#is he particularly good or evil?

[daily-sloop-john-b]

Tim has called Gale "a rabid golden retriever". He's a character who's prone to limerence, and is more likely to voice his qualms than act upon them (see: him being able to be convinced to stay after the druid grove, v. Karlach and Wyll*). Mechanically, he's the easiest to get an "Exceptional" approval from (I got this before we hit the goblin camp; I think Karlach was still on Medium and Astarion on Neutral).

(* Gale staying may admittedly be a character facet borne from the mechanical practicality that without Gale, you'd be running either 2 or 3 (if you recruit Minthara) other party members (I doubt Halsin or Jaheira would be recruitable for an evil run, and Minsc isn't until Act 3). Someone had to stick around. Gale is also one of the longer-developed characters, while Karlach and Wyll were shorter development times -- a writer has half as much dialogue to write if the characters refuse to participate in half the possible adventure.)

Gale's answer to his partner telling him "no" (repeatedly! as a goddess!) isn't to respect her boundaries, but to spend months researching and digging up a piece of her past that he knows killed her. Then getting a slice of evil/anti-magic embedded in him Iron Man-style. (It's likely this recklessness that reminded the first tagger of a red-bull-fueled engineer.)

By the time we meet him, he's tempered these responses a bit, but compare breaking up with Gale vs. breaking up with Astarion (I'm using Astarion b/c he's the only other character I've broken up with; I love both in different ways): Gale mopes, is bitter about it (An act later, and I haven't gotten gale's colder "yes?" or "what is it?" dialogue to change back to the more jovial "how may I help you"), and tells you to go away. Astarion asks if it's his fault and Approves of being friends now.

This isn't even mentioning the Crown of Karsus.

BG3 is a game of possibilities; your Gale might be kind and romantic, but Gale also has the option to become the God of Ambition; I've never heard of a god of such a domain being particularly good, or nice.

I just saw someone in the tags of a post imply that Gale isn't romantic, sweet, or ethical.

Hello, are we playing the same game?

I think they meant well because the original post was a Gale positive post. About how Gale is strong, competent, and poweful, not weak or pathetic. But we are not taking positive character traits from another character and projecting them on to Gale.

Gale IS insanely romantic. Gale can be salty, but he is also sweet. Gale might be willing to turn the other cheek on occasion, but he is moral and ethical.

They also implied in their tags that Gale would have no moral qualms with morally and ethically dubious things, such as bombs and dubcon, which is also untrue. Gale is not evil. His alignment has now been confirmed as Neutral Good via the Idle Champions.

Yes, you can manipulate him to stay with you in an evil run, but the keyword is manipulate.

I don't have the time to explore this further at the moment, and I'm not going to call the user out. But bad character takes annoy me.

[entreri]

You really think I’m gonna give up that easy?

[lord-squiggletits]

Y'know I kind of feel like when Megatron killed Tarn and said 'I want you to spend your final moments thinking of this: that everything you've done has been for nothing' he was kind of self-projecting onto Tarn? Mainly because at Megatron's statue, M and T had a conversation where Tarn explicitly asked if all the Decepticons in service to Megatron died for nothing, if HE did everything he did for nothing. (And I think M even gave an answer along the lines of 'idk I think we basically did'). And then after Megatron killed the DJD and Rodimus teleported in to rescue him, there was that silent moment where Megatron just stared at Rodimus not moving at all before he finally took his hand at the last moment.

It honestly feels to me like for a while, Megatron fully intended to murder-suicide himself. Murder the DJD, his monsters and his creation, and then take himself out alongside them, because he is also a monster. Because he also feels that everything he's ever done has been for nothing.

Goddamn it's no wonder I liked that scene so much LMAO, as someone who thinks villain Megatron > Autobot Megatron, literally one of his key traits is that Megatron basically took his pain/trauma/worldview and used it to lash out at the universe and try to subjugate it to his vision. So the fact that he took his own pain and brutally murdered the DJD while telling them the very same thing that puts him through so much agony is so very deliciously ironic. And a return, however brief, to the Megatron characterization that I know and love.

[kaeyapilled]

i am still not over the fact arlecchino is referred to as "father" by the house of the hearth kids btw. the gender of it all

[qcomicsy]

Going insane about how silly comics for young men from the sixties are on point on criticizing biased journalism. Stan Lee, Stan Lee I wanna sit down and have a chat with him. It's such a good critique. Such a good critique.

[lifesver]

sorry this is sort of out of pocket but in the no-escaping verses or his final boy verses i love to make leland living dead boy imagery, missing poster boy, buried alive under the floorboards boy. boy you last saw on the end of a dusty road against a pale dusk sky. ghost of a boy who did his best to be good and kind and wanders those basement cells and through the sunflowers looking for his friends, still. forgetting he's just reliving a cycle. never able to step off the property no matter how hard he tries. not able to do so much as rustle the curtains or make a sound. no one knows he's there.

[incesthemes]

ok but i'm so confused about 12.07. what do they even think lucifer is gonna do. he wants a crowd of devoted followers so he gathers them to a rock show to presumably convert them to his satanic religion or whatever. and... i'm not seeing the urgency and dread that the episode is treating this event with. "we have to save the concert-goers" from what? being turned into satanists??? isn't that lucifer's explicit stated goal here??? he's not gonna KILL his converts because then he wouldn't have anyone to worship him. hello that's the whole point of getting new fans to come to the show

"yeah but they don't know lucifer's intentions" but the SHOW ITSELF is treating this concert like some kinda big dangerous thing. this is so messy and there's absolutely no stakes to justify the tonal urgency it's pushing. so i'm just staring at the screen like what are you guys doing

[stackslip]

top five great moments from the codyroman vs solojacob match last night in no particular order:

solo and jacob having to stand and fume in the ring for five minutes while a marching band plays a pisspoor rendition of cody's theme

jacob (and by extension solo) absolutely beating the shit out of cody who keeps pleadingly looking at roman while roman stares on with mild contempt and then occasionally looks at the crowd with rapturous relief as he is finally embraced by the masses who rejected him for years (also known as the "cody's dying" "this ain't about him xoxo")

cody trying so so hard to flirt with roman the entire match to the point of saluting him before doing an insane table bump and roman just keeps on looking in mild distaste (also i think cody's little dance counts as a courtship ritual)

jimmy running in and roman immediately crumpling and his face going so, so desperate and relieved at having someone who matters* finally embrace him and love him and show their support for him unconditionally

*cody does not matter

post match when jimmy and roman are about to leave cody to still get beaten up by the others and jimmy and roman finally go FINE. OK WE'LL HELP THE WHITE BOY. I GUESS

[sukugojo]

different anon here, i came here wanting to clarify something but i saw that your reply took the words out of my mouth HAHAH it's funny seeing some of us shippers sharing the same braincells and having similar opinions. love this small community but i hope it gets bigger (wake tf up people!!! are 15 consecutive canon suspicious homoerotic chapters not enough for people on the international jjk fandom to finally start shipping them?!)

the something being that i don't sense any malicious hateful intent coming from either gojo or sukuna. this is a rare enemies/rivals trope imo. like their whole theme is about teaching love and trying to maybe come to a mutual understanding despite fate cruelly putting them on the opposite sides, as they are really just different sides of the same coin. and that's one of the many reasons why i love this pairing. it's not easy to find a non-toxic enemies/rivals dynamic portrayal in media so i'm glad that jjk is an exception.

p/s: i'm an extremely introverted person so unfortunately i won't have the social battery to continue this conversation, but thanks for reading my ask! i really want to interact more with my people bc yall are lovely and have great tastes but socializing drains me so much

YES YES ANON, they really don't hate each other at all. one thing i was thinking about is how gojo doesn't seem to think of sukuna as this malicious Evil thing that other sorcerers (rightfully) make him out to be. he... really hasn't been shown to harbor any ill feelings towards sukuna, even after all he's done.

and their fight is playful, they're playing, they're having fun, it's recreation. sure the fate of the world is at stake here, but that's not what it's about for them at all.

there's not hate, not even dislike, it's simply. well to steal canon's words. love. an overwhelming sense of pleasure, of satisfaction, of fulfillment.

and i LOVE that u mention "despite fate cruelly putting them on the opposite sides" bc YEAH YEAH, that's part of the tragedy of them. there's too many factors outside their own personal satisfaction at play.

and i think there is also a bit of a paradox in there. they're looking for someone with whom to share that solitude that comes at the lonely top. but... that's something i don't think to be possible. sure they're equals, that's the thing, but at the same time, their existences clash just by definition. bc there can't be two strongest. there can only be one.

both can't live at the same time. if one lives, the other can't live by definition.

no one understands them bc they're the strongest, but once they find someone who might be able to—and who does—dont they stop being the strongest?

[kyeterna]

I had rewatched durarara a couple of months ago after like never finishing the second season when it first came out (I have always had a really hard time keeping up with ongoing shows) and assigned memes to some characters, here's the result.

[thedreadvampy]

sorry I'm on one now. Narnia is one of my Big Rant triggers.

but like. I would be lying if I said I didn't love Narnia

(everything except the Horse and His Boy, which a) even as a tiny kid made me uncomfortable with how fucking racist it is (literally there is ONE. ONE. character of colour who isn't evil, selfish, greedy and violent. even when you're 5 and white and don't really understand racism it's like. sorry there are just no nice people in this whole country? and every Narnian is lovely?) and b) is just fucking DULL partly bc of the 2 dimensional racist caricatures populating the world)

but I can't pretend for a second that it isn't specifically built around a Christian theology that's explicitly racist, hierarchical, supremacist, colonialist and The Bits I Like Least Of Anglicanism

and my FAVOURITE books in the series (except the Silver Chair which tbh is WAY less theological and way more mythology-nerd) are the first and last, which are by far the most explicitly Christian. even more so than TLTWATW.

and I can just about stand by the Magician's Nephew bc it's mostly just a mix of Christian creation myth and CS Lewis's sci fi interests in the esoteric and multiverses and it honestly feels fine. but my all time favourite most iconic Narnia book is The Last Battle and I just. cannot. justify it for a second from a political or philosophical standpoint.

it's got it all bc it's the book where Lewis is like ok hold up let me lay out explicitly what my theology is. and what he thinks it's important to say is:

Almost all Muslims are bad and evil

They worship Satan by doing Bad Evil Deeds to please him

There are a couple of Good Muslims who do good deeds. they need to be brought to the light, understand that the voice calling them to do good deeds is the Christian god, and they too can achieve the kingdom of heaven

Some people will use Christianity as a mask for exploitation and mistreatment. They are bad and their faith is false (ok fine)

...and they're doing that because they're CONSPIRING WITH THE EVIL MUSLIMS TO OPPRESS GOOD CHRISTIANS

...and THAT'S THE ONLY REASON ANYONE WOULD TELL YOU THAT GOD AND ALLAH ARE DIFFERENT NAMES FOR THE SAME GOD. because they're either conning you or because they've been misled and can't really think for themselves.

DID I MENTION. THAT MUSLIMS ARE EVIL AND TRYING TO BRING DOWN CHRISTIANS.

and other than the GOD AREN'T MUSLIMS JUST THE WORST of it all, he also goes back over to more fully explain several points he's made throughout the series, such as:

white Christian public school kids are the god ordained leaders of the world and attempts to think otherwise are heretical

god places people where they need to be to serve his purpose

free will is largely an illusion - your only choice is faith or chaos, and as a godly person your actions are preordained

the problem is though. he's kind of a really good character writer? and in The Last Battle he pulls out most of his best classics (hi Reepicheep! hi Frank! hi Jill!) and gives us a whole wealth of really fun new characters (Tirian and Jewel, Emeth, Puzzle, Shift, Griffle and Ginger are all just SO FUN) and it's such a solid adventure. for me it's hands down the most FUN Narnia to read and an effective and affecting end to the series.

but like. god its unjustifiably fucked philosophy is baked into every single character and event. it's so hard to ignore. it's my favourite book in the series. it's the book that makes me angriest. it's everything right with Narnia and everything wrong with Narnia. I like it cause it asks me to engage critically with Lewis' philosophy and I hate it cause it requires me to engage critically with Lewis' philosophy.

in conclusion, Narnia is a land of contrasts. also occasionally brownface.

[oaksapling]

[twistwhisker]

i think y'all's main problem is that you expect good, consistent writing from fucking warrior cats. like why are you doing that you're making things worse for yourselves.

[septembersghost]

friends, as i said and tried to be clear, there are topics i don't feel comfortable publicly addressing, and i really don't like doing condemnations/whataboutisms with people's mistakes, as if one can win a "more moral" challenge, but if it's old hollywood related, just assume i already know. then assume almost anything you've read in passing is way more complicated than whatever clickbait is on the internet.

anyway, far less complicated, natalie wood's mother was a monster

[trollbreak]

Dying of sensory issues (chilly but the air is too still and any time I turn on a fan it makes something move and I hate the sound and also it makes me either too hot or too cold depending on the setting) BUT!! Um. Thinking about homoerotic consumption soso much so it’s fine

[coles-scythe]

Not asleep yet, I was playing DQXI earlier to work on getting all the extra outfits and now my brain is filled with thoughts of Erik. Also how dirty they did him (and everyone but the Luminary) in Act 3.

EDIT: I realized I went on a very long rant in the tags. Spoilers for the game and it's post-game content in the tags.