#almost ascension

[brloche]

"For nearly two centuries I stalked streets like a ghost while the person I was lay here, dead and buried. Now I need to figure out who I am. What I want" "You're the person I Iove. The person I want. The person who need to feel alive."

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

geto yearns to ascend and gojo yearns to descend but geto’s destiny is to descend and gojo’s destiny is to ascend. click post

[poebrey]

I think what threw me off with the epilogue now that I’ve had time to digest it is that it felt so final for Michael. I’m so used to seeing everything through her eyes in real time as she lives her life as the protagonist that when we fast forwarded to the middle I guess it felt like skipping a few chapters of a book. I get why they did it, there may not be any opportunities to see her in the future so they wanted to take what they could get, but until then a part of me was in denial that the show was ending. It just felt like maybe they would pick up again next week and we would start all this over again

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Jon becoming KiTN in Winds (specifically) would actually be bad as far as themes go

[stephantom]

I’d need to watch it again to confirm this, but I’m pretty sure that Thomas Becket is the only character who independently initiates touch with Henry?

There are plenty of people whom Henry touches, and it’s almost always possessive or threatening: the villager woman in the first flashback scene, the Saxon peasant girl (and possibly the old man? I think he prods at both of them with his riding crop), Gwendolen (holding her shoulders/neck), the French prostitute (kissing, leaning over, sitting on, slapping her butt), his sons (pushing and kicking them), the bishop (strangling), his barons (clutching onto one, tapping one’s head to indicate his vapidness), and Thomas too—(clasping his shoulders when he realizes Thomas is hurt, holding his hand to put on the chancellor ring).

Interestingly, I don’t think we ever see Henry touch or be touched by his mother or his wife. There’s the moment when he grabs/kicks their needlework, and later on he knocks all the plates off the table, possibly vaguely in their direction—so there are two physical interactions which are violent but still sort of… distant? And still the direction is just Henry to them (in terms of physicality, anyway—verbally, they do initiate conversations/fights with him).

Does anyone touch Henry? There are the monks who whip him in the end, but Henry has ordered them to do it. Likewise, there’s the servant/valet/page who begins to wipe him dry in the bath scene, but again, that’s someone performing a duty. Thomas Becket though, cuts in and takes over the drying, and the dialogue tells us explicitly that he’s not expected to do this, and doesn’t have to (“You’re a nobleman—why do you play at being my valet?”) but Becket seemingly wants to do it, and he knows Henry likes how he does it: enthusiastically, confidently, warmly, and freely (“No one does it like you, Thomas”). He towels Henry’s head, helps Henry put on his boots, and then casually uses Henry’s legs to push himself up to stand.

There’s the scene in Henry’s tent, after the French prostitute has left and the two of them are sitting on the bed: Becket sort of leans in and briefly clasps Henry’s arm where it’s lying in his lap, casually and warmly.

There’s also the getaway horse ride, where Becket is holding onto Henry, arms wrapped around him, and they’re both laughing and smiling. Henry’s shirt actually falls open a little and Becket’s hand winds up on his bare torso.

And then there are the thwarted attempts at touch, after the split: the two scenes where Henry accuses Becket of not loving him. Both times, Becket moves toward Henry and reaches out to touch him, and both times, Henry moves away and tells him to keep his distance.

They’re quick little things, but if they are actually the only instances of anyone touching Henry affectionately (or even of their own volition) that we see over the course of the movie, it does support an impression of Henry as fundamentally isolated—maybe there is truth to his claim that Becket is the only person who’s ever loved him.

What’s tragic is that 1) Henry doesn’t really know how to express love himself (see: Henry expressing nothing but violence and entitlement to everyone else around him, and even to Becket for the most part), and 2) Becket’s love, albeit huge in Henry’s world, is conflicted and unfulfilling—for both of them.

Becket might be the only person who’s dared to reach out to Henry and meet him on something close to a human level, and Henry loves him for it, but why does Becket do it? Part of it may just be an instinct of Becket’s to fulfill a need where he sees one, if he can, and if it benefits him. I think it’s so interesting that Henry seems obsessed with the question of whether Thomas really loves him, when it seems the truth might be that Thomas actually doesn’t know; maybe it’s an unanswerable, even nonsensical question to him. Like, what else could he do? I don’t know. “Insofar as I was capable of love, yes I did [love you].” But the fact that his last words, unwitnessed and private, are, “Poor Henry.” Fuck me up.

Ok, that last paragraph got away from me and now I can’t stop. Tempted to draw comparisons to “Beauty and the Beast” (this is a sad version where no magical transformation happens… unless you take a particular Catholic stance and consider that both of them maybe took real solace and meaning in Thomas being made a saint and that Henry maybe found real absolution through his penance).

I also want to compare all of this to “The Lion in Winter”, where it feels like, rather than a story about one lonely monster in a castle full of people he sees as objects, it’s a whole microcosm of traumatized and power-hungry people, reaching out for power and security and love and stabbing each other in the back, over and over. (Like, of course his mother and wife and kids have complex feelings for him—some of which involve love!) I think that depiction is better and less myopic, more true to life and probably a more accurate portrait of the historical figures involved (even when it comes to Henry and Becket—Becket was of that world too, after all), but I think I’ve rambled enough about all of this, so I’m going to end this post now. I’ll just say that there’s something nevertheless appealing about the boiled-down fairytale melodrama of “no one else ever loved me but you!”

[c0rpsedemon]

let one of the kids Finally pressure me into opening fgo so she could look at it while i was at work today and uhm. congrats to sei shonagon for being the most popular fate character among girls grades 2-4 at [redacted] elementary school's afterschool program

[errantgoat]

Ok, I decided it was time and ascended my Astarion and...

...you know what, nevermind. I might do the breakup route. I'm not finishing this romance. Harvey would never. Ever. He would never become a spawn willingly for this creep.

Still the breakup lines were too perfect and I think I replayed the conversation at least 3-4 times.

The aftermath talk...well, it ended up on something that did sound like a threat. There is a very strong possibility Astarion will come for Tav when everything is over, just because he was refused. And Tav will not end up the favoured spawn then. Oh no no. Killed or just a pathetic wretch.

That gives me ideas.

[mekanikaltrifle]

act 2 of the story ended, for Malcolm, in a way he's too familiar with now-- coping with a sudden grief in a hospital.

he's starting to hate hospitals, and mages, and magic.

[darabeatha]

/ One of the things that make me go -CLENCHES HANDS ON FISTS AND KNEELS ON THE GROUND LIKE HAVING A TUMMY ACHE- is that thing when Arthur opens up with someone / slowly begins feeling more comfortable with said person, and that cheeky / teasing attitude comes out;;; like he branches out and pokes back at you, and in those moments, you can feel that semblance of a spirit, a human-like trait, it's not that rigidness of a king, nor that far away fantasy of a knight in silver armor, in that moment its;; Arthur,,,, Arthur the man; its like a dandelion slowly opening up to sunlight, it's him letting those pieces of himself to take over the spotlight for a moment, it's him taking a step back and standing next to you, not in front like a shield or your sword, but as a friend, a lover, a man, the remainings of what was left of him since the start that could not fully be discarded; for a moment he pieces them back together, consciously or not, and his eyes gain a different shine

[vulturereyy]

just beat rain world for the first time and i gotta say

what the FUCK just happened

[brloche]

"You're such a tease, Astarion" "Observant. Now just tell me you're in and we can call it a day."

[completeandtotalchaos]

Fun trick that makes Rain World 10x harder: accidentally becoming a parent

[aflo]

i don't think it's normally supposed to take this long

[warlordfelwinter]

i love how fucking hard gale swings in exactly the opposite direction once he realizes mystra was toying with him like not only does he not care about her forgiveness anymore but he's like "wait actually FUCK mystra and EVERY OTHER GOD. I SHOULD BE A GOD."

[whitleyschn33]

So, in essence....

Nothing changed.

[feraltwinkseb]

Donny Osmond singing the National Anthem November 18, 2023 - Las Vegas, Nevada Source: Kym Illman/Getty Images