#I need a better term for this

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[turtleblogatlast]

I love Raph and haven’t said that enough so to be more specific I love that Raph is a soft boy who loves bear plushies, a gross boy who eats an assortment of things that are definitely better left alone, a smart boy who is more than capable of taking down villains through planning and fortitude alike, a strong boy who is dedicated to training his muscles and fighting prowess, a teenage boy who loves his brothers but is more than happy to tease and roughhouse with them, an angry boy who sometimes lets his anger take a hold of him to cover the fear, a gentle boy who is generous with hugs and affirmations to those he loves, a capable boy who takes on more than should ever be expected of a teenager, a good boy who just wants to be a hero and slowly comes to realize the cost of that duty, a good boy who has no reservations about putting himself in the way of harm coming to his family, a good boy who’s a great brother and son and person and deserves only the best the world has to offer.

[charlietheepicwriter7]

Talia found Yasmin's hide out only two days after the bomb.

It wasn't easy. Yasmin had hidden herself well - her monthly reports had never mentioned an acquaintanceship with Vladimir Masters, the absolute gall of that girl - in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin. She bypassed the few security measures with ease, eventually finding her daughter sitting at a kitchen table, hyperventilating.

"What happened?" Talia's voice was cold and demanding.

"The-" Yasmin gasped before stealing herself. "The Fentons are dead."

"I know the Fentons are dead." Talia circled the girl. "One split navel to throat, the other strangled. What. Happened?"

"The Fentons discovered their son was a Meta. Specifically, they thought he had been replaced with the extradimentional species they study." She took a deep breath. "By the time I had discovered their actions, Daniel was... dissected on a table."

Talia closed her eyes. She knew from Yasmin's reports that she'd been acting as the Fenton child's primary caretaker since her adoption and a fondness had developed. "Yasmin-"

"Don't, Mother." She snapped. "Don't act like this is anything less than a tragedy."

"I know-"

"He was a child-"

"Everything's been taken care of," Talia said. "As far as the authorities are concerned, Jasmine Fenton died in that explosion you caused. You need to return now-"

"No!" Yasmin bolted to her feet, glaring at Talia. "He's dead, Mother! An innocent child, the child I raised as my own, is dead because I couldn't protect him! Don't you dare try to sweep this under the rug like... like Danny was something shameful! I'm not leaving! I have to-"

Time Out.

Yasmin shut her mouth mid-sentence, giving Talia time to convince her off her self-destructive path.

"What happened to Daniel is a tragedy, Yasmin. But wallowing in grief and what-ifs only leads to further pain." Talia sighed. "The Fentons and the research you were so fascinated with are gone now. You made sure of that. It's time for you to return home and put that knowledge to use."

Yasmin stared down at her hands. Odd that Talia hadn't noticed, but Yasmin's hands cradled a small, dark blue jewel, polished into a smooth, oblong oval. It glittered under the candlelight, like stars in the sky.

Yasmin swallowed the rock and spoke, refusing to acknowledge what she'd just done. "You are right, Mother. The time of Jasmine Fenton is gone now." She stared straight at Talia, no trace of fear in her gaze. For a moment, Talia wondered where her child had gone. Yasmin never met her eyes unless prompted to when she was growing up. Now she was met with a younger version of herself with cheap dyed-red hair, with the same level of determination that made Talia the Right Hand of the Demon Head. "I will mourn for Danny... on my own time. For now, what is my mission?"

Talia studied her daughter. There was a reason why she'd hidden the girl so far out of the way of her Father and her son. Yasmin was a strong fighter, but had her father's heart, despite her willingness to kill. She'd always reminded Talia of a bodyguard rather than an assassin, but Yasmin wanted to go her own way, wanted to study everything. For years, Talia had indulged her daughter, but now it was time for her to return to the fold.

"For the next month, you will be training to remove any weakness the Fentons may have left in you. After that, you will be guarding an ally for me."

"Which ally?"

"A boy a few years older than you, a son of the Bat." Yasmin didn't react to the mention of her father. Good. "His mind is infirm, but by the time you finish your training, he will be ready to strike a blow against Gotham. You will act as his guard during his training and act as my spy while he's in Gotham. Do you understand?"

For a moment, Yasmin's hand brushed her stomach before she forced her fists to her sides. "Yes, Mother. I will do as you ask."

[yrsonpurpose]

He kisses Henry's knuckle, just below his ring. "I have some ideas."

[fiona-fififi]

Call me homophobic, but I don't actually think it's great representation to stick a complex, dynamic, newly-realized bisexual character permanently with a flat, boring, underdeveloped love interest just because that was the first guy who showed interest.

[r0b0t1me]

w/e

[bibibbon]

Moon and wreck

Both Wreck and Moon are there to prop up nice and make him look cooler or much more perfect to the public. Moon acts as Nice's girlfriend, and she feels like an accessory to Nice. She feels and knows that she is just there because the believers want it, and it helps with Nice's popularity. Wreck, on the other hand, acts as Nice's nemesis. He is there to take punch after punch and be defeated over and over to make sure Nice looks perfect, powerful, and strong. All of this for both Wreck and Moon to essentially act as trust value boosters for Nice.

Both moon and wreck are one's to initiate a food/drink fight with Nice and Lin Ling. They seem to be enjoying their time and actually show that Nice and Lin Ling reciprocate and happily join them in the fight even as those two are in their hero outfit.

Both moon and wreck being in their own personal clothes and having the benefit to be relived of their duties while Nice and Lin Ling are still in the hero outfit, the idea of perfection looming over them.

Both Wreck and Moon absolutely disliking Nices perfection. Wreck calls him a hypocrite because he knows that Nice isn't perfect, but he still cares and loves him with all of his imperfections while Moon grows to feel trapped and relentlessly annoyed at keeping everything perfect now matter what which is why it's such a breath of fresh air when Lin Ling joins her in destorying the statue.

Wreck discovering that Lin Ling isn't nice the minute he interacts with him and having a major reaction to it asking where the real Nice is while Moon realises a bit later and her reaction is why she still has to be stuck doing a job she doesn't want to (valid)

Wreck 'dying' with no one caring about him and only moon and Lin Ling looking at him as he falls while Moon's 'death' televised and has everyone's eyes on her

No one mourns the wicked?

Also, both of them fall in very similar ways, except no one catches Wreck as he falls.

When asked if Moon liked Nice, she says that she simply views this arrangement as just "work." This is simply all but a job for her. A job that she couldn't escape for 3 years while Wreck actively describes this as a shared dream and desire that the two of them had and that Nice was his best friend.

Wreck's love vs. Moon's job and duty

Lastly, Wreck and Moon realise that their dreams were broken long ago. Wreck realises he can never truly be a hero while Moon realises that being Nice's accessor will never be for her and that her travel blogging days also aren't really her. One dies before figuring out what they now want while the other has the future in store for them.

The main difference that truly separates moon and wreck is that Moon simply views this as a job to which she isn't emotionally attached to while Wreck views this through a very emotional lense that causes him to play the part.

[a-dragons-journal]

How exactly is being otherkin any different than being transracial by idea? I’m not pro-transracial, but I can’t really formulate an argument on where the difference is and why one is okay while the other isn’t

The difference, in my opinion at least, basically comes down to the fact that race and ethnicity are things other real people deal with and which have big cultural impact for a lot of people; species is not. You can't hurt theriform wolves by identifying as a wolf because wolves are not people and are not aware of any of this. Dragons may be people depending on the dragon, but they don't exist physically in this world to have an opinion. You can, however, hurt people of color by identifying as transethnicity and approaching it in a disrespectful way.

And I say it that way because if I'm honest, transethnicity is one of those transIDs where I'm... a little torn on it. I can understand the feelings and experiences they're describing, but I struggle to find a way to engage with the idea of being transethnicity that isn't going to wind up being racist in one way or another. And while I haven't exactly spent a ton of time in radqueer/transID spaces, when I've gone into their tags and such to do a little research on them, I have overwhelmingly seen transethnicity people being kind of if not extremely racist about it. The experiences are not inherently harmful, but it's really easy to slide into engaging with those experiences in a way that's harmful.

And yet... in this community we have, for example, fictionkin whose fictotypes are a different race than them all the time, and sometimes that's very important to who their fictotype is and how they view the world. And that works out fine. I think the primary difference is that fictionkin are generally expected to acknowledge that they're not a part of that group in the present and can't speak on the group's issues or experiences as if they were, whereas the minute you put a trans- label onto the word, the expectation is that you should be treating a trans[x] person as if they're [x]. (And if it's not, then... why are you calling it trans- anything to begin with when that's what trans- means in an identity context?)

So, I do genuinely believe that they're having these experiences, but... idk, there has to be a better way to frame and engage with those experiences. I don't know what that is, but it's got to be out there somewhere, though it may not be a one-size-fits-all answer. (And maybe there's a transID community out there that's found it, I don't know.)

Anyway, open invitation for POC to give their thoughts on this, since they've probably got better-constructed ones than me; if I'm honest, I haven't spent all that much time thinking about this issue. I think about it on and off here and there when it comes up and then it gives me a headache so I move on.

[slothxio]

my favorite genre of men is gay, depraved, and covered in blood

[angelsberrymilk]

CIRCUS AU WHERE DEAN IS THE GUY WHO THROWS KNIVES AND SHOOTS BALLOONS AROUND SOMEONE, AND THAT SOMEONE IS ALWAYS SAM AND IT'S SO INTENSE AND HE NEVER FAILS AND NEVER NICKS SAM AND AFTER EACH PERFORMANCE THEY WIND DOWN TOGETHER AND AND AND 😭😭😭😭

[sergle]

my god I try not to talk abt it here, because yall follow me for the Good Stuff and not the Negative Stuff, but eating disorder geared social media is coming back in a MAJOR WAY and I feel like I see wayyyy more stuff that's like, harkening back to thinspo / pro-ana tumblr, But Worse, and everywhere, and it is very concerning

[cornertheculprit]

i joke a lot about apollo despising working at the waa and honestly i don't think i'm too far off the mark because it cannot be fun to endure a million jokes about basically being the office's secretary but like all things in ace attorney it IS infinitely more complicated than that and i think it does all stem back to phoenix & apollo's relationship. phoenix was the world's biggest jackass to apollo but apollo still, despite everything, cannot kill that part of himself that viewed him as an idol (him asking phoenix if he believed in him, him being rightly furious and never wanting to see phoenix again in 4-2 but still freaking out about being in front of the "legendary" wright & co. law offices). he really truly does want to learn from phoenix so so badly but even in aa5 when phoenix starts turning himself around he fundamentally cannot trust in those teachings as a result of aa4 (the game where all the clients were guilty of Something even if it wasn't the crime they were being accused of. aa5 has apollo repeating "believe in your client" to himself but then he realizes he just. Can't. thus where the whole "i want to believe in athena but there can be no faith without doubt"/"maybe i'm not even fit to be a lawyer"/etc. thing comes from). and it's just this complicated fucking mess.

phoenix is trying to be better but even with that he does treat athena wayyyyyy better than he treats apollo (this does not stop athena from continually having a bad time in the opposite direction from apollo). apollo was the only waa member never accused of murder. who never had to be saved in some deep emotional way by phoenix that Forged A Bond between them. he was mentored in law by the man who destroyed phoenix's life. their main point of connection always comes back to this man. phoenix is trying so hard to be better and apollo does want the man who he once considered his greatest idol to Teach Him Things but by the time they met he never needed phoenix as much as phoenix needed him. even before i played aa6 i always thought him leaving the agency was inevitable because lawyer-wise there's just nothing THERE for him (i say lawyer-wise because obviously trucy and athena are his friends). he hit a point of stagnation. even with aa6 trying sooo hard to push the phoenix/apollo mentor/mentee agenda it doesn't change the fact that phoenix, the Guy Who Believes In People, answered "not really" when apollo asked him if he believed in him. saying it two years later does not magically fix things even if they both desperately want it to. am i making any sense at all

[thefawnfallacy]

You don’t have to like sebaciel or the many undertones it presents in the series but it’s actually getting to the point where insistent ignorance of the sexual nature Ciel is presented in can be dangerous. Fiction does not exist on a 1:1 scale with reality but just using this fictitious scenario of Ciel being sexualised (by Yana herself) while having a panic/asthma attack and it being called “not actually sexual” or sebaciel fans being called “delusional” when pointing out the erotic nature of, not just this, but the many instances in which the viewer is meant to see Ciel in a sensual manner, is concerning.

You should be able to identify a sexual situation, even if it’s a situation in which the things happening are not inherently sexual. One of the main components of grooming is that is does not start out sexual, there’s a buildup to that in which the groundwork has already been laid. I’ll say it again, you should be able to identify when something sexual is happening without it being inherently sexual.

Yes, Ciel is repeatedly sexualised canonically, it is not being used to mock shippers, he simply exists in a very erotic manner in many situations using a variety of different ways to depict it, most commonly being flower language. No, you are not “morally correct” for not enjoying it, you just find it uncomfortable or triggering and that’s fine. Yes, you should be able to see that he’s being sexualised because he’s fake and if you cannot see it then there’s a chance of not being able to see this in real life, whether it be a friend, a child in your care, or even yourself.

Not being able to identify the sexual nature a character can be presented in is not a good thing. It doesn’t mean you “aren’t a porn addict”, it doesn’t mean you “aren’t a bad person” and it certainly doesn’t mean you are “not a pedophile, like those shippers are”. It means you cannot spot the difference between a bad fake relationship and a bad real relationship.

Stop giving a damn about fictional characters and start giving a damn about yourself.

[assassin-artist]

Decided to give a shot at making a mock screenshot with my own SH cousin, Petra. There's a lot of mistakes and a lot I should do differently next time, but I still like this version enough to share (:

[ginnyrules27]

Me: *watches Descendants but didn't pay attention to the small details* I hc that Ben provided a gift bag for the VKs when they arrived.

Descendants: Like...this?

Me: ...Gods damn it, I need to pay attention to things!

[blueskittlesart]

the original ranma is good and I hold it close to my chest from nostalgia but I will say be warned: its pretty racist about chinese people 😭 so far it seems like the reboot is working against that but we'll have to see when shampoo shows up

yk i cant say im surprised because the first thing i did when they said the word china was cringe internally and pray to god they'd be normal about it but maybe i will just stick with the reboot on this one