#sorry for the. justification stuff.

[dazzlerazz]

Ciel and Rhea have a duo alt named Zanado's Flowers which itself is a reference to a wip I have of them by the same name where Ciel and Rhea retire to Zanado to spend the rest of their lives together

[vriskaserketdaily]

vriska would be so fucking from milano its crazy she would totally say "figa"

composite sketch of every northern italian woman i know, who coincidentally either lived or studied in milan for a significant period of time before i met them

[dennisboobs]

plain and simple i am not going to be able to remain in this fandom long-term if i have to keep putting disclaimers on every single one of my posts that say i don't condone dennis' bad, bad actions and that i am in fact aware he's got a history of sexual assault and dubious/nonconsent. the entire gang has done heinous shit. why is dennis the only one who needs to be treated like this? if some rando wants to post about how dennis is pookie pie that doesn't automatically mean they're blind to his crimes. every single member of the gang is a piece of shit. that's kind of the point.

draw dennis with cat ears who give a shit

[1o1percentmilk]

the issue with AI chatbots is that they should NEVER be your first choice if you are building something to handle easily automated forms.... consider an algorithmic "choose your own adventure" style chatbot first

it really seems to me that the air canada chatbot was intended to be smth that could automatically handle customer service issues but honestly... if you do not need any sort of "human touch" then i would recommend a "fancier google form"... like a more advanced flowchart of issues. If you NEED AI to be part of your chatbot I would incorporate it as part of the input parsing - you should not be using it to generate new information!

[dw-flagler]

fuck. I was writing this emma barnes fic and I've come to a realization. For a period of exactly seven days in 2009, Emma Barnes is a completely different person from the one in canon. Like, I always knew that meeting Shadow Stalker the second time shaped her as a person, but it's genuinely shocking how utterly different the road of her life could have been.

Like, for my fic I had these two paths I was struggling to pick between, which I'm calling Wire and Cloth, as a joke about imprinting (see neither is good but one is distinctly better than the other), one where Emma ends up being kidnapped by the ABB and one where she ends up as shadow stalker's apprentice. But.

Look, here's a line from Interlude 19: "What got her, the nebulous idea that haunted her, was the impact those scenes had.  There were so many defining moments, so many crises, big and small, that shaped the people they touched.  The biggest and most critical moments were the sorts that wiped the slate clean, that ignored or invalidated the person who had existed before, only to create another."

Like, yeah, she's talking about triggers, but what's getting to me is how empathetic (in the literal "I can relate to your pain" sense) and compassionate she sounds. Like. Emma shuts herself in her room for a week because she's incapable of dealing with the horror of knowing that hundreds of little girls are going through what she did every minute of every day. She can't deal with it.

This emma, who only exists for a week, is haunting me. She's just--It's just weird!

And the Emma who exists for the rest of the story, for every section except for less than half of one chapter, you can see the remains! She's there! Emma recontextualizes her existential despair at the enormity of human suffering, something she only really understood in abstract until now, as Sophia's predator/prey philosophy, right? It's so easy for her, because it gives her a way to explain it. There's predators and there's prey. It already slots into her worldview. Like (and I'm really just harping on about victim blaming today aren't I?) those girls who suffered like Emma did, they suffered because they were weak! It's simple now. There's two kinds of people, the ones who are hurt and the ones who hurt, and all Emma has to do to make sure that she is never hurt again is to be the one who does the hurting.

But for seven days, there's that ghost. The kind Emma Barnes, who doesn't want anything like what happened to her happen to anyone else. It's not as narratively interesting, I get that. Who wants a worm character who's all peace and love? That doesn't make for a mentally disturbed teenage girl doing horribly violent acts, and that's what we in the worm fandom all want to see. But still she haunts me.

[gas-station-chai]

After rereading "Spencer Fucking Middleton" by @raspberryjerryfor the nth time, I wrote a little thing based off of it. (outline-formatted ofc, nothing finished; true chai-guy style)

(Content Warnings: canon-typical violence, AKA Spencer Middleton on his psycho freak shit again)

Before turning in his assignment to the collector, Spencer forces the shapeshifter to look like Jack for a bit to ‘indulge in some stress relief.’ She thinks something terrible is about to happen to her, of course. She’s seen what was (or rather, wasn’t) inside of Spencer Middleton’s mind, she knows he’s incredibly fucked up. God only knows what he had in store for her.

But instead of whatever she had in mind, Spencer grabs her face (Jack’s face, technically) and orders her in a quiet but firm voice, “Tell me you remember me.” There’s a beat of silence before he reiterates,  “Tell me that you remember us.” 

The shapeshifter only stares at him in surprise, and she reiterates to him like she did with Jack that, “I can’t copy memories, only voices and--” Spencer cuts her off with a frustrated noise between a yell and groan, squeezing her face even harder. 

“I don’t give a fuck about what you can and can’t do,” He grinds out between gritted teeth, towering over the kneeling form of his nemesis and grinding his knee against the tungsten spear still embedded in her chest, pressing harder to punctuate every word, “Say. That you. Remember.” 

Once he was satisfied with the way he had her gasping and screaming in pain using Jack’s voice, he eased up on the pressure and leaned back a little, sneering, “And try to act like you mean it.” 

She took a moment to collect herself, gasping and heaving with tears spilling from her borrowed green eyes. She didn’t dare to break eye contact with the psychopath above her. Despite the tears blurring her vision, she could still see the malicious snarl on his lips and his cold, cruel gaze on her. 

“I…” She pauses, forcing down the sob that wants to tear from her throat, before continuing, voice heavy with guilt and sorrow, “I remember you, Spencer. I-I remember everything, and I’m…” She struggles to search for her next words as the pain in her chest screams for her attention. Spencer quickly focuses her once again by gripping her jaw, making her whimper, “I’m sorry I even forgot in the first place.”

For a moment, Spencer looks like someone had just stabbed him through the heart; there’s a flash of bitter heartache and anger in his eyes, before he quickly looks away from her to let out an annoyed sigh as he rubs his temples with his free hand. After taking a moment to collect himself, he grins back down at her. 

“Nice improv skills, there.” Standing up straight, he lets go of Jack’s face and gives her a moment of relief, before it was quickly ruined when he threaded his fingers through borrowed black curls and yanked, causing her to hiss in pain. Spencer only threw his head back with a laugh at the noise as he began dragging her by the hair to his car. 

“It’s too bad they won’t help you in the shithole you’re headed to.”

[glfry]

The s3lf eater update is objectively hilarious because all it boils down to is 4 dumbasses fucking around with stuff they shouldn’t have, and as a punishment experiencing an eldritch horror sensation by finding out what god feels like

[aromanticannibal]

you haven’t talked about me in here for more than 5 days what does this mean ??? you don’t like me ?? have you tought about the kid ?? such a fool of me to think i am ur perfect puppy egirl 😔😔

(/j I just miss you a lot, you were in my mind all day.. like more than usual)

no i love you puppy i just think we have very different tolerance to not speaking to people

[astxrwar]

your brain is sooooo sexy and huge pls never stop psychoanalyzing Characters and writing beautiful weird porn about it 🧎

teehee giggling and twirling my hair and blushing and things of such nature this fills my fucked up little heart with joy

i went temporarily insane in the tags but im better now. (lying)

[tamaharu]

ive inherited a copy of lolita from my parents (i.e. i stole it from the library in our basement and started treating it like its mine) with the 1989 vintage international cover and i think its actually not that bad. better than the 50th anniversary one with the lips anyway imo (which is the cover for the library ebook vers ive checked out).

like i think any cover that incorporates the "only convincing love story of our generation" quote anywhere kind of sucks on principle, and the fact that it features a photo of a girl at all really goes against nabakovs instructions, but compared to other covers that break those two rules, the haziness of the photo creates a really evocative atmosphere i feel matches the book more or less.

[un-pearable]

so. i spent the entire night before a Very Important Thing I Need To Study For. listening to every single vocal track the sonic franchise has ever produced. this was undoubtedly a bad decision. wish me luck

[tubbytarchia]

Etho doodles in which I let my inner dinosaur nerd take over 😔 and also have no idea how to shade

Get it cause he's old and washed up haha... ok but actual raptor Etho hybrid justification below cut

To be honest the main reason was because I really wanted a hybrid in the mix who wasn't some furry creature and a reptile or amphibian or smth instead. Etho still ended up feathered but whatever it's close enough! But for ACTUAL reasoning:

He does feel damn ancient, like an old deity of the mcyt space that no one can dislike. Dinosaurs are the same!! They're old but still thought of with great fascination and fondness, everyone loves dinosaurs...

Dinosaurs are ever so mysterious, as many advancements as we make there's still so much we don't know. Just as we know jackshit about mister Kakashi skin man. Also, there are so many incomplete skeletons out there. I didn't have a particular species in mind for Etho, because where's the mystery in that? He can be one of those 5% skeleton 95% speculation dinosaurs like this guy!! Missing jaw and all

"I'm a runner, not a protector" - so, a raptor, or more specifically the Dromaeosauridae family, which literally has "running/runner" in its name

But! I'm always a fan of stuff going against its nature, especially in this case! Etho states he's not a runner yet protects his allies rather fiercely even in total silence. Eg refusing to kill Cleo in SL or to give away Tango's location during the LimL manhunt, same for Grian in SL. He was a bit flaky in 3L I think? And he only started to have genuine care for allies in LL with Bdubs? Though he is still very much a runner in many cases like during the LL Wither fight. Research also strongly suggests that most if not all raptors were solitary hunters, and the way I see Etho (through my shamefully limited watchtime of his POVs...) he feels a lot like someone who ultimately only trusts himself at the start even if he's pleasant and allying with others, and doesn't seem to think he can carry his weight in groups though he doesn't voice this a lot. That's just how Etho is, very composed, but it feels like there's an insecurity there, showcased especially in SL but again I haven't seen almost any of his POVs in full so maybe I'm talking out of my ass!! Sorry ethogirls I'm only a sidegig ethogirl myself... But yeah tldr to me he gives off the vibe of an otherwise solitary animal struggling to find 100% sure footing in a pack. In whichever ways he does go against his nature, its not usually made a show of

At the mention of a raptor, a lot of people will probably think of the glamourized Jurassic Park Velociraptors. But those awesome guys from the movies are actually the size of chickens. In general though, dinosaurs tend to be a bit.. exaggerated in media, despite how inherently fascinating they already are. And I think it fits Etho because we all know how the Lifers seem to fear and mancrush on him when he's just some dork with perfect capability to become pathetic at a moment's notice. Still, he's a clearly skilled player and still respected without question Etho's not some killer machine like some people make dinosaurs out to be. He's just a fellow creature fulfilling his role in the ecosystem 👍

dinosaurs are cool

The hook-like sickle claws on the feet... something something fishing rod

I swear I'm not turning all my Lifers into hybrids I'm not!! Still plenty normal humans in the mix I swear....... But Etho is such a radical dude, I really wanted to do something more for him. The whole Kitsune thing that I often see associated with him is really cool. I don't actually know the reasoning for it but I assume something something naruto, but also, him being this ancient mythical cryptid who people know so little about, you know? It makes SO much sense. So anyway I turned him into a dinosaur instead rawr

As a herbivore advocate I also considered stuff like the triceratops (known for how they protect themselves and their own) but nah the raptor symbolism...

[cbrownjc]

Hi there! I'm sorry if this feels super obtuse and it has been ages since I read the novels, BUT...

After this recent episode I was a little confused about what Armand had done to infuriate Louis and Daniel so much. If he simply wiped their memories so neither Louis or Daniel didn't remember everything that went down, that doesn't seem so awful, especially since what went down WAS awful. So I think I must have missed something substantial because I was distracted by my cat, or something. 😅

BTW I love your blog and all the fantastic insight you provide! I used to be ride or die with IWTV but haven't paid much attention to it in the last 15-20 years, so I'm finding it immensely helpful for getting back into the swing of things!

Hello!

So why Louis and Daniel are so angry at Armand isn't because Armand simply erased their memories. (And, to be clear, their memories weren't actually erased, but just clouded over and blocked). Armand rewrote them. Armand basically reprogrammed Daniel and Louis' minds after the OG interview, Louis' mind especially.

That was what that final scene was about, what it was demonstrating. The answer that Louis gave at the beginning of the episode, as to why Armand saved Daniel's life in 1973 was a word-for-word repeat of what Armand's own answer was at the end of the episode to that same question.

The answer wasn't something Louis truly felt wrt his own real feelings. It was something Armand put into Louis' mind to think and say about the incident after the events of it from Louis attacking Daniel on were blocked and clouded over.

As @virginiaisforvampires notes here, the way Louis speaks of Lestat in the OG interview vs the new interview is very telling wrt that reprogramming done. Yes, in the OG interview, Louis was talking down Lestat in spiteful ways, but it was all surface-level stuff. Just saying that the way Lestat spoke revealed how stupid he was and that he wasn't at all skilled when trying to play music.

That is all a far cry from the things Louis has said and spoken about in the Dubai interview about Lestat. Lestat's crimes, as they are being talked about in this second interview, are not just surface-level transgressions said to simply make Lestat angry and draw him out, as Louis was originally trying to do back in 1973. The crimes of Lestat laid out in the Dubai interview, in contrast, are very much there to justify the murder of Lestat.

Because without that justification?

Well, we see that starting when it comes to the false memory -- yes, false -- of Louis thinking Claudia couldn't burn Lestat. Louis thinking that -- that Claudia couldn't burn Lestat -- would take away Louis' guilt at having stopped Claudia from trying to burn Lestat if it was something they both couldn't do. Especially if the killing of Lestat had been justified.

But if there was no justification for killing Lestat? Then the reason Louis stopped Claudia from burning Lestat was because Louis knew that killing Lestat had been wrong. Louis knew it the night Claudia did it, which would be the real reason why he stopped her from burning him.

And because Lestat didn't burn, because he was still alive, that led to the events of the trial in Paris and what happened to Claudia there. And what is looking to be the show's version of the Merrick reveal about Claudia's true feelings wrt Louis. Which, in the book Merrick, the revelation of that is what sent Louis to try to destroy himself via sunlight exposure, as we saw him try to do back in 1973 -- which the cocaine and other drugs that were in Daniel's blood had Louis unable to either ignore anymore -- or lifted a veil that had been placed over his mind about it until then.

Do you see the cascade effect in all of this?

And look, maybe some will see what Armand has done here as not that awful, but Armand didn't do it just to try and protect Louis. That was very damn clear when he didn't relay Lestat's full "I love you" message to Louis after Louis' 1973 attempt to end his life. It's because part of Armand very much still wants to live with the illusion that he and Louis can be happy together, even after what happened in Paris and Armand's role in those events.

I've said before that Armand's flaw when it comes to love is that he will go way, way, WAY overboard to obtain or keep love. And this is all just, once again, him repeating that pattern. Armand rewrote Louis' memories of both Lestat and Claudia's actions all to try and assuage the true guilt and pain Louis has over everything that happened and Louis' own role (mostly due to his own inactions) in it all that has led to such suicidal guilt about it, but also because IMO Armand wishes to hide -- as much as he can -- his own role in everything that happened as well . . . and all of this so as to keep Louis by his side so that Louis doesn't leave him -- be it for Lestat, or even in death.

Armand isn't being altruistic in his reprogramming of Louis' mind and memories. Because really being so would have been not only telling Louis what Lestat was trying to relay to Louis back in 1973 but then probably having to let Louis go as well . . . let Louis go back to and be with Lestat, the person who Louis was trying to draw the attention of with that whole OG interview in the first place.

Honestly, I see the whole situation as kind of expanding on this line of Louis' in the book, as he and Armand are breaking up:

And when I came to Paris I thought you were powerful and beautiful and without regret, and I wanted that desperately. But you were a destroyer just as I was a destroyer, more ruthless and cunning even than I. You showed me the only thing that I could really hope to become, what depth of evil, what degree of coldness I would have to attain to end my pain. And I accepted that. And so that passion, that love you saw in me, was extinguished. And you see now simply a mirror of yourself.

With the rewriting/reprogramming of Louis' memories, this is very much what Armand has created with Louis in many ways -- a mirror of himself. The pieces of himself that Armand blocked and changed had Louis "knowing who he was" . . . but who that person is, isn't the real Louis. Just a reflection of the person who made those changes.

So yeah, that is where the anger is coming from. Moreso Louis than Daniel when it comes to the rewriting aspect of it all I'd say; Daniel is likely just angry that his mind was messed with in the first place. One thing you can say about Daniel is that he's brutally honest, even when it comes to his own foibles. He's the type who'd rather know all the horrible shit that happened to him, than not.

Anyway, I'm glad you like my blog and comments about the show, and I hope this answer explains some of it for you. 🙂

[spacedace]

Reluctant War AU Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

More of the brain worm that has taken me over, gonna probably post it to Ao3 here before too long. Already got another part started and so many ideas for additional stuff, someone please send help I've been consumed by this thing lol

Sorry if Waller seems out of character, outside of fandom I'm mostly familiar with her through Justice League the animated show & Justice League: Unlimited and her vibe there has always struck me as "deeply incredibly unlikable character that also kind of has a point but also has done so much fucked up shit in the name of her goals that you don't really care about her point anymore." So you know, complicated lol. If she's completely unrecognizable let me know, but I'm hoping she feels at least somewhat like Waller.

Forgot to say this in the last update, but still feel free to use all this as an overly long prompt if yall want. Literally anything I throw out to the void should be treated as a prompt lol If there's anything at all interesting to you in any of this nonsense go for it <3 <3 <3

---

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Ruthless, heartless, vicious, cruel.

She’d been called it all. Wore the words thrown as insults as a badges of pride and valor. Because at the end of the day, when it came to the problems she was given to face, the issues she was meant to solve, those words meant she’d done what others had been too squeamish or cowardly to do. Life was a never ending slog of trolley problems and she the only one unshakable enough to pull the levers that needed pulling.

It wasn’t so simple as a matter of greater good.

Greater good was what the weak willed muttered to themselves after having feelings over doing the bare minimum. A justification used by people on all sides to do what they wanted with fractured, faulty logic thrown around like truth was a thing immutable. To assuage their guilt when they were forced to make a call they didn’t want to.

It wasn’t a matter of greater good. It was a matter of preservation. Of protection. Of digging through the filth to find the threats skittering beneath and crush them with ruthless abandon. Of facing a god and not blinking because if you did it could cost the world.

Of doing what needed to be done, no matter how underhanded or atrocious it was.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the throat of something that could threaten to destroy it all.

When the Ghost Investigation Ward had been shoved her way with it’s sucking wound of a budget, it’s bloated incompetent staff, its asinine methods she’d seen a rotted limb in need of hacking off. It hadn’t been until she’d been conducting her inspection, digging through the trash for a few pearls of effective agents she could snatch up and put to work elsewhere, that she’d truly seen what they were working on. The potential.

Potential to better arm themselves with in the forms of the strange new weapons being created.

Potential for threats far greater than anything even she had thought possible before.

The GIW as it had been when she’d first come across it was a fetid waste of time and resources. A laughing stock agency only secret because no one took them seriously enough to look. Made stupid and useless with its own conceited delusions of importance it didn’t actually have. Yet.

She went to work on it. Hacking away as she’d originally intended, but this time with a different goal in mind. She ripped out the weeds with bare, calloused hands and planted proficiency and loyalty in their place. She took over as director herself, tossing the self-aggrandizing fool that had been running the place into the ground to the dogs as the culprit for misappropriate spendings, saving the agency by tweaking things until their ballooning budget was pinned neatly onto the former director as an embezzling charge.

Then she got to work.

The Fentons were brilliant, if entirely insane. But Amanda could work with that. She’d reigned Harley Quinn in - more or less - she could do the same to the two deranged scientists that so eagerly wanted to be apart of the fight against the dead. Especially when the benefit came in the form of the inventions they threw together so easily, especially when those inventions were weapons.

It took very little to get them on board with her plans for the GIW. Keeping their focus could be a chore, at times, but she didn’t even have to really do much in the way of pressing to get them back where she wanted them. They craved knowledge and understanding nearly as much as they craved the eradication of the entities themselves. Letting them have the first look at a new subject here, free reign over a vivisection there, it took so little to fuel their fervor and keep them busy working on the projects she set for them.

Things had been going smoothly.

For a time at least.

Until Phantom.

He’d been the main focus of the previous director’s attention, the big fish he’d so desperately wanted to catch and put up on his wall. Amanda wouldn’t lie and say it wasn’t a tempting prospect, but not one she’d put above the other projects she had set in motion since taking over. No, Phantom was powerful, enough to be a real problem one day, but she could the awkward youth in the way he held himself, the inexperience in how he handled situations. She had time to get everything else in order before focusing on getting Amity Park’s would-be hero brought to heel.

And he would be brought to heel. One way or another.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the Core of a fledgling god and bending him to her will.

An artifact, old an powerful, recovered with some effort. A means of controlling specters, of chaining them to the will of the artifact’s wielder. Dangerous in the wrong hands. Dangerous in the right hands.

It was shattered, and even whole and functional Phantom was resistant to its power. But Amanda Waller prided herself in her ability to see the potential in things. It could be repaired, be made better. Even gods could be bound, be made to kneel, with the right pieces, with the right application of force.

It was just a matter of time to gather everything needed.

Phantom didn’t know he could single handedly destroy every last member of the Justice League. The baby fat, the innocent eyes, the split-second hesitations when he fought. He knew enough to be confident in fighting the usual ghosts that haunted Amity Park, but he still very much saw himself as a little fish. Maybe it was the part of him that was still Daniel Fenton, gangly teenager not quite sure what he was truly capable of yet.

She had time before the Fenton’s son truly became an issue. Time to judge if his parents’ obsessiveness would overcome their - rather shoddy, by Amanda’s estimation - parental instincts and continue to hunt him once they knew the truth. Time to get as much out of them as she could before hand, should they falter at the idea of attacking their own son. Time for the staff to be repaired and returned to working order, to get the other items needed for the truly big fish hidden on the other side of the veil between worlds.

She had time.

Until she didn’t.

Pariah Dark had not been something she thought she’d have to account for - not yet, at least.

If he wasn’t already dead, she’d ring the Ghost King’s neck with her bare hands. His arrival had opened Phantom’s eyes to what he was capable of, of just how big of a fish he was. Worse still, Phantom’s defeat of the war mongering King changed the state of play. Phantom was no longer an impressively powerful half dead teenager.

He was King Infinite.

He was an Ancient.

He was getting on her last damn nerves.

Phantom’s rogue gallery were now firmly under the boy’s control. Still distinct nuisances around Amity Park, but no longer considered true concerns. They were loyal to their boy king, delighting in ruffling his feathers but never crossing the line into treason or attempted regicide. Which meant that the GIW was the only thing that held his attention.

Amanda took the time to send a care package to the former GIW director in his tiny, dank prison cell. As thanks for his carelessness in revealing to the entire town - both living and dead - of the agency’s existence and their intentions. Had he stuck to standard protocol, Phantom would have been none the wiser to their presence. Would have scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders at the ghost that went missing upon occasion. Would have been boredly uninterested in the people his parents had begun working with. Would have been taken by surprise when they finally came for him.

But no.

No that self-obsessed, fame chasing imbecile had to go and announce to everyone and their dead mother that the GIW existed and exactly what it was they were in Amity Park to do.

Phantom knew what they were there to do.

They could only count on his naive certainty that he could broker peace with them for so long.

Peace. As if he and his people weren’t the invading force, the monsters slipping in through the cracks between worlds, the latest threat that had to be accounted for. As if he himself hadn’t rent their world asunder himself in another world, another time. No. Peace was not something they could hash out with this baby-faced monarch with his too-big crown. Peace was the assurance of safety, security. Of control of the situation.

There could be no peace.

The higher ups were somehow surprised when Phantom took that to mean there would be war.

Amanda Waller was not.

The Fentons, as suspected, took the right side when all was revealed. Steady hands and flinty eyes as they crafted the weapons that would be needed for the coming fight. Minds even sharper in their maddened grief, hearts set on revenge for the son lost and the entity that stole his face and friends and sister in his garish pretense at humanity. They were blinded to the reality of the situation in its entirety, the potential in what their son truly was, but at the end of the day it didn’t really matter. They did what she needed them to do, they could believe whatever it was they wanted so long as they did.

By the time the boy king and his armies marched upon the Amity park facility, preparations had been put into place. The base in Amity had been stripped back to bare essentials, everything of importance moved to more secured locations.

The weapons labs.

The artifact.

The girl.

All tucked well away from the front lines where Phantom and his motley crew could not reach. Their time to be put in play would come, but not yet. First she needed to gauge what Phantom and his people were capable of, what they were willing to do in the name of what they wanted. Amity Park was a pawn well sacrificed on that front. As were the other facilities she’d left easy to find.

The problem with making children gods, with giving them crowns and calling them King and giving them armies to play with, was that they thought there should be rules. That even in the trenches tearing apart their enemies, there was a certain level of playing fair that everyone was held to. They thought there was a way the world worked, of how things should be that blinded them to more effective options even as time stretched on and desperation set in.

It was the Dead’s problem though, not hers.

She reached out to the Justice League. Sour faced, unhappy, bitterly reluctant to accept that she needed their help. Stone faced and barely containing their rage at what little they knew of the situation, they agreed to a meeting.

She didn’t let herself smile until she was well and truly alone in her office.

Greater good. A lie people told themselves. A fairytale told to children. A means of convincing the weaker willed that they had no choice, that they had a noble duty to bend to. A belief that could be wielded like a weapon if the fantasy of the idea had dug in deep enough. And there were few it had dug into so deep as the members of the Justice League.

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands clenched tight on a victory long in the making.

---

Part Four

[graceraindrops-blog]

How much of a terrible mom was Cordelia? A full explanation.

It's a shame that the first post of my blog is dedicated to a rather ''interesting'' take @yuikomorii showed me, but taking into account that I've done my research involving the mothers, I find it a perfect opportunity to make a full explanation of Cordelia's abusive behavior.

Before I start, I would like to talk about why Cordelia acted the way she did (I AM NOT JUSTIFYING HER ACTIONS).

We know that Cordelia's father was neglectful towards her after the death of her mother which made her lack the ability to understand love.

Karlheinz manipulated Cordelia into marrying him and giving him children FORCEFULLY (because Cordelia did not want to have children). He also convinced Cordelia that it was okay for her to have many lovers and to have sexual relationships with FAMILY members

Cordelia's abusive behavior towards the triplets also comes over the fact of her jealousy and obsession with Karlheinz and surpassing Beatrix and Christa.

Getting this out of the way I will now start explaining why Cordelia was NOT a good mother despite her traumas.

It's not strange to view Cordelia negatively if she's one of the antagonists of the franchise. NEVER did Diabolik lovers ever paint Cordelia as a good person and constantly tell us about how shitty she was towards her children and how much it affected them.

2. I'm not denying the fact that around those times parenting was more strict, however, you're forgetting that Cordelia didn't just slap, ground, or yell at her children, she put intense waves of pressure on Ayato, and drowned him, she sexually abused Laito, manipulated him and groomed him when he was a KID, forced Kanato to sing until he bled and made him watch her have intercourse with other men. This was the abuse the triplets went through until they finally had enough and attempted to kill Cordelia, which they succeeded.

3. Yes, it's true that Beatrix wouldn't give the triplets much attention or love, she would probably neglect them due to not being her biological children and belonging to her rival, however, Beatrix WOULD NEVER do the messed up stuff Cordelia did. Yes, she was a terrible mother to Shu and Reiji, yet she would've never stepped down at Cordelia's level.

4. A normal mother doesn't drown and threaten her child due to personal issues, A normal mother doesn't sexually abuse her child and grooms him to make him depend on her, and a normal mother doesn't force her child to watch her have sex with men and doesn't use his singing voice to get horny. If she was an affectionate mother ayato wouldn't have found the need to HIDE himself from her and the triplets wouldn't have considered killing her.

5. I would also like to add, that no matter how badly influenced Cordelia was, and no matter how much childhood trauma she went through, that would never be a justification for the way she treated her children. This does not only apply to Cordelia, this applies to every character and to real people as well. It's a reason why they behave that way, but never a justification. Also, Cordelia doing the bare minimum and behaving like an actual mother for a few moments does not mean she cares about her children. I don't think this is explicitly told, but I believe in those particular scenes she's grooming Kanato to become dependent on her like she did with Laito and Ayato.

6. ''She never spoke that way to her children'' I'm sorry but I have to laugh?? I would've understood if you were an anime only (not really) but taking into account that you do know about the games this is really really wrong lol. I don't why it's difficult to understand that Cordelia didn't love her children. Cordelia is such a bad mother that when she was resurrected in Ayato's DF route, she didn't even apologize to him or to his siblings, and yet he still forgave her! She even told Ayato to APOLOGIZE to her and continued to insult him

(Credits to @dialovers-translations)

I understand (I think everyone in the fandom does) that Cordelia had her reasons to behave this way (childhood trauma and manipulation) but that doesn't excuse her actions. I don't agree with people hating on Cordelia and loving Karlheinz but I also don't agree with people defending Cordelia and saying she did nothing wrong when she did.

Cordelia isn't a black-and-white character and she's not a bad character either, she's very well-written for her purpose (an antagonist) but she's not a good person or mother. She never regretted what she did and if she was still alive during HDB she would've still been abusive to the triplets.

This is my problem with morally grey characters/Evil characters. They can't exist in media if people ignore their wrongdoings and actions and try to justify said actions. I'm not saying that they shouldn't exist but I'm tired of people painting them as good people or justifying their actions when their whole purpose as a character is to show that they're not good people and their actions are/were wrong.

To finish off the post I would like to say that I love Cordelia's character and I consider her to be one of the best-written characters in Diabolik Lovers. In my opinion, I would've liked to know more about her in further games but even if I feel this way about her I don't justify her actions and that's something we should all do. I'm glad the fandom no longer justifies the actions of the characters (with some obvious exceptions). And even if I like Cordelia as a character I don't shame others for not liking her, at the end of the day she was a horrible person lol.

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

I had a long argument with someone on whether or not stomping Belos before he dies was better than letting him die pathetically, and I asked myself if that is what fans really believe in... or if they would hail any Belos' death as the perfect one if Dana choose a different one?

They also justify the stomping as being part of horror-comedy genre and that Belos should not have any dignity what so ever because apparently letting him die in despair with no stomping is running the risk of making the audience feel "sorry" for him.

Honestly, these justifications make The Owl House feel more shallow. Like, why shouldn't the audience be allowed to feel sorry for Belos? What is the danger? That people would agree with Belos' views?

Or are we supposed to develop a black and white view of the world akin to a conservative view but inverted? And then hide behind the horror comedy genre to justify less drama? I hate to say it, but Nostalgia Critic is right about Belos being this strange outlier. The show seems to be afraid of actually doing a complex, tragic and yet irredeemable villain.

It doesn't make any sense to argue that Belos' death fits because of toh's genre as a horror comedy because the scene was neither played for horror nor laughs. At best, you have the image of Philip slowly being dissolved by the rain and then Raine's smug "that was satisfying" line. The overall tone of the scene is one of contempt as Philip tries one last plea to Luz only to be snuffed out (and weirdly validated) by the heroes. Its intent is to be cathartic for both audience (though as you know doubt know, YMMV) and the characters.

Frankly, despite its marketing, I don't see toh as either a horror or a comedy because it spends more time on slice of life stuff and high school teen drama and romance. And even when it does go for the horror and comedy, both are rather tepid. You want a real example of a horror-comedy for kids, then go watch Courage the Cowardly Dog or Invader Zim.

The reason why I argue the heroes validated Belos is because in the moment of his death, he clings to the idea that as humans, "we're better than this!" It's a moment of pathetic delusion that is appropriately met with silence but then it's ruined with Eda and Co. barging in with "Well, we ain't!" only to then prove his point by mercilessly stomping an already dying man to death. There's a reason why kid shows usually end with either the villain being imprisoned or not outright being murdered by the heroes. Evil has to die by its own hubris, not get killed by the heroes after the Big Battle when they're no longer a threat. I made a post about the importance of defeating a major antagonist twice.

Belos' death also doesn't work with a "Kill your oppressors" theme because the show isn't about that. The show barely spends any time showing why the EC is bad for the Boiling Isles and Eda is the only named wild witch we see getting harassed by them and even then, it's mostly played for laughs given how inept the coven scouts are (seriously, they're able to quit without fear of repercussions).

I think a reason fans are split on Belos' death is because of differing expectations; the fans who paid attention to Belos and the implication of his backstory and waited for every lie to come crashing down on him since that's what the show seemed to be building up to only to be unceremoniously ignored in the end were no doubt disappointed. Then you have the other fans who hated the character to the point that any gruesome death will do, regardless whether it made narrative or thematic sense or not.

Ultimately, I think the biggest reason his death doesn't work is because Belos fails as a villain.

Belos' status as a colonial puritan only works on a meta-level; it serves a cathartic release for marginialized people to see a representative of real world oppression beaten by queer characters as it fulfills the fantasy of finally overthrowing an oppressive system. The fatal flaw though is that none of this works on a narrative level because the coven system is either treated as a joke or simply a career path one must choose and we never see the disenfranchisement of wild witches. People largely get off scot-free opposing Belos, which undermines his credibility as both a dictator and a villain because no one cares about him until the plot needs them to. Luz doesn't even care about proving he's evil until Hollow Mind, which is halfway through season 2.

Belos as a villain only works if you project your own feelings and desires in wanting to see the Evil Christian/Evil Parent destroyed. While this is extremely satisfying emotionally, it does not make a sound story.

All the reasons why people like his death ("it's great the evil colonizer died so pathetically!" "omg, the white christian colonizer was killed by two queer people and their adopted son!" etc) are all meta reasons. And to be clear, it's totally fine if you thought his death was satisfying. But for many people, it did not work for a variety of reasons, including narrative ones. And that differing opinion should be respected instead of arguing some nonsense like "we have to make our villain as stupid/evil as possible or run the risk of people liking/sympathizing with him."

Belos should have died in a manner that connected back to his original sin: the murder of his brother. All of his lies and delusions and fear of being wrong should have played a part in the finale. He should have not died thinking he was right. He should have died realizing that all he did was for nothing. And that he is to blame. And that there is no one waiting for him back home.