the highs (danielle and ben winning titles) and lows (frances and taylor losing) of american tennis

some theorizing / meta about pride if reinsuba

i think their power dynamic is super interesting because on the surface, obviously reinhard is more powerful than subaru. theres no question about that. reinhard is the one person subaru cant beat with enough tries at rbd. reinhard has killed subaru in pride if, what, i think it was either 1,000 or 10,000 times? but reinhard only powers over subaru PHYSICALLY. mentally, reinhard is already weak, but he’s doing better in pride if purely because wilhelm was erased by the whale. we can then assume that this reinhard is not as insecure as his main route self—wilhelm was the one that blamed him for killing theresia, and heinkel was the one who defended reinhard at first before eventually growing to believe this too. because wilhelm’s gone, all of that conflict is gone—or at least mostly gone, but we do know that reinhard and heinkel make up again regardless.

on the other hand though, pride if reinhard starting off happier than main route reinhard means he has a longer way to fall. subaru specifically cant directly beat reinhard. except—the only way to win over reinhard is to fight him indirectly. his mind is easily the only weak part of him because hes still human. he already has built-in insecurities from his upbringing and how the kingdom itself has treated him as a weapon and a tool. we only see julius die on screen, and we get a small mention that felix dies later as well, and then of course theres the whole kingdom—but i 100% think subaru killed basically all of reinhard’s loved ones. of course felix is targeted because its so easy to manipulate and use him after the whale erased crusch. of course julius is targeted because hes a knight to a rival competitor to emilia. but its a great coincidence that theyre also both reinhards closest friends—its a win win for subaru. theyre stepping stones in his plan to also bring the sword saint down to earth.

how do you kill a hero if you cant physically kill him? you kill everyone he cares about. you kill his purpose. his purpose as sword saint is to protect the entire kingdom, and he was told—at the age of FOUR—that if he cares about his family, then he must protect the kingdom. in pride if, he essentially fails at both of those things. julius and felix and likely people like heinkel, carol, and grimm (the latter two are also people who looked after reinhard ever since he was a child, in addition to other astrea family members) are dead. the kingdom is burning and in ruin. reinhard, whos been conditioned into being the kingdom’s hero, is forcefully broken out of that in the worst way possible. look, reinhard, the entire country is broken and all your loved ones are dead and now, theres no obligation to save any of them when they’re all already gone—it’s technically what reinhard’s always wanted. reinhard’s hero image has been shattered. and im sure that in the aftermath of pride if, after subarus death, theres likely going to be at least one person out there going, “why didnt the sword saint save us? why couldnt the sword saint stop any of this from happening?”

its no wonder, then, that subaru is the one that makes reinhard—emotionally repressed and almost always collected and subdued reinhard whos always asking even SIN ARCHBISHOPS mid-fight to surrender—to feel pure hatred for the first time. that’s how subaru won over reinhard.

and now that reinhard isnt the Hero anymore, emilia can replace him—just as subaru planned.

episode 5 has left me considering the different - and similar - ways taeyoung and kwonsook think about themselves, and how they respond to pain/violence.

kwonsook calls herself a monster, someone who goes crazy in the boxing ring. that monster, she says, was created by her father, and her father used abuse, violence, and emotional manipulation to create that monster. he didn’t treat her like human, so it’s no surprise that the way she talks about herself when she boxes is as if she’s discussing an animal: she gets cornered, gets scared for her life, and lashes out to kill. she calls herself a monster with resignation; it’s not what she wanted to be, but she knows it’s what she was. she ran away to escape that monstrosity, to live as a human, doing good things, but that part of her never really died.

taeyoung, too, calls himself a monster. he’s a SOB, he does thing no one with an ounce of humanity would do. he seemingly has no qualms about what he does, perhaps because he can always justify it to himself, always has an exit prepared for when things really get bad (until, i’m sure, he doesn’t). like kwonsook, taeyoung accepts the label of monster, accepts his own inhumanity, even if they are inhuman in very different ways. whereas kwonsook wants to break away from that monstrous part of her - she’s only returned so she can free herself from that part of herself permanently (and if she finds a way to box without a monster, then...) - taeyoung embraces it. it’s through being a monster that he’s found success, how he secures futures for his athletes, and how he’s able to ‘solve’ their (and his) issues. monstrosity was not imposed on taeyoung, but (due to what we know so far) is something he chose for himself (although the factors surrounding this part of his past are decidedly murky).

in this episode, taeyoung and kwonsook also demonstrate similar responses to violence and (emotional) pain. when taeyoung upsets kwonsook by working with her father behind her back, he offers her an outlet for her anger by punching him. later on, after ahreum has already slapped kwonsook, instead of lashing out, kwonsook offers to let ahreum hit her again if it will make her feel better. in parallel responses, both ahreum and kwonsook debate taking that opportunity to hurt, but decide not to (kwonsook because she’s taking a chance on taeyoung, or moreso giving him another one, and ahreum because she decides that she doesn’t owe kwonsook that, that kwonsook is beneath her in terms of boxing, no longer on her level). 

kwonsook learned to respond to pain at a young age. in boxing, you can’t flinch from the hit - you have to learn how to take the pain, absorb it, and get back up to hit again. outside of the rink, kwonsook absorbs the pain, but she doesn’t hit again. she’s experienced firsthand what her hits can do to people, and that terrified her. after all, she only boxed so that she could protect her mother. so when confronted with violence and pain, she takes the hit, because pain is what she knows and understands. it’s the emotions behind it that are hard for her. pain is easy for kwonsook, because she’s used to living through it, surviving it; beneath it, she’s always empty. she’s never really cared about boxing; it was what she had to do. the lee kwonsook that was a boxing genius was a monster she ran from, after all. but in order to break away from that monster, she has to come to understand the emotional investment of her fellow female boxers. before, they were just her opponents, never her friends, but now she has to face their own feelings about the sport, the passion they have for boxing that she never felt. like ara said, she didn’t feel happiness about winning, and kwonsook has never lost, so she’s never had to live with that humiliation, either. how her feelings will change in relation to boxing will likely be a reckoning for her.

taeyoung, on the other hand, is confronting his fair share of non-boxing sanctioned boxing. even though kwonsook is the boxer, it’s taeyoung who’s been touched by ‘true’ violence in this present timeline. his life is quite literally on the line, which has been shown again and again. he’s been ambushed by her father, threatened, blackmailed, and beaten up by chairman nam’s guys. he lives on the edge, anxious at every shadow, which is chewing him alive. to him, kwonsook’s anger is much easier to deal with. he knows she might hurt him, but his potential to hurt her is so much more (and if he does, in that case he’d find her anger justified, and probably let her beat him to death or something if what we’ve seen of his feelings for her is an indication of anything), and she might hurt him, but she’d never hurt him as much as other people in his life at the moment would (i.e. by killing him, or hurting the people he cares about). taeyoung is used to weathering the storm of other people’s dislike; he’s the scumbag, and he does bad things, deserves other people’s anger when it’s directed at him. 

both taeyoung and kwonsook want to resolve things through violence. i think it’s telling that despite being two emotionally aware people, they both consider other people’s feelings to be so easily taken care of. they want the quick, instant pain, and then they want to get it over with. because the violence is what they’re used to, and to a degree it’s what they both think they deserve. however, what lies beneath that, what doesn’t go away with a single hit, is much harder for them to confront and understand. 

the fact that joker needs batman more than he needs joker is a very interesting factor of batjokes, makes me bitter as fuck (pardon my language), but still, a very interesting part of their relationship.

never have i thought that batman and joker's relationship would hit so close to home for me. in one of your posts ive seen someone mention that joker loves but hates batman for that exact reason and man. why did they make joker so damn relatable.

Yeah, it's definitely a conflict on Joker's part, which tends to get a bit overlooked in fandom. Joker is obsessed with, and in love, with Batman -- but he doesn't always like it. He's been trying to kill the guy and telling him he hates him, almost as frequently as he's told him he loves him. But yeah, both me and @lankylordoflevity have discussed this somewhere in my asks before.

But you know, while Joker does undoubtedly need Bruce more... his love for Bruce is a lifeline in many ways. His obsession with Batman gave him a purpose, kept him alive after he fell into the acid vat; his love is everything he has that matters, but it's so all-encompassing because he's got absolutely nothing else. Joker doesn't have a family, or any kind of moral rules, or anything that important to him. While Joker is conflicted about his dependence on Batman's existence, at the end of the day, to him... this love gives much more than it takes away.

But Bruce stands to lose so much. His inability to let Joker go has caused so much harm already. He's made some very questionable choices over time, among which him nearly killing Jason at the end of UtRH to save Joker's life is probably the biggest. His relationship with Jason suffered as a result; all of his relationships suffer from it, one way or another. After being shot in the spine, Barbara had to hear that Batman was seen laughing together with the man who shot her. Over the years, she had to watch Bruce go out of his way to save Joker's life, even when she asked him not to, even when it wouldn't have contradicted Bruce's rules to let Joker die. His relationship with Joker was a big obstacle even in his relationship with Selina; that's kind of the plot of Batman/Catwoman. And this is something Snyder saw too -- how difficult this pattern of Bruce's is to overlook, and how hard the Batfamily avoids addressing it. Death of the Family is literally about the impact of Bruce's selfish and reckless actions regarding Joker on the Family, and the understandable rift that follows when they can't help but realize Joker wasn't wrong. Because the reality is, Bruce has saved Joker's life so many times and in such ridiculous conditions at this point that it's baffling. And what Joker keeps doing after is more murder, more destruction, and worst of all: he keeps being a danger to all the people Bruce loves. Yet Bruce can't find it in him to genuinely let him die.

I guess, what I mean is, Bruce is the one to suffer the biggest consequences for his side of things. Hundreds of deaths, untold destruction, the eternal possibility of Joker crossing another line and killing more of his Family. Joker may need Batman more because he's got nothing else... but how many more excuses can Bruce come up with, to himself and to others, for the fact he keeps risking so much to keep Joker alive? In the end, what's crazier? Needing someone so badly that loving them is barely a choice, or choosing someone again and again no matter the costs while claiming you don't love them?

Don't know if that helps with the bitterness, Anon. Kind of ended up going off with my own thoughts about this. But for me a fascinating part of Batjokes is Bruce's own side of things, that often gets dismissed as him not reciprocating, or him being less invested. Joker is loud and vocal about his love, and it's easy to take him on his word; when actually, Joker would be the first to balk at the idea of a relationship that involved anything other than violence. Bruce is vocal about his hatred for Joker and his wish that Joker would die, but his actions contradict that time and time again; when he's the one to reach out and the one to keep Joker alive, even when Joker himself is trying his damndest to die. As the villain, if someone else murders him, or if Bruce snaps and kills him, Joker... wins. It's what he wants. But Bruce loses when he keeps Joker alive, and he'd lose himself if he finally murdered Joker.

One way or the other, Bruce always loses.

Sméagol and the Gift

'Now!' said Sam. 'At last I can deal with you!' He leaped forward with drawn blade ready for battle. But Gollum did not spring. He fell flat upon the ground and whimpered.

'Don't kill us,' he wept. 'Don't hurt us with nassty cruel steel! Let us live, yes, live just a little longer. Lost lost! We're lost. And when Precious goes we'll die, yes, die into the dust.'

Devastated by this. Just a little longer, he begs. Even though his existence is a torment. Even though the will that holds him to life is barely his own anymore. He has long outlived his time but it's such a cruelty that now the only freedom for him is in death. I'm glad Sam didn't kill him but the whole scenario is awful.

When a mortal keeps a ring of power he does not gain more life, he continues, denied natural mortality as the fear of death is amplified and twisted into fear of separation, nothing matters anymore but the keeping, the continuing. In that miserable existence there is no peace, and at its end there is no graceful goodbye to life, there is only dust. Sudden, empty, and final.

It would take murder to spare him that. Or falling with the ring into the fire.

Bilbo let it go in time (did he feel anything when it was destroyed?) Frodo is freed of it now, though the toll it extracted for the separation was at very least a finger. It was too late for Gollum for the price to be anything other than it was, and that's brutal.

If you live long enough, death is no longer the enemy. What Sauron did to Gollum ensured that it would always be the enemy, to be feared and avoided for ever, once time and the ring had fashioned it into the only escape left. Evil.

anyw. kindness as defiance - warmth as rebellion

i could fix him (make him pathetic in a different way)

sapphira is my winner. in my heart. if that means anything

still thinking about hughes bro interview . if anyone cares. and yeah yeah the jack toothlessness of it all was great and luke is goat BUT i am chowing down on the quinn of it all. them being like.. "yeah it was really cool for him to come and support us despite wishing he was in the playoffs" … he's your older brother…. he loves u guys so bad … of course he was gonna be there... even if he hates that his team isn't!!! the "he really wants to be here as much as he's happy we're having success" bomb casually dropped in my living room on my television. i literally get it leave me alone. Oh and quinn got his tonsils taken out. Ok????

MOON'S HAUNTED

HELLO I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT: THERE IS AN UNKNOWN INKLING RUNNING AROUND IN THE SIDE ORDER TRAILER. TAKE NOTE:

-pointy ears

-no suckers on top of head

-longer tentacles than agent eight

however, they have a kind of unusual haircut for an inkling. if not for the suckerless tentacles AND the ears, then i would just write it off as forgetfulness or purposeful lack of detail.... unless 😳

real photo of ace attorney fans (me) putting their clown costumes back into the closet in preparation for the next nintendo/capcom direct

did i just??? buy another copy of catching fire hello???? can you tell i have a problem???

i'm about to throw hands with this yt poll.

this is the zelda version of that twitter butch post to me.

who will qualify for gpf womens edition

safely qualified so far are kaori isabeau loena & hana

currently in the top six but not yet qualified are rion and chaeyeon

the highest chance of qualifying at nhk have nina and haein

easiest first: for haein to qualify she needs to win, if she gets silver and nina is 4th itll depend on who gets the higher score (and wins the 2nd tiebreak with chaeyeon), if haein gets silver and nina is 5th or lower she would need over 191.61 pts, if she gets bronze she would be 1st or 2nd sub depending on her score

for nina to qualify she needs gold or silver, if she gets bronze itll depend on how haein does, if haein wins nina would need 189,17 pts, if haein does not win then bronze would be enough for nina to qualify, also if haein does not qualify a 4th place finish would be enough for nina if she scores over 183,77 pts

if neither haein nor nina manage to qualify wakaba or lindsay could technically make if they get gold

I'm playing Final Fantasy 16 and I don't know if I'm getting Old or if the games is just Like That, but I cannot keep up with half of what's happening on the screen during the boss fightd