#BUT HE DOESN'T TRY TO ARGUE

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

main take aways from Halloween (1978) rewatch:

michael myers is canonically 21??? this bitch should be at the club

*sees tiddies* ***MURDEROUS RAMPAGE NOISES***

that's it that's the movie

outside of the fact that everyone who has sex is murdered by the narrative, this is a surprisingly chill portrayal of female sexuality? these teen girls are horny and actively enjoying Getting It On with their boytoys. no pushy boyfriends sneaking in through their bedroom windows--these ladies are taking the initiative to sneak out and GET SOME. one of them gets laid and then immediately orders her boyfriend to get her a beer. (yes she gets Slashered soon afterward, but so does the boyfriend so honestly, gender equality.) yes the Final Girl is the only one not having sex, but she's not bullied for that, nor are her friends slut shamed except possibly by being murdered by the narrative

actually the only character who is shown being morally condemned on-screen is michael myers. specifically FOR his violent overreaction to other people's sex lives. (people he is spying on). metaphorically, the villain is American Puritanism sticking its judgy nose into other people's business.

aka Michael Myers Is A Republican

but actually the real villain is the doctor. guy's a judgemental, shaming, pathologizing asshole. and he's been in charge of michael's care since he was SIX YEARS OLD? kid never had a chance. i'd go on a killing spree too

also the parents. where are the parents? it's halloween night and all the teenage girls are home babysitting their younger siblings? come to think of it, michael's first victim was his own older sister, whom he killed while she was babysitting him. teen girls are really shouldering a labour burden here. maybe parentification is the true villain

side note: mike commits his first murder wearing a clown costume...which is never referenced again? his 'iconic' costume is a generic mask and wig and jumpsuit, when we coulda had a Killer Clown Michael Myers??? travesty

i like how the Final Girl and her friend casually smoke weed in her car. yeah she's an honor student and her friend is the sheriff's daughter. yeah they smoke weed. so what it's 1978

(to reiterate, mike is 21 and should be at the club. im not saying he shouldn't be rampaging, im saying it's sad that he broke out, tasted freedom for the first time in his life, and immediately snuck back into his childhood home to go rampaging. let's have a remake where he goes to a nightclub and has a few beers. maybe some slutty dancing. then rampage)

oh no he's hot

[sweetlullabyebye]

Charles' thing is that he wants to feel alive and that's part of the reason why he decided to never move on to the afterlife right? Meanwhile Edwin thinks Charles will move on and that he'll be alone again because 'he isn't good with people'.

But then when the Night Nurse shows up a second time Charles is ready to go wherever -including Hell- as long as Edwin shouldn't have to go back there, meanwhile Edwin refuses that they be split up, and both are okay with being sent together to the Lost and Found Department to be sorted out later as long as they're together-

[rainbowberriesandcookies]

"Orihime being afraid of Ichigo's hollow power shows she doesn't fully accept him."

I see this take and similar ones pop up from anti fans of Ichigo and Orihime and try to say that Orihime is bad, in the wrong, etc. for being afraid of his hollowfication powers when her first encounter with a hollow was her brother Sora.

I know the anime did a lot of damage to Orihime's character - especially by taking these scenes out and altering them compared to the manga - but when Ichigo begins to undergo the same process as Sora, it only makes sense that she's afraid.

Not because she's afraid of Ichigo but because what he can become.

And just like Sora said, "It would be [her] fault"

Also - this is to counter the whole "Ichigo and Orihime were never close/barely friends/just acquaintances" that I see floating around often too.

But all in all - Orihime was never afraid of Ichigo. She was afraid of what he could have become.

As Acidwire, Sora targeted Orihime because of her growing bonds with Tatsuki and Ichigo. He even says that he attacked them because they tried to tear him and Orihime apart and that she already knew why.

For clarity - what I'm about to say isn't me saying that Sora was abusive in life and I'm going to specifically try to use his name as a hollow "Acidwire" as much as possible to express the slight separation between Sora as he was while he was alive and Sora as he was when he became Acidwire.

Especially since early on, it established that hollows - while they were once former humans - often end up being twisted versions of the people they once were.

Now onto the point -

The "You already know why" isn't dissimilar from how abusers, manipulators, etc. often talk to their victims when they're angry or upset. It's similar to the silent treatment in a way where it implies that the victim intentionally made the abuser upset.

He references her prayers for him every day helped ease his own suffering before she became friends with Tatsuki and entered high school before she stopped praying for him altogether. He then says how it hurt him that when she got home, all she would talk about was Ichigo.

For one - the fact that Acidwire knows this proves that Ichigo and Orihime were at least already friends by the time the manga started. In contrast to the anime where Ichigo outright says to Rukia that they've "never had a real conversation"

Anyways - this here in and of itself proves Ichigo and Orihime at least knew each other beyond just acquaintances - because they were close enough for Acidwire to notice and be hurt by it.

She tries to defend herself but he cuts her off before attacking Ichigo again

Acidwire tells her to come with him back to when it was just the two of them. In the context of the story, this would basically be him killing her.

However, this is also a tactic abusers use known as isolation.

When she questions why she should go with him and why he'd hurt Ichigo and Tatsuki before saying that the brother she loved would have never done anything like this.

I feel like in the anime, it kinda breezed by these moments which are honestly heartbreaking in hindsight and key for the leadup to why Orihime was afraid when Ichigo would use his hollow mask.

but Acidwire's response to her refusal and saying that the brother she loved would never do this is to not just harm her, but blame her and say that he is going to kill her.

In the time that she's become friends with Ichigo and Tatsuki and slowly grew happier, Acidwire blamed her for his own despair and sadness.

The kind, loving older brother that she had always known became a monster that would kill her and everyone close to her, and it would be her fault that he did because she stopped praying for him.

Here, it shows how Acidwire views Orihime not as a person who should live her own fulfilling life, but as an object who should live for him because he gave up his entire life to raise and protect her.

Once again, not to say that Sora was an abuser or abusive person, but this line of logic is the same one that abusive and toxic parents often use when it comes to emotionally abusing their children. Saying how the sacrificed so much for their children to control how their children live their own lives when the child never asked to be born. Similarly, Orihime didn't ask to be born or ask for Sora to raise her.

Sora did because that's the kind of person that he is, but Acidwire turns these loving traits of Sora's into a manifestation of abuse.

And even though she has nothing to be sorry for... She apologizes to Acidwire because that's the kind of person she is.

It also shows how she puts on a smile so that way others don't have to worry about her. She didn't want Sora to think that she was sad and hurting, she didn't want him to worry about her so she buried and hid her own sadness.

She apologizes to Acidwire for making him sad and (in what she thinks are probably her last moments) says that she loves him and that she didn't mean to hurt him.

As he's slowly regaining himself, Sora admits that he already knew that Orihime was just trying to shield her sadness from him but still wanted her to pray for him because it was only in those moments that her heart was his.

Ichigo then tells him that it's the same, those who die and those who survive are just as sad as the other.

It's in this moment Sora had fully regained himself, enough to know that he couldn't stay in a form like this or else he'd come to hurt Orihime again. If he killed the little sister that he raised like a daughter over his own heartache, would he have been any better than their own abusive parents?

And finally, the two get to say goodbye properly.

Also - a side note - a lot of people criticize Orihime's passive nature and how she never seems to fight or argue with anyone but it's because the one time that she did have a fight with someone, they died and became a monster.

This entire sequence emphasizes why Orihime always tries to reach out to others in need and never argues or fights. She doesn't want her friends or even strangers, to become like how Sora became Acidwire.

Now, Rukia had changed/erased Orihime's memories following this event but it likely didn't work as intended since during the Rukia rescue arc, Orihime mentions that she's been able to see hollows and spirits ever since the encounter with Acidwire.

Now let's go ahead and jump ahead to VL Ichigo -

Going to Hueco Mundo - Ichigo already knew without having to be told or convinced by anyone that Orihime was in danger. Aizen did his best to make it look like Orihime was a traitor to the Soul Society and Ichigo never bought it

It's being put in plainer and plainer terms that Ichigo transformed as a response to Orihime's call for help.

Even if you want to argue that there was a mistranslation or that Ichigo doesn't directly reference Orihime, even if you remove all of the text the sequence of events goes

Orihime's cries

Ichigo began to move and get up - functionally coming back from being dead

Once again, even if you want to remove the text avoid arguing about whether or not it was properly translated - nevermind the fact that in Japanese pronouns are often omitted and there is a big assumption to just know who/what you are talking about -

Even without text, the images show Orihime crying, and Ichigo beginning to come back to life.

Both she and Ulquiorra question whether that is Ichigo

Now that said, I think that Ichigo vs Ulquiorra is one of the most brutal and best fights in the series. Both Uryu and Orihime know that this isn't Ichigo.

Yet remember how it is established that hollows often become twisted versions of the people they once were? This is a power that Ichigo can't control and yet uses it to protect the person who called out to him.

While I don't disagree with the notion that this is also White protecting Ichigo, it doesn't change the fact that Kubo intentionally drew Orihime and Ichigo rising side by side multiple times. Even without text, Kubo places emphasis on her and her cries for help against VL Ichigo - not White or Zangetsu.

And when Uryu tries to bring him back to his senses what does Ichigo do? Put a sword through him.

Once again, even if you want to remove any and all text, Kubo puts VL Ichigo paneled side by side with Orihime, and when Ichigo comes back to his senses

The first person that he sees is Orihime.

As much as I want, I'll save my yapping about Ulquiorra for a separate time.

But for a moment, even if only briefly, his desires to protect were twisted in a way that hurt those around him, and once again - Orihime was the catalyst.

Ichigo says that he didn't want to win like this - showing that he views fights as something more honorable than what White/VL Ichigo had done. His last memory being that he had a hole put in his chest, also shows that he more or less "blacked out" and had no control over his actions.

What is one of the things established when people become hollows?

That they lose control of themselves and their desires are twisted.

The difference between Ichigo and Acidwire is that Ichigo wants to protect Orihime while Acidwire wanted to own her - which is why Ichigo never directly harms Orihime even as he loses control of himself.

But - all of this yapping is to show how from Orihime's perspective, hollowfication and hollow powers aren't good. They turn people into monsters that hurt their friends and loved ones.

It's also established that Orihime is the type of person who will internalize her own thoughts and feelings (it isn't ""hubris"" as some people call it).

Whether or not you want to argue that it was an assumption that Ichigo became a VL because she cried for help, it doesn't change the fact that she still cried for help and that Ichigo became a hollow/VL.

From her own perspective, she blames herself regardless of whether or not you think that it is an assumption on her part that Ichigo became a VL to protect her.

And after all - why wouldn't she blame herself when her first encounter with a hollow - Acidwire - blamed her for the monster that he became?

I know I skipped over him using his mask in the fight with Grimmjow, but I already yap too much and wanted to try to keep an already long post short(er).

Anyway - all of this illustrates the trauma that Orihime has regarding hollows and hollowfication. It's not truly her fault - yet in both instances she blames herself.

And not just Kubo, but Ichigo himself is fully aware of this.

Which is why when he tells her not to worry and that he's still himself is so important - because it shows that Ichigo has learned to control that side of himself while at the same time, being aware that Orihime is someone who has been traumatized by hollows and hollowfication.

Ultimately - she doesn't want Ichigo to become a monster like Sora. For Ichigo, it's growth in his own ability while for Orihime it's comfort in knowing that Ichigo won't lose himself fighting to protect those he cares about.

In short, she isn't afraid of Ichigo - she was scared of him becoming a monster like Sora had.

[cementcornfield]

Did you see the clip of Joe yesterday?

Is it a clip now? Oh lord....was it funny at least?

It was the first time he ever used the F word in a conference.

He cursed? Y'all lying...I be trying to get him to curse, he don't curse when I'm talking to him...

[daily-hanamura]

[seeminglyseph]

Apollo's entire vibe in God Games feels like "Dad Said I Had to Be Here" and I feel like that's so Golden Child of him

[thegreymoon]

Post-canon Taxian-jun is 100% going to do boy math on both their ages and come to the conclusion that he is now, idk, some 42 to Chu Wanning's 29, just so that he can coerce him to call him "Gege" in bed 🤣🤣

[jq37]

I'm like genuinely interested as someone who thinks a lot about the craft of critique and fandoms the ways in which the current Rat Grinders discourse shows why you can't really apply the same lens you use to critique a pre written story vs an improvised actual play show by a bunch of comedians who are first and foremost concerned with committing to the bit. Like Porter's a great example of this, he went from a nothingburher to secretly evil with a whole lore and backstory!

In the same vein the Rat Grinders probably could have turned out to be not as culpable in all of this had the Bad Kids really tried to bond with them, but instead they focused on other things with the way downtime was structured! And because they did that they could pass the Last Stand, and are safe from Porter's rage thing! Like legitimately I really liked the mechanics of downtime this season, it just also came at the cost of developing the Rat Grinders!

(Though to be entirely fair, the BKs did try to engage with Oisin, Ivy, and Ruben and then Oisin launched the house, Ivy was racist, and Ruben still attacked Wanda so)

I think it's really fascinating from a storytelling/game design perspective! The downside is the Discourse is so tiring

Yeah it's interesting. I covered some of this in other asks so I'm gonna hit on the stuff I haven't yet.

If you're telling a story that is based partially on user input, it's not entirely fair to be like, "This subplot was underdeveloped" if the reason for that was that the players didn't make choices to facilitate that development. When DM's push hard for the players to care about things they're not interested in, they get hit with railroading accusations.

And even outside of the player choices, there are also the rolls. A BIG part of D&D is the randomness of the dice. Even if the players care about something, it doesn't mean they'll get it. I'll mention again that Kristen tried to roll Insight on Buddy before the final fight and got a Nat 1. What is she supposed to do? Roll again until she gets a good read on him? That's not how that works. If the dice aren't cooperating, there's not much you can do. And you can make sure your big story beats don't rely on dice but at the end of the day they *will* shape your story in ways you can't control.

Another key thing about the medium, as you pointed out, is things can change on the fly. The confluence of high rolls and serious interest can change things that were behind the screen canon in an instant. In Burrow's End, Aabria planned for Bennet to have a family but as soon as Tula/Brennan expressed interest in romancing him, she Thanos snapped that family out of existence. I don't know how much Brennan wanted the Rat Grinders to be recruitable but even if he'd planned them all to just be foils and evil and nothing else, I can totally see him flipping one if they'd really wanted to and it would have made for a good story beat.

Anyway, yeah! Interesting stuff to think about. Even though D20 often feels like a TV show, it's important to remember that it's a different beast in many ways.

[sherlockholmeshound]

whenever ppl try to come up with some version of 'romance and love isn't forbidden by the jedi, on this one novel-'

i'm just...

[hephaestuscrew]

It's so emotionally powerful to me that we don't hear any interactions between Minkowski and Eiffel in the finale between the scene when she tries to send him back on the Sol and the scene where she witnesses him losing his memories. That's more than an hour in the middle of the finale with no direct interaction between these two central characters whose dynamic is a core element of the show. For me, this makes both of those dramatic scenes even more moving, because they feel juxtaposed in a way they might not otherwise be if there was a Minkowski & Eiffel interaction inbetween them.

As the Sol prepares to launch, Minkowski tells Eiffel goodbye and she knows it could be the last time she speaks to him. She thinks she might never see him again, but at least he'll be safe. She thinks he might never forgive her for that choice, but at least he will have made it through this.

But his stubborn desperation to fight alongside the rest of the crew defies all her plans to protect him. And the next time she speaks to him - after she's been shot in the stomach during her attempts to reach him, after she's continued to look for him even as she's bleeding out - he is injured in a way she would never have expected. When she first sees him hooked up to Pryce's machine, maybe she thinks for a moment that he's unharmed, that they might all make it through this the way she hoped. Then she learns that his memories are already slipping away from him.

There's her desperate attempt to protect him at all costs, and then there's a life-altering harm that she couldn't protect him from, which she witnesses. Between these two moments, there aren't any scenes with both characters in together to bridge that gap. There's Eiffel yelling "Goddammit, Renée, DON'T DO THIS!", and then there's him telling her "It was an honor to serve under you, Sir." There's him pleading with her and then there's him forgiving her. There's Minkowski saying "Go home, Eiffel. Hug your daughter.[...] Goodbye, Doug.", and there's the desperate heartbroken way she says Eiffel's name after the memory wipe has gone through. There's two very different kinds of goodbyes.

And then, afterwards, there's two very different kinds of introductions.

[queerfables]

.

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[abrahamvanhelsings]

"goodsir is neoliberalism bc he tried to kill those guys blah blah blah" they kidnapped him and then they made him cut up men to be consumed as an act of control and pure humiliation by threatening to kill probably the last man he still liked in that party, forcing him to be complicit in an act he is viciously against, and to be complicit in the survival of the very men who betrayed the whole expedition and who are using him like a tool. and then the guy he's trying to protect comes up to him to sob and monologue at him about cannibalism and religion and acts of survival and belief as some kind of justification for the fact that he's an absolute pussy ass bitch who'd rather lie down and take it than stand up in the face of acts and circumstances he finds abhorrent. and goodsir was supposed to not be a cunt abt that? lol

[daz4i]

wait so chuuya has angel imagery about him in stormbringer. and dazai is referred to as a demon on more than one occasion. and. hold on. wait. I'm going insane. hold on.

[mbirnsings-71]

when none of the DC friends are online right now so I'm just crying about Guy Gardner by myself-

[chirpsythismorning]

Something that confuses me, is redditors logic of Mike's behavior? Specifically when it comes to the painting it just doesn't make sense to be fully convinced Mike can't possibly return Will's feelings?

For starters, they insist that Mike was uncomfortable with Will at the airport because he could sense Will's feelings for him and so that's why he couldn't hug him (as to not lead him on), and also panicked when he saw the painting bc he realized that he was probably the girl Will liked (according to El's letter). By their logic, Mike was obviously just uncomfortable with Will's feelings for him and the fact that he made a painting for him (with romantic implications) and that's because he does not return those romantic feelings whatsoever...

If we then apply that same logic to the van scene?... What the actual fuck is going on there then?

We got almost 5 seconds of Mike just staring at Will while he isn't looking as he's grabbing the painting, followed by Will handing it to Mike who looks confused like, For me? Are you sure? very visibly nervous, only to finally open it and look more relieved and happy than we've ever seen him, arguably in the entire show...?

Mind you, this is at a point when Mike fully assumed the painting is for a girl someone Will likes, right?

I repeat! According to their logic, Mike is under the assumption that this painting is for someone Will likes, and Mike is now currently finding out that it's for him and he is relieved???

WHY WOULD MIKE BE RELIEVED THAT WILL'S PAINTING IS FOR HIM, IF WERE BEING GIVEN A SCENARIO THEY ALREADY BELIEVE HAPPENED AT THE START OF THE SEASON, WITH MIKE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE WITH IT??

AND WHY DID MIKE LOOK HAPPIEST BEFORE WILL SAID EL'S NAME? WHY DID HIS SMILE LITERALLY FALL AFTER WILL SAID EVEN EL, ESPECIALLY EL?

AND WHY DID MIKE LOOK MOST EMOTIONAL WHEN WILL WAS DESCRIBING THEIR RELATIONSHIP OVER THE LAST YEAR PERFECTLY, USING WORDS MIKE ALREADY USED WHEN HE MADE UP WITH WILL EARLIER IN THE SEASON???