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#like to an extent the humans do that too. but most of them genuinely don't know
squishytenya · 3 days
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Hey Do you remeber your Tenya and Aizawa ask, with y/n Crying? What about some of the other casts like Katsuki or Ejiro?
if you dont mind please and thank you
They Make You Cry Headcanons
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I lowkey had to search my own blog for this but I found it! thanks for the request <3
Pairings - Bakugou x gn!reader, Kirishima x gn!reader + Kaminari x gn!reader
Warnings - arguments, cursing, crying
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Katsuki Bakugou
▹part of being in a relationship with Katsuki is dealing with his harsh personality. Even if he does calm down the older he gets, it's still probably not to the same extent of a normal human being.
▹he probably would be completely speechless the moment you started crying after an argument - straight up would not know how to respond to that.
▹his eyes would go wide and he would go to take a step towards you and then bring himself back, holding his arm to himself.
▹"hey... don't do that"
▹for all his faults Katsuki is, deep inside, a good person and he knows this is the kind of shit you lose relationships from and he really really doesn't want to lose you.
▹ but he does know he can be a bit much and he probably takes a while to come down from whatever he's feeling so he just kinda leaves for a few minutes
▹ he comes back with a cup of tea and perches gently on the bed next to you, avoiding eye contact
▹he would do his best to spit out an apology, but it's not something that would come naturally to him. Seeing your face crumple like it did is still replaying in his mind and he knows he has to fix this somehow - so he does his best to explain himself
▹eventually he would just stop rambling and take your hand in his, squeezing it gently.
▹"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that to you"
▹ he'd just sit by you, hand in his until you were ready to talk to him and talk over what had led to the argument in the first place and he really does take your words to heart about what upset you
▹he'd try to cut down on raising his voice and try to cut out teasing nicknames entirely, unless he knew you were okay with them already
▹a sweet guy really
Eijirou Kirishima
▹I cannot see Kiri upsetting you on purpose, even during an argument he isn't the type to yell or get super angry with you
▹him making you cry is most likely a complete accident on his part, or even him accidentally playing into an insecurity you have without properly thinking about it
▹when your relationship first started out, I think he probably didn't understand you might not be comfortable with the things he's comfortable with, especially during social situations
▹ also probably doesn't understand others might read his kindness as flirting, so when you two are invited to a hero party to socialise and he pretty much ignored you the whole night, he had no idea why you began tearing up on the way home
▹obviously, he's worried about why you're crying and what he did! and how he can fix it is at the forefront of his mind almost immediately after noticing
▹and when you explain it to him, he pretty much crumbles straight away - he is in disbelief that he made you feel that way
▹he falls over himself explaining that he didn't mean to make you feel that way, he was just overwhelmed by the pressure of hero society and got caught up
▹Kiri is very good at admitting when he is wrong, and puts a lot of effort into having healthy communication in his relationships - platonic or otherwise
▹pulls over the car literally just so he can hold both of your hands in his and make eye contact as he explains his actions, specifically so you understand he's being genuine
▹"I'd never do that to you on purpose, you're the most important person to me"
▹after your sniffles have subsided, he pulls you into a hug and promises never to do something like that again - and you bet he keeps his promise!!!
▹takes you to get food too, just as an extra apology and you sit in the car park eating ice cream together - he makes sure you're the center of his attention the entire time <3
Denki Kaminari
▹oh he's so stupid. he's so lovely, but so, so stupid.
▹honestly he probably says something insanely embarrassing in front of your friends and pays no attention to how that might make you feel, especially if you're close to these people
▹doesn't even notice when the room goes completely silent and nobody is talking but him, it takes one of his friends clearing their throat for him to notice your eyes filling with tears
▹in his defense, he does try to explain himself straight away and takes you into another room to have the conversation (at the very least) but it takes a little bit more explaining to him why his actions would upset you
▹doesn't really get it at first but you explaining, and your face as you cry, makes his heart hurt and he tries to rectify his actions as soon as he can
▹the first thing he thinks to do in that moment is bundle you up in his arms and rock the both of you back and forth to calm you down, which works a little more than you'd like to admit
▹runs his hands over your back, up and down, until your breathing evens out - does not give a shit about anyone outside of you two in that moment
▹once you've stopped crying, full on apology - hands and knees!
▹he seems genuinely heartbroken to have embarrassed you and takes full responsibility for what he did
▹ kicks everyone else out of the house and spends the rest of the evening making it up to you and reminding you of how important you are to him and just how sorry he is
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I hope these were good! I haven't written in ages so this'll be the first comeback headcanons, hope you guys enjoyed it <3
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sunderwight · 6 months
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I keep seeing people argue that Aziraphale is "intelligent" or "not a fool" and that this means he can't possibly have fallen for the Metatron's blatant manipulation tactics or still genuinely believe in Heaven's righteousness.
Setting aside the validity of various theories (most of which I at least find interesting, if not outright compelling!) I think there's an issue here, which is that intelligence doesn't protect you from cult-like thinking. Especially not when you've been more or less born and raised in the environment.
In fact, what intelligence tends to do to people who have been indoctrinated into cults (and a cult is exactly what GO Heaven operates like) is give you even more tools for justifying or thinking your way around the contradictions of the cults actions vs message.
We even see Aziraphale do this, several times!
In fact, at the end of S1 doing this is part of what helps save the day. When he points out that Heaven can't know that they aren't defying God's ineffable plan while trying to follow the Great Plan, he's not just talking them into standing down, he's giving them an out. Because the whole Armageddon thing has already gone to shit and cannot proceed without Adam's cooperation, what they're really dealing with at that point is getting Heaven and Hell to accept that without retaliating. Even when Satan shows up it's because he's pissed, not because doomsday is still on.
Aziraphale uses the cult's own logic to give Heaven (and Hell) a plausible reason to back down without completely losing face. They don't have to admit that they were wrong, they can just file everything under "ineffability". Aziraphale pulls this off so well in part because he's been doing this to himself for millennia.
When he doesn't understand or really approve of the Flood, he files it under "ineffability". God has a plan but it's too complex and beyond even angelic comprehension to understand, so there must be a good reason for the Flood, it's just that Aziraphale can't see it. When he sees Heaven being complicit in Job's suffering and the potential murder of his children, he reconciles it by deciding that what God really wants is for him and Bildad to secretly stop it. But he flounders on that later, because to some extent I think he knows that this reasoning is self-serving.
(Knowing it's self-serving doesn't refute it, though, it just means that he worries about that until he talks himself into a bunch of reasons why it's still probably true.)
In S1, when Crowley broaches the subject of the apocalypse, Aziraphale's initial response is to recite the propaganda. It's all going to go according to plan, and it will all be great! When that doesn't work (because of course it won't be great, he's going to end up losing his true home and the person he loves most if this all goes down no matter who wins), he lets Crowley help talk him into how he could thwart the plan without "really" betraying his concept of God.
Basically, if Aziraphale's values come into conflict with Heaven, he decides that God secretly agrees with him. It's very like people who find their values coming into conflict with the institution of their church or temple, and so decide that there's nothing wrong with their actual religion, it's all just normal human corruption (or in GO's case, angelic corruption) muddying the waters of an otherwise purely good thing.
Now in real life of course this gets to be a thorny issue, but keeping it simple there isn't really a total separation between a faith and its institutions. You can't claim that there's nothing in the religion that lends itself to bad takes, just like you also can't claim that any ideology or belief system is invulnerable to corruption. Likewise, even if every bad thing in GO were to turn out to be the fault of Heaven and Hell and not God, God would still be accountable for a lot of the situation because God still set the stage.
But what matters for Good Omens and Aziraphale and this post is that, Aziraphale has put considerable mental energy into justifying how God and Heaven can still be Good and Right even as both of them do things he finds intolerable. Whether it's "God secretly wants me to do what I think is right instead of what I'm being told" or "Heaven has earnestly misinterpreted the will of God due to not knowing as much as I do", he puts his intelligence to use in protecting himself from the kind of revelation that would uproot his worldview.
The only kind of knowledge that actually protects people from cults is the knowledge of how they operate, and awareness that you're dealing with a cult. Aziraphale has a terrible disadvantage on both fronts because even though he's spent years watching humanity get into hot water with this stuff, he does so with the firm perspective that things are different for angels. He can't necessarily apply what works for humans to himself, because he knows he's a different kind of being (and unlike with IRL cults, it's actually true in his case, though I think demons and angels are both less different from humans than they believe).
Though, interestingly, he's closer to a accepting the truth when it comes to the differences between angels and demons. In S1 he is fully confident that he could possess someone, because even though angels don't do that, demons can. Whether he admits it or not, Aziraphale really does believe that Crowley is not meaningfully different from himself in terms of personhood or ability. If he can make the leap to the idea that angels and demons are not exempt from human-oriented concepts of self-determination and free will and unfair treatment by authority, and reconcile it with his own intense distress at challenging a core belief, then the fact that he's quick on the uptake will really start to work in his favor.
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lakesbian · 3 months
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i like the early worm arcs so much because it's so interesting to see what the undersider group dynamics are like before they entirely reorganize around taylor. and by interesting i mean they make me explode and die (positive).
i think what it boils down to is that the undersiders sans taylor aren't really friends, but they are each others sole replacements for every single support system and human connection they're missing, and that's actually Significantly More Intense. they do all vary in why they're on the team (that is, in why they all have nowhere else they can go), which, alongside their general personalities, impacts the precise mechanisms of how they relate to each other. undersider relationship charts are very complicated diagrams.
brian is on the team because he needs the money to keep his sister from being entirely fucked over by the system (i.e. jailed or kept with abusive parents or in shitty foster care), and i'm sure there's an extent to which it makes his situation as a 17yo with terrible parents far more livable as well. it was pointed out on here earlier this month or the last that we don't really know anything about what his civilian identity is like--we see him interacting with taylor out of mask, but we don't know if he has, like...friends? or family he keeps in contact with outside aisha? or if he does anything with his free time other than trying to prove himself to be a capable guardian for aisha or improve his odds as grue?
and i think the reason we don't have answers to these questions are that brian (civilian) is a mask, too. grue isn't the side identity to an otherwise rich and detailed life--the brian we see speaking to the foster worker in the apartment is playing a barren role. he is 17 and concerned about getting new placemats for his apartment and sorting out school districts for the child he wants to adopt. that's not his normal, unfiltered self, that's a role he's completely stepped into because he'll see himself as a failure on multiple levels if he doesn't fill it. there's no way he has casual friendships or anything along those lines as civilian brian, because civilian brian is plastic. civilian brian can't be a real person, because people have broad ranges of emotions and experiences, and civilian brian is just supposed to be the platonic ideal of a stalwart and responsible family man. there's a reason why the foster worker observes that his apartment is devoid of personality. civilian brian laborn's life is a motherfucking ikea stock home.
i think the most genuine brian ever gets is when he's in the liminal space of the loft--not brian (goodboy civilian mode), but not grue, either. it's only when he's removed from both the obligations of the act he has to play as a civilian & the violent professionalism he takes up as grue that he's able to be a Kind Of Normal Boy. it's where he actually has work-friends to banter with, it's where he plays video games, it's where he gets to go on his dorky rants about martial arts. aisha & the other pressing concerns of everyday life aren't there, so he doesn't have to be Responsible about them--but he's technically still at work, which he attends for the purpose of helping aisha, so he can escape from beating on himself over letting his roles drop. he still intermittently engages in the Brian Behavior of being a little control freak, but also, he playfights with alec :)
which is an extremely compelling dynamic to me...he's not even particularly Close with any of the undersiders, but he's known them for like a year and a half, and they're a space where he can be far more genuinely relaxed than he can anywhere else. which is what makes it so incredibly sad to witness when aisha joins the team & now brian's entire life is about trying to fill that ideal of masculinity he's cramming himself into under the misguided hope that it will protect/care for her. he's breaking under the stress of trying to be a good leader, and he can't admit that the stress of the role is entirely self-imposed. he can't set it down because he won't let himself set it down. it leads him to become condescending and unkind to alec--someone he used to play video games and playfight and banter with--in the same way he is to aisha :( brian laborn my sad boy in torture chamber of his own making. i will write about lisa alec and rachel's situations in other posts to keep this one from being too long
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lotusflw3r · 2 months
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A lot of people tend to agree that Mephisto keeps around Amaimon specifically because it pertains to whatever plans he has meticulously crafted. But I think it's worth emphasizing that they do play games together, as demonstrated by small omakes.
And I'm by no means implying that they are buddy, buddy with each other, canon has supported that much, but I do think Mephisto keeps him around at least partially because he's so goddamn lonely.
I truly think Shiro was probably one of the only true friends Mephisto's ever had, at least in the past few decades, which makes me wonder just exactly what his social life looks like to begin with.
Mephisto's a huge attention whore, as demonstrated by his eagerness to be on TV around the time when civilization was beginning to become aware of the existence of demons, so, to a certain extent, he definitely craves social validation.
I can't imagine him being much of a fan of cocktail parties, just because I feel like he'd find himself "above" that sort of thing, in the sense that I feel like he'd find them to be a stupid and superficial human ritual, (mind you he thinks humans are cute, most definitely in a condescending "why do you even care about that sort of thing" way but maybe also as genuine admiration on his part, because he can't have that for himself) but he might indulge them every once in awhile as a means of fulfilling personal social quotas (and social networking as a means of maintaining his status as a socialite) because who else is there to intellectually stimulate him (as if priveleged, psuedo-intellectuals could ever do that pffftt, not like he has much of a choice though.)
He definitely engages people in a superficial way as a means of getting some, and in a way, it works for him, simply because I don't believe Mephisto has it in him to be vulnerable with anybody like that.
This sort of behavior may also give reason to why he's always observing others and their interactions, perhaps as a means of living through others, because he doesn't allow himself to do the same. This could also serve as an explanation for his degenerate ways, because you can't be out here binge playing otome games without some social ineptitude on your part (I'm mostly joking but it's far too fitting tbh.)
So, who else is there to keep him company, except for his little brother, who he can't even really share much of an intellectual connection with because... I mean, it's Amaimon? Amaimon definitely does not care to discuss the endless possibilities of the universe, but he will most definitely indulge Mephisto's litte video games, so long as it doesn't require much effort on his part.
THE POSSIBILITY IS KIND OF SAD TO THINK ABOUT TBH.
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nekropsii · 4 months
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im thinking about the relationship between kankri and porrim because its just so fucking WEIRD like theyre obviously important to eachother or care about eachother to some extent but we dont really know why?? like they dont seem to get along very well
she patronizes him constantly (which is VERY loaded considering they lived on fucking beforus) and ignores his boundaries (calling him patronizing nicknames he doesnt like, wiping his face while he tried to push her off) and he constantly makes insensitive bitchy bigoted comments that go against all of her values and make her angry
and theres not the same dynamic dolorosa and signless had where she raised him like theyre the same age so why do they even talk to eachother?? what is their relationship?? like were they childhood friends or something?? itd make sense if they were both a little different as kids and therefore got along better but then why do they still talk to eachother when they really dont now ITS SO WEIRD
It's... Complicated. They go way back, as far as I can tell.
The way I see it, they do not have a "Mother and Son" relationship- I find that most who assert this often place far too much maturity onto Porrim, who is literally 19 years old. It's more like an Adoptive/Found Sibling relationship between someone with a severe case of Eldest Daughter Syndrome and the social conditioning of a higher-end Midblood on Beforus, and someone with a chronic case of Only Child and the social conditioning of a Mutant Lime on Beforus. The relationship makes more sense to me when you view it this way. It's just... A fraught sibling relationship, formed under societal pressures we can't even fathom. Porrim Maryam, trained by society to cull those beneath her, trying hard not to, and for the most succeeding outside of someone very close to her, and Kankri Vantas, culled and isolated his whole life, becoming a total suck-up to the deeply misogynistic, ableist, hemoloyal culling system as both a method of self defense and as a wielding of the only weapon he really knows. It was used against him all the time, and it works, doesn't it? If sucking up to Able-Bodied Male Highbloods and ridiculing everyone beneath that golden standard is the best way to ensure safety, then he's gonna do it. He's essentially a lifelong voter for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
Ultimately, I think what keeps Porrim by his side is that... I think she believes in him. It's like watching yourself lose your sibling to the Alt-Right Pipeline. I think she thinks he doesn't actually believe most of what he's saying, and that this is all deeply reflexive. She's smart enough to recognize the real systemic issues at play here, and that he's essentially caught in chains between 5 different machines that all want him dead. And she's right. When you actually read the shit Kankri's saying, it becomes almost immediately apparent that he's spouting bullshit, and that he absolutely knows this. I think what keeps Kankri by her side is that he knows she cares about him. There isn't any denying it. She might infringe on boundaries, or be generally annoying to him, and keeps doing that frustrating little thing called seeing through his and everyone else's bullshit and calling them out on it- not just including but especially his- but she cares. I think he knows that at the end of all things what he'd have left is her. Is this to say that if you got Kankri to grow a spine and genuinely believe in things that aren't spoonfeedings of the latest Conservative Highblood Talking Point/Psy-Op, he'd be a good person? Hell no. No way. He has a raging savior complex and is way too eager to throw other people under the bus and insult/ridicule them to their faces. He's an asshole. Just completely slimy.
But, again, sibling relationships know no bounds. This kind of dynamic just feels so... Realistic to me. The way their relationship is so strained but still so strong and ongoing just feels so human. I don't know. This is pretty meandering, I just think about them a lot.
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gojos-fr-bae · 2 months
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Liar pt.5
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Pairing: Gojo x fem!eader
Warnings: Angsty Angst, Fluffy Fluff (tee hee), Cussing (lemme know if i missesd anything
Word Count: 977
A/N: heyy, I said i would release this ike two days ago and yet here we are. Also, this one is pretty small but I think It works, Yk? Hope you Enjoy tho! (p.s i'm workin on re-writing What lovers do so watch out for that.) This was a tad bit too happy for my liking so you best bet pt.6 is goin to be depressing as HECK.
(Requests open)
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Y/N
You were sitting on your bed, looking at your son resting in his crib, deep in dreamland. You were trying so hard to force yourself to get up and face the man waiting outside the threshold of your room but you seemingly couldn’t get your legs to move no matter how hard you tried.
You knew he was outside because you could still sense his cursed energy and knew that no matter how hard you tried to hide.
You slowly trudged towards the door, shaky hand going up towards the handle, and pulling the door open.
You stepped out and turned, your gaze falling on Satoru who was sitting on the floor with his knees brought up to his chest, his hands holding them tightly.
He looks up at you, eyes widening before he quickly pushes himself to his feet. You don't miss how his body sways back and forth, stumbling slightly, but you chose to rule it off as the product of him jumping to his feet so quickly.
“Gojo…hi,” you gently breathed out.
“H-Hi, Lov- Y/N’ You don’t miss the hesitation in his voice. “Do you wanna maybe, g-go for a walk?
His head was downcast and he was only gazing up at you for a few seconds before shooting them back to the ground.
“Sure,” You responded before turning around and slowly walking down the hallway
~
You walked out into the field you spent days lying around, sitting down while leaning against the large sakura tree at its center. You watched as Satoru leaned against the tree before slumping down roughly, his eyes permanently locked on the ground.
“So, how ar-”
“Why did you leave,” his voice cracked, interrupting you mid-sentence.
“Gojo, please,”
“I’m sorry, i-i’m s-s-so, so, s-o fucking sorry I-,” he croaked, you turned to face him, noticing the tears that were steadily cascading down his face, reflecting in the moonlight. 
He was trying so, so hard to hold everything in because to him, he didn't deserve to be sad. He was the one who forced you to deal with so much shit to the extent that you no longer. In his mind, he was the most disgusting thing to have ever existed and the fact that he was feeling even remotely sad was absolutely blasphemous. 
And you could tell.
“Gojo…”
“P-please, don’t call me that.’
“Satoru,” you sighed, “You don’t have to be sorry, you did absolutely nothing wrong, it’s not your fault I left,”
“But If I was strong enough not to be sealed then this would’ve never happened-”
“Because you are human! You can’t always be perfect and that’s okay. What happened probably happened for a reason, I mean I’ve been doing pretty well and Kaito…” you stopped yourself because you weren’t ready to dive into the conversation of your son, karma’s a bitch tho so…
“You named him Kaito?!” he said with a sad but slightly excited tone.
While you were pregnant, you and Satoru had been mulling around what you would name your child.
***
“How about we make a bet,” you said softly as he snuggled his face into your neck while you laid together all snug in bed, “If it’s a boy, we HAAVE to name him Kaito.” 
“And why is that?”he chuckled before fluttering kisses against your neck, jaw and cheek.
“Because you know, the sky is blue.. Your eyes are blue.. Oh my days it would be the most adorable thing in the world Satoru pleeeaase!”
“You know, If I knew you were this obsessed with me I would’ve gotten you pregnant ages ago,”
“SATORU!”  you squeaked as he laughed at your flustered state, Gosh he loves you so much.
 ***
He couldn’t believe that you genuinely went through with naming your son Kaito considering he thought you hated his guts.
“Well, I mean, I said I would love to name him after you in some way, and your matching eyes are just the best bonus ever.
For the first time since he left for the mission, the faintest smile spread across his face for the slightest fraction of a second, and if he knew any better, he would say he actually felt happy.
“What’s he like?”
“He is the sweetest baby boy on earth,” you said, smiling at the thought of your precious angel, “He’s really shy tho so I guess he didn’t take after you much in that sense, then again he looks like an absolute carbon copy of you so you win some you lose some,”
Gojo could only imagine what the boy was like, and it pained him to no ends to know that he wasn’t there to watch the small boy go through his first two years of life but there was really nothing he could do about it.
“Satoru, he’s going to need his father as he grows up, and it's only a matter of time before he starts to wonder why he doesn’t have one. I’m not saying we should get back together,” You could literally hear his already broken heart put itself together just so it could break again, “But he’s still extremely young so it’s not too late. I have only ever wanted the best for Kaito and that includes having his father in his life, so as long as you are willing to co-parent I’m sure we could find a way to work this out.”
He for the first time since the conversation began looked deep into your eyes and could no longer hold his emotions in, a sob ripping from his chest.
“I-I wou- would like that a l-l-l-ot, please-”he said through soft sobs and sniffles, wiping his tears away as quickly as possible. 
For the first time in two years, he didn’t cry himself to sleep. He, for the first time in two years, went to sleep sober.
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Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Yeah, wayy to happy, mentally prepare for pt.6 ( watch me say this and find that pt.6 isn't even all that😭
@porridgesblog , @giannitaa , @c0pkiller , @havens-not-here
© gojos-fr-bae
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lineffability · 5 months
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on crowley's loneliness
there's sth that has been sitting with me vis a vis Crowley, loneliness, and what the fandom, largely, has made of it... and it is the notion, simply put, that Crowley is - well - lonely.
but of course he is, you might say, I've even got textual evidence for it! and you might quote Good Omens Season 2 Episode A Companion to Owls directed by Douglas MacKinnon and written by John Finnemore, and you might point to the final conversation of the Job Minisode, when they agree that being a demon/angel who goes along with hell/heaven as far as he can is...lonely!
and, yes, that's right and true.
and yet. still. I want to argue against Crowley being lonely. at least to some extent. I'm not saying crowley isn't lonely, it's more about how that loneliness is sometimes portrayed/interpreted/understood?
I think we need to look at Crowley's loneliness on different levels: his loneliness vis a vis humanity and his loneliness vis a vis the occult/his job/his place in the ineffable scheme of things
because it's right there in the quote, isn't it? it's lonely to be a demon who doesn't feel part of hell. it's not about being lonely on earth with the humans.
when it comes to humanity and friendships to humans, regardless how close or not they may be, Crowley is not lonely! he forms attachments, he meets and knows tons of people, he schemes, he has fun (Jane Austen anyone???? I mean it's actual canon) and yes of course they all die - of course Crowley's human friendships, just like Aziraphale's, are always slightly detached because , well y'know, they will outlive every single human they will ever meet, and that will influence your attachment style. they don't even really meet humans as equals, arguably, but they both have been shown to continuously engage in friendships, whether those are superficial acquaintances (like neighbor Maggie to Aziraphale) or genuine connections (like Leonardo Da Vinci or Jesus, both canonically really close relationships of Crowley's!!) but it's not even the fact that human friendships are fleeting that makes him lonely in the end - it doesn't cheapen the experience. he's used to people coming and going. it's the way things are.
where the loneliness hits, and yes it hits hard, is on the supernatural level. hated by heaven and hell etc etc. before he became closer with Aziraphale (so roughly around Job) he was truly a solo agent, all alone against the not-world, and this experience of defying both hell and his arguable purpose as a demon made him lonely where it mattered most. but Aziraphale has since been with him, they are the same, they are a group of the two of them and they are only lonely together, which is a different kind of loneliness. it holds defiance and partnership - us against the world.
he still struggles with purpose, both his own and that of the universe, he struggles with his own love for humans and God's seeming indifference to them, and there's loneliness in that too, or at least pain, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have any friends??
ah I think this is the bit that gets me! that people think he doesn't have any friends! or that he doesn't have a life outside of Aziraphale! there we are, I have arrived at the core of my problem apparently. (idk if I'm making any sense with this incoherent rambling, I'm making it up as I go)
but basically I just have been irked by seeing this idea a few to many times that's basically: 'aziraphale is a happy little socialite who draws friends to him like moths to an angelic flame while crowley needily and sadly and longingly waits by himself for the angel to grace him with his company' (this is slightly exaggerated maybe but you get my drift, and I'm sure you've seen takes like that) (I love pining Crowley as much as anyone believe me, and oh boy does he do pine - but you know what I mean right??) (I just love this stupid optimistic and loving demon too much)
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public-trans-it · 4 months
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Time is fake as hell
I know people regularly talk about how time is an illusion, or just something humans made up as a tool to help us describe our moment to moment experiences and differentiate them. I'm not breaking any new ground there.
Anyone who has to suffer through the abhorrent creature that is Daylight Savings is already aware of this, and by extension, anyone who regularly interacts with people who have to deal with DST. People living close to the international date line (on either side) regularly deal with this as well.
But genuinely, I don't think you truly realize the extent of just how fake time is until you work night shift. I work five 8-hour shifts per week. I get only 1 day off every 2 weeks. At the end of my shift on Monday my boss asks me to do something tomorrow. She of course means Wednesday, why would you think she meant anything else?
To prove my point, here is my work schedule:
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Fairly straight forward! As far as a rotating weekend schedule, it's pretty standard. I get every other weekend off, and with the weekend I work I will have another day during the week off, once before and once after. So I still get the usual 4 days off every 2 weeks.
Or at least, I would if I worked day shift.
Day shift gets 4 days off every 2 weeks.
I get 4 SHIFTS off every 2 weeks. I only get a single day off every two weeks.
And when I tell people that, they think I'm making it up, because the fundamental nature of night shift work runs so counter-intuitive to the way they view the world.
A single shift on night shift occupies two days, and you work twice each day you have consexutive shifts. You come in Monday night, leave Tuesday morning. Come in Tuesday night, leave Wednesday morning. Those two shifts take 3 days to complete, despite being standard 8 hour shifts.
Here is another image of my work shift, this time indicating in red when my shift bleeds into the next day.
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Suddenly, it becomes obvious that I'm working every single day on that time block, except for 1. Having a SHIFT off does NOT equate to having the DAY off.
People working night shift experience time FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT than the people around them.
Another example, based on genuine real life events that happened to me:
I come in to work on Monday. I finish up my shift. As I go to leave, I bump into my manager. She tells me I will be training someone tomorrow. I go home and go to sleep. I wake up and come in for my Tuesday shift. I procrastinate a bit of my early shift work, so I can show the new guy how to do it. The new guy never shows up, and I rush to get the work done. I finish up my shift, but don't see my manager this time. We only have a few minutes of our schedule overlapping, so thats not unusual. I go home and get to sleep, and don't worry about it too much. I come in for my Wednesday night shift. The new guy is there. I ask him where he was yesterday. He looks at me confused, wondering what I mean. He wasn't scheduled to work yesterday.
I make a mental note that from now on, I need to ask for clarification from my boss of what she means by "tomorrow." Because while everyone else knows what people mean by the word "tomorrow", I work night shift, and have two different tomorrows. According to my boss, by finishing up my Monday shift, my tomorrow means Wednesday.
Time is relative. And normally when people talk about that, they are talking about major sci-fi concepts like light speed travel or the temporal distortion of gravity wells, or other such things.
You don't need to be in a sci-fi world to experience relative time. You just need to work night shift and see how it breaks down at the most fundamental level.
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captainmera · 6 months
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How do you think Belos would react if he found out Hunter had feelings for Willow,a witch, just like his brother?
As a man of repetitive patterns - I'd say he'd kill him?
"It hurts every time he chooses to betray me"
can mean lots of ways Caleb betrayed Philip. It's vague and Philip gets to interpret it however he wants for every new grimwalker. It's almost like he expects it of them - otherwise, why always have one in the making?
Betrayal of wanting to be himself. Betrayal of loving a witch. Betrayal of loving the demon realm. Betrayal of disagreeing with ideologies. Betrayal of wanting to quit the coven system/Golden guard. Betrayal of running away.
Essentially, Hunter checks every mark of betrayal.
"you looked the most like him" <- WELL, DING DONG BELOS THE NEWS IS HERE; YOUR NEPHEW IS MORE ALIKE CALEB IN OTHER WAYS THAN LOOKS ALONE!
Unless there was a reason of absolute that caused Belos to refrain from killing Hunter, if he has a use for him he no longer can get from anything or anyone else (making a new grimwalker might not be on the table anymore, for one), I think it would just be a matter of time before he kills Hunter too.
Put a mental pin in this note: No new grimwalkers mean no new person to exercise his cycle of reliving trauma and self-abuse with.
I don't think there is anything Hunter could've done. He would never have been who and what Belos wanted. Belos would have killed him.
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I think the psychology, if I may be so bold and a little controversial here, is that Philip has a genuine trauma (as per definition of it) in regards to Caleb.
Here's something about trauma, yeah? It's not just innocent people who get it. Awful, horrible, people get trauma too. Sometimes, they are awful horrible people because of trauma.
In Philip's case, I think he was traumatized by the abandonment - as well as the humongous moral injury on top of it when finding out his brother chose to leave him and was happier now.
Side note: You know when you have a bully, then you grow up and you've had this awful life because you were traumatised by this person's abuse to you. In whatever extent it was. Could've been one moment, or a long period of time. Whatever it was, it left a significant mark on you that stagnated your life. As an adult, you look them up. Surely, a person who does that can't just... move on, right? There must have been karma, something! Anything! Divine justice! Nope. They just have a happy life, this whole time. People even love them.. And there you are. Broken.
Kind of the same vibe but a bit to the left.
Did you know that killers suffer ptsd?
It makes sense. Soldiers does! They're just people in war. But killers, you know, people who kill in self-defence or set out to kill for whatever reason in the context of regular society (and not in lines of war or duty). They actually, majority of the time, get trauma from it.
Soldiers don't need to have psychopathic tendencies to be able to kill another human being. Nobody does.
I don't think Belos began as a psychopath, 'nor a sociopath or a narcissist. I think he is a normal dude, whom due to trauma and repetitive re-living of that trauma has skewed his view of reality to such an extreme that he frankly just.... is functionally delusional.
He is a smart dude, who got crazy and scary, because he is delusional, wounded and functional.
Belos seeks his trauma out in a new setting where he has control over what happens. He sets it up the same every time. Has the same result every time.
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He is a self-abuser.
Sometimes people seek out to revisit the trauma they experience, but in a way where they are in control of what happens.
Serial killers are interesting in this factor. Especially if we go by the stereotypical reason why male serial killers do what they do - Developing a need to impose power and murder the person they cant actually murder. Projecting to the extremes. At it's core, it's just the chase to impose power over a situation they had no power in.
In Belos case, is by all accounts a serial killer! ...With delusions of grandeur and lives in a delusional version of what reality actually is.
He absolutely slots right into that.
Consciously or not, he's trying to exert control over Caleb, the person who caused his trauma and, in his eyes, his abuse. Caleb leaving was, to Belos, abuse. By definition anyway, yeah. Unfortunately, if it hurts the person, yeah. That doesn't mean Caleb owes him shit though.
Killing Caleb was, most likely, very traumatic.
So, the moral injury of betrayal, coupled with murdering Caleb, possibly caused this cycle of murder.
I know some people are going to read this and cringe all "Don't call it trauma" but it is. It is trauma. Trauma is not some moral debate, it's an injury on the psyche or emotional state, your soul even. It is a wound.
And wounds can heal, and they can.. like in Belos case... Just escalate and consume them.
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Belos just didn't fucking COPE.
Like, this would have been so different if he just COPED. But he has no friends, no family, he's isolated and wounded and single minded and scientific. It's all the right and wrong things to shape him into a dude that... did. not. cope.
And being HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD just living and breathing and doing NOTHING ELSE than committing your ENTIRE EXISTENCE to this repetition... This wound.. Dissecting it over and over and over and over AND OVER.. Well...! There he is!
Belos, everyone!
What a dick. :V
People rarely want to discuss the ugly of mental illness. And the horrible people trauma can create.
In no shape or form am I excusing Belos behaviour or actions, just explaining the road it might've gotten there.
Again, it's not just the innocents that can have trauma.
I've personally met people who just.. They're an endless cycle. They were traumatized, they became not-so-great people... Never coped. Made it their whole identity.
And they think, because they're hurting; it's fair game to hurt others. Because to them it's not reaaal hurt. Because only victims hurt, right? And they were a victim once, they feel like a victim, they still live in that role.
And abusers are bad, victims are good. So they will never admit that they can do wrong. In their mind, they're the good guy forever. And you saying otherwise means you must be a bad one.
Some people, not all and not majority, finds control and comfort in remaining the victim - meaning they can never ever be the abuser in their mind either. Thus, starting a new cycle where they hand out abuse in the disguise of "love" or demanding "love" from someone.
Belos, absolutely, sees himself as the good guy. The one who was BETRAYED. He fails to see that he is betraying his brother, his long line of nephews- his own humanity even.
Everyone else (grimwalkers) is the bad guy if they don't become the one to heal them (belos), or cater to their needs.
Suddenly, it's your job to ensure they're okay, not hurting. And you will, because you love them. Right? If you didn't, you're a bad person. And you don't want to be that, do you? Disappoint them?
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Belos, also, by repeatedly committing the murder of his brother is continuously abusing himself and re-traumatising himself. Death and empathy would wain and fade out. With practice comes perfection.
Basically he's training himself to feel less, because he has deluded himself into thinking the inhabitants of the Demon Realm aren't actual people - so it's okay. To him. To kill them.
And by murdering, and feeling less empathy per murder, coupled with his scientific desire to explore and dissect to understand as a way to (like doctors do) dehumanise the carcass he's working on, it's no wonder he started feeling less empathy.
And saw this growing lack of empathy as... Well, proof. Proof he's right. They aren't people.
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With all this being said...
I don't think this is something he could repent from. It would take twice the time it took for him to get to this point. What? 300-400 years? so... 600-800 more just to give him a chance to repent?
Now, could HE heal from it? I'm sure he could. But that would not include being forgiven or going without punishment - if that punishment is death, yeah. sorry man. Off with your head.
ANYWAY.
Hunter and his uncle.
Belos abuse exerted upon Hunter is, in many forms, guided to shape Hunter into being the version of Caleb Belos wants Caleb to be.
But, also having this subconscious understanding that this boy is NOT his brother, and calling him his nephew and even giving him a name that symbolises what he wishes Caleb to be (Hunter, Witch Hunter. You could even say the GG is a general - so, witch hunter general).
All of this, possibly, as deranged as it is - in an attempt to reverse the roles.
Belos gets to be Caleb (the person who held "power" in the dynamic), gets to be admired, the way Philip admired his brother, which is now Hunter loving his uncle.
While still weirdly parading his nephew as his brother.
I think the psychology is layered in several ways here.
He he is forcing Hunter to be all of the vulnerable parts of his own younger self, while also forcing him to be everything he wanted his older brother to be. Making Hunter both an embodiment of what he hates in himself as well as what he admired in Caleb.
A very contradictory combo that, no doubt, would make Hunter's life hell to try understand - it's not a secure attachment, to have a violently out bursting parental figure that flip-flops between loving what you do for them but hating a vague invisible something you'll never understand that you also are.
Hunter's familial love is genuine, I don't doubt Belos has familial feelings towards Hunter. But I think, because he is so desensitised and on some level of delusion knows the grimwalkers will never be "good enough", that he is both emotionally and mentally prepared to watch life exit his nephew's eyes. So the attachment isn't a normal one.
He reduce it to the degree of putting the family dog out. Like "oh, it does hurt me, but I can get a new dog." kind of feelings.
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Which is like, holy shit dude. What the actual hell is wrong with you.
But that's just... That's who the trauma has turned him into.
Yeah...!
Yeah!
I mean.. I'm not surprised..! Are you?
Humans can create the worst of monsters. Not because they have a negatively affiliated diagnosis like narcissism. But because the conditions were just right (or wrong) enough to make this genocidal maniac.
:l
So, long answer made short:
As a man of repetitive patterns - I'd say he'd kill him.
just straight up bye bye nephew. <:')
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THIS WAS LONGER THAN EXPECTED.... I'M GOING TO HAVE LUNCH NOW.
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jasper-the-menace · 1 month
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Hey, since you're interested in scorpion biology, I thought you'd be interested in the idea of... intersex Chima scorpions! Well, sort of.
There's a specific character that's been bugging me a bit. Scutter is kind of the scorpion equivalent of a centaur; he has two torsos, one anthropomorphic, and another of the scorpion body. With scorpion anatomy in mind, it's easy to reach the conclusion that Scutter's reproductive organ would be heavily altered because of his body, making him intersex to a certain extent.
I hope this makes sense. I'm trying to look for possible trans rep in Chima characters (like in this example). What do you think of this idea?
Oh friend, you don't know the essay you just inspired.
You Opened This Can Of Worms, Now Lie In It
Some important bulletpoints before I get going, just to get all of my followers on the same page:
Disclaimer: I am a transgender nonbinary perisex individual. This means I am not intersexed (to my knowledge), I don't identify with the gender I was assigned at birth, and I don't identify as male or female. The closest thing to describing my gender is literally "no".
I am a strong advocate for making as many characters transgender as possible, regardless of "realism". That's why, in my own writing, half of the Scorpions are retroactively transgender (though they don't understand gender on the whole and most of them would probably be nonbinary if someone took fifteen minutes to explain gender, variable social constructs, and the concept of genitalia tying to gender roles) and also Razar is too on account of I said so.
Being intersexed does not inherently mean being transgender. There is a lot of discussion and individual choice between intersexed people about whether or not they're part of the queer community. It's a very individual thing, and I am not part of those discussions on account of not being intersex myself.
When it comes to humans and other beings with a level of sentience and sapience, the term "hermaphrodite" and its derivates are considered slurs. When talking about animals, hermaphrodite and its derivates are scientific terms. So in something like the Legends of Chima series and other humanoid-animal media, the proper term is "intersexed". (I noticed you used the term "intersex" in your ask, and I appreciate it!)
I know too much about scorpion mating and birth.
We're talking way too much about genitalia and gender tonight in regards to fictional characters.
I am genuinely delighted that you decided to drop in here to discuss this, because boy howdy do I have a lot of thoughts about transgender headcanons/representation and scorpions specifically! Scorpions are just. So damn cool.
Note for my fellow arachnophobes: There are no images attached to this post, but it's really easy to find videos of scorpions doing various things on YouTube, which is actually how I've been studying them.
Scorpion Sex, Mating, and Genitalia
Scorpions of both "genders" have genital opercula (singular: genital operculum), and their asses run up into their tails. In order to mate, they don't just do like horses. No no, buddy, they have a really weird, specific method!
In order to start wooing his potential mate, the male scorpion will lock chelae (pincers) with the female scorpion, and they will start to "dance". The male scorpion will drop a sperm packet onto the ground and lead the female scorpion over it. If the female scorpion is down, she'll basically squat and absorb the sperm packet into her body, which is then followed by a "mating plug" to keep it in while it does the fertilization thing.
(It's important to note that the courting process also contains "juddering", aka the male scorpion doing the dance that the stickbug meme did, and may also contain clerchical "kisses". Honestly, pretty romantic for an arachnid. And possibly tail-rubbing and sexual stinging. Scorpions are very kinky!)
(It's also important to note that some species of scorpions have been reported, though not reliably, to reproduce through parthogenesis.)
Post-coitus cannibalism has not been scientifically seen in scorpions, so the male scorpion is generally safe as long as he scadoodles.
Gestation in some scorpion species can last over a year, and different species can have anywhere from 2 to 100 little scorplings - the physical size of the scorpion is not necessarily tied to how many babies they'll have.
Also, scorpions give live birth!
The baby scorpion is essentially folded like a Fedex package and launched out of the womb. It will then unfold and climb on top of the mother to make way for its next sibling. These will hang onto the mother until their first molt, which happens as a group and launches them into the juvenile stage. After this, they will still stay with their mothers until their carapace finishes hardening and gaining color, at which point they hunt prey on their own and will wander off on their own terms.
Hey, Jasper, That's Pretty Fucked Up, But How Does This Tie Into Chima?
I'm getting there, hold your centaur scorpions!
This is where we get into the worldbuilding of the Legends of Chima series, the Character Encyclopedia, and our poor boy Scutter.
See, the Legends of Chima as a series is very much a product of its time. There is some rife ableism and questionable word choices in regards to the Crawlers (and Sir Fangar, but this isn't about him). According to the Character Encyclopedia, Scutter is "less evolved". There's a looong history of racism in using phrases like "evolution" in regards to other humans, so taking that and applying it to an animal world leaves us with some very strange dissonance, because it's used in Chima to mean animals turned into a more humanoid form by the Chi.
Because really, what is the Chi? It's a magical substance that, depending on how you read it, could be the animist spirit of the land (I say, as an animist myself), or it could be drugs. Or it could be any number of other things! I know one person who writes Chi as the blood of dead gods, which is metal as fuck!
Ultimately, it depends on how one is writing the Chi that makes the usage of phrases like "less evolved" more or less questionable than it was intended. We're all dragging around the corpse of a Lego theme across our writing desks anyway. And the way I go about answering the question of "what is Chi" is definitely different from others. (Again, see the dead god blood part.)
The question of whether or not the Scorpion Tribe, namely Scutter, would count as intersexed relies on 1) defining intersexuality in regards to genitalia arrangement (scorpions don't have penises and vaginas by default; and the Wikipedia article on scorpions just uses "genital orfice" or "genital opercula"); 2) determining if the Chi has magically changed how genitalia works for Scorpions (admittedly, I do this because I didn't want to have to use the term "genital opercula" over and over); 3) determining the humanization extent of the Scorpion Tribe as you write them (I lean more towards human than you do, just from what I've seen of your work); and 4) deciding if such terminology even exists in Chima.
But looking at Scutter and going with the assumption that the back end is fully scorpion... No, I wouldn't count him as intersex by default. Intersex implies landing between the two human biological extremes (which, as we all know, is not as cut-and-dry as high school biology taught us), when really he's kind of a secret third thing (a Scorpion who probably doesn't have either a penis or a vagina).
(Of course, there's also what you said, paraphrased to my own wording: the Chi may have just decided to fuck up this poor man's genital situation and do a half-ass job.)
That's not to say he can't be trans. I mean, I made Scorm and about half of the Scorpion Tribe trans already. That's also not to say they're not all trans by default, considering scorpions without the ability to think wouldn't have the concepts of genders anyway.
Okay Jasper, So How Do You Write Him?
So, here's the thing. I'm aromantic-asexual, and I also write smut and, to a lesser extent, romance, which means I think about fictional character genitalia too much. But thinking about Scutter has left me utterly baffled.
On one hand, I usually write the Chi as a magical animist force of the land of Chima on the whole, and part of that is that the Chi tries to get everyone on the same playing field, physically speaking, which is how we get retroactive transgender man Scorm in my Tales of Chima series.
On the other hand, look at him. Look at him. He's a centaur arachnid. I know he can pass the Harkness Test, but I still feel weird thinking about his genitalia. If I go with my theory of the Chi giving everyone penises and vaginas at random, then I don't want to think about how much that would get in the way for the poor boy! On the other hand, his lower body is still mostly scorpion instead of, well, Scorpion, so who's to say he doesn't have a genital operculum?
Too Long, Don't Want Details About Scorpion Sex
Alright, spoilsport. Here's your TLDR:
It genuinely depends on what the Chi does in your version of the story and how bad it fucks up. It depends on how dedicated you are to scientific accuracy. It depends on how much you want to think about scorpion genitals.
And being intersex is not necessarily trans rep, unless it is, unless it isn't. I'm not intersexed, so I'm not going to say what that falls on myself. There is an intersex pride flag that was created by Morgan Carpenter in 2013.
Trans characters can exist outside of being intersexed, you don't have to conflate the two in order to have transgender representation. Just hit the characters with the Transgenderinator 5000 Beam. Fuck realism, this is a series about walking talking animal people. Who's going to stop you? The fun police? Transphobes? Eat them.
Further Reading
Start at Wikipedia and go from there through its sources for anything of particular interest:
Intersex flag (in case you're curious about it and its history, which can also launch you into further reading about humans being intersex)
Scorpion (morphology section)
Scorpion (mating subsection)
Scorpion (birth and development subsection)
So, uh, yeah! Thanks for coming to me with these questions, it's really touching that you value my thoughts this much, and I love talking about my boys and scorpions and the complicated web! I apologize for any errors or too-crass sections, because I wrote most of this in one sitting after playing wayyy too much Skyrim today.
~Jasper
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nightswithkookmin · 1 year
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Hmmm. I don't know about that. I think even though they all started with concepts they discarded any company assigned roles for them some where along the line because it didn't suit them and they couldn't keep up with it.
With Vmin I used to think if those two weren't good friends they could be the biggest frenemies on earth and their dynamic would be predisposed to envy and jealousy, unnecessary competition and drama. We don't say this out loud but I think we all can sense it.
Deep down I think they both know this too.
I think it's why they put in so much effort internally and externally to prevent that from happening to them. You should watch a video of Taehyung crying on stage and pouring out his heart because Jimin was there for him in one of the most difficult moments of his life when his grandma passed.
If that confession was staged and faked i'm sorry he is going straight to the pits of hell. And I don't know the metrics for determining the authenticity of their friendship but to me the mere fact that Tae goes to Jimin for emotional support at his lowest and is willing to share his vulnerability with Jimin when he's scared of ghosts in the middle of the night or ask of him the first thing in the morning when he wakes up in soop is a sign of lowered emotional boundaries on his part and you dont lower your walls unless you feel safe to do so around someone- give him an Oscar he certainly fooled me had me believing he liked him so much he might have developed actual gay feelings for him somewhere along the line. Best actor award for him them. Shooketh to my core.
People wanna hype Tae Kook and Taejin but I'm sorry this man will run to Jimin in a heart beat when he needs tender loving and care. Tae kook who. You think JK will sit on a couch and let Tae sob into his laps while he caresses his hair?
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Now who's delulu.
Other than that one moment of him on stage burying Tae's face into his chest, show me a compilation of him comforting Tae. I'll wait.
He will rub his back with a broomstick sure
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However Tae wouldn't hesitate to be JK's emotional support- IF ONLY JK GOES TO HIM FOR IT💀
Like Jimin and Jhope, Tae is actually very warm at his core.
If you want people JM allows himself to be vulnerable with V is on top of the list, followed by Hobi and V. It all depends on who you think he spends most of his time around and since he used to spend a lot of time around Jungkook we have a tendency to place Kook on top of his list simply because they have more vulnerable moments together. But there are certain things he shares with Tae and even Hobi that he doesn't share with Jungkook first.
And sometimes Jungkook is not the one he reaches out to first when he needs emotional support. And I reckon he has other friends he keeps private and we don't know what he does with those. Similarly Tae has other friends and isn't really private about those friendships like Jimin.
All that comes to play and at the end of the day whether or not you think their friendship is genuine depends on your definition of friendship.
From personal experience, I had friends whom I loved dearly and deeply and to some extent I still do but want nothing to do with them. In fact, I will fly to Mars on a strawmat just to get away from them. Because while I was busy loving them from my heart they let envy and jealousy sip in and I didn't realize till they did the most damage to me.
These days I tell the few friends I have, let's talk about it. It's okay if you're Jealous of me. I won't hate you for it. It's okay if I feel envious of you too just as long as we are not acting on these feelings and we talk about it and not let it push us to sabotage eachother and hurt each other. Jealousy and envy are human weaknesses. It's usually a sign we've been victims of injustices and unfair treatments on cosmic levels. Life isn't fair and some of us will be dealt the short end of the stick. As long as those with the longer sticks are compassionate and not condescending we can all learn to heal.
I feel that's what people don't understand about BTS or even about Vmin. It's not as if they don't know all these things, it's not as if they don't see some are loved more by fans or the company or that some are blessed or that some are slacking- they deal with it.
They help each other deal with it. And that is the strength of Vmin.
You don't think it's ironical Vmin have a vmin letter and years later Jikook develop a letter too mirroring the concept of vmin's letters?
I don't know.
May be I'm just too optimistic and a bit naive I must say and yall see something I don't see. But to me it's not about the ghettoness between them, it's about the way they process these negative feelings and deal with them when they arise.
Someone mentioned Tae complaining about JM stealing the spotlight, but what did JM say right after? He said to Tae you could have come to me to talk to me about this. Look how nurturing that is. He says he values communication and as a Libra myself I can't stress how much important I feel communication is.
I don't know. I love their dynamic. I think their relationship isn't all rainbows and sunshine but a lot of work has gone into it. And there is still more room for improvement. They've come this far so why not see it through to the end.
They should keep being mindful and intentional about their relationship. It's THEE VMIN. Things will work out.
I trust you Tae. Please come through 😭
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heyclickadee · 1 year
Text
Things about "The Outpost" that are still killing me:
1. That airstrip was huge. And by the time we see Mayday and Crosshair on it they've been walking across it for a while, at the rate they’re going. The TK troopers don't see them at first, but once they do, they gather, see this:
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These two men, barely on their feet, clearly in pain, one of them unable to keep holding on to his crutch anymore, staggering towards them inch by inch, looking towards them for help--not a single one of the TK troopers offers any kind of assistance whatsoever. No one calls for a medic, no one rushes forward to carry Mayday. They all just stand there and watch. And when Nolan tells them to go, they do, because they probably don't see the clones that differently than Nolan does.  
Yeah, Lieutenant Nolan is an asshole. He went from, "I'm probably going to dislike this guy," to, "LOATHE," in my book with a single line. He's a pathetic officer-wannabe who genuinely thinks of the clones as machinery he can push around and direct how he likes. He doesn't see the problem with kicking around someone like Mayday--someone who technically outranks him, I think--or the danger inherent in goading someone like Crosshair, because he doesn't see either of them as reasoning, emotion-having people who may just retaliate if pushed far enough. He's a snake and he deserved what he got. But his malice is more than matched by the TK troopers' apathy.
2. The way that there's ice and snow frozen to Crosshair's armor on the landing strip, and the fact that Mayday can't quite make it to the end of the tarmac, nor is Crosshair able to continue carrying him. They're both so cold and tired. They've both hit their physical limit and it would have been enough if anyone had cared to help.
3. Crosshair is--literally--stripped of everything that marks him as an imperial soldier or a soldier at all by the end of the episode, and most of it is stuff he casts aside himself. His CT number (in a way, when he gives Mayday his name), his helmet that he doesn't even look for (there as SO MANY good helmet metas out there, so I'm not going to get into it), his rifle (which he gives to Mayday to use as a crutch and doesn't retrieve when Mayday drops it), his backpack (I'm guessing it got too heavy so he threw it away to keep carrying Mayday), and even his armor, reflection mirror...sticker...things, and sidepiece (all of which are taken from him after he blacks out. I'm not real happy about the fact that the scientists at Mount Tantiss changed his clothes while he was unconscious). Of course, the last few function a little bit differently than they first ones do. The CT number, the helmet, the rifle, and I guess (?) even the backpack (though to a much lesser extent) are all Crosshair intentionally putting his imperial identity aside in order to help someone he sees as a brother and re-humanizing himself in the process. The last couple--the armor, the sidepiece--that's the writers telling us how vulnerable Crosshair is in his current situation.
4. The SNOW and the way it interacted with the CHARACTERS was just *chef's kiss* Credit to Joel Aron and the effects department, you guys knocked it out of the park.
5. Likewise, while I'm really glad The Bad Batch does list the names of the animators at CGCG who worked on each episode in the credits (because guess what--not every animated show does this. Sometimes they just list the name of the studio), I really want to know which animators were responsible for animating Crosshair this time around. Or at least Crosshair's shots, since the way I think it often works is that an animator will be assigned a series of shots and be responsible for animating everyone in those shots, because oh boy, was that a performance. Crosshair's animation has always been standout, I think partly (partly) because he's a character that doesn't actually talk that much, and says stuff he doesn't mean at least half the time, so there has to be a certain level of clarity and nuance in his performance for the character comes across the way the writers intend (and partly because being an ultra-expressive but taciturn bundle of emotions is a big part of Crosshair as a person). But the team working on this episode took something that was already great and kicked it up another level.
6. I want to know if Jennifer Corbett, the board artists, layout artists, the other writers, the directors, and others high-fived each other when they came up with the ice vulture symbolism and the rock-wings shot. I want to know if they knew we'd go crazy over it.
7. Mayday. Literally everything about Mayday. Mayday my beloved. *cries*
8. The look on Crosshair's face when he's about to pass out and sees the TK troopers coming still messes me up, because it's the closest thing we've gotten to a real smile (one that actually reaches his eyes) pretty much since he was teasing Echo in the med bay in "Aftermath." Crosshair's someone who's come across as to me passively suicidal since the moment he turned around after the droid fight in "Return to Kamino" and saw Hunter and the rest pointing their guns at him. Passively--meaning that he's not going to actually do anything, that he doesn't actually want to die, he’ll survive however he can, but that he's not exactly planning for the future, either. He'll just keep doing what he's doing until it (almost definitely) kills him. And. I mean. Crosshair's not stupid. He knows what killing Lieutenant Nolan means for him. I'm not saying that Crosshair didn't expect to wake up afterwards, or that he wanted to not wake up, but I am saying that he did decide that avenging Mayday and defying the Empire in whatever small way he could was worth dying for. And that he was very, very tired.
9. I'm so! Glad! That Crosshair's growth wasn't centered around Omega, Wrecker, Tech, Hunter, or Echo. We already know that he cares about them. Showing us the lengths he'll go to help a relative stranger instead and making that his breaking point does so much more to tell us that he's grown.
10. The thing that sticks with me most, though, is the fact that this episode wasn't just sad. It wasn't just unrelenting tragedy, or even like "The Solitary Clone," where overriding emotion of the whole episode is despair. I mean, yes, this episode is sad. It's tragic. You have Lieutenant Nolan's cruelty, you have the malice of the Empire, you have the apathy of the TK troopers, the dehumanization of the clones, the soul-crushing way in which Mayday and Crosshair find out that the clones were always going to be replaced, that inevitability, the futility (on one level) struggle that ends in Mayday's death. 
But it's not just that. There's warmth, too. There's camraderie and a little bit of humor. Mayday, a survivor starting to see how pointless it all was, and Crosshair, who's so desperate for companionship at this point that he'd pack bond with a rock, snark back and forth at each other a little bit like old friends. Heck, this is the episode where we get the most profound act of compassion we've seen in the show so far. Mayday didn't have to disarm that mine and save Crosshair, but he did, and it matters. No, Mayday didn't make it, but Crosshair carried him through a blizzard for two days and made sure he didn't get left behind or die alone, even if he couldn't save him, and that matters. Yes, Crosshair's a prisoner now, but he chose to avenge Mayday, grab hold of his own humanity again, and told the Empire where to stuff it, and that matters. Kindness and defiance have their own meaning, even if they don't change the outcome. But the fact that this episode is more than just sad is, I think, why it's so harrowing in the first place.
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rbck · 1 year
Text
Polls, this biased medium of democracy that Tumblr has now added. You might be wondering what is so biased about polls, but it is more so a failure of the human mind. If you ask people to vote for the most Tumblr sexyman out of Minecraft youtubers, they will vote for their favourite mcyt sexyman, not which one is the most Tumblr sexyman after careful concideration. This is why Goodtimewhithscar is leading in nominations, while Joe Hills is the MOST Mcyt Tumblr sexyman, and you should vote for him.
Firstly, Tumblr sexymen are different from regular sexymen. A Tumblr sexyman is supposed to have an appearance that makes the uninitiated question in what world that is considered sexy. The answer is Tumblr BTW. This criteria means that Scar would, in my opinion, not qualify for looks. His appearance is too conventionally attractive for that. And the same goes for Cleo, despite being a zombie, her design is that of an attractive person who happens to have rotting skin and their ribs poking out. (For Cleo, I point you to the mcyt girlboss poll.) Joe Hills skin however, is a steve skin with a @ symbol at the chest. This is an incredibly plain and boring skin, there is nothing special or remarkable about it. Normal people would think this is a deficit to his sexyness, but that is what makes it perfect for a Tumblr sexyman! Add to this that his real life appearance screams weird uncle, and his lanky, unmuscular build, and there is the type of sexyness that only Tumblr apprechiates!
He is cryptid, very Tumblr sexyman. Because to tell the truth, if you told me that Joe Hills is a cryptid I would seriously hear you out instead of walking away. This is a man who has found the chaotic-lawful alignment. This is a man who built a replica of the ship that blocked the suez canal, and became giddy with genuine joy when it blocked the servers' sea travel. This is a man who decided to become dogcatcher during a mayoral election so he could burn the shopping district diamonds using the argument that dogs and diamonds are fundamentally the same. This is a man who built a bridge of red glass pains through the nether. This is Joe Hills, a creature whose mind we mere mortals can not begin to comprehend. Perfect, for a Tumblr sexyman.
One might argue that Scar also has a very Tumblr sexyman personality, but not to the point that Joe does. Joe has so much more of that Tumblr sexyman energy than Scar has, which you would know if you watched him. While Scar baffles the mind, he does not do so as often or to the same extent as Joe. Scar might lick diamonds, but Joe spent an entire season burning any he got his hands on for being tools of capitalism, extremely inconvenient in a diamond based economy like hermitcraft. When combined with my earlier arguments about appearance, you tell me who between them is the most Tumblr sexyman. 
Despite these qualities, Joe Hills is at a massive disadvantage during the poll. Joe Hills is undeniably the most Tumblr sexyman, at least out of the hermits, yet I have strong doubts about his ability to win. Unlike Scar, Joe has a very small viewerbase, he has the fewest subscribers out of any hermit. In a competition like this, popularity means a lot, and it is likely to swing the votes. I am not saying that Scar is not a Tumblr sexyman, but the fact remains that the reason for his massive lead in nominations is that he is so much more well known than smaller youtubers who might be more deserving of the title. Scar has the personality of a Tumblr sexyman but not the apperance, unlike Joe Hills, and most like several others who I don't know about, who have both. 
To summarise, Joe Hills is the most Tumblr sexyman, both in appearance and personality, but small youtubers so rarely win votes. To know that this is a poll where Joe is so qualified to win but he is still unlikely to because he lacks the clout of Scar, is somewhat depressing to me. So I am begging you, vote for the underdog, vote for Joe Hills.
And please remeber to be respectfull even if the person you are rooting for loses. Don't be a jerk.
Also, one of the two most amazing, hilarious, fantastic, brilliant and all around incredible sisters to ever exist in this or any other multiverse made a phenomonal, stupendous, riotus and wonderous power point for this, so please check it out.
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adickaboutspoons · 5 months
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bad writing where? I don't think you know what bad writing is and I have doubts you understand the core of the characters.
Hi Nonnie! Girl, how ARE you? Because you seem to be taking it awfully personally that I am not enjoying this season as much as you are. To be perfectly clear, if you ARE, I'm DELIRIOUSLY happy for you! I wish I was too! I was SO looking forward to it! And even though I didn't care for some stuff here and there for the first half of the season, there was a LOT that I LOVED, and I was still holding out hope for the rest of the season! After the last 3 episodes, I am decidedly less optimistic. I'm glad to tell you exactly why, and At Great Length, because that's kind of just What I Do, but here's the thing... It's ok if you like a thing that other people don't. It doesn't reflect poorly on you as a person. You don't have to defend a thing that you like as though it was an extention of yourself. Also? You and I don't have to agree. There's room for interpretation. I have mine, but that doesn't make it Objective Truth. My positions are only as good as I can offer coherent, well-supported arguements to back them up. I like doing that. I think it's fun. You may still not be convinced. That's ok. I don't need you to agree with me. And, frankly, you don't even need to worry about other people agreeing with me. I am small potatoes. I have maybe two posts ever that have made it into the low thousands in terms of notes - not reblogs, but notes cumulative. Most of my original stuff don't even break triple digits. Believe me NO ONE is rushing to espouse the doctrine of spoondick llc. And that's fine. So I'm gonna go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt that you're asking genuine questions and not just lashing out. But I'm also gonna put my answers below a cut. Because, frankly, you may not entirely agree with me, but you also may not be able to unsee some of the things I point out once I do, and I don't want to take your enjoyment of the show away from you.
So second claim first: that I don't understand the core of the characters. I mean... I have written quite a lot and at length about these characters and their motivations. I mean, each of those is a link to a different meta I've written, and it's not even close to all of them. Which reminds me - I need to update my pinned page. So while you may not agree with my interpretations, at the v. least, you can't argue that I haven't put SOME thought into the matter. With regard to bad writing, the qualifiers may vary from person to person, but to me, it mainly comes down to three interconnected things: Inconsistency, telling rather than showing, and contrivance. I feel that there have been a LOT of inconsistencies with the characters, both between seasons and just within season 2 itself. I'm an unapologetic Stede girlie and he IS the main character, so most of my big qualms are with how his character is being butchered handled.
How the are we supposed to square Stede "had multiple breakdowns over Nigel's accidental death and was so traumatized over everything with Chauncy that he walked back to Bridgetown in his bare feet" Bonnet with the man from last night who murdered Ned in cold blood, and then went on to casually set a man on fire and QUIP about it? It's one thing to butch up with a "how to pirate" montage, it's quite another to become a psychopath, completely unbothered by taking a human life.
And about butching up. While I would, and have, argued that a lot of Stede's insecurities in the first season stemmed from insufficient performance of masculinity, I would NOT say that it was because he wanted to BE more typically masc himself - but rather from the way he has been TREATED for being soft, and internalizing the distain and derision of his bullies. Rather, the whole central thesis to his approach to piracy is it's "traditionally a culture of abuse... And my thought is: why? And also, what if it weren’t like that?" He's flattered when Yi Sao clocks his energy as soft. So his mid-season pivot to needing to embrace these "traditional pirate" behaviors? Yeah - I'd say that's a pretty glaring inconsistency.
Speaking of Yi Sao, lets talk about his fight with her. Because Stede in the first season is consistently shown to be a master of improvisation and using his environment and people's underestimation of him to his advantage to overcome stronger and more skilled opponents. He sends Officer Show Daddy rowing back to the British ship with some impromptu mannequins to give the Revenge time to escape after Nigel's death. He uses distraction and supersition to get the upper hand on Izz during their first encounter. He bests Izzy again in the duel using gunpowder to the eyes when he's pinned, and then using what Ed taught him about taking a stab angling to have it happen against a mast he knew would cause Izzy's sword to break. This initially carries over to the second season with Stede using his lowly position in Towels to acclimate people to deeply inhaling the scent he adds to the towels, and later uses that to his advantage to knock out the guards and escape. So it might have been one thing if Stede was in his cups and mourning Ed's departure that led him to getting overly possessive of his remaining crew and pick a fight with Zheng as a parallel of the Art Exhibition scene from season 1, and getting his ass handed to him as a parallel to Mary's attempted murder/an expression of what a deep impact Ed leaving has made on him that his normal strategizing fails him, but instead, he's getting emotional support (from IZZY of all people) and doesn't even seem tipsy, so he's got no reason to fail so profoundly, and it's played as though Yi Sao is RIGHT about him being "a mediocre man who thinks he's exceptional" when he legit JUST bested her with fucking tea towels 4 episodes ago.
Another big inconsistency for me is Stede's attitude toward Ed, over the first half of the season especially. At the end of season 1, we have Stede irrevocably torching his life as a gentleman of leisure to the ground because Mary has helped him to realize that 1) no body's life in improve by him doggedly trying to insert himself into a life he never wanted or chose for himself, and 2) he and Ed are in love with one another, and he should got find Ed about that. Then we get Stede dragging his heels in the Republic of Pirates while he "earns enough money," but his convo with Blackbeard's wanted poster reveals that he's afraid Ed's life is better off without him. Which? Real Chauncy-coded take there (and also, really? When Stede KNOWS that Ed is weary of the pirate life, but the wanted poster and rumor mill suggest he's thrown himself into it full tilt?). I could understand being worried that Ed doesn't love him anymore because Stede broke his heart, but NOT that "his life is better." But still, Stede IS determined to get back to Ed - he's just nervous about what he'll find when he does. He won't stop talking about it to anyone and everyone. He even yeets himself overboard shouting for Ed when he hears that the Red Flag has come across the Revenge. And then he thinks that he's come too late - that Ed is dead. And he manages to forestall his grief over that long enough to effect an escape, but then goes to do his mourning in private. But wonder of wonders! Ed is still alive! Stede didn't lose him after all! Imagine the rapture within his heart! And then he lets Ed leave without so much as offering to come with, when Ed has barely recovered from 1) a coma, & 2) a suicide attempt. It just doesn't make any sense in any possible world.
I also have a big problem with Mr. "Talk it through as a crew" running away from Lucius when he finally started opening up about the traumtic things he's lived through since he got shoved overboard. I've seen some posts suggesting Stede isn't doesn't prioritize or seem to care much about his crew, but that's just demonstrably not true? His first concern on awakening from being gut-stabbed was about his crew. He apologized when he lost his temper about the fuckery (Never heard an apology, Roach? Really?) and incorperated all of their ideas into the final product. Before he bought the treasure map, he inquired and found out there were no oranges for sale in St. Augustine due to a blight. Stede let Olu crash on his couch instead of having him bunk down with the rest of the crew because they were the charter members of the "my crush just left me for their old life" club and misery loves company. Even in the new season, he set aside his grief over Ed until he made sure his crew - INCLUDING the ones he thought were the ones who MURDERED THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE - were safe. So Stede running away from Lucius in his moment of unburdening himself? And it being played for COMEDY? Is not only antithetical to the established character, but to the central thesis of change being effected by the application of loving support that (I THOUGHT) was central to the whole show.
With Ed, it's mostly better, but even he doesn't escape unscathed. I'm absolutely baffled by the suggestion in episode 5 that Ed doesn't know how to be quiet and sit with his feelings when we see him: 1) stimming quietly with his silk after the "donkey" comment until Stede invited him to open up 2) stimming quietly with his silk after the French Boat Party 3) staring broodingly out to sea after the doggy heaven convo 4) isolating himself in the tub after his kraken meltdown 5) quietly sitting and folding socks 6) pillow fort isolation pod 7) standing quiet and alone after the Izzy confrontation, and apparently not seeing anyone until that night 8) stimming with silk before giving Lucius impromptu late night swimming lessons 9) playing with his dollies 10) cry alone in his room multiple times And maybe it's just that Fang doesn't see those times, because, for the most part, Ed self-isolates when he's feeling particularly emotionally vulnerable. But the show frames it as though Fang is correct? Especially in the after-credits scene where we're listening to Ed's non-stop internal monologue as he fails to sit quietly?
There's more with other characters, but, like I said, the categories are overlapping and inform one another, so I'd like to pivot to Tell-Don't-Show. Because whooo boy is there a lot of it going on. The most glaring one to me is Izzy's whole arc. I've seen a lot of people talking about extending unearned grace and how it's for the healing of the crew, not for Izzy, and that the crew are showing that they've embraced the loving support model they experienced under Stede's tenure as captain. But that doesn't change the fact that Izzy was SUCH a dick that even human-ray-of-sunshine-OLU was rooting for Stede to stab him in the duel, and by the end of last season Izzy sold them out to the English and did such a shit job at captaining that the crew (of which Fang and Frenchie were a part) unanimously voted to throw him overboard bound hand-and-foot. SOMETHING must have happened in the interim to move the needle from "gleefully ready to murder him" to "giving him hugs and unconditional positive regard therapy". But whatever it was happened entirely off-camera. We're just being asked to go along with it. And, to me, that's just bad, lazy writing.
The rest of his arc isn't much better, and highlights more of those inconsistencies. Last season, Izzy was openly dismissive and derisive about sharing feelings - it was one of his driving motivations at taking down Ed and inducing the Krakening. And now he seems to have taken the season-1-Lucius role of being the ship's emotional intelligence? Offering coping advice to Lucius. Suggesting to Ed that he should talk his feelings through. Giving support to Stede after Ed left him (again). Where would he even have accrued that skillset? I'm not saying that it's impossible for him to have changed with the loving support of his crew and in the wake of an identity crisis when he has to figure out who he is if not Blackbeard's right-hand man. What I'm saying is that very little of the actual changes happened on camera. And THAT'S what I have a problem with.
Similarly, I have a problem with the whole Yi Sao-Olu-Jim-Archie relationship tangle. Olu didn't even seem to realize Yi Sao was flirting with him until she said as much. I think he was flattered by the attention, and not averse to the idea, but that's not the same thing as being into her in return. And then, when it's relevant to the plot, we're meant to just trust that he's been secretly pining this whole time? Compare to when Jim left - before they'd even kissed. Olu spent his time mooning over the railing, telling everyone how much he missed JIm, getting drunk, and giving away his room. Since he left Yi Sao, there's been not a single word about missing her, not a moment where he even looks slightly broody. We HAVE seen him bonding with Jim and Archie. Hunkering down against the curse on the same bed as Jim and Archie. Dancing with Jim and Archie. Do you see how this LOOKS like the show is possibly moving in a throuple direction? And then we suddenly get Olu saying out of nowhere that he misses Yi Sao, Jim playing matchmaker for them, and Olu announcing that he's going to leave the revenge to be with Yi Sao. Bye, I guess. And this level of Telling-Not-Showing and inconsistency smacks of Contrivance. And Contrivance really feels like the engine that is driving most of the season to me. It looks an awful lot like the writers had an end-goal in mind, and worked backwards to get there, and along the way did all the hand-waving they had to in order to get where they wanted. Gotta have Stede & Zheng team up against Ricky for an Epic Beach Battle that pits Pirates against The Crown, but why would she want him - especially if she thinks he's "a mediocre man who thinks he's exceptional"?
Oh, what if she loses all her ships because Ricky blew them all up with the world's most contrived bombs?
But why wasn't she on the ship?
Well she was beating Stede's ass at the time.
Why was she beating his ass?
Because he picked a fight with her because he was drunk and she was poaching his crew?
Why are some of Stede's crew willing to leave him even though they were literally ride-or-die even when he was trying to find the guy that marooned them?
Oh, Olu's been in love with Yi Sao this whole time, but, like, never fucking mentioned it, just trust us.
Why was he drunk - Stede thinks drinking 'til you puke isn't fun, remember?
Oh, he is getting plied with drinks because all the pirates love him now.
Why do all the pirates love Stede now?
Because he killed some Big Name Pirate.
Stede? "I'm having a bit of a hard time adjusting to being a mur... mur... murderer?" Stede? Are you sure?
Yeah. He's totally butch now.
....How?
He trained on how to be a pirate with Izzy.
Izzy. The guy that conspired with the British specifically to murder Stede Bonnet? Why?
Ed said he needed to work on his "mean voice" and be more dom assertive.
Why would Ed ever say that? He loves that Stede is out there doing things like no one else.
Because Stede doesn't feel like a captain.
Even though he's calling all-hands meetings and mediating crew grievences and rescuing his crew and no one is challenging his authority or even questioning whether his devotion to his boyfriend is possibly compromising his ability to do his job?
...Yes?
But why Izzy? Stede hates Izzy. Izzy hates Stede. Surely these are universal constants.
Izzy's nice now. He's been rehabilitated by the love of the crew.
...How?
Jingly keys.
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mdhwrites · 1 year
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Ok, so i watched the finale, it was pretty predictable but enjoyable. But during the after cred scene, it really just solidified how aimless these characters are, Willow truly became just 'strong athlete' who serves as Hunters arm candy. She doesnt seem to give a shit about plants anymore ig? shes just 'buff' now.
Gus went straight back to 'guy who likes humans who has a group to celebrate said interest'. Amity is just... making abominations? i guess? Hunter is making palismen, which seems shoved in because caleb apparently carved.
Luz is... magic. yeah thats it. Eda is a headteacher, which feels widely out of place, but whatever. King Is. Other characters are rebuilding? i just- it feels like these characters have nowhere else to go because they just had no personal goals outside of very basic shit.
With amphibia, sasha became a child therapist, anne became a biologist who specialised in amphibians, marcy became a game designer. These are all goals that reflect their journey.
Now I want to start by saying that endings are hard and that character endings can be even harder than that. If you do a time skip epilogue, you have to somehow be able to show that all the characters are happy, successful and moving on in a way that makes sense and is narratively satisfying. You also usually have VERY little time to do this with because it's purposefully meant to be fluffy and sweet and disconnected from the rest in a way that isn't going to fit with the core of the show. The problem is that part of why this is hard is because characters are meant to be complex and their endings should reflect on the themes of the piece as well. Marcy's creativity and wonder about things blooming into a webcomic (I believe it's a webcomic and not games at least, though games works too) is great because she found a healthy way to share those passions with others and make connections through them. Anne's whole arc was learning to find the wonder in others and the strange world she was in and so her aquarium job is dead on the money. Sasha had to learn the hard way how to stop being controlling, angry and manipulative and passing those lessons on is far deeper and useful to others than anything her cheerleader base would have made you expect. It also makes it so when the show states the theme of the piece, about separation being a chance to grow and what you'll find coming back together is all the stronger, it hits SO. FUCKING. HARD. And comparing that to TOH... Well, we got effectively six character endings from what I've seen, seven if you count Lilith but hers is just more of what she was already doing as her job in the series, just now with a harpy form so I don't. Only six are meant to be any sort of final cap on their character/lives. And I'm just going to say this outright: They're not all bad. So from best to worst, with the name at the start of each in bold in case you don't care about someone, let's talk about: Hunter Amity Eda Willow Gus Luz Hunter: It's good. It's genuinely pretty damn good. That's not a joke or a setup or anything either. If Hunter's arc was about rejecting Belos to any extent, then this is a GREAT finish, even without Flapjack. After all, the part of the Isles that Belos himself most directly destroyed through his consumption, greed and wrath was the palistrom trees and palismen. Having it be that Hunter is now helping restore those elements is incredibly potent. Of course, there's also the obvious connection of Hunter and Flapjack but arguably the bird had more to do with his arc than any one character so him influencing Hunter's future just makes sense. I think it also just fits well with Hunter's character though. Watching out for people trying to steal palistrom wood uses his old soldier training but now in a constructive way, he's obviously not a very social person so the isolation is probably nice to him to get away from things and the boy has a LOT mentally to deal with. Working on regular wood while thinking about all of that is going to be a good place to release those anxieties and tensions in a good, creative manner. And for themes of identity, I think it's fine too. While Flapjack was Caleb's palisman, I don't think we ever get it confirmed that Caleb himself carved for a living or the like. That makes this genuinely something Hunter is doing himself and not because of someone else. That includes if he's doing it somewhat for Flapjack because honoring a friend is a very personal thing and very different from copying the dead. And again, frankly, the job feels very right for Hunter because it plays into his strengths rather than his weaknesses and gives him the peace he needs. No notes. Good job show. You got one. Amity: Okay, that's a little mean because Amity's is... Fine. It finally gives a point to her and her father's arc that you can't argue with through "X led to nothing" like angst about her father or the abomaton problem. There is a through line to this, especially with her abomatons. It makes narrative sense and functions.
...Except how much have those things actually mattered to her and in how long? She still rejected her father's hug in Reaching Out and didn't ask Em and Ed about him so their relationship by the end of the show still wasn't good. Escaping Expulsion explicitly said Amity was letting her grades slip so she's been at least distracted from magic for over a season at this point. Yes they claim her hair is abomination styled but it's WAY too light colored for that frankly, making it look way more pink than any sort of purple. Worse yet is that Amity's arc, besides becoming Luz's girlfriend, can be generously claimed as having a theme of becoming her own person instead of what others want of her. This technically works but clashes some by her still following in one of her parent's footsteps. She just swapped from her mother's dream to her father's passions. Now Alador never pushed her to copy him, he was neglectful after all so that would have been hard, so it still works. It is still theoretically a form of abominations that is characterized in the show by being about passion rather than simply performance with Odalia pushing the need for it to be commercial, something Amity theoretically won't care about. Frankly though, with how much her arc tries to push her caring about others, her reading to kids, there even being from what I've seen a sweet moment between her and the Collector... Why not make her a teacher or a caretaker of some sort? That's harder to portray than abomination mechanic but it fits as an ultimate capstone for going from someone who only cared about personal position, being the best and would throw away lives for her goals to someone who rejected all of that. To someone who spent their life now lifting others up and her knowledge empowered her to do that better than she otherwise could have. So Amity gets like a B. It works narratively and for the character but there's some improvement that could be done.
Eda: Oh look, a job that is going to make her absolutely miserable! That is my first thought hearing that she's a headmaster. After all, being the lead administrator is NOT the same as being a teacher. The paperwork alone is going to make her wish she was dead, much like when Tsunade became Hokage in Naruto. But that's not really what you're supposed to be thinking with it. It's supposed to be the ultimate extension of both Momma Eda in her students being her kids but also the fulfillment of Eda going from reluctant mentor to full on teacher. Which... If there were more than two episodes of the series where Eda was actually even attempting to be a mentor to Luz, that might actually mean more and that is EASILY the stronger thread being pulled here. You have to make the students into a more abstract concept for the Momma Eda theme to really fit here. What could you have done with her? I don't entirely know but I would probably have said enjoying retirement with Raine. Living a life finally at peace and without a need to hustle and bustle to fight against the curse or the system. She could have the freedom she always wanted without having to fear for her life. Having her partner by her side also makes it so you know she has family, something she spent so much of her life without. So essentially it's an ending that works from a more meta perspective but when you actually consider the events of the show and the character, it's questionable how much it fits or how 'happy' an ending it will be for her, especially when it ties her down so hard.
Willow: Okay, being fair here, from a setup perspective this actually works better than Eda's ending. Her strength is much of what defined her character, magically and physically, and she decided personally to want to go into sports in S2. Her becoming an athlete fits on both of those levels. For a character who is mostly a plot device, that's not bad.
Except it really doesn't play into anything about how she began and her resentment towards the name Half a Witch. It also has nothing to do with her plants. These elements that the show tried to claim had her seething resentment, that dominated her childhood, are ENTIRELY gone from her ending instead of reclaimed in any way. It's frustrating because it really paints that early stuff as pointless and genuinely just for Amity's sake, not Willow's and that's not great when the athletic stuff always felt tacked onto me in S2 just to give her SOMETHING to do with Hunter.
It also just continues pushing this feeling to me that despite setting up and wanting Willow to be the shy, plant girl archtype at times, S1 especially wanting her to just be willing to wilt away, SOMEONE on the writing team hates that archtype. Just wanted to surgically remove every last scrap of that from her character, regardless of if she was given the time to justify it or the like. That was frankly more okay to me with the shy element than the plant element seeing as she feels BORN to do plant magic by the fact that she was a master practically from the first time we see her use it without no training.
But here's the real reason it's below Eda: I hate her design. It's mostly fine but it's also UNFINISHED. She has one kneepad and ONE SOCK. You can make excuses for one of those but not the fucking sock and it drives me up a wall. I also don't like that the reformed Isles would still have a character like Willow having spikes on parts of her uniform for sports. Get rid of those and imply things have become gentler show. It's not like you've ever cared about keeping the Isles' identity intact before.
Gus: Here is where we go from "It functions but is maybe not good if you think about it" to "You're being way more honest than you're meaning to be show." After all, we have that cyclical aspect of Eda where Gus is returning to the start of the show but there is NO thought put into this.
If there was, if the show was willing to show that Gus had become wiser and more considerate, he wouldn't be studying humans. Not on the Isles. After all, how is he even going to do it on the Isles? Studying Luz? That feels weirdly like being friends with Bigfoot while saying you still need to find Sasquatch and prove the legends are true. Dude, maybe stop being... weird about this race you know exists properly now. It's kind of uncomfortable.
It's not even a hard thing to fix: Say he's here to see Luz off before going through the portal door with one of those glamour stones to cover his ears. He needs to go learn anthropology and the political sciences of our world in order to prepare to be a proper ambassador. That actually might have been neat.
But, you know, that would have taken any thought or care with Gus and we're lucky he was even remembered in the finale frankly. It's a flat failure though and really highlights how Gus hasn't grown and is still mostly a joke to the writers.
So then the question is... If Gus is this bad, can it really get worse with
Luz: *breathes in slowly*
*breathes out slowly*
I've been pretending to grade some of these and if that's the case, I don't even accept Luz's ending. I tell the student that they ignored what the assignment was and just copy and pasted the first paragraph of their wikipedia entry and tried to hand that in as their answer to how the MAIN CHARACTER OF THE SHOW ENDS IT. Because that is exactly the vibe of this ending.
Luz didn't grow and she sure as shit didn't learn anything. Remember: Her theme for her character arc, the worst decision to me creatively, is the fantasy she wants to live versus the consequences of that fantasy. It doesn't even matter how bad that theme is ever handled in the show because this is theoretically the largest, explicit theme of the story outside of personal expression being all that matters.
And Luz literally ends the series chasing the same dream she had at the start.
I... I don't even entirely know how to respond to that. The show, which is a kid's show remember, legitimately said that her running away from her problems to play out one of her fantasy books was such a good choice, it should be the thing she does for the REST OF HER LIFE. That it is the final, definitive note for the character that Luz the Human is going to be Luz the Witch.
And you know what? If Luz's journey to being a witch actually meant anything in the show, this might have literally any justification. If during the course of the show she had genuinely learned a lot as a person over the course of becoming a witch, if magic itself had so many rules as to require you to be a functional human being in order to use it, it MIGHT work. It's not great but it might work. Except... Remember back when I was talking about Eda? About how Eda spends two episodes teaching Luz and that's it?
Remember: Luz is like 90% why the Selkidamus is beat while on the boat. By the beginning of S2, and explicitly with Escaping Expulsion, she is already closing in on the ceiling of her powers. She already outshines most other witches to the point where the Emperor is the only person to give her a real challenge combat wise so long as the series is actually remembering to let her cast spells. Half of her glyphs aren't even tried to be connected to anything but instead, as she puts it, are found from other witch's spells randomly. They're just... There and no one else noticed somehow.
And this is what you want to say her character was leading up to? A profession that in the human realm has no transferable skills because she can't just be spinning Stringbean all the time without it being obvious and glyphs don't work in the human realm. It's actually worse in the Boiling Isles because unless she's going to get employed as a glyph master or something, she still needs a job. Everyone has magic there after all and anyone can use glyph magic with ease. You don't even need to be confident in it. Thank you Gus and Looking Glass Ruins.
It is bizarrely revealing how little thought and care was put into Luz and the themes of the show with this being how it ends. It is just, top to bottom, a failure. The only way it functions is fans of the show being happy she's chasing her dreams into eternity. You cannot think about it for even a second without some sort of question coming up.
And what else would she do? Easy. I've been saying she should have become a counselor or a therapist literally even before S2. That was just the obvious way for her to grow to me. She learns that you need to balance reality and fantasy, your passions with the demands of the world and takes up a job that lets her help kids like her find happiness and a place in their world. Either world. It would imply she understands childhood fantasies are just that, it would highlight her empathy and understanding of others and also is an amazing culmination of the theme of Fantasy versus Reality.
And instead the show's response was probably as far from caring about any of those things as you can possibly get. I don't understand it and it blows my fucking mind.
But I mean... if you want to finally drop the pretenses and just admit that your show is nothing but basic, escapist fantasy... I guess there really isn't a better ending than this, is there? =======
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wakebymoonsleepbysun · 3 months
Text
'Nother random angsty robot idea. Targeted mostly at DJMM, but could work for any non-human robot. The less human the better...but I'll just be saying "DJ" here. (Basically what I'm saying is if anyone wants to do something with this idea and a different character go for it.)
At one point, DJ had a crush on a human. Maybe the human even returned it to an extent, at least enough to give dating him a try. But dating a giant spider bot is not without its complexities. But they did have some amount of genuine affection for DJ's personality and mannerisms.
Just not his body. They were intimidated by his large side, being engulfed by his hands was off-putting, and they so desperately wished for a partner they could just walk hand in hand with through the park, just hold each other and kiss like any other couple.
Besides, don't DJ want those things? Doesn't he want to be held by them? To feel their arms around him?
Truthfully, the thought is a bit intimidating. But this is his partner! He shouldn't be intimidated by getting a hug from them! What kind of partner would he be if he didn't want that...?
So he convinces himself he does. Somehow, he gets a new body. A more humanoid one. (Think some of the Glamrock DJMM fan designs out there.) His older body is still around, though he only uses it for his shows. In fact, his "real" body is now no longer allowed to leave the stage--guest interactions are done with the humanoid body only.
It seems fine at first, but DJ never can get over how small he feels even as he still towers over most humans. He feels vulnerable, especially when someone has their arms around him, no matter how friendly their intentions are. This causes him immense guilt, but he can't figure out how to make himself stop feeling that way.
Things start going poorly with his partner. DJ doesn't want to be hugged or held most of the time, nor does he wish to leave the West Arcade even though he can. All the things they thought they'd get if DJ were more human, they've barely gotten. Yet DJ's not as human as they'd prefer, even though he's far more human than he'd prefer.
They refuse to interact with him in his real body, even though he misses the feeling of them snuggling against his cheek or sitting in his hand.
Eventually, DJ and their partner break up. For whatever reason, DJ's still force to mainly use his humanoid body for the time being. Maybe some kind of budget thing with Fazco or maybe he just genuinely believes his new body SHOULD be preferable and he just still needs time to get used to it.
Then he meets you. You're patient with him and give him his space when he's in his humanoid body. And you're actually willing to interact with him when he's in his real body. You sit on the stage and have conversations with him (probably via ASL or text or something, I imagine his normal body is mute, still debating if his humanoid body is too). You even sit in his hand from time to time, and let him hug you to his cheek.
Eventually you piece together that he really only dislikes physical contact in his humanoid body, and he gives you some excuse of "I still have to get used to it is all" and you ask "Should you HAVE to get used to it? Is that really what you want?"
And blah blah blah, eventually the humanoid body is retired and you and DJ are together and happy and themes of self-acceptance, not changing for others, and being seen and loved for who you truly are all around!
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