do you ever think about how in the day i picked up dazai side b dazai had to lie emotionless and soulless—like a corpse, almost—beside the man that gently brought him in, nursed his injuries, held him while he was in pain? he had to keep those suffocating bandages around his entire face, lest this man gain some sort of recognition for the little boy he saved. he had to lay there curled in the fetal position, bleeding and in pain, perhaps thinking about how, in another life, this man cooked for him, tried to build up his strength. read to him to pass the time while he curled up against him like a child listening to a bedtime story. played cards with him. saw through the heartless mafioso. the ruthless killer. and instead saw a boy.
imagine knowing this man, the man who saved you in more ways than one, was going to die one day all because he knew you. because he reached his hand into the darkness and plaintively, like a small child wanting a parent's touch, you grasped back desperately. imagine thinking all of that while that man is just a stone's throw away, making coffee in the next room just like he used to for you in another life. the scent, although you've never been here before, is reminiscent of home. and the tune he's humming? it's the silent melody that plays through your mind seven years later, for the last time as you fall backward off the building with your arms out like an embrace. but, hey. that man is alive. he's happy, although he never knew you. you can die with no regrets.
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You know what effs me up it's that when Gwen thought she's not welcome in her home before talking to her dad she takes the picture of her and Miles and leaves, as the only thing from her home that she wants to keep, and when she reunites with her dad and they're happy together the first thing she does is going to find Miles cuz she just doesn't feel complete if she doesn't have Miles no matter homeless or not or whether she has a device to travel through dimensions or not or happy or not she will keep any part of Miles that she has with her and that's what matters most to her.
It just makes the fact that she was cornered by her father who didn't let her move on after Peter and Miguel and Jessica who were forcing her to stay away from Miles even worse. And the fact that her dad knew she found happiness based on that photo had so much impact on his character development. She's a child who wanted nothing more than to be with her friend and that was the one thing that she wasn't allowed or wasn't able to do, some failed to see that, and those who saw that took advantage of not just her feelings but also her personal problems and demonized her for having any feelings and problems.
And it's so great that she has all her friends now, the real friends, who actually care about her.
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In watching more interviews with Liv about Van and the escalation of Van's pragmatism to such dark degrees, I find myself genuinely baffled that anyone could ever think Van the bad guy. I mean, I'm perplexed at finding ANY of these girls The Bad Guy. The bad guy is the situation. It's being lost. It's freezing. It's starving. It's being scraped down to the barest bone of being alive. They make choices that might be snippy, or cruel, or hard-headed, sure--Shauna refusing to just hash it out with Jackie; Jackie being too stubborn to come inside; Taissa refusing to discuss her situation plainly; etc--but by the time we reach the end of season 2, it doesn't even matter. Petty bullshit doesn't matter. Jealousy doesn't matter. Those things are still going to be present and complicated, because--for all their choices, for all the distancing they're trying to do--these kids ARE still human beings. But it isn't the point.
The point is survival. Plain, simple, straightforward. Van's pragmatism is survival. It is the difference between living another day with blood on your teeth or dying pretty. It is the difference between fighting forward through the fire and the snow and the hell of it all, and laying down to die. Van knowing, in watching the ritual violence of Shauna beating Lottie nearly the death, that they will be killing and eating one another soon. Van coming up with the cards for the hunt. Van not blinking when the moment comes, Van choosing a weapon that doubles as a tool to bring the body back, Van refusing to apologize for staying alive--it's not evil. It's not Bad Guy behavior. It's purely about survival, because there is nothing else left to her--or to any of them. They can play the pretty little Sweet Angel Girl game and die, or they can get dirty, bloody, horrific and fight. Van chooses the fight. Van chooses to fight for herself, for her lover, for her team, even knowing not everyone is going to make it out...because the alternate path there is that no one makes it out. Van knew the baby wouldn't live. Van knows the rest of them won't, either. Not unless they start making the hard choices.
And, honestly, the fact that Van sees this narrative coming. Comes up with this plan. Brings out the cards. To me, that is the opposite of Bad Behavior. That is as close to justice as anyone can find in the wilderness. If someone else came up with an idea, maybe it would have come down to voting--but that would have had such a human element to it, with bitterness or hostility or whatever ultimately petty shit always comes of humans selecting who to Other. The cards don't leave room for that. It isn't fair, because the situation isn't fair, because Man vs. Nature isn't fair, but it's as close to a just system as they could possibly find. It's the kindest solution to an unwinnable game. Not to bring it back to American Gods again, but all I can think is "it's easy, there's a trick to it: you do it, or you die." Van gave them that.
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things from the tsunami arc that altered my brain chemistry irrevocably and eternally:
buck's hand twisted in christopher's shirt pre-wave
you're gonna be okay, kid and the hand on buck's face
the way buck cups christopher's head when he's finally got him in his arms
and the way he clings to christopher as soon as they're up on the fire truck for the rest of the episodes, always keeping chris nestled against his side or tucked under his chin whenever he's not saving people
how he freezes when he hears christopher fall in and just Knows its chris
buck finding christopher's glasses
the fact that we see the moment buck cuts himself and he doesn't even react because he's too heartbroken to feel anything else besides the grief
do i even need to mention buck carrying himself through most of LA on willpower alone?
or the black tent?
or buck calling maddie and not even worrying about telling eddie, just worrying about christopher, until he sees him at the VA hospital?
or how eddie nods as buck stammers through his explanation like he believes that its not buck's fault even as his heart is breaking over losing his child?
or the way buck hands eddie christopher's glasses?
or he was looking for buck?
how about the way eddie presses his forehead to christopher's temple?
and the Look between buck and eddie? buck, disbelieving, relieved, just utterly and completely relieved because whatever happens next, even if he never gets to see his diaz boys again, at least christopher is alive. and eddie, disbelieving, relieved, entirely and wondrously in awe of the man that kept his son safe and alive despite a tsunami.
and buck collapsing because finally, finally his job is done. nothing else matters now.
not to mention!!! the After
wait for me to come home my beloved <3
buck's whole voiceover
the way chris walks into the loft and rests his head against buck's stomach, trusting him to wrap him in a hug, and the way buck hesitates like he's not sure he's allowed
eddie pushing in, eddie, the strong silent type, filling the silence that buck would usually to try to drown (poor choice of words, i admit) out whatever thoughts are going through buck's head as he tries to object to being left alone
eddie's instantaneous, easy switch from nonchalant teasing to serious reassuring
two men five centimetres apart because they are gay!
eddie's hand on buck's shoulder and the fucking thumb on his neck... kill me :D
eddie being honest and vulnerable about his parenting
i love him enough to never stop trying and i know you do too because of course eddie has just had more than enough evidence of that, and not just evidence but tsunami-proof evidence that buck would quite literally go to the ends of the earth for christopher, but this quote, buddie or not, links buck to christopher, to that co-parent role, indefinitely and irrefutably
eddie's little comment about buck losing weight (sir... why are you paying so much attention 🤨)
and FUCK, perhaps the worst of them all, eddie pausing in the doorway, one hand on the doorframe, eyes down as he says buck's name and that little moment of hesitation before he looks up and says thank you. for not giving up.
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sometimes i just want to cry over mulder’s fish and the way that we see both scully and doggett go to his apartment and feed them during the months he was missing and the fact that scully must have kept feeding them even months after he was dead and just to be loved so much that people come tend to your environment and keep your home and feed your fish long after you’re gone
and that the first thing he notices when he comes back is that one isn’t there. and how scully tried so hard, she tried so hard to find him and to keep him safe and to keep his work going and to keep those damn fish alive, and the first thing that he says to her when they walk back into that apartment is that one is missing
the way that in that scene, he says that he’s having trouble processing, that he doesn’t know where he fits in. you can be loved so much that multiple people come feed your fish and maintain your apartment after you’re buried in the ground, you can try so hard to keep everything going for someone else, but the world keeps spinning, and time goes on. fish die and baby bumps grow and answered prayers aren’t always miracles
he came back covered in scars to a clean apartment and a fish tank missing 1 molly and where does he fit in inside a world that hasn’t waited for him, no matter how hard she tried to make it stop
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The post about Tumblr dying is fear mongering.
tbh i dont think talking about an outcome that currently seems inevitable is fear mongering
so. is tumblr going to go down, right now? no! right now, for us users, very little to nothing will change! however, from what we know, they are actively moving staff away from tumblr, with no plans to ever grow that staff back up. as people who know more about tech than me have already said, this means updates will trickle to a stop. bugs and glitches will pile up. without the number of staff to maintain tumblr properly, eventually it will be unable to keep running.
keyword: eventually!
again, that's not right now. we're looking at the future here. so people looking to gather on other sites, to figure out where their communities are moving? they're looking towards that future. they, and i, want to be prepared, and can you blame us? while I was too young for it, I've heard about all the communities that were lost from livejournal. people are trying to prevent that from happening again.
it's not fear mongering to say "because of these actions, the site will eventually cease to run, so we should look to come together as community and have an idea of our next move when tumblr can no longer house us."
theres every chance we still have YEARS of functionality on this site left, even with the staff being cut. and, hey! maybe we'll get lucky. maybe they decide not to do this, or maybe tumblr gets bought out, and is actually able to make a profit without losing a significant portion of its user base. but a site can't run indefinitely without proper staffing.
addendum:
I did the check the blog of the original poster of the screenshot after writing this up. according to him, there seems to be no long term management plan, meaning we likely /would/ be in the holding pattern of "skeleton crew with very little to no additional support" that was already outlined in the screenshot and that people are assuming from it.
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