#CRYING AGAIN DONT TALK TO ME

[gascreates]

a new star

[skunkes]

[raviollies]

Been having awful mental health weeks and can't even book a pysch appointment because their phone lines aren't working

[ye-olde-tardis]

You're telling me. You're telling me. That David Lister. DAVE LISTER. stopped Rimmer from committing suicide. (Because that's LITERALLY WHAT THAT WAS. HE WAS GONNA UNPLUG HIMSELF and DIE.) he stopped him from committing suicide by. Comparing him to moonlight. Fucking MOONLIGHT. what the fuck what the fuck‽‽‽‽‽‽ AND IT WORKED‽‽‽‽‽

[bluewlnteroses]

i just keep thinking about harley getting to know the truth about why peter is alone and finding out why people don't remember him and for a moment thinking he's glad he got to meet him after everything went down and immediately feel guilt and shame because its not fair peter went through so much pain and had to leave everyone he knew behind but,,,, just thinking about meeting each other before and getting to know peter and then completely forget him makes his feel sick

[yellowocaballero]

Been a fan of your fics for YEARS. I was just telling my friend how despite how much I read fics I never actually love them, with some of your fics (especially TMA) as the exception. Felt the need to reread some of them and saw you reblogged some ISAT fanart. So. Any thoughts on ISAT you'd like to share?

Hope you have a wonderful day!! So happy I found your fics again!!

I avoided answering this for a while because I was trying to think of a way to cohesively and coherently vocalize my thoughts on In Stars and Time. I have given up because I don't want to hold everybody here all day and I have accepted that my thoughts are just pterodactyl screeching.

I love it so much. I have so much to say on it. It drove me bonkers for like a week straight. I have AUs. It's absolute Megbait. They're just a little Snufkin and they're having the worst experience of anybody's life. Ludonarratives my fucking beloved.

I am going to talk about the prologue.

The prologue is such a fascinating experience. You crack open the game and immediately begin checking off all of the little genre boxes: mage, warrior, researcher, you're the rogue...some little kid who's there for some reason...alright, you know the score. You're in yet another indie Earthbound RPG, these are your generic characters, let's get the ball rolling.

Except then you realize that these characters are people. You feel instantly how you've entered the game at its last dungeon, at the end of the adventure. They have their own in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They get along well and they're obviously close, but not in a twee or unrealistic way. They have so much chemistry and spirit and life. I fell in love with them so quickly.

But Sif doesn't. Sif kind of hates them, because they will not stop saying the same damn thing. They walk the same paths, do the same things, make the same jokes, expect Sif to say the same lines. They keep referencing a Sif we do not see, with jokes we never see him make and heroic personality he never shows - they reference a Sif who is dead - and Sif can't handle that, so he kills them too.

They become only an exercise in tedious frustration. Sif button mashes through their dialogue, Sif mindlessly clicks the same dialogue options, Sif skips through the tutorial, Sif blows through the puzzles. Sif turns their world into a video game. Sif is playing a generic RPG. Sif forgets their names. They are no longer people with in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They're the mage, the warrior, the researcher, and...some random kid.

I did not understand the Kid's presence at first. I had no idea what they contributed to the game. They didn't do anything. As a party member in a video game, they're a bit useless. Why is the Kid there?

Because Sif's life isn't a video game. Because the kid isn't 'the kid'. They're Bonnie. Bonnie, who the party loves. Why is Bonnie there? Because they love them. There is no room for Bonnie in the boring RPG that Sif is playing. And then you realize that Sif is wrong, and that they've lost something extremely important, and that they'll never escape without it.

Watching the prologue before watching ISAT gave ISAT the most unique air of dread and horror, because you crack open ISAT and you see the person Sif used to be. You realize that Sif used to be a person. Sif used to be the person who made jokes, who gave real smiles, who interacted with the world as if they are a part of it. And you know you are sitting down to watch Sif lose everything that made them a person, to lose everything that made them a member of this world, and turn them into a character in a video game who doesn't understand the point of Bonnie at all.

At the climax of the game, when the others realize that something is deeply wrong and that Sif physically cannot tell them, they realize that there is nothing they can do. So Bonnie declares snacktime. And for the first time they have snacktime.

What is snacktime? Classic JRPGs don't have snacktime. There's literally no point to a snacktime - not in a video game, and not in Sif's terrible life. It's not fixing this, because nothing can fix this. But Bonnie gives Sif a cookie and Sif eats it.

It's meaningless. It's a cutscene. It didn't save Sif and it didn't change a thing. It will make no difference in the end.

But it did make the difference. It made all of the difference in the world. Bonnie is a character who you really don't understand the point of before you realize that Bonnie was the entire point.

ISAT is about comfort media. Why do we play the same video games over and over again? Why do we avoid watching the finale of our favorite shows? What is truly comforting: a story with no conflict, or a story where you always know what is about to happen? Do you want to live in a scary, uncontrollable world, or do you want to play Stardew Valley? Do you want a person or a character?

When I beat Earthbound for the first time (and if you don't know, the prologue/ISAT battle system is just Mother) and watched the ending cutscene where the characters part ways and say goodbye...I felt a little bit sad. I wanted them to be together forever. But that's something only characters could ever be.

[girlwiththegreenhat]

hey when they wrote "knight behind bars" and they wrote kitt helping a couple get together and they gave him the line "Some day, it will be my turn" [to find love]. did they know what they were doing. did they know that in some 40 years some gay autistic robot-obsessed little freak on tumblr would not stop thinking about it for weeks and write literal dozens of paragraphs screaming about it on discord. did they know they were going to ruin Me, Specifically, with this concept that feels like the culmination of everything kitt has gone through through the show and such a fascinating thing to think about in regards to michael and kitt's relationship,

one of the themes of knight rider is kitt developing as a Person, developing a line between the Knight Industries Two-Thousand, and Kitt. discovering humanity, his own emotions, the joys of the seemingly and logically pointless, and often through the lens of his own driver, his partner, his friend, Michael - his primary guide through all these experiences, his reference for those human things he doesn't understand. and as much as he initially claims to not be capable of experiencing emotions, of understanding feelings, he learns to. he experiences a wide range of emotions through the show even while claiming he doesn't, he even learns fear and insecurity. perhaps it's only natural a robot would learn to love, or at the very least be terribly curious about it and wonder if such a thing could ever exist for Him

the majority of people are not exactly kind to kitt. they talk about him like he's not there, they talk about him like he's a machine, a novelty, some people are even scared of or disturbed by him when all he's trying to do is make polite conversation and company. he's always Othered - there's no other cars like him (at least not anymore), but there's no other person like him either, he doesn't truly belong among humans or vehicles. some of the technicians at FLAG don't even seem to fully respect him as a person, at least they don't based on my vague recollection of how they talk about him in Junkyard Dog. when Michael asks him after KARR is destroyed if it feels good to be one of a kind again, he doesn't say yes or no - he only says it's a "familiar feeling." it may be familiar, but it's surely also isolating, and i think that's something he'd realize as he slowly picks up this curiosity about love. where could he even find it when so few people see him as an equal person to begin with?

and then there's michael. oh my god, and then there's michael. no matter what flavor you choose to read it in, the whole show is about their relationship, they're a duo, a set Not to be separated, they're Partners. they work together, they worry about and look after each other (forever insane about when kitt was a melted shell, Michael stuck around the garage for hours, waiting for any news like a worried spouse, constantly checking on him every opportunity he got... encouraging him to recover, and even helping paint back on his protective coating... kitt always looks after michael, but for once, it's michael's turn to look after Him), in a way they were Made for each other - Kitt more literally, being programmed for Michael and holding his namesake, but Michael was also made in a sense for the pilot program, hand picked and given a second life to work for the foundation and with this strange supercar. and even if they had a rocky start, michael comes to view kitt as a person - car, TV set, or computer core, Kitt is his partner, his buddy. he helps him find himself, guides him and teaches him about these things that make us human, and in a way, kitt becomes human - but his entire experience is still through the perspective of an AI in a car, it's still very unique and isolating, and I think he sort of grows into his own limitations, he's finally brushing against the walls that define him.

he learns of love, and then he learns to dream Of love. these things he sees in the movies, that michael tells him about, that he so often sees michael Partaking in that he gets so oddly jealous of, doesn't it all seem so wonderful? he's very curious. but who could ever love steel and circuitry, who could ever see him as an equal let alone a partner in a romantic sense? who would ever love a car and all the limitations That comes with? it's a problem for a hypothetical hopeful Some Day, in the meantime stuck between two worlds where he doesn't perfectly belong to either, where no car Can love him and no human seemingly Would love him...

and michael loves him anyway. before either of them really realize or talk about it, in spite of everything, in any form, regardless of the fact it wouldn't be a typical relationship by absolutely any means, michael loves him anyway. kitt is as much a person to him as bonnie or devon or RC, and that person is someone he loves and cares for deeply. the feeling is mutual, kitt's world revolves around michael, he's one of the most important people in kitt's life, and he'd do anything to protect him.

and it is michael that will finally teach him to love, and what it means to feel loved in turn, to be loved as the person he undoubtedly is.

[wizardsix]

is it just me or is bioware spoiling way too much about the game . talking about gameplay improvements is one thing but revealing story and companion arcs seems very insecure to me bc now the mystery is gone when people play for the first time . seems like they're trying too hard to prove that their game isn't garbage after that first trailer but this is not how you do that

[aquared]

yknow what again im feeling real nice heres the room i made i am so goddamn tired

[fizzytoo]

adrien's soccer team won and his childhood friend's, mckenzie and jade, surprised him after the game!

this scary motherfucker showed up at the bar too 😭

[residenthesitant]

its about grief and its about love and its about how sometimes people arent in your life anymore but thats okay. its about how you cant take loved away. its about how the person you were back then wasnt bad for not knowing what you know now and about how its okay to miss those times even if they sucked a little bit. its about how you and i will always be back then. its about them but its also about us, yknow?

[pmpwbrrs]

I'm pretty much in love with your off string au could you ramble more abt it .,. I'd be extremely happy to read it

Im glad you like it and thank you for reminding me that I wrote this, and giving a reason to ramble <3!! Sadly i don't have anything to really add? But I'll say what i kept to myself i guess!

I keep remembering about one of the things ghostlycoze said.

—

—

I actually REALLY like this idea. I don't think ALL iterators are gonna have this problem, because not all iterators, i like to think, associate themselves with their puppet? And they are all different. But i love thinking about how some of them look up at the sky, and see endless heavy clouds produced by their still giant, powerful colleagues(family? friends?), while they are here, small, and so vulnerable. I like to think that that the longer they stare at the bottomless, grey sky, the more they can't tear the eyes away. How they feel their new heart beating faster now, and it makes them nauseated and more stuck in this moment – because this heart is beating like a mouse's. So fast, they can feel it, they can hear it, in their neck, in their chest. And it's foreign. The sky is foreign. The choking dampness of the air is foreign, the wet cold soil is foreign. THEY are foreign. Can they be even considered an iterator? How? They are not even the same person, how can they still call themselves an iterator?

What have they done to themselves?

I don't think some iterators even manage to handle this. I think some of them, with no way of returning to a previous live, take an easy way out. Or at least risk it – after all, they don't know what the Cycle thinks of not only iterators, but of an abomination like them.

For some of them this is not freedom. For some of them, freedom is impossible to obtain, even when they have risked it all and threw away everything that made them who they were.

Or maybe, for some of them, at some point – standing in the cold, wet soil, becomes a sort of relieve. Perhaps, for some of them, the damp air and the now rumbling, endless sky, become more welcome. Maybe it's better for them, than what they were before. Maybe they'll get used to this, even if it's so hard it makes their head heavy, and their breath quickened, and even when they are not what they were, and never will be. Maybe as they breath in, they'll be reminded that they are no longer stuck because they've been given no other choice, but they are stuck on their own accord. Maybe that makes them ecstatic. Or, yet again, scared, or regretful. Or guilty. It depends on an individual. But overall, it's hard for all of them. And not all of them can or wants to deal with this.

–––

I also remember I was thinking about «what if Pebbles is saved only in Saint's era?». But the more I thought about it, the more sad and existential I became, and I never got around to drawing anything, because the idea of slowly losing yourself and all your memories terrifies me.

I think, if Pebbles is saved in Saint's time, there is no way to bring him the way as he once was. It's just NO WAY, i can't believe it. His whole body had fucking giant TEARS in it, there wasn't a single place left of him, his neurons are now squashed by 574020 kms of rot, 30942 kms of metal and dead organic and his flesh, and 2933892 kms of snow, he's a home for fauna and flora now. He will never come back. MAYBE some neurons will help?? But i don't think they will, or that they should help as much as they helped Moon.

Pebbles cannot recover fully. Of course, care and patience and not being in his corpse will help, slowly, but still not a whole lot.

I wonder how Moon would feel about him. How everyone would feel. And mainly, how Pebbles would feel.

I already somewhat explored the idea of Pebbles losing his memories. It was an animatic about his life flashing before his eyes, but wrong and twisted, and he can't remember the names of the people he cared about, but he feels guilt and shame, and in the end he gets ascended (right now animatic is abandoned).

But... If he's off string....

Imagine how painful it is to look in the eyes of a person and know that you did something horrible to them, but you can't remember what it was, and you can barely even remember who this person is. All you know is that you love them, and that you have hurt them. How would their forgiveness feel? Would Pebbles feel weird relief? Confusion? Grief? Will it even help?

Will he feel anger and an inexplicable sting of pain when they look at him with pity? How would he feel if he saw people's hope when they think he might remember something, but he just can't?

I already said that "iterator off string is not even the same person", but in the case of Five Pebbles in Saint's time, I think it applies to him even more. He's not the same person even before he gets out.

How would he feel being so small and fragile, but being aware of it, now? How aware is he, really? Has he even agreed to go off string? Could he agree? How would HE feel about the stuff I said earlier? The sky, the snow under his feet, the freezing, biting wind?

I don't like making things all dark and gloomy and no hope FOREVER only SUFFERING though. I think there are ways to help Pebbles and to heal. For all of them, really. Sure, as I said, I like to think there's not much you can do to help FP, but there are ways. And in the end, even though he doesn't have his memories, and he's scared and confused, and he's weak and small, and he's in pain, and he feels cold – he's with people he loves, and who love him. I think it's beautiful. And I think it's an improvement on rotting away in the snow and listening to the same tune until the end of time. And now he gets warm much more often.

–––

That's pretty much it? I didn't think about off string that much. I GUESS there are also some fanfiction i wrote, but ehh + I'm shy about my writing + it's russian and needs translation + it doesn't focus the on a dread of being off-string and all that, so I'm not gonna show that.

A lot of people left really interesting thoughts in tags on this post with nsh though, so I recommend you to check them out, they are lovely <3

[rinwhore]

"Dang why u ugly crying out loud it's just a character in the last minute of episode"

The character:

[storm-driver]

trollhunters s3 spoilers below

it's my 5th time rewatching it now, with friends this time. and just... the entire ending of s3 enamors me so heavily. it's just this ultimate culmination of the death of innocence.

and it's not bad AT ALL.

the moment Merlin tells Jim "you get the choice to become stronger and be the foe that your villain fears, or you can take your chances as you are. if you stay like this, it's entirely like you'll be killed. and if you change... a part of you is going to die forever."

you just. you immediately know the stakes. i understand that it's quite literally Jim losing his humanity, he becomes a troll, yes. but i equate it so heavily to the loss of his innocence, of his literal human-nature to love and care. because he becomes so animalistic afterwards, it's like watching someone spiral. it's a walking tragedy, especially after you watch the whole show and you can't help but UNDERSTAND WHY he's spiraled so hard.

not to mention, just... the mastercraft of the bathtub scene. it's a sensory overload of every single reason Jim wants to stay human, but at the same time, it's the EXACT reason needs to turn in order to protect all of those he holds dear.

and not just that, the fucking... the deliberate framing. he's alone, locked himself in a room. there's a phone ringing on the counter, but he can't hear it and he refuses to look. he's just sitting there, quietly, going back and forth constantly to decide what to do. his whole family and friends are beating on the door, trying to get to him, but he just won't listen.

the fact that they bleed Anton Yelchin's lines into Emile Hirsch's at times, as if it's a moment of saying goodbye to the previous voice actor. like a passing of the torch. it's almost symbolic of everything he's going to do going forward: letting his humanity, his entire self, die.

i swear, barely any shows i know these days can evoke emotions like that. where the visual metaphor of someone committing suicide is so powerful that you have to just reach out constantly and beg and hope and pray that he will turn around and open the door instead.

it's hopeless incarnate. it's the death of innocence. it's watching the quiet death of someone who just wants to better for the people around him.

it's so fucking painful, but it's god-tier story-telling and animation. i can't even imagine how they managed to write that all down.

[phagodyke]

the masculine urge to take a saucepan off thr draining board and bash myself repeatedly over the head with it until I pass out and no longer have to experience feeling Bad 😍

[candlesoul]

i dont want to do anything but i want to do everything you know