#can't control the other's though

[rajanilefreak]

When I come to the realization the no one in my family, not even the competent one, should ever be parents. Not even the ones that are already past tensed. And I don't mean this as in all of us are abusive. we aren't, but all of us have toxic behaviors that no child should have to deal with.

I'm not even going to bother trying to defend my maternal gramps. Actually, lets leave the grandparents out of the whole thing alltogether.

My maternal aunt has such a big favorite child syndrome that my mom once joked that she gave birth to one child and shat out the other. No kidding!

Said favorite child went on to have a girl and, after fucking up his marriage and eventually starting dating a woman just as manipulative as mommy dearest, he left said child in her mother's end his mom's custody while he fucked off to France for a fuck ton of time before returning with his tail between the legs.

The other one has such big mommy issues and over all parent issues that he keeps getting into unhealthy relationships and by now has around four or five kids total (I'm not even sure how many) his last break up was so bad and my sis kept trying to help him get custody of the kids he had with her because their mother is a massive bitch and not at all a good mother, only for him to stop the process alltogether the moment she starts being less awfull and he gets another woman for himself out of the blue so...

Daddy dearest manipulated toddler and child me after the divorce to make my mom's life as difficult as he could get, stole my sisters allowance whenever she had to stay over (and still a teen, mind you), and tried to get me to sign legal stuff that would have put me in debt because he never paid like he promised he would with other people he did this to.

Mom wasn't much better. She kept instilling the sense that I had to be perfect at all times, even if she then denied it, by comparing me always to those who did better to the point that I nnever felt like I was enough, and overly criticizing me for every single mistake I did, but especially when it came to school stuff, has said for several times that if she didn't have me to raise she could have gone on vacations (keep in mind that she purposefully got pregnant with me because she was seeing her marriage declining and knew she would have a hard time getting a man to want a single mother and she wanted one more child so she might as well use the free sperm she had hanging around) and purposefully ignored or criticized me for the red flags of my declining mental health, claiming that I knew nothing of being depressed like she was the utmost authority over it because she had it before. Let's just say I have a LOT of issues because of her.

As for my sister, it's like she's trying to over compensate on the things mom did, but she takes it way too far. She loves him. She loves him desperately. I'm not saying that my nephew is spoiled rotten, but he has learned not to respect people saying no the first few times unless they also get angry over it too because he never had consequences over it unless my sis gets really mad and shouts at him over it, so...

As for me, I'm child free, not just because I've realized that I could never raise a kid 24/7, but also because I'm realized that any time I thought of parenthood I was seeing more as a challenge to proove I can be a better mom than my own mom and that's not healthy for everyone. Now a days, my intense feelings of wanting to mother others are focused on my blorbos and my blorbos alone.

[icewindandboringhorror]

On average, what is the total MONTHLY amount that you spend on dining out*?

*(This doesn't only count going out to restaurants, but also stuff like picking up fast food to bring home, getting a coffee on the way to work, getting a premade sandwich from a grocery store deli during lunch, buying a quick snack from a convenience store or food cart whilst walking somewhere, ordering a pizza or any other food to be delivered to your home, etc.)

*(If you often dine out in groups/as a household: calculate and divide the costs so that you get a Per Person average. This is for YOU individually, NOT the total household/group costs)

(I'm sure polls similar to this have been made before (very common topic), I just haven't personally seen one that I can remember, so, I was curious to do my own! I was discussing this with a group of people today and it was very interesting to see how widely the number varied between individuals. :0c )

(Reblog for bigger sample size if you can, and feel free to explain your answer in tags if there's anything extra to add!)

[b0nelessdoodles]

some future bits of creme uni where sm grabs two of pv's patients and makes them start fighting for reasons that he does not explain to his husband beforehand and he will get his head ripped off about (literally)

as always more details in the tags

(non-text version 'cause its fuckin' funny)

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Alright. Here's the plan.

I tell my nonjewish family my hebrew birthday (26 Iyar). They now know I have two birthdays. They celebrate both of them. I get two days of cakes because of this (I am winning at Having Birthdays, something both reasonable to want and possible to achieve).

[astrarche-x]

thinking about how we never have an actual flashback from the Ouyang clan execution and how that adds to the unreliability of Ouyang's narrative about his life and death. [sorry, long rant incoming bc i have feels]

Especially in regards to the scene when Ouyang is tasked with execution of Zhang Jr.: he thinks that he willingly chose to avenge his father and to bear the suffering of his fate when he was 10. But did he?

''He was giving him a chance for his death to have meaning. He should be grateful", he thinks in regard to Zhang Jr. So did he himself just stay alive for his death to have meaning? Or - what I suspect - did he just invent all this a posteriori to justify his will to live?

Apart from the fact that the scene with Ouyang killing Zhang Jr. is one of the most memorable in HWDTW for me for the layers that it has, it highlights one of the most fascinating facets of Ouyang: his will to live vs. his deathwish.

Obviously as his whole arc is about falling downhill, we as readers don't see much of the former, while the latter is in abundance especially in HWDTW. But nevertheless this tension is very much there.

As I said, we don't see - even through Ouyang's eyes - what went down that fateful day of the massacre; did he really beg for his life to avenge his family or just for the sake of it. But personally - I'm betting for the latter. Like, come on, he was 10 AND - more importantly - he DIDN'T know that Chaghan would have him castrated as he begged for mercy. He had no idea what the consequences would be. He might have thought about revenge; it's evident that even at 10 yo, the masculine ideals were already drilled into him. But he DIDN'T choose that with full awareness; it's something he told himself over the years to justify his will to live.

And I think this is the deepest root of his shame: that he so desperately wanted to live he could do anything. Him being an eunuch was shameful too, but not so much as the fact that he PREFERS it to being dead. This is what Chaghan calls him out on and this is why the scolding is such a turning point (something I didn't catch at first): Ouyang realizes that if he wants to live free of shame and justify his existence, he must have his revenge. But to do that - ironically - he must destroy himself.

The excuse he came up with over the years to make up for his will to live is that he is a tool of revenge; he is allowed to exist as long as he is this tool. Where the tragedy lies is that he never allowed himself to imagine that he could exist after his revenge is complete. Which is, I think, part of the reason why it took him so long to start plotting it: he wanted to live. He wanted to be with Esen. (The passage "He felt a surge of hatred towards the monk. [...] Without him, how much longer might Ouyang have had with Esen?" is one of the most heartbreaking in SWBTS imo). And I think that deep down he didn't even think his revenge was actually doable.

"[...] the monk had triggered the start of his journey towards his purpose. He couldn’t find it in himself to be grateful. It felt like a violation. A theft of something he hadn’t been ready to give up. Not innocence, exactly, but the limbo in which he could still fool himself that other futures were possible."

I think that these ''other futures'' were futures in which the opportunity for revenge never came; not so much as in ''his enemies were dead by other means'', but as in "Ouyang kept waiting but he just didn't get to meet the Khan" etc. And I think that in his mind, it would have been the best possible option - he could keep on living, waiting for the opportunity that somehow never came, but hey, his excuse of being a tool for revenge was still valid, right?? nobody could tell him that he didn't want it or forgot! he just didn't have the opportunity! oh, such bad luck, sorry not sorry. (And one day he would have died on the battlefield, possibly in Esen's arms, and it would be the best life he could have imagined).

But Zhu gives him the opportunity and he feels he must act on it, which means that his excuse for existing will soon be no longer valid, and it makes him so angry. I still don't get why he couldn't imagine a life after revenge; possibly because despite everything he LIKED this life - or, at least, liked it more than the alternative. Revenge meant destroying everything he enjoyed: his life as a general of the Yuan, and - more importantly - Esen. He probably didn't imagine a life for himself after revenge not only because he thought himself a tool to be discarded, but also because he didn't see in there anything worth living for. And this is when his deathwish comes in. It practically appears as soon as Esen is dead; and the rest is history, with Ouyang's ''I have to live because I must have my revenge and I sacrificed too much for it to walk away now!". But still, it strikes me how at the beginning of SWBTS he's clinging to life as he knows it despite it not being ideal, and how in HWDTW he is awaiting death eagerly.

And - circling back to Zhang Jr. - this is why Ouyang kills the boy: for Zhu it might have been tying up loose ends, but Ouyang at this point sees that staying alive wasn't worth it. He does what is better for the boy in his opinion; he even lets him die with honour, something he himself wants. He wishes he had chosen death all these years ago.

[ruelpsen]

I know a lot of people love using degrading language in kink and/or being degraded- myself included!- but I am begging y'all to at the very least rethink your usage of 'degenerate' as a degrading term. That's some actual Nazi shit*, and in this time of rising fascist attitudes it's concerning to see that word continue to be used in many kink circles uncritically.

*"But what does this have to with Nazism?" you might ask. I'm not going to fault you for not knowing! It was a term originally used by Nazis and their ilk to describe modern art, i.e. art that defied traditional norms and attitudes. It wasn't just the art itself that was seen as an insult to traditionalist culture, though- art made by minorities and/or allegedly supporting leftist causes was seen as degenerate, to the extent that jazz as a genre was regarded as 'degenerate' due to it being a product of Black culture; unsurprisingly, works by Jewish and Communist artists were seen as such too, among many others. 'Degeneracy' is at its core about othering and delegitimizing those seen as 'lesser,' or in other words groups and minorities whose existence stood in defiance of the image of a white, Christian, cishet, patriarchal, able-bodied, neurotypical, conservative Germany. It's a word with an ugly history no matter how you look at it. The Wikipedia page on Degenerate Art (<-link) is a decent primer if you want to start learning more about this history, and there's a lot of literature out there on the weaponization and impacts of the 'degenerate' label (including some found in the references section of the linked page). The more you know!

[randomly--accessed--memories]

Angel is rather alarmed one day when he hears Vox call Niffty "Nancy" and she answers to it immediately, calling him "Vaughn" in return.

Names are powerful in Hell– nowhere near as powerful as contracts, but still. When you give someone your true name, they gain a certain level of power over you, which is why contracts are usually signed using human names. Only the most audacious overlords (eg. Alastor, Valentino, Carmilla, Rosie) still use the names they had when they were alive.

Intellectually, Angel knows that Vox isn't in a mental state where he can or would even want to take advantage of this, and it's entirely possible that he may just completely forget Niffty's human name at any moment, but it still puts him on edge. Angel likes Niffty and wants to keep her safe. Regardless of how far Vox has fallen, Angel can't help but still see him as somewhat of a threat.

[worstloki]

saw someone on twitter say "one of the main characters in a loki show should have been thor odinson, not some random Sylvie or Mobius.

...... It's like a written law"

wdyt do you agree

I don't think it was necessary to make Thor a main character in a Loki show, the same way it WOULD be possible to throw together a Thor movie without having Loki be a main focus.

The issue comes in the quality of the narrative itself, and writing that if evidently without intention to care for (whichever) main character's importance will not work out. Neither the Loki series nor Thor 4 cared about the arc, motivations, history, or continuity of the titular characters beyond trying to make the media marketable.

Overall messaging can add a layer to the impact a story will have. Musical score can be a bonus way to control tone or tie a story together. Supporting cast can be vital to tell a good story. Prioritising their presence over anyone's (especially Loki's) characterisation is what the Loki series suffered from, not that other, original-adjacent characters were there.

[revawake]

Lottie pre-crash eating her breakfast alone save for the maid who works for the Matthews, who is both Lottie's subject in a way (serving her) and her superior in a way (acting as an extension of her father's will, serving her medications she's not allowed to decline).

Lottie as an adult crafting herself a home where she can permanently banish the isolation and powerlessness of her childhood without losing its comforts. She's fixing it. She'll be what her father wasn't. Loving, not cruel. Liberating, not tyrannical.

She's a healer. She's a leader! She acts graciously when one of her servants followers serves her maca root instead of ashwaghanda. She makes it a rule that they can leave whenever they want!

Lottie in the wilderness hallucinating all her friends eating together, and look, even though she's died her disciple best friend Laura Lee is there and she already served got her some takeout! And Jackie isn't there there's one free seat just for Lottie!

Lottie's the good queen. Someone has to be! They can't all be unborn queens, she tells herself, or else she everyone would starve!

[anthromimicry]

[basuralindo]

Hey do you think Jamil has trouble seeing people his age as peers?

Like, growing up having to be a caretaker to a guy literally a few months older than him, always expected to act like the adult in the situation, expected to work with adults and adopt their perspectives and pick up their slack. Do you think he just, forgets sometimes?

I mean we've seen him go into caretaker mode with other sophomores, and the only people I've seen him take seriously are juniors like Vil who also act much older than they should have to (his reactions to Leona look more like a trauma response and I don't wanna get into it here). People like Malleus and Cater still somewhat get the caretaker treatment. Like I just highly doubt that he subconsciously realizes he's actually part of his age group

Aaand that inevitably brings up Azul, who also acts like he thinks he's older than he is. Whether you're looking at it from a shipping angle or not, he reacts to Azul like an actual peer. With older students, he seems more in his element but there's still a status hierarchy which he compulsively reacts to. With Azul he doesn't acknowledge any status worth respecting or see him as someone who needs to be looked after. He just bickers like an equal, in a way that implies he actually does see Azul as a real peer, like subconsciously he's categorized this guy into the same group as himself, who was previously alone on that level (he gets like this more with the twins too, over time, but it seems to start with Azul).

And my favorite part about this is, while that response stems from them both acting more like adults in general, they elicit a pettiness from each other which drags them both down to actually acting their own age, and I just love that. Their characters are perfect foils for each other and it seems to make them both less isolated in a way.

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[thebirdandhersong]

.

[shizukais]

[yujeong]

I'm returning home from a Maneskin concert and of course I have to turn this experience into a Pete experience somehow, so

Dumb Pete-simp bitch thought of the day:

Macau and Pete go to a concert together - Vegas Enjoying Music? Disabled!Vegas being able to go to a concert? Not in my post-canon - and Pete is mostly there with Macau because he wouldn't stfu about it (it's some rock or metal band Pete isn't aware of) and he wanted company and Pete is there mostly in bodyguard mode and he lets the noise and the screams go past him and he maybe zones out for a few moments and he curses himself that he does because Macau could end up in danger when he's not paying attention! Pay attention you fucking idiot!

...that's where I was going to end this thought, but then I remembered how I saw a few people cry when THE LONELIEST played (very nice song, hadn't heard it before, but I'm fixing that), so I'm adding another one:

Pete suddenly getting emotional, too emotional to be able to hide it, by a random ass song the band is playing and it doesn't even have to be a ballad or sth, just the sound of it, the words being said, the face of the performer saying them, Pete doesn't know why but he's suddenly trembling, and he can't take his eyes off the stage, and he's shedding tears he can't control and Macau looks at him with a smile on his face, because holy shit, P'Pete is actually a human being, and Pete is embarrassed but can't stop it, and maybe he hugs Macau to hide his face from him.

(Of course Macau got a picture and of course he's showing Vegas and of course Vegas gets emotional because Pete got emotional and Macau kind of regrets showing Vegas it happened at all, but he still smiles at his brothers trying to help each other)