#it was not incredibly successful

[laundrybiscuits]

(Hanahaki AU tag)

They pull out of the parking lot in a kind of nearly-comfortable silence, the radio crackling with some Heart song. It’s not Eddie’s favorite, but it’s a hell of a lot better than Madonna or the Bee Gees, so he finds himself humming along. He drums on the steering wheel a little, letting the I-43 take up all of his conscious mind for a spell. 

The road curves, and they’re out of the suburban sprawl, nothing but scrubby green trees and long gray warehouses on either side; it’s a straight shot all the way to the hazy hills on the horizon. Eddie takes a deep breath, and it’s like his lungs are expanding all the way up to the sky, like he can breathe in the slick blue heavens and the road dust being kicked up in their wake all at once, like the whole sun-baked world is flowing through him.

It’s a beautiful day, he thinks, and then scoffs at himself, at how mundane a thought it is. This could be—this is the last summer he’s ever gonna see. Every day had better be fucking beautiful. He’ll wring the beauty out of the world with his last breath.

———

They get far enough out, eventually, that the wildlife starts to look a little different. Eddie’s gotten a lot better at identifying Indiana wildflowers over the last few weeks, but he’s seeing more and more stuff he doesn’t recognize. He always sees black-eyed susans before too long, though. Seems like they grow wild pretty much everywhere he looks, like they’re following him around or something. He doesn’t stop to pick any more, even though the ones in the van—the ones not coated in spit and bile—are starting to get a little funky. It was such a dumb idea to have them around, like that would help at all.

They stop for the night in Salt Lake at a motel for once, because they really can’t go too much longer without showering, and Eddie chucks out whatever plant matter he can find in the van. Maybe he’s ruining the local ecosystem or something, but he doesn’t care.

Steve helps. He’s obviously a little bemused by this development, but he doesn't ask any questions, just fishes rotting stems out of the footwells before they head over to reception. 

The woman behind the desk is probably thirty or so, with a dirty blonde ponytail and an ankle-length skirt; she looks deeply unimpressed with two grubby young men showing up in a beater van around sunset. Too late, Eddie thinks he probably should've sent Steve in alone to work whatever vestiges of charm have survived through the funk of having slept in a van for the last few nights. Even in a pretty innocuous t-shirt, faded enough that the ACCEPT logo and tour dates are barely legible, disreputability wafts off Eddie. The long hair, the visible tattoos, and something indefinably Munson is more than enough to make the clerk's face twist like a skunk just wandered in through the door. 

"Hi," says Steve, bright and oblivious, somehow coming across as clean-cut country club despite the stubble growing in. Definitely should've sent him in solo. "Can we get a room? Two queens, if you've got 'em."

The clerk looks them up and down, taking her time about it. "You boys know where you are?"

"...Salt Lake City?" Steve looks adorably confused. "We're just passing through, ma'am."

"Might be worth passing a little faster. We don't have any vacancies right now."

Steve very obviously leans back to glance at the lit VACANCY sign outside and the utter dearth of other vehicles in the lot. "What, seriously?"

"Sign's broken," she says, cool as ice.

Eddie rubs at the bridge of his nose and pushes in, leaning his elbows on the counter. "Listen, lady, we're just. Two pals on a little roadtrip through these great United States, trying to see some nature and shit, okay? We just want a couple beds for the night, that’s all. Not looking for any trouble.”

He sees the instant the penny drops for Steve, because Steve’s face goes all flushed and scandalized and kinda mad. Eddie kicks his ankle, hard, so Steve doesn’t get all bitchy about it. 

The clerk can’t be more than ten or fifteen years older than them, but she sniffs like she’s some kind of embittered dowager empress. 

“Maybe I can find something,” she says. “But I hear even one single complaint, you two are out. No refunds.” 

"Copy that, yep, won't be anything to hear." Eddie counts out the cash quick before she changes her mind, and steers Steve back out by the shoulder, nice and neutral. 

"What the hell was that?" Steve bursts out as soon as they clear the door. "What was—"

Eddie drops his hand from Steve's shoulder and squints at the chipped number on the keychain. "You see a Room 5 around here anywhere?" 

"Eddie."

"Steve."

"I'm serious."

"So'm I. Gotta pull the van around once we find it."

Steve subsides grumpily, folding his arms and peering around in the growing dusk for the door numbers. The lingering glow of the blood-orange horizon picks out the contours of his face in a hundred warm caresses, brushing copper along his cheekbones and igniting molten honey in the depths of his eyes.

Eddie will say this for Utah: it sure does have some pretty sunsets.

[inkskinned]

the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.

women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.

what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.

i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.

fuck, man. write better material.

a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.

god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.

this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.

we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.

i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -

it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.

[lungthief]

main cast of succession in interviews: yeah i’ve really loved getting to delve into this character and working with all these incredible people, this show is just so amazing and i’m so sad to be leaving

supporting cast of succession in interviews: oh my character? gay. really fuckin gay. me and the 20 year olds who make taylor swift edits on twitter decided so

[demigods-posts]

luke fumbling in recruiting percy has to be one of his greatest failures. a beautiful thing the show does regarding luke and percy's relationship is building rapport between them through shared moments like settling into camp, eating meals together, but especially through swordfighting lessons. the swordfighting scene at the beginning of episode 8 not only reveals that percy and luke already share similar beliefs about the fear-based system the gods have cultivated, but it's clear the conversation stays with percy when he fights ares and later calls out zeus on his waning skills as a father and a king. however, luke's plan fell through the moment percy learned that the winged-shoes were meant to drag him to tartarus. not only that, but the shoes nearly killed grover, a friend percy cared for deeply. if nourishing loyalty and trust was the key to ensuring a partnership with percy, then it was luke's faulty planning, arrogance, and impatience that cost him the greatest ally he could ask for.

[cherryzlem]

Little personal analysis of Phoenix Wright's obsessive character (+savior complex as a treat):

HOW DO PEOPLE NOT REALISE HOW FUCKED UP IN THE HEAD PHOENIX WRIGHT IS ??? His relationship with Dahlia is such a good exemple of it and yet people act as if Dahlia is the only crazy one. SHE'S NOT !! Phoenix is obsessive when he's in love, it shows with Dahlia. He believes her to be so innocent and just thinks she's pure and fragile, and people don't find it weird that he finds this attractive ??? HE STARTED DATING HER FROM DAY ONE FFS !? He just instantly obsesses over Dahlia it's crazy, and wanna know the worst part ? He does the same with Miles.

Get this, Phoenix knew him for less than a year and decided to forge his entire legal career for him. I know on surface level it might seem cute and haha gay but that's so fucking weird ?! The moment he lost Dahlia he instantly changed directions, aiming to reunite with his chilhood friend because he thought he could save him from being sad (a thing he assumed just from a journal on top of that). Phoenix had planned day 1 to be Miles's savior and he stuck with it.

It feels so weird to deeply analyse Phoenix like that because I love him, he's our beloved main character, he's funny and I love reading fluffy narumitsu fics but god he is so terribly fucked up it gets scary if you think about his savior complex too hard 😭

[theoldkyokodied]

most recent tomgregs ft. one mini comic of a convo i had with @urban-barbarian about tomshiv running away together, new zealand sheepfarmer style (they are as bad at it as you'd expect) making them a bad selfmade wine and ugly ill-fitting sweaters that tom knits couple, and of course greg shows up to mooch off of them. So he gets a sweater too :) The dialogue i used in the pics is written by them, Kath is just incredible in getting their voices right <333

[milktea-grn]

wounded animal

[jellojolteon]

Now that you've made it to the autumn of

Your years and you feel your best yet

-The Bottom of It, Fruit Bats

Izuocha week 2024 Day 6: Cycle/Miracle

[siobhroy]

non succession mutuals scrolling through their dash for the next 24 hours

[satturn]

long live the king. and the other king.

[atlas-dr0wned]

when i was a kid i used to think i really understood beatlemania and why everyone was so crazy about them, but it turns out i’m just autistic

[tenaclty]

I. AM. AFRAID!

pov you wanted to have a heart to heart but you forgot the hunter you have a crush on is also a viking berserker (went well, all things considered)

[lumiology]

i forgot how delightful it feels to finish an episode of succession. like the adrenalines high and i’m psyched for the next episode - but it also completely warps my train of thought. i’m trying to fit a huge ass tub of tomato sauce in the fridge and i’m saying shit like, “is this the best deal? am i getting fucked here?” i can hear nicholas britell’s epic melodies while i’m counting meatballs.

[laddertek]

etho still living for that sweet sweet tango death

[shesnake]

ewan out here with the temerity to say all this while he lives on the blood money

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)