*deep breath in*
the fears 👏 have always 👏 been (in one way or another) 👏 parallel 👏 to 👏 desire 👏
let me explain.
so many of the statements given by actual avatars center around some sort of need that was met by their entity. Lots of them even had a positive relationship with the fear that drove them.
Jane Prentiss is an excellent example - the Corruption has always been about a form of toxic and possessive love, but she personally has a deep desire to be “fully consumed by what loves her,” and finds a perverse joy and relief at allowing herself to be a home
Jude Perry is another - she fucking loved watching people’s lives be utterly destroyed. The Desolation only offered her a power of destruction on a grander scale, and then gave her a more intense rush of joy as she did its work. When she tells Jon that he needs to feed the Eye before it feeds on him, it’s almost as an afterthought; she was happily feeding the Desolation long before it burned her into a new existence.
Simon Fairchild. Every time that old loose bag of bones wanders into the picture, he is having a fucking EXCELLENT time playing with the Vast. He loves showing people their own insignificance, and he loves luring them into situations where he can throw them into the void as he smiles and waves.
Peter Lukas (hell, the whole Lukas family (except Evan. RIP Evan.)) hated. people. all he wanted was for them all to go away, to leave him alone. The Lonely only fulfilled that desire.
Daisy, Trevor, and Julia, all devoted to hunting those things they deemed monstrous.
Melanie, holding tight to that bullet in her leg because on some level, she wanted it. It felt good, it felt right, it felt like it fit right alongside the anger and spite that drove her to success.
Annabelle Cane first encountered the Web when she was a child, running away from home in order to tug on her parents’ heartstrings in just the right way to have them wrapped around her little finger. Later on she volunteered to be the subject of an ESP study. Hell, she’s the one who dangled the “Is it really You that wants this?” question over Jon’s head in S4.
And that brings us to Jon, beloved Jarchivist, the Voice that Opened the Door. Ever since he was a child targeted by the Web, he was looking for answers. He joined the Magnus Institute’s Research Department looking for them, he stalked his coworkers in search for them, he broke into Gertrude’s flat and laptop out of desperation for them. And when he realized that all he had to do was Ask to get truthful answers to his questions? It was only natural for him to jump at that opportunity.
Elias told S3 Jon that he did want this, that he chose it, that at every crossroads he kept pushing onwards, and the inner turmoil that caused was one of the focal points for Jon’s character through the rest of the podcast.
There’s a certain line of thinking in many circles about the power of the Devil: he’s not able to create anything new. All he’s able to do is twist and warp that which was already present, making it something ugly and profane while still maintaining the facade of something desirable.
Jon didn’t choose the Eye. But he did wander into its realm of power, exhibiting exactly the qualities it was most capable of hijacking and warping to its own ends. Jon didn’t choose the Apocalypse. But Jonah picked at him little by little, pointing him towards each Fear individually. Jon didn’t want to release the Fears. But the Web tugged on his strings just so and laid a pretty trail for him to follow until he reached its desired conclusion.
Jon didn’t choose ultimate power, or omniscience, or even his own role as Head Archivist. But he said “yes” to the right (wrong?) orders and kept on pushing for the right (wrong?) answers. He wanted to succeed at the work he had been assigned. He wanted to protect his friends. He wanted to rescue them when they were lost. He wanted to prevent the apocalypse, to save the world. He wanted to know why he was still alive, when so many had died right in front of him.
The Great Wheel of Evil Color that is the Entities might not fit as neatly into categories in this universe - maybe there was no Robert Smirke trying to impose strict categories on emotional experiences, or maybe the ways they manifest in the world has turned on its head (goodness knows many of them have been showcased and blended in some very fun and new and horrifying ways so far) - but their fundamental foundations seem to be the same. Hell, in episode one we learned that there had been enough individual incidents to create a distinction between “dolls, watching” and “dolls, human skin.”
Smirke’s Fourteen isn’t going to be relevant as common parlance, RQ said that already, but I don’t think that means the Fears themselves (and their Dream Logic-based rules) are different - I think it means that the levels of understanding, language used, and personal connections among people “in the know” are going to be entirely unfamiliar
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ok, i actually wanna talk about this a little more
one of the issues bd seems to deal with is the fact that you can’t protect your family from everything.
cuz we know that rei and kazuki could take down anyone who goes against them no problem. but they can’t do anything about the kids at school excluding miri, or the fact that miri doesn’t have a mother to raise her, or that yuzuko just happened to be outside when the accident happened.
rei can’t fight the fever with his sniper rifle, and he feels useless because of it. and he only feels like this because he cares in the first place.
he’s so out of his element because he’s been taught to shoot guns and take down men five times bigger than him but he’s never even been shown the type of care he wants to give miri, much less taught how to care.
so yes, it’s funny when rei doesn’t even know where the hospital is despite his phone being able to map a route in seconds, but he’s never been this desperate. his hands were made to kill but now he has something (someone) he wants to care for and he doesn’t know how.
kazuki has always been the provider but rei is figuring out how to give a little in his own way.
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Armand’s treatment and how it impacted his life.
(‼️ Spoilers for Wakfu Season 4 and its first four episodes ‼️)
One thing that saddened me a lot when I was watching episode 4 was how Armand revealed to Amalia that he had wished he could go on adventures with her and the brotherhood sometimes.
This surprised me at first but I soon realized that it made perfect sense.
Armand was always jealous of her but I initially thought that it was only because she had the most attention from people, even their father. But Armand is the type to keep his thoughts to himself which would explain why despite how we see him looking at Amalia with a disapproving look, we never really got to hear him express his thoughts to her. His reason for wanting to go on adventures with her is also made clear: not only does he want to explore the world because it seems like fun since his sister always felt happy because of it, but the major reason is that he wants his father to look at him just like how he looked at Amalia.
When he finally tells her all of his thoughts and what he wants, we can’t help but feel like what he wishes to have can no longer be granted. Their father died not long ago, it is now too late to do anything.
Armand could’ve spoken up during all those years Amalia went to go on adventures. He had all the time in the world because he was always beside his father at all times.
But no matter how close he was to him, Armand never had the strength to speak his thoughts just like how Amalia dared to do so. It’s ironic really, Armand had the time and the moment to tell his father everything and yet, he didn’t because he didn’t think it was in his right to speak about himself and what he wanted to try.
The years of constantly seeing how his sister was getting loved by the people, how she was being viewed and called a hero by the very same people he was working hard to protect in his own way, how their father kept praising her constantly for whatever she did, how she kept getting adoration for adventuring and risking her life to save her people, while he was instead cooped up in the kingdom learning and practicing how to become king, left him in a position where he believed Amalia always had the upper hand on anything even when he wanted to express himself.
He had learned that every time he proposed an idea or even said some of his thoughts out loud during a particular situation, he would always get shut down by either his sister or his father, sometimes even both (the time when he decided to use a barrier of vines to block Ogrest’s tears but his father told him that his attempts were just “alright” when they were actually very effective for some time, the time where he told Amalia that she can’t leave while his father is terribly sick but his father supports Amalia and encourages her to go with Yugo, the time when Armand stated that none of the rulers had come to support them but his father cuts him off by saying that the queen of Bonta at least brought Joris to them which made Armand’s words sound minuscule and not as serious as the prince intended, etc.)
Granted, sometimes he deserved it (like the time when he got slapped by Eva when he was disrespectful to Dally in the OVAs or the time he did not listen to Amalia’s warnings when she told him Nox was coming and when she tried explaining who Yugo and Adamaï were back in Season 1 but not being listened to despite having Eva to back her up) but the majority of the time, he was trying his best to please his father and barely got a good comment for it.
So it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that Armand never spoke about what he wanted to his father because he had a strong feeling that the answer wouldn’t be a good one.
As if things couldn’t get any worse for him, when his father takes his last breath and Armand was the only one there for him, who has been by his side all this time, who has devoted his entire life to training, learn and work hard to be like his father, he had only words for Amalia.
To hear his father only speak about his youngest sister and not mention him at all, must’ve terribly broke him on the inside. Even when his father was on his deathbed, he did not address everything that Armand did for him.
And it’s sad to see this happening.
Even though his relationship with his father and sister was mostly shown in the background, it was pretty obvious that their family had some issues that no one wanted to address in the room.
I feel like, in a way, we can somehow relate to Armand.
To feel like we can’t speak our minds properly because of a sibling or a figure in our lives who has shown to be better than us, even when we do work very hard to get noticed we barely get any comments or praises of the same size as theirs, to feel like we don’t matter as much as them so we should just stop talking and let them have their spotlight at all times.
And when we finally get the chance to gain our confidence or get into a position where we don’t feel as self-conscious as we used to before, we come to find out that it’s already too late to express ourselves to the people we’ve been waiting to truly be honest to, because they’re already gone or have moved on from you.
Armand’s case is a bittersweet and albeit depressing one.
What could have been a story of adventure, even if just for one day, was never realized. What could have been an experience that could have felt like a lifetime never happened. What could have been an adventure where he finally has his fun and gains a unique brotherly sisterly duo bond in combat would never become a reality. And what could have been a special moment in his life where he gets to personally know his sister’s friends would always stay a dream.
If only he knew that even a brotherhood member, Evangelyne, has a sister, Cleophee, who had her fun in the group. And even if it was just for a few days, a few moments, Eva’s sister had cemented her place in the Brotherhood and became an official member. To think that even if he had stayed a bit in the group, he would have not just become a part of their lives, but also become a part of their brotherhood.
But despite it all, Armand kept his chin up and looked forward to the future. He did not wallow in his sadness or blame Amalia for his silence during all these years. Instead, he pulls her up and tells her to not be saddened by their father’s departure, especially in front of his tomb tree, and consoles her as they hug.
Unlike anyone else, I believe Armand was able to push his selfish thoughts away (which involved blaming his sister for everything) and instead behaved like a king, someone who, despite not gaining everything he wanted in life, kept going and faced forward for what was to come.
Even though he has not been abandoned by his family, he did feel like he might've been behind everyone else at some point in his life.
He may have not been a part of the brotherhood but he’ll always have a place in his sister’s heart after what he did for her.
And I believe that his competence and his will to protect his kingdom without leaving for adventure would make him get along greatly with a certain white dragon.
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