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ddejavvu · 4 months ago

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for a Tyler request what about him and reader getting into a really bad argument and storming off and when he cools down he can’t find her and is panicking

Alive and Crazy - Tyler Owens x Reader

come participate in tyler owens night !

Perhaps it was cruel of you to pick such a secluded hiding spot, but after all, isn't that what hiding's all about? Perhaps then the cruel part was hiding at all. But you can't shake Tyler's vicious words, "Y'know, if you don't stop trying to hold me back, maybe I should just cut myself loose."

All this over a tornado? His lifestyle is... intense. You are of the opinion that Tyler's hobby is ridiculously dangerous, and while you're slightly comforted by the safety precautions he takes (especially the drills that anchor his truck into the ground), you're less than impressed with the way he shows off and makes those precautions almost useless. Really, does he need to lean out of the window to see how long he can handle it? You'd only been trying to find some middle ground, but Tyler apparently seems to think you're trying to chain him up in the basement to prevent him from ever having any fun.

There's a secluded cabinet in the back of your laundry room that's perfect for hiding - just big enough to fit in and with an outlet for easy phone charging. You're just about to hit your two hour mark huddled in the cabinet when you hear thundering footsteps nearing your location.

"Baby? Hey, baby, y'gotta tell me where you are. Come on, baby, just wanna know you're safe. You in here?"

That's the last thing you hear before daylight spills into your dark cabinet, and your phone's screen becomes instantly duller in comparison. You glare up unimpressed at Tyler but his face crumples in relief so fast that you can barely hold the expression.

"Shit darlin'." He heaves a sigh, and any sympathy you'd felt for him instantly disappears when he has the gall to scold you next, "Do you know how damn long I've been looking for you?"

"Oh I'm sorry," You bite up at him, rage reigniting in your eyes, "Does my need for space inconvenience you?"

"No!" He nearly shrieks, but he reins himself in, "No, no, that's not- I shouldn't have said it like that. I was just worried."

"Well I'm not sure why," You turn back to your phone, but there's no concentration present as you mindlessly scroll, "I'd have expected you to be out enjoying your freedom seeing as you're cutting yourself loose."

"I'm not cutting myself loose." He vows, and it's soft instead of his typical drawl. He crouches, then makes the terrible, horrible decision to attempt to fit into the crawlspace with you.

"No- no, Tyler, you can't fit!" You squeal as he shoulders his way in, pressed flush to his body as he settles in a space half his size.

"It's fine." He grunts, but it's labored and very much not fine, "I just wanna be near you."

"I don't wanna be near you." You sneer, but you make no move to get up, "The whole reason I'm squeezed into this cabinet is because I was trying to hide from you."

"Did a damn good job, too." He admits, head slumped against the wall instead of your shoulder, "I was runnin' around for almost half an hour."

"Serves you right." You grumble, "Don't say mean shit if you want people to like you."

"I know." He reaches out and sets a hand on your knee, chaste and reassuring, "I'm sorry, darlin'. I just- lost control, or something. I don't know. I've been doin' this my whole life, and when you try to tell me how to do it, it makes me feel like you don't think I can handle it myself."

"Tyler, no one can. Some of the things that you're doing-" You stop yourself short, "I'm not saying you can't have fun. I'm not saying you can't chase- er, wrangle tornadoes. I'm just saying you don't have to keep trying to outdo yourself. There has to be a limit, otherwise you'll get killed."

He's silent after your speech, perhaps mulling it over, perhaps drafting his counterargument. In the end, he tips his head from the wall to your shoulder, and murmurs close to your ear.

"Yeah. You're right. I think... I think I just don't know when to stop sometimes."

"I agree with that," You try to keep too much accusation from seeping into your tone, "But that's why I said something. I don't want you to stop, I just don't want it to stop you."

"Yeah. Alright. I understand." And he sounds like he does. He laces his fingers with yours like he does, and he cranes his neck to peck his lips against your cheek like he does.

"You're not holding me back," He promises, "What I said earlier... that was dumb. This is a partnership, not some sort of prison sentence. I love you, darlin'."

"I love you too," You sigh, leaning sideways into his embrace, "You promise no more hanging out of windows?"

"I promise I won't anymore. Can't promise nothin' for Boone."

"Boone's crazy," You laugh, "You're all crazy. I just want you alive and crazy."

"Deal." Tyler grins, holding out a pinky and letting you lock it with yours, "Alive and crazy, darlin'."

#tyler owens x reader #tyler owens fanfiction #tyler owens x you #tyler owens imagine #tyler owens blurb #tyler owens drabble #glen powell x reader #twisters fanfiction

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inky-duchess · 1 year ago

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Fantasy Guide to Royal Children - Heirs and Spares

The lives of Princesses and Princes are of interest to most fantasy writers, it's where many of our heroes, side characters and antagonists hail from. But what is there life like? Is it always ballgrowns and servants? Or something more?

A Strict Order of Precedence

The first thing to know about royal children and siblings is that there's a very strict precedence of importance. Is it fair? No. But this is a system, it doesn't have to be fair. The heir comes first without argument. They are the most important child, they are always greeted first, they are the one to stand next to the monarch or their parents at occasions, they literally go first - and this doesn't change with age, if the heir is the youngest, they still have precedence over their siblings. After the heir, order of predence goes by age and the order effects the life of the children. For example, the older sister will marry begore any of her sisters. This order of deference will be so engrained in your character's life that they will believe it the norm and rarely question it, it probably won't spark any in-fighting.

Accommodation & Staff

Royal children are usually raised one of two ways. Either they are raised at court, in the same Palace as their parents or they are raised away from court under the care of trusted servants. Being raised away from their parents isn't a sign of remoteness or dislike or terrible parenting, it was a way of break a child into the constraints of royal life while giving them freedom of scrunity or danger. Usually these children are raised in the countryside for their health, as cities are usually cesspits for disease. Their parents would come to visit them or allow them to visit them at court. Children raised at court are raised with a higher level of scrunity and attention. They will be in the public eye.

Royal children will always be surrounded by staff. There will be nurses to wash and dress them, nannies to discipline and direct them, guards to protect them and usually, a guardian known as a governess to run their household and care for their needs. Staff are not allowed to hit royal children and must obey their commands. Some royal children were very close to their staff:

Kat Ashley and Elizabeth I

Baroness Lehzen and Queen Victoria

Klementy Grigorievich Nagorny and the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich

Lala Bill and Prince John

However, some royal children faced neglect from their staff. George VI was abused by his nanny, who would pinch him during important occasions, openly favour his elder brother over him and deny him food, which many have been a cause of his speech impediment. After the Russian Revolution, another of the Tsarevich's nannies proved less loyal than the other. Andrei Yeremeyevich Derevenko abandoned his charge, but not before ordering the boy around and insulting him.

Day to Day Life

Royal children would be educated withing their home by tutors. They would usually take lessons all together (the heir may take other lessons). A royal child would recieve an education in languages, arithmetic, geography, etiquette, dancing, music, sports such as riding and literature. Sometimes they would even share lessons with the children of trusted nobles or their cousins. Only the heir will be taught statecraft and how to reign. There is no rhyme nor reason a spare would learn how to rule.

Some royal children are taught the value of their position. Many royal children will be raised strictly to adhere to their social standing and their place in it. Some children may be raised in isolation, kept from mingling and raised to think of themselves as higher than those around them. Some royal families preferred to raise their children as "normal" as possible. The last Romanov children slept in camp beds, with no pillows and we're expected to tidy their own rooms and help the servants. They didn't even use their proper titles, they were called by their names and given a tight monthly allowance to spend. Alexandra of Denmark and her sisters used to make their own clothes. Some royal children could even be encouraged to play with the children of servants and staff as well as nobility (Kolya Derevenko and Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Winifred Thomas and Prince John). Companionship was a great honour for noble and common child alike as sometimes, they would be invited to live or be educated alongside by the royal children.

Royal children will not undertake royal duties until they are of age. Younger children be be present for large scale events such as jubilees but would not be expected to partake in any duties themselves. When they are of age, they will usually be granted an annual allowance, be invited to social events, invited to be patrons of charities and participate in royal duties.

Heir Vs Spare

Heirs have more responsibility, all the prestige, more power but they have less freedom, less room to explore their own lives and be expected to always be the epitome of perfect. Heirs will be given responsibilities in government, sitting in on state meetings or undertaking state duties.

Spares have little in the way of real power but have the ability to live less regimental lives and gave more agency in their personal lives. Spares may act as ambassadors to other nations or undertake state visits on behalf of the monarchy or even take positions in the army. Spares are encouraged to find positions to support themselves outside the family, either in a marriage or undertaking some service to the country. Spares who stay in the country, tend to act as unofficial advisers to their sibling when they become monarch.

All Grown Up

When royal children grow up, there are usually certain expectations and limitations.

Heirs will be married quickly, the lineage must be secure. Heirs will usually marry either as part of a political alliance or marry somebody suitable - from a good family, the right background, and able to fit into a certain mould (i.e malleable, amiable and loyal). They will be expected to focus on the country, it's needs and support the monarch at all times. Their social circles will be scruntised, their every move will be noted and remarked upon. Heirs will never gave to worry about funding their lifestyle, the Crown is their job and it supports them.

Spares can marry or remain single if they choose, (but if the monarch instructs them go marry they must). Spares can travel, they can be idle, they can even persue amusements not permitted for the heir. Spares can win glory on the battlefield and mix with all sorts of people. That isn't to say spares are useless, spares often occupy very important spaces in society and government. Spares will usually take these positions not for just status but also for the pay. This is why spares are granted royal titles such as dukedoms (they can make money off the lands, be able to build a dynasty for themselves and their heirs and gain status).

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spacerockfloater · 6 months ago

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Alicent and Criston have every right to be together.

I’ve read a lot of posts regarding their non-existent hypocrisy and I’d like to clear some things up.

First and foremost, stop using Alicent’s “Where is duty, where is sacrifice?” line against her or Nyra’s outrageous “Exhausting, wasn’t it?” speech because you think you’re eating when you’re, in fact, starving. Alicent has done her duty and sacrificed herself. It’s the only thing she’s been doing for the past 20 years. She gave the man she was forced to marry four children and she took care of him despite all the shit he put her through. She has lived all her life based on her principles and now her husband is gone. She mourned him, she buried him, it’s been more than 10 days since his death (confirmed that E1 S2 takes place 10 days after Lucerys’ death) and she is finally fucking free. She deserves a sliver of comfort. Alicent is the only one in this series that’s been faithful and dutiful to a T, yet look where that got her. If someone has the right to break the law a little bit, it’s definitely her.

That being said, I don’t know when it was decided that Alicent is a pious saint that can do no wrong, but I need to remind y’all that following a religion does not magically prevent you from sinning. Is she committing fornication? Obviously. However, you are all under this impression that this is hypocritical on her behalf because she berated Rhaenyra for it when they were younger, without considering that her anger was justified for a myriad of other reasons, such as (but not limited to): 1) the fact that Rhaenyra’s freedom to marry whomever she pleased was a privilege granted to her thanks to Alicent’s efforts, who supported her even if Rhaenyra hated her, yet her friend casually threw that away, 2) the fact that Rhaenyra lied to her by swearing on her morher’s grave and never even mentioned Criston, 3) the fact that Rhaenyra had the guts to call her “sister” while lying to her face, 4) the fact that her lies resulted in Otto getting fired since Rhaenyra misled Alicent so that she speaks to Viserys in favour of her friend and betraying her own father by siding against him (a decision she wouldn’t have made if she knew the truth), leaving her completely alone and friendless at court, even if he was right all along and finally 5) the fact that Rhaenyra is the most sought after bachelorette in the whole world and by having sex she undermines herself (Rhaenyra knows this well, hence why she denies these accusations) and literally endangers herself, because had she been married to any other man but Laenor and had this man found out his wife and future queen is not a virgin, imagine the fucking horrors she could have been subjected to. Like, I hate to break it to you, but a 40-year-old widow, who’s had four kids and has completed her duty to the point where she is actually no longer needed and could leave the palace to go live the rest of her life in peace somewhere else and no one would notice her absence (literally though, she has birthed heirs, her husband is dead, her son is a grown adult king, her job is done there), having sex, is not the same as an 18-year-old princess and future heir in her prime, whose purity is linked to her worth, getting caught drunk in a brothel, hooking up with her uncle and losing her virginity to her guard, all in one night. Viserys himself was outraged. There’s lows and then there’s lows, y’all.

By the way, the crazy assumptions that Alicent has been cheating on Viserys with Criston for a while now need to stop. When Olivia Cooke said that they had filmed a messy sex scene with Fabien Frankel in a recent interview, she never said this was for S1 of HOTD. I don’t know where y’all got that from, but even if it was true, that scene has been scrapped so it is not canon. And don’t make me laugh about Daeron, a dragon rider who canonically has Valyrian features, potentially having brown hair. You’re all so blinded by your hatred for Alicent that you want her to be a lying hypocrite in order to make yourselves feel better about Rhaenyra’s mishaps, that you don’t get that the whole point of her and Criston getting physical is that she is a tortured woman who is finally able to break free, not that she has been a hypocrite all along. You’re heavily misunderstanding her arc.

Finally, when it comes to my good man Criston, y’all have lost it completely. No, Alicent is not raping him, unless he tells her to stop and she closes the door behind her like Rhaenyra did that is. No, Criston did not lie about how important his honour is to him. There’s a whole article on how Clare Kilner, the director of E4 S1, decided that Cole removing his armour slowly was necessary because it symbolises his inner conflict and uncertainty over breaking his vow: should he soil his cloak for the sake of the woman he loves? And he does soil it, because he thinks she loves him back. But that honourable man dies the day Rhaenyra tells him that he’ll never be anything more than a side piece to her. This man stops giving a flying fuck about his honour, oath, position and life. He is trying to kill himself. And you know what stops him? Alicent. Alicent is the only thing between him and death, the only person to show him kindness and understanding, to pull him up from the lowest point in his life. I don’t think you heard Alicent in E7 S1: “No, you’re sworn to me!”. Y’all. His life is hers. He doesn’t care about Rhaenyra, his job, Viserys, anyone else at this point. Only Alicent exists in his mind, Fabien himself has said time and time again that his loyalty to her is unwavering. He only exists for Alicent’s sake. He’s who you wish Daemon was. Crying that “Criston is a bad knight and a liar because he broke his chastity oath yet again!” is so pointless because that knight has been dead since Rhaenyra’s marriage to Laenor. What does an oath mean when you find out the people you swore it to have betrayed you? Why should he keep his promise to the people who abused him?

#house of the dragon #hotd hbo #hotd #alicent hightower #pro alicent hightower #pro alicent stans #ser criston #ser criston cole #pro criston cole #alicent x criston #alicole #team green #pro team green #anti team black stans #anti team black #anti rhaenyra stans #anti rhaenyra targaryen #anti daemyra #anti daemon targaryen

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maximumqueer · 7 months ago

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Luffy not wanting to be viewed as a hero is actually so important to me. Because while the first reasoning we get for this is him not wanting to share his food

We also learn later on that Luffy also doesn't want to be viewed as a savior, nor does he ever want to present himself as such. He doesn't want to be placed on a pedestal or (ironically) be deified by the people he helps.

At the end of Fishman island, he was fully ready to leave without fanfare because he did not want to be treated by the people in that way, and only agrees to stay because he is promised food. The same thing happens at the end of Wano, where he refuses to take any credit for the downfall of Kaido and instead simply enjoys the festival with everyone else.

I cannot overstate how much I love this decision for Luffy as a character. It is incredibly common for stories like Fishman Island and Wano to have the main character swoop in and save the oppressed people, with said character being to sole person to rally them and "teach" them how to fight back. We don't get that with Luffy.

In Fishman Island, he tells the people that its up to them to decide whether or not he is their friend or foe instead of swooping in playing the role of the hero. In Wano, he understands to importance of who begins the fight with Kaido, and stands back to let the Red Scabbards (Wano natives) get the first major hit on Kaido

Even in the prison when Luffy gives his speech, he is asking the people to let him help, to have faith that they and their country can be free again, to fight for the freedom that had been cruelly stripped away from them. And even then, it is Momo and members of the Red Scabbards that fully restore the Udon prisoners faith.

Hell, we even see this all the way back in Arlong Park, where Luffy waits to take action until Nami asks him for help. He doesn't come in guns blazing and save her like some sort of white knight, but instead waits for Nami's go ahead, placing the power in her hand.

It's just such a refreshing way of seeing a protagonist in this type of story be portrayed. To have him understand the importance of the people he fight's side by side with, and not place himself as the fixer of all problems, but rather as an aid to these people (often times an aid that they explicitly asked for). It actively rejects the white savior/white knight trope(s) and allows for the people native to the island to have agency in these large battles instead of being sidelined. It is their lives and stories that are centered as being the most important in these moments, and Luffy is simply there to help them.

#one piece #one piece meta #one piece spoilers #wano arc #wano spoilers #fishman island #fishman island spoilers #monkey d luffy #character analysis

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singingcicadas · 9 months ago

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Megatron's Opposite Day

"I free slaves"

This is Soundwave binding Ratbat but seeing as Megatron did the same thing to Pentius by putting his spark into Trypticon and reformatted Rumble and Frenzy into cassettes against their will I think he approves a lot of this practice

Megatron on Optimus and humans, after his defeat in All Hail Megatron ⬇️

he really salty

"I implant ideology" aka brainwashing

Decepticon cause = Megatron. nuff said.

"I liberate cities" says the person who let Nyon burn to make a point

Cities are too small, think bigger

Holding New York hostage.

"Like Autobots, they believe in the sanctity of life" which he doesn't. Kudos for being honest.

Allowing troops to do free-rein massacre is a reward for conquest. Nothing like some easy murder for de-stressing.

The Simanzi massacre which halved the Cybertronian population is off-screen so it doesn't deserve its own pic

"The revolution"

"We only feel good when we stand with a blade in one hand and a throat in another" "Let's make the entire face of the planet into our new gladiator arena"

What nice, confidence-inspiring revolutionaries. I'm sure they'll rule the population with benevolence after they've killed all the Necessary People with Necessary Violence. Final interpretation of what constitutes as Necessary is reserved for the sole discretion of Megatron, ofc.

Good goals.

Sentinel might be an absolute asshole but at least he's got one thing right: they're literally a gang of thugs who gets high off murder.

"The people are my utmost concern"

'The people': ................

"Battling for freedom"

Freedom of what? Function? Autonomy?

Religion?

the ability to choose whether to fight? on which side to fight?

Idk why they used the word "pogrom" for this, it's way too specific

Anyways it doesn't matter, they won't be missed.

Good for Bumblebee for calling him out. Screenshotted this just to appreciate Megatron's bitchy face ⬇️

Other urban legends:

"Megatron loves Cybertron" let's just burrrrn it

He did fight to save Cybertron in Chaos Theory but also made it pretty clear why he did it. It's not out of the goodness of his heart or any sentimental reasons like that. It's an ego/dominance thing.

Plus his wording when he's trying to convince Optimus to let him go with the Lost Light: "I broke the planet. And that, Optimus, is why I owe it to you - to everyone - to find a replacement."

Replacement.

In other words: I made a mess and can't be bothered to clean it up, so I want to get away from it and find somewhere new to start clean.

I don't think Optimus appreciates the favour.

"Megatron tore down a corrupt government" which is true, just too bad that he's worse

He's also, um, a closeted Zeta admirer?

"Megatron advocates equality" ???

Megatron x dictatorship is literally his OTP. They were inseparable for four million years. A lot of people died trying.

"Megatron cares about the Decepticons" no he doesn't. Not his troops nor its cause.

Like for one thing he treats them with complete scorn

Admits that the most useful thing about keeping Starscream around is that he can bully underlings into line

Wants to use the humans' nuke to get rid of his troops and reformat them into peaceful drones after they outlive their use because they were "too ruthless" for his perfect peaceful society

Has zero scruples about fighting Deceptigod, just affronted that his own soldiers are being used against him

And basically just drops the Decepticons like a bag of vermin after he surrenders. He never once mentions them of his own accord, other than to insist he has nothing to do with them. Even his surrender speech is something Optimus makes him do as exchange b/c he wants to go on parole. He wasn't planning on making a public address otherwise, he was just going to leave them hanging.

Looking at the publication timeline, Megatron started out as an established Evil McEvilson-type villain similar to how he is in G1 and it's not until Chaos Theory in 2011 that JRo really gave him a sympathetic backstory that drew his characterization away from the bloodthirsty pugno ergo sum warlord into someone who once held ideals about societal reform and remains convinced of his own moral supremacy throughout the 4 mill years of death and war, adding worldbuilding such as Functionism/oppression/government corruption as justification for the beginning of the Decepticon movement. But because the start of the Decepticons was already written in Megatron Origins and every evil thing he'd done up till Chaos Theory can't be retracted and they had to keep Megatron as a villain until his story was no longer central to the Autobot-Decepticon war line, and JRo didn't try to downplay the atrocities he'd committed (some of the most sadistically disturbing things Megatron did were exclusively in MTMTE flashbacks), but rather tried to distance him from them and placed the focus on the juxtapositions to emphasize change, this as a whole just resulted in Evil McEvilson getting turned into Hyper McHypocrite.

#That being said I genuinely enjoyed Megatron's redemption arc in mtmte/ll. It's one of those stories that's very poignant and moving #on an emotional level #even though the plot itself doesn't hold up that much under close scrutiny.#moved this to the tags to make the post cleaner #I would've liked it more if LL used a few more panels to show Megatron Actually Making Friends #instead of shunting him into a parallel universe for idk how many issues in an already limited run #transformers #idw transformers #maccadam #megatron #trying to clear out more screenshots

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torchwood-99 · 10 months ago

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Eowyn and Gothic Horror

I've ranted about the interpretation that Eowyn's rejection of gender roles was a symptom of her sickness, caused only by Grima's manipulations. An interpretation that doesn't hold to either Gandalf's speech in the Houses of Healing, when he specifies how the liberties denied to Eowyn and allowed to Eomer and her male peers played a crucial role in her depression, or when we see how Eowyn was really vindicated in her decision to ride to battle by her victory over the Witch King. A victory that wins her incredible renown and respect.

I think this reading comes about because people see the significance of Grima's contribution to Eowyn's despair, and think he is the sole source of it.

But Eowyn was not dissatisfied with her role and her enforced position in the house because of Grima's manipulations. She didn't rail against sexism because Grima played with her head and "poisoned" her traditionally feminine role for her.

Grima was able to prey on Eowyn, manipulate her and drive her to despair, because of the sexism that forced Eowyn to remain stuck in the house.

Look at the speech Gandalf gives Eomer about Eowyn's sufferings. The very first thing he mentions is the fact that Eowyn was denied the freedoms and opportunities Eomer had. The suffering that follows stems from that first initial injustice.

Because of that first injustice, Eowyn was rendered vulnerable, and Grima was able to exploit that. That isolation, that limited freedom, that unhappiness about her lack of choices, left her free game for Grima to take an already bad situation, and make it far worse.

Thinking about Eowyn's experience in Meduseld, what the impact of being confined to the domestic sphere did to her, and what is left her vulnerable to, makes me think of Gothic horror, and the role of sexism and domesticity in that genre too.

Eowyn's situation before the novels is that of a classic Gothic heroine. A fair, beautiful woman, trapped inside a decaying house, and preyed on by an awful monster, who hungers after her beauty and longs to possess her. Or else, destroy her.

Domestic settings and isolation are pretty crucial themes in the gothic genre, and for that reason it has historically been seen as a woman's genre. It taps into a pretty universal fear of what happens when home ceases to be a safe space, a fear that historically, has a particularly great resonance for women.

Whereas traditionally home is a refuge and respite for men from the world, the home is the woman's only true acceptable sphere. And yet even there she is subordinate. Therefore, she is vulnerable. With no place in the outside world, she has no escape, no respite, no refuge. If home becomes an evil, she is trapped. And because she has no place in the social sphere, she has no voice either. She is invisible, she is overlooked, her sufferings and her contributions are passed over,

Eowyn is isolated. Eowyn is vulnerable. Eowyn is overlooked. And because Eowyn is isolated and vulnerable and overlooked, Grima is able to get his hooks into her and drive her to despair. She is a wild animal, trammelled and caught in a hutch, a predator's helpless prey. But Grima didn't put Eowyn in the hutch. Eowyn was already there. Grima just took advantage of that.

Even after Grima is gone, Meduseld is still a place Eowyn longs to escape, and while its evil is purged and she does return, it is only for a short while. Grima's defeat is not enough to make Meduseld a place where Eowyn can find real happiness or fulfilment. On its own, it still represents a role for Eowyn that she wishes to move beyond.

The healing counterpoint to Eowyn's gothic castle of horrors, the hutch she was caught in, is in escape, and in a return to nature.

Eowyn's entire romance with Faramir takes place within the gardens of the Houses of Healing, where we see Eowyn start to recover from her ordeal. It takes place on the open, in the garden, on the ramparts, with much notice given to the sky and the sun and the elements around them.

(Also, the Houses of Healing themselves are not a domestic setting, but a public one, and there we see women working alongside men and holding authority.)

Eowyn's happy ending, her great escape, climaxes with her decision to go with Faramir to Ithilien.

Ithilien is the exact opposite of a hutch. It's descriptions are filled with natural imagery, and is known as the Garden of Gondor. It is a place for growth and fresh starts. A place of freedom. A place for a wild thing.

When Faramir suggests that he and Eowyn live in Ithilien, he reasserts again and again that they will go there if it is Eowyn's will. Both Tolkien and Faramir put emphasis on the importance of Eowyn's will, and Eowyn's right to freedom of movement.

In his plans for their future, Faramir talks of "us" and "we", removing the separation between men (belonging to the social sphere) and women (belonging to the domestic), and speaks of Ithilien as a shared dwelling place for both of them. Faramir only distinguishes between himself and Eowyn when he puts importance on Eowyn's will, and at the end, on Eowyn's influence.

At the close of his speech, Faramir says all things will grow with joy in Ithilien, if Eowyn is there. Returning Ithilien to its former glory, allowing it to bloom once more, is to become Faramir's life's work, and still it is Eowyn's influence he puts centre stage. Far from being kept confined to the domestic sphere, relegated to being Faramir's home support while he dominates the rehabilitation of Ithilien, Faramir places Eowyn's work and Eowyn's significance at the heart of their future together.

Eowyn goes from being shut in the house, where everything around her was decaying and falling to ruin, to being freed to stand in the heart of nature, where there is a chance for influence, growth, and fresh starts.

#Lotr #Lord of the Rings #Eowyn #Faramir #Grima Wormtongue #Farawyn #Faramir-x-Eowyn #Tolkien Meta Week

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mariacallous · 3 months ago

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When most Americans think of fascism, they picture a Hitlerian hellscape of dramatic action: police raids, violent coups, mass executions. Indeed, such was the savagery of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Vichy France. But what many people don’t appreciate about tyranny is its “banality,” Timothy Snyder tells me. “We don’t imagine how a regime change is going to be at the dinner table. The regime change is going to be on the sidewalk. It’s going to be in your whole life.”

Snyder, a Yale history professor and leading scholar of Soviet Russia, was patching into Zoom from a hotel room in Kyiv, where the specter of authoritarianism looms large as Ukraine remains steeped in a yearslong military siege by Vladimir Putin. It was late at night and he was still winding down from, and gearing up for, a packed schedule—from launching an institution dedicated to the documentation of the war, to fundraising for robotic-demining development, to organizing a conference for a new Ukrainian history project. “I’ve had kind of a long day and a long week, and if this were going to be my sartorial first appearance in Vanity Fair, I would really want it to go otherwise,” he joked.

But the rest of our conversation was no laughing matter. It largely centered, to little surprise, on Donald Trump and how the former president has put America on a glide path to fascism. Too many commentators were late to realize this. Snyder, however, has been sounding the alarm since the dawn of Trumpism itself, invoking the cautionary tales of fascist history in his 2017 book, On Tyranny, and in The Road to Unfreedom the year after. It’s been six years since the latter, and Snyder is now out with a new book, On Freedom, a personal and philosophical attempt to flip the valence of America’s most lauded—and loaded—word. “We Americans tend to think that freedom is a matter of things being cleared away, and that capitalism does that work for us. It is a trap to believe in this,” he writes. “Freedom is not an absence but a presence, a life in which we choose multiple commitments and realize combinations of them in the world.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair, which has been edited for length and clarity, Snyder unpacks America’s “strongman fantasy,” encourages Democrats to reclaim the concept of freedom, and critiques journalists for pushing a “war fatigue” narrative about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “There’s just something so odd about Americans being tired of this war. We can get bored of it or whatever, but how can we be tired?” he asks. “We’re not doing a damn thing.”

Vanity Fair: The things we associate with freedom—free speech, religious liberty—have been co-opted by the Republican Party. Do you think you could walk me through how that happened historically and how Democrats could take that word back?

Timothy Snyder: Yeah. I think the way it happened historically is actually quite dark there. There’s an innocent way of talking about this, which is to say, “Oh, some people believe in negative freedom and some people believe in positive freedom—and negative freedom just means less government and positive freedom means more government.” And when you say it like that, it just sounds like a question of taste. And who knows who’s right?

Whereas historically speaking, to answer your question, the reason why people believe in negative freedom is that they’re enslaving other people, or they are oppressing women, or both. The reason why you say freedom is just keeping the government off my back is that the central government is the only force that’s ever going to enfranchise those slaves. It’s the only force which is ever going to give votes to those women. And so that’s where negative freedom comes from. I’m not saying that everybody who believes in negative freedom now owns slaves or oppresses women, but that’s the tradition. That’s the reason why you would think freedom is negative, which on its face is a totally implausible idea. I mean, the notion that you can just be free because there’s no government makes no sense, unless you’re a heavily drugged anarchist.

And so, as the Republican Party has also become the party of race in our country, it’s become the party of small government. Unfortunately, this idea of freedom then goes along for the ride, because freedom becomes freedom from government. And then the next step is freedom becomes freedom for the market. That seems like a small step, but it’s a huge step because if we believe in free markets, that means that we actually have duties to the market. And Americans have by and large accepted that, even pretty far into the center or into the left. If you say that term, “free market,” Americans pretty generally won’t stop you and say, “Oh, there’s something problematic about that.” But there really is: If the market is free, that means that you have a duty to the market, and the duty is to make sure the government doesn’t intervene in it. And once you make that step, you suddenly find yourself willing to accept that, well, everybody of course has a right to advertise, and I don’t have a right to be free of it. Or freedom of speech isn’t really for me; freedom of speech is for the internet.

And that’s, to a large measure, the world we live in.

You have a quote in the book about this that distills it well: “The countries where people tend to think of freedom as freedom to are doing better by our own measures, which tend to focus on freedom from.”

Yeah, thanks for pulling that out. Even I was a little bit struck by that one. Because if you’re American and you talk about freedom all the time and you also spend all your time judging other countries on freedom, and you decide what the measures are, then you should be close to the top of the list—but you’re not. And then you ask, “Why is that?” When you look at countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, or Ireland—that are way ahead of us—they’re having a different conversation about freedom. They don’t seem to talk about freedom as much as we do, but then when they do, they talk about it in terms of enabling people to do things.

And then you realize that an enabled population, a population that has health care and retirement and reliable schools, may be better at defending things like the right to vote and the right to freedom of religion and the right to freedom of speech—the things that we think are essential to freedom. And then you realize, Oh, wait, there can be a positive loop between freedom to and freedom from. And this is the big thing that Americans get a hundred percent wrong. We think there’s a tragic choice between freedom from and freedom to—that you’ve got to choose between negative freedom and positive freedom. And that’s entirely wrong.

What do you make of Kamala Harris’s attempt to redeem the word?

It makes me happy if it’s at the center of a political discussion. And by the way, going back to your first question, it’s interesting how the American right has actually retreated from freedom. It has been central for them for half a century, but they are now actually retreating from it, and they’ve left the ground open for the Democrats. So, politically, I’m glad they’re seizing it—not just because I want them to win, but also because I think on the center left or wherever she is, there’s more of a chance for the word to take on a fuller meaning. Because so long as the Republicans can control the word, it’s always going to mean negative freedom.

I can’t judge the politics that well, but I think it’s philosophically correct and I think we end up being truer to ourselves. Because my big underlying concern as an American is that we have this word which we’ve boxed into a corner and then beaten the pulp out of, and it really doesn’t mean anything anymore. And yet it’s the only imaginable central concept I can think of for American political theory or American political life.

Yeah, it’s conducive to the joy-and-optimism approach that the Democrats are taking to the campaign. Freedom to is about enfranchisement; it’s about empowerment; it’s about mobility.

Totally. Can I jump in there with another thought?

Of course.

I think JD Vance is the logical extension of where freedom as freedom from gets you. Because one of the things you say when freedom is negative—when it’s just freedom from—is that the government is bad, right? You say the government is bad because it’s suppressive. But then you also say government is bad because it can’t do anything. It’s incompetent and it’s dysfunctional. And it’s a small step from there to a JD Vance–type figure who is a doomer, right? He’s a doomer about everything. His politics is a politics of impotence. His whole idea is that government will fail at everything—that there’s no point using government, and in fact, life is just sort of terrible in general. And the only way to lead in life is to kind of be snarky about other people. That’s the whole JD Vance political philosophy. It’s like, “I’m impotent. You’re impotent. We’re all impotent. And therefore let’s be angry.”

Did you watch the debate?

No, I’m afraid I didn’t. I’m in the wrong time zone.

There was a moment that struck me, and I think it would strike you too: Donald Trump openly praised Viktor Orbán, as he has done repeatedly in the past. But he said, explicitly, Orbán is a good guy because he’s a “strongman,” which is a word that he clearly takes to be a compliment, not derogatory. You’ve written about the strongman fantasy in your Substack, so I’m curious: What do you think Trump is appealing to here?

Well, I’m going to answer it in a slightly different way, and then I’ll go back to the way you mean it. I think he’s tapping into one of his own inner fantasies. I think he looks around the world and he sees that there’s a person like Orbán, who’s taken a constitutional system and climbed out of it and has managed to go from being a normal prime minister to essentially being an extraconstitutional figure. And I think that’s what Trump wants for himself. And then, of course, the next step is a Putin-type figure, where he’s now an unquestioned dictator.

For the rest of us, I think he’s tapping—in a minor key—into inexperience, and that was my strongman piece that you kindly mentioned. Americans don’t really think through what it would mean to have a government without the rule of law and the possibility of throwing the bums out. I think we just haven’t thought that through in all of its banality: the neighbors denouncing you, your kids not having social mobility because you maybe did something wrong, having to be afraid all the damn time. African Americans and some immigrants have a sense of this, but in general, Americans don’t get that. They don’t get what that would be like.

So that’s a minor key. The major key, though, is the 20% or so of Americans who really, I think, authentically do want an authoritarian regime, because they would prefer to identify personally with a leader figure and feel good about it rather than enjoy freedom.

You mentioned the word banality, which makes me think of Hannah Arendt’s theory of the “banality of evil.” What would the banality of authoritarianism look like in America?

So let me first talk about the nonbanality of evil, because our version of evil is something like, and I don’t want to be too mean, but it’s something like this: A giant monster rises out of the ocean and then we get it with our F-16s or F-35s or whatever. That’s our version of evil. It’s corporeal, it’s obviously bad, and it can be defeated by dramatic acts of violence.

And we apply that to figures like Hitler or Stalin, and we think, Okay, what happened with Hitler was that he was suddenly defeated by a war. Of course he was defeated by a war, but he did some dramatic and violent things to come to power, but his coming to power also involved a million banalities. It involved a million assimilations, a million changes of what we think of as normal. And it’s our ability to make things normal and abnormal which is so terrifying. It’s like an animal instinct on our part: We can tell what the power wants us to do, and if we don’t think about it, we then do it. In authoritarian conditions, this means that we realize, Oh, the law doesn’t really apply anymore. That means my neighbor could have denounced me for anything, and so I better denounce my neighbor first. And before you know it, you’re in a completely different society, and the banality here is that instead of just walking down the street thinking about your own stuff, you’re thinking, Wait a minute, which of my neighbors is going to denounce me?

Americans think all the time about getting their kids into the right school. What happens in an authoritarian country is that all of that access to social mobility becomes determined by obedience. And as a parent, suddenly you realize you have to be publicly loyal all the time, because one little black mark against you ruins your child’s future. And that’s the banality right there. In Russia, everybody lives like that, because any little thing you do wrong, and your kid has no chance. They get thrown out of school; they can’t go to university.

We don’t imagine how a regime change is going to be at the dinner table. The regime change is going to be on the sidewalk. It’s going to be in your whole life. It’s not going to be some external thing. It’s not like this strongman is just going to be some bad person in the White House, and then eventually the good guys will come and knock him out. When the regime changes, you change and you adapt, and you look around as everyone else is adapting and you realize, Well, everyone else adapting is a new reality for me, and I’m probably going to have to adapt too. Trump wants to be a strongman. He’s already tried a coup d’état. He makes it clear that he wants to be a different regime. And so if you vote him in, you’re basically saying, “Okay, strongman, tell me how to adapt.”

Yeah, we could talk about Project 2025 all day. This new effort to bureaucratize tyranny—which was not in place in 2020—could really make the banal aspect a reality because it’s enforced by the administrative state, which is going to be felt by Americans at a quotidian level.

I agree with what you say. If I were in business, I would be terrified of Project 2025 because what it’s going to lead to is favoritism. You’re never going to get approvals for your stuff unless you’re politically close to administration. It’s going to push us toward a more Hungary-like situation, where the president’s pals’ or Jared Kushner’s pals’ companies are going to do fine. But everybody else is going to have to pay bribes. Everyone else is going to have to make friends.

It’s anticompetitive.

Yeah, it’s going to generate a very, very uneven playing field where certain people are going to be favored and become oligarchs. And most of the rest of us are going to have a hard time. Also, the 40,000 [loyalists Trump wants to replace the administrative state with] are going to be completely incompetent. When people stop getting their Social Security checks, they’re going to realize that the federal government—which they’ve been told is so dysfunctional—actually did do some things. It’s going to be chaos. The only way to get anything done is to have a phone number where you can call somebody at someplace in the government and say, “Make my thing a priority.” The chaos of the administration state feeds into the strongman thing. And since that’s true, the strongman view starts to become natural for you because it’s the only way to get anything done.

You’ve studied Russian information warfare pretty extensively. A few weeks ago the Justice Department indicted two employees of the Russian state media outlet RT for their role in surreptitiously funding a right-wing US media outfit as part of a foreign-influence-peddling scheme, which saw them pull the wool over a bunch of right-wing media personalities. Do you think this type of thing is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Russian information warfare?

Of course. It’s the tip of the iceberg, and I want to refer back to 2016. It was much bigger in 2016 than we recognized at the time. The things that the Obama administration was concerned with—like the actual penetration of state voting systems and stuff—that was really just nothing compared to all of the internet stuff they had going. And we basically caught zilcho of that before the election itself. And I think the federal government is more aware of it this time, but also the Russians are doing different things this time, no doubt.

I’m afraid what I think is that there are probably an awful lot of people who are doing this—including people who are much more important in the media than those guys—and that there’s just no way we’re going to catch very many of them before November. That’s my gut feeling.

While we’re on Russia, I do want to talk about Ukraine, especially since you’re there right now. I think one of the most unfortunate aspects of [the media’s coverage of] foreign wars—the Ukraine war and also the Israel-Hamas war—is just the way they inevitably fade into the background of the American news cycle, especially if no American boots are on the ground. I’m curious if this dynamic frustrates you as a historian.

Oh, a couple points there. One is, I’m going to point out slightly mean-spiritedly that the stories about war fatigue in Ukraine began in March 2022. As a historian, I am a little bit upset at journalists. I don’t mean the good ones. I don’t mean the guys I just saw who just came back from the front. [I mean] the people who are sitting in DC or New York or wherever, who immediately ginned up this notion of war fatigue and kept asking everybody from the beginning, “When are you going to get tired of this war?” We turned war fatigue into a topos almost instantaneously. And I found that really irresponsible because you’re affecting the discourse. But also, I feel like there was a kind of inbuilt laziness into it. If war fatigue sets in right away, then you have an excuse never to go to the country, and you have an excuse never to figure out what’s going on, and you have an excuse never to figure out why it’s important.

So I was really upset by that, and also because there’s just something so odd about Americans being tired of this war. We can get bored of it or whatever, but how can we be tired? We’re not doing a damn thing. We’re doing nothing. I mean, there’s some great individual Americans who are volunteering and giving supplies and stuff, but as a country, we’re not doing a damn thing. I mean, a tiny percentage of our defense budget—which would be going to other stuff anyway—insead goes to Ukraine.

And by the way, Ukrainians understand that Americans have other things to think about. I was not very far from the front three days ago talking to soldiers, and their basic attitude about the election and us was, like, “Yeah, you got your own things to think about. We understand. It’s not your war.” But as a historian, the thing which troubles me is pace, because with time, all kinds of resources wear down. And the most painful is the Ukrainian human resource. That’s probably a terribly euphemistic word, but people die and people get wounded and people get traumatized. Your own side runs out of stuff.

We were played by the Russians, psychologically, about the way wars are fought. And that stretched out the war. That’s the thing which bothers me most. You win wars with pace and you win wars with surprise. You don’t win wars by allowing the other side to dictate what the rules are and stretching everything out, which is basically what’s happened. And with that has come a certain amount of American distraction and changing the subject and impatience. I think journalists have made a mistake by making it into a kind of consumer thing where they’re sort of instructing the public that it’s okay to be bored or fatigued. And then I think the Biden administration made a mistake by not doing things at pace and allowing every decision to take weeks and months and so on.

What do you think another Trump presidency would mean for the war and for America’s commitment to Ukraine?

I think Trump switches sides and puts American power on the Russian side, effectively. I think Trump cuts off. He’s a bad dealmaker—that’s the problem. I mean, he’s a good entertainer. He’s very talented; he’s very charismatic. In his way, he’s very intelligent, but he’s not a good dealmaker. And a) ending wars is not a deal the way that buying a building is a deal, and b) even if it were, he’s consistently made bad deals his whole career and lost out and gone bankrupt.

So you can’t really trust him with something like this, even if his intentions were good—and I don’t think his intentions are good. Going back to the strongman thing, I think he believes that it’s right and good that the strong defeat and dominate the weak. And I think in his instinctual view of the world, Putin is pretty much the paradigmatic strongman—the one that he admires the most. And because he thinks Putin is strong, Putin will win. The sad irony of all this is that we are so much stronger than Russia. And in my view, the only way Russia can really win is if we flip or if we do nothing. So, because Trump himself is so psychologically weak and wants to look up to another strongman, I think he’s going to flip. But even if I’m wrong about that, I think he’s incompetent to deal with a situation like this. Because he wants the quick affirmation of a deal. And if the other side knows you’re in a hurry, then you’ve already lost from the beginning.

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ask-codeearasure · 16 days ago

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Oh... a part of me fuckin figured this kid was a Republican, or at least a Republican mouthpiece, but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt at first. But now, get ready for that kid to use Cross being Trans Coded to be one of their reasons for accusing Jakei of being a pedophile next, since that is where red party mouthbreathers always seem to go next with anything transgender related. I'm calling it right now.

If you haven't read my essay of why Trans Coded characters are important, go do so, it comes into play here and why Republicans are constantly attacking them and why characters that aren't Cishet, Male, and White are always called "Political". If not directly, then indirectly under the guise it's going to "groom children" and "confuse them", amongst other false talking points used to demonize the LGBTQIA+ community.

I've always said this, but I'll say it here and now, Republicans LOVE to minimize their accusations and attacks as being "a different opinion" when deep down, they know it's anything BUT.

If you look at the way Republicans are complaining about their families going no-contact with them and uninviting them from holidays, family gatherings, or even just complete exclusion, they always say "It's just a different opinion! They are cutting me off for a different opinion!!!" When they know that's not exactly the case, but they are not going to say what the actual reason is. They use the First Amendment as a weak defense for what they say as "I have the Freedom of Speech!" but don't acknowledge that one's Freedom of Speech DOES NOT MEAN there's no such thing as "Freedom from Consequences".

Let's say it how it is. These people know it's about morals, giving a shit about the people around them (which extends into the state of society as a whole), and ethics.

Republicans refuse to admit they completely lack morals and that lack of morality makes them dangerous. You could stretch it and say they don't have a conscience either, but really, it's clear the problem these people have is outright stupidity, not a complete lack of a little voice in their head telling them the shit they subscribe to perhaps isn't a good idea.

This kid tried to say "Oh, Jakei didn't understand what I meant!" Then proceeded to not clarify what they supposedly meant and then turned around and accused everyone of having Main Character Syndrome.

What else could they have possibly meant when they outright said they believed that Cross being confirmed to be Trans Coded was to get attention from the Trans Community?

If that isn't what you meant...? Then what the fuck else could you have meant?

How else are we supposed to take it???

But that's just it, isn't it?

That WAS what they meant. That WAS how it was supposed to be taken, they just don't like that it makes them look like a complete and total piece of shit. It's almost like actions speak louder than words here.

Republicans hate being seen as a bad person, so they will gaslight you and refuse to ever admit they want to hurt others and get kicks out of it.

And look at what the kid does. They didn't like the fact that everyone fucking tore them a new one, proceeded to try to gaslight everyone by saying that Jakei didn't understand what they meant to try to make her look like the "confused" bad guy, and then accused everyone else of having Main Character Syndrome. This is also a form of projection, putting themself on a pedestal of "everyone got mad, so they must be wrong. Therefore I refuse to change my opinion to keep making the "bad guys" mad!" They are not looking at the reactions of everyone around them as a lens of "perhaps I was wrong, I should change my opinion and improve as a person". They're not actually questioning what's wrong. They just see everyone upset and assume they've got all the power here, because in order to avoid genuinely considering what they've done wrong, everyone else must be wrong. This is a very common mental gymnastic used to avoid change.

This pattern of behavior and responses is what we call DARVO, and it is prevalent in the political and psychological fields. It stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim, and Offender.

Republicans LOVE using DARVO in their debates, it's their go-to when it comes to attacking left-wing content creators, anyone on the left, or populations of people they just don't like (and always out of intentional ignorance).

They will always use it to ensure that they gain control of the conversation and make themselves look good, mainly to themselves. It's why they make nonsensical whataboutisms and accuse others of extreme crimes despite not having any evidence to back it up.

It's a way to get the actual victims to shut the fuck up so they can continue running their mouth comfortably. With no competition to their views, they can avoid questioning their beliefs and quality of character based off those beliefs.

And what do we have here?

A person who uses Republican Talking Points to demonize transgenderism.

And then now used Cross being Trans Coded as a way to attack Jakei again under the guise her advocating for transgender people has a harmful and/or self-serving ulterior motive.

And then is using DARVO to try to gaslight everyone they can to make themself look like the actual victim, because the poor baby can't handle the justified backlash to their behavior.

By these terms of beliefs and behavior, they are a Republican (perhaps not legitimately but by current definition) who is predictable and will always be predictable because once you know how to recognize and analyze Republican Propaganda, you can expect their every move and what they are always aiming for.

Sorry to make another post on this. This was meant to be a fandom blog, not a politics blog.

-- Ouija

#utmv #undertale #underverse cross #crosssans #cross sans #jakei95 #jakeisupport #jakei #Xtale #xtale cross #xtale sans #xtale #cross is trans #trans coded cross #transgender #fuck republicans #fuck republikkkans #message from ouijas board

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low-budget-korra · 6 days ago

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Arcane Hot Takes

1. The hate on Jayce is mostly for no reason. He was a good guy, genuinely nice and with no toxic masculinity. He never created Hextec to be a weapon or to destroy the world. And only got really mad when Jinx stole his creation and honestly? He had the right to be mad at that. He ain't perfect, he made mistakes but c'mon guys.

2. If you hate on s2 Caitlyn but idolize Silco, you're a hypocrite. The difference is that Caitlyn did all blinded by grief while Silco did blinded by the thirst for power

And speaking of Silco…No, he is not this revolutionary man some of the fandom make him out to be. He was a Mafia boss who filled the streets with drugs, divided and weakened his own community and even used child work in his factories. Yeah, he was not some Che Guevara freedom fighter. All he had was beautiful speeches abt it.

And also not this perfect father figure for Jinx, as he kept filling her paranoias and manipulating her

3. The writers made a miracle managing to end the show in a nice way, but the truth is that Arcane needed at least one more season to be perfect.

In s2 they rely too much on characters' micro expressions and subtext. Which is not a bad thing at all, but in a first view a lot of things get missed

I already saw s2 three times, so if you think things were poorly explained, try to watch a second time. Better, binge s1 and s2 and I guarantee that a lot of stuff you think was outta nowhere, will make sense.

4. Caitlyn had the best character arc in season 2. Experiencing the phases of grief, getting radicalized and manipulated, opening her eyes and realizing what she was doing, a subtle yet important redemption.

And I Say "subtle" bc even if for me it was obvious, I know for a lot of people, it wasn't.

Also, the haters don't want her to recognize what she did wrong bc she already did, just not with those on the nose dialogues. The haters wanted her to be punished, which she also was. Girl was stabbed in the abdomen, betrayed by her right hand, was almost executed in front of her men, got beat up with a knife still in her abdomen and lost an eye. Yeah, I think she was punished enough and if you wanted more, just admit that you are a bit sadistic and move on

5. Arcane is fiction. Sure, it takes insp in real life problems but is still fiction. Its cool to be able to recognize the themes but project our world problems, anger and frustration towards the characters is stupid and makes you miss a lot of good stuff in the show. If you act radical abt the show, you don't have the right to judge someone that goes radical after losing her mom to a terrorist attack.

It doesn't matter if her mother was rich or something. In fact, Cassandra was one of the few council members, maybe the only one, who actually did something good for the Zaunites as she was the one that created those air filters for people in Zaun, the workers, be able to breathe without getting cancer or smt.

Yes, I know it's the bare minimum but she was the only one doing something. Heimerdinger in his 200y never did something like that and only tried to help Zaun when he was expelled from the council.

6. Vi didn know Jinx was wanting to off herself. Jinx already tricked her a couple times before and “breaking the circle” , from Vi’s pov could mean a lot of things. From offing herself to explode things again. She doesn't watch Arcane guys, she doesn't know Jinx as well as we do.

7. Having Zaunites helping Piltover in the battle wasn't lazy writing or disrespectful. It was literally about the fate of their world, y'all thing Ambessa and Viktor would stop with just Piltover? Who y'all think would be the next target?

They also used the enforcers uniform because it is a tactical one, useful in a situation like a battle. I can hate on the police all I want but in a situation like that, I would rather go to battle with that stupid uniform and bullet proof vest than go on a simple tank top, jeans and converse.

And this shows how better the Zaunites are compared to Piltover and it's enforcers. They were willing to shallow their hate, their pride and help their oppressors for the greater good. That's a good heart, maturity and emotional intelligence.

#Arcane #caitvi #vi arcane #jinx arcane #silco arcane #caitlyn kiramman #jayce talis #jayce arcane #ambessa medarda #viktor arcane

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ghost-proofbaby · 2 years ago

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twenty four hours (modern!eddie munson x fem!reader)

HOUR ONE

in which eddie munson and you absolutely hate each other's guts. what happens when your friends make a bet that you can't spend more than twenty four hours consecutively together?

→ tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn

→ warnings: strong language, eventual smut, upside down does not exist, minors dni, excessive use of pet names (to annoy reader), excessive use of fuck (again, to annoy reader)

→ pairings: modern!college!eddie x college!fem!reader

→ wc: 3.1k+

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

1:00 ─ㅇ───────────────── 24:00

HOUR ONE - 4:00 PM

You had a lot of regrets. You were a college student – it was hardwired in your psyche to make an endless stream of stupid decisions you would come to rue.

There was that time you signed up for an 8 AM math class during your freshman year. There was the time your boss walked in on you spitefully gossiping specifically about him and his lack of leadership skills (you had been fired the next week, no surprise). There was that time Steve Harrington convinced you to get matching tattoos with him while drunk last summer, and now you had to explain to each new person you met why you had a ghost giving a thumbs down with a speech bubble stating ‘BOO’ on your ankle.

You had made plenty of dumb mistakes, enough to last you a lifetime.

But this? This had to take the trophy home for your worst impulsive decision yet.

“I’m not going in there,” you huff, crossing your arms as you lean miserably against the wall across from the open door of apartment 2C. An apartment you’d avoided ardently over the last year. To the point of even braving severe FOMO after turning down hanging out with your friends, solely because they’d be hanging out here.

“C’mon,” Steve stands in the threshold, waiting impatiently for your tantrum to end. You had to hand it to him – he had a way of being beautifully tolerant of your misbehavior over the years. All your sour moods, all your childish antics, all your moody mornings. Steve was there for them all the last three years, “Five hundred dollars, remember? You just have to survive a day, and then you’ll be rich.”

There it was – the only thing that could possibly motivate you to make such a catastrophic agreement with alcohol and drugs out of the equation. Money.

It had taken nearly an hour for everyone to agree on the terms the night before when the bet was first born, but in the end, it seemed fair enough to all involved parties. The wager was five hundred dollars for you and five hundred dollars for Eddie if you two managed, partially funded by your friends pooling their money and partially funded by the Harrington Inheritance. The two of you would set base in Eddie’s apartment, considering you were living in the dorms, and you were instructed to send hourly proof to the group chat. A group chat, that ironically, Eddie was not a part of.

You’re not sure why. You never cared to ask.

Regardless, five hundred dollars was a lot of money to a broke college student. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d managed to keep more than one hundred dollars in your account for more than a few hours. It was the kind of money that could pay for a few months’ worth of groceries, that would give you the freedom to properly go out rather than settle for another night in with movies your friend group had already seen ten times over. The kind of money you would probably flounder with once it was in your hand.

“And if I don’t survive?” you sigh dramatically, leaning further into the wall, your bag you’d packed for your time growing heavier in your grasp, “What if, he, like, murders me, Steve?”

“He’s not going to murder you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“If he was going to, he already would have.”

“I’ve never been around him long enough to give him a chance! What if that’s the only reason he agreed? What if this was his plan all along? He gets me alone for twenty four hours, I mysteriously disappear, and next thing you know, they find my body in the local canal-”

“While I’m flattered you think so highly of me that I would be capable of planning something so extensively,” the devil himself appears behind Steve’s shoulder, looking to be just as irritated as you, “Harrington’s right. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now.”

“Right. Cause that’s reassuring,” you snap in Eddie’s direction.

Steve takes a deep breath, no doubt mentally preparing himself for whatever bickering is about to ensue as he sidesteps so he’s not stuck in the middle of your line of fire.

“Listen, are we doing this or not? Because if not, I’ve got shit to do,” Eddie glowers at you, tapping his foot impatiently.

You hate him. You really, really hate him. In the most earnest sense of the word. He was impossible, he was cocky, he was obnoxious. And it never helped that he hated you just as much, always adding fuel to the fire. From the moment the two of you had met, it was instant friction. You said go, he said stop. You wanted pizza, he wanted Chinese. Every time a small, mundane decision had to be made as a group, he’d be sure to announce his opinion, always the opposite of yours.

You’re convinced he solely exists to be the bane of your existence. It’s probably the best part of his day.

“Five hundred dollars,” you mutter under your breath, finally lifting your bag and leaving your spot against the wall. It was now or never. If you didn’t get this over with now, you’d walk away and be army-crawling financially through life again. You needed the five hundred dollars more than you care to admit.

It had to be worth it. It had to be.

The moment you enter the apartment, you’re hit with the scent of him. Something musky, something of subtle spice. It’s all tobacco and pot, cheap cologne and boy. It’s easily overwhelming, and you almost turn around to make a cheap shot at Eddie regarding it before Steve shuts the front door and engages him into conversation.

Maybe you’d get used to it within the first few hours.

The rest of the apartment is decorated exactly how you’d expect from Eddie. There’s a certain messy quality to it all without being dirty. The couch looks worn, probably having not been brand new to begin with when Eddie found or bought it. There’s a coffee table covered in random papers, joined by two empty beer bottles and a couple of random dice. He has a TV, albeit small, and the entertainment center that it stands upon is littered by various nerdy collector’s items.

“Welcome to my palace,” he calls out from behind you, no longer distracted by Steve, “Sorry if it’s not up to your standards.”

“It’s fine,” you gruffly reply, turning back around to look at him, “Where, uh, can I put my things?”

The wicked grin that slowly spreads over his face can only spell out bad news, “Wherever. You’ll be sleeping on the couch.”

“Dude,” Steve sighs.

“What? It’s a one bedroom apartment, and I’m not giving her my bed,” Eddie explains as he brushes past the two of you and heads for his kitchen.

If it were anyone else, you’d insist that it’s fine. Practicality tells you that he shouldn’t have to give up his bed. It’s his apartment, his room, his bed – in short, his rules. But it’s Eddie, so the fact that he’s made this decision without you only stokes the burning coals of disdain. Plus, the couch looked like the farthest thing from comfortable.

“Whatever,” you scoff. You weren’t going to let him know he was already creeping beneath your skin. You were playing the long game here; you were going to start off civil, keep track of just how many offenses he committed against you, and then strike back. “It’s just one night. I’ll live.”

“Unless I murder you!” his voice calls out to you and Steve from the kitchen.

“Unless he murders me,” you agree with a scowl.

Steve puts a caring hand on your shoulder, forcing a frown that’s completely insincere before he says, “What do you want on your gravestone? Also, what’s your preference for flowers at your funeral?” He breaks into laughter as you smack him roughly on his shoulder, “Sorry! Sorry, geez. Just want to have all my ducks in the row. I’ll be sure to ask him the same thing.”

Part of you is absolutely convinced this can only end in bloodshed. You can’t recall a single time you and Eddie have lasted more than ten minutes in a room together without escalating into a full blown screaming match. There was even a time you’d thrown a glass at him at one of Steve’s parties, narrowly missing his head as he’d ducked and let the glass shatter against the wall of the shared apartment with Robin. You’d felt awful remorse towards Steve in the end. As for Eddie? You’d only wished your aim had been better.

Steve disappears into the kitchen and you’re left alone once more, wandering as you inspect some of the collectibles more closely by the TV. Most items were from the Lord of the Rings franchise, a few Star Wars items, and an abundance of D&D figurines. All things that you went through phases of piqued interest for, but nothing terribly exciting. They had been just that – phases. Apparently, when it came to Eddie, such things didn’t exist. The apartment really just looked as if someone had taken a teenage boy’s room, and let it explode over more extensive square footage. As if he entered the typical phases for boys his age in high school, and never grew up.

Just as you reach out to grab one of the D&D figurines, a three-headed dragon, Eddie enters the living room with Steve at his side.

“Hey! Don’t fucking touch that!” Eddie shouts, making you jump back, finger no longer hovering over his glorified action figure.

“Jesus Christ!” you shout back just as loudly, glaring up at him, “Ever heard of an inside voice?”

He completely ignores the comment as his nostrils flare and he stands between you and the entertainment center, “We need to set some ground rules. Rule one, do not touch my shit, especially this stuff. They’re collectibles, fucking rare and crazy expensive. Keep your hands to yourself, princess.”

The nickname is a match, striking against the roughness of your hatred, ready to burst into the flames of one of the classic screaming matches between the two of you. Steve can see it clear as day.

He clears his throat immediately, “Alright, alright. Calm down, children,” you open your mouth to argue against that nickname, but he doesn't leave pause for you to interject, “I’m leaving now. I know we joked about you two killing each other but…. Just, please don’t? It’s not worth it. Think of the money.”

Eddie’s jaw clenches, his eyes unmoving from you as you muster up just as hateful of a glare.

“Hey! Are you two listening to me?” he claps his hands, and the staring contest ends as you both reluctantly offer him your attention, “I’m serious. Who knows? Maybe you two can come out of this friends.”

Friends. The mere idea makes you cackle cruelly, Eddie balking immediately.

“As if,” you sneer as Eddie spits, “Over my dead body.”

Steve simply shrugs, “You say that now. We’ll see what changes over the next twenty four hours.”

Nothing, you want to say. Nothing is going to change over the next twenty four hours, except I’ll be five hundred dollars richer.

You join Eddie in walking Steve back to the door, even though you technically don’t have to because, technically, it’s not your apartment. But it’s still the polite thing to do, and Steve is still your friend, so you do.

Eddie opens the door, and you stand a few steps away from them, shifting back and forth on your feet awkwardly. Steve pauses to check the watch on his wrist before turning and facing the two of you a final time.

“Alright, so, it’s currently four-fifteen. That means you-” he pauses and points directly to you, “-need to send proof of you both being alive, well, and still together at five-fifteen. You guys can leave the apartment, but you have to go with each other, and you can’t ditch each other wherever you might end up going. Capiche?”

“Capiche,” you answer in monotone, Eddie not saying a word.

“Good. Oh, by the way,” Steve already has one foot out the door, and you know it’s deliberate. Whatever he’s about to say, you’re not going to be happy about, “Expect randomized calls from all of us throughout it all. Including through the night. Cool? Cool! See you guys tomorrow, and keep your phones charged!”

Both you and Eddie are already attempting to argue, immediately upset by this detail that was kept from both of you, but Steve is already jogging down the hallway, away from the chaotic outburst.

“What the fuck?” Eddie says in annoyance, his face twisted terribly, “I didn’t agree to be babysat during this. I just want my fucking money.”

Even though you were also seething at the additional rule, you opt instead to make a comment to get under Eddie’s skin rather than complain in agreement. “I think you forgot an F-bomb somewhere in there.”

“Oh?” he turns to you, letting the door slam shut as he swings his arm, “My fucking bad. I fucking guess I should fucking watch my fucking language, yeah? Fucking oops.”

“Has anyone told you you’re fucking annoying?” you ask in contempt.

“Yeah. You.”

He stalks away from his entry way at that, clearly pleased at getting the last word in this argument. And it nearly kills you, because you have no choice but to follow him back into his living room.

It’s going to be a long twenty four hours.

He’s clearly heading towards the couch to sit down, and you can’t fathom staying in close proximity for another moment, so you begin to veer towards the kitchen.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks suddenly once your back is turned to him.

“The kitchen?” you glance over your shoulder, lifting an eyebrow, “Or is that not allowed?”

“Why are you going to the kitchen?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because it’s my fucking apartment.”

Right. He has a point. You won’t tell him that, but he has a point.

He’s rerouted himself from the couch towards the hallway you’re about to enter, towering over you as his lips settle into a predictable frown.

“Can you go more than ten seconds without dropping an F-bomb? Seriously,” you question, crossing your arms, “I just want water or something. Is that a crime?”

“To answer your first question,” he shifts around your body in the tight space, his hand brushing your hip. Both of you jump back at the contact as if even touching each other burns, “No. I fucking can’t. Not when I know it bothers you so much, sweetheart,” he’s once again using a nickname he knows will irritate you on purpose as he walks into what you assume the kitchen is. And once again, you’re following behind him like a lost puppy, having to swallow your pride like a jagged pill, “Secondly, one of my rules is to not touch my shit, so… Yeah. It is a crime by the law of the land.”

“Law of the land?” you snort, rolling your eyes, “My God. What are you going to do? Call the police? ‘Hello, yes, 911? I’d like to report a crime. A girl I voluntarily let into my home got herself a glass of water.’”

You choose to purposefully pitch your voice higher rather than lower as you clearly mock him. It gets the reaction you were seeking out - his entire body stiffens as he stops in front of a cabinet.

“Congratulations,” he says slowly, turning at an agonizing pace to face you, “It’s a new record. It’s been less than five minutes alone, and you’ve already gotten on my fucking nerves.”

“Good,” is all you can reply.

He huffs in response before he goes back to whatever he was doing before, opening the cabinet to expose a small assortment of glasses and mugs alike. None of them match – all of them were clearly either bought at different times, or gifts, in the mugs case. They’re the type you might find at Spencer’s, all pop culture references or character faces. He grabs one of the smaller, plain clear cups, turning around to hand it to you.

Before your hand can wrap around it, he yanks it back momentarily, “Now, if you decide to throw this cup at my head like a raging bitch, it’s plastic. Minimal damage. Keep that in mind, yeah?”

Once he’s gotten in his smart-ass remark, he lets you take the cup from him.

So he’s also thinking of Steve’s party. Good to know.

“That’s fine. I’ve practiced my throws since then. I’m aiming for your crotch next time.”

If you two were friends, it might be funny. You would have said it in light-hearted cadence, he would have thrown his head back in laughter, and it could be passed off as a simple inside joke between two acquaintances. But you aren’t friends, and you say it in a convincingly serious tone, and he doesn’t even smile.

“You can get water from the fridge,” he informs you flatly, “Try not to break it.”

“It’s a fridge that dispenses water. I know how it works, asshole. I’ve used one before.”

“You never know,” he shrugs. You expect him to walk away, to leave you to it, but instead he leans against his counter and watches you.

And he thought he was the one being babysat over simple phone calls?

You choose to bite your tongue for once as you fill the cup half full of water, taking your time as you sip some down, feeling his eyes on you the entire time.

It’s only been a few seconds of silence. Blissful, wonderful, divine silence. But of course, it’s Eddie, and the moment he notices you begin to relax, he has to speak up and ruin it.

“If I knew all it takes to shut you up is to keep your mouth occupied, sweetheart, I would have done it sooner,” he comments, and it takes practiced patience to slowly lower the cup and swallow what water is in your mouth without bursting with rage. But he has to comment on even that, “Aw, and you swallow? Just full of surprises, aren’t ya?”

You turn to him, face flooding a brilliant shade of red as your eyes narrow. In the most virulent tone you can muster, you only respond with, “I hate your guts.”

He grins. It’s not friendly – it’s downright bellicose. “The feeling’s mutual.”

Yeah. It’s going to be a very long twenty four hours.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #twenty four hours #there will be no y/n by the way haha #this was fun i love dropping this when i know half my mutuals are sleeping #happy friday or saturday depending on where you are!!

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