#rebamble

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The beginning of 17776 really is so interesting in the way that it sets up the rest of the story. The calendar backdrop was such a stroke of genius, because it forces the reader to focus on nothing but the passage of time and nine's increasing desperation and loneliness. and then when ten responds with 'i love you so much'--well, i still had no idea who these characters were, but i was already invested enough in them to feel anxious scrolling through the days where they weren't able to make contact with each other. and then, when ten tells nine not to contact them for 27 years, my first thought was, 'but that's a life! that's a life apart for two people who clearly care about each other'

and then the scroll through the days, once again forced to focus on nothing but the passage of time, leading straight into the reveal that these people aren't actual people with a lifespan of a century or less, and THEN the reveal that even humans aren't people with a lifespan of a century or less anymore, and the way that the reader has been interacting with the passage of time is so FUNDAMENTALLY different to how it works for the current denizens of the earth

just, what a great way to really bring out the focus of the story right from the beginning: how would we change, if the constraints and anxieties of finite time were lifted from us as a species?

#17776 #saw my post from my first read again in my notes and just got me thinking about this story again #it really was so good #rebamble #also the way that nine changes over the course of the story too! their desperation to be heard at the beginning #contrasted with their acceptance at the end that they can go to sleep and it will be okay because those they love will still be there #when they get back #so interesting #this story was such a good exploration of the concept of time!

[jessicareaper]

i just. i LOVE izzy screeching, "it's BLACKBEARD, you dog!" at stede and then in the next scene being like, "edward--" like this man is TERRITORIAL. and he's LOSING and it SUCKS.

#rebs watches things #rebamble #i'm on 1x6 now

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me: okay, so it's a sunday afternoon. you're not expecting visitors. you hear a knock at the door. you go open the door--

my partner: no i don't

#for the record his answer was also walrus #but his REAL answer was 'why am i answering the door in the first place?' #walrus at the door #rebamble

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wept for like two straight hours as i finished station eleven today because. the airport. the wheel. jeevan on the subway. the race at the dock and the hotel on another continent. the timeloop in the book. none of them got to go home, they were all stuck in this liminal space when the apocalypse hit them--jeevan even walked kirsten home but she couldn't get into her house anymore because she didn't have a key! this recurring question, of if the past matters, if it should be destroyed or enshrined, if we can go home again after a world-shifting tragedy. (like doctor eleven--they always come back, but can they ever go home?)

and THEN. and then kirsten and jeevan's final exchange--"it was so cold. she forgot her key." "you walked her home." i am weeping i tell you. she's come unstuck from that place of transit. she's home.

#a show will tell you 'home can be anything' #home is asking for help #home is getting to say goodbye #home is finally coming unstuck from the pain that's haunted you #home is hamlet with your mom #just. god. #i wasn't ready to watch this in 2021 but i finally got around to it and it was so good. #station eleven #rebamble #rebs watches things

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ahahaha I JUST realized: motivational speaker guy grabs Eddie by the dick, and Buck by the throat. Eddie, who later struggles with sex and spends the episode figuring out that’s a symptom of moving too fast in his relationship. Buck, who later lies to his friend and spends the episode working through worries about telling Eddie he’s bi.

#it was foreshadowing #woke up and had an epiphany #911 abc #rebamble

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some hair closeups from recent figure drawing classes

#still working on faces #but the play of light and shadow in hair is really fun! #rebamble #my art #also #you can tell by my shading how much more comfortable i am with graphite than with colored pencil. the shading on the left face is ROUGH

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i love being a beginner. i love trying and failing at new things. i love discovering just how much goes into being good at a given skill. i love rewiring my brain to interact with the world in a new way. i love being reminded, again and again, just how much i don't know and how much potential there is out there. i love gaining a more detailed respect for experts in a field.

i took a beginner ballet class and i loved it and i was terrible at it and it kicked my ass, and now i look at dancers and i can recognize even more clearly how much balance and control and strength goes into every movement. i've been taking drawing classes for the first time, and the way that i look at the world around me, the shapes and colors and shades and planes, has completely shifted. i assist my mother in law while she cooks and i see how much experience and love goes into becoming an expert at feeding a large family.

i dabble in different languages. i have half-formed callouses on every finger. i just. love learning and growing and experimenting and adding dimension to my perception of the world around me with every single failure and decision to try again. and i look at those old people who are fixtures of community college classes and i recognize myself in 30 years. i can't imagine being anything other than a lifelong learner, because as long as i'm learning i'm living, y'know?

#just #feeling some sort of way about things #anyway! i always love to hear about what you're currently learning to do! #rebamble

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just a collection of my thoughts and impressions of the one piece la, for posterity. edit: i said no spoilers and then someone immediately posted a spoiler. i am not looking for answers for my questions! i just like speculating!

let me start this list by saying that i knew nothing about one piece going in, aside from the fact that it's a pirate anime/manga, and it's really, really long. i literally started watching the show because someone made a post about luffy that was like 'he looks nice but you look into his eyes and know that something's wrong with him' and i was like....sounds fun!

so when luffy stretched for the first time i was like, 'wait. WHAT?' the 'what kind of monster are you?' 'the stretchy kind!' was the moment i fully bought into the show because yeah. there's something wrong with luffy and it's delightful.

koby, my heart! I really just want to go back and rewatch the first couple of episodes just to see where koby started again, because he came so far over the course of the show.

i am so intrigued by zoro's friend. I've forgotten her name, but i don't really want to google it because i know in my heart that there's more to her disappearance than what we saw in that flashback. like, the vagueness? the fact that it happened offscreen? either she's not actually dead, or the sensei's corrupt, bc something's not right there.

i loved how zoro and nami had similar stoic affectations, but where zoro is just kind of straightforward as a person, you get the sense very early on that nami is stoic because she's hiding something. so when zoro shows emotion, it kind of fits with the character he's shown himself to be--quiet, intense, honest. but with nami, her emotions seem to explode out of her: the sudden laugh on the boat that surprises everyone including her, her screaming and crying and fighting on the ground when the marines show up at her mother's grave. i'm interested to see how her character develops now that she's not forced to obfuscate and keep up a poker face 24/7 for her own safety.

i made a separate post for usopp and kaya because i had so much to say about them

anyway. sanji and his not-dad made me cry. that guy ate his own leg! that guy made sanji's life miserable in an attempt to shove him out of the nest, and then called him a good kid the second he wasn't around to hear it! and sanji really left saying thank you until the last possible moment but i'm still so fucking emotional about it.

i'm not a fan of the black-coded villain with the hip-hop theme music having a fantasy racism fueled villain revenge plot.

luffy is so great and cares so much and he needs to be rubber because he is constantly flinging himself into danger with no regard for anything and i should write more about him but also i've already typed SO much so i will finish with 'be a good marine' / 'be a good pirate' was the sweetest thing in the world and i love koby and luffy's friendship so much, and the way they wove it throughout the show was really nice.

anyway that's it for now. if you got this far great! and if you got this far and know things about characters please no spoilers!

#rebs watches things #rebamble #one piece la

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godddd but like the difference between 'i didn't make you leave him, you did that yourself' and 'you and me did this to him, and we cannot let the crew suffer any more for our mistakes'--just. the difference between a spiteful twist of the knife and an open hand.

#izzy hands #i lied i didn't finish my rewatch last night--i'm working on 2x2 and then hopefully will get to the new eps tonight! #rebs watches things #rebamble

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1x4 again: stede shows ed the portrait of blackbeard in one of his books, and ed complains about how over the top the picture is. it has nine guns, he complains, and ed only carries one gun and one knife, just like everyone else

2x1: ed starts showing up to raids with four guns strapped to his chest. become the caricature they all think he is.

#the parallels continue to kill #ofmd #rebs watches things #rebamble

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some thoughts about usopp (and kaya, but mostly usopp):

so with nami we get this character that's pretty obviously obfuscating who she is and putting on a poker face, but i love that with usopp we get another example of a character who is putting on a front, but in a totally different way. i am so FASCINATED by usopp and i cannot WAIT for them to dive into his character more. he's like, the archetype of a guy who's had a hard life putting up a silly front--except everyone who knows him knows that he's lying most of the time. they know that he's just some orphan who runs through the town screaming about pirates every day, and they just kind of dismiss him out of hand. like, everyone assumes that the boy who cried wolf is just some shitty kid playing pranks, right? (and then at the end he gets eaten by a wolf, serves him right.) (and then at the end usopp runs off with pirates, good riddance.)

but you actually look at the lies he tells, and it's like. oh. i get it. he's not just an orphan, stuck in a shitty job in a town where no one really cares about him. he's a maintenance specialist, he practically runs a shipyard, he's a captain, he fights off monsters all alone, he goes on adventures, there are PIRATES. (and maybe one of the pirates is his dad, but that's neither here nor there.)

and then there's kaya. the entire time they were headed over to her house i was like. are they actually friends or is this someone who just barely tolerates him like everyone else in the town? but then there she was, smiling and hugging him, and then there he was, fighting to get to see her even when her staff was trying to keep him out, because they come from completely different places, but they understand and care about each other in a way that no one else in the town does. god, that scene that was cutting back and forth between them as they each explained how they had to be there for the other when they lost their parents--it was everything. and the way that kaya listens to his stories, believes them because just like with usopp they're fun, and they're an escape from her shitty lonely life.

so when reality (and pirates) come banging down both of their doors, shattering usopp's illusions of heroism and kaya's illusions of safety and being cared for, it hits that much harder. but then, in the place of those illusions, they're able to build up true versions of the things they've wanted--usopp refuses to run, refuses to leave until kaya's safe. usopp fights a pirate! and kaya finds the people who will actually stand with her in times of danger, and more than that she finds that she is able to stand up and speak for herself as well.

another thing i love is that even when they finish his arc, he doesn't stop telling tall tales. he's usually a three beer guy. he took down those pirates all by himself. he's basically the captain. at this point it feels like a reflex, an attempt to live up to the guy that luffy chose, but also, it just feels like fun. like yeah that's his thing! and his friends like him for it and don't dismiss him out of hand! and he includes them in his tall tales--he doesn't fight the monsters alone anymore! ugh i'm emotional about it

but even still we see him use obvious tales with his friends to deflect from the things he doesn't want to deal with. like. how does usopp actually feel about his dad? i saw his face, even if he quickly covered it up with loud enthusiasm. and, at the very end, that flashback to his mom dying, and then his loud declaration that he was going to be the greatest warrior in the world. is that really his dream? what's going through his head? I want to KNOW

#rebs watches things #usopp la #one piece la #rebamble #okay i'm done for now i think

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reactions about the new 911 behind a cut bc i'm not saying anything that hasn't already been said (and i'm about to reblog a few of those posts)

i've been watching a couple episodes late bc my partner got into it so we watch it together, and we were just. sitting there like. they're really comparing this child to a dog? they're really doing that?

like. they handled that whole plot line SO badly. the scare tactic music when karen found the ripped up stuffed animal, and again when she was at the foot of their bed? the fact that the social worker was like 'she made it known that she wanted to keep her blanket' but didn't feel the need to go into more detail so the foster family just had to figure out on their own that that was a trigger for her? like! as fosters, they should have gotten SO much more information, but the way the episode was structured was for *drama* instead of empathy or accuracy. the ending, with karen telling mara how strong and brave she was, and that she didn't need to be brave, and identifying a positive coping mechanism to help with her transition? absolutely lovely. most of the rest of it? a mess.

as for hen being like 'i don't know if we can keep her'--i do think that set up was also for drama, bc as i said above, in a real circumstance i do think they would have been more informed. if it was just mara and no other children, i don't think hen would have brought that up at all. but...look. fostering is hard. she wasn't wrong about denny needing to feel safe in his own home. i think it would be realistic for her to be concerned about making sure the environment is safe for all the kids in the home. but that conversation itself, and the fact that hen needed to be convinced to give mara another chance through saving a traumatized dog, was trash. there was a better way to approach a complicated situation like that.

eddie's storyline was. fine. i can tell it was rushed bc of the short season, and some of the character beats that i think they would have taken more time on just had to be told to the audience in shorthand, and frankly, i can forgive that. bobby's scene with eddie was very nice. how relieved he was by her moving out at the end was, frankly, funny. like 'haha i can't wait to move out' '*relieved sigh* me EITHER' girl if i was marisol i would be so offended.

buck is a hot mess and i'm glad tommy gave him another chance bc he made an absolute fool out of himself, but his scenes with maddie and eddie were both really nice.

overall it just. hm. it felt uneven. like eddie and buck's storylines were both treated in a really light way, which kind of worked with the subject matter and resolution of their plots. but then when hen and karen's got a...sort of similar treatment? with the ~~spooky child~~ thing they were trying at the beginning of the episode, it rang very unsympathetic and dehumanizing toward a little black girl in pain, which is not what i want, need, or expect from this show.

#rebamble #rebs watches 911 #idk my tags it's whatever

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favorite part of the eclipse: my first graders asking me ‘is it Tuesday now?’ after the totality passed

#rebamble #eclipse #adventures in teaching #also the part where they screamed and danced and chanted ‘BLACK SUN BLACK SUN’ for like the entire totality #I mean I cried when i first saw it so #it was just. it was incredible

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wait. making these tags a separate post. this is about the heart drawing.

#look. i have this headcanon. and it's not quite as romantic but.#i really.#i think since buck was helping chris with his homework he figured out pretty quickly - if not right away#that he was supposed to be drawing an anatomical heart#but the thing is they've all had a hard couple of weeks#and chris's homework attempts and smiles are half-hearted at best#so he makes a game of it - 'i bet i can draw a better heart than you'#and he hides his work from chris and goes on and on about how amazing his heart is going to be and how hard he's working on it#and when he shows chris at the end - big huge smile as he feigns ignorance of the nature of the assignment#chris laughs and it's the best sound he's heard all day#and it's an intentional silliness but it's an act of love too#he drew it to bring his family joy#and so maybe he leaves it out so eddie can see it too#and eddie doesn't smile exactly#but he does raise his eyebrows and look at buck with that semi-incredulous stare that buck's been on the other end of so often#and buck just has to duck his head and smile because#there's eddie. they're going to be okay.

#911 fox #rebamble #buckley diaz family #buck #chris #eddie

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Sun Xiang is struggling to integrate fully into Samsara. Luckily, Jiang Botao and Zhou Zekai have just the thing to help him feel like a true member of the team.

(Just three team members. Having a threesome. For team bonding purposes, obviously.)

#qzgs #quan zhi gao shou #sun xiang #jiang botao #zhou zekai #rebamble #the king's avatar #excited about this one! #not least bc I left it to languish in my google docs for 2 years before finally getting up the gumption to polish and post it

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nashville in the last 3 episodes of the entire show: hey wait a minute. what if gunnar and will actually were perfect for each other

#like WHAT is happening #i'm not mad? but also WHAT #will has a literal heart attack and gunnar drops everything to make sure he's okay and now there are these charged hugs and stuff #like. okay! it's the literal last episode of the show! why not! #rebs watches things #rebamble