#cause i don't and i won't

[velvetshirtnumber3]

Only Friends Episode 7 & preview for Episode 8

Wow, this was an interesting episode. And the preview... I have some thoughts....

Mew and Ray getting together specifically right now is one of the absolutely worst ideas either of them has had, which is impressive given some of the other things they have done in this show (though I would say Ray driving while intoxicated probably takes the cake because he is endangering not just himself, but other people).

Starting with that fact that Mew is stilling hurting over his relationship with Top. He is attempting to get over him, which makes Ray technically a rebound. And of all the things that have hurt Ray in this show, this will probably be one of the worst. He has been in love with him for years and is finally told maybe they can be together, making him very happy. But when Mew realizes that being with Ray doesn't making healing any easier and/or that he still isn't in love with Ray, he might decide to stop seeing Ray in a romantic context, which is going to do wonders for Ray's mental state (insert sarcasm here). Ray will feel he is being told, once again, that he is not enough, this time meaning not good enough to be loved by Mew.

I feel like Mew should have known better, but Mew is only really thinking about his own hurt right now, and thinks maybe Ray or being with Ray can make him feel better.

Second, Mew and Ray are seen partying in the previews, which with Ray's alcohol issues, isn't a great idea. Mew is allowed to grieve his relationship by partying and drinking, but doing it with Ray who he has to know is an alcoholic is not good. It seems like in the preview that it was Ray bringing Mew to these events, and people thinking Ray is a bad influence. All Ray knows is drinking, so maybe he thinks this is best he can do to help. Ray knows that Mew is upset and trying to get over Top, so he goes along with it because he wants Mew to feel better and either thinks this is a good way or its what Mew wants and Ray doesn't want to get in his way (he wants him to like him back and stopping Mew from doing something might seem like the surest way (to him) to make Mew get upset at him). Mew doesn't seem like much of a partier and combined with his heartbreak, will likely have very little sense of moderation. The problem is both of them need someone around them that will go, "That's enough. It's time to go home now" and neither of them are able to be that person for each other.

Mew has never truly understood Ray's relationship with alcohol, and part of why he drinks. I don't think he knows about Ray's mother cause I remember Ray saying he hasn't really told anybody. That is part of what drives Ray's drinking but the other part is his feelings of being a burden and worthless and his friends have never really made him feel like he isn't. Mew is one of those friends, and while I think he is a much better friend to Ray than the rest of the group, he isn't great. Mew has told Ray a couple times to stop drinking, but that was never going to be enough, and now that Mew is willing to drink and party, he will not be trying to keep Ray from overdoing it (and Mew never seemed to do that much to stop Ray from overdoing it from the beginning). To contrast, Sand knows about Ray's mother. He comes from outside the friend group and understands to an extent how self-deprecating Ray is. And while Sand lets Ray drink with him, he is far more aware about how bad Ray's relationship to it is than Mew. Sand points out to Ray himself that he is addicted to alcohol and Ray brushes it off, saying he isn't. Ray doesn't understand how bad his drinking is because its a crutch for him, so telling him to stop because its bad for him will have no effect. Sand instead tries to always stick around, maybe thinking that at least he can monitor Ray.

Mew and Ray both have their own spirals going on, which means this attempt at a relationship will be a trainwreck for both of them and could ruin their friendship.

Or maybe Mew will fall in love with him, as I don't know what happens. But is it likely? I think not.

[knifearo]

i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as a binary i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as a sliding scale of "less" to "more" i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as the only two options i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as significantly different things i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as all encompassing i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as the two halves of a shallow concept of love that doesn't actually encompass anything at all i think we need to overhaul every popular conception about "types" of love so we can talk about things that are real and true for once

[fiepige]

Compilation of EVERY single time they changed Hobie's filter in the digital version:

Left: Theatrical release Right: Digital release

You might have to click on some of them to get a better look at Hobie, sadly I don't have a video editor that allows me to make better edits than these :')

[nomlioart]

🥀 when touch averse becomes touch starved 🥀

[suchawrathfullamb]

okay but realistically speaking I am TERRIFIED of a season 4 because I am old and hopeless and I don't actually expect them to give us hannigram explicitly and I know it will be fatally disappointing.

[coffeeworldsasaki]

Another thing that makes kaladin so painfully relatable is how much his mental illness hides his personality, because between depressive episodes and trauma he's this sarcastic little shit that smiles a lot at his friends and then the depression gets to him and all that disappears

[merakiui]

Okay speaking of magical girls.... Evil villain tako that has a crush on the cute magical girl at NRC but he doesnt know shes the magical girl that's trying to thwart his evil plan of taking over sage's island mwhaha

YES YES YES. And every week he gets his ass handed to him. You're determined to keep Sage's Island safe!!!! He's trying to get to know you through the fights. The (one-sided) sexual/romantic tension is too much. Tako who flirts at every chance during your fights... you genuinely want to take him out (defeat him), but he wants to take you out (on a date). And it's so obvious he's down bad for you, but you have no idea he's Azul Ashengrotto (your fellow classmate) and he has no idea of your identity either. Azul's trying to balance his love for the magical girl he fights on weekends and his darling classmate who he sees during the week hehe. How fortuitous that they are the same person.

Please imagine that trope where the villain ensnares the hero in tentacles, but it ends up looking more erotic than threatening....... orz evil villain tako whose tentacle is holding you upside down by the ankle and he's monologuing about how he'll take over the island and you'll get to watch, powerless against him. But then he looks at you and your skirt has flipped up and he's granted a gratuitous panty shot!!!!!!! Tako who gets a nosebleed on the spot. He's such a loser pervert. <3

Omg omg or you're squirming in the tentacles and ranting about how you'll get him for this, but Azul's trying so hard not to give into the horny thoughts because the way the tentacles are looped around you and squeezing is so attractive to him.

Like that one scene where Stocking's fighting the octopus ghost LOL.

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID: an 11 panel comic featuring characters from the owl house. Panel 1- a cloaked Darius sneaking around a wall. panel 2 he peaks around the corner, saying "well? Did you retrieve...the package?". Panel 3 Hettie Cutburn (who has old Hollywood style text announcing "surprise Hettie Cutburn!" next to her) says "Darius! Of course! Took some digging but I found them eventually. Tell the boy I say 'hi!'". Panel four- she hands documents labeled "classified" to Darius. Later, Hunter (post timeskip) walks through a door in Darius' home, saying "hey Darius, hey Eber, I'm ba-". Next panel- Darius, Willow, and Eberwolf on the couch. Hunter says "...willow?", She replies "hey hunter!", he asks "what are you guys doing?

Darius says "oh nothing...except looking at pictures of you as a baby!" Holding up the documents from earlier. We see two pictures of a younger hunter framed like panels- the first is of hunter as a baby/toddler aged hunter freshly sprouted out of the ground with a blanket around him, covered in dirt, while the second one shows a young scout Hunter covered in bandages receiving his sprig plushie. Darius' narration reads "courtesy of Hettie Cutburn- she found the only surviving copy of your early life medical records and gave them to me". Willow says "aww, you were so cute!". The final panel shows Hunter looking embarrassed/stunned as Willow takes a photo of the documents, and Darius says "I'm considering it an early father's day present- so, thank you, Hunter". End ID]

MERRY DADRIUS WEEK!!! Thank you to @sergeantsporks for hosting! There's other prompts I wanna do but they'll probably be late (maybe I'll do them in bulk and upload them on the final day). Til then here's a silly comic!

[zuzu-draws]

[The Strongest sorcerer in the Modern Age VS the Strongest Sorcerer in History]

[songsintheattic]

i have finally realized why the whole "neurotypical/neurodivergent" thing makes me so angry. and it's because it has, at this point, NO basis in reality.

the origins of the word neurotypical are in satire, and the term neurodiversity was proposed (seriously) as the other side of that satirical concept. but what matters is that all of this is in the context of autism specifically.

if you are using the term "typical" to mean simply "not autistic" then it is functional, and the prefix neuro makes sense because autism is a neurological disorder. and from what i have seen in the scientific literature, this seems to be the primary usage still.

what doesn't make sense is trying to expand the definition of "neurodiverse" or "neurodivergent" to include absolutely everything, at which point you've redefined "typical" to "an absence of any psychiatric, developmental, or cognitive diagnoses"

which still maybe would mean at least something, if "neurodiverse" wasn't rapidly expanding to include anyone who has ever felt nervous in their life

what this does is essentially hold up "typical" as this fake ideal that applies to absolutely no one, and is the reason people think blinking too fast is a sign you have trauma and having a favorite color means you have autism

but the whole thing is just ridiculous when you pull it out of its context because what most people are talking about are differences in cognition, not neurology. and if we were really talking about neurology then these discussions would include epileptics and people who get migraines

but we're not talking about neurology, we're talking about cognition. and cognition is a mess of a million factors with a million influences that interact in a million ways. there is no "cognitively typical"

realistically, there is barely even such a thing as "anatomically typical". anyone who's ever worked on cadavers will tell you that every single one is very different inside.

so to refer to a broad class of people, using a word that is unscientific and only has relevance in distinguishing autistic vs non-autistic populations, and mean that they "think the same" is completely asinine

[snovyda]

Popular activist post: you can't stay neutral when there's a genocide!!! Shame on all of you!!

The OP of that very post in their other posts: *low-key or high-key supports russian invasion of Ukraine and open genocidal speech about Ukrainians*

🤡🤡🤡

[shimmershy]

Take it back to the start...

I've had a change of heart!

[steven-scribbleverse]

My friend showed me this art program that has a lot of cool realistic physics with oil paint and watercolors and pastels and a bunch of simulated traditional stuff---oh and it's also $10 until October 13th

[maxphilippa]

i think that the major misinterpretation that people have with taco is that she didn't get attached to mic because of her sad face in the end wanted to show regret because "she hurted her friend". like. no, she wasn't sad because she regretted what she did. she was sad because she's alone again, but she knows very well at the end that she had it coming. the reason as to why taco was so desperate of wanting mic to tell her that she did gain something is because. she SAW pickle in mic, but of course their situation is very different. "Oh but Taco couldn't have done what she did to Mic to Pickle, Mic was fully aware" but she did do that. Mic herself says it. That is pretty much what II is telling you. Taco isn't a good friend, and is not exactly a good person either. Mic was aware that Taco was/is a bad person, but Mic's nature makes her believe in whoever acknowledges her. Taco made Mic feel like she needed her, just the way she made Pickle feel back in s1.

she didn't really change thanks to mic. her faces of "regret" aren't her actually lamenting all of the stuff she did to microphone, but rather just her realizing that she proved what everyone said about her as a result. i will give it to that she might've tried to change, but not because of mic. she wanted to win the prize so she could prove others wrong on her being a loser and a coward, by being a loser and a coward. if anything, mic made her realize that she hasn't changed. she pretty much just ruined everything for everyone who saw her as a friend, and for herself.

taco's whole arc is constantly just downgraded to questionable takes and listen. i do agree that she is heavily flawed as a character. she is morally gray, but ii doesn't portray her as a good person with good intentions, nor she should be really be treated as if she was. neither she had those good intentions with mic at all, i mean, their "friendship" pretty much started because of taco wanting the prize money, taking a part of microphone's prize if she made mic won, you know, an offer. she would get the prize and mic would get recognition. but everyone seems to forget that probably, the main reason as to why she's doing all of this, is because she does regret how she acted on s1. she doesn't exactly regret doing all of that to microphone, and even if she does, it's for the wrong reasons. (that's because she did the exact same thing to you know, pickle, her once best friend, the only person she truly ever cared about)

people do tend to forget that taco keeps sending letters to pickle, and that's often just used for pickle angst and making it his only character trait, but. it's not that. it's the fact that taco keeps on writing those letters, despite fully knowing that she did hurt pickle because of her actions. taco's biggest flaw is that she can't accept that she has ruined everything and wants so desperately to be back on pickle's life because she ended up caring about him deeply as a person. as a friend. but she was never there at all, either.

taco can't seem to understand that she has hurted people badly. sure, she seemed like a "friend" to microphone, and you can argue whatever you want but a fact is that taco IS smart, and she knew that the only way to possibly keep mic by her side is pretending to want to be better, you know, the same way she pretended to be just a odd fella so pickle and her could remain together and have an advance at the game. she played with both of them. because both pickle and mic believed in her but were just used by her for the game.

however, taco does seem to regret the way everything went during-post s1. you can see how she yearns for another chance and is saddened about not getting it, but that's not only for comedic purposes, but that's because the writing is telling you that she won't get a second chance. at least not here.

what i want people to understand is that, yes, taco is a complex character, however trying to sugarcoat what she did is pretty much missing the point of her writing as a whole. she isn't a good person neither was she a good friend. she hasn't grown because she was never able to let go of something that she thinks that she can fix with some words and a prize. she thinks that she can still fix her friendship with pickle, she thinks that she can clear her name (even if she was the one who tainted it), but she only ended up proving knife right. she proved everyone right. she hasn't changed. a morally gray character is that. they're not exactly fully bad or fully good, but it's taco's actions that speak a lot. words are cheap, and taco's title is "The Liar", and that says a lot, because she kept on lying to microphone and to pickle on both of their games. she won't heal unless she lets go.

and i want to be clear here: i do think that taco can go through redemption. i do think that taco can become a better person, but not in the way people portray her to do so. because it just pretty much goes against what her arc has settled in for us, and the other arcs that were involved in hers as well.

taco's arc is meant to be somewhat a parallel with nickel's in a way. hell, even with knife's arc if anything. she treats knife as a simple bully, but when she saw that he became smarter and way more emotionally aware than what she had expected, she felt attacked by that, because he was stable. he became a better person and he was rubbing that on her, and it made her feelings of anger way worse regarding him, but it is true. knife is pretty much everything that taco wants to be, but here's the thing that made them so different:

knife stayed. taco didn't stay.

knife is accepted by everyone in the hotel because meanwhile he hasn't explicitly said that he had a change of heart, he has shown it through actions and a big difference too is that he was there for pickle, even if they weren't close in s1, and taco is on the woods because deep down she is aware that she can't go back. not if she doesn't have something to offer as an direct apology, but here's the problem. whether or not she got the prize, she still wouldn't get forgiven by anyone due to what she said that day.

again. her problem is not being able to let go and to accept when she has messed up badly. she has been lying to everyone but she has also been lying to herself as a whole. she can't keep on doing this because it's just hurting everyone and herself. keeping grudges and holding onto past friendships that were doomed to fall is just hurting her. she is not on the state to keep on trying, she wasn't at all ever.

taco's arc most likely will have closure on a way that fits her character, and i feel like that would be with her letting go of inanimate insanity as a whole and of what she can't fix anymore. her trying to find herself after years of lying to everyone and to herself. she's not a good person. but she can become one. only if she knows what she did was wrong and that her second chance isn't there, and never will be, and if she recognizes that meanwhile she did that damage, she can still become a better person. just not there.

pickle and mic don't owe her anything, especially pickle. taco does owe them an apology, but they won't accept that. the least she could do is to accept their wishes, understand that she needs to leave them and grow to be a better person. maybe, if she does that, she would actually heal.

she doesn't need anyone to fix her. she needs to fix herself.

[transmechanicus]

Really fucked up that two ppl can care about each other and make their best efforts to communicate and still end up hurting each other so badly they cannot stand to be in the same room.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Seeing awful takes about Arya is even wilder knowing that people would lose their minds if we said the same things about their fave. Can you imagine if we were genuinely theorizing that Sansa's story ended with her dying, warging into a bird, and becoming a pet for one of her siblings? They would have a fit and call us all kinds of misogynistic, but they'll never explain why their logic is suddenly wrong when it's used for anyone except Arya