#musings and pondering

[hazel-not-wong]

do you think people study morrigan's painting hundreds of years later, wondering if her anger was a mask for the grief she was feeling for her herself, perhaps directed at her father for allowing this to happen, or even at fate themselves for cutting her life string so short.

and then they find records of what her funeral casket looked like and it's just like... oh! she was probably just pissed about how FUGLY it was.

[lucabyte]

even dogs pass the mirror test

[pokemonblack3white3]

More people should headcanon Leon and Sonia as exes. Sonia took Hop in the divorce.

[mythtakens]

Eddie + looking away from Buck

[mindfulhavens]

Change.

But start slowly,

Because direction is more important than speed.

- Paul Coelho

[salemisha]

peak boredom is reading some ancient story for the poetry and the prose but also 99% to feel connected to your dr. because said story reminds you of the type of books in your old valyria dr. the prose. the diction. this reminds me of some ancient erotica lowkey in high valyrian just translated into common tongue. (english). high valyrian is poetic like that idk...

[cityofdelusion]

[amour-de-tous]

One thing that--hi, I know I'm never around anymore, sorry--I think abled folks don't really understand is how incredibly boring it is to be disabled. "Oh I'd love to spend all day in bed!" Jan I'm not resting or relaxing, I'm trapped where I don't want to be, unable to do anything I want to do. Can't even read because the brain fog from chronic illness says no. Also my bed is hot.

It's so boring.

[azaablue]

im not saying anything new about shows like avatar the last air bender and the dragon prince but what they do that i really like is kind of address how like yes, the violence happening now is connected to and because of the violence that happened in the Far Away Past, and that does not mean that we have to follow that same path, nor does it absolve those in this cycle who are committing violence, and to actually stop this pattern of pain we need to find a way to do it together to move forward and it's okay that it's not easy, we still have to

[hazel-not-wong]

when my card declines at therapy so they bring up the fact that morrigan probably saw a brother (or even a father) figure in mildmay only for him to betray her, ruining her confidence in older male figures.

[cowandcalf]

I‘m watching SEAL TEAM season 7 episode 7. It’s the final season. The guys from Bravo Team reflect on their lives. They have to deal with what comes next after they will have stepped down because their health and broken bodies forces them to. All struggle, everyone wants to stop life from moving forward, they can’t figure out how to move on without their brothers and the rush to be on a mission.

And then Jason Hayes says this:

„There‘s a reason why executioners were masks. I‘m contaminated.“

And the worst is that Jason believes what he says because war has the last word. He thinks of all the killings and what he did while he severed his country. He struggles to find a place and sense in life outside the wire. It’s painful to watch.

Ray also said once that the only ones who know, really, truly know what he did and went through as a SEAL when deployed, are his brothers. And what is he, what will be left of him when he doesn’t have he brothers anymore?

And all I can think of is Steve McGarrett and his losses, of how he switched to being a leader of a task force instead of staying in active duty. He lost too much. And I think of Danny who was there, working for HPD, a cop who didn’t fit into any team, and left his home to be near is daughter. Two souls searching for each other because they know what the other has been going through.

My muse has a field day.

[pokemonblack3white3]

The demons in my head want me to make a fifth version of the isekeiran au where the whole BB Legaue is here

[toomuchracket]

u guys think matty ever ripped the piss out of ross for dating someone who previously dated logan paul or

[mindfulhavens]

“Saints always have a past and sinners always have a future.” -Oscar Wilde

[dukeofthomas]

My understanding of Jason Todd's age;

Jason dies when he's 15, 4 months before his 16th birthday. He is dead for any number of time; it doesn't count towards his age.

He's resurrected; he is in a coma for 1 year, then catatonic for another. He is then put into a Lazarus Pit. (These 2 years are practically useless, as he doesn't remember them and they contribute very little to the story. They could be condensed to 2 months and it would change basically nothing.)

He trains for about a year. You can then give him 1-12 months of prep and planning time before his debut as the Red Hood, and the story of UT(R)H, at which point he would be mentally 16-17, physically 18-19, and it would be (--) years after his birth.

[nabi-unveiled]

Tonight I'm pondering how easy it is to miss the mark as a parent sometimes.

I often feel like a broken record at work. I'm constantly reminding people that we need to consider how ALL people interact with our products when creating them. It seriously happens at least once a week.

It's why I love shows that call out some of the issues people face in a realistic way. Scenes like the one in I Hear the Sunspot (2024) where Kohei asks Taichi to repeat something quickly steal their way into my heart and most-watched scenes. It's these types of scenes that build empathy and awareness. I'm always grateful for them.

Because empathy is not a natural thing for me. Emotions are hard to understand and process, but I am constantly trying to improve. It may seem odd, but I've learned a lot about myself and others from watching shows. I've processed and learned to identify a lot of my own emotions, and I'm a lot better at reading other people now than in my younger days.

One of my sons once summarized my "beliefs" as kindness and respect when someone criticized my "lack of (religious) beliefs". But I don't think that's always true. I can be really mean - especially during a liveblog 😅. I can often be too blunt or get stuck in my own head. It's just that inclusivity and accessibility are two things that are incredibly important to me (as well as personal autonomy and identity).

It's why I adore characters like Shao Peng from See Your Love that are treated with respect within the narrative. It's more uncommon than it should be.

With that in mind, I've tried to expose my kids to and teach my kids about all kinds of differences in people - physical and mental abilities as well as differences in culture, religion, gender identity, etc.

But bias is a bitch. It rears it head when you least expect it. And it sometimes hides itself so well you don't even notice.

As I was getting ready to put my daughter to bed tonight, she went "Hey Mom! Guess what I learned in school today? (pause) People use hearing aids to help them hear!"

I chuckled a little thinking she was being sarcastic. "Well baby, guess you already knew that one huh."

She responded, looking confused, "No, I didn't."

It was at this point that I was confused. Why?

Because I WEAR a hearing aid. I'm hearing impaired. I should have two, but they're expensive. My daughter KNOWS I wear a hearing aid. This is the same child that has known since she was a toddler that she had to whisper into my "good" ear or walk on my "good" side if she wanted me to understand her. The child who knows to tap me and get my attention before talking. The child who, unless her dad is joining, automatically puts on subtitles for me if I'm going to watch something with her on television.

So I asked, "Huh? What do you mean? You know I have a hearing aid."

Her response. "Yeah, you do. But I just thought you were weird. I didn't know OTHER people wore them too."

And now I'm shook. Because she's right. I've never taught my children about OTHER people having hearing impairments. I've never sat us down to watch a show or read a book with a hearing impaired character together. It had never occurred to me to teach about that explicitly since they obviously deal with it daily. It had never occurred to me that the running jokes of "your mom's weird" and "your mom's just different" would be transferred to that aspect of me as well.

So apparently I've missed the mark. It's okay. We can remedy this. I'll cue up the burger scene and maybe one of the hearing test scenes from I Hear the Sunspot during our next bedtime snuggle.

But now, I'm also wondering. Where else have I missed the mark? What other gaps have went unnoticed?

And moreover, which characters or scenes speak to other people? Obviously Kohei and Shao Peng resonate with me personally. But what characters or scenes are other people's examples of "representation"?

That feels like a very important list tonight.

(Side note: Back in 2017, the movie version of I Hear the Sunspot was my very first Asian BL. It's far from perfect, but it is special to me for a lot of reasons.)