#sorry i'm in the feels about them rn

[crow-talks-hockey]

do you ever think about those that remain. do you ever think about how one of the best and most competitive athletes in pro sports, his best defenseman and close friend, and his other half and monster in his own know exactly what it is to win. three times actually. and do you think about the two that joined them and stayed. do you think about the seemingly fragile boy grew to play top line every night and be loved by his city. about the boy who goes forever underrated and under appreciated for the things he does. about the those five that stayed and that know. that know what it is to win. and now, must learn, again, to lose.

everyone else says they come here because pittsburgh is a winning city. that it's an honor to play with the big three, and that it becomes even more incredible to play with guentzel and rust too. but they don't know. how could they? they weren't here in those golden and black and white days. they weren't around to play with hornqvist, kessel, sheary, hagelin, cole, maatta, kunitz, daley, murray, dumolin, flower. they weren't around, really, truly, for those two cups in 2016 and 2017. they just don't know, and that's ok... but sid does. geno does. tanger, rusty, and guentz do. they remember. and that makes all this only hurt more.

it is the joy of winning that makes the losing so much more difficult. to know you have been there before, but that it may never happen again.

and do you ever think about those who never wanted to leave? that were torn away? do you think about flower, about dumolin, about all the others? do you ever long so badly for something you never experienced (what's up new pens fans <3 also older fans, im jealous of you but in a good way) that it hurts? do you have to remind yourself to just enjoy those big three and their "eldest daughters" while you can even when they lose but in reality you just don't want to because you just want to win. because it sucks losing and in some small way, you know how they feel out there on the ice each night. longing for something that might well be completely unachievable. do you think about that?

[sergle]

talking about the topic of animated movies not Hitting, I accidentally reminded myself of one time on twitter, I think around the time that Raya came out?? I was poopooing on how much the dragon looks like elsa, and then talked about how I wish 2d animated and hand animated films were still The Medium instead of nothing but the highest resolution skin texture fur textured 3d animated films bc I'm tired of seeing it, etc etc and then someone who I was not mutuals with, they must've been someone working under the disney IP in some form, and must've either done some work on raya or just worked on 3d animated projects in general, replied to me SEVERAL TIMES as if I was subtweeting them, with something to the tone of "just say you hate me and you think my art is trash" and I think about that ALL the time

[die-tenebris]

don't wanna derail the post I saw this discussion on- it was all in the notes anyway, so it certainly isn't op's problem. I'm gonna say this with so much love:

Calling somebody a 'theyfab' is not punching up. If someone's being transmisogynistic, say that, or call them a bigot. Naming the tangible harm done to you will always be the most effective thing to do.

The cis people who created that term made it with the explicit intent to mock and insult people's identities. No matter what you mean when you say it, this is its origin and to most people, its only meaning. It describes nothing about the discrimination you face.

People afab are marginalized, especially if they're queer. You cannot "punch up" on a fellow oppressed group. I understand the specific vitriol that they inflict on you hurts.

You don't need a word to call somebody, you need and deserve adequate justice for the tangible harm done to you; and my heart aches that nobody queer- especially trans women- ever seems to receive that.

I'm aware I can't make anybody do anything, so I'm not gonna try to tell you not to use that word. I just want to say it can't ever address, undo, or heal any harm done to you. It can only redirect it.

[maerhiya]

in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."

like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.

when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.

media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.

which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)

any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?

[scionshtola]

Oh, I must be seein' blind Oh, no, you're too good to be all mine

[vcrnons]

WOOZI Headliner @ UNESCO Youth Forum

[pubbee]

I really don't think "y'all couldn't even handle Vivienne and Sera" is really a good excuse to have exclusively agreeable characters

[wildflowercryptid]

sometimes, i think about the extra bit of depth alex's romance is given when you date him as a guy and i just gotta. stare at the ceiling for a bit...

[angeart]

Boatem Circus.... Thoughts cycling through my head about your Wonderful au. These thoughts might not make sense but. You're cool!

I think what breaks me the most (at this moment) /pos is that Scar, when he built up the circus with his own two hands, after coming from wherever he had come from, had to teach himself how to bring salvation to others. How to show others safety and warmth and show them that things would be okay. He had to teach himself first how to take care of others. And then after elegy he realizes that everything he taught himself can be like- applied to him, too, because he's not alone anymore and the others are gonna show him and teach him and save him and it's so 🥹 love. Found family. Yummy.

(Also while I'm here 👉👈, am I allowed to ask who the very first person to join Scar's circus was or is that like spoilers-?) hope you have a lovely night and day

boatem circus!! 💕

you are so very right about scar. he didn't have other people show him kindness, but he still decided to extend it to others. he had to learn, and by doing so, he wasn't even aware he's teaching the others too!

and gosh when they turn it around on him 🥺 my heart.

found family!!! i love boatem circus crew found family so so so much.

you are allowed to ask! it's not a secret or a spoiler or anything! it just genuinely wasn't something i had figured out, but your question prompted me to go bug stiff and i think we got it now :3c ...

the order in which people joined the circus*:

scar > impulse > gem > jimmy > ren > pearl > cleo & doc (separately but at around the same time) > mumbo > joel > grian > [events of elegy] > skizz > tango > ???

... so. impulse. our beloved impulse was first.

he was running away from some people and he hid at where scar was building stuff. and scar came across him, with his typical "well hello there :J"

and impulse was scared! and he could've lashed out with fire in his fear. but— he didn't. (he is a teddy bear and genuinely doesn't want to hurt anyone, ever.) (there might be a backstory buried there that makes elegy so much worse :3c just saying)

he wasn't used to people regarding him without fear. he wasn't used to being just... accepted. or to be allowed to stay anywhere. he actually fully expected that's what the rest of his life will be: endless wandering, being chased off, forever running away. and yet.

and yet.

scar offers him a place to stay. so easily. as if it didn't cost him anything.

[necrotic-nephilim]

i recently remembered DickTim Week 2024 is happening very soon and i looked at the prompts again to see if i could get anything out for it and. the Hades & Persephone AU prompt for day 1 has got me really thinking so here's a vague concept i plan to write.

i've been pretty burnt out on modern Hades & Persephone retellings because of how they always seem to fall into the same generic "innocent wide-eyed girl runs from her evil mean mother into the arms of a dark mysterious man because actually she went willingly and chose to marry him" which has gotten repetitive for my tastes. (for clarity i don't care if this retelling is your cup of tea personally, so long as you're not actively trying to rewrite the original myth and claim untrue things about it, if this is your favorite flavor i sincerely hope you enjoy the buffet i just have little interest in it since it feels overdone for me and exhausted of it's supposed commentary atp)

but? but. biblically accurate Hades & Persephone AU has me all kinds of interested. because wait listen so hear me out right. Hades!Dick and Persephone!Tim, obviously. i feel it'd be more loosely inspired by with themes and imagery (though playing with death and nature powers could be interesting, i haven't decided) rather than explicitly making them gods and all. but. something dark and fucked up where Dick and Bruce are especially estranged. maybe to do with Jason's return, maybe to do with them just clashing and having their usual explosive arguments. and Bruce knows the peace needs to be kept, if he and Dick are at odds then everyone starts to pick sides and things just fracture so he needs a peace offering.

and the peace offering is Tim.

Bruce (the stand-in for Zeus) offers up Tim. agrees to have Tim move to Bludhaven and be Dick's... whatever Dick wants him to be. knowing that with the implication comes the likelihood of Dick grooming Tim. and Tim has no real say and is hesitant to put up a real fight. he doesn't want this, he knows what this is going to imply Dick will do to him, but he also knows if he says no things have the possibility to just... fall apart. so he's the unwilling bride, dragged off to the metaphorical underworld (Bludhaven) with Dick, away from his family, his friends, the life he built.

and on the flip side, i think weirdly enough, your best pick for the Demeter stand-in is *Jason*. just, hear me out on that. not necessarily on the side of it being motherly, but on Jason being just estranged enough from the Batfamily to be the one willing to call it out for being bad and wrong and raising bloody hell to get Tim back. maybe it's because Jason wants Tim for himself, maybe it's truly out of a concern for Tim to have autonomy, i'm toying with the idea of it primarily being Tim's POV and him genuinely not knowing which of these is true. (and the truth possibly ends up being a complicated middle ground) and because i like Helena, i think you can use her as the Hekate stand in, the one who strikes a tentative alliance with Jason and tries to go find Tim and bring him back. Tim stuck with Dick, getting groomed and hyperaware of it, possibly even getting fucked the whole time as well, knowing he can't go back without causing massive issues for Dick and Bruce because well, Bruce did promise him to Dick. so he has to adjust his whole life, try to figure out being a vigilante in this new city with Dick breathing down his neck the whole time.

and then much like the ending of the myth, a sort of compromise is struck that's a shaky deal for everyone involved. Tim is put on an essential timeshare, going back and forth between Gotham, where he has friends and family and a support system, then getting dragged right back to Bludhaven with Dick in this brutal cycle that he slowly gets used to and stockholm'd into even liking it. Dick isn't so bad, once he gets used to the quirks of their unbalanced 'relationship'. the sex is even something he can adjust to as well. not quite a happy ending but one that sits in this realistic grey area that becomes Tim's life.

i will write this, eventually, but i don't know if i'll get to it before DickTim Week ends so by posting the idea i'm essentially putting it out into the world so the peer pressure holds me accountable. i just. really like the potential of making Hades/Persephone AUs as fucked up as they can be simply by adhering to the source material and making it a raw story of being stolen away and forced to like this new home you didn't ask for.

also a less fleshed-out aspect of this idea i have ties into Persephone becoming the Queen of the Underworld when she's taken and how the transition from Kore to Persephone could be reflected in Tim. how he makes the best of the worst situation and becomes something far more dangerous and dark when he's in Bludhaven, possibly takes on a new vigilante name/identity and leans into the worst quirks of his personality he tries to tamper because there's no point in not going full tilt Obsessively Weird if he has no choice anyway and it being one small way he takes back his autonomy, and that inevitably making Dick *more* into him, because he gets to see Tim finally just. let loose.

[le-velo-pour-dru]

I'M BACK GUYS

IT WAS AMAZING

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MY GOSH GUYS I LOVE IDKHOW SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY PUT ON SUCH A GREAT SHOW I HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 😊🫶❤️ I'M SO HAPPY I GOT TO GO, IT WAS WORTH ALL THE STRESS LEADING UP TO IT AND I JUST HAD AN AMAZING NIGHT 😁🫶🩷 I LOVE YOU IDKHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And sorry to everyone concerned about me, I hate to say this (/hsrs /lh), but...

HE IS HOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Ohhhhhhhhh my god I was standing there the whole time flustered out of my GOURD 🫣 Forget being subdued, I want that man(?) BAD

[skrunksthatwunk]

idk if i've discussed it before (i have certainly THOUGHT about it) but someone on my kuwa suffering ep 89 comp mentioned it and i just had to go off about it like. ok. sensui tells yusuke something along the lines of "you heard itsuki" when itsuki's inside the uraotoko, implying that not only can sensui hear those inside the uraotoko, but that he expects yusuke to be able to as well. which means that yusuke Almost Certainly Heard And Kind Of Ignored kuwabara's prolonged mental breakdown and wailing about how much he needs yusuke to live etc. which. guHHH i hate him yusuke you ass but also listen.

the only acknowledgement yusuke gives to this (if any) is when he says something like "sensui you're sooo fucking cooked this plan's going perfectly (my friends are going to get strong and kill you when i die)." he's trash talking to sensui, ignoring the others because, i think, he doesn't want to acknowledge what he's doing to them.

yusuke is explicitly recreating the experience he had with kuwabara's "death" at the hands of toguro, complete with the announcement of intent (and power) to kill, the inability to impede the threat in any way (barring a power-breakthrough), and the target in some way racing towards/volunteering for their death. yusuke learns through doing, and through tough love-style approaches. it's only effective if it hurts. watching kuwabara die like that was devastating to yusuke, but it sure as hell fucking worked. he beat toguro because of that maneuver. so even if he has to (re-)traumatize his friends in the process, this method will make his friends stronger, and he feels confident in that. but he never had to live with the consequences of kuwabara's death, not really. that's something hiei makes clear before they enter the cave as well, that there are no fake-outs ready to make him or anyone else stronger. the only deaths here will be real. the only power gained will come at a high, permanent cost. hiei's warning is an attempt to keep everyone alive, to keep yusuke from being stupid. and then yusuke decides to take that fatality into his own hands, but it's kind of his friends who would pay the price. he's going to make them live through the days, months, years without him, the actual permanency of loss (assuming they survive for that long), something he never experienced with kuwabara (a new facet of that traumatic scenario), AND he's escaping the emotional fallout of this choice through death. he doesn't have to see them mourn, won't get yelled at, won't watch them fail to move on. he's tapping out and choosing to believe they'll be fine.

but i think he feels guilty. just a little. i mean, yusuke couldn't even believe that people cared about him enough to want him alive in episode one. he's staked everything on his friends, which means he still kind of... doesn't value his own life, at least not compared to theirs. but he believes his friends love him and want him around, and we know that because he has to, or else he wouldn't make a plan that depends entirely on that love. he is actively leveraging the care he doesn't think he deserves, trying to hurt them in a way he is intimately familiar with (only worse), for.... what, exactly?

this is kind of my sticking point tbh. i don't think the answer is... super clear, but let's start with what it's not.

yusuke is not doing this because it is the most practical way to save all of humanity; that would be the mafukan, which he stopped. it could be a gamble to save all of his friends? the mafukan strategy would guarantee koenma's death/eternal imprisonment, whereas this strategy gambles all of humanity on the chance that his friends come out of the Easy Break Oven strong enough to avert the end of the world. if the sacrifice of even one friend is completely intolerable, perhaps he'd accept those slim odds and their steep consequences. yusuke tends to take risks like that, especially when he's got fight-induced tunnel vision. he doesn't think things through too much; his schemes are usually dependent on surprising his enemy enough to oneshot them. truthfully, i think this is the closest we'll get to an answer, and it's a more conventional one for this kind of story. but there is another layer i haven't been able to get from my mind.

i think yusuke is gifting each of his friends an honorable warrior's death.

so, in case it needs saying, yusuke, kuwabara, kurama, and hiei all (at least once, if not several times) exhibit a desire to die in combat in a way they deem noble to give their lives purpose (usually by self-sacrifice, but sometimes by another metric of honor, like hiei's duel with shigure and his desire to die in mutual defeat against an evenly matched opponent; or even kurama's decision to fight shigure in his human form, displaying a sort of passive suicidality via placing being true to himself in this (somewhat symbolic/inconsequential) way over survival). they need to make their lives count for something, because they feel guilty for being alive (kurama and hiei feel guilty for their past actions (hiei's is most evident in his distance from yukina, though that's not its primary reason), hiei, kuwabara, and yusuke have all been ostracized and made to feel like burdens on/unwanted by their caregivers and general society; all four of them have felt profound isolation even from their loved ones (yusuke and hiei are rather obvious; kurama can never tell his mother about the majority of his life nor what she truly means to him in the context of it; and kuwabara is separated from his peers for his spiritual awareness and his "stupidity" (plus his parents aren't around? and he is Desperate to define manhood/manliness through a broader pop cultural one which includes the warrior sacrifice thing bc he has no male role models BUT that's for another post) (i will admit kuwa's the most tenuous one here irt isolation)). they want to die for a cause so badly it's actually physically painful to me. it is passive suicidality, and they define their lives and identities by their relation to, engagement with, and skill at doing violence, etc. they live to die by the sword. anyway. nobody talks about it but i think it's very important to understanding what yusuke's doing here.

because i think he knows that about himself and his friends. they're kindred spirits. at the very least he knows this about kuwabara, who literally made a speech about this before diving into toguro's fingers In The Event That He Is Recreating Explicitly. he is dying nobly like they all want to on the chance that they'll get to break out and fight sensui rather than dying without even getting to take a swing. it's about his pride and theirs. but i don't think yusuke necessarily believes they'll win. he knows better than anyone how strong sensui is, and how wide the gap is between sensui and team urameshi. his stated position that humanity is doomed and that he doesn't care about its fate is, i think, not completely genuine, but if we take it at face value, he's not killing himself so that his friends can survive the end of the world. something's going to come around and kill them eventually. he's doing it so they can survive long enough to fight sensui. he needs them (specifically kuwabara) to be strong enough to free themselves to begin round two. but he's given up on their side winning, on humanity surviving, on his own victory---why should he think his friends are capable of winning? this could be another case of yusuke's fight-blinders. it could be another gamble, more blind faith put in his friends. but honestly it reads more to me that yusuke's giving them a chance to die together on the battlefield. them winning would be great, but it's not his goal. it's a pipe dream.

he knows he's going to be killed. they're probably going to be killed, too. but to make it so they last a little longer against sensui, to make the odds a little more even, so they are killed not like livestock, but like worthy fighters, he'd die a little faster. it's the best kind of death someone like them can have; and he'll deprive himself of it just to make their ends a little sweeter. even if the road to that is far more bitter.

but it's not like yusuke's friends know what he's thinking or agree to it, and he can't exactly make his case for it in the moment. he's making that choice for them. whatever his intentions, whatever odds he thinks they have of beating sensui, he's kind of sealing all of their fates. so how the hell is he supposed to acknowledge kuwabara screaming at him not to die, trying desperately to express what yusuke means to him in what could be their final moments together? this plan is going to hurt his friends terribly. it is already doing so, and he can hear it. his choices to stop koenma from using the mafukan and to die for his friends' strength are both selfish in some way, no matter how you read the scene. if yusuke comforts kuwabara, he might not get strong enough. if he twists the knife, well... how could he forgive himself? and either way by responding he would have to face them all and say yes, i'm doing this regardless of your feelings (with the intention of hurting you). so i think he does what he often does. he avoids it. he lets that emotion glance off him and his bravado and his one-liners so he doesn't have to deal with the fact that he's hurting people, that he's scared and guilty and unsure of himself. that he's about to die again, about to put kuwabara through the grief he saw at his wake again, only worse; about to put his quieter friends through something similar.

yusuke is confronted with the responsibility one has to the people who care for them, and he runs from it in an attempt to give them some small peace. just like when he died before and thought hey, at least my mom and keiko won't be burdened by me anymore. because the only thing he can really do for them is die.

[cherry-blossom-qf]

"Mortal, blinded by darkness, with a will strong as steel... Let me be your guiding light from here on..."

AU Info: HERE

[flowerakatsuka]

wip while i'm at woooork~

[luvrodite]

i think we should give girls who get grumpy with you because they miss you more of a voice. you know what. they're valid.

[microknifeyuri]

uh. vent art. or something. losing yourself and losing everyone who you cared about as a result