#all in all. deeply sad. and deeply real.

[sparring-spirals]

I was initially clipping this to capture the overwhelmingly accurate, absolutely devastating hilarity of "you went for realistic, and sadly, you nailed it". And then just kept recording because I really fucking love the discussion about how to balance the line between like:

You are trying to tell a story that feels good and gives you the kind of lift you might be looking for in an explicitly fantasy story,

vs

How to ensure it still feels grounded and rewarding in a way where you can "bring this good feeling back to earth" at the end.

Like they're talking about TTRPG's but they clearly make parallels to other forms of storytelling/worldbuilding mediums, like movies, and. like. Yeah. Yeah.

Like the framing of "you really recreated the feeling of powerlessness..." and wanting the fantasy element to manifest in there being the clearer, straightforward ways to solve complex issues, vs trying to ensure that you can have a victory and it feels feasible and substantial and applicable in some way, and has something you can take out of the fantasy world and hold with you back on "terra firma".

Its tricky! Its a tricky thing to balance, and I don't think there's a single "right" answer nor should there be because it depends. It depends on the story, and the intent, and the setting, and the medium, and etc. Big fan of this framework to explain it.

[theplushiefox]

I'm so sorry, I can't find it to link here, but I saw a post where someone pointed out how at the end of the movie, Raph, Donnie and April kind of stare at Leo, surprised to see as him acting silly and then Raph smiles because his little brother acts like himself

And they also pointed out that Leo acts differently after the extremely traumatic Kraang invasion, so I thought about how he'd never really return to being the silly goofball he was before and it made me sad so here, you get to be sad too!

Please, if someone has the post, send it as a reply to this post so I can link it! Thanks!

[caluette]

the truth

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

my favorite mulder moments from s3

when he’s dead in episode 1, in the afterlife being urged to return to his body, and it is only only hearing that his sister isn’t there which convinces him to come back to life (we can analyze this for years and we should!)

after their narrow escape from the disease center in episode 2, skinner asks what mulder could possibly hope to find in his wildest dreams. his answer: “why they killed my father. and what happened to my sister. and what they did to agent scully” which pretty much proved that she is part of his family to him <3 and he just wants to protect his family and keep everybody safe... i'll cry

and despite how badly he wanted the truth and was willing to risk it all, he agreed to turn the tape they had nearly died over so they could come out of hiding, so scully could see if her sister was okay (AUGHHH putting his life's ambition on hold for her...)

(this is more to do with behind the scenes stuff, but there’s a little moment in episode 7 where his hair is all messed up, and then in the very next shot it’s all fixed again, and i thought it was so funny to see, because you could tell he got retouched between takes)

in that same episode there’s also a moment where he keeps replaying a mysterious noise over and over again. scully asks if he has found anything, and he replies “no, but i’m really beginning to like the tape” with a big goofy smile <3

in episode 9, he has his office set up like a movie theater, with his feet tossed up on on the desk. he is SO excited to show scully the alien autopsy video he ordered from a magazine for $29.95!!!

then he comments that “it’s widely held that aliens don’t have blood, scully” with great seriousness which had me LOSING it. yes of course, mulder, she CLEARLY should have known!

(later in that episode, skinner comes down to scold them, and asks why they’re even in pennsylvania, to which he says that they’re here on a “video piracy case” <- LMAOOOO least convincing lie ever told)

also in episode 9: his line “you think believing is easy?” followed by letting that sit for a bit, exploring the tensions and implications- how hard it is for mulder to keep the faith that there are answers in this world, and perhaps even justice to go along with them. how it doesn’t come as naturally to him as you may think, it’s about hope and protecting your loved ones and doing whatever it takes, killing or dying, to learn the Truth, because the Truth is hope

(at this point in taking notes, i proceeded to ramble on for like a paragraph with Intense Emotions, and even talking about this episode again is making me want to go on a lecture tour about how fantastic it was)

in episode 10, a passenger on the train with her child sees the dead body of a doctor and screams. mulder pivots, tells the woman that the doctor is just sick, smiles, and ruffles the kid’s hair

(he ruffles another kid’s hair in episode 23… don’t think i didn’t notice)

angrily quoting scripture in episode 11

(and he also says he considers the bible to be poetry rather than a literal history in this one, which i think is fascinating)

sitting in his car, watching the night sky in episode 12, when he asks over the phone: “look scully, i know it’s not your inclination, but did you ever look up into the night sky and feel certain that not only was something up there, but it was looking down at you at the exact same moment, and was just as curious about you as you are about it?” goshhh what a wonderful way to see the world... a universe of mutual curiosity with answers that can be found if only you are dedicated enough to hunt for them

dr. ivanov’s little bug robot liking mulder and following him around <3 someone pls get him a cat!!

AND that episode wrapup: “the development of our cerebral cortex has been the greatest achievement of the evolutionary processes. big deal.” <- it had me absolutely giggling… as a profiler and student of the human brain, it really IS a big deal!! he knows that!! but he was so angry about how it all went down his bitterness won that day lmaooo

(BUT ALSO: he wakes up in his JEANS in this episode??? what kind of dude SLEEPS in his JEANS... we need to launch a full federal investigation)

when he tries to call to the kitty in episode 14 <3

and then he goes to the library to read up on gargoyles, but he was pulling so many all-nighters that he just straight up fell asleep on the table, and it was So Cute

in episode 15, he knows that "ronin" is the term for a samurai without a master, which made me laugh (and he claims he knows it from watching samurai movies… nerd!)

when he hops into an empty grave in episode 19 and starts digging with his hands while someone yells “what the hell is he doing!” and scully watches, knowing that is the sort of behavior he is just hardwired to do

mulder (possibly) eating an entire sweet potato pie in episode 20. narrative-wise we shall never know the truth.

how intensely attached he is to skinner being revealed in episode 21; how he believes whole-heartedly that he is innocent even when all of the evidence is against him. how when skinner dismisses his case as none of their business mulder counters with "of course it is", as if there was no other option. how he listens to skinner’s stories of terror in vietnam. how he is disappointed skinner won’t tell him what really happened that night. if you want to cry, go watch that scene where he leaves skinner's office realizing he won't talk about it. it made me emotional.

(he also pulls a giant book off his shelf in that episode and flips to the page talking about succubi, which makes me wonder what other kinds of literature he keeps in his office, pls let me come browse)

((there is also a moment where he gets really angry and pushes his jacket back with his hands on his hips and i swear my heart nearly stopped))

episode 22’s “i know the difference between expectation and hope. seek and you shall find, scully” it's just SO good and so Him

when he visits her motel room in episode 23 and gets all cozied up on her couch to talk case theories... i was giggling!!!

how he tries so hard to be brave and hold it together when she is missing in that one, too- calling her mother to check where she is, apologizing for disturbing mrs. scully because he knows how intense this must be for her after everything her daughter has gone through, bouncing his basketball in his apartment to keep himself moving, how he tells the lone gunmen with an even voice that she isn’t okay when he needs to go ID a body, and how he kicks the door of the man who got them involved with this case, forgoing answers for her. ripping my hair out from all my emotions btw.

mulder being convinced that he could talk scully back into her senses even after she shot at him (!!!) and refusing to accept her mother’s answers that she wasn’t at her home

when he visits scully in the hospital after her wavelength-induced psychosis, he enters the room with his hands up, jokingly surrendering after she had held him at gunpoint. because he cannot be serious ever, and he Needs to make a joke and lighten the mood, to try and make her feel comfortable. 

AND how he turns the TV off when he enters, knowing what the TV did to get her there. and how he leaves after a while, whispering “why don’t you try and get some rest?” on the way out, so scared to have seen her like that, wanting to give her all the time she needs to recover <3

in the finale he sits by his mom in her hospital bed; he holds her hand, notices she is cold and covers her with a blanket (gosh that one made me inconsolable- scully was talking to him and he couldn't even respond, because his mom was cold, and he needed to fix that, to make her comfortable)

he touches her hair and whispers “mom”, and smiles at her when she opens her eyes, saying everything is going to be okay; then later, he’s crying as he holds her hand to his cheek, and i’m crying too

and when they go to meet up with “jeremiah smith” later, he makes scully get behind him, holding the only weapon that could kill jeremiah in his hands and standing in front of her to keep her safe

[electricpurrs]

by god i dont want to be a real person with a real life flesh body. i want to be a cartoon character. i want to have a cool well thought character design and be drawn with fun stylized colors and shapes and dynamic poses and wearing fun outfits i want to have a nonsense anime hairstyle and look a million cool different ways depending on who draws me. i want to be as beautiful as art is and as loved as art is and as free for infinite possibilities of looking like absolutely anything like art is. can someone draw me with cat ears

[seilon]

please don’t by k.will did more for the gays back in 2012 than any boy group can possibly do with fan service and crop tops in 2024

[saxonilla]

slight spoiler for sans route in @ut-acttoflirt

*you probably have you’re reasoning to what you do.

[augustatheghost]

i don’t know what you guys are all complaining about i love that svu has vaporized olivia from woman on the verge to lady cragen

[professorjirt]

it makes me SO sad that it’s hard to go through Samwise’s tags or find people for whom he is their favorite that don’t put down Frodo. I’m thankful that the number of those who truly understand him and love both him and who he struggles for is greater than it could be and has been in the past, but it’s still so heartbreaking to see, because I love Sam so dearly, and he’d never want this. It’s such a disrespect of Sam’s character to think that the only way to praise him is to undermine or insult Frodo. And it’s a disrespect to the narrative of Lord of the Rings as well. People constantly reference a cherry picked and out of context piece of a letter Tolkien wrote, desperately trying to claim that Sam is The Singular Hero of the story, when that wasn’t even remotely the context of the letter, yet its been used for years to undermine all the other characters of the series and erase the well rounded character Sam is to shave him into some one dimensional He-Man. Sam is undoubtedly one of the chief characters of the story, THE chief character of the story alongside Frodo. Without Sam the quest would not have been fulfilled. Yet Tolkien makes it clear that Sam could not have done Frodo’s job— especially not on his own. Just as the Ring broke down Frodo, it would have done for Sam— especially by the point of Mordor. That isn’t where Sam’s strength and value lies. It doesn’t lie in being the sacrifice. It lies in being the hope, the support, the utterly maddened loyalty and stubbornness and love that overcomes and strengthens. As I have come to say, Frodo carried the world, and Sam carried Frodo. People seem to think that as lesser, and I find that insulting. Would you find a friend that supported you in dark times lesser? Are they not your world in those moments? Do they not hold up the world for you yourself, as you struggle to carry the weight of it, and remind you that whatever suffering, you will never be abandoned or alone, even if both of you endure the fires of hell and no brightness shines through. It will not be alone. That is the beauty of Sam, and the people that treat that role as though it was not enough or that he should have had more on his plate show their lack of understanding of the very character they claim to praise.

[in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene]

I do think Withers has a really subtle background character arc in bg3. Because at the start it is really clear he doesn't want to be here and he's being forced to clean up his mess by Helm and probably Ao. He doesn't really care either. Everything ends so nothing really matters, he'd like to go back to his paperwork now please.

Except he's stuck babysitting a bunch of traumatized dumbasses as they stumble into dealing with the most recent bad idea of his three fuck-up disappointments. So he brings them back when they die for a pittance, lets them pay for some vengeful ghosts to come back as flesh and blood to wreak bloody vengeance on the Absolute, and starts to... comment, on what's going on, as he follows them on their adventure.

Next thing you know Withers is like, doing things unprompted. He refuses to bring back Alfira (or Quil) but that's an act of compassion, keeping the poor girl from the Urge and letting her rest, his actual duty as a god of death. He tells Arabella to follow her destiny and does that thing to make her grief go away which honestly freaks me out but seems to be him trying to help her. He shows up at Moonrise and prompts us to consider why the Dead Three would want a bunch of soulless illithids that would give them no power, getting us to think of the big picture.

And by the end (especially if you do a resist!Durge playthrough) Withers is actively interfering and seems genuinely invested! He brings Durge back from the dead, free of their father! He encourages us before the final fight with the Netherbrain! He's real fucking smug that the Dead Three lost when he never seemed to care about the destruction they caused before! He throws a reunion party and many of his lines are genuinely touching or kind! Especially if a companion died permanently! He has tea with Gale's mom and Tara! He's like, socializing and shit! Yes, everything is temporary and we all die, but there's great beauty in fighting for that precious time and living it to the fullest!

Basically Wither's character arc is this meme, all because Helm made him go outside and touch grass.

[caimitos]

saw a post about projecting your ethnicity onto a character and started missing vespa ilkay. so so bad

[annamaryllis]

I would like to know exactly how luke asking annabeth to run away with him went down.

[isan0rt]

Oh boy look at the time. -checks a reoccurring calendar notification that says 'cry in the club about Xehanort and his abandonment complex'-

[arthurmorganson]

[mariocki]

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

"Jane, did you ever stop to think that... if anything happened to me, I mean anything bad, there wouldn't be any money for you? I wouldn't be here to sign the checks. You wouldn't even have pocket money. Did you ever think of that?"

"Yeah, I've thought about that."

[bunnyboy-juice]

blah blah blah blah blah