#stream of consciousness type post

[alullinchaos]

being insane about ruby rose… she saw that summer lied and instead of it fixing her problems it created a whole new complex in her psyche. she wasn’t perfect and that’s her fault so I won’t be like her anymore I’ll be who you were and I’ll be even more if I care less about myself I can be better than her. was it always in the cards for me to be aimless she needed a purpose what are you a huntress what are you a huntress what are you you were born to hypnotize them all they said their prayers. we’ve got a dream to catch and it cannot wait trust the way we’re made. guide my way out of this place I will guide me. i don’t need a false idol I don’t need anything to believe in except that I will keep going ruby if you can hear me I need you. ruby? penny… ruby! I could hear you.

[p0rk-guts]

Yapping about The Stolas Animation™️ everyone's been in a tizzy about because this is MY blog and I get to treat it like my personal diary.

Not going into the surrounding drama of the video because i hate drama and it's always a fucking headache. I'm gonna talk about the content of the animation, the song, and my interpretation of them together!!! (Contains discussions of suicide. Obviously)

First off. THE ANIMATION IS AMAZING. But you already knew that. The portrayal of Stolas we see for the first two thirds of it is clearly something dissimilar to his portrayal throughout the entire series thus far—much more callous and cold than playful and cheeky like we knew him to be—so to me it seemed like a portrayal of how Blitz sees Stolas and how he thinks Stolas truly felt of feels about him. Especially since each of those scenes was interjected with clips of Blitzo staggering through that white empty mind scape with the golden feathers like we saw when he was tripping and imagining him in truth seekers.

I also love how the lyrics so perfectly line up to what's happening—"who's gonna rescue you when you're lost at sea? Who's gonna love you if it isn't me?" These lyrics precede clips where Moxxie and Millie— who HAVE rescued him and who WILL love him even if Stolas won't— showing us how Blitz is so deep in his self hatred that he can't even see that despite thinking he isn't loved or worthy of loving that he IS.

The clips of Stolas are more than just Blitz's mind fucking with him though, for us we see just how ironic it is that Stolas could be saying any of this in the FIRST place. "Who's gonna rescue you when you're lost at sea": Stolas NEVER rescued Blitz in any way! (Headcanon here but) Stolas' obsessive yearning for him just made Blitz mirror those feelings of affection in late season 2 (because there were NO signs of Blitz reciprocating or feeling anything other than disdain and ANNOYANCE for Stolas initially)! He wanted that equally returned love and not to once again miss expectations and miss what he saw as his fleeting chance for love!

Anyways anyways ranted and got off topic. If anything Blitz was always the one rescuing Stolas. I also think it's interesting that that lyric fell on a clip of Stolas mocking at one of the goetia parties despite the fact that he was always miserable at them. You could even say that Blitz trying to steal the book -> their night together -> Stolas divorcing Stella was some roundabout instance of Blitz "rescuing" Stolas from his loveless marriage. But that's more of a crazy take I think Stolas would have floating around in his head

And my FAVORITE line of the animatic (and probably the whole song)— "And who's gonna love you if it isn't me?". Obviously. Like we said. He has love surrounding him already! Even in Loona too I guess! Pairing this lyric with Stella wrapped around his arm looking withdrawn while he stands front and center not even acknowledging her?? From the fictitious Blitz perspective we're shown, I saw this as Blitz seeing himself as an unnecessary stain in Stolas' perfect pristine life. Technically, he's married, or was (does Blitz even know they're divorced??? Lol I don't remember), and his entire presence just detracts from this fictitious image of high class excellence and composure he had.

Meanwhile, Stolas did try to maintain their marriage the best he could, but he never loved Stella at every point in the story we've seen so far he doesn't consider her at all. Tbf, she's pretty abusive and insane, but he really did jump through hoops to excuse his cheating and later on didn't even consider how her presence in Octavia's life could affect her (these are all tied to greater issues with the show ignoring Stella's existence but I digress).

Stella is just a prop in this image. She was just a tool for Paimon to get Stolas to produce an heir and keep the goetia conveyor belt moving, and likely even a tool to her own (largely) absent family so she could be used to grow familial wealth and status. Beyond her "liking to torment him", she's never shown to have ANY other feelings about. Anything really. Other than what, liking parties? Her reserved portrayal alludes to her having more feelings and thoughts about everything happening around her but whether it's to keep up appearances or to deny her own emotions, she stifles it all. 100% get how everyone's been saying her .2 seconds of screentime here characterize her more than the entire show does.

Then we switch gears to the real Stolas, getting dressed in something very similar to Paimon's clothes (which someone else pointed out I did NAWT notice that on my own). I have two (ish) theories on what this was about but I'm not sold on them so feel free to tell me what you think this was all about.

Maybe Stolas was putting the clothes on for some unrelated event—some goetian responsibility he forgot he was supposed to attend to— or maybe it was something like him reminiscing on all he's lost after the divorce and the trial (if this takes place post trial. Not sure). One of these maybe, or he got dressed up specifically for his suicide. I could see his romantic and fanciful nature driving him to do something like that.

(didn't have much to say on the portraits around him all turning into Blitz. It's a pretty straightforward showing of his mental decline and destructive obsession. Overall fantastic detail I missed on the first watch)

Then, when he kills himself, he chose to do it in the middle of the street, directly across from and FACING I.M.P.'s place of residence. Which is. Insane to me. Placing it there felt so purposeful with the light glinting off of the horns on the building. Was it meant to be a "look what you made me do" type deal? Some sort of final "fuck you" for all Blitz had done ("""making""" Stolas love him and then not reciprocating)? A last desperate attempt to be seen and acknowledged?

Well who knows fr but that's all my analysis for the animation. Dwinni ate down idc. This was a peak fandom event honestly. But yeah uh what do YOU 🫵🏾 think

[son-of-avraham]

I've been doing a lot of reflection as of late, especially after this past class.

This past class was about the Torah and Tanakh in general, and the way the rabbi talked about the commandments (specifically the ten commandments) has made me really reflect on how I interpret them, specifically the fifth commandment, or honoring your mother and father.

This is a commandment I have wrestled with for a long time - in fact, it brought me away from g-d at multiple times. I was severely abused when I was incredibly young by my mother, and I used to feel insulted at the implication that I were to honor her while she got to live a better life. It was hypocritical, in my eyes.

But this rabbi surmised that this particular commandment was because parenthood is an act of creation, something that is like the g-d from which we come from. My realization is this: I don't think we're necessarily meant to take even these commandments literally.

I this particular commandment is more of a call to honor creation - creation is a gift, and like any gift, many people simply will not like it and will discard it. The person who abused me created me, but she did not honor creation. She didn't honor me, but I can still honor it.

I have started to honor creation much more. I'm too young, too unstable, not mature enough to be a father (though I fantasize about it), but I create all the time. I create relationships, I create with my hands through crochet. I create memories, I create my world. And I can honor who I am and where I came from that made me who I am. I've been learning one of the mother tongues of my family (Italian, since part of my family originates there) and it was judaism that inspired me to do this.

I don't think g-d wants me to honor my abuser. I think He wants me to remember the Holy action of creation. When I am a father, that act of creation will be Holy, and indeed, I am already joyful about the thought.

I have seen many people struggle with this particular commandment, but I think this perspective helps me personally. I don't think I ever have to forgive my abusers (plural), and I don't think I am commanded to simply because they happened to be family. I am commanded to recognize the holy, to elevate the mundane. In doing so, I will remember g-d. Through creation, I honor g-d and everything he has done for us, for me, and for our collective people.

[deathskrang]

i think about zim and the tallest and their inherently, nearly parasitic relationship to each other a lot.

i think about how all of them are, objectively, mostly blind to this fact as well, zim blinded by the swift and stark obedience that he performs under the delusion that he is doing something for the good of his leaders and his empire, and the tallest blinded by their total arrogance and rage over the fact that zim cannot read any of their cues that he is a nuisance. still, it is so obvious that the back and forth is there.

i know that this particular example probably wasn't purposeful in florpus and was mostly just so the audience could see dib's point and the narrative similarities between zim and him, but i think a lot about zim's silence when dib says, "you know, my dad doesn't appreciate what i do, either" after zim explains how the tallest are not coming to bring him back home. i think a lot about that. the impact and the implications behind one simple sentence from dib. i imagine, to zim, this sort of felt like a slap in the face. the first word besides "my tallest" that's ever explained how zim wants them, how zim, in his own way, almost loves them. and it's a word from earth. it's a word that implies a built in, unconditional caring between human beings. it's a word that zim had just said in a mocking tone of voice to dib moments ago in reference to his plan to replace his real dad. and, suddenly, in a single instance, the weight of the word has seemed to hit him.

i think the saddest part of this parallel is that dib has the understanding that because he and his dad are biologically related, unconditional love is the expected thing, it's the supposed natural progression of things. zim and the tallest, though—they don't have any of that. you could argue that they're barely even acquaintances. there is no understanding of what is supposed to happen with them. there is no built in hope of having them step up to the plate the way dib hopes with his dad. i don't think zim truly understands this, though. as if zim can completely comprehend isolation. isn't that apart of an invader's duty? isn't that what he was trained to do? and isn't zim an invader? isn't he?

after all of this, after all of florpus, long after dib had first used that word, dad, in relation to the tallest, how dib said his dad doesn't appreciate what he does, one of the last things zim asks the tallest as he is witnessing their last moments across that transmission is: does this please you? in other words, do you appreciate what i have done for you?

dialogue wise, this is emotionally wrecking enough, but i think, visually, it is equally if not more disarming and depressing. i really, really, really love the imagery of the scene right before it cuts to the tallest burning in their puppet florpus flames. because it's a silly visual gag, yes, two flailing tallest puppets—but zim talking to two distorted tallest silhouettes, not noticing (or, rather, caring about) the difference between this and their usual way of appearing when they're in a transmission—zim talking to a literal representation of how the tallest have always existed in his head, as two distorted silhouettes, as delusions—that is insanely succinct in describing the true detriment of zim and the tallest's relationship to each other, at least to me.

this is, in my opinion, the most fucked up imagery in florpus, maybe even the entire series to me—and, most likely, none of the invader zim crew meant it to come across quite like that. zim's performance of normalcy in the face of what he is unaware is the tallest's last living moments. the delayed video feed in the transmission, shortly followed by complete and utter panic from the tallest, who were possibly oblivious to the fact that zim had even contacted them amongst their chaos. zim almost seeming as if he is staring at his own reflection in the screen rather than right at the tallest. a physical representation of what their entire relationship has been built on since the beginning—a blurry idea, a vague delusion of a bond that is in actuality no more than a fatal, life long misunderstanding on each end. it's the most palpably gut wrenching thing in the whole film for me, and i don't care that none of it was probably meant to pack that type of punch. it's always hit me hard.

[majorasnightmare]

continuing from my last post about tadpoles and brain damage and disability, and also on that whole "for Development Team reasons the party does not react to dark urge Lore Drops, but im interpreting it as character flaws anyways" dealio

immediately post absolute befuckening its like. the fucking DRAMA

because its a steadily increasing amount of Emergency Crises. like first of all astarion is now subject to vampire rules again and starts burning in the sun, so being the de facto leader dirge obviously rushes to shield him as best he can and drops a darkness cast on top of themselves, except hey. the worm thats been holding your brain together? just dissolved into thin air. fun fact about brain bleeds: it actually starts oozing down your esophagus, and only rarely leaks out from your eyes, and nosebleeds are typically a sinus capillary bursting from stress or irritation. it will on occasion leak from your ears, especially if its alongside a skull fracture (which will leak fluid from your ears first)

so id like to think that even before dirge starts showing symptoms, astarion starts to smell the blood on his breath, and then it just quickly spirals downhill from there as the wound reopens due to not healing properly in the first place. starts trying to find a way to get astarion to safety before trailing off and then gets increasingly heavy on astarion as he struggles to support himself, and it quickly becoming obvious something is Very Wrong. dirges injury not following explicit realism because Bhaalspawn and Drama, so even as it reopens its trying to properly heal, leading to oedema, the inflammation and swelling causing aphasia. so now your stuck about to be burned by the sun as soon as this cast is over, and the partys main crisis solver is now PART of the crisis, and steadily losing the ability to meaningfully communicate and becoming more and more of a dead weight

so now we have TWO crises, and one of them is the guy whos spent the past several months being the Guy Who Plans Our Way Out Of The Crisis. after spending so much time offloading the mental burden of problem solving onto this One Guy Whos Admittedly Pretty Good At It, now we have to handle an exponentially worsening situation. no telepathy cuz the worms are gone, so theres the struggle of trying to communicate whats happening quickly and clearly. no spell slots or resources cuz we just went through a boss rush. wylls all out of warlock juice cuz his pact with mizoras been fulfilled and she dipped. does an abandoned house count as public? run in, claim it, and invite astarion in while you support/drag dirge into the building, whos quickly becoming insensible, and then on top of all that we have to deal with karlachs engine. because anything that can go to shit right now, absolutely will

its like. everything gets offloaded onto him, because he cares and hes capable and hell get it done, so he makes the decisions and he talks to people and haggles with traders and gets them a free inn room and helps all their personal problems and life crises, and everytime he broaches the idea of asking for help for himself, it gets shut down. im having these urges for violence that really scare me, what do i do? its normal its fine it isnt anything to be scared of, everyone experiences this, just focus on killing whats in front of you. and then alfira dies and everyone pulls away, asks whats WRONG with you, and its like. oh. okay. i have to do this by myself. and if i dont, then ill fail, and people will pay the price, and the people i love will rightfully hate me for my lapse of control. and then no one reaches out, about the injury confirmed by omeluum, or about kressas torture, and further still they ask him to face the only two people left who ever knew him before he lost everything, and kill them. and he cant save either of them and has to choose his loved ones NOW over his loved ones THEN, and everyones too embroiled in their own issues to even really fully realize.

and then you cant ignore it anymore. you cant ask him how to handle this, what to do, have him guide your hand or comfort you, because now HES the crisis. the problem, confirmed a hundred times over by a hubdred different people, stares you in the face and refuses to be ignored anymore. the defining injury, the last remaining legacy of a past you never really reckoned with because you sat on the sidelines for it, the last echoing rattle of a ghost you never thought about, is now here to claim the friend who saved your life without asking a single thing in return, and its doing so explicitly because YOU never once thought about it or how to handle it. and now its all coming down around you on what should have been your final victory, but you never tried to tie these threads up!! and if you dont figure something out NOW, your going to lose EVERYTHING

like god. i love it. i think everyone should have to sweat, and try for just a day to handle the sheer load of bullshit dirge had to deal with daily. like it isnt enough to care when he doesnt ask anything of you, now you have to put your money where your mouth is and do it of your own volition cuz now he cant ask for help. and not just him but you have to save your other two friends having their own crises concurrently, all while feeling woefully unequipped and worn down and exhausted, and maybe think about how youve never seen him sleep except in those brief and short rests you take while on the road, and how he has to bury his face in blankets every morning to hide from the sun or else hell vomit, and how much medicine he has to take just to do the same shit you do every day.

and like. of course all the origin characters are CAPABLE of leading! its just that theyre never made to in the same way they are during an origin playthrough, cuz in those there isnt a tav or a durge to save them for them. they have to do it themselves, and help carry everyone else besides. but that just adds to it for me, like you COULD have done something to help this earlier, but you didnt, because this was easier and didnt seem to have any consequence because.. what exactly?

that he just seemed inhumanly durable? he could handle it, he could do it, hes been doing fine so far, if he needed help hed ask for it (nevermind that youve forgotten that when he did last time, you wrote him off and then didnt connect the dots between a bard dying in camp and the upsetting scary violent urges he asked for help with before. do you ever wonder how scary it might be to wake up having absolutely zero control over your body and the actions it takes and seeing that, without your awareness, you killed someone you wanted to journey with? brutally, violently, sadistically murdered her, all without even a shred of awareness. you cant be trusted to lose control of yourself for even a moment), if he wanted to talk about what happened with kressa hed say so, if there was something to say about his injury it wouldve been said, if he ever reached out to me id have helped him like he helped me, but you didnt and you didnt and you didnt and now everythings going to shit and you dont know what to do because your first instinct is to ask him but you dont even know if hes conscious anymore, laid out on omeluums desk and steadily bleeding where you cant stitch it closed, and you have to make sure astarions okay, that karlachs okay, that your all okay, and he did this every day this whole time.

like personally i really just enjoy putting the party through their paces, JUUUST a lil bit

[youmakethelight]

Okay, but I'm casting my mind back to try to imagine how I would have felt about tboc daryl before season 10 got me so stupid about this show, when I used to be a casual viewer. And I still think I'd have just thought daryl lost his mind tbh.

This is just me going off on tangents about the show now, don't mind me.

He felt a bit off in season 1, I can't lie. The costume change would have thrown me even if I wasn't as attached, because I'm probs just the type of neurodivergent that struggles with too much change at once, and him being away from TF, in Europe, and looking so different, then calling Laurent useless, then the ways he looked at Isabelle at the end of 1x06 - that was all just too different to the Daryl I knew idk. But I stuck with it.

But having his first on-screen kiss be so entirely unpredictable for what I thought I knew of his character felt gratuitous*. And then it's like suddenly I'm being railroaded into following him on this rolleroaster that I don't understand. One minute he's longing for home, the next he's playing baseball and "just having fun". Then home has found him, but now he's invested in this kid I still haven't learnt to feel invested in yet. And he's never even talking about anything to do with home anymore, even after Carol is there? It's suddenly all just about Laurent, and part of the problem for me is there wasn't enough balance to convince me of the story.

And I think this was most of my difficulty with enjoying TOWL, too. (Don't come for me please for talking about my personal experience of watching TOWL.) I watched TOWL first out of all the spinoffs, and I remember this one part where I think Michonne and Rick were in a kitchen or something and Rick felt so different to me and it made me sad, and then she called it out. And he said something like that it's been so long, he's lost who he used to be or something like that. I can't remember exactly, but it made me sad. And I think, for me, I didn't get enough glimpses of the Rick I recognised within the short 6 episodes that I never felt satisfied or happy with it. And maybe I needed more TF references or something??? I didn't even feel enough concern for Judith or RJ from him - maybe I'm misremembering, but I think your memory of the feeling something gave you is important. I get that the leadership want these spinoffs to be accessible to people who didn't watch the flagship show, but I think that's a big part of where it's losing the magic for me.

The thing that was better for me about DD season 1 is that it was all about getting home, and his determination felt relentless throughout the first 5 and a half episodes before it suddenly got weird with Isabelle acting like they've been a family for 19 years. Like, before that, I felt connected to his mission.** But then in season 2, it's almost completely gone, and Carol feels like the only part I can still connect with. Like, I know Rick didn't mention Daryl either I think, but I wish both of them had talked about each other. Idk, it just would have felt more like it's giving me something I can connect with? Rather than just throwing the characters into entirely new situations and also deliberately making them feel a bit out of character?

That whole part in TOWL where Michonne feels surprised to find Rick a bit changed is so similar to what they seemed to want to do with Daryl and Carol, and I don't really get why they did it to either of them. It's more believable with Rick than Daryl bc 1. He isn't Daryl and definitely adapts more to new environments, and 2. It had been many, many, many years, not like a month. But idk, I still wasn't keen, but at least they gave it a redemption arc or whatever you'd call it. With daryl it's still just like - ???? And for what reason??? I don't know. I just don't find it compelling idk idk idk.

*Even in season 9, when we met Connie, I felt a bit like 'oh are they gonna force a ship here bc they have them spending time together 🤨 (rather than just letting connie want to help for her own character reasons rather than making it about daryl and shipping), but if it's gonna be someone who isn't carol, I think I'm okay with connie', like bc we actually had reasons to like her and there was chemistry with Daryl. So why neither Connie nor Carol, but Isabelle? The show just never got me invested in darabelle in any way.

I already liked connie before they had her going on missions with daryl, so I actually cared about her a lot. I loved seeing her on those missions bc I was excited for her to have more screen time and I found her character empowering. So, I didn't want to see her reduced to just being Daryl's love interest, and tbh, I don't think they handled it well, bc they still reduced her to being Daryl's accessory, rather than giving her her own character depth. But I *still* would have been more on board with pairing up Daryl with Connie than Isabelle. Tbh, by the time that Carol was broken up with zeke, and they had the conversation about running away together, I didn't think of Daryl and Connie as making sense to pair anymore... But I also didn't see much point in the Leah romance either, so whatever, I guess this show just has a pattern of pairing up Daryl with random women he doesn't have chemistry with, instead of the ones he does?

**I always remember that Zabel pitched the idea for the show as "what if, in trying to get home, you find something else?", and the thing is, in order to get me to be convinced that Daryl "found something else", I'd have needed A LOT stronger of a pull for the French story. There was nothing there that hooked me to becoming convinced of Daryl finding something while trying to get home. Just having him voice the words "I found something", having Laurent the prophet say "you miss her too, I can tell", putting his crossbow next to Isabelle's hospital bed, and having him look at her for an extended time after she recovers, doesn't suddenly convince me of that idea. Idk. I'm not in the TV industry, so I don't know how that magic gets done - like when season 10 slowly turned Lydia into one of my favourite characters after she was introduced as an antagonist. But I have enough brain cells to see (from the moment they nonsensically forced them to share a bed??) that they were trying to convince us Daryl found "something" in France, and tbh, if I can see the strain in their efforts to make it happen, it's probably not working. And even NR couldn't answer why Isabelle when asked at NYCC. He was literally like, "idk they have similar pasts?? Idk???". Like, girl, if you don't know, why should your audience?

[catboyspells]

nothing like typing out a whole post, tags included, and then going “actually I don’t think I want to say that publicly” and hitting discard. ahhh, the thoughts are out but we’re all safe

[total-drama-brainrot]

What if Noah (who is afraid of hypnosis, but allowed Alejandro to hypnotize him for Owen's safety) tries to warn Owen about Alejandro, during the London Adventure? (The hypnosis won't allow him to tell the complete evil truth about Alejandro, but Noah finds a loophole by simply saying: "Owen, be careful... Alejandro is like Heather, but with social skills.") 🍥 How would Alejandro react to Noah finding a loophole to warn the others? Would the Hypnotist be impressed and amused? How terrified would Noah be when he learns that 'his Hypnotist' had heard him try to warn the others? 🍥 What if Alejandro threatens to COMMAND Noah to vote off Owen, if Noah ever tries to warn the others again?

Not trying to spoil anything here but you're mentioned something in this ask that's featured in the next chapter of 'snap, crackle and pop' and I'm not sure if that means I've foreshadowed it as well as I hoped I did, or if that means I'm taking the plot in a super predictable route.

Anyway-

First point: Alejandro's reaction

Should Noah manage to find a loophole in the hypnosis and try to warn Owen (and Tyler by association), I think Alejandro could react one of two potential ways.

The first being, he doesn't take it well at all.

In canon, just the comment that he's "slippery" and "like Heather with social skills" is enough to have him visibly upset with Noah, to the point he has him eliminated that same day. And later on in Drumheller we see that, when things don't go according to his plans (him losing the first challenge despite building an accurate dinosaur), he's quick to throw a tantrum anger. So having someone find a way to break the airtight control you have over them would be a pretty significant punch to the gut for Alejandro.

After all, if Noah could find that loophole, who's to say he wouldn't be able to find more? Alejandro's supposed to have the nerd under his thumb, but how assured is that control when Noah keeps devising ways to refute it?

He's going to have to employ more than just a hypnotic suggestion to keep Noah in line if he wants his plans to run smoothly without the interference of an unruly bookworm. So he'd resort to other means of keeping Noah docile; i.e. physical intimidation, blackmail, social isolation, ect. But I don't think he'd have Noah eliminated. He's spent far too much time and effort investing in having Noah as his pawn to just get rid of him at the first sign of rebellion. Instead, he'd have Owen or Tyler eliminated.

Since Owen is Noah's only real ally on the jet, getting rid of him would leave Noah himself alone and vulnerable- perfect for Alejandro to take advantage of to re-establish his control. However, Owen is also his bargaining chip over the cynic, the person inadvertently keeping Noah from lashing out against him (by means of blackmail), so Alejandro is torn between keeping him around as insurance of Noah's obedience or having him eliminated to further isolate Noah from the rest of the cast.

(And also, Noah's defiance is a challenge for Alejandro to overcome, which is exciting enough for him to keep Noah around for. After all, Alejandro is incredibly competitive- he loves a good challenge.)

On the other hand, I could also see Alejandro seeing it as a fun little quirk to crush out of Noah work on.

Because if the only way Noah could manage to communicate his thoughts was an indirect compliment ("like Heather but with social skills" could be interpreted as a compliment, since it's essentially calling him better than Heather- that, and Alejandro likes/tolerates Heather, so being compared to her shouldn't really bother him), it means his hypnotic order of "don't shit talk me, twink" has worked. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak, so the satisfaction of seeing his hypnosis working would outweigh any annoyance he has with Noah trying to circumvent it.

And, again, he'd see the circumvention itself as a fun little challenge. I've already spoken on that though.

So he'd regard Noah abusing loopholes in the same way a pet owner regards a misbehaving puppy; he'd think it's cute. He'd stop it as soon as possible, but he'd think Noah's futile struggle against him is endearing.

Alejandro in canon has this same mindset towards Heather in canon, at least until the late game when he starts seeing her as an equal. He's incredibly patronising, and even more so self-assured, meaning his ego's far too big for him to ever really consider Noah being able to outmanoeuvre him in his own game. (In short, he's too egotistical to see the threat of Noah's defiance for what is really is.)

.

Second point: Noah's reaction

This Noah, being genuinely phobic of hypnosis, would be hesitant to portray himself as anything but completely subservient to Alejandro, in fear of the other's potential retribution. (As opposed to regular rk!Noah, who's not afraid to be as much of a little bitch as possible regardless of the consequences. In fact, he goes out of his way to be as uncooperative as possible.)

Which is why, being caught trying to warn the others when he thought he was safe from Alejandro's constant observance immediately sends Noah into a full blown panic attack. He hides it well enough at the Ripper Reveal, but as soon as they stop filming Noah darts away to the nearest secluded area, making sure he's actually alone and unsupervised.

The contestants watching the Ripper challenge is going to have this Noah's paranoia skyrocketing even more than usual, because now Alejandro could be watching him at any given moment (he isn't, but Noah doesn't have the comfort of knowing that.)

His first thought, which is what sparks his hysteria, is concerned with how Alejandro is going to enact punishment for his misconduct. The things Alejandro could potentially do to him or make him do have Noah spiralling in the cargo hold/confessional/cockpit (somewhere private, but the cockpit could be a good option for some parental Chref if that's your cup of tea) until he comes to the conclusion that he needs to get himself eliminated ASAP.

Because if he's out of the competition, he's out of Alejandro's clutches- hypnotic triggers be damned, he just wants to get away from him.

So he tries to rally the vote against himself. By outright asking Tyler, Duncan and Owen to vote for him, because he doesn't have the time or the patience to scheme his way into being eliminated- he needs out now. Duncan is more than happy to oblige, as is Tyler (he's still salty about being left on the rack, which is entirely justified #JusticeForTyler) but Owen puts up a fuss about voting for his little buddy, so Noah then has to spend the rest of their time between the challenge and the elimination ceremony convincing Owen to vote for him.

(Meanwhile, Alejandro is convincing the rest of the team to not vote for Noah despite his wishes. And it works.)

When Owen/Tyler is eliminated instead of Noah, something inside of him shatters.

Before he can even start picking up the pieces of his frazzled mind, he catches sight of Alejandro in the corners of his eyes, smirking ferally towards the bookworm and looking so proud of himself for orchestrating Owen/Tyler's elimination.

(This scene is more impactful if Owen's the one to go, but I love Owen too much to want him eliminated so early even if it would make for some choice angst.)

.

Third point: My thoughts

I'd like to keep Owen around for Alejandro to use as blackmail over Noah, but by this point in the story Alejandro already has a pretty solid foundation of control over Noah even without the threat of Owen's safety, so having him eliminated in London would be the angstiest route to take the story- especially since Owen was the sole reason for Noah undergoing the hypnosis in the first place, so having him booted the very next challenge is just yet another kick in the teeth for Noah.

As much as I love the idea of Alejandro threatening to force Noah to vote out Owen, I don't think a Noah who's phobic of hypnosis would be coherent enough to process such a threat. The moment Alejandro brings up the threat of having Noah under a trance, Noah's in fight or flight mode- it doesn't matter what Alejandro's making him do at that point, just the fact that he'd hypnotised is enough to have him panicking (when he's coherent enough to do so).

[brodingles]

I've been making a lot of things lately, I have a huge backlog, but I am just...too tired to write appropriate descriptions. Everything I wanna post needs at least a little exposition or isn't presentable enough yet to do without it. Been some real bad chronic pain days, but I'm hangin in there.

Still trying to get a thing out daily, which I know I'm not obligated to do in any way, shape, or form, but it's a little goal I've set for myself, and so far it's not actually that big of a deal except for unexpected fatigue. If I really can't handle it I promise I'll take care of myself and miss a day or two, but I'm very stubborn and don't want to, haha.

Might end up posting more WIPs than I'd like in the meantime.

[mostesteemedgingeroverlord]

It’s about to be my birthday and I just keep thinking about how *much* the last year has been.

I lost my darling grandfather, but I’m slowly getting my dad back. Or maybe just truly having him for the first time. But that’s also mostly happening be he’s been sick for months, which is making him reevaluate a lot.

My parents are closer and healthier than ever, but they’re also barely scraping by because Dad can’t work.

My aunt who I have been very close to as an adult said some really hurtful things to me when Granddad was dying and now there’s a weird distance between us that I don’t know how to breach. But as I was crying about that my mom called me and told me how proud she was of me and how much it meant to her that I was there taking care of Granddad when she couldn’t.

My oldest brother is growing ever distant and into someone I’m afraid won’t be a kind and gentle man. But my younger brothers and sisters are growing kinder and wiser and, God, I am more hopeful for them than I have been in years.

My friend who I went to college with and have traveled the world started fighting with other friends and pulling away from us. But my friend who moved away last summer has become closer than when she was here and now we’re going to travel together (provided my finances become less bottom up lol).

I’ve given up on the idea of best friends (I was never too keen on it to begin with) and I’m trying to ride the waves of closeness as they come, bc very few of my close friends have remained the same for the last year. Even fewer the last five. I could certainly count them on one hand. But that’s okay! You can’t always love a lot of people and love them all equally well. At the end of the day, we’re finite and we most affect and are most affected by the people in our lives day to day.

My roommates both moved out (for separate reasons) right as several (more) things on the house went wrong and now I am back to paying for the mortgage by myself with a savings that has been wiped out by weddings and family problems as well as house problems over the last year.

My faith, as always, walks a razors edge, as I wrestle not let truth fall prey to opinion and desire. Trying to understand the things that bewilder me, to be faithful to God, to know and love Him, is slowly becoming easier. Setting down my burden, learning truly to be weak—oh I so hate to be weak— is healing me. In a lancing the wound, cutting out the gangrene, pouring alcohol on the cut kind of way. But in my core, in my heart of hearts, I believe and know (despite all the religious corruption I grew up in), that this Jesus was who he said he was and that truth must decide my life.

I once hiked a trail that I was not in the best shape for. But I had trained for it and was in better shape than I had thought. I got so hungry, but there were enough snacks. I was so thirsty, but we had plenty of water. I got winded, but there was enough time for me to take breaks. My legs were burning, but finally we started to go downhill. My brother got cold, but I had an extra jacket. We got frustrated, but we started to be silly and soon were laughing. I got disheartened, but my brother ran ahead to tell me there was a sign (parking lot one kilometer ahead).

I would not have been strong enough to do that hike unequipped and alone. But I was equipped and I wasn’t alone. Just as I have not been unequipped and alone the past year or the past twenty-five. And I won’t be for whatever’s left.

[son-of-avraham]

I think now, my opinion about "jews by choice choose judaism!" has changed; not because I don't choose judaism fully, I choose it every day, but as time goes on, it doesn't feel as much of a choice. It feels like a choice in the same way that needing to breathe, to eat, to sleep feels like a choice. To me, judaism is as important a function of my day as my mortal, bodily functions, and I never chose to do them. It happened to me, it continually happens to me

I definitely started my journey needing to consciously choose judaism, but as time goes on and it enriches my life more, is it as much of a choice, or is it just... what happened?

I guess it might be apt to say my conversion is like eating: I have to do it. In that way, it isn't a choice, I have no choice in my need for it. However, I can choose what I eat, when I eat, and how often I eat (to an extent). In the same way, I have made choices about my observance, about the way I think about g-d, and how much I participate in my (offline) community. But I don't think I have chosen my desire to be a jew, just like you don't really choose to fall in love.

[bodyfrmabalcony]

actually sorry to be back at this again but i did have slightly more to say about tim and jason (see last post i reblogged)

that post does a lot of analysis that i enjoyed re: their read on what tim is dream hallucinating jason saying re: his own death and i had a couple thoughts i wanted 2 add to that. tldr they r saying that this is wayy more about tim than it is about jason and i super agree. i said something about jason's line saying he killed himself in my tim post from last week, but it was kinda reductive, where i said basically yeah that sure sounds like like a way bruce might describe it!! but i don't really think that's the whole story - my more genuine nuanced take on that is a little more like: it sounds an awful lot like what a scared kid might imagine that bruce saying about what happened to a robin who fucks up, i.e., not something bruce said about jason but something tim is afraid bruce would say (or think) about tim if tim went the same way as jason

being a martyr and a cautionary tale and a failure - his own or bruce's - are all stacked up on top of each other w/ jason, and tim just kind of. has all that. to deal with. the linked post gets way into how tim is reacting to his mom's death, which is so so interesting to me, bc tim is clearly soo scared of his grief disqualifying him from everything else he wants and feels like he needs to do. he's scared he won't be able to be robin bc bruce sees him compromised by his grief, so he's got to grieve Just Right, at the same time that he's basically trying to take on bruce's grief for jason. the kid is in the poster house for Grief Alters Your Life In Ways You Can't Control and he's still trying to grieve correctly. oof.

and back to tim's relationship to jason post-jason's death, it's so interesting in every direction, but specifically a big thing to me is that on some level jason is not real. like he is, obviously, but tim didn't meet him and he's never going to. he's not dick, a man tim can remember as a child and whose apartment he can break into as a slightly older child. he's not bruce, a guy whose basement tim can end up standing in if he tries hard enough. he doesn't! exist! you don't get to meet dead men! jason doesn't need to be pinned down as tim's hero or tim's fear or tim's resentment, bc the most important thing is that he's just a story. he's just an idea.

and then, of course, what do u do when the idea puts a knife to your throat. or puts on bright yellow tights to beat u up in front of your friends. things get really silly!! quoting my own tags on the first linked post just to have them here as well:

#i think constantly constantly about the car crash disaster of #all the things ppl did in their grief after jason died and then #jason comes back. and sees things he was never meant to see #and it's specifically sooo interesting for the ppl who got caught up in the grief but never even met jason #tim looking at the memorial case #cass sitting at jason's grave on his birthday with bruce #like wtf is jason supposed to do w all that grief from ppl he doesnt know for a person he only sort of was #and on the flip side! wtf r the ppl who grieved a story supposed to do when the story walks up to them! #and in some cases. walks up to them holding a knife. #anyway just thinkin

[britneyshakespeare]

So yesterday I read "Slimed with Gravy, Ringed by Drink" by Camille Ralphs, an article from the Poetry Foundation on the publication of the First Folio in 1623, a major work without which most of Shakespeare's plays might very well have been lost today, possibly the most influential secular work of literature in the world, you know.

It's a good article overall on the history and mysteries of the Folio. Lots of interesting stuff in there including how Shakespeare has been adapted, the state of many surviving Folios, theories of its accuracy to the text, a really interesting identification of John Milton's own copy currently in the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the fascinating annotations that may have influenced Milton's own poetry!!! Do read it. It's not an atrociously long article but there's a lot of thought-provoking information in there.

There's one paragraph in particular I keep coming back to though, so I'm just gonna quote it down here:

...[T]he Play on Shakespeare series, published by ACMRS Press, the publications division of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University... grew out of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s plan to “translate” Shakespeare for the current century, bills itself “a new First Folio for a new era.” The 39 newly-commissioned versions of Shakespeare’s plays were written primarily by contemporary dramatists, who were asked to follow the reasonable principle laid out by series editor Lue Douthit: tamper in the name of clarification but submit to “do no harm.” The project was inspired by something the linguist John McWhorter wrote in 1998: “[the] irony today is that the Russians, the French, and other people in foreign countries possess Shakespeare to a much greater extent than we do … [because] they get to enjoy Shakespeare in the language they speak.”

Mainly it's the John McWhorter thing I keep coming back to. Side note: any of my non-native-English-speaking mutuals who have read Shakespeare, I would love to know your experiences. If you have read him in translation, or in the original English, or a mix of both. It's something I do wonder about! Even as an Anglophone reader, I find my experience varies so much just based on which edition of the text I'm reading and how it's presented. There's just so much variety in how to read literature and I would love to know what forces have shaped your own relationships to the stories. But anyway...

The article then goes on to talk about how the anachronistic language in Shakespeare will only fall more and more out of intelligibility for everyone because of how language evolves and yadda yadda yadda. I'm not going to say that that's wrong but I think it massively overlooks the history of the English language and how modern standard English became modern standard English.

First of all, is Shakespeare's language completely unintelligible to native English speakers today? No. Certain words and grammatical tenses have fallen out of use. Many words have shifted in meaning. But with context aiding a contemporary reader, there are very few lines in Shakespeare where the meaning can be said to be "unknown," and abundant lines that are perfectly comprehensible today. On the other hand, it's worth mentioning how many double entendres are well preserved in modern understanding. And additionally, things like archaic grammar and vocabulary are simply hurdles to get over. Once you get familiarized with your thees and thous, they're no longer likely to trip you up so much.

But it's also doubtful that 400 years from now, as the article suggests, our everyday language will be as hard to understand for twenty-fifth century English speakers to comprehend. The English language has significantly stabilized due to colonialism and the international adoption of English as a lingua franca. There are countless dialects within English, but what we consider to be standard international "correct" English will probably not change so radically, since it is so well and far established. The development and proliferation of modern English took a lot of blood and money from the rest of the world, the legacy of which can never be fully restored.

And this was just barely in sight by the time that Shakespeare died. This is why the language of the Elizabethans and Jacobeans is early-modern English. It forms the foundations of modern English, hence why it's mostly intelligible to speakers today, but there are still many antiquated figures within it. Early-modern English was more fluid and liberal. Spelling had not been standardized. Many regions of England still had slight variations in preferences for things like pronouns and verb conjugation. We see this even in works Shakespeare cowrote with the likes of Fletcher and Middleton, as the article points out. Shakespeare's vocabulary may not just reflect style and sentiment, but his Stratford background. His preferences could be deemed more "rustic" than many of his peers reared in London.

Features that make English more consistent now were not formalized yet. That's why Shakespeare sounds so "old." It's not just him being fancy. And there's also the fact that blank verse plays are an entirely neglected art nowadays. Regardless of the comprehensibility of the English, it's still strange for modern audiences uninitiated to Elizabethan literature to sit there and watch a King drop mad poetry about his feelings on stage by himself. The form and style of the entire genre is off.

But that, to me, is why we should read Shakespeare. We SHOULD be challenged. It very much IS within the grasp of a literate adult fluent in English to read one of his plays, in a modern edition with proper assistance and context. It is GOOD to be acquainted with something unfamiliar to us, but within our reach. I'm serious. I do not think I'm so much smarter than everyone else because I read Shakespeare. I don't just read the plain text as it was printed in the First Folio! The scholarship exists which has made Shakespeare accessible to me, and I take advantage of that access for my own pleasure.

This is to say that I disagree with the notion that Shakespeare is better suited to be enjoyed in foreign tongues. I think that's quite a complacent, modern American take. Not to say that the sentiment of McWhorter is wrong; I get what he's saying. And it's quite a beautiful thing that Shakespeare's plays are still so commonly staged, although arguably that comes from a false notion in our culture that Shakespeare is high literature worth preserving, at the expense of the rest of time and history. It is true that his body of work has such a high level of privilege in the so-called Western literary canon that either numerous other writers equally deserve, or no writer ever could possibly deserve.

The effort that goes into making Shakespeare's twenty-first century legacy, though, is a half-assed one. So much illustrious praise and deification of the individual and his works, and yet not as much to understanding the context of his time and place, of his influences, forms, and impacts on the eras which proceeded him. Shakespeare seems to exist in a vacuum with his archaic language, and we read it once or twice in high school when we're forced to, with prosaic translations on the adjoining page. This does not inspire a true appreciation in a culture for Shakespeare but it does reinforce a stereotype that he must be somehow important. It's this shallow stereotype that makes it seem in many minds today that it would be worth it to rip the precise language out of the text of a poet, and spit back out an equivalent "modern translation."

[sinners-go-to-drink-the-wine]

i saw a picture of a beautiful bathtub and I'm so tempted to write a cozy sensual bathtub scene, but I've already had two bathtub sharing scenes in fics, and yet I've never shared a bath with anyone, I really just need someone to take a bath with-

[unnamed-atlas]

Having brain worms. What if uhhhhhh SOS Mianite au

[applepies-and-starlight]

My (undiagnosed) OCD(?) Demanding I do quantifiable things in multiples of 5 vs. My heavily rythm-driven brain demanding i stick to a 4/4 beat — FIGHT!