#they won't have a form like they want

[rainbowangel110]

Just finished Gem Drill.

That was actually kind of bittersweet.

#forever in the dark #they won't have a form like they want #they have each other #maybe one day they can form themselves individually #maybe one day they'll all get out #maybe one day they'll be free #but not today #they can't #if they form they kill everything #forming the cluster hurts them all #so for now they're all bubbled together #... why am I tearing up over a giant gem ball? #the part where they bubbled one another to help Steven #that. wow #they were in pain until the bubbling #they're probably still in some pain #Hopefully it'll fade away #steven universe #just posting

[inkskinned]

one of the things that i think we should pay attention to, socially, about the disney v. desantis thing is that it is really highlighting the importance of remembering nuance.

in a purely neutral sense, if you engage in something problematic, that does not mean you are necessarily agreeing with what makes it problematic. and i am worried that we have become... so afraid of any form of nuance.

disney isn't my friend, they're a corporate monopoly that bastardized copyright laws for their own benefit, ruin the environment, and abuse their workers (... and many other things). this isn't a hypothetical for me - i grew up in florida. i also worked for the actual Walt Disney World; like, in the parks. i am keenly aware of the ways they hurt people, because they hurt me. i fully believe that part of the reason florida is so conservative is because it's been an "open secret" for years now that disney lobbies the government to keep minimum wage down, and i know they worked hard to keep the parks unmasked and open during the worst parts of Covid. they purposefully keep their employees in poverty. they are in part responsible for the way the floridian government works.

desantis is still, by a margin that is frankly daunting, way worse. the alternative here isn't just "republicans win", it's actual fascism.

in a case like this, where the alternative is to allow actual fascism into united states legislation - where, if desantis wins, there are huge and legal ramifications - it's tempting to minimize the harm disney is also doing, because... well, it's not fascism. but disney isn't the good guy, either, which means republicans are having a field day asking activists oh, so you think their treatment of their employees is okay?

we have been trained there is a right answer. you're right! you're in the good group, and you're winning at having an opinion.

except i have the Internet Prophecy that in 2-3 months, even left-wing people will be ripping apart activists for having "taken disney's side". aren't i an anti-capitalist? aren't i pro-union? aren't i one of the good ones? removed from context and nuance (that in this particular situation i am forced to side with disney, until an other option reveals itself), my act of being like "i hope they have goofy rip his throat out onstage, shaking his lifeless body like a dog toy" - how quickly does that seem like i actually do support disney?

and what about you! at home, reading this. are you experiencing the Thought Crime of... actually liking some of the things disney has made? your memories of days at the parks, or of good movies, or of your favorite show growing up. maybe you are also evil, if you ever enjoyed anything, ever, at all.

to some degree, the binary idealization/vilification of individual motive and meaning already exists in the desantis case. i have seen people saying not to go to the disney pride events because they're cash grabs (they are). i've seen people saying you have to go because they're a way to protest. there isn't a lot of internet understanding of nuance. instead it's just "good show of support" or "evil bootlicking."

this binary understanding is how you can become radicalized. when we fear nuance and disorder, we're allowing ourselves the safety of assuming that the world must exist in binary - good or bad, problematic or "not" problematic. and unfortunately, bigots want you to see the world in this binary ideal. they want you to get mad at me because "disney is taking a risk for our community but you won't sing their praises" and they want me to get mad at you for not respecting the legit personal trauma that disney forced me through.

in a grander scheme outside of disney: what happens is a horrific splintering within activist groups. we bicker with each other about minimal-harm minimal-impact ideologies, like which depiction of bisexuality is the most-true. we gratuitously analyze the personal lives of activists for any sign they might be "problematic". we get spooked because someone was in a dog collar at pride. we wring our hands about setting an empty shopping mall on fire. we tell each other what words we may identify ourselves by. we get fuckin steven universe disk horse when in reality it is a waste of our collective time.

the bigots want you to spend all your time focusing on how pristine and pretty you and your interests are. they want us at each other's throats instead of hand in hand. they want to say see? nothing is ever fucking good enough for these people.

and they want their followers to think in binary as well - a binary that's much easier to follow. see, in our spaces, we attack each other over "proper" behavior. but in bigoted groups? they attack outwards. they have someone they hate, and it is us. they hate you, specifically, and you are why they have problems - not the other people in their group. and that's a part of how they fucking keep winning.

some of the things that are beloved to you have a backbone in something terrible. the music industry is a wasteland. the publishing industry is a bastion of white supremacy. video games run off of unpaid labor and abuse.

the point of activism was always to bring to light that abuse and try to stop it from happening, not to condemn those who engage in the content that comes from those industries. "there is no ethical consumption under late capitalism" also applies to media. your childhood (and maybe current!) love of the little mermaid isn't something you should now flinch from, worried you'll be a "disney adult". wanting the music industry to change for the better does not require that you reject all popular music until that change occurs. you can acknowledge the harm something might cause - and celebrate the love that it has brought into your life.

we must detach an acknowledgment of nuance from a sense of shame and disgust. we must. punishing individual people for their harmless passions is not doing good work. encouraging more thoughtful, empathetic consumption does not mean people should feel ashamed of their basic human capacities and desires. it should never have even been about the individual when the corporation is so obviously the actual evil. this sense that we must live in shame and dread of our personal nuances - it just makes people bitter and hopeless. do you have any idea how scared i am to post this? to just acknowledge the idea of nuance? that i might like something nuanced, and engage in it joyfully? and, at the same time, that i'm brutally aware of the harm that they're doing?

"so what do i do?" ... well, often there isn't a right answer. i mean in this case, i hope mickey chops off ron's head and then does a little giggle. but truth be told, often our opinions on nuanced subjects will differ. you might be able to engage in things that i can't because the nuance doesn't sit right with me. i might think taylor swift is a great performer and a lot of fun, and you might be like "raquel, the jet fuel emissions". we are both correct; neither of us have any actual sway in this. and i think it's important to remember that - the actual scope of individual responsibility. like, i also love going to the parks. Thunder Mountain is so fun. you (just a person) are not responsible for the harm that Disney (the billion dollar corporation) caused me. i don't know. i think it's possible to both enjoy your memories and interrogate the current state of their employment policies.

there is no right way to interrogate or engage with nuance - i just hope you embrace it readily.

#does this make sense #to do be deleted probably yikes #(takes a swing at a wasp's nest) #like i think ppl have started to just be really quiet when they like something 'problematic' #and im like... u can be like - #girl tswift NEEDS to just TAKE A BUS . LIKE????????????????????? #while also being like. #''she's a lot of fun'' #if ur personal policy is that u don't support her for that reason that's great #but it's like. eating meat??? #like yeah some people won't bc the environment. but the fact i eat meat doesn't mean i hate the earth #like i can say that i think the meat industry is HORRIFIC and also downright cruel to its employees #but like. still enjoy a chicken nugget.... #there are people who choose otherwise. it's okay . we are people. i make like no money. u probably don't either #us fighting about whether or not it's Right To Eat The Chicken Tender just distracts from like. #actually turning your ire on the corporation #i hope it's clear what i'm saying here is like. when we fight each other for Purity Reasons #we are just doing the work of corporations . for free. like they WANT us to be doing this lol #it's the fucking DREAM of the upperclass that now ALL forms of responsibility fall on the individual

[kenobihater]

of all the star wars movies, which of them do y'all 1) enjoy the most 2) consider the best quality and 3) think you've rewatched the most. add your answers in the reblogs or replies, i'm genuinely curious how much of an overlap there is within everyone's three answers. mine don't overlap at all! they're revenge of the sith, empire strikes back, and the force awakens :^)

#len speaks #star wars #revenge of the sith #empire strikes back #the force awakens #not tagging more films than that bc i cant b bothered. incoming tag ramble ahead bc i have sw brainrot rn and im making it everyones prob❤️ #i rlly struggled 2 remember if id watched tfa or aotc more. i went w/ tfa bc it was formative to me as a teen and ive seen it probably 6ish #times? whereas aotc was the first sw movie i remember (specifically the scene of obiwan serving c*nt in the bar lmao) but i've only seen it #for sure 4.5 and maybe 5.5 times. the .5 is from when i got bored after obi-wan's scene ended and ran off to go play in the mud or smthn 😭 #i'm sure tfa will eventually get surpassed in number of rewatches by aotc and rots bc i don't fw the direction of the ST but that's my #current ballpark estimate of my total number of rewatches #as an adult tho if i just wanna watch a star war i'll go with aotc bc it's fun and ends semihappily and i can turn my brain off for the #spinny lightsabers. it's great background noise or for if you're sick or whatever. rots on the other hand? i won't talk through that unless #i'm quoting it with my brother and i am LOCKED IN 100% entirely entranced by it all #i almost picked rogue one for the best quality answer but i think the character writing is weaker and the facial cgi is creepy. esb beats #it by a hair imho bc of that. the vader hallway scene goes hard tho!!! #also i'm not covering shows or games or books or anything else in this post - simply the films. might ask abt shows later but that might #also give me hives bc so many of the shows suck ass and i don't rlly want ppl extolling the virtues of t.bb in my notes 💀 #and yes i do think one's enjoyment and one's opinion of quality are two things that often overlap. but sometimes you just like something #bad and that's awesome. like rots is the best of the prequels by a large margin and i adore the opening and characters and many of the #scenes but that doesn't mean it's the best star wars has to offer ykwim? it's my specialest most favoritest sw movie but that doesn't blind #me to the dialogue lmfaooo

[mayhemspreadingguy]

... I've read this amazing fic from arialerendeair:

and then got inspired to sketch something quick and wild... Perhaps I went more batshit crazy than what was expected 😂

And if the idea of nightmare!Hob sounds interesting to you them definitely go read the fic, it's great!

#i think im gonna see so many things that I'd like to change about the sketch tomorrow #but i really want to post it because i won't have the time to draw tomorrow anyways #it doesn't even matter it's just a quick little thing but like #my brain sometimes just won't shut up #and it's very late in my timezone so i really shoul go to sleep #also also i know the nightmare form doesn't quite match the description but it got out of my hand real quick #nightmare!hob #dreamling #mayhem art

[rmbunnie]

Red Hood Characterization

This is really long so I'm putting a cut here, I've been thinking about Jason Todd's character motivations and the question of whether or not his actions are based in a Moral Code (I don't think so, not to say he's without any morality) and I talk about that in more depth here.

I saw someone say on here that Titans: Beast World: Gotham City was some of the best Jason Todd internal writing they'd seen in a while, and I've been a Red Hood fan for 8 years or so now? pretty much since I read comics for the first time, so I went and checked out and I thought it was good! The way the person I saw talking about it as if it was rare and unusual made me wonder though, because as well-written as i thought his stances on crime were, there wasn't really anything in it that went against the way I conceptualize Jason?

This kinda plays into a larger question I've been thinking about for a while with Jason though, which is that, do people think that the killing is part of a fundamental worldview that motivates him a la batman, and that worldview is the reason he does the things he does?? Because 8 years ago i was a middle schooler engaging with fiction on the level that a middle schooler does, so I simply did not put much thought into it beyond "poor guy :(" but ever since I actually started trying to understand consistent characterization, I don't really see Jason as someone who's motivated by a moral code in his actions the way batman or superman is!

tbh my personal read is that he's a very socially-motivated guy, his actions from resurrection to his Joker-Batman ultimatum in utrh always seemed to me like every choice made leading up to his identity reveal was either a. to give him the leverage and skill necessary to pull off his identity reveal successfully, or b. to twist the knife that little bit more when he does let Bruce find out who he is. Like iirc there's a Judd Winick tweet like "yeah tldr he chose Red Hood as his identity because it's the lowest blow he could think of." And I think that's awesome, I think character motivations rooted so deeply in character's relationships and emotions are really fun to read! I also think it's where the stagnation/flatness of his character comes from in certain comics, because if his main motivation is one event in one relationship that passes, and he is not particularly attached to anything in his life or the world by the time that comes to pass, it's a little harder to come up with a direction to go with the character after that, because there isn't much of a direction that aligns with something the character would reasonably want? But I do think solving this by saying "all of the morally-off emotionally driven cruelty he did on his way to spite Batman was actually reflective of his own version of Batman's stance that's exactly the same except he thinks it's GOOD to kill people" isn't ideal. To be fully honest, it seems to me like he never particularly cared one way or the other about killing people to "clean Gotham of crime," he just did everything he could to get the power necessary to pull off his personal plans, and took out any particularly heinous people he encountered along the way (like in Lost Days.) Not to say I think the fact he killed people keeps him up at night anymore than everything else in his life events, I just never really thought he was out there wholeheartedly kneecapping some dude selling weed or random guy robbing a tv store for justice.

Looping wayyy back to my question, Is this (^) contradictory to the way he's written/the overall average perception of the character? Because like I enjoyed his writing in Beast World i have zero significant issue with anything there, I just didn't believe it would be a hot take, like yeah, that is Jason. It's been a while since I've read utrh and lost days, but I don't think my takeaway directly contradicts either of those too bad iirc. Idk all this to say I think Jason killing and being alright with killing is an obvious and objective fact, but i guess i've always seen it as more of a practical tactic than a moral belief, and I think taking the actions made during the lowest points of a character's life where he is obsessively focused on this ONEEEE thing and trying to apply it as a Motivating Stance to everything he's done after that, doesn't really follow logically for me.

#edit: i am so so open to discussion and disagreement on this but please try to have something substantial to say. god bless! #like ofc jason kills but to me it was less “everyone I've ever killed deserves death objectively” #and more “when people are dead they stop doing things like heinous atrocities and trying to kill me" #i don't even think he wanted the joker dead (only) because he thinks he objectively morally deserves death #although the joker is one of the most extreme cases possible and he if does think that he's VERY justified #i really do think it was just about bruce #and wanting bruce to avenge him to show he loved him and he mattered and wanting his dad to give him security #all the killing was about the clown and everything with the clown was about bruce #i've NEVER forgotten the bit in lost days where he has the joker tied up at gunpoint and doesn't kill him #i think if it was only about a moral greater good situation he would have taken him out then and there #if you disagree i'd love to hear why provided you can be civil and not an jerk #also if you disagree PLEASE PLEASE put screenshots and comic issues if possible #i'd love to check them out and form my own stance on them #just know that if you say like. battle for the cowl. or the Tom King batman annual or something i probably won't care too much #comic characterization is ever-changing and inconsistent i truly believe that the best thing to do is just read the important stuff #and try to form your own stances from there #because there's never gonna be 100% of comics involving a character that align with each other perfectly and that's just a given #jason todd #red hood #dc comics

[miraclesprinkle]

No memories remain of anything before

Yes, I'm with you in a garden of carnage

In a mayhem of trickster and tricked!

#amphibia #marcy wu #my art #okokok so- #i'm gonna do my best to explain this #because most of the art i make is some form of abstract/surreal #and most have a deeper meaning that will only makes sense to me and me only #but this one i wanna try and explain #anyway- #so it's supposed to represent conversation with yourself #like a shower argument if you will #but like talking to yourself #and enjoying the convo because nobody else but you will #like marcy could talk to anne or sasha about whatever but they wouldn't like or participate at all in the way marcy both wants/needs #so the only person marcy can have a real conversation with is herself #that's why the phone isn't connected to anything #what they're talking about isn't for anyone else to listen to #it's just for them because they know nobody else won't talk to them like they can #but that's it #hope that made any sense lmao

[irregularbillcipher]

i'm so sick of people who use the fact that mabel is very much like bill (yes, true!) and that bill even likes mabel (again, yes, true!) and understands her in some ways (again yes!!! true!!!!!!!!!! what was the bubble but a party that never ends with a host that never dies?) and then twist it to fuel their mabel hate. like for one, every pines family member has some deep commonalities with bill because he's an effective villain and plays off the heroes of the story so well! but ALSO because it completely disregards how their core philosophies about the world and people around them differ and it bums me out

i have said this before, exactly like this, and i will say it again. the main difference between bill and mabel is that bill finds the universe and the people in it constricting and dull and frustrating while mabel sees the beauty in dull people and things and sees them as full of potential. bill sees something boring, he destroys it, mabel sees something boring, she gets out her glitter glue. mabel is so filled to the brim with love and affection for others and such a wild desire to make everyone, including herself, happy at all times, and bill is trying so hard to be happy that he deliberately hurts people, ruins his own life, ruins the lives of everyone around him and then doesn't understand why he's so miserable. like these two are fascinating because they are both remarkably similar and WILDLY different and, most importantly, they are interesting to look at as foils because mabel is a good person

#that being said i do love aus where bill is like stuck on some human form or some shit and has a weird friendship with mabel #like she doesn't forgive him and he sucks but she's the only one who he actually gets along with/who gives him the time of day #they have an animal crossing island together where they deliberately pick all the ugliest villagers and gift them the ugliest clothes #bill is doing it because he thinks eyesores are fun and funny and mabel picked 'em because she wants the most unloved #villagers to feel loved and happy so her island is a sanctuary. also she thinks the ugly clothes are cute #i won't hear mabel slander btw i just won't! sorry!

[keydekyie]

okay but werebear au tho

#he is eating her expensive protein bars #I imagine in this au they're roommates along with Matilda and Lila and Kaelin's going to technical school for welding #and Ruyak claims he's also going to the same school but he's actually just trying to hide from his family #who are like... werebear cultists or something idk #but he's like SO bad at keeping in his human form that Kaelin finds out he's a werebear like immediately #werecreatures in my headworld are pretty fun I like them #they don't exactly keep their human minds in their animal form but are instead just the animal version of their human mind #like they remember who everyone is and they have the same personality it's just that their priorities and intelligence are a little differe #not lesser just different #like Ruyak in human form would know Kaelin doesn't want him to eat all her fancy protein bars #but Ruyak in bear form would be like... she won't notice I'll just eat one #not really processing that she's in the next room over #and can hear him rummaging around in the cabinets #tmatb #tmatb au #werebear au

[icewindandboringhorror]

a quite simple outfit, trying to use the little blue and white apron thing (which is actually a dress I think, that I just leave un-buttoned in the back and added an apron-like tie to lol)

#self #mori kei #jfashion #NOT really but like.. it's.. adjacent I guess.. forgive me .. I may try using tags again though I kind of got out of the habit ghhj #I need to be... Seen to some degree. I want to start selling clothes and sculptures again to recoup the costs of having to euthanize my cat #and stuff . but that won't be very successful if I have like.. 15 people to sell to lol... #the eternal Hermit Conflict where you hate attention and Being Percieved in general yet in todays capitalist society it is nearly #a necessity to have some form of social network or media presence especially in creative fields. etc. etc. ... kicking screaming wailing #sobbing so on and so forth.. tearfully punching the cold mossy stone walls of my evil wizard tower... #I was also thinking of maybe opening a few sculpture commission slots and maybe Tumblr Blazing that post or something #but.. again.... sobbing crying interacting with the general public oughhf ouuch -500 HP #why can't I just be approached by some wealthy 65 year old woman who is nonsensically infatuated with my art for no #reason and gives me like $10.000 a week for food and art supplies and etc. and I can go fuck off into a cabin in the middle of nowhere #in the uk and just be left alone to work on my projects without even needing to build any form of connections or social presence because I' #already set for life and can just get funding and connections whenever lol.. WHICH not to be ungrateful like obviously I still appreciate #anyone who follows and interacts with my posts. I dont mean it in a 'grrr fuck all of you imbeciles I wish I could delete my blog!!!' or #whatever hhjkjk.. I just mean it more in a like.. I am very socially inept and my mental illness gives me severe social issues so any situ #tion where I'm expected to self promote or network or interact with others generally is nightmarish and stressful for many many reasons #and if I could somehow skip that part and just go straight to being a famous author or somethin.. that would be cool. Which I know EVERYONE #hates networking and stuff but I mean like.. on a level most people could not possibly comprehend.. I am not just an 'introvert'. I am like #doctors declare me incapable of functioning in general society very poor mental health prognosis probably should have a caretaker at #some point type Hermit lol.. ANYWAY ghbhj... alas.. I also feel weird about the sculptures in terms of what to charge for them #and always have which is part of why I stopped selling them. If I charged a fair even like $15 an hour many of them would be like #close to $150+. and nobody is going to pay that for a decoration. that doesn't even factor in like.. supplies or time spent communicating/s #etching the concept (if a commission) etc. etc. I thought it'd be better to just auction them then and let people pay what they want inst #d of a set price but etsy doesnt allow auctions and is it weird to just.. link people to an Art Ebay or something lol.. #AAAANYWAY.. the outfit.. I still love these shoes. they're nice and a little Older Style looking. always into pastel florals too lol #(everything is thrifted as usual. excited about the shirt because it's so puffy! it was in the halloween section though ghjhj.. like when i #s october and they make the special aisle in goodwill for 'Costume' clothes even though theyre all just normal stuff I would wear ghg)

[panharmonium]

something about how yamato’s immediate and instinctive first reaction is to call out for itachi when all twelve of these coffins (including the ones containing asuma and hayate) open up at exactly the same time is really hitting me in a certain way right now

#naruto #team ro #a true equal #* #something about how it's preceded by naruto calling out for nagato #because naruto isn't calling out for nagato as an enemy now but as a friend #something about how this filler arc is supposed to take place directly AFTER the five kage summit #aka after 'madara' tells kakashi and yamato the truth about the uchiha massacre #something about how even if kakashi and yamato aren't sure yet whether 'madara' was just lying to destabilize the leaf at the outset of war #still. the minute yamato sees itachi. it's like this #and then kabuto whisks itachi's casket away before yamato can get to him #before yamato can ask 'is it true is that true is that what happened to you' #like. i am constantly thinking about this. i am constantly thinking about how urgent itachi becomes in S14 #when naruto says that kakashi and yamato heard 'madara's' story too but don't yet have any proof that it's true #(''then PLEASE naruto; you MUSTN'T tell anyone about this! you cannot let the uchiha clan's name be tarnished!'') #and i'm thinking about how itachi reacts like this because he KNOWS kakashi and yamato won't cover this up the way he wants them to #if they ever got the proof they were looking for (which naruto now has; in the form of itachi's confirmation of what happened) #they would never sit back and let this go #so itachi begs naruto NOT to tell them; not to give them what they need in order to clear his name #because he knows they would do it #he was their comrade. and he knows that kakashi's people - anbu or otherwise - never leave a comrade behind #(this is coincidentally reason 983745 why the naruto ending is TERRIBLE and shockingly inconsistent with the rest of the story but) #(i have already talked about that enough.) #(the only thing i'm interested in talking about here is how much kakashi and yamato care) #(and how clearly itachi recognizes that) #(so much so that he does everything in his power to make sure they never have enough information to help him) #(both before his defection and after his death.)

[ferretwhomst]

ghost brothers healing arc real?!?!?!

#i keep thinking abt that suggestion from an anon back in august/sept #where they were like What if when the ghost bros finally found happiness and comfort in each other #their ghost forms changed for the better as well to reflect that #and it makes so much sense to me because like #the physical injuries left on their ghost forms signify the unfinished business that kept their spirits from passing on #stan's brand symbolises the contempt he still has for ford after all the pain he caused him in life #(...and another thing but i'll keep quiet about that for now) #plus of course his wrists; the injuries which actually did him in. #and ford's eye... i mean losing his eye in life means obviously he . won't have it as a ghost #but the fact that it still bleeds. #bill had a huge fucking sway over how his life played out. and the fact that the trauma he inflicted upon ford carries on even in death.. #(and idk what the significance of the neck injury is specifically i just wanted to show that ford was super fucking battered) #ANYWAYS YEAH I HAVE THOUGHTS #gravity falls #blood brothers au #ghost stan #stan pines #ghost ford #ford pines #ferret's art

[thecruellestmonth]

I know that Steph's death was retconned to have been faked and that she only haad a near-death experience—and, yes, I prefer this version of events because while it's extremely doubtful that Leslie would ever pull this stunt, it's at least morally correct for Bruce Wayne's loved ones to lie to his face and mess with his ego—

But I'm not on board with saying that Cass reuniting with Steph in death was just a "hallucination". No, Steph wasn't among the spirits of the dead. But I like the think that rather than Cass having a close encounter with a spirit of the dead, instead Cass as a spirit of the dead visited Steph's dreams.

In dreams and death, the line between the reality where Steph survives and the almost-reality where she died is blurred. But love and comfort and bonds between souls are the only things that are truly real.

#Stephanie Brown #Cassandra Cain #Cass and Steph #The other theory I like is Death Of The Endless adopting Steph's form to comfort Cass. #Was going to say ''delusions'' in the Buddhist-ish sense‚ but I didn't want it to be taken as the mental health sense. #Was also going to mention the ''delusions lf the material world'' but I didn't want it to be taken in the Gnostic sense exactly. #Feel like a lot of Buddhism is framed as western Gnosticism. Won't argue against that here. But it's not... accurate either... #Not me getting metaphysical lr whatever in the tags. The DCU doesn't have some strict cosmology. #It's just that hippie power of love mush. The non-denominational feel-goodism popular across focus groups. #That's what this post is about. #In dreams and death #the line between the reality where Steph survives and the almost-reality where she died is blurred. Here the borders and the illusions of t #yet love and comfort and bonds between souls are the only things that are truly real.

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

Me: I don't know what to do with Veronica's character in post s8 au, I don't want her to be Just Lance's sister and Kuron's friend with Pidge's storyline slapped on her, but also I'm not really sure about her character. Sure there's the whole lying to her family thing but I don't think that's enough?

Brain: ok so what if Veronica started out as trying to look for what was Lance upto but she ends up being so obsessed with finding the truth that not only she repeatedly puts herself in harms way but also the original goal falls on wayside.

This could be her way of dealing with trauma which is getting engrossed in the Mission and a problem to fix while suppressing her grief and refusing to actually acknowledge her problems and her own emotions a foil to Kuron's arc that is him being literally driven by emotions. She's angry at Lance for leaving without a word and angry at her family for their clinginess, however she keeps it to herself and just avoid them pretending everything is fine and normal

Also a foil to Lance who started as trying to figure out what was going on but as soon as he realized that 1) Allura and Kuron are still sorta alive 2) he can bring them back, he got obsessed with it consequences by damned.

Plus through her we can actually explore how quintessence actually effects and changes humans rather than become aware of the end result

Also there's something a character who is obsessed with truth but is also such a frequent liar

#There's a lot more but it involves changing a lot of elements of this au and explaining half assed elements and scenes in my head #post s8 au #post s8 posting #Just realizing she's having a jon sims arc. Good for her! Atleast she won't accidentally cause an apocalypse #It is still very draft and beta and I keep changing things in it as soon as I think of something cool #I kinda want Lance to be like at first seeing him living a 'normal' life but also there's something clearly Wrong #Veronica seems to be always busy and gone and never there. Shadows and crows being weird #and a voice asking him 'Did you make right choice?' And 'Remember' and 'wake up' #only to reveal that he has been living in a fake reality and a lot of his family is dead #yk that one scene in dunmeshi where Laois digs up and stares at Falin's skull. Lance digging up a grave and be like 'Mom?' #it's representational in his own head. And Lance created this fake reality as a form of denialism #Veronica at first being standoffish not being completely honest with Kuron #Lying to Kuron and her superiors about where she had been making her sus #Kuron not knowing that Lance was the one who brought him back until much later #only that *Someone*was reaching out to him in Shiro's mind and made his body #The family is dead and Lance was living in fake reality reveal happens just as Veronica starts being honest with Kuron #Few of the family members are killed due to retaliation from an extremist galra group #A hot topic in coalition meetings which is a way for connecting Hunk!!!! To the plot!!!!! #I love you my brain!!! #Sorry this is so fucking incoherent

[francesderwent]

Jonathan starts out the story with a very close-knit family unit, a mother and a brother who all love each other deeply but who have already faced a lot of hardship. this leads to him having a very batten-down-the-hatches, circle-the-wagons kind of approach to life. his circle expands (minutely) as the story progresses, to include Nancy and Argyle, but he always has a limited list of people he cares for, and his goal is to protect them. he’ll make sacrifices for them, he’ll shape his life with them in mind. his whole universe shrinks to fit the few people who matter, and everything else fades away—including the possibility that those people could find happiness in the wider world. the world is a threat, something to be guarded against. you can’t take on the world and win, it’s not going to change for the better no matter what you do, you just have to keep your head down and deal with the tragedy of it. he’s seen monsters, he’s known loss. he knows all too well that the picture-perfect happy family is an illusion painted over resentment and cruelty, or even just an illusion painted over the complications that come with loving flawed people. any other outlook is naivety—this is why Jonathan has so little patience for Bob Newby, who is decent but simple, buying into all the things that Jonathan has already seen aren’t unbreakable. and this is why Jonathan walks away from Steve and Nancy kissing in the high school halls in season 2, not out of jealousy, just out of impatience with how juvenile and unrealistic it seems to him. they’re playing into the image of what teenagers are supposed to be and do, the path they’re all meant to be on, and Jonathan doesn’t have any time for that. the image is a lie. the path where you try to fit into the world and put down roots there can only destroy you. when Will feels bombarded, Jonathan doesn’t tell him that he’s going to be happy and people will come to understand him; Jonathan tells Will that he understands him. Jonathan will do absolutely anything to be there for the people he loves; the world will do nothing for them but break them. their happiness, if they find it, is going to have the quality of escape: stepping outside the stifling boundaries of what’s expected and hiding out in a Castle Byers, somewhere they can be safe with the people they love, away from everything that wants to hurt them.

Steve starts out with a couple of merely surface-level friendships and no close family; he’s an only child, he has nowhere to direct his love and devotion, and no one giving that unconditional love to him. he’s already won everything small town high school life has to offer him, reputation and good looks and unsupervised freedom. when all of that is revealed to be vanity of vanities, useless trappings laid on top of an empty cynical life, he too sees monsters and comes to know loss. but his reaction to it is different. in season two, Steve still sees some value in going to a party and wearing the costumes he and Nancy worked hard on. he sincerely misses his girlfriend after an hour, without any cynicism, without needing to appear cool. he’s thinking about getting a job with benefits, so he can be someone to rely on. and as soon as anyone steps into his peripheral vision, Steve loves them. he loves Dustin who orders him around, he loves Robin who makes fun of him, he loves the kids who don’t listen to him, he loves Nancy who broke his heart. his perfect popular ordinary life was empty—so he fills it up with real things, that are still very much real ordinary things. he gives ice cream to the kids and watches movies with Robin, he remembers the song that the carousel horse plays, and through it all he keeps on looking for love and believing in love. the more darkness Steve sees, the more fully he throws himself into the world. it’s after he’s come very near to dying that he tells Nancy his deepest wish is to have a big family and see the world with them—he wants to bring MORE little people into existence and then he wants to introduce them to the whole of the world. he wants to have adventures with them, ordinary people in an extraordinary world, forging through it all together. and then, it’s in the oppressive hell of the upside down, where darkness is literally all around him, that he confesses that the dream is still tied up with her—not some picture-perfect fantasy, but a grounded hope, rooted in his real and abiding love for her, as he really sees her. the world is dark, and wilder and more complicated than it appears. but Steve finds his hope in the most ordinary thing there is: a husband and wife and their children. he is the sane man in a mad world that G.K. Chesteron talks about: the normal boy who becomes the fairy tale hero. 

so what about Nancy? Nancy’s outlook on darkness and the world is very much “ride out and meet them”. she sees evil in the world, and chooses to face it head on, and then, as much as possible, she tries to shoot it in the face. not for nothing does she tell Jonathan in season one when he asks what they should do about the demogorgon, “I want to kill it.” she’s not just being dramatic. she means it. what Nancy most wants, from the moment she discovers the tragedy and violence of life, is to eliminate evil in the world. she wants to kill the demogorgon, she wants to root out the unprincipled men who let it loose and see them punished for the harm they caused, she wants to banish the mind flayer even if she has to chase him out with a hot poker, she wants to set vecna on fire and then pump him full of hot lead.

and so, initially, Jonathan’s perspective seems attractive to her, because he too is aware of precisely the evil that she wants to fight, whereas Steve seems to still be appreciating the shiny surface, the veneer of normalcy and happiness that has ugliness underneath it. “it’s all bullshit,” she tells him. she can’t play the role anymore, she can’t pretend everything is fine when everything that she once knew was poisoned by death. and not only is Jonathan aware of the darkness lurking under reality, his rejection of it is so total that he’s willing to reject the entire world along with it. he so hates the evil that Nancy wants to fight that he will turn away from everything else to hide away with just her and Will. that’s romantic. it is! eros loves to say “you and me against the world”, and the romanticism of that does win out in season two. Nancy picks Jonathan and the escape he offers, picks him because he sees the same world she does. but as the story progresses, we see that their worldviews don’t align perfectly. they’re not in agreement about how to deal with the world. Jonathan wants to get through his internship with a minimum of conflict and go home to his family; Nancy wants to prove herself, change people’s minds, make a lasting difference. Nancy is starting to imagine a life she can build with him, Jonathan can only see what he already has and wants to preserve.

so what we see starting to happen in season four is Steve’s perspective is becoming more and more appealing to Nancy. she’s surprised by that, and I think confused by it. it doesn’t make any sense to her, but suddenly his hopes and dreams don’t sound like bullshit anymore. the picture he paints for her of the life he wants sounds nice, especially because he knows what he’s talking about; he’s been quietly practicing for it, taking care of others younger and weaker than himself, attracting no attention and asking for no reward. it’s not bullshit, it’s not naive—it’s the dream she had before everything fell apart, and now it could be real. and why does Steve’s hope become steadily more and more attractive than Jonathan’s escape? because Jonathan can only retreat, into the safety and solitude of the Byers homestead or into a cloud of smoke. Steve can enter into the world and transform it, light it up from within. Steve can act, and Nancy is a woman of action.

#meta whine and rant #tagging for spoilers: #stranger things s4 #me writing this like: i don't think i have anything to say about nancy except that she wants to fight #which - in fact - IS all I said about nancy #I DO not understand her like I feel I understand the boys #but I think I am correct on that one point #also. do not ask me to explain what jonathan's deal is vis a vis college in s4 #because I do not remember #also catch me putting the g.k. chesterton reference in the body of the post instead of in the tags where it belongs #can't stop won't stop babyyyy #also. like. look at this. #steve is a chesterton hero for SURE #but jonathan IS a taylor swift leading man!!! #I'm sitting here writing meta for a fantasy show!! obviously I am ALL ABOUT escape!! #but I do think nancy is gonna go the other way! #also. just. #'high school is fake but marriage is real' is my favorite love triangle take of all time #yeah! reject the ruling forms of teenagerhood!! it's so stupid!!!!! #but then get married and have six little nuggets #stranger things

[dykeinthedark]

venting in tags about gender n shit (long as hell) (u can comment and talk 2 me as always :3)

#okay so i got a really masc haircut about a month ago and i know it's just a haircut but holy shit has it changed EVERYTHING for me #like.... i've always leaned masc except 1) before i came out 2) when i was actively in love with someone who i knew liked femmes #and they always described me as a fem. because that's what i showed her. because i wanted to be with her. #but lowkey whenever i'm in a not-impressing-anyone raw-dogging-life-no-crush era i always resort to a very masc style #like masc being my default and i'd only lean fem to impress people whether it's for love or peer pressure in a specific setting #like ''dressing up'' has always been a form of drag to me. like something i HAD to do to fit in or impress my parents (scott favor core) #but ever since this haircut i've realized... i could just BE masc innately like i really don't have to be womanly if i don't want to #which i usually don't. again i have only ever dressed fem for other people. but it's not even being masc that attracts me on its own #it's like. being masc in a distinctly lesbian way. as in whenever i look in the mirror i don't wanna be like a Guy i wanna be a dyke. #like lesbian as a gender identity too sort of thing honestly. okay i've been waffling but basically i sort of want to call myself butch #but i don't know if i like... can?? if i'm allowed to??? #everyone always says it's MORE than just wearing boy clothes and not wearing makeup and having short hair (which i already do all those) #i mean i've always id'd as genderqueer because it literally just means gender weird and i experience gender in a queer way #what's probably the most telling is that my friends (all queer) CALL me a butch lesbian #like every time they do i feel really internally validated. it's not just my clothes but my personality too ig is what people tell me #i have a higher pitched voice relatively speaking but apparently the way i talk is quote ''very clockably into women'' #which?? gender euphoria asf. my best friend specifically he (gay trans guy) always uses butch to describe me very intuitively #people have also noticed that i ''transitioned'' in all aspects except hormonally. like ppl have commented and noticed my masculinzation #but at the same time i always feel rly haunted by my ex relationships because one wanted me to be more masc #(she's the one who came out as straight and would treat me like a man) which i didn't like and i didn't like playing up being fem either #bc now it feels like she (butch) won't believe me if i called myself butch too bc she remembers me being femme #idk i feel like there's her voice in my head all the time that sees everything i do through her eyes (i'm lowkey still in love) #i feel like even though this comes so naturally to me i must be putting on a performance #even though i've actually read stone butch blues and done research into the history and i truly love and id with the culture like i rly do #that im still just a sad imitation of a butch lesbian and can never really be a part of it because i used to enjoy dressing up sometimes #like it's so stupid but can i still be butch if i wore a dress to prom and i think i looked good in it?? #even though i was envious of my friends who wore suits?? that i used to try goth makeup?? that i liked long dresses?? #that i enjoyed stacked necklaces and rings on every finger??? #and tbh ALL OF THAT CAME FROM A CONCIOUS EFFORT TO FEMINIZE MYSELF IN JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGHSCHOOL WHEN I WAS 16 #because omfg it was 2 months before junior prom and i was worried that i was too masc and wanted to get comfortable with being fem

[wolframpant]

"The answer once again is yes." "Will you let me finish?! You don't even know what I'm going to say! You are in your cups! You've had too much wine again."

I, Claudius ♦ Favourite scenes

#i claudius #claudius #agrippina #emperor claudius #agrippina the younger #perioddramaedit #poor agrippina #ready to use of her well-honed skills of manipulation and claudius won't let her #tbh I really feel sorry for her #it must not have been easy to live with a man who doesn't hide the fact he actively dislikes you #even if he gives you everything you want #if i had to deal with this drunkard Claudius i would probably poison him too #now i need i claudius au where agrippina marries claudius with the best of intention #just to help her struggling old uncle #and he treats her like trash #what i really need is portrayal of claudius and agrippina where they form a genuine partnership #agrippina was done dirty by history