#none of this is your fault

[teknikolor-walters]

the urge to overshare on the internet vs. the fear of being a burden to my friends and worrying yall

[calmmyfears]

it doesn't matter what i achieved during the week or how sick i feel, if my kitchen is dirty i'll get so angry at myself and i will not stop beating myself up until it's clean again.

[commissionsdarian]

My younger brother is a very slow learner and while i understand and habe always been ready to help him, my parents are expecting too much of me. Instead of getting him any kind of tuition despite me personally finding some good ones for him (the problem is NOT money) they insist i teach him the entire syllabus! It's been going on from December last year. I spend 4 hours EVERY WORKING DAY and 8 hours every holiday on him. He himself is quite abusive - hits me and curses me and says the most atrocious things to me. I have college of my own!! Not to mention how headache inducing it is to teach him. I can't Jesus Christ. I performed so horribly last semester i still get nightmares worrying about the result. And when i say anything my mother curses me and says i am a free loader. I am 19 , i have to build my own career i cannot i still don't know what i will do when the result comes out i am just going to jump in front of a car and end it all.

Ugh fuck, yeah, had something almost like this when I was younger. First things first, get it through your head that none of this is your responsibility. You've already gone out of your way to find tutors. You're 19 and should be living your own life, this is not your kid, not your responsibility.

You're going to want to find every opportunity to get out the house. Obviously your family isn't respecting that you've got your own studying to do, so I doubt you could stay in the house with that excuse. It might be anxiety inducing to lie to your family at this point because of their behaviour. Don't be put off. This is your independence.

I'm guessing that since you're at college, living at home and tutoring your brother, that you don't have a job. Need to fix that as soon as possible. Not only is it a great excuse, you'll also be needing that financial independence.

Obviously, if you manage to get a job, save as much as you can and get any accommodation you can. It can be useful to sort out a living situation with a friend(s), so that you're not suddenly on your own, and you have multiple incomes to help with accomodation. At the point where you're independent, it's completely up to you if you want to cut ties with your family. You owe them nothing.

[bet-on-me-13]

Unknown, the Wandering Hero

So! We all know the typical Vivisection AU, right? Danny is revealed to his parents and they take it in all the wrong ways. They capture him, Vivisect him, and eventually he manages to escape with the help of his friends.

But what about his Rouges?

Sure, we all like to think of some of the more friendly ones like Ember, or Sydney, or Johnny 13 and Kitty, but he has WAY more Evil Rouges than good ones.

Without Danny there to reign them in, the Rouges spread out across the world to fulfill their obsessions, unhampered by the Heroes and Villains of the world that have no means to fight them.

And Danny? He feels responsible. He was the one to open the Gate, he was the Sacrifice, the one to let them through. And when the going got tough he just up and left? No, that won't do.

His Obsession is Protection for a reason, and nothing has changed. All he needs to do is expand his area of focus a little.

Danny, after healing up, starts wandering the world in search of the Ghosts who have escaped into the Mortal Realm. He battles all of his old foes, as well as many new ones who he hadn't met before.

His travels take him far and wide.

He defeats Skulker in Metropolis, as he is trying to hunt down the Super Family for their pelts. They are the last of their race after all, so he is inclined to try and hunt them. Honestly dealing with Skulker was easy, dealing with the Rich Asshole who was funding him was a nightmare.

He chases down Spectra in Gotham as she tries to feed on the misery of an entire City. (Thanks to @impyssadobsessions for the idea, this Prompt specifically). She is actually a very tough fight, especially powered by both the Misery of an Entire City as well as his Own Misery, but he manages.

He defeats Technus is Central City, as he tries to Raid Star Labs for their advanced Tech. It actually took a while to beat him after he amped himself with all that Power, and he did need help from the Local Hero to deal with him. He's just thankful Technus is one of the more "Harmless" ones.

After every Victory, he sends them back to the Realms using the Banishing Spell that Sam taught him a while back (the only bit of magic he ever really managed to master).

He knows they'll eventually find their way back out, but it's all he can do anymore. It's his eternal Punishment for unleashing them out into the World in the first place. He was the Catalyst for this Situation, now he was tasked with Fixing it, no matter how long it took.

...

The Justice League is caught in a tricky situation a the moment.

In the past few months, they have been encountering more and more of these Extra Dimensional Beings known as Realms Ghosts across the World.

Justice League Dark has had some success in battling them, but even they are getting tired of having to deal with every single incident alone.

They did get approached by a Government Agency known as the Ghostly Investigation Ward that seemed to want to help, but it didn't take long to realize that their main Aim was to Genocide the entire Race. The JLA had quickly cut ties after realizing that, and took what little Tech and Information they had been able to gather.

Still, it wasn't easy to deal with these Entities.

Thankfully, they have had some outside help. An Unknown Being has been routinely showing up whenever a Realms Ghost appears and defeating them, before using a (as described by Constantine) "Rudimentary Banishing Spell held together by willpower and luck" to send them back to their home Dimension. There's honestly no way it should be functional, but he did make it work either way.

They don't know much about this Unknown, aside from the fact that he seems to be the only one able to consistently damage the Realms Ghosts. His Powerset leads them to belive he may be from the same Dimension, or at least drawing his power from the same Source, but as he actively avoids the League and takes every opportunity to not talk to them, they know they aren't getting any answers any time soon.

Over the past few months, they had affectionately started referring to him as Unknown, creative they know, because they could never get his Real Name. Sure, some of the Realms Ghosts seemed to recognize him, but they always called him stuff like "Whelp" and "Punk" and "Usurper", which were not very good names to use when referring to him. Although the last one was a bit concerning.

They had only managed to trade a few quick words with Unknown in the past few months, but it was enough to get the Gist of it. He was just doing his job, sending the Realms Ghosts back where they belonged. There was apparently a Tear in Reality letting them through, but he seemed hesitant to reveal what he knew about it.

After a few months of sparse interactions, they eventually managed to convince him to at least take an Emergency Communicator. Just in case. They even let him take it apart to look for any Tracking Devices, which earned them a small bit of trust. They took whatever wins they could.

Fortunately, it seemed he never did need it. In fact he was getting more and more efficient with every battle, defeating his foes in half the time it would have taken before.

Unfortunately, it didn't last forever. One day, the Communicator went off, a distorted voice quickly saying, "Need backup, some of them decide to Team Up" before cutting out.

They quickly rushed to his location, finding an active battlefield with no less that a dozen Ghosts battling Unknown. And he seemed to be on the ropes.

With their arrival, the combined force of the Justice League and Unknown eventually managed to defeat the Group of Ghosts. Justice League Dark volunteered to work on the Banishing Spells while the others cleaned up the damage from the Battle.

One of them approached Unknown to make sure he was ok, and froze.

During the battle, Unknown's Mask had been Torn off, and they could finally see the face of the Hero they had been working with for the past few months.

And he was a Child.

[chaos-potat]

You chose friendship reassurance

Next

[tarisilmarwen]

"Thrawn only joined the Empire to help the Chiss!"

Okay sure but have any of you bothered to self-examine why Thrawn chose to join the Empire instead of, say, the Republic, when that was still around? Or why he didn't chose to throw in with the Rebellion, put his tactical mind to use helping them overthrow the Empire quicker?

Could it be... perhaps... that maybe he values the Empire's military strength... more than he cares about the authoritarian tyranny with which it oppresses its own people?

Is it possible that he thinks the Empire's main problem is that it isn't effective enough, too much politicking getting in the way of sound strategy, but if he's around (and in charge) he can guide things so that those annoying little wrinkles (AKA the pockets of discontent and rebellion and fully justified anger at their rights and freedoms being trampled on) are all smoothed out and the overall Imperial machine is better, more in control of its assets, a stronger more unified bulwark against the outergalactic threat of the Grysk or the Vong or whatever.

Is it perhaps just a bit self-centered of him to only care about the Empire's ability to service his own goals and desires and be apathetic (at best) to the way it makes people suffer daily under its inherent systems? The Twi'leks and Wookies being constantly kidnapped and sold into slavery? The careless industrialization of arboreal worlds? The socialization and absorption of all private industry, forcing everyone to work through and with the Empire if they want to work at all? The systematic persecution of anyone remotely Force Sensitive? Is it not the mark of some kind of soul rot to be aware of all of that and go, "Yeah, but I don't care, they have the bigger guns, which is what I need."?

Maybe... just maybe... Thrawn has some Machiavellian tendencies and opinions and maybe this just might... make him not entirely a good person?

And maybe y'all should think about that before you come back and whine about his portrayal as a villain, as if all he has to do is explain to people that he did everything for a good reason and he gets an automatic narrative pardon for all of the shit he did while Grand Admiral that still needs to be addressed and answered for.

[whetstonefires]

I think a part of the reason I feel so connected to JGY and XY is that I, too, think everyone is lying about what a good person they are. Sure, there may be a few genuinely good people, but those are in the minority and never claim the title.

I don't know about never; some people are pretty straightforward.

And in some ways the whole point of the concept of 'a good person' is that the feeling of losing the right to consider yourself one can impose instinctive recoil from doing wrong, in situations where you don't have the leisure of working your way through an ethics diagram and choosing the logically moral path before reacting to a situation. It has practical utility.

But that system can backfire pretty horribly too, in a lot of ways. It can be hijacked by definitions of 'good' that actually make you recoil from ethical acts because they're deviant. It can lead to disappearing up your own ass lmao.

And definitely the threshold for 'talking about how you're a good person' enough that it makes you suspect as either a) a liar or b) someone who values that self-image over objective reality and other people's wellbeing is. Not very high.

Jin Guangyao, ironically, is one of those people who's so performatively A Good Person in his public life that in retrospect it looks like a red flag. Which knowing this about himself in an ongoing fashion ofc just reinforces his own cynicism about everyone else lmao.

Even Lan Xichen, who I think he may see as a genuinely good person, he also sees as an easy mark who will reliably choose what is comfortable over what is 'right,' if you just structure the scenario to make that an easy choice that's easy for him to justify.

Xue Yang's bitterness is in many ways more exciting than Jin Guangyao's because he has a way more unusual relationship to reality, but it does share a lot of notes.

The role of deception in his psychology fascinates me because as far as I can tell he's as instinctively straightforward a person as Lan Wangji, albeit along quite different lines involving a total lack of impulse control, but has adopted 'deceit' as a weapon against the wicked world in the same way he has adopted 'murder.'

But when he feels someone is not merely lying but papering over bad behavior with principles they are not living up to he is livid.

People claiming to be better than him because they're 'good' when 'good' is a construct of privilege, is the underlying idea he's not equipped to articulate. Except he takes that and applies it to 'hitting me to interrupt my random murder of some guy who happened to be within arm's reach when I wanted to hurt someone.'

Which isn't like philosophically perfect, but the underlying problem he's actually reacting to is that he understands the social contract as a lie that has never protected him but seeks to control him, while protecting rich men it has no power to control.

Which it is fair to be mad about, but then his feeling is that since that's the nature of the world and all people, he is entitled to amass for himself the power to inflict hurt without consequences as much as he possibly can, and to use it against the vulnerable for fun, and no one is entitled to interfere.

Which brings him to a place where he is violently angry at anyone talking about trying to treat other people well as a value, because either they're a hypocrite and a liar or they threaten his entire system of rationalization for why he can be The Worst and still In The Right.

'Everyone is equally bad, actually' is like, an understandable take for anyone who's had cause to become embittered. Everyone is free to make whatever philosophical peace they can with the world and by and large there's no ethical weight to any such opinion, in itself.

But it's an ideological crutch people tend to wind up leaning on very heavily when they can't or don't want to take responsibility for their own behavior.

Which is an approach that Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao, and Su She all share, and which not only is shitty of them, it...traps them in a wheel of doubling down on their own worst impulses because rather than going 'that was bad and I shouldn't do it again' they've repeatedly invested all this energy into making what they did actually the correct thing, according to their interpretation of the context. Which means they're more likely to do it again.

(I think this is how Jin Guangyao became a serial killer, for example. He followed a doing-a-murder-impulse and then internally doubled down on how he had nothing to be ashamed of, so he was more likely to do it again, every time.

Wei Wuxian's strain of self-righteousness about his revenge was less...thorough than Jin Guangyao's, because he had the benefit of going after people on the opposite side of a war from him while Meng Yao's first known murder plot was against a shitty boss. But it probably didn't help him not try to solve army-shaped problems with mass murder, even after that stopped being allowed.)

If any of them had just like, zero moral sensibilities they would have created very different problems, and very possibly fewer of them. It's making a central goal of your operations 'self-vindication in your own internal narrative, created retroactively via reframing' rather than 'figuring out what I think I should do and trying to do that' that traps them in the self-reinforcing murder pissbaby vortex.

So if you look at it one way, these three villains are themselves perfect examples of how pursuit of the 'feeling of being good' (or at least 'not the bad guy') can make you worse.

Notably Wei Wuxian was also extremely sensitive to hypocrisy in his youth; it was the only part of Madam Yu's behavior he was ever shown objecting to. But he's sufficiently mellow and cynical from regret and burnout by the 'present' timespan after his resurrection to just get disgusted and alienated about it, rather than outraged.

He wasn't even all that mad at Xue Yang, though honestly that may be partly because he stopped entirely characterizing him as a person at some point during their interaction. Like, there's no point being angry at someone whose moral sensibilities operate exclusively on the plane of 'is this unfair to me' for manipulating and destroying people who were good to him, and then getting obsessed with his own self-pity about it. This is not a person who understands how not to be, metaphorically speaking, a cannibal.

And Wei Wuxian did know better and still got roughly the same result, so what business does he have getting angry?

Anyway yeah those two villains are both delightfully relatable if you sit down and put their perspectives together; they are clearly operating with the same basic suite of human needs and emotions as everybody else, without that being in itself particularly exculpatory, which is honestly refreshing. They've just got the most fantastically toxic interpersonal habits that knowing them counts as some level of Suffering A Curse.

Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang do both stand as scathing rebukes of the society that created them. But within the narrative, wherein they're people, the fact is that each of them had agency and one of the things they chose to do with it was develop rationales for why they were the most special little guy and everything was someone else's fault.

And their moral nihilisms, while also grounded in serious trauma, ping me as emotional masturbation of this variety.

[glowsticcc]

phil telling chayanne that em lost a life and just seeing chay go still and stare at the ground

phil saying he blames himself and chay backing up and shaking his head but looking so distraught and still staying silent

chay crawling into his papas bed just for some minuscule bit of comfort

[pocketramblr]

It's all my fault

[natashatrace]

hi, writing is hard right now, so this is much more of a not!fic but!! enjoy this exploration of the cyclone&rooster&maverick of it all pre/during/post tgm. <3

//

somewhere in my head right now, there's a short story exploring the past relationship of cyclone & rooster before, during, & after tgm.

rooster going through top gun for the first time and cyclone taking an interest, sensing the anger and the grief wrapped around rooster like a cloud he can't shake. cyclone knows it's crippling the kid in ways that rooster doesn't even realize. cyclone also knows about the history, right -- he was only two years behind mav at top gun, so he remembers the stories of the RIO that died during a training exercise. probably remembers all the rumors that flew, too.

after an exceptionally rough day during top gun, cyclone speaks to rooster one-on-one and slowly, it becomes a regular thing. one-on-one conversations, cyclone checking in on the kid throughout hops and classroom instruction. maybe cyclone gets teased by another instructor for having a favorite and cyclone denies it (poorly).

and then the awards ceremony happens, rooster & the rest of his class become graduates, and cyclone finds rooster sitting alone at the reception. rooster's a few drinks deep, buzzed enough to explain how he thought not getting to go to the academy was what had made him so angry all this time. but now that he's here at top gun, now that he's made it and is one of the best pilots of his generation, he's realized it wasn't about the academy at all. it was about finding out that maverick, his fiercest supporter, didn't actually believe in him. it was about being told he wasn't good enough despite the fact that he's clearly good enough.

(of course, we know that maverick believes in that kid and was just acting on his own fear/carol's wishes. but rooster doesn't know that. cyclone certainly doesn't know that.)

cyclone continues keeping in touch with the kid after that. keeps tabs on him. maybe iceman finds out and tries to casually bring up rooster in a conversation, but cyclone makes it clear he won't be gossiping about the kid so maverick can find out because "that is your real goal here, isn't it, sir?"

(it makes iceman grin. he and cyclone develop a relationship of mutual respect. they don't ever talk about rooster. iceman gets maverick out of trouble all the time. cyclone doesn't understand why.)

//

when cyclone finally meets the infamous maverick, he's already not a fan. he sees this man as a selfish, arrogant pilot that can't step aside to make room for anyone that could knock him off this pedestal. when he asks maverick, "is that how goose's son sees it?" it's intended to provoke him deliberately. cyclone's heard all the stories from rooster about how maverick wasn't at fault, but he also wonders if rooster only believes that because maverick drilled it into his head so many times.

he knows rooster being one of the recalled graduates is going to be a problem. and yet.

(also, there's something so interesting about how similar cyclone & rooster's ideas for the mission parameters are. rooster wanting to fly the mission more slowly than maverick (bc he's stubborn, bc he doesn't want to take instruction from the man that tried to keep him from getting here, etc etc etc). and tHEN, lo & behold, cyclone changing the mission parameters so that they all have more time to reach the target just like rooster demonstrated that first day. are they both trying to do the opposite of maverick, yes, but are they ALSO trying to do the same thing bc their styles of flying are similar and that's why cyclone's taken a liking to rooster? who could say for sure. insert the 'i've connected the dots' post).

//

rooster's angry after the bird strike & wants to know why maverick stood in his way. maverick says "you weren't ready" and rooster wants to hear him say it -- pushes maverick to say that he didn't believe in rooster, but maverick doesn't say it bc that isn't why.

(rooster flips it. does it for him. "i won't make the same mistake.")

//

cyclone goes from "they know the risks, all of these pilots accept that" to "get them home, now." and it's an incredible journey, right -- it's maybe one of my favorite things about the film. cyclone warring with what he has to do as an officer in charge versus what he wishes he could do in order to keep his own people safe.

but with this whole pre-canon journey in mind, cyclone trusting maverick to be team leader takes on a whole new Thing. he's trusting maverick to pick the right team, to pick the right wingman, and to complete the mission. that mission now includes getting everyone home. it includes getting rooster home.

maybe he's realizing that maverick is the best chance at that.

//

cyclone glancing over to rooster fearfully when maverick picks him for his wingman. cyclone's voice breaking when he says there's nothing rooster can do for maverick, not in a goddamn f-18. cyclone exhaling heavily when rooster gets shot down going back for maverick. cyclone's stunned reaction when the f-14 is located with rooster in tow.

//

i like to think that after the mission, cyclone does his duties of going through debriefs and meetings and checking in on everyone, and then he goes to the medical wing to see maverick. he's Professional about it and Awkward As Fuck about it, but he thanks maverick for serving his country and, more quietly, for getting everyone home.

maverick, always more perceptive than the fucker has any right to be -- "i was getting bradshaw home one way or another, sir. i know you know that."

"yes, captain. i do."

he still doesn't like maverick much. but he's grateful.

and then he goes to check in on rooster. he's just as Professional and just as Awkward (bc i think that's cyclone's default setting when there is any chance of Emotion).

(see: turned to face the window like a doofus while he monologued about picking mav for team lead. someone make a comparison gifset of cyclone at the window & hilary duff at the window in the 'come clean' music video.)

he, again, thanks rooster for his service and tells the kid he's glad to see him back in one piece. and then, breathing out a dramatic sigh --

"fuckin' maverick, huh?"

and rooster snorts, wiping a hand tiredly over his face. "god, i know. guess i'll have to find someone else to complain about now."

"oh, don't worry," cyclone huffs, shaking his head. "i think you'll still have plenty to complain about with him around, lieutenant."

[romantichore]

lady d's "what have you done to my daughters?" line lives in my head absolutely rent free. I go on youtube to watch it/listen to it and make the mistake of taking a peek at the comments: one person praises the characterization and acting. I agree. a whole bunch of, I presume, dudes reply that actually she is not a good mother at all and clearly she doesn't love them because lol they're not even her real daughters what are you smoking

it was a beautiful moment. I don't think I had ever felt the urge to cringe and whisper stupid man-thing under my breath so much as I did after reading those. bonding moment with lady d and daughters achieved 🤝

[pkmoth]

having swap au thoughts. *slaps roof of claus* there's so much mental illness in this guy. im gonna blow up everyone in the room and then myself

[thestarkster1465]

Haven't been following the James Somerton drama closely but it's become so ridiculous that it's funny

Is no one going to talk about the fact that he said that he thought it was okay for him to mention Vito Russo in the opening credits and then never mention him again because his book was out of print and Russo was dead....

And then in the same breath say that he was 'extending Russo's legacy' like my brother in Christ do you even hear yourself-

[queencaramilflinda]

Everyone during neverafter 15: oh my god these social interactions are going horribly they’re all doing so bad!

Me, neurodivergent and cannot read social cues: idk mostly these seem fine

[thegreatyin]

honestly there's a non-zero chance the scoundrel is just. studying the discordance out of spite?? which. is probably not the ideal mindset to have when approaching an eldritch forbidden language dealing with nonexistence and letting go. but ive never once said the scoundrel does things in a healthy or even particularly normal way

[bitchapalooza]

I want Viva to yell at Peppy and make him feel soooo fucking BAD for abandoning her and the others, I want her to heal, I want her cry to get the pain out, I want Peppy to feel the pain she felt, I just want Viva to get closure.