#don't hold grudges

[dramoor]

"Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD."

~Leviticus 19:18

[faithisthekey-23]

Today, I would like to remind you to forgive others, just like we were taught by God. Here are some scriptures about forgiveness, not holding grudges and not seeking revenge.

God uplifts those who are mocked and made fun of. God will take care of your situation, so leave it in His hands. Talk to Him and tell Him how you're feeling about what you're going through, and put your trust in Him. He will take care of it. Jesus said that if we ask, it will be given to us (Matthew 7:7). Continue asking God for His help. You'll see, He will take care of it. He will guide you, give you peace, strength, love and joy.

Remember to not seek revenge. Keep in mind that you're not supposed to be the judge. Only God can judge you and other people. Don't try to take everything in your hands, for God is in control. Leave your burdens in His Hands and trust Him. Ask Him to help you forgive others, for it's very hard to do it alone. Only God can give you the strength to free you from it, so keep on praying and don't get discouraged.

Also, I wanted to remind you to treat other people like you would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12). Don't think of people that mock you and make fun of you as enemies, and don't treat them in a bad way. Instead, keep on sharing your love with others and offer them a helping hand when they need it.

“Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.” (Colossians 3:13)

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked: ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered: ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.’ ” (Matthew 18:21-22)

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don't forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

“Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.” (Romans 12:14)

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: ‘It is Mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’ ” (Romans 12:17-21)

“Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.” (Psalm 37:8)

[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.

[itz-pandora]

“Friends, allies, people… Your negligence let them die, and you still can't be bothered to be sensitive?”

[austenpoppy]

Wally having beef with Roy over Dick leaving the Titans

Flash, vol. 2 #83

Flash, vol. 2 #96

I find this funny because it wasn't exactly Roy's fault and Wally knows it. The government was threatening to disband the Titans if Roy didn't take over as leader, and Wally was there when Roy very reluctantly tried to convince himself this was the right thing to do.

I imagine that what really got Wally angry is that Dick wasn't supposed to leave the Titans when they had that discussion. Of course, being told by Roy after all they'd been through that he had to step down as leader of a team he'd led for years did feel like a huge betrayal for Dick, and it's sure that the vote of no-confidence from the remaining teammates didn't help protect his remaining self-esteem.

Dick lashed out pretty badly at Roy because he was at the end of his rope emotionally (after Titans Hunt, the deaths of Charly, Joey, Raven, Danny, Arabella; the destruction of Vic's body until he was barely more than a walking machine; Clark disappearing; getting raped and sexually harassed by Mirage; getting dumped by a depressed Kory over it; the failed wedding with Kory getting attacked and having this thing hurting her so badly after... Who wouldn't ?). But immediately after he loudly announced that he was leaving the team and that he knew not to stay where he wasn't wanted, Dick admitted to Donna he'd been "acting crazy". And later on he never blamed Roy for what happened (that I remember at least) !

Wally had to hear the story, but he unanimously decided that it was the Titans' fault and that they were the ones who'd made Dick feel unwelcome (not entirely false, but certainly not the whole story), that they "ousted" him.

My guess is that this is partly because Wally has boundless faith in Dick (seriously, every time you have Wally's inner monologue mentioning Dick it's like Wally's talking about a Superbat); partly because he can't imagine a world in which Dick would willingly give up on the Titans; partly because he was angry at how badly it affected Dick - and he was one of the first heroes to see Dick after he left.

The truly funny part is that while Dick forgave Roy pretty quickly, Wally held a grudge for weeks if not months after. And as you can see, he moved on from seeing this as the Titans' fault to considering it was Roy's.

Usually, Roy and Wally are close friends, and they have a bond that exists outside of Dick, though ironically it's been partly built on not wanting to be bossed around by him. They share many personality traits : they have a carefree exterior, they're pretty easy-going, both can be show-offs, before Wally met Linda he was quite the playboy (though never as much as Roy)...

All of that went through the window (though fortunately not forever) when Wally decided it was Roy's fault Dick wasn't with the Titans anymore (and when you know Roy wanted Dick to come back later and practically begged him to stay it's almost sad). He wasn't Wally's friend anymore, he was "the guy who kicked [his] best friend off the team".

Yeah. Wally decided to have beef with Roy on Dick's behalf when Dick wasn't even angry at Roy and hadn't been for a long time.

If Dick and Roy ever had a huge falling-out, Dick's definitely getting Wally in the divorce.

[saltyfilmmajor]

listened to the new album

[the-way-astray]

things i will be doing when i read unraveled (likely the day it comes out):

putting everything under a cut that says "unraveled spoilers below"

saying whether the spoiler will be major or minor (major spoilers are plot or character development stuff, minor spoilers are things keefe ate or places he went or something small like that. i know some people are okay with minor spoilers, so)

chapter number of the spoiler

tagging everything #unraveled spoilers, #book 9.5 spoilers, #kotlc spoilers, #kotlc unraveled spoilers, and #kotlc book 9.5 spoilers

to everyone else: TAG YOUR SPOILERS AND PUT EVERYTHING UNDER A CUT I BEG. as someone that was there when stellarlune was released and was spoiled for chapter 42 because someone did neither of those things. and chapter 42 isn't anything minor either. i cannot explain how much this is something everyone needs to do. just. tag and use a cut. don't piss literally everybody off

[halfbaked00q]

okay as an admitted did-not-watch-NTTD'er who got, like, all of their info from uhh recappers, the wiki synopsis, the specific clips with Q I watched, and whatever I osmosis'ed from fics.

I finally watched the beginning of NTTD at @prismatic-bell's nudging. And I was like. Okay wait. wait wait wait. This is... well-written? And shot and directed & acted?? In a hollywood movie lmao?? Like. The way it's set up w Madeleine's backstory, and then the Bond & Madeleine stuff that does a much better job of establishing their relationship, the goooorgeous wide shots.

I admittedly was rather "I close my eyes I do not see" to a lot of canon - coming from partially a comics fandom background I'm very aware, well-versed, and well-practiced in the 'canon is your pick-and-choose buffet no need to feel like you have to 'respect' the 'sanctity' of 'canon' esp when it's Bad (like it contradicts other canon or you can just Tell this character was Not Written Well and it's like, here's what it could be that is better)' - and from opinions I saw on NTTD I was expecting to be very pick & choose about it.

But okay, wait. wait wait wait. It works. The beginning at least which I watched. Works. Like, it establishes a key character moment for Madeleine that Explains Everything about her behavior, actually - like she just like Bond is actually also very traumatized & has been locking it down/deflecting it vs processing it, and the whole like Vesper thing is (to me) very obviously her misdirecting Bond away from her own Goin Thru It. I can see how it can read as very suspicious to Bond esp with everything else but it, like, is a Narrative and Makes Sense for her character and Works. wild.

Even the Bond stuff makes a ton of sense. Like, when I hadn't watched it and was going off second & third hand information, one of the things I was hrrrm ?? about was the. How do you get from the guy who says "I miss you" at Vesper's grave, to the guy who put Madeleine on the train. The man who, even after finding out Vesper betrayed him, still wanted to save her? Would... send Madeleine away? In what, a fit of pique? Surely he's more of a "run to me and I will handle it" if it turns out not to be true or a "if it is, I'll handle it" kind of guy.

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS. YOU KNOW WHAT IT FUCKING WAS LMAO. I WAS MISLED BY THE FUCKIN. BILLIE EILISH SONG LMAO. The lyrics of it make it SOUND like it's a like "you betrayed/cheated on me how could I have ever trusted you" break-up song kind of situation. BUT IT ABSOLUTELY FCKN WASN'T LMAO.

It's like. two traumatized individuals who trauma-bonded and honestly maybe should have spent time apart healing/learning themselves again before re-evaluating if they think a relationship could work, but like. they both were Goin Thru It and let themselves get carried away with it ig. And then right when Madeleine was like. hm I've been Not Dealing with this a Lot (tbh her being a psychologist probably made it worse cuz I think it made her more effective at Not Dealing With It and deflecting/misdirecting, but like. I don't think she was doing it intentionally, I think it was just a "combination of circumstances" thing. But this also works cuz I think before the like why did Madeleine push him towards Vesper again even though he said she was in his past. And it's like. She was delaying dealing with HER shit and probably unconsciously deflected his attention by poking at waht she thinks is still HIS equivalent to her baggage) where was I. Oh yeah, Madeleine is like. hm. yeah. the whole letting go of secrets thing. I. need to come clean to him...

but then all of the Spectre stuff happens.

Even the him sitting in the car thing is soooo so so. Cuz Craig absolutely put his whole pussy in the acting for this scene. he's got that like. wrong side of overstimulated so you shoot past being in the zone and instead are zoning out lowkey thing going on, mixed with the like. agent faced with a hopeless situation Observing Everything still but like vaguely morbidly amused about it, probably what's running through the brain rn is "lmao, wonder which bullet will be The One" kind of deal. And cross-cutting the shooting & wide shots with the bells was *chefs kiss* genius.

Even Madeleine not managing to tell him was well written/paced. Cuz it was very believable that she (not trained for this) was scared/shocked & couldn't get a word out. Until the "JAMES. I'd rather die than have you think I--" and then the fucking. tragedy of the bad timing. god. And then even her not just saying it later is like, it all makes sense with the way it was paced, shot, & edited. It was beaaautiful oh man. This also where I was like. damn lmao. miscommunication in a movie where it. feels like it makes sense and isn't just a stupid macguffin lol??? In a hollywood movie?? wild

but yeah this is also where it was like. hey wait. the man who, in the face of sort of a morbid (passively?) suicidal emotional blowout due to the Everything, but was able to break through it when she got through to him enough for him to look at her, and her to cry & shake her head like no, it's not true/no don't do this/please/(w.e). and go, "Okay." and take action. How does he put her on the train??

BUT. BUT FUCKING. BUT THEN. MY GOD. *Actually* watching the fucking scene I was like. Ooooh. ough ough oh god. This isn't him vindicatively cutting her out of his life "the bitch is dead" style. This is his Vesper in the elevator cage moment. He's fucking drowning in the cage but he doesn't want to take her with him. He's locking her out of the cage. god.

And the fucking. devastation on his face while he's on the platform. THAT'S HIS FUCKIN. VESPER HOLDING HIM ONE LAST TIME AND SHOVING HERSELF TO TH EBACK OF THE CAGE AAARGGGGHH BARK BARK BARK

Which, a-fucking-gain. THEN MAKES THE NO TIME TO DIE SONG. ALL THE FUCKING MORE EGREGIOUS LMAO. "was I stupid to love you was I foolish to trust was it obvious to everybody else" WHAT ARE YOU ON. THIS IS A SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY THIS ISN'T FUCKIN. 'THE BITCH IS DEAD.'

God this is like when ppl are convinced QoS was Bond going on a revenge rampage when he was (1) not even rampaging (2) not on a revenge quest/storyline - that was Camille's story!!!* caveat I did not watch QoS either lol, but I did watch a video essay breaking it down which I found Very Compelling and have since incorporated it into my worldview lmao. Like, in light of me actually watching the beginning of NTTD, and then it launching into the title sequence and the song. IT ACTIVELY. REWRITES HISTORY YOU JUST WATCHED ON THE SCREEN AAAGGGHHH BITE CHOMP KILL. IT UNDERMINES THE WHOLE. ALL OF THE WORK THE FILMMAKERS DID UP TO THAT POINT IN PLOTTING OUT ACTING OUT & ESTABLISHING THE STORY TO THIS POINT.

Like. The problem of the song isn't even oh it's a limited POV thing. IT'S NOT EVEN WAHT BOND'S POV WOULD HAVE BEEN/SHOULD HAVE BEEN BY THAT POINT. Again, this is the "the bitch is dead" edit of the scene, BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED. THIS IS BOND LOWKEY SPIRALING AND LIKE. OVERSTIMULATED-EXTREME-EMOTIONAL-AMBUSH-IN-A-VERY-SHORT-TIME LOWKEY EMOTIONALLY SPINNING OUT. BUT THEN BREAKING THRU IT ENOUGH WHEN MADELEINE CALLED FOR HIM. TO LOCK HER OUT OF HIS SINKING CAGE. BRUH. BE SO FORREAL RN.

also lmao she clutches her torso WAY too high up, bruh that's her sternum not her belly... but ig the idea translates across still.

but yeah. god. And here I thought No Time to Die the song was just. boring & musically uninspiring. but no. it's so much worse lmao. god.

[tonguetiedraven]

Your thoughts on the dynamic between Amaimon and Rin? Do you think it's "valid" for Amaimon to hold a grudge against Rin? Or logical, at the very least?

My thoughts on Amaimon are probably unpopular and at odds with a larger part of the fan community. I don't particularly like him. I can see his motivations and how he's been manipulated, but understanding a character and jiving with them don't always go hand in hand. ┐(´-｀;)┌

To answer your question of if I think Amaimon is valid or logical for holding a grudge against Rin: not in the least. Rin is not the source of any of Amaimon's problems or issues, and Amaimon has been a source for several of Rin's.

I'm normally the first on the 'Rin makes mistakes and please don't erase them' train, but here's one situation where I see very few if any real mistakes.

Rin was unaware of Amaimon's existence before the Amusement Park incident, even if he should have been aware of him as a general demon king. (If there's one thing Rin does not thrive in, it's school and knowing things he should already have learned in said school. We love the ignorant guy for who he is. Umaimon and all.)

He was not aware that Amaimon had essentially been stalking him for a while and waiting. Amaimon gets to know a lot about Rin and Rin knows nothing about him.

Until later on in the manga, Rin remains ignorant of most everything about Amaimon outside of the fact that Amaimon is strong and dangerous. Honestly, god love him, I'm not sure Rin still gets that Amaimon is a Demon King half bound by Shemihaza. He knows he came into his current body during the Blue Night, but I don't know if the whole Shemihaza thing has come up.

Rin fought him in the park after his sword was stolen. Amaimon instigated that situation. He was ordered to, but we the readers are the only ones that really know that. Rin fought him in the forest after Shiemi was stolen and he got backed into a corner. Rin forgot about him until Rin had to fight him in Gehenna at Mephisto's beckoning. Rin then forgot him again until he showed up in school and then he intervened when Amaimon started to harass Shiemi.

When you look at the events from Rin's pov, he's basically just getting pulled into these fights and not initiating them. He hasn't sought out interactions or fights, but he hasn't backed down from them. He might be overly aggressive, but I don't think so. No, in my opinion, if Amaimon is holding a grudge then it's because Amaimon is being illogical about this for a lot of reasons.

There is a BIG power difference between these two for most of the manga. Rin is half sealed and unaware of how to fight or use his flames efficiently. Amaimon has been using his body and fighting with his powers --full and restricted -- for a long time. He knows how to do it and doesn't have the same moral code Rin does to hold him back.

Amaimon is ANCIENT. There's some disagreement on his actual age, but there is a manga volume extra where Amaimon states he's been in his current body for a 1000 years. That's questionable since we know he received his current body in the last 40 years, but who knows what time shenanigans Mephisto has pulled on him. So 40 or a 1000 years old, he's already older than Rin. However, we also know that Amaimon had been in his previous body for at least 400 years. (Shemihaza tells us this when she's pleading for Lucifer to just let the body go and come back later when they've fixed the clone nonsense.) Point being that Amaimon is sooooooo much older than Rin. He should, by all accounts, be more mature than the 15 year old he's been ordered to harass.

Rin is not the source of any of Amaimon's problems. Amaimon, Mephisto, Shemihaza, and Lucifer are the source of Amaimon's problems. Not Rin or Shiemi. They were not around for most of the bad deals he got himself tangled in. He accepted deals from the devil that is Mephisto and got himself endlessly tied up in favors and demands, and he lost a fight after destroying the earth so Shemihaza sealed him to save the earth and cost herself her own form to do it.

Amaimon is a victim in some ways. He is manipulated by Mephisto and often abused quite brutally by him. All because of a body he got from Section Thirteen that put him in Mephisto's debt. (Though there might be another deal in there. If there's one thing Mephisto loves, it's deals.)

He wants to be free but he's bound partially by Shemihaza to stop him from destroying the earth like he wants to. He is also an emotional and impulsive and often childish Demon King who has gotten himself into several of those situations, and to treat him like he's a hapless baby who is being abused by everyone takes away his own hand in his fate.

What Amaimon is, is emotional more than he is logical. He is more aware of the way Gehenna and Assiah work than Rin is, or indeed a fair chunk of our exwire cast is, but that doesn't mean he's more logical than them. Amaimon wants to have fun and he wants to fight and he gets mad if he's stopped in doing that. He's easily insulted and hates not having attention on himself. He's petty. He wants to tear Rin a new one and feels like he's always being stopped and leashed from his goal.

But Rin is not at fault for that. Amaimon can blame him and harass him and hate him for being free in a way Amaimon doesn't think Amaimon can be, but that doesn't validate his actions. Especially since Amaimon's perception of Rin isn't entirely accurate. No more accurate than Rin's always is of Umaimon.

I think their dynamic is fun, and a great change from his relationships with the other Demon Kings, and an interesting way of showing the other ways the kings are immature or not emotionally developed in the same way the humans tend to be than Mephisto and Lucifer. I think he can't quite be trusted yet, and honestly shouldn't be until he makes a choice of his own instead of one he's manipulated or forced into. I don't think we've seen the last of him or the real heart of him quite yet, but I think he's got something coming. Something that will determine more of where he really ends up in this endless war between Mephisto and Lucifer.

But no, I don't think he's valid or logical for holding a grudge against Rin if he is holding one. He's kicked Rin's ass two of the three times they've fought and he's the older and more powerful party for most of that. Rin has friends and allies where Amaimon doesn't seem to, and he's got a cause where Amaimon doesn't seem to.

I think he shows some of what Rin could be if he was to give in fully to his demon side, but I don't know that Amaimon, at least currently, could ever be Rin. I don't think he's there emotionally and I don't think he's able to swallow his pride enough to apologize and reach out and make all this about someone other than himself. At least not yet, and Rin is.

[readingjellyfish]

I haven't read The Prisoner's Throne yet, but I do hope we see some glimpse of Cardan still not liking Taryn, I need him to hold on to that grudge for Jude yk

[raayllum]

in my "Ez and Rayla are more like each other ultimately than either are to Callum" schtick per usual and I already thought one of Ezran's parallels to Aaravos would be his own struggles to let go of his anger/hate towards Runaan in S7, but given Rayla and Aaravos' parallels with a similar concept ("but I became so obsessed with revenge" / "He isn't doing anything out of love. He's doing it for revenge") it's also got me thinking about how in any other circumstance / for any other person, Ezran would be able to go to Rayla with his anger, she'd be able to validate and understand it, because she's been through the same thing. But because it's her dad, this time, that's precisely why a wedge might form & they struggle to support one another (at first)

whereas Callum can be bad tempered and angry, but he doesn't have a vengeful bone in his body

[commsroom]

let's kill hilbert is a great hera and minkowski episode in how well it displays some of the best and worst of their dynamic (and highlights the source of their ongoing miscommunication.)

"i'm doing the best i can here, so just, please, try to sound a little less patronizing?" / "i'm not being patronizing, i'm being critical." sums up the disconnect: that what minkowski sees as professional criticism and an attempt to combat future problems, hera takes as a personal attack. ultimately, minkowski's suggestions to lighten her burden are well-meaning and closer to what hera needs than any faith in her ability to do her job (there are things she can't do, and things she shouldn't have to), but she's been made to believe her worth as a person - and her continued survival - hangs in the balance. and so, the scene that leads to that one, where minkowski takes the navigation controls from hera: "no, it's fine! i can -" / "i don't care what you can, give me the controls right now." stands out for the wording used, the different things that are meant by it, and what it reinforces for hera: i can't do this. i'm not good enough.

it makes sense that the resolution, where minkowski tells hera, "you are the smartest person i've ever met, hera; focus that intelligence [...]" is one of the moments she thinks of at the end of memoria. because it's a turning point for their relationship, because it's a show of trust ("i trust you" coming very shortly after "i need to know that i can trust you."), because it's a show of respect and the only moment in the entire show where someone refers to hera by rank, but also...

i think there's something to be said for how minkowski's voice at the end of memoria is a direct expression of belief in hera's abilities, while eiffel's "use the force, luke" shows that what hera values about eiffel is... well, eiffel, but i think it's also true that both of these things show something about communication. they show hera's understanding of eiffel and minkowski's unique communication styles, what they say and what they mean by it, and that shows what they mean to her.

"you are the smartest person i know, hera" (a slight alteration from the original line that has a ton of implications re: context and memory) isn't really about her intelligence, or even her ability. contextually, it's a direct counterstatement to "i don't care what you can" and, by association, and through their connection - minkowski's voice becomes, quite literally, like eiffel's, another voice in her head counteracting what pryce has made hera believe about herself.

[popfizzles]

thinkin about yarrow! i'm assuming you're doing a reboot of his character due to recent drawings of him with val, but i'm curious if you're going to keep any aspects of his old backstory? i just love angsty characters LOL

I think ..

I think Yarrow is still a divorced man, but he separated from his ex-wife before he moved to Inkwell to find a new life.

I think they still separated due to his explosive temper. He'd yell, he'd break things. He'd completely unravel, and become a monster of his former self. I don't think he ever laid a hand on his ex-wife, but the fear of it becoming an eventuality was very real.

After the divorce, Yarrow sort of got the rude awakening he needed to realize he should change. So he dropped everything and moved away, to be somewhere else, to be a different man. And he had only lived on Inkwell for a few years before newborn Val was dropped into his lap.

He had to get his act together a lot faster than he was ready to.

He still has his outbursts from time to time. But nowadays he just vents frustrations loudly, and the only things he finds himself "breaking" would be the pens and pencils he chews on to focus.

He still has difficulties in knowing when it's the proper time to step away from things that are making him angry, but..

Yarrow has come a long way.

The worst relapse he's had would have been when Cuphead and Mugman entered his shop, his name at the top of their debtor list.

[nozomijoestar]

i really like the dichotomy of everyone respecting Nana as their friend off stage (and the darker feeling she has that they All take from her in one way or another except Karen) but inside the stage duels as performers with her as their ultimate test, they're all still prideful enough to treat it as every man's glory for themselves, making it so they can't hold a grudge against Nana outside the Revues because to everyone the Revues are Just Business and a space for words that don't belong outside it- which plays into the repression that's hurting all their relationships, they really thought of everything making this series

[jeeyuns]

hen wilson in every episode 2.04 -> Stuck (08OCT2018)

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 7 thoughts

hmm. hmm. that is the sound if me pondering what i just watched.

(i understand that this episode was an analysis into mulder's self-destructive behaviors when faced with overwhelming grief, but. that does not mean i enjoyed vampire hookup time)

well. we shall start from the top!

i read that it was an episode about vampires which i thought was a weird narrative choice because. hello. scully still gone??? but then i remembered that i too ignored the main quest in skyrim to hunt some vampires and that i had no place to judge

(granted, my main quest wasn't finding scully though. might have given that a bit more priority than saving the whole world. because she IS my whole world)

we open with a guy that looks like joe biden meeting with an attractive young woman. they're making out in a hot tub and we just know someone is gonna get slurped upon. and woe, it be upon us! double vampire attack.

back in DC, mulder gets his old office back! it's covered in plastic. he takes some of it off. he adjusts his calendar from may to november, so we see how much time he and scully had been assigned to other tasks, which also has me wondering how she managed to get a new house that quick.

(also, this calendar is... scantily clad women posing next to tools such as hammers and saws. was this allowed? was this acceptable? was it normal? were the 90's a lawless wasteland and mulder an irreparable freak?)

well. scully is an x file now, and he puts her glasses and id into an evidence bag and closes the filing cabinet which was sooooo evil. but he can't bring himself to put her necklace away. oh man. oh he's gotta have it in case he finds her. he has to hold her close. i'm Fine this is Fine.

so. he goes out to california to deal with the joe biden looking fellow being murdered. and he is not wanted on the crime scene. we know this because someone greets him by saying "nobody called the bureau" and he says "well, they should have" and lifts up the tape to let himself in. because one thing about him is that he's gonna let himself into a place he isn't wanted.

he sees the writing of a bible verse in blood on the wall and says something about their grasp of biblical knowledge being "feeble and literal" and i was like okayyy need to have a theological discussion with him

he then scares the other guy who originally wanted to kick him out by reciting a LARGE amount of facts related to similar cases and it's very much giving photographic memory. got me thinking, have we ever seen this man forget something? (directions don't count. they're confusing. but everything else sticks in that man's brain)

he just needs one thing: a phone book. which he uses to call a blood bank and ask about a new guy. who must be the vampire who did this!

so he rolls up to the blood bank and i'm over here struggling because i do Not Do Blood, and i knew at this point this was gonna be a tough watch, but i didn't anticipate the non-blood related reasons why this would be true

anyway he's sniffing around the blood bank and he hears some slurping and wouldn't you know, this dude is tearing into a bag of the red stuff like it's a capri sun. somehow he gets him into custody, where the dude refuses to talk because the lights are on, and mulder comes in with a lamp he put a red filter over, because he was prepared for vampire interrogation.

the vampire is going on about how what he did isn't murder because it's not like animals hunting prey is murder which is. not the greatest approach in terms of legal defense. mulder tells the guard that the guy is delusional and it's best to play along, and he believed this to be true... until he, quite literally, burned to a crisp in the sunlight. and died.

he's talking to the coroner and rattling off a bunch of vampire facts and says he didn't believe in vampires which is so funny to me because like. why is that where you draw the line, my friend. not at bigfoot and definitely not at aliens. but man. vampires are just too out there for spooky mulder. until now!

the coroner has a very funny line: "you are really upsetting me... on several levels" which seems to be the general effect fox mulder has on people. and also because i felt the same way about his dumbass actions during this episode.

coroner finds a stamp on the dead body's hand, which seems to come from a nightclub. so naturally our fbi agent ends up there.

you often see posts saying that "(insert character here) should be at the club". i fear that this is not the case for fox mulder, but it's possible that it's his suit and tie that are throwing me off. he just doesn't seem like he belongs there. i ask myself, where should he be instead? perhaps some sort of star wars convention would suit him better. a book signing with some author he likes. idk, an interior decorating festival. not here.

i shall use my verbatim words to walk you through the next scene:

"pause. he's talking to a woman who was looking into a compact without a mirror. so. vampire suspect. and now why are they getting so close together. and getting a drink. okay now they're leaving to a new spot together? AFTER she admits to vampirism"

(here she did some stuff that required me to look away from my screen due to my Weak Constitution. but also it would have felt necessary to look away anyway because it was getting... charged)

she tries to get him to... suck on her finger... but he won't do it because aids. which is fair. i think that's a smart move, actually. it's just that getting flirty with a vampire he knows was involved with a ton of killings was such a stupid move, i don't know why it's now the braincells start to kick in.

that kills the vibe, though, so she gets another guy to take his place and things escalate.

mulder pulls in at a restaurant called ra. nice! the sun god! and he is... through a window, witnessing some more slurping action. he seems to want to intervene and save this poor soul being feasted upon...

but the poor soul is no poor soul at all! he comes out and decks mulder, and delivers this line with stunning conviction: "i don't know who you are, freak, but we're two consenting adults" and with this, he is forced to flee.

and yeah. it made me laugh. my expectations for the genre were subverted. he signed up for that shit! what he did not sign up for, however, was the next part, where he was killed by the other vampires.

cut to investigating the crime scene. mulder has brought along a forensic dentist, which is a job i had no idea you could go into. he needs to see about those bites, which are very human.

next they go to vampire woman's house. it's a very nice place. mulder... opens her oven. and sees a loaf of bread in there. and i'm thinking, man, i hope this doesn't go where i think it's going. baked goods... ovens... i never want a vampire pregnancy arc. but he cracks open the loaf and something red spills out and somehow, this to him means that she is gone and isn't coming back. he can read the signs of the bread. so add that to his resume. what did the bread tell you, my liege?

he seems to have stayed in her house, however, because he's there when she's back, and says he knows she was using the bread as a charm to ward off evil. because apparently that's an eastern european thing, blood bread to warn off evil. sound off if any eastern europeans in the chat wanna confirm or deny.

anyway. he's IN this woman he thinks is a vampire's HOUSE? what the hell. mulder seriously i need you to stop and think. like you should have stopped and done some thinking a while ago. honestly i'm not mad i'm just disappointed. and he's like "i want to save you come with me before they kill you" ohhh big tough man needs to save her huh. make him feel good inside. huh. certainly no ulterior motive here...

she's monologing about her horrible childhood and how sweet blood tastes. um girl. don't lie to him like that. i have busted my lip open before that stuff does NOT taste sweet and dangerous. it's like a penny with rust that you found in a parking lot.

it seems her vampiric origin story, if to be believed, is that things simply got too kinky. which is a new take on the genre.

(it's also about being caught in an abusive relationship and the damage that inflicts, but it seems abusive boyfriend came into vampirism at his kinky parties and things escalated from there. which. well. it blew the eyebrows clean off my head, to be fair)

at this point we see that he is WEARING SCULLY'S NECKLACE? he says something like "it's from someone i lost" and she says that she "hopes he finds her"

i did not like the undertones here and certainly not the overtones. because i knew where this was going. he was shaving in her bathroom. and let me tell you something: there is only ever a shaving scene in media because the writer needs a way to get some blood out of someone's body and into the real world. and man. i knew it was coming.

but what i didn't see coming was her SHAVING HIM??? girl. i am uncomfy. and she does, of course, cut him, and then they kiss. aggressively. terribly aggressively. can anyone answer what was going on in a satisfactory manner?

but the gag is: the original vampire- who burnt to a crisp in the jail cell, and was the abusive ex she spoke of- HE'S WATCHING THEM THROUGH THE WINDOW!

he breaks in and taunts the vampire woman about how he had to "wait for her to finish" and i was like cool. thank you SO much for that mental image i'm super happy with it. i definitely don't feel like i need a shower. but then he's going on about how he can't be killed.

here, at the tail end of the episode, we learn the rules of vampirism in this world: a vampire cannot be killed by a non-vampire. and a non-vampire BECOMES a vampire by consuming the blood of a believer and also taking a life. it is only here we realize that this woman is not an actual vampire yet, she just appropriates their culture by drinking blood unnecessarily.

mulder's still sleeping in her bed and she's like "you need to leave" and she stabs the wall to make her evil ex think she's killing him. but when they go to break out, mulder ties him up quite handily and he gets in the car to escape with vampire woman. until ANOTHER vampire woman jumps on the hood of their car. and main vampire woman knocks her out for a bit by running into her with said car, which is super effective.

mulder's leaving the place in shambles, his shirt still unbuttoned, wandering down the side of the hill. back at the house, now that we know the vampire rules, main vampire woman says she can finally kill the evil vampire ex. and he's like how!! you haven't had the blood of a believer or taken a life. so. she licks the blood off her hands (unclear if it's hers or mulders tbh) and says she'll take her own life. and drops a match after pouring gasoline.

so. that brings that to an end. and shabby looking mulder sits on a hill as he learns all four in the house died.

the episode ends with him playing with scully's necklace. which i don't even sort of feel like unpacking right now but maybe another time.

probably not, though, because i just didn't like this episode. and yeah, a lot of it comes down to me not wanting to see mulder hook up with people who aren't scully. can you blame me? is it so wrong to have preferences in this world?

but also, narrative wise- do you honestly see the guy fucking off to cali while scully's still missing to deal with an unrelated problem instead of devoting every hour of his life to finding her, like we saw him do in the last episode? you expect me to think he just puts it off for a lil while? the guy who, just last episode, pulled his gun on the ski lift operator to get to the top where she might be a little faster, and then choked his one and only suspect out of fury? you're thinking this is the guy that's gonna go soak up some west coast rays?

and yeah, he was obviously not himself through the episode- very cold and analytical- but c'mon. we all want to bang a vampire. he's not special. i just personally wouldn't do that if my friend were gone. like how is that gonna help the situation. be so for real. time and place!

and also the whole only learning the rules of being a vampire about 5 minutes before they need it to be plot relevant. that annoyed me too.

overall, mulder, like i said, i'm not mad, just disappointed.

let me know what you thought on this episode- i try to not be a hater, but i also understand that hating in small doses can be good for the soul. if it's a widely beloathed episode i'll feel better in my judgement as i join a long tradition of haters who have come before me.