#sometimes it happens haha

[writingjourney]

RHRN spoilery talk

(about grief and mental health and the ending, the way I see the movie and why I love it so much)

I am feeling so many things about the fact that Copia was so unwell and anxious during the movie, trying to push away the reality of the end of his time as Papa as well as the visible signs of illness in Sister, that he dissociated the moment he stepped off stage, that he saw her sitting in a regular chair instead of the wheelchair, blended out the doctors and IV bags to see her how he wanted to see her, this strong powerful woman who has been by his side, pushing him, and who he only recently learned was his actual mother. It is so very easy to get lost in your anxiety about the future, in the anticipatory grief of what you'll lose, struggling to stay mindful and here where you have actual power over your life.

And looking back at the chapters this is what he has been doing, clinging to his little comforts (think of the whipped cream moment in the movie vs. the video games, the tricycle rides, the movie scene re-enactments), pushing away unwanted thoughts (not doing his taxes, the fact that neither his father nor his mother openly admitted to the parentage despite all signs being there, letting him float in uncertainty), playing it off like he's cool about everything while feeling dread and anxiety on the inside the closer he comes to the end of his era and presumed death (think of the coffin scene, the intro to the movie).

This man had no family so he picks role models that are close to him and suddenly when he learns that they were family all along he loses them, learns that he has been lied to most of his life and worked hard for others, to fill their shoes (first his father, now his mother). Despite Nihil treating him awfully he continuous to try and reach for approval for his achievements which he does not even get by the end as he's promoted ("I hope this new guy doesn't disappoint like you did"). He will never get emotional fulfilment from his father despite having small bonding moments, something that is fucking hard to accept and that he brushes off by throwing silly insults at him because it hurts. Because yeah, this is the type of pain that makes you feel like a child searching for breadcrumbs of affection from parents who do not know how to meet your emotional needs.

I feel just incredibly seen by all of this, the grief, dealing with sick relatives, emotional neglect, absent fathers you try to get love from but never will, lack of familial support, depression, trying to hold on to what comforts you in the darker moments, struggling to stay present in the face of anxiety and the world at large. I know this plot means little to some people, that you'd wished for more drama or something different altogether, but I feel like if you paid attention to the chapters then this is only the natural progression, the natural conclusion of his arc. It is very raw if you look past the comedic relief, and it is very well done in a way that keeps the campy, silly vibes of the chapters while still approaching these subjects in a very tangible, relatable way. It just makes me love the band even more.

[secretsimpleness]

I am so zen about this. Kallo, Female Ryder (custom) / Mass Effect Andromeda (c) Bioware

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

hot man hot birdman im so sorry hot fire bird man?!?!

aka glorious gijinka!Tengu Jin design by @hirumi25 has made me 👀💦?!?! because wowie thats some hecking fire design!

and of course i couldnt just not draw Hirumi's Nomi-kun with him too

[ryuusea]

a new beginning, with you.

sherliam modern au comic

[butchviking]

i hate being a mentally ill adult actually. i hate that there’s always groceries to be bought and housekeeping to do and work in the morning i hate that we have no space to feel it all i hate that we walk around acting normal. there are so many people i know who are clearly deeply unhappy with their lives and we make silly little jokes that allude to it but sometimes i want to grab them by the shoulders and scream ‘i know you are miserable!! we can’t keep living like this!! this is why people break!!’ im sick of this drudgerous apathy i want us all to be dramatic like when we were teenagers i want us to sob together and scream bloody murder at each other and tell each other we want to kill ourselves not as a funny post-ironic joke but because we all feel like that sometimes!! i want us to get fucked up on god knows what til we can’t open our eyes i want us to take care of each other instead of always taking care of ourselves i want us to be vulnerable i want us to hold each others hands in the ambulance!!

[x-ladydisdain-x]

Sing is literally a piece of genius. They made a bad pop song with simple but very direct lyrics, the kind of thing that would get itself on teen choice awards and glee and pop radio stations but still very clearly get their point across. an infiltration of mainstream culture. using the very thing they were critiquing, mainstream media, as a platform to spread the message to a larger audience who hadn’t been exposed to that kind of thinking yet. the people who really needed to hear it, who were the people who wouldn’t have paid attention to the same message being conveyed in the same style as their music on the black parade or earlier, the people, specifically younger people still trying to find a place in the world, who would have been consuming exclusively mainstream pop. popular tv shows, teen pop culture award shows, pop radio, etc all spreading the words “they’re gonna sell what tomorrow means” “raise your voice every single time they try to shut your mouth” “cleaned up, corporation progress, dying in the process” “I am not the singer that you wanted but a dancer, I refuse to answer” “wrote it for the ones who want to get away - keep running”

sing accomplished exactly what it was created for, it was executed perfectly in that regard

[angelpuns]

No asks or comic updates this weekend because I am both way too anxious ( aka exhausting myself worrying about things that aren't real) and because I actually am going somewhere tomorrow and will probably even more tired after that :)

I meant to announce earlier but I've genuinely been so anxious the last two days I've barely been able to function :D

[six-of-cringe]

Something that has been on my mind is what Kaz says to Nina at the end of Crooked Kingdom about Matthias's share of their money. He offers Nina that share, and then says, "I know it doesn't matter".

Kaz, who has spent this entire series insisting to the others that kruge means retribution, safety, success, comfort, and thus is the driving factor in his life, is sort of accidentally revealing how little he believes it. He knows Nina disapproves of his purported obsession with profit and is not motivated by money, and he also knows from personal experience that no matter how much he insists otherwise, having money will not fix what has happened to you. Maybe it will kind of buy you retribution or a degree of safety, but it will never bring back who you lost - it's too late for that. Kruge is a shitty consolation prize, and Kaz knows it. This is the only time he explicitly lets it on to the others - as emotionally constipated as he might act, he knows Nina's pain and knows that even suggesting that money would in any way fix it would be an insult.

[kerizaret]

In case you haven't noticed May has sucked for me so far, anyway *projects onto blorbo*

[sammygender]

spn 7x15 was truly crazy. having the resurgence of the narrative showing us sam’s hallucinations of lucifer in the same episode where we see ex-vessel of a demon, his entire life wrecked by the possession, completely obsessed & in stockholm syndrome-y love w the demon that possessed him. i want to analyse this episode scene by scene. who wrote this one. what did they mean by it

[xysidhequeen]

Do you think Jason accidentally called Jazz “Mom” during his time in Infinite Realms?

Oh lawd yes. He definitely did, and then he played it off so badly. Jazz thought it was cute but now Jason is contractually required to keep calling her mom sarcastically to make up for the one time he did it on purpose a year and a half ago.

[iceclew]

Wirst die falschen Freunde haben Die die Wahrheit Dir nicht sagen! Und am Ende ganz allein So furchtbar anders sein!

Anders Sein kann auch bedeuten Sich nicht jedes Mal zu häuten Wenn der Wind sich einmal dreht Schmerzhaft ins Gesicht Dir weht!

Nach dem eig'nen Weg zu suchen Auch einmal für and're bluten! Nicht die Augen zu verschließen Und den Gegenwind genießen!

Listened to this song in bed at the very convenient hour of 4am (listen I'm having some days of, and my sleep scedule gave up like on the first day, ok) and suddenly I had a real urge to draw Kafka's Kaiju form… Then this morning the postman woke me up to bring me the new tips for my graphics tablet pen, so I basically had to do it, right? (૮ ˙ ﻌ˙ ა no more scratching on the surface! yay! )

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Lockjaw

YA horror

set in a small town, where a boy died tragically in an old abandoned mill

a group of 11yos on bikes are determined to find the monster and hunt it down - while facing the monsters and prejudices haunting their small town

and some teens, including one of the kids’ sister, a genderqueer guy who tried to get out of town but was drawn back, a homeless trans guy and his dog, and the police captain’s son who get drawn into the web of it all against their will

shifting timelines and perspectives from various kids and residents of the town (plus the dog)

[averagecatdoodlesenjoyer]

Why did i make this

[mkstrigidae]

New Sansa/Alayne WIP because I am still recovering from pneumonia and can't do much of anything else :P