#making himself the victim

[tchaikovskym]

gilmore girls gave me my first anti-blorbo. richard. i look at that man and i just go "no".

[dreadark]

that ivan loves till is the most obvious thing about them

but. does ivan know that…?

the ivan that regards his own feelings as shallow, the ivan that learned how emotions are expressed only from copying others… does he even know that the love he’s felt for so long is love? probably not. and part of the reason is the one he loves himself

because the easiest example he has of love is till's feelings to mizi. till outright calls it love, and ivan watches him so much he has to be aware of this and till’s love to mizi is totally unselfish, right. he doesn’t seem to actually want much from her—just that she's still there and still "mizi"

but ivan can't be satisfied with just watching he… wants. ivan wants till’s attention, till’s affection—

surely this selfish wanting can’t be love

...no wonder he was never able to express his feelings straightforwardly when he belittles them so much but he can’t stand not having anything either, so he does… whatever he does instead to get any scraps of attention he can, from someone he's convinced doesn't care about him at all only showing affection when till can't see it, right until he knows he's going to die

but ivan's feelings for till are all he still has of himself... to think of them as shallow...

I've seen this translated as "I should've been kinder" to him (till) or to her (sua)

but really, the one he should've been kinder to was himself

[arthursfuckinghat]

"I was gonna say you're like a son to me.. but you're more than that."

"It ain't that complicated!"

How quickly that shoulder pat of comfort turned into a condescending one.

[treasureplcnet]

btw i love revenge stories i dont think anyone should ever move on peacefully. a bit obsessed with the way weissman went to the synagogue and rabbi and asks, "my choices killed a child. would god take mercy on someone like me?" and the rabbi says "it's not god's mercy you should look for. its the child's" and like you think that would spur this man into charitable activities and to maybe look out for orphans but instead he goes on a 24 hour revenge bender that ultimately ends in two revenge killings and his own death. what's better than righteous anger and wrath and love twisting someone into the worst but also a truer version of themselves <3

[grimalkinmessor]

Just to put a lot of my posts and beliefs about Light Yagami's character in one post (headcanons not included):

• He does not do anything for purely moral reasons. The reason he started killing criminals was because he was curious, and then afterward his "crusade" was built from panic and spite. He thought using the Death Note was going to kill him, so he decided to take everyone he considered a threat to society down with him—that way he would still be good. He would still be remembered. If he can't live, then criminals don't deserve to either. The weight loss and the insomnia shown in the manga, were more likely results of a fear of dying than moral stress.

• Then Light discovers he won't die. This negates part of the spite, but not the need for a moral justification to keep himself "good". He no longer needs to be a martyr, so instead he's chosen to become a God.

• During this week and half of time, Light goes from being a bored, lonely, listless teenager disgusted with the world because it's not how his father taught him it should be, disgusted because if he can manage perfection why can't the rest of the world—to a boy with a new friend and a new mission that gives him purpose. Something interesting. If the world can't be perfect on its own, he'll have to help it. The world needs his help, making him its "savior".

• In comes L. It is no longer about Kira, no longer about saving the world from itself, even if he might tell himself it is—it's about the game. Kira was a fun pastime, yes, but L has made things so much more interesting. (Light and Ryuk are actually wildly similar in several ways it's just not immediately obvious). This game is more fun, too, because this time he has an opponent—one not so nebulous as "the criminals of the world", who offered no challenge. Light is still justifying his actions through a lens of morality, because he has to, but they're beginning to run rather thin.

• Both the broadcast and the obvious taunts to L through changing Kira's killing methods supports the above. "You're too stupid, L. If you were just a little smarter, we could've had some fun." Drawing L in was to progress their game, not Kira's goals. If Light truly only cared about Kira's vision, Kira's new world, Kira's righteous justice; then he wouldn't have continued to play the game after the broadcast. There was no way for L to find him without Light drawing him in—the Death Note is literally the perfect murder weapon. Light knew this, he just ignored it because he wanted to play.

• In the same vein: Yotsuba Light doesn't know he's playing the game. He's forgotten that there even is a game, and so he sees L as someone who's been duped, who either isn't as intelligent as he's been made out to seem, or someone who's being purposefully cruel just because he can. Either way, to Yotsuba Light, L's threat level has only increased, because Light no longer has any sort of weapon to go against him with. He can't even wield his own innocence against him, because his innocence is not certain. Even to himself. Yotsuba Light knows that he has to play along with L's plays of friendship and morality in order to secure his freedom, but he does not respect L or like him. At least, not until near the end, where they're closing in on Higuchi. Where his freedom seems closer....and yet he sees his own, true innocence as more tenuous than ever. Notably, even when Light feels positively towards L there, he still does not share his suspicions about himself with him. His own life still takes precedence over any sort of justice or morality he might have, because Yotsuba Light is still Light. And Light will always put his own self-interests first.

• After killing L, something interesting happens. Because the game ends, but Kira is still left. And Light was willing to take risks and make wild plans in his game with L, but Kira's goals always, always came after his own life. And when only Kira's goals are left, Light stops taking those big, potentially lethal risks. (i.e. bomb desk trap, killing Raye Penber in person by handing him pages of the Death Note, killing Naomi Misora in person right in front of the police station, writing Higuchi's name while sitting right beside L with the murder weapon literally in his hand, etc. etc.). Winning the game was worth dying for—Kira's ideals are not. Or, to put it even more simply: His pride is worth dying for, but his morals are not. Five years after his victory against L, he's presented with another game, but instead of feeling fearful and excited as he did with L, Light is angry. Arrogant and angry. Because this isn't a game to these opponents, as it was to L—they're playing against each other, and Light is merely a piece in it. This game is not like his game with L; it's more like his "game" with the criminals of the world. One with no true challenge, just another defense of Kira's world—worth winning, but not worth dying for.

• Light's pride is more important to him than anything. He needs to be able to take pride in himself and his actions. Pride comes before everything else, before Kira, before family, before L, even before his own desires and physical health. He does not enjoy killing—he just turned it into something he could be proud of. Into another mastering of craft. Light is not particularly sadistic, he's just spiteful. He'll only take pleasure in someone's suffering if they make someone else suffer first, especially if that someone is him. Attacking his pride would count as making him suffer, because that's the most important thing in the world to him. Even though Light also values his life incredibly highly, attempting to kill him wouldn't invoke as much hell-hot wrath as attempting to humiliate him would. And Light will always get even. Always. He does not forgive and forget.

• He believes every lie he tells himself. Every. Lie. He is a Good Man. He is Good Son. He is a Savior. He is Better. He is NOT Evil, he is Good. He's incredibly adept at not only fooling other people, but fooling himself. Even if he's vaguely aware of the truth, he'll take great pains to make sure that truth never comes to light—because it would crush him.

• Light does not take his own desires into account. If he likes or wants something that contradicts with the perfect image he's crafted, he purges it from his mind. Makes excuses for why he doesn't need it, or even convinces himself very thoroughly that he didn't even want it in the first place. If it's not something he can be proud of (or convince himself to be proud of), he doesn't allow himself to desire it.

• Light sees everyone as beneath him (family notwithstanding, Light loves his family deeply), and while it's a pyramid scale of how far beneath him they are, it's not actually ranked by things like gender, sexuality, race—it's ranked by morality and intelligence. The more intelligent and moral you are, the higher up you are on the scale. Light feeling hostile towards someone does not always mean he sees them as further down beneath him; with L and Misa specifically, it means that they're a threat. Light tends to only see people near the top of the intelligence pyramid as threats; evidenced by him dismissing Matsuda completely even with the knowledge that Matsuda was a marksmen, and yet him immediately setting out to kill Naomi when he found out she figured out one of Kira's secrets. With Takada and Mikami, he treats them exactly the same as each other because they're both on the same level of the scale—and he didn't hesitate to get rid of either of them. (Or try to get rid of, in Mikami's case). Everyone is either a tool, a threat, a criminal, a citizen, or family to him. People to use (tool, criminal), people to serve and/or placate (citizen, family), and people to eliminate (threat, criminal). Everyone falls into at least one of these categories for him.

• Light Yagami is a tragic character. And he's a tragic character because he refuses to believe he's part of a tragedy. He would rather swallow broken glass than be considered a victim of anything.

[thatweirdguyinthebushes]

every one of the hargreeves siblings is so self centred yes even your favourite one and it is the best part of the show. theyre all selfish and mean to each other and they lash out as soon as they feel a little threatened and it makes them so much more interesting than good guys who do good things + childhood trauma

[levitatingbiscuits]

I love the idea of Sith Obi-Wan being just as affable as Jedi Obi-Wan. He still banters with his opponents and his allies, he's still on a first name basis with everyone at the restaurants he frequents, he's still very well mannered, and animals still love him. You'd almost be able to forget he's a Sith, if not for the leonine eyes.

But occasionally he'll do something horrific, something measured and calculated to be as cruel as possible, but he'll still be ever so charming and polite. He might even reassure his victims that it's not personal, even if it's too perfectly tailored to what hurts them to be meant for anyone else.

And the thing is, it would be so easy to forget how dangerous he is, when he's so pleasant otherwise. He's nice right up until he's not, but by then it's too late to escape.

[thecruellestmonth]

Jason's feelings about Sheila Haywood

Batman #427 (1988)

"God, it must have been hard for you."

"...I'll save you... Mom..."

Batman: Gotham Knights #44 (2003)

"...I love..."

Batman #428 (1988)

"He threw... himself... in front... of me... in front of me... He took... the main brunt... of the blast... Such a... good boy... Must have... really... loved his... mother..."

Deadman: Dead Again #2 (2001)

JASON: "It's weird--she betrayed me to the Joker. Got us both blown up--but I'm not mad at her. It wasn't really her fault--her whole life was screwed up. Things just... happened. [...] You gotta tell me--is she going to make it?"

DEADMAN: "She's fading pretty fast, kid--"

JASON: "No, I mean-- her soul. What's going to happen to her... afterward?"

DEADMAN: "That's not for me to decide."

SHEILA: "Jason tried to rescue me... We almost... made it... So close... He turned out to be such a good kid..."

JASON: "Thanks, Mom..."

Batman Annual 25 (2006)

He remembered most of what happened. The search for his mother. Her betrayal. Joker. And his own murder.

Task Force Z #8 (2022)

"I died trying to save someone I cared about."

[jacksprostate]

Things I won't forgive the fight club movie for regarding the character of Marla Singer, entry C:

The manic pixie dreamgirlification of her own struggle with life and death. The narrator gets to have a serious issue driving his alienation but Marla gets her cancer removed so her pithy statement about the tragedy of death being that she doesn't fall over dead randomly is just a bit Offbeat And Interesting And Edgy haha! She's a real tourist, really, nothing ever stated to be wrong about her. Sure she overdoses. Sure you can see she's got a shit life. But she doesn't get backstory. She doesn't get a life beyond fun little statements that, when her own reason for saying and thinking them is removed, mostly just reflect the narrator. In the book, it is very, very clear. Marla does what she does because she has cancer and is afraid of The Slow Death. The Wasting. The Struggle. By taking that away you even reduce her suicide attempt. It puts it all in this context of nothingness. Sure, you can assume a depth, but I don't think we should be uncritical about the fact that they chose to remove it. Marla Singer is more than an object that bothers the narrator out of the support groups and gets fucked by Tyler Durden. Marla Singer is a person in her own right in the book, and in the movie she's just... not.

[mariocki]

Lalla Ward makes a brief appearance as Lady Augusta, intended bride to an ill-fated aristocrat, in A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Ash Tree (BBC, 1975)

[to-be-a-dreamer]

To everyone else supporting Shelby, make sure you only talk about the things she has personally come forward about and watch her entire VOD yourself to make sure you're not using incorrect or exaggerated information from second-hand sources. Do not repeat anything you hear or read online without fact-checking it first. Do not use clips of old VODs unless it has been confirmed by the CCs themselves that they weren't staged and/or consensual. Do not speculate about what he might have done to other CCs and do not speak for them (especially Techno, I've seen people bringing him up a lot and it's really disrespectful to put words into someone's mouth when they aren't able to defend themselves. No matter what has happened you didn't know him and you don't know what he would have thought or felt about what is happening). Unsupported claims and poor behavior from supporters will only be used to discredit Shelby's story and the known facts. It's also just bad practice in general; misinformation that supports the cause is still misinformation and is not okay. Focus on Shelby's story and the things she has confirmed, not speculation or rumors.

It's natural to be angry but try to be as civil as possible because there are people who want to feel sorry for him and will take any excuse to see him as the victim. Even if you believe he deserves it, focus more on supporting victim's voices and do not use unrelated insults. Do not send anyone death threats and do not dox anyone. Even beyond how unhelpful and harmful it is to Shelby's story, it's also just not okay to do to someone, no matter what they've done. I also responded with anger at first and I understand the instinct to respond with unhelpful and unrelated hate bombing, but it will only hurt the chances of Shelby's story being taken seriously.

[spicyicymeloncat]

Ninjago fans hate old people. Unless that old people be Garmadon. Garmadon is a dilf. He got pretty emo boy privilege apparently.

[lecoindecachou]

re-watching hbomberguy's video and you know what i think this part needs to be talked about more

[i-spilled-my-soup]

post ttc nico thinking bianca might have lived if he was only smarter and stronger and better, and bianca being the only role model he'd had for all the life he'd remembered he absolutely overcompensates becoming a caricature of distrust and seclusion. but he isnt used to it like bianca was and his desire to help (to prove his worth? to prove that he has a right to live when his sister didn't?) manifests in clinging to any opportunity of progress, anything that could earn him graditute or at the very least repentance

[soldier-poet-king]

Hm like. The fact that the core companions in bg3, all of their arcs are about leaving a severely unbalanced and/or outright abusive relationship dynamic. They're all learning to be people again. How to be autonomous. Who they are beyond the person who controlled or manipulated them or set them on a very deterministic path.

And it's so interesting the variety we get? A goddess lover, a lich queen, a warlock patron, a goddess 'saviour', a vampire master, an archdevil.

Larian really wrote 6 fully fleshed out completely different companions and also said, actually everyone gets a recovery arc, everyone gets to learn freedom in their own way, the mechanism of learning to inhabit and be oneself ironically comes from being possessed by a mind flayer tadpole.

[factsilike]

I've been seeing this take from a lot of JC stans or in general the MDZS fandom that it was relatable when JC was constantly compared to WWX and his achievements and never able to catch up to him, since many people have been in that unenviable position of always being compared to the high achiever.

And I too have always been compared to my bright older sibling in terms of academics, life achievements, social skills, looks and in literally everything she is and has, but I still don't relate with JC in regards to that.

Because what am I supposed to expect from my sibling? That she downplay her talents and capabilities for the sake of my self worth, and self confidence? That she toss away all her achievements and all her hard work to get where she is just to make it easier for me to catch up to her? Was WWX supposed to do that, just so JC didn't feel inferior? (Which he did, by the way, always treading on the line of caution in that Jiang household between tolerating Madam Yu's abuse and always having to placate JC so his fragile ego didn't collapse.)

And I did build up resentment and anger, but not towards my sibling, because even as a preteen I recognised that it wasn't her fault. The fault was with my parents, who should've known better than to raise a child like that, always putting them in the shadow of their older sibling.

But JC let his resentment and hatred control him, listening to his mother's poisonous words and taking them to heart because that's the kind of person he is. It was natural, understandable even, that he might build up resentment and self worth issues being constantly compared to the genius in the sect. It was alright if he felt like that.

What was NOT alright was when he let his negative emotions get the better of him and control his actions and judgement. JGY, master of manipulation, points this out himself, that JC's issues with WWX were so apparent that the other sects barely had to do anything to get the man to decide to cut ties with him, exactly like they wanted.

It is NOT alright when YOUR emotions and jealousy harm the other person when they've done nothing but exist to deserve it. No matter how understandable or relatable these feelings of envy are, they don't excuse his actions and the numerous inexcusable things he did towards WWX and in general.