#I did leave! With no consequences!

[heather-chandlers-weirder-cousin]

Hm. Sorting some things out.

[sparring-spirals]

Still emotional about Fy'ra Rai and Opal, actually. Thought dump time bc i. dont have the energy to cut this down effectively.

Because at that point in the episode, Opal is doomed. Not in the fun little "oh things are getting worse ;)" kind of way we'd been experiencing leading up to the fight, or even IN the fight. At that point in the fight, Cyrus is dead. Dorian and Dariax have their minds twisted, bodies clambering away from the fight. Morrighan has felt, firsthand, just how far gone Opal is, holes in her mind, her friend broken. The heartbreaking sentence of. "You can always come back." understands that she is gone already. She's lost already. Opal has forgotten Ted. Opal has forgotten herself.

So at that point in the fight, we know Opal is doomed. Us as the audience, the cast, the characters. Aabria is running through each of the other crownkeepers and it is more of a goodbye than a round of combat. Defying the Spider Queen invites death, with zero hesitation- Cyrus's body as physical evidence of that. The terms were very clearly set: You leave Opal, you let her be lost. Or you die. (Leaving Opal anyway).

and Fy'ra Rai then. Grasps the crown, understands intimately that she can break it off and it will kill Opal. (I will free you, if you want me to. We would lose you but you would not be taken). And asks, what do you want me to do. What do you want.

and Opal says, I want you to leave. (I want you to live.) and Fy'ra Rai functionally says. No. Sorry. That's not one of the options.

If you wanted to go. I will do that (your blood on my hands). If you want me to stay, I will. But I'm not going to leave you.

There was the point where Fy'ra Rai broke into the communication and I felt my insides sink because. Look. Lets be real, Aabria had already demonstrated the stakes here. The gesture would not be rewarded for the gesture alone. The Spider Queen's terms were: You leave Opal. Or you die.

And Fy'ra Rai said: no.

I don't think I'm overstepping to assume that if Fy'ra Rai had failed the intimidation check, she would have died. This entire thing hits me so hard because I think Anjali knew that too. I think Fy'ra Rai knew that too. Yes, Fy'ra Rai convinced a Betrayer God to negotiate. She carved a third option out of a non-negotiable situation. She knew what would happen if she failed and did it anyway, with no fear, no regret, no waver in her resolve. She had lost enough sisters. She wasn't going to lose anymore, no matter the personal cost. That's part of why it succeeded, I'm sure, but.

Just. Fuck me. The amount of resolve. The amount of love. The amount of conviction. "I am. A protector." You know your friend- your sister- is doomed. So no more negotiating away from that. You step to her side and you grasp her hand and say- doom me with her.

And in some, sideways way, this saves you both, at least for a little while.

Because this story is a tragedy. This ending is a sad one. We know this already. But think about- Opal, under Lolth's bidding, alone in the dark. Think about Fy'ra Rai, alive, intimately aware that she had failed to protect yet another sister.

And think about what we got, instead: the two of them, in deep darkness, danger encroaching- holding hands. Someone they love at their side. A champion. And her champion.

This is still a sad story. But it's not the same one. Fy'ra Rai stared down a Betrayer God and made her change her mind. She stared down a Betrayer God, and her love and conviction changed the nature of the story. It shouldn't have been able to. But she did.

Fy'ra Rai chose to doom 2 people instead of one, and the sheer strength of her love and will managed to save them both, at least for a little while. Isn't it funny how that works? Isn't it devastating? Isn't it. fucking incredible?

[bright-eyes-strawberry-lies]

I'm still amazed that Rick managed to get Nyx explicitly baby-trapping Nico through non-consensual means and then those children were monsters and are being raised by Nico through the Disney censors. Like. Wow. Unironically, bravo sir.

[ofswordsandpens]

"the Gabe and Sally dynamic in the show is abusive" and "the way they've portrayed Gabe in the show is distinctly different from his book counterpart and fans can criticize that" are two discussions that can coexist

[dykedvonte]

Jimmy killing himself because he knows he is incapable of living an life without Curly and knows that in the miracle chance they were found and saved they would not let him have contact with Curly and he hates the idea he'd actually have to take responsibility.

Even if he lied, its only a matter of time before Curly is capable of showing or telling what a monster he really is, no matter what delusions tell Jimmy Curly would never do that to him.

He understands that he was the monster in everyone's worse moments but refused to accept that at the end. So he made sure that he died without the possibility of it being actualized as he's the only one that saw death as an escape rather than a release. Jimmy truly didn't believe Curly had anything to escape from even after everything and let him have what he perceived as glory as the sole survivor and thus Captain of the Tulpar.

[mistyscenter]

I love that this fandom doesn't understand Baxter's character, I adore how they patronize him,a whole ass adult, for facing the consequences of his actions.

I love how people make him feel like a sad little baby when he leaves mc as if that's not something he made extremely clear. I love how people treat this 19 year old as if he's not old enough to understand the consequences of his actions. I love how Baxter is aware of his flaw's but feels like he can't break them because people only see him as a tool and this fandom reinforces that.

I love how people will get mad at Nico for doing the cardinal crime of being 6 years old but will baby a 24 year old Baxter. I love how people make him this charismatic rich guy when it's shown that he's a hot mess that doesn't know what he wants. I love that Baxter's whole character arc is about his self sabotaging tendencies and how everyone ignores that. I love that people fell in love with the mask he had for most of the dlc.

I love that this fandom lacks reading comprehension skills and understanding of nuance characters, great job everyone for not understanding how writing works :)

[smilingcrittersuniversityau]

The thing is, Elias's and Charlie's relationship could have worked out. They both went thru a traumatic experience which both were able to relate to one and other and Charlie gave what Elias really needed. A friend he could rely on. But unfortunately, Elias ended up becoming basically the thing he hated his parents for. He became an abusive partner. It's the abused one becomes an abuser. He became nothing more but a spiteful and an angry man who basically then tried to control Charlie, who he hangs out with, who he can rely on, what he can and cannot do and so on. Definition of a possessive and controlling partner. Whether or not you choose to agree or disagree, and whether or not you hate the guy. Elias can be classified as a tragic character who due to his upbringing and trauma became a horrible person. Even if he still loves or cares for Charlie, he is going way too far and now went ahead and assaulted Charlie (pretty sure kissing someone without their consent and or them not liking it can count as an assault on someone) and now is gonna go ahead and try to murder someone (Dakota or possibly Charlie's other friends). Kind of am mixed on whether I should call him a psychopath or a sociopath. Ya'll be the judge of that. Either way, Elias should be held responsible and face the consequences of his actions. Whether Charlie chooses to forgive him is up to him, but given what we have seen Elias do and will do in the future, there is a high chance Charlie never forgives him at all. It's hard for a victim to forgive someone who had abused them and hurt them in many ways. Overall, Elias is a tragic character who could have been a good partner to Charlie, but due to his past, he strayed down the path of being a horrible person and hurting the one he loved, or more rather hurting the one he was so unhealthy obsessed with so much. (Ya'll can also debate whether he had genuine feelings on Charlie or nah).

This was honestly just a big ass analysis on Elias and also I guess his relationship with Charlie because god-

(THEY RESENT IT! JOYOUS TIMES!!!!)

(IM SO SORRY I DELETED IT I AM SO SORRYYYY)

Also despite all of how he did genuinely care about Charlie, he still did hurt him. Isolated him from his friends, called him names, lovebombed him so he'd forgive him, always trash talked his friends. Cracks was a small breaking point for Charlie where he kinda sees the red flags in Elias. He finally snaps after he sees how Elias treats Dakota, who's been nothing but helpful to Charlie. He doesn't really understand that Dakota likes him, and hence he feels like Elias is just pushing it too far when he assumed he was helping him just cause he liked him (even if he didn't, he still would cause he does care about his friends)

[worstloki]

i feel like the thor movies should have explored more about how the other realms hate Asgard and it's not all because of Odin because Bor also killed off basically the entire race of dark elves with the bifrost beam and that came back to bite them as much as Hela did

[zeravmeta]

we give garp a lot of (rightly deserved) shit but unironically like 90% of the criticisms towards him i see not only ignore the wider worldbuilding context of one piece but also don't acknowledge how sengoku is like the worst friend ever

[feelo-fick]

Headcanon: Chilchuck and his Bad Takes on Literature

i think chilchuck would be like my mom in the sense that he wouldnt like sad stories. dont get me wrong, cautionary tales? absolutely fine. they serve a purpose to him which is to tell people "dont be an idiot and do this or else something bad will happen"

generally sad or angsty stories though? no point to him, and in his perspective its really confusing how people just read things that make them sad. like whats the use of reading something if its just gonna make you sad. whats the lesson? its not even real so it doesnt help anyone.

whats the point in making yourself cry when you could just avoid that entirely by not reading it at all?

but the one of the biggest reasons why sad stories exist is to let you release all the built up grief in you. to send you something to let out all your emotions in a healthy way. catharsis. empathy.

even when i dont relate to the tragic experiences in some stories, several ones ive read have lead me to realize that im in a bad situation or that im following in the footsteps of the character suffering. its like a wake up call.

and making yourself cry isnt inherently a bad thing. if crying allows you to let go of building pressure and tension in you then thats good!

but chil wouldnt see that. of course he wouldnt, hes avoidant of most situations that would allow him to release emotion, and fearful of letting his mature (read: repressed) persona slip.

hes someone that runs away to quick comforts and distractions at the earliest sign of issue. hes already been in too many horrifying situations, dealing with another is a pain. and he knows denying everything and refusing to look at the situation doesnt help, but it definitely provides a quick and easy happiness in the comfort of ignorance.

because of this, reading something made to make one empathize with and confront these bad emotions is defeating the point of his cowering. if he faces his issues, even if only through the perspective of a story, he'd have to deal with acknowledging that things are bad and need fixing, and he'd feel terrible and guilty in the moment - which of course is the worst thing that could happen to a person (his thought, not mine).

which is why i find the concept of him being/becoming a tragedy himself at the same time as this headcanon soooo interesting. imagine the irony of him bashing on the protagonists of tragic stories for acting on emotion and impulse rather than logic, when he himself has fallen victim to irrational thinking while in grief.

cause... thats what people do when they grieve. they lash out, make bad decisions, ruin themselves, ruin others.

for a tragedy to be prevented, the protagonists would have to change fundamental parts of themselves, and act perfectly rational when under extreme stress. and chilchuck holds himself to these kinds of unrealistic standards because he unwittingly believes he can handle it all.

he cant, obviously. we see it for ourselves in his relationship with his wife. they were doomed from the beginning by chils already-established avoidance and lack of emotional vulnerabiltiy (and whatever else his wife had going on).

this is all just to say that if you told him about orpheus and eurydice, he'd probably be one of those idiots trying to point out the "plot hole" that he couldve "just not looked back" and "just trusted her"

i dont understand. whats the point in reading tragedies? the protagonist is stupid, anyways. why would you take bitter medicine? why subject yourself to that?

i think its just a bad story.

[capcollector]

Sometimes he wonders what it must be like to be the one on the examination table, the one to be cut open, the one to be told his own secrets.

[pass3ra]

cressida's storyline was genuinely shameful tbhhh it's like they started rewriting it in the first half of the season then completely forgot about the changes they'd made to make it fit the book plot and it just ends up making everyone else look bad😐 every character in the second half got a "penelope did nothing wrong" lobotomy so we ended up with eloise completely ignoring cressida being sold off to an horrible man (when she made every effort to support her in the first half of the season) and for some reason resenting her for pretending to be lady whistledown? Then they somehow frame her ignoring colin's offensively bad pleas as it being her turning away from redemption when all she's trying to do is escape being trapped in the country with her likely abusive aunt... and it ends with her meeting her horrible fate and it still being framed as tragic only to immediately juxtapose it with the bridgerton family winning the idgaf war while gleefully seeing off francesca and her future dead husband. The bridgertons were the villains of the season frfr

[perenlop]

havent seen this take in a while thankfully but it popped up in my head and i wanna post this anyways. i think everyone who talks about how siffrin “got off too easy” at the end of isat and his friends should have abandoned him should go read warrior cats if they want an example of a character using their trauma as their god-given jailbreak card to treat their family and peers (a good amount of whom who were completely innocent) like dogshit, and who faces zero consequences from the narrative for it (and in fact bends over to blame their peers). like read all the shit jayfeather does while the narrative sobs over how tragic but awesome and quirky he is and then look me in the eye and tell me siffrin’s ending was poorly written.

[lovelaceisntdead]

anon said I should post full fit and nell asked about the make up so hi.

[macaiv]

Source: The Washington Post

[fictionadventurer]

I went into Ruth expecting a dreary read. How could a Victorian "fallen woman" story be anything other than dark and depressing? So I was shocked right from the beginning to find a sweet, gentle, romantic story. The dressmaker's apprentice who sits in the coldest, darkest part of the workroom because that's where there's a panel painted with flowers that remind her of her country home? How could I not adopt her as a favorite character? Ruth's innocent, romantic outlook on life gave us some beautiful descriptions of the scenery of both city and countryside, and my imagination went on overdrive to create very vivid images of the story. Even the love story, which we know is going to go very wrong, starts out sweet, with a kind, charming love interest who only shows flashes of just how wrong his character is going to go.

Even after Ruth's fall, the story is so gentle, putting Ruth among kind people who are willing to risk and sacrifice a lot to help her. And then the story gets almost too gentle--after some initial struggles with depression, Ruth resolves to bear her troubles patiently and work toward virtue, and her sweet, too-innocent character gets flattened out into someone who's just Good. Life just goes on, with things generally going well, and every potential turn toward drama results in someone deciding to be reasonable, which can make the story drag.

But, in a story like this, the lack of drama becomes the plot twist! It is refreshing to see characters who don't always jump to the worst conclusion or take the worst action, who pause and consider the whole story and act like decent human beings.

And in the places when the drama does kick in, it's good drama. Painful drama. It's also (especially in the last section of the story) melodrama. There were sections of the book where I was rolling my eyes at the cookie-cutter Victorian path the story was taking--but then there'd be one line or one moment that would just stab me in the chest because of how beautifully specific it was to this story. Just enough to elevate it from something bland to something unique and fascinating.

I often had the thought that this book could be about a third of its length without losing anything--yet it should also be just as long as it was. If the story cut all its repetitive musings about Ruth's regret, and used that space to develop the side characters and and show the plot instead of telling us about it, it would be a much deeper story. I found myself wishing Gaskell had reworked this one later in her career--the way that North and South was a more skillful reworking of the issues explored in Mary Barton. In a way, she sort of did in Wives and Daughters, with the story of Molly the quiet innocent getting tangled up in the intrigues surrounding her headstrong, flirtatious stepsister Cynthia serving as a more layered, personality-flipped version of the story where headstrong, sheltered Jemima gets tangled in the story of quiet, sweet Ruth and her past romantic intrigues. (The doctor at the end of the story also feels like a proto-Mr. Gibson).

Yet I'm still fascinated by the themes specific to this story. Contrary to expectation, this "fallen woman" story isn't about sex, or gender, or how unfairly women are treated (though it does touch on that in the end). It's about sin. It's not questioning why Ruth's behavior is considered a sin or looking to dismantle the society saying that it's a sin. It comes from the Christian perspective of saying that sin is real and harms people--so how are we going to deal with that?

The story shows lots of people struggling with temptation, failing, and dealing with the consequences (or harming others with the consequences). Sin is always a case of either not caring enough to do the more difficult, good thing, or a case of "the ends justify the means", where people rationalize their bad behavior as something necessary in this specific case. It always leads to harm, but some people--and some sins--suffer greater consequences in the eyes of the world, whether or not they deserve it. I wish the story had developed and resolved this theme better in places, but the raw material there is fascinating food for thought.

This book is Gaskell at her preachiest, but also Gaskell at her kindest. It explores deep, difficult issues in a very loving way. As a story, there are ways it could be better, but I'm very glad I read it. Perhaps I'm making a point to be kinder to it because I know it's the type of story that today's readers tend to judge harshly. But amid my issues with the story, there are some lovely images, some great messages, and some wonderful characters that going to be living in my heart for a long time.