#which. yes ofc

[souryam]

"most tantalizing idea" ok say no more

thanks to lex for sending this to the gc 3 weeks ago and ruining my life

[ryllen]

tbh i agree with this one

[ohnopancreas]

NEW HORSES!!!! are they yuri? are they yaoi? who knows theyre kinda neighbinary to me

[beannoss]

Something I think about a lot and wonder if maybe gets overlooked in Twilight’s story and as vitally indicative of his character is actually in the very first chapter:

Anya isn’t needed for Strix. Twilight decides to adopt her anyway.

[Spoiler warning: Mostly this post deals with early chapters already in the anime but there is reference to chapter 62, which has not yet been animated and will be in season 3]

Twilight decides it — “I’m going to rework the mission so it doesn’t involve a child because that’s too dangerous” and he’s 100% right! Donovan Desmond is canonically a far right warmonger with fascistic authoritarian aims. His government made liberal use of the SSS — a group to mirror the Stasi — who continue to operate in morally dubious ways (much more likely they’re actively morally reprehensible, though we’ve mostly only had rumours of that so far). From what we can tell, Desmond is at best an absent father and likely actually worse than that: if that's how he treats his own children, imagine how he might treat others. And the timeline seems to indicate that the experimentation performed on Anya was done under Desmond's government — even if Twilight isn't aware of experimentation on children, he is aware of both human and animal experimentation under Desmond's government. Taking all that and also the complexity of Strix's aims, undoubtedly there were other things that could be done, more straightforward if not necessarily easier.

So. Why? Why entertain the change at all? And then, having entertained it, why go back when the reasoning is indisputable?

On the Doylist level, I think Endo wanted to ensure that Anya had some agency within the set up — Endo also does this with Yor. It would be much harder to be on Twilight’s side fully, or to trust him on an ethical level/take him as any sort of moral authority, if he were just straightforwardly using these two people. To have them be active and consenting participants (arguably to actually be affirming the arrangement: Twilight sets it up, but Anya and Yor actually make it happen) even if the audience only knows the depth of their knowledge/motivations/etc currently, shifts the power dynamic in important ways.

But it also the set up tells us important things about Twilight. He is largely impatient, cold, detached in chapter one. His overarching feelings towards Anya are, I think, real annoyance, real confusion, and real impatience. He just doesn’t understand this damn kid and it turns out she’s a person which is frankly unacceptable — he’d needed and anticipated an automaton, ideally of himself in miniature form. (Though I think one could ponder whether Twilight was, in many ways, an automaton himself at this point, but that's maybe for another meta 🙃)

He’s not entirely unmoved of course — we're given to understand he’s affected when Franky tells him how many times Anya’s been adopted and returned, and isn't amused by Franky's joke about names. Franky's comment — "Just don't get attached" — reinforces this. The prospect of “the future” perturbs Twilight when he’s reading the parenting books. His initial reaction to Anya’s kidnap is horror. All these are true too.

Then there’s also this, from earlier in the chapter:

It’s exposition, yeah, and it’s also exposing. "Hopes" and "joys" are very specific words to describe those events. It could simply have been "A marriage? An ordinary life?" but describing them as such — hope for marriage; joy in ordinary life — expose something of what Twilight feels about those two experiences and, on the flipside, they expose what he deems he's lacking. No hopes of intimacy; no joy in (an ordinary) life. There's an argument as well, of course, that he's being ironic but I don't think that actually invalidates the above analysis. Drawing attention to 'hope' and 'joy' at all are revealing, regardless of Twilight's tone in thinking of them. I think it's also interesting this panel, taken in conjunction with a pair of panels in chapter 62, Twilight's backstory. The above is almost a pulled out version of this below panel of Twilight's recollection of his childhood, and of course the returning image of not just a rubbish bin but a rubbish bin on fire when it comes to disposing of his identity:

Back to Strix. Both his final interaction with Karen and the whole everything of the framing of Strix is making Twilight think (and feel, ahem) things that he hasn't for some time. Twilight decides, I’m reworking this. It can’t proceed this way. Not because Anya is a pain in his ass, not because she’s not as (apparently) intellectually advanced as he’d originally thought, not even because he thinks he can find another child who would better be exactly what mission parameters called for. No:

And what changes his mind is Anya asking to come home.

One of the important parts of this to me is this:

He seeks consent.

This moment is a keystone, I think, to understanding Twilight. It’s also more telling than he maybe realises. Twilight is decisive — we all laugh because he spirals at the drop of a hat when his daughter or wife look even mildly upset but outside those (also very telling) scenarios, he makes decisions and he pursues them. Often he makes decisions quickly. He’s a dab hand at it; it’s a large part of why he’s as good a spy as he is.

He’d decided to change Strix.

Anya asks him, in essence, not to.

So, he doesn't.

But it's wild that he entertains keeping her request at all — why? Why even entertain it? It’s dangerous; it’s impractical; there are too many moving parts outside his direct control; Anya isn’t the sort of child he’d wanted for the mission if he’d spent any time thinking about what a child might actually be like; Strix is in many ways an extremely long shot anyway, Desmond could just stop attending for reasons unknown and unrelated; etc.

So, yeah, why? Maybe because of this —

In conjunction, I often think of this moment in the cruise arc:

Twilight first naming the feeling as lonesome, and secondly tacitly conceding that he perceives Yor as a companion and that that relationship is important to him, something to be missed. What makes this for me though is that Anya calls this out "Papa's you're so sappy" and Twilight's reaction is that of someone caught-out. He doesn’t say “nuh-uh!” but he may as well have. Essentially, something landed a bit close to home, hm? Maybe some of that hope for marriage? A soupçon of joy of an ordinary life?

Twilight’s loneliness underpins many of his decisions with his family — probably without him being fully conscious of it. I think he is at least somewhat conscious of it, but also if he looks too closely... Well, best not to. I could fill this post, I think, with images that demonstrate his loneliness throughout the series; that sorrowful/pensive close-up of his eye(s) is one of the abiding motifs for Twilight throughout. I'd probably start with this one from Twilight's backstory arc:

Anya's request plays directly off his loneliness. Still though, he doesn’t immediately capitulate — he emphasises Anya’s choice. Is she sure? The last day has been scary for a child (and for him, but he's ignoring that part) and Twilight, in his increasing recognition that Anya is a person, is probably aware in the back of his mind that he hasn’t exactly been warm or welcoming or at all patient with her. Things that people respond to — he's otherwise excellent at manipulating people, so of course he understands this. So. Given she'd just had this scary experience, given he hasn't exactly been great with her: Is she sure? She wants to come home — with him?

I think the moment may get a little lost because Anya says something riffing off his own earlier thoughts and self-revelation (featuring that shadowed, lonely eye motif again!)

Were this a post about Anya, I’d talk about how it’s an important character moment for her as well by way both of demonstrating her agency/choice and also that she isn’t nearly as dumb as Twilight thinks (and the audience, maybe, also thinks).

But in my view, she didn’t actually need to say anything about it making her cry. I think she could simply have said yes in that moment and Twilight would have agreed.

Twilight’s an unreliable narrator; he’s disconnected from his heart and that shrouds his own motivations from himself — something he actually also concedes in this chapter!

And it shrouds from us just how much he actually understands himself. He’s also a master of deflection. Easy to assume or say that bringing Anya home is just to align with Strix. Nothing more to see here; nothing else going on. But also that ripping off of the mask in the panel above — and the literal 'riiip' sound effects — also indicate to us that this is an unveiling to himself.

In my view, Twilight agreeing to Anya's request, deciding to go back to original mission parameters, actually shifts his motivations, subtly. Now he’s committed not only to the original mission goals, but also to Anya. He needs Anya to succeed at Strix, not only for Strix's sake, but also because otherwise the mission will end and she’ll have to go back to the orphanage, and he’s just agreed with her not to do that (not right away, in any case). I don’t think at this point he’s thinking it’s forever — his thoughts throughout the manga indicate he still expects the Forgers to be temporary. I don't think the shift in motivation is necessarily even conscious, but given the set up, I think something inside Twilight recognises that agreeing to bring Anya home is a compact, jointly engaged. Mostly all this has become subsumed into Strix: he makes decisions. He pursues them. He deflects, even from himself. Of course it's just for the mission; this saved him the trouble of reworking it, of figuring out something else. Nothing more to see; no need to think any more on it. And to be fair to him, Strix is very high stakes, resting pretty solely on his shoulders, so of course that is, objectively, motivation enough. Why even consider beyond that?

But I personally think that to the extent he's aware of it at all, there is something else going on, that he wants to have Anya for as long as it takes him to work something else out for her. If that's the case, then of course, we have Occam’s razor: the simplest solution may be the best one.

Maybe Twilight should just keep Anya himself, eh?

[Image description: gif from Spy x Family season 1, episode 1. Twilight and Anya have just found out Anya passed her entrance exam and are overjoyed. Celebratory, Twilight picks Anya up and swoops her into the air as they smile at one another. End image description]

[mintjeru]

i've been streaming a blind playthrough of hollow knight to 2 groups of people for the past month and a half and i really wanted to share some of my favorite experiences ><

open for better quality | no reposts

[agoldenblackbird]

Ranty Bitch Vol. 4: Buck and Eddie's Friendship

started my own post instead of adding on bc WOW this got long, but seeing sadieb798 's addition to this post reminded me that YEAH, buck HAS bent over backwards for eddie and chris. like friendships aren't transactional or they shouldn't be but if you tally things up its very uneven and that's a glaring red flag.

buck has:

-given up endless days off to babysit christopher so eddie could go out on dates, work without buck, go out with other friends, and cheat on his girlfriend!

-he also got voluntold to babysit when carla wasn't available when he was recovering from the embolism and severely depressed! eddie said buck being off work - the thing he was so depressed about he literally wasn't getting out of bed - was CONVENIENT for EDDIE.

at the time it was supposed to be a joke i'm sure. but looking back through all of canon it's like...really? oh so you only do care about what he can do for you, you even said the quiet part loud.

-he saved eddie's life

-he saved chris' life

-he brought carla into their lives and solved eddie's childcare issues after eddie had been floundering for months already [math: couple weeks-1 month at the 118 (or could be much longer, bc maddie went through all of dispatcher training between 2x01 and 2x02, time is fake on this show) plus 5 months for the academy plus however long he was in LA before that. a long time to be without consistent organized childcare and relying solely on favors from women in your family who have their own lives and in pepa's case a full time job!] it's implied by the vague 'programs' and how applying for one can disqualify you from others that carla was able to also help him get funding from the state for chris' care, so this solved a serious financial issue for eddie as well.

-he grovelled for forgiveness for not being there for EDDIE after buck had suffered the extensive trauma of 3 near-death-experiences in a row and had to fight to get his job back when he was unfairly and illegally constructively dismissed because of personal bias on the part of his boss

-he forgave eddie for screaming at him in a grocery store and calling him exhausting and selfish even though eddie never apologised

-he put eddie up during the pandemic in his NO BEDROOM LOFT APARTMENT ffs, and considering eddie still had to pay rent on his own house buck probably did that for free

-he's cooked dinner for them (i think we only see this happen onscreen twice but there's indications it's a fairly regular thing, and that's labor and time intensive and also not cheap considering the price of groceries)

-he organized firefam christmas at the station when eddie was upset about letting down chris on their first christmas without shannon by having to work

-he ran to eddie's rescue in the middle of the night after his breakdown AND took over the running of the diaz household in the aftermath so eddie could focus on therapy and his own recovery, including helping clean up not just the metaphorical but the LITERAL mess eddie had made, complete with patching the holes in his walls

-gently intervened with worry for eddie's well being and mental health when eddie was cheating on his girlfriend with his dead wife's clone

-puts off his own life/wants/priorities and drops everything to deal with eddie's problems - the most glaring examples coming to mind would be all but moving into eddie's after eddie's breakdown and ignoring his newly-moved-in girlfriend, and rescheduling a date with tommy at the last minute after finding out about kim, but i'm sure there are others if i felt like an 8-season rewatch (reader, i do NOT)

-gave up his home - probably paying a penalty for breaking his OWN lease - to sublet from eddie so eddie could afford to move to texas

-and then functioned as his DAILY life coach/cheerleader/ersatz therapist when eddie, having impulsively quit his job and moved to el paso without talking about it with chris and bought a 'fixer-upper' aka money pit, had no job and was broke and floundering

-continued to coach him through staying and reconnecting with chris instead of giving up despite that meaning buck would get what he wanted - his partner and friend back. if he was actually as selfish as eddie likes to accuse him of being he could have said 'welp you tried, you're right it's time to move back'

-did not once say anything along the lines of 'i told you this was a bad idea' or 'hm what's going on with chris' health insurance now that you no longer have a firefighter job pretty sure uber doesn't have a benefits package' or anything else pointing out how eddie keeps on causing his own problems with impulsive bad choices and not learning anything from it (i would not have been able to resist! buck is way too nice!)

-and then there's the part where buck is always happy to step in and do the emotional labor w/ chris that eddie doesn't want to do or maybe doesn't have the ability to do, which is why i side-eye eddie being praised for being the best father EVAR. some examples:

-->when chris was upset about being lied to and how he was not like other kids/couldn't do everything after the skateboard incident, came up with a way chris Could Skateboard, Actually

-->it's said he often took chris to the zoo without eddie, to the point that they 'have the place memorized,' so he's involved in seeking out and scheduling these sorts of activities and probably also paying for them

-->buck is the one making cookies with chris for the pta bakesale, and he also helps with homework

-->and most importantly, buck has taken over difficult conversations with chris MULTIPLE times over a span of years including

------>struggling with people leaving/his father dating again

------>telling chris his father was shot

------>comforting/explaining to chris after his father had a breakdown and smashed up his bedroom with a baseball bat and scared the shit out of chris

------>not two-timing girls, which then turned into a conversation about his dead mom that eddie, despite listening in, continued to let buck handle for him

------>a second conversation about two-timing and how it's apparently fine when eddie does it, in order to convince chris not to LEAVE THE STATE. eddie really said 'hey i'm tagging you in, do your thing' instead of talking to his own kid after arguably the biggest parenting screwup made by a main on the show.

some of these buck just happened to be the person who was there or chris sought him out specifically, but at least twice eddie assigned him that task and it's implied in how he says it 'do what you ALWAYS do' that it's a regular thing.

on the other hand, eddie:

-helped save his life after he was struck by lightning (he gets half points for this because it was a group effort)

-took him to a poker game once to spend time together as friends that does not involve buck doing something for eddie (although it was arguably just to abuse his math skills for eddie's entertainment/gain)

-hosted one (1) dinner for buck and taylor that he actually cooked himself which i'm sure was a HUUUUUGE sacrifice in eddie's mind considering how terrible a cook he was and how much he hated her...

-sometimes throws his child at buck when buck is depressed or upset (i'm only listing this bc eddie probably thinks of it as something he has 'done for buck.' EYE don't think using your child as a combination of meat shield/inspiration porn (christopher never feels sorry for himself) and essentially putting the burden on chris of making buck feel better instead of eddie himself saying 'hey i'm worried about you, do you need to talk about it' and then listening to him, or saying 'hey, that was shitty of me to pick a fight with you and say all those mean things, i didn't mean it and i'm sorry' - y'know, being a FRIEND - is something he should be praised for)

-was very supportive when buck was angry and spiralling about his parents' bullshit (this was legit a very lovely friendship moment! back when eddie's character had potential and i had hope! oh, those halcyon days)

-gave buck refuge from maddie's micromanaging post-lightning strike, asked how he was, listened to the answer, and gave advice/encouragement/support from his own NDE experience (genuinely, no sarcasm, this was A+ good friendship and a standout moment. unfortunately it doesn't make up for *gestures vaguely at canon*)

-forgave buck for spraining his ankle/said through the proxy of tommy that he felt bad for excluding buck. it was an Everyone Sucks Here situation because Eddie was being thoughtless but that doesn't give buck the right to bodycheck him bc he's jealous. (people get hurt playing sportsball yes, so it's debatable if it was really on purpose although buck himself alludes to it not being completely accidental in the convo with maddie). it was still kind of eddie to understand where buck was coming from without needing it spelled out or going but whatabout meeeeeee. i'm just salty because clearly he's CAPABLE of seeing things from buck's perspective and being understanding and fair, and most of the time he'd just rather use buck as an emotional punching bag and accuse him of 'making everything about himself.' the time when buck arguably WAS making things about himself that weren't - ie eddie making a new friend - eddie doesn't say that. but when buck is having emotions in a way eddie doesn't like or finds inconvenient, suddenly the verbal knives are out.

-wasn't a homophobe when buck came out to him, although that's kinda bare minimum for being a Non-Awful Human plus he managed to insult him twice in that 10 minute conversation soooo... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-and gave buck custody of his son if/when he dies which is arguably actually for chris's sake and for eddie's own peace of mind, considering that eddie's not dead yet, but he already has a habit of outsourcing the parts of parenting he doesn't want to do to buck!

[sleepyminty]

Ha ha ha oh man your adopted older brother is strong than the first kindred, hong lu wtf

[misty-memories09]

Clearing my screenshots again, the kkomas are so cute. How dare Kdj call them idiots.

[kirby-the-gorb]

[cyellolemon]

I did it again.. t4t Ivantill

[hyakunana]

Ah yes, the Prismatic experience when they deliver your main subclass in the starter pack 😌

[heffrondriving]

❝ And KENDALL needs to stop talking back to me after everything I say! ❞

[sleepyvib-es]

rick not letting percy age and writing that line about percy understanding why luke did what he did sure is something when you remember luke was 19 when he met percy

[instantpansies]

life is hard for us oz fans who are only meh about wicked. have half a meme.

[anxiouslowercase]

SAS: ROGUE HEROES - MODERN AU + tweets and textposts i find on pinterest

[assiraphales]

how it feels joining a fandom and having an absolute BLAST in the sandpit w ur new friends (fellow stans)