there is something so insanely poetic about abed being scared of change / the inevitable parting of ways for the study group in the first episode of season 4, and jeff's fear of leaving / the possibility of becoming who he was before greendale in the last episode of season 4.
the fact that by the end of the first episode of season 4, it's 3 levels of a fabricated/daydreamt "Winger speech" in abed's head that pulls him back to not only reality, but the acceptance that graduating/leaving is going to be okay in the end. jeff was the one who grounded him and made him feel okay with moving on, even though it was a fake one in his head. the thought of jeff comforting him and giving him support alone was enough to make him confident again in the semester.
i think this sense of comfort for abed stems from the 'my dinner with andre' homage episode. probably because abed learned more about jeff, and you can see the exact second that he realizes their conversation is more real than expected when jeff dumps his phone in the water. (you know, that thing he spends hours pretending to text on so that his friends don't see him for who he is? so he can avoid being vulnerable?) jeff was vulnerable to abed and abed didn't know how to deal with that in the moment. he realized that he meant a greater deal to jeff than he had initially thought. when they have their moment at the bar after the dinner, abed is visibly worried that jeff doesn't want to be his friend anymore because of the homage (his fist below the bar on his lap is tense and relaxes the second that jeff smiles at him), until jeff tells him "i don't need you to grow or change." a season and a half later, this is still what keeps abed grounded regarding his relationship to jeff. that's why when a voluntary change on jeff's side came by, he didn't know how to deal with it (plotwise, friendship wise, the future of the school year). it's imaginary jeff who reassures him, once again, that no matter what happens, everything is going to be okay between them.
and then it gets even prettier when you think about jeff's perspective.
at the beginning of s4 e13, jeff confides in britta about his anxiety of graduating and leaving greendale, and what that would mean for "everybody else", in particular abed. throughout the entire episode, we have no stable answer as to whether any of the plot (the dark timeline) is real or not, especially with the chaos of the remedial theory episode until towards the end, during the dark study group v our study group paintball fight. here, its abed who reveals to jeff that this is all just a daydream and in his own head. it's not abed who is scared of change, not anymore, its jeff himself. he's scared of reverting back to who he was, four years ago, before meeting his friends and becoming a compassionate person. abed is the one to give him that motivational push this time and encourage him to fight his own fears head on. abed is the one who gives him the heads up of it all being okay.
its an exact mirroring of how jeff helps abed in his own imagination, and both see the other as a comfort for the uncertainty of the future. it's so amazing, especially when you think about how it's jeff who is having these "dark timeline" daydreams in a moment of emotional insecurity, much like abed did earlier in season three. even in the remedial chaos theory episode, it's abed who stops jeff from rolling the die to see who picks up the pizza. jeff thinks the same thing would happen this time for the graduation, but he stops himself after abed's imaginary speech.
there's a lot of bullshit with season 4 and people disliking it, calling it "the gas leak year" both on screen and off, but i thought the relationship of jeff and abed is so important here for the most part. i still haven't gone past episode 1 of season 5, mainly because after the end of the 1st one i got so upset that i didnt watch it open netflix for 3 days, and because my sister just started watching it! so i would rather just watch alongside with her from the start of s1 and lead up to beginning s5 and 6 with her.
a lot of this can also be read platonically/unromantically too, i just personally love their relationship a lot and find them underrated. they are so clearly two sides of the same coin and mirror each other in more ways than the others; even their falling out towards the end of the show where abed becomes more of a jaded cynic to jeff's protagonist role, while jeff becomes a more self-loathing depressed bastard. i know i havent gotten to s5 or 6 yet, but i've seen scenes and read things about their relationship then. not really a fan, but whatever.
tldr; jeff and abed are each other's comfort people and it's explicitly shown various times within the show, but most notable in season four; with abed's imaginary winger speech drawing him out of anxiety of the future, and jeff's imaginary abed speech drawing him out of the anxiety of graduating.
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Kinda unfair/or unpredictable question but do you think at some point in the next books Jaime and Daenerys will interact to a higher degree? Or better question -- do you think that's a good idea? Jaime has so much personal trauma with the Targaryen family, it feels like it may be realistic to have a meaningful conversation with Dany. (If he's surviving his current predicament which I think he will :P) Though maybe it'd just be beneficial for Jaime, and Dany is not interested in dwelling on it
and i find it interesting that this jape is in the chapter where all this significant rhaegar talk happens:
all this could mean nothing, and these things are hard to predict, and i think the show especially offers very little in this regard considering how much the stories of these two in specific were shifted in certain directions, so this is all i am gonna say anon: i do think the set up for an interaction can be interpreted from the text. dany is “rhaegar returning” in some form, so maybe there is more to that “talk that never was” than just tragic irony. when and how and exactly what it would mean for them at that point? idk. i just think jaime (and only jaime, as he would likely be the last living “monster from viserys’ stories about RR” by that point: not only was jaime kept closer bc he was a hostage, but barristan doesn’t really dwell on rhaella’s abuse, and it is possible that he will not live to be the one to communicate the extent of the ‘real aerys’ to dany, he was dancing around it in the text so far thats fs + brienne knows about the wildfire plot but that would be significantly less personal, same with the pieces just being put together after KL goes up in flames imo, which they likely will be, but i just think it would be missing that ‘personal layer’) holds information that dany does want to learn, and him telling her could bring a lot of things full circle for them as characters (+dany and rhaella have a number of parallels, and i do think that piece of information for example, as painful as it is, would hold significance to her and her understanding of her family other than just a form of closure, especially relating to a major theme concerning the downfall of house targaryen and the abuse and oppression the women faced from their male counterparts following jaehaerys’s rule, the dance, complete patriarchal hegemony etc. and that whole downfall did culminate in aerys and everything he represents, and her experience with viserys is also an extension of all that). idk if jaime is meant to confess the wildfire/kingslayer thing in specific to anyone other than brienne (from a more thematic perspective), but who knows, especially if he does live past a KL going down in flames scenario, which is possible because there is a set up for him wielding widow’s wail which is there rn. the whole rhaegar motif in jaime chapters was always something that i found interesting (i have a very specific interpretation of a parallel/anti-parallel with the children that i think is actually unrelated to dany/jon etc, but i am too lazy to get into that right now.) but yeah he is the pov character with the second most mentions of rhaegar by name in the text as he is a key manifestation of guilt, the first one being dany obviously. if not, then george has bran + magic to get that info to dany ig. we will see in like 20 years lol
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I think today is the first time I've ever been told that I've tried really hard to advocate for myself. I'm very anxious and sometimes I can't speak (which may be related to my autism? not sure), so I always feel like part of the reason people treat me the way they often do is because I don't advocate for myself properly or "enough".
But my therapist told me today that he thinks it sounds like I've tried really hard and in proper ways too. I'm just dealing with lowkey shitty people. (He didn't say the last part but I think its true and also his face is kind of expressive so I don't think he'd disagree.)
I've never heard that before though and it feels good? to hear? Part of me knows that even if I was the world's shittiest self-advocate, I wouldn't deserve any of this but hearing that I'm not is still reassuring in a way I didn't know I needed. I'm not absurdly bad at telling people what I need or setting boundaries; people just aren't listening to me.
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personally i dont think karen using ziggs correct pronouns is like proof the chasitys r like so awesome and chill abt trans ppl like . legit feel like they arent like everyones entitled to their opinions on it yk ofc but imo it kinda takes away from the commentary of the harm of fundamentalist xtian views esp when they r canonically homophobic ones and ones clearly based in like. gender roles to act like transphobia isnt part of those harmful views yk but like i do have my own takes on those lines in hatchet town being. number 1 the kindaa boring one lol is that the songs in the show are non diagetic yk so its kinda like when ur telling a story abt ur friend whos nonbinary and like their mom or whoever is transphobic or theyre not out to her nd u have to mention smth their mom said abt them in the story but its not at all relevant to the story tht theyre closeted to her or she doenst respect their identity and like regardless u dont wanna deadname nd misgender ur friend so ur gonna say it like she was using the right name and pronouns assuming ur talking to someone theyre out to right. what im saying is the meta narrative (and also team starkid bc i suspect the real not in universe reason is they didnt wanna misgender both the character and their actor whos actually non binary which is like rly valid nd fair yk like esp in the instance of the simple hatchet town cameo irrelevent to any other hypothetical commentary i think itd feel less like an actual commentary on transphobia and more like. just pointless and somewhat transphobic in an of itself yk) is ziggs friend in this analogy and its not going misgender them even if it is repeating something karen said thank you very much ! and number 2 the less boring one is that ziggs nonbinary swag is so powerful tht the transphobes of hatchetfield dont know how to misgender them so theyre forced to respect their identity bc they dont know how to disrespect it lol
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Me explaining Anubis' weighing of the heart:
Someone: ok but the Heart is obviously gonna be heavier than a feather, so like [vaguely gestures] V:
Me: y..yes. [literally just stops there].
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Me rn, after like half a year: Why, yes, if we go by "logic" or "common sense". I guess you just accepted with no problem that there are Furry Gods with makeup and clothes doing all this work for the humans half their size in the Afterlife <- sth that inherently has no explanation nor confirmed "logic" either.
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