#even their support is uncomfortable

[mukuberry]

not to be genuine and depressing on here but i really wish i wasn't trans and was just born a guy i hate this

[crispyjenkins]

i don't know who needs to hear this today but the jedi would not be body-shy

especially during the war. some would be uncomfortable, sure, or even heavily dislike being nude and/or bathing around others, but the point of that is that would be respected as a choice. there is a very large difference between preferring not to be nude around others, for cultural religious or personal reasons, versus being ashamed. nothing you can do can convince me jedi would be ashamed or embarrassed of their or others' bodies.

why. why would the jedi think nudity undignified. why would they turn their noses up at it as unseemly, rather than a choice and preference

[blighted-lights]

slaughterhouse posting part 2 that isn't going to be polished at all and has been sitting in my drafts for days, but this scene is so interesting to me because i genuinely have no idea what megatron wants from ravage in this interaction- and i don't know if megatron knows, either.

megatron starts out by saying that the decepticons' loyalty isn't to him- its to the cause. ignoring how this is immediately striking me as completely, blatently wrong due to the times we see megatron rallying the decepticons around himself when other leaders fail to do the same (nevermind the fact that he started the cause in the first place), he then gets angry with ravage when ravage confirms that- yeah, actually. you're not the cause anymore. we have moved on with someone new. megatron gets so angry he stands up, he looms over ravage, he raises is voice and balls his fist- and why else would he do this if he wasn't upset that they're moving on without him?

which would, of course, make megatron a hypocrite. he left the decepticons and refused to take any effort to rejoin them- he clearly doesn't actually want to return to the fold. but when the decepticons unite themselves and move on from him, it's different. i can abandon you, but you cannot abandon me.

i've always took this reaction as being an immediate, no thinking, gut reaction to finding out the decepticons are moving on without him. he's angry, potentially feeling betrayed by them, when he... doesn't have much of a right to feel that way. and it's not like megatron wasn't given an option to join the decepticons again if that's what he actually wanted.

he was given a choice. he turned it down. he could of turned it down for any number of reasons, but no matter the reason, the point remains that he turned it down.

going back to panel after megatron snaps, ravage clearly takes megatron's outburst as him being upset that they've moved on without him. despite the aggressive way this interaction started with ravage attacking megatron, ravage spends most of this conversation attempting to reassure megatron. megatron gets angry that galvatron took over and they're moving on without him? okay- so then he wants to come back, right? he's upset he's been replaced?

well, galvatron isn't permanent. say the word and you'll be back in charge. megatron says that the decepticons aren't loyal to him, ravage reaffirms that they were loyal to him but now they've chosen a new leader since he left, megatron gets angry that they're moving on without him, and then ravage reinforces their original loyalty to him by saying if he wants to come back, they'll follow him.

and then megatron turns it around; yes he was just angry that the decepticons were no longer loyal to him, but now that same loyalty is toxic, actually. and it is! it absolutely is toxic. but i think ravage backed him into a corner here, even unintentionally. he can't sit down and actually address why the decepticons moving on makes him angry without admitting some part of him wants to return to the cons. or at the very least he still feels possessive of them and doesn't want them to function outside of his influence. when given the option to rejoin, he responds by insulting the decepticon's (and ravage's!) sense of devotion/loyalty and then quickly changes the topic to seawing and the trial. he doesn't say a solid yes or no answer because he doesn't actually have one to give.

ravage nails it down anyways. megatron has no idea what he wants from ravage in this interaction because he doesn't know where he stands anymore, let alone what he wants for himself. before ravage was revealed to be on the lost light, megatron was captain. he even seems content to BE captain- but ravage makes it complicated. ravage is a direct reminder of who he used to be and the people he used to surround himself with. worse, people he's abandoned and hurt in order to get to where he is as captain now. megatron left the decepticons behind with no command structure, no guidance, no plan- and ravage's mere presence is a bitter reminder that even if he's run off to the autobots, he can't escape that.

he's settled into a state of stagmentation with the autobots. one he's content with, maybe- at the very least one he can live with where the guilt isn't as heavy. it is the easiest way out megatron saw for himself.

but if anyone can get him to doubt himself, well.

who else better than ravage to stir up the past?

[gayfortheplot]

I know we're ignoring canon right now, but can. Can we just talk about Dabi's ending for a second? Because like. What the fuck? This guy's been suffering his entire life. From being abused by his father, to being kidnapped and experimented on while he's in a coma, just to escape and go home to find out his worst fears have come true, his family abandoned him, they never really cared. Then, he spends the next 8 years homeless, where he damages his body so much to the point he's being held together by staples? How painful was his daily life?? No wonder he wanted to die. His life was hell. And now, he spends his last days alive trapped in a fucking fish tank, in excruciating agony (you cannot tell me he isn't in any pain. He has no fucking skin left, along with his other injuries. Not to mention the emotional and psychological trauma once again inflicted on him). He doesn't get to choose whether or not he wants to keep living through this nightmare. He doesn't get to choose whether or not he wants Endeavor to visit him every day. No one asks him his opinion on any of this. They decide for him, and he doesn't have the strength left to protest. He can't move, can't talk, can't do anything. All he can do is sit there, watching on helplessly, with the knowledge that after his death, his family will once again leave him behind and forget all about him. He'll never see the League again, the only people in the world who actually loved him unconditionally and never saw him as a problem or a mistake. He has to die with the knowledge that he failed. His family won't ever truly see him as a person, and he never, not once in his life, got to be happy.

[thelunastusco]

If the two sides in an argument are

"hey, we exist and we just want to be treated as real and with respect" (and their supporters)

and

"you're fucking delusional fakers who are trying to ruin our lives and even if you were real you don't belong in this city that your people, in part, helped build, because I said so, so get the fuck out and also go die"

then you don't have two extreme sides.

You have a community, and the abusers targeting them.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[non-operator]

Death Mark II thoughts

I'm like 8 months late, but I finally finished it-- and by finish, I mean I watched a playthrough.

It's been a year, but just in case: Spoilers Below

I think it's pretty significant that in order to get the true ending, Yashiki has to make it extremely clear to Sakamoto that his relationship with Michiho and Himeko is completely platonic. In fact, it seems that this is the only difference between the Good and True Ending.

In the Good Ending, he doesn't get that message through and that leads to Sakamoto pushing The Departed even harder to distance themselves from Yashiki, ultimately leading to her demise. I think this outcome happens because Sakamoto's insistence that the two girls keep their distance still expresses to The Departed that there is still a real possibility that they can get together with Yashiki. And as much as they want love and marriage, I don't think that was their ultimate desire-- and I don't think Departed!Douryou was lying when she said she disapproved of student-teacher relationships.

So then, Yashiki making Sakamoto understand that his rapport with the girls comes from concern for their safety and taking their worries seriously rather than anything else is what turns the tide. That Sakamoto allows Michiho to continue to investigate with Yashiki implicitly tells The Departed that Yashiki isn't interested-- and as such, he won't take advantage of their love (for him).

When The Departed died, their excitement for marriage and (most likely undeveloped) love for their chosen grooms were exploited by the adults they trusted. At that age, even if they later turned to feel indifferent or even hate their husbands in time, it was a time they should've been allowed to cherish those emotions. Kind of like that one reading of Romeo and Juliet, where the tragedy lies in the fact that children were not allowed to experiment with love due to the adults and the situation around them. I think this is also shown with how Departed!Douryou just wanted Yashiki to acknowledge Departed!Michiho loves him even if he can't accept it. Just because he knows that it is a love that will fade or immature, it is a real emotion to the girls experiencing it and it would be cruel to disregard it; unlike the priests who took advantage of these feelings to arrange the marriage only to ignore them once they started the ritual, if that makes sense.

(It might also be why Sakamoto later apologizing and allowing Departed!Michiho to continue investigating with Yashiki plays into her survival and the True Ending achievement: before while she was worried about keeping the girls safe from a potential predator, Yashiki has already made it clear to her before this point that he's not interested in them, but her main issue laid in how the situation could be misconstrued from an outside perspective regardless of intentions; even if she did accept that Yashiki wasn't going to go after the girls, she was largely worried about the girls' reputation and future-- as well as the school's. It's only when Yashiki makes it clear to her that his concern involves the general student population with all the "disappearances" as well as actually listening to his (temporary) students that Sakamoto relents. The priests had been preoccupied with tradition and the appearance of the brides, even the standards of choosing the grooms and brides were based on social reputation, somewhat reminiscent of Sakamoto (even if she genuinely cared for the students, it was in a way that overlooked their actual thoughts and feelings [i.e. the rising fear of The Departed or in the girls' case, wanting to be listened to]). So Yashiki's stubborn compassion and perseverance created change in the girls' environment that gave audience to their voice in a way.)

Which is all to say: The Departed truly let go of their grudge and "changed" for the better/"chose their humanity" because Yashiki had been a safe person to love-- not because he would love them back, but because he never would. The "marriage" in the True Ending then is a way for The Departed to safely live out a romantic daydream without the fear that they'll be hurt by it, as they had been when they were sacrificed. And I think it's Yashiki's adamancy on maintaining that boundary as well as making it clear to the adults around him and pushing for them to change their focus to treasure the girls' opinions that pushed The Departed to hold hopes and dreams once again, which they entrusted to the real Michiho and Himeko.

[randomwriteronline]

I wonder if the toa mata recognized themselves in their own memories from before mata nui.

I dont know, i think theres possibilities to be explored about that. Suddenly remembering yourself and what you find being a complete stranger is a common thing for amnesia plots i guess but also i think this could be even more jarring. Like a more genuine difference between killing machine and living being.

Its less a matter of nature vs nurture and more a matter of nature with a certain type of nurture. Nature dictates they are powerful and driven and well meaning, but the way they are brought up produces completely different people.

Their first taste of life was a sterile room with nobody but each other and a disembodied voice reading out their duties, establishing an arbitrary hierarchy within them, and then sending them to a glorified bootcamp where a ruthless instructor worked on making them into skilled combatants and nothing else, teaching them how to use their elements as tools and weapons without indulging in them; they got a vague sense of what and how a community feels like with the Av-Matoran - as outsiders, as its protective shield, there for them but not with them - only to get that stripped away from them too because their role as life saving tools to be preserved under glass just in case of a crisis was more important.

I wonder if the Toa Mata, the ones who were taken to the Koro of Mata Nui and listened to the Turaga's tales and reprimands and would have moved mountains for the Matoran who treated them like older siblings, return with their minds to things they said or thought or did from before the Island of Mata Nui and stop in their tracks. Whose memory is that, they think? That can't be mine. I am not like that. My siblings are not like that. Some things are perfectly right, they cant deny that; but just as many if not more are so wrong that they almost feel like a really cruel joke somebody planted into their heads.

Kopaka and Tahu got along, even if they dont want to admit it because they need to bicker like children or theyll die, but are more surprised that they werent as tentatively close with anybody else. Lewa remembers so much frustration and tedium and anger that if he stalls in his memories too much he genuinely starts feeling queasy, Pohatu has remnants of bitterness and passive aggression that still cling to him like the smell of a cigarette on someone who gave up smoking, and they both hate that because its nothing like them. Onua and Gali feel like theyre peering into some kind of imperfect clone's brain when they try to remember - its themselves, they know that, it has to be, but there are certain things they know about themelves that are just completely missing and its kind of dizzying to realize that.

Im not even sure they liked each other. They work together because its their destiny, but they don't seem to seek each other out for fun or anything else. In their training days they had to be shoved in each others direction or they would have never solved their obligatory group assignments.

I wonder if their terrors and flaws could partially come from this first life that they had too. Gali's fear of her anger and Lewa's disregard for duty stemming from Hydraxon's methods - she internalized his reprimands about feeling guilt for living enemies, but without any memory of him she believes the words resurfacing in her mind from time to time are her own, and is appalled by their cruelty; he was forbidden from enjoying himself, from indulging in any form of fun, of entertainment, of joy, and unconsciously now he rebels by shirking away from responsability to do whatever he wants.

The responses to Tahu's decision regarding the codrex haunt him, the whole situation, really; how he stripped his siblings of any say on their fate because he was the leader, not even telling them or explaining himself until they had no other choice, and if he could treat them like that once then what would stop him from doing so again and again until he doesnt even think about it? Kopaka is uneasy about it too. He knew the plan and supported Tahu only because he tagged along, but hes very, very acutely aware that he would have been left just as much in the dark as everybody else otherwise, and he would gave not even had anybody to seek any comfort from because hes fairly certain none of the others would have liked him enough to care.

Onua as @cantankerouscanuck pointed out to me mightve taken Hydraxon's teachings to heart, hence why he's so quiet: no use in expressing weakness, right? But karda nui must have been hellish on his senses, with all that light - a tangible physical discomfort that would bleed out into an emotional one as he becomes conscious of how none of his siblings go through this, thus he must be damaged in some way, faulty, out of place, and so he seeks to be alone, digging himself away. And its not hard to imagine how Pohatu (who hasnt had the chance to grow into the affable, kind toa his siblings can always lean on when they need to yet) would become convinced of his uselessness within the team and seethe about it.

They arrive on Mata Nui as broken war machines with no clue who they even are and suddenly find nature and community and love, and in a moment theyre people.

I wonder if the environment helped. Being thrown upon a beach in the open air with nothing but a whole world that is so alien and yet feels so right beckoning them to come closer. Discovering their powers and their domains freely, immediately - first thing they did was dive into their respective elements without a second thought, naturally magnetized, taking after them like it was the simplest thing in the world, because they are the first toa, the first beings capable of harnessing these powers in their whole universe, and its in their nature to be so connected to them. Maybe it helped. Maybe it made them feel connected to their own selves enough to figure themselves out in a way they couldnt have done so before.

Maybe it helped to find out their collective destiny each on their own, in their own environment, at their own pace, surrounded by younger siblings who look at them with awe and curiosity and frustration sometimes, guided by people who know how being alive works with all its good parts and messy bits and who can tell what having so much power means when youre barely aware of how to use it or what to do. And maybe it helped to find out who their siblings were in a similar way, introducing themselves as they wanted, as they felt like, without a specific order, and learning to recognize each other as siblings with all the things that make them insufferable and all the things that make them the best and what makes them happy and what makes them angry and how they sound when theyre worried and how likely they are to chase you down to the other edge of the island for doing something stupid, and like real people they grow and develop and change and stay the same, and then they meet the memory of themselves from before becoming people and its...

Idk. Its like the realization of who they used to be and the distance between themselves and those selves, and the fact that they dont like them.

[junebugtwin]

what if they were happy huh?? what then!!!!

[handcuffedbutch]

I feel like i can no longer trust the butches on here unless they have at least a few femmes that would vouch for them as someone who would make them feel safe. I've been seeing a lot of butches not holding other butches in the community accountable lately. Femmes are held to an insanely high standard but are never given any sort of grace. Butches dont have this problem its like they're easily forgiven, all concerns are brushed off and ignored just because they're a butch. C'mon guys, do you know how shitty that is? It seems like femmes have to fight so hard to even be heard or to be understood or to be listened to. Femmes should not have to worry that the community will turn on them when they speak up for themselves or others.

[celestialrealms]

I've been thinking about this Asmo chat so much

Anyway, Asmo dressing Diavolo up in pretty dresses and telling him how pretty he is ^_^

[autistic-beshelar]

ah yes dungeon meshi, the manga where an autistic man gets repeatedly bullied by people he thinks are his friends and not a single person supports him

[ratatatastic]

He looks so different with glasses 😂 did not recognize him at first

terribly funny how much more generic he can get with a thick frame of raybans like ive always believed the whole glasses as a disguise would never work irl but i got punked so hard that when i first saw him in glasses i was like "oh another man" glossed over him then felt the same sensation as when i forget to buy milk at the store, swiped back, scrutinised this for far longer than im comfortable admitting publicly and went "oh my god THATS MY MAN GIRL WHAT ARE YOU DOING"

[endiness]

tbh i feel like people who think will and eddie would get along fundamentally do not understand will and are just eddie stans who cannot be objective when it comes to his character and want to shoehorn him into everything regardless if it actually works.

[working-dreamer]

It’s wild how shipping culture has changed so drastically over time on the internet.

In the old days people shipped characters who either had only one line of dialogue with each other, never even met, or not even from the same piece of media. It was the wild west and sure some ships were uncomfortable but people had the mindset to just block the tag and stay away from ships they didn’t enjoy.

Nowadays? It’s more like people have to clarify that their ship isn’t canon compliant, character adjacent, and story irrelevant otherwise they get a flood of comments saying “but this character isn’t like this in canon” and some people legitimately get angry if you’re not following the canon.

Like- shipping and fandom culture from what I understand it is about engaging with media in a way that caters to you. And if you don’t like a ship or show just… block the relevant tags and don’t engage in the ships? The internet isn’t supposed to cater to us- we have to cater ourselves to our internet environment. And no matter how many times people may harass others over a fandom or ship they don’t like, those ships are not gonna disappear.

The internet has just been getting worse when people have decided to place morality in their opinions by saying things like “if you enjoy the ship then you support (insert horrible thing here that’s usually completely unrelated to the ship itself)” when it used to be “eh, not my thing” and people just moved on.

And for the record this isn’t about a specific ship or anything- just an observation of how fandom has evolved (and regressed) over the years and I find it fascinating from a sociological perspective cause we still don’t know how having the internet from birth affects the development of kids and how that affects how they interact with others- isn’t that scary?

I know that’s slightly unrelated but the way people engage in media has been changing over they years and that also involves fandom and the maturity level thereof in the internet space and someone smarter than me could probably write a whole thesis paper about fandom culture and how the internet has hindered the social development of people and how that affects community specifically from a fandom lens.

Just- for your sanity younger internet children: it’s not worth harassing others over something as trivial as ‘it’s not canon that this character kisses another character.’ Just find ships you like. Block ships you don’t. And just enjoy your time doing what you like!

You can’t control the internet but you can nurture your little corner of it.

[musubiki]

i need to draw more......mochi pining for oblivious lime........

[staijey-the-creator]

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YALL ARE GETTING SHOUTOUTS IN MY ENGLISH CLASS AND YOU CAN DO NOTHING ABOUT IT >:)

(also yes i did type the names formally. sue me/j)

also also i changed the "ultimate challenge" from a rickroll to just me hugging my besties

i might show yall it when its over what do you think?

also^3 luv u <3 (platonic)