#it's that this has already been used to belittle victims

[bisolationist]

If you refuse to understand why calling any victims of any deliberate assault "collateral" is A) hugely insensitive and B) very attractive to people who want to belittle the situation and C) falls right in lockstep with their views whether it's your intent or not, then I really can't help you.

it's exactly the same was people who say bi ppl only experience "misdirected homophobia". In both cases there's the weird implications that A) what to us happened was somehow incidental or accidental and not "real" B) the trauma and context somehow doesn't "belong to us" and instead should be analyzed through the lens of it being "meant" as an attack on another group entirely.

In both cases it ignores that what happened to us personally was not "collateral" to anything. It was a targeted and deliberate attack that someone chose to perpetrate against us *because* we fit certain criteria. And the people who protect our abusers and work to silence victims are not doing it as part of some collateral against some other group - they were making deliberate decisions.

This does not mean you can't look at things from several angles, but if you make no-nuance claims about how it only exists because of some context where it's "collateral" you can't expect people not to get mad.

[sonik-kun]

You know the Canon Jiang Cheng tag was never made to be a "safe space" for JC antis when JC antis literally already had other tags for their posts that JC fans respectfully stay out of (Anti JC tag, JC critical tag, JC bashing tag etc).

You already had tags for your community. You made the Canon Jiang Cheng tag to demean Jiang Cheng fans and act as though your interpretations are gospel and you know it. Not only that, you use this tag to mock and insult us in the same breath.

Your community has been just as bad for jumping on fans for simply liking a character. Your community has even willingly entered JC fan spaces, screenshot our prompts, and fanfictions just to laugh at them with all your mates. So yes, actually. JC antis have been VERY vile towards other fans, too.

As someone who came in as a Wangxian fan first, I left that community and strayed away from the mainstream side towards the JC side because of all the bullying within the Wangxian community in general.

Your bullying doesn't even stop with JC fans. You've bullied JGY fans, BottomJi fans, Chengxian fans, and Xicheng fans alike. You have turned away so many people just because they're enjoying a work of fiction in the way you don't like. So stop acting like you're a victimised community. You are not. You are still able to enthuse about your favourite characters in the main tags without receiving hate for it. If we did that, we have to be prepared with the block button or risk facing a barrage of hate from the nasty side of the Wangxian community.

I'll stand here and condemn the misbehaviour of toxic JC fans who bully people. But I expect you JC antis to do the same with the people on your side of the fandom. The fact is, you never do. All I see on this tag is JC antis belittling fans, then playing victim the moment you are called out for your needless character and fan bashing.

Accept accountability and grow up.

[highfantasy-soul]

I'm loving how complex and flawed both K and Evan are this season - Brennan and Erika bring so much nuance and reality to their portrayals and in that last episode, I genuinely think both characters are right and wrong with what they're doing.

K should never have tried to 'heal' Evan's already healed arm without his permission.

But Evan is wrong when he said "you don't get to tell me what my problems are, I know what my problems are"

I think a lot of people are seeing that as the truth and treating Evan like some perfect person who's magically 100% fully self-aware when like....he's not. No one is. Quite literally, that's why we have community (and interventions) - we don't always see ourselves clearly and friends are there to point it out and try to help us through it.

Evan DOES ignore his own health. Evan DOES ignore his own need for therapy and community. He has convinced himself so thoroughly that no one actually likes him that yeah, it's a problem - and his friends DO get to call that out. [Seriously, Evan reminds me of Goob from Meet the Robinsons where his internal monologue is "Everyone hates me, they all despise me, I have to ostracize myself" while in the background, literally everyone is saying hi to him, inviting him to hang out, etc]

He literally does that to Sam in the previous episode - she tells him he's not awful to be around, that they do love him, and his response? "You're full of shit - you couldn't possibly actually like hanging out with me."

You know how terrible and hurtful that is? It's not just uwu sad boi isn't he so tragic and in need of love!!! That's him treating his friends like shit.

His own self-depreciation reflects back onto the people who care about him and he devalues THEM as people because of it. That's an issue of his he doesn't see. He DOES do things that are harmful for his mental health and when the others encourage him to do things differently, he ignores them and chooses to continue the self-destructive behavior. Is it born of trauma? Yeah. But again, there's an issue of Evan's that he doesn't identify as an issue.

i think Brennan is fully aware of this. I think he's very purposefully playing this character to show that just because a character is riddled with trauma and has been victimized so much in their lives, doesn't mean that it makes them a perfect person. That trauma, ya know, traumatizes them and can lead to them having behaviors that hurt others around them.

K attempting to 'heal' Evan wasn't out of nowhere nor was it them reverting back to their season 1 self (after all, as they pointed out, K wasn't trying to fix him season 1, K fetishized Evan's "brokenness" (*cough cough* just like a big section of the fandom is doing right now *cough*)), that act was the culmination of her loving Evan and him constantly rejecting expressions of that love by saying 'you're faking it - I love you, but you don't actually love me, but I'm going to stay in this relationship for some reason while constantly belittling you and calling you a liar'.

It was K trying to help Evan after seeing his shirt on fire for so many years and Evan being burned alive but continually telling K "no, I don't need to take off this shirt, don't try to pour water on me, I'm fine" all the while his flesh is peeling off and he's suffering and K is getting singed by the fire too.

100% K was wrong to try to heal his already healed arm without his permission, but the sentiment DOES ring true.

Evan isn't perfect and I think Brennan has very carefully crafted him that way. His trauma doesn't excuse the way he treats his friends - and they're perfectly within their rights to call him on it.

[hollowblxxd]

Its been one hell of a long time since ive rambled about something so heres my rambles on mouthwashing and how i think everyone kinda seeing some stuff wrong.

This is mostly a focus on the situation between Anya and Jimmy unfortunately, and also my opinion on Curly and the innocence he has and the weight he carries. I understand the game doesn't go in depth on what happened between Anya and Jimmy but I think the subtle-ness of the games speaks more volumes than any dialogue. Basically in my head, given how Anya acts around Jimmy, I think the truth behind what happens its more long-term. That they were "together" in obviously a very abusive way. Jimmy constantly gaslighting, belittling then lovebombing, etc. etc. manipulating Anya into believing she had to be with him. I think the "one worse monster that doesnt define us" is the one moment in the relationship where Jimmy "took it too far" (the SA and possibly threat with a gun). I remember seeing another post of Curly being a metaphor for the future baby they would have together and seeing how Anya acts literally seems like a timid broken wife of an abuser. She too scared and guilty to work on the child she hates looking at and Jimmy is "forced" to do it, continuing to berate her for "not doing her job" (aka being a nurse OR being a mother.) I feel like that alone tells you how their relationship is. Anya isn't just a one-time victim but a LONG TERM VICTIM of the constant mental, emotional AND physical abuse at the hands of Jim. It doesn't wipe clean the one thing he did because they were "dating", Im not at all using this as a justification for anything at all but I suppose Im putting it in prespective. Because it leads into my next part with Curly. Everyone doesnt know what to think of Curly, good bad, whatever. I remember I was also mad to when I first found out about what Jimmy did and I was in fact mad at Curly for not doing more. But then I genuinely thought about it. Imagine you are literally hearing this for the first time, imagine you didnt even know Anya and Jimmy were "in a relationship", imagine if you did know they were a thing but didnt know what was going on behind closed doors, imagine if this was a one time event and the person you thought you knew was actually just a bad person. Imagine. Having not even a DAY, A DAY TO PROCESS THAT. Imagine if you had your own mental disorders that making it hard to process heavy emotions and now your stuck with this and you dont know what to do Imagine. Thats what Curly had to go thru. I understand why people are mad that Curly didnt do more, but in the end I want to personally believe that it such a complicated situation. That Anya and Jimmy seemed like they were on good terms, that maybe they were okay but they werent because behind closed door or when they were alone, Jimmy was eating Anya alive like some predatory parasite. Its a lot to process and Curly didnt have time to process it. He didn't have time to process that his friend was a monster, that his crew was unsafe, that HE had bad judgement, that maybe HE TOO was a BAD PERSON for NOT SEEING IT SOONER. Sometimes bad things happen and you dont know and you had to hold that guilty forever. Curly isn't a bad person, hes jsut a PERSON, a person going thru and being the sole person responsible for a LOT of literal possible blood on his hands. Hes trying so fucking hard to tread this all lightly to protect everyone. I don't think at all that Curly was trying to protect Jimmy. I think he was trying to protect his crew. Hes trying to be a good captain and sometimes that doesnt mean just fucking putting an axe thru Jimmy's head. Anya doesnt need to see that, Daisuke doesn't need to see that, Im sure Swansea would have volunteered but Curly wouldnt want to turn Swansea into a fucking MURDERER after all the years he spent being an honest man. Anya is already guilty and broken, Daisuke is innocent and young, Swansea is trying so hard to be on the good side of life. Curly is delicately balancing EVERYTHING. ITS ALL ON HIM HE TOOK THIS RESPONSIBILITY AND IT HURTS.

[thatsthewrongwallcraig]

okay. hear me out. Kappa belittling you while you cry and whimper over the size of his cock🙁🙁 mean dom kappa has my heart I swear

This is my meal. I call it 🌟guuuuuuurl diiinnnerrrrr🌟

Mating Season

Summary: In which Kappa is using you as his personal fleshlight 😗

Pairing: Kappa x fem!Reader

Word Count: ~1k

Content Warnings: Nothing But Filth 18+!, Mean!Dom!Kappa Being A Menace, Doggy, Ovulation Hornyness, So Much Cum, Straight Up Breeding (It's Not Just A Kink Anymore, Y'all 🥴), Resulting In Possible Impreg, Refractory Period? We Don't Know Her Around Here, Overstimulation (Reader Is Completely Gone At This Point), Very Primal, Petnames, Manhandling, Spanking (That's Prolly The Most Normal Thing In This Fic)

A/N: We all know ovulation hornyness is actually diabolical 👀

Tagging the horny horde:

@crypticsewerslut @quicksilversg1rl @cc-luvr @icarus-star @milaeth @roryculkinsgf @roryculkinsbf @spookyorchid @arch1viste @whoareyoi @angelsanarchy @b4sementgrl @blueberrypancakesworld @rocketqueen-world @r0ttenmess

Come play my game, I'll test ya

Psychosomatic, addict, insane

Come play my game

Inhale, inhale, you're the victim

Come play my game

Exhale, exhale, exhale

- Breathe By The Prodigy (Remix)

You felt it slowly trickling down the inside of your thighs, the accumulated gooey amalgamation of ejaculate, sweat and the slick of your countless orgasms sticky against your skin. Single dollops of it practically flew through the air, splattering onto an already damp mattress and all over Kappas crotch repeatedly whilst he fucked into you from behind with relentlessl fervor.

Lewd, straight up filthy wet sounds echoed from the decrepit stone walls but not really cutting through to you anymore. You, with your head pressed against the sheets, your hair nothing but a mess all over and around your face, drool leaking from between your quivering lips, were a goner.

Not a single thought crossed your fogged mind, all that was left was to simply feel and that you did for sure.

With each heavy roll of Kappa's hips against your already spanked and bruised ass, you felt how the angry tip of his cock spearheaded into your sore cunt that was clearly overflowing with bodily fluids at this point. You felt how your walls clenched and tightened around him, how your body betrayed you like this and failing to realize that Kappa had been hammering himself into your abused pussy like that for hours now. For some wicked reason, your body still craved more, getting increasingly cockdrunk with every time you felt him stroking his girth over that especially sensitive spot of yours.

The point where your muscles couldn't take it anymore was long overstepped already, but you just froze in the position you were in, with your ass raised up high on trembling knees and your front pinned to the mattress, blacking out the pain in devout submission.

With your eyes closed, all senses turned inward, you only knew the pushing and shoving, thrusting and pulling back of his throbbing cock deep inside of you, making you see stars sparkling on the black of your eyelids. Time and place rendered into obscure concepts that didn't apply to you in any way right now.

"Hey, you still here?" Kappa barked out in a breathy, low laugh before the flat of his palm swung down onto the round of your behind.

The answer you gave to that was far from some carefully articulated word and but a meak whimper that snaked its way out of your mouth upon impact.

"There, there…I was worried about my sweet, little cum bunny for a moment." Just for good measure, he struck down on your ass again, successfully leaving a glowing red imprint of his hand next to countless others.

You felt the pain shooting through your weak body yet your worn out nerve endings couldn't be bothered to even do so much as flinch.

"Oh, you're so far gone, aren't you?", Kappa mocked, pushing himself into you again, splitting you open from the inside out, "Don't worry, babe, I'll make sure to finally fuck a baby into you. Fuck, you take my cock so good. Such an obedient slut."

The words reached your ears, your fucked out brain trying to comprehend in a fruitless attempt. The last thing you knew was essentially begging unto him to touch you, to fuck the hornyness, caused by your monthly cycle, out of you and to ease the throbbing need between your legs with his body. Kappa more than gladly took you up on that invitation.

"Yeah, I'm gonna get you pregnant, fucking finally. Do the very thing none of those Replicas could ever do and actually procreate.", He rambled on in his deranged train of thought, "Can't wait for your belly to grow and swell with the human life that I father right here."

It seemed as if he talked himself into a delusional spurt, picking up the pace in which his thighs slapped against the brutalized skin of your ass, not even fully pulling out anymore before shoving himself into you again.

It had the tiny rest of your still haphazardly functioning brain short circuiting as your weak fingers searched for support by digging into the sheets. It was to no avail, your tear-soaked cheek chaffed over the fabric with each thrust, most likely turning sore by the time he'd eventually be done with you here.

"Shit, fuck…", It seeped out of his mouth in a guttural groan, " 'M gonna cum again just by thinking about getting you knocked up, bunny."

Although your brain was nothing but a fucked out puddle by now, you recognised how his rhythm faltered like the plenty of times before, his pulsing cock turning rigid inside of you before a new, hot and tacky wave of his seed flooded your already full to the brim insides.

You sensed how his load pushed past your walls and exuded out of your sore cunt, smearing down the insides of your thighs just like the last and the one before that.

"Gosh, you're such a perfect, submissive breeding slut for me. Fucking love you and your pussy when you're so needy for me like that. Gonna make sure that I fuck all of my cum into you nice and deep.." With that, Kappa inhaled sharply before rolling his hips against your behind again, pulling a weak whimper from your lungs.

"Might as well just do that all night long."

[pleasantspark]

The Reason why I don't like Angel Dust

I went on the record to say I didn't like him because of his "AWFUL" portrayal. But there's lots of reasonings.

The tryhard fanbase.

The fanbase tries to make it about that fact that Angel Dust is a victim through and through when most of the time he's victimizing others, and usually the sexual harizzment is played for laughs and when it happens we're supposed to be "OH POOR ANTHONY HE GETS SA'd BY HIS BOSS!" like how can you be tonedeaf?

2. Viv and Raph

The unprofessionalism when handling the Story Arc that we're supposed to BE on the side of Angel Dust and "empowering him" failed, reason being that the story arc is being handled by people who fetish the abuse of a victim rather than being out of the way and approaching it with a more "detatched way" the entirety of EP4 could've been a commentary but instead it became a joke of an episode with two musicals that are nothing more than bringing down and making victims uncomfortable.

3. Loser, Baby and Poison did nothing to the story.

Loser, Baby is a useless addition to the already shitty soundtrack (There's like 2 soundtracks I liked out of them all.) and only provided us with the fact that "it's okay to be a victim and sell your body, it's okay to feel like a slut" it only serves to breed people to depreciate someone's self esteem, it's seen as "empowering" and "great" for Husk to belittle someone whose already been kicked down. Everyone in this episode was unlikeable with the exception of Sir Pentious, and ontop of it, everyone was OOC.

They were OOC to force a conflict and BS resolution because they needed a cute HuskerDust moment.

And don't get me started on Poison, the very song that tries to be Addict. But failed tremendously, Poison's animation was animated by a weirdo creep who probably had his hand somewhere else, and I wouldn't even put it past it.

Blake Roman has good vocals, but he's trying to be Michael, instead of his own person. There's alot of things I could say, but my dissection of this song is up if you want to hear it.

4. My EX liked the character and he's a piece of shit.

My ex, known as D, was an abusive cheating narcissist, who spent most of out relationship flirting with my then best friend (whose my boyfriend now) C. He spent most of the time doing it in front of me. It's not the first time he's done it, he's done it with other people, and alledgely by C, he made some rapey comments about him. My boyfriend (I will not say anything in respect) had "bad history" I had "bad history (involving family members.)" and for someone to say all that to someone who is a victim is gross.

When I left him after awhile he went on Twitter on a burner to harass me and my associates while spreading false allegations and using my mental breakdown as a way to say I diddle kids, along with screenshots when I was still a minor to prove to everyone I was a child diddler.

What does this have to do with AD?

Because he CONSTANTLY referred to Angel Dust as a "Femboy Spider" and KNOWING I was sexually abused, it made me INCREASINGLY uncomfortable. He and the fandom only see Angel Dust as gooning material, which is why he's written to be overly sexualized, he isn't a character that's deep and enriching, he's someone for people to sexualize and demean. He's not even human.

(He also had an obsession with UnknownSpy's stupid Sploot character which is a trigger of mine too.)

5. The roleplay side of them (esp Underage Kids) weird me out.

They have this weird sense of "judgement" about them that comes along with being an Angel Dust stan, they often try to make it to where they are uncomfortable around you while also portraying the easiest character.

and finally.

6. Angel Dust is easy to write, and not complicated.

Every single shit is a cop out, they write Angel Dust because its easy to make jokes about his body parts, they write Angel Dust because it's easy to rewrite canon into making him a victim.

Every FUCKING time.

I am SAYING Angel Dust can beat Val, it's easy, everyone down there has some sort of Asspull where they can somehow magically achieve Super Saiyan Bullshit.

Angel Dust by that logic should ALSO fucking take down the Vees, but no. We need more "liberating moments" for him to feel "empowered" and putting the sex back in Sex Worker.

This is why I hate him as a victim myself, and as a writing standpoint. People aspire to be like him, VICTIMS look up to him, NO ONE SHOULD PERIOD.

[leolithe]

Something I find really interesting about the Lotus' dialogue after the Lotus Eaters is her use of the word 'witch'.

"I was the Daughter. I became the Mother. In time, I shall be the Witch, blind once again, empty of all but wisdom." -Lotus

'Witch' has very specific connotations. Close enough to another similar word that I can't help but feel like it has to be a deliberate reference to the Triple Goddess ─ Maiden, Mother, Crone. These are figures from neopaganism that symbolizes the stages of a woman's life. Eleanor (proto-Nyx) even outright calls her the triple-faced goddess. While it definitely could just refer to Lotus, Margulis and Natah, what if we have yet to see her final form?

She was first Natah, the daughter of Hunhow. Then she assimilated Margulis' form and became the Lotus, mother to the Tenno. And now, she is to be the witch. Even urging us not to mourn should she turn into something we don't recognize. I'm very excited to see what exactly that will look like for her and how her role could potentially change. The quest made a point that the Operator will be staying behind while Drifter is the one chosen for the quest to 1999. Maybe instead of the mother-child dynamic that we've had for a decade, we'll get to see what kind of relationship she might have with the Drifter (<-copium)

I'm not much of a Greek Myth Lorehead but I've read up a bit on The Triple Goddess Hecate (who I've been told that, in Hades 2, was voiced by Amelia Tyler... who is now also voicing our dear Eleanor Nightingale. Worth mentioning cuz u just know rebb was kicking her feet and giggling at being able to pull that together). Hecate's status as a gatekeeper type figure, as i understand it, is very interesting when u apply it to the Lotus...

I'm just thinking about how meta the whole "Lotus' ascent to godhood" plot thread is. It's like a direct parallel to her voice actress' "intern to creative director" journey LMAO. It's a bloody golden opportunity and i hope they're cashing all in on Goddess!Lotus and everything it'll entail...

Not to mention lorewise and what it means for the Lotus' own arc!! To be someone constantly being pulled around by others to fulfil their own purposes, having her own wants neglected, shamed, belittled... To becoming a Witch/Crone/Gatekeeper a la Hecate -- now the one potentially capable of denying or approving others' needs and goals...? Ugh, that's so fucking JUICY. What a bloody incredible character.

Lotus mentions becoming "empty of all but wisdom", and I've seen someone theorize that she'll become even more emotionless and distant as a shield against Wally because it thrives on emotions. This theory scares me because it could very well happen... Not like Space Mom already has a history of being distant and reluctant to tell us how she's feeling... *Sniffles*...

There's also the theories about assigning Natah/Lotus/Margulis as the Maiden/Mother/Crone...

The most surface level reading would be Margulis = Maiden, Lotus = Mother, Natah = Crone, but imo when people make this read they're kinda hinging on their appearances lol. Pretty Margulis, "Ugly" Natah... Maybe even just "Good mom who can do no wrong" and "evil Sentient who led part of an assault on the Origin System".

I would like to think that it isn't that shallow, buuuut their personalities do fit the bill when u bring the "phases of a woman's life" theme to it.

Margulis' naivete, or the shattering of it, as the Maiden:

"No, Ballas, no more destruction. Maybe they're meant to save us."

"You lied to me, Ballas. You're no different than the rest of them."

Natah's headstrong wisdom, or her desire for it, as the Crone:

"I am the witness, the victim, the judge. My family has returned. Your trial, soon to begin."

"The times ahead will need decisiveness. Power."

And Natah does die in TNW. Her death is a very big part of the quest lol. The "End of life" theming of the Crone fits her very well... And the very first "gatekeeper/crone judges and makes the decision for you" thing she did was killing ballas. So i get it!

Inversely... You could also assign Natah as the Maiden and Margulis as the Mother because of the simple "Natah was the Daughter, now I am the Mother" quote. After all, Lotus before TNW was living very much under Margulis' shadow, assimilating into her like you mentioned. This read leaves Lotus to be the Crone; the empty, wise Witch we have yet to see.

The more i write this the more I wanna say: Damn. These 3 were always meant to converge into each other. Their stories are all sides of each others' respective coins and it almost feels arbitrary to chuck them into strict roles, even if symbolic.

I definitely think we're gonna see her "Triple Goddess Final Form" in the future. It's too good a story beat. Too sexy. DE HAS to do it. I have my platinum ready. Give me all the skins.

As for the DrifterLotus copium....... Hehehe. I don't think DE will ever do anything romantic/sexual with them. i think they're just gonna cap their relationship off at "they care immensely for each other" because they might be concerned about the questionable pseudo incest implications looming over anything to do with Lotus and the Tenno.

Like don't get me wrong; Drifter is their own person and Lotus of all people would be comfortable with the concept of "people having identical faces won't make them the same person". I just feel like DE might not be willing to play with them in that way. For perfectly understandable reasons... The Player Tenno are very much "colouring book" characters for the OC lovers so it seems smart to keep them relatively open-ended.

But. Don't worry. Check my AO3 at the end of the week. I hope you'll find something that brings u even a little bit of cheer ;3

[gaiuskamilah]

finished crimes 2 (again), and i enjoyed it more than the first book but i think crimes 1 on a technical standpoint was better, especially from the angle it was going for with religion being used to control people and how awful politicians, rich people, cops, etc are. with book 2 it was trying to do something similar with how monarchy and legitimacy are terrible but i feel like it focused too much on presenting the illegitimate children - the victims of this institutionally mandated traditions - as individually bad. i feel like an illegitimate child shouldn't have been the killer. if the book stuck with the original premise of 1) the person behind the killings not wanting the act for heir equity passed (and thus would maintain the power of the married couple and their legitimate children) and 2) wanted trystan out of the line of succession (non-traditionalist beliefs, sympathetic to the act, doesn't drink blood purity kool-aid), i would have enjoyed that more because then the killer would ACTUALLY be someone with a lot of power and influence instead of someone who's been routinely belittled and thrown aside by the stupid laws of monarchy.

i feel like they snuck in the lydea-is-a-bastard-actually to give a statement on how monarchy's blood purity sucks when imo it's just... kinda ass? lydea has lived all her life as a postured legitimate child, experienced the privileges of that, while eveline's children have been belittled for not having the right mother since birth. sebastyan, juliana, and even vasili first sought solutions to the ignorance of eveline's children through playing with the system that doesn't put much value on them in the first place. i think it would've been better if, despite these "doing it the right way" efforts by them, they were shot down by those above them anyway.

no one asked but here's my ideal scenario:

queen viktoria is the killer, as she has the most political influence to lose with the passing of the act and trystan is not interested in ruling anyway + is harder for viktoria to control.

viktoria arranges a marriage between trystan and juliana, an ambitious woman with which the act would've made her career, and takes the opportunity to kill juliana and exile trystan, putting lydea as heir

lydea is viktoria's favorite child and listens to everything viktoria says, and having her as queen would mean viktoria still has political power. lydea will do what viktoria says even if she doesn't personally enjoy it, as seen with how she didn't enjoy being heir but did it anyway.

overhears trystan's plans to pass the act, takes the steps to kill nadja and frame trystan (again).

the other children are the first suspects but it eventually leads to the queen, who's the personification of tradition, law, and family. the ignorance of the welfare of children for the better of institutions that don't care for them is a constant theme throughout the book as it already is, what better way to highlight that than by making the actual figurehead of that the villain?

trystan and lydea affirm their individuality and defy viktoria's machinations, especially on lydea's front.

they catch viktoria, the act is passed, and vasili, who isn't a Twisted Cycle Path but DID have a history with juliana which made him a suspect at first is made king by trystan, lydea as his second hand. vasili is just a Nice Guy. nothing wrong with him. he'll make a good king, even trystan called him their favorite brother and was supportive of the act because it meant the throne would go to vasili instead of lydea.

trystan leaves to go to new york with rose, finally being able to actually choose a life for themself for the first time.

my Real ideal scenario is they'd do away with monarchy altogether but i think that would take some time lmfao. but it's there.

[fandomwe1rd0]

Get in the car loser, we're overanalyzing this old man again.

Y'know the song Choice by Jack Stauber kinda fits Rick. Now I feel like this whole song can be said to fit Rick, especially considering it's less than a minute (40 seconds) but I feel like this part in particular really fits Rick:

"I am injury. No you aren't. You just made the choice to be."

Now, I think it's pretty clear that Rick sees himself, or rather, him caring about others as a virus, that infects people he loves and causes them to die, be put in danger/hurt because of him, or leave him. "Injury" but, while I would argue Rick doesn't have victim mentality (Aside from the season 6 finale) I do believe he does not take responsibility for his actions, or he simply doesn't realize that he is responsible for his own actions. I feel like Rick tends to blame others for his actions, refusing to realize that he is the author of his own misery, I mean this show basically tells us this in "Pickle Rick"

Dr Wong: "You seem to alternate between viewing your own mind as an unstoppable force, and an inescapable curse

I think that the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it's your mind within your control, you chose to come here, you chose to talk, to belittle my vocation, just like you chose to become a pickle. You are the master of your universe, yet you are dripping in rat blood and feces, you enamorus mind literally vegetating by your own hand."

Rick thinks that there is something objectively wrong with him, and that there always was. Which is why I personally think it took till the end of season 4, when he truly realized how bad of a father he was, for him to actually attempt changing. He didn't try, because he assumed he was never able to change, to become actually healthy, he didn't think there was any chance he could've been happy, so why even try? He assumed no matter what he did, he would still be stuck in his own mind, something he sees as a curse, something unstoppable that he can never escape.

For Rick, his intelligence is truly a blessing and a curse.

He is so smart and can do almost anything, it has gone to the point where he has an enamorus ego, and sees himself as a god.

But along with that, it is the root to his misery. While Rick is the author of his misery to some extent, it is clear to pinpoint where it started. After Diane died by Rick Prime. Diane died because Rick is so smart, because a version of him found out inter dimensional travel. Even before he became the person he is today, he was the author of his own misery to an extent, considering how Rick Prime is literally a version of himself. Rick Prime is him. Rick Prime has the same ego, and the same god complex. And both of their egos are fragile.

Rick Prime killed Diane because Rick offended him by rejecting his offer, he took it as Rick, in his own word "acting like you were better" and stated this as the exact reason why he killed Diane, here is exactly what he said

Rick Prime: "If you're seeing this, you're me, but y'know, less. Butttt you acted like you were better, so I killed your beloved Diane, partly to devastate you, mostly so I only have to record one message."

Rick's self loathing is also what makes him an author of his own misery. I think it's no surprise Rick hates himself, he makes it very clear. I mean, he literally created an AI version of Diane just to psychologically tormate him, what is the first things AI Diane says?

AI Diane: "Did you find our daughters killer?"

Rick: "Not yet, still looking."

AI Diane: "You'll find him! You always do everything you set your mind to! Expect keep your family alive! But that was hardly your fault!"

Rick: "Mute."

AI Diane: "If I could be muted I wouldn't be too good- too good at haunting you, now would I, you dirty bear."

Rick: "Right…forgot I wanted to be haunted."

This, by itself is already very telling. Rick's self hate started even before his hunt for Prime. He very clearly blames himself, (which is bitter irony considering it was another version of himself) hence is why he made the AI spefically to haunt him, he even made it so he gets as little comfort as possibly due

to just pure self loathing and thinking he doesn't deserve it.

AI Diane: "I kept up the search in your absence! Would you like a list of potential locations?"

Rick: "You're always just one room away, huh?"

AI Diane: "Uh, yeah, remember? You thought if you could see or touch me it might give you a level of com-com-comfort."

Rick: "Right…can't have that."

I feel like people underestimate how deep Rick's self loathing goes. It literally goes to the point where Rick doesn't believe that he deserves any kind of positive experiences. Also something I find interesting about AI Diane is that he repeatedly tries to push Rick's unhealthy thinking patterns and his unhealthy fight for Rick Prime as we can see in the episode, I already brought up AI Diane asking about the hunt, and offering him a list of potential locations, now let's see how she pushes Rick's unhealthy thinking patterns onto him.

AI Diane: "Who's Summer? Should I be jealous? I hope Summer knows what happens to the people you love~!"

Hearing your dead wife's voice say that in such a happy tone…it has got to fuck with you, and AI Diane eventually does get him to continue his search.

AI Diane: "Baby…something to keep in mind…if you were pulled back home by whatever happened it's…likely our target was as well…it also likely he's having as much trouble getting back as you are."

Rick: "He's trapped…"

AI Diane is a big thing that shows how Rick is the author of his own misery, not only did he make this AI to torture himself, the AI convinces him to do self-destructive things, it tries to make Rick believe that his unhealthy ways of thinking are true.

Rick's self loathing really does go deep.

I mean his hunt for Rick Prime is literally him trying to kill himself (Albiet a different version of himself, but still)

Rick has so SO many people who love him, but he constantly pushes them away because he sees himself as a virus, killing anyone he "infects" anyone he openly cares about.

This is why he was left alone at the end of season 4, and why he stills continues to be lonely.

He nearly lost his best friend because he was scared Bird person would be too busy taking care of his child to hang out.

He manipulated Morty into giving up his dream because of their codependency.

He traumatized Morty because he was scared Morty would notice how horrible of a person he really is.

He irreparably damaged his relationship with his daughter because he was terrified to admit that he cares about her, leaving him alone.

Morty has completely lost any hope that Rick cares about him.

Rick hurts anyone who gets close to him.

Rick always pushes away anyone who cares about him and ends up alone.

So he sees himself as a virus or "injury"

But want to know the truth?

Rick isn't injury.

He just makes the choice to be.

[shortystack75]

I just did my annual rewatch of Stars Align aka Hoshiai No Sora and now I once again have too many thoughts. Anyone seeing this is now the victim.

So basically this post is gonna be a long post explaining a tierlist I made for the kids and how they were effected by their parent/s. I made the tierlist at like 3am this morning and immediately passed out while working through my thought processes

OTHER PEOPLE ARE WELCOME TO READ MY RAMBLES TOO IT'S PRETTY ACCESSIBLE BC I EXPLAIN EVERYTHING

So I'm actually going to go from the bottom and work my way up bc I have so many more uncoordinated thoughts about Touma, Tsubasa, and Nao than anyone else.

RINTARO His adoptive parents have done everything right, he and they are delights. his main issue is the FACT that he's adopted. he feels like there's something inherently wrong with him that caused his birth parents to not want him. at the end of the series his birth mother gets ahold of his adoptive parents and wants to meet him, its assumed she shows up at the tournament but leaves before he can catch up to her, making him believe that because he lost his match she doesn't think he's worth even meeting. And yea I'm with the theory that he's Touma's twin and that makes his mom Rintaro's mom and boy would that fuck him up even more and I so wish we could've gotten our original 24 episodes. Overall his ACTUAL parents that he grew up with and currently have did not cause his problems so 10/10 love them sm

Arashi + Class Pres They are rich kids and though we dont see them being effected by this very much i assume they are negatively effected but overall their parents are probably okay

TAIYO Very soft spoken and probably would roll over and die if a bully or mugger approached him. His parents, while very well-meaning, dote on him in a way that probably killed any kind of confidence he had. "It's okay if you dont win" WOULD be good parent words, but they were followed up with "tennis is a two person sport, so its not your fault if your partner messes up" Taiyo actually scolds them for this which made me really happy, as by saying this not only are they making a dig at his friend and partner(who does not need anyone hurting him anymore goddamn), but also could be interpreted as if they do win then it could be all his partner and not him Overall 8/10 this boy just needs more confidence and screentime

ITSUKI He was hard to place because his parent situation has already been handled actually. he got todorokied as a kid. When he was a baby, his mother clearly suffered from some pretty hard postnatal depression, and possibly other stuff, and poured boiling water onto his back. this left him with some pretty horrific back scars that he actually doesn't mind but he clearly doesn't like talking about it, as shown in the show by him not changing in the club room until about halfway through the show, after he'd already known the MC Maki for a while. He's shown to have a very easy trigger to violence however when people belittle his homelife. Without even knowing about his mother, some bullies come talk down to him about his mother being out of the picture and his response was to bash them over the head with his racket 8/10 Current situation, we never see his dad but we can assume he's doing a decent job as a father bc Itsuki and Namie are actually kinda well adjusted despite his lil aggro moment

Mitsue Mitsue is not part of the tennis club but hands around them as the only people she can stand coughcoughADMITTHEY'REYOURFRIENDSLOSERcoughcough and uses their matches as inspiration for drawing. Her parents belittle her passion for drawing and tell her seemingly often that she'll never go anywhere in life, its implied that she starts hanging around the tennis club and Maki's house to get away from her parents as long as possible until she actually starts liking them

Yuu Yuu is a canonicaly non-binary/X-gender character and i love them but their mom is transphobic and yelled at them and was really shitty i hope she dies. not directly related to their mother, but we also see other students bullying them for being gay (no one other than Maki, their mother, and their sisters find out about them not being cis, but most people seem to know theyre gay or at least suspect it) they are physically harassed early on, only to have a friend, Touma, step in and literally scare off the bullies(more on that when we get to him) and towards the middle of the show some other sports guys come into the tennis team's room to talk and start to make comments on Yuu being gay. This is immediately shut down by several of the tennis club members showing their clear support for them at least in the gay sense.

SHINGO His mother is either dead or otherwise out of the picture completely but there seems to be no ill will from him or his father, who remarried. Father is great and supportive of him. His step-mother however... She's constantly comparing him to his mother who she clearly doesnt like and wants as little to do with him as possible. Shingo has a little half-sister whom he adores and she adores him right back, but his step-mom HATES them interacting and does everything she can to discourage it, despite his little sister's clear adoration and love for him. He overall isn't super outwardly very effected by her, but is still clearly put-out by her random hate towards him and likely feels very uncomfortable in her presence. 6.5/10 overall, 9/10 dad but 4/10 step-mom who gets a"Not being as bad as you could've been" award

Now we're getting spicy

MAKI Our main character Maki! He's an overall quiet but pleasant person who has a very realistic outlook on life. His single mother is amazing towards him but works very long hours at her job and so most of the chores fall into him, not that he minds all that much, when he was younger he was often looked after by his mother's friend Shou, a canonical transman that lead Maki to be very informed about gender and was just what Yuu needed. His father however.... physically and financially abusive. despite being divorced he shows up at their apartment when he knows his exwife wont be at home to steal money from them and be mean to Maki. in the after credits scene of the first episode he hits maki so hard something in his mouth starts bleeding(he likely bit his tongue or a part of his cheek) and he curls up into a ball and waits for him to leave. He's terrified of this man. Later in the show he shows up to terrorize maki again and Touma, Maki's doubles partner, gets involved to put an end to it. Throughout the exchange Maki is practically cowering behind Touma which is so jarring because Maki's normal demeanor is so nonchalant and calm. It's implied he's been abused for as long as he could remember to some extent. We see a couple other time that he has an interesting reaction to threats and violence, such as another character threatening him with a racket(he doesn't react and simply says "Use your hands") or upon learning Itsuki bludgeoned a guy with his racket(tells him not to break the equipment because its expensive) Oh also his mother is in the process of getting a restraining order but its not in place yet Mom and Shou are 8/10, dad is 0/10, overall 4/10 experience for our sadboy Maki

TOUMA He's some kind of neurospicy i just know it. His father is ??? never see this man but we know he;s in the household, i think he travels for work or smth cause its mentioned he's rarely at home His mother HATES him. like for no reason. She gives us a lot of vague words she says to his older brother, who seems to be Touma's only positive family relation, at one point she says that he scares her but she also yells at him all the time and compares him to his brother and basically constantly belittles him for no reason. He seems to blame everything on himself but silently. When the tennis team isn't doing good he blows up be throwing his racket on the ground and storming away, but later reveals to his brother that he thinks its his fault and that he's a bad captain. Similarly, when the team is having a celebration he stays to the edges and explains to Yuu that he doesn't like being around people who are having fun because he feels like he's going to ruin it be engaging. We can actually tie this into a little moment he has with Maki during a game when Maki turns to him exactly and goes "I really love tennis!" and Touma stands there with awe on his face as if he couldn't imagine someone having fun by playing with him. Speaking of Yuu, back when he scared off the bullies, 2/3 of the bullies were IMMEDIATELY scared upon seeing him walk up, they told the third one that "Everyone knows he's a psycho" while Touma stands there with a blank face. This coupled with how his mother talks about him makes me think he's had a little bit of a violent streak that may be linked to autistic breakdowns Back to his mother, it is revealed at the end that there's a third brother we've never seen or heard of when we get a scene of his mother and older brother talking. his brother says "I love both of my little brothers" and later that episode his mom calls him to tell him she's divorcing his dad and taking his older brother with her. I just know he'd be even more messed up if Rintaro ends up being his twin brother. Anyway his dad is 4/10 for absence and his mom is 1/10 for doing the bare minimum (really sad that she has any points at all). Overall 2.5/10

TSUBASA he's my little crunchy guy i love him so much We very very briefly see his mother have worry for him at a bad moment but never goes after him when he runs away and she never seems to check on him at any other point. The bad moment is when he falls down the stairs. Specifically he is hit in the face by his father so hard (on a flight of stairs) that he slams into the wall and then loses his balance and falls backwards onto his dominant wrist hard enough to break it. Let me backtrack a bit. at about 2/3 through the anime, we get a scene of him at home watching tv with his 2 older brothers. His dad comes through the door and the music stops, all three boys look tense but Tsubasa specifically immediately gets a fearful look and when addressed by his dad tries to leave the room. Tsubasa is a very loud and confrontational person, likely caused by his dad's toxic masculinity, and says something that isn't important but causes his father to follow him and grab his wrist so hard he looks in pain. What follows is the stair incident. He then runs out of the house in the middle of the night and ends up in front of Shingo's house. Shingo is his tennis partner. Shingo sees him, Tsubasa tries to run away but is quickly caught by the hurt wrist. After Shingo realizes he's hurt he immediately gets his dad to take Tsubasa to the hospital. When the doctor asks if anyone else was involved, Tsubasa denies this and calls himself an idiot with the most heart wrenching expression on his face i swear. He later confesses to Shingo he's sure his dad hates him all because he's not as good at soccer as his older brothers, and blames himself for Shingo not being able to play in the upcoming tournament. When asked why he came to Shingo's house he responds with "I didn't know where else to go" Which makes me want to hit someone, personally. At the start of the series there a part where he raises his racket as if to strike Maki with it, but backs down when Maki doesn't even flinch. I'm taking this to mean he was never actually planning to hit Maki, but acting big and threatening violence is likely something he learned from his dad. When it doesn't work he immediately backs down and leaves the situation, similar to how he acts with his dad. He's also one of the few we see get physical with anyone else. Barring Itsuki and the racket incident, Tsubasa is the only member of the tennis team to threaten another middle schooler. In the club room incident where Yuu was starting to be harassed, Tsubasa was one of the three (Touma and Maki were not present) out of 6 members to intervene. While Shingo and Itsuki told the other boy off and insulted him in turn, Tsubasa actually got up in his space and grabbed a hold of the other boy's face, lightly shoving him. The other boys immediately backed down after this like Tsubasa was assuming they would, like how he learned to behave with his father. Mom is like 4/10 for being useless 🎉and Father is 0/10 for an overall score of 2/10!!!

and now... for NAO My head is in my hands over him So to start, he's an only child and his father is distant and doesn't seem to interact with him or care for him whatsoever(unlike with Tsubasa and hopefully Touma, he's somehow being an absent parent while sitting right! next! to! him!!!), leaving him with no help or reprieve at home from his monster of a mother. She never physically hurts or lays a hand on him from what we've seen but she clearly has deep-rooted mental and emotional manipulation that has negatively effected Nao very deeply. We see a lot of signs early on that we brush away as little quirks he has, such as telling a lot of lies or "fairy tales" as the tennis club likes to call them, staring off into space, or even just looking impassively at what transpires around him as if he wasn't apart if it. That's right this boy disassociates. hard. His mother, to put it lightly, is an extremely controlling and authoritarian parent who wants to hand steer every little thing he thinks, feels, and does. She's constantly complaining to the principal about the club and lying or exaggerating in order for club activities to be suspended or halted because she doesn't think he gets anything from playing and would rather he spend all his time studying. Speaking of studying, that's what she has him do constantly at home. His room doesn't look like that of a middle school boy. It has a desk, a bed, and a dresser. I would even go so far as to say some of his spacey-ness comes from exhaustion. who knows how long she has him studying every night, and its revealed he gets up early so he can go on runs and practice swinging because she doesn't let him after he gets home from school. All of this feeds into his lies. He's learned that whenever he tells her the truth he gets yelled at and belittled and punished. So he lies. he tells her what he thinks she'll want to here and this bleeds into all of his relationships. Upon meeting Maki he lies immediately, something broad to appeal to everyone, but its called out by the rest of the club and he just sits there smiling through it all while looking at the sky. He's left handed and she hates that. He uses his left hand to eat once and she yells at him, making him freeze up and pull his right arm into his center, almost mimicking the fetal position. SPEAKING of eating... boy unintentionally has an eating disorder. We are shown multiple times when he is at home he pushes his food around his plate and eats little to none of it. While there are other scenes of him with food away from his mother, I dont think he's actually specifically shown eating then either, and could've easily not eaten anything there. OKAY so onto the really scary/sad part. There's a part where Shingo brings his little sister to watch their practice game with the girls' team, and she gets lost in the school. She ends up found sleeping in the nurses office, but they skipped over it bc the door was locked and figured she couldn't have gotten in there. They only find her when Maki hears the keys jingle in Nao's pocket and realizes he locked her in there. Nao himself seemed shocked that he had the keys and was the one to lock her in there. His mom had been yelling about the practice game and wanting it cancelled the night before. He found her, and instead of telling everyone or waking her up, he disociated and locked the door, than lied that he hadn't seen her. He seemed so shocked that Maki even thinks that he'd thought his own lie was real. Think of how scary that is. I also think he's neurospicy which his mom would absolutely fuck up even more but thats just me things Dad gets a 3/10 for personally pissing me off and his mom gets a funny lil 0/10 along with the two other shittiest parents. Overall a 1.5/10!!!

In all seriousness In my own little world most of them move in together and share an apartment. Yes ive seen the extra scenes no I dont care im ignoring them.

[patrice-bergerons]

Hii ~ hope you don't mind the ask, but I saw you said you were okay with talking about your barrister au and I would love to know more if you're up to it.

You mentioned Crozier's brother visiting 👀 does that mean fake boyfriends or just Francis sort of using him as a boyfriend without telling James and James doesn't notice?

And also James falls in the Thames? Is it a hurt comfort sort of thing or more a very mad Francis that James didn't bother to tell him

I loved your au I've been thinking about it since I read it! Thanks!

Do I mind the ask? Anon I am absolutely thrilled that you loved this au and want to talk about it - thank you so much for indulging me 😁 I will yap about this endlessly when given the opportunity because I have also been thinking about it non stop since I wrote that purported one shot.

Francis’s brother visiting is absolutely a fake dating scenario. He explains the situation and his goals and asks James to accompany him to a dinner with them as his "boyfriend", telling him to be his absolute worst self. Francis and his brother may not get along but they share a temperament re having little appetite for James’s self-agrandizing stories and his ability to yap endlessly.

James is delighted to play and he is planning to bore and infuriate the lesser Crozier to death, but at the start of the dinner, the brother makes a crass and unkind comment around Francis and alcohol, and James decides- oh I am going to destroy you, because how dare he? Francis is also the youngest sibling and while he can defend himself, given the age difference and the deference he was expected to show growing up, his strategy with his brother (who gets a kick out of belittling him at every turn) has been to ignore & avoid him as much as possible, which further incenses James, who is like you deserve so much better. And well, if Francis didn't already have a crush on him (he is by no means acknowledging even to himself) he is positively awe struck by the end of the dinner heheheh.

Meanwhile, James in the Thames is a bit of both. He jumps into the water to save a hapless drunk from drowning, ends up with the guy saved but also in the hospital himself because he got too much water in his lungs in the process. Francis finds out about it the next morning when he goes into work to find one of his junior people intensely irritated. "Can you believe the gall of [the law firm who is working with James on the other side of the litigation]," he says, "they have reached out to us to ask if we are amenable to an extension for the submission because, and I quote, 'Mr Fitzjames, QC, of our barrister team was hospitalised last night after selflessly risking his life to save an innocent victim from drowning in the Thames' — next thing you know they will petition the Crown to get him a knighthood!" but all Francis can say, with blood rushing in his ears, is- which hospital?

He then rushes to the hospital, and there James is, sitting in bed and looking ridiculously smug as he goes "ehehe got you". And Francis doesn't know what to say or do, at once furious and relieved beyond words to not to find James on the brink of death (especially as just last night he was dreaming precisely of James’s death in 1848). James meanwhile... generally doesn't expect anyone to care that much about his wellbeing, including Francis, so he too is surprised. Anyway, maybe, likely?, they have a fight but it ultimately resolves into h/c and handholding. The handholding is very important to me personally. I also want to sneak in more pretend boyfriends so Francis can come visit him after hours 🥰 they are so not in love it's crazy!!!

[peaches2217]

Look, I hate to be the one to say it, but if you grew up in a cult and you’re still religious, you never escaped your cult. You’re not a cult survivor, you’re literally still a cult member. I hope you get the help you need.

(I’m assuming you’re referencing my tags on this post?? Lemme know if I’m off-base! 😅)

Oooookay! Little rant under the cut, because while it is a bit of a sensitive topic, I think I have the right to answer honestly!

TW: Religious trauma, abusive relationships, homophobia, just generally deep shit about toxic religious culture

Friendo, with all due respect, you don’t get to tell me what I am or what I’m not when it comes to my religious beliefs. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but I’ve spent the past five years navigating my own thoughts and beliefs after twenty-odd years of being told exactly what to think and how to believe, and that’s something I won’t allow to be belittled or diminished.

I did grow up in a cult. My lifelong church was an Assemblies of God church, which is a denomination already known for being… kinda intense, but I got the “privilege” of seeing it morph into a fledgling cult as I grew up; gradually cutting all associations with all churches outside the denomination, thinly-veiled messages of fear and hate becoming less and less veiled, increasingly vigilant calls to action against “The Enemy,” which went from a vague way of referencing Satan and his influence to referencing literally anyone who wasn’t part of the congregation. I dated a guy who sincerely believed, and preached to a room full of “Amen!”s, that Catholics are all Hell-bound and non-Evangelical Protestants weren’t far behind. I didn’t even think twice about the logic of suggesting a 2000-year-old religion was wrong and illegitimate prior to the past hundred years or so. I was just enamored by his devotion and wisdom.

I was always queer and suppressed it to varying degrees of success before getting my first taste of freedom in college and falling into a relationship that became abusive. I came back home after dropping out, broken and confused, and ran back to the only place I’d ever felt welcomed, but realized pretty quickly that I’d been deemed one of the very same outsiders I was warned about growing up. I threw myself into repentance. I desperately tried to regain favor in the eyes of the church and the God I was raised to believe in. I made the mistake of finally opening up and trusting the pastor enough to confide in him about my abusive relationship, to which he responded with a lecture about MY wrongdoings, followed by him outing me to the entire congregation. One day after service when I was about 21 or 22, I approached my dad while he was talking with the pastor’s wife, and she stopped mid-sentence when she saw me and just walked away in the opposite direction. That was a pretty common reaction people had to me after being outed, but I think that was the moment I realized I had failed to atone and failed as a Christian.

Through it all, my dad spoke with conviction of a God who was gentle, loving, merciful, and kind. I realized late in my teenhood that, for all his devotion to our church, the God he spoke of wasn’t the same God our pastor spoke of. My dad remains a victim of the cult because he was raised to believe all figures of authority are well-meaning — a few months back, my mom tried to sit him down and explain plainly that several of my psychological issues are a direct result of religious trauma inflicted by the church he raised me in, and he sincerely couldn’t wrap his head around the notion. But even as that church has morphed into a cult, he’s held belief in a God and a Christianity more forgiving. I realized during my last few visits to the church, spread over the course of a couple of years, that he’d also been othered, if not quite as hard and suddenly as I was. Even now he’ll express frustration that no one seems to consider his ideas or opinions when he used to be considered a go-to decision maker.

My dad’s no leftist; he’s proudly conservative, supports Trump, and hides his homophobia behind a veil of sympathy for those “called to celibacy” or with a “propensity towards sodomy” (both terms he’s used to describe me, to my face). I love him, and we have a good relationship, but I sincerely worry about what might happen when he finds out I’m trans. His one deviation from the church, his belief that God’s much more willing to love and forgive than the pastor tells us, is nevertheless enough to have him considered an outlier. Being ostracized and forced to look from the outside in allowed me to see that and realize “Hey, hold up, that doesn’t make sense.”

So for the past half decade, I’ve been doing something that goes directly against everything I was ever taught: examining my beliefs and determining what I truly believe and what I only believe out of indoctrination and fear. Looking at the Scriptures in their original forms and historical-political contexts, and examining its English translations through the same lens. Discerning the difference between what’s biblical and what’s Christlike, how much of Christianity is God’s true word and how much is the agenda of men, challenging myself to question everything I’ve ever known and acknowledge that maybe what I learned was just wrong.

It’s… largely been uphill, but it’s a battle I’m not fighting alone. My girlfriend is a huge source of support; having someone that’s so close to me yet so far removed from the system I was brought up in has been invaluable in opening my eyes to just how fucked up some of the stuff I’ve been taught is. I just earlier this year learned that the Rapture isn’t a widespread belief outside of American Evangelicism, and that it as a concept isn’t even an ancient prophecy, but a relatively recent (like, 19th century, popularized in the 20th century) man made doctrine. My girlfriend, who lacks strong religious affiliation but nonetheless knows her Scripture because she’s from the heavily Catholic Slovakia, was absolutely baffled when I explained what I thought was common knowledge to all Christians. She calls the doctrine “UFO Jesus”.

Since I was at least twelve, I’ve lived in constant fear of the Rapture because I was convinced that, as a “sodomite” who couldn’t bring myself to condemn others like me, all my friends and I would be damned to Hell at any given moment. It’s always been a double-edged sword; fear of damnation is what’s kept me from offing myself several times, but the belief that the Rapture will happen any day and I’ll be tortured for all eternity no matter what I do so there’s really no point in living is a huge part of what got me to the point of wanting to off msyelf in the first place. And I’m learning now that it’s not even a common belief within one of the world’s largest religions, least of all to the extent its importance was pressed within our church. I still struggle to say “I was taught a lie” because that fear of being wrong and suffering greatly for it was part and parcel of my participation in church growing up, but dammit I’m striving to find my own truth instead of the supposed truth drilled into me.

So yes, I’m still religious. But I no longer believe in the God I was taught to believe in. I still haven’t quite figured everything out, and I still struggle thanks to a lifetime of indoctrination, but I’m learning to define my own beliefs bit by bit, and I believe in a God of radical love who mourns what so many oppressive sects of Christianity teach and enforce in His name. And if you don’t believe that, that’s fine! There’s reasons aplenty to be atheistic or antitheistic or religious/spiritual but unaffiliated with Christianity specifically.

But don’t you dare fucking tell me I’m no better now than I was while I was trapped, just because you personally don’t find religion to hold any value. I’m not perfect. I was raised in a deeply flawed ideology and still suffer from holdovers. I’m doing my best to hold myself accountable for those biases as I move forward. But I am, in fact, a victim and a survivor, and I‘ve fought like hell to undo the damage done to me and that I did to others while trapped in that system, and I have every right to be frustrated at those efforts being belittled and to be proud of myself for how far I’ve come anyway.

[linkspooky]

I’m a bit curious, since I saw the post about how you think the 1st year Tokyo kids aren’t that close as a trio. It made me wonder if you think the same think with the 2nd year’s bond. Do you also don’t really see them as a close group?

If there are a group of Tokyo Kids that could qualify as Nakama, it would definitely be the second years. However, I'd like to clarify I don't think they're all one big friend group. For example. I don't think Maki would hang out with Inumaki, or Panda alone the same way she might for Nobara or Yuta.

The 2nd years are a group of friends with Yuta at the center, because Yuta's entire character revolves around his desire to connect with other people.

His arc in Jujutsu Kaisen zero where he is the main character, is basically him spending time with Inumaki and Maki characters who both seem inapproachable for different reasons and then learning about and connecting with them.

His connection with Maki is the most obvious. I ship it of course, but even if you don't view them in a romantic life Maki is the character who challenges Yuta all throughout Jujutsu Kaisen Zero and changes him. It begins with Maki calling out Yuta's self-centeredness in a deserved way. That's how he starts the manga, he's alone because of Rika, but he's used Rika as a convenient excuse too to not try to improve his situation or go out and make friends. He doesn't want to fix the problem, he starts out by saying he wants to commit suicide but decides not to because he's so lonely.

The way for Yuta to overcome his self-centeredness is obviously to make an attempt to connect to the people around him. Which is where his relatioship with Maki is so important, because Maki is two things number one downright hostile to Yuta at first making it difficult to connect and number two she's also a victim of her family.

The fact that Yuta comes to learn about Maki's family circumstances and sympathize with her is important for his character, because he's no longer playing the victim TM. He's done the mature thing and realized there are other people besides him suffering and he can reach out a hand to help them. Which takes strength to do rather than just dwelling in your own problems.

He starts out basically afraid of Maki, and existing as the kind of kid who would get easily bullied by her if they were just normal high school students, but when Maki screams her criticism at him in his face and challenges him to be better, he actually listens.

At that point for the rest of the manga he's actually trying to meet Maki halfway. He trains with her in kendo even if he ends up losing almost every single time. He starts working towards a goal, even if that goal is basically just being someone who is as strong as Maki and can fight alongside her.

Which like I said, Yuta's central motivation is his desire to connect with others which is why he makes an effort to actually be friends with his classmates rather than workplace associates. He's actually seeking that kind of validation from Maki because he admires her and wants to be like her.

However, Maki and Yuta's relationship is far less one-sided and parasitic like it is for Rika and Yuta. As a result of his hard work over the course of the manga, Yuta makes progress in his relationship with Maki and actually gives something back to her. He is the first one really to point out her good points, after Maki has been belittled by her clan her entire life.

Maki's greatest character flaw is her insistence on doing everything alone, it's even why she snaps at Yuta after this. It's such a serious flaw she neglects to repair her relationship with Mai until it's already too late. However, Yuta is someone who wants to make the effort to connect with Maki in the world of sorcery where eople don't really go out of their way to connect.

While Yuta and Maki's relatioship has much less focus in the manga proper, when he returns post culling games they're basically always drawn as a set together. They always stand right next to each other, they talk like equal partners, Yuta is the only person to check if Maki is okay after receiving third degree burns all over her body and Maki recognizes Yuta is as strong as Hakari.

Then there's Yuta's relationship with Inumaki which gets far less screentime than Maki, but goes through a similiar arc to the one that Yuta does. Inumaki is also presented to the audience as someone unfriendly that Yuta has a hard time understanding.

In Inumaki's case he can't really talk and explain himself to Yuta, because his curse technique makes it so if he's not careful with his speech he could horribly hurt someone. Inumaki's difficulty in controlling his cusred technique which renders him sort of mute couples with Yuta's misunderstanding of him as someone intimidating and scary.

During their fight, Yuta is continually supported by Inumaki who shows his concern for people in actions rather than words. THis is once again a case where Yuta has to step outside his own head and try to understand someone else.

It's also an example just like Maki where Yuta realizes that other people in life have it hard besides him. Inumaki is struggling with a difficult to control curse technique that might curse someone by accident if he's not careful. Yuta's moment of change is realizing how hard Inumaki's life is, and how kind and considerate towards other people he is because he doesn't want them to get hurt.

You could even say he compares to Yuta, they both have cursed techiques that could accidentally hurt people (if I remember correctly it's implied Inumaki has hurt someone in the past) but Inumaki goes to great lengtsh to control his technique whereas at the start of the manga Yuta tends to just let Rika rampage and act like he's not in control. When they meet Yuta is in the process learning how to control Rika, and his desire to help Inumaki and repay his kindness motivates him to work harder.

Yuta is a character that revolves around relatioships, he does everything for the sake of his friends, all of his character development comes from those friends. He doesn't even know anything about Yuji, but he goes out of his way to protect him because Yuji is someone important to Inumaki.

His goal is to defeat Kenjaku single handedly because he doesn't want Gojo to have to kill the body of his best friend again. Panda himself when talking with Mechamaru even says that the reason he's interested in people and wants to learn more about them is because he met Yuta who he finds to be strange but admires in a way.

Yuta is someone who goes out of his way to make the connections that sorcerers don't usually make and this is also pointed out as being something that makes Yuta soft and unable to reach his true potential of be a calamity like Sukuna.

Which is why I'm confident in saying unlike the first years who are all strong individualists who are basically trying to be as strong as Gojo, the 2nd years are more of a friend group because Yuta is there and treats them all like friends.

[ilikepipecleanerswitheyes]

i already knew that the tom and shiv argument was gonna bring in some of the most insufferable discourse ever. there’s so much talk of who “won” the argument and who the “real” victim is.

they are two morally corrupt individuals who have worn one another down for 4 seasons who also happen to be deeply in love.

you cannot say tom’s pain of feeling unsupported is invalid in the same way you cannot say shiv’s pain of being betrayed and used (yes even if you think she ‘deserved’ it) is invalid.

we tend to look at the show too much from a hindsight viewer lens and not get inside the minds of the characters.

tom was verbally belittled and ignored throughout his relationship and cheated on. it doesn’t matter if he indeed social climbed, it doesn’t stop those things from hurting.

shiv lost communication with her father months before his passing. yes, they had no idea the time with her father would be taken away so soon after, but she is literally grieving her dad who has not been gone for even a week. and her husband played an important role in fracturing her already broken relationship with her father. of course she will get mad at him for that.

their fundamental inability to understand or communicate with one another has poisoned their relationship. it doesn’t really matter if their emotions are coming from irrational or logical places because the fact of the matter is they felt them, genuinely.

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 5 Meakashi Pt. 16

When the line "The Sonozaki family made Satoshi-kun disappear completely. They could do it." Appeared the screen flashes white for just a split second. You know, cause Mion got hit with the stun gun.

"Unlike you Satoshi, you fail sack, I won't die. I'm gonna live forever!" You know, this is kind of just a wild overreaction on Shion's part if you want to look at it from the outside. Also, I got the impression that Mion was trying to give Shion the brush-off earlier and send her back to her home, so all of this probably could've been avoided if she just made her drunk as a skunk sister go back to her own place.

Well Shion, I don't think you'll have to worry about Oryou doing anything since you've probably killed her already. Especially since you mention that Kasai got you an illegally modified stun gun so it would be more powerful than a regular one. Slight spoiler for two screens from now.

Shion is kind of an asshole isn't she? Not just for the whole hitting her sister and elderly grandma with a stun gun thing, but for the constant belittling Mion she does for basically no reason. Sure she doesn't say it out loud, but due to her nature of being the view point we're currently in we get to read her inner-workings, and I'm just saying this kid is a bit of a dickhead. Of course there's also the whole assaulting Satoko thing, and the manipulating a crowd to harass the bikers. Point is, I don't think she's going to suddenly redeem herself any time soon.

So, for some reason Shion seems to think that Mion herself has started maneuvering to take advantage of the Oyashiro Curse killings. What I don't really get is why, nothing based on any of their interactions seems to imply that Mion has this hidden bloodlust in her. I think this might just be projection from Shion honestly. She seems like the sort who would use the killings to rid herself of annoyances or problems, the earlier wishing that Satoko would be one of the victims for instance is a pretty clear indicator of that. So I just presume this is her thinking that since she would do it, Mion would probably also just go ahead and act the same way.

It makes sense that you would want to keep the person who does the dirty deeds for your organization and the heir to your empire apart. Plausible deniability and all that, but eventually you figure you'd have to introduce Mion to Jimmy the Shank, Problem Solver at some point.

I know you have the upper hand and all, but why on earth would you admit to being one of the party that broke into the ritual storehouse? Seems like the sort of information you'd want to keep close to your chest you know? Of course given the near omnipotence of the Hinamizawa Information Network I don't doubt that they are already aware that Shion and Keiichi were there. I was going to remark that it does seem rather slapdash that the rules for the sacrifices seems to just go with the flow, but thinking about it there might just be something to my notion that each of the three families has to make a sacrifice. Tomitake counts as a death for, I don't know, the Sonozakis. Takano is one for the Furude family, and then they split sacrificing Shion and Keiichi and the Kimiyoshis get some other rando who will probably wind up being super important to the narrative.

I feel this is a rather appropriate level of paranoia to have since you just found out that people you were with mere hours ago died horrible painful deaths. I don't think she was drugged though, I think she just hit the sauce a little too hard too fast. Unless Kasai is in on it, he was prepared to take her home before Shion insisted on just crashing at Mion and Oryou's house.

[watsername]

Have you seen the reddit now talking about misogyny when they can conveniently blame it on george and his stans? Why is there now an outcry against misogyny because false’s stans made drama out of george punching her in a mini game when she explicitly said not to, but not an outcry when the community devalued jojo’s skill for months? when scott enables misogyny by continuously using women as nerfs? when people bullied nikki out of the event for being upset?

Really giving “I don’t care about people belittling and harassing women but I draw the line at george’s fans finding his mcc trolling funny”

it’s bc mcc fans don’t like the dteam .

there is something to be said about misogyny in mcc and ik this bc i wrote a whole essay on it but although a female player was at the other end of george’s trolling there’s nothing to say it’s an act of misogyny. bc as a george viewer we know he just trolls anyone . it was a matter of who was behind him, which happened to be false and at one point elaina, there was no micro aggression towards women that made geirge target then specifically . they were just the ones behind him . false recognises that George was just being a menace and that it would not have affected her placement either way so she asked people not to harass george it his viewers because number one why would she WANT her viewers to harass anyone but also she knows it’s ultimately not that big of a deal in the long run and that she’s a valuable player who can and will make up for any losses even though the result would have been the same either way .

i talked about this last week regarding sapnap but there is a trend of trying to make the worst of a situation . ie last week people were saying sapnap was abusive bc he was loud and competitive and eret ms stream didn’t exactly help matters . this might be a result of me talking about misogyny in the subreddit tbh . but the element of critical thinking has been taken away from it . when i asked ppl to think about misogyny i asked them to think about what they were saying and why . george was hitting false -> hes targeting female players or george was hitting false -> she was the unlucky person behind him .

people saw george display a trait they didn’t like - not taking the event seriously enough - and took a similar route as to how they treat sapnap in that they blow it up to be a way bigger event than it actually was . it’s simply because they don’t like the dteam and are trying to find evidence that fits their narrative of them as morally wrong . hence sapnap taking the event too seriously makes him an abuser and george taking the even not seriously enough makes him a raging misogynist when in fact if you look at the context of their streams it creates an entirely new situation . ie George just being a menace to whoever was behind him without a motive of targeting female players.

you can argue that female players have it hard enough in mcc and that’s why what George did was misogyny but i don’t think that holds up . female players already have it so hard so to label every instance of not so beneficial player interactions as musogynistic it’s taking away the attention from the actual misogyny that’s prevalent in the fanbase and sometimes in the event . bc if we say geirge trolling was misogyny we could also say that anyone who kills a woman in pvp games is targeting female players as weak . women who agree to be a sandkeeper instead of a runner are being belittled for their skill . women who are shit off platforms in rsr are being targeted . women who are tagged first in parkour tag are being targeted . game mechanics aren’t always fair and sometimes a woman is the unfortunate victim of griefing or pvp . not all of those instances will be a result of misogyny . otherwise the option to make sure nobody does anything negative to female players leaves them in a situation where they are essentially infantilised bc we are ‘protecting’ them from the mechanics of the game . is it annoying what george did ?? i’m sure it was for false and elaina during the game . is it worth the hullabaloo??? no . bc nobody care if it was soemone like ranboo doing it i guarantee