#capable of Change

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[midnight-coffee94]

No single line has ever wrecked me as hard as this one from the Good Place and I think about it constantly

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

going through my old journals as part of therapy homework and i'm reading a section written in the emotional wreckage of a full-on breakdown when i get hit with this line:

There is never a satisfying answer to ‘Why didn’t they love me?’

like wow babe. good fucking point

[rbvcdeluxe]

something something max's main color being red with blue highlights something something grace's main color being blue with red highlights something something motivations something something alive and dead something something

[dykedvonte]

I think depictions of Anya being cruel to Curly or drawing out his suffering are artful and chilling but completely miss the point of the story and her character.

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve to have that "I told you so" moment with him but not in something callous or cold. Even if that is how it happened, she'd immediately feel guilty cause at that point she's not tormenting her tormenter or even the person truly at fault. She's doing something cathartic, similar to how Jimmy likely hits Curly to release rage he can't against the rest of the crew. She'd see herself as no different when she'd come back from the moment and see Curly cowering at her. She wants someone to take responsibility but how does being cruel to the defenseless help? Why would she want the power Jimmy has over her over Curly?

The idea of her extending someone else's pain is just so against the struggles she already faces and how she can't even bring herself to cause someone pain even to help them. Her very desire is to release herself from her own suffering and I doubt she'd even fine some sort of guilty release in being cruel to another.

[cubbihue]

So, a changeling is sort of like a p-zombie?

(For the unaware, “p-zombie” stands for “philosophical zombie”. It’s a thought experiment in philosophy that describes a being that’s outwardly identical to a human, but does not have a consciousness; that is, a p-zombie does not think whatsoever, although it looks like it thinks to an outsider observer. There’s a whole wikipedia article on it that explains the concept better than I can!)

They don't exactly think, as in "I dont want this" "I like that". But, Changelings do have a form of "Consciousness". It's just that their consciousness is more like a series of commands or tasks than actual formulated thoughts.

Timmy's Changeling has a very advanced "consciousness". It can predict future actions and reroute its tasks to pick only the best options for its situation.

We fill their heads with static to ensure that the Changeling does not form thoughts about anything. Thoughts leads to opinions, and opinions leads to incorrect actions. A proper Changeling should have more static in their mind than a TV screen on a defunct channel!

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[m4rs-ex3]

the callum / runaan dynamic is so funny bc like. out of nowhere your daughter has a boyfriend who happens to be the most wildcard character you imagine she could find - human (mind you you're currently in the process of unlearning all your racial prejudices), magical, and a government official in addition to all of his other Emo Personal Lore - and they're the most beautifully devoted but also most painfully public affection-displaying couple you've ever seen and the guy also kind of freed your soul from purgatory plus you love and trust your daughter so basically you just kind of have to Deal With It. yet it would seem he's determined to make that as difficult as possible because he is the biggest fucking dork you have ever met in your life and it seems you are the only person who is bothered by this because your husband is amused, your daughter thinks he is the greatest thing to ever happen, and the dumbass himself attempts to show you some respect but also apparently refuses to stop being cringe so now you must continue on with your life while this loser teenager does your daughter in the room next to yours every night and you can't do anything about it because oh yeah you killed his father

[fulcrums501st]

Jinx was so worried about Vi replacing her with an enforcer in s1 only for s2 to confirm and approve of this development AFTER showing that Jinx was actually capable of changing for the better

[lgbtlunaverse]

So I've said multipe times now (here and here) that thinking nmj is just so blinded by privilege he doesn't undertand that acting out of line gets people killed is, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of his character that ignores the part where he's, you know, actively dying the whole time and thinks that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean I don't think privilege plays no role at all in how he views the world.

Specifically, his view that death (at least premature or violent death) means something.

Death isn't always a tragedy to NMJ, but it is always meaningful. If you kill an evil dangerous person for your righteous cause, that death had meaning. There was evil in the world and now there is less of it. Similarly, if you die in the pursuit of your righteous cause, that death has meaning, because the sheer dedication you gave to it that you were willing to die for it will further that cause, and your bretheren will be invigorated by your sacrifice to fight even harder.

If a death isn't meaningful, that's an injustice and it is up to the living to give it meaning. That's what cuts so deep about his father's murder. There were no consequences, no changes, no meaning. Wen Ruohan was just going to get away with it! He fights and wins an entire war to make it mean something, to make it so that the unjust murder of Nie Mingjue's father is part of Wen Ruohan's downfall.

But this is a view he can only hold because he's the kind of person who's death will be meaningful. Most ordinary people's deaths are meaningless. Not ontologically, not inherently, but they are made meaningless because no one cares. For death to be meaningful you either have to be so powerful that anything you risk your life for will be impacted in some way. (Like, say, if you sacrifice a long life for immense martial power in a faustian bargain with a blade) Or if people with that kind of power care enough about you to do so for you. For most people, this isn't true. A starving street kid has no power to change the unfair world that put them there, even if they risk their life trying, and no one will do it for them once they die.

Nie Mingjue knows this in abstract, and of course rightfully believes it's wrong. But all that does is make it yet another righteous cause people should be willing to die for. Everyone's deaths should mean something, we'll make it so or die trying!

This is what the conflict between nieyao is about at its core. Because Jin Guangyao, fundamentally, cannot conceive of his own death as meaningful. Nie Mingjue grew up around powerful men who could change the world but refuse to do so because god forbid they risk a single hair on their perfect heads. Meng Yao, on the other hand, grew up in an environment where no one of importance would blink twice if you died. He was surrounded by meaningless death. Indeed his entire early life is defined by that lack of care.

Meng Shi dies and no one cares. Meng Yao gets thrown off a flight off stairs and no one cares. He has to be the one to do the caring, and once he's gone no one else will do it for him.

So he has to live.

Jin Guangyao eventually gets far enough that he actually does aquire the power to change some things... as long as he's alive. If he changes too much, holds on too tightly to his ideals, he'll die and it'll all be for nothing. He can't sacrifice himself for his goals because doing so would immediately render those goals unobtainable. No one will care about what he tried to do. He won't be a heroic sacrifice, he'll just be trash that finally cleaned itself up.

And well... Nie Mingjue dies, and someone makes it mean something. Makes it mean so much that the entire story of mdzs would not exist without it. Jin Guangyao dies and it doesn't mean anything. Most people are glad to be rid of him, and the few that are not don't do anything to change that.

[buckevantommy]

i'm so glad they brought back tommy for buck. they could've brought back eli. they could've brought back the openly gay firefighter. they could've introduced someone new. but instead they brought back tommy: the guy who was stuck in the old boys' club, as well as figuring himself out around the same age as buck. the guy who wasn't warm or welcoming to chim or hen when they first arrived but who clearly struggled with doing so, and then who came to appreciate them and have their backs and enjoy their friendship. the guy who was there to see how bobby made a real difference to the 118, made it like a family before he left. the guy who was there for bobby's introduction of 'family dinners'. the guy who left the 118 so that buck could take his place there. the guy with the tk initials. the guy who shares a name with 2 other poignant tommys in the narrative for buck. the guy who chim called not once but twice for help and he answered. the guy who was saved by chimney and who will (hopefully) get to return the favour. the guy who made such pivitol personal growth in his time at the 118 thanks to chim and hen and bobby. they brought back the guy who proves that it's never too late to change, to grow, to be open and soft and caring. that it's never too late to learn about yourself, to figure out who you are as well as the person you want to be. that it's never too late to become a better version of yourself.

[realrosielol]

I think it's so funny how Natsu Hyuuga has pressed so many times how "Kusuriya is not a love story. Romance is not the focus. Also fuck Jinshi" then write up the greatest slow burn ever known to man. Not only that, she's literally made Jinshi, the very character she's known to VOCALLY DESPISE, to be one of the most fleshed out characters in the entire 15 volumes of the light novel

[canisalbus]

seeing all those sheep/goat vaschete asks inspired me to draw these (they got a bit more lazy as i went on but it's whatevs)

i like to imagine that machete could be a long haired goat breed which would give him his signature floof! couldn't choose which one to settle with tho ^^"

.

[fallenclan]

i switched out Gizmo's collar for a braided grass cord--I think that it'd recognize a collar is too dangerous to have in the wild (choking hazard!), but still want to keep the memory of its life before. The bell probably got stuffed with mud or moss to keep it from making too much noise

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[zondearts]

I guess we doing clothes now

[leverage-ot3]

I’ve talked about this before but imagine what it’s like for someone in a country/place where eliot is Top Most Wanted and then your tech guy finds a breakout star baseball player on their visual scanner that looks EXACTLY like spencer. but…there’s no way that’s him, right???

and then the next year it happens again but this time it’s some one hit wonder country singer kenneth crane that has like 78 tween-run fangirl blogs dedicated to him. you see a grainy video of him being chased by a horde of screaming teenage girls and ??? no way Eliot Last Thing You’ll Ever See Spencer is a country singer star just. signing pictures of his face right…?

a few months later your intern shows you footage of an eliot lookalike who is in san lorenzo talking about how there is dog fighting in the presidential palace and you just. sigh. because of course. a scant few days later the political geography of the country changes drastically and damien moreau is imprisoned. …interesting

and then a year of silence goes by. he still shows up as blips on the radar but he must have a good hacker working for him because his tracks on the internet are expertly erased.

every time you ask through interagency channels some random interpol guy talks in (condescending?) riddles at you and it also somehow feels like he’s threatening you

and then your friend who recently got into foreign hockey teams sends you a dropyourgloves video of someone called jacques the bear. you immediately get a headache (and watch some more videos because even you can admit this guy is a good hockey player)

and you know he’s a Bad Guy but it’s been admittedly a bit entertaining seeing what claim to fame he will come upon next. and his most recent actions over the few years make you wonder.

a few months later your phone pings because multiple heads of state evacuated from DC. the reason? eliot spencer was in town. you hear two days later a bioterrorist was taken down by… the report was redacted. your hacker tells you spencer and two teammates were behind the successful operation. which, huh.

not even a full year later it is released that spencer is dead and… you don’t know how to feel.

[defectivegembrain]

Many late diagnosed autistics: Earlier diagnosis would have definitely been only a good thing and led to so much more understanding and acceptance of myself

Me, from the age of 11, any time I didn't have an emotional reaction someone else did: Well this is clearly because of what the media reliably tells me is Broken Robot Disorder, I am cold and unfeeling by nature and can never develop emotional awareness, and furthermore this makes me a bad person, if you can even call me a person