#thought dumps

[steloiv]

Dumbledore eill forever haunt me as one of the most complex and multilayered character in this series. i CANNOT for the life of me seem to stop thinking abt him whenever i revisit hp. he's so convoluted and wise and haunted and kind and filled w so much love and wisdom i don't ever understand when ppl say that dumbledore's manipulative esp to harry. he LOVED harry. he cared abt him TOO MUCH that he was obviously scared. bcs when has he ever loved a person (esp a son-like figure at that) that it didn't turn out he was unconsciously harming them? because of his big brain and wisdom and omniscient ability to see through the likely occurrences of the future and knowing the best possible way to go about it? yes, he is wise, yes he is the greatest wizard at their time, but yes, he is also very thoroughly HUMAN. humanly flawed and weak and vulnerable to emotion and susceptible to mistakes especially to the ones closest to him.

and due to his love for harry, he did indeed have hurted him with his secrets and untruthfulness and his control. and he literally did cry about it because it was so so foolish, that the person he cared about and didn't want to be harmed he compensated by shutting him up and avoiding to be in touch for his own supposedly safety. there is a selfishness to it as well as love and care in it. in the 6th book when albus was so so weak from the potion and they were going back from the cave, he trusted harry w his life because he knows harry inside out and knows his ability to take care for the people close to him witht he best he can. he teared up when harry told him he was dumbledore's man because the sole person he is sending to his doom and is beyond selfless and loving than he could ever dream of in himself was showing appreciation to him. looked up to him. as if albus never told snape months ago he's sending harry to be killed. as if he's NOT leaving harry in the dark by being transparent about his plan and his own story. and in the 7th... i just. i have no words. don't get me started on how albus quite literally carved the path for harry to BE the master of death. because he looked up to harry and knew he was thousand times more better than he could ever be. i will always stand by how, if albus outrightly told him abt the hallows, there was a very low chance harry would be master of death. but bcs of albus knowing and caring and loving harry, he carved the path for him.

anyway. that's all this was just a ramble. i was rereading the 7th book and had a million flashbacks and inevitably came back to THE albus chapter in ootp. so. albus is THE character for me in the series. always will be.

[almoonds]

why is it with every kkg reread i do, i come to a new realization or perspective about a character or the plotline.... does this mean it rlly does have superb writing or am i only just repeatedly consuming my fave series .

anyway i'm dumping some thoughts for ch 91

i don't think it's quite noticeable with the way the two of them are being promoted, but i see kirari and yumeko as two entirely different people. the manga generally pushes for the two of them to be like two peas in a pod (two kakeguruis) but the way they function are SO different to me.

when mary and ririka revealed to kirari their little side bet, you could see how this lowers kirari's morale. you would notice that she really /does/ want to win in this gamble, she's not playing purely for the sake of it. she literally aims to win this gamble because i can guess that partly, she wants to prove that she can best ririka, and that she wants to be president, more than anyone else. (and you know how kirari gets when she /wants/ something. she ALWAYS expects that she gets it and does everything in her power to get it.)

if it was yumeko in that chair, it would be an entirely different story. yumeko would actually /want/ for crazy stakes. you could see only a few gambles where yumeko plays to win. (e.g. yumeko v terano, she's playing to win BCS she wants to play against kirari) and yet, even if she plays to win, she still lets her own desires get ahead of her because it thrills her. if yumeko feels like she might lose, she would be thrilled (see image below); likewise, if she fully reads her opponent and gets the gist of their gamble, she would be ecstatic (i.e. the stuco gambles).

moreover, you don't see kirari looking excited from losing to mary and ririka. she /wants/ to get her way, even if she has to exhaust all her efforts to do it. which moves to my next point.

the tides are all up against kirari. now it absolutely BAFFLES me how amazingly she can turn the tables and psychologically attack her opponents with one single statement.

in this panel, she literally /enables/ ririka. she reminds her of her roots, and what she was fundamentally founded on. she wants to test how far ririka has gone on without any string attached to her. and look how it catches everyone off guard! it's amazing how kirari can manipulate a person and a situation as effortless as batting an eyelash. (actually reminds me of joker, but that's a thought dump for another time)

but then ultimately, she still loses at that.

now, another one of mary's cheats is on. she's perfectly confident on beating kirari once again. now look how kirari shatters this newfound confidence

kirari is psychologically testing her opponent again, this time with mary. she wants to test this world-famous iron willpower that supposedly entrances everyone mary comes across with. she wants to see how far this could reach: whether mary would confidently back out or confidently go all-in. but mary, as evidently it's shown in the entire series, is a human that naturally gets tossed by fear. and what do you do when you can't fully decide on a thing?

you go middle ground

which throws kirari off. it turns out, mary's iron willpower isn't all that invincible (which i think is just natural for humans like us)

okay now i'll fast forward. ririka (now awaken that she's a momobami by roots) takes advantage of their lil dispute and bites kirari instead, throwing the both of them off guard.

i'll end this long post with a lil appreciation for the mary-ririka duo. it's absolutely brilliant for these two to team up: someone with enormous willpower that can take up anyone she wants to go against (namely momobami kirari), and someone with fundamentally the same cut as the insanity kirari has. mary was right: she can never take on kirari alone simply because she doesn't have the guts to stomach bets with insane risks and insane returns while currently being manipulated by the opponent. ririka, on the other hand, absolutely can. what ririka lacks, however, is the confidence and decisiveness that mary possesses.

[pilots-ghost]

!! Season 02 / Episode 16 Spoilers !!

Teacher Conference broo what an episode and just... I need to thought dump because I'm going to explode f r i c k

Melissa and Barbara geeking out about the school supplies.

Melissa and her sister teaming up to trash talk that lady, "Only we get to insult each other, no one else" I love their interactions so much it's so funny

"If Abbott goes charter none of you are safe" 🤨🤨🤨 WHAT DO YOU MEAN KRISTIN?????

The fact the PECSA looks like a film festival

Very Important Principals

Janine and Jacob being such an amazing duo, I LOVE THEM SO MUCH <333, and them acting super jumpy during the convention <333

"No matter what I do no one's happy 😁"

Yooo Tina's still alive

Janine deep seated mommy issues

The tired af photo guy

The entire living classroom segment (I teared up)

[feraltenacity]

she ra thought dump.001

Topic: Shadow Weaver

please note this is an unedited ramble from talking to my girlfriend and will be edited at a later time. this is just to catalogue my thoughts somewhere. contains s5 spoilers.

Can we talk about how Shadow Weaver turned away from obtaining more power because Catra was in trouble? She had every opportunity, there would’ve been nothing in her way. Both Catra and Adora were wounded and unable to fight. Catra was about to die And Shadow Weaver chose to save Catra And sacrificed herself in the process The “do one good thing” theme holding strong there And admittedly, Shadow Weaver may have done it because she knew her body would be destroyed by the power But if that’s the case, why did she give the speech to Catra? Why did she sacrifice herself still instead of getting Adora to the heart and finding ways to get more power afterwards? Why didn’t she let Catra die for them, instead of her dying for them? And wanting Catra to live out her life? Because Shadow Weaver’s is over and she knows it. She’s tired, whether she’s tired of her life or herself or both. Like no matter what she did, no one would ever trust her again. She’d live a very lonely life. And one that’s most likely consumed with seeking power because that would be all she has left It was very interesting to see. Also, the fact she told Adora she may have to sacrifice herself at the start of this journey and then being the one to do so for them? But I think it makes sense I don’t necessarily like sacrifice as being the way to redeem someone and I don’t think Shadow Weaver is necessarily redeemed But I think it was the best thing they could’ve done with her character because a redemption for her would’ve been extremely difficult She wasn’t meant to have one She did a good thing — showing a brief moment of care, but she’d been doing wrong for so long, and Adora and Catra would not have been able to heal with her still looming over them.  

There's no way they could've redeemed her, whatsoever, without doing this. I think the sacrifice as redemption can work when it's done well and this is a case where it's done well. There's way too much she cannot fix, and she cannot change who she inherently is after all this time. And we already can see that Adora and Catra cannot trust her, even when they have to work with her.

“ I want to know why she was suddenly so connected to the planet and the magic ”

For one, she'd been hiding a lot of her abilities from the others. She was stronger than she appeared, and Catra said that. I do have to wonder if she did somehow manage to take a small chunk of the heart's power at the end. knowing it would kill her? Or if that was just her own magic she'd been hiding, but still knowing it would kill her?

We've seen again and again that if she uses her magic without the connection to the Black Garnet, that it affects her body. I assume because of how the spell of obtainment fucked her up she cannot easily use magic anymore without leeching from something else or it starts to kill her.

And I believe that's, after the spell of obtainment, why she can began latching onto anything with power. One because she is power hungry, but two, Without a connection to something else, using magic kills her. Because we see it at the start, that if she went too long or used too much without recharging from the Black Garnet that she got very weak

We see her latching onto Adora, who she knew was She Ra, but we don't know why (later we can figure it out but) We see her latch onto Glimmer because Glimmer is a power source And then we see her desire for the Heart I [want to] believe what she used at the end was her own power Because it would fit well with the end of her "redemption"

[thehaemanthus]

thought

did Nero and Unnamed Second Wife work because they loved each other, or just because she managed to be and do and act exactly how he wanted to? As in, was she just a woman who happened to fit the mold?

[steloiv]

rereading ootp... and i'm noticing a LOT of harry and dumbledore stuff sprinkled around... long post ahead maybe but tldr:

ootp is literally about a boy being ghosted by his old genius guardian while the entire world turns against them . and the books climax is literally just the result of the lack of guidance that guardian should have given the boy in the first place (dumbledore being too much of a genius to be a Proper Parent)

dumbledore literally ended harrys 4th year w a lot of soft cooing and reassurance and gave him a lot of praise for what he did . and the next few months after that he just deadass GHOSTED the poor boy.... at the prime age of the adolescent fifteen nonetheless.... dumbledore is a very old man failure i say

some spam thoughts below:

poor harry who only wanted reassurance from a mentor before facing a whole court

and harry suffering a LOT just because of dumbkedore's cold treatment....

and of course harry's just a kid so there's numerous times in the book where he blamed himself for dumbledore's treatment...

dumbledore is so stupid . he be telling that that a strong bond of friendship and trust would combat voldemort's reign when HE couldn't even face harry properly.... man UP old man .

dumbledore is so so so stupid (2) . why couldn't he just TALK to the boy. he be barging in and be all like "where's harry how is he is he doing okay" without ever speaking to the boy in question....

dumbledore listening on to His Boy bravely giving an interview for all the world to see... despite all the hate and cold treatment thrown his way.....

and of course the confession:

maybe partly why dumbledore ignored harry (aside from the stuff he already said) was because he couldn't bear to tell harry about the greatest burden he has to bear... despite all the harsh things given to him, despite veing left alone numerous times, harry has never ever cracked up. dumbledore is a very Awful Parent. he never had a child to look after for, much less looking after them despite the noose already tied to his neck. despite KNOWING this child will die. he had gone through the trouble knowing harry, and despite everything, had come to care for the boy with all his righteous ability to love and be selfless despite everything.

[steloiv]

okay part 2 of yumary post

part 1

mary's gambling style is playing-it-safe. she makes it so that she has the most chances of winning with the least risk, but she also has the choice to bow out if the situation arrives for it. that is why she has been betting the minimum bets up until now. it's basically a surefire way to win.

but what about yumeko? yumeko always want her gambles to include the most amount of risk for thrill of the game itself. however, she has been playing with mary and betting the minimum like her. it isn't until the fourth round when her motives are finally revealed.

yumeko has, after all this time, wagering against terano. she knows that the bookmaker has the ability to acquire the most votes using the student body. the election would be as good as determined at that point.

with this, mary gets completely cast aside!! the people are led to believe that yumeko doesn't care for mary as her rival, that all of mary's feelings and motivations in this game are just a stepping stone just so she can wager against terano.

how can someone who's been exploiting another person like that, can you call a friend, ririka argues. this was an important match for mary, as she has established. it's an awfully selfish and rude move for her part. it's like she doesn't care for mary at all.

BUT THENN

remember that if one of them wins, terano would still have the most votes. the results of the election would be as good as determined and terano would have "basically" be the winner. (the student body votes total up to a thousand and add that up to terano's 649, that's more than half of the overall 3000 votes, compared to a mere five hundred votes). the results of their gamble would have been meaningless.

but what about mary? she would have lost and/or reduced her chances to become president. their gamble would have meant nothing and she would have to strive all over again to go over the top.

what does yumeko say then?

"instead we're going to work together, right? after all, mary-san, you want to become head of the student council president, don't you?"

yumeko, in all of her inscrutable and incomprehending motives, has been helping mary all this time!! she has been respecting mary, being her friend, and rooting for her!! she cares for mary, had cared enough to hear about what mary has to say to her all those chapters back, about what she wanted to do in this election.

if they tied, mary would have better chances of becoming president. yumeko wanted to help her as well as get the gambling thrill she had so long seeked for. a better outcome couldn't have turned up for her.

with that, we get to have this cute, neat panel of them enjoying all of the thrill and excitement everything has been building up to that point AAAAAAAA

it all comes down to their choices in their cards. if mary wanted to win, a rock's clearly her play here. it's surefire and by the book, and it involves the least risk possible. there would be no other reason for her to play a card other than rock.

however, mary had an epiphany. mary KNOWS yumeko. she knows that the girl has the ability to turn the tables upside down in an insane and incomprehending way. mary is familiar enough with her, in all their time together, that she knows how yumeko works, in and out, even if she has no way of understanding it.

and that was why mary had chosen to play paper. she wanted to match yumeko's insanity with her own. she wanted to be equals with her, after all. because she chose that, she finally sees yumeko eye-to-eye, and had a taste of the insanity yumeko has always been accustomed of.

it's like!! they have achieved and arrived at this ultimate connection that makes them able to understand and comprehend the other like the backs of their hands. they contrast each other, and yet they complement each other as well. yumeko and mary's relationship is probably one of the most crucial aspects of the story and i can't wait to see what becomes of it (and them) in the manga 🤧🙏