#to achieve goals

[silviakundera]

Underrated aspect of A Journey to Love is how the ensemble's perspective is being widened & complicated by their experiences. Intro talks about a war that just ended between An and Wu. An are assholes, going around kicking everyone's ass for $$

First the spy squad from Wu country just want to complete 1 stupid doomed mission, in order to clear their sworn brothers' names who fell in the final battle. No real agenda or deep thoughts besides this personal obligation and Employee Following Orders. Avengers assemble! Our FL Ren Ruyi is on the run and was a Scarlet Guard spy member from enemy country An who are holding the Wu emperor hostage... but the Wu spy chief ML does only a spot of mild torture and basically tolerates this secret because (a) he's determined to retire and (b) she is retired (c) her identity doesn't match any know big enemy of his spy org and the state. But he doesn't want her around.

... record scratch: He compromises. Ok. I do want her around. I won't get attached but ok, she's helpful. I'll even trust her to mentor the princess as we travel to rescue the Wu emperor.

She is only a tutor, though! Won't get her involved in his country's buisness.

Yet then she joins a battle and risks her life to save a bunch of theirs. Ok, ML widens his POV again. She can be their partner!

Everyone loves the mysterious friendly & feral assassin.

Then the squad finds out her identity and tries to kill her. His defense of her inclusion in the group has expanded: (a) her identity doesn't match any known enemy of his spy org and the Wu state, (b) she saved our lives, and crucially (c) she Isn't Born in An Country [isn't truly An] + (d) she was working at the command of her superiors just like we do, a cog in the war machine, and also only killed shitty members of our spy org we don't like

Ok. Now she's on the team. ML & FL are dating now and all the kids ship it. There is 1 (one) Scarlet Guard enemy county spy they accept and support.

But at the same time, she's begun to care about them in return. And we're really IN IT now.

Let's mentor the princess and throw shade on the Wu emperor, considering how our actions matter & how powerful people affect the average person. Caring for the citizens of Wu. They deserve better than their ruling class.

Being generally supportive & respectful of Ren Ruyi's love for the fallen An empress and RR's quest to avenge her.

The Wu delegation willing to (tentatively) ally with RR's former disciple, a marquis of An.

An marquis revealed to have gone against orders to respectfully bury the bodies of their Wu soldier friends, because in his view all loyal soliders deserve it.

The Wu delegation digging up the bodies of their dead friends, to give them a final send off, and mastering their grief to wrench it back from turning into hatred of the An people - focusing their rage and hate on selish & war hungry leaders, not the soliders and generals ordered to fight.

The focus of their resentment now turned to the right direction, expands their thinking & their plotting to have a consideratiom for all the residents of An and Wu, a care for humankind. An citizens are no longer the automatic enemy. ML tells the emperor of Wu to go fuck himself, directly to his face.

Caring about injustice done to some Scarlet Guards and wanting to save active !! "innocent" Scarlet Guard lives. (So far from the starting point! No background check to validate that X, Y, Z don't apply to these people. No rejection of the ML by the delegation or threats for daring to care about a random Scarlet Guard's life or death.) I sure hope the An emperor pays big for being bad at his job, but we gotta be careful about how we deal with him and not mess up An for the nice jewelry makers & brothel workers who live there.

"Having compassion doesn't mean irresolute."

[phoenixkaptain]

I love it when pre Original Trilogy era shows how much effort went into making the Death Star. It took decades, literal decades, and it took so much money and so many people and it was such a secretive thing and it’s staffed by millions because it’s the size of a small moon.

I cannot express how much all of the added information makes it so much funnier that Luke blew it up.

Luke destroys literally everything Palpatine built. He blows up the Death Star, which was referenced in universe as early as the second movie. He blew up the weapon of mass destruction twenty years in the making. And he blew it up pretty much directly after it’s first and only successful attack. It was operational for fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes that Palpatine had the thing he’d been building for longer than Luke has been alive, and Luke blows it up. First day retirement, but first hour retirement.

Luke convinces Darth Vader to turn back to the light side, a feat thought literally impossible by literally everybody. Sidious clearly doesn’t see Vader’s betrayal coming. Vader’s betrayal was not in his plans, nor was it something he was prepared for. Sidious is a powerful Force user with all four limbs while Vader is a man in the tin can Palpatine put him in. If Palpatine had seen Vader turning coming, he would not have allowed it to happen.

Luke literally should not even be alive. Palpatine almost definitely got Padme out of the way on purpose, and he almost certainly was trying for her unborn child as well (there was way too big of a risk that a cute liddol bebe would bring some humanity back to Anakin, and Palpatine did not want Anakin to have any humanity) Luke living is literally the first step in Palpatine’s ultimate downfall, especially once Vader finds out that Luke is his son. His very alive son. His son that is not dead, despite Palpatine claiming Anakin killed Padme. Implying that Anakin killed Padme and she posthumously gave birth. But, she didn’t give birth on Mustafar, which was the last place Anakin interacted with her. And once the mother dies, you have to get those fuckers out fast or they die too.

I imagine Darth Vader piecing all of this together is that meme with all the math floating around his head, because how could Padme have died by his hand and then given birth like two hours later?

Luke killing Palpatine is what ultimately leads to the dissolution of the Empire as an omnipotent entity. Luke killed the Empire. Luke spends a good amount of his adult life killing Empire remnants. We see that in the Mandalorian, since he’s so recognizable that Gideon immediately knows he’s fucked just by seeing an X-wing. We read it in Legends’ continuity, where Luke terrifies Imperials because he can walk into their changing room and stand in their for a minute and they don’t even notice.

Luke destroyed Palpatine’s life’s work. Everything Palpatine spent his whole life working towards, and Luke kills all of it. He blows up not one, but two Death Stars (he may not have pulled the trigger on the second Death Star, but without him, it never would have been destroyed). He convinces not one, but multiple Sith and Dark Jedi to return from the Dark Side. He is the only reason that Obi-Wan Kenobi, the biggest pain in Palpatine’s ass ever born, lives long enough to make it to the Death Star.

Palpatine went through so much effort. And just when he had finally won, when he finally had a weapon capable of destroying entire planets with a single blast, making it impossible for any planets or peoples to go against him, Luke shows up nineteen years late to the Jedi party with space Starbucks and a droid twice his age and almost singlehandedly destroys everything Palpatine ever had a hand in creating.

Luke manages to become even worse than Obi-Wan Kenobi, the ultimate thorn in the side of politicians, and Luke doesn’t even understand any politics. He wasn’t trained in diplomacy like Obi-Wan and Leia, no, he’s a farmboy who left home for the first time in his entire life, just this morning. And he is the one to destroy the Empire.

If they rewrote Star Wars and had it entirely from Palpatine’s perspective, Luke Skywalker would be his greatest foe. Luke Skywalker would be the final boss. Luke Skywalker is the antithesis of everything Palpatine believes in and he is the one character that Palpatine cannot predict. He isn’t as moldable as Anakin, he doesn’t respond to threats very well, he’s apparently impossible to kill via Force lightning (still the funniest scene of all times, the progression of Palpatine’s face falling and him looking like “what the fuck??? Is this kid rubber??? I’ve electrocuted him eight times???”), his unwavering faith in his father’s goodness makes Darth Vader want to be a better person, Luke Skywalker is the big bad of Palpatine’s story and—

There is nothing in this world that is funnier than someone’s biggest antagonist being Luke fucking Skywalker. Luke Skywalker, who saved the galaxy with the power of love and who shouldn’t exist, by Jedi rules and by Palpatine’s own attempts, and whose best friends are literally droids, which Palpatine canonically hates!

Everything about this is hilarious, this is the funniest thing in all of media, Palpatine loses absolutely everything to some backwater farmboy who fucking likes droids.

[delzinrowe]

incorrect jjk quotes [35/?]

[buggachat]

imagine, say, Bunnyx went back to Origins Season 1 and pulled Gabriel aside as he was considering picking up the Hawkmoth mantle and showed him, "Look, Gabriel. If you continue on this path, you WILL succeed in getting the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculous. You WILL make a wish. But getting there will tear you apart. You will lose what humanity you have, you will literally rot away from the inside, spend the last months of your life in agonizing pain, Nathalie and Adrien (the only two people in your life you can even pretend to care about) will spit on your name and Nathalie will grow to despise you so much she will attempt to kill you. And your wish? It will NEVER bring Emilie back. You won't even be able to bring yourself to do it, because you'll realize that you've become everything that she hated and never wanted you to be. Emilie WILL STAY DEAD, and in the end, all you will be able to wish for is an end to your now-miserable life. All this gamble will win you is your grave."

idk I just don't think Gabriel's response to that would be "oh yay! I win!"

[mindfulstudyquest]

me every three seconds when i'm not in the mood for studying:

[artgletic]

case study of the self-identified god

[heritageposts]

Podcast w/Rania Khalek and Nima Shirazi, link + transcript above ↑

[sunburstsandmoonshadows]

it remains extremely funny to me that freddie wong accidentally (?) made Dan Fucks, embodiment of pleasure, so distinctly ace-coded. like, Dan talks a big game about sex and seems to view it as interesting and desirable, but when presented with such an obvious in for it he completely ignored Avaricci's come-ons to just talk about non-sexual pleasures like goddamn cold pillows. he's not paying attention to sex at all when it's not personally convenient or expected of him to do so.

100% Elias is ace and just doesn't realize people genuinely crave sex and it's not a metaphor or exaggeration like it is for him yet. bless him.

[wandoffire]

[onefey]

So, You're The Bad Parent Of A Rival In A Mainline Pokémon Game...

[chidoroki]

"Unstoppable" by Donna Ashworth

[elicathebunny]

PLANNING: STEPS TO REACH YOUR DREAMS ☁️

🕊DEFINE

🕊CATEGORIES

🕊BRANCH OUT

🕊IMPLENT

🕊EXECUTE

1. DEFINE

Write down all the goals and habits you want to achieve and develop by the end of 2024 (or any other year you want to put). Really think about what you wanted to achieve for 2023 or previous years but never did, make those your new years resolutions if you can't congure up anything.

2. CATEGORIES

Put the goals in categories so they are easier to read and more organised.

e.g. HEALTH, FINANCE, CAREER...

3. BRANCH OUT

For each goal and habit, write down possible strategies you could use to accomplish and integrate them.

e.g. WALKING MORE -> WALKING INSTEAD OF TAKING TRANSPORT -> GOING ON WALKS FOR OUTINGS INSTEAD OF GOING OUT TO EAT ALL THE TIME -> WALKING AFTER A MEAL -> WALKING TO FOOD PLACES AND BACK INSTEAD OF DRIVING OR ORDERING...

4. IMPLEMENT

Know your current schedule. Rewrite a new version of your routine to upgrade your journey, be sure to write it around your lifestyle and make it easy to adopt. This new routine should make you feel productive and should resemble what your highest self would do. Take what you want to achieve and implement them into your new routine.

5. EXECUTE

Folow through with that routine ensuring that everyday you are aiming to complete and integrate one of your desired habits or goals everday. Never stay stationary and have "nothing to do" or you "don't know how". You have all these achievements that need to be achieved, and you have nothing to do? You have access to all information on your devices, and you dont know how? You don't need to start big, but atleast taking those small steps towards them will advance you further than none. Come on girl let's go tick of those goals together and make our future self proud!

Embody your potential.

[fistfuloflightning]

I’ll never get there, but if I put the work in, maybe I’ll get close enough that I can chase just behind perfection — and have a front-row seat as you achieve it.

Chapter 20, Cultivate by @neonghostcat

[philosophybits]

[Man] loves the process of achieving, but does not really like to have achieved, and that is, of course, terribly funny. In a word, mankind is a comical construction; there’s a big joke in all of this, obviously.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

[rainystressed247]

THE PRISON ART??? AND THE FACT HE REMEMBERS THE BAD MORE- I- WHAT IF I CRY??? /pos

"Don't worry. I remember. The scars that won't fade. The pain with no gain. The sacrifice all for naught. The Egg won't let us forget. Our failure is a reminder that the End justified the means. The Egg provides all."

[wybienova]

dream visit (nostalgia) - a 2nd anniversary katfl comic