#and he is a genius no matter what

[bizarrelittlemew]

every time i see "Ed asks Lucius to write down his lyrics" used as an argument for claiming that Ed can't write i just want to. you know. point out that Stede has Lucius write down everything he says?? and does?? all the time?? and when he can't find Lucius he asks Frenchie (who actually cannot write) to do it instead of just writing it himself. and we know Stede can write. it's got nothing to do with ability to write, just that the captains don't seem to want to write stuff themselves when they have an employee whose job is to do that exact thing for them

[ezralva]

Higuruma is legitimately being slutified at the rate of Toji.

Reposted with permission from the artist

[saionjeans]

what i love about mikage is that we are constantly being told that he is an aloof genius who nobody can understand because his mind is simply so much more advanced than everyone else’s, but we also never see him do or say anything actually intelligent, and all we really do see him do is desperately long for affection and companionship and do everything in his power to strive to preserve the genuine human connection he seeks.

with miki we are actually given a reason to believe that he is a child prodigy: he’s good at piano, he’s good at math, he’s knowledgeable about eggs. i’m not saying that’s in any way definitive proof of his “genius” (anthy is also good at piano, utena is also good at math, and knowing the basics of what an egg is isn’t really anything to write home about either) but like. we can believe that he’s smart for a child.

akio positions himself as something of an astronomer, but we are also provided enough evidence into his astronomical insight to realize, before he even admits that he doesn’t really care about stars, that he’s not very knowledgeable about astronomy. and that makes sense for his character too, because why would he care about having knowledge that he cannot use to exploit and dominate others?

but mikage is neither shown to be intelligent nor unintelligent, we are merely told that he is such a genius that it isolates him from his peers, more like a robot than a human. and so it doesn’t actually matter whether or not that’s true, because all that matters is that he’s special in this way, and that conditional power he is afforded through his status as genius is what matters to his role within the narrative.

the figure of the genius is not an exceptional figure in and of itself, but only due to how such a title is positioned in relation to others, and the referent (the ontologically meaningless designation of “intelligence”) is actually beside the point. and what’s more, to be afforded that “specialness” is actually harmful, because it insists on isolating you from your peers for completely arbitrary reasons.

genius is not a pre-discursive, discrete quality, but merely another notion used as a tool to isolate, groom, and exploit people from a very young age within a hegemonic capitalist paradigm that values production over the human cost of the labor necessary to produce it, and/or the patriarchal paradigm that values an idealized fantasy of power over the violence necessary to maintain that system.

not that i’m excusing killing one hundred boys or whatever, but is it any wonder he saw no other way to move forward than to burn the entire edifice down?

[ideas-4-stories]

The headcanon where Buggy's crew is very loyal and an actual found family crew is a fun idea that I love. Doing things that they know will make happy because it's not out of fear, just because they want to see him happy and stop being angry about the past. Them doing what they think is best for Buggy and just doing what he says.

But then we have the Cross Guild where Buggy is getting beaten by Crocodile and Mihawk, maybe every day. So my mind came to the conclusion that Buggy told Cabaji, Mohji, Alvida, and Galdino not to do anything about what they see Mihawk and Crocodile does him.

To act like they don't care, in which they actually do (or at least Cabaji, Mohji, and Richie do) I do see them helping him the best they can when those two are out of sight.

Now goanna cry somewhere from this

[anubisthe1]

Kakashi is a human, yet through his dogs, I can't help but think of him as one. He is stubbornly loyal to his owner even if said owner never feeds him. The owner killed his dad and his friends and made sure to grow kakashi into a violent dog that barks and bites on command.

Yet even when kakashi is wrong, you can't properly be mad at a dog.

[zoroara]

December Belphegor Redraw 22 of 31!  

Buon Compleanno Belphegor~ As for his birthday I absolutely needed to get one of him as a kid. I had ruminated about doing the panel just before this with him and Rasiel, but well. He would've been made I made him share~ Maybe next year Rasiel, maybe next year. Speaking of this though I find the portrayals of how this went down, in Varia arc Vs Future arc very interesting. Because they're incredibly different in how they're described, in Varia arc Rasiel's murder is described as something Bel did Haphazardly, done without organization likely very sudden stabbing Rasiel to death. But then future arc clarifies from the both of them, that this could have been seen to be leading up from a mile away, and only if their parents genuinely were so neglectful to not pay any mind to this, or in fact encouraged this, that this would have ended up happening. I just find it very interesting how different it is and with the addition of how easily Bel clarifies it, I wonder how it lead to the conclusion that it was haphazard at all, or if it was even as simple as stabbing Rasiel to 'death'. Because it seems like Bel likely just has his idealized version that keeps getting broken down the more he was forced or corrected, you must wonder JUST how much of this is a lie how much MORE of it is to his favour? In the presence of his brother he had to be honest that they had always fought, and while Rasiel makes them move on quickly from this, he does state that Bel is "only saying things that benefit him" and "That he better not forget the face that didn't lose to him" to which Bel has no rebuttal against. What likely happened with the additional knowledge that Rasiel then says that day he was essentially poisoned with medicine, that Bel seeing an opportunity to finally end Rasiel then stabbed him violently very simple to figure. But even still there was likely much more of a struggle than Bel probably wants to admit if it was not considered a flat out loss for Rasiel now that he was proven to be alive to the point Bel didn't bother arguing that point. Bel may have been wounded himself and in his haste to solve that, may have been the small opening of chance for Rasiel to survive that Byakuran needed to manipulate so that Rasiel could survive in the future timeline. (just don't fucking ask me how that works because I don't see how he could affect something so far back. Maybe Byakuran just fucking lied to Rasiel and used other powers as "proof" to convince Rasiel that his survival was actually his doing.)

The Image I redrew is under the cut, just to keep the post small.

Not related to the whole murder(funny sentence I know), but it is said that Bel hides his eyes to prevent like a fucking political incident, but like. HE WAS WEARING HIS HAIR LIKE THIS SINCE BEFORE THIS I THINK PEOPLE WOULD ACTUALLY REALIZE MORE SINCE HE KEPT IT THAT WAY.

[ambreiiigns]

btw rick and morty makes me insane bc no one Gets it people who don't wanna watch it (like me! before my brother made me watch it in exchange of him watching sk8 the infinity w me!) are like ugh problematique bad #edgy dark humor adult cartoon for reddit bros 🙄 but then the reddit bros who watch it & became the main representatives for its audience are like haha pickle rick wooo you need high iq I Relate To Rick Sanchez Deeply and he's like the joker to them and he's a king and an icon of alpha males somehow???? but like. neither of those people understand that rick and morty is actually about Nobody Exists On Purpose. Nobody Belongs Anywhere. Everybody's Gonna Die. Come Watch TV?

[16-jarrah]

i get why people would opt to say walter was a terrible person since the beginning, but i think that's like, the most boring takeaway you can get about his character. he was already insecure and prideful from the start, and it's what would hurt him and keep hurting him. but like, being insecure and prideful are regular traits any regular person can have. the actions that he makes because of these traits, which in turn keep fueling his ego more and more, are what makes him an interesting character. and he was already pretty capable of hurting other people, but he wasn't doing it out of malice, but more because of careless selfishness at first. what makes walter terrifying is that the more he does it, the more he becomes aware of what he's doing, and the more he keeps going and keeps being more and more meticulous and deliberate about what he does that hurts people and even to the point when it was specifically to hurt people.

i think the traits were there in walter from the beginning—the pilot did a pretty good job of establishing how powerless he's felt all his life and just how susceptible he is to letting this newfound perceived power get to his head so easily. he even says this explicitly in 5x06 "Buyout" when he tells jesse "i'm not in the money business, i'm in the empire business". but saying he was this monster from the start kind of implies he didn't undergo through a character arc throughout the show when it's quite literally what he did. he got worse. so much worse. through mostly the fault of his own fragility.

[garbagequeer]

the thing about beautiful riverdale is that there are a couple of people in my life who seem to have learned the trick to see me turn into the happiest person on earth with the biggest smile under any circumstances which is asking me about riverdale

[235uranium]

"oh ford still had an excellent career in science despite going to backupsmore so he shouldn't be mad at stan" misses what happened and why ford was hurt so hard that it's genuinely baffling to me

ford wasn't upset just because he was rejected by west coast tech- he was upset because he genuinely believed that stan intentionally sabotaged his project so that he wouldn't go to college. he's hurt because his brother and best friend didn't respect his desires.

and like, yes, ford ends up with a decent career anyways. but we know from the show that he wanted to work in academia, and while your undergrad college isn't the biggest deal, some programs ARE better than others!

in physics, undergrad research and internships are the backbone of your grad applications. good grades are too, but research experience is important. and while smaller schools can have good research, there is still something to be said for going to a large research university.

I assume wct is a stand in for a place like berkeley, which has just... massive resources and labs for just about every area of physics. ford clearly already had ideas about the kind of research he'd like to do, and going to a school with the right lab is half the battle.

just. augh. i get that this isn't smth most people have thought about but it IS something that a guy who's building a perpetual motion machine at 16/17 absolutely has.

[seedlessmuffins]

canes lost.

i’m so numb from sports pain i’m ready for memes now (han look away lovely)

[jemmo]

so i’ve been doing some thinking on the thua situation, and have reached a point where i feel like i can explain his actions but am still angered by the inconsistency of it. whenever i rewatch the scenes, I keep thinking why didn’t he just go to akk and ayan, or even just their small group to discuss this?? i get that he wanted to kick up a fuss but it also doesn’t sit well with me that you have to hurt and shame people in the process of igniting change, even if you feel you deserve it, which I don’t think akk does. I’d feel better about him doing so if he didn’t know that chadok was really behind it, but when he explains himself he says that he realised that and moved target to chadok. yes, he doesn’t know the full extent of how akk is suffering bc of what chadok is, but as someone he is friends with, i just feel like the better thing to do would’ve been to deal with him privately and deal with chadok in public, explain that he’s wrong bc of the things he made akk do. but then you get to the fact that chadok was suffering too, which gets to an important point i think the show is trying to make. what is the human cost of change like this, what is at the core of it?? at the end of the day, so much of this harm stems from individual people that are themselves hurting, so how do we deal with that?? do we expose them and punish them?? or do we take them to one side and sort things out privately?? how do we weigh up the hurt they’ve done to other people vs the hurt they’re feeling themselves?? it’s a really hard question, and here you see the two different ends of the spectrum. aye finding out what akk did and treating him with gentleness and kindness nonetheless, making him feel like he can change in a comforting way that is both kind to him but also makes things better for everyone in the long run. and then thua, who doesn’t care about akk in the way aye does, and who makes a valid point that he should have to be held responsible for what he’s done, no matter how bad he feels about it. I think for this reason, im glad thua did what he did, to make this point. but in that, thua isn’t right, nor is aye, it just gives us reason to think about these things which is good.

and as for why thua did this, alongside what is stated, that he wants truth and wants this over, I think what he says when he explains himself both gives that explanation but also makes his actions contradictory. bc he keeps saying he wants the truth, for it to be out in the open so the lies and the curse can be over. which makes me think, who does that help that’s connected directly to thua?? who is so hung up on the curse that it makes him paranoid and angsty, makes him suppress himself and feel bad?? it’s kan. kan has always been fixated on the curse, and thua has seen how that’s affected him, literally seen how that’s changed him since he was younger. so yes, I think maybe that contributed to making thua do this, the fact he wants everyone to stop being so obsessed and hurt by this, no one more than kan. but at the same time, if i was kan listening fo what he says, things like “so that everyone would tell the truth” and “do you think it could be fixed by letting it go away quietly”, I’d find it hard not to relate that to the way kan has acted, keeping his feelings quiet, keeping up his bruce wayne lie, which is where the inconsistency comes in. he has the time and patience for kan to come to terms with his feelings and figure out what to do slowly and quietly, but for this he’s sick of lies, needs truth now, needs it out in the open and sorted?? yes these are two different things and yes thua would of course give kan a lot more time and space bc he cares much more, but then you get to the point that again this is an issue centred around humans, who thua is not giving the time and space he granted to kan. it hurts akk and aye and in a way hurts kan when thua says he needed answers and truth, something kan couldn’t give him for so long. at the end of the day, it’s hard to reconcile what thua did bc we feel and care for akk so much, bc he’s our character, we’ve seen his journey and struggles. if it was told from thua’s perspective, and akk was just part of this bad system doing bad things, you wouldn’t feel as upset or angry about his public exposure. but then again, i didn’t feel upset or angry about chadok’s public exposure, bc he wasn’t our character, he was our villain. but then you get underneath that all and find out what happened and realise he too was a man caught up in doing bad things for what he thought was right, to look after someone he loved. and the theme of akk being the new chadok is made even clearer, it’s just that akk has the people around him and the momentum of a different and progressed society to break him out of the cycle. it just begs the questions where is the line drawn when it comes to granting sympathy to those that have done wrong vs granting punishment, and what is the cost of making a change. everyone has their own ideas about how to bring about progress and what has to be done to achieve it, and for a show that is so reflective of our society and trying to be an allegory of systems that are in place for us, I think I’m ok with the fact that what I’m getting out of it is a nuanced discussion of how to dismantle these systems while not forgetting the humans involved in them, bc at the end of the day we are all just flawed humans, hurting, and making mistakes, and we all need to figure out how to reconcile with those actions before we think about moving forward

[yeonban]

I don't think we put enough emphasis on just how smart, knowledgeable AND adaptable Nikolai is... Fyodor, one of the world's greatest minds, canonly doesn't have a good grasp on japanese nor its culture & he's still trying to learn it slow step by slow step, and then there's Nikolai (who has a similar background to Fyodor's aka hailing from and living in Europe his entire life) who knows such fluent japanese & also the japanese culture down to the letter that he was part of the japanese government for 6 months, going there every day during his infiltration mission and NO ONE suspected him AT ALL

[niuxita21]

[buscandoelparaiso]

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[pennyserenade]

my uncle died two years ago and one of the last memories i have of him was me telling him that i liked girls (and we were all various degrees of drunk when this happened, which i’m happy we did, and i’m really happy i told him that), and he responded that he had once sucked a man’s dick just to see what it was about and he was going to love me no matter who i loved. that happened the week before he died and i’ve not told it to anyone and no one knows except those of who were at that table that night. that perfectly captures who he was