mytrouvailles

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"It will never happen."

I was reading Neil gaiman's "stardust", and I saw this bit, and thought it would fit well for them.

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the school i’m looking at for grad school has a restaurant nearby called pastabilities just like night in the woods and if that’s not my sign to go there idk what is

#nitw #night in the woods #im going crazy

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I did the meme. The world is not ready for them

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two interests one image

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt leo #rottmnt raph #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt mikey #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk gojou #jjk gojou satoru #shitpost

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i found this in my files from like a year ago and realized that i still like it and haven't posted it anywhere meaningful yet

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night in the woods is such an important game for me and i can’t ever explain as in depth as i want to but i just replayed it for the seventh year in a row so here we go

mae’s from a small town, a poor town. she’s got her close knit friends. and everyone else has got this perception of her that they’ve attached to her since she was young. lots of people bringing up her past and not even opening their minds to the fact that she may have changed, it’s just a bunch of no one’s forgotten who you are or what you did, you know. people that never even knew mae in the past, like lori m., know about what she did. it’s small town talk, and small town talk always moves around in ways you never want it to.

it takes forever in the game for mae to finally open up about why she left college, and it’s because of exactly what the small town folk have assumed of her: she hasn’t changed. she still has this illness and she represses it because that’s what she’s told to do, rather than process it, work through it like selmers says to. she represses it so deeply that we, the player, spend the entire game wondering what our character is going through. we see mae’s thoughts and feelings and what she says and doesn’t say to people, and yet she never mentions how difficult it is for her to feel alright, even internally. and it’s so devastating to have a repressed illness that you’ve shown so many clear signs of, one that you’ve been taught to ignore until your wires snap. one that takes so hard of a toll on your well-being, makes it impossible to do what seems so easy for others. and it’s so real.

i think that’s what i love most and identify most with this game, is that it’s real. from mae’s repressed mental illnesses to gregg’s insecurities with himself to bea’s losses and angus’ abusive home life, it’s real. there are people out there with lives exactly like these.

i’m from a small town, a poor town. i’ve known people like mae, gregg, and bea, and angus. i’ve known kids that were neglected, abused, ignored. i’ve known shoplifters and people that armed themselves on the street and who’ve lost their loved ones at the worst of times. i personally was not the kindest or well-behaved teenager, and i’ve watched the same people i was with then either grow into redeemable people or get themselves into something irreversible. and just like in the game, people act like they’ve forgotten about all of that. that’s small town polite right there. something happened and the signs were there, it was all the talk for a while. our moms told us not to talk to you. and suddenly you’re told to get over it without any sort of diagnosis, an answer. and everyone passes over it, even your closest friends, as if they have blocked it out of their brains for the convenience of not dealing with it. until you drown in it, and something else happens.

i’m in college now, and every time i visit home i get this feeling, one that nothing changed but yet everything did. i see someone i know with every step i take. some will serve me at the restaurant i go to eat at to catch up with my family. some will be greeting me at the only grocery store in town. some will have passed away and some will have been arrested. my high school friends have grown up, they’ve either worked or graduated college or are nearing there, they’ve set themselves up with full time careers and plans and relationships. and yet i feel as though i’ve regressed in life, i’ve decided to go to school for even longer to prevent growing up. i stayed here and got older, while you went off and stayed the same.

and it’s one thing to feel like you’ve made it no where compared to your lowest point, but it’s another to still have doubts of yourself after you’ve become a better person. you can move away, make new friends, find a loving relationship. you can start on a completely clear slate, but at the end of everything, it’s nothing but a facade if you don’t truly feel redeemable in your heart. you question how you deserve something so good, how you possibly could be seen and loved by people who know what you are, when you don’t even know yourself. i’m a good person, right? i have really up up days and really down down days, and i don’t know which it is until it’s over sometimes.

mae has no idea what she is, what her point is, there’s nothing but holding on to what she thinks is herself and her friends and her world, which is realistically so much different than how she sees it. gregg knows what he is, he knows what he was and what he wants to be. he knows that there are parts of himself that get in the way of truly believing he is good. i think that mae is in some sort of denial about learning who she is in her early adult life, constantly looking back at the past and pretending that things aren’t different when they are. where gregg is growing into himself, coming to terms with commitment and responsibility and making up for the reckless person he once was. still fearing to regress back into his more careless self, and destroy those expectations of maturity when mae is around.

throughout my seventh play-through, i found myself relating to mae and gregg more than any other characters. i have a feeling that as i have grown up, moved away, started taking care of myself as an adult, i see more and feel more for what mae and gregg each go through. mae is unhealthily attached to her hometown because attempting to start new had regressed her mental state. gregg seems to be doing all he can to get out of town, move away and start fresh. i believe that mae and gregg had grown up in their own fucked up ways, yet they have discovered opposite, personal reasons for moving past it all. they represent something that one person could always experience; they could ache for and return to familiarity, whether it’s real or not. but they could also beg and work for change. these are two feelings that i hold deep in my chest, and some days i feel one or the other, or both.

a small hometown is a bittersweet experience; it can leave you with a sense of safety, community, and flexible routine. but it can also be despicable, it can be suffocating, it can be nothing but another town, another mass of people to live far away from. mae and gregg represent this spectrum, from enjoying staying in one place to doing anything to get away from it. their reasons and their fears and their feelings are so real.

i am a woman in her 20s, who has always grown up with a complicated relationship with her hometown. i’ve never played a game that has ever hit me this hard, nor stuck with me for this long. i make it a point to replay it every year because it helps. i realize something new about these characters, i identify more with their experiences. it’s comforting, and it’s healing.

so when i tell people about this game, and i talk about getting a tattoo from it and they look at me like i’m crazy, i understand that they’ll never know why.

#don’t even get me started with maebea because GOD i can relate to that too #i can’t relate to angus i’ll admit but i knew many people like him #is this an analysis or a trauma dump? we’ll see #this game means a lot to me #night in the woods #nitw #nitw mae #nitw gregg

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Dreamworks: yeah it's just an animated comedy about some guys searching for el dorado, no need to go crazy

Elton john:

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the gojo getou storyline makes me unhinged for so many reasons. it's told totally out of order. you meet getou's corpse first, then watch gojo kill him in the film after getou's gone insane, and then you see their friendship. that friendship that's just two teenagers and all it's fun chaos and conflicting ideals. then. toji happens. and both of them during this period were SO CLOSE to being the only ones who understood each other. so close to being able to see through one another-- "you haven't released your technique yet, have you? you've not slept either, and I bet you're not gonna sleep tonight either-" and "suguru... have you lose weight?" and yet their friendship, the trust between them, "after all, we're the strongest", was splitting at the seams the more what they could individually tolerate changed. gojo had awakening by himself, accepted himself as THE strongest, felt a little untouchable and so able to change things, was choosing teaching and facing the elders-- and getou's conflicting ideals and sacrifices in all his comparative powerlessness as missions by himself piled up sent him spiraling. the dam breaks and getou takes his own route and so becomes a wound gojo would hold onto for the rest of his life. a pain that would be weaponised against him. it's feels like such a flip from adult gojo being seemingly too cool, uncaring and childish, when in fact it's getou who treats their past friendship as some trivial teenage stuff, while gojo holds onto everything with deep regret, and later with deep betrayal at seeing getou's corpse used this way.

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you see, i actually know that you're already gone. you see, you'll probably just call me obstinate, and i want to forget, but

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MORAL COMPASS

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Satosugu in 2x02

↳ anime vs manga

bonus:

boyfriends being boyfriends (′ꈍωꈍ‵)

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I need to buy a gun

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#The way they probably erased Crowley's memory of heaven. Also the way Crowley offered a hot chocolate to Gabriel just after even though he still hated him because he knew how it feels to remember nothing (insp from this post by @perpetualcontrolleddrowning)

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Crowley is genuinely so brave and beautiful at the end of s2. He says: I won’t lie about what we are anymore, I won’t give up who I am to be with you, I won’t turn back around because you said “I need you” (which up until this point has been the magic words from aziraphale that can make him do anything), I won’t run away and hide you’ll have to watch me while you throw away what we could have been. He’s so iconic to me

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GOOD OMENS + TEXT POSTS [1/?]

Bonus:

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their argument over Gabriel and how they "resolved" it set up the Final Fifteen of ep6 and is a microcosm of their relationship issues

The fight between Aziraphale and Crowley about Gabriel goes like this:

Aziraphale believes that it's Safest for them to deal with the gabriel situation by being involved and solving it together.

Crowley believes that it's Safest for them to get as far away from the Gabriel situation as possible, either by removing gabriel from them or themselves from him.

Aziraphale also believes that it's Right to help Gabriel, because Aziraphale believes in the innate goodness of everyone and everything.

Crowley believes that it's Right to not help Gabriel or frankly to care about him at all, because Gabriel hurt Aziraphale repeatedly over millennia and then tried to destroy him.

They approach this issue with such a difference in their core beliefs and values that they have to disagree, it's inevitable. And that would be fine. Except that the way they resolve this argument is utter bullshit.

First off, Aziraphale responds to Crowley with an ultimatum: do it my way or leave. (Which, hello, trauma from being cast out of heaven? Wtf Aziraphale. )

Crowley responds by telling Aziraphale he'll have to do this alone, and then predictably leaving.

Crowley only changes his mind and returns because he learns that Aziraphale is in real existential peril. Then they do a series of Things, none of which actually revolve their big disagreement.

Crowley offers a sort-of apology ("can we take it as stated?") but doesn't say what he's apologizing for. He doesn't tell Aziraphale what he thinks he got wrong (spoiler: because he absolutely doesn't think he Was wrong, and his belief is reinforced by the threat of destruction hanging over Aziraphale's head). It's "I'm sorry for whatever I said, get in the car" all over again.

Aziraphale doesn't even apologize lmao, and why should he? He must be right, because Crowley's back! And Crowley's doing their ritualistic "apology" dance that they use in place of actual fucking conversation. So Aziraphale doesnt need to acknowledge anything about his line of reasoning or his belief system, they can just carry on.

Especially because, crucially, Aziraphale doesn't know that Crowley was actually right! And helping Gabriel will put them both in extreme danger! And he doesn't know this, because Crowley didn't tell him!

Crowley didnt tell Aziraphale about the Book of Life punishment because he believes Aziraphale is Safest not worrying about that, and that it's Right for him to protect Aziraphale from that hurtful, harmful knowledge.

They literally do. not. discuss this issue ever again. They have no idea, or none that we're textually shown anyway, why the other reacted the way they did to Gabriel. They simply move forward with the problem, without even an iota of enlightenment about each other's points of view. They think they already know each other perfectly, right? They've been talking for millions of years, Crowley loves rescuing Aziraphale, etc.

So then we get to ep6. And it's really the same fundamental disagreement:

Aziraphale believes they will be Safest with their hands in the game.

Aziraphale believes it's Right to force Heaven, through what he has been manipulated into thinking is his new authority, to do Good (actual moral good, like he and Crowley do).

Crowley believes it's Safest for them both to stay as far away from the machinations of heaven, and by extension hell, as possible.

Crowley believes it's Right for him to reject Heaven as they once rejected him, to reject their whole dichotomous system in fact. He believes it's Right for Aziraphale to reject Heaven too, because Heaven tried to destroy Aziraphale.

And once again, Crowley doesn't tell Aziraphale of the danger they're in - Armageddon the Sequel, plus Archangels being demoted and having their memory wiped.

They still do not and cannot understand one another's motives and beliefs here. Because they have never had this freedom of choice before these last few years, and in that time they have never talked about this openly. Weirdly, Gabriel's arrival gave them a chance to hash all this out. In another world, maybe they knew exactly what the other wanted, and could therefore choose each other at this critical juncture.

But that's not what happened.

(cue my "the irony of the serpent of Eden protecting someone he loves from knowledge" tag).

Edit to say, I have Thoughts about Why they communicate like this, which I'm trying to gather for another post.

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crowley crying over losing aziraphale