Andrew Interacts With Neil Like He's Playing Episode With No Diamonds

i think hozier IS a like a mythical forest creature, but not in the way most people think. like he's a creature who fell in love with a marginalized human person and came out of the forest into the real world and realized how fucked up everything is and tried to do the Prometheus thing of bringing us fire but it backfired and he's in constant battle with the fae gods and now has to watch his human lover die so he's constantly talking about the horrors of the human world, but this is the place that gave him his lover so how can he hate it truly?

I'm convinced that Snow was the one who came up with the "rule change" in THG (idc what the movie did with it--they didn't know TBOSAS and it was less than convincing they way they did it).

Just think about it. We start off the Games with Katniss's courageous action volunteering for her younger sister. Then Peeta did something radical. He decided to follow through on his declaration of love to Katniss and did everything he could in the arena to save her. Getting sponsors, teaming up with the Careers, getting Katniss to leave and fighting Cato for her. Can you imagine what that was doing in the Capitol? In the Districts? How could you watch someone do that and not hope for a happy ending, even as Peeta lay dying in the mud, whispering Katniss's name?

And then Katniss teams up with Rue and is devastated by her death. She stays with her, sings to her, until she dies. Bolstered by Peeta's words about not being a piece in their games and finally getting what he means, she decorates Rue with flowers. She honors her life and her unnecessary death. District 11 recognizes this and even though they have another tribute alive in the Games, send Katniss the bread.

In Snow's mind, everything about the games is starting to crack. Young love being selfless, sisterly affection defying the Capitol, comradery fostering between districts. He simply can't let it go on. He has to remind people in the Capitol and the Districts that this is not human nature. He is going to prove that. So he tells Seneca Crane to announce the rule change.

He expects Cato and Clove to make it to the final two. In their new advantage, they will become a deadly, mostly healthy team. Meanwhile, Snow can see that Katniss doesn't hold the same care for Peeta that he does for her (she had tried to kill him with tracker jackers, after all). Even if she goes to find him, she'll abandon him once it gets too hard, too dangerous. The hope of love triumphing will be met with annoyance at his injuries and agreeing to stay behind and not get his medicine. And even if she does, he'll still be too injured to truly be useful.

But things go awry. Thresh saves Katniss because of her kindness to a little girl he, too, saw as a younger sister. He kills Clove, bringing about Cato's wrath. And Katniss Everdeen turns out to be a better actress than expected.

No matter, though--once the rule change is revoked, the truth of the stripped-down human nature will come out. Oh, Peeta will throw out the ravings of a teenage boy high on hormones, but people will remember how awful they truly are when Katniss puts an arrow through his heart. After all, Snow's made that decision before. His lover or himself. Death in the woods or life with riches in the Capitol. It's easy, really, to make that decision. And people will remember even the best among them, even she who willingly risked her life to get medicine or volunteer for her sister, won't avoid killing in order to survive herself.

But Katniss calls their bluff, and Peeta goes along with it. They've chosen to protest the Hunger Games with their deaths. Seneca makes the call to announce two winners. Really, Snow was going to kill him either way. Someone has to be publicly accountable for the place he's in now, and Snow certainly isn't going to take credit for his idea. After this, he tries and tries to get Peeta and Katniss to have to kill each other. The Quarter Quell. The hijacking. But it never works. And not just because of them, but because a whole nation finally stands up and says Enough. We won't let this go on anymore. In the end, Snow was entirely wrong because he never truly understood love.

Can I also say how touching it is that Stede said he believed Ed would he happier without him, who, even in his fantasies, could only picture Ed wanting him as a picture of masculinity with a beard and no hesitation to kill. Stede still, deep down, doesn't understand why Ed would ever want him as he is.

But who did Ed see coming down to rescue him? It wasn't a manly recreation of Stede with a beard, masculine style and a killing spirit, it was a merman. Someone bright, colourful, by all accounts a rather feminine perception of Stede.

That was who rescued Ed. It wasn't who Stede thought he needed to be, it was someone soft, and bright, and graceful, and expressive. Someone feminine, someone queer.

I just think that's beautiful.

AU where Neil never joined the Foxes, but ended up an Exites employee. He plays short one-on-one games with players who want to test their new racquets, and has inadvertently honed his skill against so many different types of players with different expertise. Andrew's group goes to get Kevin some new equipment, and Neil knows better than to play well against him. But Kevin forgets himself and gets a little too excited about testing out a new racquet, whipping the ball at Neil so fast that Neil instinctively slams it back hard enough to light up the goal on the opposite side of the court. Kevin is slack-jawed that some random retail worker scored against him so quickly and so easily and shuts down for a minute while his brain reboots. From a distance Neil swears he hears someone mutter "Interesting". Then Kevin's brain is back online and starts begging him to try out for their team. Neil realizes their is one thing worse than being recognized by Kevin Day and dragged back to his father: not being recognized by Kevin Day and trying to convince the grown ass man to get up off the floor and stop clinging to his legs and holy shit jackass, can you pretend to have some dignity??

I am once again thinking about how in The Naked Time, Spock has an emotional breakdown after contracting the virus and cries about the regret he feels for not loving his human mother vs his shame he feels for his ongoing friendship with Kirk, but before he contracts the virus, Spock finds LOVE MANKIND written on the wall. And it's been written and discussed to death about what it means, I know this, but it's telling that Spock not only loves in spite of his Vulcan upbringing and continued adherence to their customs but that he holds regret and shame deep down inside because the love is still there, regardless.

Whereas Kirk likewise has his virus-induced breakdown over the opposite: his self-inflicted pressure to not love an individual, either due to fear of distraction from duty, losing his position as captain due to the ethical conundrum of "How can a captain date one of their crew?" (no, I do not know the details of how Starfleet manages crew relationships, but I'm assuming rank is an issue, especially where captains are concerned), or even the unspoken taboo of the show's production era, his sexual orientation, hence his focusing on the ship as the only safe and constant outlet for his love. But after this, Kirk finds SINNER REPENT written on the wall, as if to say his altruism isn't the full truth, as if what he desires is what he denies even with the virus lowering his inhibitions.

And like my god. What foils to each other! How damned telling the literal writing on the wall is for them! I am going to eat my fucking sweater!

when i read the song of achilles i was very surprised at how genuine and equally matched their love for each other was. there wasn’t any such thing as one being more in love than the other. i’ve become so accustomed to that trope, that i kept waiting for it to happen; but it never did. i’m so used to love being a miserable, painful, unrequited thing, i kept expecting the moment when finally their unconditional love reached its limit but it never fucking did.

there was never a moment that patroclus wouldn’t have died, fought, or killed for his lover. and never one moment where achilles wouldn’t do the same. it never mattered that achilles was aristos achaion, because patroclus was the world to him and never stopped being so.

we never had to watch them grow apart, or become bitter towards each other. it was all pure, faultless, unyielding love until the very end. they never had to yearn, they never had to doubt. patroclus agonized over the idea of one day losing his achilles, constantly worrying over him. and achilles completely wrecked with grief over losing his most beloved.

Was just watching the first mirror-verse ep in DS9 and I thought it was interesting how the course of events were changed bc of Kirk + co’s visit in “Mirror, Mirror”.

Mirror Kira says how after Kirk talked with mirror Spock, he became a whole different person and rose in the ranks to create something new for the world, which before he never would have. Mirror Spock was like “I just enjoy working in the science department, I don’t want to be a captain” but Kirk changed all of that!!!?!

In every timeline and universe, Kirk and Spock affect each other. In every way. No matter which Kirk and Spock they are.

aftg is the opposite of that one post that's like "love was there, it didn't change anything" because love was there and it changed everything. i will always appreciate nora for believing in her characters' right to find love and heal and get their second and third and fifth chance.

Icebear!

How fucking distraught must Pike have been, to see Spock going against everything, risking his life, seeing how thoroughly Spock had this thought out…

The depth of that love Spock has for him.