#they were just really into the ends justifying the means

[azaharinflames]

Well, hello my fellow and beloved BuckTommies. I come here with a new theory - not quite or what will happen, but on what did.

Let me put my tin hat firmly on my head for a second, alright? Because we have been talking about all kinds of possibilities, and have theorized about BTS, and even budget cuts, but.

We are all missing one thing.

What happened during the summer that has repercussions in the series right now? Or that will have in the immediate future, but we’re only seeing the start of...?

An ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ reboot was officially announced.

It is set to be filmed in Australia come the New Year. And JLH, famously having been in the first one, is going to Australia to film for this one as well. 

This means that, just like they did in Season 5, they will have to take JLH’s absence and other compromises into consideration. In Season 5 she was on maternity leave, this time around she has a movie to shoot. And it just hit me that it might be the reason why things got moved around, and why perhaps they did what they did with BuckTommy.

(Disclaimer: I am not putting this on JLH, and I don’t want anyone to do it either. If this is something that clashed with the initial plan, what the writers and Tim came up with it’s on them, never Jennifer)

We know Tim is not someone who writes his stuff in advance. He’s flying by the seat of his pants; he writes as he goes, and this is something he has said before. So now he has to write and plan in advance because Jennifer will be somewhat absent. The direct result of this is, in my opinion, Madney.

The storyline of them having a second child at home, having her go back to her family, having Jee notice her absence, and then starting to debate on whether to have a second kid… had the potential to be more than one episode. Or, at the very least, to end the episode with them deciding that, yeah, they want to try, they want to expand their family. Maddie’s mentality on PPD could’ve been an episode in itself (Lord knows we don’t get enough Maddie episodes, especially lately), instead of a throwaway line on how she doesn’t want PPD to define her. I do think it’s amazing she’s at that point in her life and on her journey, but I can’t help but think this could’ve also been a really nice episode arc to have. Chimney’s doubts were also gone pretty quickly, with not even needing to talk to anyone about it. All in all - the storyline felt rushed and a bit anticlimactic. And at this point, I can only imagine they will somehow try to create some drama surrounding the pregnancy in 808 (807 perhaps, but it feels like it’s busy enough) so that Jennifer’s absence is justified. We don’t know if, just like in Season 5, Kenny will also be absent (Chim going with Maddie wherever she goes, I don’t know). People weren’t happy with him having to be off the show in Season 5, so I hope he stays, but we don’t know just yet. 

A side result of this could’ve also been BuckTommy. If there is something I’ve gathered from Oliver and Lou’s interviews is that both were a bit surprised it happened this soon. Now, we don’t know if this means they were breaking up for good later on in the season, if this was supposed to be a longer arc, or if they knew there were talks of break-up-make-up, once they were more established. As it is, this happened now.

And in my mind there are two possible theories. Let me present first why I have them:

-They need some substantial drama to go on for 8b. Bathena went through it in S7 and now are rebuilding their life, so it would be a bit of an overkill to have them go through it in S8 as well. Eddie is going through his own stuff and is going on a journey of discovering and enjoying himself (that, personally, I hope deals with actually dealing with it and having deep conversations with Chris). Hen and Karen have just gone over the drama of the adoption and, to be honest, they need a breather. Give them SLs that don’t involve them somewhat losing their kids (be it adoption, or an accident). 

-So… that leaves Buck. Buck, whom we all joked was the only one doing fine in Season 7. Whom we all said was going to go through it in Season 8 to compensate for his happiness in 7. Well. The joke’s on us. He’s had such a drama-free period of his life (yes, affected by what was happening around him, but not directly involved in it) that I think we forgot they enjoy making him suffer. We barely saw a thing with Gerard, and nothing to last the whole season, so… now this. 

So. From this, I see two options:

-They always knew they wanted to have BT have issues, that they didn’t want them to be easy or smooth-sailing, because has a couple in this show been that? No, right? So why would they? So they wanted a break-up arc, potentially ending in making up. Perhaps things moved around a little bit, we don’t know. But maybe they want 8b to deal with Buck trying to see what Tommy meant, yet realizing he still wants Tommy, thus starting the make-up arc. Meaning, they decided to have BT bear the weight of the heavy drama of this second half. People are already invested, clearly, and with JLH gone for a bit, they need people interested in what will happen next.

-Sort of the same, but different results - they just want Buck dating around and having drama with that. Admittedly weaker than the other option, but it is one I don’t necessarily eliminate just yet. Mostly because I’ve learned to be skeptical of 911’s intentions. 

Previous to 806, I fully expected 8b to have more Buck/BT, Madney stories as A plot, as they haven’t had one in 8A. But now that I think about it all, I can’t help but wonder if those last minutes decisions were to accomodate what will happen, just like it happened in Season 5 (which, I will remind you, dealt with her absence by having a lot more of Taylor than we were expecting. Her appearances went down quite a bit once JLH and Kenny were back, and shortly after, she was gone).

Again, I am aware I might be delulu right now. But for the first time in days, something has fully made sense to me. In conclusion:

[verdantwyrm]

On that topic though, I would like to touch more on the subject of Jimmy being also a victim to himself. I fear this might anger a lot of people, but Jimmy is an almost exact perfect example of someone with BPD (As someone with it myself) and how his spiralling is directly tied to Curly.

The game never once insinuates that Jimmy is like this because he's mentally ill, the line of him having it "hard" back on earth doesn't mean anything either, but it also means a lot coming from Curly. Curly is a representative of a Favorite person, and everything Jimmy did in the game, who he hurt, how he did it and the language he used, is very close to how real-life people with BPD sometimes treat their own FPs and the people around them.

They become erratic, jealous, driven by fear, apologetic, desperate and cling to everything and everything. Jimmy insults Curly, twists his words and makes him out the be the villain, he drives everyone away from him at the birthday party and spends months feeding lies to the others that Curly is the one that crashed the ship despite this lie not actually really benefitting Jimmy all that much in the long run.

Jimmy wanted to kill everyone on the ship, he could have lied and instead said that it was simply a fault of the ship, a miscalculation, an accident. Instead, he took every opportunity to make Curly out to be the one who ultimately decided that this was the best way to go about it, and then also blamed it on Curly's mental health dropping after being fired.

This is all extremely elaborate, and a very difficult lie to keep up with, as almost everyone on that ship has plenty of reasons to believe otherwise that Curly didn't crash the ship. What with Anya's psych eval of him being "the same as usual" and being sane enough to continue doing his job. Anya also trusted Curly enough to tell him about the pregnancy, and to also tell him about the gun. And even though it's not very well expressed in the game (possibly intentional since we are seeing through Jimmy's eyes.) She does trust Curly, and she probably continued to trust him even when all was wrong around her.

And Daisuke also has no real reason to distrust Curly, we don't know much about their relationship, but there was definitely a sense of trust and reliability between the both of them. This is also evident through Swansea and Curly, where Curly trusts him enough to hold onto the axe, despite being told to return it to the case as everything has to constantly run through him. He was taking risks, he was terrified of being abandoned, left behind in Curly's shadow. He was having fits of rage, outbursts of suicidal thoughts and harm to himself and to those around him.

Jimmy twisted and kept twisting that knife in an attempt to turn away everyone from Curly even when he was at his lowest to isolate and to make him cling to the only thing he had left; Jimmy.

This adds even more to Curly's eventual condition, being completely reliant on Jimmy, being completely subject to his will and power. And something that he even admitted to liking, he likes power. And he likes that the circumstances given, might not have turned out the best way, it gave Jimmy that power over Curly. Something he had been climbing for a long time, and something he so desperately wanted because he was sick and tired of hearing just how fantastic he was at something Jimmy wasn't.

And yet, despite all of this, Jimmy praised Curly. He hated how much he adored him, hated how much he idolised him. And even at the end of it all, his main focus was just Curly, making him out to be the hero of the story despite spending such a long time attempting to make him out to be the villain.

And then even further to make the situation out to be that he was also the hero of the story, that all of his actions were justified to some degree because it was all for Curly. He fixed it, he fixed everything for Curly. Because despite what he did to Anya, Swanse and Daisuke, his only real concern behind all of it was Curly.

Every hallucination leads to him, every goal, every path. He was so concerned with him, that even when it was directly in his face, the only apology he ever muttered was to Curly. Using Anya's words.

Our worst moments don't make us monsters.

Jimmy is a victim of only himself and the consequences of his own actions, and he is by far one of the better, unintentional examples of BPD.

[majikkulu]

━━ ❝MASTERLIST❞

these are my personal observations and may not resonate with everyone. please take them with a grain of salt, as i'm not a professional astrologer! :))

credits to @m1nd-r0t for introducing the asteroid messerschmidt! took a while to really sink in, so i hope i understood it well!

𓂃⋆.˚

★ MESSERSCHMIDT (16450) in your chart isn't something subtle or easy. it’s a heavy hand, a brutal cut that pulls you to the edge, tearing apart whatever comfort you have and showing you the raw aftermath. think of it as life ripping the bandaid off in the most unforgiving way possible, pushing you into chaos and leaving you with consequences you have no choice but to confront. it’s a ruthless teacher, one that throws you into the darkest extremes of your own existence until you face parts of yourself you never wanted to see.

★ EXAMPLE: ted bundy's messerchmidt his messerschmidt in the 2nd house, sitting in libra at 4°—a cancer degree—screams deep self-worth issues. he was a man starved for validation, but in the most twisted, destructive way. he might have craved material things, but it wasn’t really about possessions; libra’s influence made it all about power and control in relationships. his interactions with women were warped, nothing short of vicious—manipulative, domineering, a game of possession. to him, women were objects, there only for his control and exploitation. he hid behind a charming mask, using it to get what he wanted from people. libra rules justice, which adds another layer; i think he wrestled internally, questioning if his actions were “right.” but he twisted the narrative to justify himself, feeding his twisted sense of entitlement. he saw the world as unfair, and his answer was brutal violence. his need for validation was so consuming that it fueled his drive to dominate, the same way his violent behavior erupted. his crimes? just a sick means to feed his hollow self-worth. that cancer degree points back to family—his home life likely left him void of real love. maybe his mother or caretaker was absent, emotionally cold, or worse, stoking his bitterness and rage against women.

𓂃⋆.˚

MESSERCHMIDT IN ARIES / 1TH HOUSE you’re your own worst enemy here. messerschmidt in aries/1st house rips through self-restraint, pushing you to make reckless decisions that only ever end in chaos. the self-destruction comes fast and hits hard—you’ll tear down your own sense of identity until there’s nothing left. this isn’t a gentle self-discovery; it’s a brutal unraveling. it’ll chew you up and spit you out as you’re forced to face the fallout of your own impulsiveness, stripped down and exposed, fighting against a world you’ve alienated.

MESSERCHMIDT IN TAURUS / 2ND HOUSE comfort, security, stability—everything you think you own or control is on thin ice here. messerschmidt is merciless; it tears apart everything you rely on, leaving you clutching at straws. your worth, your money, your possessions—there’s always something threatening to rip it away. you’re taught, over and over, that nothing is safe. material loss, the constant gnawing feeling of instability—this placement forces you to face the hollowness of everything you think you need to survive.

MESSERCHMIDT IN GEMINI / 3RD HOUSE mental warfare. your thoughts spiral, your words turn toxic, and there’s no escape. it’ll ruin relationships, sever connections, and leave you isolated in the ruins of your own making. your mind is a battlefield, where the casualties are your closest ties and any sense of peace you might’ve had. there’s a pull toward paranoia, obsession, mental exhaustion that drags you down, leaving a chaotic mess that no one wants to touch. it’s relentless.

MESSERCHMIDT IN CANCER / 4TH HOUSE home becomes a prison with this placement. family trauma isn’t just present—it defines you. every illusion of safety gets ripped to shreds. family relationships go from complicated to toxic to something that rots you from the inside out. you’re left picking up the pieces of a childhood or family life that doesn’t hold anything close to comfort, leaving scars that never fully heal. even as you rebuild, it’ll tear it down again. issues with maternal figures or just women in general.

MESSERCHMIDT IN LEO / 5H HOUSE self-expression? try self-destruction. this placement brings you face-to-face with the ugly side of your ego. creative pursuits crash and burn as quickly as they ignite, and romantic entanglements turn into battlegrounds of shattered pride. your need for attention or recognition backfires spectacularly, leaving you humiliated or hollowed out. you’ll keep reaching for validation that doesn’t come, each failure leaving you angrier and more desperate.

MESSERCHMIDT IN VIRGO / 6TH HOUSE this is the grind from hell. messerschmidt won’t let you rest; it’ll drive you to perfectionism so extreme it bleeds you dry. health issues, toxic work environments, and burnout are your constant companions. you push yourself to breaking point over and over, and every time you think you’re close to relief, you’re torn down again. this placement demands everything, and it leaves you holding the scraps of what used to be your sanity.

MESSERCHMIDT IN LIBRA / 7TH HOUSE relationships here are wreckage waiting to happen. messerschmidt drags your heart through betrayal after betrayal, leaving you with trust issues so deep they fester. you attract partners who bring out the worst in you, leading to cycles of breakups, power struggles, and raw exposure of every insecurity you tried to hide. it’s like an endless loop of heartbreak and resentment, leaving you wondering if connection is worth the cost.

MESSERCHMIDT IN SCORPIO / 8TH HOUSE this is shadow work that never ends. it pulls you into the depths of your own darkness, stripping you of illusions and tearing apart your defenses. intimacy and trust? twisted into something unrecognizable. you’ll face betrayal, trauma, and loss on levels that go beyond the ordinary, as messerschmidt pushes you to confront every fear, every raw nerve. it’s a constant death and rebirth that leaves you wondering if there’s anything left to salvage.

MESSERCHMIDT IN SAGITTARIUS / 9TH HOUSE faith, ideals, beliefs—all fall under the blade here. it tears down your philosophies, leaving you stranded in the ruins of your convictions. what you thought was solid gets shattered, pushing you into existential crisis after existential crisis. travel, knowledge, growth—everything leaves you feeling more lost, more disillusioned. it’s an endless search for meaning that’s stripped of any comforting lies, forcing you to face a void of your own making.

MESSERCHMIDT IN CAPRICORN / 10TH HOUSE the grind never ends. messerschmidt shreds your ambitions and leaves you clawing your way up a cliff that keeps crumbling. nothing you build stands. you’re forced to witness the collapse of everything you’ve sacrificed for—career, reputation, self-respect—all reduced to rubble. this isn’t a test of resilience; it’s a punishment for ever wanting power or respect. you’re pushed to rebuild, only for it all to fall apart again, leaving you questioning the worth of any success.

MESSERCHMIDT IN AQUARIUS / 11TH HOUSE friendships are where messerschmidt strikes hardest, pulling people close only to throw them into betrayal or abandonment. there’s a brutal edge to your social life—you attract people who tear you down, backstab you, or leave when you’re most vulnerable. dreams and ideals get ripped to shreds as reality refuses to meet your expectations. it’s loneliness, over and over, as every attempt to connect seems cursed, leaving you questioning if you even belong anywhere.

MESSERCHMIDT IN PISCES / 12TH HOUSE messerschmidt here is the ultimate isolation. the subconscious becomes a hellscape where unresolved trauma festers. self-sabotage is constant, and there’s no escape from the memories and fears that haunt you. you’ll be pulled into dark places, stuck in cycles of self-destruction, as you confront every unresolved piece of yourself in brutal clarity. mental health spirals, leaving you feeling like an outcast in your own mind. every shadow you’ve hidden from drags you down, and there’s no running from it.

★ THANK YOU FOR READING! ★

[mythalism]

Wait.. so when anon said we traded a few thousand deaths for millions in southern Thedas, are they suggesting that lifting the veil would only cause a few thousand deaths ?

IIRC from what Solas says In trespasser and later shown in the DAV artbook (showing what would happen if rook fails to stop Solas and Solas successfully removes the veil), then taking down the veil was supposed to lead to widespread death across all thedas at minimum OR just straight up kill everyone except the ancient elves.

If it comes down to numbers then losing southern Thedas is still less than what they would've lost if Solas lifted the veil.

However, I still think we should've seen the veil getting removed. If not as the true ending then at least as a game over / fail state in the game. It's been years building up to this moment so at least show us what would happen!

the games have been dodgy and inconsistent about exactly the level of casualty the falling of the veil would cause. based on what solas says in trespasser, i always interpreted "the death of your world" or whatever to be more metaphorical as in the death of the world as we know it, a complete change in reality, a permanent change in peoples way of life, a dissolution of current beliefs and systems, etc. maybe that was me giving both solas and bioware too much credit LMAO. i never really thought of it as "literally everyone is going to die because demons".

but veilguard really did lean into this interpretation (snore.... boring!) with what we see in the prologue. rook also does confront solas in one conversation and estimates the deaths at "hundreds? thousands?" and im pretty sure solas affirms that it would be in the thousands, but that the deaths would be on his conscience. i think they went this route to justify why it was going to stay up in the end, but imo its bad, lazy, and completely contradicts everything we learn in trespasser. literally the point of trespasser is to show us the horrible catastrophe that the veils existence caused in the first place.

solas's decision to bring down the veil and kill "thousands" as collateral damage from demons is not just being weighed against the collateral damage cause by the blight in the south and the evanuris's interference across thedas, he is weighing it against the mortality of every single elf that has ever lived and ever will live, the life of every spirit corrupted into a demon both in the past and forever (something we know he considers to be a fate worse than death, according to his memory of his battle where he sacrificed spirits) and the life of every single mage lost to demonic position, both now and forever. he is also not weighing it in terms of literal deaths, but general suffering. the veil is also responsible for the enslavement and poverty of all elves, on top of their mortality. its responsible for the existence of the mage circles, every single abuse that occurs within them, and every single mage tranquilized. its actually ridiculously unequal. solas literally invented death. of course a few thousand more lives are meaningless to him? what is a few thousand against the literal millions already on his head? trespasser makes this clear as we walk through the vir'dirthara and witness the final memories of the elves that were crushed under falling buildings throughout the empire. veilguard..... hopes we forget that part.

its truly the most cranked to the max, fantasy version of the trolley problem. i think the question pre-veilguard was intended to be analogous to anders decision to blow up the chantry to incite the mage rebellion. its not necessarily should you pull the lever and direct the trolley, or even if the ends justify the means. i think it was intended to be about whether or not he himself had the right to make that decision for the rest of the world, especially considering he is Pride manifested. its less about the cost-benefit analysis of mass casualties to create major societal change and more about an exploration of the things that drive people to the point of such radical action. why did anders feel he had no choice but to blow up the chantry? why did solas feel he had no choice but put up the veil? why does he feel he has no choice to tear it back down? what has driven him to be able to make such impossibly awful moral decisions with such callous ease? and the answer to both is that they were pushed to the limit by the evils their societies were committing. were they right to respond with further, indiscriminate violence? no, of course not. but its a story. we can sympathize with the way they were pushed to the edge and lost themselves in the process.

it comes back to the dehumanization of leadership theme that is all over inquisition and has foundations in veilguard that are never actually realized. solas literally tells rook they never had what it takes to make the sacrifices that leadership requires. and its kind of presented as a villain monologue but HES RIGHT? rook barely makes any difficult decisions in comparison to the inquisitor or solas, even the sacrifice of a single city is a drop in the bucket compared to what solas has done, and rook does it without question and with little remorse. a decision had to be made, and they made it. just like he did.

inquisition was all about how leadership or participation within a corrupt institution makes monsters of us all. leliana struggles with the callous killer she's become at divine justinia's behest (actually a wonderful parallel for solas x mythal now that i think about it), bull has to struggle to unlearn the teachings of the qun by choosing his friends over his duty to his people, cassandra grapples with the horrible truth of the seekers and vows to reform them, thom rainier confronts his literal war crime and accepts responsibility for not just killing a family, but for ordering others to carry it out and bloodying their hands in the process. the INQUISITOR is forced to SIT IN JUDGEMENT and possibly SENTENCE PEOPLE TO DEATH OR TORTURE FOR THEIR CRIMES. what gives them the right?????? divine approval from andraste???? what about when you find out thats all a lie and continue to proliferate the rumor anyway because its politically helpful???? what about in hushed whispers? when the inquisitor destroys an entire world to return to their own without a second thought? its wrong, bad, it should never have existed. you erase it from existence without a single thought towards all the lives that will cease to exist and not one of your companions bats an eyelash. what gave you the right to erase that world? what if the people living in it really liked it? you wouldn't know, you didnt ask anyone other than leliana. i truly am starting to believe that veilguard was designed to deliver on this and then had to pivot for whatever reason (EA perhaps, according to those tweets). the natural conclusion to this story would have been the veil coming down, but not by solas's decision alone, or by him at all. even if you are right, you cannot change the world alone, or the process will break you. you cannot make decisions that weigh the lives of millions without losing your humanity in the process. we saw it happen to anders. ghost-varric even has a line about this in veilguard where he says something about solas seeing his attachments as a weakness, when really they are a strength. the lesson solas needed to learn was not that the veil should actually stay up and he should move on, but that only gods made decisions like the fate of the world, and as he always says, he is not a god. there could have been a better way, if he trusted those around him. the regret demon in the callback actually says this nearly verbatim, which is part of the reason i think this was the original intention. i genuinely think the plan was that the veil would come down but by rook's hand and that the good endings would have involved using your faction connections to figure out how to take the veil down safely and build a new thedas, without the veil but also without the elvhen empire of old bc that shit sucked. it would have taken the entire world coming together to figure out the best way forward, and would have freed solas from the burden of leadership that was actively polluting his spirit into pride, while teaching him the value of teamwork, as cheesy as that sounds. this also is the fufillment of his role as a trickster god - he needs to catalyze ragnarok. i genuinely think this was the original intention because it is so obvious in his writing its insane LMFAO. but him not being the one to usher in that change would be another way to release him from the mantle of trickster god that he didnt want in the first place. the bad ending could have been that without faction and community support, you aren't able to find a peaceful way to bring it down and rook, in a moment of desperation, ends up sowing the same violence and destruction that solas did, the perfect mirror. the lesson should have been that such foundational change and dissolving our current structures is terrifying, but we can build a better world - together, not alone.

its crazy to me to think that legend of korra book 4 pulled this off with opening the spirit portals and dragon age failed to LMFAOOOO.

[jackoshadows]

Brandon Sanderson on why TV adaptations of fantasy works end up being so different to the source material:

I have a fun story here. Early in my career, someone optioned the rights to make one of my stories (the Emperor's Soul) into a film. I was ecstatic, as it's not a story that at the time had gotten a lot of attention from Hollywood. I met with the writer, who had a good pedigree, and who seemed extremely excited about the project; turned out, he'd been the one to persuade the production company to go for the option. All seemed really promising. A year or so later, I read his script and it was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. The character names were, largely, the same, though nothing that happened to them was remotely similar to the story. Emperor's Soul is a small-scale character drama that takes place largely in one room, with discussions of the nature of art between two characters who approach the idea differently. The screenplay detailed an expansive fantasy epic with a new love interest for the main character (a pirate captain.) They globe-trotted, they fought monsters, they explored a world largely unrelated to mine, save for a few words here and there. It was then that I realized what was going on. Hollywood doesn't buy spec scripts (original ideas) from screenwriters very often, and they NEVER buy spec scripts that are epic fantasy. Those are too big, too expensive, and too daunting: they are the sorts of stories where the producers and executives need the proof of an established book series to justify the production. So this writer never had a chance to tell his own epic fantasy story, though he wanted to. Instead, he found a popularish story that nobody had snatched up, and used it as a means to tell the story he'd always wanted to tell, because he'd never otherwise have a chance of getting it made. I'm convinced this is part of the issue with some of these adaptations; screenwriters and directors are creative, and want to tell their own stories, but it's almost impossible to get those made in things like the fantasy genre unless you're a huge established name like Cameron. I'm not saying they all do this deliberately, as that screenwriter did for my work, but I think it's an unconscious influence. They want to tell their stories, and this is the allowed method, so when given the chance at freedom they go off the rails, and the execs don't know the genre or property well enough to understand why this can lead to disaster. Anyway, sorry for the novel length post in a meme thread. I just find the entire situation to be fascinating.

[reynardwrites]

originally written after ep 2

this post holds up shockingly well, especially in the context of the conversation Oz and Sofia have in their final car ride.

Sofia didn't see him. She didn't see his ambition, she didn't see his resentment, she didn't see his desperation. To crib some terminology from @maxwell-grant in the ep 7 breakdown, in her mind she was a victim who knew what it was like to have a boot on her neck and he was a victimizer who didn't. Maybe there was a moment she could have learned that in ep 3, but after Oz's immediate betrayal, I think everything he said in that scene got filed away in her head as self serving bullshit.

Which it was, to be clear.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't true.

This whole show, Sofia has been pretty blind to her own privilege, and so she thought of herself as the only one who was so hurt and desperate that she would resort to extreme measures to get out from under someone's thumb. But what Oz convinces the deputies to do, to kill their own bosses... that's literally the move Sofia makes, gassing the family so she becomes boss by elimination.

She didn't see it. Not because she doesn't know what it's like to be downtrodden, but because it didn't occur to her that other people might feel the same way, and about her.

She does now, I think. Whether she is able to internalize it, whether she will act on it, whether there's even a chance for her to change, god knows, I guess we'll find out in Batman 2 or a Catwoman miniseries or whenever we next see Sofia (fingers crossed it's sooner rather than later)

Oz, though... Oz didn't really get her, early in the show. And strangely, I don't think he gets her now, even at the end. "You think I don't understand that," she asks, and, yeah. It seems so. Oz knows how to hurt her in the worst way possible. But I don't know that he really grasps what makes her tick.

When I first watched the finale, this felt like kind of a weird choice. These two have spent the whole show as rivals and foils and it just felt wrong to have this final scene between them where they just talk and have it end with Oz just. Still not getting her.

I think I've come around to it now. I've mentioned before I see Sofia and Oz as being really twinned characters, each having in abundance what the other lacks, and through that lens, this feels really fitting.

By the time she steps out of that car, Sofia understands Oz because she understands herself, sees the way that he has felt how she has felt, how he stoked that same pain in others and made it into his strength.

And Oz doesn't understand Sofia, because he doesn't understand himself. He can't. Oz is so deep in layers and layers and layers of denial and self delusion, he has to walk away from any possibility of really seeing Sofia because if he understood her, he would have to understand the truth about himself.

If Oz were to acknowledge Sofia as someone who was in pain, who was hurt, who was victimized, he would also have to admit to himself that he hurt her, and doesn't give a shit. That there is no real justification in all the justified evil he commits, that he's not a man of the people, he's just a man out for himself.

I find something weirdly satisfying about that, personally. Oz is the most talented bullshitter in Gotham, so much so that even he buys into the shit he spews—it feels right that it is Sofia, whose core and weapon has always been truth and honesty and self awareness, who sees through his bullshit so clearly that he cannot even look at her without his sense of self being challenged.

absolutely obsessed with sofia and oz both seriously underestimating each other, and specifically buying into the public opinion everyone has of them.

like nadia, sofia thinks of oswald as an innate follower, a dog looking for a strong leader who will rise to the top and bring him up along. Even seeing through his manipulations after the maroni raid, she thinks he's trying to ride her coattails, and it doesn't occur to her that he might be so greedy as to want to take everything for himself.

and like the other falcones, oswald doesn't seem to see sofia as anything other than a loose canon he can point and shoot. he's so focused on finding which buttons of hers to press he doesn't even seem to realize he's exposing himself and his methods to her. He's a short con grifter, and sofia is exactly the kind of perceptive that can pull his bullshit apart piece by piece as time goes on.

ngl i am so keen to see how this relationship develops uaghghghgh i want it to be next week already.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

everybody [exaggeration] I know is playing BG3 and having fun with the emotional trauma of Durge and I'm over here

like.

yes, I too am playing the game where I'm a goody-two-shoes amnesiac who is horrified to find out that they used to be a REALLY terrible/violent/ruthless individual <------ [is playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning]

[naarlar]

Okay so I’ve seen a lot of people being like “oh Eurylochus is not a hypocrite bc he didn’t intentionally sacrifice the crew with Circe like Odysseus did with Scylla”

And while yes it is not the same, uh…….. here’s the problem from my perspective and why I still totally think he’s a hypocrite.

He was the one who had those men under his command. Odysseus gave him a mission and for that mission, Eurylochus was in charge of those guys. Then he LOSES (yes it is his fault, he was responsible for those men) the men to Circe and then runs back to Odysseus and immediately is trying to leave. He in a way is actively choosing to ABANDON those men without even TRYING to attempt a plan to save them. Like he doesn’t even think about it.

Yes Odysseus and the Scylla situation are messed up and it is not the same as Eurylochus and the Circe situation, but sorry guys this man is absolutely still a hypocrite. For his own self preservation he was about to abandon a bunch of men HE LOST to a supposed evil. The only difference is that Ody did it deliberately while Eurylochus’ incompetence caused it.

And here’s the thing, we can argue that Odysseus bc of the Scylla situation is more of a monster than Eury. I’m not even saying the mutiny is not justified. IT ABSOLUTELY WAS. The crew absolutely should have mutinied and Eury was right to challenge Ody.

However, these characters are complex and like yeah, Ody is a monster and a conniving schemer, but he is ultimately just a man trying to get home. And Eury is a fool and a hypocrite that would abandon his men for his mistakes but he is also just a tired man who is starving and suffering.

[smile-files]

i continue to find ii3 baffling. why did they make it (this isn't to hate on the season, i'm genuinely curious)

[fluentisonus]

while we're talking about it though that's something really fundamental to spock's character I think in a way I don't always see discussed, that by joining starfleet he's making the explicit and intentional choice that he'd rather be seen as a perfect example of an alien amongst humans than as an imperfect vulcan amongst vulcans. I see this framed a lot as him being more accepted in starfleet than he was on vulcan, and I really don't think that's the case at all: he's still very attached to vulcan, and we see all the prejudice he has to face and how little he's understood in starfleet. but what it comes down to is that he'd rather exist in a place where no one understands him and so he has nothing to prove -- even if that means being very alone -- than in a place where he's surrounded by the familiar & meaningful but everyone can see the ways he can't quite fit. if that makes sense

[good-to-drive]

whyyyyy do the beatles have so many solo stans this site is so weird

[sableprince]

i really want to sit down and make a proper Real lore doc for these goobers and not just the paragraphs of shtuff from whatever-ago, but like....... (buries myself underneath the dirt) lazy!!!!!!!

[the-busy-ghost]

Warning- this is a very petty post, but I think I'm entitled to at least one petty, pissed-off reaction every time I finish a classic novel that hit harder than I expected so take this as my quota for the year.

Also spoiler warning for a book that came out over a century ago but still, I didn't know the plot going in so don't want to ruin it for anyone else, if you haven't read it shut your eyes. (Also Local Tumblr User Going Wild Over Book Published a Hundred Years Ago That Everybody Else Already Read should probably be categorised as akey part of indigenous tumblr culture at this point).

Anyway I just finished the War of the Worlds and in between studying I've thinking about Themes and Motifs as you do, and idly looking for further analysis. I then accidentally ran into an article called 'A Quiet Place II Succeeds Where the War of the Worlds Failed' and:

Now I haven't seen any of the Quiet Place films, this is not a rant against them and of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But re: the ending of The War of the Worlds, I have to ask, did this guy somehow miss, uh, the entire point of the book or am I just utterly insane?

[maraskywalkers]

baby you're a bad idea was updated and I am

[absensia-archived]

the more I think about it, the more I'm not so sure that Charlotte sees the difference between regret and remorse. if she does see and understand the difference, I can't say for sure that she particularly cares that she frequently conflates the two in her mind and experience, and why that is wrong.

[boneless-mika]

I have never seen a thumbnail that manages to so effectively mock both autistic and trans people at the same time. I think maybe the worst part it's very likely this is unintentional (so I'm not hating on the creator, I just think they didn't fuly think through how this would be interpreted), I don't watch transphobic or ableist content, the reason this was recommended to me I think is that I watched a few minutes of a Sad Boyz episode where they talk about The Good Doctor