#love isn't supposed to hurt

[inmyperfectworld]

📣 I don't know who needs to hear this, but get out of that relationship that isn't healthy for you mentally and physically. I know you're afraid of starting over and a lot of time has been invested, but it's time for you to free yourself and put yourself FIRST. If they truly loved you, they would have listened to your feelings and concerns. They would have done the proper work to make changes. They would've respected your boundaries. They wouldn't have gaslit/manipulated/lied to you or made you question yourself.

The more you take someone back or stay with them after they disrespect you, the more they will continue to play in your face and disrespect you. You deserve healthy, genuine love and top tier treatment, not toxic and struggle love. 🩷

Also, remember you can't save everyone, but you can definitely save yourself.

[mellosdrawings]

Oh love your losers forever number 2 group doodles. Seeing the doodles, I realized Leona and Vil are together longer than with Jamil.

Well, even on the off-chance that they weren't already dating before, they've still known each other for a while longer, while Jamil was off in his corner pretending to be mid and trying not to attract attention.

In both cases, Leona and Vil would already have their own habits/banter and Jamil, who is barely getting used to standing out and competing against "higher status" people, would take more time to feel comfortable.

(I have paragraphs of potential dynamics between those three, I could talk about them for hours haha)

[lucdoodle]

A lil comic based on the amazing fic "Up is Down, Sane is Insane"

[theangrycomet-art]

The Almanac is a very... interesting read

I have... opinions on some of the behind the scenes world building and what they had planned with S4 (it makes me a little glad the show ended where it did... writers it's bad enough you offed Prowl when you could have had restoring the Allspark be the Key's purpose instead of upgrading Sari- but then to further split up the team whyyyyy)

Anyway, here's Blitzwing and my take on him before the Triple-Changer experiment was done to him against his will and his former partner the cold hearted bitch who did it to him, also pre-op.

COMMISSIONS OPEN

Ramblings (no really- RAMBLINGS) below: I wanted to make this a comic but the Art wasn't Arting

TLDR: Lancer and Blitzwing were taken as prisoners of war by the autobots and Lancer made a lot of bad decisions to try and save his life within they circumstances which directly led to him becoming the first triple changer.

It's a little more complicated than this but basically Blitzwing (then known as Kaltwing) was hurt REALLY bad when he and Lancer were trying to retrieve the Allspark-about partway through the war. Like- missing his legs- wings ripped off- half his face blasted off bad.

So Lancer, or Himmel Lancer as she was then called, tried to put him back together with what she had on hand because she was not about to let her best friend go OFFLINE. This resulted in her basically frankenstein-ing him parts from a fallen tank decepticon's corpse as well as her own parts to try and keep him online.Most notably her own T-cog, as his was damaged and forcing him to attempt to transform at random. Because they were the same Frame type it was compatible enough to stabilize it when she fused the two ports.

Unfortunately, this still left him in extreme agony as Lancer was a RESEARCHER, not a Medic by any streatch of the word. It was one of those times he was pleading with her to offline him that they were caught by Autobots. With Blitzwing barley able to move and Lancer unable to transform, they were fish in a barrel.

The Autobots, after surgically stripping Lancer of ALL her weapons and installing a "contingency clause" protocol, allowed her to continue Blitzwing's "treatment" as well as forcing her to continue such experiments on other captured ‘cons. Many were curious to see where this "project" would go, even if most wouldn't openly agree to it themselves.

This went on for years with Blitzwing being their geniua pig until they reached the final straw for both of the former seekers.

Through a string of luck and incompetence, Lancer managed to achieve the two's original goal and stole the All-Spark right from under Ultra Magnus' nose. She was hoping it would reverse the damage she's done to him, and possibly restore herself in the process, but she was interrupted when the gaurds caught up with her and the contingency clause protocols activated and began frying her from the inside out.

While she was able to stabilize Blitzwing before all this and relieve him of the physical pain he'd been under, it came at cost. Between his fritzing original T-cog and the trauma of having endless, painful operations at the hands of his friend and subsequent the poor treatment from Autobots, his mind broke under the Allsparks "upgrades"z

During the chaos, he manages to break free and slaughters everyone in the facility including Lancer (at least he thought so). He was trying to grant her the clean death she refused him.

(Ironically enough, this damaged her enough for the protocols to think she'd offlined, and thus deactivate on their own).

He escapes back to the decepticons empty-handed and scary the shit out of everyone while Lancer is left to deal with the remaining wrath of the autobots.

[lord-squiggletits]

I know that the question of "How much violence is justified and where is the line between self defense/stopping evil who can't be stopped in any other way and outright murder and fascism" is a complicated one that humanity has been wrestling with for literally forever

but it does really annoy me in the context of stories when ppl either don't understand or willingly misinterpret what pacifism means like. "How dare he say killing is bad when he just killed people!" Well there's a distinction between a self-defense scenario where you have no time to react and someone is literally trying to kill you, versus you having power over someone who can't fight back and you choosing to kill them because you can and you want to and it feels good. Hope that helps.

Esp because in the context of this fandom and the whole Megatron vs. Optimus debate (across continuities) it really does annoy me when people pull the whole "OP has killed people before therefore when he says 'we shouldn't kill people' it makes him a hypocrite" bc is it really that hard to understand the difference between killing people because it's a war and you have no other choice but to protect people versus killing people because you are the aggressor and you want to kill your enemies and anyone who disagrees with you? If anything, constantly being forced to fight and kill against your desires is exactly what would drive someone like Optimus to go "Please fucking stop fighting I literally don't want to do this, I don't want to have to do this, I really wish I wasn't killing people right now, can we please stop killing people."

[kyouka-supremacy]

That fic from Akutagawa's pov that remarked how although Dazai had left a bomb under Chuuya's car, at least that showed he had thought about him before going, while he never cared enough to spare a thought for Akutagawa.

[alistair-blackwood]

i love sincerely love working with dungeon meshi's magic system and the way mana sickness is depicted, like it has the breadth and scope for some truly powerful and wacky fun shit, but you can also easily bring down the hammer when you want to put the characters in difficult situations they can't get out of without a little creativity. i found when writing for baldur's gate 3 that, unless i was in a modified setting, i was hard-pressed thinking up fun ways for characters to solve their problems without just using magic, especially for the small things. i mean, what fun is throwing a character into a river and needing to warm them up when you can just cast prestidigitation?? it's one of the first things a novice can learn and also it's a cantrip, it literally costs nothing!

[hauntingblue]

Oh now the villagers know..... and arlong burned the town to punish her..... for some reason

[witheredgardenparty]

Every now and then I see the discourse circulate on this hellsite, and I wonder if people know that the term 'yandere' used to have an extremely specific definition that no longer holds up to how people use it today

[ajn-illustrated]

My favorite little bard 🪕

Was drawing this while listening to nastee chapel. Rip Holly Karlsson you would've loved 50 Soldiers.

I've apparently just been on a "drawing my ocs as adults" kick. I just want them to be happy and living their best lives after the trauma they face in the series.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

among the boundless billions zaniness like laugh track as it definitely has that moment of expressing "rolling my eyes as The Left makes a kerfuffle of Acting like they have a stance as a veneer over the true belief that [xyz] is cool & chill actually" like what, approximate 0.000% chance wendy isn't, as usual, given the Objective Stance of "yeah yeah ohh we are cancelling involved parties talking about how we Don't watch this But. we all love this damn epic movie & already have it memorized so shut the fuck up, kids today" like. don't wanna really delve into how much billions thinks taylor or anyone is "really" trans / nonbinary like not too much benefit of the doubt in this material including what does provide info abt that specifically

& the general like [head in hands. what do you think any of this could possibly be about (you're the one that made your show at all about Power)] of "yes, it's bad/wrong to be someone that someone has done something to / victim of something" like that to be anti misogyny All Women Must Be Epic Winners b/c there's something to be proved: that they don't Deserve to be victims (of misogyny), not taken as a Given. while when we see some epic winner men stepping on other men (who need not all be guaranteed Winners so as to say misogyny is wrong), that's often Good, well beyond any assumption that various forms of basic disrespect / violation / patterns of emergent/entrenched power difference as Bad (for being things done to people, not for there being people they're being done to), & generally billions has to take an extra step when ppl get shitted on & tell us the Specific Cases when it was undeserved actually & someone was being mean to a specific person who didn't deserve that. & the specific cases when hey guess it wasn't that bad(tm) or when hey It's Okay that you're someone something was done to, in this case. & tell us what we were supposed to know all along like when someone who something was being done to (wrong Of Them, whether b/c they inherently deserve it no matter what, &/or b/c they failed to be someone who could make it Impossible to do anything to them, which, how do you do that besides being The Authority / Superior yourself, exactly? nonrhetorically? what if the in group vs out group / fascism / authoritarianism protected Me?) was actually being treated Too Well b/c ah well the abuse meant you were getting any attention, maybe it meant you were claimed as any superior's property, maybe it meant you weren't Already disposed of, as all Losers were in the end, You're Welcome.

obviously referring to winston where it's spelled out all the abuse towards him was deserved, & More than he deserved in the case of rian having more access & taking advantage of that, all for billions' enjoying its own sendoff there of, again, maximizing violation & violence short of [real violence is physical & leaves bruises / draws blood / Literally kills] which would be distasteful in general But doesn't it make wags look like the winner & winston the loser is that the former's completely unrelated completely impersonal ego blow gets way amplified taken out on winston, the most vulnerable recurring character when spyros as [first & ultimate Everyone Hates Him role] is more entrenched in there & billions still magnanimously pities tuk, as it does winston too, just not quite as much. again that like completely surface level realized power fantasy of forcing the mirror up to the Inferior so they're like nooo my inferiorityyyy & in doing so like, the projection in that lmao, we get it re: the valuing of & need(tm) for such Power Tripping & Reaffirming My Superiority & My Ego Restored; Everyone Claps like good god. & then for all ben & tuk are the slightly softer Two Too Nice Boys duo to the rian & winston quant duo, also like too nice i guess but not as much, ben is in charge of tuk but Any instance of rian being in charge of winston outstrips them in that "yay interpersonal abuse" dynamic, like then in the end billions may be like "yeah it's possible to be mean to them unlike how being mean to winston is actually Nice b/c he deserves everything he gets, we only vicariously enjoy it vs Feeling Bad for tuk & ben sometimes (still magnanimously & it's Not That Bad / just goofin)" like ben & tuk still Fail by not being people it's impossible to do anything to. & not Exceptions who anyone is really being Too Mean to. like if they were women, in which case, no problem surely with a "positive" kind of victim blaming where there is something Inherent that Will be victimized so hey how about to cancel that out there's this special Paternal Protection you Need always, Or Else? :) but instead they are men who are asian & is ben gay & w/tuk & winston nobody mentions glasses or fatness but billions doesn't really do much or very in depth textual mentioning of Anything, even w/nonzero mention that there may be gender & race in this world. a gay man, once. no disability. we just Know who are the inferiors who deserve it when they're treated inferiorly, or if they don't, they start deserving it when they fail to stop/avoid it, but if you start mentioning the factors behind who we all totally agree is inferior like whoa nobody was Saying any of that? being the real agent of oppression on the basis of the factors only You spelled out, much? nonbinary? i never say anything about the Gender Binary when i'm subscribing to it, sounds like You've created & enforced it. obfuscation & deflection onto [so Just Normal nobody has to label, explain, or argue it] couldn't serve a purpose & protect the existing power differences as they are. maybe You're the problem? perhaps you brought it upon yourself & now you're causing too much trouble standing up for yourself while everyone else's criticism is laser focused on you as the prior & continuing negative actions done to you are taken as a given / unquestioned / covertly protected to overtly encouraged?

anyway so wild if the Completely Normal(tm) Victim Blaming is uncritically recreated & oft embraced for "if you're watching this & don't wish you were axe / find him appealing" [billions as a sequence of vicarious power trips] purposes in this series....but a bit wild considering like this is your multiseason show that wasn't just purporting to be those power trips for [enough demographic & apparently specific personal tastes overlap w/creators] & was at all purporting to question the matters of power at play in the material, or yknow, at least to not be completely superficial material while said material is textually & thematically all about power difference being leveraged, how, the consequences, & so on. thus i will have to intermittently talk about it forever like this like lord unbelievable. & the funny little & sometimes less funny less little characters it has trapped in there so that those of us who were never meant to be in the audience can be cursed with this knowledge. like i have some feedback. "imagine not victim blaming" & "imagine adjusting your perspective can go beyond superficial layers added to politely defer to some other ppl while they're present but really like cmon do they deserve that. am i not just saying what we're allll thinking"

[totheidiot]

i hate that the solar eclipse just now serves as a reminder that nobody loves me.

[self-shipper-snowdrop]

The fact that this is a real line Bronwen says in the TFP fic, when right before Starscream is having a takeover monologue with some confused simping for her sprinkled in, has me rolling on the floor.

[francesderwent]

I figured it out. actually only the first two seasons of Greys are good.

[onewomancitadel]

I generally reject comparisons based on superficial traits in common, and in saying that I do get a funny feeling in my tummy about Morrigan-Flemeth and Cinder-Salem as dynamics which reflect each other, in that I think the former kind of elucidates the thing going on with the latter - right down to Cinder's job to hold the Maiden power. There's something about the storyline of being primed and directed for a very specific magical task which erodes her humanity, the conflict between fantastical aspirations and who they actually are as people and their humanity. That's kind of why I like the idea of the Dark Ritual in Morrigan's storyline, in that it's an act traditionally of love subverted, turning Morrigan into that magical vessel, but if the Warden romances her, it's both of those ideas realised at once.

Flemythal and Salem also have that thing going on where they're secretly goddesses (but not), hiding the reality of the burden placed on their daughters, along with this real ambiguity about their intentions towards them - did Flemeth never really intend to possess Morrigan? Morrigan passed her "test" and put Kieran's life before her own, against the odds of her isolated and abusive upbringing.

Whatever the bargain is between Salem and Cinder (characterised as some sort of power struggle in V8 which involves Cinder replaying the torment of her former master), I do like the idea that there is some sort of sinister affection, and that is evidenced in canon - Salem's very particular care with her training the power and the arm in V4, Cinder's exultation at Salem's return in the V8 finale - which is allowed to exist, or exists as a consequence of whatever the dark imitation that is their mother-daughter ("fairy godmother") relationship. There's a peculiar sort of leniency in some ways that Salem extends to Cinder specifically which also is in turn why she punishes her as she does: I take this to mean that Cinder is how she expresses whatever relationship she destroyed with her daughters that she cannot access anymore (hence it's significant that she's the Maiden, like the Four Maidens who find Ozma and are just like their children).

I think it's a much more interesting (and more canonical) reading in the sense that it's an emotionally and thematically grounded dynamic, not just Cinder as Salem's creature (sympathetic to Cinder's side, sometimes not) or Cinder and Salem as mere "business partners" (this is a protective view that Cinder espouses, but I'm not sure she really believes in her bones). With Morrigan, as a companion who's on your side, I think a sympathetic view for her (and problematising Flemeth's treatment of her) is much clearer: she doesn't have that problem of acting as an antagonist, although her harsh personality might be offputting at first, and so my reason of comparison is not because they are meaningfully connected as texts but really more as an emotional/fandom comparison - and to contrast how their narrative roles (antagonist/companion) inform fandom readings. It is especially interesting given the fact that we now have the conclusion to Morrigan's arc and more broadly Mythal's, but even with Inquisition you could see the direction of her story: she takes on the mythic burden and redeems it. If you play the ending where Solas is redeemed, she resolves Mythal's inheritance in a way that could not be done before. Although Veilguard chose not to bring back choices beyond three from Inquisition, a softened Morrigan, in my eyes, reads as much more profound with a Warden romance, which pairs quite nicely with Solavellan as a narrative complementary duo: the most effective idea here is that by seeing with clear eyes, past first assumptions, can the wound be healed (@/corseque put it much better than me). It's very fairytale-like, if not Beauty and the Beast. (In this case, I also prefer it as bookending the beginning of the series with its end).

So you can see why I find it interesting to compare to Cinder and Morrigan - because yes, they are similar characters in that they're ostensibly femme fatales with a lot more going on emotionally, mythically, initiated into old magic - but also because Morrigan was rewarded in the story in the way I feel is most appropriate for such a dynamic, even with such a hugely spanning game series, and though I think Veilguard fumbled some of the complexity of Morrigan-Flemeth dynamic ("regret", please) in its fashion, the ultimate throughline stayed pretty true to what I thought was appropriate. I prefer a reading of Morrigan-Flemeth that isn't easy, because it never is easy: all of those feelings of pain and hurt sit with love, and fear, and in Morrigan's case, a very particular and special magical inheritance that she has to do something with. The real cruelty of the Well is that the hunger for knowledge bred into her would tie her to her mother's magical will. It's not carried into Veilguard, but the implication is essentially that in inheriting the fragment of Mythal from Flemeth, she would not really be in danger anyway; the Evanuris operate with moral rules outside traditional boundaries, to the point of amorality; it does not bother Flemythal to use her power to bind Morrigan, and yet she loves her. (That this reflects the Mythal-Solas dynamic, and plays into the redeem!Solas ending, is not a coincidence). Flemythal bore a daughter who would eventually grow beyond her intentions for not just inheriting the power, but for doing the world right.

And that's the Cinder-Salem dynamic to me, that the redemption, and her "end", has been cultivated in a vessel she intended to use for vengeful and destructive and self-annihilating purposes, amused by the ambitions of this mortal child. In that, an emotional reconciliation too. Cinder's redemption in this story is important to me because it would upend Salem's intentions for her in a deep way, and evolve her story past a very basic idea about how the Maiden power works. I like the idea that Salem intended it to be a way to eat her cake and have it too - accessing the memory of her daughters, without the full emotional commitment, resolution, with them and with Ozma - but once she made Cinder her daughter, and Cinder has the opportunity to self-actualise outside of extended childhood (torment, over and over, endless midnight), then she can't escape the consequences of that. But it's a good thing.

I normally prefer to read texts that interact with each other consciously - but in this case, there is something really interesting to be gleaned from another story that explored this magical mother-daughter scenario in a similar way, especially in terms of how clearly Morrigan is received as a character versus Cinder, and it's satisfying to me because I know that Morrigan was in the end handled properly. It's an important dynamic to me because I enjoy where a real-life complicated relationship marked by abuse intersects with these mythic pursuits, and what is necessary in their stories is to be humanised - more than a vessel and mere will - and to humanise those around them.

[navy-heart]

God why is my mother such a terrible human being