#because i'm positively going insane

[yymiya]

nothing more atrocious than a ready meal taking 55 minutes in the oven, do i look like i have the time? it is 4am and i'm sat on the kitchen couch having slept 3 hours from 8pm-11pm and that's all i will get tonight, i have a multitude of half-finished assignments and i'm stressing over a MAN that the entire flat refers to as my wife. he is not my wife. not yet. loaded fries, do i seem like i need the additional suffering??? cook quicker. be better.

[vaguely-concerned]

the fact that irving canonically survives through the end of asunder to be at wynne's funeral is so fucking funny to me. nothing but love and respect for MY unstoppable cockroach morally grey machiavellian mage dad!!! he's survived in his position through multiple attempted rites of annulment and blood mage plots popping up left right and center around him. the chantry keeps trying to stamp him out but his dodge game is simply out of this world, divine. civil wars, political machinations and minefields, chantry atrocities, this wily old motherfucker is dodging and weaving his way through it all, not-quite-no-hits-taken-running-it-but-honestly-close-enough-under-the-circumstances style. if solas does succeed in tearing down the veil I would fully believe that one of the like three people still alive at the end of it all would be a very weary 90 year old first enchanter irving going 'oh this shit again huh'. the maker has cursed him for his hubris and his paperwork is never finished (affectionate, it's fine he canonically loves paperwork)

[muzzleroars]

Gabriel (/ˈɡeɪbriəl/) - “Strength of God”, more accurately “God is my strength” (or, what does it mean to be the righteous hand without a body?)

[jawz]

i saw the tv glow is legitimately one of the stupidest, most tryhard movies i've ever seen in my entire life. absolute dogshit. and everyone is pretending it's the most lifechanging thing they've ever seen LOL give me a break! the gall to claim this is inspired by fucking DAVID LYNCH??? i can't

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Growing up in an extremely ultra religious, cult-like family was a mindfuck for multiple reasons but that doesn't stop unfortunately, even when you escape. For example, see: The overwhelming feeling of boiling hatred and shame for who you used to be.

The angry hatred for the past person I used to be, the version of myself that mindlessly parroted my family's beliefs and listened to their every command, constantly simmered under my skin and invaded my every thought. I was embarrassed of what I used to be- even as I made friends of different ethnicities and faiths, as I listened and explored new ideas and worlds that I never knew existed, as I started the first LGBTQ+ club at my school and volunteered with kids who deserved so much more- there was always a little voice in the back of my head.

"They would hate you if they knew what you were. They would hate the horrendous teachings that were seared into your mind, the things that you used to say and believe. You are nothing but a pretender."

And it is true that my beliefs were bigoted in all the worst ways. It is true that I believed truly heart-wrenching things without a second thought and judged others in such harsh and unfair ways. I told myself that there was no coming back from that, not really. There was nothing I could do to ever make up for it.

Then I remembered that the person who said those things wore velcro light up sneakers and collected finger puppets that the librarians handed out as awards for reading picture books. The person that held signs at pro-life rallies and anti-LGBTQ+ protests had a cherished sticker book and hunted minnows in the creek after school and adored their puffle on club penguin and was really into greek mythology and had skinned knees from climbing trees at recess and knew every Disney song by heart and was absolutely terrified of the dark.

That person was a child.

I was a child.

It took a really long time. Years and years of reflection and distance, but I've decided that I can't hate the past version of myself anymore. I feel pity and remorse, I feel anger- I feel so much fury and violent rage- at what my childhood was and I grieve what could- no, should- have been, but I no longer resent who I was.

I'm not ashamed.

I am so, so, so unbelievably proud of that little kid. For being brave enough to leave the comfort and safety of what I was told was right. For not being afraid to be wrong. For seeking out information and knowledge in a culture that praised ignorance. For questioning everything, relentlessly.

I am by no means a perfect person, I never have been and I never will, but I am proud of myself in every iteration that has ever existed because I know that I have never stopped trying to understand and learn and grow, and I never will.

If you have ever been in a similar situation and feel similar things, first of all: My condolences on your lost childhood. Second of all: Please be nice to that past version of yourself and recognize all the hard work they did to make you who you are today. That person was a survivor and an inspiration. They deserve nothing but love.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Something something about Buck and learning and or teaching.

Something something about Buck teaching when he really needed to be learning.

I just keep thinking about how the show has increasingly - especially last season - put Buck into the role of 'teacher' - including his coma dream. (i'm using teacher for the lack of a better term!) and how in the aftermath of the coma dream - he's been trying to teach but it hasn't worked - instead he's been learning.

I've been musing on the fact that even back in season 1 Buck has been in a teacher role -

Abby learning to chose herself and go for her happiness,

Bobby learning to let people in and Buck being a major part of that because of their developing father-son type relationship

'teaching' Eddie that he could rely on other people for help

Maddie learning at Bucks hand that she didn't need to keep running, that she could lean on him for support and build a new life for herself

Ravi being tutored by Buck in the fire house

even Lucy being given advice by Buck - teaching her through his own experiences in dumb luck

Buck making himself into a teacher in his coma dream and the idea that all these people he has helped teach teaching him that he has a place with them and that he is important

and so many more examples through the seasons that I won't list or I'd be here forever!

Because there has been a lot of emphasis on teaching and learning since Buck woke up from his coma - he learnt he was good at maths, but then wasn't allowed to help Chris with his maths homework because it would be cheating.

used his maths skills to win at Poker - but got taught lessons even in victory - rather than teaching others lessons (whatever they might have been)

Natalia being interested in him because he could teach her about death and things going south pretty quickly when it became evident that Buck needed to learn how to live again rather than be stuck in death

And now we've had several mentions by Tommy of him teaching Buck things - teaching him to fly, teaching him Mauy Thai, all the way to him being his bi awakening is teaching him about a part of himself he didn't know. Things are turned on their head - Buck is the student not the master now

Even with Eddie this season, we've seen him teaching Buck things - rather than Eddie learning from him - Eddie handing over this really important thing going on with Chris - Eddie knowing that Buck would be a better option - that Chris would open up to him more - is teaching Buck about his importance in the Diaz family - re-enforcing that he is part of their life. Its also Eddie who has had the good advice for Buck this time rather than the other way round.

Something something about 'you like to be the guy with the answers' to Buck becoming the guy with the (maths) answers - only for it to fade away and now he's having to learn

Something something about the tie to Buck and death and the resurrection and how Christ was the teacher up to and immediately after his death and resurrection when he left others on earth to spread his teachings and he ascended to learn at the right hand of god

Something something about how that is the key to happiness and that is what Buck has figured out and that is why his journey to figuring that out has had him wearing the bright blue - because in Christianity - that shade of blue is the colour of the kingdom of heaven (because it is the colour of the sky!) so putting Buck in it at all these key markers of his journey is showing him as being on the road to ascension.

This post is a mess - I don't even know what it is any more! I started with one idea about teaching and Tommy and then more kept coming and we ended up here!!!!

[numerikku]

Something i really love to read are stories where the main character is a stalker because of how out of touch they are

The shit they say to themselves like "oh wait now that this is done i can break into their house and take a bunch of pictures of them while they sleep!" so fucking casually like it's some video game sidequest absolutely kills me like sir there are so many things wrong with you 😭😭😭

[earthshells]

i think "you bene gesserit made me a freak" wasn't enough if i were paul i would've done worse. imagine your son justifiably freaking out after being presented with visions of a possible future and begging for help and your only response is like yassss you are the son of the duke leto atreides

[thecultoflove]

How do you feel abt the dhmis drag show

insane.

[fuckyeah-bears]

literally exerting sooo much self control and impulse control not to snap back at idiots replying stupid shit on my posts. people are annoying as fuck sometimes. like if you have 'commentary' about how i interact with shit and answer asks, you can literally fuck off. i spend absurd amounts of time trying to be nice and provide specific bears and nice replies to people at their request. and then the one time i get slightly irritated people freak the fuck out and start lecturing me about being 'unprofessional' and 'rude' and 'obnoxious' like im sorry but fuck all the way off. this is fucking tumblr. nothing about tumblr is professional. i don't have to provide y'all with bears. i don't have to make a pinned post to explain myself. newsflash, i already have a pinned post that i'm rather fond of. i don't have to act or respond to things any kind of way. i choose to respond kindly with nice encouraging messages and provide bears, and spend ridiculous amounts of time looking up specific requested bears for people. i choose to do that because i want to make people happy and spread some positivity. i choose to do that because this world is shit as fuck sometimes and i want to create a little space free from drama and negativity where people can enjoy bears and get a little reprieve from this shit ass world and the bullshit of life. i choose to do all that because i want to. but heaven forbid i'm not in the mood 100% of the time to always be perfectly nice and happy and go-lucky. and then i get shits giving me crap over it like i'm somehow obligated to do all this shit for free and always respond exactly the way they desire me to. and it is pissing me the fuck off. because i genuinely put so much effort into bearotonin and trying to make other peoples' lives better in this one tiny small way. i have a life y'all. i have a job and school and an actual adult life with responsibilities. but i choose to do this because i love bears and i think bearotonin is hilarious and making people happy is something that makes me happy. but i don't owe anyone anything, and if you have complaints about the way i comport myself or respond to messages or posts i make, well you can fuck off. i don't want to hear it. you don't need to reblog my posts and tag them with little messages about how you disagree, or write replies/comments saying i should act better or should be expecting this, or send me stupid asks. you can literally keep your negative thoughts to yourself. because people need to fucking realize that your tags are not private. if you put them on a post, the op is going to see them. and in this case, the op is going to be super pissed off by them.

to be clear, 99% of people are awesome and super nice and i love y'all dearly (and this post is absolutely not about you in any way), but the other 1% are really getting on my fucking nerves right now and it is taking a lot of effort to not engage with them directly and tell them to fuck off to their faces

[imminent-danger-came]

Hi there! Anon sent reeling by S1E6 again! And I would just like to say that your response to my ask made me So Normal. Especially you bringing up S2E6, which is why I’m currently setting up a lawn chair here on the brink of insanity, because apparently I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. 

Because yes, you’re completely right about S2E6 demonstrating this cycle of pushing others away while pushing themselves towards greatness and accidentally leaving pain in their wake that MK and SWK have managed to stick themselves in, but ALSO now I can’t stop thinking about how we get Shadow Play IMMEDIATELY afterwards. 

Like… how much do you think Macaque had seen? Obviously he could see MK getting too caught up in his own head (*cough* and trauma *cough*) and shutting out his friends, but… how much had he seen seen, you know?

And now I also can’t stop thinking about how immediately after Shadow Play, we get To Catch a Leaf. Which is obviously an incredible episode in its own right, but it’s also the first episode since Minor Scale where MK is surrounded by his friends and he lets them help him. Because in S2E6, Mei and Sandy are with him, but he’s not really with them. He’s focused on getting stronger, to the point where he ignores them telling him exactly how to do so. And in the beginning of Shadow Play, we learn that he’s been further isolating himself off screen and blowing off activities with them so that he could focus on ‘[being] ready’. 

But then To Catch a Leaf happens. And it starts off with MK surrounded by the others, having recently done something fun (curses aside) with Mei, and it’s not a big deal. He’s not stressing about getting stronger or being ready, he’s just… there with them. Present and in the moment, at least as much as he can be, and it’s fine. He’s fine, and more importantly he seems to be letting them in and being a bit more open with them. 

And this carries on into 72 Transformations! Because obviously he still hasn’t told them The Thing, but he does go from ignoring/avoiding them while trying to get more powerful to calling them all up so that he can involve them. Figure at least some things out, together. And it drives me insane because he was getting better! He may very well have worked his way up to telling the others about LBD! But then she came a-knocking with more trauma, and it blasts him two steps back and it’s just… AHHH! He was SO CLOSE!!!

Also, side note: Do you think MK believes he has a body count? And I don’t even mean the nebulous potential casualties from all the recent disasters that MK blames himself for, I’m talking about Spider Queen specifically. Because MK isn’t an idiot. If he didn’t know she was dead (or whatever getting sucked into the furnace counts as) immediately after the sewers, he would have put two and two together after Destiny Fulfilled. And considering this is the guy who blames himself for DBK getting out despite knowing that SWK was right next to him in bird form the entire time, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he probably thinks it’s his fault. So… do you think it’s possible he sees himself as a murderer? Or, like, murderer adjacent? And if he does, how much more layered and messed up do you think that’d make the potential ‘Wukong reveals he killed Macaque’ moment?

Sorry for the long ask, the monkey show has changed me for better and worse. I will never be the same. *reclines on my lawn chair, gazing out over the precipice of madness with a thousand yard stare*

One: never apologize for a long ask, especially when it has so much good stuff in it! Two: I KNOW RIGHT. The monkey show really does change you for the better or for the worst. I'm still reeling from s4 and it's been 4 months, and then the s4 special came in and permanently altered my brain chemistry once again. I have a house next to this abyss.

ANYWAYS.

The back and forth of MK's character is one of my favorite things about lmk (of which I have many)! He takes 2 steps forward and then 4 steps back, and I think that's a testament to what getting better can look like—it's not linear. Sometimes, it's not even moving forward, and that's hard.

I think a great example of this "2 steps forward and then 4 steps back" phenomenon is MK's growth in Revenge of the Spider Queen:

MK starts believing in himself, smiling at that face in the mirror. It's not a strong belief, not yet, but it's a start. You can even see him making this attempt to improve in 2x01:

(this got a little long so everything else under the cut!)

MK: "Ah! Ugh, come on MK you can do this! Self-confidence! That's Monkey King 101!"

"Wait! I am worthy! Definitely worthy!" I'm Monkie Kid! Basically the new Monkey King—might have heard of me? You know, the next chapter? I'm totally worthy!"

(2x01 Sleep Bug)

-

MK's even trying to mimic Monkey King here, the person he thinks he should be:

But then, as you've mentioned, LBD and 2x05 comes along.

And it's funny, because now we know MK did become more like Monkey King, just like he wanted, but it's in all the wrong ways.

((Kind of a side note: We also know that Monkey King couldn't have "picked the wrong successor", because there honestly wasn't another option for a successor to begin with. MK grappling with like, 3 levels of Wukong lies is what makes s2 so delicious to watch))

And then we have 2x06, and THEN 2x07, and I'm sure that's exactly why Macaque stepped in! He saw MK going down the same path Wukong did. The drive to become stronger, pushing his friends away—Macaque in Shadow Play knows exactly what he's talking about:

Macaque: "Well, with ol' Monkey King not around I thought someone should teach you a lesson! Ah MK, you really are dense, aren’t you. Haha, you saw a story about a hero who got handed everything, who didn’t have to work for anything, and you thought you were the other guy? The second the hero got real power, he couldn’t care less about his friends. That’s you bud." (2x07 Shadow Play)

("Everything I did was for us!" "You did it for yourself!" *head in my hands .png*)

Wukong leaves. That's what he does, and that's what he did to MK in both Revenge of the Spider Queen (leaving MK to fight Spider Queen and her mech alone) and 2x01.

And honestly, MK in s2 is simply doing his best to pick up the pieces, to be Monkie Kid alone, without SWK or even his friends. But it doesn't really work—hiding LBD's return from his friends didn't save them in 2x10, and it didn't stop the Lady Bone Demon, just like Wukong hiding LBD's return from MK didn't protect MK from any of it.

This pattern, of walking in Wukong's footsteps and making the same mistakes, keeps repeating itself.

MK's 2x08 parallel to Wukong in 3x10 is another good example of that.

MK's terrifying of hurting the people he cares about, so he leaves. He runs off, and this only hurts his friends further. ("Can't you see you're hurting the people who care about you the most?" and "I can’t risk hurting the people I care about—the one’s I have left.".)

And so, tying this all back to the s4 special, we're starting to see MK take 2 steps forward again:

MK: "You ever wish things will just stay like this, like they are right now?" Sun Wukong: "Pssshhkk, where's the fun in that?" Tang: "Uh um, Monkey King, we need to have a serious conversation about your idea of fun."

Mei: "At least we fixed something for a change, instead of destroying it!" MK: "Yeah! So long as we leave the world in better shape than we found it, then it's all good right?"

(4x14 Better Than We Found It)

-

And I'm waiting for the eventual 4 steps back.

Because well..."At least we fixed something for a change, instead of destroying it"...it's not that they didn't fix anything, but plenty was broken:

Flower fruit mountain was destroyed. Azure died. Whoever orchestrated all of this is still out there.

So, MK's current answer to "doing what you think is right" leading "to pain" might just not hold up. Because well, MK can try, that's for sure, but all that effort might still not make it a net positive, you know?

I think MK will blame himself for Azure's death, for SURE tough. He might have residual guilt about Spider Queen and everyone else harmed along the way, but Azure is the one I'm certain on. MK feeling like he's a "murder adjacent" and that compounding with the "Wukong Murdered Macaque" reveal and being "just like Wukong"...OH BABY. IT'S ALL COMING TOGETHER.

Like,

MK: "I just- I just want to be me. To be MK!" Curse MK: "Yeah well...we all know exactly where that leads." LBD Voice Over: "To pain."

(4x07 Pitiful Creatures)

-

Identity and destiny are very much intertwined in this show, and MK doing what he thinks is right and being himself leads to pain. That's exactly what happened to Azure—he took the Jade Emperor's throne to try and make the world a better place, but all he managed to do was barely fix what he himself had broken.

MK: "Yeah well...I'm kinda always the one getting the world in trouble to begin with so..."

(4x01 Familiar Tales)

-

All it's going to take is one antagonist speech towards MK that hits a little too close to home, and everything else is going to come crashing down.

I am very much getting geared up for my s5 lego tragedy, thank you very much!

[coulsonlives]

I just had to share this video because holy shit, it hits the nail right on the head! So well spoken. This stuff needs to be circulated more, esp with the growing number of people thinking they have this because of misinformation, or just outright faking it.

[ishikawayukis]

ok so maybe people weren't lying and exercise is actually good for you because i haven't had insanely bad cramps and my pms didn't make me think hey i wanna die actually and i might be in a great mood after cycling for an hour and yeah my sleep is slowly getting better so like yeah whatever 🙄

[heartsyncproductions]

Guess whose making a gay pirate game that is also vaguely inspired by the little mermaid if the little mermaid was also a trans allegory instead of a just gay one (and also about pirates)

Anyway this is my progress shots for Velox Fabula 2 Game Jam so far! Finished three backgrounds + 3 time variants (day/sunset/night). I also have a few thousand words written so far, as well as the basic in game UI screens (still need to find a font I like + adjust the text alignment)

This is probably all I'm going to post about it until it's finished, but I'm super excited for it!

[12chumtoadsinatrenchcoat]

i am excited but i also fear for my life

[lesbianfrottage]

Okay but I need to be someone's beloved wifepet and belong to them completely and be able to pour my whole energy into just loving them. When will it be my turn!