#... it basically is a fan theory but I don't like the feeling when they pretend it's bigger than it actually is

[angeloflightandsunshine]

The more I hear Christians talk about the Bible and their thoughts on it and God, the more it sounds like fans coming up with fan theories on one of their favorite works.

#or like conspiracy theories #help #look I understand if you're Christian and you like to come up with your own thoughts on God and the Bible because you like it so much #that's completely fine #what I don't like is when someone makes a wild theory with wild jumps in logic and claims it's the truth and pushes it onto other people #or when I'm forced to hear the rambles because I can't get away #... it basically is a fan theory but I don't like the feeling when they pretend it's bigger than it actually is #I know that last bit is probably insulting to Christians I'm sorry #it's just that I personally have been disillusioned with it and don't like the feeling of others pushing it on me #christianity #fan theory

[starleska]

hi! im a really big fan of your fanfics (especially the wally ones) and i’m really curious to know what are songs that you associate with him?? please don’t be afraid to share!!! i really like talking and gushing over wally darling with a fellow wally simp lol

hey there anon!! 💖 aww my goodness you are so lovely, thank you!! it brings my heart so much joy that you like my writing...i can't believe the surge of wonderful feedback fired my way over this past week 🙈🙈 what a fun question!! there's a few songs i associate with Wally right now, and i'm sure more will pop up as we learn more about him;;; some are less overt, and more to do with Wally x Reader vibes - or, my terrible musical taste/hallucinating scenarios while listening to the same twenty songs 😂 fun simp challenge!! have a listen to a few of these with your eyes shut, thinking about Wally. you're guaranteed to have a good time 😉

Songs I Associate with Wally Darling:

Touch-Tone Telephone by Lemon Demon. no one could've seen this one coming 😂 no, as soon as i discovered Welcome Home i knew i'd finally found the right character to edit this song with. the conspiracy theory, cryptic vibes, slight desperation and of course retro-phone theming all work so well for Wally! 🥰

Out of My Mind by CG5. total coincidence that this banger dropped just as i learned about Welcome Home, and there's something cathartic and hypnotic about that repetitive chorus that fits with a lot of theories about Wally's struggles with Home...i had this one on repeat while writing The Nightmare Picnic 👀

An Unhealthy Obsession by The Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra. this one's for all the yandere!Wally fans out there - i think every person who's a fan of terrifying, obsessive characters loves this song 😉 this is the one had on repeat while writing those yandere!Wally headcanons - i actually included it to listen to whilst reading in the original post, but i ran out of space!! 🙈

INSANE by Black Gryphon & Baasik. i know, strike me down for including a song made specifically for another Tumblr Sexyman on this list!!! but come on - the static, the showmanship, the overt friendliness masking a smiling, curious sadism...don't pretend like you don't enjoy this take on Wally, i've seen the fanart 😂

LA Devotee by Panic! at the Disco. this one's jam-packed with fun occult imagery and all about fame and obsession, so it feels perfect for our children's puppet show ARG!! something about it just hits right with how the fandom perceives the darker side of Wally 😳 i'm listening to this a lot at the moment as i've got a Metalocalypse MEP part to this song in the works, but my thoughts can't help wandering to Mr. Darling;;

Super Psycho Love by Simon Curtis. lord help me, you can tell i was in the AMV-making community in the late 2000s/early 2010s 😂 this song's a staple for attentive, manipulative, obsessive characters...even if we end up being totally wrong, and Wally is a Darling in more than name, we'll always have fun with our unhealthily possessive fantasies 🥰

Teenage Dream by Katy Perry. hey, i'm a basic bitch - i love listening to sugary-sweet, fluffworthy AMV music whilst writing my x Readers 🙈💖 a lot of the folks who request Wally often bear a little bit of their souls when asking - revealing insecurities about themselves, and wanting to be reassured he'd love them anyway. this is such a pretty, nostalgic song, and i think it captures the softness with which many of us would like to be treated by him ✨

Crush by Mandy Moore. similar to the last entry, yet leaning even more into that bubblegum romance vibe...i'm simply weak for blushy crush scenarios 🥴💖 i like this one a lot for x Readers, especially an embarrassed Reader absolutely overcome with how precious they find Wally 💖

Stray Italian Greyhound by Vienna Teng. one of my favourite songs of all time, and the perfect choice if you want your heart to ache 💔 i think this is a wonderful choice when thinking about a hurt Reader...someone who has fully given up on love, only to be confronted with Wally's relentless sunshine personality and falling head over heels 🥺 this song speaks to why i think many of us are infatuated with Wally...his charm coming from that childlike outlook, his tendency to love everything and everyone. lots of us could benefit from that kind of unconditional love, i think;;

#wally darling x reader #wally darling x you #wally darling #welcome home #welcome home arg #starleskasks

[x-liv25-jamieswife]

averyjameson rant (that might make zero sense)

i've seen that a lot of fans have speculated that their codeword, tahiti, was created as a result of one of their fights, but i'd honestly like to talk more about it. (this is kinda rushed and all over the place btw) (also not proof read which at this point really isn't a surprise)

tahiti is a codeword they use whenever they want the other to be honest with them so, it would only make sense for them to have had issues with being honest and communication in the past which resulted in the creation of this codeword. i think their issues with communication stems from their individual trauma so i'd like to talk about that for a second.

avery grew up with literally no one in her corner except for her mother, max, and libby. max moved away the summer before 8th grade, and, then, at fifteen, her mother died. she was pretty much left with libby (and max thanks to her phone). avery hates burdening people with her issues. i remember a scene in tig (i believe, though it might be thl) where libby asked her who took care of her, and she immediately started telling herself that she's only a burden, and that, basically, she doesn't deserve help. avery also hates being vulnerable. to her, vulnerability = weakness. growing up the way she did and with everything she's been through, i think it makes perfect sense for her to think so. allowing herself to feel things could've potentially ruined everything for her with everything she had on her plate (work, school, surviving, etc) by distracting her. then, she inherited the money, and she went from having two people in her corner, to, like, ten. this is a huge change, and would obviously take some adjusting. i think she's never allowed herself to open up in fear of people leaving ("the trick to being abandoned was to never let yourself long for anybody who left" idk when she said this).

after years of believing she couldn't rely on anyone, obviously it would cause issues for her with jameson. after all, it takes a long time to work through trauma. bc of all of this, i feel like the beginning of their relationship would be a little bumpy (with jameson trying to get her to open up, and avery not knowing how/being scared to).

jameson has his own share of problems. with everything that happened with emily, and the gaslighting tobias hawthorne put him through, i think he's afraid of people leaving him bc they don't think he's good enough. i feel like he'd think the same way avery does when it comes to opening up (it burdens people, they might leave me, i don't like being vulnerable, etc). i mean jamie spent so long drinking away his problems and pretending he was absolutely fine and unaffected after the emily fiasco (i fucking hate that bitch with my entire being). some people believe that jameson wasn't really affected by what happened with emily when in reality he was. just because he didn't respond to trauma the same way grayson did doesn't mean it isn't there.

obviously they're perfect together so they managed to work through it. over time i feel like they learned to truly trust each other, and started opening up more frequently. obviously, like i said, their issues caused fights, but they worked through all of them. i believe that after one of these fights, the codeword was created (they might have been in tahiti when it happened, and that's why the code word is tahiti).

anyways i really enjoyed talking about their trauma, and i might make some more in depth posts about it (bc their trauma is SOOO overlooked) (probably after i reread the books unless i become to impatient). i apologize if this doesn't make sense or if there are spelling mistakes, like i said it's kinda rushed and i wrote most of this at like 3:00am last night. if anyone has some more theories about the codeword i'd really like to hear them. hope this post wasn't too boring.

#the inheritance games #the hawthorne legacy #the final gambit #the brothers hawthorne #avery grambs #averyjameson #jameson winchester hawthorne #emily can go f herself #tobias hawthorne hate club

[smytherines]

What we have as canon for Spies Are Forever is sparse. It's a spy comedy parody musical, it's ambiguous because that's all they have room for, leading to a lot of different readings that all have their arguments for or against. None of those are "correct" they're just interpretations.

So, keeping that in mind, we know Owen Carvour for around 10 minutes before the banana incident. A few minutes of that is him pretending to be another person, so I'll set that aside for now. Here are things Owen does in A1P1 in order of how I remember them:

Saves captured boyfriend from goon

Shoots goon in knees

Beats up a lot of goons

Reassures Curt's boss that the mission will be completed successfully, gets mildly insulted by a jealous Curt

Pushes Curt out of the way to shoot an armed guard that was aiming at him

Mildly chastises Curt for drinking on the job

Takes one swig after being teased and makes a face

Mildly chastises Curt for leaving a banana peel on the staircase

Agrees to four minutes on the timer

Attempts to re-lock the safety barricades to limit the explosion (I think?)

Gets cornered by goons

Building starts to explode, he finds out Curt set the timers for 3 minutes, they run

Slips, "dies"

Building explodes on him

The first part is the most ambiguous- when he's pretending to be a goon and Curt is being tortured. My personal read on it is that either Owen was already there for his own spy-related reasons and rescued Curt, or he somehow found out that Curt had been captured and went on a rescue mission. He does tell the goon to crush Curt's testicles, but I dunno immediately before that the goon tries to break Curt's fingers and gets his own fingers broken instead, so it feels like Owen is reasonably confident in Curt's ability to take care of himself? The worst thing that happens to Curt is that he gets tickled.

I do love the thought of Owen finding out Curt has been captured and packing a feather just in case he gets a chance to fuck with him. They don't establish who brought the explosives I don't think, but given that Barb doesn't say "use the explosives you already have" and that Owen spends so much time setting them, it was probably Owen?

Here's a list of things Agent Curt Mega does in A1P1:

Admittedly cool spy guy shit (breaking fingers, whatever was supposed to have happened with the pipe- its unclear to me)

Gets spotted by guard who hits the alarm

Talks to boss

gets annoyed that his boss likes Owen better, drinks, makes fun of Owen

Beats up goons

Eats a banana, leaves peel on stairs

Didn't wear rocket shoes because they didn't match his outfit

Ignores Barb explaining how the camera works to take the pictures they need

Suggests blowing the whole facility instead

Convinces Owen to try to beat their record of 6 minutes (Owen says to set for 4, I think)

Sets the timer for 3 minutes

Tells Owen they don't have time to do the safety barricade thing

Building starts to explode, tells Owen he lied, he set the timer for 3 minutes and they need to run

Tries to reach Owen when he falls, fails

Runs away before building explodes

What I'm saying here is that my read on A1P1 is that Curt sucks. Owen comes across as a decent enough guy, he comes off as a guy who cares about his partner and is looking out for him, and Curt is kinda the bad influence on him. Curt comes across as jealous and petty and egotistical, which is interesting because in so many pre-canon fanfics Curt is the pure precious babygirl and Owen is already a monster. I'm not saying it's wrong, I've read and enjoyed a lot of those stories and theories. It's just very interesting to me to see how the post-banana and pre-banana versions of Owen and Curt are sort of meshed together in a lot of fan imagination? I don't see it that way, but that's totally fine.

I wrote everything but this paragraph before the Mega bastards lore dropped. I already made a big big post about that, and it does sort of change my perception of Curt in some ways, but just on a basic level this is where I'm at

#cleaning out my drafts #spies are forever #tin can bros #agent curt mega #owen carvour #curtwen

[linisiane]

What do Rick Sanchez, Don Quixote, and Harry Du Bois Have in Common?

In all three of these stories, these characters are ‘self-aware’ in that they intentionally play into the tropes of the stories they’re satirizing (Rick Sanchez satirizing sitcoms, Don Quixote satirizing chivalric romances, and Harry Dubois satirizing roleplaying games). However, the trick to their ‘self-awareness’ is that they’re lying to themselves.

This post is LONG, so feel free to skip to the end if you're just interested in "The Self-Aware Player of Harry Du Bois" (in bolded green) if you don't feel like reading the rest of the analysis. I go into the meaning of the political vision quests, the meaning of the 4th wall breaking RPG elements like copotypes and Jamrock Shuffling, and the effect this has on the player's relationship to Harry Du Bois!

(Common) Rick Sanchez (L)

Although Rick acts like he can see the audience and uses marketable catchphrases like “Wubbalubbadubdub” to appeal to sitcom sensibilities (“Bazinga;” “Did I do that?” “Legen- Wait For It -Dary;” etc.), the truth of the matter is that WITHIN HIS REALITY, he is not a sitcom character.

He truly does not know he’s in a sitcom.

He’s just an asshole.

ID A screenshot from the show Rick and Morty, with subtitled dialogue that says: Wubbalubbadubdub! That's my new thing! I'm kind of like, what's his name, Arsenio! Wubbalubbadubdub! See you next week. Beside the screenshot is a picture of the mentioned Arsenio, who is the titular character to a sitcom called The Arsenio Hall Show End ID

Rick has ATROCIOUS main character syndrome. Truly obnoxious. We happen to be enjoying (debate-able) it from our TV screens, but he doesn’t know that! Hoe’s just calling his family ‘side characters’ and taking them on traumatizing ‘B plot’ adventures to humor-cope with his multiverse induced nihilism. (it is NOT WORKING)

Dan Harmon, as a big fan of the storytelling theory behind sitcoms, has a thing for these type of self-aware-but-not-really characters in his shows. Abed (from his other well-known sitcom named ‘Community') is basically a film student obsessed with film tropes—

Which means he’s eternally making meta self-aware quips on the show without actually being self-aware. He’s not Deadpool, he's just a movie nerd.

It's a wink and a nod to show the audience, Hey, we’re aware that nowadays people are savvy enough to comment on when they’re in a wacky sitcom plot.

This is ‘some looney tunes type shit,’ amirite guys?

(This trick is called lampshading, it got popular recently with Marvel movies and the influence of Joss Whedon's writing (@dingdongyouarewrong), but it's also going through a bit of cliche fatigue right now. "That happened" jokes are an example that I know so many people are sick of, partly because it feels like writers include self-awareness/lampshading as a shield from criticism by pretending you can't critique a problem they're self-aware about!

Let me highlight it to you in the rest of this essay as a tool in satire/pastiche.)

'Donkey Hotel' (according to my speech to text)

To explain Donkey Hotel's deal, I must remark: This guy is on some ancient mental illness type beat.

Now, in the ancient era of Hippocrates, there used to be the hot idea that there are four major human temperaments, and these temperaments are influenced by the balances of liquids in our body called humors. And that an imbalance of the four would lead to an over representing of a temperament.

Don Quixote had a 'Choleric' temperament, which is an overrepresentation of yellow bile and characterized with qualities such as 'hot and dry' and emotional irregularities such as increased anger or behaving irrationally. That's our knight!

Now obviously we know that the idea of 4 Humors in our body controlling our temperament is a BS simplification of mental health, BUT, there’s usually a kernel of truth in ancient theories. The universe really was made up of elements like Aristotle theorized, just not the fire, earth, water, air that he thought they were.

Similarly, our author our man, Cervantes, was using the 4 Humors more to develop a physical/biological explanation to Don's mental illness.

All this to say, Don Quixote is currently deluding himself into believing he is a gallant knight, off to defend the honor of his lady love, the total paragon of a chivalric romance novel because, and I quote, “he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits.”

Let's pause.

An escapist stupor that completely wiped the mind of its host?

(FANART BY @so-engery! Check them out!)

ID Two images. One is is Gustave Dore's "Don Quixote Dreaming" drawing. The other is Disco Elysium fanart by Marie Enger @so-engery. Both showcase the main character of their respective works, slumped and surrounded by mad figments of their imagination, highlighting the parallels between the two. Harry with his Skill voices and Don with knights and fairytale creatures. End ID.

That’s our boy, Harrier Du Bois right there!

And while obviously Harry's condition at the start of Disco Elysium is more based on modern understanding of psychology (aka alcohol did it to him, not intense insomnia and a chivalric romance bookathon), it’s real neat we get this this little parallel before we even dig into Harry!

Now, with that neat explanation of why he’s self-aware out of the way, Don Quixote’s deal: Again, he’s not actually self-aware, he’s quite possibly the opposite of self-aware, and EVERYBODY (even the audience!) knows it. He’s only self aware in the sense that he’s acting like a character in a fictional story, which he is, but he’s got the wrong genre.

He thinks he’s in an action/romance, but he’s actually in real life—A satire of the action/romance genre!

Well, caveat.

Is Don Donning the 'Don' Inspirationally or is he Donning the 'Don' to Act as a Don About the Downs of Chivalry?

I read it as Don Quixote donning the 'don' title to act as a don at the college of 'please touch grass and stop romanticizing romantic chivalry.'

A super popular adaptational take, however, is to read him like he's an inspirational dreamer held back by a harsh reality.

Big Nate's Book Reviews on YouTube did a sweet review that highlights this perspective, along with his lil doobie,

that Don Quixote's perspective brings fresh child-like imagination and fantasy to the mundanity of the lives of the people around him. Nate says that Don Quixote and Sancho are "Truly the homies;" they're the first times he's ever felt that he could "find friends in characters in a book."

So there's definitely a joy and a message to the dreamer reading! BUT I tend to be a bit cynical about this, like it can feel a bit too similar to USAmerican Exceptionalism to me.

To clarify what I mean, let's do a Rick parallel.

Don Quixote, as a character, is more similar to the FANS of Rick and Morty than he is to Rick. (Which is its own commentary about how little we have progressed as a society since this book was published like 400 years ago, but also the way media is influenced by prior media.)

To explain THAT, lemme first say that there’s a sort of meta irony (which is how I describe this phenomena according to J-Reg’s theory of satire, but I don’t know the actual name of this) in the ‘he’s just like me fr’ guys. ‘Literally me’ guys. Guys who pseudo imitate Patrick Bateman, literally any Ryan gosling character, etc.

ID A youtube screenshot of 3 different videos titled "literally me" "Literally Me" or "Literally me (I'm mentally insane)" with different Ryan Reynolds characters as the thumbnail. In the "I'm mentally insane" video description, one of the tags is the word "sigma." End ID

Often these characters are meant to be made fun of as parodies of another trope, like Don Quixote is to a chivalric romance protagonist, but there’s a certain subset of the audience that is either too dumb to get it or just doesn’t have the context or background to get it.

Like the dudes who watch fight club, and just end up making fight clubs of their own. Or the way people misinterpreted Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ as celebrating the US, instead of its true message of lambasting the US for its hypocritical treatment of its veterans. Or the glorification of Rorschach from Watchmen despite him basically being a MAGA. Or the way USAmericans didn’t get Starship Troopers because it was a parody of US military fascism.

There are tons of examples of these because of satire usually says more about the reader/viewer than it does about the author, like a Rorschach test (he really is aptly named). (And it’s why it’s more often fascists/conservatives wildly misinterpreting leftist media. People are more likely to come with a conservative perspective than vice versa bc conservatism is, by its definition, the norm. Though this does still happen on more progressive sides e.g. TJLC.) They didn't see or chose not to see the irony.

Cue the Reddit dudebros misinterpreting Disco Elysium as pro centrist or “all ideologies are equally bad" and the INSANE 'you have to have a high IQ...' 'rick is good and objectively correct' Rick and Morty fans.

ID Two screenshots. One of the infamous "To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand Rick and Morty" copypasta. One of a Disco Elysium Reddit post titled "Disco Elysium is Not Politically In Favor Of Any Ideology." End ID

Speaking of Rick and Morty fans, this is what I mean by the idea that Don Quixote is more like Rick's fans than he is like Rick. Much like the way Don un-self-aware-ly misinterprets his satirical reality for the chivalric romance of his favorite novels, so too do Rick and Morty fans un-self-aware-ly misinterpret Rick's nihilist satire on the sitcom for what is cool and good to do in real life. Plus, I can totally see these type of dudes unironically saying "Milady" to keep chivalry alive. But, there's one level further to this, beyond even seeing the irony, which I call the 'he's just like me fr' guys.

Now, in the case of the 'he's just like me fr' guys, it's not that they're mistaking the satire for sincerity—they totally understand that Patrick Bateman is a satirical take on Yuppie 'grind till you make it alpha' culture.

They're doing a secret third thing—meta irony—where they understand that Patrick Bateman is meant to be bad but act like they're un-self-aware and missed the irony anyway.

It's supposed to be a joke, buuuuut it's a joke the same way people will say "SLAY!" as a joke until it's unironically a part of their vocabulary. The ambiguity is key.

I'd argue that the dreamer Quixote approach is an application of 'he's just like me fr' view to Don Quixote, where he's 'a Chad rejecting reality in favor of the perseverance of man's whimsy' to some people, even as they joke that he's delusional ("Literally me (I'm mentally insane)").

Don Quixote certainly isn't doing it on purpose—again, he's un-self-aware, and he even got bullied out of it in part 2 (which admittedly I haven't read). Yet, there's a genuine sadness there of a man with such a penchant for adventure getting bullied that makes you wanna start humoring him.

It's ironic but not: Meta irony.

ID A screenshot of Jreg's "Post-Irony, Meta-Irony, and Post-Truth Satire (Video)" thumbnail. End ID

But yeah, meta irony is all fine and dandy when it's about slaying, but when it's about emulating the patriarchal psychopath, Patrick Bateman, or using edge-y humor to spread alt-right talking points, you start to wonder if there can be something insidious to the 'he's just like me fr' approach.

To put it best, the wild popularity of the Dreamer Don Quixote interpretation feels like the result of USAmerican 'grind till you make it' 'individual exceptionalism' 'it would suck for you, but i'm built different' values distorting the absurdity of being a reality denying dreamer, the same way we struggle to understand the Starship Troopers because it just feels normal/celebratory to us.

Don Quixote

So I think Don Quixote resonates strongest, for me, in the way it boldly states that reality is beautiful and worth living in without needing the opium of escapist fantasy.

For one, Cervantes is a rare ye olden feminist king who takes the time to point out that one man's escapist chivalric masculine fantasy is another woman's misogynistic reality.

To demonstrate, he has many examples of female characters telling off men for projecting romantic fantasies on them, but a more relevant way is how he writes Don Quixote as literally renaming some random woman he's never met 'Dulcinea' because he's decided she is his Lady he's given his eternal servitude to.

He renames her Dulcinea because it's "a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon, and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself and the things belonging to him."

Which is PEAK satire of the misogynistic objectification of chivalry. If only the Rick and Morty "Milady" stans had the self-awareness this book had 400 years ago.

(Sidebar, but does anybody else think Don Quixote would make an absolutely killer Drag King persona? Don Queerote... Plus the ballet about him would help with the pre-existing choreo/music. Just a thought!)

But on another level, Don Quixote is full of interesting characters or stories outside of the chivalric knight conceit!

ID Pen illustrations (aka engravings by Gustave Dore) of two events happening simultaneously at the same inn in Don Quixote. The one above is of Don's assault on the wineskins in his sleep. The one below is of the reunion of Dorotea, Luscinda, Cardenio, and Fernando in the inn. End ID

People often clown on the novel for having so much time dedicated to the soap opera antics of side characters totally unrelated to the knight plot, but their antics being outside of Quixote's chivalric view emphasizes how life is interesting even when you're not following a delusional knight lifestyle!

Romance and reunions and betrayals that Don never really understands because he's too busy fighting windmills and wineskins! Yes, the delusion allowed him to go out and explore the world, but there's something so silly and sad about missing whimsy of real life in favor of living in escapist Knight Fanfiction. Reading about Cervantes's soap-opera-worthy life only reinforces this whimsy for reality and touching grass.

The Self-Aware Player of Harry Du Bois

Preface: My main experience is JRPGs, not so much other Western RPGs and tabletop games. So although I’m saying it’s a satire of these tropes, and I noticed a lot of these things as ‘satire’ and 'parody,' I’m not totally enmeshed in the subculture the creators were going for, so I might need some corrections. 

Finally, this transitions into the deal with Harry! It's fascinating to me to think about how satire is used as the 'touch grass' or 'be fucking for real' genre. Oftentimes it's making fun of tropes/conventions by humorously contrasting them with reality—so how does this play out with the RPG!?

Weeellll, it goes hand in hand with the idea of RPGs as escapist power fantasy. RPGs are often thought of as the ultimate self-insert fantasy by its detractors or worst players, ahem looking at all those DND horror stories about entitled mangsty murderhobos.

One of the most infamous criticisms of Disco Elysium is its lackluster combat.

ID A screenshot of a random forum discussion post by dungeon master Zed Duke of Banville. It reads: "Disco Elysium has neither combat nor exploration, and therefore is missing two of the three fundamental components (or sets of components) that define the RPG genre." End ID

The game has essentially bordered off your ability to make Harry into a power fantasy murderhobo because you just are physically unable to equip an longsword or cuisse to murder your average citizen on the street of Martinaise.

But even on a less mangsty level, it subverts a lot of the basic expectations of RPGs.

Like the encounter with the racist lorry driver! You never get the ability or quest to change his mind, you only choose how you react to him.

Where other RPGs might let you act as the white savior or the white knight of chivalric romance, no questions asked, you're changing the minds of everybody who's wrong so we can all get along, Disco Elysium really makes you confront your ability to whiteknight, makes you confront if whiteknighting is even helpful, and why you wanted to whiteknight in the first place.

It’s part of the fun/humor experience of Disco Elysium that you at first expect to solve the world’s problems with a couple quests and lines of ‘good’ dialogue and then get socked in the faced with the fact that yeah, you can’t do much, you’re one person, what did you expect, asshole? Cuno doesn't fucking care!

ID a screenshot of Disco Elysium dialogue YOU - "Don't call it a dump, you've made it nice and cosy here." NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Yeah." She stares out of the window, not really hearing your words. "Or maybe it's the entire world that's cursed? It's such a precarious place. Nothing ever works out the way you wanted." "That's why people like role-playing games. You can be whoever you want to be. You can try again. Still, there's something inherently violent even about dice rolls." "It's like every time you cast a die, something disappears. Some alternative ending, or an entirely different world...." She picks up a pair of dice from the table and examines them under the light. End ID

Like, Neha is highlighting this little meta element of how you can stack your Harry in any RPG to pursue a certain ending or situation, but the actual outcome is still influenced by a dice roll out of your control.

A lot of the satirical humor in Disco Elysium comes from the absurdity that you can do everything right or everything wrong, and the dice can still fuck it up or save it for you—not just for things like high-fantasy attacks, but mundane things like remembering your name.

The dice are, at their core, about how RPGs aren't just for the control fantasy, of winning high-fantasy battles, but also can represent life as it is, mundane and uncontrollable.

Similarly, Harry is clearly written—complete with all the 'lore' that this would entail—to couch his RPG protagonist nature in the real.

If RPG characters are blank slates? Let's give ours amnesia! Need fast travel?! Kim teases the 41st Precinct for constantly running everywhere by calling it the Jamrock Shuffle. He needs to have deep and intimate conversations with everyone, even when they're strangers? Yeah, that's so weird we gave him the name 'Human Can-Opener,' and everybody remarks on his uncanny manipulation skills.

It's commenting on difference between controlling an RPG avatar and navigating in a human body.

As Kurvits said: “In reality we do not have control, or complete control, of our minds. Just like our body, it is something that we give-not even commands wishes to, and we hope it's gonna do it. We hope it's not gonna break down, we hope it's not gonna rebel against us.”

In one type of RPG fantasy, we don't even question our total control and even assume the joy is from the control. But in Disco Elysium, we lack control and find joy in it anyway. That is the fun of the game making us, the players, 'self-aware' about its RPG elements, and it especially resonates with anybody not able-bodied, anybody neurodivergent.

Harry Du Bois and Self-Awareness: Copotypes? More like Cope-otypes.

So that's on Disco Elysium and being aware of RPG elements in general, but let's deep dive into Harry and his Copotypes and political alignments like the OP!

I kind of want to round this last one out with what this all means. WHY am I, and others, linking self-awareness and satire? What's the link here?

Irony is one of the major tools of satirical writing, and there's always a little irony in being self-aware and doing it anyway, I think. It's specifically that Meta-Ironic element/Lampshading that is so rich for Touch-Grass satire because it parallels the futility/irony of self-awareness in real life.

The copotypes work this way.

ID A screenshot of a youtube comment. @jbeast3385 "Harry fundamentally takes on extreme interpretations of every ideology in the game as a coping mechanism for the tragedy that is his life, and it's amazing to see the amount of care given to extending an understanding of why each ideology appeals to his fractured mind. Each quest makes him something of a Don Quixote, searching for a purer purpose through political thought, failing spectacularly with it, but still fundamentally developing him and inspiring others beside him." End ID

The copotypes and the political alignments are a parody of classes and moral alignments. Rather than being a knight or a wizard, you're a superstarcop or a sorrycop! They don't do much, like there are no fireballs for an art cop, but they do poke fun at the ways the player is choosing to play Harry! Instead of chaotic good or neutral evil, you can be a communard or an ultralib! Which both involve spouting hilariously inappropriate talking points to the other citizens of Revachol.

What's fascinating, as @fagcrisis of this post says, is that these alignments are statements of how your Harry copes with the real world and the past/how he justifies what he does.

From the Solution to the Boring Cop Thought:

When someone says something political, the first three thoughts in your head are a ludicrous hodgepodge of communism, fascism and stock tips. When they ask you why you did something, it's superstardom, apocalypse, or the *mea culpas* of a flagellant cop monk

You start off making some choices based on the limited dialogue options of Harry's bizarre personality. If you play it like any other RPG power fantasy, BAM, the game hits you with the "Regular Law Official" thought, and you're labeled "Boring Cop." Or if you're apologizing to get the 'good' route, BAM, the game hits you with the "Rigorous Self-Critique" thought, and you're labelled "Sorry Cop!"

The game makes you 'aware' of your playing style, a little poke to say 'Stop being so scared of failures! You're boring! Sorry is not enough! Stop trying to be 'lawful good' (ACAB) and be a human!'

From the same Solution:

It's not easy, reaching for the fourth option -- the normal one. But you have. And now you're not *just* crazy, you're also *boring*.

Some people get this taste of self-awareness and fully embrace diving into the deep end of the game—Disco baby! Others lean into the sorry/boring/moralist cop in an ironic 'self-aware' sort of way—like the technique of Lampshading, since we're our own writers as RPG players.

But on a Harry level, it's also about HIM becoming self-aware of his habits, of internalizing these thoughts about his actions, his past, his coping mechanisms.

Seeking either “sweet oblivion” or to become “a different kind of animal,” many of the possible roleplaying choices are rooted in his desire to forget, evade or reframe the past. Whether self-destruction through drug abuse, fantasies of superstardom or visions of impending doom; it’s all in the service of not wanting to face the past, and the disastrous effects Harry’s continuous failure to do so has had on his life. - Vice

As the @fagcrisis of this post noted, Dora pretty much ALWAYS mentions the way Harry escapes reality by thinking of himself as an archetype, like other people are NPCs in an RPG. "like hes a self aware character but in the shitty way where him knowing he is a character and him acting like it only makes it worse because there isnt a story to escape from, he just cant cope with the real world" He's pulling a meta-ironic ''he's just like me fr" with Guillaume Le Million (who hangs himself) and superstardom the way "he's just like me fr" guys do it for Ryan Gosling.

And each copotype and political alignment are an opportunity to satirically critique the flaws and failures of each coping mechanism.

Cope-otype: Fascism

"Fascism, being marked, according to Paxton, by a need to compensate for humiliation, promises easy solutions to someone like Harry. It’s a crutch to prop up threatened masculinity, a rhetoric to shift blame for personal failings to ominous outside forces." - Vice

This game's satirical take on fascism is sort of perfect, literally making it about the lower intestines, 'gut instinct,' and bullshit (@spilledkaleidoscope). To be frank, fascists are 'full of shit,' and the vision quest highlights the way fascism isn't about a coherent ideology like 'returning to the past,' but rather it's a hodgepodge of SHIT thrown together to prop up hurt ego, threatened masculinity, of giving an easy scape-goated answer to the question of how Harry's supposed to face his past and his future.

The answer? He shoots it.

It's accurate in a way that doesn't reinforce the 'cool' aesthetics and pageantry fascism is obsessed with, what with literally calling fascists full of shit and all. Kim notices your change in expression, your stoic 'noble suffering' fascist face, and immediately calls it constipated. Bless.

Yet, even as Kim calls you out, even as you're aware of fascism's failures, how it destroys you ala Harry Du Bois -> Detective Raphaël Ambrosius Costeau, Fascist!Harry still believes because he can't face a wounded ego.

Cope-otype: Ultralib

Ultralibs on the other hand? I think it's telling that Idiot Doom Spiral is basically ultralib Harry's foil and a major questline NPC—the one who gives you Tequila Sunset.

Even the names are foils. Idiot Doom Spiral names himself that way to romanticize it, to make it into a marketable story, "but it keeps him in this state too, like a vicious cycle. The name ‘George’ is a name that still connects him to humanity," while Idiot Doom Spiral is a way to 'accept his place' even though it's miserable and keeps him from doing something about it, nor connect with other people, as @kindaeccentric put it in this post.

Similarly, the megarich light bending guy in the UltraLib quest LITERALLY is much more unlikely to connect with poorer people because the Rougon-Macquart coefficient literally dictates that we cannot see the richest people because their networth bends the light around them. It's an inversion of the way rich people are ignorant to poverty in real life, and here's a really good fic that covers this coefficient!

Finally, this mirrors Tequila Sunset as a name as well, the way it's a cope for hating himself. Instead of being miserable, he glorifies his misery by calling himself a funky, disco drink name, even as it symbolizes being washed up or even symbolizes the pale swallowing all, depending on how you play him (@palin-tropos).

So much of the ultralib plotline is about adding value — whether by sprucing yourself up with a new name like Tequila or Idiot or by 're-conceptualization' — through stuff like grind/hustle culture. An obsession with increasing networth but also 'giving back' to the community, as philanthropists put it.

But the satire of the ultralib vision quest is highlighting how hollow 'adding value' is, how much of it's just competition for wealth for the sake of wealth with no real meaningful answer or value.

ID Two screenshots of the game Disco Elysium. The first is of the horseback monument as it is. A matrix of cables and ropes isolate the fragmented bits in thin air. The second is described as this through in-game dialogue: HORSEBACK MONUMENT - The scaffolding around the old monument has been taken down, In its place are the spoils of your investment. Numerous rods and ropes still hold the original reassemblage in place. YOU- Reflect on the re-conceptualization. HORSEBACK MONUMENT - An apricot sceptre shines party-bright across the monument. Glitter balls dangle like severed heads below the eternal king of disco. It is unmistakably a vision of you in your prime -- a killer on the performance floor, icon for all. End ID

It's 'reconceptualizing' the Horseback Monument — the symbol of both the bombing of the revolution and the enduring of spirit the communards anyways, the way they've built a monument to freeze in time the moment of the profligate king being blown up — by building it in your own image. The fact that to do so you need to exploit the labor of an artist so you can make a profit, and it doesn't truly 'give back' to the community in any way. In fact, it's almost the opposite, like you've ruined the community monument by painting yourself AS THE KING.

It's why even Harry admits that "You're just insane, insane and gone. Even six billion won't fix you if she’s not there." Each copotype and political ideology contends with their own version of this as Harry learns to grow and face his past head on.

The Marriage of Fictional Conventions and Real Human Psychology

In the end, you can't just lean into an ideology or an archetype and hope that it'll answer all you problems.

But more than that — being self-aware about your issues doesn't solve anything either, no more than lampshading "fixes" any problems with your TV show.

It is this parallel between what Harry learns as he progresses and what the player learns as they progress that makes us empathize/resonate with Harry.

From acting erratically, then realizing it's part of an ideology, self-awarely adopting an ideology, to seeing how it fails and learning not to hide behind it. From "He's a blank slate so I can project my power fantasy onto him," then "I don't actually have a lot of power or control here," to "He's not just my RPG character, he's a person."

He's becoming a person, twice over.

It's ludonarrative resonance or consistency. A marriage of literary convention and real human psychology, on two scales.

And this resonance demonstrates why this genre of self-aware pastiche character is so popular: At it's best, you're forced to contend with the characters as fully realized people, paradoxically because they highlight the difference between fictional conventions and reality.

By acknowledging and poking fun of the fictional conventions, Harry Du Bois, Don Quixote, and Rick Sanchez feel more real to us.

And their stories come packaged with rich themes about dangers of disconnecting yourself from reality and the short distance 'self-awareness' alone can take you, which will resonate with almost every one of us here on the Internet. At least, I know it resonated with me.

BONUS:

Shen Yuan from Scum Villain Self-Saving System (@whetstonefires) also fits this list!!!!!!

#harry du bois #de #disco elysium #don quixote #rick and morty #rick sanchez #satire #metas #analysis #literary analysis #meta #ludonarrative dissonance #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writing #breaking the fourth wall #breaking the 4th wall #pastiche #lampshading #irony #meta irony #irony poisoning

[akookminsupporter]

I am sure you may have already gotten this ask so feel free to provide a generic response. Jungkook deleting his IG is such a powerful move because in this time of high social media interactions, he doesn’t give a rats ass about the most superficial of platforms. And he has every right to choose to step away from it.

But you will always have conspiracy theorists and detractors who would want to read more into the actions of the members despite them clarifying. Jungkook’s IG account deletion is being labelled as either his rebellion against the company for restricting him or a deletion by the company it’s self for not abiding by policies or going on unsupervised and unauthorised lives. Despite him being a grown man with agency.

What’s your take on this?

Ha! this is the ask that was above yours.

People are saying Hybe make JK delete his IG and that JK did not delete because he doesn’t use it much. They say it’s because of all the unauthorized wlives he did. I just wanna know your thoughts on this

Obviously many will think all that. This fandom likes their theories no matter how absurd or stupid they are.

This fandom has many problems, but 4 of the main ones are the hero complex, the need to pigeonhole the members as victims, the demonisation of HYBE/BIGHIT and ignoring what the members say. We could talk about these four problems separately, but we can really boil them down to one complex - the fandom thinks it knows best. The fandom thinks it knows what bts members need, what's going on with them, what they want and what bothers them. they know all that better than the members themselves. The fandom, or many in it, have taken this weird parasocial relationship with bts to extremes and like everything that is taken to extremes, it is no good.

This hero complex is with all members, whether individually or as a group, but I have noticed since coming into the fandom, that it is particularly strong with the Maknae Line.

For many, the Maknae Line is being oppressed and exploited by the big bad HYBE/BIGHIT. The whole group, really, they are being taken advantage of! And that's why the maknae Line likes to "rebel" against them. I've always read how the agency and the company don't treat them well, make them do this or that and I'm just dumbfounded by so much… stupidity.

When you become a fan of a K-pop group I think it's almost impossible not to learn a little bit about the industry itself - although sometimes, a lot of times you learn that information from the wrong media. I think many of us know about the inhumane treatment many agencies have with their idols, the stupid behavioural clauses, forcing them to do things they don't want to do etc., that's unfortunately still relatively common in that industry, but I think it's also obvious that HYBE/BIGHIT isn't like that or at least not to the extremes that other companies go to and definitely not with BTS. Or not anymore.

BTS is HYBE/BIGHIT's golden goose. They started it all, they gave the company the opportunity to grow the way it has. Many argue about whether bts paved the way for the K-pop industry or not, but they did pave the way, at least financially, for the groups under HYBE. The report a few weeks ago that HYBE presented showed that bts still brings in the most economic income to the company, more than all other artists combined, despite having stopped activities as a group since June 2022, basically. And you still think that the company would deliberately do something to harm them?

I'm not a corporate apologist by any stretch of the imagination, but to pretend that bts members don't benefit from HYBE/BIGHIT as well, is stupid. Many seem to forget when it suits them that bts also own shares in that company.

But the worst part of this narrative is that these people don't realise how insulting it is to the artists they swear to love and claim to want to protect. To believe that the company is exploiting them, forcing them to do something they don't want to do and deliberately harming them in some way is also to believe that the members are useless, pusillanimous people who don't know how to stand up for themselves. It is believed that bts does not apply what they preach so much in their songs, in their campaigns, or in their concerts. It is to believe that the members of bts do not apply what many in this fandom brag about them preaching. They stand for. And that obviously doesn't make sense.

In this particular case, Jungkook is without a doubt one of the most important artists in the company. He generates a lot of income as part of the group and individually. The interest in him is out of this world. In business terms, Jungkook is a precious asset to the company and yet you think the company could force him to do or not do something?

In one of his last Wlives, Jungkook talked about how the company doesn't allow them to do Wlives without notice and I don't know what else but he still did it. In the Wlive where Tae joined for a few moments, they talked about how "the company would scold them" but they still didn't care, Tae even said that he would take responsibility. And in the next Wlive that Jungkook did, someone asked him if he was scolded and Jungkook basically said 'do they really think they could forbid me to do something?' which brings us to the problem of this fandom forgetting what the members say when it doesn't fit their narrative.

If what these people say were true, it would make more sense for HYBE/BIGHIT to ban Jungkook from doing Wlives unsupervised, in the middle of the night than to order him to delete an account on a social media platform he hadn't used for a long time. But no, this fandom HATES to believe in the most logical explanations regarding anything bts related because then they wouldn't be able to "activate" their hero complex.

Jungkook is different. He walks to the beat of his own drum and is also somewhat impulsive. I don't doubt for a minute that he deleted/deactivated his Instagram account because he didn't see any benefit or use for it and because I felt that the novelty of the app had worn off for him for a while now. When Jungkook deleted all his posts and edited his feed in a more "professional" manner I remember thinking that he was getting bored of the app and like most of what Jungkook gets bored of, he would put it aside. And so it happened. Although it took him a while to do it.

I also think that the sasaengs' obsession with stalking him and so on also made him fed up, maybe it was something he saw in his account and he got tired of it. Getting away from toxicity is always necessary.

#anon #ask #Jungkook #fandom #toxic fans #rosie's thoughts #rosie's opinion

[skylitcreations]

Hi! choosing violence with 1 and 13 🤔

This is old and I don't remember the exact questions, I just remember that I planned to respond entirely in regards to Scratch. Obviously, everything here is theory and everyone's theories are valid, I just have my own take that I feel a lot of people haven't talked about.

I honestly feel like too many people separate AWAN Scratch and AW2 Scratch instead of thinking of the possible ways the first could develop into the other. I know a lot of people are jumping on the idea that Scratch is just Tom now rather than thinking of more options. Don't get me wrong, I love that theory too, but I interpreted it differently personally.

I honestly think it's more along the lines of Tom took on the 'acceptable' bad traits Alan has while Scratch took on more of the 'unacceptable' traits. But even that is a bit too much of an oversimplification, I feel.

Whenever the echoes talk about Scratch off-screen, he's still charismatic and charming. But what would be the point of showing that to Alan? With the scenes Alan writes involving him, there's very singular goals in mind. I feel like when Alan 'cut the fat' in his writing, he took out the little taunting fun times and just left them off-screen so he could avoid making things too complicated.

I also feel like Alan is an unreliable narrator. He refuses to see that what Scratch is could very well be him if he just let go of his inhibitions and empathy. He'd rather turn him into a boogie man made up of rumors about him rather than face that he's actually made up of the sides of him he doesn't want to acknowledge. Why would he want to see any of the charm and charisma when he could instead make Scratch into a disembodied force that he just has to run away from? It's easier to not face his demons if his demons no longer look like him or have a proper voice of their own. And if he can just give Scratch the bloodthirsty, angry aspects he doesn't want to acknowledge and then never have to actually see him and only see the aftermath, he can pretend those aspects are not a part of him much more easily.

Meanwhile, I feel like Tom is the traits he's come to acknowledge as bad but is willing to accept. He likes to party, he has a substance abuse problem, he can fake interest in people to keep the party going (to an extent, of course), he can be manipulative, he procrastinates to avoid writing, etc. Basically, the relatively tame stuff that's easier for most people to acknowledge and accept. Most people don't want to accept that they might enjoy killing people or be fine with sacrificing others to get what they want. Most people will look at killing and excessive anger as unacceptable traits and find it hard to reconcile with those being a part of their own yearnings.

And between AWAN and AW2, Alan has a LOT more blood on his hands. AWAN Scratch had fun with individual killings, picking people off one by one, much like Alan had only sacrificed a few people so far and thought more about them individually throughout that process. By the time AW2 comes around, though, he's killed countless people, many just from the Hiss invasion alone. And many of those deaths were not thought out on an individual basis. AW2 Scratch seems to take on this approach to killing, sacrificing innocent people in mass murders for the sole reason of setting the scene. Hell, I'd argue that just the fact that he puts the deer mask on the fan above Alan for the lulz is a sign that he's still the same guy, just off-screen. Let's just commit mass murder in as bloody of a way possible and then take a moment to clean off one of the deer masks, get it up onto the ceiling fan, cover Alan in as much blood as possible, and then lay down underneath the fan like 'lol he's gonna love this'. That sounds a lot less like the feral beast people have interpreted him as and much more like the Scratch we knew already.

And why show that side to Saga? She's keeping him from his goal and he has no reason to care about how she perceives him. He's angry and focused and who knows how much control he actually has over Alan's body? He clearly can't hide when he's out because the darkness starts showing externally, so why bother being charming and trying to get the Clicker in any other way? She is merely an obstacle and he can't fool her.

I feel like there's so much potential for character development between AWAN and AW2 Scratch that people are just not bothering with cuz they would rather think Tom is the new Scratch and I honestly think that's a shame.

#alan wake #mr scratch #tom zane #meta

[lemonhemlock]

Sooooo tired of the Team Black allegations. For the 1256th time, they either do NOT like Helaemond and dislike it as well OR don't care about it at all. Sure, there are some self declared Helaemonds out there who say they are Team Black but they're like…five people??? Why is it so difficult to admit Helaemonds are 99% Greens? Otherwise yes, there are trolls who will love the drama of the kids being bastards or simply the idea of the Green side having its own incestuos affair because it will paint the fans who hate incest as hypocrites (and many are for sure since they ship Helaegon, sorry, but it is the truth) as they will have to defend Aemond from it but do we have to care about them and their opinions? They're going to find stupid and baseless reasons to hate the Greens regardless of Helaemond becoming canon. F**k them. Also, this whole Team Black thing is very transparent and reminds me of the times when Al*smonds and antis were accusing Helaemond shippers of being secretly Team Black because they want to justify Blood & Cheese and paint the Greens as hypocrites. Yes, this happened.

Thank you for pointing out Aemond's duty to his Baratheon betrothed. You're actually one of the very few Green bloggers who do so. For some reasons most forget, or pretend to, about this which is…very telling! I also hate the theory that Aemond will stop caring about duty after Storm's End and B&C. Although not impossible like you've mentioned, for Aemond to act as if he can go and do anything is very child like behavior and feels like it would be really bad characterization and, at least in my opinion, will make him really, really unlikable as a person. No matter how awful he will be feeling about himself, his remaining family still depends on him honoring his promise to the Baratheons. It's literally a matter of life and death, he can't just say "Fuck duty, fuck everyone, I will be marrying Alys because I can and want to" and expect no consequences, especially militarily. Why should the Baratheons accept such an insult? Having bastards is one thing, he would very easily get away with it being a man, but marrying a bastard servant twice his age? Do these people think he can marry Alys and, if he wins his battle against Daemon, return with her as his wife to King's Landing afterwards? Do they think the remaining lords should simply accept it?

I'm not kidding, if they go with this interpretation, with Aemond not giving a fuck anymore, I will only 100% ship him with Dark Sister. I'm not sure I can bear how insufferable antis will become if Aemond will be leaving his remaining family's fates to the Blacks for a woman, because this is what the whole affair would essentially be even if they will claim it to be a tragic love story and go after anyone else who disagree as they're doing right now. And I hate even more how the same people who use the duty BS argument against Helaemond claim that he married Alys BECAUSE he is DUTIFUL and didn't want their kid to be a bastard. It's just baffling. The hypocrisy is amazing. Yeah, I get it, we should like it because love >>> duty and Aemond still became a kinslayer despite following his duty so why he should care about it anymore? but regardless, these people we are talking about are royals whose actions have deep repercussions across the entire realm. They can't do whatever they want even if it's in the name of love.

Also the idea that we should protect Helaegon from the infidelity allegations when show!Aegon is out there cheating (and raping women) on Helaena is just sick, and dare I say misogynistic. It's simply insane to expect her to stay faithful to him no matter what, especially if there is someone out there who genuinely loves her and vice-versa. Why is it that every time a situation like this comes up (the man cheating with other women) it is ALWAYS on the wife to remain faithful?

I have to say that this post had me in stitches, so thank you for that. I basically agree with everything you've said, love the passion & also, you're going to love this, because I was on Four Storms alert ever since my first Aemond/Alys post. [For any new visitors, there's more in my tag + this particular post that delves some of the points anon is talking about, with contributions from many other friendly voices. Also, ofc, my Maris/Aemond cinematic universe. Alrite, enough shameless self-promotion].

Yeah, the idea that we should protect the sanctity of the helaegon marriage never really sat right with me when Aegon is out there cheating left and right and Aemond is making the beast with two backs with a random woman he's known for 5 minutes. Meanwhile Helaena is subjected to indescribable trauma and gets a horrific ending, but she's not even allowed some measure of reprieve after the showrunners made sure to depict even her book!decent!marriage as sketchy. Personally, this concept of unconsummated courtly love rings rather too flavourless to my ears, as well - what can I say. To each their own, but it's kind of unfair to Helaena.

A further observation I would like to make is that I, too, often find this discourse on Aemond's sense of duty lacking, because many fans seem to treat duty like a switch. "Aemond is dutiful up to X point in this linear timeline I've decided upon (and any alternative interpretation is blasphemy and should be vigorously suppressed), after which his sense of duty completely dissipates because I need to make his relationship with Alys ~romantic~ and he basically doesn't give a shit about his family or political responsibilities anymore." I actually think helaemonds have the right of this, because they're always more likely to paint Aemond as a conflicted figure, consumed by a very byronic inner turmoil, who's always teetering on the edge of doing what's right by his family vs experiencing the freedom of giving into his own desires for once. It is within that precarious balancing act that you can build the most compelling dark princely figure that makes the girlies' hearts a-flutter! Whereas the first interpretation feels very robotic and soulless to me, yes, perhaps even shippable with Dark Sister.

To close off, nothing would ever justify Blood & Cheese, even IF Helaena's kids would be Aemond's. The retributive "payment" for Luke's life would be Aemond's life aka his actual killer END OF. "A son for a son" does not make sense and is not justified - that was always the point of it. Needless brutality, the horrific inhumanity of it. Killing off innocents who had absolutely nothing to do with the act is not how people enacted retributive justice. I'm pretty sure Hammurabi would agree with me on this.

#ask #anon #helaemond #blood & cheese #riverdragon #anti alysmond

[gerardpilled]

how's it feel to a be a lesbian on mcr tumblr? I know a lot of trans ppl are fans and have those kinds of connections to their music. is it any different for you?

This is a real interesting question thank you for asking!!!

Hm. okay, so I'm not going to pretend being a white gay person in the mcr community is difficult, but i feel like the best way i could sum up any form of negative i might experience is "isolating"? It's been a journey, I guess. There's also positive.

Positive first: When it comes to their music, honestly i've never really had trouble relating to a perspective Gerard has taken in terms of identity. Gerard has mainly written about relationships with women, but also i never feel like i need to relate to a song 1 to 1 when it comes to singing about love and heartbreak if the song is good. plus i have always enjoyed using music as a means to empathize with different experiences rather than having it describe my own experience perfectly.

When it comes to being online -> as a teen i more or less identified as bisexual but even then i felt like i was missing something when i saw how people talked about the mcr members. I feel like i was just thinking "i'm not like other girls, I don't like mcr because i want to sleep with them". I would receive asks like "who would you rather fuck - gerard or frank" and i remember thinking "wait do people actually want to sleep with them..."

Nowadays it feels a little different. I don't know. It's complicated to explain my emotions towards this. Like, that confusion i feel when people seriously talk about wanting to fuck any of them is still there. But then there's Gerard. [full stop]. I am not saying I view Gerard as a woman or transfem (a label i feel like Gerard should give us before i feel comfortable seriously using it), but recently i've felt more of a connection to him and his identity. Personally, I have always kinda vibed with the idea that 'lesbian' is both a sexuality and a gender. I consider myself attracted to women and whatever fellow lesbians identify as, and have always kinda leaned towards more neutral-presenting people. Gerard is someone i have never met and probably never will meet in any meaningful capacity. To me, when looking at photos he is more or less an outer shell (which sounds insulting and dehumanizing but trust me it's not). I feel like any form of attraction i may feel towards him is with 25 different layers of mental filters and imaginary-versions-that-live-in-my-head. If I was in the room with him and was given the serious option to sleep with him, the answer would probably be no lol. BASICALLY I explained all that to say -> i feel almost like I have to watch what i say when making posts about how I think he looks hot or else i'm going to be accused of 'bad lesbian rep' or misgendering, and, idk. maybe it is breaking some kind of lesbian code. it's such an imaginary scenario that i don't really care.

But yeah, idk if any of that made sense. to be honest i don't really read a whole lot of theory or whatever surrounding the nuances of sexuality. I should also say all of this has been very theoretical LMFAO. I only really started going on dates last year and had my first kiss at 22. Was never really interested in hookups or anything like that. I am in a relationship now, but in general I have just not lived what people might consider the typical lesbian experience.

#long post #lesbianology

[on-wednesdays-we-eat-the-rich]

Rating the TMA fears based on how likely they are to Get Me

(because I already did one of these for how much they scare me and I'm getting back into my TMA fixation)

The Web

I'm not a big fan of spiders

I don't think I'd like to be around them for the rest of my life

could get used to it though...

as far as I'm aware I'm not very good at manipulation but I probably could be if I really wanted to

3/10

The Eye

to be honest this one seems more likely

I do quite like Knowing Things

I dunno, I just like learning cool stuff

8/10

The Dark

I am scarily close to being an adult and I'm still scared of the dark

the People's Church of the Divine Host can have their special spooky darkness but I'll stay away from it thanks

1/10

The Slaughter

I make a point of avoiding violence

however, I am often tempted to kick people who are dickheads

so it's probably not that likely but if someone pissed me off enough, the chances may increase

3/10

The Hunt

oh god I hate being hunted

I also hate hunting for people

I would definitely avoid this one

1/10

The Desolation

I'm not big on fire either

I guess it would be cool to not have to wear tons of clothes in winter

but I sleep with a weighted blanket and it gets hot under there even without being a human radiator

3/10

The Lonely

okay listen

there have been several times in my life when I've had no friends

and during those times, the Lonely would have yoinked me and I'd have let it

but I actually have some really great friends now!

so I reckon it's less likely

6/10

The Vast

heights are okay in theory but once I get up there my head's spinning

deep water scares me shitless

my motion sickness is bad enough during car journeys, I doubt I could stomach the Vast

1/10

The Spiral

I'm not saying I want to get yoinked by the Spiral but like... I can't say I'd put up much of a fight

hear me out: I already see colours and fractals everywhere because of my visual snow; I have a shitty sense of direction so every building with corridors is a maze to me; and I am a very good liar (it's a side effect of being an actor)

I think the only downside is that I am quite a paranoid person so that does make the Spiral low-key scary

9/10

The Corruption

mycology is one of my special interests so I have no problem with fungus

I do however have a problem with bugs

I'm just... not keen

3/10

The Buried

I'm not particularly claustrophobic

as I said, I have a weighted blanket

I'm kind of neutral about this one

like it's not terrifying but I still wouldn't really want to get yoinked by it

(why am I using the word yoink so much wtf)

4/10

The Flesh

okay so I'm conflicted about this one

on the one hand: gore, body horror, meat etc definitely have the potential to be gross and scary

on the other hand: I'm not all that sensitive to it? well, blood is okay at least. when you have eczema and repetitive nosebleeds you get used to seeing blood

like sometimes the Flesh is completely fine and sometimes it's OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK

5/10

The End

ugh god, death makes me want to have an existential crisis

I don't know what being an avatar of the End would involve but I wouldn't want to find out

the only way I would become an avatar is like, morbid curiosity

2/10

The Stranger

I'm already uncanny

(it's the autism)

sometimes I feel like I actually am an avatar of the Stranger because I feel like I'm pretending to be a person

skin makes me feel weird though. I don't know why. it just does

7/10

The Extinction

nooo don't get me into that depressing shit

does the Extinction have avatars?

well I'm not going to find out

(this one's basically the same as the End)

1/10

#the magnus archives #tma fears #the web #the eye #the dark #the slaughter #the hunt #the desolation #the lonely #the vast #the spiral #the corruption #the buried #the flesh #the end #the stranger #the extinction #making this post was mostly counting the fears to make sure i'd got all of them

[thezfc]

"I’ve always had a feeling Tom doesn’t actually take criticism very well in general. He’s probably one of those people who really just excelled at a lot of things all his life and throughout his career and then he got OVER THE TOP criticism for TS and especially the GG speech....

I think anon's right. He can't really deal with criticism and rejection. And when that happened for the first time in his career he curled in on himself and never recovered. He's been a different person ever since 🐍. Sometimes when I watch old stuff with the still confident Tom, it is almost painful to see how distanced he has become and how he now always looks a little afraid in public. I guess he has started to take himself and his brand too seriously at some point."

Everyone stop and give the crazy Zawe hero-worshippers the attention they're demanding, because someone screenshotted this and sent it to everyone's favorite Tumblr troll: drwhohiddles, and now those crazy fake fans are losing their minds over a couple of opinions they don't agree with, because apparently they never matured beyond middle school and thus never learned how to get along with those who disagree with them. And somehow they've taken the above and linked it to the "Tom is depressed" theory and ... racism against Zawe. Their ability to drag racism and Zawe into every internet conversation is truly impressive and I would admire this ability if I didn't feel so sorry for these people because they must truly lead sad, uneventful, and depressed lives to keep doing this constantly to complete strangers on the 'net. It's funny how they point fingers at us all the time for exchanging a bit of gossip about a few celebs, when here they are acting far worse then anything we've said on here. And can someone please explain what the hell Zawe has to do with the above mentioned because I'm still struggling to understand that leap. Also, I see nothing racist or derogatory towards Zawe in the above mentioned so again, I need an explanation here because I don't speak crazy. Zawe is a grown-ass woman who does not need you and your little gaggle to defend her especially if you're going to continue trying to defend her from something that is barely an issue because 99% of the fandom loves her, and the constant false racism accusations are immature and makes you look like the boy who cried wolf. Yes there are a few actual racists out there, but they are on Twitter and I'm pretty sure Miss ZFC has them blocked on here, so kindly crawl back into the hole from whence you came and leave us to our gossiping and theorizing. You should know what those things look like since you people do EXACTLY the same things on your own blogs.

I was going to delete this but then I decided to point out that you’re basically doing the same thing that they do and then yelling at them for five paragraphs about it. Just ignore it. I don’t care. I never look. Let them get all up in arms and their panties in a twist about every single thing that is said on this blog but you don’t need to go over that blog and then get your panties in a twist and come back over to mine and report it. So I’m posting this as an ask to all of you to not do this anymore.

Let’s pretend they don’t exist. Everything is better that way.

[horizon-verizon]

That anon is lying. Probably intentionally. There are some people out there (mostly on Twitter) who say they are Team Black and ship Helaemond but they don't do it to justify B&C. But 99% of the shippers ARE obviously Team Green.

However, I feel like I should add the fact that not all of Team Green ship or even tolerate Helaemond. This is important to point out because I think I know where that anon may have gotten their idea from. The accusation that Helaemond shippers are secretly Team Black is not something new. I'm active a lot on Twitter and over there, the Green fandom is actually divided into two main groups: you have those who absolutely despise incest and are relentlessly going after every single incestuous pairing in HOTD and in ASOIAF really (they ship Aemond/Alys mostly, and yes, Rhaenicent) and those who don't mind shipping incest (Helaemond is their main pairing). These two groups hate each other.

Like that anon does, many of the former like to claim, without evidence, that most Helaemond shippers are Team Black fans who are basically working undercover pretending to be Team Green in order to undermine it by making up theories like "Aemond is the father of Helaena's children" that, according to them, would justify the Blacks' actions (like B&C) and would paint Alicent's and the Greens' discourse regarding bastardry as hypocrisy. Furthermore, they view Aemond as too dutiful and honorable to ever father a bastard, that's why they argue his relationship with Alys was a love story and they got married. Aemond committing incest would also be a big NO for them. They make up excuses for everything he does in canon but incest is where they apparently draw the line. These people have built their identity as being anti Targs, incest included, and for them to find out that people from their own team ship incest is just…unacceptable? Surely people from the opposite team are behind everything!

Some of them have started fights in the past with Daemyra shippers by claiming Daemon is a pedophile and a groomer and by putting up Aemond/Alys, and sometimes Rhaenicent, as an example of a healthy relationship in contrast to Daemyra.

However the claim that Helaemond shippers are actually Team Black fans simply falls under further scrutiny when you go and check the shippers' accounts and their history: they are Greens and it's undeniable. Most of them are also Aegon II and Alicent stans, claim the Velaryon boys are bastards and spew the same misogynistic rhetoric towards Rhaenyra. I'm also willing to bet anything that, if you track down the ones who came up with the theory about Helaena's children being Aemond's you would surely find out they are Greens.

And anyway why would Team Black spend their time making the Greens look bad by propping up this ship? There's absolutely nothing to gain by doing it and most book readers and show watchers as well are already behind Rhaenyra's claim. (I hope all of this makes sense as English is not my native language. Hopefully the ask hasn't gotten too long).

Your ask is as perfectly lengthed and concise as it needed to be, anon. And your English is great, truly. Yeah, I think this now as well. I will keep your ask nevertheless because it really breaks things down and makes me realize I really need to research these ideas fans have.

Anon refers to this POST.

#asoiaf asks to me #hotd fandom #asoiaf fandom #fandom critical #fandom commentary #asoiaf fav posts

[turbo-overkill]

your TFP takes are so good man. It’s so hard to find people talk about TFP in a negative light, even though it’s so flawed it’s not funny. They treat TFP like transformers magnum opus and that it never did anything wrong even though a lot of the stories were boring, it was rushed, and some of the characters are well… Starscream and KO

(thank you) I honestly think my and TFP's lovers to enemies arc was the greatest thing to have ever happened.

I feel like many TFP fans are afraid of liking something bad, even though it's very valid. They'd rather pretend that TFP is the greatest thing to have ever existed than admit that it has some (many) flaws, because it's easier to like a show when 80% of everyone you interact with thinks it's like. the next Godfather or whatever.

The truth is that you can absolutely love and enjoy flawed, or even bad media, but you have to be aware of its flaws. I mean, I've been blogging about the racism doctor show for months (??) now, and it's not like it's exactly great.

I do also think TFP fans just. straight up make up a new show in their minds and then pretend like it's real, or misinterpret it to hell in order to claim that it's better than it actually is.

They love to uwuify Starscream so much that she basically comes out the other end as an entirely different character, while at the same time demonizing others- mostly Arcee- for having emotions. They will point at her and Optimus and Miko and I don't know who else and make them out to be some grand manipulators and "sociopaths" or whichever term we're misusing now, just for being flawed. They're perfectly human and well written for the most part, in a show that often struggles to offer character motivation or development, and where many characters seem very one-dimensional.

In addition, the Orion Pax arc is widely regarded as one of the best ones. But the truth is that it was rushed, and I think Orion could have benefited from a lot more screentime and characterization than he got.

Optimus' grief over having, albeit unknowingly, helped Megatron, seemed very surface level as well. It was there when an angsty monologue needed to be delivered, but seemed to disappear very quickly.

And you could argue that his later insistence on decoding the database as quickly as possibe, and overall increased willingness to take risks that put him in danger, are a result of that. He's trying to make up for his mistake, at any cost.

But that's it- theorizing.

It's funny how wildly you have to misinterpret the show or make up so many headcanons and theories in order to make sense of it. Critical thinking and media analysis is dead and TFP fans are dancing on its grave.

#asks #media analysis adjecent

[asherlockstudy]

another lurker here: been lurking since beginning of this year, i watch every day still, and imo it's a lot of small things that have people trickling out. mythicon, rhett's comments, the hot-and-cold with dedicated fans etc etc. but there's also the general internet attitude towards rpf shipping. i've not made a rhink blog or interacted much with the tumblr fandom (aside from some nice/curious anons) because i just don't feel comfortable in this current climate where antis scream at you for basically no reason. rather stick to a closed forum (i.e. Discord) where neither antis nor the people the fic and thirsting is about can see.

Yep, you're kinda closer to my territory, Anon. I understand the antis’ “thoughtfulness” (if that’s what it is) but it's tiresome to see some mild shipping post with like 100 disclaimers that "of course op doesn't think their theory is real". Why even write it then? I mean, sometimes it's like you even fool yourself and everyone around you because there are posts that are clearly based on observation and yet then op says "oh but of course none of this is true". It's this fear that has spread... and has made older shippers leave. Obviously a large part of the fandom are indeed people who ship them as a fan headcanon and that's awesome but I don't believe 100% of the fandom operates in this way. Simply put.

Shipping real people is very tricky and you must be considerate but the problem is when shippers give the real people a hard time about it. There are toxic fans who address people directly or, even worse, their families. That's gross and scary. But if, for example, I make a post here in my corner which averages 15 notes and then somehow Rhett sees it and is mad about it, then before crucifying me, it would be a good idea to at least ask first what Rhett was doing so abysmally deep down the rabbit hole, you know?

This was just an example. I haven't personally received hate so far (although I'm pushing it apparently lol) neither do I have any indication Rhett has seen any of my posts (thank goodness). I am just saying. Many of us are just normal people who try to build tiny communities within our blogs, where we can speak freely - almost like small talk - without intending to address or confront anybody or cause problems to them or pick up a fight.

It's just SO maddening that this can get criticised by R&L and other fans alike, and then one week later R&L are pretending to fuck for 20 dollars. People need to sort out their minds - maybe me too, but not me first. I, for one, never demanded that Rhett and Link should act or be a certain way. I just comment on what I see.

#anon #mail #rant #rhink #sorry I kind of went off on that

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

From a pr perspective, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. A big group of swifties (that are very pro Matty and anti Joe) now think based on Easter eggs and such, that Taylor and Joe broke up last year. Iirc, probably summer 2022. To them Midnights now reads as a breakup album and they held off from announcing the break up until after tour started so then she can publicly be seen with Matty who she started dating around Fall 2022. All this to say that Matty has been there for her and actually wants to marry her (based on the new song) and Joe is very much villian number 1 (their words not mine). But as an outsider looking at that timeline, that means she was dating him while he did the nazi salute, the comments towards ice spice, and the abusive to black women porn comments. If I go by that timeline, then it seems like the ice spice collab looks very suspicious. And it seems like Taylor is very much okay with having a racist bf her fans are very split on liking.

Oh anon - you've started this 'from a PR perspective' - but none of this is about PR - it's all about fan perceptions and fan storytelling. I find the way that fans distance themselves from what they're actually discussing and feeling by pretending they're taking about PR, really noticeable - and it's not something that I'm prepared to go along with. But I will share some thoughts about various points you raise.

I find the the phrase 'it seems like Taylor is very much okay with having a racist bf her fans are very split on liking' terrifying. Because it really does suggest that Taylor should care about her fans views of her boyfriend - and that is really, really fucked up. I think it's very emotionally healthy of Taylor not to give a fuck what any of her fans think about he boyfriend. It's also reasonably obvious that Taylor is very much ok with Matty Healy being her bf and so she's OK with Matty Healy being the person he is.

As for the fan theory that they've been together a while - I hadn't seen it, but I also don't think it's very important or very likely to be true. When Joe and Taylor broke up, I wondered if it had been planned for a long time, because she had that weekend off and it seemed the album so reflected what she said. But she wouldn't be the first artist to write a break up album before she'd broken up. The idea that she must have broken up before recording Midnights suggests that she needs to have resolved aspects of her life before writing about them. Given that she embodied the song bejewelled at the London concert which definitely happened after the album came out - I think it's pretty obvious that with Midnights she was writing about unresolved issues in her life, and they continued to play out over the next year.

Which is all to say that people can tell whatever stories they like, but I have very little time for questions that are basically 'If this completely fictional scenario is true, how should we judge all involved'.

#I find the idea that there's any different in moral culpablity from Taylor whether she started dating him in January or April #very odd #But then I find the idea that there's any moral culpability for dating Matty Healy #very hard to process #In my life #a woman I know having sex with a douchebag man #has just been a sign that it's a day ending in 'y' #I'm super curious if things have changed for those young people they have these days #or if people are just holding Taylor to very different standards than those that operate in their life

[stormblessed95]

Soothing my lack of Soop, Run, and now PTD concerts (😭) with SuperTuna and finally watching the Break The Silence series. On episode 2 now, and I’m loving the bits where Namjoon helps Jimin finesse his Promise lyrics. So cool to see the process!! Do we have any theories about who/what Promise is for? Jimin is being so careful about message as he and Joon talk through it… would love to hear your take.

Hi! We don't really need theories! Jimin told us himself what the song means to him. He talks a lot about the meaning behind and the making of Promise in this vlive here:

To sum up, he basically says that when he first started working on the song it was very dark. It wasn't as light or comforting like it is now. He said it was intended to be a dark song where he was almost scolding himself. He said a lot of the original lyrics seemed like he was telling himself "what's wrong with you." He explained a lot of this was because he was struggling with a lot of darker feelings at that time too.

He goes on to explain that things with himself though did get better. The members, their group, the whole atmosphere all started to improve overall. And that all his dark feelings he was pouring into these lyrics started to disappear. And that he felt okay now, but he still felt like he needed to finish this song he started. He mentioned thinking of the word "promise" for the song after their tour stop at Citi Field. And that once he had the word "promise" he was able to finish the song very quickly in just under 2 months. He also says that when you listen to the song, the word "you" is in the lyrics alot. He says that ""you" actually means "me." This song was actually for me, something I wanted to write for myself."

He said the song started because he struggled with being honest with himself. "If I'm tired, I should just say that I am tired" for example. He shouldn't have to pretend is fine all the time. And that after going out and drinking with his friends and members, he realized he is not alone in his feelings. That many people have struggles, plently even bigger than his own. He said he wanted to make this song a promise and a resolution "even if life brings a miserable situation, let's not make ourselves miserable. I thought I won't insult myself."

He also mentions how he hopes many people listen to the song and find comfort in it. That the mindset he had while working on the song was just to try and bring comfort to as many people as he possibly could. So this was a song he wrote for himself, as a promise to himself. And it was also a song he wrote for his fans, in hopes they would use it as a promise to themselves as well and to comfort them as much as he could whenever they needed it.

Hope that helps some! Watch the vlive if you haven't yet! It's just under 50 minutes, but it's one of the sweetest. 🥰 Jimin is the cutest!

#jimin promise #jm promise backstory #comfort songs