Tumgik
#I think it was because it was so cold
spoookytay · 5 months
Text
“You knew I was the Dragon Warrior, you always knew”
“But when Oogway said otherwise, what did you do?”
“What did you do!”
Tumblr media
“NOTHING”
218 notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
2.12 Chimney Begins - 2.09 Hen Begins - 2.16 Bobby Begins Again - 7.04 Buck, Bothered and Bewildered
Tommy's family arc
2K notes · View notes
Tumblr media
#selfie bee#me telling a coworker who I have been working with for 4 months and whose name I do not know about my toenails#i'm sorry Tobias (?? Paul ??) it was the only topic I could come up with after I already told you about the big bird I saw in 8th grade#FRIENDS how are you!! :) how has the new year been so far!!#did you have a lot of snow on christmas!#we did and it was really fun! I had a very bad cold so I just watched the snow from inside but that was good too c:#do you have any plans for the new year?#i always have lot and most of the time I do not do any of them but planning is fun#this year I REALLY want to watch all of Star Trek ヽ(´∇`)ノ#I would also love to learn how to make a handstand#imagine if you could just make yourself upside down#but it is a far away dream because honestly I am not very good at being usual side up most of the time either#but I will try probably at least 2 times to learn it ( ᐛ )#maybe I'll finally finish that website!#new years are good and fun#it's wild to think about how much daily life has changed since last year but I feel just the same :)#who knows what this year will bring!#I hope I don't hit a pheasant with my car#I almost hit a pheasant with my car last year and the pheasant made direct eye contact#I wonder how he is doing today#since that moment I think about pheasants a lot#I knew they were real but I had never seen one#just to know they are out there is a mystical feeling#right know it is raining so all the pheasants might be wet#get dry soon pheasants!!#I don't think I've ever seen a wet bird either#I don't know what do do with all these birds thoughts#also thank you for the person who asked about my skirt!! ( ˊᵕˋ )♡.°⑅#I've finished it and its really really bad#but I love it
7K notes · View notes
carnivorousyandeere · 6 months
Text
A Darling who loses all self-preservation when sleepy. Who would accept being kidnapped by a yandere as long as they one, went to the effort of acquiring their favorite pillows and blankets from their house; and two, are up for cuddles immediately. Probably a yandere’s fluffiest daydream
2K notes · View notes
ohhgingersnaps · 11 months
Text
I'm seeing some frustration over fandom creatives expressing anger or distress over people feeding their work into ChatGPT. I'm not responding to OP directly because I don't want to derail their post (their intent was to provide perspective on how these models actually work, and reduce undue panic, which is all coming from a good place!), but reassurances that the addition of our work will have a negligible impact on the model (which is true at this point) does kind of miss the point? Speaking for myself, my distress is less about the practical ramifications of feeding my fic into ChatGPT, and more about the principle of someone taking my work and deliberately adding it to the dataset.
Like, I fully realize that my work is a drop in the bucket of ChatGPT's several-billion-token training set! It will not make a demonstrable practical difference in the output of the model! That doesn't change the fact that I do not want my work to be part of the set of data that the ChatGPT devs use for training.
According to their FAQ, ChatGPT can and will use user input to train itself. The terms and conditions explicitly state that they save your chats to help train and improve their models. (You can opt-out, but sharing is the default.) So if you're feeding a fic into ChatGPT, unless you've explicitly opted out, you are handing it to the ChatGPT team and giving them permission to use it for training, whether or not that was your intent.
Now, will one fic make a demonstrable difference in the output of the model? No! But as the person who spent a year and a handful of months laboring over my fic, it makes a difference to me whether my fic, specifically, is being used in the dataset. If authors are allowed to have a problem with the ChatGPT devs for scraping millions of fics without permission, they're also allowed to have a problem with folks handing their individual fics over via the chat interface.
I do want to add that if you've done this to a fic, please don't take this as me being upset with you personally! Folks are still learning new information and puzzling out what "good" vs. "bad" use is, from an ethical standpoint. (Heck, my own perspective on this is deeply based on my own subjective feelings!) And we certainly shouldn't act like one person feeding a fic into ChatGPT has the same practical negative impact, on a broad societal scale, as a team using a web crawler to scrape five billion pieces of artwork for Stable Diffusion.
The point is that fundamentally, an ethical dataset should be obtained with the consent of those providing the data. Just because it's normalized for our data to be scraped without consent doesn't make it ethical, and this is why ChatGPT gives users the option to not share data— there is actually a standardized way (robots.txt) for website servers to set policies for how bots/crawlers can interact with them, for exactly this reason— and I think fandom artists and authors are well within their rights to express a desire for opting out to be the socially-respected default within the fandom community.
2K notes · View notes
inkskinned · 1 year
Text
you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.
you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.
instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.
you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.
your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.
because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.
so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.
all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.
#spilled ink#woke up at 530 to write this lmafo#me in a cold sweat:#how do i be normal#edit in the tags:#hey so i've seen y'all talk about like ... wondering if ur ''allowed'' to relate#like if this is about X specific diagnosis#and when i first posted it i really almost labelled it ''please don't assume this is about a specific condition''#because as an artist i am often walking this line of discussing a symptom or discussing my conditions etc#and sometimes yes ! i do want to talk about an experience that is specific to who i am and my condition#but sometimes the effort of the post is about the EXPERIENCE rather than the diagnosis#because yes i am not neurotypical and as a result that influences my work but it is ALSO true that there are many reasons#why someone might experience this particular vague horrible feeling that you are... almost being CHASED by what you ''really'' are.#that you're outrunning your symptoms... that you're not really normal you're just sort of a mockery of a person#.... that's a really isolating and horrible way to feel no matter why you are feeling it. and the nature of this PARTICULAR post is that#it is inherently talking ABOUT that sense of isolation & of feeling not-deserving & of minimizing your own experiences to make urself#palatable for society in a way that others find easy-to-deal-with....#this post is about a certain experience such that my impression is there's a higher likelihood that those who relate#would have more difficulty thinking they ''deserve'' to relate - that it doesn't REALLY belong to them#bc often we are the kind of people who are SO used to being alienated and set aside and ''different'' that we AUTOMATICALLY assume#that things are not ''for'' us... they never have been why would it start now#we are the kinds of people to be ... ''too normal for X diagnosis but too symptomatic to be normal''#[or as this post points out... so good at ''coping''/masking/hiding it that we essentially conform to whatever shape we're poured into]#but i have witnessed others already say in the tags ''thought this was about me but it's about X so it can't be''#and im like ... of course it was about you.#art is not a resource that is diminished by greater appreciation .#you reflect in whatever mirror fits your frame. not just the ones in your bedroom. not just the ones i specifically give you.#there will be - and often are - times that i will talk about my specific conditions... but if you're reading this#regardless of why you're here... we are here together. holding hands through space and time. and i love you for carrying it#and i know you're exhausted. i am too. but i understand. and i see you.
5K notes · View notes
poorly-drawn-mdzs · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media
The girls are plottinggggg
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wen chao#wang lingjiao#Realizing she was supposed to have an upper lip mole was a cold slap in the face. So sorry ma'am. I won't forget again.#They are evil dumbass 4 evil dumbass and I think we are all missing out on the sheer potential of the comedy between these two.#They have way too much power and are using it for the wrong reasons - which makes them truly great villains.#And when things don't go their way they become piles of whining sludge.#Wang Lingjiao is forever fascinating to me even though we only get crumbs about her.#She's a servant girl who's greatest asset is her beauty and her attractiveness.#Meaning she's had a life being in the gaze of people with significant positions of power over her.#I can't help but read her childishness and petty tantrums as someone who has finally been given the chance to not feel powerless.#If she was a more virtuous type we might 'like' her more but honestly...I don't think she would have survived to this point.#WLJ has only known power hierarchies her whole life. Probably accused of seduction before she even understood what that meant.#I love contrasting her with mianmian because they have similar(ish) backgrounds but different approaches to moving forwards#But WLJ's story is about flying too close to the sun and mianmian's is about going too close to the water.#Like the sea mist dragging her down into complacency - all the sect powerplays are mandatory to 'go along with' if she wants to climb-#-the social ladder. Yet she is the cautionary tale (and a foil to JGY as well) she leaves before sacrificing her own morals.#Mianmian flies away with her wings only slightly plucked while those who sacrificed everything to reach for the top crash and burn.
690 notes · View notes
beaft · 1 month
Text
i've been a smoker from the tender age of 17 (almost a decade now!! woah) and recently decided to quit. today marks a full week since my last cigarette... tiny little milestone for me :--)
317 notes · View notes
tobi-smp · 5 months
Text
you know, with hindsight now what it is I really do think a more literal reading of c!techno's chat would have helped his characterization a Lot
and mind you, this was originally intended to be the case, and very well may have been intended all along even if it wasn't usually emphasized within the lore
youtube
and don't get me wrong, I Get why it fell out of favor within the fandom. it coincides with a Very storied ableist trope that demonizes DID and disorders adjacent to it, and Can be spoken about in a way that is essentially indistinguishable from it depending on the word choice.
but the thing is ! not only does it not Have to be an allegory for DID, I straight up don't think it is At All.
because we Know what it's an allegory for. It's His Chat. there's technoblade playing the game, and there's the thousands of people watching with expectations and wants that he's compelled to meet (or, at the very least, pacify through Entertainment).
and this makes much Much more sense when conceived of as Supernatural. be that spirits, gods, demons, or anything that could fill that role. separate entities that, for whatever reason, only techno can sense the presence of and be affected by.
and of course, to an extent this is true for all creators. everyone had an audience that they were meant to entertain and the choices they made were influenced by that fact.
but technoblade came in with a Very distinct set of expectations that heavily impacted the choices he was Expected to make and the kinds of stories that he could tell. he was more or less a living legend in real life just as much as he was in roleplay, and these things were inherently connected.
and it's like !
when c!technoblade says he was peer pressured into killing tubbo at the red festival he Is technically talking about what happened within the roleplay. schlatt was demanding it from him, there's a sort of pressure there. but schlatt was also the dictator they were set to kill, and techno has never had any trouble fighting people he considered a dictator before, and certainly not Schlatt of all people.
but he WAS being peer pressured By His Audience. by thousands of people, most of which were demanding blood Because It Was The Expectation, because it'd be Fun.
out of universe technoblade made the decision he thought would be the most Entertaining, and he was right! consistently he made choices that would let him do the most bombastic Spectacles possible. And It's Great. he's Excellent at pulling dramatics and making a compelling scene that give other people room to work off of. in that sense I'd consider techno an Excellent actor, and I have to imagine that he was fun to work with.
the problem is when you then have to justify it from an in character perspective, grounded in those mushy things like Feelings with characters that can be traumatized and sustain lasting damage, Especially Without acknowledging the out of character incentive.
mind you, it's not Impossible to Create a backstory that could justify it. why a character as consistently powerful and feared as technoblade would feel pressured to kill an ally by someone he not only Can kill but Wanted To Kill. why a character as seemingly secure and in control as technoblade would lash out the way that he does to perceived betrayal, and yet consistently puts no weight onto having killed and permanently scarred an ally that trusted him.
what that'd need is tragedy. a storied history of being hurt and having to survive. building up To an untouchable god from a much much more vulnerable position. Long Lasting trauma that's lead to this deep insecurity and paranoia. and that's Possible and that's Compelling.
but it's just not in the text.
not only did we never learn basically Anything that c!technoblade was up to pre-series, we actually know Less by the end than when we started because of the sbi retconning.
it's a Theoretically Possible interpretation that's technically never Contradicted by canon, but would have to be created by scratch. it's a compelling idea for a fan fic (and one I'd like to read) and it's compelling for a theoretical recontextualization of the character, but it's just not In The Text.
meanwhile, we have the video above.
we have the Objective Fact that technoblade's decision making was often subject to the rule of cool (very Very effectively) to entertain his audience.
and most compellingly, these concepts Don't Need To Be Separate. in fact, in my opinion they're Stronger when you put them together.
because the thing is. it's Difficult to imagine techno as ever being in a vulnerable position. he is just Objectively more powerful than everyone else on the server, both in real life And within the lore. How could he have ever been afraid when he was stronger than anyone and everyone combined? when we saw with our own eyes that techno could face nearly the whole server at once and win.
but he Is a tragic character, at least he's meant to be. and that tragedy makes much Much more sense as something Inward.
technoblade as a character who Needs connection, who Needs stability, who Needs security, who Needs friendship and community and Love. but Lashes Out, Obliterates to the core of the earth, because of something that's not only out of his control but that other people Cannot Understand.
how do you explain to a child that you killed their best friend because a chorus of the undead called for his blood and you (in all the glory that he'd idolized) were unable to do anything but comply? how do you explain to that child that you beat him senseless in a pit as the restless dead jeered and laughed?
That's interesting. That's Compelling.
technoblade is idolized like a god, feared like a force of nature, and in an instant cut himself off from nearly everyone who'd considered him an ally. and that seems to be a pattern, over and over and over again. he's left isolated, and in return he faces retaliation, and in return he's always Waiting for retaliation.
and what do you say to someone who wants to kill you for being a monster? that it's Fine Actually because you only did what you did because you have a curse that compels you to? that the supernatural guided you to destroy their homes and kill their people? (rip jack manifold you will be missed)?
That Doesn't Quite Help Your Case.
technoblade as someone who is beholden to this literal cycle of violence and Loses those things that could ground him, community, stability, People, as a result. who Tries to overcome this very fact (to become a better person, in his own words as per the clip above), but is pulled back into it as a consequence of his own actions.
that's a tragedy !! that Makes Sense. that allows him to be Both this force of nature that other characters have to survive And A Person Who Is Hurt By The Same Conflict.
"I'm a person!" that fear of dehumanization makes So So Much More Sense when you see technoblade as someone who Already fears himself. who fears being a monster, who fears losing control, who has faced isolation again and again and again.
and, importantly, it doesn't have to be anyone else's Fault.
by making the source both Internal and Completely External (something that none of the other characters have any awareness or control over), you can Have techno as a tragic character without demonizing anyone else Or erasing the impact that c!techno had on them.
and in that sense, it Can be an allegory for mental illness, but not in that direct "oooooh how scary he hears voices" kind of way that people fear it looks. but in that sometimes people Will do things that can hurt others while not feeling in control. anger and mania and paranoia, things that you can't always Control and yet that impact that you have on other people still Matters.
and the answer to that is, often, vulnerability and accountability.
I think a lot about technoblade isolating himself so near entirely from the rest of the server, and slowly gathering a support system Back by the end. and I Really Do think that framing of it through this lens is a Very impactful way of breaking it down.
tubbo, tommy, wilbur, ranboo, niki, I think they'd All understand not feeling in control. lashing out, maybe even feeling justified in the moment, but hurting people they care about and furthering their own isolation.
There's Something There, and it's already In The Text. it just needs to be expanded on.
and why not do that ourselves now?
421 notes · View notes
dailynakaharachuuya · 2 months
Text
Tumblr media
Your warmth.
349 notes · View notes
i think tim is high maintenance the way a boarder collie or austrialian shepherd is. like you have to make sure they're not only given space to expend energy but you have to specifically let them get the herding instinct out and challenge them intellectually or they start destroying ur home
399 notes · View notes
scificrows · 9 months
Text
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.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
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.
743 notes · View notes
iicaru2 · 6 months
Text
every single time the full moon comes around akutagawa goes “Is it that time of the month again, Jinko?” to atsushi at some point and it always unfailingly pisses him off to no end
450 notes · View notes
cemeterything · 5 months
Text
Tumblr media
terror codependency chart
362 notes · View notes
dollypopup · 1 month
Text
I think it's interesting to look at the 'Mr. Bridgerton' scene as a backdrop for the eventual mirror scene. Firstly, in the fact that I think we've kind of misinterpreted it.
So many people are of the mind that scene's purpose to 'drag' Colin, but really, that scene has 3 primary functions. The first is to inform Colin that Penelope is aware of what he said of her, thus opening the door to clearing the air between them and providing an avenue for which Colin can apologize. The second is to establish the ground that they are currently on: Penelope has given up on the dream of Colin Bridgerton, in particular the perfect prince that can do no wrong, and has made it clear to him. It also creates distance between them that they will bridge.
But the third, and to me the most wrapped up in the mirror and the inner workings of their relationship is that it reveals how Penelope feels about *herself*. It's not necessarily an echo of what the ton considers her as, after all, we have a lot of evidence indicating that, for all intents and purpose, people aren't *unkind* about her, but rather that they ignore her. Audience members recognize this as Penelope's own shyness being the cause, she is often sitting off on the sidelines or not really talking to much of anyone, in the books she's referred to as the 'one who doesn't speak', and her LW business takes her away from being a character in the action of the ton to a bystander, kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts that perpetuates itself. Pen felt unseen so she became LW to have some power, but then LW herself must remain unseen and Penelope continues to be by design of her own making.
No, I think what it really reveals is that Penelope has incredibly low personal self esteem. We as a fandom has lauded that scene as her dragging Colin, saying that he's cruel and calling him Mr. Bridgerton is absolutely meant to create distance between them, but I don't think she's dragging him.
Because the person she is *actually* dragging here. . .is herself. And it is a general theme in her life. In Whistledown. Aloud. Even with Marina, when she complimented her, she assumes that she's lying. When Edwina says she's wearing a pretty dress, Penelope puts herself down and doesn't believe her, even when the compliment is genuine. In truth, Portia is not seen as being particularly unkind to Penelope. At least, speaking as someone who's mum was *awful* about my size and weight and outfits, Portia is. . .overall rather mild. She's not KIND and loving, not by a long shot, but she's also not targeting Penelope only. She's plenty mean and critical to Prudence, too, even to the point where she foists her off to her own cousin as a pawn piece. Penelope has low self esteem because of a lot of reasons, she's bullied by Cressida (I think a lot of girls are, she was pretty mean even to Daphne in S1) and her family isn't very tender to her, and she's not being pursued at every turn, but part of it is also her own perpetuation.
Listen to what she says "Of course you would never court me" "I embarrass you" "I am the laughingstock of the the ton". She sees *herself* as an embarrassment. She puts *herself* down. Arguably, more so than the ton does. She's meaner to herself than anyone else is, aside from Cressida. And honestly? Looking at Colin's face there. . .he is HURT that she considers herself this way. That she's projecting that onto him. Yes, he's hurt that he hurt her, of course he is, he never wants to hurt her. And yes, he's ashamed that he said he wouldn't court her the way he did and that in doing so, he validated her fears that she is unloved and unwanted, but also because. . .she already feels that way about herself. She's felt that way for years. And it's painful to care about someone, to see them as wonderful, and realize. . .they don't feel the same about themselves at all. I don't think Colin is out here feeling so wounded over the fact that she called him cruel and won't refer to him by first name anymore, but that he's most hurt by what she says about herself.
Because he *doesn't* see her the way she accuses. She says she never expected him of all people to be so cruel, but he feels the same way. He never expected her to be so cruel to *herself*. He wants to go somewhere private, not because she is an embarrassment, but because he wants to have a private conversation with her. Maybe assure her. Maybe explain himself. Maybe hash it out. But god Luke Newton's acting. . .he is *aching* for her. And it feels like he's going to do those lessons not in atonement for what he said (thank god) but to genuinely help his friend who thinks badly of herself. To lift her up. It's not about him at all, not about earning forgiveness, but about elevating Penelope. And that's. . .fuck, I just find that's just so heart stoppingly beautiful.
You can see, in that scene, how much he cares about her. How deeply and genuinely he adores her as a person. And just how painful it is for him to know he has validated, whether on purpose or otherwise, how poorly she feels about herself. How low her self-confidence really is. She is giving him a glimpse into the cracks of her heart, and when he sees them, he wants to reach out with both hands and make it feel better. Make her feel better.
After she says 'even when I change my entire wardrobe', he looks so fucking crushed. So 'don't say that'. So 'you really believe that?'. So 'God, I hate that you think that way'.
Because regardless of it all, he does love her. It's not romantic yet. It's not sexual yet. But he genuinely, truly, from the bottom of his heart, thinks she's wonderful. That was evident even in the 'purpose' scene. Every time Penelope opens up and reveals a facet of herself, he likes it. He likes her barbs and her dreams, he likes talking to her. He likes her. And he feels awful that he hurt her. And he feels awful that she's hurting herself. He loves her. He wants her to love herself.
And that's where the mirror scene comes in. Because the mirror scene isn't about sex, not really. Not entirely, at least. The mirror scene is about *intimacy*. The mirror scene is about being seen. Not just her seeing him, or him seeing her, but for Penelope to see *herself*. In a way, through his eyes. Because hers are biased rather negatively toward herself, which is evidenced in the 'Goodnight Mr. Bridgerton' scene, and in so many little moments we've already gotten where she's literally looking down on herself, feeling down. She doesn't necessarily *like* what's in the mirror, but he does. Because he likes *her*. And he wants to show her that he does. Show her that he finds her beautiful and have her recognize that in herself.
The 'Goodnight Mr. Bridgerton' scene is about Penelope revealing how she sees herself. The mirror scene is about Colin showing her how *he* sees her. The Goodnight scene is about Penelope thinking she means nothing to him, that he thinks of her the way she thinks of herself, that this is how everyone thinks of her, and the mirror scene is a direct response to that: No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't think she's embarrassing. No, he doesn't think she's a laughingstock. No, he doesn't think she's unappealing. And he doesn't think she should, either.
And he's going to show her that. Not just tell her, but show her. The mirror scene is so often a focus on Penelope, so much of Polin is in Penelope's focus, but approaching it from Colin's perspective and his motivations is so fulfilling, too. It's a glimpse into them in conversation, and a demonstrate of how Colin loves her. How Colin loves in general, openly and earnestly and altruistically. How he encourages her to be braver and more confident in herself, bolstering her because he just likes her *that much*. How he finds the most fulfillment and satisfaction in caring aloud. The mirror scene is a demonstration of his heart in reflection.
When Luke Newton said the first word that came to mind with the word 'Mirror' was 'Exposed', he doesn't just mean physically. He means emotionally, too.
God this couple is so fucking good.
296 notes · View notes
Text
So one trope in spirk fanfiction (haven’t checked with other pairings tbh) is Kirk agreeing ahead of time to help with Spock’s next (or first if it’s aos) pon farr
Yet, what a lot of those fics don’t have is those two getting a preliminary bond, which you think they would cause isn’t that pretty much the whole purpose of those bonds “hey unless something changes I’m willing to help with your pon farr” ?
So I was thinking about that and now I’m just laughing at it being a slippery slope
Kirk: Don’t worry about it, Spock, I’ll help out
Spock: Then we’ll need a preliminary bond
Kirk: Okay
Spock: Which many Humans view as an engagement
Kirk: Okay?
Spock: So out of respect for you, I will procure us some rings
Kirk: …You don’t have t-
Spock: To make sure you are absolutely safe, however, I think a full bond would be more logical
Kirk: Okay??
Spock: So of course, we must be married, I will send out the invites
Kirk:
Spock: It is only logical, captain
Kirk:
Kirk: I want a spring wedding
1K notes · View notes