#at least in this worldview

[anghraine]

elizabethwydevilles replied to this post:

'Most "corrections" of Padmé's characterization I've seen essentially want to make her [...] not a tragic figure except by wild mischance or the missteps of other characters.' I honestly think people have a really hard job accepting that the prequels are a tragedy for *everyone* involved (except Palps). You see it in response to characters like Obi-Wan; the refusal to engage with the idea that a character can try their best and still screw up is hard to swallow.

Yes, very much so! In some ways it's even more marked with Obi-Wan, I feel, because ROTJ so clearly set him up as someone who failed tragically in the prequel era and who took away the wrong lessons from his own mistakes. OT/PT Obi-Wan is a kind, self-sacrificing, and well-meaning person who is not motivated by malice, but there is a moral arrogance to him, a hubris, that plays a significant role in the larger tragedy he is part of and that hubris lingers in the OT even after his death (with potential for further tragedy!).

I think there's a temptation to cast all these characters with fundamentally tragic flaws as solely victims or villains, but an important aspect of this kind of tragedy IMO is how these kinds of flaws collide and contribute to something far worse than any of its parts. The kinds of mistakes and flaws that we see in these characters lead to consequences that are both inevitable and unpredictable; no single one of these tragic figures could independently control or foresee what was going to result from all these different dynamics and maneuverings and choices, but at the same time, these choices do inexorably lead towards disaster. So you get the "well [x tragic choice] isn't what really caused the tragedy, because Palpatine" or "we need to fix [x tragic choice] because it makes the character Bad" without really engaging with the complicity (conscious or unconscious) of all these characters and the significance of their complicity to what the PT is doing as a story.

I don't object to "I want to imagine a happy ending for my faves" at all, btw—I do that all the time and it's not what I'm getting at. But when it comes to insisting that something must have been what "really" happened for the story to "make sense" or be "fixed" in the face of all evidence and basics of story structure, I find it tedious.

[originalaccountname]

Thinking about Chuuya surprising Dazai several times by doing something unexpected and wondering if it's less that Chuuya is unpredictable and more that Dazai consistantly underestimates/expects less from Chuuya

It's hard to put into words, but looking back at those time Dazai was taken aback by Chuuya, it was when Dazai thought Chuuya was shallow (Arahabaki reveal), Chuuya was impulsively vengeful (about killing N), or Chuuya was selfish (about refusing to use Corruption to fight Guivre). Yes, there are more layers and nuances than that, but it still comes around to Dazai attributing the wrong motivations to Chuuya and being surprised when things don't happen as he had assumed. Meanwhile, as the reader being given the gift of retrospect and narrator commentary, it's easy to see that all of Chuuya's actions are perfectly in line with his character.

So I think it's perhaps less Chuuya's unpredictableness and more Dazai, known for reading people like open books, being singularly bad at understanding what truly drives Chuuya. Something something the way they oppose each other is why they hate each other because they don't understand why the other is the way he is.

[avpdculture]

(suspected) avpd culture is making a lot of mistakes (sometimes the same ones over and over) with the person who's been your best friend for two years (not very long but my life has not been very long in general) and every time it happens and they get upset because of it you spiral worse than last time because it feels like This Time it will be the end . their patience will run out, because it can't last forever. that's literally impossible, especially with you on the other end making the mistakes slowly ruining their life with maybe even your very Existence

but your spiraling with every little mistake makes their problem worse as well but at this point you're too far gone to just suddenly get Better from the panic you think it may even be a Part of how you are and function unfortunately

so you think you might just be Doomed to perhaps not have friends or ruin your existing friendships or something even though they still keep helping you and forgiving you over and over

~

[scintillyyy]

- from chuck dixon's interview for the batman universe

i do find it fascinating that dennis o'neil gave dixon the "framework" for tim's first mini-series and he worked out a plot with what instruction he was given because of the implication of how much of it was o'neil's decision as far as the basics and dixon was merely working within the characters he was given to make a plot that would fit what was ultimately *o'neil's* vision for a tim drake mini.

[amxthystiine]

RAHHHH IM NOT DEAD I HAVENT BURNT OUT TRUST

Canto VII is going absolutely insane rn GOD I hate THAT stage you know the one took me a day to complete it

BUT RAHHHH IM BACK!!! SELF INSERT UPON YE

I’ve been stewing on her lore a bit and have a possible scene that could play out in my mind but ye!!

[quietwingsinthesky]

of ten’s companions, if the doctor couldn’t handle losing them and crossed his own timeline to trick them into traveling with future!him instead of past!him so that he’d have a little more time with them:

rose would do it. first because bless her but she has the situational awareness of a rock, and legitimately would not realize this isn’t her doctor until his facade starts to break down and he starts bleeding grief-laced love for her at every turn. but once she does realize it, she’s both deeply sympathetic and a little scared that she could make him into this. it’s a lot to be confronted with having that much power over someone, to break them so thoroughly. rose would try to get back to her doctor, but while she’s with the future version, she tries to do what she can to ease his pain. (she also tries to figure out a way to subvert her fate. she fails.)

i think martha would be harder to trick. she can smell desperation on the doctor like a bloodhound. she is so tapped into the fact that this man wants to off himself so bad and that she’s 90% of his self-restraint, so present her with a doctor who is lacking that and she’s onto him immediately. however, assuming he gets her to come with him, explains why he’s doing this, there’s like. a minute where she’s kind of. not flattered exactly, but surprised, giddy with the realization that he’d come back for a little more time with her, especially if this is early season 3 martha. which would all come crashing down around the time that he reveals that he wasn’t pushed to this by losing her to some tragedy or her death or anything- but that she chose to leave. that is the point at which martha goes ‘oh i need to get the fuck off of this tardis right now’ and ghosts the past!doctor that she was also traveling with because holy shit, man.

donna, like rose, is easily bamboozled into following the wrong doctor home, provided that he shuffles her along into his tardis too fast for her to argue. but she catches on far quicker than rose does. like, three minutes tops of watching the doctor move through the tardis in a way that’s definitely not enthusiastic piloting and looks more like guilty panic. and then she yells at him for lying to her. and she yells at him for kidnapping her. and then she stops yelling because he’s gone sort of still and quiet and his eyes are just broken. and he doesn’t explain himself, he confesses. donna is going to try to stay with him after this btw. because how do you go back to looking your best friend in the eyes when you know he’d take everything you’ve become away from you, even to save your life? and this is still the doctor, he still did that to her, but he regrets it. regrets it so much that he can’t live with it, he’s breaking time and space just to hear her say his name again. and donna doesn’t want to lose him anymore than he wanted to lose her.

[pa-pa-plasma]

so funny to me that when OPLA came out there were genuinely people in the tag saying this series isn't queer when this plot relevant drag queen gay club owner is canonically running around handing out free HRT & telling people to be gay do crime & also shit like this:

[cowboy-robooty]

im not going to lie guys. haruhi lives up to the hype. you all should really watch it if you get the chance it really is that good

[just-to-kill-time]

my dear fellow ghesties who went to the other skeletour shows - i need to ask you about something!!

SPOILERS FOR SKELETOUR UNDER THE CUT I GUESS

okay so i just need to know: did they play Miserere 13 min before the start of the show in other cities as well? or was it just Poland? cause i am so emotional about this.

[margindoodles2407]

we can talk about my views on shipping later but i think there is a trope i've pioneered

and it's almost like forbidden love but. not quite

and it's called "i love you so much and so deeply but the circumstances of our lives have aligned such that we are not supposed to be together, so i am going to willingly sacrifice being in a romantic relationship with you as the ultimate expression of my love and respect for you"

[shrikeseams]

When you idly think about Celegorm possibly being most like Nerdanel of all the sons of Feanor, and then you start thinking about Nerdanel getting a post-Darkening moral decay arc all of her own to mirror her son(s)'s.

[dontcallm3ang3l]

friendly reminder not to follow me or reblog from me if you're a radfem blog. your ideology is toxic and I want nothing to do with you. get well soon.

[clonerightsagenda]

While discussing the Thomas Aquinas relic I started thinking ok, if saints are dead humans who occasionally show up to chat with people and stuff, are they ghosts?? Does that count? My formerly Catholic father had no answer to this so I brought out the big guns (googled Catholic Q&A websites) and I'm having a great time

What is the difference between talking to a saint and talking to a ghost? In both cases the saint and ghost have passed on; therefore, they both are a spirit. So what difference does it make if one spirit is in heaven and the other is in my house?

What is the difference? According to Catholic Answers.com occult contact with the dead (seances, ouija boards) are bad but chatting with saints is fine. Our God-fearing, beautiful faith vs. their wicked lawless necromancy, etc etc.

Then I got to the diocese of Lincoln Nebraska, which was incredibly confident about the whole thing

It is commonly accepted that these souls are souls in Purgatory who God, in His infinite Wisdom and Mercy, allows to appear to the living to prompt the living to pray for them.

Is it commonly accepted??? God really shooed the dead out the cat flap to tell them to remind everyone to say their prayers

A common assertion amongst experts is that, because seeking knowledge from a ghost or spirit is a violation of the First Commandment, souls in Purgatory that manifest will not talk or, if they do, they will only say yes when asked if they need prayers. If they appear visibly they will appear as fully human and unobscured, which is different from demonic spirits who may appear human, but only with some aspect obscured, or incompletely.

According to Catholic experts in this area, the way to distinguish between a soul that desires prayers and a demonic spirit is that souls do not do things that are scary or destructive

whipping out my ghosts vs. demons field guide

This is why, if we ever are confronted with something we believe to be a ghost, we should only ever offer to pray for them and leave it at that. Do not engage with them any more than that and certainly, do not do anything that they may ask you to do.

Thank you Catholic diocese of Lincoln Nebraska with your PSA of 'if you see a ghost, Just Say No'

[luxurystark-jackson]

so dean’s two for two on having misconceptions about his parents’ personalities and motives. gosh

[arbitrarygreay]

Writers like to play with Alder being old-fashioned, usually with regards to courting (even though the point of the witches' Pagan background is to reject that mindset and embrace queer shamelessness, but whatever), but one aspect I have yet to see anyone acknowledge is the older attitude towards war. Abigail's beliefs about glory did not come from nowhere, she absorbed them from the role models around her, from those highest up trickling down. She walked into Alder's office in the pilot, thinking based on her past experiences with Alder that her description of Raelle would garner Alder's sympathy. Alder herself speaks of glory many times during the show, including in contexts that make it clear that it is genuinely her personal belief, not just public propaganda for morale's sake. Her rebuke to Abigail was not that Raelle could offer other things besides being a soldier, but that everyone could rise to military excellence. In her opening speech in 1x1, she says that her deal with the Massachusetts Bay Militia was that "we will win your wars". Not defend, win. An emphasis on offense, on beating the opponent. Not a maintenance of peace, but a support of active conquest. Alder may have helped the creation of the Cession, but all of that land had to be taken by the US in the first place in order for them to be able to cede it. I will grant that there are more modern phrases in both 1x1 and her speech through Wade in 1x9. "to protect and defend" "to serve and defend" "cooperation, protect, restore peace" And yet, what are those sentiments surrounded by? "wipe the Spree from the face of the earth for good" "There is no middle ground. There is only one side now." "eliminate a threat with decisive finality". And, uh, while it may be tasteless to make comparisons to recent events in our world, this literally happens right after Alder had her soldiers do the opposite of rescue hostages in favor of killing the enemy, and then lied to everyone about who were the perpetrators. This isn't Alder bashing. What I'm saying is that I want to see a portrayal of Alder in fanfic that stays true to this characterization, that she comes from an era where the horrors of war only added to the glory one gained from them, where military commanders led from the front and relished the opportunity to triumph over their opponent. Where performance on the field was the standard by which they measured their respect for others. It's okay that Xena got to have excited smiles of anticipation about her fights. Alder focused the Accords on a specific purpose, rather than allowing for any other application of their powers (e.g. manufacturing, construction, agriculture, medical), because she herself much more prefers the scourge to the plow. There is zero indication in any second of canon, especially in season 1, that Alder was tired of the fight. At most she was annoyed that others kept trying to hold her back. To her, being a soldier is empowering.

[fure-dcmk]

OP HOW ARE WE FEELING....... THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ALL AROUND...... genuinely distraught... someone take dcmk away from gosho fr...

sorry anon the tone of this ask are not specifically directed to you, its more to the general KS posts i've been seeing on my fyp

don't plan to address this since im not even a KS account but i'm starting to get peeved seeing a bunch of ppl act victimized like gosho did that cuz he personally hates KS shippers

i'm a huge gosho aoyama hater myself but come on that man probably thinks there's nothing wrong with first cousin dating in the first place (addendum one: shuake, addendum two: hanzawa love interest being his own countryside cousin) i'd even dare to say based on his unintentional world view its him encouraging KS shippers instead

for this account i'll make sure to tag any future KS to avoid icking those bothered by the reveal but for the record any KS made by me are not closely related