#THIS IS HOLLOW AND MEANINGLESS

[arahabakix]

the only saving grace of the new episode was the old man yaoi i am sorry but i have never been this disappointed by a bsd episode in my time as a fan like genuinely wtf am i supposed to feel about this?

[communistkenobi]

now that I haven’t lived with my parents for almost two years I’m starting to come to terms with myself as a full human being. and like idk I can’t really complain about my parents too much in terms of their overall parenting of me, I feel like I’m lucky in a lot of respects just based on the horrific shit some of my friends/family have gone through, but I feel like one consequence of how much my parents fucking hated each other for my entire life is that I feel like I have no reference point for showing affection or being emotionally considerate/vulnerable, those things tend to make me deeply uncomfortable and disempower me to do nice things for the people I love. I feel like I have to really concentrate and spend time on emotional reciprocity and spontaneous gifts/gestures of love. genuinely just kind of sucks how much my parents despise one another and how their constant fighting and days-long silent treatments over the course of 25 years has made me feel inadequate to the task of showing the people I care about how much I love them

[nativehueofresolution]

the other part of this is that daniel calls armand his "merciless and all-loving demonic god", and this is a perception armand both encourages and discourages. i think on the conscious level he is actively trying to discourage it. armand repeatedly expresses frustration with daniel assuming armand can track him down anywhere when he runs away from night island, scolding daniel for putting himself in danger where armand might not be able to help. he makes sarcastic and exasperated remarks anytime daniel says something to the effect of armand is strong enough to take on other vampires or ward off any danger. he seems to really want daniel to understand he has limits. and daniel even recognizes this is how armand feels. he mentally cries out for armand, saying "you know i want to come home", and he imagines armand responding by saying "but i don't know... i'm not god, daniel". he knows armand wouldn't like the idea of daniel thinking of him like that.

but the reason daniel feels this way is armand literally spent years cultivating an image of himself as an omnipresent and inescapable predator. he builds a life for daniel where he's completely dependent on armand - to the point of having his clothes picked out and not even doing his own grooming - and has literally no other people in his life. he tells daniel "there's nothing for you now, daniel, except me. you know that. madness waits out there."

it's the same type of isolation and dependency marius created in venice, where he told him "you are for me". but armand is presenting himself in a subservient way. it doesn't change the reality of the power dynamic, but he's trying to give daniel the illusion of control, of freedom, of being the master of himself. he grants his every wish. he lets daniel come and go as he pleases even though he's doing everything he can to get daniel to stay, to want for nothing. he only comes to get daniel when he calls, but he also knows he's essentially letting his domesticated pet out into the wild. he isn't built for that anymore, and it was armand who made it that way. he's echoing the way he experienced "love" as a mortal, but trying to change just enough so that daniel still has control of himself (because he recognizes that was wrong? because he feels he's most appealing in a servile role? because he's trying to treat daniel like frog in slowly heating water instead of going to a straight boil?). still, i don't think he wants to be a god to daniel. he's giving daniel the blood as marius did with him, but he resents how much daniel craves it. he engineers daniel's dependency but also can't truly believe daniel loves him because of it - now he thinks daniel's just obsessed with the blood. armand wants things to be different, to be better with daniel, but has no playbook after so much isolation. and he falls back to his time as a human with a vampire and no matter the surface trappings he alters, he can't change the fundamental power imbalance built into the relationship he's echoing.

[tritoch]

I've also seen it suggested that Zenos is a flat character, and I think that's true! I think he is intentionally drawn both sharply and flatly to make him stand out and to play up his symbolic and thematic role. But I think, especially post-Endwalker, he is frequently reduced to the aspects that serve as metacommentary on gaming and MMOs and FFXIV itself, but equally important (and more important up through Endwalker itself) is his role as imperialism's final output.

Zenos initially feints at being a certain kind of rounded villain. He has cool armor and a signature weapon (these things matter in a game like FFXIV), he's presented as a genuine believer in merit in juxtaposition to his sexist and racist officers, he's well-spoken and takes a personal interest in you. In fact, he's a lot like Gaius van Baelsar, whose brief but charismatic (and, due to MSQ roulette, repeatedly viewed) appearances in ARR suggested to some the impression of a noble figure in service to the wrong ideals, one of gaming's favorites kinds of Rounded Characters With Nuanced Writing.

It's possible to mistakenly believe through just about the Ala Mhigo dungeon itself that maybe Zenos will have a turn, that his relentless torture of conquered peoples accomplishes some greater end in his mind. After all, wasn't Gaius also fixated on violence and strength? Didn't he also believe that man raises himself up through conflict? And Gaius's Praetorium speech has fans and defenders to this day!

This is why the Royal Menagerie and the ultimate flattening of Zenos's character is effective, compelling, and ultimately necessary. Where ARR ends still pretending that maybe Gaius was an interesting dude with things to say, Stormblood finishes the job of (literally) stripping violent imperialism of its mask and showing it for what it is. Prosperity, the Roman peace, technological progress, all of those are incidental outputs to this, imperialism's true engine: the naked exercise of power and glorification of violence for their own sakes, as ends in themselves. Zenos fights so he can fight more. That's the punchline.

And importantly, Endwalker confirms it's always the punchline. Garlemald is drowning in recurring symbols and archetypes. Corvos and Goug and Amaurot and (after its destruction) Garlemald proper all at various points represent for different characters a mythical pre-collapse Eden, the reclamation or realization of which (through the right kind of violence applied to the right kind of people) is the putative goal of the empire. There's multiple ideal imperial men, multiple evil scientists, multiple conflicted collaborators. They serve to enrich each other's stories because you can set Yotsuyu's story against Fordola's against Gosetsu's and learn something from it.

But there is only one future for the Garlean Empire (distinct from the nation and people of Garlemald). Zenos is the Crown Prince when he enters the game, and (probably) the last direct male heir in the line of Galvus when he dies. He is the nameless assassin who commits regicide and the opportunistic tyrant who seizes power in the aftermath. He is both the last corrupt emperor and, through the Telophoroi, the barbarian hordes raging at his own gates.

Zenos is the endpoint of the Garlean Empire. Anyone who has survived him will be part of something different; there are no alternatives to him (most notably, Nerva never appears, except as a blasphemy, and Gaius explicitly declines further involvement with Garlemald). He is the nihilistic, violent dead end that lies at the heart of empire. If you feel his aims are hollow and venal, then all is as it should be.

[paarthursass]

I think I would hate the Melody Pond storyline less if it had any actual lingering emotional weight. It's a twist created entirely for shock value. Amy and Rory lose their baby mid season 6 and then have fun hijinks with the Doctor for the rest of the season like Demon's Run never happened. How do they continue on after something like that? Why do we never see them grieve outside of that one episode? They lost their baby. And no, finding out their baby is River doesn't change the fact that they don't get to raise her. Finding out she was actually their best friend growing up (which might have had more weight, if we'd met said best friend earlier than Let's Kill Hitler) doesn't change the fact that, again they did not get to raise their daughter as their daughter. And they lost her because of the Doctor. Because the Silence wanted to destroy him, because their daughter had been irrevocably changed by the TARDIS which made her the perfect weapon. Even if it wasn't technically the Doctor's fault...how do they continue to travel with him after that? How does that not IRREVOCABLY change their relationship? Why were there no consequences? Why, in the grand scheme of things, did this reveal Not Matter?

And the thing is, in season 6 we see the Doctor repeatedly fail Amy and Rory in ASTOUNDING ways (Amy's kidnapping and Demon's Run, but also in the Girl Who Waited, when he essentially kills older Amy (and makes Rory complicit in her death)) until he, ultimately, decides to leave them in the God Complex for their own safety. But he left them. Why weren't they the ones who left, after the devastating loss of their daughter? How could Rory possibly continue to travel with the Doctor after he had to listen to a version of his wife die because of a mistake the Doctor made?

If there's no lingering emotional stakes, then why should I care about anything that happens? If there's no real consequences, what does it matter how anything resolves? Amy and Rory lose their baby, but it's alright! She's River! And they go on traveling with the Doctor like nothing bad ever happened! It's all fine! And it's all empty.

[chaiaurchaandni]

for the geniuses who oppose armed resistance:

if you stand with palestinian corpses but not palestinian rockets, your solidarity is hollow and meaningless

[femmchantress]

Kinda don’t like being alive right now

[frumfrumfroo]

So Reylos are now freaking out over episode 4 of Ahsoka cause Anakin showed up in what appears to be the wbw. I have not watched Ahsoka and don't plan to. I personally think that nothing will come out of this in regards to Ben Solos return. People think Leia sacrificed herself to send Ben there? If she sacrificed herself to save him then he wouldn't have gone anywhere he would have been alive.

Anyone who thinks there was planning or thought behind anything in tros is delusional.

Thinking they're setting up Ben's resurrection is almost as removed from reality.

[thebirdandhersong]

"Life is filled with such terrible joy. What happens, happens, and then we are gone" and that's what I didn't enjoy del Toro's Pinocchio

[screenviolense]

would it bother people if i said i was going to go on a softblock spree of everyone who has never once interacted ic or ooc and i mean like. hasn't even liked an ooc post

[malewifespike]

the way my job made my dyke ass watch a 2 hour training on lgbt sensitivity like I haven’t been consistently pointing out structural homophobia/transphobia that occurs in the hospital every day and everyone in upper management has been like 🫢🤐🥱

[therequiemforthelost-archive]

Welcome to the Manda Loses His Shit Over The Wanderer Trailer

Okay okay so like, Kuni's past actually heavily parallel's Jeanne's in a sense and I am screaming and thriving.

So when Jeanne was a child, her house had been burned down, much like how Kuni had set ablaze the house the child he was friends with when he died. Jeanne, as an adult, burns down the remains of her childhood home when she finally breaks over many many years of repressing her emotions and how she truly felt about her own situation, much like how Kuni had snapped and burned the child's home down and had similar thoughts like his

While in the moment it feels good, it doesn't fix the hurt...

In this moment, Kuni is reflecting on his life up to this point. He feels like he shouldn't have been born, considering for pretty much his whole life he feels as though he hasn't had a purpose. When Jeanne snaps, she has thoughts like this as well. Let's be real, Jeanne has chronic middle child syndrome, especially when she compares how her life turned out compared to her point of view on how her older and younger sisters' lives turned out. She's resentful that they've found their purpose and that she's just stuck. She honestly wishes that she didn't exists and feels like the world would be better off without her.

And that brings me to when Kuni confronts his past. In all his years alive, for most of it he wandered without a purpose. Did he really wish for death? Did he really think his purpose was to be dead? And that brings us back to little miss Jeanne Ardelean...

The two meet when Jeanne is having the exact moment he had all those years ago. Snapping then when things settled, feeling empty and without a purpose. He sees this fellow lost soul and feels... compelled in a sense to reach out. Maybe it would be worth it to open up, even if it's just a little... Even though he's afraid of trusting again, afraid that another promise would be broken, afraid that him reaching out wouldn't matter in the end, he can't help it. He can't just sit by when he sees a person who reminds him so painfully of himself broken down, seeing someone in the exact moment of weakness he had and wonder, could he really want to see someone go down the same path he wandered down? Could he watch someone else destroy themself in order to find a "purpose"? Maybe... Just maybe... He could make a difference and help another lost wanderer go down a better path...

Art by @kobble-arts

[manderleyfire]

you know i'm disgusting person from ao3, so i wasnt that much against larys being a tarantino fan :)))) like... it's even kinda made me giggle to think of! but the scene just felt... off. it didn't do anything to him, her, them, us in narrative regard and i hate how it just was there to fill some screen space for no reason whatsover, this ship is so twisted and the possibilities where to turn them are endless, why making THAT?????? wtf

+++++

same here, babe! the idea of that scene >>>> an actual scene. i really don’t care much what pll gonna think of the ship now (it’s a silly show about dragon fights and i’m an adult (or so it seems at least)), it still owns a piece of my creepyshipper’s heart but UGH im getting tired of the constant black propaganda (and don’t get me wrong I LOVE THE BLACKS!) because even “that” scene… it’s all over about drawing a FLASHING NEON parallel between the two queens, where rhae is happily married with hundreds of kids and aly is miserable and obligated to tolerate sexual abuse :///

[bosjess]

The guy I had been seeing a bit told me he’s not looking for other dates right now (and at this point we had been ok with no exclusivity so it’s fine) but then goes “in a couple of months when I’m done with work I’ll be on the apps” and I’m like ??????

we discussed that we were trying to take this to somewhere serious and check in (in like a month?) so completely antithetical to that unless like he has already made up his mind to not see me anymore, knowing what I want and what we discussed, just revealed it and still had invited me over to stay anyway (so used me for sex I guess?)

I’m so tired and feel sick so I would be more upset but Jesus Christ

[twofivethreesix]

they should have shawn baichoo do more noises for the player. idk have him make ehwhshhshd sounds. or noises of enlightenment. mmm apple

[ithrowshoesatconservatives]

not sure how much this applies to anyone else but for all my love and personification of robots and AI, i can’t fucking stand chess bots

don’t fucking say that was a good game, you can’t tell the difference between a hard fought battle and resignation on the third term

i’m going to blowtorch your processor and watch the burnt wires spark off each other