when i say beyond evil is above all a love story, it is directly tied to the motive of devotion as absolution. juwon is such a tragic character because all his life, he had to live as the ghost of a person, as the only memory of a woman that he is convinced died because of him, as a husk for all the expectations his father has bestowed upon him and, of course, as the mirror of his mother that he lost when he was too young to fully comprehend such a loss. juwon is a constant, walking parade of guilt and all that guilt sticks to him and has made him cold and unattainable and chock-full of a love he has no idea where to put, an abstract sense of it because he grew up in a world that was rich with the absence of love, not the abundance of it. all he has ever known is violence and loneliness and out of that a rigid sense of justice was born. it had to go somewhere, after all. all of it. then, naturally, there is dongsik who is the picture of devotion, whose entire life has been painted in broad strokes of an abundance of love he could never put anywhere. who is declared guilty despite his innocence, and yet hasn’t let that label consume him the way it has fostered inside of juwon for twenty-seven long, long years. instead, dongsik’s devotion to his sister, to his community, and his family, has absolved him. and that is how and when juwon understands that he can be absolved, too, that this burden he’s been carrying, this unspeakable terror, can vanish. and that is why he kneels down in the rain, another symbol of absolution, and says to dongsik, this man who can be his savior, who can absolve him of all his guilt, that he will take the fall in his place, he will go to hell for him, he will be tormented. the rain washes him clean, as has dongsik’s devotion to his sister done before. just now, it is juwon’s devotion to dongsik that absolves him of his perceived-sins and wrongs and makes him believe again.

Might I offer you a discount dashcon ballpit?

i have too many thoughts on the deleted jackienat scene for a girl who's supposed to be enjoying her birthday lol. i think at the root of it all, it's highly likely that when the actresses breathed life into the characters, and scenes got improvised, some things just stopped making sense for characters to do. including good things, like with jackie's 'i love you' to shauna! and i think this is the case for natalie looking at jackie with hatred before leaving her out in the cold. maybe at one point in her early stages of characterization it made sense, but clearly the people on the show didn't think that way anymore at some point, hence the cut. also ngl people taking this deleted scene, which for all we know didn't even make it into the final script, as some sort of 'gotchu' for jackienat enjoyers ( romantic or otherwise ) is weird as hell to me. like, it was removed for a reason.

The concept of lark finding out “what the doodler wants” and then shattering it before anyone else can know is sooooo fascinating to me because the way I’ve always read it the doodler doesn’t want anything. To me, the doodler was horrifying because it was not an all powerful malicious entity with goals or wants, but a faceless brainless force of nature that was so strong it’s mere presence in the world spelled destruction. Like never once in the podcast has the doodler shown any agency or intent, every action in service of it even in amod seemed entirely motivated and verbalized by its acolytes. We know from amod that the doodler thrives of the concept of randomness and to me that’s all it ever was. It was so heavily entrenched in the random and chaos that it physically could not have wants or desires for power because it would so be against its very nature. That’s why the doodler was scary to me, because it could not be manipulated or tricked like a person could, it was simple raw destructive horrifying power, and I don’t think the lark stuff disproves that. What if that is the truth, what if the doodler doesn’t want anything? If you’re lark, a person who feels crushing responsibility for this disaster and you find out that it is no different in intent than a hurricane, does that not terrify you? Does that not instill in you a fear that if anyone else found out they would feel so powerless against it that they would just give up? They’d give up and the world would end and it would be your fault. This was not the all powerful creature 11 year old you thought it was, the one he wanted to fight to prove his strength, this is pure entropy and chaos and randomness and destruction and no one else can know lest they stop fighting? Is the fighting fruitless, who even knows, but at least it fools you into thinking you’re making a difference.

on the bachelor and resurrection

Thinking about how the concept of resurrection is touched upon in Daniil’s routes, and how the Marble Nest makes something of a mockery of it, casting him into the role of both resurrectionist and the resurrected. The man with an affinity for the living trapped in a cycle of communing with the dead..

+ the reminders that neither remaining nor returning shall constitute anything akin to a victory for him—just a trick mirror and, if you'll forgive the pun, a dead end

(p.s. the original marble nest line is a bit clearer in this connection, where the word for Sunday can also mean resurrection)

Hey, so I have a question for the Therian/Alterhuman/Otherkin? Community and I was hoping that y'all could help me out with it.

So I personally have identified as a furry for the past several years, but not the big elaborate costumes, just the animal connection part and stuff, and I've been totally happy with that, but something was always just a teensy bit off with it. Well over the past few hours I've been scrolling through my for you page here on Tumblr and a few Therian posts have crossed my dash. I've never heard that term before so I got curious and started scrolling through the Therian tag itself to see if I could figure out what it is and I actually ended up kinda connecting with a few posts, but I also don't fully understand a lot of the terminology that the community appears to use so I don't know for sure if I am a Therian or if I really am just a furry with a little bit of spice or something and Google was extremely unhelpful, so I guess I was just wondering if anyone could explain a few things to me about what exactly makes a Therian a Therian and what the differences between Therian and Alterhuman and Otherkin are?? And maybe just any other basics that you would be willing to share that may help me figure out this little bit of my identity, such as certain boundaries or thresholds you have to meet in your connection to the animal/deity/creature? Or certain feelings/actions or stuff like that? I genuinely just want to understand y'all's community and culture a little bit better so that I may possibly understand my personal identity a little better!

Thanks for any help/advice you may have!

~Skarr

I had stupid early flights today but two of them landed before 12pm noon so I got to work my Truman Show reference into my announcements in honor of my man Jim Carrey's b day 😎😎

there’s one version of an f/m/m triangle that crops up so often I’m surprised there isn’t at least a tvtropes/vernacular name for it. Miyokichi/Kiku/Shin. Molly/Fitz/Fool. Asuka/Shinji/Kaworu. Futaba/Taichi/Touma. not-really-but-you-could-shove-it-in-here Luthien/Beren/Finrod. Utena/Touga/Saionji is a twisted spun-on-its-head version of it. Specifically comprising:

masculine male character A: either is the protagonist or a character on to which male viewers can project.

female character B: a secondary character and A’s official love interest, often kept apart from A by story/circumstance/gender roles. Shows some resentment of the trials she’s put through by the story in being A’s lover such as being shoved to the side, cut out of his life, or put in danger.

less masculine male character C: another major character, A’s devoted sidekick, feminine and/or conspicuously cold toward women or sexuality, somewhat ill-used by A but not resentful about it, as a contrast to B.

The dynamic is used pretty equally by female and male creators, though probably with different purposes. Outside the story, there’s a clear explanation for how the roles are divided: men are main, women are peripheral. Obviously the female love interest has to be on the margins of the story. Obviously the male main character has to have an ally in-story who can bounce dialogue back. Any human person has to have a best friend (for men, has to be male) and a lover (for men, has to be female). The major character male bestie and the minor character female gf is the minimum character dynamic you need to sustain the main character as a believable construction.

Except within the story, the dynamic begs far too many questions. On B’s part: her other half and love interest uses her for sex once every few chapters and dumps her to go off on another plot-relevant adventure. She’s kept in the dark, talked down to, pushed away, and distrusted. Her place at her sweetie���s side is occupied by Some Dude and no matter how much she puts into their relationship, she’s always going to be a prize for after the mission. Why does she stay with him? What could possibly attract her about this bestubbled grunt machine whose passion for the sword outmatches anything she’s given him?

On C’s part: he gets used as an emotional support crutch, designed to service his best friend’s every need at the expense of his own goals or story. He’s a housewife, he’s a domestic, he does every thankless story task with a smile because he has to provide the exposition/set up the plot/set the plan in action that carries the main male character to victory. He doesn’t have a love interest of his own, meanwhile the most important person in his life is obsessed with a woman he barely speaks to. Why should he care so much about someone who only takes? Why is he committed to this one-way friendship? What does he think of taking the backseat, providing support, submerging his own will for the sake of a person instead of an ideology?

On A’s part: if he’s a red-blooded heterosexual male character who pursues a woman as is acceptable, why does he dig himself so deep in with his designated ally? Through dialogue and because he has to in order to show the audience, he exposes his heart and soul to C and keeps him in his pocket for as long as we are watching, so why then does he cast him aside so easily? He invests the most time and energy into his relationship with C, cultivating love and loyalty there, but he draws the line so firmly in the sand that the audience is sure he’ll never, ever step aside for one minute to follow the friend. Why does he choose a man for his emotional battery? Why doesn’t he communicate with his supposed partner? Why does he choose to use B and C for sex and solace respectively, and why don’t they ever mix?

The gender dynamics wrap around to simple: women aren’t up to being equal partners to a cool guy, so you need a male wife to do everything for you and appreciate the protagonist’s sick abilities. romance with a man is perverse and impossible, so you need a female love interest to prove that the protagonist isn’t gay and fulfil the audience’s needs. But in-between all of that you could ask some interesting questions of the spoke character, A, the male protagonist whose actions are taken as normal. the question being: bro. what’s wrong with you

I'm pretty sure at this point the person that has appeared the most in my dreams/nightmares (apart from people I actually know/used to know in real life) is Jarvis Johnson. it happens a lot, he'll just randomly show up all the time. like last night he was in a (particularly gruesome and unpleasant) nightmare that I had. didn't make any sense but it was nice to get a break for a second :)

my sister called me and kept asking excitedly that what's happening in my life and

why is having a consistent art style seen as a desirable thing, would you not get bored after the 3rd drawing

So vcha really is gonna promote in korea?

I also love to criticize the "this is the skin of a killer Bella" body glitter scene but one thing I will give Twilight is that the justification for why vampires turn into more beautiful versions of themselves is interesting

Like, the dynamic of a species made of individuals that used to be another species and now prey on (or parasite) their former equals while still blending into them is one of the core reasons why vampires are so frightening, and using that to justify why they're all sexy now is at least a bit creative. So instead of them just all being coincidentally hot, the vampire venom makes them the most alluring human-passing beings possible as an adaptation to their new ecological niche

mine WOULD be the justice arcana. if you even care or anything.

fascinating lens on taylor's goings on in s6 there re: Romance. epic win that they have rian turn them down but i'm also really not sure why they did. oh you know, rian who's always defined by being so prudent [montage of actually pretty much everything seemingly defining rian has been pretty anti prudent] like ok w/e

but we start out with taylor Particularly Unmotivated By Work and instead watching a The Bachelor beach proposal which involves extasis through this Reality(tm) pastiche of romance. i am assuming. wherein the journey Ends with this transcendent all-consuming joy upon the realization of said Romance for one contestant. then when their somehow still bestie mafee (relevant tangents about how all taylor's relationships seem to involve their having an approach where they have low standards like "well but i guess this is all i can get / expect" including that they can't even necessarily expect shit they like/enjoy/are at all supported by, while readily accepting whatever blame/reproach from others) is like "gee but are you really happy" they're apparently inspired to pursue happiness by pursuing romance. which they seem to consider is possible only through rian, intriguing here when the entire basis of their dynamic seems to be [trapped in work hell together] like boy we have nothing outside our jobs? i sure hope we can be Everything to each other then :) and how it's even more baffling that rian is completely unbaffled by this development when you might operate on some assumptions like "you should have ever seemed to enjoy any interactions you've ever had" to consider choosing more vulnerability and more time / effort spent on this relationship, and "you also don't need to have Found Fault with someone / otherwise have some grievances or dislike of them to not want to date them" especially if rian's apparent sense of responsibility for taylor's theoretical negative feelings about rejection supposedly doesn't involve thinking about any power dynamics, she just feels the need to repeatedly reassure them she'd actually Love to date or have sex but she's just so set on not dating through work, b/c of the complications, that she's never considered not having casual sex with bosses and also never mentioned this stance to turn down winston nor done anything but revel in how he might feel about even being rejected as a conversational partner. too prudent to mention it. certainly also a relevant matter that it Need Not Be Explained to anyone that winston for one is excluded as a potential Romantic partner for pretty much everyone i guess. whilest as this potential mirror to taylor, he's not only considering specifically rian w/"we're similar; let's hang out; i'd like to have sex maybe even" (though winston's sexuality, like his communicative capacities, is also simply Not Allowed) but also seems to be like "i guess this is all i can get / expect" or hanging on for a long time to the possibility of Otherwise at his own expense or taking blame / whatever pretty egregious treatment like. taylor being willing to talk to wendy still is akin to winston still being willing to talk to rian. though maybe that's changed by the end of s6; it'd be very warranted after the pretty make or break [rian & winston Share An Interest; hang out outside work about it] moment there and also after Everything Else on its own, just like how it'd be very warranted if taylor expecting Nothing Better from wendy could turn into their hardly being willing to interact

anyways, sure is fortunate for taylor (or is it???) that Work becomes more enriching for them suddenly, and through someone with whom they have this promising personal dynamic with, a Peer with whom, in fact, they do both seem to find reward in interacting with each other / want and choose to do so, imagine, while [reiterating for emphasis]: they are both finding reward in interacting and feeling Complementary rather than only seeing exactly themself in each other, while having this respect for each other and flexibility and knowing they don't Have to work together, and may not always be doing so.

but most to the point it sure is something that the season starts off with taylor being dissatisfied with their work situation and responding by not being at work and instead watching people be overjoyed about their (also, relevantly, Peak Normal Correct Cishet) romance, though they don't outright claim to straightforwardly enjoy this. then they Do outright claim to us repeatedly, if ever begrudgingly, that everything rian does is worthy &/or sympathetic (and totally comprehensible and consistent so as to believably retain any sense of Character....) while every time they interact, it's a business meeting and one or both of them is unhappy about some part of it. but then once taylor's asked to think about their happiness Beyond Work they apparently are simply motivated to go ask someone out, and it may as well be rian For Lack Of A Better Option really, but then there's the wrench of "for some reason rian is unsurprised and not at all put off by this, or even just somewhat confused" and "for some reason rian's like 'sorry but no. fr im soooo sorry'" with these perspectives of [happiness Outside Work = romance] and [someone deemed Objectively Worthy = you'd of course at least consider romance, or else you must think actually they're Unworthy in some way, or have some more general Reason you'd reject others categorically in just the same way] (rian rejecting winston for unworthiness so much that she doesn't even need to bother actually telling him as much; rejecting taylor for [i don't date through work] with followups to reassure them it's Not the unworthiness) (that on and off paper winston & taylor have no reason to not be kissing but i think we can assume that won't happen, b/c billions itself may also assume we understand that [winston is unworthy] is just true. &/or that anyone Worthy understands as much)

so hoping that taylor has Some kind of enriching lasting relationship with philip, truly, which was the hopes for winston and rian but the updated hope is his enriching lasting disengagement with rian, f

i have a really weird relationship with relationships too, huh. i guess if we’re gonna just talk about shit tonight. like not even that i’m a bad person to be in love with, though i guess that too, but like. in the past i have a history of being really self destructive in relationships, and also (albeit to give myself credit, this would be more reactionary to a feeling of entrapment rather than just straight up) pretty unstable around my partners. which is maybe weird to admit but i feel like relationships are such a core part of my life since i have had like. so many issues with them and related subjects since a really young age. 

but also like, more recently it’s less destructive behaviors because i am actively trying not to do that shit again. but more like. i get really insecure about things when i think about the person i’m in love with, which is odd because i’m not a very insecure person at all. one of my biggest annoyances actually is when people assume i hate myself more than i do, because if i ever do hate myself it’s a very strange fluke of a day and in general i love myself debatably to an unhealthy degree. like my friend the other day said that my ego was too low and i was too shocked to even laugh because she was like so deeply off about that. it really bothers me.

anyway. being in love makes me insecure and has historically made me do weird things. which would be fine if i wasn’t such a fucking hopeless romantic.