#i know I'm stating the obvious

[candyskiez]

Man you can say what you want about Steven Universe Future but it really gets what it's like to be traumatized and I gotta give it credit for that. Like the shit of everyone wanting the old Steven back and wanting him to go back to being fun and nice, and how sweet and helpful he used to be, and everyone just grieving their lost friend when hes still there! But he can't be that guy anymore! And he misses who he used to be, he misses who he was before all the horrible things happened to him, but he can't be that anymore. He can't be carefree and fun and always energetic. Everyone wants him to go back to being innocent and happy but he can't! He wants to go back to being who he was before it all went wrong but he can't. Nothing is going to bring that Steven back, and he's grieving who he used to be. He's grieving when he could trust people easily and when everything made him happy and when all these things felt so fun and exciting and not terrifying. He misses when he wasn't mad at all his friends, he misses when he could be the perfect little kid everyone thought he was.

And the. Fuck. The fact that everyone's guilt keeps them from actually helping him. They're so focused on oh I'm so awful, we're so awful, we hurt poor Steven that they don't actually do anything to help him, they don't actually ask him how they can help, it's just. All of it is shit I've experienced personally. It's so fucking accurate it's hard to watch. Say what you want about this show but it GETS what it's like to be traumatized and how people treat you for it. I've never seen the whole people caring more about their own guilt than helping fix what they did put into words so damn well. It's so damn raw. Man. Man.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

This entire scene emotionally destroyed me but there's one part in particular that was like taking a knife to an already open wound.

So, Gon shuts down after the reveal that Kite was dead all along and his stunned and racing mind is disjointed and contradictory. Most of his statements fit into roughly three categories of desperate thoughts:

Vehement inability to process that Kite is dead. From the statement being repeated multiple times to the amount of "no"s everywhere on these pages.

Taking the blame for Kite's death, in a frankly horrifying show of self-hatred (especially given the context of what comes next).

Blaming Pitou and proclaiming that he "didn't do it" in an attempt to absolve the weight of his guilt.

Heartbreaking. But there's one thought here that's a bit different.

Throughout all of this, Gon has been adamant that Kite, and by extension the situation, can be "fixed" - after all, most every issue that's come up before on his adventures could be resolved nicely. But now, suddenly, it can't. Gon can't stand feeling powerless or helpless, and now he finds himself more helpless than he's ever been. And we get this.

"Somebody help me."

Gon is independent. Gon has a burning need to prove his worth through his own strength. Gon has a bad habit of equating "taking responsibility" with fixing things all by himself and rejecting help from others.

Gon has never pleaded for someone to save him before.

And it's just. Holy shit. Holy shit - he's a kid. He's just a kid. And in just a few pages, he's going to make a despair-fueled decision to throw away his life just to regain any semblance of power over a situation that was doomed to be unfixable from the start. He says, "Let it end. I don't care what happens to me now.", because this is the only way he can think of to make his pain and his guilt and Pitou all just stop, by losing himself to all of his power instead of his grief.

[vingler-mirror]

Isolde saw Kakania as a golden key. The doctor who can cure her from her curse. The one person who can save her and bring her salvation

But the thing is...

(minor spoiler for 1.9 character item below)

in reality, Kakania's key is not a golden key... it's a brass key

Kakania, as much as she desperately tried, as much as she wanted to believe and prove herself otherwise, is actually as lost as Isolde and doesn't know how to save her

They really shouldn't have had that therapy session didn't they

[why-does-this-happen-to-me]

The characters from the Transcendental Cha Cha Cha video are very gender to me, and that's great.

[sskk-manifesto]

At the end of the day, I sincerely feel bad for Akutagawa this episode. Like imagine having trained four years of your life to become as strong as you can be– and the training was literally hell, and there's not a single bone in your body that wasn't broken at some point, but somehow you endured and somehow you survived and now you're the second strongest member of the most feared criminal organization in the whole city (worth mentioning, only second to somewhat of a literal god). You have molded and sharpened your ability to make it one of the most powerful in the world; you've grown a reputation as the inescapable bearer of death. Law abiding citizens and criminals alike know your name and fear your existence. All your life you've spent sacrificing your own humanity to get where you are; and maybe you're not happy, but at least you're as powerful as you can be, so that must count for something, right?

Then, arrives a random dude who seems to have just landed on the world for the first time. He has a naturally pretty strong ability alright, but you also know he must not have trained a single day of his life, so it's more of him being just a big nuisance for you because why exactly isn't he dead yet? And yet somehow as you fight he keeps regenerating and regenerating and REGENERATING. And as he does that he also seems to learn very quickly how to fight and control his own ability like he was given an ability cheat code you were never granted the blessing of (he was). To add insult to injury, your past mentor and all time idol is sure this new guy is totally going to beat your ass. And you've been fighting for what seems an eternity now, and you're exceptionally skilled alright, but he seems to always know exactly how to counter your next move; and you're one of the most powerful ability users in town for sure, but you don't have fucking endless regeneration, so you're starting to stumble here and there, and as soon as you leave him an opening he makes sure to throw you straight to the ocean and win the fight.

Like, imagine perfecting running the 100 metres all your life, and then a new kid arrives in town who gives it a shot for the first time ever and instantly beats you on it almost effortlessly. Also your crush likes him better. I'd be mad as well

[keepthetension]

still stuck on porjai, visibly pregnant, flirting with night

who fucking goes for it

i only know the asian culture i grew up in, obviously, and not thai culture. but the social stigma of being unmarried and pregnant? and having the nerve to still be flirting?? that's not the Good Girl thing to do, and i remember the way the Not Good Girls were treated and talked about where i grew up

so porjai actively trying to get dates? night finding out she's pregnant with her ex's kid and just. being fine with that? big deal to me

[saints-who-never-existed]

Okay so this might be glaringly obvious to everyone else but it's only just sort of struck me the more I've thought about it:

The ambiguity that so many of us seem to have found in that shot of the smiling Marines in the hunting blind actually makes so much sense if we think about it as being directly from Goodsir's perspective.

Like, it actually does a really good job - whether intentionally or not - of putting us in his position and his mindset.

Goodsir is, as the script itself says, 'socially helpless' at the very least and I know there are many out there who perceive him as more explicitly neurodivergent too. Either way, it seems likely and not unfair to say that he himself mighty not be fully picking up the social cues he's getting from the Marines.

And I think that does matter! I think that contributes - even in some small, unconscious way - to the feeling we the audience get from that scene. Like, we're not entirely sure of how to take the reaction of the Marines because we're seeing them from the perspective of a character who isn't entirely sure of how to do that either.

[lulu-the-bugaboo]

This might be obvious, but 7yo Luffy was never really a crybaby

Considering the things he went through and how young he was, he had every right to cry every time he did

Truthfully, it would have been totally valid even if he had been a fully grown adult crying over those horrid experiences

He was actually far stronger mentally and physically than he should have been at that age (Garp✨️)

The thing is, the closest people to him included two traumatized kids who'd been stealing from thugs since they were 5 and were pretty rough around the edges, and the only adult "present" in his life, other than Shanks for a while, was...Garp

Initially, Luffy wasn't really attached to Dadan and the bandits, so I won't count them, but it would be the same if I did

In the end, he was just a little kid surrounded by highly abnormal circumstances

[sergle]

genuinely @ that ask you answered: as a trans woman some of the most genuine kinship i have found has been with fat queer cis women. especially if they have PCOS or something similar because like. their story mirrors mine so intensely (and their perscriptions, lol) and it's so natural to relate on literally everything about conventional attraction and clothing not fitting quite right and the way society views you

it's refreshing and delightful to find yourself in people who are different from you 💜

I REALLY think there are so many shared experiences there!! yeah! and god, with PCOS, that has even more similarities in the shared experience venn diagram. I don't talk from that perspective but just being a fat woman, in both cases, womanhood/girlhood isn't inherent and it isn't given freely, it's conditional, it's worked for. the specific types of clothing to look feminine, the clothing not fitting, the makeup, the hair, the nails, the body shaping, the put-togetherness, all in the pursuit to be read as "girl" first, instantly, before anything else. something that another woman might have already, in her default state, regardless of the clothes she leaves the house wearing, or if she can do makeup well. She can dress up and wear makeup and enhance her femininity too, but she doesn't Have to do it, not in the same way. I have actually literally already been thinking about this, bc it's a funny thing!! in some ways, I never got to Be a girl, I was fat first and girl second. nobody looked at me and just saw a girl. I've talked to some other fat women about this, and apparently it's a pervasive feeling, that "fat" is, in itself, treated almost like some other third gender. so there's a lot to relate to lmao, in friendships and relationships w trans women, going "ah, those things you feel obligated to do in order to meet the standards of womanhood, I recognize those, I do them too"

[tvckerwash]

you know, an interpretation of ct that I don't see that I personally really love is that she's a fuck up. like yes she's cool and she has some good fight scenes, but a huge part of her character is that she makes mistakes. the mistakes that she makes are ones that on their own aren't the end of the world, but she keeps making these little mistakes, and they eventually add up until she's out of room to make any more.

a really good example of this phenomenon in action is the actions she took leading up to her final confrontation with carolina and tex.

strike one, she thought she saw something in the water, but when asked by the leader what it was, she brushed it off as nothing when even if it had been nothing, it would've been smart to tell him what she thought she saw.

strike two, she didn't sense or notice florida's presence when the leader did, and she looks at the leader twice, once as she pulled out her magnums, and again after she did a scan of the room, almost like she was looking at him for guidance before he finds florida and takes him out with one good axe throw.

strike three, she couldn't convince the leader to leave when they had the chance to get away, and her cheap tricks were not enough to hold off either tex or carolina in a fight. they were only good for incapacitating her opponents enough for her to get away, which doesn't work when she has no escape.

ct is not tex, or carolina, or south. she is not a one woman army who can get herself out of trouble when she's stuck in tough situations. she needs people who can watch her back, she need a team who can cover her when she does mess up, and the leader and his team were not those people. she couldn't bring herself to trust them, and they couldn't bring themselves to trust her, and that cost all of them their lives.

[another-clive-blog]

Why are we as a fandom not talking more about this scene ??

Clive is literally asking the professor to come back and stop him. Like this isn't him pretending to be Future Luke : he looks genuinely upset/displeased even after the professor promises to come back. He only goes back to smiling after the professor says, and I quote "I wouldn't dream of leaving things here in that state" before talking about stopping his future self. Clive wants confirmation that Layton is actually going to confront the bad guys, that he won't just solve the mystery but fix it too.

And this is literally so important. Clive's speech at the end, about getting saved. This is concrete proof that he had truly meant it from the start, because he's asking for Layton to stop him and thus save everyone here. Which, hey- he didn't just hope and wait to get saved, he tried to save himself too.

Yep, that's right. The game talks about how dangerous it was for Clive to bring Layton underground : it doesn't talk about how even more dangerous it was to let him leave. He could have brought back cops (he did). He could have gathered precious knowledge out there (he did). He could have never come back (and yet he did !!). Clive letting Layton leave is the biggest threat to his plan, and yet HE DID. And you know what else he did ? Make Layton promise to stop him. You can't make a clearer call for help, you just can't.

"Oh but it doesn't make his crimes more forgivable, now does it-" of course not. This isn't about Clive's redemption, it's about Clive trying to avoid needing a redemption : his efforts are vain the moment he started using the fortress. But. There were efforts.

[ilovewhiteroses]

So, it looks like S2 Corinthian has changed his style to darker colours compared to his S1 outfits, and I like that a lot🥰🥰

(my gif)

[coffeelomort]

Elaborating on something I don't think I explained well in my general overview of the Noir Bouquet episode: Chaco seems to fall into the same role that Merold has in Red Bouquet and Cielomort has in Blue Bouquet.

When he's trying to comfort the kid that has the Seeds attached to him (presumably feeding off his negative emotions), Chaco ends up upsetting the kid further because Chaco's really good at everything he does.

Furthermore, when Arupek states that "Chaco wasn't good at parkour in the beginning too" while comforting the kid, Chaco has a moment of hesitation and mumbles some words that seem to imply that he didn't struggle with parkour even as a beginner.

While Merold is the "strongest" and Cielomort is the "genius", it seems like the role Chaco fills is the "naturally talented".

[chimerafeathers]

there's an essay jumbled up in my brain about dunmeshi's beginning and how clever and deceptive it is as a sleight-of-hand trick that distracts the audience from the depth and scope of the worldbuilding and foreshadowing that's being set up the entire time by dangling zany characters and wacky dishes and biology fun facts in front of us, and how that serves to catch invested viewers off guard when those elements come to the forefront, but also how it works against it with other viewers wanting "more" and not seeing it because the plot bait isn't laid out up front

how people getting frustrated with the characters "not taking things seriously" is mirrored and refuted in the confrontation between Laios and Shuro. how the characters' attitudes aren't just a result of shallow low-stakes "comedy rules" where nothing matters, but are an extension of their personalities (Laios's nonstandard expression of emotions being offputting even to people he knows) and the world and social environment (adventurers being desensitized to death and injury because resurrection magic is commonplace). the way the party refers to "saving Falin" instead of "retrieving Falin's corpse," indicating that they still see her with full personhood, and how that phrasing leads to some readers/viewers believing that Falin is alive in the dragon's stomach, conscious of being slowly digested while the party carelessly fucks around "wasting time." how the weird tonal dissonance makes sense in-universe and yet is deliberately challenged more and more the deeper the party goes

all the character building and pieces of lore slowly weaving together the shape of the larger world, laying the groundwork for the major themes that will surface later. so much is right there in the "low-stakes" early episodes if you know what you're looking for (or pass the perception checks).

it can be so satisfying to see new viewers/readers pick up on the clues even in the earliest "simple" episodes, or notice new things and make connections yourself....and it can also be frustrating to see people dismiss oddities and dissonance as shallow or bad writing because they don't expect a "cooking anime" to have depth like that. why try to question and understand and peel back the layers when you don't expect there to be any layers?

why can't laios take things seriously for once?

[riddlerosehearts]

okay, i know this is a lot of screenshots but i really wanted to include them all in this post to convey just how much meleanor loved malleus and how incredibly distraught i am about it. when she's introduced, she's singing a lullaby to his egg about how she wants him to always stay with her and feel happy and safe, the kind of lullaby any good mother would sing to her baby. and then she starts raging hard and throwing thunderbolts everywhere because she and her egg are in danger, and lilia and baul, trusted members of her guard, are late in arriving to help. she's angry and frustrated and worried for her child, but she quickly softens for him, tries to sing him to sleep, comforts him when she thinks her thunderous anger might have bothered him, speaks of her belief that he'll become a bright, shining star for their people. she accepts the duel against the knight of dawn because she feels that as a mother, she must protect her child at all costs and joining the fight is the best way to do that. she has the confidence to believe that she'll win and come back home to her baby, but the wisdom to come up with a plan in case she doesn't. and honestly, it's kind of a crazy plan, to give an egg that needs genuine parental love to hatch to an orphan who believes himself to be incapable of love, but meleanor has so much trust in lilia and believes she knows him better than that, knows that he can love this child enough to nurture the egg into hatching. and of course, we know she was right. we know that although her participation in the duel may have been a mistake, she did it out of love for malleus and it's still thanks to her plan that lilia could grow to love him as well and hatch his egg.

but malleus will never know all of this, not really. sure, other people like lilia and baul and maleficia must have told him about his mother, about her incredibly fiery temper and her love for him that burned just as strongly, but there's a difference between being told that your mother loved you and actually getting to feel that love. meleanor died when he was still in his egg. he can't possibly remember what the smile on her face would've looked like each time she gazed down at him and held him as she sang him to sleep, or remember that the last time she would ever see him she entrusted him to lilia so he would be safe no matter what. he can't even remember the words to her song, only the melody, and he doesn't remember it came from her. in another translation i read he wondered if he heard it from one of his nannies. fae live such long lives, and he will live the entirety of his without ever knowing his mother who wanted nothing more than to be able to watch him grow up. i wonder how she would feel, seeing him hum her song to the knight of dawn's child--the son of the very man who killed her--to lull him to sleep and then humming it again later for the dark purpose of putting an entire island of people to sleep so he won't have to lose them. but of course, if she were alive for us to know how she feels, then all of this would've been a very different story to begin with.

[shadow-the-crow]

Why is my brain like this??

I still don't know more about Michael's backstory than when i last posted about him. I only know the basics of what happened. Also i've been on a short tma break for a few days now. I shouldn't even be thinking about this.

but out of the blue my brain went

OMG MICHAEL WAS LIED TO HE WAS TRICKED AND BETRAYED AND THEN HE BECAME THE INCARNATION OF LIES AND TRICKS AND MESSING WITH YOUR MIND