#this is a long rant and i'm sorry

[woodchoc-magnum]

idk. i'm annoyed.

i realise i am a fandom old at this point

and i have seen some shit in this fandom; witnessed the discourse.

and i don't post meta or spec or much of that stuff; i usually put all my ideas into fics.

but guys seriously. seriously.

eddie's current arc is not about buck.

buck and eddie are not currently dating.

buck is eddie's best friend and vice versa.

eddie is not cheating on buck.

eddie is lying to buck by omission, yes, but that is not a friendship ending offence.

eddie is on the very cusp of cheating right now. he went on a date with another woman, yes. he has not kissed her or slept with her. we are at a tipping point. we do not know what is going to happen next.

he only went on a date with another woman because she reminded him of shannon, who he is not over, who he has spent seasons trying to replace.

the point of this show is that none of the characters are perfect - and especially not buck and eddie. they all make mistakes. they have all made mistakes and will continue to do so because in real life, people don't always make the right decisions 100% of the time.

this black-and-white, morally righteous way of thinking, like eddie is suddenly evil now because he's on the cusp of cheating; that it's going to end his friendship, that buck is going to be angry at him for lying - do you have friends in real life? like, i am genuinely asking.

because if my best friend suddenly started cheating on her husband, i wouldn't be mad at her - i would be worried. am i alone in this? like i would be genuinely concerned and trying to help figure out what's going on.

all the shit i'm seeing in the fandom today, all of the spec posts and commentary about the episode and what might potentially happen, just feels like, once again, an attempt to paint eddie as the villain in the story to prop up buck. let's make eddie so terrible that buck has to have custody of christopher, right?

clearly none of you understand how a will works. it's for after you're dead. not for when you're alive.

but the main issue is this - now that buck has tommy, the people who tolerated eddie can stop pretending to like him. there's another option for buck now, so you guys don't need eddie anymore. right? am i fucking right??

i love drama as much as the next person, but in what world would buck turn on eddie because of this? in what world would the 118 shun him? he is their friend! they love him! they care about him! they are a family!

my god, nobody shunned hen when she cheated on karen. nobody shuns bobby and he indirectly killed 140 people!

eddie is a good person who makes mistakes, just like every single other character on the show.

that is the fucking point.

and the way ryan was talking in the interviews - isolation could mean any number of things. we know eddie has a tendency to isolate himself when he's feeling stressed out - does anyone remember season 3? season 5? buck literally broke down his door!

i'm just fucking tired of this bullshit.

eddie's not a bad guy because of this. he has done shitty things, yes. they all have. that's the fucking point of the show, and if you can't understand that or appreciate adult story-telling, then fuck off and watch riverdale.

[snarkspawn]

I really enjoy playing through tnp again like hi it's been a while

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[salmoninzeeweed]

I'm sorry but I absolutely fucking hate sheith (shiro x keith) like wtf NO...

Shiro knew keith since he was a CHILD, HE BASICALLY RAISED HIM, AND PEOPLE SHIP THEM??????

Keith literally called shiro his BROTHER, HE SEES SHIRO AS HIS BROTHER! CAN PEOPLE STOP BEING FUCKASS WEIRDOS AND STOP SHIPPING TWO PEOPLE WHO CANONICALLY AND VERY CLEARLY SEE EACH OTHER AS BROTHERS PLEASE???

All hate to sheith shippers I'm not even gonna sugar coat that, please stop writing and making art of them being "in love" idc if you think "oH bUT ThEir CheMistrY-" STFUUUUUUU STFU NO HELL NO

Anyway klance forever!!!

[trek-tracks]

Now you two think about what you've done and develop some healthier emotional coping mechanisms

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[cherries-in-wine]

𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒍𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒂 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒗𝒊𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒏 𝒔𝒖𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒔 ‧₊ ☁️⋅♡ ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

People call Vladimir Nabokov a disgusting creep for writing from the perspective of a pedophile when in reality if you read the book, Humbert Humbert is not likeable in the slightest. He's an unreliable narrator that's so stuck in his own delusions that he can't see how miserable dolores is because of him. Nabokov is an incredible writer and lolita is really well written- it's dreamy and poetic because that's what Humbert Humbert wants you to see but occasionally the mask slips and the horrifying reality of the situation peaks through, it's your responsibility as the reader to read in between the lines to see the story for what it is- not a romance. It's a great satire in the sense that it's pathetic to see Humbert Humbert think he's oh so charming and these "nymphets" are oh so in love with him. Dolores' trauma is obvious to any competent reader, I don't know how people are so charmed by Humbert Humbert that they can't see how dolores' defiance which he refers to as "teenage rebellion" or "tantrums" is a very apparent cry for help. Lolita is a Gothic horror, a cautionary tale. It's a genius work of art and what's most horrific about it lies in the aftermath of its release, how it's so normalised to sexualise little girls that blatant pedophilia is interpreted as a tragic love story. Nabokov himself referred to dolores as his "poor little girl". He had a lot of empathy for her and it is so heartbreaking to see her being portrayed as this temptress when in reality she is a 12 year old tomboy who likes comics and playing in the dirt. Catherine Demongeot (image on the left) is what Nabokov imagined lolita to look like while on the right is how lolita is perceived by the media. The images speak for themselves.

When I first read the virgin suicides I thought it was a great work of satire. I adore the Lisbon girls with all my heart, I see a part of myself in all of them by varying degrees. The boys who claimed they loved these girls, only saw them as some fantasy. Even in death they never truly respected any of them. How when they found Cecelia's diary, instead of trying to make sense of why she killed herself, they selfishly searched for their own names. I loved the irony of the boys claiming that they loved these girls when they didn't know anything about them. It showed how shallow and surface level their “love” was. I thought the author, Jeffery Eugenides really understood me because as a girl it feels as though you’re only loved if you’re sexualised and how much sympathy you deserve is dependent on how attractive you are, as if that’s the only value you have to offer. But in reality he didn't mean any of the things the boys did to be interpreted as satire. According to him, peaking through windows, stealing used tampons, joking about groping dead girls, these grown men still picturing those little girls years later while they had sex with their wives etc was supposed to show that teenage boys are not disgusting horny dogs, but romantic softies (if anything this made me think teenage boys are much more repulsive than i thought). According to Eugenides the book is satire, but in the sense that you never know what was going through a person's head when they committed suicide and you can't make sense of it no matter how hard you try. Everything about how the boys viewed the girls was not satire and was to be taken at face value. This really broke my heart, an author who I thought really did get me and understood me, ended up making me feel watched instead of seen. I guess this is where "death of the author" comes into play. La mort de l'auteur is a 1967 essay by Roland Barthes that basically argues that instead of only viewing a work of art through the artist's eyes and keeping only their intent in mind, the viewer can interpret the art through their own eyes regardless of what the artist originally intended. I want to, I really do but I can't help but feel that intention matters and no matter how hard I try to separate the art from the artist I simply cannot.

It's so fascinating to me how Lolita which is supposed to be from the perspective of an unreliable narrator was taken at face value and the virgin suicides which was to be taken at face value was perceived as satire.

The same irony can also be seen in the movies. The director of Lolita didn't get her at all, even he thought she was some kind of a seductress instead of a child that was raped and abused repeatedly by a man that was supposed to be a father figure while the virgin suicides movie was so much better than the book, Sofia Coppola, the director, understood the Lisbon girls so well and she did them justice.

[silvermoon424]

Really getting sick and fucking tired of how much online leftists (Tumblr users are a huge demographic I'm talking about btw) engage in bad faith interpretations. Everybody is so ready and eager to assume the worst about people and have no problems with being rude as fuck for no reason.

I don't wanna be all "purity culture is why Trump won the election!!" because that's an incredibly reductionist and online take, but I am actually begging people to start being fucking NICER to people who largely agree with you. 2025 is not looking good, because unfortunately the US's politics influence everyone else. I am pleading with progressives to stop ripping each other apart when there's a much bigger threat. You can educate and criticize people without acting like they're a horrible person who needs to be flogged.

I'm not better than anyone btw, I've had to check myself a lot on bad behavior. But some of you guys are just fucking mean and rude, and I think that you use your progressivism as an excuse to be mean and rude. Like I'm not even asking you to stop being rude, I'm just asking that you don't direct as much of it towards your allies. I don't think that's too much to ask.

[maerhiya]

in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."

like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.

when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.

media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.

which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)

any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?

[episyn]

>"winter event with winter themed items"

>look inside

>it's literally just christmas

[insert that image of a cat staring at the camera really close up]

[mizaruwu]

I love your necromancy Hyrule au so much!! It brings me joy and makes my brain think about how and why and all this stuff about it. Do you know how Hyrule ended up going to necromancy? Or if he has any thoughts or doubts, he's doing what he has been running from for a long time in order to keep legend somewhat alive, why? Loneliness? Was it that unbearable knowing that what he had was gone? Sorry I'm ranting...it just makes me think.

It was unbearable. Of experiencing something so sweet and comforting only to lose it– It's cruel even, to form these connections and bonds only for the force (the goddess) that brought them together separated them in the same way.

Perhaps grief is a better word than loneliness, four of the people he considers his family are dead, gone for a long time already, two of them dont exist yet and the other two dont exist at all (in his timeline) The realization hits him after a week of avoiding thinking about the topic.

at first, Hyrule didnt consider necromancy at all– he spent almost a year desparately looking for items with time travelling abilities but none of them worked anymore. He was on the brink of giving up when he stumbled on the book with the revival ritual.

"Maybe I can use this to bring them back instead" He thought as a joke. But that thought got fuled by his desparation and grief– he couldnt stop thinking about it. Why not? Its not a garuntee that he can actually raise the dead right?

Then it did work. Legend is there, looking at him– and who cares about anything else he got his brother back, its one step closer to returning how it was.

Hyrule did have doubts if what's he's doing is right but when Legend woke up and talked to him, that doubt was clouded over by relief, by the first taste of happiness he's felt in a while– he's far too broken to see past his actions now.

[polorizedefuega]

No Lilith is not "Evil" or a "Bad Mom"

I said what I said. We don't know what happened to Lilith, we don't know why she and Lucifer split, and if you saw the pilot, you would know Charlie choose to confide in HER about her worries and fustrations. That is a clear sign that as the queen of hell, the woman whose songs brought hope to the demons in hell, had more confidence in her daughter than Lucifer was afraid to have. I saw a post that said "also how bad of a fucking mother does lilith have to be to ignore her daughter for 7 years jfc". As if that is the only reason Charlie hadn't heard from her? Not even a possibility something bad might have happened or had really very important business to deal with as the queen of hell?? And it's even more bizzare how people just assumed that flashback was her "keeping Charlie away from Lucifer". Like hello, it's called putting your child to sleep? And also

Does this really look like a vile woman to you. Did you really see this portraits and went "Oh yeah she hates her husband," NO THAT IS FUCKING IN LOVE WITH HER HUSBAND! SHE IS HAPPY WITH HER CHILD, SHE IS PROUD OF HER FAMILY AND KINGDOM, SHE WANTS NOTHING MORE THAN TO BE WITH THE MAN WHO SHOWED HER MORE LOVE AND COMPASSION THAN BITCH ASS ADAM, AND STUCK WITH HER FOR MILLENIUM AFTER BEING CASTED OUT OF HEAVEN. EVEN WRAPPING HER ARMS AROUND HIM AND CHARLIE

Fautisse, the person whose been at the birth of Hazbin Hotel, even believes Lilith adored her husband just the same as he to her. But shit happens, and something caused her to leave. For reasons WE DON'T KNOW WHY! But unfortunately for her as a female character, the fans and even anti fans have reduced her to another "Stella". Despite the fact Charlie confides in her, and despite Lucifer having pictures with her in his office and still has his wedding ring on. There is a definite reason Lucifer acts this depressed, otherwise he would be acting like Stolas, someone who actually hates his wife.

[rainbowsuitcase]

*extremely tired writer voice* this was supposed to be a short gen fic but now they're horny

[imerian]

My (very old) loscar brooch (?) that i just now made doodles for

More pictures under cut

[pigeonstab]

veryyyyyy old sketch of Enoch

[rivkae-winters]

You Will Rot

I adore this entire scene and their entire exchange and there are plenty of other posts out there on it but I’ve never come across the points I wanted to make hence why I'm writing this. Specifically on the implications of exactly what rots since that latched into my brain and would not let me go.

As always: this is only my interpretation of canon, there is no one true analysis to take as gospel. In fact please interact with your thoughts if you have any! I enjoy talking to other people about this sort of thing, fandom is all about discussion after all!

My stance on this line is one of nuance. I tend to think Sephiroth chose the worst words he could think of without fully considering the full implications.  He said the thing he knew that would hurt Genesis the most after the entire conversation beforehand.

What does it mean to be told to rot? Or even so told you will rot. 

In the FF7 universe, most explicitly displayed in CC, bodies dissolve. Corpses, both monster and human, are depicted as dissolving to return to the Lifestream. This is re-confirmed in the remake. 

Rot is not a term for humans, it’s not a cultural concept the same way it is for us in the real world. To decay and decompose are not processes that sentient beings undergo.

Rot is something for objects- things that live but aren’t alive enough or connected enough quote-un-quote to return to the Lifestream in the same dramatic manner. Rot is for things like food and flowers and things that are below the level of humans or animals or anything with general sentience. 

Sephiroth is telling Genesis here, he is not just a monster: he is insignificant. He is telling Genesis that he is not enough of a sentient being to return to the Lifestream and he’ll continue falling apart in real time just like a piece of fruit left forgotten and rotting on the kitchen counter. He is telling Genesis that at the end of the day he’s already dead in every way that matters and is no longer a person. Sephiroth is telling Genesis that he will have no mercy given to him at the end of the day: he will rot and waste like an object lacking sentience and then he will be left there.

Sephiroth is digging into Genesis’s own deepest insecurities here. Genesis fears not just being irrelevant but being rendered a non-entity, to be kept or out of control. Genesis has defined his entire life as a journey to be someone to be enough to be someone worthy of love and praise and being seen. Objects aren’t people, and Genesis is an object to Sephiroth with that statement. 

The only person who could help him no longer considers him a person- nor a thing with sentience. 

Obviously this is all over analyzing Sephiroth’s dialogue. This line was said with calculation, yes, but it was also somewhat reflexive. Sephiroth is under a lot of stress in this scene and Genesis has been slinging everything he never wanted to be told at him in a single conversation. Genesis then has the audacity to try to act as if he did something good. While Sephiroth’s world is collapsing around him and his other defected friend acts like he did him a favor. Sephiroth is angry, who wouldn’t be angry. Sephiroth thought the world of Genesis prior to his defection, he thought the world of both of them and those illusions have been crashing down around him.

So he uses Genesis’s own grief over his former friend’s tattered life that manifests as self deprecation and self dehumanization against him. He confirms the de-humanizing rhetoric that Genesis has been attaching to his own existence. Sephiroth in his pain and anger pushes past the fears that Genesis has been externalizing to what he knows Genesis is truly afraid of. 

If Genesis considers himself a monster than by the standards of the person Sephiroth thought he knew he is already living out his worst fears. He is nothing, he is nothing without his mind. If Genesis wants to be what he once considered a non-entity: wants to wallow in the rot and non-personhood so much then he can. 

Sephiroth turns his back on, in his mind, the moving corpse of the long dead Genesis Rhapsodos and walks away. 

You will Rot You are Nothing

There is also something to be said here for the Kanji used in the original!

I’m not touching on this as much as I would have liked to but it would be criminal if I didn’t at least pull out a Kanji dictionary.

I pulled Sephiroth’s line from here; warning the website is not in English at all but easy enough to navigate via context/knowledge of story events and the characters' Japanese names. 

Sephiroth’s line is: 朽ち果てろ kuchihatero

This is translated in the official English release as “You will rot” and in a pre-US release fan translation from May of 2007 roughly the same way as “Go decay”

朽  Decay; Rot; Remain in Seclusion

果  Fruit; Reward; carry out; achieve; complete; end; finish; succeed

[1][2] [3 specifically for 朽][4 specifically for 果]

Thanks for reading!