#haven't been able to stop thinking about this parallel

[linksysuniverse]

Severance S1E08 "What's for Dinner?" × Severance S2E09 "The After Hours"

(Please let this mean something) (Milchick crash out + betrayal of Lumon soon, please)

[reminiscentrainclouds]

The Dragon Prince season 6 spoilers below! Just a bunch of my thoughts because boy do I have a lot of them!

I still can't believe the way that whole switcheroo trick with the pearl backfired on Callum. It was so painful to watch because I knewwww it was going to happen the minute he decided to carry the fake down there by himself. Rayla was literally offering to go down there with him!! It would have been so easy for both of them to go down there just in case! I mean, the fake and the pearl both looked exactly the same; it would be easy to make a simple mistake and confuse them, so you'd want to make extra sure you were taking the right one with you!! Callum's confidence is very admirable, but considering he was so worried about it, he really should have been more cautious!

I just really like the way that part of the plot played out. This whole season had soooo much irony in it, but especially with this whole thing. The second it was revealed to be the fake pearl, I was like, "Yippee I was right!!" But also, "They're doomed." Because!! It's left completely unattended!!

And then Sol Regem started attacking Katolis and I was like NOOO IT'S ALL COMING TOGETHER. Although at first I was thinking it was gonna get like, smashed or something in the rubble and that would release Aaravos but man. MAN. There was so much more in store, that was a wild ride... Don't even get me started on Viren's sacrifice. I hate him and I think he got what he deserved, both in terms of what he lost and the crushing guilt he felt, but man. I was really sympathizing with him ever since he got revived, and that last scene with him hurt.

But it was a satisfying and fitting conclusion for him. He had intended on swearing off dark magic and attempting to right his wrongs, but instead, after a lifetime of sacrificing other lives for magic, he ends things by sacrificing his own life, which was already stolen after being revived anyway, to help save the people of Katolis. Sucks that he ultimately was convinced to use dark magic again, as if it was something he could never really escape, as if he never really learned anything, but the big difference was that he was sacrificing no other life than his own here. And he did help people. I'm probably massively misinterpreting everything because my interpretations are always kind of off...but he's just a really interesting character.... He made a lot of bad decisions but I understand his motivations, and I feel like he was really quite Doomed By The Narrative, pushed into a corner and faced with two equally bad decisions in many cases. He's the kind of bad guy who I really wish could have had the opportunity of not being a bad guy, y'know?

Aaravos is much worse and much less redeemable to me, but I feel a similar way about him. Like I Get It. Can't relate to what appears to be his thirst for revenge but I can understand. Learning about what happened to his daughter makes me angry on his behalf! The fact that all this had to happen in the first place hurts a lot! All this could really be blamed on that council of Startouch Elves, for what seemed like an extremely unnecessary punishment for his daughter. Although I'm curious about what more information we might get on the whole cosmic order and everything, I don't know. Taking Aaravos's child like that was unnecessarily cruel though; regardless of how serious of a crime or whatever giving humans magic was, there's no way she had bad intentions, and it's not like killing her would reverse what happened. AUGH anyway. What a season.

[atalana]

also im sure some people have noticed already, but since i haven't seen anything on tumblr about it yet, for people who haven't - kris has 20hp in the light world and so far that bar has pretty much always been full

in chapter four though, after kris beats the soul up, that's no longer the case!

their brief smacking it with the hockey stick/guitar in the normal route drops your health to 18. their vicious kicking the shit out of the soul in the snowgrave continuation drops it to 10. (it drops even further by the end of the chapter in a way that might have something to do with how much health you ended the titan battle with, but im gonna do a couple more ch4 playthroughs and see if i can nail down exactly what the deal with that is, and if it means that the titan can reach across worlds and damage kris' soul in a way no other dark world enemy has been able to so far)

either way, the first thing that happens when they try to move after putting the soul back in, is they stumble and fall and it takes a few seconds for them to even try and get back up. (it looks like they're tripping over the object they threw from certain angles in the normal route, but no this happens no matter how clear their path is)

regardless of whether or not it's their original soul, it is now intrinsic to their life force. any amount of damage done to the soul, even when outside their body, will hurt kris in equal amounts, and they've been doing this long enough they have to know that!

in the normal route that speaks to their level of dedication to whatever their end goal is here, that they will hurt themselves quite significantly to keep susie from finding that note on the guitar (though it's in keeping with chara being one of their two undertale parallels)

but in snowgrave pt 2. god. it speaks to how much they hate us. that route in ch4 reveals that the first thing soulless kris did at the end of ch2 wasn't creating the fountain - there was an unseen timeskip. the first thing soulless kris did after snowgrave was to sneak over to noelle's house, remove the thorn ring (that was controlling her and giving her the ability to kill with ice magic), tell her everything was gonna be okay, but that she should never mention any of this to anyone (because if she said it around kris in the future then the soul would hear)

and kris' worst fears came true. she does bring it up, because she doesn't realise kris is also included in "anyone". and to stay on the snowgrave route, like in ch2, you have to do the worst thing possible, which is manually take control of kris back (this is happening while you're the untethered soul, but kris is distracted enough you can rejoin their body without them fighting you off - but you can see their sprite shaking afterwards as they try to resist what you're about to do), confirm for noelle that all of her dream was real, tell her she's going to get stronger, and force the thorn ring back on her (at which point the screen goes black with red lines like shattered glass, and the segment in noelle's house ends there, so we don't know the full consequences of that yet)

i did talk in a previous post about the shadow mantle boss saying that kris enjoyed the snowgrave route, they just didn't want to admit it to themselves and being possessed by the player gave them a convenient excuse. but after playing this route i no longer think that's even a remote possibility.

because kris wasn't trying to hide or prevent anything by beating the soul up this time. this was pure revenge and disgust over what we did to their friend. and even knowing that whatever damage they did was also going to be done to them, they were willing to beat it within an inch of its life. your vision is blurring the entire time, kris loses half their health from this, they only stopped because asgore nearly caught them in the act. and the burning question on my mind is how much further were they willing to go? if no one interrupted, would they have stopped at all?

(and yeah the takeaway here is that going forward, kris is hurt, in more ways than ralsei or susie can heal. and also do not ever underestimate their love for noelle)

[jananachips]

I've been thinking about how societal rules and marriage fucked over everyone's lives in KCD2, specifically regarding Henry and Samuel's families and the parallels between them and their parents. (SPOILERS, I JUST FINISHED EXODUS BUT NOT THE GAME!)

Martin and Sara (Samuel's mom) were in love, but couldn't get married because her father didn't want her to marry a Christian, and forced her into hiding. Martin had no choice but to leave and marry someone else, never learning of his son Samuel.

Radzig and Henry's mom got together, and although they could have just had a fling and weren't in love, they still weren't able to build a life together due to the class divide. Thus why Martin stepped in and married her, so she wouldn't be disgraced in the eyes of society.

And this fucked up Henry and Samuel pretty badly. Samuel lived with so much anger and sadness, even telling Henry, "I thought if I didn't give a shit about that man, I wouldn't be in pain." He was torn from having a loving father and a more stable life, because of choices his grandpa made to uphold his dignity in the Jewish community. Henry had an easier upbringing, but still he was raised as a peasant instead of a noble, which should have been his birthright, and also was kept from being raised by his true father (though we can argue he turned out better under Martin's care.)

Now if the player Henry chooses to romance Hans, it adds yet another layer to the parallels. Another forbidden love where they can never marry, or be seen in public. And Hans has to marry someone he's never met, just for political gains. The tragic cycle of society holding lovers apart repeats. (Of course, people have affairs all the time and nothing is stopping Hans and Henry from having more "hunting trips" together, but they will never be able to be open about it.)

And if the player romances Rosa, she also won't marry Henry since he is not a legitimized noble. (I haven't tried to romance Katherine so I can't say parallels for that route).

Tl:Dr fuck society, they ripped everyone's lives apart

[waywardsou2]

Dudes I haven't been able to stop thinking about the fact that Jayce was able to build that leg brace from scratch down in that cavern. I can't stop thinking about how he had none of his notes, none of Viktors notes. Only the memory of diagrams and the version Viktor used to help him make his own makeshift one

Which means that he studied Viktor's brace and leg. Studied the injury and the notes and the diagrams Viktor must've kept in the lab.

Did he look with Viktor or when Viktor wasn't around?

I cannot stop thinking about how he knew it so well that he could make it from scratch without even a reference to go off of

Him and Viktor really were always intertwined

Not to mention the parallel of him breaking his fucking leg and having permanent damaged caused to it that followed him back to his universe.

I will never shut up about them

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

The pandemic did things to me, man.

Like I know this isn't a new revelation or anything but it hit home to me in a way it otherwise wouldn't have, that there's not so much evil in the world dooming us as there is apathy. People who don't know how to deal with their anxieties dealing with them by deluding themselves into believing it's not actually a problem.

I don't watch much apocalypse media, but since the pandemic, every time I have, I haven't been able to take it seriously. Oh, you're 2 years into a zombie apocalypse and people are running amuck?

No they're not. They're living their lives normally, told by the government first that the problem is overblown by the media, then that we just have to learn to live in this new reality with zombies. Anyone who gets bit, they turn their noses up and say they just weren't fast enough and that was the real problem. They're putting diluted bleach in cute little spray bottles and spritzing themselves occasionally, saying that that keeps the zombies away, even though there's no scientific proof of that. They're putting essential oils on festering zombie bites and going out in public in complete denial that they are going to lose their sanity any minute; they consider it rather gauche to mention if they've been bitten by any suspiciously monstrous individuals lately.

There's a medicine that makes you more resistant to zombie bites, but a bunch of people don't take it because they think it turns you into a mutant. They say your body can fight off zombie bites naturally - that's how it's made. The science disagrees with them on both points.

They went out and bought all the canned beans in the world during the first 3 weeks of this, but then they got tired of the anxiety and decided to ignore it. They're trying to "rebuild" "after" the zombie crisis, ignoring the fact that. There are still zombies. The rebuilding efforts are not going well because, well, the problem is still here.

Sensible people who know that there's still a zombie problem have come to the realization that nobody is going to take care of the zombie problem, and they're expected at work. So they go to their jobs and send their kids to school just hoping that their loved ones survive any chance encounters with a zombie that they might have.

Some people still wear tactical gear that affords some protection from zombies, but it's pretty rare, and sometimes other civilians have negative reactions to that - calling people paranoid or getting angry at being reminded of the danger. Telling them that the chances of a fast person like them getting bitten are very slim. Why bother with the clunky gear? Plus it's not doing your figure any favors.

Most of the people who are too slow to outrun a zombie have already become zombies, themselves. The news runs articles like "worker shortage: 600,000 people stopped working during the zombie apocalypse and they haven't come back. Where are they now?" Like we don't all know where they are. The ongoing risk of zombie assault is resulting in more people who are injured and too slow to outrun the zombies. Plus you can always get caught unawares. But, the government wants you to know that we just have to adjust to a parallel society, with zombies. Might be smart to carry a baseball bat on your person, but you really don't have to; the chances of you becoming a zombie are low.

The stress of the ongoing zombie problem is having a massive psychological impact on people, driving wedges between them and making it difficult for people to have conversations about any topic. Some politicians and corporations are profiting from this. Nobody wants you to mention any of it. They laugh and go, "remember the zombie apocalypse years? That was so crazy."

[rootspiral]

Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 3 part 2

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][+1] ep5 [1][2][3][4][5] ep6 [1][2][3] ep7 [1][2][3][4][5][6] ep8 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] ep9 [1][2][3][4][5][6])

alice panics and checks if she still has her mom's amulets, lilia says, you still got them! in a sweet reassuring way. agatha also panics and checks if she has her brooch, but she does it quietly. when she finds the brooch she gives a sigh that no one notices.

I just love the parallels between agatha and alice, a daughter who lost her mother and a mother who lost her son, both grieving, both connected to the Road. but while alice, despite her shyness, is able to express her feelings and find strength and reassurance within her coven, agatha keeps her pain quiet and close to the chest.

checking her exit strategies while the others are still looking around in awe, because she's a) always a step ahead everybody else and b) a huge fucking coward. agatha is never as confident as she seems. was she hoping to bolt the moment billy wasn't looking and leave the others to deal with his mess?

ooh alice is the second to check. that's so interesting, they parallel each other but agatha does things secretly, alice does them openly.

NOT FUNNY, writers

yeah this is not a confident woman. she is terrified

not because babies make her cry or anything. in fact she eats babies, haven't you heard?

agatha is always real mature, but there's something about jen in particular that makes her regress into toddlerdom - and yeah it's funny, but we know agatha does this kind of stuff to mask and deflect, and I think she's especially defensive around jen because she actually respects her and values her opinion! so she has to rebel to that feeling like the true kindergartener she is

sharon dives for the wine, agatha rises a hand to warn her but hesitates. a moment later alice rises a hand and stops her. I'm only seeing this because I'm looking so closely but I'm not dreaming it, am I? this has to be on purpose? and oh my god alice was a cop. what did agatha choose to be under the spell, when she didn't bottle her emotions and guard herself so closely?????

okay okay okay now I'm thinking about moon phases and elements. alice is Fire, agatha is Spirit, would there be a connection? or maybe agatha as Spirit is like the Avatar and has to learn something from each element. from Alice she would learn to listen to her protective instincts - or rather to use them to protect others and not only herself, and that's what would ultimately make her choose to save Billy. I'll keep an eye out for this, maybe I'm on to something? this is Water and Jen's trial tho, so what does she learn from jen?

so jen despite her sarcastic exterior has been very vocal about both billy and sharon not belonging here. now she takes billy to the side and openly warns him. she's very pragmatic and not particularly emotional, she had to grow a lot of armor too, which makes her breaking down and crying in the finale all the more meaningful. the obvious lesson aside (agatha being responsible for jen's trauma), another thing that agatha has to learn from her is moral values. if jen were in agatha's shoes and saw the truth behind the Road you know she would have stopped this whole thing immediately. agatha needs to learn to be the bigger person for once and take things seriously, instead of running away.

we know agatha tolerates and even encourages the rumors about nicky, because the truth is too awful. is that why she's always yapping about hating children and eating babies? dear lord, it's so funny that she's so immature, and at the same time it's not funny at all

no one's judging you honey. you get drunk all you want, you earned it. and fuck these bitches and agatha especially for letting her drink poison - billy gets a pass because he's underage, why doesn't sharon get a pass for being magicless? I'll tell you why, because deep down no one takes her seriously. she's a joke to them.

lol billy's empty hand

agatha you will be ready to tackle him the moment he tries to drink for real. the clowning! all for show. and sharon is already pouring herself a third glass, nothing funnier than self medicating with alcohol, am I right gang?

I adore adore adore adore alice bonding with billy. she tries to do the agatha "i'm too damaged to open up" thing but one sad puppy look and she melts away. because he's just a kid (and a emo hot topic kid at that) and she WILL make him feel accepted no matter how sad inside she is. she's such a good person leave me alone

"so you guys evil, am I right?"

"no no no we have reclaimed that term, that's no longer a slur"

what's your favorite donatella versace impression? mine's alice's

can you guys please stop deadnaming this poor woman?? (spellnaming? magicnaming? wandanaming?)

agatha you are a humongous asshole for only pretending to drink and kathryn hahn you are so funny and so hot and talented

dying future!lilia jumps back in time to tell her coven she loves them and that's the moment she lands on lmaooooo with her face all swollen and everyone panicking and agatha pounding on the door. you don't deserve her love anyway agatha. she will give it to you because she's the better person, but you don't deserve shit

so yeah agatha we've been poisoned and Death's gonna come any minut....

BWAHAHAAHAHAHAAHHAH

that's taking 'deadbeat wife' to a whole other level

bit creepy there, billy. it's like Jigsaw being upset at people not participating in his games

billy: fine I'LL DRINK

agatha running in slowmo: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

you miiight be projecting your issues on that kid a lil bit there, buddy

she might drink the wine to save billy but she'll be an ABSOLUTE TEENY-WEENY BABY about it

such a fun episode

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that would be her last words, folks! aren't we HAVING SO MUCH FUN????

alice always being the first one to run and help and trying to save everyone. just... alice

shoutout to @idkbroletssee and their billy's commentary!

go to episode 3 part 3

[asexualenjolras]

THUNDERBOLTS* SPOILERS

***

Since watching Thunderbolts*, I haven't been able to stop thinking about the parallels between one James Buchanan Barnes, and John Walker.

And I'm so grateful to this film for bringing them together because their dynamic was genuinely brilliant.

It's interesting looking back on the Falcon and the Winter Soldier now, and recognising that Bucky's dislike of John Walker came from a place of self hatred towards himself.

He projected a lot of his insecurities onto John Walker when he took on the mantel of Captain America because he was comparing him to Steve, and who else does Bucky compare to Steve? Himself. And he has never thought that he was worth what Steve was. Both Bucky and John are haunted by the horrors of war. There was a lot of darkness surrounding both of them when they returned from the wars.

Both John and Bucky are products of the society they were brought up in, and they are both products of war and being soldiers. Bucky, of course, served as a soldier in WWI, and John served in Afghanistan for the same US military and the same army.

You could argue that they were both brainwashed by the powers at be, and were forced to fight in the name of something much bigger than them. They've both felt the same pressures and the same judgement from society, and they are both trying to be the best version of themselves they can be.

John Walker, as a character, gets a lot of hate for breaking under the pressure. He had a very public mental health crisis, and, instead of being offered help, he was persecuted and humiliated. Bucky knows how that feels.

Seeing Bucky empathise with John Walker in Thunderbolts* made me feel so emotional because Bucky accepting John and his flaws means that he has also learned to accept his own.

I really enjoyed their dynamic, and I know that they will have such a good sibling relationship going forward in the MCU. They may not overly like one another, but they do have some respect for the other, and that means a lot.

P.S. I am aware that you can't compare what Bucky went through with what John went through, but the similarities in their stories and how they deal with their issues is very interesting to see.

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

super indulgent genshin oc concept bc i've been thinking too much about capitano and ororon's dynamic in the story lore ramblings and ideas under the cut for anyone interested hahah;;, beware - long-ass post

(obviously spoilers ahead for the natlan AQ)

haven't picked out a name yet but we could probably scara him and call him 'vessel' or smth anyway, i was thinking too much abt how, in a way, ororon's situation sorta- idk if 'mirrors' is the word, but it has some similarities to what was ultimately going on w capitano? the difference was of course that while ororon failed to be a vessel to send lingering souls into the night kingdom, capitano didn't fail. quite famoulsy. so while that's super interesting and all, i couldn't help but think how they could've pushed that idea further? like you have to make this connection yourself. not even ororon, who spends a good chunk of the AQ thinking about what happened back then, made any remark about how similar it was to what ended up happening to capitano (that i recall?). did we ever find out if the ritual they tried w ororon had ever been performed before? i don't remember. it might've been, but it could've also been a hypothetical of sorts that they figured they could just try. anyway, regardless, i started thinking about if they HAD done it before, how interesting it would've been to actually get an account of what went down. as in- in further detail. bc then we could've possibly had a stronger/more evident connection between capitano's ordeal and ororon, and it would've been more clear what ororon sort of- dodged. if that makes any sense. like we know thanks to capitano but still, it's not the exact same scenario. so you can probably see where this is going lmao

this guy (we'll go with 'the vessel') is the result of my brainworms thinking about how it could've worked if we had one of the previous 'sacrifices' of the ritual (or maybe even the only other one) appear in the story. maybe he could've been from around the time citlali was still young (like before she realized she wasn't aging), so before she was renowned and in a position where she would've been able to easily stop the ritual. i think it would be really interesting if she could've like- still protested? y'know? but since she didn't have a high position she felt like it would've been pointless. this would make it all the more compelling the fact that she still didn't outright protest against ororon's ritual, and would've given more weight to her complicated guilt/relief over the whole ordeal. so all the way back then (like 200ish years?) they found a fella with an incomplete soul, trained him to prepare him since the situation wasn't nearly as dire n so there was time (and would make more sense if it was also the first time they were doing this), and then successfully performed the ritual. or at least as successfully as they thought, bc i think it would be all the more appaling if like- ororon's was always meant to be a capitano pre-ronova situation. he would've carried these souls w him and he would've been laid to rest but HE wouldn't have really rested, if that makes sense? not just killing him. maybe that's what it was and i just can't remember. anyway. if it was something like that, then the vessel would've been essentially put to sleep somewhere in a secret cave or whatever, acting as a sort of waiting room for the souls in him to stay w him and not roam the land until they could get into the night kingdom. but since the situation w the night kingdom was worse than anyone had expected, the souls sort of never moved on, and stayed w the vessel, dormant in that cave.

like that, ororon's ritual has failed and we have a more interesting situation going on – citlali's conflict is even more complex, the MotNW are more morally gray, ororon's 'failure' is more weighty given the vessel's ritual did seemingly help out a ton, and capitano has a more interesting parallel w the whole situation. in this scenario of course the natlan AQ has much better pacing etc. it would be more harrowing if we're allowed to stew w the souls disturbed from the night kingdom and sort of haunting the land like they were when we were helping them w citlali n xilonen, i feel like that happened too fast. if the souls were disturbed in that way, then so too would the vessel's rest be disturbed, and i think it would be hilarious if at some point in that little section we get the MotNW in a panic like 'HE IS GONE. HE IS OUT OF THE CAVE' and the traveler is like who???? it would be so funny. so the vessel essentially wakes up, accidentally escapes from his cave, n then starts wandering natlan in a daze bc he's like 200yrs in the future, he's confused, and he has a bunch of souls backseating his existence van hoenheim style. the gang could then meet him n we could have ororon have his little crisis over it n the vessel himself also have conflicting feelings over it etc capitano probably figured out/found out ororon's whole situation w the failed ritual, so when the vessel wakes up, capitano could probably show up and start sort of being oddly inclined to have chats w him. by that point in the story we wouldn't know capitano is in p much his exact same shoes, so this would be a weird sort of 'wtf is he planning' moment. the vesssel wouldn't be able to quite join in on capitano's plan, but since he was trained specifically for this whole ordeal, we could have him and capitano sort of compare notes n theorize how they could both just Fucking Rest. i think the ronova thing would play out the same (wouldn't want to take that away from capitano since that was his wholeass reason for being there), but they would've sort of off-camera (we get shown this afterwards) figured out that if capitano's plan works, then the vessel could sort of use him as a conduit to guide the souls through him and into the night kingdom. sort of like a passage that only he can access. so capitano goes and sits down, and then the vessel sort of sits down by his feet and joins him. then capitnao isn't alone and since i'm nothing if not a simp the first thing i thought when i saw him sitting there was those really heartwrenching fanarts people make of xiao kneeling by the rex lapis statue and resting his head on a thigh/knee, and i can't get the image out of my head, so. vessel -> xiao, capitano -> rex lapis statue, you get it i don't need to explain this any more LMAO i didn't even think of it as ship material (though you bet the fandom would make it so if this was canon. not that i'd protest), but more as a. sort of like- a sudden bastion of understanding and companionship at the end of the road. like yes both of them were alone but also not alone but also really really lonely for a good chunk of their long lives and even though it has now come to the end they both wanted they also managed to find a companion/comrade/someone who Gets It, even if it was just for a little while there at the end.

so yeah

[princess-from-another-galaxy]

So many people talking about parallels in Challengers.

What about my favorite parallel?!??! The fact that both Tashi and Patrick stick out their hands for Art to spit out his gum!!!!

I haven't been able to stop thinking about it 😭😭😭

[kiyomitakada]

Hi this sounds really stupid sorry sorry in advance! I was wondering if you could explore the popular analysis of L=Light I see so strongly in the fandom. 

I came out of the series not understanding what people saw that led them to believe L and Light are so so soooo similar. I get the surface-level parallels of both being intelligent and good at quick deductions. They definitely think alike (we see multiple times where they can catch what the other is saying without needing it verbalized), they also kinda share the whole 'motivated by boredom' aspect in the first half of the series(<- `I would say L moreso than Light, he is shown to be a bored adolescence in the beginning but he seems to clutch more to the preservation of his character after the initial few events, and then is caught up by the thrill of the game up until L dies. Boredom -> Morality -> Thrill) and perhaps the fact that they're both quick to anger (the fight in the headquarters -> but still L comes across as more level-headed, and the kick back appeared to be more of a requital than motivated by actual anger?) there is a really popular sentence in most meta and fics I've read that (paraphrased) says 'Light saw himself in L/ finally was able to connect to another" that confuses me.

HIIIIIIIIII this is such a fun ask oh my god thank you for the opportunity to talk about this. it does not sound stupid!!!! i think we (general) tend to take L and light parallelisms as granted and also exaggerate them a little because they're the two leads of death note who everyone knows about but the question of What Is Actually There is always a good one to ask!

i think this actually breaks down into two parts which are: 1. are they similar, 2. why are they motivated to think they are similar?

SO. first one first,

you have all the immediately obvious parallels down, they think super alike and they are bored as hell

tangent: i really really love this (short!) analysis on the type of boredom they share. light doesn't want entertainment the same way L does and L is as-far-as-we-know very satisfied in his position in the world before the start of the manga. but! they both like establishing superiority. they both like playing games. the thrill stage. i think L is as caught up in the game as light is — showing up in person just to throw light off despite the risk, inviting light to tennis, the other students talking about how they've spent two days hanging around only each other,

(granted this person clearly does not like them and is probably exaggerating)

near and mello in comparison are playing against each other instead of light, but near specifically tells aizawa that both of their motivation is to catch kira for L's sake. and of course L wants to catch kira too but he views it in a much more tunnel-vision sense. he literally talks to kira in his head

L solves a lot of cases! but this one in particular he has someone intellectually on his level and he has so much more fun that way.

ANYWAY. that's L's part of the thrill of the game you mentioned for light. onto the more fun similarities: this is my personal favorite. after ryuk tells light that he found 64 cameras in his room,

in japanese they even include special emphasis on the either. and light and ryuk haven't been talking about anyone else in their conversation before this.

that guy doesn't know where to stop (just like me).

i think this is the core of what makes them similar leaving intellectual mind games aside. it is the Ruthlessness. light will kill hundreds of thousands of people to prove that he is right, that he is justice (because he wants to be right). L will kill lind l tailor and put 64 cameras into a high school student's room and put misa amane in sensory deprivation torture for 50+ days, to prove that light is kira (because he wants light to be kira).

this isn't unique to the two of them by all means! misa sacrifices her friend and moves to tokyo and kills a bunch of news announcers and celebrities to find light! but light never acknowledges her as similar to him even when misa invokes it deliberately ["to defeat evil there must be sacrifices, right? that's what you've been doing"]. because. well. first of all the misogyny, and second of all because he's not playing against misa, misa is a wild card in what he conceives of as a battle solely between him and L.

and similarly mello says that he'll do whatever it takes to beat near, including killing half his organization to destabilize him and blowing himself up and so on. but light doesn't see any of this as a parallel and the narrative doesn't go out of its way to point it out the way it does for light and L:

(note: naomi says herself the reason she ended up telling light her entire theory is because he reminded her of L.) (this is probably because of the way light validates her [as L did in labb] and fills in the gaps in her logic [as L did in labb] but the point is that the narration has an Agenda)

okay so tied to the ruthlessness is the Justice thing. here is another (short!) meta which argues that L is the god of the old world vs. light as the god of the new world:

When L proclaims to be justice in his pissing contest with Kira, he doesn’t mean “justice is a concept that exists independent from humans and is clearly defined, I adhere to this concept”. He means the same thing Light does: “The definition of justice is man-made and I am the man making it.” The struggle between L and Kira is a power struggle - aside from being a criminal by legal definition, Kira is the first person to truly challenge L's status. It’s not a fight of right and wrong, it’s a fight over who gets to define 'right’.

after his morality crisis at the start light spends most of the first half convincing himself that he is Genuinely Right. so right in fact that he is justified to kill everyone else in his way because they're the evil ones for trying to stop kira, clearly. he kills naomi and raye without a care in the world!

L on the other hand is less readable because we don't spend as much time with him but i usually interpret him as knowing from the start that this isn't about justice at all. at the start he says things like "the good guys always win!" to motivate the task force but once they have a rapport, he acknowledges on multiple occasions that he's taking the morally worse route but it's worth it to him because he'll catch kira that way.

("i believe that your method is most correct" is insaaane coming from l lawliet)

the main difference between them is that L is perfectly aware that he's doing fucked up shit while first-arc light isn't. but second arc! after soichiro (moral center of death note) dies!

light: i think kira understands this—

and now we're back to the other iconic scene of a character staring out a window:

separated across an ocean and five years but there it is! they will do anything to get what they perceive as justice, even though they also know it's evil, including using their own selves/lives and everyone else's as tools for their ambitions.

…but it's also a game. and it's fun, isn't it?

aaaand yeah. i think that's probably the core of it. no other pair hits all of those points at the same time — notably near (as mentioned in that meta i linked before) rejects the entire traditional premise of justice. nobody can tell what is right or wrong, what is righteous or evil. even if there is a god… and i had his teachings before me, i would think it through… and decide if that was right or wrong myself. and this is also why near doesn't kill light, because near is genuine about believing it's not anyone's place to decide that, which is the exact thing that makes light think L is better than near (because L would have killed light 100%)

tangent: it is also very important to me that near beats c-kira by saying "you're nothing but a murderer." and then self-chastises "that wasn't very L-like" but it's what gets c-kira to stop.

why isn't it L-like — because L wouldn't look down at c-kira like that, because kira is L's opponent and they are equally matched and they are playing a game. but near sees the world with clearer eyes. c-kira isn't a rival. they're just another murderer.

-

okay so as to the second part of your question:

there is a really popular sentence in most meta and fics I've read that (paraphrased) says 'Light saw himself in L/ finally was able to connect to another" that confuses me.

sorry this bit is going to have fewer mangacaps because i can't recall the exact moments as well. BUT.

light is lonely. he spends class gazing out the window. he doesn't consider telling anyone about the death note, ever. he laughs and jokes with his friends and asks for new year's cards and then goes home and immediately sags against the door (and notices that there's something wrong with his doorknob). he doesn't tell anyone about how he kind of wants to kill everyone around him even pre-death note just because god, the world sucks so much. you get my point.

and then L comes along and is the first challenge light has basically ever had and. [gestures at above] the way he falls silent when naomi tells him he reminds her of L and then visibly pushes it aside to say, hey, why not join the task force? we just need your ID! that guy doesn't know where to stop, either (hey look it's pretty much canon that he sees himself in L even if he brushes the thought aside immediately). the way he brightens when L says he's doing well in the cafe:

the way he hesitates to kill L when rem can do it immediately and only smiles after misa sees his name and therefore light can decide when to kill him himself?

and all of this is still true whether or not you think light even likes L as a person! because he enjoys the challenge! which yeah we all knew that already BUT. the point is. he's lonely. L is the first person to provide a reprieve from his boredom. he has all the motivation in the world to want to see himself in L/connect to another, even in a world where they weren't alike at all.

and then L is just here like

thank you L

actually wait yes that's also a thing. the ego thing. they fucking HATE losing because it would damage their sense of pride! this is something that kiyomi also shares (which is why light also recognizes himself in kiyomi) but not any of the other main cast characters to the extent that they do — mello hates losing but it's because of his inferiority complex, it's different from L & light who are already on top of the world but feel threatened; near is overconfident but it's because near underestimates kira, not because of self-overestimation. light doing the entire yotsuba gambit because he's sure that he'll get the notebook back and win <--> L saying there's no way that yotsuba caught kira before he did. you understand

okay. okay. so. tl;dr

they are both seeking justice on their own terms while using methods that they know (L consciously, light subconsciously) are wrong but they think will lead to the Correct results for the world in time

rephrase: they are ruthless bastards

rephrase: they're childish and egotistical and they hate losing :)

as you mentioned: the intelligence, being able to see each other's thoughts, etc (this is also a thing for light and near; i can't remember the post but someone said "all death note geniuses share a brain" and i've never been able to unsee it)

but even in the case where all of that was untrue they'd probably still want to see themselves in each other anyway, light because he's lonely and L because this is the first fun case he has had in forever.

[bthump]

Hi! I love your meta and your understanding of Berserk is just so sublime. <3 I apologize that the ask is so long and I totally understand if you don't have the time to read it.

I was re-reading the post-Miura chapters and I noticed some details that got me thinking. Griffith seemingly decides to go to Casca after seeing/sensing the Beast of Darkness (2nd page of ch367, it's kinda ambiguous tho) and then when Guts fails to strike Griffith while Griffith is holding Casca, Guts thinks "Wha...?!", we see his hands shaking and he collapses. What do you think that he's so shocked about? That he couldn't hurt Griffith because of some magical invulnerability? Or because he couldn't bring himself do it after all? Or was he somehow surprised that he couldn't risk killing Casca too even if it meant killing Griffith (which would be unhinged but possible considering Guts' history with letting Casca die/suffer when it comes to Griffith)? Or maybe he was shocked to see Griffith holding Casca, since he was shown to have complicated feelings about that when Griffith first reincarnated and Casca reached for him and then after the Hill of Swords when Casca reached for him again. Of course, it was actually the baby she was reaching for but Guts doesn't know that and he was angsting about it pre-eclipse too (although apparently then it was fine cause he was pining after Griffith even harder and arguably he still is, lol). It would be interesting if it was also one of the reasons Guts was so upset when Griffith was carrying Casca away (hopefully along with, you know, the fact that Casca is being kidnapped by someone who raped her), and it could partly explain why Guts wasn't focused on saving her (and in fact, hasn't mentioned her once) but on feeling bad about himself instead. Poor Casca, she was thinking about how she needs to get back to Guts and Guts hasn't even thought about her.

And why do you think Griffith went to hold Casca and then took her with him? Did he think he needed something to stop Guts when he sensed the BoD? But that doesn't feel likely to me bc he was dodging Guts' attacks so effortlessly before. Or could it be possible that he somehow felt like he needed to protect Casca from BoD!Guts? Which obviously would be super ironic but he has protected Casca before (probably because of the Moonlight Child but who knows). He provabably has some reason to keep her in Falconia we don't know about yet, but I'm wondering what his immediate reasoning was since it doesn't seem to me that he came to Elfhelm to do that (or that he came there intentionally at all since he came as the Moonlight Child). As a side note, I also find interesting that Griffith has snapped Guts out of the BoD!mode twice. Once as the Moonlight Child (and the Moonlight Child also later saved Guts from drowning, both of these happened when the MC was in a form with Griffith-like hair) and once in Guts' mind (I think) when he almost got up from his post-Elfhelm depression through accepting the Beast of Darkness, although that might have been more about him feeling powerless against Griffith. Or maybe it was how he looked directly at Griffith's dick in that panel, who can say lol.

In addition, I think there are visual parallels between how Griffith reaches to Casca and how he reached to Ganishka, how Guts almost sliced through Jill to kill Rosine and how he almost killed Casca here, and Guts' strike and its "wind effect" look almost identical to what was shown in his fateful duel with Griffith, but I suppose it could be a coincidence or that the illustrators are using Miura's work as direct references.

Thanks if you read this far! I appreaciate all your contributions to the fandom <3.

Sorry about the wait, work's been a nightmare the past few weeks lol so I haven't had the energy for meta.

I actually have a post about that scene where I speculate about Guts' reaction. In brief, I figure it's shock at not being able to hurt Griffith, given his subsequent breakdown about his sword and total lack of thought for Casca (and yeah ia that sucks for her, wow) and it's interesting in context considering Griffith is essentially protecting Casca from him in that moment.

And that's an interesting point about Griffith potentially perceiving the Beast of Darkness in Guts. I've been assuming that Griffith kidnapped Casca basically just to have a babysitter nearby for the moonlight boy lol, so he wouldn't go magically wandering across the country looking for her, but it would be interesting if there was more to it than that.

I like to believe that maybe Moonbaby is a justification for an intrinsic urge to protect her that comes from his unfrozen human emotions. I hope that fact that Griffith had to shield her from Guts comes back, at least thematically - Guts as a danger to Casca has been a consistent theme throughout the latter part of the story, and Griffith being the one to protect her could be interesting as a sort of thematic yin yang thing, like Griffith as a monster demonstrating humanity vs Guts as a human demonstrating monstrousness.

Honestly idk why Griffith would protect her in terms of pragmatism. Surely her being dead would also help solve the moonlight boy issue by removing the person he seeks out. (Assuming that actually is his motivation and Griffith didn't kidnap her for some as yet unknown reason.)

And ooh I did see the parallel between Guts and Rosine and Jill vs Guts and Griffith and Casca, which I get into in that post I linked, but I never considered a visual parallel between Griffith and Ganishka and Griffith and Casca, but yeah that makes sense and imo is potentially interesting thematically.

Like I see the Griffith and Ganishka encounter as a big high fantasy metaphor for a basic longing for human connection, and if Griffith and Casca mirror that at all then imo that's more evidence for Griffith being drawn to Casca because of his humanity and their former friendship, whether Griffith can admit that to himself or not. I mean, it could also be a suggestion that Moonlight Boy represents Griffith's humanity symbolically, but I don't like that concept (I want Griffith's human emotions to be real not symbolically expressed through a magic baby lol) so I'm all about finding alternatives.

Thanks for the ask, you raise a lot of good points!

[ifishouldvanish]

Thinking about Alurox o'clock...what do you see as the reason they're amicably divorced (or why it never developed past a mutually beneficial situationship)?

Oh boy.

Okay.

I like to imagine they met around the time of the pueblo revolt, ie 1680. I think they would be drawn to each other as fellow vampires who aren't like other vampires and who each have compassion for humanity (Olrox seems to have a type and it's men who are willing to fight for what they believe in). They see something of an equal in each other, and so share that foundation of mutual respect. 

I like to imagine they start off hunting Spanish colonizer vampires together, forming a sense of camaraderie that way. They trust each other, they have each other's backs. They've both been on this earth for about the same amount of time and have a lot to learn from each other about the world. They bond over their shared perspectives on some things, engage in thoughtful debate over the areas where their perspectives diverge. They end up bouncing on it bc Olrox looks like That© and Alucard looks like That™

I think where the cracks would appear is in Olrox's willingness to feed on humans, and I imagine this would be a time in Olrox's life where he is really driven hard by a thirst for vengeance for what was done to his people and continues to be done to other indigenous communities, which would be upsetting to Alucard.

Like I imagine Olrox having a pretty hard All Colonists Are Bastards stance that Alucard has a hard time reconciling, because he doesn't Get It™. He just sees his father going scorched earth all over again. I imagine Alucard thinking he can pull Olrox back from that ledge the way his mother had once done to his father, but these things aren't the same. The more Alucard tries to 'fix' him with love, the more Olrox pulls away because he's on a mission, he has a score to settle, he sees the injustice everywhere for what it is, in a way Alucard's idealism and need to see the good in people won't let him see. 

I would scream and yell and kick my feet if it all culminated in an argument that echoes the one Alucard has with Dracula in very first episode of the original series. Him saying like "innocent people will die", and Olrox shouting back, "there are no innocents, not anymore." (I love my Dracula v. Olrox parallels in case u haven't noticed)

I imagine Alucard being so close to Getting It™, or perhaps even Actually Getting It™, but still not being able to truly internalize ACAB if it means killing mortal humans. He has too much hope that they can learn the errors of their ways and that things can get better, that it's not in their place as immortal beings to act as judge jury and executioner in what he sees as 'human affairs'. So he makes the decision to leave. Because the alternative is to Make Olrox Stop By Force, and he can't bring himself to do that either. He just has to leave Olrox to do his thing the way he sees fit to do it, and hope that it works out. 

I like to imagine there's some anger and hurt on both sides, but that they kinda cross paths again some weeks/months/maybe even years later, and that's when Olrox saves Alucard's life in whatever the fuck way that's supposed to mean. And it's not enough for them to get back together again, but enough for them each to reach a point of closure and acceptance re: what they mean to each other and how they don't fit into each other's lives.

From that point onward, they're just kinda two ships in the night. Passing by each other from time to time, and perhaps sharing a chat, a drink, or even a bed for the night. But it's with this mutual understanding that it can't lead anywhere further than that. There's a comfort and familiarity in that no one understands them quite like they do each other, but they also know what irreconcilable differences lie beneath the surface and will bubble up if they're in each other's orbit for too long.

But maybe, in another 100+ years, after Alucard has seen enough of the mess that is human history to become a self-identified 'realist', and after Olrox has known the love of someone who suffered so much of the same losses he has yet still carried the same kind of hope for the world that Alucard once had, they might find themselves in a position to meet in the middle in a way the simply could not before.

Aahhhhh I love them sm 🫠🫠🫠 thank you for this invitation to yap about Alurox 🙏

[velvetvexations]

your post on it made me realize that the "AFAB transfem/intersex transfem" discourse feels like a creepily close parallel to the "lesboy/lesbian man" discourse. which i directly experienced. i think that experience is why i haven't been able to directly acknowledge the similarities until i saw someone else lay it out.

one can functionally have the same identity- as long as you don't use the exact term(s) at the center of the discourse. only speak using the popular terms, maintain the "right opinions", get comfortable with occasional enforcement of where the group-border is right now (it may move or it may not but always act like it was where it is now forever), and suddenly it's not end of the world or language. we can continue to say "words have meaning" at the same time as you existing in our space. for someone fine with the trade-off it can be quite comfortable.

call yourself as "lesbian boyfriend" as much as you want. but don't shorten it, and you do need to tell me about your genitals or if/how you transitioned so i can make sure if i'm comfortable having you around. i mean it would be scary if a man was in here right? thank god you understand that you have "masc privilege". but you can call yourself a man/guy/dude as long as you're joking, but if it isn't just a fake punchline than people with posts about supporting multigender/genderfluid/nonbinary lesbians and how hot "butches who are just some guy" are will attack you for being a fake invader.

talk about how you're "an intersex woman transitioning towards a feminine identity" as much as you want. don't shorten it, you need to make sure you aren't making any perisex trans people uncomfortable, so don't mention IGM/CAGAB/SIG or anything like that just to be safe. but you do need to tell me about your genitals. never disagree about the "privilege" that having a congenital condition gives you or the people with posts talking about how important trans/intersex solidarity is and how "i wish i was an [insert h-slur or synonym] that would be SO hot/affirming*" will attack you for being a fake invader.

like. you can still talk about it! but never directly name it unless you're fine with the potential level of harassment you'll get, despite nothing functionally changing about your identity. despite being in that space for entire years of your life. just never clarify or if you do, use the language WE want you to use, i mean you don't want to make anyone uncomfortable or kill the vibe right? if you do than the invisible switch flips and you'll magically stop being one of us.

this is all for everyone's safety btw. if you question it you're dangerous and if you get upset you're manipulative, which means we were retroactively right about you. also if you're quiet and leave that just means you're admitting you were guilty, which also means we were retroactively right about you. it's a very effective system! anyway, please read my essay about how community is important for our survival. social murder and isolation are just so fucked up...... you really can't trust anyone outside our group. have you SEEN those statistics? this is why i only form relationships inside the group. because it's Safe. you should read this twitter thread/Medium article about how we've fixed radical feminism so the group can be even safer and more effective!

(*rotate this with "i'm an [h-slur] because that word means transgender!" or "god i want to fuck an [h-slur] so bad" because they're all relatively common in perisex queer space. pick the most accurate poison because it's all just intersexism)

To be clear though, people who are like that about intersex trans women are a minority among the people who object to it. Most of them think having been AFAB is ontologically incompatible with being a transfem. But people who are less stupid than that recognize that's stupid and assume the objection is to the specific language they're seeing used.

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Do you think we will have a scene similar to Sam carrying Frodo? But it would be Mike carrying Will.

Oh, wonderful question

Truth is, I have no idea!

I mean, we kinda got that in s2, no? When will was possessed in the hospital and mike carried him (with struggle) until hopper took over. Maybe I should add that to my masterpost, after all, both Mike and hopper have Sam parallels.

Especially considering: mf possession= the ring and its effects

But I do would love to see it again, for longer, a more obvious parallel. I do think they will be samfroding in s5 (which is to say, going separate from the rest of the group at some point, just both of them). Maybe we get a scene of injured!will and Mike carrying him or maybe even the opposite (Mike also has Frodo parallels), but no, I think if we have this scene again it will also be mike carrying Will. Could be a cool parallel to s2, specially if Mike is able to actually lift him up now.

God, when I think about it, has there been a scene between Sam and frodo they haven't paralleled already? The scene of them flirting talking about how people in the future will want to hear about them and their quest, I guess. Maybe we also get a parallel to this with byler.

I do definitely think we'll get a parallel to frodo leaving the fellowship and Sam following him. Specially because in s5 all the leaks point to scenes with them together, possibly alone, and in S4 they already established that they'll return to be "a team. Friends. Best friends." We also know the importance of Will and his connection to the ud. Will will realize vecna is after him specifically and will try to get away from the rest of the party to not get them in danger, or to not ruin their plans to kill vecna, or maybe he'll get tired and try to kill him himself (remember the rooftop leak, he's acting angry, not like himself... (also a frodo parallel might I add, remember the effects of the ring in the movie)) and mike will realize and follow him... Oh I can't wait. Specially if will goes to the ud (because: ud = mirkwood, but perhaps also mordor) (unless vecna's mindscape = mordor, because there do are signs pointing towards it. Both Mike AND Will being vecna'd proof?? Crazy together and what not)

But yeah mike will be in the ud at some point, I can't wait. Will will probably volunteer to go since he already went there and knows it better that anyone else and mike, with his saviour complex and survivors guilt, is not letting will out of his sight again, no, he's following him. Perhaps that's when we get the sam carrying frodo parallel. Injured!Will, by a demogorgon or vecna or smth. Oh what if instead of Sam carrying frodo (further into mordor) it’s mike carrying will (outside of Mordor, taking him out because he's too weak/injured to escape alone).

In the scene with Sam carrying Frodo there was also gollum jumping on them to stop them… Mike carrying Will in the ud but a demogorgon appears? (Or Vecna. Smth smth Henry/gollum parallels. Gollum attacks Sam, Mike carrying Will but then getting vecna’d? Ok this is a bit wild I don’t really believe this, but!)

I also definitely need to see a “I’m glad to be with you, samwise gamgee, here at the end of all things” scene with byler.

[dangerpronebuddie]

WIP Wednesday!!

Tagged by @tizniz @inell @monsterrae1 @tidesreach thank y'all!! They all shared absolutely BRILLIANT stuff, so go show em some love!! 💚🩷

I've started a new WIP! Ignore the others glaring at me in the corner. Anyway! Trapped buddie anon, I hope you're seeing this. I haven't been able to stop thinking about the idea since you pitched it to me so I started writing it! And it does work for my BTHB! For those who haven't seen those posts, that lovely anon told me I should write buddie trapped together where they're both hurt. It snowballed from there and now I have... 2k or so words written! So, have some of Buck and Eddie stuck in a sinkhole:

“Eddie?” Buck sits upright and looks around frantically as the dust settles. His head spins, but he ignores it. “Eddie?!” His already racing heart picks up speed when he gets no response. Relax, Buck, this is no time to panic. Maybe Eddie managed to get out before the sinkhole fully opened? “Eds!” he calls again, his gravelly voice echoing and making his head throb. A weak groan sounds a few yards away. Buck scrambles to his feet and shines his flashlight around the remarkably large pit. He sees Eddie's helmet behind the truck, which turned on its side in the collapse. Buck maneuvers around the truck, stepping on broken asphalt and over lengths of rebar. The truck is almost flush with the wall of the pit, but just far enough from the edge to keep from crushing- “Eddie,” Buck gasps out. The truck has him pinned against a broken slab of asphalt, giving him just barely enough room to breathe. “Hang on, Eds, I'll get you out of there,” Buck says, looking around for a way to pull him free. “You can't,” Eddie croaks. Buck frowns, his heart jumping into his throat. “Wh- why not? What's wrong?” “Rebar,” he says, his voice strained. “In my…” Buck zips around the other side of the truck in an attempt to get a closer look. He shines his flashlight on Eddie and gasps. A length of rebar from the truck bed is piercing through the left side of Eddie's chest, almost his shoulder. Almost parallel with where a sniper threatened to take him from Buck.

(tags under the cut! As always, please let me know if you want to be added/ removed):

@lover-of-mine @loveyouanyway @daffi-990 @kitteneddiediaz

@ronordmann @steadfastsaturnsrings @exhuastedpigeon @hippolotamus

@thekristen999 @diazheartsbuckley @wildlife4life @misshiss727

@rainbow-nerdss @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @lunarspark-cos @idealuk @shipperqueen6 @slowlyfoggydestiny @eddiesfagstache

@lin27 @jshadow01 @orangeboxfox92 @thegeekcompanion @emilybahu @lemotmo @awolfnamed-nyx

@kaseysgirl86-blog @darkrose6578 @totallynotagoraphobic @dandelioncasey @bibuckbuckgoose @whatsgoodinthehood22

@lady-elaine @buckley-diaz-rules @buddiedaydreamer911 @monroemary @pirate-hunter @snowviolettwhite @hermoineindisguise

@nonspeakingkiku @eddiedisasterdiaz @drunkandsupportiveeddie @epicbuddieficrecs @disasterbuck