#madame loathing

[pennamenotfound]

I am having Big Feelings about the Home for Wayward Interests becoming The Fix's home with Pasha, Ichabod Ice Skates, and the rest of the Interests. As many other excellent posts I read point out, the fact that the Interests are being watched over by Madame Loathing (Self Loathing/Guilt) means that every time the Big Guy thinks about them, he hates himself and feels guilty for losing focus. But now, now when he thinks of his old interest in reptiles, magic, or bass playing, or his newly rediscovered interest in ice skating, he's passionate. He's allowed to fixate on them.

It's also a really really perfect ending for The Fix. Surrounded by facts he's allowed to care about that are not considered distractions, but interests, passions, good things for the Big Guy, things that he might even be allowed to pay Attention to with an old friend at the helm of conscious action. With the oxytocin flowing, with the red light district a full, working part of Mentopolis again, and with The Fix and Pasha running the Home for Wayward Interests, I'd imagine things are really looking up for the Big Guy.

Maybe it's sunny again in Mentopolis.

[jackklinemybeloved]

Madame Loathing being corrupted by the psychometer from the very first episode of Mentopolis really paints the “that is incredible information for you to have volunteered” scene in a different light for me.

like originally it’s a fun meta joke about Brennan giving a player information about what they should do next, but if you consider it within canon? Madame Loathing was trying to give The Fix as much information on Conrad so that he could find him and kill him as quickly as possible, since she had already corrupted M. Bition to order The Fix to do that.

and Hank catches it! he realizes getting this much information from an NPC is unusual! and while Brennan deflects, he also makes the in canon character deflect (“focusing on me will only make me stronger”) in a very menacing way. some damn good foreshadowing on Brennan’s part.

[cuelovecrime]

the fact that mark bition was yelling stuff at the fix that was so full of self hatred yet no one caught that ambition had been corrupted by self loathing is soo interesting. because ambition and self loathing are not similiar concepts per se but look how easy it was for ambition to continue neglecting what's good for the self, how they tied their self-worth to their achievements, how they started to punish the big guy for failing to achieve their ever raising goals. look at how easy it must've been to blame the self for everything that went wrong, to start loathing yourself, "elias hodge is the big guy's biggest problem."

[staysaneathome]

In honor of the Mentopolis finale, may I submit for your perusal:

Mentopolis Family Sitcom

Featuring:

Conrad Schintz as our lovable young protagonist

Justin Fication as his Best Friend

The Fix as protective, fun-fact-filled father

Pasha N. as affectionate, intensely enthusiastic mother

Ronnie Reptile as snake-obsessed, artistic younger brother

Madame Guilta Loathing as the stern, secretly repressed teacher

Daniel Fucks as wacky, hijinx-fueled uncle

Hunch Curio as his easily distracted, well-meaning partner

Anastasia Tension as world-wise, chronically underpaid vodka aunt

Fanny Fawnsworth as her eager-to-please, maybe slightly criminal girlfriend

Imelda Pulse as extravagant, mischievous champagne aunt

H. V. Lance as her devoted, quasi-conspiracy-theorist fiancé

Bonus: Elias Hodge as resident family friend and weird neighbor

[islandoforder]

ngl it is only in the adventuring party that i am realising that madame loathing is the big bad/has been given a key, much like hank i thought it was an external force who turned people including madame loathing. so glad i actually watch adventuring party these days

[clownjacket]

Of COURSE Self Loathing/Guilta had the moral compass, because up until now Conrad’s whole thing was feeling guilt and shame and paying mental penance for past wrongdoings instead of actually doing anything good moving forward!!! There was a whole scene about it!!! HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS BEFORE!!!!!!

[feelingtheaster99]

The Fix reunites Ichabod Iceskates who was the owner of Nostalgia’s and Pasha and he proposes to her ON THE SPOT and then Madame Loathing decides to sell them the House for Wayward Interests and change her name to Guilta and and gives Conrad Elias’s moral compass and MY HEART FEELS FULL

[everlastingremorse-blog]

Just thinking about the mentopolis adventuring party.

Specifically the value of Self Loathing. This idea that guilt comes from a place of you wanting to improve yourself is something that I knew but I didn’t know.

Like I knew to a certain extent that the parts of myself that I loathe were because they were loathsome (well, at least a few of them), and that I wanted them gone, but I didn’t connect that getting rid of the bad parts of yourself is the same as improving.

[howlbear]

Jfc Brennan. How am I just realizing how perfect it is that Self Loathing is the one watching over the orphans of interests past. Like yea, you get to the point when you're not good at a thing or it's not "cool" to be into a topic and that Loathing sets in and you drop it.

[marlinspirkhall]

In episode one, I didn't understand at first what Madame Loathing meant when she told The Fix "you give them false hope"; I thought it was an allusion to the fact that The Fix had been able to grow up and escape the orphanage.

But now, knowing how much influence The Fix can have over Elias' behaviour (and his autonomic nervous system), I've realised she meant that the kids think The Fix is there to pick them up.

At any moment, Elias Hodge might decide to take up one of his old interests or hobbies. And that's unexpectedly heartbreaking.

[red-and-frantic]

i think it is so tragic that the discarded interests in elias's brain are being looked after by madame loathing, like he hates himself for either having those interests or for abandoning them

it made me so sad for a minute because i felt really bad for all my own abandoned interests but after relistening and thinking about it for a bit i have a solution

meet noah stalgia

he's kind and gentle and caring and adores those children with all his heart and he's soft and sentimental and makes sure those children are looked after and have attention paid to them

clearly elias does at the minute, but you don't have to hate the discarded interests, you don't have to feel ashamed about it

you can just be nostalgic for the way things were and the time when you were into them, even if you aren't any more

[enitsirk]

Case closed.

[sea-buns]

He says he's unemployed now but I think this was his true calling all along

[5ftboy]

"Conrad's view has always kind of moved out - to think of bigger things and other people, to think of larger places. And in moving away, sometimes the things that up close are huge and horrifying, get just a little bit smaller, a little bit more right-sized, a little bit easier to manage."

[staysaneathome]

The reason Pasha N. is stuck filing stimuli in the evidence locker is because if she ever went out for a walk and found Madame Loathing’s Home for Wayward Interests, all the kids would be freed and adopted within the hour

[islandoforder]

the reveal that madame loathing is actually self-loathing and she’s so cruel to the kids because elias hates his own old and forgotten interests, o my heart