#doomed narrative go away.....no....

[dalandan012]

If you cant imagine anyone in your life looking at you like this then your God has failed you

[humbuns]

pieced together till they're no longer broken apart

[fun-esta]

[brrmian]

something that so many star wars fans somehow fail to realize is that george lucas always intended for the fall of the republic to be a completely unavoidable tragedy. that’s what makes it such brilliant storytelling.

placing the blame on just one party in the galaxy-wide farce that was the clone wars just isn’t interpreting the story the way its writer intended. neither is saying that all players should be held equally accountable. i don’t think the jedi were at fault for the state of the republic, and (despite the fact that he did horrible things) neither was anakin, on a galactic or governmental scale.

the real villain is palpatine, who shaped the government into a corrupt system by his own hand. the blame for turning a democratic republic into an authoritarian dictatorship (which it was long before it became the empire) under the noses of thousands of incredibly corrupt politicians must be placed entirely on him, and him alone.

by the end of the war, the jedi council recognized that they had already lost the ability to hold onto what it truly means to be a jedi. in their prime during the days of the old republic, the jedi knights were “the guardians of peace and justice.” they’re meant to as diplomats, peacekeepers, mediators, and public servants. when the clone wars began, they were essentially forced into being soldiers, generals, and quasi-politicians by palpatine and the senate. all of those things are antithetical to the jedi’s beliefs, but they had no other choice.

placing even the smallest bit of blame on the jedi for anything leading to the republic’s downfall—and their own—is not only unfair, it’s factually incorrect. the jedi order is a monastic organization. they have no say in the senate and no voting power. saying they’re corrupt, when in fact they were just as conned by palpatine as the rest of the galaxy, is victim-blaming and scapegoating.

palpatine shoved the jedi face first into fighting the war, and pretty much threw the clone army into their laps on top of that. the jedi had no say in the matter, and they certainly had no say in the war itself being started, either. because he controlled both sides, palpatine was able to make the CIS and the republic declare war on each other even though its citizens wanted the same outcome: political independence and survival. if not for palpatine’s schemes, the separatists would have been allowed to secede peacefully, the republic would have continued existing, and the war would have been completely avoided. but that was unfortunately not the case.

so in a galaxy thrown into an unavoidable war by its own secret dictator, with an army of sentient slaves suddenly at their command, and the risk of billions of deaths at the hands of the droid army imminently approaching, what do the galaxy’s official peacekeepers have no other choice but to do? be peacekeepers. why wouldn’t the sworn defenders of the galaxy be out on the battlefields trying to end the war? if they sat in the temple and did nothing, they simply wouldn’t be jedi.

the jedi were forced into a lose/lose situation. every religion and organization has faults, but that doesn’t place any blame on them for the catch-22 they were trapped into falling for. when the clone wars started—and the key point here is that it never should have in the first place—the jedi still needed to be jedi. unfortunately for them, that meant having positions of power not meant for them being thrust upon their shoulders. they couldn’t drop the burden, because that meant actively choosing not to save lives—but the other option, becoming soldiers despite the tenet of their beliefs that dictates they shouldn’t, was no better.

see what a cruel trap palpatine set? it’s like a fish being caught in a fisherman’s net. the net is spread out across the ocean floor, and the fish swim above it, not knowing that the trap is waiting to be drawn in around them from below. in the end, when the net starts to tighten, dragging them closer to the surface, they can’t swim fast enough to escape from the middle to the edge—and to safety—before the net is completely tied. it’s the cruelest kind of trap: the kind that gives you just the right amount of time to think you can escape while being sprung just quick enough to make actually escaping impossible.

in the end, the order actively chose to fight the war because they needed to. there was no other way to continue on as who they were. militarizing the order was not the right choice in a vacuum, but this was not that; this was a situation in which every galaxy-changing choice was the wrong one. the jedi knew they were making a decision that drew them farther away from their beliefs, but it was the lesser of an infinite list of evils, and they didn’t see the walls closing in on them until it was too late.

lucas himself has even said that the order was not corrupt or decaying from the inside, nor did they make a series of bad choices that ultimately led to their own destruction. they were always just trying to do the right thing—but unlike literally everything else in fiction, the jedi order’s death was completely unaffected by any of the choices they made. no matter what they did, they were always going to lose. the fall of the republic wasn’t caused by its defenders choosing what they saw as the least bad choice. it didn’t come down to any decisions, political or not, that the jedi council made with the limited tools that they had. it certainly didn’t come down to one emotionally unstable twenty-three-year-old’s slow descent into insanity, either. the republic and the jedi would still have been destroyed with or without anakin’s unhinged nervous breakdown.

anakin, just like the order, the republic, and the separatists, was taken advantage of by palpatine. even if a person’s choices are their own, they don’t exist in a vacuum.

anakin would have made better choices if not for palpatine, but he didn’t. the jedi order would have kept the peace if not for palpatine, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t. the republic, and democracy with it, would not have crumbled if not for palpatine. not the order, not anakin, not the separatists, and not the republic.

in the end, they were all just pawns in a decades-spanning plan, one that none of them saw coming until it was too late—and by then, it was already irreversible.

[ohrevienssoleil]

I understand why it wasn't possible, but it's such a shame we couldn't get Jenny back for The Wish. She and Giles fighting a losing battle side by side and being hardened from it, but remaining each other's solace. Them piecing together the puzzle Cordelia presents to them and having faith in a world better than this, only for Anyanka to try and throw them by hinting at Jenny's death should they return. Giles faltering at the thought of losing her and Jenny, once again, sacrificing herself and destroying the necklace. The way she sees it: she'll either be dead by The Master's hand or by her own, and only one of those inevitabilities gives the man she loves a chance of survival. She kisses him as she plunges herself into the abyss, wanting the last thing she experiences to be his love.

Giles waking up the following morning, the pang in his heart he always feels whenever he remembers Jenny accompanied by a newfound feeling of emptiness, and he's not quite sure why.

[constellation-skirmishes]

i'm sorry anakin. i'm so, so sorry

[acaptainbyanyothername]

Even at his best with a goal in mind, Phineas still has a moment of indecision and weakness—except this time, Spahr is able to break through his own crippling indecision to break the cycle and finally be there for him. They’ve come full circle

[aropride]

ok well we know that jesus can emit pure light as he did when he was in his tomb + i assume the light is holiness or joy or purity (considering his spirit was in heaven but his body had died in sin) (considering his body was holy but his spirit was drowning in unquenchable fire).. thinking about the version of jesus i made up in my head who's way cooler and more transgender and i think he would emit sparks and a glowing electric light if you fucked him and i think it would inspire an unfathomably intense lust

[raayllum]

perpetually obsessed with the way you cannot pry rayla out of what has led callum into aaravos’ clutches. callum being obsessed with the mirror in the first place? is largely because he was looking for a distraction from the pain of losing her aaravos being able to possess him at all? is because callum did dark magic to save her. and even if you subscribe for some reason, framing wise, that he didn’t do it solely for her and instead for the dragon, he only believed in that cause because she convinced him to (“someone has to take a stand when no one else will” “you’re right”). the 4x04 intro implies that the key is directly connected to aaravos’ interest in callum in the first place? callum only has the cube because rayla grabbed it for him even when everything went to hell in a hand basket. callum only asked for the cube because he recognized the symbols from rayla’s drawing, and only pursued magic because she called him a mage even when he dismissed himself as nothing. he only did a spell because she pushed at him to do it: “is this a guessing game? just do it” like they are insane

[adamstanheightsleftshoulder]

so. i’m doing one section of the australian med school entrance exam in 8 days

[appendectomy]

i just watched the house season 6 finale hoooly shit. house and cuddy's relationship being essentially founded on 'i love you, i wish i didn't but i can't help it'... plus the violin piece that plays in the background when they kiss. oh my god they are so fucking doomed. they are so doomed the writers are setting them up to fail im so excited i just know the next season is going to narratively kill me. they are so doomed!!!!

[yloiseconeillants]

This whole plot started as joke-shipping the uninvolved members of Hades' romantic polyhedron in our shared canon but recognizing that like, any scenario in which a shard of Ariadne and a shard of Daedalus (@azure-dragonsinger) were ~involved would have Horrible Consequences for whatever timeline they ended up in:

now i have almost 300 screencaps in a folder and it's been a week lol

[kaisollisto]

[mediumhonor]

because who am i without immedaitely making a rambly run-on braindump meta post as soon as i sign in anywhere BUT ANYWAY...

i need to go off about how different arthur and john’s dynamics with dutch are, how dutch’s ‘you’re just like me’ @ john in rdr1 isn’t just a villainous throwaway line but is actually the culmination of years of projecting onto john and years of trying to mold john into his image. the fact that dutch managed to shoot john from such a distance in rdr1 + the fact that he can double-wield so effectively really just. makes me think of how good of a gunslinger dutch is and there’s no way much of john’s gunslinging prowess isn’t part of dutch teaching him....

i just. hm. think arthur ‘eldest daughter’ morgan vs john ‘golden boy favorite youngest brother’ marston duality is pretty neat, and how both of their identities are so entwined w dutch’s perception of them even (in john’s case) years later to the point where neither of them can directly kill one another...

and of course, arthur's constant need to impress dutch/for his approval vs john's total lack of effort, because i think john left the gang for the first time because he's always seen dutch for who he is in some capacity, and dutch's favoritism successfully alienated him from everyone else. that being said, the only other person besides abigail who john has verbally admitted to loving is dutch.

i could say more about arthur and john's dynamic and a lot of arthur's resentment coming from imo john having the agency to leave the gang for the first time that i think a lot of people write off as arthur being angry at john for being a deadbeat (which is. you know. true too).

the van der linde cult is so fun... and by fun it makes me want to cry

[teabutmakeitazure]

I love the mortal x immortal ship. Even more because I'm some kind of sadist loving a reincarnation trope with it. Deal with this strange powerful being kidnapping you and telling you how much he missed you, or how you are still as beautiful as the day he lost you. He sometime comes randomly in your room to hug you and tell you how happy he is to see you again. Sometime he comes and have a mental breakdown, crying, and telling you he is so scared to lose you again, and again, and forever.

Worst thing is when he tells you about some genuine happy memories, or show you something you liked a lot in your past life, in you are just like "It's beautiful. And he seems really happy. But I have no memory of this"

it's worse because in Otherwordly Desire (name still stc) there is no kidnapping. it is merely 'coincidence' after 'coincidence', music that keeps replaying on a broken record after a pause when the song ends. there is candlelight and a love in your arms that will dissipate into smoke if you waltz for too long or too little. it is a flower you cannot preserve even in resin. it is the snow that melts on your rooftop and drips onto your front porch but you can't hate it because the sound makes it feel less lonely at home. it is the inky words fading from the pages of the old books in your library. it is the old ring you've kept with you your entire life, the thing desperately needing a polish. it is the food you cook and put on the table. it is the gentleness with which you take that hand and kiss each knuckle. it is the candle flame that flickers because of the wind from the open window. it is you. but it is not her.

love is not her, because she is not her.

[just-some-guy-joust]

how are you defining "doomed by the narrative"? some of these characters seem like they're here just because bad things happen to them or they canonically die. like literally why are the elric brothers here

im VERY sleepy so i will not be able to articulate this well rn, so instead i would like to point you to the curtain call tag (thats the propaganda/fanart tag). i know the tag search fucking sucks rn so im tagging this post with it for easy access. you may have to go digging to find propaganda for certain characters. but quite a few of the more potentially confusing ones do have at least one post about it.

since you asked specifically for the elrics, the simplest way i can put it is that, in brotherhood specifically, nothing they couldve done wouldve dragged them away from the legacy and lineage of their father. no matter what they did, itd all come back to that. they are hoenheims kids, so they are locked into their fate

doomed by the narrative isnt just tragedy or death. its about inevitability, futility, and the crushing weight of a story

but otherwise just like. bro trust me 👍