#because i fucking love that son

[lilislegacy]

Percy at ease

Percy calm, but a little on edge

Percy when mildly angry

Friendly reminder that Percy jackson - our beloved silly adorable seaweed brain - is absolutely terrifying. When he’s angry, when he’s scared, when he’s on edge - he’s not warm and fuzzy.

No other character gets that reaction from people. Jason (the sweetie) is perceived as calm and in control, nico (our favorite self-outcasted outcast) is perceived as solemn and creepy, reyna (girlboss queen slay) is perceived as confident and assertive, and annabeth (our girl) is perceived as fierce, clever, and formidable. They are all intimidating to an extent.

But not like Percy. No. Becasue even when he’s at ease, he’s described as wild and disobedient. And when he’s not at ease, even if just little bit, he’s perceived as powerful, dangerous, and scary. Someone who NOBODY wants to mess with. Nobody even questions his power. One look from him has literal gangs running the other way. One look from him has Leo so scared that he’s literally shaking, and feeling the same innate fright and alarm that he does when jason summons an ear-piercing, earth-shaking, deadly bolt of lighting.

like… HELLO??? can we all just sit on that for a moment?? good lord

One angry look from percy has people thinking one thing: Run.

Percy is, canonically, the character that people find the most frightening and intimidating.

And unless he’s in a good mood - which you better hope he is - the reality is that most of us would be completely terrified of him if we met him.

#don’t fuck with perseus jackson #dude is not playing around #well #he is playing around 90% of the time #but don’t mess with him when he’s not #i love him #he’s terrifying #in reality i’d probably be scared of him in real life lol #percy my love #and don’t go yelling at me that people are most scared of nico because hazel specifically stated in SoN that at first sight #nico is not a scary person #but frank does say nico gives him the creeps #heroes of olympus #percy jackson #percabeth #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #annabeth chase #nico di angelo #jason grace #reyna ramirez arellano #mark of athena #son of neptune

[chucktaylorupset]

I think there's something to be said for fanfiction that loves canon in a way that’s rude. Like thank you for this wonderful thematic tragedy made out of this character’s entire arc ending in death, it was emotionally and intellectually moving, but also fuck you fuck you fuck you they live, this time and every time they live, they never died, their flaws are not their undoing, actually they have no flaws, actually they save everyone, actually who cares about a story, any story, where this one dies, actually i cared about that story so much i made a new one, actually i cared so much i unmade the old one, you gave me morals and i left them for the mortal, but they’re mine now and i will never let them die, actually thank you, actually fuck you, strongly worded letter to follow

A kiss for canon and spit in its face all at once, it’s great

#my post #i use and plan to use the 'canonical character death tag' WAY too much to post this but still #fanfiction #everybody live nobody dies au #and a five #this is about your blorbo absolutely but before that it was about #robb stark #to crown him is to kill him #on the one hand he must die because there are no good kings #king of the north was the death knell of robb the good brother robb the good son robb the loving friend #on the other hand #he was the nicest sixteen year old in the world #on the other hand fuck you there sits the only king i mean to bend my knee too #what if king was just a name for a brother who loved you #love that story of thematic importance about the inherent devastation of feudalism #but fuck you he's perfect and he lives #fuck you let him be soft and let him be mine #in general im against sandpapering your blorbos but actually my blorbos are soft and round and perfect #boubas if you will #and who cares if theyre a little unrecognizable #the version of them that gets to live #resurrection and comes back wrong but with the multiverse of what if they lived fanfiction

[miabrown007]

Félix: kidnapping is a love language Kagami: you have no social skills, idiot

*two weeks later*

Félix: okay, so when Marinette's at her most vulnerable, I'll gaslight her into thinking I'm her boyfriend, so she'll follow me into an abandoned building where we can put her in an altered mental state and present to her my family's life story in the imaginable most cryptic play of theater she has ever seen, which will reveal to her our horrible secret and the fact that her abusive father-in-law is also her arch-nemesis Kagami: you're so big brained, bae 🥰

#I LOVE THEM BUT GOD THAT WAS THE LEAST SELF-EXPLANATORY WAY TO GO ABOUT THIS #fucking theater kids /lh #miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #ml representation #ml representation spoilers #maybe they do team up nicely with Marinette because can ever be simple sfdgdfhgjfhg #I'm so pumped for the final ohmygodddd #also did you know I wrote a story in highschool where the son of the villain revealed his family's true nature to the MC #in a cryptic fairy tale. where he assigned his father as the evil prince who moved into the king's family and married the pricess #who ended up comatose and waiting for revival? #the moral of the story is we're all insane here and I cannot believe I literally wrote 30k about this #and not have the gall to diss on feligami they are the MVPs fgdhjdfhgfjgk #also props for being so much more useful going about this whole thing than Luka <3

[somecunttookmyurl]

if you want actual like on god for real actually exist you can see the papyri/tablets very incredibly cute egyptian letters absolutely go read translations of the amarna letters between king amenhotep III and his absolute bestest best friend in the whole wide world king tushratta of mitanni

#an fyi before you do: egyptians said 'i love you' and were very dramatic about it VERY freely #this isnt a 'haha they were SUUUHC GOOD FRIEEEEEEEENDS' moment egyptians were just like that #amenhotep was INCREDIBLY drunk on loving his wife juice to the extent his secondary wives were merely ceremonial positions #by all accounts he was monogamous and incredibly cute about his (commoner) wife #but he and tushratta referred to eachother as brothers and tush was DEVESTATED when amenhotep died #and wrote to queen tiye saying that he would love his son (amenhotep IV aka akhenaten) as if he were amenhotep III #because his best friend lived on in his son #and was basically like 'my son now i love him so much btw' #and then akhenaten completely fucked it by leaving him on read forever which is so sad and also biggest dick move #akhenaten apologists dont interact

[brother-emperors]

TRY AGAIN LATER

it's like. well. its several things.

(Plutarch's Crassus, trans. Warner)

and also this

(ibid.)

that compliment sounds like an insult, baby.

anyway, there's a fun kind of eroticism in being given everything, in taking things that aren't yours without any real consequence, in climbing towards becoming a Roman Alexander, only for one man to deny you, over and over and over again, at every turn. Sulla tried, Crassus did it better. who would put a butcher in their place? who else knows you well enough to do it? who else can match you step for step like this? doesn't it feel like a kind of intimacy, a kind of—

it's also about the 'even sulla kissed my sword/so you want me on my knees too?' innuendo was too good to pass up. that was actually the first line I wrote, I figured out the rest of this to justify making a comic with it

and finally! the sword line is referencing/playing off of Lucan's Pharsalia a little bit because it fucks hard

(Lucan's Pharsalia, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce)

EDIT: oh, and that's a public domain anatomical illustration of a heart. you know how it is with love and hate.

#marcus licinius crassus #gnaeus pompeius magnus #tris homines #komiks tag #roman republic tag #drawing tag #its about how many ways i can create situations where i have crassus call pompey a brat #the subtext going on here is that pompey and sulla are in the middle of their political falling out #and pompey is like. okay motherfucker. and crassus is something that sulla had under his hand #but uhhhhhh. its not going that well for pompey. because sulla got there first #and left his mark #dont worry tho pompey you'll get him in the end. your descendants are going to marry each other #and name two of their sons directly after both of you!! fucking wild. LOVE it #can't get much closer than that! altho pompey did try something when he married publius crassus' widow #crassus himself however holds true to his statement of 'no one is ever going to touch me ever again.' #he's like. not alive right either so it'd be hard to pin him down anyway #too haunted. your ghosts your dead your ancestors have escaped your family house buddy

[gigglemite]

I don't know, there's just something that hits so hard knowing that at his very core, Wanderer is just a sweet boy who wants to help others and find a family who will love and take care of him in return. We can see this when he's first found after Ei left him, and also when he erases himself from Irminsul.

Wanderer, when we meet him as Scaramouche is someone tainted by centuries of deceit. He's the product of a twisted mind twisting the naive mind of a puppet just looking for his place in this world. His personality as Scaramouche is fragments of those he's spent the most time with (the harbingers), coupled with his three perceived betrayals, and we end up with a homicidal puppet who hates humanity and detests the gods. He may have hated them, but the Harbingers (especially Dottore) are the ones who shaped the Balladeer we met.

But the Wanderer we meet post-Irminsul is helping out at a fruit stand in Sumeru fully expecting no compensation for his work. He goes out of his way to pick fresh sunsettias and take care of this stand all because the man who runs it helped him. He's shocked and confused, not angry, when the Traveler says that he's a puppet despite him making it a point to never tell anyone. He happily accompanies the Traveler and Paimon to Nahida, even apologizing for the inconvenience.

Dottore made sure all of Wanderer's naive traits turned bitter towards the world because he wanted a fascinating test subject. And yet, even when he could go on the warpath and murder Dottore after finding out the core betrayal that shaped him was a lie, he instead chooses to erase himself from the past just as a small chance to fix the wrongs he's done and give those hurt because of him a chance at a better life.

If the Kabukimono and Wanderer were him without being molded by the harsh world and Scaramouche was the result of being manipulated, I really wonder how he would have turned out had Ei not chosen to give him up.

In other words: Scaramouche is baby and he deserved so much better. Wanderer is a sweetheart who had to reconcile with a past that went completely against who he thought he was and deserved better. But the Wanderer we have now, is healing.

He's healing and I can't explain how proud of him I am that he's trying.

#okay rant over #i just get very emotional over him ok? #hes such a good character #so well written #and i hate that hes boiled down to sex appeal #he deserves better than that #his efforts should always be recognized and commended because HES TRYING GUYS #my son i love him #cries into my hands #scaramouche #wanderer #kabukimono #kunikuzushi #genshin impact #all my friends hate dottore #idc if hes attractive #FUCK dottore

[tenisperfection]

7x04 being from Buck's perspective broke my brain because of the way we saw Eddie through Buck's eyes. Then I realized that Suspicion, where Eddie was shot, was from Eddie's perspective, and all of Surviviors was from Buck's perspective and I want to jump into the ocean.

#the implications...... #we saw eddie's turmoil when carla brought up the follow your heart line #his agony over charlie's abuse #then the shooting and watching his best friend splattered with his blood #that split second where he realized who buck was to him and has been all along #the way he wanted to reach out and touch buck one last time #(do not think about eddie thinking about chris under any circumstances but if you do imagine eddie feeling relieved that buck will be there #and sorrow that he won't be there with chris and won't get to see him grow up and won't get to see buck #and then we have survivors right #we immediately jump to buck's perspective with him getting eddie into the ambulance and eddie asking if buck was hurt *sobs* #and the whole episode is mostly buck's side #but so is the will scene!!!! #because we obviously went nuts over the implications of it #but consider the tone of the scene--there's devotion yes #but most of the tone is that of disbelief #because buck can't believe eddie did this and eddie didn't tell him and eddie is telling him now #and eddie wants buck to carry on for christopher if eddie is gone #and buck absolutely would #but in his mind he can't fathom a world where he has to exist without eddie #and eddie is the one asking him to #hahahahah fuck you don't find it son you make it all over again #buck made this and buck chose this and buck has to live with it #i can't wait for these men to realize/bring to light all the love between them #911 abc #this unraveling on a saturday afternoon is brought to you by insanity

[b-rainlet]

The Green family dynamics are so interesting because like, Viserys is the father but due to his decay he seems more like the grandfather, whereas Otto is the Grandsire but seems to fill out the role of a father more, not only to his daughter but also her children, so he and his daughter are a mother/father unit but in some situations Alicent is treated like a sibling to her children (by Otto) and then you have the obvious Helaena/Aegon happening (siblings who are also husband/wife and mother/father to their children), but at the same time it seems like Aemond is the one trying to be the family's protector and attempting to step up as patriarch, with some of the scenes between him and Alicent giving off the vibes of equals rather than Mother and Son (like when they discuss Aemond finding Aegon) and his relationship with Aegon seeming like he's the big brother and not the other way around, in this essay I will-

#ALSO the way Aemond tries so hard to be the perfect son #In part to make up for Aegon obviously slacking #And also because he feels like he should've been the firstborn son #But do you ever think that maybe he's also jealous of Aegon because Aegon is allowed to fuck up #Again and again #And Alicent still loves him? #Like she obviously is affectionate toward all her children #But imagine trying to be everything your mother wants your older brother to be #And watching your older brother do everything he's not supposed to be #And somehow your mother still supports him and loves him and would quite literally die for him #And like logically you know she would do the same for you #But deep down you're also scared of ever fucking up #Because what if you're not perfect and you fuck up like your brother #And she stops loving you?? #What if you're not the golden son she never needs to worry about #And she just isn't willing to tolerate your bs the way she tolerates your brother's #What a punch in the face that would be #Anyway don't mind me I am just clawing my eyes out #hotd #aemond targaryen #aegon ii targaryen

[artsyunderstudy]

"I've gotten better at identifying Penny's magic when I feel it. Apparently Normals aren't supposed to feel magic at all, but I can sometimes. It's a warmth that somehow feels sweet—it's hard to explain. But we're pressed against each other in our blanket burrito, and I feel it wash over me when she casts. Better safe than sorry. Safe. That's what her magic feels like. That's what she feels like."

The Cutest Knees by @stitchyqueer

Carry on Countdown | Day Eleven: Side Ships

This year I decided I wanted to honor the incredibly talented fic writers of this fandom, so I chose one fic per prompt to do an illustration for. I didn’t double up on authors so that I could do this for as many people as possible. I realized while planning this that there are way too many fics and authors that I love, and even after having picked 30 of what I consider some of my very favorites, I could have easily kept going. Please check the fics out if you haven’t, they all come highly recommended.

#shepard love #penelope bunce #stormchaser #penlove #carry on #carry on fanart #wayward son #any way the wind blows #rainbow rowell #carry on countdown #COC 2023 #artsyart #okay i took a little break because i was so tired #but im back #and ive been so excited to draw this one because PENNY AND SHEP #this fic is so fucking sweet and sexy and just #mm #go give it a go

[luobingmeis]

anyways thinking abt the amount of people involved in jin zixuan’s death is gonna make me a little insane. like u have wen ning who physically did it. wei wuxian who lost control. jin zixun who planned the ambush. jin guangshan who gave the fucking order to kill wei wuxian in the first place because his son *checks notes* wanted his wife to be happy. the many other people in jinlintai who knew that the ambush was going to happen. and then jin guangyao. oh boy. jin guangyao knowing about the ambush, being involved with the hundred holes curse, hating jin zixun, and then sending jin zixuan to the site of the ambush like. buddy how many birds did u kill with that stone.

#obligatory ‘i love jin guangyao rights and wrongs’ tag #so i don’t get called a jgy hater. i just think the guy is fucked up and i like that abt him #also ik with the way this is formatted for bare minimum comedic effect it looks like i’m ragging on jgy the post #but let’s be real discovering that jgs gave the order for wwx to die /because of the invitation/ sent me into shock #like yeah jgy we know ur involved here 🙄 ur dad on the other hand tho #i used to feel ngl bad for jgs i’m regards to jzx’s death #bc honestly jzx2 would be arrogant and prideful enough to plan the ambush on his own #but now knowing jgs’s involvement???? like okay. okay. he started the plot that killed his son. #and also. as a jgy stan. yikes a-yao! wow bud! can’t wait for u to tell ur nephew that his dad had 2 die!

[itz-pandora]

I saw everyone was making Sonic ship kids, so I decided to try it as well!

Spirit the Hedgehog. I could NOT decide on colors until I made a human design (this is the third version of him!!!)

Human design!!

I tried to make him look like Sonic and Shadow (cuz he's a Sonadow kid) but I also want him to be unique, but idk :P

#i love u homunculus experiment (that may or may not deal with mortality) no. 2 #son of homunculus experiment that deals with mortality no. 1 #and sonic too I GUESSSSSS #is his design too busy?? like the hedgehog design #his color scheme is so light because im like “spirit... haha... light” #AND i think it'd be hilarious if hes actually got pretty normal abilities until he's like “hey dad (shadow) theres a blonde girl who's- #-been following you around for a while and u havebt said anything. why tf is she kinda translucent.“ #and shadow is like “MARIA.???” ANS KT FUCKS WITH HIM HES LIKE WHAT THE #Spirit might be able to see spirits #who'd have thought? #girl dad Shadow agenda coming soon >:) #sonadow #sonadow fankid #sonic the hedgehog #sonic gijinka #sonic #shadow #sonic x shadow #shadow the hedgehog

[kingkatsuki]

Mother Mitsuki, who despite Masaru’s pleas, is way too invested in Bakugou and your relationship.

#pls I LOVE HER!!! #asking if you’re engaged yet every time you both visit for dinner #sending you wedding dress designs when you’re not even engaged #sending bakugou texts telling him to wife you up before you realise your mistake in choosing him and pick Deku instead #gifting the most inappropriate presents to try and get you pregnant #becoming the real bridezilla when you’re finally engaged and she isn’t even the one getting married #he turns up at your hen do to find you and his mum drunk as FUCK together #and he can’t help but shake his head at the sight as he tries to get you both back to his car because he loves you both so much #and he’s so glad you like each other too😭 #she’s at the hospital holding you in her arms whenever Bakugou is hurt like you just share the same pain #but god if she sends bakugou one more text with your ovulation schedule he’s blocking her #(he’ll never admit that it’s because of that text that he bends you over— just in case) #and it fills him with so much warmth when he watches you both share memories of him as a kid— even though he was an ugly fucking baby #and like when you both fight Mitsuki always checks up on you too🥺because she knows her son can be brash like her #but she knows that he’s so in love with you and wouldn’t wanna lose you #she’s definitely caught you both having sex in his childhood bedroom too tho

[carefulfears]

very underrated moment in the iwtb bed scene is when scully says that she’s lying awake “cursing god,” and mulder asks what’s wrong and she tells him about her patient and how this little boy is going to die and there’s nothing anyone will do. and the way that they talk about it for a minute and then he whispers, “just go to sleep. let me curse god for awhile.”

actually the most romantic sentiment of the movie, i think! to say, you rest, i’ll take this shift. you don’t have to give it up, but let me hold it tonight. bearing witness as a love language etc

#happy birthday iwtb you fucking crime against nature of a film #also #in that scene #the way that she says ‘you think it’s because of william’ a little defensively #and he says ‘i think OUR son left an emptiness in BOTH of us that can’t be filled’ #that language matters so much because he’s not saying like….you’re struggling with this because you’re fucked up as a mother bc of your loss #he’s saying WE have this burden. i know because i have that too. this is OURS. in the way that he is ours and loving him is ours #txf.txt #iwtb

[mayxo-hxh]

I personally think that Kikyo would absolutely be thrilled that Illumi found himself a man he wants to marry as strong, handsome and fit to be Zoldyck as Hisoka.

Hisoka is strong enough to be considered an equal to a zoldyck, which means strength is no problem for him. And I don't know about you but the way he assassinated that terradin man that was threatening to reveal illumis identity at the end of the election arc? CHEFS. KISS. THATS A WHOLE ZOLDYCK WIFE RIGHT THERE. And Hisoka is a certain type of fucked up enough to be a Zoldyck, even if he is... mmm.. self aware. Even if he himself thinks zoldycks are a special kind of fucked up. He'd fit.

I always see people make silva and kikyo disagree with illumi marrying hisoka but i soooo heavily disagree. Like what is there NOT to be proud of in Illumi's marriage choice. There is not a single other character IN THE ENTIRE ANIME fit to be Zoldyck than Hisoka Morow and I will fight people on that.

Something a lot of people also don't realize is that the Zoldycks are not a family that discriminates in the slightest (this is a whole discussion on its own but examples are how Kikyo is from meteor city, the butlers are taken from anywhere as long as they have the skill to work and one of the people who attacked kukuroo mountain to hunt the zoldycks now works for them instead. The zoldycks didnt hesitate to hire that mf they fr dont gaf lmfao)

there are soooooooo many misconceptions about the zoldycks in general and i think thats what aids the whole "the zoldycks would HATE hisoka" thing but like. nah. they wouldnt.

I also think about how Kikyo found Silva at such a young age. I bet she was constantly nagging Illumi and asking when he'd get a partner himself. Now he's got it, Millukiiii ITS YOOOURRR TURRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!

#some people would say “oh theyll hate him when they meet him!” but why though. #“the way he dresses!” ?? so what. have u seen the way the zoldycks dress lmfao. their son is literally twinning with that magician #“he'll make it weird” Ya Allah no he fucking wont 💀 people base this off a very fanon characterization of hisoka. #Like no he wont moan out of nowhere because theyre a powerful family he already knows that buddy. #hes kept it in multiple times before in a muted reaction please stop making it seem like hes a man with no self control i beg lmfao #Surprise surprise Hisoka acts weird on purpose when he puts on a show because thats how he wants to be percieved #but hes very self aware and knows whats considered weird and disrepectful and certainly wont fuck it all up for him and illumi for 0 reason #me when i finally get to marry the love of my life and i fuck it up because i decide itd be quirky and the fans want me to #hisoka is a much more calmer and quiet person when hes not purposely being weird and thats what people dont want to accept #anyways rant over #whewwww thats a rant and a half lmfao #I wish hisoka as a character was given more analysis and study than the 3 scenes that make him popular #anyways. rant TRULY over. here are the normal tags #hisoillu #hisoka x illumi #illumi #illumi zoldyck #hisoka #hisoka morow #hisoka zoldyck #hunter x hunter #hxh #my post #i feel like if i mentioned how hisoka has adhd on here id get thrown pitchforks at. #let alone the fact that hes very asexual coded #i dont really feel safe on this website at all to discuss any of this yet lmao #people literally laugh when you say hes shy when its literally??? a canon fact stated by hisoka himself?? and backed up by many scenes???? #but i dont think i ever will feel safe here tbh. i just have to. do it. and fuck it whatever happens or whoever laughs at me. #just like ive done on twitter for years until ive finally created a complete safe space for myself #secret rant at the end because maybe nobody will look here

[bcitisthelight]

hey remember when we were discussing how weird the whole cliegg thing is in AOTC. and you had thoughts, feelings and emotions. tell me about those XOXO

(Big TW for this post - I discuss human trafficking, sex trafficking, rape, child abuse, slavery, and PTSD in this post. It's about the realities of slavery and Tatooine and how it involves the Skywalkers.) Something that I almost never see in any discussion on the Lars family is how sharply the fanon headcanons and characterizations of diverge from the ones we get in the moves. Like, particularly Cliegg and the prequel trilogy. Like - I feel like there's this automatic assumption that the Lars loved Shmi and that they cared for Luke out of dedication to her and her family, and it's this huge found family vibe but like can I be real. Can I be super real right now. It’s something that I find kind of baffling, because when I watched Attack of the Clones, and on every rewatch since (and there have been many), it always seems kind of obvious to me that Cliegg bought Shmi as a slave, presumably as a house slave, if not outright as a part of sex trafficking. And I don't mean in one of those "He bought her to free her, he's a good guy, etc etc". I mean, he bought her as a slave with the original intention of keeping her as a slave. And what's really interesting, is you can get pretty much all the clues about that from the exchanges between Anakin has with Watto, his and Shmi's former master.

Again, I want to stress that, because I think it's crucial that we see this for what it is - not an exchange between a former employee and his boss, not an exchange between a kid and a member of his former community. His former slavemaster. The man who won him and his mother in a gambling game like so many fancy necklaces. The source and object of Anakin's childhood enslavement. Watto would have beaten them. He made Anakin, a child of 9 - and I read somewhere once that Anakin started in the races at 6 - ride in a pod race that no human has ever won before, with the full expectation that he would die. This is a being whose entire life has revolved around the certainty that society is not only capable of functioning, but functions best, when sentient beings can be bought and sold like property. And, to be real with you, because this is a thing that happens to people who suffer enslavement, he very likely loaned them out temporarily for sex trafficking purposes for a quick buck - a practice that is noted historically in virtually every society that operated on a system involving slaves.

It's important to recap that, because I do think it's impossible to understand how deeply horrifying the conversation they have is without that context. Like, let's look at how he tells Anakin about Shmi -

This scene is....so telling to me. From the outset, Watto said he sold her as a slave. Like, it was a slave exchange. Watto heard about her freedom later - clearly, Cliegg bought her, and behaved in a way - intentional or not - that Watto believed he was buying her as a slave to own as a slave. That part is not subtext, that's just actual text.

"But Mikhayla" some will say "he freed her the second he bought her - he bought her in order to free her." Except....there is genuinely nothing in the movies, and off the top of my head, the wider narrative, that ever indicates that that's true. In fact it makes no sense in that case, for Watto to have not known that Cliegg was buying her in order to free her. Why would he have to hide that? Watto presumably doesnt care what happens to her, because he's selling her. In the larger materials, its said that his shop fell on hard times, and in the movies, we can see the proof. The script says he's sitting outside his shop, but at that point it resembles more of a kind of beaten down stand. He's still selling junk, but less and of poorer quality - presumably, he's spent all his money on gambling debts. And the thing is, slaves are expensive. He sold her years prior, and I bet he fed himself on that money for a very long time - he was a very motivated seller, as barbaric as that language is to use about a transaction involving a human person. He's not going to be fussy over why the person buying her wants to buy her. There's also the fact that this is a society that vastly runs on slavery, and large plantation owners would often "rent" out slaves to smaller but still profitable farms. And Cliegg is a moisture farmer with presumably a large tract of land for water vaporizers. If anything, I can see Watto having rented Shmi to her, Cliegg taking a liking to her, and then approaching Watto to buy her. I mean, if he's profitable enough to just buy a slave, then he clearly had at least some money. "He spent his whole savings!" Show me that in the text. "He loved her from the start!" Show me that in the text. "But Mikhayla," yet others will say, "he did free her! And then married her! He clearly meant from the start to free her, and only bought her to get her away from Watto. He could have never seen her as property. Who would marry their slave?" Except, in the real world, this is...another thing we see across multiple historical records, masters buying women as slaves and then later freeing them in order to legally marry them. PARTICULARLY in societies that operate so heavily on an entire caste system involving slaves - we can look to the Roman Empire, for example. Countless Roman officials, merchants, and military officials bought women, fell in love with them, and freed them in order to marry them. "But maybe she said yes!" (I know these are not your objections, but as you know, I'm an attorney, which means I constantly have to find an argument to fight against). So, to this imaginary detractor I say: I feel like it should be rather obvious, but I'll say it just in case - it is impossible for a slave to consent to any action they perform at the request of a slave master. It cannot happen. A woman who is enslaved cannot consent to marrying the man who bought her, and who has very likely been raping her up until this point, and wants to now marry her - usually, to make any children he had by her legally his children, and therefore citizens, rather than slaves themselves.

So really, whether or not Cliegg had a change of heart doesn't actually change my mind about his actions towards Shmi. I don't care if Cliegg DID love her - in fact, I'm sure he DID love her. People can and have convinced themselves of all kinds of moral superiority, people can claim to love someone while owning them as property! Shmi could never consent to marrying a man who held her as a slave. Even if he freed her, and she willing chose to stay there for a few years, and then he asked her to marry him. In my head, you can't overcome that power imbalance. Cliegg will never not be a man who once believed Shmi was a thing to be owned. He will never be a man who didn't see her as property. Like, at some point, it actually becomes kind of more and more unlikely that this is a guy who took up this transaction for non-malicious purposes. Because we simply do not see it in the movie. What I see in the movie is a slave owner saying he fell on hard times and sold his slave to a farmer who probably needed help on his land or in his house - he has no wife, so the latter is probably more likely. I see him saying that at the time of the transaction, he had no idea that Cliegg intended to free her. And for all that Cliegg calls Shmi his darling, his love, his wife - not once do we ever hear of any evidence that Shmi saw this as a love match. In fact, the only thing we find out about her daily life with the Lars family is that in the mornings, she wakes up early and goes to pick mushrooms. You know. A task for the house. An unpleasant task, done before everyone else is awake, that she does absolutely alone. I'm just saying. These implications are not good ones. I will say though, for all this, do you know what really sells me on the idea that the relationship between Shmi and Cliegg is is not a consensual one, is Anakin's reaction to it. This is a boy whose entire hopes and dreams have revolved around his mother's freedom. You have more excellent writing than me on this, but the moral injury Anakin suffers leaving his mother behind is. Intense. All he wants is to one day free her. In a way, a part of him is always that tiny boy who couldn't bear the idea of leaving behind his mom, who swore, the last time he saw her, that he would free her. And at this moment, all of his dreams have seemingly come true! His mother is free. According to Watto, she's found love, and married. For all he knows, she's had other children. Maybe that could involve SOME complicated emotions, but mostly you would expect that he would feel, at the very least, relieved. Happy. Interested, curious. Instead, this is his reaction:

He's grim, business like. He is not happy. He is not relieved. He doesn't even seem to acknowledge that she's still alive - the way he reacts is not a man who thinks his mother is out of danger. To Anakin, who grew up enslaved until 9 and knows how this society works, it seems almost immediately apparent that the Lars are just a different kind of danger. There's also this rather interesting detail:

This is a boy who bleeds, every second of every day, longing for a family. He basically begs at obi-wan's feet day and night, to be acknowledged as a son. His reaction to his wife's pregnancy is radiant joy - his reaction to know she could die, profound existential horror. I mean good god, he basically turns Palpatine aka Satan Himself into a father figure, because he's that desperate for one. And here, this man is claiming him as his family. He's talked about being excited to see him. He talks about planning with Shmi to meet him. He calls him "son". And Anakin doesn't give him another moment of his time, the second those words are out of his mouth. It's silence. For a boy who is so starved for intimacy he genuinely falls in love with the very first girl who was ever nice to him, to react to a claim of relationship this way. It's bizarrely out of character for him. Unless it isn't. UNLESS he's disgusted by that claim, instead of relieved by it. If he thinks his mother has been bought and then forced into marriage, of course he hates Cliegg. I remember when we were watching the movie together, and remember I said to you "You can just tell Anakin is thinking, 'Call me son one more fucking time'" And can I be real, I have so much more to say about this. As you know, I actually have essays of opinions and feelings about Shmi Skywalker and her horrible life, and how Anakin was the one bright point she had in that horrible life. I have feelings about how she gave away her only happiness, because she knew he did not deserve the life of a slave. I had ideas about how you could turn this into a way to actually fix AOTC and make it better, a way you could use it as an excuse to get rid of the Tusken arc entirely without losing the tragedy of his mother's death. But this post is already so fucking long and I'm sure you're tired of me talking xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

#star wars #human trafficking tw #abuse tw #csa tw #rape tw #slavery tw #all the trigger warnings #GOD THIS MADE ME REALIZE HOW MUCH I FUCKING LOVE SHMI SKYWALKER #BECAUSE SHE HAD JUST #THE SHITTIEST LIFE RIGHT #LIKE SHES BORN INTO SLAVERY AND SHE DIES IN SLAVERY SHE LOSES EVERYTHING HER SON IS GONE SHES MARRIED TO HER SLAVE MASTER SHE DIES IN PAIN #BUT HER LOVE FOR ANAKIN WAS SO GOOD #SO INTENSELY AFFECTIONATE AND VALIDATING #EVEN IN ALL THAT HELL #THAT WHEN ITS RIPPED AWAY FROM HIM FOR GOOD ANAKIN BASICALLY LOSES HIMSELF ENTIRELY

[fernsensei]

v2 and gabriel both drinking their v1 related problems away. i love this little idea of v2 and gabriel you’ve put in my head amazing job

oopsie my hand slipped THANK YOU for the idea anon!!! v2 desperately trying to drink some of gabriel's blood but gabriel wouldn't let it until all of his daddy issues are resolved

#v2: gabriel im on my knees i will die any fucking second now just please-- #gabriel drunk in shit: AAND THIS SON OF A MARY JE..JESUS GUY..... #gabv2el agenda gabv2el agenda #i love gabv1el dont get me wrong but THIS..... OH...... #ultrakill #ultrakill fanart #gabriel ultrakill #v2 ultrakill #gabv2el #<< this is now a tag because I SAID SO!!!!! #art