#but they also have been conditioned their whole life to know nothing but serving others

[butchladymaria]

Immortality, Motherhood, and Pain: A Closer Look at Annalise and the Doll

Finally revisiting this from ages ago, because the parallels between these two are just SO fascinating. Content warnings for discussions of misogyny, genocide, abuse, and pregnancy/childbirth.

This analysis will cover the parallels between Miss Doll and Queen Annalise through the lenses of the misery of immortality, the trauma of marginalization, and the liberation they find in motherhood. Both the Doll and Annalise are undying, both coded as mother figures, both marked by death, and both very, very alone.

Miss doll and Annalise are the only characters in the whole game who are undying. You can kill them, but not meaningfully - not in any way that matters - and they seem to know it. Neither will try to stop you, nor will they fight back, should you choose to attack them. They will come back, and your violent betrayal will have seemingly meant nothing to them. They both are very aware they will outlast whatever violence you may inflict upon them. It's evidenced in their dialogue:

If you attack, Annalise says:

“Enough. If only Our life was so easily forfeit… Grieve not, for Us.” “How sad this is. If only Our life was so easily forfeit…”

If you attack Miss Doll, she used to say:

“I must have displeased you. Go on, shut me down… Even so, this vessel will remain in your service… So have no fear."

I think this point of comparison highlights just how deeply they've both been desensitized to violence and abuse. They do not beg for mercy, they do not put up a struggle - they only remark on it with distant chagrin. They both seem keenly aware that their flesh need not be in one piece to fulfill its purpose.

But where Miss Doll was made to embody the Victorian patriarchal ideal of womanhood, Annalise wields womanhood as her last weapon against the dehumanization of the church’s genocide through her queendom. Upon being resurrected the next time you return to the dream, Miss Doll will act as though nothing had happened at all. However, if you bring her flesh to the Altar of Despair, Annalise will call you an arrant fool, and remind you that “Vileblood or no, forget not; We are thy Queen”. Miss Doll kneels to serve the hunter, while the hunter must kneel to serve Annalise. Miss Doll has been conditioned to passively accept dehumanization and submission, yet Annalise demands respect through your submission even in her dehumanized state. Miss Doll is subjugated by the trappings of womanhood, while Annalise is lifted from subjugation by her womanhood, in some ways.

I find this fascinating, however, because while Miss Doll appears in every way as a pure, demure Victorian woman was meant to, they are also dehumanized through the denial of gender. To Gerhman, their creator, they are nothing more than another tool of the workshop. An object. Even the Doll themself uses neutral "I" pronouns to refer to themself in the original translation. I think it is pertinent to note that the only canonical reference to Miss Doll as a "woman" comes from Eileen. In the original Japanese text, she refers to the Doll with a term of endearment reserved for young girls. Miss Doll's appearance is the historical ideal of the subjugated woman - yet when Eileen confers upon her the status of "woman", she does so in an endearing and humanizing way. Therefore, for both Miss Doll and Queen Annalise, the status of womanhood is a rebuttal of their own dehumanizing subjugation: Annalise as "queen", and Miss Doll as "daughter".

Both characters are arguably seeking/find liberation through motherhood. Miss Doll gets "Childhood's Beginning": their creator and animator have both been put down, the hunt is finally over and they are no longer bound to serve its participants, nor must they watch their beheadings. They cradle the newly ascended hunter. It is a highly atypical “motherhood”. It exists in the performance of the role rather than the biology of childbirth. In the same way, the Doll possesses a highly atypical “womanhood” which exists in performance alone, rather than in biology or even identity — but nonetheless, it is real, and it is hers. I, perhaps too optimistically, choose read it as humanizing for them; because unlike their “womanhood”, Miss Doll is allowed to choose this for themself rather than having it imposed upon them.

In the same vein, Annalise seeks to birth a child of blood for a similar but perhaps more somber reason. She wants a child because she wants an heir — which is to say, because it is the only way she may once again have kin. Because it is the only way she may fulfill her duty as Queen. She witnessed everyone she ever knew or loved — surely her own family included — slaughtered before her eyes. Annalise seems to seek motherhood in order to be a homemaker - in the most literal sense possible. She wants to rebuild the community, the home, which was so brutally torn away from her. She wishes to restore honor to Cainhurst. For Annalise, having a child is an open act of rebellion against the genocidal eugenics-frenzied bloodthirst of the Church. I can't help but wonder if part of the reason Alfred is so hellbet on destroying her, why the Executioners imprisoned her the way they did, was to strip her of bodily autonomy so she couldn’t “reproduce”. Her desire for a child is her way of seeking liberation for her and her people.

In this sense, taking up the role of a mother, of "women's work", is what confers the agency upon both Annalise and Miss Doll which had been otherwise stripped from them. Annalise's by the genocidal eugenics of the Church, and Miss Doll by the pact of servitude she was seemingly born into.

[malehypnofantasy]

Casey pretty much loathed the life he got to endure in uni. The past 3 years has been nothing but hell for him with all the isolation, bullying and the way some of his professors turned out to be major dickhead that either treated him like crap or took credit of his brilliance for themselves when they wouldn't even be able to finish their researches without his help or insight. He hated the fact that despite being smarter then most people, he's overlooked and swept aside just because he doesn't have the authority or the look that could help him gain the spotlight he knew he deserved. Until one eventful night when he turned 21 and his body started to glow in the middle of the night while his jackass of a roommate Ethan slept like a log as he's too spent after fucking his girlfriend like rabbit in the opposite bed.

The following morning, Casey realized that something clearly is different from the way he looked in the mirror. He's more.....radiant, and his eyes sparkled brilliantly under the bathroom light. That's when all in a sudden, Lila, Ethan's girlfriend, appeared right next to him as she opened the bathroom door

"Happy birthday Casey. You probably haven't fully realized it but let me help you out," she said with a rather monotone voice as she suddenly grabbed Casey's head and her eyes started to glow

Flow of memories of ancient practices and secret tradition of his family freely went right into his brain, injected his head with ideas and capability beyond his usual mortal knowledge. His whole body radiantly glow as the memories filled every corner of his body so he could wield the magical power that belong to his family since he's a responsible adult in their eyes upon celebrating his 21st birthday. When Lila eventually dropped to the floor as the messenger that possessed her went away, Casey looked at her with different gaze. The once unapproachable and mean cheerleader co-captain now looked like nothing but a distraction to him, so he forcefully woke her up and made her leave the room with not a single word said. The recently powered magician then turned his attention to his douchebag of a roommate, smirking at his slumbering muscular form that would soon become his plaything

Truth be told, Casey utilized the gym rat's body as his lab rat. He doesn't know how far of a control he can wield and exercise upon other people or what kind of other powers his body can manage, but another messenger from his family already informed him that he doesn't necessarily have the physical prowess to handle too big of a power so he needs to not only train his magic, but also his physique. But before working on his physique, he decided to test how far he can control another people through his words and Ethan came in handy in that regards. Ethan was unaware this whole time that he has been subjected to mind conditioning by Casey. As Casey mentioned his trigger word, Ethan instantly fell asleep despite several seconds before he just intensely cheered for a football team he's rooting for.

Casey then decided to execute his plan as he planted this idea to Ethan that he's been gay all along and he only can get hard while serving Casey. The ideas of girls repulsed him. The idea of disobeying Casey terrified him and his biggest joy in life is to do things in accordance to Casey's order. Casey then told Ethan to also set a "smokescreen" while in public or with other people as to not raise any suspicion and would only be his devoted self when Casey and him are in private or when Casey said his trigger word. As the jock snapped awake from his slumber, his eyes softened upon seeing Casey as he addressed him with respect and slight fear

"Oh Master, very sorry. Did I fall asleep here when you want to watch TV? Please, don't hesitate and sit down here, Sir. I'll scooch to the floor,"

"Calm down, Ethan. No need to do all that. I just wanna ask. Say, aside from me as the all powerful controller, who's the strongest guy in this school that you know?"

"Physically or socially, Sir?"

"Hmmmm...both,"

"The Dean and the Provo----"

"Not them, dummy. The students, I meant,"

"Ohhh the students. The twins in Pike are certainly the craziest in terms of physique, one of them got stabbed and then beaten the shit out of his stabber and 3 other guys----"

"Sounds like a threat,"

"---while socially, Ben Richards clearly bodied everyone. Part of the billionaire Richards retail & real estate family and his uncle is a high-ranked DoD officials, a decorated and highly respected war hero,"

"Not even the frat president, huh?"

"Nah, he's just Ben's pawn. Ben's too lazy to do anything by himself. He'll prefer someone worked it for him,"

"A pawn to do all his bidding, huh?"

"Yep, you got that right,"

"Well, what do you think if we paid a visit to meet Ben, do you know his whereabouts?"

"Not really, but I can ask around,"

"Then ask around. I would like to meet with him in private,"

Read Part 2 here

[licorice-lips]

Hi, everyone! So, I know there's a lot of controversy about Rhys's behavior Under the Mountain (at least in Brazil fandom it's a hot topic), a discussion that is valid and definitely needs to be had, so I did a lot of research on the subject and compiled the three texts that influenced me the most into a compilation that I'll share here — along with my thoughts and additions.

These texts that serve as my supports were made here on Tumblr and can be found under the following titles, although the third one is the most comprehensive of them all:

*Rhysand's Defense Post (The author had only read A Court of Thorns and Roses when she wrote this).

*The Difference Between Tamlin and Rhysand: The Man on the Throne and the Man in the Arena — Acotar and Acomaf's Excerpt Analysis (The author was following the small teaser quotes for A Court of Mist and Fury and analyzed them).

*Understanding Tamlin and Rhysand — A Post-Acomaf Reconciliation of Rhys's Actions Under The Mountain in a Culture of Defeat.

In addition to discussing Rhys's behavior, however, I'm also going to discuss Tamlin's behavior and compare the two. It's going to be quite fun… Just a heads up that I don't want any hate messages. Do you want to share your thoughts agreeing or disagreeing? That's fine, but with respect. Any offensive comments will be deleted.

Now here's my defense post for Rhys:

Leadership is a heavy burden. When you're a leader, especially when it's not your choice but comes to you because of the family you were born into, for example, responsibility can be a burden. But when you're a leader, there's something very important to consider when making a decision: those who follow you.

All of Rhys's actions as High Lord of the Night Court must be thought of to put the well-being of those he is responsible for first. And when he, Tamlin, and the other High Lords are Under the Mountain, he decides that he will be Amarantha's whore to ensure that his Court is in the best possible condition within the situation — he lets himself be raped to ensure that his people and his family remain safe when he could have done nothing.

But from the moment Feyre strikes the deal with Amarantha, he is the only one who is truly in a position to make a difference: the other High Lords do not have enough of Amarantha's trust for her not to suspect anything if one of them tried to bargain with Feyre as Rhys did, for example. If any other High Lord — Kallias, Thesan, Helion, etc. — tried the same thing as Rhys, Amarantha would have been suspicious.

So in this case, he is the only one who can truly act.

But he doesn't have to. The point is that his Court is reasonably safe because of his role in the court Amarantha built, so Rhys doesn't really need to help Feyre win. But he does it, not because he wants his power back, but because he's the kind of leader who will do everything achievable to change — for what he believes is the best — the lives of his people.

And I'll talk about how admirable that is later on when we're talking about the culture of war and defeat, and about Tamlin's behavior. So, he decides to act, and he tells Feyre in A Court of Mist and Fury:

"I decided at that moment that I would fight. And fight dirty, and kill and torture and manipulate, but fight. If there was any chance of freeing us from Amarantha, it was you." (A Court of Mist and Fury, page 550, Brazilian edition)

He knows, then, that the fight he would have to wage was not the beautiful, heroic, noble thing we're so used to seeing: Rhys knew that his actions to ensure victory — for Feyre and Prythian as a whole — would be horrible and would probably haunt him for the rest of his life. He knows that. And he doesn't excuse himself for a moment. He doesn't invent, he doesn't embellish, he doesn't paint himself as a hero. He knows he's not and he really isn't a hero.

A hero is someone who sacrifices themselves in a grand gesture to save the entire population, a true hero doesn't really sacrifice one person to save others. And while Rhys does have his own share of sacrifices, that doesn't excuse him from the horrible actions he took Under the Mountain:

So, the first part of his questionable behavior in Under the Mountain comes to light: the moment he twists Feyre's injured arm to convince her, to scare her enough to accept his bargain. This is a minor moment and my description alone makes it understandable: he does what he does to keep her alive and charges an insignificant price (which he planned to release her from later, as he himself says) to keep up appearances.

And Rhys needs to keep up appearances because his whole game to defeat Amarantha depends on how he appears to her and to other people: no one can notice while he moves the pieces on the board to bring the advantage to them. No one, not even Feyre, who is the "lamb to the slaughter," so to speak. And she can't know for several reasons:

Feyre is not in a mental condition to act and pretend to hate him as much as he needs her to pretend. So if she knew what he was doing, she would probably let something slip, or wouldn't be convincing enough, because honestly? Who could?

Rhys spent the last 50 years fighting alone and being surrounded by people who constantly despised him for being Amarantha's whore or for those who tried to ingratiate themselves with her through him, so he doesn't trust others easily, even though he was falling in love with Feyre, as he says in ACOMAF.

He couldn't trust that Feyre wouldn't trust others — Lucien and, therefore, Tamlin — with this knowledge. With their mutual hatred, they would surely end up messing things up.

Feyre was there to protect the High Lord who killed his mother and sister — and Rhys didn't know that Feyre didn't know the history behind his and Tamlin's relationship — so, in theory, it made sense that he wouldn't want to show his "true face" to her.

That's exactly what the book is about: like a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, the book is about how appearances deceive. If Feyre found out that Rhys is a decent person right away, it would be the same as throwing the whole intention of the story out the window.

So we have the second — and most controversial of all — point: the dance and the wine. I'm not going to mince words about this: It was sexual harassment. Period. But with this, Rhys manages to:

Get Feyre out of her cell, which is driving her crazy, as she says in this part: "I was alone, locked in silence — although the screams in the dungeon continued day and night. When they became unbearable and I couldn't ignore them, I looked at the eye in my palm." (A Court of Thorns and Roses, page 356, Brazilian Edition). And let's face it, anyone would go crazy in an environment like that.

Keep an eye on Feyre so that no one else could harm her — something he disguises with a comment about not liking others to touch what's his — and that's a curious thing because Feyre never expresses concerns about being abused by others after Rhys starts taking her to these parties (it's also interesting to note that despite the various traumas of what happened Under the Mountain, Feyre never showed any signs of trauma from sexual abuse, as far as I know — and again, not that this excuses Rhys, it's just a factor to point out that maybe she understood his game better than we did).

To leave Tamlin full of anger — which he claims is the main reason for all that theater during A Court of Thorns and Roses — so that he wouldn't hesitate if he had the slightest chance to kill Amarantha in the end or between challenges, no matter as long as he didn't hesitate. Because from Rhys's perspective, Tamlin is the noble golden prince who might spare Amarantha's life to demand some kind of trial or something. Which I consider he might have been dumb enough to do too.

Divert Amarantha's attention, as, thinking that Feyre was already humiliated and abused enough during those nights, she wouldn't give Feyre those ridiculous tasks anymore (like cleaning that filthy hall or collecting lentils from Rhys's fireplace). And if you reread ACOTAR, she really never gives those small tasks to Feyre again after that.

Send a message to those who could read, as Rhys himself says: he crowns Feyre every night, and for the cruel ones, this would be a subtle kind of mockery, but for those who could see beyond the evil, Rhys was declaring Feyre the champion of them all. He declared that he believed in her and in her potential to free them all.

Convince Amarantha that he's still playing on her side — a belief that was shaken by Rhys betting on Feyre in the first task and closing that bargain to heal her arm. This might be the most fundamental of all points: the one that allows the game to continue toward victory. He needs to prove to Amarantha that he's doing it for fun, out of cruelty, considering Feyre as the whore of the whore, someone lower than the lowest of courtesans. Thus, Rhys clears the way to act when the time is right.

By taking Feyre with him to those parties, he moved not one, but six pieces of the game to be in his favor. He killed six birds with one stone. Strategically, it's an incredible tactic, by the way. But morally, this act leaves something to be desired.

So why the wine and the dance? Because Rhysand plays with appearances. Everything in his game depends on it.

Feyre wouldn't play the whore of the whore while conscious, no one with a shred of self-respect would accept that without knowing the reason behind it, and Rhysand, for the reasons I mentioned, wouldn't tell her anything. So he makes her drink the wine to keep the whole purpose of that show and keeps her close to prevent her from being touched by anyone other than him.

But besides that, the wine is a form of escape, a way to forget about the horrors, as Feyre herself says at the end of the chapter where all this happens:

"[…] and I began to long for the moment when Rhysand would hand me the goblet of faerie wine and I could let loose for a few hours." (A Court of Thorns and Roses, page 381).

In fact, Rhys sees it this way: when he is forced to kill the High Lord of the Summer Court (not Tarquin, but his cousin from whom he "inherited" the title, Nostrus), he himself drinks the wine with Feyre — it's an escape from the character he so carefully plays because not even Rhys can bear everything without letting the facade fall, even if only a little.

Note: not that I'm saying this would be a healthy way to deal with all that trauma and accumulated stress, but considering the place they were in and the situation, perhaps it was the most… effective way.

I have to say, however, that all of this doesn't justify what he did: it was still sexual abuse and it's still very bad and very serious. However, I need to point out to you: what we do to survive often does not reflect what we would be in a normal situation (normal being their everyday life without Amarantha, in this case).

When we are confronted with a situation like this, where to survive we end up needing to do something horrible, many say they would never do and would take the noble path of dying before giving up their values and principles, which is great, it proves that you have a very good character. The problem is that Rhys doesn't have the choice to think only of himself and how much this abuse will cost his dignity and principles because every decision he makes affects his people.

So here's my question for you: could you love someone who chose to preserve you instead of saving thousands of innocent — children, women, and men — who are under their responsibility?

Because I couldn't love someone who did that. And that's how I make peace with what Rhys did to Feyre Under the Mountain: I couldn't love someone who condemned the world to save me from abuse that I know I can endure — even if it causes me terrible harm.

Of course, it's entirely valid if you decide not to forgive him for what he did, because, after all, it's a morally gray action when you consider the whole situation they were in and what Rhys did. So, no one is really wrong for not forgiving Rhys for what he did, but those who forgive him aren't wrong either. It's very important that we understand that.

Now, an argument that is often used and that annoys me every time I hear it is that Sarah "changed Rhys and Tamlin's personalities because of shipping", so she ignored everything Rhys did Under the Mountain to make him the hero just because fans liked him. There are so many things wrong with that that I don't even know where to begin, but let's analyze all of Tamlin's, Feyre's, and Rhys's behavior throughout the ACOTAR and ACOMAF stories and show why I know Sarah did absolutely everything with careful consideration:

There is a trait that is very striking in Tamlin from the beginning of the ACOMAF story and is especially explicit when Alis tells the whole story about Amarantha, Tamlin, and the curse, which is the fact that Tamlin can't deal with the consequences of his actions:

The first time he does this is at the beginning of the curse when he gives up sending his soldiers to die for him, thus Tamlin simply gives up not only freeing himself but all of Prythian, all the people who live there, and still condemns the human lands in the process. He only started sending the soldiers out of desperation after 46 years, look at Alis's speech:

"For two years, he sent them, day after day, needing to choose who crossed the wall. When there were only a dozen left, Tamlin was so devastated that he stopped. He canceled everything." (A Court of Thorns and Roses, page 294, Brazilian Edition).

The second time I can point out is Feyre herself (this because I'm ignoring the events during her stay in the Spring Court, as I don't remember what happened): he takes Feyre to Prythian with the intention of making her fall in love with him, but at the first glimpse of direct danger from Amarantha — in this case, the scene where Rhys makes him kneel — he sends her away.

He gives up saving Prythian because he can't stick to the decision to put Feyre in danger so that she could break the curse, so much so that he condemns himself for it, because Feyre only doesn't say that she loves him — and breaks the curse — precisely because she's leaving:

"— I love you. — He said, and stepped back. I should say — should say those words, but they got stuck in my throat because… Because of what he needed to face, because maybe he wouldn't find me again, despite the promise…" (A Court of Thorns and Roses, page 261, Brazilian Edition)

These are the main events, and perhaps I could list more for you if I reread A Court of Thorns and Roses. But what does this show us? That every time Tamlin makes a decision, he freezes and backs down at the first sign of an obstacle. He retreats and avoids anything that shakes him.

So it makes sense that Tamlin's reaction Under the Mountain is paralysis — a common behavior among leaders in times of war and defeat, by the way, which aligns not only with Tamlin's personality but also with the reaction of a true leader in such a situation.

Alright, let's stop there and go back in time to analyze Feyre's behavior:

Right from the start, we learn that, even being the youngest of three sisters, Feyre was the one who, when they were starving, took action and sought a solution, which shows us right away the kind of person Feyre is: she's the kind of person who acts when forced to face danger, whether it's something intangible, like death by starvation, or tangible, like Amarantha.

This is proven repeatedly throughout the books: when she seeks answers with the Suriel, when she tries to fight off the bastards who tried to rape her at Calanmai (because paralysis can also be a reaction to abuse of that kind), when she goes to Under the Mountain to fight for Tamlin without even hesitating, when she heals from the traumas of Under the Mountain as soon as she has something to focus on, something to dedicate herself to.

And this is one of the fundamental differences between Tamlin and Feyre: while he paralyzes, she acts, and whether we like it or not, differences create friction. Especially with what happened Under the Mountain because she and Tamlin were separated, and neither of them experienced trauma together. Paralysis generates a different trauma from the trauma of someone who is acting, so the end of their relationship begins when she goes to save him Under the Mountain — and Tamlin freezes.

Then we have Rhysand, who is exactly like Feyre: he acts when confronted with danger or defeat and has thousands of actions of his that exemplify this:

As soon as he becomes High Lord, he bans the wing clipping of Illyrian females regardless of the reaction of the Illyrian lords or what they thought about it. It's not that he doesn't care: Rhys, unlike Tamlin, is willing to pay the price that comes when a decision is made.

He becomes Amarantha's whore to protect his people from her getting too close to them. He doesn't care about the cost to himself simply because Rhys knows he's doing some good for his own people by letting himself be raped.

When he sees in Feyre the chance to do something to free all of Prythian, he goes all in knowing that that game would be total defeat or victory. He acts.

When Hybern starts threatening Prythian, he is willing to do whatever it takes — lose a potential friend, hand over the city he loved with all his heart to horrible women, give up his own life — so that they wouldn't fall into slavery again.

When the war comes anyway, he faces it head-on and uses every card he has to stop the King of Hybern: monsters of all kinds, all his power, his own life, and the truth about himself, about who he is.

And these are just a few examples. The fundamental difference between Tamlin and Rhys, just like between Tamlin and Feyre, is how they respond to situations and traumas.

Quoting Teddy Roosevelt (btw, this is a direct translation of the Portuguese version of the quote, so it can be different from the original):

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Feyre and Rhysand are the ones in the arena, they are the ones who fight to be able to act in the face of evil — Amarantha. And it's interesting to note that those who condemn Rhys for the dubious actions he took Under the Mountain never say anything about Feyre committing murder there as well, which is a crime as heinous (or at least should be when it comes to innocent people) as Rhys's.

I'll tell you why: when we're faced with a gray and complex character like Rhys — and we don't know his heart, instead we're "infected" with the main character's partial view — we tend to connect him directly with evil, instead of understanding that this character is neither wholly good nor bad. We forgive soldiers for killing people in a war — that's also a combat in Under the Mountain, so why can't we forgive both Rhys and Feyre?

We forgive Feyre because we know how sorry she is, we know her heart, and we love her. But Rhys? He's the High Lord of the Night Court — which alone triggers some unconscious alerts within us — and he's playing dirty, hiding, and being a horrible person, so why should he be forgiven?

That's what our brain unconsciously thinks sometimes, and it makes us judge some characters more severely. Understanding the duality and complexity of a character is not an easy task; it requires a lot of empathy and an open mind.

But why am I saying this? Because it's important to understand: Rhys and Feyre are extremely similar, and they understand each other at a fundamental level because of that. Tamlin, on the other hand, has a completely different personality. He's the one who freezes, who paralyzes.

Rhys and Feyre experience the trauma Under the Mountain together, so Feyre and Tamlin are separated, which, combined with the glaring difference between the two, makes it difficult — perhaps impossible — for them to heal together because, out of loyalty to the character's nature, Sarah can't make Tamlin talk about what's happening like Feyre needs.

Even after Under the Mountain, Tamlin's instinctive action is to freeze. So he doesn't talk about Feyre's nightmares, he pretends not to see her despair, he turns away from her need to talk about the subject — because looking at her trauma would be the same as acknowledging his own.

And he can't do that because it's part of his nature to freeze. But this isn't healthy, hence the explosions of anger, and hence he locks Feyre up the moment she tries to assert herself: these are the consequences of forcing someone who deals with PTSD by freezing to actually deal with their traumas (that and the fact that he's horrible).

I can understand that (not in his relationship with Feyre, I'm talking more generally here, about him as High Lord, he can rot otherwise) but I can't forgive it like I did with Rhys because, unlike the actions Rhys took, paralysis only allows evil to continue to grow and end up imprisoning us (this is, in fact, one of the reasons why Tamlin didn't try to fight like Rhys while Amarantha was killing Feyre: his lack of previous action left him unable to take action when it was time to "put up or shut up").

While Tamlin's paralysis pushes us down while doing us harm, Rhys's actions, as horrible as they may be, are done in the hope of something good, they're done to move us forward. I can forgive him because I'd rather be someone who does horrible things in the hope of creating something better than be someone who allows evil to continue to grow until it imprisons me.

It's that simple.

And Feyre is exactly that kind of person. She needs to act, she needs to talk about it to heal. She needs to have a purpose, not be coddled like Tamlin — and his trauma — wants her to be.

The relationship between her and Tamlin becomes abusive the moment he tries to stifle her feelings to maintain a state of paralysis. And that's something you'd expect from a character like Tamlin, that's how he was built. But this happens long before Under the Mountain: I remember that on the first day Feyre yields to the dresses Tamlin gave her in ACOTAR, I think it was the morning after Calanmai, she warns herself to be gentle, to be kind, when dealing with Tamlin and Lucien.

But after Under the Mountain, Feyre can no longer accept that her feelings be stifled simply because her traumas are consuming her from the inside out. So she fights back. And that's what completely ends their relationship.

But the point is: both Tamlin, Feyre, and Rhysand follow exactly the line of their personalities throughout the story. They are those kinds of people from start to finish. There's an evolution, of course, but it's an evolution of beliefs, opinions, and perceptions — their essences remain the same.

That's why Sarah is brilliant in these books: by being completely faithful to her characters' personalities, she created a story that discusses abusive relationships, the varied responses of certain types of people to trauma, and the various reactions of leaders in times of war and defeat.

But the point is: none of them were changed to fit a ship, simply because they weren't changed. All three of these characters act exactly the way they should within the limits of their own personalities.

Rhys is the High Lord who plays dirty to create a better world, and Tamlin is a leader who can't make a tough decision. And there's another fundamental difference between them:

While Rhys knows that, from time to time, he'll be forced to make decisions that will end up harming part of his people (and will choose the lesser of two evils), Tamlin still struggles with the enchanted vision of a superhero who saves everyone without exception. And when that doesn't happen — because it's never possible to save everyone no matter what you do — he prefers not to act.

I think the two things that illustrate very well the kind of person Rhys and Tamlin are is the Illyrian tradition of cutting the wings of their females and the Tribute:

Rhys risks a revolt to improve the lives of his people and sticks to that decision, willing to pay the price for it if the result is a better life for the Illyrian females, while Tamlin fails to abolish an extremely unnecessary tax because his inability to act makes him cling to archaic traditions like the Tribute.

So, yes, I forgive Rhys for what he did Under the Mountain, because I couldn't love someone who freezes and leaves me to die. I prefer to love someone who cares so deeply about something — a dream — that they're willing to fight and play dirty for it. And then go to battle to defend it.

Hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to point out points that I didn't comment on; I'll try to respond to everyone's comments!"

[chrisbitchtree]

All For You

This is my contribution to the @harringrove-relay-race!

The day Billy’s life changed forever was a Sunday in May. He’d never forget that for the rest of his life. He’d never forget how brightly the sun shone as he packed up his car and drove east, as his father kicked him out, refusing to pay for any more of Billy’s college tuition after finding him in bed with his friend Matt a week after they arrived home for summer vacation.

His was given the option to stay and continue to have his dad pay for his college education, but the conditions were that he move home and live there while finishing out his last two years of school, and that he give up his friends and his “lifestyle” as Neil called it.

Billy refused. He couldn’t live under Neil’s roof again. And suddenly the whole state of California, not just San Francisco, seemed too small, so he got in his car and drove. He hadn’t been aiming for the Midwest, had originally planned on Boston, but that’s where he’d landed, after his car had broken down on the side of the highway just outside of Chicago. Finding he liked the pace of the city more than he thought he would, he decided to stick around for a bit.

He applied anywhere he could, and the first place to call him back for an interview and offer him a job was a catering company. He’d worked as a waiter on and off through his first couple years of college, for extra spending money, so he was confident that he could do the job well.

He made friends easily, people who accepted him for who he was, falling in with a group of fellow servers, Heather and her girlfriend Robin, and their friend Steve, gorgeous, funny, goofy Steve, who could make Billy weak in the knees with one smile, and thoughts of whom filled Billy’s every waking hour, and most of his dreams too. They would work long hours, day after day, serving at all sorts of upscale events, and when they were done their shifts, they’d hit the clubs or bars, or go see a movie, then head to the diner for late night shakes and fries.

When Billy decided to stay long term, applying for and getting a transfer slot at a local university, he had to find a place to live. Heather had been nice enough to offer up her couch for the summer, but that couldn’t be a long term solution, so Billy put out feelers for a potential roommate. It turned out that Steve was looking for one as well, so it worked out perfectly.

It seemed like a match made in heaven. They were the same age, both out on their own with no ties to family, working hard to make a name for themselves in the world. Steve was an especially hard worker, going to school for culinary management by day, and working as a server by night and on weekends. He’d also pick up shifts in the prep kitchen when he could, telling Billy that it was important for him to know how all aspects of a food business worked if he wanted to own his own restaurant or catering business some day.

Billy really admired Steve’s drive, and it only added to his attraction to the other boy. He tried to fight his feelings for Steve, but it was hard when he was so sweet and kind, funny and thoughtful, and looked like he did to boot. He had long legs that seemed to go on forever in his black server’s pants, a lean, toned swimmer’s body, and soft looking, wild brown hair that curled up in some spots and flopped over in others.

Billy wanted nothing more than to kiss Steve’s plush pink lips while running his hands through it. It felt like he and Steve were maybe building to something, but it was always hard to tell. One minute, Steve would be flirty, touching Billy’s arm as they talked, and the next, he’d be moving to the other side of the couch, keeping a safe distance between them.

In the face of this, Billy tried to tamp down his feelings, doing his best to just enjoy his friendship with Steve. They would help each other study, make sure the other ate, they worked and partied together, and it was really starting to feel to Billy like he had a family again, between Steve, Heather, and Robin.

Then, Billy had to go ahead and combine his bad habits of jumping to conclusions and opening his big mouth without thinking about what he was going to say first. He and Steve had both been scheduled to work a massive Christmas party for some regular clients of theirs, the Harringtons. They hired the catering company almost every single Saturday evening, for small dinner parties, and they were Billy’s least favourite events to work, because the Harringtons were so awful.

They were rude to the staff, telling them that they were slow and lazy, and constantly made up stupid white lies, like saying that they’d asked for white win when they were poured a glass of red, even though the servers knew that they’d asked for red, or saying that their steaks were overcooked, even when they were a perfect medium rare. The only thing that kept the catering company coming back was how well the jobs paid, and the generous tips that the Harringtons would give them at the end of each event.

Nobody ever wanted to work a Saturday night, but Billy would be fine with working every single Saturday if it meant he never had to serve those awful people again, so he was deeply frustrated to see his name on the list of servers for their Christmas event. He knew there would be a huge payout for it though, so he decided to just grin and bear it, and hope the night would go by quickly.

Thankfully, it did go by relatively fast, and at the end of the shift, he went looking for Steve, hoping that they could ride back to the warehouse space that the catering company ran out of in the same big white food service van. As he rounded the corner towards the Harrington’s front hall, he heard Steve speaking in hushed tones with a woman. That was weird. The female voice didn’t sound like anyone from work.

Curious, Billy froze in place and listened. “Son,” the woman said. “You know you’re welcome home at anytime. In fact, we hope that you’ll join us for Christmas dinner. You just need to stop that. And in case you need help making your decision, here you go.”

Mom,” Steve replied, his tone stern. “I don’t want this. And I told you and dad that I’m not changing my mind. Take this back. I don’t want it. We’ll see about Christmas.”

“I’ll throw it in the trash if you don’t keep it,” the woman said, before walking away, her heels clacking on the tile floor. She rounded the corner, followed by Steve, who was stuffing an envelope into the pocket of his black pants.

Holy shit. Steve was the Harrington’s son. He wasn’t like Billy at all. He flattened himself against the wall, trying to remain unseen. Thankfully, he did, both Steve and Mrs. Harrington too wrapped up in the argument they’d just been having to pay attention to anything else.

Billy was fuming. All this time, Steve had been acting like he was just a regular guy, trying to scrape by, with no one to care for him, just like Billy, but in reality, he was richer than Billy could ever dream of being, and he had a family, right there in town, that seemed to care about him and want him around, even if they were assholes to almost everyone else. And here, Billy had thought he and Steve would spend Christmas together. Sure, he’d never actually asked, but it seemed to make sense. Where else would either of them go? Billy had already been trying to see if he could fit a small turkey in their apartment sized oven, and Steve was planning on spending the day with his rich family in their mansion!

He tried to act normal on the ride back to work, and on the car ride back home, but by the time they got back to their apartment, he couldn’t hold back anymore. “So, I hear you have big plans for Christmas day, huh? Gonna go over to mommy and daddy’s and let them spoil you? I can’t believe you never told me that the Harringtons were your parents, Steve. You just sat back and let us complain about what assholes they are, and it turns out you’re their fucking spawn! Did you think that was funny, asshole? I hope you enjoy your fancy meal while I sit here all alone eating a frozen dinner and getting drunk off cheap wine.”

Steve, who’d been in the middle of taking off his coat when Billy started his little rant, stood frozen, his eyes wide, his face ashen, his jacket half on and half off. Billy could see the bulging envelope in his pocket. It probably had a giant wad of cash in it.

“Billy, I…” he started, but Billy cut him off, too mad to listen.

“I just don’t understand how you could do this. All the months we’ve known each other, and we’ve lived together for almost four months, struggling to make rent and pay the bills, and you’ve got an endless supply of cash right there. I heard your mom give you the envelope of money. I saw it in your pocket.” He pulled off his coat, throwing it towards the hall closet, and stomped to his room, slamming the door shut.

He hoped that Steve would leave him alone so he could cool off, but no such luck. Not a minute passed before Steve was yanking Billy’s door open. Hands on his hips, he looked like he was about to lay into Billy, so Billy grabbed his headphones, turning on his music and cranking it up loud. He closed his eyes and laid back on his bed, doing his best to ignore Steve.

It worked for a little while, but then Steve was snatching the headphones off his head. “Hey, asshole!” he shouted. “Did you ever think for one fucking second about asking me why exactly I’m struggling to pay for stuff if my parents are loaded?”

Huh, yeah, Billy hadn’t really thought to ask. “Because you’re a massive idiot who doesn’t know how to be happy with what he has?”

“No, dumbass, because, exactly like you, I was kicked out of my house for being queer. But unlike you, I don’t have the benefit of being halfway across the country from my parents. They hire the catering company almost every week, just to keep an eye on me, and remind me of the lifestyle I left behind, and I don’t want to say anything about it to anyone because they bring in good money for the business, and despite my repeated requests for my parents to leave me alone outside of work, they’re constantly trying to bribe me to come back, with the conditions that I take something they choose in school and marry a woman.

But I don’t want that. I want to own a restaurant. I want to make a name for myself. I want to date guys. I actually wanted to date you, you fucking prick. Until tonight, that is. I really liked you, but it turns out you’re just as awful and judgemental as everyone else in my life. I was going to ask you if you wanted to spend Christmas together, and I took the money from my mom so I could afford to buy you a Christmas present, but I really hope that you enjoy that frozen dinner and boxed wine. I’ll talk to Heather and Robin about going there.”

Billy sat speechless as he watched Steve walk out of his room, slamming the door behind him. He was such an idiot. He had to make this better somehow, but he had no clue what the fuck to do. It wouldn’t be enough to just say sorry. His big mouth had pushed them way beyond that. No, he needed to make a grand gesture, something that would really show Steve how much he meant to Billy.

It came to him the next morning as he was hiding out in his bedroom, listening to the sounds of Steve getting ready to go to work, a shift he and Billy thankfully didn’t share. Steve had mentioned that he was going to spend Christmas with Heather and Robin, since Billy had gotten himself ex-communicated.

Robin and Heather, from a small town in Texas, couldn’t afford to go home for the holidays, so they were staying in Chicago. If that was the situation the two of them were in, there were probably others, at work and school, that couldn’t afford to make the trip home, or didn’t have family to spend the time with. Maybe Billy could offer to host a potluck dinner at the apartment, to show Steve that he wasn’t alone, and that he had a lot of people, most especially Billy, who cared about him.

As soon as he heard the front door shut and the key turn in the lock, Billy sprang out of bed and raced to the living room, scooping up the phone, cord stretching across the floor, and dialed Robin and Heather’s number.

He’d been so caught up in how to make this better that he’d never considered that Steve would have already told them what happened. He sat through a full half hour of both women trading the phone back and forth as they took turns berating him for his behaviour the previous evening. He knew he deserved it, but it didn’t make it any less embarrassing to hear all the stupid shit he’d done repeated back to him.

When they were done, and he had apologized profusely, promising to never hurt Steve again, he told them his plan. After another round of promises to never intentionally hurt Steve again, they agreed to get him back to his and Billy’s apartment on the evening of the 25th.

When Steve got home that day, he reluctantly listened to Billy’s apology, and just as reluctantly accepted it, telling Billy that he knew he hadn’t meant it, and was just being a hot headed asshole, which Billy deserved, but since they were out of school for the semester now, any time they weren’t working over the next two weeks consisted of Steve mostly avoiding Billy by going right to his room when he got home, or leaving the apartment altogether for long stretches of time.

A small part of Billy hoped that anger wasn’t the only reason that Steve was avoiding Billy, that maybe he still had feelings for Billy too, and just felt awkward about addressing those feelings now. He didn’t want to get his hopes up too high though.

Billy tried to spend that time working on himself, seeking out a therapist who could help him work through his feelings of jealousy and resentment towards anyone who he perceived as having an easier time than him in life, and help him work through his abandonment issues, both things he’d spent way too long shoving down inside himself until they bubbled up to the surface, out of his control.

He also contacted everyone at work and his school friends that said they didn’t have anywhere to go for the holidays, making them all promise to keep it a secret from Steve. His invitations had an overwhelmingly positive response, which both saddened and heartened him. He’d never thought of how many other people felt alone as he did.

Steve spent the night of the 24th at Robin and Heather’s apartment, so Billy worked to prep the apartment as best as he could. They didn’t have much furniture in their apartment, and there wouldn’t be much room for extra tables and chairs anyway, so he decided they would all eat on the floor. He bought bright red and green tablecloths at the dollar store and draped them all across the living room floor after pushing the couch and armchair against the wall, and a few of tomorrow’s guests have loaned him Christmas lights and decorations, and one even brought over a tiny tree.

He was actually pretty happy with it by the time he was done. Now he just had to wait. He made cookies to fill the time, ten different kinds, from his mother’s handwritten recipes, one of the only things he brought with him when he moved to remind him of her. By the time he stopped for the night, the counters were full of baked goods.

The next day, as the guests started to arrive, Billy grew more and more worried that Steve wouldn’t show up. He didn’t know what kind of plan Robin and Heather had concocted to get Steve to go back to his apartment, he’d left that to them and trusted that they’d follow through with it, but he was starting to second guess whether they’d be successful.

They said they’d have Steve at the apartment by 6pm, but that ticked by, and then 6:15, and 6:30, and Billy was starting to give up hope, resigning himself to failure. He had an apartment full of friends, but no Steve, the one who mattered the most. Then, just as the clock struck 6:45, the door flew open, and Billy could hear Steve’s voice, even from back in the kitchen, where he was grabbing more napkins.

“I still don’t get why…” the words died on Steve’s lips just as Billy rounded the corner to their living room. There stood Steve, with Robin and Heather behind him. Steve looked as beautiful as ever, hair flopping in his eyes under his hat, and a startled look on his face as he took in the space, packed full of their friends and coworkers. He locked eyes with Billy, who suddenly found himself at a loss for words.

“Billy, can I talk to you? In my bedroom?” Steve asked.

Billy followed silently behind him.

“You have a lot of nerve, having all of our mutual friends over for a Christmas party at our apartment while I’m over at Robin and Heather’s, sulking. You’re really trying to hurt me as much as possible, aren’t you? We just came to get the bottle opener. Robin broke theirs. If you don’t need it for your party guests, I’ll just take it and get out of your hair, so the festivities can continue.”

Oh god, this really wasn’t going according to plan. “Steve, I didn’t plan a party for while you were gone. This party is for you. Well, for you and for everyone who didn’t have anywhere else to go for Christmas. But mostly for you. I wanted to show you how many people you have in your life, that you don’t need your parents. We’re your family now. I’m really, really sorry about what I said to you that night, but you mean more to me than anything, and I just wanted to make you happy. I don’t think you’re a spoiled brat. I think you’re the most amazing, hardworking, kind, special person I’ve ever met, and I hope you’ll give me a chance to prove that to you.”

A small smile started in the corner of Steve’s mouth, the first thing even close to Steve’s usual grin that Billy had seen in weeks. “Ok, I’ll think about forgiving you. On one condition.”

“Anything. I’ll do anything for you, Steve.”

Steve opened his bedside table and pulled out a sprig of something green. “I was going to use this stupid mistletoe to finally try to make a move on you tonight, but I’m gonna leave the move making to you now.” He handed the sprig to Billy, who held it over their heads.

He leaned in close to Steve. “Can I kiss you, you beautiful goof?”

Steve didn’t respond, and instead just pressed his lips to Billy’s own. They stayed like that for a long while, until someone knocked on the door, letting Billy know that his kitchen timer was going off for the hors d’oeuvres.

“Come help me in the kitchen?” Billy asked, holding out his hand. Steve took it, following him out of the room.

The spent the rest of the party glued to each other’s sides, and Billy could tell from the soft looks Steve gave him, and the giant grin plastered to his face that this had been the right move. Billy was beyond happy that the plan had worked. Laying in bed that night, holding Steve in his arms, Billy thanked whatever higher power had decided he was worthy of a second chance at happiness.

*** From that year onwards, every single Christmas, no matter where their lives took them, through the opening of their first, then second restaurant, marriage, and the adoption of both of their children, one thing never changed. Every single December, they put the word out to anyone and everyone they knew that they were welcome in their home for a celebration of friendship and found family come Christmas day.

Please look forward to the amazing work from the next contributor, @oopsiedaisiesbaby!

[androgynealienfemme]

the linchpin of the subordination of women, the impetus and structure of women’s gendered status as second class, is sexuality, socially gendered through sexualized misogyny. We are placed on the bottom of the gender hierarchy by the misogynistic meanings that male dominant societies create, project onto us, attribute to us, which, in my observation and analysis, center on women’s sexuality. This has nothing whatsoever to do with biology, which serves, however powerfully, as sexuality’s after-the-fact attributed naturalized rationalization and supposed ratification. Sexualized misogyny merges synergistically with myriad inequalities: it sucks up and incorporates age-based specifics, takes on every racialized and caste and class guise. In other words, I reject the “single-axis” notion argued by what is currently inaccurately being called “gender-critical feminism.”

[…]

Transgender feminist theorization and realization, emerging into view but begun long ago—in a brilliant literature from Sandy Stone to Julia Serano to Esperanza—embodies a politics of its own but also sheds new light on feminist politics. All this suggests to me that “woman” is a combination of sex and gender, such that sex can be a sufficient condition for being considered a woman but has never been a necessary one. Sufficient, because most women so assigned at birth do not affirmatively identify with all women and women’s interests, or even as women really (seeing oneself as part of any group with men in it has more dignity); many (even most) are not critical of male supremacy; but all are constrained to live women’s lives, whether they see it that way or not. They are our people.

Not necessary, because not only are trans women living women’s lives—often much the worst of that life—but the transgender women I know, anyway, embrace womanhood consciously, are far more woman-identified than a vast swath of the women assigned female at birth (so-called “natal women” sometimes) whom I also know, many of whom have been trying to escape womanhood their whole lives for real reasons, yet often defend rape of other women as just a bad night and disidentify with women in every possible way short of their own transition, which is a lot of trouble and takes real courage. Trans women are, politically, women. They are our people too.

[…]

I take away two overarching lessons from these thoughts in progress. One is that feminism has not yet sufficiently changed the social meaning of gender around us for everyone to be safe and free and equal in gender terms, no matter how strongly we have confronted it or expanded it or bent it or transcended it or worked to abolish it. A lot of people still think it is biologically based. This much is truly obvious. Naturalism, that gender flows from sex in the sense of chromosomes and genitals and reproductive biology and so on, still exercises dominion over the world we all live in. Two, the feminist anti-transgender position is built on and reinforces, rather than challenges, that ideology. The notion that gender is biologically based—the philosophical foundation common to male dominant society and anti-trans feminists—is core to the reason why trans people know with their lives that they have to change their bodies to live the gender of their identities. Trans people do not need to make or defend a progressive contribution to gender politics to be entitled to change the way they inhabit gender. But trans people, in addition to all else they do and are, highlight feminism’s success—gender’s arbitrariness and invidiousness was our analysis originally—and feminism’s failure, or better our incomplete project—as the world is still largely stuck in what feminists oppose and fight to change, and trans people are determined to escape.

Babe wake up new MacKinnon essay on trans rights and feminism just dropped!!

[pholiabanna]

Sloppy seconds byler aren’t endgame angels with a nightmare is a fool a 25+ year old women with fantasies about teen boys being gay how’s that any different to men’s fantasies about lesbians?

Y’all are so caught up in you’re echo chambers you can’t see it and it’s gonna crash and burn so badly it’s not the byler show either it’s stranger things

Omg I feel so honored to get my first real hate ask!

There's so many things to unpack here, so I think Im gonna go one by one.

First of all, I assume you either ship Mleven or at least you despise byler, but my last post was only tagged as byler so there was no reason for you to see it unless you were stalking the byler tag, which in that case I'm glad you're such a dedicated fan!

Second of all, I'm assuming you're the same anon who has been sending around other anon asks the past couple of weeks always mentioned the words "sloppy seconds". Now, I know nothing about you or about your life enough to tell you what you should or shouldn't do, but I think I'd should let you know how disgusting of a term that is, and what it implies. I'm assuming if you like Mileleven you like Mike too, since he's one half of the ship. That's why it's shocking to me how you seem so adamant of thinking of him as nothing but El's leftovers, as if he wasn't his own person with his self worth! Also, someone's worth doesn't lessen just because they've already been kissed or touched by someone else. That's a sad outlook on life, and I'm not telling you to be mean, but because I think you'll live happier if you leave such toxic mentalities behind. They really do no good to someone's self esteem.

About the women fantasies about gay men, please notice how most people in this tag are underage people of all genders. This is not a sexual fantasy, as these characters aren't even portrayed sexually in the show to begin with. This is people who want to see good stories about themselves being written, and I think that's a really valid thing to wish for. Even if you've seen a couple weirdos out there on the internet, that's not the case for almost the whole of the fanbase. There's creepy people everywhere in every fandom. Also may I add that if you prefer Mike and El (which is completely valid if you do, you're allowed to have your preferences!) they are the same age as Mike and Will. Wouldn't you be predatory as well if you ship them? No you wouldn't, because they're kids and their relationship has never been sexual. Just like with Will and Mike. Assuming that every gay romance is automatically sexual is a very homophobic mindset ingrained in our society. If you really see gay people this way, probably you've been conditioned by society to do so, in that case it's not your fault but it's never too late to educate yourself. You'll be happier, seriously.

Finally, I wouldn't say an echo chamber is a ship community that has more Billions of wievs on TikTok that the other ship and surpasses it on every other platform, and that has general audience filmmakers and professional writers say themselves that they also understand how it's set up to happen in the final season. But again, it is not my job to convince you and you're not forced to change your mind. We will all have to wait until the final season to see who was actually right, only the Duffer brothers know what will happen.

Finally, Stranger Things is obviously not the byler show. However, one of the most important rules of storytelling is writing personal arcs and relationships for the characters to serve as subplots to the main story, so that the characters become full fleshed and realistic. The fact that you can relate to fictional characters, even though you've probably never time travelled done magic, lived in a post apocalyptic time or wathever you wanna imagine, is because you relate to their personal stories. A story isn't good without personal arcs, every professional writer you ask will tell you this. So yes, relationships are an episode aspect of stranger things that people can discuss if they want to. And the byler tag, or any other ship tags exists precisely to focus on those relationships. It doesn't mean that people don't like any other aspects of the show.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my little rant anon. I wish you have a great day!

[safetycar-restart]

[🌹valentine's ask ]

imagine none other than house husband!george (my favorite trope) treating his mistress to an elaborate candlelight dinner 😍 with tea and healthy food, of course. no acerbic alcohol or meals dripping in fat. he's dining her like a gentleman, he's giving her a proper massage with those skilled driver hands all night, hell yes. a little striptease attempt to make her laugh on top. maybe she can step on him. maybe he serves the food in kinky handcuffs. heh, who knows.

but! as i said. he is the polite and reserved king of preppy. nothing crude or hypersexualized to be found here, it's not escalating. date night in style! instead: since handsome wants to cozy up with his valentine, it's time to waltz in the living room: dancing is a must. they might not even have sex later on, it's all about the atmosphere and loving eye contact, being chest to chest. it would be so cute if they fell asleep on the couch embraced after watching a comedy movie, nestled under their big blanket.

- george's long legs anon 👕💙delivering the soft hours and apron pics 🍽

Oh my god the George long leg’s anon has actually sent in a George ask???? I never thought this day would come?!?!? But this is amazing and I love it so much.

Firstly, George THRIVES on being a house husband. The house is always in immaculate condition, seriously you have never seen the house not insanely neat and tidy. All George does is clean and cook and workout and get his brains fucked out and he is THRIVING.

Also all the other house wives are so envious of him and his perfect body and his 6AM workout routines in the garden and his cooking and his insanely successful wife who pays for everything. Seriously, they all hate him and George thrives on it.

So yes george is living his best life and of course valentines is basically a national holiday as far as he is concerned. He wakes you with breakfast in bed, which actually isn’t that unusual he does it quite a bit but this time he includes flowers and a little card.

Then he wishes you well for the rest of your day and tells you he has the whole evening planned.

You get home and he’s already in his suit. He even runs out to open the car door for you. He has all your favourite bath products lined up for you to choose from and the bath already running so that you can get clean and change into some fancy clothes for dinner.

He serves you of course, you don’t have to do a thing. It’s a meal he would have been practicing the whole week to make sure it’s perfect.

Maybe he wears his fancy collar the whole time? Cause yes it’s romantic and cute but he’s still your sub and you’re still his mistress and so he wants the collar. He wears an informal collar during the day, but for scenes it’s a leather one. He puts that on for this, because he wants to feel more subby.

And the food is so good!! He put so much effort into it and you can see how happy all the praise you give makes him.

He keeps all his best manners, doesn’t start eating until you do, doesn’t leave the table until you finish, cleans the plates away and tidies up the kitchen while you watch.

Honestly you don’t get expect the dancing at all, but knowing George you honestly should have. It’s the exact type of old fashioned and romantic shit that George loves.

The playlist is one he spend the whole week working on as well, carefully picking each song to make sure it’s all perfect.

And it is!!

You dance for a little while, and of course you’re the one leading him because that’s how this works. He’s smiling the entire time, continually asking for kisses because he just loves being close to you.

Once the dancing is finished, you decide to undress him. He wanted to still take care of you, but he had done such a good job and you saw how much time and effort went into his plans so no. You’re the Dom and you’ve decided you’re going to undress him and kiss every inch of his skin and thank him for an incredible evening.

He’s got tears in his eyes by the time you finish, so happy to have someone like you who lets him live the life he’s always dreamed of.

And then it’s time to cuddle and watch a movie. George falls asleep almost instantly, so tired from working so hard on the plane for the evening.

The sex can wait until the next day.

[theoncomingchaos]

About Ritsu

I just finished binging “The End of the World With You” and I want to share some thoughts about why I think Ritsu is a really realistic and well made character with an intentionally unfinished, but positive character arc.

When Ritsu was growing up, he experienced love as conditional. When he was successful, he was loved by his mother. When he was compliant, he was loved by his father. That means there are a lot of things about relationships that he never really got a chance to learn growing up.

Some things people from messed up families don’t learn as children are things like how to set and follow healthy boundaries (people tend to have no walls or walls that are too high), how to compromise, conflict resolution, and they also tend to have a more flexible sense of right and wrong because they had to be flexible in order to get by as a child.

Examples of this from the show:

-He doesn’t have a strong understanding of what most people would consider pretty basic rules of relationships. This is both romantic relationships and friendships as seen in the way he wrecks every circle he joins. Even by the time he was 30 he has still not been able to do any of this.

-He was willing to give a high school kid a pill to kill himself and doesn’t see a problem with that. Plus, he was ready to drag Masumi into disposing of the body...

-When the fight happened about his sleeping around, he ended it without trying to talk about it or figure anything out. No compromise. No conflict resolution skills.

He grew up always compromising and doing everything as perfect as possible to please his parents, but in the end it didn’t work. He still ended up tossed to the side in favor of the less capable step brother. This would have taught him several lessons unconsciously. Primarily, that this is the way the world works. People are good to you when they want or need you, but they can’t be counted on besides that.Trying to please them is pointless and hoping for unconditional love is pointless. Thus, he developed his philosophy that you need to take care of yourself first and foremost because no one else will do it.

Based on his actions, we can see he does naturally want to be appreciated and loved. Even the fact that he has a keen eye for when people love him is probably because he is so desperate for it he has a lot of practice looking for it.

Sleeping around with different people, serves his needs in more than the obvious way. Besides sexual gratification, he gets shallow, but instant emotional gratification. He knows these relationships are conditional and short term. He isn’t expecting or even seeking love, so it’s easy. He is nice to them, says the right things, does the right things, and is rewarded with attention the same way he was as a child. (I won’t even get into the father complex he has where he is sleeping around like his father did and is potentially trying to prove his worth or get closer to him by becoming him...)

Of course, all of this is different with Masumi. Both Masumi and Ritsu enjoy spending time together. They were friends first and foremost. For once in his life, Ritsu had someone who cared about him for him- not for what he did for them. It was so comfortable and easy- but of course Ritsu can’t trust or even hope that it’s going to be forever or unconditional. He has never had an example in his life of a loving, equal, or lasting relationship. It’s all transactional.

So that leads us to two big questions:

Why did he need to sleep around?

Because he hasn’t dealt with his issues is the easiest way to put it. He’s only 20, he’s fresh out of his messed up household, he has been needing love and attention so badly for so long and been playing the good boy his whole life for nothing. He’s angry, and he’s tired of playing by other people’s rules. He wants so much (love, freedom, sex, to send a huge fuck you to his parents, etc.) and he’s finally ready to say fuck it and get it all with no care to the consequences because what has the world ever done for him anyway. He needed this time to rebel and go a little wild. He wasn’t ready to face the truth of himself or his trauma.

Why did he break up with Masumi if the relationship was so good?

Unfortunately, he met the right person at the wrong time. He wasn’t emotionally ready for a real relationship with Masumi. The minute Masumi had expectations for him it entered transactional and conditional territory. He wasn’t ready to put himself back in that kind of situation again. Since he doesn’t have strong conflict resolution skills, the best solution was to run away.

His Development in the Series:

After 10 years of living this empty fuckboy life, it takes someone platonic who genuinely seems to care about him and enjoy being around him, to point out to him that the longest relationship he ever had is also the only one he seems to hold onto. No one else has ever loved him as honestly and unconditionally as Masumi.

As Ritsu said, no one was going to be there with him at the end. His philosophy of putting himself first put him in this place where even the only real friend he seemed to have died partially because he was too busy getting laid to be there for her when she needed him.

The fact that he starts trying to find Masumi again shows that he doesn’t want to be alone anymore. He also mentioned that this time he wasn’t going to mess it up. In other words, he was ready to try for real to let him in and to work towards having a real and meaningful relationship.

Masumi’s Trauma:

Another part of what makes it even more painful for the viewer is that we know Masumi has his own trauma where he grew up abused and feeling unwanted. He is also desperate to be loved unconditionally which is something Ritsu just doesn’t know how to do yet. Unlike Ritsu who went out and took everything he wanted, Masumi retracted in on himself and shut himself in to keep himself safe- even doing everything he could to please his abuser. (They are the no-walls and too many walls ends of the spectrum of people with childhood trauma).

The road forward- some people are saying this was an open ending, but it seemed pretty hopeful to me. If the meteor really hit, they would have felt it, plus then there is all that sunshine when they opened the curtain and all that lead up to Yuma’s powers probably being the source of the meteor in the first place. Anyway, on the assumption that they live, their relationship is going to need a lot of work.They are going to need to have better communication about their needs and boundaries. I think Meguru and Yuma will actually be really helpful in being their support group.

As many have pointed out, Ritsu wasn’t really “redeemed,” in the sense that the audience could completely forgive his behavior- and they shouldn’t. It was unhealthy behavior brought about by an unhealthy childhood. The tone used in the series never suggests that we should just forget about it. However, he is making better choices and is finally ready to face his issues and do better- and really that's a huge step.

The theme: The main point of the drama is about overcoming trauma and pain instead of running from it, and finding the beauty and joy in life, love, and the world around you.

Ritsu’s story is unfinished and that’s intentional. He still has a lot of work to do on himself, but he is ready to do it. He is finally able to let go of the pain of his childhood and face up to what he let it do to him. He’s ready to face his mistakes and try to be better. He wants to explore the world and experience it in a new and better way with Masumi. Likewise, Masumi is ready to put his hurt and pain behind him and stop letting fear rule his life.

[famiglia-lealta]

{Where would I be without you?} [Drabble]

Synopsis: Because sometimes, you just need a little more warm-hearted fluff in your life. Neri x Squalo: A brief little piece about life, loyalty, and dancing around feelings for one another. Teeth-rotting affection content.

"Oi. You’ve been staring out that window for fucking hours.”

Blinking as if she’d been dragged from a very deep dream, Neri glanced over at Squalo with a small smile. “Hmn? I’ve just been thinking, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“About what our lives would have been like if we weren’t here.” Her fingers reached out to touch the cold glass of the window. “I think about it sometimes. The choices I’ve made, roads that I’ve walked down. Whether anything could have been done differently. Whether I would have wanted to.”

“That’s getting pretty deep for an afternoon.” Squalo snorted, leaning against the wall next to her, his arm-sword resting against his hip. “You sayin’ that you got some regrets, bein’ here?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. I’m proud to be a part of my father’s work, and I’m happy for the people that I’ve met, the memories I have – what I’ve been able to accomplish.” Even as she’d given him a reassuring smile, her eyes lowered. “But still.. sometimes..”  

Squalo regarded her silently, almost as if he could hear her unspoken thoughts. He tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, long silver hair draping over his shoulders.

“..No point looking back at the what ifs and what could have been. We’re in the here and now. Can’t go back and change the path – you can only tear through a path for your future.”

“What if I—” Neri hesitated, looking unsure of herself. Then in a rare surge of bravery, she burst out with, “What if I want you to be a part of my future?”

The assassin’s head snapped back around, comically blinking and looking completely thrown. Neri could have almost laughed at the dumbfounded expression, if it wouldn’t have been interpreted as a jab at his pride. “You—what?!”

“I’m just being silly!” Neri said quickly, waving her hand and trying to rush through her words and insist the whole thing had been some joke or lapse in judgement. However, she never got that far, considering a black gloved hand gripped her head and yanked it close enough to all but smash their lips together in a very sudden, fierce kiss.

It was Neri’s turn to be absolutely gobsmacked by his actions. Like a splash of icy cold water in her face, her breath caught – but by the time she realized what was happening, he had already pulled away to chastise her.

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?! The hell are you even talking about?!”   

“I—” Neri stammered, her face ridiculously red as she struggled to keep up with what had just happened and what had even caused such a response, “Well, I—I’m sorry--?”

“You’re spouting nonsense! It’s not like I’m going anywhere, and you sure as shit better not be either!” He growled, a deep grating noise in his throat that only served to worsen her skin condition. “So we’re already a part of each other’s futures, right?! Get your fucking head out of the clouds, Salvai! I’m not going to watch your back if you can’t even keep your eyes on mine!”  

It was only after a few tense seconds that he’d given her that familiar shark grin – cocky, smug, practically rubbing it in that he’d managed to get a fast one over her, that Neri’s lips pulled into a small smile, then a bark of laughter.

“..Right. Of course. The famiglia always comes together in times of crisis, after all, no matter what the crisis might be—”

“I wasn’t talking about the famiglia, brat. I was talking about you.”  

Neri fell silent, going still as the gloved hand returned to cup her cheek. As he’d held it there, he held her gaze along with it with an expression she couldn’t quite place. Fiercely serious, certainly – but, something about it also made her heart ache. Oh, she’d want nothing more than to do the same – to hold him, to embrace him – but she knew the man well enough that the moment she moved a muscle would be the moment he’d pulled away.

Such were the feelings tied together by such a frail string of vulnerability between them – that it might break if either of them pulled or pushed a little too hard.

“..You deserve to be here. I wouldn’t have you anywhere else but here.” He muttered gruffly under his breath, before swiftly pulling back as if he’d never made such bold moves in the first place. “Now, if you’ve finished with your philosophical bullcrap, we have work to do. The less time I have to listen to drunken bitching in my ear, the better. Are you coming or not?!”

Neri tilted her head with an affectionate smile; her heart feeling warm and her lips still tingling with the ghost sensation of a lover’s promise. Hopping down from the windowsill, she nodded as she fell into line beside him, bumping his shoulder with hers.

“Anywhere you lead, I’ll follow, captain.”

Now. Forever. Always.

[godstrain]

lmao my first meta has to be about wesker's absolutely GODAWFUL upbringing and how that just is really ... yeah ok already it's stated to be massively formative, but i am a registered nurse and i work in the mental health field and there's so much more than just ... augh,

there's that saying that "evil isn't born, it's made" and for wesker, this is absolutely the case. this is a person who was taken from his family and raised in a very "fuhrer king bradley" sort of way- one of many candidates to serve the goals of another individual. and similarly to the fuhrer candidate vibe, wesker (and all the other kids who were taken from their homes) had basically no choice but to live this life, because it's all he knew.

albert wesker is the product of another person's values and desires. oswell spencer literally sucks ass and has some of the WORST takes about humanity ever, and he decided to pass those on to kids who were dragged into this and didn't deserve to deal with that.

fast forward, yeah, ok, wesker turns out to really be some prodigy, he's blazing through his education and somehow has a doctorate in virology by the age of 17. things just keep getting worse, and truly, all of this is because he was GIVEN SOMEONE ELSE'S VIEWS.

i think what's most tragic about the situation, aside from the fact that oswell spencer believed in eugenics, the worst science ever, is that there's no indication that wesker would've developed those views in literally any other environment.

fast forward some more, wesker kills oswell, and ok yeah he's got his whole "you're not worthy of godhood" but beyond that, it's the rude awakening that Nothing He Has Is His Own. and that's what really fucks wesker up more than the rest of the things that have already been fucking him up. this guy who thinks he has so much control of things has never actually known Free Will in his entire goddamn life.

he clearly doesn't handle this well, but in his own way, he tosses eugenics as a view, which is great because eugenics sucks ass, but he decides "actually i just want everyone to die". albert's not an idiot, he's well aware that people likely WON'T survive something like ouroboros. he vividly remembers that everyone else he had been raised with DIED- (except alex, but hm. she's a piece of work lmao). even his own condition has to be maintained with MORE FUCKING MEDS? he's basically on the world's weirdest long acting injectable (LAI) medication- but as any LAI, it isn't just a once and done. he knows that for anyone to survive, the circumstances would have to be so ridiculously in their favor, and they're not even in his favor? but he'll sure pretend they are, for as long as he needs, because he didn't cope

"global saturation" more like "everyone has taken my free will from me but if there is No One Else there is nothing that is out of my control". also the fact that whatever would be left would be a whole mess, and he wouldn't be able to actually survive that long in "global saturation" but dang maybe a few months of no one to make his life a mess but himself is better than what he's had before, which is sad,

tldr albert wesker is a manmade evil and it could've been different, it didn't have to be like that.

[crystalelemental]

Sync Pair Retrospective - 2.5 Anniversary

I skipped this cluster as well, because I didn't really focus on the retrospectives of the time, but I figure we can back it up and look at what's happening with the 2.5 Anniversary units.  Which will include Serena.

ANNI MAY Anniversary May came out as a sync pair that brought in Psychic Wish, proving that DeNA could provide field effects that existed as moves as a trainer move to avoid ever being flinched out of it.  And then never did that again, for some reason.

Anyway, Anni May came into the game in direct competition with Bianca, who was nice and tanky, gave Pep Rally on terrain use, and broadly ruled thanks to Stored Power being such hilarious DPS.  Big shoes to fill.  Anni May, by contrast, offered special attack buffs for the team, special attack debuffing, and a wildly powerful sync nuke, even for this type.  Seriously, I think she outperforms Lear at cap.  Though, "at cap" was unreasonable at the time.  And while X Sp Atk All was nice, and combined well with someone like Giovanni, you could often just unload that onto a different support, like say NY!Sabrina, who also had applicable Endure with MPR.

May was not an essential sync pair at any point in her life.  The PokeFair grid expansions were supposed to be a big break, especially as she got one at a fairly early point.  And instead, her new tools were...I mean they're kinda butt.  Befuddle and team Gradual Healing?  So she poached one of Bianca's defensive tools and gets a very minor special defense debuff.  That's not really worth it.  What's strange is there's no terrain extension.  Like, you'd think there would be, given that every single PokeFair with a field effect got at least extension 3.  May got nothing.  I'm really hoping that's saved for 3/5 half cost.

My ultimate point here being, May was just an alternate Terrain setter.  To a general pool.  She would never be bad that way, but the decision to pull her was always something awkward.  I love her because Latias, but I'd be lying if I said it was a great look.

ANNI SKYLA The only time I predicted correctly.  I called Flying Zone.  Wrong person and Pokemon, but Zone type was spot on, because Anni Steven had needed some help.   And by god, he got it, with Anni Skyla.  Skyla is...look, you know how SS Cyrus and P!Marnie really set the standard for field effect support techs, and how Lucas was good for DPS?  Yeah, Skyla's closer to Cynthia, but worse.  She offers some speed buffs, and the possibility of flinch or confuse AoE, but with really bad self-setup and like frankly nothing exceptional.  3/5 let her be a tremendous sync nuke, and offered Disarm for support, as well as some odd tanking tools that...I'm not sure if those ever worked out.

The thing is, Skyla would've been much better served had her team buffs been offensive.   Look at the roster of Flying types and you'll get the idea of why.  Very few of them have issues with gauge.  It's basically SS Ethan, who showed up later, Lysandre, and NY!Lance.  Everyone else has their own speed buffing ability, and finds this useless.  The confuse effect is nice for the DPS of Blue and Winona, but it's a far cry from the breadth of support some of the others presented with.

And oddly enough, even since then, the only beneficiary that's dropped is SS Ethan.  Sure, P!Elesa, but her moves are randomly called with Metronome, and Fly is two-turn, so it wastes a lot of your Zone time.   And especially doesn't need the speed buffs.  It's just...an odd paid that doesn't get a whole lot done. Like at least May has solid self-setup.  And yet somehow she doesn't have an expansion on her grid. Figure that out.

ANNI RAIHAN And then there's Fast Ramp McChadman over here.  Anni Raihan was the man to scout for, having an absolutely bonkers supportive kit.  At a baseline, Sandstorm as a move, trap condition for Gauntlet stuff, applied SEUN to all allies if weather was in effect, and could summon Sun as a Max Move.  Adding in grid, you got a 60% flinch chance on Aggravation, and Mind Boggler to debuff special defense.  But this doesn't address the main draw, which is just spamming Sandstorm for fun and profit.  Every time he does this, the team gets +1 physical and special moves up next. On 3/5 grid, it also gets Propulsion.  With the Head Start Lucky Skill from deluxe cookies, Raihan was a full turn saved by himself, while providing huge DPS benefits.  Raihan was for real.

And because of how he works, it's hard to really talk about him, because he's broad.  The best partners he's had were like Leon, where the Sun and Mind Boggler really improved damage, or with SS Kris where you could stack special moves to +10 pretty reliably.  But there wasn't anything that stood out within any particular comp, he was just always good and always present as an option. Even among Sandstorm setters, he didn't strictly change how that meta was played, so much as offer the same shenanigans as everyone else.  Though Sandstorm did suffer with Courtney.

And for some reason, he got a grid expansion before Skyla, getting Sun extension (eat it May), and Disarm to debuff offenses while playing pure support.  His kit just feels like it has everything.  He's even got a powerful sync at his disposal at 3/5 if you want.  Raihan's just one of those units that's not specific in any way, but is so good as a technical unit that he applies to just about any team, and that...really hasn't gone anywhere.  Raihan's still stupid good.

SYGNA SUIT SERENA After the fairly lukewarm reception of the anniversary units, Serena comes in swinging.  Like SS Lusamine before her, she gets a boost to all of her stats upon first sync, as a sort of super mega evolution.  Only unlike Lusamine, she's given a 50% multiplier broadly rather than on-type, a full Brainpower instead of Brain Sync 5, and like 200 more special attack.  I'm sorry, I am still not over how we went from Anni Lillie's Brain Sync 3 to a full Brainpower in six months.  It's so stupid.

Anyway, Serena immediately established herself as one of the best damage dealers in the game.  Nothing competed, especially not with the recent Dragon Zone supplied from Lucas.  Her only flaw was having nothing but 4-bar moves and no speed buffs, so it made Lucas' Free Moves Next that much more valuable.  There was also the issue of needing Restrain for full benefits, and because Serena needed all three turns to cap offenses, she didn't get a chance to use Thousand Waves.  So Team Sharp Entry was a really nice thing. Oh hey SS Brendan.  Yeah, when he dropped, it was over.  +1 crit on trainer move, -2 special defense per hit on Luster Purge, and Freevenge?  Even if Serena needed first sync, he compressed so much that it was borderline unstoppable.  CS was just blown apart.  Serena just packed unprecedented power for her time.

But that was her time, and this is now, and we're far away from what used to be. Serena was at a level of power where on-type was never in question.  Off-type was.  And as far as off-type goes, the introduction of Dual Rats and C!Marnie have, in my opinion, put her behind the rest.  Moreover, even some PokeFairs, like SS Steven and SS Hilda, have been keeping up with her offensive stats, with both offering faster setup and Downside Up, Steven getting moves up next potential, and Hilda offering Recharging Strike for better gauge control.  And keep in mind, Serena only keeps up with their offenses after her first sync. There's a serious delay before she's firing on all cylinders, while both of them are one click and full power.

My point here being that, while SS Serena is still one of the biggest damage number sync pairs out there, there are better now, and I think the utility of more recent options has greater value.  This isn't to disparage Serena, but Gauntlet always felt a little rough on her when trying to teambuild with lesser tools.   Hilda and SS Steven have just had much better performance on the whole. And I think this is what I take away from the 2.5 anniversary.  Damage numbers can always be made bigger.  But specific utility that's good, will always be good.

[emmetrain]

On Emmet, Legendaries and How the Subway Works, A Summary;;

The story starts with an offering to Time and Space. After having no luck in having a heir, one of the influential families of Unova has made several offerings to the legends, in which they would devote the child born to them on their path. They were blessed with the twins, but they were no heir that was moldable to fit in the perfect shapes the family wanted. One followed a path of truth, and the other of ideals. (Verrry private knowledge)

Family was Unovan, but the only legends they have heard of were of Sinnoh, so the kids were offered to the dragon of time and dragon of space respectively.

Emmet is a misotheist, though the god for him is Arceus. Meanwhile, Ingo, as the older sibling, has been raised to revere Palkia, and he has not quit it fully.

The Battle Subway carries many trainers from all regions. Thus, it was inevitable that Emmet and Ingo met some of the legendary Pokemon while battling champions or powerful trainers alike. The banned Pokemon, for example, are the ones they have met in battle, and had to ban since the facility could not stand the power of these Pokemon (and egg is banned because seeing an egg that could be hurt in a battle upset Emmet the staff):

^Some, the twins did not see personally, but had to ban preemptively while issuing tickets to the champions. Or, the depot agents faced them and banned them before Emmet and Ingo could.

Ingo wants to keep the focus on their battle facility and the station, therefore the twins will not interfere with outside matters, be it the league issues or Team Plasma. So, what went down in Unova is not known to them. They were working and a city was frozen or something?

During Ingo's disappearance, Emmet has studied the Sinnoh Legends, and his knowledge, though shallow still, is further than 'banned on subway for being too strong'.

The Battle Subway brief:

The railway precedes the twins, of course. And there had been a battle subway before them, but not officially. The depot agents and conductors would partake in battles just like anyone you meet on street. However, Emmet and Ingo are the ones who opened the battle facility and made it operational.

As a principle, Emmet and Ingo makes the minimum wage offered at the Gear Station. This has made Emmet's life hell when Ingo went missing ((all their savings were in Ingo's name + one salary was not enough for their verrrry small yet expensive apartment near the station + all the P.I and tip line costs to get Ingo back)). Still, Emmet will not change this so that they are always aware the lowest conditions, and will strive to reach greater heights as a whole.

Emmet manually enters and keep track of the massive data on the battles that took place in the station ever since the Battle Subway was officially opened. (It's a massive data breach waiting to happen.) This means Emmet has data on various Pokemon that had been to the station--their movesets, who their trainer was, and what kind of personality they had. Thus, even if Emmet cannot recognize the Pokemon visually, the names will usually ring a bell. (His photographic memory serves him well... Not that well though. It is like storing many books without reading/understanding them. He will get a bluescreen of death trying to pull up what Cryogonal was.

Misc. Info:

Also, fun bits: Emmet does not understand Alola at all* (verse dependent, as in the URS verse, he knows about Aether and the Ultra Beasts): what are Z-moves? Tapu what? Where is the gyms?

Emmet's family are Kalosians who have moved into Unova long ago. It is only in the name, however, since Emmet has no idea what went down in Kalos and who the famous Kalosian people are. Also, he does not like Mega Evolution and wants to know nothing about it.* (Main verse reason: He is a perfectionist and he could not wrap his mind around how it worked the first time, so he decides he hates this stupid battle gimmick now. URS reason: :' ) Mega energy is evil.)

Same with Galar. Dynamax and such, Emmet hates them. It is the reason why he likes Spikemuth and the ex-gym leader Piers who also did not participate in that gimmick. Also has no idea what happened there.

Emmet had briefly worked with Professor Sada of Paldea (robotics), so he has heard of Tera orbs. But verrrry briefly. He thinks there are many funny hats you put on Pokemon and they get to be whatever type they want to be : ) He has no idea what Paradox Pokemon are, or what really goes down in Area Zero (though he had been there as my Sada's date once. They don't talk about it.)

[plushdragon-art]

hi all !! i’m starting to post my art here because instagram’s captions were too short for this post specifically, and i imagine i may get similarly carried away in the future. i primarily make mlp nextgens right now. thanks for stopping by!

anyway, IT’S TILLYYYY !!! buckle up because she’s got a LOT going on

when i first designed this character in high school, i didn’t draw her mouth because i didn’t want to ruin the drawing with eraser marks (expressions are hard to nail on the first try, at least for me). this sparked an idea: i thought tilly should be non-verbal, at least in part.

since then, i’ve done some research, and i’ve settled on tilly being selectively mute. selective mutism is basically when someone cannot speak in certain situations due to overwhelm, anxiety, etc. it is sometimes referred to as situational mutism, which is the term i will be using going forward.

often, someone with situational mutism is only comfortable speaking with their immediate family. they may (or may not) also have trouble showing their emotions, which happens to fit with my image of tilly as well (again, based on them not originally having a mouth lol). part of me thinks that perhaps tilly has a stutter as well, which adds to their anxiety around speech. however, this stutter would disappear when singing.

tilly first started really paying attention to singing when they were given music therapy as a child in order to combat her situational mutism. she found that it was the best way for her to express herself to others. music made her feel safe and comfortable when nothing else did. her special talent is not just being a competent singer, but specifically singing with the intention of conveying and imbuing emotions. i haven’t yet decided if she occasionally uses magic to enhance the effects of her songs. probably?

i have an image in my head of tilly being flown by pegasi above a battlefield to sing to her people to boost morale and motivate them towards victory.

it’s quite unfortunate for a royal to be unable to speak to their people, but Tilly has managed well. they are seen as a steadfast symbol of strength, unaffected by even the direst of circumstances (when, in truth, they are constantly petrified). Tilly also serves as an ideal of innocence; she is, after all, the youngest in her family. her unchanged visage in the face of crisis is what everyone hopes for their own foals, to be shielded from tragedy. in a sense, the day tilly cries is the day hope dies. that may or may not be a saying among the crystal empire’s denizens lol.

tilly is present at basically every festival and royal function, which they hate, but they do get to sing for everyone, which evens things out a little. virtually no one outside the royal family knows about Tilly’s condition, primarily because she’s embarrassed about it and would rather it not be mentioned. one day, i think they’ll grow out of this mindset.

but i haven’t even gotten to the coolest part !!! did u know tilly is a Bad Bitch

what i mean by this is that Tilly studies dark magic. nOw she’s not evil (yet), she’s just very curious, and surprisingly pragmatic. she’s gotten very begrudging permission from her parents to do this, entirely because she made some really good points.

Tilly has been told their whole life that dark magic is bad, but few of their instructors could concretely answer why, or how it works, or what can be done to stop it (other than maybe wait for the princesses to figure something out on a case-by-case basis). this was unsatisfactory. Tilly knew that, if dark magic was ever to be safeguarded against, it must be understood, and that would never happen so long as it remained taboo to even THINK about.

so, Tilly wrote up and presented a proposal to their parents. it was challenging to get them to even consider it. after all, the whole Sombra incident had left Cadence and Shining Armor quite untrustful of dark magic. still, they couldn’t ignore how much work and thought Tilly had put into this idea, and although they liked to baby her, they had to admit that she was incredibly observant and intelligent. she had a point.

Tilly started off small, only allowed to study this magic with supervision from their aunt, Twilight. eventually, Tilly would be permitted to study on their own. their insights would prove invaluable over time. one day, i think Tilly will officially be the head royal advisor, a title not often taken up by anyone of the royal family.

i’m not sure how the dark magic will affect her. i think they do a lot of journaling in order to sort out their thoughts and keep sane. their extreme anxiety might make them easily corruptible, but they’re also smart enough to know better than to give in to the magic, so it might balance out. she definitely knows when to take a break.

i briefly considered that perhaps Tilly would be nonverbal because dark magic had removed their mouth, which would be very in line with her original design, but i thought that would be a poor choice. still, i think Tilly probably has a non-zero number of dark magic-induced nightmares in which she has no mouth, which are scary for her, but she can’t help but think “gee, how deep, i wonder what THAT dream was about” when she wakes.

that’s Tilly !! i love them, thank u for reading :)

[ariesbilly]

I’m sorry in advance for venting but your blog is really refreshing because you say it like it is and there’s no need to use overtly complicated and polite language just so some ppl don’t lose their shit.

Anyway. I’m not even starting on St*ddie (I could go on forever) because honestly it’s clear that the D Bags and other producers or whatever knew that the ship/interaction between the characters would appeal to the audience and bring more ppl to watch the show, because it is just a cutesy little ship with no conflict whatsoever (which, y’know…boring af), so there’s no one trying to play the social justice warrior when they are shipping St*ddie.

But one thing I also don’t understand is the obsession over R*nance? Maybe it’s because I don’t like any of the Wheelers and how they are coddled every second of the show. But I just don’t see the appeal either, especially with the whole “let me help my friend try to get back to his ex” type of dynamic the group had.

Like, I get it, people want more LGBTQ+ rep, I want it too, but insisting on Nancy? I just honestly don’t get it. Like, whether the fandom admits it or not, sure Nancy can shoot guns, but she is still an entitled suburban girl. I don’t think Robin would go for her after her crush on Tammy. Not that Tammy and Nancy are the same, but still. If people want their rep, they should stop settling for crumbs and shit that just doesn’t fit.

And like maybe I am a bad sister or friend for this, but it’s getting so tiring listening to my sisters and friends raving over these ships when I just find it extremely dull. But god forbid I talk about Harringrove with any of them, since they fell for the “Billy is the ultimate villain” bullshit. But like…at least Harringrove has complexity and way more depth, so much potential. Idk.

Anyway. Thank you for being unapologetically honest! Again, it’s very refreshing. I really enjoy your blog!

Oof you hit the nail on the head about r*nonance.

I never like popular femslash ships lmfao content for femslash ships is rare enough and I always gotta make shit more difficult for myself by shipping the LEAST popular thing, just making up my own shit entirely 😂

And yeah it’s definitely because people so badly want femslash ships and get nothing so when they are served the barest of crumbs they go crazy. And I just… do not succumb to that way of thinking. Because above of all else, I want to be entertained ALSO I don’t just go around putting queer labels on characters for the hell of it (sometimes I do as a joke but right now I’m talking about when I’m actually shipping something) I have to actually see context for it within the narrative. And I know some people don’t like making it that deep and just wanna have fun but that’s just not how my brain works lmao things need to make sense to me

So when people start trying to make Nancy goddamn wheeler of all people queer it’s like…. She isn’t. Even remotely lmfao I know everyone’s all excited robin finally had a female to interact with in I guess a significant way but this is not the move it is not the vibe lmao

As far as your friends and sister go… talk about harringrove all the time. Walk into every conversation starting with harringrove. That is your right lmfao I’m so serious.

I only have one irl friend who is into stranger things in a remotely fan-ish fashion and she’s a big Eddie fan and she knows I love billy and we have this jokey beef going on but she hasn’t brought up anything about him being a villain to me… probably because we’ve been friends for over 10 years and she knows good and well my habit of latching onto whatever character has the worst personality 😂 she knows not to fight me. Which is my other advice. Be so annoying in your arguments that people eventually learn to shut their mouth around you. I condition everyone in my life to do this and I know peace because of it

[foulflame]

Misc thoughts / body.

Somethings  I  gotta  mention  cos  I  love  being  annoying --  in  regard  to  Dabi's  wounds / burns.  So  I've  spoke  about  them  before  and  the  condition  they're  in  in  the  present.  I've  also  mentioned  that  Dabi  suffers  things  like  metabolic  myopathy  which  can  be  problematic  for  him  but  his  wounds  in  particular  are  undergoing  a  thing  thats  pretty  much  dehiscence. 

Of  course  this  is  not  like  100%  accurate  to  life  but  yeah,  Dabi's  body  is  in  a  bad  condition  and  this  isn't  just  exclusively  attributed  to  his  quirk  "re-burning"  him  or  anything,  its  more  heavily  got  to  do  with  the  life-style  Dabi  has  been  forced  to  lead  which  has  been  a  pretty  unhealthy  one.  A  big  contributor  here  specifically  is  malnutrition.  Not  to  mention  whatever  freaky  Nomu  sicnence  shit  Garaki  did  to  him.  This  has  resulted  in  Dabi  very  much  having  the  aesthetic  and  apperence  of  a  walking  corpse.

This  is  kinda  particularly  obvious  when  it  comes  to  Dabi's  lower  jaw  as  well.  This  was  the  part  of  him  most  "damaged"  when  he  burned,  for  whatever  reason,  Dabi's  lower  jaw  and  everything  in  that area  of  his  face  was  pretty  much  completely  missing  and  had  to  be  completely  restored  with  donor / synethic  tissue,  bone,  muscles,  everything.  His  lower  jaw  was  "remade"  from  the  ground  up  because  there  was   nothing  there  to  work  with  when  Dabi  was  brought  to  Garaki. 

As  a  result  as  his  wounds/burns scars  begin  to  under  go  this  dehiscence  his  face  has  pretty  much  started  to  fall  apart.   The  staples  are  holding  his  jaw  together.  The  metal  latches in  Dabi's  chin  aren't  piercings,  they're  staples  too  and  they're  serving  the  same  function  the  other  ones  are:  Ie  holding  his  body  together.  

  I  ALSO  headcanon  Dabi  suffers  from  additional  trauma  to  his  jaw  in  particular  which  may  have  contributed  to  it  becoming  a  mess  but  that  is  related  to  Lore  found  only  in  my  brain  /  on  my  blog  and  not  canon  at  all.  Essentially  he  got  socked  in  the  face  a  few  times  by  Sekitsui  ( NPC / OC )  when  he  attacked  him  before  the  latter  got  roasted. 

Also  mentioning  this  again  but  something  kinda  important  to  this  portrayal  of  Toya,  I  think  I  mentioned  it  in  passing  before  but  like,  I  think  a  lot  about  the  whole  Orphanage  situation.  And  how  that  kinda...  Factor's  in  Toya's  psyche  with  the  whole  abandonment  thing  and  the  PTED.  This next shit isn't  necessarily  supposed  to  be  a "canon"  take  because  like  as  far  as  I've  read  its  sort  of  glossed  over  in  canon  but  yeah  the  whole  Orphanage  situation  is  one  that  weighs  on  Toya's  mind. 

He  doesn't  or  DIDN'T  really  KNOW  that  his  family  thought  he  was  dead  like  literally. He  knows  they  treated  him  as  dead,  but he  didn't  really  know  he  was  like,  abducted  and  put  in  the  ORPHANAGE  against  his  families  knowing,  for  like,  a  long  time. If  he's  put  it  together  now  after  meeting  with  Garaki  again  it  really  doesn't  matter  but  for  a  long  time  he  functioned  with  the  idea  that  more  his  family  abandoned  him  to  the  orphanage  after  his  accident  and  pronounced  him  dead  because  fuck  him,  he  was  a  useless  comatose  kid  and  its  not  like  he  was  doing  much  good  for  anyone  alive/conscious either. 

At  first  this  is  the  way  he  logics  this  to  himself  as  if  they  just  thought  he  wasn’t going  to  wake  up  so  he  kinda  "forgave"  it,  despite  the...  Bad  feelings  and  the  voice  in  the  back  of  his  mind  telling  him  he  didn't  have  a  reason  to  exist  and  all,  but  when  he  got  home  and  saw  that  his  absence  didn't  seem  to  mean  anything  to  his  dad,  and  that  he  was  literally  pronounced  dead  and  may  as  well  never  existed  in  the  first  place  yeah,  no.  He  could  only  live  in  denial  and  hope  for  so  long  and  that  all  just  really  snapped  him.  

But  yeah,  he  has  the  concept  that  he  was  abandoned  at  the orphanage  and  "disowned"  while  he  was  in  his  coma,  he  didn't  necessarily know that  his  dad  thought  or  was  told  he  was  dead  for  reals.  If  he  knows  about  this  NOW  its  only  info  he  picked  up  really  recently  but  again,  at  this  point,  that  really  couldn't  matter  less  because  whether  his  dad  was  aware  he  wasn't  actually   dead  or  not,  he  still  feels  like  his  family,  especially  his  dad,  went  and  acted  like  he  never  existed  and  y' know  that  really  ate  and  exploded  the  pre-existing  self  doubt  and  deep  set  insecurities  /  self  hatred  that  kept  mounting  up  that  got  us  to  Dabi.

[barbaramoorersm]

February 4, 2024

February 4, 2024

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Job 7: 1-4, 6-7

We hear very depressing words from Job.

Psalm 147

The Psalmists speaks of God’s healing power

1st Corinthians 9: 16-19, 22-23

Paul describes how he tries to be all things to all people.

Mark 1: 29-39

We are still hearing from the first chapter in Mark and it is full of activity. 

We begin with the ministry of John the Baptist followed by Jesus’ baptism, and his temptations in the desert.  And then he quickly he begins to call disciples, and he launches his healing ministry.  There does seem to be not a wasted moment in Jesus’ life or time for himself.  Note how often Mark uses the term “immediately.”

In the past few years, I have been fascinated by this story in the Gospel’s first chapter.  Jesus and four of his new disciples have been worshiping in the synagogue and for some reason stopped at Peter’s family home.  For a rest?  For food? For any number of reasons?  I have wondered why the first thing that happens is the news about Peter’s mother-in-law’s illness. Was it serious?  Were some anxious because nothing had been prepared for Jesus?  Or was the whole visit a surprise for her? All we know is that Mark tells us that “immediately” they tell Jesus about her condition. Jesus responds and she is healed.  And note that after the dear lady is healed, “she waited on them.”   We learn a great deal about the role of women, their culture, and self-giving.  We also know a bit more about Jesus’ style.   His response, his touch, and I am sure his appreciation of for all her efforts.

The word got out about her healing and his presence. Mark tells us that, “the whole town was gathered at the door.”  And I am sure she was again in the serving role as Jesus healed one after the other that whole evening.  In addition, it seems Jesus and others stayed all night with her and he rose early in the morning and “went off to a deserted place.” 

There are so many lessons in this text.  Jesus that day was using the gifts he has been given as he deals with illnesses and folks who were possessed.  I think about people who came to him and were trying to explain to him what they were suffering and he could see that in their bodies and reflected in their wounded spirits.  That kind of ministry takes a toll of a person.  And perhaps he had hoped that the visit to Peter’s home would be one of rest and quiet.  Parents and pastoral ministers could easily understand what Jesus was facing.  It appears that no one was turned away that day.

But Jesus seems to know his limits and call.  “Let us go to the nearby villages.  For this purpose, have I come.” 

There are other aspects of this story we may miss.  After he and his disciples began their travels their first stop is in the synagogue in the villages they visited.  The local site of worship.  There he preached and healed according to Mark.  The Gospel gives us a clear picture that Jesus believed he was called to preach and minister to his own people and to call them back to the heart of their faith.  His mission it appears, was not to form something new but to enrich the ancient message.

Mark also shares another fact that is a good one for all of us.  After a day’s ministry and a nights’ rest, Jesus took time to go off by himself and pray.  I would guess to reflect on the past day and to gather strength for the next day.  And as he shared with Peter, he was not going to rest in the praise of the locals but move on.

As I reflect on this story, I must say my heart goes out to the sick mother-in-law as well as the healed souls.  She never had time to reflect on her own healing but started to serve.  Jesus seems to try to take refection times. 

St Ignatius suggests that like Jesus, we all take time at the end of a day to do just that.  We call it an examine and it has five steps.  Father James Martin labels them as Presence (that is we are in God’s presence), Gratitude (for the blessings of the day), Review (of the day), Sorrow (for mistakes) and a desire for God’s Grace for the next day.

Many men and women find that this practice helps them to be aware of the good and difficult times of each day, and to seek the grace to meet the next day with hope.  My guess is Jesus often used a process like this as he ended or began a day.  We see it in the Gospel today.  He reflects on the events of the day, as well as the sorrows and the joys he experiences and well as a prayer for the grace to continue his ministry.

May we make efforts to follow this daily pattern of reflection. It will help us to keep our busy lives in balance and perspective.