#sorry for the length but you asked lol

[blinkaftermidnight]

i would love to hear more about some of the unfinished The Wilds fics

Buckle up. There's a lot of stuff dying in my hard drive. Maybe, when I get the time, I should try to finish some of it up/patch it up/post random snippets (if anyone would be interested?).

So here's the thing, I have my drive separated into two types of fics for The Wilds: there are fics I consider potentially still in play and fics I've scrapped altogether. Two different folders. I'll make you a list under the cut and tell you what I consider each to be. And I'll probably give too much commentary about each.

If you want to know more or get a snippet of any of them, please send follow up asks. I would love to share. Or I'd love to hear what, if I were to pick back up with writing, you'd want to read the most. No guarantees, but I'll think about it.

I posted the snippet for i'll be waiting on you forever from Fatin's POV in another ask. Not very far into that, but I also haven't moved it to the scrapped folder. I think my problem with that kind of fic is it doesn't feel fresh enough - it's hard to make it feel new when we already know where it's headed. I've done it before, but it's hard.

I started a second Star Wars AU that's unrelated to the first where Leah's a Jedi Padawan and Fatin is a senator - literally Anakin and Padme in Attack of the Clones. Didn't get very far but didn't scrap it.

I have one that I'm still hoping to finish that's placeholder titled "Leah loses her mind" rightfully or wrongfully, I don't know. It explores her season two on island hallucinations and how that affects her and the group. It's 6.5k and unfinished, but I'm planning to take a look at it and see what can be done.

There are so many post island fics that are just snippets and doing nothing on my drive. I kept trying to experiment with writing all of the season two POVs post island and that shit is hard. Probably a sign not to expand too far away from Leatin because apparently I can only care so much lmao. But I haven't bothered to scrap them.

There's one where I attempted to write Leachel but that shit was also hard apparently. Really I was trying to write all different pairings and didn't get very far. Not scrapped and I have considered trying again more than once.

I started a no experiment AU where it was just an actual plane crash. I have 5k of that and no memory of writing it. Not scrapped. Not sure if I'd ever finish that.

The season 3 fic outline I mentioned in another ask but didn't link because I was on mobile, so that's here if you missed it. Not scrapped, but unfortunately I think outlining it made me feel like I told the entire story even though I never wrote more than 2-3 chapters. That's the problem with outlining, but only sometimes, because I outlined the exes fic/we're falling apart still we hold together, and that was fine.

I started a road trip AU back in 2021. Wrote 7k. Outlined the entire thing and same problem as above. Got stuck. I think I was trying to force word counts on myself for each chapter and it wasn't working. Not scrapped but very unlikely I'll touch it.

I have one just called "waterfall 5" that has five moments spent at the waterfall, and I almost finished it. I think I still have some hope of finishing it, since it's a quick thing.

I've talked about it before, probably two/three years ago at this point jfc, but I don't remember what I've disclosed about this fic. It's the one I mentioned in another ask about it not feeling right, so I didn't put it out, and it's something like 50k words and had a massive plot hole that I had to try to fix, and I was going to do a whole rewrite and maybe put it out. This one haunts me. There's a chance I'll throw the entire draft out one day without editing or fixing any issues. Or maybe I'll take another stab at it, since it's all there. Truly, this one haunts me. For once, I had a perfect title and nothing to show for it. There's probably snippets of it in asks on my blog somewhere from back when The Wilds wasn't cancelled and I was insane about it.

I scrapped the Grey's Anatomy AU. Just gave up on it.

I wrote 239 words of something vaguely Dotin and scrapped that too.

I have a first draft of the fake dating AU i don't belong to you (but you're wrong) that I scrapped. I took it in an entirely different direction and scrapped 10k of this other thing. I think I salvaged some of it for the posted fic, but it started going the wrong way.

Also have a scrapped draft of the last chapter of the soulmate AU i said i wouldn't let you in. That first draft of that chapter was BAD.

I scrapped 14k of everyone else's perception of what was happening with Leatin on the island. Like Leatin through every other character's eyes, and I don't remember why it didn't work or what I didn't like about it.

I'm not gonna lie, some of this stuff I'm looking at...even I don't know what it is anymore.

I scrapped a document called "untitled" and this is literally all that's in it:

"She sees her on the first day of school, sitting with the kid that supposedly led the FBI to Gretchen. Leah smiles slightly as Fatin crosses the lawn, and the kid – Ian – turns to look where Leah’s looking, and Fatin just tilts her head in acknowledgment and keeps walking. There’s nothing more for her to do."

I don't know what that is.

There's STILL a lot more documents I haven't touched on because I haven't bothered to open them and find out what they are (and my placeholder titles don't tell me much all the time). But I feel like this is a good start lmao.

Sorry for writing a novel, but you did ask. If you want more, let me know and I will make time over the weekend to post some stuff.

#Anonymous #the wilds #leatin #my fic #sorry for the length but you asked lol #and i would love to share more #it might just take me some time to get it out there #i've missed talking about writing even if i haven't been doing a whole lot of writing recently #i hope that'll change

[megabuild]

im gonna be 100% honest with you man i'm not gonna post this in full because you are just going to open yourself up to getting clowned on again but i do need you to know this is my absolute favourite opening to any ask i've gotten ever.

#mine #for what it counts i think your base point was fair. the idea of discussing childhood in south africa in the 80s and not- #-mentioning apartheid at all does stick out to me as odd. however i think it is easily explained by- #-it being on a podcast w three white (afaik) men who despite encountering some serious topics generally keep it light. #but i do get what you mean.. i just dunno if id write up two whole essay lengths asks about it. on the no nuance site. LOL #anyway its 2am so sorry if this doesnt make sense i hope you have a good night. #also reblogs off sorry just cause like i said i don't want people to clown on this too much or start arguing 😭 #i have had a week and a half i don't want to be the guy who accidentally starts mcytblr apartheid discourse

[crescentfool]

I noticed you're a Ryomina!!! How did you get into it? And do you have any good fanfics/doujinshi you can advice me to read? ANYTHING on Ryomina actually? I'm dying for anything about them!!! Thanks!!

yes!!! it's me!!! i'm ryomina fan (one of many)!!! thank you for visiting my askbox, i'll do my best to answer all of the questions because it always makes me happy to see that ryomina sparks joy for people! :D

...this got really long because i like linking to things, so i'm putting it under a read more (IM VERY NORMAL ABOUT THEM)

how did i get into it? i got into persona 3 around august 2021 through the movies- at the time my only experience with the persona series was with P5R / P5S / P5D. p3 was the one that interested me the most (i thought minato was very pretty + i caught wind that the themes of the game were very resonant with people). i picked the movies over the game because i'm a guy who plays games at a snails pace, haha.

admittedly, i did latch onto ryomina because of the scenes in the third and fourth movie (i have mentioned in the tags of this art i drew how much i felt like i was exploding and blasting off to the moon watching it).

but what really dug me into the ryomina hole (and what has kept me there) was thinking about how much ryoji encapsulates the themes of p3- and how interconnected his fate is with minato. i wrote some musings about their dynamic here, if you're interested!

tl;dr: what if we were both boys and we were mirror images of each other and i inherited your kindness and looks but god doomed our narrative even though we're soulmates

on ryomina fanworks recommendations:

regarding fics: i'm going to assume that you've probably read the fics that have the highest kudo ratings on them, so i won't really be listing those.

a personal favorite fic that i always hold close to my heart is Eurydice's Vow by crescentmoontea, which explores the idea of ryomina in p5r's third semester. this was the first fic i read about ryomina and it made me tear up lots...

i also think a lot about I Alone Await You by Nail_gun, literally scrumptious writing that captures the ryomina dynamic so so well. actually check out Nail_gun's other ryomina fics while you're at it too!

other fun fic i'm fond of: can't get my mind out of those memories (what were they?) by foxmulder_whereartthou. ryoji being homeless lives rent free in my head and it's all because of this fic. there's a bunch of other fun ryominas from the same author too (i still need to read them)

BkZa555 also has some fun AU scenarios if you're into that too, notably with Zagreus (P5-Setting, Ryoji focus) and The Definition of Insanity (TIME LOOP fuckery!), but they're currently ongoing.

these were some ones that came to my mind first- as i have the strongest recollection reading them. admittedly i haven't really been reading fic this year, so i don't have many recommendations from fic that came out this year. but if you're so inclined to let ryomina consume your soul, i definitely recommend giving the newer works in the ryomina tag a look-see and see if it strikes your fancy!

as a side note, i do have a few ryomina fics that i've bookmarked on my ao3 here, though i have to say that i'm not sure how well they hold up in terms of like... what i would seek out of a fic these days. but they made past me happy so i bookmarked them, LOL. it's kind of outdated (my collection of fic recs has my old username *disintegrates*).

regarding doujinshi: i have not read all the ryomina doujinshi available, but as a starting point, please take a look at this list from pandora-scans from livejournal!

notably, this is where you can find the strawberry-chan say good bye doujin- which features a small and cute comic from shuji sogabe (the p3/p4 manga artist), as well as other artists. the existence of this doujinshi is the funniest thing to me because it's like "HEY if you're wondering what the volume 8 cover is really gay it's because sogabe contributed to a ryomina doujin." this fact makes my head spin (positive). it explains a lot about the manga.

regarding persona side material:

i know you didn't ask for these but i thought that i mine as well list these too, since i feel that the side materials have some fun expansions on ryoji and minato's interactions. i haven't... watched/read all of these but, hey, i like to share these things!

for comic anthologies for the persona series (some of which have ryoji!). if you're interested in reading them, here's a scanlation index from maboroshi-no on tumblr. i don't think this is a comprehensive list, but i think it will be a great starting point!

for some translations of the persona 3 drama cds, check out imaginary-numbers on dreamwidth! ryoji and minato interactions can specifically be found in the persona 3 character drama cd vol. 1, and for the audio + english subs, you can watch this video on youtube:

and ohh the musical. ryoji singing and dancing gives me so much joy. i haven't watched the musical in it's entirety (only fragments), but here are some links that may be of interest to you:

Ao no Kakusei (The Blue Awakening), Sakuya version - playlist for the first p3 musical, translated by Phoenix Maiika.

Ao no Kakusei (The Blue Awakening), Kotone version - playlist for the femc version!! also translated by Phoenix Maiika on YouTube.

Persona 3: The Weird Masquerade (English Subtitles) - playlist by rumio!

P3 Weird Musical DVD & Soundtrack Booklet Scans by rumio_k - twitter thread that links to these funsies, if you don't have twitter, here's the publicly shared drive link.

god. these sure are a lot of links, huh? i hope you enjoy them- pick and choose whatever sounds most appealing! (if this overwhelmed you im sorry GKLHLDH i just like being very comprehensive in my answers about things so i got carried away).

and as a reminder, you (and anyone else reading) are always welcome to browse my tags/archive and reblog things from there anytime! i have... nearly 300 ryomina posts which, while mostly consists of art, has a few fics, meta, hcs, gifs, memes, and whatnot scattered about.

or browse the minato and ryoji tags too! there's.. nearly 1k minato. and 500 ish ryoji. and they're going to keep on growing because i can't stop being obsessed with archiving these things. god help me i am so deep in this hole called ryomina hell and now you're here too. welcome aboard!

there's always going to be a lot of fun ways to enjoy rotating ryomina around in one's brain, i think- they're a pairing with such fun symbolic imagery that is So Deep (to me) but ALSO they're immensely hilarious and weird guys (affectionate). so i love to share these things in hopes that it gives you joy too! they are the most couple ever (to me) (i'm biased)

thank you again for the ask! i hope it can satiate your need for more ryomina, and be a nice aide in exploring the p3 fanspace :)

#ohhh do i even main tag this #fuck it we ball i'll tag it #lizzy askbox #persona 3 #ryomina #ryoji mochizuki #minato arisato #i'm in a bit of a hiatus in terms of like.. looking at new ryomina stuff outside of fan art so i haven't seen Everything #but i would like to get back to it when i can be more cognizant and present to appreciate them #the grind to being a ryomina encyclopedia never stops! #my files and links are all messy i can hardly keep track of all the ryomina things... maybe i just need to make a neocities- #like cat's souyo archive (cat is an inspiration to me) #but FUCK man ryomina is so good. thank you for the follow and sending me this ask #i'm very sorry about the excessive length i can't help myself i'm very dedicated to wanting to know lots of things about them #i had a lot of fun answering this! #times like this make me want to return to like. my fic recommendation collection.. i gotta rehaul that stuff tbh #maybe after i've seen all the ryomina stuff i can make a ryomina iceberg based on what i've seen peple talk about (or not talk about) #it'll be a long while though. i feel like i've hardly scratched the surface even though i wouldn't call myself a casual enjoyer #ANYWAY BYE. no one ever apologize to me about being excessive because I AM very excessive and repetitive. LOL. have a good morning? evening

[anotherpapercut]

I went to a show tonight and decided to get a CD from one of the bands and the guy asked me if I actually listen to CDs or just collect them lol

#not in a prove youre a real music fan kind of way more just making conversation i just thought it was funny #i asked what cds they had and he was like this is our first one dont buy it ill give it to you for free #and this is our full length. ill also give it to you for free. #i was like thats ok lol ill pay for this one. it was only $3! ofc ill buy it bro lmao i was planning to buy both! #he also gave me a little matchbook #earlier in the night hed come up to thank me for coming out and at first i was reading smth abt fob and not paying attention #but then i realized what was going on and i was like im so fucking sorry i was zoned the fuck out #he was nice. i wonder if he gives all the theys free cds

[wundrousarts]

if you're still taking requests, maybe archan, mahir, or francis? i love them all so much and they're very underrated. only if you want to! your art is the best part of the fandom.

I like doing requests as warmups or chances to experiment or etc. so you are always free to send them in and there’s a good chance I’ll get around to it eventually! Anyways, I just went ahead and drew them all lol 👍

I still need to figure out their designs further, but I think this is a good start… I don’t think I’ve ever properly drawn any of them. Every year around 9/19 I set out to draw a 919 lineup and it never ever happens, so I’m glad I could still share how I see them this way :)

#nevermoor #nevermoor fanart #archan tate #mahir ibrahim #francis fitzwilliam #asks #sorry for the low quality I’ve been drawing nevermoor stuff real tiny on a huge canvas so this is a screenshot lol #also I’ve been in a 3/4 angle heads phase lately bc I’ve been enjoying drawing chins / more varied shapes but also. I’ve gotta move on lol #anyways ever since I moved mogtober announcements to 9/19 I doubt I’ll ever draw a proper lineup for them for. awhile. #I have some heads from 2021 and I started a lineup in 2022 and I prob won’t get around to anything in 2023 so. who knows lol #the colors might be off bc I colored this late at night and forgot abt changing brightness and also the screenshot was weird so. idek. #it’s 1AM I’m going to sleep zzzzz. hope you enjoy! #also I didn’t consult any wikia pages or anything so ummm. who knows what their eye colors are. or hair colors even. I certainly don’t. #I just imagine archan as blonde bc the angel/cherub? comparisons and I imagine francis’ hair to be short and close to his head bc cooking #mahir is. idk if his hair has ever been described but I imagine it slightly long. not quite jack length but it’s also not short. #pretty similar lengths just I feel like jack’s hair would lean longer and he’d let it grow out slightly while mahir would get a trim sooner

[brookheimer]

while i agree that love for logan is the main reason, i do think that fear was a big part of why roman didn’t want to engage w the pierce deal. but i totally disagree with people considering that to be cowardice. i think it makes a lot of sense for roman to feel fear towards logan bc his dad has deliberately cultivated an atmosphere of terror and he has clear abusive tendencies. idk i find that calling roman a coward devalues what seems to be a pretty rational response/emotion towards an abusive man. i liked that quote you shared from the tvline interview w kieran but was wondering do u have any further thoughts?

short answer: check out this other kieran quote ab rome in the premiere! it builds on the other quote and is once again very validating for my roman take which is always fun.

long answer: not only do i have further thoughts, i actually have so many further thoughts that i'm gonna put a read more here so as not to clog up the dash lol !!!!

if anyone wants to read a veritable fuckton of thoughts on roman and his relationships to love, fear, and family - it's under the cut!

totally agree re: fear nor necessitating cowardice especially in the case of roman whose relationship w his father is absolutely defined by fear ! i think rome’s fear of logan played a role for sure, but people have been misconstruing his fear of his father (which is the core of their entire relationship and by extension roman’s relationships with literally everyone, honestly) for fear of, like, “losing.” and while the fear of losing to dad is definitely there — who wants to get their ass kicked?! (and rome knows they def would get their asses kicked) — i think his main motivations are more like emotional, instinctive, and visceral than the fear of just losing in a business battle. it’s all about family and love for him, always is, always has been.

the reason i emphasized love rather than fear as his motivation for not fighting dad is because i think his fear of his dad is so deeply interwoven into his love for him — i’d argue it’s a defining feature of rome’s understanding of love as a concept. there’s no love if there isn’t the constant fear of loss, of being thrown aside, of abandonment. love for roman is always a matter of punching up, of proving to someone that doesn’t care about you that they should care. if the power dynamic were ever to even out, if the fear of abandonment and the feeling of inferiority were ever to dissipate, i don’t think roman would be able to comprehend it. love for him has been defined by logan and his relationship with him, which has always, always been rooted in fear. any love that isn’t is not a love he understands. fear is simply part and parcel for love. one is almost unimaginable without the other — if you don’t care about someone, you wouldn’t be afraid of losing them; if you aren’t constantly afraid of losing someone, then you don’t actually love them.

so while roman’s fear of logan plays a huge role in any and all decisions he makes (esp regarding family and business), if i had to choose one motivating factor, i’d say love. he’s afraid of the harm logan could cause him, but more than that, he’s afraid of losing him. that’s the difference between roman and shiv/ken — despite everything, roman still wants to have a relationship with logan. he holds the ideal of Family close to his heart and almost delusionally clings to it. he still thinks they can rebuild their relationship and be one big happy family. if they start fighting logan, then they can’t, and they won’t.

i’ve seen some people say stuff about how roman is trying to make the emotionally healthy/mature choice for himself, in that he knows what going back to logan would do to him, he knows how easily he’d fall back into the same patterns that are so detrimental, and he wants to keep pursuing this new version of himself he’s been discovering these past few months in LA. but i don’t think he’s making the decision out of self-preservation — he’s trying to preserve something, but not himself. he’s trying to preserve his family, or at least his hope for it. he could never admit that to shiv and ken because that’s not something the roys are ever supposed to think or do, but that’s his core motivation, i think: family and preserving it. that’s all business was ever about for him, after all; originally he only cared about the business as a means of maintaining relationships with his family because that’s the only love language they speak. even now, although he knows a lot more about the business and has stronger opinions on how it should be run, i don’t think he cares about it in the same way the others do.

i really think that nearly everything roman does is about family and his desire to maintain relationships within it. i think this holds true even (and almost especially) for the times he betrays or hurts his siblings — if he’s forced to make the impossible choice between his siblings and his father, he’ll almost always choose his father, because that’s the relationship he’s at most risk of losing. there’s something unconditional about the siblings’ relationship — i don’t think any of them would ever call it unconditional love, but there’s always this sense of ‘no matter what happens, i’ll make fun of your dumb hairstyle at thanksgiving and you’ll kick me in the shin.’ it’s logan he’s at risk of losing. if you have to bring scissors down on one of two strings, you’d probably choose to bring it down on the thicker one — that way, there’s most chance of both being left intact, even if one is damaged. that way, there’s no total loss. fear is still a key part of the way they love each other, but i think it manifests differently because they are the only people on earth who understand the fear inherent in being a child of logan roy. i think roman is still afraid of losing them, but bc his relationships are so defined by him being the one without power in them, he can’t imagine anyone (sibling or otherwise) would be so hurt by him that he would lose them.

tbh i don’t think he gives himself the credit of being a full person in his relationships — he is just there to be affected by others, but he doesn’t have enough weight to affect anyone himself. i think he kind of believes the only way any relationship would end for him is the other person deciding he’s boring/useless/not worth their time/annoying/etc. if they hurt him, he won’t leave, he never would — his role in a relationship is to get kicked and stay put, and he’s had practice doing exactly that his whole life. he doesn’t think his own actions would have consequences for other people even those he loves, not real consequences, because a lifetime of not being taken seriously has convinced him that yeah, he is not to be taken seriously. no one cares enough about roman to be hurt by him or to be afraid to lose him. this is (one of) his fundamental blind spot(s) in relationships, and why he keeps hurting loved ones while seemingly not understanding the hurt he caused. we see this with his siblings in Too Much Birthday and with gerri in their… incident. he doesn’t think he’s enough of a person to people to actually cause harm, he doesn’t think any of his actions could actually have any long-term consequences on anything. but he is, and they do. (actually i wrote a whole post about this after Too Much Birthday came out if you for want to hear me ramble about roman even more for some inexplicable reason)

at this point i'm probably barely responding to the original ask but you opened the roman meta floodgates so here we are. but as i said, i always have further thoughts and... well, if i’m asked to share them, who am i to deny the wishes of the masses?

#this got sooooo long sorry! but yeah i am always here to ramble at length about characters and shows and meta so if u for some rzn want to #be subjected to that then all you have to do is send an ask #here’s hoping we get more good roman content going forward too! and by good i just mean like… apt. not happy. he will not b happy im v awar #roman roy #succession #meta #succession meta #i should prob have a tag for this but idk what lol #asks #succession s4 #succession spoilers #LONG POST #casey shut the fuck up about roman roy #anon

[martianbugsbunny]

Personally i doubt thor knows loki loves him

U know what I'm gonna take the challenge on this one. Now, this post will only discuss their relationship in the movies before Ragnarok, because I don't really like that movie and I think it did a great disservice to both the characters and their relationship; the brightest and best of them comes from Thor, Avengers, and Dark World in my opinion, so I will be talking about what I love rather than what I have at best apathy for. Sticking it under the cut (it got looooong because I love to think about their dynamic), so if you want my opinion, read on, and if you've seen enough opinions for a lifetime and don't want any more, scrumble away and have a lovely day

Okay so let's start with Thor. In the beginning of that movie, there is absolutely no doubt in Thor's heart that Loki loves him, and here's why: Thor is an arrogant man who is largely blind to the things he doesn't agree with or understand. He has this mentality of other people just being made to love and adore him, because he's the future warrior king of Asgard, he's the golden boy, and because Asgard's people really do love and adore him, so his arrogance is only being confirmed by other people's actions. And of course, there's nobody who should love and adore Thor more than his brother, right?

Now, here's where I want to digress for a minute to talk about how incredibly unhealthy their relationship is. Thor kind of has the same outlook that Loki expresses in Avengers, that people are beneath him, and that's why they should all be looking up to him with awe and praise, and that extends even to his own brother. He tells Loki to mind his place and kind of brushes off his advice, because even though they're brothers and that's the closest anyone could get to being his equal, it's still not enough. Thor views Loki as another person who is beneath him, but who ultimately can't do anything but look up to him and love him.

This is an illusion.

Loki does love Thor. Their relationship, with how complicated and messy it is, only works if they truly love each other, and they do. But it's not the blind, adulating love that Thor expects. It's a jealous, aching love. Loki craves being equal to Thor, a problem that's only exacerbated by the way Thor denies him that position. He craves to be loved as he's assumed to love. And the problem with a love like that is how quickly it can turn. If Thor won't give Loki the affection he needs, then Loki isn't going to show Thor affection the way Thor wants him to, either.

That first movie is in multiple ways a brutal awakening for Thor. He's not the man his father wants him to be. His entire life he's been training to be king and then that future seems like it's been ripped away from him. He has his power and then it's all gone. And his brother, this person around whom he's constructed a narrative of almost reverent adoration, suddenly turns against him, tries to keep him in exile and then to kill him, tries to take the life that was promised to Thor. That looks absolutely nothing like the love Thor has believed Loki feels for him.

I would feel some doubt at that point. I think anyone would. My sibling tried to kill me. Does he still love me? Did he ever love me?

And to add to that natural doubt, Thor doesn't understand Loki. He never really has. He doesn't know what it's like to be, as Loki says later, living in the shade of someone else's greatness, the trickster brother who's never really trusted, let alone lauded. And correct me if I'm wrong, but even by the end of Thor, he doesn't know what really tipped Loki off the deep end. He doesn't know that Loki's just found out he's a Jotun in a land of Asgardians, that he's the very thing he's been brought up to hate and fear, so Thor doesn't understand why Loki is acting so erratically, which must compound the doubt for him. From his point of view it's like a light switch flicked and now Loki's trying to kill him, which increases the did he ever? question. Was it always a facade? And I don't think Thor ever quite realizes the illusion he built around Loki, the difference between his expectations and reality to begin with, so he also wouldn't be seeing that it's not quite instantaneous, that there were years of building resentment and longing that contributed to the tipping point of Loki's changed behavior.

So by the end of Thor, yes, he's got to be wondering if Loki loved him.

But when Thor appears in Avengers, do you remember what plea he makes? He says I grieved for you, I want you to come home. That's not the kind of thing you say to someone you think doesn't care about you. That's a plea to the heart. That's Thor trying to get to the love he knows is in there somewhere, behind everything else that's built up around Loki's heart; that's Thor saying I know you still love me, I don't know what changed, but please let our bond be enough to fix it. Whatever he's been thinking about between the events of those two movies, he's moved past that doubt enough to think maybe Loki's love for him will be enough to bring him home, even if some part of him expects Loki to say no anyway. We know that in the interim he learned of Loki's status as a Jotun, so maybe Thor's even begun to try to understand. Maybe he's been thinking about the fact that life got very hard and very confusing for Loki very suddenly, and he wonders if now that some time has passed, there's a chance Loki wants to come back and work through it with him and their parents. When he says "we were raised together, we played together, we fought together," he's not just trying to convince Loki that he's loved, he's trying to remind Loki of his own love.

Again, during the Battle of New York itself, Thor makes a similar plea. He offers that he and Loki stop the fight together, and his eyes are so incredibly soft when he says it, you know he believes it can still work. That belief comes from knowing there's something in Loki that wants to say yes, something that loves Thor enough to give up his dream of kingdom and stop the invasion. His use of together is interesting not just because he's offering Loki a way out, putting it on the table that Loki can exercise his heart and choose a better path, but also because he's finally putting Loki on the same level he is. We can do this, we can return home, you just have to find some part of you that loves me enough to choose equality with me in this fight over equality with me in having thrones. He also holds back when he's dueling Loki, which is a horrible idea if you actually believe a person has the capacity to kill you, but if you don't believe that, it's an ultimate show of trust. Thor kind of puts his life in Loki's hands by not using his full strength, and only after Loki rejects his offer and stabs him does he finally use more brute force, although it's still not enough to kill Loki or even knock him out. Thor really believes, not just wants to believe, that Loki will not kill him given the chance, that there is something in him that wants to go home, and it's all because Thor, after all his shattered illusions, still believes there is love for him in Loki's heart, even if it has been touched and twisted by anger and pain.

In Dark World, Thor is much more pessimistic when he breaks Loki out of jail. He basically says that his brother is no longer in there, that he won't hesitate to kill Loki if he steps out of line. I think this is important to note because Thor isn't saying I don't believe you love me anymore, he's saying the person who loved me is dead and this shell is all that remains. Thor says he no longer has hope, but he's still clinging to that belief that Loki did love him, in his own way, and he would rather view Loki as dead than let go of it.

But beyond that, there's the fact that he not only lets Loki out of the handcuffs, he gives Loki a knife. Once again, you don't give a weapon to someone you wouldn't trust not to kill you, and you don't trust someone you've had so much tension with not to kill you unless you believe they love you. Loki says "trust my rage" re: Frigga being killed, but I would argue that actually wouldn't go in his favor. Thor has seen what Loki resorts to when he's not processing his emotions in any way other than rage: he attacks Thor, he falls into perfidy, he just lashes out at the closest target. And even despite that, despite having fought Loki in Thor and in Avengers, having witnessed firsthand what destruction Loki was willing to either cause or help facilitate, Thor still gives him a weapon and trusts that Loki isn't going to kill him. There is clearly still a part of Thor that is saying he loves me, he's not going to kill me.

Of course, by the end of that movie, Thor is rewarded in his faith. Loki stabs Kurse to save Thor, and it appears to cost him his life, and as he's dying, what does Thor say? Stay with me. In essence, loving me so much you'll die for me isn't enough, love me so much you'll stay alive for me. It's not a rational thing to say to someone who appears to be bleeding out; a person can't generally stave off death on willpower alone when they've been stabbed in the gut. Thor always ends up speaking to Loki's heart, because he knows that heart is bitter and full of rage and grief but also love, even though Loki is absolutely horrible at expressing it most of the time. I want to talk about why Loki might've faked his death and taken Odin's place at the end of that movie in another post, but part of me really thinks he chose that specific way to fake his death because he wanted Thor to see that Loki did love him, and that was the only way he could think of to reach out without actually having to confront his own pain and the enormity of the breach between them. Now, the "I didn't do it for him" could be taken one of two ways: it was actually for Frigga, or it was actually for Thor. I'm very much inclined to believe the latter, as Thor is the one present in the scene. Also, the expression on Thor's face when Loki says that is so frozen, like yes, I wanted more than anything to be told that you still care, but not like this. And it feels like Loki is doing his best to communicate that he does love Thor, but his communication skills, especially with Thor, are severely distorted, partially by that unhealthy relationship they had early on where he most likely never felt entirely welcome to speak his true feelings, and partially by the chasm that opened between them when Loki went into his downward spiral of destruction, both of himself and of others. I genuinely think Loki doesn't know how to just say it. To quote myself from an earlier post I made about Loki, he feels like "there’s no way he can possibly repair the relationships he’s broken," so he doesn't try to apologize and make up for it. Like someone else (I forget who) has already said, sacrifice is the way Loki makes up for things. So he gives Thor this image of a sacrifice, the ultimate expression of love and devotion, because he doesn't know how else to say it.

What's the point of all this? Thor knew Loki loved him. That's the whole point of their story. Their love for each other is the cornerstone on which that immense cosmic narrative is built. Even with doubt, anger, bitterness, frustration, grief, pain all complicating their relationship and getting in the way of actually expressing love to each other, the fundamental truth of Thor and Loki is love. Is faith. Is hope. Is saying maybe you don't know how to say it, maybe you're trying to shut it down, but I know there is something in you that loves me and that's the part I choose to believe in.

Thor knew Loki loved him.

#I'm so sorry to the person who submitted this ask they were probably not looking for a post of this length #but I meditate on thor and Loki's dynamic night and day now apparently so I figured I might as well write it down #also if you've read the whole thing 🌟 here is a gold star for you #you're probably as nutty in the head as I am lol #I just cannot get enough of the way thor believes in loki #it's really quite beautiful #and it's all so sad because Loki just doesn't know how he can possibly get out of the hole he's dug so he digs in further #but thor always gives him another chance #my heart <\3 #thor #loki #thor 1 #thor the dark world #avengers #avengers 1 #character analysis #meta #character meta #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #emotional analysis #yeehaw #love #martianbugsbunny answers asks #martianbugsbunny opines

[theabyssgazesalsointoyou]

I don’t know if this has been asked before but assign a Taylor Swift song to each be more chill ship

i am ALWAYS up to talk about taylor swift songs and bmc ships you could ask me a hundred times

so. i have these playlists. the shorter ones i'll just post as screenshots. you can totally ask for elaboration on them lol

#orca answers #you may notice that some ships are missing. that is because i am lazy #but you can ask for those ships specifically and i'll answer lol #do i tag all this... just the four with actual playlist-length playlists #i'm so biased for richjake i'm sorry lmao 😭 #bmc #be more chill #boyf riends #pinkberry #richjake #royal pains

[liecoris]

»» @criticalcrux / @helluva-hazbins said:

Typically, the lives and unseemly undergoings taking place within Hell's seedy society would have very little of the King's attention but this time, something pulls at him, this is a woman he recognizes and he can't pull himself away. She'd just taken on an unfair battle having been clearly out-numbered. So he shifts his cane, tucks it under his arm, and offers his gloved hand out to help her stand. "Here, let me help. I've had my fair share of battle wounds." He's uncertain of all that he's witnessed but what he does know is that she's taken damage and shouldn't be left alone in a state of distress."You're a mess. How did you even get into this situation?"[from Lucifer Morningstar]

It was in moments like these where the difference between Mukuro's life in Hell when she was alive was almost one and the same。 Granted, that was a fact she wasn't at all surprised about but Mukuro couldn't help but at least internally comment on the comparison。

But at least here Mukuro had a little more power than she had back when she was alive。 Because even if she was outnumbered here, she was able to pose a decent enough challenge that she could survive the onslaught, it was by the skin of her teeth, but it was better than not at all。

Currently seated in a puddle of blood that was more her blood than of those she fought, Mukuro was taking a short respite to catch her breath and let her muscles relax a bit before she'd get up again。 While she was in this state, most of her hair had returned to its normal state save for the back of her head which remained in the form of multiple snakes, keeping a sort of watch while Mukuro recuperated slightly。 Which was what alerted her to Lucifer walking up before she lifted her head to watch, snakes poised to strike for a split second before recognition would set and their heads would dip respectfully before shifting back to the appearance of normal hair。

Even with a bloodstained vision, Mukuro could easily tell whose hand it was that offered her help。

「Thank you, Heika,」 Mukuro's hoarse voice rings out, her head dipping into a short bow before taking his hand and using him as a support to stand up on rather wobbly legs。 A short, dry laugh comes out of her throat when he states that she looks like a mess。 She felt like an absolute mess so she could only imagine what she looked like。

「Oh, you know, the standard group of men seeing a lone woman minding her own business and think " hey easy pickin's "。」

【 unprompted asks 】 ♡ 【 always accepting 】

#criticalcrux #helluva-hazbins #»» ʟᴏᴠᴇ ʙɪᴛᴇꜱ. || 💊 — hazbin hotel. #»» asks. || 💌 — ꜱʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴇ ᴀʟʟ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜱᴇᴄʀᴇᴛꜱ. #»» ic asks. || 🦊 — ʜᴀᴛᴇ ᴍᴇ ʟɪᴋᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴇᴀɴ ɪᴛ. #\\ sorry my reply got a bit long ;w ; #\\ you don't gotta match my length if/when you respond lol

[maddy-ferguson]

Ngl, I really think that these bylers that are crying 24/7 about "purity culture" or whatever, are playing dumb when they start with their "but Nancy and Steve were 16 and 17 in that scene of s1!!!1" like... We got introduced to these characters at that age and the people playing them were already adults. So yeah, sorry but I think it's easy to see why most viewers would be uncomfortable with a more sexual scene of Mike and Will and it's not automatically homophobia, I think that would be the case with any of the kids since we got introduced to these characters when they were 12 and the actors were babies as well. We literally saw those kids grow. And I'm not saying byler should only get to peck or hold hands, It'd be cool if they have their epic kiss or whatever, but Will hasn't even had his first kiss yet and some of these people are already talking about sex scenes, like... Be for real 😭

funny you should say that...because i've used the nancy was 15-16 in season one argument (last tag) before while also saying that i understand why people find the sex part of their sexualities uncomfortable to discuss. and i wanna reiterate that, again, i totally understand that people feel like they've seen them grow up etc etc and that they still think of the actors themselves as children even thought they're not anymore.

i don't think it's all homophobia because like you said, people would probably feel the same about lucas and max and discussions of sex (i don't know if anyone is discussing that because there's much less discourse to have there and you can't argue that people are homophobic if they disagree with you) but i don't think it would be justified either. the "but we knew the characters when they were little" argument makes me think me of an ancient disney channel/abc show that old people and girl meets world fans who watched it for the first time in the 2010s will know, boy meets world (1993-2000). classic comic of age show, look at these kids. and eric in the back (he's fifteen).

they're eleven at the start of the show and then, what happens in any coming of age story happens, you guessed it...

they grow up. this is them in the later seasons, when the main characters are still in high school i think. they grow up, they talk about sex and about having sex at prom in season five and then they don't have sex right away because they figure it's not the right time yet or something like that, and then they have sex later and get married, the details don't matter. but my point is, who watches a show for five seasons, over years and years and gets upset at the main characters having sex because "this is crazy they used to be children"? isn't that the point of coming of age stories that cover multiple years or that focus on the latter years of adolescence, that they're not children forever and that at one point the characters "come of age" which usually includes their first sexual experiences?

i don't think the having sex part is particularly important in stranger things but also it doesn't have to be for it to be portrayed (see jonathan and nancy), teenagers have sex, it's just the way the world works. i'm not advocating for sex scenes of any kind especially because stranger things isn't a show that features a lot of sex in general, the only "explicit" sex scene being nancy and steve in season one with cuts to barb dying, but i genuinely don't think the duffers would have any qualms about portraying teenage sexuality in general with the party. if they did, they wouldn't have included erica threatening lucas to tell dustin what she found under his bed (it wasn't the communist manifesto) and they wouldn't have had max looking at a shirtless steve for an amount of time that's supposed to make the audience laugh. it's been 7 years. if they do a time jump, the babies will be about 17, played by actors who will all be around 20, the age natalia was when filming season one. the characters are teenagers, babies grow up. it happens to the best of us. i get why people would find it uncomfortable and maybe i would find it uncomfortable too but i wouldn't be scandalized. the duffers had no problem having a child actor portray everything will goes through in seasons one and especially two, i really feel like sex is fine and...not traumatizing or hard to watch compared to every single thing will's gone through lol. and again, i'm not even expecting them to have sex lmao, but i wouldn't cry myself to sleep if they revealed that everyone in the party actually knows what sex is.

last question: do we have any indication that jonathan had talked to more than one other girl (the girl at the halloween party being the one girl i'm counting for him) before he got together with nancy. i'm just asking because of your last sentence, because if we don't he should have slowed down also😭

#yes i'm back to calling people old for no reason. <3 #saying that they will all be around 20 isn't a stretch because noah's turning 19 in 4 months and they haven't begun filming yet. thank you #i'm not mad at you anon sorry for not really agreeing with you and again i get where you're coming from and i don't even expect them to #have sex and if they did i would expect it to be implied like jonathan and nancy but yeah #what i mean when i say it's not particularly important in st is that i don't think they need to have sex for will's arc to be complete or #anything😭 #i would've been happy with jonathan and nancy only kissing in s2 like idc yk it's a detail #i'm not advocating for sex scenes means HERE in this case i'm not anti-sex scenes in general lmao #i didn't watch bmw over years and years i watched it in like. a month and a half maybe i really was not crying when cory started wanting to #have sex and i was 15...an impressionnable kid who knew what sex was...disheartening i know💔 #<- that wasn't me making fun of you anon lmao again i get where you're coming from i just respectfully disagree #i looked up the episode where they have sex and (spoiler alert lol) cory and topanga end up only having sex on their wedding night i think? #and that's not the episode in s5 i'm talking about but they consider having sex and talk about it so still bringing that one up #i found an article about something rider strong (shawn) said about not liking this episode because while they talk about sex at length they #never talk about safe sex and he even talked about his concerns to the showrunner because he thought it was irresponsible since yk young #viewers and all that and he was like maybe you don't get it different generations mine grew up with aids and everything this is really #important and he brushed him off! i thought that was interesting. this has nothing to do with st #ask

[welcometogrouchland]

for the drawing requests luz dressing up as eda for halloween if u feel like it xoxox

I ABSOLUTELY FEEL LIKE IT this was such a delightful request omg. Featuring some bonus clawthorne/Noceda family doodles because they come as a set. Do Not Separate Them

[ID: three images of digital fanart for the owl house. first image shows Luz dressed up as Eda's season 1 design, with her hair slicked back. she's posed mid-twirl, holding her dress in one hand, saying "surprise! I'm you. What do you think?". Next to her is a cartoony doodle of an emotional looking Eda.

The next image is a doodle of Luz and Eda dressed up as each other, looking at each other happily from a side view, labeled "they're matching".

Third image is a sketch page of Luz, Eda, Hunter and Lilith. It features a grinning Luz leaning on hunter saying "hey there sibling! How's my best brother doing?". She's labeled as "being a shit". Hunter looks unimpressed but has a thought bubble that says "sibling..." with a heart. Eda and Lilith are smiling, dressed as Luz and Hunter respectively. Eda says "remind you of anyone?" End ID]

#the owl house #toh #luz noceda #eda clawthorne #hunter toh #lilith clawthorne #i forgot to add in mentions/ideas of halloween but it's fine. you get the gist #that image of luz dressed up as eda at the top was. genuinely so difficult for me to draw i redraw it more times than i care to admit #like scrap it and start over #but like. it was good for me it was character building and i think it turned out cute anyway #hhh i always feel the need to cut down my toh image descriptions because i got used to doing very detailed ones for podcast fanart #cause it was more normalized there and ppl generally had more patience for a lot of words in an image id #and i get so nervous that my lengthy descriptions put ppl off rbing my stuff #(NOT that it matters i am much less insecure in my need for online validation than i used to be- #-i simply wish ppl would take a chance on posts with length-ier ids. it's an accessibility measure and all that) #(but hey I'm not your dad and don't control what u do or don't do) #anyway NO I didn't forget abt me asking for reqs i just need to finish up the second one and that was enough to get my brain working again #there's juice flowing in there now! i have drawing ideas!! huzzah!! #which is all i actually wanted from this specific bout of drawing reqs was just a creative jumpstart #sorry if this is a bit sketchy- that's all i was really up for when i made this lol. i think it's cute and that's goof enough #anyway yeah I'm gonna go read before sleeping now byyyeeee <3

[zingaplanet]

While I am personally horrified by the people Djokovic has associated with I am not sure I would call someone who often talks about peace and the need for education (and seemingly puts money into it too, if you don't trust his words) a genocide supporter? I have seen people from his home country and the neighbouring countries (on different sides of the war in question) express very different opinions on whether his actions are problematic or not. Can you share on what basis you formed that opinion? (which you are obviously entitled to, I'm just curious)

Hi! Yes of course, I actually like genuine scientific inquiries like this, I’ll do my best to answer it (and I’m going to answer this seriously because genocide is a serious topic). This is going to be a long answer, perhaps even separated into several posts (and i'm going to treat this like a scientific research cos i'm bored lol sorry), so bear with me. Now before I start, I’d like to point out that I don’t have a background in psychology, that being said I can’t scientifically prove nor deny whether certain words/actions indicate his support on the genocide in absolute (unless he explicitly said it on record) but I did my master’s research on genocide and have studied to a certain extent the Srebrenica massacre and I'm going to approach this from a political science perspective.

Let me start by saying that I am also not Slavic in any sense, thus resources available to me are those written not in the native tongue of their primary sources. But even in the most rigorous scientific research, you can never fully eliminate researcher’s socio-cultural bias, and for specific emotionally sensitive topic such as genocide, a third-party perspective is sometimes more beneficial for a detached overview free of personal affiliations.

Firstly, what you’re saying about Djokovic’s explicit statement about peace is to a large extent correct. For instance, he has publicly appeared in the UN General Assembly (the only tennis player to do so), to condemn the US military strikes against Syria (see here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tennis-open-djokovic-syria-idUSBRE98101W20130902). He even said, on the record, “I’m totally against any kind of weapon, any kind of air strike, missile attack”.

The reason I was willing to give him the benefit of a doubt (as we should actually always do to every person) is to go beyond what he explicitly has been seen as consciously doing (such as making statements on the record or public actions that can be picked up or traced by media). And this is because, public figures very very rarely actually tells the truth unprompted about sensitive political issues that are PERSONAL to them or that they are involved in (Hannah Arendt wrote a book about this! Called On Lying and Politics, it’s awesome check it out). To put it simply, it’s survival instincts and self-protection. This is why in political science we rarely ever found what is called the “smoking gun evidence” (this came from old detective stories where detectives actually found a gun that is “smoking” meaning it’s just been shot and behind the barrel, voila the undisputed murderer!), or the indefinite, absolute proof of someone doing something. You also cannot treat a statement that the suspected person CONSCIOUSLY made in presence of the public media (as in the case of his statements on the war in Syria) as indefinite grounds for his stance as they can very easily be pre-empted.

In political research, what we mostly found is non-definite, guiding evidences (called “straw in the winds”, "hoops", and other very pretentious terminologies if you wanna get technical lol see here) especially if it concerns very sensitive closed-door matters such as genocide. But I mention this because, if you find enough of these evidences, methodologists say that they can in a way substitute as strong enough convictions combined together (this of course needs more rigorous tests unapplicable here but the general logic is applicable everywhere, the method is called process tracing).

Now the reason this whole controversy about Djokovic started was because people simply started stalking him for his extreme nationalist political views. Now everyone is of course entitled to their own political beliefs and it is not my intention to go into a moral debate on the idea of nationalism itself (this is actually a branch of political philosophy that is still highly debated). But there is solid, ground evidence that political ideologies that are too extreme (left or right) induced dangerous policies threatening to human rights. One of the most prominent examples is far-right nationalism (or ultranationalism). The rise of this in 1940s triggered fascism with notions such as racial supremacy in WW2. Now, without going into detail into the history of Yugoslavia or the Bosnian war, political scientists have noted the rise of fascism in post-yugoslavian states. Far-right parties took power most notably in the newly formed Republic of Serbia. Far-right organizations also acted as paramilitaries and they committed crimes of humanities during the Bosnian and Kosovo wars. 

Now Djokovic was very little when the war occured and was only 8 when Srebrenica happened, how is it possible that he might show support or be associated with it? This is because the prosecution of war crimes in the Yugoslav wars didn’t happen until much later, and the political tension in the region hasn’t actually been fully resolved until now. That is to say, as you rightly state, the region itself is INCREDIBLY divided, with talks of race and ethnicity often a taboo, and genocide deniers are not hard to find, and far-right ideologies are still prominent in Serbia until now. And Djokovic, unfortunately, has demonstrated a lot of credible signs over the year (mostly unconsciously when he’s out of the public eye or actions that would not be understood widely outside of his region) that he is leaning towards this ultra-nationalist ideology and this far-right group.

First point of evidence is his clear stance on the Kosovo war (which is part of the larger Yugoslav war). After larger protests broke out in Belgrade over Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, Djokovic famously recorded a video saying “We are prepared to defend what is rightfully ours. Kosovo is Serbia.” After the Serbian national team won the ATP Cup in 2020, Djokovic, together with his teammates, sang nationalist songs, including “Vidovdan” — a common tune about Kosovo that featured prominently during the wars of the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

The Kosovo war is highly controversial but it was initially started as an insurgency movement to fight the Serbian prosecution of Kosovo Albanians (With around 9000 kosovar Albanians missing and 900,000 displaced during the war). Serbia never fully recognised Kosovo’s independence. In 2001 a Supreme Court, based in Kosovo and administered by the United Nations, found that there had been "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments", it was also a significant example of repressive Serbian ultranationalism. Asked in 2011 whether he regretted his actions, Djokovic told German magazine Der Spiegel “it is the birthplace of my family and, indeed, of Serbian culture itself.”

At the time, his father Srđan came to his defence with a controversial statement. “Novak is a nationalist, of course, and so am I,” 

There is thus no doubt that he is a fervent nationalist, but is he really an ultranationalist to the extent of tolerance towards mass killings in the name of his country? As I said, there has never been explicit statements, but there are enough background evidences that can point us in the right direction.

Now onto those people he was 'photographed with'. In 2021, Djokovic found himself criticised for his visit to Bosnia after photographs surfaced of his meeting with a commander Milan Jolovic of the “Drina Volves”, a unit that took part in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide where more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were summarily executed for their nominal Muslim faith. Jolovic has never been convicted of a war crime but he actually earned his nickname "The Legend" saving the life of former war criminal Ratko Mladic. In 2017, Mladic was convicted of war crimes and genocide (along with the Drina Volves) by independent international courts for his time as a commander in the Bosnian war during the 1990s.

The Drina Volves and the figures mentioned are prominent public personas in Serbia, their accolades and the international court ruling are available out in the open and well-known.

Secondly, far more convicting than being photographed together, Djokovic was reported and recorded associating, singing, and dancing alongside Milorad Dodik at the wedding of Nemanja Majdov, the Serbian athlete. Dodik is former chairman of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a well-known genocide denier in Serbia. He has publicly and widely been known to described the Srebrenica massacre as a "fabricated myth".

Bear in mind that Djokovic was not under scrutiny for simply being "in the same event" or even "in the same room", he also wasn't "photographed with" in the loose sense of merely standing side by side by chance as tabloid media often likes to exaggerate. He was recorded and photographed in action of INTERACTING with them (e.g., the photograph was taken on what was clearly a discussion in a civil dining table) which he chose to do so freely.

The third and perhaps most indicative notion of his stance on the genocide is his acceptance and public posting by himself on the pride he has in receiving the award of the order of the Republika Srpska, the highest order given by the region. Now bear in mind that the Republika Srpska is a separate entity from Serbia and is instead a predominantly Serbian region inside Bosnia and Herzegovina that housed most of the Serbs migrating from the Bosnian war after the Croatian and Bosnian massacres.

The problem was that this award has ONLY ever been given to those considered to have significantly contributed to progressing Serbian nationalism, and unfortunately this means 80% of the recipients are party to the war. Amongst others they include CONVICTED genocidaires Slobodan Milošević,  Ratko Mladić, Radovan Karadžić. Even its most progressive recent recipient Ana Brnabić, PM of Serbia since 2017 and the first OPENLY GAY woman to hold the office has consistently denied Srebrenica as genocide. This award ceremony is a big PUBLIC event, and its recipients are not in any way closeted.

Although there is always the benefit of a doubt that Djokovic as a public figure is simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, that he was ignorant of all this historical background, this seems incredibly far-fetched, if not impossible. It is difficult to imagine that someone from the region (especially one who grew up DURING the war), and who regularly travels and has access to international media, unless they CONSCIOUSLY choose to be misled over skewed historical information, does not know about this. Most of the war convictions were common knowledge, widely reported, and certainly something that people in the region would have heard about. The more plausible explanation is (as is the case with many ultranationalist party arguments at the moment), that possessing the knowledge, he CONSCIOUSLY chose not to believe or agree with it (either the conviction or the views over the mass atrocities during the war).

I admit that I might have used the word “supporter” liberally, but the repeat of association also supports the explanation that Djokovic did in fact at the very least TOLERATE or ACCEPT the mass atrocities committed as unproblematic, enough to repeatedly associate himself with the companies mentioned. As mentioned, a collated group of un-explicit, “straw in the wind” or “hoops” evidence that point to the same direction is relatively conclusive enough to determine his stance.

Here are the known facts: He's a self-identified fervent nationalist in support of far-right nationalist ideas, he chose to associate with the genocidaires repeatedly AND without showing remorse nor response towards the very public media criticism. If we go further by the plausible assumption (after eliminating the less likely presumption that he doesn't know anything about the people he chose to associate with), his acceptance of the award and clear pride of it can even indicate a conscious acceptance to be honoured in the same name as those he considered worthy of honouring, which sadly in this context are mostly genocide deniers and war criminals. This all builds up towards his "loose" moral stance on the genocide at least in the name of his nationalistic beliefs.

After this, judgment is left to each person’s moral compass but personally for me, in the face of atrocities as horrible as genocide, where human beings are treated like numbered animals to be slaughtered for “the greater purpose”, no matter what this century’s chosen purpose is, there is NO neutral stance, because silence or not condemning is equal to allowing these people to die.

Of course, this argument is in no way seeking to oversimplify the intensely complex conflict in the Balkan regions nor to deny the genocide that has occurred towards the Serbians during Ustashe regime. But condemning one genocide does not mean delegitimising another.

All I’m saying is, one should simply not assume that a certain person’s attitude towards a certain aspect of a larger issue (such as peace and human rights) implies a similar one to all other parts of the issue. Just like Djokovic’s stance on Srebrenica and the Bosnian war shouldn’t automatically denote him a peace-hating person, I think we should give him a much larger benefit of a doubt that his public statements and actions do not automatically cleanse him of his controversial views in genocide denial and ultranationalism, and even more possibly, taking into account the evidences, of his support for them.

Now I can’t put link sources to every single thing that I said here but if you are curious about any of them send me an ask and I’ll give you the source. Sorry for the long answer, but there you go!

#I'm putting this out once and for all #I did properly research this back then and i figured might as well just let it out now #sorry for the jstor length rant but there you go! hahaha #i've got noth else to say after this lol pls stop asking me questions about novak #tennis #novak djokovic #politics #srebrenica #bosnia #serbia #war #genocide

[hella1975]

happy eurovison!! do your stretches!!!

babe it's been days since i did my stretches at this point im too scared

#in my defence idk WHAT was going on with my sunday shift bc i only waitressed 7 hours and that's a pretty normal shift for me #like im aware compared to a normal person it would be very difficult to just out of nowhere expect them to be on their feet #walking back and forth the entire length of a restaurant regularly carrying heavy things all the while keeping up ABOVE AND BEYOND socially #for SEVEN ENTIRE HOURS with ZERO BREAK like masking that entire time on top of the 7 hour physical workout #like it's insane if u think about it for more than 2 seconds and im really trying to bc every time i falter i beat the shit out of myself #and like? NO? my job is actually very physically demanding and emotionally draining compared to most people's day-to-day activity #it's gonna have impacts sometimes! #so yeah long story short i finished my shift sunday and when i tell you my legs LOCKED UP in bed that night #like mainly my thighs but it was all in my hips and knees and it was so bad that i lay there until 2am before getting painkillers #bc i couldnt hack it #which is SAYING SOMETHING for me bc im normally both quite good with pain and also a hardass for taking painkillers #ive had that happen once before (again after waitressing lol) & never worried about it but my mum recently got diagnosed with arthritis #and ever since ive been like. Looking at my own joints any time they even HINT at playing up #like i am RENOWNED for inhereting all of my mum's medical shit from mental to physical like i KNOW i'll get it it's just a matter of when #and yeah that was sunday it's now tuesday and my thighs STILL feel bruised #and im like. embarassed about it bc it's not like i did anything spectacular? and idk why it's happening? #yeah idk hiiii rori did u like me ranting about my physical health in ur stretch reminder ask sorry do u still think im hot <3 #ask

[queenharumiura]

“this is the only way to keep you safe.” [ protector starters ]

Taken from meme: [x] ||Accepting|| @parallelroutes

Haru was quickly trying to calm Lambo down, who was crying. “Shhh shhh, Lambo-chan, it’s okay. See? It’s not bleeding anymore. I’m fine, I’m not dying.” Well, she doubts that she’d die from being shot in the leg—but she digresses. Honestly, she’s shocked by how dastardly this … who were they again? Moto… no, wasn’t it Momo? Momo… Momoyaki! (Her habit of not memorizing names properly if she doesn't like them strikes again!) They sure had balls of steel to shoot someone in public like this. She had to admit that they really knew how to make a statement. Shoot someone in the leg, it makes it a lot harder for them to run away, so that increases the fear factor.

In that moment of her dropping to the ground after being shot in the leg, the only thing she could think about (aside from how much it hurt, of course) was the fact that Lambo had to get out of there. She was purposefully targeted and Lambo could be the next target. The possession of firearms was illegal in Japan (unless you were military or police), so this was a planned operation. Lambo refused to leave her side, declaring that he was going to stay with her and get her to safety.

The heat of the moment of her desperately trying to send Lambo off made her blind to everything else, including the fact that Byakuran had at one point arrived. It was so chaotic around them with onlookers screaming in terror that someone actually got shot in Japan that she didn’t notice his presence until she felt a hand on her thigh. She shivers at the weird sensation of what she knew was his uncanny ability to heal people. When her leg was fine, she looks up at him to thank him, but her breath hitches.

It didn’t take a genius to realize he was mad, but surely not at her (or so she’s hoping)? She is about to say something when she hears Lambo crying on the phone talking to someone. He capitalized on the fact her attention was elsewhere to make a call. “Wait, Lambo-chan. Who are you calling—Eh? What was that?” She heard Byakuran say something before he left her side, but with everything going on all at once, it was hard to focus.

#Parallelroutes #Meme answered #Answered ask #Thanks for the ask! #Haru speaks #((Muse; Byakuran)) #((I did my best. Figured this would make sense for him to say something like that?)) #((Sorry if I got anything wrong- wheeze I tried)) #((Well- they obviously didn't play their cards right lol)) #((Would you believe me if I said I tried to keep the length down bc it is a starter meme? lol)) #(Byakurankun02)

[thedevillionaire]

16 for the questions list?

16) Do you have a comfort OC? And if so why? What do you like best about them? Do you relate to them in ways?

This is such a multilayered answer for me, but I'll try to make it not excessively ridiculous. 😅 Under the cut, because...it's probably going to get at least a bit ridiculous.

Cerberus is my favourite OC, and he has been so for over half my life now. Literally. (I'm figuring comfort equates to favourite here, at least in the aspects that count, for the purposes of quizzery.) As to why...I'm not entirely sure. He wasn't supposed to be. He was, in fact, introduced as a one-shot plot device - he was never supposed to hang around, let alone become my all-time lead character. Retrospectively, I probably shouldn't have been surprised; takeover is kind of what he does. And I'd like to say that the reason he so rapidly and indelibly became my favourite is because of something edifying and deeply meaningful, but I strongly suspect the actual initial reason is that appearance-wise he's my physical ideal. Basically I find him hot as hell, and it seems that on one (ongoing) level I'm just an entire reactive hormone or something. 🤣 Personality-wise, he's probably particularly aspirational for me in areas I have limited skills with - his confidence and self-sufficiency in particular, I think. And I envy his power, and I mean that literally, not so much in the leader sense but the magickal aspects of what he can do. Things that this world does not provide. I have long thought that people who say "If you can dream it, you can do it!" have crap imaginations. Because I promise...I cannot. (Curse you, the laws of physics.) And all my OCs have powers of some sort, but his are my personal faves, and he's the absolute best at them, and I'm an idealist and an escapist, and so since I cannot do the dream? I will continue to dream it. A lot. Vividly. Cerberus and Kia together, as a couple, however, have absolutely become a comfort pairing, and one I love all the more for how massively unexpected it was. I've been blindsided by a lot of my OCs in myriad ways over the years, but this really took the whole damn cake. I'd known Cerberus for 11 years before they met; if you'd said to me back then that he'd prove himself to be the most romantic OC I have, I'd have laughed and said you must be thinking of someone else. So, uh, anyway... 👀 No other OC pairing of mine even come close. He's both entirely predictable and entirely unpredictable, in different ways, about different things, and perhaps that's the heart of it. I love that I can't control him. It drives me nuts that I can't control him. But whatever it is, he's been my favourite for a very long time. I'm not above planting two silver birch trees in my garden, though.

PS: (like this isn't long enough already, dear lord) I have a whole damn lot of OCs, and there are a select few others who have, at various points of my life, taken over the primary story in my head and become for that time my main focus, but snzblr hasn't met them. All are very different personalities to Cerberus, and their storylines are also quite different. Inasmuch as I have actual storylines, that is.

#thank you so much for the ask! #sorry for the late reply - my notifications thought that playing games might be fun or something #i'm not sure this answers anything clearly or not #despite its length lol #but i love thinking about this sort of thing #and the analysis it brings

[lookbluesoup]

Random question time!

Has Lyrha ever been to Old Sharlayan and Thavnair? Does/would she like it there?

How does Nahte'to find the Myths of the Realm raids? What does it mean to him, meeting (and fighting) the Twelve? And how does he get along with that Deryk fellow?

Thank you so much for the ask! :3

1. Lyrha's been to both Sharlayans thanks to Nahte dragging the Red Mages into Scion business! She also visited the abandoned colony as part of her training with Arya and X'rhun, during the RDM questline. She didn't really understand why they'd ditch such a well-built place with so much wealth and technology... until she landed in their main city and met the populace. Suffice to say her friendship with the Scions was not enough to stop her from robbing Fourchenault of various important looking knick-nacks and leaving a dead fish in one of his locked desk drawers. She says he was asking for it.

Before then, she never had much reason to set foot in either, although the seas around them? Those she can navigate like a pro! I'lyrha is... very extremely extra wanted in Thavnair. As a trading hub between East and West, she worked with many a crew during her pirating days to harass ships coming and going. It's possible she earns a pardon over the course of Endwalker, at the Scion's intervention... but for most of the Blasphemy business, she's in Ala Mhigo with X'rhun, so she's not done much to foster reparations with Thavnair or Radz-at-Han. I don't see that being resolved, at least for the moment.

She probably did visit it a few times before she became notorious, and I think she would have enjoyed its bright colors and vibrant people. The giant eyeball carving "watching" the way into Radz-at-Han though? Terrifying. Very sus.

---

2. At the time you asked this I had gotten as far as unlocking Aglaia and then... been too scared to touch current expac raid content for months since. So a double thank you for the ask because I finally faced my fear and did both it and Euphrosyne this past week. Though I spent a lot of Euphrosyne dead on the floor (They call me Rez Mage because I need a rez. Again.) now I actually have enough context to answer this LOL

Nahte has struggled with his faith a LOT through MSQ. He was fairly devout about Menphina until Dalamud exploded into a Primal. Things started to get a little shaky after that...

But when Hydaelyn spoke to him, CHOSE him? He really believed in the cause. He wanted to be her champion, to serve as he was called. As it progressed... a lot of things she did, or didn't do, or omitted/lied about, effectively crippled Nahte's faith in the gods and any trust he had that their goals aligned. Especially after finding out the second moon was also artificial. If he couldn't believe in the Mothercrystal, how could Menphina be different? (His journey through THAT and his feelings about Venat are a whole other essay)

While he'd made peace with a lot of it and generally preferred men be masters of their own fate, there were a lot of unresolved emotional wounds that I think... true to his fashion, Nahte hadn't even realized he was carrying, he'd pushed them so far back.

When he first got to The Omphalos, he was ready to throw hands with another bout of Primals. But this situation is different. Gods like Nald'thal and Halone have been far kinder than he anticipated, none of them have demanded reverence, and they're not aether-sucking vampires.

He doesn't exactly trust them, especially knowing Hydaelyn had a hand in it all. But it's started to pull on some of those loose threads in his mind, and a lot of those wounds are starting to actually show.

Menphina... has so far been everything he could have hoped or wanted her to be. Her love for life, her compassion, her inquisitive nature - her genuine ache to help those who call out to her... that's been healing in a way he didn't know he needed. I think the pulse of drawing that pain out has probably brought him to tears intermittently.

She might not be an omnipotent deity. But so far, at least, she hasn't disappointed him. She's been the embodiment of unconditional, innocent, genuine love that he grew up putting faith in - and the idea that she did hear him, every time he reached out, even when he had doubts... that someone up there was watching, and did care, and didn't see him as a pawn on a millennia-spanning chessboard is a pretty big deal.

More than that, her core purpose is described as not simply presiding over the moon - but also the turn of night and day in a cycle. Something that would certainly encourage Nahte, who in the past often struggled with balancing his Moonkeeper and Sunseeker halves.

I've struggled to break down Nahte's feelings about this in a coherent way but essentially... it's an opportunity for him to reconcile the part of himself that is very spiritual - which was badly wounded by years fighting false gods, with the wisdom he's gained that beliefs shape reality, and his firm desire to determine his own fate. They can coexist - logic, faith, and pain need not be in conflict.

Whether all this arc will ultimately give him any more healing with regards to Hydaelyn, or simply salt the wounds... I'm not sure! We'll have to see how it all resolves. I've been surprised too many times from Shadowbringers onward to reliably speculate.

As for Deryk, Nahte likes him! Nahte can certainly relate to the wanderlust, though he personally finds it more fulfilling to travel with friends at his side. He's... pretty sure the Opo-opo is Oschon. He hasn't asked it, but there have been a few very long bouts of staring back and forth at each other.

#i hope thats coherent i am so sorry about the length LOL #thank you again for asking #gave me lots to think about :3 #ffxiv #nahte'to vhia #lyrha #art #my art #text #endwalker spoilers #long post #menphina