#but i wrote it anyway

[20dimensionsoftangerine]

Wrote an insanely short scene about the new npc

Very big spoilers for episode six

"Maybe we could study- okay..." Oisin lamely called after Adaine as she full on sprinted away from him.

"That went well." Ivy said when the Bad Kids fighter also fled, leaning on Oisin's shoulder, " She's just *adorable*, isn't she?"

Oisin grunted in response and stepped away, picking up the beer pong ball again and trying to line up his next shot.

The shot went wide, bouncing off the rim of a solo cup and flying across the room.

"*Oh*," Ivy said, making him wince, "Oisin, if I didn't know any better I would say you're flustered."

Oisin knew better than to respond but unfortunately he was sure his blush was showing and that alone prompted Ivy to laugh.

"Really? You found something charming in that display? Was it her blatant lying about her obvious financial situation or maybe her connection to the AV club? My my what prestige. I can see why it's getting your pants tight. Did you really have to off her *diamonds*?"

Oisin growled under his breath as another shot completely missed its mark. "Do you have to be an ass, Ivy?"

"Sorry?" Ivy put her hand on the table, leaning over so she was right in Oisin's line of sight. "Did I miss a memo? I didn't think we were here to make *friends*. My mistake."

Oisin stood up straight with a sigh and pushed his glasses up to rub at his eyes. "I haven't forgotten what we're doing. I just don't think we have to be mean about it."

Ivy snorted and rolled her eyes. "Softy. So you got what you needed from her, yeah?"

Oisin nodded and ran a claw over his tattoos. "Her mephits are rudimentary, they'll be easy to replicate."

Ivy smirked and rocked on her heels. "Ah, miss Oracle ain't all powerful then? Color me surprised."

"It's conjuration magic," Oisin explained, "wizards are much less skilled in areas they aren't focusing. I'm sure she'd be able to divine circles around me."

"And yet can't even see though our schemes." Ivy shot him a sharp smile that Oisin always hated. It usually predicated a horrible idea or stinging remark. "Might be a good thing you're so star struck, lover boy, throwing those fortune telling powers off."

Oisin chewed on his lip, weighing his options for a moment before electing to speak. "I know Kipperlilly is sure of this plan but do we need-"

"Yeah, hold that thought," Ivy inturupted, patting him on the chest. Her gaze was far away but when Oisin looked he couldn't figure out what she had been looking at. "Just get the job done and you can make goo-goo eyes at whoever you want. No judgement here. Now if you'll excuse me..."

She slipped off and Oisin was left alone by the beer pong table. Feeling like a complete idiot.

And a jerk.

He threw another ball. It didn't go in.

[phoenixkaptain]

I think what we all miss in philosophical discussions about whether the Jedi were right or wrong is that Star Wars (the first six) as a whole is built on the idea that doing things out of fear, whether that be fear for oneself or fear for others, leads to bad things happening.

Anakin searching for his mother was based on fear: Anakin killed an entire village of Tusken Raiders.

Luke left in the middle of Jedi training out of fear for his friends: Luke got his hand cut off.

That sort of thing. In the fiction of the movies, acting on fear is bad, but this is especially highlighted in the prequel trilogy.

One thing I think of, whenever I think of the prequels, is that the Jedi High Council WAS afraid. They couldn’t feel the Force, everything was murky, Qui-Gon showed up with a weird Force kid, and the Sith are possibly back. They’re scared, and that’s okay! Fear isn’t actually the problem! The problem is when you make decisions based on that fear, when you ignore your brain to react on base animal instincts.

That’s the whole point of the Jedi, I think. Your base animal instincts shouldn’t control you. Because you aren’t fighting on instinct, you’re fighting with assistance from the Force.

The Jedi choose to join the war based off of fear, they agree to help the Senate more off of fear, they are no longer third-party made to assist with the people of the galaxy.

One thing to remember is that the Jedi Order was okay with people not following rules. Qui-Gon constantly broke rules, but he only started to get in trouble for it, actual legitimate trouble, during the Phantom Menace era.

Qui-Gon is admittedly all we really have to base this assertion on, especially in current canon, but it can be reasonably assumed that the Jedi accepted Grey Jedi, middle-ground Jedi, in the Order because why wouldn’t they? There was no Sith around! The problem was when Jedi went too far, but most of them didn’t and the Council was probably like “cool, congrats, good work.” It’s only when the Sith are “back” that the Jedi panic and start making the rules stricter. And they make the rules stricter out of fear!

I love the Jedi. I love that, above all else, they are people. They have worries, they have fears, they feel love; they’re just people. The difference is that they don’t allow these emotions to guide them. They let their duty to the Force and to each other and to the Galaxy guide them, instead. They do inherently stupid, reckless things because it honestly seems a bit impossible not to be a Jedi who does stupid, reckless things. But, more than that, they do these things out of an inherent passion for the people they’re doing it all for.

Because that’s really the point of the Jedi! To have passion that’s outward, instead of passion that’s inward.

(I know they say no passion or whatever but look me in the eye and tell me that Yoda isn’t passionate about teaching. You would be lying! Yoda uses fucking everything as a teaching opportunity, that man loves teaching more than he loves stew of dubious origin, he is passionate, do not even try to convince me otherwise you cannot)

But really, what the Jedi did wrong was that they very literally lost their faith in the Force.

Hear me out. This sounds very religious but I’m pretty sure the Force is supposed to be an allegory for God and anyway this is a random twenty-two-year laying on a bed trying to put into words the thoughts that are swirling impatiently around my head, like come on, give me a break, don’t take this too seriously, this is my first and last draft okay I’m tired-

This is me leaning a bit into literal interpretation of words, hold on tight.

Qui-Gon becomes part of the Force because he really, truly, honestly did his best to perform all actions in the name of the Force. Which, I have to remind you, does not include visions of the future because Qui-Gon does not have visions. Qui-Gon believes that something is what the Force wants him to do and so he does it. He is perhaps the most loyal Jedi Knight to the Force that we’ve ever seen, especially since he occasionally contradicts himself because the Force changed its mind (I assume). He is the man who is very sincere when he says “the Force wills it” and I love and hate him in equal measure, just like the Jedi Council.

Because on one hand, yes! Qui-Gon is following their lessons so well! Qui-Gon is doing the equivalent of keeping his eyes shut and letting the Force lead him around! That’s what the Jedi want, for their members to be so attuned to the Force that they are never in doubt of what to do! Yay!

But, on the other hand, this means that Qui-Gon actively goes against other Jedi because Qui-Gon is doing what the Force tells him to do in that moment. He isn’t acting in response to a vision of the future, he is acting as someone who has a list of instructions that only gains a new instruction when the prior has been completed. So, some Jedi will try to react accordingly to visions, while the Force is trying to get Qui-Gon to act in the opposite manner, leading to some discordance.

However, Qui-Gon doesn’t actually ever get into all that much trouble, honestly. Which means that they inherently believe him when he says he was willed to do something by the Force. And they trust the Force, even if that means they also have to trust Qui-Gon Jinn.

The Jedi don’t listen to the Force, is what I’m saying, or else they would never be in contradiction with Qui-Gon.

I think the Force shows visions more as a “Look. This is what will happen if you don’t listen to me.” So the Jedi who have visions are supposed to share those and the Jedi who have strong inclinations from the Force can lead them on how to act as the Force requests and it’s a co-existence that’s good, in my opinion, if I’m right.

But, the Jedi stopped doing that. They don’t listen to the Force, they just listen to the things they see in their visions, which inevitably makes those visions come true, you’d think they’d have learned by now-

Is this a very religion sort of view of it? Yes. Do I think that we aren’t supposed to view the Jedi as religious? Yeah. Do I think that nothing about them is based in religion? Of course I think everything about them is based in religion! “Force” as a word is used as the equivalent to the word “God!” “May the Force be with you” is literally just the Star Wars version of “Godspeed” like come on, the Force is so clearly an allegory it isn’t even funny.

All this to say, I think the title “Return of the Jedi” has multiple meanings, as all of the films do, and I think one of them is that Luke puts his faith in the Force. He saw a vision of himself being Darth Vader, but instead of trying to prevent that, he decided “Something tells me my dad still has good in him, so I’m gonna go pull out the good in him.” Luke listens to the Force, even if he doesn’t know that’s what he’s doing, and that’s what the Force has been waiting literal decades for.

I guess we don’t know what the Force told Obi-Wan or Yoda to do, but I think we can reasonably assume that it tried really hard to get them to help people. Like, maybe it gave Obi-Wan a pass because Obi-Wan was looking after a young Force-sensitive, but there’s no way Yoda got one. Jedi seem to be urged to help others above all else by the Force. It wants them to help people, it wants them to save people, it wants the citizens of the galaxy to have improved lives because of the Jedi. That’s the purpose, that’s why Jedi all formed an Order, so they could more easily go save people like the Force wants them to do.

The fact that Yoda and Obi-Wan were both in hiding suggests that they went against the inherent instruction of the Force. Yes, Jedi being alive is important, but look at all the Jedi who somehow lived while also doing so secretly and pretending not to be Jedi so they weren’t murdered. It was difficult, but certainly not impossible.

I think hiding isn’t what the Force wants. The Force wants direct action, for Jedi to step in and change things however they can, and the Jedi didn’t do that for a long time.

So, when the Jedi “return,” it’s more than in just a physical or metaphorical sense, I think it’s also in allegorically theological sense. Because Luke is listening to the Force. More than that, Leia is listening to the Force. The Jedi have returned.

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[thoughtsearches]

cis girls don't think about themselves the way i think about myself

i wish i could . be 100% okay with . being perceived as being looking like existing as .

you know.

but all i see in the mirror is a beautiful stranger until i have a bare face hoodie on and a cap on backwards

i wish i were in a spot where i could be free to be me. oh pain.

listening to peace frog by the doors.

wish i had people that would support me still care for me believe me

my family

wouldn't and that Hurts me.

my brother would. he would.

maybe one of my sisters but she and i

no

longer

talk

much

that leaves (🍃 nice emoji, wanted to include it) four (4!!!!) family members for me. i i i can't ever ever ever

i cant ever really tell any of them. i cant say a thing can i. i. i. they like me better as a g*rl. they wouldn't won't-- they don't.

i dont think they would believe me. i know certainly one wouldn't. she has an opinion on this, my existence and the existence of every trans person, that i simply cannot fathom.

i wish i didnt feel so lonely all the time! all i want is a friend that i can really talk to. and . i dont know how to. i i wish i had someone to hold.me pick me back up put me together tell me i did my best because i really want to say that i did because i should not have been dealing with everything that i was during those times and i have never had anyone truly there for me in many many ways so please, excuse me for trying to do everything on my own and thinking that if i cannot do it on my own it is impossible to achieve because That. is what i learned adopted from my youth. i want someone to hold me.

i wish i didnt feel so lonely.

[itsclydebitches]

Love it when the kinda half-formed observations you make about an episode finally come to the forefront.

Watching the start of "Dot and Bubble": Hmm, everyone in this episode is very... white.

Halfway through: The Doctor certainly continues to stand out, especially in that bright red sweater amongst all the pastels

Lindy freaking out about the Doctor and Ruby being in the same room together: I suppose that could be due to some cultural taboo about interacting in-person when everyone is supposed to communicate via bubble, but that doesn't track with what we've seen of her work day...

The "twist" that the chronically online, all white, super rich, entitled to the point of satire, willing to sacrifice others without hesitation, oh so eager to colonize people living in a literal bubble (TWO bubbles) are *gasp!* actually, devastatingly racist...

Yeah, that's not a twist. That's all deliberately interconnected. The episode didn't suddenly move from an argument about social media use to an argument about racism; the two historically go hand-in-hand.

[mrghostrat]

you've had too much of the digital love you want everything live, you want things you can touch you want something bizarre, old conceptual cars you want girls dressed in drag, you want boys with guitars you go ask your questions like, "what makes a man?" oh, it's 2020 so it's time to change that so you go make an album and call it dreamland

(au: spending his 50th birthday alone in lockdown forces semi-retired rockstar crowley to face all the thoughts he normally buries with distractions. when he realises all his life regrets are just confusion around his sexuality, songwriting his feelings is the only thing that seems to help, but he doesn't have the understanding to figure it out on his own. even though they haven't spoken since graduation 30 years ago, crowley knows his old school friend aziraphale is the one person who'll be able to figure him out)

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC My Brother in the Mirror

Damian doesn't like mirrors.

He never mentioned the fact to other members of the family, but they are detectives and vigilantes, it's their job to be observant. Which, after so many years, becomes a habit.

Damian doesn't actively avoid the mirrors - he has a mirror in his bathroom, he didn't express any discomfort over going into a mirror labyrinth at some carnival they've attended (he expressed disgust over taking part in something so stupid, in his words, but that's a whole another story), and he actually spent a few minutes in front of the funhouse mirrors when no one was looking, watching his own reflection distort in various ways. He also has no problems with his self-image - he doesn't mind pictures of him taken at any time (unless it's Tim, but that's, again, a whole another story), he's drawn a few self-portraits that were rather accurate and he liked them.

He just doesn't like mirrors. For some reason.

His family, both close and extended, never questioned it. They did some gentle research to see if the dislike was caused by some kind of problem Damian was experiencing without telling anyone, but when they found no proof of that, they've just decided it was some quirk of his. Everyone has quirks. Dick doesn't like eating cereal like a normal person, Tim despises sleep, Steph is at war with any color other than purple.

That is, until one day, Tim witnesses Damian sitting in front of a mirror.

He is not even aware of it - the whole family is having a game night, and through some arguments and rearrangements on the couch, Damian ends up sitting on the left side of it, where his back is turned to one of the three mirrors in the room. Tim, who's lost the last round, is slumping in an armchair nearby, pointedly looking away from the screen where Damian and Jason are enthusiastically competing over the first place in Mario Cart. Of course, Tim can't just not watch it since he needs to know their strategies. But turning back around would also be admitting defeat.

The solution? Easy, watch the screen through the mirror.

Which is when he notices it.

Damian in the mirror doesn't act the same as Damian in the room. Out of the corner of his eye, Tim can see the real Damian moving around, shoving Jason with his elbow, fully concentrated on the game, and yelling something. Damian-in-the-mirror is sitting unnaturally still, the back of his head over the couch unmoving.

Tim forgets all about the game when Damian's reflection starts to turn around. Slowly and carefully, eerie in the way the horror movies are, the boy in the mirror turns his head around like an owl, his neck twisting inhumanely.

His eyes are green. Green like the toxic waste, like Jason's madness, like acid in cartoons, like the Waters of Lazarus.

Damian in the mirror smiles, his unblinking, gliwing eyes fixed on Tim, and his teeth are sharp and pointy, and there are too many of them, humans can't smile this wide.

"-im? Tim!" A hand nudges him in the shoulder, and Tim looks away from the mirror, finding Dick standing over him. The noise of the game room returns all at once, and, wait, when did it become quiet for Tim?.. He must have a strange expression on his face because Dick's easy smile falls slightly, and he frowns, "Is everything okay?"

Tim looks back to the mirror, but the green-eyed boy in the mirror is gone, and the mirror only reflects Damian as he is: sitting on the couch.

"Yeah," Tim shakes his head and forces a smile on his lips, "I just zoned out."

"Okay," Dick pats him on the shoulder and gives him the controller, "It's your turn now."

Tim takes the controller and turns around, facing the screen. Tim throws a quick glance at Damian, who had slid down on the couch so his head would not be in the reflection anymore. Tim sees the cold, warning hint to his eye, a clear do not speak of it message.

Tim doesn't like that the mirror is now behind him.

[swedenis-h]

I take your “I don’t remember my mother” and give you “Luke thought Leia and Padmé visions were the same person”

[torsamors]

On Seatbelts and Sunsets - Hanif Abdurraqib

[introspectivememories]

was it casual when i sat in your lap in public? was it casual when i said "recently my heart is crying because you're leaving"? was it casual when we decided how your last name would fit with mine? ("yuki tsunoda-gasly" / "no tsunoda, only gasly" / "yuki gasly?") was it casual when we sang adele's "someone like you" together at your going away party? was it casual when i knew it was you just by touching your ass? was it casual when i knew it was you by smell alone? was it casual when "will you miss me?" / "for 2-3 minutes maybe" / "i'll take that. even if it's just 2-3 minutes, i'll take that"? was it casual when that bus was completely empty and we still sat right next to each other, all the way in the back? was it casual when i picked you up multiple times so you could dunk a basketball? was it casual when i begged to come over to your house multiple time and then you finally let me and we cooked fried rice together? was it casual when we played christmas twister together and i said "your big eggplant is touching my ass"? was it casual when we were pressed up against each other on a scooter going two miles per hour? was it casual when-

[echojedis]

Rex: Whose lost child is this

[aslyran]

Visions

[peachesofteal]

Simon Riley who’s not well adjusted and sticks his thick fingers in your mouth whenever he wants.

He pinches your cheeks together too. Holds the fat tight enough it stings. Enjoys the way your eyes dart around the pub, watching everyone watch you, their concern and curiosity shrinking away when he glares at them.

Ignores Johnny when he hisses to let ‘er go, murmuring that he’s making a scene, and “ye’re gonna get us kicked out again LT.” He holds your pretty face in his fist and smiles as you start to squirm.

Though pinching your cheeks is nothing like sticking his fingers in your mouth.

He’ll grip your chin on the train and press his thumb to the tip of your tongue, forcing it against porcelain teeth. Tips as sharp as razor clams, he scrapes the gnarled edge of his fingernail across their jagged tops, before returning to depress the flat of your tongue until your eyes go wide. Can’t swallow? Can’t breathe. Problem, pet?

He likes the way your teeth shine. Oyster shells iridescent in the sparkling sun of a beach, shucked and shattered, punished by the force of the surf, or the prying strike of a predator. No one shell is alike, millions of spirals and patterns, scotch bonnets and scallops, cockles and cowries, all lining the shore, but you’re the one he sifted through sand to find. His nautilus shell. A perfect spiral, a Fibonacci sequence, the sum of his life and his choices, all here in his hand. One day, he’ll pluck a pearl from behind your teeth, one harvested for him, built from the swirl of brackish water, salt soaked crystals rolled across a seabed until they took shape, a thing, a beautiful thing, made of you, made of him.

He’s fed them to you before. Oysters. Cracked their hinges with his own fists and slipped them down your throat, sea salt and sweet, he couldn’t help but lick inside your mouth after each one, shoving into cracks and crannies, zest of a lemon still tart on your tongue.

You bit him once. The ocean is a tempest, a reflection of yourself, violence humming in a swell only Poseidon could soothe. He gentled your wild tides after that, taught you the stark difference between good behavior and bad, smart choices and reckless ones.

You’re a good girl. You learned.

His fingers find the velvet catch of your cheek too often, and though his cock prefers the back of your throat, the thrashing, vibrating squeeze of your swallows, he likes to tuck into the silk beside your molars. Pretty pockets of a conch shell, protecting a panacea, one made only for him, for his scars.

He drifts there, carried on ocean currents too strong to be stopped when he splits you open on his cock, when he sits you on his lap, when he sates your hunger by his own hand. He insists, even in the pubs, on feeding you bite after bite, thumb and forefinger grazing the roof of your mouth, spongy flesh begging him to press so hard his thumbprint sears to your skin.

At night, he finds your mouth on instinct. Slips right between your teeth and floats away on a twilight tide, like the sea singing a baby to sleep.

[linkedin-offficial]

youll never guess where ive been

[tough-n-dumb]

kaz showing inej the tunnel he dug under ketterdam to connect his club to his bestie’s house and inej going, no yeah babe it’s great really😐unrelated but do you want me to find you another life’s purpose now that you’ve gotten your revenge? nbd just wondering

the next time she comes back he greets her by popping out the end of another tunnel at fifth harbor and she realizes that maybe his life’s purpose is to create kerch’s first subway system