#Let him live in denial

[king--of--ducks]

AW YOU ARE SHORT

I mean no you’re MASSIVE SO TALL VERY TALL ‼️ BIG TALL HELL RULER (could be an armrest) (I won’t do that, I’m nice c: )

🍎Standing on a pile of books, still not able to reach the top shelf.🍎

🍎I might just be the tallest man in Hell.🍎

[uhyeahnoabsolutelynot]

the gradual shift in joel from being the guy who’s so desensitized that he can carry a dead kid the same way he carried sarah to the site of her death and toss the corpse into a fire without blinking to being the guy who has a massive breakdown and almost nukes his whole life from the fear of ellie being irreparably harmed while under his care......and the way the last few episodes the show go out of their way to specifically test him on that fear.....like hey joel you’re mortally wounded and can’t protect or take care of her, what do you do. hey joel while you were bedridden she went through the worst experience of her life, what do you do. hey joel [insert spoilers for last ep here, you get the idea]. and he rises to the occasion, he pushes through the fear for her, because she asked him to. she wanted him to be the one to deliver her. she didn’t want anyone else. and he’s decided he’s going to give her whatever she wants

it takes time for the realization that he’s gonna have to confront his worst nightmare to really sink in. he’s built up a mental fortress against what happened to him 20 years ago. and you see that when he really starts to care is when all of that comes back up. the time skip between ep 5 and 6 was probably the Joel Quietly Freaks Out with Increasing Frequency and Intensity variety hour

and him telling her she’s not his daughter. aside from being that thing where you say the worst thing you can think of to someone when you’re trying to end your relationship with them so you can’t go back and change your mind later. but also, when you peel back all the layers of pain and fear, that’s him saying “you are not going to die.” up until that moment it’s the most honest and open expression of his feelings that he’s shared with her. his daughter died in his arms. that’s what happens to “joel’s daughter.” so ellie cannot be his daughter

that probably should’ve been 3 separate posts but it’s season finale day and i’m unmedicated, fuck it

[sun-snatcher]

No no because I love your depiction of Jet??? Oh my god?? Like hell yeah hes a fearless leader of a freedom fighting rebellion group he built from the ground up but he’s also?? JUST A TEEN!! JUST A BOY!! Teenage boys get butterflies too!!??

🌾 ・ POCKETFUL OF BUTTERFLIES

summ. Operation: Creeping Cricket was a botch. It looks like you and Jet aren’t gonna be headed home anytime soon. pairing. Jet x f!medic!reader w.count. 1.1k a/n. ANON YOURE SO RIGHT. Sometimes we forget Jet is really just a teenage boy grappling with hormones and feelings and everything inbetween! Enjoy this short continuation to Hand in Loving Hand!

You take a mental note to thank Longshot and his squirrel-like tendencies to hide emergency stashes up in trees for times like these.

“Here,” Jet says softly, “Y’might catch a cold soon.”

The change of clothes he offers you is weathered, but a warm welcome respite from the frigid chill that’s settled into your bones. 

Operation Creeping Cricket had been a complete bust. Your narrow escape is a stroke of luck with all things considered, and at least the rain has finally stopped. It doesn’t help that both you and Jet are soaked head to toe, however, and the fact that the temperatures in the forests by Omashu can drop critically. 

Your cheeks are raw; your fingers ache— but you manage to begin peeling off the layers of your clothes one by one to dry by the campfire. From across, Jet’s already managed to change out. He frowns in concern from where he’s sitting by the fire, watching you tip over a boot of water. 

“You’re shaking.” 

“Shivering,” you correct, trying to stop the chatter of your teeth. You wonder if biting on a wheat straw like how Jet is doing right now would help. “But, yes. Same thing I suppose.” 

Then you’re untying the strings of your tunic, and pulling it swiftly over your head. 

Jet barely has time to react. 

He practically snaps his neck turning away, eyes wide. 

The whiplash, the innocent attempt at privacy, has you biting back a laugh. 

Ever the gentleman. 

“You can look now,” you finally say, after a quick minute, and Jet is careful to turn. 

The garments that Longshot had stashed practically drowns your figure, sleeves bundling at the wrists; collar wide and dipping low enough to reveal the corded necklace you never remove. And then there’s the glow of the fire, honeying you in amber light as you run your fingers through your damp hair. 

You’re… effortlessly beautiful. He’s not quite sure there’s any other way to describe you.

“That bad, huh?” you ask, pinned under his gaze. 

Jet startles. “Sorry, I— No, you just, look cold, still.”

He clears his throat as the tips of his ears burn. He hopes to the Spirits beyond you hadn’t noticed them go red. (You did.) 

“Well, so do you.” You reach back into Longshot’s knapsack and tug out a blanket from inside, before making your way across to the log Jet’s settled on. The material is tanned and threadbare, but it would do for the night.

Your hands brush as you wrap the cloth around the both of you. 

It’s difficult not to focus on just how warm Jet is. Even more difficult not to lean against him.

It hadn’t mattered much in the end, though; Jet shifts closer, and presses his shoulder against yours. 

“Y’okay?” You ask, gentle.

Under the dim firelight, his hard edges seem to soften. The fearless leader of the Freedom Fighters can be surprisingly endearing. Suddenly, Jet is simply another survivor; another casualty of war.

He shrugs lightly, careful not to jostle you, and makes a face. “Eh. We’ve faced worse, haven’t we?”

You laugh, ducking into his shoulder. Jet wonders if you can physically feel the butterflies taking flight in his chest.

There’s a spill of flowers behind you— budding Moonflowers, he recognises; native to Earth Kingdom wildlife— and has half the mind to pluck one and hand it to you. 

He chews harder on the straw in his mouth instead. 

( He knows you don’t see him that way, anyway. You’d made that clear before. ‘We’re family,’ is what you’d told him; Him and the rest of the Freedom Fighters. ‘Found family.’ And while he isn’t complaining, he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t imagine atleast once what it’d be like to be something more with you. 

Even if you did, he’s not quite sure he’d act on it. He’s not quite sure he can allow himself to be that vulnerable to someone. Not when he's a wanted man; not when subjecting someone into his dangerous lifestyle is the last thing he wants— even if said someone had signed up for it. )

“I’ll take first watch.” he says, after a moment.

“Y’sure? I don’t mind doing it. I promise I’ll wake you up this time.”

He laughs at the old memory. The smile, however, doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll be fine. You need rest.”

Quietly, you read him. Measure the micro-expressions that pass his face. Having fought alongside Jet throughout the years of survival made it easier. Whenever night falls, and the weight of his duties could settle if only for a little while, you could finally see all of him. Just a teenager who’s fighting for what he believed in; a kid who had to take on the world too early.

That illusion of 24/7 confidence falls around you often, though never around the younger rebels. You’ve kept the privilege close to your heart.

“You’re worried.”

He picks on the hearth for a moment, listens to the crackle of the fire.

Jet doesn’t doubt the Freedom Fighters’ capabilities. Longshot’s probably camping out somewhere in the trees with Smellerbee and The Duke, and Pipsqueak and Sneers can navigate these forests even better than him. They’ve all probably made it home already, knowing them.

And yet. And yet—

“Yeah,” he says. He didn’t like admitting it, because it implied they couldn’t protect themselves. It’d have meant he isn’t confident in them; that he, to some degree, didn’t trust them. It’s a twisted mindset, he recognises, but he can’t quite help his way of thinking these days. He didn’t like admitting he cared more than he really should— it’d be a concession. An admission. 

An admission that he might truly snap if he lost any of the Freedom Fighters; that he might truly break if, Spirits forbid, he’d lose you.

The thought sends a frisson up his spine.

That shouldn’t scare him. It shouldn’t.

He blinks, shakes his head. “That obvious?”

“No. But I’ve known you for years now,” you nudge.  “It’s okay to worry, y’know? You can care. You do care. There’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to act like you don’t for the sake of appearing calm and collected and… cool.”

He cocks his head at that, musters a playful smile. “Ah. So you think I’m cool?” 

It’s meant to derail the conversation. Fortunately for him, it’s successful. Jet watches you bow your head and laugh; the bright one, the kind that makes his heart sing.

Camaraderie, he reminds himself, swallowing thickly as he reluctantly turns away from you. Nothing more, nothing less.

[canisalbus]

Is that canon!?! Was Machete just really naive/didn't really understand the implications of his relationship to Vasco? Did his mentor ever find out about them or discuss such things with him? I assume bc he didn't have parents, he kinda didn't get educated on sex or anything. Was it a big shock to realize he was "sinning"?

.

[toasteaa]

WRIOTHESLEY WANK BANK LMAOOOO

no bc he is exactly who i was thinking about. that smirk of his when you squeal as he wraps his arms around your waist and rubs his sweaty head against yours, but you’re a little warm to the touch and have a bashfulness to you as he chuckles and noses at your jaw…..oh he is literally so stinky but HHHHHHHH much to thirst over 😩

AWFUL DUKE. BRUTE. HEATHEN. Scoops you up and IGNORES your rants and complaints at how filthy he is. Has the AUDACITY to smirk at your plight - chuckles even! Your halfhearted swats at his broad shoulders do NOTHING to dissuade him. In fact, it only encourages him to jostle you just a bit higher in his arms. Just enough so that he can hook an arm right beneath your ass and force your thighs around his waist. Such a familiar lead into other activities that you can feel yourself clench around nothing in anticipation. And you know he would never drop you, but you use involuntary squeeze of your thighs around his waist as an excuse to hide your own arousal. And he can't help but chuckle at that as well. Fucker.

You tell him he's dirty and needs to wash up and he hums - as if he's actually contemplating it - then shrugs. Your cunt clenches; drools. You tell him he stinks as though that'll stop his trek to the next room - the bedroom. You bemoan the fact that now he's going to make you stink. But you don't get to finish that ramble before he's dropping you unceremoniously onto the bed - breath knocked out of you enough where your complaints ceases while you eye him.

Broad chest covered in wiry hair. Thick arms. A sheen of sweat still visible on parts of him. Lazy gaze with an underlying mischievousness. And even lazier unwrapping of those leather bandages. Awful, awful man. Sheds those wraps onto the floor and climbs over you, pleased at the way his added weight around you makes you sink into the mattress.

He stinks. And you tell him as much. Black tea and iron and sweat and leather and him -

You don't tell him how intoxicating it is to you. You don't need to. The needy whimper he pulls out of you simply by pressing a thumb against your clothed cunt is all he needs. The messy slip of your slick when he thumbs your panties to the side is an added bonus. For him.

Brute of a Duke. He's doing the laundry this time.

[therichantsim]

Parental Advice S17.Ep:17

Wrap up tomorrow then a quick visit with Mama B and then back to Sulani.

[cherrykamado]

thursday

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

"Let me show you."

PRESS TRIANGLE TO SHOOT A MF'ER.

[minimooberry]

Seth isn't actually a bad person morally speaking - he's done bad things yeah but it's because he literally has no choice in the matter. When he was recruited to be an agent it was to protect his family, even if June was 6 months old at the time he had to start training. Shivaani knows about his situation but still can't help but feel bitter every time she has to explain to June why her dad wasn't coming home for her birthday. He's actually a really goofy guy he'll tell dumb jokes in the middle of getting his ass beat by fucked up monsters and u best believe a laugh track plays in head

[hella1975]

im so easy when it comes to immoral characters like okay do you bear your pain terribly? get behind me

[alchemist-shizun]

Batch number two (and last for now) of xxc character studies is done! This one I did a tad faster, features only yi city arc screenshots AND ONLY SMILING ONES BECAUSE HE HAS A PRETTY SMILE, case closed. Anyway hope u like these too !

[quantumxwoody]

Am I allowed to say the whole bullying dream for his looks and then people justifying it by saying he's somehow deserving of it because of his actions that aren't related to his looks were never funny but just corny and mean-spirited yet?

[anime-moreanime-animeagain]

Made the mistake of binging the Kdrama Weak Hero Class 1. What kind of ending was that? Seriously what am I supposed to do with that? Is there hope or not? I need to know if it’ll be okay eventually, or if like the song said ‘this is the last goodbye’.

So of course I find the manhwa. Imagine my surprise to see its looking like the show was a prequel. Yet certain people are missing from the first few chapters and that doesn’t bode well. I have a feeling the show was completely separate and I will never get answers. And yet I’m probably going to binge this entire webtoon anyway and be looking half dead like Si Eun tomorrow.

Seriously he looks like he never sleeps. Ya boy is not okay y’all. Send help!

[gch1995]

I’ve contemplated a lot about why Luke was the sort of person that Anakin felt inspired enough to turn his back on Sidious and the dark side for, while Padme, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka weren’t.

While Anakin does become a hypocrite who no one was obligated to forgive after he turned dark, regardless of his tragic circumstances and compromised agency, I think Luke was the one who finally inspired him to turn back because, in spite of as “above it all” as Obi-Wan, Padme, and even Ahsoka wanted to believe they were, they still had many of the same issues Anakin developed of feeling pressured to be people pleasers to corrupt authority figures, expectations, and rules that they knew were wrong out of fear of the unknown under compromised agency, moral hypocrisy, pride, manipulative tactics, selfishness, and/or an exceedingly vengeful side in their anger that they were not willing to pull back on when they dueled him or other enemies that piss him off.

Padme, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka loved Anakin, but they were also prideful, self-centered, and terrified people who were too afraid to admit that their methods flawed, too afraid to take a stand against the standards of these broken systems they were born into, too afraid to admit they were wrong, too afraid to take risks to do better, and too afraid to admit that they weren’t as “above it all” as they pretended to be.

Luke Skywalker being Anakin’s son is definitely one of the influencing factors that inspires him to turn back to the light. However, it’s also because Luke is self-accepting of his bad decisions, flaws, and mistakes. He’s aware that the old Jedi Order was deeply flawed, hypocritical, and misguided, in spite of their good intentions. He’s unwilling to stoop to the same level as his enemies. He won’t let himself get carried away with baiting his father into a fight when he gets angry, and start making justifications of how he’s “right” just because he has good intentions, just because he was fucked with first, just because he’s not a Sith, or just because it’s “too dangerous” to take a risk to be honest, kind, and offer one of his enemies (his father) a better opportunity when he sees that he really is also a victim of Sidious who is still struggling against his darker instincts and searching for freedom and love from family. He refuses to enable Anakin’s slave mentality and ultimately refuses to let his father believe that “Anakin Skywalker is dead.”

This isn’t saying that Anakin is an innocent, that Luke was obligated to forgive him, or that his victims didn’t have valid reasons to fear him and resent him. Of course, they did. The point is that in those little moments where he tries to reach out to Ahsoka, Padme, and Obi-Wan about being unhappy with the Jedi and keeping secrets of his marriage before going dark, backs off, says “Don’t make me destroy you,” or lets them go, they all had an opportunity to refuse to further perpetuate the cycle of abuse by acting in anger and vengeance. They could have refused to encourage his sense of compromised agency. They could have broken the cycle of system sting abuse, crime, and oppression with Anakin in those instances by being the bigger person.

Instead Padme and Obi-Wan encouraged him to continue to stay with the Jedi and/or keep his marriage secret when they knew their systems were corrupt, and knew he was becoming increasingly emotionally/mentally unstable and unhappy in ways that made him a danger to himself and those around him out of fear of the unknown by pretending that he would just get better if they told him he would when he tried to say otherwise.

Instead, Ahsoka ended up declaring that she’d “avenge her master” when he refused to join her right away and told her “Anakin Skywalker is dead because he destroyed him.”

Instead, Obi-Wan egged him on into a duel on Mustafar by using Padme as bait, and refused to back off after getting him to let go of Padme from his reckless blind rage/paranoia force choke before killing her when he thought she brought Obi-Wan to kill him and even got him to a point where he could tell Obi-Wan “Don’t make me kill you.” When Anakin cornered him again 10 years later for revenge that he clearly didn’t want as much as he had convinced himself he did because he still cared about Obi-Wan deep down, tells Obi-Wan “I destroyed Anakin Skywalker, not you,” and even gives Obi-Wan a chance to run away, Obi-Wan allows Anakin to continue to believe that Anakin is dead, convinces himself that he is, and he runs away to compartmentalize his own guilt over how he mistreated Anakin.

Instead, another ten years later, Obi-Wan more or less encourages Anakin/Vader to kill him by just standing there after confronting him in A New Hope, and saying “I’ll become more powerful than you can ever imagine.”

So the reason as to why Anakin can’t be inspired to atone or do better by Ahsoka, Padme, or Obi-Wan isn’t just because he’s a deeply flawed person. It’s because they are too, they live in denial of it, and let him live in denial of it, too.

[ollierachnid]

I do wonder if Abigail (Reginald's partner) is cognisant of Reggie mangling the universe on a whim to bring her back and if she's even really aware of the person he now is? Although we see very little of her alive, the individual we do meet is aware and accepting of her own death. She tells Reggie to take her violin and gift it to someone special and that the world needs him (presumably his skillset could have saved others if that's where his intentions lay).

She does not seem upset by her inevitable passing and encourages him to move on and find other people to care about and save. Instead he fought to make her very death reversible and picked apart and pulled the universe back together in his own image, stepping or manipulating all the people who were willing to care for him in the process. Doesn't really resemble her request, no? I'd imagine it would only take a handful of his children to bring to light the individual he is, what he's done to harm others and how he directly disregarded her dying wish. Let's see the fallout there.

Everyone he raised or who surrounds them is ready to love and accept him if he just changed and tried to do better by them, but he's so irreparably selfish he spurns each one in a myriad of horrid ways and I want to see the consequences straight from the one person he does love

[fili-is-gone]

At this point, I actually don't care which way they bring Eddie back. Season 5 could just start with him being there, no explanation or anything, and I'd go along with it. No questions asked. Just bring him back.