In watching more interviews with Liv about Van and the escalation of Van's pragmatism to such dark degrees, I find myself genuinely baffled that anyone could ever think Van the bad guy. I mean, I'm perplexed at finding ANY of these girls The Bad Guy. The bad guy is the situation. It's being lost. It's freezing. It's starving. It's being scraped down to the barest bone of being alive. They make choices that might be snippy, or cruel, or hard-headed, sure--Shauna refusing to just hash it out with Jackie; Jackie being too stubborn to come inside; Taissa refusing to discuss her situation plainly; etc--but by the time we reach the end of season 2, it doesn't even matter. Petty bullshit doesn't matter. Jealousy doesn't matter. Those things are still going to be present and complicated, because--for all their choices, for all the distancing they're trying to do--these kids ARE still human beings. But it isn't the point.
The point is survival. Plain, simple, straightforward. Van's pragmatism is survival. It is the difference between living another day with blood on your teeth or dying pretty. It is the difference between fighting forward through the fire and the snow and the hell of it all, and laying down to die. Van knowing, in watching the ritual violence of Shauna beating Lottie nearly the death, that they will be killing and eating one another soon. Van coming up with the cards for the hunt. Van not blinking when the moment comes, Van choosing a weapon that doubles as a tool to bring the body back, Van refusing to apologize for staying alive--it's not evil. It's not Bad Guy behavior. It's purely about survival, because there is nothing else left to her--or to any of them. They can play the pretty little Sweet Angel Girl game and die, or they can get dirty, bloody, horrific and fight. Van chooses the fight. Van chooses to fight for herself, for her lover, for her team, even knowing not everyone is going to make it out...because the alternate path there is that no one makes it out. Van knew the baby wouldn't live. Van knows the rest of them won't, either. Not unless they start making the hard choices.
And, honestly, the fact that Van sees this narrative coming. Comes up with this plan. Brings out the cards. To me, that is the opposite of Bad Behavior. That is as close to justice as anyone can find in the wilderness. If someone else came up with an idea, maybe it would have come down to voting--but that would have had such a human element to it, with bitterness or hostility or whatever ultimately petty shit always comes of humans selecting who to Other. The cards don't leave room for that. It isn't fair, because the situation isn't fair, because Man vs. Nature isn't fair, but it's as close to a just system as they could possibly find. It's the kindest solution to an unwinnable game. Not to bring it back to American Gods again, but all I can think is "it's easy, there's a trick to it: you do it, or you die." Van gave them that.
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JOEL GOT A WITHER ROSE!!! THE FLORIST HAS A WITHER ROSE!!!
I can’t type any cohesive thoughts sowwy
But can we talk about how obvious it is when something is on Joel’s mind, first it was rapunzel/tangled and now in ep6 of secret life his answer for the bonding question was gardening and his idea for a Cool Name was the florist. Like okay I wonder what you’re thinking about today.
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thinking about the scene in book!tbosas where teslee (district three female) was being attacked by the horrifying snakes and she nonverbally pleaded with mizzen (district four male) for help. and he only shook his head, not moving to help her - but the book specifically stated that this was more out of stunned fear/horror than any kind of menace or glee at teslee's imminent death.
and he wasn't even from her district too. they were not in an alliance. she literally had no reason to expect any assistance from him, but district divisions & sectionalism didn't matter when she was scared and in pain. none of these divisions of districts one, two, three, four, five through twelve matter!!! not when children are suffering and dying as penance for a just war that ended several years ago! it's as if the narrative is trying to tell you there is no difference between a suffering/dying child from one district or another.
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i realize a lot of people tend to over-characterize wesker and completely disregard some of his main personality traits. (long post that’s not rlly organized read at ur own risk lol)
i’ll often see videos/edits about him and a lot of people will say something along the lines of
“he’d instantly kill me” (read this on a thirst post LMAO)
“he’d threaten to kill me if i ever spoke to him”
“wesker would kill all of us if he found out we were simping for him”
and that always really confused me? knowing wesker’s character i feel like people would know he doesn’t kill people unless he really has to. there are few moments where he does kill and they’re mainly because he has to/has real reason behind it.
in reality, he likely wouldn’t kill you instantly, especially if you simply weren’t a threat. who cares if you simp for him? he sure doesn’t. even if you were a threat, he’d send out other people to take care of you first and if he had a confrontation with you he surely wouldn’t take you seriously (i highly doubt y’all mfs know how to fight i’m sorry 😭)
you wanna know why wesker fought chris in the first place? he thought it was amusing and didn’t even take it seriously. the whole time he just messed around, clearly not trying to kill him. he literally tells chris he has 7 minutes to fuck with him like he’s got a strict schedule. dude was not taking any of that seriously. he took a phone call because chris and sheva were so irrelevant to him. they were considered ‘threats’ but clearly not enough to him for him to really care. he has enough confidence in his own abilities to know he could take care of something if they really posed a threat to him.
it’s actually surprising how people make out wesker to be this ruthless angry killer who doesn’t put up with anything when in reality he’s just a goofy little comic book villain who has the zoomies half the time.
we have visual proof of a wesker simp trying to fuck him (excella) and him simply using them before killing them. keep in mind he put up with her for 5~ whole years.
moral of the story, no he wouldn’t threaten you or actually kill you the moment you spoke a word to him. that’s seriously out of character for him and i’m not sure why after seeing him in so many games that people will automatically assume that he’d do that. he’s capable of fighting but clearly prefers to use his charm.
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The above is a screenshot of one of tropes from Shadoo's section in the SPM TV Tropes page that caught my interest.
“Never mentioned to be killed...” Hm. If I go by my headcanon of how Dimentio fits into the story of the Pixl Uprising (i.e he's both the Magician's son and the surviving apprentice who defeated the Pixl Queen), then that would give another parallel of how Dimentio was once a hero who had a Pixl that could see the truth who stopped an antagonist who had the Dark Prognosticus who several thousand years later switched sides. And by another parallel, I mean it works perfectly alongside this.
The reason Shadoo exists (if they are the Pixl Queen) is because he couldn't go through with killing his sister; he cared for her too much and now here she is stuck at the bottom of the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials and wanting to exact revenge on the Ancients for sealing her away. Based on how Shadoo has a robotic text box and says that they were created by the Ancients, it can be presumed she forgot she was ever human. She forgot who she was.
Fast forward to the events of SPM and Dimentio's intended kill-shot for Count Bleck gets intercepted by Nastasia and knocks her unconscious in addition to injuring her. Either he had the power of that shot just enough to kill Bleck and no further and that's why Nastasia survived, because why waste precious energy? All he has to do is finish Count Bleck off who is already at death’s door thanks to the heroes.
Or Nastasia was just very fortunate to survive a full-powered blast. My money's on something like the former because Dimentio has well more than enough power to absolutely guarantee no one would survive an attack like that. (the average person who isn't a hero or built for combat— which Nastasia very much isn't— anyway.)
Then there's him saving O'Chunks and Mimi from what would have been certain death by teleporting them to Dimension D. We know they didn't end up in the same place as Peach and Bowser because neither they nor O'Chunks and Mimi make any mention of such. Pair that with the fact that the Void can't be seen from Dimension D and thus heavily implying that anyone inside it would survive the Void that would destroy everything else, and you're left with the only explanation of Dimentio having saved them. I do believe that Dimentio screwed up by not only "catching feelings" and he genuinely did care for the other minions deep down as much as he tries to deny that; and I have mentioned in a prior post about him putting all of the people who could have possibly done something about the Super Dimentio fusion in the same place.
If he hadn't cared as much as he did for them and just left them to their fates, he would have won. I feel that the reason why the floor came out under Bowser and O'Chunks is because of Dimentio— because why make a trap like that that is intended to kill any who don't make it out in time and then have it to where after a certain amount of time, it would give any of the heroes still inside who may somehow still be alive an escape and make a comeback? It makes no sense. And it's because of that, that Peach was able to survive by landing on top of Bowser.
Had he only teleported Bowser out and left O'Chunks, and teleported Peach while leaving Mimi, the minions wouldn't have been able to band together with Count Bleck and Tippi to recharge the Pure Hearts and destroy his invincibility. It was his inability to go through with killing them or just letting them die because he actually cared about them— cared too much— that caused his own undoing.
History literally repeats itself if one subscribes to believing Dimentio is both the Magician's son and the last surviving apprentice.
First Shadoo who may or may not be the Pixl Queen, was spared by her brother who couldn't bear to go through with killing her therefore causing future consequences for if she ever gets free. Then the minions— including Nastasia and Count Bleck who for the latter, Dimentio in his ever present wisdom decided to spare killing for later— with their love for each other that was allowed to continue existing all because he spared them for the time being, recharged the Pure Hearts and caused immediate consequences for himself and was the catalyst for his defeat.
In the first instance, he was on the “heroic” side. For the last he was on the “villainous” side.
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