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falseinflorescence · 3 years

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NieR Replicant Ending E speculation. The flower, singularities, etc...

The Twins detecting a “singularity signature” from Kainé:

Ok so what i think is going on here is that obviously Kainé was not meant to remember Nier, that was the whole point of Ending D, and during the battle against the Kaine copies Emil shows up and gives Kainé dejavu about fighting alongside someone else and she tries to remember Nier. This piques the twins interest and they remark detecting a “unusual phenomena-fluctuation” and “singularity signature” coming from Kainé, apparently spurred by Kainé’s attempt to remember Nier.

What the twin ai’s are sensing is Kainé’s potential to create a new “branch” in the timeline. “Singularities” being a term first introduced to the series in Drakengard 3 as Accord observes events in that game and how they splinter off at certain points.

(https://drakengard.fandom.com/wiki/Singularities)

Skipping forward to the end of the Hook battle, Kaine and Weiss deliver a powerful magic attack to finish the fight:

The twins are also affected by the magic blast and begin to disappear, their final words being VERY interesting!

“Possible futures are.... blending with the time we currently inhabit!”, this is in reference to the singularity signature they had detected earlier, Kaine has just created a new “branch”, Ending E. They can sense all the new possibilities in this new world Kaine has led them to.

“The light...”. This line is intriguing! This is likely a reference to the blast of light from the singularity that’s occurring at that moment.

But i do feel the need to bring up the “light” mentioned just 10 days before NieR Replicant’s release in Final Fantasy XIV during part 3 of YoRHa Dark Apocalypse. The final battle of this raid series has us fight the furthest evolution of the Machine Network: The False Idol.

There’s a lot going on in this raid series and it does connect with Replicant in some interesting ways so if you’d like to see my HEAVILY biased and speculative recap of it i’ll link it below.

(https://twitter.com/Crescent_Nex/status/1384554369337552897)

But the important part for now is that the False Idol also mentions a “light”. Partway through the battle. She will look up toward a magic gate and exclaim “Let the light in!” before disappearing into the gate herself. This process seemingly results in the False Idol undergoing a further evolution and becoming Her Inflorescence, the Machine Network’s attempt to create a Mother Angel!

Is this the “light” the twins are referencing? Idk. Possible futures are blending together in that moment when Kaine creates a new branch, so maybe they saw something in the future that really got their interest. The “light” could be any number of things, evolution, the magic gate, other worlds... or just the literal blast of light that engulfed them lol.

“I hear a song...” Terrifying. My first thoughts are that they hear a Mother Angel’s song in one of these possible futures.

In YoRHa Dark Apocalypse, a canon story to the wider Drakenier universe, we even see the machines try and copy a Mother Angel’s song.

Maybe during thee moment of the singularity occurring, when they had a glimpse into all the possible futures to come, they saw a Mother Angel singing in one of them and would eventually try and mimic them. Idk.

I say specifically from the “future” because the Divine Tree already has all the knowledge of the past, so it should already know about the Grotesquerie Queen from Drakengard 1′s Ending E. Meaning if it hears a song during the singularity... then it heard it probably heard a new song in the future! Imo at least.

The Giant Flower:

Why is there a giant flower here? Well it's described as "techno-organic" in the novella, and called a “Lunar Tear” in the script, and the digital space we just left was shaped like the inside of a flower so this is likely just another form of plant/machinery fusion at work originating from the Forest of Myth.

(https://nier.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lost_World)

And given that we find Kaine holding a newly reborn Nier at it's center this probably has something to do with the origins of replicants or at least the process of how they're created.

Something that adds further weight to this conjecture is the little known fact that during the period of time when Legion was still around, replicants that became Red Eyes and were killed would leave behind something shaped like a egg.... or a “seed”, if you would. So... if replicants are born from a flower, well it wouldn’t be too big a stretch to imagine they might leave behind a seed of some kind under the proper circumstances.

(https://nier.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Eye)

Another thing, Her Inflorescence, the final boss of YoRHa Dark Apocalypse and the furthest known evolution of N2, sprouts from a "Seed" and blossoms to grow dozens of lunar tears atop her head, and given that you can trace back the origins of N2 in some form to the Forest of Myth well....

We also know Machine Cores (and by extension YoRHa Black Boxes) are plant like too, just like The Forest of Myth.

I think a lot of longtime fans have felt like there's been a growing amount of evidence that the Machines are influenced and/or evolving into Watchers and may be the origins of "The Black Flower" from Drakengard 3 in some way, but that's just speculation at this point. Who knows. You do you, i aint gonna snipe you for it.

Disclaimer: I do not profess that any of this is canon, these are just my own thoughts in written form, please do not attack me or snipe me or whatever the lore masters do whenever they see a lowly person like me think thoughts for hot minute.

Disclaimer 2.0: I wrote up a more detailed version of this post almost immediately after i beat the game but for some reason tumblr glitches out EVERY TIME i try and edit it to add more or just post it publicly. I give up. I’ve broken down the thing into this.

#NieR #NieR Replicant #Ending E #Spoilers #Kaine #Kainé #Drakengard 3 #Drakengard #Drakenier #The Flower #Mother Angel

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direquail · 4 years

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An NB reading of Grace in Terminator: Dark Fate

Disclaimer:

Before I start, just want to get this out here: I’m in no way insisting that Grace *has* to be non-binary, that we’re *supposed* to read her as non-binary, or that that’s in any way what she’s “meant to be”. This is just some stuff I’ve noticed that, as someone who sits on the genderqueer/non-binary/transmasc side of things, really resonated with me. Again--read her as entirely woman-identified if that’s what you want to do or feels right to you. I am ecstatic that lesbians and wlw-identified folks have someone that they feel represented in, too. I wish I’d had more characters like her when I was growing up and felt so out of place because of my gender non-conformity.  

But I, for one, would love a non-binary or even trans reading of Grace.

So what I’d like to do instead is just lay out a couple ways someone who is NB-identified *might* connect with Grace as a nonbinary character. Starting with the obvious.

Androgyny Now, I do want to be clear that I know that gender presentation =\= gender identity. And again, obviously, people will latch onto things that they relate to in characters, and I really do believe that there’s no “one right way” to read a character. The character of Grace isn’t a real person; she’s part of a story, told by people, who had something specific to say, and her character reflects that. But from the perspective of the people who watch her, who internalize and connect with her character, there can be points of connection that have nothing to do with the author’s/creator’s intent, and so, Grace-the-character can be many things to many people. The only real way to know how a person IDs is to ask them. That’s it, that’s all. You can’t assume. But also, sometimes, people do “ping” a certain way. They give off a sort of “energy”, and for me, Grace’s energy isn’t the sort of “diaphanous femininity” that even visibly-gender-nonconforming AFAB characters are often framed to exude. Grace’s energy isn’t masculine, either. Her mannerisms don’t seem intended to read that way; rather, they seem intended to read as soldier. I’m not very skilled at breaking down movements, especially when it comes to how actors move and what it all means. It’s totally possible that a lot of what’s unique about how Grace moves is because Mackenzie Davis is, self-admittedly, not the most athletically-inclined person. Grace is long-limbed and rangy and sometimes very stiff/poised, but never stiff through the hips like a Straight Dude(TM), or heavy through the shoulders like a musclebound meathead. She takes up space, too; she’s taller than Dani and Sarah both, and the only recurring characters who are “bigger” than her throughout most of the film are Carl and the Rev-9.

To be clear: Women can be tall, and rangy, and androgynous, and take up space, and that doesn’t make them less women--unless they don’t identify that way. My point with all of the above is just observing that Grace doesn’t move like a “male action hero”—but she also doesn’t seem over-the-top feminine in the way that mainstream-y media will “compensate” for perceived unfemininity, and that’s kind of wonderful. Her stature, her physique, all of that, seem to be chosen and calibrated towards an end goal that isn’t gendered: Combat, efficacy as a warrior. Whether you want to read her as a woman or as nonbinary is largely going to be about your personal preference. This also has the effect of giving the impression that Grace is absolutely unselfconscious about her body and how it looks—and she has no reason to be, not because she looks good or bad, but because what she can do with her body is just so vastly more important, and because she’s so willing to put her body and everything it can do on the line in order to fulfill her mission (and protect Dani). If Grace has a gender, it’d be “Protector” or “Warrior”. And in a way, what makes Grace so appealing to female-identified lesbians is the same thing that makes her appealing to NB people—Her character was explicitly designed not to cater to “the male gaze”, and therefore, she also exists outside the typical gendered confines reserved for “female characters” in media. The emphasis is just slightly different: Instead of a different way of being female, NB!Grace has little to no use for those categories at all. Again, it’s all in how you want to read her. Grace comes from a future where survival and fighting take first priority, and you could project the same tired “Gender isn’t a ~problem~ in the future/after the world ends” approach that a lot of cis and hetero men take to sci-fi--but also, why? It’s tired. Give me a Grace who is preoccupied with survival, yes, who maybe doesn’t have time to think too much about this gender shit--but also, a Grace who finds that this “androgyny” (although she might not call it that) suits her, who takes to this way of moving and being in the world, this way of using her body, and identifies more with that than with being a “man” or a “woman”.  

(Sidenote: as someone who took a fair amount of Queer Studies classes, it does irk me a bit that discussions of mainstream-y speculative media seem permanently suspended between this sort of “genderblind” futurism where “identities” just don’t exist because they’re apparently not needed anymore, or copy-pasting our contemporary discourses about identity into a future that is materially very different than ours. The point of these identities is, in part, to describe our experiences, the good as well as the bad, and those experiences of gender and sexuality don’t exist in a vacuum. So, the words we use will necessarily change to accommodate that—especially in the post-apocalypse. BUT, everything that comes after us will also bear the stamp of what came before it; it’s just a matter of what the creator means to emphasize.) Augments & Body Mods This is a little dicey, because there’s some clear tension in the movie between the idea of robots = inhuman/unfeeling = bad, and humans = good/feeling. And in that light, it’s potentially problematic to (even incidentally) imply that nonbinary/gender-nonconforming = not human.

But I’d like to point out that the film does deliberately challenge any neat separation of “human” and “machine” with Carl’s evolution as a person.  And based on what I’ve read from James Cameron and Tim Miller interviews, there is some “blurring” intended between human and machine in the franchise.

In fact, Carl and Grace are foils for each other, somewhat, in the sense that they’re on opposite ends of a spectrum where human and machine become blurred, and I love that. As a genderqueer person with a very fluid experience, it appeals to me on a deep level because you could spend literally forever breaking down where does one “gender” end and another begin--emotionally, socially, spiritually, and physically.  

So the fact that there’s (1) no hard binary between human and machine (it’s explicitly subverted), and (2) we’re given multiple points of inflection, especially if you count Sarah and the Rev-9--alleviates a lot of the tension I’d feel otherwise in mentioning this. But I don’t think this is something that should be allegorical or a direct comparison; I think that it operates best on a metaphorical or theoretical level.  

And just, it’s the whole vaguely-cyberpunk idea of modifying your own body, not in a mass-produced or manufactured sense, but in this organic and highly individual sense, born out of contingency and necessity, that makes Grace’s Augments so meaningful. It’s one of the things that makes her read as human, too, because it feels more in line with our tendency to stick ink, steel, bone, what have you, through our skins whenever we get the chance--as opposed to some kind of symbolic dehumanization by “becoming a machine”.

Grace routinely refuses to categorize herself in anything other than the most general terms, or explain the details of her Augments, and she seems very protective of them. Rather than seeming ashamed, this refusal reads a lot like the popular queer identity explanation “not gay as in happy, but queer as in “fuck you’”. Her Augments are part of her, and part of her humanity; she volunteered for them, she owns them, and is even protective of them, viewing CBP’s invasive examination of her Augments as a kind of violation of her bodily autonomy. They’re clearly complicated for her, but they’re anything but depersonalized.

And going even further, the reason why she volunteered for them is so that she can defend humanity--and also someone she loves (Dani). They’re an extension of her sense of family, loyalty, love, and willingness to sacrifice.

And I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that Grace is basically one-of-a-kind, even among other Augments, if only because those Augmentations seem to be performed with the tech that’s on hand--salvaged Legion tech, by the sound of it, at least to start with. So the outcome depends on the parts available, the complexity and maturity of the Augmentation technology and process, and the skill & experience of the surgeons, all of which would vary over time.  

And honestly? If that doesn’t qualify as “beyond the binary”, I don’t know what does.

Some other general observations:

- Grace’s short hair is a constant throughout the post-Judgement Day scenes. As someone who started wearing their hair short as a preteen and hasn’t had hair to my shoulders since age 12, that does seem significant.

- Grace only introduces herself by name after Diego shouts “HEY LADY” in the factory before dropping an engine block on the Rev-9. Granted, most women don’t like to be addressed as “HEY LADY”, either, but it stood out to me, especially because she refused to give her name only a couple of minutes before that. Either way you read it, the line feels like it expresses some level of discomfort with or objection to that gendered statement. Maybe she finds that particular reference annoying or even offensive, but also, maybe she doesn’t really identify as a woman. She’s just... Grace.

- there were multiple times I mistook the back of her tank top for the back of a binder, even though she clearly was not binding.

- she constantly steals mens’ clothes--partly because she’s too tall for a lot of womens’ clothes around her, partly out of utility (like at the factory and CBP, where a lot of the guards are men). But also, it pleases the genderfucking queer in me quite a bit. And, I should note, when she had the option to take a female guard’s clothes at the CBP facility... she didn’t.

But ultimately, when I look at Grace, I see someone whose gender is “Warrior” or “Soldier”. And it’s so wonderful to see that so purely represented on a character we’re meant to perceive as female. So, please believe me when I say I don’t want to “take away” what Grace means for other people.  And, for the record, I do mostly default to using she/her pronouns for Grace, because that’s how she’s canonically referred to. But just for fun--try this on for size: Using “they/them” pronouns for Grace. They (Grace) came back in time to protect Dani. It rolls off the tongue, right? It feels nice. Let’s re-try a couple of sentences from above:  

- “multiple times I mistook the back of their tank top for the back of a binder, even though they clearly weren’t binding”  

- “Grace’s Augments are about their ability to be a soldier. They were Augmented in order to hunt Terminators... Everything else is secondary to that, and their mission to protect Dani”

- “Grace only introduces themself by name after Diego shouts “HEY LADY” in the factory before dropping an engine block on the Rev-9 ... Maybe they find that particular reference annoying or even offensive, but also, maybe they don’t really identify as a woman. They’re just... Grace.”

And finally:  

Can you imagine the poor sod who tried to make fun of Grace for having a “girly” name? lmao rip

#terminator dark fate #tdf grace #meta #mine

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mugen-monogatari · 5 years

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Kabukimonogatari - Mayoi Mishap; Time Travel Done Right

Let’s talk about time travel. From superhero movies to crime thrillers, across all forms of media, anime to live action, everyone wants to give their take on time travel. From the critically acclaimed shows, such as Doctor Who, to more unique takes on the format in shows like Re:Zero, it has begun to feel like an overused Deus Ex Machina (In my opinion Kiddos, don’t shred me please). Which is fine- Some people really like that, some shows and movies play really well off the idea of being able to alter past events, which is understandably something people really really love.

However- Not me. So imagine my surprise when Monogatari threw their two-cents in, providing another take on the plot device. Except this- This was different, this was time travel that didn’t take itself too seriously, yet used this to deliver a serious plot with heartfelt emotions. Something that hadn’t really come across to me in other form of media, having watched plenty of movies and shows that contrive themselves with all these serious rules they shove down your throat, before painfully breaking each of their own rules. Monogatari is the sort of show you expect dumb stuff from, silly shenanigans, so when the established rules are broken, you’re not left gazing at the screen pondering everything saying; “But- Wait…. What?”

That’s why Kabuki ended up blowing me away with two of the most powerful scenes in the series. Scenes only possible with the time travel element. The following is a discussion based around Mayoi Hachikuji and her role in Kabukimonogatari. From this point onward, I’ll be discussing spoilers for everything up to episode 39 of the entire Monogatari series (Episode 4 of Bakemonogatari season 2/Episode 9 of Monogatari Second Season). So if you haven’t watched the arc- I recommend turning back now.

Little side note kiddos, this is all my opinion, I don’t think this is fact, it’s just how I interpret the series and my thoughts on it. I hope maybe my personal insights can give you guys something to think about yourselves.

Just so we’re clear, the images used are just screenshots from the anime, with the exception of this one above, I’ve only edited them, they’re not my original art work. If you like the edits though, feel free to use them.

One of the main plots of this arc, arguably the main plot, is saving Mayoi Hachikuji. A brief recap since many of you probably haven’t watched in a while; Shinobu and Koyomi accidently travel to the past 11 years to the time of Mayoi’s death. Koyomi realises he has an opportunity to save Mayoi, choosing to do so, allowing her to return to her mother. However, upon returning to the future, we discover, Shinobu, who never returned to Koyomi in this reality, ended up going insane and bringing an end to the world.

Towards the end of the arc, we find (much to our relief) that Hachikuji ends up being one of the survivors of the apocalypse. A pretty touching moment, when Koyomi finally lays eyes on the girl that he had saved in her past- A bittersweet moment considering he allowed her to live, at the expense of bringing an end to her world. For those of you who have read it, this is pretty similar to the egg and birdcage analogy from Tokyo Ghoul- Which I’ll touch on later.

The first thing I noticed about all of this- is the parallels. Mayoi Hachikuji is a constant in Monogatari. Even during the arcs where she doesn’t appear or play a major role, she still exists in this world, as a spirit, as an undead. She is persistent in her existence. This is shown at the end of the arc, where Koyomi finally confronts her about her death, and asks if she would have been happy alive, to which she responds she is indifferent towards it, dying was an unhappy thing, but it is what it is. To Mayoi, she’s happy with existence, with being able to experience things, be it alive or dead, that’s why she remarks that she was happy to have a chance to meet Koyomi, even if dying was an unhappy thing.

This ‘existence at all costs’ mentality is then reflected into the adult Mayoi, who lives, even if the world around her goes to the dogs. She survives so long, because to her, it’s not about how you use your time, just the matter that you have time. A world in an apocalypse is a bleak one, and yet she survives. While the world as a ghost is a lonely one. You are permanent, forced to continue existing, even when those around her are no more. See the parallel? One chooses to live in an awful world, while the other is forced to in a pretty okay by most standards world.

No matter what though, she cherishes her time, even when it’s lonely or scary, whether dead or alive, one thing is constant; Hachikuji. And that’s strangely profound to me. This idea of cherishing time is then carried over to the second part of this scene I loved. When Koyomi finally gets to see the fruits of his labor. The girl he saved. His friend, someone he cherishes deeply. But all he can do, tragically, is just walk away.

And that- That just struck me so hard. It was Monogatari saying; “No. Time travel isn’t a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card, it’s not some plot device that fixes everything. You mess with the past and your future, is no longer yours.” This is one of my favorite, absolute best scenes from any time travel series ever. This was tragedy done right. This was Mwah- Spicy stuff.

Koyomi leaves because that’s not his Hachikuji. The girl before him is a Hachikuji, but not the one he knows, that one he ‘loves’, that we as an audience love. By saving Hachikuji, the one from his reality- never came to be. That’s why he leaves. He says nothing really, pretending to not know her, just regretfully gazing upon her, realizing how lonely and scared she must’ve been as a result of his actions.

Koyomi remarks upon returning to his reality, that the Hachikuji we all know and love, is a result of his interactions with her over the course of the series. We have the power to shape those around us, we influence people every day, we change how they act, speak, the way the look at things or feel about something. That is how the personality of our Hachikuji was born. But by saving her, Koyomi in this reality, would have never met her. They would’ve never interacted. Instead, they would live Blissfully unaware lives, maybe meeting in passing, but never having really interacted.

This adult Hachikuji may sound the same, look the same, even act the same, but it’s not the same one from our reality. She doesn’t hold the same experiences and memories, making her a different person. Koyomi realizes this, knowing that there was nothing he could really do, having to just suck it up and move on.

That’s kind of what is really beautiful about this whole arc. He saves a girl, he gives someone a chance at life, but it’s not who he thought it was, it’s not ‘his’ girl, it’s not ‘his’ world. Ultimately what is the cost of one girl’s life, and if that cost is too high, are you just making that life worse for her? These are the sort of questions and ideas the series forces our main character to realize and contemplate.

The idea of worth and exchange moves back to the idea of the egg and the birdcage. If Hachikuji is the bird, the egg is her world, and the birdcage is reality. Within the egg, there is comfort, there safety and bliss. However, for the bird to live, it must break free from the egg, destroy it’s own world, escape from comfort and bliss into the unknown, only to realize- that unknown is limited. It’s not freedom that awaits the bird, it’s both knowledge of what is outside it’s world, but the lie of happiness or freedom. In our case, the Adult Hachikuji broke free from the egg, She destroyed her world, ruined the reality where she dies and returns as a spirit, instead choosing to live a limited life as a human in a world that isn’t much better than the confines of the egg. Adult Hachikuji was given a false freedom by Koyomi. He destroyed her world, almost literally, and forced her into a reality which isn’t that much better than the other choice, the birdcage. There’s this idea of potential, this idea that she could live a life but at the expense of being released into an awful world.

The opposite is true for our Mayoi. Our Maoyi never left the egg, never deviated from her set path, being killed, returning as a spirit. But as a result, she lives a safer and more comfortable life, having both friends and people to stay with, people that will take care of her, never having to deviate into a harsh reality, at the expense of not having the chance at even slight freedom and life that Adult Mayoi received.

In both cases the metaphor is just that, but both a metaphor and almost literal. The creature in the egg and the one that breaks free are the same creature, but different at the same time due to having different experiences, neither is the correct or wrong one, both just exist. I think to me that’s what Mayoi’s arc is about. Just existing. It’s not about what path you take, it’s not about what option was right or wrong, it’s not about maximizing your time and using it efficiently.

To me, this entire arc was profound. Hachikuji to me embodied the idea that it’s not about how you necessarily use your time, but just the idea that you should appreciate the simple fact that you have time. That’s why I’ll never forget this one scene and how much meaning it had, how much weight it had, about coming to terms with one’s actions and consequences, and realizing that right and wrong don’t matter, as long as you do something with the time you’re given.

And that’s where the first scene ends. However has gone on long enough, so I’ve decided to split this into two separate parts, one for Shinobu’s scene and this. If you enjoyed reading or want to share your opinions, feel free to comment or message me, I always love hearing what other people think. All the support is appreciated, and if you made it this far, well then- Like go outside, why did you spend so much time reading the ramblings of a mad man?

#monogatari #bakemonotagari #hachikuji mayoi #araragi koyomi #shinobu #anime #theory #light novel #discussion

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bluesclves · 6 years

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Hey Scoob, I really love your blog about the Archangels and I would like to ask you one thing, how would you do a redemption arc for Lucifer? How would you reformulate the plot of s12 and s13 on Supernatural aimed at him? I imagine they could make him have the following thoughts about humanity: "I have nothing in favor of humanity but now I also have nothing more against."

Well actually, I’m writing a fanfic series about just that 😅 [Link]

Granted, I did the ‘lucifer becomes human’ trope well before season 13 thought to do it, and I had it stick as opposed to it being another half-assed 1-2 episode long arc.

But if I were to honestly re-write the show starting with season 12, following similar arcs for the boys?

I think I’d start by finding a way to give Lucifer a reason not to run back to the Winchesters at the beginning of Season 12. There really was no reason for him to go off on a rampage like that when they actually took his side against Chuck and got him the apology he’s so desperately wanted. Sure, Chuck still left… but that’s not the Winchester’s fault. They were on Team Save the World together, there’s no reason for them to be hunting Lucifer down and there’s no reason for Lucifer to assume they are no longer friendly to him.

If he came to them with his vessel issues and his injuries, they likely would have worked with him to find a stable vessel—which could lead to Crowley revealing he has Nick and giving the vessel to him freely so that he has a trump card via the magical enhancements in case he ever needs to use Lucifer or stop him.

But! I’d give him a reason not to come back. Just because the writing for that was lazy doesn’t mean I don’t like the drama associated with Lucifer “busting dad’s already-broken toys”. I actually really liked that scene in Rock Never Dies, I thought Rick Springfield delivered those lines fantastically and it gave me a little hope again that the Writers did actually see Lucifer’s potential as a deeply broken and flawed character— not just a villain for villainy’s sake.

Don’t get me wrong— I love Lucifer as an antagonist, he makes for a fantastic enemy of the Boys. But the caveat to that is that despite being an antagonist, he isn’t a traditional villain. His goals in season five were, from his point of view, wholly noble and just. He believed he was the good guy. In season 11, he also believes that he’s the good guy. He’s agreeing to fight Amara, after all. In seasons 12 & 13 however he loses that, and we see him becoming evil for the sake of being evil and it just doesn’t fit with his character so far as we have seen him.

So in order to both give him his redemption arc and maintain his status as a Lawful Good (which doesn’t mean Lawful Nice) Antagonist, I’d give him a very good reason not to return to Team Save The World.

What that reason not to come back could be anything as simple as “he came back to the bunker only to overhear that they are hunting him down” to as complex as “he hasn’t found a vessel that can hold him yet and he’s burnt through so many at this point that he’s afraid to go back out of fear that they won’t forgive him for something he honestly couldn’t help”.

Whatever the reason, I’d show it in some way from his point of view so it is clear why he goes off the deep end and just start smashing shit. I did actually like that, though I wish they portrayed it less as “he’s throwing a temper tantrum because he didn’t get his way” and more like “everyone thinks I’m a monster and my father left AGAIN so fine, if they all want me to be a monster so bad, I’ll give them a monster.”

The biggest problem I had with that arc in season 12 is that he invests himself so much in high-power religious and political figures, then uses that power just to make the Winchesters’ lives hell. He doesn’t effect any serious governmental changes as the president, he doesn’t make any decrees as the archbishop… it was honestly just fanservice and then he used that power to make Sam & Dean Public Enemies #1. That, and he fucked a random nobody Because The Plot Demands It.

That’s really something I could never wrap my head around. Lucifer is disgusted by humans. He sees them as filthy, unclean, base creatures.

What logical reason does he have to sleep with Kelly rather than turn her into wall paint at the mere suggestion that he might want to sleep with her? They made it seem like a little pressuring from an aide was enough to get Lucifer to set aside his distaste for humanity and sleep with her, despite showing earlier I’m the season how he manipulated another woman into carving his name into her own skin just for insinuating he might be interested in her.

What feasible reason did he have to sleep with Kelly? Fear of discovery? He obliterates her and cleans up the mess, snap-snap. Who’s gonna know? It’s not like he planned to be in that position long-term.

I really hate Kelly as a character however, in part because she was written to be expendable and I HATE characters that serve no purpose other than fodder. If you kill a character it should mean something.

So here’s how I would give us a Jack/Nephilim arc without stupid Lucifer Fanservice and Kelly and the dumb supermax prison break. Are you really gonna tell me that Billie wouldn’t just come and collect one of them as per their deal once she became Death-with-a-capital-D?

Lucifer is angry, he’s been betrayed by his Dad and he couldn’t go back to the Winchesters, and he’s just smashing shit and making their lives hell because he’s directing his anger at them. Because God or Amara gave them their mom back but left him with nothing. Again.

So he goes for the one person that can hurt them most— their mom. He comes to her when she’s still unsure about her place in this world and after she just slept with Ketch and is mostly a little disgusted with herself for stopping so low.

He goes to her in a dream as John, and tells her her husband is still suffering in Hell after all these years. But he can give her John back if she says yes. John is more familiar in this world anyways, he reminds her, the boys really need their father, someone they can count on.

And he possesses Mary, literally less than an hour after she had sex with Ketch. She doesn’t even have the chance to take morning-after pills. So she conceives and while the fetus matures an archangel is possessing her, so it draws power from him too to grow.

Bam, a nephilim (who will be an actual half-brother to Dean and Sam), being carried by a decidedly not expendable character, so there is actual urgency to the Boys’ attempts to save their mother.

You get Mary!Lucifer carrying a baby and slowly coming to the realisation that this can be his new purpose. It was an accident… but he is also this child’s parent and he has a responsibility to it. Maybe his Father left him and the world thinks he’s a monster... but this baby doesn’t k ow him yet and he will be a better Father than his own.

You get him changing tactics from using Mary to taunt the Winchesters to Playing keep-away and hiding from them to protect her and his child.

We can still have them eventually pinning Mary!Lucifer down and exorcising him from her, with Crowley trapping Lucifer in Nick, because I love it, but I think Mary carrying the Nephilim and Lucifer getting off his warpath and onto the path to parenthood is a much better arc for both those characters than the arcs they’ve been given thus far.

As for season 13? If we assume season 12 ends similarly to how it did, with Jack still being born but Sam and Dean finding a way to keep Mary alive throughout it, then you get Mary and Lucifer trapped in the apocalypse world together, we can get similar scenes to the almost-beautiful shows of character development through those short conversations Lucifer had with Mary. Only she’d have more insight into his thought process now, so we could get more in-depth conversations, and perhaps a tentative friendship as he continues to protect her despite her no longer carrying his child.

My biggest change to season 13 would be keeping Lucifer human longer. It’d be focused on transitioning the role of main villain from Lucifer to Apocalypse Michael, or Asmodeus. Lucifer may not be in the story as much, but the scenes he does have would develop his understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to be a father, coming to a head when he regains enough grace (through either Anael or natural means) to be formidable and rather than go it alone, asks the Winchesters to help him find his son. I’d preferably have him not be stupid and just stay tagging along with Cass after the Escape From Asmodeus.

I’d force him to experience humanity, to have to understand what it means to live knowing you are mortal and might die at any time. If he managed to work his way into the bunker via Cass, I’d focus on him rebuilding his role as a member of a family, giving and receiving help from the Winchesters in different ways.

He’d get his redemption arc, and then I’d have all his lessons and growth culminate in self-sacrifice at the end of season 13. Someone has to keep Michael in the Apocalypse World. Everyone else has to get across. So he tells the others to go through and he holds Michael off for as long as he can.

Maybe people would be upset for killing him off after finally redeeming him— but Supernatural isn’t about Lucifer, it’s about the Winchesters. And if I gave them an ally that powerful, there’s very little left to challenge them. So I’d have to kill him off in order to let the story continue.

But at least that way, he’d have the noble death he deserved, rather than being put down like the beaten horse he’s become.

…

Anyways, I agree with your thoughts of Lucifer deciding he still doesn’t love humanity but he doesn’t actively hate them anymore because that is actually the impression I got in seasons 12 & 13. His beef was with specific people, not humanity as a whole. He was angry with God and with tfw, and that’s it.

Thanks for the ask! Sorry for the Essay!

#lucifer #supernatural #season 13 #season 12 #god #amara #mary #mary!lucifer #rewrite #character analysis #anon #ask

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rocknrollally · 6 years

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At Least We Author Our Own Disaster

You know, when I first heard “The Past is a Grotesque Animal,” the line that originally got to me was, “It’s like we weren’t made for this world / Though I wouldn’t really want to meet someone who was),” because of course it was. And I have to admit to being partial to, “I’ve played the unraveler, the parhelion / But even apocalypse is fleeting,” even though it kinda goes counter to the rest of this post. But ever since the last time I heard the song performed live, thanks to a surprisingly high percentage of the political material I follow now being sorta Freudian it’s been, “At least I author my own disaster,” that’s been going through my head.

The basic appeal of it is clear enough. We’re all going to die. Disaster is unavoidable, and there’s absolutely nothing any of us can do to prevent it. As someone with an official OCD diagnosis (even if I’m not sure why my presentation of it is so different from what seems normal, if I really have it), I certainly find it intuitive enough that, faced with a great unknowable doom we can neither understand nor escape, we grasp onto the one thread we can control as a comfort - at least we can author our own disasters. We cannot choose whether to experience this awful fate, but maybe we can exert some power over how. It’s probably too late for me to avoid skin cancer, but I am fairly careful about how much sunscreen I put on. But being told I need to eat more healthily, even by my mother or my best friend, doesn’t get much traction with me, despite a familial history of heart disease. Choosing to risk dying because of my eating preferences and not because of the sun - that’s a choice, and to some degree that kind of choice is the only choice any of us have, when it comes to our inevitable fate. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter that much. The illusion of control is really just an illusion. But there’s a level on which it’s a comforting illusion, that even when it comes to this one inevitable fate, there’s still a choice or two I can make.

However, I think I can expand beyond this personal death in thinking about authoring disasters. After all, there’s something very appealing about the apocalypse (that’s why “even apocalypse is fleeting” is such a memorable line). Part of what makes it appealing is that if you’re fantasizing about it, you’re not experiencing it, of course. But apocalyptic thinking seems to be such a recurring thread of human thought, maybe in particular of the thought of those who are propelled by hope, whether extreme followers of religion or those who desire some kind of politically-informed utopia. I can’t speak for everyone, naturally, but here are some of the reasons why the idea of apocalypse appeals to me:

If I’m going to die before my time due to an inability to value my long-term health above my short- and medium-term pleasure, it’s kind of comforting to know that, while there may certainly be people out there who are better at making these decisions than I, I’m pretty average for humankind.

Moreover, maybe my long-term health doesn’t matter so much anymore. I don’t think I’d be one of the few to survive a truly apocalyptic threat to civilization, and, while presumably there are indeed things I could do to up my chances of survival, most of these things would probably be well beyond the realm of reasonable sacrifice. If the effects of humanity’s poor choices are going to kill me off long before the effects of my own poor choices ever would, then my own choices seem much more justified than otherwise. And, I mean, it won’t be just poor health. All of the bad choices I make throughout my life won’t really seem that important anymore when the death of all humanity is imminent.

Of the trio of scary things my grandmother told me about aging - including that she could no longer sleep very much and couldn’t taste food well enough to enjoy it - the one that scared me, as a teenager who had only recently discovered how entertaining the news and an awareness of current events could be, the most was that she no longer cared much about the news. I care so much about current events - in part because I can’t help but make a narrative out of them - that one of the aspects of death I find the most troubling is that I won’t ever know how the story of human life on Earth continues on beyond my death up until its ending. If the entire human race is dying out with me in an apocalypse, at least I won’t have to feel disappointed about this anymore. Even if a few humans do end up surviving and eking out some kind of minimal future for humanity after my own death, what I don’t know can’t hurt me, right?

Rather than having the surcease of suffering entailed by my death be marred by the guilt of letting down those who love me by failing to outlive them and be the one to experience the pain of losing them, instead forcing them to experience the pain of losing me, I’ll have the relief of feeling that we’re all dying at around the same time, which is, honestly, the most convenient possible outcome to having formed positive relationships during one’s lifetime.

The thing is, though, not all apocalypses are created equal. My parents grew up under the threat of nuclear apocalypse, but the problem with nuclear apocalypse is that it seems, intuitively, so unjust. The decision to initiate nuclear apocalypse has nothing to do with most of us. It’s taken by a few elites in their government offices, but we all have to bear the brunt of the punishment. It’s a disaster, but it’s sadder than it has to be, because we’re all perishing for the mistakes of a few.

Climate change, narratively, is a much better disaster, because I think a much larger percentage of those whose lives will be ruined can feel at least a bit of agency in it. Now, to a large extent, this is delusional. It’s the system that’s killing us, and there’s very little that any one person can do to change that. I don’t drive, and I try my best to turn off the lights whenever I’m using electronic devices to save energy. But I take a lot of flights, particularly international flights, and I still eat beef (not as often as I used to! Maybe more like once a week, on average. But I still eat it.). The lifestyle of our entire society needs to change, not just my lifestyle, and it’s not my fault that I was born into this society, or even into a very privileged and destructive stratum thereof. In reality, not one of us has any personal authorship over the disaster that is climate change.

But the wonderful thing about climate change is that it feels like we do. Compared to another disaster like nuclear apocalypse or the return of Jesus, it feels as though I am to blame, you are, we all are. It feels more just. It doesn’t feel like the decisions of a few mad leaders that could potentially lead to disaster for all of us. It feels like we are all, together, authoring our own disaster. And of course it’s easy to say that because right now we’re only on the shoreline of the ocean of disaster. When I’m fully immersed in it, it’s entirely plausible that I won’t feel the same. It would be great if somehow we could all get our acts together as a society and fix this and prevent all the suffering that will otherwise ensue. But in fantasy? In fantasy, at least we author our own disaster.

#me #personal #climate change #nuclear apocalypse #Of Montreal #the past is a grotesque animal #hissing fauna #Kevin Barnes #hfaytd #it's like we weren't made for this world #though i wouldn't really want to meet someone who was #still stuck in the queue #lacan #freud

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mindthewolves · 7 years

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some thoughts, filed under: pacific rim

[this is gonna be full of spoilers. fair warning. but also curious what others thought of the storytelling in the movie.]

-the voiceover backstory was long and seemed like kind of a storytelling crutch. the thing is I don’t think the story needed to start where it did, with the onset of the kaiju attacks. it would’ve worked just as well to open at the height of the jaeger system, and cobble together the backstory from news footage (sans voiceover), the celebrity status of jaeger pilots (& specifically I would have loved for this to focus on POC pilots as an inversion of the directionality of media consumption today, which largely faces toward US/western media), and raleigh’s pov. it took quite a while for pacific rim to find its footing in terms of characterization, and introducing raleigh and his brother in this way - focusing on more of their daily routine and the sibling dynamic - could have helped the story gel sooner and heightened the emotional impact of yancy’s death.

-but one possible reason this wasn’t done is because drift compatibility and the entire premise of the jaegers is difficult to show without a narrative voiceover. potential workarounds: retrospective news footage of how the jaegers were conceived, engineered, and troubleshooted; or (and more interesting to me) a scene involving pilots who weren’t drift compatible. this is something pac rim never got to show, and given that compatibility is seen as rare and special, I’m curious what incompatibility looks like – bigotry, possibly, given the overarching theme of unity tying the film together. and assuming people are fluid & have the capacity for change, is it possible to fall in and out of drift compatibility, i.e. if the pilots discover something about each other, if the relationship becomes rocky, etc.?

-been thinking about ways the neural drift could be portrayed other than wandering through each other’s childhood memories, and I think sense8 does it more effectively in terms of how it overlaps narratives and shared experiences. in your eyes is another movie that plays with a similar telepathic bond in a very effective way.

-it’s a movie made for the big screen visual; there’s so much detail to the kaiju and a lot of thought has gone into the monster anatomy, their evolving modes of attack, etc.

-so much so that there are more kaiju than speaking role women in this movie, more kaiju than speaking role POCs, and (subjectively; tbh I haven’t tabulated) the kaiju get more screen time than the female or POC characters. I’m also not sure why the kaiju are all nicknamed. like if you are hunting and tracking a group of things for a length of time, I understand; but for an enemy that appears singly and is dealt with immediately? why would you name it? (also the naming choice for the main jaeger...just no.)

-ok the racial politics first. I loved stacker’s portrayal, how his authority and the burden of command flows from him as easily as breathing. it’s never questioned. even when raleigh disagrees, he presses up to a point, but ultimately defers. & stacker is three-dimensional in a way that sidesteps tropes of black men in authority positions being angry or intimidating, or being sidelined or killed off for the advancement of a white character’s narrative: he has the people he wants to protect, he's willing to make the hard choices but is set up as the moral center of the story, and he has the weight of his own history behind him. the fact that he’s ostensibly drift compatible with anyone speaks to a remarkable capacity for empathy and understanding. ofc it’s found family that always gets me though, and the scene where mako very subtly gestures to herself to alert him to a nosebleed says volumes about their relationships, about the secrets she keeps for him, and the vulnerability he lets her see.

-mako on the other hand does fall into a number of racial stereotypes: all asians know martial arts, all asian women are demure and defer to authority. from a purely storytelling perspective, she makes for a good foil to raleigh’s more impulsive character, and they’re evenly matched. but when you take into account the larger pattern of racial stereotypes in mainstream media, this particular characterization irks me to no end (see: sense8, street fighter - legend of chun li) and this trope needs to die. also it irritated me that she had so little agency; she doesn’t fight (much) for herself to become a jaeger pilot, she stands back as raleigh decks chuck on her behalf, and later she’s ejected from the jaeger when raleigh decides it’s time to go it alone. she doesn’t make a ton of choices in this story. from a gender standpoint though, I definitely appreciated the restraint in terms of not sexualizing her as a character – the jaeger uniform she wears is the same as raleigh’s, she’s not shown in various states of undress, and the romantic subplot I was sure was going to rear its head just...didn’t? kudos.

-for a story set in hong kong, there are a bunch of white people. just sayin’. and sure the apocalypse could conceivably be postracial, but that’s not what’s happening here. the asian actors are background, and it’s most notable in the scenes with newt in the bunker – he’s always centered, and the camera singles him out while everyone else is just noise. the other jaeger candidates are indistinguishable from one another and unnecessarily, poorly matched against raleigh. mako is the only asian actor with more than a token line (and is, notably, japanese rather than chinese). non sequitur but it’s also not apparent to me why raleigh magically speaks japanese, or why it’s even necessary to include that detail in their meet cute. stacker speaking japanese I can buy, given their father-daughter dynamic, but raleigh doing the same sets off red flags for me.

-as a disclaimer I tend not to like action scenes for their own sake (avengers & batman v superman, boring; wonder woman: riveting, because the emotional stakes were palpable) but these definitely felt too long because the characters and stakes weren’t sufficiently fleshed out and there was so much attention paid to the kaiju when they were fairly monotone villains.

-like there was so much characterization that could have been capitalized on here, which is why I think pac rim has such fic potential: lots of space to fill in the blanks. and that’s not a bad thing, to leave those gaps. but at the same time I think the emotional beats of the movie hit late, and maybe they could have been played up more.

-for one I didn’t realize the striker eureka pilots were father and son until they were saying their goodbyes on opposite sides of an elevator door (see there are these great moments) and therefore when stacker sizes up the son, his mention of daddy issues seemed heavy-handed and not borne out in the previous narrative. idk maybe I missed something earlier on, entirely possible. I completely missed how the dog was a surrogate for the father-son affection until the elevator scene.

-second, the jaeger pilots just kept dying in droves towards the end of the movie but for a group of people with a skill set so rare and so valued? I wanted their deaths to be played up more. I wanted a funeral or at least a tribute to the wei triplets and the kaidanovskys, possibly also dredging up the jaeger carcasses from the sea. it didn’t have to be elaborate, but it would have made sense to take a moment. (it’s been a while since I watched battlestar galactica, but something that has always stuck with me – however vaguely – was the way the raider pilots would touch the memorial wall as they filed past, the sheer emotional weight that went into those few frames.)

-but geez the shoe motif. it was a neat metaphor for the theme of togetherness lacing through the movie, as well as for the concept of drift compatibility. & I liked how the two pairs of shoes contrasted each other. stacker gives mako (what I assume to be) the second shoe, making a complete pair, and it’s a little kid’s shoe that embodies unity and family and an innocence of heart. but when hannibal gets eaten, the gold-plated Shoes of Avarice TM are separated.

-the questionable science: the striker eureka is purely electric, and goes out of commission when an EMP hits, whereas the mark-3 jaegers run on nuclear energy AND YET power off when the plug is pulled? but wait it gets better. stacker’s been warned that he’ll die from radiation poisoning if he steps foot in another jaeger, and the emotional beat when he takes herc’s spot plays off his knowing sacrifice. not sure what he thinks he’ll die from though, because he’s stepping into a solely electric-powered jaeger.

-nitpick: why is there so much shouting in the jaegers. why the need to talk if you’re in each other heads.

-also from a safety design standpoint it seems like a terrible idea to have the pilots standing, with zero support in case of impact.

-also if the kaiju are so invincible and any non-jaeger weaponry doesn’t make a dent, someone explain to me how in the stinger, hannibal cuts his way out of a kaiju GI tract with a tiny tiny knife.

-soundtrack: it always feels like I have no vocabulary to describe art or music, but I liked how the electronic/percussive elements echo the construction material of the mechas onscreen, kind of like an onomatopoeia. the orchestral undercurrent carries the heroic tone of the movie, but it’s stained too with foreboding by the foghorn blasts. & the beat idk but it reminded me of the give-and-take choreography of a fight or of a dance, possibly also the synchrony between jaeger pilots.

-way better meta about the symbolism in the changing colors of jaeger pilot armor here:

Raleigh goes from a white uniform to a black one, which is a classic Manichean Heresy. One could argue that the switch symbolizes a loss of innocence, but I would say that it goes much deeper than that (though I would also argue that this is treated by the film as a positive thing – Raleigh trades innocence for wisdom in this equation). A Manichean Heresy is an inversion of traditional symbolism. In his white uniform, which would traditionally symbolize purity and righteousness, Raleigh and Yancy make a mistake that ends in his Yancy’s death, the near destruction of G*psy Danger, and Raleigh’s fall from grace. When he returns to the world, as a savior and mentor, he wears a black uniform.

When I realized this, it took me a while to figure out what it meant. It wasn’t until I considered Stacker Pentecost’s uniform that I understood. Stacker shifts from a dark silver uniform into a black one. This transition is less extreme than Raleigh’s, though I think in a lot of ways they mirror one another. It is never stated that Stacker or his partner made a mistake that led to his partner’s death, therefore it makes sense that Raleigh and Stacker would be represented in visually unique manners, since their narratives have different trajectories. Thus Stacker’s transition into the black uniform is likely representative of his gained experience (and his eventual – spoiler alert – martyrdom), because he was presented to us (in literal messianic imagery) as a fixed moral point even from his introduction.

#pacific rim #commentary #trying to be more conscious of what makes a story tick #obviously this is colored by my own suite of strengths and shortcomings as a watcher #this is just what i happened to pay attention to #so here's my 2c #curious what others thought #or if you picked up on stuff i missed

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toomanysurveys9 · 5 years

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my brain needs a break... everything is bad.

Could you be friends with someone who was exactly like you? i mean. i guess so. it would probably be a pretty boring friendship since i don’t talk much.

Is something expensive better than something made with love? nine times out of ten i would rather have something made with love than something expensive.

When was the last time you lied? i don’t remember, to be honest.

What do you think of stealing? i think it’s wrong...

If you could be told when you were going to die, would you want to know? probably not. because then i would be way too focused on that rather than the important things in life. like family.

What would you do in case of the zombie apocalypse? try my hardest to survive, and keep my babies alive and protected.

If you died right now, what would be your biggest regret? not traveling more. and not getting to see my babies grow up.

Are you happy with the way this last week has gone?

no. this week has been shit. jacob’s aunt gail was murdered in her apartment at a senior living facility yesterday. over grilling. because when her and her boyfriend would grill, it would go into this 76 year old man’s apartment. evidently that is enough to take someone’s life over. he also murdered her boyfriend who was with her, and shot the receptionist. the receptionist is in critical condition but expected to make it. jacob’s grandma, which is his aunt’s mom, also lives in the apartments. just a floor above. his aunt and i weren’t on great terms with each other because of the whole michelle thing. and she would start things on facebook with me every so often for awhile. but they were starting to improve with her. she would bring grandma kelly to our events, like when eliana was born and wyatt’s second birthday party. they were getting better... i still keep hoping we’re gonna get a phone call saying someone just really messed up and it wasn’t her. but i know that’s stupid. cindy (gail’s sister) was on the phone with her when it happened. she heard her scream. heard the phone fall. i can’t imagine.

What do you believe was your greatest achievement?

graduating college. i was the first, and only so far, in my family to do that.

What have you learned from pain?

sometimes it gets better and goes away completely. other times.. it might get better but never goes away..

Do you believe in freedom?

kind of, i guess.

Would you ever take a job you hated just to get money?

i have done that before, and would do it again. anything to support my babies.

Lately, have you felt rushed or bored with things?

not really..

What was the last text or IM you sent?

it was a text to jacob about phe. she is growling at the kids and cocoa when they go anywhere close to her. whether she is eating or even laying on the couch. i don’t get it. no one has done anything to her... i make sure the kids are nice to her.. i always watch them with her... she just seems to be getting more and more aggressive. and i have no idea what to do about it.

How much TV do you watch in a week?

not too much lately. it’s been off for almost a week though.

When you help someone, do you ever think, “What’s in it for me?”

no. pretty much never.

Are you joyful right now?

no. i am not. i’m sad. and stressed. and i just want everything to magically be better.

Do you know the difference between living and simply existing?

yeah. i do.

If your life was a novel, what would the title be? i have no idea. probably something about being a mom. or an introvert. maybe a hufflepuff. lol.

Could you picture any celebrity playing you in a movie? no. i could not.

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? i’m not sure. probably like 30. lmao.

What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world? i wish healthcare was more affordable. and i wish we did more to care for the planet. do some things to fix the damage we’ve done.

If a human life span was 20 years, would you live differently? probably.

Do you think you have a lot of control over your life? not really. before i turned 18, my parents controlled it for the most part. and now that i’m 25 and married, jacob seems to control it more for the most part.

Are you more worried about doing things right or doing the right thing? doing the right thing.

Would you rather have the cookie or the cream of an Oreo? both together, dipped in milk. i don’t really like the cookie or the cream by itself. What’s something you know you do differently than most people? i honestly don’t know. What is the simplest way to make you happy? just giving me time with my family. Right now, what’s holding you back? i don’t know. finances. myself.

Would you rather lose all of your memories or never be able to have more? this is hard. ashley (my sister) can’t recall a majority of her past memories, and also doesn’t really make new ones. every day is a clean slate kind of thing. and losing either seems like it would suck.

Is there someone you could just smile at and be content with? yeah.

When was the last time you had deja vu? i honestly don’t remember.

Who would you like to visit more than anyone? leslie. i need to get down to her sometime soon.

What would you do differently if no one would judge you? i don’t know.

When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing? i don’t know.

Would you ever adopt a child? we are pretty content having two kiddos right now. but i do want to be a foster parent some day. and who knows what the future holds.

Could you change to suit someone else’s needs? i guess i have before.

If you could be in a Disney movie, what would it be? hm. i’ve always like beauty and the beast.

If you could view the Earth from above, would you be disappointed? probably.

Is there something you just cannot get out of your head? there’s a lot i can’t get out of my head lately.

Do you get jealous of people with fancy things? not really.

When was the last time you ate? this morning. i had a bowl of honey bunches of oats.

Have you ever felt like you just weren’t good enough? all the time.

Would you rather wear really girly or really masculine clothing? eh. neither. somewhere in the middle. i guess if i had to choose, i would pick girly though.

Is there someone you find incredibly attractive? my husband. Do you ever get entertained by the simplest things? sometimes.

When was the last time you just stared into space? today.

Could you pick one outfit to wear for the rest of your life? probably not.

What is the most amount of money you could possibly spend in a day?

i don’t know. it depends. if i’m shopping for jake and the kids, i could potentially spend A LOT of money. if it’s for myself, it’s more of a struggle.

Do you really give a fuck about what people say?

to a certain extent, sure.

Do you tend to be curious or share your own opinion?

be curious.

Ever remembered a nightmare?

unfortunately.

Is there a song from a genre you hate that you can actually stand?

probably. i can’t think of anything specific right now though.

What do you feel like doing right now?

going on a drive.

If you could make anything glow in the dark, what would it be?

i don’t know. the only thing i can think of is eliana’s pacifier, and some are glow in the dark.

Do you really like the food at fast food places? honestly, not too much.

Don’t you hate those people that can just eat as much as they want? i don’t hate them.

Have you bothered to think of the future lately? i’ve been thinking about the future a lot lately.

Would you rather have stars in the sky or the moon? stars are so pretty.

If you could choose your phone number, what would it be? i don’t know. i’m fine with what they give me.

Would you rather be somewhere familiar or get lost? familiar. i don’t enjoy being lost.

Are you afraid of what you do not know? i guess so. some things at least.

Is there something you are always interested in? a few things.

What are people always saying to you? that i’m a good mom.

What did you last hear that made your jaw drop? the last thing that completely shocked me was finding out that jacob’s aunt gail had been murdered.

Do you have a question for anyone right now? not currently.

Do you like buffet restaurants? never again will i go to a buffet probably. they’re pretty gross.

Is there something you always order when you go out to eat somewhere? i guess at most places i have a specific thing i always order.

Do you mainly live by the moon or the sun? i don’t know.

When was the last time you felt like you were starving? yesterday.

Would you ever dye your hair all the colors of the rainbow? nope.

Do you miss childhood at all? i mean. kind of.

What has made you laugh lately? my babies.

What drives you absolutely crazy? when all the littles are screaming at the top of their lungs. If a Miley Cyrus song was playing in a store, would you leave? no. that’d be a stupid reason to leave.

Do you like listening to music on speakers? yeah.

Ever feel paranoid? yeah. that’s a pretty often emotion.

Have you ever actually discovered someone watching you?

no.

What would you do if you found an inappropriate picture of yourself online?

i’d freak out and be pissed off.

What do you think of Facebook?

i use it. it’s nice because it helps keep in touch with some people a little easier. but there is so much drama and bullshit on it.

Do you like extra butter on your popcorn?

not especially. i’m good with the normal amount.

Would you rather have Junior Mints or Reese’s?

reese’s all the way. i’m not a fan of minty things.

Do you still use CDs? not really. every so often i do.

Have you ever taken a polaroid? a long, long time ago.

Do you wish you could live in the past just to see what it was like? eh. i’m alright where i am.

Ever felt like you just didn’t belong in this place? yeah.. What was the last thing you learned? i don’t really know.

Have you ever avoided going to the bathroom because you were busy? yeah. more than once. Do you have anything underneath your bed? nope. our bed is stacked on top of another bed.

Would you want a walk-in closet? i mean. sure. although we don’t have that much clothing. well, i guess jake does.

Do you like coffee at all? i prefer iced coffee.

When was the last time you felt pressured?

a couple days ago. jake kind of pressures for sex a lot. because i’m always exhausted from taking care of our littles 24/7.

Would you rather have your hair straight or really curly? curly seems to be a pain in the butt. when i was little, i had crazy curly hair. so i think i’m going to go with straight hair.

Do you use any products on your hair? nope. i don’t care enough for all that.

What is the longest shower or bath you have ever taken? like... thirty minutes or so.

Still play with any childhood toys? not really.

Would you rather sleep with a sheet or a blanket? blanket usually.

When was the last time you were in physical pain? i don’t remember.

How many times have you broken a bone? none.

Do you have a preference of chocolate? milk chocolate.

Have you ever thought anything was evil? i’ve thought some people were.

Could you make a statement about anything political? i could but i’m not going to.

What is something useless that you love to do? i don’t know. surveys i guess.

Do you have a favorite author?

i have a few.

Know anything about your family history?

yeah. i know quite a bit about it. but there is a lot more i could learn too.

Have you ever been scared of something foolish? oh, for sure.

What do you think of bejeweled things? for me, i generally don’t like them. but i don’t have any real opinion about them.

Do you own anything “designer?” nope. Do you ever stop and appreciate little things? i think so.

If you had to draw your life, what would it mainly include? my kids. jacob.

Is there something that just draws you in like a moth to a flame? not really.

Is there anyone you’d like to hug right now? jacob.

Could you ever picture someone writing a biography about you? lmao. no. it’d be pretty boring.

If you had a few wishes, would you give one to someone who needed it? of course. Have a lucky clothing item? i do not.

What makes you feel more carefree than anything else? nothing.

And finally, who do you just adore right now, regardless of anything else? my kids and husband.

#survey #surveys #personal #question #questions #random

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