#and related to the world she lives in

[honestlyeddie-im-bi]

Lady Featherington really out there saying “Men love mansplaing, let them”

[catartac]

Thank you @quiddie for breaking my heart in the most beautiful way

[lunarharp]

What led to this (orufrey comic, cw an uncomfortable/creepy scene)

[dorykinny]

Me interacting with most of the httyd fandom

[grassoftunnel]

Choice Theft in the second degree, with utter disrespect

“To take the choice of another … to forget their concrete reality, to abstract them, to forget that you are a node in a matrix, that actions have consequences. We must not take the choice of another being. ”

from Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

The way Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo constantly refer to the rape as being like…The One Sin that Kinzo ever did in regards to Beatrice 2. As though they weren’t there actively helping him to raise her in isolation, imprisonment, lying to her about the world, about herself. As if that’s not also a nightmarish abusive situation already, just on it’s own. We have so little of Beatrice 2, but it’s an undeniable fact that she was a human utterly devoid of agency in every single way.. They stole from her even the choice to be angry or upset or aware about what was happening to her, what had happened to her. Of the choice to be a human and not a witch. Of the choice to be a daughter and not a wife. Genji’s half-truth phrasings during the games too when dodging confirmation from the siblings about whether Kinzo had a child with his mistress are especially disgusting. Since he’s not just outright lying like Nanjo, but denying Beatrice 2’s personhood as an individual, and slyly using Kinzo’s grooming logic that she was not really herself, but someone else (her mother), even if he did genuinely feel bad for her. I’m sure Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo contented themselves by thinking that a bird in a cage doesn’t long for the outside. But that’s a theft in itself. And this choice theft is only continued with Sayo. Robbed of her own unsurgically-altered body. Robbed of the context of her life. Robbed of the ability to make choices based on those two things. And then in telling her, far too late, she is robbed of the mundane, uncomplicated love that had existed in her heart for Battler. Robbed of a lineage not tainted by the most horrific abuse. Robbed even of the ability to look at her own father, at the people who raised her, with respect. Like…HELL IS NOT HOT ENOUGH!!!!

[onlyangelxo]

Wednesday has one setting and it’s “I licked them, so they’re mine, and if you touch them I will eviscerate you and erase your existence from living memory.”

[chirpsythismorning]

Watching Wayward Pines for potential ST5 inspo bc the Duffers wrote a couple episodes in s1, and when I got to their second (last) episode and their name crossed the screen, I noticed a visual parallel that might already exist on the show…

Recognize it??

It instantly reminded me of that last shot for the opening of s3, with the landscape peaking out behind the Russian base. But when I went back and actually compared the two, holy shit it’s near identical, and not just the landscape.

I didn’t even remember the helicopter being there on the left, not to mention the pillar-esaue contraption at the center. Like… they’re the same picture.!

With them being credited right at that moment, it’s obvious this was an intentional nod to their previous work.

I just thought it was cool so I wanted to share, but in terms of my watch overall, there is a LOT going on that they could pull from. I’m only halfway through s1, though I’ve heard the show goes downhill in s2 so we’ll see how that goes 😂

[dustteller]

Reading He Who Drowned the World and honestly Baoxiang has no right to be as bitchy as he is about Ouyang squandering Esen's love or whatever. Baoxiang is genuinely convinced that Esen loathes him. No you dumb bitch, your brother loves you and the reason he's giving you a hard time is because he wants you to be safe and happy and healthy. Yeah, he sucks at expressing it, and his efforts are misguided (bc the toxic masculinity gender rolesis fucking up Esen as much as it's fucking up everyone else), but Esen very much does love Baoxiang deeply. Every time Baoxiang remembers a time when Esen "enjoyed his fear" or whatever, I can only think of these parts of Esen's POV from the first book:

Esen's first instinct is to defend his brother. The only reason he doesn't is bc Baoxiang leaves before he can. And Baoxiang glares at him bc he assumes that Esen agrees with Altan and won't defend him, but no, Esen WANTED to defend him and it's Baoxiang that took away his oportunity to do so.

And a bit later, we have this interaction. Baoxiang assumes (again) that Esen would hate him if he was gay, and immediately goes on the defensive. Meanwhile, Esen literally does not care about this except for how it would affect his brother's reputation. He's just WORRIED. He doesn't care if Baoxiang is gay or whatever, but he's deeply aware that if he IS it would put him in more danger. Because, again, he cares about his brother, and he hates seeing what he assumes is Baoxiang making his own life harder.

And it's heartbreaking bc Baoxiang will probably never realize how much Esen adores him. He's so jealous of Ouyang for having his brother's heart without realizing that Esen sees him as his beloved baby brother and is desperately trying to protect him from a world that he KNOWS is cruel to him. Baoxiang will never know that his greatest supporter and the only person that loved him unconditionally was Esen. And maybe it would be WORSE if he realized how dear he was to Esen, because the realization that all thise things that caused him pain were borne out of a deep, unconditional LOVE and not the disdain he's convinced himself Esen felt for him might break him. Baoxiang has deluded himself into simplifying Esen's feelings for him into those of hate and disdain because its so much harder to accept that the person you love the most has destroyed you out of love. Baoxiang is doing the exact same thing Ouyang does in convincing himself that he's unlovable and relishing in the world's response as a form of self-harm. And Esen, who is genuinely trying (and floundering horribly) is a great tool for Baoxiang to use to tear himself apart.

And, on the other hand, Esen will never realize how much damage his attempts to help Baoxiang caused. He loves him so much, bc that's his baby brother! It's his job to protect him! But Esen has been raised as the golden poster child of a Mongol Warrior Man, a perfect pinacle of masculinity, and is thus doomed to only being able to express his love and acceptance for Baoxiang through a tough love, lets sand down all the edges to remove friction approach. For him, pushing Baoxiang into a box IS an act of love. It's the act of saying I love and accept you, and so I will help you succeed in all the things you're bad at so that everyone will love you too. Except by doing this, he doesn't realize how awful he's being and how he's asking someone that CANT ever fit the mold to break himself in the attempt. He's a perfect Mongol Warrior Man after all, and as such he has never been given the tools to express his affection in a healthy way. He will never truly understand how much he's an asshole, not because he is lacking in love (as Baoxiang assumes) or because he is incapable of sympathizing (as ouyang thinks), but because understanding is not something allowed of him and his role in society. At the end of the day, Esen is as much a slave to his role as all the other characters are, and now he's dead he will never be able to break free of the assumptions people have made of him. He went to his grave having destroyed the people he loved most, and now he will never have the chance to prove their assumptions wrong as be better.

[darkshrimpemotions]

I need a Morcia conversation about Luke where Morgan asks what's holding her back and Penelope bursts out that she wasn't going to do this again.

And when Morgan finally gets her to explain, she explains that she loves the way they are and their friendship just as it is, and she doesn't want to change it, but there was a moment, just one moment, when she realized she wanted more.

And she swore right then that she wouldn't do it again. She wasn't going to replace Morgan with some other unfairly pretty man who was good at bantering with her. And she wasn't going to fall in love with someone who was never going to love her back the same way.

And Morgan just looks at her for a moment, recalling her once saying to him that just because he wouldn't cross a crowded room to hit on her didn't mean everyone else was that shallow, and how they never really cleared that up...and finally says:

"You know I had a moment too?"

And Penelope just blinks at him, because WHAT?

"A few actually."

More confused blinking.

"I'd look over at you and you'd be doing something so you, and I'd think god...I am in love with this woman. But it was never the right time. I wasn't ready for that. Then I was, but you were with Phil, or Kevin. Or you were going on a date with some hot guy you rescued at a coffee shop."

"Derek," Penelope says, and she is stunned, totally stunned, because he's talking about years. YEARS of their friendship pining in silence. "Why didn't you ever say something?"

"Because like I said...it was never the right time. You were with other people. Then I was. And...truth be told, I was scared. What if it didn't work out? What if I lost what we had already? I was always too afraid to take that risk. I didn't want to fade out of your life."

"Never," Penelope says.

"Yeah, I know that now. But you know...sometimes I think there was another reason."

"Yeah?"

"I moved on. And you moved on, a few times. But do you see the way Alvez looks at you? After three years since your only date? He isn't gonna just move on, Penelope. That poor man is so gone over you."

Penelope laughs, like a sad watery crying laugh though.

"You wanna know a secret?"

"Always."

"I haven't dated anyone since then either."

Derek smiles.

And that's how Penelope finally lets herself love Luke back.

[specialagentartemis]

Being introduced to Danny Phantom Phandom is giving me a lot of the same feelings for everything I liked about fandom!Akane Kurashiki...

Akane Kurashiki died when she was 12, but also she didn't. Akane Kurashiki was 12 years old and locked inside that incinerator, desperate to seek a way out but the code to open the door was a puzzle she didn't have enough information to solve. And in one timeline she burned to death in there as her brother pounded on the other side of the locked door and screamed, and in another timeline, she didn't.

Akane Kurashiki is twenty-one years old and she remembers dying when she was twelve. Because she's not just one Akane anymore. She and her brother showed psychic aptitude as children, so they were kidnapped, by a single-minded rich CEO who believed in an equation of crisis -> epiphany, that putting people under a pressure cooker of stress and danger would lead to their brains unlocking their psychic powers. And he was right, even more so than he imagined. Being trapped in there let Akane connect to the future. Her future. One where she didn't die. And she was able to see the different timeline paths that could be taken, and find the one that allowed her to live.

So she did. But once you figure out how to tap into the psychic fields that link all human beings, you don't just turn that off. You cultivate that ability. You use it. Akane Kurashiki got her ability to pull information across timeline branches and manipulate them the way she wanted to, and she's going to use that power to take down the men who did this to her. And to set up the future she saw, to give herself the information she needed to survive. But every time people make choices that put them on a path away from the future she saw, she remembers dying again. She starts retroactively dying again.

Schrodinger's cat is dead. Schrodinger's cat is alive. Schrodinger's cat is both alive and dead until you open the box and collapse the waveform see which it is. Akane Kurashiki is dead, and alive, and she is going to build the future she needs to close the loop and collapse the waveform her own damn self.

[kiwikiswia]

yeag

[flippedorbit]

i’m gonna be so for real, if things don’t start changing for me in good ways i will be disappearing off the face of the earth

[la0hu]

masha broke a bowl by accident in the kitchen and when i brought her the broom and dustpan and asked her if she was okay, she looked at me, straight-faced, and said, "no, i'm not okay." and then i realized she meant that she still feels emotionally abused by the house somehow, and i felt a flash of anger because i am so sick of her shit, and i rephrased, "are you physically injured?" and she gave me another look and said "i'm physically okay." and then when connie asked from her room "what's going on?" masha replied "nothing new." like fuck off ohhhhhhhh my god

[smile-files]

the natural history museum in my city has a summer job position to work in the butterfly vivarium, and i'm pretty sure i qualify!!! seriously, getting paid to be around butterflies and answer butterfly-related questions all day????????? it's really a dream come true... and i think i'm gonna apply :D

[fragglez]

I will never understand why priests here don't just wear a clerical collar instead of the huge paper plate of a ruff

[seeminglyseph]

I feel like since it’s like magical realism and unlikely to happen in real life due to the fucking magic and shit… time travel or reborn in a child’s body stuff sometimes has a character like “I am having a physical or emotional response that seems more in like with my physical age than my mental age”

Like Erased all the bonding moments, or like half the scenes where Aqua in Oshi no Ko acts like a teenaged boy. And I think in these magical body swap universes it’s less a commentary on “are these people perverts” and a lot more… like more than sexual attraction causes reactions.

Like in Erased he’s constantly scolding himself for being 29, but he’s not having his heart race because he’s crushing on another kid, he’s having his heart race because he’s a human making an emotional connection with another person and that’s an intimidate thing, entirely isolated from sexuality and even romance. It doesn’t have to be that kind of thing to move you.

And that’s why Aqua can be like “I don’t actually even understand what feelings I am experiencing in this moment” because honestly he is going through puberty *again* and fucking *trauma* and he hasn’t fucking talked to *anybody* about it. This man is a boy and a mental illness terrarium, and lying is his love language. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to him. They don’t set up a genius type character like this to not have something humble him with the bitter reality of something he can’t do anything about. I’d started reading the manga.