#Which is not to say it’s the wrong path but if we want a functional Jewish community in Europe many things to think about

[lakesbian]

and now for our Checking In With The Dallon Sisters poasting

Panacea shook her head, “Tattletale found a way around my sister’s invincibility. Glory Girl was bitten pretty badly, which is why I didn’t come sooner. I think it hits you harder, psychologically, when you’re pretty much invincible but you get hurt anyways. But we’re okay now. She’s healed but sulking. I- I’m alright. Bump on my head, but I’m okay.”

victoria is demonstrably having a bad time with the previously noted psychological pain of being forcibly reminded that, no matter how hard she tries, she will never be the spotless, invincible, perfect hero she wants to be. the bug bites suck obviously but the "sulking" After being healed is an indicator of where it really hurt--not just physically.

(amy's power reminds me of. do you guys know that one tumblr post about the concept of exploring the horror potential inherent to D&D-esque fantasy healers? like, the horror inherent to being perfectly, magically healed from horrifying injury a hundred times over, and being expected to just get up and keep fighting afterwards, without any regards to how your mental health is doing. that's exactly how amy's power functions: you're made physically better than ever, and expected to get back up and keep being a hero, but you still have the memory of the pain and the lingering psychological aftereffects. but, like, you're fine now, so you just need to get over it and go back to throwing yourself in the line of fire, okay?)

amy is also right off the bat clearly not doing so hot--she's acting very shy and withdrawn and unsure compared to both of her prior appearances. obviously that is due to the horror of some random villain going "btw, remember that you're ontologically an invader into the family you are trying to belong in!" but i think it's probably compounded by the fact that amy is so used to being treated either 1. like she's intrinsically awful/unwanted or 2. like she's only valuable/desirable as a resource by Everyone But Victoria that walking into a room of heroes w/o victoria by her side is always liable to make her insecure and withdrawn.

oh, and the burnout. obviously the severe fucking burnout.

“No, I hated that he would have a normal life, because I’d given up mine.  I was scared that I might intentionally make a mistake.  That I might let myself fuck up the procedure with this kid.  I could have killed him or ruined his life, but it would have eased the pressure.  Lowered expectations, you know?  Maybe it would have even lowered my own expectations for myself.  I… I was just so tired.  So exhausted.  I actually considered, for the briefest moment, abandoning a child to suffer or die.” “That sounds like more than just exhaustion,” Gallant replied, quietly. “Is this how it starts?  Is this the point I start becoming like my father, whoever he was?”

the "every second i rest, someone dies" conundrum would be nightmarish for her even if she had the healthiest social support net on the planet, but her circumstances make it infinitely worse. she's treated by everyone in her "family" but victoria like an invader, and even victoria has unintentionally stressed the importance of using her healing power in the way that the family wants (i.e. to cover up victoria's police brutality) in order to Be A Good Family Member. amy has internalized that being a good dallon is the same as being a good hero, and failing at being a dallon is the same as being overcome by her ontologically criminal roots. so she works herself to the bone, and when she inevitably starts to falter, she views it as an indicator of something intrinsically wrong with her rather than as a sign that her family + society's expectations for her are harmful and unfair.

and dean's advice for her only reinforces this further:

Gallant let out a slow breath, “I could say no, that you’re never going to be like your father. But I’d be lying. Any of us, all of us, we run the risk of finding our own way down that path. I can see the strain you’re experiencing, the stress. I’ve seen people snap because of less. So yeah. It’s possible.”

he suggests that she try to take a break, but only in the service of "so you can heal more people in the long run." he validates the idea that she could go "down that path," as if becoming a villain--becoming A Bad Person--is a risk all heroes have to fight against on an individual level, as opposed to criminality being a result of circumstance and not even inherently immoral. and of course dean thinks that way--he's a millionaire child soldier, his entire life is predicated on individualist thought with ignorance to the ways in which systematic factors impact people. acknowledging that amy is being horrifically mistreated would mean not only acknowledging the flaws in the PRT system, but acknowledging what might lead people to stray from it, and he simply can't do that. it goes counter to every idea that his life is built on.

he never even tells anyone that amy thought about letting a child die, or if he did, it didn't go anywhere. she was desperate for help all along, increasingly ready to explode, and everyone just ignored it. because as she says:

"My sister’s all I’ve got. The only person with no expectations, who knows me as a person. Carol never really wanted me.  Mark is clinically depressed, so as nice as he is, he’s too focused on himself to really be a dad. My aunt and uncle are sweet, but they’ve got their own problems. So it’s just me and Victoria. Has been almost from the beginning."

this is also where we see another more blatant sign of her crush on victoria--it's very ambiguous as to whether dean is interpreting amy's feelings towards him as meaning "wants to date me" or "jealous of me for dating victoria" but i think it's probably the former because there's no way he would keep his mouth shut if it was the latter, lmao. really what this scene is doing is introducing all of the stressors amy is experiencing that, because they're going unaddressed, because everyone else is refusing to address them and she has internalized that's how it should be, are going to boil over horrifically later on. that burnout and fear of accidentally-on-purpose making a mistake will lead to truly being unable to heal victoria later on. that sense of obligation, that if she can't keep healing she's turning into her father, will contribute to her being unable to just walk away from victoria instead of trying to heal her. her crush on victoria--the ultimate example of how her should-be family has ostracized her--will boil over in the impulsive brain alteration & the sexual nature of the wretch's design.

and all of this would've been avoidable if not for, as mentioned in the prior post abt this interlude, the dallons' and the PRT's enforcement of wallpapering over the kid heroes' pain to Keep Up The Show.

#wormtime 2 #wormtime 2 arc 3 #wormblr #parahumans

[wen-kexing-apologist]

SHADOW THE SERIES!!

ALRIGHT Y’ALL I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY BINGED ALL SEVEN EPISODES OF SHADOW (2023) THAT HAVE CURRENTLY BEEN RELEASED AND MY BRAIN IS GOING A MILE A FUCKING MINUTE. I HAVE ABOUT 25 THEORIES ALL BOUNCING AROUND IN HERE, ALL OF WHICH ARE PROBABLY WRONG. 

Thank God for @so-much-yet-to-learn deciding not to watch this, meaning he can’t be spoiled and I can spam his DMs with all the twists, and turns.

I literally do not think at this point, even seven episodes in I can really write analysis of the show. I’m almost certainly going to rewatch this, and maybe that will inspire conversations around lighting, and blocking, and use of reflection but for now, I am just going to talk about some of the things I have been noticing and some paths I see those threads taking. 

First of all, in a ghost story, I do not think that I am actually putting too much weight on the use of Hamlet as a play in this story. However, I will admit upfront that I am very potentially putting too much weight on the Greek mythology (River Styx, and Orpheus and Eurydice) that were referenced in, I think like…episode 1 or 2. 

gif by @pharawee

But, what can you expect when some of the first supernatural happenings we get is Dan waking up on a boat in the middle of a body of water (River Styx)? This does not hold consistently, but there is a trend I have been noticing, of following. It has been making me think of Orpheus and Eurydice, that Orpheus is supposed to guide his lover out of the underworld, and back to the land of the living, but he cannot turn to look behind him. He has to trust that Eurydice is there, following behind him. 

And I have been noticing some point in the show where following behind and not turning back to look have been particularly relevant. In Episode 6, Dan sees a reflection of Trin in the bathroom mirror. Trin is technically behind Dan, but the second that Dan turns to look? Trin is gone. When Dan looks away, he sees a reflection in the mirror of Trin leaving the bathroom, and he follows behind Trin all the way to the funhouse. 

This scene had some particularly striking and beautiful uses of mirrors and reflections. Namely that we see Trin, walking, and Dan following far behind in a number of mirrors. But every time a mirror appears Dan stops for a moment to look at himself. At this point, Trin has continued moving (in fact Trin never stops moving) and we see Dan completely alone in the mirror. What does this have to do with anything? What is the show trying to say about what purpose Trin, the shadow, the visions Dan have serve? Not sure yet! But it’s fucking fascinating. 

Hamlet, of course, is an obvious choice of story for a boy that can see ghosts, especially because Dan sees the ghost of his father at some point(s) in the show. Especially because there is a recurring theme/motif of drowning in this show. We have multiple boys who are haunted, both Dan and Nai being able to see ghosts, we have Dan who harbors anger in his heart for the way his father abused the family, we have a boy who went missing, last seen by the lake and whose ghost consistently appears waterlogged. We have a shadow that grabs Dan by the ankle and tries to keep him below water, we have a moment where Dan sees Trin’s lifeless body floating in a pool. Where are they going with this? I don’t know! And I want to find out. 

photo from @sparklyeyedhimbo

I have thoughts about water and it’s relation to baptism, that these boys are attending a Catholic school, that Dan is constantly pushing back against the way the school functions and the beliefs that Brother Anurak holds. I am so fascinated by the fact that Catholic priest Brother Anurak cannot confirm the existence of spirits, (when Dan has been haunted by this shadow for almost a decade of his life), and that he turns to Buddhism, and a venerable monk to help him navigate the moments where he slips between reality and dreams. 

I am fascinated by the fact that the Shadow we see gets progressively less scary, at least to me, as time goes on. This is an entity that has been following Dan from the time he was seven. When he was a child, at his mother’s funeral he called this Shadow his friend when he was talking to Brother Anurak.  

This may seem tangential, but, about a year or two ago, I played a little indie video came called Gone Home. The premise is that you arrive back to your childhood home, unannounced only to find that no one in your family is home, they have vanished without a trace, and all that remains are these letters your sister left. When I started playing this game, I was tense, I thought perhaps the house was haunted, perhaps my family had been killed and a murderer was about to pop out from around a corner. But as the story unfolds, as you read more letters from your sister, you realize that she’s queer, she’s telling you a story of why she has left, she has gone to reunite with her girlfriend. And I cannot explain the level of safety and comfort that washed over me the second I realized this was a queer story. 

In some ways that is what this Shadow feels like to me. At first it is scary, it is set up to be, it creeps up, background music builds tension, creates jumpscares of sorts, the shadow is what keeps nearly drowning Dan. But as the episodes continue, the shadow doesn’t do that anymore, Dan turns around and hugs the Shadow, and it takes him to his father (who is a massive fucking asshole to be fair).

gif by @pharawee

In Episode 6 or 7, Dan is dreaming of one of the few peaceful and happy memories he has of childhood, and the Shadow rests it’s incorporeal hands on his shoulders, almost familiar and comforting, and Dan talks to it. Dan asks it if he can stay there a little longer, and the Shadow lets him. And for me this begs the question, what is the Shadow? Is the Shadow one entity, or multiple? Are the different interactions with the Shadow meant to signify Dan is interacting with multiple different people? Is the Shadow a spirit, or a manifestation of something else: grief, anger, pain? Did Dan die/is Dan dead?

We see two instances of almost sexual acts performed by the Shadow on Dan. Once happens in a dream, and within the dream Dan is conscious. But he wakes up the next morning wet and covered in scratch marks. The second time, Dan is unconscious, but the Shadow appears in the real world, not the dream world (as far as we can tell) and starts pulling up Dan’s shirt, leans in close, so that they are almost mouth to Shadow…mouth? Both times, there is some form of pleasure on Dan’s face, but both times Dan is technically unconscious, and not really able to give consent. 

Is Dan supposed to be enjoying these moments? If so, are they coming from a lover of his, either one from the past or are we perpetuating circles of time where Dan is retroactively being haunted by someone he loves and loses in the future? I don’t know about you all, and personally I don’t want every story that involved Catholicism to focus on the known history of pedophilia within the Catholic church, but…

gif from @pharawee

Dan has been seeing the Shadow since after he was shot accidentally by his mother and she had a mental breakdown, but this is around the same time that Brother Anurak, Catholic Priest, Brother Anurak enters the picture. And Dan says that the Shadow has been getting stronger since he started at this boarding school where Brother Anurak is a teacher. Could the Shadow be a metaphor for childhood sexual assault trauma that Dan cannot remember, or does not want to face? Possibly. Brother Anurak has seemed a little bit suspicious in the show thus far, (not wholly in the like, “possibly a pedophile” way to be clear, just in the “this dude almost certainly knows more about this student’s disappearance than he is letting on” kind of way). 

Then again, according to the precisely thirty seconds of google searching on name meanings I did, Anurak as a name apparently means “the one who takes care” or “male angel”. I would love someone who is not me and has an actual understanding of the Thai language to correct me if I am wrong. (@recentadultburnout or @lurkingteapot are either of you watching this show? If so, would you be willing to discuss name meanings for Shadow the series? Obviously, no pressure or obligation). 

ANYWAY, the Shadow does not really seem like all too much of an antagonistic force at this point, more of a neutral or potentially positive force, so again, I have 25 different theories that are all possibly wrong, and this is one of them. 

Other theories about the Shadow: Dan started seeing it after almost dying of a gunshot wound, it’s just like the manifestation of death and Dan has been running from it for awhile, it is a manifestation of the people Dan cares about in his life, it is actively trying to possess Dan and keeps getting interrupted, it is a spiritual guide that is supposed to lead Dan towards helping other spirits find justice and peace. It’s a physical manifestation of queerness. Like seriously, I could probably go on all day. 

And actually, queerness is something I do want to talk about while I am here. Because this show is certainly not shying away from homophobia.

gif by @pharawee

Nai has suffered for revealing his crush on Anan the previous year, he is still suffering for it. It did not escape my notice that the only known queer kid at an all-boys Catholic boarding school does not have a roommate. Nai is pretty much always alone, until Dan shows up, and Nai is warned by his teacher to stay away from Dan to make sure “Dan stays out of trouble”. Ever time that Dan and Nai are seen walking together, touch each other casually, exit a room together, they are called a slur. Nai tries to tell Dan to stay away from him so that Dan isn’t condemning himself to the life of a social pariah. We get one good Token Straight Friend in Josh. We learn that Trin was queer, and Trin was friends with Nai, and now Trin has disappeared. 

The queer kid(s) or the kids associated with the queer kid are the only people getting beaten up at this school, and the actor that plays dickbag Anan is truly committing to the bit, because the (fake) punches he delivers look like they got some force to them. 

I was actually just chatting with @so-much-yet-to-learn and as I was writing out the sentence “what if the Shadow is a physical manifestation of queerness?” he wrote “ooh, so Nai sees them as human figures whereas Dan sees his as a shadow commentary on how aware they are of their sexuality, maybe?” Dan does see Trin in full form, so I am not sure how much this does track, but it is at least worth acknowledging that Nai is aware of his queerness, has been outed, is The Known Queer at school, and has a very visibly obvious crush on Dan. Meanwhile, Dan reads queer (to me), some of the things he says, the way he laughed at Josh asking him if he liked Cha-aim, the fact that he sticks with Nai, make me think he is aware of his queerness. But, we as the audience have not actually gotten any explicit confirmation that Dan is queer or aware of his queerness. 

photo from @blmpff

However, it is worth noting the physical ghost that Dan is able to see is Trin, another queer boy, (who everyone at school knew was queer because they knew he had a crush on his male theater teacher) and then some random boy that we have never seen before that he, once again, only sees in a mirror. But in Episode 7, Dan has lost this grounding stone, and the line between reality and dreams is constantly blurring. In Episode 7, Dan dreams of a near empty place, the only thing on the floor are drawings of a boxer, a naval ship, a sailor. He sees a man with one arm missing, the remainder of the limb bandaged and bleeding, he sees a man (again, only from behind) handcuffed to a table, behind bars, reading a letter by candlelight, he sees a man tied to a post, blindfolded and about to be executed, once again facing away, back turned to a firing squad. 

Dan finds out like, practically the next day about the local legend of the One Armed Man, who was a boxer, joined the navy, lost his arm, sold himself to homosexual millionaires, and got arrested for selling drugs to party goers who ended up dying of drug overdoses. You know who else has currently been associated with a narcotics related drug overdose?

Trin. 

The missing, queer boy who was trying to break tradition, and bring progress to his school. 

Trin, the missing queer boy who has hallucinations. Hallucinations like… 

Dead bodies. 

You know who else saw dead bodies in the most recent episodes?

Dan. 

photos from @sparklyeyedhimbo

I don’t know where I am going with this beyond the fact that Trin is established to have bipolar disorder, for which was on medication. In flashback he is shown stating that he wants to get off his medication, we are told in the present that he had stopped taking his medication, and that instead he was treating his bipolar with narcotics, and that he had smoked week the night of his disappearance. It is at this point I would like to say, this show would be absolutely fucking based if they actually gave Trin bipolar disorder, and then had the adults that are suspicious and clearly hiding something, weaponize the stigma against his mental health disorder to try to discredit whatever Trin was trying to do, as well as distance themselves from any potential suspicion around their level of involvement in Trin’s disappearance. (This is not to say this is behavior I support irl, it is to say that it would be excellent commentary around how someone’s mental health can be weaponized against them in truly terrible ways)

So by my count we have two instances of drug overdose mentions from two separate people and stories (Trin’s disappearance and the One Armed Man), and two instances of “hallucinations” of seeing dead people (Trin’s vision he discusses in an audio recording and Dan’s vision in art class). These are not enough data points to say they are definitively doing something with this, but it is just something I am noting. 

Another theory that @so-much-yet-to-learn floated in conversation with me was the idea that the boys that were being haunted were ones who were breaking the status quo in some way. Trin was trying to do away with hazing at school and was called in to the administrator’s office multiple times and told to change his student president campaign policies, Nai is currently the only known queer at school, and Dan does not engage in anything even resembling filial piety. (Again, his dad is a Grade A Major Fucking Asshole).

photos from @sparklyeyedhimbo

Where am I going with this? I don’t know! Maybe nowhere! Again, my brain is going BRRRRRRR and I am just rapidly cycling through a thousand unformed theories. God, I just want to know what happened, I want to know what everyone knows, I want to know what the fuck is up with Anan and the teacher he is fucking and their involvement in all of this, I wanna know why the fuck he is as reactive as he is (like he literally almost strangled Dan to the point of unconsciousness at the end of Episode 7), Anan and HIS TEACHER keep making references to Trin, to “the nurses other daughter”, throwing suspicion on Dan about knowing about them. I want to know how they are involved in all of this. 

I JUST WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS HAPPENING, I CAN SEE A MILLION DIFFERENT OUTCOMES, I AM HAVING A GREAT TIME AND I FUCKING HOPE THIS SHOW CAN STICK THE LANDING BECAUSE I AM ENJOYING IT SO MUCH.

#shadow #shadow the series #singto prachaya #fluke natouch #thai bl #gagaoolala #shadow meta #shadow analysis #shadow the series meta #shadow the series analysis #brain dump #i need the rest of this show immediately

[david-talks-sw]

"Yoda said the Jedi are arrogant."

I've seen the above quote (or variations of it) used a lot to justify how the "Jedi are 'wrong' and brought about their own demise".

It's a reference to this moment, in Attack of the Clones:

And I think it's important to clarify: that's not the point of this line.

Says George Lucas, in the film's secondary commentary track:

"We contrast [the previous scene where Palpatine boosts Anakin’s ego] with the three Jedi and show Obi-Wan's concern about the fact that his apprentice is getting ahead of himself, and he's arrogant. And Obi-Wan is kinda put down a little bit by Yoda, there, 'cause Yoda says that that arrogance exists in the older Jedi too, which is a way of warning Obi-Wan that he may be suffering the same hubris."

Yoda is speaking in riddles, as per usual.

He's being cheeky and implicitly telling Obi-Wan that he can be arrogant too sometimes, in his own Yoda-esque way.

Functionally-speaking, the line is there to serve Obi-Wan's Episode II arc, in which he needs to learn to trust Anakin's skills and have faith that Anakin will take the right path (more in detail in this post).

Which is the opposite kind of advice that Palpatine gives.

Yoda is telling Obi-Wan a harsh truth he needs to hear.

Palpatine tells Anakin the lie he wants to hear.

Simple as that. That's the point of that line.

Reason I'm pointing this out is because, if I look at how many times that line was used as "definitive proof" that the Jedi are wrong, a clear de-evolution is visible.

In 2012, Filoni says: "Yoda says the Jedi are arrogant". Cool. Not really relevant (as explained above) but not an inaccurate citation.

In 2022, he says: "Yoda says the Jedi are flawed and that they’ve become greedy and self-interested and arrogant."

W-where the fuck did "greedy" and "self-interested" pop out from...?!

That's not what Yoda said. And again, as explained above: it's not what Yoda meant either.

And having read that, now I'm wondering (and I'm really hoping I'm wrong)... is this THAT the takeaway we're supposed to have from the ending of "Choices", in Tales of the Jedi?

Is the intended narrative "Mace is self-interested and greedy and only follows the protocol to the letter to get a promotion and have a seat on the Council"?

I saw someone say this yesterday, and if that's the case, that's a massively uncharitable depiction of the character.

TLDR:

In that line, Yoda is not "lamenting how far the Jedi have fallen". It's just another way of saying "we're all human, nobody's perfect."

#yeah yeah Yoda's not a human but you get my point #Yoda #Star Wars #Attack of the Clones #Jedi Order #in defense of the jedi #lucas quotes #tales of the jedi #tales of the jedi spoilers #mace windu #dooku

[employee052]

ozzies long-ass TSP ramble

For context, a few days ago i was in a thinky mood when i watched this video on Valve catwalks. it mentioned death of the author, and while ive heard of it, I didnt understand what it meant until after the video explained it. So i got thinking. the following was a series of messages I sent to my friends on a discord server im in (with the exception of the last part bc i just thought of it now even tho im sick) that i compiled for yall into sections so its easier to read. these are just my thoughts and could be totally wrong, i just wanted to share aksjdh :P (plus this is my second time im posting this so there might be some inconsistencies)

(ramble under the cut so yall dont get a massive wave of text on your dash)

"smth smth death of the author smth smth reviews smth smth interpretations smth smth skip button"

like idk if this was obvious to everyone else n im just finally getting it or not, but the skip button ending being about the narrator seeing the negative reviews causing him to create the button in order to appease them, which said reviews ended up making him believe he was being preachy and obnoxious and unfunny, but as a result, he ends up believing it and trying to appease those interpretations rather than be more confident of his dialogue and what it means to him(whatever he may believe) and ending up dying at the end bc of it being a kind of literal version a death of an author of sorts

---

im just thinking about how timekeeper/settings person/432/whatever is really only interested in the player, but not stanley himself. and if the narrator ends up dying (or decaying at least in my interpretation) during the skip button, could the same be said about stanley as a character as well?

like we never see stanleys model as us, we dont see his feet when we look down, and the only time we see him in game is either as a hand during the bucket escape pod ending, the mariella endings, and the not stanley ending. and the last two are cutscenes. for all we know, stanley could have died at some point during the skip button after the narrator did and we would never know bc we cant see him

but since 432's desk being at the end of the epilogue which happens post skip button ending, i would have said that was the first time we ever see him interact with the game internally rather than asking for the time. but i do remember someone suggesting that the timekeeper was the one who removed the door in the skip button in order to kill the narrator off and get stanley/the player away from him in order to talk more

with that thought in mind, that would mean TK had to kill stanley and the narrator off in order to be able to lead the game, push beyond the barriers of a narrator and character and just talk to the player, one on one

---

it makes me wonder if what the curator said in the museum ending holds more weight

like, she talks to the player as well. both she and TK talk to the player themselves instead of stanley the character. and when she says "When every path you can walk has been created for you long in advance, death becomes meaningless, making life the same. Do you see now? Do you see that Stanley was already dead from the moment he hit start?"

stanley's function is a character in the narrators story, a literary device to propel the game forward. the narrator makes the race track, and stanley drives. without the narrator where would stanley go or do, without stanley who would move the story along?

"Can you see? Can you see how much they need one another? No, perhaps not. Sometimes these things cannot be seen."

and yet, hes dead, just like the curator said. because no matter what, he's never going to be able to truly make his own decisions. the confusion ending lays out how all the endings are scripted despite what the narrator believes and acts, its all predetermined.

and in a sense, the narrators dead too. no matter what stanley tries to do to change the story, or the narrator changes to the game in order for stanley to react to, its been planned long in advance for the eventuality. every word, every event. and with stanley's deaths, it ends up just bringing them back to the beginning again, "What exactly did the Narrator think he was going to accomplish?" if they always come back to the same preplanned paths, to the illusion of free will, it doesnt matter regardless. death doesnt become a statement, it becomes an inconvenience.

"But listen to me, you can still save these two. You can stop the program before they both fail. Push escape, and press quit. There's no other way to beat this game. As long as you move forward, you'll be walking someone else's path. Stop now, and it'll be your only true choice."

The only way to save both Stanley and The Narrator is by not letting the story play out to begin with. To beat the game, which means to let the game end after you win.

and yet,

the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is neve-

In a game where there is no ending that stops the game in its entirety, where everything will keep on happening again and again and the end is never the end, the only way to beat it is to make a choice as yourself the player, not stanley the character.

because he doesnt get a choice, the narrator doesnt get a choice. they think they do, but they dont. the only way to beat the game is to not play it. (which makes sense given that there are achievements involving not playing the game in both the 2013 HD remaster and 2022 Ultra Deluxe)

both Stanley and The Narrator are two sides of the same coin that make up The Stanley Parable, and the only way to use the coin is to give it away.

maybe thats why the true ending of the game with credits and stuff like that, is the Not Stanley Ending.

You the player have successfully broken the fourth wall from the outside in, even though that ending was planned like all the others (ie, the game allowing you to disconect the phone), you break the illusion of being stanley the character, which the game ends up booting you out of stanley as it cant handle the "narrative contradiction".

maybe thats why the escape pod ending has the sign that reads "both the player and the narrator must be present in order to leave". its not stanley, its the player, us.

maybe thats why that ending is one of the most cruel. the only way to get there is to leave the narrator trapped in the boss' office. there's no way to get him to the escape pod. the end is never the end.

---

(this part was the new idea i just had today so this might not make sense i appologize)

going back to the beginning of this ramble about the death of the author and such. perhaps there is a way to get the narrator out.

with thoughts about interpretations and with he idea of the "death of the author", all of us have our own interpretations of the TSP characters. whether its design, or relationship wise, or characterization, or what have you. The Narrator in my head is different from you reading this, and that narrator is different from another persons perspective, and definitely our narrators are different to the one that lives in Davey Wreden's head, or Kevan Brighting, or anyone who has even heard of the stanley parable.

and that's not a bad thing! there can be many similarities to the characters that our interpretations share, some more common than others and some that make no sense at all, but for the most part we all have different interpretations of the characters.

I read a book called Book Simulator (The Reader's guide to not reading) by Chris Yee on stream once. The VOD is gone now. But I discovered the book because I heard the guy writing/the narrator of sorts for the book was written like the Stanley Parable Narrator.

It didnt help that Kevan brighting voiced over the commercial for it too askjdh

but back to the book. this will contain somewhat spoilers for it since it brings up a moment at the end of the book so feel free to stop here if you dont want to be spoiled

---

basically, in Book Simulator, Booksi (The book's instructional narrator on how to fake read at the start of the book) is arguing with The Narrator (no not ours, but the general narrator who speaks in the third person), however, its revealed by The Narrator that Booksi has a plan to take over the world by inhabiting more book simulators and distributing them across the world. But, the reader could kill off the booksi that they have in their hands that they are reading, to quote:

"Or was he the original Booksi? Maybe not. Maybe the original Booksi had been vanquished long ago, and the reader was now facing one of the many copies roaming the world. Both Booksi and the Narrator knew the answer to this question, but neither would reveal the truth."

---

Taking from Book Simulator the concept of multiple iterations of one character existing in different copies of the media they originate from, maybe in a way that's how the Narrator may die in the stanley parable, forever stuck to repeat the same endings with the illusion of free will, but he lives on somewhat for everyone that has seen or heard of him in any capacity.

this may sound a bit preachy (oh the irony) but bare with me:

The Original Narrator from The Stanley Parable is dead, dead in the sense that he and Stanley are stuck within the game, given the illusion of free choice, and unable to leave nor do anything to try and escape, is also alive in the sense that we the players perception of The Narrator lives on in our minds.

The Narrator from the game might be stuck, but the Narrator i see in my head, the one i designed and draw and think of is perfectly fine and alive as ever.

and the same goes with you and anyone else who has heard of the narrator. their interpretation is still unique and different to them even if it all comes from the same media. he may not be exactly the same as the original, but hes still there. and in a way, hes free.

(man typing this last segment down makes me feel like a gd priest, and/or someone talking abt the barbie movie akjdhkjasdh so sorry if doesnt make sense at all :P)

#ozzies tsp rambles #ozzie rambles #tsp #tspud #the stanley parable #the stanley parable ultra deluxe #stanley parable #tsp narrator #tspud narrator #tsp stanley #tspud stanley #tspud timekeeper #tsp curator #tspud curator

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

I've asked myself many times over the course of three years about how would I react to information that comes to contradict a specific image I have about people. And the answer would differ, more or less, depending on a myriad of factors, such as my mental wellbeing, my attitude toward the fandom, the group, the members, etc. The truth is, I only knew how I would respond the moment it happens and I was pleasantly surprised in a way. I see it as a sign that I'm doing better or at least I'm on the path of doing better.

These are things that I didn't want to allow to come to surface in the way I used to handle the BTM blog. Perhaps because the point was to create a platform in which I could offer the rational, researched perspective which I considered to be the correct one. I'm not retracting any of that. I still believe that it is possible to offer a more complex perspective if I can back it up with knowledge from various fields, but it was also one of my defense mechanisms.

Without expanding on the personal reasons, it has become very easy for me to separate my rational and emotional side. So much, that even when I should be staying in the moment and let my emotions take space, I can't really do it, I need to come up with a rational explanation so it can make sense. I then applied this to BTS as well. I couldn't just say I like this group when someone would ask, I would have to tell them about all the studies I read and how my fascination is mostly intelectual, when in truth it was both. I used to talk about jikook only in the context of analysis, be it GCF through semiotics or various types of interpretations when it came to their performances or fandom reception in terms of their dynamics. It had to be in the context of rational fascination and curiosity because I was merely trying to justify myself on why I care that much about two strangers that I look at on my phone. Again, my intellectual curiosity is real, but that has always been only one side if the coin, but it was one that I pushed.

It's about shame actually. I can't actually accept that I have such an interest. It doesn't fit with the idea I have of myself. And sometimes I don't like it because it makes me question my intellect, my critical thinking. How can I be so good academically and at the same time I fear that I've fallen into a fandom trap? I'm smart, right? Right?

I'm sure a lot of people have dealt with or ar going through this process of cognitive dissonance. How does one deal with the mere idea that something they believe in based on their understanding of the world, their ability of decoding (not in a conspiracy sense, but in a Saussurean way) can turn out to be wrong? We see something that resembles a specific behavior that we are surrounded with our entire lives, sometimes we ourselves engage with, but we've identified it wrong on others? Of course, it's through the visual medium, one that is edited. It's a puzzle with large chunks missing, but we're getting a general idea of it. But we can be wrong. So how do we deal with that? Well, I don't have a correct answer.

Me in 2020/2021 would have been more affected because my mental health was not good. I was functionally depressed and I clinged so much onto BTS, Jikook and the small community that I found myself in at that time, that I would have felt a lot more torn than I am now.

A couple of years later and having to actually go through a situation in which my understanding of people's relationship might not be accurate, I realized I'm fine. And I think it's because it made me really register just now that I finally learned how to have fun with it. It took me three years. By having fun, I mean genuinely being able to simply enjoy the little things. I'm still on the path of not being ashamed for liking kpop or spending time talking about the dynamic/relationship of two people.

What prompted this post was reading what is currently being written in the jikook tag. Yes, I had this big introductory chunk that perhaps people won't bother reading, but I'm doing it for myself. If I can't be honest while writing stuff into the void for strangers to read, then what is the point?

I get frustrated very easily. I like debates and contradictory points of view, but not always. And that's because I like to be right. Almost all the time. So when I see something that I believe it lacks logic or I find it absurd, then my fingers are itching. I don't comment or DM people, I can control myself. I'd rather get out of the app and do something else.

What I want to say is I was surprised at how much fanfiction is being written. More that usual. Shipping contains a big deal of fanfiction by its nature. Gestures and events taking place at different times are interpreted and having information added that fills the gaps. People do that because they have to make sense of what they see.

They like to make relationship timelines. They speculate on first kisses and first sexual experiences. That's their imagination. None of us has any way of knowing. The element of fiction is heighted when people feel like they are losing control of the narrative. When they are unsure of what they are seeing. Which is what usually happens in the shipping community on a yearly basis. Anons flooding the bloggers' inboxes because they need confirmation or they didn't get any ship content in a month or two which means something is wrong.

There's this understanding that the shipper/supporter is delusional while the one who stops shipping is the rational one. From what I've observed throughout time and mostly now, that is a false distinction. The so-called rational fan makes use of fiction just as the shipper. The difference is in purpose. One talks about why the supposed romantic relationship is real and the other tries to refute that. But both categories seem to need fiction in order to build their arguments. That is because none of them have access to someone's private life and relationship, so the gaps need to be filled with speculation. There is no right or wrong version here, despite how much the idea is being pushed. And me writing about this won't make a difference. It's simply how the fandom works. The one who position themselves on the side of anti-delulu will always be seen as the less crazy one. The similarities will fade for the collective consciousness of the fandom.

I think it's difficult for a lot of people, regardless on which side they find themselves on, to accept that the option of simply not knowing is enough as well. Or knowing, but without getting anal about it. But it's hard and they write posts after posts, anons are sending asks over asks because there has to be a firm answer. Only a few allow themselves to be in between lines.

I'll bring back something that I always used to say. Shipping and involvement in the fandom is a lot more about us and less about the people we're talking about. It's about fullfiling some needs, of needing a community, of focusing on the idea of love. Those things can still be done in a way that still makes the experience enjoyable. But not everyone can and I'm not blaming it.

There's a way to just like how people behave with each other and imagine things without adding so much weight to it. Regardless of the true nature. It's our imagination, there's no need for a moral inquisition to tell anyone how to think or that they should stop thinking a certain way. Touching some grass is a cliche and an expression I ended up hating, but I do believe that being connected to discourse on a daily basis can really alter our sense of reality and what we consider to be real issues. We really should pay more attention to that and take some distance if necessary.

#m thoughts #jikook #kpop shipping #bts shipping #fandom discourse

[paellegere]

ok well since tumblr deleted my whole tag essay on this post which i'm going to be sad about forever, i'll try to recreate it in its own post.

so the op of the post made a great point which really touched on why i've been saying that i had a fundamentally different takeaway of season 9 compared to the rest of the fandom. i have a lot to say in response to this (i mean it), not in argument but in support and synthesis of it.

fair warning: this is essentially a thesis on seasons 8-10 and how they function as a unit, through the focal lens of season 9. the length is appropriate for this argument.

i'll start with dean at the beginning of season 9: he has a great struggle in 901 regarding gadreel possessing sam, more so than any other struggle he's faced when saving sam's life, which points to me as him being aware of and conflicted about sam's history of possession. he understands this is crossing a line because it's similar to lucifer and meg, and so accepting gadreel's deal is violating sam to a length dean hasn't gone to before. dean by and large is the one who has this particular ethical problem (shown throughout the first half of season 9), not sam. hell, dean is the one who leaves sam once gadreel's out, without even waiting for input because his self-loathing is that strong.

sam, on the other hand, is more textually concerned in his 912/913 arguments with the lack of trust ("i can't trust you, not the way i thought i could") and dean's selfishness ("you did it for you"). this is an ongoing conflict sam has with dean, since the beginning of the show. dean doesn't trust sam to make his own decisions and therefore makes them for him, without sam's consent or knowledge. sam wants to be trusted to stand on his own, and he wants dean to put the same faith in him that he puts in dean. this is the core of sam's needs; the violation of autonomy is just an externalization of these needs and this conflict.

and i don't entirely disagree with the connection between going behind sam's back to keep him alive against his will and a rape narrative. both involve a lack of consent and a violation of agency. however, it really doesn't stop there, and it's a lot more complex than that.

and that's what rubs me wrong about more common interpretations of season 9 that i've seen. because this isn't really what the season is about. this violation on its own isn't the point. or if it is on the surface, it's equally about sam lying to himself about what it's actually about. he's consistently left out of major decisions regarding his own life and then lied to about it "for his own good," and he wants the right to choose his own path.

except, as we learn, that's not true. he lied about it. because the point of the whole season is that sam and dean are the same. they will make the same decisions to save each other over and over again. the point of the whole season is that sam has been lying to himself.

i said this in another post, but i think a big reason sam was able to lie to himself about this fact is because he's had the opportunity to let dean go on several occasions. he's been unable to save dean the way dean has saved sam. he fails where dean succeeds. sam has been forced to endure a grief that dean has never had to experience because dean always brings sam back. and so because sam has endured these experiences maybe he's more comfortable letting dean choose death in the abstract—the hypothetical. but in reality when it comes to that point, sam can't actually follow through, because he's just as dependent on dean being there for him as dean is dependent on sam.

and that's what season 9 is about. sam has been lying to himself about this reality from the start. this is why 1019 parallels 311 regarding how insane sam is about dean. it's reiterating the facts we've known but with a new perspective, now that sam is done deluding himself. he needs to accept that he was lying to himself and to dean, and this is what allows season 9 to close and for season 10 to begin, because season 10 is a response to sam's realization. he chooses dean over everything else in a monumental display of hypocrisy and genuine understanding of himself and who dean is to him.

seasons 8-10 should be taken as a single, cohesive unit, and the show goes to great lengths to enforce this. season 9 mirrors season 8, and season 10 acts as a response to and therefore a continuation of season 9. you can see this in the way charlie's death mirrors kevin's (one brother's lies and deceptions leads to increasing stakes that could have been avoided through honesty and openness, which culminates in the death of their beloved ally, and the deceptive brother blames himself for that death because his own unethical actions led to it), or how both of them undergo a change in their physiology as a result of godlike power entering their bodies which mutilate them from the inside and have fatal consequences (sam with the trials, dean with the mark of cain) which can only reasonably be resolved with their deaths (and they both even enter the final stages of this conflict by going to confession). also the plot structures of seasons 8 and 9 on their own mirror each other very closely.

this is all very important because it outlines the purpose of each of these two seasons. it's about them being fundamentally betrayed by their brother, causing that brother to become desperate and feel rejected and unloved, only for them to get what they need out of each other to reaffirm their love. they have to function as a unit, because otherwise both season's primary conflicts (as in, the conflicts established in the first half of each season) are left unresolved. instead, sam gets what he needs from dean in 823, which means that in return dean gets what he needs from sam in 923, thus closing the circle that was opened in 801.

dean reaffirmed that sam is the most important person in the world to him in sacrifice, that he would choose sam over every single other person on earth—this is what sam needed to hear, because it's the foundation of the conflict in season 8, since sam thinks dean chose benny over him and this sent him spiraling into a suicidal depression and self-loathing. so season 9, consequentially, is about dean getting what he needs from sam: he needs to know that sam will do anything in his power to save dean, which is a conflict that began in season 8 (with sam not searching for dean in purgatory) and is reasserted in 913 when sam tells him that he wouldn't violate his agency if the situations were reversed.

and this is exactly what dean gets in 923, when sam says he lied about all of that. dean gets the affirmation that sam's love for dean goes beyond petty ethics, which translates to "dean is more important to sam than anything else in the world" where the "anything else" includes sam's own moral boundaries. this is important to dean because dean eschews his own moral boundaries for sam's sake and safety over and over again throughout the series, and this is a major source of his own character development (see: 122, 203, 214, 222, et cetera et cetera). sam repeatedly denies that he's the same way, and has proven at least once that he wouldn't do the same, so this is an important affirmation for sam to give and it's why dean had spiraled into a suicidal depression and self-loathing (look, another parallel).

so season 8-9 are mirrors of each other, and they have to be mirrors of each other in order to work structurally and for any of the conflicts presented to be resolved. season 10 then is a response to this which shows the consequences of those dual resolutions: aka, sam acts just as unethically as dean does in the rest of the show, except this time knowingly and intentionally instead of subconsciously as he has been doing up to now (see: 1001, 1003, 1004, 1018, 1020, et cetera et cetera).

in order for all of this to work, the conflicts in season 8 and season 9 have to be equal. i.e. dean has to violate sam and his ethics as badly as sam violated dean and his ethics. it also has to be suitably Bad because it's revisiting a conflict that's existed in various iterations across the entire show. this is why it's also deeply important that 923 dean's death also parallels 222 sam's death, because it highlights how this conflict has always existed and how sam and dean are similar to each other. they both make the same choices under pressure and go to equally unethical lengths. which is why season 9 couldn't end until crowley told the audience that sam was trying to make a deal with him to bring dean back to life, specifically after dean begged sam to let him die. the point, then, was never about the violation itself: sam disregards dean's right to choose death just as much as dean disregards it. the season is about how sam and dean are at their cores the same, and it's about sam becoming aware of that reality and then actively, consciously choosing it. which is what sam reiterates across season 10, as a response to his choice in 923.

he only realizes that this is a Bad Thing in 1101 (i.e. after the response has run its course) when he says they both have to change. and the "both" is important because they are the same, fundamentally. sam isn't innocent of this violation of agency and obsessive deception of his brother, and he needs to understand that before actionable change can be made, which is what season 10 is all about.

and there's something poignant that can be said about 1023 being titled "brother's keeper," because this episode is about sam playing the role of brother's keeper, only for it to blow up so spectacularly in their faces that it causes the apocalypse 2.0. it forces sam to recognize that his original conclusion (that dean was right, and that he was lying) was not actually the correct and moral way to continue living. the significance of 1101 only reveals itself in the foundation laid by seasons 8-10, because these are the seasons about sam discovering just how down bad he is for his brother and accepting it wholeheartedly. season 11 then seeks to fix what seasons 8-10 broke, which is of course the entire fucking planet.

and this is the problem: the first apocalypse was caused by the absence of love, and the second was caused by too much love. their love is a destructive force that has world-ending consequences. that's the point of these seasons, what it all comes back to. in receiving the exact type and strength of love they needed from each other, they ended the world. and this is the conflict they need to resolve in season 11, or at least try to. because their love for each other can, has, and will destroy the world, over and over and over again. this theme can't exist unless seasons 8 and 9 mirror each other, unless season 9 is about sam's hypocrisy.

without that world-ending love, they couldn't have started the second apocalypse. if sam weren't a liar, he would have respected dean's choices, and he would have let dean die. if sam truly cared about bodily autonomy, dean would have died in 923 when he begged sam to let him. but he doesn't; that's not the point of the narrative. of course the violation of autonomy is important, because it provides the foundation for the conflict. but the violation is itself a metaphor, a triple whammy of symbolism: the possession is a metaphor for violation, and the violation is a metaphor for betrayal (as seen through the lens of deception).

the point of season 9 is not that dean metaphorically raped his helpless little brother; rather it's that the violation of agency goes both ways, and sam is a hypocrite for trying to maintain his autonomy while stripping it from dean. it's a continuation of season 8, which thus compacts his guilt over "abandoning" dean in purgatory and his self-loathing and fears of not being good enough or worthy enough of dean's love, which thus causes him to act recklessly and injuriously toward himself and dean. it's not a positive conclusion by any means; like i said, this is what causes the second apocalypse, and it's only after they've ended the world twice that sam finally sits down and says maybe they were wrong about this whole thing. maybe their love is too destructive.

in 912, sam says: "something's broken here [...] we don't see things the same way anymore."

in 1101, sam says: "this isn't on you. it's on us. we have to change."

sam goes from blaming dean to blaming both of them, because he realizes that they're both equal partners in their toxic, fucked up love. season 8 and season 9 allowed them to become equals by giving each other the affirmations they desperately needed to achieve true enmeshment, and season 10 is the consequence of that unhealthy relationship.

the point was never that dean violated sam. he does that over and over again throughout the series without destroying their relationship. the point is that sam is willing to violate dean all the same, and he had to face that reality head-on and accept it to resolve the conflict between them and give dean the affirmation he needed, just like dean gave sam the affirmation he needed in 823. the violation was simply a vehicle through which the conflict could come to a head, and the most provocative symbol this show could possibly use was the metaphor of sexual assault and rape, given sam's history with it via meg and especially via lucifer.

i've probably written enough now. the tl;dr is that season 9 invokes what can be interpreted as a rape metaphor not to vilify dean or even really to continue sam's ongoing rape narrative (though the violation that occurs in season 9 uses this as a foundation for the conflict and that's important to understanding the gravity of the situation), but rather to give appropriate stakes to mirror the primary conflict of season 8 and provide grounds for dean to get resolution for the conflict that began in 801 and continued through 923. god i hope this makes sense because now i've written this essay twice and i'm so miserable because of it.

my apologies if any of this is repetitive or meandering or lacking in any way; i tried really really hard to recreate my original essay and also provide more evidence and groundwork for my argument but obviously i'm sure i've missed some details and overlooked structure in many places. not that i even really expect anyone to have read this far. if you did, i love you and please talk to me about seasons 8-10. i'm losing my mind

#supernatural #god strike me down i can't do this anymore #i just want this to be over #at some points i feel like i sound overly critical of sammy and i want to stress i am a samgirl and he's everything to me #and i also don't think this trio of seasons vilify him either even if my arguments might sound that way #i think his development across these seasons are fantastic even if they aren't all rainbows and sparkles. he's a great character #since the essay was originally a response to the first linked post it addresses the issue with the 'rape narrative' reading of s9 #more heavily than my other arguments. so yeah that's probably why i'm worried it comes across as more critical than i intended #also calling someone a hypocrite is a rather loaded term even though i'm using it neutrally. but i digress #ok i'm posting this now. i'm done with this. end me #praying to god i don't have to open this again and make edits. PRAYING TO GOD #.txt #the winchester gospel #spn posting

[zoeykallus]

Hello Zoey,

How are you??? We miss your stories so much!!!!!!

You write a lot about the Batch and I imagine that you must have watched both seasons and that the personality of the characters is no longer a secret to you. I am French and on a French forum that I read, a person thinks that Crosshair is a psychopath in view of his behavior in the series. I don't agree at all but he made a lot of arguments. What do you think about it? If you had to define Crosshair's personality what would you say?

Thank you so much !!!!!!

Aloha!

SPOILER!!! For those who haven't seen both BAD BATCH seasons. And a little warning, I might have used some expletives

Uh, I'm probably making enemies with this one. I'll say right up front, just to be clear, this is just my guess, my perception. So the things I write next are not automatically facts and I don't automatically assume that they are, I'm just filling in some gaps with my HCs. To be honest, I had a few moments in the first season where I wasn't sure about Crosshair. I went back and forth between blaming his behavior on the chip or labeling him as "evil". Because we get a lot of we get a lot of information throughout the first season, that more or less cancels each other out and doesn't make sense as a whole. The chip might have had some influence at some point, but I honestly think, by far not as much as some may want to believe. So wich one ist it now? Chip or evil?

Basically though, I think it's neither one nor the other. Assuming the people behind TBB really thought that far, I think it's a lot more complicated than that. Well, there's a pinch of "asshole" with a huge load of "stubborn dickhead" on the side in Crosshair either way. At least in my opinion. But! I think his decisions stem more from the fact that everything around him has suddenly changed.

Being a soldier has always given him a purpose, a place in life, a task, something in which he saw function and meaning. His brothers suddenly want to leave it behind, and rightly so, but Crosshair is unsettled. If he were to join them, he would give up everything that has defined him so far, at least that's how he feels.

Try to imagine that something is happening around you and suddenly your whole life is about to be completely turned upside down and complicated. That would scare me, it would make me feel more than just uncomfortable. Because everyone is different, everyone reacts differently. Crosshair tries for a while to convince his brothers that it's right to continue to follow orders, because anything else could result in them being disbanded or separated.

The fact that Hunter wants to steer the group in a different direction scares him, because then he might soon be alone. I think that's one reason why in the course of the first season, before the batch is separated, he also goes on a confrontational course with his Sergeant.

Numerous decisions he has made, things he has done, are more than borderline, definitely reprehensible. But you have to remember, that's all he knows. Effectively following orders, that's what his whole life consisted of. There was no real childhood, no family life. Like all other clones, Crosshair was born into the life of a soldier. Crosshair is the kind of person who goes into emotional freefall when people try to take away what he feels is his destiny. So he does everything he can to prevent this from happening, he doesn't want to lose this place, this position, what he is used to.

The path he is taking is wrong, and I understand why some people assume that he is evil. However, I didn't think he was a psychopath at first, but a sociopath. Unfortunately, you get this impression in one or two scenes that I simply don't know how to explain or justify.

...where was I...

In the meantime, he wavers between anger and disappointment at his brothers, partly because they have let him down from his point of view, partly because their behavior could backfire on him and partly out of pure frustration. Someone who is already a rather difficult person, thrown into a situation like this, a man who has been conditioned to simply function as a soldier, I imagine that's much more complex than to just label him psycho and/or evil. None of this justifies some of his actions, murders I would call it, albeit on orders. I'm pretty sure he'll have to deal with that for quite a while, if he lives long enough, it's the kind of thing that haunts you to sleep. (In season 2, we have a moment after talking to Cody about soldiers, machines and decisions, where you get a little glimpse that Crosshair can have sleepless nights too, and I think that was the beginning of his self-reflection FINALLY!) We see at the end of the first season that he's not a complete ass, he saves Omega and also AZ, he acts like it's reluctant, but he knows it's the right thing to do, no one is forcing him to do it. Since Omega saved him before, he later mentions that they're even now, so you could read into that now, that he's using that as an excuse because he doesn't want to admit that he would have saved them either way. I'm just putting that assumption out there.

Now, in the second season, we see more and more clearly that his loyalty as a soldier is being trampled on by the Empire. In one specific episode in particular, in which Mayday unfortunately dies, we see very clearly how he realizes what status he has in the Empire, namely none at all. He's a clone, a special one, but just like the other clones, he's worth practically nothing. Cheap labor, cannon fodder, nothing more. Just looking at the gear of Mayday and his crew already screams it out loud, the empire doesn't give a damn about them. But then Mayday, the brother he tries to save, dies because of an Officer's neglect/ignorance/assholery (is that a word?) The realization is terrible, because he realizes that he basically always knew or should have known this. He now acts in extreme contrast to his previous attitude and kills a superior. The fact that he contacts his brothers and tries to warn them shows that he is trying to do the right thing. That he's still a Batcher at heart, that he cares, and that he doesn't care what happens to him as long as he can send out this warning. He must have realized that escape from Tantiss is highly unlikely, he doesn't even really try, his priority is to send this last message to his brothers. All in all, I don't think he's a psychopath. However, I do think he is emotionally/mentally broken.

My honest guess or thought is that there is/could be so much potential in this man, in a good way, if someone had ever taken the time to really nurture it.

Long Story short, he is actually sensitive and scared. Being the cold-hearted soldier is his way of dealing with it. Scared people do the worst shit sometimes. Fear leads to desperation, and the latter leads to fatal decisions. Like staying with the empire and killing people. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I feel like I just made a lot of excuses for that toothpick chewing problem child. I don't know how much of this is making sense, my head hurts 😅

And I admit I'm so afraid for each and every one of them in season 3.

#star wars #tbb #the bad batch #clone force 99 #sw tbb #crosshair #bad batch crosshair #clone trooper crosshair #commander crosshair #crosshair bad batch #crosshair tbb #crosshair the bad batch #tbb crosshair #the bad batch crosshair #my two cents #my head explodes why is the fever coming back

[sapphic-agent]

There's one thing I wanna ask Hori about the narrative that I'm surprised isn't talked about more.

Why weren't any of the characters allowed to question their society and heroes function as a whole?

Because when kids start off with hating heroes (Kota and those brats from the second movie), they're treated to be in the wrong and has to see how great heroes can be.

Which given the context that this is a society that turns a blind eye to it's corruption and how the minority suffers, it just comes across as putting rose tinted glasses on them to keep them away from the truly bad stuff.

Like, I get it with Kota, because his hatred of heroes stems from watching his parents die and believing they chose work over him, and that this hatred could grow into a problem later to where he might end up as a villain.

But at the same time, how come this didn't let Izuku to think about the society that shunned and berated him for being born different from everyone? How come no one else stop and think that this society is on the path to collapsing on itself if nothing is done?

In a story like this, characters should be allowed to question things around them and wonder if there's anything they can do make it more bearable for others, to seek out the change they wanna see so others wouldn't have to suffer like they did.

Kota is a great example, but I raise you Stain and the LOV.

Stain made sense. He went about it in entirely the wrong way, but he was right about false heroes and how much of a problem they were. But he's a murderous psychopath so we're supposed to take his words as out of touch rambling because he attacked Ingenium who was one of the good heroes.

(We're also given no proof. He says heroes are corrupt but we aren't shown why he thinks that and we don't see it beyond Endeavor. Even more reason not to take what he's saying seriously)

Hori could have really sold this by making Tensei perhaps not so virtuous. Maybe he had or started with good intentions but ended up contributing to toxic hero society in some way and Iida was blind to it because he was the big brother he admired. That would have made Tenya's character development hit harder in my opinion. Having Tensei confess this to Tenya would have made the Stain arc even better.

Which brings us to the LOV.

I feel like Hori forgot that Dabi and Toga also joined the LOV because of Stain, not just Spinner. They, on some level, absorbed his words and wanted what he did even if they were also fueled by other motives.

That's why a lot of Dabi's later character doesn't make a whole lot of sense. For those who knew he was Touya, it was implied that he was abused similarly to Shoto and was angry at Endeavor's treatment of his children. And then was inspired by Stain to call out his father as a false hero and take down the system that (indirectly) destroyed his family.

But no, he wants to kill Shoto, doesn't give a shit about Rei or Fuyumi, and almost got Natsu (the brother he was close to and presumably cared about) killed. And all to get back at Endeavor and make him suffer. Dabi's motives were a major let down and it reduces him to a one-dimensional villain, one who only wants to hurt people for the sake of hurting them. There's no hint of the influence Stain apparently had on him.

Toga is the same. She, presumably, admired Stain because of the similarities in their quirks. It's implied she joined the LOV to be with people like her (which is why she- as Camie- asks Izuku what kind of hero he wants to be, she's trying to see if he's one of those people). Who were outcasts and wanted to be able to do what they wanted with no persecution from others. She wanted to be free, even if she had a warped perception about what that meant. But over time, Horikoshi made her a creepy, predatory yandere type (seriously, what the fuck was the point of having her grope Uraraka??) with no depth to her actions.

Both Dabi and Toga never mention Stain or his ideals again. They're just psychopaths who need to be stopped. It dehumanizes them and uses mental illness for further antagonize them.

Spinner is the only one who still attempts to embody Stain's ideals. But of course, he never gets any focus. He's a "coward" who never stands up the the LOV (except when he stopped Magne from killing Izuku) even though he feels guilty about what they do. So most of the time, he isn't portrayed in a way that makes us stop and think. It's all too easy for the audience to dismiss or forget about him.

Anyone who (rightfully) questions or criticizes or openly despises the corrupt society in this universe is portrayed in a negative light. Even if what they're saying is technically right, we throw it away because they're doing something bad.

Really, there's only one character who's the exception. I'm, of course, talking about Lady Nagant.

Listen, me and Hori got beef all day everyday. BUT Nagant is one of the most exceptional characters I've ever seen in anime.

What I love about her is that she's someone who genuinely started out with good intentions and wanted to do the right thing but was torn down by society. It destroyed her from the inside out. The actions she took aren't even that extreme, they make sense considering everything she went through. Her problems with society aren't inane or hypocritical ramblings, she's 100% correct in her assessments because she was an unwilling participant in the corruption.

The problem with Nagant, however, is that she's with us for such a short amount of time that we don't get to take a deep dive here. We don't get to dissect why, exactly, society is so corrupt or find a solution to it.

It sucks because Hori was SO CLOSE to hitting the mark with Nagant. I think introducing her- or someone similar to her (missed opportunity with Hawks)- a lot sooner would have really improved the story

#mha critical #bnha critical #ask #league of villains #toga himiko #mha dabi #spinner #stain mha #lady nagant

[windsweptinred]

The Spark of Creativity

(A mini Dream and Desire sibling goodness fic)

(Worlds ago, when the Omniverse was still quite young, and the youngest Endless still new to it.)

"What ails you so that you called for me Desire?"

Desire let out a frustrated huff before turning to regard their second eldest brother. A sullen frown marring their usually bright features. Gesturing with an impassioned point, they singled out one of the many inhabitants of this world, milling about around them. A sad looking figure who lounged forlornly, alone and whose focus was obviously deep within this own tangled thoughts.

"This man! He desires to be a great scholar, to record the stories of his people. So I inflame his wants, make them burn brighter every day... To be renowned, for his name to live on long after he has taken sister Death's hand. But he will not write! Instead he languishes in my twins realm... And she teases me for it. I don't understand what I am doing wrong?!"

Dream graced them with an indulgent look, before taking their hand and rubbing his thumb softly over their palm in what they guessed was meant to be a soothing motion. It only sought to aggravate them further. They did not wish to be coddled and shook their hand free. He cocked his head to try and meet their gaze... They spitefully turned away to avoid it. They knew he was smiling kindly at them despite it.

" My little sibling, you do nothing wrong. But sometimes, pure want alone cannot spur their hearts to make a wish, reality."

They snapped there head back to throw a well practiced copy of Dream's own frightful glare back at him. They had no wish to hear how quickly Dream had clearly solved their conundrum. To be shown once again how poorly their function stood in comparison to their elders. A fact their mother had made immaculately clear since their creation. Dream let out a slight amused huff before placing a pacifying hand on their shoulder.

" There is no need to glower at me so. I did not mean it as a slight." Turning, he looked out at the mortals going about their day, oblivious to their presence. "I can inspirit the greatest minds, but without the yearning to craft those dreams for themselves in the Waking hours, they become naught but the unwritten, the uncreated."

Turning his attention back to them, he moved in, overly close, head bent down conspiratorially, as if what he had to say was the greatest of secrets meant only for their ears.

" Mortals are intriguing creatures my sibling. To spark true creativity in them takes inspiration and aspiration, Dreams and Desires. You and I. From there, they can lead themselves a merry dance into the arms of Despair, little Delight or even Destruction. But it is we two who ingite the flame that lights that path. And what are these enlightened beings without the innovation with gift them?"

Desire's spirit trilled as they beamed at his words. Their big brother was right, he was always right. Expect perhaps for twin Despair, no one understood them like he did.

"That's why I'm your favourite right?"

Dream gave them a look which must have once set out to be disapproving. But was offset by the clear fondness in this eyes.

"I do not have favorites little Ire of mine. Now, let us see if we can bring this masterpiece of his to fruition."

They snuggled into his sharp breast bone and in response he curled an arm about them, pulling them closer to him. An open act of affection he gifted precious few others. He could say what he wished out loud. But they knew, he desired their company over any of their siblings. He loved them above all others and always would.

"Yes you do Big Brother, I can tell."

#dream of the endless #desire of the endless #the endless family #Endless sibling fluff #the sandman #mini fic #my artwrok #my pen and ink scribbles

[juminies]

I present myself as a Jumin bad story ending 2 hater in the grand scheme of things, but there is a lot of nuance to it. The thing is, I actually think it functions very well as a bad ending and does an incredible job of showing the negative path Jumin could fall down very quickly given the opportunity. It allows a prime look into his mindset and his brain and really opens him up to let the player properly see the deeply buried, traumatised, grimy parts we only narrowly skim otherwise. In that sense I hate it in the way you're supposed to dislike any bad ending: this is not where we should have ended up; this is not how I, the player, should have acted; it's uncomfortable and upsetting and makes you go Oh, oh no. If people were normal about bad ending 2 I would lovehate it in the way I have written long analysis posts about how normal ending is a bit fucked.

However, when I say "I hate BE2" really what I'm talking about is the way people simply were not ready for it to exist in the way it did, especially not at the time it did. A large proportion of the game's audience did not see BE2 and look through the surface dynamic, and instead completely ignored everything the game was trying to show regarding Jumin using BE2. They saw the CG and went "hehe BDSM, this is just like Christian Grey <3" and that was that. It led to massive flanderisation of his character by a concerningly large proportion of people who played and didn't play! the game. And sure, on one hand, if you really want to overlook Jumin as a character to fulfil your fantasy then okay. It's an otome game, the fantasy is the point. But it's frustrating as someone who loves Jumin so much to see people get him so wrong because they won't step away from 2016/2017 fanon. I still(!!) see people intertwining his BE2 outlook with his good end outlook, as if they're the same, which is absolutely wild considering both the layers of character development he goes through in the following days and the fact that it legitimately does not make sense that he would act like he does in BE2 if MC does not have her BE2 personality. You can obviously acknowledge that that part of him (the fear, the possessiveness) exists/ed on some level—in fact, please do! He's very multifaceted and it's important to note that he's not perfect! But you can do that without using it to heinously mischaracterise him. I could get into the ultimately what Jumin wants is whatever you want, he thrives on seeing his partner happy and feeling good side of it, but it's barely even relevant if what you're trying to do is tell me that Jumin is a sadist. He's not even a sadist IN bad ending 2

#i will say it's not as bad these days as it was a few years ago! but it still annoys me every time lol #debated tagging this but i decided i won't be a hater in the main tags today #also side note i have mixed opinions on the existence of bad & after in general #i think it was a very weird choice to release a multi chapter bad end dlc? #like... what lol

[espiepuffs]

First Date!

Pairing: Hop x GN Reader! (Request!)

Notes: Hii anon, I accidentally deleted your ask, I’m so sorry! But I hope you enjoy this drabble! I hope the work isn’t too bad, I haven’t written anything proper in a while :cc and I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to write some short hcs or a little drabble, so I did both! I’m working on a Poképlushies for the Galar rivals :DD tysm for sending me a request, and I hope you enjoy!

Hop is quite a nervous boy, but he’s a gentleman, and he can be a romantic if he tries c:

For a first date, he’d put a lot of thought into it!

He’d ask Leon and Sonia for advice and think of a while before he finally thinks of the perfect first date!

He decides to take you on an evening stroll around Wedgehurst!

It looks best when the sun sets, and Wegdehurst itself is pretty much quiet in the first place.

The wooloo are all settling down to rest by that time!

He’s thought about making this first date perfect, he hopes you’ll love it!

Hop hastily knocks at your door, hands trembling with anticipation. He’s been waiting for this day for a while now. He’d been working and planning earnestly to make sure this date went just right, and today would be the day all his efforts would bear fruit! He’d gotten advice from both Leon and Sonia, to which the two had answered any questions and lessened his worries. Now it was time for him to put it into action, and he was sure nothing would go wrong. He hears the rapid sounds of footsteps before the door opens, and out you come!

“Hop, is that you? Hello!”

Hop feels as skittish as a baby wooloo trying to walk for the first time the moment he sees you. Even when the two of you were just friends, you’ve always had the ability to take his breath away, and even as your boyfriend, it still works like a charm.

“Hey s/o! You look brilliant!” Hop stutters.

You quickly notice that he’s not in his normal attire today. He’s still dressed casually, but there’s a sort of class in what he’s wearing that enchants you, and the longer you look at him, the quicker you feel your cheeks growing warm.

“Shall we go now?” He asks, holding his hand out to you. You hurriedly take it in yours, hopping down the steps of your front porch to start walking with him. And when you do, you feel millions of tiny little butterflies swirl and dance inside your stomach.

The two of you walk through Wedgehurst’s fields, the sunset casting a glorious lighting over the both of you, and you can’t help but be astonished. You nudge your boyfriend slightly, your gaze still fixated on the sky.

“Hey, isn’t the sunset beautiful?”

Hop’s view is on you, yet he still answers with that energetic “Yes!” that you’re used to hearing on many different occasions.

The two of you stay there for a while before trailing down the path. As time goes by, Hop is able to feel more relaxed. He was able to talk to you easier, look you in the eyes without forgetting how to function, and it became a lot less awkward, with less silence in between sentences.

His time with you blurs, and before you know it the sky is completely dark, and you’re back where you began, just outside your house.

“Y’know, this date with you has been amazing Hop- you’ve been amazing,” you start. “I really hope we get to go out again like this soon,”

“Me too,” Hop replies. “You’re the sweetest person I know and I’m so glad that we’re together. I’m really happy that I got to spend that time with you, and that I get to be with you!”

“Please do take me out again soon, Hop. I’ll be glad to go anywhere with you! I’ll see you around,” You say, starting to head in. You turn around though, hurrying down the stairs once again, this time delivering a soft and gentle peck to the boy’s cheek. You grin, before daring back in your home, leaving Hop starstruck, touching his cheek.

That night, he goes to sleep with the biggest grin on his face, mind filled with sugar-sweet dreams of you and him.

#Pokémon #pokémon hop #hop x reader #pokemon swsh #pokemon sword #pokemon shield

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ discussion of dissociation and formation of CDDs

We do like to periodically announce that we still operate on a multiplicity model of DID. That means we believe a lot of structural dissociation, but with some differences.

Where we do understand young children as having states, we don’t define them as being parts. It isn’t six puzzle pieces, but six blueprints of the brain. Each functions differently with what’s already there, and none of them literally occupy a place.

Dissociation keeps these states separate. Sometimes they get further away or have amnesia walls put up between them. They never fell into each other like singlets’ states did. Now these states become alters, and their abilities vary by their system’s features.

These features inform the growth of each alter as an individual. Alters with access to internal experiences can elaborate without external input in directions not possible for alters who go dormant outside of front. Alters without co-consciousness have to gain skill sets independently.

There is no right way to be an alter. Some systems view their alters as parts of a whole. Some want to fuse into one state. Others believe that sharing memories and information is necessary for their healing.

All of those things can be good and right for that system. We tend to pull out the ‘secret third option’. We believe any alter in our system is a full person if they say they are, and that our distinct ways of using the brain are no less than a singlet.

Because we view each other as largely already whole, we don’t integrate between ourselves. We have worked on communication and bringing other insiders up to date, but we don’t utilize one another’s lived experiences.

Our third option is community, which we get to define for ourselves. Many of us struggle with demands and authority, so we don’t make progress with prescribed goals. If the two roads to choose from are melting our grains of sand into one final glass or getting so close as to be a mosaic, we’ll pave our own path.

And it’s working for us so far. We haven’t found any literature that stopped us in our tracks, haven’t hit a wall in our journey. So this is good for us.

Our name is an extended metaphor for our DID. It’s an understanding that we are not less than or part of, but one step in a turning cycle. Rocks grow and break, glass forms and shatters, and neither stays small forever. The smallest granules of sand make up a desert, and even those tiny bits can shape stones.

It’s okay to have a different perspective than we have evidence for. Science is an ever changing thing, understanding shifting with culture and time. Your experience cannot be wrong, even if we don’t see it right now. You are living proof, and that is enough.

#did osdd #dissociative identity disorder #traumagenic system #osddid #did system #polyfragmented system #cdid #hc did #structural dissociation #multiplicity #plurality #functional multiplicity #final fusion #secret third option

[legendofzoodles]

Honestly? I see the situation with the Sheikah Tech being a sort of parallel to technology IRL in that no matter how you try to safe-guard your data, there will always be ways to sneak in & exploit it & use it against someone.

In this way, I get the feeling that even if the Sheikah did manage to figure out about it, Ganon, as a Sorcerer, could likely figure out a new way to do it again, but this time, lay low until it was most advantageous much like how hackers will hide viruses behind innocuous masks.

That isn't to say that I think that the Hyruleans can't be allowed to advance. More so that, when they do, to only build things that are operated manually to a degree.

Especially weapons. Weapons shouldn't be operated by complex ai the way the Guardians or the Divine Beasts seemed to be.

Rather, the devices should be run mostly by simple operational ai. You could even classify the Purah Pad in such a way because even though it is controlled by programs, at the end of the day, it can't do anything or cause any real harm without the user's input.

If you notice, the Zonai's constructs doesn't seem to explicitly have permanent weapons. Rather, they have to pick up things like swords, shields, bows & arrows. But none of them are as innately destructive as the Guardians or Divine Beasts were & I think that might partially be from experience.

It may even be a way to purposefully limit the damage they could do should someone manage to hack their constructs. Which we actually do see happen in TotK twice. Once with Kouga & once in the Spirit Temple.

Either way, by limiting technology to being relatively manual, you also limit the amount of damage that can be done using that same technology should someone take over.

In fact, even the Secret Stones are that way as it's still the person who's ultimately in control. Without a user they can't really do anything.

So, I stand by my thoughts that the old king was right to at least bury the Guardians & Divine Beasts.

Maybe I'm weird,but that's just how I feel.

I don't think Ganon could 'lay low' without showing signs. Whatever his new ideas are, he'd have to test them to see if they would work or if they could be improved upon. The only way would be to just ponder the idea for millenia and then strike without practice, which could lead to a multitude of things going wrong or not like he planned. To be fair, it's easier to corrupt and break something than to fix it, but he ideally wants to keep the tech functional so he can puppet them.

But fair, it would be possible for him to hide those experiments in a way the Sheikah couldn't detect or take too long, or even lead them down the completely wrong path. But the hypothetical of the two sides struggling for centuries trying to outsmart the other is fun to think about.

That's a good point about weapons, but they would have to be careful about how and where they store them. Ganon, forever watching, could send a huge raid of monsters to seize the stores, or use malice to destroy them and blow everything in the area to nothing.

That's a good idea, to disarm the ai tech or have a failsafe where they shut down if in the presence of malice/gloom. Or if they were to ever be corrupted, make them as passive as possible for a reasonable chance at restoring them to normal.

I still disagree. I'm fairly sure the Guardian pillars around the castle were never discovered by the Hylians and yet Ganon shot those into action. They were going to be corrupted anyway, it's a good thing there were discovered at all just before the second calamity, or the simple act of them rising out of the ground would have completely unearthed the kingdom and done most of the damage.

Also why bury them instead of destroy them? That's so weird. He wants the tech gone, thinks it's served its purpose, doesn't want the Sheikah to have all that power...yet buries it for future generations to discover? What if only a couple decades later, smart angry members of newly formed Yiga dug up some of this tech and enacted revenge?? What a shortsighted king.

But never mind the king what about his wisdom wielding wife?! Why didn't she have any foresight or sense to ponder any of this??

#loz #botw headcanons #botw #loz breath of the wild #breath of the wild #botw theory #zoodles rant #zoodles ask

[hadeantaiga]

I am sure plenty of people have made this analysis of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but I don't care.

"Blind loyalty to authority is GOOD" was a bad message for an allegedly anti fascist themed movie series.

The main lessons from TLJ are as follows:

Sacrificing our own against insurmountable odds is not necessarily good, and sometimes surviving to fight another day is the greater act of resistance. We are not nameless soldiers or cannon fodder, we all have family and friends. We matter as individuals.

Blind obedience to your supreme leaders is good, and questioning authority, choosing your own path, and rebelling against orders you think are unjust will only lead to pain. Trust your leaders, and never ask them to explain themselves. Loyalty is all that matters.

These two lessons are uh..... contradictory, to say the least, and the second one is openly fascist, which is pretty weird considering the Rebels are supposed to be the ones fighting against the fascists. Not to mention, both Anakin and Kylo fall prey to charismatic leaders who demand blind loyalty.

And that doesn't even get into the fact that Lesson 1 is openly contradicted part way through the film when Vice-Admiral Holdo selflessly sacrifices herself and an entire resistance space ship to buy the Resistance more time to escape.

I have just so much to say about this film. Mostly that Lesson 2 is wrong, and should've been "Disobeying orders is good if those orders would cause an inhumane loss of life, and you should always question your leaders when they want to go a step too far".

That's my main thesis. Let's get into this.

We are going to focus only on the opening sequence because it really functions as a framework for the whole film, and we'll focus on Poe's characterization in this sequence.

So right off the bat we get the first instance of these two lessons being mashed together: Poe disobeys orders and sacrifices lives to take down a First Order ship. He thinks it's a great victory, but Leia explains that the Order can literally just make more of those ships in like two seconds, but the loss for the Resistance was immeasurable. The movie's lesson is: Poe should always follow orders, and sacrificing lives is bad.

Obviously I have issues with how this sequence is written. It should've played out in a way where "blind, unquestioning obedience" was not one of the lessons.

Personally, Poe doesn't seem like the kind of character who needs to be taught "sacrificing yourself or others is bad, actually". He literally helped save a Storm Trooper after knowing him for two seconds. Poe is a good guy with strong morals.

That said, I can vibe with Poe being written as a bit too loyal to the Resistance. It's part of his characterization already; he nearly worships Leia as a leadership figure, and he's a very enthusiastic flyboy, ready to take on whatever dangers the Rebels ask of him.

Writing Poe as willing to obey the orders of his leaders is right there. And this could've lead to some great internal conflict! Poe, told to sacrifice his people, and not wanting to do that, but also wanting to believe the Rebellion is "always right"...

Instead, they turned him into a jerk who doesn't want to listen to anyone and is bloodthirsty enough to purposely kill his own people for victory. That does not vibe with how he was written in the first movie.

Now, I could see him being written as a bit of a hot-headed rebel... if that rebellion was against following orders that sacrifice too many lives. Again, this would fit with his original characterization.

So if I could rewrite that opening sequence, I'd do it one of two ways:

---

Poe as loyal but conflicted

In this version of the sequence, Poe is ordered to sacrifice the ship with Rose's sister Paige on it for the good of the mission; he is conflicted but follows through, though he does everything he can to try to get Rose's sister out in time. These orders would have to come from Holdo, not Leia. Poe comes back, and is not reprimanded, but has a discussion with Leia about his conflicted feelings. Notably, Leia tells Poe he was right, and that sacrifice isn't always the correct choice, nor is blind obedience. Leaders can be wrong.

Poe as rebellious with morals

In this version of the sequence, Poe is given the order to sacrifice the ship, and refuses to follow through. Someone else involved, someone higher up, orders the ship to go through with the mission and it does, and Rose's sister Paige dies all the same. Poe is reprimanded upon return and taken off missions as in the movie, but he's seething for the right reasons this time. He talks to Leia and she agrees that he was right to disobey orders but there's nothing she can do at the moment.

---

Either of these changes keep Poe's morality and characterization intact and change the second lesson from "blind loyalty is great" to "blind loyalty is bad, actually".

And there would've been so many ways to work Finn into this too - Finn, who openly defied the First Order, refused to shoot, and then rescued Poe! In the scenario where Poe is loyal but conflicted, Finn could've been that additional voice to say "yeah you're right actually, disobeying bad orders is great, believe me".

In the other scenario, with rebellious Poe, it would've served to strengthen their friendship, as they are both now fighters who refused to take a life in the name of duty.

#star wars #star wars the last jedi #the last jedi #poe dameron #finn

[admirableadmiranda]

Can I ask your top 10 fav fics ever (from any fandom, if you don't mind)?

Also, just curious, is there a story behind your name "ladypfenix "?

I don't mind at all! Thank you for waiting quite a long while though, life has been.... hectic recently, to say the least.

I'll answer the story question here, then list the fics below since there's a lot.

It's a pretty simple story, when my sister and I were 14 and 16, we had a dream of starting a youtube channel as siblings, and we were going to use noble titles. I picked LadyPfenix for mine and opened my tumblr account with that in mind, but the idea never materialized beyond usernames and it has long since outlasted that dream. At this point I've had it too long to bother changing it, even though I'm using Admiranda most other places I go. Some things just stick.

I don't know that I have a top ten fave fics ever, it's hard for me to quantify on that level, but I'll definitely lay out the ones I keep going back to years on down the line even long after I've left the fandom. There's definitely something special about them that I will always enjoy.

The Professor's Wife by foolish_mortal (archive locked)

The students all said that Professor Doumeki had a wife who made him lunches and impeccably pressed his shirts. Watanuki found this hilarious. For the wtfholic fest prompt: "The only people who can see Watanuki are customers with wishes."

Eir's Tomorrow by jukeboxhound

Cloud is the Planet's greatest weapon, and if he can't fix old wrongs and battles then he may end up being the means by which it all ends (again).

A Little Bit To The Left by miixz

[A System error during execution bound you to Shi Yuan’s account instead of the intended Shen Qingqiu. We sincerely apologize.

You will be given the chance to climb from your current position of canon fodder as the story progresses and plot points become available to you. As Shi Yuan does not have an established character the OOC function is automatically unlocked, please accept this bonus as your compensation for the mistaken role.

Please ensure that no score falls below zero, or the System will automatically administer punishment.]

Intended role of Shen Qingqiu?! The fuck, were you trying to kill me? Why would anyone think transmigrating into that scum of all people would be helpful? Alright, alright. Shi Yuan takes a deep breath. He can deal with this. So he’d transmigrated into the shitty novel he’d just finished, but at least he’d somehow avoided becoming the villain. Or: Shen Yuan transmigrates into Proud Immortal Demon Way as a Bai Zhan Peak disciple.

The Way Home by Traincat

“This is an inane discussion,” Soren said. “I’m coming with you, and that’s final.” He took a step forward and swayed. If Ike reached out and shoved with one finger, he was sure he could topple Soren right over. He kept his arms folded so he wouldn’t be tempted to try and make a point. “I’m still your commander, aren’t I?” Ike asked, raising his eyebrows. “You still trust me to make decisions?” “Yes, but, Ike –” he said. “Then you’ll do as I say, for the good of the company,” Ike said. “I won’t risk you. You’re too important.” He stepped close, adjusting the hood of Soren’s cloak. He lowered his voice so he wouldn’t be heard by Shinon and Gatrie, waiting up by the gate. “Go back to bed,” he said, his voice gentler. “I’ll be home soon.” -- Post-Path of Radiance, Ike and Soren share a promise, a first kiss, and a bed. Not in that order.

A Pretty Good Year by arboretum

Giving up, moving in, living life.

Ikesoren Academia AU by leonidskies

Falling to the Rhythm by Selenay

"So it's a bet?" Jiang Cheng said. "Dance the showcase if you get him, fancy coffee machine if you don't?" Wei Wuxian considered the machine. "Fine. You're on. I want it in red." "Don't start planning your caffeine overdose yet." "It's in the bag," Wei Wuxian said cheerfully. "There's no way they'll match me with someone like Lan Wangji."   Teaching Lan Wangji to dance in front of the nation for twelve weeks, how hard can that be? Wei Wuxian is about to find out.

Series

this world (what I make of it) by glitteringmoonlight

The war had consequences. Once, a fully realized Avatar referred to one who had mastered all the elements and could go into the Avatar State. Now, that has changed. No one could master fire when there was no one to teach it, and people feared the abilities of a firebender too much to allow anyone, even the Avatar, to learn too much of it. Now, an Avatar was simply said to be fully realized when their instructors decided they had learnt enough.   In which Lan Sizhui is the Avatar, but he cannot firebend, nor can he waterbend very well. That changes when his travels take him to Yiling.

Preparing the Soil by Rynne

When Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian return to spend the first winter after their marriage in the Cloud Recesses, Wangji is forced to grapple with his uncle's resistance to accepting his new husband fully into the clan. At the heart of this conflict is Lan Qiren's rule forbidding talking to Wei Wuxian. How can Wangji make the Cloud Recesses a more welcoming place for his husband when what he fights now is his uncle's stubbornness?

#asks #anon #anon asks #fic rec

[randomfoggytiger]

Hank Moody, Maggie Scully, and ESTPs

When I set aside time to study Hank Moody the character, I found an interesting little surprise: he is the same Type as Maggie Scully, the famed mother of Special Agent Dana Scully of The X-Files. There's already a "stick to the facts" deep-dive I dedicated to Maggie here; but, seeing this as the perfect opportunity for a juicier, meatier analysis, I dove right in, got lost in the weeds, and surfaced a (very waterlogged) fascinated little amateur Typist.

How can debaucherous "playboy" Hank Moody have anything in common with buttoned-up Catholic Maggie Scully? Quite easily, actually: the differences are born from a lack of maturity. To put it simply, everything that is wrong for Hank Moody's Type to do (without malice), he's doing it. So, let's read him for filth.

Here we go~

A Summary of Typing Functions

Every Personality Type is comprised of 4 main Functions (Hero, Parent, Child, and Inferior) and 4 secondary Functions (Nemesis, Critic, Trickster, and Demon) that "shadow" or mimic the 4 main ones. These 8 combine to create the "Ego" (main) and "Unconscious" (secondary) parts of a person's brain. There are two other sides of the mind (Subconscious and Superego); but that information didn't need to be touched on in this post.

Below are the 8 Functions:

Ni = Introverted Intuition: Personal Willpower, Choice, Desire, Focus, Goal, Freedom (“my wants, my goals”)

Ne = Extroverted Intuition: Metaphysics, Possibilities, Potential, Desirability (“everyone’s wants, goals; collective fate, future”)

Si = Introverted Sensing: Tradition, Duty, Sharing, Loyalty, Security, Habit (“what’s my comfort, what I’m loyal to”)

Se = Extroverted Sensing: Physical Performance, Finesse, Realism, Observation, Demonstration (“others’ collective experiences; joins with or copies others”)

Fi = Introverted Feeling: Morals, Principles, Mood, Investment, Worth, Measure (“what I feel, what I believe”)

Fe = Extroverted Feeling: Ethics, Inclusivity, Acceptance, Culture, Balance, Support (“how others feel, how we’re bonding”)

Ti = Introverted Thinking: Deduction, Filter, Verification, Facts, Criticism (“what I think, what the facts say”)

Te = Extroverted Thinking: Achievements, Standards, Metrics, Rules, Induction, Beliefs, Labels (“what’s collectively thought or proven”)

Hank Moody and Maggie Scully, the ESTP

ESTPs are often labeled as the "alpha" of the Personality Types because they naturally draw people to them-- a little wolf pack of friends and family, if you will-- and effortlessly take the lead, carving through the world to make their own path. They are concrete and direct in communication, take the initiative in relationships and conversations, figure out their own and others' best interests, and pragmatically dole out solutions with a "forgiveness instead of permission" attitude. Their Introverted Thinking (ES-Ti-P) uses facts and hard truths to filter what is socially acceptable; and their Extroverted Sensing (E-Se-TP) uses their freedom of choice to observe others and create memories with them. ESTPs are wired around strengthening others because it makes them stronger, something which they must try (and fail) at before they succeed.

Their Typing Functions in chronological order:

Sensing Extroverted (Se for short) is fully tuned to the present-- mastering the tangible, physical world-- but must have someone to experience it with to truly appreciate life. They struggle with metaphysics: consequences and long-term implications; and tend to be highly reactive because of how strongly expressive Se Hero is. Thinking Introverted (Ti for short) is personalized, independent thought: ESTPs want to improve the people around them, cheering on others' success and improvements. Feeling Extroverted (Fe for short)-- rooted in ethics, inclusion, and support-- craves to be involved in every aspect of their loved ones' lives, delightedly lavishing intense attention on them at every available opportunity; and will be devastated if they are not someone's top priority, too. They are also known for their sexual escapades, seeing intimacy as a way to give back as well as receive. In fact, ESTPs often chase multiple skirts or shorts as a way to connect with that singular person's unique, individual qualities (this, however, leads them to many predictable problems if they have an underdeveloped Ni Inferior.) If-- note the if-- an ESTP is healthy, they combine their Ti Parent with their Fe Child to push the people around them toward needed improvement, feeling fulfilled and loved when their efforts help another person. Introverted Intuition (Ni for short) focuses on personal choice: specifically, an ESTP's inability to make one, unhealthily leading them to string along potential partners out of fear of commitment as well as overly relying on others to make important decisions for them. And because they don't know what to choose, ESTPs can be sold on anything as long as someone else has “tried it” and recommended it– which leads them to crashing headlong into disaster. To overcome their fear of picking wrong, ESTPs have to learn that there will always be another choice (and another and another) for them to continually make; and that a decision now is not the end-all-be-all. Lower down Introverted Sensing (Si for short) gives ESTPs horrific long-term recall, trading their sharper memories in favor of the ones that glorify the past; which possibly leads them to repeated mistakes that should have been learned the first time. It also makes them paranoid that they'll miss a deadline, a date, an anniversary, etc.; and, ultimately, that those obligations will end up cramping their freedom in the long run. Thinking Extroverted (Te for short) measures rationale, pre-established standards, and achievements: ESTPs are very critical of others’ thinking, inclined to believe that everyone is stupid but them. LOLs and mainstream forms of communication are likely unwelcome to a grouchy, 'high-art' writer with 'standards'; but an ESTP's mind can be changed after observing positive and prolonged outcomes from newer options or methods. Introverted Feeling (Fi for short) focuses on personal morals and values: and in this slot, it causes ESTPs to have none. Everything can be true or false; and this sense of rudderlessness leads them to either find someone with high moral fiber to learn from or attempt to fill that unsettled feeling by making others happy with various pleasure-seeking behaviors. Extroverted Intuition (Ne for short) struggles with metaphysics: ESTPs don't care about the intentions of other humans-- only the outcome of their actions-- which allows them to clearly read the motives of those around them. If their needs aren't met, ESTPs will fight and rage to the bitter end; and if their anger won't help them, they then turn that energy into sundry depraved means as a way to soothe their (metaphorical) injuries, bleeding out while in the furious pursuit of their passions.

The Foundational Flaw: A Lack of Self-Awareness

ESTPs are Se+Fe Types-- Se Hero, Fe Child-- which means they have zero awareness of cause and effect. Because Se is so focused on people-observation and the now and Fe is so focused on giving and taking emotionally from others, this Type is left with almost zero internal self-reflection. Hence, a stunning lack of social awareness: Hank Moody chooses to react instead of reflect, twirling around in the same circle of rakes and stepping on them over and over and over again.

What is each rake in the circle called? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Ni Inferior and Fi Trickster: Indecision and Commitment Issues

At the heart of Hank Moody's issues is the immaturity of his Inferior function; and that lack of development stems back to-- as always-- his childhood.

Pre-adolescent children need the guidance of their parents to help hone-in on and mature that function because it is, while initially weak, a source of great strength and a gateway to true contentment and fulfillment. Ni Inferior, specifically, struggles with choices. Introverted Intuition focuses on one's own path forward-- their willpower, what they want to accomplish, what they strive for-- but in an Inferior position, it loses the clarity of knowing which path to follow. Every choice-- person, place, thing, or idea-- seems to be filled with endless possibilities, good and bad; so, they end up not making any choice at all for fear of crippling possible potential in their future.

But it's not just Ni Inferior that is holding him back: the curse of Hank's existence is his Fi Trickster.

Post adolescent kids usually graduate from "Ego" work (the first four functions) to focus on burgeoning "shadow" work (the last four functions): there is an immense shift from living in a primary "easy" side of the mind and having to shift, forcefully, into functions that, if not tempered or trained, can become very handicapping. Again, Hank Moody likely didn't have enough parental support or guidance during this next crucial stage.

Putting it bluntly, Fi Trickster is more than willing to break a few (or all) social rules if it doesn't understand the importance of the context behind them. Personally self-destructive habits are second nature to Moody because he doesn't fully grasp or 'actualize' the ramifications of his actions; and if said actions trick him into thinking they help-- or make him feel temporarily better--then Hank won't see what the big deal is... until he's face-to-face with the consequences later.

To quote my paragraph from the Maggie Scully assessment: "Introverted Feeling (Fi for short) focuses on personal morals and values– what is right or wrong rather than what is true or false. ESTPs are completely unaware of what they value, creating a black hole of self-esteem issues they try to fill by making others feel good with their Fe Child. Siphoning off of that person’s happy experiences allows them to reflect that satisfaction back to themselves, “proving” that they are, indeed, a good person. In the worst-case scenario, these weaknesses lead to debaucherous, pleasure-seeking behaviors– smoking, food or alcohol or drug or lifestyle addiction– and when combined with a bitter Ne Demon... and an unruly Se Hero, ESTPs are the types most likely to become nymphomaniacs, seeking out the pleasure of intimate relationships without any of the fulfillment (because sex to them is an extension of one’s own personal worth.) Of course, the feeling of emptiness grows, their self-worth continues to plummet; and if they haven’t forced themselves to get out of their Ni Inferior’s rut, an ESTP will become a restless “addict” to this substanceless way of life: stuffing their face with delusory satisfaction."

Hank admitted this himself in a moment of honesty: “It’s my purgatory, really-- dinner, drinks, whatever. I’m never really all that interested, but I end up telling her she’s beautiful, anyway. Because it’s true: all women are, in one way or another. Y’know, there’s always something about every woman… my life’s work. But then there’s the morning after: a hangover, and realizations that I’m not quite as available as I thought I was the night before. Then she’s gone, and I’m haunted by yet another road not taken." This statement perfectly sums up the tag-team of Fi Trickster ("all women are, in one way or another") and Ni Inferior ("another road not taken.")

Maggie Scully may appear to be his polar opposite (because her Fi Child found something to cling to-- faith) but she still displayed these two indecisive functions in One Breath, trusting her older daughter to make the necessary moral choice. It also explains why she married her husband, a military man with fixed ideas of 'should dos' and 'what was right' and 'what was duty.' She tells Dana Scully "You were always the strong one" in Memento Mori, leaning on her daughter even during Scully's fatal diagnosis. Hank, meanwhile, has no one long-term to rely on for rock-solid stability; nor has he put in the work to fix the gaps that were never filled-in when he was growing up.

Of course, these aren't Mr. Moody's only flaws.

Truth-Telling Hypocrites and Rose-Colored Glasses

ESTPs are wired to correct, instruct, and help move people forward in life. A sympathetic ear, a well-placed hug, and a motivating check-in are all trade-offs for the brutally honest truth. Hank doesn't mean to (or want to) hurt anybody when he tells it like he sees it: it's the truth, he's gotta say it. He's a truth teller, period.

However, he also has a nasty habit of dismissing others' bad behaviors or actions to justify his own. Te Critic takes the measure of a person once, writes it down, and doesn't deviate from that opinion no matter how many years have passed. Life happened, that person changed? Nope. More mature ESTPs will verify with their Ti Parent, turning over the facts to challenge their opinions. But he doesn't want to, not really. Why? Because he can use it as an excuse for his own behavior.

Hank Moody has a short-term memory, so to speak (Se Hero): he lives in the now, isn't aware of the consequences, and decides that to keep scores would be unfair to others because they would then start to keep scores on yours truly. It's a covert contract-- "I'll accept you with no judgment, you accept me with no judgment"-- and yet another symptom of how much "growing up" he still has to do.

And worse, it breeds a haze that tints his clarity. Because of Hank's short-term memory, he can go from feeling absolutely betrayed by a person one day, hating them the next, and loving them the third after a faint apology on their part. Rose-colored glasses, in other words. He keeps drowning himself in unhealthy-bordering-on-abusive cycles; and, of course, he expects others to treat him and his mistakes in exactly the same way. It's why he surrounds himself with flip-flopping, unstable, neurotic people; and they all return the favor.

The only person in Moody's life to shake him out of said patterns-- to truly devastate or crush him-- is his daughter, who refuses to accept his 'let bygones be bygones' attitude. It is her criticism that cuts the most: Becca is stalwart and immovable; and he cannot excuse himself around her. Their flawed relationship becomes a constant reminder of his constant failures; and this sets off a swift and strong spiral into self-loathing.

Self-Esteem, Self-Sabotage, and Spiraling

Hank Moody will fail. Constantly. He's wired to do so: as previously discussed, Se+Fe is so out-of-tune with reflection and their inner world that they flub, mess up, trip over, fail, fail, fail until, finally, they succeed. His personality will always be a work-in-progress; and successful relationships with him must be built from the idea that he cannot achieve perfection except through very, very hard work.

Unfortunately, Hank-- and, more broadly, the ESTP Type-- hates failure, fears failure, runs from failure. Not only does he fear it, but his Ni Inferior is even more in-tune with the probabilities of failure, stun-locking him in indecision. Failure, to him, represents rejection: not of what he hasn't accomplished, but of himself. Thus, if he fails, he hates himself. Loathes himself. Cannot stand living with himself. Seeks out distractions of any sort to stay so in-tune with the moment that what little self-reflection he does have gets swiftly shoved away in the closet. His Fi Trickster then comes into play: he berates himself for his morals, or lack thereof; tries to course-correct with impossibly high standards; and lapses back into failure. Thus, he runs back to his tried-and-true lifestyle, basking in its toxicity and crowing that it reads 'safe' on the label.

Becca, however, doesn't accept that from him, forcing her father to face failure over and over (and over); and over time, this eats and eats (and eats) away at him until he must choose to move forward or lapse back into fear. That fear swiftly turns into a conviction that he'll never be able to change, which starts the second phase of his self-hating spiral.

Because he spirals into further self-hatred, Hank's anguish then lashes out at the people he loves the most, hurting them in turn. Hank then ruminates and agonizes dispiritedly, resigning himself to never being 'good enough' for anyone. Instead of fixing his faults, he hyper-fixates on the other person's hurt, begging for forgiveness but refusing to forgive himself. That person becomes a reminder of all the wrongs he's done until the pain is so great he withdraws, either minimizing the relationship or cutting it off completely.

Rarely is this a full-on devastating spiral: often the scenario is a routine argument that follows these motions, or a bad week or a few bad weeks that is cleared up and rectified. Mostly, these spirals serve as a wake-up call to ESTPs: a behavioral mirror to prove that Hank needs to get into his head and sort a few things out. Maggie Scully had a few of these moments sprinkled throughout the series (an implied rift when her younger daughter joined the FBI, her daughter's withdrawal when she was diagnosed with cancer, etc.); but chose to learn from her mistakes and grow as a person.

But Hank, again, doesn't want to change. So, how are these relationship 'oopsies' unhealthily resolved?

Absolution...

Hank Moody lives and dies by justifications. As discussed above, his 'rose-colored glasses' philosophy allows him to get away with murder by permitting others to get away with their own crimes as well; but if the current catastrophe is his fault and his fault alone, Hank immediately seeks out that justification through absolution.

Namely, he picks fights. By fighting about the issue, it allows him and the other person to blow off steam, feel better, swap acknowledgements, and move on with a feeling of accomplishment while not having changed a thing. Hank craves being told what he did was understandable in some way or other-- it allows him the ability to shift and share blame, then feel justified when both exonerates the other. Further, it builds up goodwill for the next big mistake he makes and allows him to dodge the reality that he's failed, hardcore, in the present. He spirals, yes, in the minutes to hours that the fight lasts; then he settles, content that he's 'not all that bad', that he's even loveable, that he doesn't have to face the fear that he'll never, really, be able to change.

Maggie Scully behaves similarly in Memento Mori, ranting at her daughter (spoken through her wounded Fe Child) before sweeping it all under the rug once Dana Scully didn't rebuke her outburst. However, Maggie's blow up is 'understandable' (there's that word, again), since it seemed to be a one-off, stress-induced reaction. Hank's behaviors? Not so much.

...Repeating Mistakes

Once absolution is achieved, stasis is reattained, and no forward progress is made. Because of that, Hank repeats the entire cycle all over again: Se+Fe living in the moment; Ni Inferior flopping between ill-advised choices; Fi Trickster soothing a sense of immoral self-loathing with wine, women, and song; surrounding himself with low-bar company to excuse his own bad behavior; perpetuating abusive or toxic cycles; and, ultimately, spiraling into self-hatred, acting out, and seeking others' absolution instead of earning their forgiveness.

How Hank Moody Can 'Grow Up'

Boiling it all down, Hank Moody is petrified by failure; but his low threshold for moral understanding (Fi Trickster), his inability to stick to one 'fix-it' route for fear of choosing wrong and losing his freedom (Ni Inferior), and his constant failures hurting his loved ones (Fe Child) keep him from taking the next step in his character development. As a child, Hank wasn't shown that it's okay to keep trying and keep losing until he eventually won; as an adult, his personality is wired around helping others improve... but Moody is stuck, because he doesn't believe he can improve.

Well, how can Hank prove (to himself) that he can 'grow up'? Simple: by tackling his Ni Inferior.

Firstly, Mr. Moody must learn to make choices; it will prove to him how largely unfounded his fears are. Not only will he always be given a second (and a third and a fourth and so on) option down the line, but he will also prove to himself that he can make sound decisions without destroying everything he's afraid to lose.

Secondly: remember how Mr. Moody could meet a person once, jot down their character, and refuse to deviate from that initial assumption? He's shot himself in the most valuable foot: with wisdom, Te Critic learns that those initial assumptions are often biased, incomplete, or wrong; and because those initial assumptions are often wrong, Hank is missing out on the smarts that person has to offer: he must learn to outsource. Asking for feedback and running his choices and decisions by another person first provides an outlet for him to gain a clearer understanding and-- because he is 'locked out' internally-- thoroughly develop his thoughts and opinions. But he must do so wisely: not simply accepting the first answer he's given (another Ni Inferior pit fall), but taking the time to weigh all the pros and cons.

And lastly, Mr. Moody must learn to give others the choice to reject him, realizing that his zeal to avoid rejection strips them of the right to leave or stay of their own freewill. If his friends or family don't choose to stay of their own accord, then Hank can't truly accept that they love, forgive, completely absolve, and want to continue forward with him.

If Hank Moody can take on an important decision, not wig out, ask for advice, choose wisely, and wait until life proves to him that this is not the end of the world, he will finally be able to face himself in the mirror with unshakeable, worthy pride. And it will go a long way in his forward journey and healing process.

Thank you for reading~!

Enjoy!

Dedication: Thanks to @dd-is-my-guiltypleasure and @perpetually-weirdening for fanning the flames of curiosity-- this Hank Moody post wouldn't have existed without the both of you.

Disclaimers: This is a self-assessed analysis. This information is not based on the abominable MBTI system (which has been butchered from its original Jungian typology since ~WWII); instead, it’s a combination between the works of Jung’s type psychology, Dr. Linda Berens’ Communication styles, Dr. Dario Nardi’s EEG brain scan compiled research, and others’ data and practices as compiled and simplified by CSJoseph. This system is based only on the Nature side of Nature/Nurture; and each “type” is not a “box” to fit everyone into– simply a tool to help understand the basics of the human mind that science has only begun to fathom in its limited scope.

#txf #Californication #Personality Typing #Typing #Jungian Typing #Types #analysis #meta #xf meta #xfiles #x-files #the x files #Hank Moody #Maggie Scully #mine