#like nothing in his life mattered

[elfyourmother]

that rant I made a while back abt fandom treating haurche like a fridged woman is sitting on my spirit again

yeah I know ppl can write what they want, curate my space etc but if I blocked everyone who did this I would literally have no one to interact w in the ishgardian corner and this is exactly why it’s so frustrating

#some days I really feel like snapping and going into the proverbial wilderness #I just do not want to read see or perceive any more of this ‘he died to make my wol a better hero’ shit anymore #and that is literally all anybody does #I am tired of my favorite character being treated like this #like nothing in his life mattered #like HE didn’t matter #except for dying and making ppl sad and cry and be comforted by ‘real npc li’ #hell is being a fan of his in 2023 #im sorry I’m just inundated with this today and I was already in a bad brain space #negativity cw

[jicklet]

1.15 || 4.03

Was it after you drank Karen's fake poison for me? Earlier.

#Nancy Drew #Ndcw #nancydrewedit #naceedit #Nace #Nancy x Ace #ace [redacted] #Nancy drew spoilers #V watches Nancy Drew #V posts things #I was wondering why they had Nancy bring up the poison incident bc it feels like that wasn't a realization moment for Ace but for Nancy #(that boy was realizing nothing he was already all in) #But I was rewatching 115 and it hit me that it foreshadows Ace in 403 perfectly #He trusts Nancy to the moon and back #When it was him on the line he downed that vial like a shot no hesitation #And he was ready to risk the curse when it was just his life #But no matter how much he trusts Nancy he just can't see her in danger #Hah remember back even earlier in S1 when she called out the poisoner to come after her and he just had to stand there and watch her do it #No wonder he got so relentless about making sure she had backup for the rest of that escapade #And then elects himself to watch out for her always because well she's not going to do it #(Hm that last thought is giving me Peter and Olivia vibes. I'll think on that)

[shortnotsweet]

In a Week by Hozier ft. Karen Cowley

“The raven is death, obviously. When I die, I want a good tombstone—something right spooky. LT’s got something against the underground, though you’d think that would be just his kind of place. That’s alright. He needs to, he can cremate me. It’s not exactly Catholic, and Mam would turn in her grave, but God is a unicorn and no one is pure anymore, so. What’s all that got to do with me?”

Johnny “Soap” McTavish has a journal. Had. It is his no longer.

Simon “Ghost” Riley had dreams—awful ones, the kind that sank claws into his lungs, dragged him into sleep, and then sent him careening out of it. He still has dreams, but they’re different, now. Better. Johnny’s pages have folded themselves under his eyes and gotten into his head, brighter and more infectious than anything else has ever been. It’s more than the past, that rotting carcass behind him, and more than now. Now is nothing. Now is ash. It’s like, it’s like—blinding, is what it is. He’s a blind man.

It is biblical now. Ghost has read it backward and forward and sideways and inside out. When he runs out of things to read, he reads them again, and when that is not enough, he reads between the lines.

#ghostsoap #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #soapghost #soap x ghost #ghoap #call of duty #cod mw3 #my art #ghost is obsessed with soaps journal bc it breaks his heart at first like really tears it apart but soon focuses on what soap has written #about him. words of admiration and envy and love and fondness. real fondness. jokes made for him thoughts about him musings etc. #and johnnys snippets about his family and how he wants to settle down eventually #then all simon can think about is what life they could’ve lived together after the ‘war’ #nevermind that there will always be war be death be blood and love is there and it matters but it changes nothing #for simon there will always be johnny #who even knows if thats what soap wanted if he loved him back if ghost even remembers him as he was instead of what he wishes he could have #become to ghost if things had gone as they should. who knows. the dead dont sing dont speak. all thats left is what they wrote #the cigarettes refer to soaps smoking habit and how ghost disapproves like a nagging wife. the ash smudges and burns in the paper allude to #ghost deciding to have soap cremated as a spouse decides post mortem due to his own aversion to being underground bc he doesn’t want soap #to be nothing but a decomposing body. he couldn’t bear that. he couldn’t bury him alive or dead so burning it is

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

here have a Lights Out meme(?) before i go to bed <3 Wally is showing off a neat party trick to his newfriend <3

og:

#this has been in my mind for several days and im finally tired enough to execute it #this is... technically noncanon to the au i suppose... #wally Wouldn't touch fire again he learned his lesson #but also. at this point in the 'story' (said nebulously) Does He Really Care #wally: hey frank check this shit out *lights himself on fire* #frank - softly but with feeling: what the fuck... #home: *tired creak* #wallys had his Nothing In Life Matters (depressed) phase #now its time for Nothing In Life Matters (manic) phase #wh lights out au #scribble salad #theyre having so much fun i prommy (lying) #i really need to portray more of the au than just the Frank And Wally Alone In The Studio portion #even if it is the most fun. To Me. #they're entertaining... i feel like im playing with dolls...

[seth-burroughs]

I don't think that the reason why Number One's homunculus came out perfect and everyone else's was defective is that No1 had a ""Superior"" extra wrinkly guinness record brain or whatever the fuck. It's most likely because, you know, the UG facility's research was probably way better funded and carefully, well, researched, and picked out just one individual to focus on cloning -- on the other hand, KW's Project: Homunculus was unbelievably fucking rushed because Huesca wanted so bad to have one over the unified government he just started raw dogging the experiments and collected the DNA of almost every single person in that city because even if their homunculi do come out a bit undercooked at least they've got the numbers babyyyyy take that unified fuck. I think more thought and care went into building all these damn clone pods we saw for all of them than their actual creation. "something unexpected occured in our efforts to find suitable DNA" -> "i will die in approx. 20 seconds and STILL I won't admit I any% blind speedran playing god and failed due to the easily foreseeable consequences of my abysmal choices. It's actually a dna skill issue on those defects fuck them pinkies my final message. goodbye"

#massive passionate love-hate relationship with Huesca that guy really just made the biggest impact in the game #consistently became worse with every scene he appeared in and. I CANNOT in simple terms state how much he fucking. I can't. I can't. #it makes sense of him to do... *that* with the homunculi considering he was explicitly said to use unwilling persons as test subjects #for weapons and also his own escape from KW after the fact. He has absolutely zero regard for human life already #fuck you huesca i love you huesca don't come near me or my family huesca #mine #rain code #why does nobody talk about Huesca he's like mdarc's most influential villain right after the UG. Yomi takes 3rd place only lol #no matter how much Yomi tries he will never be that guy. *shouting* YOU ARE NOTHING BUT AN ANT BENEATH HUESCA'S MAGNIFYING GLASS❗❗❗

[astranauticus]

stultifera navis rerun AKA thinking about Iberia hours again because a lot of the Iberians have such fascinating relationships with the concept of home but specifically Thorns and Lumen are eating at my brain. like where do you call home when the place that is your home Just Fucking Hates You? Elysium's rewinding breeze specifically makes a point to hammers home how differently Iberia treats its Liberi and its Aegir

(which is especially interesting since this comes right after a conversation where Purestream commented on how despite Leizi being a high ranking government official, there are still some experiences that are universal for all Yanese people - because the experience of what Iberia itself is like isnt universal for all Iberians)

But all that being said, Thorns also straight up states that Aegir is not his home, and yeah, how could it be? How could a place you've never been to, never truly known, ever be your home? How could it ever feel like a home?

so where do you go when the place that you are from hates your people and the place your people are from is completely unfamiliar and alien to you? Thorns' answer at the end of the conversation with Aya is: my home is where i chose it to be. my home is where there are people I care about and people who care about me

in the complete opposite direction, Lumen's oprec asks: why do you still stay in a place that wants you gone? because the people of Gran Faro like Jordi well enough but when push comes to shove, they will want the only Aegir in town gone

and yet, when Rald the messenger offers him a chance to leave Jordi turns him down and when he's forced to escape Gran Faro after the people there literally try to send him to his death (or worse) at the hands of the Inquisitors he keeps trying to go back because like everyone in stultifera navis, Jordi is clinging to his own dreams of a golden age

but the shape of that dream is unique to every character and for Jordi, his dreams are deeply, inseparably bound to the Eye of Iberia, the legacy his parents left behind

and it's this dream of becoming someone great, of bringing about that golden age that his parents devoted their lives to help create that ties Jordi to this nothing town because despite everything, despite the mistrust of the townsfolk and the hostility of the Inquisition and the danger from the ocean, he simply cannot leave it behind

(or, because i personally dislike the official translation,)

"I just see this place as my home"

so yeah. not sure what overall point i was trying to make here i'm just. deeply in love with these stories about chosing what is and isn't your home, of saying you will not call a place your home because it has given you no reason to or saying you consider a place your home even though it has given you every reason not to. deeply unwell about them <3

#arknights #asto speaks #not much of an essay writer i just keep thinking about them and i need to force other people to think about them too #thorns story fucks me up bc like. this whole almost found family adjacent idea of like #maybe home isnt something decided by your birth but something you can chose based on what truly matters to you #it just gets to me. i guess. #jordi gets to me in a completely different direction there's nothing personal about it i just find his story *fascinating* #just a guy. a completely normal guy. an absolute nobody caught up in these dreams of greatness while also fully aware of his own normalcy #but never letting either of those overshadow the other. never losing that self awareness or that fuckin obsessive determination #god. what a Character #i love jordi so much like genuinely #i joke a lot about him being just a Guy but thats also kinda like the best thing about him #the fact that he is the way that he is and does all the things he does despite being just a Guy #gently holds #for context i was so hyped about new iberia lore when sn was announced i read the whole thing as soon as it dropped on cn server #cuz someone uploaded all the story sections to bilibili right after it came out #and '我只是把这里当作自己的故乡啊' fucking hit me SO HARD #in like the greater context of elysium demanding to know why hes risking his life in like 5 different ways to return to gran faro #because yeah jordi just doesnt want to leave his home but like we the audience knows the full *weight* of what that home means to him #and the weight of the dreams that made him chose to see Gran Faro as his home and to refuse to let go of that #thats why i like the original a lot more than the translation i think like it really emphasises that active *choice*. #this is the place jordi has *decided* to see as his home and he knows what that means and what it means to him #side note the part on thorns might not actually age well depending on whether hg decides to ever release more aulus lore #i mean i'll gladly take the L if it means more aulus and/or thorns lore like #i just wanna know what (if anything) is tying him to iberia yknow #ak #iberiaposting

[transmascutena]

thinking about how akio sees his younger self in utena and wondering if there's any fondness there. doesn't change the horror of what he does to her obviously but i do wonder

#akio and utena #m #long ramble in the tags sorry: #the thing about akio is that he's so evil bit he's also so human #he has feelings. i just don't know what they are (if anything) toward his victims #he loves anthy at the very least i'm sure of that. even if he hates her too. just like she loves and hates him. the lines are blurry. #and i just. i have to wonder whether any of that extends to utena at all. we know anthy at times feels similarly about utena and dios #(and akio by extension.) the simultanious love and resentment. so it's not too unlikely i think. #like. even though he never had anything but bad intentions in getting close to her #i'm not sure it's possible to do everything he did and feel nothing #not that he has any meaningful amount of guilt or remorse for it. i don't think that. #and i obviously don't think he “loved” her in any of the ways she might have thought he did #but did he not care at all? did he not feel any kind of fondness or sympathy or just. idk. pity? for her? #whatever the case it wasn't enough to reconsider having her killed so you know. how much does that actually matter anyway #idk. i think about it a lot. how abusers are rarely entirely indifferent toward their victims #the role he's playing in her life is so fucked up but it IS a role he's playing and i wonder how much he you know... internalizes it? #how much does he believe the illusion of family that he invites her into? because akio DOES often buy into his own illusions. #(similarly i think it's possible that akio is fond of touga too. their mentor-protégé relationship is horrible and abusive #but that doesn't make it less real. you know? maybe real is the wrong word.) #when he talks in episode 25 about wanting utena and anthy closer that's obviously so he can continue to groom her #but is there something genuine there too? i don't know. #again. it obviously does not make anything he does better or even different. but it is interesting to think about to me. #on the other side of that coin does seeing his own past youth and naivete and desire to do good that he (maybe) once had #reflected back at him through her mean anything? #is there resentment there? that she is what he couldn't be? or more likely he just thinks that idealism is stupid. #either way it's something he wants to take from her. anyway ramble over. #i talk a lot about utena's feelings toward akio (familial vs romantic love and the way the two are intertwined in fucked up ways) #but not much the other way around. probably because utena is actually a sympathetic character whose feelings the show very clearly #wants you to analyze and think about. #which is... less true for akio i think. though he's still a complex character with complex motives. he's just harder to get a grasp on.

[carefulfears]

the scully of fight the future who doesn’t want a career in the bureau at all if she can’t do it with him. who debated even telling him that she’s quitting in person, and feels like her loss won’t even make a difference: he doesn’t need her, she only holds him back. the scully who doesn’t even make it to the elevator. the way that as soon as he starts speaking, she goes silent. she can’t even respond. this is not a debate. tears just pour down her face, as he tells her that she owes nothing. that she has made her favorite person, a “whole” person. that she has saved him “a thousand times over.” and she stays completely silent. all she can do is cry, and hold him, and kiss his forehead. how small she must feel sometimes…being dragged from one spot to the next, following along. the way her face just collapses as she moves from holding onto his shoulder to pull him down to her. he breaks her open sometimes.

#she believes in him so much and she thinks he can save the world even if she moves on. and he’s so frustrated he’s almost angry #as he just spits out at her that she’s the entire reason he’s here. #‘i owe you EVERYTHING. scully…and you owe me nothing.’ #from the person she believed in so much she nearly lost her life to follow him!! whom she looked up to from her deathbed #and said take EVERYTHING i have left!!! my dignity my reputation my dying breaths take it ALL!!! #her ahab!! #and she owes nothing. she is everything. she matters. #and she’s been going back/forth with him every day for 5 years but she is rendered with nothing to say. #nothing to do but cry and hold him and hold him and hold him #make him bow his head to her so she can kiss it and try to absolve him. like he did her in that hospital hallway. #so much grief in being needed #it just says so much that the only time she ever considers leaving him is because she thinks SHE is bad for HIM. #and he tells her……i cannot do it without you. but i expect nothing from you anyway. #and being told she’s needed by her best friend reduces her to tears. no wonder. #txf.txt #ftf

[softesttangerines]

Obsessed with the thought that tho mihawk is comfortable in his lone wolf life style, he does find it a bit too lonesome sometimes when the mood is somber, the silence is too much and he just remembers shanks' laugh and maybe no matter how much shanks' crew are too loud (understatement) he does find them entertaining, and maybe he enjoys ben's company in a comfortable silence, he may even consider him something close to a friend.

It just gets too much sometimes and he loathes the loneliness. When he's in one of those moods, he's mostly drinking and picking petty guaranteed wins. Going around like "you disturbed my nap" to whomever he's slicing into two and it got quite worst after he got used to zoro and perona and now they're no longer there and he was never much for kids but those are HIS kids and he misses kicking zoro's ass and baking with perona and them helping him in the garden as an unspoken, forced bonding family time.

He may like being alone but he hates being lonely, especially after he met people he actually enjoyed sacrificing his alone time for (not that he'll ever admit it)

+

Now he's hanging out with cross guild (while waiting for zoro to get stronger and come after him so he either take his retirement or just dies in peace, both are good, really) and no day passes without at least one murder attempt from his side, but really, try to take the clown away from him and it would be you he stabs.

#mishanks #in this headcanon it's mostly longing for past mishanks with zero hope of them ever getting together because shanks has big plans #mysterious plans that dont involve mihawk in his future and mihawk not necessarily being interested in the one piece or anything #he really just wants to have a great fight with zoro and that's his only life goal to die by the sword #but he does long for a time where he could have had something more that just a life where he lives by the sword and dies by it #and at one point life he just starts doing random shit cz he's bored and zoro's taking too long so he just joins cross guild #crocodile is very antagonising on a good day and buggy is just straight out annoying because no matter how much the clown shittalks shanks #he's more like him than he thinks after all they grew up together #and mihawk really doesn't need anyone to remind him of the redhead but buggy is still entertaining and he kinda grew soft for his antics #and if the clown is a yonko now and wants the one piece mihawk might as well follow him since he has nothing to do at the moment #and buggy's like “take that shanks!” and shanks' genuinely miffed that Mihawk joined buggy and not him and he's kinda annoyed cz wtf man??? #anyways this is me rambling too much because i don't wanna do my work :) #alsooooo i really like to think that mihaek and ben are on good terms? like they are silence no shit typa buddies #one piece #opla #mihawk #shanks #buggy the clown

[greenerteacups]

What do you think as Hermione's career would be post battle of Hogwarts? To me her being minister for magic really doesn't make sense. She does not have patience or tact to wade through murky waters of politics 😭😭

So hard to say! The Trio are so, so young when we leave them, I find it almost impossible to project their futures farther than a few years out. The job that suited me at 17 would be radically unsuited to me now. That's why of all the Trio, Ron's ending strikes me as the most realistic — he jumps straight into the save-the-world business again, burns out, realizes he's actually Done The Fuck Enough, Thanks, and pivots into a low-stress career where he gets to see his family a lot. Feels accurate! The others are weirder to me because they do seem to just... pick a lane and stay there.

With Hermione, you could spin her a couple ways. You could say that she leans into her bookish side and does research or teaching, which is not my preference for a couple reasons (namely, I don't think Hermione would like academia as a profession; she finds her classwork interesting and enjoys intellectual validation, but she'd be stifled and wasted in a DPhil program, and she'd be infuriated by the administrative politicking of your average higher-ed faculty). You could say that she gets disaffected with politics and ends up as a barrister or a lobbyist of some kind, but if anything that requires more political finesse, because you don't actually have institutional power, you're just handling the people who make decisions and trying to persuade them of your goals. This is not Hermione's preferred method of influence. She's not even particularly good at persuasion, she just happens to be smart enough (and right often enough) that people take her ideas seriously.

Or you could say her brashness fades with the years into a softened flavor of tell-you-like-it-is honesty, which some politicians actually do successfully trade on; as we see in British politics today, you don't have to be all that charming or clever to get ahead, you just need to be really driven and well-connected (which Hermione completely is; she fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the first postwar Minister and her bestie, the Literal Messiah, runs the Auror Office.) But I don't know if Hermione especially wants to be Minister, after the war. She's just watched years of horrendous bureaucratic incompetence plunge the country into a violent civil conflict. She's had not one, but two Ministers of Magic try to bully or shame her friends into complicity with fascism. Her view of government is... likely extremely dark.

But Hermione also isn't the kind of person who sees her life as a quest for happiness. Babygirl has a savior complex that makes Harry look selfish. (She basically kills her parents — yeah, obliviating is a form of murder, #changemymind — "for their own good," and justifies every batshit, vindictive, mean-spirited move she ever pulls on the grounds that it "helps" one of her friends.) She is a mean, lean, dragon-slaying machine, and she needs a dragon. After Voldemort, the Ministry is the no. 1 threat to muggle-borns and non-wizarding Beings. As a war heroine with basically infinite political capital, I'd be surprised if she didn't try to do something there. That said, Hermione is so vivacious and dynamic that she could potentially grow in a hundred different directions; it's possible that all of this, while true of her at 18, becomes completely inaccurate by 22. That's why I'm not too fussed about any particular fanon interpretation.

#greenteacup asks #sidebar: I know Minister “of” Magic is an Americanism but mea culpa #Someday I might actually bite it and pay someone to britpick Lionheart but I can't do it now #because I have a ban on editing published fic unless it's finished. Otherwise I'll never get around to writing the actual ending #I have a Process #is it the best process? likely not! but it makes the words go. so here we are. #I also think the fact that JKR is Gen X makes a difference here. careers worked differently in the 80s and 90s than they do now #i.e. we have the gig economy and a lot more mobility and EXPECTATION of mobility in your early life #that means career changes & professional pivots through your 20s and 30s are increasingly normal #and in fact have always been normal — but the image of the 'true' or 'ideal' career has changed #so we look at those careers and go hm. really? none of them changed? #none of them even went to uni? do wizards... just not? #but again. I believe the epilogue was written almost completely without consideration as to what happened between the BOH and then #I really believe that JKR did not know what happened to Harry except a wedding and 3 kids. because that was the whole point #I don't think she even knew what his career was when she wrote that scene #It existed to marry everyone off and do a quick munchkin headcount #because of the understandable temptation as an author to keep your hand on the wheel. but it didn't even matter! #the epilogue changed NOTHING! it was the most useless chapter in the series! I just — GOD #you can absolutely accuse me of being sour grapes about my ships getting nixed. I AM sour grapes. I AM a hater. #AND I have plot/theme/craft reasons for disliking it. #I'm not objective. I just want credit for being a sophisticated hater. my grapes may be sour but they're still artisinal.

[aviatrickss]

*takes a deep breath and leans in so close that my lips touch the microphone*

the tragedy of dick and jason’s relationship as brothers is not that they hated each other and then jason died, or that they were super close and then jason died. the tragedy is that dick did not know enough about jason to know how to mourn him. were they brothers? were they rivals? dick sure doesn’t know, and jason doesn’t either! but it’s fine bc they have plenty of time to figure that shit out, they don’t need to know each other right now bc there will be time to know each other later.

except.

#sorry saw a long post about this and had Thoughts #dick doesn’t know jason!!! he doesn’t really try to know jason! #and jason doesn’t so much give a fuck about knowing dick! #but then jason is *gone* and they will never get the chance to be brothers/rivals/friends #and the only way dick has left to know him is to mourn him #but bruce guards that like he guards nothing else in his entire guarded life #dick can see the memorial and dick can know bruce failed #but dick does not get to mourn jason bc only *bruce* has that burden/comfort/responsibility #and so dick has nothing. no happy memories to comfort himself w no bad memories to make it easier that jay is gone #and *that’s* the fucking tragedy. dick does not get to keep any part of jason whatsoever #and so he makes sure to bond w tim and w damian #bc he knows not to count on a future that may never happen #he knows that the potential of a relationship is not worth a fraction of an actual one (good or bad) #jason doesn’t care enough about dick to include him in his plans for revenge #it’s not hatred or love or jealousy or even *friendship* #the tragedy of dick and jason’s relationship is that they never really have one #and no matter if jason comes back from the dead if dick makes up for it w tim and dami #they’re never going to get that time back

[stinkrascal]

one thing about caspian and vaughn is they have the most complicated family tree ever 🐎

#ts4 #straud: all #straud: extras #oc: vaughn pollard #oc: caspian velez #oc: sarah stanfield #oc: owen stanfield #oc: angel velez #oc: donna pollard-velez #oc: mariana velez #oc: domingo velez #i wanted 2 make their grandparents for the upcoming horse pack #and then ideas were had so i speedran remaking their parents #i used to design vaughn's mom to look like a vampire. but i decided i wanted her to be human #so now vaughn gets his vampire half from his deadbeat dad who he's (supposedly) never met. yeahhhhh. i mean it's obvious who it is isn't it #oh and to make matters worse caspian's mom and vaughn's mom r sisters. so as you can imagine drama ensued #that's their paternal grandparents but they heavily favor caspian n basically have nothing to do w vaughn or his mother for reasons #even though their son angel gets a pass for those same reasons which is not great but what can you do #angel and donna are dead btw rip to them #oh and owen is vaughn's step dad who he has also (supposedly) never met. this is a theme in vaughn's life #🌱 #the sims 4

[i-spilled-my-soup]

doing close reading of the titans curse to study for a time travel au and augh. auguuuagh

#bianca wanted it all along #is it strength? is it assurance? #and given that she jumped into an assistant role maybe she wants to have purpose? to be useful? to contribute to something greater? #and nico had always wanted to go after her himself he was just too weak to #he thought percy had the capability to impact fate #and bianca always had her hair obscuring her face #thats the origin of the nico emo hair #oh bianca was never smiling when she was with nico #she didn't smile when talking about him or when she was thinking about him #but with the hunters she was beaming #she was stronger and more confident #more assertive and more courageous #willing to lead a quest for a cause she'd joined one day prior #auguuuah #the feeling of incompetence when you can't do anything to make your loved ones happy #no wonder nico considered trading his life for hers #to him it probably seemed like it wouldn't matter if he was dead or alive #maybe even good riddance #no one annoying bianca anymore and nothing for her to stress about #just auguguahuhh #he's really justified in his conclusion #ttc #time travel au #soup thoughts

[rapidhighway]

K I've been thinking about this for like a week now. Ignoring any immortal headcanons if you have them. Knuckles knows he's not going to be able to guard the Master Emerald forever and that probably troubles him, but, if he was dying do you think he'd ask Sonic to guard it? He's the person with a unique connection to Chaos and the Chaos Emeralds and he's basically chosen one the most specialest guy, and one of the few people Knuckles could trust with that duty.

Of course I think Sonic would say no. I think he'd never be able to do that and he wouldn't want to.

#lmao i think even if Knuckles was on his fucking deathbed Sonic would say no #like sure he's got a sense of duty but guarding the me would be absolute hell for him #and he's never really acknowledged if he even gets just how important Knuckles' job is #sure he gets some of it but he doesn't really care that much beyond knuckles cares deeply for SOME reason #and im not saying that as something negative i actually think good for him you know #bad for knux cause he'd be fucking tormented by that #it also makes me think about the conflict people like to write between them in forces fanfics #where knuckles didn't take care of tails enough and sonic gets pissed at him i think this is a great parallel #like i know a kid and a big magic rock aren't objectively the same thing but if you think about how it much it matters to knuckles #especially that it matters to him more than that too because it's literally his entire life #not giving the ME and knuckles' duty the acknowledgement it deserves is like saying he's wasted his life for nothing #ouough okay #sorry im in such knuckles angst mood rn pl if you have thoughts respond idk if im imagining all of this correctly gnjhgcsddgu #gimme some fuckin drama

[time-is-restored]

btw this might be me swinging a bat at a hornets nest but like. absolutely none of my disappointment from the tl finale comes from ship baiting or any relationships that didn’t happen (though to be clear, i think the tedbecca fake outs were meanspirited and served no narrative purpose - in noted contrast to the season's earlier jamiekeeley fakeouts, for example, which were explicitly there to demonstrate jamie's growth + maturity)

tedpendant is a really fun concept for me, and i LOVE the characterisation + thematic potential there!

but as someone who personally resonated with a lot of ted’s struggles, the idea that ted could leave richmond so… seamlessly, for lack of a better word, really doesn’t sit right with me. the thesis of the shows entire first season - assuming it can be said to have only one - was about how everyone needs the love and support of a community, whether that comes in the flavour of someone who hypes u tf up or someone who will relentlessly call u on ur shit (or, as happened quite frequently, both!).

rebecca, roy, jamie are the clearest examples as the characters with the most screentime: they were all deeply isolated and disconnected from the people around them, and that was making them miserable. the connections they made with the team, the vulnerability they finally allowed themselves to express (the ghost banishing ceremony comes to mind!), and them going on to want *more* out of their life are what made their arcs about *progression* rather than *regression*. without that clear theme of compassion + community inspiring positive growth in everyone who encounters it, there is, frankly, no season one.

my personal favourite scene from season one comes right after michelle walks away from ted, when they’ve agreed to get divorced. ted sits down on the bench looking gutted, and a little shell shocked - and beard sits down with him. hands him the drink, and they sit there together. silent, but together. to me, that scene is an implicit promise from the episode, to the audience: ‘it’ll be okay. it’s going to be hard, but ted isn’t alone, and his friends won’t leave him behind.’

it also makes it clear to the audience that ted isn’t the saintly-giver-of-grace who needs nothing in return, as one might assume on first brush, but rather that he’s Also struggling with his own shit (as is everyone, always, in real life!) and he has something he needs from the people around him too.

and looking at the text of s3, and the conclusion to his arc in the finale, i just don’t believe that he got it. he wasn’t just sad that he was leaving (which would be understandable!), he was completely closed off. unresponsive to the people around him reaching out, borderline confused as to why they were trying so hard!

(side note, while i completely respect the read of ted and trents last interaction being rather rude + ooc on ted’s part, i personally read a different motive into it. for me, it was more like… he didn’t understand where trents enthusiasm was coming from? like, he read that as trent being too invested in what other people think of him, and responded in a way that he hoped would emphasise that ted doesn’t *need* to laugh at everything trent wrote, bc trent Already Knows that he’s done something really cool and kickass, and he shouldn’t value anyone else’s reactions above that. basically, based on his demeanour in the episode, i genuinely don’t think it would’ve even occurred to him that trent was more invested in HIS reaction than he would’ve been with anyone else.)

again, looking purely at the text, the show had already established that ted has really strong depressive + avoidant tendencies, as well as panic attacks (largely triggered by his fear of not being ‘good enough’ in various roles, ie: a father). we saw one area he was able to calm HIMSELF abt these fears (worry for henry, which is a Hell of a choice considering the ending…), but in literally every other heightened moment, he had to rely on his support system to help him make the choices that he WANTED to make, rather than ones inspired by avoidance and fear (ie: confronting michelle abt jake, talking to his mum abt why she was visiting + his dads death).

and to be clear, this is a GOOD THING! we’re not supposed to go through life alone, no matter how bad OR well we’re doing. rebecca and keeleys friendship isn’t worth less for all the scenes where they’re both in good places. if anything, the opposite is true - it’s lovely that they both have someone who want to celebrate the achievements in their life!

and fuck it, we’re sure as hell not supposed to go through life with exactly one (1) person whom we expect to fulfill ALL of our emotional needs at all times either! like, im sure i don’t need to labour my point here, but tying everything to one (1) person in ur life doesn’t make u any less isolated than if u were going it completely alone, whether it’s a family member, a friend, or a partner. i won’t pretend to know the first thing abt what it’s like to be a parent, but i don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that no parent would be at their best if they had absolutely no support/camaraderie/general love provided to them from Anyone other than their child.

so when ted is SPECIFICALLY shown to be in a bad place, over and over again (did he come to terms w his fear to be close to henry overnight???????), and then removed from his community? of COURSE the audience is left feeling unsettled, and like the rug has been pulled out from under them. there was no time in this finale dedicated to how ted would still be in contact with anyone from richmond. no promises of visits, or phone calls - fuck, nothing about emails!! according to the text, we might as well assume this is a clean break (and the maybe-dream-sequence does Fuck All to assure us otherwise. if ted doesn’t go to beards wedding, what WOULD he go to????). and since the show has ALSO completely failed to give us even an IMPLICATION of who/what ted’s support system would be in kansas, there’s… a reasonable argument to be made that this is It for ted. that, after two seasons doing NOTHING but attesting otherwise, the audience is supposed to suddenly believe that ted can (and SHOULD!) pull himself up by his bootstraps, and cope entirely on his own.

that, to me, is a betrayal of the show’s premise. we were promised a show about how, no matter how dark things may get, none of the characters would be left to struggle alone. and then they ended the show with ted alone.

i don’t know. i guess if i had to give this post a tldr; if anyone has any gen fic/meta/Literally Anything in the pipeline, i would absolutely love to be tagged/directed towards it. i’ll be endeavouring to write something myself, as well, but it might take a while before i can return to my WIP, lol.

#this is the most measured version of this post i was capable of fghjskdjhgfdgjhsfd #the least measured one is just the aromantic flag with the ‘we are going to beat u to death’ meme overlaid #look ik this is hardly impartial wrt very small + insular communities like nuclear families #but its fucking impossible to go into media analysis and not bring Anything from ur real life in there w u #so im trying to forgive myself for being a little hashtag Vulnerable + Opinionated on main #in the spirit of what this show could’ve been lol #if not here then where etc etc #Ted lasso spoilers #Ted lasso meta #Ted lasso critical #also just to be clear here im being dead serious abt that last point #im spiritually doing the jamie run to demonstrate to u all how badly i want gen shit #please. p l e a s e . #okay wait last ramble here but. this is also why the lack of information we got on trent was so crushing to me #like ur telling me this man went through the incredibly painful + harrowing process of breaking out of his (comfortable! safe) shell + #cynical journalist persona. came out to someone VERY important in his life. and has done nothing but face the music wrt acknowleding #his past mistakes + endeavouring to be better and kinder. and we never get to know if he has ANY support through all that? at all? #is he dating? what's his family situation like? does he have full custody? any friends from work? any friends period????? #like i can should must and will die on the beard + roy + higgins + colins are trents best friends hill but #its like the premise of the show stopped mattering just in time for him to be left in a legitimately depressing limbo #like 'yes everyone needs love + support bc life is rlly hard. but we're tired of making a show abt that so This Is All Ur Getting #+ screw anyone's personal life that u didn't already see in s1. You Know Enough.' #anyway i love u all this is a very silly show and im gonna go play t.o.t.k for a few hours o/ <3

[archduke-enver-gortash]

mmm essay about sally and kid gort in the tags (cw for child abuse, mentions of suicide, animal cruelty and a murder attempt. i always hope i don’t have to say this but just in case: i don’t excuse or condone any of her or gort’s behaviour at all.) this is literally not even touching upon everything i have to say because i hit the fucking tag limit lmao. NOBODY READ IT’S BAD BRAINSTORMING I JUST NEEDED TO GET IT OUT SOMEHOW

#thinkin too much about gortie side characters again. #sally this time and why she specifically talks about him the way she does #like dravo is obviously still shitty but to me he was. ‘just ‘neglectful #while sally actively hated and even felt terrorised by her own child #like. it’s not like i don’t understand her at all. #imagine you and your love don’t have much besides each other and your shop and you get pregnant and ready to raise a child #only for it to not be a child he didn’t and doesn’t cry ever and he learns everything so much sooner than most but then he never calls you #his parents and it’s not just a petty thing kids do sometimes you feel that he doesn’t see you as family and the worst part is that you #agree deep down #and as he gets older he doesn’t have any friends and actively rejects the notion of the entire concept #but then as time passes you hear about how he has entire groups of children following him and then several of them commit suicide #and that thing coming to sit with you and dravo at the dinner table says that he did what you did last week when the axe to chop wood broke #and you discarded it and got a new one #and he has these habits of ripping out flowers and making sure that they don’t regrow #and then you hear rumours about a friend’s daughter’s cat disappearing and think nothing of it #until you visit his tree house a month later and find a declawed cat and birds with clipped wings and crushed bugs that he keeps fondly #and then you see him with other children and they don’t know and his face is different and body language is entirely different #and were it not for the fact that you know better you would never see anything but a normal child #and you know that you are one who painstakingly brought this thing that should not be into the world and so you decide to end it all one da #and go to him as he’s asleep with the knife shaking in your hand #but he cries when you’re above him! screams at the top of his lungs! #so you beg for forgiveness even though you don’t deserve it through tears but as soon as the knife is put away you see the act drop and fee #his clever fingers having twisted your brain inside and out and you know that you can do nothing #and so the opportunity arises to at least remove him out of your life if not everyone’s lives and you take it immediately. #but you heard him talk. how he will close his fist around the world one day. and you know that it is not a matter of if but when. #like. imagine that. jesus dude. #like i hc her as someone that is messy and does not know a lot about life and she certainly wouldn’t have been a good mother but the love #or at least desire to love is there somewhere. and believing that having a child is really the only somewhat meaningful thing she can do #with her life. she’s not some hero or rich or anything of note. so there’s a lot obligation and not genuine desire for family here. #but she never really got the chance to be an actual mother in the first place so. who knows what that might have looked like