i bought a couple of games from the steam summer sale and i ended up playing Unpacking 2 times in a row because it was just so satisfying. i would play 5 more sequels where nothing changes mechanically you just unpack different people's lives

"Murder is Werewolves" - Batman

I don't got the SPOONS to do this thought train justice, I have seriously been trying to write this thing for MONTHS so just, idk, have this half baked skeletal outline of the essay I guess:

I don't believe that Batman's no-kill rule is primarily about rehabilitation or second chances.

His refusal to believe that Cassandra could have killed someone when she was eight years old because "how could a killer understand my commitment not to kill" is absolute fucking MOON LOGIC from a rehabilitationist standpoint. No jury on the planet would think for even a second that she could reasonably be held accountable for her actions in that situation! Her past cannot condemn her to being incapable of valuing human life under a rehabilitation centering framework. However, Batman's reasoning makes perfect sense if he believes that killing is a spiritually/morally corrupting act which permanently and fundamentally changes a person, and that corruption can never be fully undone.

Dick Grayson killing the Joker is treated both narratively and by Batman as an unequivocally WIN for the Joker. The Joker won by turning Nightwing into a killer. Note that this is during a comic in which the Joker transforming people was a major theme! Batman didn't revive the Joker because the Joker deserved to live; he revived the Joker to lift the burden on Dick.

His appeal to Stephanie when she tried to kill her dad is that she shouldn't ruin her own life. He gives no defense of Cluemaster's actual life. Granted this is a rhetorical strategy moment and should be taken with a generous pinch of salt, but it fits in the pattern.

When Jason becomes a willful killer, he essentially disowns him, never treats him with full trust ever again, and... Well, we can stop here for Bruce's sake. Bottom line is that his actions towards Jason do not lead me to believe that he thinks Jason can become a better person without having his autonomy taken from him, either partially or fully.

The Joker is, for better or worse, the ultimate symbol and vessel of pure, irredeemable evil in DC comics now. He hasn't been just another crook in a long time. He will never get better, he will only get worse. If you take it to be true that the Joker will not or can not rehabilitate, then there's no rehabilitationist argument against killing him.

Batman does not seem to consider it a possibly that he'll rehabilitate. Batman at several points seems to think that the Joker dying in a manner no one could have prevented would be good. Yet Batman fully believes that if he killed the Joker, he himself would become irredeemable.

Batman's own form of justice (putting people into the hospital and then prison) is fucking brutal and clearly not rehabilitative. He disrespects the most basic human rights of all criminals on a regular basis. It is genuinely really, really weird from a rehabilitationist standpoint that his only uncrossable line is killing... But it makes perfect sense if he cares more about not corrupting himself with the act of killing than the actual ethical results of any individual decision to kill or not kill.

In the real world cops are all bastards because they are too violent to criminals, even when that violence doesn't lead to death. Prison is a wildly evil thing to do to another human being, and you don't use it to steal away massive portions of a person's life if your goal is to rehabilitate them. In the comic world, Batman is said to be necessary because the corrupt cops are too nice to criminals and keep letting them out of jail. I don't know how to write a connector sentence there so like I hope you can see why this bothers me so damn much! That's just not forgiveness vibes there Batman!!

I want to make special note here of the transformative aspect. You don't simply commit a single act when you kill, no, you become a killer, like you might become a werewolf.

The narrative supports this a lot!

Why did Supes go evil during Injustice? He killed the Joker. Why did Bruce become the Batman Who Laughs? Bruce killed the Joker. Why was Jason Todd close to becoming a new Joker during Three Jokers? Because he killed people, to include the Joker.

Even if these notions of redemption being impossible aren't the whole of his reasoning (people never have only one reason for doing what they do) it is a distinct through-line pattern in his actions and reasoning, and it is directly at odds with notions of rehabilitation, redemption, and second chances.

So why does he give so many killers second chances?

Firstly because this doesn't apply to all versions of Batman. Some writers explicitly incorporate rehabilitation and forgiveness into his actions. You will be able to provide me with examples of this other through-line pattern if you go looking for them. The nature of comics is to be inconsistent.

Secondly the existence of that other pattern does not negate the existence of this one. People and characters are complex, and perfectly capable of holding two patterns of belief within themselves, even when they conflict to this degree. You can absolutely synthesize these two ideas into a single messy Batman philosophical vibescape.

Finally and most importantly to this essay: he has mercy on killers the same way that werewolf hunters sometimes have mercy on someone who is clearly struggling against their monsterous nature, especially if they were turned in exceptional circumstances or against their will. They understand that they are sick, damned beasts, cursed to always be fighting against themselves and the evil they harbor within. It is vitally kind to help them fight themselves by curtailing their autonomy in helpful ways and providing them with chances to do some good to make up for their eternal moral deficiency.

I think in many comics Batman views killers as lost souls. Battered and tormented monsters who must be pitied and given mercy wherever possible. (The connections to mental health, addiction, and rampant, horrifying ableism towards people struggling with both is unavoidable, but addressing it is sadly outside of the scope of this essay.)

Above all, the greatest care possible must be taken to never, ever let yourself become one of them, because once you have transformed the beast will forever be within you growing stronger.

To Batman, it is the most noble burden, the highest mercy, the most important commandment: Thou shalt suffer the monsters to live.

Hinny ♥️ - The Chronicles of Harry J. Potter's mind

She's Ron's little sister 😡

She's Ron's sister.😠

She's Ron's... 🫤

She's... 😵‍💫

She's so beautiful. 😍

Shit, she's looking my way. WAIT. DID SHE JUST WINK AT ME? 😳

Stop staring. Look somewhere else. Fuck, I think Dean noticed... Awkward... 😬

Okay, try to act cool. Stand against the wall, cross you arms, and look nonchalant, like you don't care. 😎

*stubbles with hand placement and footing* 🫨

Ginny: "Hi Harry"

tries to cover his dopey smile but ends up swooning instead. 🥴

i have grown kinda tired of all the studio ghibli and totk comparisons bc i love most of miyazakis movies and its so annoyingly obvious that if totk actually took inspiration from them its all just the surface level aesthetic and none of the good story telling

🥲

“…then I will carry your weight, look here's my name, burden me.”

That sentence right there. Like oh my god!!! Makes me want to ugly cry because I’m so damn sure that Witch has been by herself for bit. Whenever you write about her she’s always by herself in her home and that’s not a bad thing but I wonder if she feels lonely.

Plus! Generations of magic all crammed into her and I just know she feels burdened by it to some degree. Burdened to preform perfectly. Burdened to be the best. Burdened with the weight of your family legacy. Then here comes John waltzing in and pretty much saying “I’ll carry it with you.”

And I jus-

AAAAAHHHHHHHH

I love him and I love Witch. Like please, y’all stop messing around and get married already❤️

Witch is such a deeply lonely character in my mind, and I try to show that when I write her. She's someone that's always taken care of others, but doesn't have anything to really show for it. She's alone in her family home despite the fact that her family is alive and well. She doesn't know how to entertain guests, only how to serve clients. She has very few friends. Very few people she can trust, that she can lean on.

Witch is a character that, through necessity/divine intervention/personal inability, has always been alone. She's the oldest child, groomed as the successor to her family's magic, never quite fitting in with the normal humans of the world. Everything in her life revolves around magic, everything has a purpose, everything has to be perfect to manage the burden on her shoulders. Witch is cheerful, she's kind and charming, but I don't know if she's ever really... enjoyed life. I don't think she's ever seen herself as more than a vessel for her magic.

Price is the first person to ask her how she's doing. It's literally the first thing out of his mouth in their first post: "How's my pretty Witch doing today?" And I think as their relationship progresses he sort of realizes how much she needs someone to care for her, not just care about her. Plenty of people may care about the Witch but look at how self sufficient she is, she doesn't need anyone to care for her! And she is, she's perfectly able to take care of herself, but that doesn't mean she needs to. That doesn't mean Price is going to let her. Let him carry the weight, let him take some of the loneliness, let him ease the burden into something manageable, just for a little while, just until you fall asleep.

Anyway Witch is a deeply personal character to me, but also one that I hope others can relate to. I think we've all sat and felt the weight of the world on our shoulders, and wished there was someone we could share it with.

I wonder why Chris Rodriguez joined Luke in the first place. Was he jaded against the gods like Luke was? Was he following his older brother's example? And then I wonder how he coped after the Labyrinth. How did it feel to know he was basically sent on a desperate suicide mission with almost no chance of success? How did it feel to know that the camp he turned his back on, the children of the gods he had renounced, one of the very gods he had been working to destroy, ended up saving him? What was going through his mind when he came back from his madness at Camp Half-Blood thanks to one of the very gods Luke and Kronos insisted didn't care about him? Is that why he chose to stay? Did he realize Luke was wrong about Camp Half-Blood and about at least some of the gods when they welcomed him back with open arms? Did he see Dionysus save him and realize that the gods are capable of caring when it matters? Did he realize that there was a chance for the gods to be better? Did he realize there was another way to get what they wanted without war and death and deals with monsters and Titans? Is that why Chris Rodriguez chose to stay at Camp Half-Blood rather than return to the Titan army?

Happy 11 years, 5 Seconds of Summer!

GYAAHHH people are reblogging ANCIENT art of mine

Guess who played up to the end of the forest temple and once again lost the battle of not making a new AU last night?

Lark’s existence complicates some things in a lot of fun interesting ways let me cook on this one

I still haven’t cast a Zelda, this AU is all about Sparrow with a wolf curse, anything else is secondary

loving the vibe of people who havent watched riverdale and havent watched the finale posting to complain about how they had a very normative ending because it reinforced the idea that characters have to be in relationships to be interesting. like my man fuck 86 year old single mother by choice and feminist magazine editor with no regrets about never getting married whose dying wish was to see all her old friends again betty's entire life just because she was in a quad for a year 67 years ago i guess. it's not enough that narrator jughead erased her whole shit now people on the internet who dont even care about betty my friend betty are doing it too. and the core four arent even in set relationships in the big pop's in the sky because they're juniors again. but you dont get the big pop's in the sky you don't care about the big pop's in the sky. i do

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[Reblogs greatly appreciated!]

SUPER DARK TIMES (2017) DIR. KEVIN PHILLIPS

also, honorable mention to the original script for this scene:

Boy King Seb :D

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh today I've been constantly experiencing the urge to un-private today-in-the-devildom & start writing for it again

I was writing a much longer post about this, but more concisely, I had a kind of horrifying idea:

Tolkien ultimately attributes the specialness of the House of the Stewards, especially Denethor and Faramir in LOTR, to their indirect descent from Elendil. The founder of their house, Húrin of Emyn Arnen, was a cousin of King Minardil on the Anárioni side, but had no claim himself (most likely the descent was through a woman). So if the weird shit we see with Denethor and Faramir is ultimately coming from Elendil, then it’s possible that Faramir’s frequent dreadful dream-visions of the Akallabêth are not specific to him, but (like the RL dream that inspired them) inherited. Specifically, inherited from Elendil.

Basically, it’s not certain, but possible, that Elendil was so incredibly scarred by the Akallabêth that non-royal descendants thousands of years later are still haunted by the horror of that moment.