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gallusrostromegalus · 1 year

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I need more of this force sensitive teenager 😭

(With reference tho this post)

Attachment is Forbidden. To hold on too long, against the current of reality, is to bind and strangle, to cause suffering and grief.

Attachment is Essential. To become disconnected from the world around you is to fall to cruelty and madness, to cause suffering and grief.

The Force is very complicated and only vaguely comprehensible to three pounds of electrified jello piloting a meat suit and specialized to sort different kinds of berries. It is a knife's edge to walk and the blade cuts and cuts at those with the force until they learn to wield it. When you seize the edge of attachment and the blade is in your hand, the decision is yours to decide what to preserve, and what to cut away from yourself. Can you really be the Judge of which relationships, which laws, which lives are worthy to keep and which to discard?

The Jedi and Sith agree on this one facet- Yes. Yes, you can, you should, and you Must, or what is the point? The dispute is whether to trust in your own judgment, or to attempt to divine and follow the will of The Force.

There is, of course, another option.

There is always another option with the force. The question is always, is that option worth the cost?

---

The morality of choice is not on her mind when she discovers the other option. What's on her mind is grief, the final hell of the descent of fear into anger into suffering. But the fear wasn't hers, the anger wasn't hers, even the suffering wasn't entirely hers- Her parents and siblings alike bear the emotional and physical scars of her inability to control this- but the grief, the grief is overwhelming and far too personal to be anyone else's.

It's not like anyone else can mourn the life she should have had, dead on the cold ground in front of her like a carrion corpse. She can see it so clearly in the Force, it's her as she should have been, loved and respected and loved and encouraged and loved and free to grow into the shape she should and loved and loved and LOVED- but there her theoretical future self is, dead on the ground, strangled.

And despite breaking, her heart insists on beating.

If this is the final step of the descent into darkness, and she is not dead, what's the next one to take?

Well, immediately, big ones, very fast, and very far away from here.

She runs away, away from the institutions, away from the medication that never helped, away from the frightened eyes, away from the exasperated sighs and hands that dragged and the 'its for your own good's, and into the night.

Barefoot, over the rough ground, over the sharp stones and uphill into the mountains, into the desert away from the lights of town, into the night. She's probably bleeding, her lungs burn and the windy night is cold. At the crest of the Hill she stops, wheezing and sobbing, only able to scream and cry.

The lights of the town (or at least, the few not effected by the power outage) are still close. It wouldn't take long to run back home, especially not downhill, to crawl home and scrape and beg forgiveness, it won't happen again-

...except that it would. It always did.

And now she'd crossed the line from "Shattered furniture" to "possibly leveling part of a building". And there was no going back. Police would get involved for real this time. No more institutions would take something capable of destroying a building. Can't stay home, where she'd hurt another member of her family. Can't go somewhere private if I'm a living wrecking ball. Can't be in public, twitching and chattering, frightening people. There is, of course, another option.

She looked down the other side of the hill, deeper into the only-sort-of-explored so-called wasteland of thorny succulents, bare rocks and unforgiving temperatures.

The question is, as always, is it worth the cost?

Well, heading back to civilization cost what was left of her dignity, and quite possibly the lives of her family. And she was fuck all out of pride, and not willing to gamble with their accounts.

Into the wild it was.

Of course- she considered, starting her descent down the other side- the desert wilderness is no place for a barefoot twelve year old, especially not alone and possibly being hunted by law enforcement. It's a place for the toughest of beasts, of nocturnal horrors and all things red of tooth and claw.

"Can't be myself anywhere, can I?" She asks, hysterical. She winces at another sharp rock. "Be nice to have proper paws or something-"

She stops.

There is, of course, another option.

---

The Jedi and Sith agree on another point too.

You can use the force to shape reality. Any part you want! Change minds with a wave of your hand! Defy gravity with extremely direct eye contact! Generate lighting by thinking about it really hard!

But they both hold a secret taboo.

As much as the Jedi profess detachment and humility and selflessness, and as much as the Sith proclaim self-determination and experimentation and manifestation of vision, they hold the same secret rule-

When you grasp the Blade of Attachment, and are deciding how to sculpt the future, don't turn the blade upon yourself.

Like how there is a line in the sand between shattered furniture and demolishing a building, or one between parental rights and child welfare, there is a line between using the force to alter your body as a means of preservation of the self, and using it to transform the self.

The line is so secret, it's rarely discussed and even then only in metaphor. It's called The Rubicon, after a mythical river a foolish emperor once crossed.

There are of course, those who have Crossed The Rubicon- Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion come to mind, though there are some suspiciously long-lived and more-hands-having-than-circumstances-would suggest Jedi as well- there's always someone who will decide the forbidden option is worth the cost. In this case, the currency is flesh, and to an extent, the self.

...But if you are twelve years old and already changing and grew up told your self as it is is repulsive and dangerous, so you grew alienated from that self to the point of being a stranger to the person everyone seemed to know and that self was useless in your present circumstances anyway...

The Force shines. It shines bright and beautiful and even the crude matter of life is luminous in the dark, and it is so, so easy to see how a hand is just an elongated paw.

She runs.

She runs down the hill, cries of pain now intermingled with those of discovery and the joy of creation. She runs toward the desert, towards the beautiful night-blooming flowers, towards the blissful silence, towards the personal space measured in hundreds of square miles, toward freedom, towards a new future self, and away from the carrion corpse of her youth.

There is a river at the bottom of the hill, and as her eyes open to new possibilities and spectra, she sees how it's nearly entirely underground, and how the ox-bow at the bottom of the hill is only where it briefly breaches the surface and she runs toward it, gait shifting awkwardly under her but everything was always awkward, but now it's awkward with Purpose-

-She leaps across the river, and when she lands palm-first on the other side, the things on the ends of her arms are no longer hands.

---

The Apprentice awakens with a terrified shriek. Her bones ache with sympathetic sensations of shape-change, winded and shaking. A dream, a dream, it was all just a terrible dream-

Her Master stumbles into the room to check on her, legs not feeling quite right, and one look between them belies the awful truth.

It was not just a dream.

They embrace, too tight and fingers digging into clothing, tears hot, faces hidden in each other's shoulders, trying to find comfort in shared horror and grief. Something happened earlier, when they heard something break, and now they were bound to this stranger's destiny.

Attachment and Detachment are the choices you make the shape reality.

Attachment and Detachment are forced upon you no matter what choices you make.

The Force is very complicated and only sort of comprehensible.

#Star Wars #Long Post #Hello I have an angst Baby OC #No I didn't name any of these characters #or decide when this is taking place #Those are irrelevant #I'm just putting the force as a concept in a jar and shaking it vigorously #Body Horror #Abuse mention #:)

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boyfriendgideon · 10 months

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as yr favorite local jason todd fan sometimes i get so fed up with the apparent inability of most dc comic writers to write a class conscious narrative about him.

and yes, i know that comics are a very ephemeral and constantly evolving and self-conflicting medium.

and yes, i know they’re a profit-driven art medium created in a capitalistic society, so there are very few times where comics are going to be created solely out of the desire to authentically and carefully and deliberately represent a character and take them from one emotional narrative place to another, because dc cares about profit and sometimes playing it safe is what sells.

and yes, i know comics and other forms of art reflect and recreate the society within which they were conceived as ideas, and so the dominant societal ideas about gender and race and class and so on are going to be recreated within comics (and/or will be responded to, if the writer is particularly societally conscious).

but jesus christ. you (the writer/writers) have a working class character who has been homeless, who has lost multiple parents, who has been in close proximity to someone struggling with addiction, who has had to steal to survive, who may have (depending on your reading of several different moments across different comics created by different people) been a victim of csa, who has clearly (subtextually) struggled with his mental health, who was a victim of a violent murder, and who has an entirely distinct and unique perspective on justice that has evolved based on his lived experiences.

and instead of delving into any of that, or examining the myriad of ways that classism in the writers’ room and the editors’ room and the readers’ heads affected jason’s character to make sure you’re writing him responsibly, or giving him a plotline where his views on what justice looks like are challenged by another working class character, or allowing him to demonstrate actual autonomy and agency in deciding what relationships he wants to have with people who he loves but sees as having failed him in different ways, or thinking carefully about what his having chosen an alias that once belonged to his murderer says about his decision-making and motivations, you keep him stuck in a loop of going by the red hood, addressing crime by occupying a position of relative power that perpetuates crime & harm rather than ever getting at the root causes, and seesawing between a) agreeing with his adoptive family entirely about fighting nonlethally in ways that are often inconsistent with his apparent motivations or b) disagreeing and experiencing unnecessarily brutal and violent reactions from his adoptive father as if that kind of violence isn’t the kind of thing he experienced as a child and something bruce himself is trying to prevent jason from perpetuating. because a comic with red hood, quips, high stakes, and familial drama sells.

it doesn’t matter if it keeps jason trapped, torn between an unanswered moral and philosophical question, a collection of identities that no longer fit him, and a family that accepts him circumstantially. it doesn’t matter if jason’s characterization is so utterly inconsistent that the only way to mesh it together is to piece different aspects of different titles and plotlines together like a jigsaw. it doesn’t matter if you do a disservice to his character, because in the end you don’t want to transform him or even understand him deeply enough to identify what makes him compelling and focus on that.

and i love jason!!!!! i love him. and i think about the stories we could have, if quality and art and doing justice to the character were prioritized as much as selling a title and having a dark and brooding batfam member besides bruce just to be the black sheep character are prioritized. and i just get a little sad.

#jason todd #jason todd meta #red hood #batfam #batman #dc comics #comic analysis #classism #tw: csa mention #maybe someday half of the most intriguing and nuanced aspects of his character will be touched upon #red hood outlaw 51-52 had some cool moments wrt jason + class + hometown friends + systems of power but. that was a two issue arc #and even then it was admittedly messy #GOD i want him to be three dimensional and well rounded and well used #even if a writer wrote a fucking. filler comic for an annual or smthn exploring what jason does outside of being red hood #keep the name if u want. have him have deliberately taken the name of his killer and twisted it until ppl from his city know rh #as a protector of kids and the poor and sex workers and so on. that WORKS. but show him connecting w his community #have him get involved in mutual aid. have him do something when he’s not out as red hood at night. let us see jason & barbara interact more #or jason and steph !!!!!!!! or another positive but complicated dynamic (he has a lot of those)#i just. i think that his stagnancy makes me fucking sad. i liked some aspects of task force z. felt like it ended too soon tho #FUCK the joker lets unpack his self concept & have him be a real person outside of vigilanteism (?) and vengeance #i liked some aspects of the cheer arc in batman urban legends mostly bc he had SOME agency and bc he wasn’t completely flat #even tho i hate the retconning of robin jason being angry and moody and so on #part of the problem is we don’t see him too too often for more than semi brief appearances so im so happy to see him i’ll just accept it #love the idea of a nightwing & red hood team up comic. hate that tom taylor a) wrote it and b) gave jason that stupid ass line abt justice #u think this man trusts cops ????? or the legal system !????????? BITCH.#get jason todd into like a sociology / gender and intersectionality / feminist studies class NOWWWWW #ok im done im sleepy and going to watch nimona. thx for reading to anyone who did #PLS anyone who reads this let me know what u think im frothing at the mouth rn #wes.txt #mine

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mysicklove · 5 months

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gojo who gets genuinely peeved when you don’t look at him 24/7 during sex

#🔪 - mello talks too much #the doorbell rings and you look away for a half second and he immediately grabs your chin and forces his tongue down your throat #you try readjusting yourself and he is tapping on your thighs and pouting at you bc he is impatient #mention another guys name and he will not let u leave that bed for hours #litterally all that man is thinking is ”look at me. look at me. pay attention to me. love me.”

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writeouswriter · 1 year

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Girl, help, the book authors are trying too hard to be "hip" with the fleeting "teen lingo" and trends again, immediately dating their works before they're even released

#eye twitching seeing certain modern slang in for real published books unironically #tiktokian slang that is out of date within weeks #it's a pet peeve of mine but so is modern books mentioning tiktok or stuff at all esp. when not relevant in general #god it pulls you out of the illusion #turns it into this very set in stone time frame rather than letting it just be or resonate on its own which is fine sometimes if natural #you can't avoid some mentions of some things when setting it today but in these cases it's so forced #hello fellow kidz.jpeg vibe in book form #books #this isn't even specific to ya books i've seen it in adult books as well #booklr #petty as i am i once stopped reading a first chapter excerpt for mentioning spotify by name on page 1 i'm sorry #this other book though oh they've used online phrases and boomer insult 3 times and brought up tiktok twice it's on thin f-ing ice #ignore me i'm petty but don't ignore me because this is a legit problem in the media industry #don't even get me started on text speak in the dialogue or texting sections yeah #it's not quite as bad if it's some fake variation of an app or just generic about being online but mentioning by name oh i'm gonna explode #most times anyway #i have yet to see it handled well #this was about slang though so tangent but !! gaah

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sharptoothed-gaze · 2 months

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Hello fandom. I understand that very few of you will care about my personal opinion, and that's fine, but I find it important enough to how I run my blog to share anyway.

In the future, all of my posts will simply be avoiding any mention of Wilbur wherever possible. His character is a major part of Tallulah's story, but I will be keeping him away from my blog as much as I can.

Typically, I would go with a "death of the author" approach and keep mentions of the character and cc more separate. However, the cc's alleged quest for money and fame changes that entirely. I will not be contributing to that. That's just my personal choice, so there should be no shame to anyone who chooses to separate the two, obviously.

I watched Shubble's video and I saw his response. In my opinion, it was terrible. The way he centralized his own "growth," minimized the pain he caused, and left the actual apology on the second page is revealing. His statement reminds me of some of the past emotional abuse I've experienced, so his content will no longer be welcome on my blog. I believe in the merit of archiving, so I will not be deleting any past posts, but he will no longer have any place in my death family related tags.

#I am not usually an unprovoked statement kind of person #especially because I don't think that's why people look at my content and I 100% understand a desire for escapism #However his name would absolutely pop up naturally on this blog since I main Philza.#I have little interest in letting that happen though.#I have mentioned in the past how victims should never feel forced into silence and this is a part of that.#I listen to the victim. I wait for more information. I form an opinion when I can assess both parties b/c victims deserve to be heard .#I have listened and will continue listening but Wilbur and his own words are enough to paint my own picture.#Unless something major changes this is how me and my blog will be handling it. Thank you.#qsmp #qsmp wilbur #wilbur situation #tw abuse

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lil-vibes · 1 year

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bro imagine you are fukuzawa and your Son comes in hand in hand with the weird racoon boy that you swear was your enemy like,, a week ago and says 'we are dating' and ur like okay! sure i can let that slide since we did kinda, sorta defeated the Guild, but then your agency doctor goes 'yeah i kiss that redhead mafia executive good morning AND good night every day" and you just gotta smile and move along bc okay okay she was originally from there okay, sure. but THEN dazai "kunikida shoot him on sight if he becomes even slightly more goofy and silly than he is now" osamu struts in with a ring and its like 'yeah so abt that Other redhead executive- ' and as you are writing your vacation notice your anxiety personified, wet cat of an employee walks into your office all shaking and goes 'i gotta tell you something but dont be mad and could you maybe please please hear me out please -'

#not to mention you yourself got a sus relationship not only with the pm boss but also with a international terrorist #like bestie id simply cease to exist at that point #it aint worth it brother #hey google half of my work force is dating the literal mafia what do i do ?#atsushi has a 10 page essay READY #everytime someone enters his officr with the words hear me out his blood freezes shshshs #married skk #<333 #skk #ranpoe #yosano x kouyou #bro what is their ship name i forgor help #sskk #ada #bsd #screaming into the void #personal hc #my hc

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spikes-got-anger-issues · 4 months

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I recently listened to The Sit and Chat (Jake and Bradley's podcast) episode that had Kelli on it and decided to create timestamps where they talked about anything relating to MM, LR, or LR:EF

But seriously go watch it for yourself, it was neat listening to Kelli talk about her life, insightful in general, and very funny!

youtube

11:46 - 12:31 - They talk about first working with each other on LR:EF and the Lab Rats vs. Mighty Med episode

20:40 - 21:08 - Billy is briefly mentioned due to Jake mixing up where Kelli is from with where Billy is from

25:00- 26:22 - Bradley and Kelli talk about how thankful they were to be on Disney as kids and their experiences

27:16 - 28:17 - Kelli talks about starting LR and how she grew up with Bree/as Bree and was happy with her character arc and where Bree ended up

28:17 - 29:22 - Bradley points out how Kaz, Oliver, Skylar, Bree, and Chase were essentially all different characters in LR:EF compared to who they were in their original respective shows

29:22 - 30:20 - They talk about how all five of them in LR:EF were ready as lead actors but were confined down to the writing of the show and how difficult that became as the characters switched leading parts in different episodes. Bradley says that they weren't angry at each other because of this, but Jake and Kelli say that something deeper than that was going on. Jake expresses that he wished he could have done more on LR:EF

30:20 - 31:09 - (continuation of conversation above) Jake talks about how he was interested with where Oliver's character arc would go in LR:EF and didn't know what to expect going from MM to LR:EF. He said he trusted the creators of LR who went on to create LR:EF and their writing for Oliver, but quickly realized in LR:EF that it wasn't what he was expecting for Oliver (I feel so bad for Jake). He still appreciates his time on the show and being on Disney, but views that time as a transition into more serious acting

31:49 - 35:33 - Bradley talks about how funny it was that Kelli always had a difficult time hitting her mark, especially when he was directing an episode ("Sheep-Shifting")

41:09 - 42:13 - They briefly talk about how they weren't allowed to do other projects without approval after LR:EF ended while they waited to find out if the show would get a season 2 and how the holdout on that was for one year after season 1 came out. Bradley says that they weren't even told what was going to happen to LR:EF and how it just dissipated out

#I had no idea Bradley and Kelli were that close of friends and helped each other with roles #also go listen to their old podcast episode with Paris it was super funny #oh and they filmed this during the SAG-AFTRA strike so that's why they were avoiding saying the names of the shows #btw Kelli Berglund is so pretty #she also mentions that Spencer is like her older brother #disney lab rats #lab rats #lab rats elite force #mighty med #kelli berglund #bradley steven perry #jake short #Youtube

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tomatoland · 8 months

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This was an interesting tidbit about TopMew that I think as inter-fans we don’t have access to.

More reading if interested

#topmew #forcebook #ofts #only friends the series #irl book uses his name as a pronoun all the time #and the ppl i follow think its all cute #and when force called himself by his name while taking to book #they went apocalyptic #🤯#he said smth like oh book hasn’t decided then force will pick first #the tumblr link also mentions akktheo uwu #only friends mew #only friends top #book kasidet #force jiratchapong #ofts context

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heroesriseandfall · 2 years

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I think the fact that Janet Drake was a big opera fan and she and Jack took Tim to the opera many times as a child is really underexplored. Cool fun Drake family activities include witnessing the deaths of acrobats, going to art galleries, and also watching opera. Thank you to writer Jon Lewis for making me think Janet was definitely the type of mom who made sure to put on classical music for baby Tim so he would be smarter.

#i feel like it’s notable that it’s never mentioned they took him to galas or business meetings but they did go to the opera…#tim drake #batfam #janet drake #dc comics #less fanfics where Tim is forced to learn Gotham rich ppl names more fanfics where he can list 20 operas written before he was born #jon lewis is also well known for getting Janet’s name wrong but I’ll give him points for adding something to her personality #i think lewis wrote her favorite opera was Die Walküre or at least she liked it a lot in robin v2 112 #drake parenting #heroesriseandfall #jack drake #dc #robin (1993)#jon lewis

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ilovetvtoons · 6 months

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My Top 4 least favorite Amphibia episodes.

#btw i don't hate sprivy as a ship #i swear i don't #the ship is cute outside of the episode #but i feel like they forced it into the show #the third one kinda reused the plot from a caravan named desire with a similar moral #only with hp putting him and his grandkids in danger with the government #even though he already had a taste of fame in amphibia #the fourth one was just boring #even though the mayor has redeemed himself #i'm stills not a fan of him #and apart of the marcy mention and anne and sprig getting arrested #the ending had a promising plot for future episodes but ultimately lead to nowhere #disney #disney tva #disney tv shows #cartoons #animation #2d animation #amphibia #sprig plantar #ivy sundew #sprivy #polly plantar #hop pop plantar #maddie flour #sadie croaker #leopald loggle #least favorite episodes #i'm sorry sprivy shippers #i really am

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duhragonball · 21 days

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Neon Genesis Evangelion 07

Yeah, me neither, kid. Kind of weird that we're seven episodes in and we still don't know anything. I'm a little concerned, honestly.

This is another Misato episode. Actually, this one might be even more of a Misato episode than the last one, which is fine by me. This show had some trouble getting out of the gate, but now we're cooking. Cooking toast, that is, because that's what Shinji and Misato have for breakfast every morning. Wait... I misread my notes. Shinji has toast. Misato gets toasted. On beer.

No, wait, she's having toast too! Good, that explains why she has that second beer after Shinji leaves for school. Gotta wash it down. Shinji expresses disapproval for her slovenly, beer-swilling lifestyle, which is a big change from when he just passively agreed with everything she said. Misato is pleased that he's gotten more comfortable expressing himself lately.

Shinji is also embarassed at the prospect of Misato going to his school for some parent-teacher conference thing. Misato is essentially his guardian at this point, even though his actual dad is Misato's boss. I guess he would have signed off on this, since it seems clear he doesn't care.

All the boys at school think she's the coolest thing ever. She's a sexy lady and she's the NERV Ops Director. Shinji acts like they'd see her differently if they knew what she was like at home, but they don't care. Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney are like "you keep the Earth safe, and we'll take care of Misato." Big Rigg Mahoney knows what's up. If I had me a freak like Misato, I think I could learn to live with empty beer cans. The penguin droppings might be a problem, but I think I'd get over it every night if you know what I mean.

We don't get a lot of information on the Evas in this one, but I'll go over what we do get. They're making more of them. Ritsuko and Misato talk in an elevator about the repairs on 00 and 01, and they speak of Unit 02 like it'll be along any day now. On a plane ride, Gendo Ikari speaks of Units 06 and 08, so there's plans to manufacture even more of them, though finding pilots seems to be the main hurdle.

Shinji also learns about Second Impact, the event that changed the world so much. First Impact was the hypothetical collision of the Earth with a protoplanet called Theia, which led to the formation of the Earth's Moon. Second Impact is widely known to be a meteor collision with Antarctica. According to the test in this screenshot, the meteor was only 4 inches wide, but it was traveling at 95% the speed of light, making the impact powerful enough to destroy Antarctica and cause upheavals that wiped out half of the world's population.

However, Misato tells Shinji that it wasn't actually a meteor at all, but the First Angel. It came to Earth on September 13, 2000, then exploded for some unknown reason, taking Antarctica with it.

NERV's mission, then, is to prevent a Third Impact. The Angels are still showing up on Earth, and if another one self-destructs in the same fashion, then it could cause even more devasation. So the only chance humanity has it to kill the things before they get the chance to explode.

Just to recap, we met the third Angel in Episode 1, and it self-destructed in Episode 2, but Shinji had nearly defeated it by that point, so maybe that's why it didn't produce the same destructive force as the first. And we met the fourth and fifth Angels in Episodes 3 and 5. No word yet on the second Angel, but it must have shown up in 2000, since everyone in Episode 1 talks about how there hadn't been an Angel sighting in fifteen years. It's also not clear how it was defeated, since Eva units weren't available for combat missions then.

My guess is that the second angel was susceptible to conventional weapons. That's my working theory on these things. Whatever they're up to, they seem to adapt and get more dangerous each time. The first one blew up shortly after it arrived on Earth, which might have been an accident, or some bad reaction to Earth's environment. The second one must have been killed by humans, which demonstrated that it could be done and it was a viable way to stop them from exploding.

The third angel was impervious to conventional weapons, requiring an Eva to defeat it. The fourth one... was basically the same deal, which is why Episode 3 kind of sucks. The fifth one targeted and disabled the Eva before it could get in range, requiring two Evas and a new-fangled weapon to defeat it. So the sixth one will probably be even harder to stop, which is why Gendo Ikari is trying to convince the U.N. to increase NERV's budget.

Meanwhile, Misato and Ritsuko are headed for Old Tokyo, where the Strategic Self-Defense Force are holding a demonstration. The SSDF are the guys who had that positron cannon Misato borrowed for her hail Mary play in Episode 6. Old Tokyo was destroyed in the chaos that followed Second Impact, but I guess someone decided to build a convention center out here on the remains.

I'm pretty sure the SSDF is just a continuation of the real-world Japanese Self Defense Force, but in this show they're mainly focused on finding ways to defend against the Angels, just like NERV. I mean, I guess that makes sense, given how the last three Angel attacks have been on Japanese soil. And their positron cannon did the trick, so they're not exactly bad at this sort of thing. This time, they're unveiling a new weapon, which is their own giant robot, Jet Alone.

NERV was invited to attend the ceremony, and Ritsuko takes the opportunity to question the premise of Jet Alone. It's powered by an on-board nuclear reactor, and it has no pilot. Everything is done by remote control, which seems like a really bad idea if they lose connection with the thing and the reactor melts down.

The SSDF guy laughs off her concerns, and attacks the Evangelion robots instead. They're powered by electrical cables, which is kind of impractical, and their pilots are subjected to intense stress and suffer mental instability. Also, the Evas are incredibly expensive, and every time the world increases NERV's budget, there's less money to care for the humanity they're trying to save.

So Jet Alone seems like a perfect solution. The tech is cheaper, there's no pilot to put in harm's way, and I guess they think it can hold its own in a fight, although that remains to be seen.

Misato keeps her cool at the dinner but gets furious afterward. By contrast...

Ritsuko calmly assures Misato that Jet Alone is nothing to worry about, as she burns one of the handouts they got at the dinner.

I'm pretty sure Ritsuko is awesome, but she really hasn't done a lot in this show other than provide exposition. She's practically the narrator in a lot of scenes, but damn. She can burn my papers anytime.

Soon enough, it's time to see Jet Alone in action. He looks a little primitive compared to the Evas, but I don't know, this thing kind of reminds me of Big O. I could see it getting its own show.

All they really do with it is have it walk forward, but for some reason they can't get it to stop, so it just keeps going and steps on the SSDF's control center.

And that's basically Jet Alone's whole deal. It just keeps walking in this same direction. Also its nuclear reactor is experiencing a pressure buildup, so yeah, this is turning out exactly like Ritsuko predicted at dinner. Maybe a little too exactly...

Anyway, the coolest thing about Jet Alone is its arms, which sort of dangle at its sides like tassels. I assume this is designed so it can wrap its arms around a hostile Angel like an octopus, but when it's just walking like this the arms flop back and forth and it looks adorable. He's just a struttin' and a strollin'.

Misato immediately takes charge, since the thing is headed for Atsugi and its reactor could go critical at any moment. She demands the SSDF give her an emergency shutdown password for the thing, but no one on-site has authorization to do that. So they call the authorities, but none of them want to take the responsibility without a written request. Disgusted, Misato decides to tackle the matter herself, and calls in Shinji and Eva 01.

Her plan is to just get inside JA and shut it down from the inside. For that, she needs a skintight suit to protect her from the radiation, and Eva 01 will get her close enough to the hatch to get inside. Once she's in, Shinji will have to try to hold Jet Alone so it can't move any closer to a populated area.

And Shinji seems to manage this pretty well, except he can't stop the reactor from exploding. That won't hurt Shinji, since the Eva can take it, but he's still worried about Misato, who will definitely be killed if she can't shut JA down.

Misato makes it inside, but the password to shut down the reactor (Hope), doesn't work. There's no time to figure out why that is, so instead she goes for broke and tries to shove the control rods into place manually. At least, I think that's what she's doing.

Fortunately, when she shoves one of them in, the others all retract with it. I'm not sure she knew that would happen, but it works. The red lights turn green, and Jet Alone stands down.

I'll go ahead and say it: This is actually really good fan service, as Misato promised in the preview for this episode. She said that a couple of times before, and never really delivered. I mean, she took a bath in Episode 2, but big deal. Most of the time she's wearing pretty normal clothing, and she's covered from neck to toe. Meanwhile, they keep showing Rei in various states of undress, or in her skintight pilot suit, which is the sort of thing you'd expect from fan service, except Rei's fourteen so that's creepy as hell.

But Misato wearing a skintight costume while she heroically dives into an exploding robot to shove its control rods into place? That's actually pretty sexy. YMMV, of course.

Shinji calls her success a miracle, but Misato is suspicious that it might not be as miraculous as it seems. Someone must have set all this up.

Later, Ritsuko reports on the incident to Gendo Ikari, and she says everything went exactly as planned, save for Misato's daring shutdown of the reactor. So it looks like NERV sabotaged Jet Alone, probably to discredit the SSDF and convince the UN that NERV deserves whatever funding they ask for. And since Misato's role in this was not part of the plan, it sounds like Ikari intended for Jet Alone to explode. That's why the password didn't work.

The only lingering question is whether Gendo intended for Jet Alone to explode in the middle of nowhere, or once it reached a populated area. That I feel the need to ask tells you everything you need to know about Gendo Ikari.

The next day, Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney are still horny for Misato, and Shinji is still trying to convince them that she's not as cool as she seems. He tells them about how sloppy and silly she is at home, and they realize he doesn't know how lucky he is. Shinji's the only one who gets to see that side of her, and that's because Misato allows only him to see it. That means she thinks of him as family.

And there you have it. I guess this is a big eureka moment for Shinji, and maybe it helps him understand why Rei and his dad get along so well. Anyway, the next episode is supposed to have Asuka Langley in it, so maybe we'll finally find out what she's all about...

#neon genesis evangelion #2024ngeliveblog #shinji ikari #misato katsuragi #ritsuko akagi #gendo ikari #toji suzuhara #big rigg mahoney #it is weird to me that big rigg mahoney has been in almost every episode since i gave him that name #and i kept thinking they would mention his actual name at some point but they never do #i could go back to that episode where he introduced himself but that dvd is in the other room so i'm not interested #i'm just amazed at how determined this show is to force me to commit to the bit

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