I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :
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(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )
Renée Minkowski is extremely into the abstract concept of Crew Bonding in such a way that it impairs her ability to actually bond with the particular crew that she has.
She wants them to have Christmas dinner together and give each other Christmas gifts, but she's not made an effort to learn Eiffel's feelings about December 25th and to think about what he might like to do that day.
She wants them to each say what they are thankful for at Thanksgiving, but when she says she's "thankful to have such a great crew on this mission", it sounds extremely unconvincing, as if she's just saying what she thinks a Commander ought to say at a Thanksgiving dinner on a space station, rather than expressing any genuine sentiments or revealing anything personal about herself.
She wants them all to participate in the talent show "to boost morale... bond as a crew, and... have a great time doing it", but Hilbert and Eiffel's reactions make it clear that talent shows do the opposite of improving crew morale for them.
Christmas celebrations and thanksgiving dinners and talent shows are all things that could potentially have a positive impact on morale and bonding for some hypothetical space crews, but in the way Minkowski approaches them, none of these things are particularly helpful for the morale and bonding of the people who are actually in her crew. Minkowski puts real effort into group bonding activities for her crew, but they are always based on general ideas about crew bonding, rather than on thinking about the individuals around her and what she can do to connect with those people in particular.
.... also.... the presumed storyline for August is that he was shipped off to Hillerska after his father's death. I could see where Kristina suggested or Erik himself decided to 'take August under his wing'
August is thinking "he's family, I can trust him" and then August is betrayed by Erik who subjects him to that awful initiation
just like when Wilhelm showed up to Hillerska and August takes him under his wing. "you can trust him he's family" and then Wilhelm is betrayed by August
when it's his own personal organic form, metal is miserable at gestures/expressions/etc. like when he's mimicking someone else, he has all the blueprints and guidelines already there, and it's flawless.
but with a personal organic form, he doesn't have guidelines like that. if he replicates too much of what he's observed, he just ends up talking like eggman or gesturing like sonic or generally any other person he knows.
taking on a completely unique form is basically asking metal to be himself, which, sure, but at the same time what does that even mean. he's never known what that means. how could he?
Aro culture is not feeling comfortable with assigning queer labels to dead people because a) there's only so much you can know about someone without knowing them personally b) it's entirely their business how they categorize relationships and c) more often than not it stems from amatonormative reasons "they couldn't just be friends!! because they did THIS!!!"
I'm not the only one uncomfortable with this, right?
What is he if not Lord of unanswered dreams and hopes?
Honestly, it pains me so much that Dream always fails to recognise his own value. That he knows his meaning to the Dreaming, but can’t he see his worth apart from his function. That killed me in the TV series and it kills me here. How often had somebody said something like “you have to do this” or “you don’t have a saying in this” for him to only believe himself worthy as a king for those who sleep instead for a being that deserves to love and dream as well.
I agree, and it's one of the first things I truly appreciated about his characterisation.
To be honest, it's a question that could be argued in many different ways. Past experiences are the first point that pops into my mind. The idea that all past attempts to have something more, to live for something other than his function, is beyond his grasp. Yet, more often than not, if you analyse Dream's pattern, the relationship is either doomed from the start (and he fails to see it/accept it), or he is entirely incompatible with the individual, to begin with. Dream's own inability to form meaningful change is, arguably, half the issue here, if not most of it.
It's clear that Dream is lonely. That he dearly desires something more but has been burned too many times to try and shoulder the potentially another failure. He has such responsibility placed on him that he instead chooses to - as Corinthian aptly puts it - "feel nothing". I think it's easier for him to focus on his duty because the depth of his own loneliness might undo him. Again, it's not a lack of love or even care. It's too much love. Dream is cold not because he doesn't feel but because he loves too much, too quickly, too intensely.
But he is also oh so proud. All those failed relationships and connections are felt so much deeper, even if he's not verbal about them.
While still on my 2HA high, I really want to talk about Chu Wanning's love for Mo Ran.
It is strange, isn't it? How deep his love goes when he only met little Mo Ran for a short while.
IMO, Chu Wanning is like Goj0 Sat0ru - the strongest but the loneliest. Everyone puts them on a pedestal which isolates them from building true connections with others.
For example, Xue Meng obviously loves and cares for Chu Wanning. However, he deeply respects and fears him too. He never sits beside his teacher when eating after all.
Coupled with Chu Wanning's temper and horrible social skills, he is an intimidating figure that would be really difficult to befriend.
Then little Mo Ran barges into his life. He disregarded all the social propriety bullshit and straight up demanded Chu Wanning to pay attention to him. He reached out and interacted Chu Wanning as a person - not some powerful figure to be revered and feared. For someone who has been treated as almost a "nonperson" because of his abilities for his entire life, that simple demand was special and kind in Chu Wanning's perspective.
So, imo, Chu Wanning is like Goj0 and Mo Ran is his "Get0". He loves him because, through sheer luck (aka fate), he is the first to see him beyond his powers and treat him as a real person.
So the next question then is when did Chu Wanning fell in love with Mo Ran?
I don't really know. In the beginning of the new timeline, Wanning is already in love with Mo Ran - he feels jealous of Shi Mei and feels wrong about having such feelings. I guess his love grew over time? Kinda like how Shi Mei and Mo Ran developed their feelings for him.
Maybe that's the case in 0.5 too but far more complicated. Chu Wanning loved Mo Ran. Fell in love with Mo Ran but never did anything about it because of Shi Mei. Probably fell out of love because of Taxian-Jun being Taxian-Jun. However, Chu Wanning's love for Mo Ran still endured despite everything especially when he realized his former disciple needed saving.
As for lusting after Mo Ran, I can only say poor Chu Wanning in the current(second?) timeline. The guy's already in love and ready to take his forbidden feelings to his grave. However, the soul fragment 0.5 Wanning put into him made him remember all his horrific experiences as an abused sex slave by Taxian-Jun... which he misinterpreted as wet dreams and triggered his lust. What a fucking mess. It would have been funny if it weren't so dark and depressing.
still thinking about grief and recovery and support on this show because oh boy did the shows airing this weekend put me in my dead parent feelings
i said before i was concerned about how porjai is dealing with her own grief, and this episode we saw her easily talking about rung, and even casually yelling to rung that she misses her! maybe this is me projecting, because i can't do that, but this seems like a pretty healthy place to be, especially contrasted with mhok's relative silence, and i'm glad!
and mhok's silence doesn't come from anger or resentment (which are valid ofc, but i did wonder if imprisonment gave him time to work through this to some degree) but out of protectiveness. i fucking loved this, because it felt so realistic and lived-in. i lost a parent to intimate partner violence, and i NEVER open up about it; people sure have Opinions, and it makes me insane
but day finding out about rung offscreen wasn't on my bingo card, tbh. because we've been with mhok through everything he's found out about day
it doesn't bother me, exactly, but it feels slightly unbalanced, and i suppose what i'm thinking is: knowing what happened to someone doesn't actually tell you how they feel about it, or how it affects them, or how you can support them
mhok found out from that lady sharing personal medical info she had no business sharing about day losing his eyesight in the accident, but he put in the work to understand what it actually meant for day. and in most cases, we've seen day telling mhok about what troubles him in his own words (his crush on auggy, why he was avoiding his friends, etc)
bereavement is probably statistically more common, so i suppose it may not need to be spelled out for an audience? but i am wary, because there have been so many shows where characters are visibly — to me! — struggling with grief and everything else matryoshka-ed in it, but audience reaction simply doesn't factor this in
i'm also thinking about how often mhok tells day a story about himself with the intent of making him smile ("i bought two bracelets just because i had money to spend" "i found this rooftop when i needed to sober up" "my sister called this false rice". i'm certain there are more!). because this is what a caretaker does, or because this is what mhok does, or both?
because this always made me wonder what it would take for mhok to talk about something that wouldn't make day smile, or because he wanted to share. in the former case, it'd have to be something pretty bad!
of course, talking isn't the only way to recovery or intimacy. and mhok going from "i'm breaking up with my devoted gf because i don't want to drag her down with me" to "i'm going to ask you to be my bf" is pretty significant!
but as they navigate the journey from being caretaker and client to being boyfies, the balance has to shift around a bit to them supporting each other, consciously choosing to be there for each other
in this episode what we got was: you only want money to buy that car. and i'm not even mad about this, because this kind of comment is very in line with day's character. but wow. day, i know you're feeling big feelings, but throwing one of the few things you know about mhok's life in his face is. not it!