#i thought it was always 20

[chrlotpony]

"we're sharing our age hcs now?? ok let's see my old list of age hcs一 I HC PENNYLING 24?????"

[bixels]

Scary Sunset.

I'm concepting things way outta order in this story, but I'm sure you can piece things together. Context is for a storybeat where, after defeating and capturing Adagio (thus having all three sirens in her possession), Sunset enacts her revenge plot to release the sirens on Canterlot as Thea discovers she's been manipulated. In a confrontation, the two scuffle and fight over the siren orbs while Sunset struggles with her conflicting wants and emotions.

[cheesenchalk]

i never know how to phrase it but something about the way beatles biographers and people in general view paul's reflexive placating persona and determination to smooth things over as manipulative or duplicitous and john's reflexive barbed persona and habit of lashing out as brave and subversive despite both being equally defensive mechanisms to shield themselves from the world that resulted in them saying things that weren't true says more about how we culturally view kindness or friendliness as inherently untrustworthy or flimsy and anger and carelessness as more believable as someone's true nature than it says about either of them in actuality

[vagueconfusion]

Feeling real ridiculous for not having realized that Baron's "stark father" was the Nightmare King until now

[ilovedthestars]

A thought I’ve been having: While it's important to recognize the long history of many current queer identities (and the even longer history of people who lived outside of the straight, cis, allo “norm”) I think it's also important to remember that a label or identity doesn't have to be old to be, for lack of a better word, real.

This post that i reblogged a little while ago about asexuality and its history in the LGBTQ+ rights movement and before is really good and really important. As i've thought about it more, though, it makes me wonder why we need to prove that our labels have "always existed." In the case of asexuality, that post is pushing back against exclusionists who say that asexuality was “made up on the internet” and is therefore invalid. The post proves that untrue, which is important, because it takes away a tool for exclusionists.

But aromanticism, a label & community with a lot of overlap & solidarity with asexuality, was not a label that existed during Stonewall and the subsequent movement. It was coined a couple decades ago, on internet forums. While the phrasing is dismissive, it would be technically accurate to say that it was “made up on the internet.” To be very clear, I’m not agreeing with the exclusionists here—I’m aromantic myself. What I’m asking is, why does being a relatively recently coined label make it any less real or valid for people to identify with?

I think this emphasis on historical precedent is what leads to some of the attempts to label historical figures with modern terminology. If we can say someone who lived 100 or 1000 years ago was gay, or nonbinary, or asexual, or whatever, then that grants the identity legitimacy. but that's not the terminology they would have used then, and we have no way of knowing how, or if, any historical person's experiences would fit into modern terminology.

There's an element of "the map is not the territory" here, you know? Like this really good post says, labels are social technologies. There's a tendency in the modern Western queer community to act like in the last few decades the "truth" about how genders and orientations work has become more widespread and accepted. But that leaves out all the cultures, both historical and modern, that use a model of gender and sexuality that doesn't map neatly to LGBTQ+ identities but is nonetheless far more nuanced than "there are two genders, man and woman, and everyone is allo and straight." Those systems aren’t any more or less “true” than the system of gay/bi/pan/etc and straight, cis and trans, aro/ace and allo.

I guess what I’m saying is, and please bear with me here, “gay” people have not always existed. “Nonbinary” people have not always existed. “Asexual” people have not always existed. But people who fell in love with and had sex with others of the same gender have always existed. People who would not have identified themselves as either men or women have always existed. People who didn’t prioritize sex (and/or romance) as important parts of their lives have always existed. In the grand scheme of human existence, all our labels are new, and that’s okay. In another hundred or thousand years we’ll have completely different ways of thinking about gender and sexuality, and that’ll be okay too. Our labels can still be meaningful to us and our experiences right now, and that makes them real and important no matter how new they are.

We have a history, and we should not let it be erased. But we don’t need a history for our experiences and ways of describing ourselves to be real, right now.

[junkdrawerfan]

I haven’t read the odyssey in a long time but from what I remember Epic!Odysseus is far more tragic than the original. By the end, Odysseus is a monster and a far cry from the man who struggled over killing a baby. Poseidon wins. He is ruthlessness. His mercy “drowned.” He has no guilt over the slaughter of 108 young men and is exactly like the Cyclopes he spared all those years ago.

And so little of it is his own fault.

In fact, you could argue that Epic!Odysseus’s hero flaw is his mercy, unlike the OG!Odysseus’s flaw of arrogance and pride.

He should have killed the cyclops. He should have killed his men to keep the wind bag closed. He should have left his men behind at Circe’s since they’ll betray him anyway. He was right to sacrifice six to Scylla. He was right to chose himself over his men. He was right to fight Poseidon. He was right to kill the suitors who threatened the fate of his family.

It’s a tragedy because we watch a good man lose his humanity to survive and ultimately be rewarded for it.

How much kinder would the world have been to EPIC!Odysseus if he’d just been cruel first?

Which is why I’m glad we don’t get the reconciliation between Athena and Odysseus in EPIC like we do in the Odyssey. Athena became more human as Odysseus lost his humanity. They are no longer able to walk together to a better tomorrow because Odysseus can no longer picture a kinder world.

I can easily picture the retuned King of Ithaca a hard and punishing ruler. His orders must be taken without question unlike before where he allowed discussion — before the betrayal of Eurylochus. He does not tolerate rumors. Punishments are swift. He will not allow others to try and trick him with their words. He’s a liar and a trickster and a thief and a murderer and stronger for it.

I still believe Ithaca will flourish under his rule. The power hungry are crushed. The King of Ithaca will trust no one except his wife and son.

I can also see Odysseus and Telemachus clashing often. Telemachus grows into the man Odysseus was. He is allowed to stay youthful and gentle under the tutelage of a kinder Athena and has always strove to craft himself to be like the man in his mother’s stories. Maybe over time, he’ll learn to be harder from the father who returned but never as cruel. The world simply hasn’t made him abandon his mercy.

[paranormaljones]

Inspired by a conversation I just had with my mom. Tag your nuance if you want to because I'm deeply curious about other people's perspectives on this.

[marshmallowgoop]

no thoughts just Heiji Hattori (HD)

[feelingreallysadandmyvanisaboat]

I would like to say, as someone who experiences pretty awful intrusive thoughts, and has now seen some takes from other fans saying Donny Urges was poor representation of intrusive thoughts because he “just wanted cake” or “wasn’t violent enough”

1. Everyone experiences intrusive thoughts. Literally all people. The incredibly awful violent ones are not that common, but they are not the only kind of intrusive thought. Again I say this as someone who suffers from severely violent intrusive thoughts.

2. Donny WAS violent. He punched a guy out of nowhere

3. Donny didn’t just want cake, he wanted to STEAL cake. That’s the operative word here. That’s the intrusive part. Your brain saying “hey fuckin stick your fingers in someone else’s cake” something super uncool and potentially dangerous to keeping his job, is a perfectly legitimate intrusive thought, it’s upsetting, it’s not something Elias would ever do, that’s what an intrusive thought is. That’s why after The Fix scared Donny, he became a regular urge to just eat cake under normal circumstances. The eating cake wasn’t the intrusive part, the stealing was.

Anyway I don’t mean this to antagonize the people making those posts, I get what y’all mean. But just keep in mind that just because something isn’t the experience you know, doesn’t mean it’s “poor representation” or “ignorant.” Also! This was the first episode! Presumably Elias was doing alright, and is going to get worse, there’s every possibility intrusive thoughts will pop up again, and be more of a genuine threat.

[aphoticfirefly]

here's my piece for the "Even Rats Have Lives" zine!

the rat grinders going on little ice cream runs post ratgrind have always been canon to me!! ALSO i highly encourage you to check out the bundle itch.io!!

[wyvernity]

sss day my favorite national holiday WOOOOHHHH

bonus

[aflamboyanceofflamingos]

In order to turn a very embarrassing moment of my life into something funny have this stupid Timbern au:

The Drakes are alive so Tim is still on track for being the heir of D.I. but is interning at W.E. for the summer because Bruce offered a position

Bernard has been interning at W.E. as well, for volunteering hours

The both work in a small, newer branch of W.E. that focuses on cultivating more information about Gotham’s history

Bernard’s there because it's the most teen focused thing and Tim’s there because he wants to figure where exactly the Lazarus pit is under Gotham so he can mess with Ra’s

They are currently stationed at an old house that was made into a museum which is managed by Wayne Enterprises, but since most of it is a museum there are only a few rooms to actually work, however it being a teen thing it’s very much choose your own hours so that prevents too many people from being there at once

Tim, who doesn’t want someone to come in a see the fact that he’s already finished cataloging all of the 2023 Donations to the museum and is instead using the time to further research the numerous curses in Gotham and/or watch Demon Slayer, is very happy about this fact and only comes at either the earliest or latest times so he gets a room to himself and only has to pretend to be going through boxes when someone checks on him

Bernard immediately messes up Tim’s plan

He’s always there- morning, night, even when Tim changes up his schedule

And no matter how many how many empty rooms there might be he always finds Tim and sits with him, even the time Tim tried to hide in the attic under the guise of organizing a couple boxes up there

Being the paranoid idiot that he is Tim assume that Bernard is a from the League of Assassins and enacts a 46-step plan to figure out what he’s planning (read: stalks him) and in the course of it ends up falling in love

Meanwhile on Bernard’s side, the first week of the internship he walked into the room Tim was in and wanted to be friends with the cute boy

The reason that he kept finding Tim was that he was talking to Dick Grayson, his gymnastics instructor, and Dick had realized that the boy in question was his honorary little brother and told Bernard that “Timmy’s shy, you just have to break down his walls to get to know him” and tells him when Tim’s going to the museum

Dick is well aware of what Tim thinks the situation is because he’s the one Tim rants to, but he thinks it’s funny and will make for a great story to tell at their wedding

[front-facing-pokemon]

[catgirljaneway]

Voy + Textposts 17, Special ParisKim Showcase

(Voy + Textposts 16) + (Voy + Textposts 18)

[3-aem]

egg situation in california is so fked up i havent seen one since mid December of last year and like ya i know i can go find them at like fricking—wholefoods for an entire $15 but also, i don’t want to.

[fatedroses]

tfw youre so mad about your healer getting hurt under your watch that you turn into a dragon and consequently cant turn back for a bit. (or alternatively, shrinryu if he was a light party platform instead of a full party one.)