#sociopathic AND omnipotent

[dontlookforme00]

Oh em gee guys look

It's Kim Dokja and his trustworthy constellation, Sun Wukong Great Sage Equal to Heaven! Wow would you believe it

[robbyrobinson]

The Sociopath: King Magnifico (Potential Spoilers for Wish)

So, Wish, is probably underwhelming and a bit of a mess for Disney. For the last few months, the company has taken the L with flop after flop and overinflating the budgets of their movies leading them to lose more money than they are getting.

There are many arguments as to why that is, but with me, specifically what had made them decline is their habit of playing things safe rather than branching out. That, and rushing their projects instead of taking their time to fine tune their films. Heck, Walt Disney himself was known to delay films he personally worked on when they did not match his vision.

For something meant to be a celebration of Disney's hundredth year, Wish is formulaic and generic and plays by the book with its Easter eggs there not being enough to save the script. But that aside, one plus we have is that we finally have an actual Disney Villain this time. So.

King Magnifico is the founder and the oh so loved king of the Kingdom of Rosas who has the ability to grant wishes. So, in a ceremonial event where a subject has their 18th birthday, they get a chance to have Magnifico take their wish so they would one day hope that their wish is granted. But, not all wishes can come true, right? After all, some may be unattainable and dear Magnifico is looking out for his royal subjects, right?

Except not really.

In truth, Magnifico is a paranoid tyrant who declines wishes that could prove to be a threat to his authority or, more specifically, could drive attention away from him. This is who the "beloved" king really is: a narcissistic sociopath who cannot stand to have anything take the spotlight from him because his ego is so fragile.

He lavishes himself in praise and believes that he is entitled to have his subjects' undivided attention. After all, he has genes from outer space, and he is the one who puts the "I" in omnipotence. Surely, he deserves all the love and praise because, come on, he granted 14 wishes last year! That is a lot of work... picking and choosing which wish to grant out of the hundreds of thousands if they benefitted him in any meaningful way.

But despite all the praise and his wife Amaya loving him, that is still not enough for him to glut himself on. Magnifico is a man willing to keep his people ignorant of their true desires and is not hesitant to harm them to get his way. For you see, their "wish" comes with a part of their soul which he can bring them despair by crushing them or uses them to act as a battery. Despite all the claims of doing all this for his people, Magnifico only values them for what they can do for him rather than acting like the benevolent king he paints himself to be.

Not even Amaya is safe from his toxic narcissism. She only exists to love and go along with whatever he desired. If not, she was as useless to him as anyone else who stood in the way of fluffing his ego.

[theomnicode]

Imagine some people hating OPM manga purely on the basis that "it's not a direct copy of wc" and "we didn't get this and that thing happen", when the entire manga is built on the premise of "what if"-scenario contrasting wc, where the characters would develop due to social interconnectivity and engaging in their humane aspects, rather than stagnate like what Saitama does in WC. Because Saitama in WC probably can never get the self-actualization he needs without engaging in these aspects, the cactus allegory. In manga he does and the results are far-reaching, powerful and rewarding.

There's also probably good reasons why fights like Psykos got not only extended but recontextualized and also Psykos vs Fubuki got postphoned. So Psykos gets more limelight and importance. And people diss on Garou & Metal bat fighting Sage centipede like...so much but that also showcases some very important themes and the exemplification of interconnectivity. Also the very existence of Sage centipede, that is also kind of important, since it showed the creation of a monster by God.

Heck, God added as a character changed the entire manga. ONE's self insert of omnipotency going into action is a powerful force lol.

Someone has to shed some light how ONE's writing has supposedly gone down the drain, without making a comparison to his writing on WC when the Manga has different themes going on, so criticising the manga for it's lack of WC themes like entire S-class having more depth instead of being just pure sociopaths (and apparently having more depth is bad now) isn't gonna cut as a point of critique. There's still all those same themes people know and love from all of ONE's production at the core, but for added bonus we get it all in amazing battle manga format.

I aint saying the writing is perfect, ain't nobody perfect. But we've not finished the Garou story just yet and people already critique the lame ending... It hasn't even ended yet bro, we still got epilogue. If you critique the supposedly lame ending now, then you're just being disingenuous.

I think the one honest critique I can legitimately agree on is that MA arc is very long and it does not have enough Saitama in it. Because frankly, Saitama is the most beloved character in the manga and we just love to see him, that's all, so long stretches of not seeing Saitama in action hurt.

Yet giving more limelight to other characters serves a greater purpose in the end. Not developing any side characters is wasteful. It also makes the sparse appearances of his more meaningful.

Idk why he's not allowed to write slightly different story though, it's just a parallel timeline at this point in his massive multiverse of ONE writing work, which is a funny meta.

[entoman-created-by-the-tallgreys]

Human . Female

Giving women are extremely selfish with their emotions, to the point where I don't think they're able to understand what they do is Evil, I don't think the human female is able to understand they're acting like an asshole I don't think they're intellectually capable of comprehending bad behavior that means that they are in evolutionarily inferior to men.

Men know right from wrong women seem to not be able to understand that only on a selfish area they know right and wrong from them they can't understand right and wrong upon anyone else and they especially can't understand hurting someone and getting mad at someone and fighting someone or bad things they just get angry and then they go to the attack this is sociopathic mentality I have studied psychology for a while, real early in my existence I started studying this quite a while throughout my life Psychiatry is bullshit, Psychology is not !

And the one thing I studied is that there's something there's a great lack when coming with the female version of the human being there's a monumental shall we say decrease in human quality they lack a dramatic and portion of intelligence that the males do not lack.

Female lack the ability to understand and do a lot of things females lack physical strength females lack a lot of things but one thing females severely lack is the ability of self-control it's like women's are it's like a woman is a puppet of her emotions it's like she's not in control of her emotions her emotions are always in control of her she's not able to not let them go wild she's not able to not let them explode and go crazy she's not able to control them her emotions are absolutely omnipotent over, Her !

Just making women extremely dangerous they are very unintelligent they're very emotionally impulsive and they're extremely selfish being's, and the government knows that, the government knows what a big problem women are they know they understand that's where they give all the power it's an intention of Destruction.

This is another reason why there are so many men that are no longer with women because something fried the wires and the woman's brain something made them chaotically Wild

Something made them unnecessarily hyper aggressive something made them violent for no good Reason, it's almost like rabies

I don't understand why they become so violent I don't understand why they become so impulsive maybe that's always been the human female I don't know why the littlest things sets them off into the biggest of rages everything is a trigger to them everything is anger everything is fight everything is destruction everything is combat to them everything is war

Women have become like feral ghouls

They become like werewolves hyped up on adrenaline

. . .

Maybe someone poisoned their pussy with bad hormones I don't know

🤷🏻‍♂️

Hormones intensity play a major role in the female and I mean of everything of a female it even dictates their intelligence hormones intensely dictate everything about the woman so maybe they will maybe they're all poisoned I don't know I don't know I don't know I'm not saying they're completely lack of free will I don't understand how they I don't understand why they could be so bad and give so little care.

Because the human female literally tolerates fucking nothing often described as a bitch or a Karen the human female does not care in the slightest bit how much of a fucking asshole she is if she feels mad she's going to hurt someone if something doesn't go her way she's probably going to kill someone if she doesn't like something she's just going to do whatever the fuck she wants another cop comes up she's going to not throw a temperate, But, She's going to go on a rampage ?

? ? ?

This kind of stuff is Extremely confusing, and this is why so many men have left the women a big portion of them was because of they were no longer monogamous, and even bigger portion of the men or because of women which is completely uncontrollable assholes and they were dick head to them to the to the infinite degree

Other times they would just extremely stupid and extremely mean and not cooperative in the slightest bit

. . .

And another thing that's impossible to the human female is explaining things you cannot you cannot give the human female information or do that she does not do intelligence well when her brain has to learn things I've noticed women keep getting this is not a joke this is repeat this is not a joke when you try to explain things to a woman it just makes her angry so learning things just pisses her off I swear to God this shit whenever her brain has to learn something it just activates rage again ?

It's like a fucking virus ?

It's like they have a Rage virus ?

It's like they have a rage virus that makes them stupid it makes them aggressive like a zombie virus it's like the women have some kind of slow active zombie virus ?

Slowly making them a lot Dumber slowly making them more impulsive slowly making them more aggressive a slow zombification of them and to get if they get more unhealthy more crazy more controllable more aggressive they're acting like zombies I mean they act like fucking zombies ?

I'm not being funny we're made of DNA don't forget that shit

[arbane235]

“The hoodlum-occultist is “sociopathic” enough to, see through the conventional charade, the social mythology of his species. “They’re all sheep,” he thinks. “Marks. Suckers. Waiting to be fleeced.” He has enough contact with some more-or-less genuine occult tradition to know a few of the gimmicks by which “social consciousness,” normally conditioned consciousness, can be suspended. He is thus able to utilize mental brutality in place of the simple physical brutality of the ordinary hooligan. He is quite powerless against those who realize that he is actually a stupid liar. He is stupid because spending your life terrorizing and exploiting your inferiors is a dumb and boring existence for anyone with more than five billion brain cells. Can you imagine Beethoven ignoring the heavenly choirs his right lobe could hear just to pound on the wall and annoy the neighbors? Gödel pushing aside his sublime mathematics to go out and cheat at cards? Van Gogh deserting his easel to scrawl nasty caricatures in the men’s toilet? Mental evil is always the stupidest evil because the mind itself is not a weapon but a potential paradise. Every kind of malice is a stupidity, but occult malice is stupidest of all. To the extent that the mindwarper is not 100 percent charlatan through-and-through (and most of them are), to the extent that he has picked up some real occult lore somewhere, his use of it for malicious purposes is like using Shakespeare’s sonnets for toilet tissue or picking up a Picasso miniature to drive nails. Everybody who has advanced beyond the barbarian stage of evolution can see how pre-human such acts are, except the person doing them. Genuine occult initiation confers “the philosopher’s stone,” “the gold of the wise” and “the elixir of life,” all of which are metaphors for the capacity to greet life with the bravery and love and gusto that it deserves. By throwing this away to indulge in spite, malice and the small pleasure of bullying the credulous, the mindwarper proves himself a fool and a dolt. And the psychic terrorist, besides being a jerk, is always a liar and a fraud. Healing is easier (and more fun) than cursing, to begin with, and cursing usually backfires or misfires. The mindwarper doesn’t want you to know that. He wants you to think he’s omnipotent.”    ―      Robert Anton Wilson  

[poppatriarchy]

I Will Destroy You

As is the old adage, oft-recited by zany, well-meaning art professors for centuries past: Art exists as the elucidation of the human experience, to reflect that which is confined to the intellect. Whether it be birth or death, euphoria or sorrow, bloodshed or nirvana, the medium depicts the most indelible facets of humanity. And among these experiences lies the unspeakable – sexual assault. 

Peaking in popularity in the 1970s, the rape-revenge subgenre has historically been helmed by men who possess little to no regard for the women they debase and brutalize. Rarely insightful, the trope typically devolved into a vulgar exploitation of the female form, as rape was primarily used to justify gore and violence. The plot is simple: 1) A woman is besieged by shocking crimes → 2) A bloody revenge is henceforth taken, either by her or a central male figure in her life. In these films, victims possessed a sort of simplistic agency – confined to exhibiting a sociopathic, emotionless form of wrath. It’s a sleazy, unintelligent cinematic formula in which the inner life/journey of the woman is rarely (if ever) broached, and subtlety is nowhere to be found.  

Rape narratives in Hollywood have long been the purview of male writers, directors, producers – denying survivors the platform to tell their own stories:

“I would like to make a blanket ask to cis men to please stop making movies about rape, stop portraying rape,” Joey Soloway, creator of Transparent, said in a 2017 Sundance Film Festival panel. “We get it, guys. You want us to stay inside because you want us to be afraid we’re going to get raped. We get it! Stop making movies and TV shows about rape. Let women make those movies if they want to.”

When entrusted in the hands of men, the rape-revenge genre is exploitative and violent. However, left to the devices of survivors, a necessary nuance is subsequently ushered in – instigating a rebrand or revision of sorts. Enter: I May Destroy You. The quasi-autobiographical portrayal of sexual assault and healing written, directed, produced, and starred by Michael Coel. Coel plays Arabella, a millennial writer who is drugged and thereupon raped in the bathroom of a London club. Upon the end of the gripping first episode, the audience is left in a state of confusion – mirroring Arabella’s. Coel then takes the viewer by the hand, pivoting between timelines and perspectives, beckoning us to reconsider, reframe, or rewrite the narrative concurrently. The show explores not just trauma and its myriad ripple effects, but also race and racism, consent, art, rebirth, and everything in between. The heroine heals messily, honestly, and backwards – serving as a reminder that mourning and mending are not linear processes. Arabella exists as a blank slate for the viewer to project themselves onto – an individual for which one can compare their own experiences as she navigates hers. 

The brilliance in I May Destroy You lies firmly in the creative control Coel possessed over the show. The phenom incites a complete overhaul of the stereotypical rape-revenge plot – offering more than just a narrative of undeviating, vengeful pursuit. In adding nuance to a formerly male-centric/male-helmed trope, Coel encourages the audience to consider the entire spectrum of sexual politics – a feat achieved because she, herself, is a victim of assault. There is no penultimate moment of (violent) revenge, no distraction that allows the protagonist to repress what happened to her, but above all, there is no form or sense of justice or absolution. While, unfortunately, this is the reality of most sexual assault cases, Coel has achieved what no male writer/director could. She does not present her rape as a mere plot device, but as a trauma that lives, breathes, and morphs with her. It’s omnipotent, varying in intensities, unable to be wholly annihilated, but subject to management. 

Arabella is far from the perfect protagonist – in fact, we’re meant to criticize her, to understand that while she is a victim, she is also a perpetrator; to realize that we are all capable of abuse in some way, shape, or form; to grasp that sexual assault is indiscriminative. Unfortunately, these conceptions are sorely missing from art like: I Spit On Your Grave, The Virgin Spring, The Last House On the Left, etc – films that solely focused on retributive justice, and a fetishization of assault. I therefore believe I May Destroy You exists as a necessary paradigm shift – tackling the same cultural plague as the aforementioned movies, but with frankness and authenticity. Although Arabella does not get the vigilante moment she (or the audience) initially desired, we are to assume that her life goes on. It has to. Ultimately, she finds a peace that outweighs a confrontation with her rapist, a peace borne from the acceptance that closure will likely never be reached. I laughed, I cried, and I can’t wait for Michaela Coel to destroy me again.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[featherfur]

I’m still on my Nie Huaisang train. Okay look, in CQL Mo Xuanyu only wants the main family dead in the novel he wants the entire village dead. He sliced open his chest and arms and legs for each person in the village (and one for JGY). Mo Xuanyu is not a helpless little baby, though he is timid but that’s like saying Wen Ning is a baby who can do no wrong when in fact he can be quite dangerous and brave even before he became the ghost general!

A lot of theories seem to think that Mo Xuanyu was approached by Nie Huaisang. What if it was the other way around? What if Mo Xuanyu knew about Mingjue and realized he could get revenge on Jin Guangyao for rejecting him?

Cuz here’s the thing, the bits that we do have that Mo Xuanyu was actively harassing JGY and that NHS met MXY at Jinlintai is all speculation! Wei Wuxian THINKS that’s what happened and he is not a reliable narrator (no character’s POV is reliable unless they’re omnipotent which WWX is not and probably would not want to be) but that’s never confirmed.

So imagine, Mo Xuanyu tossed out either for harassment or because JGY realized his affections (clearly he cared for him a little otherwise he could have just killed him off, because even the babbling of a lunatic can sometimes be the seed that gets people questioning) and all he knows is pain— and that really nice guy Nie Huaisang who makes JGY do his work and just stands around looking pretty.

What’s the best revenge here? Going to Nie Huaisang. In the novel Mo Xuanyu got the spell from JGY’s secret room, implying that they were either already in cahoots before hand (which makes me doubt that MXY was actually in love with JGY) or MXY was so pissed when he found out he was being kicked that he either grabbed a bunch of papers and ran or he had them memorized and decided to say fuck you JGY and went to spill the tea to NHS.

Now I’m not going to get into that because this is already getting long and I will never shut up. ANYWAYS!

When the novel first begins we learn that the spell is super fucked up and only used for evil and revenge, historically it only brings back demons. Wei Wuxian is undeniably not a demon but everyone thinks he is.

Nie Huaisang might have given MXY the name to call but MXY knew what he was doing. He knew what he was summoning and for all NHS knew this would pull back only the YLLZ part of Wei Wuxian. (I mean he also knows that part basically hid in a mountain so maybe that’s what he was banking on but still) but! BUT! He knew as long as Mo Xuanyu had a cut for Jin Guangyao that Wei Wuxian or the YLLZ or whatever bastard came back would have to kill him or be ripped apart. That’s how the spell works. And Mo Xuanyu didn’t even slice deep for him so much as he sliced for his aunt, he knew exactly what he was doing.

They both knew they were probably summoning a demon and they were banking on it. I’ve seen a lot of takes that imply that NHS tricked or manipulated MXY into it but MXY is the only one who could have brought NHS the ritual and he knew exactly what it was for. He sliced himself open, not for the red blade master, but for revenge against his Mo family that abused him. He wasn’t tricked at all.

Mo Xuanyu and Nie Huaisang raised a demon knowing full well the threats with no proof otherwise and I think they fully intended for the powerful sociopathic Yiling Laozu to come back and burn the world with a guarantee of Jin Guangyao’s life because the slice would kill him otherwise.

[newts-and-sharks]

I got 8 on the enneagram test.. tho I didnt wanna pay for it… so I could uh- read what the chart said T w T

i looked it up dw i gotchu-

type 8 personalities are self-confident, strong, assertive , protective, resourceful, straight-talking, and decisive (whoo, look at you go-!)

however, you can be ego-centric, domineering, confrontational, intimidating, and have problems with temper and letting themselves be vulnerable (that's ok, you still got all that up there ^)

basic fear: being harmed or controlled by others

basic desire: to protect themselves and to be in control of their life

key motivation: being self reliant, to prove their strengths and resist weakness, to be important to the world, and staying in control of the situation

type 8 is known as The Challenger! (that name is so cool tbh-)

now for the levels of development:

Healthy Levels

Level 1 (At Their Best): Become self-restrained and magnanimous, merciful and forbearing, mastering self through their self-surrender to a higher authority. Courageous, willing to put self in serious jeopardy to achieve their vision and have a lasting influence. May achieve true heroism and historical greatness.

Level 2: Self-assertive, self-confident, and strong: have learned to stand up for what they need and want. A resourceful, "can do" attitude and passionate inner drive.

Level 3: Decisive, authoritative, and commanding: the natural leader others look up to. Take initiative, make things happen: champion people, provider, protective, and honorable, carrying others with their strength.

Average Levels

Level 4: Self-sufficiency, financial independence, and having enough resources are important concerns: become enterprising, pragmatic, "rugged individualists," wheeler-dealers. Risk-taking, hardworking, denying own emotional needs.

Level 5: Begin to dominate their environment, including others: want to feel that others are behind them, supporting their efforts. Swaggering, boastful, forceful, and expansive: the "boss" whose word is law. Proud, egocentric, want to impose their will and vision on everything, not seeing others as equals or treating them with respect.

Level 6: Become highly combative and intimidating to get their way: confrontational, belligerent, creating adversarial relationships. Everything a test of wills, and they will not back down. Use threats and reprisals to get obedience from others, to keep others off balance and insecure. However, unjust treatment makes others fear and resent them, possibly also band together against them.

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: Defying any attempt to control them, become completely ruthless, dictatorial, "might makes right." The criminal and outlaw, renegade, and con-artist. Hard-hearted, immoral and potentially violent.

Level 8: Develop delusional ideas about their power, invincibility, and ability to prevail: megalomania, feeling omnipotent, invulnerable. Recklessly over-extending self.

Level 9: If they get in danger, they may brutally destroy everything that has not conformed to their will rather than surrender to anyone else. Vengeful, barbaric, murderous. Sociopathic tendencies. Generally corresponds to the Antisocial Personality Disorder.

(I just copy and pasted that up there bc i didn't feel like typing it, oops-)

now for personal growth recommendations for 8s:

1: act with self restraint

2: learn to yield to others

3: remember that the world is not against you

4: learn to rely on others

fun fact: Martin Luther King was a type 8 personality, as well as Pablo Picasso, Aretha Franklin, and Dr. Phil!

[therealvinelle]

Hi! I was reading through your meta (which is reeeeally interesting) and noticed you said you don't like Eleazar? I was wondering why that was?

Tumblr ate this ask when I had almost finished it and I hate everything. Also, thanks for the compliment, I’m really glad you like my things.

Now to try and remember what I wrote about Eleazar…

I think Eleazar is a disagreeable person whose gift wasn’t useful enough to warrant a place in the Volturi guard, and Aro jumped on the Carmen-shaped excuse to give him an honorable discharge.

To start with the gift, we see him use it twice and neither time is particularly impressive.

Siobhan Siobhan has the power of reality manipulation. Her gift is noticeable enough that Carlisle is certain she has it, so when he gets Eleazar and Siobhan in a room together he pulls Eleazar over to see if he was right. Eleazar squints at Siobhan. And he squints. Finally he says, «I’ve got nothing.» Now, gifts are an iffy, complicated matter everyone has their own theories about, but I think that at the end of the day we can all agree it’s a binary, you’re gifted or you’re not. Some gifts may be weak, but those are still gifts. And maybe someone will touch the gray zone of «is it a gift or is Johnny the vampire just really good at juggling?», but Siobhan has the power to manipulate reality, and she must do it a lot for Carlisle to have come to suspect it in the first place. She has a definitive and powerful gift. And even if I’m wrong about gifts being binary, if Eleazar wants to be useful to Aro he should still be able to say: Yes, this person has a gift, or no, this person does not have a gift. Sadly, he is not. When brought before Siobhan he says «She could have a gift, she could also not have a gift.» This means he hasn’t detected her gift, which is bad enough by itself. Being able to tell if someone has a gift or not should be a dealbreaker. The way he answers, though, that she could very well have a gift he doesn’t know about, makes it clear that people having gifts he couldn’t detect has happened enough for him to be open to the possibility that the gift there, and he can’t see it. In other words, Eleazar isn’t reliable for detecting gifts and will give Aro false negatives.

Bella This is an aside but as it’ll inevitably come up later in my blog I’ll just drop here that I think Bella’s gift is something more complex than a shield. She has prophetic dreams, hallucination!Edward, and there’s a weird inconsistency as to who is blocked by her and who isn’t. I think her gift is self-preservation, and the shield is one of its manifestations. Anyway, onto discrediting Eleazar. (I’ll be pretty closely paraphrasing what happens in chapter 31 of Breaking Dawn, but since the interaction goes on for several pages I’m not going to clutter this post by pasting all of it.) To his credit, he does notice Bella right away, and he identifies her as a shield based on the fact that he gets this sense of nothingness from her. This is all he can do, however, and I can’t stress that enough. He assumes that she can block Edward, but he’s shocked to learn that she can block Aro. He’s just as surprised that she can block Jane and Alec. He has to interview her to deduce exactly what her gift does, which again has nothing to do with his gift. Anyone could ask questions, in fact Aro found all this out two books ago, without the help of Eleazar. Eleazar then starts musing aloud about who-would-win in a Renata vs. Bella showdown (more on that later), which is as tactless as it is revealing. The guy genuinely doesn’t know, and it’s because he doesn’t understand their gifts well enough. Eleazar’s power means he can tell Bella that she has a gift, and he knows roughly what it is. He muses that usually he can’t even tell that much, which again is quite damning. He can’t tell her exactly what she does without a game of 20 questions first. She gives him more information than he gives her, which he then regurgitates back to her with slightly different wording, and everybody claps. «My god, Eleazar, you’ve done it again!» (No, really, this is pretty much what happens. Eleazar brought no new information to the table, yet he blew Bella and Edward’s minds.) It’s all fun and games to do this for Bella and Edward, as they for various reasons genuinely didn’t realize she had a gift. For Aro, who figured this one out on his own, one begins to wonder what Eleazar was bringing to the table.

Carlisle Bonus bullet point! I’ll make this one brief. I believe Carlisle in canon has a gift he’s unaware of (Yes, I have a post planned, but it will get ugly long so god knows when it’ll come), which makes him another one of Eleazar’s gift detection fails. In short, I think he’s extremely charismatic, able to win over anybody. To list a few examples - he has an extremely diverse set of friends who in Breaking Dawn are willing to lay down their lives for him, Jacob muses how his instinctive hostility around vampires doesn’t apply to Carlisle, and vampires are terrifying to humans (don’t be fooled by the movies, people) yet Carlisle is able to work as a successful doctor, meaning his patients don’t mind being exposed to a killing machine even when they’re at their most vulnerable. He’s able to keep his family of sociopaths in line. There’s not a single person in the Twilight ‘verse that dislikes him. (Billy and Caius excepted, but Billy has no direct exposure to him until late Eclipse, and Caius is responding to a coven that’s potentially threatening the Volturi) People are free to disagree with me on this one, but if I’m right (and I have a lot of book quotes as well as a theory on what gifts even are to back me up on this one. I’m right, damnit!) then Carlisle is another gifted vampire Eleazar failed to detect.

So. We’ve established that Eleazar’s gift will yield false negatives, and that he can’t tell you much about the gifts he does detect.

I think his power is to point out the obvious.

Which means that Aro’s eyelid was twitching slightly, but alright, Eleazar could still be useful.

Unfortunately, there is the matter of weighing up your pros with your cons.

The Volturi are, at the end of the day, a group of people who live in a commune together. Coven, guard, evil minions, call them what we like but they’re exposed to each other and some sense of agreeability is required. And Chelsea is not omnipotent.

More, I imagine that in a coven as large and old as the Volturi, they’ve developed a culture of their own. This means that newcomers will need social awareness and a willingness to fit in.

Eleazar, from what we see of him in Breaking Dawn, appears to lack both.

It’s in the way he speaks of the people he used to work with. It’s utterly impersonal. He tells us how their gifts work, no more and no less. When he speaks of Aro, he speaks only of actions Aro took and orders he gave, nothing about the man’s personality. Now, considering the context, he was speaking in a context where Jane’s thoughts and feelings were far from relevant, but it’s still notable.

Also notable is the fact that he has no issue contemplating a Renata vs. Bella scenario, even though this would mean the deaths of two people he worked with for years. Perhaps it’s a thought exercise, but it’s not a thought exercise I would have gotten into when it was days away from becoming reality. If Renata can’t deflect Bella’s power, she and Aro die.

I’ll put it this way - I don’t think he’d do a «who would win» like this involving Carmen.

At no point in the book does Eleazar show any concern for the eventuality that members of a guard he used to be a part of may get killed.

It seems he didn’t form personal relationships with the rest of the guard. I suspect he considered himself... if not quite above them, then still someone who could evaluate them. Their gifts is what he looked at in them. I also think it’s likely he asked Aro not to use Chelsea on him, which in turn would have made him stick out even more as there’s nothing making him and Volturi Guard Member X just click in the way I imagine Chelsea can be very helpful with. Which in turn means that the other guard members will feel close to one another in a way they’re not close to Eleazar.

Also… he’s just a douche. I’m sorry, but I don’t make the rules and the whole guy radiates douche. I can’t even point to a specific quote in the book, it’s just is.

I don’t think this guy never really fit into the Volturi guard, and his gift wasn’t useful enough to keep him. Aro was thrilled to have him at first, but as time went on and Eleazar proved to just not be all that, he eventually realized he had to get rid of him.

Because as others have pointed out before me, the Carmen excuse makes no sense. There would be no problem in one more vampire in the castle, yet Aro wouldn’t let her in and Eleazar had to choose.

It was a solution that sent Eleazar on his way with his ego intact, and no hard feelings towards the Volturi. More, Aro is on record doing this with it’s-not-you thing with at least one other vampire. Laurent wanted to join the Volturi, had nothing to bring to the table, and Aro used past association with the Romanians as an excuse for why Laurent couldn’t join rather than tell him to his face that he was useless. With Marcus, Aro, and Chelsea around, the Romanian connection isn’t a problem, meaning Aro was bullshitting.

TL;DR: Aro is the kind of person who’d lie and say his grandma died if he doesn’t want to go to your party, and Eleazar is the kind of person who’d say «My condolences».

[robbyrobinson]

Villain Review: Emperor Belos (Contains SPOILERS)

Biography

This dark lord's life began roughly hundreds of years before the start of the series. On Earth, Belos was known as Philip Whittebane and lived in Gravesfield, Connecticut, the hometown of Luz Noceda during the 17th century. Around that time, witchcraft was greatly despised and reviled as evil.

Philip lived in a peaceful community alongside his brother until one-day tragedy struck: according to legend, the two brothers were led into the Demon Realm by a witch and were never seen again.

From there, we can speculate on Philip's life in the Demon Realm based on the events of "Hollow Mind" where Luz and Hunter end up going into Belos' mindscape. Going past the self-serving portraits of himself representing his "victory" over wild magic, Luz and Hunter discover his real mindscape.

Through a series of paintings, we have a story-within-a-story. Philip appears to become transformed into some monster resembling the manifestation of palismen souls that exist within his mindscape. His brother embraces him and it seems to cure him. If only for a few moments.

Next, his brother fell in love with a witch and was in the process of introducing her to him. But unbeknownst to him, Philip carried a dagger behind his back and a scuffle culminates in his brother lying lifeless on the ground with the dagger stained with his blood. From there, it could be insinuated that his lover cursed Philip as vengeance.

Philip would find himself alone for quite some time, but through what little that we know of his checkered past, he became aware of a potentially omnipotent being known as the Collector and was searching them out to accomplish his true goal: the complete destruction of all witches and demons that reside on the decaying Titan.

To accomplish this, he invited many witches and demons on his journeys and kept a document of his thoughts in his personal journal. But, surprise surprise. They would all end up dying under mysterious circumstances and he was always the sole survivor. We see him repeat the process again with Luz and Lilith when they use a pool to the past. After getting what he wanted, he has no qualms about leaving them to die, but he gets his nose broken rightfully so.

Making a deal with the Collector, Philip would create "The Day of Unity" as a means to mass genocide the witches of the Boiling Isles with the agreement that he would free the Collector who was trapped in the bones of the Titan.

But his xenophobic hatred of witches and magic would come back to bite him in the ass when the name of "Philip Whittebane" resulted in him being chased out of towns. So, what is a genocidal sociopath to do?

More paintings record his process of becoming Belos from his mask to him covering his ears with a bowl of flesh inside meaning that the bastard self-mutilated his own ears to further look like a witch.

He would then create replicas of his brother called grimwalkers and made them "the Golden Guards" all so he could create a better version of his brother: one who was blindly obedient to him. If not...he killed them and remade them again from scratch. He had done this around 18 times throughout the hundreds of years. He kept himself alive by consuming palismen souls which likely mutated him. Philip was the type of guy who would even carve glyphs into his own skin to allow himself to teleport.

From there, he staged attacks by wild witches, burning a town to the ground in one instance, so he could convince the villagers to join his coven systems claiming that he represented the Titan. When they were given their sigils, it was not as complete as it was now with horrid veins pulsating through their bodies and their eyes glazing over.

Personality

At first, Belos appears to be a calm and collected authoritative figure, but he is highly intolerant of failure as demonstrated with his threats to Lilith about what would happen to her should she fail to catch her sister again.

Despite this, Lilith tells the others that Belos has a heart: he cares for his nephew Hunter, the current Golden Guard, supposedly taking him in after wild magic destroyed their family. In some ways, Belos would seemingly be gentle with his nephew not wanting him to be put in situations that could compromise him. In return, Hunter was loyal to his uncle and would constantly sing his praises.

That was until what we learned in "Hollow Mind." There was never a great plan that the Titan had in store for Hunter: it was just rubbish that Belos would tell him to keep him in line. When Hunter learns the truth, Belos' gentleness with his "nephew" evaporates with him lamenting that he was the most perfect replica of an old friend of his that he'd have to kill for his "betrayal" expressing that Hunter was as expendable as the grimwalkers before him.

With what little we know of his backstory, even if Belos cared for his brother at some point, his "love" ended the moment his brother fell for a witch. If anything, Belos' love (if you can even apply that word) for his brother and the grimwalkers is toxic: he is constantly recreating his brother and killing him in inhumane ways like petrification, burial, and zapping out of existence all so he could make a perfect brother: one that would be completely obedient to him and would never stray from his control again.

Belos' greatest characteristic is his narcissism. While it could be explained away that he became the way he was because of the anti-witchcraft sentiment of the 1600s, Belos is a totally narcissistic sociopath with few redeeming qualities.

Much like any self-righteous, holier than thou antagonists like Judge Claude Frollo, Belos is motivated by a strong conviction to freeing humanity from "evil" by becoming a self-professed witch hunter. His immense ego blinds him to the fact he cannot perceive that purging a race of beings is a bad thing.

But he is, unironically, the largest hypocrite of the series by far: he preaches against the use of wild magic, and it becomes apparent that he despises magic as a whole, but he had sustained himself for hundreds of years by consuming the magic from palismen and carved glyphs into his body to teleport wherever he wanted on the Isles. He creates the coven systems as a means of draining magic to achieve the Day of Unity which would undoubtedly kill the users of magic.

Abilities

As a human, Belos did not perform magic in methods similar to demons and witches who possessed magic bile sacs. Instead, Belos was a practitioner of artificial magic using the glyphs etched on his body to his advantage (but it also comes at the cost of giving him pain).

He is able to summon monsters during his fight with Luz; can use fleshy tendrils and morph them into arms; melt into the floor at demand among other amazing feats.

It should also be noted that he has great technological knowledge for someone who came from the 17th century.

Conclusion

At first, Belos is underwhelming. After all the mystique that came with his character, to have him just be a racist man from the 1600s who wants to kill all witches and demons because he thinks they are evil is disappointing. But at the same time, I feel it works for the show and its message: finding your place and being yourself i.e. accepting who you are. The constant is that people who are "misfits" or "outcasts" do not have to be alone and they have access to friend groups and family. The concept of family is even thrown on its head by showing several unconventional familial settings such as Eda caring for Luz and the latter making Eda her second maternal figure.

In that sense, Belos represents the toxicity of how hard-pressed such conservative beliefs can be. In contrast to accepting individuality and difference, Belos instead rules the Boiling Isles with an iron fist forcing conformity to achieve his self-serving agenda.

So in the end, who was Belos? Starting off as a xenophobic human who was whisked into the Demon Realm, Belos allowed his hatred for witches and all things magic to fuel his narcissistic belief that he is truly the hero of his own story and can even kill his own brother without batting an eye and resurrect him as a homunculus so many times until he is the perfect mindless slave that he desires.

For all his talk about ridding humanity of evil, Belos is ironically the very thing that he wants to destroy.

[biomecharnotaurus]

I'M ASKING YOU ABOUT HALO I've been meaning to get into it but I've only played Reach so far and that one doesn't even have master chief in it. Tell me about the specific, in-depth lore or tell me why I shouldn't play it.

Pik

PIK

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!

THIS IS LONG, LONGGGGGG

So, you know the modern Doom lore, right? MAKE IT 700 TIMES MORE COMPLEX AND EVERY SINGLE SIDE CHARACTER HAS AT LEAST AN ESSAY WORTHY OF BACKSTORY. AND EVERYTHING IS DARK AS SHIT. HAPPINESS IS MOMENTARY, THERE IS NOT 1 (ONE) HAPPY CHARACTER WITH A HAPPY ENDING.

Like, I can't fit all of the infos I have about these characters in 50 different posts, AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW ALL OF THEM!! HELP!!

I'll just explain some of the main things about the first games because REALLY IT'S A MESS.

So, there are extremely religious alien group called the Covenant, they used to worship the Forerunners (MORE ALIENS) that were killed during the war against the Flood and they fucking hate humans SO THE COVENANT AND THE HUMANS HAVE A FUCKING VIOLENT INTERSTELLAR WAR.

They really like Halos, which are funny WEAPONS OF DEATH AND DESCRUTION FROM ANCIENT ELDRITCH ALIEN TECHNOLOGY, THEY HAVE THEIR OWN ECOSYSTEMS ON THEIR SURFACES TOO LIKE EARTH but they are machines and if activated they fucking ANNIHILATE THE WHOLE GALAXY. They were made to study the Flood but THEY ARE TOO FUCKING DANGEROUS.

The Flood are pretty much if mushrooms evolved in to lovecraftian horrors and they are tiny lil parts of a fucking massive worm god thing called the Gravemind, THAT IS MADE OUT OF CORPSES AND MINDS OF THE INFECTED FUCKERS! Once they infect somebody their mind becomes part of the entity and they become a fucking hideous zombie, so this bitch ass worm mf is pretty much diet omnipotent.

Now, the funny space marines in power armor like Master Chief are called spartans.

There are 4 generations of spartans:

Spartans I

WE DON'T EVEN KNOW IF THEY WERE ACTUALLY A THING. Sgt Johnson is TECHNICALLY one. Maybe.

Spartans II

You probably know Jorge 052 if you played Halo Reach! Massive guy, yellow armor, big guns, him. He is a spartan II. So is John 117, Master Chief!!!

So, how do you become a spartan II? YOU AREN'T THE ONE WHO DECIDES, SPARTANS II ARE SELECTED CHILDREN THAT GET KIDNAPPED BY THE ABSOLUTELY NOT EVIL MILITARY AND VIOLENTLY TRAINED IN TO WAR MACHINES. Literally war machines, because do you know what they do to those children? FUCKING BIOMECHANICAL AUGMENTATIONS TO MAKE THEM SUPER FUCKING STRONG AND OTHER FUCKING NOT VERY NORMAL HUMAN SHIT. SCI-FI STEROIDS. NOT EVEN ALL OF THEM SURVIVE THE SURGERIES, THEY RARELY DO. They also don't remember shit about their past pre-kidnapping life and even if they become adults, they still have the mind of an incredibly traumatized child with too much knowledge about war. Their brain cortex is also connected to their armors...there is more but pretty much ye

Spartans III

All of the other spartans from Halo Reach are spartans III! Exact same kidnapping-training-augmentations as the spartans II, EXPECT THE KIDNAPPED CHILDREN AREN'T EVEN SELECTED, THEY ARE RANDOM ORPHANS FROM RANDOM DYING COLONIES. Some of them turn out okay, some others kill themselves, some other are fucking sociopaths that hate humanity and everyone because of what they did to them! Fantastic!

Spartans IV

More recent Halo games! Halo Wars! The spartans you play as in the online of Halo Infinite!

Same augmentations as the other spartans, expect no more kidnapped children, these are all adults that were willing to join, ex ODSTs (I'll talk about them in a minute) and ex very-good-high-ranking standard UNSC marines! A lot of them have prosthetics, because of their past war experiences.

Talking about

ODSTs

(Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) aren't spartans, they were what came before the spartan program was made. They are uh..."fancy" standard marines? They are extremely well trained, but they aren't biomechanical like spartans. Their gear is pretty much slightly better than the standard marine one and it's resistant to...well...getting thrown from a spaceship inside of a pod in war and then having to fight to death thousands of aliens.

Now, ODSTs are treated like shit. Literally, to test out John's augmentations they made a couple of ODSTs fight this poor child that didn't even understand how strong he was, and well...they all got killed. Brutally. John wasn't exactly proud of what he did.

OKAY THERE IS A LOT MORE, A LOT, BUT. REALLY. I SUGGEST PLAYING THE GAMES.

Take in mind most of the Halo lore is in the books tho, of course the games have lore but it's nothing in comparison to all the stuff from the novels! There is also A LOT of alien lore with various species, I think you would like the sangheili, for example

[raina-at]

I can’t write for shit just now, so here are my complicated thoughts about Mycroft.

So.

The thing about Mycroft’s relationship with Sherlock is, it’s so wonderfully complicated. On one hand, Mycroft is the only person who really understands how Sherlock sees the world, because he’s just as - if not more - brilliant. Plus, Mycroft had to put up with so much shit from junkie Sherlock we can’t even imagine and never really see. Watching someone you love destroy themselves like that is HARD, and soul-crushingly exhausting, and just awful.

On the other hand, there’s no question that Mycroft can be an overbearing, controlling, condescending, entitled, smug, arrogant arsehole of the first order. We can probably ‘credit’ him with Sherlock trying to turn his humanity off because it’s Mycroft who tells him that caring isn’t an advantage. Mycroft is also the one who pretty much sells out Sherlock to Moriarty, sends his brother on a suicide mission, apparently doesn’t care that he’s destroying the most meaningful relationship in Sherlock’s life by the whole fake suicide thing and doesn’t warn Sherlock that John has a serious girlfriend when he comes back. So maybe Mycroft is the sociopath who doesn’t need and can’t have meaningful relationships outside of his family. 

So Mycroft loves Sherlock, but he’s pretty shit at it at times, and he very often lets his self-interest and the “greater good” - the way Mycroft sees it, anyway - get in the way of actually caring for Sherlock’s physical and emotional well-being.

Also, it annoys me on a purely meta level how sloppily Mycroft’s omniscience and omnipotence is written, because I seriously don’t know why a) Mycroft didn’t just have Magnussen assassinated, b) why someone actually trained in espionage work couldn’t have taken out Moriarty’s network (he’s goddamned MI6, for fuck’s sake), c) Mycroft apparently didn’t background-check Mary AT ALL,  d) why he actually planned to send Sherlock on a suicide mission instead of just faking one and sending him to witness protection (with John and the baby, please, and fuck that’s a bunny right there, I’m getting Incredibles flashes here, guys)  and e) why the FUCK Mycroft let Moriarty out of prison again when they’d already caught him.

So yeah.

I need to fucking finish my fic, guys. Seriously.

[everything-laito]

damn the brain be out here going BRRRRRR here’s the Laito and Cordelia Analysis (with a little bit of Karl sprinkled in) Part III

wow my fingers are freezing but my brain sure isn't! 

aaaanyways, iiiiiit’s trauma time!!! Am I a productive member of society by writing these analyses? No. Do I gain anything by writing them? Kinda, my brain gets exercised and they’re fun to research for. But if you haven’t read the first part or the second part for some reason (I recommend reading them in order), there they are. 

Once again, trigger warnings still apply; mainly about trauma, isolation, etc 

I’m gonna talk about the trauma and effects it had on Laito and to attempt to extrapolate why he is the way he is. I have a lot of examples I want to go over and stuff to talk about, so I think the trauma part is going to be split between two (or maybe three) parts. I also have a little bit to say about Karlheinz.

As always, big ass rant under the cut! 

Section 6: Neuroplasticity and Trauma

Oh???? More science vernacular??? You BET! Ok, neuroplasticity. I know I’ve talked about it on this blog. But, I seriously doubt that there is a madlad who has read all of my analyses (speaking of which, I should update the master list lmao) and I don’t expect anyone to do that LOL! Anyways, this neurological concept is the ability of neurons to adapt to certain circumstances or stimuli by creating new neurological pathways (through synapses). This basically relates to memory and learning. It’s why we don’t stay the same person as we grow and develop. It’s responsible from mindset changes to response to traumatic events. It plays a huge part in trauma, which is why “repressed memories” occur as well. 

Trauma, taken from Psychology Today, is defined as: 

...the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event. Sufferers may develop emotional disturbances such as extreme anxiety, anger, sadness, survivor’s guilt, or PTSD.

It’s a basic definition. And although I’d assume people would know what trauma is already, but knowing the lexical definition of something can be good to know before going into it. 

Obviously, Laito has trauma, there’s literally no refuting that. But, the point I’m getting at, is the reason why he is the way he is today is because of neuroplasticity. As previously stated, we are going to assume the DL vampire brain works similarly or the same as a human brain. So, because of the stress put upon the brain (Cordelia’s actions and Laito’s general upbringing in a stress filled household), Laito’s brain was rewired (neuroplasticity). This section doesn’t really have much new information, but I wanted to give a baseline since there’s many people who don’t know what neuroplasticity is.

Laito’s definitely different than what he was as a kid. He still kind of had his smarts, and might have been  but as we’ve deducted from the first part of this series, he might have been groomed. On top of that, the brain is easily moldable when you’re a child (which is why grooming makes sense for Laito’s case), and continues to snip brain cells off and form new connections. 

Section 7: Little intermission about Karlheinz 

I know I haven’t really talked about Karlheinz yet. So this will be the section that I do it in. I know this part is about Laito’s trauma, but it’s so hard to not just weave other characters into it. Nothing is stand-alone, which is why it was so hard for me to plan this out. I was debating about saving this for another analysis, but I feel like it fits. 

I referenced this in Part II, Section 5 of this analysis series. Basically, Karlheinz throws Laito into the dungeon and locks him up. Not Karlheinz personally, but he ordered someone to do it. We don’t explicitly know why, but there’s several implications. A huge one is that it was part of Karlheinz’ experiment. Before Dark Fate, I was like “wait, so did Karl find out about Laito/Cordelia? And got like jealous or was like ‘nah this shit fucked up no thanks’?” I was really scratching my head on that. But in Dark Fate, you find that Karlheinz knew about Cordelia and Laito, and even really wanted it to happen. Which is all sorts of fucked up. This really put Laito in for a loop. Here’s a scene from Dark Fate: 

Laito: That woman always, always believed in Karlheinz. Laito: She believed he married her because he loved her, wanted her. That’s why she was sure that one day... he will give his love only to her.  Laito: But she was tricked. She wasn’t loved from the start... Laito: -And I’m a victim of this unbelievable mistake... That’s how it is. Laito: I was treated as a vent for her feelings. Yui: ...Laito-kun... Laito: I’m sure he knew that something like this will happen... He is a god after all... Laito: I was hoping that... He just overlooked it up until now... Laito: But... I was naive.  Laito: I was only planned a scapegoat. 

God, when I played this, that just freaking struck me to my core. That’s so awful. Ironically... Karlheinz probably has some high level of emotional intelligence. I don’t believe he could be labeled as a sociopath, considering he has this high level understanding of pathos. He’s not god in a sense that he controls everyone individually himself. He’s so good at manipulation that he basically creates fate itself (whether you believe in it or not). He’s generally intelligent and cunning, and it also just helps with the fact that he’s immortal and can time travel. He knows cause and effect by now, and I believe Lost Eden said something about how he’s done so many different “timelines.” 

The definition of a god in a philosophical sense can be broken down into three words: omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. More wicked cool jargon! Yay! Here’s what they mean for extra clarification:

Omniscient: All knowing Omnipresent: All seeing Omnipotent: All doing

Sure Karlheinz doesn’t absolutely know everything, nor can see everything, and he definitely has limits to his power, but he has gained knowledge through living for so many years and time traveling; he has familiars which add to the whole “all seeing” part; and he has a lot of power. So basically, in the most semi-”realistic” sense, it would definitely be the closest being to any kind of god.

Karlheinz is probably the reason why Laito himself has such contempt towards religion, and the existence of a god in general. Sure, the boys are like “that shit’s made up by humans” in general, but it would make sense for Laito himself to have that specific hatred. It makes sense that these vampires would be like “oh that’s made up by humans” when they’ve been around forever and have seen multiple religions come and go. (I’m mainly talking about in DL’s lore case, not starting a religious argument; please don’t take it as such––just to clarify)

Section 8: Isolation

Originally, the previous part was going to be about Laito’s isolation being locked up. However, I went off the rails and it turned into that little intermission. This is going to be a shorter section, but I still wanted to talk about, and it will weave into the next section. 

There is no implications about how long Laito was locked up (and tortured) in the dungeon. There’s also no implications about why he was tortured. But torture and isolation puts such stress on the brain that there’s definitely going to be some kind of outcome if persisting for a good period of time. So let’s take a look at what that does to a person. 

Once again, taking this with a grain of salt. I imagine vampires don’t need to rely on social interaction as much as humans do, considering they live forever. But we don’t know. However, throwing Laito into a state of isolation implies that it would be some type of torture or harsh punishment for a vampire, which therefore implies that social interaction is a necessity for emotional function. It’s just sound, inductive logic. 

So now, as for isolation, I’m using this article as reference. It’s a pretty interesting one to read. Here’s another extensive article as well. Basically isolation can cause:

Depression/anxiety

Immune system deficiencies (basically more likely to get physically ill)

Sleep cycle changes (if put underground or with limited natural light)

Hallucinations

Paranoia

Issues with processing information and more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation

We have no clue if Laito’s experience fits all of these. Also, the second one can be crossed out because vampires in DL can’t get physically sick in the way we can. Also, unsure about the sleep cycle stuff considering they are used to being in the dark. Hallucinations and paranoia can’t be crossed off nor proven. 

Being isolated physically and mentally exhausts the mind, which is why it’s also a way of torture. Laito implies that he was tortured with physical devices, but regardless, it’s still stress on the mind. This type of stress definitely goes along with what was mentioned with neuroplasticity and trauma, which also supports the last bullet point: issues processing information and being more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation. Take this flashback from Maniac Prologue in HDB that I used in Part II section 5 (but here’s even more context):

Laito: ーー Let me go!! Let me out of here! Butler: I can’t, young lord. We’ve received strict orders from your father. I am deeply sorry, but please stay put for a while. Laito: What’s the point in having me chained up in here!? Butler: ーーI am very sorry. Laito: Hahahaha…You stupid old man! Do you think that this will make repent!? How foolish! That demon! Has his brain finally rotten from spending too much time with humans!? ー Cordelia appears Cordelia: ー Oh? Laito: …!? Have you come to save me? Cordelia: Oh dear. Ufufu…I’m sorry Laito, that isn’t it. Laito: Eh? Richter: ー Why are you here? Laito: …That’s my line. Cordelia: Okay, okay. No fighting! More importantly, Richter…Come here. Laito: …!? Cordelia: Nnn…Hey, Laito. You are a good boy. Laito: …!! Cordelia: Right, Laito? Laito: Yeah, that’s right. I’m…I’m a good boy after all.  ーー Besides, I’m the type of person who only get more aroused from this kind of thing.

Although I also use this to support the whole Stockholm syndrome point, this could also be supported with the trauma isolation also holds. His mind is being re-molded into the facade he holds. Also, note the whole “do you think this will make me repent?!” part. Just a very interesting thing. The word “repent” implies that there’s something to feel guilty about or the person knows that what they’ve done is bad. It just goes to show that Laito has some part of guilt or moral compass still in tact. 

You can also argue that this scene was when Laito just got locked up, or he’s been here for a while. Either way, he could have also been socially isolated before this too, just hanging around Cordelia like it’s implied when he was a child. Remember the whole not being in bed 9/10 times when he was a child? Yeah, controlled social isolation. We also rarely see Laito with other characters in his flashbacks. I don’t believe we see him with his brothers in any of his flashbacks from what I can recall; he’s usually with Cordelia. Just implies (to me) that he’s around her a lot. And being locked up is also a more extreme case of that, which would mold the brain even more. 

I know that was a LOT to process and read. I sure hope this still is cohesive for you all. I’m pretty bad at organizing this kind of stuff; it’s a bit difficult since it all just goes together. Which, kudos on the writers of DL, because that’s just good writing. I was going to put something about gaslighting in this part, but that might be too long, so I’m going to make that a separate part or include it in the next part. 

If you have any questions, feel free to just put it in the inbox. I’m planning on making the last part of this series answering all the Laito/Cordelia questions I’ve received, or just general questions pertaining to this analysis in general, whether it be tangential questions or clarifying questions. 

Hope you all are still enjoying this ride as much as I am!  -Corn

[themattress]

My Top 15 Favorite Gotham Characters

Plus one Honorable Mention.

Honorable Mention: Silver St. Cloud - She's an honorable mention because of how tragically the show wasted her. Silver was a standout character in 2A's “Rise of the Villains” arc, as we see all the layers peeled back from whimsical, kind-hearted, well-mannered young socialite to cruel, manipulative, cold-blooded agent of an evil religious cult to vulnerable, scared and remorseful girl in way over her head who forges a real emotional connection with Bruce. However, despite all the rich potential for her to develop even further as a character, she was never seen again after the 2A finale. 

15. Tabitha Galavan - While as a character she's the very definition of a second-stringer, Tabitha is an interesting case study in what happens when a single ember of innocence is still left burning within the darkest of souls. Raised in the evil Order of St. Dumas and kept firmly under her older brother's thumb, Tabitha is certainly no angel, being the sort of person who will fatally stab an innocent old woman in the back and feel no remorse. But the desire to care and be cared for is still very strong in her, and we see it manifest many times: with Silver, and with Selina, and with Barbara, and of course with Butch. Unfortunately for Tabitha, she is also a case study in how this doesn't guarantee that such a person will receive a happy ending, as she is unable to avoid karmic justice.

14. Butch Gilzean - I didn't really care about Butch initially, since he didn't seem like anything more than Fish Mooney's affably evil muscle. After he became brainwashed into obeying the Penguin's every command, he gradually became more interesting and sympathetic, and by the time he got romantically involved with Tabitha I had become so accustomed to him and his perversely likable sort of villainy that I couldn't imagine the show without him. But maybe the show would have been better off without him after his death in the Season 3 finale, as the immediate retcon afterward of his real name being Cyrus Gold and his resurrection as Solomon Grundy in Season 4 was just nonsense, especially when he ends up just as dead in the Season 4 finale as he was in the Season 3 finale, so what was even the point? Sometimes, dead is better, and I’m sure Butch would agree.

13. Harvey Bullock - For much of Season 1 it felt like the writers were trying to play Harvey Bullock too seriously, and I think that was a mistake because the character always benefits from being played more broadly, and lord knows that Donal Logue can do that very well. Thankfully, that's exactly how he started to be played more often from Season 2 and onward, with whatever serious arcs he did receive such as in Season 4 benefiting from him being so much more likable as a result. I'd rather watch him on screen than Jim Gordon any day.

12. Leslie Thompkins - While initially kind of bland, Leslie "Lee" Thompkins is a character that grew on me overtime. I felt really sorry for her throughout Seasons 2 and 3 as Jim Gordon proved to be the worst love interest ever, bringing her no end of pain, and then in Seasons 4 and 5 she used that pain and anger to shape herself into a total badass anti-heroine who was still all about helping those in need but now was open to using less than moral means to accomplish this. She's a character who finished the show stronger than she'd ever been, and her and Barbara becoming bros is everything I never knew I needed.

11. Sofia Falcone - Sometimes, a sharp and devious mind is all it takes for someone to be a great villain, and damn did Sofia ever put hers to good use. In the comics, this was a forgettable character who was just an obvious thug in design and demeanor, but Gotham's version is terrifying in how petite and pretty and kind and charitable and all around attractive in every way she is...the perfect way to manipulate others and conceal that on the inside she's beyond just a thug; she's a raging, ruthless, vindictive, amoral sociopath who only cares about herself. And kudos to Crystal Reed, whose performance sold the character perfectly. The only real downside to Sofia is that the writers clearly were forced to write her out earlier than anticipated, and her abrupt exit from the show is nowhere close to being as satisfying as the build-up to her gaining power within the city would lead you to believe.

10. Ra's Al Ghul - As wonderful as Sofia was, there was never any question as to whom Season 4's most formidable villain was: the same villain who is the series' ultimate Big Bad, Ra's Al Ghul. Beyond the phenomenally perfect casting of Alexander Siddig, who is hands down the most comics-accurate portrayal of the character in live-action to date, Ra's benefits from the series positioning him as the final answer to the long-running "who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne?" mystery and totally being able to convince viewers that most of this series' events were according to his plans due to the self-assured, in-control and borderline omnipotent way the Demon's Head carries himself. No-one in Gotham City is left unchanged by his machinations, least of all his chosen "heir" Bruce Wayne. 

9. Hugo Strange - The Big Bad of 2B's "Wrath of the Villains" arc is in the running for the show's most despicable villain. Professor Hugo Strange is a brilliant psychologist and scientist, but he is utterly devoid of a conscience and will do anything to achieve his twisted aspirations, from ruining peoples' lives with his experiments to bringing people back from the dead to personally ordering the death of those he considers to be friends. What makes Strange enjoyable in spite of his depravity is B.D Wong's performance: he looks absolutely perfect as a younger version of Hugo Strange and his voice seems to be channeling Corey Burton's Christopher Lee-inspired take from Batman: Arkham City.  He's a much stronger villain than 2A's Theo Galavan, and tellingly got to return in every following season.

8. Edward Nygma - I really wish I could place Ed higher on this list, since the Riddler is one of my favorite Batman villains and Cory Michael Smith is perfect in the role. But sadly, he's the subject of some really weak writing throughout the show that holds him back from breaching my personal Top 5. Whether it be the constant Nice Guy(TM) hounding of Kristen Kringle, the bizarre Two Face-esque split personality angle, the ungodly stupid Isabella plot device and subsequent clashing with the Penguin because of it, his needless romance with Lee that didn't make sense for either of their characters (which wasn't helped by the fact that it happened at a time where he kept on getting made a fool of in a way that undermined how menacing he was just a season ago), and being used as an obvious red herring in the Haven explosion mystery...he really deserved better material, and it's lucky that Smith makes him so enjoyable to watch since it would otherwise drag him down much further.

7. Jerome Valeska - Cameron Monaghan's performance as Jerome single-handedly forced the Gotham producers' hands when it came to their original plans (or lack thereof) for the Joker in their series, as right off the bat he managed to perfectly capture the same maniacal energy that the likes of Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger did, meaning fans would accept no-one else in the role. While Jerome ends up being more of a test run for the actual Joker - the Beta Joker, so to speak - he still is one of the most frightening and malevolent characters in the show's entire run, spreading chaos for chaos' sake and causing pain to others just because he finds it hilarious, and doing it all in the most theatrical way possible.  

6. Jeremiah Valeska - Yes, I agree that this character's whole basis - Jerome's secret twin brother who actually becomes the Joker - and how he was introduced is unbelievably stupid writing; in hindsight it would have made more sense to just find a way to transition Jerome into this kind of characterization as part of a continued evolution toward becoming the Joker. But we're stuck with Jeremiah, and as it stands he is a much worthier Joker than Jerome was. I don't really like the Joker whenever he's written to have no motivation beyond "random crime and chaos because LOL crazy!!!" - the best Jokers always have a reason for doing what they do, it's just that it's always a twisted reason that holds no basis in reality and just serves as an excuse for the Joker to spread pain and chaos across Gotham City and match wits with Batman. (Ex: Heath Ledger's Joker may say he has no plans and just "does things" as a manipulation tactic, but in reality he does make plans and does have the tangible objective of proving his nihilistic, anarchistic worldview to everyone; Batman in particular.)

Jeremiah's penchant for intricate planning combined with the psychotic objectives that lie behind his plans is what makes him more believable as the Joker compared to Jerome, and it really felt like the show's stakes rose to an entirely new, darker than ever before level when he stepped up to the plate at the end of Season 4. I also love his development: being in denial about his own insanity and likeness to his brother until his personal obsession with Bruce overpowers that and causes him to willingly give into the madness so that he can be a worthy enough foil for Bruce as Gotham's Dark Knight, since that gives his miserable life a sense of purpose. Add to this Cameron Monaghan still pulling off that Joker energy flawlessly and you have a Joker that can stand beside Nicholson, Ledger and Phoenix's portrayals.

5. Barbara Kean - This one really took me by surprise. I knew going into the show that Barbara was considered a poorly written, irritating obstructive love interest to Gordon in Season 1, but that she got Rescued From the Scrappy Heap in the following seasons. What I didn't know was the way that rescuing happened - she goes crazy and becomes a surprise villain in the Season 1 finale, and from then on out she is freaking nuts in the most hilariously over-the-top way, with Erin Richards chewing the scenery for all it's worth. Barbara is so entertaining throughout the various guises and positions she goes through across the series, not to mention a complete badass who you just can't help but respect for being true to herself even if she's an awful human being. Her redemption arc in Season 5 was a beautiful way to bring her journey full-circle, and I don't begrudge her the happy ending she got at all.

4. Alfred Pennyworth - We're all used to Alfred the butler, but Gotham got me accustomed to Alfred the soldier. Sean Pertwee is thoroughly convincing in the role of the hard-assed, frequently grumpy or moody yet caring, loyal and dependable Alfred, whose relationship with young Bruce Wayne is perfectly depicted. The only time I didn't care for him was during 2A, where he was cruel and unfair toward Selina because she killed his treacherous war-time buddy who almost murdered him and was planning on doing harm to Bruce. Thankfully, from the midseason finale and onward he managed to redeem himself, regaining his status as one of the show's best-depicted characters and maintaining it all the way to the end.

3. Bruce Wayne - This character was always going to live or die based on what child actor was playing him, and by God did David Mazouz nail it in his performance. Even putting the dead parents and destiny as Batman aside, Bruce Wayne is clearly not a "normal" kid, being raised in the lap of luxury and privileged to the point of extreme naïveté, with an overly formal way of speaking hammering in his distance from the rest of Gotham City. Watching him grow stronger and smarter and more worldly and responsible as the series progressed was always a pleasure, and he naturally made a far more compelling protagonist than Jim Gordon did, with the show ending on the shot that it does making it even more clear that this was primarily his story all along; just one elongated origin story for the goddamn Batman.

2. Selina Kyle - For quite a while in Season 1, the teenage girl who would be Catwoman spent a lot of time just slinking around the fringes of the story and accomplishing little of value. But once she finally met Bruce, Selina's character really took off, and she ended up becoming my second all-time favorite character in the show. Aside from the strong writing and character development, much is also owed to Camren Bicondova, who is utterly charming in her depiction of the cynical, sharp-tongued, street-smart thief with a heart of gold, and she is even able to make her rushed final transition into Catwoman in Season 5 believable. And kudos to Lili Simmons who plays her in the final episode, she is perfectly convincing as an adult version of Selina, looking and sounding just as I expect Bicondova to in a few years. 

1. Oswald Cobblepot - OK, this is probably an unoriginal choice, but I can't help it - Oswald Cobblepot, aka the Penguin, is the one character on this show who just did no wrong as far as I'm concerned (as a character, I mean, he obviously did a lot wrong morally!) In addition to being the role Robin Lord Taylor was born to play, there is a consistency in the writing of his character and in the quality of his development that I think is unmatched by anyone else in the cast. Aside from that one blip in the Isabella plotline of Season 3 that I credit as more of a blemish on Ed than I do Oswald, he was always a fully three-dimensional character who acted and reacted believably, and he always stayed firmly on the line between being a heinous, ruthless, murderous criminal chiefly seeking power and a tragic, sympathetic, even funny and likable person chiefly seeking love.  And he always remained the "noble villain" when compared to the other villains around him; always the one you could count on to join the heroes and do the right thing when it counted because he's a pragmatist with moral lines he will not cross....and because he loves and believe in Gotham City too, in his own way.