#two ends of the fucking spectrum

[cult-of-the-eye]

ok listen I'm used to my podcast men being pathetic and incapable of making decisions arthur lester therefore is fucking WHIPLASH

[wawataka]

made these edits for the age swap au. dies

[no1ryomafan]

Randomly thinking about how the Getter team is obviously human, they are *not* normal but they are still humans who can die, and we see in most series at least one cast member is always killed off-

But sometimes in my mind I deny that they can actually die. Like, the amount of shit Ryoma and Hayato have survived is fucking insane, especially when you consider the only canon they die is the manga timeline which even THEN saids a lot.

Ryoma was absorbed into the Getter which is still a death but also because of how emperor is he’s most DEFINITELY been cloned by now even if we don’t see him, and Hayato only really got confirmed dead in arc anime, but who’s to say now that he’s been absorbed into the Getter too now technically the same wouldn’t happen to him? And this also doesn’t even count it happened for Musashi even if it’s the most fucked up.

But putting aside the insanity of the manga timeline for a second, most of Ryomas fate don’t even end up with him dead even if you could argue hes in purgatory in a sense, the arma ending is more vague but he likely lived but new? As painful as it is he is still ALIVE and kicking ass even if we only see it for a frame.

At this point the Getter Team is immortal but not in the traditional sense, just immortal in “the narrative will keep me alive in various different ways and my god even if I suffer I’ll make use out of it” way.

[otgfmybeloved]

so. episode 7 huh.

[sodaf]

being mentally ill is so cool

[vigilskept]

23 for dinara AND tavian? 👀

23. would rook and inquisitor be on good terms? would they like or not be able to stand each other? secret third thing?

this is vigilskept.tumblr.com so you know its always going to be some secret third option 👍

inquisitor lavellan is pretty much a mythical figure to tavian when they meet. she's done so much is the thing, not only for the dalish but also for city elves in the south and the enslaved in tevinter. she never claimed the title of andraste's herald, but it's hard to see her as anything else.

abra likes most of what she's heard about tavian from harding and varric, so she doesn't really hold that attitude against him. he seems like a sweet kid, and she genuinely feels bad that this has all fallen on his head because she couldn't find a way to talk solas out of this in the last decade.

so it's distant, but overall positive for the early part of their relationship. they do get closer eventually, but it takes a few months to get to that point.

the catalyst is really when abra kind of collapses into the chair across from tavian in one of their later meetings, and it finally clicks for him that yes, she did do all those things, but she's also just a person. she's picked back up the mantle of inquisitor and she's fighting, but she's so tired. this is wearing on her badly.

meanwhile in the other worldstate.... wildly different vibes going on.

inquisitor trevelyan is dinara's contractor, so it's a professional relationship by default. she's expects him to be cold at best, so she's actually pretty thrown off when he bothers to be friendly during their meetings. doesn't know what to make of it since harding and varric clearly don't like him.

and sander... doesn't dislike dinara, exactly. he might even have liked her under different circumstances. he doesn't hold varric's death against her (he holds it against varric) and he doesn't really have any complaints about how she's managing things in his place.

what he does hold against her is her connection to solas. the fact that he's bothered to talk to her or cooperate with her at all is maddening to him. this becomes increasingly obvious to dinara as the months wear on and the polite facade starts to slip away.

it's confusing to her at first because she can't make sense of his reactions. then the ex-situationship angle of it all finally clicks and she's straight up catatonic for a day. oscillating wildly between shock/horror/rage/despair. these are the worst kinds of contracts and that's without the world literally falling apart.

veilguard ask game

[crimeronan]

watching alfie become catastrophically enamored with lunter over the course of thanks to them was so fucking funny i LOVE showing toh to new people. everyone gets something slightly different out of it. and it is Literally Always Hilarious.

[isabelleadjani]

hate to break it to yall but a lot of kids who were designated as gifted in like elementary school in fact did absolutely not fit easily into the school system. in fact, that difficulty with the system is often the very reason they get the label gifted in the first place.

[adraveins]

champing at the bit to go full mind flayer in BG3 because the problem with D&D-esque non-human races is that they aren't non-human enough. this goes for D&D and Pathfinder and Pillars of Eternity and TES etc (with a few notable exceptions). "just a person but with different features/proportions" fuck off and let me play a squid face. let me play a cloud of sentient light or some shit. my god

[moe-broey]

The Amy comparison is actually gonna drive me sicko insane like. At First I was ABSOLUTELY imagining Ratatoskr like movie Sonic spying on Tom and Maddie and eventually (after many antics) getting forcefully adopted. But the Amy comparison is actually driving me SOOOOOOO INSANE BEYOND any superficial level bc of Classic Amy's entire fucking backstory. Idk I haven't been deeply autistic about the Sonic series in a hot minute but she literally foretold her meeting with Sonic, her idol, and first thing she does is hug him and come on WAY too strong (Sonic CD) and LITERALLY. OPENING CUTSCENE. LITERALLY WHAT RATATOSKR DOES. TO ALFONSE

Which like to be super fucking clear I'm insane about it in an aromantic way where like I'm p sure a part pf Amy's lore is she has severeee abandonment issues which is why she dreams of true love and why she comes on SO strong w Sonic who's both an idol and a love interest but if you're Insane you could read it as the romanticization of romance itself anf Sonic is just the face she puts to it. Because she does geniuenly look up to and respect him.

And like the comparison IS very loose and there is so much more going on here w Ratatoskr and with Alfonse, together and separately. I'm just trying to parse out the dynamic while also still avoiding a romance here bc I'm not interested in that angle. Mostly cause I can't really see Alfonse ever returning any romantic feelings Ratatoskr could have, and also I am absolutely fascinated more by the angle that Alfonse is an idol to her that may Look like a crush. Also I just stilll think yhe mistranslation was so fucking funny I am still so diehard about the possibility of them ultimately being siblings. Man who cannot stop collecting sisters. Sisters Georg

[foxxsong]

Man, I get wanting to shit on homeschooling conservatives about trying to brainwash their kids or whatever and I'm sure that happens in some cases, but this pervasive idea that homeschooling is always a red flag HAS to go.

You know what my family did to try and ensure I was only exposed to the "right" topics in the "right" way? Send me to private school. You know what other families with conservative or religious agendas did to ensure their kids would only experience what they approved of at school? Sent them to a fucking private school. Even the families that did not have NEARLY enough money to properly justify private education did it because of how much they wanted to ensure their kid was only exposed to their values.

You know what caused my parents to finally start considering homeschooling for me and my brother? When our disabilities made attending an actual school too difficult or even impossible. The other cases of people I've known or met who were either homeschooled or homeschooling their kid(s) were pretty much exclusively cases where it was detrimental to the CHILD to be attending in-person schooling.

Conservatives have options to continue sending their kids to school while still teaching them only what they want. Disabled kids and their families? Often homeschooling is the only way to keep their kid in school while also valuing their health.

If I had kids I'd sure as hell prefer to homeschool. I couldn't finish my high school diploma because I know firsthand how little our education system gives a shit about the health, well-being, and reasonable milestones of its students (and it's only gotten worse since I dropped out). You can give a child a good education on their terms while also letting them have experiences for growth and meeting a wide variety of people without having to rely completely on a system that does not care about them. And the idea that people would be suspicious of me? Just for not wanting to subject my kids to the hell I and other people like me have gone through? Pisses me off.

[amplexadversary]

I don't know how effective it would be for anyone else, but I think it's helpful to think of genre-requisite pacifists (you know, your Stevens, your Aangs, even your Doctors Who) as characters that, in-universe, just wouldn't be able to handle that kind of violence psychologically without becoming incapable of addressing the threat at all.

Hell, some shows do provide some amount of explanation along those lines. Pretty sure Avatar does (Aang is from a culture of pacifists, fucking with that would at least set off a trauma arc), and any part of Doctor Who where the Time War is relevant definitely has it as subtext.

This requires some amount of engaging in good faith, of course, but tying the pacifism thing into the idea that exists in any fiction where 'there are some things that a character is capable of and there are other things that they are definitely not capable of' can reduce that annoyance to a manageable degree.

i dont agree with a lot of the posturing against people who only watch kid's cartoons because it feels mean-spirited. like if you want to do that it's cool and i don't think you're committing some moral or intellectual sin--but it is very silly when people who do this forget that they're watching cartoons for children, not in a 'you can't expect children's media to be good' way or even a 'the politics of children's media aren't worth analyzing way' but in a 'you have to be realistic about genre expectations' way. because that's how you end up with arguments over whether steven universe should have killed people or not

[darkartistyt]

yeah ok at this point if you have "proship" or "anti-anti" in your dni im blocking you

[ravenwolfie97]

i now understand how dangerous soju could be

[musashi]

i want more nuance to be entered into the discussion of the green girl sorority and how differently cynthia plays elphaba in comparison to those who came before her because while a lot of people are rightfully like "why was elphaba not black from the beginning" and celebrating that she is now being played by a black woman, i think we need to be careful in just writing off all the elphabas of the past as Random White Girls when the role was championed (and often followed/succeeded) by a jewish woman

the pop culture archetype of the Wicked Witch has deep roots in antisemitism stretching faaaar far back. there is a level of reclamation happening in casting idina menzel, a jewish woman, to play the Misunderstood and Maligned young girl who is branded as exactly that. and stage!Elphaba is also written and acted with jewish stereotypes in mind--she is loud, aggressive, no-nonsense, blunt. she is quick to advocate for herself and shut down the discrimination she faces. all of this is very intentional! her personality is abrasive from years of abuse, and that makes propagandizing her easy. this is literally the thesis statement of the musical--it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed.

cynthia's performance of elphaba is fucking INSPIRED despite going in a completely different direction. she's much more reserved, analytical, one of her key character traits is how well she can read people (see her calling out Galinda as insecure/putting on airs in their first scene together, clocking that Fiyero is using his party guy persona as a shield for his own depression) elphaba's attempts to blend in and make herself smaller all fail simply because of her existence, if not that then because she feels empathy so strongly she often struggles to hold back from acting, protecting.

personality wise, though, cynthia's elphaba is very quiet and closed-off, not at all the bullet-to-the-face that she is in the stage show, and... she still gets propagandized and maligned. though this seems to contradict the other interpretation, it tells of the other end of the spectrum of propaganda, one that black women watching (and many, MANY other marginalized folks) are sure to identify with--it does not matter how "nice," how reserved, how small a black woman makes herself. a racist society will still scrutinize her every action for a way to parse ill intent from it, brand her as an angry black woman who is dangerous and wicked, and write off any humanity she has in the process.

these two very different interpretations tell of the lie of assimilation. the fact of the matter is, when you are marginalized, there is no way to sand down your edges enough to make the people oppressing you "accept" you. that is why wicked is a tragedy at its core. whether loud and aggressive or quiet and unimposing, there is nothing elphaba could have done to make the people of Oz see her as anything other than a scapegoat to blame all their problems on.

so while i definitely appreciate that people are excited for black girl era elphaba, i would encourage us all to still show appreciation for what came before--that was not white girl era elphaba. that was jewish girl era elphaba. two houses, both alike in dignity, two stories both worth being told.

[inbabylontheywept]

I used to do cross country in high school, and there was this guy on the team that was wonderful. Great guy. But his advice to everyone that asked how to get good was to run 20k a day.

If you don't run, I'll just tell you, most people's bodies cannot take that kind of abuse. No matter how much you train, you will not be able to run 20k a day. It's like how you can't train to make your cuts heal faster. You recover as fast as you recover. So while a big part of what made this guy so succesful was the dedication and mental toughness needed to actually run 20k a day, an equally big part was that he healed like fucking Wolverine. And that's fine, but it would've been nice if he knew that and stopped telling new guys to commit suicide by jogging.

Different guy on the team ran like, 5-6k a day, which actually isn't all that much. His problem when he gave advice was that he didn't really get that 5-6k a day doesn't generally produce elite results for most people. He was lucky in the sense that he didn't have to work all that hard to get great results, and unlucky in the sense that if he pushed himself much further than that, he fell apart.

I think about those two whenever I get advice from succesful people. The very things that make them outliers also make their advice useless to most people. Worse, they're often outliers on totally separate ends of the same spectrum, so their advice will be contradictory.