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#how I personally manifest things
heavenangelly · 16 days
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Do you guys want a post on how I personally manifest different things? Like how I manifest an SP, appearance changes, good grades, tons of money, etc?
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jemmo · 3 months
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Making sense of love for love's sake: the game
Despite all the things i absolutely adore about how the plot unravels and expands in love by love's sake, upon first watch, there's some things i couldn't piece together, which @lurkingshan echoes in their post:
'The way the author was messing with Myungha and forcing cruel choices on him really does not track with a desire to help him find happiness.'
And to preface, this is not something i fully get yet either. I think i'll need a good month and a sizeable reading list of relevant resources to understand just what/who this author/sunbae is and what his role is and how he is associated with myungha. But as always with the best shows for meta (aka bad buddy), as a plot unfolds, you can always find a better understanding by looking backwards and re-contextualising what you've already seen. so i watched ep 1, specifically the scene between myungha and his sunbae at the bar. And i will talk about how everything said in this scene has a whole new meaning now we know the full story, but for now i wanna focus on that question that they keep coming back to; "Then... will you change it for him?".
When you watch the show for the first time, your brain follows the simplest, most obvious version of the story you're being told, one where myungha has been pulled into the world of his sunbae's novel that's being turned into a game and given the opportunity to fix the thing he didn't like about it; making yeowoon happy, and thus you just think the rules of the game are imposed by the author, and so when these cruel choices first come up, you see them as the difficult roadblocks that are nevertheless necessary to any kind of game, forcing the player to make an impossible choice so that the game can continue in a certain direction and its only after that you learn whether it was the right choice or not, or there is no right choice, it simply changes the game you are playing.
And when its revealed what this game actually is, at first i tried to interpret these cruel choices, namely the choice between yeonwoon and myungha's grandma, and at best i could come up with the concept of this being a choice between staying stuck to the past aka choosing his grandma, even though he knows that choice doesn't mean she's safe bc he knows the future where he loses here, its an inevitability, but thats the small happiness he knew before it was taken away and thus that happiness is known and safe, theres no risk, versus choosing to pursue a new happiness, a love of yeowoon and thus himself, which he doesn't know, he hasn't experienced yet, and could be risky. Its a happiness that isn't guaranteed like his grandma, but its a happiness that looks to the future and has hope in it that he can find a new happiness to pursue despite what has happened in his past.
And that fits nice, okayish. But then i watched ep 1 and heard that question "Then... will you change it for him?" And watching through the rest of the eps, we come back to this scene at the bar and each time we get a new run up to the author asking this question, either new dialogue is added or we hear a different piece of the conversation entirely. It starts at the beginning of ep 1 as:
"Because Cha Yeowoon is the only one who's miserable." "It can't be helped that some people's lives are like that" "The fact that some people are destined to live that kind of life is what's vile."
Then a bit later in ep 1 we go back and its expanded.
"It can't be helped that some people's lives are like that" "The fact that some people are destined to live that kind of life is what's vile." "Why? Do you think you'd write it differently?" "Yes, definately. Someone like Cha Yeowoon, or someone like me with an awful life, can also be happy."
And then all the way on in ep 6, we get this new dialogue.
"I don't like talking about destiny." "Why?" "Because it means everything is predestined." "Then do you not believe in fate?" "Fate and destiny are the same. My grandma likes to say that. She said life is like a written book, and how you'll live and die are written in it. (...)I don't like things like this. Even if fate is already destined, I think it can still be changed. Otherwise, there's no point in trying." "Really? Then Myungha..."
And while we don't hear the author ask the same question, I feel like him getting cut off like that insinuates that the conversation leads to that same ending point. All that is to say, every time we hear this question being asked, its like we learn more and more about what this whole thing is, what the game is, what myungha is saying he will do by agreeing to do what the author asks. And every time, we see myungha being more defiant against the idea of yeowoon being resigned to his miserable ending. He starts off thinking that kind of life is destined, and while it's miserable, its not something he can fight. Then he says he'd want to write the story differently, bc yeowoon, or even him, could be happy. He challenges the idea that yeowoon, and thus himself, is fated to be miserable, and opens up the possibility for happiness for them both, but doesn't yet have the means or resolve to do it, its like he knows its possible on a fundamental level, but doesn't see it as something he can actually achieve. But then we circle back to the idea of destiny and books, both of which came up in the previous quote, and seems incredibly pertinent seen as this whole thing is about a novel this author has written. Myungha talks about how he hates the idea that life is a book where everything written is predestined to happen, from the moment you live to the moment you die. He says "Even if fate is already destined, I think it can still be changed. Otherwise, there's no point in trying." That vile way of life he described before that he said was destined, he is now saying it can be changed, and that possibility is now something he's holding onto, its what he sees hope in so that he can keep trying, bc now he finally is trying, he has the resolve, he's trying to realise this thing, this impossibility of rewriting the life he thought was destined through the way he loves yeowoon.
And coming back to those cruel choices, given this fresh context, it made me think. bc this isn't actually a game that myungha has been put into where the rules are dictated by an author completely separate from him. He said himself, he'd rewrite it, he'd change things for yeowoon. And when you start to think of it less as him fighting against a rigid, removed system and more like him being a character in a story he is trying to rewrite himself, that has both the author and his own limitations, or just his own if you're in the school of thought that the author is some figment or part of myungha himself or his conciousness, then you can start to see where these cruel choices might come from. They could be myungha, the author making edits to this new story, imposing his own doubts and limitations on himself. When he says he has to pick between Yeowoon and his grandma, what if that's the new author myungha seeing this story unfold and thinking no this isn't right, he can't have it all, i'm not deserving of this much happiness.
And what makes me like this idea even more is that when we get that second choice between ending after 14 days or getting 100 days back at the cost of resetting Yeowoon's affection to 0, that whole conversation happens in what I think the bar actually is which is this frozen moment in time where myungha is in the water with this extension of a voice in his head that is talking through these things. That conversation in itself needs its own post, but when you look at it both as a decision to break up or not or a decision to hold onto life or not, you can see how the author is just this soundboard relaying the decisions myungha is going through in his head. The author's voice is his own, weighing up his decisions. And if he is the author here, it only reinforces that the person making the rules of this game is him. You can even extend it further to the idea of the debuffs, where he puts in place this thing that makes it so he causes harm to yeowoon when he's around, and its only by garnering affection that he can prevent it. He gives himself a reason from the get go to stay away from yeowoon and reason it as him doing it for yeowoon's safety, when in fact the only way to make yeowoon safe is to increase his affection, which he can only do by being near him. Its a system that at first gives myungha a reason to stay away aka not like himself, but ultimately says the only way you're going to make yeowoon like you, or the only way you can like yourself, is if you accept risk. And that in itself screams to me of a myungha writing in these game systems that are trying to encourage his own-self love while falling at the hurdle of his own lack of self-worth.
The idea is still messy in my head even for me, but i just really like the idea that myungha could be trying to fix this thing both as a character and game master, and that both these versions of him have these flaws that manifest in their different ways to cause the events we see. It kinda is the definition of being your own worst enemy, the idea that in order to work towards loving yourself, the biggest obstacle you have to encounter is yourself, bc we are the ones holding ourselves back, making all these rules that make it harder to like ourselves and pursue our own happiness. The voices in our head telling us that we aren't good enough and aren't deserving are our own, and while the things that happen to us can inform what they say, we're the one's reinforcing those words. And what this show teaches us is that, if we're the one holding that pen all along, we can choose to change what those words are. If we make the rules, you don't have to create a game with concrete ultimatums, you can create a game where rules don't control you. Instead, you make the decisions, and you can make the ones that make you happy.
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angel-archivist · 8 months
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It's so interesting and so exceedingly frustrating how agab is being utilized now within the queer community as a way to isolate and sort nonbinary and genderqueer folks into binary boxes that determine their moral purity levels, and their authority to do and write and exist.
The way nonbinary writers are being put under accusation of fetishizing gay men while their AGAB is continually brought up in a way that feels like queer-space-approved misgendering.
The way feminist circles that are supposedly trans-inclusive will use the word AFAB in a way that implicitly but intentionally isolates nonbinary people who aren't AFAB from joining. It's for women*.
The way the language is already flawed and leaves out intersex folks from the conversations while focusing on a binary of sex that isn't truthful.
The constant obsessing over whether someone is AFAB or AMAB and whether or not that gives them the privilege to join, do, write, or be present in certain spaces really really concerns me. How are we supposed to dismantle a binary system of gender if we can't even move past forcibly assigning and focusing on people's genders assigned at birth?
#and yes i understand! that agab language can in some circumstances be helpful in inclusive language and in the medical world but ultimately#is misgendering and unnecessary it should be up to the person to disclose their agab not an expectation of them to give up freely#I think that inclusive language shouldnt be misgendering in nature and agab as far as i can tell should only be used in select discussions#and certainly not as a way to frame a nonbinary writer as a “biological woman” but in a way where the queer community will nod along and sa#“oh they have a point” because you used the word AFAB instead#honestly afab is the term i see used most frequently and most harmfully towards other nonbinary people who don't identify w the label#to exclude trans women and amab nonbinary people#to frame nonbinary people as “still women” because of their assigned gender at birth#also i understand its not as simple as “not using” these terms bc they still serve a purpose and are important#but as they leave the queer community and as they enter the hands of cis queer people they become weapons#i wish i could like manifest my thoughts super clearly but i really cant bc its a difficult situation#its just another example of misogyny and bio-essentialism creeping into the queer community#because the patriarchy impacts all things including our discussions of trans oppression and gender we need to stop viewing it#as a strict binary of male female and oh sometimes we'll mention nonbinary people but we're all afab and amabs at the end of the day <3#like flames literal flames#if you wanna like chip into the conversation just shoot me an ask or respond to the post i'd love to hear other peoples perspectives#im not infalliable so if i said anything you view as incorrect especially in regards to intersex folks and how you all would like to be#included in these discussions as im not intersex but am aware of how agab is a subject that leans into the idea of a binary of sex#so yeah rant over <3#retro.bullshit#rant
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sunnnfish · 5 months
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Maybe I’m okay with it if Hirano never traditionally “loves” Kagi. Or anyone. Maybe it never will turn into the same kind of love Kagi feels. Kagi is nevertheless such a source of inspiration and strength and comfort to Hirano. Even if he never feels a desire to touch or get married or whatever. Maybe he does it because Kagi asks and he loves making Kagi happy most of all. He wouldn’t seek it if not asked. But Kagi is always asking. And he knows it makes Kagi happy. Does anyone see the vision. Do you understand. Maybe kagi will be okay with it if Hirano never “loves” him the same way Kagi loves him. Because he knows how Hirano works and he knows how Hirano cares. And he knows he is unique to Hirano. He knows Hirano wouldn’t do these things with anyone else. And that’s still love in its own way.
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aroacettorney · 4 months
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[chapter 630+ spoilers]
its so funny to me that although ludger could have easily and efficiently wiped his enemies with the power of [the goddess who loves humans very much], instead, he chose to flex his power and completely obliterate them in the most petty way possible. he killed:
the lightning wizard of color with lightning
the fire wizard of color with fire
the entire holy army with holy power
the almost equivalent of the pope with the same god that he worships
you cant even call this massacre a poetic vengeance because he clearly didnt even see them as a worthy enemy but more of a swarm of annoying pests that need extermination.
ironically, ludger was created to become a vessal of a god, yet not only he rejected this divinity but also became the exact opposite of one — the manifestation of pettiness, a trait that is unmistakably very human.
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mastercrownmonday · 1 month
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Crown-a-Crown!
TL;DR: Vote for your favorite form of the Master Crown! The poll is below this kind note directly from our sponsor.
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"mortals, It's the Crown Without a Ruler (WITHER IN FEAR). I am speaking to you today via server-hosted textual display data. make no mistake; in better days, the God of Another Dimension never relied on computers or clockwork, but due to My very TEMPORARY circumstances, it is the best Your Diademic Deity can do.
today I generously offer you the chance to sing your praises in a quantitative manner. I have asked the (LOWLY) owner of this account to compile every single form of the Master Crown (ME) thus far revealed to mortal eyes (YOU). My memory is infallible, but theirs is not, so if they manage to forget something, please rectify the situation by sending them HATE MAIL.
My appearances are invariably arresting, so I understand that your decision will be difficult. I allow you to determine your answer by considering power, mere aesthetics, story significance, or a combination of those and more.
you can explain yourself in the "tags" or "replies" if you wish, but if any one of you cringing, crawling things MENTIONS—nay, so much as CONSIDERS—any manner of BLUE-CLAD WIZARD, then by Eden's Altar, there will be RETRIBUTION.
I give you a week's time to cast your vote.
inimitably,
THE MASTER CROWN"
(A) Landia/Parallel Landia/"Base" form:
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(B) Landia EX:
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(C) Traitor Magolor/EX:
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(D) Magolor Phase 2:
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(E) Magolor Soul:
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(F) Crown Shards:
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(G) Crowned Doomer:
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(H) Final Boss/"Mistilteinn":
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(I) Star Allies:
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I'm sure glad it isn't up to me! Too many good choices...
All exemplary images courtesy of Wikirby. Check the tags for some finer details on my decisions while making the poll.
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uncanny-tranny · 6 months
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See, the term "magical thinking" is perhaps accurate, but I worry that people interpret that as a cutesy symptom rather than as something that can very easily slide into life-ruining thoughts and patterns of behaviour.
I've found that my own magical thinking is often inspired by some incredibly hurtful, very personal fears and traumas, and I wonder if that's what many people also experience. It's helped to reframe my mindset in that I acknowledge that I am not that powerful that everything in the universe is my fault, but... it's still very difficult to deal with, and it isn't a perfect solution.
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thebloodredraven · 24 days
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The "why are people criticizing romance tarot readers, I don't want to do shadow work readings" shit I saw on here a few months ago did a lot to my psyche, mostly make me realize I should not be consuming that content as much as I have been over the past few years.
I also learned that anyone who has a problem with doing shadow work or self reflection readings but obsesses over romance are probably suffering with limerence like me and that snapped me tf awake
Edit: also what the FUCK do you mean "if this pile just sounds like it's describing yourself, that just means your person is mirroring you!!" NO???? THAT MEANS YOU NEED TO FOCUS ON YOURSELF BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE WHY ARE WE SAYING THIS TO IMPRESSIONABLE PEOPLE
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elia-nymmeros · 22 days
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Everytime i think i've seen everything in this fandom... wdym the man who exterminated Houses Tarbeck and Reyne down to the last child, who ordered an innocent 14-year-old to be gang-raped by an entire garrison before ordering his own son to rape her last, who emotionally abused said son down to his last moment on Earth for the crime of being born disabled, who ordered the sacking of an entire city and commanded every atrocity in the Riverlands all for his own personal and politican gain, wasn't evil? Tywin Lannister ruined the life of hundreds, if not thousands of people, including his own children, and the narrative is quite explicit in portraying him as the source of his own destruction. Tywin Lannister is one of the most evil, cruel, petty and malicious man of ASOIAF, even if he didn't personally commit every act of violence himself; the fact that I see people still somehow making excuses for his behavior is ..????!?!?
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lgbtiwtv · 2 years
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one of my favorite hobbies is in fact making fun of lestat because let’s be honest he does deserve it 99% of the time but then i start rereading tvl and suddenly I’m like….man he really went through so much, huh? he was really traumatized and taken advantage of over and over by both strangers and people he loved….like man he really was stalked, kidnapped, and forcefully made into a vampire against his will….he faced years of abuse from his father and brothers…..he witnessed the death of his only lover and before that his resentment and eventual madness….he really cries every other page and has 10 existential crises before he even becomes a vampire but he wants to be good he wants to be happy he tried to run away to the church he tried to run away with the theatre troupe he just wanted to act and love and be loved and at every turn he was done wrong and hurt and abandoned and nobody ever really helped him and I—
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i want to live in the world where dragon age inquisition got to have the in-depth strategy / political organization sim elements bioware obviously wanted it to have where your decisions in managing the inquisition actually meant anything for how it operates and had effects on the game world. sadly we live in the universe where art needs to make profit
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it's such a radical kind of positivity to be like 'maybe things will be okay in the end' in the face of biodiversity collapse and colonialism. but it's also exactly what we need. for some of us to go 'what if things turn out okay' and then do the work to get there because we loved that vision so much we made it happen
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lycanr0t · 1 month
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the thing about aplatonicism is that just like aromanticism and asexualism, it doesn't inherently mean you don't want friendships, every individual apl person has different needs and wants in regards to friendship and each person will go about it differently.
I for example am aplatonic and don't specifically feel platonic attraction as in, i don't feel a drive to befriend people. I don't get "friend crushes" or ever get the desire to befriend specific people. I am personally, very open to the possibility of friendship if someone else approaches me and we vibe. I am not platonically attracted to them, but I also do get enjoyment from socializing with others in that way and can become attached to them, etc. Platonic attraction does not equal caring about someone/being good to them. Attraction is not moral in that way. it just is.
Just like how some ace people still enjoy sex, even without sexual attraction. Some aplatonic people still enjoy friendship, and some don't. And that's okay! There are so many types of relationships out there that people can form and explore what makes them happiest and it looks different for every person and that's such a wonderful thing.
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tibtew · 10 months
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*clutching head* rodya and meursault would have such a good dynamic actually
I wonder if rodya would initially see meursault's indifference as like. a simpler version of her own feigned carefreeness and as a deliberate attempt to place himself as an outsider... only to realise that No, he really Is just Like That. and then she gets annoyed because it turns out that people who don't care about anything don't seem to be any fun.
(ofc he does actually care about a lot of things, just not necessarily his grander place in the world lol)
idk. nihilism vs absurdism. fun duo 👍 rodya would find meursault's genuine comfort with being a speck of dust in the universe baffling, while he would probably find her desire to assert her own importance pointless, but they could probably bond over little things like their shared desire to live in the present and appreciation of/indulgence in earthly joys. and meursault would probably listen if rodya wants to rant about anything without asking any uncomfortable questions. I think they could appreciate each other's presence.
#slamming my conspiracy board#listen it's not my fault meursault vibes with literally the entire female cast#rodya enjoyers help me out here please I haven't read crime and punishment am I talking out of my ass#I just think it'd be kind of interesting if like. rodya kills someone for a very specific reason (to assert herself as special)#while meursault kills someone for seemingly no good reason#but because of time place circumstance etc#meursault is the one made out to be the outsider to society#while rodya goes unacknowledged and all her motives backfire#like I'm not saying that meursault has Exactly what rodya wants or anything#but I think he Does possess a level of guiltlessness that she was trying to achieve through her self-confidence#also I find it interesting how pride is like. a big thing for both of them#like they both have excessive belief in themselves and their own abilities. in rodya it manifests as self-confidence or I guess. an ego#while in meursault it's more about. a belief in his own interpretation of the world rather than himself as a person? I hope that makes sens#also they both reject collectivist ideas which is. fun#neither of them perform to what a society would expect from them but for rodya it's an active effort to assert her individuality#while meursault just Doesn't Get societal conventions from the get-go unless they're explained to him#I think they also both tend to project a lot 💀 meursault expects his own indifference from others while rodya projects her own#experiences onto others' and makes assumptions based on that before knowing the full details#txt#limbus company#I feel too embarrassed to add more specific tags ngl 💀 💀 💀#lcb meursault#lcb rodion#lcb rodya#nvm. feelings of cringe are for Losers I am Strong
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godsfavoritescientist · 10 months
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Building off of what I wrote in my fic "Sparks," I'm really compelled by the idea of Ford genuinely no longer being interested in sailing around in a boat with Stan by the time they were seniors in high school.
I like the idea of it not being just a symptom of the resentment that had been building between them, nor it being a dream of Ford's that only paled in comparison to west coast tech, but it being a genuine loss of interest on Ford's end. I think it complicates things even further in some really juicy ways.
Like, imagine going through high school slowly losing more and more interest in the dream you've shared with your twin and only friend ever since you were little kids. How do you break it to him? How do you explain it to him without making it sound like a rejection of him? Without it making him hate you?
How do you explain it without it feeling like a spit in the face to all the hard work he's put into a plan that started out as a way of him comforting you by telling you "it doesn't matter what people say about you, you're going to be an adventurer who sails away into the sunset and never has to hear their mockery ever again, and there will be babes and treasure and heroism, and then they'll all see how cool you really are!"
And all through high school you think to yourself, "he's going to move on to more realistic dreams any day now, and then I won't have to say anything about it!" But no matter how many times you mention something else he could do with his life that he seems interested in, or bring up the challenging logistics of traveling around long-term in a boat, he sounds just as committed to the childhood dream as ever, and completely oblivious to how apprehensive you sound.
So resentment grows, little by little. Because that's easier than confronting the soul-crushing levels of guilt that are building up inside of you, every time you don't take an opportunity to tell him you don't want to do the plan anymore. You don't have a single person in your life who modeled how to have difficult conversations for you. As far as you know, having this conversation with Stan would crush him into tiny little pieces and then he would hate you forever, and you can't stand the idea of losing the only friend you've ever had.
So tensions grow. A lack of interest turns into a bitter resentment that, if you were really being honest with yourself, is directed more at yourself than it is at Stan.
And then the falling-out happens, and it seems like you were proven right. Stan hates you now, and he's never going to forgive you for giving up on his dream. But two can play that game, so you try to hate him too. Because if you hate him too, then maybe it won't hurt as much that he never came back. That he never even turned up at school, or by the boat, or in through your bedroom window in the middle of the night. He knows what dad's like, and how he says impulsive exaggerated things when he's angry, and haven't you both dealt with his harsh words countless times before and been able to dust yourselves off and joke about it later? So why isn't he back at home, joking with you about how absurd your dad acted that night, being impossible and belligerent about ruining your dream, but at least now you're even, because you've ruined his dream too.
-
And now imagine you find out he risked the lives of everyone in existence to bring you back, right after you had accepted your fate was to die killing Bill. It would be terrifying and confusing and infuriating. If he cared so much, why didn't he do something to reconnect with you sooner? Why did he ignore you in favor of trying to make it big without you? Why didn't he take the infinitely safer and simpler action of reaching out to you without you having to track down his address and send a desperate plea for help? You were convinced that he didn't care enough to bother with you unless you had an important enough reason for him to come. But even then, he thought your plans were stupid. He didn't want anything to do with you, not even with the world at stake.
Did he save your life out of guilt? Does he pity you that much? It doesn't add up with what he did in the decade leading up to shoving you into the portal. And the dissonance between the version of him in your head that hates you, and the man who held out his arms to welcome you back to your home dimension, is so strong that you feel like you're being lied to again, like you're back in the depths of gaslighting and manipulation that Bill put you through, even though there's no way that's what Stan is trying to do... right? You can't figure it out, so you run away from it. You don't want to know the answer to whether or not Stan hates you, because you don't know which answer would hurt more, so you try to make him hate you more than ever, because at least then you would know for sure how he feels.
And in the end, after he sacrifices his memories for you, and for the world, things seem clearer. The layers upon layers of confusion and anger and hurt seem to have washed away like drawings in the sand, leaving behind the simple truth: that you two had an argument, and didn't move past it for forty years, and despite everything you put each other through, you both still want to re-connect.
So you sail away in a boat together.
And at first, it's wonderful. It's exactly what you want. It feels like an apology to Stan, and a thank-you for saving the world, and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to heal the rift between you two, and it's good to be back on earth, and you wonder why you ever doubted the dream you two once had.
But then, after the first long journey you spend on the sea together, when you get back home to dry land, Stan is already talking about planning your next adventure out on the open sea. He recaps every adventure you had on the first trip, over and over again, and he wants to chat with you all through the morning and long into the night, and you don't have the words to explain to yourself that you don't have enough social battery for this, and suddenly you're slipping back into the horrifyingly familiar feeling of Stan being overbearing and needing space from him and how could you think that? How could you think that about him after everything he's done for you and everything he's forgiven you for? But the longer this goes on, the more you realize that you still don't want to spend the rest of your life sailing around with Stan. It's great fun in moderation, but the idea of your whole life revolving around Stan and going on adventures with Stan and being in a boat with Stan with no time to be by yourself thinking about your own things and figuring out your own dreams makes your skin crawl with a claustrophobic kind of panic that you still don't know how to put into words forty years after the first time this feeling grabbed you by the throat and ruined your friendship with Stanley.
But the first time this happened, it nearly ruined his life forever. You can't let yourself feel this. You don't feel this. You're happy to spend the rest of your life fulfilling Stan's lifelong dream, and making up for the time you crushed his dream, and sure, maybe he crushed your dream once too, and maybe it would be nice for him to support your dreams like you're now doing for him, but you can't say that. He saved the universe, and it would be horrible and ungrateful and cruel for you to try to voice these feelings, especially when you don't know how to voice your feelings without it making other people feel like you twisted a knife into their gut. So you try to pretend the feeling isn't there.
You go out on a boat with Stan again. You planned out another incredible journey together, and this should be fun, and you should be happy about this, but the unspoken feeling you shoved as far down in yourself as it could possibly go is eating you alive. The worst part? Stan is starting to notice. You have never been good at hiding your emotions. The trick to it has always been to convince yourself you don't feel it at all, and not think about it, and that has always worked like a charm. But whenever the emotion claws its way back up to the forefront of your mind, you can tell Stan knows something is wrong. So you can't even give him the happy ending he deserves. You can't even convince him that you want to be here on the open seas forever with him, like he deserves. And you keep trying and trying to hide it, but Stan keeps asking in roundabout ways, like "You're being awfully quiet, sixer," and "whats that look on your face?" and eventually it comes exploding out of you like a shaken-up soda bottle dropped on its cap.
And then it's like you're back at home in New Jersey again, standing in the living room while dad grabs Stanley by the shirt. It all comes pouring out of you, in the worst possible way, with the worst possible phrasing, like a pandora's box of monstrousness, and Stan tries to fight back against the sting of your words, but you're made out of acid and you're burning through him and you can see it on his face, and there's never any coming back from this, not this time, you'll just have to either jump into the ocean or become a monster forever, so Stan can hate you more easily again, and-
-and at the end of the outburst, you're still on a boat in the middle of nowhere in the ocean with your brother, in dangerous waters, and you have things to do to keep the boat running smoothly.
You can't run away from him. He can't run away from you. You're stuck here for at least a couple more weeks, even if you turned around and sailed back towards shore right away.
-
And the thing that compels me so much here, despite how unbelievably angsty it all is, is that it sets up a situation wherein the Stans might end up forced to actually address the decades of resentment and confusion and wanting-to-reconnect-throughout-it-all that they thought they could gloss over and heal with enough time spent adventuring together on a boat. They might end up forced to actually address the crux of the issue that drove them apart in the first place: Ford wanting a little more space to feel like his own person, and to feel like he's able to have his own dreams, too.
It wouldn't happen easily, nor right away, but if they were stuck together on a little boat in the middle of nowhere surrounded by magical creatures they have to protect each other from in order to make it back home alive, then after they had one fight where they brought up all the things they silently agreed to never bring up again, it would probably happen many more times, and each time it would leave them both angrier at each other than ever, until eventually something honest slipped through amidst all the saying-anything-except-what-they-mean bickering. And once enough of these honest moments slipped through, then they would have a thread to tug on to start to unravel the gargantuan knot of their decades of unresolved conflicts.
And then, eventually, maybe Stan could learn that he can have a good friendship with his brother without needing to be glued to him at the hip, and Ford needing a certain amount of alone time doesn't mean he dislikes him or wants to abandon him, and Ford could learn that he can be honest and have a meaningful connection with someone without it driving them away and making them hate him.
#succumbed to the stan twins angst visions and wrote 2000 words about this#ford pines#ford meta#this turned into a character analysis that almost reads like a fic#godswriting#<- i need to change my writing tag to this#something bothers me a little bit about the solution to their conflict being 'ford appreciates stan more now so he is now fine with-#-boat adventures with stan'. to me it leaves the initial conflict of 'he doesnt want to do that anymore' unresolved#obviously you could easily argue that ford never stopped wanting to go on boat adventures with stan and he just couldnt justify it to-#-himself when compared to the opportunity at west coast tech. but that has one less layer of conflict#compared to the possibility that he truly was not interested in boat adventures anymore. ESPECIALLY if its a manifestation of him#feeling suffocated by the whole dynamic-twins-duo thing#its normal to start wanting a little bit more space especially at that age. to want to have space to figure out who you are#the healthy thing would have been them talking about it and figuring out a compromise. like 'when ford needs space he can spend a few hours#-alone without stan being worried the whole time that it means ford hates him' and 'we still spend x amount of time working on the boat and#-we still chat on the way to and from school every day and hang out at the beach on weekends'#like of fucking course it was never about hating stan or about wanting to get away from him because of who he is as a person!#he literally just wanted to have a little bit of breathing room to be his own separate person. he just didn't know how to put it into words#I really think the crux of it all was them not knowing how to navigate that balance between independence and identity while staying close#so ford misattributing/reducing that feeling to 'I dont have the exact same dream as stan anymore. why does he still have that dream. oh no#feels like a good way of giving that conflict a tangible aspect to it thats easy for the stans to point at and talk about as a way of-#-alluding to the REAL core of the conflict between them.#and of course the show never says 'they sail around the world for the rest of their lives 24/7' so it's not like it Actually Conflicts with#-my interpretation of the conflict and how it should be resolved. but since its the last thing we see happen between them when theyre given#their happy ending. I feel compelled to say 'hey I know them living in the shack together and traveling in a boat every single year sounds-#-really fun and like a satisfying ending but I think they should have a Little Bit more space from eachother than that. Hanging out almost-#-daily but not literally being in the same house and same boat for the rest of their lives. bc if stan was ok with ford asking for that-#-little bit of space and if ford didnt panic and isolate himself from everyone whenever he needs like one hour of alone time? that would-#-feel like a big piece of the puzzle fitting into place for their conflict resolution and growth as characters. to me#and I think they deserve to have all the tied-up-loose-ends and resolved-conflicts and character-growth in the world.
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craycraybluejay · 5 months
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i have this insanely good fic idea but its way past my bedtime.. tomorrow we write
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