#Thinking of them constantly lately. The parallels are so good it makes me want to tear my face apart lol

[longagoitwastuesday]

Sukuna and Gojo didn't have the right to be such good characters, but there they are I guess

[serknighted]

Danse & Hancock's parallels are eating my sanity slowly so by God I will write them here

So. Usually incredibly shy about posting my feelings about characters and my interpretations of them, but I don't think I can sit idly by without addressing 1. how much I love this post about Danse and how his story ties back to the isolation and loneliness of autism, and 2. how much I need more content between Hancock & Danse to exist, because my god sometimes I forget they hate each other in-game. (I strongly suggest you read the post mentioned & linked, they do a fantastic job framing Danse in a way I don't think I could fully articulate)

Danse & Hancock both have stories filled with themes of intense loneliness. Despite their hard work, effort, and prowess in the things they love, it doesn't take good sight to realize that neither of them are very well liked. It's not that they aren't respected, but whether it's Danse's all-too-formal approach to speaking, or Hancock's combination of hard drug use & almost constant overbearing presence (on top of years of slander from bigger cities, but we'll get into that), people see them as a tool of success and a good asset to have around, but not much of a friend, so to speak. Especially in Hancock's case, many people he is overly-affectionate with are often more annoyed by his presence than anything else (even if they do like him).

For Hancock, despite how much he claims to not relate to the isolation of the common ghoul, he's likely over-exaggerating his charisma in an effort to make himself more easily approachable, mostly for his own peace of mind rather than for others. While he sounds quite passive about things many others would react strongly to, I feel it's a combination of him having replaced a layer of how he truly feels with an element of sass on top of the drug use that makes all the trauma more easily bearable (to mixed effect).

One of his lines that has always struck me as conflicting with how he portrays himself is a common generic line he has while traveling with Sole Survivor, praising them for "living out the day" when most others could not. Hancock has seen so many people die to the brutal hands of the Commonwealth; whether it be Vic and his boys gunning down innocent drifters, seeing people succumb to the elements, or, in this case, simply not surviving their travels with him, Hancock seems to have a track record of never properly establishing proper bonds with others before they either die, or decide he's too overbearing to deal with further. He's one of those characters who desperately wants to have a deeper connection with those he loves, but he has consistently lost the chance to do so before he was ever ready, and so he chooses to fill the void with meaningless sexual relationships and one-night stands- anything to make him temporarily forget how much he hates himself and his almost comical lack of social understanding. It's a train of thought that I, as an autistic person, can really understand and relate to-- the desire to know people, but always feeling like no matter how you portrayed yourself, no one seems to want to be around you if you don't provide them with what they desire. It's caused him to deeply undervalue both how much he's done for people (since he believes its expected of him to constantly bend over backwards for the needs of others), and himself, all at the same time.

I don't think Danse fully recognizes how lonely he feels, a lot. He's been so heavily indoctrinated by the Brotherhood of Steel into believing that this is how he should be treated, that his work is for the betterment of humanity, that his sacrifice is a necessary one. The way he speaks almost carelessly about late brothers and sisters in arms makes me think really hard about how rooted this idea of only existing for the "greater good" is. Individuality is questionable & almost taboo, being different is outright abominable. It's the reason why the rhetoric of "Us vs. Them" works-- the BoS as a collective believe that they are doing good for all of humanity, and any outlier to that "perfect" formula is a threat not only to the BoS, but to everything they know. Danse is expected to bend over backwards for people, and no longer questions his loneliness or isolation, as he has all but given up his sense of self for what he believes is right. Another thing that I and many of my autistic friends relate to; a sense of justice so strong that it's overpowering. Like us, Danse is willing to sacrifice anything to do what's right... including himself.

Knowing this, it's easy to understand why he hates Hancock, and that backwards mindset is the reason Hancock hates him. It's an especially vicious cycle that constantly feeds into itself if unchecked, and Hancock knows that he alone cannot convince Danse to break that cycle. Hancock knows he can't beat Danse in a fight; all he has are his words, and logic is useless against an enemy that heeds to no truths. Even after Danse discovers his true nature... you can't expect him to unravel the years of constant reassurance that what he was taught was right in a single night. "Rome wasn't built in a day," and no one gets over their trauma so quickly, either. It's traumatic to have an explanation as to why people hate you. A catch-all reason to people's fear and distaste to you, that is also something you can never, ever change. Danse would sooner hate himself for what he is than accept those he used to murder without a second thought. It's the difficult reality of anyone attempting to unlearn painful conservative narratives; the shame & guilt of hurting others that are more similar to you than you ever wanted to know is sometimes more painful than realizing what you really are.

Hancock, albeit not even close to "recovered" from his mental woes, is much further along the path of acceptance to Danse, but not far enough away that he wouldn't understand where Danse is coming from. For so long, he sat idly by and watched people get hurt, even during his time in Diamond City. The constant conditioning to accept other people's pain as long as it wasn't happening to you still eats at his consciousness; just like Danse, he knows it was wrong to accept it, but the guilt makes it harder to deal with. He, of all people, would understand what it feels like to try so, so hard to fit in, to be normal and accepted, but never quite hit the mark of understanding where he fits in society. That's the reason he is the way he is now; his signature, his "Hancock," is to be as loud and out-of-place as possible-- a constant rebellion against what people expect him to be, a rebellion of oppression and unfair treatment. Danse's sheer existence is an involuntary rebellion of all BoS values, and even if Hancock would be hesitant to become close to Danse for a long while, I think he would be impressed by him, in the end, and more importantly, understand where he's coming from.

Their combined interest in both protecting the people they care about as well as the collective societies those people come from, as well as how nerdy they both are about US history... I think, eventually, they will realize how similar their lives were, how similar they are to each other, and maybe even find some comfort in knowing that they aren't alone in all of the waves of shame, guilt, and loneliness. That there is an overarching group of people who understand them, and that they do have a place in this world. I think once they recognize that similar traumas can manifest in polar opposite conditions (ones that they used to have a narrow, black-and-white outlook on), they'll also find that there is no real reason to hate each other anymore; the world has told them that they must hate each other, but they no longer have any need to listen.

TL;DR autistic Danse & Hancock ftw

[beanghostprincess]

also thoughts on yamace now that you've seen them

Stabbing me in the esophagus would have hurt way less than watching these two interact. I want to give you a proper answer like I always do instead of incoherent screaming, but I watched the flashback so recently that I'm still fucking sobbing. I can't stand gay people and their daddy issues. They make me insane. But since I'm an annoying writer, I will try and explain why Yamace has suddenly made his way to my top 5 ships in only three episodes. I'm pretty sure everybody knows all of this already because I'm late to the boom of episode 1015, but damn, I really need to talk about this or I'll die.

Okay, first of all, their personalities are so good together. They're both silly and fun to watch and impulsive and they want to be free from the chains their fathers put them in (metaphorically and, well, also literally). Perhaps the animation and direction of the show (especially on episode 1015 because oh my fucking goodness) helped a little in setting the romantic mood, but the interactions were all them. These two are literally something else.

To me, it's the angst of falling in love in the span of a night with a stranger with whom you have a lot in common and then watching them go, hoping to see them again- Like, basically being the only thing you look forward to because you don't have anything else except them and the freedom they promised you. And then watching them drift away between your fingers without being able to do anything. It's the frustration and helplessness and the way Yamato's life was the best it could've been and then crumbled down to the point where he had to place his faith in a man who he only knows because Ace talked about him constantly without shutting the fuck up because he's the most annoying brother ever (I love him).

And- I don't know, man. The chemistry is unmatched. Like, I actually felt I was interrupting their romantic moment watching that shit. If I hadn't known anything about them I would have genuinely thought they would kiss.

The whole "You can't choose your parents" and "What do you really want to do?" left me crying and sobbing on the floor. I literally had to sit down on the floor and cry because I couldn't take the parallelisms between them, both being children of important pirates and feeling (a very valid) resentment towards them. It's so good. The way they bond and talk to each other,,, The way they look at each other? This is the type of thing you only see in a romcom. Because quite literally: What the fuck.

And it's not only the obvious parallelisms or the fact that their personalities match perfectly (and also that, aesthetically, they look amazing together. But I think that's what happens when both boyfriends are hot af) but the fact that in the span of a night... Their feelings were so genuine. Ace wanted to come back, he just wasn't strong enough at the time and he was so positive and determined to become stronger so he would go back to Tama and Yamato,,, And Yamato? Waiting for Ace? Yamato waiting for his only friend to come back but knowing he will never do it? Yamato was so cute and excited to meet Ace, and seeing him hurt but it hurt less knowing that he would come back. The fact that he's dead takes that away from him. It just makes him have more faith in Luffy because he carries Ace with him.

How can a ship be so fucking good in only three episodes???? Going fucking wild. Ace taught him the meaning of living freely. Ace made him want to fight to be free. Ace changed his life and, honestly, Yamato changed his life too because it was the second biggest promise (first one being with Luffy, about not dying) he made and he had to actually train and fight to fulfill it. And he wasn't able to do it, but the whole "Luffy carrying Ace's promise" thing makes me go fucking wild.

Well, basically, to finish this: Expect a lot of posts from me about Yamace from now on and also a lot of edits to Taylor Swift songs.

This is so,,, God. It's so romantic. The lightning. The smiles. The fact that they're literally two intersecting lines that will never meet again. It makes me sick.

[sol-consort]

!! I love whenever you write those post ab how far u r with ur cyberpunk journey and ur opinions and thoughts x3 hope ur having a good day :D

Thank you! I love talking about it so much. This game is beautiful and dissecting its scenes is so entertaining.

I've been doing the fighting club missions lately and was surprised to see Johnny actually show interest in a car.

Tbh same, I saw the car and my jaw dropped to the floor. What a beauty. I beat the guy and let him keep the money, I just want the car!

He immediately projects himself into it and doesn't take his eyes off of the car for a second. Even is like, "What are you waiting for V?" to urge you up to win the damn match and get him HIS car.

Side note: very adorable how when he pictures himself in the car, he chooses to appear in the passenger seat and not the driver's. Because he knows he's confined to the fate of eternal passenger princess and that V will always be the one driving.

But also, I like to think that he was this way even before, never drove himself anywhere, just constantly made people do it for him, while he put his feet up (dirty shoes and all bc bastard) on the dashboard and lit a cigarette.

Anyway here are pictures of Johnny and his one true love!

(Ignore the poser merc, they're just a conformist)

But seriously here is one with just Johnny and the car of his dreams alone.

And some more because those were fun to take

-

I recently got all the tarot cards, and let me tell you the scream I scrumt when I finally found the Death card oh my got. umatchable high, finally guessed something right.

The reward is a little anticlimactic—lowkey I hoped for more scenes of Johnny's past where we get to walk around in his body, see more memories, and interact with the 2020 cyberpunk world.

But heyho more Misty content is always a win in my book! My beloved Misty! Is there a mod that adds her to photography mode? I'm desperate, man. I need to take a cool pic of her and V hugging.

How she nonchalantly called both V and Johnny the fool lmao. Accurate. Two brains, one body, yet no braincells to be found. The combination of their brains came the closest to miracling negative numbers into existence.

I'm started to notice a pattern of foreshadowing here. First, Deshawn asking V if they'd prefer a slow death by a comfortable life or to burn in a blaze of glory and become a legend.

And now Misty telling V and Johnny they need to either best the world or make peace with it. One of the two endings to the fool's journey, which is the premise of the entire game as the art direction seems to imply.

To be honest, I know nothing about tarots, and I'm tempted to look up the Fool's journey to read about it. But at this point, with this strong of a parallel, it feels like I'd just be spoiling the game plot for me by doing so. I would rather remain in the dark for now. I will check out the tarots after I finish the game.

Back to foreshadowing, this constant choice offered to you makes me think the endings will either be to follow in Johnny's footsteps and blow up the Arasaka tower, dying in the process and burning into a blaze of glory.

Or, somehow, getting rid of Johnny (or merging together into the same person and suppressing his desires for revenge with your own contentment) and just... living life, you know. Anticlimactic but expected.

(Please don't actually tell me the endings or even hint at them. I don't want to know if my guesses are close)

It'd be cool if there is an ending where Johnny just takes over you completely and the player is forced to control him instead of V. But that feels like a pipedream.

I thought about it a lot, what to do if I was in this situation and couldn't get rid of or calm down this parasite in my brain. My proposed solution is to make another brainchip, copy V's consciousness into it, plop it into any rando's dead body from the piles of corpses we leave behind in missions, then boom! Problem solved, easy peasy. If Johnny isn't willing to move out of my body, then I'll throw him the bone and move out myself. He can have it, dude. idgaf, I'll get me a new body.

But also, this solution will only work in the very, very early stages of the infestation. Otherwise, the chip would've eaten too much of V's brain to be able to correctly copy it into a new chip. Even then, what's the guarantee that we won't end up with a second V and a third Johnny? But hey, at least now they're not dying!

-

I've finished the brainchip engineer convoy mission. Rip scorpion. The amount of information revealed ??? Like

So it was never just a relic we were stealing. This chip isn't malfunctioning because Johnny is a stubborn dick who's attempting to take over our body by force. If anything, it's functioning perfectly. This is what it was designed to do, shred your brain into sludge and slowly replace all the parts.

Even in the best case scenario where the soul trapped in the relic is extremely friendly and doesn't want to harm us or erease any part of our brain, It still has no actual choice in the matter. No real power over the relic itself.

Silverhand's engram isn't special. Johnny wouldn't be able to stop the chip to save V even if he wanted to—the fact he is indifferent to the whole thing is another matter entirely.

But the thing is, why did the chip even save V's life if it was meant to activate when the host is dead? For a split second all neuron activity within V's brain began to fizzle out as the bullet tore brain tissue apart, and in that split second the relic made the choice to reboot their brain instead of completely overtaking over it.

Why?

How?

Was it a conscious choice? Was it Johnny's doing? Was it the relic's doing? Was it some stroke of luck?

This also means that Arasaka ment for Johnny's relic to be activated eventually, for what purpose exactly? Why keep the soul of your nemesis trapped in stasis awaiting revival? Just to brag? A victory trophy? A lesson to teach those who mess with Arasaka? To torture him one day? Or to revive him just to point and laugh? Just in case for the unlikely scenario that shitty punk rock bands become a dying bread and it's left to Johnny to save the world with the power of music and unwashed armpits?

Hope it gets answered! eventually... after like 50 more shopping spree montages where I waste all of V's money on clothes and then wonder why I can't afford better cyberware.

I want you to focus on this line here.

"It's programmed to take over its new environment, at all costs."

"No matter what, sooner or later, the engram wins?"

"Yes."

THE IMPLICATIONS! I CALLED IT!!! I FUCKING CALLED IT!!!!

The.

Implications.

Are REAL.

fuck :(

1. Your personalities are merging. The scale is tipping very slowly, but surely. This is a fact.

2. Johnny is suddenly defensive and dismissive in this conversation despite staying silent at the beginning. Denying his influence in the past on you and warning you against listening too much to Hellman only when he started to tread on dangerous territory that'd make you suspicious of Johnny.

3. "at least Johnny never whored himself out like you" is 100% a a Johnny line. V doesn't speak like this. It's abrupt and doesn't fit with the V's past comments during the conversation. But it certainly fits with Johnny's. It was an offered dialogue choice for the player to make. We're actively choosing to make V into Johnny with every option we pick, no matter how small and seemingly meaningless.

In conclusion: the fucker's taking you for an absolute tool. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if it's Johnny's influence that's purposely isolating V just so they never listen to any counter arguments on why maybe taking advice from a mechanical tumor is a bad idea.

The more V remains miserable and lonely, the more susceptible to Johnny's influence they become. The more they hang on to his every word, take his advice to heart, look forward to the bits and pieces of chatter he drops around. Things you the player often do.

Because V's current life is unbelievably loney. You sleep alone in empty apartments, shower, drink coffee, go outside, and wander without purpose. The only time people ever call you is when they have jobs for you to take or when they need your help as in doing missions for them.

V spends entire weeks just waking up, killing people for money, going back home, sleeping, then rinse and repeat. Sometimes, days pass by where they haven't spoken a single word to themselves or anyone else.

It's normal from our perspective as players. This is how game protagonists always acted. This is why the loneliness flies under the radar for so long before the player clocks just how miserable V's life is. Why we're none the wiser when V suddenly has lots more dialogue options to reply to Johnny in small scattered conversations, someone they once swore to never listen to, yet driven by desperation and isolation into befriending.

At the end of the mission, you get the dreadful conversation with Johnny.

And I just want to point out that the man saying this

Is the very same man who said this only a few days ago.

Apparently he changed his mind again :)

Fr tho, he's clearly contradicting himself. There is a clear contrast between what Johnny wants, and what he thinks he should want.

Or once he saw that his reign over your mind is invetable, he decided to trash the whole script and come clean with his intentions since you can't do shit about it at this point.

-

Talking about isolation, I've recently finished the Sinnerman mission.

Oh Joshua :(

I've dealt with my fair share of extremely religious individuals in my life. Even ones devoted to a delusional degree. You learn to live with them. Because at the end of the day, they're people like you and me. They say the same things people say, only worded differently with some sprinkled religious qoutes here and there. You become desensitised to the fanatic aspect and learn to read between the lines.

And because of growing up in a place with a lot of religious people, I developed a sort of admiration towards the passion and devotion they hold. In a lot of instances, I'd indulge them in conversation and earnestly ask about their interpretation of certain events and ideas.

When I first started writing queer stories at 12 years old, one even came to argue with my in my dms about how wrong the thing I'm doing is. Instead of approaching me with hostility it seemed as if they pity me and wanted to gently diway me from "sin" this greatly piqued my interest as a kid and I spent hours talking to them and debating the actual meaning of certian religious lines.

Because you only get to learn more about the religion type when they share their interpretations of abstract and vague text with you, it gives you a mirror into their inner psyche, their personal opinions and believes, not the ones their holy scripture makes them abide by.

Plus, they're way more open to talking about sombre topics such as death, sin, and redemption. Things the average person considers too heavy for a conversation with a stranger. And I love to yap and philosphise about, so surprisingly we got along pretty nicely for two strangers having a conversation at the bus stop, otherwise I knew they'd want my "undesirable" queer ass to burn in hell.

So when met with a character like Joshua, he wasn't anything out of the ordinary for me. Instead, he felt like a trip back home. I could easily look past his alarming traits and see the person behind the religious talk, I've become desensitised.

I ask you to grant him the same grace, in the following conversation screenshots, to attempt to overlook the religious extremism and approach his words with a fresh open mind. Pretend he's talking about personal philosophy that he discovered or a new form of art he founded instead. Indulge me, to be able to see him in the same way I do.

I'd be lying if I said the protective way he spoke to V didn't stir something in me.

Because no one can even harm a hair on V's head if they tried, but Joshua doesn't know that. He isn't aware of V's reputation or extent of power. They're not someone you best easily. Getting shot and still keeping going is a daily occurrence to V.

Yet he's still gentle with us despite it. Soft with his words, merciful? Benevolent?

Little creepy.

Lonely. Incredibly so.

The way he speaks and holds himself is reminiscent of how stories portray kind yet wise prophets of the past. Asking the person paid to kill you to spend one day with you, willingly at that too, is something straight out of a bible story.

He has enough social awareness to realise Rachel's true views on him. He isn't stupid or naive, Joshua knows the studio is only helping him not out of the kindness of their heart, but to make money off of his death.

He knows what the lieutenant assigned to protect him actually thinks of him. A charlatan, a vile scum of a criminal that deserves death. Yet he risks upsetting Vasques just to stop him from shooting at you.

"I didn't like the way they looked at me, and I had the power to stop them"

Remorse and shame clear in his tone of voice, yet he doesn't try to evade the blame or clear his name. He takes it in stride, tells you why he really shot them after he robbed the story. He doesn't try to mask the truth and say they obstructed his escape, or that he only did it out of desperation for money.

No, he is upfront with his sins. He simply didn't like how they looked at him in fear and terror as if he was a monster.

And he held the power to stop them. Forever. Rather kill them than bruise his ego, than stain his conscience with a reminder of what he's done.

But that was in the past, the man in front of you turned a new leaf. Or so it seems.

"I truly need you."

"You're the one I want to talk to."

"Remain by my side and talk to me"

An artist needs an audience.

An idea is only relevant if it's being thought upon.

A show for one is still a show.

Vasques and Rachel are part of the cast, the opposing powers. Joshua needs someone with new eyes, someone to watch, to bear witness. V is that someone.

He truly needs you much like a painting set on fire needs an observer.

The mission continues afterwards, and he takes you to meet the sister of one of the people he killed. They talk, and you find out Joshua's true plan is.

Now, I don't think he actually thinks he's the messiah or a second coming of christ. It's easy to misinterpret it this way because of Joshua using Christ imagery in his choice of execution.

He understands art on a fundamental level. That's what makes him a good actor. He understands that if he wants to be a messiah, he'll need to go through the whole journey, not just the crucification part—which was done to Jesus against his will, yet Joshua is volunteering himself to it.

Instead, it's a display of love, not of divine powers.

If you've ever cosplayed a character, you'll understand this feeling. You would've felt a much less extreme version of what Joshua's feeling.

It is a cosplay to him. He knows he's not the messiah. But it's a cosplay done out of respect and love, an attempt to wake people up.

It's his unconditional love for his god, which he's showcasing that day, which in turn should prove the existence of god by virtue of its own existence.

He wants this display to be turned into a braindance so he can reach the general audience more easily. Because if what he truly feels at that moment is unconditional love and they get a glimpse of it while playing the BD, then it'd be as if his soul touched them, and maybe changed their views on life a little.

He's not trying to convert people by an execution garbed in holy robes, he's trying to convert them through hope and love, his own endless hope and love.

An honest attempt, by a person fully aware of the corruption that lurks at every corner in this world. Joshua is more of an artist who's using religion as a medium for his art rather than a holy figure. And art touches people just as well.

Does it ring a bell? Remind you of someone who once also tried to shake the world awake through his art?

Then there is the last line he said:

"Think of paid killers like you, V. Have you known love? Do you know what it is?"

And it stung.

The pure love V was shown in a city so vile.

The very same love Joshua hopes to show others that they're capable of.

The very same love Jackie and Mama Welles extended to you, Zuleikha has shown Joshua. If not even more. She reached out to the killer of her own brother, not for revenge to sate the burn in her heart with, but for a chance at mutual understanding.

She offered forgiveness.

You can sneak upstairs and read through her messages. You find out she greatly struggled with the loss of her brother, her journey through grief documenting through brief correspondences between her and the local priest.

That's how Zuleikha got the idea that unconditional love is the answer to this heartburn, how Joshua completely adapted her message.

And that family really struggled with loss. The room next to her is clearly her brother's room, left untouched still. His bed unmade, the same as the day he left it.

There was no bedroom for the mother, suggesting she slept on the couch or living room. Their family wasn't doing well financially, and yet the mother still sacrificed just to give her two children some comfort and privacy.

I switched to camera mode and attempted to read the scattered papers on Zuleikha'a desk. Just copy pasted assets, that, or apparently everyone in Night City owns a lease to a mango farm.

At the end of the mission, you get this conversation with Johnny.

He acts weird during it, doesn't he?

Unusually quiet at first, before V provokes him with the "Where's the rebel Johnny?"

Only for him to snap and admit that the real rebel was in this guy all along. This isn't the first time Johnny has shown surprisingly empathy to incredibly lonely people.

I thought it was strange that his hologram didn't disappear at the end of the conversation. Johnny goes from standing up to sitting down again. It was an active decision.

Until I turned back to look at him one last time before I left

And realised how familiar this scene felt.

Where have I seen this before?

Oh. Right.

Love it when devs have fun.

btw a bug happened here where the Mr. Stud ad got stuck onto the screen? No matter how much I waited, no new ad ever came. So, of course, knowing me, I absolutely did NOT take advantage of the situation to take some tantalising pictures.

Mhm not me sir not at all.

My hand slipped.... however

All night every night indeed.

-

It was by complete coincidence that I played these two missions back to back—now I can't help but see the blatant overlapping of what the studio is doing to Joshua, what the Johnny brainchip is doing to V's meatbrain, and what capitalism does to society in our real world.

Let's take a currently relevant example to the year 2025, Squid Game, the series. The first season was supposed to be the only season—much like the first world war was supposed to be only known as the Great War, but humanity never learns—It's a clear criticism of capitalism, it couldn't be more in your face with its message if it tries. You have to actively play a part in the downfall, therefore murder, of others in order to succeed. And when failure means death, succeeding becomes pure survival.

Because that's what money is, as it currently stands, isn't it? Having money means you can afford food, housing, and medication. Every means of survival once offered freely by nature has been stripped bare to make room for more factories, for more villas, for another Walmart parking lot. The weather is constantly setting new records for extreme temperatures every year. The odds of surviving without a roof over your head are getting slimer and slimer.

And Squid game took this line of logic and completely removed the middle man. It moved the finish line in front of the starting point. Shortened the sentence to "Money = the right to live"

All the silly games that mock its participants with its innate childishness and simplicity despite being a literal life or death stake. All the convoluted silly rules you have to abide by to keep a stable job if you happened to start from the bottom. How everything you've worked for, your whole life, can go astray because of a bad stroke of luck or some asshole who got away with it.

Yet look at the show now, turned into another byproduct of the market. The director abhors his creation as it's reduced to another fat, old gold vein for the studio to exploit.

Anything that aims to criticise Capitalism peacefuly, only ends up getting sucked into it instead, reinforcing the very same notion it was set out to destroy.

The 60 year old man who's dedicated his entire life to being a fanatic of Johnny's band, who memorised all the lyrics and knows all the trivial facts there is to know, shamelessly sells you the bootleg of Samurai's first gigs at a very steep price. The very same recorded bootleg of a free concert by people who didn't even know who Samurai were. They just liked the tunes and wanted to archive it. Sixty years, and yet the core message still flew over his head as he churned them into another niche band to make merch off and sell it on the street. The very same songs set out to criticise capitalism only to end up reinforcing it instead as they get sold for thousands of eddies by someone with zero right to sell them.

Knows all the lyrics but didn't understand a single word.

Going back to the parallels. Joshua's demise is inevitable, no matter what choices you make. His authenticity is only valued by how much it could improve the quality of the braindance, protected and nurtured by Rachel for its scarcity, therefore material value.

"It's programmed to take over its new environment, at all costs."

"No matter what, sooner or later, Capitalism wins?"

No matter how sincere of a message you hold in your heart, no matter how authentic and real, how pure your intentions are. Joshua only wanted to prove the existence of unconditional love, because if that could exist, then so could god, in his eyes.

It all ends up being exploited for the benefit of another who's trying to make bank in a certain market under the guise of helping you.

I post my sincere writings and thoughts on a website that bans trans people's accounts, a website that pushes mandatory ads on all of its users, that offers a premium subscription, that censors posts as it pleases to appease shareholders and ad companies. Yet still pushes ads that are just full on real life porn occasionally.

This website advertises itself as a safe place, who's not like those other evil websites ruined by greed. Whilst being overrun by pornbots and obnoxious premium subscription pop ups. And people make jokes of it now, blaze posts fot fun as a silly pvp war thing, pay the very same website to get a cool pin or two on their account. It's irony they claim, those tens of rainbow coloured checkmarks, it's to make fun of twitter checkmarks don't you get it? It's a silly haha joke, aimed to criticise consumerism! By paying ten times the price of the twitter checkmark just to get all the rainbow coloured ones on this website! Hell yeah! You're really sticking it up to the big man. Sick irony my dude.

Maybe that's why I felt sympathy for Joshua, comradery even. I saw myself in him. An incredibly lonely person whose got nothing to offer to this cruel world but their love and feelings in a form of art, who gets robbed of that too as it's used to exploit both the people who abhor and adore the art he has to offer.

I deeply apologise to you, the one reading this, for every time you went to check my blog or reread a story and saw an ad pushed into you between my writing. I'm very sorry we're both being played for idiots in this, that my art was twisted into something to take advantage of my readers for a website to earn literal pennies.

Lastly, Johnny. Our prima donna of examples.

He dedicated his whole life to destroy this one thing, only to end up having his soul sucked out and put on a parasitic brainchip.

And what does he do in this situation? Becomes the very same thing he swore to destroy. He takes and takes from V, couldn't care less that they're a person, he will do everything he can to achieve his goal—doesn't matter what the goal is—what matters is that if he needs V's body to achieve it, he will take it by force.

Every attempt to connect and sympathise with him is twisted by Johnny for him to gain more leverage over you, to sneak that brainchip percentage even a decimal higher while you're busy bearing your heart to him.

Embodying the very same methods of capitalism, the very same soul sucking endless consumerism ways. Except with your life now, your brain, your body, everything you are.

He was quiet during the Joshua quest at the end. "Where's the rebel, Johnny?" V said. He saw himself in him, the very same passion, the sincerity, the unbridled authentic drive for a noble cause.

It's a mirror to what could've become of Johnny's own heart and feelings if he hadn't left the band, turned against him into another tool of capitalism. At one point, it must have clicked that he couldn't change the world through songs.

It was also the closest he got to glimpsing the reality of his current actions, what he's done to you.

"And you're fucked up because of my fucked up head inside you."

He sat there and made a choice that day, to keep doing it, keep paving this path. If the veil to self-awareness got lifted for a second there, Johnny immediately boarded up the windows with wooden panels the next second.

What difference would one life—yours—make when he's already sacrificed a lot more innocents than you when he first blew up Arasaka tower? Shooting at the innocent and the guilty with willful ignorance.

He knows all the lyrics, but he doesn't understand the words. He'll live and die by the very same notions he never fully deciphered.

Johnny isn't the antagonist because he set out to destroy our lord and savour Capitalism, Johnny is the antagonist because he attempted to dismantle Capitalism using the very same methods of Capitalism.

It's like we're in the trolley problem, and Johnny decided to bomb the whole traintrack. Train, conductor, track, and people tied to the track included. Then he clutches his pearls when a few weeks later, they build a new bigger train and a sturdier track with even more people tied to the track.

You cannot "eradicate entropy" when you're goddamn spreading it yourself in a different flavour Johnny!

His long rehearsed speech about the plague of capitalism at the end of the mission. How the words rhyme, how he stood up to yell it out loud, pacing around and looking down at you. Filer words and abstract descriptions ment to target your heartstrings, to ignite the dormat anger inside your mind in the name of ending some vague injustice.

All very much resembling a speech given by your favourite artist upon a stage, at the end of a glass-shattering song, as you stood there sweaty and unclothed as the day you were born, looking up at him in awe as if he was a god, convinced his words were gospel as the adrenaline still pumped in your veins.

How it almost worked on V who just threw up half the sludge of their brain's viscera on the pavement.

How the irony of how much he was describing his current parasitic self during it, was lost him.

How I fear I am the very same. I play predatory gambling games, I mindlessly buy things I'll never use during sales, I preach and preach but in reality I find myself contradicting the claims I make a lot. By my own standards I don't even come close to meeting the ethical measures I set on others, I wouldn't be friends with me If I knew me.

[licncourt]

Licncourt you're right as always about female coding and you hit the nail on the head about Louis!

My opinion about Lestat is that he was portrayed as the stereotypical bad woman: vain, shallow, cruel and foolish but beautiful. But he was also a victim whom the narrative constantly forces to forgive and love his abusers because that's the only way he becomes worthy of being loved. It happened with Magnus, Akasha, Armand and also with his father (the only time Lestat didn't want to forgive someone... but was pushed to do so) It's frustrating if you think about it, because that's what society expects of women.

I'm really glad you think so!! He's so girl to me but in the right way, not the Anne Rice way.

I was sooo happy when I read this because !!! You are absolutely onto something here that should be examined further. There's some overlap between Louis and Lestat for sure when it comes to female-coding, both of them being portrayed as over-emotional and somewhat effeminate etc, but it's really cool how the rest contrasts in such an interesting way, like a Venn diagram. I've talked plenty about Louis being pretty directly analogous to the stereotypes of a lustful, weak-willed, hysterical woman whose primary assigned value is beauty, but there's a LOT to say about Lestat too.

I love what you said here because the first part really feels like a throughline tying Lestat to the women who helped established the Bad Woman archetypes in the literary canon like Medea (vindictive and treacherous), Lady Macbeth (power-hungry for personal gain), or Delilah (a calculated honeytrap for "righteous men"). In spite of his anger and mistreatment of Louis, most of Lestat's flaws in the trilogy are strikingly feminine in the literary sense. He's quite literally portrayed as a cruel, shrill gold-digger who dickmatized a rich husband and trapped him with a child.

Yes, he's an angry, domineering man, but it's the impotence behind his anger that pivots towards the stereotypically feminine. Throughout IWTV, he's all bark and no bite, yelling, whining, throwing books and sulking, even having an affair to punish Louis for his coldness and lack of affection versus anything more direct and aggressive. It really reads like the idea of a bitchy housewife tormenting her husband while trying to get her way and take revenge.

In addition, I really like the comparison of him with the wicked mother archetype, a maternal figure who poisons the daughter with her own trauma and anger (Clytemnestra-esque) and creates another monstrous woman in her own image. I've mentioned this before, but I think the creation of Claudia can be read symbolically as a conception, pregnancy, and birth, Louis draining her as a sort of insemination that's useless on its own but is "gestated" or made into a whole (a vampire child) by Lestat/his blood. In those terms, Lestat is immediately set up as a mother figure to Claudia, then again later when she's situated as a direct rival and narrative parallel to him. Generational trauma is passed from Gabrielle to and through Lestat and into Claudia as if he was also a daughter in the chain.

In terms of victimhood, what you said is also very interesting because it's one of the few places where this female-coded Lestat slips through and re-emerges really prominently in late canon despite AR's attempts to masculinize him. In trying to redeem him and make him "perfect", she puts him back into the feminine role with the societal expectation that a woman should forgive her abuser and take the high road, empathize with him even, especially in religious communities (interesting considering AR's wild rollercoaster ride with Catholicism). It's as if Lestat's disdain for Magnus is an unpleasant loose end she needs to tie up so he can be "good" now.

I think it's interesting too that the only abuser that the narrative doesn't ever give a sympathetic sort of pass to is Akasha, the sole woman who inflicted this kind of abuse on Lestat and a victim of bodily exploitation in her own right. Even the Marquis receives the narrative's sympathy as a repentant old man, even Magnus the monster. Not Akasha though. She's just a bitter man-hater and Lestat has to choose whether he wants to be also.

(Btw this is such @nasnyys business and what he screams into the void about every day so I'm making him a part of this. Everyone go talk to him about Lestat and evil woman allegories.)

[trivalentlinks]

🔥 - i'd like to order an unpopular opinion on leverage, please!

Sorry for the very, very late answer, but to make up for it, have two unpopular opinions:

The first one's a bit of a cop-out. I think it's the less popular opinion, but probably because most don't care that much either way:

I head-canon that Damien Moreau is actually a banker/financier, ie, his primary source of income is actually derivatives investments and market prediction, and all the buying countries, arms deals and other such clandestine activities is just to give markets slight pushes in the direction he wants. (I've previous talked about this here (my last reblog addition))

This opinion seems "unpopular" in that the more common reading is that he's a mob boss who just calls himself a 'banker' to make himself sound cooler than he actually is. Which I think is a totally valid reading, consistent with what we are shown in canon! Like, he's all about image, and it's totally believable that the entire financier/banker persona is just that.

One reason I prefer the actually-a-banker reading is, as I described in the other post, because I like the parallel with team leverage and their "alternative revenue stream". This is also why I like to head-canon that when Eliot and Moreau were starting out (after Eliot met Toby and left the PMCs with his newfound conscience), before things got bad, they actually did good--only destabilizing horrible, abusive dictatorships, using their alternative revenue stream to help people. The parallels are just so compelling to me this way.

Another reason I prefer the actually-a-banker reading is that it's more relatable to me. I know people who work as financiers (hedge fund/high frequency trading/crypto firm founders or high-level quants etc).

None of them (that I know of) would actually do illegal things to manipulate prices, but it sometimes seems like if they were a little less risk-averse, a little less ethical, who knows? And when they tell me about the people they know, people they describe as "if you took a person's stats and dialled 'ethics' all the way down to zero"... These friends think anyone too stupid to see through a cryptocurrency white paper deserves to lose their life's savings. So when they say someone has ethics dialled to zero, well. You don't wanna know.

On the other hand, I don't know anyone who's anywhere close to being a mob boss.

-

Here's a more genuinely unpopular opinion, in that I think most people believe the opposite, and actually do care:

I really like Jimmy Ford. I find the character very relatable and very compelling. I feel like a lot of people in the fandom just write him off as a bad father, but I don't think that's fair.

I talked a lot about this here (skip past the "..." paragraph; above that were my old early thoughts about Moreau, before I reformulated them to be my current thoughts)

As I mentioned there, I see in Jimmy Ford every parent who didn't understand their kid, but loved them, and as Jimmy said to Nate, that's more important.

Every parent who grew up at a different time, in another country, in a harder, less forgiving world, who wants to ensure their kid can survive that old environment, without realizing that that isn't the kid's world anymore, that their kid is actually thriving in this new world, the one their parents sacrificed to raise them in

Every parent who flipped out when their son decided to major in sociology instead of computer engineering, because they could never have made a living with a degree like that

(but he's going to do more than make a living with that degree; he's going to make a difference)

Every parent who constantly monitors their daughter to ensure she waits for marriage, because in the old country she would have been shunned or worse if she didn't

(but she's not there right? her parents worked and sacrificed and bled to bring her up in this more forgiving world)

Every parent who sits next to their kid for hours a day until they get their daily hour of piano practice done (and yells at them until they do every day, disturbing their neighbour, who's just trying to focus on doing her research and grading her students' papers, not that this is personal or anything), because the parent managed to survive and to move to this country by working relentlessly at everything they did and can't imagine a world where a 7-year-old is allowed to play and to find their own interests

(but they will, maybe not then, but one day, years down the line, they may even end up liking music)

Maybe it's that I'm a kid of immigrants who knows a lot of kids of immigrants, but I think I'm more forgiving of people who raised their children in a culture different from their own and struggled to adjust to that.

[mcyt-as-birds]

Hey!! I hope I'm not bothering you but I just found your blog (love your blog it's amazing) and, as a fellow mcyt enjoyer & bird enthusiast, I just have to ask you what birds you would assign to Niki, Quackity, Ranboo & Jimmysolidarity, based on their character/personality/looks? I'm just asking because I'm making a mcyt harpy AU and you seem like someone knowledgeable in birds and generally like a cool person so I hope I'm not intruding on your time!

So far I think Niki could be a flamingo (despite looking pretty they're pretty tough lol but I'm having second thoughts on that), Ranboo could be a long bird w long legs (maybe some kind of stork or stilt i dunno), with Quackity I'm torn between a Loggerhead Shrike and a Goldeneye Barrow's duck (or any duck bcs well, it's in his name lol. I actually can't decide if I should go for his dsmp character or general mcyt persona) and Jimmy I have no frickign idea (maybe a canary??? I've been thinking about this for days and I have no clue lmao).

Anyways hope you have a good day/night and once again love your blog :]

AAAAAAA so sorry I didn’t see this ask until now!!!! I’ve been absolutely going through it lately since moving but it’s getting better and I’ve successfully seen and photographed a bunch of new lifer birds so like win!!

So, absolutely depends on which SMP for these characters but if we’re going DSMP for niki, ranboo, and Quackity then these are my assignments;

Niki: my first instinct for niki is American kestrel (Falco sparverius), but she also fits one of the jaeger sp pretty well. Personally I’d go with Parasitic Jaeger (Stercorarius parasiticus) also known as the arctic skua. They’re incredibly skilled aerialists that are called “parasitic” because they pursue other seabirds until they give up their catch and leave it for the jaeger. Girlboss of them. Jaeger is also a German originating word meaning “hunter” so it’s double cool! They look like this! They remind me of marble a lot.

Quackity: I’ve given him two assignments before, but both were for QSMP!Quackity which is very different vibes to DSMP!Quackity but I think they’re generalized enough to still work. The first one, for a General Vibes quackity is the ferruginous duck because duh, duck, but also They Have Secrets. And Know All Of Yours. Just look at those eyes! (Only males have the bright yellow eyes btw.) Barrow’s goldeneye IS a good choice as well so if you wanted to I’d say go for it! I also think ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis) is a great choice personality wise because they are Mean Little Bastards to each other and others rip.

Here’s a male ferruginous duck! Oh god what does he know

I am, however, a HUGE fan of hummingbird!Quackity particularly for the small size->bigger aggression of some species. It’s so unexpected! There’s also large parallels with how they have to constantly be on the move and eating insects and drinking nectar, with some species needing to consume up to three times their bodyweight each day just to survive! It reminds me a lot of how DSMP!Quackity is always trying to do Bigger and More Things and just never stops, ever, ultimately to his own detriment when he can no longer keep up. Again rip.

Anyways the species I assigned him before based on coloration of the art is the violet sabrewing (Campylopterus hemileucurus) which is one of the larger but less aggressive emeralds. HOWEVER they do end up completely intimidating other species away from feeding flowers just from their size and General Vibes. They’re also cool as fuck so I won’t be changing that. But if you wanted something more aggressive then I’d go with ruby-throated hummingbird.

Here’s what a violet sabrewing looks like!

Ranboo: This is a bit of a tricky one, because it would be extremely easy to go “black and white bird boom done” and I don’t think that’s like bad but there is More To Him. Past assignments I have given him include swallow-tailed kite (Elanoides forficatus) for a miss beloved design, purple-crowned fairywren (Malurus coronatus) for a general streamersona/r800 ranbrand, and violet-backed starling (Cinnyricinclus leucogaster) for r800.

But if we are going purely DSMP!Ranboo, I have two different ideas.

Personality: killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)

Design: secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius)

Personality wise, the killdeer fits mainly because of its well-known predator responses “broken-wing display/injury feigning” and “ungulate display.” The former is where the adult killdeer will pretend to be injured (and thus, an easier target) in order to lead predators away from their nest and chicks. Then, they’ll lose or frustrate the predator until they give up and it’s safe to return to the nest. The other predator response is what I affectionately call the “fuck it, we ball” response, where the bird lowers its head, raises its wings, and charges at the predator. It is frequently fatal. I don’t think I have to explain why it’s so Ranboo coded but if you need evidence look up anyone threatening Michael lmao. Also you probably didn’t want to hear that much about them but listen I love them so much they are so cool and baby.

They look like this when doing the broken wing display! They also just kind of have the panicked deer in headlights look that I feel like he embodies.

The second option, the secretarybird or secretary bird, is even funnier looking but fits the aesthetic so well and honestly some of his strange and unsettling vibes. The secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius) is the largest bird of prey by height and length. They are almost entirely terrestrial and hunt their prey by—get this—stomping it to death. I’m not kidding. They have been described as “what you get when you mix an eagle, a stork, and a bad hair day” because of the stupid little feathers on the back of their head. They kinda look lights on but nobody’s home sometimes. Drumroll please for this absolute fucking creature (affectionate)

Yeah, I wasn’t exaggerating. Why do they look like that.

Jimmy: is an extremely difficult one, tbh. Everyone assigns him canary which, like, fair—but honestly it does not fit his personality or his design, and only really works for life series!Jimmy. And they don’t even give him a specific species! (Although ppl usually mean domestic canary without saying it.) No hate to people who do this and the canary in the coal mine symbolism is cool I just have Opinions and Propaganda and I’ve been Enabled.

I have assigned him one bird before, the eastern rosella (Platycercus eximius) and I kinda stand by it for the content creator, but it doesn’t fit his general minecraft sona.

To figure this out, we must go even deeper. Into the deep dark, mind the wardens. You probably didn’t want this but Too Bad you’ve activated my trap card and now you have to suffer.

Jimmy is a peculiar character because he is very dear to everyone, but also the butt of every joke—and he likes it that way! He’s a key player in many important events in storylines, but also the most often discarded. His luck is terrible, yes, but it can be argued that he brings about misfortune for others more than he himself experiences it. This is across hermitcraft, the life series, and empires.

So I propose this to you and the general fandom:

Jimmy is a snowy albatross.

The snowy albatross (Diomedea exulans) previously described as the wandering albatross along with the Amsterdam, Tristan, and Antipodean albatross sp, is a bird that is heavily steeped in superstition. While generally considered a bird that would bring sailors good luck, to harm or kill an albatross was to bring about the sea’s wrath upon the entire crew. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Mariner kills an albatross that is being cared for by the crew. The crew became very angry with him, believing that he had called upon bad luck, and forced him to wear the albatross around his neck. This is where the metaphor “an albatross around his neck” comes from, symbolizing an unwanted burden causing anxiety and distress. At the end of the story, the mariner learns to care for all the sea creatures and his releases from his curse, but is forced to walk the earth for eternity and tell his tale. This is where the albatross has also become a symbol of past sins, regret, and atonement.

Jimmy personifies these qualities so much, along with hidden power, vulnerability, and unconditional love SO MUCH I need the fandom to see my vision so bad. Albatross Jimmy propaganda!!!!

They look like this

And the chicks are so cute it’s not even funny.

I could go on and on about how Jimmy is so albatross coded it’s not even funny and facts about them AND I WILL LETS GO albatrosses have specialized wing anatomy that allows them to lock their shoulder in place and fly hundreds of miles without flapping their wings even once! They also follow ships and will eat anything and everything presented to them, including garbage, and will gorge themselves on food until they are so bloated they can only float on the water. They can live for over 50 YEARS, the oldest known lasyan albatross (and bird in general!) is a female named Wisdom who is 70 years old and still kicking! They are often considered silly or ugly birds by people unfamiliar with them but are very beloved by those within the birding and research communities and snowy albatrosses are one of the most researched bird species in the world! They are fiercely loyal, highly protective, and also absolute little goofballs. Like Jimmy. They are also social birds, with a huge range of vocalizations and displays LIKE JIMMY they are kind of bad at survival (but mostly human threats) and need a lot of help LIKE JIMMY (please protect your local albatrosses) and they are very loud LIKE JI—[*I am forcibly yanked off the stage by a shepherd’s hook in cartoonish fashion*]

[renaultphile]

‘Get to know me’ tag game.  Thank you for the tag @rottenlaertes and @nurseadriansbrother!

Do you make your bed?  Always air it first though!  Plus it’s a duvet so not exactly arduous……

Favourite number?  Has to be seven

Current job?  Public sector, can’t say more than that!

If you could go back to school would you?   Totally – it’s wasted on the young!

Can you parallel park? I can’t even drive!  But I am a very good backseat driver (apparently!)

A job you had that would surprise people? I once got free entry to a ball playing keyboards in a student band.  Yes it was downhill after that……

Do you think aliens are real?  100%  My favourite theory that I’ve seen is that they are so big we can’t see them!

Can you drive a manual car? No and not even an automatic either! I'm waiting for the driverless car technology

What’s your guilty pleasure? Anything sweet (literally and figuratively).

Tattoos?   No, too scared of pain, and too indecisive.

Favourite colour? Anything turquoise-y or aquamarine-y

Favourite type of music? Anything eclectic (I know that's cheating, sorry!)

Do you like puzzles?  Love puzzles but they can’t be too difficult.

Any phobias? So many to choose from but heights is a big one, following by enclosed spaces.

Favourite childhood sport? Swing-ball (you know with the tennis ball on a string that goes round….never mind)

Do you talk to yourself?  Constantly in my head.

What movie(s) do you adore? Lawrence of Arabia, The English Patient, Dune.  I do also like movies without sand dunes. 

Coffee or tea? Mostly coffee, pot of tea if I’m out though.

First thing you wanted to be growing up? There was this counsellor who used to do a phone-in and solve people’s problems in five minutes flat and for a long time that’s what I wanted to be!

Sorry I was late to the party so I think everyone's been tagged!!

[irish-urn]

As one does, I've been thinking about Dasey lately (what else do I do? Absolutely nothing) and how utterly unhinged they are for each other.

They've never really admitted their feelings in the canon of the show (because the writers are cowards) but they're just insane. Constantly. And I love that for them, truly, but how did either of them ever have a relationship?

I get the Sam thing, because Sam is a pacifist and a little bit of a coward and there's Casey and Derek's giving the all clear so Sam doesn't want to step on any toes. Casey has never had a problem with it, it's why she pursued the man (well that and it pissed off Derek and that's always a plus, he's so entertaining when he's pissy and staring at her like that), but they call it off because Casey just doesn't feel enough.

(please ignore, much like the writers, that Casey feels too much for Derek consistently throughout the show.)

Her next serious boyfriend is Max, who definitely makes sense as a guy Casey would date. He's enough of a douche, while also being attractive (ig, I don't see it) and Derek hates him. Being captain of the football team gives her an existential crisis because she completely changes herself for him, but Max is popular and the opposite of Derek. Max is supposed to be Prince Charming! But he pisses her off because he just doesn't understand. He doesn't even try to get her fucked up relationship with Derek, because he just sees it as insane and Casey being neurotic, because he doesn't get that no matter how annoying and insane Derek's being (like thinking he can fight The Fridge, what the fuck is he thinking?! Even Derek has more sense than that), she's going to fight to the death for him. Max just doesn't get it. And in the end, they break up because they're fundamentally incompatible. Max can't accept Casey, flaws and all, because he doesn't want the flaws.

(please ignore that Derek accepts all of Casey's flaws from the moment they meet, and as much as he pesters her about them, he very clearly appreciates them all like the writers did.)

And then there's fucking Truman. Not one of the better presidents or love interests. His introduction being rating women is definitely a sign he's fundamentally wrong for Casey and just her excuse to rebel, because he's not even that cute. He's just there and a "bad boy" and Casey wants to rebel a little. Truman is an ass and the worst and an obviously terrible person and partner, but she loves him because she sees the good in him. Even after he makes out with her cousin, which. Casey's a better person than me; I never would've spoken to either of them. When they break up, it's because Casey respects herself again.

(please ignore that Truman is a manifestation of all of Casey's worst fears about Derek, that he's all of his worst traits brought to life, that he parallels him in a weird number of ways for it to be normal like the writers did.)

Jesse is just there. He's boring, he's got a shaved head and facial hair for some reason, he can dance. Theoretically, this is Casey's Prince Charming. A boring, normal guy. Except they obviously don't work out because the man has no personality or spine. Throughout VWD, he just lets Derek do his thing, which is probably the only reason they last at all.

(please ignore that Jesse is literally designed to be the opposite of Derek, someone who's boring and living by a plan and that Casey should end up with logically but who it's clear she doesn't feel passion with like the writers did.)

Peter, arguably Casey's worst choice, is the absent husband who we know nothing about. Except that he plays hockey and lives like he's 15. Now, I have lots of headcanons about that, but Peter specifically seems to be someone that Casey doesn't want to talk about. There's no passion, there's exhaustion because he's not there.

(please ignore that Peter is Derek on the surface, in college, but he's nothing like him at the core of it because Derek sees Casey struggling and moves in without a second thought like the writers did.)

And then there's Derek's love interests. Kendra, who definitely was someone he only dated for status who liked him more than he ever liked her (which is truly tragic, because I love Kendra so dearly). She's supposed to be perfect for him, and on the surface, she is, but there's nothing deeper. That relationship was less intimate than most of Derek's friendships. Kendra bored him because she never challenged him on anything, she never really made him feel alive.

(please ignore that, for better or worse, Casey has always made Derek feel too much and too strongly and been there, in the front of his mind, since they met, like the writers did.)

Sally is sweet and kind and challenges Derek and forces him to deal with his emotions. She's everything that's theoretically perfect for Derek, but for whatever reason, what he feels for her is clearly never the strongest force in his life. He loves Sally, more than he's ever loved someone romantically, but I think they both know, even as the relationship is happening, it's not forever. Derek's always on his best behavior, trying to prove himself and Sally, I think she knew this was fun and young but not permanent.

(please ignore that Derek refuses to try and be anyone other than himself, whatever version he is that day, to Casey, that she's always the strongest force in his life no matter how much he loves Sally, like the writers did.)

Truly. With their behavior, how did either of them ever get into a relationship? And not canonically fall in love, have three kids, get married and live somewhere together surrounded by Casey's library (which, yes, Derek, was a necessity), the pond out back that Derek can play hockey on in the winter with the kids (well, except their son, who ironically refuses to play hockey. It's the greatest bane of Derek's life) even though Casey has 911 on standby the entire time, the basement that has somehow been turned into a half man cave half game room that is constantly full of teenage boys arguing over such things as the best Jane Austen adaptation and whether or not burping the alphabet is sophisticated, the old office (before Casey's library was finished) that the girls have turned into a sitting room, covered in whatever chaotic projects they're involved in (this week it's a robot and a skirt. Casey refuses to question it), and their entire family surrounding them? Truly, how is that not the canon of Life With Derek?

(writing this might actually make me write the fic where they have three kids and a domestic life. goddammit. I fully blame you.)

Do you mean to tell me that there are people out there who DON'T think about Dasey every day? Honestly, sounds fake.

Listen: I have been thinking about Dasey so much this week that I started and am already half-done another fic that I'm hoping to finish in the next few days when I SHOULD be writing a paper for school.

So first of all: yes to your thoughts. And to add to them: do you ever think about how utterly terrifying it must be to have these feelings? I mean, basic emotions are bad enough, but imagine having huge, fiery, irrational feelings for your STEP-SIBLING. Who is, by all accounts, the absolute worst.

And I know you and I have been very respectfully screaming at each other about Derek's self-esteem issues, but can we talk about how Casey's terrible choice in guys is a reflection of HER idea of her worth??? Like, I always understood why she liked Sam -- for all that he is passive, he's NICE and sweet and respects her (I don't think he's that cute, but attraction is irrational anyways). Max probably has a lot to do with Casey wanting to be seen as more than a keener and a grub. And Truman, well. We all know what Truman is.

(A+ analysis on Jesse too, btw)

The thing that gets me is Casey taking Truman back and Derek asking Emily out, because we as viewers are pretty sure it's the writers going, "Oh snap, we can't have Derek and Casey going to ANOTHER prom together. Once is a funny accident, two is a pattern." But if we remove the writers, what do we get? We get a Derek and a Casey who are equally as afraid to end up going to senior prom together, so afraid that Derek asks out Emily, who he has never shown interest in before, Casey takes BACK Truman, and then Casey wraps a bow of "same difference" around it just to finish it off.

They're. Both. So. Scared.

ALSO, we can scream about LWL, but I am a very vain person who thinks of her kick at the darkness series as more canon than that movie, as much as I enjoyed that movie, but we CAN scream about Derek and Casey as parents and how bruised they both are and how that movie just proved how much they need each other.

OR we can scream about Dasey's children and how I know all four of them and their lives and their very chaotic and loving household, and Derek's three girls who adore him and have him wrapped around their fingers, and Casey's little boy who everyone thought would be just like Derek because he LOOKS just like him, but he's a keener and clumsy and such a McDonald it makes Derek's chest hurt with how much he loves them. We can talk about dance sessions in the kitchen, about guitars and music sheets that don't stay in the music room, about video game tournaments and blanket forts when there's bad weather or a hard day at school or work; about stay-at-home Derek after he retires from hockey and how the basement becomes his hobby room (because once the kids are in school, he gets BORED, okay???) (Don't worry, I know where he ends up; it's in podcasting with Marti), about baking weekends with Casey, and family grocery trips.

Yes. Let's.

[midnightdemonhunter]

hi midnight :) 6, 8, 10, 15, anddd 46 for the ud asks? for 46 specifically, how abouttt matt?

HIIIII LILY!! thank you dearly for the ask :DDD

6. What character first caught your eye?

This is an interesting one.....I feel like Chris definitely claimed my heart immediately... was very charmed by him. BUT Matt was the first character i felt like i started tuning in to at a meta level. a lot of chap 1 was a blur the first time around but matt made it all start to come into focus for me, and I have strong memories of all his first scenes!

8. What character did you not expect to love as much as you do now?

Ingame, I think the love for Mike came fast and furious lol. Chap 3 was just so fun and fascinating.... Loved controlling him, watching the way he acted different with jess than in public, and the sheer vibe differences depending on what choices you picked.

Postgame...SAM. 100% Sam. Ingame, because i really only started processing what was going on in like. chap 3, i missed a lottt of sam time, and just didn't really give af about her. only character who i went Damn, Anyway when i killed her in my first playthrough lolllll. However, after some heavy discussion time about her for our au (you know the one) i feel wayyyy more crazy about her. Just had to find her flaws and dig into them!! Now she's constantly showing up in my sketchbook :)))

10. Which character design is your favorite?

Fascinating question.... I think a big part of Chris' charm is his silhouette with his infinite fuckass layers. its so fun to draw and so fun to look at.... i also think mike and jess have such wonderful extreme physical transformations over the course of the game.... anytime i wanna feel instantly crazy i just remember how they look/act in chapter 1 and contrast it to chap 10. ITS SO FUN. they have matching green jackets and sooooo many open wounds i LOVE the vibe shift.

15. Which characters do you wish interacted more or just interacted at all?

SO MANY OPTIONS. short answer is literally anyone. guarantee im forgetting at least 1 potential dynamic that makes me crazy buttt off the top of my head:

matt and literally anyone, but especially josh, ash and sam, JESS....and i'd really have loved to see him interact late-game with mike... mike and josh would be really good (though i guess they do get stuff...but i want even more obvious ingame paralleling) lategame jess and em would be beautiful. jess and ash... need to know what inspired the trapdoor trick.

Even more: chris and jess, CHRIS AND EM, josh and em anddd mike and ash. amen.

46. What song(s) do you associate with (insert character or ship)?

YAYYYY SONG TIME. Will say that Hermit the Frog by Marina really snuck up on me as a matt song, and though the second half is a bit more em @ mike to me, i cant help the matt connections.... verse 1 has big fire tower vibes. (AND AN EXPLOSION COMES IN TIME....BEFORE I GO AND CROSS THE LINE)

ALSO this one comes from you lol but Self Esteem by the Offspring is so so real for him...THE MORE YOU SUFFER THE MORE IT SHOWS YOU REALLY CARE RIGHT??

[brionysea]

The Mike Chrissy parallels are so insane to me i love it when you talk about them! Like, the food issues part alone is already very much Oh. And what's crazy about those to me is that it's so There that even casual watchers like my mom commented on how weird everyone was about food this season. Specifically how there's food everywhere: the new character being a pizza chef, everyone constantly driving around in a pizza van, ordering pizza, Eddie's hunts for food in the cabin, Hopper getting starved in prison and talking about food and throwing himself at peanut butter, and even having a making pizza montage. And a Lot of dinner/breakfast scenes shown in general. Which, according to her, just made Mike not eating any food in front of him unless he's literally being forced to stand out even More. And then Chrissy of course indirectly dies because of an eating disorder which just draws even More attention to the food issues right from the start <- analysis provided by my movie nerd GA mom

And that's just the weird food thing they all have going on and isn't touching on how Mike and Chrissy both aren't really in love with their partners and instead with the "freak" love interest alternative

Chrissy Mike parallels are crazy we really need to talk about them more like damn, okay, the narrative is so mean to you guys

i love that chrissy can be a lens through which to view and expose things about mike's character when chrissy was designed to die. like, mike, you good????

what really struck me recently is how chrissy becomes less of a person as the story goes on. to her boyfriend she's the fridged girlfriend who's used as an excuse for his bias and violence, and the fact that she was friendly with the person he's trying to murder in her name is irrelevant. she's not a person anymore, she's a cause, and her thoughts and feelings don't matter because she made them so quiet in life that things stuck like that and now it's too late

her mother, the person who gave her an eating disorder and essentially killed her in the first place, was able to stand up at her funeral and talk about how she's an angel who's smiling down on them from heaven and do the same thing as her boyfriend of just saying what she would think and feel and want. and neither of them really knew chrissy at all so obviously it's all wrong. if chrissy would want to be avenged and to prevent what happened to her from happening to anyone else (which, we really didn't see enough of her to know if she's a particularly vengeful person, but she seems kind so i can maybe buy the second part), then the main characters are the people doing that, and most of them never even met her

it reminds me of this twitter thread i saw on here a while ago about this woman's funeral, who i believe the op didn't know well, where everyone just stood up and talked about themselves. her partner, her children, people who were supposed to know her, just like chrissy. she made herself so quiet and giving and unobtrusive in other people's lives that all they could say about her was that she never complained. she'd already buried herself long before her death

and looking at all of that with the mike parallels, where he's trying to bury his own desires and is currently struggling to see them as something valuable that's worth pursuing and fighting for as much as other people's happiness is, where no one really knows who he is, where on a meta level he's treated similarly to chrissy (as an argument point or a pariah or someone's boyfriend instead of a person with thoughts and feelings and wants of his own), and even in universe, other characters just typecast him as the overbearing boyfriend or the straight guy or whatever and no one sees him, in part because he's hiding and running out of air, and of course no one sees that either... idk. i have a lot of thoughts and they're all circling around how painfully obvious those fake smiles were after you've seen the real thing

[studynxiety]

06/09/2023

Lately, I have been tired. I am not sure if it's burnout, a random depressive episode or executive dysfunction. All I know is I haven't been really doing as much as I could be. I didn't want to admit it since I was still doing enough to get 80% on most tests and things could be worse.

Looking back, however, I haven't really done much that enjoy lately. I don't remember the last time I turned on some good music and wrote away, burning the midnight candle for something that made me alive. And there has been this constant knot of anxiety at the bottom of my stomach. So, things haven't been vibrant but things aren't exactly bad. It's like waking up on the wrong side of the bad; nothing's horrible but everything's off nonetheless.

All this is to say, I think I need to bounce back and I'm done being passive for this year. I've always been ambitious and I'm going to start pursuing things I want again. I woke up today feeling weirdly motivated so I've decided to start the 100 days of productivity challenge!

Things I hope to achieve from this challenge:

Become good enough in Physics that I can enjoy it again

Finish at least half of the CS50 course

Study for SATS

Make a complete compilation of which Unis to apply to

Finish at least two WIPs

Get better at French

Extra/Less-prioritized goals:

Get abs

learn to cook

Sketch/Draw more often

I think there will be two main obstacles in the way of me accomplishing these things. The first will be finding time. Most of the goals I've mentioned are things I have been putting off for more immediate concerns or just, generally, people needing me for things in the present that need to be dealt with but don't have much of an impact in the future.

The second problem is my undeniable internet addiction. Okay, I feel like internet addiction is too broad; my addiction to constantly consume some form of creative media, be it in the form of books, movies, TV shows, anime, cartoon, comics, or fanfiction. I really need to cut down on that. I think this will be the most difficult part. I'll try cutting out serialized content and instead explore more indie books and movies again. They're usually less addictive but fulfilling in the same.

As always, I'll be ending this post with some talk about the most recent shows that I have been enjoying, which is kind of ironic given the previous paragraph is me just complaining about my inability to stay away from them. Lately, I have been into the ongoing Kdrama "My Lovely Liar." I think the chemistry between the main characters is great and the mystery is alluring. An 8/10 in my books.

Other than that, I've been watching "The Boys." Currently, in season three. It's one heck of a show and it's just so believable and feels like a mirror to reality. The corporate greed of pharmaceutical firms, the corruption among the people who have sworn to protect us, and how hard the world works ... only to maintain the status quo. I think it's very interesting and directly draws parallels to the real world. It's definitely a 10/10 for me. The world building, characters, humour; everything hits just right.

That's all for today. I'll do some chemistry, look over the CS50 course and fill out some forms for some official stuff today and kickstart the productivity challenge tomorrow. I'll try to be more active on tumblr during the 100 days as I need something to keep me accountable. Here is to hoping for better me's and better days and better outcomes.

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Part 2 of my Eri and Overhaul Splurge (I accidentally cut my split my theory in half)

This also means Shigaraki might be Eri’s adopted big brother (The ‘Scariest’ Sibling relationship in BNHA)

And if you notice, Eri has white hair and red eyes (Her mother was shown to also have white hair, but who’s to say that wasn’t supposed to keep you off?)

And because of All for One’s Quirk, he has some expectation that his offspring will have devastating Quirks as well (If not then he also expects that as well)

There’s also the factor that if any of his offspring don’t reach his expectations and don’t do what he wants then he’ll also kill them regardless (Like a Narcissist Parent who manipulates to get what he wants but will show hostility, even abuse if he doesn’t get what he wants)

All for One probably didn’t have any interest in Eri because she didn’t show a useful quirk (As she just made someone vanish) and her whereabouts became unknown but he didn’t care what happened to her (As he cared more about Shigaraki and his development than some missing offspring)

Because while he likes to and is good at hiding his tracks, he also gives me vibes that he doesn’t really care nor concerned about any missing ‘loose ends’

However, if he learns just what kind of devastation Eri can make because of her Quirk then he’s ‘Excited’ and wants to meet his ‘Daughter’

He would probably become very obsessed and almost Yandere-like (But Platonically) over her since she reminds him of his little brother

He would think of Eri as one of his Possessions because he MADE her, meaning she belongs to him and no one else (He’s not going to make the same mistake twice)

He would find it amusing how ‘soft’ he is for his child (He would be shocked for just a moment when he notices how similar Eri’s eyes are to his brother)

All for One wants Eri to see him as her whole world and no one is allowed to take her away from him

If All for One is Eri’s Father then that also makes Shigaraki Eri’s ‘Brother’

This also means One for All is Eri’s Uncle and in a way, Deku is her brother (Including those who are also All for One’s Successors also being her Family)

Heh, All Might is Eri’s Grandfather/Great Uncle (It’s cute)

Though this makes All for One very scornful since these ‘Pests’ are trying to take one of his ‘Possessions’ (Eri) again

All for One would be amazed with Eri’s Quirk since it’s Devastating in a different kind of way (A ‘Heroic’ Quirk that’s actually Villainous in disguise)

I wouldn’t put this past All for One to do evil and cruelty on this scale (As he desires to be the ‘Demon King’, so that means he’s done all crimes and actions of unspeakable Evil during his time alive) so who’s to say he wouldn’t make offspring for his whims (Or even ‘Boredom’) for his own goals/amusement

However, I think Eri would be the most horrified because she might go back to her old thinking, as she’s not just a ‘Cursed Human’ but a ‘Monster’ and she’s the child of a Demon (And wonder why was she even born at all)

If this is actually true (Not all of it, but my theory that Eri is All for One’s Biological Daughter, or even his descendant) I will be shocked since this makes Eri even more important and give an ever deeper relationship between Eri and Deku (Since this technically makes them family, along with All Might, Nana Shimura and even Shigaraki)

This means that the One for All Users are technically family with All for One (It’s in a loop between AFO and OFA, then Nana Shimura and Shigaraki, and branches out to All Might and Deku)

All for One takes Quirks, One for All gives Quirks, Shigaraki can decay anything he touches and Eri can rewind anything she touches (Parallels between Father/Uncle and now Brother/Sister)

However, Eri’s Power is both

Just to clarify, I thought about this from a weird dream I had with Eri running away constantly from ‘Bad People’ (And there was also Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehog??) If I ever dream it’s always weird and bizarre

I have late night thoughts about a lot series like this, about what-ifs that could happen in a series. This is actually an astute observation- with Eri being one of AFO's descendants, as it would make sense on why her quirk is so heavily sought after by those who know what it can do and while Dadzawa and the rest of UA is so intent on keeping her safe.

I could see Shigaraki being that kind of scary big brother, if Deku manages to save him and get through to him, if they are actually biologically related. However, I could see him being that kind of rough big brother, who doesn't like anyone but is soft on her, but don't mention it or he will deny it and get defensive.

The worldbuilding and lore behind BNHA is vast, and I wouldn't put it past the author to pull something like this.

This was an enjoyable and eye opening read.

Thank you for this!

[hihopelessromantics]

The Learner Learns Nothing

In which the writing of Seven Deadly Sins expects us to believe that Merlin, the glutton for knowledge, is incapable of learning what really matters over the course of her 3,000 year journey. 

I wrote this inspired by @zeldriszezinho‘s comment on how Merlin was able to reactivate Elizabeth’s curse. The implication that Merlin at some point during the 3000 years gained the ability to break the curse and could have done it AT ANY TIME from that point forward absolutely blew my mind. 

If so canon Merlin is DEAD to me I swear that is so WRONG.

I've never seen a master manipulator character written like this before and I'm not even sure if this is a good way to write a trick villain or whatever the hell she was supposed to be. It sure is baffling so nakaba got that right. I was just as shocked and disbelieving as the sins were. Still am. Regardless of how well it fits her “canon” character and personality it is NOT consistent with the found family themes 😭 Plus it would make her RIDICULOUSLY overpowered... how would she have as much power as a god without serious consequences? And literately no one noticed, ever? Britannia started literately falling apart when Meliodas had that much magical power.

You know what I think I will jump on the hating canon Merlin bandwagon with you zeldriszezinho. I am stitching the Merlins from fanfictions together to make a better, healthier one as a present to the sins for all they've gone through together.

Merlin is just - ugh - it’s too sad. Everyone else gets to be, as the people who remember English class would say, a round character, including many of the antagonists! Tons of minor characters get memorable moments of growth, but Merlin, one of the major characters? She stays static for the most part. Trapped as a plot device until the very end. The narrative leaves her alone, torn away from her found family by an insane twist that I don’t quite understand.

 It’s like Merlin never gave a second thought to how the sins are acting. Ten years out of 3,000 isn’t a lot but someone as smart and observant as Merlin should have seen the way the other sins treat her. They knew close to nothing about her, and she constantly isolated herself emotionally and physically from them, but they never made a move to exclude her from the group, or pry too much, or question her origins. They just loved her unconditionally even though she wouldn’t let them in. There was so much raw potential for her character to have a unique and complicated bond with the sins as a group. Maybe it should have been the wakeup call she needed that the unhealed child inside of her could still learn to receive love. That it wasn’t too late to have a life outside her chaos obsession. Canon left us with a pretty unsatisfying answer as to why she acted the way she has. Like hmmm. Really?

Canon Merlin, you had 3,000 years to decide whether to seek help for your childhood trauma and learn how to love in a somewhat healthy manner and you want me to believe you didn't even try that route??? And that on top of that you effectively prolonged the torment of the only two people shown to love you unconditionally? Whom you supposedly loved in return?? Uhhh heyo! I don't believe you. And also I am holding a sword to your throat getting your shit together is no longer optional.

Sure Merlin can be seen as a character study of how obsession can cause someone to forsake all other aspects of life. We saw it in Frankenstein - saw what became of that whole spectacle and how quickly the perpetrator learned that they didn't actually want [insert here], they were just looking for that basic hierarchy of human needs and weren't ready for the responsibility that comes when using the pursuit of scientific advancement as a substitute for, idk, I think in Merlin's case it would be coming to terms with essentially being treated as a weapon due to her abilities. (meliodas and Elizabeth parallel anyone?? We were robbed of three child soldiers learning to love together and be a family smh thanks a lot gods ) anyway back on topic. What Merlin and Frankenstein have in common throughout their story there are a lot of opportunities that they didn't take, and friends that they kept brushing off, never confiding in them until it was crisis time. Frankenstein's story is a tragedy - he keeps abandoning the rational thought and commitment to ethics that make a good scientist. Any second during his story, while he was neglecting correspondence from friends, neglecting to sleep and eat and pay attention to his needs as a person that the obsession had tossed in the trash bin, he was free to say “hey actually I CAN spare a second from my neverending workload to breathe and think about what's important to me. Why I'm doing this? And how I could do it better. Have I learned anything in this latest deep dive into knowledge?” Instead he is ruled by his emotions, which in the end, keep him from properly emphasizing with other people and actually achieving what he wanted to do. I don't even remember if Frankenstein KNEW what he wanted to get out of his experiments. Probably not considering this the way he immediately freaked out when it actually WORKED. And then it was crisis time, so he goes to his friends, but does he confide in them what really happened? What part he had in it and how he feels about the whole thing? Don't think so. So they just think he's depressed as fuck and going a little crazy. They're completely unable to help him in any substantial way. 

We see this with Merlin. She has to have complete control of the situation at all times so she tells no one. If she can get this ONE THING right finally everything will fall into place. That must be what she thought. But what the hell? Knowledge is and has always been collaborative. We know she was never learning just to learn or for the love of it - it was a poor substitute for the love and attention a child needs to grow up with a good understanding of how to pursue fulfillment. So she was always aiming to accomplish something with her knowledge and all around her were people working together to accomplish something. Hell, she worked together with the sins to accomplish her goal. 3,000 years. She stopped her own time. Physically, right? Or was it mental too? The science there doesn't seem to work with the brain literately rewiring itself as it gets new experiences so. We're just meant to assume she spent 3,000 years trapped in the same mindset while traveling all over Britannia and interacting with God knows how many people. Just out of pure necessity to survive and obtain the information and tools she needs she would have to interact with a LOT of people. That's not even mentioning the people she did research on. And we're expected to believe she didn't learn anything that would make Merlin- smart, curious, motivated little Merlin who tricked two GODS on the OFF CHANCE that what they give her will satisfy the hole in her heart - didn't learn enough about human behavior to give abandoning love and true connection a second thought? Or even TRY to engage meaningfully with anyone? It's not like she had never made that connection with anyone before. What about Meliodas? What about 106 Elizabeths? 

This twist that Merlin might have been manipulating the Sins all along, rather than blowing the reader’s mind with the clues and clever foreshadowing that were there all along, blows a hole in the overarching themes in the story. Merlin’s betrayal is a catastrophe of the highest proportions because it calls into question EVERYTHING they learned up until that point. What she did would cause extensive trauma to everyone involved - all this time they believed that hey, maybe fate brought us together, wasn’t it so good that we finally found people that could understand us? And now they are questioning all of it. So yeah, emotionally, the twist does what it is supposed to. It hurts. But... it doesn’t make sense.  Being in the Seven Deadly Sins causes every other member to learn how to reconcile with themselves, their pasts, their feelings, and their relationships. Why is Merlin the exception? This feels like disappointing writing and a huge waste of character potential. 

It's not like abandoning all emotion and other desires was remotely necessary for Merlin to achieve her goal. She's had fun along the way and that's shown to us. Why are we given ‘i used to have a crush on Meliodas’ as a reason why she would give up on connection or whatever? Merlin that was literally 3,000 years ago when you were 12(?). You didn't talk to anyone about THEIR childhood crushes in all that time? And it's not like Meliodas ever stopped loving or caring about her. Even after getting his emotions stolen bit by bit he only abandons her and the rest of the sins out of necessity. Here she's got a good friend to confide in. And he's EXACTLY the kind of friend she needs if she wants to resurrect an old god! Meliodas is trusting, supportive, willing to Go the Distance for anything he believes in, AND desperate enough to consider extreme courses of action in order to break his and Elizabeth's curses.

All Merlin has to do to potentially get Mel on board is say, "Hey, some of my personal research has turned up something I think you might be interested in. The existence of an old god that the Supreme Deity and Demon King locked away because they feared her power and didn't want her to interfere with their goals.  I've been curious about rumors like these since I was a child, and now I have finally found enough solid evidence to confirm that this god exists. It stands to reason that such a god would be able and even willing to help with the curse on you and Sis-sis. Not a timely solution, but a good plan B or C. I'll be looking into it, and I'll let you know if I find anything that could help you."

What's Meliodas going to say to that? Probably, "Thanks, Merlin!"

He was not afraid of potentially starting an "age of Chaos" when his father told him that is what killing him would mean. Chaos is a mysterious entity of both darkness and light, good and evil, creation and destruction. Previously worshipped by goddesses and feared by the demons. Its agenda, if it even has one, is even more mysterious than Merlin's was before the big reveal. As far as I can infer, Chaos (without the influence of fantasy racism) seems just as likely to bring balance as it could bring upheaval. Something that Britannia desperately needs. And since Chaos is the mother of life in this universe, why would it destroy everything it has created?

It makes sense that if he had known, Meliodas would have been wary of this god, and warned Merlin to be careful, but in the end... wouldn't he have as much reason to help his friend as he would to stop her? Why continue on to release Chaos after the curse is already broken? Fair question. But why not?

Meliodas just wants to live in peace with his loved ones. If releasing Chaos means an "age of Chaos" will occur, well, that just means going back to the beginning, before the eternal game between the Supreme Deity and Demon King. So. The same unknowns that he's faced in his life thus far, except the two dictators manipulating everyone into an eternal war are replaced with the creator of life itself? That would actually sound pretty good to Meliodas, right?

Chaos is disappointed with the weakness of humanity but acknowledged it as, hehehe religious parallels my beloved, "the race most like itself, that embodies its values." Now, this could be 4+ years of religion classes talking but Chaos's previous goal before the Holy War seems to have been to create a race "in its own image." And it did. The question is, now what? I doubt this god is capable of being truly evil because why would evil create creatures with moral compasses? Evil cannot create good and vice versa. We the audience know what happened in Four Knights of the Apocolypse thus far regarding Chaos's preference to humans, but Meliodas and the other Sins have no reason to suspect the entity of chaos would ever go full genocide mode on its own creations. A god that creates all life according to a set of intricate rules (physics, etc.) tends to have patterns of behavior that make sense. Creating everything just to kill it all off doesn't really make sense.

Merlin could damn well have told the Sins, or even just Meliodas, that her goal is to resurrect the original god of their universe that was locked away by the Demon King and the Supreme Deity, who play with people's lives for fun and obviously freaking suck - without making herself look like she has a) gone off the deep end or b) working toward an evil goal that they should immediately put a stop to by any means necessary.

Instead, she just tricks Meliodas and the Sins outright in the most painful way possible. Wtf?

She doesn’t have a solid reason to hurt the people who love her like no one ever has. Who, in their own messy way, have treasured her like her own parents and her people never did.

The twist that her true goal all along was to release Chaos would still work, both as a plot mechanic and for shock value. What’s not shocking about your friend actually being serious about releasing an ancient god, and doing it so soon after Britannia was nearly destroyed by a Holy War? The Sins would have been shocked and hurt all the same with how she orchestrated them coming together, trained Arthur for this exact purpose, and prompted Meliodas to confront and kill his father - all things which were ultimately for the best for all of the races, but with Merlin’s questionable choices, involved a lot more trauma for everyone. Hell, if Merlin got a character arc like the others, the Chaos reveal would actually hurt the Sins MORE. Instead of realizing they didn’t really know her, they would be realizing that the sense of warmth and belonging and the bonds they had forged with each other hadn’t reached Merlin’s heart. That whatever effort they had put into bonding with her wasn’t enough, it didn’t help her the way she had - the way they thought she had helped them. That they had been oblivous to their friend’s suffering and emptiness, that she didn’t trust them the way they trusted her, etc, etc. A deeper and more cutting reveal if you asked me. 

As it is, the reveal makes it so that they didn’t lose a friend and member of their found family. They lost a person who was just... there. Forgotten until it was strictly neccessary for her to be there. Who never truly cared (?). While that’s sad, it’s... not what it could be if she had gotten the chance to genuinely be a part of the sins, physically and emotionally. 

It seems to me that in the moment, Meliodas doesn't seem overly concerned about Chaos. He's angry that Merlin would be willing to blindside and manipulate him, making light of a friendship that's spanned over 3,000 years, for the sake of something that might not even exist. He's angry she seems to value that over everything she already has. Is this the only thing she truly cared about? Was he and his loved ones nothing but pawns to her, just as he was a pawn to his father? Same with the other Sins - they don't know what's going on, but they are angry and hurt at the prospect that their friendship with Merlin was a lie.

THIS, Merlin could have avoided entirely! She is an intelligent, powerful woman - a genius according to some of the most powerful demons alive - and she has BETTER OPTIONS! Choices. By all means, she could have had wonderful, meaningful times with the Sins for all of their journey together, and kept them as friends afterward, maybe finding true fulfillment in the process. All without giving up her pursuit of releasing Chaos. 

She could have learned. Why didn’t she? 

[likesunsetorange]

omg can i hear your thoughts about annie/armin as peeta/katniss i’ve been saying this for such a long time

omg yes!!! thank you for asking like nobody ever really sends me asks so this is so fun to me!!! also i’m sorry for getting on this train late but i’ve seen the light finally!

(also putting the preview thing bc i went on a long ass tangent, i told y’all if you get me started on this i won’t stfu 😭)

but my mutuals and i have been talking about it and we were saying how katniss is definitely not the kind of person who ever wanted to be a hero. she certainly isn’t a selfish person (her volunteering for prim shows this), but she never intended to be the forefront of a revolution. also katniss is very socially inept and pretty unaware, she thinks everyone hates her or she doesn’t like people but she constantly goes out of her way for people bc she cares! i think these are really similar (in my head at least) to how annie is. annie only became a warrior to help her dad (well he also kinda forced her but anyways), and her intention was always just to get back home to him, so that kinda reminds me of katniss. also annie is perceived as mean and aloof, but she’s just not the most social person and isn’t the best as socializing (i think this is most shown in aot jr high), and kind of misinterprets social situations, very similar to katniss! i think annie is a very caring and kind person but her situations have led her to be closed off and causing her goals to be the forefront of her mind, but towards the end of the series she realizes that people do care for her and starts to be more trusting/open (i.e. armin/mikasa/even reiner a bit) and we see a more lighthearted side of her (the okapi scene LOL)!! i think katniss and annie aren’t exactly the same but i see so many similarities between them, even with the whole aruani interaction too, it reminds me a lot of some of the more vulnerable everlark scenes. also annie is very aggressive and so is katniss, and that whole scene where katniss throws peeta into the wall after the whole “if it weren’t for the baby” shenanigans, that’s annie as hell LOL she wouldn’t want to be perceived as weak or vulnerable, it’s just not her

as for armin, armin is literally the equivalent to peeta to me. armin is actually my favorite character after eremika, so i adore the fact that he’s so similar to my favorite book character. i think armin is one of the most kind characters in the story, and his genuine care and devotion to mikasa and eren make me love him so much, but armin is also definitely a very manipulative person. he knew how to manipulate situations to his advantage in order to achieve whatever it is he wanted, and that’s definitely in line with peeta. peeta put on a performance as much as katniss did, but because he knew how to work the room and use his charms to his advantage. i 100% without any thread of doubt in me know armin is capable of pulling off the baby stint, because he would think of the same scenario, using the capitol’s pity to their advantage. being able to be manipulative stems from your ability to read people and your intelligence, and we can tell that armin is good at both of those (how he got eren to confess his true feelings for mikasa just by fucking around with him lol)!! also cute blond boy, blue eyes that’s so armin!!!! but beyond all the manipulation and working for the cameras, peeta did have a genuine care and he loved katniss his whole life, and armin had always been interested in annie as well and she was a bit naive to it too.

honestly i was never the biggest aruani fan (i like them but they’re not a fav basically) but seeing their everlark parallels made me have a new appreciation for the ship!! i could honestly say more but i just woke up and i can’t think of as many canon references to as i’d like!!! but sorry for going on a whole tangent i just love the hunger games a lot 😭

[electro-scorpion-moving]

can’t stop thinking about the ocs gang playing terrraria lately. mary would be a ranger obviously, and shannon would be melee and they’d be a godtier team. mary would be like “sorry, i don’t wanna babysit” when asked to play multiplayer with the rest, but then pop in every so often anyway, help with the bosses and/or drop off some helpful stuff she found in her own world with shannon. she has her own single player world, but she hasn’t touced it in years, she plays multiplayer with shannon so much

ava is a summoner, considered (relatively) weak as hell bc the ais for the summons suck, but she’s determined to make it work for her. beatrice is absolutely mixed. playing multiplayer with ava is a bit stressful for beatrice because she’s a good fighter and wants to focus more on building and resource gathering, meanwhile ava is not that good of a fighter (relatively speaking), but loves to spelunk around, and seemingly every time beatrice turns around, ava’s died and is just like 🥺 please go get my money and/or items for me, bea, because she’s always running broke since she can’t resist buying all the useless stuff from the trading merchant, and misplacing her items. neither of them have a single player world of their own, and they share a world together

lilith actually plays “multiplayer” with avatrice a lot, if multiplayer counts as mostly deliberately joining the world when they’re afk or asleep or something. she has so many random bases around the house, and avatrice only find them because they notice one of their npcs is gone and has teleported clear across the map for some reason, the some reason being lilith’s bases. sometimes she’ll join when avatrice are in the game, but no matter how much they try to pay attention, she always manages to slip in unnoticed. she always finds and leaves avatrice a bunch of amazing loot in their base and she’s a great teammate when fighting bosses, so they can’t complain too much. Also parallel plays with beatrice a lot, they’re often just resource gathering or building in silence a lot, and they understand each other wants/needs without having to even say a thing

aside from playing with avatrice, lilith plays multiplyer with camila as well, with a world on mastermode. she’s good, but do not ask her how many graves she has from her early days playing mastermode. they’re in the several thousands. lilith doesn’t really try on avatrice’s world, because she’s trying to be sneaky mainly, but she’s a really good builder. her and camila’s world is full of beautiful ass buildings and she’s constantly building more. tbh that’s part of why she’s in avatrice’s world so often and being sneaky about it, aside from being emotionally repressed, because she’s just gathering blocks to build with there instead of in her and camila’s own world because she doesn’t want to mess up her own world

camila can’t build for shit, F. she’s great at making farms, but building? nah. she’d just live in dirt squares if she could. extremely skilled and often extremely lucky as well, whenever you ask about her gameplay in terraria she’ll say something like “oh i found 16 life crystals in one cave under 10 minutes!!” or “i just beat skeletron in the ‘spawn in hell’ seed world that i started started up last week”