#thinky post

[crunchynoodle]

As a failed "gifted child" with unrecognized autism (hyperlexia and hyperlogia passing off as "genius"), it is a very large issue to attempt to render into bits and piece my poor, traumatized child-self could accept Was Not Her Fault. The set-up was for failure right from the start.

"You're so smart, you should know this by now," left the burden of 'proof' on a kid. To say this is the spawning ground of imposter syndrome is to sugarcoat it. We were expected to learn to do things we were never explicitly taught and had never been modelled for us simply because the adults would have it easier. Since, you know, we looked like we pick things up so fast, and read so much. The wouldn't have to bother so much, and that was a good thing, right?

The thing is, book reading isn't knowledge, it's acquisition of data. It's exposure to stories and other ways to live, true, but the insight that stays and morphs into wisdom comes from depth and dimension that kids, being new to the world, aren't developmentally able to have from the get-go. Knowledge comes from synthesis and experimentation, wisdom comes from experiencing the repercussion of our choices over and over again (and that takes time) until lightning strikes and we finally get it and the lightning burns away our old perceptions, breaks us open and away from our previous model of the world, and we get a really good look at The Way We Thought Things Were Supposed To Be, and say, no, not doing that anymore, it sucks, it sucked all along and we not doing that anymore, nor tolerating it.

And now, all that inflated potential of childhood expectations has fizzled out and blown away under the passage of time, because everything is set up so that that what matters is success, and if you don't fill all that potential, all of it, when you were young, then you simply weren't up to snuff. Too late, too sad, so bad.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I fell off script a long time ago, after good grade > good schools > good job the script said to go: relationships - marriage - kids, and I said no to that. Saying no to the last half of the script was right for me. But now I'm out on the outskirts sort of looking in and eh, shrugging, what do you do? What can I do? So I sit and quiet down and think. By society's standards, I am screwed. But am I really? Who or what does society serve? I am still part of it, right? Who says I'm a failure? Who?

Which led me right down a rabbit hold of analysis and tracings on the interconnectedness of capitalism, kyriarchy, and all their cousin -archies, and and and. I circle and connect the dots and follow the trail until I come back to my soul and humanity -- and our collective soul and humanity -- and sniff, "Failure? I don't think so."

So yeah, let's fucking talk about failure

About ten years ago I decided that the next step I needed to take in my life was to accept and explore what it meant to be a failure and to have failed. This infuriated almost everybody in my life and clearly terrified a lot of people. People do not want you to accept failure. They dont want you to like... Sit with and think about it and pick it up and turn it arpund in your hands and really examine it. They want you to keep throwing yourself against the impossible walls until your body explodes! They do not want you to say "alright then, I've failed. What does that mean for me? Im still here. What does the life of someone who has failed look like?"

This makes people very angry and panicky.

My mental health improved in ways it had not in the previous DECADE once I stopped. And. Sat. With failure. And thought about what my failure ... Was. And looked at the structures that produced it and examined them critically.

It is so taboo to fail and admit it openly and talk about it. It is so taboo to talk about or think about failure in an accepting way rather than hiding it shamefully until you experience a degree of success in some area which allows you to present the past failure as "a stepping stone" to your current situation. Fuck that. We are put in positions of guaranteed failure by society every day and then punished and shamed for it. Lets fucking talk about failure

[shigarosie]

"We shouldn't be doing this," Aizawa says, the pads of his fingers pressing into the squishy skin of your cheek as he grips it with one hand, prying your lips off of his. "This is- it's inappropriate, you're my-"

You kiss him again, and despite his objections he reciprocates. His beard tickles you, not quite as scratchy and unkempt as when he first hired you. He has time to take care of himself now. The bags under his eyes- well, they're still there, but much less deep and purple. You know that taking you on as Eri's nanny is the best decision he's made in a while. And with the way you can feel him beginning to grow against your thigh, perhaps the worst as well.

"That's what makes it fun," you say, trying to convince him as your hands snake into his hair. "That's what makes it sexy. Fucking the hot, young babysitter- it's a cliche for a reason, Shota."

"Fuck," he grumbles, nipping at your lip. "Fuck. I'm not that guy. That's not me, I don't fuck younger women who- who I pay to care for my child, I-"

"You're a man," you moan, gripping his hair and pulling it taut. "A man who's been lonely for too long. Wouldn't it be nice to have a wet, hot cunt to sink your cock in?"

"Was this your plan all along?" He growls, walking you back against the living room wall. "Put on your sweet little dresses and take care of my daughter just to seduce me?"

"No," you giggle, arching into him as your back meets the wall. "I'm too good at my job to just do it for a fuck. Getting you to bend me over the sofa and rail me is just... An added perk."

"You're a minx," he says, defeated. "I shouldn't do this."

"But you will... Won't you?"

In a movent so quick and smooth you'd think he was getting laid nightly if you didn't know better, he hooks his hands under your thighs and hoists you up, his erection pressing against your cotton panties. You whimper at the contact, trying to buck against him for an ounce of friction.

"And burn in hell for it."

[tarysande]

The best part about coming back to the source material after a looooong time is you sorta get a fresh look at canon in comparison to whatever the dominant strains of fanon have become. Or, in fact, whatever your own dominant strains of headcanon have become.

I mean, yes, Garrus “I’m not a good turian” Vakarian gets infinitely cooler (and more competent!) by pretty much every metric as the storyline progresses. He does. But fresh out of ME1 and into ME2 through his recruitment, I find myself genuinely amused by how thin the veneer of badass is over a pretty dominant core of straight-up nerd sprinkled with idealism mixed with self-doubt.

When you have Garrus in the squad all the time (and thus get all his ambient dialogue and remarks), you really pick up on the number of times he calls out bad behavior, unethical actions, cruelty, and rule-breaking, especially in ME1.

He’s not actually a hothead who can’t abide rules of any kind. In fact, most of the time he’s pretty pro-law-and-order, and he gets amusingly hall-monitorish when people are breaking rules he considers important and worth following.

Fundamentally, Garrus chafes when his sense of what is just is at odds with what the authorities do about that injustice (or what they stop him from doing). And I would hazard a guess that the reason his actions seem so intense or harsh or "of course we should have shot down that ship in the middle of the Citadel" is indicative not of his impatience but of the degree to which he thinks the authorities have failed to uphold that justice. We know he can be patient. He's a sniper. His whole modus operandi on Omega is precision kills without civilian casualty. But when that long fuse finally burns down, he goes from zero to shooting down ships in the middle of the Citadel in what looks (from the outside) like a heartbeat.

And yes, injured pride hastens the burning of that fuse; he doesn’t like losing. Or admitting defeat. Or failing.

Having just replayed his recruitment mission, a few things really stood out to me this time.

The merc bands really hate him--and they also reluctantly admire him (he's described as smart, resourceful, dangerous, idealistic, brave, slippery; they all agree they only way they managed to get this far is by isolating him and employing dirty tactics). I mean, there's literally a station-wide announcement that Omega can return to "business as usual" once Archangel is out of the picture because he was disrupting things so completely.

The way Garrus blames himself for the deaths of his squad is so freaking turian. Failure reflects on the leader who places his people in danger they can't handle, not the individual who fails. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yes, Sidonis betrayed him, but the person Garrus blames the most? Is himself. For trusting Sidonis in the first place. For raising Sidonis to a position where he had the means and opportunity to harm others--and the weakness of character to turn coat, to save his own hide, instead of dying to protect the others.

Garrus mentions more than once that he was trying to emulate Shepard. And his tone always implies that he knows he failed because Shepard would never have let a Sidonis into the fold. Again, he's blaming himself. Like a good turian. Yes, he wanted to avoid the red tape and bureaucracy of C-Sec, but his code--Archangel's code--certainly aligns with Paragon Shepard's morality (with a Garrus Vakarian twist).

And since it wouldn't be meta without adding a Tara's Headcanon Twist ... I've always wondered why "Archangel" when it's such a ... human concept. But this time, when I noticed how he spoke about Shepard's influence, and how quickly he brushes aside the name when she asks him about it, I wondered if it wasn't actually his way of honoring the mythology of the dead woman whose example he was trying to follow. Not that Shepard is a God he's worshiping, but ... there is something about the way he talks about her. Garrus doesn't make himself over in the image of a God, though; he's the soldier, the right hand, the avenging angel responsible for carrying out divine punishments suited and proportional to the crimes committed, the rules broken, the selfishness or cruelty of the perpetrator.

[crunchynoodle]

“Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

― Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum, said by Granny Weatherwax

god I could be so wealthy if I had no ethics. that's so fucking frustrating. I'm living paycheck to paycheck because I'm not grifting vulnerable idiots on TikTok. I feel like I have the ability to very easily scam people. I could make a killing with AI. but god. I have morals and ethics and so I get to be poor as shit. I hate this fucking world

[thegoldenwager]

I yap about Forever + Falling with you

Forever being the end song to murder drones- and its lyrics being what they are

gives me the impression Murder Drones was a big love story about opening up and trust hidden under mounds of comedy and violence

And I dont mean that it ACTUALLY is, its more just.. a silly little feeling I get when i listen to it

Theres something about the song thats so... cozy? So like, softly spoken. A very hummable melody from one lover to another.

also falling with you, like what the fuck

never in my life have I felt a track was so carefully crafted- and prepared, carved out for two specific characters in one specific moment.

She made the choice to sacrifice herself- for him. In her eyes it was the end and if at the end of everything she could guarantee the life of one person it was going to be the one she loves, she didnt know what would be at the other end,

The thing is, he wanted to be there for her. Even when they're knocking on deaths door, he needs to be there.

Its like trust fall exercise, except the focus isnt on 'catch me' cause they'd never let the other fall,

its about making sure they dont fall when youre not looking. It hurts both parties, to crash without warning and to see the one you love fall

I *love* that they dont speak here. She looks to the side, shifting her glances before looking at him.

An unspoken guilt ridden apology.

The response he chooses?

forgiveness,

Even if the result of her actions hurt him- her intentions were good and meant to be entirely in favor of him

And in this moment, with their current history and with a yet to be seen future, he forgives her,

Cause at the very least, they're together again. He could save her.

And her look just, screams thank you to me.

Thank you for forgiving me, saving me-

for everything :) /ref

lighthearted preparation for whats to come :)

legitimately, what she says, reiterating herself "die mad bitch"

knowing theyre heading into the end of the world to prevent it?? Theyre going off to the fucking trenches together, key word this time being together

And then the horrible unexpected !

Uzi is ripped away from N, confronted with what her home has become, the universe is practically screaming at her to fix it, pushing her towards the end without mercy

But shes not doing it alone, she cant do it alone, not again, not this time

And he wouldnt let her

The universe could endlessly attempt to wield its cosmic grasp to push these two apart but itd never work, itd never end with them alone

Their love- their pure devotion to each other,

is so celestial in its own right

Not super related to my ramble but i love that in them becoming official (I will not call this a confession, N definitely confessed the previous episode)

Uzis so.. wagh.. her eyes.

That trademark look of panic or worry- I mean what would you expect from the black sheep of the colony? Being excluded on the daily, left to your own abandoned devices?? The reassurance she was requesting just, ughh.. my heart...

and the way. He fucking looks at her

Its so, soft. He knows she has not a thing to worry about. His heart is completely and utterly hers. Where most would die for their love, he lives for her.

The universe would be dammed to ever try and separate pure unbridled love like this ever again

ERM< ANYWAY that was super gay ew idk why im like. obsessed with their relatinshuio ahhajfhdgjbsjhfm someone blow me up

[isagrimorie]

I've been rewatching Lauren -- it might be because the scene is uncomfortable and I glide through it but:

I can't believe I missed this.

Ian Doyle flat-out said Emily has killed innocents before I knew she did shady stuff, 'cause she was undercover and worked as a spy -- Spies are inherently shady.

But to have it confirmed, canonically, that to keep her undercover -- to convince Ian Doyle that she's one of them, an arms dealer, a criminal she had to. Someone who is as morally flexible as he was.

It goes back to Retaliation:

"Explains his behavior, too. A good guy doing bad things."

And then we see a hint of how she operated as Lauren Reynolds--

Doyle: What are you thinking?

Liam: Woman first, then the goateed fella. And then Fahey if he has a shot. If not, he'll shut up.

This was the moment Emily Prentiss made the cold calculation to sacrifice Fahey just to keep her team safe.

Judging from Doyle's reaction...

This is what Emily Prentiss, terrorist profiler, and Spook as 'Lauren Reynolds' is great at -- cold calculation and pragmatism.

This is why Prentiss wanted, desperately to be part of the BAU because their goals are clear.

[noecoded]

ok..view my yuri boy

[shaylogic]

Is he doing the teenage girl thing of "sigh can't wait for that handsome guy to burst in and fight my mom for me and whisk me away!"

Do you think he daydreamed these things all day long perched on that stool?

[enquiringangel]

Thinking random thoughts about the filmmakers’ decision not to give any of the vampires explicit backstories in The Lost Boys and the show vs. tell element of storytelling:

- They wanted the viewer to be drawn in by the vampires but to ultimately not root for them. A futle endeavour of course, but that was the intent imho. Joel Schumacher went out of his way to add the beach massacre because he thought audiences would like the vampires too much - AND HE WAS CORRECT lol

- They also wanted to keep up the mystery. The way the film is shot during the attack scenes through vampire POV is intended to keep a distance and build suspense. The vampires are meant to be something Other, and knowing too much about them would go against this.

Marko and Paul have barely any dialogue. The only reason people know Dwayne’s name is because of the credits. Joel himself points out that David has the least amount of dialogue of the three main characters (which he considered as Michael, Star and David, despite the meagre size of Star’s role). This is again, done deliberately for the cool guy mystique

- We do get glimpses of backstory and characterisation through costuming, setpieces and (less so) through dialogue. David implying that he was familiar with the hotel before the 1906 earthquake is about as subtle as a brick to the face.

So yes, deliberate storytelling decisions there. I quite like it, it gives a lot of creative freedom. But I do understand the frustration too. As I always say:

This is why we have fanfic.

[moonmothbroth]

It haunts me how it was confirmed that logia users should, theoretically, be losing their clothes whenever they turn into their element but the clothes stay to avoid nudity censorship issues. Please,,,i beg,,,let me have Ace and Smoker with their clothes falling off

[jacqcrisis]

Found a fic with this in the summary: "WARNING: AI Generated, this started as a way to satisfy my own prompt without spending months. W/o AI, this would have been abandoned."

And... I could not fucking imagine using AI to finish a WIP for me. No AI could write the fuckass way I do, focus on the weird, innocuous shit I do, over-describe meaningless details I find important like I do. There's not a reality where I would put a WIP into an AI and find the end result anything less than more disappointing than something written by my own brain. Even at my worst, an AI could not meaningfully fulfill my expectations for a WIP on the verge of abandonment to save it from being left to gather dust in my documents folder.

There's a story I want to tell, in the way only I can tell it, focusing on and expounding upon the details I have decided are relevant and necessary. An AI could not and cannot take the core conceit of what I want out of a work and make it the exact way that I want it with my thoughts and needs and ideas transposed into something meaningful and conveying the emotions I want the reader to know and to feel. I don't want a machine to finish my works in a way I know it can't just like I don't want to read something made by a machine that cannot replicate the way a person makes art: with their own flourishes, mistakes, and voice.

If the work in progress is going to be abandoned unless you use AI to fill the parts you couldn't, then abandoned it should be.

[sepdet]

thank you for your tags on the anhedonia post! reading that van gogh was adapting other mediums' techniques for his painting style was cool, especially bc it really helps ground how and why his style was so unique. <3

i got to see two of his paintings in person the first time i went to moma, pls enjoy the pictures i took of them:

Great photos! i'm regretting not taking good ones when I went to the Met last year, although I took a lot of details, figuring there's good overall reproductions online.

For example, I took a photo with the label (as I often do in museums) just to remind myself it's The Olive Trees, but mostly focused on closeups and oblique angles that show brushstrokes in relief:

I think it was the first lecture on this playlist that alerted me to van Gogh's ink drawings. That's how he started as an artist, with pencil, pen and ink, and charcoal studies, sometimes adding watercolor.

After that I began looking up "van Gogh ink drawings" online and on an app I use called Art Authority, from which I grabbed these two drawings from 1881 and 1883:

Sometimes van Gogh would do a pen and ink study before a painting, labeling what colors he planned to use. (Fishing Boats, 1889)

At other times, he would describe recently-finished paintings in letters to his brother Theo and draw a copy in pen and ink, as he did in this drawing of Starry Night:

He flirts with pointillism, too, but he didn't take to what Seurat was doing, placing different color dots side by side for certain light/color effects. Van Gogh was drawn to the energy of complementary colors, but colors meant and FELT something to him, so (I think) he couldn't be so detached in how he used them. I believe he was using hatching (parallel lines in rows) instead, or other forms of mark-making, which he had learned early on as a way to fill space with texture, indicate planes, and suggest energy and movement.

And just like Cezanne and Picasso and a lot of other very creative artists, he was always experimenting.... he doesn't always use the same techniques! So this doesn't apply to all his paintings, and often it's only in parts of each painting!

At any rate, there's quite a few lovely ink drawings by van Gogh that most people never see, and they helped me see his paintings in a new light.

PS I'm glad you don't find my going off on tangents in my #comments annoying; I often respond to a post by relating to something I understand, but in the process I can go wheeling off away from the original topic!

[tarysande]

There are a couple more Garrus-Vakarian-related hills I'm willing to die on.

Maybe this particular bit of fanon has faded over the years, but there used to be a lot of insistence that Garrus is young and somehow inexperienced when he meets Shepard. Canon doesn't really support this. Turians start their mandatory service at 15. Garrus has at least a decade of experience. Even if he's 2-4 of years younger than Shepard (according to Patrick Weekes), he's got at least as much field experience as she does by dint of the difference in turian and human "enlistment" ages.

Garrus is really damn good at his job at C-Sec. You don't give the Case of Investigating the Rogue Spectre to a greenhorn. You give it to your best, most tenacious agent. Pallin may not always approve of Garrus's actions, but that doesn't actually stop him from putting Garrus on the tough case. Also, we don't know much about how C-Sec works but we do know a bit about how the turian hierarchy works, and we know C-Sec was essentially a turian initiative. That means it's a meritocracy where failure reflects on the superior, not the one who failed. So, in roughly a decade (Shepard's 29 in ME1; I always think of Garrus as about 27), Garrus has not only done shipboard military service, but he's also risen to be one of C-Sec's top investigators; Pallin wouldn't risk having Garrus's "failure" reflect poorly on HIM otherwise. I'd say that actually makes Garrus as remarkable in civilian law enforcement terms as Shepard is considered to be within the ranks of the Alliance military.

Of course Garrus was scouted by the Spectre program. And honestly, if his dad hadn't stepped in, I think Garrus would have become a Spectre, no problem. Especially for a turian, he's cut from precisely the cloth the Spectres would be looking for: extremely skilled, extremely capable, and--most importantly--he's a turian not just able but willing to work outside the chains of command that turians are taught from birth to revere and be loyal to above all else. This is the reason Pallin is leery about Spectres: he's a good turian. Good turians follow straight lines; they don't carve out their own paths.

Garrus's dad's not dumb, and he's not cruel, and he, too, rose to the top of the C-Sec hierarchy. He took one look at his kid, I think, and said, "I love my child, but I'd say it's a 50-50 chance he ends up a shooting-first-asking-questions-later Spectre like Saren Arterius, and I don't want to see that happen." Yeah, he uses his parental influence to try and jam square-peg-Garrus into round-hole-C-Sec and Garrus resents him for it, but there's no way he did it just to stop his son from getting his way or because he doesn't like Spectres. I expect Vakarian Sr. had to clean up more post-Spectre-interference messes than we can possibly imagine. But we also know he and Alec Ryder were pals later.

So the importance of what Garrus learns from a Paragon Spectre Shepard is this: You can't just do what you want and claim the ends always justify the means. That's what Saren does. Over and over again. Garrus's code and his idealism and his sense of justice and his ability to work alone should make him a great Spectre, actually, but he needs Paragon Spectre Shepard's actions to show him the lesson he tells her he's learned during ME1: "If the people I'm sworn to protect can't trust me... well, then I don't deserve to be the one protecting them." (And the seed of Archangel was planted.) I think for the first time he realizes that even though he believes his sense of justice to be correct, it doesn't matter for shit if he can't show others why that's so. And that's where the trust comes in. (Also, ow, the extra level of importance this gives their exchange where she tells him she trusts him and he tells her she's about the only friend he has left is... a lot. Cool, cool. I'm totally fine. Nothing to see here.)

When Shepard asks him what happened on Omega, he replies, "My feelings got in the way of my better judgement." Something tells me that this never happens to "good" turians, which just makes the line so much more devastating. And although the lesson some might take away from this is "feelings bad; no feelings ever," the "grey" that Garrus has to learn to deal with is precisely the grey of recognizing feelings, validating them even, but not acting on them until they've been examined. (Which is why my Shepard stands between him and Sidonis; she doesn't give a shit about Sidonis. But Garrus has refused to process his own feelings of failure and self-loathing, so they have to take the therapy session to the Citadel and deal with it there.)

Ahh yes. The mountain range of character analysis.

[deathbycoldopen]

I find it funny that so many people have pointed out the hypocrisy of the Doctor avoiding guns and killing people but then sending them into the Torment Nexus or w/e, but then talk about it like it’s a flaw in the storytelling rather than a crucial part of the Doctor’s character?? Like… the point is that the Doctor drew an arbitrary line around a purely ontological rather than moral point. They have spent such a long time running from the fact that they are prone to making violent judgements and inflicting that violence on others. Which, because the doctor views themself (or wants to view themself) as a pacifist just traveling through, causes a huge cognitive dissonance that’s at the core of the Doctor’s character! They have to believe in that peaceful ideal or they’ll break down!! So they pretend that guns and death are the purest of evils when subjecting their enemies to the worst fate they can conceive of: living forever and alone, just like them.

[classic-coquette8495]

Me waiting for him to reply -`♡´-

[isagrimorie]

I wonder if I'm reading Agatha All Along wrong and it's really a tragedy.

Tragically, Alice breaks away from her generational curse only for her to die in the next trial. Sharon dying was sad but Alice? Alice dying just as she's coming into her own, and totally by accident?

Agatha really doesn't seem to have any measure of control but taking other people's power mechanically feels good to her -- like a drug. She can only stop when she's stopped or shaken out of it by an outside force.

Like, how awful it is to feel good at something that fuels so much death but fuels her power too.

She might even be addicted to the taking of power even though she hates that part of herself so bad.

And she's spent centuries proving her mother right.

It's so complicated too because it's so obvious that Agatha loves magick, loves witchcraft. But this love comes at the biggest cost.

No wonder Rio thought Agatha was the one keeping herself in the hex, Detective Agnes' life might be crap but at least it's not Agatha's life with her penchant for killing people with or without meaning too. A century of blood up and down the coast.

As Detective Agnes she can be the brooding hero she seems to wish she was. But she's not-- Agatha is like a Mikaelson -- she is so many other people's monster.

She wished she was Nicky's knight and shining armor but she couldn't even do the simple thing of protecting her own son.

No wonder Agatha hid from Rio for so long too.

Also, her inability to control her power siphoning must be killing Agatha who is all about taking control and owning her own agency.

Agatha is right back where she started, hated and alone with her powers taking and giving. And being thought off as the worst and so she does what she does best to protect herself. She becomes the monster they think she is.

That is grief on Agatha's face and regret.

She looks at her hand in recrimination but that doesn't last long because it's also tempered by the feeling of finally having some measure of power back.

But at what cost?

Teen confronts her about it-- and she tries to explain but three centuries in, she's never found the words or a way to explain that she DOESN'T HAVE CONTROL.

But before Agatha can explain Jen cuts her off -- a lifetime and three of doubt and suspicion? That's not easily erased overnight. And again you can see Agatha rebuild her armor but it's the Teen who helps Agatha shut the door.

It's the Teen's hypocrisy that gets to Agatha-- she gets lying but being so self-righteous?

No, Agatha's not willing to ride that train.

And this is where Agatha fully rebuilds her wall. She's not going to take this game anymore, especially not from Wanda's son.

(Who Agatha does care for but also, fuck you.)

Teen hurt her and now she's lashing back and being cruel and taunting.

Don't taunt the spirits.

Agatha taunted the spirits. And then Billy lashed out in return.

Also, Teen hates it when people call him Familiar and Pet. This is when he really lashed out.

Because...

You should see him in a crown...

(Witches in MCU remind me so much of French Quarter Witches in The Originals-- born with blood in their hands).