#spiteful analysis

[lion-writer]

I've seen people comment on how Spite is more like a loud dog than a demon, that he's underused, and just generally pretty harmless.

But honestly it makes sense he's like that. What's more spiteful than defying everyone's expectations

Contains spoilers

A demon is described as a spirit whose purpose has been perverted, turning them evil

But it's also been stated that there's less of a difference between the two than most realize, both by Solas and Bellara.

Just as a few more examples

In one of Emmerich's banters with Harding, he mentions that more sophisticated spirits vary in kindness, or “There's the curiosity that leads one over a hill, and the curiosity that kindles a house fire”

Spirits also don’t really have to turn into demons to do harm. Take for example Cole/Compassion in Asunder. He kills a ton of people but he never really stops being a spirit of compassion, it's just that he views killing people as compassion.

In “Regrets of the Dreadwolf”, its implied that Solas was a wisdom spirit who became a pride demon, and while your opinion about him can vary, he’s not particularly demonic"

A spirit’s purpose can shift without them turning into a evil or into a demon, as shown when a spirit of Compassion turns into Eulogy after Docktown’s “In Memoriam” quest

It’s mentioned that before becoming Spite, it was a spirit of determination. Lucanis also states that “Any spirit can become a demon, Zara didn't give them a choice”.  so I think we can safely assume Zara was the one who turned determination into spite

It's also kinda implied that spirits don't always lose their original purpose when they turn into demons, it just usually shifts to a different aspect of it. Wisdom to Pride, Justice to Vengeance, Determination to Spite.

And spite as a concept really is close to determination, I mean how many times do you hear about people who are determined to succeed solely out of spite. 

Who is it that Spite hates most of all? Who is the person Spite wants to Spite the most? Zara

And the thing that Zara wanted most out of Spite is for him to be evil, for him take over Lucanis, to hurt people, ect.

And so when a spirit, created out of the determination to spite a lady who wants it to become evil, is forced into Lucanis’s body, is it really a surprise that it doesn’t go as planned.

I mean Spite can be a jerk, but he mostly just throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way, and the worst thing he does is attacking Illario after he kills Zara, which to be honest is kinda deserved. 

In fact, he usually seeks to help Lucanis, I mean he fucking drags Rook into Lucanis mind palace to act as a therapist. And afterwards there's a conversation between Emmrich and Lucanis where it's brought up that Spite literally thought they were still in the Ossuary, which is why he kept trying to escape through the Eluvian.

Overall I feel that he’s closer to a spirit of living in spite of trauma. Of succeeding despite others saying that you can’t, and being kind even though the world is cruel.

[physical-manifestation-of-spite]

We all love Arthur playing the piano. But I think a lot of people forget why Arthur stopped playing in the first place and why it's so important that he won't easily return to it with the same fondness.

Music was Arthur's passion. It was what he invested in to get past his parents' death, and it was a healthy coping mechanism that blossomed into a well-earned career. He loved it. And his daughter died because of it. He was so absorbed in his passion (and himself) that he forgot about his own daughter and she drowned to death. It's a horrifying, distressing way for a toddler to go. And it was absolutely Arthur's fault.

So his love of music and piano specifically has been tainted by the grief and guilt of his daughter's death. When John asks if Arthur misses playing the piano, he says, "No," without hesitation.

How odd that something you've divulged your career into is not something you miss. But then when you learn how Faroe died and how Arthur ignored her--or "dismissed" her, according to him--it all makes sense. So when I read these snippets/fanfic stories where Arthur plays the piano eagerly, it gives me pause because I know something is missing.

The piano is tied to his daughter's death. That will never go away. In the same way that the music he has written will never leave him, even when he loses all memory, including his own name. The piano is tied to his grief of Faroe. It is tied to his grief of his parents. And his grief is so interwoven with Arthur that he can never escape it. He can only continue on with it as a constant tune in the back of his head, something we hear nearly every episode of Malevolent. Arthur isn't fond of the piano anymore. But the tune he wrote for his daughter, who died because of it, plays in his head every day.

[ifellintothestyx]

Shen Qiao explaining how he was not able to hold onto hatred or grudges was so satisfying for me to read because, for the first time, I could relate to a white lotus character. From my experience, hatred and resentment are exhausting to hold onto. I mean, I would fume for a few hours, but ultimately, I ended up rationalizing the incident and deciding on how to move forward with the conclusion. I'm left with some wariness towards difficult people still because, even though thoughts about them don't regularly occupy my mind, I still know enough about their personalities to avoid them for my own good. It's not an act of kindness or benevolence or mercy or forgiveness—I just barely have the energy to spare to focus on functioning normally and interacting with others, I can't spare any more to stew on grudges.

It's pretty much the same for Shen Qiao. It's not that he's an infinite well of kindness, or the kind that believes in second chances, or someone who brushes aside the wrongs committed on them. He's wary of those who have betrayed him and kind to those who are kind or yet to be evil to him. He's not someone who thinks redemption is for everyone—he killed HJX because he was a danger to the public, and he castrated Mu Tipo because he's a serial rapist, and a noble so he could only stop at castration unfortunately. He will try to prevent injustices when he comes across them, but he has enough awareness to know his limits and to act within them. He is set in his ideals and morals, but also respects that there will be people with different or opposing ones which does not make them less worthy in his eyes. One of his selling points as a character is his compassion and inner strength, but my favorite aspect of his that goes unappreciated a lot is his rationality that does not minimize his empathy.

Yes, he will risk his life to go to an underground desert city for the sake of two hostages, but if you consider the facts, he owes those two a debt for allowing him and Yan Wushi to stay and recover. He indirecrly brought them trouble, so he decided to take responsibility. There's an underlying rationale in his selflessness, but it doesn't take away from his selfless attitude.

It's why characters like Yu Ai and Chen Gong (and maybe even Yan Wushi at the beginning) can't stand him—he looks and acts so unaffected no matter what happens to him. For characters like them, who remember transgressions and hold on too deeply to past hurts, it's infuriating to see someone who appears to let all his hardships slide off him.

[lornaka]

My five cents on Tech’s fate in TBB

It’s been over three weeks since the show ended and I’ve been writing this in my head ever since, mostly to have it summed up in one post for posterity lol. I considered letting it go at this point but I know it’ll drive me crazy if I don’t get it out of my system so might as well.

So here we go, some of my rambly post-finale thoughts on Tech’s death (and a few other issues) under the cut!

Disclaimer: while this post is in critical spirit (because that’s how my brain works), I want to make clear that I have nothing but respect and gratitude towards everyone who’s worked on the show. My criticisms are of the final story as a whole as I interpret it (art is art, everything is subjective, you know the drill), but one never knows what goes into the process of making it behind the scenes, so I’m not holding anything against the creative team. I love this show dearly and am in awe of how good it is at its best, despite certain things I wish they did differently.

To begin, if I had to sum up the biggest problem that TBB writing suffers from, it would be lack of closure, and too many red herrings. Not just for Tech, but many things. Major plot threads as well as little character moments are cultivated or thrown in just to never culminate in anything or to be immediately discarded after serving the plot, some of them incredibly misleading. Some of the top examples:

- Crosshair’s chip. We never get an exploration of how the trauma of his chip activating and being left behind not only affected his motivation and choice to stay with the Empire, but his relationship with his brothers. While it was made fairly obvious, if subtly, that Crosshair became free of the chip’s influence after getting hit by the ion engine on Bracca, the narrative treated this change as if it didn’t matter at that point, while it obviously mattered a lot within the context of Crosshair’s character. Add to that all these little details with him clutching his head in s1 finale, Omega expressing her disappointment in him, and Tech’s comment on how “it is just his nature” (as if it matters!!! See what I mean about the narrative treating Cross’s chip as if it didn’t play the key part in his trajectory? They throw in this line, like we are supposed to take away that it’s simply Crosshair being Crosshair and not like, the results of brainwashing and abandonment), Wrecker blaming Crosshair for not going back to them, all while we as the audience have been shown and told repeatedly how these chips work (and so were the Batch), we ended up with an incredibly confusing situation with lots of mixed signals from the writers. And once Crosshair makes his choice to stay with the Empire in s1 finale, his chip and the confusion it brought to his relationship with his brothers is never brought up again, because the plot simply moves on.

- Cid’s betrayal. After her being a major character for two seasons with a continuous relationship build-up with Omega in particular, she is discarded as soon as her betrayal serves the plot, with all that character development getting thrown out of the window. You can be mad at Cid all you want, but to me it’s incredibly weird and wasteful to end two seasons worth of build up on that note without it having any closure for the characters, especially Omega whose whole theme is trusting people and bringing out the best in them. It’s fine if they decided to make Cid exactly what she appeared on the surface (untrustworthy and self-serving) after playing around with her potentially growing through her fondness of Omega, but then at the very least the betrayal should’ve had an impact on the characters, Omega most of all. Even just one casual line from Omega in s3 about how Cid’s betrayal impacted her emotionally, however minimally, would have solved that problem. And no, CX-2 mentioning how he extracted info on Phee from her off screen absolutely doesn’t count as closure, because I’m talking about emotional closure for the main pov characters as well as the audience. Cid had a presence for two seasons, then as soon as she executed her role as a traitor to further the plot, she was discarded like she was a random extra.

- Emerie’s relationship with Hemlock. We are led to believe that he basically raised her, instilling in her the idea that she had no chance without him and owed her purpose and “safety” to him. You can’t tell me that this didn’t deeply affect her struggle and eventual decision to break away from all that and choose to help the kids, basically betraying Hemlock. I get that the show only had so much screen time and Emerie is a supporting character in season 3 at best, but common, she has more tension with Dr. Scalder than Hemlock while the potential for this rich deep conflict between them is right there.

I can probably list more smaller examples but this is getting long and I don’t want to go on any more tangents, so, finally, the biggest example of lack of closure and tendency of TBB writing to display foreshadowing that leads nowhere:

Tech’s death.

First of all, I’ll die on the hill that it wasn’t denial or delusion that led to such a big portion of the audience to believe that Tech didn’t really die in s2. If we look at the facts:

- there was no body

- it’s the finale of season 2 out of 3, pretty early for one of the main titular characters to get killed off

- the only/last character to allegedly see Tech after his fall is a villainous scientist who is known to experiment on clones specifically

- not a fact but: the whole scene with Hemlock presenting Tech’s goggles to Hunter was incredibly suspicious. In hindsight, I think the whole purpose of it was so that the Batch got Tech’s goggles back in their possession as a memento (and to show how evil Hemlock is to rub it into Hunter’s face like that) but it was executed in a way that read as something much more. It read as if Hemlock was going out of his way to convince us/Hunter of Tech’s death, but with us knowing who Hemlock is, his background in experimenting on clones, everything screams at us to not trust a word he says. Is it really so surprising that so many of the viewers immediately jumped at the conclusion that something more was going on there?

- Hunter’s (lack of) reaction/immediate narrative fall-out. More on that later as I address lack of emotional impact of Tech’s death in s3.

- it’s Star Wars. And there was no body.

So yeah, to me, it is completely justified that so many people read that whole thing as open to speculation at the very least, foreshadowing Tech’s survival at most.

Personally, I was 70% sure Tech was truly dead prior to s3, but not because the text told me so, but because at that point I was used to the show’s writing regularly sending out mixed signals, and a part of me was resigned to Tech’s death becoming another example of the writer’s intent clashing with their accidental empty foreshadowing.

As season 3 aired and the whole CX-2 plot was unfolding alongside continued lack of closure for Tech’s fate, my hope for Tech Lives reveal grew and grew, but in the end my initial doubt was proven right, unfortunately.

Oh, CX-2.. what a mess. You can’t tell me the creators went over all of these scenes, all of these lines, looked at the whole picture and *didn’t* see how it was incredibly easy to interpret CX-2 as potentially being Tech with all these little potential parallels. “Domicile” alone.

If they didn’t want us to entertain the idea that it could be Tech, they could’ve done it differently, but for some reason, they chose to leave that space for speculation. My question is, why?

If they truly wanted us to believe Plan 99 was it, Tech’s Noble End that we were supposed to take as this dramatic super emotional ultimate sacrifice and all that, then why would they not make it clear that CX-2 couldn’t be Tech? Why breed confusion? And breed confusion they did. It’s hard for me to believe they didn’t foresee the “ohh is it Tech?” speculation.

When so many members of the audience immediately and individually jump at a theory or have the same take away from the story they are being told, yet the authors say it wasn’t meant to be taken that way, something went seriously wrong with the writing.

I don’t like to speculate on such things because we will probably never know for certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had at some point considered CX-2 being Tech or at least something more for the whole CX plot thread, but changed and reshuffled things at the last minute for whatever reasons.

Which is fine and understandable. But it brings me to the heart of my biggest issue with how Tech’s fate was handled:

lack of impact and closure.

Let’s disregard all the Tech Lives theories for a moment and focus on what we did get: Tech, one of the main characters, getting killed off at the end of s2 out of 3, for stakes and consequences and NOTHING else. When I say nothing, I mean nothing.

Imagine, for a moment, he survived and stayed with the Batch. Nothing would have changed, in the grand scheme of things. Nothing. We wouldn’t have had a few obligatory “Tech mention, everyone feel sad now” throwaway lines/goggle shots and whatnot, sure, but that’s it.

Tech dying didn’t change the trajectory of the plot in any way, nor did it affect any of the other characters in a way that changed their trajectory. And anything less is simply not enough to justify killing one of your main characters. Stakes and consequences ain’t it.

Consider Mayday, for example: a supporting character, but his death in s2 affected Crosshair in such a way it completely redirected his journey, AND in s3 we got an episode that cemented the impact Mayday had on Crosshair and provided emotional closure for them. That’s a narratively meaningful death.

Tech’s death was not meaningful to the narrative beyond removing him from it. That’s why so many Tech fans insist he deserved better treatment: not only was he not present in one third of the show physically, but he lacked any sort of presence even in death. His absence was never processed or grieved by any of the main characters and so by extension by the audience.

And before anyone starts with the whole ‘they are soldiers/they had no time to grieve/etc’ arguments, it is the responsibility of the writers to provide the space for all of that emotional impact. It they don’t, there is no impact.

A few reactions here and there, moments of missing Tech as a person and a brother, not an asset, anything would have made this whole thing easier to accept.

The lines that we did get, from Omega mentioning the stuff Tech taught her to Echo commenting on how decryption would be easier if Tech was with them to “Clone Force 99 died with Tech” from Crosshair - each and every single one of those lines linked to Tech’s functions as part of the squad, his usefulness, but we didn’t get a single line in remembrance of him as a person of his own, no one missed or remembered him for himself or his personal impact on them.

Just one line from Omega about how he taught her about change being a constant part of life or whatever, or Wrecker making a comment on how Tech used to info dump about stuff, anything would have instantly provided that much needed sense of “he was here, he was a person and is still a part of us”. Instead, Tech was killed off to show that messing with the Empire is dangerous and risks are real, I guess, and immediately lost any and all presence within the story.

We never even got to see Crosshair’s or Phee’s reactions to losing him.

Speaking of Crosshair, that’s a whole other example of complete lack of closure: they never closed the loop on the family being reunited again after initially leaving Crosshair behind, and with Tech dead, it’ll forever stay broken.

They could’ve given this a bittersweet yet meaningful spin if they developed the angle of Tech dying on a mission to bring Crosshair home, making a sacrifice so Crosshair had a chance.

Instead, the moment Tech dies, we get Hunter (and through him, the narrative) immediately abandon the idea/plot thread of going to rescue Cross all while saying “let’s not waste Tech’s sacrifice”. Sacrifice for what? Clearly Hunter doesn’t see it as a sacrifice for Crosshair’s sake, so, what, to make sure the rest of them makes it from the mission? The mission to save Crosshair. That mission. Right.

I see people talking about Tech’s noble sacrifice that ensured his family got to live and eventually have their happy ending, but all I can think about is how the creators chose to have him die on a mission that was immediately abandoned and the only take away from that whole sub plot was Tech’s own demise.

And after Crosshair is back with the Batch, his reaction to Tech’s death is never explored at all.

So yes, to me Tech deserved so much better. If you are going to kill off a major character, it must be necessary to be compelling. The way I see it, Tech’s death was not necessary at all because it didn’t change anything. And if it was meant to, the creators failed to communicate that by choosing not to explore the emotional impact of it and not structuring certain story beats in a more precise manner.

To wrap this up, if the way Tech’s death was handled was satisfying for you, that’s valid and I’m glad for you. For me, unfortunately, it’s completely the opposite and will forever remain the biggest and most unfortunate low point in the story.

And while I welcome anyone to share their own perspective if they wish, please don’t take this post as an invitation for debate, since there is no one right or wrong way to interpret or be affected by art.

[kelocitta]

In honor of the @rw-ship-showdown I wanted to write about Artihunter as someone who jokingly slapped them together pre-downpour and still thinks they are actually very compelling. Just not in the super soft love wins kinda way (Although I get why people like that more) And the only way I know how to do that is talking too much so heres a far too long slug essay-

Obviously the slugcats don't offer a ton of characterization but theres not nothing to work with. Their stories, whether by their roles in it or the overarching themes do provide a backbone to work with. Even gameplay itself can provide a bit. (for some more than others) Hunter, to me, is ultimately a story about selflessness. The goal is to revive Moon, which is very much an act of kindness from both Hunter and NSH. But the weight of that action is much more significant for Hunter- Hunter is deeply sick. They're on the clock, and for all their skill in combat none of that will ultimately help them to survive longer than their body can hold out. Moon is a close friend of NSH but that means little Hunter- Hunter really gets next to nothing out of helping them, and ultimately pays quiet a bit spending their limited time alive fighting to deliver that neuron so that someone else can live.

To spend ones limited days on helping another, in a game that very much stresses the unwavering cruelty of the world and nature- is pretty notable. (And you could even say that Hunter being the Hardmode of Rain World adds another layer to this)

And then we have Artificer. A storyline that very much stands out to people as more… villainous (so to speak) than the other slugcats. Artificer's story covers a lot of things. Trauma, violence, revenge, etc. Revenge is a bit of a selfish desire- That need to see someone hurt as they have hurt you. A punishment that ultimately does not fix whatever harm was done- but feels good to see because you were hurt and now those responsible share that pain.

Artificer's actions are founded in that need for revenge, their pups killed for overstepping boundaries they didn't know existed. Is it not fair for them to be angry at that, to punish the scavengers for their violence with their own? Why should the scavengers ever be forgiven when they and their pups were not? And that's how you get that loop- Harm for harm over and over.

The original action has been lost in a spiral of violence for violence. And here stands Artificer- their very spirit scarred. Not just because they sought revenge, but because they never ceased trying to scratch that itch for violence as an answer. Artificer only has two paths for their story- killing the scavenger king (Someone who, really, has little to do with the original 'crime' of the scavengers, but represents an important individual to them- as did the slugpups to Artificer), locking themselves as karma one for good and spending the rest of their life chasing creatures that no longer even fight back in a warped sense of closure- or to dissolve themselves in the acids of the void sea because they're too far gone to find any real peace.

They can't meaningfully recover from that state, not alone, twisting in on themselves. Even if they halt their actions, they've been using violence as a feeble defense against their own pain- violence that no longer has any real direction or basis. Artificer gets no real closure from killing the scavenger king. All they can do is continue the cycle, or try to scrub it away. No real peace in a prison of their own making. So you have a creature, who even with a strict timer on their life- a body that will crumble to disease, spends its last bit of time on saving another. And another who was so caught up in the pain of loss that were eaten alive by their own anger, poisoned their own soul on such a deep level even self-proclaimed gods have no solution for them. What peace can they offer each other? For Hunter, its only a fleeting moment of happiness- of selfish love, before their own body fails them. A bit of indulgence in something for themself. For Artificer, its a single, comforting thread to ground them again, something tangible to protect and care about again. But thats a thread that will ultimately be snapped under the cruel indifference of the world. Hunters timer will tick down regardless of if it takes another with it. Its a tragedy- its doomed to end badly. Whatever good it offers to either of them to find each other will only provide the fleeting comfort of a band-aid that will be ripped away too early. But all that can be worth indulging in anyway, if only for the moment. It doesn't change the ending, but the ending was never going to be happy. Its can so yuri

[hyperions-light]

Hey you know what’s fascinating me rn

That Lucanis is only ever rude to three (3) people in this whole entire game who he isn’t actively trying to kill

1. Davrin (I love him, but let’s be clear, he started it)

2. Illario

3. Spite

Why?

He’s so polite all the time. He’s so sweet and understanding to everyone else no matter what, even when they don’t trust him and threaten to kill him. But not these guys! And I’m not even talking Illario after Lucanis figures out he was the one behind everything, I’m talking about when you just meet him for coffee and stuff.

“Illario doesn’t care about anything but himself.”

Woah dude! What?

“You think I’m not good enough?”

“Are you?”

Um, what?

He says that shit to Illario’s face! And Illario clearly has a mile wide inferiority complex, which he is not helping! But it’s also like… he clearly thinks it’s fine. That’s How You Talk To Illario.

And part of the reason that Lucanis is so mean about it is because he thinks Zara is going to try and kill Illario, and he’s scared. Illario is the only family he thinks he has left. But he’s so inept at expressing his emotions that he can’t say that, so he belittles Illario instead.

And he belittles Spite, too— Spite is different because there’s a lot he doesn’t understand about the world, but he’s not literally a child. But whenever Spite gets upset, or wants something contrary to what Lucanis wants, he says Spite is “throwing a tantrum.”

“Don���t encourage him.”

He says that about both of them, like they’re misbehaving children.

Is it because he feels responsible for them? Is it because he’s scared (of Spite, for Illario)? Is it because of Caterina? Did she treat any display of defiance or uncontrolled emotion with derision? Is it because he doesn’t respect them? Is it because he views them as extensions of himself, in some ways, and that’s how he treats himself?

When he’s mean to Davrin his tone is a lot different; he’s mad at what he perceives to be Davrin’s hypocrisy and self-righteousness. They argue in much more overtly violent terms, and honestly it almost feels defensive; Davrin is so direct about the fact that he sees Lucanis as a monster to destroy (which Lucanis is afraid is true) that it makes him uncomfortable. They get over it eventually, but when it’s going on it’s so weirdly different from the tone Lucanis takes with Spite and Illario.

Anyway

Fascinating man. Love to put him under a microscope sometime

[afterthelambs]

It's morbid how the Kiramman family profits off of essential utilities. It's revealed that Cassandra had their family's private architects build the ventilation system that allows Zaun to breathe. That means it's privately-owned infrastructure, evidenced by the fact that they control it directly (i.e. Cait doesnt need clearance to use it for chemical warfare). Cassandra framed it like a benevolent deed (and i see a lot of the fandom believe this) but they don't pay for it out-of-pocket otherwise they'd go broke. So instead it's a source of revenue for them. Like how public utilities (water, electricity) can be controlled by private companies

S1 was vague about the councilors and why they didn't care about helping the undercity so I'll take any info I can get. Based on this, I think Cassandra's indifference is because she benefits from it being polluted. If the air from industrialization remains poisonous, there will forever be demand for their ventilation system and they can profit off of it forever.

It makes Jinx throwing their polluted air back at them with the same vents used to exploit them even funnier. Anyone that complains would be a massive hypocrite because Piltover has been doing it for decades and no one cared until it negatively impacted them

[misterxsamsa]

It's a bit funny to me how insane Johnny got over Devi. He's just been endlessly moping, monologuing, and stalking her for months. Don't be fooled, they barely knew eachother. This is a woman he went on a single date with. He's seemingly never spoken to her outside of when she was at her job beforehand!

In the way he speaks about her, there's a sense he's idealizing what she represents to him more than appreciating her as a person. She was this beacon in his life, representing the possibility of pure closeness with another, normalcy outside of his insanity.

However, because he never truly got to know her, his memories of Devi aren't burdened with the flaws, complications, and mudanity normal relationships possess.

There's a nasty contrast between how he poeticizes Devi to himself, and the poignant disregard with which he treats her as a person. Yes, there's the obvious attempted murder and stalking thing. What's almost worse is the completely lame apology he gives where he makes Devi's trauma entirely about himself. Then, he's got the nerve to sit there and drink up his "sincerity"...!

It's unsurprising though, considering the way he's talked about relationships previously, even on their date night. He's so detached from others, and fundamentally self-centered. It causes him to perceive people as vessels for happiness, things and sensations to covet for himself, rather than actual individuals with needs and limits. Johnny's a lame little wet napkin, certainly, but I wish people appreciated more how damned cold he can be! If anything, his countenance of meek politeness just makes it all the more pugnant.

It's like Devi herself says. He's nice, he's charismatic, he's good at getting people's guard down with his surface personality. Then, something nasty underneath slips out and leaves you questioning everything.

[blueish-bird]

Chainsaw Man is about self-destruction. It’s about self-destruction as a means of reclaiming your autonomy in an environment where you are consistently denied it. Chainsaw Man is about denial of autonomy. Chainsaw Man is about how, when you are in an environment where you are denied your own autonomy, you learn to view interpersonal relationships as interactions you have no control over unless you find a means of controlling the other members of that relationship — whether that be through methods of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Chainsaw Man is about how denial of autonomy is framed as love. Chainsaw Man is about how love that denies autonomy is violence.

[artbyblastweave]

Thinkin’ about The Siberian

I was sitting on a draft that said something to the effect of “Worm AU where Manton pulls an NBC Hannibal and moonlights as The Siberian on top of being a globally respected parahuman studies researcher. Is this anything.”

Then I thought about this a little more and realized that this might not be far off from what actually happened. There’s a throughline in Manton’s interests, in his trajectory through life, where he’s trying to figure out what you can use powers to get away with doing to people- about identifying constraints and overcoming them. 

He’s the guy who somehow credibly catalogued, and got his name associated with, the fact that powers generally can’t be used to pop people like balloons, and he did so reasonably early in the timeline, in the nineties at the latest. That’s.... an interesting direction to take your research! When people are just coming to terms with the fact that parahumans are real he’s out there taking careful note of whether they can manifest their powers inside people to instantly kill them. How did he test that? What capes did he collaborate with to test that? What did those conversations look like? Did the IRB at a minimum issue any revise-and-resubmits?

And then, of course, he gets picked up by Cauldron (also known as the infinite untraceable victim depot) to work on improving the vials- gaining a sufficiently in-depth understanding of what they are, how they’re made, and what they can do to people that when Cauldron told Legend that Manton had gone rogue and was the one creating C53s, he found this plausible. You’ve got the guy who’d later become the backbone of the Slaughterhouse 9 basically systemically cataloging every conceivable way a power could violate someone’s physiology- first from without, and then, at Cauldron, from within.

Then, when he pulls the trigger and gives himself powers, the resultant ability is essentially a distilled refutation of the Manton Effect- a minion that can obliterate anything, eat anything, delete any material from existence, viscerally dismember people in a unity of conventional and esoteric, power-enabled violence. And he’s insulated from the consequences of his actions on two levels- in terms of Siberian’s invulnerability, but also in the discrepancy between his form and that of his minion. He mixed the vial that gave him that power himself.

Essentially- I don’t think Siberian is something that just happened after a psychological break following a messy divorce. I think Manton basically pre-committed to becoming something like The Siberian, spent most of his career working towards some form of transcendence through superpowers, and the messy divorce was downstream of the cracks starting to show as he got closer and closer to what he’d been chasing.

Now to segue into a complication that’s more directly supported in the text- it’s Worm, it’s always complicated- Master powers spring from loneliness. My theory is that while Manton wanted apotheosis, and while he’d probably been gearing up for a rampage for a while, he genuinely didn’t want to do it alone; he wanted a sidekick. Hence why he bothered pursuing a family in the first place, hence why he fed his daughter a vial, hence why his own projection ended up looking like his daughter after he accidently made her explode or whatever with the bad vial- a monkey’s paw restoration, giving him back a facsimile of the person he wanted to take along for the ride, and making his capacity for violence inseparable from her presence.

This is why he joined up with the Nine rather than remaining a solo act; it’s why he engages in a bad imitation of the Parent/Child relationship with Bonesaw; and it’s why he seeks out Bitch as a candidate. His interest in her candidacy parses to me as genuine- Even moreso than Bonesaw, even moreso than Jack, Bitch has arrived at a no-frills fuck-you-I-do-what-I-want outlook that’s very appealing to Manton. He wants to have a murderer-daughter relationship!

But Rachel got where she is the hard way, by having a life that sucked a lot, by getting near-constantly kicked around! She has a clear reason to be so angry! Even if all my postulations about Manton having a long game are complete bullshit, there are several stages at which Manton had to actively opt in to the same lifestyle and reputation that Bitch was forced to adopt as a basic survival tactic. He didn’t have to start eating people! He’s a tourist! His “freedom” is inseparable from his distance, his disguise. Rachel’s “freedom” is just the freedom of having nothing left to lose.

All of this to say- In an interlude in which Bitch has an extended internal monologue about how people with families have the opportunities to be assholes and monsters to a captive audience, it is absolutely not a coincidence that she’s scouted by a would-be parental figure who proceeds to be an asshole and a monster in front of a captive audience, before trying to buy her affection with a puppy. In rejecting Manton, Rachel dodged an esoterically-packaged but ultimately very familiar bullet.

[hatterladz]

Rare BSD rant but I think Chuuya is kinda metal as fuck actually

Not in the "he has overpowered god powers" or "he's angry and kinda broody" but in the "I got fucking tortured so now I'm just going to walk it off" or "I'm going to kill you with the blade you stabbed me with when the blade is STILL IN ME" like bro WHAT

Chuuya's superpower is the fact he witnesses horrors and pain and other shit and he's just like "Alright that sucked anyway come here fucker I'm going to make you eat shit", bro risks it all with corruption and then afterwards moves the fuck on???? Ya my body just tore itself apart

"Oh but Dazai gets stabbed and" Dazai gets stabbed and whines for an hour then gets up bc he knows it'll get worse otherwise, Chuuya gets stabbed then kills you with your own knife, and I can fucking respect that goddamn go shortass

He got dumbed down to short tsundere twink that likes Dazai which is a TRAGEDY bc Chuuya's scariest fucking trait has NOTHING to do with being in the Port Mafia, or his partnership with Dazai or a government expirement, it's literally his fucking spite

[tyrianluda]

I haven't really fixated on classic heavy or the classic mercs before but now that I have, I politely want all of the fandom to apologize for making the mischaraterizations of them be accepted as canon. Why in the shit is cheavy being homophobic a common joke? Why do 9 out of 10 fics depict him as an abusive rapist? Are you all seriously basing it off “vibes” and that's it? Have you all actually read the fucking comics, because like, you objectively make shit up. and I want detailed answers.

[physical-manifestation-of-spite]

I keep thinking about Arthur's regression at the end of Season 2 and then into Season 3. I keep thinking about how victims of trauma tend to get worse once they escape their traumatic situation. How their body and mind start to crack and shake under the weight of the horrors, now safe enough to escape the survivorship mindset but now forced to endure the fallout.

I keep thinking of how hard Faroe's death hit Arthur. How his guilt and grief were so intense that he wanted to kill himself, so low that he drank himself into a stupor for who knows how many years to just dull the pain. I keep imagining how hard it was to pull himself out of that, to work with Parker and find a new meaning in life, to walk away from his guilt of killing his daughter, and instead to help people.

(I keep thinking of how Arthur finds a vial of alcohol in the Dreamlands. How he sniffs it and recoils in disgust.)

I keep thinking of how long it took for Arthur to build himself back up from his lowest point, to tuck the guilt of Faroe in the deepest corner of his mind just so that he has enough room to breathe, to live, to be a better person. (And yet, Faroe is every facet of his life. It's his first memory in Season One, when he plays Faroe's Song, when he doesn't even remember his own name. It's the last name on his lips when he dies on that boat. It's his only memory when John is torn away from him.) I keep thinking about how Arthur is consciously repressing her every second of every day just so that he can keep going.

And then John pushes, and asks, and asks again. And finally, after almost dying twice with this entity, after surviving time and time again, he thinks he can trust him. He thinks he can share his deepest secret, to pull open the wound he keeps stitching over to protect himself. How he risks feeling the grief he's suppressed for years to trust someone. I keep thinking how John seizes it and, because he is ancient and young and inexperienced, childlike in his tantrums and his fears of responsibility and consequence, he uses it as a weapon the moment he's backed into a corner. I keep thinking of how not only the trust is torn away from Arthur, but how his wound is stretched and torn, and not only does his guilt and grief come back, but it's like a tidal wave that he cannot suppress this time. He's opened that wound and John has pried it wider, and now Arthur can't shut it. He survives in those pits, but she is all he thinks of. He escapes those pits, and ("Goodbye, Faroe.") she is all he thinks of. He slits his throat and she's all he thinks of.

He enters at icy cabin (a small gurgle, a bundle of blankets in his arm, a warm hum rumbling in his chest as he lulls his whole World to sleep) and he thinks of her to keep going.

And then Yellow enters, a blank slate, a John before he was John, and the pain is too fresh. This is the thing that tortured him. This is the thing that starved him. This is the thing who asked who his daughter was, and when he told him, the thing called him a killer. John and Yellow and the King are all the same in that moment, and Arthur's too fucked up and traumatized to separate them tangibly, as much as he insists that he can. His hatred grows and grows, all from himself, until it bleeds into Yellow, and he remakes this entity in his image, in his self-pitying hatred.

So when Yellow finally calls him a monster (and Arthur knows, he's called himself that the moment he saw the water spill from the bathtub onto the tile below), Arthur holds it close to his chest, and becomes it.

[the-great-papyru]

so “kill or be killed.”

it’s a mantra, but it’s more than that. i strongly believe flowey didn’t come up with it himself. not the words, at least. he heard them. and then he searched for a meaning.

that’s why there are so many layers to the phrase. it’s a threat. “kill, or i’ll kill you first.” it’s a promise. “kill, so you can get stronger, so you’re too strong to be hurt.” it’s a warning. “if you don’t kill others, they’ll kill you first.”

and flowey held on to it. and he tried to find a meaning. someone important said those words. there’s meaning in them. there must be.

he started with the third. then he moved to the second. and out loud, he claimed the first.

but he hasn’t just killed.

flowey should be dead. does kill or be killed apply when you’ve already done both?

flowey evaded death. but it couldn’t be a true escape, could it? not unless he kept fighting for a reason to live. and he found that reason in, well, fighting. winning. killing. the boredom would kill him otherwise.

he fights the human. he kills the human. it doesn’t matter.

they’re just like him. they shouldn’t be alive. and yet…

for some reason. they don’t need to kill.

he should be dead.

he failed to kill. in a way that matters.

he’s failed. the cycle is broken. he’s just returning to what should have happened. he should be dead.

maybe he’ll be back. maybe he won’t. either way.

but.

but.

they weren’t killed. he said they’d end up dead. they didn’t. they didn’t need to get strong to survive. they had nothing to prove. they weren’t killed. they weren’t killed. they weren’t killed, while he…

no. they broke the rules. so they must just be like him. kindred spirit.

undead.

[spyres]

op turned off rbs but is this about that dark past fangame that everyone is now lauding as basically pre-canon explorers despite it literally being just a fangame that also happens to be extremely racist with some of its messages

[chaoticreivingu]

Heard some people saying that Drayton and Kieran might represent Zekrom and Reshiram's ideals but I think it's the opposite. Drayton is the reverse arcana version of Reshiram representing dishonesty and Kieran is the reverse arcana version of Zekrom representing obssessive idealism.