#The mind works in mysterious ways

[springsylph]

me, pre-dune 2: not the biggest fan of austin butler, but i’m very interested in seeing how his feyd-rautha fares in comparison to book feyd-rautha! i sure do hope nothing happens to the arrangement of my brain cells!

movie feyd-rautha, bald, foaming at the mouth, very clearly in need of several million extra screws and solitary confinement:

me, post-dune 2 at six in the morning: i need him.

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Always: Discussing Arthur and Charles

Alternative title: Steph waffles about the dynamic between Arthur and Charles for way too long because it’s all she can think about rn

Tagging @the-bi-space-ace in case you were interested in my ramblings about these two 🤠

I recently fell back down the Red Dead 2 rabbit hole and once again have had many thoughts about the characters, particularly Arthur and Charles (nothing new there lol) and their relationship (however you interpret that). I don’t know if I have a singular favourite quote from Arthur in this game, as there are a few contenders - “we’re more ghosts than people’, “we’re thieves in a world that don’t want us no more’, “I’ll turn you into a goddamn cauliflower” - but with Charles I definitely do. “Always.”

It’s so simple, so succinct, and so perfectly Charles. A line that holds so much weight and meaning, in such few words. And what I love about it is that it represents what makes Arthur and Charles’ dynamic so special, and encapsulates how meaningful that relationship was for the two of them in those months.

When we first see these two characters at the beginning of the game, it’s mentioned that in the 6 months that Charles has been with the gang, the two haven’t spoken all that much, and yet something that becomes immediately clear is the fact that there is a very obvious level of respect that they hold for each other. We can determine that within just a few months, they have already built up a recognition of the work and care that the other puts into the gang, and the importance that they have within the group. Even if they aren’t necessarily close at this point, there is undoubtedly a mutual respect there, very early on in the game. But what is even more interesting to watch during the hunting mission up in Colter, is the way that they fall quite easily into a comfortable conversation. We have Arthur, who tends to make it fairly obvious when he doesn’t like someone, and Charles, who never says more than he deems necessary and who avoids any possible conversation with people he doesn’t have the time for, having a relatively open conversation for the entire mission. Even if they haven’t interacted much over the time since Charles has joined, they already have a bond that is slightly surprising for these two characters. And over the course of the game that bond just grows into something so special.

I’m gonna side track slightly to talk about the background of these two because I think it is integral when talking about the dynamic that these two have. Arthur has been with the gang for a long time (20 years or so) and as a result, has become very close with a lot of the people in it. Even if he doesn’t agree with some of them a lot of the time, they are still his family, and he will always do what he can to protect them. Arthur didn’t have the greatest start to life, with his mother dying and his (likely abusive) father being executed in front of him, so this gang is the closest thing to a family that he has had for the majority of his life. Similarly, Charles did not have the best beginnings either: losing his mother, losing his tribe, losing his father to drink, and then running away, subsequently spending half of his life alone. Not to mention the fact that as someone of African American and Native American heritage, Charles will have experienced hardship and adversity on a level that many of the other gang members (including Arthur) will never have experienced. So for Charles, joining the gang meant the chance of something new, the chance to find a place where he can actually belong.

It's these backgrounds that build these characters and that set the foundations for what we see in the game: why they act in a certain way around others, why they make certain choices, why they agree or disagree with the choices made by the people around them. And it’s their past which, in a way, explains not just why Arthur and Charles came together, but why they were so necessary in each other’s lives. I’m not going to say that it’s all down to fate necessarily, but I do believe that these two met each other at the point when they needed the other person most. The trajectory that we see these characters go on wouldn’t have been possible without the other by their side and I’m gonna discuss why.

One of the things I love most about their dynamic is that despite there being a mutual respect between the two, Charles isn’t afraid to call Arthur out on some of his behaviour. The best example of this is when he tells Arthur “you ain’t as tough and dense as all that” in response to Arthur saying that they shouldn’t help the German family, especially since he doesn’t even speak their language. Arthur is a character who is very much aware of the way people view him, and is very conscious of the fact that he is labelled by many to be a bad person (as to be expected from an outlaw). As a result, he tends to go about things with an attitude of “well, if people already have this opinion about me, why should I try to be anything else?” and tends to act harsher than he typically would because he’s just living to the standard that everyone expects from him. But Charles can see through Arthur’s act, and knows that he’s acting this way to try and fit this tough outlaw image that everyone expects him to show. He’s also aware that this isn’t really who Arthur is and doesn’t hold back at taking him down a peg or two when he is acting like a bit of a prat.

And as much as we talk about how much of a good influence Charles is, one of the things I don’t see talked about as much is how much of a part he played in Arthur’s redemption in the story. The game doesn’t hide the fact that Arthur will never truly make up for all the hurt and destruction he has caused, but he can at least try and do some good, to try and make the lives of some people in the world just a little bit less tough, in response to everything he has done up until this point. And one of the people who helps most with that is Charles. He’s always pushing Arthur to do the right thing, to make the best choice, and to help people who need it. Charles was a guiding hand that helped Arthur in following his redemption and was never afraid to tell him that even if he had done wrong in the past, that didn’t mean he couldn’t make better choices towards the end of his life.

Not only that, but Charles was a pillar for Arthur when the man was facing the hardest circumstances he’d ever experienced. As I said earlier, the gang is Arthur’s family, they have been a part of his life for most of his life, but as the game progresses, he watches that family fall apart. He loses people who he views as siblings, he loses a man he viewed as a father, and the other father figure in his life is turning against him, accusing him of betrayal, and had left him to die with someone holding a knife to his throat. Not to mention that Arthur is facing all of this alongside the knowledge that he doesn’t have long left. Now more than ever, Arthur needs a support system, people who have his back and will stand by him when everything else is slipping away. And he has that. He has Sadie (who could be discussed in an entire post of her own) and he has Charles. Charles stood by Arthur when he needed him most, reassuring him that he still had people fighting in his corner, still had people on his side, as well as helping him to stay on the right track and make better choices, even in the face of hardship and a growing sense of hopelessness. Because Charles understands what it’s like. This man has been through so much, has lost everything, and despite that has remained true to what is right and has never given up striving for good. As Arthur himself says in his journal, Charles is truly a good man at heart, despite the life he has led, and he uses that to help Arthur hold on.

But the thing is, it isn’t just Charles who helps Arthur. Arthur helps him in return. Charles is used to living a life of solitude and when the world takes everything away, and treats you like you don’t belong, you begin to believe that there is no place for you, that you will never find your space anywhere. And we know that this is something that he struggles with. He struggles to know where he fits in, or what the point of anything is, because everything he has been through just seems to drill home this idea that he doesn’t deserve to be here, that there is no place for someone like him in this world. And this is even more prevalent as the gang falls apart because for Charles, he’d finally found that place where he felt like he could belong and be a part of something, only for it to all be taken away. The one place he could even consider a home is in shatters and his friends are dying. For Charles that feels like it would be more than a sure sign from the universe that he doesn’t deserve to belong anywhere.

However, through all of that, he has Arthur, who has always stood up for him and told him how much he matters. Even the minor camp interactions feed into that, with Arthur telling Charles how much he likes having him around, and how he hopes for Charles to stick with them because they need him. Arthur agrees to help Charles with the Wapiti Tribe, he goes to Charles when he needs someone he trusts, and he makes sure that Charles knows just how important and appreciated he is. For a man like Charles that is a huge deal and means far more to him than I think any of us ever really appreciate. Arthur made sure to incorporate him into his family and make it known that he belonged. When we see Charles go off at the end of the epilogue to find a place to settle down, we see a man who has come to appreciate himself and his worthiness more, with the help of the people who supported him throughout those years, including Arthur.

These two characters helped each other in ways that I can’t even begin to summarise in this post. The bond that grew between them was so special and I cannot argue that Charles and Arthur were so integral in sculpting the lives that each other led. “Always” is my favourite Charles line because it encapsulates everything about that bond: the trust, the respect, the love, the appreciation, the drive to help in any way they can. It breaks my heart to know that they never had the opportunity to know each other for longer, but I will always appreciate, no matter how brief, just how beautiful that relationship was.

Always

[rose-reads-visualnovels]

Krauss (クラウス) was the leader, lead vocalist and lead dancer of the now disbanded One-Winged Eagle (OWE), a JPOP group under the Rokkenjima label in the early 60s. His main draw according to his fans is his "big brotherly personality". He likes sweets and fruits, but reports tell he has a bit of a cat tongue.

"No spices for me, unfortunately." Krauss laughs from his seat on the Ushiromiya table, affable enough to answer the more inane questions I'd scrounged up while watching his past interviews on video tape. It is then that his personal cook Gohda - a broad man whose body and face I'd imagine more fit to a drunken street brawler than to a servant of this perfectly maintained mansion - brings in a beautiful piece of veal from the kitchens.

Krauss smiles a bit mischievously as he cuts through the meat. "As it is, the only spice in my life is whatever piece of gossip I hear when not busy with work." He swallows, hums in satisfaction and then points at me with his knife in a gesture that should've been rude but felt intimate instead. Maybe it's the way he's winking with the aged charisma of a former boyish heartthrob. "There are many whispers in the business world, as I'm sure you know. The hard part is confirming whether they're true or not."

This is where I come in, having only appreciated the meal before me until now. "Is that how you discovered your siblings were building a coup against your Father? Whispers of shady deals?"

Krauss stares. Maybe I'd come on too strong for just a starter. I am about to apologize when he starts laughing. It is a full bellied thing, unrestrained in its joy, but for some reason I feel embarrassed by myself - blushing easily as if I'm the joke. Krauss wipes the tears from the corner of his eye and, seeing my emotional state, dismisses it with a wave of his hand.

"No need for shyness, my friend. You were doing so well... Yes, I suppose this would be the first true question asked tonight. Come closer, then. Let me tell you my story."

[englishstrawbie]

Usually when I dream about my Dad, it’s mundane, day-to-day life stuff. Not last night. Last night, I dreamt I was on board a plane that got hijacked by a woman with a gun - only I was in a Premium seat and my Dad was in Economy. 😂 It was like a combination of Taken and Hijack. I didn’t get to the end before my alarm went off, so in my dreams I’m still on the verge of being murdered. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[dasmondkuss]

Did Alois truly love Julia? Did he start to kill because he lost her? Or are things more complicated?

Hello, again!

Alois did love Julia. Even though, they began clinging to each other to get by with all the warfare happening in front of their eyes, they had a lot in common regarding passions, lifestyle and ambitions. I like to think that if Julia was still alive, she would be Alois one and only because of his nostalgia for her. However, Julia's death isn't the sole reason why Alois began killing. She's part of the trauma, but not the root.

Killing is a twisted cope mechanism for Alois. In Morocco, he learned that in order to be safe and make it through another day, he had to mask reality with his writing. Naturally, when he returned to his hometown in Germany, there wasn't much chaos he would have to disguise. It was calm and quiet, which had a terrible effect on Alois nervous system, which wasn't treated correctly by the cheap ass therapy the british government offered. Then, he killed someone, wrote about it, and felt regulated again.

[dick-helmet-magneto]

i love when media expects me to know who someone is. When ads have a guy there like "you know who I am" or everyone sees him and goes "IT'S YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" When someone goes "we have a podcast" and expects me to know who the other person is. When an actress walks in on a show and everyone is screaming and cheering

Never. EVER. Underestimate my ability to have no idea who the fuck these people are.

[theinheriteddutchess]

I feel like every Twilight au is getting treated more as canon that Canon was.

[strhwaberries]

i just realized i dreamed about exo ???

[saragrosie]

I have been sketching. So much tma. Here's some expansions on my Jon and Martin designs I've been doing.

Another note I forgor to mention is I love how after hearing Simon go "it's enough to make your hair turn white" about Martin's office in s4 many of us collectively agreed his hair turned white because of his association with the Lonely. The shared consciousness is real and we use it to play hot potato with the communal brain cell dedicated to the sillies.

Closeup of apocalypse boyfriends (also to the person who said they love my s5 Jon's fancy white girl updo: I think about that every day)

[longelk]

kaycee's sweet little angel eyes while she explains what POGs are to leshy

[slfcare]

Do you have any advice on doing it scared? I'm so scared all the time, i avoid doing anything that would make me more scared, but its the only advice anyone has ever given me. Your post hints you figured it out, somewhat? Do you have any further wisdom to pass?

I had to stop seeing fear as something I could run away from. Think of the situation you're in as a large, boxed room, and you're standing in front of the door to that room. You have to enter through the door, because you have to experience the situation to get to that room's exit (which is on the other side), and move on. Your fear is like the key to both doors - the entry as well as the exit. The thing is, it's a heavy key. For some reason, it's uncomfortable in your hands, and you know that opening the door would take a monumental amount of effort. You also feel like it's unfair that your rooms are locked at all, because other people don't even need keys. At least, you don't see them use any. If you wanted to, you could drop the key and turn around and forget about the room altogether, but you don't want that - because then you wouldn't be moving forward. You'd also rather open the door without the key, but to get to a situation where you no longer run into locked doors at all, you need to unlock this one, first. I started seeing it that way. My fear used to be a heavy key that I was embarrassed to need, but my unwillingness to stay where I was forever convinced me to bother, anyway. Later, my fear became a lighter key, and then a keypad, and now it's somewhat of a finger print ID. Most importantly, my fear is not what stops me, but like security if you really think about it. However much it annoys me, feels like it hinders me or embarrasses me at times, its most important function is that it's a tool that I use to open doors. I'm trying to forget others' lack of security systems and intricate doors, and focus on opening mine however I need to so I can move forward. Because that's the point. Moving forward. This makes perfect sense in my head but it might not in yours (it already feels really odd trying to put it into words so I wouldn't be surprised), but I really hope you get the gist ♡ Fear = tool!

[pandagobrr]

I too got Janus even though I was for sure I'd get Patton

i made a sanders sides uquiz :3

[buckleyflower]

you don’t understand I woke up from a dream where Oliver shared a video of Ryan without the mustache and said “soooo… this is my work husband” with particular emphasis on the word husband and then he zoomed on Ryan’s upper lip until they both broke down into laughter and Ryan ended up leaning on his shoulder in such a cozy way?????

[thunderon]

i want “had low iron and gave up the will to live a little too quickly” written on my headstone actually

[15-lizards]

Thinking about how Aegon can sit on the throne drunk and lazy and not taking his rule seriously and not even get a scratch…Robert was never scratched either and Aegon the unworthy was also exempt from the thrones blood tax WHY IS THIS I’m racking my brain for answers. Obviously the throne is a symbol for the cycle of violence so it only accepts the violent and abusive but then there’s maegor who got scratched by the throne in the worst way possible…what does it all mean…can you not upset the balance of the cycle…

[arttsuka]

Just, sharing this...