#'don't tell them i meant well'

[elucubrare]

"will you reign better?" (imputed by Gibbon to Phocas) is SO good as the last words of a tyrant to the man usurping him tho

he acknowledges his failure, but denies his responsibility, since no one could do better; he accuses his rival of being no better a man than he is, while challenging him to surpass him. it's both an ignoble and honorable sentiment. it's perfect.

[lazylittledragon]

ok i swear i'm not going to talk about my breakup forever but the thing that just keeps bothering me:

i know that not getting what you need in a relationship is a COMPLETELY valid reason to end it but also. i feel like having a very vulnerable moment where i opened up about my struggles with intimacy and being relieved that i didn't have to keep doing things i wasn't comfortable with, then being dumped a YEAR later because of my lack of intimacy. is something i should be allowed to be very hurt by???

[fortycumber]

the sounds of muffled screaming is me fangirling into my pillow with a big sheepish grin on my face.

[hellogoodbyeitsme]

Broke: Damian is bad at being a Robin because he's too violent

Woke: Damian is bad at being a Robin because he's afraid to hurt people

[cosettegf]

i love the penumbra podcast and i love second citadel and i really enjoyed listening to the finale but i feel. weird about the way this show treats its female characters???

[stabbyfoxandrew]

just got a notification from my phone calendar saying "It's almost alfo's birthday, do you want to plan something?"

[hauntingblue]

Jayce telling vi she won't make it on her own.... okay mr. projector...

[linagram]

[ 𝚊𝚜𝚊𝚑𝚒 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚢𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚔𝚊'𝚜 𝚝𝟹 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 ]

it's time to interrogate the hunger pair!! aka the all innocent boy and all guilty girl...

Q.01. "Have you ever thought of killing someone before your murder?"

Asahi: I don't know, do elementary school students get thoughts about murder often?

Yurika: Yes, but I was too scared to do it myself. But I also never saw murder as a bad thing.

Q.02. "Would you say that you're good at cooking?"

Asahi: Do I have to remind you about my age again?

Yurika: I guess I can cook something, but don't expect it to be THAT good. I never had to cook for myself until I started living alone.

Q.03. "How did you do in school?"

Asahi: I never cared about my grades that much.

Yurika: Eh, at least I graduated.

Q.04. "Would you like to see your parents again?"

Asahi: I thought that I want to see my real mom, but.. I'm not so sure anymore.

Yurika: If I get to kill them, then sure.

Q.05. "Do you regret your murder?"

Asahi: I was scared. I had no choice. 

Yurika: No.

Q.06. "Do you think you will get the same verdict this time as well?"

Asahi: Miki-nee, you will forgive me again, right?

Yurika: Who the fuck do you think I am? A fortune teller?

Q.07. "Don't you feel sorry for your victim?"

Asahi: She was an adult woman and I'm still a kid. It's fine. My life is more important, right?

Yurika: Why would I? We weren't even friends.

Q.08. "Are there prisoners that you'd like to get to know better?"

Asahi: Akio-nii isn't that boring to hang out with, actually. I guess even nerds like him can be cool.

Yurika: Reina?

Q.09. "Do you think you will ever be satisfied?"

Asahi: No.

Yurika: I will be satisfied if you let me leave this place. 

Q.10. "How are you doing mentally right now?"

Asahi: I'm alive and I have food to eat and toys to play with and that's what matters the most, I think. 

Yurika: Oh, I'm doing great. Fantastic even. Go jump off a cliff.

Q.12. "What do you think about Guard 002?"

Asahi: Miki-nee is a good person. 

Yurika: Looks like your followers are starting to doubt you. At least you still have Aimi.. maybe?

Q.13. "How do you feel about this being the last trial?"

Asahi: I don't know if I want to come back home. Kei-nii said that I can live with him if we're able to get out together, but I'm not going anywhere without Miki-nee.

Yurika: please don't kill me

Q.14. "Tell us your victim's full name."

Asahi: I don't remember her first name. Obviously she had the same last name as me, but she was always simply "that woman" to me.

Yurika: Amari Karin and Amari Rion. There, you happy now?

Q.15. "What would you say is your biggest flaw?"

Asahi: Probably my greed or something, but I really do need all these things.

Yurika: Being easily manipulated.

[xanas-eye]

Earth did nothing wrong.

That's it. That's the post.

[statementlou]

why do you think louis said this might be the only time he plays at the hollywood bowl? do you reckon it might be because his tickets sales aren’t going well and he was told that it won’t be possible to book venues like these next tour? that made me kinda sad :((

every day I get asks being like "do you think [random thing that happened in the last 24 hours] is because Louis' ticket sales are so bad?" and it's obviously just annoying harries with nothing better to do than try to make people unhappy (TPWK!!!) and maybe they're just getting cleverer here and have tricked me, but this sounds like it might actually be a person who they are getting to with this garbage and have made unhappy so fine, I'll bite-

Louis' ticket sales are going FINE!!!! He is playing great shows every night and is on target for the tour he has booked and everything he's doing is completely sustainable and if nothing changes (which it will, for the bigger; he has been picking up more fans every year) he can keep touring like this (and playing these venues) indefinitely! The idea that every show that doesn't sell out is a failure is made up and makes no sense- if every show sold out there would be people who wanted to give them money but were unable to do so. That is not how capitalism (and growing your fanbase) work for any working musicians outside the top .00001% biggest in the world! If your venues sell out, then next time you book bigger ones, and you keep doing that until you hit a size where it doesn't sell out so everyone can buy buy buy those tickets. I can't know for sure why Louis said what he said; but he is constantly in disbelief that things are going as well as they are for him and while this album and tour especially he seems to have finally started to believe we really do like what he does and aren't going anywhere, I think that's still there and that's what I heard with that. I mean also it could be next time he plays LA he ends up in an equal size but less iconic venue and booking never lines up with that space again or something, for all I know it's really hard to get on their schedule. Hollywood Bowl is a historic and renowned venue and Louis was excited to play on a stage that has hosted so many famous people and moments and was trying to be in the moment and appreciate it (as he has been focused on making an effort to do lately) because the future is a mystery and anything that is ever happening might never come around again, but I don't think it's cause for concern.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

sometimes when i have a flare-up it is not in fact because i was not pacing myself. it's more like

like. i was pacing myself but i was at maximum and then something unexpected came up that i couldn't avoid so it pushed me over the edge. or i was pacing myself but i slightly misjudged where my threshold was this week and got it wrong. or whatever

do not assume the risk was not calculated. 99% of the time it was and i am allowed to take those goddamn risks

but also the 1% is just called Being Alive and abled people get to do it all the time. why shouldn't i

[thesquiddian]

Holy shit the new Doctor Who episode Went There. It's important that they did, and I'm glad that they executed it seriously, but Fuck.

[heartshattering]

5 AM

Just me and my overactive mind facing the nighttime again 🙃

[unproduciblesmackdown]

among the boundless billions zaniness like laugh track as it definitely has that moment of expressing "rolling my eyes as The Left makes a kerfuffle of Acting like they have a stance as a veneer over the true belief that [xyz] is cool & chill actually" like what, approximate 0.000% chance wendy isn't, as usual, given the Objective Stance of "yeah yeah ohh we are cancelling involved parties talking about how we Don't watch this But. we all love this damn epic movie & already have it memorized so shut the fuck up, kids today" like. don't wanna really delve into how much billions thinks taylor or anyone is "really" trans / nonbinary like not too much benefit of the doubt in this material including what does provide info abt that specifically

& the general like [head in hands. what do you think any of this could possibly be about (you're the one that made your show at all about Power)] of "yes, it's bad/wrong to be someone that someone has done something to / victim of something" like that to be anti misogyny All Women Must Be Epic Winners b/c there's something to be proved: that they don't Deserve to be victims (of misogyny), not taken as a Given. while when we see some epic winner men stepping on other men (who need not all be guaranteed Winners so as to say misogyny is wrong), that's often Good, well beyond any assumption that various forms of basic disrespect / violation / patterns of emergent/entrenched power difference as Bad (for being things done to people, not for there being people they're being done to), & generally billions has to take an extra step when ppl get shitted on & tell us the Specific Cases when it was undeserved actually & someone was being mean to a specific person who didn't deserve that. & the specific cases when hey guess it wasn't that bad(tm) or when hey It's Okay that you're someone something was done to, in this case. & tell us what we were supposed to know all along like when someone who something was being done to (wrong Of Them, whether b/c they inherently deserve it no matter what, &/or b/c they failed to be someone who could make it Impossible to do anything to them, which, how do you do that besides being The Authority / Superior yourself, exactly? nonrhetorically? what if the in group vs out group / fascism / authoritarianism protected Me?) was actually being treated Too Well b/c ah well the abuse meant you were getting any attention, maybe it meant you were claimed as any superior's property, maybe it meant you weren't Already disposed of, as all Losers were in the end, You're Welcome.

obviously referring to winston where it's spelled out all the abuse towards him was deserved, & More than he deserved in the case of rian having more access & taking advantage of that, all for billions' enjoying its own sendoff there of, again, maximizing violation & violence short of [real violence is physical & leaves bruises / draws blood / Literally kills] which would be distasteful in general But doesn't it make wags look like the winner & winston the loser is that the former's completely unrelated completely impersonal ego blow gets way amplified taken out on winston, the most vulnerable recurring character when spyros as [first & ultimate Everyone Hates Him role] is more entrenched in there & billions still magnanimously pities tuk, as it does winston too, just not quite as much. again that like completely surface level realized power fantasy of forcing the mirror up to the Inferior so they're like nooo my inferiorityyyy & in doing so like, the projection in that lmao, we get it re: the valuing of & need(tm) for such Power Tripping & Reaffirming My Superiority & My Ego Restored; Everyone Claps like good god. & then for all ben & tuk are the slightly softer Two Too Nice Boys duo to the rian & winston quant duo, also like too nice i guess but not as much, ben is in charge of tuk but Any instance of rian being in charge of winston outstrips them in that "yay interpersonal abuse" dynamic, like then in the end billions may be like "yeah it's possible to be mean to them unlike how being mean to winston is actually Nice b/c he deserves everything he gets, we only vicariously enjoy it vs Feeling Bad for tuk & ben sometimes (still magnanimously & it's Not That Bad / just goofin)" like ben & tuk still Fail by not being people it's impossible to do anything to. & not Exceptions who anyone is really being Too Mean to. like if they were women, in which case, no problem surely with a "positive" kind of victim blaming where there is something Inherent that Will be victimized so hey how about to cancel that out there's this special Paternal Protection you Need always, Or Else? :) but instead they are men who are asian & is ben gay & w/tuk & winston nobody mentions glasses or fatness but billions doesn't really do much or very in depth textual mentioning of Anything, even w/nonzero mention that there may be gender & race in this world. a gay man, once. no disability. we just Know who are the inferiors who deserve it when they're treated inferiorly, or if they don't, they start deserving it when they fail to stop/avoid it, but if you start mentioning the factors behind who we all totally agree is inferior like whoa nobody was Saying any of that? being the real agent of oppression on the basis of the factors only You spelled out, much? nonbinary? i never say anything about the Gender Binary when i'm subscribing to it, sounds like You've created & enforced it. obfuscation & deflection onto [so Just Normal nobody has to label, explain, or argue it] couldn't serve a purpose & protect the existing power differences as they are. maybe You're the problem? perhaps you brought it upon yourself & now you're causing too much trouble standing up for yourself while everyone else's criticism is laser focused on you as the prior & continuing negative actions done to you are taken as a given / unquestioned / covertly protected to overtly encouraged?

anyway so wild if the Completely Normal(tm) Victim Blaming is uncritically recreated & oft embraced for "if you're watching this & don't wish you were axe / find him appealing" [billions as a sequence of vicarious power trips] purposes in this series....but a bit wild considering like this is your multiseason show that wasn't just purporting to be those power trips for [enough demographic & apparently specific personal tastes overlap w/creators] & was at all purporting to question the matters of power at play in the material, or yknow, at least to not be completely superficial material while said material is textually & thematically all about power difference being leveraged, how, the consequences, & so on. thus i will have to intermittently talk about it forever like this like lord unbelievable. & the funny little & sometimes less funny less little characters it has trapped in there so that those of us who were never meant to be in the audience can be cursed with this knowledge. like i have some feedback. "imagine not victim blaming" & "imagine adjusting your perspective can go beyond superficial layers added to politely defer to some other ppl while they're present but really like cmon do they deserve that. am i not just saying what we're allll thinking"

[art-of-wackylurker]

WAVES H10 YURAND

[Prompt Game]

Me: No fear

Waves palette: *exists*

Me: One fear

there ya go. Have some whump

[brown-little-robin]

.