#good to know she hates me and is fine with me dying of starvation thats just. fuckin aces eh.

[agayconcept]

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[stevesnightmares]

Doctor Who: when everything is superficial

I understand that they wanted to make a statement against guns, and that's fine, I have no problems with it whatsoever, but saying that in this episode (s11e04) it was dealt with terribly it's an understatement.

They portrayed it in black and white, wrong and right, while the thing was a lot a lot more complex than that.

So, let's see what the situation was:

there were giant spiders, they were completely innocent, the only reason why they killed humans was because that's in their nature and they need to eat, and because now they are big, bugs are not enough anymore.

Of course because they are killing humans and they are a big danger, the doctor can't just leave them alone, and wait for them to leave the hotel and kill other people; but another thing that the doctor doesn't want to do is personally kill the spiders, because they are innocent creatures that have done nothing wrong. So what does she do?

She decides to let the creatures die in a slower and more painful way, because she can't take the responsibility of killing them.

Firstly, let's talk about the big spider:

It was suffocating. It literally couldn't breathe. Do you know how terrible and hurtful it is to suffocate? And the doctor was fine with letting that poor creature die like that, instead of shooting it, so that it could have been taken out of its misery.

It's like with your dog, if it gets sick, with something that will kill him slowly and really really painfully, you take him to your vet and you kill it with an injection, so that he will die peacefully, and fast.

You don't let that poor creature suffer, it's actually really really selfish to do so. So what? You are going to let it suffocate to death cause you "don't like guns"? How incredibly selfish and self centred is that?

You may not agree with the fact that a fatal shot would have been more merciful than let it suffocate, and that's kind of the point. They showed it as if it was just black and white. Killing it's bad, letting it die alone is good. But it's more than that, it's deeper and more complex than that. They should have showed it in the episode, and they didn't. They felt with it in more superficial way possible.

And what about the smaller spiders? We are just going to let them die of starvation in that small room? Spiders don't eat human food, and if they did what are they supposed to do? Open those containers that had food in them? How are they supposed to do that? They are spiders for god's sake! So again, they are killing the spiders, just indirectly, so that they don't have to take responsibility, so that they don't have to feel guilty and look like the bad guys. But it's doesn't matter how, you are still killing the spiders at the end of the day.

If I lock someone in a room with no food that they can eat, I still killed that person. Just because I didn't directly shoot them in the head doesn't mean that I didn't kill them. It's just in different way.

And to end this:

Are you telling me that Graham, Yaz and Ryan have never killed a spider? Piss off. What does the fact that now they are big change? You killed small spider, and the worse thing that they did to you was maybe bite you giving you an itchy blister, so why killing big spiders that kill people is not fine.

Why? It's not like these big spiders are now smarter and more developed. If you could kill it when it was small, you can kill it now that it's big.

So here's what it all boils down to:

It was never about mercy, it was never about helping the spiders, it was never about the spiders at all.

It was about the humans and the doctor not wanting to be the bad guys.

Because now that the spiders are big, they would feel guilty if the killed them, because now they look more like real animals, and even though thats the same spider that you killed the other day, now you would feel guilty if you killed it, because it's big, and you would see its corpse, and not just a stain where you smudged it against the wall. And even though that other spider is dying painfully you won't put it out of its misery, cause you don't want to take the responsibility of killing it.

Because they are the good guys, and they didn't kill THESE spiders, yes, they killed a lotta other spiders, but not THESE ones! See how good they are!!! Not murderers!!! But they did kill these spiders, just not with a gun.

And they are the good guys, they never use guns, even though sometimes it would've taken someone out of their misery, out of their slow and painful death.

It was always about how bad and guilty they would have felt, it was never about saving those spiders.

I don't know if I managed to express myself clearly enough, but tell me what do you think. (Also, ugh, that "Trump" guy was just annoying and unecessary, I don't want American political stuff on my TV thank you very much. AND what about the spiders that had left the hotel, like the one at Graham's house???? They never resolved that)

(Also, another thing, I liked the episodes well enough, but Chibnall can't finish episodes for shit. The ending always feels rushed and like it's missing something. The episode ends and I'm left like "wait what? Where's the rest?" and not in a good way. The endings are too abrupt, I noticed and expressed this feeling in The Ghost Monument, in Rosa it was fine, but here it happened again and I really hate it.

I am, however, really excited for the next episode, I saw the trailer and I'm really excited, I hope it won't let me down like this one did. I think that the interactions between characters are always good but the story is lacking something, hopefully in the next episode it won't)

[sinsfox]

Care to tell us about Ban's depression and all?

yoko you just had to ask this since i mentioned it to you huh

OF COURSE I CAN TALK ABT IT

this is gonna get long, so ima put it under the cut but theres going to be content warning galore, but itll be tagged

im really not going to beat around the bush here. 

i headcanon ban to have depression, but at this point, it seems to me to be implied that he does. would it be professionally diagnosed? fuck no. ban gives less than a shit about himself, i dont think he would be obligated to figure out why he feels hollow or dulled. why life is a bore, and he only ever feels alive in a fight or when hes ‘killed’.

to him its a feeling he can easily shrug off and ignore and he easily puts up a front of being the easy going, out there kind of guy that he is. eccentric and melodious in his tone, fight enthusiastic and seemingly taking his interest in whatever seems convenient at the time. stealing what he wants, even if its the clothes off someones back. drinking ale and laughing it up like no tomorrow until he passes out.

but at the end of the day, hes lonely. hes tired. despite the things that are fun that he does have fun with, its still hard to completely forget the void that he feels and how much duller things seem nowadays ever since the incident in the fairy kings forest.

it only got worse since that day.

his childhood was the start of it all.

his parents neglected him and his sister. his little sister died from starvation at four years old. that was the first time ban felt alone. his parents cared nothing for them. ban was used to try and obtain food for his mother and father, while not being allowed to eat himself. his father would beat him if he did eat. his father would beat him if ban even slept. it wasnt a good environment. ban ran away from home often.

then ban was caught stealing and was sent to prison and that was where he met zhivago and they escaped together. and ban took to secretly meeting zhivago whenever he could and was given food by him to eat. zhivago helped him survive. zhivago taught ban all he needed to know about thieving and even saved his life from starvation and from being kidnapped and almost being sold to a noblewoman who tortured and killed children.

zhivago adopted ban. he referred to ban as his son in a conversation with ban himself. telling him how he had one son named therion who was nothing like ban, a shy kid. and how he had another son named ban who was a troublemaker with a bad mouth.

hearing that made ban happy. and he felt like he had family again.

then one day when they were to do a heist together, ban got impatient and went on his own. and got caught by the guards and was beaten by them. and zhivago was handed two choices: save ban or save therion. ultimately zhivago made his choice and abandoned ban ( he was crying when he made his choice ) for the sake of saving his own son, which he was too late in doing.

that was the second time ban felt alone in the world.

years pass, ban is a bandit now. he goes after the fountain of youth after hearing talk of it in a bar. he enters the fairy kings forest. he persists in getting to the fountain. thats when he meets elaine. and in seven days he grew close to her and helped her battle her seven hundred years of loneliness. and he fell in love with her and was going to bring her brother back to the forest, and make him take her place so ban could take her away.

but then a demon attacked. and elaine, who ban wanted to save with the fountain of youth, fed the water to ban which made him immortal. and he kills the demon, but elaine dies before he can even begin to help her.

that is the third time ban felt alone in the world.

and he was heart broken.

its at this point in time that ban believe he cannot be close to anyone, for they are going to leave him. by dying or by abandoning him. he refuses to fight when he is arrested and accused of a false crime but what can he do. he has no proof against their claim, and they cannot do anything to an immortal being. so he takes the brunt of it all and allows himself to be executed over and over again in his time captured.

its at this point that ban wishes he could die. because he doesnt want to live. not when he had nothing to consider a family from his little sister dying so young, his parents neglecting and abusing him. zhivago was his ideal father, he never held a grudge against the man for abandoning him but it still left a hefty hole for ban to carry. and elaine was killed before him and she used the last of her strength to save him instead of herself.

he was powerless to stop any of this from happening. despite that he was only a child, that he was just a human.

meeting meliodas was another of the happier moments in his life. when the man busted him out of prison, literally punching him through the wall, ban knew immediately that meliodas was someone he did not want to lose. there was an interest gained in this man. ban didnt want meliodas to disappear on him. he didnt want him to leave like the rest.

of course history happens, ban gets imprisoned by the weird fangs when he hears that meliodas had passed ( a lie ). and he endures torture yet again to ease the emptiness that wracks his being. bans stated before that dying is just another part of life for him. a daily occurrence. hes mentioned before that hes felt like dying. that its been a long time since he felt like dying.

it doesnt change the fact that hes felt that way.

there are points in time where ban berates himself. degrades himself. hes called himself a bad person. hes referred to himself as a useless piece of shit. that hes powerless. that hes an awful friend. all in regards to being unable to protect those he loves and cares about.

ban cares little about his own well being. its why he fights as reckless as he does, aside from his immortality. ban does not care about himself. theres nothing he likes about him. theres… nothing. he feels nothing for himself. he doesnt even consider himself human anymore unless hes referred to as one.

one wouldnt even think ban feels or thinks this way considering the way he is, as i said before. its easy to think ban is someone who doesnt feel that way but really its been eating at him for over the entirety of his life. ever since his childhood. ever since elaine died. 

and he has terrible ways of coping with it all.

ban drinks himself silly. he lets himself get brutally murdered just come back to life and have it done again when he fights. he seeks out getting arrested to endure torture to feel something than nothing. because hes so tired of feeling nothing.

but in the end, no one except meliodas and elaine ( and king ) are capable of telling really telling bans actual emotions and the way he feels. because around them he drops the face of the fox sin everyone knows. because hes tired. hes empty. he can fake a smile and really well at that. he can put on the face of excitement, the outgoing personality and passion he can exude when needed. but at the end of the day, those feelings and thoughts are still there.

ban has, since gaining immortality, fantasized about death. idealized it. wished he could die. because being immortal is boring. living and dying near constantly runs dry after a time and to think that dying is a daily part of life now is cruel to him when he wakes up like nothing happened.

it was worse when the rumor meliodas had died got around, after hed finally learned to be happy again after the loss of elaine.

when he learned meliodas was indeed alive, and was busted out of baste dungeon to reunite with meliodas, he was happy again.

when the ten commandments and demon clan were released from their seal, and melascula using her magic with the venegeful soul revival, elaine was resurrected and ban was able to reunite with her too, after quelling her anger and hate towards those who had spent their time around ban when she could note and melascula still being kept alive kept elaine alive.

ban was made all the more happier then, too.

but elaine can read bans heart like fairies can. meliodas can read ban like a book because theyre best friends and meliodas understands ban just as ban understands him. and hes able to be open with them, more so than anyone else.

they are the only two he can really be truthful with in regards to his emotions because they are the only two that he trusts enough to let his guard down around and let them see the side that he hides from everyone else.

because he doesnt need more people worrying or whatever in his mind. he doesnt need peoples concerns when hes fine by technicality because hes immortal and nothing will ever come of anything even if he tried to do something. his sense of self-worth is abyssal, he cares so little about himself. hed rather everyone around him be okay and happy than have people worrying over him because its something hes felt for a long time, a very long time. something hes dealt with all on his own ( until elaine and meliodas came into his life ) and hed rather not include anymore people in it.

ban has gotten the short and shit end of the stick too many times to count. hes lost people. hes been unable to save people. he feels powerless in situations he cant do anything to change or fix. he berates himself over these things.

and he tries to keep others out of it because its not something they should deal with, its his own problem. but its hard to deal with it when he doesnt want to. he wants it to go away, he wants to stop feeling and thinking it. but its hard when its constant and he cant do anything about it. aside from drown himself in ale and liquor. and fight so recklessly and with abandon because hell be fine, hell come out unscathed and it gives him something to better focus his energy on than the hollow dull ache in his chest.

thats about the long and short of it

[galimatios]

t/a rambles 1

back on my bullshit part 1

... should look into the tactics ogre games for novel inspo bc my novel is also a political drama ... UNINTENTIONALLY actually id call it a coming of age story in rhe new adult genre since mc is probably 23-25 i have so many feelings about the novel ugh i love my ocs so much and i put them all om opposing sides for this novel the most complex relationship i have in it i think is alex and his mother or rather prince kreutzer in this au queen elaine and her son prince kreutzer .. god its so fucked up bc kreutzer loves his mother- he was largely isolated as a child and his mother was always so loving and sweet and they were so so close but the prince never knew of the shit his mother did as queen she is a tyrant she must have lost a child once. a princess, i think probably to the king who she may have ... overthrew or usurped maybe but regardless of that shes in power now and because she lost a child she became overly protective of kreu and consolidated her power heard of a plot to infiltrate her kingdom and assassinate the son of the previous tyrant king (?) and she just fucking ruled with an iron fist because she has so little trust in the goodness of people that she thinks the only way to achieve good is to force it and as a result she kills anyone who steps out of line thus making the people resent her deeply but to kreutzer shes his mother his loving and doting mother who does all she can to protect him the novel actually starts um after the queen is assassinated h a its not her story but shes a big part of it even after her death bc a big portion of the theme is like coming to terms with the complexity of individuals no one is all good or all bad and kreu starts out unable to understand this he has a very black and white view of moralitt like his mother at the beginning on his coronation day theres an assassination attempt made on him but he gets whisked away by the court jester after that a coup is staged and rebels take over the country and the prince is forced to hide with a traveling circus that the jester brings him to where every performer... is a fugitive or criminal! and thats where his personal growth really begins bc he learns abt these people and realizes his world view was wrong people are complex people do bad things... for just reasons and vice versa esp Keith who makes a major appearance in the novel his entire bg story takes place outside the novel as well hahaha but its a lot after a raid on his village, hes orphaned along w his little sister who is ill so to make ends meet / buy medicine he does literally every fucking crime under the sun starting off with petty theft and scaling up to murder literally sacrificing every last shred of innocence he has for the sake of his ailing sister who... dies anyway! and im thinking, tbh, its a fantine/cosette/thenardiers type sitch where this quack doctor is basically scamming him except instead of fantine dying cosette does anyway thats where he fucking hits rock bottom he could handle things as long as he had someone to fight for you know he was alright with it bc his sister was there, his saving grace but when she dies hes all alone thats probably when lydia finds him i imagine he would he on the verge of suicide or at the very least dying of self imposed starvation and neglect but honestly probably suicide julie's death on top of the crushinf weight of all the crimes hes committed the innocence he lost, the lives he took its just way too much and hes just a naive kid lydia finds him and takes him back to the circus takes care of him gives him food and water and shelter and slowly tries to reach him slowly teaching him that there is still life to be lived that he is so young, and it is far too soon for him to lay down and die that he should live for his dead family, because that is what they would want to keep their memory alive in his heart and he begins to come around slowly starts doing chores for the troup then he finally sees one of their performances acrobats and the trapeze and the glitz and the glamor its the first time in years where he ... wasnt thinking about his dead sister or his trauma he asks lydia to teach him how to "do that" he says while pointing at the stage and so she does and ever since then hes taken up performing full time as a .. daredevil type act doing outrageously dangerous things for the thrill of it it excites him, the risk he loves to see how close to the edge of death he can walk without falling and it fuels him makes him enjoy being alive again and he's.. happy god by the time you meet keith in the novel he's just this happy go lucky teen with this smugness about him a kind of dangerousness belying a sweet exterior he's all jokes and laughs at this point and you'd never be able to tell what he went thru at first glance or at all really bc honestly, at this point he honest to god is okay lies and dirt - Last Thursday at 6:00 AM he... doesnt need anyone's pity. he doesn't need anything but the feeling of being alive now and one of the major points of the novel is prince kreu's relationship with him... bc at first they really clash and kreu is just... he's a fucking criminal and all of then deserve to hang keith plays this off w jokes at first but kreu keeps being antagonistic bc he just cant believe a criminal like him is getting away without punishment but then one day keith snaps at him knife to the prince's throat dangerous, cat like eyes, the usual smile on his face no where to be found you're right. i'm a thief. a liar. a criminal. a murderer. i'm all those things. but i'll tell you one thing, prince: i'm not worthless. he pulls the knife away and walks off leaving the prince stunned after this lydia talks to kreu explaining that maybe he shouldn't judge keith so quickly hinting that the circumstances of his life were... not ideal when i first found him, he was already half dead. perhaps not physically, but in the eyes. you could see the reaper in them. hhmgmgn i need to think more abt the circumstances around this scene ah keith must have been looking for a good place to die

the music from the circus reminded him of better days, when he played songs with his family. i imagine him.. outside the tent, somewhere obscured and there's music flowing from its interior... he's tired. he sits down against a barrel and he's been starving, exhausted... letting sleep take him away on the songs from the circus back to a time he used to be happy...

lydia fines him and shakes him but his eyes look glassy and he's unresponsive

he's taken poison must have been something from his former days working as an assassin something he saved for himself just in case and that's when lydia takes him in and nurses him back to health she's a water mage w healing capabilities so she's able to do it and i imagine at first keith is hurt, angry why am i still alive? i im fucking myself up in the feels i hate this THIS ISNT EBEN IN THE FUCKINF BOOK IT ALL HAPPENS BEFORE IT KEITJS NOT THE MAIN CHARACTER HERE BUT IM SO FUCKED UP ugh after kreutzer learns a bit abt keiiths origins he actually thinks a lot. and tries to make amends. apologizes to keith who doesnt say anything much he's sitting, eyes away from the prince, fiddling with the knives he uses for his performances

"a raid took my parents away. illness took away my sister."

"i did a lot of things for money. most of it i'm not proud of. but i would have done anything to save her... you know?"

"you've got someone you love too, don't you?" kreutzer thinks of his mother. the surrogate brother who disappeared on him and never returned "i do." "then, you get it." after this they start to really bond almost as siblings.. which is really funny bc kreutzer doesnt need to be protective of keith keith can MORE THAN take care of himself but its new for kreutzer to feel.. responsibility for someone else like this he was always the one protected before keith laughs at this a lot what're you trying to do? be my big bro? but secretly he ...really likes having family again as idiotic as kreutzer is ofc lydia has always been there for him but as a surrogate mother an older sib is new and.. kind of nice in canon modern au they really are basically bros LOL actually cousins via mothers but alex/kreu goes to live w keiths family after his mom (lain) dies so they essentially grow up like brothers i didn't even get started w the fucking mess that is alan and kreutzer alan goes by calisto also and he hes the court jester but he was trained from a young age as a snake in the kings court he was supposed to kill the prince when the time was right but alan and his dumb fucking gay ass FALLS IN LOVE WITH HIM INSTEAD spoiler alert: its unrequited btwn alex and alan is NEVER requited in ALL aus its because alan ... doesnt love himself at all. he has no sense of... purpose or identity alex can never love someone like that but either way he becomes the prince's personal servant and entertainer and this idiot falls for him the naivete he displays, the timid stateliness, the unfitting title of prince bestowed on his shoulders- kreutzer is far too soft to be the leader of this kingdom and alan increasingly has the desire to protect him even as kreu grows older and more skilled in his studies there is always the anxious trepidation they also grow up together from around ages 11-present at the time of the novels start god alan loves him so much it hurts me but its so one sided alex loves cyrus in modern au ): alan could never be more than just a phase tbh poor guy alan and his low self esteem and depression the worst part of this thougg is that because alan feels aimless and without purpose when he falls for kreutzer he ... finally has his OWN cause to fight for and he takes it to the extreme betraying everyone that trusted him to do his job for the sake of a man who wont ever love him it bites him in the ass too bc i kill him off as a catalyst for other stuff h ahahahhahahahahahahaha not just kill him off but horribly because HE FUCKING BETRAYED HIS ENTIRE SIDE THEY ARE, UNDERSTANDABLY, PISSED Alan is so fuckong flawed hes a fuckinf mess and i love it ugh im thinkijg of another scene in the novel once kreutzer gets captured bt the coup rebels he actuallt submits himself voluntarily bc keith gets kidnapped and used as ransom keith tells him hes a fucking idiot keiths life doesnt matter dont fucking come for me! but kreu doesnt listen obviously and they torture kreutzer bc i love suffering and after that they make him listen in a mock trial to the testimonials of all the people hurt by his mother death to the queen! death to elaine of koel! all the horrible stories of lives unjustly cut short because of his mother it breaks him because he loves his mother so much but she's done all these horrible things he doesn't know what to do how to make amends the damage was done and he takes their wrath their scorn and anguish and i'm sorry as if sorry could ever fix anything but it is his burden to carry, his punishment to suffer in place of the queen ironically this makes lilya have a change of heart she was infiltrating the queens court just as alan did and she is directly responsible for her death her assassination, i think or the king's? either way shes part of the rebel forces and she DESPISES the queen good fucking riddance as far as she's concerned that woman made her life hell(edited) so she can rot in it for all lilya cares for but seeing kreutzer there bloodied tortured sobbing broken and taking the punishment doled out to him without so much as a word of protest(edited) she thinks... this... isnt right this is wrong. because kreutzer was not responsible for the sins of his mother as much as people want to blame him, take out their anger on him lilya was at first all gung ho about ending the royal bloodline lies and dirt - Last Thursday at 7:02 AM but she reconsiders this moment feels something tugging at her this isnt right

she remembers her sister back at the circus— lydia. who she always loved dearly but clashed with, leading to her abandoning the circus and joining the rebellion.

retribution is deserved, but should it be served? what then makes us different from our oppressors?

or sth like that so she rescues kreutzer takes him back to the circus. and reunites with her sister after so many years after that ik not entirely sure what to do w the novel LOL bc i know there has to he a big battle bc the rebellion forces begin to quell opposition like how the communist regime in other countries started in ernest bc people felt oppressed but then they went too far and started culling the middle class so then kreutzer leads his own rebellion force against them to take back the country then once he wins he uses his kinghood to dissolve the monarchy and embrace democracy instead asking lydia to lead hes much too tired to lead, and she is much better suited for it but hm inhabe to think more about that entire segment after this he takes over lydias spot in the circus as its owner and organizer and with keith he spends the rest of his days helping people just like keith also they properly mourn alans death it takes forever for kreu to come to terms w his mothers assassination and crimes he probably never truly works it out but he begins to be able to recognize that she is both the tyrant queen and his loving mother that they do not cancel eachother out, that they are not mutually exclusive they are one in the same UGH IM SO UPSET I WISH ID FUCKING WRITE THIS BC I WANT TO FUCKING READ IT the message i wanna convey is like people.. are complex, imperfect, and the systems they create are also subjected to that but everyone does things for a reason. no matter what that reason is and i want lydia to address this too when she becomes the new prime minister of koel a democracy is not perfect, because man is not perfect. there will be hardship, mistakes made along the way. but together we can grow, improve, and learn about one another— and better our society for it. and i believe anywhere injustice goes, justice will always follow(edited) sth like that ig