#I'm about to write a whole essay about this

[zolo-san]

I know I just rambled in the tag, but if you took the time to read all that, might I direct you to this post & my ramblings there as well~

Something about Zoro being one of the most misunderstood and mischaracterized characters in One Piece is funny (not haha funny, funny sad) to me because?? That’s literally how his introduction starts?? With people misunderstanding him and thinking he’s some big, monstrous demon who kills with cause and cannot be trusted or tamed.

Meanwhile the actual Zoro is a driven guy who is often both literally and figuratively directionless in life and found his goals in life through good people (first Kuina and then Luffy). He's tied up in the Marine base not due to those actual crimes he commuted (well not inherently anyway) but because he ‘disrespected’ a Captain's son and stood up for a little girl. He accepts the challenge they present to him and because Zoro himself is a guy that puts his money where his mouth is he assumes the Marines will uphold their end of the deal and let him go (note the actual shock when Koby tells him the truth)

He joins Luffy's crew but also outright says he’s not gonna let his goal take second place to Luffy or anyone else's for that matter, he bears the weight of two people's dreams, his heart isn’t going to be swayed by some pirate.

Speaking of Kuina, her impact and influence on Zoro's life isn’t talked about enough for my liking. She was Zoro's first friend, his first rival, his first goal. He looked up to her so much and his reaction to her passing cracks my heart in half every time because you can seem him just..go numb. Kuina, dead? Kuina, the strongest person he knows, gone? Kuina, who swore to him just yesterday they’d race to the top of the world together, doesn’t exist anymore. His blank face only cracking within the privacy of his sensei before he begs. He begs on his knees, tears streaming down his face please please please let me take Kuina's sword with me. Let me take our dream to a high neither of us could imagine. I won’t let her name die here.

On top of gaining the Wado Ichimonji that day Zoro also gained…fear. Not of death, well at the very least not his own, he gained his fear of not being enough. Kuina kicked his ass every way a person could and still died, what could someone like him do? So he trains…and trains…and trains some more. Overly, obsessively, constantly telling himself he’s not enough, he’s weak, he can’t protect anyone like this and everyone's death would be on him.

As for Zoro being cold and stoic that’s just…not completely true? He’s not stone, he can be excited or sad or angry just as much as most characters he just sucks at showing it canonically (Kuina thinks he hates her before their final fight after all). Sure he’s not as forthcoming about it as some of the other Strawhats but Zoro's more of an action guy anyway, he'll show his love with his protection and unwavering faith.

In conclusion, Zoro is a ridiculously stubborn, incredibly loyal, mildly emotionally constipated, do what you say/say what you mean kinda guy.

(Also that whole ‘Zoro would kill the whole crew if Luffy asked him to’ thing? Top ten stupidest things I’ve ever heard from the fandom and that’s saying a lot. He’s loyal not brainless and heartless guys if Luffy asked him to do that, he would never but I digress, Zoro would square the fuck up with him so fast. DPMO.)

[artdcnaldson]

wanna sit between art and pat and jerk them both off while they talk to each other about random shit like I'm not thereee

GODDDD

You meet them when they happen to sit beside you in English Lit for a semester, and you’re so obviously, pathetically into them. like, you want them so bad you’ll take anything, just to get a crumb of their attention.

It starts with just notes here and there. By the end of the semester you’re writing whole papers for them, which is so dumb, but you need their approval. And if that comes in the form of their pretty smiles when you hand over a perfectly typed essay, that’s fine!

But soon it… evolves, so to speak. You’re in their room to “study” and they complain about sore muscles, aching backs. And you’re there to help, of course! Not that you’re any good, but they love having your soft little hands rubbing at them.

And later on while you’re annotating their copies of Canterbury Tales for them, they talk over you, knowing you’ll eavesdrop. Talking about how pent up they both are, how they just need a bit of release. And maybe they’ll call Heather from Calc, or the tennis trainer with the big tits Brittany…? No… Bethany.

And you can’t take that. So you put the pen down and chew on your lip until you gather the nerve to say that you can help, whatever they need. Just like they knew their sweet, sweet doll would say.

There’s no kissing, nothing particularly affectionate. They just put you between them on the bed, spit into your hands, and tug down their boxers.

And, yeah, it’s a little degrading for them to talk behind your back about the girl they fucked last week, about how tight and wet she was, about how lucky Art was to get to fuck her ass and how she had no gag reflex. You just sit and listen, cheeks burning hot with humiliation and arousal, as their cocks pulse and twitch in your grasp.

When they finally finish, they tug their pants back up like nothing even happened, and you’re left with sticky hands painted with their cum. Art tosses you a towel from his tennis bag and asks if you can annotate one chapter ahead in his book since he had a tournament soon.

[miriadalia]

If leaks for part 3 turn out to be true (and I'm pretty sure they will), Tory will be the only one of the main cast not to compete in any other dojo than Cobra Kai and I love that from her 😌

[aroaceleovaldez]

reminder that the only reason the "ADHD is actually demigod BATTLE STRATEGIES" and "dyslexia is DEMIGOD BRAINS HARDWIRED FOR ANCIENT GREEK" things exist in the PJO universe is because it's a very direct reference to early 2000s teaching/parenting techniques for neurodiverse and disabled children, which aimed to frame childrens' disabilities and hardships as a "superpower" or strength so that the children would feel more positively about their disabilities or situations. This technique has fallen out of favor since then for the most part since more often than not it just results in kids feeling as though their struggles are not being seen or taken seriously.

Yes, demigods are adhd/dyslexic (and sometimes autistic-coded) in the series. This is extremely important and trying to remove it or not acknowledge it makes the entire series fall apart because it is such a core concept. Yes, canon claims that their adhd/dyslexia is tied to some innate abilities, which is based on an outdated methodology. It's important to acknowledge that and understand where it comes from! But please stop trying to apply it to other pantheons in the series like "oh, the romans have dyscalculia because of roman numerals!" or "the norse demigods have dysgraphia for reasons!" - it's distasteful at best.

A better option is to acknowledge the meta inspiration for why that exists in the series, such as explaining potentially that Chiron was utilizing that same teaching methodology to try and help demigods feel more comfortable with their disabilities and they aren't literal powers. In fact, especially given Frank, there's implication that being adhd/dyslexic isn't a guaranteed demigod trait, which means it's more likely to be normally inherited from their godly parent/divine ancestor as a general trait, not a power, and further supports the whole "ADHD is battle strategy" thing being non-literal. It also implies the entire greco-roman pantheon in their universe is canonically adhd/dyslexic - and that actually fits very well with the themes of the first series. The entire central conflict of the first series fits perfectly as an allegory about neurodiverse/disabled children and their relationships with their undiagnosed neurodiverse/disabled parents and trying to find solutions together with their shared disability/disabilities that the kid inherited instead of becoming distant from each other (and this makes claiming equivalent to getting a diagnosis which is a fascinating allegory! not to mention the symbolism of demigods inheriting legacies and legends and powers from their parents and everything that comes with that being equivalent to inheriting traits, neurodiversity, and disabilities from your parents).

anyways neurodiversity and disability and the contexts in which the series utilizes representation of those experiences particularly during the 2000s symbolically within the narrative is incredibly important to the first series and the understanding of what themes it means to represent. also if i see one more "the romans have dyscalculia instead of dyslexia" post in 2023 i'm gonna walk into the ocean.

[purpleelephantsocks]

Oh god, oh fuck, oh no; the parallels between Jean at the beginning of tsc panicking and telling Wymack "I want to go home" and Jean at the end of tsc falling apart after finding out his baby sister has died, telling Neil the same thing.

"I want to go home."

He is only nineteen

[celebrimborium]

Stop fighting me and together, let us fight them.

[snarkspawn]

may I offer you more soft kenbig in these trying times

[moeggoi]

"This man would hurl himself in death's way to save you. You are sure of this -- but why?"

[foenixed]

The "robot/alien learns how to love" trope is just aphobia btw.

[kagooleo]

I did this one to celebrate Silver's bday back in 2021, a sonboy to me who deserves the world ;-;

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

I'm not ready to shut up about Aveline and Carver--so, when you go see Aveline in Act 1, you can catch up with her a little bit and that's where this conversation can happen:

Aveline: "It's just one more change, though. The real end for me was Ostagar. What about you, Carver? You were there. Do you feel something similar?" Carver: No. Aveline: All right, then. Bit of a tit, your brother.

I wanted to see what she would say if Carver isn't in the party. Instead, she says this:

Aveline: Carver was there. I imagine he feels something similar. If he allows it.

......well, at least she didn't call him a tit?

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The False God to Guilty As Sin? pipeline because what happens when sex was your default fallback method to reconnect when you weren't communicating otherwise but then you don't even have *that* anymore so you're just... frozen out completely in every sense. 😵‍💫

[lightningidle]

Fig's line "I don't think I'm an artist, I think I'm just a good friend" has not left my head at all. Just...

You're Fig Faeth and your horns came in over the summer and you pick up the bard class as a form of adolescent rock 'n' roll rebellion, and it works! It's exactly the outlet you need! You give a guy you just met drumsticks and you start a band and it's good enough that within a year and a half you're touring. You are, in every sense, good at being a bard.

And then, finally, your junior year, you start to take it seriously. Your art goes from an outlet and a form of rebellion to a practice. A discipline. (Can rebellion exist within a discipline?) Your classmates know what they want to do with their work. They all have a thesis statement. And yeah, there's cohesion in the music you make, but you've never had to think about why you make it. You've never sat down and dissected what it is about bass that speaks to you. You've never poured over your lyrics to pick at any deeper meaning. Why should you? You don't play music for a grand design, you do it to... huh, why do you do it?

(Your art is the one form of self-expression that feels as safe as Disguise Self does, because even if you're pouring your heart onto the page and then screaming it in front of thousands of people, it's not like you're really making yourself known. You can sing I'm lonely, I'm scared, I'm furious, and your fans will sing it right back, and there will still be the distance between performer and audience to keep your heart safe.)

Now you're being asked to look inward to explain the artistic choices you're making, and you can't help but recoil at that, because you'd rather do anything than look inward. Meanwhile, your classmates have no problem with it, so you start to wonder if you're a real artist at all. Can your art be authentic if it only exists to bolster a thesis statement? Has your art been unauthentic this whole time because you've never really thought about a thesis statement before? Is that what makes it art, and not just the next track on somebody's teen angst playlist?

You can't think about yourself— acknowledging your own existence makes you want to puke. So if your music is an extension of yourself, (and it is, even if it's just because the spotlight reveals only what you want it to,) you can't think about your music. You can't. You have to. Your grade depends on it.

You're Fig Faeth, and you keep multiclassing because you'd rather be a good friend than a great artist. If introspection is what great art demands, then fuck it. You must not be a bard at all.

[magentagalaxies]

"tour of duty" (the filmed version of their 2002 tour) in general is just kind of a bizarre point for kids in the hall that i haven't really talked to any of them about but is hard not to notice when you look at their entire canon. like it's certainly good - there are some tour-original sketches that i highly enjoy and some live versions of filmed sketches that take a fun creative spin on it, but in general things just feel noticeably strange.

buddy cole specifically tells the fur trappers to "fuck off" (buddy very rarely swears and across all the buddy material i've watched for the documentary he's only said "fuck" 3 times across forty years). danny husk wins an award for being a high school vice principal and at&love isn't acknowledged in the bit. the "is he?" sketch has been revised to pack in as many euphemisms for gay as possible, putting the bit on top of another bit. and of course i have my chicken lady thoughts but i don't want to bias anyone else bc i genuinely want to know what your takes are before i share mine.

and again these aren't all bad choices - i think the danny husk vice principal monologue works really well and may not work as well as a different character despite contradicting the Husk Lore™️. but they're all very distinctive choices

idk there's two reasons i personally give for why tour of duty is so strange (to me at least, maybe other people don't notice). the first is that it comes less than 3 years after their other tour-film, the 1999/2000 tour "same guys new dresses" (also available on youtube!) i fucking love SGND and i'll be up front that it's my preferred kith tour video. but part of what makes SGND so special is that it's not just a recording of the live show, it's a full tour documentary following the guys traveling across the country performing together, occasionally showing full sketches but also delving into the stories behind why the sketches played out the way they did. and, sure, sometimes that means cutting out a sketch that i wish i could've seen in full (rip power of the suburbs) but my life is so much better for having seen the "laser eye surgery gossip" or knowing how much drama that goddamn robot-dog-prop caused.

so to then see tour of duty as a straight-up recording of the live show leaves that element of mystery, that we don't get to know why choices were made because we only see the end result. there was a conscious decision not to shoot tour of duty like SGND - the tour doc didn't do well financially, and they also had more of a reason to document that tour since it was their first time working together since the disastrous fallout of "brain candy," and first big national tour since the show ended. the circumstances were just very different

and that's true both personally and politically bc the second suspected reason for tour of duty's weird tone is you can obviously tell 9/11 just happened. two sketches directly reference it - bruce and mark's businessman characters sell scam patriotic products that are all just a rubber band, and buddy cole visits the middle east and ends up having sex with saddam hussein (tho fun fact this concept was written BEFORE 9/11). but the event casts an obvious shadow, especially since both the buddy cole bit and the danny husk monologue were recycled pieces from scott's cancelled one-man-show which was set to debut in new york city on september 19th 2001.

it's also interesting comparing this to SGND. the late 90s are often remembered through rose-tinted glasses due to a generally good economy in the united states and a lot of the social tensions with disenfranchised groups still bubbling under the surface rather than being talked about openly. SGND doesn't reference contemporary events much, but the closure of AT&Love from the KITH finale is undone since the economy has re-entered "rock-on fashion," and buddy cole comments on the Y2K computer bug being underwhelming. (i also went on a super long tangent on how the original show reflected the socioeconomic climate of the 90s but that's a whole other topic i need to go to bed)

i don't know how the KITH feel about "tour of duty." i can't know how much this strangeness was felt for them backstage, and i think in some regards it can only be picked up on as an outsider, albeit an outsider who has watched so much KITH content to know how their work evolved even when not on television. all in all, i'm glad "tour of duty" exists and even the swings that didn't really land for me are still admirable as creative choices.

it's also cool to analyze as someone who has now been to a KITH live show over 2 decades later and got to see those behind-the-scenes conversations play out. the bellini benefit also featured a lot of strangeness, caused by a limited rehearsal schedule and one of the cast members being unable to attend due to illness, but they absolutely exceeded these limitations to put on a very fun show. we did film the performance and rehearsals and that show is going to be released eventually (i'm not in charge of it but the person who is also works on the buddy cole doc so i'm involved). i don't know if it's going to be presented more like SGND or tour of duty or something completely different, but it'll be cool to be part of KITH live show canon

[mikesbasementbeets]

byler in every episode -> 1.01. the vanishing of will byers

[roscoehamiltons]

something about this post that merc made bothered me initially and i have figured it out after some thought. when i first saw it on my feed, i legitimately thought it was damage control and i'm not sure if it was their intention (i'm inclined to think that it is after lewis posted on his stories this morning), but whatever their intentions, to me it reads as insincere and trite. it sounds nice in theory like oh we will make the best of what little time we have together, but at the end of the day it's an empty statement. like when i see the sentence 'our journey together started 12 years we couldn't have imagined where it would take us' i would think that were would be some kind of follow up about some of those accomplishments that happened in the past 12 years. instead all we got was 'we are going to give it everything in the next 6 races 💪' like ok?? lol. i would think that they would and should be giving it everything they have whether or not someone has been on their team for 1 year or 12 years.

i am not asking for merc to post an essay about lewis' accomplishments (yet 😉) but i am asking for some effort to be put in what they are posting about lewis. there has been a lack of effort put into what the team has been posting about lewis specifically in the past 3 years, and i would not be surprised if the next post that they post about his teammate has more thought and effort put into it than the post i'm talking about. it is this discrepancy that we are seeing that is bleeding into the perceptions of the team, and how they have handled things that have happened on track and off. i will say that merc have improved in the past couple months, but it should not have taken 3 years to finally take some initiative. they shouldn't need people to remind and harass them into posting about lewis' accomplishments and milestones. i should not be writing a rant about how i want more than a couple sentences written about lewis' last 6 races at mercedes. they should and need to do better. i would hope that no one would call me unfair or crazy by saying this or criticizing them. but at the end of the day, it is their job and they have failed at their job, and we are seeing the consequences of it now with how badly the relationship between the fans and the team has gotten.