#not by the confines of the show

[forestofsprites]

i'm at 33 bastardly pages of notes from my research this afternoon, and the absolute best that i have to show for it is my desperation to explore cas's confession and death through the lens of death sentence speeches & subsequent executions in 17th/18th century england!!!!!!!!

[sergle]

(re: sssniperwolf and jacksfilms) It's laughable that she escalated it that hard. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure stalking him like that is illegal and it's terrifying regardless, but Jack said in a stream (can't remember which one) that he wasn't about bringing up past controversies of hers or cancelling. And now she shows up outside his house (wtf!!!). Like he was willing to only call her out for stealing and freebooting but she's gone and stalked him and Jack doesn't seem like the type of guy to take that shit. Actual WTF moment from her part. wild

omg long post below bc apparently I have opinions: YES!! THAT'S WHAT'S SO INCREDIBLE ABOUT THIS... Jack has been genuinely diligent about keeping things on-topic in his streams, and hasn't brought up any of her other Stuff, or anything Personal. Despite the fact that she kickstarted the whole thing by making it INCREDIBLY personal and attacking his physical appearance... His goal has been to call out and bring attention to content theft, and he's stuck with it. Dude's also cared about this for years, and she's not the first content thief he's criticized. He just hates the way that freebooting has become so accepted-- to the point where youtube praised her for "coming up with such creative video ideas"? Hey! Ew! Dude wasn't trying to get her cancelled though, there was no smear campaign of her character. He's been rallying to get her to CREDIT the creators that she relies on for all of her content. It would set a precedent for all other "react" channels on the platform for one of the biggest channels on youtube to actually give credit where credit is due. Or, god forbid, get permission first? It's not hard. It's already done the job of making some other people who do "react content" self-analyze whether or not their content is transformative, and to maybe care about crediting the creators they rely on for their genre to work. There is a way to make this kind of video that isn't so slimy. And making fun of her lackluster-at-best reactions is so far from even being a big deal. Bc she literally does just sit there and say nothing. Plus, his goal has a clear End built into it: if she started shouting out the creators she takes content from, and put links directly to their pages in her video descriptions, the job would be done! That's what he's asking her to do. Real bare minimum stuff. It legit would have been easy to steer away from the content theft and to also talk about her history of lying to her audience! her ghosting a dying kid with cancer who was a big fan of hers! the fact that she's been arrested for armed robbery! her history of transphobia! He would also get more clicks that way, which is what she claims is his sole goal- to get more clicks. I'll bring it up though! She's been a terrible person the whole time, and has kept a steady course of manipulating her audience of young children and/or, let's be completely honest, simps- into thinking that she's a Wholesome creator. (And now, into thinking she's an innocent victim.) All of the actual effort put in by her has gone toward optics, not the content she puts out. A carefully constructed online persona, for one, but also literal appearances. Jack totally can't say this, bc she already went off the handle and said the only reason he doesn't like her is bc he Hates To See A Woman Be Successful. But I can! That was a cheap shot for her to use that argument when, for once, it's not applicable! Much the opposite, even! Dudes online wouldn't go to bat for her if she didn't look the way she does. And it weakens any case she'd have against him by making baseless claims like that. She banks hugely on being an attractive woman to get her clicks/following. A massive amount of effort is put into her appearance. The makeup, the lip fillers, putting her hair in little pigtails, the chokers and tube tops, the big non-prescription Nerd Glasses, the thumbnails where she has her mouth open in That Expression?

I don't even have to say anything. But making a weird facial expression and putting your hair in pigtails aren't moral failings. Showing up at someone's real life home (whose address you shouldn't even have access to), filming the front of their house at night, doxxing them to your audience of millions of people? Because you were mad at them online? That is fully scary! Yeah girl I'm pretty sure that Jack can press charges! There is absolutely no way to take the moral highground now that she's literally stalked him, and doxxed his home. She tried to goad him and Erin (Jack's wife) out of the house, also, which creeps me out even more-- because what was she planning to do? The fact that she's been arrested for violent crime before does pop into my mind! lmao! Jack was streaming a game at the time that she was outside his home, and these clips of him, his friends, and Erin reacting in real time to what is genuinely a scary situation have been taken down in case he needs to use them in legal action. Shit is legitimately serious!

[trans-axolotl]

reading writing from other people who have also survived solitary confinement (in so many different places, prisons + institutions + more) and sometimes the grief overwhelms me. i feel such a strong connection through the page--they put words to this swirling mess of emotions that lies under my skin when i think back to those weeks. they've found a way to talk about what it does to you and what you become and what it's like to try to come back to the world afterwards. i still can't speak about most of it. some days i wake up panicking because my door is shut; I'm glad my walls are thin and my roommate plays music slightly too loudly at night--it's easier to fall asleep when i know she's there.

this quote: "I am filled with the sensation of drowning each and every day."

and this one: "When he walked out of the SHU, he saw his first tree in 12 years."

and this one: "Solitary confinement is a living death. Death because it is the removal of nearly everything that characterizes humanness, living because within it you are still you. The lights don’t turn out as in real death. Time isn’t erased as in sleep…"

(from shane bauer reporting on solitary confinement in California: x)

i don't have words for the kind of rage i feel when i think about all the people being tortured in solitary right now and every single fucking day; loved ones + activist acquaintances + people i have never met. i want to start breaking things. i want to tear it all down. some days i feel so incredibly guilty that i saw the leaves fall outside today--how is it that i get that and she's still in there. there are no words.

[randomalistic]

what do you think they’re trying to say here

(touches him)

(ties him up) (touches him)

(Smirks at him)

(Towers over him shirtless)

I think they were BEST platonic & hetero friends before the events of the movie what do you think

[fayevalcntine]

Positioning Louis as the "Edwardian wife who becomes trapped by her husband" in a literal sense does no justice to analyzing his actual place and role as a Black man in his society and in his relationship with Lestat. Any interpretation or analysis you do of him when it comes to their relationship cannot be stripped of the racial aspect because it's constantly there. Texts analyzing Edwardian wives (and particularly ones this fandom loves to bring up) typically were white and the dissection of their place in societal rules are always viewed from the aspect of gender that is within these texts only allowed to white women, but never to Black men or even Black women. And gender and race become inseparable when you discuss the latter, no matter how people may view it.

This is why I can't take this approach to analyzing Louis' story seriously because if you don't consider the racial aspect in his relationship even to himself and his sexuality, what's the point? You're still centering the standards that were more placed upon white male/female couples than you're willing to look into the unique structure of Black families, religion, their view of homosexuality and how that sooner heavily influences Louis than the family's "need" for him to be sold off to an Edwardian husband. Even in Louis' own story, him and Claudia being Black is more centered on than any demeaning "housewife" comment he tries to go against from Claudia's perspective. She makes that comment once, whereas we have at least two episodes from Louis' perspective that have very blatant hints and showings of the racism he still suffers from under the Jim Crow era and how it affects his self-worth as well as his relationship with Lestat who doesn't seem to take into consideration how any of the blatant racial aggressions and objections still affect Louis and what he considers to be important to achieve in his own life.

Then there's also the pointed topic of Louis' position as a Black man who is a pimp to the Black women he has as sex workers, as well as how his position as a Black father affects Claudia, another Black girl. If you insist on Louis being centered as this "Edwardian white wife" who is confined by his implicit gender in his marriage, where does that leave Claudia and the blatant misogyny and disrespect she gets from both him and Lestat? Lestat who is her white father abuses her. Positioning Louis within the strict confines of "being her mother" doesn't do her any favors because he didn't hesitate to choke her when he was deeply emotionally distressed, nor does it make him look any better when he's fine with chopping up her diaries and then delivering them on a silver platter so that Daniel, another white man, can read and dissect. Even if he does this under the sole pretense of "doing right by her", how does it in any way help when he also can't face up to his failures towards her?

[revvethasmythh]

Still, as always, thinking about how Veth's story is such a complex look at womanhood and motherhood and what it means to be a woman and a mother who wants things. Because Veth's story is about wanting, just as much as it's about learning to be brave. Veth presumably comes from a very traditional small town, married her (effectively) high school sweetheart when she was quite young and had a child almost immediately, which, while based on love, might also have been an effort to fit in and become an independent adult in her town, away from the mockery of her brothers. The things people in town didn't like about her were her strangeness and her collections of bits and bobs and oddities. The shiny things that she wanted. In some ways, that was the wedge between her and her community, the strangeness of how she desired things and wantonly kept them. Even marrying and having a kid so young could be an extension of this. Veth wants things and strives to get them

All of that in heightened after she's turned into goblin. It becomes "the itch" to steal and to horde shiny, beautiful things, which is particularly poignant considering how ugly she finds herself, even uglier than she thought of herself when she was still a halfling. She wants to surround herself with beautiful things. She wants to help Caleb. She wants to be her again. She wants.

And it's okay for Nott the Brave to want things, because Nott the Brave exists outside of social contracts. She's already a monster--there's no need to pretend to fit in. It's freeing, to be able to want things as much as you want and people won't bat an eye. As much as she hated that body, she loved the freedom it gave her. The freedom to be transgressive in a way she was unable to be as Veth Brenatto. Because, much as she loves her family, isn't being a woman and mother something of a cage to her? Those labels put her in specific boxes, they determine how she should behave. So much of later development hinges on these questions: "What does it mean to be a good woman in this society? What does it mean to be a good mother?" She is SO hard on herself for not being with Luc enough, which is absolutely understandable, but she also wants this life of adventure. Does that make her a bad person? A bad mother? To want something that isn't her family?

And then Caleb. Probably the most unfortunate thing she wants, something she knows she can never have. Because she has Yeza and she loves him and he's her husband. They have a social contract that she must abide by. But Caleb's right there and she wants him. Does that make her a bad woman? Does that make her a bad wife? It's just one more thing that makes her different from her peers, her inability to be content with what she already has. And, at the end of the day, I think this is what we should think of when we talk about Veth's relationship with motherhood and womanhood. How transgressive it is for her to so deeply desire when clearly, from the way she grew up and the messages she internalized, it wasn't a woman's place to want more than she was afforded, nor was it a mother's.

[pcktknife]

idgaf what lauren faust say earth pony pinkie>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>pegasus pinkie FOREVER

[lesbiangiratina]

[ineadhyn]

Astarion's time in the tomb

And whilst I am at it, here is a more serious short drabble about Astarion's time in the tomb and the day he finally got out. It was probably not as euphoric as one would expect

Inspired by a post about Astarion and the effects of solitary confinement that I can't find anymore.

It's safe for work and not too graphic, but shows the mental damage quite drastically so continue if you feel safe with that. (Ha, I finally figured out how to make cuts)

Light fell onto the fragments of his consciousness. His mind was a disjointed swirl of thoughts and images that no longer made sense and hadn't found connection for a long time. A scraping of stone on stone accompanied the light and with it came voices. Astarion had heard them too many times. They were never real. Nothing was real. Not the faces in the darkness, not the voices, not the blood dripping from the walls - the blood he dreamt would moisten his tongue, but only drowned him in the end. None of it was real. Yet, the visions were better than hunger and silence. Deafness and blindness. Of course, he wasn't really blind. His eyes could pierce through the darkness. But when everything you saw was gray, you might as well be blind. Astarion had seen them all. Everyone who could possibly open this tomb. From his parents to unknown heroes to Cazador. And every time his fingers reached out with longing they only met rough stone. He knew that the images his brain conjured were not real. He didn't react to them anymore. What could he possibly do even if they were real? He had no voice anymore. Had lost it long ago, somewhere in the dusty darkness to his feet. It had rolled down, and since he couldn't turn around, he couldn't find it again. Of course he had screamed. The memory of himself crying his lungs out was still strangely fresh, like an open wound. He had given up quickly. Just a few months later. There was a pale spot of sunlight that wandered along the edge of his prison at regular intervals. Astarion guessed it happened once a day. Not bright enough to burn himself. (He had tried.) He scratched into the stone that locked him, marking how many times the spot appeared since he had been sealed in here. He made 249 strokes. Then he gave up counting. Gave it up like he had given up everything. The screaming, the scratching, the praying. It was endless. Astarion was dust and ash. Astarion was

Skeleton. A skeleton. Armor rattling, jaw gnawing. Godey... "Come on, get out of there!" Out? He didn't understand the meaning of these words. Didn't understand the feeling of bony fingers pulling at his body. Not … Cazador. Not real. Not - "Are you sucking on your own arm? Pathetic. Come now, boy. I don't have all day." A crypt in twilight. Dusty curtains, body parts too weak to bear his weight. Breaking. Collapsing. Dead rat! Blood - Blood - Blood Forgotten. Forgotten how it tastes. Old. Rancid. Wonderful. The first breath. Unnecessary. Freeing.

Seeing, thinking. Astarion looked down on himself. He was naked. The bite wounds on his arms began to close after he’d drunk the rat’s blood. Flesh and skin closed over the bare bones of his fingertips. "Dress up." It was his old shirt and pants. The clothes he always wore. The clothes that Astarion, the spawn, wore. Maybe he was still in there somewhere. Between the threadbare layers of fabric, embroidered into a line of poetry, as if Astarion had known he would need to store himself somewhere.

Godey pushed him forward, and he followed obediently. Back into the palace. Lamps, floors, paintings. His head began to spin, unable to process all the impressions after such a long time with nothing. "Come on, boy." He stumbled on until they reached a familiar room. Bunk beds and peeling wallpaper. Aurelia was there. When they entered, she gave them a glance. His sister wanted to say something, but the sight of Godey kept her silent. Better that way. Even after all the years Aurelia had been here she still feared the kennels.

"Clean him up." Godey pushed Astarion into the room, where he fell to his knees, unable to balance the shove. He sat there as the skeleton left and closed the door. Aurelia approached cautiously. "So, it's true. He let you come back." Silence. "Astarion?" He wanted to answer. He had to try at least. But his voice seemed to still be left in the tomb. Aurelia sighed, then grabbed him under the arms and pulled him up. "I really don't feel like it, but you heard Godey. I have to wash you." Astarion tried to speak again as he sat in the wooden tub that the spawn used for this purpose, and Aurelia poured water over his hair. He flinched away from her touch, trying to do as much as possible himself. "How long?" "Hm?" They probably were both surprised that he could speak. "How long was I gone?" Aurelia set the bucket aside. "A year." Astarion said nothing, only nodded. "I saw faces. And blood, dripping from the walls. It drowned me." Aurelia exhaled. "You were hallucinating. Pull yourself together, Astarion." He stared at her with wide eyes. "I don't mean it cruelly. But you have to pull yourself together. Cazador expects you to bring him a mark today." Astarion continued to stare at her, but the tiefling woman only handed him the soap. "Here, I think you can do this yourself." Then she rushed out of the room.

The gods truly showed no mercy to him.

[arisveah]

one of my freinds started watching genloss recently and i learned that i can quote the entire show in synch with the video, which was very exciting and concerning all at the same time.

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

The Seanchan are ImperialismTM, and especially American Imperialism in all its aggressive social conditioning and slave-owning ugliness. There's a reason the Seanchan culture is a mash up of China and America particularly. It's deliberate. It's also a wonky metaphor written by a well-meaning Southern white man in the 90s, so it's far from perfect. Ultimately the Seanchan are no more or less evil than Americans during most of the USA's colonial history. That is to say they are and they aren't. Some swallow their conditioning wholesale, others fight against it, some relish the power the system gives them over others, others are uneasy about the cruelty expected of them yet continue to comply regardless, some break away altogether in an exceedingly painful process. Any dissenting information is buried, any outward revolt is squashed brutally, but it does exist. Of course it exists.

Maybe it's because I'm not American but I find irony in Americans especially being absolutist about the Seanchan because it feels like they're either condemning themselves or blind to how the USA has operated globally and historically. That might be a poor way to see it though, idk.

[heyclickadee]

One part of “Aftermath” I don’t think I’ll ever get over is that Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, Tech, and Omega were on their way to get Crosshair when Crosshair walked into that hangar. The way we talk about it in the fandom is as though they left Crosshair behind in that first episode so they could rescue Omega, as though they traded him for her, but that’s. Not. What. Happened.

They go back to Kamino to grab Omega despite the risk, because they think she belongs with them, yes, but also because they’re still confident. They haven’t failed a mission yet. And —and this is important—because she said she wanted to go with them, and they take that into account.

And, of course, they immediately get captured, taken to the brig, they find Omega, Crosshair fires off about following orders—his new favorite hobby that he only picked up in the last week(1)—the guards come to take Crosshair away, and Hunter puts himself between Crosshair and the guards and says No. Absolutely not. We stay together, we’re a set, do not separate, and then—

—Crosshair gets up and leaves. And the rest of the batch probably doesn’t fully understand why.

Now, I personally think that Crosshair’s decision to leave was multifaceted. I do think the chip programming had something to do with it. It’s telling him that Hunter’s made bad call after bad call since Kaller, and that the smart thing to do would be to just comply with whatever the empire wants. He’s also deeply frustrated with the rest of his squad, though he probably doesn’t know why he suddenly disagrees with them so much. And I also think that Crosshair didn’t want anyone else in his family to get hurt. He’s got his hackles raised and he’s ready to pounce when that one guard hits Hunter in the gut; he knows that they’re going to take him one way or another, so best to do it in a way that doesn’t end with the rest of his squad getting shot. All of that is in play in Crosshair’s decision to get up and go with the guards willingly, but all the rest of the batch knows is that he does it.

It’s even possible that their initial read on Crosshair’s decision is mostly in line with the last thing I listed—that Crosshair does it to keep the rest of them from getting hurt. It’s also possible that their read on it was that Crosshair was upset. But it probably doesn’t matter. The first thing—the first thing out of Hunter’s mouth when they break out of the brig is, “We need to find out where they took Crosshair.” The only reason they go to the hangar at all is to grab their gear so they have a better chance of getting him without dying on the way. They suit up, Hunter tells Tech to get the ship ready for a speedy getaway, and no sooner does he add that the rest of them are going to get Crosshair that Crosshair walks in. When Crosshair walks in—what he sees of them, and what they see of him informs every single interaction they have through the rest of the series.

First, what they see of him. Crosshair’s chip is activated. He’s just been electroshocked into submission and had that chip’s programming ramped up to twenty. He’s not in control of his thoughts or actions, but the only two people who have any inkling that that’s the case are Tech, who’s powering up the ship and not in the room, and Omega, who is a Child and about to be shot at for the first time in her life. The rest of them have no idea. All they know is that Crosshair is standing there wearing a new set of armor, leading a new squad, with a new rank, telling them to stand down and looking oh so pleased with himself as he clarifies that that is, in fact, an order. At the time, while Crosshair is monologuing about how they need to come quietly and how Hunter can’t see the bigger picture, it must look to them like the reason Crosshair left in that earlier scene was because he wanted to leave the squad. We, the audience, know that’s not true, but the rest of the batch doesn’t, especially given what they’re seeing at the time.

And then Crosshair starts shooting. It looks to them like he’s trying to kill them, and its not just empty. As much as Crosshair surely doesn’t want to, as much as Crosshair probably hates himself for this later on when he’s more in control, he shoots Wrecker. And unlike earlier in the episode, when Wrecker got shot during the battle simulation, Wrecker isn’t able to eventually get back up and keep fighting. Wrecker’s down. It’s all Hunter and Echo can do to just drag him onto the ship, and the only reason they even manage that is because Omega manages to shoot Crosshair’s rifle out of his hand; they don’t have the manpower to subdue Crosshair and drag him on board as well, not without potentially getting themselves or Crosshair (or Wrecker) killed. They don’t leave Crosshair behind for Omega’s sake or because they got in one argument and wrote him off here. They leave him because, in that moment, it looks for all the world like Crosshair does not want to go with them, like he suddenly wants them dead or captured, and they’re just trying to get out of there alive.

And what he sees of them…gah. There’s a split second, blink-and-you-miss-it moment when Crosshair first walks in, sees them, and he looks terrified. He knows what he’s about to do, and he hates it, and he probably doesn’t know WHY he hates it, because his programming has to be screaming at him that what he’s about to do is right. Good soldiers follow orders. But the part of Crosshair that’s still himself, the part that’s still aware, still able to differentiate his own mind from the chip’s programming here in the early days after order 66, that part is yelling back that he doesn’t want to hurt them, but he can’t stop it. He doesn’t have that capacity. And that has to rip him apart here. The things he must have had to tell himself later just to cope.

But also—what he sees when he walks in? He sees the Marauder powering up. He sees everyone suiting up and grabbing their gear. He has to think—the thought has to cross his mind—that they’re leaving without him. And they’re not, they were literally on their way to rescue him, that was the next move, that was the plan, the only reason they don’t go through with it is because he walks in, starts shooting, and Wrecker almost dies, but Crosshair doesn’t know that. He wasn’t there to hear Hunter say that was the plan, no more than the rest of the batch was there so see what Nala Se and Tarkin did to him.

The worst part? None of them know about the parts they missed yet(2). Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, Tech, and Omega still don’t know what happened to Crosshair after the guards took him away. Crosshair still doesn’t know the others were coming for him. And I’m really curious about what’s going to happen if, and maybe when, they all get that context.

1. “Aftermath” takes place over at least several days, meaning Crosshair’s chip has been partially active and working its way into his thought processes the entire time.

2. I also think that part of the reason why things between Hunter and Crosshair are so broken is not because either (or neither) of them is willing to see things from the other’s point of view, but because both of them understands the other’s point of view a little too well, but in a way that lacks necessary context. Hunter probably understands that Crosshair has every reason to hate him, every reason to feel bitter and betrayed, and, honestly, Hunter probably agrees with Crosshair in that regard, and hates himself because of it. But Hunter also doesn’t know that Crosshair was never trying to kill them of his own free will and that he was therefore never bitter enough to actually want to hurt them. And Crosshair probably completely understands that Hunter has every reason to distrust him and to have completely given up hope that he might come home, and he probably hates himself for everything the chip made him do. But Crosshair doesn’t know that his family was, in fact, coming back for him and that Hunter is furious with himself for having left Crosshair behind. If they both ever had those gaps filled in they’d maybe both realize that, for all their hurt and misunderstanding, neither of them has ever hated the other. I desperately need them to sit down and talk. And then hug. And to break down weeping. Give me that catharsis I am BEGGING THIS DAMN SHOW.

[cat-vase]

I NEED the 2 other people that like Julien along with me to understand that if he ever met Liam he would be such a weird little freak about it.

Imagine that someone saves you from eternal suffering with a power you don't understand, handing it over to you without a care in the world. You have no idea how this is possible. You're back home and you have no idea how. Or why. Why this person saved you, of all people. Would that not be something akin to eldritch madness? Would you not hold that person up in your head as a god?

[olympain]

I was tagged by the lovely @theladyigraine to list 5 comfort shows + 5 comfort movies and then to tag 10 people to do this as well if they want!

5 COMFORT SHOWS

life on mars (2006)

there she goes (2018)

taskmaster nz (2020)

andor (2022)

vicious (2013)

5 COMFORT MOVIES

swiss army man (2016)

1917 (2019)

hot fuzz (2007) & the world's end (2013) (they're both cornetto so technically can be counted as one. source: me)

the batman (2022)

24 hour party people (2002)

tagging > @barry--keoghan @mariner-2 @catabasis @killsandthrills @kenobismullet @kitmarlowe @andysambcrg @raspberrydee @hegodamask @wernerherzoghaircut

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

I think Mike forgot to take into consideration that he was straight when he stared at Will’s lips 😔

[aristhought]

as a trans person i really do relate to kendall roy (almost certainly unintentionally) from a trans/queer perspective.

his life long struggle to perform and live up to a role that was imposed on him from an early age. the inability to shake the confines of expectations that slowly suffocate and break him. the trauma that comes with an utter lack of inner agency and autonomy. the desperation for self actualization but the inability to achieve it when he’s constantly just fighting to keep his head above water. the alienation of existing in a society/culture that is utterly incompatible with and hostile to his deepest most honest self.

regardless of whether or not kendall as a character can be read as trans/understood through that lens, i do find it moving how relatable he is in this respect simply on a personal level.