#we don't talk about the... others lol

[ashterblaster]

bro i literally loathe critics of movies/shows when they don't actually have anything constructive to say besides "i hate X movie/show and here's why you should too" like no thanks, literally I'm not thanking you for not being able to genuinely review something lol

[pleaseinsertwittyurl]

There are always 2 sides.

The discourse around Louis and Lestat being a victim and abuser and nothing more drives me insane.

Something i don't think enough people remember is that the very same reason the fight began in 1×05 (lestat grabbing claudia by the throat when she tries to "take louis away") we see Louis himself do to her in 1×07 when she tries to get Louis to burn Lestat.

They BOTH would harm her rather than live in a world without the other. They are both guilty of abusing her and each other.

There is an implication that a good deal of time passed between Louis and Lestat meeting and the church. Louis expresses that he shares himself with Lestat in a way he only had with Paul. I would assume that goes both ways, to a degree. We know Louis knows at least enough about Nicki to discourage Claudia poking that wound. He also clearly knows that the threat of leaving is his most powerful weapon against Lestat.

Mental abuse is abuse. And Louis abused Lestat mentally for years. Shaming him, ridiculing him, shutting him out, manipulating him into making Claudia (a traumatic moment for him, whether Louis understands the depths of it or not) by promising to give him what he's being denying him, promising to never put him through what he fears the most.

Louis admits to purposely making Lestat suffer. He admits he was warned that Claudia would suffer and he wanted her anyway because he needed to feel redeemed. He is not innocent. He is not a trapped, weak victim. He made choices to hurt both Lestat and Claudia time and time again.

Does this justify Lestat's actions in 1×05? Obviously not. But we now know Louis was not willing to stop the fight. He taunted Lestat the same way he taunted the Alderman. He was unleashing years of frustrations just as Lestat was. His priority was not to protect Claudia, it was to hurt Lestat, consequences be damned.

I hate the drop scene as much as the next person and Lestat has admitted he will never earn forgiveness for what he did. But if you view Louis as some squeaky clean victim who was manipulated, trapped, and abused by Lestat you are missing so much of what this show is conveying.

We will always tend to paint ourselves as the hero of our own story. It is hard to accept your faults or that you hurt people you love. It is much easier to shift that blame on to someone else, to frame them as the villian. But life is not usually that black and white. Claudia had harsh words for them both in her diary, even before they got to Europe, for a reason. They both made hurtful mistakes with her, both treated her like a pawn in their relationship instead of a person, both harmed her, took away her choice, never prioritized her.

That is the great tragedy. That she never had a choice and was not allowed to be her own person. And in the end, they both are responsible for her misery and her death. That's what makes the reunion scene so important. They have been grieving her and carrying that guilt alone, all the while longing for the comfort of the other for 70+ years. Louis has found clarity in his memories, he has accepted his role in their suffering, he has seen Lestat's perspective more fully. Lestat is broken, totally consumed with that guilt and grief. Both know that although they cannot change what they've done, they can forgive the other, even if they can't forgive themselves. They can love each other despite everything they've done to one another because they cannot stop loving each other. But now they can try to rebuild that love from the rubble.

[somegrumpynerd]

-Okay but some of the fears that Color has are in fact the same fears that Nightmare has when it comes to Killer.

Like, Color is worried that Killer's so blindly loyal to Nightmare for whatever reason that he wouldn't even think of complaining if he hated it. And at the start that was something Nightmare probably expected. His henchmen should be loyal and obedient and not ask questions nor complain. But now, after years of learning and bonding and softening up significantly he wonders sometimes if that's still the case.

Nightmare knows Killer well, perhaps better than most, but he's not exactly an open book. Especially when it comes to his own wants or needs. More often than not when he makes a request it's intentionally silly or unreasonable for laughs, like asking if they can take Dust to the nearest pet store and try to trade him in. Very rarely does he want something strong enough to make it known, both to himself and others, like asking to keep the first cat he found.

So.

If he hated this. If he truly struggled and fought and agonised with himself about the position he's in and the work he's doing and the life he leads.

Would he say it? Would he realise that was how he felt? Would he even consider saying no was an option?

If Nightmare asked him to do something he really genuinely did not want to, would he just do it anyway because he doesn't believe he has a choice in the matter?

The only way of finding out (besides making a blatantly difficult request of him, which Nightmare is not willing to do) is to simply wait and trust that Killer will tell him if something is wrong. Which... is not exactly foolproof or easy.

But it's part of why Nightmare hates to be around Color too much, because deep down he's more than a little worried that Color could be right and he doesn't know how to fix it.

[pettyoddity]

coffee break

[tyrantchimera]

Something I've noticed about being in a small, 'dead' fandom... when you're a content creator, it's like the whole remaining fandom *reacts* when you do anything. I'm in a small but dedicated group of authors for a small fandom. If one of us posts after a dry spell, the rest of us perk up. The fans react. Other creators (like myself) are inspired to make their own stuff.

For a small while, we aren't just small-time creators. It's like we're the franchise itself! Everyone knows when we post stuff. Our content is THE content.

Wow. What a feeling.

[happyk44]

Jason who immediately loses respect for people who don't own up to their mistakes vs Annabeth who would rather die than admit she made a mistake

[sulfurrrr]

tbh I find Caitlyn's use of the Gray really interesting not only as a form of chemical warfare, but of psychological warfare too. The way she deliberately designed the strike force uniforms to work in tandem with the Gray in order to mimic the appearance of a monster from Zaunite stories with very recent presence in Zaun's recent memory (it was only during Cassandra's lifetime that the Gray was "locked away") to evoke fear in ordinary Zaunites is so so crazy to me.

And Jinx REALIZED that!! that's (maybe.) WHY that showdown took place in front of a carving of Janna– she's using those stories (which likely evolved alongside one another) to frame her reaction to Caitlyn's crimes as a sort of divine retribution!

Caitlyn thinks Jinx is this terrifying monster of a girl, and while it's true Jinx has done some awful things, ever since the beginning of this season (arguably since after the timeskip, even) Jinx has been working in direct response to Caitlyn and Caitlyn's actions, whether or not either of them are truly aware of it.

[rouge-fauna]

[sysig]

So much experimenting to be done, where to even start (Patreon)

[wonder-worker]

Thinking about Elizabeth Woodville as a gothic heroine is making me go insane. She entered the story by overturning existing social structures, provoking both ire and fascination. She married into a dynasty doomed to eat itself alive. She was repeatedly associated with the supernatural, both in terms of love and death. Her life was shaped entirely by uncanny repetitions - two marriages, two widowhoods, two depositions, two flights to sanctuary, two ultimate reclamations - all paralleling and ricocheting off each other. Her plight after 1483 exposed the true rot at the heart of the monarchy - the trappings of royalty pulled away to reveal nothing, a never-ending cycle of betrayal and war, the price of power being the (literal) blood of children. She lived past the end of her family name, she lived past the end of her myth. She ended her life in a deeply anomalous position, half-in and half-out of royal society. She was both a haunting tragedy and the ultimate survivor who was finally free.

[eveningrainstorm]

People often talk about Rio Ranger as if he's the doll version of Sei but what I find super fascinating is that he isn't, not in the same way Fake Reko or the Dummies are replications of their human counterparts.

Ranger resembles Sei on a surface level — same physical appearance, just an unclear amount older; same way of speaking. But he is unmistakably different. Ranger is an incomplete being, missing his positive emotions, but even the true Ranger is Rio Laizer rather than Sei, because there's still something different.

Rio Ranger is, fundamentally, inhuman and yet desperate to be human. He was created to be jealous of humanity and despite his hatred for them, humanity is what he is always striving for. But it is something that he doesn't possess, and is forced to steal instead. He takes clothes from the dead and uses drawings on cards to feign emotion; he is the Dress-Up Doll, Rearranger, not possessor of anything of his own.

While the other dolls based on humans in the game have identity issues based on their personhood being defined by someone else, being merely a copy of another person, Ranger is not even allowed Sei's identity to base himself on — it's very likely he doesn't even know who Sei was. He does not have Sei's clothes — nondescript and tied to Asunaro as they are — and he does not have the capacity for expressing emotion that Sei had.

When comparing Ranger and Sei in terms of personality, differences are obvious. There are similarities, naturally — besides the abrasive way of speaking, there's the jealousy and desire for validation. But in Ranger, these are present to an extreme — they're all he has. (And, ironically, this is what Gashu claims to believe makes him so human, even when Ranger's inhumanity comes through most clearly in this lack of anything else.)

In Sei, on the other hand, these traits are tempered by logic, to put things in YTTD's beloved logic vs. emotion dichotomy. Despite his outwardly emotional nature, from what we see of him he appears realistic and focused on survival in a way that Kai isn't. He's aggressive and overly casual about killing people, but he doesn't express the glee at violence that Ranger does, only a fierce desire to prove himself and survive. Sei is jealous of Kai and desires Gashu's affection, but also has an understanding of the situation he's in that both Kai and Ranger lack — he can tell that Gashu doesn't care about him as much as he does Kai, and recognizes that the way Gashu treats both of them is wrong. Ranger believes Gashu truly loves him, a fact proven blatantly false by his eventual demise at Gashu's hands. Ironically, this blindness is more similar to Kai as we see him in his minisode, rather than Sei.

Of course, this understanding isn't simply a part of Sei's basic nature, but rather the fact that unlike Kai and Ranger, he has past experience to go on. Sei wasn't born into the Satou family — though his exact origins are unclear, based on his grief for his birth father and how he talks about Asunaro ("all this shady organization crap"), it's possible he wasn't even born into Asunaro at all. Before being sent to Gashu, he had his own father, one who we don't know anything about but whom he apparently loved. He doesn't accept Gashu's treatment of him and Kai the way Kai does because he has known a different father and a different way of life. This doesn't free him from Asunaro's influence — he still accepts the role of assassin they give him and resigns himself to becoming a killer. What choice does he have, after all? But he carries no illusions about Asunaro or his role in it. He knows that the training is cruel, that he is viewed only as a tool, that Asunaro is wrong even if they are also not worth resisting.

This is a major part of why Ranger isn't Sei, why he cannot be; because Asunaro is all Ranger knows. They are his creators, who he was literally built to serve. In Ranger's mind, he is not only Gashu's son and heir, but his creation, his masterpiece. And of course he wouldn't have been created with Sei's memories — why take that risk? Why give him any sort of knowledge of a life outside Asunaro or reason to be disloyal to them?

Ranger is not Sei — so why model Ranger after him? Because Ranger is the idea of Sei, what Sei was meant to be: a counterpart to Kai, a rival, a second choice. Gashu preferred Kai, once; Kai won out over Sei. But Kai has proven himself a failure and betrayed Asunaro, leaving Gashu with no choice but turn once more to Kai's long-dead competition. Ranger is, like Sei, the opposite of Kai, temperamental and vulgar while Kai is stoic and polite, and perhaps more importantly, capable of murder while Kai steadfastly is not.

And yet Ranger isn't Sei. Sei was jealous of those — specifically Kai — he saw as superior or at least as being treated as such; Ranger is this idea taken to its natural conclusion. Sei had lost everything he had outside of Asunaro; Ranger never had anything else to begin with. Sei was a human; Ranger will never be, doomed to forever long otherwise. Ranger is Sei only in the ways Sei was useful — desperate for recognition, willing to kill, a perfect rival to Kai — but something entirely different, an inhuman machine, in all the ways Sei was a liability.

Sei was human, and he knew that he deserved to have that fact respected. Ranger isn't human and gets only the wanting, desperate to be as good as a human even humanity itself is unattainable. Of course, it isn't being a doll that is actually Ranger's problem — it's Asunaro, who view humans and dolls alike as disposable. Sei's humanity didn't make him any less of a tool as far as Asunaro was concerned, it only made him more difficult to control. All Sei wanted was to be seen as an equal to Kai, a person worthy of respect — and this is what he gets, in the end: his face and voice used as a base for one of Asunaro's weapons, while his true identity and personhood remains forgotten.

Ranger has nothing to hold him back from doing his duty for Asunaro, nor does he have anything to hold onto outside of it. In that sense, Ranger is an ideal asset for Asunaro — at least until the very jealousy and hatred Gashu programmed into him goes too far, and he is, once again, deemed a failure. Ironically, Gashu shoots Ranger for attempting to kill a participant, when willingness to kill was perhaps the one true advantage Sei had over Kai.

In the end, Ranger is offered no more humanity in his death than Sei is — they are both merely pawns of Asunaro, set to die at its whims. But while Sei dies in the arms of his brother, receiving one final act of kindness as Kai refuses to kill him, Ranger has no one in either of his deaths but his creators: in his death as Rio Laizer the dubious kindness of Tia Safalin, making his final moments full of agonizing guilt, and of course in his first death, as Rio Ranger, nothing but Gashu's coldness, the bullet in his head a sort of culmination to the favoritism Sei found weighed against him, and a demonstration of just how far Gashu has come from the father who once genuinely cared for Sei. Sei was human, Ranger was not, but as far as Asunaro is concerned, they are exactly the same: tools, easily thrown away as soon as they stop being useful.

[daniclaytcn]

The most insane for me is when people who stan tommy uses what taylor did to bobby to hate on her. Like, okay that was absolutely fucked up, and I'm not a fan of her either, but i feel like if you still use this reason even though bobby was fine with her after (even inviting her in his house), then maybe there's something you should hold against tommy too (no matter if hen and chimney look friendly towards him) ??

the funny thing is that hen and chimney are...pretty lukewarm towards him, actually. you have chim who only contacted tommy like twice when he needed his help and didn't invite him to his wedding...you have hen who, in 3x16, was very emphatic about not being friends with any of the guys who used to work at the 118 when she joined; and even tommy makes a crack about not getting her christmas cards. not saying they hate him or anything! i think they're fine with him, honestly. but it's not some great friendship like people like to pretend, sorry 🤷🏽‍♀️ and yeah, i definitely think it's weird that all the female love interests, taylor included, have gotten so much shit for much less. i still remember that one person who tried to say that tommy being brought back was better than lucy, because lucy made "a terrible first impression" on the audience. worse than the guy who was introduced as being part of the white man status quo who was complicit in racism and misogyny? hm.

[tsutsumi-kurose]

I find it interesting that Tsukasa reached for Nene without hesitation. It was probably because he needs her to fulfill his goals but I wanna be delusional and say he has a heart and cares for her / people

lol it is very hard to tell with tsukasa!! but he definitely does have a heart it’s just….selective lol.

and i think the fact that it's so hard to tell how tsukasa feels about people makes him and nene such good complements to each other!! nene is so expressive and open, and tsukasa is such a mystery to the audience and especially to amane, the person closest to him. these differences play off of each other beautifully. it's nene's openness and persistence and open-book optimism that gets us so many glimpses into tsukasa's feelings and past and world view and the different attitudes he's capable of embodying and expressing. and i personally think this moment is an example of that!

i think tsukasa catching nene was a very instinctive action he took!! i don't think he gave it any thought:

i loveeee this moment and these two pages like... he makes the decision so quickly that the panel of nene falling doesn't even have time to complete!! tsukasa physically breaks into the panel of nene falling, that's how fast and split second his decision is!! it's such a beautiful use of the space on the page. and tsukasa looks surprised by himself on the next page!! tsukasa is a very calucated person who usually has the upper hand, and in this moment he realizes he has truly given that upper hand and that foresight and that planning up, that he needs to resort to the last resort of calling amane for help. he resorts to what he sees as the impossible!! so i really don't think catching her was just part of the plan. there was definitely an emotional element involved there!!

i also think nene really has a knack for bringing out new sides of tsukasa. she's the reason he revealed that he's called for hanako before with no response!! she challenges him in ways he hasn't been challenged before!! she constantly surprises him and makes things interesting for him. i think she is definitely a very unique relationship in his life, and given all the reactions she gets out of him, i would say he definitely has at least some level of emotional investment in her as a person.

you are right though, that this doesn't necessarily mean he cares about her... but i don't think it's delusional for us to hope that it means something along those lines!! after all, they've spent a lot of time together leading up to this moment, and thanks to time travel, who knows how many interactions they've had that only tsukasa has experienced at this point? there's so much we don't know about tsukasa, constantly!! and i think the way he feels about nene is one of the more confounding mysteries about him.

i think it's very possible he has a soft spot for nene at this point! or at least is developing one. I’d believe it!! after all, if nene falls to her death who will listen to tsukasa talk about amane for four hours straight??

also look at them here:

serious analysis on pause they're best friends here. they are consulting they are looking to each other they are silently communicating!!! where do we go from here!!! nene said :0!!!!! tsukasa said O_O!!!!!

okay back to more text based analysis lol: from a different angle, you could also argue tsukasa's end goal with all of this is extending nene's life, as he's working to grant amane's wish, which, to his knowledge from the conversation in ch91, would be to extend nene's lifespan. so indirectly, but still supposedly his goal in a way!! which is a way to interpret his motivations in this moment as well.

and on the topic of tsukasa's goals, i think they show his heart!! yes, he's got an agenda, but overall his agenda has really just been to grant amane's wish. and it's an agenda he does his best to fulfill, which is a way of showing heart!! he thinks this is how amane can get whatever he wants. so in a way, even if this moment was just about needing nene as a means to an end, the end and the means of getting there are all motivated by his heart!!

but yeah in summary i definitely think there's a lot of depth to this relationship and to this interaction in particular. it haunts me constantly!! i love tsukasa i love nene i love the ways they play off of each other so much!! yes i'm biased because i would steal the moon from the sky for tsukasa and nene, but i really do think she makes him feel a lot!! whether that results in affection for her i think is beautifully complicated and unclear, and i can't wait to see their relationship progress throughout the rest of the manga!!

so i am with you in your delusions anon!! keep the faith!! i certainly will!! <3

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

milex highlights from the studio brussel interview (x)

[forestgreenlesbian]

.

[the-fandom-queenxox]

In my headcanon in Hamrat, for Bek's role as Hamrat's ghost dad they just had the classic sheet ghost costume on