#i only wanted to be your equal

[lizwithfriz]

1 year ago today :/

[casualavocados]

Learn from who? Learn from you?

Chen Bowen as CHEN YI & Chiang Tien as AI DI KISEKI: DEAR TO ME (2023)

[privateolives]

This is probably because I grew up watching 24/7 animal planet, but what finally made the allo/aplatonic thing click for me were the nature's of big cats.

Lions are powerful, regal creatures who are uniquely adapted to pack life. They need these connections to live a healthy life; A lonely lion is a miserable creature indeed.

Jaguars are solitary, beautiful creatures who live happily solitary. They prowl their lush world with self-sufficient majesty. A jaguar is not lonely without a pack. In fact, forcing jaguars to share space with others they do not enjoy is just as damaging as forcing a lion to live alone.

A lion may choose to head out on it's own for the most part, but in the end must return to the pack to thrive. A jaguar can choose to trust and enjoy the company of others, but they never feel the need to form a pack.

Is a jaguar selfish for this? A psychopath, a narcissist or any other such horrid assumptions? Is it a less moral creature than a lion, who seeks others like it to thrive?

Is a lion pathetic, or needy, or selfish for wanting community? For requiring contact with others like they require water? For their inherent need to string complicated webs of relationships that may seem silly or dramatic to others?

Of course not. These are ridiculous questions to even ask.

They are simply lions and jaguars.

In fact, is a jaguar that chooses to spend time with you not as magical as a lion's love? For a creature that needs no bond to thrive to still enjoy your presence enough to share it a time? Is a lion who can prowl the night alone not impressive in its strength and resilience? Is it not awe-inspiring in its ability to conquer a life it was never wired for and reign still?

Are they not both beautiful and awe-inspiring in their own ways, without being wrong?

Alloplatonics. Aplatonics. Are we not both special and beautiful in both our bonds and self-confident happiness equal, in each our ways? Is there not unique beauty in lifelong bonded packs and magical encounters that need no perpetuity to carry life forward?

Are we not but lions and jaguars? Neither wrong, neither selfish, but just different and beautiful creatures in each our ways?

That's how I've come to see it, anyway.

[fatedroses]

And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.

[daily-hanamura]

[jesuis-assez]

↠ Tim & Lucy ↳ 5x04 - The Choice

[esmes]

look at me baby, dead in my eyes it's the end of our holiday, but it isn't goodbye carry me with you all of the time eat of me baby, skin to the bone body on body, until I'm all gone but I'm with you, inside

🎥 @theriddletrades

[commsroom]

making hera manage a space station is inhumane. she's supposed to be creating unmarketable art. post-canon hera makes like fifteen dollars a month off niche experimental multimedia poetry zines, eiffel is begging people to listen to his music on bandcamp (between an assortment of jobs that would be perfectly fine, if he could hold any of them for longer than two months), and they are both so, so lucky minkowski cares about them so much.

[tumblingxelian]

Fox Miraculous - Reimagined:

This is inspired by the fact its "illusions" cannot be seen by cameras. Rather than this being a weakness, its a reflection of the fact most users do not understand the fox.

Name: Trixx Animal: Vulpes Era: Caveasphaera Domain: Mirage and Manifestation Kindred: Horse (Action & Migration) & Butterfly (Transmission & transformation)

Mirage: The Fox is often mistaken for creating illusions, but this is not so, in truth it creates what can be described as hallucinations within a certain range, altering the perspective of those within it to match the imagined perceptions of the user.

Manifestation: The power to manifest one's innermost thoughts, an image, ideas, or more via the Fox can also be applied on others. Just as the Turtles Shield can encase the user or a foe, so two an the Fox manifest a mirage based on the perceptions of someone other than the Holder.

Some Mages Thousands of Years ago: ... and this one lets the handler place hallucinations in someone else's mind, or even externalize their targets thoughts, manifesting them as a sort of shared mirage. Useful for trickery and interrogation.

Trixx, who just got here: Yeah that sounds about right.

(Maybe) Lila/Alya thousands of years later: So what you’re saying is I can use this to make people see the world as I do. That I am essentially eroding the barrier between my perception of the world and theirs, imposing my thoughts, feelings and visions upon the target. Which could allow me to steadily warp and erode their sense of self and view of the world until its either the same as mine, or simply whatever I sculpted them into. Essentially allowing me to steadily overwrite an entire personality and perception of reality? With all it costs me being the risk of my own slower erosion of self as all those around me join together in a panopticon like hivemind?

Trixx & Some Mages Thousands of Years ago:

Note: One can try and reshape people over time, but one cannot always predict the results. So it could go really, really badly.

[cryptidmads]

hi venture mains im here to tell you personally that their first legendary is going to be ugly as SIN and that is a GOOD thing actually.

queer people have been synonymous with dressing loud and garish and ugly for centuries at this point. its practically a form of communication for us, and its something that we have to continue to embrace to avoid being sanitized as a whole by society bc thats a fate worse than death if you ask me. and sloan "dirt-fucker" cameron is not someone who goes well with the word "sanitized".

its entirely and incredibly in character actually. they geek out at the very mention of anything historical. their default fit is a jacket thats like three sizes too big for them. they have a pet rock with a purple mohawk. they were associated with nothing but rock eating for like six months. they eat ice cream for dinner and call people "doofus". you're telling me someone like that wouldnt voluntarily choose to dress in the goofiest shit you can think when their whole shit is being a goofball?

they've lived in probably at least half a dozen small towns in the province of nova scotia (they are not from the city bc city kids don't grow up playing in the dirt), meaning i can say with every ounce of personal experience that 90% of their shit is thrifted and they consider something "nice" if its cheap and isnt covered in stains when they pull it off the rack. they'd wear a flannel over a hoodie on a windy day and 10 degrees celsius is t-shirt weather. they dont care about how they dress day-to-day bc nobody else they know does either, and that can translate to both casuality and confidence in flawless fashion.

"ugly" isn't an option we should be immediately disparaging of anyways. there is no separating "good" ugly from "bad" ugly in design, as any form of ugly can be made good looking despite what the adjective's conotations might have you believe. you look at the roadhog skin in the s13 battle pass and tell me its not so ugly that it wraps back around into being adorable. ugly should be approached with an open mind rather than being shunned bc its not what you wanted

tldr venture's first legendary deserves to be adorably and atrociously ugly for all the right and most in-character reasons you can think of and thats exactly what its going to be! i cant wait to see it <3

[uncanny-tranny]

Hey, you're being lied to about what fitness constitutes. If you can't work in an hour-long crossfit slog, but you can work in a five-minute walk, then that is still fitness. If you can't use your legs but you can do arm circles every now and again, that is still fitness. If you're moving around at work, that's still fitness. It can be intentional or incidental, but here's the best part: your body doesn't care if you're dedicating specific work-out times. It doesn't care if the "only" fitness it gets is your nine to five on your feet. It doesn't care, fitness is fitness is fitness. Some of us do it differently, but the end result is more or less similar.

If you can do any type of fitness safely, your body isn't going to care if you're doing it like an Olympic athlete or if you're just a casual.

[skunkes]

also I guess this is just an observation

but what is it with some pixel art games being so low contrast... I was finally going to give in and try out a farming sim lots of ppl enjoy despite the portrait art being not entirely to my tastes and then the pixels and environment are sooooo low contrast it made me change my mind again....like you do not have to be scared of dark colors and borders. Outlines. Smile.

[kanerallels]

NO WAY

...

HELP BOROMIR DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER. I'M SO GLAD I FINALLY FOUND SOMEONE WHO AGREES WITH ME

CUSS YEAH I DO look I used to be so neutral on Boromir and then like. Two years ago when my family was rewatching the trilogy over New Years (like we always do cause we're iconic like that) I went INSANE OKAY

HE JUST WANTS TO HELP HIS PEOPLE OKAY and the way the movies portray his dynamic with Aragorn is actually so so good? I went on this super long rant toward my friend @heckin-music-dork about it at the time lol but the gist of it is: he starts out so antagonistic toward Aragorn but then he does start to respect him as a warrior and a friend and fights by his side and there are times in Moria where you can almost see him taking cues from Aragorn, waiting to see what he's gonna do next and then he nerds out about Gondor to Aragorn in Lothlorien and just. It's a whole long rant but I'm obsessed with him now and I really, really wish he hadn't died

[motherfuckingbrad]

as a female engineering student i am so grateful to have representation like poppy li. too many “woman in stem” characters are, on top of being really smart, also really cool and really pretty but POPPY is a piece of shit, awkward as hell, egotistical little gremlin addicted to candy, power, and validation. she is the smartest person at mythic quest and also the weirdest person you’ve ever met. i love her so much

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Madk's mangaka is one of the few people who truly understands the old adage

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin

[dustyfairywings]

So you know how Takayoshi gifted Akemi two songbirds in a cage together as a sincere apology for his mother?

I think those two birds are meant to symbolize both Akemi and Takayoshi. They are both marginalized in some way despite their privilege. Akemi as the daughter of a lord and Takayoshi as the disabled second son of the shogun are both denied agency in their roles despite their privilege. Takayoshi and Akemi both are song birds in a gilded cage. Two pawns to the political and social machinations of their parents. Akemi a victim to her father’s political aspirations and Takayoshi evidently a victim to his mother’s social manipulations.

(Aside: and possibly emotional abuse/neglect, with the way he was forbidden from speaking to women and who knows what actually happened to this first wife. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that it seems to me like this is all in service of maintaining a “respectable” image of the family, and cannot risk having people know he has a stutter. just spitballing here)

If I were to make a prediction for season 2, or a wish, it’s that I would like to see Akemi and Takayoshi form a genuine bond and alliance as two privileged-yet-marginalized individuals having to navigate a politically fraught and rigidly hierarchical society, and I think there’s at least some textual evidence to support this being a real possibility.

They demonstrate in the show Takayoshi is no fool and that he’s clearly an educated and well-read man. Take how he engages with Akemi’s poetry during sex compared to Taigen as an example. He simply has a disability and is somewhat submissive and subdued (likely due to being shamed or ridiculed for his stutter and getting little to no support as a child). They are capable of being intellectual equals. Any sort of power or control Akemi would gain over Takayoshi is by virtue of the kindness and empathy she is showing him, not because she’s outsmarting him. I believe Takayoshi is willingly surrendering himself to his wife and cognizant of this fact.

I think we may see a dynamic where Akemi will both advocate for her own political ends but also at times advocate for and try to protect her husband where she can where familial and interpersonal relationships are involved. I really really hope their union will be one that grows in political power through the healing power of love, compassion, and solidarity between two marginalized individuals.

They can acknowledge the humanity in each other and see each other as equals in their shared pain and victimization, and find empowerment through each other. If they cannot be their own masters at least they can be each other’s sole masters.

Takayoshi and Akemi may be two songbirds stuck in a gilded cage, stripped of their freedom and humanity. But they at least have each other and together they can harmonize.