#before I go way Oedipal…
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Hmm Jason having some weird oedipal feelings where he wants to kill Bruce and make Tim his mommy...
!!!!!!!!!!!!! yesssssssss!!! i love the idea of jason sort of harboring maternalistic attachment for tim. before jason debuts as red hood, when he's still stalking bruce and staking out gotham and learning everything he can about the new robin. that's when jason finds out about how bruce and his new little robin are fucking.
little timmy drake is sleeping with bruce wayne and they think no one knows. it makes sense why they think it, they're good at covering their tracks and acting somewhat normal around each other when people are around. but jason has figured them out and its because he happened to stumble across them in some hidden little rooftop they thought was far enough away from patrol no one would notice. jason has seen bruce press some button in his gauntlet, likely for it to temporarily lock their location in one place before grappling to a distant rooftop and climbing in the top floor of a department store. when jason had first spotted them he'd thought it was some cache they were stopping in to resupply. only for him to grapple down and peek in the windows and be greeted by the sight of bruce bending his robin over a dusty wooden crate. the top level of the uptown department store was apparently meant for storage twenty years ago. it housed mannequins, crates where merchandise was shipped and heavy floor furniture to be shipped out to homes of customers. but then a fire had broken out one night. it hadn't spread but the damage to the top floor had been done and so the owners of the entire building had just decided to board up all doors and staircases leading to the top floor, allowing it to collect dust. however, they hadn't considered the rooftop access as being the one way two vigilantes looking to fuck could break in.
so unlike the others, jason is aware that bruce and tim's relationship isn't all 'wholesome' as the rest of the family would like to believe. and it could be such prime blackmail. it would be perfect as something to use against bruce while jason enacts his plan to ruin his life.
but...something stops him. and jason knows what it is.
jason has always had these weird....feelings about all those socialites, models, and women bruce would bring home. jason is...WEIRD about the women bruce sleeps with. that whole thing jason had with talia was evidence enough because she hadn't even been jason's type but he'd fucked her anyway, if only because bruce had had her first. and for awhile after he'd been resurrected jason had sort of had some weird emotions about her, an odd...clinginess because he'd been stuck on her lowering him into the pit, helping breath life into him again like the waters of the lazarus pit had been the water of her womb...
it's clear jason is a little fucked in the head about women. he's got mommy issues galore and a disturbing attachment to people bruce has fucked. at least he's not like dick who is still in denial about HIS psycho sexual issues despite the fact that dick only ever wants to hookup with girls that remind him of bruce.
so tim fucking bruce...even though that should have alarm bells ringing given tim's age because jason would never find it acceptable for any other creepy old man to shove their dick into teen pussy and given the fact that bruce sleeping with his kid is all kinds of fucked up...still...jason never says anything. he just buckles down when he gets an alert about the little tripwire he set up to alert him of bruce and tim going back to that little attic of theirs. at first jason's obsession stemmed from wanting to be closer to bruce by sharing a partner, wanting to deepen their connection by fucking the same hole. but...then something shifted.
as jason watched, the more he listened, the closer attention he paid to little timmy drake. something...something about him just held so much more potential. talia wasn't the kind of mother jason wanted. selina was too in her own head and got all kinds of uncomfortable about kids. jason's pool was limited but...tim. there was just something so right about him, so fitting. and the longer jason watched the more he wanted.
but bruce doesn't share. he isn't very willing to part with a tight little hole that takes his cock so good while gasping into his mouth.
but....god does jason want this. he wants warm hands carding through his hair and stroking his back while he fucks into a pink, puffy, sloppy little hole while praises get pressed to his cheek. it's what he deserves.
and if bruce is what is standing in the way of it...then maybe jason should amend his plans.
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Watching Fargo isn't enough now I need to fight Roy with my bare hands.
Also things are not looking good for Gator next week, I dread to think of what Munch has in store for him :X
I think he’s going to loose his eyes, harkening back to the Oedipal things from the articles before the show aired. I’m excited to see what they’ll do with him, especially after last nights episode.
When I tell you my chest felt hollow I’m not kidding. They did a very effective thing by telling that story with puppets. Roy literally needs to die in a horrible, lonely way.
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god the Omeagorverse is brilliant brilliant brilliant. so good so delicious so nutritious to me. thank you thank you thank you for sharing it. i am actively considering taking pen to paper to physically draw out the family tree and draw like hearts and smiley faces and stars around the vile nasty rot :)
MWAH even though i still think its embarrassing im glad people are enjoying it<3 and oh dont worry i have a family tree of like nearly 900 characters at this point. It Is Evil For Me.... It's Terminal,... ten pages of character explanations below the cut do NOT click unless u want to walk around in my lovecraftian mind palace (shed of dumb ideas and deviantart OCs)
865 characters in what five months. God,
jae: hes maegor's firstborn with vis :3 maegor thinks he's lame and not good enough. jae is also oedipally insane about viserys because maegor was gross about it so he's got mommy issues about vis. he marries ceryse' niece as like an apology gift to the hightowers like sorry we did polygamy and disrespected you and inventented gay marriage sorry about that. he was also betrothed to aerea (shore up inheritance + appease rhaena) but viserra took aerea on the world's worst bachelorette party to valyria and only viserra returned alive :3. jae gots nutso after vis dies and starts bringing in boy youths as court favourites and maris kills him in a fit of rage due to his grossness and also maris has her own shit going on (lesbian drama, dw about it)
viserra: married into the lannisters to keep the iron throne's federal reserve in the clear and cos raising taxes spells real doom. she femdoms her husband and then kills him as a blood sacrifice to have kids (only death can pay for life). became regent for a while before house lannister kicked her out. marries into harrehal (lucamore the lusty is her hubby) kills him too. marries a couple more times, has a coupe kids, ends up trying to fly her dragon (vhagar btw) into the sun or moon or something. not 100% on her death yet.
daenys: oh poor baby girl. vis marries her into the starks to keep her safe from court + there was stark rebellion drama. has weird tension with her mother-in-law whos a bolton and her husband sucks too. she has 13 kids (9 make it to adulthood). daenys ends up killing maegor its a whole thing, hush hush. goes nutso after and she and vis die together codependently as one theyre the same person etcetc
aegon: jae's eldest, momma's boy. momma's special heir to the throne special boy. hates his twin brother aerion because aerion is daddy's favourite and jae obviously wishes aerion was heir instead. marries a lannister cousin and a velaryon who hate each other and it causes a succession crisis when he dies. he has a horrible emotionally and physically incestuous relationship with his sister helaena. aerion ends up kidnapping helaena and it causes a minor civil war where aegon and aerion both die RIP
aerion: jae's second, twin to aegon, daddy's specialist evil son. whats a little child endangerment between kids. kills the high septon when hes 14 cos the high septon was abusing helaena and gets exiled to essos at FOURTEEN cos he refused to admit why he did it (didnt wanna ruin helaena's reputation). he was just like lol #yolo he was cringe anyway. gets radicalised in essos cos why tf should cringe aegon get the throne when aerion is way cooler. kidnaps helaena but also in their minds its somewhat of a rescue cos everyone in westeros is weird about helaena. him and aegon die together :3 also he has a bastard with a martell bastard who does Rhoynish Restoration in essos with her three dragons she takes over volantis and burns the rot out of it at one point but thats not important. she's doing her own thing. ALSO HE CLAIMED BALERION that's also why he's so cunty about getting the throne he's like um you got vhagar the girl dragon and i got the cool old valyria dragon that granddaddy aegon rode so 🤨
helaena: helen of troy :3 she's one of grrms favourite historical girls; 6 year old who is breathtakingly gorgeous and everyone is weird about it. her cradle egg dragon is called urrax after the story of daeryssa and serwyn and also she befriended dreamfyre cos dreamfyre got depressed after rhaena died and started terrorising oldtown cos rhaelle was there. helaena did her horsegirl magic on dreamfyre and saved oldtown and so oldtown loves her. every man in the world wants to marry her but shes literally 13???? that does fucked up things to your psyche. has weird relationships with aegon and aerion due to them being her protectors and the only men growing up who werent weird about her but guess what babygirl. all feudal men are weird :3
daenerys: named after daenys which of course made the evil destiny stars align. she's basically the middle child so she's mostly ignored by both her parents. her dragon is called seafoam :3 she thinks both aegon and aerion are too neurotic to be king and she would be wayyy better. somewhat worships maegor cos he didnt gaf about primogeniture. gets married off to corlys velaryon (he still exists here) but she doesn't mind to much cos she likes exploring essos with corlys. best friends with aegon's velaryon wife and HATES the lannister wife soooo much. after aegon dies, viserys takes the throne which makes her sooooo fucking mad but she gets to be hand of the king with corlys. after viserys dies she and corlys swoop in and do the westerosi regency era until her grand-nephew comes of age. absentee mother because she's too busy girlbossing her way through the red keep
viserys: babyboy you were never gonna be normal with a name like that. jae is weird about him cos viserys looks exactly like his namesake he's also soft and likes non-reptillian animals and being nice to people which is not very targaryen of him. jae has him trained by his kingsguard to beat the pussy out of him but it just makes vis an even sadder kitten. has clinical depression (diagnosed at 5 years old) so cant even get angry and rage and blow up the red keep like he wishes he could. forced to marry aerion's spurned betrothed who's their distant cousin alyssa arryn (half targ herself, i had vaella survive and marry rodrik similar to daella). alyssa is crazygirl she gets radicalised by a red priestess from asshai 😈 they agree to have a sexless unconssumated marriage though. viserys gets voted king after aerion and aegon die (aegon's kids and wives have their own drama going on so a council is necessary) and he's like what if i just kill myself but he's got a slightly evil kingsguard boyfriend whos like nooo dont kill urself youre so powerful now ahaha. pretty okay king, basically lets daenerys rule cos he's too busy being depressed and wanting to khs :( poor baby. anyway alyssa hears a prophecy about TPTWP and AA and goes megacuckoo and does blood magic to have kids and that's its whole drama dw about it. he does end up getting to kill himself though good for him 😭
maegelle: poor baby. gets married off to the hightowers at FOURTEEN cos jae thinks she's weird and autistic and needs her outta the red keep. he's like dont u wanna be lady of the hightower? its so big!! and shes like no because my special interest is religion and prophetic dragon dreams. she weirds him out too much with her prophesies of his death etc. ends up achieving religious euphoria ecstasy etc after getting visions and doing some miracles and abandons her husband and daughters to live in a convent. she doesnt realise she's just trying to escape the cycle of targ torment the only way she knows how :(
anyway thats just like 9 of my guys i invented. i mostly do this so i have something for my brain to think about when im trying to go to sleep but The Thoughts are tormenting me. can you tell im a little funny in the brain. anyway if u made it this far i love u i love u i love u♡
#rhaena was hand of the king btw ^_^ she and maegor hate each other#sorry for the long post. keep in mind it could be way worse#au:omaegorverse#cringe oc warning#tw oc#ask#darling1darling#KISS genuinely kiss on the cheek for you im sorry to have infected you but im glad we can sit in the plague pit together :3
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"as i get further into my study of chinese culture/beliefs i have come across stuff that most western folks might balk at" genuinely curious but would you be up to sharing? im not chinese but i am east asian and i've dealt with a fair share of.... western fans who were NOT respectful, let's just put it that way :') so now im curious what examples you've seen! but also if you don't wanna open that can of worms i completely understand. thank you for being respectful of other cultures, at least!
no problem at all anon!
yeaaah, respect comes in all shapes and sizes nowadays, to put it... mildly xvx for what it's worth, I do very much enjoy looking at other cultures and learn their different values and how that shows in their traditions and rituals.
one big example off the top of my head is cannibalism. I'm reading "Oedipal God: The Chinese Nezha and his Indian Origins" rn, and in the first few chapters, the author Meir Shahar goes at length over some old customs of cannibalism throughout Chinese history, both as an act of filial piety ("cutting the thigh" to serve an ailing parent as medicine, as giving back the body they gifted you to heal them) and as a display of the height of ambition (like armies ceremoniously eating the flesh of the fallen enemies). some of the stories he focuses on, however, are explictly tales in which a father consumes the flesh of their sons, though the context in which this happens varies a lot.
there's also certain shamans in folk religion who go through acts of self-flaggelation after encarnating the spirits of gods. the blood that comes from those wounds can be used in exorcising or healing rituals!
most western folks have a severe aversion to topics of cannibalism and autophagy in general, and I can easily see many people pointing at these examples and wanting to call them "savage" or "barbaric", without looking deeper than the surface of why such situations and rituals arose in the first place. and I think that's to the detriment of everyone.
the matter of respect and understanding from western fandom spaces have been... let's say lacking, and I think that really needs to change before even more harm comes from these mentalities. I myself try not to engage with soc media fandom spaces for my own sanity but I've heard several disturbing stories from the grapevine and yeaaaah it's.... discouraging.
I'll likely continue doing my liveread of the book and others, so I can better keep track of interesting tidbits I come across. I'm a beginner student on the topics after all, and I think this blog can be a good way to journal my studies and learning and share them with others!
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Censordoll’s magic and Nature: a compromise
While Censordoll’s behavior in Alone and Nesting is never satisfactorily developed, there’s definitely uh, something going on. In Alone she has a model of the town and some residents on her table. As she picks up a figurine that resembles Nurse Bendy, her little accident happens. She also knocks down a farmer figurine (some say it’s Arthur bc he was going to die, but it looks a lot more like Phoneycrops), paints what I’m pretty sure is a Mr. Figurelli, and moves a Clay figurine with his nature outfit and one arm raised towards an Orel figurine, both nearby a tent outdoors. At the end of the episode, she throws the yolk of a boiled egg she was eating on top of the highest model building (the church and its cross) and declares herself the “matriarch of Moralton��.
In Nesting, she’s more focused on. She tries to replace Clay as Moralton’s leader. She promotes herself as “mayor-triarch”, compares herself to a nurturing mother bird, and calls Clay a “hunter”, using Orel’s state to show. Orel is helping her with this in a way that’s depicted as totally in his character (NOT any kind of crazy mind control). She debates with Clay, who ends up going on an increasingly zoned out and Oedipal tangent. She drops out after he’s done, and months and months later makes out with Clay by appealing to that side of him. Again this whole thing is confusing and in the world where Moral Orel was allowed to go on, all this likely would’ve started and ended in a few in-universe months at most.
Censordoll’s pseudoarc has sparked a decent amount of conversation, and the most controversial subtopic is naturally the one that drastically impacts the canon of the two main characters and their relationship: did she make Clay shoot Orel and to what extent?
Now my opinion: On one hand, there are a few too many coincidences with her model and what happens in the show for it to be something totally mundane. One particularly indicative bit in favor of “Censordoll influenced Nature” I haven’t seen anyone point out is the fact that during Orel’s visions in Grounded, the figurine movement is included in the pictures of the duology:
On the other, a narrative that Clay was acshually being controlled by crazy ol’ witch lady cardboard villain and her spooky ooky magic and he is totes redeemable is one that could make someone abandon the show entirely. Not to mention that something like the latter seriously doesn’t fit with the two sa victims who spend the evening coping she shares the episode with. Furthermore, I think it says something thematically that throughout Nesting everyone was totally being themselves, acting on flaws and neuroses they’ve had and we’ve had explained long before any of this.
Here’s my “final” take: note how in Orel’s vision Censordoll moving the figurines comes before the scene where Orel tries to shoot an animal, hours before the big moment between he and Clay. While I sadly don’t think this proves her “innocence” in canon, it makes it pretty easy for me to say all she did was… make Clay pull Orel aside here.
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Here and now of the all in the
process of becoming that we as infants i'm not going to say we enjoyed it
because enjoyment is a technical term here but we experienced it we don't have a
memory of that but we know we went through that phase by the sheer fact that we find ourselves here and now what happens though eventually and this is just developmental stuff you can find this in any textbook lacan is not trying to reinvent the wheel here
is that something happens in the life of a child
it can be around potty training before that it can be around weaning after that it can be around language learning and language acquisition
in each case the child encounters a prohibition
some part of their lived experience that effectively says to them no thou shalt not the process of weaning is a no it is a prohibition it says thou shalt not use your parent as food any longer the process of potty training
is a thou shalt not thou shalt not piss and shit wherever you want whenever
you want there are places and times when you do it and now you're asked to do it
that way the same with language acquisition you've seen it in the grocery store
the kid is crying and the parent turns to the kid and says i can't understand
you when you're crying use your big boy words use your words and then the kid says finally after they calm down i just i just okay can i get
the cinnamon chex cereal and the parent says ah now you used your big words rewards abound here come the cinnamon checks we're gonna get three boxes of them you see how this works right this is an experience of prohibition
where the here and now of the all in the process of becoming whether it's piss and shit and food and crying and weaning and and all this stuff suddenly meets a barrier a bar a prohibition this process in lacanian psychoanalysis is known as castration sometimes you hear it referred to as alienation the function is always the same though it is a state of prohibition an experience of prohibition
this is our first introduction to the name of the father by the way
which also has two stages just like the experience of lack that we were just talking about this is the first stage of the name of the father which in french as you know the word for name and the word for no sound exactly the same
n-o-m sounds exactly the same as n-o-n
the name of the father is first and foremost the no of the father and that
doesn't mean that it's a daddy this is not some dick swinging person that has to do this it doesn't even have to be a human who does this it could be your mom in fact usually the name of the father
is enunciated by whoever plays the maternal function oedipally speaking in lacan's terms this first introduction to the name of the father is as a NO of the father
and it is a no that says welcome to
the symbolic that is the field of law the field of order the field of language normalcy expectations and the like the symbolic is the world
that castration inducts
the subject of pure need known as the infant into
and if you're neurotic that means you accepted
that prohibition one of the conditions for psychosis according to lacan ...
one of the basic conditions for the clinical structure known as psychosis according to lacan
is a utter rejection of this prohibitive enunciation by the father whomever they
might be the neurotic accepts their castration the psychotic refuses to even acknowledge that a prohibition was uttered and the pervert if you want to have the clinical structure the third basic clinical structure in place is somewhere in between they are someone who kind of
heard that no and kind of didn't hear it what happens next then is that the
neurotic represses the prohibitions of society and yet nevertheless lives a life according to them
the psychotic rejects the prohibitions of society and as a result is completely unmoored in the social order that's why psychotics act the way they do lacan would say because they fundamentally
rejected the primordial signifier no that would have inducted them into the
symbolic order that would have given their life a sense of meaning they refused
to allow the symbolic to put them in their place and as a result they have no place think about that the next time
you see somebody on the street acting crazy and you know they are homeless
they are homeless because they have no place in language in the symbolic
heidegger was right language is the house of being but so is lacan what happens when you're homeless
vis-a-vis language the psychotic is fundamentally unmoored
from the world of society of order of normalcy and the like because they reject it at some level and for some reason this no this prohibition that would have
inducted them into a new order an order of split subjectivity because when the neurotic accepts this
prohibition against nursing against pissing and shitting wherever they want against babbling and crying and
expecting to get what they want without words when they accept that prohibition what they accept is that they are now
torn between two worlds a world in which the first here and now
has now become a then and there
relative to the new here and now the here and now of language of society of order
this is the split subject this is that dollar sign looking thing
that in lacanian terms we use to symbolize the neurotic subject the split subject
the divided or barred subject they are fundamentally split between their existence
in the grammatical symbolic world of language and order and their embodied experience
the rules of shitting and the fact that you have a turd in your body
my kid once asked me she said dad what is poop and i said it's just food that your body
isn't hungry for and i don't know if that was a good answer or not because then she wanted to
talk about who eats shit what kind of food is what kind of animal for whom shit is really good and it was extra complicated because we have this foster dog that we've had from and it's the middle of our foster dog because
we've had her for like 10 years she's kind of our dog now she won't leave us alone but she's a shit eater and so my kid said oh okay i totally get it now yeah i get it my poop is dulce's food the
dog's name is dulce and so i was like oh my god so i had to deprogram that whole thing too
so don't think that just because you read lacan and you can understand any of this shit everybody puts their foot in their mouth
and it's the best place for your foot to be because it's precisely on the underside of your foot that you get access to the real and that's ultimately where we're headed here it is always in lacan ultimately where we're headed for now though we're dealing with that initial moment of acceptance of a primordial no a prohibition lacan says per usual that he's just getting all this from freud Bestatigung is the term that lacan says it's straight out of freud this is this it means affirmation in german it's an affirmation or acceptance of societal rules and language and and speaking codes that are not of your own making that's why the key word here is oftentimes alienation
the process we're describing here in developmentally is an alienating process
because you are asked to set up shop and mold your existence in a world that is not of your own creation
-Samuel McCormick
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When Opposites Attract, part 2: Turning Point
Listen. Gundam Seed, Athrun and I are all having turning points.
For Athrun, he finally gets some character development.
As for me and Seed? Well we’re making peace with each other because I must admit that I like melodrama. I am soooo not above melodrama. So I am going to go ahead and stfu about Gundam Seed’s melodramatic plot because...
Here I am... because #blorbo.
It is, after all, a known fact that I have a tendency to self-insert my own psyche into male deuteragonists with black hair and green eyes. It’s like my brand.
This time I’m nitpicking at GS episodes 26-30 for juicy asucaga and individual character development. I am officially insufferable...
So the last time we saw Athrun and Cagalli together in a scene they were parting ways in much different terms than when they first met each other. Having humanized each other after exchanging names, Athrun and Cagalli parted ways most likely assuming their Gundanium Alloy chance encounter was a once in a lifetime kind of encounter.
Meaning, they likely thought they’d never run into each other.
Oh but little did Athrun and Cagalli know that the 8 writers in the Gundam Seed writing staff had #plans for them and that they would bend the plot as needed to unfold their potential as the fantastic ship that they are.
Athrun
And so it is how In chapter 26 we get the very melodramatic exchange between Athrun and Kira meant to remind us that these two kids are really good friends. And, you know, this all happens just before they try to kill each other.
So in this little exchange we get to finally see the internal conflict that Athrun is having around this whole situationship with Kira.
Part of the reason this conflict exists is because Athrun is not just a soldier, but is also incredibly and stupidly single-minded.
Basically, Athrun is told by his superiors that “enemy = bad, must kill”, and Athrun goes “understood, enemy = bad, must kill.”. No questions asked.
But again, that’s one of the things I like about how Athrun is written.
This kid has an ease with “logic” and mechanics that does not necessarily translate into the realm of “irrational emotions”. This is ESPECIALLY poignant because, since he’s been a soldier most of his life, he’s used to being told what to do and to blindly following those directions.
The thing to keep in mind is that it’s not just that the military suits Athrun’s personality. It’s a bit more complex than that as he’s also following in the steps of a distant father figure whose approval he might seek unconsciously.
So in a sense, the military = dad and it makes me feel like there’s something very Oedipal at the core of Athrun having to defy his father.
Athrun has been told he MUST kill the Strike’s pilot if he wants to protect the PLANTs.
But at this point in the story, Athrun has not begun to think for himself or to wonder whether blindly following directions is the smartest thing to do.
So when Cagalli approaches him and Kira in that scene, Athrun literally and symbolically turns his back on his heart and walks away from them. He leaves Kira behind because not only does he see the world in neat boxes where everything can be easily explained, the logical course of action is that Kira has chosen the wrong side of the war and that makes him an enemy by default.
Enemy = bad, must kill.
Any other narrative outside of this statement is uncharted territory that Athrun has been encouraged never to consider by the mere fact that he’s a soldier.
Now, I did love how dramatic this interaction is for asucaga. As soon as Athrun notices Cagalli is headed their way, he turns around so as to not be seen. After all, she had expressed to him already that she didn’t want him to hurt others with his Gundam... which is totally what he ends up doing.
So he walks away totally emotionally constipated torn between his heart (which he can’t comprehend because it’s illogical) and the blind obedience that is and/or has become part of his character.
Athrun has the kind of cold logic devoid of “conscience” that can be very dangerous. But as Athrun opens up emotionally and starts questioning both his logic and the authorities he was taught to obey, Athrun symbolically introduces the idea of the heart as “Conscience”.
But alas, we have not had enough character development for that because most of the budget was spent animating boob jiggle in the openings, smexy shower scenes, and Kira crying.
No mam/sir/whatever label you prefer. We’re halftheway through the show and Athrun has had about as much character development as a goldfish. No offense to goldfish.
So before Athrun can get to that turning point, well... in a fit of rage after witnessing Kira killing Nicol... Athrun does THE #thing...
Enemy = bad, must kill.
And this is where we leave things off with Athrun before he meets up with Cagalli, who is going through some actual character development, once again.
So let’s look at Cagalli’s growth and where she meets Athrun in the middle as she becomes his impetus for development.
Cagalli
A number of things.
First, I have to add a very important quality about Cagalli I did not mention before. Even though I love calling her a Princess (because she is a literal Princess and behaves like one), the fact that Cagalli chose to go out and learn about the world beyond the safe confines of her lifestyle is so metaphorically Siddhartha.
Siddhartha is a Prince who is better known as Buddha for renouncing to the worldly riches available to him so that he could learn about the world and seek enlightenment.
Not saying Cagalli is enlightened per se, but rather that she represents that budding light of consciousness that comes from expanding one’s horizons.
And I absolutely loved how when her father told her “you don’t know anything about the world,” and Cagalli basically said “watch me!” and put herself in circumstances that grew her as a person.
In episode 27, Turning Point, in an attempt to dissuade her from joining the Archangel as they battle ZAFT forces, this time her father challenges her to try to think of the causes of war instead of focusing on the symptom--fighting.
Clearly her dad’s words encouraged the kind of introspection that led to choosing not to join the Archangel like she initially intended to. But this wouldn’t have been possible if she had not been changed by what she’s seen.
Is fighting going to get anyone anywhere when all that comes from it is an endless cycle of hatred and death, thus feeding into the cycle of senseless conflict?
When she finally understands this, she decides to stay behind. The Goddess of Victory is grounded until further notice because the writers needed Cagalli to be the one who rescues Athrun she has to think through how to end this war without fighting.
This is how thanks to that thick ass plot armor, Athrun and Cagalli have their second “fated” encounter.
The thing is that now that Athrun has done the #thing, he is finally ready to start to ask himself what he wants to fight for (as opposed to someone telling him who and why to fight) precisely because he came to realize that his logic led him astray--and the one who shows him the new way is Cagalli.
“Kira was a crybaby”
Cagalli rescues Athrun and brings him abroad her Orb ship where, unlike Dearka abroad the Archangel, he is treated with utmost respect as Cagalli’s guest.
Something that even Athrun snarks about remarks.
Honestly, this interaction was a pain to get through because it’s so over the top melodramatic... But HEY! The power of #blorbo and #otp compelled me so I march on.
Anyways...
Athrun is emotionally distraught--he’s like on “crazy person distraught by grief” mode.
It’s kind of interesting to see the difference in how Athrun and Kira react differently to their trauma. Kira cries and Athrun represses.
As @ikuzeminna rather eloquently put it, Athrun is emotionally constipated af and acts accordingly.
So Athrun gets all Snarky McSnark and taunts Cagalli because he probably expects that she’ll liberate him from his misery through death. After all, don’t we all just kill people out of hatred?
NO ATHRUN, NO!
Someone, please! Give this boy some character development.
Ok but in all seriousness, this IS Athrun’s turning point. This is the moment when all of what he thought was true about the world starts to crumble under the weight of a decision he made that he wished he had not made. This is the conflict at the crux of his sense of self also idk if I used this last sentence properly, it just sounded cool.
And my favorite part about all of this was Cagalli almost beating the crap out of him for the lame ass answer he gave about his reasoning for killing Kira:
Enemy = bad, must kill.
And that’s one of the themes I love about asucaga--they push and challenge each other to be better.
In other words, Athrun’s realism grounds Cagalli’s idealism the way Cagalli’s idealism inspires Athrun’s realism.
It is then that, after telling Athrun to quit being a dumb crybaby for not stopping to think for himself, Athrun and Cagalli find common ground again in the most unlikely of places: the mutual agreement that Kira cries way too much.
And so it is that by the time they go their separate ways once again, Athrun and Cagalli have changed each other.
For Athrun who just killed his “bestest of friends”, this is the moment when he has to face his past choices. In their brief time together, Cagalli showed him how one can make the difficult choice not to take revenge out of hatred and instead love one’s “enemy”. She opened up Athrun’s mind to look beyond its logic.
For Cagalli, this interaction served the purpose of showing her exactly what her dad was trying to teach her--look for the causes of war. This lets her know that if she wants to end the war, then she needs to go after that senseless hatred.
So it is that as they say their goodbyes...
All he can think to say is “you’re weird” and sort of thanks her... this is what romance is made of guys! I swear does he not have social skills or something? What is wrong with him?!
And Cagalli is like “thanks dude, I’ll take that as a compliment? I guess...” and gives him that necklace because we need an object that he can use to pine over her.
Win for the writers and their thick ass plot armor.
Woo hoo! I am finally able to move on to the next episodes... I am almost to the kiss scene. Almost there!
Thanks for reading my shitpost! Over analyzing Gundam Seed is lots of fun precisely because the writing is hit or miss.
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what u said was interesting but i never got the feeling that aegon was attracted to alicent esp since it seems like he’s scared of her and even has to ask his own mother if she even loves him.. maybe aemond, but i don’t get aegon being sexually attracted to her
Hmm ...
Well, maybe you're right about Aegon not being Oedipal about Alicent as say, perhaps, Aemond might be.
But there is a clearly sexual element to Aegon and Alicent's relationship that is present in the show. I mean, in most of the meaningful scenes between them there is a sexual cogitation. I mean, the first true scene that Alicent has with Aegon as a fully formed person is her clearly watching him masturbate till he was done. Then, touching him and petting him when he is naked. The next, as an adult, it is in the aftermath a sexual episode (a dark and terrible one) in which, once again he is naked, and Alicent is the instigator of making him vulnerable.
I would probably restructure my statement to say that I think that Alicent has accepted who and what Aegon is. I'm not sure I would say that she is turned on by Aegon. But I think that she lacks the boundaries that a normal mother would. I - honestly - believe that Alicent would sit by and watch Aegon doing (reasonable) depravity and wait till he is done before trying to engage his attention on a matter of importance. I mean, I wouldn't go as far as to say that she would stick around while Aegon and Helaena are doing their marriage duty. But I think that Alicent is comfortable/boundary-less enough to stick around for some of his weirder diversions, if only to get her point across.
I'm not saying that Alicent would be a "Pornhub Step-mom" who gives her boy a 'helping hand' ... but I think her relationship with Aegon - in the least - is damaged enough to get to the cusp of that level of fucked up.
As for Aemond. I don't see anything unhealthy between her and Aemond. I think that it is a genuine love of a son for a mother, perhaps a bit of hero worship or putting her on a throne. And it is understandable, being that it seemed that Alicent and Helaena were the only people that cared for Aemond when he was in his darkest and hardest places as a child. I don't think that Aemond ever forgot who has been and would always be on his side. I think both Alicent and Aemond have a very pure and wholesome love that isn't tainted. Alicent finds Aemond reliable and, other than Criston, her closest confidant.
When it comes to Daeron ... I don't have a crystal ball. But in the book Alicent wasn't just a Daeron simp ... she was the whole damn fanclub. And Daeron was very passionate in his love for Alicent ... most of his more legendary feats on the field of battle was motivated by rescuing her. To be completely honest, if I was gonna peg any of the relationships between Alicent and her sons as giving off a bit of a red flag, it would probably be Alicent and Daeron's.
Listen, I've been a Daeron fanboy from way back ... but even I felt that both he and Alicent loved each other ... maybe a bit too much. And now going back over some other stuff, I do wonder if that was something that GRRM was trying to hint at - especially in the reedits. Daeron's passion and conviction for Alicent is much more akin to a knight to trying to rescue the love of his life ... not his mother. And Alicent speaks of Daeron a lot more like a wife would a husband, not as much as a mother about her son - like she does about Aemond.
I don't know what the show is gonna do with Alicent and Daeron's relationship ... but I know that at least, from the very inception of Daeron "The Daring" Targaryen, his love and devotion to Alicent is a primal part of his character. And judging by the lack of boundaries that Show!Alicent has with her sons ... if they go the weird route with maybe Alicent being too affectionate with Daeron - especially since he's been gone for so long - it wouldn't surprise me.
I could see Daeron being the Galahad of HOTD, noble, heroic, and just ... but also having the fatal flaw of a weird and fucked up relationship with Alicent.
It's definitely something I can see GRRM doing.
#House of the Dragon#Alicent Hightower#Aegon II Targaryen#Aemond Targaryen#Daeron Targaryen#Daeron the Daring
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Mirror (1975) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky: Final Scene - Thoughts, Feelings, (& Analysis?)
Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror is filled with the richest imagery that continue to haunt the consciousness after watching it. A film about a dying poet's recollection of his childhood, and its projection onto and through his son. Images from this film have been burned into my mind forever, such is the visual prowess of Mirror. But the scene that impacts me the most and thrills me to my core is the film's final scene.
Not long before in the film, Aleksei (the poet) expresses having a recurring dream where he is a child again. In it, however, he can't enter his house, inside where his mother is cutting vegetable. Aleksei expresses, "And I can't wait to see this dream where I'll be a child again and feel happy again". In the film, Aleksei has an estranged relationship with his mother. His mother seems to have a distaste about him. If you know how personal this film is to Tarkovsky, you know the film is about him way more than most directors' personal films' are about them. Dream, memory, and desire haunt the film from the beginning to the end. Despite Tarkovsky's mother encouraging and supporting him in art in his early life, he developed a rebellion against her parental authority. Which in this film, seems to be completely flipped, and now the distaste is coming from Aleksei's mother (although I don't know how their relationship continued into his later life until this film). There is a black and white narrative in this film which independently seems to be from Aleksei's mother. This eventually bleeds into Aleksei's perception of his wife, given the obvious oedipal theme of the film.
In the final scene of Mirror, Aleksei is in his deathbed, accepting of his fate. He lets go of a bird, symbolic, and has a dream where he is finally reunited with his mother (played by Tarkovsky's real mother), as a child again. And they walk off into the sunset. And Aleksei yells in the open field, he is full of life and childhood. His desire is completed with this dream.
The scene kicks off with Bach's Johannes-Passion conducted by Karl Richter, a striking masterpiece that enthralls the soul with such haunting prowess, making you, I, and Aleksei's young mother feel ultimately powerless. The complexity of this scene lies in the fact that we see a younger version of Aleksei's mother look at her older self with her children. The differring narrative and perspectives eventually blend into each other, creating an unimitable theatric.
Often, we see an older character in film reminiscing their younger self. But here, it's the opposite. The places are switched. But the emotions remain the same. The powerlessness against time and nature is deeply felt here. This one simple switch makes this scene so potent and haunting, accompanied by the ghastly Johannes-Passion, making it one of the best, most impactful sequences in cinema to ever be, and one that will continue to haunt me forever.
Truly, Mirror feels like a film I wasn't supposed to watch. It feels as if I've opened a door to the darkest depth's of Tarkovsky and looked at something my eyes were never to be bestowed upon. But it is without a doubt, a gift to all of humanity, and to all who desire deeply to be young again.
#film#letterboxd#movies#words#notes#filmcommunity#filmmaking#andrei tarkovsky#arseny tarkovsky#mirror#poetic cinema#soviet cinema#russian cinema#movie scenes#movie stills#film analysis#cinema#cinematography#film stills#films#film still#film review#filmography#film writing
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Referring to your fictionalized versions of Philip of Alexandros:
How do you imagine Philip feels about Alexandros? At what age did Alexandros start clashing with him? Is there jealousy? Please explain how you see Philip's feelings about his son.
The idea of Philip as jealous of Alexander is largely a fiction of modern scholarship and really, modern fiction writing, specifically Renault who, in Fire from Heaven, implies in a few places that Philip is jealous of Alexander’s closeness to his mother as part of the Oedipal Complex she has going on (and which I find anachronistic and ahistorical).
In contrast, the idea that Alexander was jealous of his father’s success goes back, at least, to ancient sources, but you’ll look in vain, in ancient sources, for the suggestion that Philip was jealous of Alexander. (Lucian might be an exception, in his “Dialogues of the Dead,” but of course, those are fictional, and in them, Philip mostly sets himself up as better than his son because that’s Lucian’s assessment: ATG wasn’t so great.)
The idea that Philip would be jealous of Alexander is entirely hindsight; Philip would have had no way of knowing, while alive, that his son would eventually eclipse him, historically. Being jealous assumes one has a reason to be so…and he didn’t have one. One might get a hint that he was considering setting him aside…but that’s mostly implied by Plutarch and if you read carefully and can detangle Plutarch’s Greek misunderstanding of Macedonian inheritance, it’s clear that wasn’t true either.
So, I wanted to establish that before going into my own views.
In my own characterization, I see Philippos as a proud but largely distant parent for most of Alexandros’s childhood. He was away a lot, and didn’t have a particularly close relationship with his own father, Amyntas, to know how to BE a father. Much of what he knew about Alexandros came from other people’s reports: nurse, tutors, and yes, Olympias too. He wanted a healthy, smart heir, and Alexandros would’ve fit that bill. And I DO see him as very much keeping up with his kids, even if they don’t know as much. See the little short story, “For the Love of Geometry” for some insight into Philip keeping up with his son.
My Philippos is disappointed Alexandros doesn’t look more like him. I think all parents hope to see something of themselves in their children, especially important in antiquity for fathers, as it helped confirm the baby was theirs. So Philippos is always looking for evidence that Alexandros is his son, as he looks A LOT like his mother, and her family. Hephaistion points out the nose, but I think of Alexandros’s inheritances from Philip being more ephemeral: his overall health and ability to heal quickly, his physical strength, his gift for strategy. But he doesn’t look like him.
Alexandros and Philippos have different temperaments. Philippos is an extrovert. Alexandros has some introverted tendencies. Philippos likes rough-and-tumble, whereas Alexandros isn’t as keen on it. Philippos likes a good drinking song, Alexandros makes music on the lyre (imagine a dad who loves his Hank Williams, Jr. with a son who wants to be a concert pianist). Philippos likes sex; Alexandros does too but is picky (again, imagine the man who likes dirty talk in bed versus the son who’s turned off by it). Yet they share hot-headedness. And Philippos is extremely smart and shrewd, so he does appreciate Alexandros’s brains. The fact he hired Aristoteles as personal tutor certainly doesn’t suggest he wants a dumb brute for a son. But all that sets up a failure of shared interests, outside of war itself. Neither of them quite “gets” the other.
Philippos’s own uncertain/insecure childhood resulted in problems for him as an adult: he had to grow up fast and spent a lot of his younger years terrified for his life; he has a very difficult time trusting (he keeps a lot of his plans to himself until they’re ready to implement); and he was frustrated a lot so grew into “anger management issues.” As king and commanding officer, he’s also used to being obeyed without backtalk. Add to this, in antiquity (really, until quite recently) physical punishment (spankings, etc.) was typical. So Philippos occasionally lets his temper get away from him and not only spanked, but slapped, hit, or beat Alexandros. By ancient standards, he’s actually not that bad—but Alexandros is quite sensitive to it. When he’s not already stressed, Philippos does understand reasoning with Alexandros is more effective.
Making it worse, Alexandros’s native intelligence and excitable nature means he’s not especially tractable. As a little boy, like most children, he does want to please his parents. I see him as “difficult” from 3-5ish, as many young boys can be, with that first rush of testosterone. He was BUSY, didn’t sit still well, and was one of those “No!” kids at 3. (The terrible twos is really the terrible threes.) But then, around 6/7 he mellowed out and up to 10/11, I see him as a very sweet, pleasant child, doing his best to make everybody happy and rising to the strict demands of his tutors. Philippos has fond memories of Alexandros at that age, although he didn’t understand why Alexandros kept to himself so much. He worried his mother was making him haughty—and he wasn’t entirely wrong. Because Alexandros was pretty much good at everything, and his mother praised him for it, towards the end of this period, he did start to get a big head…even while a lack of praise from Philippos (who doesn’t do affirmation much) made him insecure.
Around 11/12, Alexandros started getting the tween hormones kicking in, and that, combined with the slightly big head, led to minor clashes like the Boukephalas incident. Philippos looked on it with more amusement than resentment. Assuming we can take any of the details at face value, the, ‘Are you going to put your money where your mouth is?’ (e.g., will you buy the horse if you can’t tame him?) response from Philippos when Alexandros challenges him strikes me as an attempt at a “Teaching Moment.” Alexandros did manage the horse, but Philippos also let him try; he didn’t just shut him down. To me, that says a lot about him as a father. Alexandros clearly saw it as a bit of an “I-told-you-so” victory, but Philippos let it happen. If he’d been overly concerned about his own ego, Alexandros would have been scolded and punished for arrogance, not given a chance to earn himself a horse. But Alexandros wants/needs a lot more frank praise and reassurance than Philippos is willing to give him, or got himself as a boy. Back to different temperaments.
This is more or less where they are when Becoming starts. A big chunk of that book really deals with Alexandros coming into his own, away from Mom and Dad. (“Boarding school” can be hell for some kids but works well for others. I think it mostly worked well for Alexandros.)
It’s in Rise where Alexandros really begins to “act out.” From Philippos’s point of view, taking the army north—alone—against the Getai was a stupid move that could have got him killed. Naming a hill fort after himself is just the cherry on top. But Philippos’s response shows he doesn’t know how to properly discipline Alexandros; it just humiliates him and makes him worse.
Alexandros wants to be trusted more, but Philippos, who learned distrust young, is reluctant to do that, so he can’t share confidences easily. About the only person who knows most of what Philippos is thinking, is Parmenion—and he earned it slowly.
Alexandros and Philippos’s worse clashes occur when Alexandros is 15-19/20…which is exactly when teen boys are so difficult. I had my own; I know. You just hope, some days, they don’t get themselves killed so they can grow out of it. My Philippos had that thought a lot. Alexandros was clever, talented, full of himself, and striving to become his own person against the backdrop of a stupid-successful father…so he was a little shithead sometimes. Philippos was just trying to stay alive at that age. It makes him impatient when Alexandros acts the way a teenaged boy would normally act.
The tragedy of Philippos and Alexandros is that Philippos died right around the time Alexandros finally starts to get his feet under him and show greater maturity. He’s still idealistic and arrogant (as the very last line of Rise should suggest), but he’s not constantly kicking against the goads the way he was even a few years before. He’s about to get a crash course in just how brilliant his father was. 😉
(Of the random, and somewhat ironically given his name, I could see the actor Philip Alexander as a young Philippos. He was supposed to have been very good looking as a young man. The nose is too fine but otherwise, not a bad match. Yes, the actors eyes are green, but we don’t actually know what color eyes Philip had. It’s usually assumed both eyes and hair were brown, but nothing says so.)
#asks#Philip II of Macedon#Philip of Macedon#Alexander the Great#fathers and sons#Philippos and Alexandros#Dancing with the Lion#DwtL#ancient Macedonia#historical fiction#ancient Greece#Classics#tagamemnon
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by unofficial
Freudismes
somewhere in a chic salle d’attente with 3 Eames chairs and a Rothko.
———
Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and they will come forth, later, in uglier ways.
Sigmund Freud
——-
Freud was a…
fuk’n wanker…
a perpetrator of blah blah blah…
a drug addicted shit-hustler…
perfecting behavioral health farming…
to keep the cash rolling in…
by guiding miserable sheep…
to genuflect…hail mary…& suck cock…
whilst imparting erudite stuff…
and brain sequencing obtuse mysteries…
that you can’t possibly cram into one session…
——-
goddess grant me serenity…
before I go way Oedipal…
and start smashing the maternal kitty…
#frenchpsychiatrymuderedmycnut#by unofficial#Freudismes#somewhere in a chic salle d’attente with 3 Eames chairs and a Rothko.#———#Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and they will come forth#later#in uglier ways.#Sigmund Freud#Freud was a…#fuk’n wanker…#a perpetrator of blah blah blah…#a drug addicted shit-hustler…#perfecting behavioral health farming…#to keep the cash rolling in…#by guiding miserable sheep…#to genuflect…hail mary…& suck cock…#whilst imparting erudite stuff…#and brain sequencing obtuse mysteries…#that you can’t possibly grasp in one session…#goddess grant me serenity…#before I go way Oedipal…#and start smashing the maternal kitty…
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(SEMI) CHARMED KIND OF LIFE: EPISODE 1, PART V. “AT LEAST IT’S NOT STILL ON FIRE”
Transcript Below. You get a bonus episode early cause I screwed up the other one.
DAMIEN: [snickers] If you’re gonna start nagging me about what is and isn’t an “acceptable look”, this is gonna get way too Oedipal. The best thing about you is that you’re nothing like them, please don’t fuck that up.
EMILIA: [she laughs, but it’s humorless and hollow. Frustrated, more to relieve the tension than to express any sort of amusement.]
DAMIEN: You want your ring back? It’s still in my pocket.
EMILIA: If you’d asked me that before blurting out what the “best thing about me” supposedly is, I’d have said yes.
DAMIEN: What does that mean?
EMILIA: It means what you did tonight was a really horrible thing to do– not her, you. I walked in there blind with no idea what I was getting myself into and the root of it all is that you were never being honest about the fact that I’m apparently some act of rebellion for you! Now you have the nerve to pout about it not going your way instead of owning up, and it’s a really ugly side of you I refuse to deal with!
DAMIEN: I don’t know if you’re trying to be bitchy because you’re just as embarrassed as the rest of us are, but that’s a pretty screwed up thing to say.
EMILIA: It’s true, which is even more messed up!
#TS4#The Sims 4#Sims 4 Story#TS4 Story#Story Simblr#Glimmerbrook Premades#Glimmerbrook#Realm of Magic#(Semi) Charmed Kind of Life#SCKoL#Damien Charm#Emilia Ernest#As always click to embiggen for HQs
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Re: Shiv and Roman, doesn’t Shiv also frequently make jokes about Roman wanting to f*ck both their mom and dad? I always kind of thought it was just how they are with each other. Rome def took it too far this ep, but I think the audience (and Shiv) know that it’s a coping mechanism, which is why he was so shockingly OTT before the funeral, bc it was him at his lowest point emotionally (see also the comment about f*cking Marcia on the way up). Doesn’t excuse it, but I think that’s why it didn’t make a lot of noise — plus we’ve seen him make jokes like this before but we haven’t seen him break down like that, so it makes sense why that was the main take away for people, I think. :)
lol see i'm not really trying to rationalize why Roman said what he said. i'm dealing with WHAT he said. and the fact that it was disgusting. point blank.
as her big brother, his go to response to her confiding that she was pregnant to Kendall and him was to say that he was gonna jerk off at the sight of her breast-feeding her newborn. also inferred that they should have sex??? and that he should knock her up. lol i mean......
saying it was a 'coping mechanism' is making excuses for remarks that are inexcusable. lol like tee hee some brothers sexually harass their sisters a little just to cope.... with the death of a father. the death of a father they ALL lost. not just him.
and Shiv was uncomfortable with his remarks. she was already reticent to tell them about the pregnancy and then to have THAT be one of her brother's reaction must've felt super shitty on the way to their father's funeral. in fact, she was upset enough to the point where Kendall had to step in and stop Roman from continuing with ~jokes~.
and just cause Shiv usually gives as good as she gets and is "used to Roman being like that" doesn't mean she should be subjected to that kinda bullshit.
and this whataboutism re: Shiv making jokes about Roman's oedipal tendencies doesn't hold water for me cause Roman has openly talked about how he wants to fuck his mother figures whether it be Marcia or his actual mother. he has NORMALIZED it.
as i said Roman breaking down was heartwrenching. Kieran made me weep in that moment. and i'm pulling for him to win best actor for his work this season. it's been incredible.
but ALL of the siblings are hurting right now. Roman being in an emotionally fraught place doesn't give him carte blanche to be gross to his sister. she is also dealing with the loss of their dad, a troubled marriage AND she is pregnant.
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I would love to hear more Walburga hcs you have, especially in her relationship to Sirius and Regulus. Like, some of the things you think she did that just started to build and inevitably cause Sirius to retreat to his mother's room of all places when he was in his worst moments and wanted to isolate himself to brood.
Gonna start by saying I think it's interesting that we say "his mother's room" (I am guilty of this too). Presumably it was Orion's room too? (edit: @casquecest pointed out this is from the text and it may not have actually been Orion's room) But I mean, fuck Orion tbh, so.
Well, ok. Learned behavior, first and foremost. You can't tell me that Sirius doesn't have 100 memories of his mother huffing off, shouting, sighing, or sobbing dramatically, as she retreated to her room and locked herself away in there. Mimicry, plain and simple.
I've said she measured out affection and I think that's a part of it too. The most effective form of reinforcement is intermittent reinforcement. When you don't know when and if you're going to get praise you work harder for it and earning it sticks out in your mind more. While Sirius certainly felt that he did not get the praise he deserved from his mother, I think the little he did get would have stuck with him and been a comfort, albeit subconsciously.
I've noted before that Walburga has presence. She was charismatic. God, like the fact that Regulus and Walburga have us all talking and thinking about them when they're dead-the-whole-time minor characters? Black family charm. And she was charismatic in a similar way to Sirius, energetic and unapologetic. Of course he was drawn to her, despite himself.
I think she was very demanding. Her expectations for her sons were incredibly high and stringent. There wasn't space for them to be goofy, to be kids. It's no surprise to me that Sirius' rebellion involved joining a group of boys known for making mischief and practical jokes. He needed an outlet for his silliness because silliness wasn't tolerated at home.
Her relationship with Regulus is something I've started exploring and plan to keep unpacking in Psychoanalysis Sunday, but it's basically a twist on your classic Oedipal complex: instead of wanting to kill his father so he can have his mother all to himself, he wants to kill Sirius so that he can bask in his mother's attention.
BUT. Sirius actually did leave, and Regulus did get Walburga all to himself, and I imagine it was NOT what he hoped. The scrutiny of being an heir was suffocating, particularly when Walburga was ramping things up a notch to try to keep Regulus from following Sirius' footsteps. Regulus thought if he was named the heir, if he was proven to be the best son, that would be it. Job done. Bask in the glow of it. Maybe try to throw it in people's faces. From an older fic of mine, Don't Blink, Everyone's Watching:
He thought that once he got to this point, everything would be great. He would have proved once and for all that he was better than his brother, that he was the perfect son. He hadn’t anticipated having to prove and reprove himself every goddamn day.
Oops! I think Regulus' relationship with Walburga mirrors Sirius' in it's complexity and reaction formation. Sirius says all the time how much he hates Walburga--we know better than to take him at his word. Well, if Regulus says all the time how much he admires his mother--we ought to know better than to take him at his word, as well. There is love and grief underneath Sirius' proclamations and there is resentment and anger under the surface of Regulus'.
#ask#anon ask#Regulus Black#Sirius Black#Walburga Black#House of Black#send Orion hc's I'm trying to learn to love him
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character opinion bingo: spike’s mom, anne
everything about this character can be summed up by the following (picture me saying it in a stunned, almost revalatory, and yet simultaneously 'jesus-here-we-go-again' voice): his mother's name. was anne.
tragic! this man really doesn't want to be living and reliving an oedipal pastiche but it just keeps happening to him! no but i wish we'd seen more of who she was before all that - although from the way he is with joyce, i tend to imagine she was a Cool Mom (for the 1800s that probably meant reading mary wollstonecraft or something) and since afaik we never figure out what his dad was doing or if he was alive, she was probably raising her kid alone. presumably her husband had died, and left her with a fair amount of money bc she seems comfortably well-off, although i think their savings probably started to wear thin once she had been sick for a while. it's lonely not having siblings, especially when the caretaking dynamic flips and you find yourself looking after your ailing or aging parent. but i think she was probably quite proud of her child, even if his peers didn't see much worth writing home about. she'd spent the past twenty-plus years watching this sensitive, emotional, highly romantic person develop into a mature, softspoken adult, and i think she probably would not be thrilled with the whole punk-rock wannabe thing that happened later...but she wasn't there for that. as long as she existed as herself she knew her child as he had always been to her, whose instinct was to help her in a way that wouldn't just put off suffering, but erase it (it was a bad idea, but hey, he's stupid, we know this) - which is no small thing when you think about how quickly her own moral compass deteriorated. normally when working around the complexities (read: wild inconsistencies) of buffyverse soul canon, i tend to err on the side of 'whatever you are soulless, those faults were already in you' - and visa versa - whatever morality you retain while soulless, you had that capacity too. and i don't want to say she was Like That as a human being, but everyone has vices and internal things they'd never act on or even want to think about, but which exist for them anyway. possibly the experience of being lonely, and aging, and knowing her time was coming, and having only really one person consistently in her life, taking care of her, being young and strong and having values she approved of because she'd personally instilled them...maybe that surfaced in a bad way when the switch flipped. so to me she's a character whose complexities are hinted at but only just - and who is more than a little bit reflected in other parts of the story.
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Not to be all Like That again but I have been reading a lot of analysis recently which puts the cart before the horse where the narrative analytic method or narrative structure is put before story material e.g. the relationship between character A and character B is represented through a Freudian Oedipal complex and represents a commentary in the story on Marxist class dynamics. Like sure yes, you can discuss the higher level, but in this case my imaginary interlocutor refutes the material relationship of A and B and the characters themselves and doesn't view it through any other lense except allegory - whether or not there is a genuine relationship (genuine in the sense of like, materially present in the story) or genuine character motivation outside of it doesn't matter.
It's very dangerous and exactly where I think allegory and metaphor and narrative analysis can go too far, because yes, whilst I do spend time thinking about that stuff (quite famously), equally a character like Cinder - even if her role in the story can be expressed in Jungian terms - is still above all Cinder, with her own character-motivated stakes and relationships to other characters in the story, whose ultimate arc can say something substantial about the others'. That she is Ruby's Shadow or Jaune's anima isn't the chief motivation or justification when it comes to the absolute emotional payoff of her redemption because it's always going to be grounded materially in who she is and what her relations are to Ruby and Jaune (their enemy).
I have people fall prey to this in many fandoms, many times, over and over, in part because appealing to basic allegory is an easy way to come to something that feels like a definitive conclusion, and because yes, there are times where these types of structures do foreground particular thematic goals (e.g. a mythically-minded story will have drastic and epic ends and a Jungian-motivated one will be, well, mindful of psychology and self-actualisation). But on the other hand when you've lost sight of the material storytelling content, what are you actually talking about? Because if storytelling is just inserting X structure to get Y answer, then it's not really that thoughtful.
Sure, narrative is to some degree formulaic, but formula never precludes thoughtful material.
I have definitely seen this done in the R/WBY fandom before (Cinder is x thing in alchemy, therefore she will die, without thinking about her substantial character in the story! Or the usage of alchemy in the story for its own ends!) and I have seen this time and time again that I'm not trying to specifically vague about anybody but make my position very clear on where and why I think these storytelling structures are useful. It gives us some idea of what the aims of the story are and what its commentaries are. (This relates to a post I made recently). It is not the be-all and end-all because the text is always first and foremost the text.
Of course if you wanted to make an argument for allegory above all, you can certainly do so on your own terms; I'm just always going to take issue with it because it effectively defeats the purpose of the deeper emotional teeth of a story. A Shadow or a symbolic fire is one thing, Cinder is another.
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