#theme: justice

[raayllum]

thinking about Rayla as the swords, Ezran as the blindfold, and Callum as the scales, with him in the middle as the bringer / embodiment of Great Balancer and the other two being counterweights to keep things balanced... fixing what was broken in Xadia so long ago but also ushering in an actual fair system (hence his emphasis on fairness throughout the show)

[thecutestgrotto]

Hi! Would love to request some coffee, dark academia maybe even law/justice (law school) dividers

-🤍

Hi anon! I have a bunch of coffee cups here, but I hope these work for what you’re looking for. 🩵🌸

Academia Law

•Royal Academia (more books linked there too!)•

[evercelle]

but the show must go on

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At your side [End of Season 2]

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[koifoxes]

mv doodles

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[dykedvonte]

I think depictions of Anya being cruel to Curly or drawing out his suffering are artful and chilling but completely miss the point of the story and her character.

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve to have that "I told you so" moment with him but not in something callous or cold. Even if that is how it happened, she'd immediately feel guilty cause at that point she's not tormenting her tormenter or even the person truly at fault. She's doing something cathartic, similar to how Jimmy likely hits Curly to release rage he can't against the rest of the crew. She'd see herself as no different when she'd come back from the moment and see Curly cowering at her. She wants someone to take responsibility but how does being cruel to the defenseless help? Why would she want the power Jimmy has over her over Curly?

The idea of her extending someone else's pain is just so against the struggles she already faces and how she can't even bring herself to cause someone pain even to help them. Her very desire is to release herself from her own suffering and I doubt she'd even fine some sort of guilty release in being cruel to another.

[evelynpr]

The Fontaine main cast are all so thematically, emotionally, and narratively connected to each other that you can ship them in nearly every way and it somehow works.

I'm talking Furina, Neuvillette, Arlecchino, Clorinde, Navia, and Wriothesley here.

Wriolette? The upholders of the order of Fontaine. One on the surface, and one in the depths.

Clorivia? Childhood friendship, betrayal, and now healing with the truth and past resolved.

Neuvifuri? 500 years of closeness and understanding, mixed with distance and regret. Only after her sacrifice are they finally both free.

Arlefuri? Changing their fates through sheer force of will. Protecting the people who need on them, while accepting nothing in return.

Wriolinde? They were going to protect Fontaine together if its the last thing they do. Their trust is unbreakable.

Arlevia? Protecting their loved ones beyond the law. With a system and world that did not care for them, they care for their family their own way.

Knavilette? The seemingly cold and distant with bleeding hearts. They always keep their distance for fear of what would happen in a moment of weakness, especially with their overwhelming power.

Navilette? Personal regret with injustice and loss, now healing with compassion and understanding.

Furinde? The selfless princess and her loyal champion. She has always been by her side, protecting her with her blade, but only now does she get to know the real "Furina"

There are even more I haven't touched on (lemme know if you'd appreciate it ig?). These characters are just so...so interconnected through Fontaine with its themes on justice, order, love, loyalty, and more. They really knocked it out of the park with creating such a beautiful and complex cast of characters.

[renatapatata]

as soon as i added a very vague letterbox review for this film some guy from work texted me and it took me .5 seconds to realize he had no idea what the plot was actually about… certified ‘bruh’ moment lads

[notmoreflippingelves]

Actually going insane over the implications of Jason asking Dick to be the Robin to his Batman in Battle for the Cowl.

Like I initially took it at the purely surface-level of Jason wanting a partner in the general sense. Which made sense, it's a huge responsibility and a lonely one so an assistant/sidekick/partner seems a no-brainer if you can get one.

But then I really thought about it, because Jason is not asking Dick to be his partner in the general sense; he's not even asking Dick to be his Nightwing. He's asking Dick to be his Robin.

And they both know exactly what Jason means: "Be the light to my darkness. Be the smile to my scowl. Be the hope to my fear. "

He's saying "Be 'Robin'; be the embodiment of Love and Justice and Goodness. Be the exceptional person that you have always been. Be the slightly-less exceptional person that I was when I wore your colors. Be the person that I was in the process of becoming and might have been (or might still be), if only Joker hadn't clipped my wings."

He's saying "I am prepared to become vengeance, become the Night. And I will go further than Bruce ever dared to, because it is what is needed. I will be the necessary evil. But you don't have to be. If Batman is Gotham's curse, Robin has always been its blessing. I will be the brutal punishment to our world, and I am asking you to be its incandescent gift."

He's saying, "Be for me, what we were for Him. Be my anchor, my comfort, my hope. Remind me what it's all for, why it's all worth it. And remind yourself as well."

He's saying "Be 'Robin' again--for both of our sakes."

[alaritheaurora]

Ough headcanon that the reason Scott Pearl and Cleo keep teaming up is because it's predictable. Scott has always been friends with Cleo he knows what she's like, knows what to and not to do. Pearl and Cleo are used to eachothers different flavours of hurt and betrayal. Scott and Pearl are expecting things to go wrong. They teamed up because "at least if I'm getting betrayed I'll be expecting it". Impulse is part of the team because he's experienced each of them as well, he knows how Cleo reacts to betrayal. He's been by Pearl's side when she goes crazy. He's experienced Scott's undying loyalty. He's been so dedicated and serious and thought, "Well if I'm going to have fun, might as well commit" This team isn't built on friendship and trust. It's built on "we can get along, we have before, and we can now. And if it goes wrong, so be it" A fourway agreement of "I'll protect so until you stop protecting me" and deep down all of them hope "I hope it can go back to the way it was"

[raayllum]

Quick run down: 4 is the lowest typical score given, 10 the typical highest score given (although you can technically go up to 12). Making my post because I noticed Callum’s Justice ranking was at 6 (lower than I’d expected) and I always meant to do a lil more formal comparison between the trio so here it is I suppose.

Devotion: This is value is about duty, faith, and friendship. You’re motivated by the bonds of loyalty and your love for others.

Truth: This value is about fidelity, certainty, and authenticity. You’re motivated by finding strength in facts and by the principle and pursuit of knowledge

Glory: Have you ever wanted to be celebrated by history? This value is about legacy, fame, and fortune. You’re motivated by praise, acclaim, and your desire to be remembered.

Justice: Have you ever been compelled to fix what’s wrong? This value is about balance, virtue, and reward. You’re motivated by adherence to fairness and what you think is right.

Liberty: Have you ever resisted the control of others? This value is about freedom and autonomy. You’re motivated by a world without oppression or suppression.

Mastery: Have you ever needed to rise above your own limits? This value is about control, achievement, and skill. You’re motivated by power, growth, and progress.

Similarities:

Glory is a 4 for all of them. Utterly unsurprising I think - they’re all willing to do things regardless of recognition and aren’t motivated by any real self importance

Truth is a 6 for all of them. I find it interesting that Callum gets the “hide the truth to protect others” rather than Rayla, but we do see elements of that in TTM. For Ezran, it has less to do with a moral truth (Rayla) or how to handle the truth (Callum) but more to do with maturing to see the truth (“I ignored something that is true” —4x03)

For anything other than their Most Important Feature, everything else has roughly an 8. This makes sense as it is still a core value, i.e. Callum jumping off the mountain is very devotional, Rayla works very hard to find real justice, Ezran cares a great deal about placing autonomy in other people’s hands (S3), etc. 

In Betweens:

Ezran and Rayla both have Mastery at a 6 with Callum having it at an 8; this makes sense as he is driven to look for knowledge and power (through magic) in ways they are not / are mostly settled and/or disinterested in

Ezran and Callum both have Devotion resting at 8 - high, but not their highest values. This makes sense as according to the game, Devotion is how obligated you feel to others. Ezran feels beholden to Katolis but that’s something he’s largely grown into, and he feels a wider responsibility to the world at large, moving in between them as he can. Callum is very devoted to his loved ones (mainly Ez and Rayla, but also Zym in a lot of ways) and his desire for freedom often interplays with a desire to have autonomy/capability to protect and/or provide for them in key ways. 

Rayla and Ezran have Liberty at an 8, showing that they value freedom (Rayla’s bio includes her goal to free all people from terrible fates like the one she almost had with the binding ceremony, we’ve gone over Ez’s, etc) even if it’s not as high as Callum’s - but more on that later

Highest Values

Ezran’s is Justice at 10. This makes sense as he is the series’ embodiment of Justice thematically as well as the series’ Witness. This reflects his role as the peace maker for elves and humans and dragons, both politically and interpersonally with Callum and Rayla in S1 and S4 in particular. It is also embedded into the fact that his death itself would have been Justice and his survival is what allows true justice to actually continue, his decisions as king, and the fact he’s king at all, per Harrow’s words: “My father told me that about all, I must be a Just king.” 

Callum’s is Liberty at 10. This foreshadows his arc in season four in terms of a complete loss of control/freedom and why it screws with him so royally. While many of the characters agonize over making the right choice (or a choice at all), not having a choice at all is what torments him the most: “I can’t do anything!” (2x07) particularly when it comes to protecting or helping his loved ones. We see this especially in his quote under Liberty in which despite being crown prince and heir to the throne, he states that he is beholden to his inner circle rather than a sense of duty. In S4 he is concerned about Aaravos hurting his loved ones, and that fear of doing awful things to other people is what has him so especially worried over the situation, reaffirming his statement that “I value those close to me more than anyone or anything” certainly. 

Rayla is Devotion at 10. At first glance it’s easy to take her “My only allegiance is to my heart and those that know it” as a similar kind of sentiment to Callum’s “I value those close to me” statement, but we know what Rayla’s heart is aligned with: “My heart for Xadia.” Her heart is given to whatever she feels her duty is, to what feels right, hence why she risks everything for Phyrrah, someone she doesn’t know at all, simply because leaving the dragon there results in “every fibre in my body is telling me this is wrong.” Bloodmoon Huntress also expands on this further, drawing comparisons to her and Runaan’s sense of duty and love for the whole world, as well as precisely what led her to take on the assassination mission in the first place. In S1-S3 Rayla gets better at listening to her heart rather than shutting it down, although this has changed in S4. She’s learning to prioritize her loved ones more and more, but at the cost of her actual heart.

Misc Notes:

For Callum, it’s worth noting that Devotion and Mastery (magic) are of equal value to Callum and are definitely two cornerstones of his more hands on arc. Thus, we can likely deduce that as much as Callum undeniably values Liberty, the fact it’s his highest value is also because it’s the value that informs and guides his arc the most Thematically. This means that his desire to learn magic and be there for his loved ones is of equal measure in terms of his decision making, but we also see him clearly prioritize his loved ones in ways he does not do with his own pursuit of magic. 

[ Side note: And just as a comparison, Claudia - Claudia’s - devotion is also an 8, but Mastery is her 10, even though so much of her arc is driven directly by devotion to her family (although her bio makes it clear it is supporting her family and her father, not merely her valuing them, as the distinctions are important too). ]

Following this “Two Pillars holstered by One Theme” logic, we can break Ezran and Rayla down into a similar manner.

Rayla is defined by her initial quest of Justice and a growing sense of Liberty (cue: being literally freed from her binding, other symbolic cycles, etc) but this is bound together and streamlined through her Devotion to a cause to people and her family. We can see S4 bring this together directly in her devotion to Callum and her family and how they are both either already literally or becoming entangled / entrapped in forces beyond their control with Rayla wanting to free / protect all of them.

For Ezran, this means he is defined by his place as Justice thematically first and foremost, with Devotion and Liberty as his two tether-hooks: re a child king being put in chains to try and give his people a choice > forced conscription, as well as the work he’s doing to try to create peace and a Narrative of Love (devotion) in S4.

Thus, the highest value for each of the Trio is what informs them at their core and subsequent thematically, with their two respective pillars as how those things are motivated and manifest throughout, with of course a good dose of overlap beyond all three. But either way, I just thought it was Neat™

Closing Note

One thing I found interesting when actually going each beat of their bios is that Rayla and Ezran are inverses of each other and very closely aligned. They share the exact same 3 values, all in similar amounts (either 8 or 10) and just rotate one out for their respective highest: for Rayla, Justice is at an 8, and for Ez, it gets bumped up to a 10 and his devotion down to an 8. This closeness between them, and how Callum diverges, lines up with how I’ve thought of and how I’ve written each of the trio for a while now, re: meta dated September 2021 about this exact difference, well before TOX came out.

Because Callum, strangely enough, does not have Justice™ as a particularly high value. It’s actually on the lower end of his scale, with other heroic characters like Amaya, Janai, and Aanya having it as a 10, an 8, and 8. The only none villain adjacent character (Soren, Viren, Claudia) with a Justice as low as Callum’s is Lujanne, and Callum’s justice ranking is the lowest of the trio’s. This is interesting particularly because Justice is defined by fixing what’s wrong/broken, a sense of fairness and balance. And while Callum wants to have positive impacts on the world and make things better, it shows that his big heart is also equally if not more so tethered to pragmatism, perhaps, compared to his family, even in decisions made like leaving with the egg in the first place being what was also safest for the egg and particularly Ezran during the attack on the castle. 

And well, if you know, you know ;) 

[tossawary]

It's very ironic to get comments on "Scum Villain" fics that are essentially revenge fantasies against certain characters, given... uh... everything about "Proud Immortal Demon Way" and how the story of SVSSS interacts with that in-universe story.

Sometimes, it's mildly amusing. Sometimes, it's a little disturbing, depending on how violent and disproportionate the fantasy is, because even if I've written some villain as a real asshole, I don't want to open my inbox to people wishing death and gory violence on anyone. A couple times, it took me a hot second to figure out that the violent fantasy wasn't directed at ME specifically.

Thankfully, that extremism is quite rare, so it's more often people wishing milder physical pains or, uh, complete social humiliation on certain characters, sometimes just for the "crime" of being mild inconveniences or slightly unfriendly to the fic's protagonist. Most of the time, I assume this is some form of playful exaggeration on the commenter's part, a reader exorcising mild annoyance at a fictional antagonist and expressing some sympathy or compassion for the hurt protagonist. A reader mentioning they kind of want to see a character grovel pathetically for forgiveness only to get kicked in the face is not necessarily a reader who wants that revenge fantasy to actually happen in the story.

Sometimes, though, it is hard to tell if someone genuinely thinks that all of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect should be destroyed because Luo Binghe was abused or Shang Qinghua was overworked. Like, I sure hope this is just hyperbole! I sure hope that you don't honestly think that "an eye for an eye" or "I take two of your eyes and also your tongue because you took one of my eyes" are, like, reasonable justice policies! I sure hope that you don't sincerely think that collective punishment is in any way a good thing and that a random junior disciple on the tenth peak (who probably doesn't even know who Luo Binghe is) deserves to suffer because the original Shen Qingqiu was a really shitty person.

But revenge fantasies like "Proud Immortal Demon Way" are popular for a reason, so I can never quite be sure! In every fandom, you have Peerless Cucumbers demanding that villain characters be castrated or killed for being abusive pricks, who cheer on the fictional revenge fantasy of hurting someone ten times as much as they hurt you, and some fans would be absolutely horrified by that kind of "retribution" in real life and others would... cheer that real life "punishment" on as well.

I don't really have a strong point to make with this post! This post is too long to be a casual reminder: "Hey, I hope you're always keeping in mind that messages you send on the internet are being directly received by real people who 1) can't read your tone and 2) don't know your 'real life' opinions to immediately know if you're joking." And I'm focused more here on how amusingly ironic this type of commenting is in regards to SVSSS and PIDW specifically.

Like, it's fun sometimes to get a little "Peerless Cucumber" about our favorite protagonists! (Shen Yuan said a lot of shit on the internet about PIDW but apparently generally doesn't really want people in SVSSS to suffer.) But once your revenge fantasy starts getting a little too detailed in regards to public humiliation and social ruin, torture and dismemberment, arson and leaving someone to get eaten alive by fire ants, making everyone who ever mildly slighted you beg for their life at your feet... It's like, "Bro, I don't think this comment is even Peerless Cucumber levels anymore. You are straight-up getting into original Luo Binghe territory here."

[cowboysorceror]

Supernova is switching it up 👽🌠 new name new look & same silly guaranteed 👍 ID is in alt text!

[topnotchquark]

Carl Andre dead at 88, comfortable, rich, celebrated in the art world. Whereas Ana Mendieta never got to have her full life and express all that she wanted to explore through her art. Truly the petty injustice of life is cruel in such disappointing ways.

[wrightfamily]

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES...........