#and c.) I was literally just theorizing and needed this specific piece of information to continue what i was talking about

[obeymeow]

have devolved into begging on social media but this is driving me up the WALL. I relatively distinctly remember a line of dialogue in the original game, paraphrased obviously, but to the extent of "asmo's charm doesn't work on a few rare exceptions but they're usually people with great magical power so it's strange that MC is one of them". does anyone else remember this or have I been trying to headcanon something into existence

[treeni]

Sanders Side Theory: Creativity’s Name and Roman’s Struggles

Theories Masterpost

Well, apparently some people were interested in my Orange side theory and stuff.

So let’s talk about “King Creativity” and why I disagree with every name theory I’ve seen so far and what I think instead. I’m not certain “King Creativity” is ever going to be named in the show, just knowing he existed is probably enough, but wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was a backstory episode? Or even aside episode?

First! Let’s start with the fact that I actually think it’s really interesting that everyone’s defaulting to Creativity being “King” when it is in fact Emperors who ruled Rome. Not a criticize, just interesting thought. Second, Kings were supposed to sit back and let their knights and armies basically do all of the physical work (Unless your Arthur, but it usually got him into trouble so! Moving on!) while you lead them as whatever supreme ruler title you take. However, a Crowned Prince was often at the head of said adventures and battles, in the thick of it all, but was basically indisputably the accepted next in line. (Approved by the courts and all that jazz, I mean historically it didn’t always go that way, but that was the intention). However, a regular Prince and a Duke could absolutely have a power struggle, especially in the situation where the Duke was previously “next in line” before the Prince’s birth. So if Roman and Remus ever did duke it out (also mini theory that Remus chose Duke for the fighting reference) I think one of them could/would become King, but I don’t think that’s who creativity was before the split.

Now I have a particular crowned prince in mind that creativity is named after, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s start by talking about some of the most popular theories and why I disagree with them.

CW: for before the “Keep Reading” section. There is mention of metaphorical and fictional murder, war, lgbt theory (not that, that should surprise anyone). Roman backstory (aka things he might regret now.)

Romulus: While I suppose it’s convenient in the fact that its sort of the names combined, Romulus is already the role that Roman is filling in his relationship with Remus. Twins that supposedly found Rome, but Romulus killed his brother Remus to do so and become the ruler. Romulus literally named Rome after himself. This isn’t a hint, this isn’t something that’s upcoming or anything, this is backstory. Roman is literally just a modernized version of the name Romulus. Remus’ banishment to the darkside was his metaphorical murder. It also suggests that Roman took an active role in sending Remus away, which also helps explain a lot of Roman’s current struggle with Janus. Can you imagine the kind of guilt he might be feeling if he was the one who decided his brother was evil and he was good and then he passed judgement? If the darksides aren’t evil, then Roman and he metaphorically murdered Remus, then he wasn’t the hero slaying the beast anymore. Instead, he’s suddenly the bad guy.

Buuuut Treeni, what about Patton??? I hear you say. It would have had to have been morality right?

And to that I say you’re WRONG! And also right. Patton’s kinda been shown to be the most accepting bean of the whole lot, he doesn’t really try to force the others away the way some of the other sides do. Instead, he puts his foot down on his own convictions and refuses to listen to reason. (I didn’t say he was perfect.) Still, he doesn’t try to physically push the others away, not Virgil when he tried scaring Thomas, not Janus when they argued and Patton was clearly distressed by the courtroom situation, and not even Remus when Patton was clearly scared of him (also defensive of Roman). He doesn’t need to, he’s self-assured in his own place and convictions that he doesn’t worry about Thomas pushing him out. Instead, Patton kinda takes the family holiday party route and will do his best to put out the emotional fires and stand his ground on his opinion to Thomas when he needs to. (The ONLY time I could find Patton sort of pushing someone away was when they were in his room and Patton asked Logan to stop. While that could weaken my argument about Patton, I think it strengthens it because it shows how big of a deal it was at the time that Patton tried shutting him down. Logan reacted the way he did by immediately storming off because it’s not something Patton does.) While it could absolutely be Patton’s influence that caused the split, it would be out of character (as he’s currently defined) for Patton to actively push a side away. (I’ll get into some of his more negative aspects in another post if ya’ll wanna hear about it.)

Remember, Roman was the one who tried shutting down Virgil with bullying tactics, Logan too sometimes. Then he tried to use the same tactics on Janus when he tried putting his foot down on maintaining a black and white view point of the world after Remus’ appearance. Keep in mind that Remus actively told us that he blames Roman for his banishment. He compared himself and Roman to Cain and Able. While c!Thomas and even the audience as a whole were sort of led to think of Remus as Cain because of the “dark and evil” association, Remus is telling us that he is Abel. Roman is his destroyer. (Before you feel too bad for Remus, that misconception was also on purpose because while Remus isn’t a liar, he can manipulate a situation with honesty. Again, another post if you wanna hear about why.)

So now there is some general understanding of the twins backstory, you’ll see why Romulus would be a terrible fit for their combined name because Roman is already Romulus. Period. He’s the one who betrayed his brother by “murdering” him and taking over.

Making Romulus the name of who creativity was before because the names kinda morph together would lazy writing compared to very carefully woven details the show has had thus far (particularly in season 2). Okay, that went on a bit of a tangent, so next!

Caesar: This is a person who brought about the destruction of Rome, not the creation of it. (With Rome basically being the metaphorical state c!Thomas is living in now with clear lines between good/bad, right/wrong etc.) While it’s not a horrible ideology, it would be moving forward in a historical timeline instead of backwards. If you subscribe to the idea that Roman and Remus cannot go back to who they were (even with some kind of theoretical re-morphing) Caesar might be who they become, but it seems unlikely that is who they were. Remember that both sides are individuals now and those individual traits they’ve gained since splitting may not re-mesh cleanly back into who they once were. I personally don’t think there’s any “going back” for Creativity.

If they show him as he once was, it would likely only be in either a backstory bit or in a temporary situation where the re-combining doesn’t hold. However, if Creativity ever did become one thing again, I think it would be something completely new and I think Caesar would be a good fit for that in particular.

Aeneas: Again, it would be kinda lazy writing comparatively. Instead of using a sorta combination of the names that had some historical basis, this theory is based entirely on the idea of a convenient ancestor who quested and failed over and over to create Rome. I could have bought this had it been from lesser writers, but Thomas, Joan and the whole team do not mess around in story crafting and really carefully woven in references. I am literally degreed in writing and analysis and I keep finding myself impressed at the layers.

The name Aeneas also implies that the character Creativity was specifically questing for a change and that seems doubtful given the resentment between the brothers. Aeneas was essentially a left-over scavenger trying to scrape together a new home from what he could from already broken pieces and that does not sound like what Creativity is implied to be.

If we look at child development, I would theorize that Creativity is the oldest side. In the creative process, there are two major steps, first is information absorption, then second is application. The first thing any child must do is learn, anything and everything. The world is a limitless and imaginative playground. New material is around every corner and there it takes a while before the distinction between reality and fiction to be understood. It was probably just c!Thomas and Creativity for a while and as the others emerged, they looked up to him. It could even be potentially argued that Creativity was literally their creators.

This would imply that Aeneas would be a pretty terrible fit for him in that case because there’s nothing broken that he’s trying to salvage. The kingdom is his and c!Thomas’ to preside over with the other sides as his subjects. (c!Thomas being the distant “King” and Creativity being the “Crowned Prince”).

So, with all of that out of the way on why some of these theories are probably wrong, what do I think?

I think Creativity’s name is Hector.

Now, hear me out on this. For those of you who have read the Iliad you probably know exactly who I am referencing. You just may not know why. So stay with me here.

1. First, for those of you who don’t know, Hector was the Crowned Prince of Troy, the leader of the army that the Greeks (the perspective we’re getting) are facing off against. He’s also cousin to Aeneas, but actually accomplished things during the war beyond being saved by Aphrodite. This means he’s also an ancestor to both Romulus and Remus (albeit technically less direct). However, Hector’s family is where the royal lineage of Aeneas comes from. Though we follow the story mainly from the perspective of the Greeks (and the gods because they’re TROLLS), the Greek’s are pretty villainous in a lot of their actions throughout the story and they are most definitely the invaders. In this case, I would liken the Greek army to “outside opinion” for c!Thomas. Others interjecting their views on to someone and breaking his own beliefs. In this situation, Creativity would have been his biggest defender and hero, retreating into magical imaginary worlds to escape judgement.

2. So lets get onto the character and why him, shall we? Hector will literally do anything for his family. The war takes place because his little brother, Paris (one of a whopping 49 brothers mind you) either kidnaps, has Aphrodite kidnap or runs away with the Spartan Queen Helen because he fell in love with her. (It varies on the version and she was forced into her previous marriage at about 13 anyway, so Helen leaving willingly for the guy who the gods deem is the most attractive man alive is a popular modern reading.) It would have been so easy for the Trojans to yeet Helen back to Greece, but they don’t and Hector’s defense of her and his brother is a big reason why. Hector even chastises his brother for the mess he’s caused, but still stands by him and defends him. He also defends the hell out of Helen and refuses to blame her for their problems. Then in Troilus and Criseyde (Basically published Iliad perspective shift fanfiction with OCs) he defends the hell out of Criseyde when even Troilus, (apparently one of the 50 brothers) the person who claims to be in love with her, wont. Hector’s truly an all around good guy, great leader and has a very distinctive and personal moral compass that doesn’t always align with what’s being told to him is right. You want a character representation for someone who led the sides despite their clear struggles? Someone with Roman’s charm and heroism, and Remus’ understanding and drive? Hector is probably it.

3. Hector’s death is both a huge symbol for the end of Troy, but also isn’t? Let me explain, narratively speaking, Hector’s death is the point you know that Troy is basically doomed. His end is the representation of the end of it all. His corpse was literally paraded around as Achilles’s dragged it on the back of a chariot for days to show their doom. There was a distinct “aura” shift from Hector’s death as all of Troy mourned his death. We as an audience know Troy is basically doomed from Hector’s death alone. Hector was a person that even the enemy Greeks hella respected as a warrior and leader. Essentially, this was the point that the war that had been raging for about a decade became serious. At the same time, it just simply isn’t the end of the war. There’s the whole horse thing still to come and all that jazz. Still though, Hector’s death is very much a symbol of “everything changes, but nothing does.” Which is the perfect symbol for the twins split to me. Just because they split doesn’t mean that all of the sides did immediately, yet it was still probably the turning point that drove a wedge between the “dark” and “light” sides.

4. The character Hector arguably died in the name of gay love. Okay, story time. So in the Iliad, Achilles is being a little bitch and refusing to fight anymore because drama between him and the king of Athens, but he’s their best fighter and the Greek’s are basically sorta loosing because of him not helping. His boyf- I mean best friend Patroclus goes out in Achilles armor and leads his army in his place because Achilles is a whiny baby. Except Hector kinda immediately kills Patroclus, thinking he’s Achilles with reinforcements.(This was full body armor baby and distinctive cause baby of a god and all that mocha frappe.) Of course, Achilles has to immediately get angry revenge for his boyf- BEST friend and ends up killing Hector. This would make the character Hector a great metaphor for Creativity if his split had anything to do with sexuality or even acceptance as a whole. (Though we know acceptance is definitely a part of it considering Remus.) We know that Remus wants c!Thomas to explore darker themes and the struggle of sexuality and acceptance could be a possibility in what is to come as a previously “off-limits” theme.

5. A big one is that the destruction of Troy is what eventually brought about the creation of Rome. Essentially Troy would be the metaphor of c!Thomas’ existence/mentality before the sides split into dark/light factions. Then Rome would be the metaphor of c!Thomas’ existence/mentality after the sides split into factions.

6.Finally, the name Hector literally means “to restrain” which would work well for Creativity as he was likely trying to reign in the others from infighting (and you can see how well that went with him being gone). 

Cheers to another rant into the void. Huzzah! God this is nearly as long as some of my seminar papers. Do what you will with this information.

Please keep in mind that I adore Roman as a character. This post isn’t meant to hate on him. It’s meant to bring awareness of the layers of his character. Every Prince Charming was a villain to someone, every hero that slays the beast is a murderer from a different light. 

I don’t bring these things to light to cause pain, I bring them to light to help bring awareness of what’s probably going through his head.

(Yes, in regards to the Creativity being made first thing, I DO even have a theory about existence order, I promise you I have theories about everything. My mind does not stop with this crap. I have theories on everything from what animal association Roman and Logan have to Virgil’s key role in Roman’s backstory. I’ve ranted about a bunch of these things to a few specific people so if you ever want me to go on a rant about anything in particular let me know. I didn’t expect anyone to actually look at the other theory post tbh. Inbox me if you want me to go to unnecessary lengths on something else.)

(Also, correct me on the Patton thing if I’m wrong. I took notes on a recent watch through, but I wasn’t specifically looking for his rejection sooo, if there are other moments of it you can find that didn’t jump out at me I totally accept criticism.)

[ratherashleigh]

yall, katie mcgrath did not one, not two, but three interviews this week. i’m shook.

obligatory supercorp content:

"I think that's why people have taken it to heart, because in us making it our own, I think people have been taking it for themselves. Yes, it's similar to what you've seen before, but only in its infancy. I think where it is now, it's become something individual and it's become something that is just theirs, and it's just the show's, and it's just the fans', which I think is what makes it compelling and what's made it so popular as a relationship, that it just exists now as its own thing."

i think what she means is the fans don’t give a shit what the show does, and that’s okay?

"I feel pretty good this year because Lena may not know, but Alex has lost her memory and if Alex doesn't know that Supergirl is her sister, then I think it's OK that Lena doesn't know," she says. "When that happened, I was like, this is amazing, it's no longer all on my shoulders. Her own sister still can't tell, so I'm fine now. I'm like walking in and feeling great now, now that I'm not the only one who doesn't know."

i can actually imagine katie seeing this and i’m cackling.

"See, this is the thing. You don't have just one person with a loaded gun behind Lena's head. The bullet is the knowledge that Kara is Supergirl, and before, it was Lillian who had that, but now you have Lex, who's even more of an unknown quantity, and he's holding that information, and it's almost the information that will completely destroy Lena. He could pull the trigger anytime, and that's an amazing dramatic point to have in a show of at any time, if that trigger's pulled, what that would mean not only for Lena, but what that would mean for Kara and Supergirl. So it's this sort of extra added switch to a bomb that could go off at any time."The common goal of finding and catching Lex helps bridge Lena's relationship with Kara and her relationship with Supergirl, McGrath says. "That kind of unifies them…so you get a more friendly relationship with Lena and Supergirl then you had for a season and a half, and then at the same time, the betrayal of Eve has had the result that I think Lena becomes a whole lot closer to the people that she does trust, and the main person she trusts is Kara, so ironically what that has done is it has brought her closer and more trusting to Kara, which from a viewer's point of view, because you know that Kara has been keeping a secret from her, is so bittersweet to watch because you see Lena start to rely on her even more, but at the same time you're going, oh god, but only if you knew. So it's just an amazing, dramatic quality and this extra sort of delicious ingredient to this whole storyline."

IT’S FINE I DON’T WANT TO CRY OR ANYTHING.

“If and when she finds out that Kara is Supergirl,” McGrath agrees, looms large over Lena right now. “I can’t tell you when it’s going to happen … but if it did, I think the results of that are utnold for what that could mean for Lena, her psyche, her emotional wellbeing, her friendships.” Unlike the recent betrayal by Eve, with her true friend Kara, “I think it’s a greater betrayal, and I think it will have more lasting results on her.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Ironically, what it does is, rather than make her more wary of the people she trusts, it makes her cling onto them even more. So her relationship with Kara is ultimately strengthened by it because she’s driven toward the people she trusts because she’s had yet another person taken away from her — which, especially with Kara, for the viewer watching it, is so heart-rending because she’s growing closer to the friend who she trusts when ultimately the viewers know that this person is also lying to her, for very good reasons and not to hurt her or anything.

is it stupid to hope that last bit matters?

[When we spoke to you at the end of your first season on the show, you said you were happy that Lena was the only person who didn’t know Kara’s secret because it made their relationship special. Two years later, we find out that even Lex knows her secret. Do you still feel that way, or are you dying to join the club now?] No, I still feel that one of the loveliest parts of the Lena-Kara relationship is that Kara can be human and frail and not a hero with somebody — that she can just be Kara Danvers, rather than having to be Supergirl. I think that’s a wonderful thing for Kara to not always have to be the person who has to solve every problem and face the world. I think she needs that. For as long as it may last, I’m very happy for it to be Lena that has that relationship with her. Up until Alex had her mind wiped, Lena was the only person who could have that relationship with her. For Kara, it’s not the same with Alex because Kara knows what’s missing in the relationship and Alex doesn’t.

and literally none of this answer is about how lena. rip me.

anyway, the wild part of this interview spree is that one of them was with the mary fucking sue.

One such factoid that emerged was that Lena’s birth mother was Irish, like McGrath herself. “This is an illustration about how lovely and sweet our writers are,” McGrath laughed. “They do put in little things for us to make us smile.” Further than that, McGrath gushed, “This is why we’re so lucky with this job, that everybody on it cares about you as a human being.”

mhmm, yeah. that’s why they did that.

In the most recent episode, “House of L,” we learned that Lex, like everyone but Lena at this point, knows Supergirl is Kara Danvers. How did that happen? McGrath theorizes that Lillian Luthor told him. “He didn’t figure it out on his own because he’s no smarter than Lena is,” 

S C R E A M I N G.

Lena knows how to prepare herself for hard days, even so, and some of that preparation comes down to the gorgeous fashion McGrath gets to sport (sometimes in places where a cocktail dress isn’t appropriate, but we’re not complaining). No Lena outfit has made as big an impression lately as the plum three-piece suit she wore to work with her brother: “I think, when a woman wants to feel elegant and powerful but in control, a very beautiful, tailored three-piece suit goes a long way to making you feel that … and I think that was part of what was going on there with Lena.” McGrath actually brought the idea of the suit to the costumers, inspired by photos of Cate Blanchett in suits that were “sill feminine but totally in control.” Indeed, Lex may have his “Lexo suit,” but Lena has perfect couture, and I think we all know which one is better.

this interviewer is all of us. and all of us is gaaaaay.

ew:

At the same time, though, Lena will be dealing with her guilt over, well, everything that’s happened: the mayhem that Lex’s nefarious deeds cause, Red Daughter’s existence, and James experiencing the side effects of the Harun-El serum. But she won’t let that guilt get her down.“A lot of what drives Lena in the second half of the season is this need to fix those wrongs that she feels responsible for,” McGrath says of how Lena will react to Red Daughter. “[This] is an ongoing theme within the show: Her research, [which] is created for good, is taken and perverted, and it is often the source of all evil for the series. This has happened again to her. So much of the world is dealing with the results of her actions again. So she becomes very focused to fix it, and a focused Lena is a force to reckoned with.”

not for nothing, but i keep trying to think of a real world equivalent to this specific conundrum and it’s like... people who build weapons probably don’t operate under any illusions that what they’re doing is going to hurt people if used by the wrong people (and lol that in this instance the wrong hands were lena’s. and by lol i mean holy fuck.) but like... is lena mark zuckerberg?

(also i think this interview was done by email, otherwise it’s super weird that a lot of katie’s quotes include parenthetical asides.)

[I knew Lex was playing Lena, because it’s Lex Luthor — but I found myself sort of wishing he wasn’t, especially in that moment when he tells Lena about the time he met her mother. How did you feel playing that moment?] He had me in tears. I was weeping down my face. We didn’t do that [scene] many times because I was crying so much. In that moment, I think he made Lex very human, and I don’t think we were expecting that. I don’t think we were expecting a vulnerable, human, relatable Lex Luthor, and I think that’s what’s really interesting about what Jon Cryer has done with Lex. He really [shows] all of these very different sides. There are moments, like you said, where you’re like, “Oh, maybe he isn’t a bad guy. Maybe there’s hope for him. Maybe we’re going to see a Lex Luthor that might be a hero.” (And maybe you don’t want to see another person be horrible to Lena, but that might just be me projecting.)

so anyway, i have this headcanon that lena believed using the harun-el on lex would actually fix him in the head, but this makes just feel bad for lena. like, at the end of the day when someone says they need her, she’s going to bend over backwards to provide. ugh :(

I think her confidence is completely shaken, but at the same time, it has hardened her resolve. She is a woman that when she is faced with a problem, she doesn’t retreat from it — she attacks it. Yes, this has completely shaken her, but it has focused her mind to go forward and to fix the problem. Her drive and her focus to fix this is sort of second to none.

please get this girl therapy.

Although Lena and Supergirl are coming at the same issue from different points, they ultimately have the same end goal. They both believe in helping people and the greater good and saving mankind, which are all lofty goals.

good answer. i wish this is where this answer had stopped when she was talking to e. see below.

(What I love about my job is that I can sit here and talk about this like that’s normal. Honestly, sitting here half in my pajamas talking about saving mankind is a good day. But I digress).

look, girl, you’ve put me through the ringer with this series of interviews but lmao i love you.

and finally, e! online.

warning: there’s a clip from the upcoming ep that autoplays right at the top.

ANYWAY THIS INTERVIEW IS THE WORST.

"They both believe in the greater good and helping humanity," McGrath says. "They just come at it from two completely different sides, like the left wing and the right wing, but they ultimately both want the same thing and the search for Eve and this need to catch Lex sort of unites them and you see them all working together, but at the same time in doing that, Lena is still dealing with the secret that she helped Lex, and she has to carry that through as well."

i would like to go back in time and never have read this sentence with my own eyes. ms mcgrath is forbidden from interviews for another two years, thanks bye.

Lena definitely feels some guilt, but she's also been betrayed, and McGrath says we won't see her "totally deal with it.""I think she can't. I think if she starts to unpick it, she'll unravel completely, so what you get instead is it pushing Lena to be extremely focused on catching Lex and catching Eve and a focused Lena Luthor is a very dangerous thing. With her single-minded pursuit, you should be very wary, and I think that's what they've done is rather than her sitting around and unpicking straight away all the stuff that's happened, it's just lit a fire under her to go fix it, because she feels so responsible.

this part is fine. totally fine. katie has some genuinely good insight into lena’s ongoing trauma and how that drives her, BUT THEN.

But not only does she feel responsible, but she can't tell anybody truly 100% why she is responsible, because she would have to admit that she was helping Lex."

EXCEPT NO. NO NO. sorry, this is spoilers from the clip, but LENA WAS GOING TO TELL ALEX. AND ALEX SHUSHED HER. CONFLICT THROUGH INTERRUPTED COMMUNICATION IS HACKERY. don’t defend that shit katie.

"So I will say that the Lena you get in the show is not going to be what you've expected, and a focused Lena is a very dangerous thing, but that doesn't necessarily mean what you think it might mean. Or it could!"

oh no, she’s totally drunk the kool-aid.

"I don't know if I could like, hold my own in a scene with Jon Cryer and Brenda Strong. I think I would just like, melt into a puddle of Katie on the floor and just be like, I don't know what I'm doing, you guys just talk and I'll watch over in the corner."

giiiiiiiiirl.

also whoever wrote this kept spelling it Tessmacher.