#would she have said i love you again?

[lydiaas]

KIARA CARERRA & JJ MAYBANK in S03E08 TAPPING THE RUDDER

[astrobei]

in my heart of hearts mike wheeler is absolutely an athena kid but i also have to offer up a concept that i think has extreme comedic and dramatic potential aka: repressed gay teenager mike showing up at camp half blood unsure of who his godly parent is and feeling insecure about not having powers and one day when he’s making not-so-secret heart eyes at his best friend and son of apollo will byers is when a bunch of glowing floating hearts show up above his head. and that’s how mike gets claimed by none other than aphrodite, the goddess of love and sexuality, and is in full denial about it for three days because he thinks it’s some kind of sick and twisted JOKE

(on aphrodite’s end, she’s upset mike is throwing away the gift of true love and keeps trying to trick him out of repression by making more and more improbable and hilarious gifts appear when he and will are hanging out. mike hands will a book and it turns into a box of chocolates and he has to fling it away like a frisbee before will sees it. they’re having lunch and romantic music starts playing. she gives mike the same blessing she used to claim piper and will can’t even look in his direction for a full day because he starts blushing so hard. fifty bouquets of flowers show up at the apollo cabin’s doorstep with a note that says love, mike and by the end of it, mike isn’t even repressed and unsure about his sexuality anymore — he’s just trying to not throw himself into the bonfire out of sheer embarrassment)

[occidentaltourist]

bbc: Some sweet #Silvacre content for your FYP ❤️

[httpiastri]

hands, crashes, neck, last race together, even more hands, swedish lessons??, haNDS!!!!

[itsalwaysforyou]

hold me together.

kenny ortega, descendants 2 / holly black, red glove / nicole homer, underbelly / ada limon, a new national anthem / k c cramm, christmas eve forever / kenny ortega, descendants 3 / the crane wives, curses / silas denver melvin, let dead dogs lie / natalie wee, least of all

[imminent-danger-came]

So, this parallel, right.

That parallel and the 4x11 shadowpeach fight as a whole:

Macaque: "No that's YOU! You're the one always running off! Looking for more power, more sources of immortality—you're the one who wouldn't quit while were were ahead! Not the great sage, he's got to drag EVERYONE else into his mess!" Sun Wukong: "You're not in this mess, you're still free! Everything I did was for us!" Macaque: "You did it for yourself! You've become like this, obsessive demon! I told you going against the Jade Emperor was a bad idea, but no, Wukong doesn't listen to anyone! He just does whatever he wants! You put yourself here, not me."

(4x11 A Lifetime of Mistakes)

-

A large part of Wukong's motivation to keep getting more power was the freedom of it—the more power you have the easier it is to do whatever you want. It's easier to ignore everyone else and focus solely on yourself. It's also easier to ensure yourself and your loved one's are protected and have the ability to do what they want.

So, a punishment where the great Monkey King is imprisoned and trapped for hundreds of years? It's effective and tragic and fitting. Wukong wanted to have the freedom to protect the people he cared about, and in trying to reach for the power to do that, he completely had his freedom removed. He went from the mountain, to then the circlet, and then all of a sudden he had morals and was bound to those.

And then I think about his end of s3 choice to go face the Lady Bone Demon alone. Once again Wukong was trying to protect his loved ones (not to mention the whole reason he went after the Samadhi fire to begin with was to have the power, the freedom to stop LBD (which in itself is another case of SWK believing he needed to be stronger for such freedom)), but he also wanted to make sure MK and himself both had agency. He didn't want MK to have to fight LBD, and he didn't want LBD to end the world.

This is exactly the sentiment he tells Macaque in the 4x11 flashback:

Sun Wukong: "It's so we don't have to worry about anything or anyone ever again! Just living a lazy life, sitting in the sun, eatin' fruit, and doing whatever we want!"

But where does it all lead him?

To possession, imprisonment. Once again Wukong no longer had the freedom to do what he wanted (which is to protect the people he cares about). Once again in his attempts to help his loved one's, he only hurt them.

This can be applied to his relationship with Macaque, to MK in s2, hell, even Wukong trying to get the map in the first place left him powerless, which then led to him and the gang being imprisoned in 3x02. It's a familiar pattern, one we see with antagonist and protagonist alike.

MK in s2 trained to become more powerful, which in the end only strengthened LBD and forced him and his friends on the run. Mei in 3x12 protects MK by letting herself get captured and placed into LBD's crystal. Mei in 4x05 goes to protect MK, breaking her sword and leaving her vulnerable to being captured by Kui Mulang ("How am I supposed to protect everyone without my sword?"). DBK reached for more power and then became possessed by LBD, hurting his wife and son. Azure reached for the Jade Emperor's power and bound himself to that role, jeopardizing Peng and Yellowtusk in the process.

It's a cycle of reaching for power, endangering others, and then being imprisoned.

So anyways, here's why MK is going to lose control (his agency) next season and hurt his friends with his own- *get's shot*

[daily-hanamura]

[tennessoui]

In the assigned married fic, has Anakin even begun to process Padme saying that both of them will be moving to Naboo together? Like, they spoke earlier in the chapter about Anakin moving in with her on Coruscant, but Obi-Wan apparently spilled the beans about a much more permanent relocation to Naboo, and I am looking forward to Anakin's response to that, once he gets through processing everything else and remembers that part of the "conversation"....

i think padmé views moving to naboo more as a possibility than a future concrete plan -- the offer to be a permanent advisor on naboo is something she'd like to discuss with anakin as her husband before taking it or rejecting it. she says there's a lot of work she still wants to do in the senate, and she's probably thinking that it will be a few years before she would be able to go anyway. definitely after the war, but in her mind, she thinks anakin has every intention to leave the order after the war's over....because he kind of told her that. at least, in her mind he did: (from chapter 1)

“[Obi-Wan] asked me if I planned to leave the Order after the war,” he tells his wife. “And I lied, and then I think he began to support me. That’s what he looked like, anyway.” Padmé blinks at him, eyelashes falling slowly onto the jut of her cheek and then rising. “That’s good then,” she says, sounding hesitant. “That he supports us.” “Yeah,” Anakin replies, raising his hand to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear. “Though…I’m sorry you had to lie,” she says, pressing forward until their faces are only a hand’s width apart. “Hopefully…” she trails off, biting her lip. Then she shakes her head slightly, and her mouth turns up into a smile as if she cannot help herself. “Hopefully he will not take the truth so hard.”

so anakin never says what lie he told obi-wan, he just says that he lied when asked if he was going to leave the Order, and that lie made obi-wan support him.

from an outsider's perspective, especially a biased outsider who is married to one of the insiders and believes them to have a future together, padmé's immediate understanding of this is that obi-wan asked if he was going to leave the order and anakin lied to him and told him he planned to stay and obi-wan began to support their marriage because he thinks he won't be losing anakin (padmé, who has three braincells, has long since realized obi-wan's obsessed with her husband)

and that's why she's smiling at the end (and also why they have sex at the fade to black) -- she believes anakin has just told her that when the war ends, he'll leave the Order to be with her and build a future together <3 so the offer to go to naboo is an option she can talk to her husband about, but she knows that anakin is going to no longer be a jedi....and if he's not a jedi, and she's not a senator....what's keeping them on coruscant?

BUT it's not just obi-wan that's feeling a bit catty during that dinner party scene, so i intentionally wrote padmé as putting this idea forward as less of a possibility and more of a done deal that she knows anakin will accept -- she talks about it like it's great big BACK OFF signs picketed around anakin because obi-wan is the biggest threat to their marriage in the entire galaxy and she's always known that

(but also no anakin has not begun to process that whole thing - but padmé, who now realizes they're NOT on the same page, is absolutely going to bring it up post-haste in the next chapter)

[oatbugs]

i think if i painted my ex situationship i'd be cured it's the most shallow but intense connection i've had w anyone i think i am so obsessed w how she looks i want 2 photograph her/paint her forever rant in tags but ive talked abt it b4 so feel free to ignore

[winepresswrath]

what louis did to lestat and what louis did to armand are connected and that's important to the story but also. it is simply not the same. nothing louis did excuses armand's behaviour, that's not how anything works, but he did not "cross a line" or "poke at armand," he weaponized armand's history of abuse to belittle and demean him. nothing armand said to louis came close- the equivalent would have been "oooh, i'm such a stupid bitch that my husband can beat me half to death and i'll keep crawling back for more even when it endangers my daughter!" it's retraumatizing and deeply destabilizing to hear that shit from your partner. and in response armand should have been like "well this man sucks when he's high and he's high all the time, so i'm bouncing" but if he'd done that we wouldn't have a story, would we?

edit: i've come back to give armand credit for "claudia didn't love you like we did/do. ps. u used her to distract from your own hurt feelings" that shit does hit in a similar way. however "the ways someone hurt you have left you contemptible and weak. they scrawled 'dirty and annoying' all over your soul in red ink and it's never coming off" is just outstanding work. timeless

[ef-1]

girlhood

[mewtwo24]

You know idk if it's just me being oblivious af but mxtx sure does enjoy putting her protags through the trolley problem when it comes to her works huh /j

[gods-favorite-autistic]

Love how in Greek mythology Artemis saw what Apollo was doing with his love life and said “none of that”

[cameron-phillips]

-What about the rest of you? You're back to normal? -Things have changed, John.

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF THE NORMANDY SUMMIT

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, Primarch Adrien Victus, Dalatrass Linron, and Urdnot Wrex With: Comm. Specialist Samantha Traynor Commander, you need to keep Cerberus at bay- I can't overstate what a victory a treaty between the Turians and the Krogan would be for the Alliance. We need all the help we can get... Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[hopeinthebox]

tagged by the fabulous @cordiallyfuturedwight and @jimin-gaon <33 here's the december list

apologies for being late again new year same me: @aprylynn @jiminsproof @pauls-mccharmly @thvinyl @visionsofgideontheninth @btsbs @kimchokejin @jihopesjoint @eoieopda @monismochi 💜 and anyone else who feels so inclined MWAH p.s. please do tag me anyway if you've already done it