allmyawesomeness

[allmyawesomeness]

The holy grail of searching through academic literature is coming across a string of publications that are like:

Here’s An Idea. Smith et al. 2016

Terrible Idea; a comment on Smith et al. 2016. Johnson 2016.

You’re Wrong Too; a response to Johnson 2016. Nelson 2016.

Guys Just Stop Fighting, None Of Us Know What’s Going On; a Review of the Current Literature. McBrien 2017.

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One of the main themes of the Impossible heir seems to be that everybody wants a piece of Han Tae-oh. And I'm completely here for it.😂

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SO I WASN’T THE ONLY ONE 😭

Its even fresher for me coz i JUST watched it this January 😭

That scene where Huijoo confesses to Tae-oh.

And he says... "Seuseung wa Cheja"...

SEUSEUNG WA CHEJA.!.!.!.!.!.

(Master and Pupil for those who don't know)

And I just🥺😲😳😶😢😖 I just stopped listening any further.

I had to pause, takeoff my earphones and tell myself to focus on the show that I was watching and stop thinking about the show that I have already watched n number of times that has permanently taken up over half of my brain since 1 and 1/2 years and still refuses to leave...

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sorry for being (VERY serious about being) cute

& their young apprentice:

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FOUND family??? you think i just found them like this??? babes this is FORGED family. Me & the bros were scrap metal in a junkyard (very valuable, very sharp, very dangerous, uncared for) and we GOT IN THE FUCKING FIRE TOGETHER. WE did this. we said I AM NOT LEAVING YOU and melted into each other for better or for worse (it’s for better) and we are A FUNCTIONAL UNIT now. DO NOT SEPARATE. BATTERIES FUCKING INCLUDED. FOUND family my ass, we built this non-nuclear family unit from the ground up, don’t devalue this!!! it was is and will be a labour of love!!!

[allmyawesomeness]

Tartarus boys and the Cocoa Puffs

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Jan 21: hugging day

We can just pretend they got a proper reunion in trials of Apollo, can’t we?

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"person"

I had to add this guys

[allmyawesomeness]

& i was sad that the movies imo failed to show this as well

I’m sure someone has talked about this before but one thing I absolutely love about tbosas is how Snow’s descent into villainy is never once presented as something that was inevitable

So many villain origin stories portray this idea of a person who tries incredibly hard to be a good person, who takes every opportunity to be kind and to better themselves, but are ultimately doomed to fail by the narrative. Their environment and their circumstances make it impossible for them to be a good person, and while this is effective from a storytelling point of view it’s not exactly accurate to real life

In real life there is always a point where a bad person makes the decision to do something bad, they make the decision to prioritise themselves, their own power, money or desires over someone else. That’s how real life dictators are made, they are presented with every opportunity to be good, and they purposefully choose to not take it

This makes Snow’s storyline so effective because he is given so many opportunities to do the right thing and yet, at every single turn, he chooses to serve himself instead, exactly like how real dictators are made

Snow, unlike most people we see in the capitol, is in a unique position where he could genuinely have the chance to understand and relate to the people from the districts. He, unlike his classmates, is poor and spends most nights going hungry, he witnessed firsthand the cruelty of the capitol when Clemensia was bitten by the snakes for nothing more than lying about doing her homework, when his sister was forced to sell herself on the streets in order to feed the both of them

Throughout his book, the three people he is closest to are Tigris (who dislikes the hunger games, is a rebel, and a victim of the capitol forced to turn to prostitution), Sejanus (who is originally from district 2, dislikes the capitol and knows he will never be accepted there, and also a rebel) and Lucy Gray (who is a victim of the hunger games, from district 12, and is also treated horribly by the capitol). These are all people who gave him an opportunity to realise the cruelty of the system he was in, a chance to directly confront his prejudices and see that people from the districts are just the same as him, and yet he still refuses to take the chance to change

He is given every opportunity, he’s sent away from the capitol to be a peacekeeper in the districts, he forms personal connections with people from the districts, he helps Sejanus perform funeral rites, and yet at every moral crossroads he comes to he makes the wrong decision. He didn’t have to become a villain, and yet he made the choice to do so anyway, despite every chance he was given

I think it’s a really effective portrayal of Snow as a character, and it’s a very effective villain origin story for the type of villain that Snow is. It never once excuses him from his actions because it highlights just how accountable he was for his actions

[allmyawesomeness]

THIS 👆🏻

Coz his words & actions alone will always look like his motives & hearts are in the right place.

It’s when you read his internal monologue do you realise it is always driven by self preservation or how someone can serve his interests

Friendly Reminder of Snow's inner monologue in the book:

He thought of people putting a price on her. With her long, pointed nose and skinny body, Tigris was no great beauty, but she had a sweetness, a vulnerability that invited abuse.

What was Sejanus up to? Was he trying to outdo him and steal the day’s thunder? To take his idea of coming to the zoo and then dress it up in a way Coriolanus could never compete with, because he could never afford to?

His filly in a race, his dog in a fight. The more he had treated her as something special, the more she’d become human.

Lucy Gray was one thing belonging to Coriolanus that he would never, ever get.

The thought of blackmailing old Strabo Plinth had definite appeal.

Someone suggested that he cared for her like a sister, and although he’d done nothing of the sort, he allowed it. No need to disrespect the dead.

Even his encouragement to sing for sponsors was an attempt to prolong the attention she brought him.

His girl. His. Here in the Capitol, it was a given that Lucy Gray belonged to him, as if she’d had no life before her name was called out at the reaping.

Even if Lucy Gray was confused on the issue, in the eyes of the Capitol, she belonged to him. What point would there be in crediting a district tribute?

If no one else seemed to be bothered by her questionable past, why should he be? (Questionable past being the fact that she had a love life before him)

A second-class citizen. Human, but bestial. Smart, perhaps, but not evolved. Part of a shapeless mass of unfortunate, barbaric creatures that hovered on the periphery of his consciousness. (Thinking about Lucy Gray)

“Sejanus Plinth,” said Coriolanus. Not that they were actually friends, but that wasn’t any of Dean Highbottom’s business.

Mrs. Plinth shook her head. “No. No. Your cousin’s his only friend.” How sad, thought Coriolanus. To have no friends.

Coriolanus couldn’t help feeling embarrassed for her. If you ever needed proof of the districts’ backwardness, there you had it. Primitive people with their primitive customs.

“Oh, yes?” said Coriolanus, only to be polite. Honestly, who cared? His entire future was on the line because of her wayward son.

But playing on that might be the way to manipulate him.

Coryo was a nickname for old friends. For family. For people Coriolanus loved. And this was the moment Sejanus decided to try it out? If he’d had the energy, Coriolanus would have reached over and strangled him.

“Superb,” he said. “Like everything you cook, Mrs. Plinth.” It wasn’t an exaggeration. Ma might be pathetic, but she was something of an artist in the kitchen.

The conversation wasn’t going the way Coriolanus had imagined. Where was the talk of reward money?

...but the point was, he got to keep her. And he wanted to keep her. Safe and close at hand.

Perhaps there was a way out of his predicament after all? Another path to influence and power?

He’d been broke most of his life, but the Snows had always worked hard to maintain decency. These people had given up, and some part of him blamed them for their plight. (Thinking about District 12 people)

“No escaping that.” He leaned over and kissed her, flushed with happiness, because although he did not believe in celestial writings, she did, and that would be enough to guarantee her loyalty.

In some ways, it had been better to have her locked up in the Capitol, where he always had a general idea of what she was doing.

Oh, a ghost story. Ugh. Boo. So ridiculous. Well, he’d try hard to love it when he saw the Covey tomorrow.

“Guns? Not that I know of. How would he get guns?” Coriolanus was beginning to enjoy himself a bit. (During the interrogation after Sejanus' execution)

She wouldn’t be thrilled, obviously, when he told her there’d been a change of plans. That he was returning to the Peacekeepers and heading to District 2 tomorrow at dawn, essentially leaving her to her fate. (As soon as he realised that he wouldn't get caught, he immediately thought of going back to District 2 with no concern for Lucy Gray)

As good as the movie was, I do think that it's at fault for so many people falling for the idea that Snow wasn't always bad. He was, but it wasn't so obvious at first. As you can see, he always thought of himself and how things would benefit him. He looked down on Sejanus and his ma even though they were nothing but kind to him. He saw Lucy Gray as his possession. He was greedy and selfish, always trying to come up with ways to manipulate whatever situation he was in to his advantage. I really wish the movie showed that more.

[allmyawesomeness]

& this is where we see how Kaz’s experiences inform how he sees people - he doesn’t trust them & is always prepared for them to turn on others, because of his & his brothers’ experience when they first came to the city & after.

But he also believes that any one who’s a father would always love & show up for their own child - coz of how he saw his own father be with him & his brother.

Kaz literally refused to believe that Jan would hurt his kid.

Like this is the smartest man in Ketterdam, and a miser to boot. This boy would never bet money he wasn't 100% sure he was gonna win.

And EVEN when Wylan told him his Father would never do it, he STILL refused to believe it.

And I'm positive he didn't trust Van Eck.

He just trusted he would be a father.

Kaz doesn't know much about fathers, only his own, and he couldn't think poorly of his own dad, so he had to believe that even if they were horrible people, at least these men were still fathers. So of COURSE they cared about their kid.

Kaz is a lot of things, but he would not believe a father would do that to his son.

[allmyawesomeness]

Plot holes don’t scare me. SAD ending does.

[allmyawesomeness]

two of the funniest things I noticed watching alchemy of souls 2 was:

When ju-wol first talked about the four eligible bachelors in daeho, when she got to jang uk, the camera was zooming in...like it did to all the other candidates. And then ju-wol basically said, "wait, how about, no" and the camera IMMEDIATELY zoomed out so far away from him

In s2 ep8 heo yeom basically insists that "no no uk and jin buyeon have a pure and innocent relationship, nothing EVER happened between them!!" and then the scene literally cuts to uk literally slamming naksu against the wall and making out with her.

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The best part about very early Mu-deok and her kill list is that she becomes friends with almost everyone she said she would murder.

Joo-wol? After the first meeting, they are besties.

Dang-gu? Adores her, tries to set her up with Yul. Cannot believe that she would murder anyone.

Jang Uk? Fully commits to training him before falling in love.

She's just looking for any excuse to love them all.

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Not a single person will be able to walk out of here alive.

The Hong sisters just know how to end an episode. Literally was complaining while watching this and then bam! The last 15 minutes of the show compensated for the lackluster past episodes.

When Jang Uk starts walking like this, you know things are about to go down. I’m really excited for next week episodes. Hopefully, he’ll turn Cheonbugwan upside down and start a war with Jin Mu. 

Honestly, very stupid of them to try and kill Seo Yul who’s from one of the most powerful families in the whole land of Daeho. And it’s not like they didn’t know. THEY DEFINITELY KNOW but they still chose to unsheathe their swords. Killing him would definitely mean war.  

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Jang Uk: Oh, here’s my award for “Most Rules Broken!”

Seo Yul: That’s not an award. It’s an angry letter from Park Jin.

Jang Uk, hanging it on his wall: Well, it has the word “most” in it, so I’m calling it an award!

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jang uk king of burning bridges. i love him so much i will always be going crasy stupid bonkers over his denial for entry into songrim in ep3. park jin publically telling him no, you can’t join, and with your gate open you are no longer allowed to enter songrim at all. him immediately, and almost proudly informing park jin that he lost his entry plaque. i am a thorn in your side, he is saying, and even when i am no longer allowed within these walls you will remember the sting of me. park jin trying so hard to break jang uk’s spirit so he’ll stop drawning attention to himself, only for it to give jang uk, fueled by spite, even more reason to continue on this path. jang uk telling park jin i’ve only been hit 99 times. better hit me again. better make it count. better do it your fucking self. the way he stands up again and laughs. he’s so bitter and pissed and betrayed i love him to DEATH