#and the subplot’s just her…

[2deadkat]

Uh oh…someone’s been reading too many of the Stilton books lately…

I want his sister.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

View on Twitter

Since it came up recently, link to that therapist on twitter 👆 who was discussing Bucky's terribile therapist in TFATWS and how they should’ve been. 

Transcript:

"As a therapist myself I've had a lot of feelings about Bucky's therapist on TFatWS, and have decided I need to rant a little to let it all out. I've worked w/active duty, trauma survivors, and court ordered clients, so here's some therapeutic conjecture on Bucky's therapy:

Aesthetically her office and presentation don't fit for someone who has been through the trauma that he’s been through. A client like this would need something non-threatening and safe- the whole vibe is overly formal and official in an office building, not at all therapeutic.

6 months working together she calls him Mr. Barnes and then James-he has identity issues and is struggling with who he is, so I think that one of the 1st things they would have done is figure out what he is comfortable being called, by whom and what that means for him.

He is still full out lying to her about pretty much everything including PTSD sx—I’m not saying clients never lie if they have good therapists, but if after 6 months he still doesn’t feel like he can be truthful at all then they haven’t built any trust/ solid therapeutic rapport

The pen and notebook thing-that’s clearly a trigger for him, there’s no reason to antagonize him and take notes in session like a punishment, it’s a power play on her part and it only emphasizes his lack of control in being forced into therapy (she should know his hx w/notebooks)

The whole little arm motion she made when she said “they need to make sure you don’t…” – that made so much light of what has happened to him, he probably feels like his arm is only good as a weapon and things like that will not help him accept it as part of his body

The rules, UGH the rules—from how they were talking about them clearly not something he actively created for himself, more like directives that he’s been ordered to adhere to—something fed to him and reinforced, feels like a way to sign off on liability only

THE AMENDS—this is probably my biggest issue. Amends are for people who need to take accountability for their actions and the repercussions of those choices. He had NO choice. He was a victim of horrific crimes against him, and framing it in a way that he needs to make up for

the crimes that others used him for is abhorrent. The lack of trauma informed care as astounding in the way it is being framed that he has to atone for sins that weren’t his. Its clearly reinforcing the idea in his head in ep 2 when he says “HYDRA were my people".

NO, HYDRA were your captors. They were not your people. That type of thinking needs to get deconstructed and challenged. He can dedicate himself to bringing good into the world and righting wrongs that happened WITHOUT taking on the responsibility of those actions.

Her whole attitude and demeanor were condescending and demeaning. I know some people have said “I love how she calls him out on his bullshit!” That’s not what I see happening. I call my clients out on their shit all the time—this was not that.

And I can only do that with clients ONCE we’ve built the type of relationship where it’s going to be therapeutic for them to hear it, and it’s done intentionally and with purpose. She just came off shaming and mean because they don’t seem to have any form of therapeutic rapport.

She said “you have no history, no family”- there is no therapeutic reason for that, and she’s wrong. He most likely has family alive (he used current tense when talking about his sister) and he was close to Shuri and TChalla, his history is vital to understanding him

When she said “Look, I know that you have been through a lot, but you’ve got your mind back. You are being pardoned. These are good things. You’re free.”—Yeah this feels really dismissive and like toxic positivity. “I know you’ve been through a lot BUT BE HAPPY!!??”

He certainly doesn’t seem to feel like he’s free (especially having therapy mandated), and you can’t just tell someone they’re free. I felt like she was pretty much just like, “shake it off, look to the future!” which feels really shitty when you’ve experienced excessive trauma.

HELLO breach of confidentiality, just introducing herself to Sam as his therapist and confirming it to Walker and the whole police station, it doesn’t matter if they know he’s in therapy you do not break someone’s privacy like that, he still deserves some control over his tx.

Ordering Sam into a session, NO, he’s not your client and you don’t know him well enough to know if that’s appropriate or if it would be harmful to either, and you haven’t asked your client for his consent to have another person in his session

Forcing a trauma victim who was stripped of his bodily autonomy for 70 years into a physically intimate exercise with a coworker that he’s barely interacted with in the last several months? NOPE, just reinforcing to Bucky she has control over him the way his handlers used to

To me, I think she is more focused on signing off on his psychological eval that he isn't a liability rather than any actual healing or attention to his trauma. This unfortunately isn’t unusual in the military where “mental health treatment” is focused on being mission ready.

They are making sure he’s ready to be an “asset” w/ mandated therapy, which he shouldn’t even be forced to do as part of his pardon because he shouldn’t have needed a pardon at all because he was a victim of horrific war crimes, brainwashing, and dehumanization for 70 years.

I’m just saying, if that was me he would be on my big squishy couch, bright open windows, bowl of Hershey kisses, random fidget toys, and two therapy dogs laying all over him while we work through that trauma and he builds back his identity and finds the calm he wants so badly.

And yes he would probably need someone who would see through his BS, call him out when he needs it, not be overly "touchy feely", but only if he feels safe and there is trust, where he gets to work on what HE wants, not what others think he needs.

Anyway thanks for coming to my TEDTalk, I❤️my work and I think being a therapist on retainer for the Avengers would've been a fucking trip, they all needed a team of mental health professionals at their disposal 24/7 and things would've been so much better🤣

ps. They can be a good therapist and just not be a fit for the client, that happens regularly. We know when to make it part of the conversation and when to refer out. Nothing good is going to come out of a contemptuous therapeutic relationship, mandated or not.

pps. That whole situation and the scene with Zemo was so rough. I can't imagine how much it brought back the violation, humiliation, anger, and helplessness of when he was the WS. I'm just imagining him having a therapist he trusts and being able to process that afterwards 😭😭😭"

[jondoe279]

atp i genuinely doooon’t care if the old guard two is the worst thing put to film i just want to see the best character of all time (andromache the scythian) and her loser henchmen and everyone’s favorite girl nile freeman again

[amyriver]

amy, rory and river deserved a full episode focused on their relationship & i’ll never be over it

[onefortherose]

* Kris...Let's go back there tomorrow, alright?

@pscentral event 30: friendship ↳ Kris and Susie: Deltarune Chapters 1 & 2

insp

[lesbianfakir]

Thinking about this post and can we talk about how important it is that fakir was okay with Duck not loving him back?

I think it’s fair to say it’s pretty heavily implied that he’s in love with her, and it’s explicitly confirmed in the guidebook.

While Duck’s feelings for him are more nebulous and hard to pin down, from his perspective she’s in love with Mytho. We as the audience know she doesn’t actually feel that way about Mytho but from Fakir’s perspective everything she’s done so far has been for Mytho. She admitted to him in episode 12 that she had feelings for mytho and there has been nothing to dissuade him from this line of thinking. In fact, he finds her crying because mytho chose rue.

There’s this little moment I like. When Duck tells him mytho has chosen rue as his princess his eyes narrow ever so slightly.

[ID: two screenshots of Fakir from episode 25. In the first he is looking at Duck (off camera) with a serious expression. In the second he narrows his eyes slightly. End ID]

He REACTS to this news, even if it’s subtle. And he doesnt look happy about it. Fakir is upset that Mytho rejected Duck. And this seems so antithetical from what we come to expect from a romantic subplot.

So the girl he loves loves someone else… and he’s okay with that. He never tries to pressure or guilt Duck into being with him. Hell he never even mentions his feelings. She likes someone else so what’s the point. But this never dissuades him from his devotion to her. He doesn’t give her an ultimatum or make her choose. He doesn’t even seem get upset that she loves someone else. Even when she goes back to being a duck destroying his last hope of being with her romantically, even then he never wavers. He wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Whether that’s as friends or as partners or as just a simple boy and a duck, he wants to be with her. How she feels for him doesn’t matter so much as getting to share his life with her.

And I find this such a refreshing spin on tired romance tropes. “Just friends” looms large in our media so it’s lovely to see a boy in the so called “friendzone” who’s okay with it. Beyond okay he treasures the time he spends with Duck. His affection for her doesn’t hinge on reciprocation.

It’s so common for characters in fakir’s archetype to grow angry or sad that they’re not “the one,” often lashing out at the girl who doesn’t return their feelings. But instead we have Fakir who’s perfectly content to stay Duck’s friend. After all, being her friend is a gift in itself.

I just love to see a platonic relationship not treated as a lesser stepping stone to a romantic relationship. Sure, Fakir has feelings for Duck. But that in no way undermines the friendship they already have. It’s treated with all the gravity usually reserved for romantic relationships. They’re going to spend their lives together and whether that’s as friends or as lovers—that part isn’t important.

I’m tired of media treating friendships like they’ve suddenly become worthless when one party develops feelings and the other doesn’t return them. With fakiru, the lovely part is that their relationship is built on such a strong foundation it can stand on its own. We the audience are free to interpret it as romantic, platonic, or something in between, but with any reading their close friendship forms the centerpiece.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

No matter how many times it happens, I'm always shocked by how reliably all my problems with any given story are solved by making it shorter. If I go into a story with the idea that it'll be long, that I should use as much detail as I want to craft a full-length and fully-fleshed-out story instead of a short one, it always turns into this rambling, meandering, soulless thing that's no fun to read, and I get tangled up in so many flimsy, sprawling layers of character and worldbuilding that the plot becomes unworkable.

The minute I tell myself, "Let's make this as short as possible," the problems fall away, I find the heart of the story again, the pacing is brisk, scenes get multiple purposes, the world feels deeper because I'm implying things that spark the reader's imagination rather than trying to put every threadbare, boring detail on the page. Every time. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

[itsbenedict]

How would you make mario a villain?

Huh! Tricky one. I mean, there's tons of Newgrounds parodies about how fucked up it is that Mario goes around crushing turts all day, and there's the obvious "silent scary henchman of the image-conscious dictator" angle. Tricky to cast him as the villain rather than the muscle, though...

There's only one thing that notably motivates Mario, and that's Princess Peach. Extreme devotion, there. For him to have agency, she needs to be removed from the picture- and I think that neatly answers the motive thing, too. Peach hasn't been kidnapped, this time- there's something more permanent. But what? "She's been killed and he's out for revenge" is a little 3edgy5me, and also if Mario sets out to get revenge I think he just gets it. His antagonists have rarely put up the kind of fight that would require him to concoct a villainous scheme.

Who's the protagonist, if not Mario? What is Mario doing that requires someone else to go on an adventure opposing him? How do we make this something that Nintendo would actually consider releasing?

...Okay, what's Mario's usual M.O.? How do we make that villainous? He... goes to dangerous places, nimbly circumvents all obstacles in his way, and claims powerful, usually star-shaped magical objects, in order to rescue the princess. This time... he isn't really concerning himself with who the rightful owners of said magical objects are.

It's a Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego situation. There's been a rash of heists committed by a strange masked phantom thief, and the protagonist's job is to find out how the relics were stolen and where the culprit hid them, and get them back before their clients suffer dire consequences as a result of missing-magic-item-itis. You investigate crime scenes, pick up the phantom thief's trail, chase him down, and bop him one but good to recover the relic and save the day.

This is complicated somewhat because this phantom thief is in league with Bowser, who keeps causing trouble in ways that the phantom thief takes advantage of to get past security. The Koopa Troop often assists the phantom thief in his getaways. Why are they working together???

Flash back. Mario standard plot- Bowser has kidnapped the princess. This time, he's done it using some magic item or invention doohickey whose provenance he doesn't quite understand, which has turned Princess Peach to stone. True to form, Mario goes through several another castles and thrashes Bowser and breaks his evil doohickey, and... uh. This fails to rescue the princess. She is still a statue.

Bowser doesn't know why she's still a statue, and both of them panic. How do they fix this?! They need to try something- find some new magic thing that'll bring her back! They've heard of the Sacred Star of Healing in one of the neighboring Kingdoms (which exist in infinite supply in the Mario universe to be adventured through precisely once and then forgotten about forever), and agree to work together to steal it and use it to restore Peach.

It doesn't work. They ditch it somewhere. They follow up on another rumor- the Golden Coin Spirit in the Treasure Kingdom or whatever, and that's a bust too. And after a couple of these, the international community is forced to call in an expert to catch this thief and bring him to justice.

So who's our protagonist? Who in the Mario universe is a famous detective who specializes in guarding star-shaped magical relics from would-be burglars? WHAT IMPROBABLY LARGE-BRAINED PENGUIN COULD POSSIBLY THWART THIS MASTER CRIMINAL?!?

[lucyshypemaster]

we genuinely need more platonic male-female relationships like the one brynne and aiden have

[fumifooms]

Did you notice that in the anime chilchuck blushes when he sees marcille in the red dress? I skimmed through the marchil crumbs master post and from what I saw you didn't mention it

Also its not from the ale since he wasn't blushing right before that

Ah yeah, don’t worry it’s because part 8 of the crumbs masterpost isn’t out yet, I’ve been lazy with it but it’s been overdue ever since the second half of season 2 started, and it does have a buncha stuff don’t you even worry lol my god… I just need to get out some stuff for it first. Ahh good times

On this though: I personally don’t give it much weight but it’s valid to read into it.

What we know:

Against: - Kui does make characters blush both when they’re drunk AND when they laugh. - Chil is confirmed drunk/tipsy in that scene because in the picture above his little mood chibi is drunk lol. - The point of the scene is that he laughs at her, the joke is that he laughs at her. If there’s subtext it’s still very much secondary and easy to miss and ‘besides the point’ anyways, buut does this subtext exist? Well…

For: - In the dating sim cover, the other option was "tell her she looks pretty". None of the choices seem outrageous for his character so it’s not random throwaway lines, though of course the reasoning behind it may be as simple as ‘it’s formality’. In the chapter cover, Marcille’s section is the one on top of every other one at center stage, which makes sense since it’s for bicorn chapter and bicorn chapter is THE Marcille & Chil chapter. In all of the choice dialogue bubbles on the cover, out of the 7 ones the hand is always over the choice he picks except for Marcille’s and Falin’s, indicating he might have hesitated. - Short of being a half-foot with a sultry face, Marcille is Chilchuck’s type. - The face he’s making in his little mood emoji in the dating sim picture lol? You may be drunk but pull yourself together omg - Chilchuck does deflect his more compromising feelings so this would be in character. Marcille is the only character he teases so much so often and it’s implied to be because he finds her reaction fun, full with shojo filter and sparkles all around her with his mind. Do with this what you will… Schoolboy pulling on the pigtails of the girl he like’s pigtails.

Neutral: - we don’t see the milisecond of realization on Chil’s face in the manga. - we don’t see his face after spitting out all his ale in the anime lol. - what could be "canon" in the manga may not be in the anime and vice versa.

Also whatever the hell this is. We all know not to give too much weight to VA’s takes but also what!! I always thought in the manga that Chilchuck wasn’t the one calling frogsuit Marcille cute so that was already a steel chair to me but lol the point of him saying that in the scene was still very much to follow through on the bait she took lmaoo. I don’t thiiink Chilchuck would think the frog suit genuinely makes Marcille look cute idk. Kigurumi enjoyer Chilchuck confirmed… And I feel like if this is true then Chilchuck wouldn’t have much problem giving her a casual compliment over her looks in the golden kingdom scene either. But also?!! 👁👁

Chil’s jp VA has also said that Marcille is cute (Marcille’s jp va said Chilchuck is cute too but that’s besides the point. 16:05 here). And got into some trouble for acting overly familiar with Marcille’s VA, somewhere in this haven’t looked myself yet. So there might be a whole unrelated thing there?? I’ll cover it more fully in the crumbs masterpost hopefully, after some more investigation. Gdbdg so yeah several layers of putting crumbs under magnifiers like they could be fake gemstones to appraise their authenticity and thus value

Stare. Play it cool.

I love it when he does this it’s so cute. Cheers, raising my cup to you

[kanthonyism]

deeply glad that Anthony and Kate fucked off to do their thing and weren't their for Lady Whistledown reveal because if they'd been their the show runners would have also made them react in a way that is so Out of Character for the sake of whitewashing Penelope and getting their unearned pay off and it's fr so unrealistic that she wrote the nastiest shit about everyone and was not shunned 😭😭😭 like what happened to stakes and consequences

[padfoot-lupin77]

Slow burn this slowburn that MY GIRL I READ TWO WHOLE BOOKS FOR THEM TO HOLD HANDS IN THE LAST CHAPTER OKAY

[harukamitsuki]

(spoilers for dcmk ahead)

detective conan seriously needs to stop wasting our time and end already. gosho just keeps introducing more and more characters that we either don't care about or are just there to be the love interest.

i love dcmk, i really do. but, and i can't believe i'm saying this, it's too long!! and, trust me, i'm no slouch when it comes to length. (aka, has rewatched one piece at least 10 times).

but it's dragging out! it's clear that gosho has realised he has fans who will stick with it regardless, because the overarching plot is interesting, but how are we supposed to stay invested if we rarely get to see the plot?

there are less episodes where the black organisation appears than there are tv original episodes. don't get me wrong, i love... some of them, but i love the plot-heavy episodes so much more.

it has, canonically, only been six months since shinichi was turned into a child. SIX MONTHS! AND DCMK HAS BEEN OUT FOR 28 YEARS!!

we don't need each character to have a romantic sub-plot. we don't need an in-depth backstory for each character.

we don't need to see each and every case they come across.

i'm all for slice of life - i love it, in fact. but not when there's such a strong plot behind it.

i feel like the desperate revival arc should have been the turning point, where it starts to be more head-strong in the plot, maybe throwing in a kaitou kid chapter/episode for a break. but it doesn't.

instead, we are 210 chapters into the Rum Arc with no sign of it stopping soon. the bourbon and akai arc was 276 chapters, and we all remember how long it took for that to end.

i'm at the point where i just pick and choose episodes to watch, (thank you detectiveconanwiki), because nobody cares about the will they? wont they? for anyone but shinran and maybe heizuha but that's been dragged out more than enough.

seriously, heiji didn't realise he had feelings for kazuha until 600 episodes in? and he called kazuha 'his' but pretends he didn't because it wasn't as amazing as shinichi's confession? i stopped caring the second momiji was introduced because, oh, can't have a love story without an obstacle! FUCK OFF

ran's character went from a strong female woman who was struggling with the fact that the love of her life is gone, to 'help us, shinichi!'. like- come ON! she grew up with shinichi and you're telling me she doesn't have any deductive prowess? what happened to her suspecting conan of being shinichi? BECAUSE IT SEEMS LIKE SHE'S FORGOTTEN ALL ABOUT IT

and it's so hard to come up with your own ending, because there's still so much that hasn't been answered.

what is the aptx 4869 being used for? (have my own theory, and wouldn't be surprised if it was right). what is the 'silver bullet' haibara's parents were working on? what's the black orginisation's goal? is karasuma renya still alive? what is vermouth's relation to him? why hasn't she aged?

AND SO ON AND SO FORTH

JUST GET ON WITH IT GOSHO

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Sapling Cage

YA fantasy, start of a trilogy

a trans girl and her friend swap places so she can join the coven of witches who wander the land instead of becoming a knight

as they travel and she starts to learn from them, while hoping she’s not found out , they uncover a corrupt magical blight that threatens to become a civil war

bi demi MC

[pass3ra]

cressida's storyline was genuinely shameful tbhhh it's like they started rewriting it in the first half of the season then completely forgot about the changes they'd made to make it fit the book plot and it just ends up making everyone else look bad😐 every character in the second half got a "penelope did nothing wrong" lobotomy so we ended up with eloise completely ignoring cressida being sold off to an horrible man (when she made every effort to support her in the first half of the season) and for some reason resenting her for pretending to be lady whistledown? Then they somehow frame her ignoring colin's offensively bad pleas as it being her turning away from redemption when all she's trying to do is escape being trapped in the country with her likely abusive aunt... and it ends with her meeting her horrible fate and it still being framed as tragic only to immediately juxtapose it with the bridgerton family winning the idgaf war while gleefully seeing off francesca and her future dead husband. The bridgertons were the villains of the season frfr

[daisyachain]

Genuinely the end of WoT feels like such a kick in the teeth. The women in the series whose arcs are independent from men get disappeared. The women whose arcs involve men are given side quests that feel peripheral or irrelevant to the plot. The most pivotal female character and the only one who has a continuous arc through the books to match the male trio…well. You Know.