#no spoilers or youre getting blocked

[bookwormcosplays]

Apparently, I watched phase one of marvel so now we're onto phase two. Let's go!

Iron Man 3: Oh Stark is a jerk. We already knew this, but like that really is a low blow to go out of your way to tell someone you're going to do something then not do it. Not from personal experience of course... *sighs* I enjoyed this. I really did. Way better than the first movie, but I think I like it a smidge better than the sequel. I prefer the sequel'a villain though because it felt more valid. But also if someone left me on the roof, I would want to fight them too. I don't like the arc reactor being taken away. I know this universe continues and I felt like the arc reactor protected him against Loki. I don't know. Also the kid, I really liked him. When kids are in movies, I tense up because it'll either be done really well or really bad. In this case, the boy acted his little heart out. Onto the next movie!

Thor The Dark World: BORING. SNOOZEFEST. I really tried here guys. I watched the movie. Sure the realms lore and the antagonists are interesting I guess, but Thor and his story is just boring. If Taika "ruined the Thor franchise" with the newest Thor film, it has to be the worst movie ever written. This one and the first are the only ones I've actively disliked so far.

Captain America Winter Soldier: Okay we should be back in the good world. Maybe I'll understand the bucky x steve ship with this one. I have higher hope for this because generally after a boring one Marvel gives you a good movie. This is where the "you know me" "no I don't" meme comes from??? I liked this one a lot. This is better than all the Iron Man movies and Avengers. This is really good. I didn't expect much since I wasn't really a fan of the first film, but this had me immersed from beginning to end. I expected Captain America to be reunited with his old friend Bucky so it was interesting that didn't happen. I'm excited about the twins! I'm thinking... It's someone that has become popular in these last couple of years. But don't tell me!

Guardians of the Galaxy: Yeah I'm not wasting my time on this one

Avengers Age of Ultron: I just really HATE that they feel the need to make a romance film out of everything. I want superheroes. Not everyone needs to be in a relationship. Give it a break. But I'm enjoying the philosophical questions this movie is breaking. Also at first, I felt like the characters were flat now I'm starting to see their dimensions. The twins were interesting characters and the stark weapons showed up again. This is what I talk about when people apologize for their actions. Yes you can genuinely feel sorry, but your actions still affected people in real life at the end of the day. You can't blame anyone for the grudges they hold or the lack of forgiveness when they were negatively affected by you. I liked the antagonist in this one and also his death was pretty cool (some of the villains deaths were kinda corny ngl). Not my favorite of the avengers movie mostly because of the whole relationship thing that took up too much of the movie in my opinion especially when I didn't care. Also the "fine I'll do it myself" meme!

Ant Man: Skipping this one too for now

[tawnysoup]

CW DEATH, DEAD BODY, STRANGULATION, BLOOD, IMPLIED SELF-HARM (in case my tags aren't enough!!!! stay safe)

(Above you, you hear Loop trying to take a breath.)

[pepperf]

I'm a little puzzled by a few takes I've seen along the lines of, Lila was such a great wife and mother and Diego took her for granted! Because I don't think the show gave us that at all, and I think it relied heavily and lazily on societal norms to get the audience to make that leap. It also ignored previous characterisation, which is why I plan to disregard the season as a whole - because if the characters had been like this from the start, I wouldn't have fallen in love with them.

So, what I mean is: the whole time we see her as a parent, Lila is basically phoning it in. She seems to view her kids as one monolithic, sticky entity sent purely to ruin her day (distinct shades of the Handler there). They're just a list of chores - diapers, dentist, ballet, cake, piñata... And I'm not underestimating how much parenting really is a list of chores to be done - but that's all we see, no love, no fun. She's eager to get away from them, and she's only - finally - desperate to be with them when it's convenient for the plot, at which point we're supposed to buy the idea that her kids are her sole focus (not the relationship that they spent the past two seasons building up). And even then, the focus is not on the reunion with the kids, it's on all the awkwardness of the surprise love triangle. Hell, one of the kids doesn't even get a name.

Their intent might have been to have Lila be the better parent, but like much of this season, it's all tell and no show. We're working off a couple of brief conversations from the points of view of two frustrated, tired, biased individuals who are already at odds with one another, plus the evidence of what they actually do. They show that they’re not communicating well, but they don’t show how that happened, how long this has been growing, if one of them really is more at fault. All we know is that he complains a lot, and she’s sneaking out at night to play secret agent. They tell us that she loves her children (eventually, after seven years apart), but they show her being annoyed and/or bored in every normal, non-apocalyptic interaction. They have her (and Five) tell us that Diego is a bad husband, but they show Lila sniping at his weight, his way of running a birthday party, rolling her eyes at his efforts to impress her and regain her attention - and they show him dadding at everyone (he will turn this van around, so help him), the comfortable love and affection between him and his kids, the Punjabi he learned to speak fluently to his in-laws, him looking for ways to fix his marriage...

Take the bracelet thing, for example. "You hate bracelets," says Diego. "I gave you one for Valentines and you traded it for a Dyson vacuum." I think what we're supposed to take from that is a) Lila stopped wearing the wooden bracelet (uh oh, signs the honeymoon period has worn off!), b) Diego gives thoughtless, stereotypical gifts, and c) he doesn't understand what she really wants.

But an alternative reading is this: a) Lila stopped wearing the wooden bracelet (could not be a clearer or more loaded 'fuck you' to Diego), b) Diego tried to find another way to win her affection (on his pay as a delivery driver, with a wife and three kids to support, he managed to buy a bracelet that was expensive enough to trade for a Dyson?), and c) she rejected that gift as well, without any deeper explanation than 'I hate bracelets'. She's shut down all communication between them and is not telling him what's wrong. She has shut him out so comprehensively that she's got a whole undercover life - for which she apparently has the time and energy! - and yet we're supposed to think that oh it's all on Diego. Why? Lila is not a shy and retiring flower, and she and Diego have been shown before to have some very sincere heart-to-hearts about their relationship. Something changed, okay, fine - but why would we assume it was Diego that caused that?

I think our expectations about What Women Are Like are doing a LOT of the heavy lifting in how the show wants Lila to be perceived. She's a woman, and therefore she's automatically a good wife and mother - that she's emotionally intelligent, the organiser, she'll love her children and would do anything for them, she'll tried the hardest to make her marriage work, just...because boobies, I guess. This is not how you write good parents, or good female characters, TUA! A truly astonishing amount of people actually ARE women, and they know that it doesn't automatically confer any kind of maternal or wifely abilities! These things have to be worked on!

(In real life, women are often socialised to be better at these things, this is sadly true. But an awful lot of us do not have an innate talent for it, and there's no shame in that. And, more relevantly to this post, this is not real life, and Lila is not your average person. She's not normal, and I love that about her. She was raised to be a weapon. Do we really think the Handler installed the 'homemaker' module? Lila herself said that she was scared that she wouldn't know how to be a mother, because she had no good example to base it on.)

I also think the show assumes that, when you get married and have kids, you're automatically granted a house in the suburbs, a bunch of in-laws, and enough money from just the husband's job to get by. And I think that is an incredibly privileged and blinkered assumption. Frankly, unless her parents are financing them, they should be struggling a lot more. None of that is explained, and for me it was a real gap, because these are the arguments that Lila and Diego should be having. Lila caring for the kids versus getting a job. Living with family versus striking out on their own. Diego sticking at a job that makes him miserable and difficult to live with, or taking the huge financial risk of trying to find something better. These are the real life issues they should be facing.

Listen, I think the characterisation of Lila as a parent and spouse in this season is horseshit. I think she would be so much better than they showed - of course she's going to have some low times, she's going to struggle with her own upbringing, but I think she would try her damndest to get it right, and I don't think she'd be defeated so easily. But if we're dealing with what canon actually shows us, she's, uh, kind of mediocre as a mother, and really not that great as a partner.

And yes, I'm sure Diego is no angel, either, he's obviously wrapped up in his problems, and he's probably not much fun to be around when he's fixating on, uh, *checks notes* wanting a more fulfilling job (the fiend). But honestly, he's not that far removed from the Diego we've seen all along, the one she fell in love with. It takes one conversation for him to realise how incredibly fortunate he is, and to convince him to try to work harder on his relationship and stop focusing on the unobtainable. The idea that he's the only one who is failing at this whole gig - the chief culprit in the failure of their marriage, the only one who needs to make an effort to fix things - is bizarre. And it's pretty obvious why they've done it: to justify her thing with Five later and make it all seem more palatable. But there's no real substance behind it.

tl;dr: this season was badly-written, takes some incredibly antiquated attitudes towards the role of women that are inconsistent with the characters they themselves established, and some incredibly classist attitudes towards manual labour, and just hopes that you'll either take it at face value or read the fuck into it, to better sell you a shitty romance that added nothing to the plot.

[a2zillustration]

Raphael is the perfect character 10/10 no notes

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[orphiclovers]

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[darkshrimpemotions]

People saying WWDITS's ending is as bad as or worse than SPN are baffling to me. Have you ever understood a single thing you've watched, ever? WWDITS was the polar opposite of SPN in multiple ways. It's the anti queerbait.

It's "write your own endings" as a loving sendoff by everyone involved in making the show, rather than a desperate plea from one actor trying to soften a blow he knows is coming.

It's delivering exactly what was promised rather than dangling something they would never deliver.

It's everyone involved being on the same page from day 1 about the inherent queerness of the narrative and characters and reveling in it, rather than trying to shove it under the rug constantly.

It was so kind. It was so loving. It was laughing with us, not at us. It was "thank you for staying with us all this time, let us gently hold your hand through the grieving process of saying goodbye" rather than "haha sucker, you're an idiot for sticking around all this time, nothing matters, get fucked."

But also. If you're so brainrotted that you genuinely think a double bury your gays ending is preferable to an open-ended "and they stayed together and kept enjoying their own special brand of unhinged devotion and intimacy," I don't know what to tell you. Get well soon?

[yardsards]

the thing about labru vs kabumisu is that both of them have the same core appeal to me, specifically from kabru's side of things: kabru being someone who is constantly agonizing about social rules and putting on the right mask, and meeting this Weird Fucking Guy who does not (cannot) care about all those things, and so kabru slowly allows himself to be more genuine. they're both such good relationships (whether you view them romantically or platonically), why must there be so much hostility between enjoyers of these ships?

[rin-hanarin]

Get blocked, bitch.

[stardustedknuckles]

Okay but I need to know what the people who have only watched c3 think about Beau and Caleb because I've been rotating them in my head for three years too long to be objective anymore but like. Getting to see them through the eyes of a new party just reminded me that even though so much of our delight in C2 was focused around the constant indignity of the Nein, they are objectively a flickering metronome between "how the fuck are these people alive" and "this is the most hyper competent group of mercenaries I've ever seen" and I just. Do they know. Do they know that Beau is so fucking cool. Are there people who learned these two npcs have a whole campaign and want to learn more about them. I look at these two and see a montage of tiefling dicks and red eyes and promising to kill the other if something goes wrong. I see Caleb smearing mud and bat shit on Beau's face and Beau just resigned even as she makes the most aggrieved and annoyed sounds, Beau hauling Caleb's dissociated ass over her own skinny shoulder and walking him to safety. I look at them and see 500 hours and more of the empire siblings. The weeks and months they spent going from hating the parts of themselves they saw in each other to loving in the other what they still struggled with in themselves. I see chosen siblings, best friends. What do other people see?

[melljam]

this feels … vaguely homoerotic

[zeddylux]

Die mad about it?

[suddencosmology]

A lorepost constructed while fighting Shadow of the Erdtree's Final Boss

I have thoughts. This started when I was born, but these particular thoughts began during my first playthrough of Elden Ring as a set of notes to keep track of events. With Shadow of the Erdtree (and me smashing my head against a brick wall), this section on the Shattering War expanded.

Repeatedly dying to the wrath of heaven gives you time to think, and now that I own the gate of calcified bodies, I must share them.

Fact

Quote

Conjecture

(Sword Monument, Altus)

The First Defense of Leyndell

A sovereign alliance rots from within

Traces yet remain of bloody conspiracy

(Direct translation) The battle of the First Defense of Leyndell

A sovereign alliance, from within collapses,

becoming a defeated army

A blood plot, these are the traces

Sword Monument refers to both Blood and Rot, suggesting involvement of Malenia and Mogh.  Who is in the alliance?  Translation suggests the attackers.

There's nothing I've found to shed more light on this idea, and so I have no extrapolation.

(Sword Monument, Altus)

The Second Defense of Leyndell

The Fell Omen stacks high the corpses of heroes

Yet the Erdtree remains unshaken

(Direct translation) The battle of Leyndell's Second Defense

The shunned ogre,

piles the champions' corpses 

The Golden Tree is unshaken

Margit the Fell appears on the battlefield.

Omen can be found in open Altus.  Given the location of the Shunning Grounds, they most likely originated there.  But did they escape, or did they follow Margit?  One group is found at a campsite not far from the Leyndell war camp.  More, alongside Misbegotten, are found at the Minor Erdtree within the outer wall, engaged in prayer.  A third group wanders the hill of abandoned treasure carriages, but near that is the Perfumer's Ruins, where lives an Omenkiller.  One must be present due to the other, but who?

Promotional art shows Radahn attacked by the Fell Omen.  Opening cutscene shows army w/ Trolls attacking Leyndell.  Beyond pulling carts,Trolls are found primarily in Limgrave, but one guards the gate of Redmane Castle, and another overlooks Sellia's gate, both in Caelid.  

Unlikely to be Carian: Carian Trolls wear helmets and tabards.

Alliance between Godrick and Radahn?

(Sword Monument, Liurnia)

This marks Malenia's southward march

The Blade of Miquella and her Cleanrot Knights

Grant her wings never to be clipped

(Direct Translation) Malenia's southward march monument

Miquella's Blade, the Noble Rot knights

The wings that are never hindered

Why did the march start here?  Leyndell and the Haligtree are both north.  Or does it mean that here her march turned south?  Were she chasing Radahn out of Altus, her first stop would've been the land of his birth.  Once certain he had not retreated there and/or recieved no aid, her path would have gone South.

(Sword Monument, Limgrave)

Godrick the Golden, humiliated

Having tasted defeat by the Blade of Miquella

Now on his knees, begging for mercy

(Direct Translation) Golden Godrick, a humiliating battle

To Miquella's Blade, a total defeat

Grovelling, begging for forgiveness

Either Malenia defeated Godrick here, or if he and Radahn sieged Leyndell, then perhaps he groveled rather than face Malenia again.

(Sword Monument, Caelid)

The Battle of Aeonia

Radahn and Malenia locked in stalemate

Then, the scarlet rot blooms

(Direct translation) Aeonia Battle

Radahn, Malenia come to a draw

The Scarlet Rot flower blooms to full glory

Here occurs the fated battle that ended the Shattering.  Malenia blooms in a bid to destroy Radahn, and whispers in his ear the following:

(Young Lion's Helm)

"Miquella awaits thee, O promised consort."

In the aftermath, Miquella heals Redmane Freya of the Scarlet Rot.

(Cleanrot Knight Finlay Spirit Ashes)

Finlay was one of the few survivors of the Battle of Aeonia, who in an unimaginable act of heroism carried the slumbering demigod Malenia all the way back to the Haligtree. She managed the feat alone, fending off all manner of foes along the way.

Malenia is "slumbering" after Aeonia.  With the presence of Miquella in Caelid, it suggests Miquella was responsible for halting the bloom of the Rot Goddess, Saint Trina sending Malenia into a deep, long slumber.  Perhaps an eternal one, until Millicent and her sisters arrive, each carrying a part of Malenia cast aside in Aeonia.  

And as each of them blooms, the Goddess begins to stir, and the Tarnished is but the unlucky fool forced to slay her.

Above is but connecting dots, but there are still questions unanswered.

Morgott calls all the demigods traitors.  Did he know of Ranni's part in the Night of Black Knives?  Or was her and Caria's inaction during the Shattering treachery enough?

If we follow the Radahn-Godrick alliance, those two are on the list for certain.

Rykard's rebellion was open and clear-cut.

Why the twins, though?  Betrayal, or like Ranni, was their disappearance/retreat to the Haligtree after Aeonia the cause?

For Radahn, why did he and Malenia clash? 

His lore paints him as glory-hunter, raised on tales of his father and Lord Godfrey proving their might in the field of battle.  A naive prince born in an era of peace, hungering for a war to prove his mettle.

He clearly sought to be Elden Lord, but perhaps not with Miquella as his God.  Or perhaps the war was a sort of elaborate courting ritual, demanding he face the full strength of Miquella's ideals and followers.  Or crueler, the promise was meant to be an impossible request, one to goad Malenia into combat and prove to all the Red Lion deserved the title of Strongest.

Whatever the case, it seems Malenia warred as a way to force him into compliance, and when he would not yield, she Bloomed.  

This either suggests she knew of the Secret Rite scroll we find in the DLC, and that perhaps the entire war was an extension of Miquella's plan, or perhaps just a final barb, given to a man worthy of no honor or glory.

The Unalloyed's presence in Caelid would be his compassion, or his moral calculus (such that could convince him puppeting both Radahn and Mogh would be for the Greater Good), could not allow the Scarlet Rot to spread.

The other option is that, again, Radahn broke his promise to Miquella, Malenia's march was in pursuit of vengeance, Miquella arrived too late to stop them from destroying each other, and his ascension was in turn a reaction to losing his promised consort and his sister.  In this charitable perspective, his original plan was the Haligtree, watered with his blood and fully absent of gods, shelter to all.  A throne of unalloyed gold, sadly abandoned when his hopefuly ideals clashed with cold reality.

Either way, we come to Mohg.  Why Mogh?  Again we turn to the moral calculus.  Miquella needed a guardian while he slept, and without his loyal Blade, turned to the next most dangerous demigod.  And also, the more expendable.

Of the others: 

Messmer was already in the Land of Shadow.

Rykard was a heretic and possibly a snake-god at the time.

Morgott had assumed regency of Leyndell.

Ranni was either dead, missing, running Caria, and/or definitely couldn't be trusted with the plan.

Godwyn was a cancerous corpse fused to the Erdtree.

Miquella needed a body for his Lord.  The closer in relation, the better.  And it needed to be someone who wouldn't be missed.

Mohg's Dynasty was small, heretical, slightly obsessed with blood, deeply tied to an Outer God, and possibly already involved in the whole murder and kidnapping thing.

An easy choice.

Either way, little suggests Mohg somehow knew a way to reach the Land of Shadow.  The closest connection is the Formless Mother's foothold with the Bloodfiends.

More likely, Miquella had the power and knowledge to reach it himself, and his ascension was delayed until both Mohg and Radahn were properly dead.

A lord's soul delivered, and a body to host it.

And so the enchanted followers and a lone Tarnished followed him into that hidden realm.

Of the two interpretations, I ask both myself and the reader, this: which is the more tragic?

That the good-natured promises of salvation are built on lies, deceit, and manipulation.

Or that the dreams of someone good and kind and loving have corroded into cruelty.

[athena5898]

Given the nature of my blog at this point, i tend to shy away from posting about media stuff. Buuuuut I think there are a lot of younger people experience this slightly "political" dude bro phenomenon so I kind of want to walk them through it. So Dawntrail the most recent ff14 expansion. Is actually pretty good. Now if you listen to some aspect of the community you are going to get some other........."perspectives" on that. Dawntrail is flawed, of course it is. This is the expansion that would have been in development during mid to post 2020 AND it's the expansion that needed to come around after Enwalker to build up the new story. Endwalker that spent YEARS building up to a climatic finish. What does this have to do with the first paragraph? Well, I'll tell you.

Dawntrail focuses on the story of a coming of age of a nontraditionally feminine woman lead Wuk Lamat (who is voiced by a trans voice actor) and we, the heroes of the world, are now going to help and take a back seat to this person. Who she and the entire expansion is based on Indigenous people from various parts of "America" so you know, they should be front a center and our out-of-town asses *should* take a seat in the back (some of you will read this and immediately go "oh that's why it's getting extra hate") If you do not know and was lucky enough to not be a woman or non cis het white male in the 90s trying to play video games or enjoy nerd culture....All of what I just stated is a big problem. Dude bros as I like to call them, (aka someone who you will always be curious if they were or would be part of Gamer Gate. Also please note a dude bro doesn't have to be a man...trust me on that) hate this kind of shit. They naturally feel threatened when the media's focus is not about them. So what do they do? They take legitimate criticism of something and BLOW IT THE FUCK UP. Suddenly that thing that was kinda annoying, is now just the fucking worst. A story beat drags on a little long? Worst media ever. A character has a minor plot hole? Worst media ever. dialogue a little blah at one point? Worst media ever. etc etc etc These are the same kinda people mind you who will write a 8 page essay how (insert average mid action movie here) is the most amazing masterpiece of a film. (which I don't really care about, but it shows that these people are not exactly the most objective purveyors of media arts as they like to claim to be when it's suddenly about their misogyny and white supremacy) I'm bringing this up cause I'll notice some well meaning people being confused saving things "well...I kinda get *this* part of the criticism but...not this other stuff. Why is it a big deal" or some version of this. They don't actually care that much, they just care that an Indegenous GNC cat woman is getting more screen time then their precious gods gift to Eorza WoL. If they had made this expansion about a white guy or our WoL and it wouldn't of gotten nearly the same level of backlash. People will disagree with me, but I'm sorry this is just a fact. And because this is the reading comprehension website, no it's not bad to dislike Dawntrail. No it isn't bad to think a character is annoying. But the patterns are there and the chances of this JUST being about the real issues is just fucking zero. You dont' spend that much time complaining about ONE character as the focus if it isn't about the bullshit dude bro gamer pride. Honestly given how fucking gay this game is I have no idea how these people play this game without burning up like a vampire touching sunlight ALSO...I'm a ex wow player who played that game for the story (I was 14, give me a break) from BC all the way up to 7.2. So I kinda know what i'm talking about when it comes to toxic dipshit gamer behavior *looks back at that last paragraph* god that's so fucking sad. Oh fun fact, according to Wuk Lamat's voice actor Sena Bryer, all voice acting for the new area in Dawntrail was given to Latino/Indigenous voice actors for every single character. (from this area of course) *edit* lol yeah anyone saying i'm wrong is just a fucking grifter or liar. Found this while looking something else up. You know it's bad when the god damn director has to step in and say "yo you little assholes cut it out" https://www.pcgamesn.com/final-fantasy-xiv-a-realm-reborn/naoki-yoshida-wuk-lamat

[dekusleftsock]

“You should know more than anyone what a soul can do when they take charge of their own fate”—an analysis/accumulation of how Alastor views choice, redemption, and most importantly, Heaven

This quote I feel has gone… surprisingly unnoticed fandom wise. Hell, I haven’t even seen shippers address it. The reason? It destroys any and all ideas that Alastor doesn’t believe in redemption.

Now, why do I say this? We don’t know how Adam got into heaven in the first place, that is true, however we DO HAVE the context of the biblical story of Adam and Eve.

The story never tells us where they go. The Bible never outright says whether they fell because of the ultimate sin of temptation, nor does it say they repented themselves in their living life. However, because in Hazbin we have the context that Adam is both a winner and the leader of the angelic army, PROVES to me that in some way some how, Adam repented for his crime and the ultimate sin.

Adam, the person who literally made the worst sin in all of creation with the biggest impact, is in heaven. Not only that, but he’s the leader of the Angelic army, he has control. He has influence. He has power.

Fundamentally, repenting in the afterlife and in the living life work the same. They both take steps in betterment, and you can and should be forgiven for crimes that were committed. Because betterment isn’t just some selfish choice to make yourself happy, it’s for everyone. When you improve yourself, the people around you tend to be happier. Regardless of how heaven feels about it, or how YOU feel about it, improvement of any kind helps the world go round.

Alastor isn’t stupid, he isn’t naive, he isn’t even power hungry. He’s intelligent, he can put two and two together. If a winner who made the ultimate sin was somehow able to repent, anyone can. And that is dangerous information.

He sings about how he refuses to be altruistic, how he refuses to care. Not because he never BELIEVED in redemption, oh no, he does. He knows it’s possible, everyone can change—cut from the same fabric, a winner can just as much fall as a sinner can rise.

No, the reason Alastor hates this altruistic behavior or genuine care for others, is that it challenges the belief that he is unfeeling, inhuman. That he can rip himself from his very fundamentals.

Alastor is prideful. Aside from the serial killer aspect, it’s probably why he’s in hell in the first place. There’s a reason he parallels Lucifer so much, a reason his narrative foil is vox. Both of these men suffer from their abilities to look past their own power and reach, to the point one of them is the ruler of the pride ring.

And this prideful problem is what keeps him from accepting change—he has to be special, he has to be different, he has to be the performer, he has to be in control. Why wouldn’t a man so obsessed with control over his status and the people around him NOT BELIEVE in redemption? That’s so unbelievably far from that concept. It’s the polar opposite even.

Alastor is actively choosing not to redeem himself. It’s honestly the main flaw in Charlie’s plan to begin with—the average sinner is far more likely to choose redemption because they have been put in a place of genuine suffering; however, overlords are unique in the ways that overindulgence actively empowers them. They are choosing to bad things, not because of happenstance or even trauma. It’s why characters like Valentino are so easily dislikable, even though other characters or other sinners have or are actively doing as bad or worse things than him. (I trust the fandom on here understands that liking a character vs liking their actions are different and that it makes sense for people to genuinely like Valentino 🙏🙏- signed by someone who isn’t necessarily a Val fan just someone who enjoys his interest and what he brings to the table antagonist wise)

Val, Vox, and Vell all choose to do bad things. They are one of the few sinners within hell who HAVE the choice to make others happier/make themself better without Charlie’s involvement, which is why they ARE such good antagonists. It challenges Charlie’s beliefs in whether every sinner can or should be redeemed, and for that reason alone I find them an interesting concept.

Getting back to Alastor specifically, however, he chooses to carry himself as someone who cares most about the entertainment of himself and the general population. He is untouchable, sadistic, unfeeling, uncaring, and most importantly, he is irredeemable. Charlie cannot and should not touch him with a twelve foot stick of empathy if she wishes to keep her dream alive. <- this is how I think he wants himself to be perceived

This was my thought process of him—at least up until the finale—he doesn’t want anyone to know what’s going on underneath that smile; there’s this post that was made on an Alastor ask blog a while ago, I’ll link it here, but I think it speaks to such an important part of Alastor and his character.

"The clothes I wear—to finally loop back to your original question, terribly sorry for the digression!—they serve two purposes. One, they consistently identify me, like a uniform. Two, they keep your damn eyes off everything but my smile."

It’s an amazing monologue and is apart of a very funny fic based off of the ask blog, which I’ll link here, but I think it articulated something about Alastor that, up until the point where I’d read that fic, had felt unexplainable.

Alastor’s smile has never been “forced” upon by anything. And if it is, well I guess I’ll eat my words and complain about how very uncreative it is, but this is his choice and his alone. Just as Alastor is choosing not to redeem himself, he is also choosing to smile, day in and day out, when he’s stressed out of his mind or having a good ol’ meltdown. It’s not that he physically can’t do so, but that a mental key is unable to be pushed into a misshapen lock.

Alastor, is a performer. At heart he’s a radio host. Why would a radio host have to smile? Why, you can hear it in his voice of course! It promotes a feeling. Studies upon studies have been done about how acting like an emotion you WANT to have can bring you closer to that emotion. Like, say, smiling while performing a radio broadcast after staying up all night killing people can help you stay chipper and professional!

And, as Alastor explains, a smile to him is a tool. The first thing you notice about someone at any given moment is their face.

But, I made a specific bit of wording earlier. I said my perspective was that he is someone who wants to be perceived as irredeemable.

But, given how he chose to reveal that aspect of himself with Charlie, I almost feel unsure now.

Obviously Alastor was never an angel. Viv is so obvious about it visually with vaggie and possibly carmilla, that atp I think I could point out anyone who came along and looked vaguely angelic and be right. He wasn’t. Unclipping his wings meant something like, trying to take control back. Everyone perceived this “thing” he’s describing, as a who.

Who has control over Alastor, who has him on a leash, who makes Alastor feel genuine, unable to hide, overwhelming fear. And this could still be a who.

But it could also be a what. Or a place. Or a noun. Unclipping his wings may even mean… going to heaven.

Do I think he wants to do this the fair and just way? No. No he doesn’t. He’s fucking Alastor. Whenever we think about him being empathetic, I will remind us that he is still Alastor who has killed thousands. He should redeem himself, he should want to, he should try, but he’s not doing that. Not yet.

So, to get back to our boy Adam and Alastor’s little monologue to him, it’s clear to me that Alastor believes anyone can take charge. God, angels, demons, Lucifer, they don’t have power. Not really. Because when it comes down to it, your soul and what you do with it is still yours. That’s power. It’s why I used that monologue and explained my perspective on his smile, just as much as he chooses his fate, chooses his words, chooses his smile—having a choice and control over oneself is power.

“What a soul can do when they take charge of their own fate.” Taking charge of one’s fate is what Alastor perceives to be true power. He tries to enact this through his fight with Adam, yet fails spectacularly when he lacks the true nuance to having control over one’s soul—care. Love. Fighting for something or someone else.

Everyone else in this fight wins a major battle in some way—Angel saves one of the egg boys/protects the hotel(I’m including husker in this example), Charlie saves her dad, Vaggie saves Charlie, Sir pentious by all accounts still wins in the end against Adam because he becomes a winner after fighting for Cherri, so on and so forth—the only one fighting for no one or nothing here is Alastor. Funny how, in the one fight in sir pentious’ life where he fights for someone else or something else, he gets his cake and eats it too. He becomes a winner. Adam still dies. He doesn’t win but he does.

Alastor is choosing to not redeem himself, to not care, because he doesn’t have to as an overlord—but if he wants to prove himself, if he wants control, if he wants to take charge of his fate… he has to let himself. He has to choose to care about something outside of himself. Being in denial that your plan may be inherently altruistic and that you only care to the extent that you have to, isn’t fighting for something.

And this is Adam’s problem too! He’s long since stopped fighting for any real purpose than getting hard on beating people who can’t fight back, and this is WHY he loses! He isn’t fighting for anyone! He isn’t even fighting to protect the institution of heaven. This is why someone like Sera is dangerous, she cares about something outside of being an authority over a place. She cares about Emily.

And I have to say, I’m rooting for Alastor. Regardless of how selfish his plan may be, I’m still rooting for him—because for him to do what he wants done, he has to better himself.

I think remembering the context that Hazbin is inherently about choosing to stand back up after being kicked down, is so so important. It’s about choosing to love yourself, choosing to care, choosing to improve. And I love that Viv is making her message about how no one can be better without choosing to do so. You can’t make someone fix themself, you can’t make someone care, you can’t make someone love themself.

And I know this is a thing said often times to put people with mental health issues down, but it does have some merit to it. You can’t get better unless you try. Nothing will make you, that has been and always will be, your choice.

[gojonanami]

ok but biker!geto though??

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Both my parents actually suffer from HORRID emotional dysregulation and are prone to snapping and going into rages. My sister is the same way tbh. I am now realizing this is why they are constantly baffled by the question of whether or not I am mad at them.

I don't have external meltdowns.

I could. I don't let it happen.

I keep my rage on the inside and stay pretty quiet about it. It's just as strong as theirs [physically shaking nose bleed from high blood pressure kind of bad], but like as a kid I saw how terrifying it was to be around [dad breaking dishes, mom putting our lawn chairs into walls] and I just internalized that I wasn't going to wear that anger on the outside.

So my mother genuinely cannot tell if I am just being quiet or if I am silently hearing the dial-up noises of pure rage. This has lead her to both making strong and confident statements like "You are a pacifist who would never hurt a fly U.U" but also acting like I am secretly dangerous maybe... It's because she has never seen me snap.

She knows what her temper is like [throwing chairs through walls], she knows what my father's temper is like [pick up child and toss out door], and she can tell I am being tested, but she doesn't know what happens when I snap or where that breaking point is.

Her -perhaps unhinged- solution to this, my whole life, has been to do things that should obviously enrage me or shut me down completely, like ignoring important boundaries, repeatedly, punishing me for expressing emotions or needs at all, etc... And then to constantly ask me if I am angry with her when I get too quiet [right after near directly telling me to shut up].

It has occurred to me now, they have never once seen me lose my temper, so they literally just can't tell if I am angry at them. My sister is easy, my mother fights and screams with my sister constantly, my mother understands this. My mother doesn't have any grasp of feelings or boundaries that are not screamed at her [apparently, and I fear my sister is the same way]. Her and my sister are close despite constant fucking fighting because they understand each other.

They are trying to get me to engage the same way and it is not working. I realize now that this has been hard for them.

I was so successfully taught to suppress my emotions, by being punished for any outburst, that rage quiet looks the same as any other kind of quiet from the outside. To them anyway.

I did tell her. For the record. I used my words. I did tell her very calmly that my response to rage, in order to avoid doing the things that terrified me as a child, was to simply leave [the autistic urge to GTFO]. When a situation or person causes too much of the dial-up rage noise, I simply extract myself from that situation, up to and including never speaking to a person again. I explained this calmly. I explained it calmly 100 times and I explained that I explain myself calmly as my rage response 1-5 [also pretty much every other negative emotion tbh], and I told her that what came next was me simply opting out and fucking off. I told her this. I couldn't understand why she never took me seriously, or why she never fucking understood.

I couldn't understand what made her like this.

But it's the same problem I have with everyone else multiplied by a factor of 10.

If I am explaining myself calmly, they can't understand that it's actually serious or that I am actually upset. ESPECIALLY because they read me as "female" and women "aren't that rational" so if I am not screaming and crying about something, which I never do, people assume I can't be upset and it isn't serious.

And then after having my boundaries ignored too many times despite having calmly explained how and why it's a problem [shaking inside or not]... I leave. I leave and everyone gets upset like this is unexpected behaviour, even though I told them 50 times that is how I would respond if they kept doing *the thing.*

And for neurotypical people especially, they are expecting there to be a disconnect between what someone says they need or feel and what their actually boundaries and feelings are, and they expect the latter to be demonstrated with emotions. Telling them bluntly you do not function that way somehow never helps?

My mother isn't just looking for normal yelling or a few tears to know I am serious, whether or not I do those either [I don't], she's looking for an explosion to know there's a problem at all.

Fucked if I know how she proceeds through life this way in general or if this is just her expectation of her own kids???

And I couldn't get why my mother couldn't read my emotions and didn't seem to think I have any. It's because she's testing for the rage limit to see where my 'actual' limit is instead of taking my word for it. Never the fuck mind that she could simply *not* test at my boundaries instead of letting me have them. Separate issue.

I couldn't figure out what made her *like this*

She's expecting me to throw a giant meltdown violent tantrum at people when I have 'actually' had enough. Maybe she got away with those being like 5'4" in another time, but I am the size of the average man, I do not get to have giant screaming rages, whether or not people perceive me consciously as a woman, and least of all because a lot of people -at least unconsciously- read me as 'masculine' or at least always "they guy" of the situation compared to all other women and some men [bigger stronger and more rational, more able to just absorb the damage and let it go so the less rational screaming/crying one doesn't have to be dealt with]. Even if it was in me to be willing to terrify people [usually never], there are such limited instances where it wouldn't just blow back on me. Potentially very dangerously.

I am going to be the quiet calm one. You are going to have to let me use my words, bitch.

So she kept ignoring my boundaries until I had to cut her out of my life, and she probably doesn't understand and probably thinks it feels sudden -after 36 long years of bullshit- abrupt and unfair.

But I told her hundreds of times.

I probably should have just screamed at her.