#which is another level entirely

[trans-pickles]

To clarify, this post isn't about the misconception thrown around by clickbait online listicles that "Peter kills the Lost Boys when they get too old"*. Any real horror that comes from the story, IMO, is about Peter as a VICTIM. His very existence is a tragedy.

Peter, like a lot of mythological fairies and fae folk on which he's based, is stuck in a sort of eternal childhood not just of body, but of mind. While to another child this would obviously be a dream come true it becomes VERY clear over the course of the story that he's deeply suffering under the surface. Peter Pan was written partially as a critique on Victorian and Edwardian ideas about childhood innocence. JM Barrie, when describing some of the fundamental traits of children, calls them gay, innocent, and heartless. Peter being morally grey is text, not subtext.

I'm not saying a more adult-oriented retelling shouldn't exist, I'm a grown-ass man who still loves this very story. But shouldn't it touch on a topic less shallow?

You exist in a state of eternal play. No parents to tell you what to do - or take care of you. You have all the friends you want, until they start to grow up, and you stay the same, no matter what you do, and you don't know why. Finally one day you bring home a "mother" who isn't a grown up, and it's so much fun! It's amazing! But she starts getting scared because she's forgetting things, forgetting the way her own mother looked (her real, grown-up mother, the thing you never had, the thing you hate and want most of all), so she leaves you, and you let her go, because you have to. And maybe she comes back, but every year she's more and more different until suddenly, you don't know her anymore. But that doesn't matter, because she has another little girl, so you can have another mother, so why not start again?

And you do. And thus it will go on. As long as children are gay, and innocent, and heartless.

* That's basically a throwaway line that he tells Wendy as a sort of brag, and imo I think we're supposed to take it with a grain of salt, since Peter is established to be a habitual liar and mis-rememberer of events, especially when he thinks it might make him look cool. The Lost Boys we meet in the original 1911 novel go home with the Darling children and are adopted into the family, something which you might not know if you only saw the Disney movie, so we know they aren't "actually dead and Neverland is heaven" and Peter didn't kill them after the Darlings left. In the official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet (yes there is a canon sequel, it was written in 2006 by Geraldine McCaughrean after she won a contest put forward by Great Ormond Street Hospital, the owners of the Peter Pan IP, it's amazing and everyone should read it right now) we actually meet some of the OTHER Lost Boys who were banished by peter for "growing up" and are still stuck in Neverland, and they still know Wendy (she comes back every year for the spring cleaning until Peter just... forgets about her). So there's no real evidence that Peter really did kill any of the Lost Boys, and in fact more evidence to the contrary - the closest we see him come to that is when he believes Tootles has accidentally shot and killed Wendy. When it's revealed that Wendy is fine, Tootles is forgiven entirely.

you don't need to write a dark deconstruction of Peter Pan where he's willing to kill people and his state of eternal childhood makes him morally ambiguous, JM Barrie already wrote one and it's called Peter Pan

[shirecorn]

Tumblr keeps popping up to sell me ad free dashboard. But what it doesn't understand is that me and the ads have a sort of symbiosis at this point.

The guys from the fake gameplay trailers for a predatory mobile app are my blorbos

[joshuaalbert]

kai winn’s relationship to religion really is just so interesting to me in a way I come back to sometimes like. she’s the leader of a faith and her gods will not speak to her. they will speak to other people in front of her and they will make a human from a society that did not interfere with her planet’s suffering their emissary but they will not speak to her. and I’m sure she can do a lot to justify it in her mind because she would have to be able to in order to keep any faith, and she has to keep her faith because she says herself that’s all she had in the camps, but that’s still a terrible thing to experience. and I’m sure a lot of people would argue that it’s not real faith, it’s ambition, but I think it’s some of both, and most importantly I think on the most immediate levels she believes it’s faith.

and like I think she and a lot of other bajorans have a reason to have a really complicated relationship with the prophets because the more demonstrably real and powerful they are, the more they’re willing to interfere in things like the dominion war, the harder it would be for a lot of people to justify to themselves why the prophets didn’t do anything to stop the genocide of their chosen people. I think the pah wraiths plotline ultimately fell kind of flat when it kind of boiled down to “dukat’s weird cult” and it was also a victim of the season’s pacing issues, but it has some interesting implications regarding this divide in the bajoran people, particularly when their religious leader’s faith is being so seriously called into question.

[tinyclowndancer]

pspspsps porretta besties from the dark place who refused to bring this song to its end here's a little something for you. 🎙️

[shittywriterbrain]

when you realise that both odysseus and medea are manipulating, deceiving characters who are way too smart for their own good but are overcome by anger, pride and jealousy which leads them to commit horrendous acts of violence. and then odysseus is the hero and medea is the bitch

[dykedvonte]

I think the most baffling thing about the Tulpar as a vessel to me is the fact that the ship really did only have a one way communication system.

I know it was cheap but even the most basic of vessels regarding major transport would have some way, shape or form for outside communication. Not only that but there was absolutely no form of innate emergency signal to show they may have been offline or in trouble despite clearly having a system to dock credits if they went off course. It's another factor that really shows that bad situations are made to get worse by design. One person who is required to relay all information to the crew and make all the choices without feedback. No way to update or call for help in case of a dire situation. No way to inform of inner personal conflicts and acquire procedures accordingly.

It really is like they are all in some sort of fucked up solitary confinement. They have their own world with strict roles that are meaningless in the end, as long as the cargo makes it, it doesn't matter what happens on that ship to the company. They don't want to hear anything and will come to conclusions on what happened based on how much pay they can withhold from the workers. Even what they do send is short, sterile and corporate to the extent it was likely written and sent out with a command by some random unmanned computer in an office.

There's something to be said about how unfair it is to force absolute power and control onto one person when you as an entity could do so much more to offload it but I've said it many times before so I won't again.

[bonestrouslingbones]

i now understand the anger people describe when they see other folks just going about their lives entirely unaffected by disasters

[carnivalls]

good morning. thinking again of juve and her dog

[goldentriowins]

Thinking about how the fandom at large treats Hermione and her relationships with Harry & Ron, and how people act like she’s obligated to get with either of them. It feels very misogynistic to be like “Hermione HAS to get with Harry/Ron/some other guy in the end!!!” I know I can’t stop shipping debates, especially not with “well what if she got with no one” but one can dream I guess

[anendoandfriendo]

"Fuck your online discourse" actually, no, we do think the halloween DID flag shouldn't be used but it's not because of some bullshit like "waah it's just a recolor" it's because the system that created that flag is a huge fucking racist and ableist last we checked, and we never saw ant kind of apology for being racist and ableist to endogenic systems. We never saw them stop being anti-endogenic or anti-Black (because let's be honest, Black endogenic systems specifically would be the ones most affected and hurt by this).

Like, we know people have forgotten by now, but we were THERE just before TPA became a thing, when systems like The Entropy System were fully mask-off in their bigotry (we call anti-endogenics facsists because of the personal experience of having the not-pleasure of seeing shit like the above link lmao), and such other things. We used to be very visible on Twitter as an endogenic system who's seen this shit but it was kind of taking over 99% of our focus when we were working retail instead of working at home, so we ended up tapering it away.

[rxttenfish]

Is there even any infrastructure for humans visiting merfolk underwater settlements? Or are they too deep for humans to comfortably dive/swim in? Or maybe the merfolk just say, "of course we don't have any support for you under several hundred feet of water. literally why would you even try?"

there's not any infrastructure for human (or any other sophont besides gorgons that already live there, anyhow) visitation! mostly that's because this is a bit of a first contact situation, albeit one that was born more out of political isolationism and not necessarily caring about the land-based sophonts...

basically, the current political entity overseeing all existing or known merfolk settlement is a fairly old one, that slowly grew from a smaller polity into a more all-encompassing unit by swallowing up its neighbors. it's more of a complicated shell game than this necessarily makes it seem - like i said, a lot of time has passed, and significant cultural shifts have happened within that time, as well as shifts and establishment on how its government and policies would function, so it's a little bit more of a larger conglomerate containing within it many smaller governments, who are allowed independent control of the populations within their allotted territories, just so long as they take up the job of translating the broader governmental laws and taxes down onto that population. the details are rather vague, and so long as the results are what the larger governmental body asked, the intermediary areas are allowed a lot of different ways to interpret what that means.

however, one of the things that got lost in that shuffle of politic and history was the presence of merfolk inland. historically, merfolk have actually periodically spent time inland! usually it was still very tied to the water, being more like seasonal beachcombing using temporary shelters and housing, but they utilized the land a lot more for potential resources and ways to live. the nomadic families especially used to take advantage of these opportunities, and there was much more interaction with landfolk in these contexts.

the exact way it was lost varies, in that not everyone agrees what came first or what was the reason or who did what, but most of this was probably limited and then lost due to the larger governmental body, in the process of colonization, banning merfolk from going up onto the land in order to prevent political enemies and refugees from fleeing up and onto the land, using it as a base of operations, or otherwise using it as a means to escape to other bodies of saltwater. like i said, these periods inland were mostly seasonal, and merfolk did still majorly depend on the water, so what merfolk did make settlements inland mostly ended up vanishing over time anyways - either through simply vanishing into landfolk populations, or through dying out, it wasn't particularly sustainable.

but, time still went on, and this ban remained, and somehow it slowly disseminated into popular thought that the land was just not really very interesting in the first place. sure, merfolk knew there was stuff up there, and other animals and even fairly smart animals, but that doesn't necessarily make it worth investigating. travel over land is hard for them, and it's hard for them to live on land for long periods of time, and everything that they need and depend on is in the ocean anyways. there's a lot less space to the land, there's nothing that would interest merfolk, it would be uncomfortable and painful for them to visit (a lot of myths and legends about the land and what lived there got started in this time, with a lot of focus on undead monsters that had dried out and were lit from within by the hateful light of the sun, and a lot of merfolk made a habit of coming up with scary stories about the weird things that must've lived in such an extreme environment), and there was a lot more political movements and such focused on other merfolk to begin with.

even moreso because merfolk still, technically, did go out onto land? it just wasn't very large portions of land, that is. mostly they would set up on much smaller islands and atolls, which would mostly be used for manufacturing or more technical jobs that required being done in the air. they really just needed the space, not anything specific already on the land itself, and the space was all functional, very little exploration or relaxation areas. sometimes these were used specifically to produce novelty items or experiences, but usually this didn't go much further than exploring the uniqueness of being in open air for the first time, and wasn't really pursued as much more than that.

so merfolk still knew the land was important and needed for ecological functioning - something they had learned the hard way, after an earlier period in their history pre-unifying government became known for a particular and acute ecological disaster, felt even harder by all merfolk on account of the properties of water and everyone living in the ocean. they view the land as functional in its own right - a needed recycling facility that operates itself and helps keep them alive, and one in a place that they had no interest in and could set aside for such tasks.

they also knew there was life up there, even intelligent life, but considering the period in time when merfolk ceased interacting with land-based societies, and the predominant view that what makes something sapient for them being a multiplicity and plural nature to it, on top of the complex interweave of language and meaning, they basically just viewed it as "smart animals". i've compared it before to like if we actually discovered warrior cats was real and there was a population of feral cats in a national park that had their own tiny society. it's interesting, for sure, but it wouldn't be the kind of thing that they might feel too passionately about, and can easily pass it off as a curiosity and a thought experiment all of its own.

the fact that this has changed at all, and especially in such a small time frame and with such major turnaround and abrupt interest in the outer governing body is actually really odd, and a major question and mystery in what i'm writing! the starting interest happened only just in the previous generation, and now they're making major steps towards introducing themselves to land-based civilizations in just miranda's generation, even to the point of sending her inland as an ambassador and an active participant in this shift.

most people on the land already knew that someone was in the ocean and actively preventing anyone else from crossing it or even getting particularly close, but they had no context for this any more than anyone else, and thus they might not raise as many questions about why this is happening than they should, especially since they don't know merfolk history. even most merfolk don't necessarily have all of the details of this shift, but they do know more than nothing, and certainly can note how odd it is and how weird such a change is.

likewise, neither civilization has very much to accommodate for the other, given as they barely even knew of each other by the time they were already designing how it was laid out, so the issues humans have accessing merfolk spaces is at least mutual, if nothing else. it's also something very likely to change over time, depending on how said first contact goes.

[orcelito]

I'm at the painful "confession" scene during the kage summit arc. It really is so emotional, but also... hm.

When I was younger, like 13 or so, I was a big Sakura and Naruto shipper. They were the first pairing I read fanfic for even. And in a way, I do still enjoy the two of them together... but it's moments like these that really drive home the fact that it Doesn't really work in canon. Not the way that it's set up.

As Sakura puts it, "Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke! That's all you think about!"

She's told that Naruto has feelings for her and decides to use it to convince him to stop going after Sasuke. She does love him, but not in the way she's trying to confess. The love they share is one of comradery, not necessarily romantic. The love of two people who have gone through such pain together, and who have leaned on each other throughout it all. And the fact that she's turning around and saying she loves him "simply like everyone else", now... it's trivializing. And the fact that she's trying to convince him of this, the fact that she thinks she Can convince him of this, is pretty hurtful. They've come a long way from when they were kids, Naruto the goofball vying for her attention while she yelled at him for being stupid. Sakura respects Naruto so much more than before, and Naruto respects her too. So the fact that she's still doing this... She's desperate, really. She thinks the promise he made to her to bring Sasuke home is what's driving him to let himself be hurt over and over and over again in the pursuit and protection of Sasuke.

But she's wrong.

That may be part of it, but it's only part. Naruto wants Sasuke back for himself, too. He let himself be beat up to avoid selling him out. He chases after him with single minded determination. Sasuke is his entire drive to get stronger, to catch up, to bring him home. Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke indeed.

As it is, Naruto knows she's lying to herself. And no matter what she says, he will keep going after Sasuke. Because that's just the person that Naruto is.

[wizardofarles]

Survivor (Victim)

Did I survive? I breathe, I think,

but am I alive?

I did not overcome—I failed,

gave in, gave up.

I never fought, and never won.

I slayed no demons—I couldn’t

face them. I left

the door wide open, let them in, let them

change me, erase

me,

bury me cold,

six feet under their monstrous weight,

I laid down and was grateful

for the rest and how they allowed me to

hide. I closed my eyes,

but my mouth like a wound remains

open, waiting

for the right moment—for the right

words—to scream, waiting

for caring hands

to claw through the earth and tear my body

free—

waiting always, always choking

on the dirt that fills my lungs,

as countless bright full summers

pass above. Is this breathing?

Is this living? I fear I’m just a ghost,

a whisper

of what could have been, what once was

—tethered to this place

by a thin thread—

You have not found my corpse.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Apparently I can meet my goal of roughly 400,000 words in 6 months if I just somehow write at least 2,200 words a day ghbjh... Almost 2,500 today... huzzah...

[deus-ex-mona]

goodxnight guys~~~

[sunlightfeeling]

I genuinely feel like I dont have a right at all to complain or talk negative about Japanese fans but like……..the evident cliqueish-ness of honestly what looks like a very unfortunate larger chunk of them ……😮‍💨

like i gotta be honest the concert was a lot more isolating than it actually already was in itself because of the vibes at least a couple of clusters of fans gave me