#so agreeing with him bothers me

[killerpancakeburger]

If I came across 5 millions I would probably act like Jesse. Buy a house, furnish it, and then keep living like i make less than a thousand a month.

Can’t believe I'm actually in favor of Saul trying to convince him to keep the money.

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[nattanoora]

I know people get super excited to see them getting closer and all, but to me Roko taking the pillow/border off not even a minute after she put it there was SO NOT IT. I don't find it cute, I don't care she didn't complain, I care that it was disrespectful, him thinking she's a ''pick me/playing hard to get'' so why let her get what she wants? Sorry but, the Williams respecting their Nooras limits >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

THAT'S HOT TO ME.

• P.S: I’ll be taking a break from giffing SRAM. Roko’s behavior through the sleepover night and the people’s praise for this ~change~ made me feel super uncomfortable. So I’m taking a step back. I’m really sorry about it, because I loved giffing SRAM and was looking forward to their big moments, but… I just can’t ignore my feelings.

[rickktish]

unpopular opinion on tumblrstake:

the abortion question (at least as far as the world goes) comes down to the question of whose agency is more important: the mother's or the child's

pro-lifers believe the child's agency(life) is more important than the mother's life

pro-choicers believe the mother's agency is more important than the child's life

both of these solutions are bad actually! and i'd even go so far as to say that they are equally bad, because ACCORDING TO MORMON THEOLOGY, the mother and the child are equal as children of god!!

the church policy elder anderson was going over was actually the church's solution to this moral dilemma: if you chose to have sex (were not raped, because rape is NOT A CHOICE on the victim's part), and if you got pregnant as a result of that choice, then the moral choice to make is to carry the baby so long as 1) it will not put your life or health at risk and 2) the baby is not going to die shortly after birth anyway. This way the agency of the mother (the choice to have sex, REMEMBER THAT ABORTION IS NOT LOOKED DOWN UPON IN CASES OF RAPE) is fulfilled because it is her agency alongside her partner's which has led to the conception of this child, and the agency of the child (who, if you will recall, the church views as a fully realized person waiting for a physical body to be able to enact their god-given right to life and agency) is not violated.

And the important thing about anderson's talk is that if you do or have made the choice to get an abortion due to reasons other than rape, incest, or medical need, IT IS NOT THE END. It was NOT the morally correct choice, but that does not mean that you are cast out! You can repent. You might need to let go of some things to be willing to accept that there is a need for repentance (looks pointedly at the talk chatter where people were going off about how terrible Anderson was for talking about elective abortion being morally wrong) but repentance is always there. Christ will never turn you away.

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

One detail I've noticed about The Little Mermaid is that certain objects in Eric's kingdom, such as the primary dining chair, the ship and the carriage, all have a gold plaque of the initial "E". I have to wonder: Did Grimsby commission for those to be made to represent the kingdom's ruler, in this case being Eric, or is that representative of the Royal House he comes from? Because I highly doubt dude would have commissioned those himself. He frowned at a statue of him, which clearly indicated that he was not happy with the idea of him being portrayed in such an extravagant, supreme manner. If you look at the dining room, he has zero paintings of himself and is mostly covered by paintings of ships and the sea. I bet you most of the castle decorations were sailor-centric. Dude is arguably the most down-to-earth, modest royal, male or female, that Disney has ever written, so no, that had to be either Grimsby's own doing or already a tradition established by his own ancestors lol. I'm more inclined to believe it's a representative of his own Royal House.

[deadallover]

Series of doodles from the last few nights, maybe ill finish some.

Also lore drop that cain (the devil in my verse) stole his heart while he was dead to keep him loyal when cain reanimated him. Deans heart only beats when the devil makes it, and is completely disconnected from his body. Which is why dean is so brutal and mean, but also depressive and empty, hes heartless. Also why dean has to keep sinning, killing who cain asks and gaining power for cain through his fame. Because he could crush his heart and kill dean again.

[hopecel]

[Orpheus] 'could show you how the world could be in spite of the way that it is' implies that Orpheus was a visionary. He could show how the world could be because he knew how it is supposed to be operating, or, at least, what it isnt supposed to be. He had to be not only conscious of the world's he's been living in but also deeply understand its politics. And he had the power to make you see the world the way it should be because he himself wouldn't accept any other version of it that wasn't built on justice and solidarity. Anyway [lights a cigarette]

[arom-antix]

Happy birthday to the valentines man himself!

[snekdood]

anon... find someone else to harass lmao

[stormyoceans]

you're definitely onto something because it all feels so rushed and "fake"... like someone with dylan's personality wouldn't magically be fine with everything all of a sudden, he could be such a complex and great character and i was expecting him to! but alas... this feels like a show for children where conflict just doesn't make sense and gets resolved by the power of friendship or something lol also some ppl on twitter are making good criticism and very good points (mostly band fans) but they are getting attacked which 🤦🏻‍♀️ anyway you're not alone in that, it's gmmtv after all

NOW WHY WOULD PEOPLE ATTACK SOMEONE JUST FOR SHARING THEIR OPINION ON A PIECE OF MEDIA ✋😭

like i understand. reading criticism about something you love is never easy, which why i tend to keep my more negative opinions to myself or at least not put them in the main tags, because i don't want to make people feel bad for liking something, however i think we really need to stop equating criticism with hate, especially if it's constructive criticism that's being talked about without any malicious intent behind it

thamepo, for example, has a lot of strengths – it's a visually gorgeous show, william and est have great chemistry, the romantic moments make you feel butterflies in your stomach and are built on thame and po getting to know each other – but i do personally believe it's falling short when it comes to storytelling and character building

i mean, the show is called thamepo, so i knew from the beginning that the romance between them was gonna be the focus of the show rather than mars as a group, however i did expect their relationship to slowly develop along with the two of them trying to get the group back together, and for the members to still play a major role in the series and in thame's growth as a character, but 4/5 of the group has already reconciled and we're only at episode 4

and you know, i don't think this would be as much of an issue if i felt like we got to know each member properly and the reconciliation between them and thame felt earned, but i don't and it doesn't: pepper suddenly appeared like nothing ever happened, and dylan's story got told by jun rather than by dylan himself (and as i mentioned in my tags i could also talk about how it feels like the writers refused to let any of them make any real mistake and be a little bit of an asshole but it would get too long so i won't)

as i said, it's ONLY episode 4, so there's still time to get to know the characters, but at the same time it does feel like there have been a lot of missed opportunities, and if i were a big fan of lykn i would definitely be at least a little bit disappointed rn, so i think people expressing that or even giving some criticism is perfectly understandable

ANYWAY. we'll see how things go from here, and in the meantime im glad to know im not alone in this, so thank you for your message, anon!!!!!

[shizunitis]

I think half of this fandom got wife-beamed by Shen Yuan, any comments on this tumblr user Shizunitis?

i acknowledge no such events, myself. i don’t need some narrative device or convenient trope or genre convention or whatever to fall in love with shizun. i’m sure there are people out there whose affections needed some prompting or a helping had to get going, but. like. couldn’t be me.

it’s not about the wife beam. it’s not even about what i want from shizun, or in what light i see him, or what he’s done for me, or any of that. it’s the very core of him, the tangle of contradictions and avoidant, endearing paths he takes in his navigation of the world around him, how he clings to it and the people around while adamantly claiming he isn’t.

he fucks up, and he’s snarky, and he’s a bit out of pocket at times, and that’s the most endearing part of him. the acting and the self-reprobations and his own wisdom, which he always overlooks or bats away, and the fumbling and the way every one of his action betrays just how easily his mask can crumble the more he’s made to fight for what he cares for, and how at the end of the day between his own pride and the love guiding his every action, it’s always the pride that he discards first.

also, he’s got a case of rejection sensitivity that would, and does, put both binghe’s and mine to shame.

a wife beam is, in itself, a… filter? i’m not sure how to put it, but a wife beam is too… inauthentic. as the reader hitching a ride in shizun’s brain (which thinking about makes me feel faint and like i’m about to burst with joy and entirely not normal about the whole thing) it’s kind of… impossible, i wanna say, to be fooled by its effects in any meaningful way.

it’s like putting on glasses just a bit different from your own prescription (guess who’s sleep deprived and doesn’t know how to put words together again. you get no prize and you have to feel sorry for me)—the shapes are there, but the exact definition of what you see is not right. the “wife beam” is not doing justice to shizun’s true self.

shizun is shizun. shen yuan or shen yuan as shen qingqiu, whichever, it’s the core of him that matters, and the wife beam makes him seem too… ideal. too untouchable. it’s like cling film. bothersome and unhelpful outside very specific circumstances and we all know shizun doesn’t belong in the kitchen. where he belongs is for me to think about while laying on the floor at 10am on a friday.

or, put in another, more obnoxious way:

this here is a naturally occuring phenomenon; every binghe loves every shizun, and i’m not about to betray the cause or turn away from my nature.

rate this for coherence i give it a solid 6.5 right now. i did a great job, considering.

[lady-of-the-spirit]

Every day I think about how and why The Promise writers could have the gang agree so easily to Zuko asking Aang to kill him

[zapsoda]

i love everything about this conversation.

[3gremlins]

i watched both wolverine & deadpool and the finale of arcane today and my (shouldn't be hot take) on both is i really wish that hollywood would let those sad boyfriends say out loud that they love each other and kiss on screen. like hours of endless violence? totally fine. men saying out loud that they love each other? verboten and really just THE BIGGEST SIGH.

(at least arcane gave us on screen girlfriends but still)

[tardis--dreams]

When proofreading the journal (on friday night) i commented on one slightly sexist and outdated term to be replaced by a neutral and more inclusive term. I've been having nightmares because of this

[cacw]

adding onto that one I feel like they put too much emphasis on how bad bucky feels about killing while he was the winter soldier as if he hadn't killed what must have been countless people beforehand