#like come on ppl. these things are Marked

[orcelito]

i remember when i was 19 & moved in with my random choice roommate. we were out walking to grab food together (this being b4 i realized we just Were Not compatible personalities & proceeded to near ignore her for a year lol). & i looked both ways for a one way street & she was like “Lol why would you do that, it’s a one way street.” & i was just like “The person going the wrong way on a one-way street is the one more likely to hit me.” and she was just like “Ummm ok lol”

anyways i pass a one-way street every day going to and from work & the other day i saw someone driving the wrong way down the street in front of me and i just felt slightly vindicated 

[six-of-cringe]

I think that one of the reasons why people misinterpret Wylan's character and arc, among others, is because they misinterpret the relationship between him and Kaz. This post has kind of mitosised off from the BFWP (Big Fucking Wylan Post) I'm writing because it's a bit of a different focus and constitutes its own post.

A lot of people talk about Wylan's character and development as though it's meant to match Kaz's - starting out as a nice kid who the city forces to become amoral, indifferent to violence, and well-versed in crime. These qualities are usually talked about with a weird reverence as an irrefutable symbol of "badassery", as though it's always a positive development for any character regardless of the story's narrative, which annoys me but is not the topic of this post. That's part of the BFWP's job.

Following Kaz's exact development is not the point of Wylan's character. The point is that Kaz and Wylan narrative foils - very similar in many ways, but with a fundamental difference that creates the "broken mirror" effect/shows how they could have turned out if they'd chosen differently. I think that difference is how they respond when they climb out of the harbor after their respective betrayals. Narratively, Ketterdam represents a very harsh system that presents the people struggling there with very few options. You can either choose to ditch decency, play by the Barrel's rules, and live, or you can hold on to decency and die.

When Kaz returns to the streets after Jordie's death, he chooses the first option. He copes with what happened through ideas of revenge, and to survive long enough to see it he quickly turns to thievery and violence. He thinks to himself after he robs a kid for money and food that it was much easier to survive when you've left decency behind. He survived through violence, creating the Dirtyhands persona around himself for protection.

When Wylan has to fend for himself, he choses the second option. He finds "honest work" at the tannery, where they exploit workers and expose them to toxins. He wonders if he'll live long enough to use his savings to leave the city, or if the chemicals would kill him first. He was smart enough to steal and survive, but he chose decency, and with it, he chose death. There are a number of reasons why he chose differently than Kaz despite their similarities - his older age and thus more developed moral code, having no one to avenge but himself when he believed himself worthless, his more privileged upbringing, and his relatively low drive to live. Alone, he would have died.

Then Kaz steps in. Kaz's role in all the crow's lives is that, intentionally or not, his ruthless rule of the Barrel creates a sort of haven that allows them to survive where they would have died had they stayed alone. Wylan is a really clear example of this, and though Kaz's intentions were at least partly self-serving, his involvement both kept Wylan from dying of exposure or street violence as well as prevented him from needing to do the more terrible things that it takes to survive in the Barrel. Throughout the books, we see Kaz kind of taking the brunt of enacting violence in Wylan's place - traumatizing Smeet's daughter, killing the clerk on the lighthouse. Wylan could get by making explosives in the workshop rather than having to shoot or stab or beat the life out of people. And at the end of the series, Kaz sees to it that he never will have to. Of course Wylan did bad stuff to survive when working with the Dregs, it's the Barrel. But the extent is greatly lessened because of Kaz's involvement.

Wylan's arc was never about becoming comfortable with violence, or becoming just like Kaz - the way people characterize him as some sort of ruthless murder mastermind is inaccurate and redundant with Kaz's character. He isn't nonchalant or celebratory about crime or death or violence by the end of the book. He doesn't HAVE to become like Kaz, because Kaz himself gave him the space to continue being decent, intentionally or otherwise. Understanding that dynamic is important to understanding what Wylan is like as a character and as a person. If you assume Wylan's trajectory is to become "Kaz 2.0", then you're going to mischaracterize him. I've seen posts about how Kaz was the Jordie that he didn't have to Wylan, and I think that makes a lot more sense. Because Kaz is willing to do the horrible things in his stead, Wylan has the third option otherwise impossible in the Barrel - maintaining his decency and surviving.

[piplupod]

pretty sure i just got a spider bite while trying to fall asleep 🧍

[joelletwo]

i hear or read literally anything about puppy care and im like why on fucking earth would u ever get a puppy 😭😭 for as much as dogs will always be my #1 you could not PAY me

[dibbs-n-scribbs]

Just watched the fnaf movie and i loved it. Wish there was more of a horror element on screen but the subtle cues of as to what happened were also pretty cool. Anyways im gonna be ranting in the tags cause i dont have the energy to write a well thought-out review xp

[pizzaqueen]

.

[noxtivagus]

i remember again n feel better hehe 🥹🤍

[lucifer-kane]

That post about spoilers is great and like. I don’t actively really seek out spoilers for stuff, it’s more of a “if I see it I just shrug and move on” like I accidentally spoiled myself back in the kfam days for who Jack Wright was.

The only thing I actively tried to avoid spoilers for was the locked tomb bc My friend didn’t want me seeing some things. And like. I went into that series knowing some things or like. VAGUELY knowing things

[vaugarde]

the iris vs cynthia battle in best wishes is one of the best examples of journeys making an episode leagues better in hindsight

[aw-bean-s]

Yknow ppl need to stop comparing homelander to superman. I just don't think it's interesting and it's a disservice to both characters. Homelander is less just 'superman but x' and more 'what if a company skinned superman and made someone else walk around in his skin' it's a company taking that hollowed out image of the superman character but fundamentally missing out on what actually makes a superman. I think people on both sides who both like and dislike homelander & the boys are just being a bit ridiculous and surface level when they try to compare the two on any sort of deeper level. Fundamentally they are different.

[piplupod]

today is absolute garbage but i am going to try to do some painting on my project nonetheless, doing my best to attempt to claw my way out of the suicidality goop

[yanosdiary]

Me not being fazed by a bad mark, not realizing that its a bad thing:

Aben: *looks at my mark, pats back in sympathy*

Me: ???

Also me: fuck, am i that useless?

[perilegs]

if someone has a crush on you how would you react? just as a hypothetical situation ha ha

[amarriageoftrueminds]

*taken out of the tags cuz it got too big

It's useful to bear in mind: A thing is not a true/accurate proof of a character's beliefs just because they're the one who said it, unless their actions demonstrate that thinking/belief as well. (You could call it... word/deed harmony? 🤔). 

Example: Steve saying this ^ and acting in accordance with it, in this and other Cap movies. 

Example of word/deed dissonance: Tony claiming/telling himself he has got out of the arms dealing business... while continuing to design weapons (Iron Man suits) and selling them to America instead (SHIELD) under his own control. 

That is not getting out of arms dealing. That is merely building a new personal arms-dealing monopoly and altering your customer base to US-centric alone. Proving that Tony doesn't truly believe it was wrong; only that it negatively impacting Americans was wrong. Which is contrary to what he says and what he thinks he believes. 

Never mind what X character says / thinks / genuinely thinks he believes / wishes other people to think he believes... 

What do their actions show?

If Ultron hadn't rebelled... who do you think would have been in charge of pulling his strings, alone? The Avengers? the UN? or just Tony? 

If Tony hadn't died, who alone would've been in charge of EDITH (aka Insight 2.0) instead of Spidey? The Avengers? the UN? or just Tony again?

Tony's actions prove that, when he speaks of oversight, he means: controlled by him (an American) alone... and that rules are for everyone else but him. 

Tony says he believes in the Accords... but his actions don’t support that, not before or since.

a) He’s a non-enhanced billionaire who experiences zero consequences for rule breaking, even within this one movie, so even if the Accords did apply to him (which they don’t) they still wouldn’t affect him in the way they do affect everyone else (even within this movie). So all of his advocating for them that claims to include himself is hollow and hypocritical. As demonstrated by the fact that he:

b) acts completely contrary to the Accords ('I'd have to arrest myself'). 

When push comes to shove, Tony doesn’t put his money where his mouth is. 

He puts his money where his mouth isn’t.

While Steve relies on 'the people' (small group) to protect the planet (vindicated by the fact that in his own/most Avengers movies that usually works), Tony thinks it should be just him in charge (which is not vindicated, because that always goes wrong).

And his actions show that he only appreciates human loss if it’s Americans and especially he himself, as an American.

(What is his PTSD about? the people who died in the battle of Manhattan? the other people the Avengers couldn’t save from Loki? No. Him personally going through a wormhole. Whose death does he care about in Sokovia? Pietro's? all the Sokovians he wanted to blow out of the sky? No. One American, and even then only because he personally was confronted about them. He refuses to help undo The Snap... until he remembers that, of all the trillions of children who died, one mattered to him personally... and because he wants to be able to control how the Avengers undo The Snap, so that it doesn't adversely affect (you guessed it!) ...him personally. etc etc.)

Which is why (and this is wild to consider) none of CACW would have happened if Pepper Potts had been around. 

Because Tony does NOT actually, genuinely believe in the Accords. He just thinks signing them will make him look responsible and will ergo fix his relationship problems. 🤷‍♀️

Steve dealing with casualties vs. Tony dealing with casualties

[t4tpumpkinduo]

and another thing. not to be guy who hates ctntduo but it makes insane crazy that fr ppl who take the utah ending as smthing good and not smthing absolutely horrific. they looveeee to imagine that cq just misses this dude sooooo much he loves him sooooo bad he'll cross state lines to fuck him bcs that's all he's good for. ok. like #1 cclingy defender wouldn't hunt him through the woods like an animal.

[mekatrio]

i dont think i care abt dungeon meshi like that (this may be depression talking) but like i got a nagging drive to reread the entire thing w all this new context cuz i love analyzing media so much and like so many of the earlier chapters get so recontextualized with the knowledge of [REDACTED] like owugrhdhgdhdhdhd