#THE THESIS IS GONE

[dirt-nerd]

[team-118]

that's the thing. he's the one you forget to count on. he's perfect but it's a front. he's happy but it's a lie. he cut the damn line and he's still alive down here. he's 9, he's 19, 21, 27, with the weight of the world on his seemingly bulletproof shoulders. he's braver than anyone should have to be. he takes responsibility to a fault. he's cursed but the universe doesn't scream. he's a wonderful partner as long as he doesn't look it in the eye. he's falling backwards into a pool of his own blood and he's dancing in his underwear in his living room. he's gonna be better. for christopher? no, for himself. he's golden and glowing at sunset on the court, he's singing karaoke and djing with drag queens, he's falling to fucking pieces and then he's putting himself back together. who the hell is that? eddie diaz, new recruit. we don't bet against him.

[blamemma]

daniel ricciardo and max verstappen, 2024 vs. 2016

[omegalomania]

we are such a fucking tragedy, you and i

[moongothic]

If being weak is a "sin" in Crocodile's mind, then isn't a painful defeat and maybe even death rightful punishment for it? A punishment you deserve for your crime of "being weak"? That's an intriguing mindset from him because it makes me wonder how Crocodile might view his own past and the things he has gone through? I might not go as far as to say Crocodile "blames himself" for the things he's gone through, as he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who dwells on the past like that. But I do feel like Crocodile has accepted in his mind that things like losing his hand happened because he was weak, and it was his own fault. That he can not blame anyone else for what has happened to him. He fucked around and he found out.

It's just interesting because to some degree, One Piece thematically does agree with this sentiment, this is a world where the strong eat the weak. (One example at the top of my head; Luffy refusing Katakuri's apology when his sister intervened with their battle, saying he should've dodged the attack properly if he didn't want to get hit.) Chaka falling in this scene and being unable to stop Crocodile may lead to the deaths of so many more, including his loved ones, and if that comes to pass, it's is Chaka's own fault. For being too weak. But also Crocodile has twisted that idea; Crocodile is using his worldview here to justify himself and essentially saying he can do this (take over Alabasta and kill a million innocents doing so) and get away with it because he's powerful. When in reality "weakness is a sin" isn't about the survival of the fittest, but how this is a world where the strong are meant to protect the weak. (See: Luffy) (Also how Pell told Baby Vivi in that flashback about how he trains so he can protect the Royal Family; again, he he craves power not to oppress the weak but to protect them)

But, just to get back to Crocodile again, I feel like this worldview might also give us more insight as to how he acts in certain situations post-Alabasta. Like when we see Crocodile towards the end of Miss Goldenweek's cover story, both when he declines to escape from jail and in his Impel Down mugshot, Crocodile has a smile on his face. That really is the face of a man who has accepted his fate, is it not?

"Welp, this is what I get for losing to a child in flipflops"

Or when we see him come collect his debt from Buggy; Crocodile seemed quite relaxed and fully admitted he had assumed Buggy would've ran away before he even got there to collect his money. Of course, considdering his trust issues Crocodile would've been mentally prepared for Buggy skedaddling anyways, but the fact that he loaned the clown money to begin with while assuming he'd probably never get that money back-- like Crocodile knew that was going to happen and he just accepted it. And just rolled with it.

Of course, when things take an Unpleasant, Unexpected Turn, he will blow a fuse. Multiple, even.

Him angy

IDK man this is all just interesting to me

[can-of-slorgs]

caw 🦅

[why-the-heck-not]

got a new laptop, feeling like a kid on christmas eve & I’m learning to use notion bc idk it fits the agenda of today (which is to transfer my life onto this one now)

[bornforastorm]

impressive how much night court s06e07 The Law Club reads as Dan Fielding, gay, trying to flirt his way into a men's club

being disappointed when the guy is more interested in christine

thrilled that he got into a club full of eligible men anyway

feeling bad when he learns he set his nice friend up with a scumbag

doing a bunch of gay friend shenanigans to save her

managing it

and finally comforting her with solidarity

and kindness

and a gag

[moonshynecybin]

“as we all know marc has and does connect his injury and his breakup with vale into one fucked up little play in his head” need your thesis on this kinda

i don’t need to write a thesis marc marquez: all in episode three wrote it FOR MEEE

[dapper-nahrwhale]

I neeeeeeeed to talk about gone forever more it's like the Most thing ever, it's got time loops and fairies and creatures and prophecies and magic and never being able to go home again and not able to recognize what youve become and how devotion can corrupt you and how those in power will lie to you to get what they want and how through everything you can be kind and no one ever knows what I'm talking about because it only exists to me and like one other person it's so sad. I should figure out how to make comics and do that.

[drrksaturday]

At the lab straight up "dyeing it" and by 'it' haha lets justr say. My Samples.

[inheritance-cycles]

Eragon should’ve had more classic 15 year old boy moments

Not the horny creeper-vibe scenes with Arya

But more pure, silly, “boys-will-be-boys” moments where he disappears for a bit and they find him, like trying to stretch a pair of pants around a tree or some shit idk

[berenshand]

shakespeare snobs still aren't ready for this conversation but revenge of the sith is the closest western media has to a modern equivalent of a shakespearean tragedy

- entertainment created for mass appeal

- effectively utilizes comic relief despite overall serious tone and/or subject matter

- the audience knows it's a tragedy going in

- utilizes, as shakespeare did, the elements of the greek tragedies which came before him, ie:

- the tragic hero is virtuous but for a fatal flaw

- the audience fears for and roots for the hero despite said flaw and their knowledge that the story is a tragedy

- in his attempts to escape his destiny, the hero unknowingly runs toward it, even brings it about himself

- it's entertainment for the masses even though the masses know it's a tragedy before it even starts

[quirkthieves]

speaking of....

On the topic of Monoma & Kindness...

It goes without saying that Monoma is a hog for attention. Regardless of if it's from him or another character, this trait of his is fairly frequented commented on. And he's quite successful at it, from positive applications like his ability to completely divert the audience's attention during their school play, or, more commonly, with the more combative application of his 6/6 Provocateur stat. In battle, you could argue that it stems from his philosophy that he has to act unheroically to become a hero and his resignation to the role of a side character, but the same behavior leeches into his personal and academic life to an extreme degree. Negative attention is better than no attention.

But unlike characters like Bakugou, for Monoma, the currency of attention is still "won" when it''s given to his classmates. Bis personality is listed as "kind to his allies", and we never really see him provoke his classmates. When Tokage apologizes for losing the match, he comforts her, he compliments his teammates during their exercises, and he offers constructive criticism to others. We even know there are members of his class who scold him (such as Kaibara and Kinoko saying they'll snitch when he messes up and gives everyone the wrong shrooms, or Kendou and Awase chopping him, etc) or actively dislike him (like Yui), but he never at any point fails to extol their virtues or reciprocates that dislike. In fact, although he makes the occasional complaint about Kendou's chops, he's aghast at the suggestion made by Midoriya, Iida, and Kirishima that they may be abusive in nature, and excitedly runs to her side when she comes to collect him from their well-intentioned accosting.

And he's still not socially rejected from the class. They take what he says in training as valuable criticism, during their play, his classmates note his superb acting abilities, but say they "won't compliment him because it may inflate his ego", they participate in his games and competitions with 1-A, it's said often that his classmates believe overall he means well, and Tetsutetsu notes that without Kendou, he may have won the class over entirely. Even though certain members like Bondo or Fukidashi may not participate in the snark to the same extent as the others, Monoma's relationship with the group he's most comfortable with and most eager to defend and lift up is one that is defined by a one-sided friendly ribbing and occasional butting of heads.

We see this with Shinsou, too; Monoma, when approaching him for friendship, is entirely unbothered by the fact that Shinsou is somewhat aloof and actively disagrees with him at times. He's comfortable enough with this attitude for him to open up about his past and personal philosophy, and his first impression when Shinsou says that he's not here to make friends and that they're all obstacles is "I like this guy." In the light novels, Monoma even goes out of his way to help prepare a very thoughtful and well-organized room in the dorms for Shinsou, just in case he joins Class 1-B. For all intents and purposes, Monoma sees Shinsou as a friend, even though Shinsou doesn't appear to share the same level of enthusiastic "giving".

But what does Shinsou say that does give Monoma pause? He openly expresses that he wants to rely on Monoma as a key part of the plan. A comment and role that one would assume attention-hungry Monoma would eat up is one that is immediately met with the sentiment of "don't get your hopes up." Statements like "I can't do anything on my own" and "I'm just a side character" all express a similar concept: "I'm not good enough to do what others do." Despite his classmates' assumption that his ego would swell too much if complimented, Monoma seems entirely resigned to personally being a lesser category of person.

But let's put a pin in this and shift focus to how he treats those he doesn't like. Naturally, he sees himself as an extension of the "unit" that is Class B, and so he views Class A the same way, regardless of the individual personalities within. Bakugou's speech calling everyone else "extras" was a slight against his classmates (and not himself, seeing as we know he does consider himself one), and so all of Class A have become active participants in this indignation and are hogging the spotlight away from those he cares about. Again, Monoma is an excellent provocateur, and he makes active and indiscriminate use of this skill. He says some out of pocket shit, and will even continue this behavior when it may be hypocritical or otherwise disadvantageous for him to do so. He never once seeks validation from them, but he sure does go after their attention just about every single time they cross paths, and the success in doing so is rewarding enough for him to continue doing it over and over, even when the end result is usually failure or a scolding of some sort. Nobody does anything for no reason, even if that reason is subconscious-- and he seems to be having fun when he does it! This is a game for him! It is a relationship he has both defined and is comfortable with, and it is inherently competitive if not hostile in nature. Earning Class A's annoyance, anger, and the attention therewith is his reward for pushing the big red PROVOKE button in his brain. And it's not like Monoma does this with everybody he doesn't know-- he attaches himself to Shinsou quickly, and there's a gag in smash about how "if Monoma's opponents are weaker than him, he becomes confused and goes into stand by mode". This call and response system is for a very specific relationship with very specific people. And no matter what, so long as they respond within the confines of that system, he's fine, even if it comes at his active detriment.

So, what happens when people act off-script? When Kirishima, Iida, and Midoriya are trying to find out the truth on if Kendou's chops are abusive, they have the class treat monoma with an uncharacteristic kindness he can't necessarily fight, but it's clear across the span of the evening he's becoming increasingly uncomfortable and even frightened. He tries to escape at some point, and when they won't let him leave, he eventually melts down and becomes completely unresponsive until Kendou arrives, to which he exclaims he's glad to see her and rushes to her side. And in a later chapter, when Monoma goes through the effort of putting together a fake cursed dvd The Ring-style featuring All Might and challenges Class A to a test of courage, the only points Class A scores is when they get Monoma flustered by having Denki and Midoriya smile and thank him for putting in all this effort and how Midoriya will treasure the DVD, with him proclaiming that that wasn't his intention at all.

In the first instance, Monoma's meltdown is accompanied by his internal monologue, which is about how Class A must be planning something and how he can't figure out what it is, but that surely something must be going on behind the scenes, even though he's smart enough and emotionally intelligent enough to know that Midoriya, Kirishima, and Iida are all-around aboveboard types. And I think that's where all of this, both friend and foe, stems from.

Monoma just doesn't trust people. Despite the nature of his quirk, his cooperation stat is listed at a measly 2/5. His low self-worth and understanding that he has built an unlikeable persona makes him believe that there is nobody on Earth that would treat him with genuine, bare-faced kindness, and so the most comfortable friendly relationships he builds comes with not only the expectation of but the desire for some mild one-sided aggression. It is simply easier to believe that a friend who expresses their gripes with you to your face is more likely to be genuine than someone who appears too innocent to be true, and the humiliation of having been tricked a la "my friend has a crush on you" is too much for him to bear. He'd much rather get the attention he craves on his own terms, regardless of the consequences.

And this goes doubly for people he has sought to define a combative relationship with. Class 1-A should hate him. There is no way they would offer genuine niceties without it being a trick, because Monoma has made himself so unpalatable. He's constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when he can't figure out how or when it will (because they're just being nice), he panics more than he ever has in the face of a villain. When his intentions are taken and twisted into something that might re-define the relationship, he becomes so flustered that he feels his only option is to flee and try again later, even though in situations where he's simply receiving aggressive pushback he will persist until physically stopped. And this oppressive and irrational paranoia all comes back to his personal belief that he is simply not good enough to be like the "strong".

And naturally, because my Monoma's main verse is one in which he's Toga's half-brother, I'm going to be drawing comparisons here so be prepared to get heavily into the realm of headcanon teehee

Both Monoma and Toga want, more than anything, is to be close to other people and get the attention and affection they have been denied. Monoma's love manifested with an obsessive separation anxiety that made it imperative to try and get him used to being alone, and Toga's love manifested with an intensity and fixation on violence that made it imperative to discourage and suppress blood-seeking behavior.

And they only really fed into each other; Monoma let Toga act on her urges because pain was preferable to rejection, and Toga had her belief reaffirmed that her love was normal and that anyone who really cared about her would indulge it, and ergo, the rest of the world had rejected her.

As they got older, the pressure to behave normally in society further discouraged these behaviors.

For Monoma, humiliation, rejection, and isolation from his peers fueled a distrust of others, especially regarding matters close to the heart; his quirk, his dreams, his needs...instead, he decided to resign himself to his role and fulfill his need for affection with negative feedback instead. So long as you're thinking of him, he's winning. Mutual obsession that's on his terms is worth the pain invoked by the consequences. He is, whether you like it or not, still a character in the cast, and he is allowed time on the stage so long as he can keep up the act.

Toga, too, has decided to live on her own terms, albeit to a much more dangerous end. Whereas Monoma has decided to define himself within society, she has designated herself outside of it.

Toga's disappearance really only worsened Monoma's paranoia around machinations that aren't his own and reinforced the idea that there really is nobody in this world willing to give kindness to him freely. He still doesn't understand why she attacked someone and left, and that upsets him-- along with the fact that he was left behind. Not worth so much as a goodbye. Some strange boy in her class was more important than he was, even though he had put her at the forefront of everything, and he had no idea.

So when it comes to his class, he's willing to give everything and expect nothing. He's unlikeable anyway. At least when they make jokes at his expense, it's to his face, yeah?

[greencheekconure27]

Ok brain we've already had

"I am going to die" (of stress)

"I am going to die" (of sorrow)

"I want to die "( external causes)

"I want to kill myself"

"What if I went on a trip and killed myself instead of coming back"

Methinks we've exhausted this subject, time to move on to something else.

[perenial]

the thing abt love languages is that like. it's not wrong to want the language (lol) to articulate how u express affection and care and recognise it in others. but even without being a vehicle for evangelical misogyny it's interesting just how influential a qualitative framework for understanding how people love became when having only five 'types' is basically divergent group sorting for adults