#like obviously there is a lot of nuance

[obi1-kenobae]

I truly cannot fathom how anyone could watch Star Wars and come away thinking that the Jedi did nothing wrong/that their philosophy was correct. Like did you even watch Return of the Jedi? If the Jedi had had their way, Luke would have killed his own father. The entire point of Star Wars was that the Jedi were very wrong and flawed.

[razormaze]

what fear a man like you brings upon a woman like me (please don’t look at me)

[francesderwent]

thinking about snarky cultural/theological commentary and. the thing about snark is this: it’s easy, and it’s instant gratification. it’s easy because you’re playing to a likeminded audience. you get the way they think, you know the sort of things they find ridiculous, and so you know what’s going to play well with them. it’s not that hard to come up with a zinger that’s going to earn you applause from your own side. it’s also pretty easy to make another human being who’s not on your side look stupid, because we’re stupid creatures and we all have plenty of exploitable weak spots. it’s preaching to the choir, and it’s preaching meanly to the choir. and then, your snark bears all its fruit right away. you get the glowing feeling of having scored points against the enemy while being patted on the back by your friends for being so brave. if you succeeded in being snarky, you get the rewards of snark that very instant.

on the other hand, seeking to share the truth you possess in a mode in which it could actually be received—that is, says St Thomas, according to the mode of the recipient—that’s hard, and it’s so far from being instantly gratifying that you may never see the fruits of it in this life. not only are you not thinking about your likeminded audience, you’re not even going to trot out the truth simply in the way you understand it and call it your best effort. rather, you have to try to get inside your interlocutor’s frame of mind and understand how the truth you know is going to fulfill their own priorities and longings. you have to understand them so well that you see the truth of their position, even if that truth is buried very very deep, and then see how that truth connects them to the truth you see. you have to be insightful, and compassionate, and so, so patient. you don’t get to score any points, with anybody. your interlocutor might still get annoyed with you and turn around and make you look stupid. but you can’t just say “I’m going to speak the truth and I don’t care who hears and how they take it”—you have to care how they take it, because the truth is relational, it’s given and received, not just spouted into a void. and frankly you have to care how they take it because you have to care about their salvation.

don’t get me wrong, there are times in every person’s life when they will be called to stand up and be counted, to put fumbling words to what they hold most dear even if they can’t make everyone understand. but I don’t know that it’s a virtue to be always focused on being seen saying the truth, with no consideration given to who hears you and what they’ll hear in it—and it’s certainly not a virtue to be always focused on being seen saying the truth in a mean and funny way. “instruct the ignorant” is a spiritual work of mercy. but instruct the ignorant does not mean “instruct the ignorant while making the knowledgeable laugh and/or high five.”

[wasyago]

jay and chip as tritons hehe

(i know that every other person drew them as tritons already, but like, cmon its so fun)

[tea-cat-sss]

does anyone else feel powerless to respond to bashing bc you go "hey that was not my lived experience at all I don't know that this conclusion is universally applicable" and they go "oppressed!!! brainwashed!!! privileged!!!" and continue saying whatever they want

[aingeal98]

It's so funny because analysing Nat Yellowjackets I'm like yeah so obviously she doesn't follow the law and is very comfortable taking risks others find unacceptable and she used to scam people and run cons so clearly at some point the nihilism got to her and I'd love to see more of that because it makes sense that she'd wrestle with the guilt of eating Jackie and Ben and enjoying her purpose as the hunter and leader even if she was the one to get them home. The jealousy Shauna feels towards Nat's goodness is entirely one sided because Nat doesn't see herself as Good in any way she just clearly sees them all as people trying to do the best they can. And she definitely never forgave herself for her own complicity in Ben's situation, perhaps some of her rejection of society once they get back is driven by her understanding of what happened to her once she actually did Belong for once, and how that fear of being an outcast again led her to make the wrong choices at crucial moments.

And then actually watching Yellowjackets I feel like a football player watching Messi win the championship and score a hat trick. THAT'S WHY SHE'S THE GOAT! GREATEST OF ALL TIME! MVP! THE BIG DAMN HERO AND ONE TRUE QUEEN! JACKIE'S SUCCESSOR AS CAPTAIN THE MORAL COMPASS AND HEART OF THE TEAM SHE'S THE BEST DAMN PERSON IN THIS SHOW WITH THE HEART OF A CHAMPION AND THE SOUL OF A SAINT NAT SOMETHING CATHOLIC SCATORCCIO YOU WILL LIVE FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS AS THE KING YOU ARE!!!

[ch4nticle]

i wish they’d given us more than: veil go down bad

[hana-bobo-finch]

i hardly ever mention Glad for some reason. you. you know the one. the cousin. the mouthless one. bellona’s cousin that I have probably only mentioned once but she does actually do stuff in the plot. yknow. i only have concept sketches of her but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[indeliblemarking]

abuse / trauma obviously isn’t an excuse for behavior and we see that notion applied (rightfully so most of the time) in fandom but i feel like in catra’s case you really can’t remove her suffering when analyzing why her redemption is written the way it is. she’s abused interpersonally and systematically as a child soldier from toddler age and it warps her perception of every relationship in her life to the point where she isolates herself to extreme degrees to the point that she’s consistently on the brink of a mental breakdown. yes she treats people like garbage yes she makes horrible decisions but her case is like…very extreme. and that’s not to necessarily play trauma olympics with characters in other pieces of media but i feel like people kind of downplay how that factors into her reasoning and also sort of forget how young she is throughout her entire story, flashbacks and all. so obviously the show is gonna have the good guys extend sympathy and not have her prove her worth. (which is one of the main ideas that messed her up in the first place) her arc needed more time but I think it’s unnecessary to devalue it just because the characters aren’t mad at her for as long as you want them to be, they offer her love and support as she exists but still don’t excuse or enable poor behavior and don’t allow her to be in their lives and make morally corrupt decisions. anyway ik it’s 2024 but that’s something I’ve thought for a while

[iamdeltas]

Season 8 of Brooklyn 99 did not have a lot of good writing decisions, but one writing decision that I definitely appreciate now is the decision to not write a pregnancy arc for Rosa despite her actress, Stephanie Beatriz, being pregnant at the time. I don't know for sure why they made that decision--maybe it's because they realized Rosa having children wouldn't make sense for her character, maybe it's because they didn't think there was enough space for a pregnancy arc on top of the other storylines they were (poorly) attempting to tackle in a season that would only be 10 episodes, maybe it was combination of both. But either way, it was definitely a good decision from a character standpoint to not force a pregnancy arc on her simply because her actress was pregnant, even if it meant they had to put Rosa in loose, baggy clothes to hide Stephanie Beatriz's pregnancy. I hadn't really appreciated this at the time because, well, I thought it was an obvious decision. Why would you write in a pregnancy just because the actress is pregnant, if it doesn't make sense for the character? But now, looking back, I am much more appreciative of the writers for doing this. This newfound appreciation certainly has nothing to do with a certain show I'm watching now deciding to write in a stupid ass pregnancy arc for a character that makes zero sense for the character, just because the actress is pregnant, as if they forgot that TV and movies have been covering up IRL pregnancies and letting pregnant actors' characters still be not-pregnant for decades!

[cillyscribbles]

every time i talk to someone who's not yet gone to uni about uni i sound like i'm getting paid to do an advertisement and it's a bit of a problem for me because . i genuinely love uni so much. i want everyone who goes to uni to enjoy it as much as i do (improbable but you can start by picking something you actually Want to learn about) but any authority i have on such is likely ruined a little bit by the fact that i can be an obnoxiously positive person. which results in me sounding like a shill. which i am not . i just love uni

[book-lover85]

and what if I said that kotlc actually handles systemic problems that are perpetuated by society and people in power and hurt everyone participating in that society really well

[sydneyscarm]

been thinking about situationship sydcarmy getting into this big, catastrophic, absolute knockout argument in the boh after service.

like sydney who usually doesn’t yell. who is usually a very quiet, scary kind of pissed. but carmen pushed and pushed and pushed her to the point of screaming. idk what they’re arguing about but it ends in carmen getting mean and out of pocket and going “guess this means you’re not coming over tonight huh?” and sydney yanking the door open and tossing “go fuck yourself carmen.” as she slams the door behind her

service is tense for two whole whopping weeks until richie shoves them in the office and tells them to “fix your shit. you’re fucking with the vibe.”

they spend thirty minutes in the office not saying a word until carmen breaks and apologizes. profusely.

sydney doesn’t bite the bullet though. she stays silent. she doesn’t speak till five minutes of silence post-apology when carm goes “sydney?” and then she goes: prove it.

and carmen is like ????? prove it????

and sydney repeats, “prove it. prove you’re sorry. i’m sick of you apologizing. it’s time for you to back that shit up with actions, carm. how many times are you gonna apologize instead of actually fixing shit?”

which queues to the part that makes my brain light up like a christmas tree: carmen groveling.

anyways we got slow, steady improving carmy. gaining back sydneys trust. trying to actively be better, not just for her, but for himself too. blah blah blah i can’t think of the rest cause all my tiny brain latched onto was high tension fighting + pathetic groveling.

[just-trying-my-best-everyday]

i'm bored i think i'll go read tumblr's incredibly nuanced and media literate takes on the new season of squid game (i've never watched a single episode)

[repurposedmeatlocker]

I'm genuinely starting to think that any guy whose like "I don't like it when people analyze media by intercutting it with social/historical commentary" just don't like how a lot of it tends to be left-leaning.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that is the whole reason. They just don't want to admit it outright.

[lord-squiggletits]

One of the most exhausting parts of the majority of the fandom reading MTMTE first is that they forget that it was written later and then retroactively read earlier stuff and go "Megatron is so OOC!"

No darling, pre-MTMTE Megatron is perfectly in-character, you just don't understand the concept of chronological order + haven't read anything besides MTMTE + take JRO's softened version of Megatron as who Megatron has always been + don't recognize the obvious bias JRO had toward making MTMTE Megatron more sympathetic + call yourself a villain stan but can't handle when your blorbo actually does villain shit that you can't twist around as being akshully justified.

Tbh that's more tragic for y'all than it is for me and like, I don't really care bc I can just not follow ppl who make that content, but it's really fucking annoying when ppl with no frame of reference for IDW1 shit on all the writers who came before as if JRO wasn't the one who disrupted typical canon takes and did something new (yes, for better and for worse). And also act as if Megatron being a villain was some conspiracy to villainize revolutionaries when in fact it's the revolutionary background that was established way after Megatron's character was already established to be an anti-organic evil conqueror all the way back in uhhhhhh........ G1?

So yeah no MTMTE Megatron isn't the only Megatron that exists and is actually imo a downgrade from his earlier appearances that fully embraced his villainy. You literally can't be coming in on one of the penultimate series of IDW1 and go "akshully all the other versions of Megatron are wrong and OOC and boring" when they literally came first and established the baseline MTMTE worked on like jsfnwkxjsjdkekv