#Growing Up Part of a Whole

[utilitycaster]

I think the two most obvious foils for Ludinus Da'leth across all of Critical Role are Essek and Keyleth, which is both fascinating given how different those two characters are from each other (Essek being a foil in terms of isolation, single-mindedness, harm in the name of ambition, knowledge, and other such wizard themes; Keyleth being a foil in terms of people who have lost something at a young age to the gods and bear resentment for it, political leadership, belief that the world belongs to mortalkind, and longevity) but also it's extremely funny that they both are the partners of Liam's character.

[theladysunami]

I had a very odd dream where a train (or bus?) I was on got yanked into another world. While my dream had nothing to do with SVSSS, it did have my waking self thinking about how hilarious and/or horrifying such a thing could be as an AU.

Imagine Shen Yuan riding the subway, train or bus one day, when something happens and his whole car gets yanked into the world of PIDW. Nobody else in the car knows anything about PIDW, so Shen Yuan finds himself with the self imposed task of keeping this eccentric group of strangers alive in a weird world full of demons, monsters, and aphrodisiac plants.

The group’s first assumption would probably be that they’re still on modern earth, and just got teleported somewhere. Their second assumption, if they come across common folk, might be they somehow ended up in the past.

Then they run into some monster, or people riding on swords with specific uniforms, or a commoner mentions a name or event only Shen Yuan recognizes. The rest of the party debates what sort of Xianxia or Wuxia world they’ve ended up in, while poor Shen Yuan sweats bullets. He knows exactly what world they are in, and they are so screwed.

I have this image of poor beleaguered nerd Shen Yuan successfully protecting and leading this group of primary school kids, their cute teacher, and a handful of grannies and grandpas, while all the other adults and older teens keep wandering off and getting themselves in trouble.

[shallowseeker]

I'm breaking this one out by itself because it's a little funny.

*Dean's phone rings*

*Dean answers without looking*

*Dean proceeds to yell at Cas*

Ah, right. What could possible be so important?

/////

Sam goes on to tell Dean that *drumroll* Sam is Lucifer's true vessel.

WOW! Scary!

DEAN: *sarcastically* Just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in, huh Sammy? SAM: That's it? That's your response?

It's... completely lost of Sam, though, the REASON for Dean's sarcasm.

See. It's this: now that Sam's found out that HE'S a vessel, he's in his car, an absolute FIRE lit under his goddamned tail, EAGER to get back in and fight.

Sam.

SAMMY.

🤦🤦🤦🤦

Dean throws a hint.

DEAN: *sarcastically again* I guess I'm a little numb to the earth-shattering revelations at this point. SAM: Well what are we gonna do about it?

And Sam... still doesn't get it.

Sigh.

Here's the thing. Sam wasn't panicking when they learned that Dean was a vessel. Only Cas and Bobby were panicked and stressed. They were mean, but they were at least aware of the reality of things.

But Sam.

Yes, Sam was going through things, struggling with things, and taking time to go through things is okay. But on the other hand, it definitely still hurts that Sam wasn't insisting on staying in the fight on Dean's behalf, to protect Dean from becoming a vessel.

But now that Sam's learned that he's a vessel?

Boom.

It's not even that, though. It's this whole conversation.

Because what's missing here? Empathy for Dean's plight.

Sam doesn't realize that this is why he's perpetually at... the kids' table. This right here.

In this whole conversation, Sam is eaten up with ranting about his own feelings, about how he's sick of being a puppet, and how he's going to hunt Lucifer down and gain redemption.

Sam's all about "how he can do this," how he's "gonna prove it to you."

It makes him seem a lot younger than he is.

....

There's no acknowledgment of how helpless Dean must have been feeling all this time, knowing that he's been targeted by an archangel, about how scary this whole thing is.

Hell, even Cas acknowledged Dean's fears re: Michael.

I mean: He did it in his Cas way, but it still acknowledged the enormity of the fear.

Cas:

///

Meanwhile, Sam back in 5x01, right after DEAN learned about being Michael's vessel: Geez, why is everyone so cranky and stressed?

🥺Dean, what do you mean that you didn't mean your pep talk to Bobby? Whaaaat? 🥺

///

....

And the thing is. Not "getting it"? That's understandable. But this conversation is just... devoid of support for Dean.

And they're not. Sam's zapping all the strength for himself.

When they've been together lately, Dean is the big brother who lends support, and Sam isn't giving anything back. Sam's out to prove himself, not to support others.

And they tell older siblings and parents to be patient, to let them learn, to step back and forgive, to be "a soft place to land."

That's hard to do. And it's exhausting.

And aside// Sam's apology to (demon) Bobby was SO MUCH NICER. Sam, where is this humility and energy for other people????

SAM: No, actually. Bobby, this is all my fault. I'm sorry. Lilith did not break the final seal. Lilith was the final seal. I killed her, and I set Lucifer free. You guys warned me about Ruby, the demon blood, but I didn't listen. I brought this on. I'm sorry.

[juvinadelgreko]

crowning ronan lynch the undisputed pining king

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Izutsumi character study

[homehauntsyou]

never ceases to amaze me the lengths that people will go to in order to pretend like sam isn’t naturally compassionate / kind and claim he only pretends to be, while emphasizing his supposedly “monstrous” traits that he supposedly must always be fighting against. why are you (broader fandom) pretending like every single thing he says is a part of an elaborate scheme. can you at least pretend to actually care about who sam really is for literally one singular second

[gideonisms]

Anyway while we're speculating about the end of atn here's a selection of some of tamsyn muir's other endings (spoilers for most of her short stories):

girl & her love interest elope to live under the sea as an eldritch power couple

woman's best friend agrees to move in with her which makes her magical house happy

ghoul and the creature in her dead girlfriend's body walk off into the sunset after destroying their enemies

princess kills a dragon and then she and her love interest go into business together as professional monsters

well one does end with the protag becoming a cannibal and staying with the guy who tricked her into it so you've got me there

monster women overrun a town

a ghost gets revenge

Quite a few of the endings strike an unsettling tone in which you're not quite sure what you got was a happy ending, but the protagonists did walk away better off than they started. That's similar to what I expect from the atn ending too

[fear-no-mort]

i cant get over the whole time in the real world rick just sat there watching over morty and when he woke up finally rick sounded SO happy the way he just yelled his name excitedly the second he woke up,,,

[griem]

ijbol idk man releasing screenshots of very polarizing things said in a private discord server between friends in a public "callout" post is #the most #tumblrific thing ive ever seen LOL.

#opinion 😱 in tags

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

When Piper (lesbian) broke up with Jason she told him than she thought she actually liked girls.

Jason, confused, asked her about it, because obviously she liked girls. Girls were amazing. Who wouldn’t like them? He’s just confused as to why that’s the reason she’s breaking up with him. If she wanted to end things, he would respect it, but that reason didn’t really make sense to him.

Piper, repeated herself and told him than she thought she only liked women. And Jason was a man. So it couldn’t work out. But than she would love to still be friends.

Jason, even more confused now, is like?? Piper only likes girls?? But everybody likes everyone?? Not just one gender specifically??

Anyway this is how Jason discovers he’s bisexual

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Thinking about step 9 and the whole concept of forgiveness of one’s self and others and it bringing healing and how bobby and Eddie have been paralleled a fair amount and the idea that Eddie started this process back at the end of s5 with his forgiveness and acceptance of his father but how he hasn’t yet gone anywhere near his mother and their relationship .

How his catholic guilt storyline seems more likely to play on his reltionship with his mother than his father (if his father wasn’t around that much it would’ve been Helena taking him to church etc each week) so the idea of an Eddie - Helena storyline that plays on catholic guilt and potentially his queerness in relation to that has me chewing on glass - it could be so epically good

[alaskan-wallflower]

steve’s always been kind of hush hush about his home life. part of him is ashamed to admit he probably gets hit by his dad or yelled at. he’s being a baby anyway. he’s supposed to be stoic and cool. he’s not supposed to cry over a little bumping around from his old man. so he pushes it down and doesn’t tell anyone. until they’re about twelve or thirteen and soda just sees him on the curb outside his house for the first time he thinks ever. he’s got a black eye and a visible handprint on his cheek, though he’s holding a slab of frozen meat he managed to snag before running out. he’s never really told soda the whole story…shoot, the whole reason they became friends in the first place was because they were two “troubled” young boys who were usually having to stay in for recess together because of soda’s not understood impulsivity and steve’s anger issues, but nobody knew where those anger issues came from.

he just breaks down before soda can say anything and gets up to run off before soda grabs a hold of his shoulder to get him to stay and wait and just talk a minute…and he does. by hid he tells him everything. the messy divorce, how he became a cheap prize between his parents because both of them wanted custody over him, the abuse from his dad, the constant hitting and luring back with the promise of money and maybe a home cooked meal…something that certainly wouldn’t have been able to cover or make up for the years of emotional ahd physical abuse…

and everything just makes sense. steve’s anger. his unwillingness to show the slightest bit of negative-or as he dubbed it, “weak” emotions. the way he’d usually try to buy soda dinner or something after a heated argument. it all clicks. and all soda can do is hold in his own tears as his normally emotionally “well put together” friend breaks down in his arms

[holdoncallfailed]

tbh i think the reason why hockey rpf is so popular in spaces like tumblr is because it's one of the few major team sports where there aren't a lot of black people involved. maybe that's not an entirely fair assessment but i'm just spitballin here

[smile-files]

why is there a running theme throughout the professor layton games of children having to step up and act "adult" because the grown-ups in their lives (particularly their parents) are somehow incapacitated

[artdecocherik]

As a mixed race person I want more angst about Spock being “a child of two worlds”

More Spock angst about him not fitting in on Vulcan or on Earth, how both cultures are so close yet so far in both directions and how even if you try to “pick one” to grow up with, you still end up with regrets of not honoring/feeling ashamed of the other.

More Spock angst about growing up not knowing anyone else like you, and even when you find a place that embraces diversity you still feel like the odd one out.

More angst about not being able to please both parents/guardians because you’re too much like one culture or the other

I know there’s an alright amount of it out there but I crave MORE

-more below the gif————

***Also anyways in the gif bones giving Kirk a hug and pat on the back while Spock gets nothing hurts me (even tho bones and Kirk have known each other longer so it makes sense but still 😭)

The city on the edge of forever meant so much to me as a kid because it highlighted that despite the fact that Kirk was also out of place with his clothes, Spock was THAT MUCH MORE out of place because of how his body looked (as opposed to clothes which can be changed) that he hid parts of himself to fit in more…

(It also means a lot because this episode Kirk tries to explain Spock’s ears as him being in a rice picker accident and that Spock was Chinese— which yeah is racist asf but as a kid I actually thought Spock was Asian and related to him a little bit more because of that lowk since he woulda been half Asian-half white like me (since the ears were the “Asian” portion and that’s one of Spock’s Vulcan features?? And his mom, Amanda, is white; Idk it made sense to 10 year old me)

Anyways I love him and his identity

[thecatinthepurplepants]

just scrolling looking at what the crunchyroll algorithm would spit out at me tonight when I came across this category and uh

... the best huh? Aaare you sure???

Are you really, really sure about that crunchyroll???