#I wish I could have him in my life

[outromoony]

Sometimes I feel like I love Sirius so much it physically hurts me.

[jesuis-assez]

Tim unconsciously sending/showing signals of his feelings for Lucy

[shitpostingkats]

I swear, nothing makes me go bonkers fucking yonkers quite like comparing Athena and Apollos' introductions to the WAA.

When Phoenix asked Athena to come work for the agency, he reached out overseas to get in contact and offer her a job. When Phoenix asked Apollo to come work for the agency, he didn't even mention what the business was called or what they actually did.

On Athena's first day in court, Phoenix showed up and took over for her when she started to break down. On Apollo's first day in court, Phoenix made him an accomplice in crime and almost ruined his career.

When Athena introduces her childhood best friend to the WAA, they get her cleared of murder charges and save a friendgroup. When Apollo tries to introduce his childhood best friend to the agency, he dies before that can even happen.

When Athena returns to the space center, she is greeted by the robots with open arms. When Apollo returns to the space center, he is greeted by the name of a dead man.

When Phoenix sought out Athena as a protégé, it was because he realized how much she was hurting. When Phoenix sought out Apollo as a protégé, its because he realized how much he could be used to hurt others.

[gingermintpepper]

Obsessed with the way Evadne's relationship with Apollo is described. Obsessed with the way Apollo was especially gentle with her because she was sheltered, hidden away and hadn't had any sort of experience with love prior to Apollo (and due to it being described as her 'first learning Aphrodite's joy' through Apollo', it was probably her first time even being attracted to someone). Obsessed with the way when she runs away, she stops in a violet patch to give birth. Y'know, violets, very famously the flower so strongly associated with Aphrodite that they were used in love potions? Those violets. Obsessed with the way that when Apollo realised his lover was going to have to deliver their child alone, he sent BOTH the goddess of childbirth and ALL THREE OF THE FATES to help and support her. Obsessed with the way that Apollo sends snakes to feed his baby honey straight from their fangs because Evadne abandons their son out of straight primal fear when her stepfather finds her and how the description of that honey is 'sweet venom' [ἰός] of the bees and is DEFINITELY a poetic pair/pun with [ἴον] aka violets and that every single thing about this relationship, conception and birth is a complete and utter fairytale down to Evadne's insanely overprotective stepfather having an immediate change of heart when he learned Evadne's child was an actual, legitimate Son of Apollo and the babe, after being cared for by his dad's honey-fanged snake buddies, was found perfectly healthy five days later swaddled in a blanket of violets (y'know the flowers so strongly associated with Aphrodite that they were used for lo-) and they called him Iamus aka Boy of the Violets which is AAAAAARRRR I AM GNAWING AT MY ENCLOSURE

Iamus was made of love. Everything about him was surrounded by deep and profound love and like, let's not even talk about his whole Thing of when he came of age and was like "I need to find out what my purpose is" and he literally had a Disney Protagonist moment where he ran out into the wilds and was like "Father!! Grandfather!! Tell me what I'm supposed to doooo!!" and then APOLLO FUCKING ANSWERED AND LED HIM TO ONE HIS TEMPLES ENTIRELY BY TALKING WITH IAMUS AND LETTING HIM FOLLOW HIS VOICE FOR THE WHOLE JOURNEY LIKE -

What do y'all know about the kind of SSS tier romantic escapades Apollo had fr?

[raticalshoez]

i'm having hyperfixation drought so i did what i did best and created a crossover episode

[oneroomjestershow]

''He really should be the one being called 'angel' instead of me''

[joshuamj]

Linktober Day 8. Tunic

[mueritos]

started a new job recently as a research assistant for a gay Latinx professor in my grad program, and while I definitely don't have the time to be doing my own research, working with this professor on his book projects has been so affirming and healing. i'm working on a book he hopes to publish soon that is full of interviews of gay and trans Latine men...and it is so fucking awesome. I feel so seen by the words I am reading, and I feel tears spring to my eyes looking at the photographs of these men. They look like family members, distant cousins, and family friends. They look so happy and full of confidence. I see myself in their eyes, recognizing the "fish" shape in our eyes that is so distinctly tied to Latines. One of the men in the book is a pup! And it is so beautiful seeing his smile as he holds his pup mask.

I have met very few queer latines. I don't know what it's like to have the tio or tia that has some secret aura to them, that "no se habla" vibes where everyone knows they're queer but just won't acknowledge it. Hell, this professor I'm working with is the first gay Latine man I've ever spoken to. I wish I had a community of gay Latines. I hope I am able to access that one day :)

[sanchoyoscribbles]

maybe link should consider that I filled my inventory with salted milky smoothies right before the fight and spent all that time leveling up the sword and energy gauges tho ...🥲

[queenofthursday6599-blog]

You know I don't think Timmy actually ended up sharing Wanda and Cosmo for all that long with Chloe in the grand scheme of things.

I mean there's various points in the show that seem to imply that having Fairy GodParents is a temporary thing. Like extremely temporary for most kids.

As in even being 10, and having gotten Cosmo and Wanda at age 8, Timmy's considered as having been a GodChild for a long time. Even if that's only a couple years.

Like there's a reason why there's multiple episodes about all of Fairy World being interested in whatever Timmy's up to.

Timmy's an outlier case.

He's going to end up aging out of the system (bar any breaking of any major rule that the fairies can't find a way to forgive) and everyone knows it.

They made a whole live action trilogy of bending the rules just for him where he gets to keep his fairies as an adult, and then turns into a fairy at the end of that trilogy.

He's a, probably wouldn't have made it to adulthood without fairies, kind of a case.

That's not the case for most kids who get fairies, or at least it's heavily implied that's not the case for most kids who get fairies.

Take Cosmo and Wanda being Crocker's fairies in 1972, and having already been his fairies for about 2 years by that point, but having had been Billy Gate's fairies in 1970.

We're never even given a hint that Billy lost his fairies traumatically, because he grew up to invent the internet just fine, and we never hear about him beyond that. And it seems like if a kid traumatically loses their fairies before their ready, it ends with them being a screwed up adult.

Which tells me that whatever situation Billy was in to need fairies resolved itself shortly after the time travel thing.

Heck even then, it was heavily implied that Crocker's life, even qualifying for fairies, was better than Timmy's was. Considering the only things mentioned is that he's got a single mom that works multiple jobs, and when she doesn't she tends to focus on her hobbies, and an evil babysitter to deal with.

He's not bullied at that point, he's not struggling academically, the only things wrong with his life (before getting over dosed on magic mindwipe and being disfigured and losing his mind as a result, which turned him into a social outcast) is that he's got a single mom who works a lot and leaves him with a mean babysitter so she can have me time.

That's it, that's what makes him qualify.

And he would have aged out of at least one of those problems before turning 18. He would have been 14 when he would have naturally outgrown needing to have a babysitter (as that's how old Vicky starts babysitting Timmy).

Then by that point he would have also been old enough to get a part time job of his own. Lightening the financial lode on his mother, and possibly freeing up some of her working time to actually spend with her.

Meaning it's possible that both of his fairy qualifying problems would have resolved themselves by age 14 or 15.

But also the kind of miserable it takes to get godparents (at least when that baseline is first established) is temporary for most kids.

I wouldn't be surprised if the typical Fairy GodParent & GodChild relationship typically only lasted like a year or two for most kids.

[And it seems like the majority of kids we meet who have GodParents, get them at age 10.

I'm pretty sure Timmy being 8 and getting his Fairies, is the youngest kid we ever see having Fairies.

Other than de-aged Vicky that one episode, but because it happened in the constraints of one of Timmy's wishes, I'm not going to count it. Especially because when Cosmo and Wanda are reassigned to Vicky, no one comes to erase Timmy's memory of having fairies, so she doesn't have to worry at all about hiding them which all other godkids do.

Also Vicky is just given Cosmo and Wanda and not her own fairy, which I feel heavily implies that all of this is falling under wish logic, and not normal logic.

Crocker is the second youngest, because he had Cosmo and Wanda at 9.]

Especially in cases where the root of the kid's misery is something they have the power to personally confront and change.

Like if a kid gets a fairy because they're being bulled at school to the point it's ruining everything else in their life. [Bully is making it to where they can't complete school or home work, causing grades to drop, meaning no extracurricular stuff, and getting in trouble with parents.]

But that kid manages to reveal what's happening, and gets things to change, and their life goes back to how it was before. Then that kid obviously doesn't need a GodParent anymore to make up for their miserable life.

I could easily see plenty of situations where a kid might only have a GodParent for less than a year.

Like Hazel's situation from A New Wish weirds me out, because all her problems are super temporary problems that resolve in like a few months to a year for most kids who have those problems.

It's missing her older brother who left for collage. Which most kids eventually get over after just getting used to them no longer living in the same house as them.

When the younger sibling gets used to the older siblings absence, a pretty good chunk of them revel in the bizarre experience of being either the new oldest, or an only child for the rest of their own childhood.

It's moving to a new city and having to make all new friends. Which Hazel does over the course of season 1. She's got 3 friends if Dev counts.

Everything causing her to need fairies is all extremely temporary. Which is a large part of the reason why I don't think she'll be one of the kids to age out of the system the way Timmy was.

She's got parents who love her, she's not struggling at school, she doesn't have an abusive babysitter, she's already started making friends at her new school, her brother came home from collage, but even then that's something she'd just grow out of eventually.

So I feel like unless something in her life changes for the worst, she's going to only have Cosmo and Wanda for a few years at most. And lose them around age 14-15.

Sure her problems are a lot more relatable than Timmy's ever were.

Which is understandable considering Timmy was a kid who had literally everything going wrong in his life, except he wasn't living in poverty.

From neglectful parents, being bullied as school, an abusive babysitter, being specifically targeted by a teacher for harassment, being the target of a girl's stalker crush on him, being canonically considered an idiot even without Crocker targeting him (even though I'm pretty sure he just has ADHD). And that's just the major stuff he starts off with.

That's not even getting into like the magical enemies he makes over the course of the show. Who are out to get him from then on.

And the fact that his parents weren't actively malicious towards him, just forgetful and oblivious.

But Hazel's problems are also all a lot more temporary than Timmy's ever were.

And that's like, the big thing that makes them different and give me the feeling that, while Timmy definitely aged out and had fairies until the last possible moment, kids like Chloe and Hazel probably only had fairies for a few years at most.

That's most likely why Wanda and Cosmo still refer to Timmy as their last godchild before retiring. Even though they were assigned Chloe years after they were assigned to Timmy.

Chloe's issues probably resolved at some point and Timmy returned to being a singular GodChild from that point on.

[I'm guessing she grew a backbone at some point, lets her parents know all the pressure they put on her was making her miserable, and stopped being a complete doormat for literally everyone. Because those were her big problems that caused her to qualify for Fairies.]

Which was probably extremely awkward for Timmy in the aftermath of Chloe having her memories purged of fairies, considering they only spent time together because they were made to share fairies.

Sure Timmy had seen kids lose their fairies before, like with Remy, but he'd never cared then because he hardly spent any time with Remy, and no one would call him and Remy friends.

But it had to be weird when it inevitably happened with Chloe, because by the end there, she basically lived in the Turner house.

Heck of the two kids who get fairies in A New Wish, I'd say that Dev is the kid more likely to be an age out case than Hazel. If he ever regains godparents.

Considering having a single parent, who literally loves business and money more than he'll ever love his own kid, is a bit more of a permanent misery than "I moved to a new town and have no friends, and my brother went off to collage" is.

Just to be honest.

Like maybe it's different rules because Hazel is a post-retirement passion project for Cosmo and Wanda, and they can stay with her until she'd age out because they're not on official rotation or whatever.

But no one will be able to convince me that she'd actually need fairies the entire rest of her childhood unless something horrible happens to her in season 2.

Like baby girl those are some temporary issues that tend to resolve themselves within a year, how are you going to keep qualifying for fairy godparentship the rest of this series?

[astrowarr]

there's something about jimmy and martyn this season

four times over jimmy has walked the well-worn path into the realm of death all alone, his feet sinking in the inky, star-speckled puddles of the void and his hand shaking on the icy doorknob of After. and the familiarity— and oh, is it so familiar— never manages to suffocate the dread each and every time. the knowledge that this door, these wings, those eyes are all horrifyingly inevitable, following him, miraculously, across worlds.

until now. he steps in the pond of the void and there's a warm hand in his, so warm jimmy knows it to be unwelcome in this place. no one has ever been here with him before, and never in his endless lives and deaths has he ever been left staring wide-eyed at theback of someone's head, the back of martyn's head.

and martyn leads the way. there are no words— there never have been in this place— but his hand is firm and real in jimmy's. he walks confidently, the soles of his shoes marring the ground he walks across with ripples that never stop. and this time, martyn reaches out, and swings that haunting door wide open, ceasing its endless whispers all at once.

when martyn turns around, his eyes lock with jimmy's, and he doesn't speak— no one can, here, jimmy is sure of it— but he might as well, really. his eyes are tired, but they are certain. martyn says nothing, but jimmy hears him. of course he does.

follow me this time, would you?

[lgbtlunaverse]

I'm a little bit insane about how in novel canon the whole xiyao ending where Jin Guangyao wants to die with Xichen, who accepts, which then makes jgy change his mind and pushes him away at the last second isn't actually explicit. A lot of adaptations chose to make it so but in the novel this is all VERY up for interpretation.

Here's what actually happens in the text: Lan xichen stabs jgy, jgy moves away from lan xichen, xichen follows him, wwx realizes jgy is about to open the coffin and calls "watch out!" to lan xichen. Jgy unseals nmj, pushes xichen away, nmj kills jgy and they are both dragged into the coffin which is sealed again.

Here's what wei wuxian, our narrator, thinks is happening: Jin Guangyao wanted to lead lan xichen to his death out of revenge for stabbing him. Lan Xichen, unaware, simply followed Jin Guangyao to try and stop him from getting away. Wei wuxian's warning came too late, but Jin Guangyao- for an unknown reason- changed his mind at the last second and pushed lan xichen out of danger before lan xichen had any idea of what was going on.

Here's what most fans as well as the teams behind several adpatations think is happening: Jin Guangyao leads Xichen to nmj's coffin to die with him, Xichen accepts, because of this acceptance, proof xichen still cares for him, Jin Guangyao pushes him out of harm's way. Wei Wuxian just doesn't get that gay people who aren't him or Lan Wangji exist.

Here's what ALSO MIGHT BE HAPPENING: Jin guangyao wants to die in a different way than he is currently dying. Maybe he's afraid of what'll happen to his body after his death like he was scared for his mother's, maybe he wants to confront nmj one last time now that there's nothing more for him to lose, maybe - if he can't take her body with him- he'd at least like his final resting place to be where he buried his mother. Lan Xichen thinks he's trying to get away and follows but Jin Guangyao, who despite everything doesn't want him to die, pushes him away. Xichen doesn't know what happened until it's already happened. What he would've wanted if he had known remains up in the air.

Or, alternatively: Jin Guangyao's reasons are as above, but unbeknowst to Wei Wuxian, Xichen DOES know what jgy is about to do and either misinterprets this as an invitation to all die together, or inidividually decides he, too, is done, and wants to join his sworn brothers in the grave. To Jin Guangyao this has nothing to do with Lan Xichen, and he still doesn't want him to die, so he pushes him away against Lan Xichen's wishes.

Every single one of these interpretations is unhinged and they are all supported by the original text. It's like a choose your own adventure of tragic gay endings.

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID: a digital drawing of Hunter and Willow from the owl house based on the "lesbians doing makeup" meme. Hunter is lying beneath Willow, who straddles him while doing his makeup. He looks at her somewhat dazed and she looks at him fondly. the background is a mid-tone blue. End ID]

This is what they are. To me

[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.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I love Jiang Cheng and I hope you agree. The most tragic thing about yunmeng siblings is that JC and WWX really love each other the whole time… I like to think they can fix it someday

Someday perhaps....in the meantime, I bet he's loving having dogs run around lotus pier. As a WWX deterrent of course. No therapeutic reasons at all.

[pleasedontcareaboutme]

It's missing my father hours rn so imma just dump a bunch of pictures here and cry

( sorry i don't know the source of anything I just had them on my phone)

(also dont read the tags i just need to let it out lol)