because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
friend wanted to see my tumblr, and when i told him i can’t show it to him bc it’s basically my personal diary he went “oh so I can’t see it but a bunch of strangers on tumblr can??” he literally does not get me. no one will get me like the people in my phone get me
everyone makes fun of soap when they find out how many hair and skin products he keeps on hand. the cabinet in his bathroom is filled to bursting and he always keeps travel sized bottles on him on missions
when soldiers outside the 141 find out, they call him precious and self-obsessed, a vain pretty boy too preoccupied with his reflection to focus on the enemy. no wonder how he got his callsign. price has given up telling him to leave them on base and just teaches him to individually wrap them so they don’t rattle against each other and give himself away
what they don’t know is that each product contains an ingredient that when mixed with any number of the others, creates potent chemical bombs. he was caught unarmed once, he won’t let it happen again
sometimes I think abt how the months coming up to and the prom night in freshman year must feel to class swap sklonda. your perfect kid who has literally never gotten a single reprimand for anything does what can only be described as a quad crit crime combo and becomes a nerd punisher by the end of the night
jason todd who’s a little religious and says he wants to wait for marriage to fill you full with his cock and cum. jason todd whose tongue is lapping at your entrance and his fingers are circling your clit, reminding you that the bible doesn’t say anything about the inability to do this.
An old collection is finally shown again at the British Museum after being left in boxes for a few decades.
By coincidence one Tucker Foley, reincarnation of a Pharaoh, notices among the collection several items that used to belong to him. It doesn't take much (or anything) to convince Sam and Danny to go on a... Field trip yup field trip with him to London, a little vacation for his 24th birthday if you will. What do you mean his birthday isn't before several months? That's blasphemy.
They simply came during the day as to control the perimeter (and make a list of other artefacts that would suddenly be returned to their rightful place.)
They could not have planned that one Ra's Al Ghul also had several of his own personal items that he wished to retrieve among the very same collection. Or that he would decide to not only get them back himself but also at the same time.
I love how warriors is the one who always asks paramedic-style questions when someone’s hurt
He’s asking questions not just to distract, but to see how bad the wound has impacted mental functioning “maybe we should be worried, because that’s not what I asked”
Calling by name to draw attention, asking easy questions…
Like look at his face in each panel, how closely he’s watching while talking to assess the damage
He’s always the one taking action in first aid (though obviously he can’t do magic stuff like hyrule but outside of that it’s him)
Wars is a captain, he’s trained and has had to take care of wounded, so he knows how to take care of not only the physical but the mental impact of injuries as well, and he always comes through for it.
I would just like to say how hard it hits me in the chest to see Charlie masking every time she's onscreen the day before the fight (including what we see on Vox's spy screens of course), except when no one is with her but Vaggie. Even during her emotional speech she tries so damn hard to keep that confidence up and smile on. But we do see her stop masking twice, when the only person watching her is Vaggie.
First:
No one's really paying attention to her, and she's not smiling; she's worried. When Vaggie approaches her, she doesn't put on a happy face. She talks about her mom with the same smile as in the first episode (during a very emotionally vulnerable moment with Vaggie, might I add). It's not happy or confident. It's nostalgic, wistful, and sad, because her mom's absence is something very personal and painful for her. When Vaggie asks if they're ready, Charlie doesn't instantly start to smile or answer with confidence even though she usually would (even within that short beat of time), because her mask is off. She's not confident or optimistic. She's scared. She's not ready.
Then Pentious comes out and she's all smiles again! The mask comes back on when someone other than Vaggie is there.
Second:
Of course, one of our favorite scenes. Charlie's alone when she breaks down, but when Vaggie shows up, she keeps the mask off. She admits how scared she is. When she does smile, it's not the big smile she's been throwing on throughout the day, and it's not strained either. It's soft, gentle, and real. She's not masking. Vaggie is genuinely making her feel better when she's finally letting herself fall apart, just by being there and reminding her that no matter what happens, she's already accomplished so much, and she's so loved.
Charlie is under a lot of stress and pressure. She's scared. She's not as optimistic as she's making herself out to be. She's giving everything she's got out there being a strong, confident, inspirational leader and friend in front of everyone, and it's only with Vaggie that she lets it go. She doesn't have to try to be strong. She doesn't pretend. She lets down her guard, because for her, Vaggie is that one infinitely special person who gets to see every part of her; the one person she can always be her honest self with.
There were plenty of times in other episodes when Charlie didn't mask her negative emotions around people, but that was when she didn't have anyone looking to her as a leader. She's running on adrenaline and the weight of people's expectations as Extermination Day gets closer, and she can't let the mask she's put on slip in public. She has to seem like she's totally ready for what's coming. But Vaggie is different.
The amount of trust and love Charlie has for her is staggering. She's under an insane amount of stress and pressure, and having Vaggie by her side is probably the only thing keeping her from completely falling to pieces. Seeing a relationship so full of deep trust and love is absolutely beautiful. <3
But if a character deserved better and they don't get it, then that's unsatisfying bad fiction and I deserve better than being left annoyed/upset by a story's ending.
not really. if it is thematically coherent with the rest of the story and how it approaches finding meaning in actions and it works as a tragedy as well then it is not a writing issue. i only take “deserved better” seriously if they deserved better execution/the story left glaring untapped potential. otherwise i dont buy into “good people are entitled to rewards, because that is satisfying” bc i like when art proposes that that is not how it works and also it should not be what motivates us to be “good”. true heroism lies in the desire to try even despite of this reality, so it works if the reality is actually presented in the text. a character arc being incoherent and thematically unfulfilling is a different thing, and that is not about intradiegetic “deserving”
katniss in cf: peeta is doing everything he can to convince me i should be the one to make it out of the arena, but i already promised to myself this time he would be the one to survive. everyone must be trying to protect him because they can see how genuinely good of a person he is compared to the rest of us.