Bardic_Knwledge

Bardic_Knwledge

69p

133 comments posted · 2 followers · following 3

4 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Steven U... · 0 replies · +3 points

It's been a long time since I've commented, mostly since I stopped watching the videos back during DS9/Voyager (I was running low on money and needed every little bit). I still need to finish those, actually.

But, I did just watch through all of Steven Universe with Mark the last couple months (I was mildly surprised to not see Baise in the season five videos; I presume there's a reason). Curiously, despite having watched/listened to the movie at least twelve times since it came out, as I was watching with Mark and singing along to almost all the songs, I started crying like mad during Drift Away (Spinel's song in The Garden).

At this point, Lapis and Spinel are my top two favourite Gems (and, also, I really think Peridot would be a Troper, if only because of her comment about Character Development), and it actually took me a couple weeks to figure out why: we share an issue.

Almost ten years ago, I was engaged. We'd been dating for three years, and engaged for the last year of that (maybe less). I was going to up visit her, to share a funny joke list and tell her that I managed to get a job. When I got to her house, she was crying. It wasn't long before I found out that she was crying because she was about to break up with me. And the reason for it?

She was tired of all my anecdotes starting with "that reminds of this story" or "there's this story I read." That was it. Now, I was super deeply in love with her, and her rejection hit me hard (I was also kinda clingy enough in the aftermath that she blocked me on Facebook). But it wasn't until two years later that I discovered how hard.

I was at work, having a conversation with myself in my head, as I do, and said "why do you wish everyone a good morning, if you don't like mornings?" and I replied, "because everyone deserves to have a good day (except me)." And I kinda froze. Where had that come from? Eventually I figured out that I hated myself, and tried to explain why, not even considering the true reason. I settled a few years later on the reason "I hate myself because I am capable of hate."

Just two years ago, I was having another conversation with myself, trying to explain to an imaginary version of my gramma about my self-hate, when I realized the true reason; it wasn't just because she rejected me and I loved her, it's because she rejected a core part of who I am: Stories are Core of my Being. It's something about me that I cannot change, and this person whom I loved so deeply rejected it, which unconsciously made me reject it. Reject a fundamental part of my Self.

These last two years, I've been recovering, now that I've stopped lying to myself about it. It's been a difficult road (I still have trouble accepting compliments), but I've made a mantra to remind myself whenever things start to get bad again: I am a Good Person, and I am allowed to be happy.

(As a side note, my definition of "a Good Person" comes from the Eleventh Doctor line "Good men don't need rules." I don't really have any rules by which I live my life, I just do it and, apparently, non-family people like me. It shouldn't be hard to believe, but it still kinda is...)

4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Hogfather'... · 0 replies · +2 points

So, it's been almost three years since this, but I did finally discover what that movie was.

Turns out it was a parody; with three different titles: Naked Space, Spaceship, and The Creature Wasn't Nice. The movie was apparently considered a flop that didn't succeed as either a comedy or a horror movie, except, apparently, an eight-year-old me.

4 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Doctor W... · 1 reply · +12 points

I was actually rather annoyed at One's characterization in this episode. I later learned from TV Tropes that it was his way of needling his future self, as all Doctors grate on each other, but I feel like they could have done it differently.

And I feel it needs to be said that One has lost quite a few companions, though the only one who died was only around for a single serial. First, Susan stayed behind with a freedom fighter she had fallen in love with on a future Earth, then Ian and Barbara took a Dalek Timeship back to their time (though they missed the mark by two years). Four others would join and leave before the end, and the last two he had before the first regeneration were Ben and Polly, as seen at the start of this episode.

Which, by the way, I loved; particularly the "709 episodes ago" at the bottom of the screen.

5 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Babylon ... · 8 replies · +14 points

And here’s The Big 5 questions:
Who Are You?
What Do You Want?
Where Are You Going?
Why Are You Here?
Do You Have Anything Worth Living For?

6 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Predicts 'Games W... · 0 replies · +3 points

We've now gone into uncharted territory for me. I'll be going into "Interim Errantry" as unprepared as Mark.

6 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'A Wizard o... · 1 reply · +2 points

I find it mildly amusing that the Lanterns are mentioned in this chapter, since I'm right now reading a Lantern-based fanfic (A SI for Young Justice called "With This Ring." The special twist is that the Lantern Ring in question is Orange).

Speaking of the Lantern Corps. Let's have a little discussion: What Corps. do you think you'd be in and why?
(For the unknowing, the Lanterns are as follows: Red-Anger, Orange-Greed, Yellow-Fear, Green-Will, Blue-Hope, Indigo-Compassion, Violet-Love, Black-Zombie(seriously), White-Life)

I think I'd fit best in Blue, though I could also see myself as a Green. Despite my now-fading negative outlook on myself, I actually like to think the best of the future (though I try to temper that with some amount of realism), and I have some kinda-crazy dreams for the future, though my greatest wish is for a world where the concept of money is obsolete. That being said, If willpower and stubbornness are in any way compatible, then my potential for the Green is actually fairly high as well.

6 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'A Wizard o... · 0 replies · +2 points

I think my adult precipice was actually around sixteen, odd as that sounds.

When I was nine or ten, I was constantly being told to "act my age" because I still wanted to play like I did when I was six or seven (It was in response to this that I came up with "I didn't know age had an acting requirement").

When I was eleven, however, I was angry almost all the time, for no discernable reason (thinking back on it, I'm going to blame puberty causing a hormonal imbalance or something). This caused me to get suspended halfway through sixth grade because I was startled by a teacher and punched him, fuming about it until he said he was going to call the cops (I didn't know at the time that he meant the school cops, because I didn't realize such a thing existed).

Fast forward a year and a half to the start of eighth grade and I was starting to get a handle on myself, in reaction to one more enraged outburst while I was in alternative ed. Unfortunately, I went too far on that front, and by the time I got to high school and was fourteen, I had done my best to be completely emotionless (didn't entirely work, but I still acted more vulcan than human).

It was in eleventh grade that I started to break up the frozen shell I'd put around my heart (metaphors!), and, curiously, it was because my third girlfriend was toying with me. It was after she broke up with me the second time that I really started to click into place, when I found my emotional balance and started to really find my place.

This was also when I found that my specialty lay in stories, in a completely unrelated incident involving a classmate declaring that he never read a book if he could help it, and just how alien such a concept was to me, who'd been temporarily accelerated a grade because of how much I loved to read (temporary because they took something I enjoyed and made me do homework for it; I complained and cried until they sent me back to first grade).

Nowadays, I'm fully confident in Who I Am, and am slowly recovering from seven years of self-hate that I lied to myself about the cause of, while being greatly annoyed that so much hinges on such a worthless thing as money.

6 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Thief of T... · 0 replies · +6 points

When it comes to looking into new things I might want to read/watch/play I generally glance at the TV Tropes page for the work. Most of the time, I wind up looking down the list of tropes, and I browse with spoilers off. But on some things, I know that there's something huge that I might not know the details of and want to preserve that twist.

Like in Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I never went past the initial summary on that until after I finished the series, and I'm glad I did. Same with the Mass Effect: Andromeda page, even though it was really tempting to look stuff up while I was playing it.

And there's some stuff that I have spoiled for myself but still winds up shocking me. Like the end of the Battle of Dai-Gunzan in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (anyone who's watched the show knows what I'm talking about). I read about the battle and was still caught by the twist, in part because of the Hope Spot they threw in there.

6 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'A Wizard o... · 0 replies · +11 points

I think it's in part because most people seem to operate with the belief that striking up a romantic relationship somehow negates a pre-existing friendship, despite (in English, anyways) the word "friend" being a part of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend." Plus there's the fear that if something goes bad, the friendship in question could be fractured with the romantic.

6 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Gargoyle... · 0 replies · +7 points

One of the things I'm glad of in this episode is that Goliath knows that the Phoenix Gate can't be used to alter history (the idea of hiding in history is a little more plausible, but why would you want to, knowing you can't change such a massive tragedy). As I've noted in previous posts, time travel in Gargoyles is of the Immutable Fate variety, much like Kingdom Hearts:

You can't change what's been established, you can only change what hasn't happened yet.

One of my first hints that something was off when I first watched this episode is that nobody questions who Angela is. Yeah, there's a bit of a war going on, but you'd think someone would at least go "Who? ...Never mind, let's just go" or something to that effect. I also misremembered Demona meeting Angela in "Sanctuary," so I was confused as to how she'd know. The question instead becomes "how did Puck learn of their relationship?"