#just some salty thoughts

[transhawks]

Idk y'all I'm a whole ass anarchist who thinks political violence is inevitable and in many cases appropriate and I'm still here wondering why people still keep acting like the League are currently standing for something as of 376. This is not a fanfic. Like I wish Tomura read some Gramsci and Bookchin too but no he's fucking possessed by an immortal megalomaniac and none of his friends know how to deal with it or just tell themselves it's not their problem to deal with because they have their own shit going on and most of them are suicidal anyway.

I know this is a very harsh and even hypocritical judgment coming from me who has been "rah rah heroes represent statist violence" but like....Tomura has never had an alternative vision for hero society because all Tomura has been created for is destruction and self-hatred. he played into his sensei's plans perfectly, even his friends who cared about him only ended up enabling AFO's plans. Tomura has essentially lived post-Kamino under the delusion of free will and choice. It was never real guys. The dude tap-danced into AFO's waiting hands.

Like come on, I expect the hero stans to be dumb af about this but the ending has always been that the hero kids save the villains. No ifs or ands or buts, this is a story about what heroism actually is, and the nature of what being saved is. But it's also a hopeful story for young adults and teens and I hate to break it to you, but Horikoshi isn't going to reinvent shounen in SJ. He's not going to buck the formula of a protagonist who can reach out to his antagonists and reform them.

A lot of you are just in this fandom expecting things that would be normal in different genres and while I do think those things would be incredibly interesting, being upset that a young adult comic isn't choosing to explore villains as fully justified revolutionaries just shows a lack of genre awareness. We already have a dystopian government angle. But it doesn't erase that the League has always been about self-destruction rather than self-fulfillment. It doesn't erase that none of the League are functioning people and that none of them were helping each other get out of the pit. Sure, some of them bonded, and gave each other much needed kindness. But kindness isn't help.

Like I don't know if you guys have ever been in friend groups where people are struggling with addictions, but from personal experience? We tend to enable rather bolster healthy practices. If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, idk what to tell you, go make friends with addicts and just traumatized and oppressed people in general. That's what the League is, the superhero fantasy comic equivalent of people who deal with their fucked up lives in very fucked up ways.

Just have some fucking nuance y'all. Sheesh. Haven't you heard that if everyone's already burning, you can't tell when you're being set on fire?

[modmad]

if you ever got the chance to make a TPoH viddy game would it have a fishing minigame

what do you think I am, an idiot? of COURSE it would have a fishing minigame

[bylrndgm]

JULIE AND THE PHANTOMS (2020) // JULIE E OS FANTASMAS (2011) 1.01 - Wake Up // 1.01 - Enfrentando Fantasmas -> Julie meets the Band.

[estrangedandwayward]

Okay but like do you think the flight home after driftmark was fun? Like yeah aemond just lost an eye and they're all in huge trouble but once their up in the air, all three of them on dragon back together for the first time, would that even matter? I bet they were doing tricks and seeing who could fly the fastest, yelling things at eachother and laughing. They're kids, and we know that they all love their dragons, and I just can't imagine they weren't thrilled to finally be able to fly together

[relaxxattack]

anxiously rotating homestuck fandom drama in my head. what WAS the deal with kate… why DID everything fall apart in 2020… why the fuck is everyone so mean to the homestuck team(s) always… IS it provoked ?? or was it a bunch of made up and exaggerated bullshit?

[myokk]

“Class, today we’re going to repot the baby mandrakes because they’re getting a bit too big for their current homes! Aren’t they cute?”

[2hoothoots]

i was having a chuckle to myself last night about Gristol, and how his plans are basically:

Restore Ford Cruller's memory

Find Maligula

???

Profit

but then... of course they are, right? this is Gristol we're talking about. Fatherland Follies drives home again and again that he's still operating on a child's logic, a warped and reductive version of the world that he never bothered to grow out of. both of his memory vaults center on the images of his childhood, this idealized version of the past that he clings to no matter what. and that's still how he remembers Maligula, too - as this saviour figure, who rushes in to help him when he's in trouble.

[ID: Two slides from Gristol's memory vault, Glory to Grulovia! Left: Gristol clings to Maligula's back as she summons waves to sweep away his assailants. Right: Gristol and Maligula waving from a balcony as the people cheer. Gzar Theodore brandishes a dagger in the background.]

like so much else, Maligula represents a return to this idyllic childhood - to the peace and simplicity of his youth, when he was free from worries and responsibilities. in his mind, he doesn't need to make any further plans - once Maligula's back, everything will go back to normal. Maligula will make everything better.

...is what i thought, but then i remembered this line:

[Screenshot source. ID: Gristol, in Truman's body, bows on his hands and knees in front of the newly-awaked Maligula. The caption reads: "Yes, High Priestess! I am here to correct the mistakes made by my father!"]

and that's kind of interesting, right?

to be clear: this happens directly after Maligula sees Helmut-in-Gristol's-body, and recognises him. her line before this is:

"Little Gzesaravich! Have you come to pay for your father's sins?"

my first thought was that Gristol hadn't expected to still be in Truman's body by the time he managed to find Maligula, and this was him trying to placate her and buy some time until he could explain the situation. but watching the cutscene back, that's clearly not what's happening here. Gristol is answering as himself, and his response of throwing himself to his knees before her is, as far as i can tell, genuine.

so what is going on here?

in Fatherland Follies, there's this line in the ride narration that stuck out to me:

"Why didn't the Gzar help Maligula in her time of need? No one knows, but historians agree - it is Gzar Theodore's biggest failure."

other lines mention Gzar Theodore's "mistake", and it's wording Gristol himself echoes in the screencap above. evidently, he believes that his father abandoned Maligula, leaving her to her fate at the hands of the Psychonauts, and it was that mistake that lead to them being driven out of the country - that mistake which he seeks to correct. maybe he even feels like he has a debt to repay to her for his family turning their backs on her all those years ago.

the 'High Priestess' thing, though - that's kinda weird, and threw me for a loop the first time i played the game. it took me until my second playthrough to connect the dots, and remember how the room in the Lady Luctopus - Gristol's room - was full of Delugionist scribblings and symbols.

[Screenshot source. ID: left, the walls of the hidden backroom in Gristol's hotel suite, covered in scrawlings of eyeballs and Maligula's name. Right, the pinboard from the hidden backroom. On its surface are photographs and newspaper clippings connected by pieces of string.]

i mean, look at this stuff! he had a whole conspiracy board and everything!

we learn very little about the Delugionists and their beliefs as a whole during the game, but i think drawing the connection here suggests two important things. one: that Gristol was in deep with this stuff. i don't know how he linked up with them - maybe via old family connections, or just good old-fashioned digging (we know he's skilled at worming his way into peoples' good graces, after all) - but it seems likely that he's begun to internalise their ideas, maybe even warping his own memories of events. and two: the Delugionists themselves are, if you'll pardon the pun, pretty far off the deep end.

like... i understand why PN2 didn't go heavy on the "mass-murderer cult worship" aspect of things, in the end, but man this is such a tantalising glimpse into the wider mythos around Maligula. Gristol is proud and haughty and thinks himself above everyone else; the fact that his first reaction seeing Maligula is to throw himself to the ground at her feet says so much about the way he's come to see her. he's not just trying to bring back Maligula, his childhood bodyguard. he's trying to bring back Maligula, the High Priestess of the deluge, the semi-mythical figure whose supporters believe even death couldn't stop. he doesn't even flinch at the way she confronts him, and maybe it's because he's bought in so completely to this deified figurehead, this idea of Maligula; more a living force of nature than a person. and it all comes back to the same place: an abdication of responsibility, not just to the person who protected him when he was little but to this avatar of floods and destruction. Maligula will make everything better.

i'd write more about my thoughts on the Delugionists but that'd be taking a hard turn into speculation, and this is already kind of long and rambling so i'd better end it here. but what an unexpected and evocative line, right? it's some of the only stuff we have to go off of regarding the Delugionists as a whole, but i think it does such a good job of hinting at the wider story - at teasing another layer to the mythos surrounding Maligula, one whose ripples we see throughout the game but which never quite breaches the surface.

[epickiya722]

I'm gonna be honest, Kusakabe lost like 10 points here with me because of this scene right here.

While I agree that, yes, Sukuna does have some influence to why Yuji is how he is: the capability using techniques and cursed energy.

But that's where it ends. Yuji was able to pick up on things so fast because he applied himself. He did the work. Sukuna ain't do shit to even help Yuji's development. It is still Yuji's body. The body that Sukuna decided wasn't enough strong for him to possess.

Yes, Yuji's muscle memory is why Yuji is able to use Shrine but he, Yuji Itadori, had to use it himself to even get it to work for him.

So what the fuck does Yuji have to thank Sukuna for, even if this said in a sarcastic manner?

Like, last time I checked it wasn't Sukuna who woke Sukuna up. It was Yuji. Last time I checked it wasn't Sukuna who learned Black Flash in moments and now can hit it just on pure instinct. That's Yuji.

Last time I checked, it wasn't Sukuna who taught Yuji how to fight. Yuji was already am expert fighter BEFORE Sukuna even came into the picture.

Yuji is able to use his own version of Shrine AFTER Sukuna left his body. Sukuna used that technique TWICE possessing Yuji. A lot of Yuji's growth actually came AFTER Sukuna left to possess Megumi.

It just feels like Kusakube is giving Sukuna too much credit here to me. Ironic, considering that Sukuna was the one who almost killed him and for that he was like "if the Higher-Ups decide that Yuji should die, then I won't stand in the way of that" like bro... do you got some beef with the kid, too?

Like, no, Yuji does not need to thank Sukuna, the same guy who is adamant with making his life a living hell.

Kusakube just being discouraging here, like quite a lot of adults tend to do with kids. Like he could have brought up but also acknowledge the fact that Yuji does work hard on his own to even use techniques. Yuji is a very ambitious kid. His kindness for others and selfless nature is what truly drives Yuji to be physicly capable to do things.

[many-gay-magpies]

really hate that the most pervasive fan-interpretation of isaac is (or at least used to be) "soft, sad, innocent puppy in love with scott". like in love with scott maybe sure. sad sure. but he's not SOFT or INNOCENT, he's a BITCH and he's MEAN and his automatic reaction to anyone he doesn't like is to try to fistfight and/or murder them. he has his soft moments but they are far overwhelmed by what a petty bitch he is. and to me thats like the peak of his character and why i love him as much as i do but so much of the fandom apparently saw him and threw all that out the window.

[welcomebacktohoimicraf]

re: what-could-have-been with Tilín

Okay so Dapper confirmed earlier today that the egg parents assignments got fucked. Quackity was accidentally doubled-counted so we got Quackity + Luzu and Wilbur + BBH. But bc the second pairing was against the rules they just let BBH and Wilbur be single parents

Obviously the single parent relationships we got out of this are really adorable, but the implications are WILD. it means that the Quackity-Tilin saga could’ve gone so differently if either Wilbur or Luzu had been online on adoption day or even the next few days following it. It was clear from the start that Q wouldnt be able to do daily tasks w Tilin (for both character and meta reasons) and that he desperately needed other ppl to take care of her. Roier and Jaiden did what they could but without a dedicated parent who would be more attentive to Tilin, she was fucked. and by the time Luzu and Wilbur got back Tilin was already dead

Its getting a lot of flack on twitter and I get that some ppl really wanted tntduo to be a happy family but the story made it clear that that wasnt gonna happen. at first Tallulah may have been seen as a potential second chance for Q to be a parent again, but at that point he was still grieving Tilin and was desperately looking for a rebound. Tallulah was a potential second chance to take care of a daughter, but not the daughter he wanted. Today’s stream reinstates this. Quackity still considers his ultimate happiness to be Tilin.

(Wilbur clocked this right away, mind you. Q has shown that he is not capable of the single parent lifestyle and was too emotionally unstable to do so anyway. Wilbur was right not to entrust Tallulah to Q)

Its wild how the moment a storyline isnt straightforward linear everyone-is-happy-together people lose their shits trying to justify why it shouldnt have happened that way. people fail to appreciate the very raw and real complications that qsmp is showing in regards to parenting. Sometimes you mess up. Sometimes you mess up so bad it causes permanent damage. Sometimes you get a second chance, or maybe you dont. I think people dont appreciate this storyline just bc the ship they wanted didnt happen!!

[waywardsalt]

thinking about how wind waker link’s first adventure had him controlling the winds to get around, it being his biggest strength in braving and traversing the seas, and in his next adventure he finds himself on a ship that does not at all require the wind for anything

[cdroloisms]

just wanted to throw it out here cuz i just yap a lot lmao -- i dont want anyone to think that like. my fandom opinions are abt morality and shit. fandom isnt activism, whatever you ship and what you think about the minecraft roleplay has zero bearings abt how you are as a human being, whatever you like in fanwork whether that be coffeeshop AUs or c!sbi hero/villain or darkfic ship AUs and how close it sticks to canon and shit really is up to you.

do i have my personal preferences and will i air them out on my blog? yes . do some things in this fandom admittedly make me roll my eyes or confuse me or squick me out or what have you? lmao, yeah. but at the end of the day im just one person and my opinions on people's fanworks starts and ends at "do whatever the hell you want." how people treat real people is always gonna be infinitely more important than roleplay or fiction opinions

[monstersinthecosmos]

As a fellow Marius lover, I always find it kind of disheartening how most of the content/fandom talk about him (meta, fic, fanart, etc.) revolves around m/m ships (Marius/Armand in particular but I’d even go as far to include Marius/Daniel here) when, in my opinion, Marius is like the one male character in the VC universe whose relationships with women are far more interesting than his relationships with other men (the only other character might be Lestat but even then it’s pretty 50/50). They’re so monumental and so full of complexities and pain and so much love and they define him and inform his character in ways that I think, his relationships with men simply do not. Interesting/hot under the right circumstances? Sure but like ARE YOU GUYS SEEING THIS MAN??? AND HOW HE RELATES TO WOMEN??? It’s one of the best things Anne ever wrote and I can never get enough of it and it makes me sad how little content there is of it and I feel I can never say this out loud because I would never want to make people feel bad about what they ship (truly not my intention here) but ugh SO MUCH potential there for life changing discourse and meta about Marius and the women he’s loved and lost and have shaped who he is and there’s like… nothing.

Tl;dr the reason I’m sending this ask is because I’m a firm believer that you must be the change you want to see in this world and because YOU get it! And every time you post or write about Marius/Pandora (or Marius/Akasha! Or talk about Marius/Bianca) an angel gets its (black) wings. You are seen, you are loved and appreciated tysm <3

OKAY FIRST OF ALL THIS WAS SUCH A DELIGHT TO GET IN MY INBOX, SECOND IM GOING TO BE COMPLETELY HONEST AND ADMIT I FEEL TOO INCOHERENT TO TACKLE THIS TOPIC HAHA. I don’t feel articulate enough to do it justice. And I don’t say that to be obnoxious and self deprecating but like in all honesty idk how to synthesize it neatly but I think you’re sharing some GREAT IDEAS. 

I have to say this in bullet points because I don’t feel equipped to string this into a cohesive post:

Marius was based on Anne’s husband, and Marius/Pandora was based on their marriage!!!!! And I think it explains a lot about why their relationship feels so fuckin POTENT to me, like it’s so genuine!!!!!!! And like knowing that I think it makes sense why she wrote him so HOT lol. Like she’s just writing thirsty stuff about her husband right? LOL

Also like insofar as there’s a lot of genderfluidity in VC there’s also something vaguely misogynist about it at times. And Anne Rice was a mega feminist and her work had so much womens lib in it!!!!! So I don’t think it’s intended as misogyny at all vs. Anne having conversations about gender and maybe her own relationship to gender. I think enough characters have said vaguely misogynist stuff that it makes me think it’s an Anne Problem vs being Watsonian. (This is also a historical/time period issue and we can discuss another time if and when vampires are supposed to break out of that when they transcend humanity and social constructs even when they’re still saying weird sexist shit at their big ages.) But I say that to say all VC characters are a tad sexist, even if perhaps she was writing with the intention of her own male power fantasy/male superiority/penis envy. AND THAT MAKES MARIUS VERY INTERESTING. 

Cause like really the three main ladies in his life (Akasha, Pandora, Bianca) DO define him so much! And we don’t see him pine for Armand the way he did for any of them! Why!!!

Like there’s that aspect of sexism where women can be infantilized by men who don’t think they’re being unkind and it makes me wonder, especially when the author is a boomer, like where is that line between condescension and respect? I don’t have an answer here, this is too big-brained for me LOL but like he is SO devoted to the women in his life and I just wonder like if he sees them as creatures unlike himself, you know? 

This is headcanon territory but I bet he’s such a fucking sub to Pandora lol and it just thrills me that he spent 2000 years begging Akasha for affection and she ignored him the whole damn time wow. And he continued to simp!

AND ALSO LIKE, I think people DO NOT DISCUSS THIS OFTEN ENOUGH, but did we forget that he chose Armand because he needed a Bianca rebound? He was absolutely TORTURED by his love for Bianca and picked Armand because he didn’t want to kill her oh my god. Oh my god!!! HE KEPT HER LETTER IN HIS POCKET OVER HIS HEART OKAY??? HE DIDN’T WANT TO DRAG HER INTO HIS COLD AND FATAL DOMAIN????? Fuck lol

It’s so fucked up that he didn’t go after Armand but spent like actual fucking millennia trying to find Pandora. HE KNEW EXACTLY WHERE ARMAND WAS AND LEFT HIM THERE LOL BUT PANDORA HAUNTED HIM EVERY NIGHT OF HIS LIFE FOR CENTURIES.

After everything he wound up spending like 200 years with Bianca or something and ?????? CORRECT because Bianca was the fledgling he actually wanted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But it’s odd, I know I’ve said this 337589235 times, but Marius like. Has an idea of the person he wants to be and he tries SO HARD to live by logic & reason and he just can’t reconcile with the fact that he has EMOTIONS. And so like part of the person he wants to be like, open/empathetic/wise and he begs his lovers/students/fledglings to CHALLENGE HIM when he’s not actually healed enough to be challenged? And to me there’s something kinda like, extra spicy about it when you’re in Rice World and you’re a lil sexist; how much that burns EXTRA when it’s Pandora or Bianca sticking up to you or AKASHA FUCKIN IGNORING YOU. 

Just really incredible that this person who is like the epitome of a patriarch has such fucked up relationships with all the women in his life. And like he underestimates these women, like the way he tries to manipulate Bianca and she leaves him! PANDORA AND AKASHA ARE UNAVAILABLE TO HIM AND BIANCA FUCKIN LEAVES.

akasSHA JUST IGNROING HIM!! JUST STRAIGHT UP FUCKIN IGNORING HIM FOR 2,000 YEARS!!!! HE'S OBSESSED WITH HER!

Anyway Enkil is ignoring him too but he doesn’t give a shit about that guy tbh lol 

Also the amount of space he gives Eudoxia and Zenobia in his book like there’s more here too but tbh it’s midnight and I can’t start unpacking. I just think like, in 2000 years it’s interesting how Eudoxia wound up having such a lasting impact on his life. 

I did just peek at the Eudoxia part and I’m dying, he goes “Her face was small, oval, and as close to perfection as anything I've ever beheld, even though she bore no resemblance to Pandora who was for me perfection itself.” CERTIFIED WIFE GUY.

What kinda mommy issues are we dealing with here? HIS MOTHER WAS A SLAVE THAT DIED IN CHILDBIRTH AND HE INHERITED HER GENES AND LOOKED LIKE HER AND DIDN’T LOOK LIKE HIS FATHER & BROTHERS? AND HE’S SORT OF AN OUTCAST AS A HUMAN LIKE ? THE STIGMA HERE? AND THEN HE SPENDS 2000 YEARS WORSHIPPING HIS NEW MOTHER??? PERHAPS YOU COULD SAY ENSLAVED TO HER? IDK MAN. 

IS THIS ALSO WHY HE WAS SO OBSESSED WITH LOSING PANDORA?

The irony too, and something I think a lot of people miss, is that he DIDN’T WANT TO MARRY PANDORA LOL. He wanted to be betrothed to a child so that he could FUCK OFF and NOT get married because she wasn’t old enough to get married! He fucked off! He went exploring! He said this is not for me! 

AND TO GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND BE MURDERED BY HIS MOTHERS PEOPLE???? IDK. 

I’m not sure how these last two points tie into anything but I just wanted to mention his complicated relationship with Pandora and his own heritage lol. And then Akasha like DELIVERS Pandora to him because she’s like “wow this guy needs somebody lol and I am not emotionally available” — Akasha who was famously a violent genocidal radfem and who would not approve of his relationship with Armand but explicitly allowed him to have Pandora and Bianca. IDK WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN! 

Did Akasha approve of these women because she knew Marius was completely pussywhipped and would worship them and she wanted to see someone mommydom the fuck out of him and she knew that Armand would never be that person? 🫢

And again I want to say like, taking the author into consideration!! Anne Rice had a HORRIFIC relationship with her mom so you see these themes pop up occasionally in her work. DESPITE ALL OF THAT SHE IS STILL A FEMINIST AND WRITES ABOUT MATRILINEAR FAMILIES like The Great Family or the Mayfairs. But thinking about Mothers in Anne Rice Works makes me think a lot about this like, the damage they can do and the voids they can leave even when you’re a feminist and love women! You see a TON of this with Gabrielle and I always think that Lestat & Marius are such similar characters that you can do a lot of extrapolating or backwards engineering to ask questions about them and how they work, since we get SO MUCH Lestat POV in this series to work with and how we can zoom out sometimes and ask like, what is common across her entire body of work and what is more specifically common between Lestat & Marius and WHAT EVEN MORE INTERESTINGLY is a result that they were both based on her husband in their inceptions. 

Like how much of this has to do with Marius’s actual feelings towards men vs women on purpose, or how much was subconscious author bias, how much was simply that Anne Rice based him on her husband and she was THIRSTY, idk. It’s always hard to say in VC because Anne was such an intuitive and self-indulgent author and the stories are so weird!!! So your mileage may vary!

But I agree with you that these are FASCINATING relationships!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I like Marius/Armand too (I recently made a post about how I didn’t “””””ship”””” them but then I spent 2 months working on a M/A fic every day and now I think I’ve corrupted and converted myself LMAO) but yeah like. There’s such a lack of substance between them in the end. He treats Armand like he’s temporary, fucks up and moves on, and it’s such a departure from how DEVOTED he was with all his other partners. 

Wow I didn’t think I had a lot to say, sorry about that. !!! EVERY TIME I BROUGHT A POINT UP I THOUGHT OF 5 MORE POINTS GOSH I COULD TALK ABOUT MARIUS ALL DAY.

[jamiethebee]

I don't know what to think, but of the League who made it to the second half of the manga, Spinner is the only one who's family backstory/circumstances we never hear of.

Dabi is a Todoroki

Toga's parents rejected her

Twice's died

Compress has his family legacy

Shigaraki is a Shimura

Spinner is ??? Does he have siblings?? Parents? Grandparents? Anyone? No one? An orphan? We get nothing about him specifically, nothing that can't be related (or parallels drawn) with other characters.

And with the weakest quirk of the League, he's left alive? Like he's not even a threat to the heroes as himself? The complete lack of care that he's given in the story is...

[kiwisandpearls]

when I saw the wonderful precure super designs, i thought that they were cute at first…but looking at it closer…idk, their…fine…?

like they’re cute but…idk their just something about them that just doesn’t feel right (also what the hell is that egg-shaped head accessory they’re wearing that just straight up looks ugly give me back their little cute hats pls)