#'if you leave I'll leave' is CRAZY

[iiusia]

just got reminded of as long as the lemon trees grow and im STILL mad about that book

[nyaaamato]

orpheus & eurydice

[spacedlexi]

"sounds nice... having a partner"

[pixelatedraindrops]

Yuma Month: Day 25: Broken

Night terrors, burning body temperature, delirious hallucinations, and glassy faded vision…

Helpless and afraid, he calls out for his caretaker…but he’s not there…

He’s all alone now…with no one to help…

Completely broken.

[sisterdivinium]

I'm kind of swamped BUT I can't get the idea of a WN commentfic party out of my head.

You know, people leave anon (or not) prompts and then people write in anon (or not) fills respecting the comment section character limitation, from day so-and-so to day so-and-so? If you follow the link you'll see LJ had a limit of 4300 characters but I'd be hosting on DW and their comment total character limit is 16000. Wordier people rejoice.

You wouldn't need an account -- although I heartily encourage you to have one even if just to track the thing and get notified of new comments (also because DW is just cool).

Thoughts? Or is everyone swamped as well and not in the mood for leaving prompts and writing short little fics?

[architectural-sims]

Henford Hall -December, 18:39PM

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[da-janela-lateral]

At this point I don't think Teruki's parents are exceptionally horrible individuals (long-term psychological consequences still happen in cases in which the abuse isn't considered particularly severe + everyone is capable of harm, even "good" people), but they weren't the best, without a doubt.

Okay, they got too busy with their jobs and had to move overseas to progress on their career. External circunstances. Things that happen. They left their son behind, but that could always be justified by hectic schedules of ever-moving businesspeople. How else could he have a stable routine to focus on his future? They're just busy. Teruki hasn't seen them in long but that's not their fault, right?

They cared for Teruki, didn't they? His parents made sure that there was someone home to watch him whenever they were far away. It was inevitable that there would be times he would be with himself, though. But that's not bad! It only became a problem once those strange espers tried to take hold of him on the street. And even then, they were so weak he could barely give them the title of a psychic. It wasn't an issue that it happened more and more and there was no one to intervene. Or that Teruki had to torture descriptions of "Claw organization" and "brainwashed soldiers" out of these grownups to know what they wanted with him. His parents couldn't know. Why should they know? Better put: what could they do?

What could a normal person do against someone with psychic powers?

It was Teruki's choice to live by himself. He could manage it all. Contrary to the other kids, he was an independent and responsible young man who could be trusted with a house and money. Such a great boy. His parents were so proud to have someone as competent as him as a son, one which wouldn't mean hard work for them. One who always had the best grades and was the soccer team's best player and was the best student on the town's best middle school.

Of course they would suddenly allow Teruki to live on his own. Any parent with a child like him would, wouldn't they? Anyone on their right mind and who knew the slightlest about him would be sure he could do it.

And even if this "Claw" organization scared him a bit and he felt a bit lonely at times, it wasn't an issue. Issue would mean it was an obstacle - which it wasn't, as Teruki did perfectly on his own. His parents believed on so. That's why he had his own apartment at 12 on the first place. Teruki was so wonderful at this. It wasn't horrible if they didn't answer his calls, because they were so busy and he wasn't a little kid who depends on his mommy. None of this was their fault. He shouldn't bother them or himself over this.

Because they cared, right? On the end, it was only a pile of tragic circunstances and coincidences no normal person could act against. It was part of life as someone special like him. He couldn't expect that his parents could change any of this, and this made his loneliness the best possible choice. It was obvious that they would support such a decision.

What would a normal person do against someone with psychic powers?

[himbeaux-on-ice]

I made myself a little bit insane last night thinking about how at every level of hockey, the OHL and the AHL and now here, Kyle Dubas has chosen Sheldon Keefe - somebody that nobody trusted to do anything when he was first hired to the Greyhounds and just wanted a second chance to remake his hockey life on his own terms - as the person he trusts with executing his vision and plan. with bringing the Greyhounds back to life, with winning it all for the Marlies, with breaking this fucking curse. and all three times, he's been right. I've previously described Keefe as being like Dubas's "shovel friend" - the person you know you could call and say "i need you to help me bury a body" and they would just show up no questions, shovel in hand, ready to be an accomplice, ready to attach themselves to the consequences of your actions. "i need you to coach the godforsaken Toronto Maple Leafs for your first NHL-level job. I need you to join me in the pressure cooker." Dubas got one chance to pick his own coach after Babcock finally got punted, to have someone he could actually trust in that role to execute the vision (because Babcock outright refused to), and he turned around and for the third time put it all in Sheldon Keefe's hands. and he was just proven right to do so. he trusted his guy. and he was right.

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

They killed his sheep. It was his favorite sheep, bro :(

[fox-mulder-gets-pegged]

Rewatched the episode of House MD where Kutner dies and I honestly think instead of killing his character off, they should have said that Kutner got a job as physician to then President Barack Obama and that's why he was leaving. Objectively funnier since his actor did leave the show to work for Obama and I know it would have driven House nuts that Kutner was ditching to go play doctor with the President instead of getting verbally abused for House's amusement.

[seaweedstarshine]

Sometimes I think of Amy Pond, who grew up being called mad by those who wielded the word as a tool of exclusion and shame —

Amy Pond, who though forced into the hands of four psychiatrists, still clung to that which they called madness until those systems which elevate psychosocial conformity above humanity stripped it from her —

Amy Pond, whose imaginary friend reappeared for a single hour after twelve years and reignited that faith before disappearing for two more years —

Amy Pond, who spent those those two years under the same implicit threat ingrained in her through psychiatric violence, and thus began to believe the man who stopped the invasion was “just a madman with a box,” only for him to agree, and to also call her “mad, impossible Amy Pond,” reframing madness as non-negative for the first time in her life —

Amy Pond, who ignored the disembodied voice of her imaginary friend even as she ran away with him for real, who still lived each day with the traumatic internalization of deviancy dictated upon her by the psychiatric-industrial complex that shaped her from childhood —

Amy Pond, who wouldn't acknowledge the Doctor's voice, such that it took an Angel in her eye that was literally killing her to ensure she couldn't reality check herself —

Amy Pond, who stood before a room which muttered about “the psychiatrists we brought her to,” and though afraid, escaped their rigid parameters of acceptable existence.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

Love the song you posted! And love that it's entirely possible that Dorothy loves it since she def would've heard it, and a lot of the songs she likes in canon are older. How did you come across it

I know, right?? It's so sweet, I adore it!!

I was looking for some 1940s songs for a personal project of mine a while back, and when I stumbled into this little gem I was immediately reminded of Dorothy. There's something about the general atmosphere of the song, that wistful dream-like quality it has, that just *screams* Dorothy to me. We all know she's got a somewhat rough, disillusioned exterior, but she's a big softie at heart -- she doesn't believe she'll ever get that dream-like romance, but she still yearns for it! She just wants the chance to give all the love she's capable of giving to someone who will give it back to her!!

And I mean -- look at those lyrics!!

I can see No matter how near you'll be You'll never belong to me But I can dream, can't I?

I'm aware My heart is a sad affair There's much disillusion there But I can dream, can't I?

Can't I adore you? Although we are oceans apart I can't make you open your heart But I can dream, can't I?

I feel like this applies both to young!Dorothy and the early stages of her marriage and to canon!Dorothy and her general attitude towards love (*especially*, but not only, in the context of the Golden Wives).

This has been talked about extensively on here, so I'm really not saying anything new, but it's pretty clear that Dorothy did do her best to be a loving wife to Stan, during their 38 years together. Whether this is because she actually loved him or because she felt that it was her duty to be a good wife to him can be debated (personally I feel like it's a bit of a mixture of the two, if that makes sense), but I think it's canon that she went above and beyond for him. Even just the fact that she stayed with him for 38 years through cheating, lying, horrible mistreatment, financial issues, etc etc is proof enough that she really did whatever she could to love him, imho -- and all of this without ever being loved back. There's several moments in the series where Stan shows a modicum of decency and she all but melts because of it (see e.g. S4E10 Stan Takes A Wife), and you can just tell that she's been surviving on these crumbs for all her life, hoping and praying that this time, surely, it will last. I can't make you open your heart, but I can dream, can't I? Yeah.

And then -- canon!Dorothy. She's obviously disillusioned when it comes to life in general and love specifically; she puts herself out there, and she can be pretty impulsive at times (her reaction to John Neretti in S6E22 What A Difference A Date Makes never fails to make me laugh), but she has the hardest time believing that good things will last. Her heart is a sad affair. Take for example what she says to Glen in S1E14 That Was No Lady:

"You know, every time you tell me you love me, I turn around to see who you're talking to. I can't believe it."

That's an underlying theme every time she has a serious relationship with someone she likes: she can't believe it's happening. Is that any wonder, considering the marriage she lived through?

Finally -- the Golden Wives. Or any Dorothy ship that involves one of the other Girls, really. All of my points above still stand, and there's the added complexity of Dorothy grappling with her sexuality and being certain that Rose and/or Blanche couldn't possibly love her back, no matter how close they are as friends. Because -- of course they couldn't! They both had husbands they loved with all their hearts! They both have active and vibrant love lives with men! And she's just Dorothy -- tired, sad, Dorothy, always too tall and too brash and not feminine enough and just not enough to be loved back. What could the other Girls find in her? No matter how near you'll be, you'll never belong to me. But she's Dorothy, she's a bleeding heart, and so she can't help but dream, in the hidden corners of her soul. You get what I mean?

Oh, anon, I'm sorry -- this turned into a bit of a ramble, but I just love this song so much and I think it fits Dorothy so well!! Add to this the fact that it came out in 1949 (canonically the year she married Stan) and it all becomes even more painful to me :') I wouldn't be surprised if she had a soft spot for this song!

[potionpeddlerpatchy]

Remember when people tried to have fun on here, instead of trying to ruin other people's lives because they felt they were superior and thus entitled to do so?

Yeah I remember those days 😊

[felsdumpsterfire]

Not me looking for refs of the monsters in Fear and Hunger just to he hit with this thing

Was genuinely flabbergasted- terrified even, like, what the FUCK are you doing, big bro Night Lurch *read: terrified*

[andmaybegayer]

Hrgrhrg