#he's a contradiction and that's what makes him interesting

[heylittleriotact]

I've never heard this banter and I'm going to go the fuck off.

Firstly: Everything @emmg said. The whole "I want to become a lich" arc is actually incredibly contentious for my death-positive, mortality embracing Rook. Like to the point where she basically tells him at one point: "I really like you, and I really like us, and it's important to me that you're happy, so I won't try to change your mind or interfere with your plans, but I think it's only right to be transparent now about the fact that I can't see a future for us should you successfully pursue lichdom." She's very up-front about it, because she isn't at all comfortable with the radical change of the entire power dynamic of their relationship: they would no longer be equals, and she's not interested in ultimately becoming one more rag that he's dragging behind him (to quote the absolutely beautiful song by Josh Ritter called 'The Curse' which is about an Egyptologist who discovers a mummy who comes back to life and they fall in love but since he is undead and she is mortal, it ends tragically and it reminds me SO MUCH OF a Emm!Lich/Rook romance, or honestly any future romances he might find himself in as a Lich.) Here - listen to it: go. Right now. Cute af music video too:

Secondly: BULLSHIT, EMMRICH. That's such absolute fucking bullshit. "There's always something to discover in the world" and "I think I should never grow tired of that" are both such insanely pompous, self-aggrandizing statements that he flings out there in an effort to frame himself in the light he wants to be perceived in: the Quintessential Academic - forever curious and eternally learning: an inspiration to curious and inquisitive minds everywhere to be celebrated and lauded for his immeasurable services to society.

The truth is, he knows it's bullshit, and is painfully aware that lichdom - even without a partner or someone like Rook is bound to be soul-crushingly lonely. Dude is lonely af and he's still got a fucking PULSE. But he's made it this far in life shouldering the burden of feeling like he'll never find someone. Loneliness isn't new to him, and it's really easy to suggest that after a few thousand years of existence under one's belt that picking up new friends will be as easy as popping down to the pub and saying "hi" to a stranger. Pffft! Trifles!

Emmrich is smarter than that. He knows better than that, but he's trying to convince himself just as much as he's trying to convince Lucanis that having to embrace the fleeting, transitory nature of relationships as he watches the ebb and flow of life and death cycle repeatedly before his eyes is not only what he wants, but it's what will make him happy and it's such a brazen contradiction of himself that if my Rook overheard this she would be unable to keep herself from snorting and going, "... really?"

This man is trying to put himself above love and friendships and relationships in a way that makes them seem like specimens to be studied and written about, when we know that he's probably written no less than a dozen poems about how Rook's hair looks in the sunlight, and is annoying the shit out of Vorgoth and Myrna because all of his letters home since he and Rook got together are less about their progress against the gods, and more about how absolutely wonderful Rook is and how pleased he is that he decided to accompany her on this journey blah blah blah...

He's collected a little family with the Veilguard, and he makes no secret of how much he cares for all of them.

Delusional, pookie: you're fucking delusional.

Lucanis and Emmrich about immortality

[quirkyfries]

Ruin ramble because writing his pov is interesting

Do you ever notice that Ruin gets really self depreciative about himself sometimes? (Maybe not quite self depreciative, but highlighting things about himself.) Implying vulnerability in a way that can almost come off as a joke if it weren't for his tone of voice. He says he hasn't been safe in a long time, it would be nice to sleep for once, wouldn't his death be hilarious? It comes off as a cry for help, but he states it as fact, he's convinced it won't change.

He's very stubborn about what he's done. He had nothing left to lose. No, there was absolutely no other way he could've gone about destroying the creator, he'd spent years considering his options. Yes, Solar was collateral, unfortunate. Those lives were a necessary sacrifice. He had to do it. There was no other way.

To him, he chose the lesser amount of people in the trolley problem. That was the morally correct thing to do in the circumstances he was given, lives would have been taken either way. He had to do it. (He could've walked away from the lever that switched the rails, but that would be the self serving option, wouldn't it? To move on?)

The most interesting part about it to me is, why does Ruin keep on going? All he's known is pain and suffering in some shape or another, he had nothing to live for after his goal was completed. All he'd ever known was bad, bad, bad, vindicated release, a little bit more bad, and then nothing. He was ready to die, he didn't know where to go.

Then came along this new dimension, one he'd apparently accidentally created through his actions. For someone who has nothing to gain or lose, wouldn't this be a nice chance of pace? To look forward to something nice that was more or less your responsibility in a weird way, to cultivate something good for once after a life of bad? To be able to take the place of your abuser, break that cycle? This new dimension is his reason to keep going, he will see this one good thing through if he can help it. Even if he isn't particularly liked by his migrated peers.

But he still isn't secure. There are enemies he'd made, the insurmountable weight of lives on his shoulders, and a new uncertain freedom of identity. (Granted, he still has to lie to some people to get by. I more mean his own Creator, the Virus act, and Nexus + Dark Sun here. Ruin having to strike deals and bargain for his life and act against his own morals to survive. But those are gone. When had Ruin last acted like himself, truly? He had barely been able to define himself as an Eclipse before everything bad happened.)

Does Ruin hate himself? I don't know, he's very adamant about hating what he had to do, but would do it again. He believes he was right, he's even defensive about it to several people, but there is still something that's bothering him. Does he hate himself for pressing the red button? Dunno. Maybe subconsciously. He's clearly meant to parallel Puppet with how he is now, they're the same words in different font. Ruin pulled the lever to kill the smaller amount of strangers to save the greater amount of strangers. Puppet was inside the train that killed everyone she knew. She wants to repent, Ruin hasn't shown much interest in it. Does a selfless act require repentance?

I like to think he has a bit of a dissociation issue, he compartmentalizes things if you squint, a possible coping mechanism of something called cognitive dissonance (a disturbance that happens when your actions do not align with your morals/values.) He was right for what he did. What he did was bad. What he did was necessary. He deserves his fate. He doesn't like pain. There's some contradicting statements there, he'd have to separate some things into neat little boxes in order for it to make sense in his head, so he didn't torture himself thinking about what that said about himself and his values. What he did was right and necessary. What he did was bad and he deserves his fate. He doesn't like pain. Still contradictory a bit, but a little more organized. If he focused on the positive box more than the negative box, he can feel better about himself, but he's painfully aware of the negative box' existence. Maybe he avoids looking at the negative box at all times and ignores the contents, but what's inside is so over accumulated that it can't help but be constantly present and occasionally overflow in those matter-of-fact cries for help. A lotta PTSD can fit in this bad boy (pats ruin on the head)

Does that make sense? I don't know, I feel like a therapist trying to write from his point of view. What is wrong with this little british guy.

[commsroom]

What is it you love so much about Eiffel? Asking as a fellow Eiffel Lover, I'm just interested in your response!

i've been holding onto this one for a while, in part because i know there's no complete answer to this and i could probably just talk forever, but it's almost his birthday, so... in the spirit of dougmas:

what i love about eiffel as a character is that he feels like a real person. he's full of these very human contradictions: he's a coward, he can be exceptionally brave, he's considerate and thoughtful, he's got his head up his ass, he's a mediator by nature, he's frustratingly stubborn and will dig his heels in about the pettiest things, he's very technically capable, he's a master of weaponized incompetence. he's stupid in ways only a very smart person can be, and has a certain kind of self-hating self-centeredness. he has very firmly held morals and wants to do right by people, and he struggles to reconcile those beliefs with the unforgivable things he's nonetheless done; he has very real and serious flaws that the narrative doesn't flinch away from, but neither exonerates nor condemns him for. he's so entangled with the heart of the show, its themes and relationships, that you couldn't have wolf 359 without doug eiffel, and - as a friend of mine once said - if you put eiffel in any other show, he'd turn it into something resembling wolf 359 as well. and as gabriel urbina said about pan-pan: "he's the communications officer; without him, they stop communicating." he's a compassionate portrayal of an addict, and a very real and nuanced example of a kind-hearted man who's still used to thinking of himself as the "default" kind of person, and is still learning how to deconstruct the biases that come with that.

what i love about eiffel as a person is that he's someone i'd want in my life. he's a very sincere and emotionally honest person; he doesn't have hidden agendas, and you know exactly where you stand with him. he hates authority, he hates work, and he won't suck up or pretend otherwise - in fact, he'll create more work for himself if it means he can avoid doing his job, on principle. if he has a grievance about something, oh, you'll know. at the same time, he has this infectious enthusiasm about the things he loves, and the things that excite him, and he's a geeky guy into primarily 80s/90s nostalgic media who doesn't feel the need to gatekeep. i love his voice, i love how expressive he is, i love how you can hear the same mannerisms you can see in the live show just in the very open-body-language way he emotes. he has a very distinct former class clown type of energy, and i think that goes hand in hand with an underlying loneliness. he can be pretty clueless, he speaks before he thinks and has chronic foot-in-mouth disease, but… doug eiffel is the kind of person who would notice if someone was standing alone in the corner at a party, and would go out of his way to make them feel included. he's good at getting people to open up, even if it's in spite of themselves, even if it's while they're rolling their eyes at him. he's a staunch pacifist who - even when things piss him off - doesn't react to conflict with violence or threats of violence, and he can't stand to have things stay bottled up: if there's one thing eiffel wants everyone to do, it's talk about it. whatever it is. he has a good balance of traits that make him feel genuine and warm without coming across preachy or suspiciously softened; he's also very much still a gross dirtbag with a lot of annoying flaws typical of some average guy, and that's a huge part of his appeal to me. he's good with his hands. he likes building stuff and taking things apart. he's rough around the edges in ways that reflect his life experience, and he's just… a guy who has lived a life, who has a lot of life experience, but hasn't made a lot of true friends in the process. he's gotten used to being lonely, and gotten used to telling himself he's fine with it, and something in me really aches for that.

his birthday is a good - and timely - example: he's a man in his 30s still holding onto childhood hurt, having his birthday forgotten and overshadowed by christmas. i'm also a christmas hater, so it's nice to have something else to celebrate and prioritize, and i like imagining his disgust at all of the unavoidable holiday trappings; it makes me feel less alone. i wouldn't say i relate to eiffel, more that i feel we have compatible issues, and it's not a secret that he's the type of guy i find attractive. he feels like a real person that i already know and love, and at the same time he's representative of the kind of person i'd like to know, like his life would fit comfortably into mine.

[tubbytarchia]

Do you also feel as if the reason Scott always survives so much is that, besides being a good pvper, he just stays in the corner (sometimes literally) and doesn’t engage in the same risks as most others? I remember feeling really frustrated about it in Limited Life specifically but idk if that’s just a me thing.

In a way, yes, I do think he stays out of the action more than others. In fact there is this one time in Secret Life when him, Bdubs and Impulse were in a game of tag, and Bdubs was with his horse. Scott stole that horse and told Bdubs that it was unfair for him to have it and he would get it back at the end of the session, Bdubs reluctantly agrees. And then later in that session, this mf rolls up to Bdubs on that same horse, saying "I just wouldn't be able to escape otherwise". That is just a direct contradiction of the "fairness" that he claimed himself to want to provide for the sake of the other players. He has been a massive hypocrite or just unfair on multiple occasions for the sake of self-preservation but he knows how to paint his actions as bearing less weight than they do and make others feel like he's doing a favor and being a friend

But it's not even so much that as it is him generally staying in people's good graces, even when it's borderline manipulative or he antagonizes someone else to achieve the desired effect. Pearl wasn't exactly innocent in DL but it was Scott who ostracized her and stayed in good favor with most people by virtue of painting himself as the sensible one between the two of them when he instigated much more harm. He just intentionally doesn't leave strong enough impressions for anyone to want to kill him and will rather partake in small gestures of kindness; most times anyone's wanted to get him was because of him just being on more lives or time and not because he'd done anything to them (And people like Joel have actually been wronged by him in a very tangible way, justifying their desire to get back at him)

I'm confident that everyone within these games knows how to SURVIVE better than they do. But the point isn't survival, the point is content - conflict, interaction, etc. Scott also knows how to play it safe and stay in relative good favor with people by not offering up too much, but I have to agree that he seems to prioritize that more than anyone else. The most compelling aspect of his character is his self-sacrificial nature, and without any context, him sacrificing himself for others seems like a high and respectable toll, but he knows exactly what he's doing, he knows how much he can give and be fine and in control. When he sacrifices himself, he's prioritizing the benefit that will offer him and not the recipient. He's just very good at the social mindgame of it all, which is what makes things most interesting about his character, but it becomes less fun when he's this focused on survival and always gets away with it, almost never facing any punishment despite being equally as guilty of wrongdoing as any other member of the series

[ani-craft]

"Martyn is loyal" this and "Martyn isn't loyal" that

Loyal or not, this man loves. No matter what he might say. Calls himself selfish, or a wanderer, or a wildcard, or whatever else he'll readily claim to seem unanchored. And sure, he is highly driven by self-interest, that is undeniable especially after Lim Life's ending. Yet every season he gets attached to people, finds a fondness in someone. To Scott, to Cleo, to the Southlands (especially Mumbo), to Ren--and to an extent he is loyal, or devoted, or whatever other word you want to use for it. As loyal as he can be up until he can't be anymore. Looks at every alliance with the idea that they'll make it to the finale together, even if what happens after is unsavory. He knows too much for his own good, knows that every life will end as him versus everyone he's allied with. It's inevitable, given the nature of his lore and his role in the grand scheme of things. It's an always present truth that backs every plan he has. An audience is Watching, and we need a grand finale, after all.

But until then:

"That's it, they're dead."

"I'm more than happy for you to link back up with me, and we can be real proper soulmates."

"You said, 'You and your allies will see the end.' You said I could bring them all!"

"I'm with you. This is us, now. This is us."

[quatregats]

Something I've been thinking about is how Patrick O'Brian manages so skillfully to write characters whose actions contradict their beliefs, which I think is honestly a big part of why his characters feel so real. Mostly with Stephen and Jack—e.g., and perhaps most notably, Stephen has notably leftist sympathies (honestly I have no idea how to characterize his politics in period terms) who nonetheless becomes very comfortable with his rise to the landed gentry, while Jack is a card-carrying Tory who much of the time sympathizes far more with working class sailors and farmers than with the upper classes—but I'm sure he does it to a lesser degree with some of his minor characters (James Dillon, while perhaps not precisely minor, comes to mind), and I love that he's able to do that, especially the way in which he embeds it in the narrative. We see how they're all unreliable narrators of themselves; we understand how they want to be seen and how that does and doesn't coincide with the reality, but most importantly, this isn't presented as something reprehensible, just as a part of their own humanity. They are not their expectations for themselves, but they don't need to be those expectations to be beloved.

[butwhatifidothis]

Still baffled that Hopes so blatantly wrote Claude as the typical Evil Vaguely Middle Eastern Man set on destroying the Good White Nation for his Evil Vaguely Middle Eastern Nation that is often seen in fantasy settings - complete with him being seen as worse than a white woman who does many of the same evil deeds he does in-verse, even by his friends (should it be the bad ending route of SB) - and so many in the fandom were so eager to gobble that shit up. INSIST that "Clearly A Racist Stereotype" is LEAGUES better than "Subversion Of A Racist Stereotype" even. Like I don't think I'll ever get over how supremely fucked that is

[rmbunnie]

I am alone on this barren earth (Jason Todd liker and Mia Dearden liker who honestly thinks issues 69-72 of the 2001 Green Arrow run are fun and good and would really like to talk about them beyond "Jason Todd was ooc and irredeemable there because he was trauma-dumping on Mia but also everything he said was fake and made up and he was manipulating her to become his sidekick and he blew up her school in retaliation because she didn't so really we should ignore the whole comic as bad writing /or agree he should just be read as an sadistic sidekick killer" (None of which is true and over half of which is directly stated to be false in the comic's text) but all people ever have to say about the comic is weird wrong takes about the three pages in which the gym fight happens ripped out of the very interesting and fun surrounding context)

[ilynpilled]

I feel like as the resident dishonor/honor guy enjoyer I have to speak on honor as a construct and how it seems to operate in asoiaf in my eyes. I will be stating the obvious here imo but: violence IS inherent to it. Be it directly or through the enablement of it. “Honor”, as a feudalistic moral construct, revolves around the reinforcement of a status quo. It is a moral construct that is embedded into a feudalistic structure, one that is inherently violent. It can be deeply flawed and destructive as a result of deeply rooted systemic issues. Being “honorable” is very complicated because, again, it does not exist based on a very sensible moral framework. It ends up contradicting itself because the way society is structured in Westeros.

Almost nothing embodies this more clearly than the KG. They are supposed to be the paragons of honor: an unsoiled white cloak.

Vows are social contracts this society is built on. This is why Jaime is very restricted in a lot of ways in his world by his label. Breaking one of the most important contracts (one that happens to be key in reinforcing a feudalistic structure: it places the king’s will above every single other moral or ethical code) makes it so he is not believed or trusted and he is unable to operate properly within their society in a lot of circumstances, as we witness in his chapters. It is honorable to protect the weak and the innocent, but it is honorable to protect your king in all circumstances and reinforce a status quo. To obey your family and play your societal role. To obey laws, even if they are unjust. To keep your word, to be honest. Loyalty to a tyrant has to be inherently more honorable (especially in certain positions) to maintain this status quo, even though it contradicts other oaths and we know it is inherently immoral. Balancing values is the most interesting aspect of characters dealing with ‘honor’ and morality. Feudalism is what makes the honor system collapse. Honor itself can be a more vague concept, “the quality of knowing and doing what is morally right”, but the way it is defined and how it operates within this society is so fucked. The KG appear in the weirwood dream (mirroring the imagery of The Others, conflating the honorable white cloak with snow and cold and death.) “You swore to keep your king safe” “and the children as well.” Yeah, the innocent children of kingslanding as well, that would have burned to ash. It is honorable to save your king, to protect the weak, to save the children, to save the innocents of KG, to obey your father. He tells this to them in the dream, he explains his reasoning for killing Aerys, but they do not budge. That is what Jaime fears the most, the complete collapse of everything that holds meaning to him, heroism becoming undefinable with these conflicting moral codes, which is likely another huge part of him keeping it a secret. It is something he feels powerless against. The way things are prioritized is wrong. Morality becomes skewed. In Jaime’s mind the enemy and primary source of doom is this nonsensical moral construct that contradicts itself represented by institutions that make no sense. It is what makes his symbolic fire go out. His moral code conflicts with this society’s code of ethics, which eventually leads him to cynically accept amorality. It is disillusionment that tears the idea of heroism and being “honorable” apart and leads to moral nihilism.

Another aspect of the honor code and its violence is the fact that it places more value to individuals based on class. It is dependent on class and a flawed social structure. This is despite the fact that vows of knighthood call for the protection of those that are too weak to protect themselves: the underprivileged. Jaime keeps having this epiphany of an inherent equality in death that seems to contradict the way society is structured. Aerys’ life is worth inherently more according to the honor code than Rhaella’s, than the lives of thousands of innocents, than Jaime’s. Yet, a lowborn hand, no one, seems to die harder than Aerys does (and nobody cares). A crown is worth nothing when crows feast on victors and vanquished alike, and the rightful heir himself. We are all equal in death, so the text is indicating that something is not right here.

When it comes to characters and their relationship with honor the important through-line is examining whether they are being “honorable” in the abstract sense, if they base their actions around empathy and a sense of actual justice, or if they are abiding by made up flawed constructs. Being viewed as honorable by this society does not make you a good person. In fact, in order for you to abide by the honor code you would likely have to turn into an amoral individual. For example, if you try to keep the cloak pure white you will metaphorically soil it. Like every one of Aerys’s kingsguard did. To keep their oath to the king, they broke vows to protect innocents and protect women. They should lose their honor by a lot of definitions, but that would mean the status quo collapses. Jaime’s knighting for this reason is very much like a boy being sacrificed at an altar. It is not just about drawing a parallel between young girls and boys being sentenced to bloody doom by violent constructs created for their gender.

“Blood is the seal of our devotion.” He bleeds on his plain white tunic. It was never “pure white”, it was always all tainted in blood. It is inherently violent. You can argue that is when “the boy died.”

Very rigid and hypocritical honor codes built for feudalism lack nuance and lead to amorality. I think George aims to address, interrogate, deconstruct, and then reconstruct honor, as with most other key concepts present in fantasy. Honor can be redefined. Examples like “No chance, and no choice”, among many others, are at the root of that reconstruction. Even then, the reconstruction does not conflate it with pacifism necessarily. For example, Chelsted did the ‘honorable’ thing, in the abstract moral sense, of quitting his job and not supporting a tyrant anymore, but that act achieved nothing in preventing the wildfire plot. Same with essentially everyone important at court abandoning the situation that is Aerys, turning away from a gaping wound and not addressing it before it was too late. Jaime had to soil the ‘white cloak’ and disrupt the status quo and lose his “honor” within those terms by murdering his king and his pyromancers as a kingsguard and actually save half a million lives. It was not glorious, nor was it anything like the songs, and the city is still doomed because there is no way to get that festering corruption out of there at this point, metaphorical of the greater problem with KG, but it was heroism, a choice with meaning, and a form of triumph, even if the consequences break Jaime down the line. He gets no answer to the question of what it means to be a knight and a man of honor if society’s version of it is so skewed. Then, Jaime and the readers get an answer in the form of Brienne: “I dreamed of you.”

[longagoitwastuesday]

ngl it sort of pisses me off the way adults regard Gojo in Jujutsu Kaisen at times. Which could be a very interesting and poignant point in a good way if well written, but as it is it becomes mainly just frustrating and sad in a negative way.

Nanami saying Gojo never cared about anything or anyone other than himself crashes interestingly with Kusakabe saying the whole situation was just all his fault because he refused to kill Itadori. The students are very aware of those aspects of Gojo's personality, but overall they seem to regard him with way more kindness and fondness even when at their rudest, not truly coinciding with either Nanami's or Kusakabe's views.

[lavenderjewels]

(JJK 236 spoilers/leaks)

now that there’s been a main character sacrifice this means nobara can come back!

[epiphainie]

going into s8 i knew we were gonna problems with people not liking the canon's version of tommy cuz everyone got too attached to their own versions/communal fanon version but i didn't think it'd be because of them reaking up

i hear you. and that's unfortunate bc the show won't give us more tommy to incorporate the characteristics we learned with that scene into our pre-established image of the character and i get that people don't want that scene to tarnish what they got to love. still find it odd that there's a lack of... self-awareness (for lack of a better word) for how much of this guy we made up lol but thats fandom for you i guess

[snowstories]

It's pretty fun for me to play Zelda games in a manner mostly isolated from fandom opinions. Like don't get me wrong I've absorbed a lot of LOZ spoilers, headcanons, interpretations etc. via osmosis, I am not playing these games blind. But regardless of how many spoilers and fanart/fanfic I've seen going through the AO3 tag after playing BOTW was still an Experience because it made me realize that the way I interpret both Link as a character and the game as a whole is apparently completely counter to the majority fandom opinion. Something I was blissfully oblivious to while playing the game.

[alchemiclee]

been looking in tags for a few days now to see if anyone else found the whole high cloud quintet and related story to be a bit.....poorly written, nonsensical, contradictory, full of plot holes and loose ends, etc. apparently i'm not the only one. (and i'm not even talking about shipping stuff, because any time I saw someone mad about bad writing, someone always replies to be homophobic and laugh about failed ships. weirdos.) it could have been so good but was thrown into the garbage for the most part (IF you noticed all the plot holes and contradiction. if not, then it's a fine enough story tbh. I expect most people to see it on surface level and not read all the little hidden lore bits and try to piece it together like my autistic brain did. which is ok! enjoy it if you liked it and ignore me 😆)

[batsplat]

Hi Bat, do you know that Chad Reed invited Casey to join him at Vale’s ranch next January in a comment on Casey’s Instagram?

I REALLY HOPE IT HAPPENS😭

(also had a screenshot sent to me ahaha)

would very much love for casey to accept that lol, though I also find it conceptually funny if valentino basically. does not get consulted about this in advance. like probably you can't say 'hm actually no you can't bring one of my former biggest enemies to my ranch' if he's already agreed to it, right, so you do sort of have to go along with it at that point. my sense of the vibe of that rivalry is that valentino would be up for it, but it's STILL quite the move to essentially invite somebody's ex-nemesis to their home. the kind of thing I would love to do for the bit, so I do respect it. doubt it'll happen, but you can always hope casey also finds it a funny idea, enough to actually go. maybe just to satisfy his curiosity!! we know he canonically does have a sort of vague ill-defined curiosity about valentino's whole deal, including his post-motogp life, so. here's your chance, casey. find your truth