#insiting hatred

[awesomecooperlove]

🌚🌒🌝

[lazyeldritchabomination]

Osmosis Jones AU thing...

~ Poking at the unmoving corpse, that is the Osmosis Fandome. ~

Are you dead? Yes? Splendid! Corpses make for such delightful conversaitions. :)

Osmosis Jones is a strange movie isn´t it? It has exelent animation, interesting charakter design and a facinating concept. But it suffers from... subpar execution.

You wouldn´t belive my surprise, when I found out that there was a drasticly different scipt, from 1998, of the movie. To be honest if just read the first 5 pages of the Original, but they where already so different. (Frank has a wife but no daughter, he eats a meatball that fell on the ground instead of THE egg and Thrax has a SAMURAI SWORD WHAT?!?)

But what really gave me THE brainrot was when i heard that Ozzy had a partner before Drix that was staight up killed by Thrax. This has so much potential for pain and suffring that i just couldn´t leave it alone. Which means dear Ozzy has to suffer for my enjoyment and nobody is going to stop me. (Also my two gratest insperations: mamonna and Burning by Sad Mudoken. They are the only ones who understand me and my fucked up interrests)

Now what exactly is this AU? Its a rewite of the movie... kind of. The plot will largly stay the same. (until the end where i will burn canon in alcahol) I just want to try to make the charakters more compelling. I also want everyone to know that I havent seen this mobie in years and i never saw the series. Which means that im just roling with what I remember. Let me know if it works and if someone wants to join the brainrot, you are always welcome.

Lets start with the main charakte for now, Osmosis Jones himself.

Ozzy is a unorthodox cop with a ruined reputation. The only reason he hasnt been fired yet is because of his past friendship with the poice chief (thoug that relationship is strained and wont help him keep his job much longer)

He insits on working alone, which more often than not cripels him in his duties. (cells are not meant to work alone) This makes him into a subpar cop, even thou he tries his best.

Ozzy used to have a partner. They where a exelent duo and renowned for taking down some of Franks most vile intruders. They where best buddys who knew each other for forever.

One one of there patrols did Ozzys partner get infected by a virus and he was forced to shot him.

Sice then the white bloodcell refues to work with someone else, scared that the past might repeat itself.

He harburs and extreme hatred for viruses and becomes singelminded and recless in the persut of them. (Thats why hes technicaly baned from doing so)

No romance with Leah, that was a stupid plot in my opinion.

Makes still constantly jokes and ingnors authority. (HA coping mechanism :) )

Resents Frank in a way because his partner died so that Frank can live, but Frank doesnt take care of himself and waits away. It makes him feel like his partner died for nothing. He still tries his best to keep Frank healthy.

He smokes when he is stressed, a habbit he picked up when his partner died

And a few sketches

[ceoofmetagala]

Cw toxic relationships and such/

My favorite worst couple ever, Techno knight x fecto flora !! (Not cannon to my au btw, just a VERY evil what if, for both of them))

So uhermmm heheb

Techno knight (and blacknoise) in universe was menat to atelsst somewhat resemble galacta (excuse to why they have those fuckass horns. Idk either man they look cute okay))

So when Fecto flora tries to "move on" of course he falls for the closet to what he views dream world galacta as, techno resembles her and has a simalr enough personality with a few differences yes but it's enough for flora.

Techno knight has always had a crush on flora and wnats to help her friend get better so assumed getting into a romantic relationship would be the best step. (God how WORNG she is)

Techno doesn't have much epxirnve romantically, she's prone to falling in love quickly and so gets in a relationship with flora

Now this affects some characters outside of these two.

Mainly midnight who is bitter about the whole mirri thing, I mean half of his face was fucked up and he has constant flower growth on that side of the face because of flora partially.

So to see his crush (techno) someone who he loves and respects deeply because she helped him up after the mirri incident to get with the guy who is partially responsible?? Oh he's pissed . He's not happy at all. He gets worse into self pity and hatred because of this

Rue is busy trying to keep midnight form worsening, she doesn't care about techno's descions here even if he was affected by flora but she thinks that flora wasn't really at fault fully. After all he couldn't exvlty control his evil memories or whatever

Blacknoise is uhermm mixed. Sure his sister is happy, but on the other??? He already sends this is not gonna end well so he first gets Veri, who is friends with techno and who has expirmve with toxic and healthy (Taffy and moroho) relationships to hopefully get through to her and....

Yeah techno doesn't uhermm listen

Copy pasted form my Twitter:

Veri trys to get through to his friend, fails becayse techno is miserably insitent on her "I can fix him" kinda mentality she really DOES mean well but she can't quite understand yet why this is a bad relationship even if veri tried really hard

Hope my dialogue makes sense,..

If techno and flora keep dating in this hypothetical it will evolve into Technos AI quite litterly erashing what's techno to fit floras views on who galacta is to please him until evutnally she doesn't respond to Techno knight anymore.

[linkspooky]

Megumi and Toji

Megumi knows almost nothing about his father, his early memories are of being abandoned. His only family is Tsumiki as far as he’s concerned. It’s clear he doesn’t regard himself as a Zenin, or Toji’s son. He doesn’t even recognize Toji when they meet again briefly. However, though Megumi’s not even aware of it there’s a lot of story parallels between father and son. Toji serves as a cautionary tale of what Megumi could become if he does not grow up and learn to handle his emotions properly. MORE UNDER THE CUT. 

1. Inherited Trauma 

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but the Zenin family definitely has issues. They exclude anything which does not fit their arbitrary standards as an outsider. We don’t really know Toji’s backstory. We don’t have to know either, it obviously doesn’t excuse his actions. However, we see the after-effects of him being thrown out and scapegoated by his own family by the time we see him in the hidden inventory arc. Not only that, but from the clan’s treatment of Maki, we can theorize a little ibt of what Toji has been through. 

Maki and Toji were both born without cursed energy and labeled as defective and wrong because of it. It’s clear both of them developed bad, hostile, even downright violent personalities in order to cope with a home environment that was constantly hostile to them. 

In Maki’s case, it’s not that Maki is a hateful person it’s that she’s conditioned not to accept any kind of love because she was never shown the unconditional love of a family she was owed. When Yuta tries to accept her, Maki rejects him because she doesn’t know what that feeling of acceptance and security is like if it’s unearned. She ties it to strength, she has to be stronger than the Zenin clan, she has to prove she’s better than them and that they were wrong about her in order to earn it. 

Maki is so busy trying to reject everything that the Zenin clan stands for, that she can’t really accept other people’s feelings at all positive or negative. She’s too busy thinking about herself, protecting about herself, trying not to hate herself that even the feelings of Mai who loves her, but in a more complicated way is something she can’t accept. She doesn’t want to think about mai’s feelings because she’s too busy with her own, Mai is an afterthought to her. 

Maki has a complicated way of dealing with the abuse of the Zenin family, and I assume Toji did too. The only difference is that Toji is an adult, whereas Maki is still an adolescent. Toji was set in his ways, Maki is still in the middle of changing. 

Toji is labeled as “the one who is left behind, the one who is free”, it’s very likely especially considering the way he treats Megumi and distances himself from anyone related to him, that Toji’s way of dealing with the Zenin family was to simply reject all of it. He couldn’t accept the hatred of his family, but at the same time he also couldn’t accept any kind of positive emotions too, like love between a father and son. It’s likely Toji can’t even accept the idea of having a family, or the unconditional love of a family because he’s never had it - not that any of that is Megumi’s fault.

 Toji grew up completely isolated from his own family until he was eventually thrown out, and he probably had no idea how to raise a family, but he turned around and inflicted those same circumstances on Megumi. Toji grows up alone, Toji makes Megumi grow up alone because he fails to provide for him as a father. 

Toji deliberately made a choice to throw out Megumi along with the rest of his family trauma, that’s his self reflection upon the moment of death. He wanted to throw away everything and live for hismelf, but he threw away Megumi too. 

However, from Meugmi’s perspective his father gave him the name ‘Megumi’ and left. Apparently Toji was around so little that Megumi doesn’t even recognize his face whent hey meet again as a teenager. He married Tusmiki’s mom, got a divorce, and presumably left Megumi there. 

Megumi grew up with no idea of what a family was, except for his step sister, and also completely isolated from others. He grew up with the same sense of isolation and distance from his family that Toji did, lacking totally in the unconditional love a child needs from his parents in order to grow up, because Toji was never even around for Megumi. Megumi just by default assumes that his father either didn’t love him, or just plain forgot about him. 

2. Like Father, Like Son.

However, despite the fact Toji wasn’t even around to raise his son, Megumi turned out a lot like Toji. There’s a lot of parallels between father and son, probably because as stated above Megumi grew up in isolated circumstances, completely cut off, never truly receiving the parental love or guidance that he needed to help him mature into a emotionally healthy adolescent able to process his feelings and handle them properly. 

Both Megumi and Toji respond to their emotional trauma in the same way, by suppressing themselves and all their feelings, and rejecting the feelings of everyone around him. Megumi isn’t even able to hear the news that his dad died, because he insists that already in first grade, he doesn’t care about his dad or even want him around. 

This is you know, a lie of course. Megumi’s a first grader. All children want a parent. It’s just, Megumi’s way of dealing with his feelings is to just pretend that they’re not there, to pretend he doesn’t care. A first grader is not really mature enough to think of his family situation in these terms, or cope with these feelings. Megumi is simply pretending to be mature as a way of pretending to deal with his hurt feelings. 

We as the audience know that Megumi is a deeply caring, and deeply feeling person. However, Megumi himself seesm to be in denial of this fact. 

Megumi’s response to all of thes icky gross feelings he has for people, soft feelings that makes him feel vulnerable because while Megumi cares deeply, circumstances have taught him that people do not care about him, or at least Toji didn’t care enough in Megumi’s eyes to stick around. Megumi’s response is the same as Toji’s, he shuts everyone out, he insists he doesn’t care about anyone. 

He can’t accept anyone’s feelings because he’s too busy rejecting everyone. He can’t even accept the positive feelings of familial love his sister has for him, he almost begrudges her for it. Tsumiki chose to see him as family, different from Toji who he feels didn’t choose him and Megumi just couldn’t realize that until it was too late. He’s so used to being abandoned and unchosen that he doesn’t know what familial love even looks like in Tsumiki. 

This is also something that Toji does to Megumi. It’s said in a bonus in volume 8 or volume 9 that after the death of Megumi’s mother, Toji insisted that he “stopped caring about everything.” We see this repeat when he’s about to sell Megumi to the Zenin clan. 

Toji insists he doesn’t care, while Megumi tries to creep back into his thoughts, and he keeps trying to help him in indirect ways. Toji wishing for a better future for his son than he had, while at the same time, selling him off for the money he plans to gamble away at the race track. Toji forgetting his son’s name, and then remembering it on the brink of death and asking his enemy to do something about it. These are all compeltely contradictory behaviors because Toji has no healthy, adult way of processing his emotions. 

He’s just used to pretending he doesn’t care about things, that even when he obviously does care it’s what he keeps falling back on. It’s the same as Megumi’s complex with saving people, he insists he hates people, that he doesn’t want to save them, and then he goes far out of his way to save people like Yuji. 

3. Growing Out of Your Father’s Shadow

They process emotions the same way, both insisting that they don’t care about anything around them, the only real difference is their priorities. Toji is a self centered person who prioritizes himself above all others. Megumi’s a self sacrificing person, he’s continually belittling himself for the sake of other people. Megumi belittles himself to the point where he insits he could never be strong enough to challenge Gojo. Being the strongest individual is just never his priority. 

Toji however is someone who climbed to the top of the Jujutsu World to try to prove he could become a better fighter than them without any cursed energy. Megumi is someone who ran away from the challenge of becoming stronger than Gojo, but Toji wanted to prove himself stronger than Gojo so badly he stayed and fought a fight he knew he couldn’t win. 

However, even though their priorities are total opposites, Toji prioritizing himself, and Megumi prioritizing other people above himself they both end up in the same place. They’re both incredibly self destructive people. Toji stayed and fought with Gojo, knowing that he would die. When Megumi is pushed to his limit in Shibuya, rather than try to run away he also sacrifices himself in order to summon Mahoraga in a suicidal move against his opponent. They are even paralleled in the way they’re drawn. 

I think the takeaway from all these connections set up between Toji and Megumi is that even though Megumi doesn’t know his father well he’s a lot like him. They both handle their emotions in the same way, insisting that they don’t care when they in fact care deeply. They both repress all of their emotions until they go crazy from it. 

Toji literally springs from Megumi’s shadow. The shadow is the symbol of repressed emotions. Emotions that people are conscious of, the ones they acknowledge are usually represented by light, deeper emotions, the ones they repress and refuse to acknowledge are then referred to as the shadow. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. The more Megumi pretends not to care about his father or his family situation, the deeper the shadow underneath his feet grows. 

Being underneath your father’s shadow is even a common phrase used to describe people who are unable to escape from their parents, and become their own person. There is a connection between Megumi and his father between Megumi and the Zenin, even if Megumi likes to pretend it’s not there, like when he denies any similarity between himself and Kamo Noritoshi.

 A lot of Megumi’s life is dictated by his family circumstances too, he’s just in denial about it. Kamo’s aware to sympathize with people because he’s far more aware fo himself and his family circumstances, Megumi denies sympathizing with other people, because he doesn’t have any sympathy for himself either. 

Zombie Megumi is colored in pure shadow. He’s even referred to as a manifestation of the repressed feelings of the Zenin clan. Those who are restrained by their connection to the Zenin clan, all look in awe at the one who broke free from the Zenin, and free from everything. 

Megumi exhibits the act same behavir as Toji. He suppresses himself, suppresses himself, and suprresses himself and then he just goes crazy. Megumi claims he’s not the strongest, he doesn’t care about being strong, but then he pulls moves like summoning the Mahoraga and Domain Expansion. Megumi just holds himself in until he violently lashes out on everything around him too, he’s hurt feelings waiting to explode. 

Which is why Megumi learning more about his father and the connection between them could be a good thing, not because Megumi necessarily owes Toji anything, but that he could learn from Toji’s mistakes. When Megumi sees his own unhealthy behavior exhibited in another, he can learn to accept the things that Toji could not accept. He could learn to accept connections like family, and friednship, before they become chains that hold him down too hard, until he breaks everything and himself trying to be free. Megumi dosen’t have to become the strongest like Gojo, he doesn’t have to surpass or fight against the Zenin clan. He doesn’t have to save everyone in the whole world like Yuji. The best thing for Megumi’s character development would be for him to learn to accept his own feelings and the feelings of others without going crazy. That’s a strength that neither Toji, nor Gojo could never find in themselves. 

[frankendeers]

Kylux and the Queer Literary Tradition

So, I have seen a lot of people talk about Kylux in terms of queer fetishisation or even labelling it a “crack ship”.

The discourse has somehow made Kylux out to be this straight-girl fantasy where two men are simply shipped because they are white and handsome. Such an unfavourable interpretation completely takes away from many Kyluxers being queer and/or poc themselves as well as shaming straight people for seeing queer potential where it’s not canonically stated to be. Since the comic came out, there has been much elation because it finally “confirms” some of the things that appeal to Kyluxers, therefore justifying the ship. I don’t think, however, that Kylux has ever been anything but rather conventional in its queer subtext. Kylux falls in line with a long tradition of homoerotic aggression between two men. I will try to put this into words as eloquently as I can.

First, let’s talk about how Kylo Ren/Ben Solo and Armitage Hux are queer coded on their own before moving on to their relationship.

Armitage Hux is almost comically queer coded. The act of feminising a villain to subtly convey to the audience that he is gay and therefore “morally reprehensible” has been a practice since the Hays code era (in some respects even before that -as the Victorian Age marks the beginning of our modern understanding of gender and subsequently, its subversion). He is seen to be physically weak, petty, moving and snarling and “bitching” in a way society would stereotypically ascribe to women.

His British Accent, at least from an American point of view, already marks his sexuality as ambiguous. This is not helped by the fact that he speaks in an abnormally posh way, alienating himself from the common people.Hereby, the movies draw a well-established line between decadence/queer and pragmatic/heteronormative.

In the “Aftermath” trilogy Brendol Hux states his son to be “weak willed” and “thin as a slip of paper and just as useless”, robbing him of his masculinity – no matter how ridiculous of an endeavour this is when talking about a four-year old boy. Hux is very early on criticised for not fitting into a socially expected form of manhood. This is especially evident when one compares him to his resistance rival, Poe Dameron. Now, Dameron has his own set of queer coding, but he is shown to be what is commonly viewed as “acceptably queer”. He is masculine, trained and proactive. When he ridicules Hux at the beginning of The Last Jedi, there is this juxtaposition of the helpless, feminine villain and the dashing, superior male hero. Hux is supposed to be judged as vain and arrogant while Poe takes risks and although reckless, is somehow to be admired. Further, Hux is constantly abused. He is thrown into walls letting out high pitched screams, runs away in the face of danger (as seen in the recent comic) and is pushed around by his own subordinates. His strength lies in being cunning and calculated, not stereotypically masculine virtues.

Hux’s destructive powers, his monstrosity so to speak, also follow a long-standing tradition of queer villainization. Harry Benshoff’s The Monster and The Homosexual articulates this as follows:

“[...] repressed by society, these socio-political and psychosexual Others are displaced (as in a nightmare) onto monstrous signifiers, in which form they return to wreak havoc […]” (Benshoff 65).

And what other, than a socio-political Other, is Armitage Hux - the Starkiller?

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, too, is touched by the mark of queerness. It is no coincidence that despite his raw power and muscular physique, Kylo Ren has not been adopted by hegemonic masculinity in the same way Han Solo has, for example. When the logical is traditionally seen as masculine, the realms of pure and unfiltered emotionality is feminine. And Kylo Ren is unrestrained in his vulnerability, his tears, his pain – People make fun of the dramatic ways he gives words to his feelings precisely because it is regarded as weak, as whiny, as “womanly”. His long curly hair, full lips and dress-like costume only strengthens this impression. Kylo Ren is an amalgam of masculine aggression and feminine expressiveness. Some of his outbursts even remind of the pseudo-illness of hysteria. The gendered lines are blurred and unclear in Kylo Ren, diffusing any efforts to appease the binary. Benshoff describes this as a form of queer existence which does not only constitute itself in opposition to what is considered normal but “ultimately opposed the binary definitions and prescriptions of a patriarchal heterosexism” (Benshoff 63).

Both are not easily categorised. They are patched up by multiple, gendered signifyers. Kylo Ren’s masculine body in contrast to his femininized fashion. Hux’s slender body with his stiff and masculinised military get-up. Hux’s toxic tendency to avoid showing his emotions while also being shown as weak, womanly, cowardly. Kylo Ren is an excellent warrior, yet simultaneously being prone to emotional outbursts. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s famous work Monster Theory (Seven Theses) elaborates upon this further, while acknowledging that queer figures are most commonly depicted as the monstrous Other:

“The refusal to participate in the classificatory “order of things” is true of monsters generally: they are disturbing hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts to include them in any systematic structuration.” (Cohen 6).

Nonetheless, many queer people feel empowered by these figures. Lee Edelman theorises in his polemic No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive about the nature of queerness as a force of cultural resistance. According to Edelman, the queer must always refuse societal expectations of a perpetual future and embrace the death drive instead. In this sense, queerness stands in direct opposition to futurity as it negates any meaning in sexual reproduction and marriage (cp. Edelman 13). When Hux destroys planets, when Kylo Ren proposes to burn it all down “The Empire, your Parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi”, they are not merely killing the past. They are also negating the worth of categories that make up future and present alike. They are resisting the heteronormative values of production.

Now that we have the puzzle pieces that illustrate how Hux and Kylo are queer figures in on themselves, it might be interesting to examine how they work together.

In her text “Epistemology of the Closet”, Eve Sedgwick talks about a common gothic trope where two men are caught in a feud full of mutual hatred. In this case, both men are mirror images of one another, making them especially vulnerable to the other’s advances: "[…] a male hero is in a close, usually murderous relation to another male figure, in some respects his 'double', to whom he seems to be mentally transparent."

Kylo and Hux are very clearly mirrors of one another. Aside from the gendered oppositions I have already illustrated, they are each other’s double in every sense of the word. Born on opposite ends of an age-old war. Both caught in complicated relationship with their fathers whom both have killed out of opposite motivations (loving them too much vs. hating them with a passion). They represent the opposite ends in the binaries for logic vs. spirituality, restraint vs. wildness, control vs. sensuality, technology vs. nature etc.

This shot from The Last Jedi shows both of them mirroring each other visually, henceforth strengthening this impression.

They are "mentally transparent" to each other, because they are different sides of the same coin which Snoke tossed around to his whims. Even their aggression takes on erotic forms. It is hard to deny the homoerotic implications in choking another men to make him submit, forcing him onto his knees. The breaching of personal spaces and looming over each other, the obsessive need to prove one’s own worth to the male other with which one is engaged in a homosocial bond:

“The projective mutual accusation of two mirror-image men, drawn together in a bond that renders desire indistinguishable from prédation, is the typifying gesture of paranoid knowledge.” (Sedgwick 100).

And through all of this, I have not even talked about the collaborative potential between the two of them. Their instinct to protect one another despite insiting the opposite. How both of them could overcome their trauma by engaging with the other, who suffered so similarly under family obligation and Snoke’s abuse.

Works Cited:

Benshoff, Harry: “The Monster and the Homosexual.” In: Harry Benshoff (ed. and introd.)/Sean Griffin (ed. and introd.): Queer Cinema, the Film Reader. New York: Routledge 2004. Pp. 63-74.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)." Jeffrey Jerome (ed. and preface) Cohen: Monster Theory: Reading Culture (1996): 3-25.

Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. ,2004. Print.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky-Sedgwick. Epistemology Of the Closet. Berkeley, Calif. :University of California Press, 2008.

[darter-blue]

so many interesting looking wips 👀 can i be cheeky about about two? ah i'm going to be cheeky and about two. do you have anything you want to tell us about mobsters? and what's a wee insight/director's commentary/sneak peak for resurrection/body worship?

Happy Sunday gorgeous 😘

ALI!!!!!

Well, being that the body worship fic, is in fact, a response to your prompt, I will allow this line of questioning 😉

It did turn into something a little too epic for me to answer without a bit more work, so here is a little snippet from the second section describing Steve's side of the events...

Steve has his Bucky back. And this is Steve’s Bucky. This is the Bucky he remembers. Gone is the stranger from the bridge with Bucky’s face. Gone is the soldier from the helicarrier, full of cold determination descending into confused self hatred. 

And here in his place is Bucky Barnes, calling him Stevie, looking at him with that same warm affection, but the confusion remains. And it seems… as if bucky somehow thinks he has been transported to the future. Steve and Bucky both. No memory of his time as the soldier… 

No memory of the pain and the torture. The death, The destruction. 

Only Bucky remains. Steve’s Bucky. And Steve is clutching at him, desperate not to let him go this time. Desperate to never leave his side. 

As for mobsters, I will give you a headcanon for Sam...

Bucky and Sam are friends from their time serving together. I love the idea of Sam coming home from war, having lost his partner, lost his love, completely disenfranchised with his governenment and the military, and Bucky, a friend -a good friend - who's time in the military was only ever at his fathers insitence, (there to keep him separated from a particular blond blue eyed boy) offers him a position as his second.

So Sam finds out this guy is mafia, second generation, is set to inherit this gritty, violent business and thinks well, its not a bad way to throw himself into the thick of things, and he might be able to help Bucky make the changes he's desperate for, less violence, more family, more cooperation.

And then somehow lands himself a job at the strip club Bucky is now running, and spends his time patching up knife wounds, watching Bucky's back, cleaning up his messes (brock) and part time dancing at the club - to make great tips.

Anyway. A part of me wants to write the next chapter with a small segment from Sams POV lol...

We'll see...

LYSM ALI

[crybabycounselor]

BACK TO SCHOOL (AND HATING MY LIFE)

(TW for Stress eating, body shaming, bullying, and descriptions of insecurities, self hatred, and body image issues)

Elise dreaded waking up that morning. The entire night was just on and off again dozing, she couldn’t stay asleep due to what she feared awaited her at school that day.

Winter break was sadly over, she had a full 3 weeks at home with her foster family, and a full 3 weeks basically by herself...

Otis and Robin went out of town to go spend the holidays with their families. Otis was all the way in New Jersey to go see his grandparents and aunties. And Robin was out further into the state to go meet some of her aunts and uncles for the first time.

Elise couldn’t say she was necessarily lonely, but the two of them had... Better things to do than just talking with her.

With 3 weeks to herself, Elise spent a majority of the time locked up in the guest room her bedroom, only occasionally coming out to help with baking, dinner time, or if she was basically forced to go see family.

Baked goods and holiday sweets were something she turned to to cope with... Well... Everything. Why focus on how much of a disaster Thanksgiving was when you could eat like 6 chocolate chip cookies in a row? Or why bother seeing your brother when he went to go drop of Christmas Presents when there are leftover goodies in the fridge still?

She wished she had more self control, though. Sure, food was cheaper than therapy (and the fridge sure was closer than it, too), but it was too late. Damage was done. By the end of winter break, she couldn’t even recognize herself in the mirror.

While eating her breakfast that morning, Elise had begged to skip school for a few weeks, or to even let her drop out and be homeschooled. Despite her pleas, David insited that dropping out or skipping school wasn’t a good idea, and that her education was more important than the opinions of others.

It wasn’t fair. She wished there was some sort of “undo button” to fix this entire issue, or maybe she could try and fake being sick to get out of it all?

It’s not like a single sick day could magically fix all of her problems, though. She just had to sick it in up and face the music.

Elise never felt more vulnerable than she did walking done those halls. With David’s old hoodie covering as much as it could, she tried to disguise herself some everyone in school. Not like they could even recognize her in the first place, but eventually somebody would-

“Hey, Elise! Over here!”

...Son of a bitch.

Of course Otis and Robin were waiting for her at their lockers. Were they waiting for her all morning?

Elise gulped before she slowly went to her locker, holding her backpack close to her chest to try and hide from them.

“Hey, we didn’t see you on the bus, did David take you?” Otis asked.

“Oh, I uhh... I walked instead,” Elise explained quickly opening up her locker and leaning in it and taking her time to grab her books.

“You walked? There’s a bunch of snow outside, why’d you walk?” Robin asked, pointing to the nearest window.

Elise’s lips pressed together, “Um... I’ve been lounging around all week... I... I needed the exercise...”

Maybe they’d believe that instead of just her having absolutely no self control over break.

Otis’ brows pressed together. “Is everything alright? You’re acting weird, Khal”

She paused, still looming into her locker. “I-It’s nothing. I’m alright”

Otis leaned in, “Khaleesieeeee-”

Elise whined as she slammed her head in her locker, sliding her forehead and bangs down as she knelt down as low as she could. Definitely not a lowkey performance, but it’s all she wanted to do in the moment.

Otis stepped back, “O-Oh, okay, um-”

Robin (who was just standing by idly the entire time) stepped in now.

“Hey, come on, what’s all this about?”

Elise turned to look at her, her face red (whether it was from her banging her head on metal or if it was red because she was about to cry was up for debate)

“Haven’t you noticed?” She asked, her voice croaking on it’s way out.

“Notice what?” Asked Robin.

Elise sniffled before she stood up and turned to face them.

“I’m fat.” she announced bleakly.

Robin shrugged, “Okay, and?”

Otis gave Robin a nudge, and Robin just nuged him back, obviously not understanding exactly why he nudged her.

Elise crossed her arms over herself, “I look ugly”

Otis stepped in, “No, you don’t”

“I dooo” Elise said, covering her face now to try and muffle her crying.

Otis looked around the hallway, seeing a few people looking at the three of them with mild judgement.

Otis returned the sour expression to everyone else as he put a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, Elise, who cares what everyone else thinks about you? Everybody here’s stupid, I’m pretty sure at least 3 of these assholes rode to school on a tractor for the hell of it”

Elise curled in on herself tighter, “I care...”

Otis sighed and simply just held her close, “I’m sorry you feel like this, Elise. If it makes you feel any better, I still think you’re really pretty”

Elise sniffled and wiped her eye, “Y-you really think so?”

“I know so,” he reassured with a firm nod.

Robin stepped in, “yeah! You’re prettier than half of the girls at school. So what your body looks a little different? You’ve just got boobs and curves now, big deal!!”

Otis stared at Robin for a good second. Robin stared back. Elise patted her chest before the pulled on the drawstrings of her hoodie.

“Why are you like that?” Elise asked as she tried to back into her locker.

Robin shrugged, “I dunno, somebody had to point it out”

Otis covered his face as he quickly grabbed his backpack off of the ground.

“Okay, well, I-I’m going to class, see ya”

Elise grabbed her books, heading off into the opposite direction, and Robin followed close.

“Otis was blushing, you saw that, right?” Robin asked.

Elise rolled her eyes, “maybe because you said boobs out loud in the hallway in front of everybody”

“And? What’s the big deal?”

“You’re gay,” Elise simply stated, entering their first class.

“I’m what?” Robin asked blankly, but Elise didn’t respond.

Elise remained quiet for a majority of her classes. She was lucky to avoid being called on during all of them, and now the school day was nearing it’s end with only 2 classes left in the day; P.E and math.

To be honest, Elise wasn’t excited about either class. She hadn’t spoken to Sean since Thanksgiving (and, well, you all remember what a disaster that turned out to be), and she avoided Cody over winter break due to her stress gain.

But it wasn’t like she could avoid either of them forever; either one of them would likely ask her how her break was, and she wasn’t excited to explain “oh boy, I ate my heart out out of stress all winter break!”

As she put on her P.E uniform in the locker room, she kept thinking up excuses on how she could get out of it entirely. Was it too late to fake being sick? Maybe she could make herself throw up somehow, then they’d have to send her home!

Of course, as she’s getting run to run to the bathroom, the whistle blows, and her uncle is waiting riiiight by the Gym entrance. Isn’t that just perfect?

Elise sighed as she tugged on her gym shirt, hoping to stretch it out a little more to not cling onto her new shape. Robin had a point about the curves, and she wasn’t sure if she exactly liked them.

Stepping out of the locker room, kids were already getting lined up for their activity. Sean had already gotten to explaining what was happening, as he was clearly excited for winter break to have ended.

The man was lonely; never married, never had kids of his own. His job was really all he had in regards to something to look forward to at the start of the day. And he took his job very seriously, albeit, in a fun manner.

Hoping she wouldn’t be noticed, Elise stuck to the back of the group of a majority of the class. To her surprise, it worked... For the most part...

As she was getting ready to enter the locker room, Sean called her off to the side of class, right by the bleachers.

“Hey, kiddo, how’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since last year!” He asked with a chuckle. So lame.

Elise looked off to the side, “u-um, I’ve been... good... I guess?”

He nodded, “yeah, I can see. I’m guessing you had a lot of fun over winter break, eh?”

“Uh, I-I guess so, yeah. Why do you ask?”

She knew what was coming. Oh she just knew what he was going to say before he even got to say it.

“Eh, I just kind of noticed you packed on a few pounds over winter break, is all. I figured I’d let you know that I have an after school workout here in the gym, and the school has all sorts of after school activities like track, weight lifting-”

Oh god, she was right. She was absolutely right. She was fat, he made a point to remind her that she was fat. She’s fat and he thinks she looks ugly, everyone thinks she looks ugly.

She used all of her effort not to cry, and she just nodded rapidly with each word he spoke to try and end the conversation as soon as she could.

“I-I’m sorry, uncle Sean, but I’m going to have to go get changed now so I’m not late for math. S-see you later!” She announced as she sprinted to the girl’s locker room.

Quickly yanking off her gym uniform, she tried her best not to break down then and there.

She felt so ugly, she felt so disgusting. She looked different, and everyone hated it, just like she did.

She pulled on her hoodie tightly, hiding herself once again within the dark fabric.

Maybe she could talk to Cody about the entire situation? Get him to speak with him about how she wasn’t interested in joining any after school activities, because like hell was she going to tell him face to face.

Yeah, talk to Cody. He’d understand, he’d totally understand.

It’s just as simple as getting into class and telling him after class.

It’d be easy. Really, really...

...Easy...

But it wouldn’t be easy, as it turns out. 

Because Cody wasn’t in the teacher’s desk.

[popculturebuffet]

The Loud House review 4x29: Brave the Last Dance

In a months late review of a show I watch only on occcasion that i’m doing for some reason: Clyde gets the help of the rest of the Clincoln true to find out if his crush likes him or not: Hyjinks and my smouldring hatred of rusty insues. 

With Ducktales only arriving once a week, me missing reviewing and having a lot of time on my hands i’ve decided to branch out a bit.. maybe not a ton, but ocasionally review other animated shows and seasons. If you have any suggetions or any paticular episode you’d like me to look into, let me know. 

For now I decided to take a look at a show I mostly watch whenever the mood strikes; The Loud House. I do enjoy the series, but it’s a casual love... it also dosen’t help that I can’t go into the tags without finding reams of incest but I digress. I do still like the show and despite it’s ocasoinal terrible episodes and even worse creator, it’s still a solid series and deserves it’s spot as nick’s crown jewel.. I do wish nick would stop abusing everything ELSE in it’s lineup, but that’s a whole other story. The point is I like the show, but i’m not a super fan like I am for say Ducktales or Steven Universe where if there’s something new, i’ll go out and grabs it immediately. But I do like it.  And I do regret not knowing this episode existed for two months because 1) This is a holiday episode and I like to watch those around their holiday and 2) Because dance episodes are my shit. More often than not if i’ts a dance episode of a show, i’ts usually pretty good. Community, Big City Greens, Gravity Falls, She Ra, OK KO, Parks and Recreation.. I really COULD go on indefntiely, but I won’t.  Dance episodes usually bring out the best in a creative team, have adorable romance moments, or huge dramatic attacks and everything in between that just makes them awesome to me. So naturally I watched this as soon as possible and my thoughts.. well as with anything they take some context.    You see this episode follows a character who has kind of a .. problematic history to say the least and thus has kinda gone up and down in my opinon. Early on, as most of you probably recall, the series was more focused on LIncoln, the middle child and only boy in the the titular loud house among 10 sisters. And given it focused mostly on lincoln and his shenanigans and schemes to deal with living iwth 10 other siblings. Now the show has evolved since then and for the better in my honest opinon: now all 11 siblings share the spotlight and whose in an episode depends on whose needed, and thus each of the siblings has their own supporting casts of varying depths and episodes, sometimes with NONE of the other family members playing a signifgiant role. But since the show was originally Lincoln centritc, it also picked up an extra main character outside of the 11 loud kids and their parents: Clyde. Clyde is Lincoln’s best buddy, a glasses wearing awkward kid whose dad’s sometimes smother him but are still loving kind guys, and who often goes over to Lincoln’s to share in the feeling of having siblings outside of his surrogate brother Lincoln obviously. However early on Clyde, like most of the cast in the earlier days, had about three character traits: being an only child, being a dork and having a near pyschotic crush on LIncoln’s oldest sister Lori which gave him crippling nose bleeds.  This would’ve been fine, if a touch annoying, had it just been him fainting and nosebleeding.. but instead, it also causes Clyde to be kind of a dick. He perused her constantly despite her rejecting him for a number of obvious reasons, you know him being a decade younger, her being not intrested, him being more like a second kid brother to her, and of course the fact she has a boyfriend, Bobby. Bobby is the nicest guy around, was a great supporting character, and is probably the reason i’ll get around to watching the casagrandes on occasion. Clyde however treats him like garbage, tried to break them up, and in general was a dick to a guy whose only crime is being in a loving relationship with someone Clyde wants to be with but obviously can’t have. It was annoying with the only time it was tolerable was that episode where Bobby was mistaken for cheating and clyde spent an entire episode preparing to beat bobby up if it was accurate, then upon trying (It wasn’t it was just shenanigans), failed spectacuarlly. Bobby is nothing but nice to him by the way.  So yeah it was hard to root for Clyde for a while but eventually it stopped.. not because they had an episode of Clyde TRYING to get over it, they did it just didn’t resolve it, but it was just dropped.. likely because the writers realized it just wasn’t that funny and with bobby put on a bus to the spinoff, they had no real jokes for it and no one really liked the passing out gag. The fact that series creator Chris Savino got fired for sexually harassment is not lost on me and only makes the gag worse.  But thankfully the character did bounce back and by season 3, even before savino was thankfully fired, they put the joke to bed with Bobby’s exit, and it is thankfully buried deeper than the bunker where htey keep walt disney’s cryogneically perserved body... what you thought he just kept the head? Why woudl they? Disney was rich and belived in the future. He probably wanted his body merged with some sort of mechanical man. But with that gone Clyde thankfully became what he was in his better episodes: an adorable dork, with two loving fathers. Though now he’s not the only kid on the block with two gay dads.. he and Violet should get matching friendship t-shirts reading “Gay dad club”... and i’ll probably draw that at some point but I digress i’m several paragraphs in and I haven’t even gotten to the episode, and I STILL have one last bit of explostion for context that most of you may not need.  That last bit is that LIncoln’s episodes evolved a bit around season 3: instead of JUST being him and Clyde, though that can still happen, Lincoln soon got a circle of buddies, each of whom plays a role in the episode, for reasons i’ll get to in a bit, and part of my reason for reviewing it is to touch on my thoughts about them and my weird love of these episodes. So a breif overview since some of you may not know who they are.  Lincoln himself: The former lead and now one of 10, and a great character I enjoy following a lot even if I miss his Zack Morris-esque fourth wall breaks, minus the smug... no one can out smug or out sexually harass Zack Morris.  Liam: A country boy and the only one of the intial five besides Clincoln I actually like. He’s a kind hearted well meaning country boy and is always kind and friendly, and reminds me a lot of stinky peterson but with a tone down accent.  Zach:... I forget he exists, i’m not even sure this is his actual name. He’s just.. there for some reason and i’m not exactly sure why he’s been kept around now that Stella, who i’ll get to next, has been introduced. But he has goggles and wild hair and that’s.. it. Any of his lines could be said by the others without muchc hange.  Stella: My faviorite out of the group, a frieindly girl who was insitally introduced as Lincoln’s third love intrest.. before pivoting to have her not really WANT to be with any of the guys in an episode that’s really good and instead joining the group. She has more personality and energy than most of them, and thus I do tend to seek out an ep if she’s in it. I do also kinda lowkey ship her with lincoln, but only al ittle. her episodde was about hwo every girl who pays attention to you isn’t into you after all and it’s a lesson kids need. I wish I had it when I was that age honestly. Anyways... finally we have the bane of my existance.  Rusty: I hate this kid. I can’t stand his goofy face, and I love goofy goof so goofy faces are not a problem, obnovious wannabe ladies man smugness, or his basicaly being the useless asshole of the group. LIke Zach, I don’t get why he hasn’t been written out. Hell Zach I at least get as the generic guy they can slott in. Rusty is just terrible. it’s telling that his LITTLE BROTHER, who showed up in one episode as a love intrest for Lucy, is far more popular.. mostly because Rocky’s actually likeable and isn’t a dipstick. I just hate this kid and want this character written off already. He’s the weak link in the group and is SOMEHOW more obnoxious than Clyde during any episode bobby and him were in the same room. And tha’ts an acomplishment! Gah. I could rant about this little shit all day, but i’d prefer to move on.  The episode has a pretty basic setup: Clyde is on the dance comitte, and is a good chef which .. tracks. I do think h’es cooked before and his love of Dessert Storm, a in-series cooking show that the Loud’s love too, has been documented in one or two episodes and cooking does fit his personality: he’s a detail orinted kid, he has parents who have lots of money to spend and have been established to like coooking fancy themsevles, it makes sense he’d pick it up. But it’s the Valentine’s Dance and Clyde has a crush on Emma, one of the girls on the comittee. His friends pick up on this and stellas has an adorable “awww” type grin while the boys all have smug shit eating grins but are all willing to help. It’s part of why I like these eps: the 5 really seem to have a nice rapport and be genuine friends.. friends who all fought over a girl once, except Stella who was said girl, but friends nonetheless, who eventually put said friendship over that. Even if one of them’s a block of wood and the other the bane of my existance, you still get the sense their valued.  It’s from there the episode Segues into the standard loud house formula, which is one of the resaons I do only watch the show ocasionally: while the episodes can varry wildly, some just fall into a formula of “character or characters do various things in a row until they realize they were wrong or something”. Now the show HAS had good episodes out of this formula, L is for Love and Racing Hearts, and yes i’m a saluna shipper but the eps are good beyond that, but sometimes it can feel like padding. This is one of those times. Each of the squad tries something to help Clyde find out if Emma likes him or not, he’s too nervous to take it as a sign he should go for it, rinse and repeat 3 more times before the plot finally moves on. This is also why I went into detail on the Clinclon Crew: each one, except Zach because the boy is made of paper mache remember, gets a chance to try helping him out.  Rusty: As if you needed proof I wasn’t overreacting, Rusty SPIES ON EMMA WITH BINOCULARS for the plan.. he did not need them, and the joke dosen’t land like it should because Rusty sucks. And his plan is to drench Clyde with cologne and if she comments on it, she likes him. I do however like the joke about how clyde thinks Rusty’s cousin that gave him the plan, proving Dumbass is a genetic trait, had a girlfriend at a camp who probably dosen’t exist.  Liam: Liam’s plan is a bit funnier... not because of the plan which like the previous one not really that great but hey their 11 or 12 i’ll give all of them but rusty some slack, because he sucks. But the Clincoln Crew which i’m calling them now so there, head to the movies and Liam says ,d ue to a similar thing happening with his chickens, if a girl sits next to you, they like you back. It’s not entirelys ound but the chicken thing got a small chuckle out of me and LIam does have some odd charisma.  Lincoln: And Zach but i’m not convinced they didn’t just swap in a manquin with a tape recorder jammed inside for him for this or any scene. Lincoln uses one of lori’s magazines with some sounder, if flimsy but beliviebly for kids, logic: ask her for a pen: if it’s a regular one they have no intrest, it’s it’s fancy she likes you. like the other two it happens.. but in a resonable bit of writing like the last two Clyde isn’t sure due to a combinaton of insecurity and these plans being as flimsy as the paper they made Zach out of .  Stella: Whose grandma can read tea leaves and actually predicted her moving to royal woods, because stella is great. Stella is also damn good at it as she does predict Clyde at the dance, in a chef’s hat for reasons that i’ll get to in a moment. dancing with a girl. Tha’s lal he needs and this bit finally ends. As I said it’s the tedium. While what happens NEXT is intresting enough, you really didn’t need all of those or have enough jokes and were clearly padding guys, come on.  So Clyde, and crew, stages an elaborate frencha nd boat related danceposal.. that fails. As you probably figured. Emma is flattered, but shoots Clyde down gently. Clyde reacts as you’d expect: by fleeing the scnee as fast as possible, quitting the dance comitte off screen, and planning never to return, which while overracting, DOES feel realistic.  Clyde goes home for some mopey solo time and becomes a tad insufferable, ignoring his friend’’s texts and getting upset as his dad for watching the movie that clearly inpsiried his dance invite plan, depsite it being their valentine’s day he’s interrupting. It woudl’ve played better if he still got upset but iddn’t you know, run in front of their tv and call them out on something they coudln’t of known as he didn’t give them details.  Thankfully the mild annoyance is b roken when, after ignoring his friends texts, which granted for Rusty and Liam is probably normal as liam probably talks about drywall and Rusty uses the word dawg and unlike Lincoln dosen’t seem genuinely worried after Clyde, you know, got rejected in front of a large crowd.  He’s broken out of his mopey solo time by a call: the person he passed cake duty off to screwed up, and after some urging from Cheryl, the principal’s secretary who Clyde knows personally from past episodes and is head of the dance comitte and an utter delight this episode, Clyde does what any normal kid would do: dawn a flimsy disguise and sneak in there. We also get a cameo from Girl Jordan who hasn’t shown up in forever so that’s nice.  Clyde fixes the cake, and Cheryl compares his mustache to a dead caterpillar which was gold, and tries to sneak out only for Chole, another girl, to notice him and stop him. You can probably tell where this is going: She , rather than mock him finds what he did romantic, she also likes dessert storm, he asks her to dance, puts his chef hat back on because time loop,a nd the two dance and even have an adorable bit where they throw their hats to each other. Also Rusty is dressed like cupid and my eyes boil out of my head as the episode ends.  Overall it’s not a bad ep. Had a suprising amount to say about it, but overall it’s a decent, cute ep for valentine’s day with a nice amount of friendship and some nice character stuff for Clyde and plenty of gay dad’s and Cheryl. Overall not a bad way to spend 11 minutes in this ongoing apocalypse. Coming Soon: I feel like quacking so I think Iw ill.. take a look at an episode of quack pack that’s donsy related.  Until next time courage. 

[neosilverthorn]

Things I have learned in the last twenty-four hours:

I cannot discuss my opinion or views without everyone ramming down my throat about how I’m wrong and scum for it.

That’s fine.  I’m done trying to teach people.  You want to claim your segregating cultures and fostering that anything outside your culture is wrong and interest in cultures not your own is racist instead of pushing for understanding each other and their cultures?  You want to keep repeating the mistakes my generation and the generations instead of learning historical context so you can know when it might be a good time to lean on your leaders to not make the same stupid mistakes?

Fine.

When it comes home to roost, when your words are spit back to you by xenophobes and racists in hatred, I want you to remember your insitence on “segregating cultures to preserve them” made it possible.  When leaders strip you of your rights because you don’t want to comprehend that historical context tells you when you ought to be acting instead of complaining, when the system comes apart because of the greed of those in power, I want you to remember you chose to ignore the people trying to teach you.

I want you to remember this.  Remember me, in that moment the match drops to light the fire you’re so happily setting up the fuel for.

And then look back, because I’ll be there behind you, laughing as one last fuck you to you all as the blaze starts.  But you won’t understand, because the concept of “responsibility” is alien to you self entitled lot, isn’t it?

That’s fine.

[mleighsquickspot]

M'Leigh Instant

Witches...

Withered hages kackling around a fire and coldren

Insite fear and panic for the good towns people

Take their homes, children and very soul in almost every version

Come in the night, some come in the day to

Histories tell of their malace and hatred for all that is good

Essance of who they truly are and really do will be forever shrouded in mystery

Sing their song, as they dance through the night, imagination runs wild

image: Good Bad Witches Web - 3D and CG & Abstract Background Wallpapers on ...Abstract Wallpapers - Desktop Nexus

Let me know what you think and pass the thought along.

[the8x8theory]

A tragedy stuck the MTG community earlier this week. When High Profile MTG cosplayer Cspranklerun left, not only Magic, but cosplaying all together. Why? Due to sevre harassment they had faced at the hands of other community members. Siting, prodominantly, Jeremy at Unsleved Media. His words, insiting a managery of sexual harassment towards her, and her fans. Through not only himself directly, but the insuing onslaught by his fans egged on by his videos and streams.

If you’re unsure of who she is, that shouldn’t matter. What this shows is more than simply harassment towards a communtiy member who stepped down. It shows the consiquences to these actions.The tragedy that struck because we were unwilling to say anything, or strike back against. We allowed someone to be so hurt that they abandoned something they enjoyed. The negativity was allowed to outweigh the positivity.

In lieu of these events, we at The 8x8 Theory would like to take a minute to express our views of this kind of behavior in the Magic community.

In short, we won’t stand for it. This kind of behaviour needs to be snuffed out of the community completely. This may be seen as a “witch hunt” and “hypocritical” but it isn’t. This isn’t unwarrented behaviour. This doesn’t mean fighting fire with fire. But its understanding that a communtiy where everyone can enjoy the game, cannot exist with people like Jeremy in it. Who have built careers on the back of attacking other communtiy members for no reason. Or whatever reason he believes that insighting death threats is worth. 

But, ultimately, people like Jeremy need to realize that there is no place for this kind of hatred and filth in our game. You may not agree with someone’s life choices/beliefs/religion or even just how they play, and that’s totally fine. But reacting with vial hate and virtiol is not a solution. And it absolutely shouldn’t be seen as harmless fun.

Remember though, that absolutely nothing gives you the right to degrade people. You can step back from what life is, and simply enjoy the game for what it brings. Leaving yourself at the door, so to speak. If, by chance, you don’t enjoy playing with someone, but they are a decent person, you always have the chance to not play with them. Rude winner or not, that is no reason to degrade them.

One of the best things about this game we all love is that it is a Community. It is a living, breathing entity that lives and dies as a result of the people we interact with. By allowing people who spew hatred to be a part of it, we are hurting ourselves and others in our community. The best way to get rid of these blights on our beloved community is to take action.

Above, you will find a link to get MTG Headquarters defunded on Patreon. It will walk you through the process of reporting the Patreon page as harassing and bullying. If you feel the need to take action, you can start here. Don’t stop there though, continue what Wizards has commissioned us to do to keep the community healthy.