#haven't watched it in the while though

[gothicrepetitions]

“The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Supernatural (2005-2020)//True Detective (2014-)//Time and Personal Identity in Nietzsche’s Theory of Eternal Recurrence, Scott Jenkins//Purgatory with Color TV: Motels Rooms as Liminal Zones in Supernatural, Lorna Jowett//Yellowjackets (2021-)//Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997)//Quote by Guillermo del Toro//One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Marquez Garcia//Trauma Reenactment in the Gothic Loop: A Study on Structures of Circularity in Gothic Fiction, Andrea Juranovszky

[screwpinecaprice]

Oh oof I slipped and hit them with dark and serious beam. 😣

[kuulpenguin]

Anime characters drawn from memory!

[little-pup-pip]

Baby Looney Tunes!!

[pyralart]

Just finished the two next pages!

And because you're my favorite pals here on Tumblr, you get a little extra in advance, as a treat

I'm sure nothing bad is going to happen watsoever

[lqvestruckk]

This one is REALLY old but it was from when I was just starting DS9 and I hated everyone and every minute of watching it because it wasn't TNG and I didn't know anyone. Jadzia has a botched nose job but otherwise this is still kind of fire tbh

[smile-files]

nickel and balloon stuff from spring on the breakfast!!! i'm keeping in mind that in the previous episode, both of them were under the impression that their friendship wasn't real...

in a way, ii3 balloon is a lot like late ii3 cabby. of course, balloon did something indisputably immoral (manipulate and exploit others), and cabby only did something thought to be immoral (keep and use files about her fellow contestants) -- but both did something wrong and had to subsequently undergo a disproportionate amount of abuse and malignment for it, ending up with them being apologetic and submissive to avoid any chance of being framed as bad again. the biggest difference is that cabby has internalized the guilt others have attributed to her, while balloon largely hasn't -- he understands the concept of rolling with the punches for the sake of keeping good connections, but he doesn't believe he deserves it.

nickel brushes off ii2 a LOT this episode. to rid himself of his guilt regarding that time, he necessarily has to delegitimize the hatred he felt towards balloon then, thus also ridding balloon of his guilt. he expresses this all vaguely, choosing to remember ii2 fondly and saying off-hand that its baggage should be laughed off -- implying that balloon has been forgiven. reasonably, balloon is happy that nickel seems to actually believe he's changed for the better, so initially this makes him happy.

of course, though, it becomes clear that nickel just wants to shove his own actions under the rug, and balloon reasonably gets pissed off. nickel treated balloon and suitcase like complete garbage in ii2, and balloon clearly hasn't forgotten that.

"it keeps things easy." it keeps things easy to roll with the punches, to endure nickel's abuse and accept his sudden friendship. note, also, that nickel is still placing the blame on balloon: he's saying that balloon didn't want to "make things better", as if nickel and balloon ever having a rift was entirely balloon's fault, and his problem to fix.

and as we can see, nickel still hasn't fully forgiven balloon for ii1. as i've discussed before, nickel seems to secretly feel incredible guilt about how he treated balloon in ii2 (which is why he goes to such lengths to repress the whole memory of it) -- but that guilt is about the way in which he expressed his disdain and distrust of balloon, not those opinions themselves, nor the motivations for them. this is all very interesting, then -- if he still believes balloon can't change from his old, bad self, why did nickel start being friends with him at all?

i think a large part of it is his projection onto balloon. nickel sees himself in balloon: someone who screwed up big-time and isn't able to become a better person after that (according to nickel). we tend to gravitate to people similar to us, after all. i wouldn't be surprised if nickel was also trying to overcompensate for his hostility towards balloon in ii2 by being very friendly with him in ii3, thereby helping him forget that he was ever hostile to him at all.

the most fascinating thing to me about balloon and nickel's relationship is how impersonal it is for balloon. he seems to value what nickel's affection represents rather than nickel himself -- and it represents that he's been forgiven. anyone who saw balloon and nickel's conflict in ii2, which was a product of balloon's nastiness in ii1 and nickel's subsequent inability to forgive that nastiness, would likely come to accept balloon and forgive him themselves if they then saw nickel being friendly with him -- because nickel is the epitome of the ii contestants' anger at him, and nickel of all people (seemingly) forgiving him would imply that he's really changed. the relationship is almost entirely a symbol in that regard. i don't think balloon has much residual guilt about is actions in ii1 -- he feels like he's adequately addressed them and changed -- but nickel having a positive relationship would be helpful in affirming that stance and proving to himself that he really has changed.

i wouldn't say it's cruel of balloon to keep this relationship going on under that pretense, but it is backhanded, and it helps explain why he was ever willing to accept nickel's friendliness unchallenged. he wanted his crimes to finally be laid to rest once and for all, and keeping nickel on good terms with him would let that happen. people would finally shut up about it. up until now, nickel wasn't explicitly denying his past cruelty towards balloon anyway, so balloon would be able to ignore that he neglected to ever bring it up; now, though, nickel is denying not only what he did to balloon but also to suitcase, which balloon is not able to tolerate. now that he's confronted nickel about that though, nickel snaps back with his condemnation of what balloon did in ii1, thereby uprooting the social stasis balloon had been able to maintain precisely because nickel refused to bring anything up before. in a way, then, balloon is purposefully shoving the past under the rug, just like nickel is.

we can't forget, though, that nickel has his own complex about fearing that he's incapable of change and incapable of forming positive, genuine relationships with people. balloon is essentially revealing that, in a way, he wasn't really friends with nickel -- at least not in the way nickel wished and fooled himself into thinking they were. if balloon truly were friends with nickel like that, then that would mean that balloon had forgiven him for his cruelty in ii2, and perhaps that he really has changed... but no. balloon hasn't forgiven him. why should he? nickel never apologized -- and given how he never apologized, it's impossible that he could've changed anyway: nickel doesn't want to apologize because that means addressing his guilt and allowing himself to feel it. he wants the forgiveness to be handed to him on a silver platter, without him having to do all of the painful work, and he's incredibly upset when it isn't. he wants to not be a bad person, but in order to do that, he has to feel like one, and he really doesn't want to. he hates who he was and doesn't want to associate with it at all.

(note how it's the suitcase robot who says "you can say sorry" when nickel says that nothing can be done about making things better...)

there's clearly an immeasurable amount of resentment these two have been harboring for each other throughout this season, which they'd only been hiding for the sake of fooling themselves into thinking they've changed (nickel) or thinking that others think they've changed (balloon). and now that they've let themselves explode with anger, partly related to the lies they'd been telling themselves falling apart, they yell at each other and balloon drops nickel down a hole!

ah, balloon and nickel's relationship... it's bizarre, it's toxic, it's convoluted, it's shady, and it's incredibly sad. i'm glad i'm revisiting ii3, especially this episode -- i used to be utterly baffled by nickel's writing, particularly in spring on the breakfast, but now it makes complete sense to me. also, i used to think balloon was entirely the victim in this relationship, while now i know that he has his own faults and own baggage in that regard. it's weird -- they hate each other, but at the same time they're dying to be liked by one another. god i love these freaks...

[sincerely-sofie]

Been slowly learning ASL over the years for my niece and I might still struggle to introduce myself or express basic emotions, but oh boy do I ever have the sign for every animal she's ever laid eyes on memorized better than my own name.

[thevioletcaptain]

as someone who normally reads a script over on the tv writing site every day while eating breakfast like it's the morning paper, but who didn't have time today because i'm trying to meet a deadline on my own script that i've been slow to work on due to an assortment of fire related stress as a resident of los angeles this week........ i am experiencing some severe fomo over these new spn script drops

[antennatoheaven]

my thoughts on The Murderbot Show:

idk man

‎

[blushingsastiel]

i loveeee love love love season 1 sam and dean. the way they dress, the way sam is sassy and rolls his eyes, the way dean tries to be helpful but doesn't always hit the mark. everything about it (at least most of it anyways...) is so nostalgic.

[imlikereallycool]

I'M REWATCHING DUCKTAALES AND I FORGOT HOW FUCKING STUPID AND HILARIOUS THE WHOLE LENA ARC THING IS. THEY DEFEATED HER WITH THE POWER OF FUCKING FRIENDSHIP?! AND DOESN'T SHE COME BACK WITH HER UGLY ASS FORM FROM SAID POWER OF MAGIC? HAUSIIKDHHSRFUHAHHAHAHAH IT'S SO STUPID, I NEED DANNY TO REACT TO THIS FUCKING SHOW NOW!!!

[nexis9]

omg I just realized, SOMEHWERE in my saved photos, I have a picture of manga Kenjaku that I edited. (It was the one where he opened up his head).

I called it Soupjaku, as I removed the brain and replaced it with soup.

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Thinking about Care Bears (as one does at 32), and anyway, I think it would've been really funny if Dark Heart was No Heart's son, and the main reason No Heart started going after the Care Bears was because they converted his kid to friendship and caring and all that stuff.

[renirae]

saw it was platonic stobin month and instantly opened my laptop and wrote a fic for them in one sitting. and then also immediately drew this scene from it lmao

ALSO!! Steve's hair is down because he's already showered out all of his hair spray, so that's why he kind of has bangs haha <3

[moongothic]

I do enjoy wrapping Christmas presents in theory, but just thinking about what a waste of paper that is (if you're not using like, old newspapers as wrapping paper) kinda kills me inside, because I have Stupid Hangups about Minor Things

So, using some old fabric scraps I put together two extremely janky reusable giftbags for the Crimbus Season, wheee

I guess these are technically reversible bags, but yes the red-and-green striped side is meant to be the outside.

I just had some red fabric scraps from some ancient sewing project I can't even remember anymore, while the green scraps where leftovers from when I recently reclaimed one of my dad's old shirts, one he had NEVER worn (and did not want), to make a basic pillowcase/covering for a bolster pillow (one my mom had previously made a hideous and unpleasant-to-touch crochet covering for, which was also filthy and could not be removed to be washed without being cut into. Yeah I did not feel bad getting rid of that covering, but I needed a replacement, and the old, fresh shirt was gonna do just fine)

Both are knit fabrics, which, y'know. Absolutely not ideal for this kinda project. Main issue I had to deal with while making these bags is that I don't really have anything I could use to temporarily draw on these softer fabrics (y'know to give myself guidelines when cutting and sewing). Like just trying to draw on them would make the fabric stretch in objection without leaving any marks on the fabric. So although my goal was to make nice even stripes, actually cutting the fabric pieces and then pinning them down evenly wasn't actually do-able. I did my best to measure the stripes out but yeah they're a bit wonky and janky and uneven. Fortunately I did not have that problem with the rest of the fabrics I used for these bags. If I hadn't made the outside patchwork then I obviously wouldn't have bothered with lining them, but it was the only way to really clean-up the insides of the bags. And, as a bonus, the lining also added more structure to the stretchy ass knit fabrics, which is super nice.

I didn't really have many big fabric pieces laying around I could us for this project, definitely not in colors I would've liked to use (like I had some bright yellow but... I don't think that really fits the Crimbus-y vibes), so for the first and the bigger bag I used some very stiff but thin cotton (possibly the very type of cotton you'd reccomend to use with patchworking??) with a widdle floral pattern on it, while the other was a much thicker cotton plain black fabric (like I'd use this one to upholster a stool or something it's so thick and stronk). And for the top of both bags I used some natural white woven cotton/linen (it's from my mom's stash, I don't know what it is), quite strong and fairly thick. IDK I'm happy I was able to use up some of these scrap fabrics I already have instead of letting them sit around collecting dust.

Last but not least, I grabbed some cord locks/toggles from my mom's stash to make them into drawstring bags, and for the cord/rope/whatever... I don't really have anything fitting for this kind of project already in stash, but I have a bunch of unused, ancient shoelaces. And y'know what. I'm not gonna use those lightbrown shoelaces for anything else. By the time my current pair of shoes needs to have its shoelaces replaced, the shoes will need to be replaced too, and I'm gonna get free shoelaces with the new shoes if/when that happens. I might as well use these spare shoelaces here. Why the fuck not.

But yeah, just a little project. Again, the bags are turbo janky, but they don't have to be fancy, they just need to hold Crimbus gifts once a year before I yeet them into storage until next year.