#i hope it made some sense

[honeycreammilkshake]

"you are me."

i have a lot of thoughts on this whole scene, both shipping and non-shipping ones. the relationship between yuuji and sukuna is honestly the most fascinating and complex one that i have seen in anime, and one of the reasons for that is just how much these two actually understand each other, which i don't think a lot of people realize. yuuji and sukuna see right through each other, more than anyone else does, and i think that's why their bond is far more personal than it seems to be.

yuuji and sukuna are enemies. they hate each other for their opposing ideals and characteristics. yuuji is caring, empathetic, protective, kind, and willing to put his life on the line for both friends and strangers. sukuna is narcissistic, self-absorbed, indifferent to suffering, murderous, unfeeling, and unconcerned with any life other than his own. they seem to be polar opposites in every way, so why would yuuji say something as contradicting as "you are me" to sukuna?

i think it's widely overlooked just how complex yuuji's character is. he's overall a "sweet" person, but he isn't very stable (he has been described by quite a few characters as being a bit "crazy"), he has a high tolerance for disturbing or gory things (he took learning about curses and fighting them very easily), he doesn't question the danger he's been put into (he actually runs headfirst into it), and he can be really violent and vengeful as well.

this is all explored very well in his confrontation with mahito, where he also says "i am to you" to the curse.

why are these scenes so different? mahito and sukuna both killed people yuuji knew and cared about as well as strangers that yuuji would die to protect. shouldn't yuuji be approaching sukuna with the same hate, disgust, and vengeance that he shows to mahito? shouldn't he be lashing out and making sukuna pay for all that he did?

why is he showing his "crazy side" to mahito but not to sukuna?

to give some context to this scene with mahito, the curse wanted yuuji to accept their similarities. and, in the end, yuuji did.

yuuji is acknowledging that he serves as nothing more than a weapon to keep killing the curses of the world, perhaps with no other deeper purpose than that. just like curses only exist to bring misery and prey on humans, yuuji's sole existence at this point is just to act on the orders of sorcerers: to keep eradicating curses and eventually help kill sukuna by dying with him. he doesn't need more meaning or roles than that.

but sukuna doesn't see yuuji as just another cog. he doesn't respect yuuji, true, and he loathes to give the brat any kind of credit. but he knows yuuji is the only one who really, truly cares about sukuna's devastating impact. the death of innocent strangers doesn't affect others quite as much as it does yuuji (even nanami in the vs mahito arc noted how much yuuji cared about the suffering of others).

and many of the other sorcerers are also not as horrified or repulsed by sukuna's actions as yuuji is. in fact, sorcerers and curses alike look up to sukuna. gojo actually seems to respect the king of curse's lifestyle. it feels like yuuji is really the only one to truly despise sukuna for his actions and ideals.

and sukuna knows this. sukuna knows how much the suffering of others gets to yuuji. which is why he gives yuuji such special treatment: he saves a unique brand of torment just for yuuji that he doesn't really give to anyone else.

sukuna intentionally returned control to yuuji's body just for yuuji to witness the massive damage and death that sukuna's domain expansion caused. it killed thousands of people, innocent strangers included.

it led to yuuji breaking down, even wishing for his own death. but yuuji is strong and, deep down, sukuna knows this. yuuji doesn't give up and instead uses his rage to fuel his fight with mahito, where he snaps and shows us his vengeful side. he doesn't need any other reason than mahito being a curse to want to kill him, over and over. that is yuuji's purpose. which seems like an uninteresting and boring one to someone like sukuna.

but for all that sukuna keeps calling yuuji uninteresting and boring, he shows a lot of investment in yuuji's growth and in their fights.

he's even invested enough to show disappointment when yuuji lost to choso. (if he thought yuuji was so weak, why did he seem so bothered by yuuji's loss here?)

and then sukuna looked surprised and curious when choso got hit with some kind of false memory empathetic attack that included yuuji in it. he's having a lot of strong reactions to someone he claims isn't interesting enough for him.

sukuna also loves to aggravate yuuji, somehow knowing how to provoke a strong reaction from him.

there's a lot of interesting things about this scene, one of them being that yuuji refers to sukuna as a "curse" which is technically untrue. sukuna is a sorcerer who used a set of cursed objects to send his soul into the future, but he isn't a curse himself.

but to yuuji, sukuna is nothing more than a curse because he doesn't show any sort of positive traits. sukuna's mindset reflects that of a curse since he only exists to please himself and loves to cultivate the kind of negative emotions curses are born of (fear, hate, jealousy, selfishness, etc).

there's also a clever reference to sukuna being a cannibal through yuuji saying "let's see if you can chew up me and my suffering." yet what we've seen throughout this story is yuuji essentially cannibalizing sukuna by eating his cursed fingers, which he calls the taste really gross. so i wonder... what would yuuji taste like to sukuna?

every human has a unique taste but all of them are fleeting to sukuna. there's no actual meaning or savoring to it. it's just a way for him to pass the time until death.

both yuuji and sukuna are cannibalizing as a form of destruction. but while yuuji is eating the cursed fingers so that he can hold all of sukuna inside of him for them to be exorcised together, sukuna was eating humans simply because he wanted to. he ate whatever he wanted because he was at the top. he is an apex predator with no real rivals or threats. it was for a completely self-absorbed and depraved indulgence while yuuji is giving up his life on this plan to save others.

yuuji and his suffering is the complete antithesis to how sukuna's eating only serves himself. which is very interesting to see when yuuji challenges sukuna to "chew him up." yuuji is proving to be more predator than prey and is far more of a challenge than sukuna wants to admit.

but maybe something about yuuji's resilience does please sukuna? maybe he actually finds worth in yuuji never giving up?

though he still underestimates and discredits yuuji's strength, he actually looks impressed with yuuji and seems even a bit eager to take him on again.

for someone who claims to find yuuji not worth his time, sukuna is showing yuuji far too much special treatment that he doesn't give to anyone else. he even calls yuuji a specific name (kozou) that he doesn't use with anyone else. others are just various offensive terms, but only yuuji seems to have a name just for himself.

sukuna is a really contradicting and complex character, and his relationship with yuuji really shows that.

i've seen a lot of anti-sukuna sentiment after his death, and i understand why a lot of fans hate him and celebrated when he died. however, i think a lot of fans have this somewhat inaccurate view of him being nothing more than a static villain with zero complexities and no chance of any kind of character development.

some of sukuna's most underrated and interesting traits are that he is actually pretty smart (he has an overall plan and is making all the right moves to get there), he's cultured (a poetry snob who hired a chef just to cook him humans instead of eating them raw, and perhaps he even knows more about flowers than he lets on), he shows respect to those he deems worthy and even seeks to learn from them, and he might not actually be the most "evil" person in jjk (which I consider to be kenjaku, but that warrants another post).

overall, sukuna is and has always been more than what he first seems, but a lot of fans don't want to see this or they overlook it.

after sukuna reveals he was an unwanted curse of a child, there was pushback against fans who interpreted this line as sukuna having a tragic backstory that explained his current self.

i understand why these fans don't want sukuna to be a sympathetic villain and i've read posts on how gege writes his villains to be intentionally unsympathetic.

from here (https://x.com/soukatsu_/status/1520796590612566022)

sukuna is the perfect example of a villain that is unsympathetic. he is horrifyingly strong, lives as he pleases, murders people for fun, is a literal cannibal, acts and appears monstrous, and makes our protagonist yuuji suffer over and over again. he represents exactly all the ideals and traits yuuji despises and the two of them are fighting each other because of this.

however, one thing i want to point out is just because sukuna is completely unsympathetic now doesn't mean he couldn't have had an actually tragic past that made him into this.

i believe that sukuna was seen as a curse from his birth on. much like how jogo wanted curses to be the true humans (sukuna calls this jogo essentially wanting to become human) sukuna became purely curse-like to escape being human. whether or not you empathize with him is irrelevant, because after he became the king of curses, sukuna has committed countless irredeemable horrors that even i, as a sukuna fan, don't ever want him to be forgiven or easily justified for doing.

having a tragic past doesn't justify his crimes, it only provides a catalyst for them. it explains why he, who was born human, became more of a curse than some curses are. you don't need to have sympathy for him after that. just like he has no sympathy for those he considers weak and inferior, he has no more reason to be a tragic character.

a lot of people acted like sukuna potentially having a tragic past that turned him into the monster he is now makes him "uncool" or "uncharacteristic" of himself but, to me, it makes his character all the more detailed without changing the fact that he is still purely "evil" and irredeemable.

but does this all make him incapable of character development?

i personally believe that yuuji has been affecting sukuna throughout the whole series, especially in these last few chapters.

i recently came across a post on reddit on why sukuna could never be more than a static villain character. one of the arguments was that gege never intended for sukuna to have any kind of redemption arc.

(https://www.reddit.com/r/Jujutsufolk/comments/16vphxl/sukuna_is_different_from_other_strongest/?rdt=36326)

(now, i couldn't find the original source where this interview came from, and it's not worded very well so i'm thinking it's been quickly translated. and there's always missed meanings and alterations to the original message when translations have been made, especially with japanese. i'm also not sure if the "him" being referred to is mahito or sukuna, but i'm assuming it can apply to both of them.)

this post was made about a year ago, so i assume this interview with gege is also a bit dated now. i think gege is intentionally vague in their interviews because they don't want to reveal too much, but my own interpretation of this post is that gege never intended for sukuna to get any sort of redemption because he is incapable of being redeemed through any kind of love.

and i agree with that. i don't want sukuna to get redemption. what he has done is unforgivable and i don't want him to get off easy for it. but him showing character development is not the same as him getting redemption. and him being affected by love isn't the same as him fully accepting it either.

in these last few chapters, yuuji has offered mercy to sukuna multiple times, despite how even he himself considered it to be a lost cause.

as i wrote earlier, yuuji is the only character who really understands how terrible and curse-like sukuna is. he hates sukuna on this fact alone. yuuji told mahito that his purpose is to kill curses, and sukuna - in the end - is nothing more than just another curse.

so why did yuuji suddenly change all that up and show empathy and genuine concern for sukuna in these last few chapters? why was he trying so hard to convince sukuna that they can co-exist?

one of my sukuita-cult friends (flight-of-death) pointed out that during his fight with yuuji, sukuna explicitly recalled his conversation with kashimo about not needing another person to fulfill him.

while sukuna saying he didn't anyone else to fulfill him was relevant during his discussion with kashimo, it's very interesting that he was remembering his own exact words about it while facing down yuuji, who was making sukuna doubt some of his previous statements.

my friend has convinced me that sukuna and yuuji have found a "reluctant fulfillment" in each other. and i think this is proving to be very much possible.

yuuji was alone most of his life. without wasuke there for him, he could have turned into a ruthless monster like sukuna. yuuji has so much physical and emotional strength, but it was the catalyst of wasuke's death that motivated yuuji to use that strength for good. he might have chosen to be selfish and only concerned with his own wants and needs like sukuna did, but wasuke provided the role yuuji needed to be the selfless person he is now.

i think that yuuji, in all his loneliness, found a kind of closeness to sukuna, even if it was unwanted. and sukuna has definitely been affected by yuuji, too.

as sukuna is dying, megumi finally regains control. he notices how sukuna seems to be scared of death.

sukuna genuinely does look concerned about dying. his mouths are in the shape of a grin but are turned upside down and look more like actual dread. for someone who claimed that eating people was only a way to pass the time until death, sukuna now looks unwilling to die.

i think that this shows that sukuna gained some sort of respect for life, even if it was only in his will to keep living. he does seem to want to keep existing, and it's interesting that it's what yuuji offered him.

yuuji was created by kenjaku to be sukuna's vessel. the sorcerers wanted to use yuuji as a vessel to hunt down all the cursed fingers so that yuuji and sukuna would die together. no matter how you see it, sukuna and yuuji were bound to end up either living or dying together. that is their fate. but now that he has more power in making his own choices, yuuji seems to genuinely want to share the kinder fate with sukuna: to live together. and if you think about it, them coexisting makes a lot of sense.

sukuna has been described as a natural disaster, so how can yuuji have any kind of empathy for something as devastating and unfeeling as an earthquake or a tsunami? in truth, the human race has been coexisting with natural disasters since the beginning - especially japan, which has weathered many terrible calamities. yuuji is a lot like the embodiment of the resilience and strength needed to survive such disasters, so i think he's more than capable of handling a life with sukuna, especially if sukuna is far more subdued.

and sukuna being allowed to live isn't redemption at all. though it would be a form of character development for him, it would still be one of the most selfish things he could do, as it would mean condemning yuuji to an indefinite amount of time with sukuna.

but yuuji seems to want that. he is willingly offering up the rest of his life to sukuna, for them to live together.

personally, i don't consider this to be a form of redemption in any way. he is proving sukuna's mindset wrong, not forgiving him. just accepting his nature and still offering a way to coexist.

i think that by offering this to sukuna, yuuji would essentially become that person that sukuna claims he doesn't need to feel fulfillment. but it's clear to me sukuna wasn't satisfied with his life in the past, since he couldn't offer an explanation to kashimo about why he chose to cross the ages as cursed objects. he is obviously lying or beginning to doubt his own words.

and i think that's why he chose death.

accepting yuuji's mercy, finding that fulfillment sukuna denies needing, would be very un-curselike of him and he can't have that. he would rather be seen as an inhuman monster than something capable of accepting love.

so in the end, sukuna is doing exactly what gege said he would: rejecting love and rejecting anything that makes him less of a curse.

but yuuji isn't easily pushed away. he kept coming back for wasuke and i think that if he really does care that much about sukuna, that if he's wiling to live with him even if no one else accepts it, he won't let sukuna go without more of a fight either.

they can still find fulfilment in each other. they are capable of coexisting. and if sukuna decides to make that change, it doesn't necessarily mean he's completely broken character. and if they don't get to survive together in this lifetime, there's still a good chance for change if they're reincarnated.

[lbulldesigns]

There's something I've just realised with how Jinx, Isha, and Sevika communicate with each other.

None of them have to actually say words to each other, because they understand what the others saying through body language and looks.

Sevika and Jinx fight seamlessly alongside each other without calling out to each other.

The way they bicker without uttering a word, for example, when Sevika fully takes stock of how her arm look or when the music starts blasting and Jinx just responds with a shrug or a little dance.

Jinx thanked Isha by doing the finger gun towards her and Isha, understanding instantly that it was acknowledgement.

Jinx instructs Sevika on how to operate her new arm by just indicating the motion.

I love dynamics like this because it just shows the level of trust that all three have in each other, even though they know nothing about each other.

Jinx has been isolated from others for the past eight years, Silco has had Sevika work like a horse and, too frustrated with Jinx to really get to know her, and Isha is a new addition and non-verbal. But they still worked together perfectly.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[somnimagus]

My page for @sheikahzine; about Impaz's duty to her village, empty of people and full of memories.

[id in alt text]

[saturngalore]

afrofuturism🪐

☆ one ~ solange hair by darknightt (tsr warning) ☆ two ~ loretta hair by @simtric ☆ three ~ bahati braids by @sheabuttyr ☆ four ~ isonoe hair by octetsica ☆ five ~ binah braids by @sheabuttyr ☆ six ~ cornrows & curls hair by @leeleesims1 ☆ seven ~ indie hair by @sashima ☆ eight ~ loc petals by @shespeakssimlish ☆ nine ~ mnemosyne hair by octetsica ☆

mini dedication essay to black simmers and ts4 creators below! pls read if you have the chance! <3

this edit is a small homage to afrofuturism and the various unique black hairstyles (and especially the black creators of most of these hairs) that i have downloaded and admired over the years! some of these are old and some of these are new.

to me, afrofuturism means constantly honoring/reclaiming/challenging the past while constantly creating/dreaming of a better society/world/future. a society/world/future that embraces and empowers all of our differences, ingenuity, aspirations, and unique lived/cultural experiences. a society/world/future that does not limit us through the various systems of marginalization and oppression (racism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, sexism, xenophobia, ableism, classism, colorism, etc.) that often affects how we, as black people, live today.

blackness is so diverse and intricate yet it's always been a struggle to find my culture within a game that's known for being so limiting, bland, and extremely eurocentric when it comes to hairstyles, clothing, food traditions/events, etc. black simmers have always had to figure out how to make this game more inclusive and make it resemble either more like how our ancestors lived, how our current lives are, or how we would want our lives (and even our children's lives) to look like in the future no matter how dystopian the real world look and feel now. fortunately, these hairs and their uniqueness bring a huge sense of culture and style to this game. they have always inspired me and made me feel extremely proud to a part of the lovely african diaspora (and the ever-growing black simmer community).

in a way, being a black simmer and cc creator usually means that we are often digitally creating our own worlds as afrofuturists to varying degrees (whether we know it or not) every time we open our game, make our sims, make houses, and/or make black cultural cc. also, now i know that cc making is not easy to do and is extremely time-consuming so this post is also just me giving all black cc creators especially those who create for free their well-deserved flowers! here are some other black cc creators who created cc that have greatly impacted my game since i first started playing sims 4: @/leeleesims1 @/simtric @/hi-land @/yuyulie @/sims4bradshaw @/ebonixsims @/xmiramira @/sheabuttyr @/qwertysims @/oplerims @/sleepingsims @/shespeakssimlish and so many more im forgetting probably (im too shy rn to tag ppl but i greatly appreciate y’all fr i hope y’all telepathically get this message somehow 😭).

last but not least, i am hoping that this inspires somebody to keep creating or start creating regardless of what they think their skill level is! somebody will absolutely fall in love with your work and/or your art/work will 100% change someone's game forever <333

[mosovi-vian]

And I will stay alive for my future self, so they can one day learn to be kind to who I was as a child. And I will teach them to honor who we used to be, so they can remember the comfort of what once was our untempered flesh and gentle soul. Me and myself are each a fresh wound and a rough scab, bearing respectively the gift of green faith and honed will.

This has been in my draft for a while because I was determined to post this only after I knew what I should write underneath it. I’ve read a lot on the concept of healing the wounded inner child since even before my c-ptsd diagnosis. However, I’ve sought as much comfort in my little self as they had in me. Looking back, I was an impressively emotionally-intuitive kid. I remember well how I used to think, the things I would write to my future self; they were wiser and gentler than I could ever hope to be as an adult. Needless to say, the little poem above is inspired by the aforementioned experience. Sure, big me is armed with a more developed pre-frontal cortex and access to invaluable resources (coping mechanisms, therapy, on and offline communities) , but I struggle to rediscover/reinvent my identity. Little me was the biggest vestige of my lost personhood. So yeah, this might be just a huge self-indulgent projection with my favorite character, but thinking that post-S3 Hunter would also be in my shoes is not completely baseless. 16yrs old Hunter is the fresh wound (a lot of things happened before his teen years, but I’m going to interpret the events of Hollow Mind - which happened when Hunter was 16 - as the ultimate boiling point in his trauma timeline, hence the ‘fresh wound') and 20yrs old Hunter is the rough scab. Each version of Hunter could be dealing with a different set of trauma-induced symptoms. I think his loyalty to Belos kept him going as a child. Being doubtless was important to Hunter back then; it held his sense of self together. And maybe when he survived and was rewarded the time and space to grow into his own person and live for himself, there was this lasting emptiness. I feel this sort of emptiness even today. My only reference of what ‘wholeness’ felt like was when I was obedient to my family. I equated self-abandonment as the righteous norm. The symptoms I deal with today are definitely different from when I was Hunter’s age pre-time-skip. Now that Hunter is in a safe space and an adult post-time skip, he might also need to seek that strength from his younger self. Reminding himself of how far he’s come and the parts of him that he'd like to keep from his past. The parts that he knows in his bones are purely his - not instilled by Belos, not inherited from Caleb.

[luna-loveboop]

I find it funny that Wild, who has basically a couple years ish of full life experience, comes up with the most insane theories for everything

He assumed that the only other explanation to Four being able to split in Four was. That he was quadruplets who'd been hiding this whole time???

Also apparently he believed that his wolf companion Twilight in botw was a diety (and felt very uhh shocked upon finding out that he was not)

Malon made things worse, telling him about her aliens theory

What's even FUNNIER is that every time Wild expresses any sort of confusion at magic stuff that he's never seen before, everyone else in the chain acts like it's crazy for him to be weirded out by it

Honestly maybe Wild's the only one with his head on straight, rather than everyone else who are just like 'it's magic bro' like no he's right this is weird

I appreciate this because it's very considerate of the fact that he woke up with no memories not too long ago, so he doesn't have much experience to explain the stuff that's 'normal' for the chain. Plus the explanations he comes up with are funny.

:)

.

Art and comic and adorable character by Jojo @linkeduniverse au :D

[arthursfuckinghat]

So, I was nosing around the gang's tents and I thought that it was honestly so sweet that so many of them have photographs of themselves or of family right?

Little baby Charles with his parents, a young Susan, young Hosea and Bessie, but then I found something interesting in that pile of junk down the cliff just behind Arthur's tent-

Dutch actually writes notes for his famous camp speeches.

And if you've seen the speech that these notes are referring to, Dutch seemed to simplify it a lot when he recited it, almost dumbing it down for the gang entirely?

Writing notes for an important speech isn't the strange part, but the fact he dumbs them down and that these notes are hidden/thrown away out of sight is really strange to me. It makes me think that this is possibly a rough draft or early version of what he wanted the speech to be, sort of implying that Dutch practices and revises his speeches.

Which, if he ultimately dumbs them down for the gang, then what is the point?

The likely answer is that he holds himself to a higher standard because he feels he's above the gang members, in a way. He's the visionary, the leader, the man in charge, the one who reads philosophy books almost exclusively, to say that Dutch didn't think highly of himself would be a lie. And because the gang is 'below' him, he simplifies his speeches for them - despite majority of the gang being well educated and understanding. He doesn't think that the gang is as intellectual as him.

I made a post previously talking about Dutch and his Evelyn Miller philosophies and how he argues with gang members that don't agree or understand. It's especially interesting how Lenny, also an avid reader, disagrees so strongly with Miller's writings when that's what most of Dutch's philosophies are based on.

It solidifies that Dutch was manipulative from the beginning, and probably long before too.

[wigglebox]

Destiel Pride - Day 4; Divine Purpose

[thebatcreature]

Sometime around 1977

[dog-teeth]

something to recognize that choosing recovery again and again is difficult work, and you are not weak for faltering

[tesco-finest-aromantics]

To other sex-repulsed people: Please understand that your repulsion towards sex is your own issue to deal with. Understand that sex is important to a lot of people (you don't have to understand why, just simply that it is), and understand that it's not okay to treat sex as a bad thing simply because it exists and you're repulsed towards it.

It's completely fine to vent about your friend talking in great depth about their sex life when it repulses you (and maybe tell them that it makes you uncomfortable and you don't want to hear about it) or for any reason for that matter, but don't talk about how much you hate sex in front of the people who find it a positive thing because you'll just end up being seen as someone who kills the fun. It doesn't seem fair, I know, but there are lots of places you can talk about this without upsetting people who enjoy it.

And to non-sex-repulsed people: Please understand that we need a space to air our repulsion to sex. If anything we say isn't directly aimed towards you specifically and it upsets you, then maybe consider that this space just isn't for you. Not everyone has the same positive feelings towards sex that you do, and we have just as much right to talk about how we dislike sex as you have to talk about how much you like sex.

And everyone needs to understand that it's possible to have negative feelings about sex —and to talk about these feelings— without it automatically being sex negativity.

[ink-the-artist]

holy shit I did NOT realize how popular my "I will remove my teeth, for I want to remain kind despite my anger" quote is. I just googled it for fun to see what would come up, a bunch of people are quoting it not knowing who its from, an artist called Kuma made an album titled that, so bizzare

[uncanny-tranny]

If somebody in your life offers to knit or crochet or, really, create anything for you, please be an active participant in the creation of the piece they are making. I adore making and gifting things, but nothing bums me out quicker than a person who passively just goes "okay," to my ideas about what I'm making them - it can send the message that they won't like it, or that they don't care, even if they're happy about my offering. The back-and-forth feedback is a great way to make sure that you are being gifted something that was truly worth the time, effort, expertise, and money that will inevitably go into the gift!

I know it's really hard to be an active participant, believe me, I'm an anxious ball of horror, but it will only do good for both parties to interact in this situation. It is a big deal to be offered a hand-crafted gift, but it's also something we want you to love and use, and that can only happen if you tell us what would make you fall in love with what we create.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Peaceful property is a bl even if it's not. It's also about so many other things although not really delivering on a consistent message.

I thought about adding my thoughts to this thread but it was getting long and I started to get sidetracked so I decided to just make my own post about it and share my thoughts on it. @lurkingshan @bengiyo and @twig-tea all made good point about why this show is faltering with its own themes, and @respectthepetty made a compelling argument that the show knows what its doing.

I think no one is wrong and I land somewhere in the middle with it. As in, depending on what I choose to care about. Much like @respectthepetty, I am bias about this show. For different reasons tho. I like Tay and New a lot so I lead with that instead of my critical thinking. just as a personal aside, I tend to do this when my brain and heart don't align. I ignore when my brain tells me that the show is doing something wrong so that I can enjoy the rest. This works particularly well with QL for some reason. I am after all a person who liked Dangerous Romance even when my brain kept trying to damper my enjoyment with logic. And also sometimes I'm a hypocrite and there's no reason for why I like a show and not another. Ok, there's usually a reason but it's most often not a good one, or a rational one at least. That's just how it is.

Anyway. Because of all the excellent points made by that post I decided to fully engage my brain and I've been thinking about what this show is trying to say and I agree that unfinished business is the main thing in the ghost stories but I would have to shut off my brain completely to not see how class factors into all of it as well.

The ghosts up until now, except the chef, were all lower class and one can argue that it played a part in how they died or what happened after. I'm not including episode 7 for reasons that I will explain in a bit. Even if Ride's unfinished business was about love, the fact that he was the only rider doing deliveries in the rain, at least to me, read as he was driven by the need to make money in the first place. Even in the chef's case, the customer that Peach basically poisoned was rich and it was a part of the headlines about it and the reason for the restaurant getting shut down. Also most of the individual stories didn't get deep into these issues, case of the week usual issues, but it was always an underlying theme. Also as @twig-tea said all the parallels work even better because this disparity also exists between Home and Peach.

All this gets me to how I started this post. This is a bl even if it isn't. The choice to include the tragic bl storyline in the middle of this, in my own brain, can only be explained if I believe this is a bl. (The tragic bit was thematically consistent with this show.) Specifically a gmmtv bl. Cause ultimately they have a tendency to forsake narrative consistency if it stops serving the main romance. It's also the only way I can explain having a bl pair mirroring the other bl pair on screen. So in that way it's consistent with gmmtv. Just brush aside anything that can get in the way of the couple not having a happy ending. This is also how I explain my biggest issue with it. Pangpang. She's the shipper. She's been the shipper from basically the start.

Home basically killed her brother, why would she be the driving force in getting him forgiven? Because of my previously admitted bias, I forgave Home almost immediately. It's New and he didn't mean it, it was an accident and he wanted to call for help and do the right thing but his family interfered and.... I could come up with a lot of reasons because I want to forgive him. So everything else can be ignored. But all this obviously doesn't apply to Pang. So it can only be the bl in the not a bl show.

Now, on full brainy mode, this last episode makes no sense with everything else this show has been saying until now. They used a branded pair to ignore any class disparity between our mains, since the last ghost story didn't really parallel that, and over the forgiveness part, and jump straight into Peach has forgiven Home and will probably now become his saviour. Don't even get me started on the fact that Peach is still broke but saving the rich dude that turned his life to crap will be the most important thing right now. I wonder if gmmtv has ever ignored class disparity between a main couple and instead focused on the richer dude's drama while ignoring the struggle of the other one, all in favour of the main romance and lovey dovey moments 🤔. But I guess I'll reserve full judgement on that until the next episode.

yeah, so basically this is where I am at with this show. My two sides are fighting but come next wednesday my brain will take the back seat for 45 minutes so I can enjoy Tay and New and after that maybe I'll think about it some more.

[my-coven-is-claudia]

after sleeping on the latest anniversary special i think i’m at peace with the whole bi-generation thing because it does something i don’t think it would’ve been able to do if it was executed in any other way. it allows the show to move the fuck on.

nuwho began with this mysterious sense that something bad happened. that this man, this alien, is filled with guilt and pain from something terrible. that theme of a horrible anguish being thinly veiled under a witty, dorky shield has been consistent throughout every incarnation of the doctor since. it’s a brilliant piece of characterisation but the doctor always being weighed down by this insurmountable grief i think was always going to hold the show back eventually. tragedy is inherent to doctor who but when does it become hard to believe that the main character is somehow able to continue on after everything they’ve gone through. what effect would this have on the audience, especially long-term fans? letting go of past companions and doctors is something that doctor who fans are notoriously bad at and i just wonder if it would become too much for the show to handle at one point. but now it won’t anymore.

bi-generation allows the doctor to heal from everything they’ve gone through whilst still being able to barrel into the next adventure. there’s a million theories on where 14 will end up but i think what matters the most is that the doctor is finally happy. not in a temporary, tenuous state of thrill that will only last until the start of the next episode or when the next threat appears around the corner but truly happy. unlike in previous versions of this story where the doctor gets an impossible happy ending which we never get to see onscreen (e.g. tentoo settling down with rose) we are actually going to witness 15 be joyful and alive, no longer held down by what’s come before. a fresh start almost. not to say that the time war or the flux were so horrific that the doctor never could’ve gotten over them but i don’t think the doctor healing would’ve been believable without him literally splitting in two, allowing him time to breathe and slow down as 14 whilst untethering him from the past and allowing him to fully spread his wings as 15. it’s not a perfect conclusion to this era (and discussions on whether bi-generation undermined ncuti’s entrance and role as THE doctor are completely valid) but i’m ultimately glad it happened