#which is arguably an extremely understandable motive

[houseswife]

I cannot believe this fandom has dubbed taub the normal one. while house was doing surgery on himself like a common plebeian edgelord, taub (enlightened and bespoke) was screening his calls for help because he was too busy trying to get executed cartel-style by a stripper

[lordofdestructionm]

The fear behind the manic grin

I know I have a reputation as a feral Vikdecai account (I mean can you blame me?) but all the characters in Lackadaisy are amazing and the main cast all have their own interesting stories playing out

Case in point the musical, poetic and lovably derranged Rocky Rockaby who thanks to the Pilot (for what will hopefully soon become a full series) a new large audience being introduce to

But there is one moment where the feral energetic grinning persona slips and we see the face a of a broken young man in a state of total despair, before mercifully Mitzi decides to lighten the tone

This is key to understanding Rocky and his motivations

After being abandoned by his father and his mothers death from illness Rocky was raised in his early years for a period of time by his aunt Nina along with his cousin Calvin (Freckle)

However, due to some as yet unrevealed tragedy, Rocky was ejected from the Mcmurray house and spent the following years riding the rails

He stayed in touch with Calvin, writing him letters about his adventures, and as you would expect from a flamboyant personality he exaggerates what a big adventure it was how optimistic he was feeling at this time as he travelled from place to place working various assorted odd jobs between 1921 and 1924

The Lackadaisy Wicki provides a nice breakdown

But of course the reality is quite different. Having no home, no family and no friends outside what brief and fleeting acquaintances he made on the road took its toll

But that changed when he found himself joining Zib's band in 1925 which at that point was playing exclusively for the Lackadaisy Speakeasy. For the first time in years he has not only found somewhere seemingly more long term to be but back in the place he thinks of as home

But even this seemingly positive change does not get to last long. Atlas's death in 1926 throws everything into uncertainty and without its leader and despite Mitzi's best efforts things begin to decline both financially and in terms of manpower.

Those that remain do so for various reasons despite leaving arguably being the smartest option. Rocky does so because he is done with drifting and is determined to hold onto the solid ground he has found no matter what. He makes this desperation clear to Calvin

Though it should be noted while he wants the Lackadaisy to be saved he wants it done on certain terms. Specifically ones where he is the golden boy that saved the day. He is desperate to ingratiate himself to Mitzi. This is in part due to him having a crush on her, but even this is tied to his perception of her as a "damsel in distress" that he can ride in and rescue, and in the process secure a permanant place for himself

This is why in both the pilot and the comic he is so devastated when he sees that she is dissapointed with his efforts.

This is also why in both you can see a barely passive aggresive attitude towards Wick.

Its not just that he is a rival for Mitzi's affection, the friendly wealthy industrialist who clearly has a thing for the beautiful widow threatens to make Rocky and his efforts to be the Knight in shining armour redundant and equally so Rocky himself.

If he invested his money in the Speakeasy he would be the hero and Rocky would just be the clown that tried so hard (risking his life even) but failed, only for some handsome aristocrat to stroll in with his chequebook

Rocky fears being adrift again. Of feeling alone and unwanted again. He is willing to go to extreme lengths to prevent that from happening. To feel wanted, included and loved he will start as many fires and thow as much dynamite and dodge was many bullets as it takes

Lets keep spreading the good word and hopefully our lovable pyromaniac and the rest of the cast will get the long running episodic series they deserve to have their stories told (and of course get more love for the comic)

[bunnyshideawayy]

cassian. great man, wonderful friend, absolutely terrible mate.

we have seen Nesta’s sisters, who arguably have less of a reason, defend her more than Cassian has ever thought about. HELLO?

my issue with cassian acosf and onward is that we are truly expected to believe they he deeply understands Nesta when he’s been shown time and again to never stick up for her and never fully trust her. he does nothing to help her over come and face her traumas / depression, she’s left to do that on her own, but best believe he’s down to fuck and make her hike! (no sarah sex and physical exercise are not cures)

after reading the entire series once and now twice seeing Rhys threatening anyone who dares breath wrong in Feyre’s direction under the guise of just “protecting his mate” i find it extremely hard to believe cassian allowed or even sides with anyone who speaks ill of/to Nesta or threatens her- all of which Rhysand and most of the IC (besides her sisters and Az) do, most of the time while directly in front of cassian in conversations he’s involved in. the most he does is…pout a little? throws a hissy fit? the two times i can remember him even remotely stick up for Nesta he immednantly backtracks as soon as Rhysand pushes back, both times the final decision being put in Feyre’s hands, this continues even into CC3 (and let’s thank the mother Feyre loves her sisters which is something ik yall nesta haters can’t stand.)

let’s move onto something i know yall don’t want to talk about, his verbal abuse. “oh but nesta also said-“ we know what she said, that is not the point. if this man knew all along nesta was his mate and truly wanted to help her heal from her traumas and depression why did he take every chance he could to provoke her? Nesta called Rhysand an asshole, and he IS especially to Nesta, and instead of keeping silent as he does when Rhys/the IC harshly critique her, he immediately gets angry and in her face to defend him. funny he can’t do that with her, his MATE? or let’s talk about this scene

oh okay! that’s totally something you say unprompted to your mate who is severely depressed and traumatized because she won’t eat! she’s totally not shaking because she’s triggered! then to add the lecture “we’ve been here before, too” oh okay! so you admit you know what she feels like (very doubtful although i’m not going to compare their traumas, both are valid he just does not understand her like he thinks he does) it’s patronizing and a little frustrating. she doesn’t want to be there in the first place, purposely throwing a sensitive subject in her face will not magically motivate her or cure her- she is simply doing what she has no choice in. she has been stripped of all autonomy, humanity, and “normality”- she feels alone and valuable in a way she as never felt before and she has NO HELP. none!

i’ll end with the hike. yay more physical activity as punishment- but if i said that was abuse yall will bring up the pregnancy so ill do it for you! Yes, Nesta was wrong to tell Feyre THE WAY SHE DID, she had every right to tell Feyre about her own body and pregnancy, it just shouldn’t have happened the way it did. everyone knew it was wrong to keep it from Feyre, even Cassian, so instead of forcing her to hike a mountain as punishment to ware her down mentally and physically he couldve stood up for both Feyre and Nesta to Rhysand the moment he threatens to KILL NESTA. a simple “hey buddy you knew it was wrong to keep that from Feyre you can’t kill my mate for telling her even if it was out of anger” would suffice. not once during their entire hike or during her breakdown does he reassure her, not even when she is tearing herself apart because she doesn’t feel worthy. don’t even get me started on what happens in CC3.

over all i think Nessian is great and they have some great moments, the end of ACOWAR lives rent free in my mind but i am incredibly disappointed with Cassian. i do feel like Nesta deserves better from everyone (besides Feyre and Elain who, again, are the only ones who i truly believe love her unconditionally.)

anti nesta’s this is not a safe space for you.

[scoobydoodean]

BOBBY He's gonna find out, you know. One way or another, someone'll tell him, or he'll figure it out on his own. He's not dumb. He should it hear it from us. DEAN Can we just leave it alone for the moment, please? BOBBY Okay. But you better prep for the B side, 'cause when Sam realizes we're shining him, it ain't gonna be cute.

I must have seen this and the scene where Cas scolds Dean for putting Sam's soul back in giffed 10 times at least while looking for 6.12 gifsets in various archives and I think it's obvious why, given how rancid soulless Sam disk horse can get. It suits a narrative certain fans want to sell to take this out of context and make it look like Dean is being controlling—is babying Sam, trying to keep something from Sam that Sam deserves to know—and Sam is going to be rightfully mad at Dean treating him like a kid. That's such a narrow view that omits so much obvious context and Bobby ends up being completely wrong about Sam's reaction.

For one, Bobby says all this because he's struggling with being around Sam after soulless Sam tried to murder him the previous episode. Bobby's motivation for saying this is that he wishes he could clear the air. Unable to do so, he isn't sure how to explain why he doesn't really want to be in the same room with Sam (and boy is that a reversal from 6.06 where Bobby did not understand Dean's discomfort with soulless Sam and told him to stop being a baby).

For another, Dean's pleading "Can we just leave it alone for the moment, please?" really reveals his motivations for hiding the truth aren't about Sam as much as they're about DEAN needing space to process what soulless Sam did to him. What soulless Sam did to Dean and the way he behaved around him was fucking creepy. Telling Sam everything that happened while he was soulless won't just reveal information to Sam about himself—it requires Dean to reveal painful, personal details of some extremely uncomfortable experiences of his own that he doesn't really want to talk about. As a victim of that behavior, Dean deserves space to work through it. And the way he words it here, it's a request for TIME before they tell Sam the truth, so that Dean can BREATHE and PROCESS.

Bobby is right that Sam figures out he was soulless pretty quickly, but after figuring out Dean didn't tell him the truth, Sam isn't full of anger. He immediately understands Dean's hesitation to tell him the truth and understands it isn't about him.

It's about Dean not wanting to talk about the parts of Sam's soulless escapades where Dean was his victim.

SAM: Dean... DEAN: Yeah? SAM: I am so...so sorry. I can't even begin to say. DEAN: For what? SAM: You know what. DEAN: Did Bobby... SAM: Cas. DEAN: Cas. Friggin' child. SAM: You should have told me, Dean. DEAN: You weren't supposed to know. SAM: What I did? To Bobby? To you? Of course I should know.

Sam says "You should have told me," but notably, it isn't in an angry, accusatory tone. He's gentle. His focus is actually on DEAN and BOBBY and how Sam should know what he did so he can adjust his behavior accordingly for THEIR comfort.

Unlike the fans who love to harp on this moment as some proof of SAM being victimized by Dean (which bothers me for several reasons) Sam understands Dean's hesitancy wasn't just about keeping Sam safe, but was also about Dean being HURT by soulless Sam and deserving to have space to process that—the same way Bobby takes his space by deciding not to go on the hunt when Sam wants to join them.

Arguably, nobody should have been pushing for Dean to be the one to tell Sam everything to begin with. It's really for the best that Cas was able to share the details of what happened with Sam (however unwitting he was when doing so) because I don't know that Dean could have really talked about it. The moment in the car before Sam figures out how much time he's missing is bad enough:

SAM: So you never even tried, huh? DEAN: Tried? SAM: To go live a life...after. You do remember you promised that, right? DEAN: Yeah, I remember. SAM: So, why didn't you try? DEAN: What makes you think I didn't? SAM: 'Cause look at you. Look at this. You're exactly the same. DEAN: Yeah, you're probably right. A long pause. DEAN: I was with them for a year—Lisa and Ben. SAM: A year? DEAN nods. SAM: So then what? DEAN: Didn't work out. DEAN turns up the music.

Absolutely brutal. Sam's assumption that Dean didn't try stings all on its own, but it's especially hurtful (without Sam knowing that obviously) given soulless Sam was part of guilting Dean into leaving them in 6.02, and his actions with the vampire in 6.05 were what put such an upsetting end to Dean and Lisa's attempts at long distance. Regardless of whether you as a viewer thought Lisa and Dean could make things work in the absence of Sam's actions, that relationship ended in a particularly painful way riddled with fear and guilt because of Sam's actions in 6.05, instead of being allowed to end in a more amicable manner that could have provided more closure and mutual understanding. Dean can't say "Lisa and I had a terrible breakup because you let me get turned into a vampire on purpose and then I hurt Ben and I could have killed them and it was all because you didn't care about me or them and I was just a disposable piece of meat to you and now you're accusing me of not even trying to have a home like I wanted for so long because I'm a failure and that hurts like hell." All he can do is turn up the music.

[veerasposts]

"Neil Gaiman publicly funded the defense of a guy who was charged with possessing child porn"

I really really do not want to be saying anything positive about this man, it is crystal clear that at the very least he massively exploited the power he had over two women half his age and guess what, that itself is enough to understand that he was very predatory with these women. That being said, I fully believe the victims who came forward and hope that there is some accountability and justice dispensed.

But, what is an extremely irrelevant tangent that several of these discussions are taking are talking about him funding the defense of a man who was being prosecuted fo possessing lolicon manga.

Firstly, yes he did do that and I'll link the article that Neil Gaiman wrote about this here. Tbh, I agree with some points he makes here, though his writing is very meandering and not very concise.

Possessing lolicon is possessing some material where a character is/looks like they are underage/preteen and they are written to be in/drawn to be in sexually explicit situations. In other words, it's a fictional depiction of fictional minor characters in an explicit manner. Now, child porn as defined in several jurisdictions entails a real child/minor being exploited sexually for pornography or a real human child/minor being written about/portrayed in a sexual manner. Essentially, lolicon is a fictional and explicit depiction of children/people who are perceived as children, who DO NOT exist while child porn, arguably, involves real children being abused.

For the morality based disagreements surrounding lolicon itself, firstly, yes, creeps might get off to lolicon and that is disgusting. Yes, sometimes lolicon might help foster the sickening motives some people have against children and that is also disgusting. But, do you really believe banning something like lolicon on a principle level is going to actually reduce the chances of a child being abused? Lolicon is not going to magically vanish from the face of the earth, it's still going to be circulated through illegal means, just like actual child porn is. But you know what banning lolicon will actually do?

Threaten actual exploration of uncomfortable themes like child abuse, exploitation and rape and meaningful themes like sex and sexuality in adolescents. Which depiction of a child/minor is obscene or not obscene, morally wrong or correct, will not be decided by you or me but by some old powerful men, probably conservative.

Another important consideration is that lolicon does not always have characters that are explicitly underage. It can also just contain characters with "childlike bodies" and it could be called lolicon. And who will decide what a normal body should look like as opposed to a child's body anyway? What about people with small body frames and flat chests? Because their bodies do not align with a conventional adult body, these bodies will be banned from being portrayed explicitly because someone on the internet has decided a body like that can only belong to a child? Do you see why what should be drawn/written and how it should be perceived cannot and should not be regulated with laws?

So yes, he did fund the defense of a guy who was being prosecuted for possessing lolicon manga. If you think that made him a sexual predator, please ask yourself If you should be drawing a common standard for writing about fictional underage characters and sexually abusing real women.

Focus on listening to the victims, withdrawing any support you have been extending to him and please please believe the victims. Speaking out against a powerful man is not easy and these women are very brave for coming out with their experiences.

[nalyra-dreaming]

I’ve loved reading yours and @cbrownjc thoughts about DM, I’m a big fan of the pairing but now I just feel a bit worried and disappointed following the finale. Would you be okay to hear me out and state what you think? I would gladly be convinced to be more optimistic!

During the season I’ve been leaning towards believing that they would do an exclusively present-day DM. I never found the Alice theories fully convincing cause that scene seemed to me better explained by other stuff. It showing how Armand is incredibly powerful with his mind gift (knowing of the proposal) and that Daniel was getting the flashback PTSD-style because Louis ”read” his mind similarly to how Armand did in the 70’s. Further I never felt that Armand was being kind with revealing that Alice didn’t trust Daniel. I do understand why other’s sees it as such but I just didn’t feel it came across as kind during the episode. It felt more like Armand trying to quickly intimidate Daniel to back off, which he basically stated the episode before was his plan. He did make an effort to stop Louis from pushing further in that scene however, so there’s that to be fair.

If they didn’t show any more flashbacks for Daniel this season I knew I was going to be more inclined to believe that there aren’t more memories. Because it arguably becomes too convenient that Daniel would only be getting flashbacks from those horrific days in San Francisco. That plot line and S02E05 thus far has seemingly boiled down to serving the plot in showing the extent of of Armand’s capability of deception + motivating Daniel to aggressively question Armand (as it relates to Daniel and Armand). I loved(!) the episode, but the lack of emotional fallout for Daniel and Armand disappointed me a little. Louis being awake the week following them abandoning Daniel and not knowing that Armand was out chasing/developing a relationship with Daniel also strains incredulity a bit. Like they could easily have had Louis state that he did sleep underground for a few years (if that is how/why Armand went after Daniel in the 70’s) in an episode - but they didn’t. I would love DM to have happened in the past - just to be clear. And yes, some of these points can be explained through a DM framework. I just feel the show hasn’t made an effort to purposely hint at it, which has made me doubtful. Because if they are going there shouldn’t they actually hint at it in a more substantial way?

When I heard of Daniel getting turned by Armand in the finale I thought that maybe Armand would do it as a form of revenge but fuelled by fascination and we would see the start of some sort of enemies-to-lovers-plot. I do think that during the series they are both checking each other out during a few different moments. So I thought that could develop into an interesting dynamic, them becoming fascinated with each other but also kinda hating each other. Which resulted in me looking forward to seeing the turning and the revelation of such a dynamic. Cause the fascination part is key IMO if this was to work, couldn’t just be hate.

However then I was completely floored by the fact that they didn’t show the turning at all! Frankly that was an extreme anticlimax! Why wouldn’t you show the scene of the tertiary main character being attacked and turned??? Given Arman’d comments about finding it repulsive to turn someone I do sincerely hope that this means that there is more to it, and that’s why we didn’t get to see it. But if that’s not true and they just skipped it cause it wasn’t important I’m honestly really sad about it, as a DM fan, but also as a Daniel and Armand fan (respectively). I also hate the idea of Armand turning Daniel just out of spite (and not caring that his fledgling will hate him cause that’s what fledglings do according to him). I’m generally worried now that they are just setting up Daniel as a vampire-chronicler at this point (and that he was turned cause it’s convenient for the plot going forward). And that maybe in the far distant future they will just have Daniel and Armand have a simple enemies-to-lovers-plot… which if that was the plan, I really feel they should have showed the turning already at least!

Last point: Armand definitely turned Daniel in Dubai, Louis’ expression ”I shouldn’t have left you alone with him” doesn’t make sense otherwise. He wouldn’t have put it that way (language wise) if he meant that Daniel was left on his own after Dubai. I saw some speculate about this and just wanted to point this out. I can be wrong about a lot of things, but about this I know I’m right. Also, Daniel saying ”make it up to me” does seem to affirm that he at least believes Louis to be right about Armand turning him to be spiteful (however he could just not want to share with Louis if there’s more to it). I’m really hoping there is more to it, but I’m a bit scared to hope now frankly. I’m hoping his curiosity about Armand means there was something more to the turning.

I have such mixed feelings now. I am very open to being told I’m being too pessimistic, so please share what you think is going on/what will happen. Thank you - and sorry for long post!

🤗 Okay so… for one I know my feelings on this don’t quite match cbrownjc‘s which is only logical. Just as a note.

There is no way Daniel was turned out of spite. And I have the suspicion that Louis is fully in on it. We‘ll see.

I personally do think the chase happened in the past. Alice and Armand got mixed. There were lots of hints and deliberate hooks and as we have seen this show is aware of its hooks.

And while Daniel most certainly will be the chronicler there will be a lot more to it all, I would bet real money on it. They already laid out the corner stones there with the Talamasca and Raglan. Lots of corner stones actually. ^^

I know the turning not being shown is disappointing rn. But it was very much intentional.

I just think… that with Loustat… DM is going to develop over the whole of the show.

The waiting will be the hardest part. :/

[thefandomenchantress]

So I know I’m a little late to the party on this one, but I wanna talk about the David MV.

I finally decided to watch that nearly three hour video on the Literature Girl Insane MV, (by @/1moreff-creator) and HOLY SHIT IT’S SO GOOD. I wish I watched it sooner and wonder why I didn’t, I watch almost exclusively 1+ hour videos about random topics I know nothing about, and now there’s one for something I care a lot about! Why didn’t I watch immediately?!?

But my lapse in sanity aside, it finally got me motivated enough to talk about the David MV!

…Except only the part about Ace because of course that’s all I want to talk about. 9 out of 10 of my posts are either about him or have him involved somehow.

Anyways! Here’s the part I find very interesting!

This is arguably where Ace is most relevant, and therefore it makes sense I want to talk about it today.

Now, first things first, the Roman numeral. V (five) is Ace’s Roman numeral, as assigned by the crossword. The line attached is:

“Right now, why do you go insane?”

Which definitely fits. Ace could easily be framed as going insane, because he has mental breakdowns at a worryingly high frequency. Him and Veronika (who this might also be referring to if color theory is to be believed) are basically assigned the role of being seen as mentally unhinged within the class.

(…Ever think about how weird it is that the title is Literature Girl Insane, implying the star of the MV, David, is going insane, yet Ace is the one getting called insane, possibly by David? I think that’s interesting. But let’s get back on track.)

As established by other Roman numerals, the words in the background when a numeral shows itself also apply the character attached to said numeral. This is most obviously shown in the line near the top of the photo.

“A cat has 9 additional lives”

This is also easily applicable to Ace, since he survived Nico’s murder attempt against all odds. If Eden and Teruko hadn’t just so happened to be on the 2nd floor and walked into the gym when they did, he would’ve died. While the actual methodology of Nico’s murder attempt is unknown, it’s also possible that him even surviving long enough for Teruko and Eden to find them was a miracle. Either way, it fits.

The last quote on-screen intrigues me the most. It’s a quote from Hamlet.

“I am but mad north-northwest. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hand saw.”

Now, first let’s look at just those words, without further context. It’s important we know what the words themselves mean before we do anything else. Let’s start with the definition of north-northwest, since that word is pretty important to the quote.

I’m sure most are familiar with north, east, south, and west. The four main directions on a compass. As well as Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest. That splits the compass into eight directions, splitting the sections of north, east, south, and west in half.

Similarly, north-northwest is a direction that comes from splitting the compass into sixteen parts. It’s the half of the northwest section that’s closer to north.

Next, what the hell does “I know a hawk from a handsaw” mean? It’s almost half the quote, so it’s important we know.

Well…*extremely loud sigh* Shakespeare, as you know, was alive a very long time ago. As such, he writes in old-time-y English that’s hard to understand. And this quote has the misfortune of being something people argue over the translation of, at least as far as I could tell while researching.

Some people think Shakespeare meant a heronsaw, a type of bird, not a handsaw. Others think that no, he meant handsaw, but heron, in his time period, was also a common word for a tool that holds plaster/mortar/etc..

Either way, Shakespeare was probably referring to two types of birds, or two types of tools, which have key differences from one and other. I don’t think which one the DRDTdev thought was right really matters in this instance, since the quote makes sense either way. 15/16s of the time, Hamlet (the speaker of the quote) is sane and can tell two birds/tools apart.

The quote is, in summary, saying that Hamlet is mad only when it’s north-northwest, aka 1/16th of the time (I’m not sure if that somehow connects to there being 16 participants in the killing game, but I’m going to assume it doesn’t). The other 15/16s of the time, Hamlet is perfectly sane, thank you very much.

So, without context, this quote is saying that Ace is only insane 1/16th of the time. The rest of the time he’s sane.

Next, I think another important thing we have to do is take into account the whole screenshot as a whole. By that I mean we should not only look at each line individually, but how they relate to each other. In bold is the “why do you go insane?” Line, and to the left, in a font that blends more into the background, is the Hamlet line.

There is a contradiction of opinions here. One person says, “Why do you go insane?” while the other insists they’re only a little bit insane.

This could be referring to the opinions of David and Ace. After all, one could argue it was David underestimating Ace that led to his secret being revealed. David doesn’t bother being careful around Ace in the trial, despite Ace’s volatile nature. He piles suspicion onto Ace by saying it’s weird he didn’t see him on the second floor the night before the murder, even though it isn’t. After all:

Ace was in the gym. David was in the relaxation room. Those are on opposite sides of the floor, so of course David wouldn’t have seen Ace. He didn’t even have to walk anywhere close to the room Ace was in. But David saying this information like it’s weird and suspicious makes everyone else think it is.

David thinks: But what’s Ace gonna do about it? Somehow get the whole class on his side, even though almost everyone likes me more? Is everyone really going to trust the mentally unstable (one could say insane), dumb, cowardly jockey over me?

Yes, yes they will.

All this is to say, David, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t really care about Ace throughout chapter two. He steals Nico’s secret from him, antagonizes him in the trial, and doesn’t care. Ace doesn’t matter. Ace, of all people, can’t be the one to ruin him. So who cares if Ace dislikes him? Ace is of no use to David, and Ace certainly isn’t smart enough to figure out David’s scheme. This is what David believes.

However, this leads to him not taking Ace’s volatile nature seriously enough, believing he is above the harm of someone like him. But hey, even a pawn can play a vital part in checkmating a king.

When David pisses off Ace, believing Ace can’t do anything besides get angry, yell, and make himself look more suspicious…That turns out to be a crucial mistake that ruins everything.

…Y’know, the irony of the class idiot being the one to beat the so-called master manipulator will never not be funny to me.

Anyways, we can sort of apply this to Hamlet, too. If Ace is Hamlet, since this is Hamlet’s line, and David is Claudius, his father-in-law, we do have a pretty good parallel.

Claudius, who secretly killed Hamlet’s father and then took his throne, is secretly not as righteous as he seems. However, Hamlet finds out about Claudius being the one who killed his father and seeks revenge. Claudius thinks Hamlet to be mad, but when Claudius isn’t around, Hamlet says, “But my uncle-father (Claudius) [is] deceived. I am but mad north-northwest. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hand saw.” Eventually, Hamlet kills Claudius. So in DRDT terms, Ace finds out about David’s manipulation, David is unaware of this, and Ace eventually kills David’s public persona. Obviously this is an extreme simplification of the plot, but still.

…Of course, there’s also a chance this contradiction of opinions isn’t about Ace and David specifically. After all, David isn’t the only one to boil Ace down to his core traits of “dumb, angry, overall not a well-adjusted individual”. The whole class does this, at least for the most part. This Hamlet quote could just be trying to say what Ace has been saying. That everyone sees him as a loudmouth, stupid, cowardly and nothing more, when in reality there’s more to him than that.

I might have gone a little overboard with this part…I got excited…Hopefully this all actually makes sense, I had to revise some of this post because it got ramble-y and overall pretty cluttered.

So yeah. Here’s my (very late) contribution to the David MV discussion. Here’s what I think Ace’s part means. If you want me to elaborate anywhere, feel free to tell me, or if you want to tell me your thoughts, I’d love to see that!

[exilley]

i love kozue please talk to me about kozue

OMG YAY!! Alr. I have to pull up some of my notes from my last rewatch

So it actually took me quite a bit to really appreciate Miki and Kozue's character arcs because theirs is arguably the most subtle out of the the entire cast (which I understand may not be saying a whole lot, as Utena emphasizes a visual approach to storytelling, where everything is more or less completely out in the open for the viewer to relish-- it's just up to the audience to decide what those symbols mean). The thing that tripped me up about Kozue is that you can't really understand her until you've understood Miki, since her whole narrative niche hinges on her relationship with her brother, and of course given RGU's egalitarian disposition in regards to textual intent, however you've understood Miki will then inevitably color your perception of Kozue. That said! I don't think it's a completely one-sided dynamic, because of course Miki is impacted by Kozue's actions all the time. I just think there's a stricter analytical chronology to dissecting the twins, and that's a departure from the rest of the series' writing, and it makes them stand out a bit more.

Blue is assigned to three characters over the course of the series: Miki, Kozue, and then Ruka. Any thematic commonalities, though, appear to be entirely lacking at first glace; after all, all their personalities and archetypes are oppositional to each other. I definitely had a hard time figuring out this one, but I think my primary (and preliminary) conclusion as to their point of contention has to do with their status as accessory characters. Ruka appears with Juri as a masculine foil, Miki's own status as a member of the student council is consistently undermined by the greater authority of those around him, and Kozue attaches her social worth to her promiscuity. Of these three, Kozue exclusively is a woman, in addition to which she is in the transitional period of adolescence along with Miki, kind of representing an ambivalent force among Ohtori's constructs. She doesn't fully belong to any class of Ohtori's residents. Sure, she has a leaning, but it's just that-- a tendency set up to exacerbate extremity. It's also the binary complement to Miki's own nuances (here we can get into RGU's exploration of Childlike Purity but that deserves its own essay lol; the point I'm trying to get across is whatever Miki is, Kozue represents the other face of the coin).

The bulk of what I managed to gather from Kozue's character actually comes from her duel song, Utopian Paste Tense Incantation. The lyrics lay on really hard with nostalgic imagery and diction.

From this.

We can grasp the core tenant of her character motivation, that being that she's wanting to return to the past when she was figuratively and literally a child, presumably to before the incident with the failed piano recital (parallel that I haven't quite managed to place is the one related to sickness. Miki and Ruka both lost their metaphorical "other" because of illness. Hm). Here, the desire to return to the past is metaphorical in nature-- obviously she doesn't want to turn back time, she wants to replicate their past dynamic, reclaim her innocence, undo metamorphosis, reject the expectations of change the world demands of her.

**Note: The 7-5-3 referenced in some of the lyrics is referring to a Japanese rite of passage and annual festival celebrating the lives of children. Traditionally, girls aged 3 and 7, as well as 5 year old (occasionally 3 year old) boys undergo a ceremony that demarcates their transition into adolescence and womanhood/manhood. Here's the Wikipedia page on it if you're interested

But THIS. This is the catcher

There's a passing mention of an amusement park, which we come to associate with Akio.

The amusement park is the place where fantasies thrive. Its attractions are bound for the same path each and every time. There's no change at an amusement park, no revolution-- only the burden of comfort. And here is the fool who rides a carousel of violence round and round for eternity, the fallen prince. Kozue's own childhood with Miki was like this, and whether it's riding a merry-go-round or playing to his brother's naivete, she keeps herself going around in circles, chasing after a prince who always had his back to her.

Kozue's resentment is mutual- Miki does not approve of her sexual activity and projects his own ideal of the past onto Anthy- but it is not inhibiting. Rather, it is passive, and most of it manifests as self-hatred. She's manipulative, not in the way that she means to hurt Miki as a form of vengeance, but in the way that she advertises a very specific persona of herself to Miki. She's performing the role those around her demand from her (princess), to seek confirmation that somewhere in Miki is the brother who she believed was kind, gentle, and chivalrous. It's fear-- she's driven by the fear that Miki will completely reject her. She was abandoned once, after the recital, and she slipped out of one phase of her life into another. But surely, surely, Miki would still take her back, right? He hasn't changed like she did (or so, I suppose she believes). Her pursuit of an incestuous relationship is the apex of her complex-- it's unhealthy and mired in presumptions of intimacy that aren't conducive to her actually getting any closer to her brother. Similarly with the other sibling pairs, we see this type of sexual abuse used as a way to spotlight the harm that stems from endorsing the caricatures of masculinity and femininity that we're conditioned to view as desirable.

Kozue presses her own vision of the past onto Miki as much as he does to her. He's her "shining thing", her relic of nostalgic antiquity. And therein is their tragedy, wanting to move on in totally different ways, unable to see eye to eye, believing in a flawed history that was never there to begin with. Neither of them want to face the future and place blame on themselves for the loss of a memory that was never once genuine. They're birds who refuse to leave behind their nest, their birdcage. And I think the most fascinating element is the conclusion for Kozue's part of the story, in the scene at the end of Miki's Nest Box, where she finally calls out Miki for being a "coward" and walks away from him, leaving him to finish the nest box on his own. I interpreted that as being symbolic of her finally discarding her own preconceptions of Miki and coming to see him for who he is rather than merely as an extension of her personhood, disavowing the connotations of princeliness she'd come to expect from her brother. He cost them the duel and their attempt at reclaiming their past because of her intrusion on his idealistic fabrications, and seeing firsthand just how fragile his worldview was allowed her to break through her own.

There's so much I haven't addressed, but this is the gist of what I think she's all about? Do add more if you have any thoughts of your own! I will say. Common misconception for Kozue I see frequently is that she's actively aggressive towards Miki because she doesn't like him for reasons ranging from "she doesn't like being objectified by Miki" to "she's been irreversibly hurt emotionally by the incident with the recital" (and that Miki doesn't like Kozue because she simply doesn't fit into his own ideal of femininity). The objection here being the correlation of causality, as I don't necessarily think that Miki's objectification or even the recital are what *caused* Kozue to behave more coldly towards her brother. I hope my train of logic makes sense here because I tried my darndest to shoot down this specific misconception... uhmm. This took a long time to write LOL

[seriousbrat]

Hi! I'm interested in your thoughts about Sirius from the tags of your Lily post... What makes you think he didn't understand the consequences of the prank?

ty for asking! I mean mostly the fact that he never shows any real remorse for it. I'm not saying that he didn't feel guilty for hurting Remus, I think he did-- and I also think that academically, intellectually, he understood it was wrong. But in SWM we see it doesn't really change anything about his behaviour. And why would it? There weren't any real consequences for what amounts to attempted murder. He still makes a flip comment about being bored and wishing it were full moon, he's still pretty disdainful towards Remus. Even as an adult, in the confrontation between Snape and Sirius in grimmauld place he behaves extremely threateningly towards Snape, and speaks pretty negatively/unremorsefully about him unlike Remus who tries (likely out of guilt) to maintain civility.

also:

James doesn't really display any remorse in SWM either, but well first of all it wasn't his fault and he actually did the right thing in his situation, and second-- both James and Sirius are a product of their circumstances. James grew up in a loving household with at least a father who had very Gryffindor-ish ideals. That's why I think James saving Snape wasn't just about protecting Remus like many people do, I think it was simply that the moral code instilled in him from childhood wouldn't have allowed him to let Snape die even if Remus hadn't been involved. Yeah this is an inherent contradiction considering James is also willing to torment and bully Snape, but those sorts of contradictions exist in people. Furthermore, I also think in a twisted way it was his "moral code" that justified his bullying in his mind. Snape=Slytherin=Dark Arts=Bad, therefore attacking him=good. This is a very black and white form of thinking common in teenagers.

On the other hand, Sirius grew up in a house where dead house-elves were mounted and stuffed on the walls. There are several murderers in his family tree, and his parents are proud when Regulus becomes a Death Eater. I think his ideas of right and wrong are much more confused. Cruelty is what he's grown up with. I'm not saying Sirius is an inherently cruel person either, just that it's been much more normalised in his life than it has for James. We see him being pretty casually cruel to his friends in SWM, and you'd think that if he felt guilt for what he did to Snape he'd be at least a bit nicer to/about him as an adult. 'we were idiots' is kind of an understatement given Sirius nearly killed him. Unlike James, Sirius (and Remus interestingly enough) isn't above cold-blooded murder if there's motive enough, as evidenced by his attempted murder of Peter. Which is very arguably justified, but Harry's right imo that James wouldn't do it.

See also: this post about Sirius being mean, and this one on why I think SWM coming after the prank makes sense

[thefinalboss387]

Praetor Amalthus Appreciation Post!

I've been a HUGE fan of the Xeno series ever since Xenogears. These games (Xenogears, the Xenosaga trilogy, the Xenoblade games) have THE best stories I've ever experienced in a video game series. They're SO GOOD.

That said, Praetor Amalthus of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has slowly become one of my favorite characters of all time. I love him, I feel like he's underrated and that a lot of people don't seem to really understand his character, so allow me to map out why he is so cool and complex!

One of my favorite character archetypes is the manipulative mastermind villain. The behind-the-scenes schemer who was behind EVERYTHING all along. The Xeno series has some GREAT villains, and just about EVERY iteration has one of those masterminds I described - in fact, some of them even have SEVERAL, so there's always suspense over WHICH mastermind grand plan will be the one to top all of the others. I'm sure I'll be gushing about other Xeno antagonists in future posts.

Although he's not the most present in the game, or the final boss, Amalthus is most DEFINITELY the main antagonist of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and the mastermind directly behind just about EVERY single major event in the game and its DLC.

I honestly feel Amalthus is underrated - and from what I can tell, a lot of people online don't seem to understand the character very well. The game doesn't do much in the way of directly explaining a lot of his motivations, but at the same time they very purposely give us so much subtext surrounding his character to piece together the answers ourselves.

At a very young age, Amalthus suffered through an extremely traumatizing event. Trauma really changes people - without going too deep into it, I myself had a very rough and traumatizing childhood, and I'm here to tell you that shit can REALLY warp you if you let it. I let it turn me into a pretty bad, vengeful, hateful person for a while.

But here's the thing: No one wants to be the villain in their own story. As trauma changed and corrupted Amalthus, his mind justified the actions he took as a result of that corruption. He saw the world as a violent, awful, murderous place with no redeemable qualities. He turned to Indol, a religious state, to get answers and help the helpless, but his missionary work only showed him more murder and violence and lawlessness. He became so desperate for answers and hope for the world that he climbed the World Tree to confront the Architect. Instead, he found the Aegis Crystals, which he saw as holy relics, and formed Malos.

Malos was born from Amalthus's warped view of the world, and so he became a violent, hateful, murderous force. The ironic thing is that, because Amalthus essentially saw Malos as a holy symbol and a representation of the Architect's will, he took Malos's nature as proof that the world was an awful place, and that even the Architect was devoid of any sympathy. Amalthus and Malos became terrible influences on each other without realizing it.

I think, at every step of the way, Amalthus truly sees himself as a good person. It's the rest of the world that is awful. His attempts to gain as much control as possible over all of Alrest, and the countless wars and murders done in service to that, is an attempt to save Alrest from the lawless chaos he sees it as. Even arguably his darkest moment, saving a baby and then murdering it, was an act of mercy in his eyes. He was saving the baby from growing up in such a terrible world.

His motives, in his eyes, were valid. He was trying to help Alrest. But because he already saw Alrest itself as such a horrible, violent world, it meant that he, too, had the moral authority to be horrible and violent. In his mind that was just how the world worked, it was how to get things done. When he meets Rex and the party, he's pleasant and kind to them, because that is the person he sees himself as. He tries to work with them, but manipulates them and gives them his own skewed version of events.

But another thing I LOVE about Amalthus is that, even though he and Malos ultimately become enemies, and Malos and his Torna group actively work against Amalthus, they are kind of unwittingly his minions? Torna wants to destroy the Architect and, essentially, the world. Amalthus can't quite see or admit it to himself, but that is exactly what Amalthus wants too, he is just not nearly as self-aware as Torna is.

As the party learns of Amalthus's true nature and evil deeds, he starts becoming much more openly antagonistic. He essentially saw it as a betrayal of his holy purpose and saw them as the enemy. As time goes on, he starts going so far as trying to destroy the World Tree and essentially all of Alrest. I think that, partly, is a result of Malos's corruption of him, with Amalthus thinking the Architect's will itself wants to destroy Alrest. But it's also a desperate grab for control - if he can't see the Architect and/or save the world, no one can. In his mind, no one has earned that right more than him. He's the only person that was dedicated enough to climb the World Tree. He found the Aegis Crystals and bonded with one of them. He worked hard to control every government, to control the Core Crystal trade itself by registering them and licensing their Drivers, etc.

But like.... okay. I'm sorry. The game takes place in a world where continents are living, organic Titans. Civilizations live on the backs of giant monsters that roam the giant Cloud Sea of Alrest. It was probably the coolest friggin moment of any Xeno game EVER when Amalthus started mind controlling the Titans. Amalthus quite literally took control of the world itself.

I also love that his huge "final battle" form is essentially a manifestation of his manipulations. He registered and "cleansed" the Core Crystals, and turned himself into basically a grotesque monster by fusing himself with all of his Crystals. And like, sure, Malos and his Artifice are the final boss of the game, but Malos himself is essentially a manifestation of Amalthus's hatred and warped worldview.

Amalthus is a VERY effective villain, and he's an interesting study on just how much mental gymnastics a person can do to justify their own evil. He had zero self-awareness, he actively sought to find the good in humanity but instead kept finding signs that his twisted mindset was correct, and grew to use the world's own ruthless ways against it.

[heliianth]

actually bc im never gonna shut up abt it while im still on this im gonna ramble abt botw and totk and maybe how i wouldve written a sequel . & i will pay u money to listen i promise

my favoritest of totks ideas are what it expands from botw. botws whole atmosphere is drowned in quiet mourning. something bad has happened but it was a long time ago. it still hurts but theres nothing to be done now but move forward. something is still missing but all you can do is find something else. nobody has resources to rebuild and you can hear deafening echoes of better times but the alternative is giving up. you are in this frozen state of not quite moving on and not quite in despair. like the numbness stage of grief. and the pivotal element of all of that is that link is alone. like, oppressively alone. its the primary vehicle of conveying this mood. and its interesting because this can be read not only as what link is experiencing through the player but what zelda is feeling as she holds back ganon. its an interesting contrast to have zelda mature faster than link in the flashbacks, only for link to pull her the rest of the way by growing himself

and the reason why i so strongly adore the light dragon aspect of the plot is because it shows how attached to everything zelda has gotten. arguably, zelda held back ganon in botw because she loved link. in totk, she becomes the light dragon because she loves hyrule, which had previously been so unimaginably cruel to her. the crux of her character is learning that attachment is good. loving is good. you deserve to leave an imprint on the world in a shape of Your choosing instead of being another factory print on a paper. on a surface level, shes making the same choice, but the motivation and growth behind it is really powerful

i could waffle for literally ever about all that and the point is that totk takes these ideas and implements them really well through in-game worldbuilding and specifically zelda turning into the light dragon. i would occasionally get extremely emotional just seeing how things have expanded because it feels like the world is finally moving on. theres a catharsis in seeing hyrule finally heal after knowing its desolation so intimately, especially because the state of the land itself is such a strong parallel to the arcs of the two main characters, so you get the sense that not only can people move on, link and zelda specifically have started to as well. thats my favorite part

thats why i think its an odd choice that they decided on a time travel plot. if zelda HAS to be the one getting saved, if she cant be a companion in some way either via sheikah facetime or spirit tracks shenanigans or whatever, there are lots of ways to do this without her being magic fruit snacked ten bajillion years into the past. why spend all this effort intertwining her and link with the land, only to remove her from the equation and have no further growth? in botw its understandable that hyrule is stagnant and only changes when link does because zelda is stagnant and link is doing the one changing during the game. in totk its the opposite. there are lots of ways to do this with out Having to play as zelda (though honestly that would be the way id go about it)

also a lot of my own ideas have to do with the wasted potential of a place like the depths???? what the hell do you mean theres this mind bogglingly big cavern underneath the entirety of hyrule which mysterious people used to live in and it has almost no story relevance beside being a cool setpiece???????? I FEEL INSANE?!?!??!?!? there are so many good ideas in totk that never get expanded dude FUCK

i think no matter how much i speculate and draft my own preferences of how i wouldve liked totk to elaborate on the things it introduces i cant ever bring myself to present them like they couldve realistically happened and gotten thru the nintendo writing room simply bc of the games format. if it were up to me doing certain story missions would radically change the open world as events happened in real time and thats not the MO of the game's design philosophy. honestly totk's biggest enemy is the memory system and i need to kill it with fire

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Thoughts on TOTK Ganon's appearance?

A lot of them!! Some would say: too many!!! Too much!! So much so that I was almost starting to turn this ask into a TotK early review, so I'll simplify my answer a little.

I have not finished the game yet, but I have seen the memories and a good chunk of it, but my opinion is therefore incomplete and subject to lapses in judgement/hasty positions. Also, my opinion on this is kind of a buzzkill and I already made people depressed and bummed out by explaining it, so I'm putting it under the cut to avoid hurting the good time of people who might not want to think about this/might disagree on this description alone (and I understand, since it's an opinion that also depresses me!!! I wanted to like everything!! I wanted to be blown away!!).

I think this Ganondorf is like OoT Ganondorf redux, but with even more problems than OoT Ganondorf, somehow??? which is honestly a flex at this point.

(I love OoT Ganondorf to be clear, but the flaws are pretty undeniable and you have to navigate through a lot of bullshit to get to the good parts)

Between the green skin that lacks any proper justification in the context of the game (I say this because I always hear "oooo but it's because he's a demon/undead" and uhhhh no, it's not because of that apparently), the fact that he's half naked but we're never ever meant to conceive him as a human person in any way but merely as a constant physical threat... Like I'm certain the famous Ganondorf Designer did their utmost to give him justice and there is an obvious attention to details in his design, and I'm not blaming them or anyone in particular for the Nintendo treatment --but it does add up to something quite uncomfortable in his characterization regardless. Even the fact that his face rigging is extremely flimsy and makes his emoting feels super strange bugs me (I heavily suspect it's because it's way less soft anime and structurally very different from any other face in the game, especially around the jaw, and so they had to do a custom rig and had to work around its limitations --it's all speculation, and I am always here for Unsettling Ganondorf Faces, but it kinda felt accidental and not intentional like in WW or TP). He's at once a lot and really not much. I find his characterization beyond barebones. Even Twilight Princess Ganondorf had more to him than this (like the man was fascinating in comparaison, show me a guy claiming to be chosen by the goddesses while sitting on a throne next to the decapitated statues of said goddesses any fucking day over what we got here)

I like the mechanical aspects he introduces; the gloom is cool, the hands that grab you are amazing, the bosses are such cool callbacks --and he's just causing messes and putting parasites in things!!! You go girl. I do love that he's having his little puppet Zelda run around causing hijinxes, that's very fun of him and my favorite part of his character in this game so far, tho I don't know if that even counts as him --and I'm not 100% sure what that even says about anyone?

But here's the thing: nobody (beyond * arguably * Rauru) seems to be allowed to have a character arc in this game, so it's hard to come up with anything to say since he's the sole cause of conflict while being almost completely motivation-less. I don't think anyone is written particularly competently honestly; it just shows more with him because a Ganondorf who's not well written reverts back to Ganondorf at his most generic expression of a baddie imaginable, with a side-serving of, quite frankly, really questionable orientalist themes that I see little excuse for being handled the way they were in the year of our lord 2023. Like I'm kinda shocked not to see more people calling the racism for what it is, because it's... pretty blatant. But that goes beyond Ganondorf and that's the whole game, and I said I would try to keep my scope limited, but!!! I will screech about imperialism eventually!!!

The other aspect of that discussion, which is inevitable, is how much does TotK erase everything that came before? I'm sure there are some amazing Zelda theorists out there who will find a way to reconcile all of this, but for now, I get the sense that Nintendo wanted to get away from their messy timelines (fair) and reinvoke some of the old songs for a new audience, and in doing so scrubbing the slate clean. My problem is not so much that they wanted to do this (even if I think BotW's solution was, strangely, much cleaner and more respectful of their own history), but what they introduced instead: and, in Ganondorf's case, he's kind of reduced to a parody of himself --one that is so unbelievably unsympathetic and impossible to relate to and also responsible of his own oppression and also not oppressed since he attacked first!! and also oppressive?? (I made A Sound when I heard the line about Rauru talking about "the last free gerudo village falling" bitch!! free according to whom??????)

Removing a lot of the Goddesses/Triforce thing (so far, maybe it will come up) also does this conflict zero favors in my opinion, as it makes everything and everyone's actions much less fated and an expression of self-determination/resilience over their predestination, and much more uhh political in a bad way, while still borrowing the aesthetics of divinity to justify its own mind-numbing moral simplicity.

I don't know. Maybe the third act reveal will really surprise me and make me reconsider my position, but it would take a lot to scrub off all the dedicated efforts made to flatten Ganondorf to his lowest possible denominator (him and his people honestly my follow-up to the gerudo post will probably be Oops! All Salt) for the sake of the most brazenly imperialistic and feudalist Hyrule to date and its really weird and uncomfortable reimagined origin story.

So uhhh, Thoughts Bad! I guess thoughts bad. :(

(Matt Mercer did a great job with what little he was given tho, and so did every voice actor)

[biblicalhorror]

I keep seeing posts about how Fig should be the one to run for president instead of Kristen and I could not disagree more tbh.

Fig hates responsibility literally more than anything else. She hates deadlines. She hates structure. Sure, the chaos anarchist might be exactly the energy Aegfort would want running his school, but she's fundamentally incompatible with that kind of position of power. She's charismatic, yes. But a grand majority of the time, she prefers to use her charisma for trickery and deception, not for popularity or politics. She has a very hard time being likeable or impressive as herself, which we see in action during the most recent episode with the note to Riz, or during episode 1 when she convinces Gorgug he was the one to seal the Night Yorb. In fact, a running character theme for her this season has been about how uncomfortable Fig is with herself, whether that's in regard to physically being in her own body or in keeping agreements with herself. Being student body president puts a lot of pressure onto how you the person is perceived, which Fig would absolutely struggle with immensely. (Tbh it would be very funny if she ran as Wanda Childa, though.) Fig is also an extremely loving and caring person, which I think people assume would translate well to a position in politics. But the thing is, Fig intensely cares for her own people. The opposite side of that coin is that she is also very frequently extremely distrusting of random strangers for little to no reason. She is kind, but in the sense of being extremely loyal and protective of her loved ones, not necessarily in the sense of being humanitarian. Frankly, I think the pressure of having that much power over so many of her peers would not be good for her mentally. Not to mention the fact that she actively has the bird cop coming after her for identity theft. The last thing she needs is more visibility.

Kristen, on the other hand, is almost entirely motivated by The Greater Good. She has a very hard time showing up for the people in her life on a day-to-day basis, and she also has a very hard time even caring for herself on a basic level, but she is always looking at the big picture and calling out structural injustices. Her main motivation as a character revolves around fighting against inequitable power structures created by evangelist gods, and she will never fail to put herself directly in the line of danger if it means protecting someone else, especially if she can stand up to some bullies in the process. This is the girl who, without any casting ability, decided to use a cantrip to try and help two souls, one of which was a literal stranger, pass on to the afterlife together in peace. She wants to bring people together more than anything else. Interestingly, she is also not good at facing herself and being perceived. However, unlike Fig, she deals with almost a disconnect between her public persona and her true inner self, which manifests as random chaos to keep other prople at arms length rather than constantly hiding herself behind different disguises. In a way, she's actually a super compelling foil to Fig. Kristen is very bad at being there for the people she's closest to, but she knows how to reach out to strangers and offer community. She knows how it feels to be isolated from her own power due to a disempowering social structure, and she understands grand, sweeping social power arguably more deeply than any of the other bad kids due to her history with all of her various dieties. Kristen, deep down, struggles with seeing herself as a person with agency rather than a conduit for power, and her fear of her power being exploited by a greater being to bring suffering unto others I think actually puts her in kind of the perfect position to be going into politics. She will always be vigilant about making sure there is a voice for the voiceless, and she would not put the needs of the few above the needs of the many. Also, she brings exactly the brand of chaos Aegfort is known for into all of her campaign-related interactions. And thanks to her friends, that might win her the election.

[craetor]

L analysis / theory-ish

in the year of our lord 2022 because things don't make the bittest of logic & I'm here to serve autism conversation meme aka INTJ-to-INTJ bluetooth connection, telling tumblr, once more, of Him. But fr yes here's another analysis of canon content hear me out

.

Recently I've come across the Death Note Short Stories books and with it, these panels.

It seems odd how often L would state, just as bluntly: "I am justice", "L is justice", as if taking pride in some kind of double standard.

One could argue that this was his main goal during his early years (considering he might have felt somewhat high and mighty after preventing WW3), but that would mean L let go of the fact he initially wanted to use his intellect to benifit a larger good later on. Except... As recent as the beginning of the Death Note timeline, during the case of the LABB, a certain lightheartedness about his all-around approach was rather apparent, i.e. whenever he asked Misora if B "was cool", which anyhow quickly plummeted as his ideology came into question. It's inexplicitly stated that his motive for spending time on his work at all, especially on an extremely uncomfortable case as the one of a vengeful successor, or, you know, the ones involving crying survivors that reportedly haunt him daily, is following a code of "kindness", or perhaps even 'goodness' or 'justice'.

Was L forging the truth in the panels above to arise a response that would've been harder to get through full transparency? Giving the kids of Wammy's House a motif of casualness for what it means to step into L's footsteps is nothing but a making sure his successor is capable enough to have fun with it (be enough like him to use their anonymity in 'unfair', yet sufficient ways, enabling them to reach their goal with all the brattiness their smarts will grant them) and quelling the work towards a too high goal if they're not on board with doing well for themselves in face of The Burden (because, wouldn't you know, that was basically all this meeting was anyway. See end of this post for context).

I really thought it was odd for L to undermine the work he takes pride in.

In L Change The World (book one), L's literal dying duty is to save the world. It can't be ignored that it's s spin-off, but it can't be ignored that it'd be silly if the main goal of the book would be out of character. If it was his hobby, as he said, and his goals were selfish, he could've just set up in a comfy place somewhere, get his bearings, uncaring for the future of his successors (literally what he did care for in the panels shown above. This gathering is from the time he knew he might be killed by Kira soon) and watch the world crumble, but instead he went to, yes do what he loved, but fulfill a duty he felt he had. The unnecessary pain throughout the plot really can't be described as anything but passion and a sense of destiny. His ways aren't morally white, but they're well-meaning and genuine. Often arguably self-sacraficing.

It's more believable that L is splaying a facet he sees in his work & mentality. Being a detective is always bound to some sort of irony, to choose to call it 'righteous', and the measures necessary to reach a goal in such field. L recognizes this well and has no need to hide it, especially towards a room of potential proteges that will soon have to deal with that same irony by literally becoming him in the eye of the public. This actually arises the question if Near truly understands L's ways at this point. Short Stories could have served as Near's arc to understanding L's emotional side that, in the end, brought about his downfall and, for the lack of it, Near's victory. The announcement Near makes, addressing Cheap-Kira (which I adore btw) doesn't befit L at all. Yes, the new Kira has killed many (enough to warrant L's attention at the very least) and it's an honor thing for Near to go after them as L, but it's too experimental. It serves as a provocation and lure, but nothing deeply authentic. At this point the new Kira hadn't challanged L whatsoever, so the 'disinterest' thing just seems like Near shooting into the dark, less quiet & undercover than L really loved to go about things, mostly to evaluate how to go after certain cases in the first place & already semi solve them before even going public with it, at most prepping a provocation like this if something can't be clearly deduced by observing present events alone. (Read tags for fix-it-type criticism of this specifically)

Structure edit: 10.7.2023

[raionmimi]

Someone once told me that they loathe Medb because she objectifies people, and I can't help but agree. From her creation of Cu Alter to her relationship with Skadi, and then something Fergus mentioned twice, once in the manga and once in Summer 4. But, rather than seeing this in a negative light, as the person who mentioned this, I couldn't help but find this an interesting fault because the story, for the most part, treats this as neither fully bad or completely good Because viewing it through this lens makes Skadi and her relationship uniquely realistic because, while Medb is doing it for completely warped and selfish motives, it also highlights the fact that Skadi needs a self-severing person in her life to get over her troubles and eluvates her in such a intersting manner. Or, in another situation, how she basically earns Cu alter's respect via sheer tenacity through that viewpoint but also caused the american singularity. I had these thoughts swriling around my head the past few days I couldn't help but to wonder what the biggest Medb fan would think about this.

A lot of people, including your friend, view America as a "I have you now, my pretty" scenarios from what I've seen. America plays it up that Medb "gets to have" Cu as an object of affection. Higashide specifically wanted the player to think that, so it comes off as a surprise in the reveal when Alter admits that he's fighting for Medb's wish on his own free will the whole entire time.

(TL;DR: at the bottom before the cut)

When you go back, you realize that there is a lot of foreshadowing that this was the case the whole time. Namely that Cu Alter has so much autonomy and free will for someone who is supposedly "under control." Medb never gets mad at him when he disagrees with her, and the fact that he would debate with her at all is extremely telling when she's usually pretty pushy as a person when it comes to what she thinks is the correct line of action

Both Medb and Cu have their own ideas of what it means to be a king and a hero. For Cu, we know that he doesn't care for honors and titles, but Medb had to work her ass off to get a title for her own safety and to be taken seriously by others. Cu (probably) thought he was well meaning for telling Medb that he didn't want to hurt or kill her because she was a woman, but to her, it was insulting that he wouldn't view her as a warrior when she had gone through a fuckton to get to where she was. He accepted that he was going to die in a blaze of glory, while she can't understand how he can just go throw his life away without ever properly taking her on when everyone thinks of her as the villain of his story.

So there's an obvious disconnect between the two. The fact that they DO talk about this, change each other's minds, and disagree is where the development lays. By the end of the singularity, Alter is able to recognize Medb's efforts as a queen, which was the main validation she wanted from him. Medb also arguably understands that Cu isn't how she thought he’d be that if you notice, anytime they're together, she no longer brings up how she thinks he should act. She just thinks what he does is really cool instead, so they’ve basically gotten the chance to get to know each other better and come to some sort of understanding

The only problem is that Higashide never actually addresses the issue on Cu's end. Personally, I don't really mind tooo too much because Medb's emotions is what I care more so about in the dynamic, but it still leaves a very huge "What even are his thoughts about this?" And I dont mean Alter, I mean the original Cu. It's very clear by the stark difference in how Medb talks to Alter and Cu that she thinks Cu is much colder to her than he actually is. But she also was able to talk to Alter more genuinely because with his emotions suppressed, it was like talking to someone who would never actually respond in a way that would be too overwhelming where she'd have to be on guard. But that's only a stepping stone to the actual problem.

Cu cares a great deal about Medb as a person because if he wasn't aware of her circumstances when they were alive, he does now that they're servants. He mentioned her in HA before she was even in FGO and says that a ton of bad things happened to her and she's a product of what happened to her. But he still doesn't do anything about it in a way that's actually helpful. He treats Medb like someone he feels like he has to take care of, even if she's troublesome, instead of acknowledging his own flaws that got him into the situation with her in the first place.

He still has chivalrous view of women that can be seen as patronizing like telling Medusa in Extella that he doesnt want to fight or kill women when Medusa had the clear advantage. He chooses Nero over Tamamo because Tamamo reminded him too much of Medb. He talks about how he wants to be more reliable to Medb in his voiceline, even to the point of making a promise to her that we still have NO idea what it could possibly have been about. He avoids Medb when she's up to mischief, yet when she asks for help he is immediately willing to do whatever. Even to the point that Knocknarea in LB6 is confused as to why he's so eager and willing to help her.

Cu's thoughts are a huge piece of the puzzle missing that if you don't pay attention to how he handles Medb, it comes off as one sided when it's more like two people avoiding communicating the root of a problem.

I highly doubt that his side would ever occur as the closest there has come to being critical of Cu's actions is the consequences of his thing with Fand and Emer in the Vday events with Caren and Bazett. Do agree that sometimes, other writers will just use Medb's love for him as a gag to idk fill up the spaces or something. It can be funny but if that's all she does, then ya I get the criticisms esp when their actual convos are way funnier. I have more thoughts on them, but I've already wrote so much lmao

Very cool and poggers of the manga to have Cu Alter kneeling down and accepting a kiss from her tho

TL;DR: Medb and Cu have lore to build off of + that there are flaws to be addressed. Makes the subtle growth very cool and leeway for further Medb development and complexities.

---

Putting the rest under the cut because I'm critical of the way Sakurai writes Medb and Skadi. Read if u want, but know that I'm kind of a hater so I'd rather you look at something you like instead.

Sakurai's writing with Skadi doesn't have the benefit of lore to easily play around with though. TL;DR at the bottom.

The problem is that the writers never really fleshed out Scathach that much, nor did they have the latter interact much with Medb. The whole premise of this dynamic is that Medb thinks Skadi is Scathach and she's surprised that "Scathach is acting different than she usually does" and keeps trying to get Skadi to act "like she usually does"

But Medb doesn't even really know Scathach, they hardly talked. Like ever. There's like 5 lines of dialogue from between 2018 to now between the two across the American singularity to events and voice lines. Most of the time, they don't even directly talk to each other. Unlike her thing with Alter, Medb has never come to an understanding with Scathach, nor does she really have any reason to care about her

The writing has to rely on existing character dynamics that... was hardly there to begin with makes it crumble that much faster to me personally. It'd make more sense if they had actually written a LOT of interaction with each other to the point of them influencing each other's characters, whether in a positive or negative way. But as it stands, it'd make more sense for Medb to react to the gap difference between Ushi and Taira than Scathach and Skadi because the writers chose to give more depth to Ushi and Medb as frenemies.

I was never a fan of Medb Skadi writing because it comes off as a cheap way to introduce Skadi into the Chaldea dynamics. It's nothing like Ushi or Ex and Medb, Knocknarea and Castoria's level of development, where it'd make sense. Not to mention, nothing about Skadi is remotely what Medb is interested in. If it had been the other way around, where Skadi was introduced first and then Scathach showed up, it'd make a bit more sense given who Medb usually hangs out with or talks to

Sakurai mainly utilizes Medb as a mouthpiece of how cute and uwu Skadi is rather than having any meaningful development between the two across multiple events. It just gets weird and sometimes even creepy at times, esp when you remember Higashide's Medb had never been sexual towards Alter. But Sakurai's Medb sexually harasses Skadi when Medb herself is a SA victim?? And she writes Medb as calling herself tainted in a diff event????? Even Minase treated Medb better in the Prisma Illya event. Like, I don't hate Sakurai, but she can be very hit or miss with me on certain things.

You can compare Skadi to almost any other character that Medb has interacted with, and it's severely lacking. Neither one's lore is really addressed until Skadi's interlude and even then, Medb doesn't really have much to do with it, she's just "I will lend you a Cu (caster) because I'm already holding two Cu's hands right now"

I don't mind if people like Skadi, but I just don't think Sakurai handles Medb and Skadi well together. It comes off as either shoe horned yuri bait at worst, and not knowing where to put Skadi since she didn't have much connection to any character in her LB at best that she just slapped her onto Medb for the vague Scathach connection. There is no lessons learned, no real understanding of each other, and it's just Medb doing what she wants. There's no balance or substance that I personally like

I admit that I have not read her summer event parts to know how she develops with other characters though. I'm still very :// about the transphobia with her changing Caeneus's spirit origin without his consent because she "wanted Caeneus to fit in with the other girls" which doesn't help much when she calls Caeneus tainted because of their SA in the lostbelt.

I just don't really care much for the character or the writing between her and medb, so that's why you'll hardly ever see me talk about her.

Apologies because I know you went in talking positively, but I agree with your friend on this one. It does come heavily across as objectification and one of those ships you'd meme on as "gay ship for straight ppl (with a male audience in mind specifically)" and is not treated well, so I personally ignore it.

TL;DR: I dont like Skadi writing or Medb/Skadi writing. I do not mind if other do tho, so like its just do ya own thing, yfeel?

Anyways, ship Castoria x Knocknarea

[bitimdrake]

There’s this editorial interview from around 2009 I think by one of the writers of Battle for the Cowl that’s been going around and it supposed to prove that pit madness is a canon thing. I don’t know if you’ve seen it but it basically says that Jason came out of the Lazarus Pit with a few screws loose. However, the wording is super vague and they then go onto to say that Jason was always sorta crazy so I’m not sure if people should take it as a valid source. I’d like to hear your thoughts since you seem to know a lot and I would like to defer to your knowledge lol

I have not seen it (and would be interested to if anyone has a link), but sorta baseline thoughts here:

The popular fanon concept of 'pit madness' is more specific than the lazarus pit having any side effects. I've talked about common effects of the Lazarus Pit here, because they do exist! But, tl;dr, the "pit madness" thing of being overcome with sudden episodes of uncontrollable anger that in no way reflect your actual desires, weeks or even years after coming out of the pit, is still fanon.

Since I don't know the source here, I don't know if that fanon concept is actually what the writer in question was referring to. (a) We should not take vague wording about general effects of the pit as if they specifically refer to One particular conception of those effects, and (b) even if they were explicitly referring to that One pit madness concept:

death of the author. I will always prioritize what is actually in comics and shown on the page over what creators say outside of that. If DC writers want me to respect something as canon, it better actually be canon. As far as I'm concerned? Issue numbers and panels are citations for canon. Interviews are not and never will be.

Okay, so on Battle for the Cowl. It's. Well. First off, BtfC has some pretty extreme characterization of Jason. Red Hood Jason doing awful, amoral things was not unusual. However, BftC has him noticeably even more...unhinged, for lack of a better term, than any other story. He's at arguably his worst and has the least amount of explanation/motivation for his actions.

Therefore: I'm not surprised that BftC writers would be the ones most likely to claim "well the pit just made him crazy," since BftC Jason is the one with the least connective thread to anything before, and has the laziest writing for his motivations.

However, the thing that is weird about this claim specifically re BtfC is that it had been a long time since the pit. Jason had been in UtRH, in Teen Titans, in Outsiders, in Nightwing, in Green Arrow, in Countdown--in a number of other storylines between going into the pit and BftC. So if the pit were the explanation for his extreme behavior, you'd expect that behavior to also be in all the appearances in between and...it's not.

Don't get me wrong, as soon as he came back, Jason was Very Different from the gold-hearted kid he once was, and he was doing bad things in his very first appearances as Red Hood. But, as stated, BftC is way more than even that.

So I talked about how the pit specifically affected Jason here. It's a matter of interpretation, since we really don't know which parts (if any) of his personality change were from the pit, and which were just from trauma and dying and returning to a world that has continued to spin. But usually, it seems that the effects of Jason's return (whether pit or not) are him being colder and less compassionate. Not having magic anger issues. I really don't see anything about his behavior to indicate his anger isn't all natural, home grown. There's a pretty obvious explanation behind anything he's angry about, and it never seems to come on without warning, make his actions uncontrolled, nor to vanish suddenly and leave him instantly regretting it.

Jason in all those other storylines did what he did intentionally, of his own volition, for reasons that are completely understandable (though not necessarily justified). And whether or not his coldness and increased capacity for cruelty are pit-related is kind of a moot point, because there's no off switch and no convenient sudden change.

And Jason in Battle for Cowl had a lot less rational reasoning behind his terrible behavior. But even then, the potential explanation we're given in canon--not in a side interview--is a vague reference to a childhood trauma that was recently triggered, leading to a massive escalation of his violence. It's not a great explanation. I understand people wanting to rework it for this particular story arc, because it could really use some better and more sensible writing. But there's nothing in BftC to point to the pit as an excuse.