#I LOOOOOOOOVE ALL OF THESE

[chalkrub]

svanhildr my beloved

[douwatahima]

i don't talk about iwtv on here and i don't think i'm going to start, but i do want to talk about one detail in the finale i absolutely loved.

so, back in season one (and i'm 100% sure i'm not the only one who talked about this at the time) i remember being flabbergasted by the bookshelves. we're shown repeatedly that louis is an avid reader, so him having large bookshelves in his home is not a surprise, but they're up incredibly high and we're told concretely that louis can't fly. i remember every time we would see those bookshelves i would have a thought like "does he use a huge ladder??? are they just there for decoration??? but if so where are the books he actually reads??? what is going on here???" and then the finale aired. and armand revealed himself. and he flew. up. to. the. bookshelves. and immediately i became wary of their relationship.

because here's something the narrative hammers home that louis loves and yet, here in his own home, they are gatekept from him. he can't access the books without armand knowing about it and giving him the okay. and that in and of itself is pretty messed up, right? but then you think about what books represent. armand is keeping information from louis. armand is keeping narrative from louis. and i knew then that season 2 was going to reveal that armand was messing with things in some way.

and that's why it's soooooooo cool that this finale starts by showing us those bookshelves up close! "look", it says, "look at all of these stories louis can't access on his own. look at what's being kept from him by armand." and then...and then!!! when all is revealed, when every secret is uncovered, and louis smashes armand against the wall, the bookshelf shatters and most of the books go flying to the floor. they're not being gatekept from him anymore. he doesn't need to rely on armand anymore.

the narrative is laid out before him and finally within his reach.

[brooklynisher]

Did you guys know that they love each other

Has nothing to do with me but it's their 10-year anniversary, and it's very sweet, and I think everyone should know

[x]

[sodafrog13]

finally was able to get down my visual hcs for mary :] i think she, hench, and the son have a Very interesting dynamic. more thoughts under the cut if u care to peek (careful, it's wordy)

i think hench and mary have been together long term by events of the game and i specifically think they started dating when hench wasn't working for the son yet

i actually think he used to work for the columbians, based mostly on mary's intense shock that the son would be so willing to let him leave and also the fact that his skin tone matches the default skin tone of the normal columbian mobsters (though the latter could admittedly just be attributed to dennaton's heavy use of palette swapping and sprite refurbishing). in my thinking, he and/or mary got into some sort of trouble with his former boss and pledged his loyalty to the son and his family if they would be able to get him out.

in doing so, it was made specifically clear to the henchman (likely by the father) that if he were to ever double cross them, he'd have both him and mary killed. thusly, the henchman did everything in his power to be an asset to the russian mafia, so much so that the son, more lenient when it came to the terms of their agreement than his father though perhaps more willing to actively test them, took a shine to him.

the son is curious of mary. as a gay man who doesn't really know he's gay, he honestly has the tendency to be misogynistic to women he doesn't see as his equal (ie the bodyguard), as his interests truly lie in patriarchal views of masculinity and power. he at least has enough foresight to recognize how important she is to the henchman and is fine with letting her be (past the occasional remark about her to the henchman directly). that said, he does consider her a bit of a hindrance re: the henchman's ambitions, but again, never to the extent he'd do anything about it.

mary is genuinely unnerved by the son. she has every right to be, considering both her and her partner's safety are basically up to his family's whims, but she lets the henchman go as he pleases. she recognizes that he has a genuinely fondness for his boss (because it's the same kind of fondness that he has for her) and quite honestly, she doesn't mind him having another partner so long as he's honest with her. it's just the fact that it's him that puts her off. she, however, also has concerns re: the henchman's plans for the future. she doesn't really Mind that they're not married but it is something she'd enjoy. that, and she really does wonder how much longer he's willing to keep doing mob work. he's not old per se but he's definitely not as young as he used to be, and even she can see that he won't last very long with the life that he leads and that scares her.

the henchman is... well, he's indecisive. doesn't really know what he wants until it's hitting him in the face. he's honestly just fine coasting around until some other force leads him off his beaten path, something that annoys the son and concerns mary because it really does sometimes come to a battle of who can get through to him first, even if none of them really know it. he loves them both, he really does, but he's also fickle. because even though he wants them both, he also secretly wants a certain level of freedom that he just can't have by being both tied to people and also a job (as seen in that dream he has where he's driving out of miami, not only without his girl or his boss but in spite of the hurricane that he's sure to run into). so maybe it's not even that he's indecisive, he knows what he wants it's just that he knows, logically, that it is something he cannot have. so he just willingly keeps himself in that loop until something breaks, that something being all those dreams that richard was sending him in an attempt to break the bigger cycle of things.

in a different world, i'd like to imagine that they can work things out. i truly do not blame mary for what she did, because i truly would have done the exact same thing as her in that situation even if it wasn't necessarily what was 'right'. but i feel that in that same vein, hench could have done more to reassure her that things would be fine, esp considering he has a personal enough connection to the son to know that he's different from his father.

but also i mean we all know that nobody in miami has communication skills. that'd be ridiculous there'd be no game otherwise

[visenyaism]

cognitive dissonance enjoyers when the worldviews are fundamentally irreconcilable yet coexist

[laylakeating]

LAYLA KEATING Outfits in All American, 6.12

[grandcovenant]

carlo's inherent tragedy as a character means that if he hadn't died young he would've gone through something worse. the horrifying realization that he inherited his father's personality <3

[oohbuggypie]

debated posting this one 4 a hot min but u know what .. i think the Kaiser tag's dryness deserves a droplet 🩷 have this RIDICULOUS Kaiser with a supa fucked up hand bcuz I DONT KNOW HOW TO DRAW ALLAT 🔥🔥🔥 he's wearing an outfit from Ice Spice's "In Ha Mood" music video cuz some lyrics i heard from another song of hers made me think of him . if u know u know anyway srry 4 this silly behavior but u know i can't let any of the boxers escape the girly clothes grasp

srry 4 this wack lighting btw this was taken multiple days ago at like 10 pm or smthn it was NAWT light ✝️

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizontober 2023 | 16: new

[onewolfaday]

025. yasha nydoorin but werewolf au

[ikonofilizm]

will you still like me if i have braces for the next year and a half

[automatonwithautonomy]

Ted (singular ) with choice overload after escaping the Ted empire you agree

hell yeah i agree !!!!!!!

[backhurtyy]

"It's rotten work. Especially to me. Especially if it's you. I'll fucking do it but christ alive" <- pre-relationship miguel be like

miguel is just looking at peter like. i love you. on purpose. because you're so fucking annoying. and yet.

[gothsuguru]

being a toji defender is in my blood you can state anything he did and i’ll find a convoluted way to excuse it

[adamsrcnan]

i'm almost 200 pages in and it's getting juicyyyyy

[sailor-aviator]

I think I might actually legitimately be at my limit. Like I think I've reached the end of my rope, actually