#yeah... the man's going through it

[deconstructthesoup]

After watching the compilation of the new lines from the Leave The Cabin ending---specifically, the ones that get triggered when you apologize to her for hurting her and she responds with "hey, when we first met, I *insert what she did in your very first playthrough,* so we're even"---I decided that it should only be fair to do something similar to that for Slay the Professor...

But it's a little different, of course, because he thinks he deserves your anger. So, when you apologize, it goes a little something like this:

The Wizard: "When we first met, you showed me mercy, and I responded by taking a knife to your chest a thousand times. Now that you know what I did to you, why would you give me that same kindness?"

The Warlock: "You did betray me when we first met, but knowing what you know now, I think we can both agree that I deserved it. Don't waste your time with apologies."

The Creation: "You didn't hesitate to kill me the first time we met, and that was before you knew anything about me. Now that you know what I did to you, why should this time be any different?"

The Scientist: "The first time we met, you were so afraid of me that you didn't even attempt to end me, and I proved you right a thousandfold. Don't waste your time with apologies."

The Academic: "The first time we met, I broke you into pieces with my bare hands out of sheer, stubborn hubris. Now that you know what I did to you, shouldn't you do the same to me?"

The Archivist: "The first time we met, I slit your throat without a second thought. Don't waste your time with apologies."

The Doctor: "The first time we met, we beat each other to death, and I enjoyed it. Now that you know what I did to you, I'm surprised you're not trying to start our fight anew."

The Dragon: "The first time we met, I devoured you. I literally devoured you. That's worse than anything you ever did to me, so don't waste your time with apologies."

The Inventor: "The first time we met, I shot you through the heart, and all you had to defend yourself was a knife. Don't waste your time with apologies."

The Substitute: "You never even gave me a chance the first time. You were so worried about what I could be that your thoughts turned me into every possibility, every outcome all at once. Now that you know what I did to you, why even bother extending a hand?"

[bixels]

I watched Starship Troopers tonight.

[vaguely-concerned]

literally never am I getting over the unexpected and acknowledged throughline in this game that 'part of the reason lucanis is so good at what he does is, surprisingly, that he has a frankly remarkable capacity for empathy'. his instinct for it is so strong that it even kicks in looking at actual demons he's been culturally conditioned to think of as mindless monsters and lets him realize that they are just as innocent in the middle of this horror as every other prisoner, which is what helps him survive in there and reach an understanding (and even a warmth beneath it all!) with spite, when spite was at his most terrified and confused and needed him. it makes him an incredibly kind and devoted friend, and a terrifying enemy. shorn of most of the compassion that goes along with it in his private life, he uses it in his professional one as one more knife to kill with as easily as he does in SO gently and softly helping to untangle lace harding's people pleasing problems with her. so long as the three categories of people -- family, enemies, targets -- stay distinct and separate in his head, this seems to be working out swimmingly for him! (well. that's probably what he'd tell you at least lol it's certainly helped him survive and do his job I'll give him that.) the MOMENT the lines start to blur, he is fucked. this dude was compartmentalized to hell and back long before the ossuary.

(he shares the 'incredible insight into people and human nature -- as long as I don't have to interpersonally engage with and adapt to it on the spot. b/c then you'll see the biggest mess you could ever imagine' trait with merrill. which does make quite a bit of sense in that they're written by the same person and also in my estimation a not entirely dissimilar shade of autistic lol. also yet another tick on the 'lucanis - iron bull parallels' tally haha. 'ben-hassrath, kid. we can use anything.' what if your circumstances and upbringing forced you to turn some of the kindest fundamental instincts inside you into tools for violence and you only got to keep guarded scraps of it for yourself. what if you're so fucking scared it'll break bad inside you some day and turn you into a monster and you'll end up hurting the people you love. saddest freeze slash dissociative trauma response handshake meme duo To Me)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

we let the ocean drown out our voices/enjoying the bitterness/in the chaotic light, I close my eyes and see

[itspileofgoodthings]

one of the things that continues to strike me on reread is how much the character of Darcy, and Austen through him, finds Mr. Bennet dead. And how much Elizabeth, in growing and changing and discarding her past blindness, has to move past her way of seeing her father and thus of seeing reality, because the two are connected! Darcy’s letter exposes her father’s flaws to Elizabeth in a way she’d never been able to see before. Most especially the way his laziness and neglect of his own gifts have hurt his family and that ultimately he doesn’t. care. Not enough to change. It literally says that she comes home from Hunsford and tries to laugh at her sisters’ and mother’s folly (the way she used to; the way her father has taught her to by example for her whole life) and she can’t anymore! It sticks in her throat. She is grieved by the failures that she sees in him, all the more so because she IS his favorite and she loves him! And the thing about Mr. Bennet is he never changes. The Lydia/wickham situation exposes to him sharply his own conduct and the consequences and he feels it! Because he is neither stupid nor unfeeling. But he, like everyone, has free will. And he chooses not to change when the opportunity presents itself. He even jokes about how quickly his feeling bad will pass and how soon everything will go back to normal, to his laziness and his selfishness. He is set in his ways and he serves as a contrast to Elizabeth’s personal journey because he embodies a version of a person she could have become and was in danger of becoming if her only goal at all times was to laugh at and judge people from the sidelines.

[anemonet]

pro tip: you can always put the bugs in little outfits :thumbsup:

[welcometogrouchland]

Disgustingly messy and crusty sketch dump but I couldn't get my own terrible theory out of my head and ended up making a bunch of sketches about it. Also at the end a bonus dickbats and Damian doodle bc I was reading an issue of their Batman and Robin run (IDs in Alt)

[prolibytherium]

Just in general I think trying to look to pre-late modern period history for validation of LGBT+ identities is an absolutely useless venture. Every single underlying human experience defined through the lens and framework of LGBT identity has always existed, but it's impossible to pin down Exactly who and what a figure might have been if they existed in this contemporary context and decided to self identify via these labels.

It's also a wildly reductive lens that flattens the complexity and variety of how sex and gender has been constructed across time in different cultures, how sexual norms have varied, etc. This is not a constructive approach to learn about history and you're never going to be able to fit historical figures neatly into little identity categories.

[grassbreads]

On a scale of Chang Geng to Luo Binghe, how well does your teenage protagonist cope with the realization that he has a massive thing for the guy that's basically raising him?

[malenjoyer]

I just had a passing thought about my own stuff from an outsider POV. I wondered if anyone who’s not a huge fan of dick questions why Dick Grayson in most of the stuff I post…

Why all of a sudden Dick Grayson is the bus driver- because I hired him!!! I want to see him! I’m gonna put him in everything!

[stairset]

I do feel like the way Kyoshi was written in the Avatar reboot was lowkey influenced by the fandom's perception of her. Cause like in the original show she's really just portrayed as a pragmatist who's willing to kill if necessary. Like Aang is conflicted about killing the Fire Lord and she's like "well if I were in your position I'd do it but that's just me. Good luck." And then people started making memes where she's like a murderous psychopath who thinks extreme violence is always the solution. And it was funny at first cause it was just exaggerating for comedy but now everyone thinks she was actually like that in the show when she really wasn't. And then in the remake her introductory scene is her angrily yelling at this 12 year old that he needs to stop being a little pussy and be a ruthless warrior or whatever and the only explanation I can think of is that someone in the writer's room maybe looked at a few too many of those memes.

[ganondoodle]

got this reblog on one of my posts were i talked about being anxious about the future of the zelda series after totk and-

i even went back and unblocked them just to check my own post and check twice what they meant exactly- but i still dont know how they got to these conclusions

i never said i 'want a good uwu ganondorf' (bc that would mean hes aligned with hyrule bc thats how goodness works!!!!11!1!!!), i also dont think of any of the zeldas as 'whores' (seriously, where did that come from?? neither me nor the addition of someone agreeing with me said anything like that??? did they think bc the addition called tloz misogynistic means we think zelda is a whore????? huh???)

its also funny how they say they want zelda to stay a simple fairytale rather than have 'people like me' bc .. one point i talked about in the og post was how the evil arab thing VS good white people media likes to do so much is so normalized here that its simply seen as a simple harmless fairytale trope instead of a big underlying issue in general media and the writers might not even realize it (which is worse) bc the most 'generic' appeal is to people who dont think of it as a problem in the first place, because it is so normalized

(huh, i wonder about what kind of person that part was about .. hmmmm)

(ALSO funny they mention princess hilda as nuanced villain ... like ... wow they are so nuanced about purple haired people!!- like guess why we want a nuanced/less badly/less flat written ganondorf and what he, in particular, has not in common with other villains! its not his hair color! .... or was that point supposed to mean .. look we have one female character that is a villain, its not misogynistic! idk honestly)

(and the classic, "you just call it this/dont like it bc its not what you wanted !!!!!!!2!"1!112!!")

also funny how its 'never gonna be progressive enough' like asking for the franchise to maybe put a little more thought and nuance into their white divine right vs evil desert man simulator instead of making it worse is already asking too much

(i dont know what the last point has to do with anything??)

(also yes totk is racist, like most if not all of the franchise and a alot of other media as well, shocker- you can still like it though, i and plenty of other people are still fans of it, we just wish they did a little more with their stuff and maybe not make the racism problem WORSE)

(also yes the hyrule monarchy is also evil :))) )

(and also not so secretly so either :)) )

[hermit-searching]

Shredder 2003, 2012, Rise: It's futile. The world will betray you. Why fight at all? Why risk your life for those who will persecute you later.

Shredder, 1987: AHAHAHA coughcoughcoughcoughcoughcough hahahaha......welcome to Tilted Towers.

[mariyekos]

One of the things that makes me feel crazy on DMC5 replays is the way V phrases his request to Dante.

He doesn't say "we need your help to stop the demon." He says "A powerful demon is about to resurrect, and we need your help, Dante." The implication seems to be that V needs Dante's help to stop it...but if you've played it before, that's not what he's really asking. V needs Dante's help in order for the resurrection to take place. Because until Urizen is weakened V has no chance of rejoining him, so he needs Dante's help to weaken Urizen so he's primed for merging and bringing about Vergil's resurrection. The "we" V refers to could also absolutely be both V and Urizen in that case, instead of just some general "we" of humanity. So he's not really asking for help to stop the resurrection, but instead to bring it about, hiding the truth in plain sight and careful wording.

The DMC 5 localization can be wonky in some places, but in other places it just shines. "We need your help, Dante." Not to stop it. He never says that. It's to bring about the resurrection itself.

[inamindfarfaraway]

I love how Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse said “Anyone can be Spider-Man”. I love how it inspired everyone to imagine their own Spider-People, saving the day in their own universes, with all kinds of cool, interesting personalities and aesthetics and mutations and life stories and relationships. We all put pieces of our soul into these homemade heroes. We had fun. We found community. And then Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse said, “Wow, great job! You’ve really taken our message to heart. Well, get ready for even more of everything you liked from the first movie and a new message to complement the first. Anyone can be Spider-Man… and anyone can be pulled into a cult.”

So now we all have to contemplate whether our lovingly crafted heroes would ever be on Team Mandatory Trauma Because Martyr Complex or not and why.

[turtleblogatlast]

I like to think that Leo one day decides to really play around with his portaling and teleportation abilities and see the full extent of them.

Like - continuously throwing one sword and teleporting to it while throwing the next one immediately and repeating this as long as he can to see how far he can keep it up without stopping.

Making little portals in the air that lead right up against the ground so he could potentially just stand on the portal in the middle of the sky.

Ultimate storage system - anything anywhere at any time is available if he knows where to get it (personally my headcanon for why he goes from two satchels to one in the movie.)

Phasing to avoid attacks - like, he could lightly toss a sword a single centimeter and teleport to it, and in that short amount of time he can completely avoid hits.

If they ever do go to space and end up on different planets, with enough training he can just…go there, whenever. Not only would this be great for being well traveled and having more places to go in general, but this also opens up more room for connections and allies that could assist them the next time they need help against a grand foe.

Leo can easily remove injured team members from a fight and get them help without having to account for transportation times.

On that note - Leo’s teleportation in particular acts on a particle level. It’s quite literally breaking him down into particles and remaking him every time he uses it. Both for him and for anyone he uses it on. Who’s to say it can’t be used for healing? At least for basic wounds.

None of this even touches upon the offensive potential of both portals and teleportation. Leo’s abilities flourish more as a support main, but that doesn’t mean those abilities can’t easily be used as weapons - and I don’t think I need to get into how exactly they can be. Portal chopping alone can take on a very different meaning…

Furthermore, I gotta wonder if he’ll always need the swords for this, or if he could one day be able to achieve the same results without them.

My point being - teleportation and portals are super OP. Even with the abilities Leo has in present they are so unbelievably adaptable and so fun to think about in terms of basic mechanics.