#guy who is incapable of accepting that he is the problem

[pummelingbat]

like. listen. in my heart i do think that Herbert is at least partially Like That bc he's deflecting insecurities but. you must understand. that does not make him any less the Worst Motherfucker On Earth. do you you get it.

[caelivir]

hidden lights | rayne ames

— synopsis. reading rayne ames is impossible. that's why you don't get why he offers to take you out on a date after you've been stood up again.

— pairing. rayne ames x fem!reader

— genres. modern au, you and rayne are roommates, fluff, you’re so oblivious it hurts, rayne's most likely ooc towards the end but we do it for plot,

— warnings. one kys thrown in at the end but it’s not in a serious manner

— word count. 3.2k

— notes. in honor of triple liner rayne being animated. i have quite literally been waiting to see it animated for years. also hi.

you can never tell what rayne ames is thinking. he wears the same cold, uninterested glare on his face at all times of the day. he never speaks unless spoken to, never lets you know when he leaves the apartment, never does anything to show that he actually has emotions.

you're asked on the daily how you survive rooming with him, and in all honesty, it's really not that bad. he does his half of the chores, and he doesn't leave his shit all over the apartment. really, the guy's only problem is his lack of emotion. it drives you up the wall.

finn says not to take it to personally during the one day he visited his brother. apparently, he's like that with everyone, but he's still a good guy. it just takes time.

you would like to believe that, but rayne makes that extremely difficult to believe when he looks like he wants to kill every person who so happens to exist in his direction.

so naturally, seeing him so angered after finding out that you've been stood up is surprising. it's an even bigger shock when he offers to take you out on a date instead.

you don't know what compels you to agree. even if you hadn't accepted his offer, something tells you that rayne would've found a way to get you to leave with him so there's no use in trying to deny him in this matter.

that's why you allow him to drive all the way to marchétte street, where a night market is being held in full swing. the road has all sorts of stalls lined up one after the other, ranging from foods to clothes. but because the marchétte night market is ridiculously popular, the place is packed to the brim with people.

rayne offers his hand once he notices that you're daunted by the crowds. you stare at him with surprise. when you don't make a move to accept this action, rayne huffs before grabbing your hand. he interlocks his fingers with yours and drags you into marchétte street's traffic.

the first thing you note is that rayne's hands are surprisingly warm and soft. for someone so incapable of talking, his touch is strangely reassuring.

he drags you to a vendor selling takoyaki. and even as he orders, rayne doesn’t let go of your hand.

“what do you want?” he says into your ear so that he doesn’t have to yell over all the noise. the feeling of his breath fanning over your skin sends shivers down your spin. it's maddening.

“oh. uh-” your eyes quickly scan over the menu, and you blurt out the first item that you read. out of habit you reach for your wallet, but rayne is quick to shut you down.

“absolutely not.” he grumbles, letting your hand drop to your side so he can pull out his cash. rayne hands the amount to the girl at the register, and she hands back his change that he drops into the tip jar.

“thanks.” you say quietly, still so flustered about the entire situation.

rayne only studies you before humming in acknowledgement. “come on.” he guides his hand to your upper back, moving you out the way so you can wait on the side for your orders.

it’s during this time you really look at rayne as if that would provide you with the answers you need to understand him. you try to wrap your head around it. you draft up every possible explanation, but none of them seem to make sense.

unless… it couldn’t be… does rayne like you? you shake your head, dismissing the thought as soon as it crosses your mind. no, that’s absurd, the furthest thing from logical. this is rayne ames we’re talking about. in the five months that you’ve been living together, you two have never had a solid conversation. how could he ever like someone he’s barely talked to?

you're about to confront rayne about his intentions until your number order is called, and all the courage you built up crumbles away as rayne leaves you to go pick up your takoyaki.

still, whatever his reasons for doing this may be, this is a rare opportunity to come by, and that means that maybe rayne doesn't have to continue being a stranger. maybe you can get under those layers and find that good guy finn said was there.

"i never knew marchétte had a night market." you say, breaking the silence as the two of you walk side by side through the market.

"i didn't either." rayne admits, poking his fork into one of the octopus balls, and shoving the whole thing into his mouth.

"what?" your face scrunches in disbelief. "then how'd you find out?"

"i asked finn as we were going down to the garage." your date shares nonchalantly.

you turn to look at rayne with the intent of questioning him further, but the sight of his cheeks bulging with food makes you burst out in a fit of giggles.

"what?" rayne asks, narrowing his eyes at you. you bite your lip to contain your laughter. your gaze falls on a mixture of crumbs and sauce that sits on the corner of his mouth, only causing you to smile wider.

"you got a little something there." you gesture at his lips. rayne fumbles for a moment, swiping his fingers around various sections of his mouth, somehow only cleaning half of the mess up.

you shake your head, still grinning up at him. he tenses when your thumb grazes the edges of his lips. you can feel his eyes staring deep into you, and you have to ignore the way it makes your stomach flip.

"all done." you whisper, wiping the remainders on the napkin in your hand.

rayne doesn't say anything regarding what occurred, only urging you to follow him further down marchétte street.

you swear that you see the tips of his ears go red, and something about that makes you all fuzzy inside.

as the night progresses, you and rayne abide your time by visiting stalls. well, it's more like you choose which ones interest you the most, and rayne follows behind. you comment on certain items that look nice; sometimes, you ask for your roommate's opinions to decide on whether something will be worth your money or not. to your surprise, rayne's advice is solid, and you end up listening to him.

at some point, you convinced him to buy a pair of absurdly looking mugs for the apartment. he fought you hard on it, saying that a mug shaped like a fish is extremely inconvenient, but in the end, you won with insistent begging.

when the two of you both got bored of the market, you decide to take rayne to one of your favorite spots in the city.

"the park? really?" rayne gives you a dead stare.

"hey, don't judge." you pout. "i love this place."

"why? no offense, but i don't think parks are all that special."

"i feel like i can take a step back here and just a catch a break from everything," you answer honestly. "sometimes, i sit down and watch people as they live their lives, and something about that is strangely comforting. it makes me want to keep going."

rayne doesn't follow up on your words, but you can tell that he's really considering them, and that brings a smile onto your face.

"plus, i feel like it's a good place for when you want to talk to someone." you grab onto your roommate's wrist. "come on let's go to the swings."

you practically drag rayne to the playground, which is completely deserted, but that's to be expected when it's already 10p.m. no parent would be dumb enough to bring their kid out this late.

you force rayne onto the the swing next to you, and all he does is sit there, unwilling to indulge himself in such a simple joy. annoyed with him, you hop off your own set, coming behind him.

"what are you doing?" rayne whips his head around as your hands plant themselves firmly on his back.

"oh live a little." you huff, mustering up enough strength to push him. the swing rocks forwards and comes back. even as rayne complains and threatens you, you continue to push him, watching as he goes higher and higher. he may be masking it, but you can tell that he's enjoying it.

you finally give up when your arms grow sore and a layer of sweat coats your face. slumping back into the swing beside rayne, you breathe heavily. "man, that was a workout."

"i told you to stop." your date reminds you, shooting you a look.

"you can be honest, rayne. i know you liked it."

"i did not."

"yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that." you wave him off, laughing.

for a minute, neither of you say anything. you're the one who said that the park is a place where you can talk openly with someone, yet there's not a single topic that you can think to bring up.

luckily, rayne swoops in to save it. "can i ask you something?" your half-blonde roommate asks, something more serious laced in his voice. it makes you swallow a lump in your throat. an anxious feeling creeps into your body.

"of course you can."

"why did you bother giving that guy a chance?"

it's easy to know exactly who he's referring to. you shrug. "he's nice and has good energy."

"but he had stood you up two times in the past though. clearly he isn't as nice as you make him out to be. you seriously can't be that dumb to have fallen for it three times."

that statement in itself should get you mad (even though he would be right), but there's something peculiar in what he said that had you ignoring the jab altogether. "how'd you know he stood me up twice before? i never told you that."

at that, rayne freezes, eyes blowing wide open. it's so obvious that he's trying to find an excuse right now, but you push further.

"who told you that, rayne?" you lean closer, watching as his ears turn beet red. you're not even angry with him. it's mostly curiosity making you push him. not to mention that seeing him in a flustered state is entertaining and quite cute.

"max did." your roommate finally admits albeit quietly.

you pull your head back. "max? as in max land? how the hell does he know?"

"your dates happened to be at the restaurant he works at."

"why would he bother telling you that though?" you wonder. "up until tonight, i don't think it concerned you."

"it did though." the half-blonde mumbles, thinking you wouldn't hear, but you do anyway.

"what?" you press.

"forget it." rayne shakes his head, growing irritated.

"no. fuck that.." you seethe, annoyed at his unwillingness to be honest with you. rayne bites his tongue to hold back. you see it. "don't act like this. just tell me, or i swear to god i'll text max right now-"

"it's because i knew that i could treat you better." the words rush out of rayne's mouth as he snaps his head toward you. the fire in his eyes die as he locks his gaze onto you. the harsh emotion written across his features softens. you can feel your own exasperation slipping away like that of a retreating ocean tide. he grimaces in regret, knowing that he didn't mean to let that slip out, but he did anyway. it's out in the open, and now you knew.

surely, you're hearing things wrong. perhaps you're misunderstanding what he just said. how could that be misinterpreted though? it's such a painfully straightforward statement, yet it still doesn't make any sense.

rayne sighs. it's like he can already hear your thoughts and your confusion. the least he can do is clear the air and dump everything onto you while he can. "i didn't expect to feel like this," he begins to explain. "when i moved in, i just assumed you'd be another person i wouldn't pay attention to. i'm sure you know how i am. i don't bother getting to know people, but a lot of people feel the need to force themselves into my life, and shit like that pisses me off. but you didn't do that. you introduced yourself, explained the ground rules of the apartment, and then left me alone."

"so... you like the fact that i leave you alone?" you tilt your head.

"shut up. let me finish."

"okay."

"but yeah, that's part of it. you keep your distance, but you still try to show that you care. you don't do anything groundbreaking. it's just that the small things you do for me got to me. it may sound dumb to you, but it meant a lot to me."

suddenly, you're hit like a train because you know exactly what rayne means. you recall all the times you ensured that there was dinner for him, the times you moved his laundry into the dryer when he forgot to do it himself, and the times you restocked his favorite snacks when they ran out. you hadn't realized that you did any of that. it just came naturally, no hidden meaning behind it.

"oh." you breathe out, blinking.

rayne nods, continuing. you're honestly floored over the fact that he still has more to say. "you don't notice it. at least, i don't think you do, but at some point, i tried doing the same for you. i started paying more attention to you and what you liked and how you liked things done. i did it mostly to pay back your kindness, but over time i continued just 'cause i liked seeing your smile."

you have to process that for a minute, piecing together how certain events lined up until it finally clicks into place. "s-so the island vase-"

"i replace the flowers because you like them fresh."

"the key holder?"

"you always forgot to bring your keys until i installed it."

"when you put on movies-"

"i check your letterboxd and hope that you'll sit and watch them with me."

"when i put on movies-"

"i sit with you because i want to be near you."

your jaw falls open. never in a million years could you have expected this. you thought that rayne could care less about your existence, but the reality was that that was far from the truth. cold, aloof rayne was always doing things for you. all this time, you've been so oblivious.

still, there's more to the story so you stay quiet, letting him get his feelings off of his chest. "to be honest, i was never going to say anything. max tried convincing me to confess on multiple occasions, but i was dead set on letting it pass. i didn't think you liked me in the same way anyway.

"but then you came home today and you told me about your date and i just got so... angry," rayne clenches his fist around the chains of the swing. the whole situation infuriates him every time he thinks about it. "it just wasn't fair. you spent so much time into looking your best just for that asshole to go and waste your effort. you're so beautiful, so kind and understanding, and i fucking hate the fact that he's been taking advantage of that.

"i really wasn't thinking clear when i proposed this date to you, but god after tonight, i'd do it all over again. i wanted you to know what it's like to be with someone who does care about you. i wanted to see you smile. i wanted to hear stories. i want you so badly it's all i can think about sometimes.

"i know this is a lot, and i'm freaking you out right now. i'm sorry but you-"

"rayne." you interrupt with a big smile on your face. he was unaware to the fact that you had got up.

"for fucks sake, can you let me finish? this is already weird enough for me to talk about as is." he rolls his eyes, narrowing his gaze at you, blush splashed across his cheeks. still, without any resistance, you pull him up from his swing by his wrists.

"then don't." you whisper as you pull him in.

and the moment you crash your lips onto rayne's, the world stops. he instantly melts into you, the palms of his hands finding the soft skin on your cheeks. your hands tangle themselves into his hair. his lips are incredibly soft. a faint taste of matcha and sugar syrup dances on his tongue from the boba he drank earlier. a noise of approval vibrates down his throat, and you can't help but smile against his lips.

rayne wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer as he deepens the kiss. you get what he was talking about earlier. this kiss is all it takes to prove it to you. you feel his affection and desire all at once. every single bone in your body is so aware of how much rayne ames cares about you.

when you finally pull away for air, it's like a smile is permanently tugged onto your lips. rayne trains his eyes onto you, engraining every detail of this moment into his head.

a comfortable silence falls as each of you take your time to catch your breaths. your stare finds its way up, admiring the night sky. there are barely any stars out tonight. no, that part isn't remotely true, not fully anyway, because light pollution drowns out stars and their lights. the reality is that there are billions of stars hanging high out of reach; they just go unseen.

rayne is kinda like that you realize. finn was right. his brother is a good guy. there's a hidden light within him behind all those aloof layers of his. you just have to squint and maybe put on some prescription glasses is order to see it. it's a shame it took you five months to to really acknowledge it. but now that you've finally found a glimpse of it, you'll continue to clear past the fog. you want to know every part of rayne and see his light just as he did with you. you want him to be able to shine at his full brightness with no fear. you'll take rayne ames for all that he is.

"come on," you coo, a lovestruck look in your eyes as you slip your hand into rayne's. "let's go home."

bonus:

rayne: finn, give me a date spot quick finn: are you actually going on a date? rayne: stop asking questions finn: there's a night market on marchétte street. finn: are you seriously going on a date though? finn: hello? finn: rayne. finn: stop leaving me on read. finn: is it (y/n)? finn: it is her, huh? finn: asshole.

delisaster: hey sorry delisaster: can we reschedule for next saturday? y/n: kys y/n: lol sorry that was my bf delisaster: bruh what? delisaster: did you have a bf this whole time? *this message could not be sent* delisaster: did you fucking block me? *this message could not be sent*

[littlestpersimmon]

Guy with cataracts and scarred from an explosion has a fail toymaking shop in front of a rundown temple and he has a crush on a disfigured lowly priestess whom he suspects is a stealth trans guy because she always picks the boy option when they play board games (he’s right btw)

He's from Kalantiaw, but his mom is diaspora, and I thought her to be half "Japanese" (coded) - still trying to figure out how japanese ethnicities come to play.

She was a sailor turned pirate. She didn't know the language spoken in Kalantiaw (more akin to Khmer), and she spoke a different language (more austronesian), and she named him Kahilingan, which means "wish". But in Kalantiaw, where she settled, his name means "curse" or "bad omen" 💀 it doesn't help that her life ended with the beginning of his. So.

Kahi spends much of his life chasing the image of his mom and trying to.... live up to her- because sailing is the most esteemed occupation in their world. Only very very very very very few people have managed to work on "dragonships".

Basically, their world is physically broken (like living on an asteroid belt) and they sail to and fro each sundering / country on specialized stone ships called "dragonships" / "bakunawa"- and the ships themselves are semi-alive? They're like.. Stone ships laminated with the spirits of devas and dragons and other great beings who have all died because of (redacted).

Anyway, his mom, Maaya, was a renowned sailor- she tamed a dragonship that was imbued with an infamously wild dragon called Duksa- Dragonships are Sponsored, but those who sponsor the ships are almost never in command, and they also easily lose ownership to their hired captains- because the ships themselves are sentient, and they never obey anyone who they deem are incapable of commanding them. Only Maaya could control Duksa hehe. So she became known throughout all their world as this wild woman who loved fast boats and only accepted voyage commissions "if they are very fun". Anyways blah blah blah she fell in love w Kahi's other parent (who is nonbinary) and she got pregnet with him. And they eventually settled in Kalantiaw, in it's countryside near the subterranean capital (Kamharik).

Kahi always annoyed his other parent abt his mom because he too wanted to meet Duksa, but his parent kept warning him not to go near the ship because after Maaya died, it went even more mad with grief. Kahi more of an engineer than a captain like his mom, but his goal was simply to acquaintance with Duksa rather than actually captain her. But Duksa did not accept anyone, not even anyone who was part of Maaya's original crew.. Kahi went to an apprenticeship on shipbuilding-

he became somewhat popular for being clever with his hands, and all around Kalantiaw, everyone thought of him as reliable and very creative when it came to problem solving. So he went from normal ships to fixing dragonships.. ..

The Greatest dragonships are ones that are imbued with the spirits of actual ancient dragons and qilin, bc some are imbued with "lesser" dragons or false dragons, and some are with non-dragon albeit great spirits- like minor gods, wind spirits, phoenix,naga, etc etc..

Duksa was a true and great dragon, and Kahi knew that she was suffering from severe neglect, so all he wanted was to patch her up-

Everyone, every single one of Kahi's peers discouraged him, bc it is known that anyone who even approaches her is immediately kilIed by her; but Kahi, he is different. When he approaches Duksa, she was a shadow of herself, a ghost ship- She senses Maaya, and she even thought that Kahi was her at first- so she lets Kahi patch her big crabclaw sails, fixed her boilers and really tried to replicate how she used to look when Maaya lived.. and Duksa didn't know it wasn't her, because her eyes were covered in barnacles.. The "eyes" of a dragonship is its lodestar, and Kahi was purposefully saving it for last because he is frightened of what Duksa could do to him;;

But before that, Duksa spoke to him, joked like "ah beauty, what happened to you?! Your voice sounds like you swallowed a frog.. are you ill? Why did you abandon me?" Fhjsjs

"Why are your hands so gentle now? I want you to be rough!! Stop this at once! I am not old!"

But when Kahi started scraping finally at the lodestar, and he opened Duksa's eyes to the world once more, she cried in great anger because who tf was this intruder! And why did he carry Maaya's spirit with him !!!

Her entire deck creaked so hard the floorboards broke again, and she swayed her whole body so Kahi nearly fell from the lodestar;; he tried to reason with her, and it sort of mirrors how his mom tamed Duksa. She barrelled in head on and confidently, but Kahi was meek and gentle.

Eitherway.. an angry dragonship is like highly radioactive, its like being in a storm in a contained environment, and she started puffing steam- it's like microdosing being in fukushima; And she called Kahi a fool, he'll never measure up to Maaya, he will never be her- aaaah, but she didn't kiIl him. Maybe because she knew he was Maaya's boy. She warned him never to return, and tossed him into the open shallows. So, he was absolutely brokenhearted. He was 19.

~intense lonely lovestory between him and a closeted trans guy raised by mean transphobic priestesses in a cult the antithesis of a loving and wise lesbian death goddess occurs.~

There she is.. her name is Viharana Magayarin

Names-

Maaya's name is spelled a certain way in kanji, I want it to mean "True"

Duksa's name is Tagalog, it means "grief"

Kahilingan's name is tagalog- and it means "wish". Inspired from.. in tagalog, "curse" is a contronym of sorts- "curse" and "promise" is the same word ("sumpa")

Kahi's trans boyfriend's name is Tala, and it means "star" 😌

[sailorsol]

Star Wars takes I’m sick of seeing:

1. When a Jedi chooses to no longer follow the path of a Jedi, they are automatically a Sith. That’s like saying if you are no longer a practicing Jew, you’re automatically a Catholic. Being a Sith has a specific set of beliefs and doctrines that must be followed, the same as being a Jedi. One can choose to no longer be a Jedi and *not* be evil or Fallen in any way, shape, or form, and this does not make them a bad person.

2. That if the Jedi were just a bit more Mandalorian, it would have Solved All Their Problems and prevented Anakin from Falling. Usually this means that if the Jedi just showed more emotion/weren’t emotionally repressed/if Obi-Wan just told Anakin he loved him/was proud of him, Anakin wouldn’t have made the decision on multiple occasions to slaughter children. There are so many “fix it” fics where this is the underlying theme.

3. Likewise, the Jedi repress their emotions. The Jedi teach their students to be *mindful* of their emotions, to not react based on a person’s first initial knee jerk response. They asked Anakin to have the same level of emotional control as a kindergartener--you don’t get to punch someone because they took your favorite toy and broke it.

3. When Mandalorians adopt children (with or without parental permission) and indoctrinate them into their culture of weaponry and violence, it’s cute; when the Jedi adopt children (usually with parental permission) and teach them to control their emotions and their psychic powers based on those emotions, they’re an evil child-snatching cult. Only the Mandalorians are capable of forming a family bond and despite being communally raised, the Jedi are incapable of forming those same bonds, probably because of all that emotional repression. But if you violate the rules of the Mandalorians, you are cast out of said “family”, whereas even someone like Darth Vader was offered a way home.

4. Love = Attachment. Attachment is about greed and possession. We are told *and* shown on multiple occasions that you can love someone and let them go. Obi-Wan does it multiple times. But when you go beyond love, when you refuse to accept loss, whether it’s external like death or internal like someone choosing to leave you, that’s when you move into Attachment, and *that* is what leads to the Dark side.

ETA, because apparently I wasn’t done:

5.  The Jedi Order, which has existed for tens of thousands of years, should change everything about itself and its doctrines to suit one kid who doesn’t actually care about following other people’s rules in any circumstance.

6. Anakin Skywalker is the only Jedi who ever treated the clones like Real People, despite several blatant examples showing otherwise, and the fact that he was totally chill with them having their identities and free will stripped away from them. But because he was the only one who was Raised By A Real Mother, he’s the only one capable of showing compassion to other people.

7. That because they have accelerated aging, this makes the clones child soldiers. If they were completely non-human, no one would blink an eye at the idea of a species maturing at a different rate than humans. So they’ve only been alive for ten years? That does not make them children. Grogu has been alive for over 50 years and he’s still a toddler. Calling them children is infantilizing and demeaning. 

8. Listen, I love whumping on Obi-Wan as much as the next fangirl, but I’m kinda getting tired of the whole “Obi-Wan never goes to medical/doesn’t sleep/doesn’t remember to eat” thing. He raised a whole ass padawan to adulthood. We have never actually seen him deny himself medical care, sleep, or food. He might work longer hours during the war, but so does everyone else. And the only reason I can justify him not eating isn’t because he “forgets” so much as the poor guy probably has a terrible case of decision fatigue. If all he has to do is walk to the chow hall and get served what everyone else is being served, I don’t think he’d have that much of a problem. There are, of course, extenuating circumstances to all of these based on any prior trauma he may or may not have, but otherwise it’s infantilizing.

This post is brought to you in part by fandom as well as interacting with members of the Star Wars costuming groups.

[kujakumai]

Personally, I agree that TKB has every right to feel anger and take action to prevent the tragedy of Kul Elna from happening ever again. But the second he says "I'm going to work with a demon to destroy the entire world" is when I put my foot down, because that makes him no better than what the ruling class did to him; it makes him worse because he's inflicting that to other innocent people. Neither Atem and TKB are completely correct or wrong, but the story siding with only Atem is morally iffy

-TKB isn't a real person independently arriving at moral actions, he is a character in a narrative whose structure and characters are consciously designed by human beings to tell a particular story

-Saying "Well, TKB was still evil because he wanted to destroy the world" is accepting the premise of the narrative and TKB's motivation as if it sprung forth from the ether, ever-extant in its present form and incapable of being written any other way

-The narrative of MW paints a portrait of a world that is visibly and systematically unjust and whose domestic and military power is derived from the literal death and exploitation of the poor; it then has a character, TKB, make very deliberate criticisms of this system, and puts them in direct contrast with Priest Set and Akenhadin's own ongoing corruption.

-Since again, this is a story being crafted with intent, this contrast directly leads audiences to conclude that TKB's criticism is valid, and the author intends us to reach this conclusion and has deliberately set up his commentary. Determining that TKB is right about the monarchy is the logical conclusion of the facts and narrative tools we as the audience are given.

-However, instead of leading us to a satisfying conclusion based on this setup, the story instead tacks on "...but he wants to destroy the world, so we can kill him!" and never meaningfully addresses the questions about good and evil or the nature of the throne, nor does Atem ever have to really face them. It disposes of TKB and quickly sets about putting a heroic coat of paint on a mostly unchanged Set and reducing everything to a quick and tidy good vs. evil shonen fight scene, contradictions be damned.

-The problem with this plot twist isn't fantasy-monarchism. It's that it is actively disorientating. We as readers have been told in loud, bold letters for over two dozen chapters what this story is about and what message it's trying to communicate (a very powerful one, based on how passionate people become about it!) and the story simply...dumps it all, and starts pretending to be a totally different story. Like none of that earlier stuff mattered and we should suddenly be content with power-of-friendshipping the bad guy into dust.

-Tongue-in-cheek declarations that "TKB was right!" aren't moral statements about TKB or Atem's actions, because Thief King and Atem aren't people, they are characters--a narrative tool the author is using to tell a story. And again: the narrative is telling us that TKB is right and the monarchy is troubled and unjust. Vocal declarations that Thief King was right are really an expression of disgust for a clumsy narrative betrayal. "MW told me this excellent story, got me invested, very deliberately set me up to draw these conclusions about the story it was telling and the message it wanted me to get...and then tacked on the ending for a completely different story that had nothing to do with any of that! This is bullshit!"

-If TKB were a mere generic evil, who intended to destroy the world for his own gain and had no compelling criticisms of the hero's world or complex tragedy, he wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting (see: the anime, which did almost exactly this), but I don't think people would be half as worked up about it. It would be neat, at least, because if everything is a fantasy good vs. fantasy evil from the start, then at very least the story would match its ending. No one would feel misled or disorientated.

-But the story did ask moral questions of our characters, and it did so carefully, deliberately, and with fireworks; it is therefore culpable for failing to even attempt to have them answer them.

-At the same time, the trope of the "rebel turned murderous extremist" is well-worn and troublesome. There are ten thousand examples. A villain who challenges the status quo, who takes issue with real problems, revolutionaries and rabble-rousers with righteous fury...but they want to, uh, kill innocent people also! for some reason! which is why our heroes (defenders of the status quo) need to get rid of them and we don't need to listen to what they are saying!

-Why does fiction so frequently depict people angry about real societal problems, and who act to change them, as people whose legitimate complaints are inexorably tainted by tacked-on inexplicable violence?

-Who benefits when fiction frequently conflates righteous criticism of injustice with supervillainy? When fiction conflates heroism with stalwart defense of the current system? How do we carry these narratives with us into the real world?

-You are criticizing Thief King as if he were a person. I'm not, and I'm not interested in doing that. I am criticizing the poor formulation of a story.

-anyway. TKB did nothing wrong

[thetardigrape]

Ed and Izzy are Backward

I've been thinking a lot about why S2 of OFMD isn't satisfying, and I think a major part of it is Ed and Izzy's arcs. In short, they're the reverse of what should have been.

Meta with spoilers under the cut.

Ed's deep fear is that he is unlovable. That he is a monster incapable of being loved. This isn't something we only learn in S2, it's set up halfway through S1 in the bathtub scene and then continually reinforced.

Izzy's deep issue is that he thinks there is only one way to succeed as a man/pirate: be scary. Be the scariest, meanest guy around. His issue is compounded by the big problem of him not being that.

Ed's abuse of the crew is a trauma response. It arises from his fear of being unlovable getting kicked into high gear by Stede leaving and then tipping right over into A Real Fucking Problem when Izzy threatens him.

Izzy's abuse of the crew is a character flaw. He sees himself as better than them, and treats the badly because he views that as the only Right Way to Be A Pirate/Man.

Yet Izzy is given unconditional love and acceptance by the crew without ever apologizing for his behavior, while Ed is made to degrade himself for their forgiveness. Ed is cast into the role of Problematic Community Member Who Doesn't Actually Apologize, even though it's not set up that he's treating his crew like shit because he thinks that's how the world works. Again, that person is Izzy.

And then Izzy on his deathbed tells Ed he has a family and the crew love him, even though we've seen absolutely no evidence of that all season. The crew exiled him, and seem to have let him back only conditionally and at Stede's behest. That's not love, that's grudging acceptance.

Imagine, instead, a season in which the crew recognize that something is really wrong with Ed, and reach out to him despite him treating them badly. Imagine him learning that he's lovable, not just by one person who broke his heart, but by an entire crew who care about him at his worst moments. Imagine Ed receiving the grace extended to Izzy, and being healed by it without needing everything good in his life to come from Stede.

Imagine Izzy realizing that the way he viewed the world isn't actually how it works. Imagine Kraken Ed actually being worse at piracy because he's too depressed to think or plan or care when things go wrong. Imagine Izzy's moment of clarity coming not because Ed was too scary but because Izzy learned that being a miserable angry cunt actually makes it difficult to be successful at anything. Imagine Izzy apologizing to Ed for treating him badly without having to die about it. Imagine that being a factor in Ed's healing, understanding that Izzy loves him even if he does it in a fucked up, broken way, and loving him back. Imagine Izzy realizing that Ed's softness is important to his success the same way Auntie realizes it about ZYS, and in so doing understanding why Ed needs Stede.

One character needed acceptance and compassion and the knowledge that he was loved, and one character needed to learn that other people's feelings matter and that forgiveness isn't given until you show you've changed. The show just fumbled which was which.

[oathbreakerapologist]

Sortie Sad Sack Thought Journal 4: This One's Actually about Sad Sack I Promise

Subtitled The Haunting and Perplexing Question of the Ontological Status of Garv.

I'm finally gonna turn to a question that has been subject to significant debate (if you accept several arguments I've had with myself while in the shower as "significant debate"). What if Garv isn't, like, just another guy? What if he isn't really a person in the world of Sad Sack at all?

Okay, to explain that a bit better: Garv interacts with the rest of the crew, the plot, and the world in some weird ways (weird, that is, in the sense of inexplicable, not just Garv's usual Messed Up Guy weirdness). Among other things, a few incidents come to mind as particularly unusual:

Garv's notable absence from the epilogue of SADS #1.

Garv's ability to gain access to the warehouse in SADS #5 (particularly, how he obtained the key from Jake).

The disappearance of Garv's body in SADS #5.

There's a reading of these events that says Garv doesn't actually exist. It's a kind of speculative and somewhat silly thing to consider, but I promise I mean this seriously. Maybe he's not a guy! Maybe Garv, as he's portrayed in SADS, is merely a representation of an idea, or a motive, or a sort of shadow self of another character.

Question 4: What is Garv if not an actual person?

If that were true, his depiction as just another member of the group suggests a certain textual unreliability—I promised this wasn't going to become about Sortie; it merely lingers as an elephant in the room—which is not out of the question. While SADS gives fewer reasons than Sortie to challenge the idea that the events that occur within it occur (approximately) in the way that they depicted, I don't think that's any grounds to reject unreliable depiction. So that's one layer of plausibility to the Garv Unrealist position. But I'm getting ahead of myself—I ought to make clearer (at least two of) the positions we might take about Garv.

Garv Realism. Garv is a person in the same way as any other member of the SADS cast. Unusual Events 1–3 must be explained through circumstances not depicted in SADS.

Garv Unrealism. Garv is not a person. Garv, as he is depicted, is a representation of something intangible: an idea, a motivation, an id, a shadow self, some combination thereof, or something else.

The shadow self idea is particularly interesting, both because it explains some things about Unusual Events 1–3 and because it might illuminate some things about a character who remains (in my opinion) somewhat difficult to parse. That character is Jake. I think I want to read Garv as a shadow self of Jake. Here's why.

Jake is, in my opinion, the character whose motive for involvement in the events of SADS is the least clear. Of course, SADS #1 is his own deeply personal revenge moment, and it's obvious from the fact that he initiated the events of SADS in that way that he is, in some way, deeply messed up. But... what is that way? Essentially everyone else in SADS does a very poor job at hiding their own personal damage. Mal has the world's most malignant white knight complex. Stone's an alcoholic with abandonment issues that have been festering for approximately three decades. Sal... well. You know.

But what the fuck is Jake's problem? How'd he get here?

I'm not sure that I can explain that. But reading Garv as a shadow self of Jake does a shockingly good job of explaining that. It actually makes a lot of things click into place: why does this seemingly normal type-A guy initiate a series of torture-murders?

Because Jake, the normal type-A guy, didn't do that. The set of personality traits we attribute to Jake are incongruous with his role in the narrative because there are several relevant traits missing, because those traits are attributed to Garv. Garv is utterly incapable of hiding how much of a fucking creep he is because that is literally all he is. He's a mere representation of one facet of who Jake is as a person. To be clear, I'm not talking about a true split personality or a dissociative identity disorder—I use "shadow self" here as a looser term, and by it I mean a loose aggregate of the traits that exist within a person but which conflict with other traits that seem to define them. By reading Garv as a shadow self of Jake, we assert: Jake is what we see from Jake plus what we see from Garv.

When you graft Garv's personality onto Jake, you suddenly get almost exactly the sort of person who would initiate a series of torture-murders with very specific rules and conditions.

A Garv Unrealist reading has a lot to say about SADS #5. In that reading, the initial conflict between Jake and Garv is actually an internal conflict within Jake that unfolds as he finally confronts the tension between his sadistic impulses and his stringent moral/behavioral code. The confrontation that follows is, in some significant way, metaphorical—though Sal's physical appearance in Sortie implies it did unfold somewhat similarly to the way that it is depicted.

(Does it, actually? A question for another post.)

In that reading, of course, we don't have to account for how Garv got into the warehouse. Garv is Jake; Jake has the key. In that reading, we don't have to account for why Garv's body disappears at the end of SADS #5. Garv isn't embodied; Garv never died.

It's a deeply interesting reading of SADS, certainly, and it's not insignificant that it does answer at least two pretty big questions. But is that enough to accept Garv Unrealism? It comes at a pretty significant cost—there's a lot we must re-interpret, and a lot we must accept as unreliable depiction or metaphor, in order to accept Garv Unrealism. Is the price worth the payoff?

(For what it's worth, I think I'm still in the Garv Realist camp.)

[tumblezwei]

Not a RG person (or any kind of shipper really), but I don’t entirely gel with your earlier post on Ruby and Oscar, more specifically the latter. Because the way I read the story’s themes, it seems to me that much of their shared theme is being drowned out by the legacy of those who came before them.

Ruby, through the constant comparisons to her mother, her lineage as a Silver Eyed Warrior, and effectively being Ozpin’s successor as the leader of those against him despite not really wanting the role (even though she stepped up as admirably as she could).

Oscar however is literally at risk of being drowned out, just being subsumed by the Ozma collective and becoming nothing more than another face with Ozma’s traumas and failure to change. He’s not proving himself his own man; he’s struggling to preserve what little of himself is left in the face of an unwilling mental parasite, all while constantly battling the fears of both himself and Ozma.

To me, it seems more likely that what might happen at the end is that Ruby and Oscar end up leaving on a journey together once they’ve been freed of their respective obligations; Ruby can finally be a normal huntress saving people without bearing the weight of the world, while Oscar can finally find his own identity and have an adventure without the risk of losing his personality. Their goals would align pretty decently on that regard.

I get the gist of your point, but I think we disagree on a few key things.

The most pressing one is Oscar's situation. While he is definitely at risk of being consumed by Oz in universe, I don't think that that's where the story is pointing to at all. Nothing we've seen from Oscar's character development so far leads me to believe he's sinking into his fear at being consumed. Every time he's been given the choice to be like Oz, he's gone against it.

In volume 6, when he knows about information that Oz is keeping hidden, he fights against Oz's possession and tells the group. In volume 7 after Ironwood goes off the deep end, he chooses to trust that Ironwood can be reasoned with when Oz would have just given up. After being tortured by Hazel he chooses to trust him and Emerald, something Ozpin was incapable of doing. He's the one teaching Oz that Oz can change. With every volume his convictions grow stronger and his sense of right and wrong solidifies.

It's true that he's struggled with the idea of where he ends and Ozpin begins, but I don't believe for a second that what we're seeing play out is Oscar losing his identity. And like I said in my previous post, it's because he knows all of Ozpin's fuck ups that he's able to see Oz for who he is and grow to be better. If he were truly at risk of becoming just another Ozma, then I would think him completely redundant as a character.

He is absolutely not drowning in Ozpin's legacy.

I also don't really like the phrasing of Ruby being Ozpin's successor. He was her mentor, sure, a shitty one at that, but I don't think he's been much of a leader of anything for a long, long time. Now, he certainly used her mother's leadership abilities to his advantage, and when he saw the same potential in Ruby he used her too. But I can't accept the idea of him passing down a mantle to her. Not to hate on the guy, I do like his character an awful lot, but that man did nothing to help her grow into leadership except one speech that only helped to catalyze her depressive spiral lmao.

But that's more of a personal gripe that an argument against your point. I think the main problem we have is that you've read the themes differently from me. Despite how depressing the show can get, it's a lot more hopeful than people give it credit for sometimes. And specifically for this post, than what Oscar stans give it credit for.

They often read his fate as something a lot more cynical and tragic than it actually is imo, and try to find a lot of similarities to Ruby in order to ramp up the angst. And there's nothing really wrong with that, I'm no stranger to making my faves suffer more than they realistically would, but I just don't think Oscar is in that much danger. I think the narrative is pointing a very clear and direct line towards Ozpin disappearing from his mind and the cycle of reincarnation ending. Oscar's arc has been about finding out who he is, but that isn't just an endpoint goal, it's something that's already happening.

But if you don't believe that, if you think that he's still actively being corrupted by Oz, then I think you'd come to the conclusions that you have in this ask, and you'd see more parallels to Ruby's spiral. And that's just not what I see.

[forgiveness-in-the-misery]

I do want to post about the concept of a soul in BTVS because the show sort of fucked itself into a corner immediately with season one by introducing it as a big running theme.

Angel was a crappy human who then became a vampire and as a vampire he was beyond evil but then he was cursed with having a soul again and forced to feel guilt for all his crimes.

Which okay fine that works. If you are incapable of empathy then suddenly can feel it one day then yes every bad thing you did would make you feel horrible. Then he lives as a vampire with a soul for many many years….until he has sex with Buffy and loses his soul all over again.

Which is now where things become mildly complicated.

Angel no longer possessing a soul goes right back into being the world’s shittiest white guy. Admittedly I prefer Angelus cause Angel within this series is just a prop most times, while in his own spinoff show where they often tease the fact he is broody and weird only for him to admit he’s just immensely socially awkward.

Of course once Angel gets his soul back he goes back to being a good person.

Which is kind of a problem for me? We already before this were introduced to Spike as a new villain character in the show and he isn’t like other vampires. Spike despite being a soulless monster “stinks of humanity” according to another demon. Spike loves intensely, Spike is poetic and gentle with Dru, Spike mourns often, he can be depressed or anxious. He protects Dawn fiercely, he genuinely adores and loves Joyce, he mourns Buffy when she dies. There is the point of Spike having a chip preventing him from killing but that is literally all it does, it prevents him from killing. There is nothing about the chip making him be gentle or caring or showcase empathy constantly.

So after living quite a few years cursed with a soul wouldn’t Angel change overall? Does it solely depend on who sired you? Is Angel a lunatic asshole because he was sired by one? While Dru is more empathetic but even her own empathy is immensely short and we have seen how easily she can drop Spike over his own genuine humanity. So siring doesn’t seem completely in line.

Is Angel just a fucking crappy person with a weird white guilt thing going on? The dudebro who goes around apologizing for what he is but lowkey enjoys the privilege that comes with it?

Even outside of vampires there are some incredibly shitty humans in the show. We see plenty of human characters do things as horrifying as vampires and other demons.

So what is a soul?

A soul through Angel just seems to be a vehicle to make you depressed and never want to do a bad thing and the same happens for a time when Spike acquires a soul. For a short period he goes insane with guilt. But then Spike goes back to normal, a soul made no real difference in him as a character other than costuming changing his appearance so he looks more “trustworthy” which I personally find shady and dumb but that’s me.

I know over all it could all be just fantasy rules played fast and loose, but the show repeatedly makes a fucking point of souls. Souls seem to be the key of being an insanely good person despite the main characters being humans doing grossly shitty things, human villains doing repulsive things and random characters again doing and saying gross horrible things.

I wish the narrative had either not done the soul thing at all or at least had gone about it completely differently. Because if Angel losing his soul and becoming a monster then regaining it and being harmless again that should have been questioned in the narrative way more other than the characters just having some trauma they needed to get over and accept Angel again.

The issue of souls is why season seven for me is my fall of season because seeing Spike suddenly redeemed by becoming Catholic guilt man just put me off…and Kennedy. God dear God I hate her.

[hanasnx]

user hanasnx, do u have any fave eps of batman beyond?

-🍃

yes!

season 1

disappearing inque: inque and terry kiss and i ship them

season 2

splicers: humans with physical animal traits hit hard

hooked up: something about the living life inside a bubble thing really fascinated me

the last resort: we see terry have a tender moment with chelsea and confront a problem as terry mcginnis as well as batman

april moon: loved this one. hot gf cheats on old man doctor with bad guys and the doctor does some fucked up shit to those bad guys

season 3

out of the past: young bruce deals with being incapable and then learns the way to get it is not what he wants and he has to deal with it instead. move on, and accept that it's in the past. loved the villain too

unmasked: terry unmasking for a scared little boy who does his best to protect him :) gotta love it

[im-the-j-in-anthony-j-crowley]

Problems in hell

We know that the underworld is having staffing problems, right? And we have seen multiple times how the relationships there are very bad. And that the only thing that's considered good is that the day doesn't completely suck.

And that's something that the underworld has completely accepted, because they were painted as the villains and for 6,000 years they've acted like villains.

We don't know what exactly the demons did when they were cast out of heaven, but we do know that Crowley was the one who did one of the less drastic things. Despite that, I feel that what has been pointed out all along is that the conclusion that was reached was too drastic.

It's a hard thing to be noticed or admitted in heaven, because they are the ones responsible (and in a way the oppressors). But in hell it is something easier to notice. They have a disgusting life, which was (in part) caused by heaven. And the only way out of that is to go into battle, where the choices will be to win and keep the horrible system they have, or lose and... die, or suffer for all eternity (I don't really know what happens to them if they lose, but it's not good). This is why every time I remember that the underworld has staff problems, I feel somewhat happy. Because it means they are starting to notice that they never had a way out. They never had a choice to be better.

You can't tell me they're incapable of being better. We have examples that they can be (Aziraphale, Crowley, Beelzebub and Gabriel). And I can't think of anything they could have done whose sentence would not be served by the 6,000 years they have been there. A percentage of demons probably don't even deserve 2000 years.

So I feel like the most logical thing is that we'll see some demons approaching the human side, or approaching Crowley. Because Crowley is the one that sort of came up with something better.

And also, I feel like Crowley never admitted the fact that in the eyes of heaven, he's the same as all the other demons.

Crowley has been on his own side from the beginning, and I feel like we can agree that Aziraphale is the only person he's ever let in there. But Aziraphale has always been able to tell that it can't be just them, if they want to be able to accomplish anything, they need more people.

I don't know if it's an entirely possible thing I'm going to say, but I think I'd like to see Crowley acknowledge that he has things in common with demons in hell. That this grayscale that he's been seeing in humans and Aziraphale also exists among demons

The one thing demons are supposed to be excellent at doing, making humans miserable, humans are better at it. So if there are greyscales in humans, I'm absolutely certain there are among demons. They're not even good at being the bad guys

[averseunhinged]

here is another thing that was supposed to be a short and fun exercise in writing scenes with a lot of action, but has instead turned into a four part thing with the last part being the only part i've actually finished. AS USUAL. i am incapable of writing a short one shot.

this is sort of what i wanted the augustine storyline to be. you know. if there'd been an actual budget for the show and candice king had any interest whatsoever in being a stunt-heavy action star. i mostly just wanted to write caroline going undercover as a las vegas exotic dancer, giving klaus a lap dance, and then kicking augustine ass in heels. like tvdu + secret diary of a call girl + alias.

this bit is from the first part, which involves writing five characters in the room and two on video, and that ended up being way harder than i expected.

"There was a disturbance in the Quarter last night," Marcel began, accepting a tumbler of bourbon from Elijah with a nod of thanks, and settling back further into his seat.

Josh snorted.

"Something to add, Josh?"

"That's putting it mildly. People are already talking."

"Are people?" Klaus asked flatly.

"The nightwalkers," Marcel admitted. "There've been rumors coming through the underground, mostly down from New York's sub rosa. It all sounded like a fairy tale. Or an exaggeration, at least."

"Or," Josh cut in quietly, "like a society of people who need to believe there are heroes willing to help them."

He flipped through the file and pulled out a stack of neatly organized files. Davina's animosity toward the Originals was unrelenting, but she was willing enough to have collating parties in the middle of the night, as long as he brought top shelf vodka and some of Cami's good hand-muddled mixers. Josh passed out the files and then brought the video stills up on screen.

There were two figures standing close, heads tilted toward one another. It wasn't a particularly clear shot of the pair, but based on build, they were likely a male and a female, though close to the same height. The woman was slim, but athletic. The man was broad and barrel­-chested. Both wore similar all-black outfits: combat boots for the man and lighter boots with a low heel for the woman. Slim black jeans and motorcycle jackets with raised hoods for both. Amongst the colorful tourist trade in the Quarter, they stood out like ill omens.

“Well, who have we here?” Klaus drawled, draping himself over an armchair with his usual excessive display of hot people privilege. Josh would just look awkward and desperate if he moved like that.

Not that Josh didn’t think he was hot. His self-esteem was fine in that department, but it was more of a boy-next-door adorable than ancient evil smoldering. He could pick up a human guy no problem, but Klaus’s human conquests were either idiots or had an unfortunate, obvious danger kink. The ones with a slightly better life expectancy didn’t want anything to do with him. Josh once watched a blonde sorority girl slumming it at the wrong bar spend twenty uncomfortable minutes trying to extricate herself from a flirty conversation, Klaus absorbing her annoyance like that was what powered him.

Josh would not be surprised.

“No-one knows. They just show up and do good deeds. If your definition of a good deed involves unspeakable violence, I mean."

"Usually does with vampires." Marcel grinned. "There was a group of like-minded ones. Old guys, too. They set up in a warehouse in the Bronx and none of the sub rosa had the power to oust them." He paused, looking down and swirling his bourbon around the glass, his voice tight when he began again. "Sick fucks were taking little girls, not one of them over twelve. The New York vamps wouldn't do a damn thing about it."

Klaus laughed derisively through his nose. "Of course they wouldn’t."

"They are a society with rules, Niklaus," Elijah began before he was rudely interrupted.

"They're worse than the ton, doing nothing and accomplishing less. They're immortal beings and they've shackled themselves."

"It didn't matter either way in the end," Josh took up. "The whole warehouse went up in flames. Witnesses claimed they saw a man and woman in black leading the kids out, but they couldn't remember anything else about them. Not even hair color."

"Witchwork," Klaus spat out, disgusted. The witch problems of the past few years had left him with little patience for them or those who allied with them.

"Probably," Josh admitted with reluctance. "The girls were definitely compelled. Except one was witch-blooded, but in foster care. No known coven of origin. No-one knew until they realized she was the only one who remembered anything."

The men were all silent for a moment.

"I am loath to ask what she remembered," Elijah finally said, stoicism weighed down by reluctance.

"Things no eight-year-old should." Marcel replied, short and hard. "She said the woman was the Angel of Death and she'd come to help them. That she was beautiful and terrible and she made the bad men scream. The sub rosa started calling her Angel after that."

“There’s something else, too. A YouTuber on vacation was filming the street with a pretty high quality camera when the fight broke out. There’s something about the way the man moves. The way he holds himself, maybe? I don’t know. Just…familiar.” Josh shook his head. “Sorry. Not that helpful.”

Josh selected and started a clip from the video. The focal point was the man. His movements were smooth, but the muscles were tight and bulging, hands clenched at his sides until his arm snapped out, grabbed an attacking human by the neck, and spiked them into a café table. It was almost phlegmatic, if you didn’t mind watching someone get decapitated with wrought iron detailing.

“No, Mr. Rosza,” Elijah murmured. “You are correct. He’s restraining himself. Forcing himself to take far more care than he could. He’s more powerful than he’s showing, has greater strength than he is using. Perhaps an attempt to conceal his age.”

Marcel rolled his drink between his hands. “That hybrid who came after you…”

“Tyler Lockwood,” Elijah supplied.

“No, not Tyler. He’s happily wasting his time in the wilderness with a pack in Oregon, like a pig in shit. I’d know if he was inclined to anything more complex than subsistence farming and building tiny homes,” Klaus sneered.

[lindszeppelin]

a bit of a rant

okay here I go. I had the time to sit with the discussion in the fandom about Big Daddy Elvis (or thicc daddy, whatever lol). and these are my thoughts.

there's a lot of you in the Elvis fandom that think that those of us that find Elvis attractive during the later portion of the 70s are "fetishizing" his illness. some of you guys think it's immortal and wrong that some of us find the man good looking at that point in his life. and some of you guys chastise others on how despicable they are for even daring to think Elvis was hot at that phase in his life.

first of all. why are you infantilizing a grown man in his 40s, as if he was rendered fucking helpless and bedridden unable to move and incapable of doing anything for himself? as if he needed around the clock care, like he was a patient in a hospital dying of some horrendous, inoperable or incurable disease? as if he wasn't a grown ass man who lived his life and was up and walking around living his usual routine until the last breath he took? it makes no fucking sense to me.

i think everyone is privy to the obvious fact that Elvis was sick. we get that. we are not overlooking that. and we are not fetishizing his illness. what the hell is up with that bogus take? the man gained some weight and had water retention. are you to imply that we can't find overweight people attractive? are you to imply that people who are sick are incapable of being looked at as a human being with human needs? the man had a girlfriend in Ginger Alden at that time and he was STILL getting women in that phase in his life. are you going to ridicule those women for daring to find the man hot?

as if for some reason, Elvis being sick rendered him as this manchild that needed a wetnurse instead of a loving girlfriend or wife who wanted to be with him sexually, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally?

some of you out there in the fandom seem to think that we must be horrible people for looking at Elvis in that phase of his life saying "omg big daddy elvis is so hot" as if we're the devil or something. like, how dare we find that man even remotely attractive. i can guarantee you anything that elvis would not want to be patronized and looked down upon as this poor helpless, innocent babyboy that didn't have needs just like the rest of us. newsflash, Elvis was a sexually charged man and he was still getting some at the end of his life. whether that makes some of you upset, that's not my problem to deal with. that's just a fact.

he was the most beautiful man to probably ever walk the face of the earth. even with his illness at the end, he was beautiful. and he had an even more beautiful soul that shined through everything. it doesn't matter what someone looks like, or what illnesses they go through. people that are sick are STILL HUMANS WITH HUMAN NEEDS AND DESIRES. do NOT infantilize him. and you need to look up the meaning to the word "fetishizing" because that's not what we're doing here.

how about we stop rendering that 40-something year old man as a baby who needed mommy and daddy to coddle him, and see him for what he is. he was a man that made mistakes. and im sure he had regrets. but he was a gorgeous man with a loving soul. and if we truly LOVE Elvis like we claim we do, then we love and accept him with all of his flaws.

[franki-lew-yo]

You know, as a bi person, I really kind of hate the aggressive pissing on hetero ships by virtue of it being hetero and not for the actual faults of the couple or characters.

Mind you; this is not the same problem as homophobes people who insist they don't hate gay stuff but have 0 gay couples and fight headcanons saying that they're gay. Those people, even if they don't know it; are homophobic. Their stubborness to face the fact that they're bigots makes them even more bigoted because bigotry does not inherently = being mean, but is about the inability to accept or think of other people. It's scary how many people earnestly think you have to shout some Westbro Baptist Church bs to be actually homophobic, and all that's before you get to internalized bigotry within the LGBTQ culture. Speaking of which...

I saw a thread where people were hating on Friendship is Magic because Pinkie Pie canonically gets with Weird Al's ponysona. --Obv I'm biased because that being made canon was the only part of the finale I liked as obviously I loved Cheese Sandwich for being his own character apart from Pinkie Pie and Weird Al-- but, BESIDES THAT; The complaint was talking about how some characters were "forced into being straight" by the writers and...really? You're incapable of headcanoning Pinkie and Cheese are bi or in an open marriage or just invalidating Pinkie now because she's the only one of the mane 6 who canonically had a kid with a stallion? Really?

There's being queer baited and wanting more gay couples that are also main characters and not off to the side cyclops police. And then there's getting mad that a character without a canonized sexuality is in a hetero relationship at least once in their life. Not even that they themselves are for sure straight, just that they're married or w the opposite sex.

Naturally, I only have women shippers to talk about. I can't quite talk for gay men or m/m shipcourse. Whenever I see lesbiansapphics be all "even canonically straight characters should be made gay"/"this ship would be fine if it were lesbians"/"this character should have gotten with this character so I can have lesbians", I do know it's all just joking. At least, I'm pretty sure. I know the reason you want more lesbians -I want more lesbians too because lesbians are great! You are right in how and what kind of scrutiny is held against you for liking women and like fiction women liking other fictional women...but...maybe don't be so judgemental of the ladies on your side who happen to like some m/f ships more than your appointed 'good' ship?

"We're not judgemental. You're the one who's judgemental for not being able to take some light rubbing abt your ship being straight."

Am I though? When you hate on a m/fships because seeing people support them in ANY WAY means you have to make fun of them just to validate your own feelings...idk pardon MY autistic arse for feeling a tad bit picked on or lumped in with the really not okay straights. Am I excluded from defending myself because I'm not the ideal lesbian? I'll never survive the sapphic hunger games if I don't have specific standards for my gay couples vs my straight ones?

I've seen people adore The Owl House for being gay because it is but absolutely hate that Willow/Hunter is implied and then be mad that Luz didn't get with Willow because "Amity is a bad girlfriend". It's not Dana's fault that Luz got with the "wrong woman", the show was written with Lumity being endgame and Hunter being an important side character because he's related to the main villain who is a man. Cope. I've seen people hate on MysteryElk because Elktaur/General has a standardly attractive' hunky design; I've seen people hate Edred from Unicorn Warriors Eternal for being an icky 'generic' guy. If you actually know the characters and the relationships in question with their lovers, you'd know that the fact that they're a man is the LEAST problematic thing they got going on! No, the men in these couples being women would not "fix" anything not just for shippers but in the actual show with the relationships. Like, you DO get that the problem is Nowhere King is the aggressor and that Edred is clingy and unsupportive, right? That those are the actual problems with these couples? And GOSH do I now hate Clone High's insistence that JFK is actually a decent person because he's not a 'pick me' like Abe. I hate that, in the wake of the internet realizing how bad tumblr sexymen nice guys really are, we apparently have to pick out the men who are "salvageable" or obsess over the problemed ones problems because they are men. Which- come to think of it, isn't that part of the issue with SnapeWife-types who stan flawed male characters like their the second coming but antagonize women characters for being flawed? Shouldn't we, idk, maybe encourage people to love characters for their flaws and not because we can 'fix' them somehow or hate them because they exemplify a person you hate irl?

Overall, the (hopefully) ironic demand for gay couples all the time like it's a supremacy is kind of irritating to me. I'm just not into living with the "this majority group are all the things wrong"-mindset, or even a "you deserve to feel the bigotry I already experience because that's cathartic for me". I know exactly why people are in pain. I know that pain because a lot of it is the same I have to go through. The reason I'm 'biting back', not at the gay community I'm in but at this specific mindset? Yeah it IS because I'm obsessed with people judging me, but I think it's because I'm self aware of this problem I have that I don't want to indulge the part of me that wants petty payback at all. When and if I like my petty payback, I want to make sure it's not at the people who might be judging me vs the people who actually, honestly are.

TL;DR: I love me some 'straights are not okay'-jokes, but there comes a point where I can not hear them when you clearly don't mean it as a joke.

No amount of active bigotry in this world will make the toxic absolutism you got as a result of that bigotry something I need to deal with as the butt of your anger. I and other bi/pan/ally people are not your stress dolls, inherently. The straights (a group) are not okay, not the straights (individuals), k?

[leogichidaa]

Regulus is really Rabastan but it’s actually Sirius and him pulling a prank on the entire Wizarding World to see if they can convince everyone that Rabastan Lestrange actually exists when nobody’s met the guy before, they know the Lestrange parents and Rodolphus and they know Rodolphus is an only child, and absolutely nobody knows where this guy even came from because he just popped up one day and claimed to be Rodolphus’s younger brother (Rodolphus decides that this will not be his problem, if some random guy wants to be his younger brother so badly then why not? Rodolphus’s life is already weird enough, he’ll accept a mysterious brother into his life, welcome to the family and all). He’s got a Dark Mark and nobody remembers when he joined, not even Voldemort, who did an actual double-take when he saw Rabastan for the first time (Voldemort: I don’t think this guy is really Rodolphus’s brother since nobody ever mentioned him, but I don’t know enough about pureblood families or siblings to dispute this). Sirius sees his brother in Azkaban (for crack purposes, inmates get to socialize for like an hour), and he’s all “Reg, you know you can drop the act, right?” but Regulus is committed now and also nothing could be funnier than them arresting a guy who doesn’t even exist and not even realizing Rabastan Lestrange isn’t real. Post-war, Hermione or someone is going through the legal papers, trying to ensure nobody else got thrown in prison without a trial, and she has the really awkward time of telling everyone “So, you know the Lestrange trial a while back, the one with Bellatrix? Yeah, so it turns out I can find absolutely nothing on her brother-in-law and Rabastan Lestrange doesn’t exist. We’ve all seen the guy, so anyone know who he really is?”

@ncoincidences

😂 I love this!

I love that Rodolphus is like "yeah, more family, cool". He's not bothered by this mysterious new brother and he's not put off by his wife's illegitimate child. Is this because he craves a family? Is this because he is incapable of experiencing human emotions? Who knows!

The Ministry is so ass-backwards and incompetent they literally throw a conman into prison without realizing they're being conned. Background checks? Never heard of them.

The Quibbler publishes an expose about how Rabastan Lestrange is not who he appears to be and that actually, he is a stack of turnips that the Crumple-Horned Snorkack enchanted to act like a man and infiltrate wizard society. Regulus and Sirius read it together and Sirius calls Regulus a turnip constantly.

[subatoism]

God okay so another thing that gets my gears turning is that one bit in Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges when Julian says he’s incapable of making a diagnosis by simply looking at a man, to which Sloan replies, “Oh, your genetically enhanced friends determined that Gul Damar killed a woman just by watching him give a political speech. I’m sure you can do better than that.” Which he then very much does.

Because like,, up to this point in the series, I was kind of writing off the discrepancy between the abilities the other Augments have (learning Dominionese in one day, reading Damar’s entire backstory from his nonverbals, etc) and what we see from Julian both before and after Doctor Bashir, I Presume as purely a result of the writing problems that inevitably occur when you throw in a revelation like that so late in a show.

Which, yeah, I still think it is that. But in-universe, it makes the question of how Julian has so thoroughly managed to hide any signs of his augmentation this whole time much more immediate. Obviously this is something that a lot of other people have already examined, and probably more eloquently than I can, but I just want to work through my own thoughts on the topic.

So, assuming that Julian has roughly the same intellectual capacities as the other Augments, there are a couple possibilities:

[1] Julian is a brilliant actor. Since the very beginning of the show, he has been subtly playing up his own spotty observational/deductive skills in certain areas specifically to maintain his cover. This, of course, has profound implications for interpreting almost any scene he is in pre-DBIP (and particularly for all of his relationships with people who only ever see this persona). I mean god!! Confronting how complete an enigma the real Julian Bashir is if you accept this interpretation makes me feel insane.

But it also says something about all of his scenes after DBIP: That he can’t let it go. Can’t drop the façade, either because it’s ingrained habit to pretend or because he still believes (rightly or wrongly) that displaying his full potential will eventually lead to Starfleet changing its mind about letting him go free. Like, this guy is 3x more traumatized than he appears at any given moment.

[2] Julian intentionally avoids knowing/paying attention to things.

Not when it comes to medicine, for the most part. Sacrificing the well-being of a patient to keep his own secret is absolutely antithetical to his core values, and I’m unwilling to entertain the idea that his fundamental motives are a falsehood. At the very least, if he did ever hold himself back out of fear and put someone else at risk by doing so, it would eat him alive for the rest of his life. So that’s a whole ‘nother level of trauma that the show never gets a chance to address.

But, anyway, he avoids thinking too hard about what he’s capable of— forces himself not to think through problems that it would be suspicious for him to solve; possibly even denies himself access to information that it would be alarming for him to memorize too quickly which, given his deep curiosity and hunger for knowledge, would be an almost painful act of self-denial. And, again, this behavior is so ingrained that he keeps doing it even after his secret is out. He doesn’t even think to try doing what the other Augments have clearly demonstrated they can do (at least, not outside the events of Statistical Probabilities, which may have actually reinforced his self-limitation given how all that turned out).

So, yeah, both of these options are just absolutely fucking tragic and make me want to cry but I cannot stop thinking about either one.