#Theme: RE Parallels

[crimescrimson]

Ada Wong and Sherry Birkin: Giving their love interest the Look.

[edwardwonghaupepelutivrusky4th]

technically if it's not simmered in the champagne region of france it's a sparkling best boy friend

[waywardsalt]

everything about bellumbeck makes me go insane. i don’t even know how to express half of it. the way everyone is in mortal danger during that fight. linebeck is forced to try and kill link right after saving his life. the one time he’s actually taking part in a boss battle with link he’s the boss he’s fighting. the way bellum seems to take his time grabbing him. the fact that bellumbeck never really pays any attention to ciela and bellum just grabs and restrains her instead of putting her out of commission or straight up killing her. one of his attacks is a spin attack much like link’s and we can assume that linebeck has probably seen link do a spin attack at some point. the way bellumbeck’s helmet is designed to look vaguely similar to linebeck. if bellumbeck kills you when you have a purple potion it plays the same sting as when a phantom catches and attacks you. this is the second time this link has had a sword fight with another human as his final battle but this time he is effectively fighting alone. of the main cast linebeck is the most detached from the rest of the group and is the only one to be an enemy. bellumbeck’s helmet opens after some attacks and right before he’s defeated. linebeck’s character theme utilizes harpsichord and excludes piano and bellum’s boss theme utilizes piano and excludes harpsichord. bellumbeck’s theme includes both and for the first half and near the end of the song they play the exact same melody at the same time. linebeck is suggested to be unable to fight or properly protect himself in battle for the entire game and then in the final boss in a twisted, awful way he finally gets a chance to be a competent fighter capable of defending himself.     does any of this make sense

[farginen]

i think i cling to fluff plots because it's kind of the only thing keeping any shred of hope for the future alive for me. i'm so tired and drained 24/7. i feel so defeated about the state of the world and how little i can do about it. i don't know how to go about writing my muse's life long trauma surrounding genocide and colonization from a detached perspective when *i* am sobbing my eyes out every single business day about that myself

[seleniaflower]

Mob Psycho 100 Season 1 Ending (Refrain Boy) / Season 3 Ending (Cobalt)

[bthump]

Hello!

I really like your blog and metas, thank you for writing about this series!

I was reading some of your posts about the tower of conviction, and though I agree Guts' attitude towards the weak hadn't changed since the black swordsman arc, I don't think the narrative was exactly condemning the refugees either. It seemed more like the arc was portraying the tragedy of looking for a savior, which it painted as natural for humanity (like Nina needing Luca, eggman wishing to have been found by the priest, even Farnese looking up to Guts). And I think Guts tries to distance himself from this particular search for connection because it's kind of the source of his own tragedy - he lost almost everything when he started viewing Griffith more as a symbol that he had to reach than a loved one.

Anyway, that was a lot of rambling 😅 just wanted to share a different view.

Just sent an ask about the tower of conviction arc and realized what a hypocrite Guts is, given his whole thing is being torn between Casca and pursuing a divine figure haha

Thank you very much!

Yeah I don't think you're wrong, that's a solid angle to view the themes of the Conviction Arc through imo. I never actually made that connection between the Conviction Arc's take on saviours and Guts pursuing revenge, but that's intriguing. I think it makes sense as a parallel to Guts pedestalizing Casca as a representative of his past, but yeah as a parallel to wanting to defeat Griffith, it's definitely something to consider.

And yeah I don't think it was like, Miura's intention to say that the refugees are all bad people who deserve to die eg, but I do think that he uses them as an example of this particular weakness/negative of humanity in a way that I find distasteful. It's a very cynical look at humanity that ends with tens of thousands of disenfranchised people dead and very little narrative sympathy for them. I wish there was more emotional and/or moral weight given to the mass death at the very least, rather than just like, Luca clucking her tongue and musing about how they didn't act to save themselves. But yeah I don't think it invalidates the whole arc and the themes Miura explores or anything like that.

Anyway yeah thanks for the ask, these are interesting thoughts to ponder!

[telvayns]

what’s ur ao3?

you can find me here!

for anyone who didn't know, in a couple days' time i will be posting the first chapter or so from my fitzier pale rider (1985) au, revelation 6:8, for cowboyshowfest!! i'm very happy w/ how it's turned out so i'm really excited to see what people think of it.

you can get a taster for it from the first art i did w/ this au right here!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

didn't know there was a new frictional games / amnesia release....until now (that i do)

[scattered-winter]

the best kind of enrichment a creature like me can get is a piece of media with such complex worldbuilding and themes that I could spend literal weeks exploring it all. I’m sitting here in my enclosure with theories and headcanons and thoughts about The Narrative and the curse that comes with being a hero with a sworn unkillable enemy

[stackslip]

new chainsaw man chapter............ hello????

[whoslaurapalmer]

olaf’s parent’s deaths happen a very specific and absurd way in college au (again they don’t actually die) and i’m like. trying to find the line between ‘this works for college au’ and ‘but that makes it. kind of different than canon, and at all times i am trying to keep the parallels as close to canon events as possible but also canon themes’

[crimescrimson]

This time... It has to be different.

[thotfrnk]

since i mostly finished m.dzs and letting it sink, im actually quite peeved bc all the shit jc antis claim he did and yet i got nothing....... plus IM SO UPSET... jc was so cursed by the narrative, mannnnn w.wx's pov is so ?@(@(#*#*$*#*$*#*#

[ace-whovian-neuroscientist]

it feels like this season, doctor who is dealing with the fundamental rules changing. it was strictly sci-fi, you could always logic your way out of any problem with technobabble and a clever plan.

but it feels like so much of the plot is wrapped around poking at the medium of being a television show, of being a story. we have multiple characters looking at the viewers, we have the maestro playing the theme tune, we have such clear parallels to season 1 (2005) that it feels like a universal coincidence. like the whoniverse itself is recognizing its a medium and playing with its tropes.

the genre is changing too - we are leaning more and more into fantasy, rules like you would see in stories about fae, not sci-fi. musical numbers out of nowhere that no one seems to question, with rain inside and musical sidewalks. the vocabulary of rope and power in coincidences. hell, even the way that time travel works is changing! suddenly stepping on a butterfly (specifically a trope in scifi that has been mocked/debunked previously) has consequences. the doctor swiping away the translation circuit's effects with the wave of a hand and breathing life back into a creature without breaking a sweat.

not to mention the way that space babies foreshadows to a universe that creates a story with all the ingredients it knows are supposed to be there (re: bogeyman - there's supposed to be a villain so it made one)

something IS going on. there is a bigger player - bigger than tecteun, bigger than the toymaker. could it be rtd just having a grand ole time using canon as is playground? maybe. but i hope it's something cool.

[akanemnon]

Just remembered to submit this over here on tumblr, posting before the Asgore Dark World gets underway - honestly, there's A LOT Akane can do with an Asgore-focused Dark World I could talk everyone's ear off about, especially if Chess theory is in play - the Bishop theme can be used for "confessions", which is something that also happens with police and is honestly just a good theme to get the plot going since you could cover the following:

- Asgore confessing his feelings about not being able to do anything to save Rudy from his failing health and wishing to go back to before things went wrong so they can do the right things for his best friend's family next time might hit Frisk hard, bonus crying points if it parallels the Undertale Asgore boss fight

- Asgore might be hiding/holding onto evidence on the December disappearance case in his shop, and I'd LOVE if the Undertale coffins room re-appeared as symbolism since Kris is still a suspect/witness for it even now (the red coffin/case is still open): it'd be extremely hype to have an Ace Attourney styled twist where Kris is accused and pressured to confess by the Darkner evidence Kris left behind.

- Undertale Asgore's relationship with Chara being touched on since it rarely happens fandom-wise, and my gut feeling tells me Chara will be the Jevil/Spamton of this Dark World, due to the Gaster connections theory angle - it's very possible Chara has actually MET Gaster since he was Asgore's royal scientist afterall, and the Deltarune/Determination related experiments being based entirly on data Gaster got from running Human Healthcare when Chara was still alive is plausable as of now. Plus, it'd be super ironic for Chara to be the one who Judges Kris instead of Sans, ESPECIALLY if it's -THAT- hallway.

TLDR I'm pretty excited to see where Twinrunes is going as always, sorry to akane for having to put up with my impromptu essays

[foursaints]

“I don’t care what [Barty] says, Dumbledore’s not stupid”: On Barty as Machiavel

i think we're all forgetting the moment where harry explicitly draws a parallel between barty & remus and i wrote the world’s longest post about it 

under a close reading, moody!barty operates in a manner that is SO distinct from canon!moody, and i think it’s made especially apparent in the way he interacts with students & the virtues he emphasizes in his lessons. even when disguised, barty has a machiavellian tendency that comes through consistently in several different moments. 

i think this quote is a weaker example, but “very tactful” is NOT something that would be used to describe canon!moody under any circumstances. c!moody’s lack of social tact is a known characteristic, and barty uses his tactless reputation to get away with his machinations (see: the dustbin excuse, breaking into snape’s office, even the ferret to an extent).

on the other hand, BARTY is clever and subtle and manipulative, and we see this coming through in how he handles neville. the biggest difference between him and c!moody is the way that barty!moody tends to openly value or praise Cleverness & Craftiness above more moody-ish virtues like bravery, loyalty, or Taking Care of His Students’ Safety… but i think the most interesting part of all this is the way that harry reacts to it.

the hp books notoriously do this clumsy thing where the morality is starkly Black/White (as ursula leguin rightfully criticized). but seemingly arbitrary categories like “gryffindor” or “slytherin” are also conflated with this strict Good/Evil dichotomy. which results in these random-ass traits like “brave 😎🦁” and “cunning 💀🐍” also taking on moral associations within the world of the text (jkr has also done this with physical traits & racial stereotypes, which is vile) 

but an overarching theme in hp is harry grappling with this dumbass in-world black/white morality & unlearning part of it (ex: snape, the epilogue w albus severus about slytherin). but i think it’s sooo interesting that one of the few characters (aside from snape & dumbledore) to demonstrate & valorize a machiavellian tendency AND be admired for it (by harry) is LITERALLY barty jr. 

like! barty’s tact is not a good thing in-canon! he uses his tact to get away with murder & torture & elaborate terrorist plots (he’s part of a group of death eaters described as having "managed to talk their way out of azkaban” p. 527) but i looove that the same trait which allows him to do all sorts of Dastardly Evil is cast as positive and remus-like in this moment. obviously i don’t think jkr was doing of this on purpose, but i love how these little things are unintentionally more compelling than whatever the hell she was trying to do with snape. and it goes deeper!!

this moment is especially telling of barty’s character, to me. subbing out the names, “I don’t care what [Barty] says… Dumbledore’s not stupid” is a CRAZY line. 

it’s lowkey THE barty!moody thesis in comparison to c!moody: nothing we’ve seen from c!moody would even remotely suggest that he’d EVER imply that dumbledore is stupid. (c!moody adopts the “it’s imperative that we blindly trust dd’s mysterious plans” attitude that most of the adults in harry’s life take, that hermione re-emphasizes here). but barty’s attitude is something that harry heavily fucks with in this moment!! 

that’s all i really have to say about The Implications or whatever. but i want to call more attention to moments in canon where barty’s tendencies shine through his disguise because (unlike most marauders characters) his personality is really fleshed-out. especially this aspect of it. my silly 

i. "mind works the right way, granger"

barty speaking about dumbledore like he’s stupid (💀) is enjoyable for several reasons up to & including how big-dicked it is of him, but most importantly i think it’s symptomatic of an overarching theme of his character. in GOF, barty has a tendency to take stock of the people around him, according to what appears to be a really concrete & consistent set of internal values: he values cleverness matched with a certain degree of ruthlessness. 

this bit with hermione is fun. there are about ~6-7 other instances where he praises cleverness, but that’s not really a unique or noteworthy thing to value? but the phrasing in this quote is my favorite. i know that it’s in reference to the skillset required of an auror, but the phrasing of “mind works the right way” can be applied to so much of barty’s character if you reach hard. i love that barty’s language almost casts the mind as something rote & mechanical which can function right or wrong. 

but anyway it only becomes interesting when placed in context of THIS earlier interaction: 

there are endless ways barty could have gone about guiding harry to use his firebolt here, so his specific phrasing holds a lot of weight to me. (keep in mind: he’s prompting harry to feel that he came up with the firebolt/accio idea, but this whole plan was concocted by barty himself much earlier. he’s on the “convince harry to do my broomstick dragon thing” step of his overarching scheme) 

in a sense, by “inspiring” harry to do what HE already independently decided was best, he’s sort of… giving away his own reasoning, a little? the italicized emphasis on enabling oneself to “get what you need” feels… unnecessary, in context? i love that THAT is where emphasis slips into his voice because it betrays his values. 

barty’s Revenge Scheme is insanely fucking convoluted, but at every stage i think that logic is there. in his villain monologue where he rehashes the deranged level of micro-managing he was doing to get harry to resurrect voldemort, at every individual step he was following his own advice. to barty, sometimes murder is just the Simplest Spell to Get What He Needs. 

according his own advice, barty sees the clearest path between two points, and generally has 0 ethical qualms about closing that distance by the Simplest means possible. he later confirms this by describing harry’s morality introducing complications as “contend[ing] with [his] stupidity” (676) 

ii. “good boy,” growled [barty]. “i can make good use of this…”

the scene where barty acquires the marauders map is CRAZYY.. for a moment, barty is so excited & taken aback that we see a few of his genuine reactions. i love that absolutely nothing manages to faze him EXCEPT genuine delighted shock over an interesting new tool he can implement in his schemes. (sidenote: he probably recognized the marauders’ nicknames, which is so funny)

that fact that we have a canonical barty crouch jr “good boy” makes me claw at the walls. anyway. i feel that i don’t need to explain how “i can make good use of this… this might be exactly what i’ve been looking for” supports characterization of barty as a scheming little machiavel because it’s pretty much explicitly stated right there. 

but this quote stands out for his genuine preoccupation with it. from the instant that barty sees the map, his eyes don’t leave it— his eye “whizzed over [it’s] surface” (491), he questions harry about how his name appeared when he searched snape’s office (”’Crouch,’ he said. ‘You’re— you’re sure, Potter?’” (491))— all while harry is sinking into a trick staircase & getting concerned that moody is ignoring him.

“penetrating glare” ← top barty rights! 

the image of him getting new information, questioning harry about it tactfully, and then spending A FULL MINUTE silently integrating it, is one of my favorite instances of him in the book… it’s like you can hear the gears in his head whirring. i like that we can see this type of assessment that he does extends to other people, when he turns it on harry and “size[s] him up”. 

AND ALL OF THIS IS WITHOUT EVEN GETTING INTO WHAT HIS LESSONS WERE LIKE

this post is long enough as it is! but all that’s left to say is that barty will always be at his most interesting when you pay attention to canon… there’s another longpost that could be written about barty!moody’s differences in disposition. the jokes he cracks, his relative lightness, and the sheer number of times he was openly like “FUCK the law i do what i want” (while literally masquerading as a literal wizard cop) are so intriguing. but that’s for another time