TheIvoryWriter

god. idk how to word this very well but the fact gripp made sure that everyone got at least some closure so they weren't left blaming themselves (or eachother) for everything that happened and especially for magnus's death before escaping on his whole suicide mission. him reassuring symmetry especially that she shouldn't blame herself with the timeline in mind (her being one of the additional guests he'd known the longest, zephyr taking her in from an abusive guardian etc. you could make some arguments/hcs of him being Bonus Dad to her when it was just the 4 of them in the sub but anyways) he's aware it's entirely him. he doesn't shift the blame to any others, he doesn't even completely blame magnus by the end either, despite the amount of building resentment and tension that drove him to drag him into this voyage in the first place (and later murder him)

i dont knowww it says so much to me about his character and makes his unhealthy obsession with the mermaid all the more fascinating . he was on this entire desperate search driving him insane and definitely was dragging magnus down with him, but he never meant for everyone else to get caught up in it like this. and even though he still follows through endangering everyone in the process, in his mind, this event was inevitable, he HAS to do this. he HAS to find her, speak to her. even if it's the last thing he ever knows. there was no other option. just the way it's meant to be. and in his view of limited choices, he could at least put everyone "at peace" as much as he could before metaphorically steering them straight into the sun.

This is funny from a 'me when i lie' perspective but I do also wonder what the driving emotion was for this statement from Reach re: Warren having special importance since it seems to be the first instance of him displaying a subjective opinion in the game.

I think there's two main possibilities:

So I was talking to @lilithstudionow and @th30w4ffl3s yesterday about how quickly Gripp got his shirt off (don't worry about it) and I NEED people to realize how batshit crazy this sequence of events are.

In the time it took Grimoire and Sally to realize Gripp was gone and took the Mermaids Mask, and go and chase him he managed to:

Take his shirt off

Put the Mermaids mask on

Grab the mask and compass (i don't know if the compass was still out or back in Grimoires pockets)

Fix the broken compass???

Run faster than actual lightening

This isn't in any order btw. But this was all done in the course of maybe 10-20 seconds?

Put the key in the mask

Climbed a ladder with Corneleus, the mask, and compass in hand. Unless he put the mask on already before climbing, which is also insane

But there is somehow one mystery bigger than any of this.

(ʘ‿ʘ✿) “what you say ‘bout me”

1) OP made a post that seemed interactive but then

2) Did NOT want anyone to actually engage

I remember tumblr at the time. It wouldn’t have changed OP’s post so lmao big L for OP making it weird

But best of all:

Most people didn’t realize there WAS a response until this fuckin UFO went by.

That's what she said

In celebration of marco officially having 2 gay dads 😍😍

Also marco's supposed to be like 7 but no we don't do that here. He's a literally baby here. A LITTLE BIRD IF YOU WILL. WB is so widow it's nor even funny his husband freaking dies and he has to take care of a baby and then he became a serial adopter so his baby can have more siblings to be with and never be lonely forever (Look how that turns out 💔💔)

What a red flag actually means: something here is an indicator of a potential problem (but might be fine with a reasonable explanation)

What people have now decided it means: abuse

I've lost count of the number of times I've now had to read variants of "My partner takes all my money and gives me back an allowance because he says it's a man's job to control finances, but he's racking up gambling debts" being met with "Wow this man is a walking red flag" no Becky that is abuse. That is not an indicator. He is an abuser. Call the police. We have lost the concept of a proxy: a thing that indicates a more important thing. And it's relevant to this conversation because I'm actually going to go out on a limb here:

With the obvious exception of paedophilia, age gaps themselves aren't a problem at all - they are a proxy for the actual harmful phenomenon. Hea me out, let me explain

The reason we don't like age gaps is because of the implied power dynamic. If one partner, usually male, is older than other - particularly if the other is still quite young - the risk is that what we're seeing is a worldly wise predator who is exploiting the lack of life experience of a young beautiful woman by mentally abusing her until she's no longer young and pretty enough to satisfy, at which point he'll move on to the next. There have been enough examples of this in human history. It's unfortunately not an uncommon pattern. Genders can also be diverse in this scenario

We can't necessarily see that dynamic from the outside. But we CAN see an inherent element of it: the ages of the people involved. So age becomes a proxy for the abuse. And, hey, it's often correct.

But here's the thing: the ages themselves are not causing harm.

The power dynamic is. The abuse is.

Plenty of age gap relationships are loving, healthy and steadfast. Two people met and genuinely fell in love regardless of the outer packaging, and have a relationship with all the highs and lows and challenges and rewards as any more traditional pairing. This happens all the time

Is the age gap a red flag? Sure! It indicates a potential issue.

Is it inherently abusive? Absolutely fucking not.

OP is right - we need to stop focusing just on the numbers and twisting the facts to fit by infantilising the younger partners, and start focusing on the actual harms. The DiCaprio Pattern of only dating under 24s repeatedly is itself a proxy, too, actually - but a much stronger one than the simple presence of an age gap.

(Even so, in DiCaprio's case, until any of his former partners come forward and describe him as abusive, actually, even that is up in the air - my personal interpretation, given how strong a pattern it is, is that he's a loser who views women as trophies (consciously or not). If any have come forward and I don't know about it, of course, fair enough. But those women were adults capable of making their own decisions, even if they might later come to regret it. And regretting poor decisions is part of life! That's how it goes, particularly with relationships. As long as they weren't abused, there's no biggie. And just as he was looking for young-and-beautiful, there's no way they weren't, on some level, looking for rich-and-famous; it goes both ways.)

Also, another element of this: I think a lot of modern extreme puritan discourse on this is actually ironically down to the age of those taking part. Up until your late 20s, ten years is actually a huge span of time to you, because in your own life you were in a completely different developmental phase ten years ago (teenager), and a completely different phase again ten years before that (child). That skews your sense of what a ten-year gap means. Whereas once you're in your 30s and beyond, ten years is like. Yeah I was an adult ten years ago, and I still am now. That's two adults. Who cares.