#AND THE WORSE PART IS HES RIGHT

[anotherferalrat]

God. Fuckin. Dammit guys.

Youuuu lil gremlins didn't warn me.

My friends got me (dragged me against my will) into Genshin (hell)

And I spent-

8 REAL PERSON HOURS

grinding a bunch of quests. I am ruined. What am I supposed to do now? I streamed after a while bc I was bored and my friend came on and was like... wow. you've really been no life-ing this huh?

[egophiliac]

Since book 7 part 5 (the part where we meet Meleanor/Maleanor 👀) is coming to EN this month, i would love to see your take on lilia’s proposal to meleanor! i mean they were like little kids right? it couldn’t have been that serious…i think the only reason she even brought it up again is because she could tell lilia still genuinely loved her…(even if he didn’t realize it himself?) but, oh well! Let’s think about silly childhood shenanigans to numb the pain! ^_^ (orz)

oh shit?! get ready for a doozy guys, it's comiiiiiing ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

I chickened out of posting the whole thing (look, I get VERY carried away when it comes to these wacky kids and their Tragedy), but I do believe that it probably ended with Lilia getting embarrassed and just shoving the first thing he sees into his mouth to try and cover for it.

(we're just lucky it wasn't a frog this time)

[anomaliex]

I think Gorgug grows up trying to take up as little space as possible.

I think that as a child, before he was all that conscious of his own decisions, he broke a lot of stuff. That's fine, small children do that and his parents have had him since he was a baby. A huge baby, especially for gnomes. A huge baby that grew into a toddler the size of his parents who's (again, normal and okay) tantrums did actual property damage because he's an orc. They were never mad at him for it, they'd never be mad at a child experiencing big emotions and not yet able to process them or understand consequences, but we know how their families reacted to that. We know that they always saw him as something that would grow up to be a threat.

I think that pretty much as soon as he develops a sense of it Gorgug starts feeling ashamed. He's ashamed of how nothing ever fits right, and of how loud he gets when he's upset, and of how the other kids in the neighbourhood (because it's a small folk neighbourhood!!) get scared of him sometimes, and of how when he has bad dreams he breaks his bed and is unable to control himself, like a baby. There was probably a time where he thought he was really clumsy and he was ashamed of that too, but by the time he turns like twelve Gorgug kind of understands that he's not more clumsy than the average kid, it's just that every time he drops something or bumps into a shelf it'll do so much more damage than if anyone else he lives around were to do the same.

(And his parents are talented tinkerers but sometimes their work is so delicate and all he ever does is wreck things. He doesn't dare touch it no matter how much they try to share this passion with him — eventually they assume he just doesn't like it and they would never force him to do something he doesn't want. Gorgug doesn't let himself discover how much he enjoys it until sophomore year. I wonder if he regrets all those years he spent fearing the possibility of ruining things and depriving himself of something he ended up loving.)

(And he was never "stupid", it's just that all he ever thought himself of was a brute so he never entertained the possibility of his own intelligence until faced with it. He didn't know he could thrive academically so it wasn't something he ever considered committing to. He literally just played bloodrush because he was good at it, not because he liked it. He just thought he had to, and he thought math is something he couldn't possibly do. Why try?)

Entering Highschool Gorgug is very shy, and he doesn't really have friends. Adults always like to blame the latter on the first, but sometimes it's the other way around and sometimes it's a vicious cycle. Sometimes you're six years old and none of the kids in your elementary school class are anything like you but you desperately try to fit in until you slip up and show them how much of a freak you are one time (I think he got mad. I think he broke a table. I think someone cried. I think maybe there was a teacher who was so much smaller than him and looked at him as if he were something to be feared. I think that in that moment he decided that he is. Or at least his rage, maybe.) and then you never get to have friends again and you shrink in on yourself and you don't understand how anyone else does it — it's not even that you're scared you just don't understand, and maybe you just want to be alone. And then a happy outspoken child grows into a shy teenager because they don't have any friends.

I think Gorgug is careful. He is so gentle and empathetic and kind and he is so careful because every time he isn't something breaks. And every time he raises his voice someone is scared of him and all he ever wants is people to not be afraid. So he hunches over, and he stands in the corner, and he scoots to the very edge of the bench so you don't have to sit too close to him, and he takes every insult to his face without fighting back lest he'll get upset and despite all his fucking efforts all it takes is one asshole to take it too far and he feels himself snap and all he wants to do is break something and hurt and twist and kill. And that scares him. He doesn't allow himself to be angry (and as wonderful as Digby and Wilma are they don't understand. They don't understand that he has to be, that he has to let it out some time.) so he bottles it up and every time it explodes out of him he doesn't know how to handle it other than to swing his axe and kill maul bite snarl kill.

But then, his adventuring party seems to not mind his rage, or his size, or his freakish strength. If anything they seem to like it, or at least respect him for it. He's never considered doing something like music before because that's for talented people and it's art and he doesn't do art because his hands are only good for destruction, not creation. Right? He does the music anyway. It's nice because there he's allowed to be angry on the drums and no one thinks it's weird.

He meets a girl that finds his rage attractive and he was scared that he'd scared her but he didn't. Ragh becomes one of his dearest friends and maybe for the first time Gorgug looks at a raging (half-)orc — all snarling and panting and bearing his teeth and twitching at any sound or scent — and doesn't find himself appalled because all he sees is someone that's fighting to keep him and his friends safe. And oh, maybe it's okay to be enraged.

I think he grows into a young man that doesn't love being angry but stops hating it too. He likes, in a way, that he gets angry over the right things, and he likes that being angry enables him to protect those he cares for. In the end his rage is a survival instinct and it's good to be alive. That leads to him, for a while, only accepting his rage as something that's fine to express in combat, and if it's outside of combat then only to his friends. There's still this need to make himself palatable, to tone himself down so everyone stays comfortable around him, but that also fades eventually.

During junior year he does finally come out of his shell enough to just express his anger the second he feels it. I think it is liberating and it's also the scariest thing he's ever done, and he went through a forest that made him confront his deepest fears already. (And that's exactly what it was. The inconvenience to his parents, the fear it strikes in others, the rejection it brings, the way it seems to reduce him to a weapon or maybe a wild animal and to some people including parts of him means he absolutely cannot be an intelligent or loveworthy person. He's always been afraid of his own rage.)

I think that if a younger Gorgug could see his older self snarl at one of his friends for making a joke about his parents' lawnmower, with his tusks fully grown out and muscle finally starting to fill out his clothes a little, so strong and so dangerous and so unashamed of it, he'd feel no relief and only horror. I think acceptance is something that feels alien to him right up until he suddenly achieves it.

[turtleblogatlast]

I think a lot about Leo’s tendency to push his way into the spotlight despite clearly being a natural in the shadows. Hell, you could argue that his worst moments are when he’s forcing himself onstage, and his best are when he does things no one notices until it’s already been done.

[serpentface]

A braithuvi horse at rest under the close protection and watchful, scary, pale-eyed gaze of her herd's guardian, a dírgrahdain. Both are landraces developed within the Highlands. The ancestors of braithuvi (and other Highlands native horses) were brought overseas by the ancestors of the Hill Tribes, while the dogs were obtained from native livestock guardian landraces used by proto-Wardi tribes. Each have become distinct over their centuries of living in the Highlands, and dírgrahdain are have a particularly unique place in the cultural schema.

Braithuvi are a woolly horse breed (and one of many, wool horses are widespread, second only to camala in value for textiles) that are also somewhat specialized for milk production. Their meat is relatively poor (other horses are preferred), but they produce high yields of milk and thick, continuous growths of wool.

Horses are not as culturally significant as cattle to most in the Highlands, but are still highly valued animals that are critical to subsistence. Few plant-based textiles can be produced in the Highlands, and almost all in the region are made with braithuvi wool. They can eat a greater variety of forage than cattle, more efficiently converting energy intake from pastures into milk and wool. Their milk is considered to be the very best of all livestock, and is usually what is used to make the prized murre beverage.

Dogs have a very small specific place in the cultures of the Hill Tribes as utilitarian working animals (specifically for livestock and occasionally as home/village guardians), and rarely ever fill other functions. The practice of keeping dogs purely for companionship is virtually nonexistent (though affectionate bonds between people and their herding or household guard dogs will be fairly common), and their meat is considered worthless. Most dogs are not elevated within the cultural schema, and tend to be merely appreciated as useful, loyal animals. Livestock guardian dogs are an exception to this, and tend to be of more significant cultural import. They are animals that exist to protect the herds on which all subsistence depends, and thus have an elevated cultural status and roles in religion and folklore as uniquely protective entities.

Dírgrahdain are the key livestock guardian dogs in the region, and the only natively developed LGD. Their name means 'lion dog', both in reference to their maned appearance and their ability to fend off and even kill the largest of predators. The dogs are characterized by tall, long-legged builds, deep chests, a curly tail, thick hair (and a thicker winter coat), and a shaggy mane. Their bodies tend to be thinner and lankier than their fur coat suggests, but still well-muscled and powerful. Their coloration can vary wildly, but a black mask with a brown or reddish body like this is most typical. Unnerving, pale eyes are prized in these dogs, with the belief that they not only intimidate predators but are uniquely potent at fending off malicious spirits.

The dog's exclusive function is to protect livestock. They are used primarily for the defense of horses, which are small and very vulnerable to predators (lions, hyenas, king hyena, wild dogs, jackals, nechoi, and even eagles can be threats), though some dogs will usually be posted up with cattle herds to deter raiders.

Pups are most commonly born in the field among their herds. They will be carried in their master's coat while still nursing, but will be allowed to join their mother in her duties from the moment they are strong enough to follow. Dírgrahdain live with their herds day and night. Most will never see the inside of a home, and most seem to prefer it that way. They form close and protective bonds with their charges, and will thoroughly integrate themselves into the social fabric of the herd.

These dogs are not human-oriented, and will usually only form bonds with people that they have imprinted on as puppies (and will merely be cool and polite to those met later in life). They are highly aggressive towards strangers, and introductions must be done incrementally and with great care. This is desirable, as this trait makes them an excellent line of defense against livestock raids. Their loud, booming barks can alert of intruders from a great distance, and they can often successfully intimidate khait, causing some mounted raids to end in humiliating failure. Dírgrahdain are often killed in raids, either to fend off the attacking dog or to silence it before its master can be alerted. This is not outright dishonorable, but not something one will be commended for. Cattle raiding culture here values swiftness, stealth, and strategy- such smash and grab tactics are seen as brutish (and will often result in harsher retribution).

Like most LGDs, they primarily defend their herds by displays of aggression and power, using their loud bark, fearsome growl, and powerful bodies to chase and intimidate predators away without physical contact. Even so, it is necessary for all working dírgrahdain to be willing and able to physically confront predators when necessary. A well-trained, well-bonded dog will defend their herds with their very life, and is often effective in combat against even very large wild predators. Their dense ‘manes’ offer a degree of protection from wounds to the throat, and may be supplemented with spiked collars.

If a mother dog kills a predator, it is often customary to open the carcass and lead her puppies to feed on it. This is thought to teach the pups to be fearless against their enemies, and that they will grow up to be uniquely powerful and brave adults. Pups are given names upon reaching adult size, and ones who have consumed the flesh of predators will get unique names related to their mother's kill, or epithets as supplements to a given name (the exact details of this practice culturally varies). One might encounter dogs in the Highlands named things like Lionsbane, Hyena-killer, She Who Bites Jackals, Lion-Fed Shaggy (Lion-Fed being the honorable epithet, Shaggy being the dog's name, possibly given by a very small child)

The mere gaze of a dírgrahdain is said to fend off malicious spirits, and their thundering bark can scare away even the most dangerous of mountain devils. Their shed hair is needle felted into little dolls (usually into the form of dogs themselves) and placed into the cradles of infants and worn as charms by children to protect them from harm (both mundane and supernatural). Manes taken from dead dírgrahdain have uses among some of the Hill Tribes, and are typically only allowed to be used by their masters (unless recieved as a gift). The most prominent usages are being worn to fend off evil spirits and predators while traveling alone, and some traditions involve placing the manes around the necks or across the bellies of women in labor as a means of spiritual protection for mother and child during birth.

The Hill Tribes and Wardi both identify the same constellation along the ecliptic as a dog. In the case of the former, this stellar dog is identified as Mak-Urudain, a gigantic dírgrahdain with fur the color of flame and eyes as bright as stars, who is the eternal guardian of the Celestial Fields. He allows the souls of the worthy dead to pass into the afterlife and for esteemed ancestors to descend back to the land to guide the living, while preventing malicious spirits, devils, and the dishonored dead from entry.

One Bernike tale describes her attempting to fly into the Celestial Fields to steal the heavenly cattle who graze there. She took the form of a golden eagle, pretending to be an ancestor returning from a sojourn to the world of the living in order to get past the guardian hound. Mak-Urudain was not fooled for long, and led her on a long chase through the night sky before capturing her and hurling her out of the Celestial Fields.

She was never able to even touch the ground of the Fields (much less take any cattle), but had just enough time to take a single seed of heavenly grass in her beak. She returned to her mountain (missing most of her tail feathers and much of her pride) and planted the grass in her then-barren slopes. This is why the grass on Bernike's mountain is so tall and abundant and why cattle there grow so fat and healthy, like all cattle will in the afterlife. The howling winds heard from the mountaintops are playfully suggested to be the barks and howls of Mak-Urudain, calling down from the heavens to keep the witch grounded in the world of the living.

[wildstar25]

MiqoMarch Day 20 - Memory

Rare is it to see you so shaken. I can only imagine what thoughts must be consuming you at this moment, my love.

[backpackingspace]

Odysseus: Oh btw honey we should probably start preparing for all of our trade shipments to crash horribly

Penelope: so that storm was you pissing off poseidon I KNEW IT!

[starry-bi-sky]

realizing i have. a lot of untapped trauma potential for clone^2 danny because i just Fully Processed Four Months Late the fact that his parents were capturing and torturing ghosts in the basement before he became Phantom. and the fact that he was on house rest for 2 weeks. during that time period. and he wasn't really leaving the house. he could hear their screaming through the floorboards

*points at clone danny* i can give you suuuuuuch a bad time babe ahaha. i've got two untouched years before you meet damian what fucks you up before then

[eternity-death]

Okay guys now it’s time to consider…

Sunday being in love with Reader… but being unable to act on his feelings because The Dream Master disapproves of it…

The yearning in this would be INSAAAAAANNNE.

[sunb0ts]

something that always gets me about klavier is that he is so clearly just like. friendly. he cares so much and he cares too much. he's one to tease simultaneously but he so clearly just like. loves and loves and loves, even when it puts him in harm's way, he likes people and he likes being around people enough to be desperate for it and for friendship like. ough

[b4kuch1n]

glorioso from last years twitterin

[clevercatchphrase]

As the story is going forward, asriel has been getting more on the 'Overprotective' and controlling type person. He has learned even guilt trip. How did you figure out these personality traits From canon asriel?

I took all of Flowey's worst qualities and watered them down until I felt a kid could logically embody those qualities, too. Flowey is, after all, Asriel at his absolute worst. And what are some traits about Flowey we know? He's controlling (like his save scumming in his omega flowey fight to always get the upper hand), manipulative (guiding you towards the best ending for his own plans) and obsessed with Chara (to the point of not wanting to live in a world without them). Heck, even at the end of the TP route when you fight hyper death Asriel, his monologue STILL depicts him as controlling and obsessed with Chara, even after he has souls inside of him again. (like him wanting to reset the world so that "chara" can never leave him, and they can play together for ever)

Asriel always had the potential inside of him to become Flowey with all those cruel tendencies, though probably the reason those tendencies manifested to begin with in the game's story was from him lacking a soul which then diminished his empathy after he died and was resurrected.

In the flashbacks of this comic, Asriel still has his soul (for the time being). If someone were to ask him if it was okay to control his friends, he'd say "no, that's wrong", but he also knows it's wrong for his friend to try and hurt themselves, and will do whatever it takes to prevent that. He uses his concern for their well-being as a justification to micromanage everything they do. In his mind he's "protecting" them, he's "helping" them, he's "saving" them, and that is a "good thing" so it "doesn't count" as controlling them. He doesn't even know what guilt tripping is. Let's also not forget that Asriel's a kid with little life experience and honestly doesn't even realize what he's doing is harmful in other ways. If an adult explained to him why his tactics for protecting Chara could cause more harm than good, he'd be truly horrified.

Sadly, both Chara and Asriel have each hurt the other (be it intentionally or unknowingly) which makes them both reluctant seek out help from adults. For Asriel, if he told his parents what Chara was trying to do, he fears Chara won't trust him or be his friend anymore. For Chara, if they were to tell an adult that they don't like the way Asriel is treating them, it would mean having to explain why he's treating them like that, which would also mean having to explain their plans of self-sacrifice, which they know would make the adults upset, and could potentially lead to punishment. (of course the Dreemurrs would never hurt Chara, but Chara just Will Not take that risk due to bad experiences they had in the past from their time on the surface). And tragically, their attempts to help the other in their own flawed, naive ways leads to each of their undoing.

[fumifooms]

Makima, devils and self-fulfillment

Dumping some Makima and CSM thoughts after a part 1 binge bc I think about her forever and ever. I’m sure I’m forgetting some devil lore, feel free to correct what i get wrong/what’s been confirmed. On the table of contents there’s why & how Makima got fixated on Chainsaw, her revealing liking for the country mouse and discussion of her nature & emotions & desires. Was the scorpion doomed to be a scorpion?

The most of this post was thought of during a conversation with @saccharineomens and I don’t think it makes sense to jump into the spiral it sent me on without first laying down the interesting groundwork theorizing she did:

"Thinking about how makima herself wants to be deified. I wonder whether she recognizes the difference between Love As Worship and the love that Aki, Power, and Denji had. She says she wants to help humanity by having Chainsawman eat the “bad” devils, but why does she want to help humans? Because she was ordered to by the Prime Minister? No, her drive seems much more personal than that, it seems like she teamed up with the PM for contractual reasons. (In the most recent chapters we see governmental members wanting certain devils to be eaten, too. What was Makima’s relationship with them? She’s too independent to just follow THEIR orders, she’s Control.)

So is she wanting to better humanity for the accolades, or out of the goodness of her heart? She sees the big picture. She sees any small sacrifice as worth it for the end result, and she’s ruthless. Perhaps she thinks that a more sedate human race would be easier to control? But Makima doesn’t loathe humanity. She never acts like she sees all humans as lesser. She loves humanity’s creations, like good food and movies. She just wants Good Things all the time

She says she prefers the country mouse BUT adds a story where she helps exterminate country mice like vermin. She likes the simplicity yet rejects the idea of being simple. Makima the complex individual you are"

~

The story itself seems to prefr the country mouse. Well- it strikes a balance, shows that a risk to live good & fully can be very worth it, but still that stability over ambition is preferable, proning having a simple happy life over fame, a simple job instead of a dangerous one, etc etc. And I do find Makima’s answer on this so so interesting, she prefers the country mouse, but this preference isn’t out of affection or sympathy but because of how relaxing it feels to exterminate them when they cause problems.

Order satisfies her. Her order satisfies her. She likes the action of rooting out disorder. Maybe this is the devil part, like how Power especially wants blood and drinking it, I feel there’s an itch to every devil, and for Makima it’s a very rigid world view/morality/standards & making things follow her rules and submit to her order.

And maybe this is why she’s attached to humans too, why she felt it was worth it to stick with the government- because devils are chaotic by nature (it’s a whole plot point that hell is essentially a free-for-all battleground for example), meanwhile humans are the species that universally rule Earth with systems they invented and instilled. They made then enforced rules, complex and intricate webs of them. She feels alienated amongst devils but she understands the humans’ need for an orderly organised society, and now she wants to be part of it. Control and conquest require social dynamics after all, requires civilizations or groups. War is chaotic while peace is, well, peaceful— Makima resents her sisters for being death, famine and war, things that throw the world in such chaos. She wants a world of perfect order, no matter how much collateral damage there will be if the end result is control.

This is even more interesting if you consider that yes, Makima is untouchable of her own design, she deifies herself with her omnipresent amount of control and the sway over others that she seeks and encourages— There is this urge to dehumanize her for it, that yes, she is the devil of control and that means she was never going to be any different, have any more feeling be any less uncanny. And I love part 2 so much for this, because it shows us the war devil and the famine devil and we see how frankly uncharismatic with poor self-discipline they are, Nayuta too, and it helps us realize just how much Makima’s success was self-made.

She admires Chainsaw Devil, the Hero of Hell, because he had his own code and his own rules and he made Hell, the chaos pit, submit to them unfailingly. Wherever he goes he decides what he does and what happens to the people he encounters but does so consistently, he has his mechanism and his rules that he always obeys, and he fulfills them every time. It’s still a mystery the why of Chainsaw Devil’s behavior back then and how it works exactly, maybe Pochita left hell because he was tired of these rules he lived by like chains, but still, he was a servant to his code. Makima would have been glad being killed and eaten by Chainsaw Devil because it’d have been becoming part of his design, his conquest, his domination, she’d have been part of that —his— order. Through her death she would be shaping his world and be part of a conqueror’s making history. Like how she appreciates the country mice that die for the sake of order. Like how sacrifices must be made to herself, like listing the name of every person whose life was lost to the Gun Devil— All for the ~greater good~, for her vision for the world. Conquest always thinks its reasons are justified.

And she does mention with the country mice thing that she goes out to a friend’s farm every year! She has a human friend?? That she visits yearly and she genuinely likes it?? Ultimately she lives a busy city life because of her goal and drive and her urge & satisfaction with overseeing shaping the world herself, but part of her, like so many characters including Angel and Aki and Reze, wishes she could live a slow peaceful country life. Moviegoing and dogs and mice in a farm- Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if Makima could find fulfillment and happiness in being a farmer, in keeping control of her own farm, getting satisfaction from exterminating vermin and expertly getting everything right, the right crops grown at the right time on the right soil? Here, too, in a way it’s trying to have full control of an ecosystem, but her goals would be easier to achieve and better, without ceaseless sacrifice or much pressure. But Makima wants grandiosity and her goal does matter to her on a fundamental and moral level, she does think she knows what’s best for the world, and with the power to change it why wouldn’t she strive to? Visiting the farm is just a break, just something she does in fall to help out and just in time to see the vermin extermination. It calms her, then it’s back to actual work.

In capitalism, even the one at the very top of the ladder is ultimately alienated from others and often unsatisfied by their lifestyle, always wanting more and more power because surely that’s the extra edge they must be missing to be content— like how Makima thinks she wants to dominate Chainsaw Devil instead of being his equal. And she says it herself too, she likes humans the way humans like dogs…….. And she keeps so many dogs :( Makima prefers the country mice because they’re calming to root out, maybe because she usually mainly deals with city mice. It’s very easy to equate humans to the mice in this allegory because it’s pretty direct and she’s already likened humans to lesser animals compared to her. She’s self-isolating by design for her design but she still craves relationships and contentment, and the dogs are the embodiment or her want for bonds and occasional simplicity because there is no possible ulterior motive, no way they tie back into her wider plan. They’re her personal life— something that feels so alien when speaking about Makima. Personality and individuality and likes and preferences and friends they visit every year. She likes how easily she can train a dog and how they become putty in her hands, at her beck and call, how much they love her and how much she enjoys their love. How simple and straightforward and easy it is. She keeps them because she likes being loved by them and loving them, and she’s gotten and raised so many. A conqueror always wants more and more and more, is never satisfied.

Devils and agency

Like Power the blood devil wanting blood and having a fixation on drinking it like with Denji’s, or how it was shocking that the violence devil was pretty tame and nice and how he himself theorized it was because he was a fiend and possessing a human body… There’s something to be said about nature vs nurture with the devils. The way they reincarnate and always embody their fear makes it seem categorically like nature, that they always always end up fulfilling the role they were named after and born to fill… Outside influence they’re helpless but to conform with. Like the humans accepting their spot in the social ladder and the shittiness of their living conditions and job under capitalism. Makima craved being equals with someone despite being the control/conquest devil, Angel Devil despite claiming to be a devil who likes to see humans dying was haunted by their deaths and wanted to avoid ones like Aki’s. The Ghost Devil being ironically haunted by Himeno, seemingly helping Aki in her memory out of… Lasting affection? Or maybe it was less about being haunted itself and more about it recognizing how Himeno haunted Aki, and acknowledging that, with the memento, paying her respect to the ghost of her. It’s Angel Devil’s devil nature that makes him like human suffering, so then is it his angel nature too to still care about their deaths? Is there truth to this or is that just personality, just our confirmation bias haunting every part of their identity like it might in their own view of themselves too? We do know different reincarnations of devils do have different personalities after all.

Yoru, war devil, is the most interesting one when talking about the nature vs nurture debate with devils. There is how through her we see the perhaps the most the consequences of a devil stopping being feared— we see a horseman for a concept as universal and horrifying as war be reduced to some bird who needs a contract with a human to have any power even just on the situation when meeting Asa. And through the story we get to know her better, and it becomes clear that her goal is fueled in good part by simply wanting to be remembered and respected through fear. Liked, validated, seen a powerful. But what is more isolating than war? Or control? We also see Nayuta accepting others’ house rules. If part 1 shows perhaps the futility of running away from the truth, with Denji’s memory, with escapist coping mechanisms, with passivity and denial under a corrupt system and with abusive relationships- running away from your own feelings and from the reality of things and from all that you are, more complex than simply human or devil or both or neither— part 2 builds upon the theme of cult of personalities, the chainsaw church, etc. The apocalypse is coming, but this celebrity superhero might save us all, or doom us all uh, dunno. The hero of hell reliving the cycle of pressure from responsibilities and expectations, maybe the part will end with Denji running away like Pochita did~

But yes, on the reverse, I think Famine is a very interesting example of how a devil’s namesake may be more innate than coerced by circumstances. One would think that a famine devil would only like inflicting famine upon others, not being famished itself, but Famine has a bottomless stomach that can never, ever be satisfied, sated. I struggle to find a psychological explanation for this, except that maybe instead of her being hungry it’s her feeling empty when she’s not eating, tasting and having that high sensory experience that releases serotonin in humans, sort of like drugs? But I do take this as a step towards the compulsion theory overall, feels like a reach in the consistency otherwise. And compulsion does not mean it’s something that they like nor that it’s something that they fight against, pretty neutral, just a nature that nudges you towards one path. Maybe it’s even just their go-to for entertainment. Maybe it’s the only thing that makes them feel right and whole. But still the debate remains, what is it, a compulsion or an urge or an itch or an active desire or a conscious chosen want? Does it change anything in practice?

And because of all of this earlier, devils being self-fulfilling prophecies with their role is not in unsignificant part nurture, because doing their atrocities is how they stay remembered— feared, powerful, known— hell and devils are a very isolating place and breed after all, and we do see devils can want companionship. Existentially, it’s their purpose and how they justify their place in the world, in the terrifyingly vast and unknowable cosmos.

We still know so little of what makes Chainsaw Devil so special, why his carnage is so self-controlled. Despite a chainsaw maybe being possibly one of the most "nature" thing you can be— a tool to cut things, a human tool that can be helpful for many things, something to be wielding by another at their judgement on what they decide, but mainly something to cut, a tool suited for carnage, to hurt and to destroy. A blade with a toothed chain, spinning around and around and around endlessly on the same road at the same pace. Such a…. Innately circular concept. And yet the Chainsaw Devil is his own, not driven by an urge or by chaos but his very own brand of order, his own unique assigned purpose, a "if you call i’ll come running to help" policy equalizing everyone. He chooses to withhold his destruction and interference otherwise, and then he chooses to be used. If it’s a choice, of course.

Maybe this is what inspired Makima so much, that Chainsaw Devil could decide what to make of himself despite expectations or innate role. Because even Hell he decided & managed to subjugate under his will and whim, with a precise vision and process. When Chainsaw Devil acts like Denji or is defeated, Makima clicks her tongue and loses her admiration and respect. Makima admired and liked Chainsaw Devil, but only as long as he matched her great image of him in her mind, as long as he followed he rules for what she thinks he should be like. She admired him for his unrivaled self-made success, but once he stepped out of that to truly embody self-fulfillment and agency, disappearing from hell to live on his own road at the beat of his own drum… Well. Surely that was a mistake she has to correct. However their second battle ends, the better conqueror will have prevailed and she’s happy about that, all in the spirit of domination and subjugation.

Imo Makima’s biggest tool, similarly capitalism’s most helpful effect for its own purposes, is complacency. Resignation and passivity helps uphold the system and go along the flow of the will of the people in power. Aki and Reze go along with orders even when knowing their job is trash, etc. In Angel Devil especially we see him go along with the flow uncaring about anyhing, and we discover it was in part due to Makima taking away memories that motivated him. If every devil decides this is just how things are and how things should be that’s what they’ll continue to be and do mindlessly, not pursuing a better life like Chainsaw Devil and Denj and not seeking to change the world like Makima. I think even Makima veils herself to a lot of things, she doesn’t like to think deeply about some things, like her desire for connection, or how making bad movies disappear is strenuous and unsustainable and requiring sacrifices at best— how her judgement is as subjective as anyone else. How liking the country mouse and her friend back at the farm and her dogs could be not devoid of sentimality. Wanting bad movies erased is her one biggest show of selfishness, of pettiness and individuality, it’s about her tastes, simple as. About how she can have tastes, and cry seeing a scene of people hug, and want things that aren’t logical, her ideology and mind twisted into a pretzel to avoid acknowledging that she doesn’t live and breathe purely for the mission she’s made a single-minded robot out of herself to accomplish. Nayuta is assertive and selfish and loud, Makima is manipulative and strategically both for her goals and for coping hollow.

Everything in her plans and goals she says is for the greater good, necessary evil, manufactured happiness the way she’ll have decided for people— and that’s the thing isn’t it, like with War, it’s the crack that shows it was all truly about herself after all. Her self-made deification still had the flaw that a self made it. Makima is not omniscient, and it’s not Chainsaw Devil the not-so-fellow-kindred-soul conqueror who gets the best of her, but a city mouse, a dog, someone she would have never thought to respect, Denji.

[ziracona]

Oh my god it all happened exactly like I said it would ToT and Peter was so mean! "I know why you did it-" "--To help my friend!" "--and because you're a criminal, and I was an idiot for expecting more" PETER. Like I get it he's got a skeleton in his closet now and that's a fucked up thing to do to someone, but the boy HAD. NO. CHOICE. And also Peter! Peter Burke!! ASAC PETER BURKE?? You've done illegal shit before! What about the Burke 7 or whatever number? What about telling Neal to flee the Marshals when it was illegal because 'He didn't deserve it'? You were right!!! You already know that the law is not always what is just, and the just thing is the right thing, you just cannot apply it to yourself right now! PETER. PETER

God El is fighting for Neal's life right now. Our woman in the trenches carrying his broken body through the gunfire trying to save that relationship. She's so right and bless.

Jones is NOT helping and it would be fine if Dianna was there to balance him out but she just had a BABY and is on maternity leave and it's a perfect storm of hell TuT

And now Hagen has Neal's stupid girlfriend who it's been so so clear is evil since her first scene but he's too fool to see he's getting played and she's been 'kidnapped' by (read: working with) Hagen and Neal won't go to Peter bc Peter basically told him to go die, and everyone but Mozzie and El is making terrible decisions every 3 seconds and

[corybiit]

So Lestat went to Paris to find Armand so he would give him his blood so he could heal faster after the poisoning and the fire in New Orleans Armand literally heard the story, though, this is the way to get rid of Claudia.

Planned the whole trial, imprisoned Lestat while planning everything denying him his blood and starving him until after the trial then went back to the tower that Lestat gave him and literally pushed him out of a window.

Ah, and that was after he told Lestat the other vampires had killed Louis. Okay, great, yeah, I thought I wanted to burn amc Armand, You don't even know half of the things I want to do to book Armand.

[kingdomhearts-and-soriku-trash]

After KH 3 and everything, I wonder if Riku knows about Anti-Sora and knows what that Side of him is.

Does he ever wonder about when Sora became a heartless? Like late at night does he ever think about his actions all those years ago in Hollow Bastion (I think that’s where it happened right??)

Do these questions ever plague him in the night and he can’t sleep because he feels at fault and he’s tired of feeling this way but Sora isn’t there anymore to help him understand that’s it’s okay?