#Thesis Editing

[deadpoets]

OSCAR PIASTRI + SNOOPY

[rachelazegler]

There is not a locked room anywhere that with the right tools and enough time you can't break into.

[ID under cut: A series of 21 gifs from the TV show 9-1-1.

The 1st gif shows Hen and Eddie untangling Halloween decorations at the firehouse. Eddie says, "You never know when a door is gonna close, and when it does, then...". Hen replies "It's sealed".

The 2nd gif shows Shannon talking to Eddie, who is offscreen, at a restaurant. She says, "Because if I try to do this again before I'm ready, there won't be a second chance."

The 3rd gif shows Pepa talking to Eddie, who is offscreen. She says, "It's been too long. You need to do something or you're going to be alone forever."

The 4th gif shows an injured woman lying on a backboard in a c-collar talking to Eddie and Hen, who are offscreen. She says, "We're all gonna die alone. Might as well spend time with our loved ones while we're still living." The gif cuts to a shot of Eddie and Hen looking at her.

The 5th gif shows Shannon lying down in an ambulance with a c-collar. She is talking to Eddie, who is offscreen. She says, "I'd love...a little more time."

The 6th gif shows Eddie during a flashback talking to Shannon, who is offscreen. He says "Can we please talk about this later? Can I maybe just get a little damn time?"

The 7th gif shows Eddie with tears in his eyes talking to Kim, who is offscreen. He says, "Never did get to say all the things I wanted to say. or hear all the things I needed to hear, I guess."

The 8th gif shows Ramon sitting down at a table talking to Eddie, who is offscreen. He says, "Why didn't you tell us?" The gif cuts to a shot of Eddie, who says, "Pretty sure you know the answer to that question."

The 9th gif shows Eddie standing in front of his fridge with tears in his eyes, talking to Ana, who is offscreen. He says, "I should have said something sooner." Ana replies, still offscreen, "Yeah. You probably should have."

The 10th gif shows Buck talking to Eddie, who is offscreen. He says, "You said you did this a year ago, why are you just telling me now?"

The 11th gif shows Eddie underground during the well rescue. You cannot see his face. He says, "I need more time", but the text indicates it's unintelligible. The gif cuts to a shot of Bobby looking frustrated, then cuts to a shot of Buck shouting, "Cap, can't we give him more time?"

The 12th gif shows Christopher yelling at Eddie, who is offscreen. Offscreen, Eddie says, "We'll make an even bigger gingerbread house next year, right?" Christopher replies, "You could be dead next year!" The gif cuts to a shot of Eddie looking up at Christopher, who is offscreen, with a shocked look.

The 13th gif shows Eddie on the phone. He says, "Why wait? Well, there's no better time than now."

The 14th gif shows Eddie at the firehouse talking to Chimney, who is offscreen. He says, "Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone. If you love her, tell her."

The 15th gif shows Shannon at a restaurant talking to Eddie, who is offscreen. She says, "Eddie, uh, I think–". The gif cuts to a shot of Eddie, where he cuts Shannon off and says, "Please, just...let me say this."

The 16th gif shows Buck talking to Eddie, who is offscreen. He says, "Uh, Eddie–". The gif cuts to a shot of Eddie, where he cuts Buck off and says, "Just let me finish."

The 17th gif shows Buck being pushed towards the ground, with blood splattered on his face. He is staring ahead at Eddie, who is offscreen, with a shocked expression. The gif cuts to a shot of Eddie, who is lying on his side on the street, with his head in a puddle of blood. He is staring ahead at Buck, who is offscreen, as his hand falls forward towards Buck.

The 18th gif shows a close-up of Eddie talking to Christopher, who is offscreen. He says, "You can always come back. If you change your mind five minutes or five months from now...".

The 19th gif shows Eddie sitting in a confessional booth. Offscreen, a priest says to him, "Well, I imagine after 23 years, something in particular must be bothering you enough to make you feel like you need to be here."

The 20th gif shows Eddie talking to Buck, who is offscreen. He says, "Don't walk away from something before you even know what it is."

The 21st gif shows Eddie opening his front door. The gif cuts to wide shot of him smiling and nodding hello to Buck, who is offscreen. Eddie is wearing a button-up shirt with no pants. The gif then cuts to a shot of a visibly upset Buck standing outside, looking at Eddie.

END ID]

[riricitaa]

I had to 🫣😌

[percivaltzing]

happy aromantic awareness week. have a celebratory seal for the occasion. [ID: A graphic depiction of a dark gray seal holding a heart in the aromantic colours. End ID.]

[shorthaltsjester]

endlessly thinking thoughts about cr characters, morality, and selfishness (likely place for me to be, given that my day job includes endlessly researching ethics and meaning of life) but in light of bell’s hells most recent illustration of their insularity and individualism, I’ve been really like. Trying to unpack why I find it particularly egregious in this party when obviously mighty nein were notoriously self-interested, especially at the beginning, and when vox machina had quite a few moments where their horses were far higher than they had any reason to be. And again, I really want to make it clear her that I don’t hold self-interest or selfishness to be some abhorrent and unforgivable thing, in fact I think its incredibly normal especially given the context of main characters in a story told through game mechanics that flourish on the interest of the individuals making the choices. I’ve written before about how one of the throughlines that I’ve seen in laura’s pcs (since I’m someone who particularly enjoys looking at the moral outlooks characters develop) is a common thread of morality that’s highly dependent on their own interests. And like, this is a positive throughline to me! Without getting into my own views on morality, it is particularly compelling to me for characters with isolated upbringing (which applies to vex, jester, and imogen, each in different ways) to develop a moral code informed by that isolation, and in vex we see her moral code is ‘anything goes if it protects those I hold dear’, in jester we see a moral code that doesn’t care about morality as much as it cares about the chance to care and be cared for, and in imogen we see a moral code developed in response to her very unique experience of hearing the darkest parts of people and judging them on those (which to be clear, i am not judging her for that fact, I think it makes extreme sense for someone who hears the thoughts the people have to be horrified by those things, but it does mean her moral system is almost completely backwards, where intention holds more weight than action, which perhaps makes sense of the popularity of defending all of her ideas and choices and the Right Ones by certain parts of the fandom that insist leftism is hidden in the dnd real play). And that’s all to say that, out of the cr parties we’ve seen, I don’t think any single member of bell’s hells is uniquely more or less selfish or more or less of an asshole than previous characters. And in fact, I tend to be quite fond of selfish characters, I have a well documented history of cherishing them well beyond the cr fandom. But the point is that my calling something or someone self-interested is not a value judgement in this context, it's a descriptive claim about the traits a character exhibited.

Imogen, who has insisted time and time again re: the values of the accord that she would not be swayed by the temptation of predathos because she recognizes the importance of this fight, only to turn around and pretty immediately open herself up to predathos to fulfil the most threatening part of ludinus’ plan is self-interested. I cannot conceive of any other way to describe her choices. And her being self-interested doesn’t mean she can’t also be altruistic at times, but I will be clear that I don’t think her risking killing herself as she attempts to bring down the god-eater that she released is particularly selfless. In my best faith interpretation I’d say she’s pretty middle of the road in that choice. But I bring all this up because a comparison I’ve been seeing is that bell’s hells aren’t as mean as the mighty nein or even vox machina in certain moments and that it doesn’t make sense for the fandom to view bell’s hells as likely to be villains when the same wasn’t true of the previous two campaigns, and I think I have to pretty emphatically disagree, and not because I don’t think there aren’t moments in both campaigns that feature extremely high levels of assholery and villainry from pcs – I mean, some of my favourite cr characters are percy and jester, both of whom i’d say are ‘good guys’ due to the pure luck of the found familys they fell in with and both of whom often suggested plans that were. Not okay. To say the least. But ignoring the difference between suggesting fucked up plans and walking your god-eater infused bestie back towards the troops sent to support you in keeping that entity contained, the other big difference I’ve noticed in my own introspection on how I react to bh vs mn and vm, as well as which things i cherish about previous campaigns that were really missing from c3 to what I think is the story and the character’s detriment (staying away from the shape of the narrative, just because others have made posts that put words together better about that than I can) is that while members of vm and mn remained self-interest to the end of their campaigns and have reasserted those habits in appearances since, the parties as entities working in exandria had both, to echo ashton’s apt suggestion to ludinus, grown up.

Like one moment I think of is beau and fjord’s convo in the nein hells episode, because beau is being her asshole self and fjord is being his ‘I care about My People and I’ll think about the rest later’ self (i say affectionately but certain parts of the fandom I recognize would view derogatorily) – clearly they’re not the kindest people as they discuss bell’s hells, but two notable things are (a) they still treat the hells with the respect and use their means to help them prepare for the battle coming, even when they hear the horrifying thought that the hells aren’t certain they’ll choose to save the gods, all the nein request is that they choose the kind option (b) they say none of their doubts to the hells themselves – likely because they have the empathy to realizes that its a high stress situation that won’t be made better by a reminding the hells how small and likely ineffectual in the universe they are – and their comments about cannon fodder are ones made in jest to each other. Even taking that in the worst faith interpretation, the jokes that beau and fjord make in a private conversation has absolutely zero influence on bh. This is quite different than bells hells, after like. as clearly betraying the accord they promised to assist (even if their intentions are ‘good’) as is possible, belittling the religious armies sent to support their endeavor to keep predathos sealed as they all feel the weight of an irrevocable change occurring in exandria, one bells hells has first account knowledge now that it IS incredibly willing to eat mortals, and laudna and ashton, the members of bells hells most often cited by certain fandom spaces as characters who have gone through so much and it only made them kind and strong, look into the faces of people facing literally existential threat and laugh and mock them. That is, mighty nein as individuals is comprised of some of the, perhaps, most asshole pcs, but The Mighty Nein as a party is committed to treating others the best they can, to leaving things better than they found them (a quote that I think is particularly exemplary of the dynamics of self-interest at play in the mighty nein, since it originated as a blatant illustration of molly’s notion of self-importance but developed to become a kind of commandment that the nein became committed to fulfilling). The opposite is true of bell’s hells, where orym and dorian at least both seem to have motivation beyond themselves, imogen’s changes but has shown she is capable of letting go of her ‘intention reigns’ requisitely individualistic perspective, and chetney plays up his selfishness but has shown himself to care quite a bit for people beyond their party but bell’s hells as an entity is uh, pretty self-interested.

To clarify some of my thoughts here in the spirit of the wicked renaissance happening rn, I’ve always felt that for good was an incredibly apt song for the mighty nein, because it really nails that feeling that perhaps they didn’t change each other as individuals to become better people on the grand scale, maybe they’ve just changed each other permanently, but they (and I would agree with this) view each other as having changed each other for the better (e.g., I don’t know if I could say whether jester is a morally better Individual at the end of the campaign, but I can say with certainty that she fulfils and makes moral choices in her work as a member of the mighty nein). And I don’t know if this can be said about bell’s hells – I think they have certainly influenced each other and changed how alone many of those characters felt, and that is not a slight on the story, it can be a great centre for a story to focus on how a relinquishment of the feeling that one is alone in the world can change them. But for the most part, that hasn’t been bh’s story, their story instead has been about validating their refusal to become anything beyond what they insist was out of their control. And not to get to annoying philosophy student about it but bell’s hells are maybe some of the most explicit examples of sartrian bad faith I’ve seen in fiction in a hot minute, because their insistence that they treat their wounds as incurable and entirely out of their hands has led to them limiting their own potential because many of them ignore their responsibility as people to make choices in their own lives. In contrast, at the end of the campaign, mighty nein are still assholes as we all like to refer to them as, but in the context of an apocalypse, I think I’d prefer the assholes like fjord – who is certainly being truthful when he says he doesn’t care about what harm comes to 200 people when jester is at risk but who also, as they traverse into aeor, is insistent that their group won’t be running away from whatever apocalyptic threat awaits them, even if that means dying in the fight – than I would an asshole like ashton – who promises to fight for the little guys but who then turns around and acts upon a philosophy that says the strongest will survive. When you look at the mighty nein, it is incredibly easy to see the fingerprints of change they’ve left upon one another, and even to see the boundaries they place on one another’s asocial behaviours through their presence in one another’s lives (more recently the group chastising jester’s fond words about ludinus is a good example, but others are yasha’s pressuring caleb and essek to move on from their wizard talks as they collect paper in aeor instead of venturing further toward the battle they have to fight, or fjord and jester’s frustrated conversation in the ukotoa reunion about how fjord made a stupid decision and he doesn’t regret but he feels dejected and jester checking him on the fact that they still need to figure out a solution). It takes some extrapolation to see how bells hells have changed each other in more than aesthetic ways, if they have at all. Because the catalyst for change is pressure to do so, and aside from moments where it was truly change or be left behind, bh doesn’t challenge each other unless forced to by morri’s trials or delilah’s interruption and on the very odd occasion an interesting game of rollies-spin-the-bottle. 

And it’s interesting because the asshole behaviour of the mighty nein, like bell’s hells, stems from being left on the outskirts of society and the mistreatment that comes with that, so seemingly the change from being alone to being with others is one that actually insists upon being challenged to grow and change. I mean, just looking at the starting points of the characters, there’s an intriguing amount of stark similarities between their pasts; jester and fearne were both people loved dearly by the family they grew up with but who were loved within the confines of a gilded cage, ashton and beau both have an glaring self awareness that their anger at the world has a very particular source (their parents) but use that as justification rather than a means of self reflection, yasha and orym are trying to navigate a world in the wake of an incomprehensible loss and a sense of duty, fjord and imogen are both seeking out knowledge of their own powers and unknowingly retreading the paths of their missing and presumed dead parental figures. The idea that bell’s hells are uniquely mistreated by society in the history of cr player characters is, politely, laughable. Absolutely they’re mistreated, and I think it could be fair to say these characters are more defined by their isolation than others but I think that has more to do with the lack of downtime rp than it has to do with the context of their suffering.

What I have loved about the mighty nein is that in their realization that the bonds they forge with each other are undermining the truths most of them had taken to be true – that they were alone and without a place in the world – they are also forced to realize that no longer being alone and isolated comes with the weight of social responsibility. And this was born out of a willingness the mighty nein had to call each other out and that the players had to allow their characters to be wrong and get called on it. Because that’s the friction of living with other people on the small party scale and the large world scale – in the mighty nein’s ability to survive as a people who cared for each other even when they didn’t agree or when they made decisions that they couldn’t understand, they were constantly developing their ability to care for the very same world that left them alone. Because in campaign two, the world as a whole had the role that the gods have in campaign 3 – why should a party of nobodies, treated like shit by the world and the people in it go through the effort of saving it?

And the mighty nein answered, in their own imperfection and assholery, that nothing is ever just one thing – one of the things I cherish most about campaign 2 is its commitment to ambiguity, allowing the complexity of the world to go unsolved because there is no solution to the fact that life is immense and sometimes incoherent. I don’t think its a coincidence that I’ve seen some of the people lamenting the idiocy of fandom members like me who think that it actually isnt a leftist win to destroy the world in the hopes of spontaneous justice arising in c3 are the same people who criticised c2’s conclusion with the cerberus assembly for not being leftist (a word which for them means . the aesthetic image of a rebellion sparked and not the unending commitment to doing what you practically can to make life more just for those around you – whether they’re particularly kind to you or not) enough. The conclusion of c2 emphasizes that the choice to make the world a better place isn’t something that can be achieved in one single sweeping action that will wipe the boards clean – there is no murder of all the members of the cerberus assembly that would’ve solved the problems that caused the assembly’s power. There is no forcing of the god’s out of exandria that will deal with the actual issue undergirding both bh and their blorbo-moralized fans' criticism of the gods, which is that mortals are cursed with the burden of free will, and being mistreated by other mortals means constantly having to try and make sense of the fact that someone chose to do something cruel to you (and, sometimes, that you made a choice that allowed that cruelty to occur) – a burden made much heavier when the person who hurt you is your cult-indoctrinated mother, or your cult leader father, or the person in the mirror. The mighty nein take up this fight, and the complexities of their individual identities begin to heal in the light of a commitment in their relationship as friends and as a team to improve the world, even on the small scale. Bell’s hells remain gridlocked and stagnant and unwilling to change in an unspoken turf war of self-interest because they’ve insisted (influenced in part by the context of the campaign 3 narrative but, as others have aptly pointed out, that narrative was much more influenced by bh’s lack of curiosity regarding anything except their own minds) upon finding a solution to a problem they’ve decided is earth-shatteringly (quite literally, to the people of ruidus) unjust based on, aside from encounters where fellow mortals were the primary oppressors, their own testimony of the god’s not listening to them and the obvious villain’s parallel testimony. Something I’ve really been chewing on lately is caduceus words to fjord about his role as a paladin of the wildmother – that maybe it just means that someday, someone will pray for a miracle, and there fjord’ll be and the weight that has given that fjord’s bond to ukotoa came from his desperation not to die and his willingness to accept whatever help would be offered, that fjord could now be the person that reaches out to someone in need, and that the hand he offers won’t come with a curse.  And I think that’s really the poignant difference between bh and mn for me, that for bh, their experiences of injustice, though did make them personally bitter, did not make them morally misanthropic.

Comparatively, Bell’s Hells chose to ensure that, because the gods never answered their prayers, they shouldn’t be permitted to answer anyone else’s. Is this an understandable position? Sure, for the walls of a preschool, not really for a group of characters that I will ever be in any way inclined to view as something close to heroes. While it’s true that there are parts of life that are beyond our control – somethings happen to us that we have no say in, and they cause injuries both physical and mental that we are left to heal without any rhyme or reason, it is still our responsibility to heal them. And if you choose not to, well, then you’ve chosen not to, and are responsible for the consequences and judgements that choice might amount to.

Anyway, sorry this is all over the place but TLDR: calling bell’s hells as a party self-interested is actually just descriptively correct – they can save members of the party made up of their close friends and still be self-interested – and while the individual members of bell’s hells actually aren’t all that uniquely self-interested in the history of cr pcs, the party is uniquely self-interested in how they’ve chosen to navigate the world an their responsibility to the people in it.

[young-waverer]

6x04 -> 7x01

[aflerglow]

people who don't like the beach aesthetic of 1989 tv don't have an emotional attachment to these visuals I guess ??

[phaslo]

He’s a jumpscare in the last pic but we persevere

[maxtism]

🌸♡︎₊ ⊹✧˖°.

[ad-ya]

little to no discussion/representation of the supremely rare variety of foundational, lifelong friendship in star trek that is only and actually realized in the form of jake and nog. their timid approach of one another from opposite sides of the quadrant's cultural spectrum. their original animosity giving way to their fervent defense of one another to close minded parents; their prejudices transformed into solidarity with the same degree of vehemence. their gradual understanding of one another as individuals, rather than as archetypes of a species they'd been raised to detest. the slow, steady movement of nog's system of values to an understanding of the purpose of life as one he can share with jake... jake, on the brink of his best friend leaving him, saying he realized they'd done nothing together for years, just been with one another for endless, sunless hours on the promenade, playing dom-jot and watching bajoran transport ships dock.

the two of them growing taller and into bigger sizes of shoes, trying out new styles of clothes from garak's clothiers. doing the dishes in their new quarters, and learning how to pick up after one another. drinking rootbeer from chewed straws and thinking it was mundane, all the while—unbeknownst to both of them—doing the slow, quiet business of growing up.

[hughesapalooza]

not a fit place for people or for love or for hope.

rogers arena + the haunting of hill house

(a continuation of sorts of this edit)

[pitchcom]

charlos - the red means i love you

[khaotunq]

Then why are we talking, Captain? First Kanaphan as Kant (The Heart Killers, 2024-2025)

[spectrumtacular]

Universal Language | Left and Leaving

[riricitaa]

A stucky au in which Bucky is on a mission, he doesn't know he has the wrong guy, who's actually an undercover s.h.i.e.l.d agent who was in fact hired to keep an eye on Bucky 🫢