#I’m sure this isn’t a New Take but

[reigenagain]

I think the thing that gets me the most re: if a vaccine would work in tlou is that even if they DID get one, and it DID work, how are we sure that the literal fascists government in play won’t monetize/gatekeep it?

we already have issues with health care and medicine being kept from people who need it, we’re shown fedra keeps supplies/food/other necessities from survivors. we’re shown that the fireflies are on their last legs, with no outward reach. how the hell would they be able to distribute a vaccine with their limited resources without fedra taking over?

the desperation of finally having a lead into a cure blinded a lot of perception. idk it’s like.. even if it worked and the infected were wiped out, there’s worst things out there than infected

[the-travelling-witch]

Something I keep coming back to when thinking about Jamil is that, among the OB! Students, he might be the one who’s twisted from a disney “good guy” as much (or even more) than from the respective villain. And yes, I’m well aware that none of the characters are very one-note Disney villain, but with Jamil it just strikes such a chord with me.

Of course, he represents Jafar who has always resented being second best and who betrays the sultan to overtake the Nr. 1 position and all the power that comes with it. And during Book 4 (and now also Book 7), we can see Jamil equally backstabbing Kalim and planning to continue with the other housewardens and the headmage. That’s not a hot take, I understand that (whaaaat Jamil is twisted from Jafar?? Who would’ve guessed /j)

But with Jamil, I feel like his motivation for striving for power is a little different. For someone who has grown up in the world of the Asim family and has been with Kalim his entire life, I believe Jamil equates power with his actual goal in life: freedom.

So when he says “You really are my genie of the lamp, Azul” it felt sooo ironic to me, because it’s you! You are the genie, Jamil!

Just like the Genie’s “phenomenal cosmic power, but itty-bitty living space”, Jamil objectively has a lot of intelligence, talent and drive to excel at something, yet the space he has in which he can live and cultivate those aspects of his personality is very, very limited.

Both characters are also forced into their prison by the circumstances of their birth. Jamil was born into the Viper family, Genie was born a genie, and now they have to spend a lifetime of granting the wishes of other people.

For them to gain the freedom they so desperately want, both characters rely on the mercy of the people they serve, who they are useful to. But deep down they know their wish won’t ever be granted.

Genie has been promised his freedom a lot of times, just for the person’s third wish to be for their own gain after all when push comes to shove. Jamil has heard Kalim call him his best friend, just to turn around the next second and demand something else of him, wielding his power over him once more.

Besides, even if Kalim did give Jamil his freedom (if he even can, considering his family might step in), it’s shown that Jamil cares very deeply for his family, so I don’t think he would consider it “freedom” if his family was still serving the Asim household, which has an even slimmer chance of ever changing.

So yeah, I find the inspiration Jamil’s character takes from the Genie so interesting and at the same time it makes me want to tear out my heart. Please, he deserves so much (peace and quiet most of all) and I want to give him everything ㅠㅠ

[the-storyteller78]

Ok, the livestream of the Wisdom Saga broke me a little inside. And by a little, I mean a lot. Utterly. Entirely. And once I have all my thoughts together, expect a whole series of rants about every detail I managed to notice beyond the haze of my tears. But one realization I had was about Athena, Odysseus, and Telemachus.

Like many others, I thought it was hilarious that Athena would be up in arms defending Telemachus and openly calling him her friend when she knew Odysseus for much longer and was still in denial about their friendship. I thought there was something about Telemachus that was just more endearing to her, something that Odysseus lacked in character, in attitude, what have you. But with the release of the Wisdom Saga and all the reveals regarding so many of the unfinished little lyric blurbs we’ve heard before, one thing is clear: Athena would not be able to love Telemachus if not for Odysseus. Odysseus is the one who taught her what it is to have a friend. Odysseus is the one who held out his newborn son for her to hold, a privilege I doubt many had.

Without Odysseus, I honestly don’t think she would’ve given Telemachus a second glance. After all, she was searching for a warrior of the mind, and I don’t know that he would’ve lived up to even her prerequisite standards. Not worth the investment of her time, so to say. But because she does know Odysseus, because he showed her what it means to be more than a warrior of the mind, that there is more to life than walking alone, she changes.

She admits it. Odysseus is her friend. He is her friend, and she left him. And that acknowledgment brings her so much guilt she is unable to sleep at night. Guilt is not something she or any of the other Olympians would feel, especially not in relation to mortals. Why should they? Human lives are brief and meaningless. So for Athena to regret is not normal. Yet, she does.

She has learned humanity, and that is what leads her to Telemachus’ side. It is what allows her to cast aside old hurts and face up against Zeus to save Odysseus. It is what causes her to remember holding baby Telemachus in her arms all those years ago, and it is why that memory gives her the strength to persevere against her father’s onslaught.

It is why when she is on the ground, bloody and broken and beat, her last conscious words are used to beg for Odysseus’ freedom.

Her friend.

[mabaris]

no youre completely right - im a gay (trans)man and i legit wanna see so much more about the women bc There Is So Little. I wanna make a lesbian oc who gets bent in half by taash. im very normal.

i’m just tired man!!!! it feels so obvious how disproportionate it is when you’ve got. a cast of characters that we know almost equally little about. and a few of them explode in popularity and it’s like spongebob sticking his hand out the curtain. literally all a character needs to do numbers is to be a light-skinned man

[chibishortdeath]

He is made of glass, wears a necklace of teeth, smokes, and will try to mimic your appearance and replace you, but he is your friend!!! :D I love the X68000/Chronicles doppelgänger he’s one of the enemies of all time :3. Banger music in that level too, Tower of Dolls is one of my favorites!

[goldkirk]

If anyone remembers all the dental work I needed done uhhhhhhh three years ago and never went back and ran away forever…I’m finally going back to a dentist on Thursday to restart the process and face my deep and utter abiding terror. And I also scheduled my COVID and flu vaccines for a couple hours later. And my psych appointment to restart meds.

I figured get it all done in one day, have my miserable immune reaction on Friday that I seem to always get with Moderna COVID shots, and then flee directly into the weekend and never be a person again except when I’m on and off crying. It’s going to be so kind to future me to get these things done and I can do it no matter how much I feel like I am constantly about to Actually Physically Die.

[foxgloveinspace]

I’m kinda sad cause the Sleep Token obsession is ending on my end but not in a ‘I don’t love them’ kinda way, they are still my favorite band ever, I just……. Am not as obsessed.

[accursedvoid]

Y’all ever just be vibing and then BAM! the existential anxiety and dread of the world today just hits you and you have an hour or so just mentally having a bad time about it - then it’s back to vibing and we start the cycle again.

[antiquepearlss]

Did I just listen to a song from West Side Story after months of forgetting it existed and immediately begin to think of the Freckle and Team Awesome Siblings? Yes. Yes I did.

Did I just spend and hour writing a small fic despite the fact that I have another wip I need to finish plus an inbox full of requests I said I would do? Yes. Yes I did.

Do I regret it? No. Because Freckle Sibs and Eugene angst.

Rapunzel clenched her teeth. For the first time in her life, she was angry at Varian, her little brother. Which she felt guilty for, none of this was his fault, he lost his brother, his closest family member, he was hurting too. She desperately wanted to feel anything else than anger at him. She just wanted to be angry at the boy, the monster that killed her love. But no, Varian, her sweet lovely Varian, was defending him.

“A boy like that, who’d kill your brother, forget that boy and find another.” She began to sing, overcome with grief and rage. She turned to the young ravenette who was standing still, grief plastered over his face. If the Saporians had never tried to take the Coronans turf this never would have happened. Eugene would be alive and she wouldn’t have to wipe her or Varian’s tears. Her scowl hardened. “One of your own kind, stick to your own kind.” 

Grief and pain flashed across her little brother's face, and he promptly turned his head as he clenched his fists. She could feel the mix of anger and pain and heartbreak emanating from him. The room was filled with it. But unlike her, he was being stubborn and idiotic. 

She forced back a sob, her grief being pushed back by her rage. Varian was being blind to young love. He wasn’t thinking straight. She once prided him on his optimism and big heart, as she shared it with him. But eventually reality had to set in. Why it sat with her and not her baby brother, she wasn’t sure. 

Well, she was. He was blinded by young love. Young love with a murderer.

“A boy like that, will give you sorrow. You’ll meet another boy tomorrow. One of your own kind, stick to your own kind.” 

She would never force Varian to be with someone he didn’t love, but why couldn’t he have gotten with Faith, or Jane? Not Saporian scum. Clearly, they were all cruel inhumans. Bent on destroying her life. They took away her Eugene, and now they were trying to take away her Varian. They murdered her love and used cunning and trickery to manipulate her second love.

Varian scowled and he turned away, unable to even face his sister in her grief induced rage. He had never seen her like this, he didn’t want to, he couldn’t stand it. And he couldn’t stand that in a way, he was perpetuating it. He had hurt her. By being in love.

He swallowed back a sob. He lost his brother and he was going to lose his sister. Over some boy he met 48 hours ago. But he loved that boy. He was in love.

Rapunzel didn’t understand. Varian loved Eugene and he was heartbroken, utterly heartbroken. He wasn’t sure how to even go on after his death anymore. But, his death was inevitable. This gang war, this cycle, someone was always going to end up dying. Eugene was always going to end up dying by a Saporian’s hand. It just happened to be Hugo who was holding the knife. But he knew Hugo, he knew he didn’t want to kill his adoptive brother. It was all just a horrifying, unfortunate situation. But Rapunzel was too wrapped up in her grief to see it that way.

She, like him, had been against the turf war, the separation, the hatred. But, after years of the fighting, and then seeing her fiancée’s body in the morgue, the hatred had gotten to her too. He couldn’t say he blamed her, but why couldn’t she see Hugo was just another victim too?

“A boy who kills cannot love, a boy who kills has no heart.” Rapunzel sang angrily over Varian’s thoughts. His attempts to, avoid her, in a sense, hadn’t worked. She angrily stomped over to him  and grabbed his chin. She was gentle, but the anger in her eyes was more painful than if she had clawed him. 

“And he’s the boy who gets your love and get your heart. Very smart, Varian. Very smart.” She spat. 

Varian glared at her and ripped his head away from her hand. He rushed through the curtain acting as a door, desperate to get away from her. But she was quick on his heels, her grief and anger lacing her melodic voice and cutting through his heart. He held his hands over his ears, clawed his hair, and grit his teeth.

“A boy like that wants one thing only. And when he’s done he’ll leave you lonely. He’ll murder your love; he murdered mine. Just wait and see, just wait Varian, just wait and see.”

Varian’s grief, and building anger, boiled over. How dare she. No, he understood why she was mad, he sympathized with her. He was mad too, but she didn’t understand. He needed her to just listen. He turned to her, the neon signs from outside the kitchen window providing enough light to see her, contrasting with the eerie shadows of the small, darkened, run down apartment. All of Rapunzel’s paintings, crafts, and thrifted decor did nothing to offset the darkness that was cast in the wake of Eugene’s death. The darkness of the evening seemed much darker now.

“Oh no Rapunzel no. Rapunzel no.” He sang back, trying to be calming and loving. He wasn’t mad at her. He desperately just wanted her to listen, to not let her grief blind her and for her to be her open-hearted self again. “It isn’t true, not for me. It’s true for you, not for me.” He walked up to her, face to face. He felt tears begin to burn in his eyes, Rapunzel’s glare softened very slightly, so he continued.

“I hear your words, and in my head, I know they’re smart.” Because he did. He knew Rapunzel had every right to be angry and to hate Hugo. He knew that he should be angry and hate Hugo. But he didn’t, because he loved him too much to blame him. And he couldn’t stand Rapunzel, his sister, hating him and trying to get Varian to hate him.

Didn’t she always say that hate was the root of the problem here? What caused this war? Didn’t she see she was perpetuating this cycle? That she will end up just like Eugene and Andrew?

He loved Hugo. He wasn’t going to end up like them, like she was becoming. 

“But my heart, Rapunzel, but my heart, knows they’re wrong. And my heart is too strong. For I belong to him alone, to him alone. One thing I know, I am his. I don’t care what he is. I don’t care why it’s so. I don’t want to know.” While he sang, trying to get through to her, she stubbornly repeated her earlier words. “A boy like that, who killed your brother, forget that boy and find another. He’ll murder your love and he murdered mine. A boy who kills cannot love. A boy who kills has no heart. And he’s the boy who gets your love and gets your heart. Very smart, Varian, very smart!”

Both of their voices cracked, and their respective dams broke. Rapunzel was giving him the most angry, hateful, pained look. Varian glared at her. Both, through their tears. 

Whilst singing, Varian’s nervous restless nature had backed the two of them into the nearly pitch black bedroom Varian had claimed.

“Oh no Rapunzel no, you should know better!” He practically screamed. “You were in love, or so you say!”

Varian panted, sweat and tears mixing down his face. Rapunzel looked about the same. They were standing toe to toe, two broken hearts. Two grieving hearts. Rapunzel was angry and hateful, she was hurting. And he was making it worse.

He never wanted to see the face she was making at his words again. The pain, the hurt, the betrayal. It hurt him. 

His glare softened and he took on a gentler tone. He took her hands and sat down onto the worn down mattress. She joined him, the dip brought them side to side, touching.

“You should know better.”

“I have a love, and it’s all that I have. Right or wrong, what else can I do?” “I love him, I’m his. And everything he is, I am too.” He leaned his forehead onto hers as he crooned. She leaned into him with a sob.

Because she could understand Varian. He fell in love easily but he had never fallen as hard as he had with Hugo. The two were practically made for eachother. One look at them and she had begun to plan their wedding. And she knew, down in her heart, past the grief induced anger, that Hugo loved Varian. That Hugo was a good person. He had left the Saporians. Sure he had a rivalry with Eugene, but he wasn’t a murderer. He had just happened to be holding the knife.

She didn’t forgive Hugo, she didn’t think she could yet, if ever. But she couldn’t blame Varian for loving him. And she couldn’t live with herself if she ever convinced him to abandon his love for him. They were made for eachother, they were deeply and madly in love, they were best friends. 

They had what she and Eugene had. How could she take that away from Varian? Especially when she knew Eugene could be a bad person, and had hurt her family? Not the same way Hugo had, but she didn’t want to be hypocritical. Eugene had hurt people and he had changed. He had invited his baby cousin to come live with him and doted on the young boy, treating him as a cherished little brother. He used to be a selfish thief, and had remained a gang member. But he was also a doting and loving fiancée, and a loving brother, with big dreams for their family.

They were the only family they had left anymore. She wasn’t going to leave him, she wasn’t going to hurt him. 

She couldn’t live with herself, and she didn’t want Eugene to look down from Heaven to see the two most important people in his life separated. To see that she abandoned his baby brother, their baby brother.

Besides, love changed a person. It changed Eugene. There was no way Varian’s love wasn’t going to change Hugo, if it hadn’t already. 

She knew that man felt remorse, guilt, for what he had done.

In a way, a very small way, that was enough for her.

She could feel their anger subside as she placed a hand on Varian’s cheek, and cried with him. She listened to him sing through his tears, she knew he knew she was listening to him.

“I have a love, and it’s all that I need. Right or wrong, and he needs me, too. I love him, we’re one. There’s nothing to be done. Not a thing I can do. But hold him, hold him forever. Be with him now, tomorrow, and all my life.”

Rapunzel let the words sit in and resonate with her. She understood. She absolutely understood. She opened her eyes along with Varian. She smiled weakly at him. Her eyes were pained, but loving. Varian reciprocated the look. 

Rapunzel loved Eugene despite all the pain he had caused, and Varian loved Hugo despite all the pain he had caused. 

And Rapunzel loved Varian. And Varian loved Rapunzel. They were best friends, siblings, family.

Rapunzel pulled her little brother into a hug which he gladly accepted, wrapping his arms around her like she was a lifeline, and burying his head into her shoulder, the shawl she wore still reeking of death from the morgue. She wrapped her arms around him supportively, protectively, lovingly.

The two sang in unison.

“When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong, the love is your life.”

[mars-ipan]

the prednisone was mean to me overnight :(

[average-transdalorian]

Oh no. I’m seeing bad takes about the Jedi again

[koifrog]

My family’s craft sale is finished and I’ve got like $250 to pick up from my stepmom!! ALSO got money in the mail from a sales rep as thanks for helping with the account!!! ALSO ALSO got a promotion today!!! 🥹🥹🥹

[apostaterevolutionary]

You know what would be really funny, is if people came together to have an anti-crab day. A day where every user who joined prior to automattic’s acquisition logged off for 24 hours to show that yes, actually, older user retention is important and you should listen us just as much as new users

The users giveth, the users taketh away

[kodaiki]

any tips for my first day at college in a new city? i start tomorrow and im very very very scared 😭😭😭

omg i’ve been there!! 😩 honestly, the first day is always the scariest! but the best part is that it only gets less scary from there. you’ll come to see faces and people more and more often and if you’re comfy enough, say hi or introduce yourself! 🫣🫣(one time I shared two classes w my current friend and didn’t introduce myself to them until our second semester in the same class!💀💀 i fr overthought sm about it when they were looking for a class buddy too! def could’ve befriended them sooner LOL) remember, so many people are in the same boat as you!🤗🤍🤍

besides social tips, make sure to relax and take time for yourself! pls don’t overwork yourself w hw and studying all at once, it’s not good for you😫😫 be sure to take breaks throughout your day and EAT! pls remember to eat (*me shaking my undergrad self LOL*) don’t be afraid to ask for help! YOUR TAs ARE THERE TO HELP !! it took my until my junior year to start asking for help and I regretted it sm not doing it sooner🤯🤯

good luck bby !! you got this!!🩷🩷🩷

[mellomadness]

I was stupid and accidentally overwrote all my backup sims saves. so now I must painstakingly find all my CC and redownload it,,,, and then rebuild my entire Witcher save bc none of it got saved to my gallery for some reason 🥲 sorry to all the creators I’m spamming with likes and reblogs, I gotta rebuild the CC library 😭😭

[tbcanary]

thinking about jason and dick. thinking about how when jason was robin, dick was too hurt and angry at bruce to really be there for jason as a mentor and older brother. thinking about how dick is with tim, how he very clearly wants to take him in as a younger brother and show him the ropes, and how he and jason could have gotten there, too, if they had more time to figure it out.