#i think i am technically committing a /no it is the children who are wrong/ violation here

[morganbritton132]

Do you think Eddie and Steve have ever fallen victim to the weird trend of people calling the police to ‘save’ famous people? Like some fans of his tiktok became convinced Steve was holding him hostage after making 2+2=5 when they googled up Billy’s name

This is such an interesting question because I could see it going both ways.

There are always going to be people that look at Eddie and see wanted posters. There are people who will never be convinced that he didn’t commit those murders, and they’re only ever going to see a victim in Steve because of it.

Steve is clumsy. He has a head injury and issues with balance, and sometimes he gets confused. Sometimes he gets bruised. He’s cut his hand in the middle of a seizure and needed stitches. He’s broken his ankle and walked on it for an entire day.

Sometimes nurses and doctors see his injury and see his medical history, and then they see the scruffy guy calling himself his husband, and they ask him to step outside the room. They ask Steve questions and it always takes him a second to realize what they’re trying to get at because domestic abuse is not something that he can attach to Eddie in any capacity.

And Steve will get angry about it. How dare they think such a thing? How could they look at Eddie and see how much love he holds in his heart and think that he would ever hurt Steve?

 

I think that Eddie is always going to have some fans that see Steve as this bad guy that does not deserve to be with him. There is nothing that he will ever do that can change that. They are just angry that Eddie is with someone other than them.

I can definitely see them hearing about all the bad shit that went down in Hawkins and seeing Steve’s connection to some of it – The coverup story for Starcourt paints Robin and Steve as two dedicated retail employees that saved a bunch of children from a fire – and then take that extra step to twist it into something so much worse.

The kid that went missing in Hawkins in 1983 just so happened to be the little brother of the guy that stole Steve’s high school girlfriend? That’s interesting. That’s suspicious.

And his high school bully (that he apparently hit with a car!) just so happened to die in a fire at his place of work? Weird.

And despite the fact that the police and an angry mob couldn’t find Eddie, Steve Harrington – a video rental employee – happened to find him?

You pair the horror story that was Hawkins in the eighties up with Eddie’s scars and all the off-hand jokes people have made on live-streams about Steve’s sleepwalking, or with Steve’s reactions to being scared and you can make a convincing case for anything.

Eddie ends a live-stream early one night at Steve’s request and then an hour later, they’re getting a knock on the door by two police officers doing a welfare check.

Steve and Eddie are obviously confused, and Steve is really disheartened when one of the officers lets it slip that the person calling was concerned because of a live-stream.

It puts a damper on the date night he’d set up for them in the living room and he doesn’t really want to continue it after the cops leave. Eddie tries to find the bright side of the situation, “Babe, it’s nothing. It’s not like it’ll be in the papers.”

“They think I hurt you,” Steve says. “They – your fans think that I would – that I’d ever – and they’re not wrong, technically. I have hurt you before.”

“And I nearly cut your throat with a broken glass bottle,” Eddie replies, ignoring the way Steve scoffs at him. “Anything that you’ve ever done because you were confused or lost in your head, or sleepwalking doesn’t count. You weren’t all here and it’s not your fault if you aren’t aware of what you’re doing, right? And anyways, I’m typically bothering you.”

“You’re blaming yourself for me hurting you?”

“No, I’m – No. I’m not,” Eddie clarifies. “I am saying that I don’t always come into the situation knowing what’s going on and sometimes I make it worse. Sure, I’ve gotten a bit of a hit. You kick in your sleep. But you have never hurt me.”

“Is it El’s fault when the cabinets rattle when she has a nightmare?” Eddie continues because it’s clear that Steve does not agree with him. “Or that time she got so scared that all the lightbulbs shattered? You got cut when that happened, remember? You have a scar. Is that her fault?”

“That’s different. She can’t-“

“And neither can you,” Eddie says. “I’m telling you now, Stevie. You know what my life was like before I moved in with Wayne. I will never be in a situation like that again. So, if I was than I would not be here, but I am here because you have never done anything to hurt me, okay?”

#I think that Steve would deal with people assuming things a lot more in real life but that there is probably some dedicated Eddie Munson #hater out there that also posts YouTube videos like ‘7 signs Eddie Munson hurts people’ and it’s like Steve has a bruise on his arm #eddie munson tiktok saga #steve harrington #eddie munson

[sunscreenstudies]

Iconic Things My Coding Professors Have Said (Part 7)

"we'll be using a very heurisitc method today called ‘lets just try our best’”

“by using this model, you might come up with a solution that is sub-par but... hey, thats life"

"some people are cruel and use a blind man in their drawings to explain this graph, but i'm nice so i'll use a blindfolded man instead"

“there was actually a very interesting study done not so long ago where scientists claimed that on days when more ice cream was purchased, more murders occured as well. now, i know what you’re thinking, i’d kill someone for limencello and ferrero rocher ice cream as well BUT in this case, that correlation was wrong and it was just scientists being dumb”

"now so, we’re all off next thursday, but i also have an extra days holiday on friday, so if you're trying to email me then... yeah. good luck”

"this example illustrates why we cannot repeat this exercise on more complex DOM trees because their visual representation gets too big and inaccessible too quickly. In other words: we will not be using a more complex example in a potential exam exercise because the tree would quite simply, not fit on the exam paper”

"you know, there's a little secret that we haven't told you about before... please don't hate us, but we are about to tell you about one of the best kept secrets in the Python universe and it would have made your homework SO much easier"

Prof: “does anyone know what mistake the dumb scientists made? i’ll give you a hint; correlation is not the same as causation, so what else do you think would increase the amount of ice cream bought and also increase the amount of murders committed?”   student: “being human”   prof: “... the correct answer is hot temperatures, but technically, you’re not wrong”

"then we'll be looking a linear model, which is the most important part of this course. you can look at it as... the swiss army knife, if you will, of data models"

"we use the pearson correlation method which is the, uh... vanilla method"

“first of all, you can immediately see that the p-value for gender has changed. why? because i made it like that. why did i make it like that?  god only knows"

"we'll be looking at the titanic dataset which is a really funny data- no, wait, i shouldn't say that, it's not a funny dataset, it's a... nice dataset to- nope, it’s not nice either. entertaining? wait, no, people died. i’m not a pyschopath, i swear"

prof: "so here’s your blindfolded man on top of the curve of the graph"    student: "that’s quite a dangerous place for him to be"   prof: "very dangerous for him, yes, but machine learning is very dangerous... for you especially"

"so it was actually doctors who first created the earliest version of this algorithm by using a nearest neighbors set up. so instead of looking at a new patient and trying to come up with what's wrong with them, they based their diagnosis on similar past cases. for example, if someone came in with blue hair and purple eyes and yellow skin and- wow. this is starting to sound more like a carneval than a hospital. i mean, both places are a joke, but still..."

"this is the way we solved this issue for a lot of people. it seems a bit hacky, but hey, as along as it works"

prof1: "that wasn't too difficult"    prof2: "speak for yourself"    prof1: "i am. i don't know what’s going on with you, but i want nothing to do with this"

"you need two predictors, or more. three way interactions can be... messy, but still possible, much like other three way activites that i could mention, but i won't, because you're still children"

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Part 9  | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14

#coding #compblr #computer science #data analytics #machine learning #seriously you guys #this will never end

[xxrat--punkxx]

Harrow The Ninth - Act one essay

yeah u read that right, i wrote a fucking essay. When I started reading Harrow the ninth, I made a decision to make annotations. As when reading the first book in the series I had many thoughts and was unable to get any of them down. I would be doing this in an attempt not only to better understand the characters, but to better understand the goings-on and see if I can piece things together, as the book is a little confusing I must admit. So I decided to write this, which is essentially just a big write-up of all the notes I made over act one, and which I have many thoughts about. The annotations in the majority are on Harrow and a study of her character I have to admit, but I did try and piece together certain theories of sorts that I had. All of this is merely my interpretation of the book is not meant to be taken seriously, take whatever I’ve written with a grain of salt or as literally as you want. This is written in order of chapter or chronologically so if the notes seem a bit messed up that’s why.

 The reason I’m doing this putty just is for fun and I just thought it would be an interesting way to try to get to understand the characters better, so if you do feel opposed to what I have said please don’t feel the need to comment and rave about it or how I’m ‘wrong’, also I would like to avoid further spoilers for the book all together so please keep my in the dark.

And with that this is the mostly coherent write up of my notes thrust far :D

---------------

To begin with the prologue threw for a fucking loop, but I think Ianthe saying ‘choke me daddy’ is going to stick with me until the day I die. One of the first things I took  note of is how Harrow mentioned Ianthe’s eyes multiple times. Harrow is very observant of other people’s eyes through the book, always pointing them out and describing them. The line ‘- eyes of the cavalier she murdered’ could suggest Harrow is only able to characterise people by the necessary ‘sin’ they have committed to become Lyctor, feeling an incredibly heavy guilt at her position, because even through she may not remember, Harrow carries a great deal of sadness and anger to her role as Lyctor as a result of Gideons fate. This resentment for her position comes up again in ‘half a Lyctor was worse than not a Lyctor at all’, Harrow wanted to become a Lyctor to atone for the sins of her birth as well as revive the dying embers of the ninth house, the adjective ‘half’ would suggest Harrow doesn’t feel like she’s good enough to call herself ‘a real Lyctor’ (whether there is a process of fully becoming a Lyctor I am currently unaware of) because of this feeling of inadequacy she harbours, she possibly feels that she is not yet able to justify everything that has happened, still essentially talking the full blame for being 200 dead children. Harrow may feel that she will only see herself as ‘good enough’ once she has become what she deems a ‘fully versed Lyctor’, but I do believe if she were to go on she would never reach this self appointed goal, always living in this perpetual state of ‘I’m not good enough to justify 200 children’. And despite the fact she can’t remember, not good enough to justify the ‘death’ of Gideon as well.

In Parodos we begin to explore what I can only come to conclude as being an altercation in her memories in the event of the previous book. Along with the later repeated ‘this isn’t how it happened’ and the reference to the ‘body’ who I believe is Alecto (don’t go looking in tags that contain spoilers kids). Other than this Harrow references her ‘fathers library’ (which has obviously been around for a lot longer), I believe that her reason for still referring to it as her fathers and not technically hers is this is still part of her that still can’t yet get over they’re death. But most importantly abt this chapter, is the first mention of Harrows ‘insanity’, a very frequently repeated and referenced topic.

In chapter one we see the use of second person being used. This, to my surprise, is used past the prologue whenever we are in the ‘present’, I do believe there are multiple reasons for this, that I will go into later. The chapter opens with Harrow attempting to practice using her sword, despite her almost seemingly constant lack of progress; it's all Harrow seemingly devotes her time to. The quote ‘sword had reified your grief into six feet of steel’ (that’s one long fucking sword Jesus Christ) could suggest that Harrow is using this training as a distraction, that she is trying to fill her mind with the focus of sword training to the point where she isn’t able to cast her mind to her grief, ending in her pushing herself too far to the brink of nausea and pain. Further, the personification of the sword is interesting as it could be Harrow attempting to personify her grief. As a subconscious way of coping, the sword represents a past she so dearly hates and memories she is scared to remember. Claiming the sword ‘hates her’ could be Harrow's mind telling her ‘this is how everyone you lost will react to your failure’ as she is unable to properly wield it, along with the notion that she possibly even now believes she’s ‘not good enough’ as a Lyctor. Believing that, if they were alive, all her parents, the children and even Gideon would feel toward her would be adamant hate. This then brings up the theme of ‘insanity’ again, wherein Harrow's mind will conceive the impossible as an attempt to cope with the insurmountable amounts of grief and trauma. 

Harrow is greatly alienated from the environment she’s in, being stripped of her identifying features she takes solace in (e.g her face paint and short cropped hair), to have these things taken away from her, Harrow feels exposed and possibly vulnerable, this would cause her to feel possibly more alienated as she doesn’t feel comfortable being ‘exposed’ to the people on the ship. Harrow's face paint is very important to her, not just as a part of her house's culture but because Harrow uses it as a mask. The ‘inglorious mask’ she paints represents a lot to her, her position as Reverend Daughter of the Ninth house, a position too many people had died for for her to not wear that title. Later it is revealed that Harrow sees her face as ‘monstrous’ without it on as she can’t bare the sight of her bare face, she views her face with a sort of body dysmorphia, as if she hates who she is, what she represents and the mask is a way of concealing that as well as a showing of her devotion to the house and it’s people by strictly upholding its culture. Small acts of penance for the debt of her birth. Harrow would much rather go through bouts of pain, although fleeting just to mimic the paint with her blood as the alternative (it’s sad and cruel to think about but it’s cool af omg). 

While on Erbos, Harrow makes notes of all the noises she can hear, making comparison to prayer, which I believe is a Harrow trying to make an attempt at trying to find even some form of familiarity in this alien environment as to compare the ‘nonsense’ of human voices with something so familiariser to her as ritualistic prayer. Eventually all of these factors, the loss of her identity, the collection of grief and alienation, all lead to causing Harrow moments of disassociation, ‘sometimes you would forget who you were, and at recalling yourself,weep like a child’.this loss of identity causes Harrow to ‘forget herself’ a way of her mind shutting down as it can no longer continue this cycle of constant training and nausea/pain on top of the old and new grief. What’s more is the use of the noun ‘child’ is important because it represents Harrow regressing back into the mindset of her child self, something she has a deep rooted fear of regressing back to. This then creates a vicious cycle. In this moment, paired with the sword on the ground, with Harrow giving it a lack of care and disregard, would play into the personified ‘argument’ dynamic Harrow has created. As the sword lays there, a representation of the people she’s lost and the grief they bring, the line ‘so you could not see the sword nor the people’ could be Harrow not wanting hypothetical people to see her at this breaking point through the form of the personified sword. This scene accompanied with the appearance of ‘the body’ is all further reference and hinting at Harrows slowly deteriorating mind and ‘insanity’ 

(All of that, bar like 2 notes, were taken from the prologue, parodos and chapter one, send help please I have no notes from chapter 2 tho lmaoooo)

Moving onto chapter four we can see that the narrative has shifted to put focus on Harrow's past, reflecting back on her relationship with the tomb and its corpse, as well as her early childhood. Harrow had grown up with little to know affection or care given to her from her parents, instead her childhood had been reduced to incessant learning, devotion and practicing necromancy. All the while the notion of her birth had been drilled into her, from as young as she could remember her parents had done well to teach her how much she cost. The ramifications as such would have led to Harrow developing this self hatred and the feeling that she needed to justify her existence very early on in life. 

When talking of the corpse, Harrow mentions how ‘the death of god had been Harrow’s death too’ representing how she felt that her life had ended as a result of her love for the body because it led to the death of her parents and caused just so much more confusion in her mind. Harrow relied on her parents to be her teachers and guardians, but not careers, so in they’re death, it must have been such a shock to her to have these people so suddenly cut from her life, to suddenly have the people she was closest to, even though they were barley close enough, taken from her. Despite the fact that her parents were emotionally distant, Harrow was still greatly attached to them and held them very close. She loved them for it was the death of the people she loved that caused her mind to break as far as it did. I don't doubt that Harrow, even at that age, would have taken full blame for existing as a result of the 200 children, believing that at some point in her adult life she would be able to atone for those sins, she later sees this opportunity in Lyctorhood, having to watch as your parents hang themselves with ‘you’ at the center for they’re reason would have only exponentially increased this guilt and trauma repeating to it she was feeling. leaving her to have to rely solely on Crux for essentially everything her parents had done, even if he hadn’t deceived on what her parents had. 

Her parents death had caused Harrow’s life to change incredibly drastically and for the worse. Harrow had developed the idea that she ‘should have hung herself beside them’ and still believes this. However, Harrow believes that ‘she cost too much to die’, having this internal conflict of being in essentially a constant state of strain from carrying around this unresolved trauma and wanting it to stop but also believing she doesn’t deserve such a luxury as death.

Other than this, one of the only other person Harrow would have been ‘close to’ would have been Gideon, even if she can’t remember, I believe that despite everything she had been taught by her parents, and any presumptions she has or had been taught about Gideon, what Harrow desperately wanted to talk to her, or even be her friend. Harrow was used to being different, being the only child in the entirety of the Drearbruh, decides Gideon. With Harrow having just a general curious nature, I could imagine she possibly wanted to get to know her. However Harrow was unable to communicate her feelings mostly due to her not knowing how. However if this is the case, I'd imagine any kind of interest she’d had toward this aspect of her life was gone the minute she lost her parents. This curiosity turned to genuine hatred as they’re spats continued and they grew up, and Harrow eventually forgot the reason they ever started.

The dissociative episode Harrow experienced at the start of the book is reminiscent of the one she had after her parents death. Similarities between that constantly occurring ‘insanity’, hallucinations, loss of time, long episodes of crying. But a constant that I find particularly interesting is the common occurrence of ‘the body’ appearing in her hallucinations. The body could possibly be her brain trying to create a coping mechanism, focusing on the one thing she finds love and solace in and showing it to her in times when her mind is breaking or when she can’t afford to not have someone there with her. Over time when Harrow tried to ignore the hurt and move past it, she still remained very damaged from the fallout. Her mind had taken refuge in monotony and tradition, this is again referencing her need to cover her face in paint and adhere to ritualistic behaviours she’s taken comfort in. This could be a way of coping, Harrow being able to control these small things allow her to have some peace of mind and allow her to be contemptuous. However, I have reason to believe as a result of the trauma Harrow has developed a form of OCD, her compulsive behaviour very clear in her ritualistic activities, if she is without them or if she is unable to complete these rules she lives her life by great bounds of self hatred fear they’re head. Among these reasons for her conformity to tradition, I believe she does it as a way to deflect from her grief and trauma, by overworking herself in the Ninth house she was able to stop her brain from straying too far, much the same as she has done with her sword in chapter one.

After experiencing all of this, all these emotions for her whole life, then being so foolish as to fall in love with Gideon, was too much. I believe that past Harrow had made a deal with god (🎶to get him to swap our places🎶) to somehow alter her memories, to change the past so she would forget Gideon, to save herself the pain of losing a loved one again. This is the reason for her letters and the reason for the chapters about the altered past, but despite this we can see several times that her mind still remembers, her subconscious is still aware of the ones she’s trying to forget. 

In the previous book, Muir had done such an excellent job of writing the characters and how they’re seen from Gideosn perspective that I had never second guessed any of Harrow’s behaviour, Muir was able to conduct Harrow in such a way wherein she appeared stoic and in great control over her emotions, never letting them slip or show. I now know how I am very wrong in my assumptions. ‘You were leaving, for where you did not know, and you did not know how to feel’ shows this, Harrow has absolutely no control over her emotions, she lets the phases of each feeling come and go over her, often she is u sure of what she would do or how she should respond to certain things. Her ‘stoic’ and reserved persona comes from her ability to mask and repress her feelings to the point of nonexistence, a skill she borrowed from her trauma. From spontaneously feeling love at the age of 10, to only knowing to combat love’s fallout with hate. Harrow has had a hard time understanding and processing emotions, the only ways she is able to deal with them is through anger and hatred. Any feelings or sadness trickle into anger over time, possibly a defence mechanism to protect herself and keep herself reserved, not let anyone get close.

To bring up the topic of her sword again, ‘you could never castrate its anger’ she had given this sword a personality of pure hatred toward Harrow, herself encouraging this hate and attachment to the thing. I believe this is because it’s an unknown situation to her, she holds the sword very dear, but can’t seem to understand all the same. To cope with this lack of understanding she retaliates in anger, lashing out, accusing it of hating her. Possibly how her and Gideon’s hate relationship began. Harrow not understanding why her parents were so opposed to this child and why she should be to, the only way to combat the unknown was through hatred.

While Harrow has a lack of control over her emotions, I have noticed that she feels a great deal of fear. With the mention of ‘she was more afraid of being a child again than anything else in her life‘, this leads me to believe Harrow creates some kind of perpetual vicious cycle. Harrow possibly Associates fair with vulnerability, and being vulnerable with her childhood. The lowest moment in her life. Harrow is practically held together by tape, and is in a constant state of fear breaking and her ending up forgetting who she is like when she was 10, as well as mentioned in chapter 1. Harrow feels fear, and in turn fears her relapsing, then this is what creates a vicious cycle. This fear may stem from how bad her disacocations get. At the end of act one, Harrow’s ‘sword was thrust through Cytherea’s breast for a second time’ which she had not done on her own volition, instead doing it in a state of unconsciousness, this showing that her mind is possibly reliving traumatic events that have happened in the past and in some way are trying to re contract them, suggested by this scene and even further with the ‘nails’ scene. This could, however, not even be Harrow during these moments, but someone else entirely (the body??) as suggested by the fact that she was able to lift the sword.

Overall I have no fucking idea why I spent so long on this lord have mercy, if u read this far, why, and thank u for listening to my completely fucking insane rambellimgs of whatever this shit is. In short, I love this book, I love Harrow, I want to give her a hug and a nice cup of diluted lemon and sugar water (fucking hell harrow u really are a small friail Victorian child, like one whiff of monster energy snd she’s gone). But idk if I’ll do this again because yeah it took a while. It was nice to get my thoughts down. Thank u again!

Other notes: 

Ianthe 💕 

Genuinely tho reading chapter 3 made me cry so much, hearing just how poorly Harrow views herself really hurt, and god knows she’s too stubborn to ever tell anyone or so anything abt it.

I feel as though the emperor has almost adopted the role of ‘older brother’ to all the Lyctors, being both friendly and comforting while keeping them in line, whether they choose to listen or not is up to them. and I love that so much

I still can’t say soundly weather Harrow’s sword is her own or Gideon’s, I’d imagine it is as she is the only one without a rapier, assuming they’re being taken from they’re cavaliers

Ianthe’s protection and love for her sister is something to think about and keep an eye on in future

I trust Augustine, he seems nice

Harrow knows both hers and Ortus’ eye colour, yet is also aware that her eyes are very different from his currently, hoping this causes problems 🤪

The mention that being a child again was almost worse than anything in her life, tf is the almost?

The ‘eggs’ letter in Harrow’s ‘past’ is absolutely beyond me and I can’t think of anything when it comes to theories, and on top of this it genuinely scares me.

Harrow lying about her age is important, why? Again something I need to keep an eye out for later on

There is a pattern with when someone mentions Ortus in the present she will have a kind of reaction followed by passing out.

That was most likely Harrow’s first kiss ngl

I mean I knew she’s a virgin but having it confirmed is so funny I’m sorry, no bitches headass

#im going to bed #encore #still dont know why i did this #this was harder to write than i thought #but bro #i kinda missed writing these things lmao #i love writing complex character anlaysis' #shit its not really an essay then isn't it #more like a character study #fuck #oh well #btw i dint proof read this #if its obveous then that's why #enjoy #htn #gtn #tlt #the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #harrow nonagesimus #character study #text #htn essay

[twiststreet]

Sometimes I play them videogames-- I like the ones where you wander around places.  “Wandering around a place” is my idea of a pretty good time when I’m not at home.  “Oh, that’s what coffee shops look like over here?  Ours look different.”  That kind of thing-- a life of thrills.  

But I think I’m playing the second worst-written game I’ve ever played.  The worst written (Far Cry 3) was just racist. But this one, Days Gone, is worse in a really different way, where it has the most loathsome and loathed main character I’ve seen in one of these games.  He’s just this sniveling asshole, except because it’s a game, “he” is “you”, and the game forces you to be this guy.  

It’s one of those games where the apocalypse happened, but a fun one instead of the dreary, spiritually deadening one we’re stuck with. And your guy is a “Drifter”, a biker guy that just wanders around going on missions for reasons that are never explained.  Fair enough.  Except your guy hates his life so he complains constantly.  Anytime anyone gives him a mission?  He walks off and just starts going “Oh man, I’m doing a mission I hate this, this blows, why am I here, fuck my life, why can’t I just hang out instead.”  There’s an in game talk radio station and anytime he listens to the radio, he complains about what’s on the radio at length afterwards.  He bitches and moans about everything.  And there’s an optional thing where if you drive to your wife’s grave, and hit the square button, he’ll give a short speech complaining that she’s dead and moaning about recent events in the game... There’s a Youtube video just called “[Your character] yelling unnecessarily.”

But setting aside the constant whining, is he a decent guy?  Oh heavens no.  At one point, you burn down a church for no reason just because other people were scavengering there-- just like you do constantly, because the apocalypse happened.  But still-- “hit circle to burn church” -- what?  The bad guy in the first part is like “why am I being evil?  Because you and your best friend held me down and took a blowtorch to my back.  Just cause you’re dicks.”  (??? A story that the game never bothers to explain-- it’s really jagged and weirdly written on top of everything else-- the boss level is you just stab him to death while his men stand in a circle and watch you do it???  That’ll show him).  Your best friend is Boozer, a suicidal one armed man-- you build him a knife-arm to keep him from killing himself.  

Sometimes you run into “looters” and they’re usually women, and these women say out loud, in actual game audio, “hey you seem like a pretty good guy, why don’t you calm down, let’s talk and try to be friends” and instead you jump out of the grass where you hide (all games are about hiding in grass), and violently murder them.  Constantly. At another point in the game, the mission is “go kill some anarchists” and guess which character is enraged by the political theory of anarchism...??  There’s all this audio, like “you picked the wrong time to believe in nothing” (which is nihilism not anarchy, but tell that to Deacon Saint John, he’s a biker not a political scientists)...

On the Playstation menu, when you go to Days Gone, the picture they show you is your character shooting dogs to death...?  I mean, technically “wolves” but I had a dog as a kid that looked like that “wolf,” so.  That is a dog-killer.

And then everyone around him either hates him for reasons that are never explained, or-- At one point, a lesbian in a committed relationship is like “I just find you so sexy let’s fuck I want to cheat on my girlfriend.”  No hints before that she’s bi, but okay, hit hexagon to help a gay girl cheat on her girlfriend, wheee.  (You don’t have sex-- instead, he’s like “no, I’m not going to do that, I’m going to go stare into the corner of the room and complain to the Blair Witch”). You also go on missions for an old woman who is plainly enslaving children, and like... you can help her do that...?  If you run into people who need help, you can send them to the Elderly Slaver Woman?? The game takes a lot of inspiration from the Last of Us, except instead of helping a young girl find her way after the apocalypse, the young girl you try to help has death symbols carved into her forehead and ends up a deranged cultist because she was like “i’m not listening to that guy he kinda sucks” (and she’s right!).  And then your character’s like “man, that sucks, I’m going to grumble about it and then listen to right wing Oregon talk radio” some more.  (Where was this character on January 6th???  I know what my answer is).

This all reaches some kind of crescendo in the part I just reached.  So, his wife is supposed to be dead and the entire first part of the game, he’s mourning her.  But then he finds out she’s still alive.  And he risks life and limb to reunite with her.  Is she happy to see him?  She is not.  She is like “why are you here?  I was living a pretty good and productive life without you.  And now you’re back in the picture.  Fuck that, go get me a box of yeast from the zombie-infested summer camp.”  She lets you kiss her once, by accident, but then besides that, is just angry and disgusted you’re around.  

I have so many questions why they wrote the game this way.  It’s a bad game on top of that-- it’s not a well made, fun game.  Games where you wander around a place are all mostly terrible except the Yakuza games, but I just didn’t feel like playing one of those.  But playing this guy is genuinely unpleasant-- there was a guy in the Grand Theft Auto games that was unpleasant, and that was his schtick, but that wasn’t the only guy you got to play in that game.  Here, it feels accidental.  Days Gone generally just feels like no one was really paying attention.  On a game that must’ve cost tens of millions of dollars to make... 

When movies would spend a lot of money and be terrible, sometimes you’d end up with camp.  When games do it, you just end up with a bunch of computer models of guys with goatees, listening to right wing talk radio and then complaining.  I’m excited to see where it goes next...

#Man is the Deadliest Game. #days gone

[steorran]

*

#i think i am technically committing a /no it is the children who are wrong/ violation here #but it weirds me out when showrunners or creators or whatever are too far in fandom's business #i respect that making tv is not a democracy and you mr showrunner are not required to have the fans sign off on the canon content #but in my opinion being mr showrunner doesn't mean YOU get veto power over fandom content either #[drake voice] if you keep scrolling on ao3 you're gonna see some shit that you don't like #also tbh i do not understand the psychology of people who deliberately bring really fandomy stuff #to the attention of people involved in the canon #my best guess is that they think of canon and fandom as one big ecosystem and i think of fandom as a separate derivative ecosystem #i LIKE that they are separate and i think it's good that it stays that way tbh #idk i guess i do think of fandom participation as a hobby that is embarrassing a little bc there's so much emotional involvement #it is fine if my tumblr mutuals see me projecting onto fictional characters #we're all basically equals so it's fine to be vulnerable #an actor or a producer or an author is not my equal in the same way and i don't want them looking at my embarassing emotional games #even if i am using their characters as paper dolls to dress up in my own interests and concerns #not 2 get up on my soapbox again but maybe it is bad that all of humanity is on the same seven websites #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[heyhihellowhatsup0]

Hooked On Your Feelings - Prologue (FWB! Tom x Reader)

Warnings: Some angst, language, eventual smut in future chapters, fluff

Word Count: 2570

Summary: After a bad breakup, making an agreement with your womanizing neighbor, Tom to be friends with added benefits and no strings attached seemed like the perfect idea. Until things become messy, emotions caused your agreement to crumble.

A/N:   So I’m starting a new series! I always wanted to do this trope for Tom and I’m realllllly excited for this series!  I’m not completely sure how long it will be as of right now, most likely between 8-10 chapters. So if you want to be added to the taglist, please DM me! I hope you all enjoy the prologue and can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it! (Also credit to @osterfield-holland-andcompany for this amazing ass mood board I made her too..I’m obsessed!) Thank you xx -N

“Get out!” you screamed as you shoved your now ex-boyfriend out the front door of your apartment. You knew the walls were thin but you didn’t care. You were so completely filled with rage and your body was vibrating as you flung his pants at him, “Get the hell out, Justin!” you shouted again.

    Justin flinched as the door swung open and he stumbled out the front door, still in his boxers. The anger in your eyes made your pupils black while he grabbed his pants and rolled his eyes at you, “Will you just let me explain, Y/N?” he tried to speak but you cut him off with a dry and sarcastic laugh.

    “No. The conversation is over,” you snapped at him, taking another deep breath to try and pull yourself together. You felt yourself fighting back the tears because you didn’t want him to see you cry. Not again, anyway.

    Watching as Justin stumbled down the stairs, you stood at the top completely and utterly overcome with your anger you barely recognized your voice. But you knew you had every right to be mad. You couldn’t excuse his behavior and you were done defending him. You knew you deserved better than the shit he was putting you through. It was enough and now you were letting it all pour out as he was practically falling down the stairs.

    You grabbed the shoe he had dropped on his way out the door and aimed it right towards his head, missing and making a loud thud against the wall behind him. You probably just woke up the entire floor but you didn’t care right now. Forming a fist, you refrained from punching the door as you finally lost it, “Don’t call me! Don’t even walk down the same street as me anymore, do you hear me? You conniving son of a bitch!” your voice bounced off the walls with an echo as you watched Justin exit your life through the elevator, still with his pants in his hand.

    You couldn’t help yourself as you flipped off the closing doors while you let out the breath you were holding in. Your chin began to tremble as you tried to stop yourself immediately. He wasn’t worth it, you thought to yourself. You should be proud of getting rid of him. Especially after what he had done to you.

    Just as you were heading back into your apartment before anyone realized you were the cause for the commotion, your neighbor’s door flew open and made you jump when you saw his familiar face meet yours from across the hall. You saw his smile as he noticed you and you knew what that meant, you just weren’t in the mood right now to assist in his little escapade.

    “Y/N! Oh, I thought I heard your voice out here,” your neighbor from 3B made his way over to you with bare feet, brown curls a mess, with his grey sweatpants resting low on his hips as his bare chest was revealed to the entire floor, “Thank god! I need your help with this chick inside who is talking about meeting her family this weekend and I’ve known her for...three hours,” he cringed as he carefully tip-toed his way over towards you.

 You couldn’t help but roll your eyes because this was a regular thing for him, even if it wasn’t your business. But he was a friend of yours, in a neighborly way at least, so at some point you made it your business.

    “No,” you scolded him as you shook your head. You tried to hold in your laugh at the desperate look on his face but you couldn’t help, “Not tonight, Tom. No! C’mon, seriously? No!” you warned as he began to give you puppy dog eyes to try and convince you otherwise.

    Tom pressed his palms together and pressed them to his chest, praying for your assistance, “Please, Y/N! I owe you so much if you help me out and this is the last time, I swear,” he paused for a moment when he realized you were standing by your door this late at night and you looked as if you had gone through hell. His lips tightened as he suddenly grew concerned, “Wait, what are you doing out here right now?” he questioned.

    You sighed as you pinched the bridge of your nose, “Um...I sorta caught Justin sleeping with his co-worker so I was just kicking him out, sorry,” you don’t know why you apologized for it but you knew you didn’t want Tom or anyone for that matter to see you when you were this visibly upset.

    “He did what?! Fuck...Y/N, I’m so sorry,” Tom said as he offered you a hug, pulling you into his bare arms while he tried to make you feel a little bit better, “That guy was a fucking prick and I never really liked him anyway,” he told you, making you laugh through your tears while you pulled away with a small smile showing.

    Running a hand through his curls to smooth them over, Tom squeezed your shoulder playfully, “If it makes you feel any better, I’m probably a bigger mess than you right now,” he told you as he cringed at what was waiting for him back in his apartment.

    “No, you have a bigger mess than me,” you corrected with another eye roll. Quickly wiping your tears away you placed a hand on your hip while taking another breath towards Tom and his stupidity, “If I do this, you owe me big time,” you sighed.

    Tom was a good guy but the decisions he sometimes made were, to say the least, questionable. You didn’t know too much about his personal life but just enough to come to the realization that he couldn’t commit to much of anything. He was always bringing random girls home, roommates came and went, and he had a tendency to flake on tenant meetings at the last minute.

 There was no question that he wasn’t looking to settle down, you never once saw him with the same girl more than once and that was none of your business nor concern. Tom was a good neighbor to you. He watered your plants for you while you were out of town visiting your family, he kept his music down to an appropriate volume, he would even bring you pizza on occasion to eat together while you gossiped about the other tenants on your floor. And sometimes in return, he would ask for favors like bailing him out of sticky situations that you tried not to judge too harshly.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Tom gave you another hug with a kiss against your cheek, “I will owe you for fucking life, Y/N,” he thanked you as he waited for you to head into his apartment to do what he clearly was too afraid to do himself. Letting girls off bluntly was something he was never good at. Then again, that was a whole other issue he didn’t want to think about.

Tom followed you into his place as you glared at him when you saw all of the clothes strewn across the living room floor. Making a face at the boxers on the ground you shuddered at the thought of what the hell went down in this apartment as you watched Tom nod towards his bedroom signaling that she was in there.

Nodding your head you rolled your eyes before you got yourself into your character. Seconds later, you whipped around and channeled your anger towards Tom as you slammed his door shut, “Save it, Tom! I won’t hear it! I come home after taking a double shift for us and this is what I come home to?!”

 Tom gave you a thumbs up that you were doing a good job as you slammed your fist against the nearby counter, “I just spent fourteen hours stripping to pay your way through law school so we could afford a better place to live and this is the thanks that I get? You fucking some random girl?!” you shouted while you shook your head towards Tom with a shrug.

“Woah, nice touch. I love the story line this time,” Tom whispered with an approving smile as he pointed towards the bedroom door, signaling for you to go and get rid of her.

You stormed into the bedroom, already seeing the girl scurrying to find her shoes, “Oh god! Please, I’m so sorry,” she pleaded as her red hair swung back and forth while she adjusted her sequin cocktail dress. Limping through the threshold of the door she couldn’t even look at you or Tom as her face grew red, “I had no idea that he-”

“That he what? Was married? Was cheating on his wife of seven years? You still want this son of a bitch?” you asked the girl who shook her head ‘no’ nervously, “The both of you need to leave! Get out!” you pointed towards the door as you focused on Tom.

Tom apologized to the girl as she practically ran out the door before he turned to you, “Darling, please let me explain! Think of the children!” he begged you as he still noticed the girl was in earshot.

“I want a divorce and I’m taking both the kids! You won’t have two pennies to rub together by the time I’m done, Thomas! Do you hear me? I can’t believe you would-”

“She’s gone,” Tom cheered silently as his door finally closed with a sigh of relief. He rushed to the fridge to grab two beers as he made his way over to you, “Both the kids? Really?” he teased while he clinked his bottle up against yours.

Giving him a shrug, you brought the beer to your lips as you collapsed onto his couch, “Well if you kept your dick in your pants for once maybe you wouldn’t have to ask your neighbor to make up such elaborate lies on the fly to kick girls out of your apartment,” you teased right back as Tom took a seat right next to you with a pout on his face, “Am I wrong?” you questioned him with a giggle.

“Well, technically, no. But then, where’s the fun in that?” he laughed as he took another sip. Trying to figure out why he even did half of the shit he did anymore. He knew there wasn’t any fun in any of it. Not anymore, anyway.  It made no sense, especially if he wasn’t getting anything out of these situations except drama. And he hated the drama of it all.

You made a face at Tom, “I guess no more fun than watching the guy you were in love with make out with his co-worker,” you stare at the bottom of your bottle, letting the alcohol swirl around your brain as you tried to push away those thoughts. You didn’t want to think about Justin again. It was still fresh but you weren’t ready to move on just yet.

“Guess we both should be alone for a while, huh?” Tom stated as he slumped further into the couch. Downing his beer as he set it aside on the table. This feeling was beginning to come more often than not with Tom after he dismissed one of his...conquests. He didn’t like it anymore because it was suddenly beginning to make him feel like this but he kept doing it anyway in hopes it would go away. But so far it only got worse as the nights rolled in and you came by to kick out more of them. He was lucky you were here because he didn’t feel like being alone right now.

The room fell still as the two of you remained on the couch in silence for a bit. Trying to blur out the events that had taken place earlier with Justin, you finished your drink and placed it beside Tom’s. You knew you wanted something serious and Justin was not that, even though you knew he was going to be trouble from the get go. You knew perfectly well what you needed but maybe you just needed some time for you right now and not to jump in to things that were going to be messy. You wanted numbness but at the same time you wanted to feel something that you hadn’t yet.

Turning your head to face Tom, your eyes met his in the dimly lit living room. The muted TV gave off the only illumination while you both remained there in your tipsy states, trying to figure out where both of your nights had gone wrong.

“I really don’t want to be alone,” you finally broke the silence as you stared into his eyes before they flickered towards his bare chest, back to his eyes slowly.

Tom swallowed as he shook his head, “Me either,” he agreed in the same tone. He noticed you were looking at him and more importantly the way you were looking, but he found himself not minding at all as his eyebrows raised up a bit when your lips crashed into his.

Taglist: @osterfield-holland-andcompany​​ @giuls-394​​ @missmultic​​ @hazmyheart​ @lauras-collection​ @iamapersonwholikesunicorns​ @detroitbydark​ @mcuassemble​ @blahhhhhhhaaa​ @lonikje​ @beiroviski​ @ruefulposts​ @desir-ae​ @kayla-m1996​ @unicorn-princess-1999​ @asmilinghopelessromantic​ @itsjusttor​ @whatareyouhidingpeter​ @when-marvellous-things-happen​ @mannien​ @lilostif16​ @u-rrose​ @ninjalex1d​  @baby-unidorn​ @astoldbydanid​ @honey-sea​ @fallingforfics​ @lulueliott24​ @mikalakat​ @babebenhardy​ @coni-martina​ @captainemrys​ @mktravelbuggie​ @underoosmarvel​ @pluckypete​ @hollandfanficlove​ @lookalivefrosty​ @lightmelikeacigarette​ @msmarvel-19​ @u-rrose​ @parker-holland-osterfield​ @thwip-it-real-good​ @shirukitsune​ @justanotherusername80​ @dangerdolns​ @jwolfesblog​ @jjayyc​  @ifilosemyselfagain​ @axisnpalma​ @londonspidey​​ @just-a-littlebit-of-everything​​ @bookgirlunicorn​​ @kfcyum​​ @thenoddingbunny-blog​​ @buzzbuzzitsmeagainbitch​​ @herondale-snow-carstairs​​ @marvelobsessedteenager​​ @unlimitedd​​ @dramaholic18​​ @softholand​​ @panicattheeverywherekid​​ @emotionally-unstable23​​​ @quackeroos​​ @unbelievableholland​​  @holyhumorliteraturelight​​ @spideyyeet​​ @katiekinzs​​ @fanficparker​​ @ifntelyinspirit​​ @rubberducky-jrr​​ @xguardgirlx​​  @t-holland2080​​  @selfcarecap​​ @localfangirlx​​ @xxpeachyxo​​ @hazardosterfield​​ @xstarbae​​ @justanotherusername80​​  @photoshopart15​​ @spiderbibby​​ @the-fandom-life-forever​​ @jannine00742​​ @spideysimpossiblegirl​ @parachutepanties​ @decadentwastelandtrash​ @anythingthaticareabout​ @outshineallthestars​ @captainamirica​ @thehauntingofmymind​ @watermelonsponge​  

#tom holland #tom holland x you #tom holland x reader #tom holland fic #tom holland smut #tom holland x y/n

[phoenixyfriend]

For your suddenly omegaverse au what exactly happened? Like I think obiwan and Anakin hop over from cannon verse to omegaverse but I am unclear on if there already existed obiwan and Anakin in omegaverse. Did they die early or do they just not exist or are they just not force sensitive and therefore not a part of the order? Is there still a sith conspiracy around Anakin?

Context: Original Post, Surrogacy, Worldbuilding, Obi-Mom, Soap Operas

So, from the original post:

There is no preexisting Anakin in the Omegaverse

Obi-Wan and Anakin just straight up don’t exist until they drop headfirst into the council room, already covered in blood.

To clarify: There has never been an Anakin Skywalker in this AU. There has never been an Obi-Wan Kenobi.

They don't know this for sure when they land in the AU, though. All they know is that the Jedi have no record of either of them. They figure, well, maybe they just got lost in the shuffle. Anakin wasn't found until he was nine, after all, and that was only by great coincidence.

The rest of this post has almost no mention of the omegaverse elements, FYI.

Warning: References to the Tusken massacre, explicit sedation and isolation of a mentally unstable individual threatening violence.

I don’t want to make light of institutionalization and involuntary holds, but Anakin is a character with a history of violence talking about repeating such an act, and that’s... a bit of an extreme case.

------

It's not that hard to convince the Temple to let them run a mission that lets them stop by Tatooine or Stewjon. Anakin cares a lot more, so Tatooine it is! Obi-Wan can tell there's something sketchy going on with Anakin's particular anxiety about this, but he rolls with it. Anakin was very specific about the timing for some reasons, and at this point, it's easier to just let it all play through.

They go well after the whole “congrats, you’re omegas... somehow,” thing has happened, a month or so before Geonosis would have happened. Obi-Wan has managed to help the council sabotage and delay the Separatist side of the war enough that they’ve gained... maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months. Just a little more time to keep a few more people alive. Nobody’s reached out to Kamino yet, and Jango isn’t staging a failed assassination to draw someone in, either. They’ve bought enough time for Anakin to spend his vacation time checking in on his mom seeing if he exists here, and Obi-Wan can go with him.

They get to Tatooine. They wander about, and Anakin doesn't actually explain where they're going, but takes them straight to where the Lars farm is. Obi-Wan lets Anakin tell him that it was the Force that led him to the right area. Anakin can sense that his mom is in there, and Obi-Wan chalks up the relief from his former padawan to 'she's here and we don't have to look for her.'

Anakin is... panicking. Just a bit. What if he shows up and it turns out this reality's Anakin is off doing something completely unrelated and she realizes he's the wrong person? Or what if she doesn't recognize him and he calls her Mom anyway? What if he fucks up and says something stupid or just starts crying on her? She'll think he's insane.

Obi-Wan... takes over.

Anakin stays hidden, listening. Obi-Wan knocks on the door, and asks if there's a 'Shmi Skywalker' in residence. Someone in town mentioned her. He explains that he has a young friend of about twenty years--they're not sure, exactly, because the friend doesn't know his own birthday, but it's about there--who happens to be a Skywalker, and they're trying to see if they can reconnect him with a parent. They don't have much to go off of other than the surname... the Shmi that lives here wouldn't happen to have ever had any children about that age?

No. She hasn't had any children of her own blood, actually, her only child is her stepson, but she'd be happy to meet this other Skywalker, if he's in the area. It's always nice to find family, and connecting with those that were separated from you is a big deal on Tatooine. She's not going to look a gift bantha in the mouth.

(Cliegg, dear, put down the rifle.)

Obi-Wan promises to let his friend know, bids them goodbye, and goes to find Anakin.

Anakin is having a bit of a breakdown.

As one does.

Anakin insists that they stick around for a bit, that they do what they can to protect the farm, because that's his mom, even if she's not really his mom, and Obi-Wan can tell there's a Lot Going On here. He assumes it's because Anakin's upset his mom doesn't know him, which is a little irrational on account of their two options being "Anakin doesn't exist (and so Shmi doesn't know him)" and "Anakin does exist (but Shmi doesn't know this Anakin, so she still doesn't know him)," but Anakin's not a very rational person.

Obi-Wan thinks tamping down the current crisis is probably a little more important than chastising Anakin's attachment issues, mostly because Anakin's hands are shaking, and he's looking a little wild-eyed, and like. Obi-Wan's not great at dealing with Anakin's many and varied emotions, but he's learned at some point when it's best to just... roll with it Until There's Less Risk of Stab or Sobbing Laughter.

He helps figure out some minor fuckery with the Force to hide the family in the homestead behind them from visitors, and to warn them to hide when someone comes by. It’s not a lot--mostly just meditating and asking the Force for a helping hand--but it’s nice.

Except, well, Anakin keeps fidgeting. He keeps panicking. He has them coming back almost daily for a week, always too scared to talk to his mom but insistent on protecting her, and always looking at the calendar. Obi-Wan wants to get back to the Temple, but whatever the actual hell is going on with Anakin is too big to just ignored.

A specific day comes and goes. Anakin is a mess of jitters and nerves, and finally Obi-Wan asks just the wrong (right?) question, and... they visit Shmi.

Anakin says they can talk later, he just wants to see his mom One Last Time.

(Obi-Wan is getting more and more worried, but he sits through the incredibly awkward meeting between Anakin and his alt-universe mom, watches as Anakin has no idea what to say and almost cries, and Shmi just kind of lets him do that and Beru--a sweet girl, Obi-Wan thinks, and very practical--tells him that this is all very normal for reunited slaves.)

(Obi-Wan wonders if maybe there’s some stuff Anakin never told him about how being a slave affected him.)

(Obi-Wan had thought they’d moved past most of this, but..)

The meeting ends. There’s hugging.

They get back to the ship, and Obi-Wan gets to watch Anakin fall apart. Obi-Wan gets to watch Anakin cry and scream into a pillow, hyperventilate and nearly punch a hole in the wall as he rages about how it was all for nothing! Obi-Wan gets to watch Anakin break into a million pieces in a way he’s never seen before.

Obi-Wan gets a confession.

Anakin tells him about the Tuskens.

It’s not an easy conversation. It’s not a short conversation, either. Anakin’s full of pain and misery and rising guilt, talks about how he’s been asking himself if it would be easier to keep his mother safe if he just killed them all now, except Obi-Wan would know, and be disappointed, and sure the Chancellor had said that they were little more than rabid animals, but Anakin doesn’t think he can kill the younglings again when his mom is still fine, and--

Obi-Wan sedates him.

He wants to say that he’s not proud of this, but... Anakin isn’t well. Anakin isn’t well in a way that is currently, specifically, revolving around doing extreme violence. Anakin is talking about going out and committing a slaughter as preventative maintenance.

Anakin stays sedated until they get back to the Temple, and he’s put in Force-suppressant cuffs--Obi-Wan quietly tells them to use something that can’t be sliced or taken apart by a droid specialist, and to avoid collars because Anakin was a slave for nearly a decade, and has a lot of traumatic associations--and in an isolated room.

It’s not a cell. Not technically.

He can’t just leave, though.

Obi-Wan hates himself for it, just a little. He doesn’t want to be doing this, not to his padawan, his brother, his son, but... a massacre. Even the younglings, he’d said.

(“He said he didn’t think he could do it again,” Obi-Wan mutters, half to himself and half to the mind healer that asks for his rundown of the situation. “I think he knows it was wrong, but...”)

(But he still did it, of course.)

It’s... better than Obi-Wan feared, but worse than he hoped.

Anakin is emotionally unstable. He has been, for a long time, but he’s usually functional. When the mind healer isn’t directly poking at his worst wounds, Anakin can more or less pass for... not okay, necessarily, but no worse than anyone else in the war had. He can say the right words. He can do a joint meditation. He can talk about philosophy the way a Knight that’s taken all the right classes does.

But part of Anakin still holds to the idea that the Tuskens deserved to die.

“This is my fault,” Obi-Wan whispers, more than once, resting his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. “I should have...”

“He was an adult,” says Mace, who isn’t Mace, not the one that Obi-Wan knows, but a newer friend, one that’s still figuring how to act around him. “Young, but still an adult. He made that choice.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t answer. Things aren’t that simple.

“The timing can’t have been a coincidence,” Obi-Wan mutters to himself, later on, but in the same spot, and the same position.

The Quinlan of this universe shrugs. He knows Obi-Wan better than most, right now. Psychometry’s helpful that way, and sharing Obi-Wan’s heat hadn’t hurt. “Seems likely. You said Sith were involved and setting traps, and a kid like yours, with that much power and trauma... ripe for the molding.”

Obi-Wan whines, and then catches the noise and stuffs it back down, locks it up tight with the other ‘instinct’ things he doesn’t like to think about having. The sound already has Quinlan shifting closer, and the smell is... intended to be comforting, he thinks. Reacting to his own distress, which he’s probably just pumping out right now, because he still doesn’t know how to--

“Can I help?” Quinlan asks, and Obi-Wan lets him.

Someone gets through to Anakin, maybe, or he just lets himself be ground down, or Obi-Wan’s entreaties that he can’t teach Ahsoka until he understands his crimes get through. He won’t be trusted around the clones until the Jedi can trust him to do the right thing, they inform him.

“I wouldn’t hurt the clones.”

“Nobody’s going to believe that until you understand your crimes and truly, actually feel remorse for them.”

There wasn’t a crime, technically. Not in this universe. That tribe is still alive, here, unknowing of the fate they escaped by dint of Anakin talking himself down from committing another slaughter.

(He tells the mind healer it’s because Obi-Wan was there.)

(He might have done it, he says, if he hadn’t thought Obi-Wan would be disappointed in him.)

(He says it like it’s a foregone conclusion, that Obi-Wan’s opinion is worth more than the horror of what he might become.)

“We’re going to keep an eye on anyone talking to Palpatine,” Shaak tells him one day, after Anakin’s been mental instability hold for two weeks. “We don’t know for sure how far the similarities extend from your universe to ours, but given everything else you’ve been right about...”

“That bad?” Obi-Wan asks.

Shaak grimaces, fangs glinting in the light. “I want to believe we’d have never allowed a child into such a position, but I can’t know what political leverage may have been used in your dimension... whatever reason was had to put Skywalker in those rooms, we know the consequences now--”

“What did he do to my padawan?” Obi-Wan demands, because Anakin won’t even tell him that. Anakin hasn’t mentioned Palpatine since they left Tatooine. Not to Obi-Wan.

“Nothing physical,” Shaak manages. “But the lies he told and the suggestions he planted... it’s good they haven’t met again yet in this life. We’ll all be keeping them far apart.”

He wants to take solace in that. “Why do you know before I do?”

“Skywalker values your opinion,” she says. “Only yours. He doesn’t want you more disappointed in him than you already are, so much of what is relayed to the council as a matter of security goes no further, but this was deemed necessary to share. He agreed to it, if you worried we’d broken his confidence.”

Anakin’s therapy would normally be entirely private.

Anakin’s therapy would normally not be in response to confessions of mass slaughter.

He hasn’t asked to be let out, which Obi-Wan hopes is a sign that he realizes at least subconsciously that he was in the wrong. The mind healer says he could have been released under watch by a Master probably a day or two after he arrived, but seems to be drawing some kind of comfort in knowing he couldn’t hurt someone even if he tried.

Obi-Wan is Anakin’s emergency contact. His next of kin. His healthcare proxy. Anakin has a right to privacy, minor as it is in such a situation, and everyone recognizes and treats him as an adult, but... Obi-Wan learns as much from the mind-healer as he would have back when Anakin was actually a child.

“He trusts you to make the right decisions,” the mind healer tells him, careful and unassuming. “He has... a lot of conflicting opinions about many things, including the order, the coming war, the nature of human reproductive dynamics, the Code... but he seems keen on the idea that you are his best reference on morality and ethics.”

Oh, good, more horrifying responsibility.

“He’s better,” the mind healer tells him. “I want to get him out of here before he starts going stir crazy while still relying on the perceived safety as a crutch for his mental health. And he--”

“He’ll be staying with me,” Obi-Wan says, heavy as anything. “I know.”

“Well... there’s a war coming,” the mind healer says. She offers a thin smile when he looks at her. “I don’t want him going out, but it makes him feel useful, gives him a direction for the aggression, and... the Council is adamant that we’ll need him as much as we need you.”

It’s true.

“Did he tell you why everyone called him the Hero With No Fear?”

“No.”

“Ask him.”

#Anakin Skywalker #Obi Wan Kenobi #Shmi Skywalker #Mace Windu #Quinlan Vos #Shaak Ti #time travel #omegaverse #SW Suddenly Omegaverse #Phoenix Answers Asks #phoenix posts #Tusken Massacre #death mention #dehumanization mention #institutionalization tw #involuntary hold tw #sedation tw #involuntary sedation tw

[bookwyrminspiration]

(Ophelia) Didn’t Tam say something about them actually having to earn the crystal for the next class or something? Like it was a possibility that they wouldn‘t even be allowed to come back to the Exillium? I‘m pretty sure he said something like that in his entry in Unlocked, but I might be wrong because I don’t actually own unlocked so I can’t check- I’m sorry if I am. (And even if he did say that there’s a possibility that he was exaggerating depending on the context.)

hello, Ophelia!! Excellent point--I don't know if it was Tam who said that or whatever coach was passing out the beads, but that was definitely a thing. Give me a moment to check. Okay I think I found the part you're referring to on page 399-400 of Neverseen: "'To our new Waywards, who do not understand our traditions,' the red coach said. 'We offer beads only to those we deem deserving. But it's always your choice to refuse or accept.'" It's possible Tam also referenced this in Unlocked but I don't know that book as well as I know the other ones so I used this quote instead because I knew where to find it. Hope you don't mind!! I can check Unlocked too hang on. Yes! He did mention it on page 295, saying, "Oh, and for added fun, we had to prove that we deserved to get one of the beads to find the campus every day." (page numbers taken from paperback versions)

Damn. That is. That makes Exillium even worse. The Coaches go on to say that there's no consequence for refusing to take a bead, so these kids really can just...leave. They can completely leave elven society to go live somewhere in the neutral territories. And this is all directed at children!! Linh and Tam were like 10-11 when they were first sent to Exillium so can you image if they refused a bead? That's an irreversible decision because no one would come after them. There'd be two 10 year olds alone in the woods (as that's where they were staying, near a forest that got infected) trying to survive with absolutely no support and no one to care for them except each other.

But back to the original point of this ask--the coaches could just...not give someone a bead! I don't know what would constitute a situation where someone wouldn't be given a bead, but it Does Not sound good. Given that Sophie was worried she wouldn't get a bead after saving the gnome (I think that's when it was? it was sometime around there), I'm willing to bet it's not taken as seriously as they make it seem. that was one strike against her record there and she was worried she wouldn't be given a bead. I wonder what minor offenses people committed that ended in them being cut off permanently from this one last place they had as a sort of hellish refuge.

I also wonder how guilt affects that, as I surmised in that other post that the council didn't feel guilt because they convinced themselves Exillium was a place of alternate learning instead of the cruel punishment it is and that the people there were still technically being cared for (in the loosest sense of the term). i'm assuming that since it's up to the performance and behavior of the individual, it's seen as like a "you did this to yourself. you knew the rules and did it anyways," so that way it doesn't feel like their decision to cut off the kid, even though they're the one who passed judgement and chose not to give them a bead. Perhaps they also convince themselves that the kids have a good chance out there, that they aren't doomed once cut off and that anything that happens to them after being cut off is a result of their own incompetencies and not a result of their judgement

you know it feels like the dramatics of "elven minds shatter from guilt so don't you dare ever feel it" was created for the purpose of a few specific points in the plot (alden and prentice) rather than as an impact on the world as a whole. Because it seems like a lot of the shattered minds and guilt things aren't being used unless it's important for the plot, but when it's realistic and creates a situation where it would actually come into play it's brushed under the rug and I gotta find a way to interpret it so it makes sense.

Exillium is incredibly fucked up and we only brush the surface. There is absolutely no way that everyone survived it; kids had to have died. Like that's just. it had to have happened. Maybe not something that will ever be mentioned in canon, but given the way it's set up it's not something that's survivable! Sophie did make a bit of an impact by getting Oralie to fund it better, but the effects of that remain to be seen. Just because it's nicer doesn't make their banishment better.

This is just a little personal thing that I always think of when reading the scenes about Exillium, but Sophie mentions that when she shows up after yelling at Oralie and Bronte that now there's breakfast, which is...pastries (pg 486). As a small child I was like cool! breakfast now! and moved on. But...pastries?? These children have to be severly malnourished and desperate for nutrients and the council went "yea let's give them all these sweets to say sorry for throwing them out of society and forgetting about them." Like please. Can we get them some veggies. Fresh fruit. Proteins and vitamins. The things they need to survive. Some bottles of youth because I highly doubt they were given any. That's a personal thing and I know it doesn't matter and I know why it was added, but every time I read that I want to roll my eyes like yes. Jam filled pastries are definitely the right way to go /s.

all this to say that you're very right!! Exillium is awful, but on top of that these kids can be cut off even more! They can be completely abandoned as children, so definitely not happy about that one. it's one of if not the biggest flaw in elven society. Their inability to care for members of their own society who don't provide anything positive in their eyes is...telling, to say the least.

#i started saying 'bless you' (instead of something like bless me/excuse me) when I sneeze as a joke but bro #I don't think it's a joke anymore #but back to exillium #I have so many thoughts about that place so I might've jumped around a little #It's been mentioned a few times since the kotlcrew left it #like how it would be at foxfire a few times for skill training #but aside from that #it's still standing and running!! #very similar to before!! #we didn't see all of the chagnes #*changes #but the ones we did see were more surface level #new tents. food. removing masks and hoods. #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #kotlc worldbuilding #exillium #quil's queries #ophelia nonsie

[iheartbookbran]

Ok so actually my biggest problem with the whole “Daenerys will burn KL” theory—not even the Mad Queen Dany theory, which is of course very sexist for obvious reasons, but just like, the idea that Dany will ~accidentally~ ignite the wildfire in the city, burning it all to the ground. That, at first, doesn’t sound that bad, but the longer I think about it the more I hate it because tbh it doesn’t do anything for her character? And also… that fate for her is just down right cruel.

Like, the most frequent argument I see on why this would be at all satisfactory for Dany’s arc is basically that it would be a sort of lesson for her about the dangers of unchecked power and the real threat the Dragons can pose on humans and that she shouldn’t use them to fight against other people. And that’s all well and good, excellent message… except that’s not something Dany’s ever really needed to learn? Not anymore that her fellow rulers, which I will touch on more detail later, but in general Dany has seen what the abuse of power can do. Starting with her conflicting feelings regarding Viserys and how she recognizes that even though he was her brother and she loved him, he also abused his power over her as her older brother, her only family and her king; she feels guilt about the atrocities Drogo committed to the lhazarene and tries to help them; she feels so much guilt about not handling things correctly in Astapor that she decides to throw away all her plans to go to Westeros and instead stays in Meereen.

And about not knowing the true danger that her dragons can pose? I mean, this is the same girl that literally agonizes across several of her ADWD chapters because Drogon killed a child, and then takes the extreme measure of caging Rhaegal and Viserion to prevent that from ever happening again. I think she’s at least a little bit aware that the dragons can be dangerous, thank you very much.

Ok so this got long...

Anyways, the only time Dany legit uses Drogon to harm someone and not just as bluff was at the house of the Undying, where she was being attacked, and in Astapor… and like, lmao, that asshole Kraznys mo Nakloz and the rest of his slaver buddies deserved it. Don’t at me. Also, Dany’s hardly the only one with a big magical and deadly beast at her disposal, why didn’t Robb had to go through some horrifying traumatic incident to learn he shouldn’t use Grey Wind in battle to tear his enemies’ throats. Bran will be learning about the dangers of abusing power, but that’s linked to his magic powers and an actual reprehensible thing he’s doing, not the use of his glorified prehistoric dog to kill, which he’s done, just like Robb. By all means let the narrative hold Dany accountable for her mistakes… but her actual mistakes and not shit she has no control over, because she doesn’t have much control over Drogon or the other dragons even though she’s trying to, and that’s very obvious in her last ADWD chapter where she’s delirious and Drogon could kill her at any moment, and she knows that.

The other big argument people make for Dany burning KL (even if it’s by accident!) is that it will teach her about the price of war, that someone as young as her shouldn’t be leading armies and conquering kingdoms, and that fighting for the Iron Throne is not a worthy cause, and I feel like that misses the actual point of her story by a mile. First of all because a) Dany is hardly the only teenage ruler in the story and b) this is a fantasy medieval story, a lot of the characters shouldn’t be doing the things they do, aaaand yet. Also speaking of other teenage rulers with far more power that they should have—Robb and Jon, being the biggest examples.

Granted, Robb and Jon aren’t exactly successful during their time as rulers, they’re literally betrayed and killed by their own men (even if Jon will technically come back for round 2 of bullshit he’s too tired for). But the moral of their stories is not that they lost because theirs was an unworthy cause and they were stupid kids wholly unprepared for their roles. And I actually partially agree! They are just kids, including Dany, and they shouldn’t be responsible for looking after so many others and going to battle, but their cause is still just and worthy, even with all the mistakes they make along the way. Robb didn’t loose because he was wrong in demanding justice for his family or trying to protect the riverlands from the Lannisters and their minions, he lost because Tywin Lannister was a giant coward who couldn’t take him out in a fair fight.

Likewise, it isn’t wrong of Jon to try to incorporate refugees from beyond the Wall into Westeros. He’s not too stupid and honorable to do politics like his father (how I hate when people insult Jon and Ned like that), and while he did some very obvious mistakes that inevitably ended in a coup and in him dying, this is more connected to his inability to let go of his ties with his family (mainly Arya or who he believes to be her), and in isolating himself from his friends and the people he could actually trust.

I’ve always thought that Dany and Jon share a parallel narrative within the story, so while Jon is struggling with that Dany is faced with similar problems. She cages her dragons, that to her represent the only family she has left, and she tries to compromise with the slavers, marry a man she doesn’t love, pretend she’s ok with reopening the fighting pit. While she tries her best to rule wisely in Meereen, it all comes at the cost of betraying herself and her beliefs, so it’s no surprise when it all crashes around her and she’s betrayed and nearly killed. Ironically, it is Drogon who comes to rescue her.

If they are monsters, so am I.—Daenerys II, ADWD.

This is hands down one of my favorite Dany quotes from the whole series, and I hate that it’s been given such a negative connotation in the fandom, when for me it represents Dany’s humanity and compassion at the fullest.

GRRM has a knack for humanizing the ‘monsters’ of his story, for showing the good in the outcasts and the ugly and the scary. He embraces their ‘otherness’ and makes them the heroes of his stories; Arya, Bran, Brienne, Dany, Tyrion, Jon, Theon and many others are all compared to monsters or beasts at one point or another in the books.

Dany sees herself in her dragons, literal monsters in every sense of the word. Later on she faces Drogon inside the pit, and in that moment you could say that she accepts that ‘monstrous’ part of her, and in doing so she’s saved from her fate of dying at the hands of the men who would crucify innocent children and gleefully profit off of the suffering of their fellow human beings while watching them fight each other to the death for their own amusement. Now tell me who’s the real monster in this situation.

But shortly before that happens, Dany is able to see the humanity in Tyrion, an outcast who has been branded as monstrous and unlovable due to his disability all his life, a man who has come to believe in his abusers’ rhetoric about him so strongly that he’s started to act cruel and detached. She saves his life. She sees value in his life when few others would, because she cares.

I’ve always find it funny that the “dragons plant no trees” is—another—example fans use to argue in favor of Dany’s descent into Darkness™ because the actual scene goes like this:

You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros.

"It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl."

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.—Daenerys X, ADWD.

Now am I the only one who finds it at least a bit relevant that it’s freaking Jorah Mormont aka Jorah the Enslaver whom Dany’s subconscious, at her literal lowest moment, utilizes to represent this particular thought, which btw I’ve always interpreted as Dany’s own self-loathing manifesting in her, and this is something she’s actually always struggled with—the idea that she’s not enough and she’s failing. Because above all things, even Westeros or the Iron Throne, what Dany wants is peace, she wants to plant trees.

When Dany made her descent, Reznak and Skahaz dropped to their knees. "Your Worship shines so brightly, you will blind every man who dares to look upon you," said Reznak. […] This match will save our city, you will see."

"So we pray. I want to plant my olive trees and see them fruit." Does it matter that Hizdahr's kisses do not please me? Peace will please me. Am I a queen or just a woman?—Daenerys VII, ADWD.

But of course the world doesn’t work like that, and so long as there’s Jorahs and Tywins and Eurons out there, men who would take the freedom of humans and submit them to their will, Dany can’t have the luxury of peace, just like Jon can’t have the luxury of belonging and family so long as there’s people still beyond the Wall who need his protection.

And I think that’s fine. It’s fine that Dany failed, it will help her develop as a character and realize that there’s no room to compromise with slavers, the metaphorical monsters of the story who do far more harm than the other more literal ‘monsters’ of the story. So that when she has to face down Euron Greyjoy—who btw, there’s a high chance he will end up stealing one of Dany’s dragons via Victarion using Dragonbinder… y’know, as in enslaving one of her children and using said dragon to inflict god knows what horrors, yet not many people ever consider this for some reason?—she will know. When she has to face down the Others, the magical ice fairies with no regard for human life, she will know.

That’s why I believe that it would make absolutely no sense for Dany to have to go through such a tragic and traumatic experience like burning a whole city even by pure accident, over something that’s either never been a problem with her character or she’s well into her way of learning anyways, so it would just feel repetitive. As I have pointed out, she’s already reached one of the lowest moments of her arc. Not saying there will be no other blows for her, and probably the destruction of KL will be one of them, and knowing Dany she will feel responsibility over it no matter what, but that doesn’t mean she has to be the culprit, intentional or otherwise.

#yes i wrote this whole thing because i actually love the ‘if they are monsters so am i’ quote and i’m trying to push my agenda on others #jk i spend like half a minute in an anti dany blog and i was like. war #but i don’t regret it so #daenerys targaryen #stormborn #pro daenerys #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #meta #my meta

[amendments]

Pro vs Anti-shipping opinions from someone who is Neutral...and will get canceled on both sides anyway

It’s fair and 100% ok to deem ships that are problematic, “problematic”, and be uncomfortable with them...and maybe even try to discourage people from shipping them, but you absolutely do not have the right to act like an authoritarian little sh!t and dictate what people can and can’t do. Block and move on.

Proshippers can effectively draw/write/create whatever they want. This is the internet and no matter how much you whine and complain, the internet isn’t going to adopt a pro-censorship stance. However, if you create content for an obviously disgusting pair, you’re going to get criticism, and people are going to find you creepy. You will be judged, even if you’re using your ship as a coping mechanism. No one is free from it.

Criticism, suggestions, and expression of discomfort are NOT BULLYING. If someone doesn’t like your ship, too bad. However, if you’re blatantly telling someone to kay why ess, hurt themselves, giving them some type of violent threat, or are doxxing them, you’re a disgusting person and no better than the people who commit said actions you’re against.

If you’re a proshipper and bullying kids, you’re also apart of the problem. Be the bigger person and block/report.

No, not all proshippers are creeps, some are just people who are anti-censorship, sick of PC culture and ship said ships out of spite, and/or don’t actually like anything bad themselves.

No, not all antis are annoying harassers, stalkers, or minors, some are people who are genuinely concerned about the questionable work you put out or may expose to minors/victims. Also, the lack of restrictions of minors in NSFW spaces is...sus -_-

Yes, there are predators in proship spaces, but there are also predators in antiship spaces, and literally everywhere else on the internet. This isn’t a ship problem, it’s a fandom problem.

Antis who claim that neutral people are just as bad as proshippers, actually push us away. You aren’t making us want to side with you. In fact, you’re doing the opposite. Most people who are neutral/position-less are actually people who really don’t care. Why? Because ships and fandoms don’t engulf our lives, and we actually have more important things to worry about than bullsh!t that strangers online are fighting about.

No, not saying anything or having a position on a topic is not inherently condoning it, it’s just not involving yourself in the problem. -_- It’s hard to really speak about something that’s not on your radar.

No, literally nobody in real life cares, or will care, about this debate. Most people (surprise, surprise) don’t really care about fandoms in general. (Amazing I know). Frankly, I’ve seen people on both sides that are waaaay to invested in this discourse and need to go outside. If you are super passionate about literal internet discourse, go to the park and touch grass.

Antis who are minors, I can genuinely tell you, that no, bosses in the real world really don’t care about what their employees do as hobbies outside of work. If you actually tried to contact employers about NSFW art (of fictional characters) that an employee drew on their own free time, unless you give them actual evidence of them acting inappropriately towards real people, they will ignore you. It is only a concern if that person has actually expressed illegal behavior which could put actual people in danger. (BDSM art of All Might and Deku isn’t going to get someone fired).

Antis, yeah, people will find problematic ships gross, if you tell someone about them. But, unless they are actively involved in internet fandom culture, which the vast majority of people aren’t, they’ll completely forget about it 5 mins later.

Proshippers, no, people in real life don’t care about what you ship in your private life, but if you make your whole identity about your ship, or proshipping, people will think you’re a creep. You’re chronically online. Get a hobby outside of internet discourse.

I will unfollow problematic people, and people who have caused harm, but if you tag me because I’m following a proshipper, simply because they are a proshipper, and have not actually been a perve to real children, I’m not unfollowing them. And if you pester me about it, I will unfollow, block, and report YOU. Who I follow is my business, and I will not tolerate being harassed over Twitter drama. Buzz off.

I will also not unfollow someone who identifies as an anti, or simply criticized your ship if you do not give me evidence of them actually harassing people. I am allowed to have an opinion and engage with people who have similar disapproving opinions. Who I choose to interact with is my business alone.

I’m not un-tweeting a tweet just because a self proclaimed “proshipper” or “anti” tweeted it. Good art is good art, and good takes are good takes.

Some of you overuse the word “p£do” in references to ships. I don’t care how you view it, a ship between an adult and a minor that has a 2-3 year age gap is not p€dop1llic. This age gap is completely common among teenagers in real life, and you’re honestly sheltered if you think that’s automatically predatory. A 16 year old dating an 18 year old is a LOT less worse than a 20 year old dating a 30 year old, and the latter isn’t any less predatory or weird just because they’re both adults.

No, ships between two adults with a very large age gap, are technically not p€doph1llic, either. They may be predatory in nature, and you may perceive them as wrong and gross, but if it ain’t already illegal in real life, then it definitely ain’t on paper.

It doesn’t matter if she’s 1000 years old, we all know what the underlying intention of that character design is, buddy.

Speaking of underlying intentions, there’s a lot of unspoken racism and xenophobia rampant in anti-spaces...like more so than in pro-ship spaces. Racism is everywhere in fandoms, but white, western antishippers are...a particular breed...oozing with arrogance and ethnocentrism.

Thanks for reading my rambling novel if you made it to the end, this is just a venting post. I hate discourse.

#pro ship #anti ship #pro shipping #anti shipping #ship discourse #pro shippers #anti shippers #fandom disk horse #haha #I don't care if i anger you #stay mad #don't like block #fandom #pro shippers aren't oppressed #but neither are antis #this is such a white debate lol #minors aren't oppressed either #boo hoo #oh pooor me

[frogtanii]

hq boys as the crimes they’d commit

warnings: CRIMES, crackfic, probably many typos idk i’m so tired lmaooo, cursing, drinking ??? idfk 😩💦

an: and i did this for what?? inspired by hq hcs royalty @sugardaddykenma @hina-wit-da-glock (AJSKSJ SORRY FOR TAGGING Y’ALL IF YOU SEE THIS, IT IS DEF NOT UP TO PAR W Y’ALLS WORKS ILY)

karasuno

sawamura daichi- insurance fraud!! somehow this is such a dad crime to commit?? dadchi didn’t try (dumb excuse, how do you accidentally commit insurance fraud smh) to commit insurance fraud but at one point in his late-thirties, he was very very broke and was already working as much as possible so, he decided to fake an ankle injury, as you do, and filed a bunch of claims which made him bank. daichi kept doing it until he was able to quit one of his jobs and buy himself a really nice suit and a rolex (uhhh 🥵). he somehow never got caught tho and to this day, none of his friends know how he was able to afford a tesla on a cop’s salary (sorry daichi but acab 😔✨)

sugawara kōshi- child abandonment!! ok you can try and fight me on this but i feel in my bones that suga absolutely despises children. he can tolerate ages 10+ but anything younger than that, he will punt them into the next dimension. the thing is, people just assume he likes kids because of how good he is with his team which is why his aunt begged him to babysit his nephew taro. taro was being an absolute brat when suga took him out for the day and he was 👉👈 this close to snapping. he put taro down for like 3 seconds to pay for their ice cream and when he turned back, the demon spawn was gone. he panicked, running around the park looking for taro when it turns out, taro was just bent down behind the bench. some random karen called the police and suga has never craved murder more.

nishinoya yuu- arson!! you CANNOT tell me nishinoya doesn’t have a ~murder~ playlist that he listens to to get himself hype (me too noya, me too). one night, he got a lil too hype listening to start a riot by duckwrth and watching demolition videos on youtube. he snuck out of his house to an empty shed like 30 minutes away and maybe... lit it on fire while genocide by lil darkie played on a speaker nearby. what he did NOT anticipate was the absolute size of the fire so he freaked out and called the firefighters who promptly called the police. he didn’t want to get grounded so he called daichi to bail him out. daichi still told noya’s parents 😔.

tanaka ryūnosuke- vandalism!! tanaka had been on alt tiktok and saw a group of cool friends spray painting an abandoned building. he thought “that’s cool, lemme do that!” but then he realized he had no friends (AHDGS JK I LOVE TANAKA). he asked nishinoya who was grounded from the arson incident and he knew he definitely couldn’t ask daichi, suga, asahi, or enoshita so he decided to go it alone. that proved to be a MASSIVE mistake. he got the supplies, arrived to the building of his choice (thanks saeko :3), and decided to spray paint a huge p3ni5 in bright red paint. he finished “successfully” and zoomed back home. what he didn’t realize with his two-and-a-half braincells is that he signed his glorious piece with his full name. the cops were at his house the next morning...🧍

hinata shoyō- forgery!! hinata did NOT think that forgery was even a crime. how was he supposed to know that he wasn’t allowed to copy his mom’s signature on a permission form! all he wanted was to go to an overnight training camp 😿

kageyama tobio- attempted murder!! kageyama swears it sounds worse than was and he is absolutely incorrect. what happened was so much worse. he and hinata were having a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest underwater (you can’t tell me they haven’t done some dumbass shit like this) and kageyma lost almost instantly (he has the tiny lungs of an asthmatic). he didn’t want hinata to notice so he held hinata’s head under the water for like 10 seconds. suga walked in though, saw hinata thrashing around in the water and immediately called the police. kageyama never forgave him.

tsukishima kei- cyberbullying!! first of all, i had no idea you could get arrested for cyber bullying!? that being said, neither did tsukishima who spent 80% of his time making fun of people online (and on his real account!! bold). eventually one of the people he bullied (hinata) reported him on instagram and his very lame account was deleted (pls don’t bully people online 😤).

yamaguchi tadashi- shoplifting!! andjksh this is so funny because this scenario has happened to me and i can just SEE this happening to poor tadashi. yamaguchi gets super late night cravings (and usually tsukki will walk with him at like 3 am 🥺 nEWAYS) so he’ll sneak out and walk to the mini-mart near his house. one night, he was so tired but also super hungry so he went onto his nightly routine and basically sleepwalked into the store. he picked out his favorite chips and candy bar (which are sour cream&onion lays and milky ways in case you were wondering 😌✨) and just... walked out the store without paying. the store clerk was mysteriously missing so yamaguchi made it all the way home, ate half the bag of chips and passed out without realizing what he’d done. once he did, he cried for 2 hours straight.

nekoma

kuroo tetsurō- telemarketing fraud!! kuroo originally did telemarketing fraud as a joke?? like he was trying to prank call someone pretending that they had lost their information and they actually gave it to him??? he was mildly concerned but even more excited. he did it over and over again but he never used the info for anything. to this day, kuroo literally has a notebook full of credit card numbers and bank account passwords but he refuses to use it because he believes it’s ✨wrong✨(but it isn’t wrong to take all that information in the first place under false pretenses, not realizing that once people find out, they are forced to close credit cards and accounts but go off self righteous king). once he brought the book up to kenma and he offered to sell it on the dark web. now kuroo feels less bad about what he’s done! :D

kozume kenma- computer crime!! pfttt this one seems kinda obvious but what do you expect from kenma :). he spends so much time on the internet, he’s definitely picked up some less than legal skills that still help him now 👀. kenma did little mini crimes like getting into other people’s wifi but his crowning achievement was when he hacked into the minneapolis pd website and had it so when you opened the page, a black lives matter screen came up. he never told anyone that it was him who did it but he thinks it’s the best he’s ever done.

yaku morisuke- racketeering!! yaku, the feral king, ran an underground gambling ring in the basement of nekoma (do they have basements?? who knows! i don’t!) during his third year. the only reason it didn’t get shut down was because coach nekomata took a portion of yaku’s profits whenever he won (which was literally all the time). everyone on the team has lost money to him which is why they never play with him anymore. they won’t even let yaku play monopoly 😔.

haiba lev- indecent exposure!! poor lev’s head is so empty, he tends to fall for whatever pranks his senpai’s do to him. this time kuroo had somehow convinced him that in order to grow his schlong, he had to run outside naked for 10 minutes because the moonlight had special growing properties. lev was a lil scared ngl because he was already superrr tall and didn’t need to grow his height (or his dick ((boy is hung)) but poor lev is insecure) but he did it anyway. long story short, an old woman saw him parading around the neighborhood naked and called el policia. 0/10 dick did NOT grow and had to spend a night in jail naked 😿

aoba johsai

oikawa tōru- prostitution!! KAKKAKA iwazumi made fun of oikawa for being so shitty and said that he couldn’t pick up anyone if he tried. flattykawa took this as a personal challenge and went out onto the street, asking people if they’d have sex with him. with the way he was asking (and the way he was dressed), people assumed he was a paid w h o r e and someone eventually reported him. iwazumi had to pick oikawa up from the station- he never let him live this one down.

iwaizumi hajime- battery!! it wasn’t technically battery but oikawa is a lil bitch and overreacts (at least in his words -_-). the amount of times iwa-chan has beat the absolute shit out of oikawa is uNREAL. he just can’t handle the stupidity sometimes so he just smacks the crap outta him. not for real for real but the way oikawa reacts, you’d think a murder was occurring. one time, shittykawa screeched so loud, they got a noise complaint -_- hajime hates it in these streets.

matsukawa issei & hanamaki takahiro- conspiracy!! issei and hiro have a secret blog where they discuss conspiracy theories and such but one day, hiro found an article that explained how jfk’s death was an inside job. he sent it to issei who began to theorize how HE’D do it. that devolved into a massive thread on their blog of how’d they murder a president which blew up and caught the attention of the cia who sent the a letter telling them to quietly delete the blog. they did because they were terrified but they kept the letter and now it’s framed in issei’s apartment.

kyōtani kentarō- assault!! baby is an angry little boy but for all the right reasons. he was at a bar (when he’s all grown up, duh) and he spotted an absolute drunk creep hitting on a girl who clearlyyyy did not reciprocate his feelings. kyōtani, being the respectful king that he is, went over to the guy, pulled him by the jacket and beat. the. shit. out of him. while the bartender was happy with the fact that the creep was out, he was not impressed with the damage to his bar. he just sent kyōtani out who casually adjusted his leather jacket and rings, and hopped on his motorcycle to ride away into the night. i am the FATTEST simp for this man ONG 🥴

shiratorizawa

ushijima wakatoshi- stalking!! poor ushijima has no idea how intimidating he can be. he was on a train late at night after practice and the woman sitting across from him left her purse sitting on the seat. being the gentleman that he is, he took the purse and followed her to return it. the only problem is that the closer he got, the faster she ran and when he tried to speak (yknow with his scary, deep, baritone voice), the woman screeched and called the cops on him because he was a “strange, big man who was following her home.” when the police showed up, ushijima was painfully confused and just held up this tiny ass purse in his massive hands. the cops laughed.

tendō satori- ???!! no one knows what crimes (or how many 😳) tendō has committed but each of his teammates have different ideas- ushijima: “i don’t believe tendou is capable of committing any sort of felony. well, maybe murder”; semi: “of COURSE he’s capable of crimes??! do you know how many times i’ve seen him come into the dorm with a suspicious stain of red on his sweater?? *shudders* if i end up dead, tendō did it...” in actuality, the only crime tendō has committed is ~drugs~ but he’s not bouta tell his friends that.

goshiki tsutomu- would be a VICTIM!! my baby tsutomu would NEVER commit a crime!!! i love this man with my everything and the only crime he’s committed is being too damn cute 😤🥺

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!! headcanons #hq hcs #hq headcanons #crack fic #tsukishima kei #daichi sawamura #sugawara kōshi #ushijima headcanons #tendou satori #goshiki tsutomu #kyotani kentaro #matsukawa issei #hanamaki takahiro #iwazumi hajime #oikawa torū #haiba lev #yaku morisuke #kenma kozume #kuroo tetsurou #yamaguchi tadashi #hinata shōyō #haikyuu kageyama #nishinoya yuu #haikyuu tanaka #shiritorizawa #karasuno #aoba johsai #nekoma

[redgoldblue]

IVY!!! 👀👀👀

CAIA!! love how this message looks out of context. like i am your dog and you've just seen me across the room sniffing something i definitely should not eat.

the context: end of year WIP ask game

👀

fic i technically started before this year and may well never finish, but i keep periodically returning to and adding like, two sentences:

“Sirs to see you, sir.”

Henry glanced up from his desk, then back down. “Captains Pierce.”

Hawkeye and Trapper looked at each other, then back at Henry.

“Hey, I’m not taking his last name.”

“No,” Hawkeye agreed. “I’m taking his.”

“Yeah. That’s Captains MacIntyre to you, Henry.”

[...]

“Do you want-” Hawkeye’s voice interrupts the stillness of the office.

“Yes. Six.”

“Oh.”

“.... Do you, sir?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I think if you’d asked me in 1949 my answer would’ve been ‘hell no.’ Now... yeah. I think I do.”

“You’d make a good father.”

Hawkeye’s laugh cuts sharply through the dark. “I know some opinions that would differ on that.”

“You’re doing everything you can. You don’t have to sit up with me.”

“Yeah, well, I won’t be able to sleep until I know we’ve found her parents.”

“Like I said, sir. You’ll make a good father.”

“Thanks, Radar. So will you, for the record. The six Junior O’Reilly’s will be very lucky. Call one of them Benjamin for me after I die of exhaustion here.”

[...]

“You don’t get it, do you? He wasn’t a hero, he wasn’t ‘fighting for democracy’. He was a child, who was forced through threat of violence to fly 30000 miles from his home and be killed trying to protect another child! The American government isn’t fighting some kind of righteous war, they’re committing murder, tenfold, hundredfold, thousandfold murder on Korea’s children and their own, and there’s no way to excuse that or to make it palatable or to tie it up in a nice pretty bow so these poor people don’t have to face the fact that their son died because the people at the top can’t see the humans for the blood!”

Trapper took a step back from the door of The Swamp as Margaret stormed out, door swinging shut behind her.

“What’d you do?” he asked her mildly, and she snorted.

"What'd I do? Try to help him, god forbid!"

👀

fic that I did not finish in time for Christmas this year, but I will finish. at some point. probably:

“Do you think Santa gets Christmas presents, or not, because he gives them all?” Parker muses, and Hardison blinks at the standard Parker non sequitur hypothetical. He’s assuming hypothetical.

Before he can answer, Sophie replies, “I think Mrs. Claus organises with the elves to make him a present.” Nate throws her a look of mild surprise and she shrugs. “What, I can’t have theories for other people’s holidays?”

“Never said that,” he murmurs, and she nudges against his side affectionately.

“Santa Claus is married?” Parker asks in a tone of faint astonishment, and Nate nods.

“In most modern renditions, yes.”

“How did he meet her? Is she an elf?”

“I… don’t know,” Nate answered. “She’s not usually an elf, no. But I don’t know how they met. Then again, maybe Santa just wanders around the globe eleven months of the year. Maybe she did too.”

“Like you and Sophie.”

Sophie grins and nods at Parker. “Maybe that’s actually how he gets all those presents. She steals them for him.”

“I think that makes us the elves,” Hardison says. “That’s okay, you make a cute elf. So would I. Eliot, I’m not sure about.”

“Eliot would be cute as an elf!” Parker objects, apparently offended on his behalf.

“If you could get him into an elf costume, yeah, but it’d be an ordeal.”

As if summoned, a faint “Dammit, Hardison!” floats out from the kitchen, and Hardison detaches Parker, kissing her on the cheek, and goes back in to see what he did wrong this time.

👀

currently being written fic, that will definitely be finished some point in the near future:

“You’re never gonna learn your constellations looking at me,” Hutch chided lightly, and pushed his shoulder enough into Starsky to get him upright and moving towards the car again.

“What, blintz, you never had stars in your eyes?”

“No, that’s you.” The night air had apparently cleared Starsky’s head at least enough for his vocabulary to come back.

“What, what’ve you got in your eyes, then?” Starsky asked, then stopped walking before Hutch could answer, pulling them both to a stop.

[...]

Instead, he took one last look over at the morose curled-up Starsky puddle on the other seat. As he pulled out onto the street, in a vain attempt to lift him out of it, he said, “As to the original question, I have retinas, pigment, and lenses in my eyes. Along with a dozen other things any ophthalmologist could probably tell you better than me. Why, what do you think I’ve got in my eyes?”

“I don’t know,” Starsky said, looking an inch off from kicking the dash like a toddler, but at least that was some kind of action. “The road. The ground. Wheatgerm.”

Hutch couldn’t help chuckling. “Having wheatgerm in my eyes sounds painful.”

“Yeah, well, so does having stars.”

Hutch frowned at the road. He couldn’t look properly over at Starsky, not now he was driving, but he took one hand off the wheel to gently shove at his shoulder. “Hey, I love that you still get starry-eyed. Metaphorically.”

“Which one?”

“Hm?”

“You metaphorically love me or I get metaphorically stierry-ard? Starry-eyed?”

That did make Hutch risk a glance over, for all the good it did. Starsky was still staring steadfast out the side window, meaning all Hutch saw was a streetlamp-lit flash of dark curls. The change from ‘love that’ to ‘love me’ hadn’t escaped his notice, but he replied, “…the latter,” anyway. This was shaping up to be a very strange conversation.

#MASH #Leverage #Starsky and Hutch #i am very slowly mounting a campaign to get you to watch S&H caia. this is the. second or third volley #Starsky & Hutch #my writing #asks #mine

[lesyah]

you know what I’m just gonna make it simple: morally, wei wuxian should NOT have forced the golden core transfer onto jiang cheng. also morally, jiang cheng not caring about the Wens was wrong. That’s it. That’s all! Both of them messed up and have been incomprehensibly traumatized at each other’s hands, even beyond these two instances. No more of this jiang cheng vs wei wuxian stuff I’m over it lmao THEY BOTH RUDE.

edit: I'm adding my response to the person who challenged this because people aren’t seeing my response + explanation, so here you go!! 

“Ahhhhhh ok I thought about bringing this up, but because I was trying to be succinct, I didn’t. But since you did, I want to engage in the conversation!

So I am a huge proponent of integrating culture into the conversation and thoughts and opinions about something, especially a piece of literature that is literally taking place in another country, in another time, and by a person in another culture. So absolutely that’s important and I agree.

However one of the reasons I did not bring this into the conversation is because I could say that it was culturally acceptable that wwx forced the procedure onto jiang Cheng if I held that opinion and my culture backed it up right? But the reason I think it’s not acceptable is simply because it was nonconsensual and jiang cheng didn’t consent. So even if I thought it was ok, even if wwx thought it was ok, it really wasn’t. Even if all of China thought it was ok, jiang cheng did not want it. Therefore, in my opinion, it was wrong. The same kind of goes for the revenge stuff you mentioned. Now I understand it’s a little different because you’re saying that jiang cheng was within his right based on what happened and what was the culturally normal response. But it was also culturally normal for men to rape women in many places and receive no punishment. It truly was viewed as acceptable, but we would look at that now and say “absolutely not.”

This brings me into the other reason why i didn’t really dive into this initially, because it gets so specific lol. Before I get into this part, when I say “people” I mean western culture folk. But the post I made was mainly in response to already westernized opinions on the entirety of the book/show. There are a lot of things we accept as culturally different even though we don’t agree or assign with that line of thinking. and westernized culture tends to pick and choose what they can and cannot let slide in regards to cultural differences, like men raping women with no retribution vs it being culturally unacceptable to look someone of authority in the eye. Both are culturally acceptable, technically. So people saying “jiang cheng sucks for not caring about the wens” but not caring that wwx conducted a non/con body modification is inconsistent. People saying wwx shouldn’t have conducted the non/con body modification yet don’t care about what jiang cheng did about the Wens is inconsistent. Because in western culture, arguably, it would be wrong to target innocent elderly folk and children for crimes committed by entirely different people, even if it is culturally acceptable for Chinese folk from that tie to engage with one another that way.

So my point in all of this is to say that I prefer consistency. If people are going to be mad about what jiang cheng did this based on their own cultural norms, then you gotta be mad at all of it, otherwise it gives me the impression that someone is basing their morals on biases, like who their fave character is. If people want to bring in culture, awesome! I think culture is super relevant. But then they have to let everything that is culturally acceptable slide because then they would also be letting biases or personal opinion affect the decision. And I guess that’s a little rigid and people can think what they want. I completely understand that 😅 that’s just how I’m conceptualizing the discourse I’ve seen about wwx vs. jc

I don’t at all mean to sound combative, but to explain why I kind of just stated the original post without any explanation and it’s my bad to think people will automatically know where I’m coming from. Because I really do agree that culture is important. My post was seriously mainly in response to two specific posts that were directly related to what I just mentioned above. If any of this didn’t make sense let me know and I’d love to keep the discourse going!!! 🤍”

#jc #wwx #untamed #twin heroes #twin prides of yunmeng #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #mdzs #mdzs meta #untamed meta #mdzs discourse #twin heroes of yunmeng

[hey-its-nonny]

okay, one political topic (that’s EXTREMELY important to me as an individual) i wanna go into: Religion (and a bit on race, but that’s for like one second)

Before i start, i realize that i’m more than likely gonna lose a few really good friends i’ve made on here because of what i believe. so, if you’re one of the people i’m referring to, (which, that is completely up to you guys to decide.) i’ll miss you, and i’m sorry we couldn’t stay friends because of this. But i will not apologize for my opinion.

So, in America, we live with the freedom of speech. We’re allowed to voice our own opinions and have civil disagreements, because that’s what freedom of speech is.

I understand that with the whole boycotting/cancel culture we’ve developed is for what we believe is good for everyone else. Bad people deserve to be cancelled because of their actions, so we boycott them from our lives. Again, that’s okay for YOU as an individual to do, because it’s your life and you are entitled to your freedom of speech.

For instance, i personally cannot stand One Direction or any of the members as individuals. I was never a fan of their music, never will be. Therefore, i technically have removed them from my social media, my music, and my life in general. And that’s okay because it’s my right to choose what i listen to.

In the same perspective, i’d like to address the way people speak about religion. Over the past few years, we’ve widened our lenses and become so much more accepting of each religion and people group and that’s really great. Now we can be friends, right? Wrong.

I’m not saying Christians are saints and that you don’t stumble upon a bad one every once in a while, but the media accepts and praises every religion and belief except for Christianity. Does that seem fair to you? After so many of you fought so hard for your own acceptance?

I don’t care if my neighbor/coworker/friend/anything is Muslin, Hindu, Buddhist, Islam, Confucian, Christian, or Jewish. I don’t care if my neighbor is black, white, asian, or hispanic. I don’t care if they’re a part of the LBGT+ community. The only difference between us is the color of our skin. Why would i care about that? We’re both different people and we both have different religious beliefs, and that’s perfectly fine with me.

But why isn’t this same respect reciprocated towards Christians?

At the mere mention of someone who’s Christian, people automatically think of a disgusting, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, soulless, trash person who shouldn’t even be alive. That’s a bold stance to take. Not only is it unfair to the people you’re judging, it’s just wrong to think that way after how hard you’ve fought for your own rights.

You can’t have it both ways, folks.

If you want equality, then don’t treat people who disagree with you like they’re beneath you. That’s not justice or fairness and you should know that.

My problem is that when someone has a bad encounter with a Christian (one (1) individual), they think all Christians are the exact same and decide to judge Christians as a whole instead of judging each individual person by their character and how they behave. It’s like a mother punishing all of her children for a crime that only one of the children committed.

Do you see my problem? I get that there are bad Christians out there, and i understand that no one should be treated the way some Christians/Conservatives treat anyone who differs from their beliefs, and I’m sorry you personally experienced that. But is it fair for you to try and come at me for something someone else did? Or even further more judge an entire group of people for a crime that one person committed against you?

No. It’s not.

My point is don’t stand there and get pissed off about your religion not being accepted in America, then call the one it was founded on garbage.

If you don’t like it, leave.

I am entitled to my opinions ^^ and if you disagree with them, i’m okay with that. you are entitled to have your opinion and to make your voice heard just like i do. If you don’t like my opinions then just leave. Again, to the friends I might lose to this, i’m sorry that this came between our friendship.

#politics #christianity #jesus christ #Religion #political debate #conservative #america #my opinion #my rights #freedom of speech #liberal #left #right #democrat #republican #muslim

[ariainstars]

Congratulations, We Fell for Another Love Bombing or Thank You, Disney, You Did It Again

Sigh. Luke Skywalker is back. And Din Djarin and his child had to say goodbye. I never thought I would curse and say “Oh no!” when Luke appeared in that fateful corridor. 

I wonder why the Disney studios are doing this - trying to "make up” for the oh-so criticized sequels, I suppose?

The Jedi have made their time. It was shown and proven over and over again that their attitude is wrong and needs to change, and Luke was the last of the old school Jedi. Again, a Force-sensitive child is all but kidnapped by a Jedi: he obviously did not like to go. Mando is no longer the hero of the story, he was stripped of his agency and all of his personal choices were questioned and valued for null and void. But the Dark Saber is in his hands now, so he’s the heir to the throne of Mandalore I guess. Like he ever wanted that.

This show, which grew to be so well-beloved in only a few episodes, now is not “The Mandalorian” any more. Its new title is “Luke’s Skywalker’s Comeback”. Hardcore fans may be out of their minds with joy, but for us, who admired Mando both as a badass hero and as a father figure and loved the dynamics between him and Grogu, the whole purpose of the show is destroyed. And here I naively had thought The Rise of Skywalker was bad enough to teach the studios not to repeat its mistakes.

~~~ more under the cut ~~~

Star Wars ought to be a fairy tale. It is and always was one. I can understand that the prequels had to end in a tragedy, we all knew that from the start, but why the sequels? And now, why must this generally acclaimed and beloved tv show again appease hardcore fans of old with Luke coming to save the day, cancelling in a matter of minutes what the story had built up within two entire seasons - the relationship of the two protagonists, heart and core of the narrative, as it had been with Rey and Ben Solo? And when both of them had their relationship just getting started - Rey and Ben kissing, Din calling Grogu by his name and the latter seeing him and touching his face? Why make Rey a queen without her king, and Din a father without a son? 

Again, a Force-user is denied having a home: „Jedi training” matters more. By Luke of all people, the guy who never was trained in the first place (only very briefly), who except for a few lessons with Obi-Wan and Yoda was self-taught in the Force, and never understood that his strength lay with his compassion and his connection with other people, not with his alleged „superpowers”.

Think back to how Anakin, Luke and Rey were before they met the Jedi: unaware of their powers, compassionate, idealistic, brave. The Jedi mindset tainted their characters and lives, making them believing that they are (or have to be) untouchable and invincible, compelling them to live for duty instead of love, condemning them to a lifetime of loneliness. Will the Jedi never learn?

Though I practically grew up with the classic movies, I loved The Last Jedi; I can accept that Luke failed, and also that Han and Leia did. Nobody is perfect, and the Jedi mindset as well as the universally accepted idea that „Jedi” is a synonym for infallible saint-like hero was wrong in the first place, else the Empire never would have risen. Making Luke not the cavalry who came to save the day - until the battle on Crait, that is - but a man who failed and picked himself up again was much more meaningful, and I know not a few fans who felt inspired by this. Luke had saved his father choosing love over power, not the contrary. Some fans just never get it. To appease them, why not simply give him a new storyline of his own, instead of making him intrude in other Star Wars related shows? Why stop the new stories in their tracks just to bring him back?

Instead of seeing Luke as the grand kickass hero in a tv show that never had anything to do with him until now, it would have been more to the purpose to finally shed light on the thirty years between his father’s and his nephew’s death, to explain us where the Jedi and the Skywalker-Organa-Solo family failed to make such an outcome possible - the granddaughter of Palpatine taking over with their own blessing. There must have been a huge build-up between the end of the original saga and the fateful night at the temple when Luke briefly panicked looking into his nephew’s mind. Many fans still are convinced that „Kylo Ren just chose to be bad” because we hardly know how the relationship between these two was in the first place. (A very easy plot twist would e.g. have been Snoke warning Ben that his uncle sooner or later would turn on him, frightened by his power. The fulfilment of that prophecy would have made the night at the temple much more impactful.) 

I understand that the studios want to tease us, to make us watch the other shows, too. But honestly, I’m getting tired of feeling duped. Tired of getting attached to new heroes to have their purpose smashed just so the Star Wars dudebro fans can sleep quietly at night because „some Jedi will take care of it”. First the characters from the sequels, now the ones from The Mandalorian. You get to love the new characters, you root for them to find happiness or at least some closure, and then, at the last moment, poof!, the hero of old comes back and the story development stops right there. 

It is not right and it never was for the Jedi to take Force-sensitive children away from home, to enforce „you have to become a Jedi, like it or not” on them, to teach them not to have attachments, to make them focus on the Light Side thereby bringing the Force out of its much-needed balance. While Ahsoka saw that Grogu has formed a strong attachment to Din Djarin, Luke obviously did not, or he did not care. The irony is that he always wanted a father, and knows the pain of losing a father you’ve just found.

The Mandalorian felt like a consolation after Episode IX, a blessing for the fans for whom heart and soul are more interesting than nostalgia and „Jedi superheroes”. Now it’s just another kick in the guts. It’s painful and embarrassing to get to love characters so much, to get invested in their story so deeply, and then to realize again that they seem to mean nothing in the shade of the heroes of old. Ben Solo died young and miserable and Din Djarin and Grogu can now, I suppose, be miserable too. Can someone please explain to me why after the classics, no Star Wars film or show had an uplifting ending any more? With the possible exception of Solo, which was a nice filler but not a really important storyline. (I do not count Episodes I and II, they officially had a happy ending but it was tainted by the knowledge of what was to come.) 

Fans are not blind. We saw the parallels between Darth Vader and Din Djarin as well as the differences - both being cool and tough but the latter not disdaining to be a caring father at the same time. The entire show lived from the dynamics between the gruff but kind bounty hunter and the innocent-looking powerful child, ever from the first episode. Two years of build-up for nothing, as it was with the four years of the sequels. Mando has to relinquish Grogu, Rey loses Ben. What was all that for? Both Mando and Rey are fighters, they have done nothing else their entire lives. What is to become of them now that they have nothing to fight for any more, nor anyone to live for? Except staying on a planet that is foreign to them and, for all they know, inhabitable or at least inhospitable? 

With Rey and Ben Solo, the situation was different: she had proven good intentions but bad attitude (arrogance, violence, judgement) over and over, unable to deny her heritage, and even impaled her „antagonist” once while he was only defending himself. He had been the head of a criminal organization for years, and had committed patricide. Of course there are nuances to these characters and I still believe that they would have deserved another chance; I understand however that would have been unfitting to let the sequels end giving them a happy ending.

But in the case of Din Djarin, a man of honor, who has made friends and brought peace wherever he went throughout the galaxy? Grogu, the last surviving padawan of the old Jedi temple, who saved both his and Greef Karga’s life despite the danger for himself? What did they do to deserve being ripped apart like that? 

So, all I can say: thank you, you did it again. And, once more, just before Christmas. I wish at least these depressing endings would be released at some other time. 

I would dearly want to see a galaxy that finally learned from its faults, where family and attachments and Balance and free choice are not contrary to being a Jedi. I am in my late forties and I’m beginning to give up hope that I will live to see it. By now I am wondering whether George Lucas himself will live to see it. 

I always loved Luke. He is one of my favorite heroes. But now he’s become an insensitive know-it-all who suffered from his own daddy issues to the point that he almost died crying out to his father for help, yet did not learn not to separate fathers from children and vice versa and, on the contrary, is doing it over and over again. He did not even tell Mando his name, or where he could reach him. We don’t have a clue as to if, when and how the Clan of Two will meet again. 

I get it that since this show is set five years Return of the Jedi, it would have been difficult to ignore Luke’s existence altogether. And of course, we can rest assured that Luke will do his best for Grogu. But still: he has made his time. I wanted to see the new heroes going their own way, not hanging on the sleeves of the former generation. Mando is a man of honor, he had promised to bring Grogu to his own kind and he relinquished him despite his own wishes. (Not to mention that technically, since he identifies as a Mandalorian, by being a Jedi Luke is his enemy.) Why did Luke have to take the child away? His greatest strength always was that he was first and foremost himself and only in the second place a Jedi. What became of his trademark compassion? 

Before The Mandalorian, we have never seen a healthy and working father-son relationship in the saga. It was incredibly refreshing and heart-warming to see these two traveling through the galaxy and living through adventures together; also, contrarily to Yoda, Grogu saw a lot of the bad things happening in the galaxy with his own eyes, which certainly was good for his character development.

But in the end, both he and his „father” did not go anywhere. Like Rey in Episode IX, they found a) power and b) a surrogate place, but neither got what was actually his heart’s wish - a home. I can’t understand why. Deliberate cruelty? We never knew whether Han and Leia and Ben felt how painful it was to break up their little family for the sake of „Jedi training”. You bet Din and Grogu did feel that pain and loss.

Both as a person with a heart and a brain and an almost lifelong Star Wars fan I am sickened by the readiness of the studios to end all that this well-made show had built up, for the appeasement of Jedi worshippers who just don’t want to see that the Jedi mindset needs urgently to change. It can’t be that difficult to renew them for the better; there is no necessity to erase the Jedi completely and there is nothing bad with making them grow wiser and stronger by finally understanding and accepting the importance of attachments and family ties. Yes, I realize that being a father also means learning how to let go; but here we are speaking of a literal child, not of a young adult who chose his own way in life.

I thought that George Lucas knew why he sold his franchise to the Disney studios, given their tradition in telling stories about family and friendship. This development is not a triumph, it is unworthy both of the studios and of the entire Star Wars saga. I’m tired of producers bowing down before fans who see every shred of the saga through „Jedi are always right”-tinted glasses respectively who value coolness over compassion even though it always was the saga’s central message. 

Whatever happens in Season 3, countless fans will only be watching it asking, „Where’s Luke?” If Grogu should choose to join Mando again, everybody will be like, „But how can he want to leave Luke Skywalker of all people?” Some already see Grogu die prematurely, killed by the oh-so-bad guy Kylo Ren, for no other reason than to just to further prove how evil he is. In which case both Ben Solo and Grogu will have lived and died for nothing except for leaving a lot of heartbreak behind. 

There must be another and better way to honor the legacy of both Luke Skywalker and the original trilogy than to think up new heroes and then destroy their purpose for the sake of old times’ glory. Lucas himself had said that Star Wars is basically for twelve-year-olds. It seems not: it’s for the fans who were twelve years old forty years ago, when the first movies hit theatres. 

There are enough voices crying out for the sequels to be erased from canon. Who knows? This may be the next step into the past instead of the future. The sequels were hinting at a better future (Balance), Grogu was, too (family). But the grand past is so reassuring. The sequels tried to tell the audience to grow up and learn to do without their heroes, to see that even they were flawed and that the new heroes could grow beyond them. Fie on them, said the hardcore fans. Now it’s the turn of the younger generation, who got to know and love the saga with the sequels or The Mandalorian, to be like „WTF”. 

Rogue One also had been a huge disappointment to me. Not that I found it badly made, but I went into a depressive mood for three days for the same reason: I did not like that I had grown so attached to all of these characters only to see all of them die. The infamous Darth Vader scenes and the design with the huge hints at the classic movies were no consolation. Nostalgia does not make me happy. Heart does. Rogue One, the sequels and The Mandalorian were all, in the end, deprived of all human feeling except loss and regret and many, many thoughts about what might have been. 

The Mandalorian was an excellent story on its own. It did not need Luke Skywalker. It is and ought to be Din Djarin’s story, who lost or gave up everything because he was afraid to lose the child: and now he did. It’s not comforting that he lost him to the alleged Good Guy. Luke of course won’t turn a hair on Grogu’s head, but he can’t offer him a home, we already know that. Ahsoka saw the attachment between the two and she knows the dangers of it; Luke does not know what drove his father to his terrible fate. If the sequels remain canon, then we already know that Luke will not allow his pupils having and keeping healthy attachments. And that does not promise well for the child’s future.

Unless the studios commit the madness of officially erasing the sequels and starting the saga anew, we can only hope that the child will not stay with Luke for long since it’s a good five years before he will start his own Jedi temple. Maybe he will die of a broken heart, poor little guy. And Din Djarin might become the new ruler of Mandalore, though sad and alone. But who cares: Luke is back. Please: I did not subscribe to Disney+ wanting to see Schwarzenegger movies. The lonesome hero can ride into the sunset for all I care, out of sight and of mind. Star Wars’ greatest strength always was its heart. 

My own take was that Grogu is meant to be a healer, and since Luke is not, there is no way he can teach him this particular skill in the Force. Anakin was a pilot and a mechanic, Luke and Ben also were pilots. None of them were Jedi by choice. Grogu is older than Luke and he was already trained at the old Jedi temple: he’s more likely to be a teacher to Luke than the other way around. Grogu as the first Force-user who values attachment and family over power and Jedi training, that would indeed have been a new hope. This backpedaling is shallow and useless. Even if Luke sends Grogu back to Din Djarin, this won’t teach him not to take a child away from its home, since only a few years later he will do the same thing to his nephew. (Although it would admittedly be an interesting plot point to see a small Ben Solo interacting with Grogu for a while.) 

Please give us back The Mandalorian the way it was, with its characters and dynamics. The themes and messages of The Last Jedi already were almost all aborted in The Rise of Skywalker; we didn’t sign up on Disney+ to see the exact same thing happen with The Mandalorian. I for my part am fed up with this kind of love bombing followed by a quick and coldblooded let-down. Star Wars may be a cult, but it need not be the kind of cult where you get hooked and then unwittingly follow a carrot hanging before your eyes. I thought the exaggerated Jedi cult was mostly made by the fans: the studios did not need to jump on this ship. This is not the Way. 

Now everything I feared is flaring up again - fans jubilating because “the Jedi are taking matters in hand” instead of accepting the failure of the Jedi mindset at last; and even insisting that since things are going so well, all Disney needs to do is to cancel the sequels from canon and everybody can be happy again. 

Please, please, give this tormented galaxy a chance to heal at last. We don’t need Luke Skywalker to save the day by killing all the bad guys. We don’t need the oh-so-powerful and perfect Jedi. We need faith in the Force. We need a home. Don’t take it away from us again. Thank you.

 P.S. If we see Luke again in Season 3, at least give the role to a live actor. That digital “rejuvenation” made him look wooden. Luke’s best trait, apart from his compassion, always was his smile.

P.P.S. What’s with Boba Fett claiming Jabba’s throne? I thought Jabba had a son. What in the galaxy happened to him?

P.P.P.S. I don’t mind kickass women, but honestly, I’m getting somehow tired of them. What became of the ladies of Star Wars, the diplomats, the good queens, the loving mothers, the accurate librarians, who contribute to the galaxy without killing (or hurting) anyone? I’m feeling kind of underrepresented here...

#the mandalorian #mando #din djarin #grogu #baby yoda #spoilers #luke skywalker #jedi #the Force #greef karga #disney #disney studios #disney lucasfilm #ben solo #rey #kylo ren #sw #star wars #rogue one #solo #read more #darth vader #tros salt #the rise of skywalker #episode IX #star wars sequels #boba fett #the last jedi #ahsoka tano #anakin skywalker

[el-oh-her]

Barbie Movies That Are More Relevant Than You Think

1. Barbie’s Princess and the Pauper 

> The Big Thing: Shows a realistic representation of 1st world problems and 3rd world Problems coexisting. Annalise is a princess in an arranged marraige and Erika is an indentured servent, both looking to esacpe, but are determined to overcome these issues. They acknowledge that they have differerent problems but are both struggling in their own right. It’s important to know that they don’t wish they were someone else, they just wish they could escape their personal struggles. 

> Women supporting women! 

> Female Leads that are friends and aren’t catty towards each other 

> Annalise and Erika talk about things other than boys, althrough an arranged marraige is a plot point and all boy talk is really about that particular plot point. 

> “Duty is doing the things your heart may well regret” is the most badass line in exsitance, okay? 

> The Princess loved science. 

2. Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princessess 

> The Big Thing: This story is about extremism and the dangers of a binary system. In this case, it’s Law vs Chaos, and unregulated freedom of expression vs overregulated conformity. The 12 are unruly and chaotic and uncaring about their royal status which causes strain on the kingdom and they are super unprepared for royal life. The antagonist comes in, strips the color and the fun and is all rules and control and is trying to teach them how to be “proper ladies” which is also done in an extreme. Neither of these are right, and in the end the girls use their unique interests to save their father, and they acknowledge they should behave better and be prepared for royal life. They essentially find their middle way. 

> Realistic siblings. No one calls the other “sister” 

> Lacy, the frail sister, is never treated poorly by her sisters despite the fact she causes a few issues in the plot. Super supportive sisters. 

> LI isn’t a prince. He’s a shoemaker. 

> There’s an assassination attempt in this one! It technically succeeds. Really good show on adult topics in a children’s movie. 

> Power and Corruption are thematic here with the villain. 

3. Barbie’s Mariposa

> The Big Thing: This one is about destorying an entire society for personal gain and power. If you’re American, you’d understand why THIS is super relevant. The queen is bring poisoned and is the life source for all the lights, and those lights are what protect faeries from the monsters in the dark. The Big Bad Guy plans to take the throne with these monsters as her minions, promising them they can eat faeries. She will destory this land to gain the throne, and she doesn’t care who dies along the way. 

> Has a Cinderella vibe to it. Good rendition 

> Two First World Entittled rich faries are humbled through the journey, and learn to be king and selfless despite starting with selfish intentions. GROWTH. 

> Skeezite is a funny word. 

> ACCENTS. I think they’re all Spanish, but can’t confirm. The only Barbie movie that didn’t do British Accents, I’m pretty sure. Vocal Diversity is 10/10 

4. Barbie Fairytopia Series 

> The Big Thing: DISABILITY IN A FANTASY WORLD DONE WELL. Like holy shit the plot is the Big Bad is commiting bio-terrorism by poisoning the air that affects all faeries except for Elina because she was born without wings. DISABILITY BECOMING THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SAVE YOU. YES. She does  get wings at the end, but I always saw it as a prostetic because if she lost her necklace she lost her wings. And in a later movie she has to trade them away to save someone. 

> Bibble is valid 

> This series does the “girl who doesn’t fit in” trope well because Elina is constantly seen as the girl who doesn’t fit in. In the first movie she’s the girl without wings, in the second she’s the faerie, not a mermaid (Nori gets mean towards her because the mermaid prince wanted a fairy to save him or someting like that), and in the last one, I’m pretty sure she’s sort of regarded as the charity case. I can’t remember exactly, so don’t quote me. Either way, Elina is the most relateable Barbie character for people who struggle fitting in wherever they go because Elina never fits in at first (but it’s a barbie movie, so you know, acceptance and stuff) 

> This marks the third movie on this list with an assassination attempt for power. Power #Corrupts 

> Good overcoming narrative. Elina survives all her trials towards being accepted in society. 

5. Barbie as the Island Princess

> The Big Thing: This one is tricky because Barbie is a white character, and that is a valid critique for this one. However, the topic is handled well despite this fault due to the movie’s context. This one is about a status quo society and their treatment towards a different “Cultural” upbringing. Ro grew up on an island alone outside of society and talks to animals. She has an entire different set of values and beliefs. Her curiosity sets her off into a populated civilzation and a big part of the movie is the Prince Character making genuine efforts to help her adapt and make her comfortable for what she is used to, and the rest of the society relegating her to a barbarian. She struggles trying to fit in to a society that wants her to adapt to their society, but refuses to make any adaptions to hers. Her not being from there is eventually what saves the day, which is a healthy message that differnet people learn the world differnetly, and these cultures can meet and interact and help each other without forcing one to obliterate itself. Ro doesn’t stay in that society. She goes off sailing with the prince character, a happy medium from her island roots and desire to be around other people. 

> ANOTHER assassination attempt. 

> Big Bad has a daughter she’s trying to marry to the Prince, but the daughter doesn’t love him and is happy that he finds love. she and Ro are friends. 10/10 Women supporting women. 

> Ro’s cultural roots are celebrated a lot. It’s nice! 

> Prince never puts Ro in a corner to change, from what I remember. He guides her through what she’s willing to do, and helps accomidate her with that makes her uncomfortable (sleeps in the greenhouse,for example). 10/10 m8

6. Barbie and the Diamond Castle

> The Big Thing: The catalyst of this movie is Liana and Alexa’s lively hood being destoryed by a storm, and now homeless and jobless, they end up questing with a magic mirror to save Melody and the other trapped Muses. Alexa is hesitant and even gives up to stay in a Lotus Casino type place because there’s food and shelter there. There’s a heavy value on having enough to eat, and having a place to live. Displacement and poverty, I guess is the right word for this. 

> Okay so I heard around that Alexa and Liana are queer coded based on their dress colors in the final scene matching the Lesbian and Bisexual Flag and I stan that because honestly, Barbie need some gay. 

> The Will Sing For Food scene hits differently than any other scene in Barbie Movies. It’s just such a real thing. 

7. Barbie and the Three Musketeers 

> The Big Thing: Sexsim. This one is very on the nose of “women can’t do this.” and then Barbie adn Co proves them wrong!! 

> I am pretty sure there are SEVERAL assasination attempts in this one. 

> “Release the Fireworks!!” is carved into my mind. 

> The Master Trainer is an old lady maid. Cool trope subversion. 

Honestly, people who cry about adult themes in their kids movies need to watch these movies. Did you notice how many ASSASSINATIONS happen in these movies? SO MUCH ASSASSINATION. 

These movies are deeper and more complex than given credit for. I can admit that Barbie’s early movies didn’t do great with racial representation, but we can also praise them for accomplishing their aim of empowering young girls as much as they did. 

I can’t say much for mordern Barbie since that’s not my era. Perhaps someone else can comment about that better than I can. 

TL;DR: Barbie movies deal with adult themes in a child friendly setting and they are well done and you should go watch them and see how much deeper and complex these movies can be. 

A Barbie Movie I DO NOT STAN: Princess and the Pop Star. That movie is “Two whiny girls hate their privlaged life and wish they were someone else’s privlaged life and I guess help the poor” It’s not good. You can enjoy the bops it produced, but that movie is INSANELY Problomatic. 

#Movies #Barbie