#we love you tragic relationships

[borgialucrezia]

"let me hear your wish, sis."

LUCREZIA & JUAN BORGIA the borgias — 2x02

[shakingparadigm]

what is the theory that ivan manipulated the event where till and mizi met the wagyein?

It's not a theory, actually! It's confirmed that Ivan orchestrated the whole event. The true reason as to why however is still unknown. The information provides more context to this scene, though:

During the earlier times of ALNST the most rational explanation for this scene was that Till ran after a flower crown (presumably Mizi's) and Ivan followed him in out of curiosity. Now we know that Ivan was conveniently just standing there because he was waiting.

Side note, I find it heartbreaking (and maybe a little funny, sorry) that Till most likely didn't notice Ivan in this scene. That's just like him, isn't it. Always too busy running after Mizi while Ivan trails behind, an ever-present shadow.

I'm not sure how Ivan manipulated the circumstances for both of them to end up there, but it is confirmed that everything was intentional. What strikes me most is how they describe this particular scene:

I can't copy down what they said word-for-word (Patreon info), but they described Ivan watching "creepily" as Till and Mizi are faced with danger. We know that Ivan was familiar with the Cerberus wagyein beforehand, enough to touch its teeth and even to rest himself inside its maw. To Ivan, the wagyein is not dangerous, but to Till and Mizi, it could be. Ivan prepared the wagyein, led them there, and watched "creepily" from afar as Till fell on his knees, seemingly injured.

The closest I can get to making sense of Ivan's "scheme" is that he wanted to see how other children would react in a dangerous situation. Ivan's always been an observer, after all, and he's learned to survive by copying the more "normal" behaviors of his peers. This situation occured when Ivan was still young and had not yet developed his more charming mask, so perhaps he staged this encounter to study a situational response, to learn and mimic the emotion of fear. And what better subjects for the experiment than two of the most expressive and reactive humans of their batch? It helps that he was already fixated on Till beforehand, too. I think Ivan became irreversibly obssessed after this incident, especially since it's framed as a turning point in Ivan's life, comparing Till to the stars.

This is just my attempt at an interpretation, though. It could very well be for another reason. He most likely chose Till and Mizi specifically for personal reasons, not just for reaction. I'm still not sure on the purpose behind the whole thing.

The team wanted to capture Ivan's "dark emotions" through the shot of his stalking, which could relate to his more sinister intentions. His gaze can be read in a few different ways, though. Curiosity, interest, fear, etc. Maybe that's why they decided to redraw the shot in ROUND 6.

I think this better sells the feeling they were trying to convey.

[batsplat]

following on from this. not to always bring marc into everything (sorry marc) but if assen 2015 had happened against jorge, valentino would have very likely pulled something similar again imo. rather than what he actually did, which is approach marc almost immediately for a nice normal friendly handshake and backing off during the podium celebrations. should be noted that during laguna seca '08, valentino was very much committed to yapping at casey on the podium with the world's biggest smuggest grin on his face

partly that disparity is because jorge not marc was the direct title rival, partly it's because valentino was treating marc with kid gloves right until the second that he wasn't, which marc was seemingly entirely oblivious to. if anyone other than marc had said what he said in that presser, had then continued on with similar rhetoric during sachsenring, valentino would quite likely have gone nuclear. he's done it over less than that. his fondness for marc made him continue to exhibit uncharacteristic restraint... except that fondness unfortunately is what left valentino feeling so very betrayed when (to his eyes) marc could not leave well enough alone

[itsafternoonpast5]

thinking about their friendship so hard

[moongothic]

Honestly I think crocodile/dragon and crocodile/Doflamingo are only interesting when treated as failed relationships spinning off into increasingly petty grudges and instigations. Become a warlord to piss off one ex by working with his hated father only for the OTHER ex to ALSO become a warlord to drive you insane. Etc.

I am now going to take his as an opportunity to rant about Dragodile because I unironically think it's an interesting ship if Crocodad Real and I don't think I'm ever going to find a better excuse to rant about it unprompted lmao SO HERE WE GO

But yes like. Dragodile is so fucking interesting to me

A marine and a pirate falling in love with each other is already some starcrossed lovers kinda BS. But then it's like, a FORMER marine and pirate who is WORKING FOR THE GOVERNMENT. That's EXTRA JUICY, it adds layers to the starcrossed lovers shit, and I am not immune to it, it's FACINATING, like what was the dynamic here

But also we don't even know when Dragon left the marines and when he and Crocodile first met, so for all we know it could've been some real enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies shit AND THAT'S SO INTERESTING

(Also the mere concept that Dragon could've been chasing Crocodile around kinda like Smoker tried to chase Luffy, only for Crocodile to become a Shichibukai and Dragon having to give up because they're on the same side now (kinda). Like. That is so fucking funny. And then he leaves the Marines to start a revolution. Or just out of spite dshgjdgs)

Then there's the absolutely hysterical part where Crocodile is the meanest, most intimidating, standoff-ish asshole around. So the idea Dragon was fucking into that is INCREDIBLE. THIS MAN LIKES BEING BULLIED DFSHFKGHFGJHDS (It's possible Young Croc might've been less mean but it's funnier if he wasn't)

And yeah. Somehow. In complete secret. A romance blooms.

And then there's a baby.

And Crocodile transes his gender.

And there's a divorce.

And 17 years later Crocodile has commited dozens of unforgivable warcrimes that are almost exactly the kind of things Dragon wanted to stop the government from doing to begin with.

Mind you, I don't actually think there's coming back from that, this relationship was burned to the ground and the ashes blown away by wind, there is nothing left

But could you imagine if despite the anger and the hurt and the warcrimes they still somehow loved each other

I would just

[froschli96]

you know, i always find it really funny when dudebros complain about syndicate and odyssey being too "jokey" or not "taking its characters seriously" or whatever…

like, did y'all collectively sleep through "it's-a me, mario!", "i meant besides vaginas", ezio inventing the latte, bartolomeo's... just... *gestures vaguely* entire character, etc?

like, it's fine to have preferences of course, i myself prefer a more serious and grounded tone, but these are usually the same people who tout the ezio trilogy as "peak assassin's creed", call ac1 a glorified tech demo and hate on connor for being "too serious and boring", like? make it make sense!

[thegreatyin]

mr spices and mr wines. also mr candles and mr veils.

have you ever seen that one tumblr post that's like. "i don't ship these characters i just think they belong in couples therapy together". yeah. that's pretty much my stance on most spacebat ships

[katierosefun]

[deep breath] not me suddenly getting hit by tcw feelings in this year 2024 but like. truly ough i love likening ahsoka and anakin and obi-wan's entire dynamic as tragic siblings because that's the closest approximation we have to it but also just like. there's tragic siblings because they're the ones you're supposed to joke with and play with and look up to when it seems like everything is falling apart.

and then there's the whole tragic student-teacher element to all of it and maybe it's just like. i look up to you i owe you so much i know you've only ever tried and wanted to make me better i know you saw something in me worth cultivating and keeping you exasperate me sometimes because why the hell do i need to know this kind of stuff why the hell are you nitpicking this kind of stuff why do you care so much about why i succeed or not you're not my parent and i don't want you to be my parent but also you helped me learn more about myself and the world than i've ever realized. can i ask for your opinion about this later. can i still ask you for help on this problem.

and then the whole flip side of that is like. you were someone who mentored me and taught me and now you're a monster i barely know or recognize and how could you do this how could you say that how could you hurt me like this i know you think you're doing the right thing and you're so much older and wiser and i'm still waiting at the door like a little kid but also i don't think being taught lessons is meant to feel like this and i can't tell if i'm still acting childish or if maybe, more horrifyingly, everyone who warned me about you was right and you really are a monster and you've taught me how to be a monster and what do i do now and i guess i just have to grapple with the fact that you molded me and shaped me and if you broke off one of my arms while doing that, then who am i to tell

[ilovemylawyer]

i love the EVIL part of EVILIVE btw. i find fucked up, unnameable unobtainable obsessive life-ending love extremely romantic and delicious. it’s the way things are in the evilive world! things are messy! and bad! and i love it! i (at least currently!!!) do not plan on writing anything pure fluff happiness because that is not something that i wish to extract from this show.. it isn’t there! i have no interest in erasing these harsh realities of evilive in my fics. happy lalala is not fun for me to write, and i won’t do it without a heavy underlying feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty and dread and despair and inevitable death. i like pain :/ and half of this couple is one of the most greedy selfish motherfuckers i have ever come to know and he’s oh so beautiful. so i am sorry if you finished evilive and wanted some kind of fix-it happy gays but i am NOTTTTTTTT the guy for that.

[aromanticasterisms]

haha xbox wings [reads the description] hey what the fuck

[coolspacequips]

I gotta give black sails it's flowers for having multiple bisexual poly relationships, mmf AND ffm at that lol

The first was such a delightful and unexpected twist that really puts a new light onto the entire thesis of the show, and then the second was literally one of my fav dynamics in the entire series, they were my favs and all got together??? Usually this only happens in indulgent fic, but not this time!!

(also something high-key funny (in a sad way) that it kinda starts as 'I'm so co-dependant I need you to hold my hand while I hook up with someone else that I was dubiously cheating on u with 🥺' and then they became a power throuple)

[pumpkinrootbeer]

"Mandy deserved better" "lip was so ungrateful" the rape scene guys. guys. the rape scene. she literally rapes him guys. he says no and stop repeatedly and he tries to push her off. and then hides in the bathroom for 45 minutes after. guys.

[secretmellowblog]

"The Arkenstone is the Heart of the Mountain; it is also the heart of Thorin..."

I was listening to this cello cover and started drawing the Hobbit Comic adaptation things again <3

[mourn-and-watch]

one super important detail about carver's 'pro-templar' stance is that he openly admits that he never saw magic as a threat before kirkwall. he can be petty and constantly annoyed by his siblings being all magical and special but he never thought of them as abominations who need to be locked up for everyone's safety. kirkwall is the reason he starts to express doubts and we know how fucked up the veil here is.

if he joins the order, he does that out of necessity but i'd say he's also that rare templar who's motivated not by fear for himself but by fear for the people he cares about and at least one of them is a mage. this city is full of demons and abominations and blood magic, situation here is a lot more complicated than in ferelden and there's also his not-so-almighty mage sibling who doesn't seem to be concerned about this. even though they can be killed by one of these things. even though they can become one of them.

also he desperately needs purpose and if he was never taken to the expedition he finds one and does so by his own choice. and for the moment he thinks it's the right thing to do but the order never helps him resolve his doubts. he's never proven wrong because there are still demons and abominations threating the city. he's never proven right because some things templars do are completely unjustifiable and straight up cruel. this is not the purpose he wanted. this is not the reason worth deeping the rift between him and his sibling even more than it already was but it's too late to quit just like that. it's not like he despised the templars. it's not like he didn't understand them completely. but the way he bitterly says "you don't understand this life. i didn't" to sebastian summarises how complicated his time in the order was all along

[im-getting-help]

I think i'm accidentally torturing my bestie.

On his last fly back he watched Saltburn cause I "recommend it" (I didn't. I was just freshly obsessed and told him that 'I really like the movie, idk if you're gonna like it but... if you watch it let me know' and so he watched it).

Previous to that, I asked him he wanted to come with me to a screening of Cuándo acecha la maldad" (When devil lurks), an argentinian horror movie. I know he doesn't like horror so I told him that I was going and if he felt up to come with me he was invited. he did came.

This year I talked about Killing of a Sacred Deer cause I rewatched it. Yesterday he sent me a text asking if he should watch it, i'm like "dude idk?? I love Yorgos but idk if I can recommend it to be honest. If you want to then... 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻".

And I love we talk about movies and share our different tastes and preferences but i'm starting to worry every time I talk about a movie with him, cause he's favorite genre is like, golden era of musicals?? like 50's I think?? and i'm into psychological horror and wired vibes. My guy, you don't have to watch this, we can watch other movies 😭✋🏻

We watched Pearl the other day and idk, I didn't really like it, he was kind of ambivalent about it, and i'm like... we can watch Holiday Inn again, I loved it... hell, put Singing in the Rain again. We can watch other stuff, I loved Phantom Thread but we can watch The Princess Bride, dude, plz stop watching the movies I like, you don't like that shit and it's okay 😭

[steakout-05]

for months now i have had this little story idea bouncing around in my head for an AU of Jetpack Joyride where Barry is stuck inside a big expermental time loop conducted by Legitimate Research to create an army of randomly selected time-travelling soldiers. the idea is very much still rough and i dunno if and when i'll develop it into a bigger thing, but it's a pretty cool idea and it's a twist on the JJ game that i've never really seen much exploration on.

basically, it focuses on Barry, who is the sort of Patient Zero of an experimental concentrated time-fuckery technology LR is working on. every single day, at exactly the same time, Barry goes out to work his salesman job, discovers the jetpack, breaks into the laboratory, takes it for a joyride, eventually gets hit by an obstacle and dies. the next day, Barry goes out to work his salesman job, discovers the jetpack, breaks into the lab, takes it for a joyride and dies. and he does the same exact thing the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day... he's pretty much stuck in a loop of the exact same events happening repeatedly every single day, and he has absolutely no idea about it. that is, until there's a glitch in the system, and Barry progressively becomes a lot more suspicious and paranoid about the situation he's in. the rest of this post is gonna be REALLY spoilery (like i literally just explain big important chunks of the story for several paragraphs) if i ever make this into a full-fledged fanfic, so i'm gonna put it under a keep reading thingy. also it is... quite long and convoluted lol.

as the story goes on, it focuses more on the mental degredation of Barry as he starts uncovering all these weird clues, slowly trying to piece together what's going on and driving himself insane, because every time a reset occurs, his memory of the previous loop ever happening is completely wiped and everything he did that day goes all the way back to square one. since the malfunctioning of LR's technology though, Barry has been getting little nuggets of deja vu and half-remembered fragments of dying before a reset. this eventually becomes him repeating things to himself, little phrases and codes over and over and over in hopes that it will persist into the next reset. this eventually becomes symbols stuck up on the walls of his room and then progresses to entire rituals to help him remember and little behaviourisms like tics and stims to let him know he's in another loop. he becomes more and more panicked and unsettled, paranoid that someone - or something - is watching him closely. additionally, he keeps having disturbing dreams in the early hours of the morning before he gets up to go to work, ones that are symbolic and prophetic, as if they're trying to warn him about something. i've had concepts of him waking up on top of a pile of millions of mangled carcasses that all look exactly like Barry, and having on them them forcefully grab onto his leg and pull him down with the rest of them. it's kinda like the nightmare Woody has in Toy Story 2, but like, dead guys everywhere, lol.

the backstory of this whole thing is kinda insane. basically, Legitimate Research is a sketchy government funded facility that's doing secret time experiments to create the strongest beings for a purpose that's somewhat similar to Brains' Zomb Bomb plan from AOZ (i haven't fully decided yet). Barry is someone who has been randomly selected for their newest version of the concentrated time loop experiment, where patients will be put under looping tests to extract data about their strength, agility and performance and decide what they need to supplement them with in order to create the perfect soldier.

Barry was 22 years old when he was selected. he was actually a relatively normal local Fish N' Chips vendor living in New South Wales, but one day, when he recieved an exciting letter in the mail about a new ambitious job opportunity, he completely disappeared without a trace and seemed to have been entirely erased from the minds of everyone he had ever known. Barry had actually been kidnapped and ensnared into a mind-experiments facility of the laboratory, where they proceeded to wipe his mind, proof of his existence and his entire personhood up to this point, and replaced all of it with fake memories to fill in the gaps. he was then placed in stasis and to be injected with high doses of strength drugs as they crafted a new life for him behind the scenes. a new house, in a new state, all with new stories and memorabilia meant to be lived out by new person. now, he was Barry Steakfries in Queensland, a rough-around-the-edges guy with a passion for action movies and destruction. he was a revel with a thirst for chaos and freedom, but he just didn't have the means to achieve it yet. it was all according to plan.

a big part of the story i want to tell that involves him is that at some point, Barry tries to break free from the time loop by doing something different. this takes a lot of pre-planning, memory rituals and repeating details to himself, but after he wakes up from a reset and gets out of bed, he hesitates, choosing to go to a different place to sell his gramophones that day. he deliberately tries his best to avoid Legitimate Research's headquarters as much as he can, and while he doesn't completely remember why he's doing it, he has a deep gut feeling that he should stay away from them at all costs. so he does. and at first, it goes well. the day is different, his choices seem to actually matter and for once, the feeling of deja vu isn't tearing him apart... until a crazy freak accident happens that forces Barry to die and reset the time loop again, wiping away everything he had done that day. Legitimate Research is now forcefully trying to stop him from knowing what the hell is going on by forcing him to die with each now discovery he makes, and Barry has to figure out more and more creative solutions to averting their surveillance and trying to get the hell out of the loop.

Craig will also be involved with the story too!! i'm not exactly sure what exactly the events leading up to Barry discovering and meeting him would be, but it'd be kinda halfway-late-ish into the story where Barry manages to cut off LR's surveillance of him, breaks into the laboratory and searches through its archives for anything relating to time. during this raid, he accidentally discovers the true Patient Zero to this time experiment: a broken, decrepit shell of a man who has been hooked up to a set of wires and locked away deep into the laboratory, never meant to be discovered by anyone, only known simply as #000 'Craig'. Craig was the very first human they used to run an early prototype of these experiments, but through malfunctions in the threads of LR's technology, he ended up knowing too much and tried to break free from his time loop, which resulted in him being dragged out of reality and becoming completely detached from his own time, stopping his aging process completely and practically allowing him to exist forever and persistently through every reset unaffected. LR relocated him and considered him a catastrophic failure, locking him away in a cell deep in the bowels of the laboratory before destroying and erasing every archive of him ever having existed in any point in time. and now, the same thing is about to happen to Barry if he doesn't figure out a way to stop what's happening quickly. Barry, outisde of LR, is the only one who is aware of Craig's existence in this timeline. Barry makes a vow to make sure that he will never ever forget Craig, no matter what happens to him, no matter how many times his timeline gets reset, because he is the only other person on the whole world who truly understands what he's going through.

at the very end of the story, when Barry finally escapes the time loop and is about to enter into a new reality where none of this ever happened, he reaches out a hand to Craig and offers he come with him to live. Craig, however, rejects the offer, sadly confessing to Barry that because of his disconect from the threads of time progression itself, Craig must stay behind and be erased along with everything inside this one and let Barry live his life. Barry protests, insisting that his life wouldn't be complete without him and that they've already gone through so much together, but Craig assures him that this is the best for the both of them, and that Barry must leave him soon before the window to escape closes. Barry gives Craig once last goodbye, holding him close and basking in his presence for the final time. he closes his eyes, presses his head against Craig's and whispers "I promise I'll never forget you." before he slowly lets him go, not breaking their locked gaze on each other for even a second as he steps into the portal and ventures into an entirely new reality, never to return.

i want there to be an epilogue part where Barry starts his new life and goes looking for a place to stay, and he comes across the place where LR used to be, which is instead occupied with a big square fence plot and a sign that says "UNDER CONSTRUCTION: NEW RESTAURANT TO BE BUILT". Barry stares at it for a moment and reflects on everything that has happened. all the hellish experiments that were once held inside this very plot of land, all the trauma he went through to get to this point, Craig's sacrifice, everything has lead up to him standing here, in the right place, at the right time, to finally live the life he should've had to begin with. eventually, he turns away, continuing to walk down the street. he should go check that place out sometime.

(insert "what a fucked up dream for a baby to have" ending from 'then what' here)