#romanticizing this way to much but

[ortofosforico]

SEASON FIVE SPOILER.

Guillermo my boy what the hell are you afraid of? Nandor would have to kill you- YOU WHOOPED HIS ASS TWICE ALREADY.

Oh wait.

It's that he'd kill himself, isn't it?

[linkcharacter]

Oh I have so many thoughts on aroace Curly, I think it brings so much on the table when analyzing the game's story.

Amanormativity ties in with the reoccurring mentions of the nuclear family, from Wrong Organ making 1950s mock advert posters, to Swansea talking about how getting a wife and kids didn't bring him any fulfillment in life.

In the cake cutting nightmare sequence, where Jimmy talks with Dream Curly about the mediocre cake, Dream Curly begins to talk about how sometimes you can only get the subpar stuff in live. Sometimes he'll get promoted, buy a house, fall in love. But other times he'll just have some awful fucking cake with his friend.

I think there is that subtle implication that Jimmy does buy into Amanormativity, with him projecting his beliefs on Dream Curly that a platonic relationship is lesser then a romantic one. But we never see Curly suggesting that he wants such a thing in the pre-crash.

With Jimmy thinking that Curly has everything in life, except for the desire (although I think Jimmy would view it as Curly not having the skills for it) to get a romantic partner, he would heavily lean into getting the one thing that Curly couldn't get in life to one up him.

THATS EXACTLY WHAT IM THINKING!!! AMATONORMATIVITY BE DAMNED!!!!

Looking at Mouthwashing through an aroace lens is interesting

"Jimmy thinking that Curly has everything in life, except for the desire", well said, well said! And references to the nuclear family fit in very cleanly thematically for Mouthwashing.

Jimmy leaning into amatonormativity is a smart observation. Jim internalizes all the social norms and standards on what you have to do to have a normal and desirable life, who sees everything Curly has and what Jimmy wishes he had, and is offended that Curly isn't satisfied, that he has the "audacity" to be unhappy. Curly meanwhile only wishes for his life to be something he doesn't have to run from, because by all means, he has already reached a point where he should feel accomplished, but isn't. Curly doesn't want to be a freighter captain his whole life, he doesn't want to settle with his sustainable position, he just wants to be happy. Like Swansea who has reached the "ideal" outcome of his life, having a wife, kids and a good career, it will never feel as good as embracing all what society deems undesirable yet right for you.

Jimmy does imply to seeing himself as lesser as a friend, "fall in love" being a goal and a "cake with a friend" being something he "has to settle for", it's all in the subtleties with underlying themes of "what you're "supposed to want" by society's expectations" against "what feels right for you". Jimmy is frustrated that Curly is going to "leave the dirt behind him", when in actuality, letting the crew and him go is the last thing Curly wants. Curly wants to be with his friends, he deeply cares about his crew, and about his close friend.

Mouthwashing as a whole reads to me as platonic through and through. Swansea and Daisuke having such a meaningful familial bond, Curly and Anya being sweet, playful and caring without romance, Anya and Daisuke having something of a siblings dynamic are dear to me. Also it's really rare to get to see representations of "toxic friendship" in media. Its always toxic romance this, toxic yaoi that, toxic family there, however in reality, friendships aren't excluded from being as rotten and abusive as the others, yet they're often overlooked. Jim and Curly are especially unique in this way. It's very impressive how they managed to showcase Jimmy's mistreatment of Curly in such a platonic way (at least that how I read it). Jim too, like Curly, in general avoids hints at romance and attraction explicitly related to him during his gameplay, not with Curly, nor with Anya (dear god thanks for that at least). It's all spite, annoyance and parasitizing off of these two. (That man's dry and lowkey hates everyone and everything) No attraction attached, no desires except hoping it hurts.

Curly to me is very much aroace, or at least on the spectrum. Like, the trivia fact that one of Curly's fondest memories is that of his friends putting in effort to make a shitty awful cake, tells us all we need to know on how dear his friends are to him. Platonic relationships mean so much to Curly, even when it's Jimmy fucking Mouthwashing, the worst friend ever imaginable.

[bathroomtrapped]

my sister told me to caption this 'two lovely men' without any context so heres two lovely christian saw men 👍🏻

[studentbyday]

When things get tough and/or I start catastrophizing and I feel like giving up (mostly related to career/studies/future studies because that's my biggest monster to slay rn 🐲⚔️):

Remember how younger you passionately worked her ass off to get you to where you are now. How would she feel if you didn't make the most of her effort?

Remember how hard your family — your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, etc. —worked so that you could even think of your dreams as real possibilities to aspire to. They had a dream, and it was difficult for them to achieve it too, but they didn't give up.

Remember how past generations of women and their allies fought to give women a place in public life if they so chose it. You might not always believe in yourself, but people who didn't even know you believed in you enough to fight the inequality. Despite the setbacks you may face, they believed you belong and that you have potential. You should believe the same of yourself too.

[somnimagus]

you are worth all the struggle and bloody mess

[id in alt text]

[erial-c]

caller/john is my favorite character but not in a "i love yanderes i love when characters are obsessed with me" way , but in a "this character is horrible and irredeemable and he's painted that way by the story so it doesn't feel like the yandere concept is being romanticized so it feels like im watching a horror movie"

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.

[kizunarae]

thinking about how Fitz seems so blind to Kettricken's affection towards him in later books. I think he tried so hard in Royal Assassin to block Verity's feelings from overflowing in himself that he just could never consider it afterwards. and it was quickly filed away under Things Too Uncomfortable To Contemplate

[rafyki]

Oh I really hope we'll get a scene where Jack gives Joke's his ring as a parallel to when he put it on his finger when Joke was pretending to be a model for Aran..... because back then Joke planned to steal it to give it back to Jack, but now that the ring is Jack's again it's him who is willingly giving it to Joke and putting it in his finger as a symbol of their forever :')

[saessenach]

No but why is this silly show so much FUN and why am I several years late to it!!!

I love lying characters who tell the truth but only to a certain degree, so I am absolutely YELLING about Sauron flat-out TELLING Galadriel about the blood-oath to Morgoth and "I am not the hero you seek"

I especially find it really fun how you've got the little sleight of hand trick setting up Sauron behind Halbrand - the so-called kingship of the Southlands, the mystery of a crest that marks the way, the whole forge thing!! Gosh, it would have been sooooo much to go into this blind about the reveal BUT this is also really FUN.

(I've only ever read one of the LOTR books, but had a lovely time with the movies, so I am not the best at discerning whether this is a ~good~ adaption, but hooo boy am I having a lot of fun with it!!!)

[commsroom]

Sometimes I think about that post about how, in another life, Eiffel would have made a good SI5 agent due to his out of the box thinking and quick reaction time when things go wrong (see: all of Mayday). Can’t remember if it was you who made that post or not, but if it wasn’t you, do you have any thoughts on it?

haha oh, no!! that definitely wasn't me; i have the opposite opinion!! i think that's a misunderstanding of what qualities are most important for an si-5 agent. they're paramilitary spies and union busters. out-of-the-box thinking is only useful to them if it can be trusted in service of their goals, and eiffel is not reliable, driven, or morally flexible enough for that. i've spoken to people who think that his loyalties could've been won at a worse place in his life, but i firmly disagree. eiffel at his worst is self-focused and entirely indulgent. he made the mistakes he made out of selfishness and short-sighted personal desire. he isn't ambitious, he can't hold a job, he has issues with authority. he has very firm morals and can't compartmentalize; he hurt people and the guilt of that, his inability to reconcile those actions with what he believes in, weighs him down. he doesn't need direction or purpose the way someone like jacobi does, and he's perfectly okay with closing the door on something because it's scary.

eiffel is honestly fine just being a nobody, so that's not something exploitable - getting eiffel to do anything, even some things he wants to do, is like pulling teeth, nevermind trying to convince him it's necessary to harm innocent people in service of a nebulous corporate goal. he has a lot of flaws, don't get me wrong, but they're the wrong kind of flaws for this, even at his worst. i really don't believe he'd ever be sought out for something like that when there are people who are quick-thinking survivalists who are also ambitious, and willing to hurt people in service of that ambition, out there.

and eiffel is pretty good at his job, but he's just an average person with a particular skill-set, who could do that job well enough and still be marked as disposable for other purposes. he's not si-5 level good; everything else aside, they are some of the best of the best in their respective fields. i honestly think that's an important thing to remember about the si-5, too - they fundamentally consider the hephaestus crew as targets, not as coworkers; minkowski's crew is made up of people with a moderate skill level, not geniuses - even hera was selected from a list of people who otherwise didn't make the cut. hilbert being relegated there for his final mission is a mark of cutter losing faith in him. they are not operating on the same level.

(i would believe, to some extent, that kepler was curious about eiffel after what he accomplished in mayday. i think he was trying to test eiffel's loyalties and see if he could be swayed - among many other motives - but i think he gave up on that pretty quickly once he realized what dealing with eiffel is like, and i don't think he ever intended to "recruit" eiffel in any official sense; a lot of the si-5's early actions are, again. union busting. they're trying to divide the crew. and speaking of that: being a good si-5 agent also requires a lot of lying to people's faces, which... um... well.)

[hauntedandabandoned]

i dont think i can comprehend love without pain. i need you to hurt me so i know that you love me

[whiteshipnightjar]

“Those things can all be traced back to things I experience,” explains Joanna, “sometimes they're direct allusions to situations I got into and sometimes they're purely symbolic. I don't like explaining my lyrics. There's a reason those thoughts are put into song form. These are ideas that I can only express in a song. But for Bridges and Balloons, for example, I was inspired by the dust jets that swirl through my room at night. In the light of the moon that finds its way in through my curtains, revealing the dust caused by the fluttering back and forth of my little birds (“The sight of bridges and balloons / makes calm canaries irritable”). Those dust jets then look just like a silver miniature city. Silver bridges that bridge a stretch of air and silver hot air balloons that burst against the ceiling. Almost all my lyrics are autobiographical but not always literal. So something that sounds like a fantasy could be a pun on something I actually experienced.”

— Joanna Newsom on writing songs and Bridges and Balloons

[camellcat]

I feel fucking crazy!!!!!!!!!!

(thinking about the way he convinced her he was still himself. his smile when she said his name. the way he said hello. the way he simply looked at her. how he had to act like everything was normal because he was so scared she was gonna leave him. the hurt when she asked him to change back, just exacerbating that fear even more. him trying to play it off as if he's totally fine with sending her home even though it's absolutely and utterly the last thing he'd ever want to do. his pride at finally getting her to smile, only to be immediately dashed when she snapped at him. the way he made the worst impression after that and scared the life out of her.

oh, just everything, all of it.)

[razzafrazzle]

hi there. heres your every-so-often reminder that incest and sexual abuse portrayed in a positive light is a bad thing and that should not be up for debate but here we are.

[helioleti]

Do you ever think about the inherent turbulence & problematics of El‘s and Hopper‘s father-daughter relationship. Like how he sold her out to the lab in favor of saving Joyce’s kid but then he felt like a shit person about it & when he suspected she might still be alive he left food out for her in the woods and took her in and gave her a home. But how this home was mostly built on guilt, over his dead daughter and over having sold out El. And then he got more attached to El than he expected so he resorted to the emotionally consipated controlling macho mindset he’s known all his life to keep her “safe“. And how Sarah will forever be a child in his heart so when El grows & in s3 acts like a teenager he acts out and gets controlling. And how much of their relationship is actually built on Hopper’s guilt and shortcomings in his life, and how he’s constantly trying & failing to atone for his mistakes through El.

Just me? Ok