#^ very oversimplified im exhausted

[forestofsprites]

i'm at 33 bastardly pages of notes from my research this afternoon, and the absolute best that i have to show for it is my desperation to explore cas's confession and death through the lens of death sentence speeches & subsequent executions in 17th/18th century england!!!!!!!!

[ruralbi]

dear diary i am once again having emotions.

i had a breakdown yesterday where i cried my eyes out over spilled milk and actually im crying about it right now. im really fucking depressed. as in my thought processes arent healthy they're caught in this negative spiral which is so destructive to joy and the unique soul in my body. but i dont wanna live this way! i wanna love myself so much and live with joy in my heart.

unfortunately yesterday uhhhh breakdown, over nothing (a failed cooking experiment to oversimplify, can u get more housewife? doubtful)

very embarrassingly in front of my best friend. and i was just there bowling my eyes out and he was just sitting watching youtube videos and i thought boy. fancy. honey. can u get any more pathetic, crying abt fuck all like you're gonna die, in front of ur platonic fuck buddy who couldn't give two shits and is watching carpentry yt videos.

but honestly? its just that he has the emotional capacity of a vintage truck. none at all. boy can barely articulate his own feelings i cant expect him to react appropriately to mine, which are wild and violent and very cry baby in nature.

but he has his own weird ways. that same night he hand fed me. at the time i didnt register it at all as something that was happening. my exhausted brain from pure panic mode from my freak out earlier, i just wanted to go to sleep. we get in bed with my failed cooking experiment, which was still eatable after all. he's like do u want some and i say no. he proceeds to hand me feed me half the thing, where he'll eat a few bites and then hand me one. the intimacy of it was crazy.

at that point i dont want to eat i dont want to exist i just want to disappear. but he shares the food with me, decides when i eat and how much, im so exhausted i dont think twice abt it. his hand is at my mouth, he's the one i love, i open my mouth, my body for him like always.

we didnt do anything sexual that night, he just held me, we cuddled.

so yeah, maybe he'll watch YouTube videos while i cry and maybe he's for shit bc of that. but he'll hand feed me and kiss my shoulder at midnight and that's what neurotic bastards like me get.

sometimes i like to lean into the princess reading some guys get of me. but recently i dont feel like a princess at all. i feel like a derelict castle, the kind of princess that's locked away bc the royal family is too ashamed. tired of bein a weirdo.

[evil-writer]

@the-feminine-grotesque replied to your post “lol every time choi b*n do opens his mouth i hate him a little more....”

it's not about redemption. that indicates that he needs to be redeemed. he doesnt. it's their marriage that needs to be repaired. the thing is even if u sympathize more with jinjoo and dislike ban do (totally fair), he is not the sole reason they broke up. nor did they break up cuz their was no love there anymore, it was because love was crushed under the weight of their responsibilities. leading to both feeling alone, exhausted, neglected/underappreciated and miserable

idk how far in u are, so this might be smth that becomes more clear later on, or u just disagree completely to the very end. but yeah i like this drama cuz while yeah its about them finding their way back to each other it's even more about them getting to right the things int he past that left them with regrets, it's about figuring out where things went wrong in their lives and in their marriage, it's about reconciling their memories with what the reality of their past 

actually was. and ofc they get to actually know more about the people they had as a "first love". ep 5 was an interesting perspective on the nature of "first love" and what it actually means. and ofc then u have the shadow of the death of jinjoo's mother in the future which likely put a huge strain on their relationship esp if jj blames bd for it on some level. sorry im not trying to come in here and tell you how to feel about the drama or anyone in it i swear!

just wanted to give a different perspective. i dont like when ban do insults jinjoo but she's also pretty cutting with him. and more importantly idt either fully understands what pain they were going thru or how hard those words are hitting. i sympathize more with jinjoo definitely, part of that is jang nara is just KILLING it and has the eyes of a lost baby dear, and part of that is that unlike ban do she experienced a crushing loss with her mother's death.

i have more to say but i will refrain until i know how far along in the show you are (that assumes u want to hear more from me ofc. if u dont i will understand and stop here)

just fyi, i love your wall of text comments, and am always honoured to be a recipient of them. your perspectives are so insightful, and are always welcome! (lowkey they validate my stupid screaming into the void a lil bit so i’m always happy whenever tumblr deigns to notify me lolol).

i was actually not very far into the drama when i made the original post. it was something like early ep 3, probably? in any case, i’ve watched up to episode 5 right now and i can understand ban do. i can understand that he was in as much pressure as jin joo, if not more so (in terms of the future timeline). with my background and family, i more than understand the social pressures he faced. but while i understand his position, i still can’t help disliking him. 

for the most part, i’m able to separate the drama-digesting part of my brain from the part that deals with the rest of my life. but then a drama like go back couple will come along and go down the other pipe, and i’ll be watching with the full weight of the emotional baggage that comes with RL tara (as opposed to Tumblr User evil-writer). and the life jin joo had pre-time travel is my worst nightmare. it’s not even just the bits before their divorce. it’s that she had little to no life outside her duties as mom and wife. it’s that she didn’t have that luxury. i can’t stomach watching her go back to that. 

(her calling ban do stingy miser comes to mind here. was she right to call him that? no. but from where i stand, that comes from a deep-rooted anger at their whole financial situation, and while it’s not nice, it’s understandable.)

for dramas like this one, my overall feelings towards a character tend to be constructed by a first impression. and mine re: ban do involved him watching tv while seo jin bawled in front of the bathroom door, making it so that jin joo couldn’t even have a minute to do her business. many things happened after that, of course, but it’s the first thing that sprung to mind while jin joo broke down on the street crying for seo jin; how’s ban do doing? 

in the meantime, ban do was focused on how he could stay in the past (current time? idk i’m still confused about how this time travel works). he loves seo jin. there’s no doubt in my mind about that. but he has to be reminded that he has a child. 

see, the way i interpret it, ban do is immature. maybe a little too immature to be a family man. it’s this i was referring to when i said redemption, so i probably phrased it badly. after the initial “wow i’m back in my 20s” wore off, his gut reaction was to go after his first love. and yeah, of course, he has a right to explore that what-if. but if jin joo is breaking down in the streets because she misses her son, is it wrong to expect him to actually...remember on his own, that he has a son?

but also it’s his attitude towards jin joo. it’s his constantly back-handedly calling her ugly. it’s that i can’t accept, ignore or even understand. it’s the “why tf would he like you?” attitude. it’s the “there’s no way he thought you’re pretty” attitude. it’s that he’s allowed to dismiss jin joo (scene in the lecture hall) but when she does the same to him, he does the Wrist Grab. it’s the “you can’t do better than me, but i settled” attitude. which jin joo may or may not be guilty of as well. but the way i see it, her name calling and hurting him comes from a place of extreme frustration at their financial situation, and at the state of her life. she said pre-time travel that her regret was not studying a little harder, and not becoming a prosecutor. 

his involved his first love. 

maybe i’m oversimplifying him. maybe i’m a little too unforgiving. i can’t help it. it’s RL tara projecting her anxiety. and she’s a crazy bitch. i need jin joo to fix her life so that she’s never as miserable as she was pre-time travel. i need her to cultivate that career. and with ban do the way he is--heart in the right place, but so immature, i don’t think she can do that with him in her life. but again, it’s very much me as a person. 

(the same person that’s always angry about the way sung na jeong was treated by both the writing and the fandom, but that’s another story entirely.)

[ganymedesclock]

im still seeing posts saying bismuth was right bc she "only wanted to shatter the diamonds". ignoring how oversimplified such an act seems to be, as if there wouldn't be gems to defend their diamond and as if fighting a diamond herself wouldn't be trouble, it's still upsetting that that's the part of bismuth ppl focus on and agree with

Bismuth is right about some things, but that’s definitely not one of them.

Bismuth’s noble qualities are that she’s a very caring person in general- and that even though it wasn’t under the greatest of circumstances, she’s also the first to really strongly and in no uncertain words tell Steven he doesn’t have to be Rose Quartz 2.0. That’s important and I hope she keeps that message up through further appearances.

But, no, she’s not… right about killing the Diamonds. I’ve made many long-winded posts about this before, but. here goes.

1. It’s irreconcilable with the morals of the show. 

One of the big things emphasized with the show is that everyone has a unique viewpoint to contribute. That doesn’t mean you have to be super close to them or friends with them, especially not at your own expense; in fact, you may be healthier just not investing that much energy in them (see: Kevin in Beach City Drift) but that doesn’t mean they’re not important.

Saying that killing off a character is even permissible- that it’d be okay even if Steven didn’t personally kill the Diamonds, but just didn’t save them- is irreconcilable with that. It’s irreconcilable with how we’ve specifically set up the Diamonds to be understandable. Not right- understandable.

2. You can’t just spare the entirety of Homeworld and then only kill the Diamonds.

There is nothing that separates the Diamonds from the other ‘antagonists’ except in terms of scale. The Diamonds are able to affect things on a much larger area because of their position and power. There is nothing uniquely reprehensible that they have done.

Because that’s just it. If everybody else in this incredible fictional universe is fine except them, then the implication is clear. There’s something the Diamonds and only the Diamonds have done that is unforgivable.

“They indoctrinated people to think less of themselves!”

Pearl in Sworn To The Sword.

“They nearly destroyed Earth!”

Lapis in Ocean Gem, the Cluster in Gem Drill, and guess what? We better take out Centi, Jasper, and Famethyst for good measure because they were soldiers fighting to ensure that happened. Peridot in It Could Have Been Great advocated for it.

“Blue was going to kill Ruby!”

I’d love to put in a snappy montage of all the time Garnet has swung her heavy, smashy, gauntleted fist directly at someone’s gem. But, y’know, sure, I’m sure that a war that produced enough casualties to make the Cluster and all of its offshoots, the only one who ever killed anyone were Homeworld’s soldiers, which- guess what. Jasper, Famethyst, Centipeetle and her crew? They’re now all Irredeemable by that measure.

“They murder and torture people for fun!”

This is pure unsubstantiated and in fact directly contradicted fanon. Yellow Diamond is working herself near to death to the point that she’s exhausted and she doesn’t even need sleep, where does she have the time to kick puppies? And Blue, the handling of the Zoomans is a very, very long ways from perfect but one of their main problems is excessive coddling and a refusal to try and expose them to negative situations.

And guess what? The other part of this is? You can’t isolate the Diamonds unless they have some kind of unique horrible quality you can pin to them that’s so obvious and unambiguous that no one who realizes their “true nature” would follow them. If there’s nothing inherently reprehensible and unforgivable about them, you can’t explain how Homeworld could universally turn its back on them.

And on that…

3. “What’s The Use Of Feeling, Blue?” is a scenario with the Diamonds in private, unaware they’re being observed by anyone but their respective Pearls. It’s a straight shot into their true nature.

And it’s heartbreaking.

Why is Yellow Diamond so unreasonable? Because she’s completely and utterly heartbroken. She’s so overwhelmed with bad feelings that she’s desperate to do anything to move on. Peridot in Message Received challenging her on the Cluster was threatening her desperate gamble to find closure. Of course she’d never take that. Sparing Earth, in her eyes, means being trapped with her grief forever.

She doesn’t think she can move on unless she forces it. And she’s trying to force it.

And Blue is so mired in grief that she’s become, if anything, more inaccessible to her populace. Coming to Earth to grieve and say goodbye might be more of her being able to open up than Yellow, but she’s running an entire empire. I really hope she didn’t have any important appointments that she pushed to the side to do that, but it’d sure explain why Yellow Diamond came looking for her.

If White’s not around, or shut off in her own way, then it would suggest not only is Yellow overworking herself but she’s probably picking up almost all the slack from the other Diamonds at her own expense. She’s aggressively overperforming how fine and unaffected she is when she can’t even get her song about “Just don’t feel and you’ll be fine” out without choking back her own tears. 

Why are people so sure the only way to hold them accountable for what they’ve done is killing them all? 

4. Literally unless we want the entirety of Gems as a species and Homeworld to die off, we’re going to have to solve most of the same problems the Diamonds are concerned with

And the other problems are relevant to grieving! Grief, like, y’know, Greg and the Crystal Gems have been working through this entire time, and Jasper’s gonna need to, so if we’re going there anyway literally why would we go “Sorry YD you missed the grief counseling, all I have is violence.”

5. It was repeatedly and strongly established to us that killing Pink Diamond was not a good decision.

Our contrary evidence that says it was a great idea: 

Bismuth, who Rose and Steven both, albeit for different reasons, disagreed with

Garnet, who has voiced these “not everyone deserves forgiveness or an opportunity to turn around” sentiments before, and usually been almost immediately proven wrong.