confident. Even if it's a "bad" type of confident, she clearly doesn't ever doubt herself and knows that she can get what she wants. I've said this before, most women think you need to be a 10/10 to be with a man that would give you the world. Literally any woman can get treated right if she plays her cards right. Yes, attractive women will always have the upper hand, but that doesn't mean the less attractive ones can't get the same outcome. If a man had to choose between me and Gigi Hadid, Gigi is winning. But no big deal, there is another man who isn't even on Gigi's radar that can give me everything I want. Think of all of the celebrities or well off women who are not attractive at all but clearly have everything they want in a partner. They didn't get it by having low self esteem and complaining about their circumstances. They decided to fully grasp the concept that women hold so much power. They have the same lady parts as the attractive women and the ability to strengthen their game in other ways that are not superficial.

She knows how to seduce.

She knows how to keep a man on his toes and keep him constantly chasing her, always trying to win her over.

She knows how to keep her boundaries and restrict access to herself when she doesn't get what she wants.

She knows how to reward her man when he does well by her.

She is selfish with her time, she doesn't lose sight of her goals and ambitions.

She puts herself first overall.

Notice how none of this has to do with looks. Looks at this point are just a cherry on top if you know how to make a man crazy about you. I'm not trying to say that she's a good person, but it's fair to give credit where it's due. She values herself and doesn't accept anything remotely close to being below her standards, even if she doesn't meet those herself. You can be a good person and still know how to play your cards right, or else I would just stay single forever because my moral compass wouldn't allow it.

Comparison is the thief of joy. Instead of wondering how she got so "lucky," study her with a grain of salt and learn how to do the same or better.

[blackoutspoetry]

The Anatomy of starved dogs (snippet)

From the chapter "Thread and Bone"

This is for my fic "the anatomy of starved dogs". The first chapters are on ao3 💜

Background: its February 2021. Ghost and Soap are sent out on a mission to a Cold War era military base in the mountains to find an important person that could give them a lead on who Makarov was communicating with from out of jail. It goes horribly wrong and they are captured and held prisoner by the Russians before escaping. Now left with some major wounds from their rushed escape process, Soap takes care of Ghost's wounds before they get infected.

Warnings: blood, injury, cleaning of wounds

“I have to take this off, Ghost. You’re going to get an infection from these wounds.” 

“It’ll be fine–” 

“Ghost,” Soap says. “If I don’t fix it up right now, you are going to get an infection, you’ve already lost a lot of blood and you’re already getting pale.” 

“M’not.” 

Soap looks him sternly in his eyes. “Yes, you are.” 

Soap studied his reaction, the way his body tensed up and genuine trepidation settled in his eyes, even with the mask, he can see the hint of shell shock sitting there, there is fear. Soap puts a hand on his shoulder and he flinches, but calms after a moment. 

“Ghost, I don’t know what happened to you, but I can promise you, sure as hell, I don't want to hurt you, I just want to help. And if you don't want to do it for yourself, then do it for me, because I'm sure as hell not making it down this bloody mountain alive alone. But I can't do it unless you let me." 

Ghost considered Soap's words a moment before he relented. 

"Alright." 

Soap tried to offer him a bleak smile. He reached over to pull at the hem of Ghost's shirt but he batted Soap's hands away.

"I'll do it myself," he snapped brashly, tugging the tattered material over his head. It snagged on the edge of his mask and he had to adjust it back into place, seeming a lot more rattled than Soap was hoping for.

Soap avoided the searing look Ghost was giving him as he looked over Ghost's exposed chest. He tries to keep his reaction off his face, but some of it clearly must show. 

"Go on, tell me how ugly it looks or ask me how much it hurt. I know that's what you're thinking."

Soap grits his teeth, swallowing as he looks over the litany of scars etched into the man's pale torso. Patches of burn scar, bullet wounds, knife scars decorated his skin, his honey blond body hair grew sparsely and did no work to conceal the long Y shaped scar that cut across from collarbone to collarbone, dropping down the middle to cut a line that bisected his belly button and disappeared under the waistband of his trousers. 

But Soap's immediate concern didn't lie with his old scars. 

He looked up at Ghost, sounding a lot more exasperated than intended. "I just want to fix your wounds." 

Soap took the bowl with the diluted antiseptic and submerged a cotton pad in it, squeezing out a bit of the excess and finding a decently sized gash on Ghost's stomach that had since stopped bleeding. 

He swiped the cotton pad gently over the wound, expecting Ghost to flinch but there's no outward reaction, only the slightest hitch of his breath and tightening of his muscles as the stinging antiseptic seeped into the cut. 

"Sorry, Lt," he still tries to apologise with a grimace, redipping the cotton and using a clean one to wipe down the excess running down from Ghost's wound.  

He's relieved to see that the cut wasn't as deep as he'd initially thought and moves onto the next one that was more awkwardly positioned over his ribs, wiping it down with the same care as the first. 

It's directly over some other old and nasty scar, and he thinks Ghost's reaction was more for the old scar than the new cut that seemed superficial in comparison. But he doesn't ask.

Ghost was always a private man, he'd respect that. 

Soap inspects his arms for cuts. There's nothing on his right but a fair amount on his left, with which he took the brunt of the fall, besides his currently unattended back and neck. 

He can see the tattoo for real now, up close. The design fit his persona perfectly, an amalgamation of everything war and violence related, skulls and bullets. It was an ensemble of violence and hatred pulled together into a sleeve, much against Soap's personal taste and he wondered if it said much about his lieutenant's personality. 

But he can see now, it's old, years old, a decade even. It has faded into his skin enough that Soap can tell. There are new scars, healed and faded over the tattoo and he wipes at the new wound, deeper than the first ones, in hopes that he won't form another scar to add to the rest covering his body. 

As Soap is drying the excess antiseptic, he feels Ghost's muscle flex under his hand and looks down to see Ghost methodically clenching and unclenching his fist as a means of self regulation. 

He’s nervous and for reasons Soap couldn’t quite comprehend, that scares him. 

“You good, Lt?” 

Soap probably shouldn’t have acknowledged it, because Ghost seems even more on edge now, grunting out a clipped “I’m fine,” that gives Soap the clear message he should rather just focus on getting finished as quickly as possible. 

As he finishes up with the last of the cuts on his arm, he turns his attention to Ghost’s back, equally covered in an expanse of old scars, long, deep poorly healed gashes that seemed reminiscent of gashes from being struck with something like leather or chain. 

A strange ache settles in his chest and he cannot stop frowning at the sight of it, even as he cleans up the newer comparatively tamer looking wounds. But if he cannot keep those clean, he’s worried about Ghost picking up an infection or contracting tetanus, if the soil conditions were favourable for the bacteria to be present. 

The cuts closer to his left arm were much deeper than those further away, and there’s blood on the back of his neck. The razor wire seemed to have cut through the mask material and he can only hope it didn’t manage to pierce through the skull patterned face plate. 

He only begins to move the material away from the back of his neck when Ghost’s hand flies up to grip his wrist hard enough for the bones to ache. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” 

Soap sighed, releasing the blood soaked fabric of the mask and Ghost hesitantly retracted his hand. 

“You took a lot of damage to the left side of your body, and there are cuts on your neck, I need to clean them.” 

“I can clean them myself.” 

“You can barely walk, Ghost.” 

“I don’t need to be able to walk to clean cuts.” 

“You can’t see behind your head. I won’t look, I promise.” 

It seems to take an immense amount of effort, and Soap almost begins to worry when Ghost’s fists clench at his sides, but he relents after a minute. 

“Fine, but you stay in your lane, MacTavish. I’m serious now.” 

“You have my word,” he says it now like he’s swearing an oath, hand coming up to his chest to press the combined weight of metal into his sternum. 

With a deep breath from both parties, Soap lightly begins to lift the fabric away from Ghost’s neck, letting the other man take over in removing it from his head entirely. 

He can’t see Ghost’s face, but his hair is lush, dirty blond, neatly trimmed, despite the fact that it was never visible, and from what little he managed to determine from the curve of his jaw alone and the vague rounding of his cheek, was clean shaven. 

The cuts on his neck seemed mostly shallow, which Soap was thankful for, but as he cleans away the blood and dirt, he notices a cut seeping blood into Ghost’s hair near the side of his head. Soap moved aside some of the hair covering the cut to find it had pierced through to the bone and was still bleeding profusely. 

“How much pain are you in?” 

“I’m not going to lie, it fucking hurts.” 

Not that it was anything to measure it by, Soap still tried to offer the man some relief. “There’s some pain meds in the bathroom. Strong stuff, I reckon. Probably prescription. I could get you some, though I’m not so sure you should be taking it on an empty stomach.”

Ghost tensed in a way that Soap didn’t quite want to attribute to the working of his hands, cleaning the blood out of his hair. 

“I don’t take pain meds,” he answered a bit bluntly. 

“You sure, Ghost?" Then, in an attempt to lighten the mood, he jokingly adds, "want me to kiss it better, sir?" 

"Hell no, don't know what kind of bacteria's in that mouth of yours." 

Soap laughed lightly, but turned his attention back to the cut in Ghost's scalp and the other deeper ones on his arm. 

"Some of these are deep and probably need to be stitched.” 

“And how do you plan on doing that without a suture kit?” 

Soap grimaced, holding up the plastic packet with needles pushed into a pincushion and a spool of black heavy duty thread. 

“Fucking hell. Alright. Maybe I’ll bite for the pain killers.” 

Soap looked at the thick sewing needle and grimaced. 

"Alright then, I'll see if I can find you something to eat. You might want to cover your face because I need to look through those cupboards," Soap says, and Ghost reached for his mask, finding it now stuck together with drying blood. 

With a heavy sigh, Ghost discards the dirty mask and tugged his discarded shirt closed, holding it to his face with his hand while Soap investigates. 

The cabinets are hopelessly bare. There's the mouldy remains of half a bread sitting under the sink for months, the entrails of some poor slaughtered animal decorate the lip of the kitchen sink, poorly cleaned up but dry enough that Soap knows whoever was here last is long gone. 

The other cupboards show little promise, though Soap finds a handful of unhelpful things, packet of old, damp salt, half a spice packet. 

The small pantry is a bit more promising. A six pack of boxed long life milk, home preserved vegetables in mason jars and an old sack of potatoes that reeks of rot, half of which have pushed shoots through the peeling paper bag. 

A rat scurries away from a sack of grain it had chewed a hole into as Soap moves into the pantry to retrieve a jar of preserved beans, figuring the protein might do them will with little energy, especially to help Ghost recover better. 

Hesitating a moment, he grabs a milk carton as well. 

The writing along the side of it is all in cyrillic and it registers a strange desertedness, Soap had never felt so utterly abandoned and directionless as he feels now.

And now he's gotten the added responsibility of making sure Ghost doesn't kick the bucket under his care. 

Why is this so damn stressful? 

"I got something," Soap says to cut off the negative thought. 

"Beans…" Ghost said bluntly. 

"Beans and milk." 

Soap got two bowls and divided the small jar equally between the two. He decides to heat the milk on the stove, figuring that the warmth might do them some good. 

Though he's itching to make a fire, the smoke would be a dead giveaway, so he lights the little gas stove and hopes there will be enough for them. 

He takes the warm milk and beans and leaves it for Ghost on the table. Ghost waits for him to fetch the bottle of pain meds and he puts it down on the table harder than necessary, as of to present it all to Ghost who looked up at him wordlessly. 

"There you go, Lt." 

For a moment, Ghost looked at him with an unreadable expression. 

It strikes Soap that this is the first time he's seen this much of the man. All he could ever see of his skin was perhaps a sliver of wrist skin between his sleeve and the edge of his gloves, or how intense his eyes were, but it strikes him as odd now. 

Ghost's body was covered in scars and old marks garnered from years of military service, but it somehow didn't change the image Soap had created of him in his mind, the thing that did throw him off a bit was how soft Ghost's eyes were under the mask. 

He'd always thought his eyes had a dark and piercing gaze that could intimidate most people, but like this, they were not nearly as dark as he thought they were, more a striking warm amber than rich ebony brown. 

In another situation, he might have thought the combination of his soft blond hair and wide, almost nervous eyes should have looked beautiful on a woman. 

That combination had certainly looked pretty on the other boys he’d been with, but he cuts that thought off. That time in his life was over. 

Soap gritted his teeth, purposely averting his gaze to his hands. 

Soap moved behind Ghost so that he could lower the fabric from his face and begin picking at the beans. Its nothing five star, but it was all infinitely better than the hunger they have felt for the past twenty-four hours.

The warm milk is soothing on his still aching throat. 

He sees over Ghost’s shoulder as he uncaps the bottle and knocks two small white tablets into his hand. He hesitates a moment as he checks the instructions and the warnings on the label once more before knocking them back and swallowing it down with the last of the milk. 

“We should probably give it a minute to kick in before we begin,” Soap says grimly, not particularly looking forward to the idea. He checks over the cuts again, relieved to see they’ve stopped bleeding but he’s sure they’ll need to be stitched now, any sort of movement would split them open again. 

 “How long do we wait?” Ghost asks. 

“Dunno.”

“Hopefully this stuff’ll make it better but painkillers, of any calibre, definitely aren't going to replace local anaesthesia.” 

Soap felt his resolve cave a little. He had forgotten about that in the haze of things.

“Fuck. You’re right.” 

“I’m assuming you’ve never done this before?” 

Soap scoffed at Ghost’s tone. “Well, have you ever had to use  grandma’s sewing kit to stitch up your superior officer after he fell into a roll of razor wire, running from Russians with guns?”

“Maybe I have, you wouldn’t know.” 

Ghost was definitely taking the piss. 

“No shot, bet you have tons of cool war stories but this is definitely a new one for the album.” 

“What album?” 

Soap smiled. “The metaphorical one documenting our working together.” 

“You make it sound like we’re married.”

“Hell, Lt. We practically fight like we are.” 

Ghost laughs. “That’s just ‘cause you don’t know how to follow orders.”

“And you don’t know how to take a bit of help when you need it,” Soap shot back. He reached for the sewing kit and pulled out a needle that seemed suitable. 

Soap goes off to the bathroom to wash his hands, sterilising it with the lighter he'd gotten off the Russian's body and set to work threading the menacing black thread onto the needle. 

He'll only stitch the two deepest ones, the ones that will definitely pop open with movement. 

“I’ll do the one on your shoulder first. I know its a lot to ask, but try not to flinch, I don’t want to make it worse.” 

There’s a heaviness that settles over them the second Soap touches the needle to Ghost’s skin.