#why can't it even be tangentially real

[mildew-mop]

Bluey is such an unrealistic show. I'm fine with them being dogs but like?? They love each other?? It depicts parents who care about their children?? Unironically one of the most unrealistic pieces of media I have ever seen in my entire life. Sometimes, I get upset watching it. Like they use words referring to other characters as family members but also are kind to each other???? I cannot physically find a way to contort my brain into seeing these characters as "family" like its so fucking unrealistic and bizarre to watch. Its pure fucking fantasy.

[marxism-transgenderism]

As the key witness for the prosecution, the Houston rapper, real name Megan Pete, described her account of night of July 12, 2020, saying on record that the assault was the result of an argument she had with Lanez, real name Daystar Peterson, and Kelsey Harris, her former best friend and assistant, while driving home from a Hollywood Hills pool party in the early morning hours.

Wearing a purple suit, red-bottom, black stilettos and a black bob hairstyle, Pete, 27, testified that the shooting and its aftermath have impacted her health, both physically and mentally. "I can't even be happy," she said, her voice breaking during her afternoon testimony. "I can't hold conversations with people for a long time. I don't feel like I want to be on this earth. I wish he would have just shot and killed me, if I knew I would have to go through this torture."

The Grammy winner recounted that she and Peterson had an intimate but not exclusive relationship in 2020, one that Harris did not know about at the time. Pete knew Harris had a "crush on" Tory, so she hid the relationship. (When asked specifically why she had not previously revealed the nature of her relationship with Peterson, Pete said she was embarrassed, "because it's disgusting at this point. How could I share my body with someone who could do this to me?")

The fight in the vehicle started when Peterson hinted at the relationship to Harris and then tried to pit the two women against each other, calling them "bitches and hoes" in the car.

Pete testified that, after exiting the vehicle for a second time on the drive home, Peterson shouted at her, "Dance, bitch," then fired five shots at her from the passenger side, striking her in the feet. "I felt shocked. I felt hurt. I wasn't sure if this was really happening. I looked at my feet, I saw the blood and I fell to the ground," the "WAP" star testified.

When expressly asked about changing her story to police the night of the shooting — from stepping in glass to allegedly being shot by Peterson — Pete gave context for her choice in the moment, starting with her distrust of the police.

"I don't feel safe in the car. I don't feel safe with the police," Pete said between tears as she described the aftermath of the incident, when responding officers had her, Peterson, Harris and Jaquan Smith, Peterson's bodyguard, step out of the vehicle they were stopped in.

Pete, who shared that she's grown up deeply suspicious of cops, said that wariness was further stoked by the 2020 climate, George Floyd's murder and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests: "In the Black community — in my community — it's not really acceptable to be cooperating with police officers."

Pete then spoke briefly about how "women aren't believed when they speak out." George Mgdesyan, Peterson's attorney, objected on the grounds that the comment was tangential to the case.

Beyond fear of the police and questions surrounding survivor credibility, Pete also shared the concern that implicating Peterson could negatively impact her career in hip-hop.

"This situation has only been worse for me and it has only made him more famous," Pete said during morning testimony. "Because I was shot, I've been turned into some kind of villain, and he's the victim. This has messed up my whole life ... This whole situation in the industry is like a big boy's club ... I'm telling on one of y'all friends, now you're all about to hate me."

(link)

[lakesbian]

here's every way wildbow accidentally made pre-meiosis "russel" thorburn transgender that i can remember. if you can think of any reasons i forgot please add on

his parents named his younger sister "ivy," as if the obvious grandmother-pandering name "rose" had already been used up. blake theorizes that they used a male version of "rose" for PMT, but this is nonsensical--there is no male form of the name rose, and everything he comes up with as a possible option (in other words, everything wildbow came up with as a possible option) is a major stretch. most don't sound even tangentially like the name "rose." it makes far more sense to assume that PMT was afab and had the deadname rose. (this also makes sense on a thematic level wrt how rose thorburn jr is supposed to be the Real heir that grandmother is forcing blake to die for, but that's getting besides the point)

rose has memories of being harassed over the inheritance by her female cousins, and the idea of these memories just being wholly pulled out of thin air when basically everything else involves memories either being split btwn blake and rose or erased altogether is weird

blake is friends with, like. a lot of gay people. textually runs in poor gay artist circles. the idea of them adopting this weirdly cool cis straight guy is funny but it makes a lot more sense if PMT was trans + gay and only got turned into a straight guy (and a straight girl) yesterday, due to the homophobia demon

PMT literally thinks "Besides, why devote any more attention to your son, when you could just start over?  Have that beautiful baby girl you wanted, right?" which is also like one of the only pieces of internal narration we get from PMT in the entire story. first girl they named rose ran away and did some shit with their gender so now they have a second girl they can't name rose but can still try to raise to go for the inheritance

in the same chapter as when pmt says that, callan is like ohhh you think youre going to worm your way in-, implied sentence ending being "-to the inheritance," which is, like. the family knows it's going To A Girl. so.

PMT was childhood friends with paige, who is The Gay Cousin. it is deeply sensible to imagine them bonding over this, regardless of whether or not PMT (or even paige) knew at the time

it is, like, fully possible for a cishet dude to get sick of living with his shitty toxic abusive family and abscond at the age of 17, but also homelessness is an extremely prevalent issue among transgender kids in abusive families. the narrative of a transmasc kid growing up in an abusive, catholic extended family where girls are pressured to compete for a very gendered inheritance + leaving at the age of 17 & finding a new home among a bunch of gay artists is Significantly more compelling than the cis dude alternative. it just is.

okay i think im running out of, like, logical errors that make sense only if pmt was trans prior to the Obliteration, so as for the thematic stuff. like i said, rose being the half grammy decided was supposed to be "real" and blake being the half that's supposed 2 die for her 2 exist, rose just being unhappy and disconnected by nature of existence while blake is the parts of pmt that escaped from the constraints of the family + found happiness, so on and so forth. "catholic grandmother literally obliterated her transmasc nonbinary grandchild by splitting them into two binary gendered halves & expecting that the man they could've been die to allow the acceptable woman--literally forced to dress in grandmother's clothes--live on and do as grandmother wished" is Everything, doing the same thing but to a cis man grandchild is significantly less compelling

Others who r very old/operating on what are explicitly stated to be oppressive and antiquated gender roles as per the book's themes about inherited/traditional forms of harm keep mistakenly calling blake she/her and rose lmao

??? probably some other thangs im forgetting

[essektheylyss]

This was entirely tangential to this post from @utilitycaster which is why this is its own post, but the tags made me think about what feels most compelling about Liliana to me, and it's really because there's such an interesting approach to redemption in terms of the sunk cost fallacy to be had there.

There have been plenty of comparisons between Liliana and Essek, but I don't think they're really situations that can be compared. Essek had done one horrible thing (that was of relevence to the story; it is implied that he's taken other actions that he feels were wrong, but we don't know what those entail nor do the Nein care enough to ask, so per narrative convention, they do not matter for analysis) and was only still involved in it to the extent that he couldn't take it back, so to survive he had to continue covering his tracks. But he was also incentivized to otherwise act in alignment with the group that was not those on behalf of whom he had made terrible choices, because he was still living in the Dynasty, and as such wasn't actively perpetuating those actions beyond the cover up.

Liliana on the other hand is acting with the Vanguard and has been furthering if not personally committing atrocities on their behalf for a number of years, continuing to the present. Like Essek, she believes her involvement in the cause to be a difficult choice that was made for noble reasons, and now can't see a way out. But she is also relieved to be told to stay, though at the point that they discuss her leaving, she is alone and outside the immediate range of contact or oversight from the Vanguard. It seems reasonable that she could disappear with a decent headstart, and perhaps become untraceable quickly enough to be safe from anyone following. With this context, returning to the Vanguard with the intention of feeding information to the opposition feels like the riskier choice, but crucially it is the devil she knows.

I actually liken this more to Cassandra de Rolo than Essek. Cassandra was manipulated against her brother by the Briarwoods, but this was also spurred by having watched Percy seemingly leave her for dead. There are legitimate reasons why the Briarwoods, as the people who rescued her and then kept her alive for many years, are the easier option in which to place her trust. She knows what she's getting from that vantage point and how to handle it. She doesn't inherently have faith that someone she only knew as a young and helpless child, who ran from the hardships she's faced, would have the strength or willingness to do what she has found necessary for survival.

I think that Liliana's actions are more willful, not least because she was not a child nor in mortal peril when she joined the Vanguard, but she sees herself as having made difficult choices when only faced with difficult options, and I do think they have been difficult. She didn't want to leave her family; she doesn't want to hurt the young Ruidusborn under her care; she is probably genuinely sorry that innocent people were considered a necessary sacrifice for what she sees as the greater good. It is psychologically taxing to feel as though one is always picking between bad options, which is a significant contributing factor for why people buy into a sunk cost for so long. And over time, those hard decisions become easier, because you know what to expect from the outcome. Though Liliana is well aware that she might be killed for a misstep among the Vanguard, she already knows how to act to maintain their favor, but how she might be received on Exandria by those fighting the Vanguard, even with the Hells vouching for her, is anyone's guess.

This is a very real reason why people remain in cults and struggle to push back against this kind of conditioning: because the decision to leave feels more immediately perilous than the decision to stay. (On a certain level making these kinds of choices and actions habitual is a fundamental basis behind a lot of military conditioning.) And if you are acting in the interests of your own survival, but that survival comes at the cost of that of countless others who have not, in fact, made any threat or harm against you to begin with, then is the nature of your survival morally defensible?

This analysis isn't a question of whether Liliana will commit to her role as double agent and turn fully against the Vanguard, or even which one of these is a "better" story; this is about what the story might say if she doesn't. Yes, she might commit to a different path than the one she's on and make an effort to redeem herself, but it is also a perfectly coherent and interesting story if she doesn't.

[chickenparm]

tartag x reader, first kiss after a spar

i'll do you one better :^)

Childe/gn!Reader 669 Words - SFW (Touch-starved Childe. Mentions of blood, kissin', and fightin', not in that order and not mutually exclusive.)

---

Something is deeply wrong with Childe.

If you said that to anyone who tangentially knows him, who has crossed paths with him, who has looked at him, well... They'd laugh in your face for stating something so obvious.

And you've always known. From the moment you met, you knew from the get-go that Childe isn't quite right. And there are any number of traits you could list off that would support this point.

The times where his eyes would look through you, unseeing as his mind flickers off to somewhere else, just for a moment. When he'd laugh a little too loud, smile a little too wide, none of it feeling real. When his eyes would hold dark circles and he'd wave off your concerns by mentioning it was a late night at work.

You patiently avoid mentioning the manner in which he checks every alley, examines every shadow.

Maybe all of this blinds you to the fact of another glaring point of wrongness. Of when he doesn't always dodge away as quickly from your knuckles cracking into his cheek. How he takes a little too long to break from a grapple.

The moment his eyelashes flutter for a half-second when your hand squeezes around his neck.

It's how you've got him now. One knee buried in his gut to keep him from taking a full breath, the webbing of your thumb pressed to his adam's apple, fingers pressing in on the thrumming artery at the side. Childe always insisted on no weapons, only your fists against his own during your friendly spars.

You think you're starting to understand why.

Leaning a little closer, you regard the glassiness of his eyes, the blood that's staining his teeth from a nosebleed, the rabbit-quick thumpthumpthump against your fingertips that press into his pulse. Childe's arms splay from his sides, an open display of submission to your victory.

Anyone in their right mind would tell you to get off, to be an honorable winner and accept victory with a little more grace. But you're far too distracted by the way his throat bobs beneath your hand and his tongue sweeps blood from the back of his teeth.

Childe could break free - he's done it before in this way - but his eyes slip closed and he exhales the smallest amount through his nose. The breath trembles, far too akin to someone that's indulging in a dessert they've been craving. A treat; a delicacy.

Your fingers squeeze, his diaphragm stops moving beneath your knee. The thudding against your middle and ring fingers skips before resuming in double-time. Childe is far too accepting of any of this, as if he wants it.

Needs it.

The taste of his blood on your tongue is sharp; iron-and-salt. You don't care for the sting of your own split lip. It means nothing when your tongue licks the blood from his teeth and his own greets you like a lover would. Slow, languid, dragging the moment on and on as surely as he drags his tongue against your own.

Childe moans into your mouth, tipping his chin up and practically offering himself to you. Take it all, give me everything, you think he'd say, if you weren't keeping him so occupied. Surely he'd beg if you pulled away and denied him even the harshest of contact between the two of you.

He'd appreciate that, you think. If the only touch he can get from you is something brutal, then Childe must be taking what he can get. It stings as surely as your lip does that Childe is so desperate for physical contact that he'd seek it in violence.

You'll indulge him. Not because it's some kind of favor, but because if Childe is so starved that anything is better than nothing, then you will give him everything. Your touches don't have to be all hard edges and blunt force. You can be soft with him, too.

Something is deeply wrong with Childe. You can't fix it, but you'd like to try.

[artistformerlyknownasbutttrumpet]

am only tangentially aware of the sexyman poll thing, but seeing ppl on my dash, whom i've never seen talk about wtnv, suddenly going to bat for cecil so hard gives me actual real emotions? and i can't even be cringe about it. when i found wtnv i was an unmedicated undergraduate student living month to month in an apartment in a shit neighborhood, and that podcast deadass kept me from a stint in a psych ward, dude. i am years behind on the episodes, but it like, legit rewired my brain and taught me how to cope with my existential despair by making it something beautiful and funny instead of something to fear. i'm not a merch person generally, but i am literally at this moment, without even realizing it, wearing a wtnv shirt and pants (the ones with creepy on the butt, obviously. i have the booty shorts too. both are quite literally the most comfortable pants i own, jsyk). i have a fucking wtnv tattoo (that joseph fink liked on twitter 84 years ago 💅) bc it's a quote that helps me when i am Dwelling. i listened to wtnv when i was studying creative writing in school and trying to figure out my own voice, and now i am on the brink of making a substantial living off of my books, and wtnv is definitely part of why. i have episode #13 "a story about you" memorized, bc it was (and occasionally still is) my go-to when i am not able to sleep bc of my brain. it calms me down. i've watched them live in three different cities (two different countries), bc i wanted to see them, and also bc i wanted to support the cast and crew. i'm not staying up until midnight on episode drop days anymore. idk what's going on with the plot. but i will always, always, always love that stupid podcast, and owe it more than i can repay

idk, i just like seeing it on my dash again. feels good. feels organic

[scientia-rex]

Read some more of Toxic Parents tonight and wow!!!! the amount of anger I have!!! and the incredible unwillingness I have to actually remember my childhood and feel associated feelings!!!!! Like, there are events I keep telling over like talismans, because these are the events that prove I'm not crazy. These are things that happened that should never have happened. The time Dad kicked the door in is the biggest one. The time I spent twelve straight hours cowering in the far back of our station wagon with my fingers jammed in my ears so I wouldn't hear my father screaming at my mother and my mother sobbing as we drove to a different state. The time I told my mother I had gotten accepted to graduate school and her first words were, "How are you going to pay for it?" instead of "Congratulations" or "I'm proud of you."

But these aren't all of it. They're so far from all of it. One memory I have is not of the presence of abuse, but the sudden, bewildering absence of it: my sister drove me to the nearest town with a mall, an hour and a half away. We were stopping to pick up snacks for the drive back, I think at a Safeway. I picked up a box of Golden Grahams cereal and nervously asked my sister if I could have it. She said, "Of course you can, you know what you want." In the limbus of a childhood spent being told I was picking the wrong soda for myself when I gave my order at fast food restaurants, suddenly being told I could have what I wanted T-boned me emotionally. It was like running into a wall I hadn't known was there. What? I can just want things? I can just get things and have them because I want them? I don't have to justify it, or lie, or hide what I want? No one is going to tell me I'm stupid for wanting something or that I'll regret it?

Just an incessant drip-drip-drip of emotional abuse, sometimes punctuated by a flash flood. "If I leave your mother, how do you think you're going to eat? You're going to end up on the street."

And now, reading the section on how children end up feeling about the passive parents who enable abuse, I just think, oh, there's me! There's me. I hated her and pitied her and loved her and wanted more for her. I didn't have the adult emotional capacity to understand how much of her life she was complicit in, but damningly, I did vaguely, tangentially understand that she was constantly making excuses for Dad--coming to my bedroom to sit on my bed and tell me, while crying, that he was sorry, while he never apologized. Making it my job to comfort her. I said to her once that I remember, "If he was really sorry, he'd stop doing this," and she just looked at me with something that looked like sorrow but I could tell was rage--she was angry at me for not forgiving him and letting us snap right back into the "good" phase between angry outbursts, where we could, for however long it lasted, pretend to be a normal family.

And how she always resented me. She resented that I was separate from her, she resented that I could do and see and understand things she couldn't, she was angry when I went into Psychology, even angrier when I went into medicine. She's been throttling down her anger at Dad for as long as I've been alive, pretending to be malleable, having vague health complaints and maladies mixed in among the real ones, forever retiring to her bed with a washcloth over her eyes instead of interacting with me.

And now that I'm an adult, and not just an adult but a middle-aged doctor, why don't I call? Why do I insist on bringing up the past? Why do I expect Dad to apologize? I'm hurting his feelings, after all.

The past. Sure. When I graduated from medical school, he named the worst doctor we ever met and said, "He went to medical school, too. Don't get a big head."

And when we were talking, once, not long ago, maybe two years or so, about how he used to stand there and yell at us--I can't remember any of the words anymore, just the way he looked, the tone of his voice, the experience like being buffeted by a strong wind--he said, "At least your sister fought back. You just stood there and took it."

I can't imagine a clearer illustration that he doesn't actually regret his behavior. He doesn't regret his actions. He still feels justified. We were disappointments, we were failures, we weren't him, we weren't what he wanted for us, and more than that, we were convenient targets for his rage. You can do almost anything to your children and get away with it. And he didn't hit us, so it was okay, and the fact that we were hurt by the actions he took with the intent to hurt us means that we were weak. And it's okay to hurt the weak.

Christ! This is the man who, in a fit of sullen self-pity, when I gave him a mug that said "World's #1 Dad" for Father's Day when I was probably eight or nine, talked about how we both know that's not true. As if a child is your therapist. As if it were my responsibility to reassure him.

My mother has read Toxic Parents. My mother has read Why Does He Do That? She has a bachelor's and most of a master's in psychology. She has an IQ of 150. She is a bad mother. It feels like the worst judgment you can make, a bad mother. It feels worse than calling someone a bad father. Because we expect less from fathers. But a bad mother is unnatural.

But lots and lots and lots of mothers are bad at being mothers. And I love mine and I hate her, and I'm angry and I'll always be angry, and I'll die angry, and I have to try to carve what happiness I can from a world I entered into under false pretenses. I was always told I was wanted. I knew I wasn't. I may have been intentional, but I wasn't wanted.

My mother's mother just died last week. I didn't know her. She chose not to know us. I hadn't seen her since I was twenty-two and graduated from college. My mother is struggling with her relationship with her mother. She often tells me her mother was a narcissist. I want to ask her what she thinks she is. She's not a narcissist, but she's an enabler, she's a doormat, she's a classic case of codependency, and I don't think she sees it that way. I always got the sense she was just waiting for us to grow up and go away so she and Dad could go back to being happily miserable alone together.

I asked her, this last year, if she'd read Why Does He Do That? and she said she had, and she asked me carefully why I was thinking about it, waiting for me to confess to her that my husband of ten years was abusive. She's been gunning for this relationship since the beginning--I'd been with him for maybe a year when she mailed me a copy of He's Just Not That Into You (or maybe it was the sequel, It's Called a Breakup Because it's Broken) along with an article on how to date as a single older woman. I was 23. She was flabbergasted when I said I thought Dad was abusive. Denied it immediately. I listed examples and she didn't even say words, just made simultaneously pained and exasperated noises.

She wants me to be single and a career failure and pathetic so she can feel good about herself in comparison. Dad thinks he wants me to be like him, but if I actually behaved like he does, I think he finally would belt me.

I had to hide everything good in me from them so they wouldn't deliberately ruin it. I couldn't tell them about my writing. The first time I finished writing a novel I told Mom and she didn't even acknowledge it, just told me to do the dishes. I was sixteen. I can't tell them what I love about my husband because it would be like speaking to them in a foreign language. They think it's a performance, like their performance, and they're always waiting for me to slip up and reveal the misery they're sure is lurking just underneath.

I've done well. They don't own me. I wish I had real parents, but I'm going to try not to shop for oranges at the hardware store anymore.

[dedalvs]

Hey mr sir I was wondering if you had any idea how to understand syntax. I am in a class and I am SUFFERING and the only resources I was given was the teachers notes. And they don't make sense. I am so close to failing and no one knows what the hell they're doing (not even the instructor)

Syntax is analysis. Always remember that. It is, at best, tangentially related to language. It is a representation of a theory (and there are multiple such theories) about why the words in a language are arranged in the order they are in order to produce a meaning. It is an attempt. It's not necessarily true. It is not a representation of something real. It is a representation of something that IF it were real, wouldn't that be cool? It doesn't actually say anything about language.

The important thing to remember about studying syntax at the university level is that you are not studying syntax: You are studying a specific theory of syntax. Your job is to learn that theory and how it works. You are NOT learning how a language works: You're learning how that theory works. It doesn't matter if anything you're doing makes linguistic sense: It matters if it makes sense within the context of the theory. That's it.

I say this because based on the way you've worded your question, it's pretty clear that this is a point you've missed. If you hadn't, you wouldn't be saying "I was wondering if you had any idea how to understand syntax", you'd be saying "I was wondering if you had any idea how to understand XXX theory of syntax". Because that is what you are doing.

If you are studying an older X-bar theory of syntax (for example, Principles and Parameters, or Government and Binding), I can help you with that. If you're studying a modern generative theory like the Minimalist Program, I can't help you with that, as I never learned it. I also can't really help with Head Phrase Structure Grammar or Construction Grammar, because I never studied it; I just have some exposure to it. I do understand Relational Grammar, because I had to learn it to go through some older Austronesian papers, but I find it unlikely that you'd be learning RG, as it's been mostly abandoned.

If it helps you, though, everything you're learning is, to put this in the most controversial way possible, the equivalent of learning astrological star charts. It's like, you tell your friend, "Dude, I went to work today, and my coworker was sick, so I had to cover her bathroom shift, but as a thank you my boss said I could have Friday off!" and your friend is like, "And that makes total sense, because Virgo is in ascension, and the moon is in its third phase, with Libra in retrograde!" and you're like, "Uhhhh..." *headpat* In linguistics, that's, "Wow, in Finnish most indefinite objects take the partitive, but you can also have a partitive subject with a paucal reading!", and then, "That's probably because of object to subject raising required in order to check features generated in D-structure when…" etc. Thus, if you think of it like some sort of game, it might help to put it in its proper context.

If you do have some transformational grammar questions, though, I'm happy to try to help explain.

[izzyspussy]

anyway so seasons 1-early 3 mickey is a pessimist with a dash of nihilist (miserable), and because of that ian looks like an optimist verging on idealist to him.

the fact of the matter is that ian is not an optimist and he certainly is not an idealist. he's a little naive, sure, but less than what would be appropriate for his age. he's also not a pessimist or a nihilist (either kind). or a realist or a pragmatist or any of those.

no, ian is quite simply. unfathomably stubborn. and that is all.

he'll get into west point. he's absolutely certain of this. why? because he fucking said so.

he'll have a real relationship with mickey. they are in love and they are going to be together. this is true. how does he know? because. he. fucking. said so.

he doesn't have hope. he doesn't want things. that's pussy shit. there are precisely three types of things in this world: things ian isn't interested in, things ian already has, and things ian will have. that is simply that!

(which is obviously its own very specific mindset and is at least as extreme as pure optimism and pure pessimism, and is almost certainly just another fun little factor when the force of his will alone is not enough to change the reality of an ongoing traumatic event that contributes to the somewhat early onset of his bipolar disorder. but that's tangential.)

now. once again, disclaimer, these characters cease to exist past early season 5 for me, so there's every chance this next bit is exclusive to MY mickey and ian. there's just no way to know ❤️

that said. ian matures into a nihilist (carefree) - and i would say he's here-ish already in season 4, but in a maladaptive way at that stage - and then eventually matures further into a nihilistic (carefree)-leaning pragmatist.

mickey on the other hand - after a period of having no particular mindset of this type of thing at all which in effect amounts to a months-to-a-year long panic attack where his every action is fueled by emotional desperation and he has no solid concept of his own wants, needs, values, or future beyond the ever-present but totally incoherent certainty that he can't live without ian but ian can and will leave him with ease for even the slightest infraction or failure that terrorizes him like a weasel terrorizes a hen in his every waking moment - um. what was i saying.

oh right. mickey on the other hand, after All That, matures first into a sort of quiet idealism (kind of a pendulum swing maybe, but not quite not also progress, iygiygi), and then. into a less naive version of the old ian's way lmao.

there is no "that's how things are/go" or "that's how the world works" or "life is/isn't fair" or any fundamental human nature or any purpose or lack thereof to life or possible and impossible or likely and unlikely or anything else along any of those lines. there are only two types of things in the world: things that don't matter and mickey's next achievement. and that's that, baby!

and then eventually, mick finishes out at a relatively stable and sustainable realist-leaning optimism, heavily informed by romanticism of the Certain Things Are Meant To Be kind. like, he wouldn't necessarily express that or think of it in those terms. and he doesn't think it's a common thing, in fact it's rare and special and he's very lucky, and even if something is like that it still doesn't mean you don't have to put the work in for it to go well and end up Right. and he doesn't believe in a higher power or in Fate quite as such or in the will of the universe or a cosmic balance or anything like that really.

it's just, you know. sometimes. every now and then. there's just this one little thing that will continuously keep trying to happen without any heed to sense or logic or the incredible odds against it. just something in particular that will forever and always find a way to happen.

like say. for example. there's this gay kid, right? and he gets in this fight and he wins and he's about to bring down a tire iron and ruin this other idiot's pretty face and - for no discernible reason whatsoever - he just... doesn't. and maybe he'll think about it half a dozen years later and wonder why. that one tiny little thing that changed his whole fucking life, why did he do that? what was the reason? and there just. isn't one.

and that's not even all. see, these two dumbasses have no idea the other one is gay too, but some-fucking-how they don't have to say a word or even make any opening moves to just Know they want each other. it's like they read each other's fucking minds, even though he knows, he remembers, he didn't sense anything from ian. but for Some Fucking Reason he just never for a second considered ian wouldn't want him, and ian was in perfect time with him. and maybe he'll think back and try to find an explanation for this part too. was there some body language he read? was there some look in ian's eyes? but the answer is no every time.

and then after that, these two gay kids just can't be kept apart. they just can't. and it's not just that they inexplicably can't resist each other either. every time they're separated they find each other again, no matter what. even when they're the ones to separate themselves, situation after coincidence after happenstance after necessity keeps putting them in each other's orbits. secrecy and jealous exes and gun violence and imprisonment and infidelity and a fucking pathological fear of intimacy and conversion therapy and genuine threat to their lives and marriage to someone else and permanent life-altering illness can't break them up. at least not for long.

and then. somehow. SOME fucking how! after all that, and with the absolutely shit chances that they ever even hooked up in the first place, they actually fucking make it? they don't just get to be together, they get to be happy??

so no, he doesn't believe in god or destiny or soulmates or whatever the fuck. but at the same time, i mean. what other explanation is there?

[biggie-chcese]

🤍🖤

no fandom specifications so rain code it is!! (from this ask game)

Which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think? desuhiko. a lot of fans are pretty quick to act like he is just the absolute worst creepy pervert of all time when tbh i think his behavior ranges from "completely normal for a horny ambiguously aged teenage boy/young man" to "so desperate it's sad." he's a creepy desperate guy but no i dont think he's a pedophile or whatever. "what about that moment in the DLC" man that was a localization thing but even then i dont think he's actually interested in the little girl. do you really think he'd pursue her for real. do you honestly believe that. he's just trying to act like a charming celebrity and falling ridiculously flat.

Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think? hrmmm. this is a harder one to answer bc i feel like i've curated my sphere enough to regularly talk to people who Get how imperfect the characters are. y'see at first i was gonna say makoto, but it's kind of a situation where i think the majority of his fans actually do understand his grey morality and are simply making jokes when they say "he's just a silly little guy!!" so i'll pivot and say yuma, because yuma is just as much of a hypocrite as makoto, if not even moreso, since his killing spree can hardly even be justified. makoto puts criminals in the meat grinder to keep his city fed but yuma just calls for the labyrinth whenever he gets cornered, regardless of whether or not it'd help him in his situation. for example, in chapter 1, it was entirely a pride thing if you think about it. halara had the answer and all yuma had to do was admit that he can't come up with an answer at the moment and that everyone's lives are more important than his spotlight. would it upset halara? yes. but also, people are in danger and you'll get blood on your hands. also, tangentially related but i feel like the fandom at large focuses way more on yuma just being a pathetic helpless little wet tissue rag that they forget that he like... gets angry. they forget that he has some things he straight up won't tolerate even to the point where he would kill bc of it if he could, labyrinth or not. which is sad bc it's part of why i love him so much <3

[thefinalwitness]

it hit me this morning why i like the uniformity of the ancients so much and why i generally disagree with the idea they should be more visually weird. not that i think anyone is BAD for thinking this, i totally get it, especially in the context of azem and wanting to make yours FEEL like your own. (tangentially, i also think azem is one of the best ancient characters TO deviate from the uniformity, given what we know about them and the people born of their soul.)

but what i find so compelling about a society of people whose Whole Thing is creation magic, the ability to Make Anything, having a lot of stigma against deviation in the form of self expression with one's own body is how SAD it is. how DYSTOPIAN it is. you can invent the most creative, stunning objects and creatures known to man, but you can't even show your face.

i think it's a really powerful, subtle piece of the puzzle that ties the whole concept of the world unsundered together—in particular, how miserable it really was, how unsustainable their society really was, how prone to characters like hermes and venat it really was. it reminds me of some of the worst elements of real life; how creators and inventors are lost and forgotten behind their works (instead accredited to companies, or a single person), how artistic and creative careers are typically treated as unsustainable and simultaneously exploited, how unyielding and suffocating the concept of "normal people" is (to the detriment of anyone who deviates, be it by gender, sexuality, race, abledness, religion...). i think it's genuinely meant to be a commentary on things like that, or at least i think regardless of intention it IS an incredible commentary on that.

i think the ancients are SUPPOSED to be boring and uninspired—wearing the same clothes, concealing their faces, never using their transformations—and i think it reflects such an important element of why the world unsundered was awful: ancients were amounted to their creations and duties, not their own selves. you can even see this in the convocation seats, how you're given a new name that EVERYONE, even your closest friends, almost exclusively refers to you by; the implication that you must not only uphold your duties, but blend in seamlessly with your predecessors and successors, that you must be indistinguishable.

this is HOW characters like hermes and venat developed their respective discontentments with their lives; you were not your own person, but a cog in the star. you did not get to have your own passions, styles, ideas—and even when your role was complete, you couldn't be yourself. you were expected to remove yourself from society. you were expected to cease to exist beyond your function. even despite the fact that the ancients WERE individuals with personalities and dreams. their actual bodies vary widely, their eyes glow vibrantly; almost as if they're MEANT to burst with uniqueness. and it's all buried in black robes and masks.

and i think all this is why i LIKE the uniformity so much, because narratively speaking, it's such a fascinating concept. there's a lot of room to explore how it works, why the people of the unsundered world got to that point, how it might disproportionately benefit some people and hinder others. emet-selch calls it perfect and a paradise, but i always got the impression he was meant to be an INCREDIBLY unreliable narrator; i think he was among the people that benefitted from the uniformity and the "this is just how life is, don't resist it" of it all, and i think you can see him recreating it even worse in allag and garlemald. i think it explains the DEPTHS of his hatred for the sundered too, beyond obvious things like "they're not the people he lost".

because the sundered world, conversely, is FULL of individuality. people look, act, talk and live countless different ways; every city and region has a completely different way of life, so much so that you can tell where someone's from just by how they talk or dress. i think venat understood, especially after meeting the wol, that people needed to be free; that a world like hydaelyn would be someplace people like hermes could thrive. and that this plethora of individuality would be the world's salvation—in all things, not just the song of oblivion. i think this is what "hear, feel, think" MEANS.

and so, to me, so much of the picture is lost if the ancients had utilized their creativity inwardly. that's not to say i'm telling anyone NOT to do it—again, i think azem is a great character TO push against this ideology, and i even have an ancient oc (non-azem) who does the same! i think these people absolutely existed, and were simply drowned out and ostracized by the rest of society. mostly i'm just excited to finally be able to articulate this, and i've seen people also question why the ancients are so boring, and wanted to share my thoughts in case it helps! i really like the ancients because i think they're startlingly human (to say nothing of their actual human resemblance), and i think that's so much more interesting than if they'd been super diverse and alien BECAUSE of how much it harms them as a society. super flawed characters fascinate me and make me reflect on my own choices and ideologies, and i think that's both a lot of fun and super useful just in general!

edited to add: i think there's also the mechanical element of game design, and signaling things to players. while a fictional world can be endlessly different from our own, as creators, we still need to communicate the ideas in a way people who live in our world understand. this is, for example, why i think the ancients appear human; being FROM a world where everybody's human, we immediately associate their resemblance to us as benign and unremarkable. and that's what the ancients, i think, are SUPPOSED to be, or rather, what their society has imposed as "correct". the developers using appearances that we'd see in everyday life makes us think, "oh, that's not very fantastical," which is exactly what the ancients' society wanted people TO think of each other. obviously this is a much more technical reason than the rest of this post, but i think it helps explain why they specifically are uniformly human, and not, like, uniformly purple mantis people (which would be cool and different and fantastical, hence muddying the message!).

[randomfoggytiger]

"I find it tasteless that you don’t really care what KF did to those young people as long as your golden boy comes out looking alright...."

"You’ll defend anything adjacent to D. I see a lot of arguments that do not have anything to back it up, like he probably acted inappropriately while drunk at a party before and so what? I’m taking about MP (who said she was drunk?) being unable to control herself because she needed everyone to know she was with D and touches his dick in her spare time. Disturbingly, that’s what seems to give her self-worth. All that is why she’s not very likable or tolerable. Evidence shows that chiropractic adjustments do more to harm than help, but as long as people feel they work everything is hunky-dory? It alarming that you don’t care about real harm being done to people’s spines because it’s D’s gf’s father providing the service? I can’t respect people who push any of that bull crap."

-@iwantapenguin, 2024

Lie, verb: lied; lying. To make an untrue statement with intent to deceive. To create a false or misleading impression.

Slander, verb: slandered, slandering. To make false and damaging statements about (someone).

Gloves off, then. But next time, tag me properly so I can be notified that you are going to abandon a civil discussion and resort to violence.

Post I'm responding to here (and tangentially, here.)

I shall also give you the curtesy of quoting you directly so that everyone can judge for themselves if my claims are valid, fair, or truthful.

**Note**: I do not begrudge anyone feeling disgusted or grossed out by age gap relationships: the majority of those relationships start from a bad place, continue in a bad place, and are doomed to fail or take both parties down with it. However, the accusations flung against David and Monique without merit-- not those that are or were provably awkward or roughshod -- are a waste of my time, energy, and brain power. Give me proof or give me death.

First: "Whataboutism?" Wherefore art thou, 'Whataboutism'?

Next: "People who post their family’s whole lives on social media for attention or to make money are vultures." Except Monique doesn't get a cut off of management deals, engagement, or even ads. DD and his kids have posted pics of their personal lives, homes, and vacations, as well. They not only let Monique continue to post pics and videos, but also respond to (West) or engage with (David) them. And hi, yes, hello, I also despise family vloggers because they exploit children who can't consent.

Next: "MP has thousands of followers she does not know, so private her account is not." ...What? You can have a private account and still have followers without following them. I know people who operate their dinosaur Facebook accounts like that, young and old generation; and they're most certainly private citizens. I know youngins and oldins who operate their Twitters like that. You probably do, too, or at least know someone who does. I'm hungry for facts, but nothing's been proven with that statement.

Next: "D is so clueless he didn’t know that Gillian was taking BTS pictures on TXF’s set to post on Instagram." David didn't know GA was posting their bts vids online, true; but he was also the one who brought up that she was "always taking pictures and videos" when they were discussing fan engagement; and he and she both laughed over it while he assured Gillian he was okay with "it", regardless.

Their exact dialogue, transcribed:

David: "You know how stupid I am? How innocent and naive I am? You would take a video and I'd go 'oh, cool'."

Gillian: *smiling* "And not realize that I was gonna post it?"

David: *smiling*: "Yeah, and then you'd post it. It'll be like, 'Oh. Well, I should have taken a look at that one.'

Both: *laughing*

Gillian: "Well, you never complained so I thought you were okay with whatever...."

David: "I AM o-- y'know, none of it was terrible; but it was like, I never think to do it."

Also, he clarified in May 2015 (before, as you theorize, Monique could have gotten her hands on his phone or publicly posted about him) that he doesn't trust social media because of the assumptions, misinterpretations, and no-going-back nature of technology: "The 54-year-old actor, who has daughter West, 16, and son Miller, 12, with ex-wife Téa Leoni, admits he only uses Twitter because he was ''prodded to do it.'' The 'Aquarius' star said: ''I'm skeptical of Twitter. I'm prodded to do it, and so I do it. But I feel like there is an opportunity to screw up constantly. You have to be careful. It doesn't go away anymore! I tell my kids the same thing.'" Not because of some high-minded but too-lazy-to-accomplish-her-schemes gold digger posting his private business behind his back.

Next: "A few of his daughter’s friends unfollowed her after the sneaky filming started. The photos are already out there for many people to see curtesy of MP, so I’ll document her ridiculous behavior." Perhaps. I don't discount it. But if David didn't have a problem posthumously with Gillian filming him then, and if he still doesn't have a problem with Monique filming him now-- and I know he doesn't because I've watched him play to the camera in some leaked vids others repost here or there-- it would make sense, logically, why West engaged in the same behavior then and now, on her own and with Monique. Some days he might not want to be on camera for all posterity-- indirectly implying that lightheartedly to Gillian in the above transcript-- hence the leg and feet filming.

Again, we. don't. know. If she's a monster or he's a monster, I cast them off into the abyss. But we, the public, have no actual, factual information of... anything, really, other than rumors, speculations, or opinions. What we do know is: he was fine with Gillian posting, even after being made aware of it. He's fine with West posting his apartment and their family activities. He was fine posting a pic of Miller to his own account. He seemed fine with West's boyfriend posting an intimate father-daughter hug for Bucky Dent's premiere. And he seems fine with Monique posting since then.

For every mention you have of West and her friends not engaging with Monique years ago, she most certainly does now. And you can't hide that fact behind West using her father as a leg up in the industry without bringing Tea's contacts from both entertainment and finance into the discussion. Tea who, by the way, has been more than cordial and civil in each outing and sighting with David, saying they're friends, saying they still love each other, telling him he's a good influence and father to West, etc. Even after the timeline you allege he started dating Monique. Even after the other dating timeline you allege she gave fans in a conversation somewhere. Even after he flew in and out of New York before the pandemic. Even after spending the pandemic locked down with his son.

Next: "The photos are already out there for many people to see curtesy of MP, so I’ll document her ridiculous behavior. I’m not his gf, I’ve made no vows to him. He likes to make money on voicing his feelings and opinions. While I’ll continue to comment on a public figure." 'Ridiculous behavior', you say, about an adult posting milestones or cute pictures and videos to her Instagram. Interesting. If she were trying to launch her own career-- which you and your responders have said before she would, a couple times, without anything coming to fruition (the archives don't lie)-- your argument would have a leg to stand on. But then again, David and Tea talked about explicit sex (and their sex lives) back in the day; rolled atop each other on a crowded, public beach; sold David's bottom-as-brush paintings for charity; and promoted her charitable causes during their various movie interviews... so, I would still retract half a point.

Next: "She should have the loyalty, respect, love and care to not use him for attention." Would you say he used her for attention during his performance the night before Bucky Dent, pointing at her and waiting for her response during one of his songs? Did he use her for attention during his recent stories about their private lives on recent podcasts? Did he use his children for attention on his podcasts? Did he use Tea for attention during their collaborations? Did she use him for attention to promote her friend's brand during their recent family vacation? If we broaden this out to its conclusion: do the Obamas use their children or each other for attention, setting aside their 'loyalty, respect, love, and care' for each other in order to do so? Or do they just say or post what they want within personalized limitations that are narrowed or broadened as relationships shift and grow?

Next: "He’ll hold her hand or leg in public now that his mother isn’t here to witness them. How romantic." David's stated in the past his mother didn't listen to what the talk shows said or read what the papers wrote about him. If you want to be really technical, he's also said she had dementia or Alzheimer's (can't recall which specifically) for a few years now; and that it was so advanced by the time of her death that she didn't recall one day from the next. Would she have disapproved? You bet your bottom dollar she probably did. She also would have disapproved of him being as explicit and cussy as he was for decades; and she would more than likely have disapproved of him getting tattoos; and she would have most definitely disapproved of all his youthful, adult, and older adult sexual shenanigans, innocent or not. That didn't stop him before.

To be even more technical, most of the pap shots of DD and MP are taken at Soho House and Erewhon Market, two celebrity hotspots that managers, publicists, and paparazzi use to prearrange meetups in order to get the celebrity's name out there in advance of the next promotional tour, as well as merge their interests to get a split of the photograph proceeds. (I covered the topic here.) All David has to do is show up--ultimately, they're business strolls. He's annoyed (even angry) at having to do it; but he still holds up his end of the celebrity bargain 'cuz that's Hollywood, baby. And he's always brought Monique along with him.

Next: "He pushed her hand away when people were looking before...." Continuing on my train of thought. The other times he and Monique were caught unawares by paparazzi (his band at the airport, Vancouver, the beach, etc.) were during the Revival hype. Monique didn't try to snuggle up, grab his hand, or get too close most incidences. The hand move you're referring to was, I believe, after a live show when he was super-duper keyed up, wanted to leave, and was followed (semi-circled?) by fans. Yeah, it could be a sign he wanted physical distance from her... except he acted out the exact same routine with his kids whenever they got papped or surrounded by a crowd: walking ahead of them, retreating into himself, not touching anyone unless they were feeling insecure or scared, looking serious or annoyed unless talked to or joked with. It was a clear pattern to me, so I guess I'm surprised you didn't notice it, too.

Next: "...and made her hold his arm like he was her gramps." I have an older couple-- 70s-- who have been married forever and still hold each other's arm like that, preferring to keep any romantic overtures tightly under wraps. I knew other older couples who would think that's rubbish or insanity. I know other young couples who are physically affectionate in public; and others who, again, would prefer to keep contact to a minimum. I've seen, read, or heard of every shade in-between; and I know you have, too. Maybe David likes how it makes him feel. Maybe Monique likes reenacting Austenian period dramas. Of all the accusations brought against them, this amuses me the most.

To be even more technical, I can pull up preeeeetty much all the paparazzi pics between he and MP in chronological (not release, they were reshuffled) order to prove that he initiated more contact with MP than the other way around, stemming as far back as 2017.

Next: "They didn’t have to have contact with Tim once he started dating their mother but they always did." First of all, I challenge you to prove that assertion. Second of all... why is that the focus of your question? Why did or didn't they have to? That's an assumption equal to the kids having no contact at all with MP for years. We don't know.

Tim said on a podcast that he and Tea shared a trailer to catch a nap early on in their relationship. Their coworkers suspected they were dating the entire first season, long before they announced it publicly (five-six months later around Christmas.) Tea and David previously married each other within eight weeks. Tea moves fast. We don't know how fast; but we do know one source alleged she and Tim were an item since summer (July) of 2014. David then filed for divorce in August, citing an "irretrievable breakdown of the marriage" (meaning Tea was ready to move on, that's her prerogative); and she and Tim spent Season 1 fake kissing but looked like they were "really kissing", according to an onset actor friend. All this to say, pretty sure Madam Secretary's pilot filmed in May; and if she and Tim were "on" by July, etc., it stands to reason she moves at the same pace as she did with her first husband; then David; then (presumably) Tim. Meaning, we don't know how much contact the kids had with Tim; but it was probably, likely, a lot. Monique, meanwhile, lived primarily in California; and she and the kids had separate worlds, we assume, until West graduated and started forming her own relationship behind the scenes. Miller seems to have followed suit; and the rest is history. All of those are provable facts because we have what David and Tea have said about and done with each other; what Tea and Tim have said about each other; what observers have confirmed or denied on all angles of the situation; and what the kids were doing then and doing now.

Next: "She smoked, loved red meat, wasn’t a gym rat etc. It’s just a little thing, not marriage ending but people fair better the more similar their habits." Your previous implication in the comments of our last chat here was that they wouldn't have lasted long because David couldn't mold Tea into the woman HE wanted. You assume he cheated, cheated, cheated until rehab, then cheated, cheated, cheated some more until their second and final breakup (despite the fact sources from her side said the final dissolution was due to her love not being the same as pre-rehab, not that he'd kept acting reprehensibly), then hooked up with a 19-year-old mercenary social climber that, somehow, waited two years before accidentally leaking where she and her boyfriend would be working out (in a reply to the owners of the Instagram gym they would be going to... which means someone had to have been stalking who she was talking to in order to find that information, hm) so he could no longer hide her away like a dirty secret. Those aspects of Tea were brought up to subtly back your larger point, which was to lay the blame at David's feet one way or another. If he deserves it, lay it there. But prove that he deserves it.

Next: "MP is at his beck and call, she will also twin him without hesitation." MP at his beck and call? ...Or maybe she's down to fly free to any cool new location, down to fly wherever he is because he's her boyfriend and she loves him, down to enjoy a financial freedom we mortals could only dream of having, etc., etc.? Assumptions on all sides; and, again, no proof.

Next: "They didn’t follow each other before because they didn’t interact in real life either. She had to leave when they were visiting up until 2022 and 2023. They didn’t have to have contact with Tim once he started dating their mother but they always did." Never denied that was the case. Still don't buy there was some grand conspiracy happening behind the scenes to keep the kids away from the disgusting age gap relationship and the dastardly, evil machinations MP was concocting on her evil Instagram account. I need hard proof before I believe assumptions.

Next: "Regarding Téa you are assuming she must be ok with MP because she’s good with D but I’m pointing out that she admitted she still wanted to strangle him sometimes for the things he does on a national television show" I never said Tea was okay with MP, just that she's more than okay with David despite his relationship.

Also, Tea's throttle comment disproves your angle, actually. Might as well throw it in here because that's a point you've not let go.

Tea's comment with full context:

In fact, the exes are on very amicable terms and talk almost every day, they even shared a rental home with all of their family over the Christmas period. But this doesn't mean the pair's current relationship is always smooth sailing. “On occasion, I want to throttle him,” she said of her former hubby. "But in any real relationship with someone you love, that’s true.”

Tea's quote the previous year, fresh from divorce:

"Listen, David gave me the two greatest gifts on the planet; I don't know how I could ever hate him. We've always loved each other, and we adore these kids," the 'Jurassic Park 3' actress said of her children, Kyd Miller, 12, and Madelaine West, 15. "I'm not playing stupid-I understand feelings can get hurt and things can get icky. We've had our moments like that. But these kids are too important, and he feels the same way. I know it," she continued. "He's a good guy."

Next: "Of course MP showed everyone the second she first hung out with both of them to no one’s surprise." This doesn't hold up in court, either, because West and her boyfriend gushed over MP all summer. West would have complained to her mom or dad if she felt uncomfortable with the video posted; and neither parent have would let that happen again. Furthermore, guess who was relaxed, smiling, and engaging with the camera, other than Monique? West. Guess who hugged up on Monique while her dad and Ben Stiller celebrated Bucky Dent's release with a performance? West. Guess who gave Monique a happy Happy Birthday message? West. Guess who attended a Taylor Swift concert with Monique? West. Guess who went with her to London to, as you say, "babysit" Monique? West. Guess who celebrated her birthday in New York with, you assume, Monique? West. Guess who'll be elsewhere with Monique in future? Probably West.

Next: "What are you taking about fixing things because of what’s written about her? She made fun of people for saying her friend was her boyfriend because they were disgusted by thought of David dating her and didn’t want to believe she was for real. So that was proof she was reading a few tumblrs when her name was first revealed." Logical inference but incomplete reasoning, I believe. David knows exactly what was said about his House of D movie; David knows what everyone was saying and has said about him during his rehab, reunion, and divorce; Tea knows what might be said and forbids Tim to talk about her in interviews; I know and you know what is being said about each other, which is why we're here (but at least I'll respond to you properly with a reblog or @); and Monique knows what people say about her because she possibly Googled herself or, I don't know, took a look at the vitriol in her comments section-- a few of which you've reposted in the past so even I got to see them. Lovely times. Again, no definitive proof.

Next: "How am I supposed to know if she’s read my blog? But what a dedicated reader you are." Thank you, I'll take that as a compliment instead of a barb. I began poking around your archives right around the time you made a post trying to debunk my David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson seasonal palette posts. (If you're trying to put me off, consider that you brought up our difference of opinion once again in the midst of an entirely separate talk about Monique and David's relationship.) You didn't have the curtesy to @ me then (and now); but I started scrolling while waiting for you to respond, came across a host of information, and decided to come back later to iron out some details. Needless to say, you can't passive-aggressively point a finger at me when your posts are supposed to be public to begin with, not even coyly private like you claim Monique's Instagram account is. One pointing forward, three pointing back, after all.

While we're on the topic, I also caught a lie you told during our previous conversation. Back in 2019? you put a cryptic message saying you didn't believe David and West were close because of Monique; and when West posted the next day for Father's Day, you followed up with another cryptic post hinting MP was reading her Tumblr detractors; and when another user called you out for that, you denied, denied, denied that was your intent; and then you confirmed that that had been your intent to me (in essence, restating that you believe MP keeps up with her anti Tumblr accounts and pressures DD's kids through him to post nice family tributes so they'll cover for her manipulative tactics actively destroying everyone's hunky dory life.) It's the same train of thought as "Gillovny is married"; except your theories are couched with half facts instead of pure insanity.

Next: "She’s never looked anorexic to me so thin yes but not too thin. D was only shockingly thin after Téa left him for good in 2011. My criticism has alway been to question the men in her life and her surroundings pushing her to get plastic surgery and to over exercise which made her much slimmer than she was before. Is that constructive enough?" Yes, actually; because this ties beautifully into my next point about your warfare tactics.

Indirect aggression is a form of aggression that hides behind "my opinion" or "my two cents" to bully others without receiving backlash. While it can be used in sexually competitive environments (in same sex bullying, for example), it mainly extends to interpersonal groups, families, and anonymous online forums. To quote National Library of Medicine: "According to Björkqvist [15], females prefer to use indirect aggression over direct aggression (i.e. verbal and physical aggression) because this form of aggression maximizes the harm inflicted on the victim while minimizing the personal danger involved. The risk to the perpetrator is lower because he/she often remains anonymous, thereby avoiding a counterattack. As well, indirect aggression harms others in such a socially skilled manner that the aggressor can also make it appear as if there was ‘no intention to hurt at all’." I recommend reading the study: it has a few fascinating things to say about perceived threats and thinness, as well.

The study continues: "Indirect aggression is circuitous in nature and entails actions such as getting others to dislike a person, excluding peers from the group, giving someone the ‘silent treatment’, purposefully divulging secrets to others, and the use of derisive body and facial gestures to make another feel self-conscious." While I can't see your face while typing out a post, your words do a sufficient enough job: "When has she ever been stunning honestly? She’s comparable to Perry Reeves and Suzanne Lanza. Average, a little masculine, thin and no sagging. The face doesn’t matter to men like David, nor intellect."

Another quote from a study published on PubMed Central: "In indirect aggression, the aggressor often uses others in the social group to harm the target and may avoid direct confrontation, whereas in direct aggression, the aggressor either physically or verbally confronts the target." Examples? Posting one's opinions about another person indirectly to their blog by not, say, tagging or addressing the 'opposition' directly, leaving them to be told about it or stumble onto it later before they can defend themselves... that might, perhaps, fit the bill. As would calling David and Monique names; then, when given pushback, telling detractors they don't need to care about your opinions, anyway. (For the record, I don't. Just found it fascinating to study the oh so subtle shifts of your narrative back and forth. That compliment's a freebie, by the way-- I try to hand out at least one in each negatively bent post.)

Don't get me wrong: if Monique were a provably bad person, I'd dust off my hands and let you have at. But for all your opinions, you have very few facts; and the mess-ups, flubs, or ill-thought actions on MP's part you have mentioned are so disparate and scattered-- and rarely repeated-- that they look less like condemning incidents and more like overblown reactions to mundane or innocent mistakes.

And before you write off my points by claiming I'm claiming you're jealous of Monique or some such nonsense, one of the above studies openly acknowledges that indirect aggression is not built on the premise of intrasexual competition strategy: "...developmental psychologists have tended to not conceptualize females' use of indirect aggression as an intrasexual competition strategy."

Next: "Again with the whataboutism." Art thou 'Whataboutism'?

Next: "So you were at the after party to see people’s reactions and parties where D’s been drunk?" No, and neither were you. You were also not at David's apartment when Monique and the kids might or might not have been there; you were also not in the room when David and Tea and the kids discussed Tim or Monique; and you were also not in either Monique's or David's head during the posts, blocks, unfollows, refollows, etc. decisions that were made. I merely commented on the fact that you have brought up his drinking before events in in the past, your reactions to it, others on here's reactions to it, and David's circle of friends, and what I do and don't know of said friends' behavior in the past.

Next: "D and T were inappropriate but consensual. PM pulled G’s bikini bottom down when she was trying to close the umbrella and I slammed him for that too. She was humiliated and embarrassed when the pictures were released." Conflation. David and Tea were surrounded by people in both instances, knew others could see them, and didn't care, inappropriate or not. Peter Morgan and Gillian were on a private vacation; and their privacy was infringed on by the paparazzi and media. For all the negative talk that came out of that incident, not one person stated that G was unwilling, visibly uncomfortable, or angry at Peter Morgan for doing so; only that she was "humiliated and embarrassed" after the fact. The problem in BOTH situations is that PM and MP were groping their partners in what they took for granted as private situations-- I have a casual understanding of David's friends and wouldn't be surprised if they didn't care about her or his antics in the long run-- and were filmed without any parties' consent.

Next: "D did not know what MP was doing, he almost spilled his drink jumping back away from her and he did not look like he enjoyed that trick in a room full of strangers." I saw the video a couple times. Did you not catch his smirk once he realized she wasn't trying to tickle his stomach but was doing a game to end up at his junk? It wasn't a polite one, either. If she had intentionally crossed a boundary and made him uncomfortable, I condone that behavior.

Next: "Defending that kind of public humiliation is repugnant." That's a lie, and you know it. Not once in our conversation have I taken the position of condoning, endorsing, or rug sweeping manipulative, abusive, coercive, or other boundary stomping behaviors. They are repugnant to me; and though being called 'repugnant' doesn't make a dent because you have no proof to back up your claim. And, frankly, it speaks to your character that you would try to blacken mine.

Next: "I find it tasteless that you don’t really care what KF did to those young people as long as your golden boy comes out looking alright."

Excuse you, that is a lie and slander.

In the comments of our previous conversation, I stated over and over he was a pimp. He should absolutely rot for what he's done. But you assume that Monique is just as guilty: benefiting from a business relationship with him, sweeping his treatment of other girls under the rug, using a victim's story to score back pats for herself. The reality is, the victim sided with Monique, both when MP supported her in the comments and when MP posted her own Instagram story sharing she'd been "there" before. Foregoing the obvious conclusion, you posted their first back and forth with other comments tearing Monique apart as the secret villain in this tragic story. That's disgusting, in my opinion. I tried to understand why you got to that conclusion; but if not only her friends, not only her coworkers, but the victim HERSELF is standing by Monique, then it is not the time to vindictively insinuate she exercised the same mean, grasping, oily tactics as her former boss. Further, that she was exploiting someone else's tragedy and trauma for her own gain.

Next: "She can be immature and also be a user who uses situations to her advantage." To quote you once again: that's a lie. Prove it. You can't. You can only assume what her intent, motives, and actions are based on your inference of her character.

Next: "...the old greasy celebrity rocker KR was trying to push on them." You can't prove that; and until you can, I can sit here and say it's a lie. It's your inference against mine.

Next: "She did not say she was mistreated by her boss." I never said her boss mistreated her. I never even got that indication from the post you spread around. She related to her coworker's experience through her personal one. Just because KR was an absolute monster to other girls doesn't mean he was a monster to all of them: monsters, abusers, and manipulators pick on the weakest person who has no one to stand behind and back them up. Her father, for instance, would have been a not insignificant buffer. He's well-connected in California, or so you imply by saying he's met David before. And it stands to reason he would be, supplement and wellness culture being what it is in the Golden State.

Next: "According to you MP was an adult and mature enough so she should have know what those special favors from the boss looked like to everyone else." Let's not get into the "his family and friends should have known Ted Bundy was a horrible person" of it all. No one knows what they're not aware of. I have a close, close family member who grew up adoring an abuser because he'd never abused her; yet was horrified and had to process the fact her other sibling was being used for everything short of penetration. To quote a good ol' Aslan meme: "Do not cite the deep magic to me, Witch! I was there when it was written."

Next: "She wrote a short perfunctory show of support for damage control and went back to thanking her lucky stars she now has an easy life of privilege living in a multi-million dollar Malibu home by the ocean thanks to her boss at SLO." First: prove it. You can't with any degree of fact. Second: I'd be thanking my lucky stars, too. So would you. So does everyone who's been in a tangential situation to an abuser and escaped unscathed-- so unscathed that they didn't even know the boss was perpetuating abuse. And that can at least be proven because, as you say, MP's boyfriend was still buying from that shop days before everything broke out; and she publicly empathized with and received empathy from the victim right after. Has the victim made a scathing comment calling out Monique later? Nope. Bet they're still on good terms, too.

Next: "What else does a very rich 54 year old man want from a 21 year old but lots of sex and an easy relationship with someone who doesn’t know any better?" Lots of sex, an easy relationship free of the complicated dynamics of children from other relationships, and someone to love and love him. Seems logical to me. What is unacceptable in age gap relationships are the predators who aim for 21-year-olds (or 19-year-olds, as you posit) because they pull women their age and can't aim lower; and who lock 'em down and knock 'em up as quickly as possible so they can't escape. Or those who say "yeah, sure, I'll marry you" while dragging their feet until the girl (as they see her) gives up and stays or gets up and leaves. If the latter, they start fresh with another young woman who might not see through their routine bag of tricks. David, for all his faults, has stated his intentions up front and publicly: he's not marrying again. He still wears the ring tattoo from his previous relationship. He relived the trauma of a broken home through his own actions. He still can't dwell on the pain his kids went through during that time. Unless he decides to change his mind, Monique's outta luck. Yet, I don't believe she cares as much as you do if they do get married or not. Certainly not as far as either of us can prove, anyway. By the way, Tea and Tim haven't married yet, either; and they've been together provably longer than Monique and David.

Next: "She was male celebrity obsessed, younger but she went with the one who came into the shop and showed interest." Prove it. You can't. Let's say that's the case: she would've hopped to a new person long before now. David's got friends, she's gone to his parties, she's met his people. Opportunists don't sit long with a second option when they get an opportunity to grab for their first. I read your old posts about her Twitter/Instagram follows; but none of you take into account if she was following other people and pruned those people out as her interests changed. You also can't prove when she followed those accounts: the next day after she opened her account? A month after? A year after? I have accounts open I've never used; I have family and friends that do, as well. Let's say she opened it right away and began using it: again, when did she follow those accounts? Were those celebrities part of a collective that her boss or coworkers said came into the shop? Did she prune out the others after seeing them in person? Why? Because you assume other celebrities are immune to her masterfully unskilled manipulation, but David wasn't?

Next" "You’ll defend anything adjacent to D."

That's a lie.

Prove it. He had to go into a sex addiction program because he hurt his wife and kids. He talks about saving the planet yet doesn't take more than bare minimum actionable steps himself. (What he does in his personal life is of no concern to me; but it is hypocritical of him.) If he backs up Chris Carter against Gillian in the Revival controversy, I will lose a qualitative amount of respect for him (because there is actual, factual proof of wrongdoing on Chris's part to his longtime friend and mother of his goddaughter.) He has blind spots, faults, weaknesses, and failures like any other person.

Next: "I see a lot of arguments that do not have anything to back it up, like he probably acted inappropriately while drunk at a party before and so what?" No, my comment was even you have picked at DD for drinking before his shows. That even he has probably acted on impulse before or during a party. That even he didn't seem too bothered after he realized MP wasn't tickling him. That his expression changed when he saw someone filming their interaction. I also pointed out his and Tea's post-rehab reconciliation shenanigans of equal and greater caliber (having a jolly time at a public ballgame and rolling on top of each around other beachgoers.) I also pointed out that GA had a Portofino moment. Would I grab my boyfriend's junk if we were in public? No. But David did with Tea. The only difference between those situations was DD and T had the power of denial on their side while MP was not afforded that luxury. You called her behavior trashy; but posting someone's junk grab to the internet without their consent is trashier to me.

Next: "Disturbingly, that’s what seems to give her self-worth." Prove it, with testimony and evidence other than assumptions you and other Tumblr, Instagram, or Twitter jockeys assume and interpret. Give me a firsthand witness of her behavior. Give me a former friend or a colleague. Give me a family member. Give me someone other than people on Twitter being blocked by DD's account and assuming it's her. Further, give me proof what they were saying before they were blocked: I don't give mercy to people being snide, snarky, or vile and boohooing about it later. You don't, either, so I'm sure you'll respect that quality.

Next: "Evidence shows that chiropractic adjustments do more to harm than help...."

That's a lie, and a pretty brazen one.

WebMD, MayoClinic, Medical News Today, healthline, and more medical websites and journals have articles promoting chiropractic methods, as well as the warning signs like any other medical procedure. The only disclaimer they put up was that chiropractic adjustments haven't shown a conclusive improvement in athletic achievement.

One of their articles state: "All chiropractors must earn a postgraduate degree (DC), taking up to 4 years to complete, and are required 90 semester hours of undergraduate coursework, and some programs require a bachelor's degree. All states also require chiropractors to be licensed." And all medical doctors and nurses are required to be licensed if they practice medicine; yet, bad apples slip through the cracks. It's slander to paint me as a blackhearted, single-minded, "let them eat cake" person towards victims of possible scammers, manipulators, and frauds just because I don't fall in line with your viewpoint. Further, you indirectly lump me in with your public statements about her "snake oil salesman" father without having any proof whatsoever that chiropractic practice is detrimental other than a few studies-- which I hope you didn't lie about looking up, too-- that the medical community doesn't even stand behind, while using them as your sword and shield. All because you didn't have concrete proof against Monique's father, all because Monique is dating David, all because you don't like their relationship.

More quotes and linked studies from healthline: "For example, in a 2015 study, researchers found that a group of 544 people in chiropractic care reported a high level of satisfaction. ...A 2016 study found that the Cobb angle in a group of five children with scoliosis improved after 8 weeks of chiropractic treatment. Noticeable improvements were seen after 4 weeks of treatment. ...A 2017 case study examined the effect of chiropractic treatment on a 27-year-old woman suffering from back pain, neck pain, and headaches caused by hyperkyphosis posture." They even provide guidelines to find a chiropractor-- "Ask for recommendations from your doctor, physical therapist, or other healthcare provider." And-- "Ask your friends, coworkers, or family members if they have any recommendations."

Next: "Evidence shows that chiropractic adjustments do more to harm than help, but as long as people feel they work everything is hunky-dory?" Prove it. I have genetic backproblems riddling the maternal side of my family; and my great grandmother, a nurse, and her daughter, my grandmother, both had their spines slowly realigned over time with chiropractic procedures. From an almost noticeable hunch to an almost straight line.

Next: "It alarming that you don’t care about real harm being done to people’s spines because it’s D’s gf’s father providing the service?" I also have a maternal family member who suffers from severe back pain every day but can't afford treatment where she lives. You know how I help? Reflexology. Every time, it takes her back from a ~8/10 to almost nothing-- and this from a woman hypersensitive to her body's workings and with an incredible pain tolerance. And yet, I'd be the first person to sign her up for surgery if I could. I regularly push her to seek medical attention for the most minor inconveniences.

CONCLUSION

I'm sorry to say that you are either: A. blinded by my lack of agreement into misinterpreting my words to fit your own narrative-- which is really probable, actually-- or B. willfully telling lies, to yourself or others, because it helps you feel like you've come off on top of an argument.

I'm not interested in creating a rift or a war. I'm also not interested in lies, slander, gossip, and bullying disguised as "this is my opinion."

You can attest I've been nothing but kind, overly so, in the past; and that I didn't ever strike out unless you struck first-- and even then, only to mimic your words or phrases back to you.

I do not respect your opinions: they are baseless and poisonous.

I do not respect your tactics: they are beneath you and I.

I do not respect your lies and slander: that is a given.

Fare thee well. I'm sure we shall speak again.

[invinciblerodent]

I have been thinking fucking incessantly about this one Todd May quote ever since that scene meeting Mystra:

"Why, for the Immortals, are all undertakings in vain? Given an infinite amount of time for existence, everything will happen of its own accord. There is nothing an immortal being cannot eventually do; and, in fact, nothing he or she will not eventually do."

This is from his book "Death", from the chapter "Death and immortality", about... well, immortality, and the morals of it, as contrasted with its mortal conceptions.

Essentially, in the most straightforward way I can phrase it, May describes how for mortals, life is fraught with urgency. We are always at least tangentially aware of our existence being temporary: which is in part what makes our actions meaningful. We are aware that there is a finite amount of things that we are able to accomplish in our lifetimes, and we are at least kind of aware of our existence being singular in time (even considering religious beliefs of things like reincarnation or an eternal afterlife, the here and now when I am both this and present is still unique), so the end, or the idea of it, in its way, generates the meaning of the limited number of events within this particular chunk of time.

An immortal, like a goddess, would likely be more of a disinterested spectator of life than an active participant in it. Without the urgency of a time limit to drive them forward, and the precariousness of living to make the future uncertain, a goddess has no real interest in things that happen in the world of mortals. With good turning to bad, and bad turning to good over the centuries, it's easy enough to kind of stop caring about what is currently going on, because, well, it'll eventually be different, and then the same again.

Of fucking course she doesn't care for Gale the way he cares for her: it's impossible for her, which is what he, with his limited, human perspective, is (imo) initially incapable of understanding. In his very short, limited life, there is room for one, maybe two such great loves, but in hers? There is an endless, constant stream of near-faceless people, flowing through and not making a permanent mark, because permanence for an immortal is a word largely devoid of meaning. Bad or good, the guilt/pleasure will always fade, the people will all die and get replaced by a brand new crop of similarly expendable people, and the goddess will still have an infinity of time to go.

Even considering that she was once Mystryl, and that technically this incarnation of her was once mortal, and keeping her brush with a kind of death in mind, the future for Mystra, as she can conceive of it, is an empty, vast expanse of nothing but the certainty that she will live, and she will be present in some way. Even if slain (if I recall correctly how this works in DnD), her essence just kinda returns to the cosmic soup, and eventually, she'll... reform, or be resurrected, or changed as she has been already, or she'll remain as an immaterial fragment, or something. Point is, she is unending, and he is no more than a blip on her radar.

That's why she's so callous about asking him to die, and in turn essentially dooming Faerun: she doesn't care. She can't care. He was going to die anyway in what feels to her like the blink of an eye (whether it's 5 days, 50 years, or 500, it's not important), and what does she care if the Grand Design comes to fruition? Whether there are people or mind flayers inhabiting the world, it's of no real concern to her. Eventually, either people will strike back, or go extinct, or the mind flayers will cease to exist and something different will come from it, all without truly affecting her. In a year, a hundred years, or a million years, she will be here, and there will be another bright mageling to amuse her.

Fun as it is to joke about it, I don't think that the toxicity of their relationship is her fault, strictly speaking. It's not the ocean's fault when a tsunami destroys a village and kills hundreds. It's not the storm's fault when lightning strikes and kills a tree. Her very nature is this nebulous, capricious existence, only truly occupied with having the power to indulge her whimsies, and filling an infinite amount of time with things to do- unconcerned about how that affects others, because their whole lives barely affect her for a short segment of her eternal soup of undefined presence.

It can be argued that any relationship that may exist between mortal and immortal is necessarily tragic, toxic, desperately unequal, and grossly unhealthy for the mortal. By its very nature, such a relationship pushes the needs and feelings of the mortal party into essential inconsequence to their partner. There can be no regret to feel when the mortal is hurt or gone, because there have been others like them, and there will be others to come still, and everything will happen, or has happened, and will happen again.

Gale was always doomed to be her devoted plaything, only to be discarded once he stops being fun. That could have been once his appearance stopped pleasing her, or once his wit stopped entertaining her, or for any reason whatsoever, and him recognizing that this relationship was never anything more than entertainment to her, while it was devastating and singularly defining to him, is such an important thing for his future happiness.

(This is mainly why his throwaway "Let me make myself indispensable" line is so important to me, tbh. He yearns to matter, and that is only possible if he either finds contentment entirely within the mortal realm, or becomes a god himself, which in turn just dooms him to essentially become Mystra and continue this vicious cycle.)

(Fucking tragic-ass low-wis wizard man, making me fkin... re-read my philosophy books. Honestly the gall, Larian.)

[betterbemeta]

Part of the reason why ethnostates should not exist (aside from the genocides, which should be obvious to everyone) is that they politically compromise people outside of that state.

Politics, remember, is just a word that means 'decision-making and the means of decision-making for and about groups of people.'

'Politically compromising people remotely' does not sound like as much of a visceral, horrifying emergency as the ethnostate's direct violence, but it is a component to that violence. It perpetuates that direct violence and multiplies it far beyond what otherwise a government could 'influence.' It increases the longevity of that violence and attempts to style its own legitimacy at the same time. Basically, an ethnostate can use 'itself' to mess with the decision-making capability of the entire world, in ways that can't only be explained by a state's power structure or funding alone.

When an ethnostate exists, it is projected involuntarily on the bodies of whatever group it 'favors'-- even people only tangentially connected, like through marriage, or who belong to a subgroup not originally considered, or those who are distant through diaspora. And an ethnostate doesn't truly favor that group, it favors the decision-making power it can reap from that group, regardless of anyone's actual preferences:

An ethnostate makes choices long-distance about and even for those bodies.

It can claim 'threats' to it are also threats to those other bodies, and they do not have to be actual threats.

It can claim to be benefiting those bodies while doing nothing for them at all.

It can force itself into culture and histories it has no actual connection to.

It can 'claim' people who have no investment in its existence and have no political influence within it, use them to weight its goals.

It can make a fake "us" that people around the world never consented to, and if it claims you, it might do anything 'in your name.'

This may all sound abstract. But the consequences are real, and they are dangerous. They are also local, far away from the ethnostate itself. They can get into your family's history and memories, they can get into your social relationships and spaces. They can get into institutions that will decide your future.

Healthy communities are diverse and must reckon with the paradox of tolerance. They represent the will and agency of all those who actually live there, and do not exist to engineer that agency, or their own population. And they do not claim to represent the will and agency of those who don't live there. An ethnostate is dangerous not only for its direct actions, but its implicit statement that all people of some vaguely-defined status are actually part of its state, worldwide-- and their existence alone validates its goals.

[tired-reader-writer]

If somebody brandished me in front of their entire household like that I'd die from sheer embarrassment.

Maybe it's because I know what's coming, I can't help but feel the grip of dread coiling around me. There's technically nothing wrong with Shaghad in these panels, but I find myself wincing and bracing myself. Like, he's presumably close to his household staff, they're all smiling, Elam looks really happy for them, but I can't share their smile. I wonder how I would've felt towards these panels if I didn't know what would happen (by the time this chapter came around and I first read it I unfortunately already watched the anime and knew what was coming).

We don't see his face, his eyes. His smile is a bit too wide. He doesn't respond to what Narsus actually said. Shaghad's “Narsus!” was said a little too forcefully.

He must've heard what Arslan represents, as established in previous chapters the residents of Gilan know Arslan wants to abolish slavery.

Shaghad wants no part of it.

First hint in the scene that, uh-oh, things aren't gonna be smooth sailing for Narsus.

“You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. "So we can believe the big ones?" YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. "They're not the same at all!" YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—" MY POINT EXACTLY.

I know the quote is only so tangentially relevant if you tilt your head sideways and squint, but I couldn't resist.

Stories are important, y'all.

Elam must be feeling so terrible, seeing as he was once a slave too (and looks like these slaves aren't even being treated kindly to boot, and Shaghad dares to proclaim “there's nothing wrong w the system if the master is merciful!” when he himself is not even a merciful master...)

Shaghad is the type of person that, when someone says “it's not fair!”, laughs and smugly sneers at the person “the world's not fair, deal with it”. Or one of those dudebro types who mock emotions and stuff by saying “brooo that's all chemicals nothing you say is valid and nothing you feel is real”.

God I hate this guy.

I do wonder when/how he changed, though. How'd he go from being so close to Narsus, enough for the latter to trust him, to... this? Maybe the inferiority-resentment combo he felt made him veer off-course. He was always the “disreputable” type, so I guess his descent wasn't very difficult.

This panel is making me feel things. Narsus and Elam are so small, the gates of Shaghad's estate looming behind them. The way the shadow is positioned evokes the feeling that they're leaving darkness behind. Compared to the grand, warm welcome they received with servants lining the gate, there's no one to see them off when they depart. Ough.

The way the line “When even a love may wither with time, why expect more of friendship?” is positioned over a panel of ocean waves about to erase footprints (I think?). Arakawa is a genius.

Also, Narsus sounds so dad-like in this scene, and Elam... is not okay. I wonder what he's thinking.

Oughohohoho Farangis PRETTY

How tf did Pelagius not recognize her, is he blind?? And of course, I loved the part where she just. THROWS HIM. Woman's STRONK.

[jmrothwell]

Ok truth and dare game

🛼🍄🦷🪲🐝

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

(Going to cheat a bit and split this between fandoms)

🐺🏃‍♂️🎶😡🫂

🐢😴🧸🎧❓

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

(So many ships and yet all the headcanons vanish from head XD)

I think a big part of what draws Carrie and Reggie together is they can see the mask the other wears. Not the cracks exactly, like none of that I can see through to the real you. Because the mask is as much a vital organ as the rest of them. So it's not I can see your mask and want to know the real you. More like I see you also have a mask and understand why you can't just be rid of it.

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

Avoid the never.

Either you will get too set in a place that will slowly kill you mentally/physically because you are unwilling to change/grow. Or life will find a way to prove you wrong.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

He’d never been allowed anything more than a simple belt before. Parents citing the impracticality of all the studs or outright balking at any price tag they deemed too high. A benchmark Reggie never seemed to be able to properly gauge.

 With a grunt Bobby shoved his handful of suspenders into his basket before reaching over and tossing the studded belt into Reggie’s

🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them

First and foremost I've gotta tag the Canoe Crew (@daintyduck99, @bananakarenina, @invisibleraven, @innytoes, @where-you-go, @musicmuse0609 )

In all honesty without them I would never have written as much as I have. I would have never attempted to write any prompts. The amount of JatP I would have written would have stopped with 2 half formed blurbs and a mediocre monologue.

They are an inspirational, caring bunch who lift each other up and obviously care deeply for each other. Their talent always impresses me and most of my bookmarks and downloads are their works. (Hell, when I went through that brief oooooh you can bind your own books phase, if materials weren't so expensive, theirs would have been the works I would have bound. Half the reason I downloaded them all in the first place)

Doubling back I don't think I can emphasize how much they care. So many days are brightened seeing how much they love life, their fandoms, their friends and family.

I'm just the lucky spider in the corner they let hang out and spin occasional webs and tangentially get to be exposed to the awesomeness that is them.

Hell they got me just plain tapping into all my artistic pursuits in a way I've never had before. Like I'm allowed to to not only create for myself but be proud and enjoy those same self-indulgent creations. I've said it before, that I create for me, but I don't think I truly believed it until them.

.

It feels weird tagging you in your own ask but @1mnobodywhoareyou you were an unexpected godsend bit of encouragement. Always ready to send that ask or tag to get me to write even an extra sentence. Even if it's for a fic or WIP you haven't read or potentially might not. Like with that beetle ask up there!!