#and tbh that's fair enough

[likeafairytale]

"Being a prince means being trapped. That's why I always wanted to escape." - Aeron to Malachai

Malachai said nothing at first, still looking at the book he had in hands, pretending he didn't really hear him. He was reflecting on Aeron's words. For sure, it was probably the first deep thing he ever said to him, which was quite... disturbing. Usually, Kai was the one saying deep and meaningful things, when the fae was more shallow to say the least. So yes, the mermale needed a little moment to process the words of his brother-in-law. To be honest, he did not know how they came to this discussion. Maybe it was because he was reading a book about travelling and maps, or maybe because lately, Malachai was struggling with the fact that he was a prince and his life was already written since before his birth, either way, Aeron's was sitting in the opposite of him, eyes lost in the emptiness of the room. Finally, the meremale sighed and closed his book, bringing the fae's attention to him.

❝The difference between us, is that I cannot escape. I never could.❞ Malachai started, and he didn't notice how sad and a bit annoy his voice was right now. ❝Not because I'm the firstborn, or because I'm the favourite, but because I'm the only one. As much as my father tries to pretend, I know he'll rather die than letting one of my sister in charge of the Kingdom. They remind him too much of mother, and the idea of a man who isn't his own flesh leading our kingdom is killing him. So if ever you thought because you're Calypso's husband he'll give you the throne, you're mistaken. I'm pretty sure if I die tomorrow, and he has to choose, he'll give it to Naia's husband instead of you, because at least he is from the sea.❞ This time, he did notice how angry he sound while talking, but couldn't help it. Somehow, Aeron's pushed where it hurt, and as often, he rolled his eyes when he saw the fae's smug smile.

❝Wanna me to kill you to see if it's true?❞ Aeron said back, and Malachai had to refrain himself to punch him in the face, which happened a lot lately. ❝Anyway, we always have the choice. You have a brother, he could choose him instead.❞

This time, Malachai let a bitter laugh go off his throat before going back to his book. There were nothing funny about Aeron's words, but the fact that he thought it was so simple, –or maybe he just tried to have right in a discussion he couldn't like often– was laughable for Kai. After a moment, he raised his red eyes and could see he was unbothered by his amusement, which, once again, annoyed him somehow.

❝I love Nathaniel, and I've always seen him like a true brother, but father will never put him in charge. He is not his biological son, and he is a siren. I'm sure Nate knows it deep down. I'm the only option he truly has.❞

To be honest, deep down, Malachai was all right with the idea of not letting this burden on his young brother shoulders. Nathaniel was a poet, not a soldier, not that there were something wrong with that. Kai always enjoyed his brother's way to see the world, it was fascinating and so different of the way he sees it, it felt like a fresh air. But Triton didn't have the same point of view as his first son, and like he said it, the High King of the Seas was still old-fashioned, no matter what he tried to say, and not only, in his mind Nathaniel wasn't built to be a King, but he wasn't from the right lineage.

❝So no, Aeron, we don't all have the luxury to randomly take a ship and travel around the world because we're bored with our responsibilities. Compare to you, I was never free a second of my life.❞

Once again, the bitterness was back. He had some resentment toward the fae, and it was probably because of jealousy. Malachai didn't realize how much as he wanted to be free until he started to come to the Fae's kingdom, and he knew deep down, Yasmeen had something to do with it... Before he could think about this thought further, his attention was caught by Aeron who shrugged, and for once he was glad, because he wasn't sure he wanted to follow this thought right now.

❝Calypso said you were often away, an-❞

❝My sister sees what I want her to see.❞ Malachai cut short, surprising Aeron, who frowned. This time it was the meremale who shrugged and sighed, as if his words were obvious. They were, though, and he knew that the fae couldn't deny them. He loved his youngest sister, but the girl had the wrong habit to romanticize things in her mind; something he blamed himself for, maybe if he didn't protect her this much, she would have been cleverer. He went back to his book, before saying in a sigh: ❝I was away because I had to train, or control the ability to shape-shift as I see fit. Not because I wanted to. Calypso's eyes can be deceptive sometimes.❞

❝Yeah, but she does have pretty eyes tho.❞ This time, Malachai sighed and closed his book, which amused Aeron, who had his smug smile back. ❝Oh, come on, you have pretty eyes too!❞

❝You're insufferable.❞

❝I take it as a compliment.❞

❝It wasn't.❞ Aeron laughed and that was enough for Malachai who rolled his eyes and stood up, throwing the book he had through the table. ❝Now excuse me, but I'd rather leave before you start to talk more, and it makes me want to punch you.❞

❝Once again, I take it as a compliment.❞

[tezzbot]

I really like the headcanon that a very select amount of people are allowed to actually call Tails 'Miles' and Shadow is on that list, it's very cute to me ^_^

[sleepsucks]

[gardenschedule]

could you elaborate on your tags from that "writing about white walls" post?

I don't think this is a very unique take here but basically I believe that John was trying to achieve certain goals via Yoko's presence, and it was an intentional and purposeful disruption of the Lennon-Mccartney relationship. John, Yoko and Paul, as well as many fans and authors, treat this disruption as an inadvertent, inevitable side effect of the johnandyoko love story, that they were just so obsessed with each other Paul naturally got pushed to the side and it couldn't be helped, but I really think that was the whole damn point. I wouldn't go so far as to claim that was their point of J&Y's *relationship*, but I certainly think it was the reason John refused to physically separate from her while he was still active in the beatles.

I mean, the thing about John and Yoko is that their relationship was just kind of bizarre and confusing, right? You can, in fact, be in love and also be in separate rooms, you can have a job and a wife at the same time, you can have a creative partner and a romantic partner simultaneously. For some reason John couldn't, and the way he/Paul explain it is so weak and unsatisfactory. Like:

“. . . I mean, I think really what it was, really all that happened was that John fell in love. With Yoko. And so, with such a powerful alliance like that, it was difficult for him to still be seeing me. It was as if I was another girlfriend, almost. Our relationship was a strong relationship. And if he was to start a new relationship, he had to put this other one away. And I understood that. I mean, I couldn’t stand in the way of someone who’d fallen in love. You can’t say, “Who’s this?” You can’t really do that. If I was a girl, maybe I could go out and… But you know I mean in this case I just sort of said, right – I mean, I didn’t say anything, but I could see that was the way it was going to go, and that Yoko would be very sort of powerful for him. So um, we all had to get out the way.”

I mean, that shit is insane?? It makes no sense for a platonic partnership. For Mclennon shippers, it can be interpreted in a way that makes some sense. But the rest of the world can't make sense of it, so they latched onto blaming Yoko for decades. And while it's partially racism and misogyny, it's mostly because people intuitively know there's something really weird about the way things went down and the best explanation they can come up with is that she manipulated or bewitched John somehow. I don't think that's the case. John can be pretty gullible and he loves a guru, but he's not so delusional he wouldn't foresee the conflict and tension that being joined at the hip 24/7 and trying to bring her into the immediate beatles circle would cause. I don't believe he could be manipulated into thinking it would be tolerable or positive for the group. He would never have accepted another beatle doing the same thing, he acknowledged this himself:

JOHN: But I understand how they felt, because if it had been Paul or George and Ringo that had fallen in love with somebody and gotten totally involved, suddenly… It wasn’t like, you know, somebody – George coming in and saying, “I’m going to work with Eric Clapton in a band now, and screw you.” It wasn’t that kind of thing at all. It was just suddenly this involvement.

I think he knew perfectly well it would be received badly, but there were beneficial outcomes he hoped for. On that post I said it could be taken as both an aggressive or defensive move, I reckon it's probably a mix of both. It could be seen as a power grab. He's got himself an ally in the studio who will unconditionally support him, increased artistic credibility (notably in a type of art Paul was also into), the implicit threat that he doesn't need Paul or the group, the leverage that comes with needing the others less than they need him, and the ability to induce creative, professional and personal jealousy in Paul specifically. After all, that's exactly how Paul most effectively hurt John:

JOHN: [Paul] even recorded that all by himself in the other room, that’s how it was getting in those days. We came in and he’d – he’d made the whole record. Him drumming, him playing the piano, him singing. Just because – it was getting to be where he wanted to do it like that, but he couldn’t – couldn’t – maybe he couldn’t make the break from The Beatles, I don’t know what it was. But you know, I enjoyed the track. But we’re all, I’m sure – I can’t speak for George, but I was always hurt when he’d knock something off without… involving us, you know? But that’s just the way it was then.

On the other hand, John at the time was particularly vulnerable and sensitive. Yoko must have been a protective mechanism, a barrier between himself and the person most able to hurt his feelings and his confidence, she made him feel good about himself and his art. He may not have been able to cope with the pressure unless she was there to believe in him and create some distance between him and Paul, to give him some physical and emotional space from the intensity of their relationship and competitive rivalry. And if we put our tinfoil hats on, we can certainly speculate that showing off a shiny new partner is an effective way to deal with unreciprocated feelings or romantic/sexual rejection.

Truthfully, sometimes I feel like John wanted Paul to be badly hurt by this situation so much that he kind of convinced himself of it? I have a tonne of quotes about how Paul reacted to Yoko here, and one thing I notice is that John seems to exaggerate how much Paul hated her, and Yoko's a lot less accusing. That's not to say Paul wasn't jealous, but he clearly made efforts to hide it. We have evidence that Paul tried his best to be accepting and kind despite how negatively it affected him. He went out of his way to help and defend them on multiple occasions, and yet John still thinks that Paul was singing 'Get Back' to her directly or he can't stand them being in love or whatever. It seems almost like wishful thinking on his part, which makes perfect sense if you think his goal was to hurt Paul in the first place.

[onesnoopyaday]

I AM AT MY LIMIT

Snoopy #90

30/12/2024

description under the cut

[description: a cartoon-style drawing of Snoopy's head. Snoopy is a white dog with black ears. His eyes are shut and his mouth is a horizontal line. There are two large blue teardrops, one under each eye. The text "I am at my limit" is handwritten across the top of the image.]

[thegreatyin]

what is the reasoning for iron and A Certain Departed Master Of The Bazaar™ potentially being close btw? this is a genuine question. i'm curious to see people's take on this ship. go ahead give me the sales pitch

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

There are SIX SONGS in the season finale?? Let's goooo

[kindalikerackham]

okayyyyy fine (I say to the maybe 3 people interested) I'll talk about Dr. Tanaka, and the show's (Bones 2005) response to them

[disclaimer: my perspective is someone late 20s, white, & nonbinary, as well as biased to see the good in this show. I may not have the same perspective on these examples as someone else]

[also I wrote this for fun! so it's not like an airtight argument or anything]

so.. I wasn't surprised by the team's reaction to a person who doesn't conform to gendered standards (obsession with figuring out if they were really a man or a woman, culminating in a hug just to feel their chest), for 2 main reasons:

I. Bones is a show about awkward (usually contextually privileged) people with good hearts, and it expresses this core sentiment over and over again using microaggressions:

The little person from the State Department (Alex Radziwill) is called a midget, and Bones ignorantly accosts him about how he approaches his job. It's done in the context of Booth and Bones reacting weirdly to him. By her saying ignorant things that force Booth to confront his own weirdness, they eventually reach an equilibrium with Radziwill, where they treat him like a normal contentious coworker. It's really uncomfortable, and Radziwill has to sit through them getting over themselves.

The He in The She. Do I even have to mention more than the episode title? It takes forever for the cast to wrap their heads around Pastor Patricia Stephenson, a woman whose bones suggest a male, but whose anatomy suggests a female!! Oh no! Booth struggles with using her correct pronouns, and many characters flip flops between, often settling on the masculine pronouns. And yet, the show itself gives credence to how Patricia lived the last parts of her life. It finds the beauty and honesty in how she lived, and we get to see that honored. But not necessarily through the characters, especially the main squint squad.

Arastoo Vaziri. This poor man is just a Muslim who works in the lab. Bones expresses disdain for him being visibly religious. Hodgins straight up discriminates against him, tells him to his face that he doesn't like Vaziri because he's Muslim. Vaziri has to actively attempt to bond with Hodgins to overcome this bias. Cam barely steps in here, and ultimately Vaziri has to suffer the ignorance of those around him. He has to push back about his people being associated with bombs, because white people are terrorists too! He brings out a list!

And these are just main plot points. There are definitely other examples of how these characters awkwardly microaggress their peers and civilians.

II. The interpersonal logic of Bones is predicated on gendered relationships

I cannot count the amount of times a character on Bones said "It's a woman thing," or "It's a guy thing," or "Alpha-male." The more socially adept a character is (Booth, Angela, Cam, Hodgins), the more they lean on these constructs for explaining personal relationships and the more they use gendered constructs for what's permissible in their relationships. Brennan, Zach, and other squints are often actively taught what's okay to do based on gendered rules. "She's a woman," Angela says to Zach, who doesn't understand why a girl isn't calling him back. "It's a guy thing," Angela says to Brennan, confused about something Booth is doing. "It's a guy-hug," Booth says, manipulating Bones into accepting comfort by explaining a gendered rule that he's making up.

In an environment so saturated with these rules, the characters have no idea what to do with the interpersonal reactions they have to Dr. Tanaka (as Clark has established, the characters are constantly using their interpersonal lens at work). So, this mystery makes Dr. Tanaka into a site of intrigue. I'd say both Hodgins and Angela interpret this intrigue as attraction, based both on their desire for/interpretation of Dr. Tanaka as a woman or a man, respectively. The surprise/rethinking that occurs after feeling up Dr. Tanaka's chest is consistent with this mystery/intrigue/psychosexual anxiety of not knowing a gender. (To digress a bit, it's reactions in this vein that created the Trans Panic Defense for murdering trans people).

I'm also unsurprised at Sweets. From his defense of Dr. Tanaka presenting as they want to him standing alongside the hug onlookers out of curiosity, he's the part of the show that's looking forward. He's the planted seed for this episode: that people who don't want to share their gender, it's not your business, even if it's hard to resist the part of you that thinks that.

And honestly, I think that's kind of the core to it.

Bones is a show about privileged professional folks who are often ignorant, but it attempts to plant seeds in their moderate liberal audience about cultures and subcultures. It planted the seed that Radziwill (a little person) was just a coworker using his own advantages, and it's important to treat him like you would another coworker. It planted the seed that Patricia (a trans woman) was right to transition and live her fullest life. It planted the seed that Arastoo (a Muslim) is just a coworker, one who has his own religious life, and Hodgins was the one acting irrationally.

Finally, it planted the seed that Dr. Tanaka is just living their life, and the awkward must-know-their-gender drive didn't really mean anything in the end, except for the team feeling weird about it.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Hey (^-^)/

I have a question: What did Atsushi mean in this panel when he said "the fact that you're the one standing in front of me"? I don't get it.

And why Akutagawa's face seem conflicted by hearing that?

I'm not entirely sure - that line is fairly ambiguous - but I can share my own interpretation! Here, Atsushi is trying to explain Akutagawa that the reason why Dazai has not acknowledged him yet is not, as Akutagawa is convinced of, because he isn't strong enough, and that his being powerful is actually of no interest to Dazai. Atsushi suggests that there's something else Dazai is waiting for Akutagawa to grow better at before acknowledging him, and Akutagawa will only be able to see what it is by keeping himself from killing (likely, what Atsushi is thinking Akutagawa lacks is moral virtue to some extent, compassion and humanity. I feel like that's also consistent with how Dazai sees Akutagawa in Beast, and what believes is wrong with him: “It’s human nature to lash out with violence. But if hurting others is your natural instinct… then you are nothing more than a mindless beast” (Dazai, Beast novel, page 18) ).

Akutagawa so far has believed that everything he could do to be seen by Dazai, was proving his own strength; and that his current situation of not being yet recognized was due to his own limits on that front. With that last line, I think Atsushi is telling him: “The reason you are where you are now [both in terms of his path towards being acknowledged by Dazai and overall current status as conjunction of events that led him to be where he is] has nothing to do with your strength or lack thereof. You're here in front of me [in your current situation that led you to this place in this moment] because there's something you've yet to realize [that would be, once again, that strength is not what Dazai seeks in him but rather for Akutagawa to accomplish a moral step up]”.

Additionally, I think Atsushi might also imply: “The reason you're here in front of me, the reason Dazai decided you had to be here, is so that you could see something you still can't grasp”, since both sskk and the bsd author seem to be fairly assured that everything sskk themselves do is because Dazai wanted them to, in some sort of weird determinism (“Why were you so eager to put Akutagawa-kun against that tiger lad? [...] How long have you been aiming for this scenario?” “From the time I met Atsushi-kun.” (Hirotsu, Dazai, chapter 37); “Why do you think Dazai-san put us together?” (Atsushi, chapter 51); “Dazai-san didn't abandon me after all. This was all a trial. A guidepost, lined with wailing.” (Akutagawa, chapter 85); and even more examples could be made; everything sskk do, seems like it's because Dazai wanted them to at some point.)

The reason why Akutagawa looks so conflicted, then, is probably out of bewilderment for Atsushi's words, for the revelation that proving his strength - that is everything Akutagawa has tried to do since meeting him - is actually not the way to make Dazai acknowledge him.

Here's an alternative fantranslation to the official English translation + the raws of that page for further insight :)

[pigfartsviatardis]

Saw this caitvi meme (sadly idk the creator)

and while yes it’s cute and v funny

I think this one keeps it more real

[hybbat]

I'm actually so glad Grian had the self control to make Jimmy take a different mentor. If he'd been Jimmy's mentor his runs absolutely would have become just another bit instead of actually trying, and he probably would have died early level 1 being screamed at for all three runs.

[puppppppppy]

Weird looking dog

[lu-polls]

[Poll suggested by: Anonymous]

[leftneb]

I need to see F1 drivers play trackmania (specifically TM2020 with a steering wheel) so bad you don't understand... the countless potential comedy factors of guys who Drive Cars for a living being put in a situation where they initially THINK they know what's going on but internally are completely lost on what the hell a plastic or wood or god forbid ice road is and how the everloving fuck you're supposed to drive a car on it.

I need to see them in complete denial because "HOW do you expect me to drive this shit I can't even keep grip on a rainy day" and I need to see Max Verstappen in complete agony and denial about any unusual racing line or "unrealistic" game mechanic (while secretly finding them quite exciting) and I need to see George Russell full focus dead set on figuring out the easiest turn known to man while Yuki's already rage quit an hour ago. I need to see Lando Norris with sparkles in his eyes at the first sight of a loop-de-loop and I need to hear Oscar Piastri show more emotion flying out of a sausage block turn than he does winning a race. I need to see C2 pretend to take it seriously while they have a collective 0 clues as to wtf is happening.

And I need Wirtual or Jnic or some other TM streamer to explain all the horrendously complicated ways to gain time (I genuenly cannot overstate how intricate the strategies in this silly little car game are) while the drivers sit there in complete disbelief. Before they actually start getting the hang of it, if anyone has a chance at it it's the people whose native languages list includes Car. Above all I need to see them enjoying cars existing beyond the confines of real physics. oh and I need to see them all still competitive to the bone about it in a cup or tournament setting unrelated to how much they're enjoying the game. also I need Nico Rosberg to commentate it, send post

[mo-ondial]

*jersey shores your miku*

[spurgie-cousin]

the friend who made that cute ofrenda is one of the few people who i can yap about fundie shit with, but she wasn't familiar with the Bates. so I gave her a rundown and her first question was honestly something I've thought about before lol: