#he wasn’t even angry at her

[prisonhannibal]

this is honestly one of my favorite will graham facts it’s interesting. he wasn’t even mad at molly he just gave her a present because he was mad at someone else

[angy-grrr]

spoilers for chapter 429

idk if you guys remember but ochako does have parallels with All Might, specifically as the side who saves. It’s not that he feels the same for them both or something like that, they serve to represent the type of heroism he naturally goes to; his friend is not his love interest, from his perspective she’s out there having a crisis over not being able to save her, and Izuku reminds her that she is a hero bc she is his hero -she saved him multiple times, and she should be able to feel like a proper hero.

This conversation is not about the nature of their relationship, is about heroism; Izuku relates to a conflict between being a hero who saves and failing to save someone, and doesn’t want to see Ochako ending spiraling because she couldn’t also fulfill that role as expected. She’s his hero not because he loves her romantically -he’s a nerd I’m sure he would be way more nervous and blushing if he was confessing anything he thought was romantic- but because she’s able to go and do what All Might does to Izuku, save him physically and emotionally.

He knows she hides her feelings in order to not be a burden, yet he doesn’t talk about his own feelings outside of his guilt in heroics -what does he feel about losing OFA? About his own failures? About the people he personally lost? He can’t talk for others and claim Ochako is everyone’s hero, but he can speak for himself, and that’s his personal perspective -she is a hero to him, she’s his hero. And then the class appears to make sure she’s able to get support and understand she’s not alone, and she’s important to them too.

but Izuku doesn’t get support. Izuku cries a little and talks a little about himself, but he doesn’t get supported. If this was meant to be romantic, I don’t understand why he would hold back what’s inside of him.

the end of the chapter reveals that boy is going to be helped by that woman who regretfully ignored Tenko, and they both witness it and are happy about it while hearing izuku inspired that change, and iida wonders what’s up with them -this is the conclusion to their relationship. In their hearts these two are saviors who struggle to be heroes who save others, and they are happy there are appearing more people who want to be heroes like them. Heroes who save. Save like All Might.

That grandma for example, interpreting the narrative as what I think is intended, would be that boy’s All Might; she’s his hero.

Izuku and Ochako are heroes who save, and Deku is here to remind her at least she did save him many times, that she is still a hero because she is his hero. I don’t believe is meant to be interpreted as romantic, not that Izuku sees that phrase as it neither -after all, he said he does want to be like All Might and feels good to imitate him, but he doesn’t love him.

Ochako’s All Might hair moment, the parallels with Toshinori telling him he can be a hero, the trying to save from black suffocating quirks, the we can do it and do your best…

Do I need to remind you heroes arent a romantic thing for Izuku Midoriya?

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Link sighed, listening to the crickets as he laid in the grass. Sonia was napping peacefully, a gentle, grounding weight pressed against his chest as she laid on top of him. Occasionally he tipped his head to kiss her hair, smiling at the golden curls.

They’d played all afternoon and into the evening, which technically meant she’d missed her afternoon nap. That would likely come back to bite him (or the nannies), but she was sleeping now, right? He couldn’t say no to her, honestly – they were having so much fun, and he… well, it seemed he had little impulse control when it came to his daughter. Perhaps they were both toddlers, he mused with a smile.

His mind wandered as he rested. His recent visit to Hemisi was still weighing him down, frustrating and freeing and terrifying and painful as it was. He didn’t particularly like that he couldn’t remember what had happened after they’d started drinking (surely… surely nothing too terrible—as wild as Hemisi could be, his dear friend also had principles as well… and they’d woken up in separate rooms, fully dressed…), hated that he’d let himself lose control like that, hated it even more knowing that Zelda had likely figured it would happen.

Zelda. He still couldn’t believe she’d—how could she—

Link bit his lip. He didn’t know why he was surprised, honestly. Zelda had been ordering him around since their marriage, since he’d enslaved himself and then made himself thoroughly useless.

He knew he hadn’t been doing the queen any favors. His mere acceptance of the proposal had helped her, of course—the Sheikah had been brought back into unity, the Sage of Shadow had pledged her loyalty to Zelda as a result, the people had seen it as a sign of destiny itself that everything would be fine—but since then… he’d only just recently started to step up once more. He knew that. He wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t like Zelda hadn’t been struggling and trying to rebuild a nation by herself.

But it still hurt that she would start treating him like she did the nobles. Link wasn’t an enemy, damn it. It wasn’t the fact that she’d sent him to the desert that bothered him, it was that she’d had an ulterior motive without telling him, and she’d wanted to manipulate Hemisi as well. He would not stand for that.

Sighing, the king consort rested his hand overtop his daughter’s back, trying to settle himself and only feeling bitter. He’d thought maybe their relationship was improving after he’d finally started helping, after the incident with House Ishita. He supposed he’d been wrong.

Perhaps I’m just not doing enough, an old, familiar anxiety whispered. He ignored it. That anxiety had driven him to tear himself apart his entire life, seeking the approval of others. He was sick of it. He was so sick of it.

It was foolish to assume everything would be fine. Almost four years had passed since their wedding, and neither of them had really been an admirable spouse. But as he looked down at his daughter once more, Link felt his heart soften a little. At least something good has come of it.

His mind betrayed him a moment, thoughts lingering on Hemisi for too long, wondering what it would have been like to have children with her, and he shook his head as his hand slid off his daughter. It did him no good to linger on such sentiments. He knew that by now. Why couldn’t he just accept the position he was stuck in, that he’d put himself in? Why did he have to be so angry, so hurt, so lonely? Fear gripped at his heart as he looked away from Sonia, the same fear that partly drove him to avoid her when she’d been born, because what if he took that hurt and anger out on her? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. It wasn’t her fault she was born into these circumstances.

He should have never gone to the desert.

Footsteps approached, moving at a pace that put him on edge. It wasn’t quite running, but it certainly wasn’t a casual gait.

“Your Majesty,” a guard called as he approached.

Link sat up immediately, holding Sonia so she wouldn’t be too jostled, face hardening. This couldn’t be good.

“Sire, it’s—it’s the queen,” the guard stammered breathlessly. “She’s collapsed—”

Before the guard could get another word out, Link was on his feet. “What happened? Where is she?”

Link heard council room and then taken to her quarters and moved quickly, handing off his half-asleep daughter to the nanny at the entrance to the castle. It didn’t take him long to reach Zelda’s room, and he saw her laying in bed looking paler than ever, Lady Impa at her side with a hand on her forehead.

“What’s wrong?” Link asked as he approached the bed.

“The healer said she’s sick and worn herself out,” Lady Impa answered.

“I’m f-fine,” Zelda mumbled, looking anything but fine. Her usually perfect curls were plastered to sweaty skin, bags under her eyes, face drawn and exhausted. “You can go, Link.”

Link glared at her. “I’m not leaving. You look awful.”

Zelda’s brow furrowed a little, eyes remaining closed, mouth pulling into a frown. “I’m ordering you to leave.”

Link felt his body stiffen, irritated and hurt. He wasn’t going to leave her while she was like this! But she clearly didn’t want to deal with him, and just her having the gall to order him around—

Link bit his tongue while Lady Impa looked between the royal couple, worry and sympathy in her gaze. It wasn’t her place to speak up against the queen, and she knew that. Link, however, was reaching a point where he didn’t care anymore, where he didn’t want to keep repeating this cycle any longer, and he knew exactly how to get to her.

“You’re keeping Lady Impa from her duties,” Link said curtly.

Impa immediately stiffened. “Taking care of you two is my duty, Link.”

“As are the Sheikah,” Link reminded her firmly as he watched Zelda open her eyes. “I don’t really do much around the castle, in case you hadn’t noticed, except for take care of the royal family. Given that Zelda falls into that category, it makes more sense for me to care for her so you can continue helping others. Wouldn’t you agree, Your Majesty?”

The queen frowned further. Link smiled. He had her and he knew it, and it made him feel vindicated; it was fairly common throughout his life for people to assume he couldn’t think for himself because of his quiet and obedient nature, and he knew Zelda had probably started assuming the same, so it felt good to prove her wrong. Just because he bowed over to her all the time didn’t mean he was a fool.

When the queen couldn’t come up with an argument, Link waved Impa off. “Just tell me what she needs. I’ll handle it.”

His chief sighed, glancing at Zelda once more, and then rose. Link knew that Impa was just as fiercely protective and caring for Zelda as she was for him, if not more so, but if finding a way to essentially get her out was the only way for him to take care of the queen, then he would do it. He’d apologize to her later.

“The healer’s convinced it’s just a bad cold, but given…” Impa stopped, glancing at the queen once more. “She’s… just overworked herself.”

Link watched the Sheikah chief quietly. There was more to it than that. He didn’t push, though. Not yet. Nodding, he thanked her and then sat at Zelda’s side.

“I don’t need anything,” the queen said quietly, tiredly, as Lady Impa looked at them one last time from the doorway.

“Your Majesty,” Impa called from where she was half out of the room. “Please, just… let him help you.”

Link glanced over at his chief, giving a small nod of gratitude, and then she left, closing the door behind her. The pair was silent, and Link suddenly wasn’t entirely sure what to say next. The last time they’d spoken was when he’d snapped at her in the throne room upon his return from Gerudo Desert, and that had been a week ago.

He definitely had no right to be here. But he also knew Zelda, like him, would hardly accept help from anyone. She somehow trusted people even less than he did.

“You know, when I was younger I fell prey to the same issues,” Link noted, leaning back in the chair. “I pushed myself too much, and I… learned it didn’t do me much good to not accept help.”

His heart twisted for a moment, recalling that the help came from Hemisi and Merovar, from Ganondorf. That had been a lifetime ago.

He still wondered if that monster had ever cared at all. Probably not. It didn’t matter anymore, anyway. He was gone, and with his soul split into four pieces, the primordial evil that he’d bound himself to would never return, either.

It shouldn’t still hurt, after all these years, should it?

Link shook his head. Not now. It wasn’t like Hemisi didn’t have it infinitely worse than him. He had no right to mourn anymore.

“Spare me your anecdote,” Zelda snapped tiredly. “I know I got myself into this. I’m not a child.”

“You’re right,” Link bit back. “You’re not a child, yet you choose to act like one.”

Zelda sat up, eyes opening, glaring at him weakly. “I’m not the one who lost my temper last week.”

“I’m not the one who lied to my spouse, manipulating her to make someone else fall in line with my wishes,” Link retorted before realizing this was quickly spiraling in the wrong direction. He took a calming breath, slow and steady. “Look. I… I still don’t agree with what you did. But can we put that aside to just focus on now? It doesn’t matter our opinions on what happened, you’re sick and you need to rest.”

“I don’t see how that involves you.”

“Perhaps because you look like you can hardly get out of bed,” Link snapped. “Perhaps because you probably will not be able to attend to your duties in the morning—”

“I will attend to my duties in the morning,” Zelda insisted, laying back down, voice shaking, and though she glared defiantly at the canopy of the bed, he could see fear starting to trickle in. She looked on the verge of tears.

Link didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to get through to her. He tried for one of her redeeming qualities. “Look. Hyrule needs you to be strong, but you can’t always do that all the time. The best way you can help your people is to rest.”

Zelda’s lip wobbled, and she closed her eyes as the tears quietly slid down the sides of her face. Link slipped a hand into hers, and thankfully she didn’t pull away.

“C-can… can I see Sonia?” She asked quietly.

Link’s thumb traced along the back of her hand. “In the morning, okay?”

For once, she didn’t argue. But the tears continued to fall.

Link frowned at it, feeling his chest hurt. As much as they didn’t get along, he hated seeing her like this. “I’m sorry.”

Zelda started to sob. Link’s eyes widened a little, alarmed, and he pulled away from her touch to grab a handkerchief for her. Helping the queen sit up, he let her lean against him as she buried her face in the cloth.

“I’m a—a t-terrible mother,” she cried.

Link wasn’t quite sure what to say all of a sudden. Zelda did try to be there for Sonia, but honestly the couple spent so much time avoiding each other that he wasn’t entirely sure how often she saw her. Sonia did talk about her mother, though, so that had to count for something. “She loves you, Zelda.”

The queen cried even harder, losing all composure, and Link finally just wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly.

“I don’t—I don’t know if I—if I can do this again,” she gasped between sobs.

Do… again…? Link stiffened, glancing down at his wife. “Are… are you pregnant?”

Zelda tried to halt her tears and cries, tensing up, but there was no denying it now. It explained her cold, defensive demeanor, her sudden burst of emotion, Impa’s hesitancy to leave. She was not only pregnant, she hadn’t wanted him to know.

Link swallowed, blood freezing.

That had to be the case, didn’t it? They hadn’t been physically intimate since their tour of Hyrule, and that was months ago. She must have known for a while, based on what little he did know of the process.

Unless, of course, she had found someone else to take to her bed, and that was why she had sent Link to be with Hemisi. He wasn’t sure if he should feel insulted or not. But no, it made no sense – Zelda didn’t trust anyone enough to let a man into her life like that. The only reason she and Link had a daughter was out of duty.

So the child was his. And she’d hidden it from him.

Link took another steadying breath as so many different thoughts washed over him. He bypassed that initial realization, just thinking about the fact that she was pregnant again.

Could either of them handle that?

He supposed they had to. Their actions had created the baby, after all. His actions more than anything – although Zelda had never said no to his advances, he had always been the one to instigate them on their trip across the kingdom, a means of physical release from being paraded around like a doll.

This was his fault.

Well. Technically, Zelda had been the insistent one for their first child, had always been the one to push for the matter. So… he supposed this evened things out?

Her first pregnancy. Sonia. Link hadn’t even looked at Zelda since finding out she was pregnant, not until that awful baby shower. He hadn’t looked at his daughter until six months after her birth.

Link swallowed, overwhelmed, and held her more tightly. “You’re not doing it alone this time.”

Zelda glanced up at him, fear dissolving into pure, utter vulnerability. She was so exhausted. He felt all the worse seeing it. Link tried to smile, and it only made her cry once more, burying her face into his neck.

Link hushed her gently, closing his eyes, heart racing, reeling at the fact that this was how he found out, that she was actually willing to hide it from him. Just how broken was their trust if…?

He should know better. She’d manipulated him anyway, time and again, steadily growing subtler and seemingly more sinister as a result. How was this any different?

It involved their child. That was how it was different.

Link hadn’t been involved with Zelda’s pregnancy with Sonia. He’d been too lost in himself. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t bothered to tell him. It stung either way, even more so because Lady Impa clearly had known for a while; she’d been glued to the queen’s side for weeks.

He swallowed, swallowed the hurt and frustration, the regret and shame, the fear of bringing another child into this chaos, and rested his cheek against her hair. “Get some sleep, my queen. I’ve got you.”

[dykesynthezoid]

“Armand should get to just kill Marius” tbh if Armand ever killed Marius he would pull a Sada Abe. Who said that

[shorthaltsjester]

begging twitter to stop showing me tweets of people with no reading comprehension misrepresenting things I said but since i was going to make this more in-depth post Anyway .

when i say imogen is better read as a metaphor for generational trauma than she is a metaphor for queerness or chronic pain, i’m not talking about legitimate traits she has as a character. obviously she is queer. obviously she experiences some form of chronic pain (though i would argue her magic better suits chronic illness not pain because she states that it’s Not always painful, but it does always influence how she lives her life).

when i talk about how well she’s understood as a metaphor, i’m talking about when i’m looking at her as a part of a story, as an arc that i am witnessing rather than in the more typical fandom way of this is a fictional person who interacts with exandria as real people do. and that is a fun way to interact with characters, i enjoy it a lot! but when i say imogen (to me, as i for some reason have to clarify on my own blog which implies that these are my own opinions and not absolute fact that needs to be accepted by people on the internet with different experience and opinions than me) is best read as a metaphor for generational trauma, it isn’t a dismissal of her queerness or her illness, it’s just me thinking looking at her from that angle is more compelling.

imogen has been one of my favourite characters and least favourite characters in campaign 3 because i tend to analyse her through a lens of generational trauma and she ends up looking extremely familiar to me as someone with a family that carries their’s heavily which is as comforting as it is frustrating.

for me the main thing that looking at imogen through a queer lens of literary analysis fails to account for is harm. on the one hand - the harm that imogen experiences, not because of how people treat her for who she is, but that exists simply as a factor of her being ruidusborn. on the other hand a the harm that imogen causes. not to say that she is some malicious villain waiting for her chance to harm others, but that there are things about being ruidusborn that very much do incline her towards violence in a way that she might not otherwise be - i think about the conversation after she went nuclear and chet brought up people being scared of her connecting that to her father keeping distance. the only harm that queerness provides comes from society, and that isn’t the case in exandria. even metaphorically, the thing that society fears in ruidusborn people (while it has certainly been exacerbated by centuries of superstition and practices like we saw in zephrah) is a tangible threat. imogen’s magic when not controlled can wipe out a city block, but queerness poses no threat.

that’s why i’m not compelled by imogen’s backstory as a queer metaphor. not because i’m some imodna anti (i very emphatically am not but this fandom kinda makes me wish i was sometimes) or because i think exandria’s lack of homophobia/transphobia means that characters can’t be viewed through a queer lens or that critical role doesn’t contain some of the most compelling queer metaphor i’ve encountered. imogen just isn’t one of those characters, not because she isn’t queer, or because i think her story shouldn’t resonate with queer people, just because i find the generational trauma angle more consistent.

it’s similar with the chronic illness angle, which i will refer to as illness but you’re welcome to emphasise pain, we all have different vocabularies for the experiences we face. but just to give context i’m running off laura’s comparison of imogen’s powers to her own sensory issues and anxiety which while often Lead to pain, fall more into chronic illness in imogen’s context to me. and i do think there’s substantial comparison for imogen’s story as a metaphor for chronic illness, but i think that was much more true earlier in the campaign than it is looking at her from the current context. her beginning motivation being her search for knowledge about her powers really resonated with me as similar to someone experiencing symptoms of chronic illness but who could neither figure out how to treat them or what they were caused by.

but then imogen got more information, specifically about her mother, and her priority became not understanding her powers but understanding her current state as a person - how had she become the person she is, inclusive of her powers but very much emphasising her lack of a mother who became more and more present in the unweaving web of ruidusborn lore. that’s when i was less compelled by the chronic illness reading and more compelled by viewing her as a metaphor for generational trauma. had that not been enough on its own, imogen’s visit to relvin and her recent thoughts on her mother would be enough to convince me.

the part that makes me hesitant about this post is that generational trauma is so intensely linked to the contexts under which it is created and perpetuated. so i can’t really point to specific scenes as evidence of specific things that prove generational trauma is the most compelling and i don’t really want to unload that much of my own experience to clarify my thoughts on a character. but vaguely, i will say that imogen’s relationship with her parents is obviously the clearest source for my reading her as a metaphor for generational trauma. the fact that relvin, the only person in her family without the thing that draws society’s ire, is also the person that she has the most willing anger at is also indicative of this to me. in general, imogen’s rage that so easily transitions into sadness and vice versa comes out a lot in conversations about parents. most recently, i think about ashton’s lovely speech about found family and his distrust about parents and how as they were speaking, laura seemed to be playing imogen as sadly in thought versus months ago when fearnes parents showed up with striking similarities to liliana and imogen’s words of wisdom were let’s hurt them all.

and like. to me that angersadnessvengeancegrief is particularly evocative of the feelings that arise when you are in a family with generational trauma, especially when you are aware of it. because imogen can and has followed the logical steps that have led her and her family to where they are. early on when recounting her relationship with her dad she seemed wistful but understanding of the distance between them. in nearly every encountered with a parental figure imogen seems to be some level of distrusting for the most part, but she’s still holding out hope that her mother will see the good side. and further, there’s the complication of how dire her losing her powers seems to be, and how inextricable her powers are from every aspect of her life. she’s also southern and from a blue collar family. this means nothing except it also means a whole lot.

this is messy and not well organised but if you want a good essay you’re gonna have to pay me money for it but tldr: i say things i believe on my This Is My Opinion Blog and i don’t think i need to explain my thoughts to strangers on the internet but this was already half written in my drafts and if people are gonna shit on my opinions please at least do it in good faith and shit on my actual opinions not the ones you’ve decided i have.

[deus-ex-mona]

i miss her…

[samdeancrimespree]

in that scene in 12.22 when dean watches mary in her heaven, and she crouches down and smiles at the memory of her child and lies to him, tells him she’ll never let anything bad happen to him, what was dean thinking about before he said i hate you. because i think he was looking at how tiny that dean was, and thinking that’s what he looked like when he spent the final days of his childhood becoming a mother to a baby he was barely twice the size of, when his one wish in the world had been to grow up faster so he could take better care of sam, when he used to spend every day promising sam the same thing, before sam could even understand him. when all he wanted was for his mommy to come back and tell him it would be ok. and he hated her. he hated himself too, so he looked for comfort, for sam. a memory so old and fuzzy in his mothers mind that he looked like a doll, not enough green in his eyes and no mole on his cheek, because she hadn’t bothered to look close at the real sam, the living sam. so much care and detail put into the messy waves on tiny dean’s head, and barely anything for sam. he hated her. but for the first time without having to climb up the rails, he looked down at baby sammy in a crib, the crib dean had barely outgrown when it burned, and realized: you weren’t big. i was just small.

[benbamboozled]

Man remember that time Talia tried to get Slade to think that he was Damian’s dad and Slade was like “Nuh-uh” and Talia was like “Ah, well. Nevertheless.”

And now it turns out they do have a (secret test tube) baby.

Oh except no ‘cause he’s dead (for now).

DC is fucking wild.

[lameow-l]

so wait… furina is the name of the archon role that “furina” had to play

wouldn’t make more sense narrative wise to give her a name of her own?? like scara gets his own epic chapter about him ridding himself of his past and adopting a new name then proceed to ignore said name in favor of “hat guy” but the actress playing “furina” doesn’t get to be known for her own name?

like people of fontain (partly maybe) know the truth so why not let her free? let her enjoy the simple human life she so so longed for? even the other furina wouldn’t want this

[probablygayattorneys]

I was reading a list of female characters clearly written by men and this is about X-Files but yes yes yes this is EXACTLY what replaying Layton games (particularly Unwound Future) is like!

[mellomadness]

sometimes I wonder if I should take a gender studies class just so I can bitch every day about how an imaginary boyfriend is often seen as a requirement for a woman to feel safe enough to have fun at a club, or the idea that an imaginary person with a fake “claim” over me has more influence over predatory men than my own voice saying “No, I’m not interested, get lost”

[pepprs]

my mom isn’t letting my dad go back to his office bc him being out of the house stresses her out and makes her have a flare up and it’s like kind of insane. like i understand why the idea of him doing that would make her panicky and angry as someone who also struggles w separation anxiety and abandonment shit / has physical symptoms from that kind of stress (though not to the same degree ofc) but also he is a grown man. he should be allowed to go to his office and not have to shape his entire life around her needs. and she keeps guilt tripping him out of it and it’s impacting his quality of life a lot and the whole thing is kind of… hm

[citizen-zero]

After years of my mom obsessing over my hair and forcing me to do various treatments on it and threatening punishment if I didn’t comply. I’ve come to understand why Britney shaved her head that one time. I know that was something she did as part of a mental breakdown but fuck yeah good for her. I get it.

[mabelsguidetolife]

i need my dad to send me pictures of miles so i can cry again while showing everyone how beautiful and sweet he was

[glitter50000]

SaB season 2 spoilers ahead

Watching Kirigan being legit angry and straight up shoving Alina down after she burned his hand in the tether along with threatening her home and choking her in another episode as well was for ME, who wanted to see him punch her out of spite

[boygirlctommy]

ALSO i was a lawyer in a trial (it was specifically called a mock-trial, nothing about this was legal but it was important to us) and I have no fucking clue what I was supposed to be proving. There wasn’t even another lawyer it was just me out there.