Need to start a book club for people who like Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Kafka, Rilke, Nietzsche. Also just to hang out on a discord server or something and be friends. I would like a close little group of friends, God knows it’s a lonely world, but I don’t think it has to be.

I’ve been reading The Idiot and I’m desperate to share my outpouring of feelings with someone. :^)

Buttercups and Golden Flowers

FAMINE: That's one deep, dark nothing you've got there, Dean.

[youtube with closed captions]

dean and his father. dean and his family. dean and how bad it is.

(via @closetoyou1970)

SVSSS fandom really needs to learn what “white lotus” really means because I feel like that would clear up a lot of arguments tbh.

Hint: it probably doesn’t mean what you think it means.

really love characters who have varied panic responses. kirk stating himself that he does not panic outright, externally, not in high-stress dangerous situations, but instead becomes tense and level like a wound string, on-guard: mostly because his role as captain necessitates that he maintain level rationality even when facing potential death as his training as 'the guy who tells you what to do when shit hits the fan' requires, but also because his childhood experiences taught him early that drowning in the desperate haziness of panic won't help you survive. especially as kirk already follows his intuition so deeply. he learned to grasp and contort the feeling. spock is the main person who represses his emotions, of course, but kirk does it to those deep-set, personal ones (this includes how he doesn't reveal anything truly personal about himself willingly 90% of the time, only what others already know/shallow anecdotes) in a much more subtle way that's really interesting to me. certified expert at avoiding the subject as long as he isnt caught out on the lie. professional bluffer.

in terms of past or parents we dont know much!!! hes known as the heart-on-his-sleeve guy!!! like yes he yells, he gets irritated, excited, hes a whirlwind of quick-thinking and plans and intuition, he goes out of his way to connect with his crew and shows it, when he puts on a little act or bluff he puts his heart into it and clearly enjoys the dramatics so much, at times he wears his heart on his sleeve, he laughs openly and is honest to spock about what he means to him, he's very sun-coded to me in a burning, passionate way, always intertwined with the stars and seeking them out, but when it comes to genuine deep-set turmoil? we dont actually know all that much about him??? hes so full of emotion and character (i love fics where spock characterises jim's mind/bond as a whirl of colour and sensations, hes a quick thinker!!! intuitive!! lively!!!) and yet its still so outwardly surface level. tarsus iv gets mentioned like twice? so especially here where kirk gets briefly jumpscared by the creature, because like:

its subtle but his eyes. his eyesss!!!!! kirk commands with his emotions but there's always some sort of level of control to it, or he transforms them into something that spurs on others or uses them to ascertain a goal: seeing unguarded fear/distress in his eyes even if its faint and brief (in this instance) makes me go insane every single time. like!!! its such a small moment!!! he isnt even panicking!!! really, he just got jumpscared!!! its insignificant!!!!!!! but seeing a two-second flash of actual, naked apprehension is just...oughhh,,,,,,,,,

oh god, and dont even get me started on the galileo seven episode where he assumes a tense level-headedness throughout the whole thing, irritated and apprehensive but not panicking, making sure he maintains intelligent rationality, even when he has to leave them behind, but when spock and the crew are confirmed safe and the bridge is occupied the camera pans to him and his eyes look like they're fucking watering and he's so achingly relieved. don't even talk to me. im. fuck.

he shows so so much but at the same time reveals so little.

there’s something so personal about the scene in fantasy high s1e7 where gorgug calls himself stupid & fabian, who up to that point had basically entirely been acting like the bad kids (especially gorgug) were beneath him & had also been the one calling ragh stupid two lines ago, instantly says “okay, do not put yourself down like that. don’t you dare do that to yourself.” like it was obvious he liked the bad kids at that point but the instinct to protect his friends manifesting as an immediate strong refusal of gorgug’s self-deprecating talk kills me. that boy loves his friends so bad oh my god i feel sick.

In the wake of the cancellation of Warrior Nun, I am imploring anyone who has Disney+ to watch Willow (2022).

It features a woman loving woman romantic subplot at the forefront, meaning it’s not in the subtext. Episode 1 has them kiss and afterward the lines of romance exist so throughout the narrative for these two characters that it is current and seen to the point that it cannot be argued away.

But there’s next to no buzz for it, only the Disney+ app really promotes it as something to watch with the odd ad showing up on Instagram of the cast playing mini games.

On top of that, it is a well written show that holds all of the love of the original film from the 80s.

I know that it would appear that numbers don’t seem to matter, but I am begging people to watch this show because it is a fantastic piece of media that delights in paying homage to the source material it comes from.

Also hot women with swords. Hot women with swords who could KILL you-

...visdev really is my enrichment activity for i am just a bored tiger in my enclosure, looking to figure out how to get this steak out of this metal ball.

________

my tmnt au (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt au part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

tmnt au omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

lny visit 1 | 2

also uhhh... i guess still idw, next mutation, and like 1 mirage spoiler? mostly for the kids who haven’t but were planning to read/watch

you’re about to perceive so much

p r e p a r e

so close to getting this AU looking as crunchy as i want it, almosttttt tttthhhhhere...!

just somewhere tasty between Mignola’s use of deep black shadow, what MTV Liquid Television woulda greenlit re: The Maxx, a dash of 2007, 1 part Next Mutation, 2 parts funny proportions

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh str ugglingggg

Leo’s shortest because haha (family baby gang, get rekt)

this is so much thought for something I’m just doing to give these turtle ninjas some softness and the genx/millenial pop culture references gag comics

Splinter is full of ghosts

(specifically the onryo borne from the murdered Yoshi Hamato and Tang Shen [because oroku saki a bitch])

[ redacted ] and Tang Shen’s ghost gained control and guided Splinter to raise the boys in love and not [ redacted ] to [ redacted ] in [ redacted ]

Splinter was just a regular little rat... who on his 1000th birthday witnessed the death of his friend/unwitting master and his wife, and thus transformed into a wrathful kyūso (minus the kitten eating) and chased Shredder until losing his trail in New York

Shredder’s fuck around and Splinter’s rampaging as the find out caused the tengu to repo some of the mysticism from ninjutsu

now all the (remaining) ninja clans debuffed and mad about it

The tengu bestowed the ninja the ability to summon shit (kuchiyose), enact mystical effects upon people and objects (kuji kiri), going invisible, minor flight (actually just qinggong/light body technique), and manipulation of the 5 elements, and creating doubles (bunshin)

but again, Shredder fucked up so now ninja can like barely control anything bigger than a lit torch or a 16 oz bottle of liquid and that’s if you got in enough hours to do even that

I mentioned elsewhere but for me in any AU I make, Venus is a cultivator and the more I think about it the more I will die on this hill, not only does it fit better than her being a “shaman” or “shinobi” it’s sick as fuck

Jennika’s origin was pretty fkkn metal, she still falls in with the Foot, gets shanked, Leo gives blood-- bam, turtle time

Jennika goes to hang with Venus in China and get a better understanding of her new turtle body

Keno’s here, still tried to infiltrate the Foot (with Jennika) but bugged out when she couldn’t stay without being made (Jennika refused to leave womp)

teaches Leo some arnis techniques for Leo’s dual wielding; Donnie also just in case his bo is shattered... again. :)

Irma has made all the boys blush at least twice

Irma is also soap opera buddies with Splinter

they meet up at least twice a month to gab, gush, and groan over what’s currently going on in their stories, when Venus visits she also joins in, Irma also has a conversational grasp on Japanese and Venus’ regional dialect because of these visits

April has a full out shoujo manga romance with Chu Hsi

and he’s a hot dragon prince uhuhuhuhuhu

Irma is privy to all the steamy details

keeping Leo and Karai as character foils

both received scars from one another

both released each other from sealing wards from [ redacted ]

now they just meet every so often to eat the greasiest fast food and unclench of an hour

Raph still gets his ass worked by Ninjara, folded like an omelette sat on a lawn chair

Vam Mi is also here, she’s fought first (because honestly she should’ve been either brought in earlier in the season or had a few more episodes because that shit coulda resolved better)

Venus is brought to NYC for this antagonist instead of Dragonlord escaping (and murdering her father figure forcing her to seek out his friend Splinter for aid)

Donnie doesn’t take the news of real vampires or real magic well

Donnie and Venus have a knock down drag out fight over it (because they’re 17 at this point and being li’l shits to each other about their respective fields of expertise)

“The nerds are fightingggggg!” cries Mikey, Leo and Raph don’t believe it so imagine their surprise when they get a demo in real time on how scary competent staff fighters are

Leo gets Splinter when one of Donnie’s missed strikes cracks the concrete

Splinter breaks them up like talking a walk in the park and it’d be comical if they both weren’t bleeding from the mouth and peppered with swelling contusions

Venus begins accepting Donnie when his tech prevents her from becoming a thrall of Vam-Mi

Donnie begins accepting Venus when she uses a massive amount of chi to manipulate gravity just before he becomes street pizza when Vam-Mi throws him off a bridge

they also combine skill sets to save Mikey so there’s that

Venus goes from calling Donnie, “Horatio (derogatory)” to “Horatio (affectionate)”

they now have a dumbass long-as-fuck handshake that’s unforgivably nerdy 

April is still a magic drawing-brought-to-life baby, Venus puts her in a painted scroll when she starts phasing in and out of existence (she and Chu Hsi have a great time in the scroll... while everyone is shitting bricks until Venus and her sect stabilize her and get her made real, Pinocchio style)

April’s grandmothers gifted Venus 2 pieces of jade jewelry, and her family’s recipe for sweet potato pudding respectively for saving April

the boss fight against Dragonlord is dope as fuckkkkk, Chu Hsi is being cool as fuck, fiddled with some concepts* that has Leo and Karai being a champion of Genbu, Raph for Byakko, Mikey for Suzaku, Chu Hsi’s retainer (a good dragon, wink wonk) steps in for Seiryu because Donnie and Venus are siphoning and redirecting an enormous amount and variety of mystical power

*i’m just pulling from fushigi yugi honestly

splinter, the boys, and venus (and others) mutating from mutagen laced toxic waste was a pure accident

Splinter was investigating a lead on Shredder’s movements concerning the Foot the same night an animal liberation sleeper cell ‘freed’ some animals from the back of a pet store (that was a front for black market domestic and exotic animal trafficking) that is also the same night a stolen truck driven by some corporate spies filled with a competitor’s chemical waste, which then collides with said liberation sleeper cell’s truck and... ooze happens

Leatherhead, the Mutanimals, Mondo, Mona Lisa, Slash also get mutated from the events of that night, either leading up to or following the aftermath

plus some others etc etc

Venus still washes down the gutter, gets rube goldberg pinballed onto a crate of plums where Chung I finds her and still gets named Mei and taken to live in China and eventually learns to cultivate

Tokka and Rahzar get made, and unmade ala TMNT II; the mutagen made them a little silly tho, April adopts Rahzar and passes him off as a low content wolfdog, Leatherhead takes in Tokka

April went through a couple of major changes so now she’s a journalist with a computer programming background who now does a podcast as an informal neighborhood news reporter with a segment for chatting with people from around the street

Mikey’s the most frequent guest and co-hosts sometimes; Donnie troubleshoots free of charge

Venus brings her province’s regional delicacies when she comes to visit, Splinter and Leo both get pu er tea cakes (she managed to get one the same age as him; Splinter is too old so she got the oldest she could find, Leo has so many tea pets and a nice yixing collection); Raph, Keno, and Casey fight over the pickles, meat jerkies, and chili oil; Mikey has an artillery of cool shirts and a lifetime supply of haw flakes, Donnie has a mountain of doodads with increasingly specific uses, April gets neat accessories and the occasional care package sent with Venus from her grandparents, uncles, and aunties; Irma gets neat frames and coats that never fail to get a “Where did you get that??”

Raph rides a Kawasaki Ninja because it’s funny

A lot of bodegas give Mikey free snacks because the bodega cats love him, and he’s also saved some from being run over or ripped apart by stray dogs or the few large angry raccoons

Donnie’s the only one of his brothers to wear both a top and bottom with shoes because once he figured out how to integrate a motherboard and miscellany wiring onto clothing... he’s been a walking computing menace ever since

Splinter does his best to enjoy his time with his sons (because as a kyūso, he knows the chances of outliving his precious sons is very high (ᴗ‿ᴗ✿)  ...give or take one of the many opponents and obstacles his sons take on takes him out first ( ◕ᴗ◕✿ ) )

god whathefuck, I was just going to make silly comics for them. how did it come to this.

Asriel Belacqua + his biggest weakness aka Marisa Coulter

The worst part Miguel O'Hara's oversexualisation (bordering fetishization) by white people and non latinos is that the movie isn't actually at fault of this. The only thing the movie did was giving him darker skin and it's definitely suspicious to me that he only started getting sexualised as soon as this happened.

Miguel never got this kind of treatment when he was had fair skin in the comics (he's the son of a white Irish man and a brown mexican woman). So yeah, you do the math. Don't be gross and stop with the race fetishism.

This has happened before with Namor, and even with Pedro Pascal and Oscar Isaac (who don't even have dark skin, but I guess both being latinos is enough excuse for people to act like weirdos.)

one thing about being a trans woman in a male dominated space is that before you start transitioning (and early into it), you will just be off-putting to other men. it sucks, but in my experience that just made it easier to avoid people i probably wouldn't have gotten along with anyway.

however, after you hit a certain threshold in transition and performative presentation, you become fly tape for the most desperate kind of weird guys imaginable. you might think this is an improvement. it's better to be liked than shunned and could-shouldered—and it's hard to argue with that—but the thing about these weird dudes is that they are often not very perceptive, introspective or self-aware, and that complicates an already complicated situation.

you see, they are parched. for weeks, months, years, they've been searching for a pretty girl who they believe is as verifiably skilled and knowledgeable as they think they are. and after suffering through the sweltering sausage desert that is their hobby or interest, they've stumbled upon an oasis. they become infatuated, assured their journey has come to an end so long as they can flatter and impress their way into your heart, something they're woefully confident in their ability to achieve usually. their narrow view of reason is eclipsed because something girl shaped is the perfect size to obscure it.

this is something that pretty much any femme presenting person has probably had to deal with at some point, but as a trans woman it has placed me in this really awkward spot multiple times. most of the time it comes down to two questions:

do they know, and are they going to be weird about it?

i know, ideally, it wouldn't matter, and hopefully i can just turn down their advances and they'll take a hint and fuck off. but that's just the ideal scenario, and like i said earlier, these guys aren't good at picking up hints.

so if they persist, it's like. what do i do? do i tell them in hopes they'll they'll lose interest? that's just one possibility out of several that come from doing that. earlier when i asked "are they going to be weird about it," it's important to mention "weird" means more than one thing in this context. are they suddenly going to start acting angry and violent toward me as if my personal existence is an attempt to deceive them? are they going to become more interested and thereby even harder to make go away? did they somehow already know and that's why they were interested in the first place?

all questions i never want to have to ask nor do i want answered but things i feel i have to occupy myself with to make sure i don't end up in an even worse situation

There's something sort of distorted with how grief is currently being seen and dealt with on the island + Qsmp.

I've been thinking about this for a while during the missing egg arc, but Bagi implying that Foolish wasn't that attached to Leo has finally pushed me into putting the thoughts into words.

I really don't like how several of the islanders - especially the new ones - view grief and expressions of grief. It's like they expect all grief to be big and loud and performative, and otherwise, it isn't as significant, or as important. Like how Bagi's expectations for sadness seem to be shaped by Bbh's very visual, obvious deterioration, and disregards that MAYBE, just MAYBE, not everyone is going to shove their feelings in your face when they barely know you? That some people may break down privately, where you are not privy to their thoughts, and you are not entitled to a public performance of that grief in order to verify that they do, in fact, care?

It's not just islanders who haven't spent much time with the eggs either - Forever himself said he thought that, ASIDE FROM BAGHERA AND BBH, everyone was simply moving on and living life without the eggs. Funnily enough, these are both players with skins that specifically denote emotional turmoil :). Does grief have to expressly visualised for people to acknowledge that it's there? That was particularly jarring as a Philza main, who's character was and is currently going through a drealisation and mental deterioration arc after going to suspicious coordinates (the birdcage) FOR THE SAKE OF HIS EGGS.

Most annoyingly it also bleeds into the fandom sometimes, despite the fact we have the benefit of meta awareness. I've seen posts or comments about how 'oh, bbh is the only one truly miserable about the eggs' 'other islanders aren't suffering about the kids like ___".

It's just striking having watched Fit, a person whom canonically struggles with outward expressions of vulnerable emotion due to his background but clearly deeply misses Ramon, who would fall into this 'unaffected' category because he's not giving showy public displays or monologues about his feelings. Or Phil, who to members of the island who haven't reached out to him on those topics, seems largely still like a strong rock to lean on because he plunged himself into propping up other islanders the moment he returned - but behind closed doors fell apart at Tallulah's letter and is clearly rapidly deteriorating as a character. Or Foolish, who maintains an upbeat character, retains his capacity to carry on moving, and lives as brightly as he can while SIMULTANEOUSLY being completely broken up internally about his daughter. You can see it in the way they talk about their kids, how they rush to collect any clues whenever they pop up, how many of them seem to be living in limbo, incapable of new changes and beginnings.

And alright. So that's not explicit to those other characters. But it should not have to be visually explicit for them to not degrade their grief. The assumption should not be that grief is either public or nonexistent. You are not entitled to flashy displays of feeling. Forthright and in your face emotion is not the baseline requirement for distress. Demeaning someone's attachment to their child because they aren't grieving in the RIGHT way for YOU, one that isn't visible enough to YOU, isn't excusable because 'oh I can't really see how that person is feeling though'. It's basic social understanding.

And of course they are aware of the mental and emotional states of their friends - who are also very visual with their grieving - above others, because those people are ALSO the ones that those like Bagi and Forever consistently interact with for prolonged periods of time. Have they actually really, deeply talked with all the other islanders about their internal state? No, of course not, they don't spend that much time with them and aren't that close. That's not bad or anything, that's life and relationships and very normal. But then what grounds do those assumptions of 'oh, there are parents who don't care' actually have? They themselves should be capable of acknowledging that they don't actually have insight into these other people, and they should not be using the expressions of grief from say Baghera and Bbh as a cudgel to cheapen and diminish that of others.

something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.

“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”

one of my fave things about teaching is that I’m NOT a counselor and I don’t have to get into the weeds with a student but also I’m part of their life every day and i see when they’re struggling and I can ask how them how they’re doing and make sure that they know I see them on a steady, daily basis and it will be healing for both of us

THANK YOU MAL FOR SAYING IT.

bothers me very much when people use Ted getting upset telling the denver broncos story as like evidence that he could be queer instead of thinking about an old friend drowning in loneliness and saying to himself “i should’ve been there i should’ve supported him” is him reflecting on his traumas, as if this is not a man who heard his dad kill himself at age 16 and carries that guilt wherever he goes. he tells EVERYONE he loves that he supports them no matter what the struggle is and colin’s struggle was internal and invisible, WHICH SCARES HIM. he’s terrified by invisible struggle and he always has been BECAUSE of that childhood trauma. so TO ME…… it reads very media illiterate to take it that way, because Ted didn’t have some tender gay experience with his denver broncos friend in the 90s, he’s haunted by knowing there was someone he loved who went through something alone (even if it was silly and minor like watching the Super Bowl alone) and doesn’t want anyone to ever feel like that again, (especially if it’s something as big as being one of two gay men in a room in an industry that hates them) let alone one of his players on the team that he has worked so hard to turn into a family!!!!!!!!!! damn!!!!!