#he had the best laugh
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David Tennant - Throwing his Head Back with Laughter - Part Four
[ Part One ] [ Part Two ] [ Part Three ]
#david tennant#joyous laughing david#head thrown back laugh#featuring guest appearances by#ncuti gatwa#michael sheen#catherine tate#georgia tennant#doctor who#good omens#much ado about nothing#hignfy#bafta 2024#happy place podcast#he had the best laugh#stuff i posted
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1 year since you've been gone, love you so much
#no beta we die like my beta reader#(murdered that is)#:')#look at how cute he is#he had the best laugh#greif#dead best friend#im scared someone irl is going to recognize him and realize that it's me.......
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Sketching while streaming s5...
Jonathan Sims I will learn to draw you (this is my doing. I could draw him however I want and I choose to stick with an image of him in my brain that is difficult for me to draw. Masochism.)
Not s5 Mahtins below I enjoyed drawing cuz hes neat:
(Edit: I yassified Martin in the do not separate cuz I wanted his hair fluffier)
#yes I realize Jon and Martin are in different fucking art styles let me live#do not accuse me of being AI this difficulty drawing hands is all natural I worked hard drawing for years just to fucking suck at it#update I listened to 170 I heard it was devastating but my ass was LAUGHING#poor martin but omg me and my buddy had everywhere at the end of time in the background and shit was so funny#he forgor 😭💀#it was emotionally devastating at the end tho Jon suggesting he stay there um btich NO?!#Jon the literal Lonely is not worse tham being around you get a fucking grip#helen continues to be the best character her showing up for the juicy gossip is so fucking real#anyagays#tma#tma podcast#the magnus pod#tma fanart#jonathan sims#the magnus archives#my art#martin blackwood#jonmartin#jmart#tma jmart#tma season 5#tma spoilers#i have to make a diagram for my jon and martin designs for s5 SO bad#if only i could draw jon.... >:(#i need u guys to know that my martin loves plaid and jon is wearing a plaid shirt thats too big in s5... inchresting....
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Council of lovefools.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#jiang yanli#jiang cheng#They don't have an actual sleepover in this scene but the vibes were so sleepover coded...I had to get them cozied up.#Late night talks with friends and family are some of the best conversations.#My siblings and I used to have room sleepovers with each other (Actually an excuse to stay up and talk about runescape)#Currently my flatmates and I also have really great heart to hearts late into the night.#Pondering shit like 'What defines confidence?“ and ”Why are people terrified of letting themselves fall in love?"#All that aside; There is a really great conversation between JC and WWX here. They are so close and yet so far way from each other!#Fundamentally they *agree* about many things - but JC now has to play the role of someone more 'mature'.#His temper is reigned in and he had to take a more nuanced approach. Whereas WWX can be far more reactionary.#JC has changed to become someone more mature (or at least he is trying).#Contrast this attitude with the scene *right* after where WWX literally goes baby mode with JYL. Rolling around going “I'm Fwee years old”.#When children are hurt we comfort them with hugs and warm food and a laugh. It's not enough when you're an adult. It's not simple anymore.#WWX is stuck in the past when everyone else is shifting and moving on! It's a depression allegory (and just...actual depression)#But we also get to see how some things have stayed the same. They still bicker about soup. They still tease. They are still together.#They all care for each other very much but they are struggling against trauma and are not equipped to talk about it.#You can't really blame WWX for being so protective over JYL. But JC is right: “You don't have a say in who she likes.”#It may have started as an arranged marriage but *she* is *choosing* what her heart wants. JC sees that. WWX cannot.#The final act of love is letting go after all.
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Alright so u know the scene where Smaug opens an eye under the treasure and it’s all the party can see of him bc he’s sleeping under there.
This is what sand boas look like. And they burrow under the sand and are ambush predators. And they are reptiles. Like Smaug. Do you see where I am going with this
Thang. Smaug. If you even care
#the hobbit#lotr#please this is the best and funniest idea I’ve ever had#also if he actually looked like this I’d wheeze laugh#just#the potential this has#local beastie hyped up to be the worst creature of the millenium#local beastie also looks like a sock puppet.#smaug#smaug the dragon#sand boa#I love sand boas a lot btw I’m not making fun of them in a mean way#that’s a banger evolutionary adaptation it just#well it also looks like if u put googly eyes on a Tube
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fionna's world being represented by a dandelion makes so much sense ... they're weeds. yet people make wishes through them, changing their whole meaning from something meant to be destroyed to something hopeful.
dandelions are also resilient and it makes sense that something associated with them would. you know. perservere despite the destruction caused by the scarab.
but ultimately i think what REALLY made me tear up over this is that dandelions are really boring plants. when you're a kid you blow on them and make your wish but they're not eyecatching or anything but still, fionna's final wish was for her old world to still exist as it was when she left it (> plain and simple. boring even).
like the moment she realized she would lose her friends, and that her friends might forget each other if the world got its magic back, she immediately decided she didn't want it and I think that ties back to the dandelion metaphor so well... like, do you really need magic to be real to find it everywhere? or can you turn something boring into something magical?
#remi rambles#fionna and cake#f&c spoilers#sorry i have many Not Silly thoughts about the finale#i looove fionna she was such a wonderful character .. so well written and real TO ME#shes my best friend shes my everything shes silly she makes me so emotional#like even when simon told her he was gonna wear the crown to get the magic back to her world#< the moment she realized he would go crazy she started to think about it#like she wont sacrifice a friend just to get what she really wants#i really loved her journey through the show idk#going from being so over her routine > finding out magic can be dark too > making her own magical world just by loving her friends#like its so much more than 'the power of friendship will save us!!'#yes she saved the world thanks to the love she had for her friends but it was backed up by a full journey beforehand#i think. the line about having functional toilets (while still being a p good joke) makes the point so much clearer#we have been to the end of the universe and back but we have functioning toilets !!!#like do u get it. do i sound crazy#< crazy person voice#anyway yes im done sorry#live laugh love fionna and cake
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"You could recite their lines perfectly for them" yeah? Well they can, too
Continuation of this.
#isat#in stars and time#siffrin isat#loop isat#art#fanart#kitscribbles#i had a whole lot of tags for this but forgot One image and panicked and deleted the whole thing lmao#the sound of hysterical laughter from people(person plural) who spend too much time laughing at their own jokes and also miss their familie#they are all suffering from Sif's desperation-fueled decisions#this feels like an idiot plot. youve heard of that surely#best explanation i can come up with is that each siffrin is a little bit different from the previous. make different decisions#not that anyone knows what to do#isat spoilers#in stars and time spoilers#alternate universe shenanigans? or just timeline-altering wish shenanigans? idk whats gonna happen to all these loops when resolution comes#youve heard of sifloop now get a load of this. Loooop#tfw the loops all ask sif who he thinks they are and he's like. well youre definitely not my family#and theyre. kind of hurt when he puts it like that actually. ow?#isat full cast au
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I hate TikTok because I did not just see someone say Luffy had a great childhood and defending that statement with their life as if the kid wasn't kidnapped and tortured and experienced abandonment and the loss of loved ones over and over again until his teenage years 💀
#like you must be joking right#like you're playing a prank on me#like there's no way you think this#bro only watched one random episode from the flashback and decided that bc he was laughing once luffy had the best childhood#where do you think his abandonment issues come from i- 😭#one piece#monkey d. luffy
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Book 6 when Hua Cheng was acting mad sus, I thought he was an imposter or something. No... turns out he was stressing about his y/n x character fanart
Which is... understandable. My soul would straight up leave my body if someone I know from irl looked through my ao3 history or some shit like that. He was straight-up panicking and tried SO hard to hide it
After I saw the statue drawings and one of them holding a flower, I started cackling so hard lmaoo he really brought Xie Lian to his NSFW lair... the one that is dedicated to said god pfft
Also, at first, I thought it was a bit creepy and maybe obsessive... but really, I write about my favorite characters all the time. I've had obsessions that have lasted years. I have hyper fixations that will probably never go away. So, is it really that bad? Honestly, I think it's kinda understandable and normal. If you are obsessed with someone for 800 years... carving a hundred-plus statues and murals is not that bad honestly
#tian guan ci fu#hua cheng#ten thousand gods cave part had me dying#hua cheng's a ghost but you know that man was sweating his ass of at that part#he knows it looks so bad#best thing about that arc was how xie lian was not in the slightest bit frightened#maybe a little unnerved for like a sec#but he came to term with it REAL quick lmao#it was mu qing and feng xin who had me straight up clutching my ribs lmaooo#hua cheng had his life flashing before his life for the third time pffft#HE WAS SO SCARED#I felt bad for laughing so hard#xie lian#hualian#stalker vs stalker arc#but xie lian only approves of one of them
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hey lua what decks do phoenix aceattorney and miles aceattorney play in magic
PHOENIX WRIGHT
once upon a time, a friend bullied me into going to a Pro Tour Qualifier, which was probably the largest Magic tournament i’d ever been to at that time, right?
i was happy to be bullied, to be clear, but the problem was… i hadn’t played standard-format Magic competitively in about 2-3 years. so my knowledge of the current metagame, what deck archetypes were popular, and what the current cards even were, was staggeringly limited.
“it will be fine,” said my friend. “here, take this spare deck i built. it’s super-straightforward and easy,” he lied.
he said this to me approx. 8 seconds before the first round began, so uhhhhh, i sure was playing a game of magical cards without ever having even looked at the damn deck before!
so, lo, literally in the course of playing the deck, i was learning how this shit was supposed to work. “oh!” i’d exclaim with delight, halfway through my turn. “THAT’S how those two cards are supposed to interact. oh that’s super clever. what a neat combo.” and then i’d proceed to shiftily look at my opponent over my cards, riffle those cards a lil bit, and then say “pass” with as much of an enigmatic vibe as i could muster.
meanwhile, my opponent was Actually Prepared, and they were Trying To Win, and they were pissed. they threatened to call Slow Play on me because i was taking so fucking long reading all the cards. as in, he literally called a judge over, who stood there watching me the whole time, in order to determine if i was being Criminally Bad At Magic versus just A Regular Amount Of Bad At Magic, and i was sweating bullets the whole time because i didn’t know this deck or their deck or any of those cards and AHHHH why is the judge staring at me!!!
….which only served to make it EXTRA-humiliating for this poor fuck when i proceeded to eviscerate them 2-0. hahahah get dunked onnnnnnnn nerd!!!
and then i also proceeded to eviscerate my next opponent???
sheer dumb luck. i cannot overstate how ill-prepared i was for this tournament. i absolutely did not deserve these wins.
meanwhile the friend who gave me the deck was having a much worse time with their deck, and they were like “what the fuck. you weren’t supposed to win. how are you winning with that shit, my deck’s so much better than yours”
anyway. i think that’s the kind of scenario Phoenix would get into if he were an MtG player. dude Gets Himself Into Situations And Then Uses Cleverness + Bullshit + Luck To Get Out Again.
(AA4-era Phoenix seems like he’s doing the same thing… but, in reality, he’s actually been meticulously crafting his deck in secret for the past six months. he’s not even aiming to win the tournament, he’s just exploiting a known weakness in the opponent-matching system that lets him know with certainty who he’s going to get matched up against (spoiler: first round is Kristoph), and he’s hyper-optimizing his deck to beat Literally Only Those People. meanwhile, Apollo, who built a tryhard hyper-optimized variant of Red Deck Wins, is lowkey annoyed that Phoenix's seemingly-random pile keeps vaulting him just one table above him in the standings, because Apollo knows his deck is better. he knows it!!!! just let him go 1v1 and prove it aaaaughhhh!!!)
((also, in case you want Actual Concrete Cards And Colors And Stuff: in general i think Phoenix prefers limited play (draft, sealed, "anything where you open booster packs on the spot & throw a deck together") to constructed play, because he doesn't like being tied down to any one game plan. when he does play constructed, i think he's less attached to a specific colors and more attached to specific mechanics. in particular: he's not a combo player exactly, but he likes mechanics that feel like bullshit. dude saw Madness for the first time & his eyes lit up & he was in LOVE, "you mean i'm discarding the card but then i can cast it for free??? hell YES." he absolutely ran a poison counter deck during New Phyrexia. ah fuck i just realized he was probably a huge stan for noted awful expansion Battle for Zendikar, i think i gotta cancel him now, sorry))
((and i think Phoenix also has a touch of Timmy in him! like, i went to a huge state tournament once with a bunch of really skilled players, and there was this one dude in our car who had a really solid deck, clearly adhered to a lot of the trends in the meta at the time... but his win condition was a Shivan Dragon. which wasn't a bad card at the time, it was a reasonable win condition, but it was... slightly suboptimal? not at all the obvious pick? sort of random? and multiple people asked him "why is that your win condition" & he shrugged and said "i like dragons." so the dragon stayed & that dude ended up getting second place in the whole tournament so FUCK optimal play, bring a dragon. i think Phoenix would sneak in a dragon now and again. just 'cause))
MILES EDGEWORTH
this one is trickier!!!
young!Miles is just going to play Whatever The Meta Deems To Be The Best Deck, right. the von Karma perfection thing and all. it's all very boring & micro-optimized to be the Best Deck Of Its Kind & he pours over the results of the big name tournaments week after week & does some math or whatever to hyper-optimize his own build of the Obviously Correct Deck. there is no soul in any of this, purely Executing On A Formula.
...but then he experiences Character Growth & has his big gay crisis & now he has to pick up the game again. he opens the latest tournament results... clicks around some win % stats for various cards in a desultory kinda way, and... his heart's just not in it, right?
enter 2-4 era Miles. 2-4 era Miles is playing some utterly unhinged Five Color Good Stuff thing. there's a lot of Planar Chaos cards in there, because that whole set was about Weird Shit & cards doing Stuff You're Familiar With (But In The Utterly Wrong Color!!!) & all that is resonating with Miles more than he'd care to admit. he cannot possibly talk about his unnecessary feelings but he can make a weird noise rock album about them. and by noise rock album i mean this fucking Magic deck.
and he's playing this deck with a 100% straight face, as though this is the exact same behavior that won him the Junior Super Series five years in a row & not a desperate cry for help from a madman. everyone else is like Miles... are you playing fucking singletons... in a fucking standard deck... you know your deck will be more consistent with four-ofs right... and then he gives a cool fish-eyed stare & taps out to cast some arcane bullshit legendary creature & gives a single rap of his knuckles against the table to indicate that he's passing the turn.
and it works, is the thing! all those years of training to be the Spikiest Spike Ever have paid off; this Five Color Good Stuff thing relies on some pretty clever insights to make the mana base work, and parts of what he's doing eventually get adopted by the larger metagame to become an Actual Serious Deck. but, like. it's still a monstrosity. any skilled players watching are still definitely wondering Are You Okay, Dude.
after 2-4, i think Miles settles back into playing something more normal. he still cares about winning, but he's going to do it with a touch of class. he wants a game that involves dialogue, some actual back-and-forth, because just trying to combo off is lame coward behavior.
aw yeah baby we're talking counterspells!!!
he's a blue player at heart & he's happiest when he's updating the autopsy report shutting down whatever his opponent's plan is. he'll splash other colors as the occasion calls for it, but he'd be happy running mono-blue the rest of his life. like, i ran a pretty fun Legacy deck back in the day which consisted of:
every kind of counterspell i could get my hands on,
propaganda because FUCK creatures,
thieving magpies for the card draw,
and a few silver wyverns to, y'know, actually win the game
...and i think Miles would appreciate that deck. just play counterspells until the opponent runs out of steam & then cruise your way to victory with a couple birds. simple. elegant. classic. doesn't involve any of this modern Planeswalker bullshit (Miles regards most developments that happened to MtG post-Time Spiral block or so as affronts to game design).
(i do think Miles has a secret fondness for sagas as a card type, however. they remind him of all that Character Growth, but in an abstract/subconscious/nonthreatening way. too bad most of them are a bit of poor match for the kinds of decks he likes to play)
FINALLY: i think Miles hates playing Commander with every fiber of his being & Phoenix loves it & this is a pretty serious point of contention in their relationship. poor dudes
#when i tell you i HOWLED laughing when i got this ask. literally breathless. THANK YOU i had so much fun with it#phoenix wright#miles edgeworth#ace attorney#mtg#a few other random off-the-cuff typifications:#maya is a Timmy after my own heart. our girl is playing DINOSAURS and having the BEST TIME#franziska favors Red Deck Wins & is pissed that it's so often regarded as the n00b archetype#why wouldn't you fight fire with fire. you should fight everything with fire. etc#blackquill is a combo player so unfortunately he must be cancelled#i like to think Mia is the Michelle Bush of AA universe#(Michelle Bush: first lady to top-8 an MtG Grand Prix#and (more importantly) invented the Donate-Illusions Of Grandeur deck#which is my FAVORITE BULLSHIT DECK OF ALL TIME#and then she disappeared from the scene entirely to become a dermatologist#good for her hope she's well.)
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I went to see my aunt today and she told me how my uncle saw a picture of his childhood best friend on a crime show earlier and apparently "Ritchie" (the friend) killed people in California
But bc I'm used to southern folk exaggeration stories I didn't think much of it until she said "the show said Ritchie started worshiping Satan in California" and THAT caught my attention, so I asked her for the friend's real name so I could look him up and calm as a fucking cucumber she goes, "Richard Ramirez... Do you know him?"
#tbh that's such an Alabama old person reaction#hearing your husband's best friend in high school was the fucking night stalker#'have you heard of him?'#I just had to laugh. like girl wHAT?!?!!? 🤣#they attended the same high school in El Paso TX#but then Ritchie dropped out of school and moved to California#my uncle graduated and moved to Alabama#then apparently stopped comprehending information for the next 40+ years#bc he literally learned this information TODAY#Thanksgiving's gonna be fucking wild this year
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Gabriel trying to entertain an iPad baby as his confidence rapidly declines - A Compilation
Not going to transcribe these as its just songs being "sung" if you can call it that.
Anyway.
Chug Jug With You Audio Source
Happy Birthday Audio Source
Under the Sea Audio Source
Chug Jug (again) Audio Source
#ultrakill#gabriel ultrakill#*he pronounces the name wrong cause it was directed @ someone in chat named gabriel#alternative title was 'karaoke with gabriel' but i think its really funny that its just like. kids songs?? these are all months apart too??#i left the laugh in just cause the timing of chat redeeming 'oh brother this guy stinks' was perfect#uh the weird bg sounds during the birthday part. it was a vineboom..... i tried my best to get rid of it lol#aka the 'when tf am i ever going to have need for these clips. whatever ill just upload em all at once' compilation#that is like. half of the clips i have. im like. when do i even post this. what do i call this#if i had the time to make dumb pics like i did that one time it'd be a lot easier to just force context onto the clips lol
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so like do you think they made the plastic wheelchair ALONGSIDE the plastic prison as a Just In Case situation, only after they realized charles was going to be a frequent visitor, or both as in because they knew charles was going to be the only person visiting him during planning they decided to make him a chair ahead of time
#xmen#x2: x men united#charles xavier#erik lehnsherr#cherik#not really but yes it is#snap chats#secret fourth option is they just had a plastic wheelchair at the mansion just in case this incredibly specific scenario happened jvlkaervj#part of me hopes the staff just Knew cause imagine being THAT divorced publicly but another part hopes erik asked for one. not politely ofc#def joked bout how charles couldnt think to leave him alone for five minutes lest he did something Uncouth somehow ik he did#that charles was going to show up sooner or later so they might as well make it easy for themselves and prep etc etc#girl ima throw up what if charles didnt visit tho .... thats not even a possibility cause ofc he did but still !!!!#personally id throw up and cry like wdym my best friend ex husband didnt show up. when i even asked for a chair for him ..#EVEN ASKED FOR A SILLY LIL PLASTIC CHESS SET alternatively what if charles brought that... im making myself sick#As Indicated By My Username i think of the plastic jail every day its so funny to me and so quaint#i should rewatch X2 just for plastic jail#like it makes sense and i do think its a cute detail but still. gotta put grandpa in the polly pocket prison set now. tragic !!#i remember watching the movie for the first time in recent years and audibly going 'aw' at the plastic wheelchair im so sorry JVLKEJKA#LIKE AWW CMON THATS WEIRDLY CUTE gotta make sure peepaw can visit his ex husband </3 so they can play chess </3#i love that chess is Their Thing ... any time a ship's got mfers who fucks heavy with chess i know im hooked#its not intentional things happen this way but i will still laugh#kk nightly cherik posting is done byebye
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Sudden and hard. Felt like a small explosion, like when the compressed gas factory a few miles away from my house exploded years ago, but with no sound besides the soft, faint thunder of a dozen nearby houses shuddering.
And our house shaking, obvs.
Cats were/are not happy.
#dying laughing tho that i had almost dragged my bf into the bedroom an hour or so before and wouldn't THAT have been hilarious#fun trivia that gas factory explosion happened at the company my husband worked at and i instantly knew what it was from the direction#but he was at the distribution and sales center not the actual bottling factory#but for like 8 minutes i was p sure i was a widow#didn't know what to do about it with no car so i went and made cookies in case he survived and hoped for the best#humans react to things in really interesting ways
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I know we have a lot of content about Ratio being protective of Aventurine (good!) but that comic you reblogged from me has me thinking about Aventurine being worried about Ratio... Aventurine, who has lost everyone he loved in horrible and violent ways throughout most of his life, being in a situation where he almost loses Ratio... _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_
I am literally never not thinking about this. I think one of the main barriers to them Making It Official IS this paranoia aventurine HAS to carry - after having it drilled into him again and again - that he loses everyone he even slightly cares about at some point. He definitely feels like both he and ratio are safer if he tells himself / the world he doesn't care about ratio.
And tbh I don't know if, faced with that scenario, Aventurine would shut down or just get so completely *dangerous* in a way he often isn't. If the man who beat people to death with his own chains to survive comes out. If Ratio is so important to him that his apathy gets superceded by his intense ability to Survive and Fight because surviving now means having Ratio at his side.
I think prior to penacony he might shut down because like. He's so traumatised and resigned to the pain of it that he would just sit there and take one more tragedy and bitterly wonder why it's never HIM that gets to die.... But AFTER penacony, where ratio is literally partially responsible for giving him a reason to live, it's the second option for sure. Aventurine clutched on to life for so long and then drifted, looking for death, without a reason to keep going. Now you're going to put his new motivation in danger? Get ALL OR NOTHING-ed.
Maybe it's even more vicious a response than when he was fighting for survival. Because Ratio doesn't just represent surviving actually, he stands for LIVING, for Aventurine actually enjoying and partaking in life rather than just tolerating it. And if aventurine can beat a man to death with chains for survival, imagine what he'll do for life.
(and then imagine aventurine forcing ratio to stay awake by being as annoying as possible with a forced smile even if his voice is shaking, asking him what to do, following his instructions dutifully, getting him back to safety, refusing to leave his side, silently asking his family to look after him if the worst happens. Ratio wakes up and Aventurine is like: Dark circles wild eyes messy hair visibly hasn't bathed or slept in a few days. And the first thing drugged up ratio does is reach over and boop him on the nose and mutter "pretty")
#hsr#ratiorine#hsr aventurine#dr ratio#the second thing ratio says is 'youre the best student of field medicine I've ever had' then he passes out again#and aventurine just stares at him and then starts laughing hysterically with tears in his eyes#lauwrites
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Gintoki Sakata Discussion: Takasugi's Influence on Gintoki - What it Means to Truly Protect Your Soul
This is DEFINITELY overthinking it and stretching it beyond canon, but nevertheless I wanted to share my recent thoughts... Spoilers for the entire story, of course. Also, warning for Takagin/Gintaka.
Edit 22/2/2024 (marked with *): Small section added for more evidence on how Gintoki was never a naturally straightforward person.
Maybe it was Takasugi who ironically inspired Gintoki to be who he is today: the man who never gives up, even if he's beaten down and everything seems hopeless - he will stand back up and protect everyone and everything around him. Just like how Takasugi senselessly was as a dojo challenger.
When Gintoki was younger, he was never like this. He was just fighting for his survival. When Gintoki first meets Shouyou, Shouyou points out how Gintoki was just wielding the sword to protect himself in a harsh, bloody environment.
This is why Gintoki doesn't give up when sparring Shouyou. He needs to be as strong as possible to keep protecting himself. Gintoki brings up how he has never lost to an adult - as if he wants to beat Shouyou simply so he can never lose ever again (so he wouldn't end up dying).
And then, Shouyou mentions how monsters are something born from a bloodstained karma. Gintoki is naturally drawn to bloodshed and death, because losing meant death in the environment he used to grow up in. So he needs to be strong and be capable of killing others so he can survive in such a place. You can just see it in the fear in Gintoki as a child standing on a pile of corpses.
(It's probably why Gintoki carries his sword around with him everywhere as a child, too. So he feels safe at all times.)
This all goes to show how Gintoki would have never had anything he would want to fight for as a child. He would just fight to be with Shouyou who was the only one he could trust or to protect himself. That's why this personality to want to protect everything within his sword's reach was definitely never innate.
Then comes Takasugi, whose Gintoki's first impression of is an irrational kid who would challenge a poor temple school with no actual reason other than wanting to win. You can see how Gintoki is clearly confused by him.
And even after losing many times, he just wouldn't give up on coming back. Gintoki even tells him to give up - he had no reason to keep getting hurt and beat up like that. It wasn't like he had to fight for his survival like Gintoki, he was clearly a privileged kid.
It is only when Takasugi wins and laughs that Gintoki no longer expresses this confusion and disagreement with Takasugi's actions. It's shown in how Gintoki suddenly tells Takasugi to come back, when Gintoki had initially told him to give up.
As if Takasugi's and everyone's smile and laughter after all that ridiculous irrationality made Gintoki realize something that made him change his mind.
Gintoki had a glimpse of Takasugi's way of living - to fight to the very end and keep getting back up for what you want, even if it was silly and stupid. In the end, you'll be rewarded with your own laughter and the people around you laughing along to your sincere, honest spirit.
It was a pointless, dumb way of living, but everyone was still laughing like that and happy. So maybe there was actually some worth in living dumbly and straightforwardly like that.
This may even be why Takasugi's laughter always stuck with Gintoki, even as he cut him down. Because it defined his life - that you should live by facing the present - just as much as Shouyou's words to use a sword to protect your soul stuck to him.
It was Shouyou who first taught Gintoki that what you truly want to do couldn't be the desperate instincts driving you, but rather something deeper down that should feel genuine - the soul. Then it was Takasugi who came along who seemed to demonstrate what living as your soul really was like - to do what you felt like doing in the moment, no matter what the people around you would say.
Even Shouyou encouraging Takasugi's pursuit suggests how this was Gintoki's lifelong answer. And only Takasugi could have demonstrated it best for Gintoki to imitate (instead of imitating Shouyou, as Shouyou had warned him against).
It truly feels like Takasugi is the humanity Shoka Sonjuku cultivated (Katsura did already know what he wanted, after all).
Takasugi's straightforwardness could have inspired Gintoki to tap into his own dull feelings deep down that he carries as he lives his everyday life. If those simple feelings for Takasugi were to grow stronger, then could there be such a thing for Gintoki too? Instead of being drawn to the joy of beating someone stronger than him, Gintoki could realize he seems more inclined to just living for some reason--
Even with no ambitions, he was still fine with just sitting around doing nothing. No matter how mundane, monotous and boring his everyday was without the excitement of a dream, Gintoki was still living for some reason. Maybe his joy in life was right there then--
--It was people. We see throughout the story that Gintoki is solely motivated to fight for the people around him.
Gintoki's actions have always, always been motivated by a desire to protect the people around him. He loves them: simply seeing them laugh when they want, cry when they want and fight to live as their truest selves. So isn't it fine for him to just want to fight for something as simple as that? Just like how Takasugi only fought for the petty reason of growing stronger.
This could be why Gintoki can now confidently say that he just loves the world as it is, even despite all the tragedies that's happened in it that made him suffer.
Not only did Takasugi potentially inspire Gintoki's present way of life, but Takasugi may even be the embodiment of what Gintoki found himself loving most about the world - that imperfect humanity of simply living, chasing what you want, getting lost, failing and suffering, but celebrating those small victories when you finally get there and laughing with everyone. This soul is what Gintoki always wants to protect within Edo, too.
After all, the mundane moments they shared in Shoka Sonjuku and Takasugi's laughter are the only things running in Gintoki's head as he resolves himself to cut Utsuro-Takasugi down. Gintoki truly loved them all.
If this wasn't the case, Gintoki would have never told Takasugi to come back. If Gintoki's motivations was never just the joy of seeing people be themselves, he would have set out and pursued whatever his soul wanted from being inspired by Takasugi's straightforwardness. He wanted to see Takasugi again, because he wanted to see that sincere, straightforward soul once again.
It could be why Gintoki is the one who disagrees with the way Takasugi does things in the present more than anyone.
If it was Takasugi who taught him that happiness of being sincere and straightforward with chasing what you wanted, and given that same spirit was exactly what Gintoki realized he loved most and wanted to protect - Gintoki would fight with all his heart for Takasugi to be that person Gintoki loved again.
It's also a nice touch that Gintoki says "I, the you who is me" when declaring he would never give up to Takasugi, as if implying how Gintoki took that lesson of straightforwardly never giving up from Takasugi himself.
Just as much as Gintoki's acceptance of Takasugi helped him, Takasugi's straightforward passion helped Gintoki just as equally.
*More evidence that Gintoki was never the person he is now is what he chooses to do after the war. Unlike Katsura and Takasugi who went off to pursue their goals, Gintoki's first instinct was to wander around and detach himself from people out of fear of losing people again. Gintoki seems to be more naturally a coward, and only when he lets people in does he find the courage to once again embrace the straightforwardness that Takasugi demonstrated.
After the events of the story that help Takasugi come to terms with himself, Takasugi's straightforwardness is later emphasized as his strong point that resonates with people. It wouldn't be a surprise then if he was the natural source of this straightforwardness in Gintoki, especially when the latter has always been defined as an empty person.
Takasugi and Gintoki are opposites who complete each other, to the point that even outsiders who only briefly meet them together no longer cared about how one of them was a terrorist. One way of seeing it is Takasugi represents the strong, unrelenting humanity that Gintoki realized he loved and wanted to live for, and Gintoki represents the impossibly white soul that the outcast Takasugi found as a place to belong to.
It was important for them to find each other: for Gintoki to realize he wasn't empty and was always capable of emotions, and for Takasugi to realize he wasn't wrong for who he was which the world made him feel.
It's why their life-defining events most often involve the other: Takasugi's laughter was a pivotal point in Gintoki's life where he finally grasped a real reason to fight in his empty everyday, while Gintoki's tears was a pivotal point in Takasugi's life which forced Takasugi to face his biggest enemy: himself.
Ironically enough, their ways of living now could even be said to be a a reflection of their love for each other: Gintoki facing the present because he loved that part of Takasugi and wants to be in the present with him, and Takasugi facing the past to feel closer to Gintoki who is obviously incomplete without the emotions of his past.
Naturally, there is no present without the past, and it feels like Takasugi decided to live in the past to represent it for Gintoki (but probably more because he's too scared to face the present because of his self-hatred and blame, but to be fair Gintoki is afraid of facing the past too even though he should). It's why I liked that the story ended strongly with Takasugi's death, because its impact really conveyed how there was someone who was always chasing Gintoki's entirety - he definitely had a place in someone's heart. He would still be loved no matter what, even if he always felt he was a monster different from others for how he grew up and thus would never properly have a place to belong.
You can see I really, really love Takasugi... From inference and parallels alone, Takasugi has always demonstrated so much importance to the narrative, but it's never laid out beyond how he's the one who lost himself and now has to redeem himself.
Gintama feels like a story about the two of them, not just Gintoki. Especially if Takasugi was the one who originated Gintoki's straightforward way of living, and given how Takasugi seems to literally be the human sword Shouyou prophecized to cut down Utsuro in the end.
It's really because Gintoki avoids thinking about the past and Takasugi hates himself for his emotions that we have to infer how much these two affected each other... But I do enjoy things not being shoved in my face, the avoidance really makes it a lot more emotional.
#gintama#gintoki sakata#sakata gintoki#shinsuke takasugi#takasugi shinsuke#takagin#gintaka#lmao the way writing this made me realize i completely misinterpreted a line and had a very very wrong idea of gintoki from there#i thought shouyou was the only one who made him the way he is today and that's why i misinterpreted gintoki's character#the scene of takasugi laughing feels so so important to understanding gintoki's character i swear#gintoki felt like a robot who was sticking to shouyou's teachings until he got somewhere before this#but now he feels like a loving person with a cruel isolating past who's just trying his best to be happy
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