#not a whole lot to say about this ep really

[rocketturtle4]

Our Youth, Absolute Perfection. 

I am gone in PhD land, but Our Youth was such perfection that I decided to return in brief to express even a fraction of the wonder I felt watching this show. 

From the outset I was thinking we might be getting a Twenty-Five Twenty-One style, start in the sad future, look back at the once joyful past type show (which for the record, I did not watch because I avoid sad endings), but I was hopeful! And as we progressed towards the future I became more hopeful that we’d spend some time in the future, and that that future might not be dark. 

And I was fully rewarded in every way. 

I don’t think I have ever felt so perfectly made whole by the ending of a show. We fully unpacked the causes of the separation, Haruki’s choice was only meant to last till he successfully got into University. Jin held him close the moment he knew he was allowed. 

But we didn't make light of the abandonment, or it's cause.

Even separated, they clung to the memory of each other

Haruki’s film

Jin’s story

I was worried a bit, in ep 10, that we might be going full role reversal and having Jin’s life collapse when Haruki left (with the smoking as the first indicator) but the show didn’t do that to us. He was still a good student, a good friend, he continued on as he always had. Emptier, lonelier, but not broken. 

The atmosphere of this show knew it’s platform and so much of that separation was show don’t tell. 

There were big and small things too, we were shown Haruki’s growth and desire for more so clearly in his smile, and his certain stride and his confident voice, but did anyone else almost hear Jin say “I miss the taste of his kisses” everytime he picked up a cigarette? Or was that just me?

As they were drawn closer and closer back together in ep 10 I was on the edge of my seat, now? Now? NOW? And then yes! NOW 

I could talk about nearly every scene in episode 10, and literally every scene in ep 11 because every single one was full of emotion so loud it took my breath away. Happy, sad, loving, lonely, so melancholic and yet so hopeful.

This show played with the future and the past on a few different occasions, teasing forward and then pulling back to flesh out the how and the when. To me it was meant to be hopeful, we will get there the show kept saying we can make it.

Ep11 really reinforced this so well it brought me to tears. 

We aren’t there yet, but trust, and one day we will be. 

That felt like the message of the show to me more than anything else

No matter how dark our reality 

Keep walking

Keep trying

Keep loving

And the future will come

This show wasn’t about the future that is still to come, the future that will coming, the future that is here already in a lot of ways in Thailand

It was about the past

About Our Youth

About holding on and walking forward 

Out of the dark

And, one day, into the light. 

10/10 Everyone should watch this.

[pinazee]

Speak now or forever hold your piece, or as i like to call it, the Shawn wears a suit episode ;)

This ep is fine. I mean im not really watching it for the crimes anyways but like, no one opened the dumbwaiter since she shoved him in there?

Lassiter is very handsy in this ep, throwin’ Shawn all over the place ;) you can tell james and tim are already vibin’

Henry so clearly only called Shawn to bitch about the box of trophies because hes a man and god forbid he simply call his own son just to talk. Though, perhaps he also called because he was hoping Shawn would need his help on a case. Its the only detective work he’s touched in years, and that man was OBSESSED.

I love how shawn makes the receptionist and bell hop feel so important even though he was using them. He’s just so good with people

[heartslobbf]

hater alert! far too many people say that juri’s character arc ‘isn’t about her being sad about being gay, it’s about being sad about unrequited love that happens to be gay’ and. well. that is not true and by saying that you are completely flattening the brilliance of juri’s character arc which literally culminates in her being able to accept her own lesbianism despite her unrequited love, despite all her shame and self-loathing, despite this pursuit by Some Fucking Guy to try and ‘save’ her from these feelings. like if you think juri’s entire character is just ‘sad about shiori’ how do you appreciate even a modicum of the emotion packed into that final juri duel. it is both about shiori and, even broader, her lesbian identity and what that means to her intrinsically as a person, removed from romantic relationships and just purely as like. you know. Who She Is. the idea that even when juri’s locket is cut from her neck she is still a lesbian that’s still who she is and she cant change that and, crucially, she doesn’t want to even as she is agonised by these feelings. that’s why she forfeits the duel!!!! she’s clocking out she’s quitting she’s saying no!!!!!! this is me and ive got to be ok with that this is me and i can accept that this girl might not love me and i can keep living despite that. like. god im so normal arisugawa juri im so sorry that no one understands you and your intrinsically unapologetically lesbian storyline like i do

[murdockmeta]

thinking about moon knight having marc call steven the best superpower he's ever had during a really emotional moment and how that show handled DID better than just about any piece of media I've ever seen and. I'm sobbing actually. they equated his neurodivergence with being the greatest part of him after marc had spent so long trying to hide his DID out of shame. and maybe that sounds like bordering on glorification but it really wasn't. because they made it so obvious that what marc meant was that steven kept him ALIVE and that's the most he could ever ask for and anyway. whatever whatever it's fine

[edge-oftheworld]

yeah I know Luke’s been running around saying he ‘can be a bit of a pessimist’ but I just wanna give him a little bit more credit than that. he’s been through so much and yet we’ll hear him talking about times that are ‘marred with trauma’ but still he can’t ever regret for getting him to where he is today. this whole year he’s been making an effort to do things that scare him and he even finds hard, he’s been pushing himself out of his comfort zone and doing 1000 solo interviews as well as his shows and last year he went to bogota to film 7 music videos in 2 days and believed he could do it and he did. he talks about mental health related things in such a way that’s filled with acceptance, not complaint or bitterness but dare I say even optimism, dropping horrifying little descriptions to already heartbreaking songs since 2021 and then turning around and saying writing songs is what gets him through it, he ‘wouldn’t have a good relationship with anything’ if he didn’t make them but he’s super proud of himself after and wasn’t put off by how much work it was gonna be even though it did make him apprehensive and he goes and mentions how it wasn’t easy. you look at everything we know of him for the last decade and a half and realise, maybe it was never easy. but someone once described optimism as curiosity + resilience rather than being naively happy all the time in denial of everything going on around. and with that active brain and all the things he figures out while writing all his beautiful songs there’s definitely curiosity there. and with everything he’s been through to keep choosing to be himself and do whatever he needs to do there’s so much resilience. and I’ve seen this spirit in the songs of sounds good feels good and 5sos5, as well as littered through wfttwtaf and boy; every project being a quiet, kinda emo, statement of survival. I’m just one fan with too many opinions but this is something I’ve always loved about the band, and a decent portion of it was always brought to the table by luke and idk I just think we should acknowledge it

[connecting-the-stars]

Okay…

I’m like this close to trying cook up a story with Omega’s journey to bring her family back together.

S1 and S2 showing us this bright, optimistic young girl who loves her family, wanting to help others in the galaxy.

For S3 we have slightly older and a bit more practical girl who would do anything to protect her family.

What if when Omega breaks herself and Crosshair out, its years after their capture.

She’s still Omega, loves her family and wants to help those that are victims of the empire… but her grip on the things she loves leaves claw marks.

Taking some inspiration from The Last of Us as they bring Ellie down a darker path, a character that is critical to the shaping the world they live in. Omega lost tech, she lost her freedom, she is light years away from any resemblance of home, and even initially believing that hunter and wrecker are also at the mercy of Hemlock. (Asks Emerie where her brothers are).

Having this arc of struggling to find the light that used to sit warm in her chest, that is almost entirely drowned out by the absence of all she’s lost. Having her capacity for forgiveness tested by crosshair’s aura of guilt and self deprivation, his belief that her journey will lead them to answers they are better not knowing.

Would she be able to find her way back to the person she used to be?

[milkbreadtoast]

my s class hunters does a really good job at gradually raising the stakes without feeling like a pointless power creep and keeping me extremely invested and i keep saying this but I really do think it's bc it's a story grounded in love at every turn... the bond between the han brothers especially is extremely compelling and beautiful and makes me feel like a knife is being stabbed into my heart and twisted all around... i love them so so much 😞💔❤️‍🩹❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

[astranauticus]

in light of the new episode this joke i made once is feeling a lot more relevant

[pynkhues]

Not a baiting ask: I don’t recall any of the characters dressing more androgynously as the books went on, save Gabrielle? There are passages of Louis and Lestat wearing lace, pearls and velvet frock coats in the modern day, in reference to 18th c. fashion: Is that what the other Anon may have meant? That’s not an androgynous sartorial choice with historical costuming in mind, though, it’s Louis dressing in the fashion of his human era. (Perhaps there is a misconception from a passage in which Louis wears lace and pearls at Armand’s urging, or someone sharing such passages with intent to mislead other fans about the canonicity of Femme Louis or Femme Lestat beyond Anne’s personal identification with them, which has happened before and will happen again.) In the show, Louis dressing in lace, pearl and velvet would be Louis dressing in a colourful three piece suit in the style of the 1910’s.

(x)

Ah! Thank you for the correction, anon, I didn't remember any either, but I'm hyper-conscious of only having read through Memnoch (and having read most of the books I have quite a while ago, although I've been re-reading TVL recently) so I chose to take the ask in good faith and assume perhaps something happened in later books. That could very well be what the anon meant, but perhaps you're right too that there are scenes being taken out of context.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

rewatching 13s era for me is not so much diminishing returns as it is something opposite and eviler...............increasing losses? increasing losses

[sharkdays]

something something dot being the one to identify the taste of dodogezan’s udon first and pick it out of a bunch of other food, and going out of her way to help the eatery using the skills in her skillset (how to keep people coming back for streams, flashiness like with kuwassu’s moves + salt pickling) and those skills being recognized and acknowledged… her growth in relation to food is awesome methinks

also her going up against aoki/larry who is an appreciator of good food. there’s something there i just dont have the energy to put it into words

[chaoswillcalmusdown]

finished the bear season 3 and like. i expected season 3 to be carmy spiraling into joel mchale junior and for him to be pushing everyone away and to clam up even more and so. i'm not shocked or massively disappointed.

[jemmo]

i can’t tell you how much i usually hate these ignoring, distancing plots in shows and how much i absolutely adore everything about these 2 episodes of the eighth sense. like im not having a good time, and it’s fantastic.

bc the thing is, in all of this, i can’t see the right way to go, i can’t find the person to blame, i can’t find the way to make it better. I can’t single out a single moment or a thing someone did and say “this is why everything went wrong”. it’s just this coming together and rise and swell of things happening and people feeling things that has us ending up here and it feels beautifully and horribly organic bc we can’t find that point where it all went wrong. was it on that rooftop? was it at the beach? was it when they first met? was it when his brother died? was it when he was born into this family? there is no single point. it’s all of them and it’s none of them. there is truly nothing and no one to blame. and there are bad characters in the show, people you can hate, eunji and taehyung, but neither of them are to blame for any of the bad stuff that happens in the show. you’re not waiting for them to be taken down bc that doesn’t solve anything. instead, it’s just two people hurting, and not knowing how to make it better.

bc you take jaewon, and after what he says at the end of ep 8, you want to hate him, you want to be so angry at him for what he says, for how he acts, how dismissive and hurtful he is, and yet you’ve been made to understand 100% why, and not just in a “i get it but that wasn’t the right thing to do” way, in a “that was horrible and yet i know he doesn’t see any other way to handle this” way. like you don’t see this as a misstep, or a step to far, bc you know for him, in his state of mind, it is completely justified, it’s necessary. bc it not only punishes the person he blames for all of this, himself, but he sees it as a way to protect jihyun. and not even in a cliche “bad things happen when people around me, the people I love always get hurt” kinda way, but more so in that he sees that he is a scared, messy, struggling person that doesn’t know how to handle himself, and doesn’t want to inflict that on anyone, let alone the person he cares about. so what’s worse, a quick, swift blow that hurts but cuts everything off cleanly, or this prolonged relationship where he inevitably continues to weigh jihyun down with the weight of his trauma, and take it out on him. what’s the point of having a place of refuge when you ruin it more and more every time you depend on it, until it eventually can’t offer you comfort. it’s a lesser of two evils, jaewon’s choice is obvious to him.

but then you take jihyun. and we talk about masks and fronts but we never once question whether jihyun wears a mask bc he appears so sweet and innocent and naive, what can this boy possibly be putting up a front for. but i see it, this almost fake it till you make it confidence front that yes is becoming more natural. but my god just think about what he’s gone through for a second. think about it. left home for the first time in his life, moved to an unfamiliar and intimidating city with only one other person he knows, started a new job, started university, tried to build relationships, met a man that intrigues him, and perused him only to be kissed and then ignored, then maybe establish something tentative, only to then see him spiral, go on a trip where he shared his trauma, you have an intimate night together only to almost die, and then be not only ignored, but plain and simple rejected and pushed away. like… you can say all you want about jihyun growing as a person and having more courage, but no amount of growth for however many months this has been going on for can prepare you for that. for the mixed messages on steroids. for the back and forth, not knowing. to give yourself to someone like that and go through something traumatic and then be abandoned by that person. we get it, bc we see all of jaewon’s story. but apart from what jaewon shared at the beach, jihyun doesn’t know any more than that. he doesn’t know about therapy, about how his father acts towards him, about the extent of his trauma and how it manifests and affects his mental health, and how he is struggling every single day. and you can’t expect him to know the depths of that no matter how empathetic and connected he is, how much he cares about jaewon, he can’t be superhuman. and so you get why he pushes and fights for jaewon. like… he is in love. it’s clear. he’s fallen in love with him. he is this wide-eyed, open kid that fell in love with a senior. and jaewon has just messed with his head, he’s never been clear, and you can’t expect jihyun to just get past that bc he knows something is up with jaewon. he can’t know the full story, but even if he did, that can’t be a reason or a justification to be treated the way jaewon treats him. bc we’re all about jaewon putting himself first and doing what he wants and respecting himself like that, but jihyun deserves that too. and it’s such a fine line to tread when you know someone is going through something, bc again you understand why, but you’re still the one being treated that way. like we talk about jaewon’s trauma, but here jihyun was part of it, he went through that traumatic experience. he’s the one that nearly lost his life. and yes, he appears to handle it well, and no matter to what extent that’s true or not, you can’t not look at jaewon struggling and understand it and then not look at jihyun with that same understanding. it’s not about comparing trauma and pain and deciding who is suffering more, it’s seeing that there are two people in this, and they’ve both been affected, so we should give them the same level of understanding.

and that’s something jaewon has to see. that his self-preservation is selfish. that his destructive behavior doesn’t just affect jihyun, instead it feels pointed and directed, bc every way jaewon hurts himself hurts jihyun. and it comes bc jihyun was so much of what was good about jaewon’s life for a second, so attacking that is his only form of self-sabotage. he can’t mess up his relationship with his friends or parents bc they were broken in the first place, and he can’t sabotage his future bc it’s already been ruined the moment he didn’t pursue his photography major. him nearly getting kicked out of school affected him so little not just bc he wanted that punishment, but bc even that punishment meant so little to him. all these things are established and they already contribute to his suffering. removing jihyun from his life is the only active thing he can do to make himself feel worse, and he can veil it in an act of protection, and even feel like he’s doing the right thing, but that deceives them both into believing this is done from a good place, when no good can actually come of it. in trying to protect jihyun, you hurt him more. in trying to hurt yourself, you hurt him too. and when someone is in a headspace like jaewon is, you look for that thing that’ll break through. bc he is so distant, he’s trying to remove himself from reality, and jihyun needs to act as this person that can anchor him to it. when you’re trying to isolate and separate yourself, sometimes seeing that you still affect things, that there’s a persons that exists that is affected and hurt by your actions, and no matter how you try to cut yourself off, you cannot stop that, separating yourself still hurts them, maybe that’s a thing that can get through. but that’s something that depends on jaewon. ultimately, he’s the only one that can get himself out of this place, and that’s what makes it so hard, that no matter how much jihyun cares and how much he fights for him, nothing can come of that effort is jaewon doesn’t meet him there. and it’d be so easy for jihyun to give in, to take the hurt, but over the course of this show we’ve seen the strength jihyun has developed, which has only seemed to increase more so after the accident, call it a renewed vigor for life or something. he has the strength that jaewon doesn’t, to not let his pain consume him. and in a beautiful full-circle moment, it’s because of jaewon, bc when they first spoke he sparked in jihyun a want to be stronger, to be more than the country mouse, and he’s done it. and it’s that courage that means he can fight for jaewon, even in the face of rejection. he trusts himself and that he knows jaewon, the real jaewon, to see past words that are intended to hurt them both, and go after the person that’s still inside jaewon somewhere. no, he can’t do it for him, and no them being together is not some magical cure for jaewon, but it’s what can put him on a path of caring for himself again, and sometimes that has to start with caring about someone else (and suddenly I’m reminded of my beautiful man 2 and how kiyoi tries to break hira out of his worthless mindset by making him care about him, and how ultimately that can’t be enough, and that hira has to take those first steps of seeing his self worth by himself). what jihyun can do by fighting is again act as that tether to reality and try to be this representation of the good jaewon can be and do. bc look at jihyun, look at how confident and strong he has become, and look at how he got there, bc you saw that country mouse and gave him the time of day and helped him grow and gave him new experiences. you jaewon, you. and that shift in mindset, from jihyun representing hurt and the accident and the trauma of his brother and everything he can’t do, to being that light and refuge and everything he can do is again something that might breaks through. and the fact it has such narrative strength and satisfaction makes me hopeful that that’s what we might actually get.

[rumor-weed]

i’m sorry VOTER FRAUD?

IN MY VEGGIETALES?

it’s more likely than you’d think...

[alphalesbian]

Youll just be minding your own business when all of a sudden the inherant intimacy of solo instrumental music is realized upon you. Like youre just supposed to proceed normally after

[the-cooler-king]

Oh yeah..... midnight gospel be hitting.... sitting in my bed fuckin. Crying. Get a grip girl