#he draws a line in the sand there

[loganslowdown4]

Janus: Darling, can you do me a favour?

Remus: I would literally cover up a murder you committed, plant my DNA at the scene of the crime, and take the blame for you-

Janus: Cool, can you do the dishes?

Remus: No

[travelling-hydaelyn]

Lahabrea possessed Thancred before this questline even started which means these are back to back Laha interactions. Here is how he greets the WoL in the Waking Sands immediately after his Disney villain introduction.

Meanwhile in Minfilia's solar:

presumably he took a brief break from running Alphinaud's errands to go dramatically laugh at the WoL

[faaun]

we sang in the aeroplane over the sea tgth ☆

[phantomrose96]

ohhh the noise of glee i made when Mendoza went back for that ladder. Carson fucked up the second he tried to make "you'll never have to see me again" part of his salespitch, 'cos there was a far faster and easier way of pulling that one off.

(938 Seconds Per Second)

Yup yup yup.

Carson fucked up the second he -gestures at everything-. But he truly fucked up with the very last thing he said about Sampson. Because that took the two "I never have to see Garret Carson again" options and narrowed them down to one clear choice.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

i've written quite a few nobby scenes this week... and somehow they keep devolving into religion?

I think because the subject lends itself to the quintessential Bird-at-Barrow-Central-ish mood, right between heartbreaking and funny.

47 sighed, and then looked at Coppernob very steadily. "To tell truth, Nobby? I always liked listening to those old yarns from the Joint Lines—they were some of the best stories I ever heard—but they were just... stories."

" 'Stories'," repeated Coppernob. But he said it very neutrally.

"I don't mean any disrespect! But they are just tales, ain't they? I don't think there is an engine god. There's only the men's God... and He has no truck with us."

"To be sure. But He didn't give us souls, and the men didn't give us souls—so they came from somewhere."

"Why shouldn't He have given us souls? Perhaps He does. He's given souls to men who have had a far worse life than me—and who went to their end with less hope. Perhaps our souls are His work, and he just doesn't care for us. That makes better sense than the Lady stories. Coz then there should have to be a god for the ships, shouldn't there? An' the autos, and the submarines—and the aeroplanes!" 47 rolled his eyes at the last, this being a self-evidently absurd notion.

Coppernob was unmoved. "Perhaps they have. The ships do worship something, though they're very secretive about it—as they ought to be. I shouldn't blab to them, about our mysteries."

"But the aeroplanes, Nobby? Come now!"

[ropebunnykant]

it was sand that drew the 'we will just be friends' barrier in the start of their relationship, ray has given sand a number of chances to cross that barrier and then sand blows him off. after the argument with boston at sand's apartment ray tells sand to ask him about mew, and then sand says it's none of his business. then at the pool scene ray asks sand if he has an issue with ray liking mew, and sand says its none of his business again. numerous times ray has asked sand if sand likes him, he's been pushing for a confession. sand always blows him off and never asks ray about his feelings. sand never goes to find ray it's always ray trailing after sand. ray is dumb for not just outright admitting he likes sand too, both buffoons are obviously terrified of rejection but i feel like ray has been a bit more proactive in trying to barrier that sand drew in the beginning.

here’s the thing! sand did not draw that line first!! like he TOLD RAY “hey if you keep kissing me/we have sex rn we’re gonna be more than friends” and then it was RAY that said they can be friends and have sex. and sand says yeah sure we can do this now but we’ll be just friends with no sex after this because i don’t do that, and then ray continues pushing things. like sand put that option for more out there and ray explicitly said no we can be friends and blur the lines a little, but sand was only okay with that happening the once if they were gonna be “just friends” and then ray keeps pushing for more and when sand questions that, ray says he doesn’t want sand as his boyfriend. and yes ray encourages sand to ask about mew in ep5, but it’s after he has reiterated multiple times that night that they’re just friends and right after sand finds out ray has had feelings for mew for forever, so it’s no shock he was not about to do that. i absolutely agree that sand has needed to make himself clearer, they both do, but there’s this misconception that sand has been drawing that hard line in the sand when he straight up hasn’t been until more recent eps

also everytime he DOES draw that line it feels way more like he’s spitting ray’s words back at him. “i wouldn’t take someone like you as my boyfriend” mirrors ray saying he doesn’t want to be sand’s boyfriend earlier in ep3. “this has nothing to do with me” in ep5 is in reference to ray saying earlier that night that they’re just friends, that he’s not sand’s boyfriend. even the pool scene and him saying they’re nothing when ray asks what they are to each other is more in reaction to the way ray has set them up. sand drawing that line is always in reaction to ray’s drawing of it. he’s reiterating what ray has said when ray expects and wants sand to make his own feelings clear

[wr0ngwarp]

um. uh. hi every body. something evil and malevolent happened in my brain this month.

this is. um. a Jet Set Radio/Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Death joke AU, spawned out of a in-joke that started in a pokepasta discord. my apologies to both the pokepasta and jsr fandoms

the entire basis is the idea that Corn in Future retconned og JSR Beat as leader/founder of the GGs (is beat being leader in the og even CANON?) so Corn and Beat are the Myras. no it's not a joke funny enough to justify how many hours i sunk into drawing these. no attempt was made to change the setting, assign most of the other cast, or otherwise make this au hold up to ANY amount of scrutiny. if i tried to make this actually work somehow then i'd REALLY end up too far gone. also i keep calling myrtle!beat "Meat".

MEANWHILE, IN A BETTER UNIVERSE:,

[brionysea]

i can make my fic able to be added to the "mike wheeler has powers" ao3 tag in ways that are SO technical and canon-typically subtextual

[isogenderskitty]

:((((( sad about ted spankoffski again what else is fuckin new

[cerealmonster15]

today is a national holiday HAPPY BIRTHDAY CATER DIAMOND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i pulled his union bday card today so here’s a bunch of caycay LOVE to CELEBRATE!!!!!!!! 🥳🥳🥳

[padfootastic]

Now I’m curious, what do you think it would take for James to walk away from Sirius, for him to say “This is where my line is, I cannot accept this about you, and now that I know you do/believe/think/whatever this, I can’t accept you either”?

i’m gonna be honest here, friend, and say i don’t think there’s anything. it might be unrealistic and/or too cheesy, but i think james would accept everything sirius had to offer.

like idk, i’m just trying to think of a scenario that’s straight up unacceptable for james and i just. can’t.

would there be things that would make him question his own beliefs/convictions? sure. like sirius becoming a death eater—he’d have to fight his own objective morality to make space for sirius. but i don’t think that’ll lead to him completely abandoning him, ykno?

regardless of whatever sirius does, even if they become estranged, i think james would always leave a line of communication open to him if he wants to come to him. he wouldn’t be able to stand being like sirius’ family and fully giving up on him, even if it’s not healthy for him, yeah?

that being said, i’m curious if there’s anyone out there who has a different opinion on this.

[arise-for-turtle-time]

The dynamic in Rise between the rest of the team and Leo is. so fucking funny. Because like you've got these three extremely talented individuals who all seem like perfectly reasonable people at first glance, right, but then if you squint hard enough you realize they're actually all batshit insane (affectionate) and the clown boy standing behind them is secretly their common sense.

Clown boy will occasionally put himself and the others in danger to Prove Himself or Prove Someone Wrong (see Minotaur Maze and the movie) but like otherwise... i think people forget Leo's overwhelmingly the voice of reason in most situations?

Raph, Mikey, and Donnie are all incredibly powerful boys with very specific skill sets. They are also, as a direct result of this, the WORST decision-makers on god's green earth lmao. When presented with a problem, Raph will smash, Donnie will blow shit up, and Mikey will razzmatazz. They will all run straight toward death with the same oblivious enthusiasm of a dog about to run straight into a screen door. None of them realize this and all of them think they are Extremely Good At Problem-Solving.

And the guy cursed with the common sense to realize this is literally the LAST person anyone would expect.

When you look closely, the entirety of Rise is actually a chronicle of Leo trying to find new and creative ways to keep this team of superpowered fools alive while simultaneously white-knuckling his Cool Fun Guy persona so the others don't realize he's secretly the Boring Responsible One. Haha, you know what would be Cool and Fun, guys? Not going after the Spine Breaking Bandit lol. Getting home before the sun goes up lol. Evacuating that civilian lol. Not telling the guy dangling me off a roof "you won't, no balls" lol.

The sacred struggle of every iteration of Leonardo is thanklessly wrangling the most trigger-happy siblings in the world, and Rise Leo has not escaped it. He just does an occasional shenanigan to avoid detection and his brothers fall for it every time.

[palmettoshenanigans]

Listen, you know why Andrew loves Neil? Why Neil Abram Josten was the one Andrew would allow into his inner space, to allow growing roots where Andrew keeps the remaining fragments of his heart?

Because hardly anyone respects Andrew's boundaries. Renee does. Bee does. Wymack does. Andrew respects his own boundaries to the point of enforcing them at knife point.

But Neil? Neil Abram Josten?

He views Andrew's boundaries as sacred.

Renee, Bee, and Wymack would view crossing Andrew's boundaries as disrespectful at best and a violation at worst. They earned his trust that way.

But NEIL???

Neil views crossing Andrew's boundaries as a fucking sin. As blasphemous. A devoted disciple would sooner spit in their God's face than Neil ever conceiving of crossing Andrew's boundaries.

Some people would look at you erecting brick walls covered in barbed wire and would start looking for a good crack to aim a sledgehammer. Some people would watch you lock a door and try knocking, just once, to see if you'll open it for them. And some people would watch you draw a line in the sand and never dream of stepping over it.

Neil parked his ass on the other side of Andrew's barbed wired multi-layered brick wall surrounding his concrete bunker and stayed there, running his mouth. And when Andrew revealed the hidden door, Neil smiled, stayed put, and kept talking.

Andrew didn't fall for Neil because Neil wouldn't come in.

He fell because Neil waited for Andrew to come out, waited for Andrew to extend his hand, and waited for Andrew to lead him inside by his own volition.

And that's why Neil was the one who earned Andrew's "Stay".

[shotmrmiller]

the tale of how simon got himself a gf without stepping a foot outside of base.

anyone can tell you that alcohol reduces the ability to use logic. to see reason. it lowers inhibitions and blurs the boundary lines you've drawn in the sand.

but indulging in drink tonight is justified. you're in need of reprieve after this shit week: broke up with your boyfriend, deadlines at work appearing out of thin air, a flat tire on your morning commute. you even stepped on the end of your cat's tail.

miserable. (she's okay, just giving you the cold shoulder. you'll buy her some tasty snacks tomorrow.)

but for tonight, you're wallowing in your own misery. some uninteresting show is playing on the television, you're cradled by the cushions of your couch, a fluffy sherpa throw over your socked feet.

if only there was a way to melt this week's accumulated stress away even further.

cue the drunk texting your ex cliché.

anyone can tell you that it's detrimental to moving on. it's akin to reopening a wound that's already begun to heal. a step back when you should only be moving forward. your friends would drag you by your hair for being so dumb.

but there's an incessant throb in between your legs that's only getting stronger with every glass of wine you toss back. you're wound tight, violin strings stretched to the brink. a couple of bow strokes away from snapping.

you'll deal with the consequences tomorrow, along with your hangover.

typing in his (deleted in a fit of heartbroken rage) number with fumbling fingers and send a picture of you with the hem of your sleeping shirt between your teeth, the swell of your bare breasts on full display with a cheeky little missing you <3

he responds in minutes even though it's 2:30am.

send a vid and show me how much you miss me.

it makes your pussy clench around nothing, already slick, drooling, begging to be filled. you sink your teeth into your bottom lip as you bring up the camera.

when simon first gets the text, he's on edge, gripping his phone hard enough to crack. no one should have this number except for price, johnny and kyle. he's made sure of it-- had laswell pull strings to give him a secure line. no scam likely's, no cold calls, nothing.

but then some silly little bird dials his number by mistake and the sweet cherry on top is that you've sent a nude. breasts on full display-- soft looking, hard peaked. it makes his mouth water, his gums itch. he'd love to sink his teeth into them, into you, hard enough to bruise. mark. claim.

but that's for later, once he finds you.

he texts back and what you send him in response fattens his cock. a small hand tucked beneath the waistband of your flimsy knickers, gusset dampened with warm arousal. you lick your bottom lip, leaving it glossy with spit. your chest heaves with the sharp gasps of breath you're drawing.

but there's a problem. he can barely see what you're doing. he doesn't have x-ray vision, your knickers are in the way. while he can understand the allure, he himself doesn't have the patience for it. either you let him see your bare cunt or don't waste his time.

he wasn't expecting you to agree this fast. maybe a bit of push back, a little snapping of teeth until you relent but no. you're an obedient thing. submissive. just how he likes 'em. (if he wants to break someone in, that's what johnny's for.)

soft, inviting thighs spread wide, a couple of fingers curling inside your glistening cunt. (duly noticing how your 2 fingers are the size of 1 of his.) your moans spill from your lips unreservedly when you roll your pearl in tight, precise little circles. he spits on his hand, heavy length resting in his calloused palm and tugs himself at the pace you've set: jerky, quick, messy.

you come with a whimper, eyes shut and pliant body coiled tight. a frothy, sticky cream coats your fingers, dripping down to your arse, pooling on your couch.

you miss me too? sent 3:27 am

(he decides to keep you. simon can't remember the last time he's had a climax that spine stiffening in a while.)

[nebuletteart]

Gonna be real this post feels incredibly disingenuous. Have Psyops cropped up in the past? Yes. Eternally. Are there likely bots and real folks pushing people not to vote in the election for bad faith reasons? Of course! But this attitude that anyone you see disillusioned with the voting system who are loudly against voting is some fuckin foreign bad actor seems incredibly short sighted. It leads to a breakdown in communication where no one will listen to those hurt and frustrated with the democratic party. Worse off it pushes people away from any solution because if you wont look at the festering wound you will never bandage it. (incoming rant for about 3 paragraphs, skip to the last two if you want a more constructive and coolheaded response lol)

The way I see it both parties do work in tandem. The Republican party is determined to radicalize their base and go to further and further extremes, feeding off an uneducated, deeply frustrated and scared, population. But the Democratic party is HAPPY with this! This is their strategy. There is a reason the Democratic party rarely fulfills their promises, there is a reason that whenever they have the chance they never secure human rights, the reason is because they can hold it over us like jingling keys. all they have to do is wait for us to get desperate enough to vote for them because they're better than the other guys, let the republicans loudly and proudly declare their awful intentions. if the democrats lose, well, they look like the good guys! minorities suffer and they pull on our leash, and when the next election cycle comes we are desperate to vote for them.

And if they win? They barely protect our rights, they uphold the status quo, and then they quietly turn around and do half the shit we raged at republicans about. The Wall? Biden continued building it. Covid, the thing that is still killing americans daily, the thing that killed a family member of mine and i didnt even get to say goodbye to her? The moment the Democratic Party won, despite crying that they believed is science they left us all out to dry! The Democratic Party had how many years to secure Roe v Wade since it's inception before Trump packed the court? fucking 50 years to pass the basest federal protections??? and now Lgbtq+ rights! How many years have we tried to pass the Equality Act?

And now. We gleefully watch the Democratic party fund the Palestinian Genocide. We watch our President repeat racist propaganda and the democratic party follow, to fund their bottom line. Of COURSE people are not going to want to vote! The level of backlash you are seeing isnt just some red scare ass BULLSHIT! Sigh.

Look. I will not get on someones ass for voting for Biden, I understand why someone would-- I was once a vote blue no matter who person myself and am on the fence on what to do if Biden does become the democratic frontrunner. But in this sentence is the the answer! I personally plan on and voting like hell in the Primaries which is what think is the actual solution- The Democratic Establishment does not want change, we need another candidate to beat Biden in the primaries because at this rate he is not going to win the election. You cannot blame the growing number of people burned by Bidens administration for not wanting to vote for him! so dont! Right now we are at a critical moment where Biden is so deeply unpopular with both parties that maybe, if we all pull together that force we did to get Biden in office- we can boot the old fuck out in the Primaries! We can prove to the establishment that we are tired of their shit, that we will not support their ceaseless genocide to fill their pockets! Vote every single one of those fuckers out with the venom you treat republicans with because they're both rat poison, just with a different label!

But. acting like anyone who expresses the opinion that this whole situation is a fucked up scam is stupid or a psyop accomplishes nothing- some people have been effected by the Democratic parties inaction and policies. Push them to vote in the primaries, if only to fuck over Biden. idk, i just feel like there was a better way to word this post, because as it is it reads as a dismissal of peoples genuine feelings rather than a genuine warning.

I feel like the psyops are back…

[maidenvault]

During my last rewatch of the prequels I was actually shocked by how much I've misremembered or decontextualized certain moments in my mind because of how they're often talked about in fandom as showing the Jedi as too arrogant, too bureaucratic, generally just burying their heads in the sand while everything goes bad etc. So I'm gonna try to address every individual scene that typically gets brought up to argue that this is an actual theme in Lucas's portrayal of the Order.

The Council doesn't take Qui-Gon's account of meeting a Sith seriously.

Mace and Ki Adi Mundi do both express doubt this guy could be a Sith. (Understandably! Historically they've never known Sith to be able to hide their existence, and for them to have survived totally in secret for a thousand years is a pretty wild thing for Qui-Gon to be so sure of.)

BUT Yoda admits that the dark side is hard to see, and Mace assures Qui-Gon they'll do everything to find out the identity of the attacker. Later he's ordered to go back to Naboo and try to draw out Maul to discover more. Qui-Gon accepts this and doesn't ask for backup. Why should he? He held his own against Maul before, and Maul's probably not gonna show himself again to face a ton of Jedi. They end up missing the chance to learn who trained Maul because of how things go down, but Qui-Gon's death isn't the result of the Council mishandling the situation.

At the funeral, Yoda says the presence of one Sith means there's another out there. They know they've got to be on guard now and will be, but they've got no more leads for now.

2. Qui-Gon's not here to free slaves.

There's this idea that slavery existing on Tatooine shows the Order is apparently too tied up doing shady things for self-interested politicians (footage not found) to help the people who really need it. But Padme's shocked to know the Skywalkers are slaves for a reason. The truth is there isn't a lot of slavery in the galaxy at this time because the Jedi have helped keep it that way for centuries only by working with the Republic. In TCW we see that Zygerrian slavers have a particular hatred of Jedi because they're literally The Anti Slavery People and did so much of the work to crack down on their trade. But Tatooine is controlled by the Hutts and they simply don't have the resources to start a war with them.

(And honestly, it's crazy how people talk like Qui-Gon's a monster for honestly and apologetically telling Anakin no, that's not why he's here. This is a child he's already indebted to and who has a hero-worshipping idea of Jedi, it would be fucked up for him not to be clear about how he can't help him and his mom.)

3. They doubt Dooku could be behind the assassination attempt.

This I understand shows the Jedi to be a little naive. But they knew Dooku as a good man, and at this point he and his followers are still putting on a show of wanting to secede for idealistic reasons (and a few of them, manipulated by Dooku, actually do have good intentions). Only later do the Jedi learn they're illegally building an army before they've even officially left the Republic and clearly have no interest in the peaceful resolution Padme's been advocating for. And they only find this out because they have Obi-Wan investigate the assassin and this very quickly leads him to Dooku.

4. "Arrogance, yes. A trait more and more common among Jedi. Even the older, more experienced ones."

In context, this line from Yoda is clearly not meant to be taken so seriously. Obi-Wan says he fears Anakin is too arrogant, and this is Yoda's light-hearted way of telling him not to be so hard on him. Part of training a Padawan is learning to trust them so they can grow, and Obi-Wan perhaps needs the reminder that he isn't done learning himself.

Of course Yoda saying this could be partly motivated by them having been caught off guard before by the existence of Darth Maul and the dark side clouding their awareness, as we're told repeatedly throughout the PT they know is a problem. But it's kind of contradictory to take this as confirmation that this is a serious fatal flaw of theirs. If someone acknowledges their own arrogance then they're aware of their ability to be wrong, which means they can't actually be that arrogant. If truly meant in a general sense and not just as a gentle reproof of Obi-Wan, it's a pretty self-deprecating comment coming from Yoda.

5. "If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist."

Chief Librarian Jocasta Nu gives this haughty response to Obi-Wan looking for Kamino, a system that's not in the Jedi Archives. So being so overly confident in the infallible knowledge of the Jedi, he takes her word for it and totally drops this lead.

Except no, he goes to someone older and wiser to figure out what this actually means. And he and Yoda are forced to conclude that the unthinkable - a trusted person among them somehow had reason to erase information from the archive - must nonetheless be what happened. This is honestly an exception that proves the rule: Kamino, and we can assume only Kamino, is missing from the archive only because it was removed, which is so suspicious it just shows he must be on the right track to discovering something. Jocasta is kind of snooty about it but theirs obviously is supposed to be one of the most accurate and complete databases in the galaxy.

6. Obi-Wan doesn't believe what Dooku tells him about the Senate.

For one thing, in this conversation Dooku's lying about basically everything but this. And I can't ever stress enough that Palpatine is a threat unlike anything the Jedi have ever dealt with before, who's already taken control of so much before they even know they're fighting anything, so the idea that a Sith is controlling the Senate would be really hard for anyone to believe.

Still, we know Obi-Wan reports this to the Council anyway. But it's a vague statement and they still don't have any information to act on. Palpatine soon has them very busy putting out fires in the war, and naturally fighting the Separatists who are led by Sith seems the best way for them to get to the bottom of what exactly is going on with the dark side. And they do finally turn their attention to how power-hungry Palpatine is getting once the war is nearly over and they've got the bandwidth for it, and think about what they might have to do if he's the threat to their democracy they fear, but of course he's too many steps ahead of them all the time.

---

So basically, what we see the Jedi being so guilty of in these examples are thought crimes. When confronted with the crazy explanation that happens to be true, their instinctive reaction is "No, I don't think that's possible." And then they do their due diligence to uncover as much of the truth as they can anyway. And Yoda, the Grand Master of them all, is often the first to admit that their first assumptions could be wrong. But Palpatine wouldn't be a good villain if his moves were predictable and he couldn't get an advantage over the good guys - that's just how storytelling works sometimes and it's not that deep.

It honestly felt stupid typing so much of this out because it's 90% just describing what actually happens in these scenes. But I guess it's a lot to ask that people actually carefully watch the films they discuss. 😒