#the original meme isn't even that funny idk what happened

[v1p0]

[thebreakfastgenie]

@queerbashir I promised to elaborate on my thoughts about Trapper and Frank in O.R. so let's hope it doesn't get eaten this time!

I left tags on this excellent and funny meme saying:

#ok but what he actually says is deep down there's no real hatred and he means it

@queerbashir said:

#idk breakfast i think he means it#but maybe im projecting

It's possible there was a miscommunication here, because we both said "he means it" and seem to be referring to different things. But what I was originally saying was that the meme (which, again, is great, 10/10 no notes) has the opposite meaning of the original scene.

That scene in O.R. is one of the closest looks into who Frank is that both Trapper and the audience ever get. Unusually for Frank, he just sort of starts opening up to Trapper. I think the circumstances of working long shifts in surgery together make Frank feel a little closer to Trapper, and exhaustion loosens his lips a little bit. For all that Frank is an antagonist, there is a certain level of closeness between Hawkeye, Trapper, and Frank. They don't want it, but it's there. Living in such close quarters with Frank and knowing first hand what he's going through, because they're going through the same thing, forcibly humanizes him. They associate with Frank, sometimes: In Dear Dad, Again (s1), Frank is in a fight with Margaret and spends time with Hawkeye and Trapper. He drives them crazy, but they still treat him basically like a very annoying friend. In Dear Dad Three (s2), they're so bored Trapper and Frank play cards together. Frank is a presence in the social circle.

Crucially, Frank wants to be in the social circle. Frank's insistence that "I didn't come here to be liked" is defensive; he knows nobody likes him and says fine, I didn't want them to like me anyway. Margaret tries to reassure him that everyone is just jealous, because Frank is so superior. In this scene, we get a moment of unusual honesty from Frank. He's aware that no one likes him and it bothers him. This comes after Frank leaves for a break after getting upset at Henry taking Hawkeye's side in the O.R. chatter. Honestly, no one wants to hear this, but Frank has a point. Hawkeye can usually say whatever he wants in surgery and he's at the least allowed to do it and at the most rewarded for it. When Frank says things, he's usually told to shut up. The difference isn't always the content of what they're saying or that Hawkeye is right, it's that people like Hawkeye and that he earns a certain amount of leeway by being the best surgeon. This is difficult for Frank to understand and he feels like it's unfair which he's not entirely wrong about.

So after getting, from his perspective, jumped on yet again, Frank sees Trapper isn't working and opens up to him a little bit. He opens the conversation with a stab at genuine gratitude and humility which is extremely rare for Frank. He doesn't quite hit the mark, but he gets pretty close. Frank was genuinely horrified by the mistake he almost made with the kidney and reacted the way he did in the moment because it's very uncomfortable to be publicly called out for such a serious mistake, even if it's deserved. We get a clue later in the conversation as to why he chooses Trapper to open up to, other than simple availability. Frank asks why no one likes him, and says:

Well, we got along fine, for the first two weeks.

Trapper doesn't argue. In fact, he more or less confirms it, by saying that time was wasted. So Trapper and Frank at least peacefully coexisted for the first two weeks. What happened? I suspect the answer is Hawkeye showed up. Frank then says:

But, deep down, there's no real hatred, is there?

And Trapper says:

Deep down? No.

I think Trapper means it, because he's just too tired to lie. I also think it's consistent with their dynamic. Hawkeye and Trapper don't like Frank and they enjoy tormenting him, but there's no real, deep hatred. Frank is a thorn in their side because he's there, but they don't hate him the way they hate the war. They don't want him dead, and while they do enjoy watching him suffer sometimes, they also feel pity for him. Trapper then answers Frank's question: why don't people like him? It's not for any of his crimes, or any of the reasons the fandom usually cites for hating him. It's this:

It's just that you're a joyless person, Frank. 

Which is honestly so much harsher. This is changeable behavior, but it's not something Frank knows how to change. I think being joyless is at the root of a lot of Frank's conservatism; he can tell that the mood dies when he walks into a room, so he huffs that they're all rule-breaking degenerates who are going to hell. This also explains some of his hypocrisy, because being with Margaret is just about the only time he does find joy. There are times Frank tries to join in the fun and his attempts are mocked. Frank is a miserable person to be around, and that's sad. Frank knows it, too. In a rare moment of honesty, he tries to explain it:

I'm from a very strict family. We weren't allowed to talk at meals. We couldn't even hum. Anybody who hummed got a punch in the throat.

Trapper says:

That's terrible.

And it is! In a different moment, Trapper might make a joke. Hawkeye certainly would. But in the weird atmosphere of this sleep-deprived, Trapper just tells the truth. He doesn't say that excuses Frank's behavior, but he acknowledges that it is terrible. Frank then follows with one of the single saddest things I've ever heard:

I think that's why I became a snitch. So I could talk to somebody.

Frank then describes a situation where he didn't snitch on his best friend and felt so guilty about it he ended up snitching on himself, probably snitching on the friend in the process, even possibly losing the friend. Joyless person.

At this point, Trapper is done with this conversation. Trapper has been falling down exhausted the entire time, and now he can barely keep his eyes open. He can't really process what Frank is saying anymore and tells him that. So when he agrees to Frank's request and says:

Friends, Frank. No more hostility. No more hatred. Friends.

At that point, he's saying whatever he thinks will make Frank stop talking and let him sleep. Of course directly following it with:

Now, shut up, Frank, or I'll kill ya.

Is funny. But there isn't any real hostility in it. Trapper is just tired. He'd say something like this to Hawkeye in this situation.

Trapper and Frank have an unusually personal conversation and Trapper says "deep down, I don't hate you, you're just a miserable person to be around."

[rose-madder-gaze]

Because I was too funny to die, here's the first of three posts archiving my "live" tweets for watching playthroughs of the FFXIII trilogy with Orion. Includes original timestamps, typos, and 2021 memes. I'll approximate GIFs if I have to.

4:23 PM · Feb 6, 2021 Watching a playthrough of FFXIII, so here's my not-really-live tweet thread for my own amusement; not spoiler-free.

5:23 PM · Feb 6, 2021 Me, seeing a pretty standardized "boy big and strong, girl small and nice" couple like Snow and Serah: T4T…

5:30 PM · Feb 6, 2021

7:19 PM · Feb 6, 2021 Love that every time Snow says something heroic and ends up digging his grave deeper, Hope is just like

7:19 PM · Feb 6, 2021 Admittedly, even if I had FINALLY resolved myself to abandoning revenge, if Snow Villiers turned around and burped at me, I would suddenly no longer possess the presence of mind to open a survival knife and would instead body him over the balcony of a Palumpolum rest area.

8:10 PM · Feb 6, 2021 Snow: I need everyone to stop trying to blow me up, these tits were expensive.

8:22 PM · Feb 6, 2021 okay this chapter is too long, WHERE'S SAZH

2:11 PM · Feb 7, 2021

2:16 PM · Feb 7, 2021 lmao when the Pompa Sancta parade started, I blurted out "oh, it's opera," and Orion immediately jumped into a baritone "MAAARIA!"

1:55 PM · Feb 9, 2021 YOOO SHE WENT FOR IT

2:04 PM · Feb 9, 2021 Serah 🤝 Vanille Head in tiddies

2:06 PM · Feb 9, 2021 Snow: [talks for too long] Fang: Man, I'm outta here. Lightning: We have to stick together. Fang: Oh. Okay :)

2:07 PM · Feb 11, 2021 WUH HUH SERAH AND VANILLE HAD A MEET-CUTE???

2:32 PM · Feb 11, 2021 One small thing that endeared me towards Hope is that we just watched a playthrough of The Sinking City, and both he and Reed do a similar pensive idle hand animation. Two good, complicated lads.

3:19 PM · Feb 12, 2021 Rygdea to Raines

3:22 PM · Feb 12, 2021 (As the old adage goes, all humor is derived from excruciating pain because, if they don't come back around to the gravity of what happened with Raines, I don't know if I'll be able to take whatever "face the future with hope" thing they're gonna throw at me next.)

3:27 PM · Feb 12, 2021 anyways, cannot BELIEVE the pope took the opportunity to put his face in Snow's chest. it served literally NOTHING to pretend to be Serah for 0.5 seconds, and yet, he went for it.

5:24 PM · Feb 14, 2021 Orphan: and I hit them with the goo goo gaga. *turns all your friends into Cie'th*

5:38 PM · Feb 14, 2021 The leading problem I have with XIII's story is that they'll present A Rule, and, if the rule gets broken, there isn't an explanation. It just worked out in a specific instance For Some Reason.

5:38 PM · Feb 14, 2021 Like, "we hoped really hard against all odds and it worked out" only works for the main characters. Lots of lofty ideas about faith and conviction that hold exactly zero water inside the narrative.

5:38 PM · Feb 14, 2021 It's a shame because characters will have an impactful moment that the story then minimizes in some way (again: Raines?!) or vice versa. Idk, some of the storytelling decisions are just too goofy to overlook when they abut emotional scenes.

5:44 PM · Feb 14, 2021 ANYWAYS THAT WAS PRETTY GAY OF THEM TO CRYSTAL FUSE INTO UHH HECAMUT. BAHATON. THE WAY THEY BAJA BLASTED TO SAVE COCOON. WHO HOLD THE WORLD? GORLS.

5:48 PM · Feb 14, 2021 Fang: I'm lesbian. Hope: I thought you were Pulsian.

End thread.

[thekaijudude]

Ultraman Gaia Super Supreme Version revealed

Ah yes, finally I can talk about the highlight of today

So just to clarify some misinformation thats been going around, Gaia Super Supreme Version isn't a fusion, but it's Gaia receiving the light of Agul SV, thus upgrading SV to SSV

This suit was revealed in the Summer Expo 2023 stageshow

Design wise, he really looks like Justice rn with the similar chest protectors and head design

Otherwise sheesh he looks so MAJESTIC with the gold and black. And it's pretty neat that he has red in the front but blue at the back

Imo this is probably peak design as far as conventional ultras go

Tho Idk why but his face sculpt has a similar vibe to Legend

Also key point, SSV is designed by Maruyama Hiroshi, the designer for the early Heisei Ultras, NOT by Gotou, the designer for New Gen Ultras

-

But something that I need to clarify here is the dynamics of these form changes that I see confused quite abit of people, specifically on V3

So to recap, Gaia V1 received Agul V1's light and evolved to V2, but also automatically granted him the ability to access SV

Then Agul showed back up in ep 41 as V2 already, so the Earth granted Fujimiya access to Agul again and automatically upgraded him to V2, which I suppose it's similar to Gaia case that at this point, he could probably also access SV (just that he didn't for the same reasons Cosmos and Dyna didn't access their higher forms in Saga nor them, Gaia and Agul did in Origin Saga, because of plot reasons)

So people forgot the point that SV was essentially V3 and thought that V3 should have been the result of V2 receiving another V2's power, forgetting that SV was automatically accessible after getting V2

The point of contention is what happens after SSV, which is the next point I'm getting into

-

Another point is that this arrangement seems pretty funny in the sense that, this line of development can kinda continue on indefinitely. As in Agul can also receive Gaia SV's light and in turn, evolve into Agul SSV as well

Then Gaia SSV can receive Agul SSV's light and then further evolve into something like Gaia SSSV or sth lmao

But at the most, I suspect that they'll stop at Agul SSV

But imagine if they take it even further, indefinitely even as a meme lmao

I certainly wouldn't mind that

-

Gaia and Agul have taken the "evolution" type form change probably the furthest out of any ultras in the franchise interestingly enough

(Tho technically if u wanna count Noa, he technically has the longest evolution line but idk if we should count this, since its more of a "de-evolution" line instead)

Tho otherwise, we'd probably see Agul SV and Gaia SSV in the rumored spin-off

Personally I hope they come up with Agul SSV to include in the spin off as well

(But it'll most likely just be Agul SV and Gaia SSV since its still a Gaia spin off series)

[cantalooprat]

His Marriage Partner is Scheming

What I Liked

ngl a transmigration story doesn't have to hit this hard wtf

one of those novels that's actually p different from what i expected. mb sort of reverse "evil star general" which had a funny summary n i thought it was one of those "deceptive" meme summary heart-crushing plot but it was actually as lighthearted as implied. here it has a deceptively lighthearted, seemingly perfunctory, not-at-all different from other transmigration stories, but it's quite unlike the "usual kind" of transmigration stories which... damn i hate saying it like "she's not like other girls" but this wn really is different.

author actually wrote abt it in the last ch author notes, how this wn has a narrative style that isn't often used in webnovels these days n i get it. this novel is p insane. the beginning is laced with an undercurrent of melancholy at a seemingly bleak inevitable future, then it slowly, quietly blooms into a warm love story. the narrative is oftentimes vague and ambiguous, sometimes veering into seemingly irrelevant territory but dear lord it all ties together at the end, heartbreakingly so.

this story is a secret shared by a pair of accomplices, a paper bag full of sugar-fried chestnuts, strangely shaped strawberries, a bouquet of roses for a bass player, an umbrella-less kiss at a rainy night, a bridge built by an old man for his wife, golden sunlight filtering through a green-colored glass, strawberry-flavored rose and cactus-flavored vanilla and hydrangea-flavored blueberry---it is an eternity hidden within fleeting moments, the extraordinarily ordinary story of a sanctimonious capitalist and a dentist who was good at coaxing people.

author also mentioned in the author notes that novels r like a game in which there r 3 participants: the recorded people (the "protagonist"), the person recording (the "writer"), and the person flipping through the records (the "reader") and i was just like. hello orv my old friend.

both leads are highly rational people working together with each other to avoid their inevitable doom, with a dynamic that actually lowkey reminds me of teio's duotang... rly far away isn't it, but they give me that sort of vibe. accomplices drifting in that line between unreserved trust and a distance between their hearts at first, having tacit understanding but knowing that there's a line they "shouldn't cross". but when they do cross it, it's beautiful like a rose in full bloom.

he qiao and chi xueyan

their love story is so... dear lord. "love was a game that gave brilliant meaning to ordinary memories" is the best way to encapsulate it. i love how chi xueyan was falling first but then he qiao drew a line and then chi xueyan just tried his best being like "oh. he doesn't like me back. then we'll just be friends!" but then he qiao started to fall and had to try his best to chase chi xueyan lmao. but even all this takes on a very bittersweet note considering what actually happened in their previous timeline.

also love the four "iterations" of their lives: the main story, the high school au, the happy end au, and the original timeline (which made me cry wtf it didnt have to hit that hard)

i cried at he xiao's "conclusion" and the "backstory" of the "transmigration" spoiler this isn't transmigration it's regression and the beauty of it is that the "transmigrator" himself is an unreliable narrator.

i can't talk enough abt the narrative style it's almost like a fever dream. this isn't the type of story to be speed-read, it has to be savored and one has to remember details because there are constant callbacks and seemingly open-ended details that end up as closed loops and it's so incredibly beautiful. it's extremely introspective, told from the point of view of someone who "likes interesting things" and finds the most beautiful moments in his mundane daily life.

What I Disliked

damn idk nothing?? mb the clearly edited mtl lmao ok to be serious i feel like this novel can either sound poetic and beautiful or pretentious af, depending on the reader's taste.

Notes

one of my most unexpected finds of 2023

will buy in jj this novel is Worth It

i want to erase my memories of this novel and reread it

rly quite insane how 57+12 ch managed to pack so much it's an extremely dense story. idk if i'll ever reread in full bc it's actually an unexpectedly heavy read in the sense that one should activate all senses + brain to fully compute the story but it really is beautiful.

this story also reminds me of eill's finale in a different way compared to hfa, but at the core it's a song about happiness that comes from an ordinary love in extraordinary circumstances, so...

it's 02:40 and im typing this