#except that isn't how it's going...at all

[tuttle-did-it]

I am not going to stone you for this and I accept your position. This is not my position.

I do not and have never used TikTok. I have been off all social media for ten years for the exception of reactivating my old tumblr account a couple of years ago. Mainly for M*A*S*H.

I have no idea whether it is dangerous or safe— because ALL social media has a severe danger of misinformation, and I think that’s going to get far far worse with instagram, Facebook and twitter all getting rid of fact checking. There is no critical thinking in FB and the opposite of critical thinking in twitter.

We’ve already seen how they can impact elections— 45 would have never been elected without the ability to spread this much hate across these platforms. Now they are removing fact checking and the ability to report hate speech against queers. It’s going to get so, so much worse with the propaganda.

I think they are all POISON. Especially with Musk and Zuckerberg being so tightly aligned with 45, I think this is very dangerous. I don’t think the misinformation really moves that much faster on TT than on twitter, instagram or Facebook. In the end, the result is the same— we still got Brexit because of social media, you still got 45 because of social media - and I think twitter and Facebook are MORE dangerous being run by psychopaths like Zuckerberg and Musk than TT is being run by the Chinese.

I think TT is something that is being blamed for something that is happened across all platforms— though I would argue it is happening the very least here in tumblr cos mostly we’re are all talking about Spirk and J/7 and M*A*S*H and Interview with the Vampire. At least, that’s my corner.

I care about two things for TT—

1) the way 45 it’s using it to control the younger audiences. 45 saying he’s going to re-instate TT, or ‘just ignore that law,’ I want to make sure people remember that he was one of the ones demanding it was shut down. So if he does somehow get it back up, all these people who are going to cheer that he ‘saved’ their favourite app, just know he wanted it banned in the first place. He’s only going back on it now because he’s seen how many young people use it and how angry they are, and thinks he can lock in their support if he reinstates it. So if you really want TT back, just know you’re being played by this idiot to garner further support with the younger audiences. If someone takes away all the food in your house and then puts it back you don't thank them. If someone steals your phone or laptop and then hands it back you don't thank them. this isn't that hard.

2) multiple friends who are academics have worked specifically in the impact social media can have on people, or worked in the area of war— specifically in the Middle East— have told me that TT was the best place where real people in Palestine were able to show what was really going on there in real time. That TT is being shut down so that people no longer have access to show what is going on to the very people whose governments are giving BILLIONS to the people who are committing this genocide against Palestinians. I do not know if this it’s true. This is what my academic friends who have used TT to keep up with what is happening in Palestine have told me. If this is true, and the real reason it was shut down, that out is to silence people who are protesting against Israel committing genocide by silencing them, I think this is horrific. Again, I don’t know if it’s true or not, I just know that I have had multiple friends who have followed everything going on in Palestine say this.

I don’t know if TT is dangerous. I do think this ban on TT is going to have an impact on the ‘free speech’ Americans claim to care so much about. I know that Facebook and twitter are very dangerous because they are aligned with 45. I KNOW that 45 having instagram, Facebook, twitter and TT in his pocket is CRITICALLY DANGEROUS. I am convinced that TT is being used in a game of tug of war to try to control audiences one way or the other— and that’s 45 has claimed to be pulling on both sides of the rope.

China does not have to use TT to destroy America. America is managing that very well on its own— with help from Zuckerberg and Musk and 45. From everything I’ve seen, these three are far more dangerous than TT or China.

Reminder for when he “saves” it. He was the one who wanted this, and now he gets to be the hero and win favour with young constituents. Don’t give him the credit for fixing his own problem.

[mimipolo]

I MEAN... Nam-gyu x Female guard 🧎‍♀️

THAT WOULD BE CRAZYYY

(NSFW) 🤭

Nam-gyu x femguard! reader

Sorry for being gone a family member of mine died🙁

I actually enjoyed writing this a lot so I hope you like it!

Anyone that knows how to make my posts prettier please hmu💔

The games were getting boring, the high the drugs have him initially didn't hit the same and his body constantly craved for another outlet. It was infuriating, it was like his body ached to release this frustration he couldn't make out where from.

Lately though, he's felt like he's been watched by one of the guards with the square symbol on their mask, he knew it was their job and all to keep an eye on them to shoot them down when players are eliminated but damn this one guard had been staring him down hard. He'd just spare a dirty look before but now it'd been making him paranoid.

So much so it had him tossing and turning in his bed, the mattresses are too thin and pillows too flat. It was driving him mad. Sighing with new found resolution he pushed himself off his back and made his descent down the bunk. A little splash of water would do him good. He hoped at least. Or he would actually lose his shit.

Dragging his feet lazily to bang at the door for the guards to open it. He didn't bother being polite, watching other people's experiences it was easier to let them know you're serious about going from the get go. And it worked. A circle guard begrudgingly opened the door and escorted him to the bathroom.

He'd spent quite a bit of time just staring at himself in the mirror blankly as he watched the water trickle down his face to the sink bowl below. The constant battling with the morals of himself and why he deserved to be in here in the first place were clouding his mind without the mind nulling effects of Thanos' drugs.

Swearing dismissively at his own thoughts he pushed himself off the sink and walks out of the bathroom. Except this time he's greeted by a square guard rather than the circle one from before, the fact alone had the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end as he warily followed after them at the silent gesture of their head.

He finds himself being backed up into the bathroom again, the door now closing with a resounding click that had him on edge immediately as his eyes scanned his surroundings then back on you.

"What do you want huh?"

| ₊˚⊹ᰔ

One thing lead to another and now he's backed up against the furthest wall from the door, his breaths coming out heavy as he looks down at you. It doesn't seem like you have a weapon on you but he really isn't feeling like fucking around and finding out.

And then you're pulling off your mask, pushing it off and tucking your hair to one side.

You're beautiful.

It takes him a second to collect himself as: first off he didn't expect you to be a woman, and second why do you have the prettiest eyes he's ever seen? Now he's enjoying this tension, you're staring him down still and you look oddly familiar. But he doesn't give a shit right now, he's been feeling so pent up this whole time and you're presenting a perfect opportunity to let go a little.

Before you can open your mouth to speak he's smashing his lips against yours amateurly, slim hands working their way down your back until one reaches your ass and squeezes hopelessly. His sudden neediness catches you by surprise but it's not unwelcome as you also let your hands roam up to his hair and down his chest causing him to sigh deeply against your lips.

He pulls away for a split moment, lips connected by spit and he's grasping clumsily at the zip of your uniform, pressing his already growing hard on against your thigh.

"Is that why you've been watching me so closely, huh?" he says between breaths.

"You want me right?"

"This is only for my benefit... don't get it twisted." you murmur between his rushed kisses, your hands finding themselves on the same sink he leaned on before.

"Yeah you keep believin' that, it's gonna change soon..."

He can't believe how fast his heart is beating just from seeing you shirtless in front of him. Had it really been that long?Who cares. There's a woman in front of him panting in his ear and he wasn't about to pass up this beautiful blessing.

Surprisingly he's more considerate of the maintenance of your uniform as he pulls the tracksuit down to your hips and let's it pool at your ankles. He can't help but bite deep marks into your collar when you cautiously push your hair out of the way causing you to gasp slightly.

He's pushing his hips hard against yours, each rock of his body sending shivers down both your spines as he grasps you harder. One hand is fondling your tits, tracing the outline of your bra with such focus it almost irked you.

"Think we're both worked up enough, just lemme fuck you, please..."

His words are whispered in short breaths against the base of your neck as he gives kitten licks to your collarbone. His half lidded eyes shoot up to yours excitedly when he feels the small hum of your approval against his lips. You'd honestly been waiting forever, quickly growing tired of squeezing your thighs together and resisting the urge to meet his dry thrusts against you.

He's kissing you even more passionately than before, reciprocating had made you accidentally nick his lip with your teeth. Your eyes widen when you taste the metallic crimson on your tongue and you're pulling away to apologize.

He's huffing softly like he's disappointed you bothered stopping and licks the blood from his busted lip, then yours before moving in to kiss you again.

Apparently unafraid of getting nicked again.

Slender fingers pull your panties down to pool at your ankles alongside your uniform, rushing to pull his own tracksuit off. You help him shrug off his jacket and pull his pants down for him earning a strained whine from him when your barely brush his crotch.

Pecking your lips repeatedly as he pulls down his boxers and crowds your space, forcing you to lean against the sink more. But he keeps moving forwards, lifting up your hips slightly so you're slightly sat on the ceramic top so you kick your tracksuit off completely, then he starts to line himself up against you.

He gasps sharply when the tip pushes against your clit, his body hunching over slightly as his head falls. Repeating the action a few more times, smearing his pre cum all over your pussy, making more of a mess than you initially planned to clean up. But it's like his mind is somewhere else completely, occasional whimpers leaving his throat, pink lips he bit down on harshly as he rubbed his cock against your folds.

"You feel so n-nice... not even inside you yet. Who woulda thought h-huh?"

And he's finally nudging himself inside, stretching you out more than what you were prepared for making you bite your lip as you place a firm hand over your mouth to muffle the moan about to leave your lips. He grins stupidly at the sight as he finally bottoms out. He's holding your hips in a death binding grip and you wish he would move already. What you didn't know is that he's internally willing himself not to cum on the spot. He definitely needed this.

Without any warning he's slamming his hips into yours, the hand over your mouth that had relaxed tightening again to quiet your sounds. You honestly thought he was stupid for a moment, not even caring for the sounds that fell from his own lips as his eyes locked with yours, their dusted hazily from the pleasure of your walls wetly wrapped around him. The sounds coming from your wetness was embarassing enough, reaching your ears and making them burn.

"F-uck...so good could finish right now...don't think I can pull o-out."

What? Can't pull out? Your eyes widen at the statement and one of your hands leave the edge of the sink to roughly tug at his hair to snap him out of it but you're met with a loud moan in response. The strong verbal feedback from the action that was meant to be harsh startled you slightly, but the sound he made went straight to your core, making you squeeze around him tighter. You're slowly forgetting what you had wanted to say as your body's response and your hand in his hair triggers his urge to finally cum.

Pressing his pelvis harder against you with each snap of his hips so your clit gets stimulated. You let go of your grip on the sink completely now, one hand dug tightly in his hair and the other clawing gently at the nape of his neck. You're slightly surprised his grip on your hips is enough to support you and honestly if he was more aware he'd be surprised too.

But he's not, he's pushing himself into you deeper and deeper and you swear his trying to shoot it right into your womb. Silent whines rack your body as he tucks his head into your neck, inhaling your scent deeply.

Then he's cumming, deep. Your eyes shoot open at the unfamiliar warm feeling filling you up. His hips are still stuttering to help you get there and you finally come undone with a small cry. The orgasm hitting harder than what you expected causing you to wrap your legs around his hips in a vice grip. His thrusts have slowed significantly, making sure he'd given you all of him before he'd even dream of stopping.

When he finally pulls out you're instantly met with the emptiness in your stomach, everything between your legs feels sticky and your legs trembled. He's panting softly against your neck and holding you close to him but now he's rubbing your back possessively as he whispers small thanks against your skin.

He's picking you up off the sink and placing you back on your feet carefully, you thank him quietly for doing so. But then he's laying his jacket openly on the floor and taking you by the waist to slowly lower you onto it?

"'m not done yet...just one more I promise. It'll feel great for both of us."

Small kisses along the curve of your breasts to your cheek urge you to agree playfully and your hair splays out on the floor. This probably wouldn't be the last one.

| ₊˚⊹ᰔ

You hadn't meant it to become routine, really, you didn't. But somehow he was able to figure out who you were each time you were on duty. He'd put in the effort of learning the guards rotation so he knew when you'd be around to escort him back from the bathroom. You always insist that this can't be a daily think but he only smiles as he pulls off your mask for you and backs you into a nearby stall.

#needthat

[five-one-two-station]

Because sometimes love n' lesbianism isn't demure and mindful soft pastel hairbrushing before ten minutes of verbally negotiated missionary fingering on freshly ironed sheets.

Sometimes it's passion. Sometimes it's carnal. Sometimes you love her enough to be so hungry you're reckless. Sometimes you love her so much that being with her would make anywhere seem beautiful. Sometimes you need her now, and that's all. Sometimes trying to anchor it to the *perfect* time and place would minimize what it is.

I mean are you trying to have a tea ceremony? Or are you trying to fuck yourself into the veins of the woman you need immediately and forever, right now, trying to pull her right through your skin and right down into your lungs and your bones?

I want that kind of want for you all, Tumblr lesbians, I want you to understand why it didn't matter to Caitlyn and Vi where the hell they were when the moment struck, and why it matters quite a bit that they didn't care.

Gotta stop trying to gentrify physical intimacy. It's messy! It's important that it's messy! It's grimy, sweaty, clumsy, unhygienic, and vital, and immediate, and invigorating, and euphoric, and precious, and real.

That's what it's about! About needing to be so close, so urgently, that nothing else matters except as another thing you now share. My grime and yours, my sweat and yours. My teeth on your skin, your fingernails in my flesh; our spit, our breath, our smell, how my body and yours are each learning each other as their own, by doing this to each other.

The fact that it's never going to be a perfectly polished ideal is part of all of it, it's a big part of the intimacy of it in the first place. If it can't be messy, it's not true.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hi sex witch! I (a teen) was talking with my friends (also teens) about sex, specifically hookups with people you aren’t necessarily romantically involved with. They said that as a teen that’s a bad idea, since hormones or whatever fuck with uour brain and cause an unhealthy obsession or smth we watched rocky horror immediately after and I forgot the details. Is that true? That sounds not true, teens have sex and oftentimes have sex with people they aren’t in relationships with, and I’ve literally never heard anything like that before they said it. Anyway, as a horny teen who wants to engage in some no-romance hookups I’d like to know if this would idk turn my brain to mush or whatever

hi there, friend,

listen: there is no existing age where sexual and romantic entanglements don't put people at risk of getting their feelings hurt if things don't go the way they hoped. that's not something you grow out of when you're done being a teenager; it comes free with being a person. a hot tip that nobody wants to talk about is that this also isn't exclusive to sexual and romantic relationships; caring about your friends or your family or your neighbors or your pets or anything at all comes with the potential to get burned because giving a shit is inherently vulnerable. and yet, we do it anyway! isn't that beautiful?

teenagers have a reputation for having very high drama relationships because most teenagers are experiencing a lot of firsts - first crush, first date, first relationship, first kiss, first partnered sex, first heartbreak, etc - and firsts are exciting and scary and engender a lot of big feelings. your that's quite understandable; everything is more stressful when you haven't done it before. as I'm shuffling towards 30, I find that the times I feel youngest are when I'm most uncertain and out of my element, because such a big part of being young is having a very limited frame of reference and no idea how to cope with a great deal of things.

(conversely, getting older mostly involves mellowing out because you know how to handle way more situations and solve way more problems than you did when you were younger.)

a lot of moralizing panic around teenagers' sexuality tries to paint teenagers being sexual as A Bad Thing Always, No Exceptions, and try to push the idea that teenagers just shouldn't be permitted any form of sexual exploration. I think that's bullshit, partly because it's impossible to actually enforce and mainly because denying sexual expression is deeply cruel, and also because the teen years are a really important window for practicing for adulthood. including intimacy! great time to practice intimacy, and I sorely wish every teenager had the space and security to comfortably explore with support from their guardians.

when I caution young people about sex, it's just to say that, yes, sex can sometimes cause new problems and new feelings that you don't know how to deal with. fear or anxiety or insecurity can make people say and do things that hurt them and others all the time, especially in intimate relationships, so be careful and do your research to cut down on the risks you can control (for instance: following safer sex practices, keeping your body clean and healthy, talking to partners about boundaries and emotional well-being). not every sexual or romantic partner has to be forever, but partnering with people you like, trust, and know how to talk to will make it easier and less scary to figure out what to do together if/when unexpected problems do arise.

being a thoughtful and communicative partner is GREAT skill to start practicing as early as possible, trust me - I get plenty of very grown adults in my inbox who are still figuring out how to do it.

in conclusion: there's nothing inherently dangerous about sex with someone who's not a romantic partner, just make sure you're picking people wisely and looking out for everyone's safety.

[noxiatoxia]

Been seeing this go around and it makes me so sad...

"Hinata was normal up until around middle school, and he was even excelling in classes and sports. But because of this, it worsened this idea in his head that he was someone special who could achieve his hopes and dreams."

And I think this makes Hinata especially tragic. It hits home for me and I feel a lot of normal people. Being good, but not good enough that it matters. Being the best in your class doesn't mean anything to the world. You're almost there but not quite yet. It's maddening.

I think Hinata's upbringing has a lot to do with it.

About the same level of canon-ness as this tweet, Spike said this about Hinata's parents.

I think Hinata thinks what he does mostly because of his parents. They consented to the Kamukura project after all. They were not happy that their son was just average. We see all throughout SDR2 that what Hinata wants isn't talent. It's to feel confident. That he belongs. Talent is just a means to that end. Because if he's exceptional, he'll have something that makes him worthwhile. That's what his parents taught him, directly or indirectly.

Compare it to the Naegi siblings. Makoto and Komaru do not envy talent. They are impressed by it, and they sometimes lement how normal they are, but it is no skin off their back. I think it's because they grew up happy. They clearly had good parents and a good life. Becoming the best wasn't either of their goals, because they weren't taught that's what it takes to deserve love.

It's tragic. Hinata was a perfectly average - above average even - person. But everyone around him wanted him to be more, so he wanted to be more.

SDR2 and DR3 both hint that he used to get bullied in school. This definitely contributed, I think.

Hinata didn't want to be himself, because he wasn't good enough as himself, and that meant he couldn't be happy. He knew what the Kamukura project would do to him. He didn't care. Because it was better than being himself.

You could call it arrogance. In part, it is. But all I see is a kid who was damaged by his upbringing trying to fix it all. If he was shown more kindness and love in his life by his parents or other adults, I think it would have turned out differently. If Hinata didn't have these values instilled in him from those around him and the world itself, none of this would have happened.

And considering he was just fine as he was, it's incredibly sad.

[genderfluid-ashfur]

Ok so I've had this idea for an au(?) where the toons are twisted in the ways of other twisteds, if that makes sense. So if (random example) Rodger was twisted like Finn, Rodger would have the same mechanics + stats as Finn, and he'd lose his legs and mimic any other changes Finn went through when twisted. Just because Rodger is hypothetically twisted in the way Finn is, doesn't mean that Finn has to twist in the same way as Rodger. I've drawn a couple of twisteds so far as a sort of "proof of concept"

(click the art for better quality)

Glisten -> Shelly

Twisted Shelly has that sort of "you CAN'T forget about me now" kinda look on her face, and I felt it worked with Glisten because he likes attention. My idea on how being twisted affects a toon mentally is that it takes one of the toon's worst/most prominent personality traits, and exemplifies it in some sort of horrible awful terrifying way. So, while regular Twisted Glisten's need for attention is exemplified into a deep fear of being alone, This AU Twisted Glisten's need for attention is exaggerated into a vengeful sort of craving for attention, of any kind, which he usually seeks out in the form of fear. Being feared registers in his fucked up little twisted brain as the same as being adored. He has the same mechanics as Shelly - high speed, low attention span, applies confusion 1 to all toons on the floor - which I feel fits him. If the toons do machines slower, then they have to deal with him for longer, thus giving him more time in the "spotlight."

Sprout -> Rodger

While making this, the main thing I was thinking about was how, when playing as Sprout, the only thing on my mind is tapes, and how Sprout mains go absolutely BALLISTIC on anyone who picks up even a single tape (rightfully so imo). That feeling of thinking that you have to hold everyone together, because you have the ability to make hearts out of thin air; that stress, is mainly what inspired this. Basically, sprout is BEYOND fed up with other toons taking his tapes, and disguises himself for the sole purpose of seeking out "greedy" toons who are out to steal "his" tapes. He's filled with nothing but RAGE at ALL times. He has the same mechanics as Rodger - hiding as (an object), using a long-range attack, short detection radius, hiding if left unbothered for long enough - except he hides as fake tapes instead of research capsules. His attack animation isn't an eye laser, but his morphed, ichor-ified, tentacle-tail-scarf thingy. Not sure I'm too proud of the fake tape design, but they don't really have to be perfect, just recognizable from a distance.

Let me know if you have any other cool ideas for this AU of who to swap! I already have a few in mind 😈

[whatiswrongwithpeople]

I keep going over the world we knew (p.2)

a player 230/ Thanos/ Su-Bong x fem!reader fic

summary: “It had always been him and her against the world. But if you've been fighting against the world for years, how do you react when you suddenly realize that your best friend has become your world?”

warnings: none really except the usual Thanos/Squid Game stuff. Maybe slightly ooc Thanos? , Written in my notes app.

note: not gonna lie, I originally planned for this to only have 2 parts BUT I decided taking my time with it and all that gives it a nice pace.

Hope you enjoy!!!

🏷️: @l5byrinth , @wpdarlingpan , @lollipopsandstuff

Part 1 <3

The night after the second game was far too quiet for Thanos to ignore the gnawing feeling that had settled in his chest ever since coming back to the dorm. He had survived the games with a cold mix of calculated precision and blasting his brain to the moon with drugs. But neither the success , nor the growing amount of money in the ever present piggy bank was enough to drown out the nagging ache in his ribs when he thought of [Y/N].

His [Y/N].

The way she moved with a sense of confidence and purpose that was simply too authentic to be fake. The way she had shut him out so quickly, eyes never seeming to truly look at him. Gods did he long for that familiar gaze to land on him. To rediscover that warmth he had once found in it. By now it had been years since Thanos had last spoken to her—since he’d ruined everything. But the memories, the raw, untouched feelings, were still there. Unforgiven. Unwavering. Never truly gone.

And as much as he hated to admit it, he couldn’t keep pretending that this wasn’t affecting him. Not even with several of his colourful pills pumping through his system.

Thanos’ eyes drifted across the darkened room, only stopping when he had found [Y/N]’s form a few beds down from his. She was sitting there, still as stone, eyes staring straight ahead with that same unreadable expression she had been wearing ever since the first game. Not a single word had passed between them since their brief interaction during the last game. But ,despite how it might seem, Thanos wasn’t stupid. He could feel the tension in the air whenever their paths crossed.

He wasn’t used to feeling this way. Especially not when his survival instincts kicked in so loudly, demanding every ounce of his energy to focus on the prize. “Win the money , pay off your debt.” had become the silent mantra in his brain. But that was the thing with [Y/N], she had always been able to pull at the strings of something deep inside him, something far more complicated than any strategy or skill. Something deeply ,deeply personal.

“Hey do you think I could-“ Nam-Guy -or whatever his name was- popped into Thanos’ field of vision. With an annoyed sigh, the purple haired player stood up. “Not now.” He muttered, putting both of his hands on the boy’s shoulders, turning him to the bed next to his. “Talk to him instead.” Baffled Nam-Gyu looked over his shoulder, surprise in his voice as he exclaimed a “What-“. But Thanos was already halfway across the room, shoes making quiet thuds against the floor as he made his way over to [Y/N]’s cot.

“You know,” Thanos came to a halt on one of the lower steps that rested between the beds, resting his arms on [Y/N]’s mattress as he propped up his head. Thanos’ voice was calm. Almost too calm to [Y/N]’s ears, judging by the gravity of the situation they had found themselves in. “Staring at the wall isn't going to change anything."

Thanos leaned against the bed frame, his usual cocky smirk tugging at the corners of his lips as he watched [Y/N]. She was sitting still as a stone with an expression colder than ice. Not once had she bothered to look at him since he had approached her bed, and that infuriated him.

“Are you really gonna sit there like you don’t know who I am?” he drawled, his voice dripping with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. “You know, I’m starting to feel like a ghost. And I’m not really the type to fade into the background, you know?”

[Y/N] fought the urge to roll her eyes, choosing to ignore the purple haired pain-in-the-ass who she had once called her best friend.

“Well, if it helps, I can try and get a little more dramatic,” Thanos said, pushing himself off the bedframe in order to lean in closer, reducing the distance between them. “Maybe I’ll do a little tap dance or something. You seem like you’d appreciate the effort.”

At that [Y/N] finally glanced at him, but only for a brief moment, before turning her gaze back to the wall. "You’re a real piece of work, Su-Bong," she muttered under her breath, but still loud enough for him to catch the venom in her words. He chuckled.

“Yeah, I know. I’m one of a kind.” His voice was playful, but there was an edge to it, a challenge in his tone. “And I’m starting to think you don’t even remember who I am anymore.” [Y/N] shot him a glance, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Oh, I remember exactly who you are, Su-Bong. And that's the problem."

The words hit him like a splash of cold water, but he refused to let it show. He leaned in closer, deliberately invading her space, his eyes gleaming with that familiar cockiness. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

She met his gaze with a fiery intensity. “It means that you left. You walked away, and I’m still here, cleaning up your mess. So yeah, I remember you. And I remember how it felt to have you pull away like I meant nothing.”

Thanos laughed, but it was dry, forced. “Jesus, you’ve got a way with words, don’t you? You know, I thought you’d be more fun to mess with, but I forgot how good you were at throwing guilt trips. Really good.”

“Guilt trips?” [Y/N] turned her body to face him fully now, her eyes flashing with a mix of fury and sheer hurt. “No, Su-Bong, this isn’t about guilt. It’s about the fact that you’re standing there, pretending like it’s all fine now, when you did leave. You disappeared, and now you expect everything to just magically go back to how it was? Is that it? You think I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to waltz back in with your pretty purple hair and expect me to just forgive you?”

Thanos smirked. “I don’t expect anything from you. But you might want to reconsider that little attitude of yours. It’s really not helping the situation.”

“You think I care about your situation?” she snapped, her voice louder. “You think I’ve been sitting here, all starry-eyed, just waiting for you to get your shit together? Newsflash: I’m done doing that. I’m done with you, Su-Bong.”

The weight of [Y/N]’s words hung heavy in the air, the tension between the estranged pair was palpable. Thanos was about to speak again, something sharp and cutting on the tip of his tongue, when the loudspeaker's monotone voice sliced through the silence, calling the players to line up for food.

Without as much as a glance, [Y/N] brushed past Thanos as though he were invisible, the force of her shoulder knocking him slightly off balance. Her gaze was firmly locked onto the middle of the room as she began walking toward the food line, every step measured, holding that unwavering confidence.

For a moment, Thanos stood there, frozen in place. The argument had been abruptly interrupted, but the sting of her words and her rejection lingered in the air like smoke. As the others began to shuffle toward the line, he realized there was nothing left to say—at least, not now. The silence between them was louder than any argument ever could be.

[hyperlexichypatia]

So, I do think the distinction between "reform" and "abolition" can be a little vague and abstract, because at what point has something been so "reformed" that, ship of Theseus style, it's now essentially a new thing with the same name? Conversely, when is something "abolished" and replaced with a new thing serving essentially the same function?

The latter is essentially what's being proposed when people talk about "abolishing police/prisons and replacing them with social workers/ therapists/ psychiatric treatment." Predictably a number of people in the notes of OP talk about "therapy" and "treatment." That's not abolition, that's just rebranding coercive control into something nominally non-punitive. Reeducation camp? That's just a synonym for "prison." You don't have an abolitionist politic; you have a thesaurus.

By contrast, when I talk about psychiatric abolition, I get a lot of questions like "Don't you mean reform? What if we fix psychiatry so that it's just a set of techniques to help people manage emotional states that are distressing to the person experiencing them?" and I want to say "Okay, cool, but that would be so conceptually far removed from what psychiatry is, or ever has been, that it wouldn't make much sense to use the same word for it."

So when I talk about "abolition" or "reform", mostly the distinction I'm making is how integral the oppressive aspects are to the institution, and whether the institution would be recognizable if the oppressive aspects were removed, and even that can get blurry.

Like, I do support family abolition and youth liberation. I do not support "parental rights." And in the example scenario, I would not support allowing a 3 year old to go off with a stranger. I don't think that's contradictory. Meaningful choices must be informed and risk-aware. A 3 year old simply does not have the life experience to understand the risk involved in going off with a stranger, let alone the abstract reasoning to discern "The person who is offering me what I want right in this moment is not necessarily someone acting in my best interests overall." Her choice to go off with Nice McDonalds Stranger is not an informed or risk-aware one. Her caregivers should stop her and remind her about being safe outside, and give her opportunities to take smaller, safer risks to practice her risk-taking and decision-making skills.

"Isn't that just parental control with new coat of paint, like you just said about prisons, you hypocrite?" I don't think so. Because it has an entirely different basis. It could become just parental control with a new coat of paint, because power structures tend to reassert themselves when challenged, but I don't think it's conceptually impossible for caregivers to have the responsibility of preventing children from making non-risk-aware major choices without enshrining "parental rights" as a legal concept.

Children in the U.S., with very few exceptions, do not have "rights" in any real legal sense. They are functionally the property of their parents or guardians. What (sparsely enforced) legal protections they do have are not "rights"; they're, at best, welfare. Like domestic animals. Some parents may choose to conceptualize their parental responsibilities as protecting their children from non-risk-aware choices while guiding and supporting them in risk-awareness, but legally that is in no way required. People commonly assume that parents have their children's best interests at heart, but parents' legal power over their children is not dependent on this. Parents have no legal obligation to recognize, let alone cultivate, their children's risk-awareness, autonomy-exercising skills. It is perfectly legal and largely socially acceptable for parents to intentionally stymie their children's decision-making understanding in order to use "they don't understand" as a pretext for controlling them. If the child is at all disabled, this can easily be translated into adult guardianship and turning an 18 year sentence into a lifelong one.

And a property relation cannot be reformed into a rights-based system. You have to abolish the property relation first.

Also. I mean. I genuinely don't know exactly what a legal system that respected children's personhood and autonomy without expecting them to have the risk awareness of adults would like. I really don't. I know how individual parents strive to support their children's autonomy, but I don't know exactly how to legally codify that. I suspect it would look similar to the supported decision making some disabled adults have won, but also different from that, since of course, disabled adults are adults, not children.

But I don't know exactly how to legally codify "A three year old's freedom to make major life-altering decisions independently of their caretakers [who may or may not be the same individuals as the ones who conceived/birthed them] should be contextual and nuanced based on their degree of risk awareness, but a 10 year old's should be far greater, and an 18 year old's should be absolute and irrevocable." I kind of touched on it here, but I really don't know exactly what it would look like to codify protections for children's limited risk awareness without compromising their autonomy.

However I do know, with absolute certainty, that we can't get there from here. We can't even meaningfully examine the question of children's legal status unless we abolish the concept of parental "rights" of ownership over children.

The other reason I'm generally annoyed with the "Abolish X" crowd who actually DO mean "abolish X" and not a watered-down version is that ime they very rarely have fully thought out the implications of what they're demanding and then get angry when other people ask about it.

"Family abolition means completely removing legal ties for family units and allowing all children the choice of where they live" okay. So if I see a three-year-old throwing a fit because she doesn't want to leave the park, and I go over and tell her if she comes home with me she can stay as long as she likes and then we'll get McDonald's on the way home, that three-year-old should have the ability to make that decision? The parent or guardian has no legal recourse to stop me from taking her? Cause if the answer's no, that's not abolition, that's reform baby!

"I'm done talking about what we'll do with rapists and murderers after we abolish prisons, it's all anybody ever wants to talk about!" Well yeah man! 98% of people just interpreted your words as "we're going to let murderers roam around killing people at will"! You need to explain very clearly what plans you have that will stop them that aren't incarceration or you're not going to make any headway! And if your answer involves any form of "well of course SOME people can't be allowed total freedom" - that's not abolition, that's reform baby!

I'm not even gonna touch the number of people who think we should abolish the police and replace them with what are essentially roaming squads of vigilantes dispensing "community justice", whatever the fuck that means.

Like these aren't "gotcha" questions, they're legitimate problems you're going to have to contend with. And if you wave away all these questions with "you're just making up ridiculous scenarios" and "we'll think of something to fix that once we destroy the current system", then yeah actually, I DO think you care more about sounding radical than about making any kind of change.

[goldenstorm0]

I cannot wait for an Adult Man to fight the Small Child. It'll be a great fight, my money is on the child

ok-ok, more thoughts under the cut

plot twist the thoughts are still not terribly serious

I think in a Donovan vs Anya telepathy fight, the main factor playing against her is simply her being young. She can have trouble sorting through and interpreting other people's thoughts, particularly someone like Loid who just thinks a lot. Donovan probably has a foot up on her in regards to that, just knowing offhand what information is important and what isn't.

However, we need to take into account that for Anya, mind reading is something that simply comes naturally to her. Even if she wasn't born with it and gained that power soon after birth, it would still be crazy early into her development. Although she doesn't know what information is/isn't relevant, she can still process it fairly quickly.

Plus she seems to use her powers in a variety of ways not only in collecting information, but also to help her locate people as seen early-early in the series, and directing people, like when she warned Twilight about the bomb (twice now that i think about it, in Bond's intro arc and the cruise ship arc) or when they were on the ski trip, and in manipulating people and using that instantly to influence them, as in the bus-hijacking arc.

For Donovan, we have far less information about him (or really technically a confirmation that he can read minds, only that Melinda suspects it), but I'm going to speculate that his theoretical abilities are far less attuned or refined as Anya's. Guessing from what Melinda said about when he started to change, it was soon after Damian was born. I'm going to guess probably a year or two, assuming that first Any'a has to successfully gain her powers in an experiment before Donovan undertakes the same process, so maybe a few months depending on what risks he's willing to take. That being said, no matter what, his brain would be fully developed.

So having a new sense added to the mix at such a latter date is going to mess with him more. We know that he no longer participates in events that have a lot of people at them except for the imperial scholar parent events. He is probably overwhelmed by a large groups thoughts and can't process them out as easily. From what we can tell, he doesn't even go out and about for smaller events where large groups can form, not like Melinda anyway. Anya still goes out on ootings, we can see her in crowds functioning pretty normally, and she mainly seems to get overwhelmed if she starts actively focusing on the groups thoughts or when emotions are high and/or negative (the rally in the first ooting and when she was looking at the penguins)

So while Donovan can leverage his experience to know what information to piece out, Anya has him beat in pure processing power. And with her being so young, she has more time to refine her abilities and make up for what she lacks. Her thought processes work seamlessly with her abilities, Donovan however doesn't get that. He is probably easier to overwhelm, needs more time to simply consume whatever he is hearing.

So, in a literal battle of the minds, Anya can just start dumping a ton of the irrelevant information she has to overload Donovan, thus winning the battle.

Sadly, Donovan could definitely just pick her up and throw her if need be.

So the score is kinda even rn

On actual thoughts for this chapter, I'm still processing. We now know that at least Melinda thinks Donovan can read minds, but we art exactly sure what that entails. Is it similar to Anya's, or is it different? An actual sort of dialogue like how Anya reads, or more of vibe, general direction of their thoughts or feelings? And like... is she right? she could be wrong, Donovan could just be a paranoid freak, he could of changed his actions not because he can read minds but because he knows that there are people who can. Idk, all I know is that Loid needs to start working with her to learn some techniques to help her manage her anxiety and to get her the fuck out of her situation, I have a lot of thoughts about what Loid should be doing to help her and at least some of them involve getting Melinda and Yor to hangout more.

[thezombieprostitute]

Hii! 🥰 If it’s okay, can I please request a Ransom x shy!fem!reader where she’s his gf and he loves making her all flustered and shy? Like he spoils her with SO MUCH love, affection, flirting, and gifts and he absolutely LOVES her reactions (she’d definitely hide her head in his chest)

If there's one thing we all know about Ransom it's that he loves getting reactions from people. This probably isn't the story you were hoping for but it's the one that Ransom gave me.

Ransom Drysdale x Shy!Reader

Warnings: Angst, Bad family, Self-esteem issues, Stalker behavior. Please let me know if I missed any!

The first time Ransom flirted with you, you were certain it was a prank. Your face heated with embarrassment and you basically ran away.

It was rather unique experience for him and he was intrigued. He decided to run some tests and see if that's just how you were or if it was him specifically. He frequented the bookstore you worked at, observing your interactions with others versus himself. Some may have called it "stalking" but he called it "research". And he'd spend enough money at the store your boss would never tell him he wasn't welcome.

When he realizes you weren't faking, that you react the same whenever anyone gives you a compliment, he's even more intrigued. He's never seen someone so easily flustered and thinks you could be a lot of fun to play with.

Just like when he first flirted with you, when he asked you out on a date you immediately thought it was a prank and tried to run off. He cut in front of you, careful not to touch you without permission (he doesn't need an assault charge, after all).

"I'm being serious," he tells you. "I'm not trying to hurt you, I just...you seem like an interesting person and I'd like to get to know you better."

Your face is burning as you look down at your feet. "I just want to work, sir."

"Please? Just one date," he offers with that look he knows works on all the ladies. Well, all but you because you're not looking at him. "How about just a coffee together at the cafe next door? Please?"

And that's how you and Ransom started dating. Much to his mother's chagrin.

Initially Linda just scoffed when she met you. A bookstore employee dating her son? No way was this going to last. Best to not even get to know the poor girl's name. Ransom was just gonna use you for his amusement and dump you like he always does.

Except he doesn't. Over the months Ransom finds himself more and more amused and intrigued by you and your overly shy reactions. Sure it was just a fun experiment to begin with but he's finding he enjoys being your anchor. He likes that someone finds him so reliable, so safe. It's a side of himself he never knew about until you. The fact that, even after all these months of "spoiling" you, you still don't expect him to is something very new for him.

You never shrug at the gifts. You never ask for them, either. Part of him worries you'll never understand that it's okay to accept compliments, to accept gifts. So he makes sure to shower you in both, hoping it'll sink in.

"For the last time, Linda, I'm not getting rid of her."

"She's beneath you, Ransom. I get you've found yourself a charity case, but you can't get emotionally attached to these things."

"She's not a thing."

"But you agree she's a charity case," Linda asserts. "I've seen your spending habits, Ransom. You can't expect me to think she's at all good for you! She's clearly just interested in getting her grubby hands on our fortune!"

Ransom rolls his eyes. "She has never asked for any of the stuff I get her. I get them for her because her reactions are so much fun."

Linda rolls her own eyes, "I don't need to hear about your exploits in bed. I need you to get your spending under control and drop the gold digger!"

"But I'm having so much fun!" Ransom pleads. If his mother won't listen to reason, maybe she'll listen to this.

"Ugh, fine. Keep playing with your...toy. Just don't expect me to like her. And definitely tell me when you've finally dumped her back in the trailer home she came from. I've got a girl lined up for you that I think you'll like."

Ransom knows whoever it is his mother wants to set him up with is the daughter, niece, cousin of one of her friends. He'd rather die than date them. But he's done with this conversation so he turns away and that's when he sees you, crying.

"I'm...I'm just gonna go," you mumble before running off.

Ransom tries to go after you but Linda holds him back saying, "it's for the best. Now she finally knows, you're both done with each other. So let me tell you about Trillia. She's Karen's niece..."

Ransom doesn't hear anything. He breaks her grip and goes storming out after you but once outside, he can't find you. He tries texting, calling, messaging, everything he can think but no response.

After a bit he drives over to your apartment complex. He hits the buzzer for your apartment, no response. Maybe you weren't home yet? The buses weren't the most reliable. Maybe you'd taken the wrong bus? Fuck. He sits in his car and decides to wait. Every 15 or 20 minutes he tries calling you but you still don't answer.

Well, there's one place he knows you'll be at eventually.

It's taken a few days of waiting. Apparently you've been calling in sick. Ransom can understand that, given the likely shock you were experiencing. He hadn't been taking the best care of himself while trying to get hold of you again. He'd even developed a bit of stubble because he couldn't be bothered to shave.

But now, finally, you were back at work and he could talk to you. Well, he could if you'd let him. He knows creating a scene will make things worse for you so he's trying his best to not call out, yell at you to stop ignoring him, whatever. But you know the store so much better than him and are frequently able to get away, making him look for you all over again.

When it finally sinks in that he's not going to give up you let him find you one last time. Before he can even open his mouth you tell him, "it's over Ransom. I knew you were never interested in me so I'm just giving us both the blessing of cutting things off."

"I was just telling my mother what she wanted to hear. What I knew would get her off our backs. How could you think I was never interested?"

"You never took 'no' for an answer," you tell him bluntly. "I didn't want to go on a date, but you wouldn't leave me alone. I didn't want the expensive gifts you got me, but you insisted. i'd practically beg you to stop buying me things but you wouldn't hear it. It was all about you, never me. How could I not know you weren't actually interested?"

"Well excuse me for wanting to shower you with gifts!" Ransom immediately regrets snapping at you, making you wince. "I'm sorry. I just...I thought..."

"You enjoyed making me uncomfortable," you sigh. "You're not the first, won't be the last. I know I'm ridiculous. That I shouldn't be so shy. But you didn't have to make fun of me for it."

Ransom feels his heart break. It's true, he enjoyed your reactions, enjoyed being the one you hugged, and hid with. But was it really fair to you? He really never considered your discomfort beyond his own enjoyment of it. Beyond his own need to feel needed.

"I'm sorry," he finally sputters. "I'll...I'll try to be better."

You shake your head, "it's for the best, Ransom. Now please, for once, respect my 'no' and leave me alone."

Ransom wants to argue. To say it's not what you think. To swear to do better by you in the future. But it would only serve to prove your point. So instead he nods and leaves.

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @irishhappiness; @lokislady82; @ronearoundblindly; @thiquefunlover63

[wayward-stardust]

isat fanfic idea i'll probably never write:

twohats. loop wins. and actually goes through with their whole "kill siffrin and take their place" plan.

and then siffrin loops back.

(yes i know he uses up all the wish craft energy during the bigfrin fight. let me have my canon divergent au.)

cue the most complicated siffrin & loop relationship ever.

because sif knows why loop did what they did. he understands. but they also did kill him. and now they're back in the meadow they'd hoped to never see again.

and then loop just wanted things to be over and nope! the universe must be laughing at them even now! because nothing's changed! they're back here, again! except now it's definitely their fault and stardust hates them now and they ruin everything they touch, don't they and they're definitely not mentally spiraling over this at all.

and then also on top of that there's the whole matter of figuring out a way to break the loops without going through act 5. because siffrin's not going through that again.

and. it's siffrin. so just explaining everything that happened to their party isn't going to be the first option, if it's an option at all.

and are they even certain that that was the end? it's all over if you talk to her, after all, and they hadn't done that yet. how do they know that there's an escape at all?

[seewetter]

This is true, except for the recommendation to go vegetarian or vegan.

Humans and livestock account for 96% of large mammal biomass on the planet and more than 90% of biomass of terrestrial vertebrates, almost as much as insects combined.

"A single pound of beef takes, on average, 1,800 gallons of water to produce. Ninety-eight percent goes to watering the grass, forage and feed that cattle consume over their lifetime." (Source)

So what happens if the meat industry shuts down? Uh, the cattle roam free, right? And if they (together with us) make up 90% of the biomass of vertebrates on land, I think its fair to assume the water consumption continues.

And I'm pretty sure consumers can't exactly influence how many animals the meat industry holds based on purchasing choices. My experience with grocery stores is that they let lots of food go to waste (they buy in bulk, they get rebates in bulk) and I doubt the people making the decisions about how much demand there is for products always understand why there is (or isn't) demand. "Oh, less people are buying meat, maybe they think it's too expensive? Lets put out some deals, buy 2 for 3 or put the beef at half price." Like are we expecting those people to mind-read a private vegan protest?

If you care about water use, you should care about the regulation of how many animals the factory farms (who have 90% of livestock) hold. A lot of the animals they kill are surplus anyway and never get eaten by anyone. Those industries should also have an interest in being regulated, since their overuse of water actually destroys their own business opportunities in the long term. This means those industries will likely eventually self-regulate (especially if its brought to their attention) but in the meantime, applying protest and public pressure is not a bad idea, since their industry threatens various species and ecosystems every moment they delay!

But here's another important aspect: 70% of water use is agriculture. Yeah. The vegans and vegetarians and all that. Again, the agriculture industry produces huge amounts of surplus waste. 20-25% of the food humans produce goes uneaten and the World Food Programme (agency of the United Nations) claims that 60% of that happens at household level and "food waste is higher in hotter countries [bolding WFP website, not mine], both at the household level and in the post-harvest phase, with high temperatures affecting storage, processing and transportation of food". (Source)(Source) Like usually I'm hesitant to say that this is a technical problem, but here it seems to me that technology (and its absence) is a major factor. And if people can reduce food waste, then less food needs to be farmed and less water will be consumed in the production of food. The webpage also mentions improvements to soil and water management that are ongoing. People who have the time can get involved! You don't need to spend your days trying to convert people to veganism faster than Europe converted to Christianity (I draw this example because Christianity also had that kind of grassroots attempt at getting an entire society to agree on something, which is much slower than the Muslim conquests... it took centuries and eventually the Christians also resorted to violent conquests). That whole WFP source is a wealth of information for people who work in agriculture to look into, because their industry also doesn't benefit from depleting the planet of its natural resources.

I think almost all of the environmental case against AI is factually incorrect fear mongering, or "misinformation"

[kyleemclauren]

"Rednote heavily censors LGBTQ+ content!" As opposed to Facebook, whose moderation polices explicitly carve out exceptions to harass trans people; or Twitter, where the word "cisgender" is considered hate speech. Gay marriage only became legal across the country in mid-2015, let's not pretend we've always been some progressive utopia.

Biden, Trump, and Obama each deported over a million people. The border internment camps still exist. Even including the million+ Uyghur Muslims in detention, China's incarceration rate is still lower than ours. We're using prison slaves to fight the California wildfires right now.

It's possible to say a bunch of things in the US, but that's not because we have great free speech. It's because our censorship works by making it difficult to talk about an issue, not impossible. Our newspapers and social media are owned by giant corporations and billionaires. Pro-Luigi content is widely suppressed, pro-Palestine content is widely suppressed, and anything more left wing than reformist capitalism is routinely suppressed. There are no privacy laws, your car is spying on you. Your phone is selling your location. Your TV is selling your watch history. Your purchase history is for sale. Your search history is for sale. Your political party registration and whether or not you voted is for sale.

In the United States schools are banning books, credit card companies are banning porn, and YouTube will take away your income if you mention suicide or swear. God help you if you play a few seconds of copyrighted music.

A counsel of nine unelected people are absolute dictators here. They gave the president absolute immunity too, for anything he can credibly claim was an official act. Congress is elected by legal gerrymandering. Police officers have nearly absolute immunity to commit crimes. Billionaires can do whatever the hell they want. I don't know where the citizen democracy is when marijuana usage is still technically a felony, despite almost 90% of the country wanting it made legal.

There isn't jack shit we get for any of this, either. Our gun laws are atrocious. Our homelessness problem is out of hand. We don't get livable cities, transit, or infrastructure. We certainly don't have health care. Our job market is trash. Our wages are trash. Our food prices are outrageous. We barely fund our schools or pay our teachers. But we spend almost a trillion dollars a year on our military! I tried for a good 20 minutes to write a followup sentence for that wasn't just incoherent swearing, and this note is the best I came up with.

All of this is the tip of the iceberg, it's corrupt all the way down and there is no set of reforms that can possibly fix it. It needs to be torn down, and built again from scratch. There is no alternative, all we are going through is pointless suffering so billionaires can get richer. How long are we going to wait!? What signs are we looking for that something needs to change? How much more obviously broken does the system need to be before people are ready to leave?

We are in an abusive relationship, and we need to get out, now. China will keep my data safe from the US government, I'm damn sure of that.

[29daffodils]

bison : resident noob dom extraordinaire

context : there was a discourse going on on twitter (as per usual) about whether bison is actually a dom or not or if it's just a trauma response that he may grow out of and eventually realize that he is not into bdsm. or something.

before i begin anything,

disclaimer : OP has both good and bad experience, so this meta/rant is entirely written based on my own understanding and experience within the BDSM community and with partners.

now, let's begin.

the original tweet that sparked the debate (also i think OP's QT aiming at “self proclaimed bdsm connoisseurs” is snooty and entirely dismisses all their arguments before and after that) (but that's just me)

the tweet with the counter argument?? i guess???

in support of the OG tweet

now that i've laid all that out, i'll begin by saying :

the idea of anyone being a “natural dom” or there being something like “natural dominance” in the context of sexual preferences is inherently harmful and sets people, both the dom and the sub, up for having a bad experience, or worse, being abused.

i know this statement wasn't from OP, but considering how they are on about the “bdsm connoisseurs” flooding their mentions, i think they should have addressed this since it's in support of their tweet. anyway.

now, i agree in part with OP's take :

bison is definitely influenced by his entire life being surrounded by violence. we have a young adult who has mostly no control over his life or how he lives it. he has witnessed violence and now he is in the center of it, and nevermind how good he is at his job, bison has made it clear he doesn't want to kill. bison has also told us that “pain kinda excites me.” so, just because his sexual lifestyle might be a trauma response, it doesn't mean he “isn't really a dom” or that his behaviour is “not rooted in natural dominance”. the idea of “natural dominance” is moreover, in my opinion, based on unrealistic patriarchal ideals and if you squint, this is a not so subtle shade on our young twinky dom as well.

so now let's look at bison as he is introduced to us :

witnesses the murder of his parents, clearly traumatized, get “adopted” by some shady ass woman who puts him back into a system where he is the one now inflicting violence, bison realizes at some unknown point of time that he “wants to be in control” because “pain kinda excites me” and purchases all sorts of bdsm paraphernalia, except he never dates because of his profession, until he meets kant who dupes him into trying out s&m, and bison very much enjoys his first play, fast forward to the falling out and kidnapping of kant and the fighting and make-up, and finally the scene in question that sparked the OG tweet :

in this scene, bison admits that he goes out and does fun things, like bowling, right after a kill, to take his mind off it. clearly, he doesn't like it. we already know this, bison has always insinuated to fadel that he wants an out and it's evident he doesn't hunger for the kind of violence he is made to dole out. but this is the first point we see him actually address this and outright say he deliberately does light-hearted activities to disengage from the aftermath of a kill. we also see him admit to the difficulties of a hitman's lifestyle and this particular piece of dialogue shows that whether he enjoys it or not, he is good at his job and he has made his peace with it. so where does his need for control fit in here?

in previous episodes (#2, tattoo parlour scene), bison admits to wanting control in bed, but he doesn't clearly state whether he is the S or the M. coupled with this omission, his “pain kinda excites me” dialogue makes me think he is both into giving and receiving pleasure from pain.

anyway, coming back to the main point, bison's need for control in bed may very well (and i've been suspecting it for a while) arise from his difficult lifestyle and his lack of say in how he lives, considering he is a hitman and (has to) reports to mother probably everything he does. for a 24yo, that's not the best case scenario. assuming bison was immediately adopted after the murder of his parents, he did not have a lot of (if any at all) time to explore himself or live his life in a way he sees fit. we know he sleeps around (that's his M.O. after all in most missions, i believe) and that's probably the only place where he could excersize any control or take charge. but we also know he hasn't done any s&m play before. so with the introduction of kant and the whole bdsm shebang, we can tell bison is exhilarated to finally be calling the shots and leading in bed in a way he and his partner both find pleasurable. and since he has all the tools and knows his own desires, it's safe to assume wants to be a dom. now whether he is or not, let's see.

we'll address the “natural dominance” debate here.

in the very first interaction with kant (who is older, btw, let's keep that in mind), he immediately tells off kant for being patronizing towards him. if you live anywhere in asia, you'll know it's kinda rude to talk back to older people. so even though they are in an informal setting, and the age rules don't apply here as such, bison doesn't shy away from putting kant in his place.

in the red room, we can see kant take the bed but bison walks away from him and takes the loveseat. in this scene, it is clear kant is used to leading, so he expects bison to listen to what he says. but bison (bless my boy), very easily throws him off by remaining seated and gesturing kant to come to him. kant still tries to keep his ground, but ultimately he makes the most pathetic meow meow begging face and that's when bison finally lets him have it. even after this, we can see kant is used to topping and pulling the strings, but bison once again throws him off by saying, “you are not doing this solo, you know?”

this whole exchange immediately defines their roles in the current setting and imo, is a very subtle foreshadowing for their future interactions.

in the tattoo bed scene, bison is excited beyond measure to be finally introducing and sharing his kink with kant and while initially we could see kant trying to lead this interaction, there are subtle signs/actions from bison that shows how he prepares kant for his submissive role : the slap to the hand on his thigh and kant's little flinch and gasp (one of my fave scenes from first, the micro-expressions were outstanding), the little slaps to his cheek before bison departs, etc.

i could go on and on, but the “natural dominance” that QTOP claims bison doesn't have, is actually out there taking a walk in broad daylight lmao. i think their intent was to say that because bison's dominance doesn't exist irrespective of his trauma but actually goes hand-in-hand with it, it's less valid than say, a dom who doesn't have a violent past and trauma related to it.

the question now here would be how good of a dom he is and whether he lets his trauma define his status as a dom. so far, there have been no signs of bison misusing his power and control over kant during a play (i believe we cannot count the drunk bison whipping kant scene here for obvious reasons). but so far, while bison was sober, he hasn't abused his power over kant during one of their plays. until very recently that is, and outside bed, does bison actually makes use of his power over kant : kidnapping and outrageous demands because he is hurting, but, the moment kant uses his safeword, bison drops everything and pulls away. from my experience, bison is very much a good dom so far, but he is also inexperienced, excited, in love, and under-informed (or that bit may just be the sloppy writing).

the word “natural dominance” suggests to me that QTOP expects bison to be in his dom role all the time, but it's not very often that people adapt their sexual preferences and make it into a lifestyle. doms are caregivers (by this, i mostly mean they lead and guide the sub and provide care/pleasure during and after any scene) in bed and outside of it should it be an exclusively d/s relationship with that kind of lifestyle. we haven't seen bison and kant discuss their dynamics or how they are going to implement it anywhere outside a particular scene. moreover, bison so far hasn't indicated that he wants kant and himself to be exclusively a d/s pair. rather, he is very much a romantic and likes doing all sorts of things that a stereotypical younger twinky bottom male in a gay relationship is supposed to do. even in the swing scene, bison is affectionate with kant the same way he was before learning the truth. the only difference we feel now is because bison finally knows the whole truth and is letting himself freely accept affection that he was holding himself back from when he was suspicious of kant's motives (even after getting together with him). so bison's cutesy actions in this ep are not because he doesn't have the dom bone in his body or because he hungers for affection but gravitates towards domination because of his cycle of violence. he is free and affectionate and it feels different now compared to before is because his entire relationship with kant is no longer sitting on a bed of lies and they have both come clean. this ultimately changes their body language and how they interact with each other. therefore, bison's desire to lead is just as strong as his desire to be cared for (leaning on his boyfriend, being cute, cuddly, etc) and both exist on opposing sides of the same sphere that's bison's life.

therefore, i think it's kind of ridiculous to say his actions/behaviour isn't rooted in “natural dominance”. I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean except that QTOP either thinks bison is supposed to be some caricature dom who likes leading both in bed and outside it. because that, my friends, is not how most relationships (bdsm and otherwise) work. or that he is a christian grey 2.0 (which, 🤣🥹).

so what i urge most readers/watchers to do here is separate bison's innate ability to inflict violence effectively in his job from his desire to dominate and use pain for pleasure in bed. both are different things and not mutually exclusive.

i think most of us need to give up on whatever 50SoG “taught” us about bdsm and actually look at this whole thing realistically. also, i think from all this info it's clear bison isn't gonna change his dom status anytime soon and for valid reasons. so from what we have seen him do so far, i can safely say he knows what he wants and he will very much keep wanting to play with kant while he calls the shots.

therefore it's important that we see bison's character from a realistic pov instead of whatever christian grey was. yes, he craves control because he doesn't have it in most instances of his life. but also yes, he craves romantic affection from his partner because he is a fool in love. both of these things can co-exist. what we need to remember is that just because someone is a dom doesn't mean they only need to be a sadist or be a top (I'm looking you, vegas).

in the future eps, bison might settle more into his skin and he may (however unlikely) realize he doesn't need to demand as much control (not that he is doing that a whole lot now). but, we still have 4 more episodes left and I don't think we'll be covering that anyway. so, my final verdict is bison is very much a dom, but he is a total “noob dom” (as i fondly like to call him) and will get many things wrong before he gets them right. but kant will be there along the way to learn alongside him, so no worries about that.

anyway, rant is over. cheers.

[raayllum]

Can you explain why Claudia is so upset with Terry when they reunite after he leaves? And why Terry, of all people, looks so guilty with her that he can't even look her in the eye? It's one of those things where you know this should all be reversed, but isn't. Why? Why is the betrayer so hostile to the betrayed?

God I loved the messy as fuck whatever they had going on Claudia and Terry dynamic in S7, and I think there's a few reasons why

One of the cruxes of Claudia's character is that she is attached to seeing herself as a good person, and others as not-good by comparison. This means that she can engage in the exact same behaviour and justify it while assuming that others' reasonings couldn't possibly measure up.

This cognitive dissonance is not exclusive to Claudia (Callum and Rayla in particular have a tendency to justify each other's choices in ways they don't with other characters, i.e. Rayla viewing dark magic use being 'evil' except when Callum is using it and he's the 'goodest' person she knows) but the focus on 'my view of myself' largely is. Most other characters in TDP are focused on "I still view this other person as a good person," not being focused on "I view myself as a good person". But Claudia is, and it's this core desire being increasingly pitted against "I will do vile, awful things to keep my family together" that are constantly duking it out.

When Claudia finds Soren and Terry waiting for her, it's clear that not only has Terry joined her brother, but has turned against her (as he could've left and then just fucked off somewhere else). This association with Soren, I think, is one of the things that gets her haunches raised, since Soren made it very clear what he thinks the last time they saw one another in 4x07:

SOREN: You have to stop trying to release the greatest evil this world has ever known. CLAUDIA: I knew you wouldn't understand.

All Claudia hears is "there's something wrong with you." That she's the bad guy and on the Wrong side (which, to be fair, Soren also calls her and Viren bad humans when trying to wake Rex Igneous in 4x09). And, by extension, that Soren is better than her. More correct, more moral, more Right.

And Claudia cannot stand feeling judged. She cannot stand being treated like 'the bad guy' (because of course from her perspective, everything she does is right) and she struggles to hold a conception of "I did something genuinely wrong and can still be a good person" (see: "We're not going to the dungeons Soren, we didn't do anything wrong") usually leaning into one or the other, and normally the latter.

So Terry being with Soren is also "you think I'm wrong, you think I'm bad, and you think you're Better than me" (vs Aaravos' "believed we could be better, so he gave us magic"). She thinks the pair are there to stop her, and she's not wrong, on a certain level.

So when Soren makes a gesture of good will, openly contingent on Terry wanting to spare her ("You're here to save me? How generous [...] I can change, and you will help me. Did I get everything?" Karim vibes), it's just seen as "you're showing off how/why you think you're Better than me" and was, quite frankly, never going to work.

Soren setting down his sword came closer, as it's more reciprocal, and it also symbolizes Soren setting down his mantle/duty (the same sword that killed Viren the first time, presumably). But Soren makes another mistake; the same mistake he made in 4x07:

Dad is dead, Claudia. You don't have to do what he wants anymore.

Set down your staff, Claudia. Dad's staff.

But while Claudia has been doing stuff for Viren, she hasn't done what he wanted in a long time. She's been doing what she wants ("You are not letting go, Dad!") for a hot second, and now alongside Aaravos. (I need to write a scene on her and Aaravos' talk in 7x06, but that's for another day.) And that has included taking down elves and dragons as a whole (and any elf that doesn't help her) for a while.

The dragons and the elves, all the arrogant fools blinded by the searing light of their own self-righteousness.

They are wrong, and she and Aaravos are right ("So much we can make right"). This is a very black-and-white viewpoint in many ways, one that some characters are faster as dismantling than others, but I have no doubt that Arc 3 will push it to its breaking point for all of them. Soren and Terry have thrown in their loyalties with the elves and dragons, since Terry was previously a "good elf Exception" alongside Aaravos because they were both helping her and, as previously discussed, Terry has now turned against her, and all the baggage Claudia carries about such a thing is now dumped onto him by proxy (which Terry doesn't necessarily know or understand).

So what does he look so guilty over?

Honestly? The illusion plan. I'm sure he's worried that Claudia might get hurt, and that things might escalate / go south, but he is ultimately there with a plan that is not what he wanted. What Terry wanted was to find the real Lissa and give Claudia a real chance to connect with her mother and maybe change her ways. But it's not real. It's deception, and he knows it.

TERRY: You lied to me! AARAVOS: I never lie. I simply said we needed a big feather and a very small feather. That is all. TERRY: No. You say you never lie, what you do is worse. You tell people half-truths and let people fill in the rest. You make people lie to themselves. It's deception. It's manipulation, and it's wrong.

She betrayed him, and now in his own way he's betraying her.

So what makes him decide to turn around and do something... similar, shall we say? There's a few things. The first is that they're on a time limit and have no way to reach Lissa. The second is that it's plausible the others were going to do it anyway, and Terry accompanied them because 1) he couldn't stop them, 2) he felt responsible, and 3) hoped that his presence would make a positive difference to Claudia.

The second is the other half of what Aaravos says to Terry, I think.

TERRY: I'll tell Claudia. AARAVOS: Oh, it will change nothing. She loves me. [...] And what of Claudia, then? She knows so much more than she tells you, and she keeps it that way to protect you.

Now, Terry rightfully understands that Claudia wasn't keep things from him to protect him; she did it to use him and to keep him from leaving ("I knew he'd leave once he found out"). However, Terry being willing to live in a half-truth and employ one on Claudia because he genuinely believes it will help her, because he thinks it's a truth he needs to withhold to protect her ("You have to promise me that no harm will come to Claudia" is most easily kept if she backs down)... that I can believe, especially since it lets him believe that she's capable of change/quitting. He wants to Save her, not use her.

That doesn't mean he thinks it won't Hurt.

[inawickedlittletown]

This idea is entirely the fault of @ladyeyrewrites for asking who I thought Madney would have on their will to take guardianship of Jee-Yun if anything happened to them.

The funniest most ridiculous option being a joint custody between Buck and Albert.

Which then spawned some thoughts. I'll preface this by saying I'm not writing it and of course there's bucktommy, when isn't there, but this could also work for buckalbert.

My immediate thought is: something happens to Madney…they're actually probably okay but presumed dead. Maybe they went on vacation and the plane went down on the way back except they weren't on it and they get stuck…maybe they're in the Caribbean during a hurricane and all the power is cut off for a long time and they just have no way out...or they stay to help out. Or they are on the plane that goes down and maybe they survived the crash but get stuck somewhere. Or they're both very injured and considered a Jane Doe and John Doe. Or they have been trying to get home and failing at every turn in increasingly ridiculous ways. Either way, it takes months for them to return and meanwhile everyone has been told they died…

Meanwhile...

Buck and Albert get custody of Jee-Yun. The Buckleys and Hans are mad about it so Buck and Albert shake on it and decide they're not giving in to either and taking on guardianship. Maybe they even move into Madney's house together to make it easier for Jee. Jee is obviously upset and grieving but her uncles try to make her feel better. All the shenanigans occur.

They have a full broken down and color coded schedule because Buck got ahold of a clipboard, but also wind up spending time together as a family. It's important.

Tommy sees them and misunderstands and is super heartbroken and jealous because he heard about Madney and he wanted to reach out to Buck but then he assumes Buck has a whole new boyfriend that he's raising Jee with. So, he walks away.

Except Tommy sees Albert out with several different women...like full on dates/making out...like no mistaking that he's with them. So he decides to go see Buck about it because Buck doesn't deserve that.

So, he shows up to talk to Buck about it. Albert is there and is like "I'm not cheating on nobody" and then he calls Tommy out on how he ran from Buck and how much he hurt him and whatnot. Buck tries to defend Tommy maybe so Albert starts to argue with him. They're all just having a giant unintelligible fight.

I could just see so much chaos happening and then Madney returns finally rescued and eager to see Jee and they walk into all the drama.

Buck and Tommy get back together obviously.