#it's not meant to be coherent

[plagueislost]

secret santa gift for @insect-asylum

[lackpenny]

a broken man's last effort, all for nothing

[fairweathermyth]

You know, imagining life on the other side of something like this can be terrifying. But it might surprise you.

THE NEWSREADER (2021-2025) Sam Reid as Dale Jennings

[azadrithaanatheme]

Turns out uploading a digital ghost into a new core and putting that core back into the ghost's old body is a little complicated.

[hydehj17]

This is a bit personal but it's something that needs to be talked about more, that is neurodiverse kids who WEREN'T "gifted kids" and never excelled or just barely passed no matter how hard they tried. I have ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism and I failed all throughout school because of my disabilities. It feels so isolating. Being told, that because of my disabilities since primary school, NOTHING I did was ever "good enough" or I was a "failure" and that's all I ever would be. These things have left me traumatised and they STILL negatively affect how I function every day, my worldview and my sense of self-worth. It's not something I think I'll ever truly heal from. It feels so lonely seeing people only talk about the "gifted kids" who were traumatised and never the kids who were traumatised due to being treated like failures just from existing.

sorry for any bad wording it's late and I'm currently sick. this is just something I've needed to get off my chest.

[amber-angel]

What's the POINT?????

I half expected Misty's fucking chocolate martini to be poisoned, that's how out of left field these stupid plotlines are getting

[bardan-jusik]

omg thank you!!

okay i'm sure everyone expects me to say kal, but it's actually vau

yeah i know i know we're introduced to him as 'the guy who is willing to torture prisoners' and 'the guy who nearly killed atin because of how atin was reacting to how his squad died'

this is not a vau defense post. im not saying he's a GOOD person. he has done, will do, and shows no remorse for a lot of horrible shit. HOWEVER he never does sadistic shit for his own entertainment- it's always because that's what (he believed) needed to be done, to protect those he cares about. and he is extraordinarily lawful about it

i could find more instances of vau demonstrating that he's actually extremely moral but i'm going to focus on the true colors intro scene for the sake of brevity lol

-very explicit about delta not touch anything, he is the one robbing the bank, not them

-he is a civilian, and multiple times through the books he uses his lack of military rank to do things that he would not be able to square with his conscience if he was in a military

-'my squad' 'boys' and 'won't go as far as kal'- he's maintaining the distance of not calling them his sons, but he clearly thinks of them that way. i believe that he won't think of them as his sons because he feels it would be inappropriate, for several reasons- he doesn't want to put himself in a parental role, knowing he would be shit at it, he may feel that after all they had to do to the clones on kamino it would be tasteless to try and play a father figure even if he would be good at it, and it may just be that the concept of fatherhood is distasteful to him because of his own fuckass dad

-'its heartbreaking' and 'tiny kids' and 'he's running out of time faster than me' LIKEEEEE. his inner thoughts are very focused on how much he cares about the clones, even if strong emotion doesn't come easily to him (and he's at least somewhat intellectually aware of whats up there, straight up says his dad fucked him up)

-his arguments with kal are really insightful into his own morals- he thinks that kal treating the clones like his sons is detrimental to the clones. whether kal or vau is right isn't the point- i think that the way they both handled their cadets respectively was the only way either of them could have squared it to themselves morally, and there was no objective Correct Way to handle this deeply fucked up situation

-dude lies to jedi and always manages to do it in ways that are morally acceptable to him

-gives the sapphire to ordo in a gesture that shows extremely substantial support for him and his relationship, and approval of besany, and is also justice towards vau' family

-helps kal dig the foundation for the memorial, which im sure to vau was more or less keeping kal company and showing him some solidarity while kal did what he needed to do to deal with his grief

-goes looking for sev on kashyyyk

-his beskar is black, representing justice

i could probably write a damn book on kal and vau's Whole Thing and this feels deeply incoherent right now but basically- vau cares even if he prefers to show it only through significant, meaningful action and never verbally, vau's actions MUST make internal moral sense to him, and i cannot think of a single thing he does in the books that wasn't motivated by a desire to help the people he cares about

versus kal who easily shows love, verbally, physically, through action- it hurts kal to not show affection. he has to lie to a terrorist and say he doesnt care about the clones to seal a deal and immediately asks to make sure they know he didn't mean it. his actions also must make internal moral sense to him, but he goes about it differently than vau- vau won't take a military position, kal won't sleep in a bed. and not a single thing kal does wasn't motivated by a desire to help the people he cares about

they are INSANE and just. holy shit it's good writing. the character building and dynamics are CRAZY. but you don't get that if you think that vau is an immoral person

[tiredandoptimistic]

Crucial thing about Buffy Summers is that she would rather die than have a conversation. She doesn't want to get other people involved in her business if she can help it, and throughout the series we see her become increasingly self-reliant as she learns to trust in her own abilities as the Slayer. The downside to this is that it weakens her connection to her friends as she becomes convinced that they can't understand what she's going through. By the late seasons, Willow and Xander fit the same role relative to Buffy that Joyce did back in high school. To Buffy, it's not worth opening up to them if they'll never really get it. All she'd be doing is pushing her problems onto people who wouldn't be able to help. In addition, thanks to that self-reliance, she always thinks that she can solve everything on her own. She doesn't like to open up about her issues, meaning that her loved ones often don't find out that anything is wrong until it's too late for Buffy to handle it delicately. For instance, when Joyce finds out that Buffy is the Slayer in season two she has a lot of questions that Buffy doesn't have time to answer because the world is literally about to end. In a desperate attempt to keep Buffy from leaving Joyce threatens to kick her out of the house, which obviously wasn't something she should have said even though it wasn't sincere. By refusing to let her mother in on the details of her life until the last possible minute, Buffy put them both in a situation where she was forced to drop the information and run, leading her mother to hate the Slayer calling in season three. Joyce only gets a peak at Buffy's life when the supernatural gets so bad that it's completely out of Buffy's control, which leads to Joyce seeing Buffy's life as nothing but terrible. We see this especially with Angel. Buffy never tells Joyce anything about her relationship with Angel except for when he's evil and planning on killing her, which means that Joyce never trusts Angel even when he's a good guy genuinely trying to protect her.

Switching back to the late seasons; after Buffy comes back from the dead she feels unable to connect with anyone except Spike. She was obviously going through a whole depression in season six and I'm not going to say that she handled it wrong because frankly as long as she made it through alive she did everything right, but this lack of communication with her friends does cause some problems for her. We see in the musical episode Buffy is forced to finally tell the truth about what death was like and how depressed she's been feeling, and it absolutely crushes all of her friends. Not only does their friend find them responsible for her depression, but she also felt the need to lie to them about it because she thinks they'd rather see her as happy than honest. Buffy tries to protect her friends from her life rather than sharing it with them, so everyone ends up upset and isolated. For the next leg of the season she has the whole relationship with Spike going on that she doesn't tell anyone about, which once again means that no one finds out until it's so bad she can't control it. (This is paralleled with Willow's magic addiction in a way that's interesting but I'm not gonna talk about it right now). Xander gets angry at her for sleeping with Spike when we know he had a much more chill reaction back in season five when the Buffybot made everyone think Buffy was with Spike, showing that the circumstances of him finding out had a big impact on his reaction. If Buffy had been up front about the relationship rather than waiting for Spike to spill the beans mid-argument, her friends probably would have been more understanding. Instead, Xander only sees Spike as the guy who starts fights and tries to rape his friend. By season seven Xander and Dawn don't understand why Buffy wants to protect Spike, because she didn't want them to know about any of the relationship so they only got to see the worst of it. If she was willing to share the parts of Spike she found genuinely appealing, she wouldn't have been hiding the relationship in the first place. Instead, everyone else sees him as an irredeemable asshole and Buffy doesn't take their concerns seriously because she can take care of herself.

I think I'm running out of steam so this post is probably approaching its end, but yeah. I think it's super interesting how Buffy works on a "dude, just trust me" level, and you can see throughout the series that her bubble of trust shrinks dramatically. Her fundamental trait of not wanting to share her struggles stays consistent, but as she grows up and gains confidence and competence she ends up willing to let down her mask with fewer and fewer people. She's a uniquely powerful Slayer because of how she draws on the strength of her friends, but she hates that she has to do it and tries to lock them out of her life as soon as she reaches a point where she thinks she can handle it alone. Once things boil over she's always left with a situation that's far worse than if she'd just been upfront with everything, but despite that the people in her life still always support her unconditionally. Joyce welcomes her back into the house with open arms, Giles respects her renewed relationship with Angel, Xander agrees to let Spike live with him despite his concerns. Buffy has so much trouble accepting the love that constantly surrounds her, but it remains anyways.

[seefasters]

helly in "cold harbor" is very interesting to me because i feel like we're starting to see a side of helly that we haven't really seen before. some people are pivoting to the "what if she's helena again" theory which i personally find very cheap and uninteresting compared to the implications that it is our helly bring:

point a: "i'm her"

jame telling helly that she's got kier in her and helena doesn't seems to have done a number on helly. like she's been struggling with this identity crisis the entire season, no one from mdr except for irving could tell helena from helly, helena still has complete autonomy over her body, and now jame eagan, the person who's most responsible for the position helly is in, told her that he sees kier in her. i think that's what made the switch flip in helly a little bit, like she admitted that helena is a part of her. and she also acknowledges that she can't follow mark, because as mark himself stated, helena would never reintegrate. and even if she did, how would they be together? which brings me to point b:

helly letting mark leave gemma

that did feel like a very cruel thing to do, knowing what we know as an audience. but helly doesn't know gemma or mark scout. she only knows ms casey and mark s., and whatever she knows about the testing floor, she knows from mark s.

we've also seen her be very radical about innie/outie separation (a trait she seemingly shares with helena). she insists that she is not her outie up until the very last second, she tells dylan that gretchen is not really his wife, she's his outie's wife. i feel like there are moe examples but i can't think of any at the moment

so when gemma gets into that stairwell, she stops being an innie. she's free, she's got what helly wanted for the entire first season — and the person she's screaming for isn't her husband, it's mark s., helly's friend and romantic partner and whatnot

and helly was ready to let mark leave her behind and reintegrate, but when mark chooses to leave and remain an innie, she lets herself make the same choice. she doesn't have to be helena eagan, she's her own person and so is mark s.

[embv]

I think everyone’s subscribing to the “Helena Infiltration Theory” WAYY too quickly. I kinda feel like a lot of the oddities in the way she was acting could be chalked up to something else, and defaulting to “that’s not Helly” feels a lot like… I don’t know, like brushing off character flaws by saying, “No, [X] is possessed! That’s not actually them!”

I’d probably buy into it a bit more if she didn’t have that moment in the halls with Mark where she fervently said, “We’re not the same, actually. Us and the outies, we’re not.”

There are reasons why Helly would want to lie about her identity, and chief among them is the fact that she hates her outie—desperately wants to place distance between them, desperately wants to convince herself that the person she saw wasn’t her.

But there are compelling reasons for both angles, and I can’t say that I won’t be scanning future episodes for hints to either prove or disprove this, so… cheers, 🥂.

[mohntilyet]

I want you to know you’ve indoctrinated both my friend and I into your path of thinking when it comes to Illario and the Envy demon.

I raise you this, since Illario isn’t even a mage before the Ossuary, consider the fact that Zara convinces Illario into also harboring Envy (like Spite, since Lucanis says he just ate something and he was stuck with Spite after that. Like she tells Illario he needs that dawg in him to become first talon, a double edged knife there (you aren’t good enough on your own you need that dawg in you aahhhh)). That would add a level onto why he kills her, Lucanis taking a crack at Illario and asking if he’s is good enough (I would’ve crashed out too tbh), and the lines in at the party with a romanced Rook (since that man also doesn’t have a healthy love life)

Envy is also twisted form of admiration/generosity/contentment, like how Spite was a spirit of determination, and the freak out Lucanis would have over his little brother’s admiration for him (an admiration he would NEVER admit to his big brothers face) becoming so twisted (by the same person!) that it’s also destroying him from the inside out.

Also Spite and Envy shenanigans would’ve been so fucking funny

YEAH!!!!!! i have been rotating this around in my mind and had the idea of that admiration v. envy thing for illario, especially if we're thinking about wigmaker's job where they cover for each others weaknesses. like a week ago i googled what the corresponding virtue for envy was and it was kindness and i was like yeahhhhh illario does not have that. we're going to have to go with something else. and i was thinking of admiration so this ask kind of made me cheer <3 thank god i am making some sense and someone else agrees because at any point i'm checking myself going 'actually would he do that'

i think they both have some level of 'i wish i could do that like them' but illario's is negatively tinged because their fuck ass grandma is right there saying all that too . like regardless of how great i think my brother is, there is no fucking way his accomplishments don't start looking twisted and unfair if my only parental figure obviously likes him more than me

i also like the idea of in some world where illario is less of a traitor and didn't set lucanis up (i have a rewrite powerpoint going on for my friends. so this part makes perfect sense to me but maybe not as much to you. i'm so sorry), and they both get kidnapped and possessed, spite-envy are the ones with serious beef vs. their unwitting hosts, who would actually prefer not to kill each other.

this messy au i have assumes a very fraught house dellamorte, trying to defend treviso while the crows splinter and follow either son. caterina refuses to let lucanis give up power and names him first talon, while illario has consolidated power in the year lucanis was gone and has several other loyal houses pledging to him instead. spite and envy exacerbate this situation, spite refusing to give up power + envy coveting it. this hypothetical plotline ends with uniting the crows under a single first talon (welcome back bhelen v harrowmont), and reaching an agreement with the others to work together. crow-on-crow violence you cannot be solved but you CAN reach a momentary tense agreement to protect antiva and the world <3

[dynamitekansai]

"No, Sami, you wouldn't understand... 'cause you're not family, uce."

[rainyinautumn]

alright with wild life ep. 4 coming out soon it's time for me to start talking winner predictions. in order to understand my bet, let's first understand why past winners won—and, for bonus effect, why another player who I think really had a shot ultimately lost.

GRIAN. The traffic crown typically falls on the head of whichever player is most able to bend and break the rules to their advantage. 3rd Life, as the archetypal Life Series with the fewest rules to manipulate, was won by the man who understood (and broke) them best—their inventor. Throughout the series, I think Impulse demonstrated a similar cunning and could have been able to pull off a win. His error was failing to establish trust with his allies in a series that was defined by its faction loyalty.

SCOTT. With the introduction of the Boogeyman, Last Life demanded a winner with a level head. With favorable relationships paving the path to regaining lives, there was very little wiggle room for more aggressive, risk-taking players, making this season favor players with high survivability. Continuing the trend of rule breakers, Scott was the only player to weigh the odds and refuse to act on the Boogeyman curse—which ultimately paid off for him. Similarly calculating and loyal is Etho, who lost this win by aligning himself with a volatile group that failed to lend him the stability Scott had throughout the series.

PEARL. It was so, so much easier to die in Double Life than any other series, and so its winner was the player who proved to be able to survive without a soulmate at all. The thing about Life Series gimmicks is that they are always, always the thing that kills you—as such, refusing to engage with them as intended elevates one's chances of victory. Such is the case with Pearl. Cleo also failed to engage with the Double Life mechanic as intended, but lost (ironically) due to her ability to forgive and the endgame belief that aligning with her soulmate was the wisest move.

MARTYN. Limited Life introduced the ability to live longer by killing, and as such encouraged players to pursue maximal violence with minimal risk through traps (namely, falling TNT minecarts). If playing by these rules led to a win, the victor would have been crowned on Skynet. Instead, Martyn broke the season-long strategy and a few series expectations along the way to opt for an absolutely brutal PvP win, which he pulled off by being the only one crazy enough to try. A good few other risk takers had a solid shot of winning this season—namely Joel. Unlike Martyn, however, Joel was unwilling to gamble with the permanent death of his teammates, and this soft spot led to his demise.

SCAR. On the surface level, Secret Life's gimmick asked its contestants to be good at the game—to be good at keeping their mouths shut, good at following directions, and good at reading other players. The kicker with all of the tasks, however, is that the gimmick is the thing that kills you, and what the tasks actually asked was for players to be bad at the game in one way or another. This made earnest attempts at success by far the most risky path forward (especially once yellow names started being able to guess tasks), and as such, Scar's continually baffling behavior worked in his favor. Similarly incomprehensible, Skizz's playstyle lent itself well to this series—however, he was simply too likable. The secretive nature of the tasks in this season brewed a hostile atmosphere in which trustworthiness made one a threat, and the Heart Foundation painted a target on him that he was unable to shed.

So. Who do I think is winning (and almost winning) Wild Life?

GEM. Of all the players in the Snailpocalypse, Gem was the only one to doggedly refuse to fear and avoid her snail. Wild Life is designed to breed uncertainty and chaos in its players, and her refusal to give in to this makes her a good contender for the crown. However, other players have begun to notice this, which could place her in hot water. My second winner pick is BigB—although more willing to engage with the wildcards, BigB has always thrived in the strange and peculiar, making him less outright afraid of them and putting him in position to potentially rise above them down the line.

[carbonbasedmatter]

there's sadly not a lot of content of them together but troy and annie's friendship is so important to me. I feel like we don't talk about them enough outside of general trobedison. they're two people who liked the idea of each other at some point for kind of superficial reasons but grew to appreciate each other as their own people and not just this goal of someone to "pull" the more they got to know each other. honestly glad that the writers dropped the ship cus it's so much better than it would've been if it was romantic. instead we got this cool thing where they both kind of helped each other grow into themselves and cope with changes.

the talk they had at the end of mixology certification reflecting on everything that happened after annie's sudden crisis about what she wanted to do with her life was so sweet.

ANNIE: ... I did it because I didn't wanna be me. I did it because i'm not sure who I am. Admit it- we went to school together for four years, and you didn't even know me.

TROY: Yeah, but I know you now, You're Annie...You like puzzles and little monsters on your pencil and some guy named Mark Ruffalo. You're a fierce competitor and a sore loser and you expect everybody to be better than who they are and you expect yourself to be better than everyone. Which is cool.

This was the episode where Troy realized that becoming an adult isn't this big, dramatic change and the people he looked up to were just as confused and imperfect as he was. He decides on his own that the grown up thing to do is to get everyone home safely rather than drinking. Here he's the one reassuring Annie, telling her how she does still have time to explore the world on her own terms, not knowing her well back then was his own loss.

I really like that about their dynamic how Troy kind of helps Annie realize she can just...relax and be herself without being judged, seeing her high school crush that she always wanted to impress casually building pillow forts and speaking in only movie references with his best friend. We don't see any immediate drastic changes in her that it seems unnatural but she's definitely more comfortable weird in her own way after moving into 303 (For ex her making Abed film missing lover clips for her)

I love how much they both care about abed too...in different ways. troy matches his weirdness, giving him an escape from what the rest of world thinks while annie shows him he CAN leave the world of simulations and scenarios, being different from someone but still having them respect you as a friend and build a close relationship with them letting him connect with the world. But they actually care about him letting him show a vulnerable side that he doesn't with a lot of the other members of the study group.

I also think the gay himbo+ smart but insane lesbian dynamic is v funny yea

anyways here are some silly photos that'll hopefully help get my point across

[sun-marie]

LRB but I'm replaying BG3 and Gale being on the knife's edge of Wholesome/"Dirty" is what makes him soo interesting to me. Like this is a man who, in two different versions of the same scene, can either sweetly and gently make love to your tav in a typical setting which transitions to a tasteful fade-to-black, or brings your tav's spirit along for a transcendent experience where he literally duplicates part of himself so he can have more parts to touch their parts in some crazy astral-soup sky world. And both are treated like valid expressions of his love!! Like the range they allowed him to express, he's not one or the other, he's both

[xariarte]

knicks vs pistons: 1st round of the nba 2024-25 playoffs