#even when he’s forgotten everything

[shewhoeatssand]

Kaneki looks very pretty on this page!

[captmuldoon]

I don’t think I can emphasize enough just how much Elementary understood the core of Sherlock Holmes’ character, and the kind of cases and people he is drawn to, right from the very first episode.

The pilot opens with a wealthy woman’s murder. The prime suspect is a man who is a patient of the woman’s husband, a doctor, for help with his mental disorder. The man is desperately trying to avoid any triggers that may cause him to become violent, as he has been in the past. The doctor decides to use this man as a tool to kill his wife to collect her life insurance. He manipulates both his patient and his wife, alters the man’s medications, and ignores the man’s pleas for help, in order to set a scenario that is guaranteed to trigger the man’s violence - resulting in his wife’s death and later his patient’s.

When Sherlock pieces this together, he confronts the doctor, which leads to this:

And that’s what drives Sherlock to confront the doctor directly. There’s no smugness in being right, or for figuring out who the murderer was and how he did it. Sherlock realizes that this man’s patient was just another victim - someone who desperately wanted and sought help, only to be mistreated. Sherlock Holmes in this adaptation cares so deeply about people, especially those who are denied help when they need it most, and we learn all of this from the very first case.

[lilithofpenandbook]

Something I can't stop thinking about is that Snape began the series being perfectly okay

He was actually at his best. He'd spent ten whole years in Hogwarts without the Marauders and before Harry Potter walked in.

Of course it wouldn't have been easy for him to adjust, but he did. And I just can't help but think of those first months where the other teachers got to know him, and got to realise that this boy needed them, needed their help, and took care of him. I can't help but think of how they promised him that it's okay, it's over, everyone's safe and he's not what he thinks he is. He's okay.

Like, for ten years he would have been happy. He had friends. He had a job. He had a home. Hogwarts was his home.

And then Harry Potter came and everything went wrong.

Can you imagine, him seeing Harry's face for the first time? After so many years of actually being content and happy, suddenly he sees James Potter's face, Lily Evans' eyes. Suddenly he's reminded of Voldemort who will return now, and now he's got a ticking clock, a countdown warning him that that's it, time's up, everything you've built in these ten years are soon going to break. And then come the events of the first and second year. Okay, so they're chaotic and stressful, but it's fine, they're all stressed, they're all in this together.

Then it's Harry's third year.

And that's when everything falls apart.

Remus Lupin, one of his abusers and a serious gaslight, is here in the job he wanted, and acting like everything's fine between them while simultaneously disrespecting him and forgetting to take the potion and being a huge risk to them all. Sirius Black, one of the two main abusers, is on the loose. And no one is ever gonna believe him about Lupin, are they? Suddenly it's Lupin's home. Lupin's safe space. But what about Snape? Do the past 13 years mean nothing? It seems so. And in the end, he has a complete breakdown because it's all coming down.

Then comes the goblet of fire. Okay, normal, right? But then there's moody. And there's the visiting schools. And then there's Kararoff who will not leave him alone! And then...

And then Harry Potter comes with the dead body of a teenage boy, crying and screaming that Voldemort's back.

And now Snape knows that time is up and things only get worse. Everything happens after that, from spying to dealing with that wretched Umbridge who's trying to destroy the school.

And then...

And then he has to kill Dumbledore.

And that when it all ends.

All he built in the past 16 years....

All the promises that they'd never leave him...

That they'd always look after him...

That they know he's not that person he used to be...

That everything will be okay because he has them to look after him...

They mean nothing now.

He's not okay anymore.

[rmbunnie]

Red Hood Characterization

This is really long so I'm putting a cut here, I've been thinking about Jason Todd's character motivations and the question of whether or not his actions are based in a Moral Code (I don't think so, not to say he's without any morality) and I talk about that in more depth here.

I saw someone say on here that Titans: Beast World: Gotham City was some of the best Jason Todd internal writing they'd seen in a while, and I've been a Red Hood fan for 8 years or so now? pretty much since I read comics for the first time, so I went and checked out and I thought it was good! The way the person I saw talking about it as if it was rare and unusual made me wonder though, because as well-written as i thought his stances on crime were, there wasn't really anything in it that went against the way I conceptualize Jason?

This kinda plays into a larger question I've been thinking about for a while with Jason though, which is that, do people think that the killing is part of a fundamental worldview that motivates him a la batman, and that worldview is the reason he does the things he does?? Because 8 years ago i was a middle schooler engaging with fiction on the level that a middle schooler does, so I simply did not put much thought into it beyond "poor guy :(" but ever since I actually started trying to understand consistent characterization, I don't really see Jason as someone who's motivated by a moral code in his actions the way batman or superman is!

tbh my personal read is that he's a very socially-motivated guy, his actions from resurrection to his Joker-Batman ultimatum in utrh always seemed to me like every choice made leading up to his identity reveal was either a. to give him the leverage and skill necessary to pull off his identity reveal successfully, or b. to twist the knife that little bit more when he does let Bruce find out who he is. Like iirc there's a Judd Winick tweet like "yeah tldr he chose Red Hood as his identity because it's the lowest blow he could think of." And I think that's awesome, I think character motivations rooted so deeply in character's relationships and emotions are really fun to read! I also think it's where the stagnation/flatness of his character comes from in certain comics, because if his main motivation is one event in one relationship that passes, and he is not particularly attached to anything in his life or the world by the time that comes to pass, it's a little harder to come up with a direction to go with the character after that, because there isn't much of a direction that aligns with something the character would reasonably want? But I do think solving this by saying "all of the morally-off emotionally driven cruelty he did on his way to spite Batman was actually reflective of his own version of Batman's stance that's exactly the same except he thinks it's GOOD to kill people" isn't ideal. To be fully honest, it seems to me like he never particularly cared one way or the other about killing people to "clean Gotham of crime," he just did everything he could to get the power necessary to pull off his personal plans, and took out any particularly heinous people he encountered along the way (like in Lost Days.) Not to say I think the fact he killed people keeps him up at night anymore than everything else in his life events, I just never really thought he was out there wholeheartedly kneecapping some dude selling weed or random guy robbing a tv store for justice.

Looping wayyy back to my question, Is this (^) contradictory to the way he's written/the overall average perception of the character? Because like I enjoyed his writing in Beast World i have zero significant issue with anything there, I just didn't believe it would be a hot take, like yeah, that is Jason. It's been a while since I've read utrh and lost days, but I don't think my takeaway directly contradicts either of those too bad iirc. Idk all this to say I think Jason killing and being alright with killing is an obvious and objective fact, but i guess i've always seen it as more of a practical tactic than a moral belief, and I think taking the actions made during the lowest points of a character's life where he is obsessively focused on this ONEEEE thing and trying to apply it as a Motivating Stance to everything he's done after that, doesn't really follow logically for me.

[jvaleskaapologist]

I’m currently binging house and I’m already on season 4. I’m just saying I think a poly relationship could’ve saved Amber, Wilson, and House.

I mean not saved in the traditional sense that it would’ve actually worked out because we all know it def would’ve ended in flames. House doesn’t share well (he’s too jealous and possessive of Wilson to handle a poly relationship), Amber is the exact same way, and Wilson is too passive not to crack under the duel attention. But it would’ve been entertaining to see at least

[torchwood-99]

Theoden's Favourite

Going off the books, I'd say Theoden's kids are ranked accordingly;

Eomer

Merry

-

-

-

Eowyn

-

-

-

-

-

Theodred (kid dies and he says nothing about it)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Idis, the daughter cut from the first draft.

[hazardsoflove]

the fact that we get to watch percy and annabeth’s relationship develop while knowing how they end up at the end of the series has me shaking like a dog. the boy who drools in his sleep is going to become one of, if not the most powerful demigods and he’s going decline godhood for the girl that pushed him in the lake to prove her theory and they don’t even know it yet

[heartshattering]

I'll be happy if I can sleep at least

[pyrriax]

sorry guys i watched a video and now im thinking and. i felt an obligation to put techno back on my blog after. almost two years?

[marcusrobertobaq]

Indeed, as that mf on Konami's post says...

Hank going against his new morals to help Connor in LCC it's even more funny when Connor remains loyal to CL and Hank gotta go after him searching all Detroit day and night, only to find him in a rooftop ready to kill the revolution Leader xD (that's a damn hunter dog for ya)

In this specific route makes sense Hank being pissed about Connor "pretending to be his friend". I mean, dude def watched the news about Jericho being raided, the news about Cristina getting even more rough with androids and the leaders being wanted for death. Probably thought was his fault almost directly and went face Connor with gun in hand ready to kill the guy.

[crimsongrimoire]

hi ive been sick so of course that means ive been thinking about kaeya being sick and sooo pathetic about it again

[bravest]

i think i'm gonna write mono and six and POSSIBLY runaway kid . but mono and six are really on my brain right now because i'm thinking a lot about them .

[ladysansa]

the stark difference of how Alicent is portrayed as a mother and as a person and how Rhaenyra is portrayed…very interesting to see and it really brings home just how much her father has impacted her and fucked her up—and how much she’s changed.

Alicent forces all of her anxieties and worries onto her children and she doesn’t seem to be very invested in them—she seems rather bored around Helaena and her bugs and Aegon doesn’t seem like he wants to be king, but Alicent wants to instil in them the same mistrust she has to Rhaenyra and, even though Rhaenyra offers her an olive branch, she refuses it. Alicent doesn’t want peace in the family, she doesn’t care about the things she insists that Rhaenyra doesn’t care about. She wants her son to be king, because she still trusts what her father told her all those years ago, that fear that he instilled in her, despite the fact that we’ve seen nothing from Rhaenyra that would make us thinks she would ever harm her brothers and sister.

I have no doubt that Alicent once loved Rhaenyra very much, we’ve seen it. but Alicent’s paranoia and mistrust of her—and her blind trust in her father—is going to start a war, and end in the deaths of thousands and the deaths of all of her children and grandchildren. It isn't going to be Rhaenyra that starts a war—it's Alicent.

[eorzeashan]

Eight has a lot of facets, but I'm still fascinated by his role as the shepherd to Jadus' flock--or the iteration of him where he accidentally becomes cult leader for the remnants of Jadus' followers after the war with Zakuul. In a meta context, he sees himself as the person necessary to test and guide all servants of Jadus in an effort to gather them all in one place and create a united understanding of the will of their master, though he initially is reluctant to even associate with Jadus' other underlings. Even as a retired 'Hand', he makes it his life's mission to interpret what Jadus left behind, becoming a sort of paranormal investigator for the life and works of this mysterious sith lord, as well as de facto leader of his followers who lacked guidance after Jadus' disappearance into seclusion.

One could call him the missing link to Jadus himself.

[britneyshakespeare]

A Mr. Darcy-type romantic lead is hard to write well, and Pride and Prejudice doesn't just remain popular because it's an unlikely love story, but because Jane Austen with her characterizations and the sequence of events still managed to make it convincing. But when you find a piece of media where the man our heroine is supposed to pine for is just rude, cold, and standoffish to her, without the hinted complexity... it's like, oh, wow. A mean little man you've got there. I'm so impressed. If only men were like this in real life, right? Just say "insolent nerd," I swoon.

[randomnameless]

TIL that Kusakihara was the one who wrote SS (I don't know if he also wrote AM and VW) whereas KT handled Tru Piss. It does kinda paint the whole Foldan shitshow/discourse wank of the past 4+ years to be more of an IS vs KT thing in addition to everything else.

Oh gods

I can fathom it, only if Kusakihara motivated the "choice" between Tru Piss and SS as "pick the lady you want to S support" lol

However, given how far ? Ridiculous? FEH's story is, especially with the Vero retcon, uwuing conqueror and war-mongerer chan (even if Vero needed a retcon and brainwashing!) isn't exclusive to KT, IS can and will use it too!

With IS "but she was sad and lonely + don't forget the uwu hammer" and KT "everyone has a point so you can't really pick a side! - I'm not surprised Fe Fodlan ended up the way it did.

In a way, Engage moving past this nonsense is a good sign for the franchise... and yet, Fodlan is apparently still more popular with all the ridiculous drama it creates so and Book 7 of FEH followed the same pattern, wait'n'see anon.