#both different flavors

[cakebatteronabrickwall]

Sure, “the cycle is cycling” is a fun and cute thing to say but in all honesty? To me, the succession ending sort of accidentally broke that logic. Can you really draw the logical conclusion that the siblings end up like Ewan and Logan? No, because what was the reason for their estrangement? Ultimately, Ewan resents Logan for letting himself become the person he died as. Why was Logan like that? Because of the company (very simplisitc, there is more here obviously). Shiv literally takes that possibility away from Kendall by voting against him.

Does that mean being “out” magically fixes their shit? Of course not. Here is the thing. Kendall will always be trapped in the cycle of thinking he was meant to be CEO, it was instilled into him as a child! Part of him will always resent Shiv for her vote and will always come back to this formative moment. But. Does that mean he can never care about anything else, doomed to wander around as an empty shell? I don’t think so, we’ve been through the epic highs and lows of corporate fuckery with Ken, he somehow always returns to himself in the end, partially because of his siblings.

Shiv will always be stuck knowing that her being a woman plays a major part in the way her father and every other man in her life treats her. That resentment won’t go away either, it may even take a new shape with motherhood mixed in. But also, she is probably working a new angle with Tom as we speak. Maybe she’ll return to her political roots, who knows, she certainly will do everything to not become her mother even if she jokes about the opposite at the funeral. But the most important thing to me is the fact that, even in her resentment towards Ken, she tells him “I love you, but I can’t fucking stomach you”. The first part did not need to be there. And yet.

And Roman (always hardest to talk about for me, lol). Well, he will always look for guidance outside of himself, he will always need his family. His ending is lonely on one side, but there is a quiet beauty in it as well. After everything, there is a moment of solitude and being able to breathe, even reminisce. He just started really grieving and wherever the path leads, it will never lead back to Logan. It can’t. He will always love his father (and I need to take the moment to say- that is totally fine, we as observers have a different view on their relationship than him), but his father will never be able to abuse that or hold it against him again. The wheels have come off the cycle and the engine is dead. The entire fourth season can be seen as an attempt to keep the cycle alive, because it is comforting in a way. But it doesn’t work, because, I repeat, THE ENGINE IS LITERALLY DEAD.

See, succession clearly has shown that whereas Logan and Ewan had no desire to be a family, the sibs always find their way back to each other. After Ken’s season 1 bullshit. After Ken’s press conference. After the confrontation with Logan. Ewan tells people at the funeral “I loved him I suppose, but-” but none of them would ever say that. The love is so clearly, inarguably there and maybe that is the real tragedy; that in another world it could have been a much easier kind of love (but it rarely is, for most of us anyways).

[levemetal]

Ye old Shen twins au where they both become peak lords EXCEPT. Instead of making them twin peak lords or something, we pretend the evidence that the beast peak does likely not exist is lies, and Shen Yuan gets to become peak lord of the beast peak. Why? Because he would LOVE IT there. It's his territory. He gets to be unapologetically nerdy about beasts 24/7 and make it everyone's problem.

As he should.

And bonus! He can snatch LBH at the disciple hole digging. Plot solved! (Assuming the system wouldn't you know. Pull system stuff and force LBH to end up on Qing Jing or some shit.)

And everyone lived happily ever after or some bullshit idk. I reread the 79 extras as well as the TLJ & ZZL ones let me have fluffy AU thoughts goddamnit, my heart has been irreparably damaged-

[tarucore]

really telling how in their efforts to retcon Bruce and Dick’s golden age relationship, which was so openly loving and respectful that people thought of it as romantic, the geniuses at DC swung so hard in the other direction that they just changed the flavor of the ship

like making Bruce obsessive, controlling and abusive towards Dick didn’t dispel the rumors, it just turned a healthy (albeit unconventional) gay relationship into an unhealthy or predatory gay relationship

[gremlinscomics]

"Who needs a break down when you can simply break it down?"

-Casey Jones, probably

[mhin-t]

what is up with me and fictional guys who are generally well liked in universe, no matter how much of a red flag they actually are, with their goddamn tits and flamboyance

[trillscienceofficer]

These are highly subjective interpretations but to me Jadzia and Seven are two (opposite?) flavors of gender indifference:

Jadzia: gender depends on what's funnier in the moment/what allows her to commit further to the bit. Always aware on some level that she's putting on a show and she loves it, especially if other people get confused. Not her job to explain! Figure it out yourself!

Seven (Voyager edition): wants OFF this ride, it's already a concession that Seven is using I/my/myself pronouns instead of we/us/ourselves, why is being an individual tied so closely to gender in the first place. She/her is, for the moment, just the least exhausting option when interacting with others among pronouns that all feel alien to her

[chronologically-challenged]

Everything around the Isabeau confession is so well written.

Firstly, the set up. When you're playing the game, killing the King is just a vague goal. A natural one! But other than the vague desire to hit an end point, there isn't really a strong emotional reason compelling the player forward. But Isabeau!!! Telling you he will tell you something once you beat the King!!! That!!! That is a tangible goal to lean onto especially over time as you get more and more endeared to the whole party. Even if you're not aware of it being a love confession, getting to Isabeau to hear what he has to say is still a compelling reason get to the end.

And if you're Aware of how these things go for stories like these, you may also say, "Well shit, we're not gonna get a confession until the end of the game, are we?"

Second, the interruptions. The order of the interruptions are so quietly brilliant. I can't get over it. Bonnie interrupting first is such an excellent choice. You know Bonnie!!! Bonnie has been jumping into conversations all game so far. So interrupting Isabeau doesn't seem all that out of place. Then Mirabelle interrupts next time. And you go, okay. Thats two of three.... but surely Odile won't interrupt, right? By this point, the player has seen Odile tease Isabeau multiple times about him liking Siffrin, so surely she won't interrupt... right? Right??? But she does. And despite it being obvious that she would, the player is still left in tension if she would.

The way things are set up, there's a plausible deniability each time. You don't expect the first interruption, Bonnie naturally would interrupt so Mirabelle could be surprising, and Odile interrupting feels so outside of what she'd usually do that you don't expect it.

And yet!!!! Saying all this!!! This is very tropey!!! Very time loop tropey!!! Stopping people from messing things up so you can have your moment is quintessential time loop tropes and yet!!! It doesn't feel tropey due to good characterization and story structure.

(And if you do realize that all three are going to interrupt from the beginning, you get a wave of DREAD when you realize that you're going to be here. Again and again. That you have to beat the King again and again and again... and as you watch the confession fizzle, seeing the Head Housemaiden there, despite Siffrin's happy demeanor, you can't help but feel it all about to crash down before it even happens. In that moment you have a taste of what the game is about to put you through).

Third, the family quests. I have two points here. Firstly, "yelling at your screen like it's a telenovela" is the best summary of my feelings on the stargazing scene. Even if you KNOW Isabeau isn't going to confess until the end of the game bc that's how these things go, it won't happen until the end because that's how good writing works, You Still Want It To Happen. So Badly. You want Isabeau to confess to Siffrin!!! You want that tension to release!!! But you have to watch and see that perfect confession slip away every time and it hurts to watch, especially if you do the quests multiple times. Second point is the fact you can't continue the Isabeau confessions on a family run kills me. It's so good. Like you're never going to get everything in one go no matter what you do so you have to pick and choose. And!!! That plays into Siffrin feeling like he's manipulating Isabeau!!!

Of course Siffrin isn't actually manipulating Isabeau but when you're so aware of what you're doing and how events could have played out, it's difficult not to see a situation where you changed the outcome as manipulation. Which... of course leads us to Siffrin's feelings at the end of trying to stop the interruptions...

Fourth, Isabeau stopping himself when confessing. It hurts so good. Idk just. Denying the player that payoff. Denying Siffrin that moment of confession. Because really Siffrin didn't learn the lesson needed to actually get this moment of vulnerability between the two of them. It's such a genius choice that brings that awful dread and hopelessness. And in the end, I suppose all five of them stop the confession from happening because from that point onward, Siffrin interrupts the confession every time. Siffrin doing everything they can to get what they want only to accept that they're never going to get it. Never CAN get this because he doesn't deserve it.

Finally, bad touch. People have talked about bad touch enough, so I dont need to go too far with it. I will say I appreciate how much it doubles down on subverting the "romancing someone in a time loop" narrative. These loops while in some ways made Siffrin more perceptive, they're also PAINFUL. They mess with his head, lean towards making worse and worse decisions, and a large part of that is his role in his family's lives. Especially with Isabeau!!! So yeah. Of course the surprise kiss doesn't go well. Especially with the context that Isabeau doesn't think Siffrin wants to be touched let alone kissed? It ends in disaster just like most of the sidequests do.

In general, the ongoing Isabeau plot is very well implemented. The seeds for it are planted immediately, and it takes a lot of commitment to see all the parts of it. As a result, unless you try to do a ton of runs in act 3 immediately just to get the confession, it's a very slow burn part of the story, doing well to parallel Siffrin's mental state and the growing hopelessness in the loops. It grounds the story in a tangible goal from the beginning and in many ways, once you get to the end of it, get to bad touch, you're left bereft. Something... lost after you spent so much time being aware of Isabeau. That tangible feeling that you're slowly running out of things to do, of ways to spend these two days.

(And of course, then you have act 6 confession, and the pure relief, the joy in finally having the confession after it being set up from act 1. Siffrin doesn't need to reciprocate for it to have its impact. Something has CHANGED they have changed. And finally FINALLY after all this time, the moment can happen. And it's beautiful).

[tangledinink]

new gemini update was so good as always but I can't stop thinking:

big mama: there's nothing wrong with my sons

splinter: you fucked up two perfectly good kids is what you did. look at blue. he's got an eating disorder

wwhhhattttt? nooo, don't be silly. leo doesn't have an eating disorder.

leo and donnie have eating disorders--

[sillybillytime]

Spock and Kirk are t4t lesbians send post

[zorosdimples]

zen’in “i’m going to fuck you” maki + okkotsu “i’m going to make love to you” yuuta

[ecto-hazard]

The objectsonas

[bepoucorp]

POOLVERINE IS KINDA LIKE MARVEL'S BATJOKES MINUS THE TOXICITY, CHANGE MY MIND-

mmm sort of?? poolverine and batjokes share the "annoying x stoic" kind of ship type but beyond that... not really? the toxicity of batjokes mostly MAKES it batjokes AND poolverine is kind of toxic in that they hated/tried to kill each other at one point? batjokes is villain x hero, poolverine is hero x hero, yada yada...

overall i can see theres some similarities but I wouldnt say that /nm !!

[risingsouls]

[I really can't with this fandom sometimes. Where the hell does the idea that Trunks--especially FUTURE Trunks--is like Vegeta? He's not! And that's a really good thing! Hot take: It's an insult to say TO Future Trunks to say he is anything like Vegeta.]

[sitritea]

Gabv1 being an unintentional situationship at first simply because Gabriel assumes the machine is unfeeling and he can't come to terms with his own desires, while the machine simply doesn't know what Gabriel wants or how to approach his needs. So they both keep awkwardly avoiding eachother

[spitblaze]

Gold and Silver are good kids and Gold likes to show up unannounced to Lance's house post-game to bother Silver and Silver is like 'ugh great just what I need a loud annoying weirdo' but they are neither loud nor annoying while they hang out they just quietly sit on the floor reading magazines abt pokemon or playing video games and sometimes Gold will shove something in Silver's face like 'WHOA CHECK THIS OUT' and Silver will be like 'can you quiet down. What stupid thing could possibly get you that excited' as if he wouldn't also be equally excited about the very cool article about Sharpedo Gold just found

[horizon-penblade]

Shoulder angel and shoulder devil? No. Shoulder tumblrina and shoulder redditor.