#because i love self-fulfilling prophecies like that

[qoldenskies]

Sorry for always talking to you it’s just fun LMFAO but also that post that’s like “he’s literally nice” was LITERALLY an interaction in Circumventing Death, which is too funny not to comment on

IT LITERALLY IS LMFAOOOOOOOOOOO seeing that post made me feel like the pointing wojack meme like HEY THEY SAID THAT. IN THE THE FIC I MADE

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[jin-zixun]

Reasons Nie Mingjue tries to kill Jin Guangyao:

JGY saved his life (while being unable to do the same for others)

He didn't think working as a spy to win the war would actually include having to do bad things (unlike the killings NMJ performs which are always 100% justified because NMJ is 100% moral and has the right to make that call)

JGY won't kill himself

JGY won't perform extrajudicial murder of his shidi, favored by his father (which would also get him killed)

JGY won't die

JGY talked back to him and won't just completely agree with his assessment (that JGY should just die)

It's the only way for them to have peace (says the guy who suffers from extensive murderous rages and came back as a corpse to continue killing people against the guy who oversaw the biggest public safety project and expansion we know of and kept the peace for over a decade)

JGY tells their mutual friend/sworn brother that he's concerned about NMJ suffering from said extensive murderous rages

JGY bought nice things for NHS

Reasons Jin Guangyao tries to kill Nie Mingjue

Doesn't want to be killed by Nie Mingjue who keeps trying to kill him

[jutsomethoughtsihave]

parasocial moment but every time someone makes a post about dnp related to them sort of raising us i just start crying because of the awareness i have that i view them so much more as dads than my own biological father who actually raised me and i just have so many complex emotions about it because its fucking sad that the man who was supposed to be there for me has totally failed me and fucked me up far more than anyone else ever has but at the same time so grateful for having people who were such positive influences (haha ironic) towards me that i could hold them at such a high status.

there is not a single moment where i am in my fathers home or vicinity where i feel completely safe and comfortable but when im in my own world watching silly gaming videos from the only 2 people who make me think its going to be ok i feel completely safe

[dbphantom]

you know if you guys voted for stretch armstrong i probably would have shut up a lot sooner tonight

[ask-calico-jack]

drug recs for a first time drug doer? I've drunk alcohol obviously but never done anything harder.

Other than booze which I love, Rhino Horn is definitely my favorite. Helps me get shit done but is also fun. But it's not like that for everybody. Eddie basically only does it when he's in a mood and Mary doesn't fuck with it at all, she's more of a stoner than a tweaker. Weeds fun every once in a while. I don't really like opium because you just sit around and nod off. You feel really happy but you don't do much and I like to be doing shit. Can't have a coconut war on opium, and it's a bit of a waste of medical supplies anyway. I basically only do it if there's nothing else on the boat. Mushrooms are great for an afternoon, kinda like weed in that it's for a special occasion where you want to sit around and giggle at stupid shit. You know if you mix mushrooms with lemon juice it dissolves em a little bit and it doesn't last as long but it hits you way harder.

[kindheartedgummybears]

Oh No! by MARINA is so T coded

[lovphobic]

today i am choosing to remember sarahs reaction to having stopped watching right before the beauty contest game. truly a hilarious moment

[warriorprincesstramp]

season eight of seinfeld is Not Good so far. 👎

[snekdood]

people dont want to help me with my problems and then get upset with me when i'm most of the time busy dealing with them. how can you be upset this is taking up so much of my time when you didn't even want to bother to help?

[musclesandhammering]

I don’t know how I’ve been meta-ing about the Odinson family for years and never picked up on this, but wow.

You know this fits with my very specific headcanon about their childhoods though.

I think from the time they were born, Odin was super paranoid about Thor- his offspring, his actual biological heir- turning out like Hela, and sort of just saw Loki as this extra kid he picked up at the seven eleven on the way home one day so he wasn’t too worried about him. And so he hyper focused on Thor when they were children- trying so hard to groom him into this honourable asgardian patriot instead of a murderous conquerer- and pretty much just ignored Loki altogether.

But then, when the two of them entered their teens, Thor was arrogant and enjoyed fighting too much, but was otherwise exactly what Odin wanted him to be. But at the same time, Odin suddenly realised how powerful Loki was growing up to be and how underhanded he was and how much rage he was hiding and mentally went “Oh fucking shit.. I worried about the wrong one.” And because Loki was already so old, he figured it was too late to try to shape him into something better, so instead he crucified Loki for every mistake he made, was constantly suspicious of him at every turn, made it clear that he didn’t trust him and thought he was going to turn out to be a villain… and for years Loki had to exist knowing his father saw him as an enemy. And he tried to prove him wrong, but Odin is a stubborn jackass so it never worked. And so the rest of the story goes..

I just love the concept of Odin’s own paranoia being the thing that lead to everyone’s downfall.

so is nobody gonna talk about how Mjolnir used to be Hela’s?!! i can’t believe i didn’t even notice this during the mural scene until my second viewing. like, she didn’t catch the hammer because she is more powerful than Thor (being Odin’s firstborn and all), she caught it because it was her hammer.

i need to go back and watch the first Thor film bc i think Odin said something along the lines of “the hammer is a tool to build and not just a weapon to destroy”, which is why he FLIPPED OUT when Thor went on that little destruction bender against the Frost Giants and HOLY MOLY Thor and Odin’s headbutting matches in the first film mean so much more now than just father and son disagreements about leading Asgard!!!

and then there’s Heimdall’s line during Thor’s vision in Age Of Ultron “You’re a destroyer, Odinson. See where your power leads.“ Destroyer = a family trait.

Meanwhile, we’re all over here worried about Loki doing evil things, but it was never about Loki.

Odin wasn’t concerned about Thor being too immature to lead, he was terrified Thor was headed down the same path of destruction and conquest as his first child, so he banished Thor to Midgard and placed a child-security-lock on the hammer to prevent a potential Hela 2.0 and i need to lay down now 0__0

Odin is still a shit parent for not coming clean about all of this. being straightforward and honest coulda saved a lot of hassle…fuckin odin >:C

[drivemysoul]

nobody in my life knows that the last 3 days i have been consumed by a fictional couple from an abridged parody webseries

[cirillafionaelenriannon]

well 😐 i started crying because i deserve love. because i deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. because i deserve affection, kindness and patience. understanding. validation. because if i make mistakes -- it's okay. because i won't be punished. because it's okay for me to do something wrong and learn from it. because i am not too emotional, i am not annoying, i am not stupid or silly i am not a horrible person. i am a good person. i make mistakes!!! i say the wrong thing, i make bad decisions and it's okay...!

and i cried about it because that's not how i was raised. and that's how i should've been raised. and it upsets me to think about how i was not treated that way when i deserved it lol. so im getting 😭 about it.

sometimes it's just crazzzy to think about. i deserve all this goodness and i wasn't given it when i needed it and it set me far back and made it harder, so hard i have to work for it but i can still have it because i deserve it.

[butch-errant]

.

[beemintty]

i want to be their friend but they make it so hard for me to do so.....

[youraveragemushroom]

‘….’