jadespiral

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It's very funny to me that Sylas Briarwood spent months planning an elaborate scheme to crash Percy and Vex's wedding and murder them in vengeance for killing his beloved wife... and meanwhile his beloved wife was literally one continent over, chilling in the head of a dead girl with a flair for interior decoration.

It's also very funny to me that Delilah Briarwood apparently spent the time between her final death in Campaign 1 and Dalen's Closet chilling in the head of a dead girl with a flair for interior decoration, harbouring distant, desperate thoughts of regaining her lost love... while her lost love was literally one continent over, planning an elaborate scheme to crash Percy and Vex's wedding and murder them.

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so, was rewatching s1 of lovm, got to episode three again. and i'm thinking about percy's backstory. and also because of sylas briarwood, thinking about dalen's closet

and percy's got a real interesting relationship with the concept of drowning, huh

i mean first of all he's almost drowned (or actually drowned) three major times in the story. and all of those had similar themes, though different outcomes

so to explain what i mean, let's look at these in chronological order

1) the river. one of the worst days of his life, if not the actual worst. watching your entire family murdered, being locked up and tortured, your siblings bodies dumped in the cells next to you, just to rub it in. after weeks of this, you learn your youngest sister is alive, and she helps you escape, it's the first tiny bit of hope you've had. and then they kill her. you realise you're on your own all over again. you're hurt and you're lost and you don't know what to do, you run because you can't do anything else. and then you trip and before you know it you're in water and it's freezing and you can't breathe or move and you're so scared and so tired- and you don't remember much after that

when that fishing boat finds percy, he's basically in a fugue state, he has no idea what's going on and is barely responding to anything, his mind just couldn't take it anymore and left. and it doesn't get any better when he comes back to himself, because he survived, but for what. they're all gone. he couldn't do anything about it. he couldn't even save his sister like she saved him

and yes, they eventually save whitestone, and get cass back, but that experience stays with him

because then we get 2) duskmeadow.

percy's just learned that ripley bought up near industrial amounts of gunpowder, and he's terrified. he doesn't know what she's planning, but he knows what she will do with his weapons will change the world for the worse. it'll get countless people killed. and he made the decision to let her go, because at the time his personal revenge mattered more to him. he's feeling that "i survived for what" more than ever, because now not only did he survive when his family didn't, he didn't deserve to be the one that survived. none of the others would have caused destruction on this scale. he's not just alive for no reason, him being alive made things worse. (this is kinda explicitly his most suicidal point in the campaign, to the point of he literally wrote a goodbye letter that evening, and then just kept it on his person knowing vox machina would find it when his mistakes inevitably got him killed)

and so he goes to ask the raven queen for help. he's not yet reached the point where he's stopped trusting in gods (this meeting is about to be what sparks that), and he knows she's helped vax, so maybe she can help him, tell him how to fix this, he'll do anything

but there's only one way to talk to the raven queen. and that's to willingly let yourself drown in the communion pool.

and he tries, he tries so hard. he's putting every bit of trust he has in the raven queen right now, that this will be okay. but it's freezing and he can't breathe and he's so scared and so tired and all he can think about is how he survived and he shouldn't have, and then he has a panic attack. the only reason it eventually works is because he hits his head on the stone of the pool and then he's too confused and hurt to fight it

and when he finally talks to her, she tells him he can't fix it. that he was a broken person right from the start.

so far his two experiences with drowning have not only caused him lasting trauma around the whole experience, but continually affirmed that he's not only incapable of saving anyone he cares about, he actually makes the situation worse just by getting involved. and drowning honestly in itself makes a pretty good metaphor for how overwhelming and out of his control all of this is

but 3) dalen's closet. god, this was so good for percy and vex in so many ways, you can keep meta-ing about this episode for years. and in this case, sylas' attempt to murder vex and percy? chain them up and drop them from a cliff into the ocean

they're both drowning. there's no easy way out, and no one around who could rescue them

their attempts to free themselves, while clever, don't work

vex loses consciousness

it's just percy, alone, about to lose the person he loves most in the world, again. to a man who only knew vex even existed because percy got her involved

and percy doesn't panic

by all rights he should have, he's certainly got more than enough reason to. but he manages to stay calm enough to figure out a way to get his head above water, and to yell for help, because his fault or no he is not losing anyone else

and because of that, their friends can find them in time. he didn't get vex killed, he saved her

he's not helpless underwater anymore. and he's certainly not broken beyond repair. and it's only now that he's come far enough to realise that

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Percy and Vex’s children say something like this and Percy and Vex are like ‘aw they don’t know poverty like we do’ snd pat themselves on the back for not traumatising them. and then realise they should send their kids on a survival day out or something

Like Vesper is like ‘why haggle? Why build something yourself? Just buy it?’ And Vex and Percy have simultaneous heart attacks

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</3NOT A FAN OF THIS SUIT but seeing the title card finally turned into black&blue in the finale was...surely something!!!

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I just finished invincible s2, it was so good…

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Happy Valentines to Them specifically ❤️❤️❤️

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I keep seeing people make the unspoken assumption with The Legend of Vox Machina that large changes made, especially to their most beloved parts, were rewritten that way from the beginning. I don't see a lot of space held for the idea that they might have tried writing things the way they happened in the AP and it didn't work. The things that hit hard in the breadth of an actually play may not emotionally work at all when condensed.

Percy's death and resurrection is a great example. Immediately killing off Ripley and then rushing Percy back home to attempt a resurrection worked really well in the actual play with player/audience knowledge of the gamble inerrant to resurrection and an agonizing week before any resolution was possible. But condensed into an animated show with almost no passage of time, it would take away the weight of that death completely. It would remove the stakes not just for his death, but all others after him.

Multiple resurrection rituals are another thing that worked really well in the AP, but would end up being tedious and repetitive in animation. Especially when they all miraculously work. You don't have a DM telling the audience what the stakes are and then see the gamble pulled off successfully.

In adaptation writers often have to choose between 1:1 events without the context that made them impactful, or changing events so the emotional beats translate. I'd much rather have the heart and the vibe be what's kept.

It's also very silly to say "XYZ didn't happen" when the season hasn't ended and we might not have gotten to it yet. I've seen people be salty about this numerous times only for it to come up in the next set of episodes. You have to be a little chill when you know things got moved around to fit better.

I just feel like if you dwell too much on the desire to see your favorite bits adapted exactly as they happen, it's easy to end up disappointed. And easy to miss why things might have had to change to make a stronger story in a different medium. You have no idea how many times things were reworked to fit before a different direction was taken. You have no idea how much they actually cared and wanted to keep things. Or even what was most important out of a scene to the creators themselves.

The AP was a first draft and sometimes as a writer you have to kill your darlings to better support the entire story instead of specific cool scenes that emotionally miss in the broader context of the story. I'd much rather lose scenes I wanted to see in order to see a whole arc that ultimately hits home on the same emotional level.

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Just rewatched the SG1 ep ‘Holiday’ because it’s hilarious (I’m not watching in any particular order). But it also gave major whiplash, like the rest of the episode is so funny and then you remember how devoted Daniel was to the search for Sha’re :( he gives a passionate speech but I know he doesn’t save her.

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Stargate SG-1 | Sleepy Daniel in 1.03/7.15

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Stargate SG-1

Holiday > S2.17

First of all, Michael Shanks and Chris Judge own this episode, and it's not even a close.

Second, this whole episode is unrealistic, and it's not because of the body swapping. O'Neill would never be able to Kel'no'reem.

Third, General Hammond's menacing growl: "I don't know about the customs on your planet, but here on Earth, the value of a human life is priceless."

SPOILERS for season 3

Fourth, Daniel's sole drive for survival is to find Sha're. Sometimes I forget how singularly focused he was in early seasons, and while it's terrible that he lost her, I think it definitely opened up his character to more depth.

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Childless Jack 🤝 Parentless Daniel (in the early seasons at least)

–Daniel. Damn it! –I’m dead anyway. Just get outta here. –I am not leaving you here, Daniel! –Get out of here! We’re just going to blow up with the other ship anyway. What difference does it make! Go! Just go... I’ll stay and watch your back.

[jadespiral]

if you are unable to donate financially to help palestine, you can donate your time by protesting, boycotting, and putting up posters!

if all you have is your device and internet access, you can put your clicks to good use on arab.org. they use the advertising revenue generated by your clicks to help good causes.

and i would urge those able to spare a few dollars to donate to one or more of the following organizations:

eSims for Gaza

Direct aid for Gaza

Care for Gaza

Women for Women International

Institute for Middle East Understanding

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Palestine Children Relief Fund

Muslim Aid USA

Direct Aid for Gaza

Palestinian American Medical Association

Urgent support for medical professionals in Gaza

Emergency Relief for Gaza

Anera

Taawon

[jadespiral]

I agree that the Umbrella Academy should've ended with them killing Reggie.

In addition, they should've gone to the academy together and there should've been a montage of them destroying the furniture and stuff they don't like while having fun and dancing for all that I care. Then it should've faded into a scene of the newly renovated academy, a family dinner where everyone's around the table together. Happily. All the siblings, and their loved ones. Everyone.

Five would finally get a decent cup of coffee. Klaus and Dave would be together. Diego and Lila would be happy and their kids would be there, as should Ray and Claire be with Allison. Luther should be with Sloane. Ben would accept both the Sparrow and Umbrella Academy (maybe he saw the original Ben's memories somehow), and Viktor would be happy and be the cool uncle he deserves to be... they should all be happy.

Hell they could've brought original Ben back as a ghost because Klaus would finally control his powers (I could accept ghost Ben visiting them from time to time despite what happened to him in season 2)

✨Bonus points✨ if the song that plays when they kill their dad and destroy the house is Welcome to the Black Parade.

Can you imagine the irony of them killing Reggie while this plays in the background?

"Son, when you grow up Would you be the savior of the broken The beaten and the damned?" He said, "Will you defeat them? Your demons, and all the non-believers The plans that they have made?"

and actually, this is so fitting too for a scene of them kicking Reggie's abusive ass

"Do or die, you'll never make me Because the world will never take my heart Go and try, you'll never break me We want it all, we wanna play this part

...

Just a man, I'm not a hero Just a boy, who had to sing this song"

because the answer to saving everything is for them to kill Reggie together and heal, not to die and disappear from existence forever.

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Wishing my fellow TUA fans good luck for tmw🥲 excited but also freaked out omg

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WARNING Spoiler!!

Ninjago dragon rising season 2 part 2

Wyldfyre got a boy that likes her attitude.

Wyldfyre: Look kai, I got a boyfriend from the tournament though his uncle tried to kill him and take all elemental powers.

Kai: ohh, you did a kai move, except it was her father.

They are so cute.

Their silliness

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Ninjago spoilers

I think its so funny that the elemental masters who were in season 4 saw the invites, had to have remembered the last one and went, "Yeah fuck it lets do it again." Like it was great seeing them but did they not learn?

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wherever she is i hope she's unbothered moisturized happy in her lane focused flourishing