The Future

quick scketch of the boys, maybe one day ill finish it

oh my god okay. The fact that Wayne narrates the lore of the Creel House and Eddie narrates the Vecna campaign is so important to me. It means that Eddie grew up listening to his uncle tell stories. It means that those stories left such an impact on him, that he started telling stories of his own.

It means Eddie inherited the storytelling trait from Wayne.

I'M NOT OKAY

On System Collapse, Sanctuary Moon, and saving one another.

I said the other day that System Collapse might be my new favorite Murderbot book. The first time I thought that was in the middle of chapter eight, the chapter where Murderbot and its humans make a documentary to show the colonists what the Corporation Rim is like. The whole book was good, but that was the chapter that felt like it was reaching out to me the most.

The thing that struck me about it is how Murderbot saves the colonists with media. It was saved by media—Sanctuary Moon helped it rewire its neural tissue, process its trauma, find a place for itself in the world. And coming up with the idea of using media to convince the colonists is what drags it out of the depressive state it’s been in for the entire book up to that point, and lets it start to feel hopeful again. It literally tells us in its narration that the emotional reactions it has when it comes up with this idea are similar to the ones it had watching Sanctuary Moon for the first time. The thought of creating its own media, of finding a way to tell the truth and be listened to, of being able to keep people from being trapped in the corporate world it knows all too well, is just as much of a lifeline for it as Sanctuary Moon was.

Murderbot has been been feeling like a failure as a SecUnit for the entire book, and it finds its way out of that not through regaining its normal SecUnit competence but through art. Something it was never meant to experience or understand, let alone create, but something that shaped who it is. It takes the thing that saved it and turns it around to save others—and saves itself again, in the process.

And the other thing that jumped out at me, thinking about chapter eight, is that so many of us have been saved by media, too. So many of us have been saved by Murderbot, in big and small ways. I’m certainly one of them. Murderbot and the community of readers who love it gave me the space to stop and consider some things that (not unlike Murderbot) I hadn’t really been willing to examine. And now I get to figure myself out in a community full of aspec people who understand. Murderbot has given that opportunity to a lot of people.

Martha Wells has talked in interviews about how parts of Murderbot were based on herself. She says, in her introduction to the Subterranean Press edition, that media “probably saved [her] life as a kid,” including the kind of media that isn’t “cool” to be saved by. We’ve seen that in Murderbot ever since the very first line of All Systems Red. What we saw in chapter eight of System Collapse goes a step further. It makes me want to hold a mirror up—I hope Wells was aware, when she was writing it, that what Murderbot does for the colonists is something she’s done for a lot of others.

The colonists that Murderbot saves with its documentary are not real people. That scene, of course, is fiction. But it’s the kind of fiction that’s true in all the ways that matter.

I really love Murderbot. Not in a weird way. 💜

C1 Special, "Dalen's Closet" | C3E35, "Pyrrhic Return"

"I should've seen the signs" I feel like Stoick was basically reliving the way he lost Valka.

To him, after a lifetime of wanting nothing but to kill a dragon, Hiccup's suddenly and inexplicably changed his mind. To him, Hiccup saying he can't kill them is just like when Valka refused to and tried convincing others as well, then as a result was 'killed' by one herself.

To him, way Hiccup tossed his weapon and shield to the side then approached Hookfang while speaking about how dragons aren't what people think they are probably bares an uncomfortable resemblance to the way Valka put down her weapon and stared a dragon in the eyes and as a result was taken.

To him, attempting to do anything but preemptively defend yourself against a dragon will only end in tragedy, so he has to do anything he can to stop Hiccup before it's too late.

(And just like with Valka, he unintentionally escalated the situation by trying to protect Hiccup but only agitated the dragon, causing it to panic and react, inadvertently putting someone he loves in danger. again)

Stoick of course, wasn't acting rationally, but it makes sense when you think about how traumatizing Valka's 'death' must've been for him (and how much Hiccup reminss him of her); he watched her get taken, presumably killed, and couldn't do anything about it.

this particular shot looked familiar & then I remembered why : ‘ )

Michael comforting Brian over Justin + Brian comforting Michael over Ben

I called it, Ruan Mei is deranged and shady as hell

we could talk about how hanzo’s rage is a metaphor for his grief and trauma and his title of scorpion represents his difficulty to let go of his anger how he can never stop mourning his past because he refuses to stop mourning and how kuai liang’s taking of the mantle is representative of the ability to move forward rather than be stuck in constant mourning of the brother he lost. we could also talk about how hanzo’s protection over kuai liang was out of guilt of how hanzo could not stop himself from allowing emotion to control him and killing bi-han, and his ability to allow kuai liang to live instead of exacting more blindness vengeance allowed kuai liang to prosper and grow and end the years of rivalry between their clans.

been thinking so hard abt the mask and the moon. this has Most Definitely been said before by a bunch of ppl but please indulge my ramblings for a bit anyways cuz i cannot get over this. it just makes so much sense to me to look at them as (at least partially?) a metaphor for skull kids ugly feelings that stem from his abandonment issues. the fact that one of majoras bossfight phases is called majoras Wrath....... the way the mask is said to be the cause of skull kids actions, and then is revealed to have been outright controlling him. the way that thing states that it shall consume everything and then it flies off to the moon (yet another, but more uh . non-theoretical, direct ‘manifestation’ of the kids anger) and u go inside, supposedly to the core of it and are met with the peaceful field and the tree and the five children. four of which run around wearing masks of the bosses of the dungeons u had to go thru in order to get to the giants. four of which play hide and seek with u, and Theyre the ones who hide. and one child, sitting all by himself, wearing majoras mask. one who u confront after ‘everyone has gone away’ and who suggests that u play good guys against bad guys w/ him and states that ‘when youre bad, you just run’. also this visual parallel

wailing and crying

Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? / It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together? / why? Oh! Cause she’s dead! Look what you made me do / that quote I can’t find from Miss Americana where she felt like people were telling her in other words that she should be dead

okay lads what did we think of that

i think the witcher makes me feel a profound sadness every night because it’s about all the things we love so much, or that we wish we had, but can never get back. the tragedy of the uncontrollable. the pain of loss.

ciri, despite her youth and innocence, loses her home and family and then she even her adoptive parents, and then she even loses her youth and her innocence, and is left with nothing but a grotesque scar symbolizing her trauma that doesn’t fit her childlike face and a hardened, green glare. and a sword, which is only a burden.

her parents, despite their incredible love for her, despite all of their agony and sacrifice to get her back, despite their own loss of their honor, their pride, their blood — they lose her too. they lose a child, the most tragic loss of all.

dandelion loses his best friend, clutching at his memories like the weeds growing by loch eskalott, trying to grasp the last twenty years to write his memoires.

milva hears her father’s words when she shoots, and his wheezing echoes in her mind.

regis lost himself, his entire life, all the people he ever loved and chased away.

cahir, despite his large family that loves him more than imperial orders, can never return to darn dyffrya, feel the sun on his face in vicovaro ever again.

angoulême wonders if her mother would have loved her had she not abandoned her, imagines what her hand patting her head in praise could have felt like.

and then geralt loses them. all of them, one by one.

and nimue, reading about it all, can never meet the figures of the legend she has obsessed over for years and years… she has her part to play in it, she can know their voices from dialogues and know their faces from etchings, but will never be able to tell them she loves them, tell them how much they mean to her.

even when they find what they’re searching for, even when they find what they’ve desired so — it’s only for a bittersweet moment. they shortly lose it again. everyone in this series is so intertwined together and caught in the same snare of destiny, and at the very same time so very alone and abandoned

me: *going about my day*🙂

the brain: hey remember how you said ichijiku and ramuda are the only two people we’ve heard crying over a loss of life and purpose???? ramuda had this whole character arc where he came to terms with hating everything he’s done now that he sees he has better options and ichijiku is going thru the exact same thing with nemu telling her that they could be better which makes ichijiku and ramuda parallels of each other—

me: 🫠

Pedro Pascal is so pretty in the season finale of TLOU that I’m personally offended by it (/j)