#the worst person you know made a great point

[gallusrostromegalus]

I did not care at all for Aizen Sosuke when I first read bleach. I found him boring, and worst, unthreatening.

So it's pretty jarring for me that I have been OBSESSED with him in your AU. I'm rotating him at great speed

Walt Disney was a jackass who was flat-out wrong about a lot of very important things, but he employed a great many geniuses of storytelling, and there's a piece in Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson that discusses a key feature of Disney Studios Character Design:

"Of all characters, villains are the most fun to develop because they make everything else happen. They are the instigators, and always more colorful than the Hero. They may be dramatic, awesome, insidious or semi-comic, but they MUST be appealing. Almost any story becomes innocuous if all the evil is eliminated, but we do not necessarily gain strength by being frightening. we want a character that will hold the audience and entertain them, even if it's a Chilling Type of Entertainment."

And I've found that to be an important principle of character design, especially the kind of canon restructuring I do.

Aizen had a LOT going for him in canon- for all of Bleach's other faults, Aizen's conspiracy and THE REVEAL are spectacularly constructed and executed. I legit screamed and threw my mug across my dorm room when I read it in the manga the first time. He's also conventionally attractive and the translations I was reading gave him the speech patterns of Every Douchebag In Your 101 Political Theory Who Thinks He's The Smartest Man In The Room, which made him a terrific combination of Unfortunately Charming, Menacingly Competent and Engagingly Obnoxious.

...But he falls flat in a few key places.

Aizen's reasoning could be MUCH more sympathetic- After all, he is RIGHT. Soul Sciety does suck ass and all the options kind of suck. Who designs a universe like that? An asshole who needs killing, that's who. The best kind of Unhinged Madmen are the kind who spell out their reasoning and you realize that there but for the grace of Not Having Super Powers Go I. Canon!Aizen makes a few Good Rhetorical Points, but seems to lack any personal connection to his all-consuming plan.

Another issue is that nearly every villain with A Plan has a clear end goal AND a lot of the menace is drawn from the fact that the plan *could* work. Aizen's plan for betraying the court guard and then killing them off before proceeding into the Royal Realm to Kill God sorta falls apart when it's clear he planned to use pretty much all his accumulated forces dealing with the court guard and doesn't seem to have a plan for the Even More Powerful Royal Guard, let alone God. For how meticulously planned the rest of the plot is, the last two VERY IMPORTANT steps are just handwaved.

So I sat down and started with the plot beats Aizen MUST hit, and tried to imagine what kind of guy would he have to be to get there? And I came up with this:

Sosuke Aizen is a fundamentally good man with genuinely good intentions who is really trying his best for the whole world.

Think about it- what lengths would you NOT go to if you think you found a genuine shot at Fixing Everything Wrong With The World Forever? We all talk about killing Hitler if we found an actual Time Machine- would you do it if your only chance was when he was a baby? Would you kill an infant if it meant you could stop World War II before it starts? Of course you would! One small life for over 75 million? You'd be insane not to! What if you found out that you could prevent the future extinction of Humanity by killing your best friend today? Ten Billion lives? For theirs? It's simple, really- Hell, it's your Moral Obligation to do that if you were SURE!

-And Aizen IS sure. He is absolutely, totally, completely sure that He Can Save Everyone if he just gets rid of that idiot sitting on the throne of heaven. He's seen the plans! He knows where the gate of heaven is! It's So SIMPLE he just has to get inside, and he knows EXACTLY how to do it, yes it'll be hard and there will be... unpleasant parts but. IT. WILL. WORK.

He is of course, insane.

Aizen didn't have One Bad Day that set him irrevocably on the path of madness. It was a succession of catastrophic disappointments and realizations that he was living in a fundamentally irrational world that made irrational thinking look sane. The Catastrophe that befell his family, working for the central 46 and later the court guard and seeing how the organizations were inept to the point of abuse or corrupt to the core, learning that The Actual House Of God is a place he can just? Go to? Anyone would start thinking you were just a handful of white lies and homicides away from Fixing Everything, Forever.

Not only is Aizen insane, he is nowhere near as smart as he thinks. He is smart- He does have a knack for being able to guess just what will spur someone to action or make them recoil in fear. But mostly he gets extremely lucky Many, Many, MANY times. On some level I think it gives him Confirmation Bias that this is what he's supposed to be doing. Aizen is also nowhere near as smart as (nearly) everyone else thinks he is. His bizarrely good luck makes him look like a hyper-competent genius when really it was really the catastrophic failure of Soul Society as a Society that let a merely mediocre conspirator to evade detection for so long.

Being that he is at most, mediocre, he had to have Outside Help, specifically Gin's emotional support and Tousen's Competence- and if there's a part of the fic that stays true to canon, it's this.

Gin is Aizen's emotional rock in Canon. He's the ONE guy that Aizen genuinely trusts, and considers his 'my only real partner' in his scheme. There's more than one occasion in the manga where Aizen more or less asks Gin "Is this actually a good idea?" and Gin backs him up every time.

...Which is more than a bit at odds with Gin's later stated goal of "I did all this to kill you at your most vulnerable to protect rangiku" . It never rang true to me. So I started thinking why on EARTH Gin would be backing Aizen up like that, and realized there was a hole in my world building that he slotted into nicely :)

On the other hand, the entire fic was started because I didn't like how Tousen's character arc ended, so you can imagine how much he's changed.

But in canon, TOUSEN DOES ALL THE FUCKING WORK.

Lab work? Tousen.

Supervising the arrancar directly? Tousen

Actually getting victims for the Hogyoku experiments? Tousen.

Altering all the archives to keep Aizen's plot hidden? Tousen.

Sending all the Orders allegedly from the central 46? Tousen.

Making sure Unohana believes Aizen's fake body is real? Tousen.

Managing all the day-to-day operations at Las Noches? Tousen.

There's even this little exchange, which is Tousen's first appearance in the Manga:

Aizen establishes this entire meeting is a little fake-out a few pages later with "now isn't that a convenieint time for the alarm to go off?"

which makes him look like he's investigating, but he's also going "Good job on disrupting everyone with the alarm Gin!" It's ballsy of Aizen to do a check-in on his plan with his main nemesis in the room, but also his style.

I think the same thing is happening here with Tousen. To make sure Ukitake wouldn't raise a huge fit about the proposed execution of his beloved lieutenant, which might fuck everything up for Aizen because Ukitake is one of like, three people Yamamoto will listen to (sort of).

...So he had Tousen poison Ukitake to keep him out of the way.

ALL. THE. FUCKING. WORK. It's even in his name! The characters for "Tousen" Refer to a legendary scholar the emperor of China sent out to discover the secret of immortality- only to kill the scholar when he returned with that secret. The character for "Kaname" means "Necessary/Vital/keystone" or "to organize/take account of". His name LITERALLY means "Scholar who is essential for the plan (that we're going to kill later)"

Another thing Kubo did well in Bleach: his name game is Off The Fucking Charts.

-but I digress.

In AEIWAM, it's much the same only this time Aizen sees this very dangerous witness who is immune to his illusions but also extremely snart and capable young man and instead of risking being caught out by the one damn guy who can see right through him, opts to Curse Kaname into doing as Aizen says, and doing all the fucking work of this conspiracy against his will.

It's Not Nice, but Aizen genuinely thinks he's doing Kaname a favor by subjecting him to this degrading and incredibly painful servitude- I mean, Aizen's only other option was to Kill him to keep his silence, and isn't it wonderful that you get to help fix the universe? You're the one always going on about Justice, I don't understand why you didn't jump at the chance to mete out some Divine Justice.

An Excerpt from the captain's meeting in between the Massacre that made the visored and Zaraki's arrival, when Kaname realizes Yamamoto is 100% serious about his promotion to captain of the 9th and goes to throw up in the garden. Aizen offers to go check on him while Unohana very politely reads the general the riot act:

---

"You broke your toy Aizen." Kaname coughs.

"…I really am sorry for running you ragged like this. I really shouldn't have gotten so mad about you hiding the the hogyoku- it was very petty of me." The bastard sighs, taking off his glasses and rubbing his face, entirely genuine.

Kaname stayed on his hands and knees, weaving slightly as another wave of nausea flowed through him, powered by disgust and rage.

"How about this- I've got a lot coming up with the new job, training Gin and disposing of Kiganjo- So how about I promise to not give you any orders for a while? You will have to keep our arrangement a secret and not interfere, of course, but other than that, you're free to do as you please for- a year and a day is traditional isn't it? No, that's not going to heal by then- Oh, would you look at that!"

Kaname didn't have the strength to offer his usual rebuttal that he won't look at anything, ever. The sides of his head tingle like his skul was being pressed between two enormous hands made of static electricity.

"It's 11:11! Alright, I won't give you any Orders until 11:11 am on November 11th, 1911. That's easy to remember! What do you think?" Aizen continued cheerfully, patting his back and the Curse nails.

"…I can't." Kaname groaned. He could scream if he had the energy, but due to Aizen's Illusions, nobody would hear him. "I actually physically can't think. Please…"

"Of course! You really are such a help to me, it would be a shame to lose you. I'll even amend our contract, so you don't get paranoid-" There was a sizzling sound and a new stroke of hot pain up Kaname's spine as Aizen did something to the wretched Bakudo. "There. No compulsions for eleven years and a day. What do you say?"

Kaname grimaced, but dropped his head. Save the energy to fight another day. "…thank you, Aizen-sama."

"Good man! Let's get you on your feet." Aizen beamed, putting his glasses back on and offering him an arm.

---

He genuinely thinks that he's doing everyone a huge favor and if they don't get it it's because they're just not smart enough, but it's alright, He's a Benevolent God and they'll appreciate all his hard work the next time around :)

Aizen is a man who is FULL of joy. He loves what he does! He actively takes pleasure in it! And I think that's something that REALLY delivers in terms of sympathy AND horror for him. Who *Wouldn't* have a great time actually fixing the universe? He's a good man who enjoys doing good works, and this is the greatest work of all!

It also Delivers on the Horror when I get to write the deliciously fun scenes where Aizen is Elbows-deep in a novel War Crime and waxing poetic about how GREAT this is, or being confused why the people around him are reacting with fear. Don't you want to make everything better too?

[kerosene-in-a-blender]

I will say, this episode has managed to sway me on one thing I thought impossible: I am 110% Team Asmodeus Has a Fucking Point About This. This didn't happen during Calamity. This didn't happen during Downfall.

But Bells Hells' actions are just, so risky for such tepid reasons that I'm like, yeah, betraying them to try and stop them from releasing the God-Eater seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do that will result in harm mitigation (even if the only harm Asmodeus in particular is interested in mitigating is that to his own self). Truly just the energy of: Devastating, the worst person you know just made a great point.

[lizzybeeee]

Personal take: One of the weirdest things Veilguard did, outright baffling, in fact, is how it feels like they reset the status quo of the world to Origins - even further back, if anything.

The game avoids (at all costs) meaningfully delving into exploring what these events/lore reveals mean to the world and characters at large. But the entire time I was thinking: holy shit this is bad.

What happens in game has very, very bad implications for the rest of Thedas and how they're going to look at groups like the Elves and Mages. I'm looking at this from the perspective of someone whose played all three previous games, not from the perspective of datv which really brushes over all moral complexity and sociopolitical issues. Of course, it's just my interpretation but its based off what happened in previous games.

Elves

The Elvish Gods of legend came back, blighted, and ended up wiping out the majority of the South - I find it hard to believe that the elves would not be 'roped in' as being responsible somehow.

Elves could sneeze in a previous game and people would blame them for causing a plague and purge the alienage -> life is shit for an elf and the events of datv would have absolutely made life a thousand times worse.

Would there be purges of alienages? Are there groups like the chavaliers or mobs of humans going about an killing elves because 'It's your Gods. It's your fault.'

Obviously, it isn't. But there are plenty of examples in Thedas' history of people acting rashly/cruelly out of terror and anger - and it's the most vulnerable people, like the Elves and Mages, who are targeted.

The Dalish Elves, what remains of them, would likely be perceived as 'Blight/Old God worshipers' - people would chase them off for the 'crime' of living too close to them in the woods in DAO.

Terrified, angry people would not care if the Dalish said they had nothing to do with what's happening - there would be bloodshed.

If anything improved for the elves from the time of Origins -> Mahariel, Tabris, Lavellan, or Briala...it's likely back to ground one as the best possible outcome, and closer to the Exalted March on the Dales at it's worst.

Mages

Mages could, potentially, have been living a life of unprecedented acceptance if Leliana was Divine -> along come the Evanuris, mages, who are allied with the Venatori who are causing devastation in Orlais and the Free Marches specifically.

Missive - Message from the Front -> The Tide Turns "The Venatori and the Orlesian royal armies clash daily in Orlais. Val Royeaux is now under control of the rebels, and from there the Venatori launch attacks as far east as Kirkwall."

The original magisters (evanuris) wielding the Blight and Old Gods 2.0 x2.

Any templars who remained, who had the old mindset and outlook of how mages should be treated, absolutely would be pointing at the venatori and saying "we warned you what would happen without the Order."

Normal people wouldn't give a shit that it's only a 'few' mages -> their entire home is gone, their families are dead, and the people responsible are wielding magic.

Fear of magic would likely be at an all time high - If the Order doesn't exist people would likely be demanding for them to come back.

The mages - whatever goodwill they earned - are likely being faced with suspicion and terror because this is proof of what magic can do in the hands of power-hungry douchebags.

Maybe they help to fight and people don't get so suspicious of them - who knows! This game doesn't want to address the previous games so it's in limbo.

Spirits

Other people have done great posts about how the spirits were completely tossed aside in this game. Three games worth of humanizing spirits, with Justice and Cole, only to go back on it with Solas reinforcing the Veil and...maintaining the status quo?

He so earnestly discussed with us his perspective on spirits and how they're just as 'real' as those on this side of the Veil - we saw it with Cole firsthand. But I guess they can all chill in the Fade till Solas dies or whatever.

I'd argue that the elves and mages are in an even worse position than they were in Origins. It's just not fulfilling, to me at least, to see the World I got so invested in just regress to the status quo after three games of challenging it. For it to not be meaningfully discussed or spoken about in-game, just brushed aside...I may not have liked the decision to do this but it could have been interesting (at least) if they actually discussed it.

Also, people don't just 'band together' because of the Blight - Origins showed us very well that in times of strife and pressure peoples petty/deeply ingrained beliefs, prejudices, and values come to the forefront. Alistair's comment about “You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together" -> was him being snarky about how everybody as Ostagar was on the verge of throwing hands with each other. They were united in cause not in belief - the cause being to eradicate the darkspawn.

It's just so grim, and with how they handled sociopolitical issues and moral complexity in datv (not at all) I have no hope that they'll be able to address this at all, if they even bother to and don't just...ignore it, I guess.

Maybe this is what the devs meant when they said that the 'tone' was similar to Origins - just straight up erasing whatever strides was made in the previous games and setting it back to square one lmao

[wandixx]

Relationship reveal with side of mind-control (or, really, the other way around)

to that one anon who asked for relationship reveal M'gann/Danny one-shot, here is another take I mentioned

Trigger warnings: mind control ofc

M’gann just needed to get closer. It’ll be alright if she just got a little closer.

“Are you trying to kill us dude?”

Answer was apparently yes as Robin barely jumped out of the way of an ectoblast. M’gann knew true answer was no, she knew Phantom well enough, after long calm nights under starry sky and comfort after breakdowns in the closets and heart-to-heart over battlefields and kisses stolen in the quiet moments of in-between. But for some reason, now he was acting against everything he was and stood for. Red eyes were probably point towards an explanation.

“What even is your beef with us?!” Artemis yelled, shooting one of her special arrows at him.

Right, Team didn’t know Danny. She was going to introduce him soon, when the time was right, gods, she even convinced him to join the Team and was just waiting for Batman’s approval. And now Phantom got worst possible introduction.

M’gann just needed to get close enough to snap him out of it. She could of course just use her psychic powers from where she was but it was a nuclear option. It was better if she handled it the ‘normal way’.

For all he was great fighter, Phantom stood no chance against the whole Team, even when he was in his right mind. As it was, however had in their clutches didn’t know full extent of his abilities and were absolutely pathetic at using what they did know about. Though intangibility made it a bit tricky-

Oh, wait, Kaldur’s water attacks countered it, Danny plain and simple hadn’t had a shadow of the chance.

“Don’t knock him out” she demanded over the Mindlink, right when Kaldur scooped Danny out of the sky, pinning his hands so he couldn’t fight anymore and Conner jumped at the ghost, fuming with anger.

“Don’t lapidate this one M’gann, they are not a robot”

“Excuse me, what?!”

“It was one time Robin, one time. And I know he is not a robot, I can read his thoughts”

“I sooo need to hear this story”

“As you wish Artemis, as you wish”

“Could you all just shut up and focus?!”

“Thank you Superboy”

“So, what’s the plan?” Wally asked while pacing, trying to work off excess energy after battle finished too soon.

“Oh, I’m going to talk to him”

“They tried to burn our heads off, I kinda doubt you can talk them out of anything”

“He is mind-controlled. And he is my friend, I taught him how to fight it. He just needs a little help, it seems”

“Get to it then Miss Martian, he is trying to slip”

She nodded and kicked off to fly, stopping at Danny’s eye level, just slightly breaching his personal space.

“Hey Phantom,” she started softly “I need you so use what I taught you o-?”

“Shut up” Danny’s mouth spat in distinctly not-Danny way.

“I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to Phantom and if you don’t leave I’ll make sure he kicks you out or do it myself” she didn’t bother with niceties, she didn’t bother with putting an inflection in her voice.

Danny’s body snorted.

“I won with psychics stronger than you. I just also know Phantom well enough, he’d prefer to do it himself and he can do it. If you don’t leave now, you’ll learn how much worse is it to be kicked out instead of leaving peacefully”

Slowly, so painfully slowly she reached out to put hand on Danny’s cheek. Touch always helped ground him and there was a chance it would distract whoever controlled him at the moment. Red in his eyes dimmed for a second or five. She smiled gently “Yes, just like that Phantom, you’ve got it. Just how we trained, alright?”

She got a little closer but not enough to lose view of his eyes. She could tell whether he was back in control just by using his powers, even without breaching the boundaries Danny was comfortable with. But she simply wanted to see his whole face and for him to see her whole face, like he did during hours upon hours of their practice.

She could feel his muscles twitching between expressions, as his eyes changed colors like police lights if they were red-green instead of red-blue. M’gann kept steady stream of assurances, slowly brushing thumbs against his cheeks. If situation wasn’t so dire it would probably feel pretty nice. She’d need to bookmark this idea for later.

At last, the whole spectacle ended, with Danny’s eyes turning back to their soft green his face pressing into her hands like it was his only salvation. M’gann grinned enthusiastically barely containing relieved laugh.

“You did it Da- Phantom! You did it!” she yelled before giving him a quick kiss and engulfing him in the hug, despite the water still holding him in place, few feet above the ground “I knew you could do it” she whispered to his ear. Kaldur asked if it was safe to approach so she waved them forward. As soon as Atlantean freed Danny (also getting water out of her cloths, which was nice) she lowered them both to the ground.

Danny’s hands hesitantly reached to hug her back, squeezed like his life depended on it and then he started shaking apart in her arms. She slowly lead him to sit on the ground when it was clear he could hold his own weight at the moment.

“I’m sorry” he whispered, as if he struggled to even make a sound “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry”

M’gann ignored growing wet patch on her shoulder, clinging to him just as strongly as he did.

“You did so well. There is nothing to be sorry for, you did so well”

“I’m sorry I- You- I should’ve- I’m”

“She is right,” Kaldur stated calmly “You are not to blame for being mind-controlled, especially since you broke it at first give chance”

“But I- I attacked you”

“Comes with the job, really” Robin said with almost imperceptible strain in his voice characteristic to the hand stand.

“I could’ve hurt you”

“Ha! You wish,”Artemis snorted.

“I really don’t”

Everyone snickered lightheartedly and Danny relaxed at clear lack of hostility.

“What about a collateral damage?”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere there is no collateral to be damaged”

“This is not what collateral means on it’s own-”

“This is not the point. Phantom, are you looking for things we should hate you for?”

“I have hard time believing you don’t”

“Danny, I love you but you’re an idiot right now. I told you they won’t hate you”

“Superboy still looks like he considers which of my bones he should break first”

“Not yours but whoever’s mind-controlled you. He has a bit of a history with that”

“Exactly”

“Huh. And you could probably do it too if it’s a guy I think it is” Danny whispered with some sort of amazement in his voice “That’s relieving. I’d hat if you hated me. Miss Martian told me a lot about y’all”

“Can’t say the same about you, sorry”

“That’s fine, I asked for it. I’m Phantom, I’m from Amity Park and usually I fight other menaces who try to stir some shit and worry about collateral damage and not the other way around. Pleased to meet you, sorry it happened like this”

“So like… you’re a small town hero, right?”

“Now, that might be a bit over-”

“Definitely a hero,” M’gann interrupted “With personal arch nemesis, regular rogue gallery and all that”

“Miss Martian also called you her friend,” Kaldur said, clearly trying to learn how that happened without outright asking the question, but he would get anything but, judging by Danny’s sudden grin, that could be called sly if he still wasn’t clearly shaken by the whole mind-control ordeal.

“Oh c’mon M. That’s not what you called me last week when we made up in the broom closet”

She loved that boy but she should’ve let Conner knock him out when she still had a chance.

[ruruvxz]

Perfect style she doesn’t try — CRUEL AFAIR

The Woman Who Left Too Soon; Lara Raj, the lead singer and coveted music producer for Katseye, has never felt the need for useless romance. Don't get her wrong— she loves a good chummy romance, but it was never really for her. That could partly be blamed on her past lover, who abruptly left her just to become some indie artist, but then again, the tides change, and so do the people. And what the— she's famous now, she's unstoppable, she can pull anyone, so why the hell is the woman who left her in the dust, pretending to be all buddy-buddy with her.

PROFILES∿ payroll advocates

#masterlist, #nightmare blunt rotation

Y/N ��� yntopia & hamsterlover717

"if all the evil lesbians came together and made one evil lesbian, it would be Y/N." This is the Ramona flowers people tell you to STAY AWAY from, she will always be the no.1 self sabotager, at this point you don't need to get someone to ruin her relationship, she destroys it herself. The type of manic pixie dream girl that you'd most likely see in your worst romcom nightmares, than in a young adult novel dream. But to give her some credit, her heart is always in the right place, and does everything in the interest of others.

JENNIE KIM ❀ jenniekim & prettygirlzz

"Not sisters, sisters in arms" Jennie has always been Y/N's older sister figure. Since she got picked up by the music industry at a fairly young age, she taught Y/N the ropes of what it took to be a musician and even taught her some dances here and there. Despite not talking a lot due to conflict schedules, she has always been someone Y/N could rely on, so much so, that whenever Y/N has relationship issues she runs to Jennie first than anyone else. Although, she can be a bit too blunt at times.

AERI UCHINAGA ❀ aerichandesu & aeriopium

"get out of my comments man! go do something" No.1 nosy nancy, loves drama and loves being a nonchalant instigator, who somehow always starts all the drama in the gc and on stan accounts. Also Y/N's biggest defender and ENDER! They became friends on complete accident during a fashion show over their collective love for the brand chrome hearts, and have been inseparable since then. Is usually seen egging on and enabling Y/N with her bad decisions, but if ever confronted she says "free will! yolo!"

YUNJIN HUH ❀ jenaissante & jennifersbody88

"Birds of a feather, we will always flock together" Yunjin has seen all the phases of y/n, from when they where toddlers in child acting classes, to preforming on the same stage together. She has been by y/n's side like a rock, even through y/ns hoe era, she never once questioned her. Although they are the main perpetrators for beefing on the timeline, everyday theres a new fight to be made.

NING YIZHUO ❀ imnotningning & jpegningning

“So what if people find you weird?” One of sweetest yet sassiest woman y/n has ever had the pleasure of being friends with. She’s more on the reserved side, but that also makes her a great observer, most of the time the assumptions she makes about people are right. Her advice giving isn’t the best but trust she can smell a fake friend from a mile away— she actually met y/n when she helped her escape from a house party!

YOONCHAE JEUNG ❀ yo0n_cha3 & yooninurwalls

"You know what, hell yeah." No one knows how she got in this groupchat, she said she was friends with Eunchae, Yunjin's fellow member, and Ahyeon, Jennie's fellow label mate, but in complete honesty she doesn't know how she ended up in this group. The token evil little sister every group needs, and also unironically the most sane one out of the 5 girls. She helps mediate most conflicts with her fun and whimsical charm, and is Jennie's personal favorite among all the girls .

[odinsblog]

I want to preface this post with the following disclaimer: This is not an endorsement of John McCain, who was thee most capitalistic, voter suppressing, anti-abortion, warmongering Republican who never met an American war he didn’t agree with. McCain callously joked about America bombing Iran by singing, “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” and much like Liz Cheney, his simply having hated Donald Trump does NOT magically erase or wash away all of the harm done to Black and Brown people that he and the Republican Party are directly responsible for.

Not to mention, John McCain was willing to put Sarah Palin! within a heartbeat of the presidency. That alone should tell you everything you need to know about him.

(source) (source) (source)

To be clear - McCain was a Republican, and not even a “moderate” one at that. As such we should always be wary of praising or elevating them. I despised him as a person and especially as politician with the power to legislate, and I beg you to remember the adage about a broken clock being right twice a day.

The rare occurrence when a conservative accidentally happens to make one or two good points that we might agree with, should never be mistaken for actual progress. Republicans are not our allies, and they are not good people—if they were, they wouldn’t be Republicans.

THAT ALL SAID, I cannot help but acknowledge that McCain’s assessment on Vladimir Putin was spot on and especially prescient:

[incorrectbatfam]

I made another Uquiz lmao

[crowleysfall]

Sorry but the fact that fucking SANTIAGO made more of an effort to stand up for Claudia during this scene than her own brother is insane, Claudia sweetie i am so sorry you deserve better

[nottodayjustin]

April 1st 2024 best hockey tweet(s) of the day

[ennawrite]

genuinely how it felt when Rhysand told Az to back off of Elain in that ACOSF bonus chapter

[willbyersabyss]

When Mike called El a superhero at the end of their argument, El felt discouraged. So why would Mike's monologue include the same statement when no work was done to change El's feelings towards that title? In fact, the opposite conclusion was reached. El learned that putting herself into boxes was reductive. She shouldn't just be a superhero, she needs to be a "monster" too to truly understand herself. If Mike's monologue gave El strength, it means that he's leading her in the wrong direction. Her self-image takes multiple steps back when she's with him.

El looked angry when Mike called her a superhero. That isn't what she wanted to hear and she knows she shouldn't lean back into that mindset. Anger fuels her powers. So yes, it did give her strength, but not positive strength. El looks over to Max dying, something that makes her angry, listens to Mike, and screams out in anger as she rips away from the vines.

El knows that Brenner was right. Mike disagrees. Mike doesn't see how reducing her down to a superhero is harmful. But El does. She gave Mike the cold shoulder just before this statement. She believes Brenner was right about her being neither a superhero nor a monster.

[angell-castiglione]

Alright, imma be a lot more blunt than I normally am because I’m tired of this shit.

There’s no law that says you hafta listen to the extremely flawed podcast that outlines the allegations against Neil Gaiman, but pretending it’s a conspiracy based on 0% evidence doesn’t make him not a predator, it makes you ignorant of the case against him at best, and an enabler or conspiracy theorist at worst.

And for the love of Christ, keep trans people out your fuckin mouth while you’re defending that piece of shit. He’s not one of us, we don’t claim him, and using us as an excuse for why the very credible allegations aren’t valid puts us in line of fire of those TERFs. Using us to protect your fav doesn’t make you an ally, it makes you an active threat. Do better.

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

once again. they are literally right though lol

[youruinedmylifebynotbeingreal]

Wicked: there are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities, so we act as though they don’t exist

The Internet: so Glinda is actually bad

[nicolefirekitty]

he's a dick but he's right

[maxedes]

Marko saying it’s supposed to be under the drivers and not in the Media and saying that the TPs should stay out 💀 did not as anything negative about George only that you are supposed to stay with the truth

This went indirectly against Max and Horner… 👀

racist grandpa thinking five steps ahead & considering who he wants on his team when max pulls a nico hahahaha.

but yeah he seemed pretty tame in comparison. only the truth part seemed like a subtle dig against george since max has been accusing him of being a liar.