[moribundry]

[drenched-in-sunlight]

let’s hang out with mama

[beetlebees]

I guess, as someone who studies both biology and psychology, I quickly stoped buying The Collective's "us" bullshit, because in no way it had been shown that it was considered of all the people's thoughts, beliefs or opinions. It just has all of them stored on it's "hard drive" but it does not affect it's behavior, like at all. It's simply a single organism and humans are now "cells", working on survival and further multiplication.

And so, I didn't believe for a second that The Collective could feel meaningful, real love for Carol. Still, the way Collective used Helen's memories and feelings to manipulate Carol made my skin crawl. There is the obvious "would you like us to tell you how much she loved you" and bringing up the memories they shared together, but what truly stood out to me was the scene where Carol and "Zosia" are playing some kind of sport (I'm not from USA, no idea what that was). The Collective is teasing Carol and is even kinda mean to her - something we've never seen before from it. BUT we've seen this from Helen. Truly horrific.

[bisexualcreature-deactivated202]

in the scene where carol meets her fellow english-speaking immune for the first time, almost all of them are wearing blue, symbolising their acceptance of the hive. koumba is wearing a suit jacket with a lot of blue in it, laxmi is wearing a blue cardigan, kusimayu a blue t-shirt and xiu mei a blue blouse.

there's a sliding scale of how much blue you see in their outfits, which i believe could symbolise how much they want to assimilate with the hive. xiu mei – who doesn't like that they freed the animals and questions their level of pacifism – and koumba – who enjoys the benefits of the world as it is now but still wants to remain an individual – have less blue in their outfits, while in the outfits of kusimayu – who wants to join them so she can be with her family and be happy – and laxmi – who wants to cling to an illusion of normality and is the least interrogative immune in the dinner scene (only asking if they are vegetarian) – the blue is far more prominent.

then there's otgonbayar, who is the first to introduce himself to carol, defends her when laxmi blames her for her grandfather's death, questions the hive's pacifism and choice to empty the zoos, and lifts up his glass along with her (having not realised she was cheering sarcastically), and he isn't wearing any blue at all. his outfit is completely colourless, it is only black, white, and grey.

you know who else we see primarily wearing grey, black, white, beige?

could otgonbayar's outfit be telling us something about his character, and about his arc in future seasons?

[all-things-ghostly]

It’s kind of ironic how we as a human race sent out the golden records into space that included so many cultural symbols, music, the sounds of humans speaking in their own diverse languages and laughing and kissing and images of our landmarks and activities and just humans doing human stuff, and in return the Pluribus aliens just sent out a single strand of genetic code that would erase ALL OF THAT in one fell swoop. Thanks guys much love from Earth

[minimiss10]

[tpwrtrmnky]

I'm so fascinated by people who seem to believe that analyzing media is somehow taking the joy out of it. Like. Do you not enjoy thinking? Does taking stuff apart and figuring out how it works not give you a hit of dopamine? And you get mad when you see people having fun in this way? What a sad, miserable way to engage with the world.

[girlwhateverdawg]

the parallels between manousos pushing himself to physical limits as he passes the darien gap and carol being pushed to her emotional limits as she was basically abandoned and left in complete isolation for around 40 days you will always be famous

[sparrow-in-the-field]

Okay one scene I gotta talk about in Pluribus was the flashback scene of Carol and Helen in the ice hotel in Norway. It's one of my favorites in the whole show.

I love how simple it was. Carol being grumpy and distracted by her work and Helen talking with her, eventually going "hey come here. Come look at this with me." And Carol does. And she's not, idk, profoundly elated or amazed or at peace. It doesn't fix Carol's concerns, it doesn't cure any problems. But she gets quiet and sits with her partner and looks at the sky, and that's better than pacing the room stressed.

It's so human. We're just grumpy little creatures sometimes, and sometimes the best we can do for each other is go "I know it sucks but hey come sit with me and maybe it'll feel a little better." I think it's such a poignant juxtaposition to the hivemind, where they want everything to be happy and perfect. There's no room for the in between, for the quiet or complex feelings.

I think the scene parallels the one in the last episode, of Zoisa and Carol in the ski resort, where Carol mentions feeling nothing but happiness but says it in a way that feels like something is missing? Like she can have all this happiness but still want the chance to feel grumpy. And this is where, instead of a wife who understands and asks you to sit with the feelings you do have while also appreciating your surroundings, you have a hivemind telling you it's only the tip of the iceberg. That they're going to take away all those complex feelings and, despite hearing what you say, are still going against your wishes to fix this for you.

Love isn't about endless happiness. It's about knowing when to push someone to be better (like Helen's treatment of Carol's relationship with alcohol), and knowing when someone is being grumpy, instead of fixing the problem, to simply go, "why don't you sit with me and look at the sky."

Also, a personal side note, but I think the reason that scene is one of my favorites is because it felt so real to me. It feels so cheesy to say "representation matters" and even though I know it's true, I can't really express the warmth in my chest that I got when I watched that scene, because it felt sooo much like me and my wife (in this instance I'm Helen lol. My wife gets stressed about her job and sometimes I just get her to sit with me for a little cuddle and we find nice things to focus on instead).

Idk, it's just not often you see a middle aged, very much established lesbian couple in media and it really got to me.

[kendrysaneela]

The thing about the grenade is like. They could’ve called Carol back and went “Hey. So did you actually want a grenade or were you being sarcastic?” Instead of just. Bringing her a grenade just in case. Whole situation with Zosia being injured never would’ve happened with just one clarifying phone call

[moribundry]

to be fair, the only time we've see the hive care about an individual's safety (both in and out of the hive), in a way where they acted on it, is specifically when carol experimented on zosia, and even then, they asked for permission to save her.

seems like the hive's desire to make carol (and the people like her) happy overrides their desire and sense of safety. it doesn't mean they don't have a sense of safety, but it can be overriden. the only thing that we know that overrides even that desire, (the desire to make them happy), is the desire to make them a part of the hive.

ALSO because the grenade thing was in the early early days of the hive socializing with humans they couldnt infect, its likely that they just didnt understand how to interact with them at the time. we know that their tactics in dealing with the individuals changes over time, being less "talking at the same time" and "we", "wonderful", etc. to more stonewalling, seducing, traumabonding, blah blah blah.

the hive saw where they failed, where they made people uncomfortable, and adapted. it was likely harder to adapt to carol, and even harder to adopt to manousos then it was to adapt to the others who had family or friends left to hive-puppet, and their second strategy was much more effective than their first.

[birdplushie]

losing my mind a little bit everytime i read "individualism" in a pluribus post when clearly the op just meant to say individuality

[animentality]

[the-uncanny-dag]

Being a fan of Pluribus with more than 1 braincell

[guerrillatech]

[peggyao3]

The way Elizabeth's face dropped...

Did anyone else see a kind of universal female experience™ in this scene, when Victor confessed his feelings?

"Yay I'm happy to spend time with my friend who shares my unique interests!" 🌻☺️🦋

"My friend is not my friend, he's just a man who wants to bang me." 🌧️

I feel like her acting was so subtle but so powerful in that scene 😭 You could just see a thousand facets of disappointment, sadness, disgust and acceptance passing over her face, reevaluating all of their past encounters within the blink of an eye.

I am once again generalizing people's experiences, but to me it feels like pretty much every female female friend of mine (and myself) have had at least one experience just like this within our lives 😩 And then men will act like being in the "friendzone" is a punishment 😞

[dykeselfcest]

my favorite take on AI in the arts is still mary bronstein being asked about it and just saying "it doesn't have a perspective" and moving on. no big rant, it's not the end of art, it's not about The Soul. it just doesn't have a perspective!! so it will never be saying anything as interesting as a person who does.

[furryprovocateur]

genuinely so many of you would benefit from going "is it likely that either myself or the person i'm talking to will change our minds on this subject? if no, is it worth my time to emotionally invest in this conversation?" more often