#I FUCKING LOST IT WHEN HE CAME OUT

[tay-lordd]

The Undertaker & Rhea Ripley, Monday Night Raw on Netflix, 6 Jan 2025.

when i tell you i SCREAMED WHEN I HEARD HIS ENTRANCE SONG PLAY!!!

[sweetlullabyebye]

Charles' thing is that he wants to feel alive and that's part of the reason why he decided to never move on to the afterlife right? Meanwhile Edwin thinks Charles will move on and that he'll be alone again because 'he isn't good with people'.

But then when the Night Nurse shows up a second time Charles is ready to go wherever -including Hell- as long as Edwin shouldn't have to go back there, meanwhile Edwin refuses that they be split up, and both are okay with being sent together to the Lost and Found Department to be sorted out later as long as they're together-

[slamrink]

Nothing to see here just steph stealing glances of klay like he’s afraid he’s going to get caught 😃😃 (via namxsj on twitter )

[g00seg1raffe]

So there was a post a while back about Ben Solo always being told "don't do (x), that's how uncle luke lost his hand" when he was a kid - and I raise you: Elrond and Elros being told "don't do (x), that's how Maedhros lost his hand"??

Like, at Amon Ereb when the twins were newly acquired and refusing to eat their vegetables and Maglor is Mag-mothering them until Erestor, feral half-sane clinically depressed anarchist Avari hostage/patient/infiltrator and Certified Little Shit, hits em with:

"I would listen to the Lord Maglor, winyamor, he well knows the dangers that come to young elflings who don't eat enough vegetables - after all, that's how his brother lost his hand."

Elrond looks conflicted. Elros squints suspiciously. "Truly?"

Erestor, practically comatose since the massacre but ultimately saved from Fading by the biological compulsion to fuck with you, lays a hand over his heart. "I would never lie about such a thing! Just what do you take me for? This is a true tale and a grave warning - the Lord Maedhros' hand was tragically lost in the days of his youth, whilst he was still growing as you are. He refused to eat his vegetables and so, cruelly deprived of the strength it needed to grow strong, his body started to fall apart! First his fingers, then his thumb, and then his palm and wrist - all turned blue and dropped off!"

"No!" Elrond gasps. Elros looks both terrified and impressed. Maglor's face is scrunched up into something that the twins probably interpret as pained - at reminder of the horrors of limbs falling off! - but is actually just him busting a rib trying not to laugh.

"Yes!" Erestor cries with relish. "And it never grew back. All because he didn't eat his vegetables. Isn't that right, Lord Maedhros?"

Maedhros, a looming terror at the head of the table, scarred and solemn and impenetrable as his fortresses, narrows his eyes consideringly at the unfolding shenanigans and the rascal behind it. His conclusion? Fuck it. He gives a slow, solemn nod. Completely deadpan and exaggeratedly formal, because it may have been centuries since he last had his brothers smothering laughter at political dinners but the Finwëan sense of humour, once caught, is not an ailment easily cured.

Maglor conceals his wheezes behind his goblet as Erestor nods sagely to the wide-eyed twins, who suddenly seem a sight more interested in their vegetables.

[rebornofstars]

nobody fucking touch me rn i went to see tf one in the cinema and im shaking. they actually made a good transformers movie. what the fuck

[dirtytransmasc]

I cannot explain it, but Aegon and Aemond, are just Viserys and Daemon in a different font. so similar but so different.

Aegon and Viserys loving their brothers and their brothers not being able to see it, only being able to see the "hate" (Aegon's bullying) and the "fear" (Viserys's distrust).

Aemond and Daemon then destroying what remains of their relationships with their brothers, one's that we're already strained and messy cause Aegon and Viserys were far from perfect to begin with, out of the anger they felt for their brothers, because they were blind to the love they truly held.

the entire time Aemond was targeting Aegon, all I could hear was Rhaenyra yelling at Daemon;

"He did not fear you... He could not trust you!!!"

that's where Aegon and Admins are headed. Aegon will, even if it's deep down in his soul (in the case that he doesn't remember the events of rooks rest clearly), never trust Aemond again. he will never love Aemond the same as he had. Aemond will always be his brother and he could never truly fear him, as much as he should, but he will never trust him.

and now Aemond will be forced to realize that so much of what he hated in Aegon, his teasing and drunkenness and his goading, had been his love (much as Viserys's pity and placating and gifts, dismissing all of Daemon's wrongs but never letting him close) and now he will be without it. he will long for it, despite it being why he attempted to destroy him.

Edit: I worded myself poorly and now people are hella misunderstanding me. fuck. this is my bad but I feel like some of you failed to read between the lines a little. but let me try again.

I was never saying that Aegon was, in any capacity, a good brother. that was the difference between him and his father. but being a shit stain if a brother and a bully does not mean he can't also hold love for Aemond and hold a place for him in his heart.

I am also not saying that Aemond was unjustified in his beliefs and even his actions. Aegon was his bully, and because of that, he failed to see Aegon as his brother, as someone who, at the end of the day, did love him, in his own way.

and I acknowledge that, again, the exact dynamic between Aegon and Aemond is very different from their father and uncles had been. they are like. them but 30x worse and 10x more dysfunctional.

I'm just saying their dynamic is a messy parallel to their father and uncle.

I'm not justifying Aegon's actions. I'm not down playing them. I'm not shitting on Aemond. I'm not saying they were good brothers. I'm not an Aegon stan mindlessly supporting him. I'm just making connections between him and his father and their dynamic with their brothers.

Love is one of those connections, even if it's a fucked up disaster of bullying, and wanting to fight by his side, and knowing Aemond's and respecting him when it benefits Aegon and then tearing Aemond down when it doesn't, feeding his own self image issues, but also genuine love, feel down somewhere in that crooked thing that Aegon calls s heart, that an older brother holds for their little brother, cause it's in there.

they're siblings. shit is *fucked*. but they're siblings. and I feel like y'all do not want to see the complexity of that. yes Aegon sucks, yes Aemond deserves to be mad, yes Aemond also sucks. but it's the little things, the aspects that exist below surface level that make them so fascinating.

I think they parallel their forebears just like. 80x worse.

[citrine-elephant]

hngh.... leon....

leon, but long term captivity. by "long term" i mean his ass disappears for say... two, three years? held prisoner with no one having a single clue.

[alexjcrowley]

The Hobbit or Bilbo Baggins's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Not At All Fun Steppe Vacation

[trashlie]

ILY FP 258

I can't believe we're actually passed episode 250 lmao I Love Yoo is truly the never ending story (affectionate). I appreciate how much of the story we really get to dig into at this pace and while I know a lot of people have long-since dropped it, I imagine the rest of us (those reading this post because why else are you here?) also appreciate it. And that's what is even more refreshing about this episode - if refreshing is even a word we can use to describe it. Getting the extra scenes from other characters, a look at their lives and from these glimpses, what we can glean in the unsaid between the lines.

Can you believe I used to prey on Kousuke's downfall? There's so many posts of me talking about him from a different view, believing that the only way he could grow and develop and make the changes necessary to make him a better person was for him to crash and burn, to fail so significantly that he would be forced to pen his eyes to reality. But here we are, me, fervently swaddling him up like a baby and shoving him into my pocket because GOD he needs to be protected.

I don't even remember when it was, that my view on him began to shift, when I went from "he's interesting but awful" to "GOD THIS IS MY SON AND I WILL FIGHT EVERYONE YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME" but.... lol there's no going back!

That's enough rambling, let's jump in.

There is something so painfully devastating about every time ILY confirms to us something we have long-since known or suspected through nuance, foreshadowing, reading between the lines, etc: That Kousuke isn't Rand's biological son, that Shinae was at the formal for Gun Kim, that Kousuke has been manipulated his whole life. Nothing in this episode regarding Kousuke is actually new to us. We have known, and talked about, for months and months long before the confirmation reveal that Yui drugs Kousuke - that he has been manipulated by her his entire life, that she orchestrated his life to manipulate him into situations she could take advantage of. It's the way she spoke about Rand's affair around Kousuke, the way she commodified Rand's love so Kousuke became convinced he'd never earned his father's love, the way she spoke of their family vs others and convinced him from such a young age that everyone was out to get them, to destroy them, and that he couldn't let them get close, couldn't let them near - and how Nol was very much a target planted in his mind.

But it's the fact that he is speaking of this and acknowledging it! Until now, Kousuke has heavily lived in denial. Again, we know this. We talk a lot about the chasm between reality and the reality he believes in. We talk a lot about how Kousuke couldn't face reality, even though on some level he knew everything he believed and was told was not quite true not quite real, but that he was so afraid of the truth, he couldn't do it. Kousuke admitting that he's been driven by fear and envy explains everything about him, and why he could not accept the only unwavering unconditional love he was offered.

A few weeks ago I saw a video on instagram of this father talking about a conversation he had with his daughter, who was feeling a little uncomfortable with her friend group. A new girl started to play with her and her best friend and she said she wasn't exactly jealous, but that maybe it was that she was afraid that there wasn't enough love to go around. Her dad had to explain to her that love is not like a pizza - it's not finite, a limited amount that could be taken and hogged by someone else. But Kousuke never learned this. His father's love was commodified and he was made to fear this other kid who he mistakenly believed knew a version of his father he'd never been privy to. He never learned that love is finite, that Rand could have enough love for the both of them, and feared that Nol would hog it all - that he WAS hogging it all because whether or not it was good or bad, Nol received more attention that Kousuke did. And that speaks VOLUMES about how Kousuke sees Rand, what he thinks of their relationship. In his mind, he is still unworthy, that he's not noteworthy enough.

This part gets to me so badly. We, as omniscient readers, know that Rand has tried his best, but that Yui runs a spectacular interference with which he can't compete, largely because of the roles their family have placed them in - Rand the busy businessman, Yui the mommy homemaker. But no matter how hard he tries, it isn't good enough. Rand tries to reach Kousuke, but the manipulation and paranoia are so far gone that the times Rand does have the chance to convey his feelings, Kousuke can't even believe it, because he thinks he's not good enough to deserve that love, that he hasn't fully qualified for it yet. And despite that, Nol, who Kousuke feels hasn't done half of what he has to deserve Rand's love, gets the attention. It doesn't matter that it's negative attention, that Rand barks at Nol, that Nol feels Rand hates and regrets him, because ultimately, it's still more than Kousuke receives. And worse, to him, every time Rand is busy reprimanding Nol, he turns away from Kousuke to do it.

I want to make it clear that this is a deep trauma point of Kousuke's. He's never learned healthy love and the only person who gave him healthy love was someone he was set to fear and fight. Something I think about a lot is the flashback to Kousuke, in the bushes, watching Nessa and Nol's display of warm affection, before Yui appears literally looming before him. In that moment, he witnesses something he's been deprived of. "We're not like other families"'. He's told from a young age he shouldn't compare himself to those healthy families, to warm and affectionate relationships that he will not cultivate in this household. From such a young age it is normalized, that they aren't like others, that they are cold and distant. From a young age, he's made to stuff down his feelings, his tender wants and desires, in order to earn them. To be a good little boy who makes his parents proud. To make his father look his way.

There's also something about the way he says "I've been a good boy" that echoes Shinae learning she's been manipulated by Yui, devastated and angry and yelling about how she's been a good girl so why do these things keep happening to her, all she wanted to do was help her dad. Two people who, from a young age, felt they had to be so obedient, so good, to not be a burden, and despite following the rules, despite doing as they were told, despite trying to be whatever version of "good" they believed in, the world still beat them up and mistreated them. The world still punished them.

As Rin in our discord server pointed out, though, to some degree, Kousuke is very much a person who can - and does - act out, when he's emotionally high-strung. He's a volatile man, and it's largely to do with the fact that he's been drugged to placate him for so long. He never learned emotional regulation, he never learned how to deal with high-stress situations or to face conflict or to own up to things. This is something that some readers who hate Kousuke and expect him to act a certain way because of his age are missing. You don't just learn these things with age. You learn them with experience and Kousuke was deprived of the opportunity TO have those experiences. He never had to learn these behaviors, and now as an adult he cannot function when overwhelmed.

Idk this whole episode is just heartbreaking. It's devastating. I remember when I was someone praying on Kousuke's downfall and now I want to take it all back ;___; I always believed he had to crash and burn to be able to see the world for what it really was and to face his fears, but this is somehow so much worse.

And even though he's drunk, I don't think he's going to forget all of this in the morning. Rather, I think what he's voicing are things that have been plaguing him since waking up in the hospital. From that moment, we saw him wary and distrustful of his mother, we saw his concern for Nol rising above everything else, but grappling with the understanding that he doesn't deserve to stand in front of Nol anymore. These aren't epiphanies coming to him just because he's drunk; it's more like he's only voicing them because he's drunk. But even when he sobers up, he will probably still be haunted by these fears, these agonies, these truths, this understanding.

How does he face his mother after this? How does he face anyone? He may not even feel like he can trust Jayce - who while very kind to him, is still employed by his family. He may not even feel like he can trust Hansuke (though I really hope that's not the case).

He's so miserable and it genuinely hurts to have him lay it all out for us - everything we've known and suspected, like how it was so painfully clear he WANTED Nol's friendship, their brotherhood, but feared it, didn't believe that there was enough love to go around, that there could only be one of them and that even if it was for good or bad reasons, Nol cast him in the shadow. And all these years, watching as Nol, as Yeonggi, grew into this person who sounded so very much like this unknown version of their father, someone funny who makes others laugh, someone goofy, someone so boyish in the ways Kousuke was never allowed to be. Watching as he gathers friends, while Kousuke, so unlikeable, is wanted only for his money, for his status, for the clout.

He doesn't even know WHO HE IS! Questioning his own traits he's believed of himself, wondering if this is even him, if these parts of him are real or does he just act it, say it, pretend it, while trying to fulfill a role he was shoved into. That makes me feel SO deeply sad, because it's something I've been anticipating for so long: Kousuke wondering WHO he really is, how much of him is real and how much of it is the result of manipulation.

And that moment that he catches himself and says no no that's offensive and rude you can't be like that. ;AAA;

For him to admit how much he envies others, how much he craves the kind of connection others have, the kind of family others have, to feel that love and warmth that he's been deprived of, forced to endure this solitude because, as he believes, he didn't get the good parts of Rand. And what will happen when he learns that Rand isn't his father? That he never stood a chance to inherit any of those traits. Kousuke has operated on this belief that, if he tries hard enough, he can earn the things he craves, but I fear learning about his parenthood will make him think that no matter how hard he tried, he would never earn that, because none of it was ever him, could have gone to him.

I think this is where Shinae, in the future, will come in. I feel so very strongly that she will be someone who helps Kousuke to see that this isn't true, that these kinds of personality traits aren't something inherited, but rather something learned. For him to one day realize it's the paralyzing fear that holds him back, not his genetics. Of course, I acknowledge this will still take a lot of therapy but...

Something else very remarkable to me is the way Kousuke recognizes Shinae in Shinhye, because their eyes "feel the same" and he opens up to her - on some level, whether or not he is consciously aware of it, Kousuke knows, or maybe just wants to, that he can trust Shinae. That she is someone who is safe. He even knows how she feels about his mother. I don't think we'll see a lot of Kousuke and Shinae's friendship until we're passed our timeskips, but it makes me feel a little hopeful about it, that she'll be able to reach him, because she feels like someone who is safe. It's the way he sees Nol in her and wants to try to have that do over, a relationship with someone who  has unconditional love for him. It's the way he knows he mistreated Nol, that it was wrong, that he took it all out on this kid he was so afraid of because he had no other outlet, and he wants to do better but knows that there's nothing to salvage anymore.

But also, it just makes me hope more and more that in the future we WILL see a reconciliation between the brothers. As I say every time, it doesn't mean they have to become brothers or friends, but I just want them to see each other fully. Kousuke knows what he did to Nol. He doesn't deny it, even if he might not say it out loud unless he's drunk. But Nol is still so in the dark. Yujing is trying to tip him off and make him aware of it, but I hope one day when Nol realizes it, when he finds out that Kousuke, too, was Yui's victim, that he wasn't the only one, that Kousuke was made to fear Nol's love, he might.... understand. I'm saying understand here loosely because I don't want people to get the idea that I mean Nol will forgive him and Kousuke will be justified, but rather that Nol would be able to understand why Kousuke felt that way, and move on. But I can't help but hope that it will lead to an understanding, a reconciliation, where maybe they can try to be in each other's lives.

I think it's also interesting that Shinhye was somewhat honest, even if she wasn't very forthcoming, with Kousuke about her own family. It sounds like her mother has been gone for a long time, that she's been on her own the whole while, and I think it reinforces the idea that she believes both that Simhan is her father and that he rejected her, that he didn't want anything to do with her. It lines up, too, with how she feels that he wouldn't react well if he saw her (although I think she credited that to looking like their mother). In the same way that Shinae has felt abandoned and cast aside by their mother, Shinhye probably thinks their father never tried reach out, to find them, to maintain a relationship with her. Or perhaps it's that her mother fed her lies about him, made her believe him a different type of man, made her believe there would never be anything of their relationship to salvage. And given that she's the one who Kousuke opened to, it makes me think that there must be some kind of parallel there; the way she mentioned her own mother feels like maybe her mother, too, was a manipulative - or at the very least, dishonest - person.

I don't speculate a lot on Shinhye because frankly I don't think I know enough about her to really try to talk about her, but I do think that it's very likely there's some kind of connection between Shinhye and the Hirahras or Gun. To be clear, I don't believe she's working with Yui at all. I think it's more like... Alyssa isn't the only girl who has been trafficked by Gun. What's the likelihood that Shinae and Shinhye's mother was? Given her history, the gambling addiction that was so egregious her reputation haunted Shinae and chased her to a new neighborhood and school, was she seeking money somewhere else, somewhere more dangerous? Is that part of why they had to change their name? There's so many questions left about them, and I look forward to learning more about her, but, much like with Alyssa, I think it will take time and be dropped in little tidbits like this - things to read into and try to glean something from.

And maybe we'll see more of this duo in the future? It would feel a little weird to give them this one single run in, but I'm not entirely sure. Quimchee likes to keep us on our toes. After all, Minhyuk and Shinhye have also had only the one run in. Still, I think it would be interesting to watch, if Shinhye ever felt.... I want to say maybe compelled? to dig in more to Kousuke, ever feel a kind of kinship. I don't think she'll open up to him at all, but rather, maybe she'd keep going back because a. he's wealthy and there's more she can nick from him (assuming he doesn't realize she stole anything while in his apartment, if he even remembers any of this) and b. wanting to gather more intel.

Like I said though, she's hard to read so I don't want to cling too hard to any ideas and, instead, sit back and enjoy the show.

[omtai]

goodnight my kitties

[whatudottu]

Honestly Ben 10 is probably one of the most based science fiction series out there by sheer virtue of it having the balls to showcase any alien concept it wanted to no matter how ridiculous, and whenever someone is like “there’s no way in Hell that could ever be scientifically feasible”, it dared to look them in the eyes and go “Yeah, well, this is a world where magic and superpowered mutants also exist. What are you gonna do? Cry about it? You grown ass adult who’s expecting scientific feasibility out of a cartoon meant to sell toys to preteen boys that has lore so inconsistent it’s almost impossible to tell what’s canon and what’s non-canon? LMAO loser.”

I mean OS had it all- obviously aliens but not only that, at minimum 10 of them; mutants in daily life across at least America, no doubt in other places too; magic, albeit one without a system beyond ‘there’s a spellbook and some charms’. The shift to purely alien in AF makes the wonderful nonsense sci-fi stuff into frustrating logic trees of ‘how does xenobiology get this powerful’ which I had definitely fallen into. Ben 10 is unabashedly science fantasy, so why not go the full fantasy and bring back mutants and magic, haha!

Admittedly a good implementation of magic in a series tends to follow a magic system, which I’m not especially great at coming up with, especially in comparison to speculative biology which come with pre-established rules. But hey, I don’t exactly expect it to be fleshed out, at least not as well as the alien aspect of Ben 10; even then, there’s only so much fleshed out, it’s to tease us into making lore for it lmao-

To be fair though, Ben 10 itself had to whack itself on the cheek in order to be reminded of its magic and especially mutant parts, which unfortunately in the latter case was central to major retcons so…

[chaoticeddie]

I gotta quit this job lmaooooo

[greencarnation]

me when i thought talking about palestine would get people to care about palestine but all that really happened was people stopped caring about me

[hearteyespierce]

god the hits really don’t stop fucking coming do they.

[nexus-nebulae]

known we were a system for about 7 years now, probably been a system for far longer, and just realised. we got an intrusive self-fakeclaiming thought today and laughed it away

[carefulfears]

I just love how carefree mulder and scully are in david’s episodes, it’s a side of them we so rarely got to see… 😔😔😔

yeah, me too. david writes journeys for mulder, with clear morals and arcs. the unnatural is about valuing “life on this planet,” finding space for joy and connection in the midst of blinding pursuit. amor fati is about commitment to your purpose, realigning to who you are at the core, who you were as a child. the promises that you made to yourself then. hollywood a.d. is about legacy, what we leave behind: does it matter if it’s warped, or if it’s nothing, so long as we loved and were loved well?

david’s episodes are classic hero’s journeys, active lessons for mulder as a character. but these are all things that scully already knows, so she gets to be passive and lighthearted and wise. they aren’t having anything beaten into them; they’re growing through storytelling, through play, through identification. they’re growing through watching a movie at 3am and rambling to each other. they’re growing through eating gross fake ice cream and reading old newspapers on a saturday morning. they’re growing through swinging a baseball bat, hips before hands, all night under the stars.