#one shot by terrified

[lilaccatholic]

I am once again thinking about the reluctant ruler whose arc justly and correctly includes assuming the throne and taking responsibility for the people set before them

[chirpsythismorning]

DUFFER BROTHERS PAY HOMAGE TO THE FIRST GAY KISS IN FILM WITH BYLER IN S5 CHALLENGE

[beautifulhigh]

Welcome to the next edition of Jen's meta ramblings

I have watched the movie at least once a day since it came out and I kid you not, I see something new every time. The fact that this is Matthew López's first directoral debut is just... I'm in awe. And you can tell how much he loves the story because of the way things like this are set up and played out

In the novel, Henry and Alex are skinny dipping in the lake at night, and so I absolutely got the change in both time of day and also attire. But let's talk about that little island shall we?

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea

Every single one of us is not meant to be alone, without connection and without a link to someone else. We are parts of a whole and if we lose that... well. It's not good.

Henry is on that island, our prince who belongs to Britain and Henry Fox who thinks he has to belong to himself. The prince is forced into status and circumstance, of appearances and mindless ribbon cuttings. When he does something that means something - like the trip to the cancer ward - then he doesn't do it with cameras. I'd argue he's not the prince there, he's Henry Fox. The man who lost his father to cancer.

But this is not that meta.

Henry has shut himself off, shut himself away. He doesn't date the people he's interested in, he doesn't live his truth (and for very good and valid reasons). He has decided that while Prince Henry belongs to Britain, Henry Fox is an island.

And look who is swimming up to that island. Look who is coming out to Henry, having realised the night before that oh yeah, I do feel forever about him and so Alex swims out to that island.

And the first thing he does? He makes Henry laugh. He is silly and fun and the complete antithesis of the composed and collected Prince of Wales. And then he joins Henry, on his island.

This gorgeous overhead shot shows us that Alex is putting himself on Henry's right (protocol or his good side?) but he's also in the centre of the island. He's not on the edge of it. In the metaphor of Henry Fox's island, Alex is putting himself at the heart of it all. RIght before he lays out his heart to Henry.

The shot that broke our hearts too, along with Henry's. Because we can see the shore in the background now. We're reminded that islands are not - they cannot be fully independent. People cannot be islands and even though Alex is literally and metaphorically planting himself at Henry's side, Henry knows that this island he's formed for himself in his heart and his sense of self cannot stand if Alex is there. If Alex is with him then he is no longer an island. Henry Fox will not belong to himself and the sense of protection and self-preservation we see coming out in the Storming of Kensington is under threat.

So he bails.

The island is submerged, like the mythical Atlantis, because how do you render land useless? Drown it. How do you deal with water? Drain it away. He abandons his island and flees back to the only other space he has left - Kensington Palace - in an attempt to regroup. He drains his life of Alex and what he brings. He has to return to being the Prince of Wales because Henry Fox got too close. Because Henry Fox realised he was being loved by a man who would literally swim out to where he is.

Moment of appreciation for the shot. Matthew, you have a fucking talent and I cannot wait to see what else you do. Because our #imtaller boy looks so small here. So lost. When else have we seen someone look so small and lost?

Oh. Yeah.

When he's curling in on himself in an almost last-ditch attempt to protect himself and his boundaries from what is coming. You can see that he's no longer dry, that Alex's "shower time" has changed him. Alex brought laughter and love and water onto his island and Henry has just realised what this means. This isn't a visitor's visa. This is immigration.

Which is what makes THIS so much more. Back to our boy, drenched from the storm, plaintively asking Henry to talk to him.

Because yes, the Storming of Kensington happens during an actual storm, but by now you know I overead into everything... so once again we have Alex "swimming" out to Henry. He's dived right in and gone are the jokes, gone is the humour. He is here and he is asking to be let in and daring Henry to send him away.

This is Alex, serious and in love and following Henry to whatever landmass he is setting foot on. Henry is trying to be an island and Alex is out here going, "I'll just build another boat you fucker". A true 'ship if you will. He swam out to an island on a lake, he flew to a tiny island across an ocean. He is standing at Henry's borders and he isn't launching an offensive. He's just saying that if Henry wants to be cut off from everything then he needs to do the cutting himself.

Prince Henry felt like he belonged to Britain, Henry Fox felt like he had to belong to himself, and Alex turned up and went "nope. Mine now". (Insert additional historical quip about the English being colonised for once.) But there is still some truth in that: the Prince is part of England, and we should all belong to ourselves even in relationships. Henry just learns that the different parts of him can co-exist. Bit like how water and land can co-exist without one destroying the other.

Henry is Alex's North Star but he's also his solid ground. Insert quip about Alex colonising Henry and claiming him for his own, planting of flag, your innuendo of choice goes here. Pyramus wished there wasn't a wall - Alex straight up scaled Henry's.

There's a divergence between Prince Henry and Henry Fox, but at the heart of them both there's Henry. And this is the man that Alex sees, this is the man that Alex loves. Alex swims out to the island for Henry Fox, Alex pushes through the rain for Prince Henry. Alex holds steady in the storm of talking with King James/Queen Mary and the public.

And it started with Alex literally making his way out to Henry on an island: be that England for the Royal Wedding, a pontoon island on a lake, or knocking down Henry's walls.

To this moment. Which is very hard to grab a screenshot of, but Alex asks Henry to "take a walk" with him. This time it's Henry going to/with Alex. The fact that he's there is one thing (and a rant rather than a meta) but at this point they have each other. They belong to each other. Where one of them goes, the other one follows. Independent, together, co-existing.

Anyway. I'm sure there will be more bullshit ramblings and metas at some point. Follow me if you want more of that (but be warned: blank and empty blogs are blocked on sight) because we are not islands in this metaphorical storm of life. Let us swim out to one another, dry off with one another, and live a life with broken down borders and walls.

ETA: I now have another name to add to the thanks. Stephen Goldblatt, from the bottom of my soul, thank you

[howlsofbloodhounds]

do yall think papyrus ever tried to save killer. or could he only ever see his brother

[sporesgalaxy]

Cataclysm backstory poem in the style of the Collector's storybook :)

•••

We're supposed to amass, but it's all such a pain!

Preserving's so slow! Collecting's a drain!

Still, the other collectors command me to try

So I chase after mortals, and swiftly they hide.

I try thinking of ways for my chore to end speedily,

but whatever I do, mortals burn up too easily!

☆•☆•☆

"Talk to them," say the others "and they will abide,"

But it's not any faster. Believe me, I tried.

"Stay put!" I'd command, "Stop hiding! Stand still!"

But none of them listen, all shrieking so shrill;

"Apocalypse!" "Evil god!" "Cataclysm!" they call me.

My chore takes twice as long-- it's four times as annoying.

When I'm finally done, my archives are "too small."

But the mortals-- they meddled! It wasn't my fault!

Say the others, "You're young. You will get it someday."

But I don't want to "get it!" "It" should just go away!

I'm sick of being too little! Sick of everyone else!

I'll run off, see the planets and stars for myself!

And no one will tell me I break them too fast!

The others don't try to stop me. "This tantrum won't last.

[vampire-rodeo]

Every time I hear about a school near me (USAmerica) banning cellphones in classrooms, my immediate thought is fear for those students there, because what if one day they have a shooting and those students can’t call their mothers? Because legislators are more concerned about technology than guns.

[stalebagels]

[alicentflorent]

HOTD really should pick a fucking lane when it comes to Aegon and what kind of person they want him to be. Last season they introduced adult Aegon by having the opening scene be of teenage servant coming forward as aegons rape victim and aegon himself showing no remorse when confronted. Then the following episode he’s revealed to be down right sadistic because he bit only rapes, but he watches children in fighting pits for entertainment and profit, he SA’d Aemond by forcing him into a brothel when he turned 13. The show wanted him set up as their version of joffrey. Cruel and depraved, someone capable of being a worthy opponent/villain for Rhaenyra simply because he’s capable of sick and evil things. Then comes 2.01 and they’ve (yet again) done a complete 180 with his character by reverting him back to the teenage version of aegon, clueless about politics, definitely an asshole but not quite a villain, more of a comedic character than a super dark one. Either you want a character to be a clear cut villain or a grey character that we can sympathise with and understand at first but we continue to watch them become more irredeemable. They failed in writing one nuanced character that is somewhere in between these two versions who they are building up to become more sinister and a bigger threat as the war goes on

[skitskatdacat63]

Fernando S1E5 - “Mission Accomplished”

[gothic-mothic]

Realizing that the reason I really liked the first HTTYD movie as a kid wasn’t because of any normal reason it was because I wanted to be Toothless

I didn’t want to be the one befriending a “monster” I wanted to be the monster reluctantly trusting a human. I didn’t want to study this fascinating new creature I wanted to be the creature being studied who’s just in it for the food. I didn’t want to be the one riding a dragon I wanted to be the fucking dragon because that’s infinity cooler

[the-alien-stage]

Hi pookies guess who went through every single individual frame of the teaser and then had the playback speed set all the way down to get this? ME!! Also, not to alarm anybody but the guitar slowed sounds like screaming which really set the tone for what was happening. Also, to confirm, the person who is getting their eye poked by that needle was indeed neither Ivan or Till and it doesn't seem like Till was in the experiments at all but was in an adoption center. Somehow they interacted during this time. Also, another point of mention is that the girl who is crossed out looks the same as the person getting their eye poked simply because of hair texture. This person might be related to Ivan so who knows, but I don't think the red iris is natural anymore which is a point of concern.

Okay bye pookies I have work in the morning <///3

[xue-dang]

okay but the shot in the pilot where the newscaster is talking about the original author being found dead and it pans just slightly to show anawin in the mirror makes me think he's going to meet a similar fate

[giantkillerjack]

Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!

You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!

You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!

You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!

Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!

Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!

So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.

Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!

You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.

Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!

Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.

Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.

Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*

Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...

Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.

Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.

Better not get confident.

Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)

Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people

- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties

- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations

- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you

- you might start loving the effect you have on a room

- you might enjoy conversations more

- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently

- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations

- you might stop apologizing so much.

- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.

Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!

Why, it would be carnage!!

In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!

If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:

- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.

- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.

- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.

- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.

You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.

So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.

[fluffyhellspawn]

got my Arlan to somehow do 30k damage and I've never been more proud and more terrified of a Security head

What did I feed this lil guy goddamn . Like one of my favourite things in Hoyo games is to make really dislike characters actual ticking time bombs and my god I've done it 🫡

I also have college tomorrow. BOOOOO right when the game updates too 👎

[and-stir-the-stars]

saffron pawn evan, a dark silhouette in the doorway of mike's bedroom: *staring like a cat*

mike, praying he wasn't starting back up with the Knife Threat Thing: ...yea, ev?

evan: 😐 sorry your life sucks

mike:

mike: ???? sorry yours sucks too??

“Come on… Just… sleep…!”

Exhausted words tumbled from Michael’s lips, groaning at himself as his dark blue gaze stared listlessly through the cracks in the crumpled white paint on the ceiling. 

It wasn’t that hard. All you had to do was just close your eyes and not think about anything, right? 

Mike tossed and turned on the bed. The scratchy, cheap covers tangled against his limbs as he tried to decide whether he should keep pretending to be trying to fall asleep or if he should just get up and try doing something productive for once. 

The realization came to him gradually, like a deep sea mine drifting closer and closer to shore with every wave on the tide. 

The kid– no, the adult, young adult, that’s what he was, now– flipped from one side of the bed to another. He kicked the covers off, the oppressive heat dampening his skin with a suffocating layer of sweat, before quickly throwing them back on twenty seconds later. 

His skin crawled and he swallowed down a lump in his throat, wincing at the painful reminder that he should have drank a glass of water before heading to bed. 

Michael squeezed his eyes shut with more force than was necessary. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. He had to be up early for work tomorrow, so why the hell couldn’t he fall asleep? The world’s easiest task, and yet here he was, failing miserably. 

Typical. 

A pit formed in Mike’s stomach. Hard and angry, aching and heavy, like someone had replaced his insides with bricks. 

Michael’s entire body tensed as he recognized the feeling. 

Ignoring the sudden, panicked light-headedness and the saliva thickening in his throat as though he might vomit at any moment, Mike’s eyes snapped open and his sharp blue gaze flitted around the room on instinct, searching for the danger. 

It was dark in the room, of course. Not just because it was three in the morning, but because Mike needed it to be pitch black to fall asleep. His curtains stayed drawn and his door was always shut, blocking out any possible sources of light, because if there was any light at all then Michael would stay up all night staring at it as though afraid it might disappear at any moment. It was best to just be engulfed in darkness from the very start, in Michael’s opinion. 

Michael blinked the exhaustion from his eyes as his gaze snapped from one part of his room to the next, looking for whatever it was that had set off his sixth sense. Mike had learned a long time ago not to ignore that sixth sense. Better to be safe than sorry. 

His panicked gaze must have passed over the doorway three times before his brain finally registered what was wrong. 

His bedroom door was wide open. 

A human-shaped patch of shadow darker than the rest of the blackness stalked in the threshold. 

Michael jumped, his mind supplying the shadow with a million faces that had hurt him over the years. 

The shadow stayed perfectly still. 

It took Michael several panicked breaths to finally realize his mistake. 

It wasn’t just a human-shaped shadow. 

Evan. Evan, leaning in the threshold, with one hand wrapped anxiously around the doorway, just like he had done when they were both little kids, when Evan had had a nightmare and would stand in Mike’s doorway debating whether Mike would get mad if he came inside. 

Evan’s pale face shone in the darkness. Mike wondered how long Evan had been standing there and how he could have missed seeing his brother in the threshold, even with the dark pajamas keeping the rest of Evan’s frame hidden in the darkness. If Mike had squinted at Evan’s face, he would have been able to make out the dull gleam of Evan’s eyes, but it wasn’t Evan’s face that Mike was looking at. 

No, Michael’s gaze jerked between Evan’s sides, looking for any semblance of a metallic gleam as the memory of waking up to a knife at his throat made the older Afton’s blood freeze in his veins. 

Michael hadn’t known what had been worse: the frighteningly cold press of the metal against his skin, the warm trickle of blood down his neck from the knife nicking him as Mike struggled, the bone-chilling horror at the realization of what Evan had tried to do, or seeing the agony that had been splayed on Evan’s face as Ev realized that he couldn’t kill his older brother the same way he killed all those animals in the woods outside. 

Mike’s fingers white-knuckled against the scratchy blankets. He forced one shaky breath down his throat after another. The oxygen burned his throat with every breath as he checked Evan’s hands again, trying hard to pretend that Evan finding his way into Mike’s room in the dead of night, armed with anger and fists and sharp nails and teeth and occasionally with a kitchen knife that Mike stupidly hadn’t properly locked away, wasn’t a semi-regular occurrence. 

(Maybe Michael should have kept his door locked at night. No, there was no maybe about it– he definitely should have it locked. But he couldn’t, because what if Evan needed him and couldn’t get in because Mike had decided to be selfish?)

Evan hadn’t moved an inch. The teen’s face stayed blank, utterly blank, as he stared at Michael through the darkness. 

Slowly, Mike peeled himself from the mattress and propped himself up on his elbows. “Y-Yeah, Ev?” 

Evan’s green gaze tracked Michael as he moved. Silence weighed heavily in the air, and Michael’s gaze slipped down to Evan’s suspiciously empty hands again. 

Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t do that again, Michael begged even as another voice in his head whispered that he was a fool for expecting anything else.So what if Evan gave him a little scare? So what if Evan hurt him? Of course he deserved anything Evan would do to him. And Evan never came into Michael’s room like this for any other reason. 

Finally, after much too many panicked heartbeats pounding inside Michael’s chest, something happened. 

A nervous gleam flashed in Evan’s eyes, as well as something else, something deep and troubled and terrified that Mike didn’t quite know how to name. The corners of Evan’s lips twitched, dipping downward into the smallest frown.

“...Sorry that your life sucks.” 

The words left Evan’s throat in a voiceless mumble. It took Michael a moment to piece the near-silent mumbles into words, and even when he did, he could only blink at his little brother, certain that he must have misheard. 

Michael’s lips fluttered soundlessly. 

Ever since their argument a few days ago about why Mike had left alone when he ran away from the Afton household, Evan had been asking to know more and more about what had happened after he ran away. 

And Michael had been answering his questions. Kind of. Just telling Evan about the lighter stuff that had happened and the things that were so commonplace that Mike had quickly grown used to them; so used to them that he could talk about them without his voice shaking and breaking apart. 

Outside of the occasional confused frown, Evan hadn’t reacted to the stories Mike had told all that much.

Maybe Michael had taken the lack of reaction as affirmation that his “traumatic” stories weren’t actually all that bad. 

Maybe that was why Michael was so flabbergasted now. 

“Um…” Mike winced as his voice cracked on the single syllable. His tongue pressed against the backs of his front teeth, his brain trying to stutter out a sincere confused ‘thank you?’ before the elder Afton squashed the urge down and struggled to come up with another response.. “...Sorry yours sucks too?” 

Evan’s frown deepened, but outside of that, Evan had no reaction to Michael’s quiet response. 

The two of them stared at each other in a silence that seemed to last forever. 

Mike shifted in his bed, uncomfortable with all the staring, but Ev didn’t seem to notice. He stayed locked in place in the threshold, his eyes locked on Mike as though searching for something. 

“Did you… need something?” Mike finally asked. His brain wandered once again to when they were both little, when toddler Evan would stand in his door after a nightmare until Mike hissed at him to go. “Did you want to come in…?” 

Despite the darkness, Mike didn’t need to see it to know that, across the room, Evan tensed. The audible, sharp inhale that ripped past Evan’s lips clued Mike in on that. That unusual– nowadays it was unusual, at least– tender, nervous gleam left Evan’s eyes at once, his face carefully smoothing over as he took a step back, away from Michael. 

The last thing Michael saw of Evan was his head shaking ‘no’ before he took another step back and disappeared, consumed by the shadows lurking in the hallway.