#im soooo normal about him

[littlehatmouse]

save me butch arlecchino save me....

[sparkboundd]

Hi Im Common and Im really excited for TF One

[ketchfantrolls]

uh oh.

[rainee-chu]

Next chapter will have narnia next chapter will have narnia next chapter will have narnia next chapter will have narnia next chapter will have narnia next chapter will have narnia next chapter will have narnia

[extended-play]

I went to the boyfriend store and went to the attractive section and saw this guy in the corner playing splatoon 2 for 30 minutes without moving and said "I WANT THAT ONE!" and lucky me he was on sale

hes fuckign insane i lov ehim. hes a complete loser but hes my loser and hes hot

[ghost-bard]

Who else up thinking about lapin cadbury a normal amount

[telltale-heart173]

happy valentines day, i'm apart of the 6 other people who are still CRAZY over the funny 2018 circle guy from Just Shapes & Beats

btw the art for the first and fourth picture come from raisa-drawz, you guys should go FOLLOW THEM because they have a comic thats REALLY COOL!!! FAV ARTIST EVER!!!! GO NOW!!! SCRAMBLE TO FIND THEIR PAGE!!!!!!!

[thedeafprophet]

The thing with The Manager is that, while he is an extremely stubborn man who is truly set in his ways, I truly, geniuenly believe that he is capable of change, its just that the enviorment and the situational circumstances he is set in makes that improbable.

When the setting you're in reinforces your own failings time and time again, when your lifespan begins to stretch longer and longer, as you watch more come and fade and begin and end.... well I imagine it must be hard for him, to reach any sort of conclusion.

And without closure, how could he recgonize things and change?

So while I think he's capable of it, its something that would need a significant push towards that precipice

[cherrytastiq]

LARRY 3000 GENDER ANALYSIS

I've been wanting to do this for such a long time so AHEM. Here's how the Dr. Freud episode (because of course it's that episode) may suggest Larry is Transgender™ in one way or another.

This analysis is mostly based on one aspect from The Island of Dr. Freud: Larry's dream. It appears in the beginning and comes back around to tie the plot together when he recounts his nightmare to Freud so he can start analyzing dreams like he's supposed to. I believe it's been sort of... overlooked by everyone? Or maybe I'm just insane.

As a preface, I'd like to say that this is a purely queer reading of Larry. One could argue his sense of 'otherness' comes from being a robot (something he is actually teased about in the show) but considering this is set in the future where robots are commonplace, as shown in the Recruitment Ad, I don't see it as very likely. Another non-queer interpretation is that Larry's 'otherness' comes from being too sensitive or simply feminine, which is totally valid. That being said, I think anyone who's even a little into Time Squad knows that Larry is anything but straight. But without further ado, let's' begin this analysis.

Larry's nightmare/dream goes as follows:

"I'm in this dark room, all alone…

Suddenly, I notice a table.

I move over to it and take a seat."

"In front of me is a delicious ambrosia salad.

I'm very excited about enjoying the salad…"

"However, when I reach for my fork…

...instead, in my hand, I hold…"

"A shoe.

A SHOE!

NOT A FORK, A WRETCHED SHOE!"

(WHAT DOES IT MEAN, DOCTOR?! WHAT DOES IT ALL MEEAAANNNN?!)

Now, usually, if you had a dream like this you'd think of it as something absurd and nonsensical, which is exactly what Freud thinks when Larry tells him, but it goes deeper than that. According to the start of the episode, he's had this exact dream multiple times, almost like a constant reminder. One could then argue that it's a part of his subconscious trying to tell him something. That's why I think analyzing his dream is worth it.

Back to the end of the episode, Otto takes note of Larry's despair and does a little analysis of his own, assigning things from L's dream to aspects of his life:

"The dark room clearly represents the world, and the ambrosia salad is society. And the shoe… the shoe is you! Never quite fitting in. Don't you see, Larry? You just want to be loved."

We'll get back at the parts I marked in bold later. For now, with the help of Otto, let's look back at L3K's dream with these elements in mind:

Larry finds himself in a dark world (the room), all alone. This has both a literal meaning, as Larry's first 9 years were spent in a warehouse, and a metaphorical one, where he's found himself without anyone that really understands him. Sure, he's close to certain folks like Otto, Buck or XJ5, but there's something that keeps Larry from entirely connecting with them.

He then notices a table and takes a seat. It's hard to define what exactly it could mean, and it doesn't appear to be significant to his dream's message, so I feel it's best not to try and find a meaning where there is none.

Here's where this analysis' most important element comes into play: The ambrosia salad, the one Larry is "very excited to enjoy". His wording is crucial here; he doesn't just want to 'eat' the salad, he's looking forward to savoring the experience. He has high expectations of what society will offer him and how he might be able to fit in. It's also very important to note Larry's special connection to food -there's an entire analysis dedicated to this- as he calls the salad "delicious" merely by looking at it. He finds the idea of fitting into society interesting, or at least desirable in some way.

Unfortunately, Larry is the shoe. When he reaches for himself, for an identity that allows him to enter society, he finds... that something is very, very wrong with him. He's supposed to be a fork, but he turned out to be a shoe. Something wretched, horrifying, something that directly tells Larry he could never fully integrate himself into society in any way, shape or form.

Here's where Otto's final thoughts come in: Try as he might, Larry will never be able to quite fit in. All he wants is to be loved unconditionally by those around him, without the need to put up a show of sass-lip and snootiness. But alas, until others can put aside their differences, Larry is a shoe and will continue to be a shoe.

What does all of this amount to? In simple terms, Larry's nightmare is his subconscious telling him that he is a misfit thrown into a world that doesn't think, speak or act like him. He can't relate to anyone for some reason, but what is that reason exactly?

Anyone who's questioned their gender identity knows how alienating the world can be, even before realizing they're transgender. It's the same "otherness" I talked about earlier, the knowledge that you're different from everyone else. Larry is definitely aware of this but he can't pin down why. He's scared of what the world thinks of him. After all, he's not "just a robot", he's THE Larry 3000. Can robots suffer from social dysphoria rooted in being seen as machines without feelings? I'd like to believe so, demonstrated in other shows like Jenny from MLAATR and Robot Jones from WHTRJ. Larry falls into this category too, clearly displayed in his fights with Tuddrussel:

He wants to be more than just a robot, but he doesn't realize he already is. Larry refuses to follow anyone's orders on what he should be, and instead chooses a path of his own.

In conclusion:

[chantryexplosion]

my poorest of little meow meows

[koifsssh]

dont even, i got maverick on the brain

[macarongi]

doodle dump lmao

[mujiniz]

!!!!!!!!

[st4rry4pples]

i need to put martin short in my pocket i lob him

[stealingpotatoes]

Luke: I must fight Vader alone and redeem him.

Ahsoka: yeah kinda tried that kid but ok

i know this is a reference to the tl4j ot au, but do you ever think about how Ahsoka feels knowing that she -- Anakin's padawan and pseudo-sister who fought alongside him for years and was one of the people -- failed to get through to him? not even failed, she DIED in one timeline. but luke got through to him, luke brought him back to the light and anivader didn't kill luke, he saved him. he and luke barely ever met and were always enemies but he got through to anakin. do you think ahsoka feels jealous? or do you think she wants to feel jealous but every time she looks at him all she can see are the best bits of his parents and how can she POSSIBLY feel anything but love for him?

[huginsmemory]

On ad astra per aspera ✨

Can we talk about the repeated use of ad astra per aspera? Cause uhhhh it shows up twice, once on the website and once in the Book of Bill, and OH BOY this has connotations, both for Bill and Ford's relation in the literal and figurative meaning on the word, and for Bill's own history:

(extra addition added 16/09/2024! 🌝 )

First, in the website (if I recall correctly) if the phrase ad astra per aspera is inputted into the computer, you get the two pages on Bill's 'funeral':

And within, in the pages, at the very end before signing there names is the phrase itself (highlighted in red) .

Secondly, a joke version of it is seen in the Book Of Bill, specifically on the night where Bill and Ford fucked 'one thing led to another':

In this one, it's clearly a joke off of aspirin used for his hangover, used again to close the entry.

Now the phrase ad astra per aspera itself means 'through suffering to the stars', which also has... wider connotations then just these two piece alone, which I'll unpack later. But first, the interesting choice of connection of these two pieces;

Both times the phrases occur, they occur closing the entry; a bit too much of a coincidence to me (and in this fandom there is no such thing as a coincidence). Considering that the 'one thing led to another' night is a night that was important to their relationship as it hints at the intimacy they had with each other, it showing up again in Ford's 'funeral' entry about Bill feels very much like an allusion to that night. Especially considering in the funeral entry Ford is very open about how much he cared about Bill, with how he at one point "considered him the centre of his life". The entry from Ford reads as someone who is moving on, and part of this is acknowledgement of the grief and sadness for the more positive part of the abusive relationship that he lost. As a result, having him acknowledge the intimacy of their relationship, it makes sense for him to tongue in cheek allude back to his first writing down of the phrase, where they were quite clearly implied to fuck be intimate.

While it alludes to their Bill and Ford's intimacy, the literal and metaphorical meaning of the phrase also rings true here; through suffering to the stars. If we talk literally, then through Ford's relationship with Bill, something that ultimately was full of suffering, he built the portal, and ended up wandering the myriad worlds out there in space; one may say out there among the stars. He literally was out there wandering the stars as a result of suffering.

Now metaphorically, the phrase means through suffering/adversity one gains beautiful/worthwhile things. Considering this entry is Ford moving on from Bill, this is very apt; again, their relationship caused Ford immense suffering, and as he is now letting that relationship and suffering go, he's instead prioritizing creating healthy relationships with Stanley, the other twins and Fiddleford (the something beautiful and worthwhile part!). In fact, the entry on Bill's funeral is half on him strengthening his relationship with Mabel, the shooting star, another layer of wordplay; case in point about the healthy relationships. He's weathered through his abusive relationship, to discover and create a loving family.

It doesn't quite end there however; although that's fairly it for specifically Ford and Bill's relationship, we also haven't talked about what the stars mean to Bill himself. Which, well; it's very clearly implied that Bill accidentally killed everyone in his dimension in an attempt to show his parents (and other people in his dimension) the stars. And on top of that, to quote; "I looked up and saw the stars. And I was ready to become one of them". Which he then in a way, becomes, considering the page in journal 3 on constellations, in which Ford remarks that one of his favourite constellations is the constellation 'William' (obviously Bill). It's a bittersweet immortalization of himself after everything that occurs around trying to see the stars for Bill.

So I find it very interesting that for Ford, a phrase about suffering and stars is something he ends up correlating to his relationship with Bill, considering that to Bill, to get to the stars is something he deeply suffered for as a result. It's also important to note that Bill's suffering was something that occurred out of love, and ultimately an attempt to be understood and create a deeper relationship with his parents where they could trust him. And then for Ford, all this while later, to look up to the stars (to see them) and to see the Bill constellation and go 'oh that's one of my favourites' is fulfillment. Because Ford during that time trusted and cared deeply for Bill, fulfilling that relationship of trust, love and understanding(at least surface level, considering the way they banter together), that Bill had yearned for when he was younger and killed his plane.

So all in all(tldr): ad aspera per astra, (through suffering the stars), is quite the fun phrase to unpack in regards to Bill and Ford's relationship, considering the deliberate reference to the phrase on the entry about the night 'where one thing led to another' and Bill's funeral entry. The phrase is a combination of references; tongue in cheek allusion to the intimacy, but also references to the literal (space fugitive) and figurative (abusive relationship, to loving family again pipeline) hardships Ford endured as a result of the relationship. There is also irony in the way that Ford seems to correlate this phrase about suffering and stars with Bill and his relationship, considering that out of an effort to be understood and share the stars with his parents, Bill accidentally killed his whole dimension; later he also made a constellation of himself. As well, as Ford says that one of his favourite constellations is a constellation that's clearly Bill in Journal 3, it alludes to that Bill's wish to show his parents the stars and be recognized is fulfilled by Ford (pre-portal incident that is).

EDIT: extra details added on the constellation piece as of Aug 14 2024 (less than 24 hours after og posting, because I'm deranged). Big thanks to @bowl-o-nudel for the nudge :)

Edit (16/09/2024): I've had a few people say that the saying has appeared in Journal 3 multiple times, and having reread journal 3, to my delight it is indeed correct! And oh the CONTEXT they give. The two instances are those seem below; the first appearance in the title page of Journal 3, and second time is a page from when the twins graduate.

As well as all the parallels of how the phrase is applied for both Bill and Ford, as @zoizyboigy suggested, it seems to be a phrase that Ford takes as his own motto. It seems to be a highly personal motto to him; after all, they all are written around important turning moments in Ford's life; graduating, the journals which where to be his ticket to fame, fucking a triangle finding acceptance and intimacy with Bill , and lastly, moving on in his life from Bill and his destructive obsession with recognition. 

And it makes sense WHY this motto is one that is highly personal to Ford; the first time it is seen chronologically is when he's graduating, chosen when he believes he's going to be accepted into the university. It's a motto he chose because he was excited, because he thought he was already through his suffering and arriving to the stars of his fancy university, where validation and acceptance would abound; only that doesn't happen, and the suffering part within the motto is the only thing that's accurate, especially as that's when he rejects Stan. It's a motto chosen in celebration, that becomes a reminder of the failure to become someone who is accepted and important (and his prioritization of validation over relationships); it's now something he holds that reminds him of the validation he believes he deserves and he obsessively chases. 

And that's why you see it in the journal pages, because these journals are going to change his life, he's going to become finally a person of importance and be accepted with the information he's compiled in the journals. And in the same way, you see it after Bill (and interdimensional being of ancient knowledge) and him are intimate; he's become someone of importance to Bill, he's been accepted by Bill, even attractive to Bill (romance Ford seems to have terrible luck in).

And that's why you see it at the end of Ford's farewell to Bill; it's another turning point, it's Ford letting his obsession with world validation go which characterized it's meaning from the beginning, Ford letting go of his relationship with Bill, which it also came to mean, and instead celebrates his acceptance within his family and the strengthening of those bonds, and of prioritizing healthy, loving relationships.

Ps, if you enjoyed this meta post, I've also made another one, on exceptionalism!