The outcome is only uncertain for those who disbelieve.

helena: [exists]

dinah: (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ

hey so fun fact i actually hate the word ‘bullying’

it seems so childish; so fake and inconcequential. bullying seems to me like a word that minimises the actual impact of what is physical, emotional and mental abuse. it’s already minimised so much. kids are told just to not let it affect them, to just ignore it, and that it’s ‘just kids being kids’.

no, no. fuck off. it’s kids being cunts. it’s kids being abusive. it’s kids weaving hatred and inadequacy into another’s very core. it’s kids planting seeds for mental health problems in the heads of five and six year olds because they’re just a bit weird.

i was abused by other children for the entirety of my school career and beyond. i was called names and shamed for my interests, i was singled out and attacked. one kid forced my face into a brick wall when i was seven. i stayed in the special kids’ room at break time for weeks because i was scared it would happen again. my face bled, i had a black eye, and that kid got nothing in return. a girl in high school decided that i would be her target when i was thirteen; she punched my head into a fridge in a public store only for my friend to laugh at me when i cried, she kicked the backs of my knees in the lunch line because i wasn’t moving fast enough for her, she shoved me into the old metal radiators that the school had. she terrorised me and i remember seeing her at the train station once and genuinely considering pushing her into the tracks. i’m not even sure she remembered me. i was beaten with a studded boot on the way home from school, and followed afterwards even though i hid in a café to try to avoid them. i was called names every single day, people pretended to ask me out and then laughed when i believed them, my best friend of 8 years laughed me out of the cafeteria and teased me for being upset that she had taken someone from me.

i am now bitter, defensive, and constantly terrified. my experience of bullying contributed in no small part to my current mental health issues, and i wouldn’t be surprised if it aided in my symptoms of borderline personality disorder.

so no, it’s not small. it’s not minimal. it’s not ‘kids will be kids’ and it’s not ‘just part of growing up’. bullying is abuse, bullying leaves permanent scars, bullying should be taken far more seriously than it is and adults need to stop fobbing it off because they ‘went through it too’. if you went through it to then you should know. you should know.

y'all are good to reblog this

Ellie/Abby parallels in The Last Of Us Part II

she said i’m about to end this man’s whole career

Okay, I’ve been sitting on (no pun intended) this theory for awhile now because it’s not even really a theory, so much as it is speculation. (”Uncle, that’s what all theories are!”) Anyway, hear me out:

tl;dr: Iroh was depressed, and thus in a passive state, up until the end of Book One, whereupon Zhao’s act of violence snapped him out of it.

We know that Lu Ten died during the original Siege on Ba Sing Se and it’s heavily implied that losing Lu Ten caused Iroh to “fall apart” and ultimately end the Siege itself:

(Image Descriptions: First two images are of Iroh chained, saying, “I acknowledge my defeat at Ba Sing Se. My men was tired and I was tired.” The third image is of Iroh at Lu Ten’s grave. The fourth and fifth images are of Young Azula talking to Young Zuko: “He found out his son died and he just fell apart. A real general would stay and burn Ba Sing Se to the ground.”)

He didn’t have the mental strength to fight at Ba Sing Se, but that’s not the only time that he refused to fight.

He never tried to take the throne from Ozai. He never once tried to find out what happened to Ursa. And I hate to do this, but he didn’t even put up that much of a fight when a thirteen-year-old asked to attend a war meeting. And when they were in that war meeting, who was the one to speak out against the immorality of war? Zuko. Not Iroh, even though he was sitting right next to him.

(Image description: Zuko standing up at the war meeting. We can see that Iroh is sitting next to him.)

When Zuko was in the Agni Kai Chamber, on his hands and knees, crying, begging for mercy…Iroh just…looks away…

(Image description: Iroh looking away.)

And I’m not going to lie, this theory was originally just going to be a post talking about how guilty Iroh must have felt, but I think it goes a lot deeper than that. I could make a post arguing that Iroh’s misjudgement and lack of action were what led to Zuko being scarred, but to do so would be to blame Iroh, and I don’t want to blame Iroh. Because it’s not his fault. I think that, in this moment, he’s still in a depressive, passive, state from what happened to Lu Ten. Iroh essentially has PTSD. He saw what war can do, so he freezes and backs down at any sign of a fight.

And we see, all throughout Book One, how many times Iroh tries to actively stop Zuko from fighting:

(Image descriptions: Two nearly-identical shots of Iroh breaking up a fight between Zuko and another character, the Pirate Captain and Lieutenant Jee, respectively.)

He only fights when he has to, such as when the Earth Kingdom soldiers capture him in Winter Solstice. Even then, he uses his chains to disarm two of them and knock them unconscious (a waterbender technique btw) while Zuko takes out the third. By all accounts, Iroh is a pacifist during Book One. He’s certainly passive. I really think it’s because Lu Ten’s death (which, remember, only took place a few years prior) is still bothering him. Hence my original claim that Iroh’s essentially in a depressive state during Book One.

So, what happens?

Zhao happens.

This image has haunted me for a decade and a half:

(Image description: Iroh looking absolutely devastated.)

This is right after Zhao kills the Moon Spirit koi fish. Something about this has always gotten to me. It’s just so intense. It’s like you see this other side of Iroh that you had never seen before. (Remember, at this point, any viewers wouldn’t know about Lu Ten.) And what happens right after?

(Image descriptions: #1: Iroh attacking multiple soldiers. #2: General Zhao looking horrified. #3: A shot of Iroh standing over multiple bodies on the ground.)

Iroh starts actively attacking them all, to the point where Zhao backs away, horrified, because he’s never seen this side of Iroh. Neither has the audience. For the first time, Iroh is actively attacking someone, triggered by Zhao’s violence. I don’t know if it was just the cosmic stakes of the spirit being killed that triggered his anger, if it was the straw on the ostrich-horse’s back, if the way that the koi fish was killed was somehow reminiscent of Lu Ten’s death, or if it was a combination of reasons. Either way, Zhao snaps Iroh out of whatever passive funk he was in.

From that moment on, Iroh acts like a man who was a general for years. In the very first episode of Book Two (the next canonical episode), we see that Iroh doesn’t trust Azula and is on guard, even jaded:

(Image descriptions: Two shots of Iroh looking around suspiciously.)

Then, when it’s revealed that Azula had tricked them, Iroh wastes no time in attacking multiple guards:

(Image descriptions. #1: Iroh kicking a guard off the ship entrance. #2: Iroh firebending at three separate guards surrounding him.)

In a later episode, when Zuko thinks that Iroh’s going to say that he should be nice to Azula because she’s family, what does Iroh say, instead?

No. She’s crazy and she needs to go down.

This Iroh is a completely different person than the Iroh that we saw in Book One, because this Iroh has been snapped out of his depressed, passive, funk by the senseless act of violence that he witnessed. This Iroh is willing to fight and be an active participant in creating change. This Iroh is a General. This Iroh is the Dragon of the West. Incidentally, we see Iroh call himself that when he actively attacks a full room of Dai Li soldiers:

(Image description: Iroh breathing fire onto a room filled with soldiers.)

And we all know how fitting it is that Iroh is the one to liberate Ba Sing Se, but just think about the difference. The original Siege on Ba Sing Se took him 600 days, nearly two years, and he still wasn’t able to break through. In the final battle (albeit with a little help from the comet), Iroh was able to effectively create a fireball and blast through the wall in a single moment:

And that is my speculation…analysis…theory…thing of how Iroh went from being a fighter to being a depressed pacifist to being a better fighter, all in the background of a series that focuses on a dozen other well-rounded characters. It really is the show that keeps on giving…

HAPPY PRIDE!

A rainbow for each season of KILLING EVE (insp.) // SEASON 1

Aren’t you glad you wore that? Sexy and bulletproof!

bucky + steve’s shield

Let’s just take a second to appreciate that Loki fights like his mum. 

And that’s awesome.

“Loki, sweetheart, you cannot fight just like Thor. You are puny. Your best tools are speed, cunning, and magic.” “But isn’t magic cheating, mother?” “In war, the cheaters live, love.”

Fun fact: Tom and Rene decided back during the first Thor movie that their headcanon for their characters was that they were very close and  Frigga WAS the one who taught him fighting and magic.

Then finish it, cause I’m with you til the end of the line.

“My generation had princesses to look up to. Our daughters have generals.”

Black Panther (2018) / The Last Jedi (2017) / Wonder Woman (2017)

y’all: peter was able to stop bucky’s fist in civil war bc bucky heard peter’s voice, realized he was a child, then weakened his punch bc he was so worried about hurting a child uwu

me, eating pistachios: y’all know peter can canonically lift up to 75 tons, right. y’all know bucky’s fist is easy as hell for peter to block, right. y’all know bucky didn’t know shit about peter being a child and was just shocked that someone was able to so easily block his punch, right. y’all know that, right.

naw fuck that bucky’s punches aren’t easy to block, it’s WAY funnier if peter blocked a full force punch from bucky, who only a few seconds later realizes he’s a kid as soon as peter opens his mouth

that’s the face of a man who went from “holy shit he blocked my punch?” to “holY SHiT a 12 YEARoLD BLOCKED mY PUNCH???” in 3 seconds flat.

Next second is “i triED TO PUNCH A CHILD”

i physically can’t scroll past this post

Loki is a lil shit.

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The Last of Us Part II 🔨💪