#this is however how i read his character

[ponypaltrail]

someday ill write the dirk ocd essay

[consultingfujoshi]

some thoughts wrt the two established "romances" in severance so far (burt/irving and helly/mark) inspired by @figmentof who pointed out how irving had to find out mark and helly kissed from the corporate video in s2 e1 and how he must have felt seeing his co-workers' love affair like portrayed like that, and how it ties into the queer narrative at play here which uses workplace dynamics and policies as very clear analogues for real-life prejudice against queer couples. I mean, just look at this:

it's not just documented, but celebrated. used as propaganda for how the conditions on the severance floor have improved. proof that the severed workers are happy. and how even though he is unaware of the sociopolitical meaning of all this, lumon is very not-subtly telling him that what he had with burt is inherently lower and less valuable than this.

irving doesn't even know homophobia exists and yet he is still affected by it, it still seeps into every corner of the way his and burt's romance progresses. burt is positioned as an unacceptable love interest from the jump. irv is actively discouraged at every turn from pursuing it. their friendship is viewed with disgust and apprehension from their coworkers. burt working in a different department that's hated by MDR. dylan himself not being homophobic in the sense he opposes their relationship because they're both men but his attempts to keep them apart still has a parallel sort of prejudice behind it and still ultimately has the same effect as if it WERE driven by homophobia. irving is made to feel perverse for wanting contact with burt. he's told this is for his own good.

and then, just as they manage to overcome that immediate resistance from their peers and escape to a place where they can explore this blossoming romance on their own terms, burt retires. for all it matters to irv, he's dead. and then irving is given the option to live the rest of his life with grief that will never heal, or kill himself too, because there is no reality where they get to be together. that's just the way things are. of course they wouldn't get to be together. he was unreasonable and childish for ever hoping that could happen. this is just the way it goes for innies. he's told to get ahold of himself and not make a scene.

but the thing is, the standards are not the same for all. a heterosexual romance gets upheld as the shining example of success and fulfilment for the severed employees, whilst a homosexual romance is ridiculed and invalidated, and written off as something that was simply never meant to be. and even more importantly to irving, a heterosexual romance is APPROVED OF by lumon, and by extension, by kier. irv held back from allowing himself to even call his and burt's relationship a romance, because his god had told him it was wrong, he followed the handbook, thinking this was what kier wanted, and then finding out after suffering the worst heartbreak imaginable because of it, that this WASN'T EVEN TRUE. it's simply just that someone like HIM doesn't get to have something like this. his love is not the kind of love god wants. he does not approve of irv's love. cynical and manipulative though that approval may be (even within the context of the corporate video, the helly/mark romance is only being celebrated to further the narrative that lumon care for their workers, but the point still remains that it was THEIR romance specifically used to suit this end), when your entire life has been in pursuit of that approval, it must be devastating to learn it was never on the cards for you.

he and burt even used the fact kier met and fell in love with his wife in the same circumstances as them to justify this to each other - and they were RIGHT, god does approve of falling in love with your coworkers - this simply just doesn't apply to them specifically. and if irving needed any more proof that he no longer has a place at lumon, that he's better off not existing at all than existing with this pain that cannot be remedied, pain that won't even be acknowledged for what it is, a symptom of a sickness which plagues the entire severance system, pain that he is simply expected to choke down and get over - this is that proof.

and that's the POINT. they're TELLING us that this is unjust, and there's a double standard. they're using the ways the innies experience romance and the difference in lumon's reaction (lumon being the collective of all the management we've seen, lumon as a singular entity) to burt/irving vs helly/mark to comment on how queer people are not afforded the same level of respect or validation IN REAL LIFE, for their attachments, their love, their pain, their suffering. it is NOT just incidental that irving's romance is with a man. it would not WORK if his love interest was a woman. the POINT is that they are both men and how that puts them at a disadvantage, even if they aren't aware of the prejudices of the outside world, even if they don't TECHNICALLY apply on the severance floor, there are very clear analogues which still end up oppressing them in equivalent ways that they would be suffering if this were a normal workplace in the outside world.

it genuinely sickens me to my stomach that even in a world so divorced from reality and the sensibilities of regular society, a queer couple is still made to suffer and feel inferior in a way that perfectly mirrors their real-life counterparts. how they will never, EVER be allowed to exist in a world where their love could thrive freely and uninhibited - they never get to taste the joy our world has to offer people like them, but they are still somehow subjected to all the pain it has to offer them regardless. it's such horrifically devastating writing. it makes my skin crawl. I can't stop thinking about it

[apollos-boyfriend]

something i think is really interesting about purpled’s characters is how they simultaneously come off as super intimidating and powerful but also kind of childish. because what purpled plays is just an amplified version of himself, he doesn’t really change his speech patterns, and he uses a lot of real “childish” language in his speech as a joke. so you have this intimidating warrior, a force of nature in and of himself, saying stuff like “no take-backsies” completely straight-faced

[milquetoad]

of the many injustices put forth toward the show by fans i think the most overall damaging and telling of a complete lack of critical viewership is the idea that sam riegel builds his characters with nothing more than the bit in mind. like you are only telling on yourself if you think characters like scanlan shorthalt and veth brennato are one-dimensional and depthless

[brw]

I like this moment a lot ("I am the retribution you've avoided your entire miserable life" is an awesome line) but it is really interesting as a portrayal of Charles. He's much more aggressive, almost impulsive. He feels very young here to me, which I think is curious. Like... in what world did he think Scott wouldn't be freaked out after seeing him liquidise the brains of these guys! They might be abusive criminals to Scott, but that's still a terrifying thing for a 15 year old (?) to observe. It's so funny how bad he is interacting with the O5 in this comic.

X-Men: Children of the Atom

[ahalliance]

an important thing to understand with qetoiles is that he made every one of his relationships feel special without ever placing the importance of a person over another . he was naturally closer to some people than others but he never had A special person, if you get me

[possamble]

stop over-thinking your writing to appease the imaginary bad faith audience you preemptively torture yourself with. stop over-thinking your writing to appease the imaginary bad faith audience you preemptively torture yourself with. stop over-thinking your writing to appease the imaginary bad faith audie

[dullahandyke]

that reminds me i need to watch any and all adaptations of tcomc with eugenie in them. badly. even the ones where they straightwash her like gankutsuou. i miss her i miss her badly i need to reread tcomc i miss ittttttttt the adaptations are so overwhelmingly focused on the romance which impacts the revenge plot to the degree that morcerf is elevated to the primary antagonist above danglars and villefort and caderousse because where the others also wronged edmond, morcerf did it for the purpose of stealing his wife, which is the ultimate wrong in the eyes of a romantic story. there's not a great number of ways to condense a 1200 page story to a movie of a reasonable length, but i wish so many didn't make the genre shift to romance. it's been done before! there are other angles to explore it from! make a movie focused on the younger generation like albert and franz and beauchamp and have the main plot going on in the background! refrain from showing any backstory at all and only show how we get to the downfalls of the villains! i love mercédes, but cut the romance, i am begging you.

[barnabyboppins]

Hopefully lukewarm take (i haven’t checked)

I recently finished reading the Heroes Of Olympus series (having read pjo immediately prior) and I think it’s pretty shitty that the worth of all of our good guy characters are, to a notable degree, measured by their ability to find and engage in romantic relationships and are then greatly defined by those relationships. (Disclaimer; I don’t think I’m in a justified position to discuss lots of the racial criticisms for HoO but I do agree with a lot of em and that aspect does factor into this topic)

7+ important recurring characters is quite a lot of people to balance, even in a five book series and all of the non-pjo characters suffered immensely for it. But one character arc I anticipated over and over again that never ended up happening was any one character finding fulfillment from the non-romantic relationships around them by de-prioritizing the idea of a perfect someone in favour of accepting the support of their friends/comrades/campers/family/etc. (Second disclaimer: I don’t expect a novel saga from 2010 to have characters declaring their orientations (or lack thereof) aloud but the idea of a character learning to define themself by or through something outside of romance isn’t a new one)

I think Percy and Annabeth are very cute and work well as a couple (are they the only white couple?) and I don’t really see any chemistry between Piper and Jason (I feel like they’re on very different paths from each other and Piper stagnates greatly in favour of supporting jasons development) but I think literally every other Good Guy character had the potential to not need romance in their arcs. Frank could have been raised to praetor by consensus and recognized by his peers and grandma, actively validating his growth rather than him achieving great feats and no one noticing or really caring except for Hazel. Hazel could’ve been shown learning about the modern day with Frank and Nico during downtime and reconciling her identity and trauma with the diversity of today while discovering a new freedom in acceptance (from the Seven) of who she is from back then and who she may yet want to be (and also not dated a 16 y/o at 13).

Leo, Reyna and Nico were the main ones I was thinking would forgo the need for a partner at least as a necessity for their growth/healing as all three have severe familial trauma, are distanced from other demigods socially somehow, and all were explicitly ousted from conventional romance in-writing.

Initially with Leo I had hoped he would confront his struggle being the “seventh wheel” by expressing how he was feeling overlooked as a friend (and as the ONLY shipwright) in favour of everyone’s romantic interests, which would lead into further emotional vulnerability in the party but, that never happened save for a few stoically non-communicative gestures of support to Frank and otherwise weird hang-ups on Hazel before he fucked off to Calypso, letting his friends think him dead for weeks. Leo lacked connection and felt inferior and less important than the rest of the Seven and the narrative validated that by only fulfilling him through an a Rapunzel-like hot babe trapped on an island who is physically dependent on his emotional dependence on her. That’s not a recipe for healthy relationship! I related to Leo initially as an aromantic person with 9 siblings, half of whom are already coupled so it was very disappointing when I realized by the third book that RR just didn’t take what was to me the most obvious arc for a character who is vitally important to a team but least noticed. Also the Hazel-Frank-Leo pseudo-love shape didn’t need to happen, at least in the way it did, and I think the Leo-Hazel-Sammy weird love thing was stupid.

I think Nico and Will are a very cute couple and I’m looking forward to reading their book when I come around to it but I felt unsatisfied that the thing that got Nico to stay at camp after 5 books was a guy who had little significant presence until the last book and not like, any of the other deeply important connections he made during his journeys? Nico’s been talking about never returning to either camp for a while and none of the Seven or Reyna (I think) thought to check in with him? I get that Will is supposed to be like the first person to insistently want Nico around but if Will really is the first then that’s kinda fucked up given the whole like, eight books worth of people he’s met. It’s a bit fucked up that after years of Nico’s presence, seemingly the first connection to anchor him down is an unspoken suggestion of a romance

Reyna’s character journey confuses me because I don’t if I missed or forgot it but I don’t remember her having a conclusion to her internal struggles. Aphrodite telling her she’s doomed to singledom gets brought up again and again and it’s mostly just to make you feel bad for her. She doesn’t tell anyone else. She doesn’t seek fulfillment in the platonic or familial connections she has. They visit her house, trauma dump about her abuse AND fakeout her sisters + the hunters + the amazons deaths just to have Reyna be even more hurt. Reyna and Nico come to understand each other while they’re travelling but by the conclusion of the series she’s just gone back to her isolating and stressful role as the praetor, but now with more work to do! Aphrodite’s words are never explained and their veracity is never tested and all it serves is to give Reyna more misery porn.

I guess what I’m saying is I think the story would have been better if The Seven & Co had a little more connection with each other and not just with their respective partners and if we could have seen some internal growth come from that.

[t-u-i-t-c]

"He's got his hands on our wheels, and we've got nowhere to go as a result."

[brucie-baby]

I've got a lot of thoughts about "Robin gives me magic!" and absolutely none of them are coherent but I'm sharing them anyway.

So for context: this line comes from a story in which Calendar Man is planning to kill Jason, and Bruce tells him that he can work the case but not out in the field. There's a whole thing here where Jason gives Bruce the silent treatment until Bruce calls him immature and sends him to his room. That night, Bruce apologises and explains that he can't lose Jason, and that sometimes Batman has to go out alone. Jason says he understands but sneaks out anyway, planning to take Calendar Man on his own.

When he gets back to the cave (after Bruce has been searching for him despite bleeding out), Bruce tries to scold him. This is where he says that line, and that Robin lets him do things he'd never have dared before. Bruce says that it sounds like recklessness, and Jason says no, just maturity. There's a few more bits here that I have a lot of thoughts on but these are the most relevant parts of it.

The thing I find so interesting about this is actually from a different comic from a little while before. There's this guy, Collins, who wears Catman's costume and believes it has this magical ability to give him nine lives. Collins narrowly avoids death several times (e.g. nearly hit by a truck, almost crushed by rocks) and he thinks it's the suit's doing, but actually, it was Batman following and saving him every time. While they're fighting and Collins is insisting that the suit gives him magic, Bruce thinks, "I've created a monster - he's completely reckless - unwilling to concede there's any danger his costume can't handle!"

Now I also have a lot of thoughts on this that I might get into when it's not five in the morning but the main one is this: "Robin gives me magic" is not proof of Jason being the happy, chill Robin. This is him giving Bruce grey hairs in real time. This is him thinking that he's nearly invincible. To me, this would've been the perfect point to start shifting him into his post-crisis self. I think Jason's too complicated to label him as just reckless but also? I would not say it's wrong to. He is occasionally reckless and he does act without thinking sometimes. And just to clarify, this isn't criticism. I love pre-crisis Jason. He's my little guy. That's why I hate it when he's just boiled down to 'the happy Robin' (and the fact that it's a stupid label for any of the Robins, please let go of that), because he's been stressing Bruce out since day one. Like, this is the kid who said "if you don't make me Robin I'm doing to run away to the circus," and then did. And post-crisis he's very explicitly written as violent and reckless. He's always been a menace, don't take that away from him!!

[donnatroyyyy]

Good Talia characterization and good Damian characterization can co-exist easily, they are not mutually exclusive whatsoever. Good Ra’s characterization along with good characterization for either Talia and Damian cannot coexist eight out of ten times, they are mostly mutually exclusive.

[dreamsicle262]

if the reading comprehension of some people who do make dead plate text posts is so bad (as i've had at least two people tell me in the tags) then maybe i SHOULD start analyzing every little detail in the game.

[ahalliance]

how do i turn qantoine’s spontaneous marriage proposal to qetoiles into evidence of his early-days fear of qfrench drifing away and keeping secrets from one another

[hor3nee]

??? why are you scared to write for leon ???

Uh... Idk if scared was the right word to use, more so I think the popular interpretation of Leon, at least in the current fandom, is not one I'd write him as. And like people get mobbish about it as though only the one particular viewing they've subscribed to MUST be the only one written, and any other writings of his character outside of it are invalid.

And my viewing and understanding of his character, and by extension how I'd write for him, would get me crucified by "fans" because it doesn't really align with the popularised interpretations of him.

[maddymoreau]

Thinking about how Benny no longer covering his trail is what leads to courier six having enough evidence to give to Swank:

Comic: https://imgur.com/gallery/dYFAz