#pedantic tf

[thoughtfulfangirling]

My spouse is meticulously scouring Gideon the Ninth for his own nerdy reasons. There is a good chance that at some point I will be putting together his notes for posting.

But I can't wait for this one. So you get it now.

We got copies of the book after listening to the audios which is a thing to keep in mind.

During Abigail's party, there is a background snippet of conversation that reads:

"—which failed to fix the drive, which failed to get her back to the system in time, which meant I spent the first nine months wrapped in house dirt—"

There is no tag on who is saying this, but Empty is stupidly good at catching Moira Quark's voices and recognized the voice as Judith Deuteros's.

In the paperback, there is still no tag on who said this, but there is extra world/character building information at the back of the book, and a note on Judith is that she was born 'interstellar.' We know from Harrow the Ninth that Necromancy does not work in space or in spaceships (also noted in the glossary on Necromancers). SO! It would appear that in order to keep Judith's inborn necromantic traits, they had to 'wrap her' in the dirt of where she was conceived.

Which is a fun little fact all on its own! But it either suggests Moira is a huge nerd, or Tamsyn absolutely made notes for her to follow for her narration 😂😂

[thoughtfulfangirling]

Spider-Verse was amazing and beautiful and I have only one (1) real complaint about it.

RIPeter was on a date with MJ as Spider-Man? That's a terrible idea. Can you imagine??? Like sure, obviously people just dress as SpiderMan in NY on the regular apparently and they can take public transport with no suspicion, but he punched a car out of the way of that date. Someone would realize he was on a date with this stunning red head and like talk about the poperazzi and then later she's married to Peter Parker... Because now I'm imagining that MJ is just like, legally married to SpiderMan and Peter never gets to go anywhere without the costume. Which isn't too far fetched considering that even Peter B just lives in his suit I guess. Haha.

It's silly but welcome to the mind of a pedant XDXD

[thoughtfulfangirling]

I’m not going to defend Rose, because I do agree that she had more power as a diamond than as a quartz. I do think it fits her position of privilege that she didn’t fully grasp that. It works from a character POV for sure. 

But I keep seeing people saying that her fake death instigated a war and just... ???? I got the distinct impression the war had began before Pink Diamond was ‘shattered.’ It’s clear it made things worse after it happened, but it’s not what started the war. 

I 100% believe Rose Quartz, for a while, was a disguise PD donned to explore earth and get to know her gems on a personal level before the war started, and that moonlighting as Rose is how the war began. While off being the whole princess in disguise, she began to see the difficulties of her people, started talking to them, learned about them, asked them why they couldn’t live differently, and in turn, she began giving them ideas and/or fueling certain ideas, and when they asked her if it possible to live better, she encouraged them, led them even, away from their posts and to push against their roles. 

I can’t place why, but I also got this sense, walking out of that episode, that this wasn’t the first time Pearl took on the guise of Rose Quartz. The way she’s posed so often with her eyes shut, when Pearl’s eyes were the give away to the audience that it wasn’t Rose we were looking at, gave me the distinct impression that until PD was ‘shattered,’ if Rose needed to be in two places at once, Pearl would go in her place as RQ. 

And that in itself may have had a lot to do with her decision to fake the PD death. I don’t know that I’d say I think it was a wise thing to do, but realizing they couldn’t have both Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond, she may have decided it would discourage and even ruin the rebellion for them to realize their general was Pink Diamond. The purpose of the rebellion was to break away from Homeworld society, and if it just became a Diamond versus Diamond, they’re still all just falling into place behind a Diamond. It was important that the leader was a Quartz, was someone who wasn’t supposed to be the Leader. 

And we got to see in the episode beforehand that she did plea with the other Diamonds to be left to do what she wanted to with earth. They ignored her. I don’t think she had this passion before she explored the earth, and I think she only freely explored earth after she’d run around as RQ. 

Her fake death certainly raised the stakes. But I don’t think it instigated the war. The war had already begun; the other Diamonds just finally took it seriously when they lost PD. 

Also, I will generally refer to PD as Rose given that’s the name she chose for herself. It’s pedantic, but I’m a big believer in chosen names, and she quite deliberately left the life of PD behind.  

[thoughtfulfangirling]

The pedant in me is stuck on the comment that as soon as she gives up hope, she will become a witch. This does make it sound like the transformation hinges on despair. But Madoka, after defeating Walpurgisnacht, notes that she doesn’t have a grief seed for herself to replenish her soul gem, goes on to express hope to Homura that she’ll change the timeline, and turns into a witch. This highly suggested that the real factor lay in the replenishing of Soul Gems and not how you’re feeling.

Is he suggesting that Homura, realizing there’s no hope, will just stop collecting grief seeds? Because those two things do not have to walk hand in hand?

I suppose though, he’s just trying to talk Madoka into making a wish, so nothing he says might be useful. Not that it’s not the truth as he understands it, just that the distinction I’m making here is something he couldn’t care less about.

But Hnnnnnn

“Whether she has any hope of winning or not, Homura must continue to fight.”

*dying*

It’s nothing we don’t already know, but it just slays to hear it put this way and realize just how true it at least seems.

I’m still in the camp where, if the ending must be tragic, it’s Madoka fucking up all of Kyubey’s plans, making it all for naught in the end anyway.

I’m not a fan generally of bleak endings, but somehow, I am so here for some kinda trick like that!!!

[thoughtfulfangirling]

This is an entirely new level to Homura’s power. I know we’ve never seen them fight Walpurgisnacht before, but it seems strange that this sort of power would be reserved so completely until now. 

Though I suppose it is rather believable. Given how much she’s fought all these battles before, she probably knows exactly how much magic she needs to expend and refrains from expending any extra until this battle, which she has failed to win so it seems. 

And then I had the thought that we still don’t see anything on this level from the other girls. I suppose we could reason they haven’t had as much time to explore their powers, but that doesn’t quite sit right with me. 

And then I remembered Kyoko. I feel like she did something pretty big like this in her fight against Sayaka, but I’m too invested in what I’m doing now to go back and look. 

But if I’m correct, I wonder how much these displays of power connect to their emotion. For such a dark show, I’d say that’s unlikely. In fact, many things that I thought were linked to emotional type stuff turns out to be other things. (i.e. losing hope isn’t what makes you a witch but rather failure to replenish the Soul Gem. There may be some link between a Soul Gem draining more quickly the more despairing you are, but the technical aspect is the failure to replenish until there’s nothing left. Like a star imploding on itself when it’s used up all it’s fuel.) 

So I don’t know how comfortable I am with the idea from a canon perspective, but the whole purpose for the witches and magical girls are for their emotional energy. I don’t know, it also kind of feels like a cop out if their emotions don’t play an important factor in their struggles as Magical Girls. So... I’ll go with that for now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

On the other hand, WHERE DID HOMURA GET FUCKIN’ GIANT ROCKET LAUNCHERS THAT HUGE AND HOW DID SHE HIDE THEM UNDERWATER THIS LONG AND JUST WAAAAHT! Girl, you extreme! 

[thoughtfulfangirling]

This is beautiful and heart wrenching. The music is perfect and fantastic, and Madoka’s voice is perfect delivering these lines. And of course, these captures only grab the tiniest fraction of Magical Girls in despair that they are showing us. 

And yet, functionally, I wonder how this works. If there are no witches for the Magical Girls to fight, are they doomed to a very short existence after their wish is made? Will they be able to find witches to fight and Grief Seeds to collect? Definitely a paradoxical situation going on here. Is each moment where she saves them literally it’s own timeline? Seeing as, the lack of one witch may have made or broken the existence of a certain Magical Girl? I’m... I’m really just trying to go along for the ride, but my brain gets caught up on details like this. 

BUT VERY BEAUTIFUL DON’T GET ME WRONG

[thoughtfulfangirling]

Pedantic Furi is at it again.

I am 67% through Can't Spell Treason Without Tea and I am just zooming through it. It's really cute and fun and cozy but also willing to b serious sometimes and deep.

If it weren't for the second part, I think I'd be more forgiving, but since they do want to ground us in some kind of reality I'm really bothered by one thing in particular.

If Reyna is in hiding from an evil tryannical queen she used to work for and KNOWS she has spies all over the place and Reyna will be looked for... why on earth would she not do anything to change her appearance. I've known people I would see regularly in a work uniform who out of it I flat out do not recognize. Nothing but clothes and demeanor changed. So I don't buy any 'she'll just be recognized' (which hasn't even been addressed so far).

She grew up in the guards? Start wearing skirts and adopt a soft demeanor. For fucks' sake cut your hair and dye it. She has white-blond hair!! And since there's been no mention of that being a common hair color, well it sounds like it would stand out. If the author needed her to be white-blonde then she could have made her hair dark and they bleach it. Change the hair color! Change the length and cut!

It's been bugging me just so much 😓 She's being portrayed as Just So Practical but overlooks this?? Djchowiene 😅😅

[thoughtfulfangirling]

I'm listening to 'Let's Pretend This Never Happened' and it's been really enjoyable and good even if sometimes the quirks seem to go a bit far for me. It's clear that things are played up. I'm not saying lies. Just really leaned into. And the pedant in me is rolling my eyes a bit even if I can still enjoy it. But the one that I keep coming back to that I know is intentionally played up but I can't sustain my humor is the 'oh you have a crazy <insert person/experience>? So you've experienced <absurd and/or uncomfortable story illustrating how unique the author's life has been>? Annnd then they stop talking to her.' The joke seems to be that they don't know how to handle the story or think she's too weird. But honest to god I'd stop having a conversation with someone who needed to one up anything I want to talk about in my lived experience and act like that one up means my thing is nothing. I can handle hearing a crazy story. I don't have the time for someone who has made a judgement on if my understanding of the world is warped because it isn't yours.

Like again. I get it. It's part of the act. She probably doesn't even do this to people irl. I've just been both the person with the crazy story and the story that doesn't compare and let me tell you, there are ways to navigate that which don't drive people away and if you do, it might just not be your stories but how you treat people.