#but also some people saying there wasn't

[artharakka]

Beautiful, But Broken

#bg3 #tiefling #tw blood #c: Viivi #so I redid my bg3 character because I wasn't feeling durge that much. So now my sibling does durge and I regular tav Viivi #(changed her to tiefling for funs) #at least I meant to do regular tav but uhhhhh things have gone very unfortunately very fast #anyway. Viivi is an artist; she does painting sculpting poetry and some prose. Experimenting with this and that #unfortunately she is deaf which made making connections a bit hard in the fine arts world #fortunately she has a patreon with one very generous patron (she's fey warlock)✨ who has bestowed some gifts of charms for her #which have opened doors of many art galleries #She's not a fighter so although she is confident in her own lane she is also very aware of her mortality #so she avoided any fights she could #which might have saved her but also got her into the mess of her lifetime #you see she couldn't fight the entire goblin camp and their leaders. She would've just not survived that. So she convinced them #that she is a True Soul. She is good at convincing people. It worked. They thought she is on their side. Good #Halsin also though Viivi was on their side. Halsin attacked Viivi's party. Now Halsin is dead. #So Viivi and her group were still alone deep within enemy fort. Viivi made new plans. She frees the prisoner who says he will warn the grov #Good thinks Viivi now they know to flee. I will go to Minthara and tell we got the information from prisoner of the grove location #she will trust us and we walk off #when we get back to grove they have not fled and Minthara is at the gates #Minthara wants Viivi to sound the horn. Zevlor wants Viivi to sound the horn. Viivi asks Zevlor to please tell this plan in detail. #Zevlor says just blow the horn already. Viivi does that. Minthara thanks Viivi for leaving the gate open as planned #Zevlor does not thank Viivi for that. Viivi is confused as she did not leave the gate open. (for real the damn gate was left open) #So I did a Massacre. #now Karlach is gone Wyll is dead. Lae'zel is also dead #but apparently Minthara is ready to be very loving and sincere with Viivi. The most helpful person she has met in very long time. #Viivi might love her #so that is how she's doing.

[butchthirteen]

okay the other thing is like. can we think about why, in-universe and out, one might choose to have the doctor return to a fan favorite regeneration and a regeneration where both the character and actor were reluctant to move on? and (especially in the context of new who being about the doctor's trauma) can we think about why one might then bring in the new exciting regeneration and have that regeneration extend comfort to the prior one?

like people keep treating it like tennant and gatwa are like. competing. but it's not a competition, it's a collaboration. it's a meeting of old and new, it's a passing of the torch. and it's honestly really really beautiful to me.

#doctor who #dw spoilers #fourteenth doctor #fifteenth doctor #meta #discourse #rtd era 2 #i'm not saying there's like. no room for criticism and i'm not saying everything was executed perfectly or anything #and i think it's fair to look at it and be like 'i don't like that' or 'that wasn't executed very well' #but i also feel like some people are seeing what they expect to see if that makes sense #i don't know if you just think about it as a physical manifestation of a system moment it makes perfect sense. hope this helps

[nerdgirlnarrates]

Even though it's been months since I switched from neurosurgery to internal medicine, I still have a hard time not being angry about the training culture and particularly the sexism of neurosurgery. It wasn't the whole reason I switched, but truthfully it was a significant part of my decision.

I quickly got worn out by constantly being questioned over my family plans. Within minutes of meeting me, attendings and residents felt comfortable lecturing me on the difficulties of having children as a neurosurgeon. One attending even suggested I should ask my co-residents' permission before getting pregnant so as not to inconvenience them. I do not have children and have never indicated if I plan to have any. Truthfully, I do want children, but I would absolutely have foregone that to be a neurosurgeon. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon more than anything. But I was never asked: it was simply assumed that I would want to be a mother first. Purely because I'm a woman, my ambitions were constantly undermined, assumed to be lesser than those of my male peers. Women must want families, therefore women must be less committed. It was inconceivable that I might put my career first. It was impossible to disprove this assumption: what could I have done to demonstrate my commitment more than what I had already done by leading the interest group, taking a research year, doing a sub-I? My interest in neurosurgery would never be viewed the same way my male peers' was, no matter what I did. I would never be viewed as a neurosurgeon in the same way my male peers would be, because I, first and foremost, would be a mother. It turns out women don't even need to have children to be a mother: it is what you essentially are. You can't be allowed to pursue things that might interfere with your potential motherhood.

Furthermore, you are not trusted to know your own ambitions or what might interfere with your motherhood. I am an adult woman who has gone to medical school: I am well aware of what is required in reproduction, pregnancy, and residency, as much as one can be without experiencing it firsthand. And yet, it was always assumed that I had somehow shown up to a neurosurgery sub-I totally ignorant of the demands of the career and of pregnancy. I needed to be enlightened: always by men, often by childless men. Apparently, it was implausible that I could evaluate the situation on my own and come to a decision. I also couldn't be trusted to know what I wanted: if I said I wanted to be a neurosurgeon more than a mother, I was immediately reassured I could still have a family (an interesting flip from the dire warnings issued not five minutes earlier in the conversation). People could not understand my point, which was that I didn't care. I couldn't mean that, because women are fundamentally mothers. I needed to be guided back to my true role.

Because everyone was so confident in their sexist assumptions that I was less committed, I was not offered the same training, guidance, or opportunities as the men. I didn't have projects thrown my way, I didn't get check-ins or advice on my application process, I didn't get opportunities in the OR that my male peers got, I didn't get taught. I once went two whole days on my sub-I without anyone saying a word to me. I would come to work, avoid the senior resident I was warned hated trainees, figure out which OR to go to on my own, scrub in, watch a surgery in complete silence without even the opportunity to cut a knot, then move to the next surgery. How could I possibly become a surgeon in that environment? And this is all to say nothing of the rape jokes, the advice that the best way for a woman to match is to be as hot as possible, listening to my attending advise the male med students on how to get laid, etc.

At a certain point, it became clear it would be incredibly difficult for me to become a neurosurgeon. I wouldn't get research or leadership opportunities, I wouldn't get teaching or feedback, I wouldn't get mentorship, and I wouldn't get respect. I would have to fight tooth and nail for every single piece of my training, and the prospect was just exhausting. Especially when I also really enjoyed internal medicine, where absolutely none of this was happening and I even had attendings telling me I would be good at it (something that didn't happen in neurosurgery until I quit).

I've been told I should get over this, but I don't know how to. I don't know how to stop being mad about how thoroughly sidelined I was for being female. I don't know how to stop being bitter that my intelligence, commitment, and work ethic meant so much less because I'm a woman. I know I made the right decision to switch to internal medicine, and it probably would have been the right decision even if there weren't all these issues with the culture of neurosurgery, but I'm still so angry about how it happened.

#I would love to do something about this but I have no idea how to #even the faculty that I do really admire and respect seem entrenched in some of these attitudes #it's really hard to convince people that women aren't traitors in the making #simply because we might get pregnant one day and need time off #oh I also heard people shittalking a resident that was on maternity leave #and saying she wasn't serious about neurosurgery #so it's just inevitable #I'm not the only female student that feels this way btw #there's a reason no women have applied to nsgy from my school in years #sexism #neurosurgery #surgery #medicine #medical school #med school #med student #medblr #my content #my text posts

[thelaurenshippen]

yeah, sorry, I can't come in to work today. yeah, I've got to think about how the tv adaptation of the last of us expertly made you comfortable with joel's violence through making you care about ellie enough it all feels justified so that by the time he gets to the hospital, you're genuinely conflicted about the carnage he enacts, some of which may not have been strictly necessary at the level of brutality he carries it out. yeah, it's gonna be all day

#the last of us #the last of us spoilers #tlou #tlou spoilers #joel miller #look #I just have a lot of feelings #and it's possible some people will look at this and be like #'no! it wasn't brutal! joel was protecting his babygirl!' #to which I would say #politely #you may have missed the central point that neil druckmann is always driving at in these games #which is: how much violence is okay in the service of love? #would you kill the world #would you kill any chance you have at having a fully trusting relationship with your child #just to keep them safe #also the way pedro played the whole thing....like sir what was going on in your head I must know!!! #idk if it was bc you're not playing joel #but it felt so much harsher than the game! #in a REALLY interesting way #full compliments to mr pascal #but like..........the clear eyed completely cold stone killer he turned into #the LACK of apparent fear and desperation #like.....what would ellie DO if she saw THAT guy! esp now post david #and the fact that that is the same man who was so careful with her #trying to draw laughs out of her and getting her attention without touching her #bc he knows she's still scared after david #and then the creeping realization that the thing he wanted to save in saving ellie #this burgeoning relationship with this daughter #is already unable to grow from the same place

[crescentfool]

happy mochizuki monday, have a little doodle i made based on a convention i went to this past weekend :)

#persona 3 #ryoji mochizuki #minato arisato #lizzy does art #as u can see i went as ryoji. because he's my favorite guy and i love to represent him. #but also i kind of regret it because oof. ima be real guys #ryoji mochizuki would not survive hawaii weather AT ALL it was like 27c 💀 #anyway i was very thrilled to see that someone went and cosplayed minato...! #i have to say it was. so funny taking a picture with them and then making a drawing based on it because like #im an ant. as you can see. like. minato being taller than ryoji is lowkey cursed #i also saw sumi with joker (metaverse fit) + some guy wearing the yasogami high uniform... #there wasn't that much persona (as in three. there was plenty of five) but i did get a nice print of sees :D #and i got to walk around artist alley with some of my friends which made me really happy!! i love friend shrimp.... #i wish i got to spend more time there but oof the heat got me beat 💀 #but seriously though i cant stress enough how nice it was to spend time with friends i think hanging out with people is so swag... #i hope everyone can make positive and fun memories with people they care about :) happy mochizuki monday!! #i think about ryoji and minato 24/7 and i cant wait to draw them more again u have no idea how much i missed them... #they make drawing so fun for me they're the most guys ever <3

[altocat]

More cringe memes. Lucrecia Edition.

#ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #dirge of cerberus #lucrecia crescent #Hojo #sephcanons #And don't @ me for this #I recognize that Lucrecia was very much in the wrong for her involvement in the Jenova Project #She is just as guilty as everyone else #HOWEVER there's lots of room to suggest she had no idea what she was really getting herself into #And unlike Hojo she isn't doing this to be a sadist nor was her intention to have her own child taken from her #Lucrecia needs a rewrite but what's there has some serious layers #Also I feel like there's an ugly underbelly of misogyny within the fandom when it comes to its hatred for Lucrecia #Lucrecia is allowed to have done horrible things without being the villain #Good people can do horrible HORRIBLE things #Lucrecia isn't evil she's a stubborn dumbass who kept trying to fix her mistakes and dug herself deeper as a result #But she never wanted Vincent or Sephiroth to suffer #She wanted Vincent alive #And she wanted to hold her son #There's nothing saying that Hojo wasn't manipulating her the entire time #Remember in the OG it's implied he was drugging her into compliance #Part 3 may very well clear some things up

[pinkyjulien]

Valentin Da Silva | 177/??

#Cyberpunk 2077 #Valentin Da Silva #Aldecaldos #Masc V #Nomad #Screenshot #Virtual Photography #AHGHF He looks cute in that even tho it's not something he'd wear normally GFHHGF #also cackling cause-- I wasn't planning on popping an april fool mod at all #I never did in the past and was just going to chill this year too #but remember that ask I got about Valentin's wilding outfit #Thinking back on it it's obvious people were getting bored again cause that whole ask was lowkey ridiculous #and I jokingly thought about how people would allow him to only wear stereotypical french stuff since he's half French (other half spasnish #that's how it came to be LMAO #Ngl I was waiting for one cringe fandom person to come into dm with a -oh that mod is racist actually- cause y'know #NOTHING WOULD SURPRISE ME LMAOOO #I say that but I already know there's some people out there who genuinely think that #wish they download Lokiina's grass mod To Touch Some #ANYWAY Bon poisson d'avril comme on dit ici <3

[front-facing-pokemon]

#nosepass #never been a huge fan of this guy but y'know. iiii've never seen anyone who is. i don'tknow if it's this one or probopass that has the like #compass functionality where they're always facing north for some reason. but i think this thing is like a fucking steel-type which is insane #ok. i was like. wrong about all of that. this one is a ROCK-type #and it is also the one that always faces north. probopass must be where it gains a steel-typing (and i think that's also a retrofit evo?) #(in liiike gen 4?) i dunno y'all pokémon is so fragmented #i looked it up and it said something about people of hisui figuring out that it always faces north and i'm wondering if that wasn't canon #until. legends arceus. but i don't think that's true?? if it actually wasn't until like gen 9 and i remember it as a long-standing fact then #that's. a little bit funny. lemme look up its older pokédex entries #ok no cool we've been saying that since gen 3 awesome. hi it's me from not the future but actually the present. i just edited shiftry's tags #to cut out a lot of the bullshit cleanup that i had in these tags. wow! see you in natdex 300 #↑ this is a reference to the uh. tags that i cut out. a reference only i will get………

[l-ii-zz]

2023 Tumblr Top 10

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Created by TumblrTop10

#tumblrtop10 #I must say that I was very hesitant to share my portrait of Red and Pur #because I know that a lot of people ship them and I was afraid that some might be upset by my take on them #but to see how much support I was given #and even the fact that I wasn't the only one portraying them as brothers #idk... it means a lot :') #also... a fucking razr post reached top 3 #I'm so fucking proud lmfaooo

[coquelicoq]

i've been dying for a poll option ever since i saw my followers' answers to that text post from february 2022 asking people whether they pronounce beloved as "be-lov-ed" or "be-loved". many people were emphatic about only using one option, and many others use both but were not always able to articulate when they use 2 syllables vs. 3. so out of the goodness of my heart and my insatiable lust for knowledge i have gone through the notes on that post and written down some likely contenders! you're welcome!!!!

BEFORE YOU ANSWER! think about how you would pronounce beloved in the following syntactic contexts:

noun, talking directly to the beloved: hey there beloved

noun, talking about rather than to the beloved: my beloved lives in a pineapple under the sea

adjective in a noun phrase: my beloved x lives in a pineapple under the sea

verb participle: x is beloved by y

okay poll time! there are no wrong answers!! and apologies in advance if i didn't capture your truth, i only had 10 options and life is a rich tapestry!!

#oh man i could have easily come up with another 5-8 options but they cap you at 10. which is probably a good thing #one person said they say 'my be-lov-ed x' but 'my much be-loved x'. the only difference being the 'much'. couldn't fit that one on here #someone else said they use 3 syllables in a possessive noun phrase (my be-lov-ed x) but 2 if it's not possessive (the be-loved x) #one person said it depends on whether it's past or present & i wasn't exactly sure what that meant. 'x is beloved' vs. 'x was beloved'? #i also think there's likely a distinction for some people between 'x was beloved' and 'x was beloved by y' but couldn't get into that #oh and then there's 'beloved by' vs. 'beloved of' #and since some of these are syntactic distinctions and some are semantic or otherwise i'm sure there's a whole matrix of combinations #like '3-syll noun if it's a person but 2 if it's a thing. 2-syll adjective/verb participle for both people and things' #that was beyond the scope of this poll lol #but mostly why i'm so curious is because people will very emphatically say something that might not mean what they think it means #like for instance i got the impression that at least some of the people saying 'be-lov-ed when i'm talking to them‚ be-loved when i'm #talking about them' actually mean they use be-lov-ed as a noun and be-loved otherwise #and some of the people saying 'always 2 syllables' probably have exceptions that they weren't thinking of at the moment #in particular 'dearly beloved' #and i'm very curious to know if 3-syllable people still use 3 syllables in the construction 'he was beloved by all' #so i think people's answers might change when given a list of more detailed options #fun with pronunciation #prosody #my posts #also i stressed for so long about what to call beloved in the 'x is beloved by y' construction #but settled on verb participle because i think it's fairly descriptive and accurate #so hopefully that's not too confusing? like it is a verb participle but for a verb that doesn't exist anymore (other than the participle)? #and even in 'my beloved x' beloved is a verb participle being used as an adjective if you're thinking more etymologically #but a lot of people were distinguishing 'be-loved as a verb' from other forms and i assume what they meant by that was 'x is beloved'

[uncanny-tranny]

By implying that children are too stupid and rude to learn about the world and learn how the world works and how to interact with others, you are casting responsibility away from the people who are responsible for that child's upbringing and placing the blame on the children (who don't have the autonomy given to them to be allowed to decide what they want) who can't help what they do and do not learn, often.

If the children aren't okay, then investigate why before turning to thought-terminating clichés of, "Well, the kids are just stupid and dumb and aren't even worth the effort because they're lazy!"

#youth liberation #i was really bothered when i saw this clip where this person was saying almost verbatim that... #...'kids [these days] are too STUPID and they're teachers are scared!'... #...why is the blame placed on the kids who have no control over school curriculum and what their home life is like or if they have money... #...it's because when you place the blame on the people with no power or control you don't have the responsibility to change circumstances.. #...you essentially keep the status quo while simultaneously belittling a group of vulnerable people... #...and thus you feed into the cyclical nature of the broken education system #the kids these days AREN'T okay but it ISN'T THEIR FAULT... #...it's the fault of late-stage capitalism and poorly-funded education and a world that wasn't even built with them in mind... #...they had NO PART in the creation of the world which is hostile to their entire existence #don't mind the incorrect usage of their in the second tag i was so focused on how pissed i was #also remember how a good chunk of these kids lived through *checks notes* the fucking PANDEMIC LOCKDOWN #which was a clown show in terms of supporting kids and their parent/s #some places handled lockdown in the US better than others but holy fuck in my area at least it was a nightmare #what do you expect from parents who are now working full-time and teaching part/full-time and parenting full-time? #what support exactly are you expecting they recieved? because you'll likely find they got either a little or NONE #hilarious that i used the wrong their in a post subtweeting about education LOL #look i was focused on how PISSED i was lol cut me some slack here

[viiridiangreen]

#plagiarism #james somerton #hbomberguy #just wanted to give it its own post #it was kinda lost under the absolute unit #(of good commentary and a much needed summary of the More Absolute Unit that is the video in question) #of lrb #i was conflicted abt this dude for a while like. i wasn't A Fan Subbed To His Patreon right #but the way he 'said' some really insightful shit and also dropped some really nonsensical rancid comments randomly in the middle of it. #yeah #guess it's because he Wasn't Fucking Saying Anything But The Rancidity Himself HUH? #nomás que eso fuera 😹😹 #& like i'm laughing rly hard at the audacity but also it's really fucking sad & infuriating to have had the actual authors of the commentar #that i enjoyed obfuscated like that. and obv not just bc of the individual enjoyment or insight i might've gotten from them but #they were fully robbed of an audience #or just fucking. recognition of their memory in the case of the people whose words were stolen who died from fucking aids #like???? #yeah i hope this fully ended this man's whole career for good #but more importantly that the authors of the works he ripped off get the attention they deserve #it's the fucking soulless business major of it all innit #/j #viitalks #gayplagiarismgate

[creativesplat]

Have a Dimitri because juggling hyper fixations is almost all I do now.

#dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #lambert egitte blaiddyd #(a hallucination of him anyway) #also can we take a moment to appreciate that no-one called dimitri crazy or insane or evil for hallucinations or psychosis #also no-one dismissing his delusions and telling him he was stupid but no-one saying his delusions were right and people gently correcting #like I love it #and as a side note #I've got (fairly mild) psychosis induced by stress and seeing my little guy/ the skrungly having a (considerably worse) thing similar to me #that wasn't villain-y or shown to be a really creepy or wacko thing to have #like do you know how many people in games and media are evil because of '!!the voices inside their heads!!' oooh creepy #like dang it come on psychosis doesn't make you evil or creepy it's just a symptom of varying conditions #or sometimes just something some people get #like I love Veronica (fe heroes) but the being possessed after hearing voices come on IS there are better ways to do things you morons #anyway enough about that #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #creativesplat draws

[vero-valzer]

Warden Ingo from Pokémon Legends: Arceus at Sakura-Con 2024

@vero-valzer as Warden Ingo

@rekkazor.cos (Instagram) as Volo

@palmtop_kitty (Instagram) as Pearl Clan Leader Irida

#Sakura-Con #sakura con #Sakura-Con 2024 #Sak 2024 #cosplay #crossplay #submas #subway boss ingo #warden ingo #pokemon #pokémon #pokemon legends arceus #legends arceus #ingo #nobori #ノボリ #subway master #subway master ingo #battle subway #pokemon black and white #pokémon legends arceus #pokémon black and white #it's been a million years since i shared my own content on tumblr. figured it might be fun to share my most recent ''niche''(?) cosplay her #will admit to ordering the complete cosplay--wasn't satisfied--proceeded to weather and modify it within the timeframe i had before con #figuring out the wig and sideburns(???) bangs(???) was also a trick lol #some things I'd like to modify or change further if i decide to wear him again but for a first outing as him--not bad I'd say! #the fact that the people who knew who i was were SO EXCITED to see him helped bolster my confidence so much #apparently!!! i missed a singular Emmet cosplayer the day before who had a sign saying ''have you seen my brother?'' and i went 😭 #i wish the stars had aligned for us to meetup the day we were both of the Submas twins. i might've just cried on the spot tbh #my cosplay

[ransomdemands]

yknow sometimes the way trans women talk about testosterone and being on estrogen is indistinguishable from the way terfs try to convince afab people not to start hrt

this is not a criticism mind you, their experiences are their own and completely legitimate, it's just a matter of competing needs - they need a safe space to talk about their dysphoria and how testosterone makes them feel and i need to not hear about how i am destroying my body with hrt

ordinarily these things are pretty insular to transfem circles but since instagram has been feeding me transfem content i'm seeing it more and more and yet again the algorithm is fucking me

#ransomrambles #like a friend of mine in absolute genuineness told me how my skin was gonna stop being soft and my hair was gonna thin out #and she obviously wasn't trying to dissuade me from hrt .... but like ..... thanks for leading with that mate #with estrogen it's the - no downsides- people often say there aren't many downsides to taking e - save some erectile dysfunction #but when it's the other way it's - make sure you're really sure cause you're permanently ruining your body forever #like i get that - my skin feels so soft now - is an estrogen experience ..... but the reverse framing is not helping anyone here #that's just all you hear about testosterone hrt - a list of downsides you'll have to cope with #idk this isn't a fully constructed thought #like i said trans girls deserve the space to have that conversation #i just need to not be in that space cause it obviously hits me differently #but man the sheer volume of trans girls talking about the /damage/ t has done to them .... in dis tinguishable #the aside to this is also a lot of girls being like i realized i was a girl cause of xyzq #and the list is the same as the one my mother used to be like - see you must be a girl #so it's just tough #competing access needs are hard to manage #and that's why life is best on the curate your own experience webbed site

[hephaestuscrew]

Pan-Pan, Boléro, and Minkowski's different responses to loss

I want to compare two key lines of Minkowski's which indicate very different responses to grief:

In Ep29 Pan-Pan, Minkowski breaks down and says "Doug Eiffel is gone! There was nothing we could do to save him. It wasn't anyone's fault. It's horrible, and pointless, and it just happened."

In contrast, after arriving at the funeral in Ep46 Boléro, she says "[Lovelace, Hilbert and Maxwell are dead] to make the fact that we're not gone yet important. They're gone... so that we never forget how important it is that we're still here." 

TL;DR: In Pan-Pan, Minkowski expresses her unprocessed grief through despair and hopelessness. Whereas in Boléro, she is able to find hope in the loss and lead her crew in trying to move forward. I suggest a significant reason of the difference is the presence of Eiffel to force Minkowski to confront and process the sense of loss.

Pan-Pan: "It's horrible, and pointless, and it just happened"

In Pan-Pan, the whole episode is full of anger and despair, but Minkowski speaking about the horrible pointlessness of losing Eiffel is one of the most painful and hopeless moments. It doesn't feel like she's really speaking to the others. She's focused on her internal despair (as suggested by the fact that she goes on to talk about the cracks, which Lovelace and Hilbert aren't supposed to know about).

The only potentially positive thing Minkowski says here is her recognition that "it wasn't anyone's fault". When Hera and Hilbert have been blaming Lovelace, and Minkowski has been blaming herself, it's significant that she acknowledges that sometimes a horrible thing just happens without there being anyone to blame. 

But in this context, and in the tone of voice Minkowski uses, even the lack of blame doesn't really feel like a positive thing. If Eiffel becoming stranded was just pointless and random, if there was nothing any of them could have done to save him, then the next tragedy might be just as unpredictable and unpreventable. Minkowski strikes me as the kind of person who can sometimes fall into the trap of subconsciously wishing that the awful thing is her fault because then at least she'd have control over something. In her train of thought here, the lack of blame is followed by focusing on how horrible and pointless what happened to Eiffel was. The only conclusion she can draw is "it just happened". There's no sense of hope in those lines. Eiffel being stranded just happened, and so do the cracks, and the crew are at the whims of brutal fortune with no meaning to any of it.

Boléro: "They're gone... so that we never forget how important it is that we're still here"

In Boléro, Minkowski can't even say that the tragedy wasn't anyone's fault. For each of the deaths, someone pulled a trigger. There is blame, and some of it lies at her feet. She didn't want to come to the funeral because at first she didn't know what she could say about the deaths she feels responsible for.

Yet even so, this time she finds something reassuring she can say to her crew, a grain of hope she can provide without attempting to diminish the loss: "[they're gone] to make the fact that we're not gone yet important. They're gone... so that we never forget how important it is that we're still here."

In another show, or another context, this kind of line might have had an 'everything happens for a reason' tone, which is something I deeply dislike as a response to other people's loss. But it doesn't feel like that's what Minkowski is saying here at all. She isn't trying to make any grand philosophical statement about the ultimate beneficence of the universe, or about how mortality gives meaning to human life. What she says here is working on a much more personal level. It's more about finding something other than despair that the crew can take from what has happened. This tragedy may still be horrible, but it provides a reminder that they are still alive in a context where that's far from guaranteed. Minkowski emphasises that the fact the survivors are alive matters - her crew matters. I'd argue that this contrasts with the 'it just happened' outlook discussed above. 

I don't know how much Minkowski fully feels the importance of them still being there in the moment, but it's something that she can offer her crew, something that she can say in a situation that words can't grasp. I think the moment when she joins the funeral is such a key moment of her leadership. In the end, despite her doubts and struggles, she's there for her crew. Eiffel brought them together for a funeral, but he doesn't know what to say when Hera asks why they have to be gone. Minkowski enters just at the right moment to support her crew and she provides an answer to Hera's question. It's not a perfect answer, but it allows the funeral to move forward. It allows the crew to move forward (even if that emotional movement is somewhat thrown off by a dramatic change in the circumstances). Minkowski starts off the eulogies; she leads her crew in the acknowledgement of what's been lost.

Why such a difference in responses?

There's lots of ways you could interpret the difference between the outlook of these two moments, and there's probably more to say about it though the lens of Minkowski's character development than I'm going to say here. But for me, the main difference between these moments is that, in Pan-Pan, it feels like no processing or recognition of grief has really occurred. When Minkowski says "Doug Eiffel is gone!", it almost feels like the first time that Minkowski has fully confronted and acknowledged the loss. Eiffel has been lost in space for 116 days, but it's only at the end of this episode that Minkowski brings herself to say in her distress calls that he is "presumed dead". Whereas in Boléro, she's already eulogising the dead and thinking about what can be learned from the loss, not even a full day after the mutiny.

Obviously there is much less ambiguity to a body bag (or least there would be, if not for alien interference). But I can't help thinking that the difference between the attitudes towards loss which Minkowski displays in these two quotes is less about the difference in the kind of loss, and more about a situation that prompted and enabled the processing of emotions in Boléro: namely, the funeral. After Eiffel was stranded in space, I think Minkowski probably went months without looking her grief in the eye. But after the deaths of Lovelace, Hilbert, and Maxwell, Eiffel's suggestion of a funeral forces Minkowski to confront her complicated emotions and provides a space in which she can offer direction to her grieving crew.

This is a good illustration of how I think Minkowski and Eiffel complement and support each other in a really valuable way. On his own, Eiffel couldn't provide the leadership that the crew needed for the funeral to work. But without Eiffel, and his determination to recognise the emotional weight of the three deaths, the funeral would never have happened and Minkowski would never have been in a position to provide hope and direction to her crew. When Eiffel was the one the Hephaestus crew were grieving, Minkowski couldn't offer much emotional direction to her crew beyond despair. But when Eiffel is beside her in the grief, saying that the grief deserves to be felt, then Minkowski can find a way for them to move forward emotionally. It's not the deaths that remind them how important it is that they are still here. It's the grief. It's the ability to confront that grief together.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #Renée Minkowski #Renee Minkowski #Doug Eiffel #I know that this is a lot to say about two short-ish quotes but I think they are symbolic / indicative of broader patterns #Also some of this probably contradicts things that I've said at other points #about how Minkowski dealt with Eiffel being stranded in space #But it's complicated. okay? #Sometimes I want to think about her grieving him and what that would look like #And sometimes I want to think about how in his absence she's much less able to process her emotions at all #Either way I'm emotional about them #This wasn't even initially meant to be a Minkowski & Eiffel post tbh #I just had this thought as I was writing this #It also wasn't meant to be 1000 words but these things just happen #Btw when I say I dislike the idea 'everything happens for a reason' #I fully respect if people find that a useful approach for their own personal misfortunes #but as soon as you start saying it to anyone else who is suffering #it feels distasteful to me #Maybe everything happens for a reason but sometimes the reason is shit etc #Eiffel & Minkowski #w359 spoilers #Wolf 359 spoilers #the empty man posteth #tw death #tw grief