#there's so many people that I can barely care about most of them. if the character designs didn't go so hard I'd have forgot a lot of them

[seewetter]

"ofc we’re stupid and illiterate our schools suck!!!"

The whole framing is wrong.

Why are people talking about "stupid" Americans? Because they're discussing why America so often is plagued by decisions with foresee-ably terrible outcomes.

But America is an oligarchy, it's participatory elements are minimal and often pure aesthetic. How much control do people exercise in a first-past-the-post electoral system with massive corporate bribes (Superpacs) that also influence media reporting, which is also a surveillance and police state?

Rhetorical question, right? So if Americans barely exercise control, what are we criticizing? Are we criticizing the >70% of Americans who don't even own a firearm? Or the majority of Texans that vote Democrat...even though it's a "red state" due to how their laws work? Are we criticizing the American majority that shows sympathies for Bernie Sanders, support abortion, queer rights, trans rights, realizes climate change is real and is the reason why "woke" (diverse) Hollywood movies make such money?

Why criticize Americans for watching Marvel, when Marvel viewership numbers have collapsed over the years?

Why criticize Americans for not knowing who James Baldwin is, when James Baldwin is in many ways not someone who affected the course of history or someone who Americans -- who I am CERTAIN use the public library all the time -- would necessarily stumble upon when reading in a public library. What, did you learn about Baldwin from watching Nosferatu? Or maybe a Cronenberg movie? Would Americans borrowing books on history naturally stumble on Baldwin? If they borrow the collected speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. or the Autobiography of Malcolm X, will these reference James Baldwin?

People know who James Baldwin is because he is an excellent writer and certain white Jewish intellectuals in the 1970s stumbled across his prose and made him famous and later Baldwin would burn those ties and became famous within progressive activist circles. This does not mean that a visit to a public library will make people aware that he exists. You have to know what to look for.

Also progressives often know who he is but not what he said. How many progressives do you know who don't care that James Baldwin talked about the "myth of race", that James Baldwin considered post-racial thinking to be more progressive than identity politics? Most progessives who know Baldwin quote him second-hand or third-hand, why are you not mad at them? Why some nebulous idea of "Americans"?

"because you assholes have had FREE ACCESS to THOUSANDS of books and audiobooks and classic films this ENTIRE TIME you’ve been blaming your schools for your elected ignorance!!!"

In 19th century anarchist literature, a distinction was often made between the freedom to do something and the capacity to do something. The freedom and legal right to buy a yacht is nice...but if you can't actually buy a yacht, you have the freedom but not the capacity.

Like how many holidays and free weekends does the average American have? There has to be a better way to educate people with a busy schedule than shaming them about their ignorance, especially when ignorance is tied to class. DON'T misread me. I'm not saying working class people are ignorant. I'm saying some people can afford a very nice education for their kids and other people can't. "Oh, it's on the internet, which is free" is not how people spontaneously become enlightened.

Like: just have a chat with a Joe Rogan listener. They're mostly Trump supporters, but all of the ones I've met are achingly sincere. They really do have the wool over their eyes, they're usually not malicious. And they're really really ...like they don't have a good research strategy. They don't even know what that looks like. They think they're "studying" when they listen to podcasts. That's a thing they think. Do you think free access to libraries and internet has given these people all they need to free themselves from their shackles and the risks they pose to others? Do you think people just spontaneously sit down and every week for a year devote all available time to researching academic literature on a hot button topic? Many of these people don't even know where to find appropriate academic literature ("It's too expensive" thought one Rogan listener I know) and many of them associate these resources with academic agendas.

Look up "hermeneutics of suspicion". It's when people approach a topic looking for ways to confirm their suspicious feelings. That's what's going on there. People read some academic article and they suspect it's all BS. If they don't understand a concept, they assume someone is trying to manipulate them. And why shouldn't they, the media is blatantly dishonest, academia has a number of crises and universities have certain conflicts of interest. Why shouldn't these people spontaneously start from such a place? It's not your job to shame them, because if you do, they assume you are doing so from a place of ideological fanaticism, rather than from a place of informed frustration. You know the meme where trans people talking about gender is represented as Plato and Aristotle in the agora, having a debate, while trans people talking to cis people about gender is represented as a mom helping her toddler assemble building blocks? That analogy applies to any topic. There are a lot of adult "toddlers" out there and if you call them toddlers to their face, they will rightfully be ashamed and upset. They put a lot of work into forming their beliefs, they just don't have a good starting point. Or decent tools. Or non-judgmental 24/7 help. And they exist in a quagmire of bullshit claims. And they relate to misinformation in a vibes-based way if the information otherwise seems to be applicable and more useful in their life.

If someone lives in a media environment that reassures them that they are currently studying the (alternate) facts and informing themselves, or that they are currently getting the gist of the facts from experts, then people won't necessarily use the library or grasp its value. Also you have to use the library correctly.

"and if you expect me to you’re classist and 18 year old Americans are too stupid to know bombing foreign countries kills people so it’s okay if they choose to do that rather than work at McDonald’s and of course I have no idea what stocks are or what colonialism is and MCU is the height of cinema and it’s feminist to wear makeup like."

I find teens accusing every intellectual impulse of being classist and ableist unbearable too, but not so long ago, this website popularized the idea that the only valid criticism of feminism was an anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-ableist, anti-transmisogynist, anti-perisexist etc. criticism.

In other words "I refuse to course correct unless you show me how my current course hurts a minority."

So yes, people will defend American complacency using ridiculous "anti-classist" rhetoric. Because it's the only defense they've seen modelled and maybe even the only defense that's socially permitted in their circle of friends.

Defenses of war crimes are horrible. Period. If people think Americans don't have a partial responsibility just because they were ignorant, they're wrong. But partial responsibility isn't full blame and more importantly: are real Tumblr users actually saying that exact thing in good faith? Are people out there defending ignorant Americans who never talked to a soldiers about what a bomb is and does or who never watched a bomb dropped in a movie?

I agree Disney adults can be irritating, but I think that most Americans aren't Disney adults and those that are... are from all walks of life and varying degrees of ignorance. Are Disney adults, Marvel fans, the ones who don't grasp that bombs kill people? Or is this a weird mishmash of stereotypes that don't capture why America, as a state institution, is such a horror? To me it's also sad that Americans get overly emotional about Mickey Mouse and that Marvel movies got so successful, but I think this is not really connected to America. Marvel movies and Disney parks aren't uniquely American, America is just -- at gunpoint -- the largest economy in the world, so a lot of junk that people worldwide consume comes from there. Disney Parks in Japan or France do quite well and also involve Disney Adults, we just don't hear about them so much and the money is ultimately made by America, a country with military bases in almost every other country. Is this the fault of Disney Adults in Orlando, Florida? I don't think so.

Also makeup is an "unfeminist choice", but feminists should, in fact, fight for people's freedom to make unfeminist choices. Kate Harding had an entire essay on that.

As for the reply:

When trying to convince someone that their reasons for believing something are faulty, always make sure to point out what they may have missed and try not to miss anything yourself.

Let me provide a few examples:

"Did you know that to get to a library here, you have to travel?"

The person you are responding to wrote (and you acknowledged it with "I'm glad you found a way to access our libraries") that to read the contents of a library, all that is needed is digital access.

So then "did you know you have to travel" doesn't make sense as the next sentence. It's on its face unconvincing.

"Since you know so much about us, you must know that our public transportation system is all but non-functional, and a lot of people can't even afford bus fare, let alone their own vehicle, and most of our cities are not walkable. The closest library in the town where my half-siblings grew up was a 30-minute drive away. But there are digital libraries, of course!"

Of course! And their existence invalidates all the detailed descriptions you just provided for the inaccessibility of American libraries. Americans that don't use the libraries don't use them because (A) they forget these exist (B) they don't want to use them (sometimes out of shame, sometimes out of misguided conviction).

"Did you know that not every single one of us stupid Americans has access to a home computer and internet?"

The OP you are responding to was concrete about being frustrated by kids (18 19 20 year olds) on Tumblr. If they're on Tumblr, they must have internet and must be able to access an internet library.

"Did you know that exceptionally strict conservative parents monitor their childrens' internet usage and restrict what they can see?"

Yes and.

Yes, and this influences blindspots that some Americans have.

See, on its own "do you know some parents monitor internet" creates a strawman example, where the people OP was attacking (people who freely use tumblr.com, "the queerest site on the internet") are somehow being treated as if they have parents that monitor their internet usage and censor all content that might burst their conservative bubble. I hope we can agree that these are two different groups of Americans.

"Did you know that school library media centers (computer labs) restrict access to a lot of websites and information that do not pertain to curriculum? Of course you did."

But if the people are goofing around on Tumblr calling others "classist" for expecting them to know stuff, how is the computer lab not restricting their Tumblr access? How does Tumblr pertain to their curriculum?

It's possible that this is a censorship oversight or something, but again, the real counterargument against OPs nonsense isn't "Americans aren't free to know new information" and rather "Americans often lack the capacity to even know what they're looking for". I don't think OP name-dropping James Baldwin and stocks will have given people any real idea of what they need to look for, especially if they need comprehensive education on everything from ecology to statecraft and civics to economics, to history, geography, moral philosophy, epistemology, foreign policy, marginalized perspectives and activism, statistics, organizing, protesting safety, IT security and data protection, narrative structure, narrative experimentation, artistic craft, avant-garde sensibilities (I'm being entirely unironic about that.), reading comprehension, project management, culinary skill, survival skills, networking skills, the list goes on.

This also isn't merely an "American" problem. I know plenty of Australians, Kiwis, Canadians, Europeans who use gmail accounts, don't understand imperialism and need a crash course in epistemology every time a hot button issue comes into discussion because they just keep shouting at each other without treating the other party as a human being with their own heuristic for gathering, evaluating and processing information.

"Did you know that lobbyists are trying very hard to defund and even actively shut down our libraries. Partially because they don't want us to have access to free recources, but also because ignorance works in their favor? Did you know book bans are being placed in libraries across the country, based on what conservatives deem inappropriate?"

Most of those points seem a little off topic (lobbyists trying to defund libraries may affect future ignorance but doesn't account for ignorance today), but I grant that the book bans really might have some kind of impact that prevents people from having heard of James Baldwin. It's a decent reply to the OP, who seems to think all libraries serve up the same information to all Americans. But you should be fair enough to recognize that it still is a bit weird when the people who show up ignorant are ...Tumblr users smart enough to be making accusations of classism.

"Since you know all about how we are educated, you must know that American curriculum is designed to discourage curiosity and create the illusion that we are far and above all other nations and that everything we are taught in our classes about others is simply all there is to know."

What I've heard is that many public school teachers in America are extremely dedicated well-meaning people. I've met a few American teachers and their German counterparts, for example, earn about 20 times what they earn. So American teachers often really are in it to help kids learn.

I'm not sure that the American curriculum really exists to "discourage curiosity", that sounds a bit weird to me. I do know the Texas board of education tried to ban critical thinking and I know American schools have some weird national anthem singing and I bet they teach American exceptionalism. But I would say perhaps the only reason any of that sticks is because Americans often can't afford to visit other countries.

I have not heard that Americans learn that school teaches them all there is to know, but when I think of ignorant Americans, they often give me the opposite impression: that of a "do your own research type" who doesn't think "I know everything from school" and instead just never bothered to buy a book about Atmospheric Phenomena (or grab a illegal free .pdf copy) and therefore thinks some glittering orb in the sky is a alien spacecraft. Genuinely, ignorant people are often really nice people who try to learn about the world, have a real desire to learn new things... and then they watch Graham Hancock or some other well-designed nonsense and they mis-educate themselves and get very defensive if anyone tries to correct them, however gently, in part because they lack even the basic skills to know whether the correction is plausible.

"So, with all of this information that you clearly already had at your disposal, do you genuinely believe these children are cognizant or at all concerned with how much they know about other countries and cultures?"

I think the better question to ask is "Do you really think only Americans would fail at "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?""

Because let's face it, I've seen European versions of that premise, where they go out into the street, ask a basic question ("What's the equator?") and get embarrassing answers ("A line that floats in the sky above the center of our planet").

OPs gripe with "Americans" is that they know other countries exist but just don't care. But hey, are Europeans that much better? In Europe, people know European countries...because countries are small and these are almost like American "states" in a way, especially since the EU is in many ways a country in all but name (and lack of military). How many Europeans know how many African countries there are, what their names are, what their capitals are, what their history is, what colonial powers kept which country under control when and for how long? How many Europeans know anything about Laos or Cambodia? Do Europeans even know which continent Cambodia is on?

And I've talked to Japanese people and found incredible ignorance. And do we imagine that the education system in, say, Burkina Faso or Brazil produces much more worldly individuals?

If you want to criticize specifically American ignorance you need to things: you need lots of real-life examples AND you need to prove these examples are unique to America.

Like India recently managed to get a lot of kids into school long enough to learn how to read, which is awesome! But if someone from India (like OP) is attacking American ignorance, OP is likely doing so from a certain degree of "wealth in the family". That's not a criticism, just a (hopefully humbling) observation. Countries around the world can blame their widespread ignorance on colonialism...and then get upset at ignorant colonizers. But maybe no place on Earth really produces a completely sufficiently informed citizenship.

"Adults who are groomed through adulthood to believe that "bombing foreign countries" and selling their body to their government is one of the only accessible options to receive further education."

Isn't the American military facing historically low recruitment numbers and worried about morphing into a "warrior caste" (their words, not mine) because their recruits mostly come from old military families where everyone's in the military? Not to say the poor person going to the army doesn't exist, but aren't most Americans pretty anti-military, especially these days?

"You believe these people are simply bumbling idiots too self-absorbed to want to learn about the history and inner workings of every other nation around them?"

Why emphasize that public schools brainwash the kids with American exceptionalism and then turn around to argue that the people leaving public school AREN'T self-absorbed about their own country? That comes off as overly defensive, not as a reflective response. I doubt OP found that argument very convincing.

"Like, you understand that not knowing what you don't know is a thing, yes?"

But OP must at least be partially correct. Like -- I would blame maybe feelings of overwhelm at all the information, and maybe mistrust of information sources -- but it does often come across, at least at first glance, that a lot of Americans can't be bothered to understand basic geography. Like they know countries outside of America exist, but aren't bothered enough to find out what they are.

Again, this is probably not a purely American problem, but one does sometimes get the impression that many Americans approach conversations without making sure they have a bit of an overview of the topic. They often just seem to research the talking points of their side in a debate (i.e. they know the history of colonialism better than they know which countries have Spanish as an official language, so it's easy to make them look stupid or they have to ask what tariffs are but they already think tariffs are great since Trump is doing them...like why aren't they reading the "tariffs" page on Wikipedia or whatever, to get at least a general idea? What's going on?)

"I would go as far as to point out the hypocrisy of all of your shaming when the beginning of your post clearly states that you were ignorant of a resource available to you before it was pointed out to you."

Now that's a sick burn. But don't get cozy.

"Your time spent belligerently accusing a whole society of people which you deem unintelligent of being willfully uneducated and unwilling to reach beyond their own privilege would be better spent sharing resources you've found and encouraging others to broaden their own horizons. But hatred of the American public as a whole is a lot easier when you can paint us all as intentionally dumb and heels-dug-in fascists."

It is hard for people to grasp how little control Americans have over their society. When America always advertises itself as "land of the free" it seems like they freely choose to be giant assholes on the world stage.

And it's only with a lot of reflection and/or research that people realize just how much the game is rigged. But still...the people who just flat out support tariffs, for example, without wasting a single braincell on experimenting on how they can find information on it that doesn't come from a possibly biased pro-Trump source...like it feels like willful ignorance. Part of me can't believe it isn't.

ever since i got access to american library cards thanks to tumblr user anneemay (pbuh) 2 weeks ago ive lost even the 3% sympathy i had for americans crying ofc we’re stupid and illiterate our schools suck!!! because you assholes have had FREE ACCESS to THOUSANDS of books and audiobooks and classic films this ENTIRE TIME you’ve been blaming your schools for your elected ignorance!!! from my home in India I’ve listened to eight audiobooks and watched half of cronenberg’s oevre and I’m watching nosferatu (1922) today and I can’t even go to a library in person and you people have had these things your entire life yet you come on tumblr at 18 19 20 and say you don’t know who james baldwin is and if you expect me to you’re classist and 18 year old Americans are too stupid to know bombing foreign countries kills people so it’s okay if they choose to do that rather than work at McDonald’s and of course I have no idea what stocks are or what colonialism is and MCU is the height of cinema and it’s feminist to wear makeup like. my god. you people are going to go through the rest of your life being incoherently stupid and it’s not because you’re poor and it’s not because your schools suck but its because you’re so ensconced in your American privilege that you will never be forced to confront the realities of life and you can go on living your Disney adult fantasies because you’ve destroyed your innate human curiosity and potential at the altar of hyper consumption.

[organic-bloodbath]

Could you do a Dae ho fic? Maybe the reader being stuck with thanos' group and isn't treated with much respect (either treated as weak or just eye candy) but dae ho comes in and helps her + shows her care and respect. Thank you <3

Safe with me

Dae-ho x Reader

Summary: As above.

A/N: I want to marry this man right NOW. I'm begging on my knees.

☆☆☆

You had never felt like you belonged anywhere. You had barely any friends and for the few friends you did have, you were only the spare friend.

You knew that you were beautiful. Guys had been flirting with you dozens of times but you knew they only wanted to get into your pants. They only cared about your looks and wouldn't care to get to know you for who you really were. You had gotten used to the fact that nobody truly wanted you, they only wanted to use you for a while and then toss aside.

It was all the same now here, in this game. You always had a hard time to approach new people, complete strangers to you, and waited for someone to speak to you, to take you in. Nobody did on the first day.

When the second game started, the players needed to form a group of five. You were starting to panic. Most of the players already had atleast one partner who they could start finding more players with.

You had nobody. What if you were left alone when everyone had formed their groups and you'd end up in the weakest one who nobody else wanted to have either?

"Señorita, excuse me," a man said behind you, startling you from your thoughts. "Want to join our group?"

Your heart started hammering harder against your chest, a new sprinkle of hope rising. You weren't chosen the last this time after all.

The man speaking had purple hair and was supposedly the 'famous rapper' Thanos who many players had been thirsting over before the first game. Personally, you didn't get the hype. The man next to him was player 124, you didn't know his name, but you could see him looking at you from head to toe, hunger in his eyes and a smirk spreading on his lips.

"Yeah, you'd make a great addition to our team," player 124 said and winked, creeping you out instantly.

What choice did you have anyway? If the game was about strength, atleast you wouldn't have to worry about it as much because you had men in your group.

"Sure, i'll join you," you agreed and followed them.

Before the game started, all the players' legs were linked to each other with chains and you were squeezed between Thanos and player 124, who had introduced himself as Nam-gyu. You felt uncomfortable having both men around you, especially having their arms around your waist. You could tell that it was all intentional and they could have easily kept their hands higher and not so low.

When it was your turn to play, you were so nervous that you failed your attempt three times and was becoming frustrated and soon panicking, the time seemed to be running down faster the more times you failed.

"Focus, sweetheart," Thanos breathed right into your ear. "You can do it."

"Don't you dare to make us die today," Nam-gyu spat which was the complete opposite of helpful. Thanos gave him a look to shut it and let you concentrate but you didn't notice it.

Finally, you succeeded and your group eventually ended up passing the challenge and was let to live for one more day.

☆☆☆

It was time to vote and you gathered into the crowd to wait for your turn like everyone else.

"And you're going to press 'O' now, right?" Nam-Gyu asked. "Because if you don't, there will be consequences."

You were relieved when it was his turn to vote. He left you alone with Thanos, he wasn't much better option, but atleast now there was only one of them eyeing you down. There was still many players before it would be your turn. You took a deep breath in and tried to calm your nerves down.

"Relax," Thanos said and put his arm around your waist, pulling you tightly against him. Almost too tightly. "As long as you keep your blue patch," he pressed the patch with his tattooed finger, a little too deep into your breast, "you have nothing to worry about. Okay, señorita?"

"Yeah, of course," you mumbled and tried to avoid eye contact with him, but he put his free hand on your cheek, making you to look at him in the eyes.

"You're not gonna betray us, you hear me?" Thanos said with a low and threatening voice.

"I'll press 'O'," you promised, trying to sound convincing.

"Good girl," Thanos said and smiled. He turned away from you to look at the scores, the blue was winning but the red wasn't far behind, but didn't let go of you, his hand still gripping your waist a little too low.

When his number was announced, he immediately rushed to the front and didn't hesitate even a second to press the blue button.

"You okay?" a man next to you asked. You turned your head to look at him and saw his concerned look. You had no idea if he had stood there the entire time or just appeared there a second ago.

"Yeah, i'm fine," you mumbled but you knew you didn't sound very convincing.

"I'm going to press 'X'," he admitted.

You furrowed your brows, looking at the blue 'O' on his jacket. "You're going to change your vote?"

"Yep, i'm done with this place and i'd rather go home, no matter how much money i would be able to earn here if i stayed," he explained. "It's not worth putting everyone else's lives in danger."

A small smile found its way on your face but it was gone too soon that he would have noticed.

"If you change your vote too, you're welcome to join my team over there," he said and smiled. "I've seen you with those guys and i don't like them, not one bit."

You did want to get out of there as soon as possible, but Nam-gyu's threats were still lingering hot in your ear.

"I'll think about it," you said quietly.

He would welcome you to his group? You had seen him with a few guys, all older than him, and one small girl who seemed to be pregnant, atleast by the looks of it. Oh, how much you wished to have another girl by your side.

Player 390.

It was now your turn and you walk to the front to stand in front of the two large buttons. In your mind, instead of red X and blue O, you saw two faces instead - player 388 and player 124.

You took a deep, shaky breath in, and pressed the red button. The pink guard offered you a red 'X' patch to attach on your jacket to replace the blue one.

You walked to the red side where all the other people wanting to go home were. You glanced at Thanos and Nam-gyu who were looking at you with a cold stare. You wouldn't feel safe tonight if you wanted to fall asleep. You wouldn't doubt a moment that they wouldn't do anything to you in your sleep.

You found the same guy who had talked with you just a moment before, trusting him to take you in with open arms. He smiled and put his hand on your shoulder, leading you to his friends, the ones who had already voted.

"My name is Dae-ho," the man introduced himself.

"I'm Gi-hun and this is Young-il," an older guy said. You had heard of him being here for the second time and how he had won all his games a few years ago. It was possible to eventually get back home.

"Hi, i'm Y/N," you said. "Thank you for letting me join you."

"Of course," Gi-hun said and smiled.

That night, you weren't able to sleep and only feared that one of your former group members were going to come after you because you had voted to leave and changed sides, even though the 'O' was a clear winner and would have won anyway, no matter which color you pressed. Now there was no going back to them even if you wanted to – and you didn't.

You sat up and hugged your legs, bringing them close to you and tried to comfort yourself when there was nobody else to do that.

"Not able to sleep, hm?" a whisper came behind you and someone tapped your shoulder to get your attention. You hadn't heard anyone approaching your bed and was terrified to turn around and look at this person. You knew it was Nam-gyu.

"Not really," you said, trying to keep your cool and not seem weak.

"You did a big mistake for voting 'X'. I told you there would be consequences."

He grabbed your face with his hand, pressing on your cheeks so hard it started to hurt.

"Oi, leave her alone," another voice came nearby.

"Or what?" Nam-gyu scoffed. "You'll fight me over this bitch?"

"If i have to, i will," Dae-ho challenged Nam-gyu and stood now right in front of him. Nam-gyu had let go off you. "I'd prefer we'd do it elsewhere though, i wouldn't want to wake up all the people here and have guards shoot us both."

Nam-gyu narrowed his eyes and looked for any signs of bluffing on Dae-ho's face, not finding any. He only stood there like a stone statue, the expression on his face not faltering for even a second.

"Whatever, keep that bitch for yourself. She's not worth it," Nam-gyu mumbled and left, intentionally pushing Dae-ho's shoulder with his when he walked by.

Dae-ho ignored it with a mere roll of his eyes until he looked at you.

"You okay?" he said and cupped your face with his hand, brushing your cheek with his finger on the spot where Nam-gyu's fingers had just been, but Dae-ho's touch felt like a feather.

You only nodded your head.

"Good. You don't have to worry about them anymore, you deserve to be respected and treated like a woman is supposed to be treated," Dae-ho said and his words made your stomach to be filled with butterflies.

Men had never treated you very well, you were used to getting treated poorly, and now having someone show you some respect felt strange. Almost too good to be true. You would have thought you were dreaming if it weren't for his touch on your cheek.

"Try to get some sleep," he said and was about to get up, until he sat down again. "Do you want me to stay?"

You raised your eyebrows, not expecting to hear that. Did he want to have a go with you after all? Now?

"I mean, i can sleep on the floor," he hurried to say. "If it would make you feel safer and sleep better. I don't mind to take the floor."

"Would you really do that for me?"

"Of course. I'll go grab my pillow, be back in a second."

☆☆☆

You slept well all the way to the morning when they woke you up to a new day. You would have gladly slept an hour or two more but you forced yourself to get up. You looked over your bed and saw Dae-ho hugging his pillow on the floor, opening his eyes.

How much sleep did he really get? You felt bad for him but you were thankful that he stayed with you.

"Good morning," Dae-ho said with a tired smile.

"Morning," you replied with a yawn.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked.

"I did, yes," you answered. "Thank you, Dae-ho. I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable for you."

"Oh, it's all fine," he said, standing up, stretching his back and legs a little bit. "I've slept in worse places. Now, let's start to get ready for the next game."

☆☆☆

During the Mingle game, you were felt much safer with Dae-ho to protect you than what you would have felt with Nam-gyu. You were sure that if they had to kick someone out, it would have definitely been you.

Dae-ho made sure to hold your hand every round so you wouldn't accidentally get lost and separated from him, seeing how brutally people were pulling and pushing each other to get into rooms first with enough people.

When it came down to two people, Dae-ho immediately ran with you to a free room and when you were inside, he leaned on the door so nobody would come there and kick you out and claim the room for themselves.

When the time ran out and the door was locked, Dae-ho fell down to sit on the floor, his back sliding agains the door until he hit the ground. He was panting loudly, as were you too.

"Tell me that was the last round," you breathed loudly and leaned your head on the wall.

"It must be," he wished.

"I hope the rest of our group found a partner too," you said, worried that some of them were left alone and were shot.

"I'm sure they're fine," Dae-ho said and came to sit next to you, putting his arm around your shoulder and pulling you closer to him.

"What if they didn't find a room? There wasn't room for everyone," you pointed out.

"We'll see them alive on the other side, okay?" Dae-ho assured you, his hand on your cheek, making you to look at him. You hesitantly nodded, taking his word for it. "Right now, let's just be relieved that we found a room too."

"I know, i know," you said and leaned your head on Dae-ho's shoulder, not even thinking about how the act made Dae-ho's heart skip a beat. You just found his presence around you comforting and how safe you felt with him.

"You know, i saw you before the second game started and we were supposed to form groups," he said. "We needed to find more person into ours and i saw you standing in the middle of the room alone."

You furrowed your eyebrows, pulling your head back now to look at him.

"I was about to walk towards you, but those other guys managed to get to you first," he explained.

"Oh," you let out a breath. Dae-ho was quiet for a moment and you didn't know what to say to that.

"I'm sorry i didn't get to you sooner," he apologized. "I hated to see how they treated you."

"It's okay, i'm used to it," you mumbled and gave him a sad smile. He furrowed his eyebrows and lifted your chin with his fingers. His heart broke for your words.

"Listen. No woman should be used to that," Dae-ho said seriously. "Don't ever let a guy treat you like that, okay?"

You looked at him for a moment until nodded, a little unconvinced but the look in his eyes was so sincere it made you feel much calmer than before.

"Thank you, Dae-ho," you said with a shy smile. "You're a really great man."

Then, the doors were unlocked and you were allowed to leave.

Walking out and scanning the area to see who had survived the game, you let out a breath of relief, seeing Gi-hun and the rest of them safe.

You had all survived through one more game.

☆☆☆

"You know, i think Dae-ho really likes you," Jun-hee said to you quietly when you were in the bathroom.

"Oh, he's just being nice to me," you chuckled nervously and turned off the faucet, starting to dry your hands with paper towels.

"Nice?" she chuckled. "If we get out of here alive, he's definitely going to ask you for a date. He looks at you like a lost puppy."

You felt your cheeks warming up and tried to fight the smile appearing on your lips.

"For real?" you asked and felt butterflies in your stomach.

"For real."

☆☆☆

You were sitting with Jun-Hee and chatting together, laughing about something she said to you. You covered your mouth with your hand. Dae-ho wished you would have kept your hand on your lap, so he would have seen your beautiful smile.

He would have wanted to ask you if you'd go out with him when this would all be over, but he was afraid he was moving too fast and scare you away. You had seemed to be uncomfortable around men, even though you had relaxed in his arms during the Mingle game, when it was just the two of us, and let him hold your hand the entire time you were standing on the carousel.

He missed your touch and wanted to take you into his arms again, but he had to respect your space and get closer to you when you seemed comfortable enough around him.

You having fun and looking happy made Dae-ho smile. Suddenly, you looked towards him, and Dae-ho hadn't even realized that he had kept staring at you for such a long time. He quickly turned his head away to look at Gi-hun, who wasn't sitting far from him, starting a short conversation to seem busy.

"Hello," you said, startling Dae-ho. You walked so quietly that he hadn't heard you arriving near him. You sat right next to him.

"Hello," he greeted.

"We'll have to go sleep again soon," you said. Dae-ho hadn't even realised there was only 10 minutes until the lights were going down.

"Oh, it's that late huh," Dae-ho said.

"I don't want to be weird, but..."

"Yes?" he encouraged, when you didn't finish your sentence. You bit your lip, and Dae-ho saw your cheeks turn slightly red.

"Would you mind to sleep with me again tonight?" you asked nervously. "I get it if you don't want to, it's okay but i just-"

"Yes, of course," Dae-ho interrupted you. "I mean, if you want to and feel safer, i'd be happy to." Dae-ho's heart was beating faster and a smile spread on his face. "I'll just grab my pillow and-"

"No," you said and grabbed his wrist, looking at him in the eyes. "I meant, in the bed with me."

Dae-ho's eyes widened.

"Oh," he quietly gasped. "Sure, yeah."

You could see his cheeks turn red and a smile on his lips.

You went towards your bed and both of you laid on it, your head resting on his chest.

"Your heart is beating very fast," you pointed out and turned your head upwards to look at him. "Am i making you uncomfortable?"

"It's the opposite of uncomfortable," he reassured you and brushed his fingers through your hair.

Right then, the lights went out and you were fully clinging on Dae-ho's body, your left leg over his.

"Goodnight, Y/N."

"Goodnight, Dae-ho

[booliuu]

˗ˏˋToby Headcanons..PT2ˎˊ˗

ꪆৎ 𝙰/𝙽 : this is a continuation of my first headcanons oh him. Here’s the * link* if you haven’t check it out yet, btw thanks for almost 50 likes😭😭 you guys are so sweet!! anyways enjoy of me rambling about this man again :DD🫶🏼

• my inbox is open for ask and requests!!

🪓 . . He’s a taurus baaabies ( b-day April 28th!) .. may i add something too👉👈 i just know in the bottom of my heart my man def has a sagittarius moon placement or lots of fire signs placements in his birth chart. SCORPIO VENUS TOO 👀👀 he loves so intenselyyy. okok anyways-

🪓 . . He has so many piercings!! I can definitely say on his face he has a septum , nostril , bridge ,and a snake bite 😮‍💨. And for his ears he has industrial, lobes ( thought about stretching his lobes but is too scared lol) and conches done.

➯ went a bit crazy with his piercing bc his parents were so against him getting them done during his high school years. But now that he’s an adult he goes all out.

➯ takes great care of them too! ^^

🪓 . . wears fingerless gloves to mange with his rlly bad hand picking habit. don’t have nails bc how bad his his habits are :((.

🪓 . . Owns a lot of graphic tee’s and most of them are bands that he never heard of before lmao same🥲. Whatever shirt he’s wearing that day a creep or random ppl ask him what’s his favorite song or album is , he gets all awkward and he’s stands like an idiot like🧍.

➯ all sorts of baggy and ripped jeans as well ! Not a fan of tight clothes. Absolutely despises them.

🪓 . . has LOTS of scars that goes all the way back from his childhood.

🪓 . . Him & Tim before DID NOT get along at all. MAJOR BEEF WITH EACH OTHER 😭. whenever both of them were assigned on missions together, they ALWAYS be arguing about the littlest things.

* this is looong sorry ><i just love the idea that tim cares for toby. so bare with meee🥹🥹

➯ Mainly because tim behavior rubs toby the wrong way. It reminds him of his father in some ways and gets highly defensive whenever tim tells him what to do or criticizes him.

➯ Tim thinks toby as a ruthless teenager ( even though he clearly knows he an adult.) thinks he needs to be told what to do at all times . Even though he a rough exterior … little does toby know he cares about toby a lot. But of course there both to stubborn as hell to tell each that 😑.

➯ until one day toby accidentally let a victim loose. when tim found out got extremely upset at toby. The yelling definitely brought Toby thoughts of his father, as a defense mechanism toby argued back . Got a bit physical but overall LOTS of yelling, brian ( the savior-) had to step in and tell them to get over it and be nice to each for once.

➯ took a WHILE for them to apologize but they did eventually. was a bit awkward but hey at least there over it :,D . Now of days they almost have a father and son dynamic. Sometimes when both of have free time tim will show toby how to fix up a car, how to cook on a grill , yk bonding.

➯ brings Toby lots of nostalgia and confusion because he never treated like this by man before bc the only nice people he was surrounded by in his whole life was just is his mom and his sister . so surely his inner child is slowly healing. when he actually took a chance and thought about tim’s behavior towards him one night, he had to sit down for bit , beer in hand ( definitely not given by tim-) cry for a bit while tim rubs his back in comforting way while smoking a cigarette ofc.

🪓 . . owns torn up converse and doc martens. TONS of hoodies, leather jackets and winter jackets!

🪓 . . HIS ROOM!! oh good god…it’s so unorganized. mostly because his collection of clothes he picked up over the years that he borrowed TvT iykyk… never bothers to clean it. his own words not mine

Toby: “ it’s my man c-cave. my rules.”

Tim: *SIGHS*“ jesus fucking christ….. your a mess.”

🪓 . . Speaking of his room it has lots of band posters and tapestry’s!

🪓 . . Knows so much animals facts.. it’s actually scary but entertaining.he literally bring up in random ways possible. that’s toby for yea..!! :DD

🪓 . . His favorite animals consists of what’s around him in the slender forest. such deers, raccoons, fox & wolf , birds , bears and has a love for reptiles as well.

🪓 . . lol if your scared of bugs i feel sorry for you , reptiles or just any animals i have listed…he’s def the type of friend that has it cupped in his hand and shoving it in your face. Lives for your reaction. 🩷

🪓 . . a bit awkward and has a cold front when you first meet him. he likes to observe, doesn’t trust ppl easily. If he likes you slowly opens his shell and he shows his true colors such being a little shit, teasing you playful ofc, butting head with you 24/7. eeehh..but if he hates you good luck with this one… he make it known he doesn’t like you . you won’t know but others who know him do.

🪓 . . Growing up he was known for being the shy quiet kid that never speaks up for himself. He thinks about it now and really started changing meaning slowly and eventually he became more confident. like throwing sarcastic comments , knows lots of good clap backs or calling out’s if someone offended him or something. he’s changed man guys nothing like his younger self. proud of him 🥹

🪓 . . I see ppl saying that he’s the kind of friend that wants to be around you 24/7. 100% agree 👍 . yk hanging out in yours or his rooms for like smoke breaks, joining you during missions, watching tiktok’s & sending them to you even though your in the same room as he is , or even just simply pure silent and just basking in each others presence.

Toby: t-t-this is so you…

Toby: * sents you a tiktok*

You: bruh wtfff

* cue him laughing his ass off

🪓 . . Going to the local drug store to grab some slushes and junk food. HE LIVES FOR THOSE HANGS OUTS. TELL ME IM WRONG.

› › › i’ll make sure to be more in depth with this one :3 so be in a look out for some platonic toby headcanons in the future!!! ^^

🪓 . . Everytime someone says toby loves waffles sighs…. man i’m telling you right now an angel loses it wings ☹️ 👎. He has extended food palette than that y’all c’mon.

🪓 . . i mean it’s not the best diet… it literally just energy drinks but at least his friends look out for him and leave him take out because they know he doesn’t feel hunger like we do.

🪓 . . due to that, he has a lean built. Has a bit of a 6 pack ( you have to squint to see em ) and has muscles on his arms . He’s really proud of his arms lol. Has a bit of beard?? Scruff?? idk what’s it’s called going on too ^^ shaves ones in a while. aaaand..hehe has a happy trail situation... ANYWAYSSSS that’s for next time 😉.

🪓 . . yk how how i said he has a collection of phones he… collected *cough🪓🪓 cough*… firm believer he has playlist in each phone of them that consists of western emo music. also.. DAD ROCK .

🪓 . . his favorite weather has to be autumn because the animals around forest comes out more and he hangs out and pets all of them. likes looking at the trees and how each of the leaves are changing colors.

🪓 . . his joints pop loud real bad whenever he stretching , walking , or running . it pisses him so badly lolll.

🪓 . . loves sleeping and taking naps🫶🏼 whenever or whatever. like tree tops , his bed, closet, ect. hates mornings with passion prefers to sleep in. toby 🤞power naps . downside being that he snores like no one business and moves around his sleep.

🪓 . . blind on his left eye and that same eye has a permanent split eyebrow from the car crash.

🪓 . . Even though i want say he smells like vanilla or something sweet naaah …. srry bby😔. he gotta smell like the woods , dirt, bl*od.. sometimes , or even pinewood. From time to time smells like cheap shampoo and conditioner when he remembers to shower.

🪓 . . lastly his hair.. HIS 👏HAIR 😭😭 it’s so soft…he’s rocking shaggy haircut that tim trims once in a while.

𝚍𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚜: @bloodibambiidol & @kodaswrld ✨ there stuff is cool check it out!

ꪆৎ 𝙰/𝙽 : HEEEEY IM BACK, i know posted 2-3?? days ago and honestly im so happy to it has so many likes already. thank you so much 🫶🏼 it means so much to me!! i’ll try to post as consistent as i can but no promises. 😣As of right now my wips are a bunch of toby headcanons and one shots i need to finish and post and dw other characters too dww🤍🤍.

* feedback is always welcome. if you like my content please don’t get to like or reblog ^^.

liuuboo2025 do not copy , translate or plagiarize any of my works. thank you ♡ﾟ

[theambitiouswoman]

I’ve been struggling with feelings of loneliness for years. I’ve met many people and tried to make friends, but I’ve never found someone who truly feels like a good match for me. Most of the time, I noticed that people enjoy gossiping, that I couldn’t trust them, or that their kindness felt insincere. Because of this, I slowly distanced myself from them since we never really connected. Since I work from home, I haven’t had many opportunities to be in social environments, which has always made it difficult for me to make friends. Right now, I only have 2 friends, but even with them, we barely talk anymore. Over time, I feel like our bond has weakened as well. This has always made me see myself as weird or even pathetic because I can’t go out and have fun with friends like others do. I’m 23, and I feel like my youth is slipping away. Since I can’t seem to change this mindset, I’ve lost my confidence, and I no longer feel motivated to do anything. The only person I truly feel close to is my boyfriend. Do you have any advice or suggestions on how I can change my perspective on this? I’d really appreciate it. Thank you so much💗

A lot of people struggle with loneliness, especially in adulthood when deep connections are harder to make.

Instead of focusing on the number of friends, shift your focus to quality over quantity. Some with big friend groups still feel lonely. It’s about finding one or two people who align with you, and that takes time.

People with large friend groups often seem to have it all together, but these groups can lack depth. Having many people around doesn’t always mean healthy connections. Some may enjoy the energy of a crowd but still feel disconnected.

The key difference is that those with deep, quality friendships feel genuinely supported. Having a few close friends is more rewarding than trying to keep up with a big group.

Since you work from home, try putting yourself in environments where like minded people get together—meetups, co working spaces, or online communities. Friendships take time but consistency and shared experiences build connection.

Confidence comes from feeling secure in who you are, even when alone. Instead of focusing on "fixing" this, focus on nurturing yourself. Do things you love, even solo—explore, visit a café, or take a class. The more you embrace your own company, the more you’ll attract the right people.

Don’t underestimate the friendships you already have. Even if you don’t talk often, a simple “Hey, I miss you” could help rekindle the bond. Remember that you also have to be there for people and make time for them when they need you. They also want to feel cared about and appreciated too. Real friends don’t always talk daily, but they’re still there.

The right people will come. Stay open to them.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

i read your horcrux post, its fascinating and very well done! im just stuck on one thing: while i agree that tom definitely has a good share of self-hatred, enough to cause himself pain and endure an agonising process to become immortal, doesnt the whole idea of "killing yourself" for the ritual seem very risky? like what if you actually die lmao then the whole thing was all for naught. i mean i can also see him being confident and arrogant enough to believe he COULD do it without mistakes, but still. seems like a big risk considering his whole shtick is avoiding death as far as possible. anyway thank you for all your metas they are very enjoyable to read and think about!!!

Thank you so much! 💕 I'm glad you liked my Horcrux theory, it's one of the earliest ones I made here and I'm still pretty proud of it.

As for the risk — yeah, it is incredibly risky, that's kind of the point. This is a ritual we know Tom was crazy to attempt multiple times, a ritual in-universe that even just doing it once is considered insanely risky and potentially damaging, not to mention multiple times:

‘Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction. ...’I mean, why mention it then?” she said impatiently, slamming the old book shut;

(HBP)

That was what you told me he said. ‘Further than anybody,’ And I thought I knew what that meant, though the Death Eaters did not. He was referring to his Horcruxes, Horcruxes in the plural, Harry, which I do not believe any other wizard has ever had. 

(HBP) - only part of the quote since the rest of Dumbles' analysis of Voldemort's character in the above section is questionable.

JKR stated in an interview there is a final horrible step that must be taken to make a Horcrux, something beyond just murder. Cannibalism, physical self-mutilation, or masturbating over the corpse (Yes, I have read this theory somewhere) don't make sense because then Harry couldn't become a Horcrux. It doesn't really leave us with many possibilities.

Additionally, Voldemort talks of how only he was skilled and brave enough to attempt it more than once, to go "further than anyone" ever had:

I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal — to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked . . . for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it.

(GoF)

If there was no risk, more people would make Horcruxes and more people would make multiple Horcruxes. Voldemort himself calls it an "experiment". He wasn't sure it would work at any point but the risk was worth it for him.

when he asks Slughorn what would happen if you made multiple Horcruxes he already made two Horcruxes. He experimented with Horcrux when he had little to no information on them. He experimented magically on himself. Multiple times. (He also mentioned "experiments" in plural so I wonder if he had another method besides Horcruxes that he attempted...). This is not a person who cares about "risk" like a normal person. Riping your soul apart to make a Horcrux, even without my theory, is in itself, a huge risk — and he does so consciously 6 times!

Dumbledore, Slughorn, and Voldemort all talk of Horcruxes like an unknown magic, barely attempted by anyone throughout history. Even Magick Moste Evile doesn't give more than a mention to the concept of Horcruxes because no one actually makes them. (It's the spider georg meme: "average dark wizard makes 1 horcrux in their lifetime factoid actualy just statistical error. average dark wizard makes 0 horcruxes. Horcrux Tom, who lives as a wraith in albenia & made 7 horcruxes, is an outlier adn should not have been counted").

If you need to temporarily kill yourself to become immortal it would explain why not more people have tried it. I mean, Grindelwald wanted to be the Master of Death, so why not make a Horcrux, I'm sure he was familiar with the ritual?

Becouse the risk was too great for him to take.

I talked about this a bit here and @iamnmbr3 has this post about this, but Tom, for all that he is the heir of Slytherin, acts a lot like a Gryffindor. He is prideful, sure, but he is so incredibly brave. Experimenting on himself with a super dangerous ritual 7 times is incredibly in character for him. Yes, he's arrogant, he's sure he'd succeed, but unlike Grindelwald or (younger) Dumbledore, he is willing to take the ultimate risk for the sake of his immortality.

It also makes sense symbolically. Like, to become immortal you have to risk your life — to live forever you must be ready to go through death. It makes sense in a symbolic sort of way. It just feels right.

[stupidlittlespirit]

i've seen the "he'd never date a woman" thing with ford so much, which i think about a lot. like it's one thing to just headcanon him as gay but there are a lot of posts where internalized or blatant misogyny shine bright. one i saw straight up had multiple people going "he respects women too much to want to date/fuck them" like hello? do you realize what you are implying ab real women when you say that?

i'm not great at articulating my thoughts but i think it's especially prominent with ford because of his intelligence + unconventional demeanor. he's off-putting and a genius and didn't want to give up his work to settle down into a standard marriage with kids. women can't be weird or smart in the same way men can for example and all women want the typical white picket fence nuclear family american dream. therefore you are off your gourd if you think he'd ever want to be with a woman. so there’s that on top of the already rampant misogyny present in fandom spaces with shipping especially.

there's also the whole "gibe the oracle your phone number" / "i miss dimension 52" that could have some implications if you want but ig i can't blame people for forgetting jeselbraum because hirsch barely expands on her LOL. but basically it’s all up to interpretation and it really isn’t all that wild to think he could be attracted to women.

personally i just enjoy projecting my own sexuality onto him. “what gender are you attracted to?” don’t care. can i show you my isopod colonies. “how would you describe your sexual attraction?” uhhhhhhhhhhh (<- is probably demisexual)

So, I deleted my post because I felt like I was rehashing points I'd previously made a million times before, but I stand by it.

I want to address what you said and then I want to kind of go on a tangent (shocker, I know) about the interpretation of GF at large because I've been engaging with a lot of Lynch stuff recently, who we know was by and large the most influential person for Hirsch, and one of the biggest things around Lynch's work is the beauty of subjectiveness. I think Hirsch carries that legacy with him at the heart of his work.

So yeah, the comments about Ford 'respecting women too much' is insane. If anyone thinks that they are probably the kind of person who doesn't respect a woman anyway. If your hands sully the one you touch, perhaps your hands were not so clean to begin with, yknow? That's the vibe I always get with those kinds of comments.

Society approaches women so differently from men in this regard, as you said. Where a man is 'quirky' and 'cool', a woman is 'annoying' or 'trying too hard'. She suffers for her differences where as he profits for them. She can only commit the crime of being Cringe, and in my experience, people will forgive many things but never that.

There is certainly merit in the way in which a lot of people recognise that Ford is partial to things that are 'weird' or that are shunned by society, especially because of his hands, and that plays well into Queer culture. It's a feeling most of us (if not all of us) experience. So I can see where there connection comes and it's totally cool to hold that belief. Queer is BIG umbrella and I think he falls under it myself, what with the ace/aro stuff. We're given much more canon evidence of him being ace/aro, in fact, than of anything else. I maintain personally that canon Ford is asexual and aromantic, and that romance doesn't factor into his life in the way it does for 'normal' people. It's why when Bill mentions that quiz Ford does in his dreams in TBoB it makes me think of my own struggles with asexuality: "I'm not normal, everyone else is feeling this type of way and I'm feeling that type of way. There's something wrong with me. I'm weird. I need answers." It feels very much like Ford is attempting to understand that side of himself and is very afraid of the answer.

The Oracle stuff makes me so sad it was never expanded on more. I really love Jheselbraum and it felt like she was one of the first people that Ford met who was of higher intelligence than him, and who actually did just want to help. She extended an extreme kindness to him. Whether it was more than that doesn't even really matter. There was still a relationship formed there that can't be discounted. But again, it can be interpreted in lots of different ways.

This is the other thing. There's nothing wrong with projecting yourself onto your favourite character. We all do it. I do it. It's fun and it brings comfort. And that's okay! But that means we can all do it. So it's unfair for someone else to say "you're wrong for thinking XYZ about Ford" because we're all just kids in a sandbox playing house with these characters. You can't gatekeep someone else's enjoyment.

You can believe Ford is gay. You can believe Ford is ace. You can believe Ford is whatever you want him to be, but what you can't do is then rescind that privilege from someone else just because you don't like it or because it makes you feel better about yourself to punch down on someone else. People are entitled to their own interpretations of media, even if they make you feel uncomfortable or whatever.

Which brings us onto Lynch. Now, I'm not a huge surrealist fan, I like Lynch most for the person that he was (ugh I'm still so sad to type that). One of the biggest things about him was that he valued the intelligence of his audience and respected them enough to allow them the space to interpret his works as they saw fit. He never wanted to define his films in a way that would prevent another person from taking their own meaning from it. There was no definition, only feeling.

There's a clip of him being asked to expand on his meaning for one of his films, I forget which one, and he just replies "no". It's so fucking good because that, to me, is art. It is fundamentally subjective in its existence and the way I view something is not going to be the way someone else does, so why take that interpretation away from one to give to another just for their approval? We may align in thoughts but the way we process the media is going to be entirely different. Why? Because we're different people. Our experiences throughout our lives have informed the way we interact with things.

I think Alex Hirsch enjoys other people making their own interpretations of his work in a similar way. Just as Lynch does. Hirsch wants you, the audience, to derive personal meaning. He doesn't need (or even want) to tell you how to engage with the themes because why would he? It would only make him work harder to get a simpler point across and it would risk alienating parts of his audience. He wants the audience to connect and to find their own familiarities, and he respects his audience enough to give them the space to let them do that. He's often evasive when he's asked to tie things down firmly. To be honest, I think he should be braver in just saying "no, I don't want to answer that" sometimes. You can tell he wants to but he also wants to engage with people so it can be hard.

People are very desperate to want to have answers in black and white. They need things to be canon in order to feel vindicated, when in actual fact, an idea is just as legitimate when it comes to fiction. Fiction IS an idea. It isn't tangible and therefore cannot be quantified, so it can be interpreted however.

Anyway, by forcing your interpretation of the work onto others (ie. 'Ford would never', 'Stan would never' etc), I think you fundamentally misunderstand what the purpose of the work is. You're taking away the light of other people because you're scared yours doesn't shine bright enough. And you're scared because other people previously took your light away, but all you're doing is repeating the cycle and taking away from the rest of us.

Your ideas can coexist with others. No one is right and in that, everyone is right. Does that make sense? Idk.

I voice my opinions of disliking certain ways the fandom engages with elements of the show, but I don't think they have less right to have those ideas than I do to have my own. I interpret Bill as one way and someone else will interpret him another. That's okay. You're allowed to do that. But I don't think you're allowed to be actively vicious to others over it.

Engage with honesty and recognise that other people enjoys things in different ways, and it's okay not to control the narrative of that sometimes.

I have my criticisms of Hirsch but I also have a lot of love for the guy, and one of the biggest things I respect about him is him allowing us to draw our own beliefs. Do I think he could stand to do some things better? Yes. But that doesn't mean I don't love what I already have from his work.

I'm not sure if this makes sense, I'm having a bit of a Day, but I hope it at least reads well enough to convey my meaning.

[strangerthings-haventhappened]

AFTG X Batman ch. 1 I guess

based on this post

David sat on the sandy beach watching the flames and tried not to panic. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do now. How is he supposed to keep going without his mom? He knows what the plan was and he has the binder with information on where to get a new identification and money, but he also knows that the plan won't work. Not when he is so young. His mother had done her best to teach him what she could and prepare him for a day when he would need to run without her, but neither of them had considered that the day would come so soon. The plans he has all hinge on his ability to pass as an adult, someone who would go unnoticed.

But David isn’t an adult. He is barely 13, a short, skinny, underfed 13. He isn't sure he could convincingly pass for 15 there is no way he will be able to pull off 18. So the plan will have to be modified. He needs to find somewhere that people either won’t notice or won’t care that he is on his own. The most important thing for him now is to avoid attention. If he gets picked up by the police or CPS it will all be over. They will run his fingerprints or DNA against a missing children's database and then his father will find him. If David wants any chance at surviving that can not happen. 

As the flames from the car begin to die down David moves to the side to begin digging a grave for his mother, thinking over his options as he digs. 

In an ideal world he would go to a city with a strong hero presence since his father would be less likely to risk coming after him if there are superheroes. Unfortunately however, most cities with their own heroes are also the kind of places where people notice homeless children. He wants a hero to scare off his father and his men, not to try and save him. No he needs somewhere where he won’t stand out, where there is such a large homeless population that nobody will notice one more.

As he finishes up the grave he has an idea. A dangerous and potentially deadly idea, one city that could work for him.

No. It's a bad idea. Walking back to the car to get what is left of his mothers body he tries to dismiss the option. His mother always insisted they never go near, no matter how desperate they got. She always said it was too close to Baltimore and his fathers territory. And it really is close.

But, he thinks,  it's also the only place he knows of that not even the butcher is willing to go. Carrying his mom’s body back to the grave he reconsiders.

It would be incredibly dangerous too. If he goes there he is likely to end up dead anyways, killed by one of the many villains or even just in a random act of violence. Thinking about how upset his mother would be if he ended up being killed, he gets to work on burying her. 

But if he is going to be killed, he would rather it be literally anyone other than his father or his men.

The more he thinks about it, he really doesn’t think there is a better option. Not until he is older and will be able to pass as an adult anyways. He knows that his mother would hate this. Would think him reckless, but she isn’t here anymore. He needs to do what he can with what he has and this is his best chance of avoiding his father.

As he scoops the final layer of sand over the grave he makes his decision. He is going to Gotham. 

[zorilleerrant]

So the differences between these two cover a lot. They are both con men. They are both autistically obsessed with their special coats. They do pay careful attention to fashion trends and tailor their appearances to the space they're trying to infiltrate, something that seemed fun and easy to them to begin with. (Altho I do get the impression Captain Jack signed up initially out of some sense of duty or protecting his fellow sapients.) They're both family men who are terrified of endangering their families. The type of guy is likely to draw the same crowd in a lot of cases. The details vary a lot.

First, erotic relationships - while Constantine sleeps around whenever he's single (or, rather, used to when he was younger), he's a serial monogamist at heart. He falls fast and deep for whoever's caught his eye this minute, even when he's trying to keep it casual. He always expects it to be long term, and his overly intense expectations inevitably cause him to fuck something up. While he's open to sexual experimentation with his current partner (orgies, etc.), he can't really handle polyamory. Captain Jack, on the other hand, is capable of understanding monogamous relationships (it probably exists as a queer identity where he's from), but he struggles to engage in one. He meets people where they are, though, and so sometimes engages in relationships that are dispreferential to him, figuring he can fill that in elsewhere.

Second, killing - Captain Jack considers himself a soldier, even when he's doing civilian things, even when he's on the run, even when he's working for a very different cause than a war. War shaped him, and war stole away his limits. He has no hesitation about killing people if it's necessary. Even when he knows them, loves them, doesn't want to hurt them: when he knows it's necessary, he simply acts. He doesn't enjoy hurting or killing people, but he does consider it a tool always available to him. Constantine is capable of killing people, but just barely. Even when he knows it's absolutely necessary, he will hunt for every other possible option, often until the time is up. He's incapable of killing a child even when he knows that child will grow up to destroy the universe. Until his life or the life of a loved one is directly threatened, he has trouble acting. Counterintuitively, this means that Captain Jack feels directly responsible for any death that he orders or obliquely causes, while Constantine in much more picky about what blood he carries on his hands.

Third, trauma - Captain Jack exists to embody heavily dramatized impossible traumas that, while they have analogy to real people's problems, exaggerate and contort them until they're safe to deal with in a fantasy context. Constantine does the opposite. Constantine's traumas are almost exclusively meant to be very real, very concrete things that happen directly to real people, and where his reactions to them are realistic, even when they involve magic (in either causing or healing the trauma). Captain Jack's bad memories are symbolic, metaphorical, allegorical. Constantine's bad memories are relatable and believable. (Both of them are direct explorations of common queer experiences, though.)

Fourth, powers - Constantine is almost entirely self-taught. While he did obtain mentors and friends to help him expand his repertoire later in his career, this was after he learned everything that was dangerous with no guidance, oversight, or support. He's often said to be a relatively weak magic user, and most of his impressive skill comes from the fact that he had to learn loopholes and exploits to do everything he ever did, from the ground up, instead of following any established pattern of magic users. That and making terrible bargains with all manner of more powerful creatures, most of whom only ever had his worst interests at heart. Captain Jack, on the other hand, was taught rigorously by many different organizations. He was considered exceptionally skilled, a prodigy even, and always enjoyed easy support from his colleagues. Everything else is from one specific accident born from love.

Fifth, self-image - Captain Jack has lots of regrets and lots of wishes, but in general, he thinks of himself as someone who's trying to do good things. He doesn't think he's the worst person just because he's not the best person, and he always strives to improve, because he believes in himself. He's suicidal mostly because he thinks it's unnatural the way he exists, and because of grief. Constantine hates everything about himself at all times. He's trying, he's desperately trying, but he doesn't think he's capable of turning himself into someone who deserves to be alive. He has all kinds of internalized bigotry that he'd be horrified if anyone else said, but believes is true about himself. He firmly believes he is the worst person who ever existed and yet he's afraid to die.

Themes Constantine focuses on that Captain Jack doesn't:

addiction

religion

sexual abuse and recovery

poverty/systemic classism

solidarity and mutual aid

footie

Themes Captain Jack focuses on that Constantine doesn't:

exile/cultural history erasure

chosen family

the ethics of coverups

the universalism of violence/the universalism of kindness

ties through time and place

workplace sex

Themes that both focus on:

grief and loss

alienation from wider culture

power and responsibility

star-crossed love

how good and evil on a grand scale interacts with the personal

monsterfucking

You seem like you would know the answer to this question, are Jack Harkness and John Constantine the Same Guy? I know they're from different things and only have the vaguest dashboard osmosis idea about either of them but the instinct is so strong. What is causing this? Help

you've osmosed them into a single slutty bisexual disaster man that doesn't mind his own business and refuses to die

[proud-cloud]

Three Cheers for sweet revenge plot song by song according to me

My credentials are that uhmm ive listened to this album like weekly since i was like 12 and uhm im taking english A-Level (crime and tragedy) sooooo

Full disclaimer i could do a line by line analysis on pretty much all of these songs but then this would be stupidly long so im just touching on the points or lyrics i think are most important for the plot! Oh and i cant spell and im trieddd of writing academic essays so im kinda yapping ngl

HELENA

honestly i barely have anything to say here but i imagine its the demo woman’s funeral (yes ik its abt Gerard ways grandma but let me cook) kind of setting the tone and exploring his grief, creating the circumstances for his deal with the devil - especially in the bridge.

GIVE EM HELL KID

Ok so here!! Is where i start to have more to say!! So in my head the man (im just gonna call them tje man and the woman or like he/she from here on) has accepted the deal with satan to kill 1000 evil men and is basically on a killing spree? So from my immense medical knowledge of watching house im preity sure epidrene is a steroid, which like gives him energy (interestingly ive been on them a few times for asthma and they have a long list of mental side effects such as uhhh mania (fall out boy whooo) anxiety and depression which maybe foreshadows his sorta insanity towards the end as his guilt haunts him) acting as a symbol of his immense motivation to see his wife again, so verse one especially is before his downfall where hes like yippee killing people to see my wife again!! The chorus i imagine is sang by both him and the woman in heaven as they both long for each other uhm and later on in the song it does seem as if hes begining to kind of loose it a bit due to his grief? kind of foreshadowing his well everything later on in the album. In the bridge i imagine hes kind of mocking their teenage selves (linking to im not okay later on) especially in the line “we are young and we dont care” criticicing their hopefullness by comparing it to their current circumstance - ironic as it only gets worse from here.

TO THE END

Now i know this is based on a rose for emily (i tried to read it and there were a LOT of slurs from what i remeber so that was yeah) but for the sake of my silly little narrative were kinda just not gonna touch on that. So here i believe the man has been set to kill this couple, just to find the wife has killed her husband (with the “cyanide you drank” i assume) which drives him into a sort of crisis, questioning if this was what would have happened to him and his wife if she had lived and they had stayed married for this long (fueling his sexuality crisis in prison). I could go so much further into this, especially language wise but for the sake of everyones sanity ill leave it here :)

YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DO TO GUYS LIKE US IN PRISION

so hes literally in the middle of a gunfight in the centre of a resturant and the police come and theyre like come with ur arms raised high and ok so!!! Theres many people who could explain this better than me but the man gets arrested for killing all these people and gets sent to jailllll. Ive heard some people talk about it as an allegory for SA in prison and others who talk abt it as him realising his gay/bi ect and honestly i can see both. I really like the line “too much to late or just not enough of this, pain in my heart for your dying wish, i kiss your lips again!” Which, running with the latter intrepretation, suggests hes feeling regret for all the murdering hes done and is questioning if he ever did love his wife this much, and if he should move on and fix his mistakes. So to make a long story short he has a sexuality crisis in prision! Toward the end, he escapes prision and with his “friends” from jail, lilely from setting it on “fire” (i got the friends bit from the lyric “but ill go down with my friends”) escaping jail but at the cost of further loosing his sanity and grasp on morality.

IM NOT OKAY (I PROMISE)

for conveniences sake he either gets knocked out (the giggles at the end of prision i guess beinf from a concussion or something?) or just like goes to sleep somehwhere after the prison break with the other ex inmates and has a flashback to his time in high school, when he fell in love with his wife. As an audienve were kinds like dude she did not like you back then calm down which makes us question the morality of his mission, but for him it reminds him of what hes fighting for and erases the doubt he had in their love in to the end and prison. I will say im kinda pidgenholing this in with the flashback but uhm yeah!

THE GHOST OF YOU

This song acts as a continuation of his grief, back in the present day after im not okay made him remember what he was doing this all for. This basically confirms his belief that killing all these people is right because he needs to see her again. He battles with his morality knowing that she should be “never coming home” cause shes dead but then considering the deal with satan and its morality asking himself “could i? Should i?”. Towards the end, it seems like he decides killing the men to bring her back is the right thing to do. the line “If i fall, down” seems to show his commitment to her regardless of morality, hes willing to ‘fall down’ to hell if it means he gets more time with her which is ironic as he later does go to hell, but never gets to see her again.

THE JETSET LIFE IS GONNA KILL YOU

and hes back to killing again!! I think “her killing jar” is a metaphor for his fixation on his wife and the things its driving him to do. Hes trapped as if he was in a jar by the deal he made with satan for her. Its kind of difficult to explain but essentially hes assuring himself that hes doing it all for her and its all worth it as his sanity slowly dissipates, which i believe is demonstrated through the lyric “pull the plug” kinda symbolising hes giving up on himself and dedicating everything to her. Now this is obviously unhealthily obsessive and is the point where we definately start to question if what hes doing is right - is he not essentially playing god now? Should one man act as judge, jury and executioner?

INTERLUDE

ok its literally just the interlude but here i beleive he is praying for god, the “saints”, to “protect” his wife in heaven further showing his like motive? For all of his murders - his love for her however dangerously codependant.

THANK YOU FOR THE VENOM

HE KILLS MORE PEOPLE 🔥🔥 its almost like he has to kill 1000 evil men damn. BUT now hes starting to loose his grip on reality and is killing innocent people. I like to think he goes to the church he married his wife in and starts killing people - hence the line “sister im not much a poet but a criminal” - hes changed completely from the man he once was. They try to convince him to like stop saying its not what his wife would have wanted but he does not listen - in the lyric “preach all you want but whos gonna save me” - and continues to spiral into a life of crime and implied addiction (when in the chorus he says “give me all your posion and give me all your pills”)

HANG EM HIGH

THIS!! This is the one i can never fully figure out despite it being so good 🙏🙏 it feels like a cop out to say he suddenly becomes a cowboy or idk has to kill a cowboy but any other way i can interpret it is just the same old back to mourning his wife and dedicating his life to her so uhm yeah take any of those 3 or your own and run with it (please tell me if you know how to make this fit better than me)

ITS NOT A FASHION STATEMENT ITS A FUCKING DEATHWISH

Hes now so deep into his mission he cant quit despite the regret he feels. This kind of links back to his mocking of their younger selves in give em hell through the lyric “do you remeber back there when we met you told me this gets harder, well it did!”. Hes kind of pondering how his life got this bad wishing it didnt have to be this way. however he believes they will soon be reunited - evidenced through lines such as “im coming back from the dead” and the repeated references to resserection and him finding his wife, “your running out of places, to hide from me”. At the end, he says “i lost my fear of falling, i will be with you”, further showing he thinks he will soon see his wife again and simmilarly to the ghost of you shows hes willing to sacrafice his soul just to see her again

CEMETERY DRIVE

trust me the fake music video in my head for this goes HARD. So he visits the cemetary where his wife is buried to kinda tell her in a way? That hes almost finished and he’ll see her soon. And in my like the cool cinemetic imaganary music video he dances with her ghost but uhm plot wise hes kinda lamenting how much he misses here as the chorus goes “i miss you, so far”. Now theres some confusion as to how she died as here it says “and they found you on the bathroom floor” but in i never told you it says “they gave us two shots to the back of the head” so i imagine he got caught up in some like bad stuff and they killed her in their home - the bathroom - which does add some depth to his grief as he feels responsable for her death hence why he wants to bring her back so bad. His dedication to her is reinforced through the lyric “so i wont stop lying wont stop dying” which as ive said a lottt shows his like questionably large levels of motivation in this mission from satan. The repetition of “way down” at the end foreshadows the twist in the next song - that he's going to hell - and this idea has been building up throughout the narrative but its reaching its peak now and we begin to see it as a serious possibility considering the innocent people he has killed alongside the guilty ones.

I NEVER TOLD YOU WHAT I DO FOR A LIVING

Aaaaand im realising ive made it all the way through this without even having to check the tracklist which shows that i lack a life! But anyways this song communicates the concept so well and i genuienly could line by line delve into it but for the sake of conciceness as i have been i will just cover the basic concept

OK SO! Hes metholodically getting through this list (im inferring he has a list from the line “i keep a book of the names”) kind of rushing through them, seen through the fast pace of the first verse, in my head it resembles a video montage of the murder of multiple people off of the list. This is further evidenced through the lyric “another knife in my hands” showing this has somehow become his everyday life as hes become so detached from normalicy in his grief. NOW NOW NOW the lyric “a stain that never comes off the sheets” is an allusion to lady Macbeth (I FREAKING LOVE SHAKESPEARE) (im a hamlet girl tho honestly) where she couldnt wash the blood off of her hands which is a common literary symbol for guilt showing his mission has taken a massive toll on him mentally if we did not already realise this. “It aint the money and it sure as hell aint just for the fame” implies he does not enjoy killing these people despite the fact hes killed probably over a thousand people which againnnn shows his dedication to his wife. Now i know ive said that about a billion times but thats important to consider when we take into account that he does not get to see her again - everything he did was essentially worthless, in fact if anything everything he did just sealed his fate. Therefore, if we view him as a tragic hero (i can go so much more into this but thats for another day) then his hamartia is his love for her, his loyalty which kinda gave him tunnel vision meaning he could not see the flaws his plan and the way he was being exploited by satan.

now theres so much symbolism in the lyrics i could discuss (I LOVE THIS SONG) but i will refrain and kinda skip forward to the bridge/the end. I like to think he turns the last page in his book of names to just see his own name and then begins to spiral - this is where the song goes “and we all fall down”. Im preitty sure gerard ways like screams say “i tried” which like furthers this breakdown as he comes to understand all the wrong he has done and his inevatatable damnation. After a large moral debate he thinks it would have been better if they were both killed together originally “never again / they gave us two shots to the back of the head” and he shoots himself in the hope he will eventually be with her in the afterlife, and if not then a life without her is not a life worth living anyways. It ends with the lyric “were all dead now” (which they are) which reminds me of the rhyme/ game from when i was a kid ring a rosies (which i swear is about the plauge) and how that ends by saying “we all fall down” kinda showing the corruption he brought into the world and that everything must come to an end. This is typical of a tragic hero - his anagorisis (realisation of his flaw / mistake) and then his death - which is why i personally do veiw this album as mostly conforming to troupes of traditional greek tragedy :).

aaaaand thats it!! I dont count bury me in black or desert song as part of the album plot uhhh if anyone else does id love to hear how that sounds so cool but yeah!!! Oh and sorry again for any typos and spelling errors i cannot spell for the life of me uhmm this could be so incoherent for all i know (if so sorry!!) but i hope not 😛

lmk if you’d actualy wanna hear the full yap poetry annotation style for a song cause i love nothing more if not talking i might do the same for danger days if i feel like it so watch out 🔥🔥

[arceus-insanity]

One thing that always bothered me about Izuku's choice of career was just how implausible it is Izuku as a character and for the setting. Because Izuku becoming a teacher would mean that he needed to get a college degree and have several years of experience before being able to get a job at the most prestigious hero school. I get that Izuku would have connections with the Staff and for being a hero that saved the world, but Izuku would still be extremely inexperienced at being a teacher because he would barely have a degree just one or two years out of college and would have no tangible way to hold the students in line to maintain discipline or to protect them in case of emergencies. (Then again UA seems like they just have lousy standards to begin, so it might not be a problem lol).

In truth, I think Izuku should have been a police officer, yes, I know in the west, people have a lot of negative feelings towards cops today for all kinds of reasons. But a career as a police officer would have been more plausible for Izuku once he graduated from UA and allow him to stay pro-active because not only did All-Might suggest this in the beginning of the series, but it would fit more for Izuku's character and relate more to Tenko's backstory because Izuku could have been that guy that helped a young boy find a safe place after a devastating tragedy. Bringing heroism down to earth, like the story should have emphasized instead of Izuku becoming discount iron man and ditching his teaching career as soon as it was convenient. (I know that Hori had Izuku say that he would do both but that's typical Hori trying to have his cake and eat it too)

This is really well articulated

Unfortunately the endings biggest issue is that it's very rushed. Both in the reading and creating of it. It's hard to tell exactly what was going on, but I am very much of the belief that Hori should have taken a fucking break before finishing the manga.

There were so many things that needed to be addressed that rather than be cut or well researched was badly rushed, a lot of the time got taken up by last minute cameos that led no where and proving the Bakugou fake out really did mean Jack shit, and the rushed epilogue continues that trend

As for Deku actually saving the next Tenko, this is one of those rushed over points, and a big part of why I don't believe there can be a true happy ending without the League alive and being there to fix it.

Deku didn't see Tenko walk through the streets for who knows how long, or even his family enabling the abuse, he only saw Kotaro go to hit Tenko. That framing very much empowers Deku's preexisting biases. That it's just a couple bad people or moments and not the system as a whole that needs to be fixed

Uraraka's attempt of helping the next Himiko makes more sense but still falls short. Because there's no true change to the system, she's with the kids for a very short period of time and is effectively just playing with them. She also doesn't know about how Himiko was abused growing up and how quirk counselling only cared about fitting her into a mold, this further abusing her. And Uraraka is the best attempt out of all the pros and adjacent

[maksplaygroundsims2]

Am I a sellout? Maybe lol.

Welp, I bought the Sims 25th birthday bundle thing on Steam, it was 60something. It included Sims 2 and all the packs&stuff packs, and it included the original Sims game and all it's packs, as well as some sims 4 kits(which I don't care about and didn't want in the first place, lol) Now, before I get polverised by the entire sims 2 community here... yes I've been reading what people have to say, I've been reading about the concerns, I've been reading about the warnings...yes I'm aware of both games being available for free on the internet. I was one of the people who switched over to Linux to be able to play TS2 and I don't plan on going back at all to playing it on my windows desktop... HOWEVER, I do want to be able to play it on my laptop. I recently got a new laptop on Black Friday in 2024. I tried Osab's installer, and all the fixings for it, it still did not work and there was tons of pink flashing as soon as I put my cc and mods in.

So, I pondered putting Fedora on my laptop too but, I have to use this laptop for work, and tbh I rather not have to switch to windows and linux to work and then play.. it's just... annoying tbh. I still have windows on my desktop and it's been almost a month since I've logged onto that partition...I'm considering making the full switch on this computer to just linux and use my laptop for windows stuff. But, in all honesty...my biggest reason for buying it is because, as I've mentioned before in a previous post back in December... I have a huge medical surgery coming up, a kidney and pancreas transplant. It's going to require me to be 7hrs away from my home for three or four months... I thought about getting my boyfriend to bring my whole ass desktop down for me when I get settled into where I'm staying... but IFFFFF I can play sims on my laptop without issue then that would be perfect. But again, I don't want to put linux on it so when I saw that EA was planning on doing the re-release I was skeptical, sure but, I thought it would be a good solution to my worries about not being able to play Sims when I was away from home....but, now that it's available, of course I'll throw my money at EA. It's not like I haven't before when the sims 2 first came out, it's not like I didn't hand them my dubloons when Sims 3 was being released, and then bought some sims 4 packs.. even though I barely axtually played the game, but mostly just built in it for my YT channel.

I know most people won't givve a shit about who buys the re-release but I've just seen so many people hating on it and I feel a little wierd because I genuinely don't like EA as a company, at all but here I am giving them money that could be used elsewhere in my life. But alas, here I am.. about to dive into the sims 1 like it's 2002, to hear that sweet sweet sound of "EA Games, Challenge Everything" and let my mind melt into its childlike form.

[crab-people-overlord]

Understanding Stan Marsh: A Character Analysis and Response to Fandom Mischaracterization (Writing Depression/Addiction Responsibly):

I’m sure a similar analysis exists - but I haven’t found it so I wanted to make it. I’ve seen similar analyses about Wendy with her intelligence/tendency to serve as a villain in things like Style fics and Kenny with his own addiction as well as lower-class designations, which absolutely should exist. But I haven’t seen any about Stan in the same sense despite issues I’ve seen in fandom about his characterization and either blatantly disregarding and misunderstanding what depression is/or/trying to further their specific shipping agenda such as Kyman. And I think it’s finally time we fucking talk about it. This is due to me noticing a prolific increase in the ‘Stan Marsh is an asshole’ tag on AO3.

The Problem of Character Flanderization

Character flanderization (the tendency to focus only on a character's weaknesses) has always existed in fanworks, but the current treatment of Stan Marsh reveals a particularly troubling trend in how mental health and addiction are portrayed. This isn't about calling out specific creators - many (even most) write Stan beautifully, even in ships like Kyman. Rather, this analysis addresses a broader pattern of mischaracterization that does a disservice not only to his character but to real people struggling with similar issues.

Please note this analysis is not directed at any particular creator at all! I see SO many good characterizations of Stan, even in Kyman fics (I’d argue a lot of them do!). But I also see very unfair portrayals of him in some fics which at the end of the day show a complete disregard to addiction/depression and ignore his good traits in favor of furthering their own agenda. I’M NOT OKAY with this, and I think it’s time we talk about this as a fandom. 

 This trend often manifests in two primary ways:

Depression Mischaracterization:

Some of fandom's handling of Stan's depression reveals a profound misunderstanding of clinical depression that goes beyond simple character misinterpretation. The "You're Getting Old/Ass Burgers" arc isn't just about Stan being "negative" or "selfish" - it's one of television's most authentic portrayals of how depression manifests in young people. Stan doesn't CHOOSE to see everything as shit; his brain chemistry literally alters his perception of reality. This isn't character weakness - it's a medical condition that he fights against while still trying to maintain his relationships and sense of self.

What many fanworks miss is that depression often coexists with deep empathy and care for others. In fact, Stan's depression might partly stem from how deeply he feels things - his awareness of environmental destruction, animal cruelty, and societal hypocrisies. He continues to fight for causes he believes in and protect those he loves even while struggling to find meaning in his own life. That's not selfishness - it's remarkable resilience. The show demonstrates this complexity brilliantly: even at his very  lowest points, Stan still:

Tries to maintain his friendship with Kyle despite literally seeing him as shit

Continues to stand up for what he believes in when he realistically thinks it can make an impact

Attempts to understand and help others, even when he can barely help himself

Fights desperately to stay present in a world that has lost its color and meaning

When fanworks reduce Stan's depression to mere selfishness or use it as a convenient plot device to make him the villain, they not only mischaracterize Stan but potentially harm readers struggling with similar issues. They send the message that depression makes someone unworthy of friendship or love - exactly the opposite of what people with depression need to hear.

Alcoholism Mischaracterization:

Stan's relationship with alcohol deserves particular attention because it's portrayed with a nuance rarely seen in either animation or fanworks. The show presents a complex web of factors that contribute to Stan's relationship with alcohol:

First, there's the genetic component - Stan comes from a family with clear predisposition to addiction, particularly through Randy. But crucially, Stan never sought out alcohol on his own. He was introduced to it by adults who should have protected him, making his initial exposure a betrayal of trust rather than a character flaw.

What makes Stan's arc so powerful is how it captures the insidious nature of functional alcoholism. He discovers that alcohol makes an unbearable world bearable - it literally changes how he sees things from "shit" back to normal. STAN HAS NEVER EVER BEEN ABOUT getting drunk for fun; it's always been about self-medication to seem 'normal' to others in response to genuine mental health struggles. The show demonstrates how someone can be both struggling with addiction and highly competent - a reality many fanworks seem unable to grasp.

Even in the "bad timeline" of the Post-Covid episodes, Stan maintains his fundamental characteristics and ability to function. He becomes what's known as a "functional alcoholic" - not because this is healthy, but because it reflects a tragic reality that those who seem most adjusted often hide the deepest struggles. He learns exactly how much alcohol makes him functional versus dysfunctional, developing the kind of careful management that allows many real-life individuals with addiction to hide in plain sight.

When fanworks reduce this complex portrayal to "pathetic or asshole drunk Stan," they miss the point entirely. They ignore:

The environmental factors that led to his alcohol use

The relationship between his depression and self-medication

The reality that addiction often coexists with high functionality

And especially, and something I think a lot of you need to fucking understand - the way addiction can stem from trying to feel normal rather than trying to get high. Stan never ever tries to feel ‘high’ or even drunk. He ALWAYS is just trying to feel fucking NORMAL. 

This oversimplification doesn't just do a disservice to Stan's character - it perpetuates harmful stereotypes about addiction that make it harder for real people to seek help.

Stan's Core Character Traits

Stan consistently demonstrates practical morality alongside emotional depth. His quiet leadership often goes unnoticed - he's frequently the instigator of group plans alongside Cartman, but without the manipulation or need for credit. His relationship with Wendy shows realistic pre-teen awkwardness while maintaining genuine care and respect. These aren't the traits of a "simp" or an "asshole" - they're the complex characteristics of a well-written character dealing with real challenges.

Just rewatch the show for evidence of this - Stan at the same level of Cartman instigates things. And at the same level of Kyle, he tends to do it for the greater good of society. He’s just not as attributed to his actions because he’s naturally more quiet about it than both Kyle and Cartman are. 

TLDR- /Mental Health and Responsiblity in Writing:

The show's handling of Stan's mental health offers a masterclass in nuanced characterization that many fanworks ignore. His depression and struggles with alcohol aren't plot devices - they're part of a larger narrative about growing up in a world that often doesn't make sense. Writing Stan as a "pathetic drunk" or "selfish depressive" isn't just bad characterization - it's potentially harmful to readers who share these struggles

His depression on the actual show is shown as a legitimate struggle, not a character flaw

His relationship with alcohol is portrayed as functional and carefully managed - something maybe some of you would be surprised to learn that some of the most functional folks in your life actually are pretty good at hiding. Stan in his depression arc is ultimately meant to be shown as someone who is a ‘functional’ alcoholic rather than a ‘dysfunctional’ one. That’s not to say it’s healthier to be functional. But it’s ultimately the whole point of that goddamn arc - that even those who seem the most well-adjusted may be hiding a more sinister addiction. So I don’t really see the fucking point of writing Stan as someone who is so alcoholic to the point that it fucks up his entire life. 

The Shipping Problem

The rise of ships like Kyman often comes with an unnecessary cost: the villainization of Stan. This ignores the show's complex web of relationships - Stan's deep friendship with Kyle doesn't need to be erased or twisted to explore other relationships. The best Kyman fics prove this by maintaining Stan's character integrity while exploring new dynamics. Additionally, Stan's relationships with other characters, particularly his often-overlooked friendship with Kenny, deserve more attention and respect in fanworks.

Complex relationships can be written without villainizing other characters like Stan

Good Kyman fics prove you can write the ship while maintaining Stan's character integrity. 

Both Kyle and Stan canonically view each other as super best friends and equals- and this is because they literally ARE equals, even in a moral sense. Neither of them is better than the other. They have a deep connection to each other. Any fic written about either of them HAS to accurately represent this without making Stan to be a primarily weak selfish villain. This is so incredibly unfair to Stan’s character, and a massive representation of him. Same if it’s vice versa for a fic for Stan misrepresenting Kyle (though I’ll be honest - I far more often see Stan as misrepresented in recent works as a selfish asshole over Kyle). 

When writing Stan, consider:

His actions, even negative ones, should stem from established character traits

His struggles with mental health and substance use should be treated with nuance and care. Writing him as an asshole or complete loser (he can be a lil bit of a lovingly designated loser lol) is a slap in the face to those who do function quite well in the real world but with this particular struggle of depression and addiction. Don’t ignore Stan's many strengths, such as adjusting well to things in the moment both physically and intellectually. (He absolutely can be dumb about some things to the extent that it's humorous, but he is not actually dumb - he consistently shows some of the most complex critical thinking in the entire show, even compared to Kyle. And it makes no sense to disregard this aspect of his character.) 

His relationships with other characters should reflect their canonical complexity.

If writing him as antagonistic, ensure it serves character development rather than plot convenience.

Stan deserves better than reductive characterization. His struggles with mental health and addiction make him more relatable, not less worthy of respect. Writers who reduce him to his lowest moments not only do a disservice to a complex character but potentially harm readers who see their own battles reflected in his story. We can and should do better - both for Stan and for each other. He is literally meant to be written as the person most relatable to general society, after all.

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[someobscurereference]

Insane over the awakening trio again. We fought a war together, saved each other multiple times, and I know for a fact I can trust you with my life. We have never learned to socialize normally so we can't interact in a normal environment for five seconds without dunking on each other. I would follow you through time and space and abandon everything with you. You are the living reminder of every awful thing that have ever happened to me. Our traumas make us hurt each other at every turn. We're the only ones who know what lead to each other becoming Like That. Our jobs are barely in the same area and we don't even hang out that much outside of necessities. You are all I have left. I cannot fucking understand you. I am the only one in this entire world who has the ability to even try to.

x

[hana-bobo-finch]

erm…..posting about an OC via a rushed shitpost was not on my 2025 bingo card!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂get it??? 😂😂😂because his name is bingo??(GETS SHOT)

these are all things he has done or has attempted to do so consider this the full intro post for that freak for now. he’s still too undercooked to fully introduce but damn I love him

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

Arcane peaked at episode 3 I can't lie