#but this violence has been my life

[fortune-card]

I think Cows can scare a weaker audience by talking about killing. And I think, in some ways, it should be used as a litmus test for people who are questioning if abuse has driven them crazy. If you can understand,

“Many were like you before they learned the secret that killing holds. Timid. Yes, boy, timid, but with the cock to push themselves beyond what they thought they could endure. They didn't know what they would find, but they went looking anyway. And when they confronted their own uncertainty, when they crossed to the place weaker men had forbidden them to enter, they found a strength greater than they ever dreamt existed. Come close and watch."

Not as ‘killing’ but rather general violence - then it all kinda clicks into place.

I talk about this a lot with my therapist but it’s wild knowing the powers of a slap.

It’s hard to know that this conversation where you have to debate your right to exist could be over, dead and buried, if you beat your opponent. If you slapped them like their own fathers used to. Or if you showed them the truth of the world with that slap - that that slap will silence them even though they screamed it could not.

To be abused or abuse is to learn the secrets violence holds, the secrets killing holds. And it’s uncomfortable. It’s ’problematic’. It’s wrong. It’s immoral. It’s yucky.

But you still eat beef. You still benefit from cow slaughter, do you not? You still benefit from a violence unseen to you.

Imagine if we only took people behind closed doors and beat them into submission. You would never know. And you would never acknowledge that. But you would be happier, hmm?

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[thatswhatsushesaid]

psa that the day there are no jgy stans left on tumblr dot com is the day i am dead

but rest assured i'll go to my grave exactly as i lived: obnoxiously proclaiming to everyone within earshot how great lianfang-zun is. narratively, metaphorically, spiritually. sexually, too, like why limit myself. i like to keep my options open

[liauditore]

cw// implied character death, double life nonsense

because you are love itself.

[lunarharp]

played dragon age 2...just simple scribbles

[halflifebutawesome]

you used to be such a baby.

[penguinpartypalooza]

I'm taking my life back. You can't hurt me anymore.

[wandringaesthetic]

Really like it, in Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, where, as the remnants of various dead civilizations are telling you why you should just give into despair and die, and as your companions are sacrificing themselves one by one in order to make a path for you, this shade of a dragon is like "give up, because war and conflict and violence are neverending and you yourself are going to be used as a tool of violence if you don't give up and die now" and Estinien Varlineau, called Wyrmblood is like "no, that's fucking stupid" (paraphrasing) and stabs him

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A lasting impression

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[tortelorrini]

Hey haha is anyone else as not normal about this parallel as I am

[primus-why]

I Feel TFOne Could've Handled This Better...

Hot take but I feel like folks have been really generous with the take that OP was unable to find ~the perfect words~ in the heat of the moment (and thus should be given some grace) when he told D to stand down and "not be like Sentinel"... namely cuz I don't feel that the narrative supports this?

Like-- after all is said and done, OP doesn't reflect on that part of their split. He doesn't have a moment where he seeks validation or voices his regrets over the choice of his words, it's actually cut-and-dry. The narrative (as it stands) supports that OP saw D-16 acting up, so he called him out and stood on business, down to the last scenes where he's basically like "yeah it's a shame but y'all knew I had to do it to 'em."

It didn't have to be much! I'm not saying to absolve Megs, just show OP looking at things from a different perspective/contemplating a bit on that tough choice and the morality of the moment. Some examples of what I wish we had:

B-127 straight up blurting the obvious by later chatting with Orion like, "Wait so you told your best friend that he was acting just as bad as the guy who enslaved us for our entire lives and was torturing him like an hour ago? Oof. Seems kinda harsh." Then have some of OP's regret show on his face.

OP asking Elita-1 after Megs is banished if he did the right thing. Have Elita back his choice up, saying, "You should have seen what he did after you were... gone. It was terrifying. I know it was tough, but you made the right call." OP is grateful for the support, but a conflicted look still flashes across his face before he steels himself to look out towards the horizon... and the future.

Have OP walk past other mechs/former miners who didn't go with the High Guard saying stuff like, "Wish I could've given Sentinel a piece of my mind!" "Yeah, but I'm glad he's gone for good." "Ugh I miss everything." "Oh, it was crazy! Megatron picked him up and then he rrrrriiipped-- oops, hey there, Mr. Optimus... Prime... sir?" And have OP wave hello, looking a bit sick when they leave.

Post-credits scene with Starscream going on and on, asking Megs when they'll be back to teach the upstart Prime a lesson. Megs grabs his face to shut him up. "Patience, Starscream. The Prime thinks I'm no better than Sentinel... but I'll show him. He wants Iacon? He can have it. In the meantime we'll take the rest of the planet! Then I'll come back, crush Prime under my heel, and we'll take Iacon too. Sentinel's reign will barely be a footnote, because I'm about to become Optimus Prime's worst nightmare." The vocal performance would really need to sell this-- like picture Megs saying something like that from a place of anger and hurt, not so much a place of genuine evil or malice.

Basically instead of Orion's assertion being backed up as black and white/good vs bad, I wish we had some different opinions/reactions from the characters sprinkled in there. Like you can't tell me out of allllll the miners who weren't strong enough/willing to go with the High Guard and ended up sticking around that NONE of them were like "eyyo honestly?? Kiiiiinda glad Sentinel is dead. Wish I could have helped, tbh." like come onnnnn...

And you can't even argue that he's not an active threat-- I don't think everyone would see things that way! It's not just about the threat he physically has, but the threat he represents and is very likely to act upon if given the opportunity! He has a proven track record of not only being sneaky and conniving, but also capable of dealing some serious damage/killing people bigger and stronger than him, plus he has the backing of the Quints. All he'd need to do is wriggle his way out of jail and run off to his sponsors, then he'd probably be back to hurt more people! (If the Quints didn't just kill him out of incompetence lmao). There's a lot of "ifs" here, but I think it's a valid argument that not everyone would agree on what is the right or wrong way to handle Sentinel once he was down long enough to, like, do something about him.

I feel the situation needed a bit of nuance. In some way I wish they had kicked the can and had D and Orion bicker while Sentinel escaped, then have D get frustrated enough by the loss of Sentinel to point fingers (and his fusion canon) at Orion, who then falls and becomes OP. (Megs could still show some of thar emotion/remorse right after he does it too.) Not only would this open the door for a sequel, but tbh the Quint might have just killed Sentinel anyways and sought to deal with the miners uprising themselves lol. (Maybe that could have been an after credits scenes too instead of the B-127 bit??)

Would love to see a moment in a sequel where they have a calmer moment after arguing for a bit. Have OP mention how Megs was out of line, that it hurt and even scared him to see him act that way, and Megs can quietly point out "you said I was as bad as Sentinel... is that really how you see me? After everything we went through?"

Then OP can fumble the bag again lmao like "D, I... I'm sorry, that didn't come out right... but you still took things way too far..."

"Why am I not surprised-- your opinion is what matters the most! Maybe that's why you became a Prime, since you're so good at acting like the world revolves around you--!"

*gets interrupted by someone else before another yelling match ensues*

[pinchan]

me thinking about yuji and how he's his mother's son

[uncanny-tranny]

I've noticed an attitude that some parents have where their perceived right to own their children outweighs their duty as a parent. It seems like so much emphasis is placed on the parents ability to own raise a child that it completely clouds any other responsibility for that child. I see it all the time around my culture, where parenthood isn't a question of "if," but "when," because it is seen as ubiquitous to being an adult, and I wonder how many people start believing that because they were expected to be a parent even when they did not want parenthood, they should be rewarded for it.

These are just shots of thoughts, but I've found that this idea that parenthood is your right when you own a child can contribute to an environment of abuse, neglect, or mistreatment of the child/ren in one's care.

And, absolutely, the opportunity of even being a parent has been leveraged in cruel ways, and I think that's an important consideration because it is completely heinous. In my country alone, forced sterilization has been a political strategy for eugenics and to complete a political narrative about the worth of people's right to even live. When thinking about everything above, it reminded me of other ways that parenthood both reinforces violence, perpetuates violence, and threatens violence. This problem goes much deeper than I think many are ready for, and I wanted to acknowledge this due to how pervasive this "political strategy" was/is in many places. I don't think I myself am equipped to truly do this specific topic justice, but I felt it pertinent to this conversation, and something I don't always see even passively acknowledged.

[caterjunes]

reeeaaally really empathizing hard w/ rots anakin right now. like. oh yeah ok i get it. he's been sleep-deprived & running w/ a high level of stress hormones nonstop for months. he keeps asking for advice and help and the jedi just say "what does yr heart tell you?" and "try not worrying about it. 🧘‍♂️" and the only person who actually seems to care about him is.... evil? but. that can't be right... what?

but there's no time to think about it because he did what he were supposed to do and told the jedi and now events are moving very fast and oops he got in the way and did something very impulsive and now mace windu is dead and it's anakin's fault, actually. and he still hasn't processed anything that's happened in the last... week? two months? ever in his life? but his friend palpatine is there and telling him that it's okay. that he did the right thing, that he did good. and guess what anakin? you don't have to worry about making any more hard decisions, because palpatine is gonna make them for you and you just have to do them. isn't that better? isn't that easier? isn't it?

[thebrainrotsreal]

Thinking about the version of Mark that DID survive out in the wasteland for all those years (???) (post-Angstrom fight). Thinking about him being told he wouldn’t like who he had become. Thinking about Mark whispering “I thought you were stronger” at the bloody corpse crushed into the sand. Thinking about the hot sun and incredibly hot earth and unwavering isolation at such a critically vulnerable point. Mark, stranded and bloody, left to wonder if this was worth trying to protect his family, left to wonder if the violence in him is inevitable, as if it's some evil thing that's always been there, underneath his skin, just now waking. Left to wonder until he trips into spiraling, but no matter how loud he screams these questions into the sky, there is nothing but silence. A corpse for company. Thinking about the crushing weight of loneliness, and your own shocked mind. Thinking about being that way for years and years and years, somehow surviving. Only to become something a younger you wouldn’t "like". And what that looks like.

Thinking about the Mark that did get rescued, and being left to wonder how many times other versions of himself stumble into bad endings. How long until he becomes something he wouldn't like.

[mad-hunts]

the thing about barton and his own 'foil' as she should technically be considered, as she is technically the complete opposite of him in every way that matters, is that sumire [ whom i have talked about a few times on here, albeit briefly, so i will give you a brief refresher on her and that is that... her character eventually commits these killings based on the twelve main tarot cards in a deck based on them not fitting her idea of what 'perfect' looks like (kind of like barton BUT much different at the same time) ] and barton used to know each other as they were best friends as kids — even if it was only for a few years.

and as strange as this may sound, a broken promise between them was partially the catalyst behind what started her descent into feeling this need to 'judge' people, which is quite the coincidence as it may seem. because where do most of her victims end up dying? in these settings where she has set up these 'mock trials' for people. so, i know that i said i would talk about how barton had inadvertently created a monster a longgg time ago, but i now am sharing it with you all. because although one cannot blame barton fully for her actions as sumire, of course, has to take responsibility for them herself; but this did play a part in being a catalyst for her feeling all of this resentment and hatred for the world / people around her that led up to her first murder.

which, as you might have it, was the chariot: a tarot card that symbolizes revenge, willpower, and essentially tries to subconsciously put off this message that you are moving in the 'right direction.' i don't think it's so much just the promise itself though that makes this important — it's also that barton himself essentially forgot about the promise he made to sumire, as terrible as that may sound. it actually kind of gives you more insight as to what was going on in barton's mind as a kid because he basically made sumire promise him this: that, if he ever got on the 'wrong path,' that sumire would be there to show him a better one. and that she would attempt to reconnect with him if they ever got separated somehow / give him a sign of some kind that she was still there, so he could meet her.

and i say that this provides more insight because i haven't really gone into depth about this, but barton has expressed this idea in one roleplay on here. + that is that he didn't want to end up like this. however, regardless of that statement, there is no washing away of all of the heinous things he's done and he chose to do them anyway. i'm just thinking about how messed up it is that sumire, up until the point where she started her murders, had casually been searching for barton because the way in which his victims were found was vaguely remiscent of the way that wesley used to kill his victims. + this meant that he was definitely on the wrong path and she would eventually end up on the wrong one too.