#I am a CHILDE APOLOGIST

[xmascritter]

Many gravity falls fans, circa 2016: OH MY GOD WHY DID MABEL HAND OVER THE RIFT. SHE'S SO DUMB, SHE'S THE WORST, WHY WOULD SHE EVEN DO THAT?! MABEL'S NOT A GOOD PERSON!

Alex Hirsch, circa 2024: **deep inhale**

SHE'S A CHILD OF IMPENDING DIVORCE AND IS GONNA HAVE TO GO BACK TO THAT

[lowpawly]

ok I am noticing for EVERYTHING I have truly loved in the last like 10 years there is some element of shame associated that I feel like I need to constantly clarify myself on. I feel like its almost a compulsion at this point like if I do not obsessively point out the flaws in the art I like someone is going to assume I am on board with them so I get stressed every time I say something positive about stuff I'm passionate over without stating the things I dont like about it. like I start getting really anxious I got that when I was super into su too like if I didn't spend every post making a disclaimer that there are elements I dont like then someone is going to Get me. how the fuck do you even address that in therapy I hate this place

[atlasblue85]

just copying this mostly verbatim from the dms but I think the difference between armand and louis that I really haven't seen anyone talk about yet is that yes they are both lying and deeply unreliable narrators but

we've seen time and time again with Louis that he believes exactly what he is saying at any given moment, believes it 100%, and only retracts when there's another source disputing it. we see it way at the beginning of the season with Claudia and her being able to dream, we see it in San francisco which admittedly his memories were fucked with there but still, and we see it again this episode with Lestat's version of how Claudia was made. I don't necessarily trust that Lestat's version is true either because Louis will just claim whichever he believes at the time. Even though lestat was lying about so much of what happened and their relationship for whatever reason Louis was willing to take at face value that this other version was correct. Louis WANTS to be telling the truth, the absolute truth, at all times, but unintentionally makes himself a liar by wholeheartedly believing incorrect memories.

whereas Armand, on the other hand, is a fully aware liar. he knows exactly what lies he is telling and when and where, and is deploying them with purposeful reason. A lot of people want to say he is lying all the time but like, the best lies contain the truth and armand knows that better than anyone. I would argue that he is actually the most reliable character because he's not prone to rewriting history to his own benefit the way Louis and lestat are. this next bit is from @doux-amer "does he do it [rewrite history]? yeah, but he's much more meticulous and does it more sparingly or at least does it in smaller doses whereas louis and lestat like to do sweeping changes (they are also super dramatic lmao vs. armand who's much more collected even if he's just as emotionally ruined)" Armand is telling as much truth as possible in order to more convincingly sell the lies when he does tell them.

[murkying]

q!quackity is my enemy

[day-night-darlix]

a lot of people are super hype for jade release meanwhile i'm very much not. she leaves a really bad taste in my mouth ngl

[coffeeisfortheresponsible]

darkstalker is such a complex character i couldn’t possibly fit what i want to say about him in anything less than an entire 5 paragraph essay,, but anyways you guys really have to stop simplifying his character and actions. yes he was the worst and did unspeakable things with no remorse. yes he made every choice for himself to become evil and no one forced his hand. but you have to understand that he was always going to turn out the way he did. it’s so important that he’s a hybrid for the element that he really was just the perfect storm. the combination of powers that he was born with should never have been possible—should never have happened. since the beginning of the book there was always an element of, something is wrong. something too powerful has been made. he never should have been born. but it was always inevitable that someone had to be born with the power he had. and his downfall was inevitable because of it. he was practically a god, and no one could stop him.

you guys have to understand that he was given a horrible hand with no good outcomes.

yes, he chose to play every bad card and make every wrong choice.

but there was never going to be a future where things turned out different. that is the whole point of the book.

darkstalker was too powerful and too smart for his own good. and his downfall had nothing to do with him, it’s just the natural corruption of having that much power. that’s why he’s a tragic character.

[devouraes]

if it were not for the sequel's final act, six's devouring of a nome ── one of the skittish little creatures she's had an otherwise mutually friendly relationship with, up until this point ── would easily be her most divisive action over the course of the series. and i by no means intend to downplay the horror of it, it's a disturbing scene that does exactly what it intended to, but i also feel like it's lead to many bad faith readings of six as a character and my intentions here are to try and dig past the surface level of it ; the consumption of the nome is framed as a bait and switch of sorts, with it offering her a sausage most likely smuggled from a guest's plate, unaware that it will be the target of her hunger instead. so first things first, why not eat the sausage ?

initially i read this as her hunger becoming more ravenous as it progresses, and this does seem to fit thematically with all that she eats over the course of the first game. first bread, then meat, then a rat, then the nome ; a sapient creature, and finally, the lady of the maw. however, this interpretation as a more literal reading of her actions has been debunked by tarsier in a post we'll get to in a second. i'm only bringing it up despite this because i believe that, while not being the actual textual events of the story, it still symbolically fits the narrative. now, for tarsier's post:

this tweet frames what many have interpreted as an act of senseless violence to actually be an attempt on six's part to escape the food chain the maw has built itself on. but that being said, the secrets of the maw chapters the hideaway and the residence come with the reveal that nomes are children under a spell. this is a piece of the story often used to further paint six in a malicious light, but the dlc put an emphasis on secrets ── it's in the title ── and the lady, the one responsible for the nomes, is defined by her mystery. nomes are one of the many little lost things in the nowhere, and six has no way of knowing of this. meaning, upon recognizing the food to be made from human meat, six made an ultimately futile attempt to keep herself separated from the guests and workers of the maw. to me, this strikes a balance between her nature as a survivalist and the fact that she is still a child, far from a normal one, but still one that refused to eat another to live, even if it was all for naught.

what follows this is six literally eating from the lady and also eating from the maw's guests in a more vampiric way as well. how does this fit into her previously trying to avoid consuming what she knows to be human meat ?

there's a lot of ways you can spin it, but my personal interpretation is that while her encounter with the lady is ── again ── a literal act, it's also invoking a lot of symbolism commonly tied to cannibalism in writing. cannibalism is often used to represent power over another, and when six takes a bite straight from her neck, she is imbued with the lady's magic. she's no longer just another runaway, now holding all of the strength and ability of the maw's ruler. but that said, i do not subscribe to the theory that she becomes the lady or even a lady, as stated in my rules page. when i say this, i don't mean she in any way gains power aboard the maw, personally i believe she leaves it behind, but she does sit at the top of that food chain now. this is one of the many ways the world of the nowhere is cyclical in nature, and it's worth noting how it fits into real world concepts such as the cycles of violence and abuse ; six devouring the lady was, to me, a defiant act, but one that showcases how children can often not escape these cycles on their own. six can ascend through the maw and leave it to rust, but not without taking a bite, not without shifting the power dynamic in place of escaping it. after all, what can she do to escape it ? she's only a child, one with a deeply supernatural hunger that's left her sick. she doesn't even begin to show signs of such hunger until the broadcaster, an adult, ripped something vital out of her ; violence left her empty, and she has to enact violence of her own to not only fill that void but to ensure she won't be abused again.

the feeding off of the guest's lifeforce further compounds this, reading less as an act driven by hunger and more of an eye for an eye, something displayed in LN2 as well, with her clobbering one of the bullies. these same guests previously tried to devour her, and so, she does the same to them. an unloved child will burn down the village to feel it's warmth, or however that quote goes. or as an achievementin the sequel asks, is it murder if they're bad people ? i'm not here to answer that, only to say that six is not the villain of this story, the adults who created this cycle she falls prey to are.

[trans-leek-cookie]

me: I remember someone mentioning a quote saying suguru had a maternal instinct, I should try and find the source

Me, clueless: *searches up Geto Maternal*

Me:

[officialhouseguest]

SKEEZYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! 🥳🥳🥳

[lordliing]

Gortash's only close close friend being the Dark Urge guts me because imagine your friend (if not more but I will get into that another time) disappears and is replaced by this unpredictable asshole who is one push away from shanking you at all times and you can't trust them to have your back

Then your friend just reappears with new friends and they're against you and you come to the conclusion you are once again, incredibly alone.

[ygsunflower]

Not sure how I feel about the whole Maya giving Beckett a bottle plot… The action itself is horrible, and Maya was absolutely in the wrongs for doing it. However, maybe I’m just really biased, I feel like this is a total inconsistency/disservice to Maya Bishop, the character.

Maya is a competitive person, and she’s a perfectionist without a doubt. She is relentless, and would do anything to achieve her goals. BUT, she still has a morale (or maybe she’s too proud to allow herself to do something so “low”). All her aggressive actions operate within her moral limits. The most out of line action she could take, imo, is blackmailing. Maybe because I’m projecting myself onto Maya Bishop, but I just cannot imagine even at her personal lowest point, she would go out of her way to intentionally hurt another person. She’s always been strict and harsh, but on herself- her excessive exercising and pushing Carina away to not be loved etc. Her defaults to being abused/hurt are to punish herself and run away from people who shows her love. She’s not really a revenge type of person. Also, not saying she didn’t hurt anyone with her “self-discipline” tendency, because by intentionally hurting herself, she also hurts Carina.

But if this plot wasn’t a mis-writing on the writers part, then I guess it could be seen as the writers want to use this extreme non-Maya-like-behavior to show how messed up she truly was with her mental health?! Idk, I just think Maya, regardless of her mental health conditions, would not go out committing such horrendous act to anyone, even if the person bullied her into a mental breakdown.

Maybe I’m forgetting some stories, but have we seen her actively going after/revenging anyone on the show so far? When she was captain, she was always the calm and collected one on the scene. She never lost her temper when it comes to her job, even when her father physically pulled her hair, even when male superiors questioned her authority, and even when male civilians got angry and yelled around the team etc. Granted, these all happened before her mental health completely went south… So, these might not be the most convincing examples 🤷🏻‍♀️

The only person we saw her losing her temper to was Carina. She can be fuming yet still composed to outsiders, but once Carina pushes, Maya bites back and fires up at her. I can believe this character trait/flaw because there has been a pattern especially now we also saw Carina indeed felt that she was pushed aside/neglected from Maya’s job. In Carina’s pov, Maya would follow rules and do anything for her job, but not for her. She felt she was treated worse for being Maya’s wife, the person Maya’s supposed to love and run to.

Anyways, the action of giving an addict (whether or not they are in recovery) the very object of their addiction with the intention to cause harm is purely evil. Do not do this.

[robocops-a-christ-allegory]

I guess Im kind of glad Im the only person that remembers Bridgette D'abo exists because if she were more popular people would either hate her way too much for the completely insane "pretending to be a maid" thing or people would make jokes about the fact that shes contributing to limiting Peacemaker's freedom and autonomy. I dont think anyone would be normal about Bridgette.

[local-redhead-bookworm]

One of the things I think people often miss about Maeglin’s character is that he is, at his core, an abused kid. Not power-hungry or evil, just scared and looking for control in whatever areas he can.

We know very little of Maeglin, and I’m hesitant to take anything in the Silm as absolute truth given that any info on him would be from people who survived the Fall of Gondolin, but even the little we have would strongly indicate he was abused as a child.

What we know as Silm canon:

Considering the fact that Eöl entrapped Aredhel in Nan Elmoth by magical means, that Aredhel’s consent in the marriage is unclear at best, and that he kept her isolated from any of her friends and family, we can safely assume it wasn’t a happy marriage. If we believe that Eöl didn’t even name Maeglin until he was twelve years old, and that he demanded obedience of Maeglin or else he would lock Maeglin up, and that he later tried to kill Maeglin, this definitely doesn’t paint Eöl as a good father either.

The Silm describes Maeglin as brave many times. A few adjectives my edition uses are “wise in counsel, wary, hardy and valiant at need, fearless in battle” (The Silmarillion, Of Maeglin). He’s not weak or cowardly by any means, and the Silm goes out of its way to acknowledge this.

My speculation:

When Maeglin realizes he can’t have Idril, he “sought the more to have his will in other matters, hurling no toil or burden, if he might thereby have power” (The Silmarillion, Of Maeglin). To me, that sounds like he feels out of control and is looking for control in other areas. A lot of his reaction to Idril and Tuor having Earendil is written as envy and hatred, but I think one could just as easily read that as jealousy that they have a loving family and he does not—his parents are both dead and he didn’t have a good relationship with Eöl.

I don’t believe Maeglin was genuinely in love with Idril. My version says “he loved the beauty of Idril and desired her, without hope” (The Silmarillion, Of Maeglin). I think that he loved the idea of her, beautiful and wise but ultimately unattainable. I’m hesitant to ascribe any aspirations for the throne to him, given that this just never seems to be a priority with him. The only times someone suspects him of having aspirations to the throne are from Idril, and these instances are a) bad feelings and b) a dream (The Book of Lost Tales Pt. 2, Of the Fall of Gondolin).

Also, as pointed out by @novemberthecatadmirer here, Morgoth does not promise Idril to Maeglin until after he reveals the location of Gondolin under threat of torture. Given how Morgoth can torture an Elf forever and they won’t die if he’s careful, I don’t blame Maeglin for caving. Because this goes back to what I said earlier, Maeglin is barely a young adult by Elvish standards, and if there’s one thing that you learn in an abusive household, it’s that you do/say whatever is necessary to avoid further pain.

I do not believe Maeglin betrayed Gondolin with joy, as some versions of the text would indicate. I don’t put much stock in The Book of Lost Tales, but it does include an element that isn’t in other versions of the story: Morgoth casting magic on Maeglin. In this version, Morgoth casts a “spell of bottomless dread” to prevent treachery from Maeglin, and while Maeglin acts as though everything is fine and he even seems more cheerful than before, he is using that to deflect from his fear (The Book of Lost Tales, Of the Fall of Gondolin). This version makes the most sense to me given that many Elves feared that their captured comrades had been made Morgoth’s thralls. More importantly, this version of the story mirrors a very common response real people have to undergoing a traumatic event that they feel they cannot share with others.

I’m not saying Maeglin did nothing wrong ever, but his actions make a great deal more sense when we consider the context of his life as a whole and his past experience of being abused. Any motive ascribed to him is, in my opinion, heavily suspect to in-universe bias on the part of the Elvish historians recounting the events. Looking at Maeglin’s character through the lens of abuse psychology yields a much more sympathetic, and in my opinion more interesting, version of his story.

[chasmbreach]

i wrote this in a frenzy at 3am. i love undertale so much you don't understand

2:55: i hate it when my brain starts thinking too much in the fucking late ass hours of 2:45 am anyway, i got recommended fallen down piano with reverb on yt again and yknow, obviously i gotta listen to the hella peaceful ass helllll music because it just do be really beautiful yknow? but then i thought about how when monsters fall down, they're considered fallen monsters? i'm forgetting my exact undertale lore, but wasn't it about how the monster was dying of old age, or just having a weak SOUL in general? which was why alphys did her experiments and the whole point of the DT experiments to prevent them from dying. and i know your best friend is the first song you listen to when you begin Frisk's journey through the underground, but i'm just thinking about how he's probably not done that to all of the other children that have fallen before Frisk, considering that Toriel is always there to help the children and care for them.  So, tying back to Fallen Down..., all of the kids that fell into the Underground had "fallen" in the sense of if they were a monster, they would've been dying. all of the children who fell into the underground had a sense of not wanting to continue their lives with the other humans, which is why they decided to fall into the hole in hopes of finding release from their lives.  they've been emotionally dead for a long time. that's where they start, and that's their emotional state when they decided to fall. they're children who don't have the will to keep going, but then toriel comes in and takes care of them, they want to feel loved, to be a child, to be a human where they can just be. it's why each and every one of them make the decision to go through the ruins door, to experience living

2:56: anyway this is bullshit analysis it's nearly 3am i don't think i made sense

2:56: me getting emotional over fallen down for the 27345394 time

2:58: gods i love undertale characters i fucking love toriel and her flaws, because it's what makes her seem like well rounded person who has motivations and grief, and that grief is what makes her so, so unique in how she presents herself

3:00: i fucking love papyrus because he is so skroigly but also because he believes in you. even in the no mercy run, he isn't naive. he isn't, good god. yes he sees the best of people, but it does get more than that. he loves. he loves so much. and isn't that just difficult in this society sometimes yknow?

3:02: i fucking love undyne, because despite her slightly misguided anger towards humans, she is, after all, representing of justice. she wants the bring the best out of everyone. she's critical, but she can identify when she's wrong. she just exudes so much confidence and is such a big motivator, it makes it so hard to dislike her.

3:04: i fucking love alphys, and isn't she such a complex character when at first glance. she really isn't that complicated in terms of how much analysis of her personality really needs. she wants to help, but she afraid to do it wrong. she wants to be the best, but she never feels her best. if she hides her mistakes, then nobody needs to know that she was a "bad person," when she was just trying to do what she thought was right.

3:05: i fucking love metatton, and after reading ALIVE AU it made me love him even more. yes, he's selfish, but he still wants the best for alphys. he's the type of monster who doesn't outwardly show he cares, but he will absolutely be there when you need it most, to bring you back and to make sure you're ok. 3:06: he also has some regrets and grievances, don't get me wrong, this is probably the most unknown character for me haha, but he makes me think about how, in reality, there really is just one life, and that one life you should make the most of it.

3:08: i fucking love asgore. a sad old pitiful shell of himself, but filled with so much pain and regret for all the things he's done. he wants to mend his wounds, but he cannot bring himself to. he feels as if his decisions were his to bare, and he must deal with his own consequences. he needs a hug, but he'd never accept one.  he doesn't think he deserves forgiveness, but he does. he really does.

3:11: and of course, sans. well, i know he is famous because of megalovania, but in the end, he really makes me sad, maybe pity. depression is a bitch. the amount of hope he exudes when he sees the sunrise during the pacifist makes me cry. he never thought he'd get here. he never thought he'd be okay enough to be there for papyrus.  because isn't everything for him?  even when you kill papyrus, he doesn't do anything except call you a dirty brother killer.  he's so, so tired. really, he's just putting up a mask every day. and he is literally the exact opposite of papyrus yeah?

3:12: anyway. i didn't think i'd type so much haha 3:12: love letter to the game that made me feel

3:15: i think, because the story really makes you think about decisions, that your decision to reset, will affect everyone? makes this world really real for me. don't get me wrong, i love omori. the story is really good and i love it to bits. sunny has an incredibly complex history with his emotions but... the story will always just feel like just that. a video game character on a screen.

3:23: hmmm. i'm thinking again. i think what really did it in for me is this old comic i saw even before i got into undertale and saw a playthrough of it.  it was simply drawn, but basically someone wanted to replay undertale after the true pacifist route, and flowey comes on screen right? but then the comic artist wrote about how they couldn't do it. they couldn't reset, because it had been probably a few months or like a year since they've played, and Frisk had probably done so much in that timeframe, it would be incredibly cruel to take it all away because "you were curious" to play the game all again and it also ended with someone else commenting "undertale: the game you never play again" or something like that

[a9saga]

i cannot believe kaysar got backdoor evicted on his birthday twice..... tWICE

[techno-rat]

i ddont even think of myself as a technoblade apologist or sympathizer like what are you talking about what would I even be apologizing for !!!