#because if this happens I'm bringing out the Alan scale

[respectthepetty]

Tong magically getting the building that nobody else could get before

Yet running out of money

Didn't make me think that he has used money to get that building, but instead made me think of something more nefarious, like he might be willing to cut some corners in other areas to make sure his movie makes him look good.

All's I'm saying is Joe 2.0 is already living a life VERY similar to Joe 1.0.

So Tong better not even think about it.

@bitacrytic, I will end that man where he fucking stands.

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

So I think there's 3 things that really stand out to me in the game and I have positives and negatives for each of them.

First is the environment. I played via streaming on switch and still can't get over how gorgeous it is, even all the big sprawling off-white office corridors look majestic because of scale and distortion and most things involving AWEs or the Astral Plane is just. Stunning. Love it. Feels nice on my brain to look at. Also tons of it is destructible. The downside is...I get lost. Alot. The map was mostly fine and in all honestly places are well signposted but I have the observation skills of a hamster watching cocomelon so I spent. A LOT of time running in circles trying to find doors, it got really frustrating at times but it's more of a personal weakness than a flaw of the game.

And the environment being strong is SO important for the story because the Oldest House is a character. Yes it is. Yes I have had conversations with it. Unlocking the Ashtray Maze felt like finally learning to talk to a withdrawn child who immidiately lit up with joy at having someone new to play with! It feels like the House is showing off to you and then starts helping you fight all while norse epic metal is playing. It made me laugh out loud in sheer fun.

Which brings me to the story, and it's this part that I'm the most torn on. Imo Control is a phenomenal story right up until the final 2 missions. Even the final mission has a really strong start but the actual end is just...such an anticlimax. You fight a few waves in one of the least visually interesting areas (everything is red, I can't see movement terribly well, and again, switch streaming so I'm lagging and clipping all over the place. Game fuckin crashed the first time I reached Dylan and I had to redo it all)

It nails the vibes. Absolutly. You got Fringe, X-Files, SCP, Twin Peaks, lots of vague psychological gestures towards the collective unconsciousness and you know I drink that shit up. I feel like it absolutely nails what it's going for and that carries so, so much and reduces the need for exposition infodumps. Everything just kinda feels right!

Which is great! Until the end! Because the Feels based approach to story absolutly doubles down and I am left woth absolutly no godamn idea what was even going on. Dylan was doing...something?? Trying to spread the Hiss to Polaris? What even was the Hiss anyway? Oh it came from the projector...? What about the Not Mother and the dogs talked about in the logs from Dylan and Jesse as kids? What are they, what are there goals, what happened to them? I don't need every answer, I don't need to know what the Board is or how AWEs happen but I'd like....SOMETHING.

So yeah. Absolutly loved my time in Control and I'm gonna be playing a bit more post game for side quests. I definitely want to look more into Remedy bc im familiar with Alan Wake but only watched an LP of the origional years ago. I just wish Control had...a lil something more. A more thoroughly explored ending, a little more explanation, a little more room to breath at the end there. That being said, I would go absolutly feral for a sequal.

I finished Control and have a Lot of thoughts on it (largely very positive but a few criticisms that the overall quality made stand out)

[yourfinalbow]

hi lol this is totally random but based on a harry potter post you just reblogged and you can completely ignore me if you want, but do you think snape deserved better, or are you a quote unquote "snape apologist"? I'm genuinely curious cuz I've come across a lot of different opinions on severus. Again, feel free to ignore :)

This ended up way longer than it needed to be, and I apologize for that lmao.

Hi! Hmmm I have many mixed opinions on this. First we have to talk about which Snape. Book!Snape is actually kind of an asshole, and not in the fun way. (Way more than I remembered.) But but but Alan Rickman!Snape I like a lot.

And no I'm not mentioning Snape from TCC. That was not Snape and that world was not Harry Potter.

Snape is an interesting character because of how flawed and layered he is.

(Putting a cut because it's so long, and tw for non-detailed mentions/reference to abuse, as well as both trauma and death.)

He wasn't born in a very good household, which I can definitely see as being a reason for why he is who he is. (A reason, not an excuse. Those are two extremely different things.) You look at Sirius, who also came from a horrible household, yet he managed to dig himself out of the mud and make his own path for himself. (Though I have many angsty headcanons for the thoughts he has and being afraid of what he will do and in turn his own mind. WolfStar solidarity. Neither one of them know what they are truly capable of, and both are completely afraid to find out.

Ahem sorry I got a little distracted there.

During the Marauder's era, Snape wasn't a good person in general, but he tried to be nice to Lily. (One of the only exceptions he made.) That being said, (sorry, going on a tangent again), it does not excuse what the Marauders did. As much as they are, in my humble opinion, JK's greatest creation, they should be held accountable for both the prank, and dangling Snape upside down. (Though Remus does make a few good points in their defense later, it's still not an excuse.) Two wrongs never make a right.

Snape doesn't deny Lily's claims at him wanting to join a supremacy group, nor does he say he isn't friends with Death Eaters.

It's clear through the flashbacks we're given that Snape is apathetic in the face of innocent people dying, but once again Lily is the exception.

Dumbledore defends Snape by saying it wasn't his fault that Harry's parents are dead. I actually semi-agree with this. On one hand, he was directly at fault, but on the other hand he had no way of knowing. As a severe Loki apologist, I do not blame Loki for Frigga's death. He may have led the dark elves to her, but he didn't know it was her she was sending them to. That's the comparison I make in my mind, and so I don't completely blame him like other people do. (One could also make the argument that Sirius is to blame. Sirius, who is 100% my favorite character in the entire franchise, gave the secret keeper job to Peter, thinking it would be safer with him. However, he had no ill will or malicious intentions towards Lily, James, and Harry, so I don't blame him.)

All that being said, Snape not only would have been fine with random people dying, he also didn't care whether or not James and Harry lived.

For context:

(Dumbledore is speaking, right after Snape comes to him for help.)

"You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child?" They can die, as long as you have what you want?"

Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.

He has a strange relationship with Lily. He obviously loves her, but not enough to want to stop Voldemort from killing the two things that bring her the most amount of happiness. It's clear he doesn't care about anyone except for Lily. Which on some level, I can understand why. When people have traumatic childhoods, they tend to hold on to a person that was there for them. Sometimes it can be the hands of the person who caused them pain in the first place, but other times it is another person who was there for him. He holds Lily's opinions of himself higher than anybody else, and he holds Lily above anybody else, and I think this can be attributed to some sort of trauma response, which is why his love for her is so unusual. That doesn't mean I think he should be fine with killing innocent people.

On the topic of trauma, I think joining the Death Eaters was another response to this, as well as a result of what kind of family he had.

Similar to both Harry and Voldemort, Snape much preferred Hogwarts to where he lived, and such the castle became his home more than his house ever was.

The Death Eaters could offer him something he had never been offered before. He belonged to something. In his own, twisted, traumatic mindset, he might have even almost seen the Death Eaters as a family. Not consciously of course, but there was definitely a feeling of belonging they gave him.

And there's something to be said about the fact that many serial killers in real life come from an abusive family. I don't pretend to understand the minds of someone who can do something so vile, but I have watched enough Criminal Minds episodes to know what they long for is control.

So being apart of this supremacy group, even though he was a half-blood himself and undoubtedly didn't entirely share Voldermort's racist beliefs, gave him both control and something he belonged to.

It's not an excuse, but it's a reason.

Alternatively, you can look at it through a quote from the most recent episode of Loki.

"It's part of the illusion. It's a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear."

So it's also possible that when he was a kid, he thought being a villain was the only way to prevent others from being one to him.

Ok sorry, back on the chronological track.

So he agrees to change sides and work with Dumbledore. (Who must see just how distraught Snape was over Lily's death, to trust him immediately.)

Snape spends most of Harry's time at Hogwarts humiliating his own students. He particularly calls out Harry and his friends a lot, but I can definitely see this being a defence mechanism. He assumes Harry is James and reverts back to what we talked about earlier. (Becoming the villain so nobody else has a chance.)

But but but, he does a lot of good throughout the books. Snape mutters the countercurse, saving Harry from Quirrell during the Quidditch match. He then actually referees at the next match, preventing anything from happening altogether.

In retrospective, we see that he spends most of the first book helping Dumbledore by protecting the stone, and helping Lily by protecting Harry.

Now I could go through and list the goods and the bads of Snape throughout the entire series, but I have neither the time nor the patience, and I think you get the point.

(Except I would like the mention that Snape becomes a double agent for Dumbledore in book four, and risks his life every single day by constantly betraying Voldermort, and never once does he use this as a way to double cross Dumbledore. This was actually probably really hard on him. You can assume that having to pretend to be a Death Eater means he had to do some despicable things just so he didn't blow his cover. If he really has changed by this time, which I would like to think he has, is a lot of added guilt to live with.)

(I would also mention that he tried to save Sirius in book five, but... *falls on floor dramatically* I don't want to think about it.)

Severus Snape's time comes to the end in book seven. At the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, his death is a valiant act of sacrifice. Protecting the living and defending the honour of the fallen.

So, he has done a lot of bad in his lifetime, but by the time we as readers get to know him, his fundamental set of beliefs have begun to change. Through the eyes of what started as an eleven year old boy, you can definitely see that even after this he wasn't necessarily a good person.

And that's because his good is behind the scenes. He's good on a larger scale. He's chosen the light over darkness, but in his everyday life he's still the scared, traumatized little kid he's always been.

And him being this way has reasons, but these reasons are not excuses.

Sorry anon, this kind of turned into a long winded review of the entire character. I know that's not really what you asked, so I'll sum it up in a final few sentences sentence.

Yes. I wish Snape had gotten to live. Not because I'm necessarily a "Snape apologist", but because I find his character interesting, and seeing his reaction to his sacrifice could have been a really good read. Also Harry coming up and thanking him would have been really touching, and as a cherry on top maybe we could have gotten to read Harry apologizing for his father. Maybe even Snape sharing memories of Lily?! (Sorry that might have gotten a little to fanfic-y.)

That being said, his death being a final sacrifice towards the good of everyone, and a final testimony to his change of heart, was -- and I'll give JK credit just this once -- good storytelling, and a good way to end it.

Also I like movie!Snape because fuck yeah he's just so awesome.

If anyone has anything to add/take away, or they just want to discuss the wonder that was Alan Rickman, let me know! (Ask/Comment/Reblog/Etc.)

[emeraldgladiator]

Okay, things are... messy because retcons! And the retcons tie a bit into older stuff that is at the monument not easily available, well also just flat out ignoring others. And both the story line that rung in the Parallax stuff and then the story line that ended it were used to being about massive shifts to the Green Lantern status quo all at once.

So let's take this in parts. The original story line goes:

Coast City is destroyed during the Reign of The Superman storyline

Hal in his grief makes a huge construct of it

The Guardians show up and go "That's using your ring for personal gain, bad! We're taking it away from you."

Hal snaps and fights his way through the newly remade GLC (Yes newly remade, they blew up the GLC at the end of the 80s its a long story) to Oa.

The Guardians let Sinestro out of the central battery where he was imprisoned (Long story and we'll touch on it later) as their final defense. Hal beats Sinestro and kills him, Kilowag makes one last plea to Hal not do what he's doing since its not to late yet to not be a killer, Hal kill Kilowag.

Hal absorbs the energy of the central batter and takes on the name Parallax. The Guardians for not perfectly explained in universe reasons feel they need to dump all their energy into just one of them. So all but Ganthet dies.

All of that happens over three issues because it was rushed out. (again, long story) And honestly most of issue two is just Hal beating up the GLC. These issue are collected at Emerald Twilight. Part of this was DC wanted Green Lantern to be a 'unique' hero again, they felt having more than one GL running around, much less thousands made it less special. So as part of this Alan Scott lost his ring and took on the name Sentinel, John Stewart become a Darkstar and well Guy had already witched over using Sinestro's old yellow ring that was still too close and so he gets a fight with Hal in his ongoing and Hal breaks his yellow ring. This will lead to the whole "Guy turns out to have alien ancestry" thing since the higher ups wanted him to still be a powered hero.

They then bring in Kyle and really try to ram home he is the only GL and will always be the lone GL.

Meanwhile Hal has decided "universe is full of awful stuff on the scale of Coat City getting blow up if not worse. Might as well my near unlimited powers to make a perfect universe without suffering" But to make he first needs to tear down, so he erases all of existence in the Zero Hour cross-over spherical. (Though him being behind it was a big twist so we only find out at the very end of the second to last issue so not a lot of time spent with him and the debate over his actions)

As you can imagine he's stopped history is put back to mostly what it was before. Hal and Kyle however end up on Oa and fight, Hal tries to use the energy Oa has to recharge so Kyle blows the whole thing up to stop him.

Hal kicks around as Parallax showing up here and there, I'm lead to understand the higher ups didn't want to spend to much time on him and turned down story ideas that centered him too much likely out of fear of it overshadowing Kyle.

Final Night special occur es, A sun Eater is well, I think you can figure out what its doing. No one is able to stop it, so Kyle has the idea of going to Hal for help. This leads to the Final Night Parallax issue which is kind of essential to Final Night working, otherwise Hal kind of just take the whole damn special over in the last issue when he had not been involved prior to that. Hal pulls a heroic sacrifice, reigniting the sun well keeping it sudden flare in heat form causing even more damage.

So Hal is dead at this point.

Last Judgment occurs. The Specter's host has left it for a bit and a devil uses this to grab hold of it and unleash Hell on earth. Heroes head to the afterlife to see if Jim Corrigan will leave Heaven and take the Specter back, but he no longer has the rage in him for it, he's too at peace, so he points them in the direction of Purgatory.

there they find among the dead heroes who aren't fit for heaven a repentant Hal, and hey if anyone has the will to wrangle the Specter its him! So he gets the job. But he tries to take the Specter form being about vengeance to redemption. A short lived Specter series happens here with Hal, but almost everything in it will be ignored and retconed come Hal coming back to life.

Now we hit the retcon for Green Lantern Rebirth. Parallax is long the name Hal taken because after dumping the ring for just having almost all the green energy in him and his world view having changed. Its an ancient embodiment of fear itself.

Hey remember how I said we'd touch on things currently not easily available, at least legally? Yeah that's where this comes in. Its also where the the "they blew up the GLC at the end of 80s" thing comes back.

So leading up to the first time they blew up the GLC All the Guardians had left the universe after COIE (long story) and the GLC put Sinestro on trial after he blew up Kilowag's homplanet and the vote comes in to put him to death. But turns out for yet another very long story, the Guardians had long ago set up the Central Battery to destroy itself if they or any of their agents ever killed a male of Sinestro's species.

Hal flies into the Battery and Find Sinestro's mind had entered it and joined with the yellow impurity. He stops him and stabilize the Battery just enough to keep the tiny number of rings left (like... four) going. At least till the Guardians come back at the start of the 90s.

This according to the retcon is when Hal got infected by Parallax.

When Coast City was blown up it finally took full hold over Hal feeding on his fear of tomorrow and what other horrific things like that might happen. It pushed him the direction of doing all that he did as Parallax. And then added in actually the Sinestro whose neck he snapped in Emerald Twilight was just a construct. Also The Specter was trying to help purge his soul of Parallax and that's why he took him as a host.

Parallax Hal Arc - my understanding of it

So, of the few comics I've actually read, Parallax Hal and Spectre Hal were major plot points. I didn't read the full storyline however, seeing as I couldn't find it.

My understanding OF WHAT I READ is that:

Hal was imprisoned in the main Lantern Battery on Oa where Parallax was also imprisoned.

Sinestro knew and that was part of his plans.

Hal was manipulated into becoming Parallax's host.

Hal obliterated Oa, killed most of the Green Lantern Corps, and destroyed Coast City.

Spectre, the embodiment of vengeance or smt, decided to also inhabit Hal's body because he was trying to prevent Parallax from causing more damage.

Hal died sometime between destroying Coast City and Spectre jumping into his body.

Guy owns a restaurant. He's also the most chill I've ever seen him in any media ever. AND he's retired from Lantern stuff

All of the Earth GLs are on good terms with Hal (especially Guy???)

Oliver was nearly killed by Spectre? maybe?? unclear

Spectre and Parallax leave Hal's body because Parallax has gained enough power to manifest on his own.

All 4 Earth Lanterns fight Parallax.

The Justice League (mainly the big 3) try to fight Hal.

There's at least a full page describing how each of the Lanterns use their rings and it's really interesting and unnecessary. But also really cool. Pry this part from my cold dead hands.

Sinestro shows up, absorbs Parallax, and fucks off to the far reaches of the known galaxies.

Apparently, this isn't correct??? I get that I'm missing information, but please explain how I'm wrong about the parts that I actually read.