#can't really even be sure WHAT the primary goal was

[whetstonefires]

See I don't necessarily disagree with what seems to be the primary reading that Yue Qingyuan's shifu fucked him over, caring nothing for his needs or preferences and only for whether he was useful. That makes sense, it ties into plenty of the generational and societal themes of the story. It fits.

But iirc we don't actually get enough information to know that's what happened.

And the thing is it would be so in-character and also thematically appropriate if Yue Qingyuan absolutely did not explain his goals or why he was working so hard, because it was private and shameful and he didn't expect any sympathy, and there was a high risk of losing everything if he blabbed.

And also if he engaged with the existing ruleset with which he was presented, i.e. 'can't go off on your own on personal business until you've mastered your sword,' in the most negative and controlling manner possible, as absolute commandments.

He's a different kind of guy but he comes from the same background as Shen Jiu! It fucked him up also!

He is very very very not a guy who trusts the system to make allowances for him--even once he has all the power he 'does what he wants' and 'makes selfish choices' as a conscious transgression; not something he has a right to do, just something he can get away with so he's gonna. (And ofc he spends almost all the latitude he grants himself on sqq.)

And even less is he a guy who opens up easily.

He isn't too proud to ask for help or pity, so much as he just doesn't expect to get any.

So in this interpretation, he understood that rule as a non-negotiable barrier in his path, the target to overcome, and focused all his considerable will and talent on overcoming it through the sphere of action he felt he had control over.

And fucked himself up bad.

Whereupon his teacher, possessing absolutely no context for this dumb shit their star pupil pulled, did the only thing they thought might work to save his life, paying in the process no attention to the raving of someone deep in a psychotic break.

Like, I feel like there should have been a better, kinder medical option, but I don't know for sure that there was, so I can't say with certainty this was the kind of cruelty that derives from not caring enough.

And it really would be kind of elegant and so typical of Yue Qingyuan's fundamental tragedy if the real mistake was 'not confiding in anybody' the whole time.

And he was just so deeply sunk into the understanding that explaining and asking were useless that, even looking back, it never really occurred to him that maybe his mistake wasn't 'fucking it up when trying too hard to solve everything on his own' but 'assuming there was no help to be had, and that he had to do it all on his own.'

Like. What if this really could all have been avoided if he'd just trusted and communicated with the adult in charge of him? But of course, of course his history of trauma (neglect, child abuse, exploitation, being the One Responsible for the younger kids whom he could not keep safe) meant he was absolutely not going to do that.

It was basically impossible. For the person he was, the person the world had made of him. And that's always been the core tragedy the whole novel circles back upon.

People can only ever be themselves, and so very often the elements of self that let them survive until now are that which dooms them, that means they need someone else to intervene if they're ever going to be saved. Because your personal doom is always the thing from which you can't save yourself.

[quitealotofsodapop]

Ok but Wukong claims MK as Yubei's honorary/sworn older brother. Macaque who was in the room suddenly feels a cold swear as he Realized Wukong Sees MK As His Kid. His Clcub, who Macaque had chased fown and hunted like an animal in an effort to keep LBD's attention off of Wukong himself.

Macaque has that revelation loooong before Yuebei is born.

You see...

When Macaque was still processing that Wukong (his former mate) had been pregnant with the Egg for many many years - he had a brief brain-fart during "Shadow Play" and at during his panic he asks;

Macaque: "Is it my kid!? Wait..." *glares at MK really hard* "Are you my kid???" MK: "Wut." Macaque: "No, no, wait, thats dumb, it's the same baby now as back then. Sorry bud, but I am totally freaking out right now." MK: "Because you spent the last couple hundred years being a deadbeat dad?" Macaque, grabs MK by the shoulders: "YES!!"

The rest of the MKrew escape the Shadow Lantern simply because Mac was panicking so hard he dropped it. Even being super mad at him, they stay until he stops hyperventillating. In Mac's defense, he's not sure how long normal Stone Monkey pregnancies should be.

Even once the realisation kicks in that the "Egg" is a Stone Egg formed from Wukong being encased in the mountain without resources - Macaque has a second "crap Im dad" realisation when he realises that him abandoning/cutting-off Wukong back then is what triggered the process. He still wants to take responsibility for the Egg as it's indirect creator.

And ofc during S3, Macaque notices how protective/paternal Wukong is with MK and starts to realise;

MK might not be Macaque's kid, but Wukong certainly considers MK to be *his* kid.

Macaque has tricked, fought, and psychologically tormented said kid in his goal to either hurt Wukong or extract information.

Macaque is now being forced to capture said kid and/or Wukong for LBD less he suffers a fate worse than death. And while Macaque would hate to do either, he can't stand the thought of handing Wukong over. So MK is his primary target throughout S3, even if Mac tries his best to "soften the blow" if it were when he tries capturing him.

MK is super excited to meet the Egg when it's finally born, and is acting in a manner typical of an older monkey cub wanting to care for their younger sibling. It's too fricking cute and-

Well crap, now Mac doesn't want to turn the kid over. Mostly cus doing so will def hurt Wukong and make his King somehow hate Mac even more than he does now.

Maybe if they do get the Samadhi Fire, him and Wukong might- Macaque, begings violently batting away his talkative shadow clones: "NOPE! Get the heck out of here with that!! I'm just getting the Fire to be free of LBD's influence!"

And once Yuebei is finally born...

Wukong, talking to the baby: "Bao bei [treasure], this is your big brother, MK. Well, honorary big brother, but you get what I mean." MK, holding Yuebei: *is so happy he can't form words + is happy-crying* Macaque: *trying his best not to ask MK "hey, wanna be our son?", cus Mk has his adoptive dads + Mac thinks the kid hates him anyway* "Hah. Crybaby." MK, still crying: "Shut up. You cried when you saw her for the first time." Macaque, trying his best not happy-cry again: "She looks like me! Of course I'd cry - such a curse to place upon a innocent soul!" Wukong: *sighs fondly at the back-and-forth*

Mac's gut reaction is to insult others/himself when he feels emotionally vulnerable, and MK knows how to flip it around.

It very much becomes a "Dad treating his eldest son vs younger daughter" situation, especially if Bai He is thrown into the mix. Mac will 100% spoil his little princesses, but MK...

MK can handle it. He's Wukong's heir. He's ok with Mac only really being soft on him when no one else is around. Secretly Mac's kinda jealous of the dad-attention Pigsy, Wukong, and even Tang get from the kidm even though in his heart he knows it's unlikely MK will ever see Mac as a father figure.

[gumjester]

whether or not i would fight the following eah students

im drunk and found this in my notes from 2021. 😭 I NO LONGER STAND BY SOME OF THESE OPINIONS. but most i do. a semantic sequel to this post

Raven Queen: no. hasn't she already been through enough? also i'd definitely lose

Apple White: yes. god yes. it would be so funny

Briar Beauty: maybe while drunk, but something tells me it would be a very bad idea

Ashlynn Ella: no. god, how depressing would that be? though maybe she'd have a chance if she went at me with a stiletto

Hunter Huntsman: yes, because it would be funny to see how he would try to avoid killing me instantly

Cedar Wood: no. what's the point? it's like trying to kick the shit out of a really polite coffee table

Cerise Hood: MAYBE IF I WAS FEELING REALLY MEAN. it would be funny in a similar manner to hunter, but with the added tension of me constantly going for the hood. i know ur shit cerise. don't play w me

Blondie Lockes: i consider fighting blondie lockes one of my primary life goals. i will curbstomp that bitch in the middle of her own livestream

Sparrow Hood: 100%, mostly for public spectacle. idk if i would win but I'm sure we'd have a wonderful time. unless he has his guitar on him because he would defo play dirty and just start swinging it like a mace

Duchess Swan: no thank you. ballerinas are strong and duchess stores anger like nutrition for the winter. she would break my neck

Darling Charming: i don't think so. depending where she is on public knowledge of her secret she'd either purposefully lose or just wipe the floor with me. awkward all round

Dexter Charming: maybe, because i think if he gave it a proper go he'd win and i feel like that would be good for his self esteem

Daring Charming: yes, because i know i'd win if i straight away went for his face. bust his lip open. it would humble him

Lizzie Hearts: no ma'am. maybe i'd fare better in hand to hand combat but i can't imagine she'd keep any less than four knives on her person and lizzie is not the type to hold back. im heading straight to hospital

Kitty Cheshire: no. it would be humiliating. i can't see how i'd even get a hit in

Maddie Hatter: absolutely not. i have no qualms with her whatsoever, also she'd definitely kill me by accident

Alistair Wonderland: sure, why not. i want to see what all that time in apocalyptic wonderland has taught him, and whether it cancels out his status as a fucking nerd

Bunny Blanc: no, because i don't want to go to jail for homicide. she is a 5 foot nothing rabbit who can barely stand up by herself. she'd die if i poked her with a toothpick

Chase Redford: NO. if he didn't want to fight he'd just silently let me hit him for like an hour, and if he was About It then he'd instantly fucking annihilate me. just leave the boy alone

Courtly Jester: I KNOW I'D LOSE BUT IT'S THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING. I HAVE TO FIGHT HER. i might even have a chance if she wasn't allowed to pirate any dark magic

Humphrey Dumpty: i feel cruel for even thinking about this. he's a skinny gamer with a physical predisposition for getting hit. it would be like shooting fish in the most depressing barrel

Hopper Croakington II: NO. HE IS MY FUCKING BOY AND I'LL PROTECT HIM WITH EVERYTHING I HAVE. also i could just flirt and then stamp on the frog

Faybelle Thorn: yeah sure. this may sound egotistical but i'm pretty sure i could win if magic wasn't involved

Crystal Winter: yes. the bitch would trip over her own shoelaces and knock herself out

[rainbowsky]

hi, new turtle here and kind of clueless about a lot of things especially how to support GG and DD if we're from intl fandom. that is, I know DD has a lightstick, I know GG has other things..? (which are those?) my point is, how do we as intl fans support them? for Thai actors I know that we can donate money for advertisements and whatnot, but idk what to do for GG and DD. do you have any ideas? thank you and sorry if this message isn't very clear, my English is bad today >_<"

Hi new turtle! 💛🐢💛 Your English is just fine. ☺️

Sorry for the delay in replying to this, I've had very little time lately for Tumblr and I'm hopelessly behind on asks!

I know I've talked about this a bit in the past but finding older posts on Tumblr can be insanely difficult, so I'll go over some of my thoughts on this again.

Standard disclaimer: This is my personal opinion, not a list of demands or directives. Everyone gets to decide how they want to engage in fandom. There is absolutely no obligation to do any of these things, and doing these things does not make you a better fan than anyone else. Nor is anyone who is unable to do these things a lesser fan. The primary goal of fandom is to enjoy yourself (without harming others). I encourage each of you to find your own path and hold your head high, and never let anyone dictate your fandom experience or bully you for your choices.

I'm going to focus on things anyone can do without spending a lot of money or investing a huge amount of time. Alongside that I'll give some advice for those who want to take things further, and warn of some things we might want to avoid.

1 ] Be the best people we can be

The number one thing we can do is live our best lives, be the best people we can be, and help make the world a better place.

From a fandom perspective, we should all be striving to represent GG and DD in the best possible light by being a positive example of fandom at its best. Be kind, be compassionate, be open-minded. Don't bully others, don't engage in fan wars, don't trash other artists or fans. Respect other fans, artists and fandoms.

It's also important to think of how best to respect and protect them, and ensure we aren't painting them in a bad light.

Consider all the ways GG and DD inspire us to make the world a better place, and be the kind of person that reflects their goodness. Behave in ways that would make GG and DD proud, and that show turtles to be a positive force in the world.

Spend time with family, work toward our own goals and dreams. Don't over-invest ourselves in being their fan. This is something GG especially has urged fans to do for years and years.

Taking it to the next level

Lead by example and share that message/approach with others (in a kind, non-judgmental way). Do charitable works in their name (even if it's just in your own local area). Support causes that they would appreciate.

Some causes GG and DD have supported in the past: disaster relief, animal welfare, youth organizations that support disadvantaged kids, autism orgs. Consider orgs that help get kids involved in sports and in the arts. Theater and performance orgs as well. Given the nature of this fandom, you might also want to consider supporting queer orgs (there is a list of queer refugee orgs in this post).

I honestly believe that more than any other thing we could do to support them, this would BY FAR make GG and DD the happiest - just knowing that their fans are inspired to do kind things for others. They would be happier knowing our money is helping those in need, rather than being wasted on things we don't really need in some misguided desire to 'support them'.

Stay away from

Never behave cruelly or in a warlike manner toward other fans, artists or fandoms - especially not 'in GGDD's name'. I can't count how many times I've seen hateful people sporting GG or DD-related usernames and avatars invading other people's fandom spaces to attack them.

Don't support the stalker economy, and make sure the material we connect with them is not harmful. More on that here.

Avoid being taken advantage of. Always do your due diligence before giving money to any cause or organization to ensure they are legitimate and reputable.

2 ] Enjoy and promote their works

Another extremely important thing we can do is enjoy their work and show our support with reviews, ratings, and word-of-mouth recommendations. After all, this is the core of what their careers are about, and it's what they put so much hard work into and make so many big sacrifices for.

A list of key projects and how to view can be found here.

Taking it to the next level

Buy subscriptions on platforms where their work is being shown, buy tickets for their films, etc.

If the films are showing in a region you can't travel to, you can still buy tickets for turtles who can't afford to go. Consider organizing group viewings of their work, or helping to spread the word about their projects in other ways.

More suggestions in this post.

Stay away from

Never engage in false reviews, vote manipulation or manipulating view counts. Such behaviors can harm GG and DD and make them look bad.

3 ] Support their brand endorsements

The best way for any fan to do this is to support their brand endorsements on social media with likes, reblogs and gracious, rational, polite comments.

Always be respectful, calm, polite and professional when interacting with brands. Remember that these are professional partners of GG and DD and we should try to show GG and DD in a good light. Our behavior reflects on them.

Taking it to the next level

If it is within our means, we can buy their brand endorsements, but I urge fans to use good judgment and caution when doing so. I have a more detailed post about supporting their brand endorsements here. Bottom line: don't get caught up in spending all your money on things you can't afford or wouldn't have otherwise bought, just because GG and DD are representatives.

If you do decide to explore supporting their endorsements I recommend reading that post because it might give you food for thought, and help you decide where to invest.

Stay away from

Purchase only what you need and will use or gift to others. Never buy anything just to boost numbers. That type of consumer behavior is wasteful and reflects very poorly on GG and DD and can actually backlash harshly against them.

Never engage in sales manipulation behaviors, such as purchasing items to boost sales and then returning them later for a refund. Brands aren’t stupid. They will notice this type of thing and it will factor into how they evaluate GG and DD’s brand performance.

Understand that brands are very skilled at tracking where sales come from, where brand buzz is coming from, etc. It’s not strictly necessary to make any special fanfare about your purchases, and if fan behavior becomes disruptive it can become a negative rather than positive reflection on GGDD.

Never get involved in disruptive fan behavior, regardless of how hard other fans try to instigate you or induce you to do so.

Never spend more than you can afford. GG and DD are both mega-rich, and so are these brands. Have a sense of perspective and self-preservation and realize GG and DD wouldn’t want you to over-extend yourself on their behalf. Brand purchases aren’t even a core aspect of what’s important to their careers, so your impact would be marginal/practically nonexistent anyway.

If you really want a brand to know you support them because of GG or DD, let them know via social media or by contacting them directly. Send them a nice note, mention them in a tweet showing your purchases, or simply thank them for choosing GG or DD - no purchase necessary.

It’s OK to say you are a turtle, just don’t mention CP topics when interacting with brands, and don’t mention GG or DD in interactions with each other’s brands or bring each other’s solo colors into your messages, especially not on Twitter. That will only stir fan wars and cause disruption that the brands will inevitably witness. It’s not a good look.

Related posts

GG and DD’s projects

BXG, Fan Service and Supporting GGDD

Fandom Survival Guide

BXG Fandom Etiquette

Toxic fans and staying in your own lane

Why fan wars/arguing online is such a bad idea

Why it’s so important for our fandom to behave well online

Protecting GGDD

Again, this is all based on my own opinions and perspectives. It's up to every fan to form their own values and take their own path.

I hope this gives you some ideas, Anon! ☺️

[fwckriley]

QUICK CHAT ABOUT COD CHARACTERS AND THEIR MBTI TYPES PT 1.

Hi!!! So, I was just scrolling through Tumblr late at night and I saw some headcanons, where the creator mentioned Ghost's MBTI. It reminded me that I had a word file saved, discussing about the characters and their MBTI. But, I haven't finished it, so I'll just ramble some of my thoughts here instead.

I want to begin with Ghost. Seriously, I genuinely want to understand why people type him as an INTJ, the guy is not a Ni dom at all. And also, let’s just exclude here any chance of him being an INTP. But, I do see Ti and Ni in his functions. In my opinion, he is an ISTP 5w6. For those unfamiliar, ISTPs have Ti (dominant), Se (auxiliary), Ni (tertiary), and Fe (inferior) in their functions.

I'll be honest, this inferior Fe makes me doubt a bit because Ghost seems much more like a Fi user. However, considering that Fe is inferior and theoretically his weakest function, it makes sense. And, to me, what makes ISTP the most obvious choice is that this man really isn't a Ni dom or a Ne aux type. But like I said, I do see some Ni in him, but very weak, which excludes the possibility of him being a Ni dom, and adds the possibility of him being a Ti dom. But, he has zero Ne, so he can’t be an INTP. Just to clear things up, I don't think analysts can't be impulsive or that sensors are dumb, not at all. But they do have some tendencies, and you can see differences in how they deal/view the world.

So, let me give an example of a character who's an analyst: Laswell. She's the embodiment of an INTJ. Price and Ghost deviate so much from her. Both of them should have both Ni auxiliary and Ni dominant, respectively. The way both of them deals with Shepherd and Graves betrayal makes it very clear how they aren't intuitive types for me. They’re incapable of seeing the other side of the situation. And I know it might sound like a crappy argument, but speaking as a Ne aux, I always open myself to possibilities even if I DISAGREE, especially if I can benefit from it. You know who else does that? Laswell. A Ni dom. It's very clear her Ni/Te, and that's why compared to Ghost, I don't understand why people type him as an INTJ. Personally, I think Ti and Ni can be easily mistaken. And for me, Ghost's Ti is pretty obvious, the way he is practical, and how he analyzes things, and his Se aux helps him to be very aware of his surroundings (of course, there are more than that in Se aux). But to me? there's nothing more Ti/Se than that. I'll just drop here two brief descriptions of Ti/Ni dom that make me pretty sure Ghost isn’t a Ni dom.

"Introverted Intuition seeks underlying patterns that can predict how events will unfold in the long term. The primary goal is to understand cause and effect accurately, enabling confidence in problem-solving and avoiding causing issues. Individuals with this dominant function tend to be 'perceptive,' often capable of 'seeing through' situations by finding the 'real importance' or 'essence' or 'root' or 'meaning' of things and understanding the fundamental factors that will influence how situations unfold, connecting past, present, and future considerations in non-linear ways. They unconsciously seek vaguely familiar patterns of contextual variables and tend to gather multiple perspectives to synthesize and visualize 'the true truth' or a better version of life. In this way, they tend to be quite certain about how they want their lives to unfold, usually aspirational in pursuing meaningful goals with focus and determination as they seek to realize their personal potential."

"Introverted Thinking seeks to discover rules or direct formulas based on facts to guide thinking and behavior towards greater consistency and coherence. People with this dominant function tend to be highly analytical, preferring to adopt positions/judgments that are as free from biases or undue influences as possible. They often enjoy building skills and accumulating technical knowledge by systematically analyzing and deconstructing ideas/situations, preventing and solving problems, and manipulating systems to fix or enhance them. In this way, they can be dispassionate and self-sufficient in approaching situations with their refined knowledge, often admired for their calm and competent approach to solve problems. However, they may also become emotionally detached from situations due to the excision of the human perspective, incorrectly assuming it is irrelevant to their analyses. When people don't know how to use Ti properly, they tend to be overly reductionist, seeing only a simple cause for a complex situation and unable to recognize the gaps/flaws in their own reasoning process, especially when trying to understand issues in relationships and social contexts."

“The reason the two get confused so often is because, one: they are both introverted functions which makes them hard to see and distinguish, and two: they are both abstract. Ni collects and stores abstract information, while Ti makes abstract connections and conclusions.”

“Ni is a 'perceiving' funtion, which is different from Ti because it does not do the 'judging' which is Ti's role. Ni in simple words is seeing and thinking about things very deeply to find connections and therefore form certain hunches or predictions. Many Ni dominants may have a conclusion which they got to, but they don't know how to explain the way they got to it. Ni uses more subconscious thinking than Ti does. Ti on the other hand analyses even more than Ni does, and sorts certain ideas, sort of like Pros and Cons, it is usually what can be the deciding factor.”

*Quick reminder: Ghost never anticipated Graves' betrayal, and didn't give any reasons that he suspected of Graves before that. He seems unfazed when the betrayal occurs, but that's because it's not something new to him.

So, while I can argue that his lack of Fe may simply be because it is an inferior function, hence less dominant and developed function (though I think he showed a lot of Fe during the whole Mexico situation) it’s hard to argue his lack of Ni because it's a DOMINANT function. And when we talk about dominant function, when is undeveloped, it doesn't indicate a lack of, but rather an unhealthy mode of acting/thinking/coping.

So, about Price... I think he's an ESTP. Stereotypically, he's not the typical ESTP. Unlike Ghost, who has a weak/undeveloped inferior Fe, I think Price has his inferior Ni very well developed, and that's why I think the fact that he is an ESTP is not so noticeable. Just as I compared Ghost to a character who shared the same MBTI type that was attributed to him, I will now compare Price to Makarov. In my opinion, Makarov in this game is a good example of an ENTJ. If you compare the characters and the way they behave, you’ll see that Price has a liiittle more difficulty seeing beyond the obvious, and for me, if he had Ni aux as many point out, he would have anticipated many of Makarov's actions. And I go further, I also believe he would never have let Makarov live back in 2019, recognizing the threat that Makarov was, if he were and ENTJ. Because ENTJs tend to thinking ahead, if they have a problem they’ll think in a way to solve pragmatically, effectively and definitively for once and all. Also, Price is highly reluctant to work with Shepherd, showing a lack of Te/Ni, working with his enemies to achieve his goals is not his first thought (but it’s Laswell “first” thought, a Ni dom). It's not about trust, but personal/team/world gain. Again, he’s incapable of seeing the big picture. And, of course, he has a significant amount of Fe, the way he is a great leader, communicates effectively with people around him, and bond with his team proves that.

I think all the quotes I put up above really show how neither Price nor Ghost use Ni in their first two stacks. But both of them use Ti. There's this stereotype that sensors aren't that smart, so when you've got two characters who should be the best of the soldiers, really smart and skilled, people tend link them with the “best MBTI types” and type them as Ni users (completely bullshit, they just do this because they don’t know how functions work). And again, when you compared them with two Ni users (Laswell and Makarov) you can see how different they are.

I'm gonna do a part two and post it later because I wanna talk about Gaz and Soap too (and some other characters, but the two of them are my main goal now), but I think this one ended up slightly longer than I planned.

[scoobydoodean]

question for you, if you're interested: with all the usual caveats that we can never truly know authorial intent, do you think 04x21 was intended to inspire sympathy for sam? dean? both? neither? i've been wrestling with it but i'm conflicted. would love to hear any thoughts you have :)

Oooh interesting question!

The TL;DR would be that I think it's supposed to help us understand both Sam and Dean's perspective, and absolutely—Sera Gamble wants us to feel sympathy for Sam. However, I also don't think the implication is intended to be that Sam is actually doing something he should be doing or that Dean is mean and unfair. It's just supposed to help us make sense of where Sam's head is, because he's been lying to everyone (including himself) all season.

In terms of Sam's season 4 motivations, 4.21 is a firehose. It fleshes out a huge tangled web of motivations Sam has for his actions, some of which are much more sympathetic than others. In that sense, I would say Gamble's primary goal in 4.21 is to make us understand and feel sympathy for Sam. We also get some of Dean's perspective (especially during his conversation with Cas and Bobby), but I think the primary focus is Sam, and that's timely, because the episodes leading up to this one show a lot of Sam's arrogance. We're repeatedly reminded from 4.14 to 4.20 that Sam absolutely thinks Dean is weak because of Hell (despite claiming "it was just the siren talking"), that Sam is a liar (and isn't even good at it), that Sam has an inflated (and growing) ego, and that Sam is self-deceived about his intentions (Pam and Chuck both point to it). We also see him scathingly compared to John in 4.19 (and while the episode gives us insights into some of Sam's driving motivations as well, it ultimately paints him in a fairly unsympathetic light imo). 4.21 formally lays out a variety of Sam's motivations that were touched on during the season, through his hallucinations in the panic room. Many of them involve a warped perception of events:

Sam can't fight destiny. Sam was never going to be normal. There was never any point in fighting. This is his destiny (4.04, 4.08, 4.19).

Sam is a monster. Monstrosity is inescapable and innate to Sam's nature, and the only way to fix his self-image is to prove that that monstrosity (represented by demon blood) doesn't make him evil and can be used for good (i.e., stopping the apocalypse). (4.04, 4.05).

Sam is just doing what needs to be done. His actions are ruthless, but he's the only one who can save the world. He needs to do this even if it kills him (4.14, 4.16, 4.18)

Dean can't do what needs to be done. Dean is weak (4.14, 4.16, 4.18).

Dean needs Sam to save him (4.18).

Sam wants revenge on Lilith (4.09, 4.18).

Sam wants justice against Lilith (4.21 only).

Mary and Jess's deaths are Sam's fault (1.05, 1.21), and he has to make their deaths mean something by using the demon blood (to which their deaths are connected) to do something good and make their deaths "worth it" (4.04).

The demon blood makes him feel better for being different. It makes him feel stronger and better than everybody else. A part of him likes it. Sam feels intense shame about this and it's the number one thing he hasn't been able to confront (4.15, 4.18).

More generally, the hallucinations show that Sam's motivations are incredibly varied, and that Sam fights within himself about whether the things he thinks about himself and everyone else are really true. The internal battle also indicates Sam's incredible uncertainty despite his bravado from 4.12 to 4.20. Deep down, Sam is not actually sure he's doing the right thing. He also questions whether he's actually strong enough to stop the apocalypse and whether Dean might be right that the demon blood is making him weak.

All of these bits of context feature oodles of self-deceit, and some of the motivations he denies, because he's talking to people he's hallucinating, but they are all ultimately Sam's thoughts. The motivation that gets called out as deceitful the most directly is when Sam hallucinates Dean telling him he's already a monster and always has been one, that Dean pretends to love him like a brother, but that they aren't even the same species. This is both a reflection of Sam's feelings about himself and Sam's beliefs about Dean's feelings, and while it's all being said, Dean is upstairs contradicting the conversation Sam is having in his head.

Dean is upstairs telling Bobby he'd die for Sam, and he's willing to become the shady-AF angels apocalypse-stopping bitch boy if it'll keep Sam from having to turn himself into a monster to achieve the same goal. Dean actually asks Cas if Sam could stop the apocalypse with his demon blood powers in this episode as well, proving it's something he was actually willing to consider, contrary to the dogmatic lens some fans view him through on the issue. Cas tells Dean that it's possible Sam could stop the apocalypse, but that Sam would have to consume so much blood he'd never be able to come back from it. This is what pushes Dean to commit to serving the angels. This is a decision Dean makes even though he explicitly does not want to. He doesn't trust the angels (4.02, 4.07, 4.09, 4.10, 4.15, 4.16, 4.17, 4.20), and previous episodes highlight Dean's growing discomfort with their sense of entitlement to him (4.15, 4.16, 4.17). He agrees to give himself over to them anyway.

Sam's repeated acts of deceit (and the outright cruelty of his views in 4.14 that he reiterates to Dean at the end of 4.21) reinforce Dean's belief that the demon blood is turning Sam into something he isn't. I'm also sure Sam getting slammed into walls by the force of his own powers in this episode did not exactly assuage Dean's concerns. Neither did him going into withdrawal and growing so desperate for a hit (during Ruby's 100% intentional absence) that he completely ruined an entire season of secrecy about consuming demon blood to drink the blood of a demon right in front of Dean and Cas in 4.20, blood all over his mouth and everything. He totally lost control.

Basically, I think we're supposed to see two different perspectives, and feel sympathy for Sam, while also understanding that Sam is deceived about what he's doing and his own identity. He hallucinates his own mother telling him he's evil and that he should die to make her death mean something ffs—it isn't that what Sam feels is the truth—it's that he believes it is.

Unfortunately, Dean reinforces one of Sam's broken beliefs at the end of the episode by saying that if Sam doesn't realize what he's doing is wrong and stop, it means not his actions, but his inner nature might actually be the problem. However, this line isn't supposed to uniquely demonize Dean. It comes right after Sam reiterates his statements about Dean's trauma making him weak, and acting entitled to trust after over a season of secrets and lies. What's so fascinating and tragic, is that both Sam and Dean, on the apocalypse issue, are at some level placing a hope for redemption in being the one to end the apocalypse. Dean hopes that stopping the apocalypse will make up for what he did in Hell (4.05, 4.15). Sam hopes that stopping the apocalypse will prove he isn't a monster. Each of them is also contending with their brother's image of them not being what they want it to be. At the end of 4.21, Dean knows that Sam truly believes Dean is weak for being traumatized by decades of torture, and Sam knows that Dean thinks he might be a monster beyond saving. The end of 4.21 is them each digging into the other's most terrible wounds. While I think there's a tendency for some fans to focus in on what Dean says to Sam (partly because of the incredibly emotional reaction it produces from Sam, and then later Bobby), I think the mutual harm here is plain (and we know from my multiple bitchy posts today and yesterday that Sam entirely loses my sympathy in the last few scenes of the episode ofc). But I do think that final fight is supposed to feel balanced as it separates the brothers through mutual harm.

That's the main response, but if you're interested... a word on Sera Gamble as a writer and some of the larger themes in play here:

4.21 is a Sera Gamble episode, and Gamble likes both of the brothers a lot I think. She wrote "Houses of the Holy", and "Nightmare" which are heavily focused on Sam's fears about his monstrous destiny. However, her first episode was "Dead In The Water". She wrote "Faith", "Salvation", "Heart", "Dream A Little Dream Of Me", "Jus In Bello", "Time Is On My Side", etc.

If I had to form the episodes she'd written into a sort of Gamble thesis on the brothers up to 4.21, I'd have to say she definitely sees Dean as the heart of the family and the moral center.

She writes Sam disinterested in helping someone in the absence of leads on their father (1.03). She writes "Faith" where Dean feels horrible about someone dying in his place and Sam quickly lets it go, just happy to have his brother alive. She writes "Bloodlust" where at the end of the episode, Dean reflects back on all of their past actions with monsters and how John raised them and wonders if they killed monsters that didn't deserve it, while Sam has no such qualms and lends sympathy for their father's emotional state instead. She writes Sam wanting to turn himself and Dean into immortals (3.15), and considering human sacrifice in "Jus In Bello". She writes Sam insisting on entering Dean's dreams in "Dream A Little Dream Of Me" despite Dean's protests about his privacy. She writes him instantly leaping to toss aside Dean's dying wishes so he can get revenge against Lilith in Dean's name (4.09).

All of this suggests a Sam who is desperate to keep his family alive (with a side of John's "losing sight of the actual family in the face of revenge for the family"). She writes a Sam who will jump to extremely morally dubious plays to keep Dean alive or save him and won't feel bad about it. Season 3 features a lot of Dean trying to be the person who curbs those impulses, and Sam (usually) ultimately conceding. I think there is an element of this dynamic in 4.21 when she writes Sam to say, "You [Dean] take the wheel. You call the shots". I think Gamble's really talking about Sam letting go of some of his most morally dubious plans to save Dean because of Dean insisting on it—within her own episodes (3.12, 3.15) and others (ex: 3.16).

I've written about how one of Sam's motivations in season 4 is that from his perspective, Dean's relatively more inflexible morals got Dean killed, and Dean getting killed then sent Sam into a suicidally depressed tailspin. Dean would rather die in 3.16 than sacrifice his moral principles, and Sam would rather have sacrificed both of their moral principles than see Dean die. This fundamental difference between the brothers runs through their entire season 4 conflict, from Sam calling Dean weak for being traumatized by Hell, to Sam lying to Dean all season, to Dean risking Sam's death to detox him from demon blood in 4.21, to Sam conflating a moral clash with loyalty and trust.

[calypsolemon]

not sure if you’ve answered on this in the past, but do you have any thoughts regarding steven’s future/development/what he does following him leaving at the end of steven universe future? i find your analysis posts about steven incredibly interesting. sorry if somebody’s asked you this question already!

It hasn't been asked before! A question of this nature is going to really involve less analysis and more just... speculation/ headcanon, but thats fine too! I'm down to indulge lol

I think the thing that would near for sure happen post-future at some point is Steven moving into his own house or apt. His road trip basically intends as much (he states the goal is to try to find a place to settle down), and furthermore I think a place of his own is something Steven needs even more than distance from his family/ gem stuff. The one thing Steven really lacked growing up was any sense of privacy, and a consistently safe home environment. It would do wonders for his mental health to have a home that he has complete control over, that is unlikely to be in any immediate danger of being wrecked.

After that is more nebulous, as throughout most of the series all of Steven's ambition hinged on gem stuff, and then once he started actually doing gem stuff, it took over his life. It's hard to say what actually interests him outside of that. Quite possibly, he doesn't even know. I can say with near certainty that I think he would avoid any career to do with music (he likes making it but I think it would be too close to his dad's rockstar lifestyle), and he would probably avoid stuff with plants too (both due to risk of bringing them to life, and because plant care was one of Rose's main hobbies). However he is a creative soul at his core, so he might end up pouring himself into other hobbies that eventually become careers. I can see him doing something like pottery or glassblowing, something that can't really be shortcut by his powers and requires a sort of controlled strength. I think it would be therapeutic to him. I can also see him doing a lot of volunteer work in his spare time; I don't think he'll ever fully rid himself of the desire to help people, but if he doesn't have to become personally involved in someone's mental health, it could be healthier output for that "need to be needed."

Despite separating himself from it for his own mental health, I'm pretty sure he would still intermittently get re-involved with little homeschool and gem politics and whatnot. I think after some time healing he would find that he missed aspects of it, and also there's likely the occasional thing that require "pink diamond's" attention no matter what (unfortunately). But thats why the physical separation is important. At the end of the day, he's not the one soley responsible for these things, and he isn't even the primary person responsible. He can just be the guy they call in once in a while. Which, I think over time, would also help assuage any potential guilt he would feel over "dropping responsibilities." He may have left, but he isn't running away from his problems like Rose. He's simply taking an equal and fair part of the work that must be done.

Also, I didn't know where to fit this, but I think the one thing Steven will never do in the future is have children. And not just because of the passing of the gem issue, but also because I think he would genuinely not feel right about doing so. He likes kids and probably ends up adoptive-uncle-ing a few kids in whatever neighborhood he lives in, but I dont think he would ever actually raise kids of his own. This is just pure headcanon tho lol.

[irish-dress-history]

Have you got any good resources for men’s clothing in Ireland (or even Scotland) during about the 1400’s-1600’s?

I have been trying to find anything that can give me better insight so I can recreate the clothing but so far I’m mostly seeing cheap rubbish costumes that are very clearly the generic “medieval” style that everyone goes to when they want to convey a vibe but don’t feel like doing historic accuracy.

Not to say there’s anything wrong with that but I’d like to really impress people in future gatherings that pertain to this time period

This is a tough one, unfortunately. The 2 best books for this have been out of print for decades and now sell second hand for $100+ USD. Your best bet for getting a hold of them is interlibrary loan. Neither of these books contains sewing patterns or construction information. They are:

Old Irish and Highland Dress by H. F. McClintock, 1st ed. 1943, 2nd ed 1950

Dress in Ireland by Mairead Dunlevy, 1st ed 1989, 2nd ed. 1999

The one book I know of that's still in print is Before the Kilt: How the Irish and Scots Dressed in the 16th Century by Gerald A. John Kelly. I haven't actually read it. I've heard it has some issues with the images being low resolution (probably because it was printed by a small press), but it does contain good primary source research. The only place I know of that sells legitimate sewing patterns is Reconstructing History. I haven't actually bought any, but I have heard that their sewing directions are not the easiest to follow, and some people have issues with the size grading. Their patterns for the wool garments are all based off of extant period garments. Based on more recent research, I don't their léine patterns are completely correct, but they are at least better than some of the léine patterns out there. (Avoid anyone who tells you to put drawstrings in the tops of the sleeves or that a man's léine should be hip-length.)

Websites of reenactors and historical costumers who have put serious research into their outfits:

https://saffroncloth.wordpress.com/

https://www.wildeirishe.com/

http://matsukazesewing.blogspot.com/2014/06/16th-century-irish-dress_19.html

https://www.thelastprince.ie/

http://www.claiomh.ie/

A couple of decent videos on 16th-early 17th c Irish dress:

Traditional Irish Clothing in the Gaelic Period

Depicting and Describing Dress in Early Modern Ireland by Dr. Katherine Bond

If you're planning on doing the 16th c, definitely check out Susan Flavin's research. It has great information on what types of textiles, dyes, and trims that were available in 16th c. Ireland. You can download a pdf of her dissertation here.

I'm sure you already know that 1400s-1600s is a long time period for dress history. Irish dress changed a lot during that period. If your goal is to make a single, well-researched outfit, I would recommend picking a period that's somewhere 1500s-1600. There are a lot fewer primary sources (extant garments, art, documents, etc) for 1400s Ireland. On the other hand if you enjoy making educated guesses, 1400s might be more fun. Just check out this neat 15th c. outfit from Strade Abbey, County Mayo:

If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask. I can't guarantee I have answers, but I do have a bunch of random Irish-dress-history related articles for this period on my computer.

[lutethebodies]

How do Cannor and Minthara deal with culture shock in their relationship? Like differences in etiquette or general stuff like that?

Tav Deep Dives: Cannor/Minthara Culture Shock

Excellent question, thank you! I’m not a drow lore expert so I’m going from what I know of her in-game personality and my homebrew headcanon of his, and will toss off bulleted observations instead of making this a Full-On-Thesis-Essay about Cannor (my utterly ordinary human swords bard) and the killer-drow-paladin love of his life. This will still probably be long and messy, so thanks also for the indulgence.

Our couple's in-game canon ending was destroying the brain and then leveraging that notoriety to take over the city. They’ve accurately concluded that exploiting all their cumulative alliances is the best way to accomplish this, and to do so tactfully they’re posing as performers to tell their own story (because they hate Volo) and remind everyone what they’ve done. However, as @coolseabird noted in their question, there’s still tons of cultural differences with this couple and honestly I’m not sure how long they’ll last post-game. If they do, it might go like this:

Cannor and Minthara are both mature enough to realize that they've got lots of frictions—little and large—that could derail their relationship. When you’ve lived your life a bit (which at 37+ human years he has, and 200+ elven years she really has), you learn that great gobs of Your Past can be jettisoned at will when no longer relevant. Her story has plenty of this (which you likely already know), but the bard’s background has his share too, on a different scale. With so much of their past selves abandoned, our heroes are free to focus on mutual loyalty, devotion, and common goals—in a very “us against the world” way. He’s her home now, and she’s his purpose.

The primary cultural difference is obviously the surface-human-versus-Underdark-drow mismatch, but there are others. She's noble, he's…sort of, but much less so. She's feared and detested, both prejudicially and justifiably, but he can make friends anywhere. She will almost certainly outlive him. She obsesses over multiple schemes, but he can only focus on one project at a time. She can't shake homesickness, but he's returned to his adopted home city. I imagine they might deal with the day-to-day stuff with whatever (substantial) means they now possess, since money is no object:

Acclimating to Baldur's Gate, in both its old ways and new/rebuilt ways. Cannor's adopted home has changed a lot during his 7-8 year banishment, so rediscovering the city through Minthara's initial experience of it can expose and interrogate aspects of it he's taken for granted, and can help her understand surface culture using the city as a good, bad, or neutral example.

Avoiding danger. He still doesn’t truly understand that people can try to get to her through harming him which—if they finagle their way into a prominent position of leadership—can still happen. Acquiring a dwelling that is well-appointed enough to sate her tastes, but modest enough to avoid the wrong kind of attention (say one that straddles the Upper and Lower City, or even the Wyrmway, which is canonically what she'd choose) is essential. It would delve underground enough to suit her sunless sensibilities, and be secure enough to soothe her paranoia about political retribution or anti-drow prejudice. More practically, she can use this to show him how to appreciate staying in one place. They can each have a corner to retreat to and recharge, to “enjoy their time alone as they enjoy their time together,” as it were.

Resolving the issue of "servants", because as someone who's comfortable with menial tasks like cooking, he won't have it, and as a noble-born she's got lots to learn about self-sufficiency. This might be a big sticking point, but perhaps not an insurmountable one given their maturity and backgrounds (more on the latter below). But at some point, she's gotta put recent lessons in humility to use, and he may appreciate that having someone take care of the basics allows them more time to manage their various plots and plans.

Homesickness: Should she miss her banquets, there's enough gold to import rothé ribs, fungal delicacies and spiced Ulaver wine for special occasions (Astarion’s underdark connections are handy!). Furthermore, learning Drowic and Undercommon is a good educational challenge for him.

Family. Whatever desires Minthara may or may not have for children, let alone a "new dynasty", she understands this situation is not ideal for that. Like Mary Stewart's Uther and Ygraine, Cannor and Minthara are lovers for each other, with not much left over for anyone else—and that means a family is unlikely. But to be sure, they agreed to check in with each other every five years or so. At their age, though, there's only so much time.

Speaking of age, that specter is always there. She is much older chronologically and used to outliving lovers (for different, deadlier reasons), but he fears becoming so feeble and useless as to embarrass her. She has not yet convinced him that embarrassment won’t happen, because deep down she may not be sure of it herself. The best thing they can do about this is appeciate each day with each other—which they've learned to do via the whole defeat-impossible-foes adventure that threw them together in the first place.

Minthara’s already had to give up a good many trappings of her upbringing (let alone the more sociopathic ones of her past), but she’ll always lust for power and control. Luckily for her, Cannor’s past—he’s the bastard son of a long-lost noble mother—is exploitable. Done tenderly and considerately, but done nonetheless. He barely remembers his mother, and she’s realized those hazy memories are more idealized than true, making him miss the idea of someone and not the actual person.

She’s accurately guessed that as long as she can approximate some of that, she can feed that need, but his lack of focus can rankle. His ambitions are too inchoate; he always needs a project but can only handle one at a time. Why not put those charismatic talents to a use beyond self-pitying confessions? He must choose a direction in life, and she needs that to be what they can do together.

Cannor is discovering what living with a noble—even an exiled one—is truly like. They don't always see eye to eye on ambition. He said things during the game that he didn’t mean to get on her good side, because they had more urgent problems. He hoped destroying the brain would keep her from getting in over her head again. Their current shared goal of taking over the city will either unite or break them forever.

Living together and truly knowing someone can grate within the strongest and longest relationships (let alone those with Big Plans). The opposite of love is not hate—it’s apathy—so if it’s not cultivated constantly, passion can curdle into an aggravated hate that only lovers know. Our power couple understands this, so they’re lucky that their relationship is acts-of-service based and realize they both have to work at it every day. If they last, it’ll come down to that. Wish them luck, because they’ll need it.

[heretherebedork]

I was avoid that thai adapt of 🍒 for all cost but twitter find a way and oh boy

gmmtv have problem with IP of 🍒 and people are soo suprise by it. Like really when they "break" a news in 2021 they can't show teaser cause copyright issuse and now in twist way make me a bit happy Cause in they greed they don't care about anything beside money/profit of adapt beloved manga/ love of oryginal showand it hit them back

I know it also Japanese gatekeeping problem but this time i am happy about it.

It makes me "hater of asian people" Accord twitter stans

I know this issuse will not be with ossana adapt but gmmvtv sucks with law issuse so how know

I mean, I'm gonna be honest, they might offer these shows to international fans but that doesn't meant hat we are the main audience or even their primary goal. I mean that. Just in general.

But especially with Japan. Japan does not give a fuck about an international audience. Getting one is entirely just a Thing That Happens to them sometimes. @absolutebl has, and can, explained this in much more detail than I can.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Am I upset that they aired two episodes before realizing the issue? A bit, yeah. Am I surprised? No. Do I expect the same issue for the others? Eh, questionable. My Love Mix Up is already internationally available on Viki that has connections to GMMTV so I feel like we're more likely to be able to see the show more easily while Cherry Magic's international IP looks different and has no direct connection to GMMTV.

I have no idea why you're happy about this but, I mean, sure? Go for it. It was a cute remake, I like the idea f remaking it more of the manga in it and giving us a different cultural view on an interesting story and I do plan on trying to find it the old fashioned pirate way until they manage to figure out the international rights (if they ever do).

But also, like... yeah. These companies work for a profit? That's... that's what they do. They make a profit! If it weren't for a profit we wouldn't get most of the shows we get. Yes, some are made as passion projects but even those are typically also made in the hopes of making some money.

GMMTV wants to make money and so they want to make BL and, luckily, this works in our favor. If BL stops making money then it stops getting made. If this struggle with Cherry Magic loses them money, they'll look to change things in the other two adaptations.

But if this still makes money? Well, they'll still try their best but they do need to make money.

They cared enough to make the show and try to release it internationally but struggled and, you know what, we'll see what happens. I hope they can make all their remakes, honestly. I'd love to see them.

Well.

Not Ossan's Love.

That one can be not made.

[doggernaut]

Role reversal AU?

This AU, unfortunately, is very far down the list of things I'm likely to finish, mainly because it's a much bigger fic than I have time to write at the moment. It was originally a prompt I chose for last year's @omgauplease fest, but between school work and marathon training I just didn't have enough time to devote to it. 

The gist of the prompt was a role reversal fic where Bitty is a cocky, closeted figure skater who's about to spin out of control and Jack, having gone through something similar, is the only one who recognizes what's happening to Bitty.

To make it more of a role reversal, after Jack's overdose he took up baking and started taking hockey a lot less seriously. So while he is still captain of SMH in this AU, and professional hockey is still a goal he's working toward at the beginning of the fic, baking professionally becomes his primary ambition as the fic progresses.

Looking at what I've already written and what I have planned, I really would like to finish this fic someday; I just can't give it the attention it requires at the moment. But here is a fun (I think) interaction involving Ransom and Holster:

The muffins are cooling on a rack by the time Ransom and Holster finally make it down an hour later, dressed in their khaki shorts and polo shirts emblazoned with the name of the golf course they work at. “Dude, Shitty said there are new muffins?” Ransom asks while Holster pulls two Gatorades from the fridge.  Jack grabs two egg and spinach muffins off the cooling rack and hands them over. “Something new.” Holster eyes the muffin skeptically. “Fucking hell, Jack, what’s the deal with these muffins? They look like the Incredible Hulk took a shit.” “That’s spinach.” And Holster’s not exactly wrong about their visual description, but Jack isn’t going to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him. “What happened to the cinnamon streusel?” Ransom asks. “Those were fucking incredible.” “I’m trying something new. We don’t need to have dessert for breakfast every day, especially with morning practices starting soon. These will give you energy for the day.” “They taste like ass and make me want to die,” Holster says dramatically. That’s actually good feedback. Jack had thought they were a little bland. Next batch, he’ll add some Tabasco. Despite Holster’s less-than-stellar review, Ransom and Holster each take a second muffin. “Hey,” Jack says, taking advantage of the fact that the guys’ mouths are full and they can’t interrupt him, “there’s this guy who keeps rushing me off the ice every morning. Figure skater. You have any idea who he is?” “Like, a student?” Holster asks. “Or just somebody using the rink?” Jack shrugs. “I get the feeling he goes here, but I’ve never asked.” “You could, you know. Ask. Like a normal person. Unless … Jack, do you have a crush?” “No,” Jack says emphatically. Why do people keep thinking that? “I just want to know who he is and why he’s using the rink. I don’t want problems when practices start up.” “Fine, we’ll do some recon.” Holster sighs, as if it’s a huge chore and not one of their favorite pastimes. Somehow, despite only being rising sophomores, Ransom and Holster are Facebook friends with half the college students in the entire state of Massachusetts. Or, at least the athletes. Jack’s positive that somebody in their vast network will know who this guy is. “But you know you could just ask him,” Ransom reminds Jack. “Like a normal person.” 

It’s three days before the guys get back to Jack. Three days in which he does not talk to the guy “like a normal person” because Jack has been getting up even earlier to make sure he’s out of the rink before the guy arrives. He knows this isn’t sustainable; once regular classes and practices start up he’ll no longer have the luxury of a mid-day nap. But it works for now. “Yo, Jack!” Ransom calls as they clatter into the Haus, sweaty and disheveled after work. “We got the deets on your figure skater.” Jack sighs. “He’s not my figure skater.” Ransom waves away Jack’s correction. “Whatever, you know who I mean. Do we have any Gatorade?” he asks, sticking his head in the fridge. “It’s Eric Bittle,” Holster says, as if the name is supposed to be of significance. “And?” “Eric. Bittle,” Holster repeats. He pauses to take a swig of the blue Gatorade Ransom’s just passed off to him. “Figure skater, took third at Junior Nationals a few years ago and surprised everyone when he moved up to the men’s division and took thirteenth last year.” “But he’s better known for his social media presence,” Ransom adds. “He’s all over Twitter and Insta, and he’s got this YouTube vlog where he talks about behind the scenes skating stuff and does routines to popular songs. At Nationals he got a couple of guys to do the Single Ladies dance with him and it went viral. I don’t know how you missed it, it was everywhere for like … a week.” “Was it during the season?” Jack barely pays attention to the latest viral trends as it is. Ransom rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Do you want the deets or not?” “Are there more ‘deets?’” “He got dropped by his coach after that video went viral. She said he could have placed in the top five at Nationals if he took skating as seriously as his YouTube career.” “Ouch.” Ransom nods. “Well, yeah. And then he made a rebuttal video accusing his coach of not preparing him well enough for the competition, and that that was the reason he scored so low. Now he can’t find a coach willing to work with him.” “He said that?” Jacks interrupts. “Not in so many words, but this guy at work who plays for BC dates this girl who skates and she heard through the grapevine—” “Okay, okay.” Jack motions for Ransom to continue.  “So he’s here at Samwell. He was supposed to start here last year—“ “There’s an episode of his vlog where he opens his acceptance letter—”  “—but he deferred for a year to focus on skating.” If Ransom and Holster devoted half as much time to working on plays as they apparently have to watching some random figure skater’s YouTube archives, Jack thinks, SMH might have gone a little further in last year’s post-season.  “Our point is, you really should know who he is because he’s the biggest celebrity to attend Samwell since that girl who won a Tony when she was fourteen a few years back,” Holster says. “Way more famous than you,” Ransom adds unnecessarily. Every year Samwell gets one or two high profile students who are famous for one thing or another. Jack didn’t win a Nobel Peace Prize as a teenager or star in a long-running Disney Channel show. But his dad won a few Stanley Cups as a professional hockey player and his mom was a supermodel before becoming an actress, so … he’s not the average college student, either. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have been selected as one of “Samwell’s Most Beautiful” if his parents weren’t who they are. “So he’s not competing anymore?” Jack asks. Ransom shrugs. “The last video he posted was right before he left to come here. He said he’s going to focus on school for a while and coach himself.” “Huh.” None of this is what Jack expected to learn, but he can’t deny he’s intrigued. “Thanks.” Holster downs the last of the Gatorade in one gulp and belches. “This one was a freebie. Next time you require our shit excavation services, we’re gonna need you to pay us in muffins.”

[astatia-ghast]

Hey, folks! I have a couple things I want to talk about today.

The King's Quest Continues

First, I want to offer a huge thank-you for the response "The King's Quest" has gotten. When I wrote this story, I didn't have the broader audience in mind; my only goal was to write something @hailsatanacab would enjoy. So when I woke up to a flood of kudos and comments the next day, I was truly taken by surprise.

And then they just kept coming. "The King's Quest" still gets a couple kudos every day, and some of the comments I've received have been just... beyond flattering. They all mean so much to me and fuel my drive to write. So really, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

As a token of my appreciation, I wanted to give you all, and particularly hailsatanacab, a little somethin'-somethin'.

I have a sequel in the works. It'll be about triple the length of "The King's Quest," and it's primary purpose will be to explore why Clockwork made the decisions he did. And I want to share the first scene with you today!

For full disclosure, I'm not 100% sure this sequel will be finished or how quickly it will be written, because I'm drawing a blank on some sections, and I have other fics I want to work on, too. But I would really like to see it finished this year. I think it would be a fun companion piece, especially since Clockwork's behavior raises so many unanswered questions in "The King's Quest."

So here's the first scene! Fair warning: this is in very early draft stage, so it won't have the polish my published fics do. But I hope you still enjoy. :)

------

Clockwork drapes a cape over Danny's shoulders. It is thick and soft and heavy, made by the yetis of the Far Frozen as a coronation gift. The outside is a sleek black fabric, and the inside is fluffy white fur.

Clockwork smooths out the wrinkles on Danny's shoulders, and then his hands just stay there. It reminds Danny of when he did the exact same thing all that time ago. The weight around his soul grows heavier.

"What do you think?"

Tears well in Danny's eyes. They are plastered to his reflection in the mirror, which is slowly being adorned with all the regal clothing and treasures that will mark him as King. His coronation is around the corner, and the whole of Clockwork's tower, usually so silent, is now bustling with ghostly allies working to prepare. They sing and laugh, but Danny shares none of their mirth.

Gently, Clockwork turns Danny around and sinks to eye level. He is handsome today; his hair, white like Danny's, has been pulled back into an elaborate array of braids. He gently brushes a strand of hair out of Danny's face.

"Remember: you just need to get through today." Clockwork's voice is low and soft, meant for Danny's ears only. "Get through today, and the Council of Ancients will take things from there. And then you can focus on your mortal life until you are ready."

Danny feels like he should say something, but he can't; he knows that the moment he speaks, those tears are going to fall. Except then, in a cruel rebellion, one tear falls anyway. Clockwork procures an embroidered handkerchief, and with remarkable softness, he wipes the tear away. Danny puts up with the first dab, but when the second one comes, he pushes Clockwork away.

Clockwork doesn't fight him; he stows the handkerchief away. He seems to be teetering on the verge of action, but he stays still, keeping his hands in his lap. Danny turns away, trying to wipe his eyes as casually as possible, even as he knows there is literally no point in pretending. Frustration grows inside him as he wills himself to stop crying, but the tears only fall more steadily.

Fuck the mirror. Fuck the cape. Fuck this coronation.

A yeti peeks his head inside the room and asks Clockwork a question about something or other. He answers his question and follows up with, "We'll be just a minute." The yeti nods, peering at Danny curiously, as Clockwork closes the door. At once, the tower is quiet again; Danny is thankful for the privacy.

A necklace settles around Danny's neck. He jumps, thinking Clockwork has soldiered on with his preparations and dropped his own coronation gift around Danny's neck, but then he notices that it's just a normal time medallion. He looks up at Clockwork in askance.

"Take all the time you need," he says. "I will be waiting right outside when you are ready."

Clockwork opens the door, revealing yetis frozen in the midst of carrying streamers and delivering food, and closes it behind him.

[ejsuperstar]

Do you also avoid actually talking to people who have commissions open? Like its so hard for me to even like their posts cuz I think the only way they're gonna act towards people they don't already know is the "please buy my skills" type of professionalism. Where like they don't care about actually having a conversation more than they want the other person to commission them/want to improve their public image so more people will repost their things or commission them (at least on the blog where they advertise comms).

Essentially, it's hard to NOT feel like people who take comms only interact with others for getting more money and want to know if you feel like that too, as someone with comms open.

I don't really consider if an artist has comms open when I interact with them. In my mind I just go "yay cool art" and it doesn't even register. Of course I wouldn't consider going to them and asking for like a drawing request if they had comms open cos if I wanted them to draw me something the obvious route is to pay them (tho tbh I dont ask for drawing requests anyway). But apart from that whether an artist has comms open never really crosses my mind when I interact. As well, from my end, of course I'd love to have someone commission me, and if posting more and interacting more gets me some then great! But that is nowhere near my primary incentive for posting art. Apart from reposting my comms sheet, and maybe mentioning it if someone asks for an art request, I don't think about my commissions being open all that often when posting on tumblr. When someone interracts with my posts I dont go "Oo boy another person to potentially commission me". I think "Oo boy someone likes my art!" I'm running basically off the same mindset that I had when I didn't have commissions open. I love any and all engagement and it makes me happy to see others enjoy my art. Maybe my opinions will change once I actually get a commission (cos so far no one has actually commissioned me lol) but I doubt it, because my primary goal has never been to make money, it's been to share my art and to enjoy myself. Most the artists I'm friends with don't think this way either (at least I'm pretty sure they don't, if any of y'all wanna chime in in reblogs that'd be cool (this offer goes to artists who aren't my friends too if y'all see this, I wanna hear what everyone has to say)) and I'm pretty sure most the artists I follow don't think this way as well. Engagement is cool but its not a means to an end At the end of the day though, I can't actually speak for other artists, because as much as I wish, I'm not psychic. I can however say when I see people interact with my posts, and when I interact with other's posts, I don't think about commissions at all, its purely just an expression of liking someone's work to me. This was interesting to think about though, thanks for the ask! And please don't feel scared to interact with any artists who have commissions open! They're most likely just cool people who will love and appreciate any interaction!

[runwayrunway]

No. 36 - Riyadh Air

No, they are not changing their name to Saudi Arabian Airways, but there is a new development on the Saudi Arabian flag carrier front.

That's right, Saudia is dead, sayonara you w-

No. That isn't true, that was a joke. But what isn't a joke is that Riyadh Air is a planned second flag carrier for Saudi Arabia.

That's mostly a joke. Other countries have multiple flag carriers, though that comes with a couple caveats. Usually when this happens one is full-service and international while the other is domestic and/or low cost. The UAE has two flag carriers, but one is Dubai's and the other is Abu Dhabi's, which feels like an important distinction.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, just has decided they want to operate a second airline instead of doing the normal thing and putting all their resources into one really good airline. I don't understand it. The plan is to keep Saudia based in Jeddah while Riyadh Air is based in Riyadh...again, plenty of airlines have multiple hubs, so I don't see the point. They claim to be the first "digital-native airline", which is shaped like words yet means nothing (also, take that up with David Neeleman and Breeze). They've nabbed Etihad's old CEO and bought a bunch of 787s, and the stated goal is to become the largest carrier in the Gulf region at an unprecedented blistering pace in order to increase tourism. Given Emirates's numbers...well, it's probably still more likely to happen than a startup airline operating exclusively A380s managing to turn a profit, but that's not saying much.

Anyway, they've got a livery! Apparently this is the first of two, so expect a follow-up post when the second one drops, but for now there's plenty to talk about as is.

Unlike many - nay, most - of the subjects I cover, Riyadh Air has made me do absolutely zero research. You do get modern liveries like jetBlue and Lufthansa with little style guides to weakly attempt to back up their relatively mundane graphic design choices and things like condor and Icelandair's lovely little webpages, but Riyadh Air has done them all at least one if not several better by not only explaining in detail where they got their inspiration but also giving me a high-res 3D model of their airplane that I can rotate and zoom in and out on.

Take care; my computer is fairly underpowered and I do have an absurd number of tabs open most of the time, but this did crash my browser multiple times. Even just opening the main page of their website makes my CPU sound like it's spooling up for takeoff.

Okay. First I want to discuss the logo. They've got a video up on their thought process. I had transcribed it, but it looks better in motion, and thankfully they've stopped making it autoplay (presumably because, as I mentioned, this website absolutely guzzles processor as is) and in the process made it possible for me to simply left-click it off their website and into this post. Don't worry about it killing your browser. It's a normal video in a normal tumblr post without a 100 million dollar website chugging along in the background.

(I've taken some screenshots in case anyone does have trouble with the video.)

Now this is how you design a logo. The airplane window thing feels, in retrospect, so obvious I can't believe nobody had done it yet. I think it pairs gorgeously with the R, and I love that they chose to take inspiration from Arabic calligraphy, which is not only a massive point of pride for cultures which utilize the script but also just generally gorgeous. (It looks a bit like a stretched backwards hamza to me.) The shape of the bird's wing is the part I have the most trouble actually connecting to what I'm seeing, but sure, I'll give it to them. What the heck. This logo is nice.

I mentioned when discussing China Airlines that very few airlines use lavender as a primary color. Well, here's one that does! They actually discuss this on their website as well:

Inspired by the lavender blossoms that carpet Saudi Arabia, we've chosen this color because it symbolizes Saudi generosity and its authentic hospitality.

And this is, again, pretty fantastic. This is a thoughtful choice which isn't lazy or arbitrary. It has the potential to really pack a visual punch, and it does the thing I love when flag carriers do - references a feature of its home nation.

An upside to the fact that the livery page takes eons for my computer to chew on is that I get shown this lovely loading screen, which demonstrates the fantastic combination of blues and purples which make up the full scheme of this airline's colors. I love the combination of these colors. Light saturated colors are rare enough, but to see extremely dark blues and purples together like this is a rare delight. It definitely has the potential to get eyestrainy, but if done well it could look absolutely breathtaking.

But will it be done well? After all, a good idea isn't always well-implemented - see condor - and China Airlines's livery fails for me because it's barely got any lavender! So does Riyadh Air fall into the same pit? Let's check the browser-destroying 3D model they've lovingly provided us.

I love that 3D model, by the way. Instead of looking for a bunch of pictures of airplanes that happen to be in the correct lighting and at the right angle to demonstrate the exact thing I'm attempting to discuss I can just...zoom in while putting the plane at the specific angle I want. Normally I actually try not to rely too heavily on things like style guides because a piece of flat-colored concept art isn't actually going to communicate how a plane looks in motion and with light on it, but this is a really really robust model. Sure, it's not quite as maneuverable as I'd like it to be, it's still not a perfect representation of real life, but it's really well made. It even sways side to side a bit and if you zoom in close enough you can see they bothered to model the external sensors and the engines are even turning! Don't worry about the fact that if you zoom in even further you can tell the engines are just a fan suspended floating in a cowling. They even added ambient engine sounds. This model is so cool it legitimately took me several minutes of turning it around and muttering "wow..." under my breath before I realized the environment it was sitting in was just some very stretched and crunchy jpgs.

Mmm, those reflections.

To be honest, I also just enjoyed playing with this thing. It's almost like having a real model plane, but doesn't cost more money than I have! But enough of that.

So they definitely didn't chicken out when it came to the lavender. This plane is as purple as a Breeze Airways plane is blue (it is very purple). It's not just a purple tube, though. Even from a distance you can see that there's added detail here.

I love the wordmark, first off. They've really committed to the billboard look with this gigantic text in both English and Arabic. I love it. With such an overwhelming main body color it feels prudent to make sure the name is as visible as possible so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle.

And with this gigantic, recognizable logo plastered on the bottom you'd be able to identify it just as well from below (and this is zoomed out as far as the website let me!). In fact, the depth of the design really shines best from below. That's not necessarily a good thing, because your plane does have to be parked sometimes, but it's not a dealbreaker either. I just need to say that this is probably my favorite design for an engine nacelle, ever. It's gorgeous, and you can see in the first picture how well it flows into the main design. They don't go together quite as well from the bottom, and from below the plane does look a bit rear-heavy and the wordmark peering in is a bit awkward, but none of those ruin it. I would be stunned if I saw this fly overhead.

The website provides a few details about the design if you zoom in and click little black dots. It took me ages to realize this. It's neither intuitive nor accessible and I truly despise it, so I've taken the liberty of transcribing the bits that matter.

You can turn this plane in any which way you'd like, zoom in and out, and the details on the bottom never stop being beautiful and coherent. It truly does remind me of calligraphy. As they describe it:

Rooted in our Heritage The controlled, smooth linear profiles make up our signature "Canopy Twist". A perfect balance of our rich local culture and our modern global outlook, connecting the city of Riyadh to the world.

I love the name 'Canopy Twist', to be honest. And I love the design, too. My one criticism of it is the colors. They already have an established secondary shade of purple. That they used the text color for the highlights makes sense, but why couldn't they have used their lavender instead of a third shade of purple? In the quantity used for the underside it feels disconnected from the rest of the livery and they could have fixed that very easily by just...using their already existing secondary shade of purple? I think it would make for a very nice bridge to the tail as well, and it just feels like a colossal missed opportunity.

You may have noticed that the bulk of the fuselage body is a color a bit darker than what might conventionally be considered 'lavender'. This, too, is noted.

Indigo Livery Inspired by the ever-changing colors that paint the sky from dusk till dawn. A symbol of tranquility, harmony and integrity.

(This color is obviously purple, not indigo, but I will not belabor that point.)

I love the description, the idea of the transition between dusk and dawn. Much like the window as a basis for a logo, this makes me go "why in the world has nobody thought of that before? That's brilliant!"

It makes me think a bit more could have been done in the details. Maybe the canopy twist could be a gradient, like the gradient of the sky while the sun is rising? Just a thought.

And ultimately it's the canopy twist that is my only real sticking point with this livery. It is beautiful and unique and well-designed and it is simply a color that sticks out like a sore thumb. It's the only warm thing creeping into a design otherwise full of beautiful cool tones, it has gorgeous flow within itself but breaks up the feeling of consistency through the airframe as a whole, and I just...I really wish it were lavender.

If that's my main issue you can do a lot worse. And overall I do like the Riyadh Air livery. If that one detail was changed, this would easily be an A. This review would be all but uncritical. Except for the fact that it could use a bit of canopy twist up top, too (maybe just a tiny bit on the top of the nose, flowing in the same direction) in order to make the plane feel less rear-heavy (though it already beats out the vast majority of liveries in that sense), the issue with the color is my only big criticism. But it's the main detail of the design, isn't it?

It's wild. So much of the time my reviews are "good details, bad when you step back". But this is the opposite. Fantastic, but there's that one detail that sticks with you. And the details by and large are far from bad too. I mentioned the nacelles, and I think it very elegantly transitions the tail into the body. It would be more elegant if the design on the body was the same lavender, though!

A few more nitpicks: the centering of the logo on the tailfin is a little strange, the tail would look better if it had a bit of a gradient to make it less matte-seeming, and the combined effect of those is very luxury-hotel-towel-monogram. Okay. I'm done complaining.

So it falls short of being one of the best I've ever reviewed, but I still really, really like it. The calligraphy inspiration creates these elegant sweeping lines that are perfectly at home on the 787. The deep purple looks luxurious despite the fact that Riyadh Air doesn't plan to offer first class. It's eyecatching. It's stylish.

And, now that I've covered all this, let's look at the colors in person! That's right, they've already had a plane delivered in full Riyadh Air colors.

The deep purple with the lighter canopy twist, combined with the tiny white dots of the various probes and such, make this plane look like an animal camouflaging itself against the night sky in a place untouched by light pollution. The light lavender contrasts sharply in this particular image, sharply enough that it feels like a slice cut out of the plane.

This continues to be an issue from other angles and in other lightings, but the cool-toned light makes this purple look like true indigo and the blueish cast improves the look, giving an almost fluorescent appearance to the transition between the twist and the tail. The way the light reflects off the dark paint makes it look rippling and shifting and alive in a way it never could off white.

In shadow, the plane looks as dark as a city sky. In light, the vibrant purple of a fresh eggplant. This paint job adapts wonderfully to its environment. Much like Vietnam Airlines's, each light brings out a unique beauty.

And sometimes, the tail, detached though it may look, does so in the way a shining arm of a spiral galaxy neatly transitions into the black expanse around it.

Riyadh Air's planes range from ultraviolet to supervoid, but they are never lost in their environment. The principles behind the design remain consistent, and beautiful, and alone in a sky full of planes which refuse to embrace the dark skies they fly in on red-eye journeys.

Ultimately, I think Riyadh Air's livery feels a bit overdesigned. They added one color too many, and a few decisions feel like they don't belong together in the same picture. Just think about the amount of colors here, the balance of major features, and think about Vietnam Airlines, and you'll see what I mean. I'm not a fan of minimalism, but sometimes the only way to keep a story straight is to minimize loose ends. A secret becomes exponentially more likely to be exposed with each new person who learns it.

But before I looked closer, before I zoomed in and out on a little 3D model while my computer screamed, I saw this livery for the first time and my jaw hit the floor. And the average person isn't going to think about this the way I do. Ultimately, my critical eye is usually something I defer to, but I can't argue with the fact that this livery is going to be to someone else what China Airlines is to me. And, like China Airlines, when they come back and look closer at it they'll notice it wasn't as perfect as they thought, but...we've come so far, if this is someone's China Airlines. And as much as I nitpick at details the package counts, too. If you asked me why China Airlines got a C- instead of a D+, my honest reason would be...it struck me enough that I singled it out to begin with, even though that started to fall apart when I looked closer.

Why am I giving Riyadh Air an A- instead of a B+? Because this plane will stun people 5,000 feet below it, and they'll think to themselves that it's the prettiest plane they've ever seen.

[max1461]

I think the fundamental weakness in the rationalist worldview is that it seems to take intelligence, above all else, to be the central motive force of history. What material conditions are for Marx, intelligence is for the rationalists. It shows up in Yudkowsky's writing on AI in particularly exaggerated form: he treats AI superintelligence as essentially magic, capable of circumventing any and all physical and material obstacles to achieving the system's goals. Many people have pointed out that there may be serious physical limitations on nanotechnology that make many of his proposed AI apocalypse scenarios implausible. But these potential limitations are handwaved away, because the AI is really really smart, you see, so surely it could find a way around them. A sufficiently intelligent AI could supposedly even find its way around even more fundamental information and epistemic limits. Within three frames of a video of an apple falling, an AI superintelligence would already have general relativity as one of its primary hypotheses! Good thing, as one commenter pointed out, it wasn't shown a video of a red balloon floating up instead.

Of course, there's a steelman here—that with sufficient intelligence, these putative limitations might be circumvented, and since we can't rule out the possibility, it's worthwhile to research AI safety anyway (even if the particulars of this or that proposed apocalypse sound implausible). And I'm pretty sympathetic to this steelman, which is part of the reason that I ultimately do think AI safety research is worthwhile. But this is not the way Yudkowsky typically frames things. Rather, he frames the issue of AI safety with a seeming certitude that, given sufficient intelligence, the world can simply be bent to one's will. All problems can be overcome by just being a really really super duper smarty pants.

I see why this sort of worldview, both the exaggerated mythologization of intelligence-as-superpower and the more toned-down conception of intelligence as historical prime-mover, would be appealing to... well, lets face it, a bunch of nerds who grew up priding themselves primarily on their intelligence. But ultimately, I just don't think it's correct, even as a heuristic.

It's not just in writings about AI where this shows up. It's also pervasive in rationalist discourse about the human social world, and this is where I think it's most misguided. There's a cadre of rationalist and rat-adj reactionaries who are famous around these parts for invariably, incessantly taking every political discussion back to IQ, because they hold a worldview in which everything is downstream of who's smart and exactly how smart they are. I've also found Scott Alexander to be pretty regularly guilty of this. Look at the way he talks about intelligence here, in his review of Joseph Henrich's The Secret of Our Success (this is admittedly not the best example, but it's the one I could find, so it will have to do).

To be fair, Henrich is in some sense writing against the idea that intelligence is a magical panacea, and Scott is recapitulating his argument. Henrich's view is that human success is due in significant part to cultural evolution rather than raw brain power, and in the broad strokes I share this view. Henrich thus spends a certain amount of time trying to demonstrate that raw brain power is not sufficient for survival, and Scott reproduces these arguments. But what gets me is that he reproduces them as if they are reasonably likely to be novel to us, as if we may genuinely need them in order to move on to the later discussion about cultural evolution, instead of presenting them for what they (in my view) actually are: fucking obvious.

Henrich walks the reader through many stories about European explorers marooned in unfamiliar environments.

[...]

These explorers had many advantages over our hominid ancestors. For one thing, their exploration parties were made up entirely of strong young men in their prime, with no need to support women, children, or the elderly. They were often selected for their education and intelligence. Many of them were from Victorian Britain, one of the most successful civilizations in history, full of geniuses like Darwin and Galton. Most of them had some past experience with wilderness craft and survival. But despite their big brains, when faced with the task our big brains supposedly evolved for – figuring out how to do hunting and gathering in a wilderness environment – they failed pathetically.

Nor is it surprising that they failed. Hunting and gathering is actually really hard. Here’s Henrich’s description of how the Inuit hunt seals:

[quotes from Henrich about how the Inuit hunt seals]

How do hunter-gatherers know how to do all this? We usually summarize it as “culture”. How did it form? Not through some smart Inuit or Fuegian person reasoning it out; if that had been it, smart European explorers should have been able to reason it out too.

He says "hunting and gathering is actually really hard", as if we need reminding that being a Really Smart Guy doesn't automatically confer you knowledge of all local flora and fauna and where to find them.

In the last paragraph, he claims that because Europe explorers (certified smartypants) couldn't figure something out in the several weeks before they starved to death, it is thereby obvious that local people could not have figured it out consciously either, even with multiple generations to beat their heads against the problem. Is Scott not familiar at all with the slow, incremental process by which modern scientific progress is made? To make clear me own biases on the object level issue: I think cultural evolution pretty clearly plays a big role in the development of human societies, likely the dominant one across history, though I think some level of conscious, intentional invention and experimentation pretty clearly plays a role too. I couldn't comment on the precise balance between the two. But even though Scott is ultimately arguing for a position I basically agree with, his reasoning here doesn't even look convincing. Unless, that is, you have tacitly accepted the notion that intelligence is magic, and that being a certified super smartypants frees you from all constraints of time, resources, and prior knowledge.

Sometimes I just want to shake these people and yell "some things are not basically about how smart you are! Some things are basically about other things!"

[zeroducks-2]

(Espero que se me sea entendible)

Que opinión tienes de que Eo haya dicho:

"because it's the only time you'll spend with me."

En vez de:

"because it's the only time I'll spend with you

Te entiendo sì :) Sorry my Spanish isn't good enough for a complete answer but I do understand it well enough.

So the reason why Eo says "It's the only time YOU will spend with me", and not "the only time I will spend with you", is because he does spend a lot of time with Barry even if Barry is normally not aware of it.

Eo follows him around, spies on him, literally stalks him day and night and keeps him under control, he does spend a lot of time with him. It doesn't work the other way around though! Barry doesn't know Eo is there (and even when he suspects it, they don't really interact), so he doesn't in fact spend time with Eobard in return. It's a one way thing in which Eobard watches and looks and observes but never acts, like when he came back from the however many years he was tortured in prison and started just following Barry around, watching him without ever interacting (Eo was being ridiculously shy about it, and the funny thing is that at that point, Barry would have likely been happy to see him and greeted him like an old friend).

Conversely, when Eobard is actively making his life impossible, Barry is forced to react to the things he's put through, therefore he will "spend time with him".

See, Eo has this distorted view of relationships in which spending time with a loved one means that the ONLY WAY he has to be noticed and get the other person to give him attention, is through breaking things. As a child he was ignored by his parents who locked him in a playpen and never even turned towards him, and the only way he had to get them to pay attention to him was to break expensive toys. That would get his father to finally notice his existence and beat him up, which hey, I'm sure it won't traumatize a small child at all!

If you can go past the terrible art, this is what his life has been like for a good chunk of his childhood (then his parents genetically engineered another child and forced him to be his little brother's primary caretaker, while continuing to treat him like garbage).

And sure, now Eobard isn't a child anymore, but the 25th century is a bleak place and beside for the Flash comics he found refuge and comfort in, he didn't have any other guardian figure (or any friend really) who taught him how love even looks like. So, when Barry loses his entire shit in Running Scared, absorbs the Negative Speedforce and beats the everliving hell out of him, from Eobard's perspective he's still giving him attention! It worked, he broke "enough toys" to get Barry to spend time with him! ... In the sense that he was a menace for long enough and threatened Iris enough times, and it's interesting to me how in Running Scared he is so disoriented and so overpowered that he could do 200% more damage, but truly his only goal is getting Barry to spend time with him therefore he keeps said damage to a minimum.

He could have killed Ace, but he just tossed him around a bit. He could have killed Iris, and he barely even touched a hair on her head. He brought her to the 25th century after realizing that she didn't remember barely anything about him (unacceptable! One of the most important people in his life forgot shit about him!!), but beside scaring her, the whole RS arc ends with Iris sporting not even a bruise. The entirety of Running Scared could be summarized with "local time traveler gets brought back to life by his crush, is disoriented as fuck and in his need for attention makes a mess and gets himself killed again (by his other crush)". And in my strictly personal opinion, the reason why his antics look especially childish in Running Scared also comes from the fact that he's indeed extremely disoriented, both by the whole flashpoint paradox situation (he can't forget anything while everyone else has altered memories!), and by the fact that he literally just died and came back to life. Imagine the headache.