#SO many typos fuck

[lgbtlunaverse]

I've been wrestling with two beliefs I hold simultaneously but that I previously (incorrectly) thought were contradictory: that sexuality is inherently harmless, but also that specific kinds of sexual desire have been used to enact and justify grievous harm. The notion that men's sexuality is more important than women's consent, that white men's sexual access to white women must be protected from the "threat" of men of color, the idea that this specific kind of desire is so inherent to a proper society that if you have the wrong kind of sexuality you deserve to be shunned and harmed.

How can sexuality both be inherently harmless and measurably harmful?

Anyway, the answer is very easy, and part of why I feel like we should stop treating sex as something completely unlike other things and horniness as unlike all other emotions. Because I realized that, oh, right, this happens to other feelings too.

You know another feeling that is not inherently dangerous but is frequently used to enact and justify violence? Fear.

Fear is not inherently evil. Not even if it's irrational and your level of fear does not correspond to the level of danger you're actually in. In fact, irrational fears are such a common phenomenon we literally have a word for them: phobias. Which you are not evil for having. (Am I calling phobias the fear equivalnet of kinks? Kind of... I guess)

But fear and discomfort are used all the time to harm people. Let's say some random white woman is walking home late at night, and she notices a man is following her. This man might just be walking in the same direction by coincidence, but there's a small chance he's following her on purpose. It is quite natural for the mind to wander, and we frequently fear what we do not know. Discomfort or fear, in this situation, is neither inherently harmful nor unusual. However, if this white woman has been inundated her whole life with 'stranger danger' narratives and stories of women being brutally kidnapped, assaulted, and murdered by strangers. (Even though the vast majority of female victims are killed by someone they know, most often a romantic partner or family member) and she then, by the flash of a streetlight, spots that the man following her is black, and she has also been fed a narrative that black men are inherently violent and dangerous, that feeling of discomfort is enhanced and distorted until she believes she is in genuine danger and calls the police.

Statistically speaking, that guy really was just walking in the same direction, and is unlikely to be a threat. However she has now seriously endangered him, and justified it by the fact that she was scared.

A man justifying sexual assault because he couldn't help it, he was just so attracted to her. (And she led him on! She was barely dressed!) Is weaponizing his horniness in exactly the same way as people who call the authoroties on a disabled homeless person because they were "acting weird" are weaponizing their fear.

And all emotions can be weaponized this way. Anger is used to justify domestic violence ("you shouldn't have provoked me") Happiness and fun is used to jeoparidize safety (the last 30 years of olympic games have had a death toll among construction workers of over 116. The 2022 world cup alone has an officially admitted death count of 40, but the real cost is likely in the hundreds) disgust is used so often it's hard to restrict it to a single example (queerphobia, ableism, fatphobia, racism, misogyny, it's everywhere)

Sexual desire is just one way among many where the comfort of the powerful is valued above the safety of the opressed. It's not unique, but instead painfully common. And it's useful to keep this in mind not to devalue it or deny it's happening, but because we can borrow tactics and learn from similar situations rather than getting stuck on endless debates on whether porn is intrinsically evil or not, which will get us nowhere.

[deoidesign]

One of my first digital pieces (2010) versus one of my recent ones (2024)

We all start somewhere!

[lost-in-fandoms]

Thought i would be done but...yeah didn't happen. Part one here.

Living with Max is easy.

He doesn't whine when Daniel is taking care of his leg, he doesn't mind sleeping on some blankets on the floor, next to the fireplace, he offers to help around, and best of all he doesn't ask questions.

Well, not exactly. He asks so many questions. Once he gets over his initial bout of shyness and quiet, he asks questions about Daniel's vegetables, about his horse, about the woods, about the traps, about the animals. He offers his own opinions too, telling Daniel he's growing peas in too much shade and that he's cooking his meat for too long. And, much to Daniel's annoyance, he is often right too.

But he doesn't ask questions about Daniel. He doesn't know if it is because Max doesn't care or because he doesn't want to be asked questions back, but he appreciates being spared the trouble of telling him to mind his own business.

They also work surprisingly well together. Max is older than he initially seemed, dirt, hunger and exhaustion making him look younger, and he seems to know a little bit of everything. Even if he doesn't ask, Daniel is a little curious about what path in life brought him to have such a wide mix of knowledge. He seems to know how to move around the woods without scaring the prey, how to skin and cook animals, how to take care of the vegetables (better than Daniel), how to keep himself and the house clean.

It's nice to have a second pair of hands around, even if the pair of hands should sit down more often to let their leg heal. Not that Max ever listened to that.

And he's funny. Daniel hadn't realised how much he missed just sitting around the table after dinner, talking and laughing with someone else. How good it was to wake up and find the fire already stoked and the water pitch already filled. To have someone to say good morning to who would say it back.

Daniel hadn't been thinking of himself as lonely before, he was content with his choice of life, but he can admit that he likes this. He is glad Max decided to stay and he's glad Max seems to be having a good time too, at least from what Daniel could tell.

This is why, when about three weeks after Max's arrival he wakes up in the middle of the night to the sounds of him moving around the house, his first thought isn't Max is leaving, but something is wrong.

"Are you okay?" he asks, voice scratchy with sleep and way too loud in the quiet of the night.

He watches Max flinch, dropping something, before turning around to face Daniel.

"Go back to sleep," he whispers, too shaky to be a good order. There's something different in his voice, and it only takes Daniel's tired brain a few moments to realise that he had heard those notes before, in the woods about three weeks ago. Fear.

Daniel sits up, eyes finally adjusting to the silver darkness of the room, moonlight streaming through the open windows.

"What's wrong?" he asks again, voice lower, matching Max's whisper.

He listens to the sounds coming from outside, thinking that maybe the men Max was running from have come back, but he can't hear anything unusual in the late summer night.

Max is grabbing what he dropped on the floor, stuffing it into a bag that he must have taken from Daniel's things, but the moment, Daniel doesn't even care about the fact that he's very obviously stealing from him.

"Max, what is happening?" He's getting frustrated now, hates not knowing what is going on, worry and irritation growing together.

He stands up, taking a couple of steps towards Max, wanting to see him better, but he stops when Max flinches back.

"I need to leave," he finally says, voice raspy. It's not an explanation, and Daniel suddenly regrets never asking any questions.

"Why? Where?"

He doesn't want Max to leave. The knowledge of that settles like armor on his chest, safe but heavy. Living with Max isn't just easy, it's good. He doesn't want to go back to an empty house, not after the past weeks have been so nice.

"I...I need..." Max shudders, as if in pain, and Daniel's legs ache with the need of walking closer.

"Did something happen?" Did I do something wrong?

Max shakes his head, jerky and sharp. When he exhales, Daniel can hear him bite back a whine.

He doesn't want to scare Max, but he is confused, and he is worried, and he is not going to let him go without an explanation.

He steps between Max and the door.

"You owe me an explanation," he says, hating the way it makes Max stiffen, unwilling to take it back anyway.

"I don't owe you..." Max snaps, before interrupting himself with half a growl. "You haven't told me anything either!"

"That's different. I'm not running away in the middle of the night."

Max takes a step forward, back tense, and Daniel instinctively braces himself, eyes flying towards the table, where his knife always is, but Max doesn't attack him.

He shivers again, hands clenching around the bag and then letting it fall on the ground with a thump, shoulders slumping as all the fight seems to leave him.

"Please, Daniel, I need to leave. It's...it's not safe."

Max looks up, finally meeting Daniel's eyes, and he's suddenly reminded of what the man had said, so many days ago.

He's dangerous. Cursed.

Max's eyes look weird, blue brighter than ever, almost glowing in the moonlight. His face is twisted in pain and there's the glimmer of sweat gathering at his hairline. None of that would worry Daniel, but there's something...different in him. Something other.

Cursed.

The room seems too bright now. The moon is almost full tonight.

Cursed.

Max had said he hadn't killed anyone, but if this is what Daniel is thinking of...

Max closes his eyes, whole body shivering again, his edges almost blurring with it. Or maybe it's not just a trick of the light. Daniel doesn't know what to think anymore.

He doesn't want Max to go. He doesn't want this to happen.

He steps away from the door.

For a moment, they both stand still, looking at each other.

For a moment, Daniel hopes he'll wake up and it will be morning, and Max will be coming in with the last tomatoes from the garden.

Then Max whines, something low and pained, something animal, and bolts.

Daniel doesn't stop him.

He watches as his shadow changes even before he's fully reached the trees.

Then he sits on the doorstep and waits for the sunrise.

[pokemonedits-outofcontext]

[marcsnuffy]

Marx Snuffy

[bleue-flora]

idk if this is the correct place but i wanted to talk a bit about this and wanted to see you opinion bc I like you analisys on canon a lot.

A big question people have with the lore about cstagedduo it's that if cpunz actually cared for cdream or not- The same with crivals after prison break but that's for another day- and if cpunz would have helped cdream out the prison if he took too long.

I personally think it's a more grey anwser. We know cpunz cares, yeah they are small moments but he does care for cdream. He wouldnt be defensive over the fact they are friends in the ending and let cdream speak to ctommy without protesting to him and still be worried he and cdream both escape the nuke together if he didnt care for him. But it is true he left cdream make his crazy plan of making everyone hate him and insolating himself for god knows how much time they expected the imprisionment to last. And that he left cdream alone a lot in the prison after the prison break while everyone on the server wanted him death. But i think this is more of a fucked up vision cpunz has than signs of lack of care. He cares about cdream but he also trusts his plan is working and he can handle himself just fine and that he's totally not in a bad mental state. He's also on board with the plan so of course if he wants to recolect knowledge and power and trust his friend to know what he is doing, he will in favor of this even if we know as viewers this is a bad idea in all aspects.

Cpunz has flaws as a friend and characther but I do think he cares about cdream. It would have sense if he didnt for me. At the end there's lots of friendships that are pretty grey and imperfect on the dsmp, Like c!clingyduo exist

As far as the prison goes, it is hard to say. How long would have been too long? And how did he not know about Quackity’s torture when it was’t like he was trying to hide it or anything. I think it comes down to trust. Specifically, Punz’s trust and faith in Dream. I’ve talked about it before, but in the stream we get of the two by themselves, Dream is filling Punz in on his plans, but not all of it. Just enough for Punz to understand what his part to play in it is. So, I don’t think Punz really knew what Dream was subjecting himself to, not to mention that things did not go as planned. Sure, while Dream considered all the possible things that could go wrong, like losing two lives and someone coming to torture him, that doesn’t mean Punz knew that and allowed Dream to go through with it. I feel like the perception a lot of times with Punz is that he is like a viking helping an older person up a mountain only to have him jump off. I think we give Punz too much credit to say he saw the big picture just because Dream did. I more so get the impression that he’s by Dream’s side and helping him climb or go wherever he needs to go not necessarily focused on where they are going, because he believes in what Dream believes, he wants what Dream wants, and be trusts Dream as his friend, who is clever and has never given him reason to question him before. 

Because of this trust, there is also an element of betrayal. If he pulls the plug and makes plans to rescue him from prison, he is going against Dream, he is doubting him. If he makes a move to end things without Dream’s support, he is expressing that he doesn’t believe in Dream and not only does that seem like something Punz would not want to risk, but also the reason he looks so bad is because of the conditions of the prison. But see, I don’t think he got to see it before Dream’s incarceration, so he isn’t aware of how inhumane it is. Sure, he likely heard from Bad, but Punz is probably also aware that Dream could be just manipulating Bad so how trust worthy is he. 

We as an outsider perspective can see Dream breaking at the seams, but the other characters certainly aren’t aware of it, so it’s a little unfair to say Punz would either. Dream has been formidable, always prepared, planned out, 10 steps ahead, why would Punz have any reason to doubt Dream in prison? Punz is also one to follow orders, he’s a mercenary after all. You pay him $10 bucks to log off and he will, why would he defy orders, especially if he didn’t know how bad it was. Hell, maybe Dream was supposed to use Ranboo to send a message to Punz if things went wrong, but after Ranboo stopped visiting that was no longer an option, but that Punz necessarily knew about that. So maybe Punz was just sitting on his hands waiting for the go ahead to do something. 

Now after prison, when Dream is such a wreck, is when we see Punz more so go off script. We see him give a passionate, detailed proposition to Purpled (that there’s no way Dream signed off of as it makes him look bad) and we see him reveal he has the revive book to clingy duo and bring Dream back in front of them. Because after prison, when it is revealed just how “south” Dream’s plan went, Punz more takes things into his own hands, especially when it comes to Dream’s well being as Dream can clearly not be trusted to look after that. 

A lot of people seem to get the impression that they did not spend a lot of time together, but see I don’t think that’s true. For starters, there is the "we" in this [clip] where it seems to me that Punz is helping to lead them to the saw trap room almost like he helped make it. Secondly, according to the map [post], placing Vik and Lazar’s experiments after prison this leads us to figure they at least spend a lot of time working together on that. If Dream is to be believed in the finale, months even. And Punz’s protective behavior seen no clearly than this moment [post] makes me more so inclined to believe Punz doesn’t leave him alone for long, especially with everyone out to kill him. I mean he can’t stay at the prison full time, he still has a cover to maintain, but just because he’s in his house in the finale, I don’t think means he kept his distance from Dream, especially after everything with Las Nevadas.

Then as far as the plan goes, we really don’t know even what it is, nonetheless if Punz fought against it. I think Punz stayed by his side and he had the same goals as Dream and they did things together, but that doesn’t mean that he trusted Dream fully after prison or didn’t push back on Dream’s self destruction or that if they survived the nuke that he would continue the plan without Dream. Like I mean this in the nicest way possible, but Punz to me seems to be more so a follower, akin to Tubbo, loyal even if maybe they should hold their friend back from doing something stupid (except Dream is a liar and good at making his stupid seem smart lol making the situation worse). Punz isn’t like Techno, who will call out Dream’s bs, he isn’t the mastermind or thinking 10 steps ahead or seeing the big picture, he’s following Dream who does. He and Dream have been friends from the start, he and Dream want the same things, and he trusts and believes in Dream...

And yes, I think this is apart of what makes their friendship flawed, unbalanced, and tragic, but as you said, so are the other friendships on the dsmp and honestly, so are friendships in real life...

(anyways... I've talked a lot about staged duo, so if I didn't say or explain it here I may have said it somewhere else like in one these other posts: [<> <> <> <> <>] though their dynamic has been shifting in my brain a bit since noticing the map so...)

[chocolate-cream-soldier]

Well that was a Finale!!!

[stabbyfoxandrew]

also hi. me and jess ended up binge watching iwtv s2 yesterday.

[dont-offend-the-bees]

YAY the messy unreadable first draft of Lonely Bones ch3 is done!! All I have to do is edit so it'll be ready in *checks word count* .... three weeks.

[velvetjune]

idk if this is worded right but. It’s a shame there’s barely any academic lit or analysis around remedy games. the first thing that comes to mind is jacob gellers video involving control but I’d love more on the themes of these games and how they use different mediums to tell their stories

[unityrain24]

Saw your tags about Star Wars, it seems Star Wars stans and modern MCU stans are two peas in a pod. :/

im not entirely sure which tags you were referring to, because i have reblogged several starwars posts with Tags, but honestly, the mcu and starwars really are two peas in a pod. And im honestly surprised there isnt more comradery/comparing between the fandoms

both started out as, while definitely not "high art" or anything, legitimately good enjoyable films, with relatable characters the audience could feel empathy and compassion for, exciting new powers and places, fun and adventurous stories, and more, which instantly became beloved classic that people thought about with nostalgia and pleasantness. And they were and by people who cared and the people who watched them were compelled to care and create communities.

But then both franchises saw a shift, from making films from a passionate and moneymaking point of view, to purely making films from a moneymaking point of view. While star wars saw this happen with the franchise being picked up a few years after to make sequels, the mcu's shift happened more gradually, since there was no time in-between making movies.

now, while i would not consider myself a StarWars Fan, my sister and cousins most definitely were, so i had to watch basically everything in order to keep a conversation with them (not that i didnt enjoy it, i quite liked it and all the lore, it just didnt hold the special place in my heart that thing i consider myself a Fan of do). I've watched the movies, the clone wars series, rebels, the mandalorian, etc all the way through. It's been a while since i was keeping up with everything, so forgive me for not having quite a comprehensive understanding and opions of it as i did say, 3-4 years ago lol.

But the starwars sequels are a lot like the latest phases of the mcu. While i cant remember if they explicitly go against any prestablished canon like the later mcu phases do, they definitely go against the spirit and point/purpose of the original (and even prequel) films.From what i remember, the sequels also had went through several different directers and had direction and script changes and was a whole mess, so even the three films were sort of inconsistent or at the very leat felt oddly-thrown together (<-i may be wrong on the specifics of that its been a while. but it was something along those lines). Also like the later phases of the mcu, they relied a lot on the "nostalgia factor" with not only easter eggs but bringing back old ideas, concepts, plots, even characters, since it "worked so well the first time," when really what the "first time" did was think of new things, present old things in new ways, and tell make art from a place of passion, community, and connection, rather than a "whats the least i can do to make the most money" mindset formula (a point brought up a lot by @therese-lokidottir on many of their recent mcu critiques).

Starwars, unlike the mc, did have a brief period of "redemption" where it looked like the franchise would be saved and given back to the hands of people passionate about starwars, stoytelling, and film, with stuff like the final season of clonewars, the mandalorian, and a few other things. That was a great time to be a starwars fan. I wasn't even a fan, and it was kind of magical for me. But now it seems like they are back of the capitalist art-destroying path, hard. They have been pumping out series after series after series (once again going for the "nostalgia" thing, bringing back the clonewars artstyle, several beloved characters, and more), but it all feels so hollow. The stories feel more like they are just putting in a whole bunch of "wow, thats so shocking" and sewing them together with "hey i loved that character!". The costuming and makeup is absolute trash. The worst by far is hera (an alien character from the animated Rebels series, showing up live-action in Ahsoka). It is hideous. I have seen cosplays of her better than what the actual multi-bullion-dollar corpoation disney with all the best resources put on that screen. The costume looked like it was from spirit halloween, the makeup looked patchy and strange, they left out simple details of her design, and all the colours were Off. Examples:

Hera in Rebels:

Hera Cosplayers (x and x):

Hera in the Ahsoka Series: (it is like. seriously disconcerting to me)

and again, the costuming was not the most pressing point. Its actually relatively low on the list of points of everything bad with current starwars. But its good for a visual example. My sister and my cousins loved starwars. Passionate. Ahsoka was one of my sister's favourite characters. She couldnt even get though a full episode of ashoka. I havent heard anything new of starwars from our cousins, either. And we see eachother relatively often. I havent watched a new starwars thing in like... forever now. And it seems like neither have they. And not because they got sick of starwas, i can tell you that. They got sick of the new starwars being pumped out and shoved down their throats where the only things that resembled what they had loved were twisted into something else. Which, at least in my experience, is far, far worse than if they just ended things ubruptly and unfairly. At least mutilated corpse can rest.

The mcu's decline was, again, more gradual, like boiling a frog. Thor ragnarok is where i would probably pinpoint the beginnings though. I didn't like it at first, because it was out of character, sort of reversed elements of the character's well-developing character arcs , narratively picked on some characters more than others, etc. But, it was still a well-beloved film by many, in-universe explanations for why the characters, arcs, and plots were so different could be plausibly thought up, it was fun and unique, and i could make myself ignore the bad parts and focus on the good and enjoy it for a while. But by the time the loki series came out? There wasnt even any of that anymore. No passion. No community. No love of art. No respect for the previous artists and their art, that the new makers were supposed to honour and continue. While ragnarok's morals of the story could be a little iffy at times (attempting to critique colonialism/imperialism, but falling flat because mocking loki for dismantling it; making jokes at points of the film where it was a little inappropriate), the loki series was straight up horrifying. Perhaps most noteably, fucking. GLORIFYING AND EXCUSING/SYMPATHIZING FASCISM??? and labeling genocide as a "necessary evil?" (though, once again, that was not the only immoral "moral" the series preached). Disgusting. And the MCU is pumping out way more films than starwars, and seem far deeper in the money-lust trenches too.

either way, both are suffering and both are bought by disney (and oddly, both keep giving more and more screentime to the fascist characters. but at least starwars isnt romanticizing it like the mcu is...)

and it hurts so much when something important to you is taken from you, and twisted, and ruined, and its mutilated corpse is hung up on string and paraded around as a puppet before your eyes, and burned into your mind even when you finally tear yourself away. And then swarms of people thinking your ridiculous for caring so much about something so unimportant, and others defending the very monstrosity that did this.

But its not ridiculous or silly or inferior to be attatched to a fictional character or fictional world or fictional story or whatever. They can provide comfort, and ways to explore and understand and even come to terms with yourself (or even others!) (and can be especially important coping mechanism for mentally ill people!). And art is a such an innately human thing, for us to express ourselves, and communal art (like film!) is a tradition across humanity and time!

And with the whole thing with people these days defending/denying what capitalism is doing to art, and denying the notion that art has any influence or effect on "real life"... why are these such absurd concept to you, that you liken to some crazy conspiracy theory? Are you really so blind as to not see it happening before you? Is the blindfold over your eyes really so soft it feels like nothing there? They say a bird who doesnt know its in a cage thinks its free. These people seem to think that drastic, unfair, unjust, immoral, inequal changes and systems are only things of the past. And often, the past doesnt feel real. Dinosaurs and the roman empire and some genocide in some faraway land in some faraway time can at times seem just as unreal as mythical creatures and stories. And even if such terrible things were to happen now, surely theyd be able to see it coming. But things like this dont change in an instant. They are gradual. Like boiling a frog. You dont notice. And even if things arent the worst they can be, and never become the worst they can be, they are still bad. Things arent required to be certified the worst of worst in order for change to be allowed to happen. The worst of the worst isnt even a thing.

Our art is being taken from us. We are being overworked and underpayed. Our whole lives are dictated by how "valuable" we are. Our environments are being polluted and decimated and our planet is becoming more and more inhospitable. Racism and queerphobia and ableism and more are taking lives. And none of those things are at the very worst they can be. They could all be much, much, much worse. But we shouldnt just sit around and be grateful its not worse and do nothing more, nor should we deny anything is wrong at all. If you had cancer youd want to do what you could to get better. If you If broke your leg youd do what you could to make it better. Even if you just accidentally cut your hand or finger while chopping vegetables, youd bandages it up. We always should try to make things better.

We deserve to have our art continue to be art. Just as we deserve all the much more pressing areas of our lives to be better too

Anyways, marvel and starwars really are two peas in a pod. And that pod is with other pods, and the plant those pods share is film. Or perhaps even art as a whole. The mcu and starwars are just really good examples of whats happening right now, because not only does it feel like perhaps its hitting them the most, but also because since they are such large franchises, you can really see and document the progression of whats happening with each instalment.

two peas in a pod :( <3

[milk-lover]

Y’all help me, my paper has a 5 page limit, section 1 of 4 is 3.5 pages already.

[ilovemylaptop]

in the meantime: portal 2 is such an objectum game. or i guess the concept of glados as a whole is? specifically how she has near full control of the facility and its basically an extension of her but also its own thing??

anyways the reason i started this post is because of the panels. omg the panels

the ones before one of the first chambers and make way for you to pass through, the ones hitting the wall in frustration, the ones that can't quite fit back into the floor and keep readjusting OR JUST ANY OF THEM BUILDING AND FIXING THE NEW CHAMBERS <3

like. i know technically its glados controlling them but in my head its like they're her employees or something lol

[nervocat]

Guys I'm so happy that I aced my test in bio bc like that was (and is) actually so shocking to me.. I thought I did so bad like omgggg and then I also got a 100 on the practice test too like.. woah man....

[normal-thoughts-official]

Do find it interesting how Copley's entire character is based on denial. Especially when it comes to his involvement in the key plot points.

He's in denial about his wife. Even if he admits that she is dead, he refuses to move on. It's been two years, and he still wears the wedding band. Just in that very short scene of him in his office we see two pictures of her (one of their wedding on the shelf and one of her right in between his PC monitors, so she's always in his peripheral vision at least). Someone who wanted to move on would have kept the pictures somewhere to look at when they felt the need, not exactly where they were before, as a constant reminder of her passing. And they definitely wouldn't keep wearing the wedding band.

What I'm trying to say is that even though Copley, obviously, knows rationally that his wife is dead, subconsciously he is still in denial because he refuses to move on. And because he refuses to move on, he keeps trying to find a way to do something about it. He obsessively follows the immortals and Merrick (who is specifically looking into making cures for the type of disease that killed Copley's wife) looking for a way to help cure her illness, because it is the closest he can get to curing his wife. To making up for not being able to save her. To rewriting what happened to his family. (And if he ever got that, he'd have to face the fact that he can't bring his wife back and actually process his grief instead of trying to Do Something To Stop ALS as a means of putting off facing her death).

The entire plot wouldn't have happened if Copley hadn't been in denial about the fact that there is nothing left for him to do about his wife. If he hadn't refused to process his grief by choosing to obsess over finding a cure to ALS instead, he wouldn't have found out about the Guard's immortality, and wouldn't have sold them out to Merrick.

But it doesn't stop there. Even his small decisions are driven by denial. I always laugh at the "there was an unanticipated amount of carnage" because Copley. James. Babygirl. They are immortal mercenaries who have fought in more wars than most people learn of in school. We know that they're trying to do good and don't like killing, but we also know they're willing to. And with a secret this big at risk of being revealed, there is no way they'd have left anyone get out of that room alive.

Which someone as smart as Copley, who's ex-CIA, for crying out loud, should have predicted. The only way Copley could have possibly believed that his little trap wouldn't end in a bloodbath is if he was neck-deep in denial of the fact that his plan would kill innocents. Because again, Copley desperately needs to believe that he's doing good, that he's working for the sake of humanity, that he will save his wife people

And sure, he could have been lying about not anticipating it, but judging by: the fact that he doesn't need to because Merrick doesn't give a fuck; the fact that the carnage actually got in the way of his plans, because he couldn't get DNA samples; and his horrified look as he watched the footage, I really don't think that he was. I think he genuinely, truly did not expect that it would be (so) bloody. Or, more accurately, didn't want to believe it would, or maybe didn't even want to think about what the consequences of his trap would be beyond "I get the samples, ASL is cured". He was laser focused on his goal, and he didn't see anything else. If Copley hadn't been in denial about this, his trap would probably have been set up differently, at the very least.

And then, of course, the entire second half is a parade of Copley being in denial about the obvious, completely unmistakable fact that Merrick is a piece of shit who could not care less about helping people. Merrick isn't even trying to pretend otherwise. Yet Copley is surprised by his complete lack of ethics. The way he screams "Mr Merrick!" when Merrick starts stabbing Joe, like anyone in the world didn't see that coming; his "this is about science, not profits, or sadism" like he truly believed that's what it was for them; warning him that "this would be murder" like Merrick cared; the genuinely shocked "for... ever?"; the "no, this is not what we agreed" when this is exactly what they agreed on. The agreement was that he would bring Merrick the immortals and he would experiment on them to make medicine. He had to have known forced experimentation and potential murder was what was going to happen, especially because Merrick took 0 efforts to not make that obvious. But somehow Copley had convinced himself that they would get DNA samples and then leave them alone, which is an insane assumption to make after everything Merrick's done and said.

But Merrick's company was working on a cure for degenerative diseases. They could, very soon, cure ALS. So Copley needed it to be him, needed him to be interested in doing this ethically, needed to believe that, once again, his brilliant plan wasn't actually just hurting more innocents in a desperate quest to save a dead woman.

Because Copley does believe in doing good. We know that because no one who doesn't actually, deeply care about humanity would go looking into what happened to all the people that the Guard saved. Just the fact that he researched that, tried to find out what happened to the victims, shows that he is a very compassionate person with a very humanized perspective on war and conflict. He went looking into generations of descendants of people saved by the Guard. I don't think most people would even bother to think of looking at what happened to them beyond being a footnote in the Guard's history, especially not anyone as obsessed with them as Copley was. But Copley did. He looked into every single person, and what happened to them.

Taking that into account, as well as the fact that Copley was genuinely fighting Merrick on his decisions, I think that Copley - unlike Merrick, Keane, and Kozak - does care about doing the whole thing ethically. The thing, of course, is that without their consent that is impossible, which Copley is too smart and compassionate not to know. But letting them go would mean facing that there won't be a miracle cure for his wife, and he cannot handle admitting that. So, he adds "trying to convince himself this could be in any way ethical and he can convince Merrick to do it that way" to the list of completely out of touch beliefs he's been holding because of denial.

The result is that even though he obviously knew that Merrick was a fucking piece of shit (just the fact that he added "or sadism" proves that), he didn't actually face that as a fact until the moment Nile confronted him and he said "they are in the lab, being tested" and then closed his eyes and went, "tortured". Again, denial made an appearance, but this time he made the conscious decision to take a deep breath and stop lying to himself. This is the first time he acknowledges what's actually going on there, and by proxy, his part in it. And all it took was being quite literally hit over the head with it, as well as possibly killing the single person who's made the most good in the history of humanity. But I digress.

It is also in that same confrontation with Nile that he finally admits the obvious - that he was trying to save someone who was gone. He says he wants to help humanity, but in the end he's only being truly honest about his motives when he says "she couldn't talk, my wife. In the end." This is also the first and only time we see him actually mourning his wife, because it is the first time he is in any way processing that her death was final. Up until then, he only talked about her detachedly, and kept all these mementos of her like she still lived in the house.

And that's why his confrontation with Nile is also the shift of his loyalties. Because it is the point in which he breaks his cycle of denial and admits that his wife is gone, he can't save her, and that in trying to do so he's hurt innocents and handed them over to a greedy asshole. And once he finally, finally faces that, he realizes he has to do something about it. Which is why he helps Nile and wants to storm the place with her, insists on it, admits that pharma CEO's are full of shit ("what kind of CEO walks around with his own personal army?" "these days? Most of them"), and agrees to help erase the Guard's footprints. And even though Copley was (or wanted to believe he was) good-intentioned, he wasn't able to do good until he stopped lying to himself.

So Copley's denial is what shaped the way the whole movie goes - if he weren't in denial he wouldn't have found out about the Guard's immortality, wouldn't have set them up the way he did, wouldn't have sold them out to Merrick specifically, and wouldn't have allowed Merrick to continue for as long as he did. And once he got over the denial, that was also a point that helped shape the resolution of the plot (I'm sure Nile would have found everyone anyway, but Copley's help did speed up the process). And I find it interesting how this one thread of how he chose to deal with his grief ended up not only defining his character, but the course of events in the movie - despite the fact that he's not a main character.

Which actually also ties off in a really interesting perspective where most of the things that happen over the course of the movie are dictated by the characters' refusal to try to get better. The whole movie would be heading towards a massive tragedy, Greek-style, if there weren't a character who is quite literally defined by her refusal to go with the tide - Nile. Unlike Andy, Booker, and Copley, who let their grief and self destruction take over their life, and Joe and Nicky (+Booker again), who let Andy make all the relevant family decisions, Nile refuses to let anyone or anything decide her fate for her. She doesn't defer to Andy just because Andy is the oldest and very clearly capable; she fights her at nearly every turn, even when it's impossible for her to win, because she is not willing to compromise her beliefs or let anyone dictate what she's going to do. She will do it if she believes in it, and only then. And Nile also isn't willing to listen to Copley's bullshit, which forces him to face what he's been trying to hide from himself.

So, you know - maybe this is the why Nile. Because she's young and strongheaded, and so she holds the hope and the possibility of doing things differently. Of choosing your potential future. And that's why she makes Andy realize that she's been doing a shit job of living, but she can do different.

Although this might be a different analysis altogether. My point with this one was - Copley's tendency towards denial was one of the most powerful forces shaping the course of events in the movie. And Nile's unwavering sense of morality and freedom of choice was the opposing force.

PS so there are no doubts about it: I'm not saying that what Copley did was justified or that you have to like him. This is a character analysis and nothing more, or less.

[kuro-teni]

Finally finished watching good omens and even though i knew the ending it still just hits and stabs you in the chest so fucking hard

I am currently blasting a nightingale sang in berkeley square in the corner of the room

Omfg good omens season 2 is just ruining me

I love beelzebubs and gabriels speedrun relationship though

They look so cute and just perfect with each other