Here’s a thought for soft Nat :

*SLIGHT MENTION OF SMUT AHEAD*

I like to think that Natasha never really had someone to make soft love to her ever in the past times she’d been on dates or one night stands.

So when reader came into the picture, Nat was feeling like she was in heaven when reader made soft love to her. It was unfamiliar to her, but not something she wanted to go without ever again 🥰

Yes, yes, yes. The way I have it my mind is that she was always of that mindset that things weren’t meant to last. Whether it was relationships or friendships, or even family.

But when she met us, it was like everything changed. A certain calmness and softness washed over her. Especially in times of intimacy. And she never wants that to change 😌

“You wanna fight someone, you fight me” seemed like a silly rule at first. but after there was more than one batkid living in the Manor at the same time, suddenly the prospect of having to spar with Bruce on the mats because you couldn’t stop yourself from throwing a punch at Tim earlier is terrifying.

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

girls and the inherent loneliness they have felt all their lives

Percy Jackson and the Olympians premieres Dec. 20 on Disney+

literally!!

Birds of a Feather previous / next

these are the questions about history that the people really need to ask

honestly it was a red flag when bbc sherlock went “well obviously the word written in blood isn’t the german word for revenge, it’s clearly the beginning of the name ‘rachel’, what absolute idiot would fail to see that” when in the original novel it is, in fact, the german word for revenge, which sherlock points out gleefully to a roomful of policemen who all figure it’s the beginning of the name ‘rachel.’

and by red flag I mean it was a clear sign that the adaptation was trying to one-up the source material, instead of engaging with it with love.

I think there's no greater indication that disco elysium is sympathetic towards communism when it literally says "communism is failure" and then the literal gameplay itself rewards trying and failing. The most obvious one being the Shivers check at the FELD mural, which is an Impossible 20 check BUT opens itself up again and again the longer you spend in the world doing things, but even just looking at sheer probabilities, for any given white check, rolling first and THEN putting a point into that skill upon failure is more likely to grant you success than putting a point first and then rolling, but that would require failing first.

Other things too: Precarious world saying you'll 100% fail red checks no matter what (not necessarily a bad thing, btw!! throwing the boule into the sea is a success but like. in some other ways one would want a perfect petanque throw instead. but people wouldn't typically assume that failure is desirable sometimes from the start) persuading you to accept that you'll fail some things that is irrevocable, for a world where everything is just a tiny bit easier.

The faux game over screen when you faint after reading Dora's letter— emulating a sense of failure on the scale of the entire game. When it rolls up most people go "What?? Game over?? No way, what did I do wrong!!" and waking up after that, with no huge or lasting impact on Harry's health or morale really tells the player, "Sometimes things will seem so bad that it all seems like it's coming to an end, but it's not the end, it's really not the end, go drink so water, you can still go on despite this failure"

I'm sure there are other things as well that are eluding me but like. The literal gameplay rewards failing and succeeding far more so than simply succeeding every single time, and I think you get a fuller experience of Elysium that way too

Im usually much too shy to send asks but you gotta be the change you want to see, and i agree that asks need to stay so: would you rather right 1 horse sized rat, or 100 rat sized horses?

ah yikes... so my knee jerk reaction is "the 100 rat-sized horses, certainly, as those can be picked off one at a time." however the risk of my conscience catching up to me by the 30th or 40th horse is too great. how much death could I inflict upon these rat-sized horses before I vow to see death no more? even if pure survival instinct drives me through all 100, what of the aftermath? surrounded by the carnage of 100 tiny horses with only my own wet breath among 100 still chests? inconceivable. war is hell.

would you give me a hand?

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I just want to start a flame in your heart~ 🔥🧡🔥

Thinking about Weird Barbie and how she's the very obviously queer outsider of the Barbie world, she straddles the lines between Barbie and the Real World. She's the most aware of the performative nature of it all. She supports Barbie while also gently mocking her panic at losing the hyperfeminine perfection. Her weird house is also home to the discontinued reject weird Barbies, the outcasts (including very gay earring Ken) who never fell into either the original matriarchy or the Kentriarchy brainwashing.

The other more classically heteronormative and beautiful Barbies both pity and fear her, and at first the narrative pities her as well. She's the vessel of girls going weird and crazy and feral on their dolls and that's amazing. Weird Barbie is aware of who she is and how the world sees her and she loves it. She's Weird Barbie and She Owns It.

seriously though nothing can stop me from interpreting Real Life as canon just for how it progresses the canary curse situation. i'm obsessed with it. the curse gets broken in secret life and then in the very next "series", as much of a joke as it is, you get a situation like THAT. jimmy enters a mineshaft and everyone but him dies. not just his team, though obviously it's more significant because they were all red, but ren/martyn/skizz all get a mineshaft-death apiece. that canary's not doing his job anymore. he escaped his cage and made a break for the surface and everyone else is paying the price for it, and i for one could not be more proud of that little bird.

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