#personal tag for full story >

[subject-2-pain]

Power Word Pain

Been sitting on this for a while. D&D related and offers some context, but not necessary to follow along. 

TW: light body horror, implied grooming and pedophilia (not depicted)

It is already a few months into the semester, but Cainan is still practically giddy to be the young protégé of the famed inventor and respected professor, Frans Smilodeus. They hurry to the lecture hall where Cainan spends his lunches acting as Smilodeus’ assistant for an upper division class. He primarily performs menial tasks such as passing out and collecting papers. 

They walk in silence, something uncommon for the professor. Slowing his gait as they walk down the final hallway, he finally speaks. “Cainan,” he says dryly, not looking down at his ward.

“Yes, sir?” The boy perks up, eager to respond. 

"I'd like to use you for a demonstration today." 

"Yeah, of course!" Cainan agrees, thrilled to be a part of whatever his tutor has planned. 

When they walk in the room, Smilodeus’s demeanor changes from intense and decisive to the sort of bubbly attitude one would expect of an Enchantment professor. Cainan takes his seat behind the teacher’s desk, patiently awaiting his cue. After some greetings and pleasantries, the students get settled and the lecture begins:

"There are three 'power word' spells used in enchantment magic. You will not learn how to perform any of them at this school, as they are highly restricted, and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.” His tone grows darker, “However, many of you may enter dangerous professions after your time here at the Towers, and as such should at least be familiar with these spells and their effects, should you encounter one. That is why I have asked Cainan to help me demonstrate one for you today." 

Looking over to Cainan with an inviting grin, Smilodeus extends a hand, with palm face up, summoning the boy. Cainan stands nervously after such an introduction, stepping in front of the class and taking his tutor’s outstretched hand. The college students chitter amongst themselves, excited to see the magic trick. 

Addressing the class again, Smilodeus goes on, "This spell is called 'Power Word Pain', and it is exactly how it sounds. It can cause terrible pain throughout the target's body, but only that. It is where enchantment magic reaches deep within the mind, and begins to affect the body.” Smilodeus gives Cainan’s hand an affirming squeeze. “The spell will not cause harm to them, nor is it capable of killing them,” he looks down at his ward, “despite how much it might feel like it." 

Cainan’s eyes dart up to meet his tutor’s. "What-?"

Smilodeus leans down over his cane to be face-to-face with Cainan and whispers to him, "Your body is going to try to resist the pain and force out the magic causing it. In any other circumstance I'd say that's a good thing. But, for the purposes of this demonstration, please endure it until I instruct you otherwise." 

Hesitation weighing in his lungs, Cainan takes a strained breath and opens his mouth to protest. But, how can he? He wants to impress, wants to please. Mouth open and eyes locked, Cainan exhales his anxiety and nods. 

Smile tugging at his lips, Smilodeus assures him, "don't worry. You're safe in my hands."

Squeezing his hand one more time before letting go, the professor walks a few dozen feet away and then explains, "now this can be cast at quite a distance, but the school didn't give me that big of a room." 

Everyone chuckles a bit while jotting down notes then watches with bated breath. Cainan keeps wide eyes fixed on the professor. He knows what spellcasting looks like. A gesture, an item, a wand, a string of ancient lyrics uttered. Preparing himself for any sign of what is to come, he clenches his fists by his side. His palms begin to sweat.

High on the anticipation in the room, Smilodeus finally speaks just one word in the tongue of ancient mages. Searing pain starts growing throughout Cainan's body. 

"That's all it takes, one word. No focus, no materials, no gestures or runes. It is rather insidious in that way. It is hard to catch someone casting, and difficult to prevent them from doing so." 

Cainan hears him continue to lecture to the class, but the words drown out under the waves of pain more intense than anything he's experienced. It begins as a tearing sensation just underneath his sternum, behind his ribs. He lurches forward, inhaling sharply as though something were ripping at his diaphragm. As per the request of his tutor, he suffers through it without resistance, but grits his teeth to keep composure in front of his audience. 

Smilodeus continues, "with this intense pain, it makes it harder for a target to attack, cast any spells of their own, or resist any other effects that might be cast on them." Then he looks at Cainan and beckons him with a finger, "come." 

All too familiar by now with this spell, Cainan still can’t manage to reject the command. He begins to make staggered steps towards his tutor, moving at a crawl. The pain extends through his legs as he moves. His bones compress beneath the flesh that pulses around them. He feels every contraction of the muscle tightening around his fragile bones, every electrical signal sent shooting down his nerves to compel him forward. They are embers sparking down lines of gunpowder, every step an explosion popping at his feet. It burns inside his boots, the skin surely melting off the soles. 

After a few seconds, the command wears off and Cainan stumbles, leaning into the chalkboard with his elbow and shoulder. As he hits the board, his arm twists and contorts in place, joints disconnecting beneath his weight. He screws his eyes tight, the lids nearly fuse together. His grinding teeth are about to shatter to dust on his tongue. 

"It also makes it harder for a target to move. The pain he is suffering would make anything he tries to do quite difficult, if not impossible." Smilodeus then says more quietly directly to Cainan who stands only a few yards away, "think you can keep moving this way? How are you doing?" 

Cainan, coaxed on by his tutor’s concern and encouragement, opens his eyes and nods. Stumbling that way, he continues bracing himself on the board, smudging some old lecture notes on his sleeve as he drags along. He finds the courage to speak. "It's...a lot...but–" 

Suddenly he stops speaking and moving, and feels everything tense up. It isn’t a new pain, but a prison, and his body is the cell holding him. Smilodeus is pointing his wand at him.

"Another unfortunate, and very powerful thing about this spell is that it doesn't require the caster to concentrate on it. I can do whatever else I like.” A sly smile unintentionally creeps across Smilodeus’s face. “I could even walk out of the room and leave him here like this." 

At that, all the students start stirring as the weight of the situation and the severity of the spell start to sink in. Some shift in their seats and have stopped taking notes at this sadistic display. Cainan’s heart pounds at what feels more like a threat than a hypothetical. ‘No, don’t leave me,’ his mind begs, but he is unable to utter a word. Tears sting at his eyes, not like salt, but like acid.

"I asked Cainan to be my assistant for this demonstration because I know he has the strength and determination to handle this. I assure you, most of you would not." Smilodeus looks sternly at the class, and sheaths his wand back into the hilt of his cane. The boy falls to the ground on his hands and knees. The class gasps at the thud on the linoleum. Cainan’s kneecaps pop out of place and wriggle beneath his skin, having come alive. His hands sink into the floor covered in hot glass, stabbing and burning him, branding stigmata into his palms. "Frans, stop." Cainan barely whimpers, tears carving riverbeds into his cheeks. 

Smilodeus keeps going, having either not heard the plea, or ignoring it. 

"Someone with a strong constitution may be able to withstand something like this, or shake it off entirely. But the pain until then is excruciating. Any of you who know him know that Cainan isn't a good enough performer to be pretending." The class relaxes a bit at the joke, giving some levity to the situation. Perhaps it is all just for show.

"Please!" Cainan shrieks, praying on his hands and knees for his god in front of him to offer relief, reaching a shaking arm out. When Smilodeus looks at his ward begging for him through the agony, something strikes him. "I'm nearly finished. Only a moment more." 

Cainan sees a sinister glint in the professor’s eyes, like striking the match that ignited this pain. Some sort of beast had awakened. Terror spurs him on to resist the spell, feeling the spiked metal wheels kick hard into his sides. 

"I can't–!" 

"Yes. You can." Smilodeus corrects him, voice severe. “The pain isn’t real, Cainan.”

The boy makes another attempt to push the magic from his mind. His brain swells up in his skull, pushing at the back of his eyes. The pressure strains them in their sockets but he wills them to stay in place. His stomach flips and whirls, the acrobat inducing a disorienting nausea. His intestines slither like snakes, stretching against the inside of his abdomen as they wriggle about. They bite and tear at one another. The venom stings like ice as it infects him, pumping toxic blood throughout his body. His increasingly rapid pulse pounds in his eardrums and they threaten to shatter. His heart beats against his chest, jumping around in the cavity like an excited particle, bruising and cracking his ribs. Desperately, he cries out to anyone who will listen, "HELP ME!" 

Everyone in the class jolts forward. A few students get out of their seats and run towards the boy writhing in agony. Smilodeus holds up a hand, instructing them to wait, but one woman ignores him and rushes to Cainan’s side. In a singsong voice, she inspires him, “listen to me. You can break out of it. You are stronger than this.” She rests a hand on his shoulder. Her gentle touch feels like a vice grip. “Can you breathe with me? Come on. Breathe in–” She draws in a dramatic breath for Cainan to mimic. He takes a long drag from her words, filling his lungs with refreshing nicotine. 

“ –and out.” She exhales a cool, gentle stream through pursed lips. Cainan exhales lungs full of water, having drowned in the pain, starving for air again. His body settles itself back into place, and his tears sting like salt again. 

Smilodeus looks around at his class full of students, all watching the sequence with astonishment. Some of them stood still in mid action to the boy’s cry for help. His eyes scan the faces of his shocked pupil. He sighs, and despondently states, “class dismissed.” 

Looking over to Cainan and the woman with him on the ground, Smilodeus closes the gap between them. She is searching for any sign of injury on the boy and finds none. Cainan sits back on his heels, panting. The whole ordeal only took a few moments, but the suffering lingering on Cainan’s face aged him by years. Smilodeus puts a hand on her shoulder. More gently, he goes, "I said you are dismissed." She looks up at him with worry, but notices the class had already packed up and left. To the professor, she nods at his instruction and steps out as well. 

Frans kneels down in front of his ward, whose glossy eyes stare back in awe. He pulls Cainan into a hug and runs one hand delicately through the boy’s hair, which is dampened by sweat. “You did so well, Candy Cain."

Melting into the embrace, Cainan let the affirming words and rewarding touch sooth the tension lingering in his body. Finally, he pulls back and brushes off the incident, “yeah, it wasn’t so bad. Heh.” 

[blossoms-phan]

many people are afraid to be real lovers. dan and phil are not

[gobstoppr]

Tetris Fanart.

I've been playing tetris while listening to horror podcasts. and yeah

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I think now, my opinion about "jews by choice choose judaism!" has changed; not because I don't choose judaism fully, I choose it every day, but as time goes on, it doesn't feel as much of a choice. It feels like a choice in the same way that needing to breathe, to eat, to sleep feels like a choice. To me, judaism is as important a function of my day as my mortal, bodily functions, and I never chose to do them. It happened to me, it continually happens to me

I definitely started my journey needing to consciously choose judaism, but as time goes on and it enriches my life more, is it as much of a choice, or is it just... what happened?

I guess it might be apt to say my conversion is like eating: I have to do it. In that way, it isn't a choice, I have no choice in my need for it. However, I can choose what I eat, when I eat, and how often I eat (to an extent). In the same way, I have made choices about my observance, about the way I think about g-d, and how much I participate in my (offline) community. But I don't think I have chosen my desire to be a jew, just like you don't really choose to fall in love.

[recents]

so we all know astarion was named after the minotaur of greek myth, who, despite widely known as the minotaur (“bull of minos”), was named astarion/asterion (“starry one”) by his mother at birth. asterion the minotaur was trapped in a labyrinth and cursed to devour virginal men and women thrown in there as sacrifices.

”The House of Asterion” is a 1947 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges that retells the story of the minotaur from the minotaur’s point of view. it’s one of his best early short stories and it’s very short, only 3 pages long. you can read it here.

borges is in my top 3 favorite writers of all time, and “The House of Asterion” obviously deserves to be considered on its own merits, so i feel slightly irreverent connecting this text to a recent video game. but i reread this short story today and there was much to think about, there were many more seeds planted in my mind in terms of interpretations of the minotaur myth and how asterion the minotaur relates to the story of astarion the vampire. i think it will for you, too.

anyway. if you don’t click through and read it, please at least read how it ends, remembering, of course, that the speaker is asterion the minotaur:

:)

[anakirui]

every now and again i think about the fact that all of akito's shit behavior in main story was spurred on by the fact that he wasn't able to get an to join BAD DOGS . lol

[jash-updates]

Most normal energy drink consumer

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[sing-me-under]

Revival to Sunrise.

[yasmeensh]

Finally got to paint something a little more proper for my project. Paleolithic kids see a dragon come down from the sky 🐉

a few more doodles of my OCs Tam Kujo below >>

drew this one in the span of three days during class time :p. A few lines here and there while I wait for the prof to set up the slides and start the class. Kept going until I felt like not adding anymore.

two more

[write-it-motherfuckers]

Person A: “HEAR NOW FOUL FEIND! I CHALLENGE YOU TO A BATTLE TO THE DEATH!”

Person B: “....Nah.”

Person A: “Wh-... But you’re a Demon! You have to fight me!”

Person B: “Don’t wanna.”

Person A: “Why the fudge not?!”

Person B: “...fudge???...whatever.... It’s just too fucking sunny and gross today ok? Can’t you just go and be noisy somewhere else? I’m sure some lower class demon will be willing to keep you occupied for a while.”

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

wanna ask how you feel about the eridan bpd headcanon/theory(?? not sure what to call it!) you're so good at your character analysis and i'd love to see your outlook on it

Since I don't have a degree or any formal training in psychology, I feel deeply uncomfortable diagnosing characters. I've made an autism joke before but only because I'm on the spectrum. He's definitely traumatized and anxious, but I mean those as descriptors of his behavior rather than capital-D Diagnoses. I try to focus on those when I can - the cause and effect of cognition, self-image, and behavior - and those factors may very well match up with DSM criteria, but I try not to touch an actual diagnosis with a ten foot pole unless the author has explicitly stated that X character has Y condition.

[batsplat]

if more people knew Herstory (aka 2004 season and sete&vale) so many questions wrt 2015 season(mostly “why would vale….”) would immediately be answered addfghjk like guysssss guyssssss

it is kinda funny that there's a simple cheat code out there to understanding most of valentino's career but it's just about long enough ago that most people simply... ignore it. like there's a three year span that more or less tells you what you need to know about him. it's like you say! pretty much every possible "why would vale..." secretly has a straightforward answer, and 9/10 it's something that was established in 2003 to 2005. simple as

if anything it's almost annoying because it's too easy. the 2004/2015 stuff in particular is incredibly funny. oh, so you say you have a controversial last lap at assen where valentino beat a rival in direct combat and said rival reacted surprisingly poorly, making valentino reevaluate his relationship with the rival? might that tell you something about how a seed of suspicion once sown can remain dormant for months until valentino is given cause to revisit it? valentino quite literally says in his biography that he could never have hated biaggi because he wasn't a friend and didn't have the power to hurt him... the sepang pressers thing is genuinely just silly, I know this is mainly a function of when they happen in the calendar but what a bizarre coincidence. 2015 is like a slightly more opaque funhouse mirror version of 2004 - but so many of the major beats are virtually identical. which means you've got a season Out There where a younger less experienced less guarded less cynical valentino basically walks you through his internal processes so you get a really good handle of what his deal is. he's piecing together his identity as a competitor going forwards in real time - and then in 2015 he just reminds you of what exactly that identity involves. it's a reaffirmation and not a departure... he's not that inscrutable after all, in the end

[monbons]

✨9 people you’d like to know better✨

Last Song: I just cleaned up my writing playlist for my fic, so mostly that. But normally I listen to reggaeton and hip-hop on repeat and dance around the house or drop it like it's hot while doing dishes. [Hilarious side note: I was doing laundry while listening to some Lil John or Sean Paul (probably) when I was 9 months pregnant with the first kiddo. I did in fact drop it low at one point, my water instantly broke, and I went into very active labor while no one else was home. Fun times...]

Favorite Color: Barbie pink. Magenta. Millennial pink. Dusty rose. Blush. Anything and everything pink. [Another fun fact: My first tattoo was literally the word "pink" on my shoulder. In black ink. Ha! I was 18 and stupid. I've since gotten a sick coverup. But talk about years of confused stares and questions.]

Currently Watching: Had a day date with the hubs last week to watch Dune. Binging Young Royals.

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: All of the above? Give me some good Thai food (which has all these flavors + sour) and I am in heaven. In fact, be my friend long enough and I will have you over for Thai. I'm an excellent cook.

Relationship Status: Married for 10 years. Bagged him at a mutual friend's holiday party 12 years ago because I kicked his ass at beer pong.

Current Obsession: Snowbaz is my entire personality. In my mind, I am Baz Pitch.

Last Thing You Googled: Are hawks associated with Athena? (Did this for work. A kid made me question what I definitely knew. The answer is no.)

Thanks for the tag @raenestee! (All the below also applies to you!)

I've seen this making the rounds, so I am sure everyone I am tagging has probably already done this. Instead, accept this as my super awkward way of saying you seem cool/I fangirl over your stuff/I make a good friend and you should adopt me because I am clearly a little cool based on my answers.

@thewholelemon, @roomwithanopenfire, @cutestkilla, @bookish-bogwitch, @artsyunderstudy, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @drowninginships, @valeffelees, @emeryhall

[soullessjack]

conservative X-men fans will see a franchise about an oppressed group of people who fight for their civil rights and freedom in a world that sees them as freaks and monsters and imagine themselves being on the mutants’ side but then can’t even handle masculine cis women in sports or a man with painted nails or cisgender teens on puberty blockers for health issues.

conservative X-men fans will see that oppressed group of freaks and monsters constantly facing the threat of an apocalyptic future specifically caused by hate mongers in powerful positions who very blatantly will and do destroy the same humanity they claim to be protecting if it means destroying Those Freaks and think “wow cool robot.”

conservative X-men fans will agree with the villain who was based on Malcom X and specifically came to hold his beliefs through surviving the Holocaust and claim that he can’t even be considered a villain anymore because his ideology makes sense and is consistently proven right by the humans’ unwavering intolerance, but go into hysterics the minute a real life minority holds any sort of hatred or resentment toward their oppressor.

conservatives in general will always pretend that the media they consume doesn’t have any deeper meaning or purpose other than being entertainment slop because they almost always retreat into media for some type of “comfort” or escape from having to acknowledge reality and their own bigotry. they want the freedom to be bigots without any pushback or consequences so they surround themselves in an echo chamber of fictional characters and universes who can’t argue with them or tell them they’re wrong and bad.

conservatives have to constantly and deliberately turn their brains off to consume a specific piece of media because they know that they would be the villain in it if they gave it an ounce of deeper thought and that’s exactly why they push back so hard against anything that drags them out of their comfy echo chamber, anything that threatens their blissful ignorance.

they thrive on the idea that their media isn’t “that deep” or based in/affected by reality; that there’s no such thing as representation or allegories or coding in media (and alternatively, that representation doesn’t matter or is just propahanda). they thrive on willful ignorance and they want to convince everyone else to be just as ignorant and the death of media literacy is exactly how they’ll achieve it

[wreckedhoney]

a while ago on the discord i brought up the "which desk at the station is forrest's desk" question when the answer should probably have been obvious. he's been at the job for approx. one week, so it's the desk with all the unpacked boxes. it just didnt occur to me because thats Frankly A Lot Of Boxes and my first thought was this is where all the storage and junk are piled on, but no. it's all stuff forrest brought (/hc). he's a heavy packer. he spite packed all the stuff he didn't want his old job to keep even if he doesnt need or even like them all that much but now that he's blacklisted then no one in the entirety of chicago can have them