#and I have honestly given up at this point lol

[robbyykeene]

Cannot lie the writing for zara compared to axel bothered me. Of course the female antagonist is like that. It’s not that I like her, I struggle to connect with characters introduced late, but she’s such an example of misogynistic writing it’s unbelievable, we’re in 2025. Which is why im not cheering for her “the bitch had it coming” ending either. Axel was written with more respect

Yeah, the entire Zara stuff is just…bizarre. And misogynistic, obviously, but like. They have her sexually assault Robby—because to be clear, that’s what that was—but then narratively play it off as cheating. And if not full-blown cheating given the whole “we were on a break” argument, it’s at least clear they wanted us to think this was Robby’s mistake. So then to set Zara up as this ultimate villain that deserves to have her teeth knocked out by Tory just doesn’t make any sense. Like, shouldn’t she be mad at Robby? If all Zara did was have a consensual night with a guy she liked, why does that make her the pinnacle of evil? Because she dared to be a woman with sexual desires?

And like, if part 2 and 3 had come out at the same time, I think I actually would have believed they wanted us to think Zara assaulted Robby. If Hayden and the writers had never made those comments, given how Zara is framed in this season and both Tory and Robby’s reaction to her, I honestly think I would’ve believed they had intentionally written it as Robby being taken advantage of. But we know that’s not the case.

And I know a lot of people like Axel and feel for him, and that’s fair. But like you I struggle to connect with the characters introduced later (sorry Devon, it’s nothing personal) and Axel in particular irks me. This is a guy who developed a little crush on Sam and proceeded to get territorial over her try and claim some fucked up sense of ownership over her, starting shit with Miguel that directly led to the brawl, and all because she was just like. Sort of nice to him. And I get it, he’s had it rough, but any person who has experienced that kind of thing before knows it’s not innocent and it’s not cute and its not sympathetic even if they have an evil abusive sensei. It’s just scary, point blank. And pretty dehumanizing to boot. So to have him be the one that gets his mini little redemption (after already shattering Robby’s knee)….like okay lol.

[the-stove-is-divorced]

You understand <3 I swear they keep blurring in my mind completely, I’ll confuse which thread I’ve even responded to lol.

Cecil being pissed the fuck off he DID have Mark on a leash and then loses it immediately (relatively) it’s so funny. Like wow you really get a taste of what you wanted SO bad and lost it because of your OWN actions. Reallyy feeling the bite of not having the Guardians around, huh? Still wish it was handled more clearly and coherently. Like, characters do point out Cecil is insane for planting a bomb in a kid’s head, bur I also wish there was, again, a visual parallel to the fact in Mark’s eyes the Obey Me or Die, is what NOLAN did to Mark, or to his understanding. Like do this thing you don’t agree with whatsoever or I’ll kill you. The story clearly has the Mark = Nolan parallel going (and no Debbie parallel which I am so normal and not angry about, not like she raised him or anything), but I am truly begging for them both to have it. Even if it’s only in their respective understanding, or bias. PLEASE. I BEG. At least to emphasize how quickly Mark escalates the situation, equating Cecil and Nolan, if his morality isn’t sound and sturdy enough to build up to this neatly?

ALSO SPEAK ON IT, Cecil casually commits to breaking and entering CONSISTENTLY. Don’t matter if you’re at college, at home, etc, if he wants to see you, he’s GOING to see you, privacy be damned. And yeah, it’s never RLLY acknowledged as insane?? Just, like, annoying? Like he isn’t showing up at the door, twiddling his thumbs to be let in. He KNOWS where you are 24/7 AND demands your immediate attention by showing up right in front of you. Literally whenever he wants. Why wouldn’t Mark do the same honestly???

ALSO YEAH? Nolan and Debbie makes sense for the date thing, Mark and Eve DONT? Like again, I’m fundamentally confused why Mark, who is supposed to be an emotional guilt magnet, who SHOULD be still blaming himself for what his father has done to him in SOME capacity, decides NOT helping is a priority. Who are you??? Shouldn’t you still be guilty about how many people died while Nolan was trying to get on the colonizer mindset in s1? Nolan tried that shit AGAIN in s2. He got you take home his affair baby??? All of sudden it doesn’t work? Where bro’s guilt go??? We don’t get a moment that suggests he’s wary because of, again, his Dad, either but him just saying no!

I get the purpose, sure, Mark is now warier about being given some random vague task, I understand this a moment of progression for him, even if it’s a darker decision. He’s literally wearing a darker color, but I wanna see more???? Idk conflict??? A progression of him dealing with his guilt, hesitating, before refusing. Have him look nervous or uncertain after. Is this the right thing? Are they lying to him too? What if it’s Nolan again somehow?

That dynamic being iso different than the comics is making me cackle because if we have a more connected relationship, even with hostility and suspicion, why not?? Do more then? Like we’re on first name basis, Debbie hates his ass, but also “can’t believe” Cecil would lie to her son…? Huh. How does that work? Shouldn’t she be annoyed Mark talks to him at all? Pull a “I told you so?”.

Honestly, Amazon question is one I hadn’t considered, but the rings of power budget will never not irritate me. The amount of shows not given the time, advertising, etc it deserved because some bigwig wants it to fail, to cut budgets, to cancel it, erase it from existence will never not make me PISSED. But seriously, Amazon makes how much and what’s given to allow this show to thrive??? This show is limping. Being disappointed in the animation is a common MEME??? Calling it the slideshow ass show!! Which is mean, but also come on now. Can we have a cool, animated fight scene please? I will plead.

Also Cecil being a control freak and that’s why he keeps bringing Donald back makes TOO much sense at this point. Bro won’t betray you and Cecil is clearly not letting him go. That’s a loyal dog right there.

AND YEAH. Invincible kinda falls flat on what it does try to present, and I feel it’s partially how wildly diff s1 and latter seasons feel? Even when it wasn’t done well, there was a focus more on “wow isn’t this fucked up” that gets dropped to focus on other plot points without really thinking how to articulate all of it properly? So, the point that was being made is on the cutting room floor, and the new point is even SHAKIER. Invincible has a very strict moral compass, but has no idea what those morals are. I would love to see when they figure out what they are, because shows. Like, I don’t even know where Mark’s lines are drawn and he’s our protagonist, and it doesn’t feel like a well articulated ambiguity or hypocrisy as much as an incidental one? And yet, I will watch without hesitation. I love this show. I also can't stand it. I wanna break out a board and red string of every moment it refused to live up to potential. It's living rent free in my head.

While I'm not too familiar with the DCU- your batfam meta posts are intiguing- so in transfering some of the broader strokes from them- I think you tackling a 'Mark isn't Nolan's biological son' fic would be fascinating. Sort of a step to the side of the 'what if Mark never got his powers' fic that sometimes pop up in the fandom

OOOOOO chewing on this currently, hm, the much a distinct flavor of exactly what you’re talking about, but the potential for more family drama depending on WHO knows. Does Mark know?? Is he waiting every day only to be crushed? Does he confused non-Debbie features with Nolan’s? I suppose I’m not the most enthusiastic about non-power AUs, but I think there’s something very fun to explore about Mark having to settle with, if he knows all his life, he will never have powers? I think the trajectory of his dreams will obviously shift, I can see him still having that distinct fatherly idolization, but perhaps embraces being useful to the GDA? Cecil’s number one intern—only intern—curtesy of nepotism, ha! There is something tickling me about Mark taking the Robin Route/Role for the Teen Team in terms of having no powers, just insane skills, BUT there’s something way more delicious about intern Mark when s1e01 happens and Mark tries snooping around to find out the truth about what happened to his Dad.

I wonder if, with Mark having a whole another father, if they’re more or less distant relationship, depending on WHEN Nolan entered Mark’s life? Like if Debbie met Nolan later for this, or just for fun, they dated once, separated (Mark being born during then), then they happened to stumble into each others lives again and Mark’s already been born, anywhere from tween to teenager so there’s a gap in how close they are. I feel like one important aspect of the whole Family Drama is how close they’re supposed to be, a functional, loving family turned upside down? So I wonder what more distance does. I wonder how Nolan copes when his family is entirely human and he can’t project onto Mark.

I love thinking about these, omg.

[deathdoesntkillyou]

[cynicallyneutral]

uhhhhh yes....2nd one is an oc or smth

[greyedian]

MAN I'm seriously so sad about season 2. Bc I wish act 2 had the same emotional impact on me as it appears to have on so many others. But rn I'm just somewhere between unable to care and actively annoyed by some of those writing decisions. Seriously the more I think about it the less I like it.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I know it’s been talked about ad nauseam, but I think one of the things that got lost in the discourse about TTPD and the muses and whatnot is how one of, if not the core trigger points of the album is the yearning for commitment and perhaps even more poignantly, motherhood.

The reason she was so susceptible to falling for the “conman’s get love quick schemes” is because she was grieving that imagined life with the person she had long assumed would be the one to give her that. What has been beyond clear in several albums, let alone interviews etc, is that those plans for building a family were very much real and top of mind for years, and she kept holding on and shifting her world in service of making that happen. And when whatever happened happened that pulled that rug out from under her, it left her bereft not just for the relationship that had once been her world but also the imagined family she had been hoping for and sticking out the hard times for.

And that’s likely why she was swayed by and trusting of the promises of someone who knew her history and knew how unmooring that loss was to her. It may have been partially about the person himself or lust or whatever, but the core issue was the pain of giving up the dream, and sublimating that dream into this new opportunity in front of her, because she was so desperate to hold onto the last scraps of that imagined life she wanted so badly. (And I don’t mean desperate as in pathetic or negative, I mean as in fighting within the last ounce of energy and hope she had.) It wasn’t rational and it wasn’t love, it was grief, not just for a relationship but even more so for the family it represented.

So to me the core issue of TTPD isn’t just the Joe vs. Matty or whoever of it all: it’s Taylor and her yearning. She wanted a family badly and a life that was theirs and was processing losing that in all kinds of ways. It’s all over the album in overt and subtle lyrics. It may not have been grieving a literal death but I’d bet it felt pretty darn close.

And I’d also bet that’s why we’re seeing… what we’re seeing now.

(I have so many more thoughts about womanhood and motherhood on TTPD but that is another post being worked on piecemeal in my drafts… this is just a little Saturday morning post-zoomies reflection)

[crossbackpoke-check]

Why I Am Not Coming In To Work Today [abridged], Jess Zimmerman

part one | part two

[twpsyn-who]

Soulmates AU in which when your soulmate is in a situation that can result in their death you get to see through their eyes. Like, I don't know how to explain this- it kind of flashes between what you see and what your soulmate sees. You know those edits where there's a scene going on and there's another one faded in the background happening at the same time? Similar to that. The idea is that you get to see what your soulmate sees too, on top of what you're seeing.

Now, this AU but JeanMarco. With Marco asking the others where's Jean, just for him to start seeing a corpse right in front of his eyes not even a second after asking. Seeing through Jean's eyes as he's trying to get hold of that gear and stuff. And once Jean's safe, once it clicks that you know his best friend is his soulmate Marco can't wait for them to graduate so he can you know tell him that.

Then, you know. That happens. And Jean is so fucking confused because he keeps seeing Annie crying, looking down on him. Only when Annie starts getting off the gear, when his soulmate starts moving around trying to get away he starts panicking, starts moving around faster than before. And maybe he's too late. Or maybe he shows up in time and kills the titan. I don't know. That's not where I'm trying to get, but to the second option AKA Marco pulling an UNO reverse on Annie because he's a smart sneaky bastard like that and being like 'Hey you can't kill me, my soulmate will know it was you' which makes her stop trying to take off his gear. Reiner keeps telling her to do it, Bertholdt keeps yelling about that titan coming closer, but Annie... she has seen things, at some point. Flashes of moments that weren't hers, happening right in Trost- right in that moment. And she didn't give them too much thought until that moment, until it got confirmed that it has nothing to do with her titan powers.

'What do you mean by that?' she asks, because she needs to know more. Because she wants to know more. And Marco starts explaining how it works. Tells them that he has found his soulmate, that they will put all the blame on them for his death. Reiner doesn't believe him, keeps insisting that he's playing them around - he, and anyone born and raised on Marley, has never heard of something like that before, it doesn't exist - but Annie tells him to shut up and to let Marco go. Cue to the plot of any fic in which Marco doesn't straight up die after finding up their secret.

Anyway I don't know man, just,,, We need more soulmate aus for JeanMarco. That's an order.

[mistwalkers-menagerie]

TRoP Season Finale spoilers under the cut

Fuck this show.

If this was fanfic I'd gobble it the fuck up but these people are writing official Tolkien stuff. Half-assed bluster poetics ain't really gonna cut it for me even though I'm not a Tolkien purist.

Rest in peace Adar, you would've loved the Tragedy of Julius Caesar (not)

[seaofreverie]

So busy with Sparkstember that I almost forgot that I go back to school on tuesday

[orcelito]

Ykno the suckiest thing about being broken up with for someone else is that like. Well I'm doing generally fine, all things considered, but I Am kinda sad thinking about the things I've lost and all the casual affection that I can't have now.

But she's out there having all the affection she wants from her coworker, and it's just like. Damn this feels so skewed and SO unfair.

[confinesofmy]

my in-some-ways-closest cousin called to check in on me because my mom's deathiversary was the other day and we talked about it abstractly a couple of times then like actually talked directly about it and i talked a little bit about how awful that whole year was because that was the year i gouged my eye and lost my cousin as well as my mom and <three other major things> and i think about everything that happened every day and about two sentences in she interrupted me to say we needed to change the subject so she wouldn't cry. okay. well we wouldn't want that i guess.

[mazojo]

I’m sorry if this sounds mean but I genuinely find it baffling when people who sign up WILLINGLY to reality shows and KNOW that they are in a REALITY SHOW get pissed off when someone plays the game.

[vigilantejustice]

my body and head hurty to the point of puking whenever i’m at like. the movies or a concert are best friends

[lazyspeedy]

sorry to be cliché but i really hate men sometimes :/

[arolesbianism]

I've just been playing the new cotl update for most of the day and I'm so so close to being done with the main new story bits I think but it's also past midnight but also I'm so excited idk if I'll be able to sleep but also god damn do I need to sleep