#yeah no i'm not normal about him either now

[fairandfatalasfair]

#i always think about how edwin came back to a VERY changed world. with nothing to come back to#but charles has had to WATCH life go on as normal and change without him#of course edwin adapted easier#(I'm not saying it wasn't hard or without it's own difficulties!!)#the world of the living was never kind to him#and he didn't spend 70 years trying to get out of hell to then give up because of how things have changed#and yeah life wasn't kind to charles either#but there was the good that he did appreciate#and i imagine he probably had hope that he could eventually get away from it all and live a better life!!#but it got stolen from him#and now he gets to watch as it slips away#and of course he didn't even process the actual trauma of it!#he just put on a smile and kept going through it#of course he's upset#he loves edwin and he knows he's the best thing that's happened to him#but that doesn't mean he can't mourn himself too#sorry rambling!#but this post hit me like a truck op <3

(tags via fear0phobia)

idk, I think the difference between Charles and Edwin is that Edwin's world changed very quickly and Charles could see his world slip away. Edwin came back seventy years later and everything had changed so dramatically that he knew that he couldn't go home. But Charles spent decades watching his familiar world change around him and his desire to be alive reads as nostalgia and a desire to go back to a world he knew almost as much as not liking his existence as a ghost or anger about being murdered.

[beanarie]

of course 3/3

1/3

2/3

in which tommy finally admits he should maybe see a therapist.

thanks again to @mooshkat for the original concept

(tw: heart problems, hospitalization, self loathing)

~

Bobby is the next to show up.

"Hi," he says, disconcertingly tall as he stands over Tommy's bed with a small tupperware. "I figured you can't have anything we would normally bring for someone stuck here, but there's this recipe I liked after my heart attack. It's just chickpeas tossed with olive oil and a bit of curry powder."

"That's very thoughtful," Tommy says, touched and confused. He starts tucking in immediately. The food here could be worse, but he never has much appetite when he's unwell. Maybe eating something will make the nurses frown less often. They're very frowny in this unit. Makes sense, as they probably have the highest proportion of deaths in the building, but it's shit for patient morale.

Bobby's still standing, so Tommy tilts his head at the chair and continues eating.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, once Tommy has left the now half-empty container on his tray table.

"Fine? Tired, mostly." Which is probably for the best when he's only allowed on his feet for a few minutes a day. All the napping doesn't leave time to develop cabin fever. "You?"

"I'm good. A little concerned."

Shit. So he's just jumping right in. Tommy works on his breathing. "Oh?"

Bobby nods. "Buck is getting released in the next few hours. He'll probably be up here as soon as they hand over the discharge summary."

Tommy doesn't eye the monitors, but he has a brief fantasy about ripping the leads out and smashing everything on the ground. It's been a long time since he's felt this exposed for this long. "That's good."

Bobby puts his hands on the armrests of the chair. "Hen seems to think you don't want to see him, which is interesting since Buck is behaving like you're pretty much back together."

Keep him away. Do it so I don't have to see his face. "I- I'm-"

Bobby looks at him like he's a spooked horse. "I'm not just here for him, okay? I wanna help you get clarity on what you're actually looking for before it blows up in both your faces again."

It's such a brazen offer Tommy can't help but laugh. "You're welcome to try?"

Bobby smiles a little. "Kid's got a heart the size of Alaska, but he's like the La Brea tar pits. Once you're in, that's all she wrote. It's fine, though, great even. If that's your choice."

Tommy tilts his head, reconciling this man with the friendly, new in town captain who had a veil behind his eyes. In the last eight years, everyone at the 118 figured out how to open a vein for each other, and here's Tommy. Out, flying, and only able to meet his own eyes in the mirror half the time. "What if I'm a bomb," he asks. "Or... whatever destroys tar."

"You wanna stay that way?" Bobby presses gently.

Tommy rubs at the side of his neck. "I'd be a monster and an idiot if I said yes, wouldn't I?"

Bobby spreads his hands. "There's no relationship jail, Tommy. Doesn't matter to me if you're either or both those things. All I ask is that you keep it away from people I care about."

"No. It's-" Tommy shifts his gaze, his vision blurring. "It's not who I want to be. But it's not that easy, Bobby."

"Didn't say easy. Didn't even imply it." Bobby moves a box of tissues from the nightstand to the tray table. "You're no stranger to tackling something hard because you thought it would be worth the effort. Maybe give yourself a little credit."

There are oval-shaped bruises in a roughly circular pattern on Evan's forearm, resembling a school of fish. Those weren't there after the crash. Tommy flexes his right hand, which has been stiff and sore for no apparent reason. "I did that," he says.

"Yeah?" Evan frowns in confusion. "You were suffocating. It wasn't on purpose."

It can be an omen if Tommy lets it.

"Tommy?" Evan says.

Omens are stupid. "Hm?"

Evan fidgets with his free hand, pulling at the edge of his sling. "You said of course you love me, like it was easy. Like it was a given. People don't- haven't said it like that."

"How did they say it?"

"Like they were surprised. Like it was the last thing they could've expected."

"I knew it was a possibility the first time I kissed you," Tommy says, tired of choosing between truths.

He looks up. "You did?"

"Evan," Tommy sighs, "you're the fucking sun."

His beautiful eyes widen and get wet at the corners. "I didn't want to say it when- when you were dying in my arms. I wanted- needed to believe that I'd get another chance. But I love you, too."

Tommy is so grateful this conversation is taking place today, when he's recovered enough to not cause an international incident every time he does anything more stressful than looking at the color green. The specter of the alarm still looms, but he's done okay so far. "I might not have heard you, if you had said it then." Tommy gestures at his chest. "The wheezing, it was very loud."

"You heard some things, though? It felt like you- you were reacting."

"Yes, Evan. You kept me going."

Evan beams. Tommy aches from the inside like someone sprinkled salt in his IV bag.

"I need," he warns, "so much therapy."

Evan shifts forward in his seat, grunting softly in pain. "I can get you some recommendations."

"Of course you can." Tommy smiles.

Evan is inches away, practically falling out of the chair. "Can I touch you?"

"Do you have the slightest idea how many medications I'm on right now?"

He ducks his head and laughs. "You know that's not what I meant."

"Oh, well, show me what you m-"

Evan lays his free hand on the side of Tommy's face. He leans forward and presses their foreheads together. "I'm so proud of you," he whispers. "I asked you not to run, and you stayed."

Right after the alarm goes off, Tommy pulls away just far enough to capture Evan's mouth with his own.

[mossyflowers]

Jesus christ that second Gabriel fight

[unproduciblesmackdown]

among the boundless billions zaniness like laugh track as it definitely has that moment of expressing "rolling my eyes as The Left makes a kerfuffle of Acting like they have a stance as a veneer over the true belief that [xyz] is cool & chill actually" like what, approximate 0.000% chance wendy isn't, as usual, given the Objective Stance of "yeah yeah ohh we are cancelling involved parties talking about how we Don't watch this But. we all love this damn epic movie & already have it memorized so shut the fuck up, kids today" like. don't wanna really delve into how much billions thinks taylor or anyone is "really" trans / nonbinary like not too much benefit of the doubt in this material including what does provide info abt that specifically

& the general like [head in hands. what do you think any of this could possibly be about (you're the one that made your show at all about Power)] of "yes, it's bad/wrong to be someone that someone has done something to / victim of something" like that to be anti misogyny All Women Must Be Epic Winners b/c there's something to be proved: that they don't Deserve to be victims (of misogyny), not taken as a Given. while when we see some epic winner men stepping on other men (who need not all be guaranteed Winners so as to say misogyny is wrong), that's often Good, well beyond any assumption that various forms of basic disrespect / violation / patterns of emergent/entrenched power difference as Bad (for being things done to people, not for there being people they're being done to), & generally billions has to take an extra step when ppl get shitted on & tell us the Specific Cases when it was undeserved actually & someone was being mean to a specific person who didn't deserve that. & the specific cases when hey guess it wasn't that bad(tm) or when hey It's Okay that you're someone something was done to, in this case. & tell us what we were supposed to know all along like when someone who something was being done to (wrong Of Them, whether b/c they inherently deserve it no matter what, &/or b/c they failed to be someone who could make it Impossible to do anything to them, which, how do you do that besides being The Authority / Superior yourself, exactly? nonrhetorically? what if the in group vs out group / fascism / authoritarianism protected Me?) was actually being treated Too Well b/c ah well the abuse meant you were getting any attention, maybe it meant you were claimed as any superior's property, maybe it meant you weren't Already disposed of, as all Losers were in the end, You're Welcome.

obviously referring to winston where it's spelled out all the abuse towards him was deserved, & More than he deserved in the case of rian having more access & taking advantage of that, all for billions' enjoying its own sendoff there of, again, maximizing violation & violence short of [real violence is physical & leaves bruises / draws blood / Literally kills] which would be distasteful in general But doesn't it make wags look like the winner & winston the loser is that the former's completely unrelated completely impersonal ego blow gets way amplified taken out on winston, the most vulnerable recurring character when spyros as [first & ultimate Everyone Hates Him role] is more entrenched in there & billions still magnanimously pities tuk, as it does winston too, just not quite as much. again that like completely surface level realized power fantasy of forcing the mirror up to the Inferior so they're like nooo my inferiorityyyy & in doing so like, the projection in that lmao, we get it re: the valuing of & need(tm) for such Power Tripping & Reaffirming My Superiority & My Ego Restored; Everyone Claps like good god. & then for all ben & tuk are the slightly softer Two Too Nice Boys duo to the rian & winston quant duo, also like too nice i guess but not as much, ben is in charge of tuk but Any instance of rian being in charge of winston outstrips them in that "yay interpersonal abuse" dynamic, like then in the end billions may be like "yeah it's possible to be mean to them unlike how being mean to winston is actually Nice b/c he deserves everything he gets, we only vicariously enjoy it vs Feeling Bad for tuk & ben sometimes (still magnanimously & it's Not That Bad / just goofin)" like ben & tuk still Fail by not being people it's impossible to do anything to. & not Exceptions who anyone is really being Too Mean to. like if they were women, in which case, no problem surely with a "positive" kind of victim blaming where there is something Inherent that Will be victimized so hey how about to cancel that out there's this special Paternal Protection you Need always, Or Else? :) but instead they are men who are asian & is ben gay & w/tuk & winston nobody mentions glasses or fatness but billions doesn't really do much or very in depth textual mentioning of Anything, even w/nonzero mention that there may be gender & race in this world. a gay man, once. no disability. we just Know who are the inferiors who deserve it when they're treated inferiorly, or if they don't, they start deserving it when they fail to stop/avoid it, but if you start mentioning the factors behind who we all totally agree is inferior like whoa nobody was Saying any of that? being the real agent of oppression on the basis of the factors only You spelled out, much? nonbinary? i never say anything about the Gender Binary when i'm subscribing to it, sounds like You've created & enforced it. obfuscation & deflection onto [so Just Normal nobody has to label, explain, or argue it] couldn't serve a purpose & protect the existing power differences as they are. maybe You're the problem? perhaps you brought it upon yourself & now you're causing too much trouble standing up for yourself while everyone else's criticism is laser focused on you as the prior & continuing negative actions done to you are taken as a given / unquestioned / covertly protected to overtly encouraged?

anyway so wild if the Completely Normal(tm) Victim Blaming is uncritically recreated & oft embraced for "if you're watching this & don't wish you were axe / find him appealing" [billions as a sequence of vicarious power trips] purposes in this series....but a bit wild considering like this is your multiseason show that wasn't just purporting to be those power trips for [enough demographic & apparently specific personal tastes overlap w/creators] & was at all purporting to question the matters of power at play in the material, or yknow, at least to not be completely superficial material while said material is textually & thematically all about power difference being leveraged, how, the consequences, & so on. thus i will have to intermittently talk about it forever like this like lord unbelievable. & the funny little & sometimes less funny less little characters it has trapped in there so that those of us who were never meant to be in the audience can be cursed with this knowledge. like i have some feedback. "imagine not victim blaming" & "imagine adjusting your perspective can go beyond superficial layers added to politely defer to some other ppl while they're present but really like cmon do they deserve that. am i not just saying what we're allll thinking"

[pa-pa-plasma]

i don't think i'll ever get over how people treat kids that aren't good in school as worthless no matter what. "oh it can't be that bad" my guy idk how to tell you this but the last time i went to a normal high school the principal called me into his office to brag about how he failed me in all of my classes before the semester was even finished & i should quit while i'm ahead cuz i'm too stupid ("officially" diagnosed as such by a school counselor & a psychiatrist!!) to succeed. & this is considered normal

[vv-ispy]

for every degree of Being Normal about Venti I promise behind it there is a hundred more suppressed Being Normal about nb

[airenyah]

ok so today i had my first thai class after a really long christmas break and somehow andreas gabalier (an austrian folk singer) and his music came up. and i don't remember what exactly my teacher said but he made a comment along the lines of "andreas gabalier is considered a standard good looking dude here in austria, right?" (my teacher is from thailand, so he wasn't sure about austrian people's preferences)

and his question was met with complete silence, because the thing is... our class consists of 3 middle aged guys plus one more guy in his mid 30s. and then there's me. the only girl

and since no one answered the question about andreas gabalier's looks, our teacher then addressed me directly and following conversation ensued:

teacher: "[airenyah]?" me: (feeling slightly shy and embarrassed) ".....i don't know what andreas gabalier looks like 🙈" everyone: (breaks out in laughter) middle-aged classmate: (highly amused) "i suspect he's not your type..." (me: "oh 🙈") "you're not missing out on anything :D"

i really like my teacher but god, let me live. don't put me on the spot like that 😩😩😩

[fluffishere]

Me when I analyze my favorite media, and something new clicks, and I love it even more than I already did:

[adore-gregor]

😶‍🌫️

[bpdamandayoung]

my father told me i'm like him i'm gonna rip my hair out pull out my teeth rip out my internal organs and throw them against the wall to see what sticks

[moinsbienquekaworu]

If there's a thing I'm happy about it's that I'm an eldest daughter but not an Eldest Daughter. I had reasonable good parents and therefore I have never had to do any parenting. Thank you mom and dad

[soulsxng]

Me: Swivels, I feel like you should be on the "I can make them worse" list, but like...

Sivel: I would happily do all of the "bad" actions myself. Why would I let anyone that I love dirty their hands dealing with it themselves? Absolutely not.

Me: Which is why I'm conflicted!

[nanaarchy]

Hey. So. Reblogging this post again. I may or may not have spent the night doing... research.

Here's a list of every canonical Mr. Lancer fact.

And yes, I did re-watch the show for this. And re-read the comics.

No canonical first name. He's just Mr Lancer. Surname comes from a café near Nickelodeon HQ.

Crossdresses for fun, and then uses a photo on his desk of him crossdressing as emotional blackmail. Wore a red wig and a pink sparkly dress.

Owns a green tuxedo suit with a blue undershirt that he wears for prom events. Honestly pretty cute.

Huge fan of Shakespeare, and organizes the Casper High theater performances. Quotes plays a lot. Thinks Danny is a surprisingly good actor (when given a script. Danny can't improvise for the half-life of him).

Has both striped-pink and Shakespeare-themed underwear.

Super close to Jazz. She trusts him more than any other teacher, and he supported her every step of her education. She comes to him to talk about Danny. 10/10

"Ahh, everybody's mood has lifted, as though some gloomy malevolence has been shooed away. Your disappearing act worked marvelously," is an actual quote from the show. He unironically talks like this.

Despite being bald, he’s so hairy it's concerning. So much back hair. Shaves constantly.

Good friends (and silly rivals) with Tetslaff.

Has a Casper High Ravens coffee mug.

The staff alternates hosting the Halloween Haunted House every year. He thus has a very high tolerance to jumpscare horrors.

Hates pop music.

Literally suspended everyone who skipped class to go to Ember's show.

His license plate is “LNCR.” He drives an old blue car.

His biggest fear is not understanding basic math. Hates the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

Teaches English and History (and occasionally Maths). Also taught Astronomy as an elective. Might be an overall course coordinator? He's also the Vice Principal, right under Ishiyama.

Also, one of Lancer's main staff offices has security cameras, apparently? It's a very pink office with a globe and a few chairs. It shows up every few episodes in season 1 as a surprisingly consistent background. It's where he does his PTA meetings.

Was stuck in a closet for a whole weekend. RIP

Was the one that initiated school-wide ghost drills and actual ghost protection (even if the safety measures started off a little lame).

Collects tiny trains in his basement, and has a blue train conductor outfit to match. Calls the model town “Lancerville.”

The first male cheerleader at Casper High, and possibly the district. Main organizer of Spirit Week, and full of school spirit.

Loves meat, and made a BBQ for the teachers when Sam insisted on the vegan menus. This was, I might note, right before ghosts first showed up.

Handcuffed C.A.T test answers to his wrist.

Was honestly really disrespectful towards minimal wage jobs, especially those that worked at the Nasty Burger. Not cool, Lancer.

In the TUE timeline, was forgotten after he died :(

Swears in book titles. All books are context-relevant, so that the themes, characters, or double meanings of the title apply to the situation.

Buys his own Christmas gifts. Also, he has a fireplace, and his living room is so brown.

Horrible reputation amongst students, mostly because they think he's very lame. Really bad at addressing bullying, somewhat because he also suffers it. He's constantly busy with students calling him for stuff.

Has a metal plate with his name to make his desk look fancy. Also has a framed photo with three rebel students, which might imply he used to be a foster parent or something of sort.

Commits tax fraud! All adults in Amity Park do. I'm led to believe it's to cover up the financial costs of ghost disasters, but the reason is never confirmed. Also openly refuses to cooperate with the feds (GIW) until they threaten him with his tax crimes. Love that he's anti-fed. Good for him.

Canonically a pro gamer. Loves old sci-fi and talks to himself while gaming. Beat the main trio. Goes to the arcade when he can.

Honestly pretty biased at first; especially towards the jocks, because of aforementioned hyper school spirit. He also gave the worst detentions, including physical labor. Behavior improved as the series progressed, thank goodness.

Happiest when he sees his students succeed. He is so proud of them, he wants nothing but the best for them in life. He actively tries to help them study and gives them so many chances. Amazing.

Led the school trip with Tetslaff. She made him wear a bear costume "to keep the kids happy and take their minds off the disappearances." He did it without hesitation. He was SO concerned for students when they started disappearing :(

Reads books on teenage behavior and teen jargon, such as "How to Sound Hip for the Unhip." That's very skibidi rizz, no cap.

Loved dry white toast. Of course he does.

Genuinely concerned Danny wasn't eating enough. Also went out of his way to make sure that Danny got to the safe area during a ghost attack.

Tried to roll a boulder up a hill like Sisyphus and almost succeeded.

Uses a fire extinguisher to protect his students from a monster. Hell yeah.

Also used to be paid per grade, which is in itself a terrible system. Thus sees his students' failures as a measurable reflection of his own.

Has a very nice bathroom at home, actually. It's teal with some checkered patterns and a deconstructed flower painting. Good design.

Helped run Dora's beauty pageant, which went horribly wrong in every way. Has three lines in that episode and he speaks Old English the entire time??

Also tried to start a school radio, which also went horribly wrong.

Used to like the Fenton parents, but not as much now, both for letting Danny "slack off" and repeatedly targeting him with ghost weapons.

Surprisingly, almost as tall as Jack Fenton.

Take this, use it for any blorbo reasons.

I'm so obsessed with canon Mr. Lancer. He's a gamer. He dresses in drag. He's fat with lots of body hair. He has a vanity plate of his own last name. He was Casper High's first male cheerleader. He's committed tax fraud

[nyxypoo]

this is temporary. i hope

[transmasc-tabris]

.

[guidingthulite]

i have to make a point to mention ena's shoujo mangas otherwise is it really a chapter of my fic