#then what's the fucking point in having other characters. you make everyone an extension of bruce and catering to him
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i would rather eat my own foot than have another batman writer use talia as a pawn in their racist & white saviour fantasy bullshit
#shout out to btk for being reliable in making sure batman comics are disappointing#stop erasing and simplifying complicated and powerful characters just to make bruce look better god#i know its a batman comic so hes going to be the specialist little guy or whatever however when you strip away what makes it interesting#and dont allow other characters to have any depth or standing points within their own beliefs and methods??#then what's the fucking point in having other characters. you make everyone an extension of bruce and catering to him#rather than stand on their own or have any solid characterization and it shows.#anyways. love brutalia for the heartache and tragedy.#but give talia a real personality again. give her back what bruce fell in love with. and also just stop pinning her character to bruce and#let her be her own fucking character finally because god im so sick of batman writers.
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Tallulah is Phil and Missa's daughter.
This will probably be very long, so if you want to read it, go grab some popcorn and get comfortable.
I have to talk about this because it's eating me up inside. I think I shouldn't give so much importance to comments coming from sewers like Twitter and much less Tiktok, but it makes me so sick (and I'm such a masochist that I even spend time looking for the shit they say to make me angrier and debate them xD).
I am very happy that it was finally made official, with papers certified by the federation, that Tallulah is the daughter of Philza and Missa, I think that was not entirely necessary for them, because they had assumed it for a long time (let's assume that Tallulah needed the pappers to end her W arc), although I suppose that more than anything it was done for those people who still cannot accept it or who deny the paternity of Phil and Missa (With Missa, although it bothers me, I can even understand it, he He hasn't been as present and many people don't know him, but god, it would be a crime to deny Tallulah's paternity to Phil, the man who has kept her alive and given everything for her throughout her life).
I'm glad that, although I have seen negative comments, the majority have been positive (even if it hurts them, it doesn't matter, it's official, screw them). Mainly, the negative comments have been from defenders of W and their arguments are so poor and weak that they are easily refuted. It is obvious that these people do not know Tallulah and have never met her, many do not even know how things turned out and say nonsense like that the current Llulah is an imposter, that it is not fair that they "rewrote" history and erased W (which It is false, Llulah's words make it clear that history was never changed, she simply moved on and that person remained in the past).
I refuted all those arguments on Twitter but screw Twitter, I hate the fucking character limit. So I'm going to expand (I have a lot of poison to get out of my skin).
I have some points:
1- "That's not Tallulah" Of course it is her, those who witnessed her life and her growth during the year that passed, can realize that this was her natural evolution. She is the same girl who grew up overcoming her limitations, who suffered, who felt alone, who had abandonment problems, who everyone saw as a poor abandoned girl and who found comfort next to someone who has always loved her like a father and a brother who gave everything for her.
2- "They erased all her lore" No. Tallulah's lore is the one she built with Philza and Chayanne over the course of the year they lived together. Her relationship with W and her longing for him was only part of her story (although people made a lot of emphasis on that), but it was not the only thing that defined her, it never was and only people who never got to met her think that. They see her like an extension of that other person, as the only thing that kept him on the server, but did not see her as an individual character and definitely did not watch Phil's Vods and they never really knew her lore.
3-"How do they explain this in the lore?" Simple, there was someone in her life, someone who was her first father, but who spent very little time with her, who left a long time ago and who is currently no longer part of her life. She learned to let go of the past and focused in the family she has in the present, the family that loves her, that watched her grow up, that makes her happy and gives her security to believe in herself and that is the Death Family, Chayanne, Philza and Missa.
Time passes, not all people stay, treasure those who are by your side and let go of what never brought you anything but pain.
4- "They should have created another egg and replaced her" Why replaceher? It has no sense or reason. She is a character who built her own story with her family, a story that never really involved that other person other than with one or another sporadic mention, why eliminate a character that evolved by itself? Little by little she separated herself from what she was at the beginning and that bond that she had with that first father was practically non-existent. What would be the point of eliminating it or replace her with another new character?
5- "No matter what other parents and appearance give her, she will always belong to W because she still carries the name he gave her"
No. She never belonged to him. She lived with that man for 2 days and apart from leaving him the promise of a reunion, she did not contribute anything else to her life. She formed her own path, her passion for music was not because of him, it was something she already had before, her love for nature, for animals, everything was built in the days she lived with Philza (even with uncle Bad). She suffered for her first father but she moved on, she matured, she discovered her link with death and her powers as a medium, she acquired her own personality and little by little she built the Tallulah she is now.
She never belonged to anyone but herself and she always fought to prove that, but people insisted on dumping trauma on her and reminding her that she was an abandoned child waiting for someone who at a certain point was nothing more than an idealized dream, because There was never a real relationship between them, they never lived together long enough. She little by little made her decisions and chose the people she wanted to be her parents (and it's not that she had few options, Quackity, Bad and even F wanted to adopt her at the time and asked them to, but she was not a girl who was looking for parents). She could choose and she chose Philza, the person who had always been there for her and later she chose Missa, someone who despite not knowing her very well gave her his love unconditionally and gave her security when she needed it. Then she was able to feel the warmth of being part of a complete family.
6- "They should change her name because W gave her that name! That impostor is not Tallulah!" Why? Her name is not anyone's intellectual property, at the time it was given to her, it belonged to her for better or worse and yes, in some way it will always be a tie to her past, but a past she has already left behind and managed to overcome by creating new memories and dreams.
To a certain extent I understand those who became attached to her because she reminded them of that other person, but if they couldn't see her as her own character, it means that they never cared enough to make the effort to get to know her.
It would shock us all if a character we liked suddenly changed drastically and left behind what like us in the first place. But if they had really watched her, they would have realized that the change was not sudden, it was gradual.
She found in Phil a protective and understanding father who always put her and her brother before anything else, who suffered with her her pain and outbursts of frustration due to the depression caused by the absence of her first father. She found in Missa a cute and loving father who always showers her with love and helps her to have confidence in herself. She doesn't lack anything with them. She has closed a cycle of pain in her life and now she can heal.
She chose the look that makes her feel finally free to be herself, whatever the external reasons that led to that, she finally has a future ahead of her unbound by the past and prefers to be more like the people she considers her family now. If you can't see what all of this really meant to Tallulah and her evolution, it's because you never cared to see even 20% of her story. Well, since the middle of last year she began her journey to break away from a name and be herself, fighting to be seen for who she was.
If those people decide to continue supporting someone despite his shit, that is their right, but the server and the admin were also within their right to decide to kick him out and want to distance themselves from a person they consider unpleasant.
7-There were comments of another type, mainly from people who are really very lost with the lore, people who consider her the daughter of Quackity, even confusing her with Tilín (saying that Q didn't know if she was the daughter of W or Luzu and that she should get a DNA test), when we all know that from the beginning she was W's daughter as a single father and that the only reason Quackity could have become Tallulah's father was if to marry W, but that never happened, W didn't come back and Quackity was never able to develop that relationship with Llulah, she considered him a possible father because she knew W loved him, but Q always being kidnapped or something, they never really related much.
There are people who, even with a certificate, continue to insist that Tallulah should have been given to Quackity to raise with Luzu (she had a tender interaction with Luzu and people were already asking him to adopt her, saying that she was alone and had no parents, I seriously hate them!) I shouldn't take seriously people who obviously haven't seen Philza even once and I know that many of those people are hispanic and are limited by the language barrier but if they don't have the slightest idea They shouldn't give their opinion… Tallulah is not an object to be passed from hand to hand, she chose and in order to do so she had to go through a very long and painful arc.
8- I firmly believe that it is a great win to now have a certificate that endorses who the people she considers her parents are, but I insist, it was not necessary, because that has been known for a long time and I am sure that if it was created it was to close the mouth mouth to all those people who are not capable of accepting that.
Tallulah is the daughter of Philza and Missa (and no one else), she is part of the Death Family, that is her story, it is not a whim, a whim is continuing to link her to something she is no longer a part of or wanting to make her a part of a lore that never happened or wanting to give her other parents different from the ones she grew up with (Quackity already had Tilín, Richas and now Pepito, I don't think she needs more children and Tallulah doesn't need any more shitty drama in her life).
Tallulah is a beautiful being, both with her old look and with the new and as Missa says "She deserves only the beautiful things in the world"
Tallulah is Phil and Missa's daughter!!! Tallulah is Phil and Missa's daughter!!! Tallulah is Phil and Missa's daughter!!! And I can shout it a thousand times because it's true and she always was, but now it's certified by the government and no amount of complaining or tantrums can change that fact.
Sorry for my bad english.
See you!!
jajaja ando re agresiva, pero es que nadie se mete con mi familia xD
#tallulah the egg#death family#qsmp#philza#missa#missasinfonia#deathduo#chayanne the egg#It's official!!!#Tallulah is Phil and Missa's daughter#La niña de Philza y Missa#I'm angry#Fuck the death family detractors#we win!!!#En su cara#A llorar a su casa#She wants looks like her apa Missa :c#She have a design of his beanie similar to papa Phil#Lo siento quería desahogarme en inglés#gente hispana pueden ver la parte resumida en twitter o traducir en google xD
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A detailed explanation from my headcanon that Annabel has ADHD
So I had this six fucking hour trip. On a bus. Alone. And I was bored out of my mind, because sitting around being bored is as close to mental torture as it gets for me.
Fortunately, the light at the end of the tunnel: I was inspired. Away from the burnout I have with fanfics, I remembered that I've mentioned this headcanon several times on Nevermore's Discord and just thought, what better time to talk about ADHD than when I'm having a pretty ADHD moment?
But before I start, there are a few little things that need to be pretty clear on the table:
I'm being a bit hypocritical here: in general, I'm deeply against diagnosing fictional characters for two reasons: first, it's an impossible task to distinguish between character traits and symptoms to such an extent that you can go around forever without coming to a real conclusion unless the author of the work confirms it, and second, even if you have the disorder you're talking about, you can fall into the trap of perpetuating stereotypes or generalizing, thereby invalidating other experiences. So even if the tone of this review sounds very assertive, it is because of my writing style. I am in no way diagnosing Annabel; this is an analysis of her character through the lens of a possible disorder.
In relation to the above, where I point out an event in the comic that can be read as a symptom, I am not reducing it to "this only happens because she has ADHD". You CAN'T reduce a person's personality to "they has a disorder," and when I point out these examples, I'm not doing so with the intention of denying the background behind it, but rather pointing out how, under the magnifying glass of having it, it might exacerbate that behavior.
I am NOT a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a neurologist: I am a woman with ADHD. One who has done a lot of research on the subject, been in therapy with a psychologist who specializes in the disorder, and talked extensively about it both with friends who also have it and with professionals. But I don't have a career in mental health, I don't pretend to, and everything you'll read below is a mixture of research and personal experience.
You're going to see a lot of "we" or "those of us with ADHD" because, as I said, I have it too, but this is all a generalization made for the sake of flow. The symptoms of this disorder can be expressed in many different ways, and not everyone has all of them (for example, there are some that I don't have, but it would be strange to change the voice of the text just because of that, it makes it harder to read). If you have ADHD and read a symptom and think "hey, I don't get that", that's perfectly normal. Your experience is valid and I don't want to pass it on. But it would be exhausting for me and for the reader to use tentative phrases all the time.
If this text resonates too much with you, I strongly recommend that you see a professional, if you're able, and not self-diagnose: ADHD has many symptoms in common with autism and other neuro divergences, don't risk misdiagnosis.
If you have a different opinion than mine on this subject and want to share it with me, I'll be happy to read it, if I don't answer it's because I forgot (forgive me?). But you can be sure that I will read it.
Anyway, let's get started.
What is ADHD?
According to the NIH (National Institute of Mental Health) website, this is the definition of ADHD:
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development. People with ADHD experience an ongoing pattern of the following types of symptoms:
Inattention means a person may have difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized, and these problems are not due to defiance or lack of comprehension.
Hyperactivity means a person may seem to move about constantly, including in situations when it is not appropriate, or excessively fidgets, taps, or talks. In adults, hyperactivity may mean extreme restlessness or talking too much.
Impulsivity means a person may act without thinking or have difficulty with self-control. Impulsivity could also include a desire for immediate rewards or the inability to delay gratification. An impulsive person may interrupt others or make important decisions without considering long-term consequences.
Here is an impression that needs to be clarified: ADHD is more about an inability to regulate attention than a lack of it. A neurotypical person may choose to focus on a task to get it done, we may procrastinate to death because even if we want to, we can't focus on it, or stand there absorbed in it ad infinitum until the house falls down around us (and we may still have trouble noticing). This is understood, Understanding all this, here is the list of Annabel's behaviors that could be interpreted as symptoms.
Hyperactivity
One thing that not everyone knows is that hyperactivity is not about running around like an uncontrolled animal. It can manifest itself in many ways, and there are many types: physical, mental, and even emotional.
In Annabel's case, she seems to be the first two types.
Perhaps due to her difficulty in expressing emotions, it is quite obvious at this point in the comic that her moods are made explicit through gestures: playing with her rings when she is happy or nervous, touching the ribbon around her neck in moments of anxiety, or playing with her hair almost as a default state.
Annabel.
Doesn't.
Sit.
Still.
Never.
It is also clear that Annabel is always planning something. Always.
This can be read into the logic of mental hyperactivity: when you have it, your brain just doesn't stop. Ever. And that's something that resonates with this lady.
Emotional Dysregulation
The part of the brain that regulates our moods works…erratically. Not to say it doesn't work at all.
This leads to a painfully common problem in women with ADHD: lack of emotional regulation is seen as drama, and instead of being taught tools to deal with it, we are taught to repress and bottle up emotions.
Annabel has highly internalized this as a defense mechanism. But here's the thing: if repressing emotions instead of learning how to deal with them in a healthy way is harmful, being biologically unable to regulate them can be even worse.
It touches the right nerves, and if you catch us flying low, it can cause explosive outbursts.
Possibly violent reactions to feeling offended or uncomfortable.
Or completely over-the-top reactions that we can't control.
And it's not just anger that's affected, it's the whole emotional spectrum. Another emotion that is very noticeable is fear. If we don't develop tools to help us calm down, we don't get scared, we panic.
If this happens too often, we can become prone to developing severe anxiety or frequent attacks.
We may also have great difficulty dealing with frustration. Our brains love rewards, and feeling that we're not getting them because of our own inability to do something can be downright annoying. And if we don't have the tools to express our frustration appropriately, we can have quite childish reactions, ranging from temper tantrums to…pouting.
I find it funny how several of these pouts are caused by Lenore, a bit like "Oh, come on, honey, what are we talking about?"
Another important thing to note here is that one of the most fucked up and notorious symptoms of this lack of emotional regulation is RSD, short for Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, defined as "a problem that interferes with your ability to regulate your emotional responses to feelings of failure and rejection. While rejection is almost always unpleasant, people with RSD experience overwhelming levels of emotional pain. This can lead to long-term mental health problems, fear of failure, and behavioral changes that negatively affect them throughout their lives."
Rejection and fear of failure are a problem for us. So much so that we may seek strategies to avoid it as much as possible, even when it causes us problems (such as not completing a task for fear of doing it wrong). This is an issue that can tear us apart emotionally.
Annabel is terrified of being rejected or despised. Her whole life has been built around appearances and getting the right people interested in her. If she can't do that, what good is she?
And that's something that comes up a lot in her relationship with Lenore. Repeatedly, in fact, but my favorite has to be this one:
Annabel thought it would be the smart thing to do to break that bond because she knows they're never going to see each other again. But the look on her face when Lenore calls her a "damn liar" is just painful to watch. I think ripping her heart out with a rusty spoon would have hurt less.
Finally, on the subject of things that aren't so funny: that thing Annabel does about biting her fingers when she's in a critical situation is something I used to do, too (only I'd bite my knuckles or palms).
My psychologist explained to me that when you feel like you're losing control, you immediately look for something to ground you, and unfortunately, physical pain is often a quick (if damaging) way to do that.
Codependency
Okay, here's a thing: it's not that we have a tendency as such to codependency, but this is a situation that can occur due to bad practices within a relationship. Especially a couple one.
As it stands out, people with ADHD can have a lot of problems with micromanaging ourselves, remembering things, dealing with our emotions, etc, etc, etc. And it is natural for close friends, family or our partner to help in those processes.
The problem arises when that help starts to become a parentification process where the partner who is providing support starts to do this on behalf of the other person, infantilizing them in the process.
This is a cocktail for resentment on both sides: the party calling the shots can easily feel that the other is putting a huge burden on their shoulders and not trying hard enough, while, on the other side, no one likes to feel like they are being treated like a child. Let alone that the person doing it is your partner.
But at the other end of resentment, there's codependency.
The constant feeling that you are a burden, insufficient or even disposable.
And that means you have a lot to make up for. On a regular basis. So much that you put yourself in a situation where you have to make horrible decisions so that someone else doesn't have to because somehow you owe it to them, who hasn't had that happen?
What I mean is that yes, Annabel feels like she owes this to Lenore because she only remembers the part where Lenore came kicking in doors to save her from a marriage she didn't want. And if she can't do this for her, she doesn't deserve a relationship.
Feeling inadequate, that your partner is doing you some kind of favor by tolerating you and ending up idealizing their in the process is obviously not unique to the neurodivergent experience.
But we try, we try really hard and, like anyone else, we like to feel that the effort we put in is seen and valued.
If we are not careful about that, we do indeed fall into the risk of becoming codependent. The desire to feel loved or valued becomes a constant hunger for validation from which it is difficult to escape because we are aware that our brain will never function in a different way. And if that is mixed with RSD, it can become an even bigger problem.
Novelty, games, challenges, and rewards
Producing dopamine on a normal basis is one thing our brains aren't very good at (one of the reasons we can be prone to depression, for example), but you know what they love? Challenges and rewards.
New things feed our endless curiosity, but for some reason unknown to me, our brains really love challenges and dares. They give us dopamine like we're on a high.
So much so that some people use it as a tactic to perform tasks they don't like: "How many dishes can I wash before my dinner is ready?", "If I can finish this in less than 30 minutes, I can go get chocolate."
One medium we may like very much for this reason is games. Board games, card games, or virtual games. It doesn't matter. Games provide a very good balance of challenge and reward.
If you see that Annabel seems overly interested in how this works, it's because there may be a part of her that thinks "aside from the deadly situation we're in…this is like the most hardcore escape room ever" and inevitably there's something here that stirs her bug.
It may be something she loves about Lenore. As a good hypocrite, Annabel despises the rules she knows so well, so when Lenore comes along with this gimmick and completely changes the paradigm of what she knows, there is inevitably something that appeals to her. Others who are good at the game look down on Lenore's disdain for the rules, to Annabel it is fucking appealing because it offers a range of unexplored possibilities that she fucking loves.
Erratic Communication
When our brains are running at full speed, communication can become a challenge, and we tend to exhibit erratic patterns.
One of these is info-dumping. Touch a topic we know about or are interested in and it's like stepping on a landmine: we explode talking about it. Non-stop. You'll have to hit us to shut us up.
Another thing is that we can have a bad habit of interrupting. A lot. It's not malicious, it's just that we're really into the conversation and want to participate as much as possible.
That said, even if we're extroverts, it can be a nightmare to withhold information or participate in a conversation if it doesn't grab our attention. It's not that we want to be disrespectful or anything, it's just that, again, we have no control over our ability to pay attention and we're swimming against the tide to hold on to whatever it is you're telling us.
This scene is something I've seen in friends with ADHD and have been told I do: stare at people while doing your best to do the hamster run to remember what they're telling you because you know it's important, even though your brain is putting it together with junk information because it's not engaging your attention in the right way.
Ignore the murderous stare part, it's not that common - at least I hope not.
Drinks that are like a pill
Our brains are not designed to produce certain hormones naturally or, in some cases, they produce them under other circumstances. For things like that, we can take pills, develop strategies to help our brains produce hormones.
And drink coffee. Lots of coffee.
Caffeine can be extremely relaxing for us because it can actually help our brains keep functioning, you know that stereotype of the highly coded ADHD character who drinks coffee like it's his life? Well, that's because.
You know what other beverage has a similar effect? Tea. Theine is also a natural activator, perhaps less aggressive than coffee, but it can have a similar effect.
If you're interested in describing this topic in fanfic or touching on it in fanart, tea should have a relaxing effect on Annabel and even help her concentrate.
Boredom
We get bored. A lot. And we get painfully bored. Here's what happens: boredom is caused by a lack of stimulation, and our brains aren't stimulated just because we can't regulate our attention to seek out that stimulation.
Add to that the fact that when we are bored, without dopamine hitting our receptors, our executive functions diminish and we function like shit.
Boredom
Is
Fucking
Murder
Because our brain starts desperately asking for dopamine and we can fall into really unhealthy behaviors like fighting, being chronically online, or eating because we can't find anything better to do. This also contributes -again- to our depression or anxiety.
Conclusions (and if I don't make the joke, I'll die)
In the book ADHD After Dark (a study of ADHD, relationships, and physical intimacy), Ari Tuckman draws some interesting conclusions, one of which is that on a statistical level, people with ADHD seem to be more likely to have what he calls "sexual eagerness": kinks, fetishes, a tendency to be adventurous in bed, and the like. Again, our brains love play, and both intimacy and flirtation can involve a lot of it.
So…
Um…
…well, I think Lenore will be happy. Good for her.
Anyway, this has been a seriously long explanation. Thanks for reading this far.
#nevermore webtoon#annabel lee nevermore#lenore nevermore#white raven#annabel lee whitlock#lenore vandernacht#annabel lee x lenore#lennabel#nevermore webcomic
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More bits from the 1st night of the London D20 live show that brought me joy:
The little “ooooohhhhHHHH” bit everyone in the atrium did as they were rolling the bingo cages for their characters
How NUTS everyone went when Lou got Fabian and everyone started chanting “hoot growl”
A second, just as loud cheer when Siobhan got Adaine and her and Lou ran around the stage together
Siobhan, unprompted: “GIVE ADAINE A GUN!”
Emily has apparently named a stray cat after Plug <3
Sydney straight up eating the ground (it’s ice cream, she’s fine. Sort of.)
“It’s a smell so counter to everything human life needs, in a way that almost kills you, but also, only in a way someone from New York can understand, makes you proud.”
The party refusing to call the candy wyverns anything other than “bugs”
Zac interrupting the ongoing banter to announce Skip is already boarded and sucking on the saddle of the wyvern
“I throw a flash grenade.” “I turn into a giant pigeon.” “I cast unseen servant to untie him.” “I shoot a guard.” “Okay, so everyone decides to do something SUPER SUBTLE.”
I mentioned it before but it’s SO good: “the DC is 500. Only a Nat 20 will do it.” Beardsley: [rolls a Nat 20 first try] [pandemonium in the arena]
“Have you seen Succession?”
The gabagool 🤌
“Adaine, we have saved the world multiple times. These are the scariest people we have ever met.”
Lou losing it at Sydney’s grenade having 1 point of poison damage in addition to all the bludgeoning damage
Skip gives Fabian a laser gun. He does not know what it is until he shoots Calroy with it
“Adaine, this gun thing you’re on? I get it.”
Cocaine Bear
“I YEETED YOU!”
Pete and Skip instant besties. Pete and Fabian instant enemies.
“You named him Anus and now I just have to do it the rest of the show!”
“I absolutely hate to add insult to injury…” “THEN DON’T!”
Adaine passing her wisdom save by 1 point to prevent Kugrash’s polymorph spell from turning her into a rat
The absolute ROAR that went up when Skip transformed into Lapin
“Anus?” “Not today.” “Not today WHAT?”
“I thought I was just on another planet starting a revolution I don’t intend to stick around for.” “America!”
Ally confidentially declaring Lapin and Aguefort have swinger vibes
“Do you want to just take him?” “Do you mean in the biblical sense?” “Another exciting use….”
[croaky voice] butterfly in the skyyyy
Pete opening 6 different flavors of seltzer while the rest of the party does kublacaine
Elaine Lee in the house!!!
Kugrash the greatest chaperone who ever lived
Lapin and Aguefort…and they were roommates…..Lapin’s “how do I look?” before they go into the egg fortress lmao
Syd’s perfume missile dealing 68 points of damage to Fabian and instantly knocking him unconscious. “Are you rolling D20s for damage???”
“I’m going to use my tides of chaos to reroll….worse.”
Tina the butterfly familiar that everyone totally remembers
“Well shit, any house where we kill the people in it becomes our house.”
Pete dissing Fabian so hard he feels the toxic masculinity coming back
Lapin requesting an exam extension for Adaine and Fabian from Arthur via dating app
The collective psychic damage everyone took from the “yar har har” scene
“Pete just starts dancing with a scarf in a way no one else has seen before.” “That’s my fucking thing!!!”
Sydney just enabling every pvp encounter alsdkghsdg. Giving Fabian unlimited capacity to his gun as he’s shooting Pete, with Fabian hitting twice and criting once.
“I can pleasure you or throw grenades, you gotta pick one.” “The first one, obviously!” “Okay!”
Lapin, Adaine and Kugrash chain smoking in the corner suffering through the pain of existence while the rest of party goes nuts around them
Murph incorporating the words “come/coming” as much as possible into Kugrash’s farewell speech while Brennan mimes Gilear’s enormous dick behind him. Not even Fabian’s battle sheet is enough to conceal that hog
“That’s right, I’m the king. And then I jump into the dumpster.”
GILEAR…MY…..OLD FRIEND………Aguefort and Gilear fwb real
“Not another person with their penis frozen to the walk in!”
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this is going to be my somewhat-brief analysis (buckle in, it's not brief at all) of preluding scenes to farleigh and olivers... scene, lmao. because i can't read micro-expressions and social cues IRL, but i can for movies! also, i want to give my understanding of farleigh's character using the most substantial part of his arc. i disagree so much with a lot of people's takes on farleigh. i needed to talk extensively about it.
[0:58:46] farleigh makes eye contact with a footman. this is one of the footmen that farleigh mentions to felix in a later scene, which i'll also go into. what's interesting about this subtle interaction is how wildly differently you could consider it, depending on how you choose to view farleigh as a character. if you go the "mirror of oliver," route, then this eye contact could be the moment farleigh decides the route he's going to take to confront felix.
on the other hand, the hand that i believe makes more sense, farleigh is genuine in his confrontation with felix. the eye contact he shares with the footman is reciprocated; the footman holds it, even as his body pulls back and his head turns. this gives the idea that they are making a connection. the expression farleigh makes afterwards is also an indication that farleigh isn't plotting or scheming to earn pity points; he feels a connection and comradery with the only other black people at saltburn. when the footman turns away, unneeded anymore (this can be a parallel to farleigh), farleigh glances down, back up, then purses his lips. he looks dejected, in my opinion. this is immediately followed by farleigh's dig at oliver; "i think oliver looks like he'd rather throw himself out of a window.
food for thought.
[0:59:9] elsbeth: you can invite all your friends. farleigh: what friends?
this can obviously be a petty dig. and it is, in some ways. but i think a lot of these petty digs are because farleigh has been here before. he has watched his cousin drag home mediocre and tragic (presumably) white boys for perceived self-benefit. whether felix wants entertainment, wants to quell his guilty conscious (both of which are motivations for his mother), felix seems to have these fleeting possessive relationships with the friends he brings back to saltburn. he could also be queer and deeply repressed, lmfao.
i digress; farleigh is sick and tired. the first thing he says to oliver, before oliver even got to felix, was bitchy as all hell. after that, farleigh had more incentive to belittle oliver; yes, his comments about mannerisms, class, and overall character were petty. they were also all of the qualities that farleigh couldn't afford to have. farleigh is pointing out that oliver has no social life, yet still gets a 200-person party full of people that don't even know his name. this is tragically unfair, at least in farleigh's mind.
[1:01:25] felix: and fucking farleigh, what a little shit stirrer. oliver: well, someone has to entertain us all. felix: ...right. oliver: that's why we love him.
there's a clear disregard of humanity and depth, when felix concedes that farleigh is "entertainment." the sheer fact that felix would immediately believe oliver, a "stranger (as venetia so eloquently puts)" over a close family member, is odd on it's own. there are probably more reasons for distrust; everyone in saltburn is a shit stirrer, and farleigh does put on a particularly good show.
that's intentional, though. farleigh is very intentionally entertainment. otherwise, why would the cattons keep him around? they're welcoming people to their house as family, because they want a break from the reality of soul sucking wealth. because they want entertainment. elsbeth with her friend, who's only real personality traits are being pitiful and visibly different. felix, with his summer pet projects like oliver. farleigh can't be a temporary show; he needs to keep coming back. he needs sir james to support his mother.
[1:02:40] farleigh: i'm not saying my mother isn't completely idiotic when it comes to money. felix: you just have to be firm with her. farleigh: well i can't call her and tell her no! felix: i know, i know, you've said that. i know, i understand. farleigh: no, you don't know! you don't, it's humiliating. felix: it's very hard.
felix's approach to discussing other people's issues--that he does not relate to--makes me giggle sometimes. not that he's malicious or a fumbling idiot, but because of this scene specifically. in just this chunk of dialogue, you have the "i understand" and "you don't understand" conflict. an age old one. a common representation of someone who has never lived a specific struggle yet frames themselves as knowledgeable. felix seems to enjoy the "it's very hard" verbiage. the manner in which he speaks to oliver about his supposed impoverishment and struggles is very similar to the way he speaks to farleigh, in this scene.
i don't know what else to say about this. you can make your own inferences on felix's dialogue, i suppose.
[1:02:50] farleigh: i'm sorry, but it's a bit fucking shitty. you're all throwing oliver a party for 200 people while my mother lives in squalor. felix: well, she's hardly living in squalor, mate. farleigh: well she can't pay her bills so she will be! okay? at the rate she's going, she will be.
GAH. again, this dialogue can be considered in two different ways. farleigh could be hyperbolizing in order to play into the catton savior complex. or he could be completely genuine in his anxiety surrounding his mother's finances. it's very important that you recognize the fact that farleigh isn't arguing about himself, in this situation. he's talking about his mother. later in the conversation, he recenters himself as a person of color. but the original conflict is about whether or not his mom is living comfortably. this arguably affects him, but not entirely. he could continue to maintain his oxford-student-and-saltburn-resident character and continue to frolic around while his mom struggles to make responsible decisions.
[1:03:02] felix: right, well that's exactly why dads concerned about helping her. he doesn't want to enable her. he wants her to learn how to stand on her own two feet. farleigh: yeah, like he does?
and farleigh ate.
[1:03:09] farleigh: i mean, you know how this looks, right? making me come to you with a begging bowl. felix: what are you implying? farleigh: i think you know what i'm implying, felix. why don't you ask liam and joshua? felix: who... who the fuck are liam and joshua!? farleigh: ...your footmen.
farleigh's mannerisms in this portion of the scene GAG me. the easy confidence, the self-assured and confrontational attitude. the cocky wave of his shoulders and tilt of his head. he smirks, scoffs, makes and holds eye contact as emphasis to what he is accusing. the way he says "i think you know what i'm implying" even though i'm not quite sure if felix did. this really hammers in the implicit nature of the cattons' treatment of farleigh.
[1:03:33] felix: oh, oh. that is... that is low, farleigh. farleigh: okay. felix: jesus christ, mate! seriously, is that where you wanna take this!? farleigh: right. felix: make it a race thing!? what the fuck! i mean, we're your family, we hardly even notice that you're... different, or anything like that! farleigh: mmm. felix: i never know our footmen's names!
GAGGED. i eat up this scene and lick my fingers. "wohohoho, i don't see color! i can't believe you'd make it a race thing!" i know i should cut felix some slack, but this is just a little too real. although i've cut farleigh some slack for his classism.
the complete change in farleigh's mannerisms from the previous timestamp to this one is EDIBLE. i can't cope with it. his smile as felix says "that is low" is so painfully real. it says "i've been here before and maybe i was expecting this." for a second, felix is almost entertainingly cliche. then the exasperation hits. farleigh just looks tired. he blinks rapidly, smooths over his eyebrow with his hand, vocalizes his disbelief in felix's denial. "we hardly even notice you're different," to which farleigh crosses his arms (defensive), raises his eyebrows, nods along.
i won't include the final few lines of this conversation cuz i'm blabbing FAR too much, but farleigh's expressions of absolutely exhaustion and disappointment as felix says they've "been more generous then most"... i'm so sick. it doesn't matter what other families would do, because this family passes out charity like it's their favorite pastime. farleigh is your best american girl.
oliver, overhearing this conversation, immediately knows what his next plan of action is. compare himself to farleigh. and really, it's funny, because oliver misses the obvious differences between him and farleigh. just like everyone else. he will never feel different, not in the same way farleigh does. not with farleigh's relationship to the cattons, the legacy of his parents, and his blackness.
[1:06:32] (godfather's karaoke scene, AKA apple bottom jeans. he's a disgusting manchild and he throws his jacket at his wife.) is it odd to point out that another one of the only visible black characters is being degraded/mistreated/disregarded? not crazy, right? especially following the conversation about bias two scenes ago.
[1:07:02] farleigh: y'know, i think i'd fuck richard the III. he's so insecure, so you'd know he'd put in the work, right? oliver: or you could just fuck me, right?
here, i think there's a level of projection that farleigh is using in his line about insecurity. not only is it made known that farleigh uses sex as a tool (with teachers, specifically), but it's also made known that farleigh believes/knows that he is treated differently due to his race and/or family history. oliver seems to have clocked this, considering he relates himself to richard the III, then tells farleigh they have similar experiences.
[1:07:34] oliver: y'know, if you ever wanna talk to anyone, you can talk to me, farleigh. farleigh: ...what do you mean? oliver: well, i know you're going through a hard time at home. i know how that feels, when things are so precarious. it's terrifying... and lonely. and it must be so fucking weird, having to ask them for everything. and i know you fucking hate me. farleigh: i... i don't hate you. oliver: but... if you ever wanted me to talk to them, to see if there's... if i can help in any way... just ask. farleigh: ...okay.
i love this movie. have i said that yet? i bet you definitely couldn't tell by this post. this conversation is so... there's so much to talk about.
i'll start with some of my favorite of farleigh's mannerisms/expressions. when oliver first cuts their... tensions with "you can talk to me," farleigh pulls back slightly, sits up slightly, looks across oliver's face. there's a level of shock to it, but. farleigh was comfortable with oliver, his sworn enemy, flirting with him. yet, he pulled back at a genuine offer of support. some see this as farleigh always wanting oliver sexually, but i think it's more nuanced than that. when oliver says "terrifying... and lonely" that's when the camera cuts back to farleigh. he previously wore a half-smile that is now dropping; "lonely" was the hardest word to swallow. his lip is quivering. he looks up in an almost-eye roll when he says, "i don't hate you." he's laughing when oliver finishes, like he finds it all funny, yet the way he says "okay" makes him seem genuine. however... clearly not, considering the next portion of this scene!
even though oliver is lying out of his ass, everything he's saying is a description of farleigh. people grossly misunderstand farleigh's character, even when it's laid onto a banquette sized table through this portion of the movie. he's insecure, desperate, terrified, unsure, and lonely. farleigh, with so many friends and so many scandalous choices, is so fucking lonely. he knows he doesn't belong here, so he jams his ill-fitting puzzle piece into the saltburn jigsaw and crosses his fingers.
he tells oliver he doesn't hate him, and he looks like he's struggling to spit it out. he looks up towards the ceiling, closes his eyes like he's gathering himself. again, people take this as a bonding moment. the next portion of the scene contradicts this. honestly, i'm not completely sure, either. i think he's honest when he says he doesn't hate oliver. so, what? he's jealous, definitely. he wants to hold the same power as oliver, a foreign entity with somehow so much more privilege than farleigh. maybe that bred a certain kind of infatuation; the need to emulate what you'll never be. of course, he sees himself in the boys felix brings home; they, just like farleigh, need or want something from the cattons (although i object to the idea that farleigh is somehow "a mirror" of oliver). do what you will with this word vomit, i don't know where i'm going here.
and OH MY GOD "if you ever wanted me to talk to them, to see if there's... if i can help in any way," is diabolical. so terribly diabolical. the sheer idea that oliver knows, is pummeling it into farleigh's face, that he has authority over farleigh's life like that? that he knew felix for six months and he can somehow "talk to" farleigh's family about treating farleigh better... vomit inducing. farleigh is actually your best american girl.
[1:09:39] (karaoke scene) elsbeth, so uncomfortable with the idea that oliver is using them. i suppose that's the manner of wealthy people; they don't want to believe that they're only good for their money. but... they did that to themselves, in a way. they enjoy the pet projects, the charity work, the ego boost that comes with inviting the "lesser" to saltburn. hanjob on a haybale, golden big boy summer, right? everyone in the room is scandalized. farleigh is having the time of his fucking life. yet, here's the kicker,
[1:10:10] oliver: this is your song too, farleigh. come finish it. farleigh: only if you insist!
and then farleigh gives the performance of his life, by the way. people died. but... nobody is uncomfortable. literally no one. no one shudders or gasps at the scandal of oliver saying "this is your song, too" over the karaoke microphone; everyone heard. nobody cares. they all know. they start clapping farleigh on, cheering. elsbeth relaxes back onto her bed of cushions, because farleigh is entertaining. the change in mood is soooo... interesting.
[1:10:45] curse this scene, i don't even want to talk about it. it was hot, oliver and farleigh are so homoerotic, whatever yadayada. just like every other sexual scene in this movie, it is riddled with a suffocating kind of uncomfortable tension. we are made intimate third-party witnesses to carnal, sinful, emotionally ambiguous scenes. when i pointed out farleigh seemed more comfortable with flirting then comfort, when i said farleigh uses sex as a tool, when i said farleigh was projecting with "he's so insecure, so you know he'd put in the work." i just overthink. but any person that has sexual relationships with teachers needs intensive therapy and that cannot be denied. however, it's oliver, that uses sex as a tool throughout this movie. another uncomfortable parallel between the two characters.
something about farleigh's expression throughout this scene is... kind of hurtful. the way the moonlight just barely illuminates the light in his eyes, whereas any detail of oliver's face is shrouded in darkness. it make's farleigh look young, innocent, real. (sidenote, as i'm watching, i have to mention this. the way farleigh says that second "no" is so funny. "...no...?" LMFAO). man, i don't even know what to say, past this. the whole dominant dynamic, farleigh saying "i'm going to behave" is a little too painful considering the context leading up to this scene. it's freaky. it's so very oliver.
this is way too long but i could make so many more connections with their final confrontation at oliver's birthday party. i'm drowning in thoughts. what i really wanted to highlight was how ambiguous farleigh's character is, and how differently a lot of his scenes can be perceived. i've decided that farleigh is a sympathetic character, similar to oliver but so much less powerful. some people hate farleigh! so. there's that. the end! thanks to anyone who read this whole thing!
#farleigh start#again... i love him#he's my king#my mitski#my roman empire#he's a little too real#saltburn#oliver quick#aaand i hate that guy#felix catton#he's on thin ice#i didn't mention venetia at all#my bad#she wasn't really doing much in this portion of the movie#am i insane?#was this a crazy thing to write#someone should validate me#farleigh help help help#farleigh? that guy#farleigh catton#which isn't his name but whatever#saltburnnnnnnnnnn#saltburn 2023#you're the sun#you've never seen the night#but you hear its song from the morning birds#well#i'm not the moon#i'm not even a star#but awake at night
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im sure everyone’s seen the argument by non-wincest shippers that canon weirdcest moments can be explained off as particularly close brothers. i’ve seen wincesties respond by straight up denying it, but honestly, i see where they’re coming from. they do TECHNICALLY have a point, yet still, it fundamentally doesnt sit well with me.
if you isolate all of these little incidents they could be perceived as purely brotherly. its got me thinking about what exactly makes wincest so appealing, and why i as a wincest shipper immediately have an exasperated reaction to people insisting that sam&dean are purely platonic.
i also see this argument frequently bundled with the stance that “weirdcest isn’t a justification for shipping wincest” (which is a whole other can of worms altogether— the puritan culture of ship culture rn), but you gotta take a step back and just ask yourself… why am i so intent on seeing these characters as platonic?
the prevailing argument ive seen is that siblings CAN be terribly close without being incestuous. this is totally fair. i’m not saying that if you are particularly close with your siblings in a sam & dean type manner that you are incestuous. obviously relationships between family is vastly complex & changes with the culture you grew up in.
the only problem here is that people try to go so far to explain sam&dean’s relationship as to not paint it as romantic. if they weren’t related, it’d be insane to think they weren’t romantic. they are consistently and repeatedly put in situations and exchange dialogue that’s used to convey romantic tone in western media. my point here being— the writers know that they are doing. and they are doing it INTENTIONALLY.
yes, certain cultures find extensive physical touch and kisses between siblings platonically acceptable. yes, you can be very close to your siblings without wanting to fuck them. but that is such a reach given what you are being presented with. you are missing the fundamental thematic point of supernatural: family horror!!
by so steadfastly arguing that sam&dean cannot be read as romantic you are purposefully ignoring the the text. you are glossing over the repeating themes of generational trauma and incest that are touched on time and time again, with john’s father abandoning him, mary’s parents being hunters, the struggle she went through to get out of the life but how family trauma & the past permeates itself into your being. you are ignoring the benders, the ghost pregnant with her fathers child, and the time azazel KISSED MARY in HER FATHERS BODY.
supernatural pushes incestuous themes SO HARD. it purposefully plays with & explores the double-sided blade that is family. it touches on a REALLY TABOO subject without being overwhelming or heavy handed. of course its going to attract people who enjoy these themes. OF COURSE we’re going to look at the two homoerotic brother leads and see something between them! it’s intentionally placed in the script! its a valid reading of the text!
this is why i get frustrated when people say that wincest shippers are twisting canon for the sake of shipping, because we’re not. when people say this they are taking a piece of media that is intriguing in how it handles a socially unacknowledged part of the human experience and forcing their viewing of it on others. they are saying that you aren’t allowed to enjoy those themes because it is inherently wrong or shameful to EXPLORE THE TOPIC. i dunno. that sounds pretty authoritarian to me.
it’s totally fine to be grossed out by incest or avoid wincest because it makes you uncomfortable. what ISNT okay is to say its an exaggerated reaction to canon, because it really isnt. in fact, its a pretty normal & sane conclusion to come to after seeing those two. the fact that they aren’t explicitly incestuous might even enhance this idea. it touches on the unspoken secretive nature of family trauma and the complicated, messy reality of crossing boundaries with blood without being cliche or overdramatic.
im going to incite occam’s razor here: yes, they could just be brothers. yes, you can explain it all away as particularly close siblings. yes, you can argue that it isnt explicitly canon. but really, why would you do all that when the show incessantly implies that they’re more? and more importantly, why are you so quick to say that a topic cannot be explored because it’s complicated? is that really the sentiment that we as a society want to hold regarding media?
#oc#supernatural#spn meta#dean winchester#sam winchester#wincest#samdean#fandom discussion#anti censorship#<- will not be using the word pr/shp because im not a fan of it#it does the idea injustice because it isnt just about shipping but media censorship & social literacy as a whole#but yeah. this has been floating in my brain and i needed to get it out#if any of you have thoughts pls reply or elaborate in tags!!#this is something thats very important to me and i wanted to put it out there
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before this goes any further, I want it on the record that you all asked for this.
my first and most petty point: Midnight Mass gets basic details about Catholicism wrong, such that even I (not a Catholic) twigged them. The big one is that Catholics DON'T HAVE MIDNIGHT MASS FOR EASTER - it's a Christmas thing - but since the priest holding the mass is also a vampire, I can accept that he's going off-book. I have a harder time with them holding a PICNIC for ASH WEDNESDAY, aka THE DAY LENT STARTS, aka the day everyone starts fasting and are therefore not snacking on a potluck. It's a minor thing, and normally I wouldn't pick at it, but since this show ostensibly revolves around Catholic doctrine, it bears mentioning.
on a writing level, not one single character in this show talks like a human being. or acts like one. I couldn't give you any information about who these characters are as people, because they're not people, they're mouthpieces for Flanagan to impart his ideas to the audience. He is both deeply in love with his own writing and entirely unconvinced that his audience is smart enough to Get It, so he has his actors turn to the audience and lay it all out. Not only is this bad writing on a character level, it brings all plot and tension to a screeching halt whenever it happens. The most unintentionally hilarious instance of this has to be when Annabeth Gish comes to the sheriff to tell him that the church is being run by a vampire and her mother is aging in reverse, and his response is to start rambling about where he was on 9/11. Like. Nothing about this makes sense, and also why should we care when it has fuckall to do with the story?
(as regards the sheriff character: I, a white Quaker, am not the person to critique this show's handling of Islam. But I will say that Flanagan doesn't seem to have a clear idea what he wants to communicate: the overarching plot is antitheistic, in a very r/atheism sort of way ("WHAT IF THE SACRAMENT WAS VAMPIRE BLOOD" ooh wow didja cut yourself on that edge there, buddy) but Flanagan has no idea how to balance that with the precepts of any religion that isn't Christianity while also maintaining his broadly liberal bona fides, so it all sits very uneasily next to the church plot. I'm not advocating for the show to go full Christopher Hitchens, but I am saying that if Flanagan wants to posit that faith is a mass delusion and a net detriment to any community formed around it . . . he needs to either focus only on Christian characters or be willing to engage with how other religions function in society, because as is, the storyline with the sheriff and his son just peters out into nothing.)
but the thing that made me angriest - that took me from "this is so boring and pretentious and badly written" to "oh FUCK this guy and the horse he rode in on -" was the titular midnight mass. It is very overtly inspired by the Jonestown massacre, which a lot of horror media does, but what it fails to account for is that the members of the People's Temple did not voluntarily kill themselves. I know "drink the kool-aid" has entered the popular lexicon as shorthand for "blindly following a leader," but extensive testimony from Jonestown survivors - not to mention the death tape, which is available online if you really want to ruin your day - all confirms that the people who died that day were forced to drink poison at gunpoint, after years of brutal abuse from Jones and his inner circle. And even after all of that, people fought back. And not outsiders - people who had been in the Temple for years and wholeheartedly believed in the mission that had lead them to Guyana in the first place. (Christine Miller was a fucking hero and she deserves to be remembered for it.) Jonestown was not lemmings going off a cliff, and any serious take on the story would involve reckoning with that - that these people believed in a higher power and also believed that they had a right to live despite what Jones told them. But that would contradict Flanagan's point of "religion is dumb, WAKE UP SHEEPLE," so instead he borrows the iconography of a truly horrific tragedy and disrespects the victims by implicitly representing them as dumb, brainwashed cult members who eagerly toss back poison because they think sky daddy wants them to. He has so little respect for the subjects he's portraying, and the real people whose deaths he is copying for shock value, that he doesn't care about the inner lives of anyone whose beliefs might demonstrate that faith is more nuanced than his screed would have you believe.
There are good horror properties out there that are critical of religion and society - The Medium, which we posted about a few days ago, is one. The Witch is another. So is The Sudbury Devil. Hell, you could go back to the sixties with Witchfinder General. Religion - especially socially dominant religions like Christianity in the west - can and should be critiqued. But Midnight Mass is too sloppily written to be a critique of anything besides, accidentally, how far Mike Flanagan's head is shoved up his ass.
Anyway, that's why mod L doesn't like Midnight Mass. I did warn you.
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Can't possibly be me Zenosposting again - what is this a day ending in Y?
Anyway, I've been thinking about the murder boy again. This has mostly spawned from my replaying of the Stormblood patches and seeing Amnesiac Yotsuyu, which sparked a bit of a Nature vs Nuture debate between me and my friends.
Basically, my question for this post is "How much of Zenos' whole deal is Nature (aka He was just born like that) and how much of it is Nuture (aka the enviornment he grew up). Some of you might content to say Nature and leave it at that, which is a completely valid outlook to have.
But for me there's just one... teeny... tiny... little detail that has sent me on a wild consipriacy theory of a ride that's resulted in this post.
Emet-FUCKING-Selch.
Listen to me, listen okay? I cannot, CANNOT ignore the fact that this absoulete motherfucker (affectionate) is Zenos's cannonical Great Grandfather. Who was very much alive and kicking during his childhood.
Emet-Selch or Solus zos Galvus whatever moniker you wanna give the man, is an Ascian. One of THE Ascians. Not only that, he's 'The Architect" the guy who's job it is to design and engineer the calamities meant to rejoin the Shards of the World back together again.
What does he do to achieve this? He builds empires, he starts wars, manipulates people and situations to result in untold elemental chaos. Iirc correctly he's responsible for causing all eight calamities that have occured so far in FFXIV. (Eight got undone but I'm still counting it).
Now for this post I'm going to be focusing mainly on the Seventh, Eighth, and Fourth Umbral Calamities. (Which are the ones coincidentally we're told the most about in game).
This Calamities all involved Empires. The Allagan and the Garlean, both of which Emet-Selch was responsible for creating. From the Allagans we have the creation of Dalamud, Cyrus Tower, and the Ultima Weapon. As well as an extensive history of biological research. Cloning, Gene Splicing, Mutation and so on. (A sundered mortal's attempts at creation magjicks perhaps?)
The Garleans too, have a notible history of biological research, they draw a lot of their modern technology from Allagan design. No coincidence there given Emet-Selch's involvement. But we've seen them use genetic mutation, cyber augmentation, and cloning (Emet-Selch's shadow the hedgehog ass clone bodies because he refuses to look like anyone other than his unsundered self). The also so a lot of research into the Echo. Hydalyn's mark for her champions, and soul maipulation. (Ala Mihgo Dungeon and In From the Cold Duty both points of note for examples of the Soul being manipulated here - physically torn out of the body).
"Now Gengar " - I hear you ask - "What does this have to do with Nature vs Nuture or Zenos?"
Well, I tell you, everything really. Hear me out.
Emet-Selch designed the Garlean Empire to be the perfect chaos causing conquest force. They have no ability to use either, making them initially vulnerable as a people to the rest of the races. Building up a tasty, tasty resentment and need to feel superior. He sent them marching to 'reclaim their home' and then to 'unify the three contents under their superior peaceful, organised leadership'. The 'Savage Races' summon evil primals and weild evil distructive magjiks.
He gave them a perfect cause and reason to hate everyone else. He gave them magitech to level the field and make them supieror at combat. Garlemald as a nation is the perfect war machine. Allagan 2.0 if you would.
And Zenos is the perfect 'Champion' to lead that nation into battle. To spark that next Calamity.
Look at the guy. Garleans might be on the taller side (depending on the character. Cid is a shorty), but Varis and Zenos are HUGE. Emet-Selch isn't nearly as tall as either of them despite being a blood relation.
Which makes me think there was some of that Allagan/Garlean/Ancient playing with genetics and form at work. Make them bigger, more durable, stronger, more intelligent.
It's like Captian America. You want the perfect solider. And a perfect solider for Emet-Selch would also need to be cold, ruthless, manipulative.
There was a post I saw a while again about Mecha Pilots. And OP pondered on the idea of physcially having your brain and body contiditoned to love battle. To love destruction and killing and fighting.
Do you see where I am going with this?
You want someone bloodthirsty enough to cause a Calamity for you, you need them to feel nothing for their fellow man.
(Insects all of them. Disappointing. Found Wanting.)
You need them to find such overwhelming joy in battle that no other earthely pleasure can compare to it.
(Brilliant. Blinding. Trandsenant Moment.)
No attatchments. No emotions, Just violence.
I offer to you dear readers, that Emet-Selch carefully modified Zenos' litterally brain chemistry. Making him predisposed to a lack of empathy and his brain releasing those pesky joyous chemicals during battle. Inflicitng and feeling pain. I offer the theory that Zenos has literally been built for combat. If you cut him open, his bones and muscles and organs would be so alienly perfect. Denser, perfectly optimised. Exceedingly perfect. His brain remapped for pattern recognistion and quick skill building, Easy to train in the art of slaughter and tactics. Unable to forge the emotional connections that would only serve to hinder him. (To isolate him from family).
What evidence to I have? Outside of Emet-Selch's known history of building Empires?
Easy. I already know he's done this kind of thing before.
Vauthry. The baby Emet-Selch mutated into half a Lightwarden. Able to command the Sin Eaters and ensured would be raised into a tyranically, childish, king. To keep the First from Uniting. To ensure the Eighth Umbral Calamity would continue along it's march to completion.
Why wouldn't Emet-Selch have done as much to Zenos too?
#ffxiv#final fantasy xiv#zenos yae galvus#emet selch#solus zos galvus#DO YOU SEE IT?#DO YOU SEE MY VISION?#MY REVELATION?#IT'S HIS SPECIAL BOY BONE STRUCTURE GODDAMIT#It's the Frankenstien Allagory#You were *made* monsterous and alien#Body Bone and Mind#Designed to be PERFECT#but Perfect for what?#ghostly rambles
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Just saw someone’s wacko take on Whole Cake Island and I want to see your thoughts, as I get everyone had their own opinions but damn theirs made me baffled
Basically they said that Sanji being forced into marriage was completely unnecessary and was Oda’s terrible attempt to “fix” Sanji after the time skip. That we didn’t need to see how good of a person Sanji is as that was something already seen pre timeskip but was completely ruined post apparently
They then also claimed that Sanji’s blood family has no point of existing, and they questioned why he needed more story when his original backstory was enough. They claimed that this was a terrible attempt by Oda to make Sanji seem as broken as possible to apparently excuse his gross behaviour post time skip
They said that Sanji’s family being emotionless monsters shouldn’t mean anything to Sanji as he’s a pirate and faces cruel people all the time, they don’t think it added anything to his character. They believe Oda only did this to get people to like Sanji again after apparently assassinating his character post time skip
They also brought up Pudding being 16 (which we don’t know is true or not) and how that makes Sanji seem more gross and Oda gross by extension
Again I believe everyone can have their opinions, but when an opinion is as jaw droopingly awful as this it makes me want to slam my head against a wall, it’s also annoying that they’ve turned off comments to prevent any discussion really showing how stubborn they are on this
Anyway I wanted to see your thoughts as you are the no.1 Sanji fan
Sighssssss I cannot stand this "Oda wanted to 'fix' Sanji" idea these people have, because that just tells me...they literally do not pay attention to Sanji at all.
As always, yes, Sanji has pervy gags. Yes, he was a bit much in Fishman Island SPECIFICALLY, but he IS the same character.
Fishman Island showed his fierce care and love for Nami as a CREWMATE by telling Jinbe what the fuck Arlong did to her, because he was LITERALLY there for Arlong's defeat and nearly died with the others fighting for Nami! He spoke up for Nami as FAMILY and that means a LOT to her.
Punk Hazard showed his kindness towards Kinemon and the kids by helping Kinemon - a dangerous stranger - and helping the kids per Nami's request.
Dressrosa showed Sanji's kindness is so valued due to Viola breaking down and feeling safe with him, to the point she told him the truth about Dressrosa and Doflamingo.
Zou showed JUST how kind Sanji is by helping save an ENTIRE island, Pedro valuing his kindness SO MUCH he risked his life to help get Sanji back to his crew.
Sanji has never needed fixing, what Sanji NEEDED was an explanation for why the fuck he was a kid by himself on a sailing ship. He NEEDED an explanation for HOW he could be a kid from the north but somehow be in the east. He NEEDED an explanation for why he was so self sacrificing to the point he thought of giving his life - not just for Zeff, but for ANYONE - seemed like the best choice to him.
Yes, it wouldn't be a question if it was just for Zeff and the Baratie. But it wasn't just for Zeff, he also did it for Usopp, for Luffy, for Nami, for Zoro, for Robin. Sanji's self sacrificing nature was ROOTED in him, and we had no idea from WHERE.
In fact, his self worth was so little, he asked a LITERAL ADULT why he was being nice to him - when he was a KID! And as I said in my Sanji video, WHAT kid asks why an adult is treating them nicely? NO other kid in One Piece has asked an adult that, because they're kids!
The fact it was suspected Sanji's family were powerful from YEARS ago, due to the fact his face wasn't on posters, AND Duval was being endlessly chased after, AND Sanji was from the north, AND his blood type was rare, says plenty enough that it was TOTALLY necessary.
Sanji literally finds his worth in other people, and again, that didn't stem from Zeff! Zeff treasured Sanji to the point Zeff used his HANDS on him, so WHERE does this self-hating nature come from with Sanji?
And we get it! We get it with his WCI story! We see the depths of his soul, the peaks of his kindness, and just how extreme the HATRED for himself is. He didn't even think Luffy WANTED him because his self worth is THAT low.
But, most importantly, we see JUST how strong Sanji is due to STAYING kind - even WITH everything he's gone through. WCI is about SANJI'S strength of character, through and through, and calling that unnecessary is just INSANE to me. Again, it just tells me these people do not like Sanji at all, to the point they didn't pay much attention to him. Because of COURSE when you don't look behind you, but then someone appears in front of you, you're gonna go "?? now where did THAT come from??"
But literally anyone who pays attention to Sanji expected to find out about his family and his origins, because the seeds were there!
Overall, if you want the deep dive for why it was necessary? My Sanji video explains it all :]
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Tbh I don't think Alastor hates Lucifer, I think he was so on sight with Lucifer at first because of a combination of jealousy and being generally annoyed with Lucifer's presence, and part of it was because he wanted to stay close to Charlie (his reasoning for that is up to interpretation, but personally I think there were multiple reasons he wanted to stay close to Charlie). The first part of Dad Beat Dad is just Alastor messing with Lucifer, because that's what Alastor does. He does it to Vaggie, he does it to Husk, he does it to Sir Pentious. He just likes to fuck with people.
I'm actually wondering if "fucking with people slightly sadistically" is a love language of his, because Rosie's way of showing affection towards him is similar. Telling him "You could learn a thing or two!" when she comments on how polite Charlie is (essentially calling him impolite to his face), pretty much telling him (again, to his face) that his manners are shit, she just generally teases the shit out of him and while her jabs at Alastor are more lighthearted than Alastor's jabs at literally everyone, she's still making jabs at his character. Alastor reserves his extreme sadism for rivals and enemies (Vox, for example) but if he just wants to fuck with someone? He does not hesitate to be a little sadistic.
I think with Lucifer, Alastor started off more like "this'll be fun, I can make jabs at his height" and then Lucifer started making jabs back at him (making fun of the Hazbin Hotel's name, most notably, which probably made things more personal to Alastor) so Alastor got more aggressive, which eventually culminated in Alastor taking the piss out of Lucifer wanting a relationship with Charlie. If you look at the background during More Than Anything, he doesn't look like he's mad about Lucifer's existence.
This doesn't look like a guy who's irritated by someone else's existence.
My personal theory for this is that Alastor was initially trying to drive Lucifer away to stay close to Charlie, but at this point he realized he didn't have to worry about it, which, by extension, means he doesn't have to worry about Lucifer. Dude has other priorities and is probably just as concerned about Lucifer as almost every other Sinner (that is, not concerned at all), he has no reason to hold a grudge against him except pettiness (which is something Lucifer does, if his response to Alastor showing up at the end of Finale is anything to go by). Alastor doesn't see Lucifer as a threat in any capacity at this point, so their rivalry is one-sided on Lucifer's end.
I'm excited to see where Alastor and Lucifer's dynamic goes from here. Lucifer has the pettiness of a fucking middle schooler and Alastor could not give less of a shit (which actually seems to be the case with all of his rivalries; you could argue he cared about what Vox was saying about him in Stayed Gone but counterpoint, he'd just found an excuse to spill possibly decades worth of tea and increase his listener base on his radio show, and fuck with Vox), and I think it'll make their dynamic really funny.
#hazbin hotel#hazbin hotel alastor#alastor the radio demon#hazbin hotel lucifer#hazbin hotel analysis#idk how much sense this makes. i haven't slept lmao
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Just to clarify, I am obviously talking about the characters and the QSMP as a story. I am simply an avid viewer that had too much coffee and time on their hands so I basically wrote an essay. What is it about? I have no idea. So, read it if you want, but beware that nothing at the end of this should make sense.
In my opinion, morally ambigious characters are interesting, but UNPREDICTABLE morally ambigious characters are even more fun to analyze because they take more risks and play more dangerous games. If a character was labeled as a "hero" and played on the "good" side they are guaranteed a safe spot within the group. Regardless of whether they kill or hurt others, they are on the good side because they are fighting against the corporation that is keeping them and their friends trapped in a place that is a nightmarish paradise. If they had done actions that worked against the islanders' favor, by, for example nearly getting everyone killed by explosives at a party they are justifiably labelled a villian. But what if a character played in the middle? What if they were neutral? What if they simply wanted to let things play out- sticking to the sidelines and only becoming involved when the situation benifits their entertainment?
So, pardon me for the long intro, but here's the gist folks: q!Foolish arrested q!Pac e q!Mike and unknowingly put them through loads of emotional trauma that I don't think they'll be recovering from any time soon, for fun. To a person with a normal moral compass, that's obviously fucked up.
"Friends don't send friends to prison."
In q!Foolish's perspective, he REALLY didn't think the consequences of his actions through, but he wouldn't have arrested q!Pac e q!Mike for no reason. Mr. Mustard is missing and the Federation told q!Foolish that q!Pac e q!Mike were responsible for his disappearance. At this point, I think enough time has passed that we the audience know q!Foolish is being manipulated by the Federation. Even Foolish himself knows he's being manipulated by them, yet he still partakes in this precarious game because it's simply more entertaining than just sitting on the good side and letting things play out.
Q!Foolish has never actively gone out of his way to hurt people on purpose. Does he lack some emotional maturity and the appropriate response to some situations? Yes he does; but he doesn't have malicious intentions. He's there to have fun. Where others see a dire situation- at the mercy of the inescapable claws of a malevolent corporate entity, q!Foolish sees fun and exciting opportunities. The others might not want to admit it, but aside from the tragedies and kidnappings that have occured on the island, this nightmarish paradise has provided the characters with more excitement and enjoyment, than what is worth.
But, not everyone understands q!Foolish's perspective, and that's good! That's ok! But what I'm perplexed about is their constant unjust treatment of him- the exclusion, threats, torture, many many pointless accusations disguised as interrogations, etc- simply because he did one task for the Federation. One task that affected the lives of two people, but in the end both parties communicated and forgave each other anyways. One task that required q!Foolish, and by extension, q!Jaiden to harmlessly investigate around q!Pac and q!Mike's base for a considerably long time before finding nothing that would incriminate the duo. Throughout q!Foolish's endeavour, working with the Federation cost him most of his friends' trust and gave him no benifits, but he still reluctantly chooses to carry out another task because it's entertaining. But like q!Foolish said to q!Cellbit the other day, he may be stupid, but he's certainly not an idiot, and he has limits. A lot of people, specifically q!Max don't seem to understand the concept of a neutral party. If you work for the Federation, you are a villain- and honestly, that's a fair assumption considering their reputation. But what about people like q!Jaiden? Q!Jaiden, one of the kindest people on the island, who is compassionate to everyone, even Cucurucho, who is always perceived as a malicious entity?
What exactly defines a villain in this story? In my opinion, everyone on the island has a skewed sense of morality. Everyone except Elquackity knew of his first assasination and simply watched as he lost his first life, then celebrated when he lost the other with no regards to the repurcussions of their actions or how Elq felt about all this. And while we can justify their actions because Elq hurt people before, and either brainwashed or replaced q!Quackity, how do we justify their treatment of q!Foolish even after he communicated honestly to q!Pac e q!Mike and done nothing to deserve their maltreatment of him. Maybe I'm a bit impatient, but at this point, q!Foolish's arrest, has had the same value and impact as q!Bad giving people the survey for the Federation; I'm even more willing to believe that q!Cellbit's accidental "employee of the month" investigations benifitted the Federation more than whatever measly and repititive tasks they're giving out to q!Foolish.
So, what warrants all this hate and injustice towards q!Foolish then if he's not harming anyone? Why is he the punching bag? Why is he the butt if the joke Every Single Time? What warranted all the cruel jokes and malicious beatings after the Nether event? Is it because they know he won't exact revenge upon them? Is it because, in their eyes, they only value him as a court jester and nothing more? Q!Foolish even said the Nether, an obsolete dimension of fire and brimstone, offered more compassion and comfort than a world where the sun shone and the air was less polluted because the inhabitants, his "friends" treated him with more malevolence than literal souless monsters from hell itself.
Think about q!Jaiden- a person whose compassion broke through Cucurucho's souless programming and gave it a home, a sense of safety, and relaxation. Jaiden works (and apparently worked???) with the Federation, yet she has more kindness within her than an entire group of people, on the "good" side, fighting against evil.
The truth is, there is no bad side among the islanders. The admins (meta) wrote the Federation (and codes?) as entities that the collective group should be against- a common enemy. But once you "ally" yourself with the Federation and do tasks for them does that make you the common enemy as well, or do you need to commit more heinious acts to be considered a villain?
And what about the islanders? At what point do the rest of the players begin to consider a character on the wrong side of things? At what point do they begin to abandon compassion in favor of searching for the truth? How far will they go in pursuit of the truth?
In my opinion, there are no villains in the story because everyone is capable of becoming an antagonist in one way or another. Basically, EVERYONE is morally ambiqious because they have all been antagonists to each other at some point in the tale, and as the story keeps unfolding, who knows what could happen? A character might say they are a good person, but as the story changes, so do their values, their morals, their limits. How thin can someone's patience be before it inevitably snaps?
#qsmp#qsmp analysis#qsmp character analysis#qsmp thoughts#qsmp foolish#qsmp jaiden#qsmp cucurucho#qsmp pac#qsmp mike#qsmp bbh#qsmp max#qsmp cellbit#me: writes an essay to justify the chaotic neutrality of Foolish's character Also me: realizes that by justifying chaotic neutrality#im completely missing the point of being chaotic and neutral#also also me: writes it anyway and confuses myself in the process
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Stede Bonnet Deep Dive
(aka repository for all the fucks I refuse to give to all the terrible takes on this hellsite after season 2)
I decided to do a deep dive into Stede's character finally, because I keep seeing the absolute WORST takes about him since season two aired.
I'll preface this by saying I don't agree with the majority of the negative or critical takes I've seen about season 2. I don't think the harsh readings of Stede's character are based in a good faith or often even in a sensible reading of the source material. And I don't have the time or inclination to spend all my time refuting bad Stede takes on tumblr, so this one meta in explanation and defense of my goofy little guy will have to suffice.
This is not a carefully crafted piece of creative writing. This is basic five paragraph essay shit, but with way more paragraphs. Claim, supports, transition, repeat to conclusion. Don't say I didn't warn you!
First off, no, Stede is not the villain of this story.
Yes, that's a take someone actually put into my notifications with their full chest. By no definition of the word is Stede positioned as a villain in this story, and he isn't even a compelling case for an accidental villain. This show has done a wonderful job of setting down clear and specific criteria for what makes a character villainous or not in a fictional world operating on a very different moral and ethical framework from our own. And while you could maybe argue Stede would be a pretty bad guy by real world standards, to be this is a moot point. By that measure every character in the show is a pretty bad guy. It's a nearly useless metric.
Within the show, villains are people with privilege and power who use that power to harm others and refuse to change for the better. Stede begins the story with an immense amount of privilege and power and gives all which is in his power to give up at the end of season 1. He gains a different kind of power in season 2 and by the end of season 2, he's relinquished that as well. He rarely uses his power to hurt people, and never does he intentionally seek to hurt innocent people for no reason. That isn't to say no innocent people GET hurt. But he's never trying to hurt people unless they've hurt or threatened the people he cares about. He in fact uses the power he has to stand up for the people he loves, repeatedly.
From the very beginning, he uses his wealth and power to create a space where he, and by extension everyone on his crew, has the space to be themselves. In 1x05 he uses his class privilege and knowledge to punish the partygoers who denigrated Ed simply for not being "one of them." In 1x08 he uses his power as captain to stand up for Buttons against Jack's callous cruelty and remove him from the ship after Karl is killed.
In 2x03 he uses his relative familiarity with Zheng Yi Sao (second only to Olu in terms of members of his crew who have any such familiarity) to plead mercy for Ed's crew. In 2x05 he uses his position as Captain to convince the crew to give Ed a second chance, while also hearing and working to address and mitigate their concerns as much as possible. In 2x06 he takes the responsibility for rescuing his own crew from Ned Low, negotiates a peaceful resolution with his crew, and punishes only Ned as the admitted and obvious orchestrator of the attack and torture of his crew. In 2x07, he doesn't start picking fights to show how big and bad he is. The only two people he shows any violence toward at all are someone walking toward him with the stated intention to kill him and someone poaching a third of his crew right before his eyes.
These aren't the wanton abuses of power characteristic of a villain. These are the understandable actions of someone who feels a lot of attachment and responsibility for the people around him.
No, Stede is not a cruel person who likes hurting people.
Jesus fucking Christ. Like I get that we all have our favorites, but I swear to god some of y'all think that means that you need to turn every other character into pure evil just to justify your character's existence. This isn't even remotely true.
Stede does NOT like hurting people. He hates hurting people, in fact, often even when they kind of deserve it. He really hates it when they obviously don't deserve it! Nothing he does in all of season one is motivated by a desire to harm other people. Yes, even piracy.
Stede enters the show with a very romanticized view of piracy. The violence isn't the point for him, the point is adventure and wanderlust, and possibly primarily, escape. Escape from the confines of a life he didn't ask for and has never wanted. Escape from a marriage he didn't choose and didn't want to be part of. Escape from the rigid strictures of a social structure that doesn't make room for people like him (whether we're talking about his queerness or his neurodivergence). The point is to create a space where he can be himself, and then extend that to others as well. If I wanted to get real sad, I'd say the point is the hope that by creating such a space, he will finally find people willing to tolerate him, or even be his friends.
He also doesn't leave Mary or his children to hurt them. He leaves them because Mary makes it clear they won't be going with him, and he knows he can't bear to stay. And he's riddled with guilt about it, it's not something he looks back on with pride or with glee.
And let's get real dark for a second and acknowledge: for a man in Stede's time and position, if he was actually a cruel person who enjoyed hurting people and he wanted to hurt his wife and children? There would be very little if anything to stop him from doing exactly that. If he wanted his children and his wife to live in fear of his cruelty, he could do that without consequences. But the one instance where he does something that does make Mary afraid--attacking Doug in 1x10--is something he does on instinct and immediately regrets, apologizes for, and feels awful about. He then goes a step further to continue making amends with both Doug and Mary for the rest of the episode.
And that's another thing: Stede's reaction to finding out he's hurt someone is to be upset by that, and then to try and rectify it immediately. When Lucius calls him out for not asking how he is, Stede immediately re-engages with him and starts looking after his well-being, encouraging him to talk about what's bothering him and not to shut out the people who love him. When Ed tells him how much Stede leaving without a word hurt him, Stede accepts that and tries to correct Ed's assumption that it's because he, Ed, wasn't enough or wasn't cared about. When Ed voices uncertainty and regrets about the pace of their relationship, Stede--though quite obviously hurt by what he thinks Ed is saying--immediately puts his focus on making Ed feel secure again, telling him this relationship can be whatever they want it to be.
Now, Stede gets a lot of flak for his reaction to Ed's fishing job news, but let's be real here: it IS incredibly random. It comes out of nowhere and genuinely makes not a lick of damn sense. And it's a wild thing to drop on someone you've been building a relationship with, a wild thing to have decided in a single afternoon before you've even talked to them about it. I'm not going to take Stede too harshly to task for not reacting perfectly seflessly there. It doesn't erase all the times when he DID react by immediately putting the other person's feelings in focus. And those aren't the actions of someone who enjoys hurting people and revels in cruelty to those around him.
Hell, Stede doesn't even revel in hurting people who've actually done something to warrant it, most of the time. Stede isn't excited or gloating about killing one of his childhood bullies in 1x01. He's horrified by what he's done. He wasn't even trying to kill him! He was going for the "stun move." He's so racked with guilt for it the entire season that he hallucinates the man berating him. He takes clear pleasure in manipulating the French partygoers and turning their own game against them, but he's still primarily motivated by making Ed feel better (and fine, that's his one time out of ten, I guess). He also takes no joy in Chauncy's death, in fact he's horrified and traumatized by it. The Badmintons are two people who tormented him throughout his childhood, but he shows an incredible amount of regret and guilt about both their deaths, especially considering Chauncy's really wasn't his fault in any possible way.
The final scene with Chauncy on its own would counter the idea that Stede likes hurting people! Stede is distraught by the thought that he hurts people, sobbing about it in fact. He doesn't leave Ed to hurt him! He leaves Ed because he thinks that is IS hurting him, and wants to stop.
Even Ned Low in 2x06 is not something Stede savors or revels in. Sure, he enjoys the fame it brings, later on. But he doesn't kill Ned in service of that, and he doesn't revel in killing Ned. He isn't smiling, gloating, or smug when he does it. He's deadly serious, and protective of the people he loves, in a pretty blatant mirror of his confrontation with Jack in 1x08. And even once it's done, he doesn't derive satisfaction from it. He's blatantly and obviously distraught by it, flashing back to one of his most traumatic childhood memories. It's the rest of the crew that cheer when he pushes Ned overboard. Stede is silent except for excusing himself to go to his quarters. When he pulls Ed into the room a few minutes later, there are tears in his eyes and his expression is well...agonized, frankly.
Stede's also quick to forgive even pretty serious transgressions against himself, like Ed plotting to burn his face off in 1x06 or Izzy selling him out to the navy in 1x09 (yes, there was a time gap there, but Stede began acting friendlier toward Izzy and showing concern for him basically as soon as he realized Ed wasn't actually dead). That's not the behavior of someone cruel who enjoys hurting people, either.
Yeah, Stede revels in piracy and doesn't have big compunctions about hurting people who threaten him or hurt the people he loves. I'd say the latter, at least, is true for a lot of people even in real life. And as for the former, well. If we're going to say Stede is cruel for enjoying being a pirate, I think we'd have to throw a lot of other characters into the cruel pile, too. Like almost all of them.
Stede is not lacking in care for the members of his crew.
I've already written an entire meta on this, so I'll just link that here and reiterate that if this were true, at minimum, Jim, Frenchie, Izzy, Fang, and Archie would all be dead.
So he's not a villain, or cruel on purpose, or careless.
So who is Stede Bonnet, actually?
Stede at his worst is somewhat thoughtless and oblivious. We see this throughout both seasons, but it's far more prominent in season one. Stede at his best is generous and gracious and forgiving and kind. Stede when provoked acts to protect himself and those he loves without hesitation or pulling any punches, as already referenced several times in this meta.
Stede is, textually, canonically, a gay man forced into marriage with someone he couldn't love who also couldn't love him. Stede is a survivor of a childhood filled with emotional abuse at the hands of his father and physical abuse at the hands of his peers. He does not know how to reach out to people, both because nobody ever reached out to him and because any attempts at all that he did make were met with the kind of shit we saw from Nigel, Chauncey, and his father.
But Stede wants, so very much and so obviously, to have people to be kind to and generous and loving with. Look at how eagerly and excitedly he opens up to Ed, when he sees Ed meeting him with interest instead of mockery or scorn in 1x04. Look how readily he shares his things with Ed and with the crew throughout season 1. In fact he voluntarily left an economic system where it was acceptable for him to hoard wealth for himself, and entered into a system where it was expected for him to share any and all spoils among his crewmates. He loves to share things with people! He loves to try new things with them and show them new things. He's so eager to have any kind of friend.
Stede also begins learning almost immediately how to reach out to people, once he has an environment where he feels secure doing it. And he loves doing it! He'll even do things he doesn't like to make someone else happy, like take Ed to a party he really, really wants to go to even though Stede knows it will be awful (1x05).
He is quick to take feedback and course correct when someone points out to him that he's been hurtful to them or wronged them, like with Lucius in 2x02. Arguably this would also apply to Izzy egging him on to do the fuckery in 1x06. Izzy appealed to his sense of obligation ("I stuck my neck out for you") and his affection for Ed ("he adores you") and it worked! It worked because Stede cares about other people, about their feelings and their needs and wants, and what they think of him. He cares so, so much.
He has flaws, too, of course. As stated, he can be thoughtless and oblivious. He's new to having friends, and new to love, and he makes a lot of mistakes. But he also corrects those mistakes, once he realizes them or they're pointed out to him. And it rarely takes much urging. If anything, Stede's more stubborn when he knows he's right in a situation, but even when he's technically right, he ultimately prioritize other people's feelings (as with the probably-not-actually-cursed suit in 2x05).
He's a goof. And he loves beautiful things. But he's not the entitled, lazy shit his father accuses him of being. He doesn't have a lot of physical or combat skills, but he can learn those skills simply by doing it enough. We see this in season one with how he gets better at getting on and off the ship over time. He's also great at putting a positive spin or an optimistic face on difficult things. We see this with how he treats the patrons who come into Jackie's in 2x01, and also with how he approaches challenges throughout the season. He's someone who, nine times out of ten, looks on the bright side and tries to problem solve, rather than despairing.
He's much more skilled when it comes to coming up with and executing plans, even on the fly...something we see throughout the show. First with getting into piracy in the first place. Then with his first defeat of Izzy in 1x03. Then there's the quickly thought up and delightfully executed revenge on the French partygoers in 1x05, the quite ridiculous but ultimately successful fuckery in 1x06. The fuckery to fake his death in 1x10!
This characterization carries over into season 2, with Stede's nearly successful execution of a robbery at Jackie's in 2x01. In fact that likely would have gone off without a hitch if it hadn't been for Ricky's nonsense, and ultimately did put Stede and his crew in a much better position than they were before regardless. Then in 2x03, he planned the escape of his and Ed's crews and it went off beautifully!
He came up with the plan to escape Ned Low and his crew in 2x06 literally second to second, improvising on the fly as the situation developed until he and his crew were safe again. He successfully got the drop on the two British soldiers in 2x08, he just couldn't actually fight two well-trained men on his own. And it was his plan, ultimately, that got his crew and ship out of an entirely besieged and surrounded Republic of Pirates.
(That plan did not go off without a hitch, to tragic results. But I don't think that overrides Stede's skills in this area. Many of his plans do not end perfectly, but they end remarkably well given the odds. And given the odds he was presented with, the numbers they were up against? One single casualty is wildly successful (even if I'm wailing and gnashing my teeth about it and will be unless and until David and Co. fix it in season 3).)
And finally--and this is the one single gripe I have with the season, that Stede and Ed both said this and seem to actually believe it--this man is not fucking whim-proned. Ed. Ed is fucking whim-proned. That's a pretty core element of his personality, actually. And it's not always a bad thing, and sometimes it's quite fun. But Stede? No. Stede isn't whim-proned. Stede is motivated. Stede is decisive. Stede is tunnel-visioned, perhaps. But he actually doesn't just change up his entire life on a whim. He makes a decision about what he wants, once he realizes he can actually do that, and then he fucking sticks to it like a mosquito in tree sap.
He decided he wanted to become a pirate, so he took the time, expense, and effort required to commission a ship, have it built, outfit it with supplies, and hire a crew. He realized he was in love with Ed and rowed a dinghy from Barbados to wherever the fuck (if you go with history it was Topsail Island, which is nearly three thousand fucking miles away), rejoined his crew, and set about working in a place he was miserable, trying to slowly save enough scraps of money to buy a ship to get back to his beloved. He wrote Ed letters, it's implied every day while they were at Jackie's. He had his goal, and he didn't stop working toward his goal until it was met and they were back together. And once they were back together, he didn't quit just because Ed didn't "melt back into his arms," and--*gesticulates wildly at all of season 2*.
Where Stede thinks he's whim-prone has less to do with caprice and more to do with trauma responses. Every single time we see him do something impulsive, it's as a response to something traumatic. Braining Nigel with the paperweight? Impulse in response to Nigel triggering memories of his childhood bullying. Running back home? Impulse in response to being dragged out of bed at gunpoint, having every single one of your deepest fears and insecurities thrown at you, and then watching the person throwing them basically prove them true by shooting himself in the face trying to kill you. Pulling Ed into his room? Impulse in response to the trauma of being invaded, tortured, watching Ed and all their friends be tortured, and thinking they were going to die (and yeah killing Ned too).
All of this to say...Stede has layers, y'all. He's got good and bad points. He's got strengths and many, many weaknesses. But he is in no way the one-dimensional mustache-twirling villain or bumbling total incompetent id-driven asshat people are trying to paint him as for whatever ridiculous reason.
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I am really interested in the fics you are writing for salaar! they are amazing! wondering what are your hcs or fic ideas that you want to write or see written?
hello! and first off, thank you so much ♡
ahh, so! headcanons, damn. my headcanons are mostly psychology based, and i usually type them out as they come to me, but the ones on my mind lately have been:
Varadha admired Radha Rama as a child, and made an effort to get her approval, but it never worked out because she was entirely apathetic
Bharava seduced Radha Rama (because he wanted a seat in court and to be an insider) and once it happened, they gradually grew distant, and Radha Rama didn't completely understand why, till she learnt of his betrayal
Varadha is basically a "princess Diana" character, fucked over by those closest to him, but adored by most of those among the kingdom [this isn't even a headcanon, it's plain canon]
Khansaar definitely has some beaches to the Southwest, and the Rann of Kutch extends into Khansaar, so there's these salty marshes too, but the Ghaniyaars occupy most of that territory, with the Mannars mostly inland, and the Shouryaangas centered towards the east, which would leave them at a disadvantage, but since they're the stronger tribe, it all works out.
Baba is closer to Varadha than he is to Baachi (i've got an upcoming analysis on this + baachi & varadha's relationship)
Varadha lost Mahara in a fight/challenge of some kind (not necessarily physical), and all he has left is Pathran.
there's more, now that i think about it, but for now we'll leave it at that xD
as for fanfics:
• so, before any of my other fic ideas, i had this visual of deva, brought to khansaar after stopping the seal, and with shackles that he could easily break out of at any point. everyone in the room knows he might be armed after the whole gun show and the dozens of bodies they have to show for it.
varadha asks his men to search deva, but they slink back, terrified of the consequences. varadha, irritated, sends them all out.
cue a quiet, guilt-ridden deva – and an exhausted, seething, varadha, just verbally tearing into him: each. deliberate. word. dripping with hatred.
while feeling deva up for weapons.
yeah. guilty pleasure. it might end up being part of s&o or a standalone fic if i feel like it
• after i get to a comfortable place with s&o, there's another fic almost ready to see the light of day: comprising royal assassin! deva & prince! varadha (ask me if you want a summary/teaser, oof, it'll make more sense, if you'd like to know more)
• an au with twins! deva & devaratha and dancer! varadha (this one's plot heavy, and also involves magic)
• there's a futuristic au that i'm working the plot out for currently
• this fic
• and of course, the extension of 'distance' that i'm still hashing out the details for
(and regarding fics i want to see written, i will eat. up. anything, though i do have a fondness for angst)
but yes, that's most of it! if you read through all of this, then thank you xD i did not know it would get this extensive
much love, rey <3
#so...this is slightly more than i expected#hope its satisfying#salaar#varadeva#headcanons#fanfic ideas
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you reblogged that old ask about pissa ever going anywhere with their relationships and i've had some thoughts about this topic and it's probably gonna become a little bit of a rant so no pressure answering or even reading it's your askbox of course.
so firsts things first jusr as you said the the answer to that task missa would definitely have to be more present on the server for this to not fall flat and feel very surface level. that being said the ender king stuff that's been going on with phil could potentially be a catalyst for things to move forward but personally i don't know if i like this idea 100%. while it is crucial to phil's character because well it's his lore! i presonally wouldn't like missa to become just an extension to him and a plot device for his story. i'd love missa to have more developement on his own or with other people first because as you said yourself a lot of the times when he's on the server him and phil barely leave each other's side.
the thing with phil ignoring missa's feelings in a way is that it could be easily attributed to him being a repressed old bird, which well, he totally is. and the threat of the ender king constantly looming over him and his loved ones definitely doesn't help with opening up to people these days. but that's where a lot of developement could happen for him and he's already been talking more to his eggs so hopefully he can exchange that trust and honesty to missa soon. and if it takes the ender king to do it then so be it i have more faith in missa being open about things on his own accord than this guy.
honestly i think i saw a post similar to what i'm going to say but i really hope the prison kiss will push some unspoken boundary between them that makes them perhaps question some things or move forward. i'm personally any type of pissa enjoyer but i just hope they can confront each other at some point and talk about how they feel. there's a lot of potential for a very sweet story here it would be a shame if nothing ever happened with it. i know it's probably wishful thinking but hey i can dream.
also we don't really know how the server is going to look and to what extent it's going to be reset but it could be a good chance for them to hang out more if let's say some bases get yeeted or they need to gather resources. or even if the bases are untouched it feels like a good moment for less active members to join since there's been a little bit of pause. what i'm saying is missa please log on more it's really crucial to this.
WOOHOO
i do agree that Missa should get to write his own lore whether it coincides with Phil's or not, he doesn't seem to be into scripting interactions with the others he's more likely to just start playing a bit and then bouncing off that for his cubito's story (spreen's betrayal and him leaving roier's house for it, kidnapping by wolves, being in love with phil, fortnite cheese putting him in prison) overall there's no evidence missa's gonna be involved in the ender king plot in canon unless he and Phil have talked about it
definitely think having a lot of new untouched space could take most of the pressure out of just walking around and seeing everything expand so quickly and being worried about building somewhere someone might have already claimed or on someone else's grounds
canon romantic pissa is still up in the air but ccphil and missa are most definitely aware that they're playing into a traditional romantic love story, theyre gonna have to decide if it'd be better or funnier to keep pivoting around the subject and drive everyone on the island insane or to get the ball FUCKING rolling
I'm going to Have Faith that he will log on more. I'm going to Hope and Pray. Calacaland will prevail
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the differences between teams flare, skull, yell, and star (and why only some of them work)
post under the cut because there is. a lot to say
so we all know that the villains in pokemon peaked with team plasma right (this is a matter of opinion but that's beyond the point)
and after team plasma, we have team flare. and team flare is. different.
they were the first evil ceo, unless you count cyrus, which i don't because cyrus (in my mind) was more about nihilism than corporate greed or anything
and lysandre is too, kinda? he's interesting enough, but literally everyone else in the team is boring as shit, especially compared to every team that came before them
so in kalos, we've got a villain team that doesn't really know what they've signed up for aside from the leader (probably it's been a hot minute. the admins might know), which makes sense, but the grunts and admins aren't entertaining at all. they're built up as a threat and exactly one of them is. it doesn't work
(this (imo) applies to most of gen 6's story but that's besides the point)
and then in alola, we've got team skull! this was the first generation i paid attention to the buildup for, and if i remember correctly, before release they were built up as the villain team, but not a threatening one. and in the game, that follows. no one really sees them as a threat on their own, cause they aren't.
but we've also got the aether foundation! and they were built up as mysterious but benevolent pre-release and in-game (didn't necessarily succeed but they tried well enough), and this was the first "twist villain" that pokemon did, and it was new and fresh and worked
and team skull isn't a threat. but they are an annoyance, and that's exactly what's needed during the storming of aether paradise. by allying team skull with the aether foundation, it gives both of them more of what they need most (seeming like a threat for team skull and character for aether foundation)
bonus points for aether foundation working well with the buildup because while almost everyone there is corrupt, we've still got wicke, who is genuinely benevolent and provides some nice contrast
the combination (as well as the fact that all of these dynamics were new) really sells the whole thing for me. it works
then we get to team yell :/
team yell was (pre-release and a little bit in-game) built up as villains and they Aren't. at all
and then at the same time, they expect us to believe that macro cosmos is totally fine and benevolent and nothing is wrong with anything they do? what the fuck
the part where you work with team yell to storm macro cosmos is fun and cool i guess, but that isn't enough to save either of them
team yell isn't a villain team, it's just an extension of piers being an overprotective brother and should have always been treated like that (amplified even more by the fact that marnie tells them off multiple times)
and macro cosmos doesn't work at all either because they expected us to be totally blindsided and then didn't even have the decency to have a single character who was morally good or benevolent like wicke!
at least aether foundation was built up as mysterious but benevolent, macro cosmos was just like "yeah we're a power company and good guys our chairman has the most rancid vibes you've ever seen but that means nothing" and then later it's like "oOoOoH wE'rE aCtUaLlY eViL aReN't YoU sUrPrIsEd????" like no!!!!! i'm not!!!!!!
and at this point the corrupt ceo bullshit and incompetent team bullshit is wearing SO thin, no one likes it or cares at ALL anymore
it's just like, go back to the mafia or whatever! i do not care about this! if i wanted to be mad at a ceo i've got enough irl to choose from!
which brings us finally to team star! they were built up as a villain team pre-release like the others, and we're all just like yeah okay whatever we know they're not a threat and probably fine people and we all know geeta is going to be the actual villain you aren't clever gamefreak
but then! we get to the game! and they aren't treated like villains!
they're treated like victims of circumstance who have gone too far and need to be stopped for their own good and it works
it works incredibly well, compounded by the fact that the actual villain was one no one was expecting
i have. many thoughts about the subversions of expectations that the professors pulled. but that's beyond the point-ish
but team star is not treated as a villain. at all. the closest we get is penny recruiting us to take them down, but that's more "they're a problem" than "they're a danger" and it works
tldr no pokemon villain has ever surpassed team plasma and gamefreak needs to join a union and stop making all their "twist" villains ceos thank you and goodnight
#i will be taking questions or thoughts if you have any just please god be nice to me#pokemon#team plasma#team flare#lysandre#lysandre pokemon#team skull#aether foundation#wicke#wicke pokemon#team yell#macro cosmos#piers#piers pokemon#marnie#marnie pokemon#chairman rose#team star#professor sada#professor turo#gotta queue em all#og post#unova#kalos#alola#galar#paldea
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My eternal biggest struggles in FFXIV--and really in any game, but it matters way more when you're playing with other people--are visual perception and by extension reaction time. I have figured out just from talking to other people about how they perceive things that I simply do not process visual information as quickly or comprehensively as some people do. If I am focusing on one part of the screen I am not seeing what's happening in the other corner. When I'm looking at the party list I am not seeing my hotbar. When I'm looking at my hotbar I am not seeing the boss's cast bar. And so forth. The ability that most people seem to have to just absorb all or most of the information on their screen just by looking? I don't have that. I have to constantly, consciously be scanning all the places where I know there's important information. It is not automatic.
Which means that unless I know to look for a specific tell--like a specific cast or a symbol over my character's head--there is a good chance I just will not see it. I hesitate to even explain this to people because it sounds like I'm making excuses or not paying attention when I say "I just didn't see it." But it doesn't matter how much I'm paying attention if I don't know what I'm looking for. I will not process it, which is functionally the same as not seeing it.
And I can learn, is the thing. I know to watch for Ancient Flare in Labyrinth of the Ancients. I know that in Shadowbringers onward, where you'll get strings of really unforgiving, rapid-fire AOEs, that it's better to focus on getting myself to safety and sacrifice a heal or two and then do damage control when they let up, than to miss an AOE because I was trying to heal, and die and force another player to interrupt their rotation to rez me. It just takes practice, and there are things I won't get on the first run, no matter how hard I try.
I do care about playing my job well. I watch guides. I practice. I do my best to learn, because I love the game and it's satisfying to play well, especially as a healer--I want to be the kind of healer that when I'm in the party, you know I've got you, that if you mess up I'll catch you, and it'll be fine. Playing a support role well is very, very satisfying and rewarding to me! And so none of the above means I'm not going to do my best, or that I'm not trying to be better.
I don't get better from people yelling at me or calling me stupid. I get flustered, I lose my flow, I blank out on things that actually are obvious. I get worse.
And the all-or-nothing attitudes from that small but real subset of veteran players is just utterly discouraging. "Either you're playing your job correctly or you're sabotaging." "There are no non-obvious mechanics in regular duties." It reads to me as "Be perfect on the first try or go fuck yourself." That is a standard I will literally never be able to meet. And I'm not saying "poor me," that's not my point. Somehow I doubt that it's a standard the majority of players are able to meet--based on my own experiences playing with sprouts in many, many roulettes.
Everyone has to start somewhere. Everyone learns differently, perceives differently, no matter how rigid the rotation of their job, no matter how "obvious" the mechanics. And for someone else who's struggling I would much rather be the person who gave them a better experience in the game than the person who gave them a shittier one. I don't want to be the person who makes someone quit trying to learn tanking for six months (as someone did to me). If you need to vent about how someone sucks, fine, do it in private. And even then, you know, maybe consider how you talk about it and to whom. Are your comments going to be the reason someone in your linkshell is terrified of learning a new role? Or the reason they're excited to try?
Personally I would rather come out of a duty with a party that struggled a bit but pressed on being kind and helping and encouraging one another and celebrated victory together, than leave someone never wanting to play again.
#ffxiv stuff#anne's ishgardian salt rock#i truly do love this game and 99% of my interactions with randos are fine to great#but boy when there's a bad one#it can just be such a kick in the teeth#not making this rebloggable because i don't want my notes full of advice#i promise you i have trusted friends to give me advice when i need it
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