#character introspection.

[mad-hunts]

[ruporas]

your love returns in tragedy (ID in alt)

[wolfythewitch]

Stop adapting the iliad and the Odyssey into movies. You'll never succeed. Adapt them into shounen anime, as is their god given right

[littlebitofdnd]

One teensy thing I've noticed about Rashawn's portrayal of Viola is a strong sense of naïveté. Her language isn't exclusively childlike, but it's all very sweet and very restricted.

This occurred to me because I remembered a few months ago when everyone was analyzing Amy March saying "You're being Mean" in the 2019 Little Women, and I think there's something about that line of thinking that so intrinsically captures a part of Viola.

"I don't like that at all." In the most recent episode comes to mind, but another thing is that Viola almost always calls Ava mama, while Tula only calls Ava mama when she's being more vulnerable.

Rashawn really stresses Viola's role as a younger sister, and I think it actually makes her a really interesting parallel to Jaysohn.

Lila is a very strong, independent character, who, despite her outbursts, is actually very reserved, and has no real interest in power, much like her mother, but Jaysohn is not.

Jaysohn goes into the classroom and immediately decides he wants followers, trusts his mother implicitly instead of doubting her (like Lila, and, by extension, Tula) and is a truly social creature. Jaysohn in the classroom is such a mirror to Viola in episode 1 with the Lukura in some ways.

Jaysohn, though, is the biggest character for a parallel, so take everything about him with a grain of salt. Jaysohn is simultaneously Thorn, Viola, and Ava.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Thinking again about the darknesses that lurk underneath the surface of Sense and Sensibility (I have talked before about how Edward despite being the eldest is subjected to what we can argue is emotional and financial abuse by his family for years, and how the Dashwood women are disinherited on a whim of their great uncle), and this time specifically about the Brandons.

We get so little about them, and what we do get about them is all bad:

This lady was one of my nearest relations, an orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father... At seventeen she was lost to me for ever. She was married—married against her inclination to my brother. Her fortune was large, and our family estate much encumbered. And this, I fear, is all that can be said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian. My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love her... I have never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few hours of eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my cousin’s maid betrayed us. I was banished to the house of a relation far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement, till my father’s point was gained... My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly.

Mr Brandon Sr is shown to us as being a greedy man, a bad administrator of his estate, and a cruel father. His first son seems cut of the same cloth, and his pleasures were not what they ought to have been is one of the most, if not the most sinister line between all the Austen novels. But there's more about him!:

Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it, that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to dispose of it for some immediate relief.

The Brandons were married for two years; the colonel returns to England and starts looking for her 3 years later. Young Eliza was then a 3 year old toddler. We are obliquely told that Brandon cut all ties with his brother:

It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I had no family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at school. I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my brother, (which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford.

Eliza is now 17, so the eldest brother died when she was 14, which is 16 years after his marriage with the older Eliza. In that period of time, he managed to squander the whole of her fortune, and put the estate in debt again, as we are told earlier on by Mrs Jennings:

Poor man! I am afraid his circumstances may be bad. The estate at Delaford was never reckoned more than two thousand a year, and his brother left everything sadly involved. I do think he must have been sent for about money matters, for what else can it be? I wonder whether it is so. I would give anything to know the truth of it. Perhaps it is about Miss Williams and, by the bye, I dare say it is, because he looked so conscious when I mentioned her. May be she is ill in town; nothing in the world more likely, for I have a notion she is always rather sickly. I would lay any wager it is about Miss Williams. It is not so very likely he should be distressed in his circumstances now, for he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must have cleared the estate by this time. I wonder what it can be! May be his sister is worse at Avignon, and has sent for him over. His setting off in such a hurry seems very like it. Well, I wish him out of all his trouble with all my heart, and a good wife into the bargain.”

We know the Bennets, with five daughters, and without a saving mindset, still manage to live very comfortably with 2000 a year, and if they had had any mind to save money, they could have provided all five of them with decent dowries/money enough to keep them out of poverty when their father died if they were single. It is clearly not that the money isn't enough, or that Delaford is an unproductive estate; in fact, it is described to us as almost paradisiac:

Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you; exactly what I call a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered with the best fruit-trees in the country; and such a mulberry tree in one corner! Lord! how Charlotte and I did stuff the only time we were there! Then, there is a dove-cote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a very pretty canal; and every thing, in short, that one could wish for; and, moreover, it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike-road, so ’tis never dull, for if you only go and sit up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all the carriages that pass along. Oh! ’tis a nice place! A butcher hard by in the village, and the parsonage-house within a stone’s throw. To my fancy, a thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they are forced to send three miles for their meat, and have not a neighbour nearer than your mother.

One interesting character, though forgotten because only mentioned in passing, is the Brandon sister. On one of the quotes above we get that she's in Avignon for her health, and we know her husband is wealthy (and probably abroad with her) because it is his estate that the planned picnic is for:

A party was formed this evening for going on the following day to see a very fine place about twelve miles from Barton, belonging to a brother-in-law of Colonel Brandon, without whose interest it could not be seen, as the proprietor, who was then abroad, had left strict orders on that head. The grounds were declared to be highly beautiful, and Sir John, who was particularly warm in their praise, might be allowed to be a tolerable judge, for he had formed parties to visit them, at least, twice every summer for the last ten years. They contained a noble piece of water; a sail on which was to form a great part of the morning’s amusement; cold provisions were to be taken, open carriages only to be employed, and every thing conducted in the usual style of a complete party of pleasure.

It is implied that Brandon and his BIL are in very good terms (and we know he's not afraid of cutting ties with bad relatives), and one can safely guess that at the very least he cares enough about his wife as to have her travel for her health. Another guess can be made about her getting married about 10 years before the events of the book. Whether she lived at home before that, or was at school or somewhere else, it isn't said.

But this way you can feel there's a parallel in a way, between the Brandons and the Tilneys: a greedy, cruel father, a son that follows on his steps, and a younger brother and sister managing the toxicity as best they can. Talking about this with @bad-at-names-and-faces, she brought up the idea that in that scheme, Cathy would be Eliza (if it wasn't her not being an orphan, or a rich heiress, and how that connects with Austen's line about Cathy not being born to be a heroine at the beginning of Northanger Abbey). Certainly part of it is the romantic gothicness of the Brandon backstory, united with NA's commentary on Gothic tropes, but to me it drove home with even greater force how such a situation would break a man; losing Cathy that way would have definitely broken Tilney, and if we had met him 14 years down the line, would he have appeared to the unacquainted much different than Brandon appeared to the Dashwood sisters?

[bibuck-saved-me]

it’s a selfish thought and arthur knows it because merlin has spent so much time hiding a vital part of his existence, his very being, all because of arthur. so he presses it down into the deepest recesses of himself and focuses on doing everything he can to support merlin, to give merlin the world he deserves. a world where he is free.

but sometimes, when he’s alone in his room surrounded by his endless responsibilities, he will think to himself, i am nothing.

merlin and the old religion hold him as this once and future king, but no matter what they say, he can’t understand why they think any of this is about him. it was never him. everything he’d done, every accomplishment and fight he’d won had never been his to claim. he was a fraud. he was a lonely king with nothing to his name beyond the blood on his hands, the blood staining his every crevice.

he isn’t the once and future king. he doesn’t deserve any of the praise. he is the moon, a piece of rock in the sky that shines only because of the sun. without the sun, the moon is worthless. without the sun, no one would have ever looked at the moon twice.

arthur had never been proud of his mistakes and his inaction when it came to his father’s slaughter, but he had been proud of the things he had done to keep his kingdom and his people safe and healthy and happy. he has fought and fought and fought only to discover he had never even landed a punch. every knockout, every victory he had held up to hide the ugly nothingness of his true, empty self was never his to hold. with the discovery of merlin’s magic, any worthiness he thought he’d earned had slipped through his fingers like sand through a sieve.

merlin is beautiful and powerful. merlin is a god amongst men, a gift given to this world, given to arthur, and for what?

this prophecy for arthur was always about merlin. he carried the weight, he fought and fought and fought and he won, merlin was the one who had carried this kingdom on his back until they reached the safety of the golden era of the current day.

it’s a selfish thought, to be thinking of himself in relation to merlin’s magic when merlin has suffered every single day because of arthur. and yet, in those moments, he can’t help but wonder why he was born at all, why he was named savior of a group of people who would’ve never died if only he had stayed unmade, a whisper of nothingness in his mother’s womb.

his first breath caused a massacre, a genocide, and yet he was given an angel and a title and a prophecy of greatness he could never actually fulfill.

he would never tell merlin about these thoughts he had. merlin would end up feeling guilty somehow, would carry the weight of arthur’s worthlessness even more by taking on the deserved revulsion arthur had for himself.

no, he couldn’t tell merlin about this. merlin would tell him he was wrong, would try to talk him up and fix it. would use that endless kindness to tell arthur endless stories about his own importance. merlin would shine his sunshine on arthur until arthur forgot he was just a lump of rock. he wouldn’t rest until arthur loved himself, until arthur took all the credit for merlin’s own accomplishments again.

no, he would keep this to himself. he would give merlin the attention and love he deserves. this story isn’t actually about arthur pendragon. it never was.

[shyjusticewarrior]

[moonsnqil]

trying to explain to my best friend that while aftg is a mafia book, the mafia isn't even the most prevalent theme and how really it's a love story at it's core but not in a fairytale way rather in the way horror movies are love stories

[theonceandfuturequeenoftarts]

Sometimes when Harry looks at Tom, he's reminded of a lesson one of his muggle teachers gave on reptiles. Chameleons that can change their skin colour to blend into their surroundings or anoles that shed their tails to distract a predator and escape – adapting in order to survive, no matter what it takes.

Harry is himself, to a fault. He spent so long beaten down and trying to disappear so he wouldn’t draw his relatives’ ire that he now refuses to hide or apologise for who he is and what he wants. It probably helps that his wants are pretty basic – good food, good friends, a warm, comfortable place to live, someone to love him – and that he inherited the money and name to easily achieve them.

Tom, on the other hand, is so used to being smoke and mirrors and disguising what he wants and what he is in order to pretend to be what others want or need. 

He’d been unapologetically (and tyrannically) himself in his childhood, his magic giving him the power to exert his will over others. But Tom is brilliant and a quick learner, and his first interaction with Dumbledore, which he’d described late one night to Harry when the shadows hid both their faces, had proven a subtler touch might be needed.

Now, Tom reflects other peoples’ desires back at them in order to draw them in, and deflects the conversation away from himself so he never has to clearly define his own position. He doesn’t change himself, but everyone seems to believe Tom is on their side – that they’re on the same page. And because of his power and charm and good looks, everyone wants Tom on their side.

Harry has seen this happen many, many times, and he’s still in awe of how Tom affably manipulates those around him into doing what he wants. How Tom determines what someone wants, says just enough to convince them he does too without committing to anything, and twists that connection into a shape that best suits him.

In fact, the only reason Harry believes Tom actually likes him is because Tom never pretends to be what he thinks Harry wants him to be. Tom is petty and says cruel things and lets Harry see him when he’s less than perfectly put together. And Harry treasures each of Tom’s sharp edges, because he’s the only one who gets to see him as he is. He hoards each truth and preference that Tom chooses to share with him like a squirrel preparing for a long, hard winter.

The trouble comes when people talk to Harry about Tom. By virtue of association, Harry’s had to learn to deflect and prevaricate and lie, though he’s still not very good at it. He does a lot of nodding and smiling and making thoughtful “hmm” sounds as people ask him what Tom thinks of this or that. It’s easier than keeping Tom’s machinations straight in his head.

There are moments when Harry isn’t sure Tom even knows who he is at his core. He is so meticulous about his public persona that Harry doubts anyone else knows which foods Tom actually likes (given the chance, Tom would eat ice cream every day), or what he actually thinks about quidditch (he finds it unbearably dull), or what he thinks of muggles (he’ll never be fond of them due to his treatment as a child, but he doesn’t particularly care beyond that) or muggleborns (new blood is necessary for the magical world to continue, but the mages with the deepest pockets are the most bigoted and ‘traditional’) or purebloods (gullible).

And after the tenth meal of eating foods he doesn’t like, or the fifth quidditch match or ministry event or pureblood soirée in a week, or the nth political tapdance before the Wizengamot, pretending to represent everyone’s interests at once without alienating anyone – and quietly getting his own agenda voted through – Harry has to wonder how Tom stays sane. How it all seems worth it. It certainly doesn’t to Harry.

But that’s Tom. Ambitious to a fault, and willing to sacrifice almost anything in order to achieve his goals.

And whatever other people might think, Harry’s not naive. He knows there’s a chance Tom is lying to him, too. He knows it’s possible – even likely – that Tom figured out that the best way to get Harry on his side would be to give him the best illusion of the truth. Show him some darkness and Harry will believe he’s getting honesty. He’s made his peace with this and decided he’d rather give Tom the benefit of the doubt and be a fool than abandon the other man when he’d chosen to be vulnerable with Harry.

So, when Harry brings home Indian takeaway and offers Tom a bite of his rogan josh, only for Tom to casually say, “I don’t really like lamb,” Harry is fascinated and utterly thrilled.

Especially since he’d seen Tom eat lamb chops at a dinner party two weeks ago with nary a moment of hesitation or complaint.

Harry makes sure to leave plenty of the chicken tikka masala for Tom and mentally notes this new preference down. He’s collected a new fact about Tom.

He spends the rest of the meal with a silly little grin on his face.

[myokk]

Ominis Gaunt has always suspected he is cold-blooded.

It makes sense, really

He always seems to be cold: frigid, long fingers that are often stiff and difficult to move; goosebumps raising the skin of his arms and the back of his neck whenever he walks through the drafty halls of the dungeons; even his eyes, he has been told, are reminiscent of ice. They are apparently quite unsettling.

His whole life has been defined by punishments and sometimes he preoccupies himself with the thought that it is the only way he can view the world. Some of the punishments are manifested in curses he inherited from his family. (His parents and Marvolo insist that they are gifts, but Ominis begs to differ.)

(an excerpt from an Ominis POV WIP I have been working on FOREVER & writer’s block is Tormenting me😔🙏)

[sing-you-fools]

"Oh, shit, I'm Moist," I say as I paint my pants gold, completely oblivious to the absolute horror of those around me, who are not, in fact, Discworld fans

[buckleydiazmp4]

not to get all "actually☝️" about it but. the whole point of this is the fact that it isn't at all eddie's fault and buck just doesn't know how to properly process or recognize his feelings and know what he's missing *until* he gets presented with a specific situation. in truth buck has no right to be mad at eddie for building bonds with other ppl and it's why he has to do some introspection. this is not a "oh no poor buck eddie apologize to him!!!" thing, it's about buck getting, for lack of a better term, a good emotional humbling. eddie deserves good friendships and relationships, full stop. and if he likes the way he feels when he hangs out with tommy then great!! he's his own person and not a tool to further buck's character. but you also can't expect buck to immediately recognize that because, again, and for the millionth time, the whole POINT is that he doesn't. so if it has to get ugly and uncomfortable and embarrassing for him to do so then that is what will happen and that doesn't make either of them bad people. this is not a blame to be passing around. it's just them being human beings

[confused-stars]

i need to actually remember for my writing that my main hc for why Childe is Like That is that he saw something real and true just once in his life and has been chasing that high ever since despite it being a massively traumatizing experience

kind of like a very weird Lovecraft protagonist

[xbomboi]

ugh the murky relationship between raven and faybelle has so much potential to delve into…

can’t wait 😋

[douglasanondr]

Y'know Lemres probably doesn't know why Schezo is the Dark Mage, he just know that he is one. I feel like if he did, he'd probably have a panic attack, knowing his past compared to Schezo's. He's to much of an empath to not be concerned.

Anyway, on the topic of the comic at hand. This whole comic hinges on an idea I've had for a while now, less an idea and more a question

[Does Schezo still consider himself Human?]

Not in a, Schezo thinks himself as to high and mighty to be lumped with plain humans, more of a with everything Schezo is, his abilities, his goals, his very existence, can he still consider himself human?

Schezo as a person cannot be considered normal by any means. he is a recluse, extremely socially awkward, the closest thing this series has to a cannibal, probably has enough power to destroy everything if it wasn't for a.) his moral compass and b.) how easy it is to stop him at any point, the guy's a mess.

But if there's one thing I've noticed about him, he never really antagonizes any of the monster characters in the series (please correct me if I'm wrong), unlike every other person he meets. He still gets mad at some of them, but he never actively engages against them unless they make the first move. Hell, his closes friend is literally a Siren. Honestly, disregarding his neutral stance on monsters, he seems to have a much easier time befriending anything that isn't a human than the other way around. (ie: Dongurigaeru, Tenori Zoh, Lynx, Onion Pixie)

It's not like he has a choice, for one he's was extremely antisocial even as a kid, with the exception of his family he never really made an attempt to connect to people. Secondly, because of his abilities his prime targets are always going to be mages, who will most likely be human. It's not like he can change either, he's already to used to the fact that he has to drain magic out of people, he can't just decide to stop, it takes time. Not to mention the people he is close to aren't exactly okay with change. Arle and Satan have both gone on record stating they like the status quo the way it is now. Schezo just deciding to reject being the Dark Mage is such a massive change that they might be uncomfortable with, even if it greatly benefits Schezo.

So until the day he dies, which will be when another Dark Mage is chosen. He will always be the Dark Mage he is now. A magic eating, cannibalistic mage recluse, who isolates himself from humanity and finds comfort more in the creatures surrounding him. Maybe this is just what he's meant to be.

Maybe he's just meant to be a monster.