#i really woke up and chose violence

[xanyiaz]

porter angst + spoilers for william & vincent confrontation audio bc the porter brainrot never stops

porter who may have lied about some things (like treasure coming to the summit lol) but was telling the absolute truth when he said to vincent: "he sees me as a friend, and you as a child." william who will forever see porter as a "friend" who he can use and ask to do favours and porter who will do them either out of fear and obligation or because william saved him from his maker, so he feels as though he must forever repay him. porter who wanted what vincent always complained about for as long as they've known each other. porter who always wanted to be seen as william's son, because then maybe he wouldn't ask such horrible tasks of him, maybe he would protect and shield him from this part of the business, the messy side, just like he shields his favourite progeny, vincent, who he sees as his child. porter who is having an internal fight with himself because, on one hand, he wants to honour his king since he saved him but on the other, he acts out of obligation and fear rather than honour. porter who already knew how william was this whole time but just dealt with it silently/ignored it because no one else in his life apart from treasure has wanted him around for anything other than to be used. porter who doesn't have a found/chosen family like vincent or sam, so he doesn't have anything to fall back on or anyone to rely on without any strings attached. porter who feels trapped and hopeless. porter who doesn't want to do morally corrupt things, but feels too threatened by william's power to go against him. porter who is alone, and who will continue to feel alone, no matter whose side he chooses.

tag list (lmk if you'd like to be added or removed !!): @zeerohpunk @themeridian @puffin-smoke @vind3miat0r @froggytimemachineinternet @redactedbloop @qhoaaaa @plaqying @ashton-sano @mokozroach @washa @idk-ig-7 @kuteheadrest @rejectedasset @copsecore @definitelynuwonhere

[constellation-skirmishes]

Ivan the Terrible and His Son, 1885

Ilya Repin (b. 1844)

[moonysreid]

how is jj spencer’s best friend? she actively ignores him - doesn’t really care about his special interests etc etc

i can’t be the only one to just not see it, right?

don’t get me wrong i love jj but i wouldn’t mind seeing a few more fics where reader puts jj in her place (especially after her confession)

[cononeillbreastingboobily]

You don't get it, do you?

If you say that Izzy's death was a beautiful conclusion to his arc, that it was kind. You just. You don't fucking get it.

You don't get to say shit like that if you're able-bodied, and then ignore those of us who are disabled, and who liked Izzy, and are now angry and saddened by his death.

Do you think it was, I don't know... A humane way of ending things?

Well. If that's the case then, first of all, I don't want you anywhere near me. Second of all, I want you to sit with yourself and think, but like really think, about why you think it's more humane to kill off a physically disabled queer character rather than, I don't know, let him live out the rest of his life happily, getting more and more accustomed to his disability, overcoming his trauma and enjoying his life to the fullest.

Queerness and disability rarely intersect in media, unlike real life. For a few episodes, Izzy's arc gave so many of us hope. It was a beautiful, dazzling story of a man who's been through unimaginable horrors, who was only just starting to overcome his trauma, finding love, acceptance and community.

Do you know how rare it is to witness a story like that? To see yourself in a character, in a way that you've never felt seen by media before?

Now, can you imagine how much of a slap in the face it was when he died? And a death that, I might add, wasn't necessary for anyone's development, was anticlimactic, cruel, and, perhaps the most importantly, came way too early?

So, you don't get to tell us that we're overreacting after Izzy was killed off. You don't get to do that, because you just don't get it. We're hurting, and for a good reason. Because it's vile, and because if we don't speak up against it, nobody else will do it for us. You can sit in your own little corner, telling yourself that the season finale was good and satisfying, and that you're happy with the way it ended if it's indeed the series finale.

Meanwhile I'll stay here, thinking about how a beloved, queer, disabled character on a beloved queer show was put down with a gun like a horse with a broken leg.

But that was the kind thing to do, wasn't it?

[freakadr0id]

Since it's December I think now is a good time to look back at one of Rise best episodes and acknowledge just how unhinged Donnie is in Snow Day.

This is peak Chaotic Donnie™ and I absolutely love it.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[nureyevs-worst-alias]

During my re-listen of TPP I realized in 2.01 (Kitty Cat Caper) Juno gets upset and breaks Rita's monitor not because she was binging streams on the job, but because she was binging the North Star Andromeda streams and those streams remind Juno of his mother because she worked on the writing team

[dizzybizz]

what have i done

[bi4demibuddie]

I want Buck and Eddie's roles reversed. I want Buck hurt or in undeniable danger while Eddie can’t do much for him, the same way Buck couldn’t when Eddie got shot. I need Eddie screaming and scrambling the same way Buck did when he thought he had lost Eddie after the cave in. I want Eddie to realize that he loves Buck, and to break down in the possibility of loosing the love of his life, co parent of his child and best friend.

[jils-things]

i went wandering off in my pokespe gallery and had to relieve how wonderful this scene played out. no kidding

please dont read the tags i got emotional there /lh

[jihnari]

zhongchi - the ship that’s ruining my life

disclaimers: 

ship what u want. i cannot stop you. i do not care. be free. 

this post is an OPINION and you DO NOT HAVE TO AGREE. if reading about why i dislike zhongchi is going to upset you, maybe give this a pass 

i do not dislike childe OR zhongli. i just think their ship is silly. 

if you are a zhongchi shipper and you choose to read this anyway, this is not written as a personal attack. i said "zhongchi 😒" one too many times and a non-genshin friend said "why do you hate that ship so much" and then i wrote a manifesto 

ive never been involved in real fandom drama and idk how it goes but i would like to remain ignorant and free, pls do not attack me over this i am small and nervous and do not mean any harm 

part 0: the ship 

"who are they and why does this ship exist?" you might ask, if you've never played genshin. on the surface, this is a simple question with a simple answer. the two characters for this ship are in the same place at the same time and their stories overlap heavily. childe is the big bad of zhongli's story arc. (not that zhongli fights him; you, the player character, fights childe.) so they potentially have enemies to lovers, and they are actually friends before some truths come to light and it's revealed they're on "different sides". childe also pays for things for both you (the player character) and zhongli, which people read as caring. [1]

childe/zhongli is the most popular genshin ship on ao3. there are currently 132,000 works on ao3 for genshin impact and 12,735 of those have the ship tag childe/zhongli. that's only 10% of the all existing works, but the second largest ship tag has only 6,600 works, which is half as many. 

relevant as an influencing factor is another popular ship early on in genshin's inception. that other ship was the first two hot male characters to have tension and an overlapping storyline, but they turn out to be "related" and a large part of the fandom collectively dropped them like a hot potato. but these fans were already in the fandom, already playing genshin, and they needed someone to ship. so they collectively jumped over to the SECOND set of two hot male characters with perceived tension and an overlapping storyline, i.e. zhongli and childe. the story containing zhongli and childe is 1) permanent canon content and 2) presented relatively early to the player, so zhongchi as a ship is more accessible than other popular ships that don't show up for 50+ hours [2] of gameplay.

furthermore, neither childe or zhongli have many meaningful interactions with other characters, and both characters were very popular upon launch. their initial popularity caused an epidemic, and a subsequent over-saturation of the ship on ao3. [3]

part 1: the characters

zhongli is a retired ex-god who faked his own death so he could have a break and go play at being human in the most mundane way possible. he's spiritually and emotionally an old man. he watches operas and drinks tea, has very expensive taste but no money, and works the front desk at a funeral parlor. he's thousands of years old and not entirely human (more on that later). [4]

childe is in his 20s and an affable general in the evil army. at 14 childe fell through a hole into genshin hell and lived there for a few months and emerged Changed. he can also turn into a demon now, just as a fun side note. upon getting him back, his parents found him to be a very scary menace and they quickly enrolled him in the military. he is the youngest ever person to be made general in the evil army, but this is less due to him being driven by ambition and more being a violent gremlin who couldn't be controlled and who beat up everyone in his path. 

in his spare time, childe gets into unwinnable fights and pushes himself to the limit just so he can feel something. he's utilitarian, having grown up poor, and when you ask about his least favorite food he tells you that being picky about food is a bad thing and you should cut that out. he "has money" but it's not his money, it's his government's money. the budget for his evil task is very, very high, and he uses it for mission things though he tends to be pretty loose about what that includes. his mission budget shouldn't matter, but will unfortunately come up later. 

childe is diametrically opposed to zhongli and zhongli's city; or he WOULD be but childe is too friendly and zhongli secretly has a deal with childe's boss, paying them to do the evil thing so he can retire in peace. this is a slight betrayal to childe but when it comes to light he isnt upset at zhongli, he's upset at his coworker for being the literal worst. childe is still seen around fantasy china after he tries to destroy it with a meteor[5], and only the townspeople seem to have any hard feelings. zhongli and childe are not canonically depicted as having any hard feelings. 

part 2: "making it work"

past the superficial reasons listed in part 0, zhongchi makes no sense to me as a pairing. zhongli is a boring old man and childe barely seems to consider people anything more than NPCs unless they end up having fighting prowess, in which case he tries to fight them and then (if they don't die) considers them friends. 

childe is dynamic, always striving to be better, stronger, faster[6]; childe is an adrenaline addict. zhongli is static and intends to stay that way. 

the characters have undergone some personality changes to make them fit together better. 

zhongli is part dragon(?) so people give him an obsession for pretty things and a massive possessive streak. since he's "broke", childe becomes a sugar daddy type in many works. zhongli is also almost exclusively on top in sexual situations, because duh, old, powerful dragon. [7]

childe couldn't possibly be in a position of power when he's with a older, more powerful male, so he becomes very submissive and swoon-y and teenage girl. the betrayal hurt him *ever* so deeply and he may never emotionally recover. he canonically has a family whom he loves, so people come down on that hard and say he's a real family man and he wants to have a family of his own and obviously he wants to settle down with zhongli and have zhongli's babies. 

:|

part 3: losing sight of canon

the further this ship goes, the further we stray from god. [8] 

childe is now super rich and loves paying for other people's things, especially zhongli's (forgetting that the money he has was in fact part of his mission budget). the tag "battlesexual childe" is a sortable tag on ao3, but the zhongchi part of genshin has all but forgotten childe likes to fight. zhongli is now possessive to a borderline abusive degree, and childe likes being tied down (metaphorically) to his dragon husband (did i mention they're frequently and casually married? this is the erasermic[9] of genshin). 

another side effect of being auto-married by the fandom is that it pushes the domesticity angle of zhongchi. you know, zhongli, an ex GOD OF WAR who COMMITTED GENOCIDE and a childe, a dude so obsessed with fighting that his own family couldnt handle him and shipped him off to the military at 14. them. domestic. what drugs are you on [10]

part 4: dragons 

hey. why did so many people have to latch onto the dragon thing? on a personal note, i do not understand the appeal but have no room to judge. on a cultural note, zhongchi is DOING IT WRONG. 

in canon, zhongli's "dragon form" is based off of chinese dragons[11]. which makes sense, since the place he's from, liyue, is modeled after china. genshin impact is created by mihoyo, a chinese company. 

what im saying is a chinese company writing a chinese game with a character from fantasy china would NOT make this character a western dragon. 

western dragons breathe fire, are very aggressive, collect hoards of gold, and are often depicted as greedy and possessive. eastern dragons not only look different, they're associated with water (rain) rather than fire, they're cultural symbols of prosperity and good luck, and they FOSTER HARMONY. i have exclusively seen zhongli's "dragon personality traits" modeled after western dragons, not eastern ones. like. yeah. i get it. the dragons the english half of the fandom is familiar with are western dragons. maybe they don't even know how eastern, and specifically chinese dragons, are different. but that doesnt make them any less INCORRECT. 

and hey! seeing dragon eggpreg content makes me want to die[12]. there’s so much. i wish there was less much. this also further encourages the feminization of childe which is :\ must we keep returning the gender norms to fictional romantic relationships

part 5: the ripple effect

the zhongchi version of childe has escaped containment[13]. im unhappy about it. i always know it when i see it because childe is an insatiable uwu bottom who would rather have sex than have a street fight. 

because this ship is so hellaciously popular, other childe ships are relatively rare[14]. anywhere you go, if someone is a fan of zhongli or childe, they probably also ship it. i never want to see another piece of zhongchi fanart again and yet, i soldier on. this is my curse. this is my burden. for childe, i must persevere. 

in conclusion,

i dont have a conclusion actually i just hate zhongchi, thanks for coming to my ted talk 

[1] those people are incorrect. 

[2] i didnt look up this number even a little bit, but i feel in my heart that it is accurate. 

[3] "only 10%? and you're calling it an epidemic?" yes. yes i am. "don't you think thats a little harsh?" you haven't seen what ive seen. you haven't suffered what ive suffered. 

[4] sorry i know the childe section is like four times as long but i just don’t about zhongli like i do childe. 

[5] yes i know it wasnt a meteor but this was written to be read fandom blind and ff7 altered my brain chemistry. 

[6] Daft Punk, "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", 2001

[7] there are, of course, bottom!zhongli works. the name for this ship is "chili" (dont get me started on the top/bottom dynamic wars within the same pairing, we'll be here all day and i will scream until i pass out). it's more difficult to use ao3 numbers to prove my point here, as i find the tagging of top/bottom dynamics on ao3 to be inconsistent. instead, i will use statistics on zerochan.net. at the time of writing, zerochan has 1,765 images tagged with "zhongchi" and 228 images tagged with "chili". (so, ~90% of the childe/zhongli ship on zerochan is marked as zhongchi, i.e. top!zhongli and bottom!childe.) should i be using only a single data point to definitively say that zhongchi is exponentially more popular than chili? no, i should not; that's what we call bad science. but it illustrates the skew in the dynamics and the clear fandom preference, and this is a rant post not a scientific study. 

[8] to some degree, inaccurate fanonizations involving popular characters in a large fandom is inevitable. i understand this. i do not accept this. 

[9] erasermic (aizawa shouta/yamada hizashi) is a popular fandom auto-married ship from boku no hero academia. im not a fan of erasermic either but at least it's existence hasn't left a permanent stain on the characterizations of either character. 

[10] ok so maybe zhongli could do the domesticity thing given that he's working that mundane human angle, though it would take some effort and learning and guidance. but childe? a house husband? lol. lmao. 

[11] to be specific, he's half-dragon half-qilin but everyone seems to forget the qilin part. this isn't unreasonable, given that my experience is with the english speaking part of the genshin fandom, and qilin isnt really a thing that shows up in english media. one time i was watching a cdrama with a friend and the subtitles said "he has a dragon tattoo!" and she started YELLING and we had to pause the show because it wasnt a gd dragon it was a QILIN and they are VERY DIFFERENT THINGs, and then i got a whole rant about how even a unicorn would be a closer translation than dragon and i had to look up qilin's on wiki to follow along with the rant. and thats how i know what a qilin is. 

[12] i have a visceral cringe reaction to dragons now, thanks zhongchi. from my favorite beanie baby being scorch to this, how far i have fallen 

[13] im sure the same is true for this fanon version of zhongli but i havent bothered to verify.

[14] @ chilumi shippers: ur cool, i like u, i also like ur art it's cute <3 but your fanfiction is not for me u_u 

[umbrx]

She should be careful not to become the bullied one.

[shelli-gator]

Journey Beyond Sodor goes SO FUCKING HARD I'm so autistic about this you have NO idea I'M UNWELL

James was so so good SO FUCKING GOOD AND FUNNY and he's REALLY OUT HERE looking out for his little buddy but also being so fucked off about it.

[revacholianpizzaagenda]

Püha ja õudne lõhn (Sacred and Terrible Air) chapters 15+16 summary

Chapters index - ask away for any clarification or further details!

15. MOULD

The chapter of the end times. We follow the last days of various secondary characters throughout the six years that go from the beginning of the end – the initial pale onslaught, the nuke – to global entroponetic collapse in 78. It’s a suspended atmosphere. Oblivion and annihilation are almost met with relief. Some, like Anita, come into their own in the end days, finding unexpected wellsprings of inner strength. Gessle’s subversive documentary on Hirst finds a public of fascists missing the nuance. Khan calls his mother for the last time one month after reaching Graad, saying goodbye. He will not return. Katla joins Graad in the war against Mesque; the struggle is futile, but as satire would have it, not even losing a war can take the social democracy out of Vaasa. They even become the first and last city in history to eliminate light pollution. As the world ends, they look at the stars.

The war entwines with the advance of the pale. Its arrival is heralded by fruit going mouldy.

As Ann-Margret Lund dissolves at last, she leaves no memories in the pale, there is no past for her to return to. Katla sinks into the pale.

16. ENTROPONAUT

(Monty Python voice) and now for something completely different. Present (72), Samara, collapsed Nad-Umai region. Zigi, now a washed-out husk of a man, traverses the desolate grey expanses of the near pale. But he is not alone…

21 years ago, Vaasa. In a fit of rebellion, as one does to change the world, a drunk Zigi wrecks a bus stop, fisticuffs a trash bin and throws a brick at the window of the fanciest picket fence house in the suburb: the Lund house. The girls’ father rushes out to punish the vandal and engages him in a long pursuit which, after some slapstick detours, ends with Zigi climbing to the safety of a garage roof. Then, too, he was not alone, a shadowy figure was already egging him on from the roof, inciting violence...

Present. Zigi’s past and present companion turns out to be none other than the blurred cytoplasm of Ignus Nilsen. The two have a contentious relationship, with the apocalyptic shrike now supporting, now inspiring, now suicide-baiting his ward. Zigi is trying to flee from the world. This pains Nilsen, who, despite everything, loves the world deeply. Their bickering takes on the ideological tones of a confrontation between communism and nihilism, a central tension of the book. At one point, Nilsen’s impassionate defense of communism, in its most fundamental aspect of belief in your fellow human, appears to make the pale retreat from their spot. This makes Zigi panic. The pale rolls back. Nilsen accuses the Lund girls of having been bourgeois, all girls are bourgeois, but Zigi shuts him up: they weren’t. He does not know what they were thinking, but it was something else.

Zigi threatens to make Ignus disappear if he won’t reveal something from his erstwhile, bloody retreat to Samara: why on earth did he take the Harnankur model with him? But Nilsen admits that all he says – all the tales of Mazov and his gentle soul, of the amphetamines-fueled birth of Samara SRV – can’t reach any further than what Zigi already knows...

[spacetorties]

Prime is really out there traumatizing us on all social media platforms yet refusing to pay their writers and actors so we can get a season 3

[the-kneecap-god]

boop me :plead: i wanna get those badges and max my counters