#just bc they're Big now doesn't mean you have to be so fucking miserable about it!!

[indigodawns]

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[poppy-metal]

been thinking a lot about groveling for patrick after artashi kick him out after ur shutdown in bed

you start to realize you want him around... but you have to find a way to tell him that

and part of it is the very reason u were hurt in the first place. bc u like seeing the way patrick makes art and tashi happy. u just... need to trust that you make them happy too.

thinking a big realization comes when something big happens in ur personal life - good or bad - and you realize that more than anything, you want patrick.

tashi would be too clinical. art would be too soft. patrick wouldn't try to make anything better. he'd just let you... feel.

you start seeing where he's missing. the spot he should be occupying. and u decide that u have to get patrick. and u have to do it on ur own.

bc it was ur silence that shoved him out. it has to be ur voice that brings him back.

so u go to him. u consider bringing flowers - feels emasculating. consider buying new lingerie - feels like ur expecting too much. u find urself outside his door, a crumpled paper in ur hands, way too disheveled for what should be a formal affair, knocking on his door.

"ah. did tashi send u?"

an awkward silence. "no. i ... came on my own. can i... can we talk?"

I love love love this concept I love the thought of being forced to come forward with your feelings especially to someone like patrick who's so honest - feels shameful like you're a little kid apologizing after doing something wrong and you can't stop looking at your feet but he makes you look at him and oh. he's so beautiful. something in his chaos makes him so lovely. wild dark curls. flushed tan face with a smattering of freckles. his sometimes blue sometimes green eyes. they're green now. you recognize they get that way when he's serious - angry or sad or amped up or contemplative. you think he might be all of them combined. to him, you're nothing but the little brat who got him kicked out because your say is apparently more important than his.

he allows you in, thinks about throwing you out and slamming the door in your face but he's just not that kind of guy. plus you look so miserable it's kind of funny. he wants to hear what you have to say. cracks open a beer and doesn't offer you one, and leans against his kitchen counter as you settle into his worn fraying couch. he thinks you look too pristine to be in his bumass apartment but something about it, he likes. you could use a little dirtying up.

"art and tashi want you to come back. so, um. you should. I know things got complicated and intense and things were said that were mean, um. but they really miss you - I know if you just came back you could work things out and - "

"what do you want?" he cuts the bullshit. points at you with his beer bottle. he won't let you pussyfoot around. he's not in the mood, honestly, for games. the week has been miserable enough.

you look down at your hands. "it doesn't matter what I want. I was selfish before, and I'm sorry. I won't be going forward."

he looks at you. he'd laugh if he wasn't in such a shit mood. he licks his teeth and sucks in a breath. drains the rest of his beer and approaches you on the couch. it nearly swallows you - and he comes close enough until his knees are brushing the arm. leans down until your eyes are level, on of his hands resting behind your head for balance.

his breath fans across your face. beer and cigarettes and something minty. it shouldn't smell appeasing, but your mouth fills with spit, and you swallow. he's so in your space - always invading boundaries.

"so you're okay with me fucking them whenever and however I want."

you look away. "if that's what you want."

he huffs a laugh that isn't humorous. it's mean. he decides to bully you a little - you deserve it, anyway. "what if I want you to watch."

your lips purse then. displeasure. something curls in patricks chest. amusement and satisfaction. he likes pushing you more than he should. he knows you'd hate it, watching. feeling left out is what got you into this mess.

"I don't have to be involved." you tell him lightly. demure. soft. he wants to pull your bottom lip between his teeth and bite until he tastes blood on his tongue.

"I want you to be." he tells you. "you're a spoiled fucking brat and you pissed me off and if you really want me back then I want you to sit in your little time out corner while I fuck your mommy and daddy and I watch how fucking good I make them feel without you there."

your bottom lip wobbles. he expects you to tap put, call it quits, say no way. but you just nod.

"if that's what'll bring you back. I- I can take it." even if you don't want to. you know it isn't just about you. even if you like being the center of attention. "I said I was sorry. I mean it. I-"

I want you back too, you think but don't say.

you don't know how to bring that up to him when you've been nothing but a lousy brat.

"you what?" patrick prods anyway. curious.

you shake your head. "just come back. I'll do whatever you want if you will."

patrick straightens and looks down at you with a kind of predatory glaze in his eyes. his lips quirk. you're such a little bunny. hopping around in front of him when he's hungry. he wants to fuck you. badly. he wants to assert his dominance over you.

he wants you to want him.

and when you watch him fuck tashi and art - you do. you find yourself jealous - not of him taking them away from you - but of them for getting to feel him. you find yourself thinking you'd be the best out of all of them at taking his dick - you know it. and when you touch your pussy to the sight of him pounding tashi into the mattress it's because you want it to be you instead. and when you cum later with arts tongue on your clit - and patrick watching you from his place next to tashi, it's because his eyes are on you that you shudder apart so cataclysmically.

you've managed to fix things. everyone is content, you think. but you aren't. how. how do you admit to wanting patrick when you've put this wall between you. when you've made the distinction that you're dating art and tashi separate from eachother. that patrick has his own place that he sleeps and tashi bought you an apartment - so that things are more equal and fair and everyone is happy.

how do you admit to wanting patrick when you've kept the ruse up this long. when you alternate days. you spend the weekends with art and tashi and he spends monday through wednesday. you've dug a hole. how do you tell tashi and art who have already made so many compromises for you to feel happy and loved- that you want even more. that you want patrick too. that you take back everything you said at the beginning and want all four of you to be together, in one place.

they'll all hate you for being so fucking dramatic. maybe you should end things. let them be together without the complication of you there.

[dhmis-autism]

My headcannon is that Duck has been in a state of awareness throughout the series much like Yellow was in Electricity, the visual tell for this bring their big ass eyes. Yellow's enlarged sclera is obvious because his eyes are radiation green. Duck's eyes are brown so they just look like slightly bigger black dots than the others. What I'm getting at is Duck has some awareness. He's just naturally deranged.

HAHAHAHA! OH MY GOD! okay! from MY POV, the idea of Duck having any awareness about their situation at all is so fucked up.

The pupil thing could be a good way to hide it, and totally a route I could see BB&J (becky,baker and joe) taking, realistically. He also does just have MASSIVE pupils.

Anyways, the reason that ideas super duper fucked up to me is because um… well one of Ducks main motivators in like EVERY episode is just keeping the three of them together. Even in eps like Jobs or Family where they're separated, he spends all his energy and spare thoughts on the other two (where are they, what are they doing, who are they talking to, ect). Now I assumed this was because their little trio-ship is the ONLY thing in that house that matters to him or that he even remotely cares about.

But sure, let's get meta with it and say for the sake of argument that Duck has been FULLY aware of the fact that they're in a forever looping TV show and that theyre puppets.

That makes some lines like "That's not allowed (in reference to going outside of the house)!" and "People are dying to know what your final guess would have been." a lot more … explainable I guess? But it also makes his weird dedication to keeping the three of them together undeniably sinister (e.g is he doing this bc he knows who Lesley is or something?? Is he doing this bc he's aware theres nothing for them OUTSIDE of this house??). It means it's not that he tries to keep them together BECAUSE he cares about them, he tries to keep them together for the sake of the keeping the SHOW GOING.

It also means he is WELL AWARE that the other two are miserable in that house and just DOES NOT CARE, because he thinks the three of them being together is better than the alternative. It also would kind of paint the "I like looking at you too" scene in a bit of a different light,no? For all we know, he could be referring to Red (the puppet) as opposed to Red (the character).

I don't even think him being aware would make him… deranged, I think it would literally just make him ACTUALLY irredeemable. Which I'm fine with! Best boy either way! A character doesn't have to be morally sound for me to like this, just interesting. But like. think about the implications of what you're saying here.

[bestworstcase]

Tbh I don't think anyone's saying that Oz has Never Done Anything Wrong Ever, or at least, personally, that's not my belief.

While personally I believe that Oz hasn't tried actually destroying Salem or erasing her from anyone knowing about her at all, I ALSO believe that Salem Is Not an irredeemable monster. I do believe she's trying to overthrow the gods rn, and that she hates the sword of damocles that is the mandate and has been trying to keep Oz from summoning the gods up until now (bc yknow, why wouldn't she try keeping the Relics from him??).

Plus, her fear wouldn't be unfounded (I still believe Oz was gunning for the task for a long time), and the narrative of "Salem is right" can still easily happen. Plus it's not like Oz is innocent; 1. He lied to Salem for their entire marriage 2. He decided to gun for the task Light gave him 3. Hasn't even tried communicating with Salem and 4. Has demonized her in his mind and to those in his circle. Both and neither are at fault imo. Oz fucked up big time, and he knows this, but the belief Salem hates him and his own self hate is keeping him from Actually Doing Anything. I think this also goes for Salem, fear and possibly self hate keeping her from communicating.

I just come from the perspective that both fucked up, Oz a bit more than Salem ofc. I just think that Oz isn't nearly as bad as people make him out to be. Like, this probably sounds really rude so I'm sorry in advance (/gen), but I feel like Oz being paranoid for No Reason and constantly trying to destroy Salem or erase her from public knowledge and demonizing her for No Reason beyond his own paranoia and unwillingness to change makes him seem... almost cartoonishly bad. Like it makes him sound like an abusive husband 100x worse than Adam and Jacques combined. And beyond that, it makes Salem seem completely innocent pre-war, that she was just dealing with her Abusive Husband who's delusional and paranoid.

To me, it doesn't feel nuanced, or at least as nuanced. I DO like the idea, but only as an AU. Not only that but I feel like it'd be really unfriendly to casual fans, people who don't do analysis n stuff, bc unless you bother analyzing every 2 second scene, you won't pick a lot of this up. And this is in terms of the writers, not you lol. Rwby IS meant to be analyzed, but not a lot of people will bother, and those who do haven't exactly picked any of this up.

I do think they're good theories to have though. Really it just gives me an excuse to re-analyze scenes and see if my thinking is flawed. I mean, if it's straight up Confirmed that your theories are right, then I'll be like "Oh, huh, I was wrong". I figured I'd just give insight to what people are probably saying bc I haven't seen anyone say that Oz is an innocent uwu wet paper bag. Cause he's NOT innocent, but I just don't think he's as bad or evil as people insist he is. And I do my best to analyze without any form of bias. I *did* come to the same conclusion about Salem lol.

Anyways sorry, this got long dhchvj. I hope I don't sound rude, I'm really tone blind (autism), I'm just doing my best to give insight to what people think. Cause trust me, it annoys me just as much as you to see people try to claim that Oz is innocent or that Salem is an irredeemable abusive witch. Cause obv neither is true lmao.

I hope you have a good day :] /gen

you’re fine. 

the core issue i have with the reasoning laid out here is that it demands a presupposition that oz is… well, a miserable spineless cowardly fraud who’s spent untold millennia pretending to believe in a pointless cause that he knows he will never lift a finger to advance in any meaningful sense. because it’s made quite clear that ozpin’s inner circle believes that they’ve been at war with salem for decades, that the huntsmen academies are fortresses oz built not to merely defend the relics but specifically to "stop salem"—that’s the language qrow uses in V4 and oz echoes it in V5—and that this is what oz has been doing for centuries if not   thousands of years, fighting to protect remnant from salem. 

the way qrow discusses the great war in both WOR and V4 insinuates that the conflict was really a proxy war between oz and salem, glynda chides ironwood by telling him "ozpin has experience the rest of us lack," in V3 the inner circle tells pyrrha "we are the protectors of this world" and "our group was founded [hundreds of years ago] to protect both mankind and the maidens" by "remov[ing] the maidens from the public eye, allowing their existence to fade away into legend." or as qrow puts it in V2, "we’re the ones that keep the world safe from the evils no one even knows about!"—i.e., from salem—"[which is] why we meet behind closed doors, why we work in the shadows."

now, while ozpin’s difficult relationship with the truth means we do need to be skeptical as to the veracity of these historical claims… the inner circle is circumspect on the details, but they’re not lying or misrepresenting the purpose of their group. they earnestly believe these things because this what ozpin told them, and in V5 we see oz recount the same general narrative to team RNJR: "i am the combination of countless men who have spent their lives trying to protect the people of remnant […] this curse was bestowed on me by the gods because i failed to stop salem in the past, but we must stop her now."

so there is no ambiguity at all about the story oz tells his closest allies: he is trying to protect the world from an ancient hidden evil called salem, who defeated him once in the distant past but can be stopped now by keeping the relics out of her hands, and in order to do that it is essential to keep the relics and the maidens secret (lest world rip itself apart in wars to claim this incredible power) and likewise to ensure that salem’s existence remains hidden (lest everyone panic and be wiped out by grimm). oz and his inner circle frame this as an secret struggle that has been ongoing for centuries, if not thousands of years. 

his inner circle had no reason to disbelieve what ozpin told them prior to jinn’s tale. and even after the lost fable, no one questions the narrative that oz has been fighting salem for a very long time. "ozpin believed that the best way to fight salem was to do it in secret," says ironwood. "ozpin spent his whole life, many lives, keeping this secret," says qrow. later in V7, ironwood describes salem as "an ancient and terrible evil," and in V8 ruby says "this isn’t some new enemy or invading kingdom, this is a force we’ve faced before, for centuries… salem."

for the moment we’ll just accept the presupposition that salem’s war against the huntsmen academies began with the attack on amber following perhaps a decade of planning and careful preparation, incited by whatever happened when she met summer rose, and that before that time salem was not actively participating in shadow war. 

if this is taken to be true, the question with regard to how ozma has spent all this time becomes: do we believe that he’s been doing what he says he has—trying to "stop salem" by guarding the relics and keeping all these secrets—or not? because it is undeniably true that this is what ozma CLAIMS to have been doing for centuries if not millennia. when ozpin tells people this story about who he is and what he’s spent lifetimes trying to do, is it because he genuinely believes that he and salem have been embroiled in a secret cold war all this time, or… is he just lying?

why would he lie about that? 

consider the things he definitely did lie about. why didn’t he tell anyone that salem can’t be killed? he feared they would fall into despair and give up, lose all hope and the will to keep fighting. why did he lie about his personal history with salem? he believes loving her is his greatest mistake ("the hearts of men are easily swayed" etc) and he feels ashamed, guilty, regretful, desperate to make amends yet certain she will never forgive him and terrified that even if she did it would doom the world—the truth is messy and complicated and he’s convinced that what he wants is evil, so he buries it. 

why, then, would he pretend to still be fighting her when he actually isn’t? if ozma had, at some point, resolved this inner turmoil on the side of "salem was right, the god of light is wrong, i am not going to fulfill my task and will instead dedicate my existence to insuring that the relics are never brought together, the best way to protect remnant is by rejecting the gods and their redemption," why would he lie about that? why would he continue to promote faith in the two brothers and the final judgment he foretold long ago (ozpin includes this story in his anthology with notes urging his readers to believe in it and to act each day as if the gods will return tomorrow)? why keep telling his closest allies, his friends, life after life, that he was sent to remnant by the gods themselves to stop salem from changing the world? 

why wouldn’t he change course?—and i want to be very clear that i’m not asking why he wouldn’t seek reconciliation with salem, because emotionally that’s quite a lot harder. but if he decided the divine mandate was bullshit and he wasn’t going to follow it any longer, why would he not… er… stop telling people that the brothers are the Real True Gods who left behind these divine relics which he is put on this world to keep safe until the final judgment? 

ozma strove to keep salem and the relics a secret for lifetimes—and ozpin was stridently opposed to revealing the truth, we see him and his inner circle balk at the idea time and again explicitly because ozpin insists that secrecy is essential to stopping salem, so we have no reason to doubt that he really did feel strongly that keeping these secrets kept people safe—so in the event he changed his mind and came to believe that the brothers were enemies of humanity who must be kept at bay… surely he would shut his mouth. 

but the brothers and their final judgment aren’t a secret! ozpin published that story in a book of fairytales with a commentary telling his readers to prepare themselves to be judged! after jinn’s tale, nobody freaks out about the divine threat of execution should mankind prove unworthy because they already knew that part; it’s the mainstream doctrine of a well-known religion that exists all around the world, which qrow and ozpin had already told them was real and true. 

oz is not a bad person. he certainly isn’t some sort of craven charlatan who’s spent thousands of years exhorting the world to believe in and follow a creed he secretly opposes—even if he still believed that salem was dangerous and needed to be stopped, it would be so simple to cast the gods as dangerous adversaries who must also be prevented from ever coming back. 

like, he wants people to live. he wants the world to be safe, even if at the cost of his own happiness. that is always what ozma is trying to achieve—even during the ozlem kingdom, he sacrificed the happiness he’d found with salem in their little cottage to try uniting the world with her because he truly, genuinely believed his happiness came at the cost of humanity’s salvation. 

it follows that the reason ozpin tells his close allies that it is his god-given task to stop salem by keeping the relics out of her grasp whilst striving for unity and keeping all this a secret, he does so because he truly, genuinely believes that it’s the best way to protect the world. likewise, when he uses his public platform as the headmaster of a prestigious academy to publish an anthology of tales, including the one about the two brothers that articulates the divine mandate exactly, upon which he comments this: 

We have a fragile peace, and in some ways, we are more divided than ever. Even if the gods aren’t real, even if they don’t return to judge us for our deeds, we should act each day as though they are arriving tomorrow. In the end, we will be the arbiters of our fates. We will either create a beautiful, peaceful world and live in harmony together or destroy ourselves and our planet, and the gods will judge what we have chosen.

ozpin really earnestly does believe that proselytizing the brothers, imploring everyone to live as if the gods will return for the final judgment tomorrow, while keeping salem, the maidens, and the relics secret, is necessary and the best way to keep people safe. he wouldn’t be doing this if he thought it didn’t protect people!

so the story he tells his inner circle about WHAT he does—his purpose, his methods, his strategy—is true. it must be true because it would be both reprehensible and beyond foolish for ozpin to convince his allies they’re fighting in a war he knows isn’t real for a cause he doesn’t actually believe in, and ozpin is neither reprehensible nor stupid.

it follows that ozpin a) believes he has been fighting a protracted covert war over the relics with salem since the ages, and b) can be taken at his word when he says that insuring the relics and salem’s existence remain secret is an essential part of his strategy, especially because without fail he prioritizes secrecy above every other concern throughout V1-6 so he’s very much putting his money where his mouth is in that regard.

in V3, the inner circle makes the claim that their predecessors ("this brotherhood"), centuries ago, chose to "remove the maidens from the public eye, allowing them to fade away into legend." while i do have my doubts about the historical accuracy of that claim—a) the nature of the maiden inheritance rules would make it very difficult to keep the maidens under wraps and b) i think it’s more likely that ozma always intended for the maidens to act covertly, didn’t know what would happen when the first four died, and only pieced it together after a few centuries had gone by and he started to hear stories about young women blessed with magical power and went "…ah."—i don’t think there’s any reason to doubt that the maidens became a fairytale because ozma decided they should be kept secret. 

neither oz nor his inner circle make an exactly equivalent claim about salem… but. the situations are quite similar: the maidens were once "common knowledge," and when ozma first reincarnated he traveled around for years hearing tales of "the witch" wherever he went. some time long ago, ozma and his allies undertook to suppress public knowledge of the maidens, and in the present the last trace remaining is an old fairytale that no one could believe holds any real truth. as for salem, no one knows about her anymore either, and "ozpin spent all his life, many lives keeping this secret." 

the existence of the relics, similarly, is a secret because ozma chose to keep them secret—although the crown seems to have passed through at least a few pairs of hands before ozma tracked it down, hence the fairytale. (this is a subject for another post, but i actually don’t think 'the indecisive king' is about ozma—ozpin’s commentary on it is VERY impersonal and perfunctory compared to what he has to say about 'the infinite man,' 'the girl in the tower,' 'the story of the seasons,' or even 'the grimm child.' i think the original inspiration for the tale was some other person who had the crown before ozma found it, and he included the story because, as he says, he thinks it has an important message.)

so, basically, in the present ozpin and his inner circle are hiding three big secrets: the maidens, the relics, and salem. it’s stated outright that the maidens are secret because ozma and his allies chose to hide them from the world. 

of the relics, three are entirely unknown and one is the subject of a single fairytale of which the reliability is unknown (although my bet is on "the real crown isn’t that straightforward and may not actually work like that at all"); oz has been in possession of all four for at least fifty or so years. we know he found the lamp first, thousands of years ago, that he used both the sword and the crown to end the great war eighty years ago, and ozpin raised atlas using the staff. it’s very likely that he found the other three much earlier. the fairytale inspired by the crown suggests that one might have eluded him for a while.

in any case, once he had them all (and a few centuries had gone by to allow the story about the crown to be forgotten as anything but a fiction), ozma would’ve had nearly absolute power to decide who knew about them—salem being the only other person who could tell anyone, and at the time she didn’t know anything more than "there are four relics of some kind, somewhere in the world, that will call the gods to remnant to judge humankind if they’re ever brought together."

so the relics, too, are secret because ozma decided to keep them secret.

this leaves salem. before the rise and fall of the ozlem kingdom, she lived on the fringes of civilization and knowledge of her existence was widespread. (her decrepit house sat at the end of a paved, well-maintained footpath—she was within walking distance of the nearest town and did not make herself remotely difficult to find.) thousands of years later? nothing but fairytales that are, like 'the story of the seasons' and 'the indecisive king,' either believed to be entirely fictional or (in the case of 'the grimm child') about a real, if very rare, phenomenon unrelated to salem herself. 

this is not something that could have happened at all if salem hadn’t withdrawn from civilization as far as she did—which is one of the core reasons i think she hasn’t been at war with ozma all this time—so she tacitly allowed it to happen. but why did she withdraw so far? 

here is the part where it gets murky and highly speculative because we just don’t know what happened or where she went or what she did in those first few hundred years after the ozlem kingdom fell. it is plausible that salem just ran and kept running until she’d gotten as far away from people as it was possible to get, and stayed there in self-imposed isolation until, well, now—in which case ozma’s effort to suppress the knowledge of her existence would have mainly entailed not telling anyone about her and maybe destroying bits and pieces of the historical record. 

(i do think he’s made an active effort to keep her secret all this time, regardless: that is his first priority at all times until jinn spills the beans in V6, and if he can’t keep the world safe by destroying her then making sure the world doesn’t know she exists is the obvious Plan B. if nobody knows about her, no one can piss off the gods by siding with her. it’s really more a question of whether she put up a fight.)

hooowever. salem is a character defined by loneliness and longing for freedom, which to her explicitly means connection with others. love. companionship. this is why the gods punish her by making her immortal—separating her from the one she loves forever—and then when she overcomes that by going out into the world and turning her immortality into a gift that brings her closer to people and allows her to form new alliances and friendships, rather than a curse imprisoning her in isolation, the gods just. kill everyone. and leave her alone in the ashes. 

and as i said, even when salem is miserably isolating herself before ozma, she isn’t that far away from civilization—she’s living by herself but close enough to somewhere that she could walk into town, and her presence there was not only well-known but welcomed enough that people built a road right to her doorstep. this during a period of her life when she was so profoundly depressed that her house was rotting and falling apart around her! 

the point is that while salem does inarguably have self-isolating tendencies, i… don’t think hers are anywhere close to being as severe as ozma’s. his rendition of himself in 'the story of the seasons' may well be more poetic than literal ("So cold was his heart that the lands around him were covered in snow, the trees were bare, and animals and Creatures of Grimm alike avoided him. For centuries, no one dared disturb his peace…"), but at the time ozma certainly would have had the magical power to freeze all the land for miles around to keep people away from him, and even if it’s only a metaphor for how he felt then the implication is that he hid himself away in total solitude for possibly multiple consecutive lifetimes…

…whereas salem, at her absolute lowest, in the darkest depths of her self-isolating depression, lived by herself a short way from the edge of some town whose residents were probably rather wary of her (she’s not exactly friendly, nor human, and everyone knows she’s a witch) but nevertheless accepted her as a member of their community (because salem certainly wasn’t the one bothering to take care of that path). 

the way things ended between her and ozma, his deception, the deaths of their children, their kingdom collapsing, all of this was extremely traumatic for her and haunts her to this day just as ozma; i have no trouble at all believing that salem would flee to the edge of the world in the immediate aftermath. 

but i find it a lot more difficult to believe that she would stay there for thousands upon thousands of years if the only thing preventing her from returning to the margins of civilization were her own guilt and self-hatred. the gods punishing her by murdering the whole world, being completely alone for hundreds of millions of years, grimming herself, and the way humans would have treated her in an era when faunus were hunted down and caged like beasts wasn’t enough to drive salem into exile. i don’t believe her self-loathing, by itself, is strong enough to overpower her desperation to be free for very long.

i also really doubt that ozma would just, for lack of a better word, trust her to stay gone. especially not if—as jinn implies—he believed salem kept finding him somehow and sending grimm after him, which probably wasn’t true (her command over the grimm seems to be restricted to the ones she makes, and the incarnations we see in this part of the lost fable were not at all significant persons easily identifiable as ozma), but it isn’t an unreasonable fear for him to have? given how badly things ended between them. 

we know salem doesn’t like, obsessively devote her time to scrying until she’s found ozma again (because she doesn’t bother to do that after ozpin dies, she’s caught completely off guard by oscar—and if she doesn’t do so while she is actively waging war against him, it’s unlikely that it ever crossed her mind to try it at all, or else her scrying just doesn’t work that way), but ozma doesn’t have any way of knowing that. we know salem doesn’t control every grimm in the world, and oz seems to have figured that out eventually, but in those first few centuries before he found the lamp? he had no idea what salem might be capable of, what powers she might have hidden from him!

like it isn’t that ozma has No Reason to be paranoid. he knows that he hurt her really badly and that when salem gets hurt she lashes out, often in extremely vindictive and extremely violent ways. (he has no way of knowing that salem has spent these thousands of years clawing her temper under control, and no reason to think she would try.) he probably had no idea to what extent salem being grimm might be influencing her thinking—that’s where all the really deep distortions start to take root, ozma anxiously second-guessing every little thing like were there warning signs i ignored? was he right? did i let infatuation blind me to what she’d become from the very start?—by the time he finds the lamp, assuming jinn didn’t skip over any lives, he’s on his fourth life since the end; that’s a span of like, at least two to three hundred years depending how long he lived and how much time it took him to reincarnate each time. 

that is plenty enough time to convince himself she’s nothing but an evil monster who needs to be put down before he finds the lamp, and then he immediately uses his three questions for that lifetime so it would be another full century after that before he had the opportunity to ask jinn anything about… what salem is doing now, or what she lied to him about, or if she told him the truth after all. which is a terrifying prospect to even consider after a) multiple centuries marinating in an inescapable anxiety torment nexus echo chamber and b) hearing she can’t be destroyed, period. like what if the truth turns out to be "yeah the pool of grimm destroyed her soul and also she wants to burn the world to the ground and eat your heart now because you ruined her FOREVER!!! and there is nothing you or anyone else can do to fix her. you stupid fuck." like his cursed haunted brain keeps screaming at him 24/7?!

so.

we don’t really know anything about this period of time before ozma went after the lamp, except that "no matter where or how he lived, her presence was always felt." jinn combines that with a memory of two beowolves attacking ozma’s town to insinuate that salem kept sending grimm after him, or at least that ozma believed as much. 

but. but—"during his years of travel, he heard the same frightened whispers that spoke of a terrifying sorceress who commanded dark powers in the wilds, among the beasts and monsters. ozma was convinced that this woman was salem, and decided that he needed to see what she had become."

"but no matter where or how he lived, her presence was always felt. if humanity were ever to stand a chance at being united, one thing was clear… [he had to destroy salem.] knowing he could never rid the world of her through any mortal means, ozma sought out the power of the relics: armed with my knowledge, he believed he could fulfill his promise to the god of light."

<- these are parallel statements. everywhere he travels, he hears stories about a witch; no matter where or how he lives, her presence is always felt. ozma was convinced that this terrifying sorceress was salem; ozma grew convinced that he had to destroy salem for humanity’s sake. he needed to see what she had become; he needed to find the lamp to guide him. see the repetition? the echo?

i don’t think salem just vanished into the wilderness. i imagine she ran pretty fucking far, but remnant is a big world and there are people all over—there have even been people living in the southern region of the now-uninhabited continent where salem presumably lives, based on the map shown in WOR: vale. 

(the markers for those settlements are red in color; all the other markers are color-coded to the kingdoms, orange for vacuo, green for vale, while for atlas, blue for mistral, yellow for menagerie and what i assume are a couple of faunus settlements in southern anima, with tracks with the white fang’s headquarters being located vaguely in anima. in the blood-splattered map in the great war episode, there’s a fire burning in the southern peninsula of the uninhabited continent—implying battles were fought there and possibly that some of those red settlements existed as recently as eighty years ago. 

i turn this over in my mind a lot. it doesn’t make any sense to me to think that salem could have been remotely present in civilization anywhere within the past century, but rwby is so particular about color that the only reason to choose red for the now-defunct(?) settlements on the continent where salem lives would be to imply some degree of association with her, and if a WHOLE KINGDOM had been destroyed i think that would have been mentioned so these were probably just free towns and villages—possibly with a loose connection to vacuo? it’s sort of the logical place for displaced peoples from vacuo to wind up after fleeing their conquered kingdom. and in that case their "connection" to salem might be nothing more than her having taken pity on a bunch of refugees with nowhere else to go and kept the grimm off their backs until the great war…happened. but i would like to know.)

…the point being, i think "her presence was always felt" because salem, after some decades, maybe a century, hating herself deep in the wilderness, crept back to lurking on the periphery of civilization because a) ozma was gone and she had no idea where, when, or even if he would ever come back again and b) no matter how determined she is to punish herself, she just isn’t capable of wallowing in abject misery forever, even when she was the only person alive with absolutely no hope she kept moving until she found something to try.

so naturally people would have kept gossiping about the terrifying dark witch who lives in the woods among the beasts and monsters, and ozma would have known it was her. imagine if he’d reincarnated for the second or third time, wound up on a different continent altogether, and immediately started hearing the exact same sort of frightened whispers as before? even if it was pure unfortunate coincidence and salem did not have the slightest idea he was there, how terrifying that would be? and if salem didn’t want him to find her because she was scared or ashamed or angry or all three, then she couldn’t stay in any one place for too long—so this sort of indirect crossing paths oh-gods-she’s-already-found-me nightmare scenario could conceivably happen more than once.

(frankly, even if salem wanted nothing to do with him and was trying her level to avoid him without just never being able to come within sight of another person again, i think her not vanishing forever makes ozma’s intense paranoia so much more understandable because like. very literally, no matter where he lived, her presence would always be there—rumors, frightened whispers, everywhere. of course he’d start seeing her in the shadow of every grimm!)

i don’t think they’ve ever actually come face-to-face since that night—maybe glimpsed each other from afar across a battlefield, but if they’d met or spoken to each other i imagine it would have been necessary for jinn to show it happening. BUT i do think it’s likelier than not that there were several centuries when salem was legitimately an inescapable presence dogging ozma through life after life because she was just sort of… wandering around in a miserable traumatic haze on the very, very edge of civilization. and people talked about her.

so he went for the lamp, and fell into the depths of despair when jinn crushed whatever passed for his hope at that point. that is, almost certainly, what pushed him into his hermit era. 

now! if the fairytale’s centuries of eternal winter isn’t a pure fiction—if there is even the smallest kernel of literal truth in there as to ozma using magic to force people, animals, and grimm to stay far away from him, then. if salem was not already living in exile, this would have been when she began to hear rumors about him. yes? this is the first thing he does that would rise to the level of local legend salem might possibly hear. 

that his seclusion ended with "and then i met four young women who reminded me how to be a person so i gave them my magic" as opposed to "and then salem turned up with thousands of grimm to murder me and salt the earth" suggests that if she wasn’t living in exile at this time, her interest was probably more in avoiding him than vengeance.

and if that’s so, what does she do upon finally discovering where he is? er, probably travel as far away from the Cursed Wizard Forest as it is geographically feasible to go and decide that this is fine, that’s his continent and this is her continent and they can just stay on opposite sides of the planet until the end of time and never have speak to or see each other again. amen. 

if we take the fairytale literally, several centuries pass. lifetimes. enough time for salem to find somewhere to, if not quite belong, at least become a constant because well she’s been here since before granny was even born and no one knows who or what she is because she doesn’t really talk to anyone, but she’s not hurting anyone either, and legend has it that a goliath once attacked our town and the witch just walked out of the woods and exploded it with a glare, and that’s why grimm never come here, so she’s our witch. maybe enough time to send someone halfway across the world to check on the Cursed Wizard Forest to reassure herself that yes ozma’s still there, he’s not going to come after her and he must have come to his senses about the gods so she’s. safe. ish. as long as no one ever finds those relics. 

the fairytale ends with the hermit dividing his magic among the four maidens, and then he says: "My rest is over. It is time for me to resume my journey and work as well."—they didn’t just resuscitate ozma’s will to live, they restored his faith and his commitment to his task. maybe the world can be saved! maybe he can really do it this time, now that he’s found people willing to help him shoulder the burden!

(i do firmly believe that ozma told the original four maidens about his task and salem’s sworn hatred of the gods and the danger she could pose to the world if he emerged to try again, before offering them magic—as we see in v8, he isn’t naturally predisposed to lie or manipulate people, that’s a pattern he only falls into when he feels hopeless and scared. so i think he and the original maidens planned to gather the relics and get to work on uniting humanity, and the vague fairytale ending is an obfuscation.)

aaand i think that’s when he went after salem, because he emerged from his Cursed Wizard Forest after multiple lifetimes rotting in solitude, filled with new hope and ready to try again to complete his task, immediately tripped face-planted into rumors about the witch in the woods AGAIN and panicked. 

he can’t kill her, he can’t get rid of her… she can’t be stopped but, as oz says to hazel, she can be fought and someone has to try. doesn’t he have to try? if he believes the world can be saved, isn’t it his duty to try?—he knows she’ll never, ever bow to the brothers, she made that excruciatingly clear, and as long as she’s present in the world, as long as people might listen to her about the gods, remnant is doomed. so he has to make her go away. somehow. he has to try.

i think for salem all it would take is once. one time. if she still tried after everything to do what was right, leave him alone and not hurt anyone else and pick up the pieces as best she could. because the thing is, salem blames herself for getting her daughters killed in her anger—that’s why she tries so hard to keep her temper in 6.4—she hates herself for lashing out that night as much as ozma hates himself for the same. that self-blame would counterbalance her anger at ozma: yes he lied to her yes he tricked her yes he attacked her but she attacked him right back and now her children are dead.

how much of a temptation is vengeance with that clawing around in her head?

but if her mindset was like, "that was the most horrible thing that has ever happened to me and the worst thing i’ve ever done, and i don’t understand why he lied to me but i just want it to be done, and he’s over there and i’m over here and we can just. leave each other alone forever," and she found a place for herself where she started to feel maybe almost kind of ok again and then ozma violated the truce she’d invented in her mind but never thought to communicate to him by appearing out of the blue to attack her, completely unprovoked as far as she could tell, and whatever little town or village or even just one single person who’d been kind to her got destroyed in the resulting fight?

that’s an injustice. that’s i did nothing to deserve this, how dare you do this to me. 

and… that’s also, i think, the one thing that would compel salem to willingly cut herself off from all civilization and remain in exile for thousands and thousands of years (because she’s impossible to kill and too powerful to force her out if she decides she’s not going to go gently into the night). her fear of collective punishment. if she thought there was even the smallest chance that ozma might start doing what her father did or what his gods did to anyone close to her, i think she’d go and stay gone until she felt absolutely certain she could take him down forever.

(also theres a certain narrative elegance to the idea that they had their horrible mutual-incineration duel where they were equally matched in every way… and then ozma rotted in isolation while salem tried really hard to be okay and convinced herself they could just stay peacefully at a distance forever, until he found a spark of hope that ignited all his desperation so he went after her and she was blindsided by this truly awful and unfair and egregious thing that he did… and then she rots in isolation and ever-mounting desperation while ozma tries really hard to fix everything and pull the world into a semblance of peace until she finds a spark of hope and blindsides him with this brutally ruthless charge for the relics. 

they explode each other, fly in opposite directions—downward spiral vs picking up the pieces—then reach critical mass and explode again so hard they fully reverse positions and do the whole ordeal again. so it’s both a journey of learning to understand each other and a vicious cycle they can only escape by inversion of the first exactly-equal fight that exploded out of nowhere from a seemingly happy partnership, i.e. both reaching out unexpectedly in the midst of a seemingly inescapable conflict. it’s about symmetry)

This Has Been A Very Long Post Sorry About That. but—all speculation about the details aside—i do strongly feel that the most compassionate reading of ozma is that he is completely sincere about whathe’s trying to achieve (uniting humanity without committing genocide or turning salem into a scapegoat so everyone can be saved including her!!) but has absolutely no idea how to make it happen and has only just, in his second-to-last life as the king of vale, accepted the reality that it isn’t possible, and thence the whole building a replica of salem’s father’s castle to put his office in her tower-prison and hucking his emotionally tortured anthology of fairytales out the proverbial window (you know, like the girl in the tower who writes herself out of danger, coming from mr. fairytales this is a tornado siren of a cry for help) so forth. 

thus what he and his inner circle say about his efforts both past and present is true—he has been actively working to keep salem a secret for as long as the maidens have been hidden if not longer. as long as salem cooperated by not wandering around letting other people see and/or talk to and/or run away screaming in terror from her, what "erasing salem from public knowledge and keeping her existence secret" means, practically speaking, is tracking down any texts that clearly describe her as a real person (not a fairytale) or artistic depictions of her from the ozlem kingdom and destroying Those, and perhaps muddying the waters of all those folktales by inventing new nonsense out of whole cloth or mixing stories about her with other stories that definitely aren’t about her to a) blur the details and b) make it look to future scholars like the witch-in-the-woods was a loose folkloric archetype encompassing a huge variety of different beliefs and superstitions as opposed to one very specific kind of story about one very specific witch. 

which is a bit obsessive and weird but given the fate-of-the-world stakes at play here and the plain unarguable fact that humanity cannot be redeemed if anyone sides with salem against the brothers, which is demonstrably something she can accomplish if given the opportunity, honestly pretty restrained. 

and so the million dollar question is: what does it take for salem to cooperate by staying in exile? is the fight in lost fable and her guilt over her daughters shattering enough to lead her to just give up and hide forever alone?—who knows, right now it’s purely a matter for speculation, but i think the circumstantial evidence suggests "no" more strongly than it does "yes." 

which is not to say that she was the pure innocent victim of an abusive revenge quest, but rather that i think the facts of the situation for her would, in the immediate aftermath, tilt her in a more positive direction (he did a horrible thing but so did she, and she’s survived many horrible things before, and she can’t exactly lay down to die instead so she has to do something, and she doesn’t ever want to see him because it hurts so much and she’s so angry but her anger killed her daughters so she cannot ever let it out again so she’ll just have to stay away from him and live with it) whereas ozma. yknow. Spiraled. and her being elusive but inescapably present in the world make that so much worse, which isn’t either of their faults, it’s just a terrible situation.

it’s like. short of literally stumbling into each other by chance and yelling at each other until it was all Out There. i think no matter WHAT she did, ozma was bound to snap and lash out at her sooner or later because he spent centuries. centuries!!! with all this trauma reverberating and intensifying in his head with no reprieve because there were stories about her everywhere he went.

and then as soon as he does that salem’s lifelong extremely traumatic history with collective punishment and her self-hatred and guilt are going to smash together and she’ll run the fuck away to alternately freak herself out and plot his downfall and tailspin while ozma, meanwhile, after a few centuries of her being gone and the endless rumors fading into just old folktales no one really believes anymore, finally gets the distance he needs to catch his fucking breath—his hermit era doesn’t count he was just ruminating for centuries—so he can focus on other things. and by then keeping her a secret mostly boils down to "don’t talk about her" lmao

his paranoia never really goes away, as we see in 9.10, although he does also get really complacent by ozpin’s time, and i think it’s irrational and grounded in a lot of very wrong conclusions he reached during those first couple centuries of Spiraling—but given what he did and did not know at the time i do also think the reasoning and inferences he made were fairly logical; it becomes irrational over time as the reality of the situation (salem avoiding him) increasingly doesn’t line up with his perception, but as we see in V2-3 ozpin is supremely, irrationally confident that salem is not about to unleash a major attack, which suggests that on some level he’s aware that his paranoid beliefs are unsound even if he hasn’t yet had the conscious realization. he’s right on the cusp. 

& then none of this precludes smaller scale, limited conflicts like e.g. salem assassinating a troublesome member of his inner circle or throwing grimm at people to intensify social conflicts and insure ozma never gets comfortable enough to invite his gods to remnant. i’m very sure that salem has made it a habit to check in on him at regular intervals and cause problems if it looks like he’s doing too well because she Does Not Want him to ever summon his gods. and that’s obviously going to be one-sided because i don’t think ozma actually knows where she’s hiding, and salem’s terror of collective punishment is her own seething bundle of irrational paranoia, because after he digs himself out of Spiraling ozma absolutely would not kill people just because they happened to be near her. 

[dareactions]

I just have a few requests x3

How about the companions react to a Young!Inquisitor reacting to solas's betrayal by saying this: "I dont know why I was surpprised, everyone I have ever loved has either left me,died,betrayed me somehow,or given me copious amounts of trauma. I'm kinda numb to it all at this point" and they stop hiding their emotions and they just look....so old? Like almost broken old?

I return just to hit y'all w the angst hammer im so sorry. (I'm not <3)

Solas goes first bcs he is a big meanie and should feel bad for hurting poor young!inquisitor smh

Solas: It's not the answer he expects or the response he wants. There's no doubt that he knew from the beginning that he'd hurt them, that no matter what happened they would look at him as if he'd lit their entire life on fire and watched it burn down but not once had he even considered that they'd look so- aged. There's a horrifyingly burning feeling in his chest and he wants to grab their shoulders and beg for them to be angry, kick, scream- do anything a normal person would. But instead, they're just staring at him so exhausted and for once Solas feels dread.

Cassandra: Her first initial feeling, is anger. Cassandra always responds to things with that first burst of fiery rage and need for justice, but once that passes it's just the need to protect. She finally understands her own brother, a bit. Cassandra helps in the only ways she knows, holding the Inquisitor until they finally let themself cry, and after that, she makes it her own personal life goal to cave in the skull of anyone who ever makes them make that expression again. She considers for just a moment if maybe she is part of the problem (she knows she is, she remembers the first time they met in that cell), but she can't bring herself to think about it.

Blackwall: He knows he is part of the problem, of that long list of people who have lied and turned tail when it came down to it. And fuck if he doesn't feel bad. Blackwall hates to admit that he is an expert in self-pity but he really can't help the wave of self-hatred that seeing the Inquisitor like that brings. He has never seen someone young seem so old but then he remembers young soldiers, young mages, and templars all with that same dead look in their eyes. Blackwall turns away, he might make them small trinkets and keep an eye on them but he is nowhere near brave enough to look them in the face for nearly a week after that.

Dorian: So, he is adopting them- everyone shut up, you don't get to pick. It's his younger sibling now and as their new legal guardian, he would want everyone to back the fuck off. Dorian is the most likely I think to fall into the attempts of regaining normalcy for the Inquisitor. He treats them the same, doesn't matter what horrifying piece of information they may have dropped he keeps the same level of jest and care between them. But he is more keen-eyed on making sure nobody gets too close, that nobody says something that no teenager or child should year. Nothing is more horrifying than a Pavus with protective habits, let me tell you that much.

Sera: I love Sera, but she is fucking horrid with the emotional support and she knows it. Sera will step around like she is walking on glass shards, get annoyed and say something bordering on insensitive and then realize what she has done- and try her best to mend things. Sera forgot their age, she said and had them help with things that maybe a child shouldn't deal with but no child in Ferelden isn't broken a little bit, so she isn't entirely sure how to navigate someone so numb to it all. Sera of course suggests crime, that always makes her feel better and it'll make them feel better for sure.

Iron Bull: See, the Inquisitor is a member of the Bull's Chargers. That means they're family and they're looking so fucking miserable and sad right now that it just means that he kicks into that need to protect. Bull knows better than to lean onto his past mistakes and regrets, think about everything he could've done better at this point to protect them. He just is more weary, more aware of their age- he does his best to keep some semblance of childhood in their life even if its far too late. And if things get too hard he pats their shoulder, leans down and reminds them 'horns pointed up, chin high' because nobody can take them down and if they are too numb to go on then he'll just have to re-ignite their flame.

Varric: Oh, he has seen that look before. Hawke carried it like a horrifying shadow of dread after their mom, after everything. He remembers the glazed over look, the empty tone of voice and the exhaustion. The way nothing is hidden on their face and he hates it. A part of Varric had promised himself to not let it get to this point, and he failed miserably. Varric never saw himself as much of a parental figure but somehow he falls into one pretty easily after that reveal, he is far less willing to let things slide. Varric is the first to admit he will put a bolt through Solas throat if he sees him again though.

Vivienne: She sees that expression, hears those words and she sees red. If you've ever seen this woman mad you've never seen her mad like this and it's like watching a mother lion with its cub. It's almost laughable when people try to get too close to do something after this, it's as if the Inquisitor has their own personal mom to freeze people at will now. She can't undo that hurt, she knows she can't, but she sure as hell can help them in the future.

Cole: Oh this poor lad, he feels that pain into his very core and it makes him feel like he will shatter and break himself. Cole is hovering, but not in the way that Cass of Vivienne is- he hovers in a surprisingly...helpful way. Cole whispers words of comfort, reminds them of the good and is well aware of when to be quiet. Sometimes he can help, not with everything, but this he can help with and he does so the only way he knows- words of truth and letting the Inquisitor wear his hat and hug him, obviously.

[sircarebearalot]

there is no bad variation of the 'let's get together to trick everyone for shits and giggles' (queer edition bc straight fake dating has had it's glory already, and i don't even mean fake dating for a reason other than to dupe people, i literally mean shits and giggles)

like at least not any that I can think of i mean

there's the ansgty pining edition: where A pitches the idea to B in a wacky fun way and just literally wants to get closer (and maybe it's to get over B, maybe it's to satisfy their curiosity before closure, maybe it's because they are an actual fucking moron) and B is like, okay bet (but internally is like 'so this is all a joke to you huh') and they are going along and they aren't saying 'hey, this feels real' but they aren't initiating anything and they are just quietly miserable that the only way they could have this experience with A is if they are faking it. obv ends with like some kind of angsty as fuck confession.

there's the soft pining edition: where they literally just want to get closer together and they both claim it's for the prank for the reveal but like you know, i've alwasy wondered what it would be like to hold your hand and oh, are they not convinced? i think we should kiss obvsioulsy, it's really the only way and they go on like this and everyone either suspects that they've been dating forever and just came out adn that's why they're so shy or that they're totally faking it but at least they aren't pining in silence you know. and at the end there's like a timid lil 'what if it was real?' and then they're smiling and it's grossly cavity-inducing cuteness.

then there's the crack oh we're just bros obv edition: where they are both 'straight' but like codependent and people think they are in love (they are for these purposes) and they're like, we'll mess with them, yea? and they act like it's a big game of gay chicken except they're not afraid and their friends are really supportive and they are starting to feel guilty for tricking them but also you know it's crack so they are doing wacky shit that needs a 'no homo' disclaimer excpet neither feel like saying it and it's like full homo. and at the end the confession is lame but they're in love and that's beautiful.

(then there the crack crack crack crack one: where one is like i'll seduce you and the other is like, huh, this is kind of neat? wish it was real lol and like nobody is falling for any of it but whatever)

if you guys see any fics with this flavor hit me up please!!

like, just so you know the flavor i'm gonna give a brief snippet of each, yeah, for funsies and also bc it's my life mission to get your obsessed with the concept so more fics like this can exist and so if you know them you can send them my way so i can have crack-induced brain rot

(the examples are gonna feature WOMEN bc i've already went crazy over men and i ahve to keep myself fresh)

there's the angsty induced pining pining edition: catradora

bc they are peak pining and dumbass and angst and love, for reasons Adora pitches the idea, 'you know, just to get them off our backs, like we're dating? what! and then we're like, ofc we're not' and Catra grasps it and doesn't let it go.

("We should kiss," Catra says decisively.

Adora's gut reaction was finally, what came out of her mouth was,

"No."

It came out strangled, guttural, tortured--- and Catra, always in tune, notices and is hurt. And Adora doesn't know how to say that I want it more than anything but I want it to mean something with you so she doesn't.

"Oh, well okay," Catra says, and she had already looked a little tense when she pitched the idea but now she looked stiff as a board. She looked like she was about to shatter. And Adora knows that Catra never handled rejection quite well, even if it was about something she didn't really care about, but she just can't.

"I- I would, but it would be my first kiss," she says, as an apology. "i want it to mean something."

Catra stares at her before nodding jerkily, something fire bright in her eyes. Her voice had a bitter, abrasive quality that stirs the familar urge to soothe in Adora. "Right, no yeah, obviously. Don't want to waste your first kiss on me."

"I--," Adora explained, voice catching, "I want it to mean something to you, if I kissed you. I don't want it to be for anyone else. For a prank.")

there's the soft pining edition: lumity

(any setting really, just the premise that luz is like ppl would go crazy if they realized we were friends, you know what woudl drive them crazier?? if we we're dating--- and amity is like, oh yeah totally crazy, we should do it, and luz is interanlly like i don't think it;s crazy i think other ppl would think it's crazy but you know if she thinks it's crazy then i should play along, adn out loud she's like 'let's do it' and amity is just internaklly thinking 'omg omgomgomgomg we're gonna hold hands??? wtfffff??? akdgaydzfbkafbc???)

("Well," Amity says, smiling weakly, "We did say it was a crazy idea."

"They don't believe us," Luz murmurs, gradually becoming more indignant. "They laughed in our faces!"

"I mean, we are messing with them!"

"They totally brushed us off! We cann;t let this slide! We have to convince them."

Amity never really learned how to say no to Luz, so she said, "How?"

And that is how Amity learned an expansive vocabulary of Spanish pet names. She also learned that it was very possibel to blush so hard you stop breathing. She learned both of those valuable life-long lessons, the hard way.)

then there's the crack oh we're just bros obv edition: raris

Where Paris and Rory are just (gay but in denial but she doesn't realize she's gay or in denial?) and Star's hollow is like 'oh, those lesbians!' and Pairs is like, 'let's date and mess with your town' and Rory is like 'that's stupid' but they end up doing it anyways for no other reason than Paris' research paper and Lorelai's amusement.

("I don't think we convinced Luke."

"He's convinced," Rory reassures, as she highlights a particularly good line. "He's just giving you the cold shoulder for my virtue or whatever."

"Hmm."

"But," Rory says, not sure why she is saying this other than that she kind of wants to. "I mean, we should be thorough. I've only seen Taylor print one Raris Valentines Poster."

"That is freakish on it's own."

"Yeah, but not to Taylor's standards. I think we can do better."

"Should I propose?"

"Oh my god.")

then there the crack crack crack crack one: nevermore

("Maybe you should kiss me," Anabel Lee suggests, eagerness shining through.

Lenore pretends to contemplate it, "I guess it's the only way..."

Two feet away, Duke turns to Pluto and whispers, "They do know we can hear them right? Like, we are all sitting at the same table?")

[aewrie]

alright ramble time (about 'ai' generators)

like, at this point i've kinda given up hope on the average non-creative person holding any kind of respect for arts of any kind. this 'ai' garbage has been an ongoing thing in the visual art sphere for a long while now, and it's more recently hitting hitting other areas. working artists on twitter had been screaming in frustration about all this for months before it started affecting anyone else on a large scale. basically no one cared.

there's authors, musicians, etc, using machine generated visuals for their covers, graphics, what have you, and not seeing an issue with it. only now that their work is at risk because the text/music generators (less so with music bc unhinged copyright systems are in place to protect not musicians but corporations) are getting to the same point as the image ones have been for some time now, there's suddenly concern. and oopsie, again it's the people whose livelihoods aren't at risk, whose passions aren't being ridiculed as frivolous and pointless (if a machine can do it why should a human bother at all?), who say it's no big deal. gotta keep up with the times! find a new job/hobby and quit whining.

i'm not expecting the minds of these people to change. i will be pleasantly surprised if they will, but i'm not expecting it. because they've proven that in addition to having zero respect for arts, they obviously have next to no respect for themselves, too. they gleefully gobble up the machine generated garbage. full on quantity over quality consumerism with nothing of substance, and they do not care. visual artists saw it first, people disregarding intent and meaning and human experience in art, and just not caring about the quality (or lack of thereof). people will point at jarringly horrible visual vomit and declare it great art.

and when this shit hits things like fanfics, that are generally purely done as passion projects, the lack of fucks given is painfully obvious.

there's more than one fic i'd love to see rise from the grave, but alas. ethical issues of data theft and copyright violations aside (whoo boy is that a sentence), i don't trust an algorithm would provide anything resembling a satisfactory story, with meaningful characters arcs and interactions, or clever foreshadowing, or interesting plot twists, or anything that makes a story actually good.

anything good or even decent in 'ai' art/writing/whatever comes from a human. either the machine mimicked something (stolen) closely enough for the end result to be passable for the average person, or a human came in to adjust the output until it was satisfactory. there was one self-proclaimed 'ai artist' saying he spent literal hours tweaking his image prompts. he had to put that much effort into directing the machine because the machine doesn't understand what it's doing.

it's just fundamentally sad that so many people are satisfied with so little. with the internet we have so much art and entertainment at our fingertips and they choose that? like going to a fancy restaurant and getting half-frozen microwaved chicken nuggets that look like they have bits of plastic in them served to you, and saying it's perfect, no point anyone learn cooking for any reason when you can eat this instead. fire all chefs and replace them with robots that microwave everything, and take a huge dump on anyone who enjoys cooking of good food outside monetary gain.

every single person who criticizes this shit even if they're not directly impacted restores my faith in humanity a tiny bit, but holy fuck. this is a sad, miserable mess.

[waterparksdrama]

man i know yallre just worried for them and it comes from deep appreciation for what the band has done up until this point but, why all of the nihilism??

sure funeral grey and fuck about it are.. pretty vapid in a few ways but, they each have a least a lyric or two worth something and sound generally catchy? rsd and self sabotage are pretty good imo, and seem genuine/vunerable even if they showcase Bad Stuff for awsten. and we havent got to see really *any* of the record thusfar because theyve been so busy, so there can be hidden gems. no ones gotta deny the clear appeal to general audiences, but i dont think we have to shit on it *so* heavily. ultimately they seem to want to keep growing and making music. they are probably pretty wealthy but its likely not enough to drop everything after one last poorly performing album. i especially can’t imagine that awsten would want to “let Them win” by leaving from feeling miserable due to ending up the same as every other artist or “failing” to play the industry game.

it would be ideal if they took these next few months before ymas tour to take a genuine break (minimal writing, no studio, nothing) and let fans know a vague release date but that its for the best so that they can put their all into it. i know realistically that probably wont be how it goes, but i trust them to recognize their own burnout and take *somewhat* of a break before their art suffers for it. even if they were planning on this being the last album before a hiatus, i cannot imagine theyd want to flop hard instead of going out on a bang. this doesnt have to be “the end of a good band” etc, awsten has openly talked about how much criticism theyve gotten from the start even on black light.

how hard is it to take the bands experimentation at face value or at least give awsten the credit of knowing when enoughs enough?

wow this is long and im not even sure if my response will encompass all of this but i'll try

i think the nihilism is reasonable tbh. it's not like awsten changes his bad habits online and it's not like this fanbase gets any less annoying and the songs don't get stupider etc etc. everything and nothing ever changes with this band at the same time. they get older, but habits still stay and never leave.

i think the new songs for the most part are passable but aren't really "parx songs" in the classic sense meaning "playful, but with some serious passion entwined in it that really gets you hooked". it just feels really edgy yet somehow generic when he tries to push some of these sex lyrics in and it just feels awkward especially coming from him of all people. and the complaining songs (as i call them) about shit he always complains about (fans, music critics, being a d list internet celebrity at best) is so fucking tired and also some of the things he complains about are usually his fault and something he can stop.

i do think they want to keep growing and making music but i also feel like they're trying to convince themselves that they are in the first place bc things just don't flow the same anymore especially now that they don't even all live in the same place. i don't think they're sticking to whatever plan awsten had in his head for this album from the looks of it bc i have a feeling it's been reworked a lot and he's kind of stalling its official announcement to rework it in the first place.

as of taking a break, while that is a good idea and you know they probably won't anyways, have you seen awsten? he barely takes breaks and even when he says he does, it just means he's lurking without saying anything because he doesn't wanna say shit. he legit has not taken a real break since goddamn 2010 because even after he finishes something, he's always onto something else. in fact, i'm pretty sure the only reason there's such big gaps between the eps was just to gather the resources and promo they needed to record them in the first place bc they're always making some shit no matter what. i don't trust him to take a break even if they're burned out bc he'll always have something to say and write as stupid as he manages it.

it's ironic you use the term experimentation considering they're really just relapsing into that modern distilled pop punk sound when their last album was experimental one. i feel like if awsten's trying to go mainstream on the radio, let him; it won't necessarily mean it's the best they've put out. and awsten never knows when enough's enough; he'll take things too far every time (love, internet jokes, etc etc) and won't jump back until he stops posting (only for a little while of course and he'll still lurk himself in that time) and come back so that everyone tells him they love him and he'll believe it until he takes things too far again and the cycle repeats like it always does - iz

[vic-chaos]

Where do I even start- this might sound weird coming from some stranger but thank you- for rambling about south park so much lol. I felt like I needed to say this, I have some intense feelings about the Post Covid special and just hearing and relating to your thoughts is kinda comforting as I´m trying not to put too much thought into the ending scene because it´s upsetting me what they did to Cartman. To be honest, I´m not a fan of Rabbi Cartman either (I try not to be vocal about it as it seems a lot of people liked him… oh well), but how he ended up was just… too cruel. I dunno, I just love seeing people rant about this, I feel less alone with my unreasonably strong opinions about things that weren’t meant to be taken this seriously. And I keep finding myself chuckling about “why did they have to ruin everything right in the last few seconds what´s their obsession with doing that” at the most random times throughout the day, lmao. I´m saying, please never stop typing your thoughts bc I love reading them,,

Oh it's not weird at all!!! And thank you for this actually 🥺💕 I feel like I ramble a lot for someone whose not even intending to be like a commentary/analysis blog or anything, I just have a lot of strong feelings lmao. But I totally know what you mean about it being kind of cathartic to hear someone else rant about something you yourself are angry about, its like second hand getting it off your chest haha. And yeah! I mean, this show is intentionally ridiculous and not intended to be taken too seriously (also a comedy above all else - even though as fandom we're more interested in the character drama aspects of it), but it's also really hard not to get in too deep when you're emotionally attached... even if that level of attachment is against your will dfjsd. But at least you're not the only one for sure, like we are all here in this together lmao 😭

Also that about their obsession with ruining everything in the last few seconds:

I keep just kind of hoping everyone knows what I mean by this because I assume it pisses everyone else off as much as it does me jsdgbsdfjsf. But if anyone doesn't know what I’m talking about or has been wondering, it's something like..... hmm... I think the most glaring examples I can think of are episodes like the underpants gnomes one where they spend the whole ep explaining why big corporate businesses overtaking small local ones is harmful, and then right at the last second they're like "nevermind lol!! 🤪 we love big corporations actually! its the fault of the small local ones for their product not being good enough". And in the goobacks episode we spend the entire time learning that the solution to preventing the future from becoming uninhabitable is to look after the earth in the present, and then in the last few seconds they're like "actually this is stupid, fuck the environment!!". Like....... !?!?

These are just two examples but they do it SO often, sometimes in slightly different or more subtle ways (like Stan's parents getting divorced - this one happened twice actually - which they desperately need to, and everyone was happy and better off... then they get back together at the last minute for like, no reason? Just to make Stan miserable again?) Speaking of Stan's parents another clear example of this is dead kids, where we spend the whole time sympathizing with Sharon being the only person who is as worried about the situation as everyone else should be. And then when her son gets shot you expect Randy at least to understand her now? But instead SHE'S the one whose like "actually you're right, who cares lol!!"

I think the reason they find it funny is because it's a last minute reversal of expectations, because you're expecting the kind of happy or logical ending any other show would give you and its like - oh wait!!! actually, *long fart noise* instead.

But like.... I wish they would fucking stop doing this 😭 LMAO..... or at least don't do it in a way that fucks up character development, that's already a mess on this show.....

[rahleeyah]

OK, look, since someone else mentioned it already in an ask, I'm gonna have to come out here and say something because I am SO confused at them choosing to make Carisi's moment be when Amanda was having labor complications... like... what the hell? That is I swear to God the most random thing. Like, I mean, we're not even talking about the scene where they had the nice moment where he said his ma was lighting a candle for her (which would make more sense if they REALLY wanted to tie this into her pregnancy). Also, I don't get why they brought Murphy back and also had another Murphy mention with Jesse while saying nothing about the real unanswered question which is WTF is going on with Billie/Dr. Al? Like, we knew the Murphy story (although it seemed to be given some new spin when Amanda and him talked), but no one has given poor Billie and us any answers. The fact that WL DIDN'T try to go in a give the Billie story his own take is surprising to me (since I feel like he, in general, takes some weird pleasure in taking control of a character/story from the other showrunners).

And, like, honestly, I sort of wish they hadn't implied that Carisi had a thing for Amanda all along because it sort of cheapens all the nice things they had him do for her over the years. Like, with Liv and Elliot, part of the draw for me has always been that they came upon these feelings for each other in a space where they knew it wasn't an option because he was married. This wasn't like they were looking for each other and neither of them probably ever thought it was possible it would be the two of them. Elliot didn't mortgage his house to get Liv out of jail because he thought he had a shot to get in her pants.

ok i know i been sitting on this for a while bc i don't wanna like stir anything up but i respect you coming in here and sharing your thoughts and i wanna make a place for sharing thoughts so.

imma touch on a few things you said bc i agree with you.

i do think it was super weird to pick that moment for carisi. like "i fell in love with her when she was giving birth to someone else's child (the first time. we all know he was in love with her by the time billie came along)" just. that's just really sad, to me? bc i feel like amanda and carisi at that point weren't really amanda and carisi yet, you know? maybe i'm wrong bc i'm not really watching for rollisi but i feel like that happened a little later. idk i feel like carisi deserved better.

and the murphy thing is just so...like the last thing we hear murphy say about jessie is that he'll support amanda any way she needs and then literally his name isn't spoken again until he turns up at the christmas episode and suddenly all this detail is added in - which, again, to be fair, is the show's mo, they don't tell us anything and then years later throw us a bone - and still no mention of dr al? dr al who asked amanda to marry him and then vanished? why does billie not know who her daddy is? shouldn't jessie really be the one who doesn't know who her daddy is? since murphy's been fucking off to god knows where for years??

i like rollisi together and i'm glad they're together, lemme say that up front, but it did kind of hurt watching carisi sort of pine for her while amanda was with other people when there wasn't something that big standing in their way - like elliot's marriage stood in the way of eo. elliot was married, liv was dating around, it didn't feel so much like one of them all miserable while they had to wait around on the other. he wasn't even her partner, however hard they tried to retcon that in the wedding epi - fin was her partner i will die on this hill it was FIN - and she fucked amaro. now there's the argument to be made that it was easier for her to fuck nick bc she didn't have any big feelings about him and she does have big feelings about carisi, which is the exact same argument i have made about elliot fucking flutura so no shade, but it would have been nice to have seen a little bit more of that kind of fleshing out of what was going through amanda's mind before they got together. but now they are together and they're good for each other and they make each other happy so that's all water under the bridge, really.

[baekhvuns]

Bestie uh look at this hot bitch https://twitter.com/PSHsource/status/1528651982914867202?t=cEzABvk3uMb8OhEFG1cnzg&s=19

Gonna end myself I NEEEEED THIS POLA: https://twitter.com/hwaupdates/status/1528623149025112064?t=1LpoyY1Q2bD8Hjj2zUvbqw&s=19 BOXER HWA IS MY ENEMY

Also I ordered the Wonderwall merch, but they announced more and the PCs are different OF COURSE, but I'm gonna be strong and not buy... all I can do is count that one of my friends gets a Hwa photocard and gives it to me <3

Anyways, lil boy: https://twitter.com/MAS_43ver/status/1528650223592931328?t=Gn35XgIhqayf8jnxtFXZ7g&s=19

This reminds me, I haven't s2 of Bridgerton, totally forgot about it lmao, I kinda liked s1 though it pissed me off at times

Wave Hwa makes me think of bad boy SH fic from ateezmakemeweep THE SURFER BOYFRIEND

AK really wrecked us so badly, what an icon. I also couldn't believe because me and Hwa were matching, I was about to change my hair actually, but thought DAMN NOW I'M GONNA RE-DYE THEM RED! #twinsies. Red hair is amazing, but difficult to manage, so I get why it didn't last long, but 2021 was the year of Seonghwa's hair. I thought he won't top red, but DV hair happened and I felt blessed, but that wasn't enough?! He had to go pink ksudurueuhesgsgsg he did it for me

What did you talk about 👂🏼I think we should rob Seonghwa period. He has too many things I want

😳😵😩😊🤤🤯 - me reading about the villain Y/N fic, pls we love a sexy simp 🥰 oh no poor girl though, but she doesn't stand a chance. Make it 80 chapters or 74637k words bestie it's up to you, but I want it to be long af obviously

Oof rip to that fic and many many others. I recently found a link to one work, but I can't access it since it's under "read more" and the author deleted it 💀

I'm the pigeon lady from Home Alone lmao, cat lady too, just animals lady

Yeah the canals look nice, but 🙊 especially when it's really hot. I stayed in places directly on the canals and mmmhmmm nothing like some stinky water first thing in the morning

Exactly. At this point she doesn't even have many shooters left, I only saw some teens being dumb they're probably same as her 🤡 I really can't predict Hybe's decision at this point, but I doubt she'll be back, this is too big. I saw their stage the title was LE SSERAFIM - Fearless (without Garam) and I screamed ejudisdhshshsjd

Yeah another clown moment from the military stans 🤡

No actually Tomorrow had a happy ending! It was kinda open too, a bit cheesy maybe, but I'm glad everyone's good <3 the show was tormenting enough, sure I would love to see more and I have questions so perhaps they rushed it a bit, but the last scene ❤ Also we saw mr man LSH in handcuffs KNEELING... I mean it was a sad moment actually, man was so miserable (but what's new) yet everyone was like skudushdhdhsissyjs sexy man why so sad?!

Now I can't stop thinking about the series, I wanna finish The Sound of Magic but how can I 😭😭😭 when you eventually watch it let me know, cause we need to talk

The tattoo is done! I actually don't know how many I have, cause some are kinda connected but more than 10 for sure - DV 💖

hi hello!

Bestie uh look at this hot bitch https://twitter.com/PSHsource/status/1528651982914867202?t=cEzABvk3uMb8OhEFG1cnzg&s=19

Gonna end myself I NEEEEED THIS POLA: https://twitter.com/hwaupdates/status/1528623149025112064?t=1LpoyY1Q2bD8Hjj2zUvbqw&s=19 BOXER HWA IS MY ENEMY

BRMQHDKQHDMQHDKW PLS I HOPE U GET IT 😭😭😭😭 SCREAMING HES SO FUCKING FINE IM GONNA START DELULU LEVEL 50 IF HE CONTINUES PLS

Also I ordered the Wonderwall merch, but they announced more and the PCs are different OF COURSE, but I'm gonna be strong and not buy... all I can do is count that one of my friends gets a Hwa photocard and gives it to me <3

you better get a hwa pc or that hwa pola 🔫 LAMINATE THAT POLA BC ITS WORTH TO BE IN A MUSEM PLS,,,, how many merch’s did u buy..

Anyways, lil boy: https://twitter.com/MAS_43ver/status/1528650223592931328?t=Gn35XgIhqayf8jnxtFXZ7g&s=19

i have been avoiding this photoshoot bc it makes me want to write this wedding etl and i 😭😭 CANT DO THIS I WILL WRITE IT AFTER I FINISH THIS ONE

This reminds me, I haven't s2 of Bridgerton, totally forgot about it lmao, I kinda liked s1 though it pissed me off at times

season two >>>>> season one BESTIE WATCH IT WATCH IT !!!!! the chemistry is much better this time,,,, they will piss u off bc tHEY WONT KISS FBWMNDKW but absolutely 100% watch it 🔫

Wave Hwa makes me think of bad boy SH fic from ateezmakemeweep THE SURFER BOYFRIEND

NO BC I DID TOO FHWNFBEK PLS GOSH THAT FIC BROUGHT SOMETHING OUT IN ME WITH THAT DIRTY BLOND HAIR 😩😮‍💨

AK really wrecked us so badly, what an icon. I also couldn't believe because me and Hwa were matching, I was about to change my hair actually, but thought DAMN NOW I'M GONNA RE-DYE THEM RED! #twinsies. Red hair is amazing, but difficult to manage, so I get why it didn't last long, but 2021 was the year of Seonghwa's hair. I thought he won't top red, but DV hair happened and I felt blessed, but that wasn't enough?! He had to go pink ksudurueuhesgsgsg he did it for me

wHAT AN ICON,, my friends get scared when i mention red hair hwa bc they all start going feral nfvvwndbsk FBMWHDKD RED HAIR IS HARD TO MANAGE BC THE COLOUR KEEPS WASHING OFF INTO PINK / CHAMPAGNE 😭😭😭😭 no fr 2021 seonghwa’s hair on top,, im just rly afraid what he’s going to do this time around i 😀 silver or blondy ash better come back 😭

What did you talk about 👂🏼I think we should rob Seonghwa period. He has too many things I want

we actually were planning to meet up but he said they’re a little busy right now,, 😭😭😭 YEAH I WILL ROB SEONGHWA’S ALBUM COLLECTION THAT ONE WITH SIGNS AND HIS JEWELRY COLLECTION ON SPOT

😳😵😩😊🤤🤯 - me reading about the villain Y/N fic, pls we love a sexy simp 🥰 oh no poor girl though, but she doesn't stand a chance. Make it 80 chapters or 74637k words bestie it's up to you, but I want it to be long af obviously

villain y/n is so sexy omg,,,, he’s the bIGGEST SIMP FOR YN AND WILL MAKE SURE EVERYONE SEES IT,,, his girlie tries to take a stand but yn isn’t interested in meddling between them but mr hwa is always there ☺️,,, BFMWHDKW 80 CHAPTERS PLS I CRY WRITING ONE SHOTS ID PASS AWAY AT 80,,, series but like 4 parts 🔫 bc each part would be like 15k+

Oof rip to that fic and many many others. I recently found a link to one work, but I can't access it since it's under "read more" and the author deleted it 💀

NAURRRRRRRRRRRR WHEN U THINK U HAVE A CHANCE BUT IT JUST DISAPPEARS

I'm the pigeon lady from Home Alone lmao, cat lady too, just animals lady

LMFAOOOO 😭😭😭 animal lady with the best cats and pigeons ???? gotta stan,, dv anon vincenzo era

Yeah the canals look nice, but 🙊 especially when it's really hot. I stayed in places directly on the canals and mmmhmmm nothing like some stinky water first thing in the morning

Exactly. At this point she doesn't even have many shooters left, I only saw some teens being dumb they're probably same as her 🤡 I really can't predict Hybe's decision at this point, but I doubt she'll be back, this is too big. I saw their stage the title was LE SSERAFIM - Fearless (without Garam) and I screamed ejudisdhshshsjd

YEAH FBWJDHWK the way they re-recorded the song and changed the choreo so fast iM sURE THEY KNEW pls the whole v and jennie thing 😭😭😭??? they’d be so hot but out of nOWHERE

Yeah another clown moment from the military stans 🤡

when is there ever not a clown moment from them dbfbf

No actually Tomorrow had a happy ending! It was kinda open too, a bit cheesy maybe, but I'm glad everyone's good <3 the show was tormenting enough, sure I would love to see more and I have questions so perhaps they rushed it a bit, but the last scene ❤ Also we saw mr man LSH in handcuffs KNEELING... I mean it was a sad moment actually, man was so miserable (but what's new) yet everyone was like skudushdhdhsissyjs sexy man why so sad?!

LSH IN HANDCUFFS GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE HE W- oh he was miserable??? stop it.

Now I can't stop thinking about the series, I wanna finish The Sound of Magic but how can I 😭😭😭 when you eventually watch it let me know, cause we need to talk / The tattoo is done! I actually don't know how many I have, cause some are kinda connected but more than 10 for sure - DV 💖

I WILL YES WE WILL TALK ABOUT THAT SHOW JDJDJD,, 10??? BESTIE UR LIKE THE EMBODIMENT OF WHAT ID WANNA BE,, omg did u get it in a like or like broke the lyrics down or have an illustration with it?

also.

do u see his muscles.

[rosalesbeausderholle]

I mean you guys know I'm a Nicefem Not Edgy Enough for you but there isn't actually anything radical about viciously insulting women and afab/female people for the way they choose to cope while living under a patriarchy. I don't mean criticising in the sense of "femininity is a tool of the patriarchy and we have to analyze it that way" because yes, that's true! Even if it hurts to hear it. What I mean outright sending hate and harassment to afab/female people who perform femininity, who transition, who change pronouns etc like there is a BIG difference between saying "this is a by product of the patriarchy and we should analyze it that way" to "you're just a handmaiden/tr***/mutilated/cock worshipper" like that doesn't help? That's not gonna make them change their minds or turn them to your side? These are all people who suffer in a myriad of ways through a patriarchal society, and they're living the best way they can. But to actually do anything about that suffering we need to stand together and that requires a minimum of compassion and respect.

Like, as an example, I know the mental health industry and big pharma are fucked up, I know they've always been big perpetrators of misogyny, racism, homophobia etc. And yet the meds I currently take and the therapist I currently go to have been the most effective way I've found to treat my depression, to literally be able to live. I hope it won't be like that forever sure, I don't want this to be permanent at all, but right now it is as it is. What good does it do for me to simply stop taking meds and never going to therapy again just bc of my convictions? I won't make a dent against the pharma industry if I quit cold turkey and I'll be miserable, but at the same time I'm trying to look for alternative ways to deal with my depression that will allow me to eventually quit taking meds. And since a big chunk of my depression is due to me being a lesbian and how the world treats us I WILL fight against it, but I can't help to live in the society I live in, I can't not participate in it and in oppressive systems on some way or another, all I can do is try to fight to change it, and for that, I need my mental health to be sound enough for it. So less being vicious against other women & female/afab people for making whatever "problematic" choices they need to make to survive and MORE helping them to create a society in which we can all be truly free.