#yes good parallels very good

[bumblingbabooshka]

My name is [BRUTUS] and my name means [HEAVY] so with a [HEAVY] heart I'll guide this dagger Into the heart of my enemy

Something about having absolutely no choice in who you marry. About being literally forced by the law to spill blood - to accept this stranger as your husband over a man you truly care for or accept the fact that the man you love might die because you put him in danger. Something about risking becoming the wife of a man you've never even seen before a few minutes prior because you know anything would be better than putting your beloved in harm's way. Something about the trust inherent in that decision and in the way she speaks of it after. Truthfully, T'Pring doesn't know the captain and she doesn't know Spock. Either one of them could have taken her as their wife but she does know Stonn. She knows that Stonn will remain by her side no matter what. They made a plan together. They have an agreement which T'Pring believes will be upheld even though the plan changed with the arrival of Kirk. Stonn will always be there, always, and Stonn will be hers. Something about the language used around T'Pring: Ownership, subservience, non-personhood. T'Pring is an object that Spock can win. She cannot reject him, she has no say in the matter other than having Stonn 'claim' her instead. Even when Spock leaves after being very clearly rejected by T'Pring he says "Stonn, she is yours." as if despite her clear rejection he still owns her and is must formally 'give' her to Stonn. But the language T'Pring uses around Stonn is a break from that: "There was Stonn who wanted very much to be my consort, and I wanted him." Stonn who wanted very much to be HER consort and she WANTED him. The language here is very particular - It's not, for example: "Stonn wanted me to be his wife" - he is HERS. And she WANTS him. There's a mutual affection there and a strong trust - a trust which seems to be well founded since Stonn (though silent) stands by her side at the end of the episode. <- That might seem small but if Spock would reject her for 'daring to challenge' (again, the language is not 'because I don't want you' but more of an implied disgust at her having the AUDACITY to reject him) then it's not a stretch to assume that it'd be considered an insult in the TOS Vulcan society to NOT choose Stonn as her champion after a prior agreement. Anyway T'Pring was a woman in an impossible situation within a society which saw her as more of an object than a person and she wanted Stonn and Stonn wanted to be hers and she trusted that he would understand if she had to publicly pick someone else to ensure his life would be spared and he did understand.

[eight-pointed-star]

[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*

[katierosefun]

Hello :))) So, i was today years old when i learned you had a girlfriend (if i’m not mistaken) and somehow it means a lot to me as you’re one of my comfort blog and that i’ve been struggling with my own sexuality for a while. (I hope it does not come off as weird this is really not my intention 😭) So i was wondering if you would mind sharing how you two met as i love hearing about queer love stories coming from real people and not only in fiction (somehow i need to be reminded that yes, it can happen in real life too for me??) If and only if you’re comfortable doing so of course!!!

aww hi anon! first of all, thank you so much for the kind words--i'm so glad to hear that my blog is a source of comfort for you. and also, re: your sexuality--i'm sending you so much love! i know how scary and how overwhelming it can be to still be figuring out your sexuality and navigating your own queerness, so please remember to have some compassion for yourself, and please know that you're not alone.

as for my girlfriend: yes! i do in fact have one, and we've been together for a little over a year and a half now. we'll be going on two years pretty soon, which is all very exciting!

as for how we met: it's all a pretty funny story, because we actually met while we were both in college. and also right during that first covid summer too. we started off as long-distance friends, bonding our love for star wars and writing.

anyways, i totally had a crush on her, although i was trying to play it off most of the time. the fact that we lived in separate cities was another factor too, of course.

fast forward to a few years later, when we've both graduated college. i've just started my first year of law school; she's working at this point. we're still texting and calling each other a bit, and then i tell her, oh yeah, i'm going out on a date with this guy.

and just like something from a kdrama or a movie or something, this ridiculous, lovely woman texts me as i'm boarding the bus for my date. her text? hey, i dreamed about you last night! we were sitting on a park bench together and we were holding hands :)

and of course, at this point, i still have a disastrous crush on her (hence why i spent a lot of time dating all these random guys in my junior and senior year of college, because i was like i gotta just get over this), but anon, that text message was the other shoe dropping on my brain. i decided right then and there that enough is enough, i'm gonna call her tomorrow and tell her i like her, so she can't just say stuff like that anymore because i don't think i can take it anymore.

so we arrange to have a phone call the next day, and we chat, and of course, true to form, i have to have some liquid courage on me (peach soju, btw . . . but turns out, if you're jittery enough, you don't even feel the alcohol, because i still remember every detail). anyways, at some point, we're chatting, and then i blurt out, "i like you."

and she goes, "i like you too."

and i went, "no, i mean i like you more than a friend. as in i like you."

and she goes, "uh, yeah. i like you to do. the feeling's mutual."

and of course, i didn't know what to say to that. like, i swear i was just like "??? what?" because the thing is, i had this whole speech planned out in my head--something like i like you, and you don't like me like that, so i'm sorry that this is awkward, and i can just take care of my own feelings, but i just really needed to say that so that we're both on the same page--

so to say i was pretty stunned would be an understatement! so cue a lot of laughter and flustering, and fast forward to today, with her living with me for the summer (because of course, she'll need to go back to work and i'll have to go back to school once august hits), and we talk about how many pets we're going to have one day (she has this hobby of sending me videos of increasingly exotic animals and going "??? so can we have this as a pet? :)"), and we've talked about what our wedding is going to be like (as well as what our wedding will not be like) . . .

this is just a whole lot of details, but as you might be the first one to ask me about this lovely person on this webbed site, of course i'm going to ramble and gush--but anon, to give you some hope here, queer love is a beautiful thing and it certainly happens.

personally, i would love to go back in time and find my sad high school self and go "hey, hang in there, because you're gonna be lucky enough to finally fall in love with someone who's kind and warm and patient and loving, and she's going to encourage you to be a better person, and she's going to make friends with literally every single stranger on the street (much to your partial exasperation and partial wonder), and she's going to be really bad at staying hydrated, and she's going to take so many photographs of everything, and she's going to make friendship bracelets on your bed, and she's going to almost fight the secretary at a dentist's office for you (while you tug at her sleeve and go come on, i'm fine, let's just go), and she's going to recite and write poetry that you keep both on your walls and also in your head, and her grandma is going to show you the dorkiest photos she has of this silly, lovely, beautiful person who you love."

so: all that to say, anon, i hope that gave you some hope! it's such a long journey for some of us, but i promise that queer love is out there and healthily alive, and yeah, sometimes they're just as good (or even better) than those that you find in fiction :)

[alxastrx]

When you're one of the most selfish mc who only saves people because it's part of a job you never wanted and did not get to chose or you would've died, who took your co-workers' morals and ideals because you didn't have any and desperately wanted to fit in somewhere, be it with the heroes or the villains, who's activelly haunted by one the most tragic past to have been created and suffer from a psychosis so bad (dare I say schizophrenia) that even your enemies acknowledged that you are mentally ill and objectively flawed in your judgement, never hesitated to try to kill anyone and has the most egoistic reason to be a good person but the fandom still thinks you're just a kind crybaby "I don't know what a gun is" homosexual twink.

[ruvviks]

Nathan Dixon is lead STEM developer of the Union environment and Team Bravo special ops agent of MOBIUS. He is one of the youngest recruits of the shadow organization, having been forced to join them after he killed his parents at age 16; and now, nine years later, he is looking for a way to destroy MOBIUS once and for all– if that is even possible.

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree;

@jacobseed, @swordcoasts

[familyofpaladins]

I know everyone (including myself) is like really excited about the special and the idea of the Monkey Crew going back into the scroll to help Monkey King escape and getting to see more of the JttW story...

but I don't think that's going to happen (at least not right away)

Because before they can go about freeing Monkey King, they're gonna have to repair the slate first

And do you y'all remember what Azure said about the scroll?

"- a fragment of the Scroll of Memory-"

"-stolen from the Underworld"

....

In the season 2 special we got a Demon (Red Son) getting the crew into the Celestial Realm

And so I think in the season 4 special, a Celestial Being...

is going to get them into the Underworld

to repair the slate

[shivunin]

Hi, I just wondered what your favourite part of the Fenhawke romance was? Like, a scene/moment that really made you fall more in love with him? I love your writing so much!!

Oh, that is very kind of you to say! 💗I'm glad you enjoy the things I've written. I've really been enjoying writing for this ship, especially the past few months c:

As for your question...

Man, that's tough. I have a hard time picking one thing---I mean, *gestures to all the fic* you know? But I can narrow it down to a couple of scenes/elements:

The fact that a romanced Fenris still calls you "my friend" even after the act 2 romance scene. This is just...the bedrock of their relationship to me. Yes, that night went very poorly (understatement, I know), but at the core they are friends and he trusts Hawke in a way he's likely never had the cause or opportunity to trust someone before. I believe he never stopped loving Hawke, and it was a matter of laying those feelings out and understanding them one at a time. Romantic love not replacing platonic love or eclipsing it, but building or twining together is just... *chef's kiss* that's the good stuff.

The moment during the romance conversation in Act 3 when you can see Fenris go from hoping (painfully hoping!) that there is still some way he and Hawke can be together to actually believing it will happen. There is a shift in his body language that I could watch (and...have) over and over.

The element of choice? This is not going to be coherent, but the fact that he is learning for the first time what it means to have options and preferences, and he spends a lot of time exploring and understanding himself...and after all of that, the thing he keeps coming back to is Hawke. I think it's gorgeous. A song with refrains of pain or fear and choruses of decision and hope. He's loyal to a fault, in many ways, but understanding how much of himself exists to share and then still choosing to share it is just...man. I said this wasn't going to be coherent lol, so there you are. "If there is a future to be had..." like he doubts its existence but he's willing to chance it for Hawke. Man.

But, honestly? I've played DA2 a lot of times and never romanced another character, even though I've played through multiple romance storylines in each of the other games. I can't shake the Fenris romance. Every time I open a new playthrough, I tell myself that this is the time I'm going to romance Isabela, and every time Fenris rips that dude's heart out and I just......alright, yeah. Okay. Here we go again.

[shegoesbyjoy]

just realized something:

✅ gritty detective story in an urban setting

✅ aspects of one's mind being personified

✅ D&D mechanics

✅ a mysterious femme fatale who's being followed

✅ dude speaking in a French accent

[quietwingsinthesky]

oh, yeah, another thing i noticed that was odd about s5 in comparison to earlier seasons was how much they relied on like. not the history of the doctor, exactly, but the image of that history. whether from little easter eggs of the first doctor’s picture popping up everywhere to i think the two(?) times in the season we get a montage of past doctors. and i honestly can’t remember anything like that happening earlier (with the exception of the time crash short, which felt more substantial to me and was also like. 7 straight minutes of david tennant being allowed to fangirl.)

and i say ‘the image’ because hell knows the RTD era was pulling from doctor who past left, right, and center, but it rarely felt like a moment of ‘look at this old thing, you remember old thing? old thing was cool and so are we for continuing it.’ and more like ‘here’s a species/character/etc from classic who. and here’s how they’ve changed and fit into the new world we’ve built for the show.’

I guess, the difference here for me is that. i haven’t watched classic who. s5 shows me a slideshow of doctors and to me, those are the guys i once ranked by how sexy i think they are. and not much else. i don’t have an emotional connection to an image. but take, say, school reunion? an episode that was my favorite even back when i was a kid specifically because i adored sarah jane? i had no idea who she was then, i only just figured out a little bit ago which doctor she traveled with, and exclusively all i’ve watched of her is that episode in s2 and the sarah jane adventures. and yet, that episode, without the context there for me, managed to make sense to me. i’m sure it was probably even more impactful to fans of sarah jane from classic who, but it didn’t lose its impact without that knowledge.

so, that’s a shift. i don’t want to say it’s a negative one, exactly, because maybe people who have seen classic who like these references and i’m missing something. but, to me, it feels a little more shallow.

[raayllum]

Viren’s eye motif my beloved 

+ bonus Callum

[lulu2992]

A thought I had years ago:

I don’t know if it’s because Drew Holmes, Far Cry 5’s Lead Writer (and the new IP Director for Far Cry since August 2023!) was also a writer on BioShock Infinite, but there are a lot of similarities between the two games. For example, although the main antagonists, Zachary Comstock and Joseph Seed, have different goals, ideologies, and morals, they are both described as prophets and known as “Father”. The two men also see Elizabeth and the Junior Deputy as their “child” and call them “The Lamb” because they believe they are destined to fulfill their respective prophecies.

In Infinite, another character, Rosalind Lutece, famously says (about Elizabeth): “The girl is the flame that shall ignite the world.”

And when they were advertising Far Cry 5, they kept saying that the players’ goal, so the Deputy’s role, was to “spark the fires of resistance.”

When I finished Far Cry 5 and started to process the story, I realized that, in the end, while my Deputy indeed sparked the metaphorical fires of resistance, she also, because of the Voice’s prophecy, inadvertently and indirectly sparked the literal fires of the Collapse.

That girl, the Father’s child and the prophet’s Lamb, ended up being the flame that ignited the world.

[wallbeatjournal]

2x12 The Wicked and the Divine, Riverdale (dir. Rachel Talalay)

The Tempest: Ariel in the Cloven Pine (1907), Paul Vincent Woodroffe

[jam-packed]

fight club au w marc as the narrator, vale as tyler, and dovi as marla do we see the vision

[essektheylyss]

Sam, episode 1: Ashley, if you try to take my weapons, I might kill you. Ashley: I'd like to see you try. :3

Nott, episode 57: Do we have to kill you to get him out of there? Essek: I'd like to see you try. :3

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also if only the physical copy of how to disappear completely & never be found i first encountered & read a few years ago (sort of [roughly avg age ten] reader book, not any similarly titled How To) hadn't disappeared completely & not been found since, probably b/c i put it somewhere i intended to be For Safekeeping, which is also how my binder vanished....b/c it's one of those like. those book for late elementary/middle school readers when they just weave in this unrealism which makes for a delightful range & unpredicability? and with a cynical protagonist girl like off to the races like wow her mom is depressed asf & smoking? and it's about A Family History Secrets Mystery so blatantly a haunting that the inciting incident is basically introducing a haunted [family history secrets mystery] house. and spoilers don't matter like it's stemming from there being this missing uncle who grew up so in contrast to the Winsome Winning Sibling Who Does It All Right while seeing his own affiliation with rats that he tried to disappear completely & never be found which led to this Tragedy which led to this more unintended disappearance of his & he haunts this house & wants to be left alone & only goes out at night with this [ambiguous Is That A Giant Rat Or Weird Small Dog (protagonist affected by these family situations who expresses her preoccupation with an awareness of how fate can Strike and Get you with this interest with roving packs of killer chihuahuas. people think she's weird though she spontaneously befriends this other girl struck with this bolt from the blue & a bit weird / outcast & then Insightful who i wish was in it more)] & plays into the hauntedness danger like playing into the [something's Wrong with you then] until having to take yet more action where the urge to express the truth comes out more both b/c living that hidden is more threatened but also b/c now the niece children are more threatened as well. ft. a sort of preternatural blurring of time b/c of only being communicated with through this uncle via his comic pages (that he paints?) of dubiously accurate translations of irl events that are created so quickly it seems to verge on foresight, imagine like "hmm what's this painting. it's me standing in this room looking at this painting??? as someone ominous lurks in the shadows right behind me?" in both [now how could you know this & paint it really fast ahead of time] and [horror]