#One Dimensional Man

[philosophybits]

Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.

Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man

[philosophybitmaps]

[decarabias]

forever thinking about royal’s bad ending. my thing with it is that maruki doesn’t necessarily give anyone what they want most, he gives them what’s most appropriate for them to want within a maruki-approved framework. iirc there’s a really interesting text sequence in the game where he just straight up changes someone’s career because they’re not “good” at it, regardless of whether that’s what they actually want. why struggle at all? ever? right?

and so ultimately i don’t think goro akechi’s greatest wish is necessarily ren. i think it’s a wish for sure, but his greatest wish is his own agency. despite any regrets he has and the fact that shido and yaldabaoth treated him like a pawn, he's generally pretty adamant about owning his choices and their consequences. he doesn't want that erased. and instead, you end up with pleasant boy™ if you take maruki’s deal. maybe maruki (incorrectly) thinks sanding off all of akechi’s rough edges will make him easier for ren to love. but the crux of it is really that maruki has to essentially lobotomize him to preserve the illusion of his perfect reality, because their ideologies are so diametrically opposed that akechi would spend every waking moment fighting back.

this isn’t to undermine ren’s importance to akechi btw — he explicitly acknowledges that he wishes they had met earlier, and there are countless moments throughout their confidant that underscore how much it means to him that they mirror each other so well. he absolutely does want more time with ren, just not under these circumstances.

and that’s also what makes ren’s choice on 2/2 doubly devastating. he knows that either way he loses akechi. and if he takes maruki’s deal, he loses him knowing that his last moments with the real akechi involved the two of them being unforgivably out of sync.

[stealingyourbones]

Everyday I exist and every day I get more and more exhausted seeing the “lol Batman looks at Danny and goes “who’s gonna adopt this kid” He’s so adoptable!” posts.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

We could have had it all...

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[j-jonah-jameson-official]

YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT NEW YORK GETS TAKEN OVER BY A SWARM OF PSYCHO-WHATEVER SPIDERS FOR 24 HOURS AND I’M SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE DOC OCK WAS BEHIND IT?!

BULL!! ITS A COVER-UP! A SHAM!! SPIDER-MAN IS BEHIND THIS!!

I’M STILL PICKING DEAD SPIDERS OUT OF MY CEREAL!!

[mostlyvoid-partiallyflowers]

The most recent episode of Interview with a Vampire let's us see Lestat's side of the story and see how it compares to Louis' accounting of their relationship. As a result, it reaffirms just how unreliable of a narrator Louis is, but it also further illuminates elements of his character that the director and writers have been playing with since the beginning of the show.

There's this part in the episode where Lestat turns to Louis and apologizes and it's framed with Lestat turned to Louis on one side and Claudia on his other side. They're the angel and devil on Louis' shoulders, but who is the angel and who is the devil? And as my friend said, Armand and Daniel are placed into that same dynamic with Louis later on. We are being asked to decide who to trust, who's telling the truth, who's the good guy, but the fact of unreliability robs us of that decision.

This whole story is about Louis, he's the protagonist, though not the narrator, and he is constantly being pulled in two directions, no matter when or where he is in his story. He's a mind split in two, divided by nature and circumstance. He's vampire and human, owner and owned, father and child, angel and devil. He's both telling the story and being told the story. His history is a story he tells himself, and as we've seen, sometimes that story is not whole.

Louis is the angel who saved Claudia from the fire but he's also the devil who sentenced her to an life of endless torment, the adult trapped in the body of a child. He's the angel who rescued Lestat from his grief and also the devil who abandoned him, who couldn't love him, could only kill and leave him.

He's pulled in two directions, internally and externally at all times and so it's no wonder that he feels the need to confess, first to the priest, then Daniel, and then Daniel again.

He's desperate to be heard, a Black man with power in Jim Crow America who's controlled by his position as someone with a seat at the table but one who will never be considered equal. He doesn't belong to the Black community or the white community, he can't. He acts as a go-between, a bridge, one who is pushed and pulled until he can't take it anymore. He's a fledgling child to an undead father, he's a young queer man discovering his sexual identity with an infinitely experienced partner. He's confessing because he wants to be absolved, that human part of him that was raised Catholic, that child who believed, he wants to be saved. He wants to be seen.

Louis wants to attain a forever life that is morally pure, but he can't. He's been soiled by sin, by "the devil," as he calls Lestat, and he can never be clean again. Deep down, I think he knows this, but he can't stop trying to repent. He tries to self-flagellate by staying with Lestat and then tries to repent by killing him, but can't actually follow through. He follows Claudia to Europe to try and assuage his guilt. He sets himself on fire, attempts to burn himself at the stake, to purify his body, rid himself of the dark gift.

Louis is a man endlessly trying to account for the pain he has caused and he ultimately fails, over and over again, because he can't get rid of what he is. A monster. He's an endlessly hungry monster. He's hungry for love, for respect, for power, for forgiveness, for death. He's a hole that can never be filled. He can never truly acquire any of those things because he will always be punishing himself for wanting and needing them in the first place. He will never truly believe he deserves them and as a result, can't accept them if they are ever offered. He can never be absolved for he has damned himself by accepting the dark gift and thus has tainted himself past the point of saving.

[bluehibiscusgarden]

Love when people write Toji like they're in dire need of a dick me down but I love it even more when they write him all fluffy and soft. Give him the domestic life he was so ready to settle for. Give him the chance to be an actual father to Megumi and Tsumiki and not leave the fragmented hopes that died with mamaguro. Give him a path away from bloodshed after time and time again of having to wash his hands, his weapons, clothes, of crimson red--whether his, anothers, or both.

Let him find a new love, that while it might not be mamaguro, but helps mend the pieces he lets chip away, too tired to do it himself, he doesn't know how, he thinks he's a lost cause. That there's no point. but you can prove him wrong. It doesn't even need to be love, just someone who helps him see he doesn't have to be alone.

I love a soft Toji, where his inner child gets the care he deserved, and where he gets to truly live his life and not just survive or wake up for the next morning.

[potato-arts]

How to Prevent Yourself From Changing Into Your Counterpart 101

I like to think that Sun would cover himself in battery-powered lights (at least three different strings so that if one went dark, he would have time to swap the batteries)

Moon's outfit was a joke based on that one Bugs Bunny meme but I still stand by the fact that he'd 100% cover himself up with as much clothing as possible to prevent any of his sensors from picking up light.

[silverskye13]

Trying to analyze the tropes in my own fics to see if I think they're successful as component pieces and getting so confused I give myself psychic damage send help

[larissa-the-scribe]

OC Ask Game

Send me an ask with an emoji and a character name, and I'll give you a fun fact or a snippet of writing that relates to both.

[philosophybits]

By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For "totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests.

Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man

[philosophybitmaps]

[plexiglassonion]

What..... what was midas man. Like, sure, competent biopic but also so....man....

[riiviir]

hey guys so I just started reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott and OMG AHSBNSBSBSNSNBSHZHSHDBFHGGHFHGRJ2KSHSBSNSK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE THINKING ABOUT THE RELATIVITY BETWEEN DIMENSIONS!!!!!!

[ceasarslegion]

"True crime is so disrespectful to victims and all it does is glorify serial killers" so youve only watched youtube makeup vloggers and decided that represented an entire diverse genre of crime media. And youve also decided that the only reason anybody would ever be interested in learning about people like serial killers is because theyre attracted to them in some way. Have you like, actually seen any officially-produced true crime?

"All detective shows are are just copaganda. If you like that shit genre then youre no better than a real life cop" so youve only watched dragnet and a few of the jankier episodes of law & order and decided that represented an entire diverse genre of media. And have decided that a genre meant for adult viewers have child-level media literacy and cant possibly distinguish the difference between a fictional precinct working with fake stories and the reality of policing. Or that a genre that often runs stories about the inner workplace politics of those fictional precincts never criticize them. Have you like, actually gone deeper into the genre than criminal minds, or are the names "L.A. Confidential" and "Mindhunter" foreign to you?