how it started how it´s going

The yj subreddit is a cesspool of bad takes most of the time but I just saw someone make the connection between the strawberry lube and the fact that Shauna is shown eating "strawberries" when she's eating Jackie and I'm vibrating

THE X-FILES (1993-2018)

SEASON FOUR — The truth will save you, Scully. I think it'll save both of us.

THE 7x7 EPISODE IS A PARALLEL TO 2x6 WHERE MADDIE TOLD THE WOMEN ON THE CALL TO PRETEND TO TALK TO SOMEONE ELSE IF SHE WAS IN TROUBLE BECAUSE SHE HAS HAVING FLASHBACKS FROM WHEN SHE WAS SCARED OF DOUG HELP

So, this parallel, right.

That parallel and the 4x11 shadowpeach fight as a whole:

Macaque: "No that's YOU! You're the one always running off! Looking for more power, more sources of immortality—you're the one who wouldn't quit while were were ahead! Not the great sage, he's got to drag EVERYONE else into his mess!" Sun Wukong: "You're not in this mess, you're still free! Everything I did was for us!" Macaque: "You did it for yourself! You've become like this, obsessive demon! I told you going against the Jade Emperor was a bad idea, but no, Wukong doesn't listen to anyone! He just does whatever he wants! You put yourself here, not me."

(4x11 A Lifetime of Mistakes)

-

A large part of Wukong's motivation to keep getting more power was the freedom of it—the more power you have the easier it is to do whatever you want. It's easier to ignore everyone else and focus solely on yourself. It's also easier to ensure yourself and your loved one's are protected and have the ability to do what they want.

So, a punishment where the great Monkey King is imprisoned and trapped for hundreds of years? It's effective and tragic and fitting. Wukong wanted to have the freedom to protect the people he cared about, and in trying to reach for the power to do that, he completely had his freedom removed. He went from the mountain, to then the circlet, and then all of a sudden he had morals and was bound to those.

And then I think about his end of s3 choice to go face the Lady Bone Demon alone. Once again Wukong was trying to protect his loved ones (not to mention the whole reason he went after the Samadhi fire to begin with was to have the power, the freedom to stop LBD (which in itself is another case of SWK believing he needed to be stronger for such freedom)), but he also wanted to make sure MK and himself both had agency. He didn't want MK to have to fight LBD, and he didn't want LBD to end the world.

This is exactly the sentiment he tells Macaque in the 4x11 flashback:

Sun Wukong: "It's so we don't have to worry about anything or anyone ever again! Just living a lazy life, sitting in the sun, eatin' fruit, and doing whatever we want!"

But where does it all lead him?

To possession, imprisonment. Once again Wukong no longer had the freedom to do what he wanted (which is to protect the people he cares about). Once again in his attempts to help his loved one's, he only hurt them.

This can be applied to his relationship with Macaque, to MK in s2, hell, even Wukong trying to get the map in the first place left him powerless, which then led to him and the gang being imprisoned in 3x02. It's a familiar pattern, one we see with antagonist and protagonist alike.

MK in s2 trained to become more powerful, which in the end only strengthened LBD and forced him and his friends on the run. Mei in 3x12 protects MK by letting herself get captured and placed into LBD's crystal. Mei in 4x05 goes to protect MK, breaking her sword and leaving her vulnerable to being captured by Kui Mulang ("How am I supposed to protect everyone without my sword?"). DBK reached for more power and then became possessed by LBD, hurting his wife and son. Azure reached for the Jade Emperor's power and bound himself to that role, jeopardizing Peng and Yellowtusk in the process.

It's a cycle of reaching for power, endangering others, and then being imprisoned.

So anyways, here's why MK is going to lose control (his agency) next season and hurt his friends with his own- *get's shot*

I just NEED a s5 scene where Jancy is talking about how dumb Mike and Will are being and how they could resolve their problems if they just talked, and then another scene where Byler is talking about how dumb Nancy and Jonathan are being and how they could resolve their problems if they just talked, none of them realizing that the things they're calling out could also apply to themselves

Mel for the unhinged character bingo!

yessss YEEEESSSSSSSSS

keeping a running tally of all the ofmd parallels from the first season because it has a vice grip on my brain but i have neither the time nor the know-how to make gifs of them all: stede almost losing his nose to jackie versus ricky actually losing his nose to jackie "did you mean to do that?" stabbing versus headbutt "close the door" olu and jim in bed to lucius versus olu and jim and archie in bed to stede "i was, i was" mary to stede on killing versus ed to everyone on destroying the ship/them all in the storm "you wear fine things well" under the moonlight, 2x, in reverse "never left ;)" versus "i'll never leave you" ed at stede's bedside after he almost died, stede at ed's bed?side after he almost died "do you ever feel like you're just treading water, waiting to drown?" versus ed and stede treading water together ed diving into the water towards stede from the dinghy versus stede jumping from zheng's ship towards ed on the revenge sandwich for the trip, roach to izzy versus ed "fuck off, nature" ed's violence towards plants rears its head again lucius getting thrown off the ship by ed and vice versa people whittling things for lucius

Tell me someone sees it TELL ME IM NOT THE ONLY ONE

Someone probably pointed it out already, but I love the parallel of s1 Five stabbing the dinner table with a knife in a flashback and s3 Sparrow Ben stabbing the table with a knife. It’s nice to know there will always be a snarky, table stabbing, asshole who loves his family no matter who Sir Reginald Hargreeves raises. I wish I knew how to gif so I could see the parallel side by side.

Elizabeth Keen & Donald Ressler | Their story

This isn't the end, not for you. 

with every minute that goes by in this show i trust the armorer less

Parallels: Buffy probably hinting that she enjoyed her and Angel's physical relationship.

So... there's a large part of me that actually hates this, of course. I feel like Buffy and the writers themselves have forgotten all of Buffy and Angel's good times (we even saw some of this in "Chosen"). And this is just completely inaccurate, because they actually talked a lot. All of season three, that's what their relationship was about, and that's all they could have then, really. And in fact, Buffy was often telling Angel things that she didn't anyone else. If I'm going to defend this at all, I guess it could, sadly, make sense that with everything that's happened with them, and the time that's passed, she's somewhat forgotten that (I think that's partly what was going on with the "Chosen" conversation, too). She's also furious in the last pic (and for good reason). And Buffy has been known to cut people to the quick when she is.

Why am I posting this, then, if I really dislike it? Because I feel like a lot of people in the fandom like to try and spin that Buffy and Angel didn't have the greatest physical relationship in the world (good--over Riley and her for sure--but maybe not great in the end)? Especially after they could no longer make love, and when compared with another ship? Buffy feels differently.

i loved ur lmk fandomification rant, now i'm curious- who's your favorite (non-monkey!) lmk character (and any insights you want to share with the class? :eyes:)

Mei, Lady Bone Demon, and probably Azure!

But I could go on a long rant about any character in the show tbh, they're all my favorite character with the 3 I listed and MK being my "favorite favorites" (except maybe Jin and Yin, sorry guys. I do like their place as a sense of normalcy for MK, acting as the "monster of the week" antagonists in 4x01).

Little miss "I would watch my sword break 1000 times so long as I used it to protect the ones I care about" is my girly. Watched her best friend die in the A Hero is Born (AHIB) special and held onto that as a grudge all the way until 3x10. She just wants to see everyone make it out alive, but I doubt she's ready to pay the price required for that. No one in this show is. Mei watched Peng run away in 4x14 and wanted to kill that bird with her bear hands. She took everything Subodhi said to her in 4x09 so personally, like Subodhi probably knew she would, which allowed her to build off of MK's plan so they had a chance at succeeding. She's at her god damn limit. Her episodes (1x03, 3x02, & 4x05) are some of my favorites. She drives a motor cycle, she wears lipstick, she's a gamer, she wields a kick-ass sword, she's a dragon. In 3x12 she's willing to sacrifice Wukong for the sake of the world and more specifically MK. "Don't you realize you're hurting the people who care about you the most?" She's "fakin' it until she's makin' it". Literally what more could you ask for in a character.

Then you have LBD, who fights for a perfect world supposedly for mortal souls yet discards people the moment they no longer have a use to her. Ultimately I think she uses destiny as a crutch, as her way to cope with all of the suffering in the world. "I won't let you take my Destiny from me". You wonder how much it was about perfection and how much it was about her ability to change anything in the world she watched play the same tragedy over and over again. For the first 3 seasons she seems to be acting on destiny itself, she's the narrative our protagonists are running from. Then Embrace Your Destiny comes around, and you realize she was just as doomed by the narrative as anyone else. Doomed to a world of pain, unable to fix anything. The "to pain" scene is one of my favorite scenes, just in general. "Do you really still think the universe wants anything, from any of us?" "Don't you?" LBD and MK's foil is so fucking good. A delightful antagonist who they justify but don't victimize. Killed Spider Queen on screen. What more can I say.

Now Azure. Sweet Sweet Azure. The tragedy of Unckie Lion. Sincerely wanted to make the world a better place and was willing to sacrifice anything for it, just like LBD. I think about his scene with the Jade Emperor at least once a week. "How is it you come to stand before me today Azure, was there a point where you questioned it, or where you too oblivious in your own delusion to realize you were a mere piece in somebody else's game." Fucking insane. His abandonment issues are off the charts. He was gay for Wukong. He thought he could fix the world, and instead barely left it unbroken. He died with the power he couldn't use to change anything. He let himself become a pawn (continuing LMK's habit of manipulating royalty) thinking he could somehow avoid his fate. But the only way to win was to stop playing, and at every opportunity he had to stop he kept pushing. Moving forward. Just like LBD he was coping with the suffering of the world in his own way. It didn't work. Does it ever? Maybe MK will figure it out, maybe he'll leave the world better than he found it, but it's looking bleak. The 3 way foil between LBD, MK, and Azure haunts me.

And then maybe you realize every character in this show is just trying to cope with the world in their own way, and you stare at a wall for 3 hours about it.

Overall I think this image encapsulates it best:

So apparently I'm on an Azari binge? Cause I just found Shadow Shadow by Azari?? I mean, it's freaking good and I'm not mad, but I'm sensing the beginnings of a trend, lol.

Anyways! I just have to say! This song starts off good! Like, it's slow-ish at first (can't really say slow since it's still kinda poppy and I'm still grooving) but then it just commits to a real boppy beat and that made me love it already!! I love songs with a nice quick beat and this doesn't disappoint!! And I love the music in this song! Something about the underlying notes just makes it even better. It's like—and I apologize in advance but this is the only way I can think to describe it—it's like the first note is nothing much on its own, but then the second adds something similar to the futility in Reincarnation Apple (by PinnocchioP) but less sad, like you're being chased and your pursuer knows you can't escape and is gloating about it. And it's so raw, so nakedly triumphant and scornful and derisive that it feels visceral. And the third note carries some of that same energy but just less heightened, and the fourth both brings the series back to the original note and is mocking again, like "Of course you can't escape, you dumb dumb" but smug and from the pursuer's point of view. (I... may have listened to this song too much, lol. Also, with this context, the clapping at the beginning sounds like an audience watching your demise, as emotionally detached from you and what's actually happening as someone watching TV!) It all is SO GOOD, I love it so much and that little series of notes going down then coming back up slowly has so much in it that I keep replaying this song to soak in all those emotions and in that moment. Like you can try to encapsulate just how it makes you feel but you can't quite express those feelings and they never quite fully soak in so you keep replaying the song to try to fully experience the music, but again it feels a little like some of it is sliding off like water on a duck's feathers and repeat cycle. This is the kind of music I get stuck in my head for days, that I literally bop to until I have to listen to it outside of my head! This is the music that feels like getting close to pure bliss!! MM!

BUT THEN. THIS SONG GETS BETTER! It switches to a slower, more defined bop, and GOSH it's BEAUTIFUL. Like, it feels like a heartbeat, literally just beating in my chest, taking over my whole train of thought, and dictating the mood and speed in which I exist. But sometimes it swirls into a smooth curl of a thing (like instead of sharply there bass beats, it's the lyrics swirling around the straight line that the beats lay out), WHICH ADDS. SO MUCH SWAG. And it's so swaggy, it's so self-assured and smug, that I cannot help but dance! And this is something that you can't do a choreographed dance to (not literally, but like when you first hear it, you're too filled with emotions to try and do a choreographed dance) so every movement is just an expression of the pure joy this song brings. And again, you try to define the beats and the emotion you feel with your movements, but you can't translate all of it. (This is another good part of the song. c:) This song is so good that it takes over a part of my soul!!

BUT THEN the song gets FASTER ohmygosh. And there's no lyrics or anything to define, so you can just extremely bop your head and get out all of the undefined emotion the rest of the song caused. (Like, I bopped my head so hard that my glasses fell off. Multiple times. Eventually I just left them there and picked them up after.) And then the lyrics come back!! And the note progression!! And it all feels so chaotic and full and quick like you're running for your life!!! I love!!!

And then, finally, the song must end. All of the extra instrumental leaves and the applause comes back and it's just the lyrics and a bit of the beat. And then it all falls off entirely and vanishes, leaving me disappointed and switching the loop feature on to hear it again.

(ALSO! When I first heard this song in full, I listened to the automatically created YouTube topic video thing, where an artist is a topic and any song made and/or sang solely by them is added to that extra channel. You know the thing, right? Hopefully, cause I don't have a better explanation. Anyways, so I listened to the actual video for this tho and the art?? Is so good??? I love it ohmygosh it's beautiful MM!)

So lol, guess I found a new (one of my) favorite song(s). And yes, I got a lil obsessed with this song after listening if you couldn't tell. This was the song I was talking about last week. (...I really should make a playlist for all the songs that make me feel like I'm feeling the gates of heaven, hm.) Anyways, seems I might be checking out a few more of Azari's songs maybe! I kinda hope! But I must go now! Writing this reminded me that this song existed (after I found another good song last week, hence why I forgot to actually write this ( -. _-. ) ) so I shall now be doing my homework to this song shortly!! Seeya!

okay I am interrupting my gonch posting to say. wtf dead to me that was the worst possible ending like. I quite literally could not have come up with an ending that bad what the hell