#meat meta

[antennatoheaven]

i feel like being a guy who loves fighting so much while living in a sugar plum soft world gets really boring (outside of the occassional intergalactic threat) if you feel the need to beat up a gorilla 30 fucking times. like what's the deal man? are you getting enough enrichment in your enclosure? do you wish you were in dark souls? could you maybe leave the local wildlife alone for a bit?

[anxiety-elemental-kay]

Trigun Book Club, we've been having a good time here. Talking about themes like trauma, bodily autonomy, faith, redemption, violence, etc.

Now you can throw all that in the trash because I figured out what Trigun is really about:

Trigun is a cautionary tale about why you shouldn't make nuclear reactors out of MEAT

[starflungwaddledee]

wait, since kirby has been manipulated mentored by galacta to be more cold- hearted, how does he react to affection in this state? (hugs, sharing, etc.)

cw for abusive manipulation tactics. like.. mind games. just in case. this response is a little dark just by merit of it being about psychological manipulation through lying, so take care.

kirby is as affectionate and loving as ever! he actually adores galacta knight, who stole the existing trust and familial affection kirby already felt for meta knight when they switched places.

there's a line in the another dimension fight comic, where galacta knight says "he's my family now, as he could have been yours.", and he means this truly. where meta knight was always a little stoic and guarded with his feelings, galacta knight is quick and easy with affection when it suits him, and reaps the rewards instantly

but what he does is targeted. if he were going after someone else (like bandee or dedede) he'd use a different tactic. kindness only works this well because kirby is so isolated and lonely, and craves it so desperately

this is super important i think; his core traits are the same as always. kirby is a good little guy!

he wants to be a hero. he wants to have friends and have a fun time and keep the people he loves safe. he wants to be good and to do the right thing with all his heart, it's just that what is "good" and "the right thing" is being purposefully warped around him

maybe it's good to act pre-emptively to prevent a war with the nation in the clouds, especially when they acted aggressively first.

maybe it's good to seek out and squash any trace of dark matter before it can infect anyone else, even if it's currently harmless.

maybe it's good to put that clearly possessed person out of their misery on sight, so they don't have to suffer anymore, because you couldn't save them anyway, right?

for bandee, who becomes aware this is happening, it's heart-breaking to watch. but he can't confide in kirby, because galacta knight's claws are too deep in him. also he will not put the pressure on kirby to keep a secret that could get them all killed

all he can do is try to be there to keep kirby safe, and hope he can reverse the wish before kirby crosses a threshold of misery or ruthlessness they cannot get him back from

[revenantghost]

Man, you ever think about how so much of Vash’s suffering is tied to Knives? In the obvious, direct ways of course. But also in how the humans around him suffer and hurt him. People are afraid of what they don’t understand, sure, but the average amount of compassion on Noman’s Land would be so much higher if Knives weren’t constantly fucking everything up and people had basic needs met. Small communities and people in general aren’t so goddamn awful as a baseline in a lot of places. There are outliers, yeah, but if humanity could have recovered and made the best of things, had a chance instead of widespread dispair, there might be peace.

And if Vash didn’t have to fight so goddamn hard every second of every day, he wouldn’t be covered in half those horrific scars.

[vanitasmagoria]

only one episode between these two exchanges:

and

feels like they're testing the waters, sussing out the shape of their commitment, subtly inching toward a life partnership. dean trying to find out where sam's head is at, whether they're on the same page about this love, family, whatever it is. sam expecting dean not to be on board with him and giving him an out, which dean doesn't take.

(of course the timing was off, with the apocalypse and all, and things went tits up two episodes later, and it took them several more seasons to be ready for domestic bliss. but they sure tried here in s5. to "make their own future".)

[daily-jadeharl3y]

Have you read the Epilogues?

[moongothic]

A stupid Crocodad related mental image that keeps on haunting me is Crocodile somehow getting to witness a Usual Strawhat Banquet, seeing Luffy eat The Normal Amount of Food Luffy Usually Eats and think to himself "...yeah that adds up"

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

Tis not for me, but I think of all my ships Hualian is the one most likely to be into ageplay. They spend the whole damn first season/volume like,

Hua Cheng, batting his eyelashes and twiddling his thumbs: Uwu I am but a mischievous and strangely encyclopedic teenager who has run away from home. I will sleep in the woods tonight, unless some kind gege takes me in. 🥺 I'm scared of ghosts, gege. Won't you tell me my fortune, gege? Won't you brush my hair for me, gege?

Xie Lian, in a cartoonishly creaky exaggerated old man voice: Oh what a handsome young man, all the girls must chase you ehehe. I'll protect you from the ghosts, sonny. If only I had some strapping lad around to fix my nonexistent front door and carry the wood for me. I can't leave you out here overnight. Let me brush your hair.

When of course Xie Lian actually clocked who Hua Cheng really was after like .02 seconds. Dorks.

[revelisms]

Throwing down a big ramble of Silco and Vander headcanons, because I've had these two on my mind Too Much recently (and just need somewhere to braindump, while I figure out how to write them).

cw: abandonment issues, violent/complicated relationships, repression, dysfunctional family histories.

While it's likely canon(? side-eyes our TBD S2 flashbacks) that these two knew each other as boys and worked together for a long time, I really like the idea that they were pulled together by chance.

Maybe they worked on complete opposite sides of the Fissures—Silco working the mines, Vander working the fisheries/refineries/metalworks, etc. Carting off raw materials to various industrial crews was part of Silco's weekly work (and how he'd been able to build connections across the working circles of the city; climbed the rungs and twisted the ears of higher leaders, later on)—and Vander's crew was one of them.

Maybe they caught each others' eyes—or hated each other, at first (or Silco had an immediate, heavily-bottled crush). Countless handoffs turned into messy introductions, into Come down to the Drum, Swiftlet—we'll get'ya sorted up!, into them holing up together in the off-hours with other workers in their ratty pubs, realizing how uncannily much they had in common, for all their surface-level opposites.

Vander takes him under his wing; another stray to the litter. (It's a penchant they both have, perhaps, in their own ways.) He's older than him. Stronger, louder, warmer. A middle child in a big family, rife with dysfunction, broiling over with anger. He's someone who knows how to make his voice heard in the mess, and people flock to him, in ways they never did to Silco. They fear and respect him, in turns. He has a reputation—and it weighs heavy as a blade. He's never afraid to flash it, when needed (or just when he needs to send some brazen fools running).

Silco's jealous of it all, naturally—and more than a little admiring. He believes in him. Feels like he can trust him; like Vander would do anything for the two of them, for their cause, their people—just like he would, for them.

Quietly, his admiration bleeds into something else. An obsession, a hunger, a selfish and desperate sort of love. He was always an outcast, a dirty little thing, to his own kin and anyone on the streets. Never had a father, to appraise him. Never had anyone to call his own, who saw him as worthwhile; who picked him up from the sludge and kept him on his feet: made him feel like he could be feared and respected, too. He's been surviving since he was old enough to haul a cart of coal, and his youth was stripped from him. Always an ancient thing in a weak little body, gnawing at the seams for blood.

I think Vander was deep-seated in denial. An angry, bitter, violent man, with a deceptive charisma casing it all. Their relationship was inherently destructive (and with a flavor of Fight Club repression): they fought with fists as much as words. Sometimes, it skirted the lines, got too close—roughhousing bleeding towards something Silco craved, that Vander feared: that they nearly had, tumbled against walls with fists at their necks and their breath tangled.

And maybe, once or twice (or countless), they slipped over those lines; got too drunk to remember. Convenient thing, that, for Vander to sit in his denial; but Silco never forgot, never played it off. He ached, and he resented. Vander called him a brother in private, and a partner in public, and Silco simmered at it—A brother? Is that all I am, to you? All you see us as?—and, eventually, accepted it; that it was more important to have him, in whatever ways he could, than to not have him, at all.

I read him as having a bone-deep fear of abandonment, as equally as Jinx does: terrified of being left behind, discarded, being seen as unworthy, etc.—largely from growing up in a broken household with an absent father, but also just from being the runt, his whole life; ignored and spat on by his peers, by the stronger ones, the faster ones, the smarter ones. There's rage under that, festered for a lifetime. There's also an intrinsic sliver of inadequacy.

We don't know anything about his home life, before—but there's something there, in the nature of Henry's character in Detachment, that I can't not tie to Jinx: perhaps a guilt he's battled with his whole life, from having an ill weakling of a mother he never knew what to do with, who died too young, hating her life and all an undesired childbirth had reduced her to.

Cue both of these into how he latched onto Vander, and why his betrayal shattered him to a shell—and also why he saw something in Powder: an opportunity to nurture the part of himself he gleaned in her, but also a chance to absolve that guilt from his mother, an innate need to try again, and why her sledgehammering into his schemes brought the humanity back into the monster he'd harnessed in himself.

I think Silco was always a deeply guarded, manipulative, quiet, and wrathful man—and that Vander saw him, empowered something in him, that made him feel worthy, not soiled. That they brought out the worst in each other, in the guise of familial connection, and hid their own fears under the surface (Silco, his affections and desire; Vander, the guilt of emboldening something monstrous in Silco that he despised, that he hated himself for taking pride in).

They were unstoppable together—but destined for a bloody end. A perfect foil for all the ways love can spiral into something destructive.

And, in the aftermath of it all, we have Vi—Vander's manifestation of those regrets: another little thing, adoring in his shadow, that he emboldened in his image while equally discouraging it every step of the way, and that he wallowed in his shame over; and we have Jinx—Silco's own manifestation: another image of his fractured, misguided understanding of what makes family real (e.g., I see the monster in you, and you see the monster in me, and that is still worth something, for all others may be repulsed by it).

He refuses to abandon her, even though he is given every opportunity, by himself and by others; refuses to abandon her like he was abandoned, like he himself abandoned his mother, even for all Jinx lashes out at him, looks for lies in everything he does. He is always, in his own ways, clinging to her—not wanting to lose her, to lose someone who sees him, again; and who he sees, in turn.

(And it's what Vi is striving for, as well—trying to absolve her own guilt of abandoning Powder, and clinging to memory of what they had, not wanting to lose her sister again—and it's something she will rage at Silco for, and go head-to-head with him on, constantly.)

TL;DR—Silco and Vander are a destructive unrequited tragedy, and Vi and Jinx will carry the imprints of that, in everything they do: broken mirrors of their fathers, and their fathers broken mirrors of each other.

[liverbiver9]

i find it funny but also kind of annoying when writers clearly don’t know how cooking works or haven’t bothered to look up the recipe of whatever food they’re referencing. so many times i’ve read a fic where jiang yanli makes a “vegetarian version” of the lotus and pork rib soup for lan wangji or makes the soup within a few hours (sometimes even only an hour!) which are all pretty much impossible feats.

the soup is made by boiling the pork ribs for LITERAL HOURS (i’m not joking. the soup is best when it’s been simmering for 12 hours at least) alongside the lotus root, aromatics, goji berries, ginger, etc. the reason the soup has any flavor at all is the pork ribs; without those, it would just be water with stuff floating in it. now, if the vegetarian version is just the soup without the pork then that’s one thing, but then does that count as vegetarian since the broth is meat based? i’m not sure what constitutes as vegetarian for the Lans; do bone broths count as eating meat? if they do, no wonder all the food in Cloud Recesses sucks so hard.

anyways, fic writers: before making offhand comments about food, look up the recipe and see how it’s made. food is deeply cultural and significant, both the product and the act of making it. jiang yanli’s soup is so important because it is a labor of love that takes time and effort to make, especially if she is making it from scratch by herself as we are led to assume. by reducing it to something that can be accommodated for other characters or something easier than it really is, you are inadvertently diminishing yanli’s act of love.

[shallowseeker]

Cas & the chair at the head of the table

==The chair breaks==

When Dean breaks a chair in 14x18 Absence, it's that three-part play on the word absence again: (a) Castiel's absence from the partnership both emotionally [Empty deal] and in terms of decision-making/trust, (b) Jack's absence of soul, and (c) Mary's absence in death.

The cabin they're standing in is dilapidated. Broken down. The breaking of the chair symbolizes the symbolic breaking of the marriage. It's the dissolution of the happy family as essential parts of it die and the rest splinters apart.

///

==When Cas is absent, this chair position is featured==

This is a chair position that has been associated with Cas before, when he died in 12x23 All Along the Watchtower-13x01 Lost and Found.

It's the head of the table. Cas's head is literally pointed at the empty chair in death. Dean's hands tenderly brush it as he walks past it.

///

==Mended bonds: Cas rejoins the table==

After season 14's Absence, although we see Cas in the library and at the war table, we do not see him fully rejoin the kitchen table until 15x09 The Trap. Here he retakes this adjacent, head-of-table "partner" position again:

///

==The kitchen table in day-to-day bunker life==

Images by TVTechGeek

[NOTE: Yes, before you say it--all of TFW sits here sometimes. Usually, they sit across from one another when they're eating dinner. And Dean, for example, took the helm position when Jack died.

But the kitchen seating arrangement with respect to Cas is still conspicuous here in seasons 14-15 for the ordered sequence I've noted. There is a symbolic relation to the empty chair and its association with Cas's previous absences. There's a weight to when and where Cas rejoins the table with respect to Dean-Cas as a unit.]

///

==After Cas dies, the kitchen table features very little==

After 15x18 Despair, Cas is gone. Interestingly, after Cas leaves, although the kitchen itself is shown, even to illustrate the daily rhythms of the finale, the kitchen table is not shown again. The war table and the library are favored.

In the finale, Sam is shown cooking, and Dean is shown grabbing toast, and Dean is even shown doing dishes. That's it. The table does not feature.

(Most of the denouements take place in Sam's domain: the library.)

///

==Empty chairs, pizza boxes, missing pizza man==

So, what else is conspicuous about Cas & chairs? Well, the empty black chair of the dungeon in 15x18 is certainly conspicuous, but the 15x20 finale, despite having no Cas, has a peculiar abundance of empty chairs and pizza boxes.

Six months after Castiel's death, the empty spaces in Dean's room are filled by pizza boxes. ("The missing pizza man.")

On entering Dean's room, we see our first empty chair, the one by the couch.

And an empty pizza box.

This position calls to mind Dean's prayer scene from season 8's Remember the Titans. In that prayer scene, Dean sits on the "Cas" side of the bed as he prays towards the Cas-shaped lamp (you know--the tall one--reminiscent of the one he dances with in The Heroes' Journey). As the prayer ends, Dean glances over his shoulder towards the empty chair and laments Cas's absence.

It seems that this chair position in particular is a chair Cas would favor, and it especially represents the early days of their domesticity in the bunker.

Another conspicuous thing is those shirts draped over the green bench. The couch features a plaid shirt, plus a camo shirt (and tan rag?) that is decidedly not Dean’s style. It hearkens to army fatigues. Is this another ghost of the soldier (Cas?)

The only other thing this could be is a callback to Mary and Jack re: AU earth, but it seems more like a symbol of Dean and Cas.

That the army shirt & tan fabric are draped near an old phone seems another nod to Cas, the absent soldier. Since Lucifer’s cruel trick, Dean has been waiting for Cas to call.

///

And the second pizza box is simply...on Cas's side of the bed. Like a bedside table. This pizza box is inexplicable. One's weird, but two's a pattern. This pizza box is also in the frame with another empty chair.

Cas's side of the bed features the fan of domesticity, a Cas motif, as well as the tall Cas lamp. And now, we have another Cas motif: the pizza man.

SAM: "If Cas were here--" DEAN: "He's not."

//

[thefiresofpompeii]

“it just keeps growing no matter how much we cut it” — rhys keeps trusting gwen and staying with her no matter how much she lies to him and keeps him in the dark. “i’m just a big dumb animal, aren’t i, gwen?”

my favourite, favourite scifi storytelling practice is when the alien/robot/whateverthefuck plot of the week mirrors, parallels, inverts or somehow sheds light onto the central emotional conflict between the characters. when both the stories amplify one another like a feedback loop? that’s the good shit right there. that’s what makes speculative fiction shine

[shih-coulda-had-it]

I wonder if being pretty much feral for a number of their formative years left noticeable effects on the twins

for sure! if not physically, then socially. i think there's a fun angle to explore as to whether all for one's vestiges affected his growth; i know some writers have used the 'One for All is Haunted' trope to the extent that Izuku's vestiges affect his personality/tastes, so it's not a huge stretch to think that baby AfO was being subtly influenced (when does he start having the nightmares?? they're first mentioned in C287 btw).

i'm inclined to think that the mother's vestige, at least, was integral to getting AfO to care about Yoichi instead of thinking of him as, like, extra meat.

[thegeekyartist]

One thing I'm super grateful for this season is that the promos never made it fully clear whether or not Guillermo's turning worked.

We saw that he could go in the sun, we saw he couldn't turn into a bat...Even the bit about Laszlo teaching Guillermo to fly could have just been him messing with a fully human Guillermo.

But instead!! We find out that it DID (sort of) work, and we get to follow along with Guillermo's transformation in real time! We get to learn about his new powers at the same rate he does!

In one episode we learn he has better than perfect vision and still sleeps in a "coffin". In the next, we find out that he can partially turn into a bat. The next, that he has telekinesis (!), baby wings, and that his sweat can protect the other vamps from the sun. He's also starting to get burned by holy words!

Like, it's all so exciting??? I can't wait for each new episode because I'm dying to see what changes Guillermo goes through next, and what that means for everyone in the household.

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

u can see izaya and his alts as like... one answering a question but posing another one, all leading to self actualization. i.e. roppi as the antithesis to izaya.... but hes just as if not MORE miserable as izaya. so if the opposite of izaya isnt happy, then how DOES he become happy? which is then psyche, whos happy but his happiness is manic and obsessive- its just as unsustainable as the misery of the first 2. and so on

i need 2 think this out a bit more (hibaya does not have a place yet and sakuraya has a place BUT its not fleshed out muchhhhhh) but just sum thoughts in my head meats

[chopper-witch]

Btw if y’all don’t know much about Tiefling diets, let’s just say any tiefling character in BG3 would be dropping weight so fast. It isn’t a calorie issue, it’s simply the actual food. They can eat normal food fine, but they prefer/should eat primarily raw or mostly raw meats, and definitely enjoy the occasional helping of things like bone marrow, blubber, and even just plain blood. They are capable of subsisting off only coal or ash and sulfur. But give them those cabbages you scrounged or the pumpkins near the tollhouse in act 1 and they’ll eat it, but will not be happy about it or fully fed.