#but it was all leading up to that moment

[jaehwany]

You know what? I was so scared to be the club head. We joined it together. We played music together. We were punished together. And one day, I had to lead you guys. I was afraid I’d lead our band to failure. I was afraid our club would get cancelled because of me. But my biggest fear was that I’d make you disappointed. On that day, I didn’t wish for us to win Hot Wave. I wished for you guys to not regret being in this club. Go ahead and redeem your wish then. We’ve come this far because of you.

MY SCHOOL PRESIDENT (2022-2023) dir. Au Kornprom Niyomsil

[bookalicent]

yeah so this was insane

[beif0ngs]

LUFFY’S DREAM

Huh? Have I never mentioned this to any of you before...? I guess I only told Shanks, Ace and Sabo then.

[bei-b]

BSS: *being BSS* Mingyu: they ask you how you are, and you just have to say that you're fine, when you're not really fine, but you just can't get into it, because they would never understand

[lovethytendytenderly]

Sunrise, Louise Glück, x x x x x x x x x x x

[farshootergotme]

Hot take, anyone who thinks Dick Grayson has a persistent case of anger issues just doesn't know what anger issues are.

Does he get angry? Yes (I sure would hope so since he's a human being). Would I call it anger issues? No, not really.

[sforzesco]

BALAK, PANGAGAD

uhhh conspiracy. can be a courtship dance. ritual. so to speak. & hosting one in your house is an act of service

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Buck sitting there listening to that call between bathena is very very interesting!!

Choices have been made and prices are shifting into place and I am seated and ready!

[cherrywhite]

Okay some of these I had written down before chapter 43 but I finally found the time to sit down and make a bingo sheet for the last few episodes. Ranging from Legitimate Predictions to Things I Want to Happen to You Know What? Sure 🤠

Template if anyone wants to make one of their own:

[joinmeinjoy]

knight hob knight hob knight hob

[fisheito]

blade, superspeed superstar investigative extraordinaire (flinging entire men around since , uh, Saia)

[rin-solo]

I love. LOVE. Get In the Water

It's one of the objectively best songs in the musical; I will die on this hill.

Poseidon was always, despite being pretty much the main antagonist of EPIC, a really underdeveloped character in my opinion. He just needed a little more nuance and the fact that one (+ kind of one more) song managed to add so much to his characterization pretty much exclusively through subtext and implications is incredibly impressive writing. Because it did!

At the start he's yet again playing games with Odysseus, the way he did in Ruthlessness. In both songs he could kill him easily at any point, yet he chooses not to for the sake of playing games. In Ruthlessness, this becomes his own hubris as it leads to Odysseus escaping.

If you listen closely, at the start of GITW he already sounds slightly different. He's still trying to keep up this "God of Ruthlessness" front that he's so proud of, but he's no longer more or less carefree the way he was in Ruthlessness. He's been obsessing over this feud for ten years, and even if he would never admit it, it's actually clear just from his voice that he really is tired of it too. Not in the sense of it emotionally draining him the way it probably does Odysseus, but in the sense that it's a bother, a loose end in his life, a book that he finally wants to slam shut.

But he still has a reputation to uphold, and he still cannot close this book until Odysseus is dead, so he keeps up the game. Instead of just killing him, he's taunting him to kill himself. He might associate the idea of just striking him down with a sort of loss, like then he'd have to his hands dirty. Then he's rambling about killing his people, his family. He's provoking Odysseus on purpose, likely trying to get him to snap back, to hate him and fear him the way that Poseidon would think any mortal who has consumed this much of his time should. In his eyes, Odysseus deserves nothing less than to curse him with his last breath as his "darkest moment", the god who became the bane of his life.

And Odysseus replies, of all things, with ... sympathy.

Honestly, I don't blame Poseidon for being speechless for three full seconds. He literally just threatened to gauge Telemachus' eyes out the way Odysseus did with Polyphemus, and this absolute madlad of a man replies with an acknowledgement that he (might have) caused Poseidon pain too.

Now, I don't really think Poseidon was particularly hurt over Polyphemus' loss or hurting in any way in that moment. But just the fact that Odysseus acknowledges that he might be hurting too is probably something Poseidon hasn't heard in ... who knows how long? His family is the Olympians. I don't think I have to say more.

It's actually more of a genuine apology than Odysseus' explanation in Ruthlessness ... Now he doesn't say "sorry" because he's still not sorry for hurting Polyphemus, since he still needed to do that in order to escape. But he expresses regret over the pain he caused in a more genuine way than ever.

I am convinced that Poseidon is utterly unfamiliar with sympathy or mercy. He's lived by his "Ruthlessness is mercy" motto for centuries, and he doesn't know anything else. No one would try to teach him something different. The other gods all live by this logic, even if he's the most vocal about it considering he seems to have made it his whole personality. Mortals wouldn't dare to question Poseidon in the first place. And barely anyone would be willing to treat someone with kindness who is in turn treating everyone around them with ruthlessness.

It's very likely that Poseidon hasn't encountered anyone like this until Odysseus. Ruthlessness is simply how he treats people, and also how he expects to be treated back. The fact that Odysseus doesn't, the fact that instead of hating or fearing or cursing him he acknowledges that they have both hurt each other and that it doesn't lead anywhere to still pursue vengeance must have triggered Poseidon in an unprecedented way.

To him, this was probably the most outrageous thing Odysseus could have said in that moment. And it throws him off so much that he is genuinely speechless, and then simply replies, "I can't." ... his most genuine-sounding line in the whole musical.

I cannot stress enough how much it threw me off to hear this line; in the best way imaginable, it doesn't sound like Poseidon. It sounds almost vulnerable. Almost human. Because he is genuinely at a loss so much that he forgets to put up his "wrathful god" facade for just one second. Standing ovation to Steven Rodriguez for his whole performance, but especially this part.

And then Odysseus goes all out, to say something even more outrageous: "Maybe you could learn to forgive?"

... Which is when Poseidon snaps.

Kind of understandable, honestly. There's this mortal whom he has likely fantasized about seeing pleading, hate-filled, and terrified, cowering before him, for ten years now ... telling him that he ought to learn something. Even hijacking his own motif and his instrument in order to turn it on its head, "defile" it if you will.

This f*cking mortal pr*ck took his own "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" catchphrase and turned it into forgiveness ... Of course, Poseidon is no longer hesitating, of course he is no longer concerned with getting his hands dirty or not. He yells "DIE!" and unleashes his ultimate move (which is really overkill for simply killing a mortal if you think about it) ... But he does it anyway because this time he genuinely means it.

This simple exchange (my favorite moment in the whole musical, actually) tells us so much about both of these characters that it makes me want to skitter and squeal in excitement.

Here is Odysseus—the very same one whom Poseidon specifically tried to teach ruthlessness—becoming the first person in a long time to offer him sympathy despite how Poseidon himself showed him nothing but ruthlessness. And then one song later, here is Odysseus showing him the consequences of not accepting said sympathy.

Six Hundred Strike and what Odysseus does to Poseidon would've not hit the same, in my opinion, if he hadn't made this offer, if he hadn't given Poseidon this way out, even if no one watching genuinely expected it to work (probably not even Odysseus himself.)

Six Hundred Strike is not Odysseus exacting vengeance. If GITW proved anything about Odysseus it's that he does not want vengeance. He wants all of the hatred and pain to be over, to the point where he is willing to let go of, and I am inclined to say forgive, Poseidon for what he's done to him. Six Hundred Strike is simply Odysseus teaching him this lesson that Poseidon couldn't have learned in any other way, because he has proven in GITW that he genuinely does not speak any language besides that of ruthlessness.

It's just the perfect representation of how Odysseus has now finally learned the balance between mercy and ruthlessness, which seems to be the core theme of the musical: Both have their time and place, one simply has to be willing to act in both ways and know when to use either. No one extreme is the solution. I am genuinely exhilarated that Odysseus finally seemed to have figured out that it's been both all along.

[sweetiebunbuns]

A story of almosts

[cyarskj1899]

Mind you people say Kanye is acting out to this very day cause he lost his mom years and years ago. Megan hasn’t even gotten a fraction of that grace!

everyone cares about mental health when it comes to Kanye and excuses his antics. You can find articles about his guilt surrounding her death in 2023!!!

but Meg must take full personal responsibility regardless. Megan lost her mom even younger than he did. We don’t see black women as human.

[iam93percentstardust]

one of the things that really bothers me about modern franchises, and in particular over the last 5 years or so, is their refusal to commit. what i mean here when i say this is that it's not uncommon for a major franchise to make a decision, whether about the plot or the characters, that should have had huge, world-changing consequences... and then just never address that again or worse, immediately go back and undo it. and i'm gonna pick on star wars and the mcu here because those are the two big franchises i'm into at the moment (and i think they're kind of the worst at this), but i don't want you to walk away from this thinking that this is solely a disney thing. i've seen this happen with game of thrones and supernatural and plenty of other non-disney franchises. spoilers ahead, you've been warned:

in ant-man & the wasp quantumania, scott and hope make the life-altering decision to stay behind in the quantum realm and defeat kang instead of going through the portal to return to their world. this should have been a huge meta decision for the mcu, and when i first saw it in theaters, my immediate thought was wow, what is this going to mean for the mcu going forward? are we going to get a movie/miniseries about scott and hope helping to rebuild the quantum realm? how are cassie, janet, and hank going to react to the losses of their loved ones (in some cases, for the second time)? is cassie going to become the "first" young avenger because she has to take her father's place among the team lineup (and i only say first because as of this moment, none of the other young avengers introduced to the franchise are official avengers yet)? except nope, because less than 2 minutes later, cassie had fixed the portal that had broken way back at the beginning of the movie and brought scott and hope back.

and it felt like such a cheat. i was so disappointed in that theater, not as someone who was invested in these characters on a personal level (because yay, cassie gets her dad back!), but as someone who has spent years investing themselves in the story of the mcu. what was the point of wasting screentime on scott and hope accepting their new lives in the quantum realm if it was just going to immediately be undone? the entire scene could have been cut to scott and hope making it back bare seconds before the portal closed and it would have had the same emotional impact. there was nothing added by making scott and hope (and us) think that there was no way back only to rip the rug out from under us and go "gotcha! you really thought we were gonna give this movie a sad ending? haha! you're so dumb!"

and this isn't the first time the mcu has done this. one of the biggest complaints about endgame was the decision to set it five years in the future with no consideration for how that would actually change the setting of the mcu. characters were brought back to the exact place they disappeared from with no consideration for how things might have changed in the interim five years (like planes that weren't in the air anymore, buildings no longer standing, even just something as simple as a chair being unoccupied). and then the mcu didn't even really have the courage to address how this would have shaped the world other than a few jokes and making the bad guys in the falcon and the winter soldier people who cared about how the world had screwed them over during the blip.

and things like this happen over and over and over again. the accords are put into place in civil war, but by the time we get to she-hulk, they're gone with no explanation because, as best as i can tell, the writers didn't want to have to deal with the worldbuilding that went into the accords. gamora is killed in infinity war, but heaven forbid quill not have an emotional investment in a film he appears for maybe 10 minutes in so now she's back in endgame. steve got to go live in the past with his ex-girlfriend (which is in itself a refusal to commit after the mcu both gave her a different husband and had the woman herself tell him to move on) but we need to establish that messing with timelines is bad because that's what the entire next phase hinges on so actually his ending was predestined and it's only everyone else who can't change time. whoever took this entire town and also wanda hostage and forced them to live out a sitcom fantasy is bad and needs to be stopped but wait, it's actually wanda and she can't be the bad guy yet, we need her for doctor strange 2, so actually everyone's going to defend her now and say that no one else could ever possibly understand her grief. thor has decided to accept responsibility as king of asgard, but we can't use him for any more movies if he's stuck in asgard, so actually he's decided to pass it on to someone whose entire leadership capability is developed offscreen. i could list more examples but this is making me angry, so let's move on to star wars instead.

with star wars, i look at first the oft-quoted meme, "somehow palpatine has returned." yeah, i shouldn't really need to go into detail on how that counts as a refusal to commit but. the last jedi was a study in how johnson refused to commit to anything that abrams had laid down in the force awakens, but rise of skywalker was almost like abrams had looked at the franchise and said "screw you for taking it away from me, i'm going to come up with the most bullshit stuff just to spite you for doing that in the first place. and i'm going to start by undoing the most important plot point of the first trilogy: the emperor dies." and yeah, disney's kind of tried to salvage this by dropping hints into the bad batch and the mandalorian about cloning, but that only really works if you're watching the franchise chronologically and not considering that both of those series came out after rise of skywalker.

and then there's the mandalorian, my sweet summer child, who is, in my opinion, the worst at backtracking their plot points. i'm not entirely convinced that any of the higher ups for this show really knew what they were doing when they started working on it and i'm not convinced that they know what they're doing now. yeah, there's the tie-in to the last season of clone wars, but the mandalorian has managed to walk back pretty much every single major plot point it's had. din is this legendary warrior who can't be beat, but no one will watch this show if he defeats everyone too early, so he's constantly getting beat up (tbf, sometimes some of the fights he loses makes sense like the krayt dragon and the mudhorn, but a lot of them don't. at all). moff gideon is dead, no wait no he's not, now he's imprisoned, no wait no he's not, now he's definitely dead, you can totally believe us this time guys. grogu can use the force and must be placed with the jedi, but wait, the only person still actively teaching the way of the jedi is luke and all of his students will be brutally murdered ten years from now, and we can't have that, everyone will be mad at us for killing off such a cute character and no one will buy baby yoda dolls (and also we have to set up luke's character degradation from hopeful, believes-in-love cinnamon roll to "i'm going to kill my nephew") so in between seasons let's have grogu decide to go back to din (and don't even get me started on how frustrating it is that a casual mandalorian watcher also had to watch book of boba fett to understand why grogu is back). din has the darksaber now which makes him king of mandalore, that's totally going to be important and what the entire series has been building up to, right? wrong! he might have spent the first two seasons making connections, learning about the world outside his sheltered upbringing, and demonstrating the various qualities that would make for a good leader, but the entire third season will be about din realizing that actually he's super unworthy and the darksaber should actually go to someone who... saw an animal in the water.

and it's really, really frustrating as a viewer! because how am i supposed to get invested in any of these plot decisions when they almost always get reversed? why should i care that mj and ned have forgotten peter when ant-man 3 has shown me that they'll remember him the next time they're all on screen together? why should i care that tech is dead when half of the last season of clone wars was about how echo was actually alive? if none of these decisions have any permanence, then where are the emotional stakes? why should i watch your movie if all you're going to tell me is that nothing matters?

[p4nishers]

thinking about the relationship between mightily oats' "the worthwhile [words] don't burn" and constable dorfl's "the words in the heart cannot be taken"