#they have me tethered

[aniihera]

Perhaps...? No... that wouldn't work. Not even remotely.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

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[lotus-pear]

yeah sure therapy is nice but teen soukoku is faster and a lot cheaper

[surreal-duck]

es rarepair week 2024 day 1 | AU/future

lil ghostic au of mine!!! yuzuru and the rest of fine are long since trapped souls in an abandoned mansion of which rst come across while looking for shelter during a storm :] it doesnt um. particularly end well

[uncanny-tranny]

The thing that gets me about history and humanity is that you never know what is immortalized, and the things that will be immortalized are things you would never think.

I saw a person sharing a new tattoo, and it was one of Onfim's drawings. A boy who lived so long ago he is barely a blip now, but his drawings meant so much to people that somebody is now permanently marked in their skin with one of those drawings. Do you ever look at the things you make and just sit there and wonder if this is the thing that future people look at? Do you ever look at your art, your writing, your schoolwork, or anything that is yours and just wonder who will find it, who will fall in love with a piece of your humanity and become overwhelmed with emotion over? It's not unlikely. It's not totally unlikely that somebody will find a piece of you in the distant future and devoid of any other context of who you were will still love you because you were here. You were here, and you are still here, even hundreds or thousands of years later. Treat yourself with the same love that so many have for dear Onfim.

[kangals]

not to speak ill of the dead of course, but it is such a positive change to my life to no longer be formulating my entire schedule around a dog with separation anxiety. I do think that if you haven’t deal with a dog that has severe, persistent SA it’s hard to really understand just how much it invades your life every day, and how much every single outing and event has to be weighed against how much harm I’m willing to cause. like, sure I can go out after work to do a grocery store run - but I’m going to come back and hear a dog having a screaming panic attack before I even pull into the garage. sure I can go out and get lunch with my friends, as long as I know that from the moment I leave I’m causing intense distress to my dog until I get back. Etc. if you have an SA dog, you know. it’s just a pervasive stress factor that never goes away.

which is to say, it never stops being a thing of wonder to me now that I can leave whenever and get back whenever and instead of howling and hyperventilating, now I have dogs that are clearly just blinking awake out of a deep sleep when I unlock the door. that grumble a bit when I leave without them but move on and find something else to do after a minute. It’s like - wow! I forgot this was a thing!

[total-karma]

honestly total drama introducing international contestants in later seasons with not much explanation (alejandro, anne maria, sugar, jasmine) was so funny like yeah none of these guys are canadian but we're letting this guy compete because he's pretty, this girl because we need that jersey shore rep, this girl because this show is lacking in southern charm and this girl because canada just LOVES australia

[dxxtruction]

"Louis acting like a pimp to Armand" And what is a pimp exactly? Quickly. And, oh so sexual trauma survivors can't engage in kink now without it being all about that? Pet names? They can't be submissive anymore? Consensually? Sexually healthy? Be serious. I'd hardly say there's much power difference between them during all this anyway, except that Louis is freer than Armand and it's been putting a strain on their relationship. Louis wants more from Armand, and less of this 'being his past' for them both, and so helping Armand with this could fix that. It's healthy to want to help your partners get out of a rough patch?

I mean, the whole exchange was very clearly set up as a "I want to help you" after such a great moment of vulnerability Louis feels just how much Armand is desperate for it. Louis called Armand so they could work out a plan together.

And the bit with the umbrella was Louis' way of asking 'are you willing to listen to me?' and Armand said yes by unfolding it. Louis goes on and explains, Armand is allowed to argue against it, but Louis makes his point. And then he gives Armand a way to make his own choice in it too. Armand's already decided 'I want you, more than anything else in the world', but Louis still asks after if he's sure of his choice, and with a name, Arun, that is the one of his fullest agency, running the point home. Honoring the situation Armand calls Louis Maitre - as a way of being like 'I'll do as you've said then'. To make this work he's going to have to give Louis some of the control, yes. But it's the first time such a role is ever established, and it was his choice to do it. So so what if they do it in a very suggestive way? They can't like doing that? I think it's them having fun.

I struggle to find how Louis is being overly domineering here when really he's giving and offering Armand the most agency he's ever had. Same with finding it manipulative. The manipulation was more earlier in the episode I think, when he was stringing him along, giving mixed signals. He's no longer toying with him like that. Louis might be pushing Armand, leading him on to make a decision, but he doesn't mean bad by it.

But back to this pimp thing. I find it frankly offensive that this is where people are going with this. I get it, but to run with it being the case is, on many levels, wrong.

Louis told us episode 1 this was the only sustainable line of work to support his family and keep their standing, at the time. It was never his choice to be doing this either but his blackness allowed no other options. He did what he did so his family could stay in that house and maintain all their same comforts. It gave him privileges most black men didn't have at the time that he wanted to maintain and even have more of. Anyway, it doesn't and had never defined him the way 'being good at running things' had. And in that case he just likes having that kind of control where he can get it, which makes sense.

The world is what placed that kind of role onto him of what he was allowed to be able to run, not himself. And on that he actually treated the sex workers he employed well and respected them enough to give them more opportunity.** He recognizes they don't have much in the way of options either.

Louis employed sex workers, yes, but he didn't subject them to abuse, (like how Armand was)*. He didn't oversee things in a way that would go against their consent (see; episode 1 again)**. Sometimes a job is just a job. And Sex work is work.

Armand's particular past with sexual abuses may strike a particular cord with Louis, given all that, but the very last thing either is thinking is that Louis' pimping Armand out here. This is merely their decision as companions, and had nothing to do with adding another line in a laundry list of selling Armands body out to people at the command of someone else. Armand rescinds some of his control to Louis' wishes, because he wants him, and he trusts him, that's all.

If you aren't allowing Armand that choice, and are doubtful it's fully his, you're putting him right back in the box of being defined by his abuses. Putting him back into that space where he isn't given any agency over what he does. (Which is exactly opposite of what the intent of this scene is for)*.

*: (edit) added for clarity.

**: (strike through) numerous people are saying I'm misremembering these points so disregard it. (Thought he was siding with Bricks, it was the other way around). (Technically one aspect of those opportunities were for getting around the law). I don't have a perfect memory, it happens. Let's not get mad about it. Doesn't change much of the point which is that Louis, now, Louis then, was always considering more about the running things and for stated purposes. So I guess I'd say he may only have respected the SWers enough sometimes for what allowed him to do that, and there are moments he certainly expressed remorse over the fact, but he has a great deal higher respect for Armand that is genuine. It's incomparable. Please read my added notes in the tags, it should address most other concerns.

[anna-scribbles]

anyone else up listening to robin by ts on repeat while thinking about how no one who loved adrien agreste ever told him the truth 🤨⁉️ just me?

[angeldaisies]

tlh side of the fandom is dead anyway but even if it wasn’t i still wouldn’t interact because i’ve come to realize that people just don’t like herondaisy and that’s so disheartening to me. even people who do like them usually go “yes but *insert character that is actually better*” and i know people can like whoever they want of course and i know it’s not a competition of which ship/character is better but also it’s very tiring to come online and see your personal faves being disliked at worst and tolerated at best by basically everyone with very few exceptions.

[whatawonderart]

the voices from the far reaches of the ether told me to tell you they said they wanted no pickles

[yvehattan]

Nikolai Gogol (the author)

[manygreetingsfriend]

i’m sooooooo normal about the god of war series. so incredibly normal i liked it a normal amount and would be so chill talking about it. don’t worry about the sign

[madamescarlette]

.

[sangre]

water, running down my face / water, running different ways water, like a billion waves / water, just a tear in space. ✧

for my ffxiv oc, eden mercure. prior to enw, he was not a little predisposed to world-shattering grief and causing problems bc of his weary heart. SO, when i got to elpis, it wasn't long before i decided that he was a hermes shard rather than one of azem. it's just too perfect a story.. anyway, please enjoy my love letter to him before dawntrail! and go listen to this song, it's so good

[carefulfears]

knowing you, you have probably talked about it before but i’d really love to know what you think about mulder’s savior/sacrificial lamb complex. i think it was csm that mentioned in amor fati that mulder’s hero complex would be the end of him one way or the other and it always reminds me of this essay “the gods show up” where the “tragic hero” is described as a human who’s by fate already dead, but keeps talking and trying for the sake of something bigger anyway (aka that post where you said mulder belongs to scully but that just ends up being the reason for her hurt because he also belongs to something bigger that doesn’t care for his well being). strangely it also reminds me of that interview where dd said “mulder is a guy who has been given the problems as jesus” lol.

this is such a beautiful question...the first thing that you have to understand is that i genuinely view fox mulder as a benevolent second coming of christ and every written word stems from the point of view of its author, so. the second is that i think duchovny had an understanding of the character that made that story/franchise what it was and his description of a "profoundly human model of christ" in writing the base-work of amor fati (a conflict between larger purpose and desire for normal life) is as unironically insightful as it is extremely funny. the third is that when mr. x shoves mulder against the wall of the hospital garage in one breath and tells him "i used to be you. but you're not me, mulder, i don't think you have the heart" - it's as much endorsement as it is damnation.

if you look at these two quotes from the amor fati dream

CSM to mulder: "You've suffered enough - for the X-Files, for your partner, for the world. You're not Christ. You're not Prince Hamlet. You're not even Ralph Nader. You can walk out of this hospital and the world will forget you."

and later, mulder to diana: "I have commitments-- to the X-Files, to Scully, to my sister."

CSM is meant to be playing the role of the literal last temptation, the snake-like figure that has to lead his prey astray. but those three things that mulder still has his sights on (the x-files, scully, samantha) are three things that nobody else is dedicated to. nobody else is going to keep those cases open and search for answers and care about those victims. nobody else is scully's partner: working with her, looking after her, fighting with and for her. nobody else is inspiring her. nobody else is remembering his sister, missing her, looking for her. the mother that leaves him in a hospital room in this episode, is burning last signs of life a few chapters later.

i've seen people argue that the problem with this episode and its larger arc is that "CSM is right and the episode thinks he's wrong" but i don't think he is right. i don't think he thinks he's right. i think he's doing a job and mulder is doing a job, both playing their roles, and his thesis is that mulder has done "enough" and suffered "enough" for his list of commitments- but what's enough when no one is gonna tag you out? when the speaker is waiting for a clear shot? (i'm reminded here of one of my favorite audries fic lines: "he sits on the bed, the line of his shoulders going curved and uneven. even hercules would have dropped the weight of this world.")

which is all to say (and remember my point#1 at the top), that i wouldn't describe mulder's "savior complex" as even really being a complex, i think it's just the world. i used to talk about sometimes how moving it is to me that mulder was born into this world and was always going to die for this cause and the story is about people who choose to follow. who have every opportunity available to them and want to do this work at any cost. who won't leave him in it alone, at any cost.

it's scully at the end of the road saying that she would do it "all over again."

it's skinner's "if given the choice between advancing my career by being blindly loyal to some faceless puppeteers pulling strings from the shadows, or to throw in with you two, make no mistake about it. i'd make the same decision every single damn time."

and anon i really love that quote you shared, which is from the gods show up by michael kinnucan: "The center of every tragedy is the image of a human being who has already died but keeps talking, someone whose face is a mask."

which, as you alluded, is what i define as the tragedy of mulder's character. that he was always going to die for the cause he was born into ("there is no other version of this story") and perhaps more tragic: that people depend on him, at any cost. that scully dedicates her life to someone who will list her as his tethering responsibility, but who doesn't belong to her. cannot be predominantly responsible to her, of her. harsh punishment for fruitful crimes.