Ashley: 🤨📸

"I wasn't cool of me to force all of humanity to love me. I'm not Disney."

I think one of the biggest tragedies of Laios & Falin and their relationship is how much his actions impact her life. But like. Specifically how much they WOULDN’T impact her life as much if they weren’t both stuck in such a shitty abusive situation.

This part of the Falin-tries-makeup daydream hour comic is what got me thinking about it again because truly it just... it seems like such a like an offhand comment that I'm sure Laios didn't mean to be cruel or anything. That's just like. A little kid not thinking about what they are saying. ESPECIALLY when the kid in question is Laios.

But man they depended on each other SO much as kids. Too much. It really feels like they didn't have any other source of positive reinforcement, or anyone else to share themselves with. So of course an offhand comment like that has a huge impact on Falin.

Or this little bit from one of the flashbacks:

This tears me apart. Do you think it tears him apart to think about? I think it does. I think Laios holds every small failure to care for Falin against himself.

And then there's the Bigger stuff. The way that him coping with his own trauma ended up impacting her.

Like his interest in monsters. Like him going to find a ghost, and accidentally revealing Falin's magic to the whole village in the process.

Like him needing to leave. And leaving her behind.

He shaped her life so much, and he carries so much guilt for it. And again, there should have been other people there to help. The same things that made Laios need to leave home are the things that made his leaving so hard on Falin. She ate alone after that. She shouldn't have had to eat alone just because Laios wasn't there.

She was 9 when he left for school, and he was 11.

Nine. And Laios feels like he failed her because he didn't stand by her through this better. As an eleven year old.

Both of these kids deserved so much better from the world.

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

ftm trans Eddie Munson gets turned into a chew toy for hell bats and rescued in the 11th hour by his friends who don't know he's trans, who have to run some triage first aid and can hardly make sense of the blood and gore that used to be his body as they cut off his shirt and pants to get access to the worst of the wounds, who definitely aren't in their right minds well enough anyway to think of anything other than stopping the bleeding and getting him to a hospital, which they do, and miraculously Eddie finds himself blinking awake in a bright, fluorescent room feeling exactly like he imagines a chew toy for hell bats would feel in the aftermath which is to say: like shit. Even more miraculously, he finds hometown hero Steve Harrington posted up at his bedside with greasy hair (!!! Eddie never thought he'd see the day) and bags under his eyes.

The overwhelming relief on Steve's face when he sees Eddie is awake is touching, the misty eyes and cracking voice when he says god, i thought you were toast, man are downright flattering and, let's face it, giving Eddie all the wrong ideas that he figures he has an I-almost-died pass for at the moment so he rocks with it, let's himself indulge in the fantasy for a moment. Then, gradually, Steve's relief becomes more and more obviously some brand of deeply felt pity (or sympathy, but Eddie's never been good at distinguishing the two), which bursts his bubble enough to call him out.

"I know I look like what comes out the business end of a meat grinder, but I swear I'm good, dude. They definitely have me on the good shit, I hardly feel it. I'll be good as new in no time." Big fat fucking lie, by the way, but he'll say whatever if it gets that wounded puppy look out of Harrington's eyes.

"I...yeah, Eddie, I'm glad." And whatever it is he doesn't want to say, whatever is putting that you poor motherfucker look on his face, he's absolutely the opposite of subtle about it.

Eddie can hear the manifestation of his panic on the heart monitor.

"What? What is it? Is everyone- is Dustin-?" He can't say it, can't even think it, would rather be slowly torn to shreds all over again than know he failed at his one fucking task to keep the kid safe.

"No! I mean, yes, he's fine, they're all fine. Henderson's got a broken ankle and both of Max's arms are broken but the docs say they'll be fine in a few months with physical therapy."

The release of tension in Eddie's body hurts almost as much as the relief soothes him. "Okay then, what the fuck are you not telling me? It's fine, I'm a big boy, Harrington, I can take it."

He sighs, looking sick with it. "Eds...I don't know how to tell you this."

Oh god, what the fuck. Eddie's right back to freaking out because Steve looks inexplicably guilty, pained in the face like he's about to deliver the worst news he could imagine but if everyone's fine then-

"It's your dick, man. It's- it's gone. The bats-"

And Eddie laughs so hard he tears about a dozen stitches, immediately stops laughing, and throws up over the side of the bed and thankfully not all over his freshly reopened wounds as Steve shouts for help.

Eventually, when he's all stitched up again and barely hanging on to his hard earned lesson to not literally bust his gut laughing about the look on Steve's face (he has to force himself not to tell Wayne the specifics of how he ended up back in the OR, because he's absolutely gonna crack up and Eddie will definitely be unable to help himself from laughing with him), he realizes he's going to come out to all his friends in the very near future because holy shit, he has to tell everyone about Steve's utterly devastated expression at the news of Eddie's Ken doll-ification by way of demobat.

Lokius in Loki 2x02 - "Breaking Brad"

Dean's nothing about our lives is real speech? When he says "everything we are is because of chuck"? He was speaking privately & directly to Castiel when he said that.

Not to Sam. Not everything I am. Everything we are. Dean was having a full on crisis.

"You asked, 'What about all of this is real?' We are." Dean didn't know how right Cas was.

Like no baybee. It'll take 15 episodes, but god himself will tell you Cas defied him and his plan to love you, actually.

i think the thing that really gets me about pre-canon durge is their absolute sense of duty, and their utter isolation outside of the cult of bhaal.

most of the cultists seem eager to see durge upon their return, and one even says they were the first to feed him flesh. gortash tells them of an exhibition of a bhaalspawn's corpse and another bhaalspawn's creations and durge immediately plans to attack the hall of wonder to recover them. they then apparently entrust said bhaalspawn's corpse to sceleritas fel to "restore" through taxidermy. they deride orin for her artistry with corpses explicitly because "bhaal will never care" and because orin "[does] not understand lord bhaal".

even their infamous prayer for forgiveness is framed around their absolute submission to bhaal's plans, and the crime that requires forgiveness? admiring his rival's chosen. that's one line, and the next three paragraphs are swearing to carry out his plan exactly as they've been told to, all for his forgiveness.

hell, even their room reinforces this. orin has barely touched the place aside from installing her mother's corpse and her manifesto - and that is some of the only decoration. what was it before orin, an empty room with skulls, a bed, a desk, some chests and a wardrobe?

the durge didn't have any semblance of a life outside of bhaal, aside from gortash. and is it any surprise? the only other hint they ever had a life outside of the cult is the flashback of kid durge murdering their adopted family, all thanks to their father's urging.

bhaal even tries to force them back into isolation after they've been tadpoled by forcing them to kill alfira, and then trying to force a durge who resists him to kill their lover. if they continue resisting, bhaal kills them. bhaal will not allow them to have a life outside of him and, if it weren't for jergal, he would've succeeded.

kill your darling, it's just that easy!

Server!Steve sending messages to Line Cook!Eddie through order tickets, little smiley faces :) and hearts <3 and 'i miss you :(' during the rush when they haven't seen each other in 30 minutes, and 'i know this order is dumb af please just make it this lady is a bitch'.

Eddie always gives Steve free food to snack on and when Robin complains about it Eddie just says "He's my boyfriend, Robs, so unless you wanna suck my dick-" and she just walks away.

They've been caught making out in the walk in fridge more than once and probably would have been fired already if 1) the restaurant wasn't a little locally owned place and 2) they weren't both the actual best at their jobs.

i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as a binary i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as a sliding scale of "less" to "more" i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as the only two options i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as significantly different things i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as all encompassing i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as the two halves of a shallow concept of love that doesn't actually encompass anything at all i think we need to overhaul every popular conception about "types" of love so we can talk about things that are real and true for once

wish i had something to live for tomorrow

"Who's Phee?" "She's a liberator of ancient wonders!" "...." "....*siiiiighhhh* she's a pirate."

This is a rather high-risk romance we've embarked upon, isn't it? Brings new meaning to the term 'strange bedfellows'.