#it's not the end of the world but I genuinely don't know what more to do to fix it

[redladypaige]

So I've been hearing that there shouldn't be a country for the jews, that it should be like "other countries" and "be for everyone".

Ok, so your country that has separation of church and state, which days are the work week?

Mon-Fri? Huh? Why is that? Maybe to make it so people won't work on Sundays, and then, go to church?

In Israel, the work week is Sun-Thu. I don't know if Americans even know that.

Friday night to Saturday night is the Sabbath, so having these days off make it easier to observe.

Muslim countries, usually, have the workweek be Sat-Wed for similar reasons.

People are so stuck on their American Defaultism that they forget that so many things are structured on purpose to benefit different people.

So when people say that Israel should be abolished and there should be a "neutral secular state", what they mean is that it should be more like what they consider the "normal" and "default".

They act like there is a "one size fits all" culture, that anything else is some perversion for the ideal of what a country should be.

That's just one of many many things, cultural and religious, that makes Israel the only place in the world where jews can live without being an afterthought.

I have a lot of problems with Israel.

So many, many problems, especially with the government, and with what's to come with Trump's victory.

I genuinely hope for a change, for the end of suffering, for lasting peace and justice.

But I'm so done with people that have their country built to suit them telling me mine shouldn't exist.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

I will say, at the end of the day, I am very fond of Illario Dellamorte, despite it all. Yes, he managed to make every single POSSIBLE bad decision one can make, then figured out how to make a few more that nobody else would've thought possible. Yes, he was increasingly sloppy and incredibly stupid about it all. Yes, a lot of his frustration and rage is incredibly misdirected. Yes, I said before the game came out that I support him having a villain era, and I still do because it's fun and I love mess and drama—as much as he stresses me out and makes me want to strangle him because Jesus Fucking Christ.

Still, I think I like the idea of forgiving him. For me, there's something interesting in how he doesn't kill Caterina, in how he didn't ask for what happened to Lucanis and seems genuinely angry—wrong as he is to direct it at Lucanis—that the control that Lucanis so highly prized was taken from him rather than dying at his best, in how he can engineer Lucanis's death but experience a grief that still feels harrowingly genuine at the wake, in how he clearly is grasping at any possible advantage and is carelessly choosing his allies not because he believes in their goals or ideals but because he's desperately power-hungry and ambitious and no more. In how, if he is forgiven, Lucanis is impressed he almost got away with it, in how Illario goes to help the Crows in Minrathous in that last gambit.

He's a mess, and he's selfish and ambitious and vicious and contradictory. But, I have a soft spot for characters like him and relationships like his and Lucanis's, y'know? Forgiving him and forcing him to work out his life after he's burned nearly every bridge he has is just really interesting to me, especially given how Lucanis is still full of hope and affection for him alongside the hurt. How do you rebuild after all that, you don't even have the devil-may-care breezy mask anymore because everyone knows better now. Figure out where he fits now in his cousin's life, because I do think—at the end of the day—the affection and relief is still there from both sides, under it all. Deeply buried possibly, for Illario, but there.

I think there's enough pieces here to suggest that he and Lucanis have a chance to actually figure it out, and to suggest that Illario might actually get his shit together and be willing to given opportunity, time, and patience. It's also a messy choice (and a huge risk), but I do personally like the idea of forgiving him. I like the messy, insane, dramatic narrative of it. He has potential, as Lucanis himself notes. I would love to see if he can rise to it, now that he's gotten all of this out of his system.

Or, at least forgive him because there's something funny about that and I want to see what else he does if given the chance. It'll probably also be a mess, but I'd love to see what messes he gets up to when he's not plotting against the person closest to him in the world. It'll be fun! But, sincerely, I do think he can get his shit together, and I hope and believe he wants to. It's the more interesting and fun story to me, for both him and Lucanis, personally speaking.

[himluv]

Okay. I think I've twigged to a reason why this game is so polarizing for the fandom. Please, allow me to ramble about this theory in these dawn-light hours, pre-coffee.

You see, Veilguard is a fantasy. I don't mean its genre is fantasy, we know that. I mean that, for the first time, the story Veilguard tells is itself a fantasy. And a pretty explicitly queer one.

(vague and mild spoilers for Veilguard below)

A world where strict, seemingly narrow-minded mothers can accept and use their child's correct pronouns and be proud of them. And where entire organizations rally around said child to affirm them.

A world where a queer organization stands up to all flavors of tyranny, and while it may suffer great losses, is victorious in the end. Its future is one of supreme hope for lasting change because one of their founding members becomes the ruler of their nation.

A world where a common enemy ACTUALLY unites everyone to fight back and those efforts are welcomed, even from those whose ethics are questionable. Because now really ISN'T the time for in-fighting. There will be time to discuss your morally dubious recruiting methods AFTER the world-ending calamity has been vanquished.

A world where the return of a tyrant is stopped, because the people joined hands with friends, neighbors, and loved ones and refused to let go.

And then they WON.

(depending on your choices, in the end love LITERALLY wins (the love was there and it mattered after all).)

To me, Veilguard is clearly a response to its development cycle. It hit its stride during the height of the pandemic, when people were sick and dying en masse, and most people felt more isolated and helpless than they had in generations. Facism was (is) on the rise across the world. And a very queer and neurodivergent development team looked at the world they lived in, then at the one they'd created, and made some choices about the story they would tell.

And then it released mere days before the US election. I finished playing it on election night (or rather the wee hours of the next morning). And can I tell you? This queer, neurodivergent, nonbinary person NEEDED this story. This exact story.

But, maybe not everyone needed it. To my reckoning, it's the first DA game to take such a firmly hopeful and positive approach to its storytelling, and that's bound to be divisive in a fandom as... Opinionated as ours (affectionate, mostly 😂 ).

Genuinely, I am sorry if it wasn't what you wanted or expected. I'm sorry if you felt let down by your favorite franchise. That fucking SUCKS.

But know that, for some of us, it was a lifeline in a very dark and tragic week, and I suspect it will remain so in the months and years to come. I hope that, if you ever need a dose of pure hope, you might give Veilguard another try.

[biblicallyaccuratebrainrot]

Family Reunion; Part III

Dad!Ford x GN!Reader (Familial)

Everything builds up into one weak moment where your mind is vulnerable. A certain triangular being is prepared to take full advantage of this. In the end, it may be too late to realise that mistakes have been made.

CW: I got bored and skipped a bunch to reach what I wanted to write, deceit, Bill Cipher

You followed Ford and Dipper back to the shack. They spoke to each other the whole way back-- going on and on about how cool the alien spacecraft was and Ford talking about way back when he used to go there all the time. You walked behind them, staring at their backs. They both had genuine smiles spread across their faces while they spoke.

"When was the last time I smiled at him like that?"

You stopped following them when you reached The Mystery Shack. The sun was beginning to set. Ford and Dipper continued into the shack, even shutting the door behind themselves. You took a deep sigh before you redirected your steps and made your way to your pond.

"When was the last time he smiled at me like that?"

You sat by the pond, legs up to your chest, and your arms resting on your knees. You flicked pebbles into the water, watching the ripples even themselves out.

"You're older now-- he can't bond with an adult. He can bond with a kid like Dipper,"

"He probably prefers a kid that's actually related to him, too,"

"Dipper's more like him than I am,"

"Maybe, you shouldn't have opened the portal,"

You shook your head at the last thought, groaning out loud. "He's your dad!" You reason to yourself, now holding your head. "He wouldn't just abandon you, right?"

You sighed and grabbed a stick nearby. "We can still hang out," you whisper. "Me, dad, and-- and Dipper, I guess,"

You draw stick figures in the dirt. A tall one, a shorter one, and then, a good distance away, another tall one. "Why are you being such a baby about it? You're a full-grown adult!" You toss the stick, now angry with yourself.

"Just move on, like everyone else,"

"[Y/N]?"

You shake in place and spin your head around to face the unexpected visitor. "Oh--! D-Dad, sorry," you say quickly. "I-- I didn't see you there, I thought you and Dipper were fixing the rift,"

Ford walked over and sat beside you. He glanced at the drawing in the dirt. "It was a quick process, we already patched it," he responded.

"Oh, good,"

There was a pause. "Are you alright?"

You feel your face heat up and you began to fiddle with your fingers. "I-- I mean, yeah--," you stop yourself. "--No, no, actually, I-- I'm not,"

Ford sighed. "I know what it's about,"

"Do you?" You turn to him. "It feels like every time you 'know', you don't actually know,"

Ford's face softened when he turned to you. "It's about me and Dipper, isn't it?" Your eyes widened as he continued. "I offered him that apprenticeship and you feel like I accept Dipper more as my kid than you-- my actual kid,"

"Wow," you say without thinking. "Y-yeah-- sorry, I-- I'm just... I'm upset,"

Ford chuckled quietly. "I understand. That offer I gave Dipper? It doesn't mean anything," Ford explained.

"Wh--what?" Your brows raise. "Dipper's gonna be really disappointed if you go back on your word,"

"In what world are a boy's parents going to allow their son to run off with his estranged uncle?" Ford asked, a humorous look on his face. "No matter how many PhDs I have, I am sure they would prefer their son closer to home and safe,"

Your lips tighten to a line and you look down at the dirt in front of you. "W-well, when you say it like that," you began, "I-- I sort'a feel silly, now,"

Ford stood up. "Don't worry about it." He smiled and offered his hand. "It's going to be all right, I promise,"

You smile back and accept the help, rising to your feet. Your smile drops. You look around the area-- finally noticing the halted movements in everything. The dragonfly stopped mid-air, the water's ripples stopped in motion, and the bird stuck in the air above you. You look back at "Ford" with wide eyes and try to pull away-- but the grip is stone-tight.

"W-Wait!" You yelled. "Stop! Y-you can't do this!"

"Ford's" face began to melt as the all too familiar laugh rang out into the grayed mindscape. Ford's hand turned into Bill's hand, his large eye staring a whole into you.

"Thanks for the body, kid!" Bill laughed and pulled you forward.

You felt yourself spiral through the air. You managed to even yourself out and turn to face your body rising from the ground.

Yellow eyes and a large smile, not natural to yourself, looked up at you. "What're you doing!?" You screamed, rushing to follow.

"Bringing about the end of the world," Bill replied bluntly. "What else?" He laughed and walked off smoothly-- but not towards the shack.

You watched Bill walk into the forest. You froze in place-- not by any outside power to try and prevent you from following your body. You froze out of fear. Your mind sped around you at a million miles a minute. "I-- I need to tell Dad!"

***

Mabel was stuffed inside her sweater and rocking herself back and forth. A plain beige backpack sat beside her-- failing to provide any comfort. The only sounds to be emitted were the sniffles of sorrow.

"Mabel?" Your voice called out. "Are you alright?"

Mabel poked her eyes out to peer at you. "Sweater-town isn't accepting any visitors." She buried her face back into the sweater. "How did you even find me?"

You approached. "I wasn't really lookin', kid." You explained and sat beside her. "Sort'a came out to get some fresh air,"

"Why is this happening?" Her voice cracked and squeaked. "Summer's ending, school is gonna be horrible, and I won't even have Dipper back home!"

Mabel cried and shook. "Ah-- jeez, kid, I-- I'm sorry," you tried to comfort. "I-- I get it, y'know? The one person that's supposed to always be there with you isn't there-- it hurts,"

"I wish Summer wasn't ending-- I- I wish at least Dipper wouldn't accept that stupid offer!"

"I hear'ya," you agreed. "Dad's more interested in mentorin' Dipper than he is interested in hangin' out with his own kid-- I wish I had more time with him,"

Mabel sniffled and removed herself from the sweater to look at you. "Isn't there something we can do?"

You sighed and shrugged. "Not unless you got some orb on a small pedestal," you chuckle.

Mabel brightened. "I-- I think Dipper has some weird nerd thing like that in here." She grabbed the beige bag and began to rifle through it before pulling The Rift out. "Is this what you're talking about?"

You smiled widely. "Oh! Yeah! Do you know what we can do with this?" You held The Rift tightly. "Mabel, you can get a longer summer with Dipper and I can get my dad back!"

"Really?" Mabel smiled-- hope fluttering in her mind.

"Of course!"

Your grip tightened around The Rift. Your smile became more and more unnatural the longer it stayed on your face. Your eyes weren't quite reflecting the correct colours anymore. Just as Mabel's mind began to wonder-- The Rift shattered in your hands. The glass pierced through your skin and the contents of the orb spilled onto you and the ground.

"What!?" Mabel yelled in shock.

She almost couldn't hear herself over your deranged laughter. Your yellow eyes brightened-- connecting the dots in Mabel's mind.

"W-wait! No!"

You flicked your fingers-- causing Mabel to collapse into unconsciousness. Your body began to float before Bill released it and allowed it to fall to the ground.

You flutter your eyes open and wince as pain flies from your hands and up your arms. You roll onto your stomach and spot Mabel's body. "I--I'm so sorry! Mabel!" You tried to crawl and reach for her.

Your movements are halted though as both your body and Mabel's body were lifted through the air. Mabel's body became encased in a ball of rock-- a shooting star branded onto it.

Your eyes began to fall heavy-- your hand weakly shaking towards the rock flying away from you. The last image to haunt your mind was Bill's eye shooting a red beam at you. The final thought before you were thrown into your own mind;

"Dad, please help-- I'm sorry!"

_______

》 END

[fuck-you-upmusicbracket]

For Good (Wicked)

It well may be/That we will never meet again/In this lifetime/So let me say before we part/So much of me Is made of what I learned from you/You'll be with me/Like a handprint on my heart

"I'm graduating high school in a few weeks and this is really sums up how it feels to be leaving the theatre department. these people have changed me for good"

Sunlight (Hozier)

All the tales the same/Told before and told again/A soul that's born in cold and rain/Knows sunlight, sunlight, sunlight/And at last can grant a name/To a buried and a burning flame/As love and its decisive pain/Oh, my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight

But whose heart would not take flight/Betray the moon as acolyte/On first and fierce affirming sight of/Sunlight, sunlight, sunlight/I had been lost to you, sunlight/And flew like a moth to you, sunlight, oh, sunlight/Oh, your love is sunlight

"I come down with the shivers and start hyperventilating when i hear this song and it makes me want to go outside which is the scariest part"

"I'm not gonna go full infodump here but this song is Peak Vash and Nicholas D. Wolfwood from Trigun-- specifically Nick's feelings towards Vash. Vash's (literal) evil twin brother Knives hired (read: threatened to eradicate the orphanage he kidnapped Nick from as a child if he didn't do what he was told) Nick to act as bodyguard for Vash and guide him to where Knives wants him to go so he can manipulate him for his own gain. Like, he chose the name Knives. This bitch is crazy beyond crazy but this ain't about him. Nick starts out 100% willing to guide Vash like a lamb to slaughter because he HAS to for the orphanage, and this is just some random guy he doesn't know or care about. But then he gets to know Vash, how good of a person he is despite the shit the world (and Knives) has put him through. How he'd rather risk his own life and health than kill another person because he believes he doesn't get to make that choice for people. And despite being someone who'd rather shoot first, pray for them after, Nick starts trying to wound rather than kill just because Vash doesn't like it. It puts them both at risk and he fusses and argues about it and still kills sometimes but he tries anyways. Eventually he decides that he'll do what he can to protect Vash from Knives without provoking him to destroy the orphanage. He ends up caring about him deeply against his own will to the point that his idea of Eden would be to live with Vash and their friends in a peaceful world where none of them have to fight and die. In the manga, Nick's dying request is to see Vash smile again- the genuine smile that he's complimented every time he's seen it. Vash can't give him that, because he knows Nick would see that it was a forced smile. Instead, he just sits with him until he dies. Afterwards, Vash kills willingly for the first time in his entire life (over 150 years. He's not human btw) in order to protect Nick's childhood friend Livio. He wouldn't just do that for just any friend or ally, no, that was out of love. Love so strong he could go against his own mother's teachings that all life matters and people don't get to choose when a life ends, the thing that has kept Vash pacifist all these years, to keep someone that mattered to Nick alive. So while Nick never knew that Vash cared for him the same way he did him, the fact matters that he does."

[erospourfemme]

i'm a very don't tolerate bullshit kind of person and I respect and expect it so much when other people are real and straight up with me anyways whatever I say stems from my own thoughts and I cannot lie to you and tell you to do something I think is stupid if you ask for advice. anyways an acquaintance of mine who majored in English unless you want to work in primary school for a pay of barely 700 dollars complained how her parents want her to get a masters degree and she's thinking about getting one in marketing or something similar and then later on spreading into tech saying how she can work as a data analyst and I literally almost laughed out loud like it's absolutely insane how little university life prepares us for the future and how absolutely useless it is that you have university graduates here thinking they can work a job that requires a degree in either IT or economy as someone who read and talked about books for grades like please be so serious right now. I'm not upset with her for thinking this is possible just the general society for letting these young people down by telling them every career option is valid and it doesn't really matter what you study in university because it does

[frogspawned]

pet peeve is when a story tells us something is aberrant, but it seems to matter more about who does the behavior than the behavior itself. rorschach in snyder's watchmen isn't going too far; we watch nite owl and silk spectre ii snap necks and arms with gleeful, loving abandon, in slow motion no less, while they lecture the audience about rorschach's violence. heroes frequently torture the plot contrivance out of a villain and then moralize to the camera when the villains do the same. indominus rex's killing spree doesn't shock or appall me; all the jurassic world dinosaurs act like mindless killing machines, and the camera lingers, rapturous, on their cruelty. it's not an outlier. there's nothing interesting about it beyond as a set piece.

in a better script, the indominus rex would have had pathos; a chimera made for entertainment, for profit, stitched together with no regard for itself and placed in a lonely box. a freak among freaks. of course it would be mad. but the film wasn't interested in it as an animal, or a character, only as a moving piece of scenery for people to scream at or breathe tensely while it can clearly smell and reach them but doesn't, because it isn't a character and doesn't have motivations.

it's just sort of boring, i suppose. it tries like all other empty drab things do to cover it with bombast and roaring and soaring brassy scores but it's just sort of dull. a sprawl of nothing.

conversely peele's nope is a transcendent monster movie, imo, because it thinks about the the whys and hows, how jean jacket perceives the world, how the world perceives her, and lets that shape the narrative as much as jupe or emerald or gordy. they consulted biologists and behaviorists, digging into the meat of it. the creature as a camera as an animal as a device. nope has layers. it takes its own insane premise seriously, and has something to say, and is a goddamn good movie. i forgot where i was going with this.

[godisasimp]

So my canon is that Sparkle doesn't exist and actually vita is weirdly flirting with Leyah she's already doing that well i suppose Vita just Vitad her way through everything and everything happened relatively the same and also Kiana is still in a coma playing Elden Ring DLC she was not visited by a pink weirdo.

[softshuji]

Any men out there wanna pretend to be my bf to get my parents off my case about marriage? I am so so serious right now.

[caguaydreams]

Hm... never trust how you feel about your life past 9pm or however that goes and stuff, but sometimes I do be pondering what I do on the regular and it gets to me, the silliest things

[ionlycareaboutyou]

it's so funny i can have a relatively good week and be in a good mood but then i start thinking about food too hard and i'm like well time to end it all

[ishikawayukis]

the way people are ready to throw away morals just because the wizard boy was important in their childhood. how selfish can you be if you know that supporting that franchise is directly harming the life of trans people since the author literally funds organization against them WITH the money earned from it. doesn't matter if she's already rich why are you even helping on making her richer, just because of nostalgia? because of an emotional attachment? because your feelings are more important than trans lives? if you're gonna support that show in any kind of way please do me a favor and unfollow me and block me because it cannot be that fucking hard to put the lives of actual human beings over your feelings and emotions

[star--anon]

there's a YouTube video where The Maze Runner cast gets back together on Zoom and reads through a few of the old scenes (basically acting them out but over Zoom)

apparently, Minho's introduction is described in the stage directions as, "4 boys detached from the surrounding party, not really a part of the peppy scene, like war veterans who never really quite assimilated into civilian life"

and then in the book The Maze Runner, there's "It hit Thomas then that the Runners were out in the Maze during the day and hadn't witnessed any of the recent events firsthand."

and I feel like we should talk about that more

[doggirlnarcolepsy]

.

[kyouka-supremacy]

oh :( I'm so sorry you received hate 😭 you don't deserve it at all I really like your posts!

Aaaaawwwwwww thank you so much!!!!!! Admittedly it was kind of a moodkiller so this really helped make me cheer up (╥﹏╥) I really appreciate it, I'm happy to know there's people that can still enjoy my posts!!!!!!!!! Thank you tons for sending this and I hope you're having a sweet day / night (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧

[raindropsonwhiskers]

.