#because this isn’t it

[lauransoverthinking]

So… Crystal Crisis. Some of the most amazing, heart wrenching, I have to lay down and cry foreshadowing ever.

And I hate it. I hate it so much. Like, visceral, need to shake some people, rage.

Why?

Because that famous foreshadowing quote is the worst characterization of Obi-wan I have ever seen (from Star Wars. The worst characterization definitely belongs to some fanfic somewhere).

And here’s why. It’s all in the quote (the quote, the reason Crystal Crisis gets so much tumblr action than the other not completed arcs).

Quote 1:

Obi-Wan: "I will grant you mistakes were made, but she choseto leave. Part of the Jedi way is not letting emotion cloud your better judgment. And that's precisely what Ahsoka did, even in her most critical moment.

Ahsoka has many, many lapses in judgement during The Wrong Jedi arc. Like, so many. She is clearly panicking. She absolutely let her emotions cloud her judgement.

But not when she chose to leave.

Obi-wan and Anakin may not like the decision she made, but she made it with a clear head.

It is very in character for Anakin to not understand this.

But Obi-wan? No. This is so far out of character for him.

… and yet it gets worse

Quote the second:

Obi-Wan: "You can't take responsibility for Ahsoka's decision, Anakin."

Anakin: "How would you feel if I turned into a major disappointment?"

Obi-Wan: "It's not the same."

Anakin: "It's precisely the same: you took me under your wing and practically raised me. I'm your padawan, just like Ahsoka was mine. How well would you sleep knowing that I failed you?"

Obi-Wan: "Not very well, I imagine. Luckily, that isn't true and never will be. "

Star Wars rhymes and foreshadows and is beautiful and makes us cry and this quote is one of the reasons.

Obi-wan is so sure Anakin won’t disappoint him and then HE DOES and it is awful and hurts!!

But that isn’t what I want to talk about here.

What I want to talk about is how Ahsoka is not a failure.

She is not a disappointment.

She went through a trauma and said I cannot trust myself, I need some time.

She did not do anything un-jedi-like on her way out. No middle fingers, no yelling, just a simple I cannot be here anymore.

Again - this is spot on Anakin characterization (for his worst faults).

If someone leaves him, he has to blame them if he can’t blame himself. It cannot be neutral. It cannot be something that just needed to happen, something must have gone wrong. Someone must have failed. He is not good at situations he cannot fix, and this is one he cannot fix. When he cannot fix it, it must be someone’s fault.

But Obi-wan? I am expected to believe that he considers Ahsoka a failure? That he considers her a disappointment?

I refuse to believe it.

Obi-wan may be disappointed she is gone. He may be disappointed she left. But he is not disappointed in her.

You can be disappointed in the way something happened, or the choice someone made, without being disappointed in them.

What Obi-wan should have done here (what I believe he absolutely would have done) is explain the difference to Anakin. Explain that they don’t have to like her choice, but they should support is and hope she is doing well. They should be hoping they she is finding the answers and solace that she needs. That she is healing.

Reaffirm that people are allowed to make decisions, and that making a decision Anakin doesn’t agree with does not make someone a failure.

[emotional-moss]

idk y’all should treat fat men better. and i don’t mean mildly chubby guys i mean honest-to-god love-handles-and-double-chins fat guys. stop calling them shit like discord mods or gross weebs or nasty creeps or neckbeards or that they’re stinky or sweaty or beer bellied or whatever else. fatphobia isn’t cute, even repackaged in a neat little box of “ew men”

[adaki]

Sry I’m late, I was being held in a maximum security prison on a secluded island and they had no wifi.

[ryan-sometimes]

TERF shocked to discover that the real world is not an online echo chamber, and that instead the average woman either supports or just doesn’t care about trans people the way they do

[bruciemilf]

Alfred honestly can’t say shit about Bruce bringing in strays, because what if the Waynes got him the same way?

I genuinely can’t recall HOW Alfred, British special forces extraordinaire, ended up working for Gotham’s (scary) sweethearts.

In my mind, he came to them bleeding.

There’s a tang of bitterness pooling in his gut. Soldiers don’t have friends. They have guns. And he’s all out.

Just when Alfred thought all is in peril, a tiny little hand gently covers a nasty bullet hole on his abdomen.

The first thing Alfred thinks about is: ‘Jesus, this kid has scary eyes.’

“Hi, Alfred.”

“…How do you—“

“Bruce! Jesus FUCKING Christ, I swear, I’m not paying for your ransom next time you run o—…What the fuck is that?”

If there’s one thing about Thomas that Alfred will never forget is his voice; The bass , so chasmic and powerful it could shake the whole world, and the burning care in his eyes despite his vulgarity.

Bruce, — who’s the tiniest bundle of a boy Alfred witnessed, is yanked up by his father’s strong hands, squeezed to his chest carefully. “Hurt,” he says. There’s a tiny, red handprint on Thomas’ shirt.

“Yeah, I didn’t notice,” Thomas mumbling, looking around.

Maybe local gangs? The bullet point is too precise, too calculated. “Who the hell are you?”

Alfred, with his raspy breath, says, “I’m the terribly rude bloke dying on your doorstep, I’m afraid. Alfred Pennyworth. At your service.”

For a guy who’s about to bleed his last, he sounds awfully sarcastic.

“Yeah, wise guy, no one’s dying on my kid’s birthday. Bruce, tell Dotty to prep up the basement. And tell your mama to get my Budlight out of the cooler. Jesus Christ.”

Alfred ends up hoisted on this man’s back. Thomas asks if he has anyone he wants to call? Anyone that’ll come pick him up? Anyone to bury him, if it comes to it.

Alfred whispers he does not.

Thomas sighs. “Well. Kid‘a been asking for a playmate.”

[morganbritton132]

No Capes Batman AU where Jason is just like, ‘I’m meant to be a middle child. I’ve got middle child energy’ and then steals the neighbor kid. Not like they were using him anyways.

[novelconcepts]

I Saw the TV Glow is such a uniquely, devastatingly queer story. Two queer kids trapped in suburbia. Both of them sensing something isn’t quite right with their lives. Both of them knowing that wrongness could kill them. One of them getting out, trying on new names, new places, new ways of being. Trying to claw her way to fully understanding herself, trying to grasp the true reality of her existence. Succeeding. Going back to help the other, to try so desperately to rescue an old friend, to show the path forward. Being called crazy. Because, to someone who hasn’t gotten out, even trying seems crazy. Feels crazy. Looks, on the surface, like dying.

And to have that other queer kid be so terrified of the internal revolution that is accepting himself that he inadvertently stays buried. Stays in a situation that will suffocate him. Choke the life out of him. Choke the joy out of him. Have him so terrified of possibly being crazy that he, instead, lives with a repression so extreme, it quite literally is killing him. And still, still, he apologizes for it. Apologizes over and over and over, to people who don’t see him. Who never have. Who never will. Because it’s better than being crazy. Because it’s safer than digging his way out. Killing the image everyone sees to rise again as something free and true and authentic. My god. My god, this movie. It shattered me.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Elizabeth Afton bets on losing dogs in FNAF..

[ambrosiagourmet]

I want to talk about why I think this is the one of the most important Falin panels:

So, Falin is really nice, right? It's one of the first things we really learn about her. She's kind even to the monsters of the dungeon - choosing to ward the party rather than fight spirits and cause them needless harm.

In the above early flashback in chapter 11, we see Marcille fawning over Falin's kindness, calling her an angel. Namari calls her soft-hearted. We see Falin choose not to fight even when a zombie attacks - instead she resolves the confrontation with a hug. After the flashback, the first thing Senshi says is that Falin "sounds like quite the person," which Marcille strongly affirms.

At this point in the story, all we have seen of Falin are these impressions; she is a healer, an angel, a caretaker with an infinite well of kindness towards everyone she meets - both friend and foe.

And honestly, that remains most of what we have to go by to understand her. The only times we get to see Falin on the page, alive and just herself, are in the opening and closing pages of the story and in the brief period of time after she is resurrected.

Nonetheless, we do have some more details to work with. For one, there is the scene that The Panel is from - a short memory in chapter 75, when Marcille flashes back to while she's dying. In that scene, Falin prepares to teleport them all out, and says that she's sorry "if there is a person at [their] destination." And that's when we get The Panel.

If you teleport someone or something into another person, the person teleported into is likely to be, at minimum, severely injured. They could die.

We can see a lovely little horrifying example of exactly why in one of the Daydream Hour doodles:

So, hmm. That's not... that's not SUPER nice. Certainly not displaying the same "kindness to all, friend and foe included" we saw represented earlier. On a basic level, this adds some nuance to Falin's kindness. We see it break a little, when pushed to the limit. We see her chose to protect the people she loves above all else.

Which makes sense! As Laios says when the Winged Lion accuses him of similarly being motivated more by his friends' safety than everyone else in the dungeon, "...most people, aside from virtuous do-gooders, would feel the same way."

So, we can take The Panel as simply showing a moment of weakness for Falin. A time when she was pushed to her limits, and that "most people" selfish side of her shone through.

However... I think there's a little more going on with Falin than just her being an angel 99% of the time, except just that once. I love The Panel because I think it helps us understand that Falin isn't just motivated by kindness - she also has a desire to avoid seeing people in pain.

Isn't that the same thing?

No, no it very much is not.

Let's look at a short comic from the Falin section of the Adventurer's Bible, because I think it illustrates this point perfectly. The group is complaining about how much Marcille's healing hurts, and comparing it to Falin's, which "doesn't hurt a bit." Marcille retorts with the following:

Now, the punchline of this comic is that, despite Marcille's sentimental assertion that she's "thinking of [them]" by letting her healing magic hurt, they all still prefer to be healed by Falin.

But hey, this wouldn't be the first time that Dungeon Meshi hides a very real character beat or insight in a gag, so let's think about this somewhat seriously.

If Marcille is right (and she knows a fair bit about magic, so we can assume that she has at least somewhat of a point), then what Falin is doing isn't kind. I suppose if someone specifically requested to not feel the pain, it could be kind, but that's not really what happened here. She is the one who felt badly about the others being in pain, and she is the one who decided, without telling them or giving them a choice in the matter, to take away that pain.

Both Marcille and Falin are healing the party, but Marcille is doing it in a way that accomplishes the task in the most straight forward way, without any additional interference. Falin is going out of her way to perform the healing in a way she is more comfortable with. A way that avoids pain.

Going back the The Panel, I don't think its a coincidence that the only time we see Falin (well, non-chimera Falin) willing to do something that could hurt someone is when any potential pain will be far away from her. If she got someone hurt or killed by teleporting the party to the surface? Not only would it be far out of her sight, but she'd be dead before she had to deal with any consequences of that action.

Falin is not a confrontational person. She doesn't push when Marcille won't tell her the truth about the resurrection, and she comforts Laios about her own death - both of those things happening in the only full chapter she is alive and conscious in the whole story.

We also know that she considered accepting Shuro's proposal, despite not having any special feelings towards him, and that Falin never explained to Marcille that she wanted them to share a meal together. When she brought Marcille various foods at the academy, she just accepted Marcille's confused rejection and gave up.

And lastly, we know that she is still in contact with her parents, despite the neglect and abuse she suffered at their hands. Although the way someone chooses to handle contact with abusive or bad family is a complicated topic, which I don't want to overly simplify, I do I think this fact gets at the heart of how she handles conflict.

So many people that Falin loves have hurt her. There are understandable hurts, like Laios leaving the village, or Marcille not understanding the food. And there are bigger, far less justifiable hurts - like her parents neglecting her throughout her childhood, and sending her away to be alone at the magic academy.

It doesn't seem like Falin has ever confronted any of it directly.

And the unhealthy aspects of this kind of avoidance of pain and confrontation is one of the things that the story of Dungeon Meshi is all about. We see Laios grapple with it before he goes to kill Falin, and we see Marcille acknowledge it at the end of the story, when she tells Laios that she has come to terms with Falin's death:

Eating is a part of life. Consuming other living things is a part of life. It isn't really possible to avoid that pain - you can only hide from the truth of it. You have to be selfish everyday. You have to eat - to choose to live. To choose to take up space.

And this is something Falin embraces, too. She comes back to life, after all.

We see her choose to come back to life.

And how does she make that choice? She eats. She consumes, and then she is asked a question by the manifestation of hunger itself:

Do you want to eat more?

There is a double meaning in the Winged Lion's final words on the next page.

When I first read this, I took it as him saying: life is cruel. You will suffer. You will feel more pain.

But perhaps, especially for Falin, this also means: you are choosing a path where you must cause pain. Where you must consume. Where you must take, and must be selfish. Because eating is the special privilege of the living, and it is their burden, too. In order to stay alive, she will need to keep eating.

And she chooses that. Chooses to be selfish. It's why her resurrection scene is so important, and it's why The Panel is so important. Because Falin coming back isn't the ultimate reward for all of the party's hard work.

It's her choice. Just like it was her choice that started everything in the first place. But this time, she doesn't choose to accept causing pain for the sake of Marcille and Laios. She does it for her own sake.

[kelin-is-writing]

HELLO???? PRO-HERO TOUYA???? I’M FOLDING SO BAD—?????

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Brucie Wayne gets into a mild accident in public (read-got hit by a car). And Batman would just walk it off (“it’s barely a bruise”), but Brucie obviously… can’t.

So he has to suffer the ordeal of having civilians call paramedics, getting fussed over, and having-

Having his dead son get into the back of the ambulance with him.

Oh- oh no. He must have hit his head worse than he thought. He thought he was past this…

[sabertoothwalrus]

So it’s Kabru right. Laios’s regent is Kabru. If anything happened to Laios, Kabru would have regency. He would have control over the kingdom. If he wanted. Because he knows how to kill people and could easily take that power for himself. But he won’t, because he likes Laios and thinks he’s a good king. But he could.

I didn’t realize Kabru had This much power. He’s essentially next-in-line until Laios produces an heir.

[joycrispy]

Zepotha will never be Goncharov because when it comes down to it, tumblr culture is collaborative, while tiktok culture is merely iterative, and those are not the same thing.

[youregonnabeokay-kid]

i think a lot of people (especially those who haven’t read the books) are underestimating Hades

yes, he presents as the sassy queer uncle who’s done with his family’s drama, but he’s not “just some guy”

when his Helm is stolen, no one knows about it. he uses his own resources and orchestrates a plan to bring Percy to the underworld alive, all while managing an entire freaking kingdom

he doesn’t threaten war because he doesn’t have to and he knows it. unlike Zeus, he keeps a level head and thinks about the situation logically

think about Percy’s priorities throughout the show, look at what the flashbacks are teaching us about him and his relationship with others. think logically. this is a 12 year old kid who grew up with a single mom and no friends

his priority is his mom, it’s always been his mom and Hades knows that. Percy’s worst fear is losing his mother and Hades uses that against him

he takes Sally before Poseidon claims Percy because he has eyes everywhere. he already knew who Percy was and he already had a plan formed before Percy even set foot in camp

when he greets Percy and Grover he isn’t surprised, relieved, or agitated because he planned this. he knew that Percy would come to him whether by force or by his own choice (for my book readers, think about this in comparison to how Zeus reacts to the situation. Zeus comes off as desperate and angry, whereas Hades is at ease. annoyed, sure, but never panicked)

when he offers them pomegranate juice it’s in the guise of politeness and humour but it has an underlying meaning. Percy knows the stories about Hades and Hades knows that he knows. the pomegranate juice is a reminder, it’s Hades demonstrating his power without outright threatening Percy. it’s him going “I can make something as small as a pomegranate seed into a weapon” it’s him asserting his dominance and control over the situation

he leads them to a seating area clearly made for their arrival. another reminder that he knew they were coming and Sally stands, frozen in the middle of it as a reminder of what they have to lose

when he learns that it’s Kronos behind the robberies he immediately offers sanctuary to Percy, Grover, and his mom. Kronos, the king of titans, the father of all Gods, and a being who could once tear the world in two with the snap of his fingers, wants Percy, and Hades offers to protect him because he’s that powerful

so yes, Hades makes dad jokes and he talks in a way you wouldn’t expect an all-powerful being to talk, but he isn’t “just some guy”

he’s powerful, he knows it, and he shows just enough of that power to absolutely terrify Percy

[keferon]

Empurata!Prowl tries to actually communicate for the first time

What if he wants to say something but he can’t. What if he has no voice to speak, no face to emote, no hands to write. What if every attempt to communicate a message is essentially a puzzle of wit and creativity and yet, the first thing he goes through all these troubles for. Is to say “I love you”?

Don’t ask me how did they get in this room. I have no idea. They escaped the battlefield somehow haha

Next->

[what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me]

He would not go there.