#i don't know if that's just me

[murdockhawkeye]

this is *maybe* a bit of a stretch but i still find interesting to think about? don't know if i have everything right

but

i feel like with the elemental opposite duos - emma & rikki, cleo & bella - you could reasonably say their arcs'd mirror each other in a way

like

emma and rikki have issues with responsibility/expectations but on opposite ends of the spectrum

emma was a gifted child, everyone had high expectations for her and she tried to meet those expectations the best she could. she’s responsible emma, who makes sure everyone is looked after, and everyone ��knew” was going to become a top athlete, because look at all those trophies on her shelf

and then rikki on the other hand, was alone for “her own good.” she admitted to elliot that no one really liked her growing up, so when somebody did, it made her feel weird and she pushed them away. she stayed away from other people, made sure they never had any expectations of her

they both avoided disappointing others, by going to opposite extreme lengths

and then they overcame these issues, with emma facing a sudden change in her life (becoming a mermaid) that meant she had to give up her swimming dreams and disappoint the people in her life (that had to suck for her, honestly.) she had to come to terms with that - but then, she also found a whole new world that she’d never have been a part of, if things had gone the way she planned

and as for rikki - her biggest change wasn't the tail, but becoming friends with emma and rikki. had she'd her way and zane’d never gotten cleo stuck on that boat, she’d never become friends with them. rikki had to learn the hurdles of friendship and of keeping them, like when she mistook the different kinds of fish, when cleo and emma didn't support her relationship with zane, etc. they had their issues - but in the end, they were there for rikki, and rikki was there for them back. she'd have never gotten that kind of solidarity, had things gone the way she thought it would

and then there’s cleo and bella

bella - unfortunately, didn’t have much in terms of development, since the writers prioritized will’s relationship with her over expanding her character background+ for some reason ??

so i'm just mostly going to talk about cleo here first - but i'll get to bella in a second

cleo by s3 is a very confident and self-assured person; but she didn't start out that way. she was insecure, somewhat naive. she grew up overshadowed by her two best friends, the both of them being gifted in their own rights - emma, the young up and rising athlete, and lewis the science genius, they were sure to go places. cleo, on the other hand, was overlooked. she didn't have much going for her - except for adequate grades and a love of the marine life that was hindered by her fear of water

and then cleo became a *literal* mermaid. either she was going to avoid it or overcome it. in the end, she didn't just overcome her fear of water, but she also took a risk by taking that job at the marine park, where she'd be working right by the marine animals. she let her fear control her before, and she wasn't going to let it stop her from wanting to pursue things anymore

(funny, she started out with a fear of water, then became a mermaid. she struggled with her grades, then became a science genius)

bella, much like cleo - had her own issues when it came to the kind of attention she got, but the other way around. her first appearance, she was being catcalled. same ep, nate is drooling over her. they've made her beauty a point throughout s3. even cleo and rikki's brought it up. it. could not have been easy for her to deal with that, especially with her secret in mind

seeing that, even with the different issues when it came to attention, i think they'd still have had the same feelings about it. a younger bella, probably would've been similarly insecure/anxious as cleo had been - until she learned to be more sure about herself and grew into the bella we know and love today

(we should've gotten way more lore and background about bella, agh)

tldr; emma and rikki have same feelings but opposite reactions (people pleasing and people avoiding.) cleo and bella opposite situations but same feelings (overshadowed and center of attention)

yk, rikki was right in a way i think about the "universal law," but like, more about keeping in balance and not about trios. emma and rikki balance each other out, cleo and bella were *meant* to balance each other out. but in s2, bella wasn't there - charlotte was

do i blame the antagonizing of charlotte and cleo's out of characterness on the writers, or do i blame it on some magical semi-canon mermaid universal law about balance

blaming it on a mermaid universal law sounds more fun, and could have interesting implications. (though the writing grates me, still)

[rawliverandgoronspice]

They way we all be fighting for our life whenever nintendo openly decides they care about that timeline again

honestly, I am a little tired of nintendo's attitude. They do not seem to care a whole lot about their lore or the characterization of their world (they = management, I'm sure individual gamedevs do care and fight for their life and lose on the regular) given they appear to have outsourced it, which, I mean, it's fine it's their world, it's their game, they cultivate whichever audience suits them best. But for them to put out a new updated timeline that you can buy for money, after everything? I don't know, it's starting to feel borderline contemptful to me.

Is it a game that cares about narrative or not? If yes, then you're doing a rather poor job of that imo. If not, then stop pretending like you put any thought into this, and stop milking the investment of old fans while failing to understand what a lot of them are asking for.

I think I'm just going to sidestep a lot of what Nintendo is doing and hope for enough pushback that they change their strategy, which I don't assume will happen given there will always be people to be invested in Zelda games. In the meantime, I'll hope for a smaller game, extremely extraordinarily ignore the movie, and do my own thing.

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[lgbtlunaverse]

The world exists in such a baffling state of simultaneous sex-aversion and sex-hegemony. Every social platform on the internet is trying to banish sex workers to the shadow realm but I can't post a tweet without at least two bots replying P U S S Y I N B I O. People are self-censoring sex to seggs and $3× but every other ad you see is still filled with half-naked women. Rightwingers want queer people arrested for so much as existing in the same postal code as a child and are also drumming up a moral panic about how teenage boys aren't getting laid enough. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

[thelaurenshippen]

watching bridgerton and obviously there were a lot of things wrong with the way socializing has worked in the past, but honestly the idea of a "calling hour" is so appealing. office hours for friendship. you can show up unannounced at my home between 1 and 3pm. you must leave by 3pm. I may give you a pastry. lets bring that back

[pigswithwings]

the angel staying over at my house asked for a nightlight in their room and i told them buddy, don't you produce your own light? what're you gonna do with more? and they said they wanted to see why people like it so much. and also that the nightlight i own is blue and they've been trying to understand color. anyways i think they've stared at it for an hour now

[nouverx]

"I want to eat you" is their love language and you can't change my mind

[reaping-the-benefits]

Imagine you're the medic assigned to the task force. You're not some dainty little thing. You're snappy and will drag them by the ears if you have to. You're constantly getting into arguments with Price because he won't listen to you when all you're trying to do is help him.

Anyway, the rest of the team has bets on how long its going to take before you two finally fuck. Gaz gives y'all another month. Soap says two weeks. Ghost thinks that you've already done it.

Now, imagine how mad Gaz and Soap are, both giving Ghost 50 quid each when Price casually drops that not only do you have sex on the regular, but you've been married for the last five years.

[hinamie]

10 years later

[spyglassrealms]

had a fucking hilarious dream that tumblr replaced the "block" function with the far funnier "glock" function, which did the exact same thing except whenever anyone blocked you a random bullet hole, like a png of a bullet hole, would appear on your blog. discourse blogs were unreadable bc you'd go to the page and the sheer amount of bullet hole pngs stacked over the blogs obscured everything. I woke myself up laughing

[krysmcscience]

I have some questions about karaoke night, Alex Hirsch. Very Important Questions. Which I will happily scream at a poor hapless baby triangle who can have no answers for me, and possibly also does not have object permanence yet.

Follow-up that is I guess suggestive, but let's be real here, Bill's a fucking triangle:

Dude slipped right into his birthday suit, lmao

this is so stupid :D

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says, this brilliant individual knows what's up - Bill is absolutely way more of a monsterfucker than Ford could or ever will be, full stop.

[watmalik]

Wolverine being a confirmed boy kisser by Hugh Jackman.

[shopcat]

the baby has one parent's little face marking thing and the other's coat because they're a little horse family the world is a beautiful place

[artkaninchenbau]

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

[leupagus]

It's really fucked up when you treat characters like people and people like characters.

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?