#the suffering every semester

[grissomesque]

re: dark lighting on Picard, maybe double-check your screen and/or video settings? Watching on my TV and while it's still on the darker side, it's not *nearly* as dark as that first cap. (I too would be super annoyed if it appeared that dark.)

TVs are brighter, yes. (TVs are different from monitors in a number of ways and my complaint is not a 1:1.) Even so, it's easier to gif Voyager than Picard. I work in an industry that requires/allows me to have professionally calibrated art monitors. If I turned up my brightness on my monitors, it would look better to me, but it wouldn't be at industry standard, which would then cause me to have an existential crisis over the certain and inevitable knowledge that every single other monitor in the world is different, often wildly so.

The other way I know it isn't just that my monitors are darker than my TV is that when I run the brightened clips through my AI restoration software (because pixelation/banding), the program pukes in my face, and results vary.

[djungleskogs]

has anyone else failed a uni class because i swear no one i know has (outside of deliberately not completing assessments) and i am soo scared that i am going to fail one of my units this semester and i am kinda spiraling

[broke-on-books]

Why the hell can't I pick a topic for my term paper... I've been agonizing on this for THREE DAYS now. It's due in a WEEK. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

"Pick an incident in international relations" THATS LIKE MOST OF HISTORY

[redtailfins]

finished pact. started on the 23rd of august so if the word count of 947,635 i found on reddit is accurate that’s about 90,000 words per day. i am now banning myself from reading anymore wildbow during semester because clearly i cannot be trusted to spend my time wisely

[shoechoe]

happy new year. that was something huh

[time-is-restored]

73 yards thoughts

now that ive had a night to sleep on it, and read everyone's thoughts, im rewatching the episode to see if i can come to a more definite opinion about the episode (though that's perhaps against the spirit of the thing, lol!)

so a few moments that stood out for me that i don't think have already been talked about a lot:

when mrs twist shows up on the mountain, and ruby is giving her messages to pass along to the woman, she wants to say sorry. when mrs twist asks 'what for?' ruby looks genuinely thrown + upset, and eventually says '...i don't know.' since the woman/curse that haunts ruby is functionally an externalisation of ruby's deep seated sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with her, i think this interaction was super poignant. ruby 'knows' that she's done something that she needs to apologise for in the same way that she 'knows' there is something wrong with her that will make people react with fear + anger. there's no proof, no clear flaw or mistake that she can point to, because that's the point. the woman isn't saying anything specific -- there's nothing to say. noticing her (noticing a part of ruby that has a perception filter on it -- that is hard to see until you get close) just means that you see in ruby what ruby sees in herself. she is afraid that people will 'discover' whatever is wrong with her, and she'll lose them forever.

relevant to this is the fact that ruby didn't actually break the circle. if reading the messages is what summoned the woman in universe, then sure, she has culpability for that. but if it was breaking the circle, she had to live with the consequences of someone else's actions, and feeling guilt for something she didn't do. while im less confident with this reading, you could argue this is an allegory for her being given away. ultimately, that decision had nothing to do with her. she was literally a baby lmao. the idea that there's something wrong with her bc of her mother's decision is illogical -- doesn't follow reality, just like magic. she's spending her life trying to make up for a mistake she hasn't made (and, honestly, probably wasn't made. we don't know anything about her birth mother -- its more than likely that she wasn't fit to be a parent to ruby, no matter how human or supernatural the reasons for that were. but the facts of the situation don't matter here, in this liminal space. guilt and fear and shame bleed through the gaps. ruby could arguably be 'the spiteful one' the pub laugh about. she thinks she needs to be punished for something, and so the woman punishes her.)

following along this line, we know that ruby genuinely doesn't know what might have caused the woman to appear. she suggests trespassing, or breaking the circle, and gets the idea that reading the notes might have been wrong from the pub, but she never finds out for sure. unit doesn't know, or at least doesn't have the chance to tell her. the lack of closure ties in really well -- ruby has to carry a trauma that, even as she comes to terms with it, she can never truly explain or understand. even the partial amnesia at the end of the episode can be read as a sort of 'the body remembers what the mind forgets'. some part of her knows something terrible has happened, something that scarred her and left her alone for an immense amount of time (even if that time, in a literal sense, was undone), but she won't be able to put words to it. it seems that self acceptance - literally opening her arms to this *thing* that has haunted her her whole life,

now for some more rambly thoughts/things im still confused about

i genuinely think if not for the single shot of the episode reversing and old ruby now standing with her arms out on the cliff, i would have no problems with the themes of this episode. it was a powerful representation of rejection and fear that genuinely freaked me out (ruby running after her stone-faced mother while crying BROKE me), and i think it was a great character study of ruby. like others have said -- how many people would have stuck it out for that long? how many people would have never resented/blamed the doctor (or anyone, really) for leaving? and how many of THEM would've come to find a sense of companionship with their spectre?. ...however.

i can not wrap my head around the shot where time reverses and old ruby is looking out from the pov of the woman. it completely breaks my brain. i know at a certain point i should just accept that the woman can do whatever the story needs her to do, but there was nothing about time travel up to that point. it was all about physical and psychological boundaries. more than that, there was no indication that ruby was trying to make up for what had gone wrong. she didn't try and fix the circle, she didn't try and communicate with the woman at all beyond her first failed apology. on its own, i like this -- ruby becomes resentful of the woman quite quickly, which tracks as an expression of her poor self esteem. why would she try and get in the good graces of someone she rejects + dislikes? and again, i LIKE that she eventually treats her as a companion. all ruby has is herself, and she can never leave herself. getting to a point where she doesn't want the woman to go away, where she doesn't feel lonely while alone -- it makes sense that that is what heals the riff. i can write all that out in a way that makes sense to me. ruby makes a mistake (or witnesses a mistake) that makes the doctor disappear. she rejects herself, and in this liminal space, the part that she rejects manifests into reality. it haunts her for the rest of her life, even as she begins to wield what she thinks it says about her (that she's unloveable) to her advantage. when she accepts it, and integrates it back into herself, she is able to speak clearly to herself -- what she is thinking makes it across to young!ruby. when ruby thinks about the situation without the influence of self hate, she realises that the problem was the doctor's actions, not her own. she gets the message across, the doctor doesn't disappear, and the cycle never starts. the loop closes.

but. she wasn't one with the woman the whole time! if she was, the doctor would have never stepped on the circle -- the loop couldn't start, and so it wouldn't need to be closed. like, i know that we do a lot of paradoxes in this show and sometimes things are just gonna be Weird. but to me it's like if, in turn left, donna died in an unrelated car crash, then ended up back in time anyway. so why, if ruby has apparently accepted the woman by the time she visits the tardis for the last time, does the show bother with taking us back to the hospital and seeing old!ruby flatline? why doesn't the old woman come to her there, in that moment, so old!ruby is reaching across time but not space? if i squint, i could make an argument for the death. ruby's understanding of herself dies so a new, more accepting one can be born -- and obviously the timeline would fade away in the moment the loop is closed. but that's not what happens. old!ruby chooses hope and accepts herself, THEN goes back to the hospital, dies, then travels back to the past through time AND space (somehow, sure, i'll just accept the woman can do that), then communicates the message, then fades away. what changed between the visit to the tardis and her death? what do those few minutes possibly add other than the 'ive never been alone' line, which could've easily been written into the talk on the cliff? hell, she could've passed away right there on the cliff, if that needed to happen! but no matter how i twist it i can't understand why the old woman looked the same as it did before old!ruby merged with her, behaved + moved the same, and physically manifested when none of the criteria for its appearance had yet been met. im almost certainly overthinking it -- i can map everything else from this episode onto a psychological exploration of ruby and her fear. maybe the episode is saying that the woman was always there (at least to ruby), and old!ruby's self acceptance is what let the message get through??? but fuck i hate that she looks the same!!!! aghghhhghg! what changed! what changed! it looks like nothing changeddddd!!!!! <- deranged. they merged, there should be a sign of that beyond her hands being mirrored with ruby's.

tldr. if i could change anything about the ending of the episode, i'd take it in one of two ways. either have ruby merge with the woman while on the cliff and have ruby say something like 'now, what were you (or i) trying to tell me?' before cutting to the new timeline, or have the woman post merge look like old (or young!) ruby. she couldn't be seen because she was unknowable and (bc of ruby's schema) unloveable, so ruby conjured a generic older woman (possibly drawing from mother issues -- had to be someone at minimum old enough to be her bio mum). if she now looked like something specific, wouldn't that show old!ruby knew that what she feared was all bc she rejected herself? young!ruby could even have a line to go along with 'she looked like she was looking for someone', maybe 'i wanted to talk to her' -- just something small indicating that old!ruby's acceptance of herself was passed down in some small way, even if it certainly hasn't cured ruby of anything.

now for other theme/focus mutterings. i could spin something here about the fact that the doctor says the fairy circle 'is' charms and spells and hopes and dreams. ruby hopes and dreams that she can be accepted, and later, that she can bring the doctor back/undo the moment where it all went wrong. but the doctor also says that they should 'rest in piece'. so they're dead hopes and dreams, aka fears + regrets? so breaking it unleashed both the doctor and her greatest fears - the doctor of complete helplessness + impotence, and ruby of abandonment + rejection. because those fears stay buried in this timeline, ruby + the doctor's hopes (which in many ways are embodied in each other) can continue to live and be 'here', not drowned in the past.

also, the doctor implies the woman is 'resting in piece', out of nowhere, which i think is another indication of both ruby AND the doctor having knowledge from the split timeline. after all, old!ruby did die. so did the timeline where all that happened, i suppose. maybe that's the other angle for the fairy circle - it represents the fragility of a load bearing timeline. the hundreds of dead paradoxes and dead universes that spin off from time being written and unwritten as the doctor (and his companions) fixes whatever he can. let them rest in piece. forget what could've happened. forget what just did happen.

now for my other critique. i think the sexual harassment sub plot was cheap and shitty, and only served to be an incredibly lazy 'kick the puppy' moment to show that the prime minister was Evil™ levels of bad. in the process it showed no respect or care to victims of abuse, and pretty heavily implied that ruby had done nothing in the face of her peer being abused, because 'she had to make sure'. of what? that mad jack was a bad guy? watching him heavily imply he wanted to fire nukes wasn't enough to confirm anything? 'he's a monster' wasn't enough? why? what metric was she using, then? if she was waiting for him to be prime minister, why did she wait an unspecified amount of time AFTER he was elected, where he's clearly still abusing marti, to act? presumably the audience was already on team 'oh this guy sucks' by the nuke interview at the VERY latest, where it was also made clear that the guy was fearmongering about borders and all sorts of right wing bullshit. like, those are just the problems with it off the top of my head -- it fucking sucks, basically.

that all being said, i think ruby convincing herself that she only has 'one chance' works super well into the overall theme of ruby's understanding of the monster + her situation being tied to arbitrary rules she's decided help make the woman make sense. since this terrible thing happened when life was previously going fine, there must be a way to undo it and go back to the love and acceptance she had before. but there is no monster to slay that will trigger the end credits. there's just ordinary, shitty humans, and ruby herself. she can't uncross the boundary of pre-and-post trauma. and as long as she thinks there is something she has to make up for, the world where she is being punished will keep ticking along. i just wish it had been communicated in a different context!!!

side note. does anyone else want to come live with me in a world where 'it never snowed again' means that snow never occured again anywhere in the world. yes its way more likely to think that ruby's referring to instances of spontaneous snow linked to her emotions. but can you IMAGINE hardening your heart so entirely after being rejected by your mother that you change the climate of planet earth?? holy shit!

[goldensunset]

not to be. a college student on main or anything but AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaAAAAAAA

[astranauticus]

joongdok 🤝 shiguang

ships with extremely rich associated symbolism (and lots of fanart with some absolutely incredible composition) that i desperately want to draw on but theres so much of it i have no idea where to start so i just do nothing and fume

[silversoulstardust]

i dont want to continue my specialty study in my home country, so naturally god gave me the option to study abroad along with a job offer

[pepprs]

if i could just get like 3 more hours of sleep every night. maybe even 2. i would be so powerful

[annakacoyett]

the rainy season is uppon us (at least for those of us in Here, Somewhere where I live) and thus here are my list of pros and cons:

pros:

- its actually pretty chilly, instead of being roasted alive in the 45°C + heat

- teachers come in late

- rain showers

- sometimes a bird, or a bunch, comes inside the classroom to hide from the rain

- most notably pidgeons

- and some ravens

- theyre cool

- splashes

- trees sometimes get hit with ligtning and classes end for emergency evac

- swimming practice gets cancelled more often than not because some storm is about to hit

- its cold in the mornings, and no one blames you if youre excuse is 'i overslept' in the school late slip

- my geo teacher lets kids use the couch to crash after math

- my math teacher is particularly vicious this time of year, as most things annoy her

- especially the internet in her classroom

- shes a good teacher but shes even better while being the antagonist of our lives

- (i havent failed a single math test so far and my average is around 80-90% thanks to her)

- yay we got our internet back from IT after 3 months of radio silence

- colds

- yeah shit sucks with a stuffy nose but hey you cant smell that gross school bathroom smell during this time

- can just jump into the pool, get out of it, and walk around and no one will question seeing you dripping wet

- electricity gets cut, resulting in cool mid day blackouts

- mid term pranks are in full session

Cons:

- the awful bathroom smell

- getting drenched when you're just minding your own business

- people pushing each other out in the rain

- misquitoes

- colds

- malaria is getting rampant

- the school hallways are always wet

- classes are somtimea flooded and our back packs are collateral

- (tho it did result in some classes where all of us are sitting on desk and our teacher took to wearing flipflops and spalshing us when he thinks we arent paying attention)

- leaks and mold

- skywalks are neigh impossible

- black out, internet shortage when that giant project file youre about to turn in gets shut down with the dinosaur on the screen

- misquitoes

- fevers, stuffy noses, the sneezing, feeling gross and very unwell, etc.

- having to leave my poor bike at school while i walk home in a downpour with my tiny umbrealla because my parents wouldnt let me ride

- the street food people dont come by anymore

- srsly i miss those grilled rice papers stuffed to the brim with declious goodness

- the indoor gym drops a few degrees colder and our teachers cant do anything about it

- i swear every kid was shivering because everybody had a cold

- misquitoes

[drabbleswithdragons]

I totally fucked myself for the first 3 weeks of this semester lmao. 18 credit hours plus *four* summer classes at a different place that overlap for 3 weeks...oh joy

[maxkillertart]

i think it's important to remember that love is real and you can always use nasty tricky strategies to get what you want

(translator's note: "nasty tricky strategies" is a reach around way to express the sentiment of "asking for things kindly", and "get what you want" is a mistranslation that gives it a more devious and negative meaning, when in reality it means something softer, along the lines of "things I desire/need for my own happiness")

[dysfunctionalroomba]

But can they fix each other. PLEASE.

fights I would pay to see: sigmund “everyone is attracted to someone” freud vs John “sexual desire is evil and cereal can and will fix it” Kellogg

[fishgirl514]

all done.... that was just risky and painful enough to scare me back into my routine. perfect.

[casualfruit]

I hate when I’m in a SituationTM and people say “omg why didn’t you ask for help” because Here’s The Thing: it literally does not occur to me to ask. At all. Not even in the “I don’t want to bother anyone” way but like. That train never even arrives at the station. Probably because I used to get shamed for needing help so my brain just deleted that option. Like what the fuck do you want me to do.

And it goes for anything. My grades plummet and my profs and parents go “why didn’t you ask for help sooner?” My mental health starts spiraling and my therapist goes “why didn’t you tell me sooner? You know you can call me at any time.” It doesn’t matter what the crisis is, I just have to face it myself because that’s What I Do. I don’t know why I never think to ask for help. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.