#you deserve better than this i'm sorry

[inkskinned]

"don't make it political!" .... what proportion of death and suffering must occur before politics are involved. if this isn't political, what is even the point of any politics, ever. of democracy. the words are "by the people for the people." if i am going to be left alone by my elected representatives to "figure it out" - to undergo damage, hardship, fear. what the fuck did i elect them for. what was their job. the entire point is that they handle this shit. this is why we were supposed to be electing leaders.

poverty is political. misogyny is political. gun control is political. climate change is political. how much aid a community gets is political. what the fuck are you talking about. it's been political this whole fucking time.

[sebille]

Oh the little change in his expression

[asoftepiloguemylove]

Jack Stauber Just Take My Wallet // Lady Bird (2017) dir. Greta Gerwig // Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) dir. Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert // Hannah Green Night Terrors // Veruca Salt All Hail Me // Fleabag (2016-2019) cr. Phoebe Waller-Bridge // Laurie Anderson O Superman (live) // Kyung-sook Shin Please Look After Mom // Ocean Vuong Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong // Euphoria (2019-) cr. Sam Levinson // Ernest Hemingway The Garden of Eden

[musical-chick-13]

This is the only thing I'm going to say about the election until it's over:

Anyone who did not vote for Harris or who attempted to dissuade people from voting for Harris, you are indirectly responsible for whatever shit Donald Trump does if he gets elected. That blood is primarily on his hands, yes. But it is also on yours. I hope you can live with that because I sure as hell wouldn't be able to.

[permanently-stressed]

it's November!!! you know what that means!!!

*throws herself into bed and stars sobbing*

[firelxdykatara]

god the atla tag is just going to be unlivable until the show comes out and (hopefully) the gifmakers step up, isn't it?

"no wonder the creators left" BRYKE LEAVING IS A GOOD THING THEY WERE HACKS WHO ABSOLUTELY SUCKED AT THEIR JOBS AND THE ONLY REASON ATLA WAS AS GOOD AS IT WAS FOR THE TIME (it does not hold up nearly as well as some of you think it does) WAS BECAUSE OF THE WRITERS IN THAT ROOM WHO WERE COMPETENT AND NONE OF THEM WERE NAMED BRYAN OR MICHAEL.

Also, the fact is that there are SO many more asian and indigenous people in front of the camera AND behind it than have been involved with any installment of this franchise to date, maybe give them a chance to tell the story that the white men who created it mined their cultures for aesthetics to dress up?

[specialagentartemis]

I remember seeing someone gush about how much the podcast This Planet Needs a Name meant to them, and particularly the character of Zahava, a Jewish woman and spaceship captain in the spacefuture. This person said, it's beautiful to see sci-fi with Jewish people living and loving in the future. It tells me we made it.

And it stuck with me. The way the visions of the future, who's included in the future and who isn't, shape your feelings about what people see as worth surviving. And it made me commit to always making sure to address the presence of Jewish characters/communities in my sci-fi going forward, because people deserve to see themselves reflected in sci-fi media that isn't This Planet Needs a Name because that podcast sucks absolute ass.

[ruelpsen]

Fuck it, I'm going to go out and say it: while I often enjoy being teased on here, a fair portion of what I receive irritates me as it's misguided at best and reeks deeply of unlearned, malicious fatphobia at its worst. Yes I want to be fatter but I'm not fat. I am a 140-lbs/63.5-kg twink despite all my efforts to gain weight. I'm not stick thin, sure, but I'm sure as hell not fat either. So why are some people insistent on calling me fat/huge/big? Are actual fat people too much for you (perhaps even in spite of you being a self-professed FA)? Is your idea of fatness grounded in equating 'not even that chubby' with 'fat' while not even being attracted to people who are actually fat? Do you solely find bloated skinny guys hot while still saying you like fat people? Or are you not attracted to fat people at all and here simply to take your fatphobia out on the people closest to your image of ideal thinness, who you'd be more openly attracted to if they lost 10-20 pounds, all while still scoffing at or ignoring the fat people at the heart of these communities?

Some of y'all really need to do better. Either own up to your love of people who are actually fat (which may entail adjusting your understanding of what fatness is), clean up your nomenclature, or don't be here. Yes unlearning biases like fatphobia takes time and effort, but your choices really are more or less that simple.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Sorry if this seems confrontational, but for the life of me I can’t get into your “Chloe has no growth” point when the show itself retracts growth from everyone and is inconsistent with everyone. You saying “The show just lays down basic character traits in Chloe” doesn’t make sense when her basic character traits are supposed to be her being selfish and spoiled.

S2 built off of that and despite what you say, had Chloe doing things that in S1 she wouldn’t have done. She apologized multiple times to the people she wronged, she willingly put herself in harm’s way to help the people she cares about and she was openly vulnerable to Ladybug in “Malidiktaor”. Something S1 Chloe wouldn’t have done. If there’s a distinct difference between a Chloe back in S1 and a Chloe in S2, then growth HAS taken place. But it doesn’t stay because of the formula (and the writers just don’t want her to keep that growth)

So what I’m asking is…what do you mean “Chloe doesn’t have growth”?

I can understand the “No arc” argument because an unfinished arc feels like there’s no arc at all (even though they are fundamentally not the same)

I wouldn't say that the show retracts growth from everyone. It's more that no one is ever supposed to grow. Every episode resets the cast. That's just how pure formula shows work and Miraculous is being sold as a pure formula show. The characters are meant to be static (one of the writers literally compared Miraculous to Dora the Explorer).

That static nature is why pure formula shows normally avoid giving their good-guy characters major flaws. It's the wrong medium for that type of thing specifically because the characters cannot change in meaningful ways throughout the show. They can learn little lessons that don't really change them and maybe have big change between seasons via a special or movie, but that's about it. Thus things like the season four conflict working so poorly. It's just a terrible choice for a formula show! The conflict is literally not allowed to develop properly because of the chosen format.

But sure, let's talk about Chloe and why I will die on the hill that she never demonstrated meaningful improvement even with the issue of the inconstant writing. In fact, seasons-one-to-three Chloe is one of the most consistent characters in the show. For this discussion to work, we need to start off by discussing character development and the two main forms it can take: character establishment and character growth.

Character Establishment

When the audience meets a character, they know nothing about said character. It's up to the writer to guide the introduction process. To choose when to reveal already existing elements of the character's personality, skills, and backstory. This is called character establishment. It is the writing telling you who the character is on a baseline level. Those reveals don't need to happen at the start of the story, though. They can be - and often are - held back for when the time is right.

When these reveals are delayed, it's important to remember that these elements were always part of the character. The reveal isn't changing who the character actually is. It's just changing how the audience views the character.

For example, we spend a good chunk of season one uncertain why Gabriel is doing what he does. Then, in Origins, we learn that it's all for Emilie. This is new information that adds depth to Gabriel's character, but it doesn't change him in any way. This is who he always was. We just know him better now and can recontextualize past events with our new understanding of his motivation.

Character Growth

Character growth is when writers take a character's personality or world view or even just their skills from point A to point B, allowing the audience to watch the character change and become a new better - or lesser - version of themself. This is usually part of a larger character arc where all the moments of growth add up, but it can take the form of small moments of growth that don't fit into a bigger picture, too. I'd probably still call that an arc, but we'll use the word "growth" a lot in this post, so let's just call it growth to be consistent.

Miraculous doesn't really have either arcs or growth because - once again - formula shows don't allow characters to meaningfully change, so I'm going to have to make up an example here. I'll use one that illustrates how character establishment and character growth can and do intertwine as that's an important thing to acknowledge to help guide this discussion.

Let's say that we have a character who lost their family at a young age. We'll call this character Mary. Mary's loss guides her character throughout the entire story, but the other characters and the audience are never told that this is what's going on. We just know that Mary acts in seemingly illogical ways at times and that she trusts no one.

Throughout the story, Mary learns to trust her costars, leading to a big, dramatic scene where she finally tells them - and the audience - about her past. This big dramatic scene is both the culmination of a character arc and a piece of baseline character establishment that allows us to understand Mary's character better no matter what part of the story we're reading.

Because these combo growth and establishment moments are so common in stories, it can feel like character growth when we learn new things about a character in a dramatic moment, but that's not always what's happening. Sometimes dramatic moments are just there to reveal what was always there by forcing a character to act differently than they usually do through the power of extenuating circumstances. These extenuating-circumstances moments are not character growth because, once the moment is over, the character resets to their normal self. The moment wasn't there to let them grow. It was there for the sake of the plot.

This is actually a really important thing that writers need to know how to do. Figuring out what circumstances will make a character say or do a thing they generally wouldn't say or do is part of how stories work. I have started stories with characters acting wildly "out of character" because I put them in the a situation where the behavior suddenly was in character!

Oh, you don't want to talk to this total stranger because you're an introvert with social anxiety who has yet to learn how to love yourself and open up to others? That's nice. Your leg is broken now and you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. What you gonna do sucker? Lie there in the dirt or talk to the nice lady who wants to help you? Your choice! (Spoiler: he talked to the nice lady. He even let her physically support him when he'd usually never let a stranger touch him!)

As soon as that scene was over, the character reverted because it wasn't growth. He didn't become a more open person. He just did something he normally wouldn't do because the situation demanded it. It was extenuating circumstances so that the freaking plot could start.

This is what happened with Chloe in season two. Everything that people call growth is really just extenuating circumstances that reset by the end of the episode or even by the end of the scene.

Let's Talk About Chloe

Chloe does not have a character arc, aborted or otherwise. She is never taken on a journey where we watch her change. All we get is delayed character establishment via extenuating circumstances, but it's given in ways that make some people feel like she was being given an arc. Let's talk about why that is.

Season one Chloe is a one dimensional mean girl. She has almost no depth. She's just here to be petty and cause akumas. She is not a fully realized character.

Season two takes those traits and keeps them, but also gives Chloe a lot more depth to round her out and make her feel like a real character. She's just as petty and mean as she always was, but we're finally allowed to see her in some moments that make her feel like a well of potential to become something more, which the writers basically had to do if they wanted to let her be a hero. The audience needed to feel like Chloe could be good in the right situation.

The feelings evoked by her newly discovered depth are why people go "oh, she had a character arc! My feelings about her changed in a big way!" But she didn't have an arc. You just got to know her better by seeing her in moments where she was forced to be vulnerable. That's not growth. Growth is meaningful, lasting change, not situational change. Everyone changes based on the situation! It's why the "True Selves" stuff is such nonsense. It implies that there's one set way that we're supposed to act in order to be authentic and anything else is some kind of lie which just isn't how the world works.

Let's look at some examples to drive home what I mean.

Season one established that Chloe idolized Ladybug. It's why we get things like this moment from Evil Illustrator:

Ladybug: Fine! You stay! Later! Cat Noir: What do you mean later? Ladybug: I mean, you're the one who wants to protect her, so you don't need me. So, later! (swings away) Chloé:(looks over balcony) Ahhh! Ladybug! Text me! OK!

And this confession from Antibug:

Ladybug: [Chloe] pretended she was me?! How often does that happen? Armand: She idolizes you.

So Chloe adores Ladybug and wants to impress her/be her best friend. Cool. Got it. That never goes anywhere in season one because season one doesn't see Chloe and Ladybug interact much. The most we get is Ladybug saving Chloe from akumas, which doesn't allow for deep conversations. I don't think that they're ever alone in a moment where they can actually talk.

That changes in season two. In season two, they get to interact a lot and it's often in moments where there's a big threat and no one else is around, letting us see a new side to Chloe. But that's not Chloe changing. It's just the writers revealing that Chloe has more to her than the mean girl stuff because of course she does! Pure mean girls don't exist. Everyone has depth. We simply never saw that depth before because Chloe was never put in a situation where she needed to be open. We can't say that season one Chloe wouldn't confess things to Ladybug or chose to sacrifice herself to let Ladybug win because she never had the chance to do those things!

In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that season one Chloe probably would have done the same things as season two Chloe because season two Chloe doesn't really contradict season one Chloe. Antibug showed us that Chloe was pretty desperate to be loved and welcomed the way that Ladybug is loved and welcomed:

Chloé: Jagged Stone! Jagged: (thinking she's the actual Ladybug) Ladybug! What are you doing here? Chloé: Um… when I find out you were here, I knew you'd wanna see me! I had to come say hello. (Sabrina waves at Jagged)

and Chloe has always been a stubborn girl who stands up for what she wants even if what she wants is something bad. Antibug also showed us that Chloe can be genuinely nice to the people she cares about. Her and Sabrina's relationship is shown to be complex with them often having a lot of fun together.

Similarly, Origins sees Chloe showing her father genuine affection after she's saved from Stoneheart:

[Image description: Chloe and Andre hugging and looking very happy to be together]

Origins is the baseline episode that tells us who the characters are on day one, so I never once doubted that Chloe loved Andre, but Andre didn't get akumatized because of Chloe's actions in season one. He didn't even get akumatized for something that Chloe had nothing to do with! His first akumatization is in season two, so it's not shocking that we don't get a Malidiktaor type scene until Malidiktaor.

Chloe was vulnerable with her personal hero when her beloved parent was in danger, but not before? Shocking! Who would have guessed?

Me. I would have guessed. I didn't even realize that people were reading it as some sort of character growth because it clearly wasn't. Malidiktaor didn't feel like something new for Chloe's character. It just felt like the writers were leaning into things that we'd always known about Chloe and using them to better establish her character as someone who genuinely cares about select people. She just doesn't show most of the time.

The same thing goes for Chloe's sacrifice and apology in Zombizou. Chloe only sacrifices herself when there's no one left but her and Ladybug. When the choice is to let the terrorist win or take the hit and let you personal hero save the day. Brave? Sure, but also not growth. Chloe is team Ladybug for all of seasons one, two, and three! She wants Ladybug to like her! Plus even a petty brat can have moments of goodness where they pick a hero over a literal terrorist.

This honestly would have been a damming moment if Chloe didn't sacrifice herself. She functionally had no other choice here. The entire episode builds itself to the self-sacrifice moment so that Chloe is forced to make that choice even though she's been her petty bratty self throughout the whole attack. It's genuinely solid writing.

Then, in the heightened emotions directly after the Zombizou win, we get this:

Miss Bustier: But I hurt a lot of people... Chloé: No... I did... I forgot your birthday, once again. And when I saw everyone had prepared a gift for you, I totally lost it. Because I, too, would've liked to offer you something. I'm sorry, Miss Bustier. Miss Bustier: Thank you, Chloé. Those words are the best possible gift you could ever give me. (hugs Chloé) (Chloé hugs her back, forgetting herself for a moment.) Chloé: Huh?... Uh, yeah. Okay then, we're all good.

A brief moment of vulnerability that quickly ends and does not stick around because Chloe's change was situational, not true growth. The next scene of that episode starts with Chloe being her usual self:

Chloé: Me? You want me to apologize to the entire class? Ridiculous! They should be thanking me for saving everybody.

And ends with the reveal of Chloe's gift to Miss Bustier, which was given in private via a note.

Once again, nothing new for Chloe's character. She acts as she always has, being mean to everyone while having moments of vulnerability when things get tense. Remember that hug between her and her father that we talked about earlier? Same concept. She had just almost died from an akuma attack and so she needed some emotional support, leading her to act more openly loving than she usually does when he's around. Once the moment is over, she reverts to the petty mean girl default.

Giving gifts to placate people is also something that we've seen before. A pretty similar thing happens at the end of Evil Illustrator, it's just played less sympathetic towards Chloe because the writers weren't giving her depth back then:

Sabrina: Too late. Chloé and I are doing the project together. Marinette: You mean, you're doing the project? Sabrina: Well, of course! After all she's been through... Marinette: Ughhh.... Nice new beret, by the way. Sabrina: I know, right! Chloé lent it to me. She really is my BFF! Chloé! Your geography homework's ready!

For any of this to be character growth, we need to see Chloe act differently over time. For her to be put in similar situations and get different outcomes, but we don't see that in part because Chloe didn't change and in part because season one didn't do much to develop Chloe's deeper side. We rarely see her alone or in moments of extreme vulnerability, but you need those moments to show her depth. That's why Despair Bear had Chloe crying alone after Adrien threatened to end her friendship and not before. Chloe is very reluctant to openly show depth. You have to force it out of her, which perfectly fits the character we met in season one.

Even her standing up to Hawkmoth and rejecting the akuma isn't character growth in my opinion. Chloe has always stood up to authority and demanded whatever she wants. She has wanted to be Ladybug's friend and be seen as a hero since season one, so it's not shocking that her extremely strong will would allow her to defy a terrorist. If there is anyone in this show who can stand up to a terrorist on shear "no!" power alone, it's little miss I-always-get-what-I-want. I could see a variation of this happening at any point in the show, just change Chloe's reason for defying Gabriel to match the situation. Rework these lines to be about a party that she wanted to go to and I'd still totally buy it:

Chloé: No, Hawk Moth! I am a superheroine! I am Queen Bee! Ladybug will come and get me when she needs me! I WILL NEVER JOIN YOU! (throws her photo onto the ground as the akuma exits it... and pants)

Chloe acted like a hero here because she wants all the perks of being a hero and can't believe that Ladybug would actually bench her. That's impossible! Ladybug wouldn't do that!

As soon as Chloe accepts that she won't be a hero again, Chloe stops acting heroic because acting heroic wasn't growth. It was her playing a part the same way she played a part in Despair Bear. She was doing what she needed to do to be Queen Bee again and not because it's the right thing to do. This would only be real growth if she rejected the akuma after accepting that she wouldn't be Queen Bee again, but that's not what happens. As soon as she accepts that she's out, she no longer has any reason to play nice. She never grew into a character who did what's right for the sake of doing the right thing. It's always been about getting what she wants or being seen how she wants to be seen. Until that changes, she hasn't changed.

So no, Chloe didn't have an aborted arc. They didn't start to redeem her and then change their minds. All they did was make Chloe one of the most complex characters in the show only to then not do anything with the character they wasted our time establishing, ignoring the complexity they gave her while also cranking her mean dial up to the point of absurdity where she's not even fun in her original role anymore.

I get why it feels like she had an aborted arc. The fact that the character establishment was delayed makes it feel like something shiny and new about Chloe. There's also the fact that the character establishment we get in season two is the kind of character establishment that you'd do if you were setting up for a redemption arc, but that doesn't change the fact that it was all establishment work. None of it was a true arc where we watched Chloe grow. We just saw her put in situations that revealed hidden depths.

Her showing depth is not her growing because when in the world does she show off this supposed growth? She only acts differently in the type of scenes that we've never seen her in before or around characters that we've never seen her truly interact with before. When she's around the established teen characters or in her usual scenes, then she acts the same way that she always has. We never see her be genuinely nice to Marinette or something like that. She's only nice to Ladybug and she's still rude to Chat Noir. That's not character growth! That's character establishment that can then be used to guide character growth!

Same thing goes for the stuff in Despair Bear. We learn that Adrien can push Chloe to be better, but he never does it again and she reverts as soon as he lets her off the hook, so it wasn't character growth! It was just Chloe establishing that she can play nice when she needs to. This means that she could grow if the story chose to take her down that path because we've established that she knows what being nice looks like. Fake it til you make it plot go, go, go! But the plot never went, went, went so meh?

Add in the fact that season one was a bit of a test season with lots of elements that got dropped and the fact that characterization in this show has always been wildly inconsistent from episode to episode and I'm really not seeing a strong argument for Chloe having an intentional arc that somehow got aborted. People just saw the potential for her to have one and argue that potential is the same as an aborted arc when it really, really isn't.

To give an analogy, Chloe's story is like walking into the kitchen and seeing grandma laying out the ingredients for her famous chocolate chip cookies. We get excited because, hey, cookies! Then we come back an hour later and there are no cookies. Nor is there some other sweet that uses the same ingredients. There's just ingredients, sitting unused in their original packaging, making us wonder what the heck grandma was up to. At the same time, she never really started making cookies. She just set out ingredients. They're still there, totally unused, waiting to be made into something, so we can't call them a failed cookie attempt. That implies a level of commitment that was never there. She didn't even say that she was making cookies! We just assumed she was because we, understandably, wanted cookies and wanted to believe that grandma had a purpose to her actions.

[spark-circuit]

you know what's going to devastate me if it ends up happening the next time we encounter Gabriel? (continued under the cut for spoilers ✌)

if Gabriel ends up not being able to finish the fight with us.

let's be real here, as much as he's everyone's favourite golden boy, he's probably got hours left to live - maybe less by the next time we reach him. he's desperate to have one more final battle against us, not just to make up for his sins of the past, but to finally get some sense of peace and understanding for his new way of thinking, his new resolve.

so what happens if he can't. what happens if we're fighting Gabriel and maybe he hesitates on a sword swing, his strength failing him. what happens if he coughs up blood at one point. what happens if his health bar starts going down without us attacking him, him falling to one knee as he desperately tries to push himself to finish his last wish of a proper fight, because he's not done yet, he's not ready, not before he can take us down with him. out of anger? respect? righteousness? does it matter?

what if we don't even get a boss battle with him at all. we're just here to bear witness to a fallen angel.

[aleksanderscult]

That answer from the author only makes me so much angrier about Alina's fate in R&R. Apparently back in 2013 Leigh believed that the fact the protagonist embraced her powers made her "the person she was meant to be". A confident girl that doesn't try to be someone else.

So what happened? Why did the author had to fuck this shit up by stripping her of her power? In order to end up with a (shit) man. Was she so desperate to make the protagonist end up in a shallow love story instead of having her strong, confident, powerful and herself?

I believe that, at some point, Bardugo decided to "take" her power because how else could she have that cutie lil ending with Mal? She sacrificed Alina's true happiness to get her bullied by teachers older than her, be "loved" by a man that made her feel less than she is, living in obscurity instead of shining bright, become a beacon of hope for her people and a symbol of unity and having an empty hole inside her because a piece of her soul is missing.

And yet she dared have Alina say that line:

For the 28383 time, Aleksander was right:

It is a living. A living Hell apparently.

[thetantiger]

Wanna share with the class about your thoughts on Stolas and Blitz :D?

Oh my god yes I absolutely do thank you for asking.

So I'm going to start off by saying that this post is in favor of Stolas. I firmly believe that both of them are in the wrong, but Blitz is more in the wrong than Stolas and I am about to explain to you in detail why.

So let's start off by listing Stolas's wrongdoings because I feel like it'd be a flawed argument to just completely fucking gloss over them. Stolas has:

a. Repeatedly stepped over the line of Blitz's sexual boundaries even after Blitz asked him to stop. This happens in Murder Family over the phone while Blitz is being chased by Martha. I think it's worth pointing out that the show does not take this seriously until it's convenient for Blitz's character (Helluva has a bad pattern of male r*pe jokes [see: Moxxie]) but since it's an actual part of the plot now I'm acknowledging it as important and serious.

b. Talked down to Blitz patronizingly and embarrassed him and used his status, either intentionally or not, to get his way. This happens in Loo Loo Land (the entire episode), The Harvest Moon Festival (on stage) and, again, in Murder Family over the phone, talking about the deal of exchanging the grimoire for sex.

Now let's discuss the things that Stolas has done to help remedy these things. Do these things fix what he did? No. But it sure does help:

a. Communicated clearly with Blitz that he is no longer required to have sex with him to maintain his business (Full Moon)

b. Given Blitz a reliable way to maintain his business using the Asmodean crystal without any expectation of repayment (Full Moon)

c. Repeatedly acknowledged that he unintentionally used his place of privilege to put Blitz in this situation (Full Moon ["This.. transactional thing we have, it's- it's not right anymore, it hasn't been-.. It never was."] and specifically "When I See Him Tonight" ["And if he's only here as a prisoner, what kind of monster does that make me?"] and Apology Tour "All 2 U" ["What if it's all on me, for missing every sign and every glance and every turn?"])

d. Repeatedly reassured Blitz that he in fact does not look down on him as a person (Full Moon "I think so highly of you, Blitz.." and Apology Tour "I don't look down on you, Blitz, when have I ever-?!")

Now before I get into the arguments between them in Full Moon and Apology Tour I want to go ahead now and explore how Blitz enabled this relationship.

Blitz repeatedly re-expressed sexual interest in Stolas. This does not make Stolas sexually harassing him okay in any regard, this is not related to that--we'll get there. But he does:

a. respond to Stolas's assumption that Blitz was there for sex in The Circus by.. having sex with him in order to obtain property (THAT ISN'T HIS AND THAT HE DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAVE A RIGHT TO PRIOR TO THIS AGREEMENT)

b. make sexual comments and advances towards Stolas throughout the show (strings him along by bringing him to Ozzie's only to stalk M&M, offers to have sex with him as reward for saving him and the rest of IMP in Truth Seekers, etc)

Now, let's talk about their arguments.

Stolas clearly and concisely communicates his purpose, his intent, and his feelings for Blitz. Blitz first assumes this is a sex roleplay thing (which, for that being his initial reaction I'm actually not going to fault him) and then, when Stolas peacefully tries to disengage and leave the situation (because it's clear that Blitz at this point is not interested) Blitz pursues him through the house against his will, screams at him, verbally berates him and accuses him of not giving him a "FUCKING minute to think" (despite, again, pursuing him through the house and also not previously asking for it). He calls him names and offers to PHYSICALLY FIGHT HIM.

I don't understand how it can get clearer than this.

THEN, in the next episode, he:

a. appears at Stolas's house without permission and after being physically dismissed by him

b. remains at his property after Stolas tells him he "doesn't want to talk right now"

c. SEXUALLY HARASSES HIM by INSISTING he just "wants to be shown a good time" or "needs to realize how good an angry fuck would be right now" after being REPEATEDLY TOLD TO LEAVE and that Stolas DOES NOT WANT TO HAVE SEX RIGHT NOW ("As SHOCKING as it may seem, Blitz, I'm not in the mood to 'do sex' with you right now--in fact, I'm not even in the mood to 'do words' with you right now!" "Seeing you right now is hard!" "Get out! Right now!" "I'm uncomfortable with how you're speaking to me now!" "Stop it!")(so, on the sexual harassment front after this scene in Apology Tour, Stolas and Blitz are even).

d. SCREAMS AT HIM WHEN STOLAS DENIES HIM SEX (and also uses "gay" as a derogatory term in the process we love it here) TO THE POINT STOLAS HAS TO RETREAT INTO HIS HOUSE INSTEAD OF BLITZ, I DON'T KNOW, LEAVING THE PROPERTY LIKE HE ASKED HIM TO

At this point in the series, you cannot be serious to say that Stolas is more in the wrong than Blitz is. I see so much "bOtH sIdEs" bullshit or that Stolas is the complete villain here but right now for me it's 75% Blitz and 25% Stolas. I am a fucking Stolas apologist at this point with the braindead takes I've seen on here. Stolas says "I don't want you here, go home please!" at the party and then Blitz STILL DOES NOT ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT STOLAS ACTUALLY WANTS OR NEEDS IN THAT MOMENT AND REFUSES HIS REQUEST

"Stolas is just being painted as more sympathetic by the narrative because he's Vivziepop's favorite character" Okay are you drawing this conclusion from what's actually in the source material or are we just making shit up now.

"Blitz is just reacting this way because of his trauma/past/insert the name of any mental illness here" Okay neat. That's a reason. But not an excuse. It does NOT make his behavior "more right." This exact same argument can be made for Stolas and his sheltered upbringing as well as his previous abusive relationship and it just feel so fucking irrelevant to the conversation. We're talking about fault here. Not reasoning.

"But- but- but- but how else is Blitz supposed to react?! His dad was a piece of shit and everyone has always been horrible to him his entire li--" I am going to fucking hit you with my car.

[mad-hunts]

@divingdownthehole

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as barton was left to his own devices in the kitchen, it only then just occurred to him how the seven-fold bistro had a tv in the side of their lobby. and that could potentially be very bad if they weren't talking about the latest humdrum gossip in relation to bruce wayne or something — so, he would have to find a way to not appear suspicious and also, turn it off if they were talking about the death of the two guards already. barton sighed to himself as he pushed a chunk of the chicken on his plate to the side. he really had his work cut out for him here, didn't he?

of course, there might be a chance that jervis could handle it, he thought. but the last time he had handled something, he'd done it by sticking pins into someone. barton suddenly found himself standing up as if he was startled by the very thought of something like that happening to ravi. he had to create some sort of plan, for he couldn't just bust out of those doors, even if nothing was going on on that television. he tapped on the cold steel of the table below him with his sharpened nails as he contemplated what to do. maybe he could just stick by the almost saloon style doors of them for a bit and listen in on what exactly was going on out there.

just as ravi and jervis had made it to the front of the restaurant, his feet were carrying him to push his entire body flush against the doors, but with not enough pressure to actually open them. he thought he could hear jervis's voice now, but it was very distorted by the wall between him and the rest of the bistro. so he would have to get closer to the outside if he actually wanted to hear anything. while barton was now stressing, ravi honestly couldn't have looked more relaxed, as any friend of barton's was a friend of his. ( except they weren't really friends at all... but i digress. ) he smiled slightly whenever he heard him mention the soup out of approval, ❝ ooh... good choice. i love our mulligatawny soup, but it usually has rice in it, rather than on the side. but i could always request that our chefs put it there instead if you want. ❞

he shrugged nonchalantly and nodded, knowing that the kitchen would be more than willing to do something like that for jervis. ravi could feel his ears perk up and barton's ears did the same exact thing as a breaking news alert popped up on the tv. alright, well, he was not going to be waiting inside the kitchen any longer for something to happen — that was for sure — and so he opened up one of the doors in such a way that it wouldn't attract much attention. barton seemed to materialize out of quite literally nowhere, at least from ravi's point of view, before he was grabbing him by the opposite shoulder a little aggressively but not too much.

barton had played this off as him trying to playfully scare the other but what he was really aiming to do was turn the tv off. and that's exactly what he managed to do with the remote below the counter while ravi was too busy with being shocked, but then laughing in response to barton's 'cheeky' behavior as he spoke to him in between laughs and pushed him away from him, before punching his arm. ❝ oh, my god. you scared me! you jerk, why did you do that? don't tell me that this is you still being bitter that i beat you last time we sparred or something. ❞ ravi was still laughing, so he obviously didn't mean anything that he said in a malicious way as barton himself tried to catch onto the other's wrist before he punched him, but failed.

barton chuckled a few times before nursing the spot where ravi punched him with his arm. he made himself look guilty, only after winking at jervis whenever the other party wasn't looking, as if to say ' you're welcome ' and said, ❝ ahh, you caught me. but scaring you totally satisfied my need for revenge after you beat me. so, at least there's kind of a positive side to all of this. and just to keep you in the loop, jervis, me and ravi sometimes spar together because we're both boxers, ❞ barton gestured to the other man with one hand while ravi came down from his laughter. he made a playful ' shoo ' gesture towards barton, then. ❝ hey. me and your friend, who is also my friend now, by the way, were having a rather rousing conversation about his interest in the mulligatawny soup before you came along. so if you wouldn't mind... ❞

ravi left barton to fill in the lines of what else he was going to say before the blonde raised his hands in feigned surrender and sat down across a few seats away from them behind the counter. ravi laughed, making a ' come hither ' gesture towards himself, ❝ i was just joking, barton. you don't have to sit so far away. but anyway, i'll put in your order for the soup, if there are no objections? ❞ barton moved silently closer to ravi in particular, setting down his curry in front of him. he seemed oddly a bit protective of ravi based on the look he gave jervis.

it was one that said ' you better continue being nice to him or i'll kill you. ' and trust me, barton would do it, too.

[recklessmoss]

i'm so unironically baffled at the amount of downgrades this site pushes out on a nearly weekly basis at this point. Near half if not all of them are almost completely useless and give absolutely zero benefit to user experience, if anything @staff is quite literally distancing their userbase.... do you think i want another twitter? Like what purpose or benefit does taking away dash avatars has... what's the benefit of taking away basic accessibility features.. fucking genuinely. I hate it here. I don't know how many more feedback letters I have to send in order for all this shit to stop... i'm so tired.

[sainz100]

2024 Singapore GP | x

[wings-of-flying]

i realise it's probably a reference to something, but the wife of the orange (haired) political tyrant man in riptide being called malenia. when a certain ex president of the usa has a wife named melania. will never not be funny to me