#that’s the thesis statement here

[fridayiminlovemp3]

do i believe that taylor and karlie kissed at the 1975 concert in 2014 … well that’s one secret i’ll never tell xoxo

[kyoshi-lesbians]

The Blind Bandit | The Bullpen

[video description: an amv of Toph as the Blind Bandit set to The Bullpen by Dessa, focused on her earthbending skills fighting in Earth Rumble VI. the ending sequence shows her leaving her home to join Aang, Katara, and Sokka. end description.]

forget the bull in the china shop / there's a china doll in the bullpen

[micamicster]

In the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it. And who has been so close to doing it as we are right now?

Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen / Black Sails (2014-2017)

[xixovart]

i could write an essay on will solace. please ask me to write an essay on will solace because i will turn up to your office at 3am and hand you five pages on this little rat summer child. PLEASE ask me to write an essay on will solace.

[july-19th-club]

one very endearing shawn character trait is the number of times he gets tricked because despite his powerful observant and deductive skills, they seemed very sincere. and he believes sincerity every time

[sesamestreep]

“requiem for methuselah” crazy ass episode for many reasons. Kirk is being fully insane, like I don’t actually think, even controlling for how quickly and easily and readily he seems to fall in love with anybody at the slightest encouragement, that he’d go that bonkers for that android woman he just met while everyone on the ship was this close to dying, but that’s neither here nor there, because in the background you’ve got an equally but much more subtly insane episode for Spock, who extremely uncharacteristically admits to experiencing an emotion (or nearly experiencing, whatever) and that emotion is ENVY of all things. And then spends the rest of the episode warning Kirk away from this new love interest (something that doesn’t usually happen, even when Kirk has very inadvisable love interests) and is, in the end, the person who accurately identifies that Rayna’s competing love for Kirk and Flint is ultimately what overwhelms and destroys her with the most killer line in maybe history???

And then to wrap it up we get an equally uncharacteristic sort of denouement scene (TOS loooves to cut an episode off right after the actual climax, leaving little time for falling action or character reflection, or to stick a sitcom-y button on the end where the gang all smiles and laughs at their misadventures and everything resets to zero, which is not a criticism, it’s just the style of that era of tv, honestly) where Kirk is literally miserable over Rayna’s death (again, kind of unusual for a lot of his love interests, he tends to be able to move on pretty quickly) and Spock goes to see him and he falls asleep right in front of Spock (also odd) and then when Bones comes in to give the final word on Flint, Spock waves him off from waking the Captain (tender) and Bones gives him that awful speech about how it’s sadder that Spock can’t even imagine the love Kirk felt for this random android woman than it is that Kirk lost her in the first place (debatable but also rude) and how his great tragedy is that he can’t love at all like they can and how all he wishes is that Kirk could forget about all of this and move on. AND THEN, to have Bones leave and Spock go over to Kirk and very gently, tenderly, reluctantly touch him and put his hand to his forehead and tell him to forget and HAVE THAT BE THE END OF THE EPISODE??? What am I supposed to do with that??

[thewhizzyhead]

warriors 2024 and the art of giving meaning to struggle

alrighty ramble time: let's talk about luther and how he managed to fuck up NYC for good. if luther were like i dunno lex luthor, i'd say his move to destabilize gang relations in nyc is a very fucking calculated move because i really do have to give credit to him in actually achieving the goal he set out for himself because his decision to kill cyrus,,,,aka the one that organized the "Please No Gang Fighting" summit that aimed to unite everyone against the bigger baddies of NYC,,,essentially fucking killed any and all chance of such a peace summit and unity initiative from ever happening again. because, like, after seeing a beloved and seemingly untouchable leader be murdered in front of all of you despite explicit instructions to Not Bring Weapons, would you even risk witnessing that chaos again in another summit? would you trust that forming a united force work after such a tragedy? is there even a possibility of finding trust among other NYC gangs if someone among their number killed your very hope? so yea knowing how the movie ends with just the gramercy riffs saying that the warriors (with two dead people and one arrestee in tow) are off the hook because someone else witnessed luther killing cyrus,,,the original ending is actually quite hopeless when you think about it in their shoes. in the words of movie swan himself in the movie, is what they end up with all their night of sleepless fighting and struggle is worth? hence, i now really see why warriors (2024) decided to make what I consider to be the 2nd biggest diversion outside of the genderswap: making cleon live - because otherwise, the warriors' struggles surviving the night can be said to be struggle for solely struggle's sake.

in the musical, cleon is an astute believer in cyrus and the future cyrus envisions for all of NYC - thus, she becomes the harbinger of cyrus' hope in the form of still breathin' and somewhere in the city. her being alive doesn't detract from the widespread tragedy faced by the NYC gangs - i still really believe that no matter what, luther effectively killed their one shot at true unity and trust - but in cleon's own words: "What do you do when they kill everything you believe in? Give it meanin." the decision to keep cleon alive is warriors (2024) counteractive measure at the absolute shithole luther placed NYC in because in her message of keeping the dream alive despite situations that are, realistically speaking, impossible to wholly recover from, gives their struggle meaning, purpose, and direction - the end goal being hope. that theme of hope despite and in spite of adversity now becomes evident on as to why we are made to be invested in the warriors' journey home and their subsequent growth. in mercy's decision to leave the orphans for a place of belonging and pride that can make her finally hold her head up high. in ajax's and fox's decisions to retaliate against their pursuants among sleazy old men in blue. in swan's persistence in getting the rest of her crew home alive despite still reeling from the loss of her leader and her fellow warriors. all attribute their own reasons to why they resist and rebel because they ultimately hope for something fucking better. ultimately, warriors (2024) exists because of the want to give more meaning to struggle in the form of hope amidst hopelessness. in the movie, the warriors find their meaning in the sweet simple bliss of survival - in making to coney island's sunrise. but in the album, another meaning is emphasized among not just the warriors, but the marginalized communities of NYC in general: their meaning of struggle goes beyond surviving the night - because they carry on and carry forth the dream of one day having a city where they all come home alive. because after all, isn't the formation of grassroots rooted in resistance - and isn't resistance born out of the want and hope for something better?

[valtsv]

not to give a shit about shipping fictional characters for a second but the ultimate fitzier song is love in the time of human papillomavirus by ajj i will not hear otherwise

[castleofthade]

my neopets pairings are:

Zafara Double Agent / Zafara Rogue two women with grey morality living above the law and in the shadows...... they will find each other and they will find love.

i wish double agent had a fucking name or at least a better title (doublecrosser... could call her Cross... man...)

Brain Tree / Esophagor

Hoban / Bonju because getting together with the guy you pushed off a boat/who pushed you off a boat isn't the wildest thing ive seen happen

gay people do this

King Roo / Count von Roo i think they are married :)

Magax / Hubrid break up get back together break up get married get divorced get back together break up etc

Altador / Finneus one sided pining bc altador is oblivious to these things

Kanrik / Loneliness

Garin /Jacques the bond between a captain and his first mate is something so special

Governor McGill / ME!!!!!!!

[ladyluscinia]

Tashi/Patrick + No Art = disaster fling. Tashi withholds easy (non-sexual) affection like vulnerability will kill her instantly. Patrick has massive commitment issues and defensively frames everything as a joke that he can pull back from at any time. It's impossible to resolve how your relationship is failing to meet your emotional needs if both parties are allergic to treating it more seriously than fuck buddies who could go find someone else at any time. They are constantly on the edge of a blowout fight because they understand each other instinctively but use that understanding mostly for sex and knowing who wins more points in the argument. On a tennis level, Patrick gets it but he is too comfortable as is and lacks a guiding reason to strive, which is even more infuriating than if he didn't get it at all because the wasted potential is constant. And Art in this situation is swallowed by jealousy, like a big ugly pit in his center. His inferiority complex is at an all time high (the second choice twice) and while it does give him some motivation to improve, mostly the spikes of envy/rage derail his focus and trap him in his own negative spirals. He seethes at tennis because he feels like he's always losing before he even steps on the court.

Tashi/Art + No Patrick = cracking under pressure. Tashi's withholding becomes a long term problem when pitted against Art's inferiority issues because she won't be able to stop doing so when it slips over the line from giving him something to strive for to enabling his negative spirals when he really just needs some reassurance. Art is pliable and willing to take direction, but he's also prone to being passive and simply losing energy when Tashi wants him to push back. His quips rarely turn into rallies. He builds low-grade resentment for decisions he's not willing to actually challenge. Tashi likes control but loves a certain kind of adrenaline-junkie spontaneity that gets ground out of Art the longer they are locked in on enabling each other to tunnel vision on optimizing him into the best tennis player ever. On a tennis level, Art is an eternal exercise in frustration because his emotional investment and technical skill are usually a trade-off instead of Tashi's ideal harmony, and she's constantly (and increasingly resentfully) fighting his mental fires for just a spark of real tennis to make it onto the court. Patrick, meanwhile, goes into near permanent flop era because he can't admit he's emotionally starved and his issues make him refuse to chase their coattails out of spite. He embraces the carefree loser persona and lets his own, smaller inferiority complex tell him he won't ever catch up, so why try?

Patrick & Art + No Tashi = I knew that guy in high school. Both deciding against pushing their homoerotic thing too far, and different life goals would probably have just drifted them apart.

Patrick/Art + No Tashi = potential murder-suicide. Patrick is once again non-committal and joking, and Art once again has a lot of jealousy and needs reassurance in the security of his relationship. But where Tashi's withholding at least has an element of she would just leave him if she wanted to, Patrick's eternal hints that there could be a punchline dropping any moment makes Art angrier, not depressed. Art is inclined to compete with Patrick but he doesn't find it as fun and low stakes, and also how do you meaningfully "win" against the guy you are dating and who refuses to take you seriously as a competitor or partner (bringing out the uglier side of the inferiority complex again). Patrick doesn't meaningfully distinguish between when Art is playfully mad at him and genuinely mad at him until he gets his feelings hurt about it, and he still can't talk about those feelings directly. Either a fight goes ugly and they have a messy breakup or Art gets mad enough to kill them both and Patrick just dares him to do it. Tashi probably continues with her life trying to find some other tennis player that can understand the convoluted prism through which she expresses love, but odds are not great because usually romantic partners like it when you can say the words "I love you" and not sound sarcastic about it.

[knifearo]

if you’re aro and participating in any kind of negative conversation about other aro people not being aro enough/not being oppressed/not doing whatever whatever whatever then i’m hitting you with a huge cartoon mallet. gonna treat you like a looney tune if you’re gonna act fucking Silly. take a second while those little cartoon birds flap around your head to remember that we are here to support each other as a community and exclusion discourse of ANY kind has never been productive or helpful to anyone. treat people kindly, focus on commonalities and community support, and use common sense. thank you 👍

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

the doctor isnt neurodivergent or autistic or adhd or nonbinary or genderqueer or asexual. what the doctor is, is Not From Here

[kyoshi-lesbians]

Ty Lee | all-american bitch

I know my place and this is it

[video description: an amv centered on Ty Lee set to “all-american bitch” by Olivia Rodrigo. The video focuses on Ty Lee's dynamic with Azula throughout the years, and juxtaposes Ty Lee's bubbly flirty persona with her extremely efficient chi-blocking fighting style and shrewd observations. end description.]

cw for flashing. extended video description under the cut

First verse contrasts scenes of Ty Lee, Azula, and Mai as children with scenes of Azula threatening Ty Lee in Return to Omashu, and from then on being a weapon for Azula in her mission. Scenes mainly pull from the trio’s early book 2 action as they chase Aang. 

First chorus: on “Forgive and I forget”: Ty Lee mid-air doing a flip cuts to young Ty Lee landing a flip. young Azula pushes young Ty Lee to the ground and laughs. Ty Lee chi-blocks a kyoshi warrior on "And I act like it. She flirts with Sokka on “Got what you can’t resist” and chi-blocks Katara on “perfect all-american”

Second verse features mainly scenes from the end of book 2 when Ty Lee, Azula, and Mai are in Ba Sing Se disguised as Kyoshi warriors. Many of the scenes show Ty Lee being undignified, contrasting with the lyrics (but fitting the ironic tone of the song). These scenes include Ty Lee jumping into the sludge during The Drill, her covered in mud, and flying through the air with Mai after Appa flaps his tail at them. 

Second chorus: “Forgive and forget”: Ty Lee after her circus performance agreeing to join Azula. Other clips juxtapose Ty Lee during The Beach with Ty Lee fighting during The Boiling Rock. 

“I know my place”: Rapid cuts of Ty Lee and Mai beside Azula, cut to Ty Lee anxiously looking side to side during The Boiling Rock confrontation. On the second “I know my place”: Rapid cuts of Ty Lee hugging Mai, and Mai and Azula preparing to fight. 

“And this is it”: Ty Lee chi-blocks Azula. 

Bridge: Scenes from the fallout of Ty Lee betraying Azula - Mai and Ty Lee being arrested −  cut together with Ty Lee’s emotional outburst during The Beach campfire scenes. During the screaming and fast-paced music, there are rapid cuts of Ty Lee fighting and moments beside Azula, in between cuts shots of Ty Lee crying. 

Outro: Ty Lee bowing to Azula during Return to Omashu. Then Ty Lee crying during The Beach party, and Azula apologizing to her. 

[fabaceous]

isnt it so interesting and so reflective of being a teenage girl how the yellowjackets collectively and sort of automatically/instinctively assign certain roles to certain members of the group, often roles that involve getting their hands dirty and doing things that are anywhere from gross to ethically questionable to truly morally reprehensible but necessary for their survival, because no one else can stomach it, and then they punish her for acting out the exact same role that they assigned her?

[preggomancer]

Love Mother!! But independent of it, I wanted to say I’m so grateful for your transfemme preg content! There’s shockingly little of it out there. Just neat to see.

jokes on you anon your extremely kind message has given me an excuse to go on a whole screed muahaha

ok. if you are a preg artist/writer who makes content for both trans men and cis women then it is time to look into your heart and ask why you are not also depicting transfems. This is not about gender preference--like if you're only into men thats fine obviously, I'm clearly more often into pregged up dudes than ladies in general though I love both.

But if you're drawing pregnant women already, there's just no reason to not depict trans women. Don't like pregnancy with amab anatomy? Great news, uterine transplants have been done successfully and will almost certainly become available for trans women in our lifetimes! Also, this is all fiction!! I made a character get magic bottom surgery to get her pregnant! its all make believe!!

It's not anyone's moral imperative to draw trans fpreg, that would be a wild claim to make, but just. Maybe consider if you have any real reason not to. get that tgirl pregnant I believe in you

[ilynpilled]

I think most people started liking jb as a couple after the bear pit scene, but when I read the books back in freshman year I think it was the sword fight. Maybe it is the fucked up dynamics enjoyer in me, even though jb ends up being relatively wholesome (at least for this series’s standards lmao). The chemistry in that thing was tangible. It is so funny too bc I always viewed it as proof of Jaime’s attraction/admiration/complex feelings for Brienne already being a serious problem in his subconscious from very early on. Ofc once he actually clashes swords with her, his respect grows noticeably because he also realizes her skill and strength, and Jaime is dudebro powerscaler coded like that. Nonetheless, Jaime at that point being a character that just wants to “cut through” his problems puts that entire scene into a very interesting perspective. Brienne is literally a problem that he wants to cut through. “His brother never untied a knot when he could slash it in two with his sword.” He is in such a dark place as a character that his instinct is to kill his problems, even if said problem is a living person.

“Jaime had told him of it often enough. How time seemed to blur and slow and even stop, how the past and the future vanished until there was nothing but the instant, how fear fled, and thought fled, and even your body. "You don't feel your wounds then, or the ache in your back from the weight of the armor, or the sweat running down into your eyes. You stop feeling, you stop thinking, you stop being you, there is only the fight, the foe, this man and then the next and the next and the next, and you know they are afraid and tired but you're not, you're alive, and death is all around you but their swords move so slowly, you can dance through them laughing." 

He uses violence as a means of depersonalization, as by killing he transforms into some beast who operates on impulse. If he is so powerful physically then he is untouchable and does not have to face complex paradoxes that he cannot seem to overcome inside of his mind and heart. This is also why when this ability is robbed of him he is forced to confront himself.

This parallels Brienne pretty nicely bc she too views fighting as an effective coping mechanism, though it is considerably less dark for her. It is less about enacting violence upon your problems and destroying them and more about protecting yourself from them.

"Fighting is better than this waiting," Brienne said. "You don't feel so helpless when you fight. You have a sword and a horse, sometimes an axe. When you're armored it's hard for anyone to hurt you."

This is also present in the fight itself: “yet somehow he could not reach her. It was as if she had an iron cage around her that stopped every blow.”

Fighting is like a different language these two share. It means more to them than it does to most people. It is a means of survival, not just physically but mentally. No wonder their dreams are often them fighting a manifestation of their trauma with swords. Already there will be a level of intimacy at play during their clash. It is also interesting that this established dynamic of Jaime on the offense, and Brienne on the defense, changes as the fight goes on.

Back to Jaime and how he views her though: She is his captor, sure, but she is also someone that is challenging his entire world view that he constructed for himself to enable his behavior and not get crushed by the weight of his self-concept. She is someone whose judgement of him is so thoroughly founded in genuine care about his victims. She faces him with it head on, not behind his back. The way she dehumanizes him bothers him so much, because she already proves herself to be someone whose opinion of him has weight. She stops to bury innocents that fell victim to her supposed “allies”. He stops to imagine her in Cersei’s gowns, and looks at her muscular calves and arms as she rows, even though the only woman he ever wanted was Cersei. She is his other half, after all. She is a woman that is very competent in a role that was not meant for her by the rules of the realm. So much of his animosity towards her is rooted in all of this, especially considering that she judges him so harshly, with her absolutist morality and naivety pissing off Jaime even more. There is a big part of him that desperately seeks her approval.

THEN THE WAY IT IS WRITTEN. I know George gets shit for his sex scenes but this shit is so good idc. That old man went off here.

“Give me the sword, Kingslayer.” “Oh, I will.” He sprang to his feet and drove at her, the longsword alive in his hands.

The swords kissed and sprang apart and kissed again. Jaime’s blood was singing.

“swinging so hard that sparks flew when the swords came together, upswing, sideslash, overhand, always attacking, moving into her, step and slide, strike and step, step and strike, hacking, slashing, faster, faster, faster… …until, breathless, he stepped back and let the point of the sword fall to the ground, giving her a moment of respite.”

The dance went on. He pinned her against an oak, cursed as she slipped away, followed her through a shallow brook half-choked with fallen leaves. Steel rang, steel sang, steel screamed and sparked and scraped, and the woman started grunting like a sow at every crash”

“Come on, come on, my sweetling, the music’s still playing. Might I have this dance, my lady?”

She is stronger than I am. The realization chilled him.

“His point scraped past her parry and bit into her upper thigh. A red flower blossomed, and Jaime had an instant to savor the sight of her blood before his knee slammed into a rock. The pain was blinding. Brienne splashed into him and kicked away his sword. “YIELD!”

Jaime drove his shoulder into her legs, bringing her down on top of him. They rolled, kicking and punching until finally she was sitting astride him. He managed to jerk her dagger from its sheath, but before he could plunge it into her belly she caught his wrist and slammed his hands back on a rock so hard he thought she’d wrenched an arm from its socket. Her other hand spread across his face. “Yield!” She shoved his head down, held it under, pulled it up.

Brienne lurched to her feet. She was all mud and blood below the waist, her clothing askew, her face red. She looks as if they caught us fucking instead of fighting…Small wonder, we were making enough noise to wake a dragon.”

“Well met, friends,” he called to them amiably. “My pardons if I disturbed you. You caught me chastising my wife.” “Seemed to me she was doing the chastising.”

Swords being used as phallic symbolism is nothing new in literature. Also so funny to me that people think jb being “sexual” would ruin the “purity” and “depth” of the relationship. lmao we are way past the point of it being the “the platonic comrades with mutual respect” thing some of you see it as. I am hesitant to believe that was ever really the case with this relationship.