#Isaac's self-loathing

[teamgamble]

△ How's Mother's Day going?

3/10

I'm sorry I was the one to answer this.

The phone call went great with Mom. She loves me, she really wants to improve, and she's been doing better. And I know I'm one of the lucky ones in this team. Almost everyone else here either doesn't have a mom or a shit excuse for one.

But, it's bittersweet. No matter what Mom does for me, it never really erases what she did. I'm fucked up forever because religion and a drug addiction don't mix well together.

Sometimes, no matter how sorry you are, you can't change what happened in the past. But I'm glad she's making an effort now.

Sorry. Maybe ask the question again to someone like Evelyn or Apollo.

Mod Isaac

[aheavenofhell]

I feel like some may be deliberately ignoring the “but I don’t want to go back to Heaven” line and lemme explain why it’s important.

Aziraphale is offered this promotion to supreme archangel, right? By the Metatron himself. This is a VERY big deal, EXTREMELY serious. This is word directly from the Almighty.

And his first reaction is to refuse (something that doesn’t exactly align with the whole “Aziraphale is a manipulator” idea).

Aziraphale refuses the Metatron until the Metatron makes it explicitly clear that he can bring Crowley with him.

This is important, because Aziraphale chose to defy Heaven in S1 for Earth, for humans. While Crowley’s company may have had a part in it, really who’s to say they couldn’t just find another way to hang out when eternity started? His motivations in S1 didn’t revolve solely around Crowley.

The Aziraphale in S2, however, is ready to surrender life on Earth with just a singular condition. This is a big leap from where he was in S1, denying he and Crowley were even friends, to S2, where he is ready to admit that he needs him. That their relationship is more than a mutually beneficial arrangement or the result of having no other immortals to converse with.

So why the “rejection”?

Well, first off I think it’s a bit unfair to call it a rejection. For it to be a rejection, they would have to turn down the idea of their relationship. They didn’t, they just disagreed on the terms of that relationship.

Second, although Aziraphale has made these significant character developments, he is still Aziraphale. Naive, and under the impression that he can make things better for everyone—including Crowley. It could be just like old times, but even better. His motive here was not to fundamentally change who Crowley is, but to move them into a situation where they are safe to be together and he can feel like he has a purpose.

I don’t know if Crowley actually thinks Aziraphale wants to change him or not. I can definitely see that being a thing, but it’s not actually brought up. Instead, Crowley reminds him what Heaven is actually like—the reason he doesn’t want to be there. Not just because he can’t, but because he doesn’t want to.

The lack of compromise here ends up making sense from both sides. Aziraphale functions the way someone who grew up deeply religious and just can’t quite pry away from their faith does. Constantly ashamed, justifying the actions of an unjust God, unable to find meaning outside of what he’s been taught is the meaning. A recipe for self loathing, for always going back because it’s all you know, of course you still pray every night, long after you’ve stopped going to church. Ask a fundamentalist Christian if Abraham would’ve been justified in killing Isaac, and when they answer ask why. You will sample some of what I am talking about.

In contrast, Crowley has completely broken off from that illusion. His own moral code is more important to him than Heaven or Hells’. He has spent thousands of years trying to get Aziraphale to see through the manipulative tactics that keep him in check. He watches Aziraphale torment himself with this idea of goodness, what it is and how he has to represent it. And by the end of S2, he is still stuck in that same rut.

Neil utilized the metaphor of an abusive relationship (Nina/Lizzy, Aziraphale/Heaven) but whichever way you look at it, it’s the same. Psychological conditioning designed to break down the spirit into obedience.

And despite all this, despite the fact that Aziraphale is actively clawing his way through processing all of this trauma on his own, he still doesn’t give in to Heaven before he’s promised Crowley.

He goes back, yes. But there was no character regression. It was still development. He’s just not all the way there yet.

There would be no S3 if he was.

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

your hc of bachelors and bachelorettes reacting to the farmer turning their kids into doves makes me interested on how 2 certain mages would react (Magnus and Lance)

Would they do anything against the farmer? Try to reverse the curse? How would they react if they realize the curse magic is much stronger than theirs, or if they do succeed, how will they stop the farmer from doing that again?

what about other adventurers, say Alessia or Isaac, they don't have magic but they do have access to it, would they try to research a way to reverse it?

I see Isaac reacting like Shane ngl. He seems like the type of protective person

People really do love pain and suffering in headcanons these days, huh?

I didn't realize I'd come back to this scenario about NPCs reactions to turning their kids into the doves so many times. I'm even glad, the idea is really interesting! (but, ouch, so much hurt/no comfort 🥲)

(glad to see you again, btw, and thanks for the ask! ☺️💕)

_________________________________________

Turning children into pigeons is a point of no return, no matter how cool and all-powerful a magician you are. It's ancient, dark magic with no solution. Magnus knows this perfectly well, and it's broken him completely. Farmer he was destined to be with was an infanticide and a renegade. Not only is there no way to help his children anymore, but now the Wizard needs to stop and immobilise Farmer, and then report the incident to the Ministry of Magic so that they can seal the Farmer in prison for their abuses of magic and crimes. Farmer can congratulate themself - Magnus is defeated, self-loathing and has finally lost the will to live. Quite an achievement! (this is so painful...)

Lance also remembers that this curse has been described as hopeless, but unlike Magnus, the adventurer harbours hope in the possibility of reversing the curse. Simply because there is nothing else he can do in this situation. Lance will remain calm even in the face of the fact that the Farmer has turned out to be worse than any monster he's ever met in his life. But he will use magic or an amulet to signal to the clan (and maybe to all the mages and adventurers in Castle Village) that there is an emergency that requires immediate intervention. And when the Farmer is captured, Lance will seclude himself and start forging a wall with his hands. This kind of thing will haunt him for the rest of his life...

About Isaac... Oh, you're definitely right about that. Because I think for Isaac, who only appears to be callous and cold, would actually be very tender towards his family. And the fact that his chosen partner would betray him like that would clearly make him go wild. Considering the unbridled rage he'd be in after realising what the Farmer had done, it was unlikely he'd keep his cool and think about it. Isaac will just want to kill Farmer. Not the smartest decision, and maybe not even in his nature, but when you think about it: who can keep their cool after your partner has admitted to essentially killing their own children? Isaac himself was an exception. At that moment, he no longer cared whether he survived the battle with Farmer or not. That's how much grief and rage had clouded his mind.

Never in her life had Alesia felt so helpless and frightened as she did now, standing before the one she had sworn allegiance to, the one she had agreed to be in happiness and sorrow. The sniper was absolutely at a loss for speech, or even the ability to move. No monster could pierce her with chilling terror like the Farmer who announced that they had cursed their children. If Alesia has a teleport totem handy, she will certainly use it, and then start sounding the alarm throughout Castle Village, calling for help, calling for the Farmer to be stopped. She will also plead with Camilla to find a way to bring the children back. The adventurer is in despair, not understanding how this could have happened, how the Farmer dared to do this to their kids Was it the Farmer, though? Maybe the Farmer had also fallen victim to this... thing. Alesia began to pray to Yoba even more often for help and to grant her strength to deal with all this.

[chemdisaster]

cat dad au fic! in which kitten comforts scar. few things you need to know for context - "the isaacs" is a silly name scar gave to the heroes who would bully him, kitten uses a bunch of neos, of which i'm using xit/xitself in this fic, and for a few years when scar first found kitten he was under a lot of stress with work and they both had a bad time. that is all

"I like this one." 

Scar hums as Kitten hands him another picture. In this one, the two of them are dressed up as Hotguy, both laughing as a tiny Kitten points a fake arrow at his chest. Touching his finger to the cascading reds and oranges, he inhales the smell of memories and watches the echoes flash by. 

"I have captured you, Hotguy! Give up if you know what's good for you!" 

"No! Never! You won't catch the tail end of my whiskers, Catguy!"

"Not if I use my special bow! You're dead, Hotguy! I will capture you and I'll—"

As joy rings out in the silent air of reminiscence, a smile warmed with time spreads on his face.

"Yeah. I like this one, too."

Carefully setting the photograph aside, Scar moves on to the next one. With Ari out this afternoon, he and Kitten spontaneously decided to clear out some old boxes—and the nostalgia is hitting like nothing else. 

Surrounded by various papers and bundles and scraps, they sit side by side on the floor of his room and exchange quiet comments as they pass around mementos of years past. The atmosphere is peaceful, hushed, and looking from the tiny kitten on the photographs to the grown up cat next to him, Scar can't help but marvel at how long it's been. 

He never thought he'd get here. 

Stifling a laugh into his palm over the picture of small Kitten with a rubber fish and a beard of foam, Scar adds it to the growing collection. Shifting his weight from one leg to the other, he looks over at Kitten—

And his heart skips a beat. 

Centred in Kitten's padded hands is an assortment of crumpled papers, familiar as anything Scar wouldn't like to recall. Delicately smoothed out and held together with years old tape, the grid pattern has faded away, but he doesn't need to see the scribbles to immediately recognise them and everything that came with.

 

Art of Kitten that xit was never meant to see jumping at him from the frayed scraps, Scar asks, "Are those...?"

"Hm?" Kitten makes a noise that's more cat than anything. "Oh, these? Yeah, you—you drew them for me, didn't you? I remember I kept finding them in your bag."

"Yeah, I remember you kept going through my things like a nosy feline," Scar jokingly gripes. His grin thins at the edges, "I—I do remember these, yeah."

Drawing on patrols, sketch after sketch to block out the mocking, the insults—getting the drawings ripped from him and torn into tiny pieces right in front of his eyes. Sinking to his knees and cradling the pieces in his hands, tears littering the floor.

He kept them as a reminder of his failures. He never thought they would ever become anything more.

"Why were they torn?" Kitten asks after a while of Scar silently staring at his lap. "Did you not like them?"

Scar doesn't reply. Kitten knows about the mistreatment his old team would put him through, but somehow it still feels shameful, even after all these years, to acknowledge that it happened. That he let it happen, and let it go on for as long as it did because he was too weak to stand up for himself. 

Too bad to realise how that weakness was impacting the people around him.

"Scar."

"I did like them," he says suddenly, vehemence splitting from his tongue. "I liked them so much. It's just, I would always draw on missions and I'd get distracted and, well," Scar shrugs, smiling like it's all right past the bitter lump in his throat, "the Isaacs didn't like that."

"Oh."

He doesn't know why it means so much to him. They're only drawings. Stupid doodles of Kitten to chase away the self-loathing that never really left. They're not even good. And yet here he is, decades past and still getting emotional over things that don't matter. It doesn't matter.

He doesn't matter.

"I thought you were the one who tore them," Kitten blurts out. "I thought you didn't like them, and that's why you tore them. I," he breaks off, his tail curls around his legs. 

"Back when I was a kid, I thought it was because you didn't like me."

Guilt grips Scar's chest. All those years ago, when Kitten would curl up in front of a closed door—the drawings were an attempt at something good. To show him how much he appreciated him when words wouldn't come. And he ruined that, and now he's ruined what was meant to be a simple cozy afternoon.

He ruins everything, he's always known. Somehow it still hurts.

 

.

.

.

.

.

Kitten is worried about Scar.

Has been for a while now, and the torn drawings are only the start of it.

The few years during which little bits of tape would stick to his claws were hard on them both, and even years later xit can't stop the cold dark grey of abandonment from creeping up when xit thinks of that awful time. Staying up late waiting for Scar to come home, only to fall asleep and wake the next day to an empty flat—it was soul-sucking.

But he healed. He's not there anymore. Lately, he's not so sure about Scar.

A good few minutes pass before xit decides to speak up.

"It was really hard for you back then, wasn't it?"

Focus sinking into nowhere, Scar jerks as he breaks out of his daze. 

"Huh, what?" 

"Those first few years. When it was just you and me. Taking care of a child while working the way you did at the time can't have been easy," Kitten probes. He doesn't expect anything but the deflection he's come to know, and he wishes Scar would be honest with him. 

He wishes Scar would be honest with himself. 

"Well, I mean—there were some rough patches, yeah," his friend stammers out. "But—"

"You would cry yourself to sleep."

Scar's head shoots up, the dark bags under his eyes never seemed more prominent.

"I heard. Every time."

He looks down, "I'm sorry."

"No, don't apologise," Kitten says quickly. "Just...we keep talking about what it was like for me, yeah? But we never talk about what it was like for you."    

Abruptly, Scar gets up and walks over to the bed, sitting down, rocking back and forth as he pulls his sleeves over his fingers. 

"It's—it doesn't matter. I'm okay now."

Kitten follows, clambering up next to him and peering past the curtain of brown hair at the face hidden beneath. 

"I'm not sure you are."

Scar's expression crumples for a split second.

"Don't worry about me, Kitten," he says. "I'll—it's not your job to look after me."

Kitten scoots closer, xits tail lays itself over his back. Scar doesn't speak and xit doesn't either; words are difficult and xit's content to sit here staring at the old wallpaper, making out dirty kitchens and wine-stained floors in the peeling vinyl. Stillness can hold all the sentences within its grasp, he's learned—he'll never ask for more than what the quiet can give him.

Outside, damning clouds begin to gather as a shuddering inhale stumbles its way out of Scar's lungs.

"Sometimes it felt like it was all for nothing."

The confession breaks the silence, but does not break the gentle swishing motions of Kitten's tail against his spine. 

"It was just—so difficult," he continues, letters spilling out of his mouth like an avalanche of wretched revelations. "Nothing was working. I spread myself thin every day and I still just constantly felt like I was doing it for nothing. And I'm—I'm sorry."

Scar's hands thrust upwards, he trips over another inhale. 

"I tried so hard to do what was best for you and I just ended up hurting you—every time. And I just," he bends his head, swipes at his eyes, "maybe I'm not meant to be good. Maybe it would be better if I just...wasn't."

His features twist, eyebrows inching higher on his forehead; he looks devastated, wrought with grief for what could have been, what he should have been and everything he never was. Decades of regret play in the creases of his skin as he tugs on his hair, blinking rapidly in the way he always does—the way that always fails. 

Kitten was never one for words, but in this moment he thinks that maybe what he struggles to give is what Scar needs. He needs to exist, and touch not meant to hurt can only do so much.

Stillness can hold all the sentences within its grasp, but phantom promises won't stitch up an age-old wound.

"Scar, you did—so much for me," xit says, and Scar's back jumps in a tremor. "For so many people. I wouldn't be here if you weren't."

Eyes squeezed shut, the other emits a low noise, "I hurt you." 

"You talked to me and gave me drawings and found me a therapist. You did more to help than anyone else ever could."

Scar shakes his head, shakes it like Kitten's words are incomprehensible, impossible to believe, and maybe they are. Leaning forward, trembling hands lifting to press to his chin, he curls in on himself, shoulders hunching like a plea—a plea for Kitten to stop saying things that he can't, won't let himself believe are real.

Kitten does not relent. 

"Look, I know you have this fear in you that you'll hurt anyone you rely on but that's not true. You deserve support, that's what we're here for."

"No, I—these are my own struggles, and I—I can deal with it—" 

Scar's voice bounces up like marbles off the wooden floor; the tears he's desperately wiping off his cheeks render his assurances anything but genuine. Clouds descending in the streams of his despair, he's never looked more damaged.

"You took care of me for so long," Kitten says softly, reaching out for a man who won't let himself accept that love never had to be earned. "Let yourself be taken care of, too."

As his friend continues to shake his head in denial, he thinks of a rainy evening, a door left ajar, a room filled with muffled sobs—and he thinks of two friends, both hurt by the world, both having found healing within each other. 

"I like your ears. Remember?"

Scar slumps, defeated. Loud, uncontrollable weeping tears through him like a wildfire and Kitten pulls him close, rubbing a clawed hand over his back, muttering, "Relax. You don't have to be strong all the time."

Raking his claws over quivering vertebrae, listening to choked cries get suppressed against his rumbling chest, he leans back against the blankets and pulls Scar with him, carding thin fingers through long brown strands as his friend settles, trembling, atop his body. Scar's hands are freezing cold, the wire under his feet looms ever farther down below— 

And Kitten knows in this moment that all that he needs is for someone to make sense of him. And xit knows that, finally, xit understands.

And when Scar drapes himself over xit in an instinctual, unguarded yearning to be near, xit drops xits head into the crook of his neck and doesn't look up and begs that this moment would never end. Kitten's heart may not shine, but he would give all the gold in his possession to mend the cracks of Scar's tainted soul.

And as he drifts to a doze with his friend in his arms, he thinks back to the torn drawings—taped together, hidden away as something to be treasured. And xit thinks, maybe broken doesn't have to be forever. 

Under Kitten's hold, for the first time in years, Scar starts to believe that maybe everything he did wasn't for nothing.

[jellvisk]

Chronic pain sucks, but I think something people don't talk about is how chronic pain also give you mental illnesses/worsen already existing ones, such as depression.

I fight everyday to not thrive, but simply to survive. That's not good enough, though, for the pain tears down my psyche and willpower day by day. My depression gets worse, and on days I'm feeling less depressed, my chronic pain will remind me it exists, tear apart my dreams for the day, and pull me back into that familiar pit.

Instead of just apathy, it has to also be pain.

Depressed and hurt, now at the bottom of the sea, how much worse could it get? I can barely focus on anything, let alone start any task because of my ADHD/executive dysfunction. Perhaps it would be easier to start tasks if I wasn't punished with literal pain for doing so; the illnesses all stacks ontop of eachother like some fucked up Binding of Isaac build.

Now I'm rewarded for doing giving in to my ADHD and doing literally nothing: because there will be less pain.

So I'm paralyzed: surely it couldn't get worse. But then I realize all of this is invisible. All of it, including my pain. So now that simple fact adds to the fuel to the flames that is my self hatred, because not even I will believe I am struggling if it can't be seen with my own two eyes. "I should just be stronger, I shouldn't be so lazy; my pain can't be that bad, there's no blood!"

Now here I am, chained by spikes, self loathing under the pressure of the murky ocean.

I try to reach my dreams, but then they're shot down by illness and then I'm punished.

I try to cope, so maybe I can fight my mental illnesses. Oops! If I cope, my body chooses violence!

This post has been mostly a personal ramble. All things aside, whatever you're facing, keep fighting.

[beevean]

I think I made a similar post a while ago, but I'm having another thought about how different NFCV and IDW Sonic are in adapting the source material.

I would say the game characters in IDW Sonic are superficially similar to canon, and if you let yourself be swayed by the "vibes" you won't notice anything wrong, but the peel soon comes off if you stop and actually analyze the dialogue and expressions. They're OOC in an uncanny valley way, all while pretending to be canon compliant.

In NFCV, somehow, every character from the games was reversed in personality, to the point that after a while it almost looks intentional:

Game Trevor is a charismatic, friendly man who accepts without hesitation to help humanity against Dracula despite being shunned by fellow humans, although he can be hotheaded and act before thinking, which spells disaster in CoD; nevertheless, he earned his title of Legendary Belmont. N!Trevor is cynical, snarky, antisocial, allegedly rude, and holds no love for humanity at first due to his past, although he reluctantly helps to uphold his family legacy; he also has no real successes under his belt until his encounter with N!Death in the very finale, including not being the one who effectively kills N!Dracula.

While very little was established about Game Sypha, we know she is a witch raised by the Church after he fellow witches were killed (she was reimagined into a cold, aggressive knight templar in Judgment, but while the concept makes sense, I don't consider that game canon). N!Sypha is a "Speaker" who, like everyone else, holds contempt for the Church, she has by far the least amount of trauma in the cast which makes her generally sheltered, and her personality is more or less "peppy braincell holder".

Game Alucard is broody and curt, but cares a lot about his friends (especially Trevor, as shown in GoS), and sees his bloodline as a curse to protect the world from, as per his mother's wish. N!Alucard is sarcastic, antagonistic and outright rude, insulting towards Trevor, and most troubling sees vampires as "his people". To say nothing of what their outfits convey about their personalities...

Game Dracula is the terrifying but worshipped Dark Lord, and also a cold, petty man who became a violent force of nature, whose grief is sympathetic but his actions go too far and harm everyone around him, actually best seen in Lament of Innocence with Elisabetha's death. N!Dracula starts off the same, but by S2 he succumbs to depression and becomes so apathetic and ineffectual that his castle can be conquered by external forces, as no one bar N!Isaac respects him, and he seeks emotional support from his servant; worse, he's painted by the narrative as "not so bad after all", best example being the people in Targoviste who get hit by the Idiot Ball and don't heed his warning, so that they "deserve" what they got. On top of this, while game Dracula is eventually stuck in a cycle of death and rebirth that strips away all humanity in him until Chaos' influence on his soul is severed, N!Dracula simply decides to stop his rampage not even a year after his death because his wife was resurrected.

Game Lisa's last words were begging Alucard to not harm humanity, "for theirs is a hard lot", and she clearly cared about her son and his mental wellbeing. N!Lisa is condescending towards her fellow peasants, and her last words were begging Dracula to not harm humans, urging him "to be better than them"; when revived, she also decides to abandon her son to his grief to "give him closure".

Game Hector is a melancholic, sharp man filled with guilt and self-loathing, prone to emotional outbursts and susceptible to the corrupting effects of the Curse, who nevertheless understands that he can be more than a tool for destruction and learns to appreciate the value of humanity, and that's why he runs away from his cruel Lord and finds love in the human world. N!Hector is stunted, a "manchild" so alienated from mankind that he agrees to the idea of culling humans without thinking much about it and never learns how morally wrong he was, passively going along with any proposal presented in front of him, and constantly stripped away of his agency and dignity to be less than a tool for other people, until his final act is choosing to stay with his latest abuser... who would rather kill herself than stay with him anyway, leaving him in the exact same place he had started from.

Game Isaac is flamboyant and larger than life, clearly reveling in his most evil actions and without pity towards humans, but also embittered by his own inferiority complex and desire to be a good tool for Dracula: his descent into madness due to Hector's betrayal and Dracula's death is tragic and horrifying, but the narrative never justifies his vile revenge, and eventually there is no escape for him. N!Isaac is deadly serious, prone to philosophizing, fully convinced to be a good person surrounded by evil and petty humans despite the atrocities he commits, and eventually decides that he wants to live for himself and have agency, rising to a new position of king. They both start out as simps, but that's the extent of their similarities. In fact, N!Isaac has infamously more in common with Hector than Isaac.

(as further note, in the games Hector was favored over Isaac due to his better abilities, although both of them were relatively respected; in the show, N!Isaac is massively favored over N!Hector, to the point where N!Dracula calls the former his friend and hired the latter through a lie because "he's easy to lie to")

Game Saint Germain is a whimsical, unflappable time traveller who tries his best, with the limitations imposed on him, to stop Dracula from being brought back. N!Saint Germain is certainly eccentric and capable of dimensional travel, but he's also plagued by grief over one woman and through it he's eventually manipulated into reviving N!Dracula instead (insert "god is going to have sex again" line here).

Game Death is Dracula's most loyal servant and confidant, affably polite but unswerving in his desire to bring his Master back over and over. N!Death only cares about feeding on souls and was ready to make Dracula suffer undescribable pain to use him as a pawn, all while infamously talking like a drunk sailor. The few things they have in common are their manipulation skills and ability to assume a disguise to blend in.

Game Carmilla is another vampire devoted to Dracula, responsible for his resurrection in CoTM; N!Carmilla despises Dracula and everything he stands for, more or less hijacking his role as the main antagonist.

Game Richter in RoB starts out as a hotblooded, enthusiastic young man eager to fight and uphold his legacy... which leads him to a dark path later on when he succeeds and has nothing legt going for in his life. N!Richter is just as enthusiastic, but starts his story suffering from the trauma of his mother's death that makes him prone to panic attacks, and has little legacy to uphold.

Game Maria is a bubbly, cheerful, innocent young girl who doesn't even understand Dracula's talk about power. N!Maria is a surly, bitter teenager only concerned with political matters.

Game Annette is a perfectly normal woman in love with Richter, but braver than she lets on, shown in the cutscene where she attempts to slit her own throat to reject Dracula's advances. N!Annette has literal godly powers, is unique in the show's environment as a runaway slave, her bravery is actually rashness that often causes problems, and she's mostly furious at the world and everyone around her, especially N!Richter for being "a child" and "useless as fuck" (though this is set to change as they are bound to fall in love).

Game Juste is shown to be protective towards his loved ones to a fault, best seen in the good ending where he wants to deny the truth of Maxim's actions to Lydie. N!Juste abandoned his family after Maxim and Lydie's death, and has completely given up on fighting evil, having become cynical and despondent (it's possible that this, too, is set to change).

As you can tell, some game characters were deeper than others, but that is no excuse. If the writers wanted to, they could have done what thousands of fans do, and fleshed out the characters starting from the base lines canon offers. The elements are there! It's just a matter of a little effort and respect towards canon! But there weren't. Instead, the characters were more or less flipped on their head, turned into OCs in all but name, because it's easier and allows them to reap the praises from the fans who think the games need to be "fixed".

I'm mostly just amazed by how consistent the pattern is. It's as if no character was deemed good enough as they were. As if the show went into IDW's opposite's direction and strived its best to be as far away as canon as possible... and better, ofc.

[buckybarnesss]

Wait, had Stiles being Derek's anchor been fully acknowledged/confirmed by someone in the show's production before that instagram post?

lol no despite how blatant it is.

however jeff davis explained the scene at the end of 3B was inspired by an occurrence at owl creek bridge which just makes it more blatantly obvious.

a man who has a dream before death where he escapes his execution to return to his wife --- bruh.

the first episode of 3B is titled anchors after all and the entirety of season 3 has a overreaching theme of memory and the ways memories can be manipulated, altered and are unreliable. this is a framing device for multiple episodes. we get multiple flashbacks and non-linear storytelling more than once.

lunar eclipse shows allison, scott and stiles finding the nemeton from a different perspective of the events of wolf moon.

3B's early episodes get reframed once the reveal of stiles's possession is known.

season also focuses on the memory of talia hale and claudia stilinski more than ever.

the last scene where derek retreats into his mind to a safe space -- safe person -- is so revealing about him and it's so, so obvious that stiles has become his anchor.

like, we know anchors can be people as scott's anchor was allison for a long time and malia's anchor is also stiles, liam's is arguably mason and isaac's is the memory of his father before he became a piece of shit.

we also know anchors can be more abstract since derek's was an emotion for a long time after the fire. he anchored himself to his anger (and self-loathing i would argue) only for it to shift to stiles as his trust grew.

it's actually really well done in tying the themes of the season together in that one moment.

[verdemoun]

I don’t know why, but I’ve always seen Arthur owning a roof-less car and John in the passenger seat, standing up and just screaming his lungs out as Arthur drives faster and faster because he’s never felt so free.

I stole this from The Perks Of Being A Wallflower.

Honestly super Isaac and Jack coded those boys are almost as much a petri dish of anxiety and mood disorders as Dutch. Like Jack went through being alone, burying Uncle, burying his dad, looking after Abigail as she mourned only to lose her too and his own self-loathing becoming an outlaw knowing so much his parents did not want that for him. They are both fiends for motorcycles and speeding feeling the air on their faces stolen cars windows down screaming hollering living out every John Green novel. Climbing up rocks in the desert standing dangerously close to the edge screaming into the vast nothing.

John and Arthur however bring out the absolute childish worst in each other and share one braincell. Arthur will offer to help someone move a piece of furniture, forget his straps so John merrily jumps into the tray holding said furniture. Arthur going down the highway shouting the occasional 'you good?' while John's hugging a fridge to stop it flying off. Or just sitting on a couch like it's his throne having a beer.

[linesonscreens]

Let's Read Peanuts (Yes, all of it) - March 1951

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

Mar 3, 1951

Giving this one a pass because Charlie Brown's expression perfectly expresses my feelings here.

Mar 6, 1951

Wait. Crap. Is this the first baseball strip? Someone read through the last 6 months and confirm. I'll supervise helpfully from over here.

Mar 9, 1951

Mar 12, 1951

And humans immediately grab the germ-covered bathroom door handle but we still make the effort. Do better, dogs!

Mar 13, 1951

We're starting to see Violet and Patty spend time together. They're basically attached at the hip in the more modern stuff so I figured it was worth mentioning.

Mar 15, 1951

I continue to enjoy watching CB be a little asshole.

Mar 20, 1951

Another pre-Schroeder music joke.

Mar 22, 1951

Binding of Isaac timeline narrowly avoided.

Mar 30, 1951

Comics about self-loathing. For kids!

Thoughts:

I find the presence of music as a recurring subject this early in the strip to be pretty interesting. Schulz must have really been enthusiastic about the topic considering that he dedicated a major character to it (who stayed important right through the end of the comic) and ended up drawing what must have been thousands of strips about it over the the years.

I mean, it's not like he kept doing it out of some sense of obligation. The man had zero qualms with taking the axe to an element of the strip that no longer interested him.

[quinnkdev]

"Ants From Up There" - Analysis

The tragedy of pouring from an empty heart

Music by Black Country, New Road. Essay by Quinn K.

[I made this little text because I felt like writing something about this album, since I still think about it and listen to it a lot, to this day. Hope you enjoy.]

cw: toxic relationship dynamics, blood, weight-loss mention, drowning mention, cancer mention

To a lot of people, there's an undeniable pull to giving. The idea of committing to something - or somebody - greater than one's self is alluring to many. And in commitment of that kind, to give is normal; giving money, giving time, giving attention, giving possessions.

When we truly believe in something - or somebody - and want the object of our adoration to thrive, we'll give our hearts' contents away.

...To a lot of people, there's an undeniable pull to receiving gifts.

The contradiction is obvious, as is the problem - giving is finite, and receiving is infinite.

Black Country, New Road's sophomore effort "Ants From Up There" tells of a doomed situation like that. The Concorde Fallacy, named after the multinational Concorde agreement (more commonly known as the sunk cost fallacy) is primarily used in economics, but slots perfectly into place with the mental and physical drain of a painful, struggling relationship that flies using only one insidious fuel: Commitment.

Human beings can be addicting; when their favour is hard-won, it's all the sweeter when you do get it. It doesn't matter if the person you loved has categorically ignored you when you asked for their attention, belittled you and your boundaries, taken what you had until you were lacking, hurt you - If they smile at you, it's worth it. If they compliment you, suddenly, it's worth it. If they fuck you, it's worth it.

And you don't even see the tear-stained pillowcases in the wash; you don't notice your health declining, the weight you lose; you don't understand your friends telling you that the relationship is bad for you, because surely, “who I put this much care into must care too, right - right!?” All these warnings dissolve into an ambient buzz, background radiation; they become a hurt so familiar it grows unquestioned.

The song “Concorde” says it a little like this: You wouldn't even notice the relationship was killing you if it was a cancerous growth, diagnosed by a doctor. 

Human inertia dictates to keep doing what you've been doing. To keep worshiping at their altar, and, in the small gestures that are oh-so meaningful to you, be rewarded.

"Ants From Up There" showcases this short-circuit in the human mind with an arresting amount of immediacy, intimacy and nuance. It even acknowledges the most horrible part of it all: 

You do it to yourself. 

People can only walk over your boundaries if they’re violent - or - if you let them; and having trusted somebody who, at the time, you thought you had every reason to trust, can feel like your own mistake.

The muddiness of emotional truth is hard to divide apart - “Ants From Up There” doesn’t try to do so, but instead, pits one side of the relationship - the giver - entirely against himself. The album’s protagonist, Isaac (whose story, while likely autobiographical, I’ll treat as fictional so as to not analyse real people) is filled with self-loathing both over perceived personal inadequacies, chambered in a gun’s barrel pointed at himself, and a clear belief that his commitment to the other person - who’s nicknamed “Concorde” throughout the album - gives his impossible soul some kind of purpose, elevates him by virtue of his servitude of her ghastly better-ness.

When you treat a human being as better, as an object of worship, you're likely to be seen as an object in return: As useful, and disposable. The song “Good Will Hunting” examines this most closely, with a short parable of a hull breach on a starship, with “Concorde” taking the only escape-pod and filling it with things most important to her - leaving Isaac, the disposable, behind.

Isaac also believes that he, himself, is helpless - and to an extent, he becomes it, as he spends all energy he used to spare for self-care on caring for his relationship instead. In “The Place Where He Inserted The Blade”, Isaac not only fails to understand how to cook a simple meal after a recipe out of his interdependency on his partner’s approval and praise, but, on the metaphorical side, where and how he was hurt, what actually happened. 

“Good morning - Show me the place where he inserted the blade!”

Notably, he speaks of a “he”, rather than a “she”. Until the very final moments of the album, Isaac is incapable of conceiving that “Concorde” was capable of hurting him; he instead seeks the blame within.

—

Sometimes, I wonder if people on the final flight of the Concorde were sad. About the end of an era, or the end of a peace-project between several nations; the end of a commitment. In retrospect, I assume they probably weren’t - it was just a flight like any other, standard procedure. And after all, they were just passengers. Bystanders.

Maybe, the flight would have been more notable if it had ended with a crash.

Many relationships like the one portrayed in this album exist. They’re a dime-a-dozen, many people take too much, and many people give more than they can; and in some way, “Ants From Up There” seems painfully aware of this. It balances it out through this intense specificity and an emotional rawness that few - maybe no - other albums released in 2022 can match. And through being specific while simultaneously aware of the commonness of its story - interspersing more direct allusions to Isaac and “Concorde’s” relationship with abstract pieces about similarly-shaped situations between unnamed characters - it invites the listener in. It allows them to examine themselves in relation to that hurt.

There isn’t much to learn from “Ants From Up There”; it’s a tragedy. Though written in present tense, it’s been played, recorded, and pressed to physical media; it’s a done affair. Isaac’s life was forever changed by “Concorde”, and though he comes to the realisation of the magnitude of this hurt in the closing minutes of the finale “Basketball Shoes”, and purports some small manner of internal healing earlier in that song, for us, there’s nothing to do but feel for Isaac, and, in the way that his struggles mirror our own, be cleansed.

“Oh, your generous loan to me - Your crippling interest!”

Isaac screams this, tears pouring down his face, closing the album. To the last moment, even knowing his hurt, he feels he has taken from her, not that he was exploited. The name Isaac means “the one who laughs” in Hebrew; an irony like that is stronger than fiction.

If a lesson must be extrapolated for all this hurt to be worth something, I suppose it’s this:

No matter the heights of your altruistic love, no matter the depths of your self-loathing, eventually, you have to stop pouring from an empty heart, or drown in your own blood.

[thetarttfuldickhead]

As much as I love Roy telling Jamie he’s proud of him (and then maybe not punching him in the face aftewards, idk, could be a thing) I’ve also grown partial to the idea of Jamie telling Roy that he’s proud of him, ‘cause well, Roy needs a bit of that too, I think.

I haven’t got the details figured, but maybe something vaguely along the lines of the ending to the “My Fallen Idol” episode of Scrubs, where Dr. Cox (having failed to save several of his patients) is depressed, drunk and not talking while unshaven and wrapped in a blanket on his couch. JD shows up, gives him a quiet but heartfelt peptalk and tells him he’s proud of him, because even after so long as a doctor Dr. Cox still cares enough to take it that hard when things go wrong.

So say Roy fucks something up. It’s not necessarily his fault; he does his best given the circumstances or acts unwittingly, but it goes tits up and he ends up making a mess of things. Not a “people died” mess, but still really quite bad. (I honestly don’t know what this could be. Maybe something slightly careless he says blowing up in the media and somehow really fucking over a young footballer? Maybe something else entirely. That’s not the important part.)

And this is Roy, who cares so very deeply but is so very unkind to himself, and the guilt and fucking shame of having fucked someone (especially a young someone!) over like that, particularly when he’s already struggling with the feeling that he can’t change for the better, that he’ll always be the same fucking idiot I’ve always been? Yeah, I don’t think he’d deal very well. He also, and obviously, wouldn’t want to talk about it.

And depending on how much hurt (and comfort) you want from this, you could either simply have Roy pull a Roy and retreat to an ice bath, and Jamie letting himself in like Ted once did, and giving a little (slightly clumsy but very earnest) speech about how fucking proud he is of Roy, and Roy has no fucking idea how to handle all the emotions that inspire, but, yeah. It helps.

Or you can drag it out a bit and have Roy stubbornly insisting he is fine and hiding behind his usually gruff exterior, only he’s not doing fine and eventually he shows up at training still drunk from trying to drown his self-loathing in way too much whisky, and Rebecca takes him home and tries to talk to him, and when that doesn’t work she calls Keeley, and Keeley’s a comfort, she always is, but this time it’s not enough (or just too early). Jamie shows up after training, bringing dinner, and he sits down next to Roy and, again, brings out the speech. It doesn’t magically make everything right, because how could it, but it’s enough to start from. Enough to give Roy the courage to begin anew.

Or if you really want to dial that angst right up, we can have Jamie – like JD in the Scrubs episode – put off visiting, making comments about how it was fucking unprofessional showing up to Nelson Road like that, Roy would have had their heads if they’d tried pulling anything like it, so why should the gaffer get special consideration? Beard and Rebecca and Nate and Isaac and his sister and Keeley all take turns sitting with Roy while he quietly stews in despair on his couch, but Jamie is inconspicuously absent.

Until he isn’t, because of course he relents in the end, and he shows up to tell Roy that yeah, he made it out like he was angry with Roy for showing up drunk, but really he was freaked out because Roy’s always been so fucking strong and Jamie’s always counted on and leaned on that strenght, back when he was a kid and they didn’t know each other and back when they were teammates and fighting all the time and most of all since Roy became his coach and his best friend. Like, Jamie knows Roy isn’t perfect – like, really man, you are not– but Roy’s strenght has been a constant and a comfort in Jamie’s life and having to face that fact Roy isn’t some sort of superhero… that scared him, yeah. But that’s Jamie’s problem, not Roy’s, and so he’s here to tell Roy how fucking proud he is of him, for how much he fucking cares and how hard he works at being there for all of them, even though he thinks he’s no good at it. But you are, yeah? Fucking good at it. But that’s not the really important bit, anyway. The important bit is that you’ve always kept trying, even when that meant doing stuff you fucking hated or were scary or hard. ‘Cause it isn’t easy for you, this shit, but you keep at it anyway, because you care, and that’s… Dead proud of you for that, Roy. Really am.  

[princeescaluswords]

The State Championship

One of the key things I like about Teen Wolf is the way its heroic protagonist, Scott McCall, defined heroism through his compassion. This active compassion is not restricted to simply alleviating suffering; it also extends to the awareness of people as individuals with different abilities, needs, and motivations. In other words, Scott cared for people even when they didn't make his life easy or do what he wanted. It is a defining trait for him, even though he still had to learn several important lessons, including recognizing boundaries, acknowledging failure, and coping with the idea that others would use this compassion against him.

I feel that nothing shows this more than his friendship with Stiles Stilinski. Scott doesn't need Stiles to be perfect, to be always right, to be powerful; he simply needs Stiles to be Stiles. For me, one incident in particular shows the depth of Scott's love for Stiles.

When the episode Battlefield (2x11) starts, it's the week of the State Championships, which the Beacon Hills High School has managed to reach even with two separate serial killing sprees going on during the same semester. At the beginning of the series, Scott's dream was to make First Line. That dream is gone.

Scott: Well, thanks, but I'm not - I'm not going either. Can't even think about playing some meaningless game right now. Isaac: You weren't at practice last week, were you?

It seems that Jackson, who Scott knows has not only been turned by Derek into the kanima but is now under the control of Gerard Argent is going to be playing in the State Championship. Scott decides he has to play, because Gerard is up to something. After all, he always has a plan.

The stakes are raised throughout the episode. Derek is elsewhere, beating the shit out of Peter in a useless expression of self-loathing. Scott's been benched by Coach due to Gerard's manipulation. His mother -- directly threatened by Gerard at the beginning of the episode -- comes to the game. Gerard gives a very menacing speech with serious overtones. Scott doesn't know what to do.

And then, as Stiles and Scott sit next to each other on the bench, both nervously waiting for the game to start.

Stiles: You know what's going on? Scott: Not yet. Stiles: It's going to be bad, isn't it? I mean, like people screaming, running for their lives, blood, killing, maiming kind of bad? Scott: Looks like it. Stiles: Scott, the other night seeing my dad get hit over the head by Matt, you know, while I'm just lying there and I can't even move, it just - I want to help, you know, but I can't do the things that you can do. I can't - Scott: It's okay.

And that's that. Scott spends the rest of the episode struggling with Gerard, who threatens to "have Jackson rip someone's head off right in the middle of the field and drench everyone you love and care about in blood." Gerard threatens Scott's mother, Lydia, Stiles and random spectators. While Isaac comes to Scott's assistance, Scott has to leave the game to save Isaac from being killed by Gerard and his hunters.

But throughout the game, there is not one line of dialogue and not one frame of action that indicates Scott resents or even thinks about asking Stiles for help. Stiles has told Scott that he's at his limit, and Scott won't ask Stiles to give more than he can.

So it ends up that while Stiles is happily scoring his first goal, Scott is fighting hunters in the locker room. He's stressed, he's panicking, he's in over his head, but he doesn't put that burden on a friend who has said he can't handle any more. The production actually lampshades it:

Gerard: You want to play chess, Scott? Then you better be willing to sacrifice your own pawns.

But that's the point: Stiles (and Isaac) aren't pieces on a board to Scott. He won't treat them as pawns (the way Derek and Peter treated him), even for the greater good.

In order to stop Gerard and Derek from killing innocent people, Scott has already given up his lacrosse season and he is in the process of losing Allison. His mother is now in danger. Stiles and Isaac are now in danger. And if he isn't fighting killers armed with wolfsbane bullets and broadswords, he's confronted with a werelizard agent of vengeance.

Meanwhile, Stiles is becoming the MVP of the State Championships, getting the acclaim of the crowd and his fellow players, including his father and Lydia Martin. And this never bothers Scott one little bit. He wants Stiles to play, if that's what Stiles wants to do. He doesn't try to demand or guilt Stiles into helping him. He wants Stiles to be happy.

While the episode ends badly for Stiles, that's not Scott's fault. Gerard takes Stiles because Scott doesn't succumb to Gerard's manipulations on the battlefield.

That makes Scott a good friend. That makes Scott a hero.

[dove-tears]

Tboi lore things that my autistic ass finds inconsistent and annoy me for no reason lmao

-isaac's confirmed to have never had a twin/sibling/be stillborn yet items like vanishing twin just seem to paint a different implication to me? Isaac seems so weirdly obsessed with the idea of twins/babies/birth, i guess it could be chalked up as his desire to have a sibling as an only child??? Still kinda confusing imo lol, i feel like it'd add more weight to the guilt and self-loathing isaac feels if he was meant to be a sibling at one point but couldn't be due to miscarriage or something of the sort, and could also be a reasoning for why his mom made him dress up like the daughter she always wanted.

-ik this one is silly/just Ed misremembering things most likely but he's mentioned a couple times that Bob's the brother of the dad but in a tiktok he says he's the brother of mom/Maggy???? ED MAKE UP YOUR MIND PLEASE /lh

-Ed please i am on my knees i am begging and keeling over what connection do Isaac and Steven have how many times are you gonna say that and never elaborate your ass BETTER provide some sort of explanation when Mewgenics drops or at least when Isaac 2 comes out like 10 years later /j

I can't think of anything else but anyone is free to add on to this/voice their opinions skdjdkfk

[teenwolf-incorrectquotes]

Isaac: What must it be like not to be crippled by fear and self-loathing?

Scott, cheerfully: It's okay!

[chumpovodir]

You are so right. Where is my respect for short chad Hector 😔

(also Isaac is absolutely the type to wear high heels even if he's already quite taller than Hector. Just to make his life harder. A king ❤️)

dhsjsdw calling Hector a short chad is so funny considering he is ALSO actually pretty tall for the average 1500s dude (i don't have the chart on hand but wasn't he like 6ft 5in there? again i have to ask: drac WHAT are you feeding these boys....)

and to gush for a minute, i ADORE the detail of Isaac already being a 7ft tall freak of nature and he still wears like 4in heels (especially when compared to Hector's very conservative, but practical, armored kitten heels)

there's something about the contrast with Isaac ironically being the more put together and 'proper' forgemaster, but he also so obviously leans hard into his physical 'abnormalities'

if he's already freakishly tall, he adds on to it by wearing heels. if his hair is an unnatural, 'evil' color, he proudly wears it longer and lets half of it cover up his face. and you could argue despite his height, he's not exactly the picture of masculinity, all pale skin and a somewhat waifish build - but Isaac still takes any opportunity to show off his body, marked head to toe with intricate tattoos

he's just. he's proud, but self-loathing. defiant, yet obedient. he's such a fucking hypocrite through and through, that it even comes out in his design.

he is such a fascinating character containing multitudes and i wish we got more of him dhdjsjsdklakd

[redrikki]

Teen Wolf Rewatch 2.09 Party Guessed

Lydia's opening layered hallucination nightmare hallucination was terrifying! For those of you who are keeping track, there have been 4 moons in the show thus far, thus making it the full moon in April, aka the pink moon. The vibes for the worm moon are better though, feels like a rebirth, so that's what they went with.

I like to rag on this show for the writers not being able to keep track of details, but they're actually pretty good at foreshadowing. They set up Victoria's suicide and the knife she prefers over pills back in 2.03. The rave was on Friday night and the full moon is on Wednesday. Victoria has had 5 days to talk to Allison, but while she's bad ass enough to kill herself for family honor, she's too much of a coward to explain how she came to be bitten or why she isn't even going to try to manage her condition. The scene is set up like a tragedy and I feel for Allison, but fuck her for real.

Let's talk hallucinations. Allison confronts her stalker and then is stalked by her shadow self. Holy self-loathing and internalize mysogony, Batman! She hates her weaknesses and fears her darkness. Stiles sees his dad ranting about how killed his mother and ruined Noah's life. Guilt for having gotten his dad fired mixed with lots of self-loathing for being a "difficult" kid and a dash of fear about his father's alcoholism. Scott sees Allison making out with Jackson and then the kanima. Manifestation of his jealousy and possibly a fear that Allison is only into him because she's a monster fucker. Jackson sees his faceless bio parents and has his face erased. Clearly that's about his lack of sense of self and also the realization he's being erased.

Derek gets his wolves ready for the full moon. Boyd did his homework! Derek articulates the idea that the three states of wolf are fluid. Pain jolted Scott back to himself, but not Erica or Boyd for some reason. Isaac figured out his anchor first, even before Scott did. It's his happy memories of when his father wasn't a piece of shit. Not sure how I would about that. How the fuck does Lydia know where to find Derek let alone find the strength to get him from there to the Hale house?

Stray thoughts: Jackson breaks through enough to warn Lydia, but he does it at school when it's supposed to be spring break. Stiles is still working the case and he and Noah figure out the swim team connection.