#is this coherent who knows with me

[sparkleofstardust]

in light of the recent news that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has been found dead after a helicopter crash you might be wondering 'who the hell is this guy and why are so many people celebrating his death??' and i'm here to answer that!

to fully understand what's going on we need to look into Iran's history: when the Iranian revolution in 1979 happened the authoritarian king who was ruling at that time was overthrown, but the ensuing power vacuum lead to the islamic regime seizing power and establishing Iran as an islamic republic

the following years were incredibly cruel to the Iranian people; thousands of people (especially minorities) have been protesting against the strict islamic regime leading to many being jailed, tortured and executed.

and this is where Raisi played a big part: in 1988 he was part of a committee that ordered the execution of thousands of political prisoners who were protesting the islamic regime, earning himself the title of "the butcher of tehran"

do not be fooled by what the state media wants you to believe, the Iranian people are celebrating his death. he was a cruel mass murderer who has destroyed the lives of thousands of people, his death should be used as a time to mourn for all the suffering he has caused, and bring new attention to the political prisoners still being held in Iranian prisions today

because sadly the fight is far from over. many of you have probably heard of the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini back in 2022, causing a new wave of nationwide protests and establishing the "woman, life, freedom" movement. the regime has gotten increasingly cruel in their treatment of the Iranian people, especially women, but the people of Iran are not deterred and keep fighting for a free Iran.

if you want to know how you can help, please keep talking about us. the one thing the regime hates is international attention, and in the past it has been proven that international pressure has stopped the regime from executing various political prisoners. people like Toomaj Salehi are under imminent threat of execution and spreading their names could save their lives. so whether you share social media posts or talk to your family and friends about what is happening in Iran, anything helps 🙏🏼

jin, jiyan, azadi ✌🏼

[cakeyouareoh]

The eternal question: why people think Brian Jacques’ writing of his evil and good characters had anything to do with race or racism when it was very clearly predator vs prey animals as found in Britain (also stated by Jacques himself). And if we go inside that conflict, nature vs nurture, with nature frequently winning out. (do I agree with this? not really, at least not in the context of people, but this is very specifically about animals.)

Yes I’ve heard all the arguments about the Outcast of Redwall, and I get it. There are certain plot points that could read that way if we were talking about humans, but we aren’t. No matter how much Brian Jacques dressed up these characters and made things cozy and civilized, he never forgot that under those trappings the characters he was writing were, at their core, still animals. And thus follow a basic framework of how animals behave in the wild.

Even so, despite the core of nature vs nurture with nature winning out in a couple books especially, he doesn’t write black and white characters. Frequently at least a few “good guy prey animal types” in each book turn out to be morally gray, and there’s more than several that are straight up evil (mice, hedgehogs, squirrels, water voles, and that’s just off the top of my head). While less of the predator animal characters are good, there are several notable ones that are, and even more that are just neutral. Also, nuance. Just because they live at Redwall doesn’t make a character never do something or say something wrong and misguided, and this is something (frequently) important to and mentioned in the narrative. 

Something else that is an underlying theme in almost everything Brian Jacques ever wrote (including outside of Redwall, such as the Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series), is the evils of slavery, and slaves being set free. It pops up literally everywhere. I would wager a guess that it was rather important to him. Can someone be against slavery and still write things that come off as racist? oh yeah for sure. but let me reiterate here, the core conflict in Redwall has zero to do with human (or animal) racism.

[stormyoceans]

feeling faint every time i look at this moment specifically. it's just so tender so loving so gentle. phum says peem treats him like a kid but there's just something so high romance in this small gesture to me. it's peem saying 'you've been quiet and im not sure how to deal with this side of you im not familiar with but whatever it is im here for you and i will keep you safe' and im honestly insane about it

[science-lings]

Something that I think about a lot is how Phoenix's reputation evolves, because he starts out as the kid with no friends who would stand up to him, to the puppylike college student who got acquitted of the murder of another student and immediately changed the course of his life to become a lawyer, to the guy who interns under one of the greatest defense attorneys since Gregory Edgeworth, to the guy who took over her practice and defeated the demon prosecutor in one fell swoop, the guy who took down the powerful CEO guy who literally blackmailed a bunch of people to suicide and killed a woman with his own hands to keep the truth from getting out and Phoenix went after him in his first case that he took by himself.

The guy who confronted the mafia (twice?) and was the one defense attorney to take the case of said demon prosecutor to go against another unbeatable unethical prosecutor and he did it with a parrot and a single piece of evidence. He defended the chief prosecutor and took down the corrupt chief of police and that's just the first game.

Imagine the press following this guy. You know when you attend a trial where Phoenix is the defense there's going to be some Crazy Shit going on. He will leave his current trial to interrupt another trial and he gets popular enough that someone impersonates him and to the point where an assassin blackmails him into taking a case and this motherfucker still tricks them into incriminating themselves. He exorcises a ghost who has a personal vendetta against him in court and by the end of the trilogy is really well known for the most mindblowing crazy shit and then it all comes crumbling down like two months later.

The most sensational defense attorney is dethroned and adopts his disappearing defendant's daughter and I like to think that when he gets involved with underground poker and starts toeing the line between the criminal world and the one he knows he discovers that he has a reputation there already too. You cannot tell me guy who kind of made friends with Viola Cadaverini is not on the mafia's radar at least somewhat. He got Dee Vasquez arrested and was the one guy not afraid to poke at people associated with Cadaverini, who the entire police force won't dare touch.

it just wouldn't be surprising to me if he unknowingly garnered some street cred, especially if he's seen around Kristoph and Edgeworth, a guy who calmly makes sure he never loses his cases and someone who literally has a reputation as a demon. I just think it would be so funny if people were a little afraid of beanix, just because of what he's heard about him. He's never been violent or anything, but he's dangerous in much less tangible ways. He builds a vibe around him that makes him seem kinda threatening even if there's no proof that he's ever retaliated against anyone.

He stays calm even when he's being put on trial for a murder and in the courtroom there's a feeling that everything is being played like a game to him. He should be in the most vulnerable position but he's entirely in control. He's been an undefeated poker player for seven years and no one but his daughter can even guess about what he's thinking.

Just... the outward mysterious act and infamous reputation that grows beyond Phoenix's control that makes it when he gets back into law kind of hilarious when you think about it. The guy everyone was a little nervous around in the basement of a russian bar/restaurant is now a lawyer again and the first thing he does is defend an orca. The publicity around this guy has to be insane in combination with the whispers in the shadows. It is simply funny to me.

[piracytheorist]

It's actually so very important to me that Endo made it very clear that Yor also had her own ulterior motives for marrying Loid, and that it was clear between them that it's only a marriage of convenience.

Like, to each their own, but personally it would have not clicked for me if Loid had actually tried to make Yor fall in love with him (which he did intend to do) and she did, and for her the marriage was real, even if he fell absolutely head over heels for her later on.

Again it's the thing about how strangely honest they are with each other despite their lies and secrets, but it's also... comforting, in a way. Trusting. It gives you the feeling that Yor's side will be equally as important as Loid's, if not more, that she will be given respect and agency by the narrative.

(Anime only fan here, don't spoil me for the manga)

[tiredofsatansbullshit]

bruce: that’s it, i’ve had enough. get on top of the fridge

jason: clamoring onto the fridge: this house is a FUCKING NIGHTMARE

damian: todd! is alfred up there?

jason: alfred’s doing the laundry

damian: the cat, todd. i’m asking about the cat

jason: oh, no

tim: why the fuck did you think he meant alfred the human

duke: why are we referring to him as alfred the human

tim: to distinguish

[the-siren-in-your-fridge]

Damn those pilots can sure twenty one!

[meteortrails]

zoro and nami are like if soulmates could also be two feral cats who’s favorite person locked them all in a bathroom together until they stopped trying to kill each other, yknow? they’re two people who’s MO is tough love and emotional repression trauma bonding over the experience of being loved by someone who only knows how to love people at max volume. they’re friends outside of luffy but their shared love and devotion for him is a gravitational pull that shapes their relationship. the understanding they share is one of knowing Exactly how mean and nasty and terrible the other person is capable of being, and thus also being able to look at them and say ‘you’re a heinous bitch but nonetheless this isn’t you. this isn’t something you’re capable of.’ and that specifically is so key to me bc it’s VERY different from the understanding they share w/luffy, but still presents in a similar way of making it impossible to purposefully push each other away. as impossible as their world gets, as insanely powerful as they each become, they’ll always be those two lost kids from the east blue wondering to each other how the fuck they agreed to this

[pencileraser1]

top 10 richard cameron moments i guess

man door hand hook car door

him being second to join the new dead poets society right after charlie when neil asks whos in

i love the clarinet

his and charlies relationship is really something like cameron really was following charlie everywhere the whole time acting like he didn't want to (he did) (i'm totally not reading too much into everything he does for a tumblr post (i am))

he really was just trying to keep all the poets safe like i know he did the wrong thing in the end but like. he joined the poets knowing how dangerous it was and the whole time he was pointing out the things that could go wrong and warning them about specific things and they all told him he could just not join and he did anyway and maybe i'm just reading too much into it but like. he could've stayed home. and he didn't.

when keating was whispering "carpe diem" to them and he looked at keating like wtf are you doing cause honestly he was right for that

him graphing dr. j. evans pritchard's graph with a ruler

when knox was talking about chris and he was like. damn that sucks. let me help you with trig.

"where did you get that???" about the magazine charlie brings "what are you guys doing????" about neil and todd running around their dorm

the walking exercise what keating had to say about how he was overthinking how to walk cause that was relatable

[siblingshuffle]

Sibling Shuffle: Unanswered Questions

The shading killed me for like 3 straight days 😂

You guys are great and I appreciate the love, patience, and support you guys give, but there was no way I was doing backgrounds too

—

I’m not sure if I should put a TW, so I’m playing it safe & doing so

TW: To put it simply, Tempo probably needs a hug & a long talk with her creator. To elaborate, Blues shares his concerns, and Tempo goes "wait, those are my concerns too" and, uh, isn’t coping very well

"…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you."

"No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out like that… I don’t really know where that came from…"

"It seemed like that was building for a while. …Are you alright?"

"Honestly? …I don’t know."

"…you don’t owe her your trust or forgiveness, you know."

"I…will keep that in mind." —

LORE: In the source material we do see Tempo is affected by the cave-in - she freaked out twice about possibly becoming lost or destroyed; once while sinking underwater and once in the Arctic while helping Ice Man with some research - but we didn’t really get any of the buildup to Tempo deciding to forgive Dr. LaLinde. In this AU, though, it’s… well, it’s more of a process.

This version of Tempo wants to trust Dr. LaLinde, wants to be able to get over it, but there’s some lingering doubt that make it hard for her to. And she doesn’t have very many people she can talk to about it other than Dr. LaLinde herself (which doesn’t really feel like an option to her at that time). And, knowing that the possibility of her developing PTSD or something similar was a contributing factor in the removal of her IC Chip, she’s been dealing with feeling like she can’t trust her own mother anymore and the cave-in trauma pretty much alone.

So when Blues showed up at Geoworks HQ to check on her and confessed that he was also worried about the exact same possibility, she kind-of went from being able to be like "i have this concern, but it’s based only on one past experience that she has already apologized for; I’m being unfair to feel this way" to something more like "I’m not the only one worried about this, meaning there might actually be a problem here, but I don’t know if I can talk to her about what she did to me, and I still feel bad for feeling this way because I don't feel like it’s fair to her".

…She might want to get advice from someone who isn’t the Light Family’s resident grudge-holder, though lol

(This mini character arc has at least 2 more minicomics planned for it. There will be a resolution, I promise, but it’s not for this batch of minicomics to do.)

—

Other Random Tidbits:

This isn’t the first time Blues kinda just showed up at the LaLinde residence, which is why Tempo was smiling in panel 3.

REALLY proud of the first & second panels! They were drawn using a couple panels from the comics as the references :)

I made a new digital pen to help with some of the Round Thing Shading. I think it looks pretty good, all things considered, but you’ll have to let me know.

The next one Tempo's involved in will not be focusing on her & the whole thing with Dr. LaLinde.

—

Next Up: Rescue

[thetorturedlovergirl]

OKOK HEAR ME OUT

this Yaz with this 13

[paranorahjones]

Carmen Berzatto ranking extremely high on the list of characters that I adore and relate to does not affect the fact that I LOVE every single time Sydney tells him off for literally anything. Yeah girl get his ass.

[secretmellowblog]

@breadvidence recently wrote a great bit of Les Mis meta where they pointed out how Jean Valjean’s “compliments” to Javert in Montreuil-sur-Mer really are just..... conciliatory flattery, and don't reflect his real feelings about Javert at all. And that's a great point, and something I wish more people explored! Lines like "you are a good man and I esteem you" aren't Jean Valjean's earnest feelings towards Javert. Instead they’re examples of the way Jean Valjean often retreats into excessive deferential politeness to authority as a survival strategy. As I mentioned in another recent post— Jean Valjean is a genuinely kind person, but he’s also someone who often has literally no choice but to act overly polite to authorities/the police, because if he’s not polite enough they might start to find him suspicious. If he doesn't lick their boots enough, they might start investigating him. He's instinctively deferential out of fear of violence. He's flattering out of fear. He's polite "at gunpoint." He's polite to cops the way you're polite to an armed police officer who pulls you over.

And Jean Valjean's polite tranquil behavior towards Javert during Javert's "resignation"— saying things like “you are a good man and I esteem you, I want you to keep your job” and etc etc— is later explicitly confirmed to be at least somewhat of a calculated tactical decision Jean Valjean made out of terror:

He was carried away, at first, by the instinct of self-preservation; he rallied all his ideas in haste, stifled his emotions, took into consideration Javert’s presence, that great danger, postponed all decision with the firmness of terror, shook off thought as to what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as a warrior picks up his buckler.

I love the phrase "he resumed his calmness as a warrior picks up his buckler"-- it's such a great way of summarizing how Jean Valjean's ability to have polite conversations even when he's breaking down internally has been such a useful defense mechanism for him. I also love the contrast between the excessively polite way Jean Valjean talks to Javert when he’s acting out of terror/self-preservation….vs the more honest way he talks about Javert when he’s alone during Tempest in a Skull:

“That Javert, who has been annoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have divined me, which had divined me—good God! and which followed me everywhere; that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrown off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the trail: henceforth he is satisfied; he will leave me in peace; he has his Jean Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to leave town! And all this has been brought about without any aid from me, and I count for nothing in it!”

It's just extremely funny. The contrast between “you are a good man and I esteem you” vs “that Javert, who has been annoying me so long” <3 The contrast between “you are an honest man” vs “that frightful hunting dog” <3 The contrast between “I want you to keep your job” vs Jean Valjean fantasizing enthusiastically about how hopefully Javert will leave town and never ever annoy him again. <3

It makes the “Punish Me, Monsieur le Maire” stuff even funnier. Jean Valjean is dissociating out of panic and saying whatever polite platitudes he thinks will flatter Javert....but those polite platitudes keep making Javert spiral further into long-winded deranged rants about how he dESPISES this kindness and it enRAGES him, as Jean Valjean just sits there very politely & quietly losing his mind. It’s peak comedy really.

I feel like Jean Valjean’s deeply weird thing with Javert often gets flattened in different directions, when people interpret it. Either Jean Valjean is an all-forgiving all-loving angel who thinks Javert did nothing wrong, and all of his flattery is sincere expressions of admiration—- or Jean Valjean is (like in the BBC version) the kind of violent pitiless person who would angrily order Javert to kill himself. It's rare for writers to get anything resembling the hilariously baffling ambiguous Weirdness of his relationship with Javert in the book. I think it's because adaptations often don't grasp the idea that a genuinely kind compassionate character can also (underneath it all) still be deeply tormented, broken, and angry-- and that their anger doesn't mean they're any less kind, or any less capable of pity and mercy.

[treasureplcnet]

you think i can't keep talking about karl and esther you are so wrong btw episode four timestamp 34:40 he hesitates before rubbing her back, comforting her the way a parent or guardian might. the whole tube scene is karl finally deciding he has to do this ("i'm here, and i'm not going anywhere, i promise") he still HESITATES because he knows he's probably not the right man for the job. he's the man that got her stuck in this problem in the first place. but they've only got each other and he has to try. does it hurt that the moment he finally builds this resolve and determination to leave it all behind and to actually fight for something that matters to him and admit that, even though he hasn't known her for long, he cares about this girl like she's family, esther is murdered and it totally consumes him? does it hurt that he's then framed for her death even though he just spent the last 24 hours killing and taking revenge in her name? not only because he knows he's a dead man, but also because he's out of options to do something that matters, and what else can he do with his grief other than inflict it onto others? yeah it hurts a lot actually

[obikindred]

Hi F451 tumblr. Can i go on an insane ramble. Montag is kind of just like the hound. Montag hound allegory 100…. Both because All We Put Into It is Hunting Fighting and Killing What a Shame If Thats All It Will Ever Know but ALSO i just know Beatty loves that damn hound. I can see him kneeling before it in my mind’s eye, lovingly adjusting chemical balance and making sure its joints are oiled and move comfortably, shining its exterior, cleaning its led eyes, taking it with him on jobs, slip lead held loosely around its great accordion rubber neck, giving it rats and mice to kill by hand, stroking that great chrome head with tenderness and adoration unbecoming of a man of Beatty’s status, and is Montag not his own hound? His best man? Does he not lovingly feed him books to destroy? Lies to believe? Did he not train him, build him in his own image? What love beatty feels is like how a god feels love, it’s retribution, punishment, ownership, in a way. Montag is his Hound, and does Beatty not take excellent care of his hound?

[orb-weaving]

I have not been so physically unwell about a ship as chronohaul in a long, long time.