#her feeling/fear of losing herself

[starry-bite]

plagued with visions of an emily prentiss fanvid to this song guys please hear me out

[yashley]

"I blew out a city by myself. A block, decimated." "Intentionally?" "No."

[pinkfey]

“if i turn from doing what’s right, i’ll lose myself” / “then i’m coming with you” / “i know :)”

[astarlightmonbebe]

episode 5 has left me considering the different - and similar - ways taeyoung and kwonsook think about themselves, and how they respond to pain/violence.

kwonsook calls herself a monster, someone who goes crazy in the boxing ring. that monster, she says, was created by her father, and her father used abuse, violence, and emotional manipulation to create that monster. he didn’t treat her like human, so it’s no surprise that the way she talks about herself when she boxes is as if she’s discussing an animal: she gets cornered, gets scared for her life, and lashes out to kill. she calls herself a monster with resignation; it’s not what she wanted to be, but she knows it’s what she was. she ran away to escape that monstrosity, to live as a human, doing good things, but that part of her never really died.

taeyoung, too, calls himself a monster. he’s a SOB, he does thing no one with an ounce of humanity would do. he seemingly has no qualms about what he does, perhaps because he can always justify it to himself, always has an exit prepared for when things really get bad (until, i’m sure, he doesn’t). like kwonsook, taeyoung accepts the label of monster, accepts his own inhumanity, even if they are inhuman in very different ways. whereas kwonsook wants to break away from that monstrous part of her - she’s only returned so she can free herself from that part of herself permanently (and if she finds a way to box without a monster, then...) - taeyoung embraces it. it’s through being a monster that he’s found success, how he secures futures for his athletes, and how he’s able to ‘solve’ their (and his) issues. monstrosity was not imposed on taeyoung, but (due to what we know so far) is something he chose for himself (although the factors surrounding this part of his past are decidedly murky).

in this episode, taeyoung and kwonsook also demonstrate similar responses to violence and (emotional) pain. when taeyoung upsets kwonsook by working with her father behind her back, he offers her an outlet for her anger by punching him. later on, after ahreum has already slapped kwonsook, instead of lashing out, kwonsook offers to let ahreum hit her again if it will make her feel better. in parallel responses, both ahreum and kwonsook debate taking that opportunity to hurt, but decide not to (kwonsook because she’s taking a chance on taeyoung, or moreso giving him another one, and ahreum because she decides that she doesn’t owe kwonsook that, that kwonsook is beneath her in terms of boxing, no longer on her level). 

kwonsook learned to respond to pain at a young age. in boxing, you can’t flinch from the hit - you have to learn how to take the pain, absorb it, and get back up to hit again. outside of the rink, kwonsook absorbs the pain, but she doesn’t hit again. she’s experienced firsthand what her hits can do to people, and that terrified her. after all, she only boxed so that she could protect her mother. so when confronted with violence and pain, she takes the hit, because pain is what she knows and understands. it’s the emotions behind it that are hard for her. pain is easy for kwonsook, because she’s used to living through it, surviving it; beneath it, she’s always empty. she’s never really cared about boxing; it was what she had to do. the lee kwonsook that was a boxing genius was a monster she ran from, after all. but in order to break away from that monster, she has to come to understand the emotional investment of her fellow female boxers. before, they were just her opponents, never her friends, but now she has to face their own feelings about the sport, the passion they have for boxing that she never felt. like ara said, she didn’t feel happiness about winning, and kwonsook has never lost, so she’s never had to live with that humiliation, either. how her feelings will change in relation to boxing will likely be a reckoning for her.

taeyoung, on the other hand, is confronting his fair share of non-boxing sanctioned boxing. even though kwonsook is the boxer, it’s taeyoung who’s been touched by ‘true’ violence in this present timeline. his life is quite literally on the line, which has been shown again and again. he’s been ambushed by her father, threatened, blackmailed, and beaten up by chairman nam’s guys. he lives on the edge, anxious at every shadow, which is chewing him alive. to him, kwonsook’s anger is much easier to deal with. he knows she might hurt him, but his potential to hurt her is so much more (and if he does, in that case he’d find her anger justified, and probably let her beat him to death or something if what we’ve seen of his feelings for her is an indication of anything), and she might hurt him, but she’d never hurt him as much as other people in his life at the moment would (i.e. by killing him, or hurting the people he cares about). taeyoung is used to weathering the storm of other people’s dislike; he’s the scumbag, and he does bad things, deserves other people’s anger when it’s directed at him. 

both taeyoung and kwonsook want to resolve things through violence. i think it’s telling that despite being two emotionally aware people, they both consider other people’s feelings to be so easily taken care of. they want the quick, instant pain, and then they want to get it over with. because the violence is what they’re used to, and to a degree it’s what they both think they deserve. however, what lies beneath that, what doesn’t go away with a single hit, is much harder for them to confront and understand. 

[swordmaid]

thalia is so growing on me i love my rich woman who has Problems.. i gave her ice powers for like. the elsa vibes.

[t-mblr-begone]

Hi, star trek the next generation? What the fuck!!

[aceofwonders]

ok imma just pop off about one of my dnd ocs...

the way that maizakeen is heading for a break down has me Screaming

she had the Horrors (voices of the dead/dark thoughts and strange magic) dropped on her at age fucking twelve....she overcompensated with intense optimism and kindness to beat it all back (also training relentlessly to control her magic so she could help herself and others)

she grew up so privileged and sheltered that is was working, life was good in her little bubble.... and then it shattered when her grandfather died and further more when she went out into the world

session after session she is seeing how bleak the greater world is and it is fracturing her hold on her literal inner demons ever so slowly

[halfyearsqueen]

her absolute worst pregnancy was with jace

[river-of-wine]

Perhaps one day people will understand that House Beneviento functions completely differently in the main story than it does in Shadows of Rose because of who is controlling it and why they are doing so

[cursezoroark]

i adore this scene dearly they are so doomed

[iccarian]

what color does your love feel like?

bright sunny yellow.

sweet tasting popsicles, summer dresses and shielding your eyes from the sun. your love is the excitement of something brewing, something growing. It's the almost childish bubbling giggles of something new, but with the potential to stay. it's wide smiles, blinding sunny light and warm bodies that gravitate to one another. it's the the softness, the willingness, the slight holding of breaths in a crucial "what if" moment. it's the impatience too. the bouncing on tiptoes to see further than your eyes can reach, the holding out for a future that never seems to come even though you're ready, you're so so so ready. it's the constant feeling of warm sand beneath your feet, holding out for the crashing waves. and still you wait, dry and impatient and with burnt soles of feet. your love is sour candy, enjoying it as your nose scrunches up from the aftertaste of it. It's hands that grab and take hold, that reach and ask them to stay and hope and beg and wait. it's bubbling excitement sure, but it's also demanding, focused, driven. It's love like a plan, with a path and route and a clear destination. and you bonce on your tiptoes, and burning, waiting for the soothing water, the crashing waves, you hold onto the melting popsicle, you wait and wait and wait. it's tiring almost as much as it's laser focused ambition, deeply rooted desire and the unrelenting hope that it will work, that it will come. and it does, i promise it does. the waves crash, the beach floods and the pain passes, the water cool and soothing and you can let yourself fall in, sinking, sinking. and it's good, it's perfect, what you were hoping and more, holding and embracing you and welcoming you into the stillness you always knew you were reaching for.

tagged by: @delightfalse, thank you lovely!! tagging: @arachnidiots (for liam), @delphilos (for katniss and whomever you want !), @fatedtruths (fitz!), @deathwalkerr, & whoever wants to steal !

[trollbreak]

Man I put on shuffle for eiteth brain and got yarrow angst instead. Hewwo??

[queen-scribbles]

I have made the critical error of thinking about this as a Tavi song, specifically a Tavi/Everin song, bc that was very much her mindset while she was with Silversteel and why they didn’t work and ohno I’m sad about my Watcher’s could-have-been if she wasn’t a coward

but I MEAN

OOF

[drop--pop--candy]

can't stop thinking abt nightmare forest Cece goodbye everyone

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

just finished season 3 and i have. thoughts.

[nunyabznsbabes]

Katniss is like Lucy Gray this, Katniss is like Sejanus that, and yes fine that's all good and true and lovely but Katniss Everdeen is also a direct parallel to Coriolanus Snow and people NEED to start talking about this because it's driving me crazy.

Think about it: they both grew up poor and deeply vulnerable, losing parents at a very young age, with a matriarchal adult (Katniss' mother and Coriolanus' Grandma'am) who fails to provide for them emotionally and physically. They intimately understand the threat of starvation, even developing with stunted growth because of it, and their narrations in the books share a fixation on food. Throughout their childhoods, both experienced constant fear and suffered a fundamental lack of control over their circumstances. Because of this, they're inherently suspicious of the people around them. They resent feeling indebted to others, especially those who have saved their lives. They're motivated almost entirely by family and deeply connected to their communities. Both are used and manipulated by the Capitol, both are forced to perform to survive and despise every inch of it, both are thrown into the Arena and made to kill. Both have a self-sacrificial, genuinely sweet sister figure acting as their conscience. Peeta and Lucy Gray - performers and love interests with a fundamental kindness and sense of hope about them - fulfill markedly similar roles in their narrative. Both contribute to the development of the future Hunger Games, Snow throughout tbosas and Katniss towards the end of Mockingjay.

It's easy to ignore these similarities because, as mirrors of each other, they are exact opposites. Katniss is from District 12, viewed and treated as less than human; Snow is the cream of the Capitol crop, given the privilege of a name with social weight, an ancestral home, and the opportunity of the Academy despite having no more money than a miner from 12. Katniss has no agency over her life, and responds by being kind whenever she's able, while Snow justifies horrendous evils in order to continue his quest for complete control. Katniss does everything she can to protect her family; Snow does everything he can to protect his family's image as an extension of his own ego. Katniss loves her District and connects with its inhabitants on a meaningful level, but Snow is indifferent at best to his peers - the apparent "superior people" - and only engages with his community for personal gain. Katniss emerges from the Arena horrified at herself and the system, but Snow takes his trauma and turns it into an excuse to perpetuate the violence with himself at the top. Katniss cares for Prim until her death and then snaps at the loss of her little sister, while Snow survives on Tigris' blood, sweat, and tears and then torments and abandons her, presumably because she calls him out on his insanity. Snow actively adds to and popularizes the Hunger Games because of his vendetta against the Districts following his childhood wartime trauma - Katniss briefly agrees to a new Hunger Games in the pursuit of vengeance, but later stops them from happening by killing Coin and choosing a life of peace and privacy. Snow is obsessed with revenge, but Katniss empathizes with the Capitolites and does what she can to keep them from suffering. He exists in a cruel system and selfishly upholds it; she exists in a cruel system and works to dismantle it for the good of her family and community, at great personal cost. And Peeta and Lucy Gray are incredibly similar, but Katniss and Peeta forge a relationship of genuine love and understanding that shines in comparison to Coriolanus' obsessive projection onto Lucy Gray.

So, yeah, Katniss is Lucy Gray haunting Coriolanus. But I bet you anything that eighty-something year old President Snow looks at her, the girl on fire, bright and young and brilliant, emerging from a childhood of starvation with a relentless hunger for success, a talented and charming performer helping her win the Games, and he sees the ghost of his own past. And that's why he's so afraid of her! Because if he sees himself in her, then he's up against his own cunning, his own talent for manipulation, his own charisma, his own genius. He's up against the version of himself that he once wished to be, with the nightmare army of his childhood at her back and her star-crossed lover at her side, spewing Sejanus' truths in his own voice. This isn't to say that Katniss ever achieved the level of power and agency that Coriolanus did during her time with the rebellion, but it is to say that Snow was taken down by what truly terrified him - his own morality, come to finish the job.