#this is a really interesting analysis!

[etherealspacejelly]

im so jealous of people who have special interests that are facts based. like how am i supposed to communicate to people that my special interest isnt star trek the tv show its star trek the story. the characters. the themes and motifs.

people ask me stuff about the lore or the production and im like nah nah nah. idk any of that stuff. but i could spend 30 minutes analysing the scene in corbomite manouver where spock says "im s-" and what implications that has for his character and his relationship with jim.

i dont know how a mind meld works or what powers a phaser but i could write you an essay on the themes of found family in star trek v, including the significance of row row row your boat in the cyclical narrative.

"how does a transporter work" fuck if i know. can i tell you about 'good luck spock'???

[tiredandoptimistic]

Radar really is in such an interesting position relative to the 4077. The rest of them are doctors. Hawkeye frequently bemoans his role as "weapons repair" and is clearly uncomfortable with fixing people up so they can go back and get shot, but he's still fundamentally only engaging with the war as a healer. When he's off duty (and even while he's working), Hawkeye is able to focus his energy on "the war against the war" by throwing parties and pulling pranks. He takes every opportunity to show his disrespect for the whole military machine, and only plays by their rules when it goes along with his moral imperative to heal the dying.

Radar, on the other hand, is the motor that keeps MASH running. He helps Hawkeye and the others with their schemes, but he also has to be the one to deal with the fallout. When Hawkeye gets his shift as "Commander Pierce," Radar is the one frantically trying to get him to actually fill out the required paperwork, because Hawkeye's "this is dumb and I won't engage with it" attitude to the army doesn't work for someone in an organizational position. The rest of them turn up their noses at army bureaucracy, but Radar is the one to understand how it all works and get them what they want despite the layers of red tape. He has to be the guy delivering bad news and sneaking around to steal people's stoves, and he isn't choosing to do it but it still has to get done. He's the one who announces incoming choppers, meaning that he basically always has to be the person to spoil everyone else's day. Fun's over, Radar's here. His name is literally a direct symbol of his role as a harbinger. He isn't the one responsible though. If he wasn't there to sound the alarm, there'd be just as many wounded and even less time to prepare.

He's got a bit of separation between himself and the casualties (unlike the doctors who are literally digging around in blood and guts for twelve hours at a time), but his position as company clerk means that he's also unable to truly clock out. Radar literally sleeps in his office, because it's his entire life. He's always going to be the guy with a foot in reality who tempers the officers' wackiness. Even when he got offered a ticket home, his first instinct was to turn it down because he didn't think that the 4077th could function without him.

This is significant to me because of how it reflects on the characters role in the war overall. Hawkeye is able to act like he's separate from the military, but he's sometimes forced to reckon with the fact that he's a cog in the machine like everyone else. Radar is often forced to serve as the hand of the army in the 4077th, but his job of keeping things running smoothly does just as much to save lives as any of the doctors. They're all soldiers who have to play by the army's rules to some extent if they want to keep anybody safe.

[blanceyblance]

Lance is such an interesting character to me in part because of how the narrative wants to portray him to the point it becomes contradictory.

His "arc" is supposed to be "cocky and immature teenager grows from his need for glory into a reliable team member"

And he does! He becomes Keith's right hand man, taking charge in battle, covering the team's backs and becoming an emotional support for other members when the time was needed.

But he is also a Comedic Relief™

Other characters have comedic relief moments too, like Hunk's love for food, Pidge's excitement about tech, Keith being socially awkward, etc.

And as aggravating as Hunk's fat jokes can be they don't contradict the fact that he is a brilliant engineer and became a brave paladin. Keith's social awkwardness doesn't contradict the fact that he became a capable leader.

But then you have Pidge and Hunk, making fun of Lance being "naturally dumb", and then a space deity calling him "the dumb one"one moment then following Lance's orders in battle and having him give emotional speeches to others the other.

The writers want us to take him seriously and see he is growing only to make fun of him when its needed for a laugh.

I feel the episode The Grudge is a good example of this:

Lance finds a way to find where they left their Lions.

Hunk and Allura seem impressed but Pidge dismisses it.

That would be the end of it until later when Veronica is talking with "Keith" (actually a hacker pretending to be him) and the says "Lance has it figured out", Veronica then in a sarcastic way says "Lance, the navigation genius".

Keith agrees and that's what clues them about something being wrong.

Is it a joke about Keith being openly nice to Lance? A joke about Lance's navigation skills?

Either way, the joke is at his expense, even when early in the episode we see him actually suggesting a way to correctly navigate.

In the end what I'm trying to say is, that the writers want to have their cake and eat it too. Showing Lance growing and being capable but also making fun of him and not really having that much respect for his character.

[nico-saurus]

I was thinking how Sanemi's and Tanjiro's story have lots of parallels between them, and how that makes their relationship a lot more interesting.

Both of them had to become the providers of their really big family at a really young age because of their father's passing and shared the responsibility of taking care of their family with a younger sibling, with whom they had a particularly close bond.

Both them lost their entire family, with the exception of said younger sibling, to a demon attack and saw one of their family members become a demon (in Tanjiro's case, both of these things happened to the same person, and in Sanemi's it was with two different people).

But Tanjiro and Nezuko were able to stay together even after everything that happened, while Sanemi had to kill his own mother after she became a demon and hasn't spoken to Genya since then.

No wonder Sanemi hates Tanjiro so much; even with so much in common, Tanjiro was able to keep so much of what Sanemi had lost. So of course looking at this kid who was able to help his loved one after they became a demon while he couldn't do anything to save his mom and stuck together with his sibling regardless of all the terrible things that happened when Sanemi and his brother had been estranged for years filled him with rage. Sanemi was envious of Tanjiro 'cause he was everything that he could had been.

[the-silliest-lad]

In DBDA there are two appearances of Death (of the Endless) in the show. There’s her first appearance in Episode 1, where she brings a WW1 soldier to the afterlife, and the other is in Episode 3, where she guides a family killed by an abusive father. Both of these are possibles outcomes for both Edwin and Charles. If Edwin had lived to past 16, he very likely would’ve been drafted in WW1. If Charles hadn’t been killed by his “friends,” it’s not outlandish to think he might’ve been a victim of his own father. In both of these scenarios, the spirits also move on to their seemingly tranquil eternities, something neither of the boys have any intention of ever doing.

[tangents-within-tangents]

Hot take:

Crosshair does not have the Imperial disillusionment and redemption arc of The Bad Batch

Emerie does.

Crosshair has an arc for sure yes but it's not that.

I was thinking about this scene:

and how it got right what this scene kinda didn't:

(It was so close but then bad writing decided to undercut the moment with a joke rip)

And I think it's really interesting that these characters who were more or less raised into the Empire/First Order and chose to leave it are all directly asked why.

But take a look at Crosshair's answers in comparison:

Different context for the asking, yes, but still, compare that to clones like Howzer, Cody, Slip and Cade who left or turned against the Empire because they knew what the Empire is doing is wrong and they weren't just going to blindly follow orders:

Crosshair - Loyalty, Purpose, and Survival

Crosshair didn't choose to join the Empire (though the show isn't very clear or consistent about how much control the inhibitor chips have) but he did, for whatever reason, choose to stay. By the end of S1 we know his chip has been removed and as he definitively says "This is who I am." There were likely still other influences on his decision, but listen to how he talks about the Empire in the S1 finale:

Hunter: Crosshair, I've seen what the Empire is doing. Occupying planets and silencing anyone who stands against them. You know it's not right. Crosshair: You still don’t see the bigger picture, but you will. Hunter: Can't you see they're using you?

Crosshair: We’re not like the regs, we never have been. We’re superior. The Empire can’t protect the galaxy without strength, this is what we were made for. Think of all we could do, together!

Crosshair: You all are meant for more than drifting through the galaxy. It’s time to stop running. Join the Empire, and you will have purpose again.

Hunter: They destroyed an entire city! Crosshair: They did what needed to be done. Kamino, regs, the Republic, that time is over. The Empire will control the entire galaxy, and I am going to be a part of it. Hunter: Don't fool yourself. All you'll ever be to them is a number.

He undeniably knows what the Empire is doing, but he does not care. In fact it sure sounds like he actually supports it and finds self-meaning in it. Hunter spends those episodes trying to convince him it's wrong, he doesn't change his mind. In the end they offer him an out and he doesn't take it.

Wrecker: You coming with us? Crosshair: None of this changes anything. Hunter: You offered us a chance, Crosshair. This is yours. Crosshair: I made my decision.

The next we see Crosshair in "The Solitary Clone" (S2:E3) he follows orders and shoots the Desix governor, right after Cody heartbreakingly tries to do what's right and find a peaceful solution.

Cody: Tell me something, Crosshair. This new Empire, are we making the galaxy better? Crosshair: We’re soldiers, we do what needs to be done. Cody: You know what makes us different from battle droids? We make our own decisions, our own choices. And we have to live with them too.

After this (glorious!) conversation, Crosshair stays. Maybe this began to seed some doubts, but he actually smiles a few scenes later when Rampart assigns him another mission. It seems like for him it truly is as he said in S1:E1 (chip not enhanced yet but still influencing him enough for his brothers to notice he's acting strange):

Crosshair: Republic, Empire... what's the difference.

Crosshair: Orders are orders.

This unethical mission that finally pushed Cody over the edge does not change Crosshair's mind about the Empire, at least not enough for him to take action.

But what does?

Mayday: And here we are, the survivors. Combat troopers stuck babysitting cargo shipments. Crosshair: Mission’s a mission. Mayday: Yeah, I used to say the same thing.

Mayday: After all the clones have done, all we’ve sacrificed. We’re good soldiers, we followed orders. And for what?

This mission has nothing to do with how the fascist Empire treats the galaxy, it's about how they treat their soldiers. It's about how Mayday loyally fought and served his whole life and Lieutenant Nolan let him die

Lt Nolan: He served his purpose as a soldier of the Empire. Crosshair: You could have saved him! Lt Nolan: Perhaps you didn’t hear me, he is expendable, as are you.

Crosshair thought he could find purpose within the Empire, and Nolan shows him exactly what that will be.

His turning point is accompanied with this powerful visual of the ice vulture, a symbol (and threat) of death, and also set up within the episode a symbol of survival:

Mayday: Vicious creatures, but you have to admire ‘em. They find a way to survive.

This critical moment (that gives me chills, oof this episode is a masterpiece!) comes right after Nolan calls him expendable and directly threatens him:

Lt Nolan: And if you speak to me again with such disrespect I'll see to it you meet a similar fate, clone.

then Crosshair sees the vulture's shadow and turns to Mayday's dead body (ahh visual storytelling my beloved) then makes his decision:

Crosshair turns against the Empire not because he believes Hunter was right about this:

Hunter: I've seen what the Empire is doing ... You know it's not right.

but because he was right about this:

Hunter: All you'll ever be to them is a number.

Redemption (both in fiction and irl in my humble opinion) comes with making amends and reparations (which is why death 'redemptions' bother me so much but that's a rant for another time). Unlike Emerie, Crosshair never explicitly denounces the Empire or his own actions within it. He never says anything to specifically show if and how his views have changed from what he said on Kamino. He makes amends with his family (sending the warning message, helping Omega escape, making up with Hunter) but that's about it. The most we get in terms of acknowledgement is this:

Crosshair: I thought I knew what I was getting into with the Empire. I thought I was being a good soldier. Hunter: Nobody really understood what was happening back then. Crosshair: I’ve... done things. I’ve made mistakes. Hunter: I have regrets too, Crosshair. All we can do is keep trying to be better, and who knows there just might be hope for us yet.

Which is nice and all but it's more about them making up as brothers so it's way too excusing tbh ("no one knew what was happening back then" ummm? "The Empire will control the entire galaxy, and I am going to be a part of it" remember? And even if at first Crosshair was being controlled by the chip, the fact that he chose to stay after it was removed* means he condones and is therefore still accountable for those actions).

There's also a bit of self-destructive guilt:

Crosshair: Omega, don't risk anything for me. I belong in here.

Crosshair: Omega needs you both. So I’m doing this alone, it’s what I deserve. Hunter: Don’t even think about plan 99, Crosshair. Omega needs all of us.

(which thank you Hunter for pushing back on the death redemption bs and oh look is that a wrap up for the purpose thing?)

But there's no action taken on his part to make up for what he's done or to stand against the Empire (aside from the bare minimum of help with Tantiss, only after it became personally relevant, which like yeah he had trauma to deal with but still).

While I do think the implications/follow-up of Crosshair's turn should have been handled better in S3 (like rip Howzer! he deserved an apology, but that's a rant for another time), I don't necessarily** think this arc is a bad writing choice. It's just saying different things than we expect:

Maybe Crosshair's story is not about standing up against an unjust system, like we see with many other characters (who deserved more screen time but that's a rant for another timeeee). Maybe his story is about how even those who are loyal to the Empire, who actually believe in it, still suffer under and within it's rule. Not to garner sympathy, but to show that there is no winning.

Crosshair has another 'so what changed' convo in S3:E14 with Rampart, in which they draw parallels to each other:

Rampart: You used to believe good soldiers followed orders. Crosshair: Depends on who's giving them. The Empire betrayed us both. Rampart: And you think you can fight them? That's not you. You're like me, loyal to no one but yourself. Crosshair: I've changed.

(note how he says who's giving the orders, not what the orders are)

"Loyal to no one but yourself" describes Rampart much more than Crosshair, since we often saw Crosshair pride himself as a loyal soldier of the Empire whereas we saw Rampart abuse power to be self-serving within the Empire (like when he killed Wilco to save face). But they were both betrayed either way. Vice Admiral Rampart, snively Imperial opportunist through-and-through, shouts "I was following orders!" as he is arrested for the Empire's purposes. (Edit: and where Crosshair rejected the Empire and found new purpose fighting for his family, Rampart was still self-serving in the finale. He still tries to gain power for himself and he gets his comeuppance).

Even Hemlock, the final boss immoral Imperial scientist, who has to be benefiting the most from this system, echoes the expendability idea:

Hemlock: What I am working on is beyond your understanding. Something so vital to the Empire it makes me indispensable.

Then there's CX-2, also set up as a parallel/foil to Crosshair (fight me), who in the end is discarded as no more than a weapon, a tool that served it's purpose, showing us what would have become of Crosshair if he had stayed.

There is no winning in the Empire. Loyalty is not rewarded, it "doesn't go both ways." Everyone has to fight for their value. Even high ranking individuals** who for a time benefit from the injustice, in the end are just pawns to be used up and cast aside at a whim for the Emperor's gain. Even people who are motivated by self-interest alone cannot survive within this system, the only viable option in this galaxy is to fight the Empire and dismantle that system. (unless you conveniently find a magically safe island to hide away on but that's a rAnT fOr AnOtHeR tImE)

Which brings us back to...

Emerie - Cooperation, Compassion, and Choice

(Okay this post has already gotten away from me but I still want to talk about her to show the contrasts.)

Emerie may not have been given a lot of screen time to really flesh out her development, but there is a lot that is pretty clearly implied with her:

Crosshair: They’ll never turn her [Omega] over. Hemlock: They don’t have a choice. She is a clone, and therefore Imperial property. *Camera cuts to an angle more centered on Emerie’s face*

Crosshair: Give me your access card! Emerie: It won’t get you outside!

Emerie: I tried to warn him what would happen if he did not cooperate with the Doctor.

Emerie: Prisoner? Omega, you are no such thing. It will take time to adjust, but you will acclimate. It is far safer in here than out there.

Emerie: You should go back to your room. Crosshair: You mean her cell?

Emerie: Why children? Hemlock: Children are easier to attain and more agreeable to the subjugations. They are unaware of why they are here and what they possess.

Emerie: They're children. Like I was... Was your plan to discard them too? Nala Se: The Empire will keep them in order to control them.

We don't know a lot about Emerie's background, but it's clear that she had a lot less choice than Crosshair and less opportunity or ability to leave. Unlike Crosshair, we never directly hear Emerie's views of the Empire (and she was most likely 'taken under Hemlock's wing' before the Empire even came to power), but lets look at how she talks about the Tantiss:

"Remain calm. Cooperate and you might survive."

"Don't make this worse, Crosshair! There is no escape!"

"All of us serve a purpose here."

"The Doctor will inform me, if it's necessary."

"It's best not to ask questions."

"Escape is not possible, Omega. This is for your own good."

She honestly does the best she can within the system she is also trapped in. She tries to help Crosshair, Omega, and the vault kids in the only way she knows how (warns Crosshair about the hounds and security, tries to protect Omega from Hemlock, tells Scorch his "actions were extreme" with Jax, insists on overseeing Bayrn's retrieval, double checks his m-count (to give him an out), and tries to find out where he came from). When she gives Omega, and later Eva, the doll, I think it shows just how little she really is able to do here (and it's kinda heartbreaking imo).

The framing of this shot especially (after Jax's escape attempt) visually shows how Emerie herself is trapped/imprisoned:

Despite the fact that very little of this is Emerie's fault, she has very little power and she is doing all she can, the narrative does not excuse her role in the Empire:

Nala Se: What will you do, Emerie? Emerie: There is nothing I can do. I don't have that kind of power. Nala Se: Don't you?

Emerie: I- I was doing my job. Echo: Yeah, I’ve heard that before. You’re a clone. How can you be part of this?

These fighting-the-Bystander-Effect conversations parallel these exchanges:

Hunter: We made a choice, and so did you. Crosshair: Soldiers follow orders. Hunter: Blind allegiance makes you a pawn.

Crosshair: We’re soldiers, we do what needs to be done. Cody: You know what makes us different from battle droids? We make our own decisions, our own choices. And we have to live with them too.

which did not change Crosshair's mind. And honestly, all respect to Echo's disappointed mom glare™ but I think it's clear Emerie had already made her decision, she just needed help to actually be able to do anything about it. When she stopped Echo, with her voice wavering on the verge of tears (ahhh v good voice acting), she clearly had no intention of turning him in. She's on her own in the Empire's most secure facility with very little resources, if she had tried anything on her own she most likely would have failed and been killed

Omega: Emerie, you don't have to do this. Emerie: (sigh) I’m sorry, but I do.

but as soon as she is enabled by an ally, she immediately turns around to help: giving information and getting Echo through security, helping the kids escape, and giving Omega the tablet that allows them to free the other clone prisoners.

Where Crosshair's turn is accompanied by the symbolic imagery of the ice vulture, Emerie's is the removal of her (literally rose-tinted!) glasses:

Symbolizing how she has shed her previous views/indoctrination that altered her perception of the Empire and blinded her to it's wrongs. It's disillusionment.

Emerie's story shows us that even those who are raised and indoctrinated into this system can, should, and will escape (with needed help). Even those who did not choose to be apart of the Empire and are not making the decisions still have the responsibility and ability to act on what they know is right.

Emerie, whose name means 'Home strength' 'Brave' and 'Powerful', and "reflects the importance of leadership and authority in the workplace".***

While Emerie is only in one more scene after her turn, so the wrap up is a bit rushed, she still very simply does what Crosshair does not:

Emerie: Because I was wrong about this place. And I'm trying to do the right thing.

Echo: I’m sure Senator Chuchi would find what you have to say very helpful for our cause. Emerie: I have a lot to make up for. I’d like to help out however I can.

She admits wrong, takes accountability, commits to making amends, and leaves with Echo to go take on the Empire (which hopefully we will get to actually see more of some day).

So, in short, she's showing us how redemption is done right!

---

Notes:

*Whether this writing choice was good/logical/in-character or not is another discussion entirely, but I'm going off of what we were given, what the show is presenting in the canon text and (reasonably inferred/intentional) subtext. Crosshair is pretty multifaceted and I could only touch on so much here. There's a lot of ways to interpret his character/choices, but I tried to avoid the realm of speculation or fanon explanations (even if they sometimes make more sense lol).

**History and political theory are not my area of expertise at all, so I have NO idea how well this aligns with real-world fascism stuff and therefore what implications this storytelling choice could have. I think the message of like 'if you think you could survive or gain power by doing what the Empire/fascist system wants you are wrong' could be good (like how everyone is actually harmed by the patriarchy type of a thing), but I hesitate bc maybe there are those who would benefit, since it's a hierarchal system, right? If anyone more knowledgeable than me has incite to share, by all means

Either way, I do think it works in-story and in-universe though. It's just in the execution. The main problem (even from a strictly theme/character arc stand point) is the lacking follow-up/consequences for Crosshair in S3. Like you gave your character accountability by removing the chip and I think that's great setup for an arc but you gotta follow through with that and actually hold him accountable!

***I'm always curious when clones have 'normal' names, like why did they chose the name Emerie of all things? So I looked it up. Idk how reliable sources are for name meanings so take it with a grain of salt but it's still fun. Fits pretty well, and clones names have definitely had significant meanings in the past (like how Rex and Jesse both mean 'king') so I'm pretty sure it was intentional.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[mythalism]

hmmm. thinking about how veilguard seems to subscribe more to the more traditional "video game as personal power fulfillment fantasy of heroism" than any other dragon age game, except perhaps origins, though origins does it more artfully.

[ihavetoomanyocsdealwithit]

Ok, Riddle fans, I am starting to understand.

As I go through more of Riddle's Vignette's and the story, seeing him actually interacting with his house and people outside of it, I get it. He's intimidating and intense, absolutely, and he doesn't always understand why things like social media and trends or parties are important to say Cater or Ace.

But he tries. He learned how Cater memorized and learned and changed his studying style in order to help him. Downloaded a whole app, made posts that would make no sense to anyone else and weird tags, just to help him, spending even more additional time and energy after creating a 300 page study guide.

He continually steps in to encourage and guide Deuce and generally doesn't seem to know or care about his past delinquency, only what he does now as an NRC student. Even the conversations with Ace which tend to go sideways or chiding, seem like they are simply almost too much alike, just different values and priorities.

Yes, the other students are intimidated by Riddle. But as I dive in more, especially after his Overblot, it's because he holds others to the same standards as himself for better or for worse. Does he recognize the privilege of receiving so much education on magic and other subjects so early? I'm not sure. But he looks at his students and asks why not. Why can't they pass, why are the struggling, how do I get them there. Like, this fixation of nobody dropping out or flunking tells me that it happens a lot, maybe the most in Heartslabyul? But Riddle is making his legacy at NRC that he's graduating at the top and every one of his house is coming with him. He genuinely believes in his people and that they will be the best, most cohesive and talented dorm because they worked together, he just has a different approach to it after his holier than thou attitude was knocked out of him after his Overblot.

Malleus was right. King of Heartslabyul, absolutely.

[starcurtain]

What do you think Aventurine would be like as a boss?

Aventurine's first character story tells us that people both outside the IPC and internal to the Strategic Investment Department are explicitly racist toward him, so I would say first that I suspect Aventurine's team is much, much smaller than other Stonehearts like Topaz. For example, we constantly see Topaz's dumb "support squad" following her around in most of the events she shows up in, while we've never been introduced to a single "Aventurine support squad" member.

My suspicion is that, between the rampant racism and the undoubtedly common rumors about Aventurine's dangerous behavior, very few people are even willing to be put on his team in the first place. I suspect he's much more likely to be paired up with one or two "strategic partners" (like Ratio) and sent to handle things that way, rather than actually having a large group of underlings he directly supervises.

But just logistically speaking I'm sure he does have a few underlings, and I think... He's probably a very difficult person to work for, for a couple reasons:

He will almost certainly beat assholes to the punch. If a majority of the people who have been assigned to work with him don't want to be there, you can bet he's not going to wait around for new people to prove they are racist garbage. I imagine that, for the most part, he's off-putting and offensive to new people from the get-go. You ask which desk is yours and he just goes "Oh, feel free to set your things anywhere!" then turns around like: "Wowwww. Jim, this rookie is trying to steal the desk you've had for ten years! How inconsiderate our new friend is proving to be~!" New people on his team probably have the worst few weeks of their lives. (Because... If people are going to hate him on principle alone, he might as well give them a reason, right?) However, this has the effect of weeding out most of the people who are incapable of dealing with Aventurine's antics, so I imagine that the few who persevere through the hazing are probably genuinely decent folks. Those that make it past the initial "Let's see how much you hate Sigonians and disrespect me personally" vibe check probably end up on Aventurine's good side, and I think he eventually eases off his newbies after a while. (Not before they've proven their exceedingly high tolerance for shenanigans and even higher ceiling for shock factor, though. If a new employee makes it past the first month of working for Aventurine, literally nothing else will ever phase them. An elephant-sized Warp Trotter could warp them all six galaxies over and they'd just be like "Anyone got a working cell? I need to tell my babysitter I won't be back by 9.")

I think he's just never there. Absentee boss in the extreme. It's not that he ever slacks or doesn't do the work--it's just that he's constantly going off and doing the missions all on his own. It doesn't matter how many times the higher-ups assign him to do a team task, tell him he has to take the full squad... He just scampers off and does the deal entirely on his own, comes back covered in blood, and is like "Hey guys, I took care of the problem; enjoy some comp time on me!" I don't think he drags his average-level underlings into his dangerous gambles; I think he just does all the work with their clients by himself or with a high-caliber partner. You would think this would make him a great boss to work for, but I implore to put yourself in such an employee's shoes: You go into the office every morning only to see your to-do list is empty. Your boss isn't there to give you any new direction. After twiddling your thumbs for four hours, you find out the reason he isn't in the office this morning is that he's recovering from betting he could take an entire pack of Borisin in a fist fight. He's not in the hospital because of the fight (which he won). He's in the hospital because he was then promptly shot in the back by the guy he was betting with. Why is your life like this? Why must you be subjected to the soap opera of your boss's own self-destructive spiral?

Even when he's around, he's probably weirdly awkward. Don't get me wrong, I bet when he's in a good mood he throws all kinds of extravagant parties in the office, and his employees would never lack for bonuses and perks. But I think he has never really bothered to learn--or perhaps simply does not care--about normal managerial behaviors and boundaries. Like, you slip up and tell him your mother-in-law is in the hospital. He comes back five minutes later to tell you he's just bought six bouquets (sent from your address), commissioned a personally embossed card for her with your monogram, and contracted the services of the best-reviewed individualized medical team in Pier Point under your name. He's patting himself on the back for being an incredibly thoughtful boss. You don't know how to tell him that you haven't spoken to your mother-in-law in years, not since her last attempt to poison you. Every six months he buys the whole team new cars. You have no idea what to do with all these cars. It's too many cars. Put some cars back. He calls everyone his "friend," but even after working for him for years, you still have absolutely no idea about his likes, dislikes, or hobbies outside of the IPC. You could not name his favorite food if someone put a gun to your head. Does he exist outside of the workplace? You literally can't imagine him anywhere but on a mission or at a poker table. He's constantly bringing an "I am the party!" vibe to the room, but everyone else is a bored 8-5 worker who doesn't have a drop of enthusiasm left in their veins. It's like when a singer asks the audience to cheer along with a song, but nobody in the audience makes a peep. Absolutely no one in the IPC cubicles can match his particular freak. Aventurine's a smooth-talker and a street-smart cookie for sure, but something about the way his smile looks like it's made out of plastic when anyone tries to engage him in chitchat at the water cooler gives you the vague impression that he's probably never had an actual friend in his life. If "uncanny valley" was a vibe a workplace could have, Aventurine's office would have it.

Long story longer, I think Aventurine has very few people willing to tolerate him as a boss, whether because they are racist or simply because his quirks are just too quirky. However, I like to imagine the few who have hung in there are ride or die. You know they have an "Aventurine Protection Squad" group chat. They probably all wear peacock-teal and gold accessories in solidarity. They have definitely disappeared people for talking shit on their boss before. Aventurine has no idea how much they actually like him.

[evocatiio]

FROM (2022 - present)

S01E03 // S03E02

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

you are so whimsical i qant to check out this mdzs (..??) because of your whimsical nature thank you sorry im very high and your art moved me emotionally

This is simultaneously the sweetest and funniest thing someone has sent me, thank you.

[watermelonsloth]

Hiruzen and Danzo are more complicated than people give them credit for

It says it all in the title.

Hiruzen and Danzo are among the most hated characters in all of Naruto, and I’m not entirely removed from that crowd of haters. They’re probably among the easiest characters you can argue are just bad people. Or, at minimum, people who did horrendous, unjustifiable things (or allowed them to happen in Hiruzen’s case). However, I think that because people hate them so much, no one wants to take a closer look at their characters and the more complicated/human reasons why they make the choices they do.

Hiruzen is spineless and that’s a hill I’ll die on, but he’s spineless in one of these most sympathetic and realistic ways I’ve seen depicted in media. Specifically, he’s the walking talking representation of the fallibility of compassion. Hiruzen cares about so many people so deeply that he would rather stand by and let people get hurt than to hurt them himself. He ignores the fact Danzo keeps trying to kill him because he knows he’ll likely have to execute him as retribution and he doesn’t want to kill his best friend, he turns a blind eye to Orochimaru’s dark side because he doesn’t want to fight/kill his student, Tsunade isn’t labeled a rogue ninja because he doesn’t want to put a bounty on his student/mentor’s granddaughter’s head, he let the Hizashi situation and Uchiha Massacre happen because he didn’t want to risk subjecting his people to the horrors of war that he experienced, and he died because he couldn’t bring himself to go all out against his mentors (even if they were reanimated and emotionless versions) or student.

I’m not defending Hiruzen’s actions or lack thereof. Obviously, this is a deeply flawed way to go about life, especially as a leader of a country where you have to regularly make difficult trolly-problem decisions. But Hiruzen is meant to be a deeply flawed individual. He’s like the family of an abuser that refuses to properly step in to stop the abuse because they love the abuser and don’t want to face the idea that the abuser is a bad person. I’m not saying Hiruzen is a good person or in the right, I’m just saying he’s realistic.

If Hiruzen is “the few over the many”, then Danzo is “the many over the few” with a sprinkle of “the ends always justify the means”. Danzo is, at his core, someone who is always trying to do what’s best for the village. He turned Hanzo against the Akatsuki to keep the group from gaining too much power and becoming another threat to Konoha (keeping in mind that Amegakure is adjacent to the Land of Fire), he pushed for the Uchiha Massacre to keep a civil war from breaking out, he killed the messenger toad to keep Naruto away from Konoha and the nine tails out of Pain’s grasp. He created ROOT to make sure that Konoha had a back up fighting force that was highly trained, wouldn’t turn against the village, and were willing to do what even ninja wouldn’t. Even Danzo’s choice to essentially turn on the village by trying to kill Hiruzen was motivated by him trying to do what he thought was best for the village. After all, he knew better than anyone how bad of a Hokage Hiruzen was.

A lot of people oversimplify Danzo into “the selfish, corrupt asshole”—and while I can agree that he’s selfish and corrupt, he’s selfish and corrupt in very specific ways. The corruption is the most obvious and easiest to explain. Danzo is willing to do anything he thinks will benefit the village; that includes working with bad people and using backhanded tactics. As for his selfishness, it stems from one specific thing: Tobirama telling Hiruzen to become Hokage over him.

For a while I was confused why Danzo got a flashback flashbacked to this scene before he died. Now, I think I’ve settled on it being because the scene was at the core of Danzo’s character and greatest character flaws because it was also his greatest regret. It’s pretty clear that Danzo wants to become Hokage and it’s implied that he’s had this dream for a long while. However, Tobirama—his mentor, the former Hokage, and one of the people to define what it meant to be Hokage—chose Hiruzen over him. Because Hiruzen was willing to sacrifice himself for his comrades while Danzo, who knew he should’ve done the same, was too cowardly to offer himself up.

Then he never really grows out of that cowardice. Instead, he looks down on Hiruzen to cope with his own sense of inferiority, gives himself body modifications to become a stronger ninja more capable of defending the village, and obtains as much political power as he can. He remains a coward who prefers letting other people take the fall over fighting his own battles (setting up Hanzo to fight the Akatsuki, asking Orochimaru to kill Hiruzen, ordering Itachi to kill the Uchiha clan, etc.) right up until he uselessly “sacrifices” himself right before he was going to die anyways.

Most of Danzo’s selfish actions come down to him not being able to accept his failure at becoming Hokage while also refusing to learn from his mentor’s final lesson.

I honestly think that Naruto has some of the best representation of bad people simply because it consistently acknowledges two things about bad people: 1. People who do bad things usually do them because they grew up being taught that doing bad things were okay or necessary to survive (being abused, societal normalization, never being punished, early exposure to things like domestic violence, etc.) and 2. Even if they don’t necessarily think they’re good people, the large majority of people don’t think they’re bad or evil. Both Hiruzen and Danzo were raised by a generation haunted by war only to be thrust into two world wars themselves (one at a young age and one when they were older). This left them both traumatized and willing to do anything to avoid experiencing it again. And even if they acknowledge that they’ve made mistakes, they still don’t (seem to) see themselves as bad people, only people who are committing the lesser of two evils.

[millionsghosts]

I think a lot about how Vash and Knives are perceived and how they actually are. Vash is the one who pushes his feelings back and holds himself together constantly in order to keep pushing forwards, despite how open/silly he seems on the surface. Knives comes across as colder and more logical, but his decisions and conclusions are all driven by his rage and fear and emotions.

Knives makes himself out to be the reasonable one who knows more about the world than Vash (at least in Tristamp), but Vash is actually the one out there experiencing things and learning about life and humanity, meaning he's probably much wiser. This specifically is one of my favorite things about Trigun because it's just so hopeful. Vash is the one who sees the world and everything it has to offer (he was running all over the place for 150 years, dude!), and he's also the one who believes so resolutely that humans are good. I think that's absolutely beautiful.

[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.

[jumpscart]

TBOB has actually really interesting insights onto Bill's character and his relationship with Ford/how he sees himself in him

bc now we know that Bill actually DIDNT want to destroy his home dimension, and had a family he cared about... but then after that, he fell in with a crowd (his Henchmaniacs) that were all angry and spiteful towards their worlds, and had no families (they are all either orphans or hate their families), and they hear that Bill destroyed his 'oppressors', and for the first time in his life Bill hears "wow your differences actually make you COOL and HELPFUL"

and over time 'revenge' starts to mean 'blowing up anyone that doesn't like us' and 'accidentally destroyed his dimension' becomes 'liberated his dimension' and 'i have no one' becomes 'i dont need anyone!'- but the nightmare dimension is Unstable and falling apart and Bill has to Keep The Party Going or else he loses all his coolness and all his power

And then he tries and tries to manipulate people into building the portal but it all fails bc he actually sucks until he meets Stanford Pines, who is so easy to manipulate because Bill knows exactly what he wants to hear because its what he himself wanted to hear...and Ford is bitter and vengeful and that makes Bill start to consider him as more than a pawn, possibly even a henchmaniac, he tells him about how DEVASTATED he was to lose his home dimension, even if he went 'no contact' with them and was an outcast and an Other, he still misses home...

...and so when ford finds out the portal will destroy his home, of COURSE he turns around and thinks about his family, even though he 'doesnt have anyone'. Bill expects Ford to enable him, as all the other henchmaniacs did, but Ford stands up to him and it triggers Bill so badly because he sees this man as basically who he was at the beginning and it challenges the image of himself he's built in his mind, because he KNOWS back then that he wouldnt have destroyed his own dimension on purpose! And the only thing he knows how to do anymore is to crush anything that hurts him, because unlike anyone else Ford is able to hurt him.

and thats why he needs to be in therapy for basically forever

[fluentisonus]

relatedly always thinking about this particular bit of javert's perspective