#it was like losing a real person

[zeb-z]

There’s something so important about Gillion - who never heals himself, who rushes into danger, who hides his wounds- facing death and realizing he isn’t unafraid as he was raised to be. He uses his magic on himself to help with the exhaustion, to keep his life intact. And still he tries to comfort Jay and Chip while he’s coherent, being realistic about his chances but refusing to make it painful. Wanting their possible last moments to be light, to be about seemingly inconsequential things, small favorites that still mean the world to him purely because they’re Chip and Jay’s favorites. And then when all is said and done, he makes a raccoon for Jay. He talks about raspberries for Chip. He uses his last saved up arcane energy to try desperately to stay awake, and it works, and it saves him in the final hour.

It’s just. There’s something about how he hasn’t had a chance to rest since the Feywild, really, truly rest. How this whole time he’s been down on himself and taking extreme risks. And now, at what might be the end of it all, he realizes he doesn’t want to die. He wants to live. And not to be able to save others, not to fulfill his destiny, not out of obligation to anyone else - but purely for himself. For all the little things. And though it’s not quite healing in the literal term, his nearly final act was spent trying to save himself - and it worked.

#tw again for tags I’ll say and let me know if I gotta tag any more #but the past 30 episodes have been gillion tidestrider gets the shit beat out of him by the narrative #gillion tidestrider faces passive suicidality and faces old trauma and fresh new trauma #he goes through a shift of his foundation as a person he loses his sister the whole filipe thing and then this Curse #and he goes through with a mindset of ‘these problems exist because I do’ with some heavy implications behind that #it’s been getting easier and easier to choose his own destiny and break from expectations but it’s still not easy #but facing real death. slow and creeping and painful. he realizes he wants to live #not live because destiny demands it but because his friends do. because he does. because he wants to know more and share more of himself #I just. there’s something about all of it yknow #jrwi riptide 98 #jrwi 98 #jrwi #jrwi riptide #gillion tidestrider #z speaks #at what point should I start tagging spoilers like. 100 maybe?

[words-writ-in-starlight]

You could say that I have strong feelings about this ongoing debate

#critical role #we can all have coffee on Ludinus' grave and debate the nature of morality until we're blue in the face. but priorities. #cr spoilers #bell's hells #HHHHHHH false dichotomies are not a friend #the choice is not a binary Gods Or Predathos #and you should not pick Predathos just because you don't like the other option!!!!! #anyway i have uhhhh 15 memes that i made tonight because that is who i am as a person #also. also. hey. guys. everybody. #if your philosophical debate is leading you to go 'idk maybe the murderers are onto something' #boy HOWDY you better have the information to back that up! #the thing is I'm not mad this devate is happening i think it's very realistic that people would get caught up in this debate given the given #i have just painstakingly cultivated the ability to have an argument and i have strong feelings about rhetoric #[bangs on a pot lid with a spoon] CONSIDER ALL ANGLES BEFORE YOU DOUBLE DOWN ON A POSITION #if you're curious #yes i am EXACTLY like this in a real life argument i have been told i am infuriating to argue with #both because of my love of Sources and because of my need to be absolutely dead sure of something before i get in a fight about it #which have the annoying tendency to make me like. not lose a lot of fights.

[antianakin]

There is exactly one criticism that I agree with my, very anti-Jedi, cousin on and that's the Jedi were TERRIBLE Generals. Generals may TRY to make sure their men mostly come back. But useless sacrifices are not only acceptable, but expected, the men are mostly expandable in war. The Jedi did not consider sacrifices like that acceptable or expected. Sure it did happen. It was WAR. But they tried their best to make sure it DIDN'T. The Jedi were terrible Generals. But they were the teachers and Leaders the CLONES NEEDED.

I'm not sure I'd ENTIRELY agree with that. I think I'd be willing to agree that the Jedi were perhaps less CONVENTIONAL Generals, and they definitely do seem to at least TRY to place the lives of their men above just tossing them away for an easy victory, but you can just as easily claim that keeping the men alive to keep fighting is a good strategy in and of itself.

The biggest piece of evidence I'd point to that the Jedi were actually perfectly good Generals is the Citadel arc and Tarkin's criticisms. The one real criticism he makes of the Jedi as military leaders is that they're occasionally too soft and will abandon a mission if it looks impossible to win without near total casualties (on either side). But he's generally fairly positive about the Jedi and if they were truly awful at their jobs, I don't think TARKIN of all people would hold back on saying so, even to the Jedi's faces.

And we DO see the Jedi willing to make sacrifices and accepting that this is a necessary part of war. The Citadel arc is, again, a perfectly good example of this. Obi-Wan and Anakin go in with like 3-4 men each I think and they come back with a grand total of 3 (Rex, Cody, and Fives). A LOT of clones die on this mission that they all KNEW was basically a suicide mission because the Jedi themselves decided that getting the information about the hyperspace lanes was vital enough to the war that it was worth losing multiple lives over (including their own).

So it's not that the Jedi don't understand that sacrifices are necessary in war or even that they avoid it entirely, they just avoid what they see as UNNECESSARY sacrifice for what might amount to a fairly minor victory. Keeping more of their men alive might, in the long run, be a better strategic choice than losing all of them on one campaign, especially if it's over like one uninhabited moon or something like that. There's nothing to say that the losses the Jedi deem acceptable are things that would've changed the entire tide of the war had they chosen to push forward instead.

The other good evidence that the Jedi acting this way would've been the WORSE choice is the Umbara arc. We are told and then see that Krell IS the kind of General who is willing to lose a lot of clones in order to gain victories in battle, and the clones do recognize that he has a lot of victories under his belt. But never once do they discuss whether those victories really MEANT anything or had a large impact on the war effort. It certainly never seems that the Republic is majorly pushing back the Separatists because of Krell's victories, nobody ever mentions that Krell gained them a major advantage with those victories or took out anyone of any consequence on the Separatist side with his strategies. And by the time he gets to Umbara, he's explicitly using this strategy to WEAKEN the Republic side and cause a loss. Several of his strategies WOULD'VE meant the Republic lost on Umbara and it's only the clones utilizing different strategies that put fewer of them at risk that they actually end up continuing to HAVE victories at all.

I'll also point out that the Jedi continuously getting their men killed en masse would've bankrupted the Republic a LOT earlier because they'd have to be paying for more clones a LOT more often than they did in canon and I can't imagine anyone would've considered that a particularly sound strategy and at some point I'm sure the Senate would've felt obligated to put a stop to it anyway and insisted on strategies that kept more clones alive for longer. So I'm not sure it's fair to claim the Jedi were utilizing BAD strategy by not just exclusively using tactics that meant most of their men were killed for every single victory.

So the ONLY criticism we EVER see of the Jedi's ability as military leaders is Tarkin claiming they're "too soft" and Tarkin is the kind of person who would likely say that until the Jedi started carpet bombing entire Separatist planets. Would it give them a victory? Yeah, sure, maybe, but that's the exact same strategy the Separatists are using and look how well that works out for THEM. Everything else we ever see seems to showcase that the Jedi are in fact perfectly good Generals, not just in that they're kind to the clones and are unwilling to carpet bomb Separatist planets, but also because they're just... good at this. They CAN be strategic, they CAN run wars if they want to. And I think that's the whole point of the Jedi in some ways is that yes, they CAN make war when they need to, they just actively choose NOT TO every time they can. THIS is why Qui-Gon tells Padme that he and Obi-Wan are there to protect her but that they can't win this war for her and they end up going off to fight off a Sith while Padme has to actually win the war with her own people and the Gungans instead. The Jedi don't WANT to be in the position of doing nothing but fighting, but they're absolutely capable of this kind of work.

That's the tragedy of the war in some ways, the Jedi ARE good at this no matter how much they wish they weren't sometimes. But being good at it means they can actually protect the Republic, their own men, and even the Separatist civilians better, so they're not going to just sit there and do things that will screw over a bunch of people. Yes, they're going to fight the war in such a way that they reduce casualties as much as possible, but reducing casualties also requires doing enough to not LOSE the damn war, too. It's a delicate balance they're trying to hold on to and I'd argue they manage it better than anybody else would've ever done in their position.

#star wars #jedi #pro jedi #clones #clone troopers #the clone wars #listen i am not a strategist #i CERTAINLY am not a military strategist #but just looking at what we're shown and told by tcw and the films i think it's fairly the clear the jedi were GOOD at being generals #regardless of whether they LIKED that or not #yes they wanted to protect the clones but they weren't idiots and they clearly weren't causing the republic to lose all the time either #there's a difference between strategically retreating from battles that can only be won by massive casualties with little to no reward #and prioritizing saving the clones OVER necessary victories in the war #the jedi are doing the former to my perspective #if they weren't i think the republic would've been a lot worse off just in general #unless we're about to start claiming that the clones and/or civilian officers were doing all of the real work instead of the jedi #which i personally would not #esp since we see the jedi sitting there going over battle plans and coming up with their own strategies quite often #tarkin's opinion on the matter is suspect - don't take his word for it when he says the jedi are too soft

[thatcoyperson]

JOEL ON HERMITCRAFT JOEL ON HERMITCRAFT JOEL ON HERMITCRAFT JPOEL ON HERMITCRAFT JOEL ON HERMITCRAFT JOEL ON HERMITCRAFD JOEL OIN-

#IM LITERALLY GOING INSANE #IOM GONNA LOSE IT #HES REAL #IM GONNA BE THE WORST PERSON ERVER ABOUT THIS SO SORRY IN ADVANCE TO EVERYONE WHO NEEDS TO DEAL WITH ME #BEING LIKE THIS #HDSGFSHJGFDJHGFJSH #IM ACTUALLY GOING INSANE #smallishbeans #joel smallishbeans #hermitcraft #hermitcraft 10 #coy talks too much

[jimmyandthegiraffes]

Where’s that post I made about Mike being the companion that broke under the horrors bc I’m still right. When I think abt the THINGS some companions have had to endure and have still seemingly been fine, and then I think of mike losing himself and his values to a festering psychological wound that left him open to radicalisation, it’s like he is the evidence that actually everything isn’t fine.

Which is why it’s so important that he should be next seen in meditation, in the seeking of peace, in quietness and healing because not only is he a character that needs it he’s also a character that knows he needs it and seeks it out for himself, because he doesn’t recognise who he is anymore and he wants, not to redeem himself in the eyes of others (he won’t even go near UNIT, not even when he needs their help, he goes through Sarah Jane instead!), but to become a better person, to stop being a threat, and to heal for his own soul’s sake.

And so he goes from someone who was willing to see the entirety of human history erased, to someone who will risk his life for one person and the fact that that ultimately saves his life always imo comes across as a bit easy if you watch planet of the spiders without this context in mind. But when you do think about where Mike has been, psychologically, from the green death through to planet of the spiders, it doesn’t seem easy at all but actually a significant if understated character moment.

#mike yates #waxing lyrical about my blorbos in the middle of the night #but for real mikes healing arc is SO much to me #I think one of the crucial things about the green death is firstly that the doctor asks him to go back #like I genuinely think Mike would not have been as traumatised by his experiences as he was if he hadn’t IMMEDIATELY been forced back into #the traumatic situation #and the second thing is that Jo leaves at the end #mike is straight up NOT having a good time #like he goes through an extremely traumatic event and then has to immediately reexpose himself to it without any chance to process what happ #ened to him #and then he loses one of his best friends almost immediately afterwards #ESPECIALLY since jo would be the person MOST likely to understand what he is going through #and they both know that #the first day they met Jo was manipulated into attacking her friends by a power beyond her own will #which is exactly what has just happened to Mike #and Mike witnessed All of that so he knows. he KNOWS that jo would understand #but he can’t talk to her about it because she’s getting married and leaving

[imminent-danger-came]

Actually thinking about MK as a mirror (which is so real to me), I think 2x10 and 4x07 are really good examples of this,

Like we have both MK and Wukong who are sitting criss-crossed and facing each other, except MK is surrounded and supported by his friends, while Wukong is alone.

Then in 4x07, MK mirrors the curse:

"You can see it, can't you? This is your fate—your friends will turn on you, seeing you for the monster you will become!"

They're both on their knees, and the curse is insisting that eventually, MK will be in this exact some position (which is very exciting foreshadowing).

I just think it's neat that MK distinctly mirrors both Wukong and the curse.

#I haven't talked about MK as a mirror in a while but like #God it's so real #MK is our mirror memory battery patchwork monkey boy! #lmk #lego monkie kid #lmk MK #lmk parallels #Idk this is why he has to be more than just something made out of Wukong's stone right #There's just so much extra bullshit that I'm like. Girl what ARE you #I would like to thank 4x11 personally for having the scroll emanate from MK a second time #Because I noticed it in 4x02 but I thought I was crazy #BUT IT WAS REAL #I would also like to thank 4x11 for having the broken memories flicker like MK does. I'm losing my mind

[americankimchi]

tcw is so good at introducing us to characters and bite-sized stories that capture our attention and so, SO bad at following even a modicum of logic when it comes to the consequences of actions under military law

#personal #or just anything with the military in general #their organizational structure is in SHAMBLES #also anakin ALONE should've been written up for like half the shit he's pulled #like what do you MEAN you didn't wipe the extremely sensitive data off your astromech droid because you didn't want to. checks notes. #''POTENTIALLY risk wiping r2's personality even though not doing so DEFINITELY risks the lives of at minimum thousands of personnel across #the entire GAR''??????? #AND THEN LOSE THAT VERY SAME ASTROMECH DROID PUTTING ALL THOSE AFOREMENTIONED LIVES INTO REAL JEOPARDY #WHAT DO YOU MEANNNNNN THERE WERE NO TANGIBLE CONSEQUENCES #FOR NOT FOLLOWING BASIC OPSEC!!!!! YOU ARE A *GENERAL*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #AUGHHHHH #also!!! you CANNOT just IGNORE or outright DEFY the orders of your DIRECT SUPERIOR OFFICER #that is INSUBORDINATION!!!!! YOU CAN BE COURT MARTIALED FOR THAT ANAKIN!!!!!!!!!!!! #tcw just goes ''(sighing fondly) oh ANAKIN'' every time he pulls shit like this #like okay yes the jedi are not military first they're jedi first but they are OPERATING. AS MILITARY. IN A WAR!!!!!! RULES ARE THERE FOR #A REASON #AUGHGHFDJKGHFDJKG

[frecklystars]

#star!keri #vent art #💕♬♪ ♡☆ I just want to be your lovin' teddy bear 🌟🧸♬♪☆ #im ok i just have a migraine and im overwhelmed and sad and i got triggered and augh #i miss the color pink. #this whole pic was gonna be all different shades of pink but then i couldnt do it #had to change the colors #i tried watching lars and the real girl by myself and yknow theres the whole pink room thing #im trying to associate it with barbie but god it just . feels fresh. had to turn it off #seeing my abuser twice in a short timeframe is kind of fucking me up :) hello. why do u exist and why do i have to see it. #but hey i did use SOME pink in here?? baby steps??? i feel stupid but whatever #you know pink used to be one of my favorite colors #i will get it back even if its gonna be an ugly fight the entire time #cant get into the ring and complain about getting hit. or however ryan phrases it #idk if that applies to reclaiming triggers but rahhhhh #if steven can be fine with papyrus after 15 fuckin years i can be fine with pink someday too #lars wouldnt think im stupid. i mean i'd hope not???? maybe he would. its stupid #its a really stupid trigger lol who gets scared of the color pink. me apparently #i get the fight or flight response when seeing a color or clothing or hearing phrases #i dont feel like i can function like a normal person even after a whole year #i feel like i am barely surviving and my entire life was taken away from me #and i cant do anything about it but just sit here with my heart ripped out of my chest #while my abuser is . fine. and has friends and family and support and alllll of my TF F/Os #and absolutely zero consequences for what she maliciously had done to me. okie dokie!!!!! #i feel like the last 19 months havent passed. i feel like i am not in my body sometimes #like i am a husk and someone else is controlling me but im actually dead or something #i dont feel like time is passing. idk how to explain it. i feel like my life is stolen #i feel like i am losing years of my life to trauma. like the ghost of me is left behind while the world is moving forward #everyone is present and moving but i am like... barely functioning thru flashbacks and nightmares and panic attacks #and i dont know when im ever going to fully escape the person who did this to me

[uncanny-tranny]

Stealth doesn’t help the trans community. I'm not saying we have to be an activist, wear a t-shirt announcing our trans status, but we have an obligation to help advance the human rights of the trans community we belong to

These viewpoints, while I can appreciate them, tend not to recognize the full scope of why people are stealth in the first place.

If stealth is not right for you, don't be stealth. However, not recognizing the nuances of stealth doesn't help trans people either. You can be an advocate for trans people without being out because you don't need to be out to help the trans community. Additionally, nobody is obligated to know one's trans status. I'm pretty stealth in my real life because I owe nobody that information about my identity. And I do my best to make trans folks one of my primary interests in my life. These two things coexist in my life, and that's why these viewpoints are generally confusing to me. You don't need to be out - or let anybody know about your transness - in order to advance trans rights. Hell, you don't even need to be trans to do that.

Nobody should ever be obligated to be stealth. The expectation that trans people fade away in society is wholly asinine. However, that doesn't mean that stealth inherently is problematic. Stealth is not inherently adverse to trans rights.

#ask #anon #trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #i bring up myself because i think it's a relevant example #because i just happen to be stealth. it's pretty nuanced as to why i am but i am also a severely private person #and i don't share my personal information. but i will do my best to advocate for trans people in my real life #i have conversations with cis people all the time about transness for instance #that's what i mean #i can appreciate moving away from stealth as a requirement to living a trans life #i think it's incredibly reductionist to EXPECT that from us #but i also think it's reductionist to say that stealth is inherently bad #some of us (like myself) don't think anybody will be entitled to that part of us #it feels like people think 'if you're stealth you don't WANT us to have rights' and maybe that isn't what anon is saying... #...but people really lose the nuance into stealth and what it is and why people are stealth so that it's easier to sort you feel? #like people assume why we're stealth when it's like... the assumptions are either wrong or sorely lacking as to the reason #i really don't know why this is being asked of me though #i think this is the third or fourth ask about this topic with the same(ish) responses to the whole Stealth Thing #so i'm trying not to assume what anon is trying to say but i also want to recognize that i really don't agree #like what do you propose to somebody like me who already does work with trans rights and who is stealth irl? #do i just come out even though NOBODY in my life needs (or even deserves) to know? #that's what i'm talking about with this topic

[gnometa233]

"The thing about being queer is saying fuck societal rules, so I highly encourage normalizing lesbians to fuck men and trans people to date people based on their AGAB" is a real take I've just seen on a post with 18k notes. I get you people wanna destroy all labels but some labels don't feel like a box!!! I'm starting to think some of yall don't like actual lgbtq+ people and cant respect labels!!!

#anti label people need to shut the fuck up omg #some of us feel free by labels! is that a hard concept!!! #also unless said person is threatening violence against you in a real life space #you are not being policed. you are experiencing the consequences of life #queer discourse #lgbtq+ #lesbophobia #transphobia #it almost feels like gaslighting #'see!! you uptight dykes need to just let lose and fuck a man for once. i did it! im fine!!' #'you trans people are never gonna be loved unless its by someone who sees you as your agab first'

[crystallizsch]

i'm still not over the fact that jamil was a musical kid

#troy bolton high school musical ass #bro practices dance numbers from musicals #head in hands #im losing it #the gap moe is so real #even if hes genuinely not into musicals anymore #that’ll just turn into something else similar #like mayyyybe idol groups (see fairy gala vignette) #wait hes already into breakdancing #hmmmmmm #[— #✦ i have thoughts #twst jp #twst jp spoilers #jamil viper #—] #as a person who had a musical phase im allowed to clown on him

[spacedustmantis]

thinking about everything's changed since polites

#ough... #the first death #the first real loss #and grief #and it's odysseus's own fault you know #it's such a good line illustrating how losing a friend and a good chunk of the men he was responsible for changed his outlook #but also how his fleet views him as a person #like 'he's changed omg' #dude of course he fucking has #'i bet he's hiding something from us' let the man grieve!! #hmmm #epic the musical #buggy thoughts #silver screen

[scootkiddo]

the irrevocable damage that must’ve happened when joel lost sarah. I’m stating the obvious here but like. that broken watch stays broken forever. there is no toolkit for a potential repair. there is no mending that kind of wound. the very structure of joel’s identity was pillared by his role as a father- a role he internalized- and that frame of identity was shattered the night sarah died. when something so tragic like losing a child strips away your whole sense of being, like…how do you breath air. how do you taste food. how do you feel anything but a jaded shell of a person roaming the earth aimlessly

#once again I am using the last of us to process the real world don’t text #I’m not a parent so I can’t even begin to imagine the repercussions of losing a child #but I have to imagine that becoming a parent is just a role you would internalize as basically your personality over a given period of time #like you put that into the world #that’s because of you #and you build this innate and instinctive urge to protect that child with your whole person #so what becomes of you when you see that child breathe their last breath knowing you couldn’t protect them #it’s not even just lamenting over fiction at that point bc this has unfortunately happened in the real world #I can’t #oh my god #this is my fault for starting a fifth playthrough of the game #tlou

[vroomian]

thinking about it this way, im kind of surprised masa didn’t end up eating aizen

Ah ha ha. Well.

He sure gave it his best shot! Aizen is very lucky he’s so op :)

#like the fight implied in the beginning wasn’t for show. #it was a fight to the death! for real! and if masa won Aizen would’ve been eaten! #but masa is a good sport so when he loses he loses ya know? #it’s not personal #you've got questions we've got answers #bbp #just cause masa had some. other plans. doesn’t mean that he won that fight unfortunately

[dennisboobs]

Dennis says the L word

#i definitely didnt have this kicking around on my hard drive #iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #dennis reynolds #the genuine ones being within his daydream where he has been forcibly desexualized by losing use of his dick & actually falling in love #in mac's fantasy where he fucking dies and dennis was too late to say it #forced out of necessity by dennis' fear of abandonment by dee #spoken when he believes theyre in a life or death situation and hoping to connect with dee at the very end #telling his wife that he does not love her while looking to mac and then reaffirming this saying he's NEVER loved her #and of course while absolutely shitfaced and upset at the loss of his childhood stuffed elephant (and dee's betrayal) #ill be real. the second i heard him say a bunch of shit about feelings & how he loved the monkey in 15x4 i had to check to see who wrote it #it had been SO long................ like of course glenn is the one to bring it back. ok. #more of den saying he loves things plz #ada speaks #ada's videos #if you guys can think of any other times he's said it pleasssseeee let me know lol i tried #update: i added in a few more #left out the ones in 7x01 w him talking about loving no restrictions bc i wanted this to be abt him expressing Love to sentient beings #loving crack and loving a person are two different L words jskhbshn

[mayasaura]

cannot wait for Ashton to find about about frida. This is everything they've ever wanted for their little buddy! They're gonna freak out so bad

#the elation at FCG finally accepting and acting like he's a real person #the soul deep horror at how badly it could go wrong and their little buddy could get HURT #they've known frida for what three days??? #they'll be there to pick up the pieces with fcg when it all gets fucked up because everything always gets fucked up eventually #but godDAMMIT they lose track of the little guy for a week #they didnt even get to do a shovel talk or play what the fuck is up with that first #he would be SO suspicious of frida #ashton greymoore #critical role #cr c3 #cr spoilers #c3e55 #loveletters #fresh cut grass #fcg #f.r.i.d.a.