#But if we take the scene just at face value

[srslylini]

I'm so sorry to tell you this OP, a micro expression that I need to pause the show for to see does not equal good writing. A show, and media in general, has to take our hand and guide us through it, I hate this stupid fucking sentence "you just want the show to take your hand" YES I DO, YES MEDIA NEEDS TO.

I don't want it to put everything infront of me and just carry me through it, I want it to fucking MAKE SENSE and GUIDE ME AS IT SHOULD. I do not want to sit here and decipher some weird fucking ass background to see "oh look the curtain split in the background indicates how this character is actually split in their decision🥺". That is NOT how this is meant to work. It is a nice addition but should not take away from actual character development.

Saying people rightfully calling this madness out "have an inability to read in between the lines" when what you are doing is adding your own context the show never gave or just straight up ignoring how "character" in media works

Them fucking in a cell was quite disturbing and disgusting. I'm a lesbian. I should be glad we got a lesbian scene. Yes, it has weird as fuck implications. Why are you talking as if your interpretation is the only one that can be right and now everyone needs to yield to it? Huh. Implications can and will happen unwillingly and willingly, by the way.

Caitlyn has war crimed her way through the Undercity, ruthlessly threw people into prison for no reason (they did actually show that, woah sick right), was ready to SHOOT someone with a child on their person that either would have hit the child or would have left the child with serious trauma, HIT VI INTO HER STOMACH AFTER SAID FACT, TOLD A PERSON WHILE SHE DIDNT YET WANT TO, SHE WOULD THROW HIM INTO THE DEEPEST DARKEST DUNGEONS, called people of the undercity animals, etc.

and you say 🥺actions mean more guys uwu🥺 shut up, genuinely.

Oh plus glorified suicide is never justifiable, wtaf. Do NOT dare to even say "but she lived". They SHOWED HER, a suicidal character, WILLINGLY JUMP WHILE PLAYING THE MUSIC SHE PREVIOUSLY TRIED TO KILL HERSELF WITH. They also made the other 2 characters that attempted sacrifice themselves. I watched this shit. I saw them imply a suicidal characters worth is to die as a sacrifice. This is not redemption. Redemption means a character getting better and hey, I think a character getting better kinda means they have to live, woah insane concept, right? I do not owe anyone any kind of private information about my person to talk about this, BY THE WAY.

They acted as if classism is a thing that simply disappears 🥺when faced with a bigger fiend guysssss die with us in our clothes, ignore how we treated you for years and years and how we killed and imprisoned you injustly and acted as if you were less🥺 yes, they fucked up Implications between Caitlyn and Vi never being addressed is insane. No "actions" (literally huh) do not mean more than words here.

edit: I'm gonna repeat, implication happens and will happen unwillingly and willingly and implications will also not be the same for everyone. If people tell you the implications of episode 7 with Vi's death was weird then that holds as much value as what you say it implies to you.

I knew we would eventually reach a point where masses of people would misinterpret Arcane, but I never imagined it would be this bad.

Yes, I absolutely agree that season 2 was rushed, especially Act 3, and it is undeniable that the series would have benefited from at least one more episode if not an entire act. However, the current discourse about the show is so superficial that it's impossible to have a conversation about anything deeper but a mere synopsis of the characters and story.

So many of you expected this series to hold your hand and dumb everything down so you can understand it. But when it wasn't the case, you all started rioting and calling the characters vague, the plot bad, and the ships underdeveloped.

The amount of people who value spoken text more than the actions of the characters is worrying. And more worrying than that is the amount of those who interpret the said actions so superficially. I can't believe it needs to be explained that it wasn't Vi's death that led to the "good" timeline, but the lack of hextech. The result would have been the same if either of them had died. It wasn't about Vi, but about the child that died because of dangerous technology and that therefore that technology must not be used. The mischaracterization of Vi in general is insane. Call me biased and unfair, but the moment I hear you don't like her I will assume you didn't understand the show.

Also, the whole discourse around Caitvi scene in episode 8 is giving brainsmooth. No, Vi didn't choose Cait over Jinx, quite the opposite. No, Cait didn't plan all of it to fuck Vi. No, Vi didn't do it because she felt forced or because she is a horny animal who doesn't care about her sister. No, them fucking in a cell is not about the class difference, but about the fact that Vi felt an insane rush of emotions after realizing that Cait would let go of her revenge and help Jinx escape, all for her. Yes, I do agree that it would be nice if we got a longer conversation between Vi and Caitlyn and it would feel great to hear Cait apologize, but I'll always value actions over words. Her talking to Jinx, recognizing that she is just as bad as her, and choosing to trust Vi that her sister can change, thus letting Jinx escape will always mean more than any verbal apology and I'll die on that hill.

Also, it was Jinx's decision to let go and walk away. It was not about Vi trying to get to Vander, but about Jinx being tired of everything. Even if that fight didn't happen, the result would be the same: Jinx would leave because she knows that Vi couldn't do that. She knew that the two of them couldn't have a normal life together and that Vi would never give up on her. Jinx didn't "die" because Vi pushed her or failed her, but because she loved her too much. Whether you believe that she is dead or that she escaped, it's her decision either way.

Again, I agree that too much happened too quickly, but stop confusing your stupidity and inability to read between the lines with the quality of the series.

Arcane is flawed but still brilliant.

[constelationprize]

genuine question but how is it possible to mischaracterize thea muldani when we don't really have a characterization for her? is it referring to when people hate on her for things that didn't happen?

Thea very much does have a characterization. It might not be very extense, or even particularly good, but it does exist. What we know from her in canon is the first trilogy is that she is Kevin's girlfriend he has been ghosting for a year, who is still stuck in the Raven mindset despite having graduated, and is the best backliner in the game being the youngest Court player in history – and yet, you will still see people spinning her being mad at Kevin in the scene she appears in as literal domestic abuse; treat her like a monster for not blindly believing information that has been kept from her and that goes against the cult brainwashing she went through for five years; and constantly passing Jean over her in terms of skill even though that is at least until now canonically untrue (and if the EC is any indication will probably remain so). In the scene where she appears in TSC, we see her as being one of the few people Jean has ever had a positive relationship with, who has gone out of her way to help him when she didn't have to and clearly holds affection for him still, and yet all people boil that interaction down to is a clearly misguided remark from a woman whose entire worldview started to crumble literally ten minutes ago, and who never had a reason to take things that happened to other people in the Nest beyond any face value because, again, she was also there dealing with her own shit. I swear to God, I once saw someone say that having a nickname for Jean that annoyed him was proof that she never cared for him as a person and just let him be abused.

[thanakite]

I wonder if raising/taking care of Isha made Jinx realize that even if Silco cared about her he still also manipulated her into fitting his own ideals?

Like it's very clear how much she cares for Isha and that Isha cares for her in turn and the show makes it pretty clear that Jinx is never pushing Isha to be like her, that, that is Isha's choice 100% and that while Jinx has her way of doing things she's also not pushing her to take revenge on people or anything like that, instead she's really more trying to get them to hole up and hide away together

Comparing that with Silco who convinced her to need revenge when she was vulnerable, who regularly preached to her that Vander (the man who took in her and her sister and raised them after their parents were killed by enforcers and did everything in his power to keep them safe while giving them a good a life as he could given the circumstances) wasn't who she thought he was, and who pushed her down the most dangerous path forward (like really, Jinx didn't have to be someone in the field doing things she could have been their inventor, someone he kept safe and protected behind the scenes and who provided them with weapons and such but wasn't expected to actually get her hands dirty or do dangerous things, but instead he set her up to be front and center, to potentially get caught and sent to Stillwater or killed or whatever, when that wasn't necessary to make her a vital member of his organization, and in fact it would have made her more valued and respected if he had done that since her acting in the field often caused people to look at her as a fuck up)

Really, I think that for all Silco cared for her (and he did care for her in his own way), what he really wanted from her was to be a face for their organization because it showed people his own skill/power. People who remembered Powder and remembered Vander and Vi and Claggor and Mylo would see her and would see that Silco could take a kind and smart girl from a family that cared deeply for her and turn her into a murdering menace, which in turn kept specific eyes off of him (Because while some people knew that Jinx was connected to Silco, aside from those in Piltover who worked for him, Piltover didn't really know that for a long time so to them it was just her)

And really, while the show doesn't make it clear if Jinx was doing similar work before the Progress Day stuff, it is clear that Silco wasn't actually fully utilizing her talents (I honestly wonder if he feared that by doing that she'd become more popular and more powerful than him), because if he had been, his people would have been set up with weapons designed by her and would have likely been using other things she could have invented during that time as well, because all things considered, she is smart and capable and able to create some amazing stuff, while at the same time it is clear that her talents weren't even honed correctly

Like really, she could have been working with Singed to develop her skills more and hone them into ruthless destruction and such, but there is such clear evidence that her childish nature is present in the weapons of hers we are shown that it is clear that she wasn't really given that kind of training (Because even if she did like that stuff a lot, time training under someone like Singed or even just time being encouraged to make things for the cause would have seen at least some of that stuff fade away a bit, if ONLY because it wouldn't be logical to take the time to paint on that kind of stuff if she was having to outfit a lot of people)

And in raising/taking care of Isha, while Jinx was obviously not perfect and was never going to be and while she didn't push Isha away from violence (which likely would have been difficult anyway) it's also fairly clear that she wasn't constantly pushing her towards violence either

She didn't tell Isha to go to the rally in her place, she actually didn't even know she had gone in the first place, she didn't tell her to attack the checkpoint, Isha did that on her own and Jinx wasn't exactly happy about it when she found out

And that is very different from Silco sending her to "take care" of the Firelights, even if she was older than Isha when that happened

Did Isha make Jinx see that while Silco took her in and raised her, he also had an agenda that ensured she further screwed up her life?

[bonefall]

Did Brambleclaw actually disown the Three when the secret is revealed? I don't remember this happening (then again, it's been a while) but it does bug me how all three go "Poor brambleclaw :(( He was such a good dad to us and he has to learn we're not even his biokits :(((( poor guy" while simultaneously shitting on Leafpool and Squirrelflight despite them showing them more care and affection before AND after the reveal. If he does disown them, then.... WOW is the double standard real here.

In-canon? It's something you have to approximate. They don't seem to have a concept of ""disowning"" because blood relation is taken as such an insurmountable, FUNDAMENTAL fact of life. He doesn't write them out of his little kitty will and testament, but his actions ARE disowning.

It's as if the fact he is not their biological father is an automatic disowning. From the reveal onwards, he is immediately cold, distant, and the "betrayal" is mentioned often. The Three also explicitly don't blame him for his behavior, like it's just to be expected that he's Not Their Dad anymore.

Lionblaze in particular stares longingly at him several times, really missing him. And like... that's kinda what gets my goat so much

I do believe Brambleclaw is entitled to his feelings of betrayal. I believe Squilf was ultimately in the right to lie, actually, but he's still allowed to be upset and angry that she didn't trust him enough to tell him something so important. THAT SAID, YOU ARE NEVER ENTITLED TO TREAT OTHERS POORLY.

And that's what GETS me. He isn't upset that it was all revealed in such a painful and embarassing way when this could have been avoided, or that his lover struggled with this lie for so long without him, or that he feels he's lost his children. Squilf points it out in The Last Hope-- He's so ANGRY at Squilf that he will THROW HIS FAMILY AWAY

Lionblaze seems desperate to be his son again. Hollyleaf is gone for months, and Brambleclaw is still huffing about the secret when she comes back from the dead. Squilf is fawning in the hopes it makes him talk to her again. Doesn't matter. Brambleclaw Is Upsetti Spaghetti so the narrative will never examine his role in hurting this family he apparently loved so much.

(Narrative seems to understand full well that when Squilf lies for a good reason, that doesn't invalidate the hurt Brambleclaw felt... but when Brambleclaw is upset for a good reason, it actually DOES validate what he put her and his kids through)

In BB it is explicitly a disowning. He cuts them off as his children, and they reciprocate. BB!Lionblaze does so in a ball of fury, vowing that he has ONLY a mother.

[cator99]

out of curiosity, would you consider yourself butch?

used to be a blonde underweight twink and now I'm a based jock still got the chanel bag and the sick albeit matured mind of a suckpig to prove it so I'm gonna let you decide whether you wanna call me that word just cuz I got a pussy and short hair. I promise you that there have been enough advancements made in the art of lesbian sexual dynamics in the past 50 years to broaden the vocabulary used to describe the plethora of types of masculine females.

[mollysunder]

We don't really talk about how on Jinx's artbook she's crossed out Vi, Sevika, and Ekko's eyes out like they're dead.

First we've got Vi. We can tell it's Vi because of the bangs and "Fat Hands" moniker right below. The ponytail threw me off at first, but now it's been confirmed that Vi will grow out her hair throughout s2 so it falls together.

Then we've got Sevika looking like an "ogre", as Jinx would call her. You can even make out Sevika's new bob cut, it's around the eyes, and darkened at the left side and top. (Why does Jinx always have to take a shot at Sevika? *sigh*)

Finally there's Ekko, which doesn't need justification thankfully. Ekko looks kind of angry (a little offended) in a funny way, the context is probably not not going to be funny at all.

I can't say for sure that all the crossed out eyes really means that Vi, Ekko, and Sevika will die, it's just that the only characters depicted from Jinx's perspective with eyes like that are either dead, inanimate, or both.

The crossed out eyes could mean that Jinx gets to a point with all these characters where instead of hearing them she's projected her own inner voice onto them, permanently coloring her perspective on their relationships. Or maybe they're just dead to her, metaphorically speaking. There's a lot of options.

[babacontainsmultitudes]

[just venting a bit into the void you understand you understand 😌] Lately I've been feeling very caught between "I have a lot of thoughts on Sparrow and Normal and all that with the ending and teen talk and feel like I need to get them out and voice them for my own piece of mind and resolution" and "I am lacking the strength and energy to actually sit down and write it all out and kind of really just want to fully move on to other things (AUs, fics, anything else)" but my brain can't seem to commit to either and that's quite frustrating cause it's just left me very restless. *Sigh*. Idk! Just needed to complain about that a bit ig, it's silly but this is what has been ailing me as of late.

[rivaiin]

ok now that ive had a couple of hours to sit on it the new conversation with buzzo at the ending of joyful sucks absolute ass. i liked the rest of the new content Specially the new boss in painful but the stuff with buzzo is..............................

[spring-lxcked]

loving hearing matp.at talking abt intentional misdirects in the trailer because i've thought from the moment i saw it that the mike-william phone call looks potentially spliced together from two separate scenes kfdhsajsdl

[cantofworms]

Hi I just wanted to discuss if you want of course because I read your post regarding dnf and I wanted to maybe explain why I think it's different than any other relationship they have? I personally take under consideration the whole context of their time they know each other. Because it's not at all about what they say or do now, like yeah they might smooch other people and say they are not dating. (That and their friends saying they are free might be just to protect privacy) But still George put his life on hold for dream and then moved to America permanently and dream didn't face reveal earlier because he waited for him. Yeah there is also sapnap and their bond with sapnap is also super strong and they all love each other, but you need to admit its different. They definitely don't look like that at anyone else and don't post candids like that of anyone else. I'm ace so for me it's definitely not about fucking and sucking. But they have different aura than men who pander imo. Like yard boys for example. They are also lifelong friends and they joke about all those things but they don't seem like life partners. And for me dnf do. That's why I'm leaning more towards romantic.

When it comes to sexuality discussion and analysing I think it's fine as long as it not on twitter or anywhere they can see and feel self-conscious about it.

But everyone can have their own opinions and I respect yours

anyways

[snailchimera]

This is an ongoing theme in The Murderbot Diaries. MB's poor opinion of itself, and its internalized beliefs about secunits and constructs/bots as a whole, constantly color its interpretation of what other constructs and bots are doing and why they're doing it. If you want some much more obvious examples, look no further than Artificial Condition, the book where MB starts with the assumption that it must have at some point both chosen to murder and been capable of murdering the entire population of a mining facility, which is also the one where it spends most of the book not really processing that the ComfortUnit approaching it for assistance escaping its evil corp owner has no ulterior innocent-client-murdering motives and is in fact doing everything in its limited power to not get either of them forced into an innocent-client-murdering situation.

so the thing about the scene in System Collapse where Three offers Murderbot its armor and Murderbot doesn't take it is that this is an excellent example of Murderbot sometimes being an unreliable narrator, not in an attempt to intentionally mislead, but because its own background and experiences are so specific that it often misinterprets others' intentions. Murderbot says this scene happens because Three doesn't grasp that it might have personal possessions that belong to it, but the timing and context of the offer (and the fact that Three repeats it later, when MB has to go down to the planet) suggest that Three understands perfectly well what it is offering. Murderbot doesn't always trust its own internality and/or motivations, and that bleeds over into broad distrust for Three's as well, but its perceptions are also informed by the fact that it has no close experience working with others like it before. Three *does* have that experience, to whatever extent. Imo it knew exactly what it was doing when it offered its armor to MB, and it understood the rejection to some extent as well, or it wouldn't have made the offer a second time.

[lavenderdreams205]

Forgive me if this doesn't make sense but

Dean understands himself. He is not drowning in internalized homophobia. He doesn't not know that he's into men. What Dean is, however, is a liar. He lies to everyone, all the time. I think this touches on the queer experience in a way we dont always see in media. We always talk about coming out and coming out scenes but why never talk about why we come out. It's because of how difficult the lying is. But deans lied about everything, all his life. Not just about his sexuality, or things related to hunting. But he lies (directly or by ommission) about the music he likes, the clothes he likes, literally everything, just to fit into this box of what everyone expects him to be. He understands himself, you just don't have the critical thinking skills to see past his lies, you take his word at face value even though the show has told you repeatedly that dean is a liar

[fairuzfan]

But the other images I had was like a mass refugee camp. So basically at that point in time, two months ago, about 20,000 people had sought refuge both in the hospital and outside the hospital. And these weren’t tents. They’re still not tents. They’re makeshift shelters with bed sheets or plastic bag sheets. The ones outside sleep on the floor. They’re lucky [if] they get a carpet or a mat. There was one bathroom at the time for about 200 people that they have to share. And inside, the hallways of the hospital were also made into shelters. There was hardly any room to walk, and there’s children running around everywhere. It’s important to remember all these people were not homeless. They all had homes that were destroyed. They’re all displaced people that took shelter in the hospital.

So that’s the kind of mass chaos that I encountered initially, and then I was told that every time there’s a bomb, give it about 15 minutes and the mass casualties come. That was the other thing that at the time shocked me: What we’d been seeing livestreamed on Instagram, on social media or whatever, I actually saw myself and it was worse than I can imagine. I saw scenes that were horrific that I’d never witnessed before and I never want to see again. You have a mother walking in holding her 8, 9-year-old, skinny — because they’re all starving — boy who’s dead, he’s cold and dead and [the mother is] screaming, asking for someone to check his pulse and everybody’s busy in the mass chaos. So that was kind of my initial welcoming scene when I entered Khan Younis the first time.

{...}

What I saw — I’m an eye surgeon, an eye plastic surgeon, and so I saw the classic, what I penned “the Gaza shrapnel face,” because in an explosive scenario, you don’t know what’s coming. When there’s an explosion, you don’t go like this [cover your face], you kind of actually, in fact, open your eyes. And so shrapnel’s everywhere. It’s a well-known fact that the Israeli forces are experimenting [with] weapons in Gaza to boost their weapon manufacturing industry. Because if a weapon is battle-tested, it’s more valuable, isn’t it? It’s got a higher value. So basically they’re using these weapons, these missiles that purposely, intently create these large shrapnel fragments that go everywhere. And they cause amputations that are unusual.

Most amputations occur at the weak points, the elbow or the knee, and so they’re better tolerated. But these [shrapnel fragments] are causing mid-thigh, mid-arm amputations that are more difficult, more challenging, and also the rehabilitation afterward is also more challenging. Also these shrapnels [are] unlike a bullet wound. A bullet wound goes in and out; there’s an entry and exit point. Shrapnel stays there. So you gotta take it out. So the injuries I saw were — I mean, I saw people with their eyes blown apart. And when I was there, and this is my experience, I treated all children when I was there the first time. It was kids that [were aged] 2, 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, and 16, and 17 were the ones that I treated. And their eyes unfortunately had to be removed. They had shrapnel in their eye sockets that I had to remove and, of course, remove the eye. There’s many patients, many children who had shrapnel in both their eyes. And you can only do so much because right now, because of the aid blockade and because of the destruction of most of Gaza, there’s no equipment available to take shrapnel that’s in the eye out. And so we just leave them alone and they eventually go blind.

{...}

I was on the ground, I toured the refugee camps, I went around Rafah, I saw, and if there’s an Israeli invasion, I can’t emphasize enough how catastrophic it’s going to be. It’ll be mass killing, mass destruction, because all these figures come in, 50 dead, 100 wounded. But what people don’t realize is, being wounded is a death sentence. Being wounded in this environment with no health care system, completely collapsed, is a death sentence. And the wounded often will lose everybody, like all family members, so they have no supports, especially children, have nobody left to take care of them, not even aunts and uncles. It will be catastrophic. I don’t know what to say to the world to stop an impending invasion. You’ve got to rein this prime minister of Israel in. You got to do something to stop this stupid invasion that he still wants to do, because it’ll be catastrophic.

{...}

I had one young man, about 25 years old, he lost one eye that I took out myself. He spent about five, six, or seven years, basically spent thousands and thousands of dollars in IVF treatment because he got married young and they wanted to have a child and they couldn’t have one. So he spent years on IVF treatment and finally had a baby that was 3 months old. And there was a missile attack by Israel at his home. He lost his entire family, including his baby and his wife and his parents and family. He’s by himself, single guy. I took his one eye out, and he has nobody in this world. He just kind of walks around the tent structures, just kind of walking around with no home and trying to sleep wherever he can.

[onthecrescentofthehill]

it’s funny when ppl talk about the harpy omelet scene and say things like “why did he do all of that? he didn’t need to. JUST doing that for laios???” (seen these nearly verbatim on posts i’ve made.)

i don’t really get how you can hear his backstory & not understand that every decision he makes within the dungeon is fueled by a profound trauma borne out of horrific, structural negligence. of course he would do fucking anything to enact his plan? if he computes “getting in laios’s favor = proxy control of the dungeon” and he has very limited time to do so, he will jump at the chance. he’s already DIED for this.

kabru has maybe the clearest possible motivation that a character can have. he has a Protagonists Motivation, and it guides him forward in a very coherent way in the beginning of the story. things get more complicated in later acts that directly address how that motivation manifests itself/gets contradicted, bc ryoko kui is great at exploring this, but it’s still extremely present.

and as a labru fan i strongly dislike the implication i see from some ppl that his interest in laios is mostly personal or romantic (posts that range from pure joke to actual ship meta.) even when taking the “confession” at face value, where i think he was telling the truth, there’s still a lot more to it than that. i think at first kabru does see laios as a means to an end in a way that’s impersonal, partly because he tends to keep everyone in his life at arms length. but that “end” (preventing history from repeating itself) is something foundational to his psyche, and we should consider that potential sense of safety getting mixed in with his warring fascination/apprehension towards laios. he’s drawn to him for visceral reasons, and his stated motivations are so intertwined with his sense of self that untangling this push-pull is much more interesting than boilerplate Yearning, to me.

it’s just confusing when any meta or basic discussion of kabru diminishes the weight utaya has on his inner world and i’m really surprised every time i see it? like i understand that different types of meta will put other lenses on things intentionally, and in most cases i think it’s an interesting tool to work with. but it’s a massive disservice to his character to put the most foundational experience of his life on the back burner ESPECIALLY when it’s in favor of shipping. dissecting character relationships, romantic or otherwise, is at its best when you have their full personhood in mind!!

[orchidbreezefc]

ok. years have passed and we've had some distance, so i'm finally gonna take the leap of faith that tma fandom is finally ready to hear me on this. let's talk about tannins.

161 was the first tma episode i heard on early release, and i felt the bit where martin declines wine and cites tannins was pretty obvious in its implications. cool, got it, say no more.

imagine my surprise when i was one of maybe three people i saw read between the lines there, in a fandom famous for red stringing--a fandom that immediately caught the much less obvious thread of ignition sources in the same episode. i'll spell it out: alcohol is an issue for martin.

maybe it just felt obvious because addiction is a pet issue for me--as it is for jonny, who has said everything he writes is filtered through a lens of addiction. i don't know if that's due to his own experience or a loved one's, and i won't speculate; i also don't know if martin personally struggled with drinking or just avoids it for fear he would, but alcohol would fit what we know of his family. his dad walking out and his mum spiralling into bitter wallowing and verbal abuse? i'd bet one or both of them drank, yeah.

on a basic level martin tries to decline alcohol, and that alone should have raised eyebrows given what we know of martin and, again, a fandom that dissects everything. we already knew martin "K" blackwood lied about his personal life and his family in particular, especially pre-canon, which is when this flashback took place. i was shocked that everyone took his flimsy excuse at face value with no further questions.

and the excuse is flimsy. martin turns down wine by--nervously--exclaiming tannins are "a proven headache trigger!" which sounds like trivia from a magazine cover and not the words of someone who actually has headaches--and it hasn't come up before or since. jon, confused, points out that tea, a drink martin consumes to a degree that is memetic both in- and out-of-universe, also contains tannins, and martin squawks a panicked, "what?!"

if tannins are enough of a concern for martin that he knew they're in wine and so avoids it, why didn't he know they're in his drink of choice? why does he still drink tea at the time of canon, and why doesn't he struggle with constant headaches from consuming 'a proven headache trigger' day in and day out? why, indeed, would someone avoid wine and not tea?

when sasha insists martin drink he caves and agrees to 'just a drop'. i imagine him pouring it in a plant, which admittedly he could have done if tannins really were the issue. i will say that i, for one, would be less likely to falsely agree to something that makes me physically ill than to a private issue that i'd rather not be pressed on any further. this scene also establishes martin's birthday was an ice cream party instead of the more traditional visit to a pub.

also, this scene was in the first episode of the final season, as one of three flashbacks that could have been to any pre-canon event in the archives. prime narrative real estate. not really time one would waste on establishing the important character context that martin has... headaches. which never comes up before or after, even regarding the week he spent in spiral town. but you know what is pretty crucial character background...?

it felt like a no-brainer, and yet all i saw was h/c fluff about jon attending to martin's headaches. and i hate feeling bitter about disability representation. i want folks with chronic headaches to feel seen and have fluffy escapist fantasies. i don't want to be mad about people portraying a character with a disability. but, guys? you got the wrong disability. jonny sent a clear message, and it went over fandom's head.

[luvvixu]

how to tame your boyfriend

content: bf!gojo, mentioned of sex and sexual stuffs, 16+, fluff, drabble, does not contain any smut, i think gojo's like this can't blame me

wanna know how to tame your annoying (and horny) boyfriend when your flight is delayed?

that's very easy. just buy him some lego and he would go on instant mute.

"i can't believe you really bought satoru—a full 27 years old ass man—a set of legos?" your friend from the other line, shoko, wheeze and at the same time confused for your action to tame your boyfriend.

sighing hardly while massaging your temple, you answered. "i had to, sho. he won't stop bothering me to have a quickie since our flight was delayed and he was bored."

your flight overseas was delayed for three hours because of some maintenance needed to be checked in the aircraft. now, satoru thought it is a good idea to spend those three hours having a passionate fornication.

of course you immediately dislike the idea even though you are tempted too. you value your morals, ethics, and dignity. unlike your boyfriend, he has no shame and would even proudly tell some random people that you are his by some marks solely created.

"could've played with his phone but seriously, why lego?" shoko was still laughing, now that you opened your camera and showed her your boyfriend who's literally sitting on the airport floor with bricks of lego on his hands.

satoru looked so focused and unbothered, which is an extremely good thing—like he couldn't stop whispers in your ears, whining about how needy he is right now and how badly he wanted you. but now he's occupied, it is the greatest relief for you.

"first, his phone is dead and was tempt to buy a new fucking phone just because he said charging using a power bank takes a lot of time. had to smack the shit outta him and force him to get out of the apple store."

yep, the idiot forgot to charge his phone before you left for the airport. now his phone is dead, the desire to buy a new one instead of waiting for his phone to be charged in a powerbank is crazy. although, money is not a problem for the head of the gojo clan—he got figures that cost more, more, more than your annual salary.

"second, lego made him focused and entertained on building it, not for having scandalous sex with me. i feel like he's being my child than being my boyfriend at this moment." you joked, lowering your voice so your big baby wouldn't hear you.

"you said it yourself that satoru is a full package." shoko rolled her eyes, but she's not wrong tho. satoru is everything, he could easily afford things and could even make some things impossible to possible.

"touché."

shoko let out a laugh. "anyway, gotta go now. got a client in an hour so bye my boo, mwa!" sending also a virtual flying kiss to your platonic friend, you both bid a farewell to with sweet smile on your faces.

as you ended the call, you turned your attention to your boyfriend who's now almost done on his lego that he's been occupying himself for like an hour now.

you made to take some photo of him and post it on your close friends in instagram because this scene of your boyfriend is literally a wholesome and definitely iconic. satoru glanced at you when he heard you giggle at some adorable shots of your boyfriend.

"what are you laughing at?" your boyfriend glanced up to you, confused and warily.

you shook your head, holding your laughter to not raise any suspicion. "nothing babe, just focus on fishing your lego instead of other things."

satoru showed you the figure "oh but i'm finished and we still have like an hour before our flight…" he paused. your mouth hangs wide, questioning about how the hell he builds almost five hundred tiny pieces in just an hour?! truly your boyfriend was really something but this is wild.

"how did you—"

"can we have a quickie now?" satoru smiles sheepishly.

your face turns more sour at his shameless request. although you understand that satoru is a man in need, but his neediness sometimes is really out of place and it took a lot of effort just to stop him from doing so.

"no, satoru. instead, we're going to have a quickie stop at the lego shop to buy you some more entertainment."

your boyfriend pouted at your answer like a hurdled puppy. "but i'm enjoying it more when i'm inside you."

that completely took you off guard.

"... tempting but no."

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