#got pretentious here

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

femto and child griffith

more 3am thoughts when i have an exam tomorrow morning (inspired after seeing this gorgeous art btw): while i've seen my fair share of posts about femto and griffith, i haven't seen one about femto and child griffith specifically, and i'm also in a word vomit mood, so here goes.

imo femto, and neogriffith by extension, can be considered both the precise antithesis of and the fragile armor around that guilt-stricken, tottering child version of griffith that we see in the eclipse sequence. child griffith in the eclipse sequence is a representation of what made griffith human; not the untouchable, invulnerable, superhuman ideal that griffith projected for others, the ideal that made guts feel inadequate next to him. child griffith is griffith's guilt, his passion, his love, his affection, his sense of responsibility, his self-loathing, his fear, his insecurity.

femto has had all of these things excised by the sacrifice. he's the manifestation of the callous, cruel monster that griffith always feared he was, and the opposite in every way of what that child griffith stands for. but at the same time, femto only exists because that child griffith does. griffith only became femto because he had so much guilt and love and self-hatred and fear, and it eventually overwhelmed him. he only made the sacrifice because he couldn't bear those feelings, because he wanted so desperately to get away from them. in making the sacrifice and becoming femto, griffith put up an armor around his child self. he protects that guilt-stricken, tottering child from having to grapple any longer with the weight of his remorse and insecurity and pain, because, at his lowest point, it truly became too much for him to endure. femto may be the opposite of what child griffith stands for, but at the same time, femto could never exist without child griffith; he was born to shield him. he is both an anguished denial of and an enclosed, faraway sanctuary for that sobbing child staring at the castle in the sky, a dead boy in his arms and a mountain of corpses piled beneath his feet.

i think that fits really neatly into an overall theme of berserk too: that humans have different sides, and those different sides are not supposed to be wholly separate from each other. berserk likes to play with and defy dichotomies, and you're not supposed to think of griffith as separated down the middle into two: his "human" side and his "villainous" side. they exist together. his "villainous" side simultaneously rejects, protects, and is fueled by his "human" side. you can't have one without the other.

[sugarsnappeases]

everyone stop what you’re doing and ponder lily evans w me. i’ve been rotating this quote for the last two months:

i’ve been thinking about it in relation to the way that lily is portrayed both within the books and within the fandom. the way she’s dismembered, split into all these different pieces (her green eyes, the power of her motherly love, her intelligence etc etc) and each of these pieces is exalted, nigh on idolised even. the way this means that the sum of these parts is something that is simultaneously more and less than a woman.

she’s a mother, she’s a wife, she’s a martyr, she’s a muggleborn, she’s head girl, she’s a sister, she’s a witch. she’s all of these things to the absolute utmost - every facet of her, every segment into which she’s cut, is put on a pedestal, she is the epitome of all of these separate things, and because of this she can never be Real. Tangible. Whole.

it’s like this:

over their dead bodies - kensuke koike

she’s more than a woman bc she’s made up of all these individually flawless parts of different women that have been projected onto her…. but she’s less than a woman for the same reason. she’s never complete. she’s a near-deity. she’s a fantasy. she’s everywhere and nowhere in the narrative. she’s dead. she’s alive in all these segments. she’s a fraction of a whole. she’s like trying to do a brand-new puzzle that’s still missing a good third of the pieces. she’s a ‘beautiful monster composed of every individual perfection.’

link to article in which i encountered the quote & link to article from which the quote originates (they’re both beautiful jstor articles about bestie petrarch and the way he portrays laura. haven’t acc read the second one (although i plan to soon!!) but the vickers article has enraptured me to an insane degree so if anyone’s interested i really recommend. might not make much sense if you haven’t read the rvf, but they’re so so interesting!!)

[targarrus]

bele sanje

[tricoufamily]

guess who i figured out how to work into this is the fall part 2

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

trying to psych myself up to finally do oc refs by doing fandom-related refs instead: volume 1

wanted to update my yuma from whatever tf this au is so he was a bit more unique... takes inspo from a lot of different things while also trying to be its own sorta thing? which is fitting given the au ;)

bonus chibi now that i'm also figuring out how tf to do chibis lol:

[telesodalite]

Sort of a ramble, sort of me just writing my thoughts out while I'm stuck with writer's block, but I keep thinking about how Fulcrum was in stasis for roughly 3 million years??

Like, that's a long time, even for Cybertronians. Not a really long time, not an entire lifespan. But still, it's a large chunk of a normal lifespan just gone. Poof.

One second you're crawling across the pockmarked terrain of an alien planet, surrounded by the sound of gunfire, and the shouting and screaming before and after each earth shuddering impact of another k-con hitting the ground. And then it's quiet. You're not there anymore. You're drifting somewhere between not alive and just asleep. Preserved somewhere in the background of a doomed body, ignored by time and space, still here, but also not.

And then there's sound. Not gunfire. Not shouting or screaming. Not the sounds that'll haunt you till your dying days, your own death sentence pounding in your head. No. Just voices, talking, standing out against a silent, dead world. Wondering. Joking. Bickering. Familiar. Just, not familiar to you. And you're awake. Pulled back from the nothingness you've been frozen in, consciousness tugged forwards with the yank of a fuel pump and the nearness of life.

These two moments are roughly 3 million years apart, but only minutes, maybe even seconds, to him. From a hectic harrowing battlefield, to an old silent graveyard in one blink.

How long did it take to really sink in? I mean, he seems to just roll with it. He doesn't seem particularly bothered. But like, what happened outside of what we see? How did he really feel?

Also, his body aged without him. While his mind preserved itself, freezing him as he was right then, his body was left to weather Clemency for all those years. No wonder it crumbled to dust when he jumped off the world sweeper. It's probably a miracle of some kind that it didn't just fall apart each time someone leaned on him.

And even after they rebuild him, give him a better, newer body. His spark, it's casing, all the irreplaceable core bits that make up their inner bodies, it aged in the time without him. Does he feel it? Does it make his body even more foreign to him?

Then he's also a technician with information that's 3 million years out of date. Lucky him that the scavengers probably weren't working with top of the line material. But still it's gotta be weird when faced with anything brand new, because a lot can change and progress in 3 million years, and now some of the knowledge he once prided himself in is obsolete.

Besides those things, his view of the galaxy, of the war, of their kind, of other kinds, is one of the few things actually pointed out when it comes to him being stuck in the past. So, how often were his old views challenged? Facts of life he held close proved to no longer true? There's 3 million years worth of new science, new beliefs, new words, new terms, new views.

And sure, some of it can be familiar, because they're an ever evolving kind, and they have patterns, core beliefs, repeating behaviors, but a lot of it's gonna be unfamiliar at the same time, because it's 3 million years worth of catch up, it's not like missing last week's trend.

In a way, it makes him a living relic of a bygone era for Decepticons. It would've been really interesting to have had that explored a little more.

[stergeon]

Premise: Seventy years after the events of Silver Snow, Byleth and Claude reunite on a farm in Almyra.

Rating: Teen and Up (old man angst; language; violence)

Chapters: 5 of 7

Words: 17.7k (71k cumulative)

Chapter Summary: The farm is attacked by mercenaries with orders to capture Claude and Byleth. As they try to determine how to respond, their friendship and futures will be put to the test.

(aka the chapter where i start getting really ambitious)

[13eyond13]

actually stunned by how gay The Beatles has been all this time and I just never knew

[ilynpilled]

it being hotd season and it being the most popular show again hurts me for no other reason than the fact that i have to be jumpscared by tweets with jaime with like 40k+ likes that make it onto my tl despite my best efforts and im such an insufferable loser that i exist in a mind palace where asoiaf is a series that only 70 ppl engage with max and every time that illusion is broken i want to kms

[accirax]

A Thought on Hu's Secret

Throughout the past couple of months, I've been rewatching DRDT (more on that once I finish it) through Weeby Newz's streams. They're very fun, and I recommend them if you want to experience DRDT in an audio format, but, that's neither here nor there. I've just reached the start of Chapter 2, and with it, the area investigation that kicks off the chapter. Rewatching the scene introducing the Dress-up Room got me thinking-- not necessarily about the murder, but instead, about Hu's backstory and how it might intertwine with her secret. (CW for DRDT spoilers through 2-2 and discussion of suicide/suicidal thoughts, specifically overdosing.)

Despite the hesitancies I've had in the past, I am now of the belief that Hu probably has the secret, "You were quite the hopeless child. Dying once wasn't enough, so you attempted suicide three times." It's mostly because I don't think that that secret would make sense for Levi, Min, or anybody else, anymore. But, evidence such as Hu not wanting to share the self harm secret line up with this interpretation too. So, I'm not trying to argue that Hu doesn't have that secret here, because I still think it's the most likely. Instead, I want to pass something on to everybody else who thinks Hu is the hopeless child to see what you all think.

After Teruko, Whit, and Hu get their makeovers, Hu comments on her new dress being very similar to what she wears at home, down to the brand. Whit keeps the ball rolling by pointing out that a lot of things about the set seem to be creepily catered to the students. One such thing he brings up is students' prescriptions. Here's what he has to say:

In my mind, ever since solidifying on the belief that Hu was the hopeless child, I believed that Hu was one of the students with the prescriptions. If Hu were that suicidal, it would make sense if she was taking something to counteract that. And Hu is a friendly enough person that I could fully believe Whit talking with her about a sensitive subject such as this.

But... was Hu actually one of the people who takes a prescription? On a second read, I think the answer may be, "no."

If Whit already knew that Hu took a prescription, why would he ask her? And, yes, he immediately followed it with "that was a rhetorical question," which could be in an attempt to save Hu from having to admit she took a medication in front of Teruko. However, if he already knew, it would have been very easy for him to just lead with "I've talked to some people around here who take prescriptions, and..." To me, asking Hu and Teruko if they take any prescriptions is an indicator that he did not talk to either of them before about that aspect of their lives. Instead, commenting on the rhetorical question was a countermeasure to his slip up of accidentally pressuring Hu and Teruko into discussing something private.

Okay, that's not the most solid evidence. What about Hu's response?

Once again, this seems like something that Hu would only say if she had never thought about something like this before. At the very least, it would be something that she hadn't talked about with Whit before, unless they're both putting on an elaborate performance for Teruko's sake. I wouldn't go so far as to say that doing something like that would be fully out of character for Hu, but it does seem like a pretty weird thing for her to do based on what we've seen of Hu so far.

So, what does that mean? Well, it means that, assuming that Hu does in fact have the hopeless child secret, Hu attempted suicide three times, and yet may not take any medications for it. We can't guarantee that she doesn't, because if Whit and Hu never discussed medications before, it's possible that she does and Whit just didn't know about it. However, on DRDTdev's end, it would seem a little strange to me to have a list of unknown students who take medications, not have Hu be part of that list, but have Hu still take medications.

Now, full disclosure, I have never needed to take any medications before, so I could have things wrong. If I do, I apologize, and I would be happy to correct myself via feedback from anyone who does who's comfortable sharing.

After some very brief research, it does seem like some suicidal people aren't prescribed any medications by their doctors, because 1) either the source of their suicidal tendencies isn't something that can be treated by medicine, 2) the doctor is worried that a misdiagnosis could increase the suicidal tendencies to a dangerous degree, or 3) the doctor is worried that the patient might use the medication to overdose. However, antidepressants and anxiety medications are often used as counter-suicide methods for patients whose suicidal tendencies stem from depression or anxiety respectively. Antipsychotics and mood stabilizers are also sometimes prescribed to suicidal people with conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

So, if Hu both has the hopeless child secret and doesn't take any medications for it, it could imply a couple of scenarios:

The impetus behind Hu's suicide attempts does not include depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder.

No doctors were ever made aware of Hu's suicide attempts.

Despite having depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and/or bipolar disorder, any doctors that Hu saw did not see it fit to prescribe her any medications. (Due to Hu's seemingly traditional upbringing, it could be that any doctors Hu's family brought her to don't believe in medicine. Huh? Amane who? /j)

Despite being offered medication, Hu chooses not to take it. If extreme enough, this could even line up with her preferences being for them to not exist in her room at all.

I think that any of these possibilities have some very interesting implications on Hu's backstory, which we know very little about at this point.

Of course, to even get here, you have to rely on several inferred implications, including the idea that Hu even has the hopeless child secret in the first place! It's definitely possible that I'm the only one who even believes in the conditions that led me to my three potential conclusions in the first place. Or, maybe this line of logic was already obvious to everyone else, and I'm not really bringing anything new to the table here. Still, I feel that Hu doesn't often get a chance to shine in the DRDT theorizing zone, so when I had this thought, I decided to put it out there.

Thanks for listening, and, if you have anything to say, feel free to respond! Here's hoping that, in one way or another, we learn a little more about Hu's backstory soon after the story resumes. Until next time!

[rotisseries]

deeply annoying that I'm never gonna get to be a pretentious "one of their first fans😌" types about a music artist not only because I'm consistently abysmal at expanding my music taste to artists that aren't popular yet but also because whenever I DO get to an artist before everyone else does I'm only like. 6 months early to the party. not significant enough

[thewitchqueen281]

I know a lot of people liked the show but also a lot of people liked fallout 4 so idk if any of you mfs can be trusted

[the-bored-immortal]

So the craziest of things just happened and i feel the need to document on the internet like its a reddit horror story. So hi person happening to read this. Im pes. But call me anything you like. It is currently 12:20 Central daylight time on the morning of October 16th 2024. I literally had an epiphany in the middle of the game. I literally in read time realize how lazy i was being.

It may not sound like alot but everything just

Clicked.

So i was playing brawlhalla. and will continue doing after i finish typing this. I have been playing like six years and im like low plat. But i was terrible for soooooo long.

Like 250 wins in silver. But i kinda just died alot and learned the hitboxes that way. Like i refused to look at tutorials. I literally didn't know anything. I just played Caspian and hit them before they hit me.

So when i got friends eho were good at it. Like very good. I realized all the shit you could do in this game. And then i watched the videos and tutorials.

Then i actually started training the muscle memory for movement and jusy how much freedom you have if you actually use your head and strip away all the bullshit thoughts and stop being scared.

Like im barely paying attention to one thing at any time. I need music and a game and another game on my phone.

I forever have multiple tabs open. Im realizing im having the epiphany while i type this.

Its interesting .

And im realizing i do this with literally everything. Everything i read and watch and play. Anything i can devote brainpower too

I should be learning everything.

Because why not.

The stuff i like is getting boring. Reading anything. My pride and joy

Whats kept me sane.

I just was to share them before i get more. I want a reason to read.

But if youve read this far. For whatever reason. Feel free to say hi. Im so bored. Weirdness would be interesting. Im leaving this here so that i dont forget this moment. As an anchor in my memories. To be my center. To be in the moment. How it feels.

[accursedthing]

The craziest thing about the Sabra inclusion in the MCU is that they're trying so hard to save face about it by being like "nooo she's not even a Mossad agent in the movie she works for the US government even" but her name is still literally Sabra?? But I do think the criticisms here should be a jumping off point for more of us into broader superhero criticisms, because she really is a very standard Marvel superhero format (involved in state intelligence, carrying nationalistic imagery/language, taking part in violence analogous to irl imperialist conflicts) just Israeli instead of the usual USamerican which makes the insidiousness of it more obvious to an audience much more entrenched in US-perspective cultural exports

[alagaisia]

I’m reminded of that post about how goths and people who wear only lots of pink are actually the same because “wearing only one color” is a specific choice in opposition to just looking Normal

I’m flying to a friend’s wedding today, and I recently acquired from my neighborhood free page a very pretty vintage suitcase in like a brocade upholstery texture in all of my good colors, so of course I needed a coordinated airport outfit à la Midge Maisel. You guys don’t know me, but I usually dress very put together, in what my sister calls Outfits, with a capital O to distinguish it from just wearing clothes. And since getting a full time job I’ve been slowly adding to my collection of vintage and 50’s-vibes clothes, because I just really like that aesthetic (my bridesmaid dress for the wedding is a vintage tea dress I got from Etsy. The fabric is in great condition but I had to reinforce pretty much every seam with my sewing machine, because the structural integrity of the original thread was breaking down, so that was an interesting learning experience).

All of which is to say that I Dressed Up for the airport in a vintage-y outfit that coordinates perfectly with some of the colors of my suitcase, and my hair is curled, and I have a vintage leather purse that my grandma gave me that matches her watch that I’m wearing and the shoes she bought me last summer at the same vintage store that my skirt came from, and a teenage-ish girl with whatever you call the 2023 teenage equivalent of emo/punk vibes, like the dark maroon mullet and not a lot of makeup and dark comfy clothes but like, very on purpose, told me I look cool when I walked past on the way to security

And like, she Gets It! We have different fashion goals but I think we put a similar degree of intention into the way we look compared to just wearing regular clothes. Which is cool! It’s validating. Not that I really need validation, but it’s always nice to get compliments, of course. And the way I dress is really not terribly distinctive most of the time, other than being Outfits and a little dressier than maybe the norm is, like I think most people who see me one time in passing would see that I look Nice but not necessarily see it as a cultivated Look. But punk mullet girl gets it.

[hella1975]

this isn't meant to like. make you give your opinion on Discourse™️ or anything I just wanted to ask, but I keep seeing people upset about taylor dating mr. 1975 and I can't figure out if it's bc he's a terrible person or just a greasy alcoholic 😭😭😭 do you know what's up with that guy??? like on one hand I like not knowing things about celebs and I should keep it that way. but also

i, unfortunately, do know what's up with that guy and it's that he's said something problematic about every faction of society at least once. for me i have some weird, reluctant fondness for him because he is just a train wreck and he's such a twat all the time that at least it's nondiscriminating, and i also like that when he sings about mental illness it's bc he's actually BEEN THERE and been publicly a mess bc of it and been addicted to drugs and acted like a dick, and he ACKNOWLEDGES THAT, but also at no point am i gonna jump on the 'he's an amazing person' parade bc generally he is just a sleazy idiot. it is weird watching people suddenly dragging up every single thing he's ever said to be like 'look! this is why he's bad for our tay tay!' when the running joke with matty healy is that he's just a prick. like u dont need to expose his moral fibre. u can just say he's a prick. and also as funny as the jokes are she's still a grown woman who's been around the block a few times when it comes to dating. i think she will be okay maybe