#essay c

[notrobinsomethingworse]

Tim: What Are your opinions on Charles Dickens?

Jason: I’m not writing your essay.

Tim: I’ll give you the location of Black Masks drug stash you’ve been looking for.

Jason: I just got that case! How did you-

Tim: Do you want it or not?

Jason: …

Jason: Fine.

[bleue-flora]

It’s kinda interesting how Dream logging on pretty much always caught people’s attention in an ominous way, meanwhile Technoblade logging on pretty much always caught people’s attention in a comical and funny way. Like if either of them logged on people noticed but the anticipation was for different reasons. (Like so much so that when Dream was being silly on Puffy’s stream, she kept wondering if there was ulterior motives and stuff…)

Even Techno’s enemies didn’t fear him as much as Dream. Like their plan to kill Dream was to stab him in back when he was armorless for the festival, and later clingy duo’s plan was sneaking in the middle of the night to slit his throat in his sleep, which are quite the contrast to showing up to Techno’s doorstep requesting he come to their trial. I mean Sam and Quackity literally thought Techno would enter the prison not expecting it to be a trap.

And there’s also the suprise whenever Techno does what he says and goes against them. Their suprise when Techno blows up L’manberg either time as if that isn’t what you’d do to get revenge and protect yourself from a second trial and as if that isn’t what an anachist would do if you tried to set up a government right in front of him. Versus, I hardly remember many moments when anyone questions Dream. Like sure Tommy asks why but it’s not out of curiosity or suprise, he already made up his mind on the answer. And like even back to the first L’manberg war there are few characters who are actually surprised by Dream’s declaration of war as if that’s expected. There just seem to be few moments where people try to reason with him as if they think there’s a chance he won’t go through with it. I mean they believe the item vault despite its nonsensical elements, they aren’t surprised. Not in the way they are for Techno or Punz’s later reveal.

What’s kinda funny though, is that in reality, Techno killed far more people than Dream did, especially in the wars. So if they were going to fear anyone it should have been the guy who fought multiple battles against whole groups and won and was being encouraged by a chorus of voices for blood, not some homeless teletubby. And yet, on their own with no specific circumstances Technoblade joined the game never drew the same fear and anticipation as Dream joined the game.

[etirabys]

a frustrating thing about battle royale stories is that they take place in a world where there's a massive popular appetite to see torture and death, the existence of this appetite is the main moral evil of the story (so far so fine), and the author tends to pretend this is also a huge problem in our world so that their work can stand as a Commentary On Real Evil. when the world their actual readership lives in has the opposite problem – too squeamish about seeing torture and death and coercion and collectively agrees to sequester it out of view so that nice things can keep being available for under five dollars at the grocery store

[vfx-batman]

Considering every attempt at bringing Jason Todd back as a villain (Dixon’s AU attempt in ‘96, Loeb’s Hush attempt in ‘03, + Winick’s successful UTH attempt in ‘04-5) was predicated on retconning Jaybin into someone that he wasn’t, I actually don’t think you can remove Red Hood from the discussion of how DC write Jason as a child. You can prefer one over the other if you want, but Red Hood + all his problems only exist because DC needed to villainise Jason Todd somewhere along his character history to prove that Jaybin’s death was a net positive.

The second Robin receiving an embryonic Red Hood-ification in Cheer, Robin Lives + apparently Lemire’s Robin + Batman was the whole point of Jason coming back as a Bad Guy to begin with. And at a stroke, it returns us to Marv Wolfman + Dixon’s classist victim-blaming narrative. And to their intended goal — to blatantly overwrite Jason Todd’s actual character with stereotypes to preserve the Batman + Robin power fantasy.

[thatstoomanysausages]

Does anyone ever think really hard about Grian's inability to team? To stick with the same people he'd allied with at first after it shows the slightest hint of going downhill? Or about everyone's knowledge to be weary with teaming with Grian as he's notoriously disloyal with his teammates?

Cause the gutting thing is, he isn't. He isn't disloyal. He doesn't have an inability. In fact, I'd argue he is one of the few people who are tragically loyal to a fault, at least in most cases.

In Last Life, although he killed both Jimmy and Mumbo, he still felt the need to return to his allies after he'd turned red, feeling betrayed when they threw him out for being red. After that, he stuck with Joel and didn't dare betray him.

In Double Life, although he cheated on Scar and constantly complained, he stuck by Scar almost obsessively. His aim to protect him, even if he said it was for his own benefit, was painful. He didn't try to leave Scar behind like Cleo or Scott, he didn't try to sever the bond between him and Scar, nothing. It was almost like he was desperate.

In Limited Life, he was beyond loyal to his boys. He was loyal until the very end. And although he immediately switched to join the Nosy Neighbours, he didn't try to team with anyone permanently until Jimmy and Joel were dead. His silence when he realised he was truly the last Bad Boy was deafening. He hid his grief by saying that he had a backup team, just to save face, even though he built a gravestone for both boys and grieved them meaningfully.

In Secret Life, it wasn't as if he was fine with having no allied, like someone would be if they truly didn't care for loyalty, he was desperate once again. Having no teammates later in the game would hurt him, yes, but his desperation felt lonely, not power hungry. He didn't dare betray Etho nor Cleo, and stuck by them until the end. He was losing his mind on his hill before he teamed with the two, he needed to have close allies to depend on.

Now, in Wild Life, Mumbo is out of the series and Grian goes to say he needs to find some more friends, even with Skizz still around. Now, I don't think this is a power play thing, it's a desperation thing. He's hiding his grief by pretending everything is fine because if it wasn't he'd be vulnerable. For the past couple sessions, he had been working tirelessly to help get Skizz a kill so he could get off of being a red life, even to his own detriment.

Grian doesn't half ass teams. He will not team with everyone. However, he gets vulnerable when the ones that he connects to die.

Because that's how it went about in 3rd Life. He allied with Scar throughout the whole game, it starting simply because Grian felt guilty about what he'd done to Scar. He felt guilty. He stuck with him the whole game, undying loyalty, and all it ended in was him standing at the top with his best friend's blood drying on his hands.

To him, being loyal to someone like he was in 3rd Life ended badly. So, to avoid that, he found a way to still stay teamed with people, but not be left at the top of that mountain again, alone, even if his teammates die.

But so far, the curse keeps following him. He will always outlive his teammates. And this season is following the pattern, again, Mumbo dying right in front of his eyes, so close, yet so far. Always in a distance where he could've done something different, and he'd still have a teammate.

He may move from person to person, but only when they are dead or reject him. He is the forever Widow, cursed to always face his consequences, over and over and over again.

[bucca2]

okay not to wax poetic about a minor side character in Skyrim that annoys the fuck out of most people, but it really does sadden me that most people are like “he’s annoying, kill him!” and then do no self reflection on the fact that they only killed him because of a petty personal gripe and because they were sent to do so by a power tripping traitor who LATER ALSO TRIES TO KILL THE LISTENER THEMSELVES.

For a long time I’ve had Thoughts™ on the phenomenon of Gamers (derogatory) who treat any NPC who is even slightly an inconvenience with disproportionate and often violent vitriol, but this post is already getting long. General musings on the tragedy of Cicero’s character and how it’s objectively the wrong choice to kill him below.

Thanks to my partner @wrenanigans I’ve had reason to re-examine Cicero’s character, and his past just makes me so deeply sad. Of course, his journals only cover DB-related events, so maybe he had a personal life he just didn’t write about, but it kind of struck both of us that he feels the loss of his fellow DB members so keenly and yet never really mentions any personal relationships outside of obligation to his fellow assassins. (i.e no family or lovers pre-insanity when he was a normal, extremely capable man) Like of course he went insane. The organization that was his entire life’s purpose not only promoted him to a position where he could no longer do what he joined them to do, but then he watched the organization dissolve around him and all his friends be slaughtered.

Then he was alone with the Night Mother waiting for her to talk to someone and give him direction for eight fucking years!!! Of course he went completely off the deep end! If I was isolated, paranoid (but is it paranoia if they’re actually out to get you?) and constantly on survival mode for that long, I’d be relieved if being a little quirky and doing little dances was the extent of my deviant behavior! (The murder comes with being in the Dark Brotherhood, so I don’t wanna hear any whining about him being stabby. Murder isn’t OK if the Dragonborn does it, but suddenly immoral if people you don’t like do it. In video games.)

I think for most people who don’t put much thought into Cicero and his actions, they just vaguely think “oh, Cicero betrayed the family and tried to kill Astrid, so killing him is justified irrespective of her later betraying us”, which is simply not true. There’s a very interesting post I saw floating around lately about how you can’t treat religion in fantasy worlds like TES the same way you would with religious groups IRL, because in TES there is tangible proof that gods exist, and they can and will fuck with the mortal world for their own whims. The point of the DB quest line is that the Tenets matter, and straying from them and the Night Mother almost snuffed the DB out for good. The narrative of the game explicitly justifies Cicero’s actions and QUITE LITERALLY tells you that killing Cicero is not the right call.

TES has a lot of creative interactivity with picking your own outcomes and going with your own solutions, but quests don’t usually end with “go kill this guy. but you can also spare him… ;)” They usually don’t give you an old wise dude whose spirit you can summon who tells you not to kill that clown. And then if you spare Cicero, he comes back and is a potential companion. Like…I don’t know how much more obvious it can get that you’re not supposed to kill Cicero. I get for most people it’s not that deep, but this is TES. We talk about lore here.

[lightningonatether]

awesamdrittens. dont worry too hard about how those happened

[heelsofboreas]

There's just something so like wild to me about how some people treat brothers mercenary duo. That like Punz must have abandoned and be cold and cruel to Purpled.

But I think you can give Punz more nuance while still making them not on the best terms and validate still having a very weary and hurt Purpled. The age gap of the CCs is about 7 years. If you want them to be biological brothers or even found brothers, there's every chance that if Punz was responsible enough for Purpled long enough that Purpled feels a sense of abandonment Punz could have been a kid or teenager too. One probably woefully unprepared for taking care of another sentient being.

Tbh I think that's a much more interesting play than just going "Punz was abusive to/abandoned Purpled". Like do that if you want, im not gonna stop you. But "Punz was a kid/teenager and woefully unprepared to handle the physical and emotional needs of an even younger kid like Purpled" is just more fun for me.

[chaos0pikachu]

"gmmtv's 25 lineup is just branded pairings and it's killing the bl industry"

baby where have you been this has been gmmtv's bread and butter since 1000 Stars. by gmmtv's own admission they're building idols not actors lmao branded pairings are for selling what makes them actual money in merch, fanmeets, concert ticket sales. Their lineup today got 4 million tweets on twitter. They ain't changing shit and they never wanted to make art this is capitalism to a T. gmmtv is freeform meets HYBE.

gmmtv is just living by that Michael Eisner philosophy:

“We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make a statement. But to make money, it is often important to make history, to make art, or to make some significant statement. We must always make entertaining movies, and, if we make entertaining movies, at times, we will reliably make history, art, a statement or all three.

We cannot expect numerous hits, but if every film has an original and imaginative concept, then we can be confident that something will break through.”

rip the tags of these shows tho for fans I'm rooting for my pals who are gonna be watching some of these shows to be able to enjoy them in peace

[khattikeri]

there's something so odd yet fascinating about how fanworks for mxtx's books tend to misinterpret the literal protagonists of her stories more than any other characters

[crisalidaseason]

I love how the entire Catriona and Violet problem is Xaden's fault through and through. Like, Xaden, I love you, but this is a problem you caused and let Violet handle it alone and at a disadvantage!!! I wanted to slap him so bad

[lovehours]

i don’t even fucking care

[bleue-flora]

Something that I see a lot is the reasoning that Dream’s motive is unity. That staged finale was about uniting the server against him to bring them together even if he couldn’t be apart of that. And honestly I’m just not sure that’s the case. For starters, in the big moments when he talks about his reasoning he doesn’t mention unity he mentions together, he mentions family, he mentions team.

[from early days]

“We just wanted to have a good, safe, productive team. And when one person has a tyranny over everybody else—that keeps killing them, then you can’t have a team.” [clip]

“Listen, from now on we’re going have a civilization, okay? That lives in harmony and… and there’s no ruler. Not even me—not even anybody.” [clip]

[Punz and Dream planning]

“Always, the goal has just been that—it’s all one united server that everybody follows the same rules, there’s no countries, there’s no—you know, any of this. It’s just… One giant like—family, right?” [clip]

[prison]

“I just wanted to… I just wanted to bring the server together. Have it be a happy family, you know?” [clip]

[finale]

“Once we know everything, we—we’re able to live and everyone can be invincible and everyone can live together and be in harmony and—and not have to worry about death or pain or anything, then it’ll be worth it. The ends justify the means.” [clip]

“I want everyone to able to live and be happy and together… and you’ve—you’ve ruined that—you’ve ruined that yourself. You’re the one who separates everyone!” [clip]

And I know for some people unity and together might seem synonymous, but in this context I don’t think they are. I think it’s important to realize that Dream wanted people to not be divided, he wanted them to be a happy family, but families aren’t always united. They don’t always agree, they aren’t always peaceful, they don’t always have the same goals or agenda or beliefs, but a close family always makes up in the end and when all is said and done, generally gets along and is there for each other.

Additionally, the way I’ve always understood it was that Dream didn’t want peace, he wanted people to do the right thing [clip] and he wanted people to be happy which means that conflicts where people are getting upset opposes that. Dead pets, items not being returned, houses being burnt, people being insulted, and offenders refusing to simply apologize [clip] that tends to cause a conflict without resolution that leaves a lasting divide and unhappiness, which goes against Dream’s goal. But I don’t think he was against violence or wars as a whole, after all those happen at the beginning, when things were still simple. The point was that people stayed as a whole happy or content and as long as no one got too upset it was fine.

To keep people happy and safe, Dream also needed to prevent any one person from holding the power, because they would abuse it and use it against people, which we see happen over and over again. This is one of the reasons why he had a problem with Wilbur’s self appointed presidency, it’s why he kills George early on and takes his stuff when he became op before everyone else, it is why he kills Tubbo’s villagers. He didn’t want anyone to be too overpowered and then use that power to harm others. Dream considered himself the mediator and one to balance out the sides, the one to make sure people had their stuff back when all was said and done, the one to help people get revenge for their dead pet. Yes, he broke the very rules he made, which people love to point out makes him a hypocrite and therefore his gripe with Tommy has no footing, but notice what he says in the finale:

“You break all the rules. Tommy, there wasn’t even that many rules. They were simple things: respect others, don’t destroy things. You broke everything—every rule.” [clip]

“Respect others,” that’s the first thing he mentions, because that’s the most important. That’s the one that Tommy broke that bothered Dream the most. It wasn’t really about the stealing or the killing or griefing, after all George and Sapnap did that too. No, it was the lack of respect he had for the people he hurt that bothered Dream the most. It was that lack of respect which led people to be unhappy even when the war was over and sustaining that divide even after the war, which goes against the civilization Dream strived for.

It’s not about unity, it’s about the opposite of exclusion. It’s about Sapnap and Punz who were both friends with clingy duo, but not able to join L’manberg because they are American. It was the divide and separation. Like Ranboo who because of nations and politics struggled to be friends with both Techno and L’manberg.

Dream didn’t want people to be truly united in a cause nor did he want true peace - the absence of conflict and chaos. because you only get those by enforcing them through dictatorship and oppression when you force everyone to have the same opinion and obey. But Dream didn’t want to be a tyrant, that’s one of the reasons why he kept handing the power to a king. He wanted everyone to live in harmony by doing the right thing themselves and he thought that if he could keep the server from splitting that they would.

So then, the reason I think he put himself in prison and planned staged finale, wasn’t about uniting the server even if that’s against himself, but because it was the only way he could see a path to be allowed and accepted back into society. That if he served his time in prison maybe they would see him as a person again and think he got better and let him out, which I’ve talked more about [here] and [here].

“Maybe—maybe I’ll be better and then you’ll let me out.” [clip]

He wanted a family. As Tommy points out in the finale: he just wanted to have friends. He didn’t want to be alone. So it doesn’t make sense for his goal to be a self sacrificial move to unite everyone against him for the sake of unity, he wanted to bring people together into a happy society again, where they spend the afternoon fishing and playing hide and seek, not wars and executions and politics. But he wanted to be apart of that society and family too, because he didn’t want to be alone. Honestly, he probably wanted to be friends with everyone, but the division was preventing that, the propaganda was preventing that, and so prison became the only option he could see to undo that. To allow him back into the family that he was trying to keep together. That’s what staged finale was about - protection for him and Punz and the opportunity of reconciliation [post]. If he really just wanted unity then he would’ve have been fairly pleased with Doomsday, where most everyone sided against his side. If he wanted the whole server against him, then staged finale was an abysmal success, as he points out to Sam in Daedalus plenty of people like Techno weren’t involved. But of course it was never about unity because that doesn’t make sense, it was about friends, and family, bringing people together so that no one was alone and excluded, forming a simple happy community again…

[derangedrhythms]

the language of the unsaid.

Anne Carson, Glass, Irony, and God; from ‘The Glass Essay’

[awwarmplace]

my favorite conversation in patho 2 so far... i especially love artemy's replies <3

this being on take on angels, specifically... i want to pick apart his childhood brain

daniil rambling when drunk Confirmed

not like he was normal before....but it's so clear that he's Completely Losing It

also the whole thing happens at yulia's place so it's really just some gay people crashing out and indulging in substance abuse. beautiful.....

[campbenji]

i don't like being inactive on tumblr right before a season drops i feel like the squiward looking out the window meme