#so like. i can’t escape.

[porch-collapse]

thinking about how back in the drunk years i was trying to come up with an excuse to quit my hotel job while also half-watching mr robot. and i was like “this dude is way more mentally ill than i am and he’s holding down a job. he does computer stuff, maybe i could do that” and then i blacked out probably. I don't remember much from those years but I do remember having that thought. eventually i found out that while blackout, i’d fucking re-enrolled in college and changed my major to computer science. and i just decided to roll with it instead of figuring out how to undo it. and now i’m sitting here on my phone in this IT department. wild.

[milkybishop]

"- but with whom can you sit in water?"

and who can hop in the bath with you to make a show of not caring about your tattoos, and how can you not find it hard to hide your disdain at the attempt.

because either this is a trap you have blindly walked into again . . . or he really does love you and could have loved you all this time. and despite all that-

you cannot turn from the path that you are on.

[saionjeans]

i love how during nanami’s drive she’s like “touga you gotta listen to me this guy is fucked up i just saw him performing some of the most horrifically unspeakable acts of violence” and akio is like [chuckling smugly] “hmmm….. what you saw….. yes, of course, a child’s mind is clouded by their limited perception….. and yet…. what you think you saw is merely an illusion…… due to solipsism.” and nanami doesn’t even pause to consider it, immediately she’s just like “what the fuck is this evil freak talking about.”

[atopvisenyashill]

i was thinking more about characters Performing Gender, but not necessarily Transgressing Gender. I wound up focusing on Ned and Sansa bc I feel like I understand them the most but-

Sansa as a hostage is imo the most obvious (bc it’s so well done) moment of someone clearly Performing Gender but not being transgressive in that performance. Which isn’t to say it’s not a complicated performance; it’s a fine line Sansa walks between weaponizing her gender to protect herself without seeming too fake. She’s trying to placate the Lannisters by playing the perfect, dedicated, air headed betrothed because it’s the only defense she has - if she outwardly rebels, she will be punished in a likely violent and/or sexual way (which isn’t even conjecture - when she says “or maybe he’ll give me yours” Joffrey has her struck with an armored hand). She’s not quite successful in being convincing but that’s because it’s a rather extreme situation; despite no one believing her, she does make herself seem meek and stupid enough that no one suspects she’s plotting to escape with Dontos until she’s well away from KL. The fact that she even has Dontos to confide in is because of Sansa’s relationship with gender! When she saves him, she covers her rebellious slip by playing up Joffrey’s intelligence & his role as King; she reaches for “tools” of her gender AND of ~proper manhood~ to save a life and herself from another beating. Her retreats into the godswood and silence are very much Sansa attempting to recharge from these draining interactions, the same way a knight would need to stop and eat and rest after a fight. She is fighting, constantly, by forcing herself to stay within the narrow confines of a specific type of gender performance as a way of shielding herself from harm.

Ned yelling at Cat is another big one, and I’ve seen the scene referred to as Ned using his patriarchal power to scare Cat, which is a great description. It feels like a Performance because Ned is putting on this terrifying Lord Stark mask in an attempt to get Catelyn to stop asking about Jon (and Lyanna). This is not how he usually acts with those he loves! When Ned is with His People, he is welcoming of questions, curiosity, emotion, even transgressive thought (to a point! the idea that Ned is a feminist because he lets Arya learn to fight is Not accurate but you can’t deny he allows significantly more flexibility wrt gender expression than most of the fathers we meet in this series. the bar is in hell tho). Yet when Cat asks him about Jon’s mother, Ned scares her so well she stops asking & still remembers the moment bitterly over a decade later. And if that snippet we see through Bran’s eyes of Ned praying that Cat will forgive him does come after she asks (like it’s suspected), it’s clear not only that this is a performance he’s putting on & weaponizing against Cat, it’s one he does not like using as a weapon against someone he is close to. After using the power his gender gives him to cause harm, he retreats to the godswood and silence to pray and rest, much like Sansa. A spiritual cleanse, the way a soldier may pray after battle, to reset and reconnect Being A Proper Man to Being A Kind Man.

I think there’s something interesting in that two of the characters most widely defined by how well they adhere to Westerosi gender norms both dislike feeling like they had to weaponize their gender. They are exhausted by the performance, because it’s a performance. This isn’t Sansa getting excited over tourneys, or Ned teaching his sons to fight; it’s toxic masculinity, it’s structural misogyny. It’s something they’re good at, excel at, and connected to something they enjoy but when it’s paired with violence, whether done by Ned or done to Sansa, it crosses over in their minds from an innate part of themselves (The Gender) to a performance necessary due to survival (The Gender Role). And that after these performances, both retreat to nature & god as a way of resting and cleansing from the experience.

[swingingthehatchetnow]

I am suffering from Art Block rn so I figured I’d do some basics ft. Richie my beloved 🫶

[why-the-heck-not]

a productive all-nighter starts by making a clear to do list & getting to work spending an hour or so searching for the music that hits the vibe just right

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

what bothers me about horde prime, more than his lazy characterization or his lack of impact on the narrative, is the fact that he is such a bad representation of a cult leader. like,, this is not how cults work. they don’t just insert a chip into you and make you follow their every directive like a robot. real life cults are a lot more terrifying because they use manipulation as a tactic to convince people to join them. it’s not a digital chip that you can remove from your system and suddenly you’re in complete control of yourself. cult survivors have talked about how hard it is to actually unlearn that mindset and start thinking for themselves, how many years it takes to stop feeling guilty for leaving their cult or seeing the toxicity in the leaders they so religiously followed.

sure, hordak and catra have some trauma tied to their experience with horde prime, but most of that is because of the physical torture they went through, rather than their experience of being brainwashed. and it’s fine if horde prime was just some villain and not a genocidal cult leader. but it’s clear that he was written to be a religious authority figure, the execution is just so off.

i know he’s a character in a fantasy world, so he had to use his powers for something. but instead of turning people into robots, he could have shown them a “better world” through his tech, talked them into joining him and forgetting about all their current worries, and then used them as weapons against etheria.

it would have been a lot more impactful and angsty if catra had willingly joined horde prime’s cult so that she could repress her guilt. in fact, it would have been really interesting if horde prime had convinced catra that he would help her repend for all that she did, if she joined his cult. this would have been a lot more comparable to religious guilt and trauma in real life, and it would show that catra actually felt bad for what she did, instead of just looking sad for a while and then continuing to be a shitty person anyway.

[thefirstpaleontologist]

ok I just had a really fun hazbin hotel au idea

what if Lillith had dumped Charlie with Alastor before she fucked off to heaven, resulting in Alastor ‘raising’ (I use that term loosely) her for the 7 years leading up to season 1?

Edit: did a redraw of that first scene!!

[magpie-trove]

You have to forget yourself!!!! To understand yourself!!!! You have to get out of yourself!!!! To really live!!!!!!!

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

so i was replaying this game (my friendly neighborhood) that i got really into a year or two before i got into ultrakill, and you know who fucking jumpscares me in the credits? Gianni

This is the fate of almost every single indie FPS with voice acting and it never stops being scary!!

[cielkie]

idk how this would work in the OIAR bc i just feel like they wouldn’t let anyone from outside look at their files, but i think it would be really funny to have like. a college age researcher show up to the og magnus institute or the OIAR who’s like studying the paranormal or folklore or some shit (cue guy with an actual degree in parapsychology which makes martin shit himself when he tries to start conversation HELPP) who’s just like oh hi guys this is my honors project! :) can i look at some spooky stories? 🤗 and the OIAR/MI staff are like NO. DO NOT LOOK INTO THIS ANY FURTHER RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. but i feel like elias would 100% require that they help this person out, bc he’s evil and he’d want a fear to eat them, and like… it’s just funny to imagine like. the staff trying to keep the true nature of the institute/OIAR away from this totally clueless 22/25 year old and feeding them the silliest statements possible that don’t connect at all to throw them off track so this poor kid is confused and hopefully gives up. but also kinda bittersweet imagining them all coming together to protect a stranger from falling into a world they can no longer escape… the old “it’s too late for me but it’s not too late for you” makes my heart hurt

[73647e]

the house and dps fandoms are connected through time and space by rsl’s fantastic bone structure

[whaliiwatching]

cozy color..

[atopvisenyashill]

imagine you are baela targaryen and you want to name your daughter after your long dead mother. your husband lets you because it’s a suitable Velaryon name. the husband that you love because he acts like your dad is acting like your dad by fucking your niece, who is the same age as your grandson. he will carry on this affair until you are both dead.

you are elaena targaryen and the only freedom you’ve ever known is with your aunt’s husband who is older than your father. when they are all dead, you marry the grandson of your lover. you want to name your daughter laena, as a way of remembering baela & alyn and everything you all put each other through. your husband agrees because you’re both half Velaryon and he likes that you share this. you are not in love but you are happy. a war breaks out and he is murdered in front his mother. you have just suggested his niece marry a prince.

you are laena velaryon 2.0 and you marry a nice man around your age and have many children. your first born doesn’t marry for a long time but when he does, he makes a match with your cousin, who had an affair with your father that emotionally wrecked your mother. a war breaks out and you watch all of your sons die one by one except the very youngest, and they call this a mercy.

you are aelinor penrose and your husband refuses to consummate your marriage and you attempt to shame him for this. a lifetime ago, your auntie elaena told you a story about her sister who did the same thing, and it got her locked up for years, but your smart, savvy auntie elaena tells your husband he can live his life as he pleases without destroying his wife, and you think of the way your auntie elaena and grandma laena can’t even look at each other anymore, and you figure maybe you got lucky.

[gh0stsp1d3r]

yt readers and yt authors will never understand what it’s like to have to read about the same white woman described in almost every single thing I read, especially old literature 🥲 “her straight, blonde hair was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.” yes I just read that line, yes I closed the book and typed this out. Then when I talk about it everyone’s like “oh you’re just sensitive.”

[devilsskettle]

there’s also just Something About female characters who are jealous of the men around them for getting to behave in certain ways that they just can’t. like you can just act like that? you don’t have to maintain a carefully curated and constructed image of yourself to present to the world so people don’t treat you like shit? i’m not gonna universalize but i do believe most women feel this way at least at some point in their lives, i feel it all of the time and it drives me fucking insane