#early morning rambles

[puddleonthefloor]

what if victim left chosen with the memory scanner in the box

and chosen was just stuck there with a memory paused on dark lord

his bestfriend(or lover whichever u hc) who was probably dead

for hours maybe

alone

[brekkie-e]

I have like five posts marinating in the fridge about how truly disappointed I am in the character dynamics outside of romances in BG3. But they're also annoying me because wow. It's 2023. Bioware just laid off a ton of writers. And I'm stewing about how much better at a "complete" narrative they are. But fr even SWTOR, which I would not place anywhere near the top of Bioware's writing game, has better friendship dynamics fleshed out. Characters that exist in the narrative that develop meaningful dynamics with the player that don't have anything to do with sex.

Where's BG3's Mordin Solus? No. Wither's doesn't count. Where's the inter party drama like Sera and Solas? Beefs that don't have sexual tension undertones. Where's the Wicked Grace scene where you get hit with the fact that this rag tag group of people have come to care about eachother?

It just feels so empty outside of the romances. And idk. I didn't want a dating sim with a side of dnd. I feel like you actually get more emotional investment out of characters like Rolan and Barcus than unromanced Gale or Wyll.

[penandswords]

Rima isn't the type to be a BIG fan of touching people. (Its part of the reason why she opted for an office position verses a hero one)

So last night I got it in my head. That what small fighting style she has. Involves movements that causes villains to hit themselves.

Or just working to confuse them.

In more extreme situations she uses her quirk. (But she prefers not to unless she absolutely has to)

[lilysaus]

guys the cutest thing about me and my boyfriend is we took the same language in highschool, which means i could randomly send him "je t'aime" or "je t'adore" and hed immediately respond with "je t'aime aussi" or "je t'adore aussi" and it has me giggling with happiness

[dat2ndaccount97]

Everytime I see Taylor swift all that comes to mind is the one or two songs I know and the thought of "I wish they would make a new taylor swift doll". Because she's gorgoeus and has a lot of amazing outfits. I have one the old dolls from her country music days but it barely looks like her imo. I would love to see someone take another crack at it and hopefully do her justice.

[catboynutsack]

I remember being small and my mother telling me that to not have to use a children's car seat anymore I'd have to be 8 years old or 80 pounds. and of course being a small child I lamented not being 80 pounds bc I hated my car seat and my mother was like NO!!!!!! IF YOU WERE 80 POUNDS YOU'D BE CHUNKY!!!!!!! and I was like. A child with no sense of fatphobia. and I could not fucking wrap my head around why being chunky would be a bad thing. after all I wouldn't have to be in the Dreaded Car Seat Anymore so like. I'm all for it. but my mother insisted that It Was Bad even though she literally could not define why. And I never fuckin understood her disdain towards the concept of me being fat.

anyways guess who's a fat adult and loving it and has zero contact with their mother

[kelddaa]

mornings in the desert

[fleetingresponsibility]

an interesting problem, because I doubt the morale, as far as there is intended to be one, is that royalty is passive and accepting of events as is, this oneness with the world whatever it may be

allison has in the moments where she was most like royalty tries to change things, in both to the linited extent of her abilities at thr time and found peace with that but also in wild neglect of her limitations

I think she told nadia ohm that she may be an idiot but she is an idiot who is trying? it's been a while

what I keep coming back to is abbadons writing about thr blade of want in the K6BD apocrypha, my take on this is that true royalty wield their desires as a blade to affect change instead of being a tool of their desires like aesma was

BUT in line with metis realization of using the power of the keys akin to a very sharp rock, even trying to change the world is a foolish endeavour because the wheel turns ever towards ruin

but sometimes you have to be an idiot whos trying, even if all things inevitably ends in death and don't mean anything, not to build your throne and declare youe royalty, something allison has never done heraelf iirc, but because otherwise a giant warmonger ends the world in your stead

At this point I'm sort of hoping for Allison to be defeated by Jagganoth. I want Zoss to have to come to the realization that liberation lies in letting go of things, in non-control. If after thousands of attempts, after enough cycles of this that my good friend Gog-Agog had to grow into thousands, millions, possibly billions of bodies in order to remember them all, he actually succeeds in getting what he wants, then the recent lesson that Solomon had to learn would go from "you cannot control everything. Let go." to "you just didn't try hard enough to control everything." I would find that immensely narratively unsatisfying.

But on the other hand, what would have been the point of Maya teaching Allison the maybe sword? Her whole training arc, is that for nothing? Philosophically, that's more meaningful, I think, but it is also narratively unsatisfying.

Jadis has seen Allison fail, and Jadis is omniscient. The immediate follow-up to that might be "What is omniscience to true Royalty", but then again, as far as my understanding goes, true Royalty does not take sides. YISUN did not defeat the Red Eyed King, and neither did she stop Aesma from doing so; Meti could probably have killed Incubus without lifting a finger, but allowed him to kill her; it is said that Royalty can use all the forms of the Art, but are above doing so. So if Allison does attain Royalty, she might just realize that this is just another act of a madman tearing at himself, and turn away to let it all die. Or she might not. This isn't a flow chart, after all, there's a guy making the decision for what should happen here.

[lazylittledragon]

isn't it weird how if you get up at 7 or 8, do your work all day, then have free time and go to bed at 11 that's absolutely fine

but if i said i get up at 10, do fun stuff in the morning then work in the evening and go to bed late, i could be called lazy, nevermind that i'm getting just as much or MORE work done as i would in a traditional work day

[gojoest]

anytime i am reminded of how insanely tall satoru is i think about him fucking you standing up effortlessly holding you over his groin and splitting you in half while you’re gripping your hands around his neck with no other choice than to take the fall on his cock over and over and over and over

[shibusawaz]

crying because "a shallow bond" is exactly what caused fyodor's own downfall.

his lack of trust in nikolai, shown by not just taking the antidote right then and there. shown by being cold towards his friend and simply getting in the helicopter with no further words. the fact that, if he had stayed outside with nikolai or even beckoned him in the copter, he'd probably still be alive.

fyodor called dazai & chuuya's bond shallow but never faced the fact that his bonds are shallow as well.

dostoevsky's downfall begins with his sentence, "are you unfit to utilize a gravity manipulator?" with this sentence about chuuya, fyodor sums up his relationships with everyone who cares about him most. he sees them as tools to be used, not people he can rely on.

with ivan, who would literally give his life for him, fyodor brings him into battle once and casts him aside (which, by the way, stupid move fedya. ivan could've saved his ass too!)

with karma, who was nothing more than a boost for fyodor to get back on his feet.

with nikolai, who saw something in fyodor nobody else did, a friend. who tried to form a connection, to see beyond the "demon" in dostoy. who got cast aside anyways because fyodor doesn't see the value in other people's love.

fyodor's lack of trust makes his bonds shallow, which in turn makes him "need" to manipulate others so that he still gets his way. it's a vicious cycle for him, with the path of "trust" and "faith" in anyone else being too long and winding for his ambitious heart. once again, the path straight forward has nothing at the end.

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

The thing about Jon that a lot of people forget is that he is actually a rather well known figure all around Westeros. I don’t think it’s incorrect to say that he’s Ned’s most famous kid by a large margin, and perhaps even one of the more famous teens in Westeros; especially now that he has become Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and his reputation has began to stretch to a different continent. Because of his very unusual origin - being honorable Ned Stark’s bastard son by an unknown woman - his name has been passed around in noble houses across the entire continent. He’s not some random kid from the North that no one has heard of. The majority of people may not have seen him, but they have at the very least heard of him.

I bring this up because people tend to act as if Jon would be automatically scoffed away by just about everyone if his true parentage ever came to light. After all, they say, why would anyone believe that some random kid from the north is a Targaryen prince? But this is not really true. Jon is not a random kid. His father was one of the most powerful men in the entire land. And not only that, but Ned’s reputation as an honorable man with no fault ensured that the scandal of begetting a bastard was known by everyone who is someone. The thing is, readers tend to ignore a very large gaping hole in the story when it comes to public perception of Jon’s parentage. People all over Westeros have been talking about Ned and his bastard, but no one can agree on the mother - this is actually important!

Most people would not have questioned Ned to his face, but they too want to know who Jon’s mother was, even if it’s just for a little bit of gossip among nobles. Jon’s parentage is a mysterious puzzle that a lot of people have tried to solve themselves. Catelyn hears one answer in Winterfell, but Davos hears another on his way to White Harbor. Edric Dayne from Dorne says a different name to Arya, while Cersei and Robert (who both live in KL) hear different things. That there’s so much variation all around Westeros is actually proof that a lot of people are talking about this one issue. And Ned’s refusal to name a woman may actually end up having unexpected consequences when someone finally mentions the name “Lyanna Stark”.

So I would like to push back on the belief that no one in Westeros would care about the R+L=J reveal or that they would immediately write Jon off. GRRM deciding to keep Jon’s mother an in universe mystery that is the topic of constant conversation will have major payoff. While I could see some being incredulous, it’s absolutely not a foregone conclusion that most people will choose not to believe it. And it’s not a foregone conclusion that this reveal will only matter to the Stark kids and no one else. Sure GRRM is playing with fantasy tropes, and Jon squarely falls under the hidden prince/king. But something that makes Jon quite different from a lot of his genre counterparts is that he’s not an unknown figure who shows up at the last minute to claim the crown. Jon is not an unknown entity. He is well known, it’s just that very few people have dared to think too deeply about the very large elephant in the room regarding his origin. But I’d imagine that if R+L=J was to be revealed, it wouldn’t be too shocking for a lot of people. It’s not so far fetched that honorable Ned Stark actually chose to protect his sister’s son.

And in regards to GRRM playing with fantasy tropes, Young Griff always comes up in conversation as Jon’s foil. People say that he will be the one to be believed because he looks the part of a Targaryen, whereas a random kid from the North won’t be believed because of his brown hair and grey eyes. Jon doesn’t look like some random unrecognizable Northman. He very specifically looks like a Stark! And anyway, is Jon’s story - that Ned took him in after his sister died and raised him as his own under the protective banner of House Stark - any less believable than Young Griff’s - that Varys had the foresight to save him and whisk him off to Essos before the Mountain bashed his head in? Until now, people have never heard of Young Griff so they’ve never had the opportunity to ruminate over and gossip about his origin story. But they know Jon. And they know about Rhaegar and Lyanna. And Jon looking so very undeniably like a Stark (like Lyanna Stark!) could perhaps work in his favor.

[thoughtsthatstayedwithme]

[foldingfittedsheets]

I went and stood in front of a judge who said congratulations and got my name changed. Now I have to wait two weeks for my social security appointment before I can change my ID or passport, but I did the first step!

[eiraeths]

ghost and soap retiring and have a baby, and someone tells ghost that the kids gonna be just like him. he hates it, loathes the idea of his baby being anything like him. soap catches onto this quick, and over time manages to convince ghost this isn’t a bad thing, and he’d love their kid being just like him. eventually, ghost settles on the bittersweet notion that he’s going to do the best for his baby no matter what. if they turn out like him then he’ll get to see what he would’ve been like if he grew up in a happy home, and had a wonderful childhood.

[meta-squash]

I think two of the most important things about Jack Harkness, two things that inform almost everything he does and the choices he makes, are this: that he is a soldier NOT a leader, and that his entire life since childhood has been awash in survivor's guilt (and his whole existence after becoming immortal is an even more extreme version of survivor's guilt).

Jack is not a natural leader. He can think on the fly and he's good at getting people to listen to him, but he's not good at control, or at being objective. He's a natural second in command, he's a soldier. He was brought up to do what other people told him to, and to improvise if he had to (Time Agency, etc). But I really don't think he wants to be the leader of Torchwood. Unfortunately, everything about him means that he has to be. He knows from experience that others having control over him is dangerous, others knowing about his immortality while he's a subordinate to them is dangerous, and he also knows that his own immortality gives him an advantage as a leader. But I don't think he's good at leading. He tries to be. But he's fumbling along, in a time period he's not native to and a planet he's not native to and an unfathomable lifespan, and as charming as he is I think he's often not good with people. He's detached where he should be personal and emotional where he should be detached (or at least more level-headed). He's often too extreme or not harsh enough when it comes to things like discipline or dealing with the problems/traumas/mistakes of his employees or even civilians. He can't handle his employees seeing him uncertain/vulnerable and it makes for huge problems over and over again.

But all of this does make sense because I think in the back of Jack's mind there's always this wheel spinning, these gears turning and turning and calculating the impact and trauma each of his actions or decisions or the events around him are going to have on his own emotions for far longer than normal humans tend to consider. Because the catalyst for any part of the life we see him leading is survivor's guilt. He lost his father and his brother on the same day, joined the military and lost his best friend, joined the Time Agency and lost his memories (and maybe thinks he did something terrible). Then he died, and when Rose brought him back, he was all alone on the satellite with nothing but the corpses of the people who had fought beside him and zero explanation as to why he survived, and he had lost Rose and the Doctor besides. And then all his life on earth since, he has lost coworkers and lovers and civilians he tried and failed to save and probably also aliens he tried and failed to save. And I think by the time he becomes reluctant leader of Torchwood, every action is, whether conscious or subconscious, taken with the intent of minimizing that kind of trauma and the impact of loss.

Except that I think that the survivor's guilt has another layer to it, which is that feeling of needing to sacrifice or absolve himself in some way. No one else is willing to make the difficult decisions, no one else will move forward with the painful and unpleasant actions, even if there's no other way, even though they will someday perish and no longer see the ripples of their actions. But Jack - who cannot die, who must live with the guilt or the pain or the trauma of those actions and decisions for the rest of his very very very long life - is the one who realizes that he must take on those painful responsibilities and must do certain things even though they're terrible, because it ends up being the sacrifice of one over the whole world. And every single time, he's guilty about it, and that makes him want even more to sacrifice his own hurt for the grief and loss of others.

So it's this strange cycle of wanting to protect himself from hurt and from loss and from the survivor's guilt, but being driven by guilt towards painful and/or self-sacrificing actions. Which then makes him fear being seen as vulnerable or uncertain, and he struggles to do things on a smaller scale or in a more level-headed way, because he's not supposed to be leading like this, it's not something that comes naturally, and if he makes emotional connections by being a leader, he'll end up trapped in survivor's guilt yet again each time one of his employees or friends or lovers dies.

It's just a terrible cycle and he's trapped in it for the rest of his existence. Although if he really is the Face Of Boe, then I imagine at some point he eventually finds peace with it all or something, but I think so long as he has a human-form he's stuck with this cycle of leadership and loss and sacrifice and mistakes.

I think it's really important that Jack is not good at his job as a leader. He makes a ton of mistakes, he fucks up so much and his employees or even civilians end up collateral damage, whether physically or just emotionally. He wants to be a good leader, I think, and he's trying, but he's fallible, and he's a stranger in literally every sense, and I think a really big part of his character is that he constantly is forced to live in this bizarre dichotomy where he has to be both very distant and cold and detached, and also very emotional and intense and personal. And any other person would collapse under the stress of repeating that over and over and over again for decades, but he has to figure out how to navigate this weight as an infinite existence that can't ever collapse or let it burn him up and kill him.