#[ the man you were made to be ]

[flufflecat]

thinking about ford "human blood tastes better" pines

ford "i have been desiring blood more than usual" pines

stanford "was bitten by a fruit bat but still wrote the sentence 'i have been desiring blood more than usual'" pines

[emmyrosee]

“Get ready with me to breakup with my fiancé-“

“BUUUUUULLSHIT YOU ARE!”

Immediately, as soon as your first words are uttered over the recording video, Rintaro’s booms down the hallway. You laugh and smack your hand on the counter, trying to keep it as quiet as you can as you hear him continue to yell.

“THE FUCK YOU THINK THIS IS? WE’RE LOCKED IN, WHAT THE FUCK!” Socked feet barrel down the hall and you’re quick to hide the camera behind a bottle of mouthwash. His body quickly comes into the frame, chest puffed out and hands on his hips. “You got something you want to tell me?”

You pull your lips down in thought before shaking your head, “no. I don’t think so. I didn’t even know you were home.”

“Oh!” He says dramatically, clapping his hands together. “So you’re just always talking about dumping me to your little Internet friends?”

“Only in my fantasies,” you hum, tossing your arms around his neck and pressing a kiss to his cheek. He pouts, and you giggle and kiss him again, “but if I ever do decide to dump you, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”

This, has him blinking unamused at you. Then, his hands leap up to grab your cheeks, and he pulls you in for a loud, wet kiss, his lips pressing kisses over your laughing mouth, teeth, and lips. “Listen to me.”

“Rinnie!”

“No. Shush. Listen to me.” He pulls back and rests his head against yours, hands still squishing your cheeks. “I have shit out an engagement ring for you. I have your name tattooed on me. I got clawed to death by your rat fuck cat, and I have a shirt with your face on it that I wear when I go out. We’ve shared a toothbrush, you pinch my nipple when I’m showering, you text me and ask me if I’ve pooped, and I know damn well you take ugly pictures of me when I’m sleeping.”

“Your point?”

His nostrils flare, “you so much as THINK this relationship is ending, I’m going to tattle on you.”

“Oh, please-“

“To Komori.”

This, has you paling, and you nod softly and gently grab his shoulders, “no, okay, you’re right, you’re right baby, I’m sorry.” He nods as you press a kiss to his lips, “but in all seriousness-“

“Oh, I’m serious, too.”

You snicker, “in my seriousness, I’m never going to leave you.” You flash your engagement ring to the camera and purse your lips out, and he smiles down at you. “who else is going to poop out a ring, then lie to the salesman about why we’re returning it, and get me a new one, hmm?”

“Thankfully, I’m the only one who will.” He kisses your forehead, then looks at you with sad eyes. “We’re locked in?”

“Yeah baby,” you giggle, kissing his nose. “We’re locked in.”

[raptorrobot]

...like antennas to heaven

link to the full image

[egophiliac]

we were fucking ROBBED

[someiicecube]

you're touchstarved? heh, pathetic.

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

his therapist woulda had a field day at their next appointment

[icarusredwings]

Thinking about Logan getting really worried when Wade's (metaphorical) mask comes off and he's not the guy dancing on the bar, making boob jokes and kicking people in the face but rather the one with his face in the toilet at the club, promising he's okay while still struggling with the side effects that come with cancer.

"No no, really its fine! Go on, go have fun ill be out in a second!"

And being the emotionally closed off manly man that Logan is, doesn't press about it but still waits outside by the door, not letting people in the bathroom, ending up causing a bar fight because hed rather get punched in the jaw then let someone see Wade like that and embaress him.

Thinking about him coming home with groceries and finding him dead asleep on the couch, but the kind of sleep that looks like it was taken by force rather than comfy. The kind where you pass out because your body has had enough and just coming to check on him every couple of minutes before eventually sitting next to him and just waits until he wakes up.

Al can't see. But she's had a smug look on her face ever since Logan has walked in the door because she can hear him walking back and forth to go check on her room mate.

"You're really worried about him, ain't you?"

"What?"

"He's fine, you know. He does that. Go on. Go do what ever it was you angry men do."

But he doesn't go. He stays put. Like a loyal dog at his owners death bed, hoping if he stares enough, he'll get better. Eventually, he falls asleep too And Al is going to tease them both about this for the next month. She took photos to prove it.

Soon enough, it evolves into him picking up tasks so that Wade can rest but refuses to tell him why. He doesn't want to embarrass him and make it feel like a big deal.

"Alright. Well, I'm gonna go walk mary puppins. You want anything from the bodega?"

"No.. actually.. could I walk her? I can take her. Being in this apartment is killing me."

"What need to get your steps in or something?"

"Something like that."

"Ah I get it. Wild cat needs to prowl. Well alright. But dont be taking our baby to any skanks house! Shes too innocent!"

[ohrackham]

It is not what you do for me that makes me love you. It's your kindness. Your empathy. How much you care. Just being you is enough, Colin. I do not need you to save me. I just need you to stand by me. To hold me. To kiss me.

[sforzesco]

something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.

it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.

and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.

on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.

edit: to add to the above, while it's not about Ovid, because I'm specifically trying to peel things back to the oldest version of this story, Ovid is fine. alterations on the Perseus myth that give more attention Medusa predate Ovid by several centuries. this comic is also not about those, either! there are many versions of this story from the ancient world. there is not one singular True or Better version, they're all saying something.

Perseus, Daniel Ogden

Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet

[hamletthedane]

Love that Oppenheimer is a deeply disturbing horror movie about a man forced to accept that he is, in a person, the representative manifestation of mankind’s evil in committing one of the greatest horrors of human history - LITERALLY acting as the modern Prometheus, tormented by his sins for the remainder of time. Knowing that he will never be pitied and his actions will forever be utterly unforgivable because the blood of genocide and the potential of total human annihilation will eternally drip from his hands.

But also the simultaneous indictment by the film that to blame a single person for the Manhattan Project is to refuse to accept your own capacity for great evil if the ends ever seem to justify the means, and the culpability of every member of a species that lets itself create something so unspeakably terrible.

Hate that twitter’s take on such a nuanced and brilliantly handled examination of those issues is “movie bad because protagonist not evil enough.”

[daily-odile]

happy halloween have a vampdile

[bonefall]

Anyway. Bi and Mspec Lesbians aren't a hotly "debated" topic or even new to queer culture, it's just the newest thing that bullies who REALLY want to be homophobic and even racist use to justify harassing gay people they don't like.

It's the thinnest possible veneer of progressive language wrapped around TERF and reactionary rhetoric so that they can feel righteous for forming an angry mob against vulnerable targets. If you're gullible enough to fall for the newest wave of bigotry within the queer community, and turn on your allies because they're "confusing" or "invading your spaces," the SAME way they turned on bi/pan labels, trans people, xenogenders, neopronouns, and aroace people before this, then get lost.

[happy74827]

“I watch movies for the plot”

The ✨plot✨:

[kkoct-ik]

second batch of yttd doodle requesties

[bunnieswithknives]

Gore, Violence and Blood under the cut

What a mess

[synchodai]

When I say Tyland Lannister is my favorite character...

I am being 100% dead serious. Here is why I prefer this seemingly average nobleman over the many many many fan favorites in Fire and Blood.

Tyland Lannister is a second son in a story about second sons. Whether his feelings on this are as strong as Aemond's or Daemon's, we never know for sure in the books, but it's obvious that he's subservient to a mirror image of himself who only has more authority because of a few seconds separation between twins. It's a great display of both the arbitrariness and rigidity of succession.

His initial role in the Dance is as the master of coin for the greens. He's depicted as a typical Lannister: charming, comely, and cunning. He did what any savvy accountant would do and divided the crown's treasury amongst different allied regions for safe-keeping, ensuring that if King's Landing were sacked, their enemies wouldn't loot their coffers dry and they'd still have plenty of gold for their war efforts.

And of course, King's Landing gets sacked. Tyland is put in the black cells and ordered to be tortured by Rhaenyra to extract the gold's whereabouts. Winter is coming, people are starving and rioting, her army is dwindling, so she desperately needs that gold. Tyland is gelded, maimed, disfigured, and blinded but the torturers get nothing out of him.

Mind you, this man has been a rich, pampered bureaucrat all his life and he endured all that without breaking. When Aegon II releases Tyland from those cells, he has no fingernails, his eyes have been gouged out and/or sewn shut, this man who was once known for his good looks doesn't look human anymore — but he still manages to maintain his wits so much so that he plays an important role after the Dance.

Even with Rhaenyra dead, there are still armies raising their banners for her eldest surviving son, Aegon Trois. Tyland tells Adult Aegon to kill Child Aegon because obviously, the latter threatens the former's claim and Tyland's understandably angry over what his mom did. Aegon Dos is like, nah, I'll keep the boy hostage instead — that'll keep the armies at bay more than outright killing him.

So Tyland volunteers to go to Myr to hire sellswords for Aegon 2 since their armies are pretty much kaput after six years of this civil war. Tyland is blind at this point I remind you — there is a huge chance this man will never get to go home again. But he does it anyway, because even after years of fighting, he keeps his unwavering loyalty to the monarch he declared for.

Aegon II dies while Tyland is in Myr, and Tyland goes back to Westeros just in time to see Cregan Stark use his powers as the new Hand to marry Aegon III and Princess Jaehaera to unite the green and black sides. Cregan dusts off his hands, says my work here is done, warns the boy king not to trust anyone, then leaves for the North for everyone else to sort this mess out.

Now comes the part where Tyland shines as a character. He becomes the Hand of Aegon III and when you see his policies detailed in the book, it's clear that his goal is focused on repairs and renumerations. After what happened to him, he has every right to be spiteful and bitter against the blacks, but instead he "claimed a curious failure of memory, insisting that he could not recall who had been black and who had been green." He abolished the heavy taxes imposed on the smallfolk, sent out gold to lords whose holdings had been devastated during war, and set out to rebuild the Realm's granaries and fleet. Cleaning up is a tedious, unglamorous job — and because of his monstrous appearance and former allegiances, Tyland was looked upon with distrust.

And yet, while other regents grasped for power and tried taking advantage of the 13-year-old King Aegon III, Tyland seemed to be different. If he wanted power he could have married his twin brother's widow and convinced the boy-king to route more resources towards Casterly Rock and the Westerlands. But he didn't.

Instead, he genuinely seemed to be a father figure to Aegon III.

Tyland Lannister, blind and crippled, had always treated the king with deference, speaking to him gently, seeking to guide rather than command.

And for that, many lords saw him as a weak Hand. But Aegon, who cared for very little and never laughed and was always sullen, seemed to care for Tyland.

When the plague ravaged King's Landing, Tyland dutifully prioritized it over quashing the Ironborn raids at Lannisport. He was the last person to become afflicted with the Winter Fever, and the king sat by his Hand's side during his final hours. When the council starts discussing who should be the new Hand, Aegon (the boy who rarely ever speaks) says:

I would have Lord Rowan as my Hand. Ser Tyland thought well enough of him to offer him my sister’s hand in marriage, so I know he can be trusted.

This boy trusted Tyland, the man who only years ago wanted him dead.

So it's easy to imagine that this man saw Aegon III as the boy he was responsible for, as the son he could never have because of what the war had done to him. Tyland Lannister was a broken man who despite losing everything, his king and his brother and himself, kept a broken Realm and broken boy together when everyone else swarmed like vultures just trying to pick at carcasses.

What motivated this man's loyalty for a boy whose mother mutilated him? Did he regret pushing for the death of an innocent child and this was his penance? Did this man who gave everything for his cause think that this boy was something that could still give all that sacrifice and tragedy meaning? Was the mercy and kindness he afforded an apology for the horrifying trauma that scarred this boy — did he feel responsible for his mother's downfall and the failure to save his uncle? Did his disfigurement and blindness allow him to let go of the man he once was and become someone capable of seeing the folly of pride and power?

Here is his obituary in Fire and Blood:

Ser Tyland Lannister had never been beloved. After the death of Queen Rhaenyra, he had urged Aegon II to put her son Aegon to death as well, and certain blacks hated him for that. Yet after the death of Aegon II, he had remained to serve Aegon III, and certain greens hated him for that. Coming second from his mother’s womb, a few heartbeats after his twin brother, Jason, had denied him the glory of lordship and the gold of Casterly Rock, leaving him to make his own place in the world. Ser Tyland never married nor fathered children, so there were few to mourn him when he was carried off. The veil he wore to conceal his disfigured face gave rise to the tale that the visage underneath was monstrous and evil. Some called him craven for keeping Westeros out of the Daughters’ War and doing so little to curb the Greyjoys in the west. By moving three-quarters of the Crown’s gold from King’s Landing whilst Aegon II’s master of coin, Tyland Lannister had sown the seeds of Queen Rhaenyra’s downfall, a stroke of cunning that would in the end cost him his eyes, ears, and health, and cost the queen her throne and her very life. Yet it must be said that he served Rhaenyra’s son well and faithfully as Hand.

Tyland wasn't extraordinarily badass, noble, or even skilled. He was an excellent politician but no way the best. But I think that's what makes him compelling to me — that he's this down-to-earth depiction of a POW, a war veteran by all accounts, trying to pick up the pieces and slowly glue what remains of the Realm and himself back into something vaguely human.

We tell so many stories about the glory, the tragedy, and the losses of war. But I think it's important and beautiful to tell stories of those bravely and optimistically choosing to keep living in the aftermath as well.