#he was a kid

[banes-favourite]

what imagining how gortash could have turned out had he been shown a slither of kindness from literally anyone as a child feels like

[authoratmidnight]

that last post got me thinking about Greek heroes/characters who end in tragedy and, you know most people don't think of as a tragic character but 100% is?

Narcissus.

Literally all people really remember is 'he's the self absorbed guy who fell in love in with his reflection' which yes, did happen but, like, you wanna know WHY that happened?

He was CURSED.

Narcissus was a hunter, the son of, either a river god and a nymph or a mortal man and the goddess of the moon Selene, depending on the version. He was, by all accounts, very beautiful and men and women alike fell for him, but he turned them all down.

And it was turning down one of these advances that got him cursed.

I've read some versions that say it was him turning down the nymph Echo that got him cursed; and there's other were it was a young man that had fallen for him that he turned down he got him cursed(tho the Echo story still happened).

Either way, someone was turned down and, bitter and broken hearted, turned to the goddess Nemesis to curse Narcissus. And she did, she cursed him to never be able to be with the person he loved/to fall in love with his reflection. And so, the next time he saw his reflection in a pool of water he fell hopelessly in love with it.

And he eventually died, either b/c he just wasted away looking at his reflection, or because he straight up committed suicide. And then turned into a flower that bears his name.

And yet. Somehow he's only ever remembered as 'a self absorbed guy who fell in love with his reflection' and his name short hand for someone who is shallow and vain and self obsessed and generally just, all around negative connotations.

So not only is his story itself a tragedy in the confines of the myth (literally, all he did wrong was, turn down unwanted advances, and not even advances form like a god, just ordinary ppl), but outside the myth it's tragic as he's been reduced to 'hurr hurr guy who loved his reflection'.

[vroom-vrooms]

When my card declines at therapy so they show me little max (I can’t save him)

[freakurodani]

the avatar was hope

but do you ever think of the horror people felt, when they saw aang and saw that he was a child, and that he held so much weight on his shoulders?

when they grieved, do you think it was for him, his childhood, his people? or his inexperience?

[popponn]

sae going to spain at 13 and coming out like that makes so much sense actually

[cosmic-khaos]

Just listened to the newest dndads episode! I am,,, NOT OKAY

[chapinii]

nobody ever mentions just how young q!cellbit was in the war and it stabs me in the heart everytime I think about it.

[aerticent]

I've mentioned it before but I'll say it again. It makes me so genuinely upset that Annabelle and Julien never get told off for their treatment of Maven. Like I don't believe that Cal wouldn't at some point tell them off for how they treated Maven when he was growing up. Cal beats himself up for not saying anything or noticing anything when he was child, but you have two grown adults who KNEW what Elara was capable of. They knew that she was capable of getting into peoples heads without them ever realizing and they never thought that maybe they should at least try to help this child. But that's not even the best part, they never noticed anything was off about Maven because they never cared enough about him to get close to him. HE WAS A CHILD. He didn't kill Coriane. And instead of shining a light on that and acknowledging that yes Maven did awful, irredeemable things, that doesn't make Annabelle and Julien right in their treatment of him it instead ignores this and just makes it out that they were right in their assumptions of him. Like he wasn't born a monster it didn't happen over night. Maven becoming who he was was a long process that couldve been prevented if anyone had ever cared.

[limetameta]

My mother: your friends brother died

Me: no tf he did not he is like 5 years younger than me

Me, checks

Checks out

Me: ????? Why??? Does??? Every??? Year??? Have to involve me giving my condolences?????

[greyspilot]

as an abused kid, i kinda never want to watch stranger things again i need a fucking break

[junkartie]

The creator of squid game spending years trying to get his point across that exploiting the poor and desperate for entertainment is bad watching netflix make a spin off of his fictional series where they in fact exploit the poor for entertainment

[kavaleyre]

• The Hanged Man •

“Compared to what Falin went through? This is nothing.”

[bakedbeanchan]

random fire nation diplomat #492 will never understand the complex and fucked up relationship between the water siblings like I do 🙄

[mydairpercabeth]

Everyone holding Annabeth to an impossible Standard

And then there’s Percy

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

i used to be so good at writing strong, thoroughly-researched, thoroughly-edited essays.

as a kid in hs, my teacher literally came up to me, holding my 40 page essay on the intersection of the European witch hunts and capitalism/exploitation/gender roles (it was supposed to be 7 pages...whoops) and went like "this is literally a master's-degree level thesis. what are you doing?? you could literally use this as your final dissertation in a master's program, what the fuck."

NOW??? NOW?? you'd think I'd be oh so skilled. but alas. i can barely piece together two ideas. adhd skill-regression is so so real. im SOBBING

[xekstrin]

One of the most memorable interactions was Saturday. Into our booth strolls a small family, tempted by free samples of freshly brewed tea. We chatter and give them the spiel, that the tea is character merch and we’re a cozy health-based app called Forage Friends.

The young girl zeroes in on our pride pins.

“They have my pin!” She says excitedly. “They have my flag!”

The dad blinks. He is surprised, but also calm and positive when he sees it’s the lesbian flag. “Oh. That’s… different from what you told me.”

“That was months ago, dad.” And she rolls her eyes. Definitely a teenager.

I turn to him and say, “Yeah, dad.” And we share a little laugh about it.

He says, “No, it’s great. That’s amazing, honey. It was just news to me.”

“Well, I guess I just decided to stop lying to myself. About liking guys. Like right now.”

A little lesbian just came out to her dad and he was super cool about it.

I’m standing there in my tie-dye mask and my cheery blue apron pouring tea and making small talk and I’m trying really hard not to cry or compare it to my experience, the fire & brimstone, the disgust, the conditional acceptance as long as I never bring it up.

So as this beautiful bonding is going on, the girl’s even younger brother turns his gaze around. He’s in a snorlax hoodie and bored and wants to go look at the swords across the hall. But on the other side of our booth….

“WHY DO PEOPLE DRAW THAT?” He asks loudly, and we all turn to our neighboring booth.

Our neighbors were extremely lovely people. Every time we had a break we would talk, and we became good friends over the weekend. They kept apologizing that their booth was next to ours and we kept repeating that it was totally fine. Their booth was great. I even bought their merchandise.

The thing that was so contentious, that they felt the need to apologize for, was that they were selling explicit titty hentai stickers of popular characters. They were censored with little yellow R18 labels but the content was very clear.

So back to the family: I freeze and immediately go somewhere else to let dad handle this question. With adult customers I’ve been loud and positive about our neighbors. (“Man, how has it been boothing next to them?” It’s been great! They bring a lot of foot traffic and they’re kind and wonderful professional neighbors. If anything it’s a fun juxtaposition. We believe in artistic freedom. I bought a sticker too!)

But this is a kid, it’s not my place to explain anything…. But I was extremely curious about what this chill dad would say.

“Well,” dad says with a long measured silence between each word. “Sometimes people are horny.”