#in flawed and hurtful ways

[maingh0st]

do i think selfishness is a particularly laudable quality? no

do i think it is important—even vital—for our media literacy, our thematic authenticity, and our ability to see ourselves in stories that we write characters (especially girls and women) making selfish choices? yes, deeply

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bare skin, bare feelings.

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[demigods-posts]

okay but you can see the moment percy's heart shatters into pieces once he learns that grover was also annabeth's protector. because this child grew up watching as his peers chose schoolyard taunts over compassion. watching as his dad chose freedom over fatherhood. watching as his mother chose to protect his life by sacrificing her own. but when his mom dies, he holds onto the notion that at least he's not alone. at least he has grover. but that worldveiw wastes away when he learns that he is, first and foremost, grover's assignment. that he was no one's first choice at all.

[art-is-kayos]

Sight of a Star - Blue-ish Star Ryōshū and Don Quixote

[queer-reader-07]

you know what i think is interesting? the way that some people have just flat out decided that aziraphale being in hell during the body swap wasn't even a little bit traumatic.

we obviously know it fucked with crowley (see: the telling jim to jump out a window scene)

but what about aziraphale? sure we have no concrete proof it messed with him, but we also don't have proof to the contrary

"oh but he was just laughing about asking for a rubber duck". when has aziraphale ever actually been upfront about his feelings? he consistently outwardly acts like things are fine even when they very much aren't. i don't know about you but me personally? i wouldn't put it past him to be jokey about it when really it messed him up inside.

sure the holy water isn't painful to HIM. but he's down there knowing full well that it was supposed to be crowley in that bath. it was supposed to be the love of his life melting and dying in that bath. and it was to be put on display for all of hell to watch. in the same way that crowley was up in heaven knowing that gabriel told aziraphale to shut his stupid mouth and die already. the same way crowley knew they were reveling in ending aziraphale's life.

like, idk. i just think that maybe aziraphale also has a lot of trauma to work through and him working through it and his shitty coping mechanisms is part of the growth he needs to undergo in season 3.

[dykedvonte]

I have this sick idea in my head that Jimmy and Curly have brought up the hypothetical situation about a mutiny and if they’d have the heart to shoot each other.

And I believe that Curly would say he’d never use the gun and if he absolutely had to he’d turn it on himself because, obviously, if even Jimmy is against him, he must’ve fucked up royally. It’s sweet and he’s raw with it, talking about how much he values being a good Captain and what it/Jimmy mean to him and how the gun is never something he considers, hence why he doesn’t even know the code (likely required if the code scanner is tampered with but he’d make the risky choice) and it leaves Jimmy a bit speechless. He wouldn’t answer for himself until Curly asks, teasing like he’s expecting something equally as sappy and sentimental but Jimmy just says he would.

Right between the eyes. No hesitation. Quick and easy to get it over with. He’s having fun with it, it’s crass and cold and he doesn’t even realize Curly didn’t even let out his usual awkward laugh when Jimmy talks like that. No placating smile, just a sort of dejected and surprised look. The formations of an epiphany. And Jimmy can see how off put Curly is and the hurt and he says he’s just joking. The cockpit is quite after that but Jimmy doesn’t care and things go by as usual despite it. Curly’s talking to him the next time they meet and all is well. He forgets about it.

But I think it sticks with Curly for a long time and he tries hard to brush it off as just another off kilter thing Jimmy would say. That in the moment, Jimmy wouldn’t or he’d try not to or he’d at the very least hesitate. He’d settle for just apologizing before pulling the trigger.

But in the back of his mind he knows theirs a subtle truth to those words.

[da-janela-lateral]

And You and I

[shannonsketches]

[satyrradio]

ngl it is very disheartening when I see a positive post from a queer Christian, go into the notes, and just see other queer folks shitting on the OP for being a queer Christian. You aren't making the world any better, you're just being an asshole.

[eternity-death]

God… Sunday’s desire for control stemming from his fear of losing what he loves is like… gutting.

Look at what he did, look at the lengths he went to, looks at the lengths he was WILLING to go to if we didn’t stop him. And all of it was in good faith. ALL of it was to protect.

Do you guys get it?? He feels that deeply, he loves that deeply— so gravely that he was prepared to sacrifice himself to create a world where no one would ever know suffering or pain again. A world where he would become the ‘strong’ and protect the ‘weak’.

A world where he has control. Because under his control, no fledglings would ever learn what it feels like to plummet. He will become the metaphorical and literal cage that protects it.

[ofswordsandpens]

I am going to have to reread to double check this but another aspect of Percy losing control in cotg that's so worrying is his fear that he could have inadvertently hurt (or killed) Annabeth, cause like, he's never thought that before, has he? Not even at his worst in Tartarus. So again, Riordan has not just characterized Percy as someone who's angry and spiraling and losing control, but now has added the aspect where Percy is afraid of hurting or even killing his loved ones on accident. But then in the book its just like haha that's our Percy what a guy!!!! like???? hello??? the kid's not alright???

[booasaur]

Special Ops: Lioness - 1x08

[catguangcorner]

la!cxs telling lu guang that his 'rules' (past or future mantra) never existed to begin with, demeaning himself saying that lu guang only ever wanted an obedient thing to do his bidding and put cxs through all these missions to manipulate him into being pliant, nothing more than a means to an end rather than a friend.....wow.

it's fascinating because in the donghua lu guang does have this selfish quality (as well as being a massive hypocrite), only it manifests in his breaking of the rules for cheng xiaoshi's sake. in the live action lu guang still lacks the inability to Let It Go, but here we see the effects of his reckless tunnel vision and contradictory convictions on the person he's come to care for, 'his only friend,' and it's heartbreaking to watch.

it truly does feel like we're watching shiguang's growing pains, before they settle into their relationship, before lu guang is so fiercely devoted to cxs that he'll sacrifice anything to save him.

[skrunksthatwunk]

kinda thinking about how the women who serve as maternal figures/raise kids in yyh are never quite ready for it. genkai's an arguable exception, but like.. atsuko had yusuke at 15, shizuru's basically in charge of kazuma full time in her early 20s/late teens (depending on version) with very very absent parents, and even shiori is given a kid she wasn't expecting, in the form of an old, old demon rather than like. a regular, blank slate ass human baby. and although shiori seems to do quite well with kurama, kurama can never be honest with shiori about who he is, or much of what he's seen. if he was, it'd probably make things far more complicated and overwhelming. atsuko, no matter how much she cares for yusuke, Could Not Have Been and thus wasn't ready to have him at 15. her attempts to make the most of that situation have had middling success at best. shizuru has also been placed into a parental role. we don't really know how long she's been raising kuwabara, but that's.. probably still parentification anyway. she shouldn't have to do that, and she shouldn't have to do that so young. and i think some of her coarseness with kuwa is out of frustration with her own inexperience + inadequacy + uncertainty, his not cooperating, and their parents for putting this on her in the first place. the ones who know the full extent of their situation grow desperate and it squeaks out in unpleasant ways, and the one who seems unbothered by it is the only one who has no idea that she's in way over her head. and i mean. ok. gonna preface this by saying keiko is NOT yusuke's mom in any sense of the word. but she does take care of him in a way atsuko couldn't manage to. she's often looking after him and cleaning up after his messes and stuff. she takes him on as a responsibility, and that is, in a way, a caretaker role. not to say that it SHOULD be her responsibility, but it's how she ends up being.

and when the stress of trying to make someone take care of themselves or be kind or good or Whatever goes awry, again, the violence and arguing and distance and ugliness of caring for someone reveals itself.

and i wonder about that. for a series dedicated to physical fighting as a form of communication, what does it say that this extends to the complicated, quietly desperate situations of so many of the women/girls it depicts, whom our more central characters were shaped and raised by?

hell, even hiei touches on this, because hina loved hiei, but there was no way she was prepared for him, obviously, nor for the pain of losing him. rui (whom i also see as a sort of caretaker figure to hiei, inasmuch as either of them were caretakers) literally throws him off a cliff because she couldn't face down the village elders, and out of some mixture of care for hina and, likely, fear for her own survival. and the guilt and pain of that killed hina and deeply wounded rui.

it's like motherhood, this thing that's so often treated as sacred and beautiful, is a kind of stitched up, painful, eggshell-walking thing that hurts parent and child and it's just. oughh

[abelas]

datv thoughts. mainly me bitching 😮‍💨

anyone else feel like datv’s companions were shallow and a lot of elements of them and the game were sanitized orrrrr

[michi-chelle-draws]

that one scene from taku’s route 👀