Thought Dump

Call me MJ | they/them | 18 | ADHD nightmare I'm so sorry | Tiny ratperson with too much time

[weirdlynotspecific]

I just realized I haven't done an introduction post so here we go!

I'm MJ, Aquarius, lesbian, INTP-T, ADHD disaster (please send help), actual goblin, keeper of a wild ever-changing head of curly hair that somehow has not fallen out yet, and general menace to society.

I write fanfiction and do art stuff and basically yell into the void daily.

My pronouns are they/them, but I don't mind she/her terribly, and feminine titles are okay.

If you enjoy hating on people that enjoy living their lives, aren't hurting anyone, and aren't being assholes then if you could kindly fuck off, that'd be swell.

Some of my interests include, but are not limited to:

- Good Omens

- The Owl House

- Adventure time

- Steven Universe

- Phineas and Ferb (I'm never growing up and you can't make me)

- Gravity Falls

- Studio ghibli

- Moomin Valley

- Ouran Highschool Host Club

- Stardew Valley

- Omori

- Sanders sides

- DND

- Sonic

- Superman (current hyperfixation)

- Batman

- Over the Garden Wall

And just like the occult?? In general? I'm the stereotype of a tiny goth lesbian, I enjoy collecting stupid earrings, and hiding in my room with my collection of shiny things.

- Star Trek aos and tos

- Magical Girls (sailor moon, lolirock, etc)

If you also enjoy any of these things then let's be friends!

[crim-alley]

what role will you play Mr. Hagen?

No txt version:

[josephbrassey]

“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

And I refuse to let the cynics own a chunk of my heart.

[dawhat]

Flowey may be the only character ever to beat suicidal ideation by killing himself and coming back and realizing it wasn’t all that

[tumbledonut]

Counterpoint, Phil Connors

[the-gladiolus]

Literally will never recover from the character Jon Sims. Cursed by spiders from age 8. Acted skeptical of horrific entities while fighting said entities. Tried to cut off his own finger repeatedly. Partook in an enemies-to-lovers romance in which only he believed them to be enemies. Short. Kidnapped at least 3 times. Surrounded by queer women who are constantly threatening to kick his ass. No understanding of pop culture. Possessed by a purveyor of apocalyptic beat poetry. Said the first “I love you” in the show, directed at a cat that was biting him. Called a merry-go-round “thrilling.” Metaphysically disassembled anyone who was mean to his boyfriend. Said “good lord” unironically. Asked a murderous Russian clown why she didn’t sound Russian. He was even bi

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Today's vent:

[microwavemad]

this house can fit so many fucking hallways in it you dont even KNOW

[weirdlynotspecific]

I know a lot of people are focused on the ending of Good Omens and I don't blame them but can we talk about how horrifying the deaths of the other archangels were?

Their existence, gone. Erased from this world with nothing but their likeness charred into the walls behind them. And Micheal being haunted by these deaths was just absolutely phenomenal to watch.

I desperately wish we could've gotten more time to watch Micheal and how they processed everything. How they ended up there. Their line of thought makes sense given the incredible amount of pressure they had been under but God I needed more time with them.

[crowleys-hips]

the problem isn't “they didn’t get the ship moment I wanted.” the problem is thematic incoherence.

season 1 and 2 kept hammering the idea that individual lives matter. not replaceable copies. not "close enough." actual people, with continuity and memory and history. Crowley and Aziraphale repeatedly chose imperfect, messy existence over grand cosmic plans. so ending with "the universe gets reset and everyone is replaced by alternate versions" isn't just horribly depressing. it's philosophically backwards. like the story literally abandoned its own argument in the final act.

the Job parallel especially points that out pretty cleanly. The whole emotional weight there was: replacement children are not the same children. new children (even if they had, by some chance, looked and acted Exactly The Same) doesn't fix the tragedy of losing the original children. that mattered to them. so yea, this ending feels less like "hopeful transcendence to tear down The System" and more like “congrats on your happy ending! everyone is dead, but the cottage is cute!" bold creative choice ig. like serving tea with eccles cakes after detonating reality.

my frustration is basically: the story spent years arguing that personhood matters — memory matters, continuity matters, these exact souls matter. and then solved the finale with a cosmic reset that wipes out the very identities the narrative taught us to care about. very much like the nuclear apocalypse they were trying so hard to prevent. it goes against the very thing Crowley was staunchly opposed to during The Flood. against everything they did in the Job minisode. against literally the entire Jim/Gabriel narrative, about Jim not really being Gabriel without his memories. and also, to quote Crowley, "the angel you knew is NOT me."

"but they found each other again! we got them back at the end!" no we didn't. that is NOT them. and to say that they are is kind of insulting tbh. they LOOK similar and maybe have some of the same interests, but just bc a blonde and a red head are into books and astrophysics doesn't make them THEM. their memories, their history, everything they went through together and fought for, the experiences that shaped their characters, those 6000+ years — that's all GONE.

Also. people keep saying stuff like "it was the only right choice" as if there were only two horrible choices? if the story introduces negotiation and moral choice, we'll naturally start imagining alternatives. once “God offers options” enters the chat, people will obviously ask, “wait. why was this the chosen solution?” when they could've gone for idk, literally anything else. God literally offered to put things back as they were. they could've chosen to have THAT universe, THAT world —THEIR world— put back into place and then added their own conditions to tear down Heaven and Hell. they could've chosen to keep their memories. they could've chosen to make everyone human from then on if that's what the writers were so hellbent on. they could've chosen to make God erase her own memory for all i care idfk. but this ending feels like a bad consolation prize.

after EVERYTHING they did, and everything they went through, they deserved SO much better than this. THE WHOLE WORLD did.

New Earth isn't Earth. a Michael Jackson impersonator isn't actually Michael Jackson. The Other Mother isn't the real mother. those new people aren't their original selves. and whoever those guys are at the end are not Aziraphale and Crowley.

[hollow-head]

A missing scene. Thanks for all the fanart and fic throughout the years, you guys

[clowns0cks]

ok just to recap they lost the antichrist in S1 they lost the archangel gabriel in S2 and now they lost jesus??? omg these guys can't do anything

[crim-alley]

Do I dare post my DC oc or do I actually lock in for school?

[weirdlynotspecific]

Do it do it! Don't leave Mirage alone, where would she be without her paranoid character foil bestie?

We should slowly reveal the Paradoxes tbh

[weirdlynotspecific]

My favorite superbat fics are the ones where they should get gold medals for their Olympic level mental gymnastics.

Specifically where they don't know each other's identities but they interact as civilians and see the other as a liability. Like Clark Kent sitting with a pleasant smile on his face but secretly thinking "oh my god this guy is an idiot and he's going to get me into something that is going to get him killed and me exposed" and Bruce returning the smile and thinking "what is this reporter's deal? He must know something, he's acting suspiciously. What if he knows I'm Batman and intends to blackmail me?"

Peak dynamic, they're both really smart but absolutely morons when it comes to each other

[weirdlynotspecific]

Actually posting my art for the first time in forever! This is Mirage, she's one of my extraordinarily self indulgent DC OCs

[kidzbopdeathgrips]

january was five months, february was normal, march was about three weeks, and april so far has been about twenty minutes.

[avelera]

Groundhog Day (1993) - Impressions, praise, and what fanfics writers can learn about writing time-loops from the OG time-loop film

Last night, I rewatched the "original" time-loop film, Groundhog Day (1993), and I couldn't help but admire the writing.

Though time loops have become a stock trope, especially in fanfic, there's a reason "Groundhog Day" is widely credited with launching the popularity of the trope in the first place because it is fun, fresh, and (at the time) original.

Yet while Groundhog Day is often credited as the inspiration for time-loop stories both silly and serious (like Supernatural's "Mystery Spot" episode, or Tom Cruise's "Edge of Tomorrow") when going back to the original, I noticed a few of its best beats are very rarely replicated in subsequent inspired works, and that's a bit of a shame, because a lot of those beats are what made the time loop story so fresh in the first place.

Things like:

The "Fuck Around" Stage

After discovering he's stuck in a time loop, Bill Murray's character Phil does something I have rarely seen any other subsequent time loop story doing - he fucks around and has fun with it.

Most subsequent time loop stories revolving around a single repeated day without consequence immediately treat the character's situation as a tragedy, or at least a problem to be solved. But the original Groundhog Day (which is admittedly a comedy) allows Phil to recognize the implications and enjoy them before the full cosmic horror of his situation sets in.

He goes and gets drunk without consequence. He messes with the local cops. He dedicates a few cycles to sleeping with a pretty woman in town, in a morally reprehensible but character-revealing way (Phil is a morally reprehensible asshole when we meet him, that is core to his character and the arc his character needs to presumably overcome).

This beat is important from a writing standpoint because during the "fuck around" stage we learn so much about who Phil is as a character. When stripped of any sort of consequence, how does this man behave?

I think the reason most subsequent time loop stories, especially in fanfic, skip this really important step in the time loop story, namely, "What does the character do once they realize there are in fact no consequence to their actions?" is because most fanfic assumes we already know the character. It feels like a waste of time to show us who they are when no one is watching and there are no consequences.

But skipping the "fuck around" stage loses the writer and the audience out on a lot of potentially fun moments, like the chance to see the character get rascally drunk, or eat their own weight in cake, or try and spectacularly fail at flirting with their crush a few times before they get it right. And these are great character-revealing moments!

I think the other reason subsequent time loop stories like, say, "Edge of Tomorrow" for original fiction, skip this stage is that they're too busy driving to the plot. The world needs to be saved, we don't have time to see the character try and fail to do anything but solve the plot. But what characters do when they're not solving the plot reveals who they are, it's what makes us care about them and relate to them as more than just machines designed for navigating the plot.

Fanfic is especially guilty of this because of how many jump immediately to, "How do I break this nightmarish time loop??" which again is solving the plot. But a real person probably wouldn't jump straight to, "Oh god, my life has become a horror story!" you probably would fuck around at least a little bit before locking in to solve The Plot and go back to normal life and its consequences, like hangovers, and jobs you have to show up for, and needing to eat healthy again. An important element of enjoyment and fun for the audience is inherent in the "fuck around" beat of the time loop story that Groundhog Day nailed so expertly and that so many derivative works skipped or ignored.

Phil is allowed to be smart

Not only is Phil allowed to fuck around, which shows us who he is (an asshole), but Phil is allowed to be smart about the time loop! This is in contrast with many, if not most time loops I've seen derived from this work since.

It only takes Phil one loop to figure out that he's in a time loop, despite just being a normal guy! This is in contrast to how many time-loop stories require multiple loops before the character will admit to their circumstance!

Yet this otherwise normal guy in the original story, who has no other known media to point to as how he figured it out even within the story (unlike say Dean in Mystery Spot) figures it out right away and does so with a pretty ingenious test of putting a broken pencil next to his alarm clock. Once he sees the pencil is magically mended the next day, he doesn't mess around with doubts any longer. He knows what's going on and accepts it, including accepting that it's not an elaborate trick.

Numerous derivative works waste an insane amount of time getting the POV character to admit what's happening to them and come to terms with it. It was astonishing to me that Groundhog Day wasted so little time on this. And it actually felt more realistic! Because of the depth of the world we're shown in the film, it quickly becomes obvious to any thinking human being that it would be impossible to repeat the day so perfectly, and it only take a couple conversations for Phil to dismiss the idea that this is an elaborate hoax. He accepts his circumstances and comes to terms with them in a remarkably short time which was ironically refreshing for the trope given that it's one of the original instances of the trope!

And by the way, speaking of refreshing takes on the trope despite the fact this is one of the first famous uses of it?

No Cause of the Time Loop is EVER Introduced - Which means no solution is handed to the character, either

The original Groundhog Day (bucking the trends of many a racist 90's flick it must be said) doesn't introduce a magical foreigner, or judgmental demigod, a prophetic fortune cookie, or any other reason why this is happening to Phil! No reason is ever given at all.

We, the audience, can guess that Phil is trapped in this loop as some sort of divine punishment for being such an asshole, but it's never confirmed! No one on-screen or off-screen ever winks at the audience or at Phil and tells him how to solve his predicament.

As a result, Phil is entirely alone within the time loop. He has no guidance on how to get out and, by the way, never voices that he thinks there's something he needs to do or solve before he gets out!

He somewhat intuits it, I would argue, and maybe off-handedly mutters about it, but it's not dwelt on. Certainly there are loops that show but don't tell that he tries "getting the loop right" to solve it, or helping people, or having the perfect date, or saving everyone in town. But he never really stops and looks at the camera and voices the idea that he thinks he needs to solve his way out of this aloud, it's not really brought up as an avenue of resolving the plot, we just see the result of his actions (a great example of show-don't-tell by the way).

Which leads to the other thing that impressed me about the film from a time-loop trope perspective:

Getting the first loop "right" doesn't free Phil - and we never find out what actually freed him!

Going on that first "perfect" date with Rita, while selfishly motivated, doesn't break him out of the loop, even when there's a pause as if to imply he expects that. Saving all the people he can in town doesn't stop the loop. Learning to play the piano, or care about others, or stop being such a raging asshole doesn't free him from the loop. Killing himself over and over in a variety of increasingly unhinged ways doesn't break the loop.

At every beat when we are shown what could be the loop breaking, we are instead shown it not breaking. To the point where we, like Phil, are pretty much lulled into a sense that it will never break.

And by the time Phil does break the loop in the final scene, he's done so many things differently from the person he was at the start that we don't really know what broke him out!

Presumably, finally having a truly selfless night with Rita does it, but it could be learning how to be a good man in the town, it could be finally truly learning to care about someone other than himself.

But the narrative doesn't tell us! It's left to our interpretation, which I would argue is far more clever but much more fiendishly difficult to write than a simple "If this, then that" time-loop plot where a character is meant to learn a single cosmic lesson and check all the boxes before they can be set free again, usually in fanfic by saving their significant other, learning to let them go, or otherwise mending some sort of interpersonal relationship.

Groundhog Day really doesn't get enough credit for not only launching the time-loop trope in the popular zeitgeist but also to this day having one of the most clever and intricate takes on the trope and indeed, most subsequent derivations are weaker because they miss out on just sticking to beats that the original story included. I would definitely recommend at least one watch of this classic for anyone flirting with the idea of writing their own time-loop.

[weirdlynotspecific]

I wish people didn't reduce Clearsight and Darkstalker's relationship to "they loved each other desperately until he turned evil, but there's a future out there where they could've worked," because I don't really believe that to be true, and acknowledging the nuance in the tragedy that is their relationship makes it so much more interesting.

Darkstalker was always incredibly manipulative, and no healthy functioning relationship can be born from that. From the moment he hatches, he knows that his mother loves him more because he's her perfect dragonet. He lets his sister's egg remain unhatched because he knows that he won't have to share his mother's love with her, at least not to the same extent, if she doesn't have the same powers.

Darkstalker also routinely lies to Clearsight about not reading her mind throughout the book, well before Fathom arrives. He thinks about how he could be king and even if he has to kill dragons to get there, it'll end up okay, and if he just nudges Clearsight in the right direction she'll understand. He thinks about this under the guise of "it'll make it easier and she'll understand one day," but it's blatantly deceitful.

Clearsight isn't innocent either. She remains so focused on the future and everything that could go wrong and trying to micromanage that, that she misses it actively happening. It isn't her fault, Darkstalker is solely responsible for his actions, but she even manipulates how they meet so it happens the way she wants.

In an effort to be on equal footing, they lie to each other and bend the truth or try to catch each other off guard. Some lies are innocuous but they build and build until there's nothing left. Their relationship is also built off of the expectation of a relationship. They do spend quality time together to get to know each other, but they immediately accept that the other is the only one for them despite being dragonets.

I think this toxicity is fascinating, and should be talked about more within the fandom! Both parties are deeply flawed and that's what makes them such good characters, but it's also why I don't believe they would've ever worked out. We know Clearsight saw futures where they were happy, but I don't believe those futures were likely at all. Darkstalker was power hungry from the moment he hatched, and Clearsight was far too detached from the present to have any chance at stopping him early on.

TLDR: Clearsight and Darkstalker were just as doomed as Arctic and Foeslayer from the beginning.