#deeper aspects

[livinglifeagainblog]

Prayer of the Day

Dear Lord, I come before You seeking the tranquility that only You can provide. Help me to cultivate a peaceful environment in my heart and surroundings, as I explore the deeper aspects of peace in my life. May Your Word guide me to create harmony within and around me, as I embrace forgiveness and mindfulness.

Thank You for Your constant presence. I trust that through prayer and reflection, I will find the inner peace I long for. AMEN.

[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.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

The fact they keep referencing Eddie’s lying on the show and in interviews has me giggling and kicking my legs and twirling my hair.

It’s almost like we’re meant to read into the fact Eddie’s not always being truthful - with himself and others. Almost like, I don’t know, him going to confessional and telling a priest that he lied to everyone in his life and then later him telling that same priest that he’s straight might possibly be showing us Eddie not being truthful with himself or others!!

[turtleblogatlast]

Something I love about Leo is that, canonically, he IS capable of cooking, he’s just completely incapable of using a toaster. He’s banned from the kitchen not out of an inability to make edible food, but because being within six feet of a toaster causes the poor appliance to spontaneously combust.

[bayetea]

truly one of the biggest letdowns in piper's writing in hoo specifically is how it doesn't dig deeper into charmspeak and what a disturbing thing it is to have the power to control someone's mind. like I swear this is interesting stuff and more people would get into piper as a character if this were explored a bit more in the text. you definitely see piper disturbed by her own power and hesitant to use it (and note that like many other characters, i.e. leo and hazel, her powers have always been a source of trouble in her life - like how she got in trouble for stealing a car even though all she did was ask for it), but in my opinion the books spend way too much time in piper's perspectives on other stuff when charmspeak is such an unusual and fascinating and terrifying power that offers so many interesting avenues of character exploration

and I really wish the books would have talked more about the canonical fact that charmspeak is more effective against people who are (or could be) physically/sexually attracted to the user. this is a power that children of aphrodite have - a power that is implicitly tied to sexuality as a defense or offense. like this inherently necessitates that piper weaponizes her sexuality against monsters and deities and giants and any other antagonist that want to harm her. which is crazy. especially because she's a teenager and especially because piper is initially characterized as an underconfident girl who goes out of her way to downplay her appearance (do you guys remember how much harassment piper goes through in the books and what little gravity is afforded to those moments... like she has dangerous characters aggressively flirting with or expressing attraction to her A Lot, and she has to play into that attraction to save herself or her friends no matter how uncomfortable it makes her)

I think there's such a dark undertone to all of this that's worth investigating. we know that piper doesn't like herself, doesn't like her powers, and doesn't like demigod life. hoo has her on a journey to become more confident in herself as a person and as a daughter of aphrodite but it's always going to be fucked up that part of her role in the prophecy seven is becoming confident enough in herself that she gets better at weaponizing her ability to violate the free will of others - and her ability to use her sexuality as an armament of war

[velvet-games]

I think I've said a couple times that seeing too much radiosilence angst made me want a fluffier qpr version, but tbh I still want all of the angst; it just needs to be framed as eventually leading to a happy ending.

alastor and vox hating each other is thematically inevitable. I am in love with the fake enemies trope; I tried playing around with that, but there is no universe where these characters are remotely close to canon and actually like each other lmao. I think it needs to be more "vox pretends he only hates alastor and alastor pretends he doesn't care about vox but they actually both understand that they really had something and destroyed it because of mutual differences." like, symbolically, it's old vs. new, right? and alastor is good because he values what worked in the past and cares about artistic integrity but bad because he refuses to see progress or accept change; vox is good because he's innovative and ambitious but bad because he's tacky and too profit-driven. that dynamic has way too much potential for us to skip the part where they grow to see the good side of each other's perspectives while keeping their own identities intact.

AUGH the angst would just be too good; vox and alastor kind of being on the same wavelength at first when they weren't too far apart era-wise, alastor not really taking his ambitions seriously and finding them entertaining, vox actually caring at first about making TV as a legitimate creative endeavor and them connecting over a love for entertainment ... but eventually vox gains power, he starts getting distracted by money and takes shortcuts, he stops creating almost completely because it's easier to make contracted souls do it instead. alastor's cute plaything (that maybe was actually interesting to talk to and had good ideas ...) becomes this tacky capitalist that he can't manipulate as easily, so he gets bored of him. vox is so happy when he finally becomes an overlord; alastor is gonna be so proud! only for him to realize that alastor never saw him that way. alastor never actually liked him, did he?

cue them getting mad at each other and starting a feud that is much more comical on the outside than it is privately. vox is still a little confused and very much in pain ... he knows his own flaws but his greed has too much of a hold on him to make him actually change for alastor (vox: I'll do anything! just tell me what to do, what to change, and I will. please just stay. alastor: would you give up your company? power? money? would you stay with *me*? vox: ...). alastor is disappointed and tries to make it seem like he really had no affection for vox, but those memories of drinking together on sunday nights, listening to how excited vox was about a new invention ... maybe, in the very back of his mind, he realizes he misses that. that he feels left behind.

[autisticlancemcclain]

Lance flicks on the lights and his soul damn near leaves his body.

“Jesus H. Christ one a one-wheeled motorbike, Pidge,” he gasps, hand pressed to his galloping heart. She doesn’t laugh — Pidge doesn’t laugh often — but Lance has learned to read her, in the year or so they’ve been in space. He recognises the twitch of her mouth, the flash in her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Your lock code is embarrassingly easy to guess,” she says in lieu of an answer. Lance smiles reflexively at the matter-of-fact, half chiding tone. He pulls finally away from the wall, having caught his breath, and starts rifling through his cabinet.

“Yeah?”

He hears the shuffle of blankets, the muffled hits on a pillow being shoved into a lap. When he glances out of the corner of his eyes, he finds her sat comfortably in the dead centre of his bed, criss-cross-applesauce, nails picking at the threads of his pillowcase and eyes blinking owlishly behind her glasses.

“Yes. Fifty eighth most common four letter password.” She pauses a moment. “Spelling F-A-R-T with numbers is very immature.”

Lance snickers. He’d forgotten what his password spelt, he’s used the same combo so long. “Is that right?”

“Yes. You should come up with something more secure. It was my second guess.”

“What was the first?”

Pidge doesn’t seem to notice his curious look. Her eyes are focused on the items in his hands, watching diligently as he sits on the floor next to a dish of water, squeezing some soap into his hands and rubbing it all over his bare legs. Her head is tilted with a similar look of inquiry.

“Your birthday. What are you doing?”

Instead of answering, Lance removes the cap from his razor and starts to carefully drag it down his calfs, rinsing it every two strokes in the water. Pidge watches with rapt attention.

Weirdo, Lance thinks, fondly and hypocritically.

It doesn’t take long for the questions to start firing off.

“What’s the point of shaving your legs?”

“Gets rid of the hair.”

“Why do you want to get rid of the hair?”

Lance takes a moment to gather his thoughts, answering truthfully. “Lots of reasons. Not all of them I’m proud of. I started mostly ‘cause Veronica did it and I used to do everything she did.” He pauses. A sad smile pulls on his lips, and he swallows around the comfortingly familiar lump in his throat. “Well. ‘Used to’. If she was here I’d probably still be puttering around after her.” He finds Pidge’s eyes and smiles at her, winking. “Older siblings are easy to hang off of, huh?”

Her mouth twitches. She breaks eye contact, resting her chin on her knees and moving the pillow under her legs. “No. Older siblings are annoying. And ridiculous. I once followed Matt around all day and wrote down every single time he said ‘ow’. He said in on average twenty-three times an hour.” She meets his eyes again, mouth pinched and eyebrows raised. “Your average is twenty-four.”

“I see.”

“You should tie your shoes.”

“Nah.” He taps the razor on the side of the dish, gently sliding it to the other side of him and switching his razor to his left hand. “Anyways. When I was your age I mostly did it ‘cause Ronnie did it. Helped with swimming, too. But as I got older…” He frowns. “As I got older, I started feeling like I had to, I guess. Like I was ugly if I didn’t.”

A pinprick of pain makes his hand still, lifting the blade from around his ankle. A tiny drop of blood swells at the base of it. He sets the razor down, quickly grabbing a towel and dabbing at the nick. Ankle wounds always bleed so much — it doesn’t even hurt anymore, but he can’t pull the towel away or he’ll stain the floor.

“…Do you feel that way now?”

Lance doesn’t answer for a long moment. He hears Pidge fidget, clicking her nails together. The blood finally slows enough for him to pull away the towel, and he resumes shaving the last half of his leg — much more slowly, this time.

“Not exactly,” he says carefully. “I recognize why I feel that way. I know where that pressure comes from, why it’s harmful. But it’s still…there. I still catch myself thinking cruel things; I have to spend a few minutes talking myself out of them. I tried stopping for about a year. I didn’t like it.”

He finally finishes swiping up the last line of soap, rinsing off his razor and then gently running a cold, wet cloth over his legs to get rid of any lingering suds.

“Do you think you’ll try to stop again?”

“Hm. I don’t think so. I like the feeling of smooth skin more than hairy skin, I’ve found. It’s nice on fresh sheets, plus sometimes hair tickles me and makes me jumpy. Plus, it’s easier to moisturize.”

“Ohhh,” Pidge says, and when Lance looks up there’s a real look of understanding on her face — not the practiced one she puts on when she doesn’t actually get something but doesn’t want to look dumb. “Like — it’s the same as why you don’t like jeans and socks.”

Lance smiles. “Exactly. I’d walk around in nothing but shorts and a big t-shirt, if I had the choice.” Legs clean and clean-shaven, he picks up his tube of lotion and starts dabbing dollops all over the skin. “That’s all I ever wore back home.”

“Arizona is freezing half the time!”

“Cuba,” Lance reminds her.

“Oh yeah,” she says again. “But what about when it rained?”

Lance shrugs. “Better to wear flip flops and get wet feet than wet socks. Wet socks are the worst.”

“Yeah.” She shudders. “Like prickly sweaters.”

He hums. The lotion smells like juniberries, which kind of smells like pineapple and hibiscus mixed with a strange, almost spicy scent. Not quite home, but close enough to be nice.

He doesn’t ask Pidge why she broke into his room while he was in the showers and sat in the dark waiting for him to get back. The same way he doesn’t press when she follows him down the halls, disappearing behind corners when he turns to look, or sits by his feet during movie night. He lets her be prickly with affection and learns to hear the undercurrent in her constant comments and rambles, learns to read her questions about every thing he does as curious rather than judgemental.

She would ice him out for weeks if he said it out loud, but there was this stray cat that lived near his house, when he was young. It hissed and spit and clawed if you came halfway near it; Mamá had forbidden him from trying in case it was sick. But he used to leave out water for it at night and sometimes even sneak Abuelo’s heating pad, and every once in a while it would let Lance sit near it without clawing him. Once it even attacked one of the older kids who used to chase him after school.

It’s no coincidence that Pidge always happens to be in the same room as him 90% of the time. Or that she can guess his passcode easily.

“Hey, Pidgeon,” he says, unwrapping the towel from his hair and starting to work in the leave in conditioner. “The lockcode on my snack drawer is the same as the room code. Just so you know.”

She stares at him for several minutes.

Her mouth twitches.

“I could have figured that out myself.”

“I know.”

“You’re weird.”

He smiles. “You too, nerd.”

[jjong-dae97]

When I say that Nosferatu was made for the girls I mean that so many women that I know have had a Count Orlok in their lives. An older man that approached them in their youth or childhood and told them that they were different, special, that they were destined for each other; a manipulative man that convinced them that they would never be worthy of any other love, that they were forever damaged and should live in shame because of it. Myself included, I have seem the trauma of so many women surrounding that one experience, the long-lasting effects of the emotional manipulation follow our lives and our relationships in the form of a shadow that clings to our throats and makes us believe that we are the ones to blame. It truly takes a lifetime to untangle the lies and the fear of such experience.

[dykedvonte]

One of my mutuals opinions is the "bro code" thing, that Curly is one of those guys who wouldn't care about the victim because the perpetrator is his friend and I'm really banging my head on the wall like that other anon. I've only played through the game once but Curly's behaviour/reactions etc read completely different from the "bro code" thing and I have to wonder if my mutual and I even played the same game.. like the constant digs at him from Jimmy, his body language in his face reveal and so on like you mentioned in your post. While this game is a little different obviously, it kind of reminded of a point in Alice Madness Returns that makes it very clear that Alice's pain blinded her to the abuse of the other children and her failure to act earlier because of it. Curly is guilty of a similar inaction but it doesn't change the fact he was a victim of Jimmy too. I don't think I can look at it any other way because both of these games have really stuck with me.

I genuinely think it really is the idea that people want a simple easy to blame problem and the idea that the only relatable victims of abuse are those that "surpass" it or do a lot to help others. When it comes to victims, especially those that don't fit the typical demographics, who either accidently perpetuate it, enable it or aren't ideal in some way shape or form, people jump to ignore what they went through as it's easier than dealing with those conflicting sentiments.

The bro-code conversation in Mouthwashing stems from a concept I generally dislike that there had to be something about Curly that made him meet or keep being friends with someone like Jimmy. I think people genuinely underestimate how many like decent and good people just know an asshole or are friends with someone who is really bad outside of their view/established dynamics. The game makes it clear none of the inaction against Jimmy is because of a lack of care, it is a lack of understanding from the privaleged postions they have as men to not have to worry about what Anya does/went through and the type of extremes men like Jimmy will go through to cover it up. They are all too preoccupied in their own strifes.

Another thing I see being oversaturated the idea that you have to be a freak, misanthrope or have a disorder to do the thing Jimmy does. The game is an escalation, it's a spiral that I don't see people comment on that Jimmy was not likely having the mood swings and episodes of rage/frustration we were seeing in the game. This is after they all start experiencing the worst moments in their lives that he got THAT openly bad. Of course, this is just my interpretation but much like in real life, people that go to extremes like that usually live mundane lives. It's a pressure cooker affect to where the stress made them pop. It's self inflicted but still the case.

I really think people need to be more willing to acknowledge that not everything needs to be an extreme or in black and white or easy to understand. It doesn't need to be happy or have an answer or solution, especially in the cases where the abused sadly helps perpetuate what they experience. It's not he should've known better from experience or shouldn't he have known what could've happened because victims tend to not like to think in matters of the worst. Not to mention, especially in cases of abuse where it feels so personally directed that you don't expect to happen to someone else.

[mikimeiko]

The Bear| Season 3 (2024), Christopher Storer

[frankenbuggee]

Lighting makes a difference…

I haven’t even been able to read this because Waterstones hasn’t delivered vol 1 yet! I have vol 3/4!

[stargirlie25]

wait i love that this is so canon but Azriel will NEVER love Elain as much as Lucien can.

AJAJAJAJAJJAJAJAHAHHAHAHAH

THAT IS LIKE 10000% CANON BC ITS CANON THAT LUCIEN IS HER MATE

NOBODY ON THE PLANET UNDERSTANDS, SEES, and LOVES ELAIN AS LUCIEN DOES

not. a. single. soul

NOT EVEN A SPIRIT!!!! I totally believe Elucien is endgame but no matter what THIS is canon and true.

[phoenixtakaramono]

OPERATION BABYLON - PART VIII

aka the butchlander sugar baby AU.

Tumblr Navigation (note I have not shared the prologue here with its premise setup; I’ve only started sharing this twitter threadfic on tumblr starting from the 2nd 🔞 scene): I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII

Update Schedule: weekly/ biweekly

Although Billy initially didn’t know what to make of the whirlwind Manhattan high-rise house tour Homelander insisted on bringing him on, he thinks he’s figured out Homelander’s game and the unspoken rules by the time he’s carted off to the second flat. So he settles into the routine of making the appropriate “ooh” and “ahh” noises hearing the Yank regale him, the foreigner, about the supposed history of each place.

(You can read the rest of the threadfic update here!)

Keep in mind, all of my AU Butchlander threadfics on Twitter are the unpolished first draft versions of what’ll eventually be polished up into long fics on AO3 under the Shock and Awe series. So you may regard this threadfic as an experimental first prototype and exclusive preview whose contents may or may not be changed in the future final draft version. We’re just loosely playing around with ideas and concepts for now!

If you don’t have a Twitter account, screenshots are provided below the line break so you can read this update on Tumblr as well:

TBC

(A/N) - Place your bets on which location Billy’s going to choose as his base of operations y’all voted for it so…. From this update, if there’s things I’d probably change from the threadfic in the edited AO3 version is going more into detail about the fascinating lore of 432 Park Avenue (here’s the tl;dr vid of why it’s the most hated building in NY), draw out the scene of the g0ry reveal to heighten the tension of what Billy had just missed out seeing, and provide a better description of the architecture of Hudson Yards shops. Alas I am constrained by Twitter’s character limit per tweet, haha, and this is the first prototype so I’m not too worried.

[bibibbon]

I don't know if I'm alone in the opinion of most series that are long running having bad or mediocre endings.

MHA is going to join the long growing list of series that fans had hope for but were let down with.

Sucks too, because people get invested in series that they think will be worth sticking for to the very end.

Well it depends on what someone's definition of a long series is to be honest but you do have a point. A long series will have more plot points and more plots and arcs that it will need to try and neatly tie up resulting in a satisfactory ending. Also the longer the series the more time we have with characters that we get attached to and the more people are attached the higher the emotions and stakes to have a somewhat decently written ending.

I believe that MHA has branched out too far, too wide when it came to the plot but it actually never dived deeper into already existing material which is why almost everything in MHA feels underdeveloped, underwhelming and overall lacking.

Iam not saying that long series can't be good and well written it's just that it's incredibly difficult to do so when compared with shorter series or stories.

[fandom-geek]

so i've been catching up on call the midwife and finally watched the latest episode (s14e4), and this line caught my eye:

"We journey in faith. We must permit all doubt, for it is only through doubt that we can find its opposite."

which naturally made me think of conclave, since that also talks a lot about doubt and faith/certainty - namely two particular quotes:

"Let me tell you there is one sin I have come to fear above all others. Certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. [...] Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith."

and obviously CTM has this quote coming from sister julienne, an anglican nun, whereas conclave is catholic. but i'm just kinda fascinated by how they're two diametrically opposed quotes despite their similarities. cardinal lawrence views doubt as the foundation for faith and thus the two are the same, whereas sister julienne sees it as a way to find faith (but not the same). it's especially interesting since conclave is dealing with a church that is torn btwn change and stasis, whereas call the midwife's nuns are dealing with a changing world that is increasingly uncomfortable (and rightly so) about the role of religion in healthcare.

idk if sister julienne's view is typical to anglicanism, but as an atheist who was raised catholic, i've gotta say that i prefer cardinal lawrence's view of faith and doubt. it just seems... so much more accepting of human psychology.

[i-heart-hxh]

Okay, I will say one thing quickly before I get back to work: I'm reassured by how many people (and particularly, people with a good grasp of the situation/Togashi's writing) see an element of satire/parody in Ending D, and aren't taking it seriously.

I've felt all along that it's hard to take seriously or accept as an ending because it's so generic, unsatisfying, and un-Togashi-like, so seeing that theme over and over again in other analysis and comments about it helps reinforce that sense. Togashi himself can be very sarcastic/tongue-in-cheek in interviews and such, so I don't think it's out of character at all for him for him to drop something like this that people are going to discuss a ton, and meanwhile tantalize everyone with hints of what he's actually considering.

With how HxH constantly subverts and riffs on common shounen tropes, there's something appropriate about one of his rejected endings being a parody of a typical shounen ending, with elements that are clearly unsatisfying to people who are paying close attention to his writing.

As I said in another post, I'm also sure it's intended to generate buzz for Puzzle (Togashi Exhibition) because that just started up again very recently.