#Load Analysis

[scruncheduppaper]

drew this bc because i hate sitting thru chapel

[hyperfixatinator]

ROTTMNT Theory: Donatello's Hidden Role

After rewatching ROTTMNT (shorts and movie included), I realized something about Donnie's character that I've hardly seen anyone mention, and I'm going to talk about it in depth here.

I'll assume you've already watched the series and dive right in, but spoiler warning under the cut in case you care about that.

Let me start with something seemingly off topic. Raph is the oldest of the four brothers, which landed him the responsibility of keeping his younger siblings safe when their father was unavailable. (Not trying to bash Splinter. He's gradually grown to be a better parent later on, but you can't deny he was fairly neglectful in the beginning of the series)

The constant pressure Raph went through was brought up in the episode "Anatawa Hitorijanai", and then the movie showed he still struggles with it now.

He's constantly shouldering the burden of being their family's sole protector, but is this the truth? What if I told you there are actually two protectors in the family? And that the other one was Donnie all along?

When you look closely, Donnie is surprisingly protective of his loved ones. I did a tally of how often each brother exhibits what could be protective behavior, and Donnie was in second place (29) after Raph (35). Some of these choices are debatable, but here's a bunch of examples as pictures.

Would you believe me if I told you I still have a couple smaller examples I had to leave out due to the picture limit? And that's not even including the few moments where Donnie and Raph ever-so-subtly parallel each other.

All things considered, Donnie and Raph aren't so different. Raph is the primary protector who faces the threats head-on with his physical strength, while Donnie is the secondary protector who tends to use more distant methods with his tech and wit. However, when push comes to shove, Donnie will also step up to take direct action when he deems it necessary.

They may be the brains and the brawn, but they both use their respective skills to defend and support their family.

[boinin]

Flower language (Hanakotoba) analysis for the latest collaboration: Blue Lock x Birthday Flower (Part 2)

disclaimer: the flowers referenced are best guesses given that these are cartoon illustrations. Few of these appear to be their actual birthday month flower. Flower language meanings cited from wikipedia and hananokotoba.com.

Nagi Gardenia: secret love

Reo Marigold: jealousy, despair, grief

Rin Aster: remembrance, "I won't forget you."

Sae Sunflower: respect, passionate love, radiance, false riches

[drconstellation]

"Not Even At Gunpoint!"

Future Echoes of the Past #3

I didn't plan this meta. Well, maybe...just a tiny, weeny bit...I had been keeping a parallel in mind for a while...but not in this context. But it was kind of one of these moments:

Lets start at the beginning.

@beebopboom has been exploring the three magic tricks that appear in the S2 opening sequence recently, and speculating how the third one might appear in S3, and I've been exploring the paintball fight scene at Tadfield Manor in S1E2 and how that relates to the Great War in Heaven that formed Hell, and the events around the Fall. The two topics intersect, as you have echoes of the Bullet Catch magic trick from the 1941 minisode in S2E4 appearing not once but at least twice at Tadfield Manor.

But...then I realised, there's more than one pointed gun. Way more.

I'd always liked this throwback line from Crowley in S2E1, when Nina asks him if he is a bookseller as well:

Who would want to be a bookseller when this could happen to you?

Shadwell, turning up at the book shop in S1E4, disturbs Aziraphale contacting Heaven through the portal (a modified Solomon's magic circle) under the oculus, and breaks in to confront him. The historical implications of Aziraphale's lines here are that before homosexuality was decriminalized in the UK meeting places for such people were often disguised as respectable looking book shops. Which makes Nina's question in S2E1 and Crowley's denial to her all the more...loaded? Ah, well, you can't fool Nina, now, can you?

Anyway, mah point is...Shadwell literally has Aziraphale at gunpoint, er, fingerpoint here. Loaded fingerpoint.

But then, this isn't the first time Aziraphale has had a gun pointed at him. He had one pointed at him in the church in 1941 by the Nazi agent double-crossing Greta. His biggest fear, as always, isn't actually "dying," or standing in front of the guns, its the paperwork that he knows will go with getting a new body from the Ineffable Bureaucracy.

Crowley turns up to rescue him, because he "didn't want to see [him] embarrassed." With a bit of equivocation between the two of them, all the time while at gunpoint from Greta, they team up to save each other.

This was even before we got to the Bullet Catch - his "show stopper!"

Back to Tadfield Manor.

As they enter, Crowley is lined up in the crosshairs.

Er, wait a minute...

Only Crowley is shown this way here, not Aziraphale. He's a target. I'm starting to ask what point in time this is referring to - the present or the past? Both. Yeah, why not both! The work I did in this previous meta in this series showed that Crowley was considered a target for early removal by the other demons-to-be prior to the Fall.

Then they are both shot.

I pointed out Aziraphale gets shot by blue paint, representing Heaven, but its a colour we don't see used again by any one in the fighting to come. But what I didn't talk about was WHERE he got hit - in the back. That's synonymous with treachery. Heaven has stabbed Aziraphale in the back, so to speak. wow. Nice - not.

And Crowley? He gets hit in the heart - just like the Norman/Lucifer parallel on the Yellow Team does a short while later during his "fall" scene - with the red paint, betrayed by the Red Team who represent the management in Heaven.

Seems the Ineffable Bureaucracy wanted both them out of the way during the Great War...it get more and more interesting each time I look closer at it...

So was Aziraphale ever in the crosshairs? Yep.

And, as @vavoom-sorted-art points out, this is a time Aziraphale chooses to pick a weapon, and to fight. He didn't want the simple, safe deception trick with the ropes - he wanted a weapon. He really is much more the warrior than Crowley. Aziraphale, I think your nature as a principality is showing!

Firing that gun made Crowley sick to his stomach, and so did this metaphorical loaded gun - the Book of Life.

As soon as he found out from Beelzebub it was a real possibility of being played he went back to protect Aziraphale. Crowley hates fighting - watch how often he will try shut it down as quickly as possible or try to escape it when he can. To him everyone has free will, and the person picking the fight with the other is imposing their will on them. That's 'not on' in his books.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, is still reacting with his ingrained Heavenly instincts - that he should follow his morals because they are 'right,' and more sophisticated weapons add weight to the moral argument. He thinks. Maybe. (Yeah, keep working on that doubt, angel.)

Az: Impressive hardware. I've looked at this gun, its not a proper one at all. It just shoots paintballs. Cr: Don't your lot disapprove of guns? Az: Unless they're in the right hands. Then they give weight to a moral argument. I think. Cr: [laughing] A moral argument? Really? *tosses gun away* C'mon. [Heads into the Manor.] [later, after Crowley changes the paintball guns to real guns...] Az: But there are people out there shooting at each other! Cr: Well -  Lends weight to their moral argument. Everyone has free will, including the right to murder. Just think of it as a microcosm of the universe.

I'll think I'll end this here and leave you with a small montage of the aftermath of all this gun play - everything going up in flames and smoke.

Bring on S3!

If you didn't follow the links in the meta, and want to read the first two in this series, they are here:

#1: The Great War of Tadfield Manor

#2: The Newton/Crowley Mirror-Parallel in S1

[northsealight]

[turtleblogatlast]

Saw your question about musical instruments and fighting styles for the turtles. I don’t have instruments, but I always felt like Leo’s love of fighting with his blades was very akin to a highly skilled ballet dance.

Like, one day the guys saves a women from a Purple Dragon mugging, and when Leo sheepishly turns to her to say “Miss I promise we won’t hurt you.” He doesn’t get the words out because she starry eyed and very obviouslu not afraid. She exciting exclaims how his fightinf looked just like her ballet practice.

Raph, Donnie and Mikey are suddenly stuck listening to the excited rambles of two giant ass nerds talking about the disciplines of their respective practices.

Cuuuute, I imagine these Purple Dragons are more like previous iterations, yeah? Past Leos can definitely get that ballet vibe to their styles I see it I see it.

Though I will say that in Rise I’d argue Mikey’s more ballet than Leo just in terms of canonical mentions! But tbh all of them have some forms that could mesh well with ballet, Mikey’s just the one I think of most when it’s mentioned as he’d been described as a ballet master before.

For Rise Leo, I actually find his style of fighting akin to figure skating. I might actually make a post about this at some point but it’s actually fun to look into for him.

Fighting styles are always fun to look at though because fighting and dancing go hand in hand, and I wholeheartedly agree that dual wielding katana and using them as Leo does is probably one of the biggest examples this in the series.

[hydrus101]

Hey hi man I LOVE YOUR KAYNE DESIGN it's giving Homestuck troll vibes and honestly that's him anyways I'd be interested in your theory on ~who Kayne really is~

btw your art is so cool, pls keep being awesome forever

Op I know you sent this literally ages ago and I had this one in the chamber and just…straight up forgor post it. Anyways 1) THANK YOU!! 2) have the most cursed thing I’ve ever spent 20+ minutes on

(Also Kayne is straight up just Harlan. I’m calling it. That’s the big reveal. That or he is the biblical devil, or God, or Lazarus, or all of the above! I straight up don’t think he’s Nyar tho cause it’s too obvious, despite how badly I want him to be)

[mirandimoo]

once again thinking about how aki’s character is one of, if not the most tragic character i have come across in any media i have ever consumed in my life.

like guys you don’t understand, i’m not saying this from a ‘csm stan’ pov or anything i’m saying it from a literary standpoint AND as a media production major like yes objectively speaking he is the most tragic of tragic characters i have ever come across in any story. like from his childhood to his adult life it was all hell and trauma and after spending his whole life with nothing to dedicate himself to other than revenge, he finally found something worth protecting in denji and power so much so that the thing he spent his whole life chasing after suddenly didn’t matter because he had a little family now and that was enough for him. going through all of this only to then become the very thing you feared the worst and to be taken out by the hands of the person you cared for the most in the world. afterwards there’s no one to properly mourn you, aside from the one who took your life. everyone else is gone and the guy you cared so deeply for that you were willing to give up your life’s mission to protect has to now navigate the world with your blood on his hands, forever stained by the regret of not only killing you, but never even getting to say a proper goodbye. he’s had so much thrown onto him now that he doesn’t have time to properly grieve you and power. but no, for him your death is even worse than hers in retrospect. because there’s still a small glimmer of hope, no matter how faint, that some day she’ll come back. and that hope is so important to hold on tightly to, it’s enough of a reason to keep moving forward, to keep living. but you… oh you. for you there is no coming back. no second chances, no glimmer of hope for a happy ending. just pain. just death, anger, and so much pain. so instead of grieving properly and moving on, he’ll forever be stuck in this limbo of self hate, grief, and guilt that’ll end up with him just hurting himself physically and mentally over and over and over again. sort of how you acted in your own life... it’s kind of ironic is it not? that even in death all you do is hurt those you love, and not only fail to protect them, but deal them a fate even worse by actively being the reason they hurt. a fate worse than death it seems. and although when told it, you didn’t want to believe it, you honestly did die in the worst possible way imaginable.

[syn4k]

id like to give a shoutout to the message that set the tone and precedent for the gods in mianite s1.

dec was referring to mianite here, by the way.

[whoredmode]

On Johnny and Anteros

like i was saying. i’ve been working on something.

There's something inside Johnny and Anteros’ dynamic that has plagued me for the longest time, an element of their relationship that I just haven’t been able to put into words. It, to an extent, can be said of Anteros and his dynamics with other men from SR1 (Dex and Troy), but the key difference here is that Johnny and Anteros never develop any sort of romantic feelings for each other. That, despite everything, the love itself is rooted in friendship. Perhaps something almost fraternal. This feeling being the expression of love and masculinity. 

As I said, this feeling can be seen in Anteros’ relationships with Dex and Troy in SR1/SR2. The walls begin to crumble between the respective partners because of mutual romantic feelings, though each held back by particular hurdles of the time (for Dex, period-typical homophobia and his own closeted feelings keep the two from being as open as they could be, instead left to love each other behind closed doors. Not to mention Dex’s growing feelings of envy towards Anteros for becoming what is essentially Julius’ favorite, a title he’d long been working for and felt most deserving of. For Troy, his own feelings of guilt and inadequacy, as well as fear that Anteros does not reciprocate keeps him from initially moving forward, only reaching their climax after a particular practice fight in the abandoned theater lot. Perhaps the fights were only a means to touch him). But I'll be here all day if I sit down and dissect those two dynamics (though I'd happily do so if anyone wanted to hear about that).

This is about Johnny and Anteros. This is about a man open about his love for other men, his love for his friends, his own relationship with masculinity and femininity. This is about a man who introduces himself by describing his cock, a man who channels his feelings into violence, a man who will never get over the death of his wife (of which he blames himself and the Saints for). 

What do you do when you have all these feelings but no outlet for them? When faced with the one person you wanna confide in, you instead find yourself held back by your own self-doubt and adherence to masculine social norms? In the most basic sense, Johnny and Anteros do not speak the same language. The “I love yous” are only ever said when the other isn’t listening, when the other cannot understand. They do not and maybe will never express their love for each other in a way that makes sense to the other. 

So instead Johnny and Anteros will find themselves in a constant push and pull. They fumble through the motions, doing what they can and hoping the vague conversations can get across what they mean. Johnny’s outlet for his feelings is violence; he struggles to be emotionally open like Anteros is. Violence will give you an end result. Talking about things, as far as he can tell, won’t change anything. He can’t wear his heart on his sleeve like Anteros can. In the same vein, Anteros can’t hide his feelings no matter how hard he might try. He will tell his life story to a stranger. 

The Boss and Johnny Gat are mirrors of each other. And when they look into that mirror, when they look within that reflection, they become more aware of their own faults. 

“The Saints failed me. They failed Aisha. I failed her.” 

“How could I be the leader of the Saints? I’m just some stripper who walked on the wrong street corner.” 

How do you express that when you’ve spent your whole life putting up the mask of machismo, of being the indestructible magnet of power that is Johnny Gat? As Anteros, how do you express that to the one person whose opinion you want most of all, to the person who’s been by your side the longest yet still feels a million miles away? The connections they make will always be fragile. Anyone could die tomorrow. Both understand this well. But neither wants to be alone.

Perhaps the great irony, the echo to Johnny’s toughness, is that Anteros fears appearing weak to Johnny. He needs to be the boss for the Saints. He needs to be the boss for Johnny. 

In many ways, at one point in time, Johnny and Anteros were each other’s last friend in the world. Close enough to comfort. And to hurt. 

We see how Anteros’ decisions weigh down on Johnny as time goes on. During the events and ending of the LoP Story and through the beginnings of SRTT, we see how Anteros changes and how it impacts the people around him. None more so than Johnny. Shaundi and Pierce can adapt. Johnny cannot—in this way once again mirroring Anteros as we knew him in SR2. They are men both haunted by their respective pasts, unable to let go of certain events and people and times. What do you do when you can’t express that to your only friend left in the world? How do you tell him he’s changed? What do you say when the reflection in the mirror is unrecognizable? So many of their actions are rooted in this desire to reach out to the other in the only way they know how, trying to prove to each other that they are what’s worth fighting for, worth loving, that they know they need each other. Johnny is more than capable of showing love. Anteros is more than capable of showing his strength. But they’ve locked themselves in this stalemate, this impasse in which showing vulnerability, insecurity to the other is unthinkable. They need to be strong for the other’s sake. Failure for Johnny manifests as guilt and aggression. Failure for Anteros manifests as humiliation and grief. 

Maybe there isn’t one grand conclusion to it all. As the years go on, as they experience more tragedy and joy together, perhaps the barriers begin to fall gradually. As they hit their 40s in the modern day, I find myself thinking about how similar they’ve grown to be by that point, both bored by the lack of excitement in their lives now that the Saints have a steady hold over Stilwater. In recent years, they’ve found themselves genuinely confiding in each other about that, spending more time together one-on-one, reenergizing the friendship and brotherhood that started all those years ago in 2006. 

I just find it interesting is all. Examining male friendships and love under the expectations of manhood, comparing it to the expression of feelings in romantic relationships. How it impacts them both.

Johnny and Anteros need each other in a way so uniquely theirs that I’ve found it so hard to explain for so long. Maybe I’ve gotten those feelings across. Maybe not—the latter being the more apt answer, ironically.

[antaripirate]

rhy maresh and lila bard approve this message

[undermine-the-instinct]

I feel like gege puts these plots in motion and leaves us on these cliffhangers just to see the theories/hopes of the viewers, to do the exact opposite just because.

[evilscientist3]

check your bit endianness, the first few bytes should be ascii telling you what to do next

FUCK YES TY ANON

[ingoodjesst]

seeking the permission to be weak: on the themes of goro akechi’s arc

vulnerability, isolation versus connection, resentment, emotional immaturity, sunk cost fallacy, constructing and confronting oneself, and what it means to be acknowledged.

for context, these are my semi-connected thoughts after playing through the game’s seventh palace for the first time. it left me feeling like i'd been hit by a goddamn truck, and suddenly all these damn words erupted from me. haven't actually finished the game yet, but i needed to get these feelings off my chest before i could keep going LOL [late-game spoilers for persona 5]

the akechi confrontation in shido’s palace has earned its right to reside in my head rent-free forever. i mean, it’s mechanically brilliant. all i’m looking for was a place to SAVE like normal after a mini-boss; instead i am ambushed by a boy who, frankly, could’ve used someone to save him. which is to say, i enter this fight fuckin bedraggled because i haven’t even healed up from that last encounter. three of my current party members are under 100 hp, and only a third of joker’s sp remains. it’s looking kinda ugly.

and yet, even though akechi had all the preparation on his side and demonstrated three full phases of power… he still loses. purely on the basis that mechanically, joker has so many powerful abilities gained through his confidants and all of his phantom thief friends fighting by his side–friends who could tap in when the others were exhausted. it’s entirely because of those bonds between joker and his party that they could beat the sole, sad akechi.

i LOVE how thematically resonant that is. for all his talents that even the phantom thieves begrudgingly admire, akechi still comes up short. not because he himself is deficient, but because he has no one else to rely on once he’s given his all.

when it comes to the thieves, this is the sorest part for him. akechi mocks their friendship, calling them “pieces of shit… who lick each other’s wounds…!” but what he really resents is that they help each other when they’re weak. growing up, when he was scared and lacking, he had no comfort but himself. it kills him to see them supporting one another because deep down, he’s always longed for the permission to be weak, yet still looked after.

this resentment is especially interesting when you examine how much akechi’s circumstances reflect those of the phantom thieves. having your life turned upside down by masayoshi shido. enduring the superficial judgment of your peers. betrayed by your father figure and haunted by your mother's death. performing perfection and compliance at the expense of your ideals. believing you have no choice but to obey your dad's orders while holding out for any shred of remaining affection. even being orphaned and hiding yourself from the world, feeling as though you have no power to escape your pain on your own. akechi and each of the phantom thieves have all been victimized by cruel adults and ostracized by corrupt systems. society had deprived all of them of a place to belong. but only akechi remained disconnected from other people, and only akechi took irrevocable actions that anyone would rightfully revile.

yet despite what could reasonably be expected from anyone, the thieves still choose to sympathize and plead with him to join their cause, properly this time. even futaba and haru, who have both been most directly harmed by akechi’s actions, try to acknowledge him and the isolation he’s felt all his life. it’s kindness he may not even deserve. but maybe it’s because, within akechi, they catch a glimpse of a much lonelier path that they might’ve stumbled down if it weren’t for their fellow outcasts… particularly joker.

joker is the foil that slices deeply into akechi’s pride and sense of self. just look at what they share: their unjust treatment by adults, their insightfulness, their quick wits, their charm, their competitive drive, their metaverse powers, their thief personas. hell–they’re even the same height. but despite their common ground, joker is stronger than akechi. which forces akechi to admit that his counterpart might have something special that he lacks. there’s something missing from his life, a void he’s never been able to fill but others can. and though there are material ways in which joker was simply luckier than akechi, the most important thematic difference between them is the strength and number of joker's bonds–things that akechi never learned to nurture and thus could never rival.

so akechi hates him. he hates him because joker and his friends stoke his sense of inferiority. joker isn't an empty phony. joker became acknowledged and supported without sacrificing his justice–in fact because he upheld it. joker found a way out of the misery when he couldn't. maybe worst of all, akechi hates joker because joker could've changed the course of his entire life, if only they'd met a few years earlier.

which makes it ever more tragic that in the present, akechi refuses the thieves’ extraordinary kindness. perhaps he doesn’t believe their show of grace to be genuine, rankling under sympathy that he mistakes for pity; perhaps he cannot fathom being equals in a non-transactional relationship; perhaps he just no longer considers himself worthy after all the awful things he’s done. whatever it is, he rejects what’s possibly his last chance to desert his path of self-destruction and embrace the camaraderie that has always escaped him. he thinks them fools, believing they should just get rid of him, because that's the only thing you can do with people who get in the way, right? it’s in this manner that his inability to move past his pain condemns him yet again.

the thing is, despite the cruelty he inflicted on the world through his childish temper tantrum, it's hard not to mourn the fact that akechi got here largely because he didn’t know how to grow up. if love is a safe space to be vulnerable–to mess up and mature–then with so little of it in his life, no wonder he got stuck stewing in his lies and hatred. that’s why he ends up standing before you as a kid burdened by trauma and loneliness from a young age. a kid whose parental figures abandoned him to bounce from foster home to foster home. a kid given great power yet no one to steer him away from his bad choices. a kid manipulated and molded into a mentally unstable weapon. a kid who committed to a rotten path until he felt he could do nothing else but continue tearing down it. i mean, by then, who was gonna want the real him? who was gonna save him? who was even gonna help him?

by the time he could feel the regret sink in, it was already too late. if only he’d been given the necessary love and direction beforehand, if only he’d met joker and the phantom thieves sooner… his mistakes are still his to own, but no one stepped in to show him how to wield his powers responsibly, how to rely on others, or hell–just how to make friends. when left alone to fend for himself with hardly any resources, he doubled down with the cards he was dealt. how surprised can we be?

instead this “undesirable child” grew desperate to become someone others could rely on–someone so undeniably special that even a person with a blackened heart like shido would have to acknowledge him. with such demanding standards to toil under, he could never be anything less than perfect; he could never entrust his whole broken self to anyone.

ironically, while freezing everyone else out, he grew dependent on external validation. he sought academic honors because it was an “objective” measure of his worth. he sought fame because he craved even the most mercurial of affections. he sought shido’s praise, not just because he thought he could take revenge on him one day, but also because deep down, he was a wounded kid who just wanted love from the father who should’ve loved him from the start.

his life became ruled by an immature revenge fantasy, leading him down the most counterproductive path possible. he worked so hard to construct an ideal version of himself. yet inevitably, every trait of his that others came to envy, every trait that made him “special”–his academics, his celebrity, his charisma, his strength in the cognitive world–is utterly wasted on a man who would never appreciate any of it. like akechi, shido never trusted a soul either, and he never hesitated to crush a pawn whose utility was used up–even if it was his own son.

if only subconsciously, maybe akechi already understood some of these realities. but it isn't until he is confronted by shido's cognitive akechi that the full weight finally sets in. in that moment, filtered through the eyes of the man he hates most, he experiences a reflection: an akechi who is twisted by self-serving logic, who quite literally hates himself, who would mindlessly self-annihilate for shido in a heartbeat. now it's clear: in the process of seeking futile validation, akechi has thrown away his immense potential and, ultimately, his sense of self.

the truth is, akechi admitting that he ever needed or wanted teammates would be admitting that all the suffering he endured and all the blood he spilled–things he defined himself by for lack of anything else–weren’t necessary. it would be admitting that he didn't have to be a perfect prince. he was worthy of acceptance–weaknesses and all–this whole time. that's why, after all the time and energy he's squandered, he can't do it. not even in the face of the phantom thieves’ exceptional compassion.

maybe he could’ve admitted it earlier, if he had just found real friends or familial figures to accept him. he never should have had to be “special” to deserve love. nor did he have to be an honors student, nor an ace detective, nor shido’s puppet. he just had to be akechi.

he just had to open his heart to other people long enough to realize. he just had to put his faith in those who–against all odds and beyond all reasonable expectations–still wanted to save him. but he couldn’t. the myriad complexes guarding his heart wouldn't let him. so even at the very fucking end, although he helps them escape, akechi still closes himself off–metaphorically and physically–from the phantom thieves.

not all is lost, though. at last he makes a choice in defiance of the pathetic self who shaped his entire life around shido’s will. by claiming this agency, akechi may well have elected to destroy both versions of himself: the shadow self that shido cast and the real self that he finally asserted. yet with this pyrrhic action… at least he would die not as his father’s miserable puppet, but as his own person.

if that were the end of akechi's story, it might be bittersweet enough. but before slipping away, joker extends him one last kind gesture: a reminder of akechi’s promise. his promise–perhaps the epitome of how, despite insisting that he hated joker, akechi consciously and unconsciously offered so much of himself in joker's presence. with just a few words, joker recognizes everything akechi has shared with him. perhaps it's notable that there is no sympathy expressed. he just acknowledges who akechi is to him. a rival. a phantom thief. a friend.

finally, this is the unconditional acceptance akechi has been seeking all his goddamned life. and even if he can't comprehend why on earth joker would offer him this… for once, an unguarded smile slips onto his face.

[navree]

I would listen to you talk for hours about Alicent’s relationship with her children 🧎🏻‍♀️

( @kitsnicket you open a dangerous door my friend, i am a notorious monologuer.)

the thing is, alicent becomes a mother young. she has her first child at, maximum, sixteen years old, then her second at eighteen, and then her third at either nineteen or twenty. this is also a time when she doesn't have a lot, if any friends her own age, or at all really, her relationship with her husband is basically that of patient and nurse with a side offering of marital rape on the side, and she has a very flimsy support structure in the form of her father, that gets yanked out from under her and remains kept away from her for the next decade. aegon and helaena and aemond were, for a time and during their own formative years, all she had. alicent's closest relationships (absenting criston cole, but that's a different one due to the class dynamics and power differentials), the longest and most enduring, are with her kids.

and they each have a very different dynamic with her.

aemond's is the most straightforward, he appears to just be utterly devoted to her and she clearly adores him with little complication into that feeling. he goes to her immediately for comfort after he's bullied, and he appears to be the one who's retained most of her influence in their upbringing (i see you aemond, with your devout clasped hands while your mom prays, perfect lil angel asking the seven to preemptively forgive you for the ten million war crimes in the riverlands, i love him). alicent is also his fiercest defender during the most pivotal moment in his life, the night he lost an eye. that entire scene is filled with aemond's half sister asking that he be tortured for information, his dad caring more about insults to his nephews than to the fact that he lost an eye, and the rest of court, including his own full siblings, too scared of the situation to speak up. alicent is the only one fighting for him, alicent is the only one asking for any sort of justice or restitution, alicent literally steals a knife from the king's person to go attack his named successor in a crowded room. that has to have stuck with him over the years, especially during as long an arduous a process as recovering from a grievous injury and learning to live with a lifelong disability you got overnight. at storm's end, aemond is clearly seething with unspoken rage over what happened to him and what he felt he was denied and how he was treated, but it's also for his mother. does he say he wants luke's eye for himself? no, he says he wants to give it to his mother as a present, as a reminder to when she tried to take luke's eye for him all those years ago, the only person standing up for him, and he wants to pay that forward. there is probably no one alive aemond loves more than alicent, and alicent again clearly loves him too, is close enough to him not only try to defend and shield him where she can, but to respect him when he makes his own choices (like going to find aegon) and to trust in him as a person even as she remains devoted to him as a mother (which is why i'm going to lose it if they keep to the book's report that alicent was deeply horrified by what happened to luke, because i'm supposed to be fine with aemond, who adores his mother, faced with her disappointment and fear when it was literally an accident? i'm not gonna be fine).

alicent's relationship with helaena is more complicated, mostly because the show hasn't really done much with helaena beyond some autism coding and making her a dragondreamer, so it's kind of hard to interpret personal relationships for someone who doesn't have a lot of personality written down yet. but alicent, again as with all her children, clearly cares for and loves her daughter, and there is likely something there in the fact that helaena is her only daughter, and mother daughter bonds and all of that. it's also very interesting that when helaena is a baby, alicent is still taking an active role in the nurturing process. we see her twice, in episode 4 and episode 5, comforting a crying helaena as best as she can, in close enough succession to be inferred as a common occurrence. and alicent doesn't seem particularly enthused by this, she's very disengaged as she's doing it and doesn't try anything like shushing or humming or distraction or anything beyond just holding and bouncing her, but this is a queen with an army of nursemaids and servants at her disposal, who we've seen take care of both her toddler and helaena herself. and yet still, alicent is trying to connect with her child as she raises her. we also see that alicent continues that well beyond babyhood, at least attempting to have an interest in helaena's bug fascination, asking her questions about it (engaging with your neurodivergent child's special interest, we love a #ally), trying to continue that connection with her, even though helaena isn't the most receptive due to the apparent autism coding. we also see that alicent is much more protective of helaena than she is of her sons. we don't necessarily know why, because again lack of characterization, but it could be a combination of both just helaena being more sensitive (such as immediately turning to hold her when daemon kills vaemond and helaena has a bad reaction) and her maternal devotion. in the dragonpit, which I Will Get To, alicent is obviously focused on aegon, who she thinks rhaenys sees as the primary threat/target, but she still makes sure criston gets helaena and tries to get her to safety, even though helaena is a dragonrider in her own right and doubtless in less danger than criston or alicent herself. it is, in alicent's mind, potentially one of her final acts alive, and it is to make sure that, if she can, her daughter is safe, not entirely different to wanting to personally comfort helaena as a baby. and i do hope they explore that dynamic more in season 2, particularly after the blood and cheese debacle, which happens in alicent's chambers as helaena is bringing the kids to visit alicent, with helaena and alicent being the adults most affected by it, what with alicent having been physically assaulted in her own rooms and helaena, her only daughter, her own child, enduring the worst psychological torture imaginable. i wish i could say more about how helaena feels about alicent in turn, but again, we don't get anything from helaena really, though i'm making the executive decision that she clearly loves her mom as both mother and protector, and clearly wants to communicate with her, as i interpreted her anger and shrugging off of alicent's touch during episode 9 to be more frustration that alicent isn't understanding her warnings rather than an aversion to alicent, given that she accepts alicent's embrace the day before in episode 8.

alicent's most complicated relationship, but also the one that makes me gnash my teeth the most tbf, is with aegon. this is for a lot of reasons, not one of least being that aegon is a bit of a shit. don't ask me why this was a conversation we ever had, but my mom once told me that she would always love me, even if i killed someone in cold blood, but that she'd be upset and disappointed with me even while loving me. alicent can be deeply disappointed and upset with her son's actions and how he behaves towards nearly everyone he knows, and still love him anyway. which she does. alicent clearly loves him, is clearly as involved in raising him as she is with helaena and likely aemond (we see her being as active a mother with aegon as she is with helaena in episode 3, just with more limitations due to her being heavily pregnant at the time), but her love for aegon is also tinged with a load of other emotions. disappointment in what he does, for one, but also a very real fear. aegon is a two year old when otto ingrains into alicent's head (which rhaenyra accidentally reinforces through the lying debacle) that aegon is at risk of being murdered in cold blood the second rhaenyra ascends the throne. aegon's entire life is passed with alicent tamping down utter fear that if she doesn't prepare him enough, if she doesn't get him ready fast enough, he, her firstborn, for a while the only thing she had, will be killed. and what's horrible is aegon interprets that fear as him letting her down! we as kids are not necessarily the most emotionally intelligent where our parents are concerned, and aegon doesn't seem to see that this is terror borne out of love for him and desire to see him safe, he just sees him failing his mother's expectations and what she wants from him over and over and over again. aegon's a character i can do a whole separate thing about himself, because he's got no simple relationships and he's so fucked up in so many ways, but this is a deeply wounded person who, among many other things, does not believe that his parents love him, and that this may even make him unlovable, even though he loves her. when aemond decides to implicate aegon in the strong bastards thing, rather than his mother (again, because aemond is a giant momma's boy and isn't going to do anything to hurt her), aegon is also asked where he heard it from. does he say he heard it from alicent? does he throw her under the bus, at viserys's mercy? no, he lies, he protects her and doesn't name her as the originator and instead goes on to point out that two plus two equals four to his dipshit dad. aegon also has his own influences from his mother, he is hiding in a literal sept, the house of worship that his deeply religious mother often frequents, and the first person he asks for isn't his grandfather, the king's hand, it isn't even his dad who he's not sure is dead yet, it's alicent. he literally says "i want my mother". later, in the dragonpit, if you look closely, when alicent goes in front of aegon, he puts his arm in front of her, as if he's about to try and protect her himself or shove her back. alicent is the one who has to move his hand away from in front to behind her, it's why she's holding onto his wrist for the remainder of the shot. because as much as aegon clearly loves his mother, wants to do right by her, wants to protect her and be close to her, he also wants her to love him in return. and alicent does. alicent has loved him all of his life, and when he puts it to her bluntly, when he bears himself to her in a way we haven't seen him do the entire show and asks whether or not she does, all she can say is "you imbecile" because to her, it's a given. there is no conflict, or question there like there is for aegon. of course she loves you, you imbecile. she goes to stand up to a dragon for you. and not only does she do that just to protect him, but to at the very least make sure that if rhaenys does let loose, aegon won't die alone, that he'll have his mother by his side, holding his hand, being there for him and with him.

it's a fraught relationship on both sides, due to differences in personalities and the way they've both been screwed up (alicent having had aegon so young and dealing with a good chunk of traumas, aegon in turn feeling unloved and unlovable and also having enough genre awareness to hate his life) and how they've coped and how that's mutated their interactions over the course of aegon's life. and there's bitterness and recriminations and feelings of not being good enough and feelings of disappointment and failure and abandonment and wants for more than what they're getting, but there is a deep and unending love there, over everything. aegon loves his mother fiercely, in spite of himself and his demons, and alicent in turn loves him just as much as she does her other children, in spite of all the stuff that's coming with it.

there's obviously more to all of this than just love for her kids. alicent is a mother in a deeply patriarchal and misogynistic society that will always value the kids she's birthed (especially the sons) rather than her own person. and alicent has spent nearly her entire marriage hearing about how she needs to support aegon, prepare for aegon to rule, seat aegon on the throne, and this idea of "support your children at the expense of yourself" has bled over into her relationships with helaena and aemond as well, like having criston protect helaena rather than herself, and putting herself at risk of imprisonment and execution trying to defend aemond. and there is the fact that alicent is very isolated, especially in her youth, and therefore likely latched onto her relationship with her children as her saving grace, while the kids in turn latched onto her because she's the only parent to have shown them love and care and devotion or even a basic desire to parent them, since viserys vacillates between too sick and not giving a shit about any of them. but that doesn't mean she doesn't love them. that doesn't mean she wouldn't die for them, alicent at this point is clearly someone who would gladly take a wound so that the kids won't have to.

and as the dance progresses, these relationships are actually going to be pretty important to a lot of the character motivations of alicent and aegon and helaena and aemond (and daeron i'm assuming but i can't wax poetic about someone the show definitely forgot existed until season one was already airing). the love they have for each other, and the dynamics each of them have with each other, is going to be absolutely vital, both from a storytelling perspective, and for them as characters within their own narratives and personalities.

[ssaalexblake]

literally as somebody who does actually ship j/emily and actually cares for both characters as individuals, that JJ of all people (whose most defining moment in childhood was her older sister dying under traumatic circumstances (that were traumatizing to JJ too)) can see Emily as an elder sister figure is pretty incredible and shows the depth of care there, that she allowed this woman into the space where the sister she loved and lost and adored once was? That is truly something.