#If you can't change something...

[quantumshade]

there's an interesting thing rtd said from the commentary about the "real mom" line:

i get not liking the line but like. it's an intentional mistake and an intentional character choice, and something we'll return to in the future, and that seems like important context to have when talking about the episode.

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[mari-lair]

Question for the researcher Sif stuff. Seeing as Loop is a star would Sif be able to see them clearly or would they still need to either feel their face? [Though clearly Loop wouldn't let that happen but you know.]

They would be able to see Loop well! The researcher's relationship with Loop (who is still Start Again siffrin in the au btw) is actually really interesting, cause siffrin does not remember time loops but he can vaguely sense it after all his studies, and since they are almost magnetically pulled toward stars, they always find Loop.

[kelpermoosee]

My friend labeled this “toxic aromantic yaoi” and I couldn’t agree more

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[wiseabsol]

The Ithaca Saga is banger after banger, but what makes me sob every time I listen to it is Athena's part in "I Can't Help But Wonder." Like DAMN is her arc amazing, especially in parallel to Odysseus'. And the gentle sadness of his response makes my heart ache.

[m4rz1t0ne]

FINALLY uploading my bunny ship chart over here! this was super fun for me, i love these things and i take them way too seriously

and thank you to @mantequillamcwhoremick because your takes and our conversations helped me perfect this !! YOU'RE THE GOAT.

and, yes, each of them get three songs, because i am too indecisive to pick JUST one <3

AND, below is some bonus stuff! because i saw a few things from other ship charts i wanted to fill out for these two, but i didn't wanna fill out another chart, so i'm just adding them below!

Who's the Madoka and who's the Homura?

Kenny is the Madoka, Butters is the Homura. Kenny is the Madoka, because both of them sacrifice themselves to save the world. Butters is the Homura because I think his optimism and determination to try again and again despite setbacks could probably lead him to take a similar path to her, that being, using time reversal powers to desperately try and save Kenny from death, no matter how many times he fails, because surely he'll save him this time.

Who's the armrest? Who's the headrest?

Kenny is the armrest because Butters is too tall for Kenny to rest his arms on him, but you bet your ass Butters is constantly resting his arms on Kenny. Butters always has his arm around Kenny's shoulder, waist, or just has his arms around him in general. He's crazy. And a little possessive. <3 (I like to think that sometimes he doesn't even recognize that he's doing it, it just happens naturally.) They are both each others headrests, however.

Who fell first? Who fell harder?

Butters fell first, and Kenny fell so hard every bone in his face shattered on impact. I think Butters always had a little hallway crush on Kenny, that he only processed as a crush when Princess Kenny happened. It wasn't anything too serious, until the two got closer in high school. Meanwhile, Kenny never thought much of Butters at all when they were kids. Sure, he didn't hate him the way all the other kids did, but he wasn't his biggest fan either and he was often a bystander/observer to his bullying. However, once he actually got to know him, he realized he was severely missing out (thanks @mantequillamcwhoremick you put it so perfectly in your fic HAHSAJD).

Who's the bigger yearner?

Kenny. He yearns so deeply his chest hurts. He's the one less likely to do anything about his feelings, but god does he want to.

꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜★꩜ AND THAT IS ALL. IF U READ EVERYTHING THANK YOU!! :3 I LOVE SHIPPING !!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOOOO!!!!!!!!! GOD BLESS BUNNY NATION PEACE AND LOVE GOODBYE

[lgbtlunaverse]

So I've said multipe times now (here and here) that thinking nmj is just so blinded by privilege he doesn't undertand that acting out of line gets people killed is, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of his character that ignores the part where he's, you know, actively dying the whole time and thinks that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean I don't think privilege plays no role at all in how he views the world.

Specifically, his view that death (at least premature or violent death) means something.

Death isn't always a tragedy to NMJ, but it is always meaningful. If you kill an evil dangerous person for your righteous cause, that death had meaning. There was evil in the world and now there is less of it. Similarly, if you die in the pursuit of your righteous cause, that death has meaning, because the sheer dedication you gave to it that you were willing to die for it will further that cause, and your bretheren will be invigorated by your sacrifice to fight even harder.

If a death isn't meaningful, that's an injustice and it is up to the living to give it meaning. That's what cuts so deep about his father's murder. There were no consequences, no changes, no meaning. Wen Ruohan was just going to get away with it! He fights and wins an entire war to make it mean something, to make it so that the unjust murder of Nie Mingjue's father is part of Wen Ruohan's downfall.

But this is a view he can only hold because he's the kind of person who's death will be meaningful. Most ordinary people's deaths are meaningless. Not ontologically, not inherently, but they are made meaningless because no one cares. For death to be meaningful you either have to be so powerful that anything you risk your life for will be impacted in some way. (Like, say, if you sacrifice a long life for immense martial power in a faustian bargain with a blade) Or if people with that kind of power care enough about you to do so for you. For most people, this isn't true. A starving street kid has no power to change the unfair world that put them there, even if they risk their life trying, and no one will do it for them once they die.

Nie Mingjue knows this in abstract, and of course rightfully believes it's wrong. But all that does is make it yet another righteous cause people should be willing to die for. Everyone's deaths should mean something, we'll make it so or die trying!

This is what the conflict between nieyao is about at its core. Because Jin Guangyao, fundamentally, cannot conceive of his own death as meaningful. Nie Mingjue grew up around powerful men who could change the world but refuse to do so because god forbid they risk a single hair on their perfect heads. Meng Yao, on the other hand, grew up in an environment where no one of importance would blink twice if you died. He was surrounded by meaningless death. Indeed his entire early life is defined by that lack of care.

Meng Shi dies and no one cares. Meng Yao gets thrown off a flight off stairs and no one cares. He has to be the one to do the caring, and once he's gone no one else will do it for him.

So he has to live.

Jin Guangyao eventually gets far enough that he actually does aquire the power to change some things... as long as he's alive. If he changes too much, holds on too tightly to his ideals, he'll die and it'll all be for nothing. He can't sacrifice himself for his goals because doing so would immediately render those goals unobtainable. No one will care about what he tried to do. He won't be a heroic sacrifice, he'll just be trash that finally cleaned itself up.

And well... Nie Mingjue dies, and someone makes it mean something. Makes it mean so much that the entire story of mdzs would not exist without it. Jin Guangyao dies and it doesn't mean anything. Most people are glad to be rid of him, and the few that are not don't do anything to change that.

[saedyne]

Batman (2016) #160

batman. are you fucking stupid??? is that even in question?!!??!?!

[starsonablackboard]

it's fascinating to me that every member of the party pre- and during loops treats siffrin with some flavour of alienation. like, bear with me. this post is going to sound like im here to give a hot take that the party are Bad Friends, Actually, but i promise you that's not what i mean. you're with me? okay. let's go.

isa idolises him (in the having a crush on someone type of way).

mira views them almost as a book character (the whole "the aura! the mystique!" conversation).

odile calls them a child to their face multiple times.

bonnie is... well, bonnie. kid is coping how they manage.

in the very beginning of the journey we have isa and mira, who, out of all five, are the most familiar to eachother. they're from the same country, they both actively follow the change religion, they both occupy (or occupied, in isa's case) well-respected positions in society, they're very close in age and i would assume socioeconomic statuses. they share a lot personality wise, too. they're both anxious about not being enough, about not changing enough, they're both open and emotional and affectionate, they even both like romance novels! they are very in eachother's comfort zones. they are very understandable to eachother.

then there's odile. she is as different as it gets – she's ka buan (and well half vaugardian but nobody knows that), she's old, she has different religios beliefs and different history with body craft, she's confident, self-secure, reserved, sarcastic and at times cold and makes it very apparent that she's not into openly displayed affection. but also, she is actively choosing to be seen this way. she is comfortable with being perceived like this.

and then, there's siffrin. a mysterious traveler with mysterious past that doesn't like to be touched and never talks about his feelings. where are they from? what he believes? what did he do prior? why did they join them? noone knows. situation kinda similar to odile's, but kicker is, we know siffrin does not want to be seen this way.

mira, being a somewhat sheltered not very experienced young adult (she's from dormont with population less than a regular highschool class, and has been living in the house for some past years) with more familiarity with books than with real world obviously views them more as a cool character than a person. and i can't blame her! siffrin doesn't help her view them any differently either.

isa i assume catches feeling almost immideately (the whole journey takes less than a year, sif is second to last to join and we know that isa's crush has been going for months) and it's universally hard to not idolise and idealise the person you're having a crush on, so even tho isa is more experienced than mira, i imagine he fails to see siffrin as a whole person too.

odile out of all of them grinds my own personal gears the most. i love you, old wise lady, but oh god. the amount of times she refers to the party and in particular siffrin as kids or children is sure something. and the thing with kids is that you generally don't view them as equals, so, no "seeing siffrin as a person that he is" there either.

that's general dynamics. now to what interactions we actually see in game:

odile mocks siffrin for being forgetful. every time siffrin forgets a word, everyone reacts as if they don't remember that vaugardian isn't siffrin's native language. both isa and mira behave patronisingly towards them (jokingly, but still). the whole party spends some time comparing siffrin to a wild animal in the dictionary conversation, mira saying "what a perfect analogy" with stars in her eyes. one time siffrin desides to open up and tell them about stars, they mock him. when he kills that sadness more violently than usual, they all look at him as if he murdered a baby (i still don't really get why btw. they've been fighting side to side for months). the whole ghost event. ohhh ghost event my beloved.

all of these, for me, point to a very deep yet unacknowledged disconnect between siffrin and the rest of the party. the not-understanding. the unfamiliarity. the alienation. siffrin is other even in their own little ragtag bunch of misfits.

now AM I SAYING that means that the party is bad actually?? no!!! for every interaction i named there's multiple others with them being supportive and warm to sif. also, siffrin, famously, is very bad at telling when something bothers them, so noone whould even know if they were doing anything that upset him. and, on top of everything else, i think it's very natural for a party of very different people traveling in a lot of hurry and discomfort and plain mortal danger for months to develop a bond where "i would die for you, my siblings in arms, but i also will poke fun at your religion when it starts to sound too impossible for my worldview. what do you mean stars are there in the daytime too? don't be silly". i actually really appreciate their friendships being imperfect, because it's so much more interesting and thought provoking this way. like, I've been thinking about this for weeks.

and also, this specific type of imperfection plays into the core themes of siffrin's character. to be welcomed, adored, loved, even, but not understood. not recognised. not known. and to not even try to explain untill the world is literally ending.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[black-and-yellow]

[cortex-rampage]

I find the way that BBC Merlin set up Merlin's powers in the first episode to be quite funny. I mean, we see this sort of lanky guy and it is established that he is Merlin and (according to our own common knowledge) therefore he is the most powerful warlock ever. Okay, cool. One might assume that he has come to Gaius to develop his powers, that maybe he's only in the beginning of his magical journey. But instead the exposition shows Merlin, in the pilot episode of this 5 series show, stop time and employ levitation to save someone's life with magic, and then it is announced that prince Arthur is essentially his soulmate, and their joint power will create the most glorious age Camelot has ever seen. Quite an exciting set-up. And then for the rest of the entire show this man who we know possesses TIME-ALTERING POWERS mostly uses them on-screen to do common chores and annoy and prank THAT SAME Arthur. Like that one post said, "All of it's destiny and all of it's his fault." :p

[captain-space-kin]

Hey you guys know that your average Jay fan finds people that uwu white softboy twinkify him are annoying, right? That we also don't like is when people shove Nya aside in favor of Jay, especially in relation to Skybound, right?? That we do actually care about Nya's character outside of the context of Jaya, right??? That we are also critical of how he's been written over the years both by the official writers and fans, right??? Y'all understand that it's frustrating to have a character you like boiled down to his worst outings when no other character on the cast gets treated that way, right???? You aren't basing your entire opinion of a character and it's fans around a bunch of annoying assholes, who other fans also don't agree with, right????? RIGHT?????? YOU GUYS AREN'T MAKING GROSS GENERALIZATIONS CLAIMING THAT EVERYONE WHO LIKES JAY IS BEING CASUALLY MISOGYNISTIC, RIGHT??????? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME-

[dennisboobs]

standing in front of a firing squad would have been easier than reading this script i need to be shot

[cordiallyfuturedwight]

you can't stop me lovin' myself ♡ for @kimtaegis