#it was a coordinated attack

[chasingfigments]

WoT S3E7

“Stop trying to protect—” and “Kill the ones I miss,” and the choreography and camera framing commit to it.

From the moment Perrin says “Kill the ones I miss” until after his confrontation with Padan Fain, he does not turn to face Faile. Any enemy fighter that gets past him no longer registers—they’re Faile’s to deal with. Several enemies he just knocks down/aside, but he doesn’t stop to finish them off.

Even when Faile is probably not technically behind him (given the shape of the village square), he is not looking at her. He’s being framed as surveying the battle, or he’s fighting someone else, or she’s out of frame, and then Faile comes into the shot and kills the enemies he did not see.

Faile speaks directly to him twice (“I like your Women’s Circle” and “Kill him!”). Both times, she’s behind him, and he doesn’t even verbally respond. He has a mission: first to rally everyone at the square and then to get to Padan Fain. He trusts Faile with her own mission: to watch his six. To protect him.

And even when the enemy is retreating and he has finally turned around to watch them go, he’s still not focused on her. Not until she pulls him down into a victory kiss.

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts - Neoshadow

[thepromisedbride]

the fact that the sequel trilogy could have perfectly set up a three v three scenario where the main trio could have each taken down their counterparts (poe against hux, finn against phasma, rey against ren) before they defeated snoke together so you could explore their characters and pasts and show the differences between the dark and light side of the force. and not only did they not do that but they basically screwed over the trio as a concept entirely

[dimpledumplings]

rest in peace to my ex wife

(indirectly murdered by Daniel James Howell, Phil Michael Lester and Taylor Alison Swift)

i just got killed by taylor singing cowboy like me i'm gonna die again after watching the new dnp video aren't i??

[kylermalloy]

Sometimes I don’t think people understand the point of deterministic time travel stories.

(For the purposes of this post, a deterministic universe refers to a story in which there is only one timeline. Even if time travel exists, the characters cannot go back and change things, so to speak. In a deterministic universe, they would’ve always time-traveled, so the “changes” they attempted were already there, and nothing was altered. Think Interstellar, in which Cooper sends himself to NASA from the future.

By contrast, a branching timeline story would allow changes. Traveling through time assumes a new set of events and/or people who were not present the “first time around,” and so events can be altered, to the point of erasing established history. Think The Butterfly Effect, in which changing the smallest thing balloons out into an entire alternate reality.)

Whenever I hear people discuss a deterministic model of time travel, they seem to be under the impression that those characters are trapped by some nebulous fate or destiny, and that’s why things can’t change. The time-travel mode chosen by the author for the story has locked them into this particular set of events, they’ll posit, and no matter what the characters do, they are literally unable change it.

I couldn’t disagree more!

A deterministic timeline is a trap, to be sure—to us, the audience. The characters are free to make whatever choices they want.

I started thinking about this because of Attack on Titan, how Eren sees a glimpse of himself causing the rumbling from his father’s memories.

So many analyses will claim that’s why Eren started the rumbling later in the story—that from the moment he saw the future, he was somehow locked into that particular course of action. He was destined to kill millions whether he wanted to or not.

But��no. Eren didn’t cause the rumbling because he saw himself do it in the future. He’s not the audience looking in on his own story (not in that way, at least). He isn’t figuring out that there is only one timeline, or that he was fated to cause so much death. He doesn’t even know that he’s in a time loop where everything happens the same way every time!

No! Eren isn’t thinking about time travel physics—which are made-up anyway. Eren isn’t thinking Well I HAVE to do it, since I saw it in Dad’s memories. (Well, he probably does think that. As an excuse.)

Eren makes the choice to start the rumbling because that’s the choice he will always make regardless. That is who he is as a person. It’s a tragic flaw. It’s his character.

I’ve also been thinking about this because of Netflix’s Dark—a time-travel show I heartily recommend. It too has a single timeline, in which many characters meet older—and then younger—versions of themselves, and they pass along information bootstrap-paradox style.

The first time I watched the show, I had this passing thought—how did these characters remember exactly what their older selves said to them, so they could replicate the conversation when they were the older self?

It was a silly question, and the more I watched the show, the more I came to understand: The show is not about ~replicating~ or ~preserving~ events in the timeline. They’re not sacred, as some time-travel stories would have you believe. No, the single timeline never changes because the characters don’t change.

When Jonas, the protagonist of Dark, meets his older self, he can’t believe the shell of a man he’s become. He can’t believe himself capable of saying the things he’s saying, or doing the things he does. He’s not cataloguing the information passed to him so he can one day say it back to his younger self—that’s stupid.

I was caught in a fallacy of bootstrap paradox—how did they know what to say? Where’d those words come from? Well, where all words come from.

Older Jonas is speaking from his heart. He too had believed fervently that he would never become the person he is—but the day has arrived, and now he’s on the other side of the door. He’s saying the words while his younger self is frozen in disbelief. He’s not replicating a conversation he remembers—the words he says are the words he would say regardless. That’s what he’s always said, because that’s who he is.

This little quandary serves as a microcosm for explaining everything about deterministic time-travel. Both Eren and Jonas see themselves in the future doing horrible things. Becoming a version of themselves they would never dream of being.

As much as they tell themselves that’s not me, I would never do that, and even vow to find a way to prevent that future, they both fail in that endeavor. They both experience profound hopelessness and loss, and they eventually give in to their desires and their hopelessness and become the worst, murderous versions of themselves.

And they both, funnily enough, tell themselves and others that it was just fate. It was how things had to be. Inevitable.

This is a lie.

Eren always had the capacity for terrible violence. Jonas was always capable of manipulation and single-minded ruthlessness. Those are their character flaws. The sneak peeks they received of their futures weren’t showing them what they had to do. They made those choices of their own free will. As much as they fought against what they would become, as much as they protested that isn’t me, it was them. And they become those monsters anyway.

It’s only inevitable in the way a tragedy is inevitable.

Tragedies come about because of characters’ choices and flaws—not because the author or the timeline or fate is puppeteering them into these horrible ends. Romeo and Juliet aren’t doomed to die because the opening narration tells us they do. They’re doomed to die because they’re young and impulsive and desperate to escape the cycle of hatred their families perpetuate. It’s a tragedy because they’re scared teenagers and because the feud that drove them together, apart, and then to death was pointless.

It wasn’t inevitable. At any point, they could’ve put down the loaded gun (narratively speaking) and walked away. Romeo didn’t drink the poison because he heard the opening lines about him taking his life. Juliet didn’t watch the rest of the play and go alas, I have no choice, ‘twas foretold. O happy dagger! No! They both made those choices because of who they are as characters and the circumstances they were in.

But because we’re the audience, and we’ve been told the ending, we feel trapped in it. We’re the ones being granted a sneak peek into the future. We watch the story unfold with growing horror, because there are so many outs!

Romeo could have not killed Tybalt. Juliet could have entrusted her letter to a faster rider. They could have just not gotten married after eighteen hours. They could have spilled the secret and asked for help. This entire tragedy seems so preventable—but we’re trapped watching it happen regardless.

So when Eren says he has no choice, he’s not saying that because his vision of the future locked him into that course of action. Eren chooses to start the rumbling because that’s what Eren would do. He tells us himself—his disappointment in the outside world made him want to flatten everything and start anew.

Jonas too chooses to become the worst version of himself because he believes only he can make the world right. He has to—he feels responsible, like he doesn’t have any other choice. He wants to destroy the timeline and his family. He wants to tear it all down, because he can’t let go of the people he loved and lost.

The future does not dictate Eren’s and Jonas’s actions. Eren’s and Jonas’s characters dictate the future.

Maybe seeing themselves do it in the future helped them give permission to themselves to start something so unthinkable—but make no mistake. It was always just them.

(And I don’t say this as a condemnation of either character. We have all had those impulses. Sometimes we just want to tear it all down.)

But getting that glimpse into the future doesn’t absolve them of their choices, either. These two always had another choice. They just chose causing the apocalypse every single time.

(Well, that’s not completely true. Dark and Attack on Titan have different endings—Jonas receives new information that changes his perspective on everything. He learns the truth about the time knot, and that growth and recognition is enough to help him finally make a different choice—one that actually ends the loop. Eren could have made a different choice, too. He just doesn’t.)

Dark sums it up better than I ever could: “Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.” In other words: You can do whatever you want, but you cannot make yourself want to do something else. Time travel only highlights that struggle for us.

[unganseylike]

hey guys did we ever discuss why the hennessy copy girls were so prepared to take on violent home invaders. why were they so coordinated they were just a bunch of 20 year old weird art freaks in a toxic codependent situation. did they do a group bonding martial arts class. did they all just watch home alone a bunch. was there ever an explanation for this.

[voidmetal-alloy]

Been playing the X games recently and I fucking SUCK at platformers (ironic I know) and they keep shaming me for using the easy mode. I will not apologise for being an absolutely dogshit gamer capcom

[yellowistheraddest]

tried to learn botw combat for the past 2 hours and im still absolutely useless against anything more than a dark bokoblin oTL

[message-lost]

billy having a normal one after spring arc

[spaghetti-aldente]

Aourgh

[avnasace]

no but gureshin really have some banger lines like:

"shinya and I, we were supposed to die together" (ow)

"guren, stop snoring" (????? gay.)

the conversation about kureto being a masochist (theyre adorable)

byakkomaru: its as if you are in love. shinya: no no, its just your garden variety idolisation, i completely understand why mahiru chose him over me. (🏳️‍🌈👀⁉️)

G: i will, like always, let myself drown in my own power to save you (this line goes soo hard honestly)

(Mahiru:) but its that weakness that shinya and i admire" (isnt it interesting how much mahiru and shinya are compared or referenced together with their feelings towards guren? always before and seperate from mentions of their squad yknow? theres always a distinction between them and anyone else)

[shit-people-probably-didnt-say]

Nina: How many toddlers do you think you could take in a fight?

Jesper: Do I get prep time?

Nina: Yes, but the toddlers get it too

Jesper: Then none, they’ll unionise

[collectingavenuesmwue]

rewatching aot is insane like HOW did I miss that

[benetnvsch]

kunikidazai watching the sunset together on the beach in the newest Mayoi cards side story oh this sickening they want me dead

[epaulando]

my biggest question about pacific rim is all the worldbuilding that was left unsaid

[fisheito]

EVeryONE STOP SENDIGN ME THE mOoncake YAKUMO IM NOT OK!!!!!!!!+++++++++