#if they refuse to see and think clearly

[songmingisthighs]

atinytwt is so stupid and toxic oh my god i just saw someone "shading" kq for jongho ???? like okay let me put down my points

a. we don't actually know how they decide to let or allow jongho to only receive injections and medication. jongho's condition was explained by an indonesian orthopedic surgeon who said that NORMALLY injection and medication COULD aid and alleviate the pain but considering jongho's occupation and activity (i.e. dancing), recurrence is expected and it needed a more permanent solution. also, jongho is a grown ass adult, let's not baby him too much (despite me wanna go goochie goochie goo and tuck him into bed with warm milk and cookies) and think that jongho is incapable of making a huge decision for his own health no matter the consequence

b. "kq put them in crazy schedules" it's literally the pitfalls of being idols my ghawd do you want them to not tour and expand their reach and just sit pretty with one comeback a year ??? sure, they could do that but they'll need money to get better production quality like you buying one album per comeback or one album per version is not enough to even cover the shoe budget, do you think those things are cheap ??? considering album sales are not pure as it's separated as distributor and company and from the company's cuts, it's further broken down and ateez will only get a sliver if any, they have to depend on miscelaneous schedules like radio, tv shows, joint concerts, festivals, etc. And no it's not unfair because there are calculations put in place and no matter what you do, the cuts will never be enough but at least from what we see, ateez is living rather well

c. compared to the big 4 (ion even wanna get into TS, cube, mld, mbk, etc. bc yuck) kq is a far better situation for ateez and xikers. like we haven't heard much from xikers, but we know that ateez praises kq. hongjoong even said that kq's ceo goes everywhere with them on tour (hj said this on the singapore concert) except for the show in manila bc he had a prior engagement. and dude, the gifts the ceo gave ateez and the fact that kq didn't put ateez on diets they don't want and how the staff interacts with ateez and ateez with the staff. idk, i've only been seeing green flags so far. ofc no one is perfect but again, compared to jyp who made momo eat only ice cubes to achieve her target weight so she can debut, or shoving all of seventeen in one tiny ass dorm that didn't seem like there were any blankets around during pre-debut, or putting the members on a leash and treating them like dogs like infinite, i actually love kq. I've liked kpop for over a decade now, since i was like in 5th grade and i've truly never seen a happier group than ateez.

is there a way to not read stupid ass posts on twt or x or wtv and just save pictures from there ??? really i have low tolerance in stupidity bc i have to deal with my own on a daily basis

[too-many-rooks]

was giffing this for something else, but. he's so polite when he's kidnapping a teenager from the hospital room of her comatose father (who he put in a coma) to be used as a hostage/bait in a crazed billionaires wild schemes. Like yeah he's gonna do all that, but he'll open the door for her. He's not a monster.

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

I cannot emphasize enough how much everything In-ho did during his time in the games was in service of breaking down Gi-hun. Every glance, every story, every comment was incredibly and deliberately calculated.

His first interaction with Gi-hun immediately places the blame on Gi-hun for the games continuing: "I pressed the O because of you." He also explicitly asks for Gi-hun's help on behalf of the group. This sucks Gi-hun into being a mechanism of the games themselves (not just a player, but one telling others how to play) while robbing him of his agency to do so: whereas he was confident in helping during the first game, because it was his choice, In-ho's request forces him to share about the Dalgona prematurely, and he then has a nightmare about misleading the players. This also leads to many players becoming hostile when the game is not Dalgona, which--who could have guessed?--In-ho jumps in to stop. He orchestrated the situation so that Gi-hun would feel maximum pressure and guilt, before In-ho himself relieves it to build trust between them.

Then there are the introductions. In-ho uses Gi-hun's name before they are introduced, which may have been a genuine slip, but was very likely intentional given his response. In-ho's method throughout the games is to parallel and associate himself with Jung-bae, Gi-hun's only actual friend (he saves him during the merry-go-round games; he eavesdrops on Jung-bae's conversation with Gi-hun and directly uses the "get me a soju" line from that conversation to subconsciously build Gi-hun's trust in him during the firefight). So when he uses Gi-hun's name, he says he does so because he heard Jung-bae doing it, and Gi-hun allows him to continue--this creates the first of the links between them. But then, when they are properly introduced, In-ho laughs that "Seong" just means "last name;" in doing so, he implies to those who don't know him that Gi-hun may not be telling the truth, and in context of their conversation (focused on the significance of their names) highlights how Seong Gi-hun is "no one special." He's just an everyman.

Another reason that "slip" was almost certainly intentional is that In-ho is very deliberate about showing moments of weakness. His breakdown during the Six-Legged Race was designed to both further stress Gi-hun (and if Gi-hun had failed, they were in the very last groups present, so they could have been selectively spared as needed) and to strengthen their bond, as Gi-hun got to "encourage" In-ho; then In-ho helped Gi-hun and the team win by kicking with him the final time. Even cheering along with Gi-hun while the other teams went was in service of cementing their connection; and, any time a team failed, In-ho got to observe Gi-hun's reactions under the guise of empathy. In-ho may have felt some genuine emotions while cheering or comforting Gi-hun, but they aren't to be trusted.

That's particularly true because of his biggest "weak" moment: telling Gi-hun why he is in the games. The show confirms, when Jun-ho finds the winner file, that In-ho actually did join the games years before (from his family we know that it was because of his wife's illness), and that he won them himself. So he isn't lying about the details of his personal story--and he even gets emotional--but it is, once again, all in service of ensnaring Gi-hun and earning his trust. In-ho is not faking all of his emotions, but he is controlling and weaponizing them, which is why none of his apparent fondness for Gi-hun can be trusted. He uses his emotions as a tool, rather than being affected by them.

The ultimate result of this manipulation is that Gi-hun is made to feel that everything that happens is his choice (even the things he didn't choose). From the beginning, In-ho has ascribed his choices to Gi-hun. Throughout the games, there are several moments where In-ho explicitly has Gi-hun choose for him; other times, In-ho suggests an approach and Gi-hun shoots it down, and In-ho always coalesces. Gi-hun gets to have "his way." But "his way" doesn't seem to work, and he, like the rest of the players, is changed by the games. His final plan, as In-ho forces him to face, involves a sacrifice of some for the good of the many. Only after he admits this (through his silence) does In-ho agree to help. Then, during the firefight, when Gi-hun tries to give In-ho the ammunition he risked his life to get, In-ho asks, "Are you sure?" Gi-hun's choice to trust In-ho leads to him running out of ammunition earlier, forcing his surrender; meanwhile, In-ho still "dies," and Jung-bae is shot in front of Gi-hun's eyes. None of Gi-hun's choices made things better--they made it all his fault. He is left with the blame, as the Frontman (who is In-ho! And always has been!) tells him point blank.

But none of Gi-hun's choices have really been choices. They have all been based on lies, within a system that uses the information they have to actively orchestrate events against him. The same is true of the players in the game; their choices are not free, because their circumstances (largely caused by unfairness in the world) have trapped them. The baseness they resort to is not what they would do if they really had the choice, and some are even able to choose virtue within the hellscape, but over and over, the system facilitates the dominance of cruelty. And In-ho, the personification of that system, targets Seong Gi-hun, the "Everyman," to make him submit to it--to make him choose to believe that there is no other way.

[cantgetworsethanthistbh]

dumping more of my stancest feels here because i cannot NOT think of them. i read journal 3 for the first time this week and its great because Ford acts like stanley's biggest hater which is pretty fking funny (if not absolutely infuriating at times because omfg stfu you smug prick)

but the moments like this get to me

Ford being blinded by his quest of grandeur, accolades and praise for world changing discoveries, so obsessed with greatness, being the first name people remember, and all the other things his npd-isms tells him he wants.

And then there's "reminds me of camping with my brother. i wonder what he's up to..."

i mentioned in my previous post that stan acts quite a lot like the anchor to ford's boat, keeping him grounded and most importantly, safe from both the bitter and the sweet kinds of evils. but he also represents something so much simpler to ford too: the simple desires he represses so much because its not "good enough" for someone special like him.

he resents stan so much because he represents a "block" against that percieved good enough success he wants, the obstacle that made it impossible to get in a fancy college, become the world renowed researcher, the one who wanted to destroy his journal's and lifes work (even though it was the better, safer option if Bill really WAS that dangerous, which he was) that could still make him famous. because if ford's not "praised and weird" then he's just "weird" and being "weird" was nothing but a pain his whole life that kept him rejected and isolated from the masses. and stan prevented him from that.

(btw "maybe he can prove himself to me" is nasty work my god ford is a douche lmao)

a lot of his projections of something greater comes through with how he treated dipper in the show (his whole spiel in damvtf) and fiddleford in journal 3 where he looks down on the happy life that fiddleford had with his wife and child and saying he was "wasting his talents" making computers. and like, we all know by the way he takes them on high stakes adventures they're not as prepared for compared to him (and end up causing more trouble than not by doing so), he's trying to fill a gaping hole left by someone else. we all know this obviously, we all know what we ship here, but what i came to appreciate the most about it is how much that gaping hole exists in the low stakes

everytime ford is thinking during the "down time" moments, his thoughts always drift back to his childhood, and one person who represents it.

childhood memories, making fun of stans favorite snack, scribbling out a design of the stan o war, whenever Ford lets his mind wander it expresses such an intense yearning for the past before he became obsessed with wanting something more. these are his most utmost and most unfiltered thoughts, which is why he scribles them away or and writes in code. and the fact that he directly says they are about NOT getting married, followed with "wondering what he's doing right now", painting the picture of what his most ideal idylic life is. wanting a return of something lost. wanting Stan back more than anything.

he finally accepts that his dream never really changed, just the same as stan's and so they saild off together for the rest of their days, in ford's own words (which ironically sounds like a marriage to me either way so tough shit ford)

[iguessitsjustme]

Something I find fascinating about Wandee Goodday is that no one has kissed yet (I know Ye and Cher have kissed but...) Like not a full on make out session despite having an established couple in the show that they could be using to show us kisses. But we get no kiss sex scenes from Yak and Dee and soft, somewhat chaste scenes from Ye and Cher. We all know both couples are fucking. But the lack of kisses where normally the show would have one couple more active in that department tells me how important kissing is to this story.

Dee has stated that it's silly but he doesn't want to kiss unless he loves that person and is serious with them. But the entire show is respecting the no kiss rule which tells me that it's not silly. The entire show is respecting Dee's boundary here. And yes, Yak and Dee have come so close to kissing so many times, but they haven't. Dee has always pushed him away and Yak has always respected it when he does.

It makes me wonder what's going to happen once the main couple does eventually lock lips. Will that open the floodgates? Will the audience get to see both couples kissing then? Or will it continue to withhold that specific moment of intimacy. There's something the show is saying about the expected parts of intimacy being taken for granted and also deserving of privacy and that's up to the people in the relationship.

Kissing can be an act of love and desire, but what the show is saying is that it is not a requirement for those things. I can be completely talking out of my ass here, but something about this is really sitting with me. Not only do we get Plakao as ace representation, someone who wants a partner to cherish and be cherished without sexual expectations, but we also get the show reinforcing the ideas that love comes in all forms with so many different acts and different people are comfortable with different things. And all of that is okay. And all of those boundaries are worthy of being respected. Regardless of societies expectations for what it means to be in a relationship and be physical, whatever is right for you is right and isn't that just beautiful?

[dykedvonte]

If I was in charge of casting voice actors to Mouthwashing, I would play around with how the game make the player believe that Curly is the one who crashed the ship by casting an actor know for constantly playing villains as him, while Jimmy would be cast with an actor who constantly play heroes.

While I think this is interesting I think a point of the game is that Curly looks and acts like a guy who you couldn’t imagine doing what he did initially.

You get the glimpse of him in the past and while it does give some reasons why he might of done it, you can tell he still wouldn’t. Inversely, while we chalk Jimmy’s behavior and its deterioration on the stress of the situation we learn he’s always been kinda “unpleasant”. I think having like actors that portray that would make sense as it’s the whole joke and deconstruction of the “untwist”. We begin to mistrust Jimmy but we don’t have proof he crashed the ship until near the end.

If anything I think it’s stands more to cast Curly with a typical hero and Jimmy as just some guy. A big part of Jimmy’s character is that he’s supposed to be completely average and sorta plain in comparison to everyone but especially Curly. Despite what people want to say he is designed to look average; a 5/10 mediocre and that’s his biggest issue rather than being a complete failure. He’s just moving along another part of the formation. His job a bit overshadowed even as he’s not even the main pilot. Casting an actor who plays those Everyman common roles only to turn out the reason everything is so bad fits with the theme rather than the typical good guy playing bad role and vice versa.

I think having a typical hero actor for Curly is also very important for the reason he’s incapacitated. These actors are the biggest billed, a reason people go to see the movie so having him basically be cut out of the picture and it forced to follow some joe shmoe is pretty on par for the game. If anything casting Swansea as a typical villain makes more sense as the game winds him up to be more unstable or violent when it’s just not the case, the same with the idea of casting an actress that place ditzy roles for Anya only for us to see how competent she actually is. Not to drag it on but even Daisuke as an actor in mostly silly roles only to be tragic.

I think the casting should play with the idea these are the characters under the lens of a person who fundamentally does not understand them and sees their most annoying aspects to himself vs anything else. Curly is the typically hero to him, Anya some dumb nurse chick, Swansea an untrustworthy grouch and Daisuke some kid. It’s a nice subversion to have them played by those types but not fit the role at all.

[mcytegg]

watched the vod where devotions tell ro they destroyed spawn in s4 and im miserable i feel Terrible i miss ro even more

[splicejunction]

related but the lack of acknowledgement in fandom (specifically the type of fandom that is practiced on this website and similar communities) of how much interpretation of source material stems from individuals particular (psychosexual) preoccupations is like. understandable because its embarrassing to publicly admit that you're obsessed with X thing because you're a little bit of a freak about Y thing (trying to speak broadly here but maybe i'm just being vague) and i don't think people need to do that but it's also a little frustrating to me because i feel like it's more interesting to think about the things you enjoy while also analyzing why you enjoy them but there's this culture of like. projection is bad and wrong and if you let your own experiences and proclivities affect the way that you interpret fiction you're tainting somehow the pure and objective thing that is Canon. so everybody's always striving to achieve something that is impossible. like it's impossible not to interpret things through the lens of your own experiences and opinions and preoccupations. i'm not saying we should all be like posting about fictional characters with like footnotes about what specific fetishes inform our headcanons or whatever the fuck but it's just very clear to me when people just entirely avoid thinking about why they might interpret something a certain way and instead think they're doing some kind of Objective Analysis every time they say something about how a character would fuck

[anarkhebringer]

MMMMMMMM I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS EXACT THING AND HAVE SINCE HOT

[gracemarkss]

trying to gather my thoughts on unruhe. something about this exchange is so vital to me…about how scully maybe isn’t as natural a seeker as mulder. about how her work as a pathologist is focused on “how” rather than “why”…whereas mulder’s profiling is the inverse. a woman is dead and a man killed her and no amount of probing the inner workings of his psyche, his dreams, his nightmares will remedy that situation. discovering the why doesn’t bring about any deeper sense of justice or peace. because really, no why could ever really explain the mundane horror of a woman’s abduction and murder. if anything, it just more starkly reveals the ugly simplicity of the human capacity for cruelty.

but i also love how later, she leans on the why. she channels mulder and his profiler brain. schnauz even picks up on it (“great. now they got you talking like sigmund freud,” in reference to him calling mulder freud during his interrogation). she asks him why he does it. why her. why this. why did his sister kill herself. why did his father do what he did. part of it’s to keep schnauz talking but it’s also another example of how she reaches for him, even metaphorically, in moments of fear and difficulty.

i also love how this episode, with its themes of unrest and strife and trouble, focuses on scully. mulder is usually the more restless character, always searching and seeking and chasing and moving. but scully is just as, if not maybe even more so. her mother’s remaining daughter. her father’s disappointment. a catholic to her bones, even as she lapses. a woman in a man’s job. who imagines a life to be a husband and kids and big sunday dinners, but who can’t stop following the mad man in the basement. who always insists she’s fine, who locks it all away, who chafes and squirms and explodes in impulsive incendiary bursts. who is always always trying.

there are just some things we don’t or can’t look too deeply into. if god is real, or why the woman in front of us is dead. scully will dig and scrape for proof and explanations for many things, but some interrogations aren’t worth the effort, or the fear of what might be found. some things just are, and they’re too big to move or change or overcome. women die because men kill them. what the hell does it matter?

[fortune-maiden]

85. "I’m not going to be sympathetic until you go to a doctor.”

tgcf, pm or swd to ling wen

Thank you <33

....I think this should have been a more hurt/comfort prompt, but with only 100 words it just became hurt, I'm sorry ;w;

Pei Ming is back again today with new grumbles and demands. So much to be done, all at once, only by her. These days, Ling Wen can barely lift her head. She can barely hear her retort. “And?” There’s a rare edge in his voice. “I’m not going to be sympathetic until you go to a doctor.” Pei Ming knows how to fight. To take away the firewood she needs to stay warm. Day by day he’ll wear her down, getting more outrageous until she finally caves, willingly or forcefully. Ling Wen knows this. Really. But she hates to lose.

I love lw but i also do think she has trapped herself in a vicious cycle of self sabotage

[light-wrath-paradise]

I love fix-it aus for stories where any attempt to fix shit could only ever make everything worse. They're like sitcoms to me.

[nowendil]

.

[phoenixtakaramono]

The Boys, choose violence 10, 22, 24 if you please. :D

From the 🔥Choose Violence Ask Game🔥

Thank you, @kosmochlor, for the Ask! Ahh, and I see we’re going straight for the jugular!! 🔪(⊙v⊙✿) These are just a few personal honest opinions written at 1:40AM. What I think does not apply to everyone. ♥️

10. worst part of fanon

Keyboard warriors. The morality police clutching their pearls. You know who I’m referring to; we always have them in every fandom. The ones who police who/ what you like and are obnoxiously loud about it and about how the characters or ships you find interesting are problematic and, lookie here, my [insert character they’d fixated on] never did anything wrong compared to your rancid skrunkly blorbo and I wish more fans liked my favorite character than [insert popularly liked character]. On the converse of that, I’m on two fences when it comes to Homelander stans. Thankfully most people are rational and like him because he’s an interesting villain (and, let’s be real, it’s powered by a side of fan thirst for the actor who plays him; it’s the typical parasocial relationship that fans develop with the celebs who play our favs/ or it’s just plain interest in the fictional character itself or the fun thought of that fictional fav being railed or doing the railing)—but I do have to raise an eyebrow when he is being stanned for all the wrong reasons (coughfascistallegorycough coughMAGAallegorycough coughSigmamalecough).

It’s a very interesting outlook to have as someone who isn’t as into Homelander as other people but still goes out of my way to read and write stories of him being shipped with his enemy Billy Butcher (listen, I’m your average law-abiding 28 y/o woman who works M-Sat 9AM-5:30PM and sometimes even Sundays and even overtime; sometimes on my limited free time I just wanna indulge and imagine about what it’d take to save the metaphorical world in this fictional universe—aka by having the two toxic old men f*ck each other and they can be two co-dependent psychos in love terrorizing the world together as a shameless power couple in a perpetual Ouroboros cycle of love and hate and self-punishment; obviously I do not condone this kind of relationship irl but within the safety of my imagination, we writers be playing god. It’s fairly obvious both characters are fated to have a bad ending in the show, especially if they follow in the footsteps of comic canon for a bittersweet ending, so let me have fun on my very limited free time writing my alternative Butchlander takes about these manipulative assh0les obsessing over each other and the fate of the world depending on how successful they are at gaslighting each other into playing a permanent happy couple).

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

Homelander is canonically bi in the comics. No, I’m serious.

(Spoiler alert: for those without context, in the comics, Soldier Boy was not Homelander’s father. In the comics, male Stormfront was one of the Supes whose DNA was reused by Vought to create new and stronger versions of the source material, so his DNA resulted in baby!HL’s creation no, comic HL did not f*ck male Stormfront; in a way, HL is kinda a partial clone of comic!SF. Whereas in the show, Soldier Boy was changed to be a super straight (?) alpha male granny f*cker who was later revealed in the season to be the sperm donor for Homelander. And Stormfront, as we know, was genderswapped in the show and changed to be Homelander’s girlfriend in S3. …There’s no confirmed Sweet Home Alabama vibes yet as of 2023 but there is understandably fan speculation for a reason.)

I believe the best way to put it: Homelander is generally attracted to women, but in later issues he reveals that he has a secret liking to men. Because he’s The Homelander; he can do whatever the f*ck he wants.

And let’s not forget this beautiful iconic scene the TV adaptation gifted to us:

Now some personal opinion time: I also like the idea of him being a narcissist so he only truly loves himself. And others can come close (especially if he sees aspects of himself in them) but his One True Love will always be himself. It’s the classic Narcissus looking at his mirror reflection allegory—but now you mix it in with some complicated cocktail of a God complex, inferiority complex, imposter syndrome, self-hatred, and sociopathy or psychopathy and a hidden desire of wanting to fit in with the banal societal human norms of being accepted but always feeling left out on the other side of the glass wall looking in. Now you tie it in with him never finding anyone who’s “genuinely loved him” (by his own criteria) and has not regarded him as a monster to be feared. He’s desperate for that human connection, for that elusive “perfect companion” who will understand him and cater to him and put his needs above their own—and to him, finding that proves he’s not a freak of nature. He’s not a monster. He’s not a failed product. He’s not a pathetic excuse of a man that even Soldier Boy didn’t even want as a son. Vogelbaum—and everyone else just doesn’t understand. People love him, right? Vought and Madelyn have indoctrinated him into believing he’s the people’s hero—and how they adore and worship him and want to be him or want to f*ck him. How can he, The Homelander, a superior being with his perfect genetics who’s better, stronger, smarter and more attractive than anyone else (I hope you can tell I’m being heavily sarcastic here), go out on a limb and fail at finding this one intangible thing that ordinary mudpeople or his inferiors can find but he somehow can’t?

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

It’s almost always political discourse particularly from extremely delusional right-wingers people who have terrible media literacy of what they’re watching versus what might be clear-cut to the rest of us—and discourse of whether or not The Boys (TV) is an objectively good show. All of these tend to go hand-in-hand together. I think what those people fail to realize is: the script is written by Eric Kripke, the showrunner behind the first five seasons of Supernatural—and then you have Stephen Fleet, lead VFX supervisor and show producer, who came out at the age of 43 (🏳️‍🌈). They’re adapting it from an edgy, dark, intentionally offensive-just-for-shock-value comic series written by Garth Ennis, the person behind Preacher and even a bit of the Punisher. The eight-volume comic series, which ran from 2006-2012, is full of racist, sexist, misogynistic, and homophobic elements (to be fair, GE wrote this as an intentionally darker satirical take on the superhero culture—and edgy shock factor is a writer’s strategy to make your work stand out). It was meant as a “dark, satirical commentary about the fictional superheroes—and, to an extent, the real life celebrities—we idolize, and how easily people with such power can abuse their responsibility” (source).

With what the TV showrunners had to work with, with the actual source material being a slog kinda to go through (the comics does have its share of good moments admittedly), as a whole I think it’s pretty impressive they’re able to update things to make modern social commentary which are relevant to us today (now, they can be admittedly a bit on the nose about it; one thing that stuck with me till now is how a writer friend I was watching the show with remarked how they’d thought BnHA did the superhero genre commentary much better) and somehow they were able to make a far superior TV adaptation just by paring down and changing a few things from the comics for the better so far (*knocks on wood 3x*). I will however always side-eye anyone who insist the comics is superior than the TV adaptation and loudly proclaim they won’t watch the show because “look how they massacred [insert comic character]” (now, to be fair, normally I would agree with this take but we’ve established The Boys (TV) is a special case; I would also understand if the comics had been the person’s first exposure and, hence, had become their fixation—but considering its intentionally offensive contents I am quietly side-eyeing them from the sidelines and keeping my mouth shut).

[maaaahri]

Oh no I’m thinking about VtM npcs again

[red-elric]

god early dave and terezi convos kill me on rereads bc like. if u look closely theres a couple moments where dave clearly Does Not Want to talk to terezi?? bc hes freaking out about his bro or his planet or his whole fucking life and shes super insensitive about it in a lot of ways!! shes incredibly morbid and she pushes him to talk about things he doesnt want to acknowledge; the first convo they have at all and the convo they have when bro dies being the strongest examples of these. but she keeps poking and prodding and eventually she makes him laugh and runs w it :,) which is really nice and one of my favorite dynamics for a while but ugh...... just rough looking back and seeing all the ways dave has been hiding his home life and how he really feels about it for so long :,(