#and directly contradicting what I believe logically

[godsfavoritescientist]

Actual photo of me whenever I try to think of a Bill Redemption Arc that I could write without making it the angstiest plotline ever known to man

#gods bill doodles #bill moment #pain and suffering :] :'] #'does bill deserve redemption' well you see. I dont believe anyone is irredeemable. but. #projecting onto the fictional character means it is easy for me to go 'it could never work out </3 he can never be redeemed' #im in my little corner like 'If Bill can be fixed then so can I-' #oversharing in the tags. but hey. at least it clarifies where im coming from when i go 'idk how to redeem this guy' #completely opposite place than people are usually coming from when they say that #and directly contradicting what I believe logically #that redeemability isnt a useful concept in the first place. people can always always become better #and other characters choosing to forgive is a very personal choice which is never impossible nor required #and being forgiven has nothing to do with some mythical idea of Being Done Atoning For One's Crimes. #assuming that redeemability is an Obviously True Moral Framework Everyone Should Subscribe To makes talking about villains very difficult #gotta start with goddamn Philosophy About The Nature of Morality before we can even Start to unpack thoughts on villain characters #idk i could talk about this for forever. but im really just here to overshare in the tags so i'll stop talking about philosophy now #oh also. pls ignore bills weird hands. i did not draw good hands here. thats just the way it is sometimes #gods art #my art highlights

[skyeventide]

there's like, things about Dragon Age and the ancient elven empire there that I don't believe can quite be grasped unless you have a cursory understanding of either Tolkien or the Tolkien-generated trope of elves as an advanced civilisation of superior beings with magic/technology/knowledge/lore that is now lost and/or that largely influenced the remnants of the human empire, which substituted the elven one as the leading force in the continent. fantasy worlds like Dragon Age are deeply in conversation with that (and I guess like the Witcher or smth but I never read or played that, and didn't finish season 1, so my knowledge is second-hand; but either way).

the thing in Tolkien and Tolkien-generated tropes is that these elves are good. they're superior, they teach things to the second-coming races, they're narratively exalted, they're borderline divine, any kind of more or less violent colonialism (it happens) and feudalism (also happens) they instate is good, narratively obfuscated, or even justified. Tolkien has criticism of colonialism in his work, but rarely if ever goes all the way when it comes to elves. criticism of elven hierarchies based on clan and level of holiness and greatness are often narratively undermined (e.g. Eol, a character whose criticism of Turgon and the Noldor is diluted by the fact that he's awful as a person)(you can go into detail about Galadriel and Nimrodel but this post is technically a Dragon Age post lmao).

there's a Tolkien paper called "The Wretched of Middle Earth: An Orcish Manifesto" by Charles Mills, which goes into scathing detail about how the narrative sets up the elves as a superior race and consistently characterises the other groups, orcs, humans, dwarves, as racial inferiors. it's not afraid to call out "aryan" comparisons, without trying to argue that Tolkien actively believed in that ideology. the racial herarchy is there, in the text.

tl dr elves have all the rhetorical trappings of an empire... without ever being one. they're good, they're paternally helpful towards the humans they educate (who are therefore the superior humans), and they're good also and particularly in the sense that they never "fell" in a religious sense, no matter their individual actions (fastidious details and contradictions notwithstanding). they didn't abandon the true god.

what's happening in Dragon Age is that these elves, who are narratively presented as the "true" elves, the lost ideal, the immortals before modern elves turned from their ways and lost that immortality, the great advanced civilisation that probably taught humans before humans feasted on their remnants, these elves... are an empire. they conquer, enslave, pillage from the dwarves (another trope turned on its head; don't tell me the dwarves-elves peaceful companionship where the dwarves keep digging to satisfy the demand of material but they're also best friends with elves, turned to explicit war of conquest for possession of raw material in Dragon Age, doesn't elicit mithril-lyrium comparisons), have pantheon wars. this is the sole logical conclusion of those tropes. it's the subtext, the unspoken, the unspeakable, brought straight to light. it's the rhetoric of empire that's been buried in stories about elves brought to its only possible sensible end: this is an actual empire. there's no way it could have been anything else.

(this goes deeper with the numenor-gondor-tevinter comparisons, which are absolutely blatant when you know that gondor's precursors, numenor, went full empire, and that their last action before the island sank was attack the elves' blessed realm. if ar-pharazon and numenor had won, we could have gotten something very similar to Tevinter in storyline. only the Tolkien racial hierarchy simply cannot be toppled like that, it's practically divinely mandated and protected. the maker-the allfather directly and personally intervenes. but without this extremely disruptive and literal deus ex machina, that too is turned on its head in Dragon Age: it's not god who sinks the capital of the human empire to prevent their violent conquest AND traps the fighting humans underground, after the elves have fled instead of choosing to fight; it's humans who arrive, the elves flee, and then humans presumably sink the capital city into the ground. once again, when the ontological hierarchy of races and the divine decree of goodness and favour is removed, the true logical conclusion comes to the fore. one empire substitutes the other.)

#Dragon Age #The Silmarillion #I honestly think the choice of the elvhenan empire #built on decades-long tropes of fantasy and elves #is sheer genius #Elvhenan #JRR Tolkien

[spirit-meets-the-b0ne]

I’ve already made a post about the borderline insane “hot take” they’re trying to make with Ozai in this show but here I am again …

Another contradiction of principle - Zuko is in an Agni Kai for speaking out indirectly against the Fire Lord and then you have Iroh come along and directly and in front of the crowd CHALLENGE Ozai and there’s no punishment for him? There’s no continuity of logic here. I get the intention. I do. Half the heart break of this original scene and event in canon is that NO ONE could or would stand up for Zuko. His mother was already gone at this point and Iroh canonically knew he could not stop Ozai. He had to sit and watch like everyone else. Not to mention Ozai literally had his own father killed what would hold him back from killing Iroh for trying to stop him beating his son’s ass lol? That would make more sense to me than this scenes intentions.

This show is so messy and there’s so many contradictions because they’re trying to make Ozai “less two dimensional” and failing to land.

I actually couldn’t think anything is more contrary to the truth. Ozai in the original show is cold, calculating and an aggressive opportunist. This attempt to soften him up is just not hitting with me because there’s no way this portrayal is earning me more sympathy for Zuko than the reality of having a mentally ill and narcissistic parent who indiscriminately chooses power over everything else.

I genuinely believe if the original movie attempt wasn’t SO bad no one would honestly make the excuses for this show that have been made.

#natla #atla #prince Zuko #Zuko #fire lord Ozai #Iroh #Ozai #it’s laughable how off they are on all the fundamentals of these characters

[chirpsythismorning]

Mike’s monologue makes so much more sense when you remember, he’s a frickin’ Paladin...

Paladins take their oath very seriously, and I do think that the whole theme of friends don't lie, is in part loosely inspired by this oath that Paladin's make, and how one of their most defining qualities is swearing by tenants of honesty.

All of us often overlook the D&D aspect in the show and how central of a role it plays, arguably even more so than parallels with the hundreds of movies they refer to for inspiration, and that's why this moment of Mike's monologue with El in s4, along with Mike's monologue with Will in season 2, is so important to consider if we want to be ready for what's about to go down in s5.

It's as if Mike is acting out an oath of devotion to these two characters. Though his oath to Will comes off a lot more genuine, it's unfortunately undermined slightly by the oath he presents to El, because they're both attempting to be an oath of devotion. By saying he loved El the moment he saw her and how his life started at that very moment, he's contradicting what he said to Will just hours before about how meeting El was simple dumb luck, as well as directly paralleling (and in turn undermining) what he told Will back in s2, which is that meeting Will/asking to be his friend was the best thing he's ever done.

Mike is inadvertently breaking an oath he once made, while also creating a new oath that stands on false grounds.

We've talked about the whole Watch out dominos, your dominos are gonna fall, and how it's related to Mike because he's in the shot equally to Argyle as he says it. But seriously you guys, it's related to Mike.

It's about the internal struggle he's been having for a few years now, growing and growing and him sort of refusing to examine it closely, because he knows that he's in a situation where he's supposed to be devoting himself to El. It's the expected path, and not only that but he also feels indebted to El after all she has done for him (also what the ga thinks which is why they argue even if Mike doesn't love El, they shouldn't break up bc it would hurt her.... Mike shares the ga's logic...), and so as it becomes more and more clear to him that she loves him and wants him to love her, he's trying his best to accept it, while also not being able to because he knows deep down he's breaking an oath that he already made if he follows through with this.

While I think there are a bunch of different factors at play, very likely Mike is aware of what his heart truly wants, which is why he's having such a hard time following through with devoting himself to El. Because deep down, he knows he's already devoted to someone else.

Luckily (tragically), Mike is breaking his oath because he thinks it's the right thing to do. Which just makes him even more of a Paladin if you think about it. The fact that him not wanting to break an oath is why he's been struggling for so long.

I don't think he knows that he's hurting Will while he's doing it, because the oath has more to do with him and being honest with himself, and I don't think he knows he's hurting El by doing this either, because he's under the assumption she wants him to say all of these things. He had doubts originally because there were reasons to have doubts as a result of Mike stalling for so long, but I just don't think Mike would go through with the monologue, if he thought that it wasn't what El wanted.

What makes Mike's arc so painfully tragic, is that he is led to believe at this point that El wants him romantically more than she needs him and that's the whole problem. He is unable to love her in the way she wants him to at this point, and he knows this. And he's still holding back.

That's another thing that's so sad about Mike going through with it in the end anyways, because I think a lot of his guilt stems from knowing that El wants him to love her, and yet he's unable to meet her halfway. And then going through with it in the end, when he doesn't truly mean it, that's... like he's breaking every code in his own book by doing this.

And it is likely going to really affect him.

The dominos are gonna fall. Not just for him, but for everyone.

The good news is that there is a standard way for this to play out, based on D&D rules and interestingly enough, it fits quite well with what s5 is likely to entail...

#byler #stranger things #d&d #stranger things 5 #mike wheeler #paladin #stranger things theory #stranger things meta #st5 predictions

[tears-of-taelia]

re: melia & emma

I've been thinking about this for awhile now. The way that the newest version of the Blacksteeple Castle chapter has presented Emma is interesting. There will be spoilers ahead, so don't read if you're still working your way through version 13.5!

My ramblings begin below. Here are some official pics (by the amazing Zumi) for reference.

As we know, during the events of Blacksteeple Castle, Melia wore a disguise to hide her true identity. This disguise is removed when Madame X slashes it with her sword. There is a small animation that follows, where a dark magical aura envelopes “Emma” before she is revealed to be Melia.

After the subsequent chaos, the disguise is not brought up again. However, the character of Emma is revealed to still reside in Melia’s cognition, apparently unbeknownst to Melia, as she says, “I thought I left you behind at Blacksteeple”. How odd.

Then, (a long time) later, while exploring the 3rd Layer, Melia stumbles across a deathbed journal entry written by a Garufa Inc. volunteer named Emma. It reads as follows.

My name is Emma. I undertook the Archetype's power today, and it failed miserably. I was unable to manifest its power and was mortally wounded during a test. I thought I actually had potential... but I guess not. The doctors say I don't have long left. It's cruel, isn't it? Life is just so cruel. But this is the path me and all the other volunteers chose. Humanity has nothing left but us. ...Is it all worth it in the end, though? What do we want to survive for? ...Anyway. I'm losing energy fast. Garufa Incorporated is our last hope. Please, save us.

Melia expresses to Nim that she finds it odd that this person and her Blacksteeple cover share a name. Nim passes this off as a coincidence, and understandably so. Emma isn’t exactly a rare name (though perhaps things are different in the world of rejuvenation?). The coincidence still seems to bother Melia for some reason.

Now, there are a LOT of theories about Melia out there. Despite hours and hours of gameplay, her true identity has yet to be revealed.

People have theorized for years that she is Maria, and the game seems to heavily imply that that is the case. If Anathea had four children, Erin, Maria, Alice, and Allen, and Erin, Melia, Alice, and Allen know that they share a mother, Anathea, then it would logically follow that Melia is Maria. In addition, Melia and Maria physically resemble each other, Melia is unsure of her origins prior to meeting Jenner, and Maria has not otherwise made an appearance in the current timeline (besides the whole Marianette ordeal in Gearen Sewers). So, it’s not exactly a dramatic leap.

It is eventually even addressed by the characters themselves.  When Erin directly asks for her opinion on this matter, Melia balks, and seemingly contradicts herself.

MELIA: Hahah... I guess I've known for a long time that I was Maria. Ever since our interaction with Angie, that name has been going through my head in my dreams. But I have to disagree, Erin. I am not Maria. ERIN: But out of the process of elimination, you must be. MELIA: Sorry, but it's true. That's what my mind is telling me, desperately. I am not Maria. I am not Maria. That's what echoes in my head.

If Melia is and is not Maria, then… how…? In what way? Who is she? Why would she share a connection with Erin? Why is she the only one with Genesis Syndrome? And what does Emma have to do with all of this? I don’t really have an answer. But there is something I want to muse on.

Let’s circle back to Melia’s “disguise”, if we can even call it that. Her cover as Emma made her look like an entirely different person, unrecognizable to the Player character. She has a different outfit, hair color, and eye color. If we are to believe that this is an ordinary disguise, we would need to believe that, with one slash, Madame X was able to tear through a wig, two color contacts, and an entire outfit, including thigh high boots. We would need to believe that Melia conveniently decided to wear a different outfit underneath this disguise, and that Madame X was able to slash off her exterior outfit without marring the one underneath. We would also need to believe that the special, dark, magical animation the occurs at this moment was purely aesthetic and meaningless.

So, yeah, I don’t really believe it this disguise is your regular, run-of-the-mill costume.

We learn that Melia was sent to Blacksteeple through the powers of Spacea and Tiempa. She was on a mission as a Storm Chaser, to save the Player character and gather information. As we know (all too well) from V13.5, Spacea and Tiempa are powerful. Specifically, they have powers over space and time akin to Palkia and Dialga. They use these powers pretty recklessly to manipulate many characters throughout the story. However, every instance of power they exhibit is strictly tied to their dimensions, space and time. Spacea does magic related to space. Tiempa does magic related to time. So, how, then, would they be able to create such a magical disguise for Melia? Through Garufan dress-up magic? Creating an illusion? Maybe. I wouldn’t be shocked. But I think it’s more than that. I think that Spacea and Tiempa used their magic to revive a version of Melia from the past, a different dimension, or a different “layer” (past world?). Perhaps… the third layer. A different appearance. A different life. Emma.

I think of it sort of like what happened with Narcissa during the Dufaux sidequest. But, instead of S+T directly swapping Melia with Emma, they just projected the appearance of Emma onto Melia.

There isn’t much to support or detract from this speculation. What we do know? We know that Melia is and is not Maria. We know that both Melia and Emma struggle to manifest the Archetype's power. We know that Emma resides in Melia’s cognition, like Melanie. We know Melia was deeply bothered by Emma’s journal entry in the Third Layer. We know that the outfit Melia dons when using her powers is very reminiscent of Emma’s.

We also know that Emma is dead.

Or, at least, presumed dead.

Just like Aevis, Aevia, Aria, Axel, Aero, and Alain.

You see where I’m going with this?

We know Emma dies disappointed, having believed she had “potential”, according to her journal entry. Did someone else think she had potential too? Perhaps, her “majesty” herself?

I know I’m not the only one to theorize that Melia is another Interceptor. I mean, it is heavily implied throughout the story. Melia is one of two characters for which we have seen Variya appear. The other, of course, being the player character. Melia is able to enter Zeight. In fact, she enters her own Zeight a couple of points during the game. She is shown with the triangular core motif a couple of times as well. She has led a lot of the research about the Interceptor phenomenon, in the Blakeory Athenaeum, for example.

How this all ties in with Maria, though? I don’t know. In the case of the Player character, we know that A-team didn’t want to live, and agreed to let Variya choose a different soul to take control over their body. Presumably, that soul is us, literally, the player, the person playing the game. Could Maria be the soul taking over Emma? Could Emma be the soul taking over Maria?

Who knows.

I do know there are holes in these theories. I know the events of the Renegade Route may complicate everything. (truthfully, I am too much of a wuss to complete the renegade route myself. I watched a youtube video of someone else's playthrough, so I know the broad strokes of what happens, but I definitely don't know the renegade lore in the same way I know paragon. maybe I should rewatch it at some point and take notes)

But this has been bouncing around my brain for too long and I wanted to put it in writing to help organize my thoughts. If you made it this far, wow, you rock! Thanks for reading. I’m interested if anyone has thoughts about this, if anyone can potentially disprove it, or if anyone has their own version or counter version of this idea! I live for this shit.

#pokemon rejuvenation #13.5 #theory #melia #emma #maria #just wanted to dump this somewhere

[mulletmitsuya]

I hated the tr ending so badly. Not because it was rushed or anything. Wakui could have fleshed out the last timeline so thoroughly and logically and I would still hate it because the ending itself goes against what I felt the story stood for in the first place. He replaced all the characters for fakes, none of the characters we were intoduced to had happy endings because they either are totally different people or re lived their life to avoid healing. The ending basically proved izanas last words right "there's no saving me" yeah I guess not if the only way to help everyone is to make sure their lives never happened the way it did. Horrible I hate it so much. Also one ship I hate is rinzu or ranzu because they don't even interact once and it's so popular for no fucking reason other than "its hot" and tbh they would prolly hate eachother like petty bitches, they would NOT get along at any point. Also Koko and amane ship because if people actually read the manga with their eyes open it would not make sense. Anyways thanks for letting me be a hater in ur askbox, I love your blog btw

This is long, also tw for typical tokrev themes and sa

I think you're the first person who has the same opinion as me lmao😭. I also didn't believe it should have had an ending like that at all because of the themes that had been set up during the entire story. I understand people's perspectives of "It's Wakui's manga and it's his ending he can do what he wants" but media is supposed to be talked about, discussed and even criticized at times. That's like, the whole point of publishing stuff. As an enjoyer and supporter of Wakui's manga, I feel like I have the right to question some inconsistencies and contradictions (not directly attack him tho, that's never okay. like people who send death threats over ships and stuff that's messed up) that showed up in the ending. I also believe lots of people didn't really take it seriously as a manga idk. It had some very serious topics that people seem to forget about. For example: suicide, abuse, abandonment, child neglect, substance abuse, extreme violence, rape, prostitution etc, and I think people just kinda see it as a silly manga that has cool characters they like. And that's okay. It's okay to not take a piece of media seriously and enjoy it for the sake of enjoying it, not everything needs to be critically analyzed, but stop shitting on the people who take it seriously enough to question why the fuck it ended how it ended. Lots of the discourse took place between critical analysers who wanted an author to finish the manga by sticking to the themes and messages he has set up the entire time versus casual enjoyers who just wanted everyone to be happy for the sake of liking the characters. And I completely agree with the Izana thing!!!! You cannot claim to have saved someone by rewriting their entire life!!! Takemitchy was not supposed to be god!! Also, isn't the moral story of time travel that you should never ever do it? Because you win some, you lose a whole lot fucking more. I thought Draken dying was setting up that narrative. That saving Mikey, was gonna fuck up a whole lot. Isn't that why Chifuyu broke down?

Idk about you guys, but dark impulses being a curse disappointed me quite a bit. I thought it was supposed to be a symbol of Mikey being deeply mentaly ill. And that he had to deal with it head on and not run away all the time (this was Takemichi's entire storyline basically and the the main theme of TR). I just feel like it sucked because the message of the ending, whether Wakui intended it or not, was that you can't be fixed without magical time traveling. Although the story had some fictional aspects, it was realistic at least. I thought they'd deal with everything that wasn't time travel realistically.

Any ship with Sanzu and the Haitani's is hilarious to me and although I don't ship any of them seriously, the fanarts fun to look at some time (and you're right I think they look good together cause they're hot😭). You are completely correct about them not liking each other tho. It's actually canon. Idk if you remember during the three deities fight when Ran hit Haruchiyo with his baton? Nothing but pure malice between their eyes😭. The Koko and Akane ship actually triggers me because one thing about me? I'm not comfortable with large age gaps. Akane was 5 years older than Koko💀. And I didn't know people took what she said to him seriously. I thought she was just trying to not hurt his feelings? Koko and Inupi were around 7/8 when the fire happened. Meaning Akane was like 12/13. Uhhh Idk bout y'all but I don't think a 13 yo would be attracted to someone that young. And waiting for them to be of age is...😶. Be fr.

#ty for the ask <3 #anon this took me so long to write but i enjoyed it #i'm so serious about this tokyo revengers shit😭 #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers manga #tokrev #tokyo rev #rinzu #ranzu #koko x akane #thanks for liking my blog i always appreciate your support and ily #tw: sa mention

[sewercl0wn]

Antagonists, anti-heroes, and villains: A how-to (part 1)

Antagonists are what arguably drive a story. From facilitating conflict and plot progression, to defining and shaping the protagonist. A well written villain could turn your story from meh to unforgettable.

manipulation_.

Good and bad isn’t black and white. A well written villain will bring intrigue to their points and make them appeal, even if you don’t directly support them.

For example, 1984 by George Orwell was greatly improved thanks to O’Brien - while I don’t think he is correct in anything he’s done, I was immersed in his reasonings and manipulative personality.

Taken from the book, I fully believe this following passage shows gaslighting and manipulative anti-heroes and the effect they have on the victim:

“...but the aim of this was simply to humiliate him and destroy his power of arguing and reasoning. Their real weapon was the merciless questioning that went on and on, hour after hour, tripping him up, laying traps for him, twisting everything that he said, convicting him at every step of lies and self-contradiction until he began weeping as much from shame as from nervous fatigue. Sometimes he would weep half a dozen times in a single session. Most of the time they screamed abuse at him and threatened at every hesitation to deliver him over to the guards again; but sometimes they would suddenly change their tune, call him comrade, appeal to him in the name of Ingsoc and Big Brother, and ask him sorrowfully whether even now he had not enough loyalty to the Party left to make him wish to undo the evil he had done. When his nerves were in rags after hours of questioning, even this appeal could reduce him to snivelling tears. In the end the nagging voices broke him down more completely than the boots and fists of the guards. He became simply a mouth that uttered, a hand that signed, whatever was demanded of him. His sole concern was to find out what they wanted him to confess, and then confess it quickly, before the bullying started anew.”

Other examples include Mother Gothel from Tangled and Light Yagami from Death note

Knowing the importance of a manipulative character, here’s how to write one:

Seclusion. By secluding and isolating the victim from other influences that can counter the scheming tactics. By taking someone away from familiar settings and people, they are more vulnerable

Guilt tripping and (mildly) degrading comments. Even minor playful ‘jokes’ or ‘teasing’ can contribute. By making someone feel worse or making them feel in debt, they feel morally obligated to stick around. Some might call this ‘playing the victim card’ (Some manipulators might switch between victimizing themselves and being the bully. Whatever is most convenient at the time)

Trust. There has to be a level of trust between victim and the character before they make any moves. Someone is more likely to overlook manipulative advances from someone who has helped them, shared moments with them, etc,. The victim will logically be more likely to trust a friend more than a stranger.

Remember, this doesn’t always happen immediately. Manipulators may be skilled in their craft, but they aren’t magic. It can take take days, weeks, months, or even years for a character to manipulate their targets.

base it off real life_.

A realistic character is always more interesting that a 2d one. People have layers, caked upon each other. If you're having trouble to write your antagonist - base it off real life.

E.g. You want to write a clown serial killer, base it off The Joker from batman, or "Clown Killer Gacy" (John Wayne Gacy)

THIS ISN'T AN EXCUSE TO PLAGIARIZE! (And you don't wanna get sued from making it too similar to a real character) read this post to learn about how to avoid plagiarism

(tw: don't google this next guy if you're not comfortable w gore + murder)

All villains have motive, taking the example of Blake Leibel - he tortured and murdered his fiance because their newborn daughter was taking away all the attention, as well as stress from avoiding Russian mob bosses that were trying to get money back from his brother.

Analyze villains you like from your favourite books, animes and movies. Delve deep and do research!

this was long, so i’ll make more parts to this and link them here. hope this helps!

#writing #creative writing #writers block #Writing tips #writers #writers on tumblr #written #writeblr #writing help #writing prompt #writing life #your local sewer rat #writing inspiration #writing villains #writing characters #villians #antagonist #writing anti heroes #anti heroes

[the-fae-folk]

You’ve said much of the world of faerie, fascinating things few people have seen. But what of humans? Humanity is fascinating. How do they survive in a world like this? How do they not know?

You would be absolutely astounded by the sheer number of things that humans do not know. In fact, I believe that I could safely say that the number of things we don't know outnumber the things we do in the same way that the grand totality of the universe is much more vast than a single walnut. And humans have an utterly fascinating set of capabilities whose primary purpose appears to be to preserve their life and sanity so that they can continue doing necessary and useful things such as gathering food, having families, and generally trying to make life better for all those who come after them. However, those capabilities also sometimes prevent them from seeing things as they are. Cognitive Dissonance is what happens when humans have ideas, beliefs, or actions that are inconsistent with other ideas, beliefs, and actions. It is an uncomfortable feeling, but more than that... it is a state that is actually quite a lot of hard work for the human brain to handle. So the brain will try to find the most efficient way in which to resolve the dissonance. Now an ideal way to deal with the problem would be to do some careful research on the matter, process and logically parse through all of the information, and finally adapt the new information into your existing worldview in order to form a more comprehensive cognitive state that is free of the bothersome dissonance. Unfortunately, this scenario is a lot more rare and more difficult to achieve than anyone would really like. You see, a great number of our decisions on a daily basis are made entirely within the subconscious. We make those trillions upon trillions of tiny decisions without even thinking about them in our conscious brain. When decisions that are significantly more important are made without the input of the conscious brain they can go unnoticed for a very long time until dissonance forces them forward into the focus of your attention. Everything you do is fueled by your motivations and instincts, and even your conscious logical reasoning can be affected by it too. So even when you're finally made aware of some sort of dissonance in your own mind, it's not actually an easy task to stop and truly think through the full scope of the problem. For example: without even realizing it, a person whose unknowing motivation is to maintain their positive self-regard can discount information that is unflattering or troubling if it contradicts their self-image. This is the brain's attempt to shortcut its way past the dissonance; it takes less energy for it to dismiss the contradictory information than to carefully reexamine and adapt the existing framework. This sort of problem effects everyone, and interestingly the effect becomes magnified when concerning any subject to which the person's self-identity is directly connected to. One might be tempted to believe that only the highly educated can elude the grasp of this unintentional survival skill gone wrong, however that would not be the case. In fact, there is a good deal of evidence that suggests that the highly educated might be MORE susceptible to this phenomenon in general due to their more comprehensive and structured worldviews. It is, of course, a useful survival tool, and it is possible to work around the inclination, but it always requires a significant amount of effort against the tendencies of one's own brain. Why do I mention all this? Well think, if someone going about their everyday life happened to see or hear something that went against all of their fundamental conclusions about how reality worked, it would be very easy indeed for their brain to simply... dismiss it or find some logical way to explain it out of existence, or simply to forget it because it doesn't fit. Who knows what wonders we might have missed because our minds couldn't make sense of them?

#fae #faerie #otherfolk #cognitive dissonance #humans #humanity #fairy

[tearsofalonelyprince]

Leviathan is actually OP: Expansion Pack

Alright here’s all of the reasons why Leviathan is OP as FUCK. [ This is the quick version. ]

Now before we begin! These are just part of my personal Levi headcanons and in no way am I caught up to the lore. I just re-read the fanwiki to fact check.

Also spoiler warning for Levi Lore!

Alright now let’s get into this Gamers!

First things first, what is a Leviathan in the first place? It’s a big ass sea monster (A Sea Serpent if you wanna get specific) that’s on a level similar or, dare I say, better than Angels. They are neither Angel nor Demon but something entirely in their own lane. Depending on what lore you read it is either the Embodiment of Chaos itself or just straight up some weird, scary, powerful thing God threw in the ocean. Honestly I like the juxtaposition of this snake. It furthers the Levi OP Theory I have.

Now, as we all know our own Levi is a water snake as well. He obviously isn’t always a big, monstrous snake, but from his demon form alone it’s likely he’s able to transform into one if we are going off the logic that Demons can appear as whatever they want to be seen as. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT MAKES HIM OP! What truly got me thinking about the fact that Leviathans aren’t seen in heaven. So just how did he become a General of the Celestial Army as an Angel? Personally, my head cannon is that Mammon found him while running away from Michael one day but that’s besides the point. Also, Generals are pretty high in ranking so this also begs the question of just what type of angel was he? Whatever he was, he had to be pretty strong in the Celestial Realm to be that high in their Army, right?

This brings me to his rank among the brothers. Leviathan is the Third strongest Demon Lord and is the Grand Admiral of Hell’s Navy. That’s a pretty high fucking ranking out of every single demon in the Devildom. Yet despite this high ranking Leviathan is often seen as “weak” and “out of shape” to the point that he can’t jump rope or run one lap around the HoL. Most often attribute this to him being a chronic gamer and rarely ever leaving his room. I, however, call bullshit.

There is no way he’s the Grand Admiral of the Navy and he’s out of shape! It just doesn’t make sense!!!

The fact that he still has that title not only implies that he’s still very much in that position, but Hell’s Navy is still functioning. Now I don’t know shit about how the navy works or anything like that but I do know that’s not a position you can still have by sitting on your ass all day. The fact that he’s “out of shape” also contradicts directly with the fact that he uploads dance videos on Deviltube to support his idols. As someone who has tried to do idol dances, there is no fucking way he’s doing that if he can’t even jump rope. I’m being serious. Knowing that Levi likes anime character types like Ruri-chan and a group called “Starlet Hearts” leads me to believe he’s probably doing “cutesy” idol dances which are often high-energy and have a bunch of jumping.

If you’re curious on just much jumping, energy, and coordination goes into these types dances then I implore you to watch [ This classic cover ] and think about how this is the style of dances that Levi is most likely uploading on to Deviltube. And seeing how one of his videos goes viral, he’s probably very good at it too.

Now think about how he “can’t jump rope and run around the HoL”. It’s not possible that both are correct.

If you’re still not convinced that Levi is OP as fuck then I offer you this nugget of information. Leviathan says if he was in water then he and Mammon would be on the same level pretty much. Mammon, who is the fastest demon in the entire Devildom and has more control over his power than all 6 of his brothers. Mammon the Second strongest Demon Lord in the Devildom. Now fact check me if I’m wrong (which I could be, I haven’t been able to find the screenshot of him saying this), but this just further pushes into my fish out of water analogy. Leviathan has a terrifying amount of strength in the water not just from his muscles but the powers he possesses as well.

Leviathan calls himself the “Master of Water itself” when summoning Lotan. He has the power to not only summon Lotan, who is older (and most likely more powerful ) than Levi, but also can control all of the magical creatures in the sea. Pair this with the fact that he can conjure a trident and throw it like it’s a baseball…. He’s Strong as fuck! Let’s not even get into the fact that in mythology the Leviathan is like a younger version of Lotan. The sheer amount of power it would take to have control over every single magical creature in the ocean is mind boggling. One would think the Avatar of Envy would want to have the image of being the strongest so others could envy him, right?

Wrong.

There’s two reasons for why Levi could be not showing his full strength and when combined offer a whole new view of our lovely shut-in.

Reason one: Self-Esteem

It’s been shown to us time and time again that Levi has a low self-esteem to the point where he regularly calls himself a “lowly otaku”. He truly believes he doesn’t deserve the basic decency that is MC wanting to hang out with him. To me, this implies that Levi truly doesn’t see himself as a strong being. He sees his power to summon Lotan as a boost of an intimidation, not strength. So for him, the Title of Grand Admiral is the equivalent of a beginner rank he got in a game. It’s the bare minimum. He thinks anyone could do it. He takes his place as third place and nothing more because he doesn’t think he’s anything better then that. He convinces himself that all of his brothers must be stronger despite his obvious skills.

Reason two: Strategy

Being the Grand Admiral of Hell’s Navy means you have to lead hundreds if not thousands of troops. You have to have plans on top of plans for everything. You can’t lead a squad into a fight without a good strategy. You can’t tell me Leviathan doesn’t know how to strategize with all of the games he plays either. As a gamer myself, I can tell you right now I’ve used my knowledge in games to get through completely new games easily just based on general knowledge. Being the leader of such a group also requires meticulous planning skills which Levi definitely plans. You can’t play multiple on-going games and not plan how to play events if you want to get the best rank in them. Knowing Levi, he probably applies this logic in everyday life. Whether it’s from anxiety or not, Levi goes as far as to plan out how conversations go which further help him prepare for any outcomes. He also probably has incredible pattern recognition as well from all of the different games he plays. That’s something that’s incredibly useful when seeing how past battles have gone down or how to spot any inconsistencies. Now here’s where it ties into the Levi Op Theory. I believe Leviathan uses his gamer/otaku image to throw everyone off of his trail as the third strongest. After all, what better strategy to best your enemies is there then to fool them into thinking you’re weak and frail? If everyone thinks you can’t even run around the house then they will underestimate you in battle. Spending hours charting Devildom maps out is nothing compared to memorizing the entire map to 6 different games with expansion packs plus rhythm game master charts. Defeating an entire battalion is nothing more than a flick of the wrist when the entire battalion is only 50 low rank demons. The Avatar of Envy is such because those around him are jealous of the seemingly random power boosts he gets in battle.

Combine those two together and you get a wave of pure nightmare fuel because the boss you’re fighting against has 4 extra stages that he didn’t even know about.

Leviathan is a UR++ card hidden behind the guise of an already upgraded S rank card.

Okay I think that’s all of my thoughts on why Levi is OP. Feel free to let me know your thoughts. To put the icing on the cake, I didn’t even plan for Levi to become one of my comfort characters but he’s among my top 5 Obey Me best boys now lmao

#obey me #obey me! shall we date? #obey me headcanons #obey me leviathan #obey me levi hc #obey me shall we date #obey me hcs #obey me crack

[fantasyinvader]

Something I've wanted to talk about is that from the very beginning people have been wondering how Edelgard links her being experimented on to her waging war on the Church. People have always wondered about her logic here, why she isn't going after TWSITD for what they've done and her hold Rhea responsible. I think it kinda works like this.

First, we have Edelgard's claims that she was experimented on by Aegir and the nobility in an attempt to create a strong emperor to rule over Fodlan. That should, if you've been paying attention, raise a red flag, as that same group led an insurrection against Ionius to strip him of his power. Bit of a contradiction, but we see Ionius “confirm” this himself in his one scene.

Ionius is also the one who told Edelgard the version of history that she believes, saying it's secret knowledge passed down from emperor to emperor.

However, with the reveal of the Flame Emperor, scenes with the Flame Emperor have new meaning. Edelgard hears from Arundel that Nemesis was simply a bandit rather than a hero for humanity, but she ignores it. Likewise, she makes it clear that she knows Thales was the one behind Enbarr and Duscur. In that latter scene, she's told the experiments were to give her the power to purge Fodlan of beasts and bring salvation to Thales' group. They were so that Edelgard could obtain the power she needs for the purpose Thales has for her.

So right there Edelgard's claim that it was because the nobles covet Crests and wanted to create a strong Emperor should fall apart. She's being told by the person who killed her siblings why he did what he did. Likewise in an event scene with Hubert it's stated that Arundel is the leader of Solon and Kronya's group, TWSITD, all but directly stating that Thales and Arundel are the same person. He also says that they were the ones who experimented on Edelgard, killed her siblings, in addition to turning her father into their puppet and Edelgard knows all this.

Arundel is also referred to as a regent, someone who rules over a country when the monarch is unable to fulfill their duties. This term isn't just used lightly, as Dimitri's story features his uncle Rufus acting as regent until Dimitri is of legal age to be king. The game knows what it is talking about. Aegir might be the Prime Minister but Arundel is acting as ruler, which fits with how the newly crowned Emperor Edelgard can simply arrest Aegir on the spot.

With Aegir, Ferdie's paralogue reveals that while he harshly taxed the Hymr region, Arundel taxed those same people more harshly, conscripted them to fight in this war and killed those who resisted all while blaming Aegir. Hopes takes it a step further, saying while there was plenty of evidence towards Aegir's corruption there wasn't any for the worst things Edelgard accuses him of. Ferdie's paralogue also contradicts the creating a powerful emperor stuff, stating the insurrection was to prevent Ionius from consolidating power.

So, Edelgard was told by father, who was controlled by acting regent Arundel, that the experiments were done by Aegir in order to create a powerful Emperor after the Insurrection that was meant to limit the Emperor's power. Edelgard knows Arundel is actually Thales, the leader of the group who experimented on her and killed her siblings in addition to supposedly knowing he's the one who manipulated her father. Thales himself tells her the reason for the experiments was to give her the power to purge Fodlan and bring salvation to their group. She is their messiah, so to speak.

Edelgard herself claims the Flame Emperor and TWSITD may only working together because their goals overlap. We know at the end of Flower that Arundel arrives to sees Rhea's death, saying it will be the moment mankind is freed from “the control of that false beast of a goddess.” Edelgard herself states in Hopes that she started the war so that she might unify Fodlan and remake it based on her ideals. But then again, Flower has numerous moments where it's referred to as the conquest of Fodlan and the Empire is stated to begin military expeditions, invading countries, in Caspar's Japanese endings. But that aforementioned conversation with Thales says that it'll be the dawn of an age where the world is ruled by the Empire, while in Azure Moon Edelgard says there can only be one ruler of the world.

Silver Snow has Seteth say the Empire was used to start a war while Flayn says Edelgard made an alliance with them to further her own goals (playing Edelgard as less of a victim, but also confirming her stance in White Clouds). Verdant Wind, instead, says Edelgard and the Empire were simply pawns in TWSITD's game. In exploration, Felix says the Slithers were the ones behind the Empire while Hanneman says they have infiltrated the darkest corners of the Empire and Hapi says war would have been inevitable with them pulling the strings of the Empire. In Hopes, Edelgard admits she's purposefully ignored TWSITD's influence on the Empire.

And we've had the devs confirm they built the world to support Silver Snow's story. Edelgard was meant to be both villain and victim. Someone manipulated by TWSITD into starting a war, made into weapon by them then aimed at Rhea through her father. TWSITD aren't meant to be sympathetic in any way because they're meant to be the ones in the wrong. They're the bad guys, with there being no peace so long as they're around (Noticed Seteth has a line about how they needed to be defeated in the Japanese changed to killing every last one of them. Nice Treehouse).

Edelgard is just ignoring the truth, like she's accused of by doing in Azure Moon by Dimitri and confirms herself in Hopes. The Church had nothing to do with what happened to her, nor does it hold the influence she believes it does when 1) The Empire disbanded it's own branch a century prior, 2) The Western Church was being manipulated by TWSITD to further their goals, and 3) the Eastern Church is rendered powerless by the Alliance's power structure with Lorenz saying that the nobles only pay lip-service to it. We have students who have Crests but whose families have fallen into ruin, or their family's positions have nothing to do with their Crests, in addition to two foreign nobles in the school. The person she views as a champion for humanity was also used by the same people who destroyed her life, nor did Wilhelm betray humanity.

In short, her logic isn't meant to hold up. It's meant to be a sign she's been played, and her winning doesn't make things better since 1) the bad guys still got what they wanted, and 2) she's meant to represent rule through military force, called out for it by Claude in Verdant Wind, and has a whole bunch of endings attached to her victory specifically that should give you pause.

[madara-fate]

Can you believe in 2023 that there are still naruto fans who don't believe the curse of hatred existsand claim that tobirama made it up like first of all he wasn't the first person to mention the curse of hatred in story obito was and they obito is unreliable narrator and was manipulated by madara therefore what he says doesn't matter so madara made the curse of hatred up by there logic and tobirama stole it from him

Even hogoromo mentions the curse of hatred and not one person contradicted tobirama not even hashirama who added to conversation by mentioning madara love towards izuna

Did they miss the whole point of indra and Ashura story but again these people are the same people who have tried to claim that senjus and uzumakis are not only fascists but antagonizing the Uchiha clan for no reason apparently

The amount of hate I see hashirama naruto and ashura get from these fans I've seen people try and claim that hashirama was somehow biased in itama death naruto is bootlicker ashura is a bad brother itachi shisui kagami are also bootlicker and sasuke became a bootlicker

So if you fight againsts the Uchiha or just critique the Uchiha clan in anyway your fascist now and that kishimoto only brought in the curse of hatred to excuse Uchiha massacre and that's its genocide propaganda

These the kind of takes I've seen comming from these people

Can you believe in 2023 that there are still naruto fans who don't believe the curse of hatred existsand claim that tobirama made it up like first of all he wasn't the first person to mention the curse of hatred in story obito was and they obito is unreliable narrator and was manipulated by madara therefore what he says doesn't matter so madara made the curse of hatred up by there logic and tobirama stole it from him

Their denial of the existence of the Curse of Hatred doesn't surprise me, especially when it directly shits all over many of their bullshit claims regarding Sasuke's sentiments during the main story. I had been sent an anonymous ask a while ago over here, and the Anon was basically saying the same nonsense about how the Curse of Hatred was apparently just Tobirama's hypothesis, and I had an absolute field day proving what a load of crap that was.

Even hogoromo mentions the curse of hatred and not one person contradicted tobirama not even hashirama who added to conversation by mentioning madara love towards izuna

Yep, Hagoromo echoed the exact same things that Obito and Tobirama said about the Curse. Hell, even Kakashi and Itachi have reinforced the things the others had said about it.

The amount of hate I see hashirama naruto and ashura get from these fans I've seen people try and claim that hashirama was somehow biased in itama death naruto is bootlicker ashura is a bad brother itachi shisui kagami are also bootlicker and sasuke became a bootlicker So if you fight againsts the Uchiha or just critique the Uchiha clan in anyway your fascist now and that kishimoto only brought in the curse of hatred to excuse Uchiha massacre and that's its genocide propaganda

Just more reasons why the Naruto fandom is the absolute worst fandom that I've ever seen. Such mindboggling takes.

#Sasuke Uchiha #Naruto

[fellhellion]

i don’t want to be raining on other peoples parade so fair warning its me critiquing some writing choices in nim/ona under the cut

i have such mixed feelings about this movie god. it’s got such beautiful animation and i really enjoy the stylistic approach they’ve taken to it AND there are some really well done scenes with a beautiful message at it’s heart but holy fuck. theres some messy writing. 

why would the director not pry first into how fake!ambrosius knew information that lead to him questioning her? why wouldn’t she first try aligning his loyalty back to her?? why would she confess we have literally never seen this character’s weakness be gloating?? she’s always been someone that carefully evaluates how best to weaponise fear?????  ambrosius isnt some random she looks down on, or a superior she cannot directly contradict like the queen, this is supposed to be the scion of her revered religious bloodline WHY WOULD SHE GO STRAIGHT TO MURDER AND CONFESSION. like if youre going to go that route why not the slow build up to her puzzling through this issue and then you can see the pieces click where murder becomes the option she rationalises as her best course to shut him up. 

why is the tone for the fakeout of ambrosius losing his shit at the director the same semi comical delivery as nimona herself takes????? it already preps you to view the scene as funny even though as bal’s lover he should be approaching the subject of disabling and hunting his lover with a completely different weight to her??? 

what the fuck am i supposed to read what bal’s thinking even IS regarding betraying nimona when the director setting him up had absolutely nothing even REASONABLY to do with this idea that she’s setting him because shes just fucked up and evil??? like look i KNOW characters in high emotional states wont act logically but this is literally the conflict sitting on the most surface level of the film like???? why doesn’t nimona bring it up if it’s something he’s trying to intentionally ignore??? and it doesnt seem that way because i THINK the tonal intent in the scene is to say Bal swallows the religious koolaid and falls back into sincerely thinking hes been manipulated. but its just. really poorly written as to how this character rationalises away active and OBVIOUS contradictions to this koolaid when we’ve spent a whole hour developing him coming to be more comfortable with questioning the system. and IF that conditioning is so complete, why nimona herself would literally not just ask the obvious question.

like, this is a kid’s movie. im not expecting an exploration of these themes in a manner/to an extent which better suits a story that targets to adults, but man. if im jerked out of my suspension of disbelief as to what the CHARACTERS believe, i think thats an issue. 

#tunes talks critical #long post #i also feel like this movie desperately needs to take a BREATH at points just let the emotions linger for a moment in certain scenes

[ot3]

hi i just finished disco elysium after repeatedly being exposed to it by you and i am incredibly grateful i did <3 you have some of the most compelling and thoughtful takes on media & characters/character dynamics i’ve ever seen so i’m super interested to hear any of your thoughts on harry and kim—they & their relationship is probably my fave part of the game. both are characters with a lot of depth and complexity that i think tends to be flattened by fans, but i feel sometimes i project qualities and depth that isn’t there (especially in regards to kim since we get pretty few peeks into his interior life—idk i think there’s a lot of conflict and contradiction within him, such as his need to remain in control vs an impulsive/violent/cruel streak, his clinging to status quo/authority vs rebelliousness, etc., but again i feel sometimes im reading too deep into things). idk curious to hear your perspective!

first of all i appreciate your confidence in me! very flattered to be called compelling and thoughtful... i do my best. i kind of went on a tangent here about how i apprach character analysis in general instead of talking specifically about kim and harry here... sorry...... sticking it under the cut because its long. and incredibly unfocused. once again sorry.

i definitely don't think you're overthinking it. i don't really think it IS possible to overthink something like disco elysium, which is both incredibly vast as a text [i believe the total wordcount for the game's script is well over a million words, although obviously you don't see anywhere near that full amount in a single playthrough] but also incredibly dense as a text. it's oversteeped in its own ideas and worldbuilding, to a wonderful effect. it doesn't spoonfeed you it's ideas or narrative, and you have to put in real effort to engage with it. and despite how desolate the game is i've seen few fictional worlds that manage to feel so alive just by virtue of the implicit depth and texture of their setting. the same can be said of the characters.

everything you're shown in disco elysium, you're shown with a lot of intent. we understand that kim is a rather reserved character who highly values his self control, which in many ways makes the things we do see of him exponentially more meaningful and impactful. The fact that these things you've listed are things prevalent enough with him that they do manage to bubble to the surface despite how he tries to lock himself down means they're things worth looking at.

also, in general i don't think there's such a thing as 'overthinking' a work of fiction at all. the idea of 'overthinking' implies that analyzing fiction is a sort of binary where you have either come to the correct conclusions about the work or you haven't. but of course that spits in the face of what analysis is all about. i think a better question than 'am i overthinking it' is 'what relationship does this interpretation have to canon?' i don't think it's possible to do media analysis 'right' but i do think it's very easy to do it wrong, and to me that comes down to whether or not your ideas about a work are arbitrary, or in conversation with the text.

i almost think about character analysis kind of like cuil theory, where each level of abstraction is one step further away from the explicit text of a canon. basically everything i think about a character could fit into this sliding scale

1 cuil - explicitly canonical things about this character. as concretely 'true' as anything is in fiction

2 cuils - things about a character that are implied or alluded to, to the degree where these facts are 'canon', but not explicitly stated. subtext.

3 cuils - 'negative space' character traits, things that are neither directly referenced nor alluded to, but make concrete, logical sense within the surrounding context. stuff that toes the line between subtext and personal interpretation.

4 cuils - hypotheticals. stuff that doesn't necessarily have any specific basis in the text, but isn't disproven by the text in any way. stuff almost entirely brought in to the text by an outside source.

5 cuils - hostile readings, where an interpretation of a character either contradicts or intentionally rejects something that can be said to be explicit canon, for whatever reason.

i think the 3 cuil stuff is by far where the most interesting character discussion happens, because this really all hinges on one thing: how much do you trust the person writing this character? do you believe have a complex vision for the character? how much do you trust them to write subtext? the idea of 'overthinking' something can come with the implication that there's nothing there to think about. but if that deep subtext is genuinely there, you're not overthinking it. you're just thinking. I think 'bad' character analysis comes into play when people attribute authorial intent to stuff that is really reliant on stuff they are bringing to the narrative that the author had nothing to do with. Stuff you bring to a text yourself isn't necessarily bad analysis or poisoning the well by any means, but being aware about what parts of your reading are impositions you are making on the text is critical.

That said, every character exists far more fully formed in an author's mind than it exists in a text, just due to the nature of writing. little breadcrumbs hinting towards this more robust picture of a character get left in the text. how many of them are intentional, and how many of them aren't? does it make a difference if it was intentional, if you can still convincingly follow those breadcrumbs back?

in the case of disco elysium, i absolutely do believe it is intentional. i fully believe that the people writing this game could, if they felt so inclined, give us as complete a picture of kim kitsuragi as there's been for any other character in fiction that we might use as the metric for character depth. but the important thing about kim is that he's not the protagonist - his character journey isn't the point here. more importantly, he's harry's foil. Harry as a character is a gaping wound. Everything is spilling out of him unwillingly, and it's ugly, and it's horrible, and then here's kim who is all buttoned up and put together and everything that you as harry are not.

so now here's the trick. you as the player and you as harry want to know kim. almost instantly. i dont know anyone who hasnt been obsessed with this guy from the getgo. we're supposed to want to pick at his seams until we find the bits that are more human there. getting to the ending where kim will join you at your precinct requires these two characters to meet in the middle to some degree. Harry finds structure and function from kim's behavior, and kim begins to exhibit more humanity both in terms of showing more emotion and showing genuine personality flaws, both of which are things harry has in spades. wanting to dig that stuff out of kim is the point of kim's entire character. on a mechanical level as a game that looks like trying to up his approval of you through conversations and investigation. on an emotional level of connecting with a narrative, it looks like what you're doing; reading into his mannerisms and behavior and trying to puzzle it out.

#disco elysium

[generallemarc]

Something Ayn Rand never thought of

Principles aren’t forbidden from appearing to contradict one another. For reasons known only to God I just watched a clip of the “best” moments of the Atlas Shrugged movie, as defined by a Rand fan. And I actually found myself agreeing with the logic of the eventual protagonist, Hank Rearden. The use of force or the threat thereof to take something from someone else is always theft. And yet, I fundamentally disagree with his conclusion of the above, followed by “therefore all government is wrong.” So, where’d that come from? Well, let’s take a look at one of the most absolute principles in all morality-murder is wrong. Even people who don’t believe in things like the Ten Commandments will condemn murder. But let’s take a closer look at the Commandments-don’t the heroes and prophets of the Bible fight in wars? Isn’t that killing? Well, yes. People die when they are killed. But the point of “thou shalt not kill” was never “it is always wrong, without exception, for your actions to cause the death of another.” There are certain circumstances where not killing someone would actually violate the commandment more than killing them, if their continued survival would mean more death. It’s thus acceptable to shoot back at a gunman, or fight a war against a nation or group whose victory would mean widespread death and misery, like the Nazis or ISIS. Not killing people is very important, and is almost always never the correct answer to a problem, but there are rules that can sometimes, in some situations, be more important.

And now we return to Objectivism, where the principle of keeping what you’ve made or earned for yourself reigns supreme. Ordinarily, all but the most inveterate communists would agree with it in the majority of cases, as evidenced by the continued existence of literally everything not directly necessary for survival in most countries not named North Korea. But what Ayn Rand never bothered asking herself was this: “are there things worth more than my possessions?” Because that’s the sum total of Objectivist philosophy-what you own. In a supreme irony for such a committed free marketer, Rand’s philosophy is every bit as materialistic as Marxism. Nothing can matter more than how the tangible nature of property and industry interact with humanity to them. But while Marxism attempts to cope with the unfairness of the world by loudly crying that there is no such thing as an individual and that the constructs we call social groups are these immutable things which define all, Rand runs in the exact opposite direction. Any group you didn’t choose for yourself must be not only bad, but eternally bad. Voluntarism above all, no matter the circumstance. Except that absolute individualism prevents most forms of social interaction that things like businesses and the mere concept of resources and wealth outside of that which is directly needed for survival can’t even come about without. In her need to both counter Marxism on every last point and defend her own selfishness, Rand rejects the very concept of altruism as being not just bad, but bad for society, attempting to denounce a fundamental aspect of human psychology because it gets in the way of possessions reigning supreme. You need a hierarchy to ensure rights are protected, because all it takes is for a small part of the population to choose to violate those rights to disrupt the whole of society if they aren’t stopped. You need to be able to act selflessly, because being incapable of viewing morality outside of the lens of “what do I get out of it” is literally the psychology of a child. Not stealing from people is very important, and is almost always never the correct answer to a problem, but there are rules that can, in some situations, be more important.

#objectivism #ayn rand #atlas shrugged #libertarian #libertarianism #a realistic minarchist take on objectivism

[aphelea]

reading rumble round 3: alden vacker time! i just want to say beforehand that this is not meant to come after anyone in particular, nor alden haters as a whole. it’s just a fun little essay about my thoughts. :)

@camelspit @arson-anarchy-death

For many years in the Keeper of the Lost Cities fandom, Alden Vacker has been a controversial name. Many have claimed that he is a manipulative and abusive parent to his children, and even more so toward Keefe and Sophie. One popular theory suggests that Alden is secretly part of the Neverseen, and has been lying to his friends and family all along. However, while these theories are interesting to explore, they have over time grown more and more exaggerated with less basis in canon characterization. While Alden is far from a perfect father in canon, the common interpretation that characterizes him as outwardly and intentionally manipulative and abusive—in a very Cassius-like manner— is not reflective of his canon characterization. 

The infamous Flashback short story has become the spawn for much of the common fanon Alden characterisation. The story is often used as proof that Alden has been manipulating Keefe all along in order to “let Fitz have Sophie.” (Wiki) As another user says, “Alden used the fact that Keefe saw him as a father figure…to make him stay away from the person who Alden knew Keefe was in love with because Alden wanted his actual son to date her.” While Alden's words to Keefe in this story are not the most considerate, there is little basis to show that Alden is using Keefe in order to have Sophie and Fitz end up together. In fact, it seems that Alden is instead attempting to be gentle in what he believes to be a hopeless case for Keefe. Alden firmly believes that Sophie has romantic feelings only for Fitz—and he is not the only one, as Biana and Marella also notably assume she has a crush. Thus, it cannot be said that Alden is unreasonably trying to assume Sophie’s feelings, as he is only doing the same as many other characters in the series have, so far. Further, as he explains in the story, he is “no stranger to [Keefe’s] situation,” as he has also felt unrequited feelings for a friend—a situation which he continues to refer back to often throughout the rest of the story. It seems as if he is letting his own experiences affect his advice to Keefe—but this does not mean that he is intentionally manipulating him. As is common throughout the latter half of the series—and among all the characters—Alden is letting his own emotions bleed into his logical thinking, resulting in conversations that may seem inconsiderate and awkward. 

Furthermore, Alden is often misinterpreted as being strict about the Vacker image and caring a lot about tradition and respect. As one person claims, “[Fitz’s] parents chose his family name and status…to the point of putting him in danger from as young as six, knowingly.” While this may be somewhat more accurate for Alden’s character after the events of Flashback, it is very clearly not true from the beginning. Sophie notes that Alden “is not afraid to stand up to the Council if he has to.” In Book 1, he is also stated to have directly defied the Council’s orders to end the search for Sophie. Therefore, it is clear that Alden is not “repeatedly choosing his family name and status” as he clearly defies the institution that his family name is intrinsically tied to. Furthermore, in Neverseen, Alden is completely supportive of his wife and children joining the Black Swan—a group specifically targeted towards changing the Lost Cities. He assists them in cutting off their registry pendants and sneaking away. It is only when he faces a direct blow to his family—Alvar’s betrayal—that Alden becomes isolated and less involved. Alden’s actions throughout the series clearly indicate that he prioritizes his family above status, a direct contradiction to the common fanon interpretation of his character. 

Throughout the series, Alden Vacker is not the manipulative, meddling, and status-driven character that many believe him to be. He is driven by a love for his family, and though he can make inconsiderate comments at times, he does not intentionally hurt the people he cares about. While he is far from a perfect father, Alden Vacker is not an intentionally evil man—he is only one who, like any, can be misguided by his own beliefs and fears. 

#roisin’s reading rumble #this was actually a lot more difficult than i expected

[shihalyfie]

There's something buggin' me so badly and is the fact there's people who believe you can't make post-02 material with new characters or else the epilogue is retconned. Like, i'm saying this mostly for Rui inclusion in the universe, but i've seen people claiming Meiko, Maki and Daigo should've died to keep the epilogue intact. (we know what happened in the end...)

Honestly, i don't agree with this logic. What's stopping them from making a brand new epilogue-era scene showing Rui or any other character like Meiko and Menoa (and Imura)?!

I don't get it either. There seems to be this fixation with the 02 epilogue as some kind of singular symbolic manifestation of their future, and I know it's tempting when we don't have much of the epilogue to look at and so "leaving off on that note" makes us want to think that "this one scene will represent everything about their lives 25 years later", but that 25-year date was specifically picked because that was when the entire global population would have partners, so you aren't really supposed to see that epilogue as anything more than "a day in what their lives are like in the future". This is a stance that not only Kakudou but also Seki have locked down on -- we have no way of guaranteeing what happened before or after that epilogue, so the fun is trying to imagine what happened.

Why are there only the twelve Tokyo Chosen Children, their partners, and their kids in the epilogue? Because those are the characters whom the audience was most likely to care about the most when the episode aired in March 2001. That's it. It's purely meta. We never learned what that gathering was for and what qualified you to be invited to it, other than the fact it was a planned gathering for some unspecified reason. Even the concept of the Tokyo Chosen Children as a particular group of twelve is a fairly audience-specific one, since there's a distinct in-universe difference in relationships within and between the older kids and the younger ones. There is absolutely not a single implication that there wasn't anyone who was invited to come join them but couldn't make it because they were busy or whatnot, including spouses, more kids from the younger generation, or, indeed, more friends.

So it doesn't make any sense to assume that if they made some other friend between 2002 and 2028, that would "contradict" the epilogue because they weren't portrayed as part of the "in group" there...instead of a more mundane explanation like "this new person became friends with the group but not that close" or "they were invited too but they were busy that day". It's just really bizarre logic, and it also feels really limiting if the production side had to have some strict rule on them that the kids aren't allowed to have any more friends just because a scene from a single day in 2028 doesn't show them with anyone else, instead of giving us concepts like Wallace, Meiko, Menoa, or Rui. And like you said, there's nothing stopping them from making another scene from around that 2028 period with a different context where they get in contact with other new friends they made around that time, instead of having this obsession that any new person they meet has to cut off their friendship with them or die before 2028, or else they somehow contradict the epilogue.

I think people really assign too much "symbolic" relevance to that epilogue. Like, for instance, "Yamato and Sora aren't standing next to each other so clearly they're not married or close" as if their physical standing positions somehow represent their entire relationship, and not the more mundane "they're married so they don't need to stand next to each other all the time, and in fact they're probably catching up with their friends they don't see as often". It's also weird to me that it's socially acceptable to imagine that some of your favorite ships are canon, just not directly stated by Takeru in the epilogue, but heaven forbid they make another friend within 25 years. I mean, isn't that kind of sad? The number of Chosen Children doubled every year, and they probably had all sorts of interesting escapades and adventures, but they can't befriend anyone involved?!

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #tomorrows2top #shiha's ask box