#tdp terry

[mellocat925]

Reposting all of my "drawing Reality Resort screencaps but with random characters in place of the contestants" drawings that I've done in order to push my Reality Resort propaganda :D

The Reality Resort team is currently raising money in order to finish the season, you can find the kickstarter here :D

no pressure if you don't have money or don't want to donate btw, I just wanted to spread the word about it bc I really like this show and would like to see how the season ends

this post will be deleted once I return back from my break. hope you all have a pleasant day/night

[raayllum]

i need to make a whole post about terry and his transness and how elegantly and emotionally it informs his character and characterization and the themes of a show as a whole bc i have Thoughts. but as of right now i'm just really fucking retroactively impressed they got away with him comparing himself to a Fucking Deer ("i always knew i was a buck") and none of us subsequently clocked the specific Claudia Danger Signs of that precise framing because. well

[theredhairedmonkey]

Why is it that Terry’s breaking point was being used to get into the Garden of Innocence (where Claudia wasn’t hurting anyone) rather than anything before that, like resurrecting her father (who had invaded Xadia and planned to take it over)? Claudia had done way worse stuff that Terry had no problem with.

Because Terry's loyalty was never really moral endorsement, it was personal. His whole arc is built on being the elf who left his own people and felt like he didn't belong anywhere, and Claudia was the person who saw him and accepted him without conditions. He offered her the same in return. So Viren's past crimes were something he could hold at arm's length: they belonged to a man he'd never met as a warlord, only as a dying, remorseful man trying to make amends. And "a daughter who won't let her father die" is a motive Terry could read as love rather than evil.

The manipulation broke that framework in a way the body count couldn't. Unconditional acceptance is a two-way promise, and being used (especially having his own trust and his own connections exploited to get to the Garden) meant Claudia hadn't been loving him back, she'd been steering him. Once that's true, the thing he'd been telling himself justified everything else collapses. It's also the point where he can no longer say the dark road hasn't changed *him*.

[bat-snake]

Just had a thought about Terry, but

What if the green tips on his horns are "sprouts" where they're still growing?

Like when trees have branch buds

And then there's question on if it's unique to his specific horn type

[aspans-alt]

If you squint, Homicidal Girlfriend fits Claudia and Terry.

[raayllum]

So as a very strong start to 7x05, first, we get one of my favourite Terry specific pieces of symbolism — his glasses — wherein he takes them off upon introduction in Viren&Claudia's presence, but puts them on when preparing to go to Ezran and the side of good (he does put them on and also take them off upon actually meeting Ezran, too).

Then we get a beautiful parallel, I think, of Terry's wonder-filled eyes that he had intrinsically now being mirrored/'given' back to him through his choices to care for them and see things clearly by reflecting Aaron and Sam in his glasses. Chef's kiss

[raayllum]

So, a few things:

1) Terry starts out the gate with "you didn't treat me like I'm someone you love. You didn't even treat me like I was a person" (which was Viren's damning sin with Lissa). The fact that this threatens Terry's ability to be himself — the thing he's put above everything else since childhood ("but I knew, I always knew, that I was a buck", and held steadfastly to ("I'm going to be strong enough to do whatever I need to do and have feelings"), all of which are rooted in an intrinsic emphasis on agency ("I chose the name Terrestrius") is like... yeah, his relationship with Claudia as a counter balance never stood a single fucking chance.

2) Terry leaves to escape being further changed, but part of the loss of his true heart (which does canonically happen) in addition to realizing what he's been complicit in means that he knows he's already been fundamentally altered. Is he still the person Claudia loves? On a certain level yes, but on another level, it's already a no, and only continues in that vein (given 7x06).

3) The fact that Terry is saying "If I stay with you, I won't like myself, and I won't be the person you love anymore" is just another devastating cherry on top, especially in contrast to Callum accepting that Rayla needs to leave in 4x09: if you only love your partner when you've demanded or enabled that they change beyond recognition, do you really love them at all?

4) There are two interesting ways we can, therefore, read Terry's final line. We can read it as a continuous sentiment (which I think is the intended takeaway) of "If I let myself change to someone I don't like, I'm not really the person you fell in love with anymore" as something that has not yet wholly happened, and contingent on the if. We can also, thanks to the trail off, read it as him grappling with "I'm not really the person you fell in love with anymore, am I?" as a change that is happening in the scene itself, because he's changed (and so has, of course, his perception of Claudia and his willingness to be with her). and I think that's neat

[raayllum]

I have not seen the stars in centuries. But when I see them again—when the stars are forced to look upon me, their dark brother—they will know how I have waited.