#there's no need to hold him accountable when he's ALREADY a victim of his own actions and when he already holds himself accountable

[cardentist]

I'm like, 70% sure this is only an issue with the gravity falls fandom on twitter, but if I don't say something I think I'm gonna explode

there Doesn't Need to be a bad guy between fiddleford, emma-may, and ford ! we can recognize one character causing harm to another, both directly and indirectly, Without framing it like it's intentional or that it makes any of them inherently bad.

in particular, I think there's been pushback against people vilifying ford (both in general and as angst material for other characters) by just. shifting that blame over to another character instead and running with it.

so to get this out of my system:

Yes I agree that fiddleford and ford have a lot of queercoding between each other. I think it's always been there to an extent, but it's absolutely been reinforced with the book of bill and "thisisnotawebsite."

and even if you choose to read their relationship as platonic (which is fine ! a lot of people like to read ford as aroace, for instance), it's very clear that fiddleford's relationship with ford heavily put a strain on his relationship with his family and ultimately lead to his and emma-may's divorce.

and there's nothing wrong with exploring that! exploring how it hurt emma-may and tate, exploring how it's another facet of fiddleford ruining his own life without even thinking about it, exploring the complicated feelings that were happening in that cabin. and I don't even think there's anything wrong with joking about fiddleford being a cheater or ford and emma-may being rivals.

but it Really grinds my gears when people frame fiddleford as being inherently in the wrong for taking the job with ford, as if he was intentionally hurting his family or that he Genuinely went there to cheat.

1: one of the first things we're told about fiddleford in journal 3 is that he was raised dirt poor and wanted to climb the latter in the scientific community to give his family a better life than HE had.

and that's Exactly why he took the job in gravity falls ! it was someone he trusted as his good friend AND someone he trusted academically. the whole idea is that this was supposed to be a temporary job that would Both help a dear friend of his And open up opportunities for his future.

and like, this aspect of his character isn't insignificant. he is Very Much So an archetype of a poor person, and has been since his inception. it's part of what Makes him a match for ford, he's an intellectual match yes but he's also an Outcast that wants more out of life than what he has. this aspect isn't Malicious by any means, but it equally lead them to hurt people they cared about.

Yes he left emma-may and his young son, but it was Never supposed to be forever. he left FOR them, which is half of what makes what happened so tragic in the first place. in many ways, he hurt them Because he cared about them.

and Yes, I do love a queer reading of these characters (and I'll get to that), but it's Very clear in the source material that fiddleford Does care about his family. a big part of his falling out with ford in the first place was because Fiddleford thought they both needed to leave gravity falls to raise their own families, and it's something that fiddleford brings up earlier on in their stay together as well.

that doesn't excuse how he'd mistreat emma-may at all. she was absolutely in her right to divorce him (which I thought even before the book of bill dropped). but I feel like we're letting the subtext overtake the TEXT while examining these characters and their dynamic.

2: lets assume that fiddleford IS a closeted gay man (or bisexual, or that he and emma may are in a lavender relationship, or-), as I so often like to do.

while exploring the pain that could cause emma-may and tate is Very Interesting and fun, I think we're ignoring the systemic homophobia in the room.

fiddleford was born in the 1960s to a religious poor rural southern family, and emma-may and fiddleford's relationship happened in the 1980s.

I Do think fiddleford is definitely progressive for his time (and just overall a very chill dude), but his upbringing Also very clearly had an affect on him. if it's possible for a man who believes the world is a simulation to also believe in jesus then fiddleford's the one to have done it.

and this is implied directly in the text mind, whether fiddleford is still actively religious or not he gets on ford for doing things like taking the lord's name in vein. not something that someone who Wasn't affected by a religious upbringing would do.

there's also the textual (rather extreme) anxiety, and the Implied ocd (the hair pulling, the cubix cube, the moral fixation, etc).

with all that said !

YES it would be extremely painful for emma-may to be in love with a gay man who had a crush on someone else, whether fiddleford was aware of or even acted on those feelings or not.

but I do hope we can all understand why it's Not Great to frame fiddleford as being inherently in the wrong for this right? for either not realizing his feelings at all or deliberately repressing them in the wake of Probable religious trauma and Definite safety issues in the society he lived in? Yeah?

no we should not treat emma-may like she's "getting in the way" of our beautiful yaoi, but ignoring systemic homophobia to vilify a queer man being afraid of appearing as anything but straight in the 1980s is. um. Bad.

the thing that's Most interesting about this whole situation is that it's a tragedy through and through. you can't inherently blame Any of them for what happened, and trying to do so loses what actually makes the situation so complex and painful.

because fiddleford clearly DID care about them, ALL of them, very dearly. and he obviously wanted to do the right thing. and yet he hurt them all, and yet his entire life and mind fell apart to ash in his fingers.

it's Crazy, and it absolutely does a disservice to the situation to frame it as fiddleford just being a slutty lying cheater (or ford Ruining a perfectly good man by being abusive, or emma-may getting in the way of our old man yaoi).

except bill, we can vilify bill. I think he'd like that

[canine-economy]

On Swansea’s (often understated) role in Mouthwashing

I say this as a big swansea fan but I don’t rlly understand why ppl are acting like he’s not also complicit in what happened to Anya? AUs where “Anya tells Swansea” and he jumps to violently defend her don’t make sense to me because canonically she does tell him, as he admits to Jimmy. But swansea represents another way of interacting with the capitalist heteropatriarchy that ALSO harms victims: holistic jadedness and resignation.

Swansea is across the board unkind to the Tulpar crew. We can’t forget that he calls anya a “so-called nurse”

and says this to Jimmy, which (if unintentionally) reiterates Jimmy’s own warped perception of Anya’s usefulness and competence. This allows Jimmy to feel justified in his imagination of the nurse’s inferiority. Swansea’s clear lack of respect for Jimmy does less to hurt Jimmy than his lack of respect for Anya harms Anya, because at the end of the day, Swansea’s attitude is contextualized by the violent culture it exists in and he does nothing to reconcile with that when Jimmy becomes the captain. His resignation can thus be weaponized even by Jimmy, a man who Swansea disrespects but whose power he doesn’t try to meaningfully jeopardize, because his across-the-board disdain punches people already marginalized by the environment twice as hard as it does those with power.

Swansea doesn’t position himself as an ally, he positions himself as willfully uninvolved in everything, an observer to the shitshow ride to hell. Just because he dislikes Jimmy doesn’t mean he aligns with Anya. He makes it clear that he’s not on her side, either. After a life of doing what he felt was expected of him, Swansea on the Tulpar looks out for Swansea and Swansea’s comfort. In trying to situate himself outside of the politics of it all as an older white man, he simply allows them to play out. The toxic culture keeps existing, playing out in the microcosm that is this freighter, and Swansea in all his experience recognizes that shit has hit the fan and elects to coast through it, even explicitly numbing himself to it by breaking his sobriety. It is, of course, hard to force yourself to be sober—to see clearly. But had Swansea forced himself to get involved sooner, he might have set a precedent for Daisuke to recognize Jimmy’s abuse, which could have saved Daisuke’s life as well as created a safe space for Anya. But Swansea’s inaction forces both victims to confront an abuser on their own, unable to reap benefits from his privilege and experience.

Jimmy is clearly intimidated by swansea in a way he is not by Anya, Daisuke, or a post-crash Curly (Swansea, for example, physically manifests as an aggressor in Jimmy’s “responsibility sequences”, and Jimmy ties Swansea up to avoid what he sees as the real possibility of pushback that he doesn’t conceive of Anya being able to do). Swansea has a power he does not act on or with until it is far, far too late. In fact, he acknowledges in his final monologue that he was dissatisfied with the discomfort with opening his eyes and living an exemplary “good man”s life. The best days of his life are ones in which he’s belligerently drunk—days in which he didn’t have to hold himself accountable. He regrets the life he spent performing for higher-ups and we watch him reject it by scorning Captain Jimmy, but he also doesn’t want to be held responsible for helping other people when it’s their turn to endure the expectations and violence from similar (if not the same) higher powers. Tragically, he possesses the hindsight to recognize that how he acted on the Tulpar consequently wasn’t what Daisuke needed out of a role model, leading to Daisuke becoming a victim. His hands-off approach to emotional engagement with his young male intern (another symptom of patriarchal gender norms) may have been to avoid Daisuke turning out miserable and jaded like himself, but it doesn’t actually indicate to an already-confused Daisuke what the dangers of that attitude are. Swansea never admits his own shortcomings in a tangible way which, had they come from a man with experience and prestige like himself, may have shifted that culture that failed Anya. She comes to him with the story not because he has situated himself as any earnest friend, but likely out of desperation on a ship Jimmy now controls.

When we allow “the machine” (Swansea’s own words) to beat us down to the point that we don’t find it productive to challenge unjust power dynamics, we become complicit. I think too many people get hung up on his disdain for Jimmy and Jimmy’s fear of Swansea as a marker of allyship with Anya, but the truth is that Swansea. Is a bad ally. He’s hardly one at all. His long stint in the demanding capitalist environment molded a perfectly complicit result out of him, as it aspires to do, even if Swansea bitterly recognizes that. Jimmy’s overt violence from a position of power is a different and much more brutal approach to abuse enabled by people who have been left too tired and bitter to care that he does it. A man who could’ve intimidated and even threatened Jimmy is too resigned to try until there is literally nobody but himself left to fight for, which is an attitude carefully cultivated among the lower rungs of hierarchies to keep the top safe. Swansea in particular seems very unhappy with the capitalistic, patriarchal expectations laid out for him as a father, husband, and laborer. This becomes particularly resonant when you realize the symbolism of his role as mechanic: a job that can be deeply unpersonal, tasked with keeping the ship (the machine, if you will) itself going while other roles are more focused on managing the humans inside of it (e.g. nurse, captain). His decision to just stop trying and spare himself the grief instead of questioning why those expectations exist and how they would hurt the others onboard only delays him being directly targeted by Jimmy and doesn’t interrupt the latter’s violence.

Not a single man in mouthwashing is innocent in Anya’s victimhood. This is a statement tentatively uninclusive of Daisuke, because I think the game very deliberately positions him outside of manhood through his youth and thus struggling with the concept of “fitting in” to the patriarchy. Curly, Jimmy, and Swansea all represent different failures that ultimately perpetuate Anya’s suffering and force her to defend herself and finally take her life into her own hands. A holistic analysis of rape culture in MW necessarily engages with all three of them. Only not being a friend and ally to rapists and other male abusers isn’t enough, and Swansea proves it.

[gloriaregaii]

Honestly, I need to say this, because after reading multiple comments that Melkor abused Mairon, I've had quite enough. Especially by the Ring of Powers' writers who say they know canon when truly, all they know is jackshit.

MELKOR DIDN'T ABUSE MAIRON!!!!

Let's take it back to Almaren when Melkor first encounters Mairon and seduces him, shall we? We obviously know Melkor desired light and desired creation above all else, having said to rival the creator, Himself, Eru Ilúvatar. He sought after Varda, but after she saw his true nature, the darkness within, she rejected him. Morgoth already had numerous enemies amongst the Valar. Having quarrels and hard feelings against Tulka, Aulë, a few others, and now Varda. All he desired was to hold a glimpse of light and possess it alike that of Eru with the Flame Imperishable, said to be the source of all light, which he previously wanted as well. He wanted a lot of things and was despised and repulsed by the majority already. In that time, he must have been very lonely, even without given a Maia like all of the Valar had. He wanted something to feel not only powerful, but to feel seen, a source of beauty and light. He found all of that in Aulë's most talented apprentice, Mairon.

One thing I've noticed over the past years of reading Tolkien's works is the lack of thought or reason the Maiar have in serving their designated Vala. Mairon didn't. He had a reason in going with Melkor which was accounted numerous times. Not once did it say why the other Maiar follow the Valar. Most likely the reason in being that "it was the right thing to do" as in most other fictional stories is also the same reasoning.

Mairon wanted more than what he had currently as Aulë's apprentice. He wanted power and Melkor knew that. Undoubtedly, Mairon had caught his eye the moment Melkor laid eyes on him. I mean, how could he not? The description Tolkien gives about Mairon excudes nothing but beauty, power, and talent. Melkor was attracted to that immediately but he felt something else. Desire for power which he knows exactly how that feels because he too, felt it at a point in time. He took his chances and seduced him. Never once did it say that Mairon was "forced" into becoming his Maia. He gave him his own free will of choice, promised him power, and more. Something the Valar wouldn't do, but Melkor could.

The two of them eventually fell in love after their attraction to one another. How else can you explain "he adored Morgoth", and no doubt Morgoth adored Sauron? And how do we not think that they could have spent time together in Almaren at private times, alone? The little fiery Maia displayed his devotion time and time again, never once did he abandon Melkor which the Vala took to heart. NEVER ONCE did he ever go behind his back. The Dark Lord saw that and for once felt seen, felt heard, felt wanted.... and loved. And in return, he reciprocated that. He came to believe that Mairon was the most beautiful and perfect creation Eru has brought to life. Mairon fell first, but Melkor fell much harder.

Proceeding down the line to the War of Wrath, Mairon practically begs Melkor to hide because they both knew what was to come. He begged by saying "Go, my lord. There are places down below..." If Melkor abused Mairon, Mairon would have never begged his master to flee and hide. Melkor saying "I release thee, go" could translate as "go now, save and hide yourself away" which must have put Mairon in a position of hesitance and reluctance to leave the man he loves behind. Even in the audiobook, Mairon's voice quivers saying those very words, emphasizing the emotion he felt in that moment. Mairon wanted his master to disappear — to escape the Valar. An abused victim would never have done that.

Going forward, it is evidently clear that Sauron's complete intent was to build an army to go save Melkor. After many years, the man still worships the Vala by doing acts in his name. Building a church of worship and sacrifice in his name, taking on personas that reflected previous personas or titles Melkor had taken up. A notable one is Annatar, Lord of Gifts which was based on Melkor's title as "Giver of Freedom". Freedom and gifts go hand in hand.

Last but not least is the constant little hints Tolkien gives throughout the books that only bears evidence that Melkor, his Vala husband was always on his mind. Those little hints is in naming things he's created after things within the past, such as Grond, Melkor's hammer that he named the battering ram after, which was used in Lord of the Rings.

There is much more points that could be said about Angbang and their relationship but the thing is, is that Melkor and Mairon loved each other. It was never based on abuse or gain. It was based on mutual feelings that were never forced against either will.

If y'all like abusive ships then go for ships like Maidar or Silvergifting, even Haladriel. Those are technically abusive. To say Angbang is while there is no context that says such.... that's your preference and opinion. Not trying to attack ships, I'm merely putting source material Angbang into perspective and saying why it isn't abusive by giving the factual reasons from the books. If you take this harsh, that is on you. Go out and ship whatever you desire, even if it is abusive Angbang.

Addition to this for those who may say ROP didn't make this ship abusive :

Which is all good! Go ship whatever your heart desires! Again, I'm not trying to attack ships, I'm just basing this on what the original source material says!

[brrmian]

something that so many star wars fans somehow fail to realize is that george lucas always intended for the fall of the republic to be a completely unavoidable tragedy. that’s what makes it such brilliant storytelling.

placing the blame on just one party in the galaxy-wide farce that was the clone wars just isn’t interpreting the story the way its writer intended. neither is saying that all players should be held equally accountable. i don’t think the jedi were at fault for the state of the republic, and (despite the fact that he did horrible things) neither was anakin, on a galactic or governmental scale.

the real villain is palpatine, who shaped the government into a corrupt system by his own hand. the blame for turning a democratic republic into an authoritarian dictatorship (which it was long before it became the empire) under the noses of thousands of incredibly corrupt politicians must be placed entirely on him, and him alone.

by the end of the war, the jedi council recognized that they had already lost the ability to hold onto what it truly means to be a jedi. in their prime during the days of the old republic, the jedi knights were “the guardians of peace and justice.” they’re meant to as diplomats, peacekeepers, mediators, and public servants. when the clone wars began, they were essentially forced into being soldiers, generals, and quasi-politicians by palpatine and the senate. all of those things are antithetical to the jedi’s beliefs, but they had no other choice.

placing even the smallest bit of blame on the jedi for anything leading to the republic’s downfall—and their own—is not only unfair, it’s factually incorrect. the jedi order is a monastic organization. they have no say in the senate and no voting power. saying they’re corrupt, when in fact they were just as conned by palpatine as the rest of the galaxy, is victim-blaming and scapegoating.

palpatine shoved the jedi face first into fighting the war, and pretty much threw the clone army into their laps on top of that. the jedi had no say in the matter, and they certainly had no say in the war itself being started, either. because he controlled both sides, palpatine was able to make the CIS and the republic declare war on each other even though its citizens wanted the same outcome: political independence and survival. if not for palpatine’s schemes, the separatists would have been allowed to secede peacefully, the republic would have continued existing, and the war would have been completely avoided. but that was unfortunately not the case.

so in a galaxy thrown into an unavoidable war by its own secret dictator, with an army of sentient slaves suddenly at their command, and the risk of billions of deaths at the hands of the droid army imminently approaching, what do the galaxy’s official peacekeepers have no other choice but to do? be peacekeepers. why wouldn’t the sworn defenders of the galaxy be out on the battlefields trying to end the war? if they sat in the temple and did nothing, they simply wouldn’t be jedi.

the jedi were forced into a lose/lose situation. every religion and organization has faults, but that doesn’t place any blame on them for the catch-22 they were trapped into falling for. when the clone wars started—and the key point here is that it never should have in the first place—the jedi still needed to be jedi. unfortunately for them, that meant having positions of power not meant for them being thrust upon their shoulders. they couldn’t drop the burden, because that meant actively choosing not to save lives—but the other option, becoming soldiers despite the tenet of their beliefs that dictates they shouldn’t, was no better.

see what a cruel trap palpatine set? it’s like a fish being caught in a fisherman’s net. the net is spread out across the ocean floor, and the fish swim above it, not knowing that the trap is waiting to be drawn in around them from below. in the end, when the net starts to tighten, dragging them closer to the surface, they can’t swim fast enough to escape from the middle to the edge—and to safety—before the net is completely tied. it’s the cruelest kind of trap: the kind that gives you just the right amount of time to think you can escape while being sprung just quick enough to make actually escaping impossible.

in the end, the order actively chose to fight the war because they needed to. there was no other way to continue on as who they were. militarizing the order was not the right choice in a vacuum, but this was not that; this was a situation in which every galaxy-changing choice was the wrong one. the jedi knew they were making a decision that drew them farther away from their beliefs, but it was the lesser of an infinite list of evils, and they didn’t see the walls closing in on them until it was too late.

lucas himself has even said that the order was not corrupt or decaying from the inside, nor did they make a series of bad choices that ultimately led to their own destruction. they were always just trying to do the right thing—but unlike literally everything else in fiction, the jedi order’s death was completely unaffected by any of the choices they made. no matter what they did, they were always going to lose. the fall of the republic wasn’t caused by its defenders choosing what they saw as the least bad choice. it didn’t come down to any decisions, political or not, that the jedi council made with the limited tools that they had. it certainly didn’t come down to one emotionally unstable twenty-three-year-old’s slow descent into insanity, either. the republic and the jedi would still have been destroyed with or without anakin’s unhinged nervous breakdown.

anakin, just like the order, the republic, and the separatists, was taken advantage of by palpatine. even if a person’s choices are their own, they don’t exist in a vacuum.

anakin would have made better choices if not for palpatine, but he didn’t. the jedi order would have kept the peace if not for palpatine, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t. the republic, and democracy with it, would not have crumbled if not for palpatine. not the order, not anakin, not the separatists, and not the republic.

in the end, they were all just pawns in a decades-spanning plan, one that none of them saw coming until it was too late—and by then, it was already irreversible.

[billy-cockblock]

SWTD Theory

Still Wakes the Deep has been a huge brainworm for me the past few weeks, so I wanted to make a post with one of my takes. Someone’s probably thought of this already, but I can’t find anything about it, so here I go. 

I’m gonna take this time to shout out a little sub theory of mine that plays a bit of a part in my main point. 

For a little background, in populations of organisms, there are limiting factors on their growth and spread. Think of it as a series of funnels of different sizes: the rate of liquid that can flow through is going to be determined by the narrowest funnel. For example. if there’s a population that has ample food, space, and whatever else it needs, but has a restricted access to water, that water is going to limit how large that population could grow.

Before the Shape was dug up by the drill, it was probably dormant in the sea bed, doing its best to survive, the same as any other organism. Down where it was dark, wet, and cold, I think it had one main limiting factor: oxygen.

I don’t think the Shape can efficiently exchange gas underwater. Most of the untouched bodies Caz sees are only underwater, where an organism that thrives in air would struggle to access. Once it gets dug up and brought to air with plenty of organic matter to consume and grow with, its population explodes. When a limiting factor is removed, there’s nothing holding the population back any more until they hit a new limit. The Shape’s old limiting factor was removed, and it would only stop reproducing by running out of space to grow on the rig, running out of organic matter to use, or being killed (like, say, in a giant fiery explosion).

(I could go on and on about how the Shape potentially works, please feel free to ask me about it)

Now, I’ll get to my main theory:

I think Caz was dead the whole time.

Now, I don’t mean that in a “the whole game is in his head, none of it was real” way; I mean it in a “this man got Ethan Winters’ed” way. 

So, I started to do a little research into how tall oil rigs are to know how far Caz would have fallen off the helipad. I quickly learned there are many types of oil rigs and not every oil rig of the same type is the same size. I’m studying marine biology, not petroleum engineering like my brother, so I got tired of trying to guesstimate how tall the Bierra D’s helipad would be and attacked the problem with some simple math. 

Watching a video, I saw he fell for between 4-5 seconds; the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8m/s^2. Plugging that in a calculator while not accounting for air resistance to solve for distance gets me ~80-120m, depending on if I used the 4 or 5 second count, so I’ll guess around 100m. I’ve found many conflicting sources on what the tallest heights you can safely fall into water are, but I can safely tell you that 100m is much higher than any of them. 

Now, maybe the devs weren’t going with the mathematical exact timing it would take for a guy to fall off an oil rig, and didn’t mean for it to be implied that he fell from THAT high. Still, we can agree he fell from very high up, high enough to have likely ended in injury. Maybe he’d just fall on and break a leg? Maybe an arm or some ribs?

After falling off the rig, the last frame before Caz blacks out shows the water at the top of the screen, meaning he hits the water head-first. He may be wearing a hard hat (that somehow stays on his head through the whole ordeal since he clips his flashlight to it), but he still should have cracked his skull open or broken his neck. 

When they pull him out of the water, he’s cold and not breathing, which wouldn’t be unusual for a drowning victim in the North Sea in the dead of winter, but it would usually be a death sentence. They never explain how they dragged Caz out of the water, but it would presumably have taken a long time to get him out, and time is key when dealing with someone who isn’t breathing. The fact that he’s able to cough up water and start breathing on his own is a miracle, since it doesn’t sound like Brodie or Douglas do CPR when they bring him inside.

So, fall damage, head and/or spine injury, drowning, and hypothermia. By several different factors, Caz should be a very, very dead man. So why isn’t he?

My theory is that, somehow, somewhy, the infection from The Shape healed and brought him back to life. We know for a fact it has amazing generative properties, basically able to double, triple, quadruple the amount of tissue and organic matter in the crew’s bodies with no regard for conservation of mass, so what’s just a little regeneration of damaged tissues in a single body? Once Caz’s body gets someplace with better conditions suited to life (inside where it’s warm and there’s air), it just jumpstarts his body functions. The Shape’s presumably been dormant in the seafloor for a long time, so it could be able to go dormant and kinda “come back to life” as conditions change, similar to a tardigrade, and potentially pass this ability onto its hosts.

And Caz mentions how his head hurts a lot, especially when he gets close to the Shape. 

Now, this might seem like baseless conjecture, and y’all might say “That’s a good headcanon, but there’s no evidence that The Shape could bring people back to life!” to which I would say “Oh, but there might be!"

After the helicopter on the starboard side, we get a call from Bruce, who is actively drowning. Through his gasps, he tells us that O’Connor hurt his leg and couldn’t swim, presumably drowning. And guess who we see still kicking as we’re passing through the pontoon? My thought is that O’Connor couldn’t swim, drowned, and drifted to the bottom, landing on a part of the shape. Once Caz and Brodie start working in the legs and they drain, it exposes him to air and allows the shape to start growing again, assimilating him and bringing him back to life. 

Obviously, he’s not doing as well as Caz is. My thought was that, if Caz died as he was infected, the infection would’ve had to put a lot of its energy into bringing him back, not leaving much for itself to begin assimilating him into the Shape. Since O’Connor was in direct contact with the Shape, it could hook him up to its network to help supplement that loss. Caz, meanwhile, stays as far away from the stuff as he can and doesn’t even get anything to eat all day; guy's running on empty. He has small things where the Shape affects him, like the colors at the edge of his vision, but most of his hallucinations only happen after the Shape attacks him through O’Connor. Before, I’m pretty sure the largest incident (other than when he’s blacked out) is when we can barely hear Suze’s voice over the speakers when moving through the pontoon. It’s really only after getting attacked that he starts to hear her when he’s awake, near the Shape, or over phone calls. He only hears her clearly over the speakers in administration after he runs into the shape many times when he gets swept away in the flooding.

With my main evidence out of the way, I’ll also mention that Caz sees the “light at the end of the tunnel” from the end of the game in the oil flashes when he blacks out.

But hey, that’s just a theory. 

A GAME TH- I have received a cease and desist.

Man, this became a long read. Thanks for getting this far, and I hope you enjoyed!

[tetheredfeathers]

Macbeth and Snow as parallels (a comparative analysis on ambitious protagonists)

Collins is no stranger to Shakespearean references, whether through character names or the deeper parallels that emerge between her characters and those in Shakespeare's plays. This is especially evident in the striking similarities between Coriolanus Snow in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and the main characters in Macbeth, where their ambition ultimately leads to their downfalls.

At the outset, both protagonists show potential. Macbeth begins with a relatively clean slate, while Snow is (debatably) portrayed as a morally grey character. Snow's narcissistic tendencies surface early on, as seen in his disdain for everyone around him and his deep-seated resentment of his own poverty. He believes he is entitled to wealth and power, much like Sejanus. Snow's entitlement is also evident in his condemnation of Tigris when she implies that she might have sold her body to feed their family. He begins to harbor skeptical feelings about her. Though Snow’s selfish and narcissistic tendencies are apparent from the beginning, they remain largely internalized, leaving his true nature ambiguous.

Macbeth and Snow heavily parallel each other at the beginning of their reign.They both encounter a major turning point—a moment of epiphany where they become so entangled in bloodshed that there is no return. For Snow, this moment occurs when he kills the tribute, Bobbin. Although the act is driven by desperation and survival, the way he kills is undeniably cruel. Snow chooses to brutally murder Bobbin even after the tribute is incapacitated and poses no real threat. This shift changes Snow's motivation from self-defence to pure hatred, reflecting his view of the districts as barbaric and savage. Similarly, Macbeth’s major turning point comes in Act I, Scene VII, during his soliloquy when he resolves to kill King Duncan. This decision marks the beginning of his irreversible descent into bloodshed and tyranny. This leads us to a common thread among literary antagonists: their ambition often ignites in a crucial moment of life, where they feel wronged or misunderstood.

So, we ask ourselves now, why is that one scene so crucial, and if it is, who is to blame—the circumstances or the person themselves? In other words, nature vs. nurture. Were Snow and Macbeth simply victims of their environments, or did they always harbour the potential for such destruction?

As we have already established, Snow exposes his corrupt disposition early in the book. He is willing to destroy, use, and manipulate anyone standing in his way, which is heavily focused on in his internal monologue. Each minute action is calculated and executed accordingly. In the scene where a tribute kills Lavinia, Snow's response is a striking reflection of his character. Instead of reacting with immediate panic or concern for Lavinia’s well-being, Snow remains unnervingly composed. His first instinct is not to help or comfort the person in distress but to deliberate on how his actions might affect his public image. As Lavinia's body writhes, Snow’s focus is on the potential repercussions of the situation rather than the immediate human tragedy unfolding before him. Snow’s pragmatic, calculated nature is evident right here.

Similarly, Macbeth’s nature is inherently ambitious, which is hinted at through the witches' prophecy that eventually drives him to regicide: "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other." (Act 1, Scene 7) However, an observation can be made: Macbeth’s actions are only executed after being persuaded by Lady Macbeth. At the very beginning, Macbeth is constantly unsure of his actions and needs to be swayed by external forces. So how much of Macbeth’s nature can we hold accountable?

We see at the beginning that the witches are the ones who plant the seed of ambition in his mind. Even more so, Macbeth’s initial reaction to the prophecy is curiosity; it is the witches who nudge him down that path, which he might have otherwise not taken. Another critical factor is Lady Macbeth’s manipulation; her relentless questioning of his masculinity pushes him toward the edge. It can be said that Macbeth is more of a victim of external forces. It is also plausible to say that Macbeth’s initial ambition might have remained unchecked, and thus would not have committed regicide.

Naturally, we ask ourselves the following question: Was Snow a victim of nurture? Snow makes it very clear from the beginning that he is not here to play the game, but to control it. Despite the cutthroat politics in the Capitol, Snow finds a way to be cultivated by his environment instead of being exploited. Take Snow’s relationship with Doctor Gaul—time and time again, he goes out of his way to obey Dr. Gaul, to the point where he submits his best friend to her. He is not a victim but a willing student. In contrast to Macbeth, Snow lacks guilt and shows little to no moral conflict in his decisions. And hence, being devoid of guilt and hesitation makes Snow not a victim of his nurture but a product of it.

Circling back to the topic of guilt—we find ourselves in the position to ask whether Macbeth’s guilt is his greatest weakness. Macbeth’s guilt and paranoia begin immediately after his murder of King Duncan. He is plagued with insomnia and hallucinations as his guilt manifests, and he descends into madness. As his paranoia and guilt fester, he begins to act out of fear rather than necessity. His ability to think straight and calculate his actions completely erodes by this point. Macbeth certainly does not achieve that prosperous reign, but his guilt is one aspect that humanizes him and allows the audience to relate to him.

But what of Snow—was his lack of guilt and empathy his greatest strength? Snow certainly reigned for a long, prosperous period—longer than Macbeth could, that’s for sure. What was it that upheld him for so long? What did he possess that no other antagonist before him had? The answer to all our questions rests in one quote: “You take your own humanity out of the equation. And then you’re free to do whatever’s necessary. It’s the only way to be safe.” This is it—Snow’s dire philosophy encapsulated in one line. Snow completely rejects the idea of humanity; notice he uses the word "free." It is almost as if Snow views humanity as a burden, something that is tying him down, from which he wants to be freed. So, is rejecting humanity the only way to achieve such a long rule? Is it really a strength?

While we can certainly say Snow avails a longer rule than anyone that came before him, Snow’s lack of guilt and empathy is a double-edged sword. It most certainly helps him make swift, calculated decisions without bringing his victims' emotions into the equation, but it ultimately destroys him in the end. It is his incapability of understanding Peeta and Katniss’ effect that annihilates his rule. “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective; a lot of hope is dangerous.” Snow recognizing hope is accurate, yet it is his lack of empathy that blinds him from seeing the uncontrollable aspect of hope. His approach to overcoming hope is to manage it—notice I use the word "manage." His perception of hope is in a very technical manner, just like we see in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Snow is prone to formulating plans, and thus, he uses this approach on Katniss as if she is just a step along his plan. But his failure to truly understand the power of hope is what leads him to make decisions that only spark the rebellion even more.

In conclusion, ambition is a powerful force in shaping the paths of literary antagonists like Snow and Macbeth. While their environments certainly played a role in nurturing their darker tendencies, it is their inherent ambition and how they choose to wield it that seals their fates. Macbeth's guilt humanizes him, making him a somewhat tragic figure who is ultimately consumed by his ambition. Snow, on the other hand, thrives by rejecting humanity altogether, but this very rejection blinds him to the power of hope, leading to his eventual downfall. Both characters remind us that unchecked ambition, whether fuelled by internal desires or external influences, can lead to self-destruction.

[flower-boi16]

Why The "Their Both Meant to Be in the Wrong!" defense doesn't work

Lately I've commonly seen this defence levidied towards the show's writing of Stolitz everytime someone critizes season 2's handling of it, and in light of the recent episode I feel the need to cover it. So let's go over why this defence simply doesn't work, shall we?

1. Their mistakes are not equal

I already made a post about this before so I'll try to keep it brief; Stolas and Blitz's mistakes here aren't equal and the show can't act like they are. Stolas mistake was sexually abusing Blitz, trapping him in a situation where he has to agree to sleep with him or he'll lose the thing he needs for his job

Blitz' mistakes are...

Being kind of an ass to Stolas in Apology Tour

Not realizing that Stolas has genuine love for him due to being blinded by preconcieved notions he's had about him

Let's break these down, shall we?

This not on the same level as what Stolas was doing

Blitz isn't even in the wrong for this. Again I talked about this before in my post about Viv's tweet but. Blitz is not in the wrong here for not believing that Stolas loves him, after all, what reason does he even have? Stolas has done nothing but sexually abuse and constantly belittle Blitz, and even those "nice things" aren't suddenely enough to balance out those bad actions, they are far too small to actually make up for the shit Stolas did to Blitz.

None of these mistakes are remotely the same level as what Stolas did to Blitz especially when you start putting in context here. Stolas was doing what he was doing to Blitz were all purely for his own selfish pleasure while Blitz' actions were more understandable once you look at things from his perspective.

You can't pretend that Blitz and Stolas' actions are somehow the same level when they simply are not. The actions from both characters should be equally as bad when you put in the context, but here it simply isn't.

2. Stolas' mistakes are never acknowledged

I've seen a lot of people trying to say that one of Stolas' mistakes here is that he "isn't self-aware enough" to realize how he treated Blitz not as a why to excuse him but to try and deny the argument that the show is victimizing him. There are two problems with this;

There isn't any actual indication of this being case within the show, this was just something that Viv made up in a tweet she posted after the full moon aired and everyone suddenely started parrotting it around. This was suppoused to be character trait for Stolas than that should have been made more clear from the narrative.

Let's say for a sec that the narrative does make it clear that Stolas has little self-awarness; well, it still fails because the show never calls this out. The show never calls out Stolas' lack of self-awarness in these scenes, if the show really was trying to hold them both accountable then Stolas' flaws here should be properly addressed by the narrative, but they aren't. It's a similar issue to Charlie from HB's sister show; the narrative is aware of the flaws the character has but it never chooses to call out or confront these flaws because it's too busy idealizing/babying the character to do that. Stolas' flaws SHOULD be addressed by the narrative if Viv really is trying to make them both flawed, but no, only Blitz flaws are acknowledged while Stolas' aren't.

That's bad writting. 90% of the blame is put on Blitz while Stolas is solely painted as someone hurt by Blitz' actions. The only time where Stolas' actions are seen as bad is when he was SA Blitz, which is good but...since it's coming alongside moments that demonize Blitz for not seeing that Stolas loves him, it runs hollow and still comes across and victimizing Stolas here as someone hurt by Blitz in spite of holding him accountable (and also because, once again, Blitz is not in the wrong for thinking this even if he has biases). The show is still directly demonizing Blitz for being hurt by Stolas' actions here, so it runs hollow.

3. Blitz still gets all the blame

People constantly complain about antis "picking sides" when you aren't suppoused to, but I don't think you can blame people for doing that when the show itself is picking sides. The show puts all the blame onto Blitz here, painting him as the one mostly in the wrong here and an asshole for hurting Stolas' feelings.

Despite what fans try to argue, the framming of the show makes Stolitz look completely black and white; Blitz is the asshole who hurt poor Stolas' feelings and Stolas is the one who maybe made some mistakes but is mostly innocent here guys! I'm really sick of people trying to argue about this being a grey reletionship when it's not, if Viv wants it to be a grey reletionship then she's doing a shit tier job at it due to the framming of the show.

Blitz is the one who the show mostly demonizes here, he's the one who the show sees as the worst person here who needs to change, while Stolas is painted as the "bigger" person. That's not mutual toxicity. If that was what the show was aiming for then the show would call them both out on their bullshit, but it doesn't.

Conclusion

Just wanted to write this quick post because I was sick of seeing this defense over and over again when it came to this reletionship. Guys, Stolitz is suppoused to be a mutually toxic reletionship, then the show's framming is fumbling it significantly. The writting for the reletionship here is just plain bad.

[ilikekidsshows]

I find it off-putting that people blame Kagami for not stopping Marinette from lying to Adrien. First of all, I thought being 14 excuses everything, or does that only apply to Marinette whenever she needs a free pass?

And second of all, Kagami in the scene where Marinette lies to Adrien in the white chamber, then does draw a line eventually at Marinette not stopping to beg for Adrien's sympathy and validation, even when he was already crying on Kagami's shoulder because his world fell apart.

I do not in any way blame Kagami for cutting Marinette off and sending her out. Cause at that point she just continued twisting the knives further and further because SHE wanted to be understood, instead of looking at her freshly orphaned boyfriend and stop talking already when he clearly couldn't deal with her need for sympathy and validation too.

Kagami was perfectly in the right to send Bug Noire out. Marinette crossed such an ugly line after already having lied so much more than Kagami could have possibly known she would do. How it is Kagami's fault that Maribug dished out 200 more lies per detail than necessary? How could Kagami have known that Marinette would go on to tell Adrien that he was an ungrateful and awful son for ever having thought his abuse to be BAD because Marinette claims is what the most heroic attempt at protecting Adrien Gabriel could have done and Adrien merely unfairly judged his heroic saint of a father?

How are Marinette's excessive amounts of harmful lies Kagami's fault? Kagami didn't tell Marinette to do all this. She just agreed to go with Marinette's decision to keep Adrien in the dark about his father having been Monarch, even when she didn't really agree with it because she thought Marinette would do whats best for Adrien. Doesn't this just mean that Kagami expected BETTER of Marinette than all these unnecessary cruel and victim blaming lies?

Cause Kagami does eventually stop Marinette, sends her away, and does her entire job of actually being there for Adrien in that moment. Kagami is being blamed by Marinette stans for not having stopped Marinette from lying, meaning they are saying Kagami has to take all accountability for Marinette's actions (nothing new), but they completely ignore that Kagami does intervene to prevent Marinette from making it even worse.

Instead they portray Kagami having done that as her being insensitive and cruel to Marinette. Cause, I guess, Kagami focusing on the actual victim and protecting him from Marinette continuing to twist the knive for self-validation that Kagami didn't even expect Marinette to twist as she did is Kagami being a bad person and friend. Sure. The Marinette centric propaganda in the fandom is fucking insane.

Same as this completely incorrect mindset of Marinette not having been able to be there for Adrien more as Bug Noire because "Ladybug isn't allowed to do that to keep him and her identity save". I mean, what kind of nonsense is that?

Since when is a hero not allowed to genuinely hug, comfort, and bond with a victim on a deeper level? Superheros constantly do that. It's a normal part of a hero's job.

It's Batman at his fucking BEST, for crying out loud! This rather feels like a wave of excuses for why Marinette never working on opening up to people and be approachable as Ladybug for more than 2 seconds is not only okay, but also "the one and only way a hero should ever go about this" because of that god awful season 4. Even when heros in media very clearly don't do this.

Man, Marinette stans talk so much fucking nonsense, how is that even possible?

Marinette didnt do some grand heroic sacrifice by keeping Adrien at arms length in that scene. She just can't fucking talk with people anymore if it isn't for her own sake as she clearly struggled with in that scene. She wanted Adrien to comfort HER because thats all she knows in their (or any) dynamic, but at least knew to hold back. That's why she struggled, as she clearly begs more and more for sympathy for herself instead of being there for her boyfriend/ the victim. She doesn't know how to fucking DO that cause she only knows how to get it for herself (see all of Ladynoir to prove my point). That's not heroically keeping a professional distance, her being THIS incapable of comforting a victim rather puts on full display how unprofessional Marinette was all this time by always shielding herself from accountability by hiding behind the "professional leader" excuse.

Thank fucking God that Kagami intervened, send her away, and took care of Adrien. Cause Marinette clearly wasn't gonna support Adrien, she would have continued begging for sympathy for her own sake.

So in what reality can Kagami being given shit for anything here? It not her fault that she expected better of Marinette than handling it in the worst way possible.

---

Marinette stans will claim Marinette is the victim in every single situation ever. I’m just waiting for when these excuse-churning twerps just go: “Adrien caused Marinette to lie to him by being so sad and mad at his father. It’s Adrien’s fault for having emotions!” Of course the stans are pointing fingers at Kagami; she was in the room when Marinette was upsette and wasn’t solely focused on protecting her! Clearly she is an awful friend!

If Marinette needs to be babysat by Kagami, maybe she should hand the Guardian status and Ladybug Miraculous to Kagami too. If Kagami is the one in charge of Marinette’s decisions regardless, maybe she should be making all the decisions to begin with, you know? Also, once again, if Marinette is this incompetent that she needs anybody in her vicinity to take responsibility for her and her decisions, why is she in an important leadership and hero position and taking further responsibility over Adrien’s entire life and wellbeing. She should be getting treatment for her mountains of emotional and mental issues that cause her to be this incapable of doing the things she’s trying to do. Sounds like reckless endangerment to me!

Also, "superheroes can't comfort civilians" is actual bullcrap. One of the most iconic Superman comic moments is when he once swept in to comfort and hug a suicidal girl. One of the most iconic Batman moments of the DCAU is him holding a dying girl's hand so that she isn't alone when she dies, and that isn't even the only time Batman comforts someone in the DCAU. Hell, he even comforted some of his villains through a mental breakdown. If Marinette can't comfort Adrien because it would risk her secret identity, that just says that Marinette would only comfort him as her boyfriend and not a victim in need of support. Except, like, even as civilians, Marinette just takes comfort from Adrien and never gives it, so even that is complete bullcrap.

The reality of the matter is that Marinette couldn't be bothered to even attempt to comfort Adrien, because it made her uncomfortable. She was too upsette to focus on anything other than herself, as usual. The Marinette we've been left with is just selfish and unheroic.

[tex-now]

I think my interpretation of what mephone4's recovery would look like shifts a little depending on how old he is. Like, not by much, but by a little bit.

This is basically just me rambling about mephone4 during/post-canon. I love mephone4 he makes me ill so I want to ramble. Let me have this.

If mephone4 is an adult I think that putting more responsibility on his actions than if he was a child is necessary.

He is an abuse victim, he was scared, unsure, desperately trying to escape his abusive father and became extremely jaded (?) and traumatized because of it, BUT he still put a lot of mental turmoil on his contestants, and traumatized many of them in turn. He still hurt so many of them so badly and that is inexcusable (he is aware of this).

Hes emotionally constipated and repressed to a fault and is by no means a bad person but like. Tissues. Suitcase. Taco. Bow. Any of the contestants that wouldn't forgive him are completely valid to do so, and it's HIS responsibility to improve himself and his behavior so that, if he ends up meeting them again, he doesn't repeat the previous patterns he has in the past.

His general veneer of cockiness, apathy, and being kind of an asshole to his contestants, his showing bias and unfair inconsistent challenges, being generally dismissive of his contestants feelings, are all things he did. I do think it's a result of having cobs as a father and all the trauma he's experienced as a result of that, buuuuuut he needs to work on himself and only he can fix his bad behavior (with the support of family and hopefully a therapist).

Which is why I think mephone4's apology was extremely needed and I am SO FUCKING GLAD that they were like "yeah mephone4 fucked up. He should give everyone space to grow into new people and so that he can also grow and finally do something for himself so that he can be truly happy instead of just living on the high of escapism and and projecting his issues and problems onto his contestants." (<- all of this is said lovingly. I promise I love him so much. nomming on him).

He absolutely needs a loving support system and also 10 years of therapy and he's already on the right track :) he needs to learn to hold himself accountable for his actions (which he is starting to I'm so proud), and how to effectively communicate his feelings along with not taking them out on others and that takes time, but I believe in him I love him so muchhhh hic hic sob.

If mephone4 is a child then his situation is 10x more tragic oh my god. You can definitely acknowledge that his actions were fucked up on several levels, but him being an abuse victim (which definitely hindered his emotional development) PLUS literally most likely not physically mature enough to process his own feelings and the actual implications of what he's done to his contestants then, yeah, I would give him more grace.

(I'm pretty sure this also applies to if he was an adult but yeah), I can't speak for everyone, but a common defense mechanism ive noticed in young people around me (and myself personally) is apathy and indifference towards everything, even topics that would typically be upsetting or uncomfortable to talk about.

Instead of dealing with your emotions or the pain you cause other people, you laugh it off and avoid it for as long as you can, and usually when you can't avoid it anymore, you become defensive and anxious. (Once again. In my experience. And from what I've seen from other people. Avoidance instead of acceptance).

Of course, this doesn't mean that the contestants would be evil for not understanding or not forgiving him. What he did was fucked up, and children also need to take responsibility for their actions as it is a crucial part of their emotional development.

But he's still a child. The things he would need to work on would not be things he could do on his own. He needs someone to take care of him and help him.

Not any of the contestants, definitely, but someone to take him in and show him the unconditional parental love he never got to have. It's less on him to deal with his shit (even though it's still on him to an extent) and moreso about having someone to help him fix his behavior less so by like personal self reflection on his own (too young for that) and moreso by being shown the right behaviors and having a safe person to tell him when he's wrong who will still provide unconditional love to him and help him reflect on his behavior. (Like like ballpoint pen 🥺🥺)

Anyway I love mephone4. Idk I just wanted to ramble this has no real point. Lol

[pauls1967moustache]

As an author, how do you tackle John’s documented history of physical abuse when it comes to his characterization? I’ve noticed that a lot of writers only go as far as to allude to his capacity for emotional cruelty by putting together scenes where his is incredibly cut-throat in his choice of language and abrasive in his delivery. I can’t decide if only representing verbal abuse is either dismissive or, in a way, respectful of the consequences of the more severe kind of abuse that is physical abuse. You don’t need to respond to the previous sentence, it’s only included to explain why the initial question even came to me! Therefore, does the concept of fanFICTION allow for opportunities in which a more emotionally stable John can be depicted as a result of the realization of “what if” scenarios (such as one’s where him and Paul talk things out and his abandonment issues are better managed) and does it eliminate a moral need to address his violent past? Is there a moral need? If so, should it be addressed? If so, how?

well firstly, i don't think it's any fanfiction writer's responsibility to hold john to account, or to be held accountable for john's actions. the purpose of fanfiction as a hobby is not a 100% realistic depiction, it is chiefly writing and reading fiction. i think it's perfectly fine to write an idealised version of john that figures his shit out or treats people better or whatever or is still abusive but only shown verbally. there's no moral need to address anything in fanfiction, point blank, but particularly in this case, everyone here already knows he did all that. to sort of answer your questions with some more questions: why would we need to address it? who would we be addressing this for?

not to mention, it's a heavy topic. i wouldn't want people to go into it half-heartedly because they feel like they have to. and while you could expend 10k words about john feeling remorse, and learning the errors of his way, and making amends, that often will not gel with the type of stories this fandom wants to tell, and is a lot of psychological work to ask from people who are mostly here to write love stories about john and one of the few people he wasn't physically abusive towards.

and to go off that a bit, i think the reason it doesn't come up as much as the verbal cruelty is primarily because people aren't writing about cynthia or may - the most notable victims of his domestic violence. and even in fic where they are writing about cyn and may i think a lot of people aren't really comfortable acribing their own personal fictionalised sentiments over the real feelings and experiences of these women - or at least i wouldn't be. they've told their side of it in their own words. there's nothing i feel any fanfiction writer could or paticularly needs to add to that. especially in the name of something as trivial as rpf.

idk, it's one thing for people to be on their blogs dismissing the gravity of john's behaviour, but i've never seen anyone here do that. i think we're all approaching fic with the inherent trust that we all agree domestic violence is horrible, and it's one of the worst things john did. i don't need any fic writers to prove those beliefs in their work, and i wouldn't want anyone to put that expectation on my work either.

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Ep3 Musings - Loumand

Last post, I promise; I needed another nap; this ep's a freaking rollercoaster. And these two queens nearly gave me a stress ulcer!

DEBATABLE, Louis. I can think of FAR worse vamps than you, love.

Why're y'all having this whole conversation where anyone can hear?

They got Sartre's wall-eyes down; good makeup this season, team! 👌

DreamStat's a Loumand bed-death truther, jfc. 😭

I wanna know EXACTLY what Armand sees--or "feels"--whenever DreamStat pops up in Lou's head. Cuz he clearly knows precisely where Les is; he looks right in his direction. But does he HEAR Les too? (God I hope not, this song would've had me SEETHING--Back to Hell with you! 😅)

"Oh dear" indeed; I was HOLLERING.

SAM WAS DEVOURING THIS SCENE HOLY GOD GO AWAY DEMON

Armand looked PISSED, I was scared for Louis' life! And he DOES know, actually, yes Lou. I can almost GUARANTEE that he knows PRECISELY where Lestat is AT THIS VERY MOMENT, yes Lou.

If only you knew.... 😬

Claudia's suffered more than Christ. And nice cut to Daniel sneaking around with Raglan James as Armand talks about Furies punishing "human wrongdoing." It's really interesting that Armand told the lawyer that LOUIS is the owner of the paintings. Is he the owner of the penthouse too? HOW MANY DEEDS DOES HE HAVE, ROLIN?

I wonder what AMC might be saying about Loumand's art collection, not just wrt what we know about art heist!Armand (which we'll likely see a nod to in Ep4 at the Louvre); but also wrt what we know about Dubai's godawful neocapitalist hellscape economy, and Loumand's "moralizing" about Parisian black markets in S01E02.

I wonder if that's the excuse Armand'll give the coven when Louis shows up for dinner in Ep4--very much NOT dead; and rips out Santiago's tongue.

WILD voice-over, cuz you KNOW that's what Santiago was thinking, too, LOL. (You wish, Francis.) But yes: Louis' finna end your whole career. XD

Another TERRIFYING jumpscare from the coven, like in Ep2 with Annika. Louis, I am shocked & appalled--can you not HEAR all these vamps planning your bloody murder around you? CLAUDIA! WTF!?

But this is how you know Armand's true personality--he hates getting his hands dirty. He kills all the time, but he makes his victims' deaths pretty. He'd rather sit back & let Lestat/Louis come in and wreck his whole coven, even though he has the power to just light those mofos up all on his own! I wish AMC emphasized a bit more that Armand not only writes/directs the plays--he's an ACTOR, too. And istg he's an expert at PRETENDING to be helpless, meanwhile he's the strongest vamp that's NOT one of the Children of the Millennia (thanks to how well Marius made him).

Armand, that is LOW; waiting until Claudia's stuck under the oaths b4 you tell her she's guilty of breaking Great Laws she doesn't even know about yet. WTF?

How TF you gon' hold Louis accountable for following the Laws when he wasn't even allowed to be in the effing room when they were read!? He's not even a member! WTF! (I get it--any rogue vampires are subject to death, yadayada; we know it's a stupid policy.)

I love how he plans to leave by himself here--it had nothing to do with picking "another one" over Claudia. He just didn't want to hold her back anymore. And his presence was causing problems. 😭 It's so cute that Louis' stipulation about London was that if it's "too large" he'd leave and go to Ireland (?!?)--he's become agoraphobic or something? He just wants to be alone in his hermit hole--MOOD. 😭

Good to get confirmation that the Fire Gift here is Armand and blessedly NOT Santiago--so why's he zooming around in the sewers?

Look, sometimes folks make terrible first impressions--Lestat was being hella racist, Louis' always playing defense, Armand was finna kill Louis in a gay public park. It happens.

Foreshadowing like crazy, as usual.

WILD thing to say. I'm gonna cry, please stop.

(What kinda hypocrisy is that, when you were made young your dang self!?) She's already 30+ years old--maybe she'll last a little longer if y'all (read: sexist, racist, ageist, ableist, etc society) don't eff around tryna make her life even harder! But AMC's deliberately cutting Claudia's life in half, compared to the books, cuz misogynoir's real and Claudia gets NOTHING out of vampirism, not even a fair chance. And y'all let her into the coven KNOWING how much she loves y'all, and KNOWING y'all were gonna kill her. EFF THIS WHOLE COVEN, ARMAND INCLUDED. (Lemme calm down--this kind of betrayal is exactly how Lestat must've felt in S01E07; I get it; they're getting a taste of their own medicine. But LESTAT EFFING HAD IT COMING. The coven should've just told them: y'all got til sunrise to GTFO our territory, you're not welcome here. This whole bit's unnecessary.)

THE PARALLELS ARE PARALLELING

SKILL ISSUE. Cuz Louis' got the least power, and he's finna clear that whole bish out in just a couple episodes. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Louis, love, ARMAND DON'T GIVE A EFF ABOUT RAISING SOME OTHER MAN'S OFFSPRING. This is the call of the wild, as Alphas KILL the children their stolen Omega brides had for other Alphas/Betas, so he can restart the gene pool with HIS DNA instead. I know y'all had National Geographic back then already--READ A BOOK, Louis, it's what you're best at.

Incredible. After all of that Louis said Lestat never broke him. BENT BUT NEVER BROKEN, that's right! 💪😤

Boy, we're not talking about some little (unrequited) CRUSH over a man you only knew for a few months (which you've CLEARLY not gotten over yet). Louis was MARRIED to the man for 30 YEARS. This is his MAKER. Lestat knew his whole family; went to the Black cookouts and everything! They literally built a home AND business together! They raised a child together! WHATCHU KNOW ABOUT THAT!?

And that's LESTAT'S DAUGHTER TOO--how much can you possibly love EITHER of them while planning to knock her off!? I can't listen to too much more of this. *hands Louis the torch and scythe*

Beautiful end of this STACKED episode. Incredible work, AMC! Jacob acted his PANTS off; he excels at the trembling voice, agonized facial expressions, and utter mental breakdowns. He's pulling DEEP within him, holy god; it's so raw, it's almost hard to watch. EMMY WHEN?!

[navarice]

my dearest fellow mdzs stans, i really don't want to spoil anyone's fun but sometimes some things must be said. please do NOT mistake fanon characteristics for canon characteristics because by GOD is it frustrating to dissect a character when all anyone wants to do is blindly turn away from the very vivid and metastasizing flaws.

jiang cheng is an extremely complicated character, and that's why we love him. but by god, he is a jealous, self-victimizing asshole with a massive inferiority complex who likes to torture (probably) innocent look-a-likes of his (as far as he knew) dead adjacent family member. jesus christ this isn't some simple case of miscommunication (well it is but, you know no amount of communication will ever mend the giant chasm that developed between them. especially not with asians raised within the most classical case of asian parenting, i mean come on now) but a matter of deep and intense self-loathing developed since early childhood projecting violently outwards. let me be clear. he hates wei wuxian. he loathes him. he wants to kill him with his own hands again and again so some part of his convoluted sense of justice and superiority will be fulfilled. he's a classist, a bully, and abusive to everyone around him. ong at the end of mdzs, i was nearly crying tears of joy when jin guangyao flayed him flat on his ass bc that man needed to hear it. he needed to feel it. he needed to stop blaming others and blame himself.

and!! he's homophobic!! the entire cultivation world is, yes, but he's the only one we see give wei ying and lan zhan active shit for it!!

point is...his complexity makes him interesting. as a child, he was pretty alright tbh. he was understandably upset when three of his dogs got taken away and he saw his dad give a completely random kid such a gentle hug when jiang cheng never received one so far. he was a kid, and it was sad and helped the readers get a glimpse at the already dysfunctional family dynamics before wei ying came into the picture. as an adolescent/teen, yes he had a lot of unresolved rage and inferiority issues building up when he was constantly being compared to wei wuxian by his mother and not given enough reassurance from his father (once again, all present before wei ying...everyone just likes to dump the shit on him bc it's easier to point fingers at others than at yourself). perhaps he could have turned out differently if literally either of his parents stepped up and took accountability. however, after the burning of lotus pier? after the golden core transfer? after wei ying stuck around as his subordinate just as he promised, and protected jiang cheng like he promised, and defected just to save the yunmeng clan's reputation so jiang cheng doesn't have to put up with the other clan's shit, still continuing to keep his promise? after wei ying's death? idk abt y'all, but all bets are off bro.

mxtx makes it a point to make him so irredeemable. he's an exploration of what can go wrong if you let your traumas, self-hatred, and revenge fantasies blind you. he has the worst traits of his parents for a reason, directly contrasting with the other sibling, who is a perfect picture of eldest daughters born into a dysfunctional family. jiang yanli has the best traits of her parents (in terms of compassion and standing up for her family), but the family dynamics also made her the way she was. the responsible, the mediator, the occasional mother, stepping in where madam yu cannot.

there's just so much potential to hold him accountable buried under the pretense of misunderstandings and kinnie moments. he just had so many chances, more than any other character, to make a different choice. to actually look past his misgivings and unlearn the bad habits he used to protect himself as a child. i'm not saying he has to magically heal from all his traumas, but at the very least know not to be like his parents. but he wasn't written that way. because that is what happens when you give into your insecurities and generational trauma.

bottom line: jiang cheng is a fantastic archetype that needs to be explored in all his authenticity, including his moments of loyalty and cruelty.

[sueske]

Thank you, hope you are doing well too!

firstly to clear the air about boruto - the only reason boruto exists is because it's a cash-grab sequel, it doesn't run much deeper than that. it's in no way the natural resolution to the problems of their world and the co-operation which sns agreed upon, it literally exists to ride on the success of its predecessor.

So with that out of the way. I think there is some valid criticism to be had about naruto, but I don't think he's an irreparable bootlicker like many anti naruto/pro sasuke stans claim.

naruto doesn't see konoha through rose-tinted glasses, from a child he was literally abused by the villagers, he doesn't think konoha is this magical place. His first mission has him declaring that he'd find his own ninja way as opposed to being a ninja who is used as a tool, because he didn't like that at all. while Naruto wanted to become hokage at the start because he wanted acknowledgement, that changed throughout the course of the story. He saw what happened with haku (which led him to develop his own ninja way, as in, he will never go back on his word, that's his ninja way, even when other people tell him to do things otherwise he will stick to what he believes in and what he says he will do, not a 'tool'), gaara and other jinchuuriki, nagato, sasuke, obito, madara, and how they were shaped by the times that they lived in. naruto literally empathised with sasuke and said that naruto could be in his shoes, because he recognises that sasuke is a victim. being hokage for naruto stopped with wanting to get acknowledgement, he already got that, instead he wanted to help exert change in the world (even though he doesn't have exact answers on how to do that) and to get all shinobi to co-operate together so the circumstances that led the previous events to happen don't happen again. however, whereas sasuke wanted to kill his humanity in order to become his version of hokage, naruto proposed a different path, of all shinobi co-operating with each other instead. naruto never disagreed with sasuke about needing change. naruto validated sasuke's feelings.

Naruto didn't care when sasuke killed danzo. If kumo killed sasuke, naruto would get revenge and thus konoha would be endangered. let me reiterate: if kumo killed sasuke, naruto would retaliate knowing that this would then trigger a bigger cascade and konoha would go to war. this is the exact opposite of protecting Konoha's interest. Konoha's interest would be killing sasuke to avoid that scenario like all the other characters chose to do, but that's something only naruto refused to do. These are not bootlicker actions lol it's the exact opposite - boot spitter? - it's everyone else who were portrayed as bootlickers, naruto was the only one who would ignore 'commands' for sasuke. That was literally the entire kage summit arc, where multiple characters voiced aloud 'you're not planning to go after sasuke' while even characters like sakura and kakashi thought sasuke was too far gone and naruto just left them all behind and we got to see how Naruto places sasuke above the village. the whole arc was literally done to juxtapose naruto's actions towards sasuke with everyone else's. where naruto placed sasuke above his dream of becoming hokage much like sasuke did for him back in the LoW.

now, all that being said, I will say some anti naruto criticism has validity. it IS true that naruto doesn't really hold konoha accountable. In the waterfall of truth scene instead of holding konoha accountable for their hypocrisy and treatment of him he just represses it. But given that he thinks he should endure, well.... naruto is a Repressed character. As for sasuke, even if naruto didn't believe tobito about the truth about itachi, naruto was going to tell everyone anyways, he didn't have any problem with the truth getting out. He was then stopped by kakashi, but afterwards naruto never vocalised saying it aloud again, despite the emphasis he also put on learning from the past and thus not erasing/forgetting about it. but it was just dropped and never re-visited. by sasuke too. now, this is messy because this is one of those things that I think was never re-visited because of the need for boruto due to reasons mentioned above. I had a discussion about this with someone in more depth so I'll just link it here if you're interested.

then there was the infamous edo-tensei itachi encounter which was pretty bad tbh, I understand why kishimoto didn't make naruto call itachi out (because of the whole itachi was a tragic hero narrative so he can't make the mc call him out) but it just made naruto look ooc considering how enraged he got when others tried to manipulate sasuke before and how much disdain he expressed with madara's IT plan (the genjutsu that would force people to live a lie ie what the KA would force sasuke to do). naruto antis who are 100% sure that naruto would've wanted to use shisui's KA on sasuke because naruto just asked itachi why he destroyed the bird are just like??? there's just no way naruto would do that.

I would also say that naruto is naive at times, I think he got called naive a few times by other characters as well, like sasuke and nagato. I do remember an interview where kishimoto also said naruto was naive but that because it's shonen these values need to be pushed, however, naruto did express anger and frustration at him being the one tasked to find an 'answer', when minato and jiraiya for example couldn't, 'why are you lumping this on me.' since naruto is just a 17 year old boy that people view as a 'hero', who a lot of people rely on and who impose their dreams onto him, and naruto bears the responsibility of it. but naruto's more idealistic approaches also become a foundation where two opposing forces could come in to work together - sasuke and naruto balancing each other out. working together, exerting the change they want to see in the world, having faith, even if it won't be easy they have faith to work together to a better future. and cut scene naruto ended at 699 and boruto never happened the end.

[bnhaobservation]

Actually, I hope you don’t mind if I add a question from the the brother’s relationship ask: Do you think the brothers’ relationship suffers from Hori unable to balance the victim-hero-villain categorization of the characters?

Ops, sorry, when I replied to your ask I missed this addendum.

As for the brothers' relationship...

it suffered of plenty of things.

The main problem specific for this relationship is, mainly, the fact Horikoshi kept on retconning the Todoroki family plot so that what was likely meant to be Shouto connecting with his brother and saving him to Shouto becomes the Hero he wanted to be and saves the world from being nuked with his ice side while the family connect with his brother... then Touya will die and everyone will go on separate ways.

Basically... it could have been developed a lot more but Horikoshi wasn't interested in doing so and, at a certain point, when Horikoshi decided Shouto's goal in the fight wouldn't be anymore to connect with his brother, he didn't really need to develop it that much... but I talked more about the Todoroki family ending here.

Now... regarding the balance of the victim-hero-villain categorization... I think more than lacking of balance the problem, which is presented in all the relationships (Tomura/Midoriya, Himiko/Uraraka, Touya/Shouto... and if you want to stretch Iguchi/Shouji) is in the general idea behind the story.

To summarize A LOT as I've already talked about it in other posts what the story tells us seems to be:

No matter how much SOCIETY wrong YOU, SOCIETY won't be hold accountable and you should just endure and shouldn't retort to attack society. If you do YOU'll be held accountable, you'll need to stop and accept to be punished. You might receive understanding if you're against the new generation of Heroes, but you'll never receive justice and the Heroes will never hold society to blame or accountable for making you snap.

Now this is not all wrong, it's true you can't attack society... but in many countries if you were also a victim, you can have leniency or, at least, have justice.

Watch how Aoyama, a minor, was forced to act as a spy to AFO under duress and yet the police doesn't care of the extenuating circumstances since he conspired with AFO and Present Mic insists that a crime is a crime and the kids shouldn't trust him since they're his victims. Even later Tsukauchi will insist that even if he can sympathize the fact remains that Aoyama turned his back on decent society.

Long story short, even though Aoyama is a victim, they believed Aoyama should have accepted to die instead than cooperate with AFO. Aoyama will be forced to fight, they'll put him on the frontlines and use him to defeat AFO.

A society that thinks a teen like Aoyama should have chosen to die before accepting to cooperate with AFO and offers him zero indulgence isn't going to offer indulgence to Tomura, Touya or Himiko as they aren't presented as acting under duress.

Ultimately even Shouto, who used to insist over and over on how Rei burned him due to what Enji did to her, will let it go. When Rei will take responsibility in front of Hawks he won't defend her any longer.

That's also why, as I said in another post, the story won't save Tomura, Touya and Himiko. Because all it has to offer to them if they were to be saved was jail (which in Japan is a place that doesn't respect human right for Horikoshi's own admission) and execution so since they were very pitiable victims, it was better if they were to die in gentler settings because otherwise it would have felt too cruel.

At least those are my feelings. As usual I might be wrong. Thank you for your ask!

[causesciencethatswhy]

https://www.tumblr.com/causesciencethatswhy/739756690719801344/the-only-expectation-was-that-he-should-have?source=share

Um i disagree on the point that members don't know how deep this shipping or solo shit goes cause taehyung is pretty deep in fandom cause he posts arts from accounts, has showed jm the moon tatto thing, jk used tiktok and every sns in this fandom is dominated by tk shippers be it any. I can bet all my money that all the members have seen worst of their shipping stuff than this. Like i know for a fact that even jm knows about it too. They knows they just don't react cause it might make a big deal so they just let it be.

The comapny also don't care about shippers much cause these delulu tkkrs are the ones that are also giving them some millions of money so why would they when they're making money? They gave tkklives her account back. You have people in that company just to keep the sns safe for boys and make sure people who defame them get's punished but you have all these accounts with big following defaming boys in the name of shipping.

This will sound rude now but mark my words tkkrs are beyond repair now and in future it will be jk, tae and their respective partners that are gonna get the end of their hate. Their partners are gonna get all the unnecessary hate from these shippers and neither the members nor anyone else would be able to do anything about it mark my words. They should have stopped them when it was time but now it's too late and at the end it's taekook that's gonna pay for it.

You're creating a causation= correlation link where there isn't one necessarily. Tae can easily come across pretty jimin fanart or ai art, without being in the trenches of shipping or army spaces (especially with all the plethora of art reposter accounts there are) Jk having tiktok in no way guarantees that he's coming across egregious shippers when most accounts he engages with are either meme accounts or dancers. Just because they have a presence on the internet that we can't exactly track, doesn’t mean than we can take the assumption that all the boys are aware of how deeply messed up the shipping spaces run.

With respect to hybe taking action, I agree that they need to start taking these shippers antis more seriously, especially on the non Korean sides, because most of the claims those accounts make could very well amount to defamation but their lax approach tells me that they either don't see them as a threat or are unable to take much action against perpetrators outside of SK, which we know has been an issue before.

As for tae and jungkook shutting down shippers more, they already have anon?? "Get out of your imagination, it's not good in there ", are Taehyung's own words, but was that good enough for the shippers, no? They found a niche alternative translation to satisfy their delusions or just straight up pretend it didn’t happen. People often accuse tae of ramping up tkkrs esp in chap 2, but its just been moments of him sharing about his interactions with jk, how is it his responsibility if tkkrs have run with it to be terrible to jm/jennie? Saying that he's "feeding these shippers" by simply talking about jk sounds strangely reminiscent of what tkkrs used to say about jm a few years back, but whatever.

As for jk, he's shut down tkkrs many times last year itself, what with his weirded out look into the camera when asked whether he's living with tae and many more examples which I'm not that interested in listing out. But does any of that, stop tkkrs? No.

I agree that tkkrs are beyond repair and it might create serious problems for any partners tae or jk might introduce, but you cannot in good faith put the onus of responsibility on the both of them for the way their shippers act. Its too victim blamey for me. I will hold tae a little responsible for reposting that account without checking, just solely because he has a bigger platform than most, but I'm not going to accuse him of being some secret terrible person for the actual content on those blogs.

[hislittleraincloud]

The Galpin residence, Tyler’s room, 2:00 A.M. Thursday 

Donovan stared at his sleeping son in his lamplit bedroom. Tyler had been more consoled sleeping with a light on ever since he was six years old and suddenly developed an intense fear of the dark that couldn't be cured by a mere night light. For twelve years the kid’s been adding to my energy bills all because of….

He blinked as he watched Tyler’s shoulder rise and fall in sync with the sound of his deep breathing. The curls on the back of his head were getting darker, more like how his own head hair was darker when he was young (and because Donovan possessed that one mutated copy of the MC1R gene, his beard hairs were always redder than his dark brown scalp hair, which might have accounted for Tyler’s hair having a more coppery tone when he was much younger). But overall, Tyler took after his mother.

“Overall”.

Understatement of the year.

Donovan remembered the photographs of his Hyde. There were more than a few, but it was the one of the back of its head that he was recollecting, the smooth curls having transformed into wiry, steel wool-like patches stretched over a monstrously deformed skull. He then thought of all the people—victims of his son—that had been murdered in the most violent of ways, all most surely aware of what was happening to them given their wounds. 

God, Val. Chunk in her neck…my hands, her eyes, they…n’ Addams…whiter than usual….

It was a creature that took pleasure in its kills, shredding bodies and consuming their parts like endless hot wings at a Superbowl party.

That's what that peacefully sleeping head did. Multiple times.

Donovan raised his gun, his hand steady at first; all he had to do was pull the trigger. Several times if need be. People who live up here go missing all the time. It’s no big deal. This is the humane way. Then the Thorpe kid can be released due to lack of real evidence, case…closed.

He looked through the sights at the perfect spot just at the base of his skull, but it was only then that it occurred to him that his gun going off in the middle of the night might be loud enough to startle people awake. Fuck!  His hands trembled in their aim. He shook his head and took a deep breath, holding steady. Ah, fuck it—I’m the fuckin’ sheriff, I can set bombs off on my property if I fuckin’ want to. 

A sudden queasiness hit. He had already weighed his options; besides saving more people from being ripped apart, there was no way he would want to see his son suffer the same fate as his mother. He would be saving both normies and outcasts alike, especially Addams. He would surely rescind the deal with Larissa and she can come back to school. Surely that's how it would be. 

Surely.

Or would Wednesday’s selective sense of justice prevail? Would she want to know what happened to Tyler? Of course she would. She wants to know everything. She would wonder and then start pestering him about why his Hyde son suddenly disappeared off the face of the Earth. Did you do something, Donovan? What did you do, Donovan? What did you do?

Her terrified, angry imagined hollering at him in his mind made his hands tremble even more, but he only realized it once a salty droplet of sweat trickled over his upper lip. He licked it away, tuned the imagined screaming in his brain into white noise, and began to steady his gun again when Tyler suddenly stirred, rolling a 180° onto his right side to face him. He was awake. He stared at his own covers for what seemed like forever and hadn't even brought his eyes up to Donovan as he stood, caught red-fingered on the trigger and paralyzed.

“You pissed yourself,” he mumbled, his words affected by his cheek pressed against his pillow.

Donovan snapped out of his terror to glance down at his pants; sure enough, the white noise in his head wasn't actually white, it was yellow, and it was a dark area of wetness that bled from a precise spot near his fly down his leg. 

Tyler blinked, his gaze creeping no higher than Donovan’s belt before he shifted under the covers, turning back around to oblige his father’s shot.

“Make it quick,” he sighed, his head tilting forward and his shoulder relaxing for the anticipated relief.

✨