#i thought more crime and punishment

[bitchthefuck1]

Rewatching succession it really is wild to see Kendall and Shiv convince themselves over and over again that they can "fix ATN/Waystar from the inside" only to completely abandon their morals the minute it gives them a strategic advantage.

When they're on the outside it's an endless diatribe about how evil and rotten the company is to its core, but the second they get the slightest whiff of power they suddenly decide the problems are actually really manageable and that with the right leadership it could be a force for good, and like...the saddest part is that they genuinely seem to believe that.

[3rdsday]

This is a request for a c! Tommy rant

PLEASE YOUR PERSPECTIVE IS SO INTRIGUING I NEED MORE

thank you:))

Okay I've sat on this for a few days because I didn't feel like I was coherent enough to answer it but I think I'm ready now. This is probably still not super coherent but here we go:

The two rules Tommy was given when he joined the server were “no griefing” and “no stealing”.

Obviously these rules stopped being enforced pretty quickly, but it’s worth noting that Tommy immediately and blatantly disregarded and broke these rules. And I think that Tommy as a character gets punished for this throughout the rest of the story, in a sort of karmic retribution gone overboard way.

Tommy took things from others and destroyed their things, so he is not allowed to keep anything he cares about ever again.

Obviously the discs are the biggest example of this, with how many times they changed hands and were fought over and were used to taunt Tommy. But it goes so much further than that.

L’manberg gets destroyed. He gets exiled by Schlatt. Henry gets killed. L’manberg gets destroyed again. Wilbur’s dead. He gets exiled by Tubbo.

Every day in exile, Dream destroys everything Tommy has. It’s not subtle. There he is, isolated from everyone, no friends, no items, nothing. And he breaks in exile, for many reasons, but the fact that everything, everything has been taken from him, and continues to be taken from him, is a big part of that.

He leaves exile and teams up with Techno, but ultimately decides that L’manberg (Tubbo) is more important to him.

The second Tommy chooses L’manberg, he’s not allowed to have it anymore.

And that’s the thing, right? Everything Tommy loses, it’s not about what those things mean to other people, it’s about the fact that Tommy cared about them. Sure, Techno had his motivations for destroying L’manberg, but Dream? The one pulling the strings? L’manberg needed to be gone because it was what Tommy cared about.

Which was kinda Dream’s whole deal right? If he controls what people care about, he controls the server. If he has Tommy’s discs, he should be able to control Tommy… right?

Except, for as much as the discs matter to Tommy, they are far from the only thing he cares about. He gives them up willingly for L’manberg’s independence. He gives them up a second time when he realizes he’s gone too far, putting them above Tubbo and fighting his best friend. Dream can’t use the discs to control Tommy because Tommy always has other things to care about, other things that would matter to him even if the discs were gone.

So what does Dream have to do?

Take everything else away.

What started with exile comes to a head during the final disc confrontation, with Dream once again making Tommy give up all his possessions the way he’d been conditioned to do. L’manberg is already gone, Dream dealt with that before, so all that’s left is Tubbo.

But things don’t go to Dream’s plan, Tommy convinced the rest of the server to come to his aid, and Dream was defeated.

(Don’t even TALK to me about the disc confrontation being staged by Dream, I don’t want to HEAR IT. It’s not canon to me and if you think I’m wrong. No I’m not <3)

Here’s the thing, though. When Dream was about to be killed a third time, Tommy is stopped by the chance that Dream could revive Wilbur.

Tommy has lost so much, over and over, and the chance to get his brother back is too much for him to go through with killing Dream.

Maybe Dream lost the confrontation, but he still found a way to use Tommy’s attachments against him.

So Dream is put in prison, Tommy has his discs back and, more importantly, Tubbo back. Maybe it’s not everything he once had, but it’s a lot more than he once did.

And then he goes to visit Dream. And Dream kills him.

Limbo is different for every character, but it’s generally supposed to be an experience that’s torturous. And all it takes for Limbo to be the worst thing Tommy has ever experienced is… nothing.

His Limbo is empty.

For all that he lost during exile, during the lowest point of his life… he’s left with even less than death.

All that’s there is the voice of a brother he couldn’t give up attachment to, who is no longer the brother he knew and loved. Who taunts and torments him during his time in that empty void. Wilbur might be there, but Tommy doesn’t even have his brother in Limbo. Not really.

And it kills me because Tommy is, or rather was, such an optimistic character. Not so much in the sense that he had a constant positive outlook, because clearly that wasn’t the case much of the time. But he could have his home destroyed and his friends turned against him and his possessions taken and his pets killed over and over and over and over again, and still find a way to keep going. Still find things to care about.

It generally took very little to make Tommy happy. He loved dirt huts and cobblestone towers and spiders and things that meant nothing to anyone else, that anyone else would treat with neutrality if not negativity.

But in Limbo there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Everything he had, gone.

Even his life was taken from him.

And in the aftermath, after his revival, he was never the same. He didn’t belong among the living, another thing that was taken from him. Wilbur was revived, but Wilbur was so different from the brother Tommy knew. Even then, Wilbur left him in the end.

I hate the finale for a lot of reasons, so I’m not going to go into it much. But the story ends with Tommy dead, again. Is he in Limbo again? Who knows. But Tommy was never allowed to keep anything, and the ending solidified this as true.

I started this by saying that Tommy was punished for breaking the rules of the server. And I think it’s interesting to read the story that way, where Tommy’s relatively small crimes end up resulting in him losing everything again and again and never breaking free of it. This is a story where gods and higher beings exist and are willing to interfere with the lives of the characters, so I don’t think it’s too far fetched to see this as a warped degree of karma. But I also think that what Tommy is punished for, perhaps more than the rule breaking, is the fact that he cares so much. He found joy and love in everything, so he was left with nothing. Because the Dream SMP is a cruel world controlled by a cruel man who became obsessed with Tommy. And Tommy paid the price, but he also never stopped caring for the things that mattered to him. He could be broken but not defeated, not as long as there was more for him to love.

Unfortunately, the story demanded his defeat, one way or another.

And that’s why his Limbo is empty.

[moe-broey]

Crazy how I can recount something from my adolescence about how I was raised and still manage to make my therapist (who I have been seeing for Years) still go Oh. That's... 😶

Like obviously professional quick recovery style but like. Has an immediate grounding effect and gives eye opening perspective in point zero seconds. Like ooooohh. You see, I was operating under the impression that like, this is a fairly run of the mill and expected experience for someone like me with my lived experiences. Like I could just say this and anyone would know exactly what I'm getting at without needing to provide all the details and thought processes at play here.

Hm. Well,

[bijoumikhawal]

also it really is shit how several popular bloggers were like. Horribly bigoted towards ace people when it was cool, but once it stopped being trendy they 1) deleted those posts so receipts couldn't be pulled 2) maybe put up claimed "redactions" or said "omg its been years if you really wanna know wether i still hate those people dm me" but never apologized for their behavior lmao. I don't think any of the people who did that actually changed, I just think they know it's not such an acceptable/fun target to bully anymore. It's really sick how that type of bullying was encouraged for years and how few people repented for their behavior.

[corvid-corvette-coven]

The Modern Messiah

Christ would be crucified again if He returned for us in the modern day.

There is no seat at the table for a Man who loves despite gender, queer identity, race, religion, creed, occupation, or sins today.

There is no pew to sit upon, nor bread broken, nor wine poured for such a Man who stands before us and calls Himself the Son of God once more.

He could not be reconciled with the Messiah we know.

The modern Messiah is alabaster white, painted drops of bright red mark Him 5 times across the arms legs and ribs, and He is carved upon a cross, nailed proudly above the priest like a prized Fish, or Lamb, slaughtered and stuffed and pacified so He may not defy the teachings of religion once more.

The modern Messiah is offered no seat at the table, for the safety of sin, He is kept a spears length away, and remains upon the wall.

If a man is born once more as Jesus Christ, He would loathe the priest and cry out against the churchmen who preach violence and know only hate in their hearts.

We will seize Him with such violence just as before, we will bolt Him upon a crucifix of steel, guild Him in a crown of barbed wire, and the Son of God will die again as a bullet pierces His ribs.

Those who pray to the marble Man chained in churches dread the day those stone still eyes and lips turn upon them, to pray back.

[sammygender]

THANK YOU OLI I don't get the season 8 hype. No Cas, Sam and Dean have the same conflict they've been having the entire show with no new angles like why????

YEAH LITERALLY. inital conflict is literally dean being angry at sam for trying to move on and heal which is just so intensely unlikeable and for some reason i was shocked by it and it made me genuinely dislike him. to me dean is at his most awful in s8..... like he's not. he's definitely not. gadreel possession in s9 and like most of s9/10 with the mark is much worse than anything he does in s8 and killing amy in s7 was sooo awful too. but dean is just so intensely a dick in s8 and i was so angry with him and not even in a fun way. like in s9/10 he is AWFUL but i enjoyed the drama. i didnt even enjoy the interpersonal drama in s8. which is when you know something is wrong

then again. im probably too harsh on it and am basing it off memories of sitting through the first half because i LOVE the trials and sacrifice and the great escapist so so much. and i love kevin <3 he's s8 right. but. to me s8 will always be the worst season. maybe i just hate what it brings to the shows canon. sam leaving dean for a girl and a dog (which is NOT EVEN WHAT HAPPENED... and if it WAS it wouldve been justified.... id support sam even if i thought he abandoned dean unprovoked idc.....) is constantly brought back like the worst of his sins even as late as like. s11. SHUT UP. first half of s8 is just upsetting for sam reasons and not in a fun way

[im-a-chunky-potato]

Stop being so relatable Raskolnikov.

[pricemarshfield]

i need to read more books. i have so many and i love them but i just haven’t read many Books this year…a metric fuckton of comics, which i did enjoy the hell out of, but i NEEDDDD to sink my teeth into a novel again

[lesbianraskolnikov]

i wanted to joke about an archive of crime and punishment art but actually..

[1o1percentmilk]

mmyeah same as its always been

[everlasting-evocation]

I am not super far into Crime and Punishment at the moment but the way the murders were described is so interesting. There isn't a lot of time spent lingering on descriptions or gratuitous exploration of the details. It's a spur of the moment choice, but the haste of this decision doesn't make it any less damaging or completely earth shattering. There's so much more focus on the repercussions of this act than anything else.

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

IT'S ME AGAIN HIHIHIHI i wanted to ask whether u have read crime and punishment???? i've been thinking about it a lot and now it keeps popping up whereever i go and ofc bsd fyodor exists too and i keep thinking about him and sighhh i think i should do it..... (i literally already have the book too......)

- @catchuuu

MICKEY U HAVE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE…….….. i HAVE in fact read crime and punishment and i’m gonna let u in on a very embarrassing secret if u promise not to laugh :’3

……. i bought the book and read it…. because of fyodor bsd…………………….. look. i wanted to get into classic lit ok and. i just thought he was hot 😭😭 so i was like hmmmm let’s check out his works IT’S SO EMBARRASSING BUT I THINK I WAS REAL AS HELL TOO…………

anyway i was pretty young so it might not have been the best choice, it’s a VERY heavy book just language-wise, dostoevsky is not for the weak 😭😭 but it’s very good and interesting too!! i think i would love it even more if i reread it now… dostoevsky is basically known for being kind of a master at exploring the human mind and obv the main thing he explores in this book is guilt. and how the mc raskolnikov begins to punish himself for his crime the moment he commits it…. i like it it’s good :33 would def recommend it!! but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and some scenes are very Raw. there’s one that’s pretty infamous where the mc dreams about one of his childhood memories right?? when he saw a horse get whipped to death… and it’s just really. ough. made me feel kinda sick. stuff like that is common for dostoevsky so watch out!!!

ooohhh and mickey !! while we’re on the topic of russian lit :333 gogol is super good too !! so far i’ve only read one of his shorter stories, diary of a madman, but that one was so cool. i like him a lot he’s definitely …. a lot more unhinged than dosto….

[hudbannonarchive]

jacob's ladder 1990 and safe 1995 are both good because they treat someone going batshit insane like the most normal thing in the world

[mothkraft]

every day i think abt how diego and hot pants come from working class upbringings compared to johnny and gyro being closer to the upper class...like gyro existed in a bubble with a silver spoon up his ass for most of his life and diego has lived in poverty most of his and man the audacity of johnny and gyro just to despise him based on pretty much nothing

I'm just full of too many thoughts and rambles and no art and grrrrrrr

[lord-squiggletits]

pharma really is such an interesting case. one thing i’ve always felt with pharma is that he absolutely doesn’t want consequences. and facing up to it requires a lot of looking at and showing people what he’s done and you know. the consequences. i mean hell he’d rather start a plague than say “hey i got coerced into doing a very bad thing by the djd”

I do understand what you mean about Pharma not wanting to face consequences, but on the other hand, I kind of understand why Pharma made a plague rather than admit to medical malpractice/murder? Because like, the thing that I don't see brought up often enough with regards to Pharma is that blackmail... is blackmail. Like, as someone who's unfortunately been on the receiving end of blackmail, the entire point of blackmailing someone is that you corner them into doing bad things by convincing them that they CAN'T turn to an authority figure to ask for help. Like, the person doing the blackmailing generally convinces the person who's getting blackmailed that if they try to reach out for help, the law/authorities/etc either won't care about their predicament or will punish them for the bad thing they did that they're getting blackmailed about.

I kind of feel like (and this isn't an attack on you, just a commentary about the nature of blackmail) when someone like Ratchet looks at Pharma and says "but you could've called for help or shut down the clinic or anything!", it kind of ignores the fact that...... when you're being blackmailed you're fucking terrified, and people who are terrified generally don't jump to the most rational, safe solutions possible? When you add in the fact that Pharma was blackmailed by Tarn of the DJD, notorious hater of Autobots and fanatic leader of a torture club, it's not hard to imagine that Pharma was both afraid and in pain (or threat of pain) while at Delphi and thus wouldn't be thinking straight about it.

I don't know, like. Yeah, on one hand Pharma made a plague and killed a bunch of people to try and cover up his crimes and maintain his career. But he didn't just do it for ego related reasons, he was also almost certainly facing threats of torture and death.

[leatherbookmark]

i had op blocked so ray’s rebloggathon was tragically Absent from my dash but now that i caught up, *hyeju voice* el oh el