#self morals

[anxietyfrappuccino]

clarification: if i say "i do not want to," it means one of two things:

a) i will never do the thing you're asking of me, fuck you

b) i want to do the thing but my brain physically feels ill and i can't do it rn, i'm so sorry

the first is in relation to personal or moral asks.

ex. no sorry i don't drink, fuck you for asking. or, no i'm not going to pretend to be someone else for your amusement, fuck you i choose my authentic self.

the second is about tasks.

ex. i need to do my homework or clean my room but my brain is refusing to let me do that. i repeat, my brain is refusing to work on this task

p.s. on behalf of subject b. i seriously do in fact feel like there is something physically wrong with my brain at these times of task paralysis, executive dysfunction, etc. imagine the feeling of a piece of paper on your arm just resting there, or a jar filled with cotton. yeah, it feels like that up in my fucking head and i have no control over how long it lasts. yes, it is VERY overwhelming, and because why fucking not, it happens every single fucking day.

as for subject a. do not question me. i know who i fucking am.

[rainbowpopeworld]

This is a big thing that I continue to work on unlearning/relearning

[the-meme-monarch]

was thinking abt how anya sleeps by the polle statue. which is motion activated to start talking.

+ i like drawing polle as a Character

[gludgenbell]

in one ear and out the other, cucumber-bro

[taffywabbit]

I finally watched breaking bad (all within the past week or so while I worked, finished it and watched el camino last night) and I'm confident this isn't a new thought I'm expressing or anything but genuinely how DID an entire generation of dudes convince themselves Walter White was cool and admirable and intended to be sympathetic. I know ppl just lack media literacy sometimes but I'm still so confused

I don't think I've EVER watched a piece of media that so blatantly depicts a guy making the worst possible decisions at every turn and having his life ruined for it and not being redeemed or made sympathetic in any significant or lasting way. the kinds of justifications villains USUALLY give that make people consider them "morally grey" or "tragic" or whatever (everything I did was for my loved ones, I did what I had to to survive, once I was in this I couldn't get out, I just needed you to trust me so I could keep you safe, etc etc) is ALWAYS framed as complete self-serving bullshit when Walt says it, and one of the only shreds of personal growth he ever exhibits in the whole series is when he finally fucking admits that. every time he does something even remotely cool or drops a quotable one-liner, something terrible immediately happens that makes everything worse and makes him look like an unreasonable idiot asshole again. by the end of the series the ONLY characters they can still contrast as being morally "worse" than him are literally a bunch of bloodthirsty neonazis who kept a guy in a cage for several months. this show is practically SCREAMING at you the entire time not to admire Walt. why did every dude I knew in highschool have his face on tshirts and Facebook pfps.

I just don't get it. at least with The Dark Knight's Joker it was like, a feature-length movie and that's it. you spend a lot less time with the Joker and it has a lot less time to delve into his motivations, so there's way more room for flanderization and misinterpretation as people extrapolate the few cool/interesting/sad things they saw into a whole nuanced misunderstood guy in their heads and online. Walter White has 5 seasons' worth of 45min episodes to convince you beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a miserable fucking loser who ruins everything he touches because of greed and selfishness. if you weren't watching it for that, what WERE you getting out of this. what DID you think this show was about. am I just missing some key piece of context from 2012 or whatever that would help me understand this

[thirstywaffles]

When your crush finally loves you back

[ID: Scum Villain fanart of Luo Binghe. He's standing with his arms spread slightly at his sides, palms up. He's smirking and his eyes glint red. There's a large caption across his body that says "i am no longer mentally ill". /end ID]

[hksdlgsyappage]

"In every other universe Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man and in every other universe it doesn't end well"

[fascinationstreetmp3]

i need daniel to be overcompensating for his insecurities so bad. 100 times more cocky and rude and aggressive and insensitive than he was as a human, falling back into old dangerous habits and vices, not just because now he has new energy and power and wealth to flaunt but because it's ALL he has, and he needs to cling onto it. play it up and revel in it so no one sees that underneath, he feels like a botched fledgling in the body of a sick, faded old man who maybe has no real idea why he was even made. that armand might think he failed in making him. that his maker didn't even really want him.

[starry-bi-sky]

Danielle and Danyal's meeting... very, very quickly goes very sour from, basically, the moment Danny steps into his room and finds Ellie sitting on his bed (strike one) and reading the comic books Tucker introduced him to (strike two). By the time she's looked up to address him, Danny has the door locked, and a hand hovering near the knife hidden under his shirt.

She gets her third strike when Danny, in a voice that could make the mountains tremble, demands to know how she got into his room, and she lies (with uncertainty of her decision growing in her chest) that Jazz let her in. Danny's hand shifts closer to his weapon, and he turns towards her fully, and says that Jazz would never let someone he didn’t know into his room, and who was she.

(Vlad Masters had underprepared Danielle for her meeting with Danny -- not out of any completely direct malicious intent, but he failed to mention just how... 'touchy' Daniel could be -- he failed to mention the scars littering up his arms, unhidden by the hoodie tee he meets Ellie in. He failed to mention that along with those scars, that Danny was visibly lean, capable of doing very real damage without the use of his powers.)

(He tells Ellie that he’s adopted, and that he is observant and clever, but ungrateful and has a bad attitude.)

Her final strike occurs when Ellie, trying to keep her facade of cheeriness, tells him that she’s his third cousin once removed. Immediately, Danny has his dagger pulled out, and Ellie finds herself with the cold metal of a blade pressing against her throat.

Danyal 'A.G' Fenton hasn’t killed since he arrived in Amity Park. At first it was because mother told him to keep a low profile, and killing would do the opposite of that. But, he's been slowly learning from his sister and friends over the years the value of human life. So it's become a combination of keeping his head down, and also that life has value to it.

But. That doesn’t mean he can’t kill, nor is he opposed to doing it if the situation calls for it. It just means that he doesn't do it. And ��Danielle’ is an unknown in his room, claiming to be family to him, and appearing uncannily similar to him and his family. Either someone hired her and she was trying to pass herself off as a relative to him because that someone realized Danny was the biggest threat, or, his false death has been compromised, his mother was unable to tell him, and the league was aware he was alive.

No matter how he looks at it, this Danielle was a threat to him, his sister, his friends, to Damian, and to the Drs. Fenton. Danyal Fenton doesn't kill, but he has no problems doing so.

(Ellie, pinned under Danny’s knee and the blade to her neck, is too terrified to think of phasing out of his hold. Not that it would help, he would just chase after her.)

“You have broken into my home, dared to lie to my face, and when I demanded to know the truth, you dared lie to me again." Danny's scowl could cower even Skulker, his glacier blue eyes burning. "Your continual breath has been a favor from me, that I have graciously allowed, from the moment you entered my room, dahkil."

"So I will ask one more time," he hisses, "who. are. you."

Danielle, only a few months old, unprepared for the ice storm that is "Daniel" Fenton, and his clone in only flesh and blood, and not memories, immediately breaks. And tells him that she was his clone, that Vlad sent her to come capture him, and to please not kill her.

Danny's face twists with anger, Ellie thinks he's going to kill her anyways. Instead, he withdraws his knife and gets off her, stringing out curses in Arabic as he sheathes his weapon back into its hiding place faster than Ellie can blink.

He switches to English as she is collecting her bearings (and contemplating fleeing), and Danny paces the room like a tiger in a cage. "--of course that wretched, arrogant, peacocking little ingrate would do something so infuriating. I should have driven my sword into the shrivel of his heart when I had the chance--"

Ellie, for a moment, thinks of leaving while he is distracted. And starts to slowly creep away. But Danny notices instantly, and whirls on her. His too-bright eyes bore into her head: "Where do you think you're going."

"...I'm leaving."

And Danny scoffs at her, "Why? So you can fly back to Masters and tell him that you failed to capture me, and that I know that he cloned me?" He says, and Ellie remains silent -- that's exactly what she was going to do. "He will destroy you within seconds."

Of course, Ellie rears back in offense, and she finds the footing to glare at him. "He would not! He's my dad, he loves me!"

Danny gets in her face, glowering back with an equal intensity. "He does not." He snaps, "Vlad Masters has not a soul in his body nor a heart in his chest. He would sooner cut off the hand that helps him stand, than to take it along with him."

"If you're really made of my blood, then I will teach you only this: we bow not our heads nor our hearts to anyone." Danny's too-blue eyes narrow, and his voice dips into a hiss, "Especially not to a conniving snake like Masters. Your heart: cut it off, or cut it out. He will sooner leave you to bleed."

Then, he unlocks the door and drags her out before she has much time to act. And as he drags her down the hall he shoots Sam and Tucker a text, and they meet up at Nasty Burger. Ellie is a spitfire, but Danny has her too intimidated to leave.

"This is Danielle," he tells them bluntly as he corners her into the booth, "she's my clone. Masters created her."

Ellie is with them for a week, and somehow throughout that time, Danny manages to actually get her to like him throughout that time. He's callous, blunt, and full of sharp edges that you can cut yourself on. But when he's not spitting venom, he's fretting.

When he drags her back to the house after being with Sam and Tucker, he pulls her to Jazz's room and opens the door to tell her the same thing. "This is Danielle." He says upon abruptly opening the door, interrupting Jazz's studying as he pulls Ellie inside. "She is my clone, Masters created her. She needs clothes."

Then he turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him. Ellie, in that moment, thinks that now's her chance to flee. But Jazz then squeals, and she is trapped in new arms, shaken around by Jazz Fenton, excited for a sister.

(Ellie finds herself complaining to Jazz that night, shoved into old pajamas. She's in utter disbelief that Jazz could care about a jerk like Danny.)

("He's rough around the edges, but Danny does care." Jazz tells her, combing through her hair with her fingers. "We've been working on it ever since he joined the family, but Danny warms up slowly. He's usually less stoney; I think your arrival spooked him.")

("Spooked him?" Ellie repeats, she doesn't believe it at all. "He has a funny way of showing it, he threatened to kill me!" And she turns around just in time to see Jazz's press her lips into a line.)

("He's... very protective. He'll deny if you ask him, but he worries a lot." Jazz's fingers find her hair again. "What I do know for certain though, is that he wouldn't have kept you here if he wasn't worried about you at least a little bit.")

(Ellie doubts it.)

But Ellie is indeed there for a week, and the day after her initially rocky introduction with Danny, he is a little bit kinder to her. Still kinda a bitch, but he's less harsh to her, if... almost uncomfortable around her. Flighty, kinda.

Whenever she gets mouthy at him though, he looks oddly smug about it and, infuriatingly enough, praises her attitude. He is very, very annoying. And still kinda terrifying. But hearing him shout insults via puns at someone during a ghost fight that happens that week lessens the intimidating factor,,, a little bit.

Things go about,,,, relatively,,,, similar to canon. In the sense that it ends with Ellie defecting from Vlad because she finds out that Danny was right and that Vlad didn't actually care about her. (And that Jazz had been right too; Danny, in his weird, mean way, had been worried about her as well)

Danny looks out of his depth as she talks about how he was right, and he cuts her off with a vaguely uncomfortable clearing of his throat. And gives her the most awkward, but genuine apology he can muster.

"I should've used more tact when telling you about Masters, and I... apologize for threatening you when we met. I was..." he makes a face like he's sucked on a particularly sour lemon, "worried. First about my family, and then later about you."

(Ellie will be damned: Jazz was right)

Before Ellie leaves, Danny puts a hand on her shoulder and tells her: "I wasn't kidding about what I said to you when we first met: you are of my blood, and as such, you do not bow your head nor your heart to anyone."

Ellie looks at him, thinks about the last week, and smiles like she's caught him in a trap. "What about Sam and Tucker then? And Jazz?"

Danny smiles, it's awkward and tilted, like his face isn't used to the gesture. "We bow not our hearts, but that doesn't mean we can't share."

[thepeacefulgarden]

[prommytheus]

me: im not a asoryu divorce truther, but i AM an asoryu taking a break & eventual unlabeled-long-distance-situation truther. they ABSOLUTELY needed to go on different paths at the end of the game. i totally get people who rewrite them to go back home together after 2-5, but it misses the point IMO. their split is a bittersweet thing & a testament to their devotion to each other as people and friends more than it’s a toxic split and a tragedy. it’s not ryuunosuke leaving in bitter anger at kazuma’s deceit, or kazuma being idiotically self punishing. rather, it’s them mutually saying “We need to exist outside of each other for a while for our own development as people. But i would never leave you in anger. You will always be enough for me, but you also need to learn to be enough for yourself. And ultimately we will meet again at the crossroads. When we need each other the most, and we are finally ready, and we will walk our paths side by side. Unbroken, and never having been broken. And that bond is stronger than both of our deceit, violence, shyness, and ignorance combined.”

their physical split is a show of their assurance that they could never spiritually ‘fall off’ from each other. no matter what happens, they stand together in a cosmic sense. they need to be apart so that kazuma can find a self that will live past 24, and so ryuunosuke can develop the self he found in his own journey— the self that sees its value at all. basically, ryuunosuke is leaving for himself to prove that he has a self, and kazuma is staying for himself so he can learn to care about himself enough to put his struggle in the hands of the people offering to him— so he can learn to stop running. do you get me?

you, tied to a chair and actively being waterboarded: BLBLBLBLBLLBLUBUBU—

[cervinae-canine]

Tag your selfship

[nightowl374art]

just some Gwen and Miles 42 thoughts

[angel-cryptid]

me when I remember my fictional crush has a canonical love interest:

[legobiwan]

This is such a telling page for Ford. Not only does he detail his social missteps and admit to being lonely in Gravity Falls, despite the scientific wonder of the place, but he also uses what I call "Fordese 2," a scrambled version of the "Fordese 1" code we were first introduced to in Journal 3 to label himself a "six-fingered freak" and to state that "Stanley would have made her laugh." (Her, being the waitress Ford tries out his nerdy science joke on, which goes down like a lead balloon despite the fact that it is legitimately funny, given the right audience).

It's like Bill says. "Ego of a king. The insecurity of a circus freak. And totally isolated..." (Funny enough, Bill could probably turn those exact words on himself, as well.)

Ford so wanted Gravity Falls to be the place where he'd finally fit in, the puzzle to his misshapen puzzle piece.

And as we see in the missing Journal pages from BoB, that was not to be the case. And worst of all? Ford blames it on his hands at first, but the reality is that he says that "Stanley could make her laugh," meaning Ford's "freakishness" (as he would put it) has less to do with his six fingers and much more to do with Ford's personality and the way he interacts with others.

This is actually worse. Fingers, you can fix, if you want to. By the time you're an adult, most people probably wouldn't care. But to Ford, his fingers seem to be more a manifestation of something internal, something he feels is fundamentally broken about him and that's just the absolute worst hell to be stuck in.

So yeah, it's hardly surprising Ford fell so hard for Bill's shenanigans (and you can define "fell so hard" however you want, although that karaoke page in BoB is especially damning). Here's an interdimensional being who not only can guide you to unlocking the secrets of the universe and propel you towards scientific fame and glory (and thus shoving every taunt, invective, side-eye, and eye roll ever hurled at you over the decades down your tormentors' throats) - but he's (on the surface) completely glib about being a freak himself.

For Ford, this must have been like finding a shady, sparkling oasis after thirty years of trawling through the desert (especially after Stanley's "betrayal" - Stanley, who along with Fiddleford, being the only person Ford felt like he could be himself around and still be accepted as a human being).

Now, is Bill trying way too hard to show how much he doesn't care? Uhhh, yeah. Bill has almost the same hangups as Ford. Labeled a freak for a genetic mutation and ostracized by his peers. Has a rare gift in that he can see not only into the third dimension but can see even past that, into possible dimensions and futures, which is a wild skill to have. Compare this with Ford's gigantic science brain and academic overachievement. Same deal. And not only this! Bill, in an attempt to prove what he can do with his "freakishness," to prove his worth and place in the universe - he tries to show off something to the denizens of his dimension (we don't know yet what Bill did), only to end up slaughtering his entire dimension. Ford was a hair's breath away from doing the exact same thing with the portal. Because we know from Journal 3 that part of his motivation is to be famous and get accolades for his work, and that maybe "girls will finally talk to me." (Which, Fordsy, let's be real here - I don't think you're actually into these "girls" for real, but you want the acceptance that comes with fitting in with societal standards, and getting a state-sanctioned girlfriend is exactly the type of thing Ford would want to make himself feel "normal.")

Anyway, the point being that if Ford had succeeded with his initial portal attempt, he would have basically wiped out his own dimension. Just. Like. Bill. And it makes you wonder - yeah, yeah, Bill wanted to party, Bill needed out of the Nightmare Realm, Bill's a psychopath who enjoys destruction.

But honestly? I think part it all was that Bill wanted someone like him. His own puzzle piece. Another monster. A being whose collateral damage in the quest to justify their existence in this universe ends in wholesale slaughter.

And Ford had the capacity to easily fit that mould.

[miiilowo]

more spn ponies :-) rounding off team free will w/ cas and jack