#i just love metas so damn much

[ineffable-suffering]

Good Omens hive mind, I have had an idea. But I need some help executing it. another lovely person already had it too!

The idea goes went as follows:

Don't ask how long I spent making this, thank you.

Initially, the point of this post was: Over the course of the last 100+ days, I have read a truly mind-boggling amount of incredible, clever, baffling and wonderful Good Omens posts, metas, theories and analyses. (And also written quite a few myself, though I really am very new to the whole meta business and just trying to have a silly ol' time on here.) And I wanted to collect them all in a, that's right, Suggestion Box.

But! Of course, as always, there‘s many-a more dedicated and brilliant minds at work that kindly beat me to it. :> Hit post a bit too quickly before doing my research! Mea culpa. @kayleefansposts has already done the enormous work of creating a collaborative Google Doc with the exact intentions I had.

Not that it needs me promoting it, but do go check it out if you find the time (it‘s on AO3 as well)!

I sure am excited to do so myself.

Love this fandom! Toodaloo!

[puppyeared]

Ouhhhh friendship I love friendship……..

[desertfangs]

Daniel Molloy at the end of his 32 mortal years, half-drunk and half-mad with blood-induced dreams, is the biggest disaster of all time:

He'd been sitting on a bench in the little park near the Water Tower Place. A newspaper had been left there, and when he opened it he saw the advertisement: "Tomorrow Night: The Vampire Lestat Live on Stage in San Francisco." The cable would broadcast the concert at ten o'clock Chicago time. How nice for those who still lived indoors, could pay their rent, and had electricity. He had wanted to laugh at the whole thing, delight in it, revel in it, Lestat surprising them all.

How nice for those who could pay their rent?! My boy, you own an island! You have a rich vampire boyfriend. I know he's playing life and death chicken with Armand at this point buy goodness, you lost your wallet, you're not homeless. Just phone home!

I love him so much, he's such a wreck!

[padfootswhiskers]

i haven't read DH in years and years and idk if it's because i'm older now or what but i am legit distressed reading about lupin's reaction to tonks at the end of the seven potters 😭 (the s2 tenth doctor of it alll......!!!!) he is so fucking scared and angry, and harry's outsider pov (that isn't very good at picking up on romantic cues) is such a good way to describe it. idk. it's been hours since i set that chapter down and i'm still thinking about it!

[splickedylit]

excerpting

Domestic Diplomacy II is turning out to be even more "splickedy gratuitously gets caught in the weeds of xenosociology and alien language barriers, the fic sequel" and tbh I'm not mad about it

--

“Oh, your moirail!” says Jade, and bounces upright, ignoring John’s wary little soft human cautionary hiss.  To your vague surprise, she’s apparently learned enough not to do the human holding-out-a-hand gesture they usually do when they’re introduced; she clasps her hands in front of her, nonexistent claws politely folded in, and ducks her head briefly forward and to one side, careful not to jab at him with her nonexistent horns. 

It's a pretty passable greeting—for a social equal, which is its own bizarre issue, considering he’s a highblood.  But relatively non-offensive, for a human, and fortunately for her she’s picked a highblood who isn’t likely to give a shit.  Gamzee laughs out loud and gives his own lazy-ass version of a greeting back, a vague twist of his wrists and dip of his head, condescending to use an equal’s greeting back at her.   When he says “Gamzee Makara,” there’s a hint of a threatening buzz to it, a testing you should know to respect me warning—you could have told him she’d show absolutely no sign of hearing it, which is exactly what happens.

“I’m Jade Harley!  I meet you,” Jade says, a carefully neutral statement-of-fact greeting—not fawning or hostile.  You don’t know if humans are out here just learning neutral address no matter what, or if this human particularly just doesn’t give a shit that your moirail’s a fuck-off mutant-huge highblood with horns that scrape the ceiling of the block—by the expectant way she looks up at Gamzee afterward, she wouldn’t give much of a shit either way.  Out of all of the humans, Jade Harley might actually win the prize for giving the least shits, no matter what Rose and Dave like to pretend.

“Yeah, I meet you too, motherfucker,” says Gamzee, looking incredibly amused, and glances down at you.  “She’s a rude-ass little motherfuckin’ toothful, huh?  I like her.”

“Of course you do,” you say, pained.  “Don’t take it personally, alright?  You’re not a highblood here, they don’t get highbloods.”

“Oh, best friend,” says Gamzee, and kisses your nugbone again, embarrassingly.  “I’m a highblood wherever the fuck I go.  It’s cool though.  Squishy-ass little motherfuckers won’t get any grief from me.”

“<Motherfucker>,” Jade repeats behind you, and switches back to English, in the bright, wide verbal tone you’re starting to learn means ‘smiling and happy’, weird interstitial ‘vowel’ breath-sounds further back in the throat through pulled-back mouth-corners.  “Hmm, <motherfucker>…  Oh, neat!  Is that dialect?  It sounds like, ahh, what’s that other word.  Kk—kkkht—  Uh, dammit.  You guys need to learn how to use vowels—  It sounds like <;brother>.”

“It is like,” you say, surprised despite yourself.  “&lt;Brother> is a troll, and <motherfucker> you put it all spots you want.  It’s a thing, it’s a troll, it’s a, tss, a doing-things word, it’s a name.  It’s bad, it’s good.  Any spot you want.  And he does want, for all those, all the time.”

[dailylogyn]

Sigyn’s kenning as “Lady of the Staying Power”

I was curious as to exactly what “Staying Power” itself meant. So I looked up the dictionary meaning for it and it only makes me love Sigyn even more and want to curse Pop Culture for continuing to portray her as weak. 

Sigyn is many things, but she is NEVER weak! This is same goddess whose other titles are ones like: Victory Woman/Victory Bringer. 

Sigyn just continues to prove that kindness is not a weakness! 

[laesas]

did you ever make a post about pete not liking tankhun ? i know you mentioned it a few times in your tags but i don't remember seeing a post. (i share your opin ions.)

I definitely toyed with the idea of meta or a gifset but I didn't ever make a full post! I love unrequited love and I ESPECIALLY love the extremely rare platonic version which Tankhun and Pete absolutely nail in my opinion!

There are loads of moments where Pete's smile drops around Tankhun very quickly, or he insults Tankhun behind his back. Instead of laughing things off like Arm and Pol, he almost has a wincing fear-response to Tankhun, which we don't really see at all from the other bodyguards.

I think that Tankhun likes to think of himself as being close friends with his bodyguards, and he does genuinely show a lot of open affection for Pete and eventually concern for his safety. But I think ultimately for Pete, Tankhun is just a part of Pete's job, and over time resentment has built up until he thinks of Tankhun as one of the *worst* parts of it. I definitely don't think he resents Tankhun enough to hurt or endanger him, but that's about as far as it goes, there's certainly very little love there.

Something about that dynamic is just particularly brilliant, especially when combined with Pete's eventual defection from Tankhun's side to Vegas'. He chooses a man who has beaten and tortured him over a man who showers him in affection and throws parties on his return.

I utterly adore Tankhun but I think as a character that's grown up in a gilded cage, he doesn't really understand that what Pete needs is a sense of his own autonomy rather than being dragged to "fun" "lets cheer up Pete" parties that Tankhun has demanded on his behalf. At least with Vegas he *chose* to go back, he handed Vegas the ropes, let him lock him back up again. Even before he develops feelings for Vegas, Pete has clearly felt like a subhuman pet for Tankhun and the main family for a long, long time and I think ironically Vegas acknowledging Pete's humanity is the tipping point for him.

I think even without their nascent romantic love as a factor, Pete would always choose Vegas. Because despite the threat of suffering, he offers a sense of freedom that Tankhun's gilded cage does not. It all makes for an incredibly interesting betrayal, and makes Pete choosing Vegas over Tankhun all the more pointed. By choosing to be Vegas' pet, he chooses to be human.

[parvuls]

bitty is so strong. and bitty is so, so angry.

these panels all occur four whole years before all the rage and frustration and trauma that bitty has been holding in erupt in that one symbolic check at the end of the comic. these panels are all bitty reacting to jack criticizing him, often loudly and publicly. these panels are all, as much as it’s painful to think of it this way, bitty reacting to someone who at the time was the manifestation of his fears and source of self-doubt. 

year 1 bitty often behaves timidly, and rarely chooses confrontation, so it’s easy to think that he was cowed by jack’s behavior. easy to think that he’s fragile. but the truth is actually hidden in the panels where no one but the audience is looking; that’s when bitty's true feelings shine through. 

bitty may have a lot of fears, but he also has a lot of fury. and bitty may let his fears urge him to get up and quit, but he never actually does. bitty doesn’t break when faced with his fears: bitty purses his lips and takes a deep breath and pretends he’s fine. 

and then he keeps going.

[babacontainsmultitudes]

[just venting a bit into the void you understand you understand 😌] Lately I've been feeling very caught between "I have a lot of thoughts on Sparrow and Normal and all that with the ending and teen talk and feel like I need to get them out and voice them for my own piece of mind and resolution" and "I am lacking the strength and energy to actually sit down and write it all out and kind of really just want to fully move on to other things (AUs, fics, anything else)" but my brain can't seem to commit to either and that's quite frustrating cause it's just left me very restless. *Sigh*. Idk! Just needed to complain about that a bit ig, it's silly but this is what has been ailing me as of late.

[solomon-tozer]

Select bits from Sir John's funeral that I just love...

So we have Crozier reading out the part about Jacob dreamed about a ladder, set upon the earth, "and the top of it reaching to the heavens"...

...as we see Collins and Stanley, the two characters whose mental health is a defining part of their character arcs.

Then, "Behold the Lord stood above it and he said, 'I am with thee ...'" as the focus shifts to Goodsir.

"'... and will keep thee in all places, wherever thou goest'".

Goodsir, who later questions "is God here?"

The following line and shot are "'for I will not leave thee'" as we see Jopson and Blanky.

The two men Crozier left. Blanky knew Crozier was, just earlier that day, planning to leave them. Jopson likely knew, as it's remarked later that he knows everything, and perhaps he's the one who tidied away the unsealed letter and wax.

Then the Terror lieutenants, with MacDonald too. "And in Jacob's dream he saw the invisible world, companion to the known one we perceive."

The men who were privy to Crozier's alcoholism, and were part of maintaining that separation between officers and men... but also Hickey and Irving 'perceived' Hickey's true nature.

So, of course, when we have: "So complete it would seem to leave no room for its invisible brother world" as we see Hickey...

that otherness, that not belonging, keeping out of sight, experiencing thing in such a different way but no one notices or even thinks it's there...

And then going back to a shot of the men gathered at Sir John's funeral. "The departed..."

"...who though cleaved from the frame that carried them yet live." They are all departed. Dead. Crozier is the only one who doesn't die, but he certainly doesn't 'stay' in the world he's expected to.

The contrast of the words of virtue and strength, from scripture and used to describe Sir John and saying he's "destined to reign with Christ forever", being heard as we see Hickey in Gibson's cabin.

The white glove over the hand that will offer up Hickey's tongue, his left hand reverently touching the spot, the fact that, all that time later, Hickey has come to believe that he can be a new god and reign...

Finally, for this post, we have "and see His truth amongst us" as Hickey reads Crozier's resignation letter, discovering the truth of Crozier's actions.

And not one of them is god, or has the truth. They are all in this terrible place where the sun has set, in this strange world they don't understand, in this "invisible world of spirits".

There's so much in this scene, so many links, that I just lose my mind every time.

[psalmsofpsychosis]

So, i finished watching Batman (2022). Long story short, it's wonderful. The cinematography and the atmosphere are simply impeccable, it's got one of the best productions i have seen in blockbuster superhero movies in the last decade. The flow of the movie is perfectly executed and choreographed; it's a truly seamless visual experience, eye candy to the bone, and the story is intriguing and lovely and pleasing to the senses too. It's a reasonably well made movie.

It also does quite remind me of my main point of disdain towards live action Batman depictions post-Batman&Robin, which is, i think fellas take Batman way too seriously.

Listen, the guy walks around with fucking pikachu ears on for fucks sake. I dont think that straight up looney tunes comic relief is the right flavour to put in the live action batmanverse blender, even though it has the potential to be incorporated very well, but. There's a certain quality of offbeat, paculiar weirdness to Batman, a quality of almost playful and offputting bizarre wit, there always has been. He's got a fucking sith pikachu mask on. It's very human, very endearing almost. it's an element of imagination and wonder which is something Bruce Wayne has, even when it's corrupted to only include doom and gloom scenarios.

and the comics successfully translate that subtle wit and uncomfortable quality of all the characters, including Batman, by incorporating acidic colors, borderline hallucination-esque imageries, warped character designs, the whole thing feels like the worst acid trip you've ever had in an alley behind a bar and that's how the tone carries. It's how the worldbuilding and the characters feel congruent and authentic. The colors also give Batman a dynamic personhood by depicting his unceremonious humanity as much as they buff him up. There's a fun and gore-ish, psychopathic sincerity to the comics.

and the movies absolutely take that element out and all you get is the most "just some guy" artless character depictions and Batman himself doesn't feel human. he is written way too seriously for a guy who has pikachu ears and wears his underwear on his pants.

And this is by no means a Batman (2022) problem; it's a persisting trend of live action superhero media progressively stripping their stories of heart and soul because executive fellas have cought the "THIS IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL!!!!! EVERYTHING IS SO SERIOUS HERE!!!!!" disease and think giving superhero narratives their color and humanity back somehow makes them less poignant and significant. There's no sense of dynamism and wit to the batman movies, and the tone and atmosphere of Batman (2022) is fucking gorgeous, it's a singular experience, but it feels so out of place with Batman. It feels like Batman's costume belongs to another movie entirely, something more playful and weird.

[theclearblue]

Is it bad that I feel personally victimised by WCI or am I just being dramatic?

I don't think so anon, I think the themes of family in WCI are some of the most personal and nuanced Oda has ever done and while tragic in so many ways, I think results in the best way of conveying how powerful found family is but also how someone can have complicated feelings towards their blood family.

Throughout all of One Piece, you can see this through line of found family and how blood relations isn't what matters in who you consider family (The ASL brothers, Bellemere and Nojiko for Nami, Kuina for Zoro, Zeff for Sanji, Saul for Robin, Tom and Iceburg for Franky, and while not a strawhat, Corazon and Law deeply affected me as well). This is obviously a trope Oda has liked writing for a long time and one he does well, but (with somewhat the exception of Marineford/Post-War arc with Whitebeard and Ace), WCI is the first time he really dives into these themes of what family is, and what I really appreciated, how messy it can be.

(I uhhh wrote a lot after the cut so be prepared for that)

And it's not just Sanji in this arc (I'll get to him though don't worry), from Germa, from the Big Mom Pirates, and the Firetank Pirates, so many characters are acting as narrative foils to Sanji and dealing with family related trauma, and responding to it differently. The ones that really got me were Pudding and Katakuri though, and they're pretty similar to each other as well. I've talked a little bit about Pudding already here so I'll talk a bit more about Katakuri instead, but it hit me really hard when he made a temple for himself, and he lets the rumors fly about "his back has never touched the ground, he's praying to a god of war, no one has seen him eat" and it's just. Him laying on his back, eating donuts happily. And the scene is kind of silly and funny right, but I kid you not my New Year's resolution this year was to just, try to be more comfortable in my living room/kitchen without thinking everyone is going to judge me for, what? Eating? Watching a show I like? Completely normal things, but if you've ever grown up in a house where just, EVERYTHING you do is picked apart and criticized by family, it's easier to just shut yourself away in a room and hide it. And isn't that tragic? Katakuri projecting this image of strength that his family asks of him so much that he feels he has to hide completely normal things like lying down and eating? I could go even deeper into this character but this is just one example of a character's complicated relationship with his family, where he hides so much of himself for them, but also it stemming from a place of love after what happened to Brulee when they were kids.

And now to talk about Sanji. Ohhhh where do I even start with this guy. As kind of a sidenote, if you've seen any of my posts from Thriller Bark through Punk Hazard, I was really struggling to like Sanji as a character and I didn't make that a secret. Which was upsetting to me because, from Baratie-Enies Lobby (and really good moments at the end of Thriller Bark and Saoboady) he was a favorite of mine! And at times I thought his character was done pretty dirty where he was stripped down to a singular gag and Oda leaned into it way way way too hard. But it's immensely satisfying to me to see all the little seeds Oda planted for so many years come to fruition in Zou and WCI, to the point I think he's turned from being the most one note strawhat to the most nuanced and layered in the span of a singular saga. And that was incredible to see.

I think what really captivated me about Sanji from the beginning were how strong and rigid his convictions are, and that even though he's kind of a rude brat (I say that with love lol), he's so undeniably kind, even to a fault. And with his first backstory we see how a lot of his rigid rules he's made for himself come from, it's from Zeff. He doesn't hit women, he'll feed anyone who's hungry no matter what, and he learns to fight to protect people he cares about, but he isn't really a fighter in the same way Luffy and Zoro are, and that's made clear in his desire to protect his hands in a fight so that he can do what he really loves, and that's to cook. A lot of what makes Sanji who he is today is shown here, but Oda was smart in showing aspects of Sanji that clearly don't stem from Zeff without telling the audience why for the longest time.

He shares the dream of the All Blue with Zeff, but where did it come from? Zeff is kind of similar where he has this hard exterior but underneath is kind as well, but it's taken to another level with Sanji where it becomes self sacrificial. Throwing himself down the mountain on Drum Island, taking the lightning bolts from Enel for Nami and Usopp on Skypeia, boarding the water train alone to try and get to Robin, and most prominently, at least for me, him trying to take Luffy's pain at the end of Thriller Bark instead of Zoro, where he very clearly places more value on Zoro's dream and life than his own. That was the moment to me that made me really realize he does not see value in himself, unless he's providing something he deems useful. And if the situation calls for it, he'll throw his life and dream away if that makes him "useful" not realizing that the crew don't see him as this dispensable thing like he sees himself.

And all of Sanji's strengths and flaws as a character just come to make this perfect storm and mess that is Whole Cake Island. And the kindness that is Sanji's most definitive trait is so clearly not in this family, at least not seen at first. His brothers are made to have no zero empathy and beat down on him constantly, verbally and physically, and Judge just watches and doesn't care, eventually just hides Sanji in a cell and pretends he's dead. Because he was physically weaker and human. And yet he continues to cook because he loves doing it, he remembers his mother's kindness, and his dream of the all blue is formed in a small dark room and just. This got to me big time. Not to get too personal but the set of expectations put onto Sanji by his family, ones he can never live up to and finding passion in something his family finds to be worthless and a waste of time. Finding an escape in books and finding his dream there even though everything around him is hell. Slowly realizing the extent of cruelty that his father will go to as he grows up. Very unfortunately for me this might be the most relatable character I have ever come across in regards to my own experiences. I'm someone to voice my thoughts on things even if nobody else cares (hence why I've been liveblogging on here since Drum Island I think lmao) but while watching Sanji's backstory it affected me like nothing else ever has. It's not even something that made me cry really, I was just in shock after watching it for awhile. And Reiju saying to Sanji, "There are people out there who will accept you for who you are, you need to get out of here" which is so similar to what Saul said to Robin and even similar to what one of my sisters said to me growing up. Yeah. I also felt personally victimized by Whole Cake Island lmao.

But the end result of Sanji's arc is so beautiful and amazing. Sanji putting on this act of looking down on Luffy, and once again trying to sacrifice himself to protect those that he cares about, but Luffy just cuts through the bullshit because he knows that isn't really Sanji talking in that fight. Luffy's speech as Sanji is being driven away where he says that he can't become the pirate king without him by his side. This isn't an original thought but Sanji and Zoro both kind of represent different aspects of Luffy's dreams. Zoro with a seemingly impossible ideal and putting 100% of yourself into it. "I will become the greatest swordsman." "I will become the pirate king." But Sanji's dream of finding the All Blue reflects Luffy's dream of finding the One Piece. They both don't know if either of those things are even real (the audience at this point knows the one piece is real, but to my knowledge and where I'm at, Luffy doesn't). Yet there's this childlike wonder they both have about these dreams, because, what if it is real? Luffy knows that Sanji is irreplaceable because of the ideals that they share, not because of what Sanji can provide or be "useful" as.

It takes so much for Sanji to go running back to Luffy, and even when he does, he obviously gets insecure again and starts listing off reasons why he isn't worthy enough to go back to the Sunny and to the crew. And God is it satisfying to see Luffy absolutely rock his shit for saying that and asking him to just SAY what he really wants. And Sanji breaking down and saying how much he misses the Sunny and the crew and also airing out how he feels backed into a corner and doesn't know the way out, that he wants to help his family even though he doesn't consider them family and he KNOWS it doesn't make sense, he is being kind to a fault again. But Luffy smiling at him and saying "Well, that's just how you are. Let's go crash the wedding." That's when I started sobbing lmao, because there is such unconditional love and kindness in that statement that Sanji has so desperately needed ever since his mother died. Someone who just accepts him and all his faults wholeheartedly, and is that not the most beautiful representation of family??? His relationship with his blood family is so messy and complicated and full of mixed feelings(and that's very common), but his feelings about Zeff and Luffy and the rest of the strawhats are so clearly full of adoration and unconditional love for them, and they feel that same love for him as well! How lucky all of them are where they found their people, and how everyone else in this world has that opportunity to find the space and people they truly belong to, not tied down by blood. Whole Cake Island's themes on family were so well done and also fundamentally changed me as a person I think.

[desertfangs]

DEVIL’S MINION IS A LOVE LETTER TO ARMAND 😭

How do you manage to be so right all the time? Perhaps it’s not the love letter he might’ve wanted (given the circumstances and his feelings about Lestat’s books) but it’s the one he DESERVED. It’s the one chapter that truly captures him in all of his complexity and his simplicity, his evil and his goodness (the one he doesn’t even believe he has but becomes so palpable whenever he’s around Daniel), his curiosity and his insanity and his confusion and his endless need to experience and understand. No one had ever managed to capture Armand in such a way and it’s so fitting that it was Daniel telling the story and Lestat writing it. David Talbot wishes TBH

LOL OMG ANON RIGHT?? David Talbot could never.

Devil's Minion works because Daniel sees Armand for exactly what and who he is, and loves him for being the adorable little curious weirdo who wants to spend his nights chatting up artists and photographers in their studios while pretending to drink tea, or figuring out how to use a Chop-O-Matic, or watching the same movie 3 times and pointing out the characters who remind him of Lestat ("No Daniel, I will not speak of Lestat, your friend Louis has told you enough about that fool, hasn't he?" "Then why do you keep bringing him up?" Armand: 🥹)

Armand is philosophical and wants to know what Daniel thinks about the Big Questions, about war, death, and modern life. Armand wants to join the modern world and then become something important in it. He creates the Night Island! He's creative and innovative and beautiful and messy. As you say he has a desperate need to understand and tear things apart until they make sense. Daniel sees all of it and loves him for it. And Armand learns to let himself be loved and find that love in return.

It really is the story of Armand, after 500 years, finally coming into his own and it's because of Daniel and with Daniel that it happens, because he found someone who loves him for him and can allow him that space to grow.

Daniel telling it, and Lestat writing it after listening to Daniel expound on all the ways Armand is an incredible, amazing creature is just sort of beautiful. Lestat has known Armand for a long time but I do wonder if it helps him see Armand in a new light. It must, right??

Absolutely it's the love letter Armand deserved. And I hope he was able to see it that way when he read it back, however he finally got a copy of Lestat's manuscript.

And hot damn, I would pay cash money for the unabridged version that's probably sitting somewhere on Lestat's old 1985 hard drive in the catacombs of Night Island.

[arianeemorythethird]

I think the thing that really gets me about ahsoka is how ambiguous and messy and painful everything is. anakin is a big part of her trauma but he's not all of her trauma!

i really appreciate that the live action has tripled down on the fact that she was a child soldier; it was immensely, immensely fucked up, she should never have been ordered to go to war at all -

and when she was accused of murder and threatened with execution - still a child! - her family walked away from her, "for the greater good". she felt she had no choice but to walk away from everything she'd ever known -

and everyone she felt had failed her, died.

how could she hold onto her anger in the face of genocide? how could she dare to admit part of her was still angry at people who had suffered such an immense horror?

i don't think she could, at least not consciously - but at the same time, I don't think she ever actually forgave the jedi council, either. in a better world - one where she had the chance to actually acknowledge her feelings and move past them - she might have, but in this one she never got the chance to acknowledge her own lingering anger enough to let it go.

and that really puts her ambiguity and inconsistency towards jedi traditions in earlier episodes in perspective, i think. she's mourning the jedi themselves, of course; she's mourning the life she might have had, if she'd eventually decided to go back to the jedi after all - but she's also, even if she doesn't consciously acknowledge it, mourning the life she might have had if she'd ever been able to fully leave.

because of course that door was closed to her too. as one of the only temple-trained jedi left in existence, by this point possibly the only person left in the universe who remembered certain traditions - if she left her identity as a jedi behind for good, if she walked away without passing those traditions on, they'd die with her. and how could she let that happen? of course she felt she had to do everything she could to make sure something of the jedi survived -

but part of her resents that too, as yet another choice that was taken away from her.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Baizhu’s Room

(note: this was written without any leaked spoilers or lore in mind)

Genshin 3.6 finally gave us access to the back room in Bubu Pharmacy, in anticipation of Baizhu’s upcoming release and story quest. And I have to give all the praise to the designers and developers here, because this small room has some of the best environmental storytelling I’ve seen in a game in a while, with only a few simple details. Today is Baizhu’s birthday, so I wanted to talk about it a little 💚🐍🌿

Nothing in this room is neatly in its place. The chairs aren’t in position, everything on the desk is messy and strewn about, and some of the drawers are left open. There’s a pillow on the desk, as well. Baizhu is quite frail and sickly, so this all paints a picture of him constantly looking for things and working, both as a doctor and frantically on his research into immortality, without having the energy or care to keep everything neat, and probably often falling asleep at his desk out of exhaustion (hence the pillow, though admittedly it could be for Changsheng, but I kind of doubt it).

There’s medicine on the bedside tables, which is probably just as much for Baizhu as it (and all the other medicine in the room) is for his patients. The bedside chair indicates he likely sits with patients there a lot so as to be as comforting as possible, but again, it’s also likely for people like Gui and Qiqi, when Baizhu is the one in bed. The sole small washtub thing stuck in the corner behind the screen... just makes me sad. I don’t know why in particular... it just does.

All of this, combined with the lighting, and the new, unique song, creates a room that manages to feel both warm and welcoming during the day, but solemn, lonely, almost suffocating, and unbearably sad at night, completely befitting the person who practically lives here, and the two very different sides he has. I say “practically”, but we have no indication so far that Baizhu actually does live anywhere else -- with his low energy and poor health, and all those damn steps leading up to the pharmacy, I’m fully convinced now that he does live here full-time, after seeing the state of it, which is... heartbreaking. He puts on a smile for everyone around him who are relying on him to care for them (and he loves his job, he truly does!), but his tiny, cramped patient room seemingly doubles as his living space, and even though Baizhu may lie and try to hide his own suffering... this room itself does not lie, and said suffering is bleeding from every corner here. The music is elegant, gentle, comforting, and soothing, but also delicate, weak, mournful, and again unimaginably lonely...... just like Baizhu. 💔

If you haven’t been here yet in the game, I highly recommend you visit it at least once; the atmosphere is simply unmatched. I can’t wait to see what happens here in Baizhu’s story quest, and how it will wreck our hearts even more 💚💔

[lpwrites]

On Hope

Today's meta, brought to you by a tumblr post:

In case of tl;dr or tumblr not opening links, it boils down to: Hope is a skill you work, not something inherent. I'd like to add (as some people in the tags have, that so is optimism and faith). I personally would tag on kindness as well.

All these traits are seen as soft and naive, but to actually use them and nurture them properly, it takes time and an active involvement. You're not just hopeful, especially in these times. You have to work at it, and it's hard. You're not just kind because you are, you have to actively work to be kind, moreso when the world says you shouldn't.

How does this tie to Teen Wolf?

Obviously, it comes down to Scott.

Many, many multiple complaints about Scott being a boring character or a perfect character or an undeveloped character come from the fact that people (incorrectly) believe that Scott has no flaws. Scott's perfect, they say! He's so boring and Neurotypical! (which is another can of worms to open another day)

Perfection is not possible, much less for a teenage character. We have seen Scott fuck up, multiple times, for several different reasons, most coming down to the fact he's an inexperienced teenage boy thrust into a situation he never wanted to be in the first place. He's afraid, he's experiencing things no one could have braced him for, and further affected by the fact that no one explained anything after the fact either.

Despite being actively tormented by several adults (and some teenagers, lookin' at you, Matt and Jackson), Scott doesn't stop being, at his core, kind. He's hopeful! He has HOPE that Jackson can be cured from the Kanima situation in s2, he has HOPE that they can save Stiles from the Nogitsune in s3B.

Out of everyone in Teen Wolf, given the release date and the sentiment surrounding the world when it first came out, I would have not been surprised if Scott had gone from a bright hopeful kid to a cynical, bitter ~adult~, because that was expected. Cynicism was The Thing, the corruption of the innocence of youth or whatever would have fit well, I'm sure, in this niche MTV was trying to carve out.

That's what made Scott so extraordinary, I think. Despite the punches, despite ever reason he had to be bitter and mean and cruel because the world WAS bitter and mean and cruel to him, Scott continued being good. He had hope for people, and gave countless opportunities that would not have been afforded to him by others, because Scott was able to look at things as they were, and hope for something better.

Did he make mistakes along the way? Sure, as a kid then young adult navigating a whole new world that actively wanted him dead, he made mistakes. But even thinking about his choices now, how painfully difficult must it have been for Scott to look at all these people who hurt him, who hurt his friends and his family and his community, and still look for good? To offer kindness to strangers and enemies alike, to ease their pain and give people who were in the same position he was the opportunity to say 'I can't. This isn't for me.'

How many times did Scott have to fight the pain and injustice and anger that would be more than deserved, and swallowed it down because pain and anger and violence are easy! It's an easy reaction and an easy excuse, and likely people (in show) wouldn't have really blamed him because no one ever blamed Stiles for being angry and lashing out because that's what people /do/.

But Scott didn't. He swallowed all of that (a monumental effort on its own) and he returned kindness. He returned hope and optimism and faith that I know he didn't really feel, but what he really felt doesn't affect his actions because his actions speak much louder.

For a teenager with suicidal ideation, who has been constantly beat down by a life he never chose? Scott has tremendous self control, and an enormous capacity for kindness in his heart. It would have been so easy to make him an asshole, we've seen assholes countless of times in media. But strength of character in the face of all that, to say no to the cycle of violence? That is something that is not innate. Scott had to absolutely fight for that every day, and that alone is so endlessly fascinating.

Scott may be boring if all you look at is the surface, but all it says is that you've felt the struggle of being kind in a world that wants you to be cruel.