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linkspooky · 7 months

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I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND ME

It's not surprising to me that Gojo's dying monologue he spent more time talking about his fight with Sukuna than any of his students. Gojo's priority from the beginning isn't to save Megumi but to fight all-out against a strong opponent, the line is: ""The Absolute Strong. The loneliness that follows. The one who will teach you about love is..."

This fight is basically the climax of Gojo's identity crisis which has been a long running issue for him throughout the manga. He's simultaneously a self-confident individualist with an overpowering sense of "ego" and a person with little idea of who he is outside of the role in society that was given to him. Gojo went into the fight looking for someone capable of understanding him, the fight is about Gojo seeking an answer to who he is, that's why he fights and that's why he loses.

Gojo is Not Normal

Nanami's statement is misinterpreted I think.

"You live for Jujutsu. You don't wield it to protect something. You use it solely for the sake of satisfying yourself."

A lot of people took this to mean that Goo didn't care about anyone but himself, even though Gojo directly contradicts this earlier.

"I love everyone and don't feel lonely snow, but somewhere along the way there was a line I drew, not as a human but as a living creature."

He states he does love other people, if only from afar, he just doesn't understand them. Gojo can't make other people his reason to fight, because he only understands himself. He only sees himself. He can only fight for what's inside himself.

"You can make a flower bloom, you can admire it, but you can't tell that flower 'I want you to understand me'

Gojo's students are the flowers. Itadori, Fushiguro and Nobara are all named after flowers. He's raising them up to be as strong as him, he's fond of them, but he doesn't think they relate to him because he exists in a different category of other people.

A lot of people want Gojo to be a more traditional caring mentor figure like Kakashi or Aizawa they're missing what's really interesting about his character. When Nanami says "Gojo only cares about being the strongest" it's true because his entire character is written around the statement "I am the strongest". He is conceptually about what it is like to be the strongest man in existence. That is the character concept, and Gojo's entire identity crisis revolves around that he's built up his personality around being the strongest at Jujutsu and nothing else.

Gojo can only fight for his own ego and self satisfaction as Nanami says, because he has nothing else, he has no identity outside of that.

However, before I get into why I want to point out that Gojo is not normal. It's not because someone on his power level is fundamentally incapable of relating to other people, but Gojo himself...is not right in the head. He's making an active decision to choose not to empathize with people whatsoever, it's not just that it's hard to understand him, it's that they can't understand him.

Gojo talks about his students like they're members of another species. They're flowers. They can't relate to him on a human level because he's something other than human. A friend had an interesting reading on why specifically it's flowers Gojo chose for his metaphor.

Plants are less sentient than insects, they don't contemplate anything they are just taken care of by their gardener and grow towards the sun. That's how differently he sees himself from others.

I wanted to include this take from @kaibutsushidousha as well.

Gojo's not from the planet mars he's a human who has human emotions and human psychology like everyone else, so that's simply not true, but Gojo believes it is and that belief influences how he interacts with everyone.

Gojo can't see himself reflected back in other people for some reasons that aren't his fault and some reasons that are. Gojo has been from birth, treated as different from everyone around him, not for anything he really did but because he was born with a really strong jujutsu ability. He's a literal chosen one. He always seen as the six eyes user, the strongest, before he was seen as a person. His entire life has been defined entirely by the abilities he was born with, he was born to be a Jujutsu Sorcerer so of course that's what he builds his entire identity around.

Not only is he told that he's categorically different from others, but he also believes it. We know little about his early childhood besides Gege's statements that he was spoiled, but we do see later on in childhood there are people who are willing to treat Gojo normally despite the position he has as the strongest. This is when it starts being Gojo's fault that he continues to see himself as different from other people.

Shoko, Gojo's closest confidante in his schooldays after Geto's days basically tells him that. She's been with him for years and yet he still has the audacity to act like he's all alone in the world. Even when people try to treat Gojo normally and relate to him on a personal level, Gojo actively ignores their presence in his life like he did Shoko because he's not only been told he's different from other people because he's stronger, but he believes it and he's built his entire world view around it.

This is why the only person that Gojo ever let in was Geto, because Gojo believed that Geto was someone who could stand on top with others. THe only person who could believe the strongest, or teach them about love was someone equally as strong. Gojo just happening to meet another sorcerer who was special class as a teenager not only allowed him to have a friend, but fit perfectly into his narrative that he was separate from others and only someone as strong as him could understand. There are people like Shoko and Nanami who treat Gojo normally despite the fact he's the strongest, but Geto was the only one Gojo met in because he met the qualifiaction of being someone equally as strong.

This isn't really the case for Geto. Geto comes to see weak people as inferior yes in the sense he sees Non-Jujutsu Sorcerers as inferior, but Geto is capable of making connections to other Jujutsu Sorcerer. Geto has his family, he has Nanako and Mimiko and the rest of his followers who he all cares about equally. Geto met all of them and chose to relate to them, he even tells Gojo after killing his biological parents that he's choosing who his real family is now.

"It wouldn't be fair if I made an exception for my parents, now would it? Besides my family now consists of more than just them."

Geto demonstrates someone as powerful as Geto can make a choice to relate to other people. It's shown in the way that Geto treats Nanako and Mimiko, he is their father and he raised them as his daughters. Compared to how Megumi is just a student to Gojo. Gojo's only invested in making Megumi into a strong Jujutsu Sorcerer, because Gojo doesn't fathom connecting to someone weaker than him. He's only their to raise up a strong sorcerer, whereas Geto who's capable of connecting with people in other ways is raising up Nanako and Mimiko and they're connected as parent and child.

Geto and Gojo are similiar in a lot of ways, same level of strength comapred to the rest of humanity, same god complex (and yes it is a god coplex, there's a reason the two people Gojo relates to are Geto who has constant religious imagery associated with him and Sukuna who's literally satan) and yet Geto shows someone roughly Gojo's power level can make connections to others Gojo just chooses not to.

This is where I'm stealing from a friend's post a bit. @theanimepsychologist points out that Geto notices the beginnings of Gojo's identity complex soon after it started with Toji.

I always thought of the panel above as Geto being jealous of Gojo surpassing him in strength but, in retrospect, I think Geto’s disappointment had more to do with Gojo’s sense of self over-identifying with the title “the strongest” and how that made him harder to relate to, which is one of the main themes in this chapter. I’ll come back to this in a sec. But first… Quick depth psych segway. I think I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating again that an overwhelming sense of self is all ego. There’s nothing wrong with ego per se. The problem is that an over-identification with ego means inherent separateness because, as an organ of the psyche, the ego sense of self is what gives us a separate identity from the collective.

Geto notices that Gojo is drawing a line between himself and other people, and pulling away because of that because people in the second category of weak can't possibly understand the strong and he's reacting to it. Geto is also the only person to underline to Gojo himself that he's unsure about his own identity.

Gojo knows he's the strongest, but he doesn't know anything about himself besides that, or even what being the strongest entails in his relation to other people. He's never constructed an identity outside of it in part because he's never had to, nobody has ever challenged him for his title as the strongest, and he also fits jujutsu society's mould perfectly. He's perfect at what he does, why would he need to change? Why would a person who reached enlightenment at seventeen need to reflect upon himself or figure out who he is? You can't really become more enlightened.

The other reason he's never constructed an identity is he's never interacted with anyone on equal terms. Metaphorically Gojo exists in a vacuum of human interaction. How appropriate is it in a way that he was sealed in a box where time didn't move completely alone for who knows how long, because that's kind of just how Gojo sees himself in relation to the rest of the world.

As Psycho points out an unregulated ego results in an inherent separateness from the collective. People don't exist in a vacuum however. We wouldn't know who we are if we were entirely alone. We are defined just as much as ourselves, as we are by our interaction with others.

Ich and Du, translated as I and Thou is a book by philosopher Martin Buber. His two main porositions is that we may address existence in two ways:

The attitude of the "I" towards "it" towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience.

The attitude of "I" towards "Thou" in a relationship in which the other is not separated by discrete bounds.

I -> It is the world of sensations. If I am looking at a chair, I say "This is a chair. This chair is an eyesore." I am seeing the chair. I don't relate to the chair.

I -> Thou can be used to refer to a relationship between human beings. You don't experience the human being., you can only relate to them and what that relationship means to you. He goes on further to say that love requires a subject -> subject relationship. To love someone means you have to relate to them as if they are another being, you can't love an object.

He's a philosopher to put forward that it's human's connections with each other and their ability to relate to each other that brings meaning to life. Gojo in Buber's terms is only experiencing the world around him, not relating to it. How appropriate of someone with the six-eyes, an ability that gives him sight far better than anyone else to see himself as only an observer to the outside world, like a floating pair of eyes.

The choice that Gojo makes not to relate to other human beings on an equal level, not only isolates him, it affects his sense of self. People cannot exist within a background. Gojo's like a vampire who can't see his own reflection. ? It's all because of this caveat that Gojo himself has set up that no one can possibly relate to him unless they were equally as powerful as him that he can't see himself in others. He can't see himself in others, he can't find anyone to help him understand himself, and therefore his identity crisis goes unresolved.

Twitter user @ det_critics pointed this out that the question: "Take away his strength and what is he?" isn't one Gojo has an answer for, and one he's actively been running from.

As I said Gojo literally doesn't have a reflection, we see that in story when the prison realm opens its eye and it's just a void where Gojo's face is supposed to be. Gojo choosing not to think of himself as the strongest is also a choice not to think about who he'd be if he wasn't. A question he evades over and over again by telling himself that he can't be understood by people who are weak b/c he categorically exists on a different plane of reality.

When he does look for an answer it's telling just how not normal Gojo is in who he chooses to empathize with: which is Sukuna.

This is who Gojo as chosen to be the only other person besides Gojo he felt he could relate to. The same person who monologues about weak people like this.

The same person who monologues that weak people shouldn't even be alive, they should be culled. Sukuna sees weak people as insects. Gojo sees them as plants.

The first person that Gojo relates to as a subject rather than an object Geto is cut short, the next person he relates to as a subject is Sukuna of all people. He chooses to see himself in Sukuna, because Sukuna validates that incorrect idea Gojo has that someone as powerful as him could never possibly be understood by other people. After all, Sukuna the strongest sorcerer of all time isn't even really human anymore, he's a curse a calamity. For Gojo who doesn't see himself as relatable to other human beings this is validation of that mistaken notion.

It's also telling of how much Gojo's own identity issues have warped him that he finds a curse personally relatable, and even pitiable because it's lonely. Sukuna, who's main problem is that he's bored because a life of killing people is unfulfilling and it's turned him into an adrenline junkie. This is who Gojo's personally chosen to relate to because they both only see the world in the category of "the strong" and "the weak."

Gojo's viewpoint of other people is mistaken for several reasons, but one interesting one was pointed out for me by Psycho. He refers to his students as flowers, but they're lotus flowers. Lotus flowers mean many things, but they're seen as symbols of purity because they rise up from the mud. Gojo is only looking at the flowers, not the mud they rise from .

"No mud, no lotus. The mud is what makes us who we are, and no one can 100% understand what wading through the mud feels like. I think people see oh shiny lotus, the outcome of wading through the mud but they overlook the self because we live in an outcome oriented society.

Gojo is someone who doesn't see the mud and therefore doesn't relate to the personal struggles of others. Which sabotages a lot of his personal relationships. Which like, to bring Megumi into this, Megumi is proof that Gojo IS NOT NORMAL.

Megumi is the kind of special genius that Gojo is, he's born with the strongest technique one capable of killing Gojo, but he doesn't become a special class at seventeen like Gojo, nor is he interested in doing that because Megumi is an entirely different person with differnt personal struggles than Gojo. He has all the raw potenital that Gojo does, but they have wildly different upbringings. Gojo was primed for success by being the spoiled child of his clan, while Megumi is an abandoned child. It proves again Gojo's maxim of people who have that much power are inhuman and don't follow human psychology is wrong because Megumi has all the potential to be as strong as Gojo, but he's just a normal kid. Megumi is still wading through the mud and Gojo doesn't see that.

GOJO IS NORMAL

Jujutsu Kaisen seems to be following Buber's logic on how identity is defined by the interactions we have with other people, because there was a period in Gojo's life where he did create an identity outside of being a sorcerer and that's when he was Geto's friend.

In the afterlife we even see him regressing to that previous state of being. There was a period for three years in his life that Gojo was something besides being the strongest, and that was when he was Geto's friend too. If Jujutsu Kaisen is about how identity and meaning are both constructed from the interactions we have with other people (subject -> subject) interactions then it's telling that Gojo reverts to his seventeen year old self because that was the first and only time in his life he was capable of relating to another person, and acted like a fully developed person outside of the role of sorcerer he was born to play.

If identities are constructed though that means they're not inherent. Gojo is not inherently the strongest, just as he's not inherently different from other people. This is different from what Gojo's been told his entire life. He was born the strongest. It's inherent to his identity, a fundamental part of who he is. Therefore people who are strong are inherently different from those who are weak, it's something internally different about them which makes it impossible for Gojo to comprehend the motivations of weak people.

Rather than just strong and weak being constructed categories. Gojo's the strongest at Jujutsu but if you took him outside of Jujutsu and asked him to work any other job he'd no longer be the strongest. He's only the strongest as long as he remains in his fish bowl that is Jujutsu Society. However, Gojo believes differently, he believes being the strongest is what he is, it's something inside of him, and something that makes him fundamentally different from others. This is the line that Gojo has been told due to being born with the six-eyes and this is what Gojo has bought.

This is also what his ability the limitless symbolizes, no one in this world can touch him or reach him, he exists somewhere else. However, the limitless can be breached and Gojo has been shown before there are others capable of touching him.

Toji is the first and only living human being to challenge him, until Sukuna comes along. However, Toji does arguably more in story than just give Gojo a good fight. Toji full on traumatized him, soemthing which Gojo refuses to acknowledge. Toji is the beginning of the end of Geto's friendship, the death of Amanai Riko sends Geto on a spiral for an entire years, and drives a wedge between Geto and Gojo's friendship when Geto self isolates and Gojo doesn't know what's wrong with his friend.

Gojo also experiences what it's like to be defeated for the first time in his life, and his response is to perfect the limitless so he runs it constantly all the time. Remember, before that he was exhausting it doing it for three days in a row, and when Geto told him to take a break Gojo reassured him he wasn't worried because he knew Geto had his back. Gojo was someone who could let down the limitless before that, but afterwards Gojo always insists on fighting alone with his shields up all the time. All to deny that feeling of vulnerability that Toji inflicted on him for the first time in his life, something he remembers years later, you know like trauma.

There are times when Gojo is reminded that it's possible he's the same as anyone else, he can experience human weakness. Geto's fall is another time, one post says it's particularly challenging for Gojo to comprehend why Geto would defect because he saw Gojo and himself as above others and therefore immune to human weakness.

gojou 100% has a god complex and thats why getous downfall hit him harder than anyone else. he saw himself and getou as above everyone else and exempt from ‘regular’ peoples flaws, he never thought either of them could be led astray and when getou finally snaps hes bewildered that something like that could ever happen to either of them. hes not just heartbroken over his best friend becoming an enemy, hes thrown for a loop because getou, the one person he thinks of as just as above everyone else and incapable of failing as he is, could ever do something wrong, could ever be wrong. hes finally put into a position where he has to face the fact that hes just as capable of screwing up as anyone else and he can’t make sense of it. gojous hesitance in killing getou isn’t just a byproduct of their friendship, it’s also him realizing that it could have easily been him on the other side of the conflict, which breaks the illusion of him being better than everyone for a second. and like that’s still not enough for him to reject this idea, personally i think that his comment about him and getou being 'the strongest’ in volume 0 is indicative of the fact that despite everything he still hasn’t grown out of this delusion.

Gojo has trauma, because he's a human being with human psychology. He makes mistakes, he has terrible past regrets like his friendship with Geto gone wrong, but he doesn't acknowledge those things because as stated above Gojo thinks he's immune to having regular people flaws. Gojo seeing himself in another category from regular human beings also allows himself to deny an vulnerability, because the strongest isn't supposed to have weaknesses. Seeing yourself as too distant to ever be touched by others also means they can never hurt you, emotionally or otherwise, an extreme form of the hedgehog's dilemna which is explored an Neon Gengesis Evangelion, an existentialist piece Gege takes obvious inspiration from.

The fact that he avoids other human beings, not because he's fundamentally incapable of understanding them but because he's distancing himself from human feelings like loss, pain, suffering these weaknesses that are part of the human experience just proves he's the same as everyone else. If he wasn't capable of feeling those things he wouldn't avoid it, he wouldn't spend ten years mourning Suguru but not killing him directly until he was forced to on December 24th, he wouldn't be trapped by the box because seeing Geto alive made him have a three minute long trauma flashback.

Gojo is a normal human, with normal human emotions and human psychology, albeit twisted from the power he was born with and his unique viewpoint of the world but he doesn't believe that he is. He uses that as an excuse not to interact with others and because of this his identity suffers. Gojo is someone defined by how limited he is in the story despite having limited power.

Gojo fails as much in the story as he succeeds. As my friend @justapanda put it.

"But, it loos like being strong isn't enough..." Another point could also be made here that, regardless of being the strongest at this point, Gojo was incapable of stopping his closest friend from straying down a dark path, which is perhaps Gojo’s greatest failing in the series. This failure also comes back to bite him much later on as Kenjaku’s ace in the hole to finally checkmate Gojo involved surprising him with the now possessed body of Geto, which distracted Gojo long enough for him to be successfully sealed by the prison realm. Once again, the vast amount of power that Gojo had attained turned out to be completely useless in preventing his own sealing, which has now placed him in an inactive role for over half of Jujutsu Kaisen’s duration. Earlier in the story, Gojo once said: “Ironic, isn’t it? Given everything, but unable to do anything.” when referring to the function of his own domain. This was another intentional use of foreshadowing to describe the dilemma that Gojo was inevitably going to face himself. Satoru Gojo is no limitless man, for no one man is without his limits." Another point could also be made here that, regardless of being the strongest at this point, Gojo was incapable of stopping his closest friend from straying down a dark path, which is perhaps Gojo’s greatest failing in the series. This failure also comes back to bite him much later on as Kenjaku’s ace in the hole to finally checkmate Gojo involved surprising him with the now possessed body of Geto, which distracted Gojo long enough for him to be successfully sealed by the prison realm. Once again, the vast amount of power that Gojo had attained turned out to be completely useless in preventing his own sealing, which has now placed him in an inactive role for over half of Jujutsu Kaisen’s duration. Earlier in the story, Gojo once said: “Ironic, isn’t it? Given everything, but unable to do anything.” when referring to the function of his own domain. This was another intentional use of foreshadowing to describe the dilemma that Gojo was inevitably going to face himself. Satoru Gojo is no limitless man, for no one man is without his limits.

Gojo has moments where he brushes up against the idea that he's not capable of doing everything, that he has faults and fails like every other human being. However, that feeling never really lasts for long. He always tends to double down on his belief that he's the strongest rather than facing his faults because that's where he's comfortable. Gojo can't see himself reflected in other people and therefore is not capable of reflecting and critically evaluating his faults. Not only that but avoiding looking too critically at those losses, he also stops himself from feeling the pain of those losses and denies that vulnerability.

Gojo exists on another plane from other human beings, and therefore why would he experience human sadness and pain? All he feels is a vague sense of loneliness and unfulfillment because he's been so alienated from his own emotions and in Gojo's mind that's better than struggling with weakness. Who would deliberately choose to be just like everyone else when you can be special? Why get close to others when the hedgehog's spines are just going to stab you? However, people form connections because of their weaknesses. Humans cooperate with each other because they are a social species. All of society exists because people divide labor and help each other out. Even Gojo can't say there's no point in his life where he was weak, because he was cared for as a child and raised in a family. He didn't come out of the womb a fully formed individual. The darwinian survival of the fittest, and the black and white strong vs. weak way that Gojo sees the world just doesn't exist, especially in modern society. There's nothing wrong with individualism, but the extreme end of individualism is wrong because no one exists in this world alone you share it with everyone else.

Gojo doesn't even see that though, because he's not living in the same world as everyone else. In his mind the limitless makes it so he basically exists on another plane of reality, but again the limitless can be breached.

Detective critics basically said that Gojo's delusion was always a false one, he always existed in the same world as everyone else, he simply deluded himself into believing otherwise. There are reasons for this, his upbringing, trauma and not wanting to face the pain of that trauma, but it's still a choice he made. Gojo didn't want to live for other people, he didn't want to relate for them, so he lived for himself pursuing his own strength. Ironically, it reflects Toji's own decision to take pride in neither himself or others and live only for the sake of showing that the Jujutsu World that rejected him was wrong.

Toji chose to live a life where he only lived to fight and prove he was stronger than the sorcerers who rejected him. He chose it over his own son Megumi, abandoning him in order to continue his lifestyle as a mercenary. He even chose it over continuing to live because he stayed and fought against Gojo to prove he was stronger than the pinnacle of Jujutsu. Toji lives for strength, and he is someone even Gojo respected the strength of, but what else does he have?

Toji's identity is unstable, he doesn't really live for any purpose, he kills people then blows the money gambling, he jumps from women to women to mooch off of them, he's also mentally unstable as well he shoots a little girl in the back of the head and feels nothing. The instability comes from his isolation, Toji is rejected by everyone the same way that Gojo is lauded by everyone. But Toji goes on step further in that he fails to construct any identity outside of being rejected and his entire life is spent rejecting the people who rejected him. Why does Toji want to be strong, he doesn't know. Purpose is something you have to construct for yourself, because there's no inherent meaning to life. Identity is something that's constructed by both yourself and your interactions with others because people aren't born inherently one thing or the other.

Gojo and Toji just refuse to do this, and only focus on themselves and the goal of being stronger. In Gojo's case I'd argue he doesn't fight for other people because he doesn't feel that connection with other people or rather he doesn't let himself. Hedgehog's dilemna to the extreme. Gojo only fighting for himself isn't Nanami calling him a selfish person who doesn't care about others, it's sad because Gojo never found any other reason to fight or meaning to his life but by getting stronger for its own sake.

Gojo only fights for the sake of satisfying himself, but here's the clincher, he's unsatisfied. Not only did he fail in his goal of giving Sukuna the fight of his life, because he knew Sukuna was holding back on him, but also admits to Geto that what would have really been satisfying is if Geto was there with him to pat him on the back.

He's failed on both fronts, he's failed at being the strongest and he's failed at making a connection to the people in his life. Gojo and Toji die in pretty much the same way, they die standing up in the middle of battle, but their last thoughts aren't of disappointment that they lost but their loved ones.

They spent their entire lives believing they were stronger and therefore different than others, and fighting to satisfy their ego and what does it amount to? Toji lived a life of hedonism and then died abandoning the one person he genuinely loved. Gojo has failed his stated goal of revolutionizing Jujutsu Society and dies before he can see whether or not his dream of a reset Jujutsu World will even come to fruition.

They belived they were someone stronger and therefore inherently better, and are put in their place when someone stronger comes along. They die just like all the other mortals. They believed they were alone so they died alone. It's sad and it goes to show how destructive being "the strongest" was to Gojo's identity in the end. Gojo thinks he's Sukuna but Gojo doesn't want to be Sukuna, because Sukuna's alone, and unlike Gojo you could make the point that Sukuna's not a human being who has human emotions because he's a curse. If Gojo was truly someone who could understand Sukuna he would have been truly alone the same way Sukuna is, and that's not what he wanted.

It's too bad Gojo never thought seriously about what he wanted, and therefore learned his lesson too late. He was always looking for someone he could relate to, except for in the people who were right in front of him.

#gojo satoru #jjk meta #satosugu #geto suguru #ryomen sukuna #jjk 236 #jjk 236 spoilers #jujutsu kaisen 236 #jujutsu kaisen 236 spoilers #jjk spoilers #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen meta

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piracytheorist · 3 months

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The Briar Siblings' Lies

It's very interesting that in the family of lies and secrets, the lies of the Briar siblings are included, and I'm pretty sure that will play a role whenever they find out about each other.

I expect Yor to be heartbroken and angry at Loid when she'll find out his lies, but I'd also expect her to be heartbroken and disappointed when she finds out how much Yuri lied to her.

Yor might have kept her own very dangerous secrets, but there are huge differences in their circumstances.

Yor took up her assassin gig when she was just a teenager, orphaned and with a little brother to take care of. Amidst the cold war brewing, there would be various criminal organizations looking for people to drag in, and a poor, desperate, kind, and almost supernaturally strong teenage girl was the perfect recruit for Garden.

Whether this is Garden's initiative or not, Yor has a strong determination to kill her targets as quickly and as painlessly as possible, along with avoiding unnecessary bloodshed. She has studied human anatomy specifically for this very reason, to be able to kill her victims with mercy. She's realistic about the situations she's in, but if talking things through is even a tiny bit possible, she'll give it a try.

Though her morals are slightly skewed for the average civilian - it's understandable to kill someone in self defense, but her main targets are situations where she plays judge, jury and executioner - she's still retained a lot of her humanity that allows her to be a kind person and a caring sister, mother and wife.

And then you have Yuri.

Yuri fell victim to a more sinister kind of indoctrination - extremism and bigotry. Having grown up in poverty caused by the war and the deaths of his parents, and having an overwhelming wish to protect his sister, he was the perfect target for Ostania's nationalistic propaganda.

But the tragic background leading up to this choice and the want to protect his family is where his similarities with Yor's case end.

Yuri wasn't left with no other choices. Yor was already supporting him financially when he started working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that was a job that he could stay at and be independent. He was older than Yor was when she became an assassin. I can assume that some underhanded methods were used to lead him into the duties of the SSS, but even so Yuri had more control of the situation, more choices to choose from, and more information at hand. It's directly opposite to Yor's circumstances.

Yuri tortures people. The SSS specifically want him, despite his young age and lack of experience, exactly because he won't hold anything back, even when it makes him feel conflicted.

The SSS may be taking advantage of the ease with which he tortures people, but it's still something Yuri willingly participates in - and again, considering the fame of the SSS among civilians, it's almost certain Yuri knew what he was getting into. He's giving up his own humanity, going down a path of "us vs. them" and while Yor plays judge on who gets to live, Yuri plays judge on who gets to be treated like a human being.

While two similarly dangerous and demanding professions, and (at least according to what Franky says) following the same government's orders, it's two highly different cases. I think Yuri will be mostly horrified to learn what Yor went through for his sake, but Yor will be very understandably heartbroken. Yuri could understand that Yor had no other choice, but Yor will know that Yuri had all the best choices right in front of him, and yet he chose this.

And it's why I believe this is the revelation that will hurt Yor more. She could explain Twilight's lies by the fact that they didn't know each other before, she could explain Anya's secrets by her young age and innocence, but there will be very little for Yuri to stand on - and the thing is, Yuri knows that. He knows that what he's chosen to become isn't what Yor raised him to be.

Currently he may be seeing himself as a martyr for his cause, that he needed to potentially break his sister's heart in order to protect her and "the country she lives in". He'd rather have her feeling heartbroken and betrayed by him than with her life and safety in danger. He'd rather her hate him than get hurt.

How will it hit him when he realizes she's already been doing the same for him, and has already been endangering her life for over a decade for not only his sake, but for the world in general too? When he realizes all the work he's been doing to protect her was in vain because she has been walking into danger herself all along?

It's a really interesting dynamic, because the revelation could either break them or make them. They both have a very heartwarming background together, they both love each other deeply, but it's a trial they'll both have to go through at some point.

(Anime only fan here, don't spoil me for the manga)

#Spy x Family #sxf meta #Yor Forger #Yuri Briar

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general-cyno · 3 months

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ehh it's just me musing but. I do find it a little curious that (depending on who likes whom I guess) cora is usually either seen as some saintly flawless goofy figure or a brainwashed cop who got killed because he refused to try and save his brother. I do think his character is not exactly easy to pinpoint, considering he appears for a very short time and in a flashback nonetheless, plus the fact that he's dead means no further fleshing out of his character - broadly speaking - outside of the people who knew him and are willing to provide insight on what he was like, though that'd still be kinda biased.

however I believe there's actually a bunch of things that were straight up shown and some that can be pieced together from what little panel/screen time he had: ie how he's seemingly more bad tempered, impulsive and violent than he's portrayed as in fanon at times, albeit motivated by his own priorities at the moment (trying to kick the shit out of law to stop him from exposing cora to doflamingo) + his sense of what's right and wrong and to whom it applies (punching medical staff and setting hospitals on fire for mistreating law, whom he'd been trying to help).

specifically about the navy and doflamingo part... it irks me a little, tbh. partly because it removes what little agency cora had during the flashbacks and sort of waters down his motivation to stop his brother. it's not just whatever crimes doflamingo was committing or planning to back then and the navy wanting to put a stop to that - the thing is that cora was influenced, at least to an extent, to oppose doflamingo based on their childhood experiences with (ofc) the more negative ones, which include doffy murdering their father right in front of him, overshadowing anything else. as he tells law, cora can't fathom how their kind parents could've borne someone as evil as his brother. and yet. that's the other thing. cora was very much a child, and younger than doflamingo at that, when the elder DQs chose to leave marijoa and all that it entailed after. between all the traumatic events he lived through and later being raised by a marine (sengoku of all people), I'll be the first to say his perception of those events, of their parents and doffy himself is not really the most unbiased or reliable. we don't see him questioning the existence of celestial dragons (beyond warning law he's in danger when cora finds out about the D) nor the nature of the WG/the marines and the antagonistic role they play in OP's universe. we didn't have him long enough for those things to be put to question deeply anyway, especially not wrt to doflamingo, so imo it makes sense that his focus wasn't on "saving" but stopping him.

that said... he does witness the worst of it, kind of. through law. law is the very reason why I don't agree with the idea of cora being simply a brainwashed cop. this guy watched how people (those who should care) mistreated, dehumanized and demonized a sick child over prejudices caused by the lies the nobles and WG itself relied on to sweep their own corruption under the rug. he saw first hand how all those doctors ran to call the WG to kill the child and how they answered to do that. and what did he do? he lied and betrayed the organization he'd been part of (presumably for more than the years he spent undercover) and the man who'd raised him like a son just to save the kid that everyone, even the so called justice, had turned his back on and would've gotten rid of if given the chance. heck, when he first brought up the topic of law with sengoku, the man basically told him not to favor him too much for it could jeopardize his mission.

but perhaps the biggest proof is that he lied to law about being a marine when the latter directly asked if cora was one. as he later admits, cora lied to him about this because he didn't want law to hate him - and knowing all law lived through (flevance), seeing some of it himself (their hospital shenanigans) and what law told him as well, cora knew he had plenty of understandable and justified reasons to hate anyone ever slightly associated with the marines or the WG, including cora. to me, someone who's completely blinded by the navy/WG propaganda and follows their every order to the letter without thought wouldn't have denied his own affiliation nor been so determined to ditch being a marine and make an enemy out of those institutions (even if that also meant betraying his father figure) just to save, protect and do right by a child who'd been clearly failed by them. at no point did cora ever try to argue that Not All Marines, much less express any other sentiments of that sort to law.

on a similar vein, despite insisting doflamingo was evil and an agent of destruction - law is also the proof cora was somewhat aware that his brother (and people like doflamingo) normally don't pop out of nowhere and do Terrible Things just because. that maybe in other (better) circumstances, doffy might've become someone different and/or made different choices. after all, cora is the one who points out the similarities between doflamingo and law, and eventually does his best to turn law's life around so that he won't follow the same path. should he have tried to save doflamingo as well? when? how? would it have worked? who knows. and if you ask me, regardless of their similarities at that moment in time, doffy was already a grown ass man compared to law and cora himself was just an even younger kid when shit hit the fan in their childhood. I'm not sure doflamingo (as an adult) would've been particularly receptive of "help" either, considering his disdain for the kindness in cora and their father that he saw as a weakness. not to mention waaay too many other factors that come into play also (trebol and co's grooming and influence for example). still, one of them did pull the literal trigger in the end and it wasn't cora, so there's that.

all in all, for a character with such a short lived amount of time in the story - cora is quite the complex one and so very compelling. characterizing him as just strictly one thing or the other can be a little reductive but the fact that his character can be explored beyond that in the first place (once more, despite his lil bit of alive and onscreen moments) is what's fun and says a lot about the writing itself.

#tp #one piece #donquixote rosinante #donquixote corazon #I need to chew on him like he's a dog toy #mentally ill abt a dead guy who was in like 5 out of 1000+ chapters. life is good #also before someone misunderstands fics and such are free real state these characters are dolls to play with #I'm talking abt canon specific scenarios

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deathsbestgirl · 8 days

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okay @calimanc i think i can finally do this!!

first, i tend to think of their relationships in phases. like:

season one: building trust and bonding. they genuinely like each other but it's a process! it takes time to create that bond & partnership. they really create such a good foundation naturally. they don't force it.

seasons two & three: BEST FRIENDS. they trust each other, they love each other, they rely on each other. their roles are set, their bond just gets stronger. season two really sets the tone for true friendship & personal value, not just work.

seasons four & five: it's a Struggle. their relationship is shifting but they're not there yet. it makes things hard but their partnership & friendship are solid. that is not the issue. (although, bad blood is also peak best friends)

season six: tension. surrounding their feelings, trust and getting their shit together lol (genuinely the season of them figuring it out)

season seven forward: THEY ARE IN LOVE. they are all in. s7 they're putting s6 lessons into practice, their communication is improving. s8&9 are hell for them but their love is never the question. coming back to each other is also a process (season seven is them putting the lessons into practice)

iwtb: married. everything is good & terrible. they are haunted, always haunted.

revival: coming back to each other, learning they can be together again despite everything. they never let go and they never will.

i think there's been a lot written about their characters and journeys, at least somewhat related to this. i think i'm recalling some of @randomfoggytiger meta posts about their different struggles, characters, trauma, etc. (the ones i think about a lot: scully teaches mulder to hug, milagro, how the ghosts stole christmas, mulder + s5, mulder / scully family in depths, mulder / scully typing, mulder / scully fight flight freeze — highly recommend, i think foggy puts a lot of things into words that are behind my reasoning)

in the beginning, mulder believes scully is sent as a spy. he's kind but he needles her about aliens, her thesis, her science and she gives back as good as she gets. but scully is so genuine and earnest. she cares about the truth and victims and justice. i've always thought she was excited to work in the field and specifically with mulder. whatever she thought of his spooky moniker, she also knew he was a brilliant man & a good agent. she was prepared to learn from him, regardless of what their cases would be. i don't think she believed all the rumors, i think she's intimately familiar with the rumor mill. and scully always had more of an open mind than anyone gives her credit for.

SO she spends the pilot trying to solve their case and get as much information out of him as possible, she wants him to trust her and she's trying to show him that he can. scully's got him chasing after her on their second? day on the case. she shows him real vulnerability, and imo, a tendency to believe despite her skepticism. and that's when he starts to give her a real chance. mulder's smile when she runs into his arms says sooooo much. AND THEN!!! he is vulnerable with her. he tells her about samantha & it's all he cares about. and she takes him at his word.

to me, this is something that sets the tone for most of their relationship. scully follows him because of his passion and belief, because she believed him when he said the truth was out there. she accepted that work was what mattered most to him and despite her crush, she chose to stay and follow him. she makes that decision over & over again. even when he makes her crazy, even when he gets himself into insane situations. and season one is all about building their trust, radicalizing scully. already before the end of season one, they trust only each other. mulder may show that trust slowly, taking bigger chances with her as time goes on. sharing the personal, letting her know about his informants, introducing her to his friends & eventually deep throat...he listens to her advice, her skepticism, her science and he genuinely appreciates it even if it frustrates him a lot. like when he thanks her in e.b.e., he's frustrated but it's real. he was listening. he recognizes her value to the x files and himself by season two. that conversation in sleepless about 'oh yeah, it's great. i don't know how i put up with you for so long' and 'i learned that from you' and 'i still have my work, and i still have you. and i still have myself.' and this is the "safe" territory for them. they know how to work together and they understand what that means. or they think they do, until scully is abducted and the stakes are raised. (kae wrote about mulder recognizing love in loss once. that's always really stuck with me.) mulder's guilt complex runs high. it's a huge part of his reaction in never again, scully's "my life" and 'we're not even going in circles, just an endless line' and "not everything is about you" is piercing in a very specific way to him. in that moment at the end, they choose silence and it persists for a long time. as does the way they talk around their feelings, their relationship. and mulder specifically is very avoidant. he makes several comments throughout their partnership about her leaving, not wanting to ruin her record or hold her back. and it's just so crazy, because scully eventually tells him that she holds him back, he doesn't need her. scully wants to be needed, and mulder wants her to stay but he 'doesn't want to see her hurt.'

the whole point is they put the work first, their partnership. it was a conscious choice. eventually we learn they both had relationships with people they worked with. i really do think it would make both of them hesitate to get involved with a work partner. generally speaking, scully is a "rule follower" but she doesn't have a problem breaking rules when she thinks it's justified, when she believes it's the right thing to do. no matter who's instincts she's listening to. that's a pattern we see very early on.

THEN they get so comfortable in their roles, believer mulder & skeptic scully, that later on as those things start to shift, they're afraid to change. mulder tells scully her science saved him over & over and in season six she clings to that (completely misunderstanding what he ~really meant, like kae talked about). season six is all about them figuring out what a relationship between them would mean.

but by that point, they had started to figure out some of their own issues. like in never again, scully is struggling with her patterns. so she does something she doesn't do often (i don't think one night stands are ooc, but they're not necessarily her norm. it seems like a periodic thing she may do when she gets That feeling.) scully needs to know she matters, she needs to see her impact. in never again, after paper hearts & el mundo gira, i think she's really hurting in that respect. she doesn't see at this point the impact she's had on mulder or as an agent. you can't tell she works in that office -- no desk, no nameplate, barely any personal items. just some books. initially, they're having two conversations and only partially aware of it. at the end, mulder doesn't seem to understand the issue, but at the end of leonard betts, mulder validates scully. verbally!! directly to her!! he starts to get it. they're not very good at talking directly, that's why never again and the cancer arc, and after, are so difficult. they talk about everything with metaphors, or they're okay sharing little pieces of them. their trauma & pain when forced to.

and season five is ... fraught. as so many other times, but scully nearly died and mulder feels guilty. randomfoggytiger talks about mulder in season 5 here. and the thing about these two, they're traumatized over & over again and they just keep going. but they are deeply affected. i've talked about how not okay scully is, and it takes her so much time to freely lean on mulder. she relies on him & their work, but she doesn't necessarily let him in too far. she holds people at a distance, she's so aware of loss & death and the effects of it, like she talks about in emily. and it isn't really that they need to work through their trauma. it's so much more about letting someone help shoulder the burdens, see them vulnerable. they do that and they do it for each other freely & often. but...for scully, she's always the strong one. she isn't really, but she thinks she has to be. she doesn't want to be another crusade for mulder, someone else he needs to protect. but at the same time, that's what partners do. she takes that "job" very seriously and so does mulder. (but so early on, it isn't because it's part of their job. i think that's extremely clear with scully in tooms & e.b.e., mulder's reaction in lazarus, to her abduction. you can see the progression so clearly.) but they can't protect each other from everything. mulder couldn't save her from being abducted, getting cancer, emily, or being burned alive...scully can't protect him from what happened to samantha. and that's a hard truth. it's something they accept for themselves as fbi agents, but is nearly impossible for them to accept for their partner. it's why scully threatens boggs, why mulder wants revenge on the men responsible for her abduction, why they go as far as they do for each other. they are relentless. (for mulder, he's always blaming himself. often, he wants to protect scully from himself even though he isn't the danger. he isn't the one harming her and he knows how far scully would go. like in endgame 'why didn't you tell me?' 'because i knew you wouldn't let me go through with it' and he runs off on his own because he doesn't want her to risk her life for his crusade, for the answer he needs & seeks.)

and season six!! it's so special because scully knows she's important, he gave her a whole speech about it. they nearly kissed. but they don't talk about it, the silence is maintained in favor of their partnership. and season six is a special brand of putting them in situations. at certain points, their partnership & trust are tested and leading up to those points, they tend to show how solid they really are. like in drive, when their communication is cut off but scully can understand that mulder is avoiding the police traps for a reason and he knows she'll catch onto the clues he manages to drop & that she's working hard to figure out the science/medicine, that she's doing the legwork on their cases that she always does. scully's asking him to get out of the car, but not to abandon it and they spend most of the season slowly putting together a blueprint for a relationship between them. knowing there are feelings between them, on both sides, completely reciprocated but it's a struggle. they learn something, and it's erased. or like the lesson in the unnatural, it takes a while for them to really get it. to put it into practice more consistently. there's a new freedom after one son too, with most of the syndicate killed at the hands of their own stupidity. and literally, neither of them can actually let go because the x files is both of their lives, they both have a very significant stake in the work and that will always connect them. (no matter how they're forced away from it at different points, no matter how they hesitate sometimes.) but it's also always deeper than that. because "you made me a whole person" wasn't just true of mulder. scully is never more herself than she is with mulder. i've said it a few times, but the x files was scully's dream job lol not only does she get to use everything in her arsenal, but she cares & she can be weird & a little mean. mulder gave her a very special kind of safety. scully loved teasing him for his beliefs, she always found it endearing and i just. think that's for a reason. he believes what she can't, and she believes what he can't. (you know, my usual)

i just think about the difference between all souls & all things. mulder is terrified of scully's believe in all souls, but in all souls, he interprets her words through her faith. he wasn't afraid. it was from a distance in all things, but she's also talking about a man she considered the love her life & might have married. but scully's sitting on his couch telling him all about it.

in the revival, scully comes back to the x files for mulder. but she's the one loving the case in mulder & scully meet the weremonster. and where mulder's disbelief & cynicism in the patient x/the red and the black scare her, she's not afraid of it weremonster. she kindly tries to guide him back to it, or rather, gives him the opportunity to find it himself. like he helps her light the candles & talks to god through her in nothing lasts forever. they're not really together but they're always together. it's always about working through something, understanding themselves & each other, and accepting/embracing some truth. like in all things, "what if there was only one choice?" in a way, there is only one choice. the one they made over & over. scully in squeeze & tooms & little green men, mulder in one breath & redux & requiem. all their choices lead to the other, and they almost mourn other choices. but scully would do it all again, she wouldn't change a thing. mulder can't do it alone and there's hope. the truth they both know. the only one they know.

#okay i don't think i did this right #but GENUINELY #read randomfoggytiger & carefulfears #calimanc #mulder and scully #mine #the x files

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kanansdume · 7 months

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I wanted to look at why it feels so frustrating for Sabine to have been utilized the way she was in the Ahsoka show and why it doesn't work even though the general concept behind it isn't inherently a bad thing.

Basically, Sabine only exists on this show, primarily, to be Ahsoka's crutch. She is the character through whom Ahsoka learns to grow. Sabine KIND-OF has her own journey as a sort-of sidestory, but her main purpose is to be there as a vessel to prompt Ahsoka's own growth.

And this is not, inherently, a bad thing to have done. Using a pre-established character in this way is fairly normal. And I'm going to compare this to the way Leia was utilized in the Kenobi show because on paper, the circumstances here are pretty similar.

Both Leia and Sabine are main characters in their own right in their original media (Leia in the OT, and Sabine in Rebels). Both Leia and Sabine did not really ever have a relationship with the main character of this new show prior to the show coming out (Obi-Wan for Leia and Ahsoka for Sabine). Both Leia and Sabine are SIDE CHARACTERS in this new show in order to support the storyline of the main character.

The difference for me is that Leia was explicitly chosen for this supporting role BECAUSE SHE'S LEIA. Leia is not mutilated and frankenstein'd into being basically unrecognizable in order to be someone who could help Obi-Wan on the journey he goes through in the Kenobi show. She is still pretty recognizable as Leia. She has the same stubbornness, the same snappy insults, the same passion and almost bossy personality. The Kenobi show and Deborah Chow have made it fairly clear that they chose the characters they did very carefully so as to provide a framework for Obi-Wan to grow through while never letting those other characters OVERSHADOW Obi-Wan just because they are also beloved characters in their own right. They very nearly didn't bring in Anakin for exactly that reason and clearly worked very hard to ensure that his presence on the show never pulls focus away from Obi-Wan entirely. Leia was also chosen specifically because they felt like it would make sense for Leia to be in this position. They chose Leia because what else could get Obi-Wan off of Tatooine in this state of mind but her? They chose Leia because who else might be able to break through Obi-Wan's depression and show him the hope for the future but her?

And while they had never had a canon relationship prior to this show, there IS just enough there to make it believable. We have a lot of obvious reasons for why Obi-Wan would care about her deeply and connect to her within a very short period of time. And we have plenty of reason for why Bail would only ever ask Obi-Wan for help in this particular situation. So the set-up for the plot and the relationship DOES EXIST within what we already know about the characters involved even if the relationship itself was new. We're also seeing that relationship develop ON SCREEN rather than being told that it existed elsewhere. The only relationships that are important here that happen off-screen are Obi-Wan and Anakin, and Obi-Wan and Bail, both of which exist within the Prequel trilogy that you can pretty safely assume most other people have seen. Everything else is developed on screen for the audience, which means nothing has to be explained at the audience through exposition.

Now let's look at Sabine. Oh Sabine. Poor darling Sabine.

Sabine was pretty clearly NOT chosen for this storyline at all. While we don't know the exact details of how this went down behind the scenes, we do know that there was AT LEAST two separate shows at one point (maybe three) that ended up getting compressed into just one: a Rebels sequel presumably involving Ahsoka and Sabine searching for Ezra, and an Ahsoka show looking at her journey of coming to terms with Anakin's betrayal. We don't know precisely how those two shows ended up combined into one; maybe the studio execs decided an animated Rebels sequel wouldn't do well and Filoni combined it with the Ahsoka show in order to preserve it in the only way he could, or maybe the studio execs came up with the combination idea on their own. We may never know. But I feel like it's pretty obvious that the original concept for the Ahsoka show likely included a Padawan storyline through which Ahsoka could come face to face with her fears and doubts about Anakin. This Padawan was probably going to be an original character who shared many of Ahsoka and Anakin's more negative traits (arrogance, brattiness, stubbornness, maybe even anger and fear from some kind of prior trauma) that would force Ahsoka to come to terms with what happened to Anakin in order to accept her Padawan.

And then the two shows got combined and Ahsoka's journey has to happen simultaneously with the search for Ezra. Except. Ahsoka's feelings about Anakin have exactly shit all to do with Ezra, or Thrawn, or the search for either of them. They could've just tossed in the original Padawan character to sort-of tag along while Sabine stayed more focused on finding Ezra, but this probably would've had the result of Sabine feeling pretty sidelined. So instead, they just... slotted Sabine into the Padawan role and nixed the original character.

Which means that Sabine lost pretty much ALL of the characteristics we knew about her from Rebels in order to fit into this new role. Instead of the merciful, compassionate, mature young adult she was by the end of Rebels, we get this overconfident bratty personality that feels more fit for a teenager than the 30 year old that Sabine actually is at this point in the timeline. Instead of being someone who connects very deeply to being a Mandalorian, suddenly she wants to be a Jedi and it's never actually explained why that is. An entire trauma was created to exist off-screen just to explain why Sabine is acting so radically out of character and even THAT isn't actually believable with how far she had come by the end of Rebels. Sabine was NOT chosen for this role because of characteristics she already had, she simply was the most convenient choice when her storyline ended up fused with Ahsoka's and as a result she is almost completely unrecognizable as a character. This isn't Sabine. It's an abomination and a piss poor shadow of the character most of us remember from Rebels.

And her relationship with Ahsoka is developed OFF screen rather than ON screen. Instead of showing us how these two ended up getting together and how they got closer to each other and learned to trust each other, etc, it just all happens years before our story starts. There's an entire history between these two characters that absolutely NOBODY is familiar with because it comes out of absolutely nowhere. And so instead of being able to WATCH these two characters come together as a team, we have to keep getting TOLD about it in either throw away lines or infodumps. Huyang keeps talking about how they work better together, Hera says they used to be good for each other, and their whole history is laid out by Baylan and Huyang separately (and the stories don't even match). There's no gradual development of trust, the two characters just careen between trusting each other and not trusting each other because of this history that is barely ever explained to us and then is apparently (almost literally) magically fixed by the end.

This is a bad way to handle this relationship even if Sabine had been a completely original character. I've seen stories where the relationship has developed off-screen and it's still, generally, worked. I mean, just for a Star Wars example most people are familiar with, let's look at Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan in TPM. Qui-Gon is entirely original here, nobody knows who he is, but Obi-Wan is a well-known character to the audience. It's set up fairly quickly that the two of them have been Master and Padawan for a while probably and then within the first several sequences we get an idea of what their relationship is like. We see the deference that Obi-Wan does have for Qui-Gon but we also see Obi-Wan capable of teasing Qui-Gon while in the middle of a life or death situation. We see how well Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon pick up on each other's queues and how they can team up towards a common goal. So while we haven't gotten to see their relationship develop from beginning to end, we get enough scenes of them together right off the top to give the audience a sense of what this relationship IS so that by the time you hit the Council scene, Qui-Gon's quick decision and Obi-Wan's shock at it are entirely understandable. But then so too is Obi-Wan's willingness to apologize afterwards and his grief at Qui-Gon's death.

So it's not impossible to set up a relationship where the history between the characters and the initial development of it happened off-screen. But the way the Ahsoka show handled it gives us really none of that. We don't get a lot of chances to SEE what this relationship actually is and what we do see often is wildly contradictory (for example we see Ahsoka not trusting Sabine and then an episode later we see Ahsoka trust Sabine with her life). The development that does exist in this relationship over the course of the show has to be done with the characters completely separated and they come back together and everything is just hunky dory somehow. So even without the aspect of Sabine being a pre-established character in her own right, the writing of this relationship makes no sense and doesn't allow anybody to actually invest in it or understand it.

But Sabine IS a pre-established character and a major character of a show of her own that has fans who already love her. So now this relationship not only needs to just be generally well-written and coherent, it SHOULD still feel like a believable relationship for the Sabine that fans remember and love. Those of us who knew Sabine remember that she and Ahsoka don't HAVE a relationship to pull from. Sabine cannot just be treated like an original character who doesn't have any history that fans already know about. This relationship with Ahsoka DOES need an explanation in order to make any sense and the easiest way to do that is to actually SHOW IT DEVELOPING rather than having it happen off-screen. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's version of this is able to skirt most of the actual details and just imply their history while showing us their current dynamic. Ahsoka and Sabine can't get away with that because everyone watching this who has even a passing familiarity with both characters is going to be wondering what the fuck this history even is and how ti led to this particular dynamic. Which is why we ended up with a bunch of infodumps trying to explain it to us rather than something more meaningful that allows the audience to actually connect to it.

And on top of that, this was a storyline that Rebels set up to be SABINE'S STORY. Ezra's disappeared so this was supposed to be Sabine's time to shine, her moment to be the center of attention. Which means it's not satisfying to see her end up as a support for someone else instead. It's not satisfying to see her character have to be warped and mutilated in order to support someone else. This was supposed to be Sabine's story as much as it was supposed to be Ahsoka's, but Sabine ended up getting the shorter end of the stick in the merger.

#star wars #sabine wren #ahsoka tano #ahsoka show #ahsoka spoilers #obi-wan kenobi #leia organa #kenobi show #obi-wan kenobi series

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chloe-caulfield94 · 8 months

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Max is a hero, because she cares about people no one else cares about

Max refuses to give up on people everyone else has given up on, and I think that's the most heroic thing one can do. This becomes evident with her rescues of Chloe and Tristan.

By the time Max returned to Arcadia Bay, Chloe had no one standing in her corner, believing in her. "Broken girl from a broken home", "loser dropout", "whore", "faux punk slut". That's how people saw her. Almost everyone treated her with disdain. Rachel was gone, having left a letter how she had met someone new and exciting. I don't doubt that Joyce loved her daughter. But the way she spoke about her, how Chloe supposedly "chose to stay angry", betrays that she had written Chloe off. If it's Chloe's choice to be miserable, then no one has to bother helping her, right? Because she could just choose to be her old, happy self again. Joyce decided to move on. Just like she had hidden away all of William's photographs, she relegated her daughter to the role of an irreformable troublemaker that nothing could be done about.

And the worst thing was that Chloe gave up on herself. "He acts like I'm some kind of problem to solve. Sometimes I am a problem, though", "I screwed it up somehow. Like I screw everything up. 'Cause I'm a fucking screw-up", "I don't deserve it. I'm so selfish", "I know I've been selfish, but for once I think I should accept my fate". After years of being told she's broken, worthless, unworthy, a lost cause, she finally accepted it as the gospel truth.

When Max tore up the butterfly photograph, she was the only person in the world still choosing to believe in Chloe. Believing that she could have a new beginning. That it wasn't too late for Chloe to experience a first day of the rest of her life. Standing by someone who would otherwise be alone, wanting someone no one else wants - that's the most heroic thing I can think of.

Tristan's story is eerily similar to Chloe's. He was a lonely, desperate kid who got himself into very bad company. His destiny was to be gunned down. But Max saved him. Because she couldn't let a stranger die. No more than she could let a different stranger die in the bathroom of her school.

It was later revealed that the reason Tristan was able to move between universes so easily was that he had died in EVERY SINGLE UNIVERSE, apart from the "Amberprice" universe Max visited. That means Max, more specifically our version of Max, was the only person in all of existence to care about him. A boy who was destined to have his life extinguished across all of creation, and Max saved him. Once again, Max stood by someone no one else wanted to stand by. No one would cry for Tristan. A dead gutter rat carted off for communal burial. But Max gave him a new chance at life.

Both Tristan and Chloe grasped at their second chances and utilized them fully. A year after the Storm Chloe is living together with the girl of her dreams, she's making friends, she's found a job she's good at. She's moving forward in time. And Tristan has found love and friendship. He's no longer adrift. He has a safe haven now. All that love, friendship and happiness is of Max's making.

To me, Max Caulfield personifies the hope that everyone, no matter how broken, lost or derided by others they may be, will find at least one person willing to stand by them. Willing to believe in them, even if they no longer believe in themselves. And giving hope is what heroes do.

#Max Caulfield #Chloe Price #Tristan Tanaka #Life is Strange #LiS #comics

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blueteller · 1 year

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Quick question – why do the TCF fans keep portraying Bud Illis as an idiot?

It kind of bothers me, because in canon, Bud is not stupid.

Yes, he is a at times reckless (like that time he got captured by Jopis). And yes, he plays the "drunk idiot" role very well, to the point he completely fooled Raon when Cale and Bud met for the first time.

The problem is, for some reason, TCF fans remember that interaction between Cale & Bud in the inn and take it as his actual characterization, and not an act. Which it is.

Because Bud acts like a drunk blabbermouth idiot on purpose, there! Cale himself notices it almost instantly!!

Bud is an interesting character. He's someone who relies on his drunk act – which he does mostly to gather intel, just like OG Cale relied on his act to ruin his reputation – in order to be underestimated. And it works, because everyone is surprised just how much Bud knows, despite being from a different contient than Cale.

However, being drunk and supposedly recklessly talkative (even though I can tell he chose the information he told Cale in that first meeting very carefully, figuring Cale out at the same time), Bud also shows signs of very quick wit and spontaneous planning, just like Cale.

He figures out quickly that Cale and the others are no joke. He's willing to enter an alliance, and show Cale the Directory, and also makes the immediate decision to burn the Directory down, once he realizes that the White Star uses it for nefarious purposes.

We see his competence in the 1,001 mercenary squad rescue, how he's willing to do anything for his men, and isn't too stubborn to ask Cale for help, when he needs it. He's also compassionate and responsible enough to regret putting Cale in danger as he rushes in to save them.

Of course, I understand why the "idiot" part is what the fans actually remember of this character. He got captured by Jopis' "innocent" puppies. That.... wasn't his fault. He has an Ancient Power which should have warned him of potential danger, and yet, the puppies turned out one of the few immune exceptions to his senses. Bud's true mistake was going in alone, and doing so because the wanted to impress Cale. Which is why he gets no sympathy from Cale when they show up to "rescue" him and make a deal with Jopis.

Sorry, Bud, as much as I'm on your side, that was a hilariously stupid mistake on your part.

One incident shouldn't make fans believe that Bud is an idiot, though. The reason it does, however, is because of Glenn. Glenn Poeff's reaction to Bud getting stupidly captured shows us that this was not the first time when Bud was stupidly reckless. But it does fit his overall characterization. Bud is not stupid, but he's not as cautious as Cale, despite his justified paranoia about the White Star aiming to kill him.

Bud's attitude towards Cale's crazy shenanigans also reminds the audience of two specific characters: Toonka, and Archie. Both of which are, at the same time, the "violent thugs" of their society, who contrast Cale in being shocked by his "mad viciousness" and become ironically "the only sane man on board". But just because Bud is also one of the characters who react to Cale as "dude, are you crazy?? Wait, nevermind..." doesn't mean that Bud is at the same intelligence level as Toonka and Archie. In fact, Bud is much, much more intelligent than those two. So it's not really fair to put him together with them in that department.

Bud is also a Sword Master, and a Mercenary King. We can probably conclude two things about his personality from that: one, he loves adventure and swordmanship. Two, he is brave enough to lead and make risks in order to achieve his ambitions. Bud is intelligent and a good actor, but he does love alcohol – he just pretends he's a lightweight (again, just like OG Cale). Bud is a good strategist and fighter, but he does make reckless mistakes from time to time, much to Glenn's exasperation.

So here it is. My reasons why "Bud Illis isn't as stupid as fans portray him in the fandom". Just because he's funny, doesn't mean he's a complete idiot. He's a competent leader, who managed to defend the Mercenaries against Arm in the Eastern Contient for a significant amount of time. He was one of the last lines of resistance towards the White Star there. That says things about him.

Give Bud some love, guys, he deserves it.

#tcf #trash of the count's family #lcf #lout of the count’s family #bud illis #character analysis #tcf meta

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feykrorovaan · 6 months

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You all know Darien is probably going to show up again at some point, correct? It's not just hope. ZoS has been sprinkling breadcrumbs (pun intended) since Summerset. They wouldn't do that for no reason or to tease us (unless they're somehow legitimately evil,which say what you want, but that isn't the case).

Spoilers galore for elder scrolls in general under the cut (Main plot, Wrothgar,Elsweyr,Greymoor,Summerset

Blackwood,High Isle, and Necrom.)

Just look at Coldharbor. What happened after we "lost" Darien. We found clues that he was still alive. Including a letter written by him in Wrothgar. So it only makes sense to me that they would do so again.

Darien and/or the events of Summerset have also been referenced in every.single.chapter since Summerset.

That, to my knowledge, hasn't happened with any other characters, especially not consecutively.

In Elsweyr, you can find a deceased khajiit, and nearby there is a note,describing how Meridia was looking for a new vessel that wouldn't betray her.

In Greymoor, Gabrielle Benele says she still believes that Darien is still out there somewhere and she is determined to find him. Not only that, but there is a Meridia quest where she has apparently turned her gaze from her faithful. Now Daedric princes' attention and favor can come and go, and I don't like Meridia, believe me, but she doesn't seem like the kind of prince that would turn her back if something bigger didn't have her attention.

In Blackwood, there is a random event when you talk to a wizard and he can summon a lost spirit. One of those spirits can be an Auroran Knight with Dawnbreaker in his hilt. It's not confirmed to be Darien. But...come on. It's him.

In High Isle, Lady Arabelle references his father specifically. Not Darien specifically, but there are other generals, and captains they could have referenced.They chose him because they knew our ears would perk up at the name "Gautier". His father had a pretty forgettable role,Darien,did not.

In Necrom, if you played through the Summerset plot, you can speak to Naryu about the events of Summerset.

I don't feel like they would talk about him (or the events of Summerset) this much if he wasn't coming back at some point or at least confirmed to be alive in some way. Not to mention whenever he's brought up in streams, they are pretty tight-lipped about him, and they've never specifically said he' won't return.

Summerset was a big event. So if we do see Darien again, it's going to be big.

Sources:

Experience and

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theroundbartable · 3 months

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Random ask, if Klance, Gajevy, and Merthur are going to Hogwarts, what houses do you think that will fit them (in your opinions)? Why?

Hmmm.... That's a very good question too.

1. Gajevy

Levy would definitely be a Ravenclaw. She's academic smart and solves riddles. She's pretty clearly a Ravenclaw.

Gajeel would, I think, be a Slytherin. Once he's decided on a family, he sticks to them. This has a little to do with my definition of Slytherins but I think Gajeel would be really family and blood oriented. If he can't have that, then he's going to stick to the group of people he accepts as family and goes way too far for them. It's what he did when we first see him. (I watched the show 10 years ago, I can't remember the guild name) but I remember that his entire life revolved around them and he simply accepted their guild rules as law.

My house definition on that note:

Hufflepuffs don't focus so much on blood/family relations and more on found family. Their friendship bonds are self made and soft.

Ravenclaws are study groups that help each other become smarter.

Gryffindors are friends who are willing to fight each other for their believes if necessary.

Slytherins stick to blood relations and accept tradition as law and would never stand up to one another. Nor are their relationships necessarily emotional or have specific goals. They stick together in order to stick together. That's why they are easier to manipulate.

2. Klance

Lance: Gryffindor. The reason for that is not necessarily that it's the house that fits him best but Lance would have chosen it. He has as much Hufflepuff energy as he is brave but he wants to be brave, wants to be a hero. So, naturally, the hat let him choose the house. And he grows really into that role.

Keith: Gryffindor. He's reckless, he's couragous and gets himself in trouble. He's always been a Gryffindor. And Lance hates to know that the hat didn't hesitate to put Keith there. That Keith is more of a Gryffindor than him. Keith doesn't really believe that he fits though.

However, I believe that both of them would be able to pull the sword from the hat. I might even argue that Lance would do it first.

3. Merthur

Oh.... Boy. This one is difficult, I swear.

Arthur is easily a Gryffindor. He's courage incarnate, whereelse would HE go? He's pulled the sword from the stone, he's a Pendragon, gold on red. That's a Gryffindor alright. (Although I would find it funny if he chose family over himself at the age of 11 and therefore lands in Slytherin on accident.)

Merlin, however.... Merlin could go anywhere.

Merlin is the bravest man Arthur has ever known. Merlin is smart (a physician). Merlin is accepting and trusting and he's also cunning and far too tied to his friends. The hat never needed longer to decide where to put him.

I have a few theories where Merlin would go, possibly.

A) if he knows Arthur is his destiny, he will follow him to Gryffindor.

B) if it's purely based on his characteristics and the hat gets to decide, he'd be a Slytherin. (Unless the hat has Kilgharrahs voice, then he'll be in Gryffindor again)

C) if Merlin chooses his own future, decides to focus on studying his magic, he'd go to Ravenclaw.

D) if Merlin can't decide, if the hat can't decide and Merlin doesn't want to give up on either of his characteristics, then the hat will put him in Hufflepuff to become an Allrounder.

That's my thoughts on this :) feel free to share yours as well ^^

#bbc merlin #vld #fairy Tail #klance #merthur #gajevy #ask #answer #faq #hp #Hogwarts houses #sorting

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eisforeidolon · 3 months

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Alrighty- Whaddya think of this?

I’ve been rewatching the show and am now at season 8. I shake my head at all the known moments in the show that hellers claim are canon ship bs, because you’d have to be stretch Armstrong to reach that far..

But something did nag me. There were times that Cas WAS the emotional support for Dean where I really thought it should have been Sam conversing with him. For the majority of the series we saw Dean be the caretaker, emotional support etc for Sam, and it never really came from anyone else- lest he was being manipulated by some evil person. However there were many times where that wasn’t reciprocated on screen. Cas would almost stand in for Sam when Dean needed someone, showed Dean a lot of compassion. (Please believe I’m being objective and not a stan in hiding). I think THAT dynamic confused people. Why didn’t they have Sam having those convos with Dean more? I mean, narratively I understand the need for Cas to move the plot forward with his specific role, but so many times it was an angsty Dean who I think NEEDED his BROTHER more than a convo with Cas. Now there are people who just wanted to sexualize Jensen/Dean and couldn’t possibly be linked the wincest as their puritan sensibilities just wouldn’t allow them. But OTHER fans seemed to have latched on to the dynamic of Dean and Cas because they saw Dean have emotional moments with him.

Now during my rewatch it pissed me off, because I realized that the writers were making some conscious choices to have Sam NOT fill that role for Dean. Like it seemed like they went out of their way at times to make Sam seem more indifferent to Dean. This is why- wildly unpopular opinion here- I didn’t like Sera Gamble! I think she isolated Sam away from Dean and had Cas fill in for Sam. That codependent brother thing I LIVE FOR, was kinda washed out during her seasons (in my opinion), but more so from one side. I think she didn’t really like Dean, period, but whereas I know Sam fans LOVE Gamble, I think she mischaracterized Sam a lot.

In my mind, Sam is just as in love with Dean as Dean is with him (whether that be wincest or brotherly is up to your interpretation). You remember when Rowena started really having a relationship with Sam? And then Jack, too? That was really the first time we’ve seen Sam have that type of side character interaction depth. It’s why Sam fans love those two characters because they related to Sam! Well, isn’t that why Dean fans loved Cas, too?

I dunno I’m ranting and probably make no sense, but I was definitely annoyed with the writers in quite a bit if my rewatch during seasons 4-7 because it seemed such a purposeful choice to NOT show Sam being for Dean what they chose to show Cas being. I think knot blurred the lines and did such a disservice to Sam. Ironically, I think Carver rectified this a lot! Even with the angst and separation, Carver’s seasons demonstrably showed the codependency and intense brotherly love. I prefer seasons 1-3 and then all of Carver’s seasons!

I couldn't remember any instances of Dean leaning on Castiel when there wasn't some obvious reason it wasn't a conversation with Sam. So I went through season by season, and ultimately, I think you have to look at what the plot arc between the brothers is. As I've said before, the one thing that I actually like about Dabb as a showrunner is finally dropping the constant circling back to brother conflict drama that, to me at least, felt more and more artificial. Even if we're talking about seasons 4-7, we have to start at the beginning, because I think the first three seasons are pointedly bringing the brothers back together closer than ever in preparation for all the apocalypse shenanigans to attempt to tear them apart.

In terms of Dean opening up, specifically, consider what happens in those seasons between them from Dean's perspective.

In season four, he comes back from hell traumatized only to realize Sam has been lying to him about using his powers and working with Ruby. When he asks Sam to explain because he's scared of the powers, Sam refuses to talk about it and says he wouldn't understand (4x04). So how can it be a surprise that when he wants to talk in the next episode, it's Jamie the bartender he chooses instead? Is it really strange he basically mirrors what Sam said about Dean not being able to understand when Sam confronts him about what Uriel said regarding him remembering hell (4x08)? Castiel (4x07) and Anna (4x10) conversing with Dean are more about their own fears and insecurities more than Dean's. When Dean does finally open up and is ready to actually talk about what happened in hell, it is to Sam (4x11). Except, it's pretty soon after that (4x14) where Sam throws it back in his face under the influence of the siren, calling him a weak, whiny burden who is just holding Sam back. Can it really be a surprise then that, again, next time Dean opens up it's to Tessa (4x15)? And then, when the doubts are basically exactly what Sam said, i.e. that the apocalypse really is too big for him to deal with and he is scared, he says it to Castiel instead (4x16)? Which I think is only validated to Dean when Sam says the same kind of thing all over again without the siren's influence when they fight in 4x21. They're in conflict and being torn in opposite directions, which is kind of the point. Actually communicating – if they both weren't too stubborn to do it – would basically halt season 4's entire plot in its tracks.

Without making this post five miles long, those kinds of things happen again and again in 5-7, too. Sam is literally not there to talk to when he leaves at the beginning of the season, and they don't get back together because they've actually sorted out all the shit between them from the previous events, but because Sam has realized he can't get out and Dean doesn't trust that Sam will continue to say no to Lucifer if they're apart. So when Dean opens up, it's to his hallucination of a therapist instead of Sam. Blow after blow follows thereafter. What they see of Sam's heaven being an entire absence of Dean. Everyone leaving Dean to grieve at Lisa's for a year knowing Sam is back(ish) the whole time. Soulless!Sam's actions, which (as unfair as it might be) Dean clearly had trouble separating out from regular Sam's. Sam's sanity hanging on by a wall, then being plagued by Hallucifer. Similar big conflicts and obstacles to frank conversation continue on into seasons 8 and 9, too.

I think you can fairly go fifty layers deep into what's going on in both of their heads in any of those instances and see where they're coming from, but Dean isn't going to be doing that as the one living it. From his perspective? There are a lot of reasons to not open up to Sam because of what's going on in their lives and how they each feel about it. So sometimes he does open up to others – which includes Castiel.

I definitely remember way back when I was a multishipper that a lot of D/C shippers said they started shipping the ship because Castiel didn't have that fraught history with Dean that Sam does with all the conflicts and misunderstandings. That's fine (although IMO it hardly held true for very long). However, to me it seems like Dean is just as likely to turn to a stranger (or the hallucination of one) as he is to turn to Castiel instead of Sam, so I don't really see it as some huge thing in the canon that really justifies thinking the ship is anything but certain fans over-investing in what they particularly like. I also think that Sam was just less and less likely to open up to anyone at all as the series went on – but when he does, it was also often with Castiel or Jody or Charlie or Rowena instead of Dean. Because the season conflict didn't rely on them being unable to communicate effectively with those other characters and the judgement of those other characters couldn't do as much damage if it was negative.

None of that even gets into the whole other issue of the underlying dynamics carried over from their childhood which also plays into things. Where Dean still sees his primary purpose as protecting Sam as his little brother rather than always seeing him as a true partner. Where he has self-worth and abandonment issues that make him unable to understand why Sam would value him and not be able to just get over his death. Where Sam is not only all too aware that Dean doesn't value himself and gets frustrated with that? But has spent so long fighting against what everyone else wants from him that he still sometimes treats Dean as a substitute for authority instead of a partner and pushes back at any disagreement with his (not always as) brilliant (as he thinks) plans as “bossing him around”? Where he also gets very agitated whenever Dean is not okay because he needs Dean to be okay to the point he insistently tries to fix it by making Dean talk when Dean isn't ready to. In short, they both have huge underlying issues that skew how they see each other and they're both stubborn as hell.

Then when you add on top of that how the writers had such a tendency to revolve the action arcs around Sam and the emotional ones around Dean as the viewpoint character that Sam's emotions and thoughts often seem like a mysterious locked box through large parts of the series? I do get why some fans can read that as Sam being indifferent to Dean, but I don't think that's the underlying intention or the case. Because of that focus choice, to a large extent we only see how badly Sam needs Dean when there's a threat of Dean not being there or Dean is taken away – but I would argue that we do really see it then. From not caring about Marshall Hall to wanting to try Doc Benton's solution to trying to suicide by demon to initially allowing himself to be manipulated by Ruby to taking on his Cage memories to the Rowena and Oskar debacle to how his montage life was entirely blurry except for his son and his grief over Dean.

#askboxery #anonymous #spn discussion #long post #I know there was some other stuff in there #I didn't get to #but this is already A Lot

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lifetimeoftired · 3 months

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Carmilla Carmine, an Angel?

(Warning for spoilers under the cut)

So I noticed two things instantly about Carmilla during her introduction in Scrambled Eggs. 1) She has the same exact color scheme as the Exorcists/Vaggie/the Seraphim (Grey skin with white hair), the only real difference in her colors to them, is her red demon eyes. 2) How she's immediately set up as a parallel to Vaggie

This doesn't seem like a lot to go on, but hear me out, what if Carmilla is a former angel just like Lucifer?

Those two things aren't my only reasons for thinking so, but they did lead me down a bit of a rabbit hole in regards to a few things about her and the only other true angels in hell. First of all, Carmilla, when she's singing Whatever It Takes with Vaggie, talks about protecting what's most important. But Carmilla refers to herself as her daughter's 'keeper'. I feel like this is a deliberate choice because of Cain and Able. Cain, after he kills able, very specifically tells god 'I am not my brother's keeper', aka, 'I am not responsible for him'. But Carmilla names herself her daughter's protector, that she is responsible for them and takes responsibility for keeping them safe when killing the Exorcist. This is also a contrast to Vaggie, who calls herself Charlie's *Armor*. Also to protect Charlie and keep her safe, but not take wholesale responsibility for her the way being her Keeper would be.

Another interesting thing to note about Whatever It Takes, Carmilla very specifically said she never wanted a fight. She 'crossed the line' solely to keep her daughters safe, though she mentions a genuine affection for Zestial as well. She also goes on to say that she has no idea who would survive the fight if they went into all out war with Heaven, and she does seem very concern about the number of sinners because of how that effects the Overlords. Seems like strange personality choices for an arms dealer considering it's her supplies that allow people to murder each other without restraint, but it does make sense when you compare her to Charlie, Vaggie, and Lucifer. Obviously demons can choose to care for others, as shown with Alastor and Rosie, and the playful banter between Zestial and Alastor, but Carmilla is very specific to what she believes in and who she loves and how she willing she is to care for others. Just like the other people we know for sure are angelic in nature; Charlie consistently crosses the line for her friends, Vaggie chose to cross the line for an Exorcist by allowing a child demon to live, and the entire reason Hell and Charlie exist in the first place is because Lucifer crossed the line in the first place.

Case in point, my next point about the further parallel between Vaggie and Carmille during Out For Love. We saw earlier during the trust exercise that Vaggie is extremely militaristic, and Carmilla shows the same hardcore sink or swim mentality. Demons can fight, obviously, we've seen it. Most of the demons we see however use guns or fight with magical abilities rather than actual martial arts, so it stands out that Carmilla does. It stands out more that she's a military woman. We do see Sir Pentitious take an active role as a military commander, but it's played more for laughs because a lot of his tactics are either ineffective or kind of silly (even his sacrifice is somewhat played for laughs (even though his friends take it deadly serious (as they should that's Good Writing))). Carmilla on the other hand is taken deadly serious as both a business woman and an arms dealer by the narrative even those Velvette tries to disrespect her. Carmilla further demonstrates her military mentality when she lets Vaggie in, but maintains control of the situation by telling Vaggie she has 'two minutes' and constantly reminds her of how little time she has. In fact she actively chooses to train Vaggie to fight by attacking her and explaining how stupidly angels fight after the fact. She even goes out of her way to get on Vaggie's level when she states she's never fought with long hair before, by letting her own hair down and still kicking the shit out of her. This is practically a trope in of itself that damaged former military types, especially those who worked for the enemy, are like that to the heroes.

(Also sidenote, Carmilla adopting Vaggie as her own when???)

And my earlier point about Carmilla choosing to fight for love, and how that makes her different, is also quite literally restated and reinforced by the song Out For Love. She tells Vaggie to dig deep and use her love and desire to keep her loved ones safe, her fear of losing them, as fuel to make her stronger and better and ends the song by Vaggie regrowing her wings. Which is fascinating to me because the other characters we see get actively stronger when they're fighting for the people they love and care for are Charlie and Lucifer.

Carmilla also does something very interesting during this scene that really stuck with me; She point blank stated that she already knew Vaggie was a former Exorcist. Literally no other character realized this, or even implied that they knew. I kind of find her reasons to be bullshit as well? 'You have an x over your eye', which we know for a fact that Exorcists have real faces under their masks and don't actually have X's for eyes. Vaggie got that after she lost hers and, well we haven't seen other demons lose limbs and how they handle that, it was very interesting that she stated that as one of the reasons. The other reason is even dumber 'You're carrying an angelic spear'. Carmilla you are literally an angelic weapon arms dealer. So, clearly, she had to have been able to guess what Vaggie.

(Another thing that really struck me is that we only hear Spanish out of two characters so far; Carmilla and Vaggie. This isn't really an indicator that Carmilla is an angel, considering we don't hear a lot of Spanish in Heaven, but with all this other stuff I Am Thinking About It.)

So, if I'm right, what is Carmilla doing in hell? And what's with her daughters? That point I think has to do with Zestial. Whether or not Zestial is actually fucking Carmilla (and the two of them would have good taste if they were- I am definitely shipping it) and is the father of Odette and Clara is irrelevant (but I like to think it is true), what is relevant, is how much trust and faith Carmilla places in him and how long they've known each other.

Carmilla is definitely a demon, angels don't have red eyes like she does as far as we can tell. Lucifer does have red eyes, but it's entirely possible he only got those after he fell. And he didn't become a demon willingly, he was forced into it, so only his irises are red. Carmilla, with her loyalty, her willingness to do whatever it takes, and her friendship with Zestial, I think she actively chose to become a demon and that's why all of her eyes are red. It's also stated that Sinner demons can't reproduce, only those Hellborn can have children, and we don't know if Angels can have their own children or not, but I assume 'yes' for now. So the two daughters Carmilla has? I think they're like Charlie with one caveat; Charlie was born after Lucifer and Lilith fell, I think Carmilla was pregnant with her daughters when she fell. I think she got pregnant, realized Heaven would either harm her daughters (if I'm right and Zestial is their father), or they would take her daughters away from her and throw her into hell without them. So she made the choice to walk away and seek a safe(r) haven in Hell. She made the mistakes to keep them safe, to keep the secret.

Whether I'm right or wrong on this, I'm very eager to see more of Carmilla she's already a personal fav of mine.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel theory #Carmilla Carmine

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orbmanson7 · 11 months

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Has anyone considered a theory of Generation Loss being....well, about the process of generation loss?

So, let's say...Ranboo, the one we see in episode 1, is not the original version of himself. Let's say he was real outside of this show that Showfall is putting on, but inside the show? That Ranboo is a copy! The first generation, you could say.

However, that Ranboo believes it is still the original, as it was made from the original so it has no reason to really think otherwise, right? But now, as part of whatever Showfall is doing here, this Ranboo copy is going to be a character in a show, so Showfall needs to get this Ranboo to play the right role - The Hero.

The Hero has to have a particular mindset, so maybe they need to change things up a bit. A little mind control here, a little disillusion there, all to keep from startling this Ranboo too much and be more willing to accept his new reality, right?

You can't just throw him into this new place and expect him to be okay with what's really happening, you've gotta soften out the edges, keep him calm so he's easier to control and so the audience can have fun, too, right? Once he's gotten more used to it, he'll play along.

Now, I have no idea what the original Ranboo's goal is in this, or if they even entered a copy of themselves into the show willingly in this theory. And I don't know if the hacker is trying to actually help him or not, but they keep insisting on ranboo playing along, don't resist but don't conform. That means there's definitely a plan here, but that plan involves playing Showfall's game, being their puppet and giving them what they want, which is clearly dangerous.

Anyway, fast forward, let's say things go well, let's say this Ranboo copy gets out, figures out what's happening and survives to take down...idk, the Founder of it all? Destroys this thing from the inside or something?

But then what? If this Ranboo that makes it is just a copy, what are even the chances they can succeed? Can they even survive outside of the set they were in? What if this Ranboo doesn't make it out? What if he fails or dies here?

Well, if he can't survive, maybe another Ranboo can! If he makes another copy that can be sent along (or, connected) to the next round, maybe that one will be more successful!

But that would make him a copy of a copy. Generation two, in fact.

He'll be hindered by previous experience within Showfall's game but maybe he could use it to his advantage, so he might know how to see the clues that were in plain sight all along, or maybe be able to help someone else and not just play along the whole time? Or maybe do a better job playing along so Showfall won't suspect anything and intervene like they have been?

And if that's the case, what does that say about the other characters? They may very well also be copies, specifically of popular streamers that the audience will know and love! But who knows how far along in their generations they are, or what kind of characters they are meant to portray. How good have they gotten at no longer believing they are human and instead fulfilling their role?

But, remember what the process of generation loss can do! As more copies of copies are made, generation loss occurs, stripping away parts, distorting others... Things begin to fall apart.

If what Jerma said in episode two about doing this for "thirty years" is true, it could explain why he looks the way he does. He's been distorted and changed over time. And he's successfully fulfilling his role, he's The Puzzler!

While it doesn't explain why Showfall may be doing this, it could mean that the Ranboo we have seen so far in the show might be truly trapped there now because he chose (for whatever reason) to go in, be it to save someone or find the founder or try to stop Showfall from doing this more and more...

The best we could probably get is for Ranboo to survive by making a new copy...and hoping that the next one succeeds. But after too long, after enough copies, will he still be the Ranboo we knew?

#generation loss theory #generation loss #genloss #gen loss #ranboo #genloss spoilers #orbs thought bubbles #just thinking up some things #it does make me wonder how distorted ranboo could get even just appearance-wise from something like this #hmmm

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perky89 · 6 months

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I want to talk Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright. Specifically, regarding its less talked about themes of religion.

Major Spoilers for Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright.

Trigger Warning: Discussions of Suicide, Toxic Religion, Heavens Gate Suicide

Newton Belduke was canonically polytheistic, as we can see in his suicide note. And his beliefs mostly likely played at least some role in his decision to commit suicide.

"I hope you will be able to forgive me for leaving this world of my own will. I have finally made this decision, having seen that accursed bell tower appear in the flames on that dreadful night. That lightning was a sign that we have angered the gods."

There's a good chance that Arthur is religious, too.

Phoenix: "What? It's (Project Labyrinthia) a government project? But what would be their stake in this?"

Arthur: "...It's all because of my beliefs."

"Beliefs" does not always have to mean religious beliefs, but in this case, I think it does. The way that Newton talks in his suicide note implies that they both share similar polytheistic beliefs. Newton didn't say "I" have angered the gods, he said "we."

Let's look at Labyrinthia itself. Arthur places himself as an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God: He controls everything. He is seen as all good by the townsfolk, who all adore him.

Adore him to the point where when Luke tries to suggest that the Story Arthur writes won't come true, he and Layton are openly mocked by the townsfolk, and then openly threatened by the knights, and would have been arrested if they hadn't run away and hid. And even then, they got hunted down until the knights gave up.

And if that wasn't enough, let's look at how the townsfolk react when something good happens vs when something bad happens.

At the Storytellers parade when Layton and Luke first arrive in Labyrinthia, we get commentary from a few people in the crowd. One thanks him for her giving birth to a baby girl. Another thanks her that her grandmother has healed from sickness. But when a witch comes and kills somebody? They blame the witch, BURN the witch even.

Even more than that, let's look at Arthur's "death" in the final case of the game. One that they know he wrote, that they know he chose. That he openly declares will happen. They still try to burn Espella.

So, what are the takeaways we get from this game? Now, I get to the points of this little Tumblr essay I've written.

Point 1, many people do bad things for the sake of a religion that they truly believe. In other words, not just using religion as a cover up to do bad things, but doing awful things they genuinely believe are justifiable because of their religious beliefs. And sometimes, those beliefs hurt even themselves. Part of why Arthur started Labyrinthia was his religious beliefs. Likewise, part of why Newton committed suicide was he believed he had angered the gods he believed in.

In the real world, many religious people preach against transgenderism, homosexuality, abortion, and other issues of human rights. I believe the majority of these people have the best of intentions. They genuinely believe that these things will send people to eternal suffering, and want to save people from that eternal suffering. Likewise, I believe Arthur Cantabella had the best of intentions as well. I think, in his eyes, his gods wanted him to give these people new lives in Labyrinthia. They wanted him to do all this to help his daughter recover from her PTSD. He genuinely believed that, and it's part of what led him to do what he did (Espella, was, of course, the primary reason, as the game thoroughly established).

People can hurt themselves, intentionally or unintentionally, for the sake of their religion as well. I, like many other ex-Evangelical Christians, when I was Evangelical, was very hard on myself whenever I messed up and sinned. I once went to a youth conference where I and hundreds of other kids and adults were preached to that whenever we committed a sin, which the Bible says everyone does, we were saying we hated God. This, of course, does not equate to Newton Belduke's suicide. My purpose of using this example was to show how people, like Newton, can and do physically and/or emotionally hurt themselves for the sake of following their religious beliefs, and also to be sure that I used common, everyday examples, and not just extreme ones.

To get into a more extreme example that more closely resembles Newtons situation, the Heavens Gate cult suicide. 39 people committed suicide under the genuine belief that after they did so, they would be taken up in a spaceship, and avoid being on the earth during it's soon to come end times. The main reason Newton committed suicide I think was the guilt of having all these people under mind control. But as we can see from his suicide note, his belief that he had angered his gods certainly added to it.

In conclusion for point number 1, one of several lessons Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright teaches us is that the misuse of religion can and has led people to harming themselves and others, as Arthur and Newton did.

Point number 2, many people can and are pushed away, sometimes even kicked out religions entirely, for questioning religions and/or their leaders. And this even happens among religions. Lots of people, if you don't agree with their exact theological beliefs, shun you and are very rude in trying to correct you. I have seen it so many times online, and it has even happened to me. Countless people have left the religion their parents raised them with, and have been cut off by their entire family. This especially happens in more strict, extreme religions, such as Jehovahs Witnesses. In some countries, you can be arrested and shot for not following that countries national religion.

The exact same thing that happened to Layton and Luke when they first entered Labyrinthia happens in real life. Like they were openly condemned for not believing in the Story, people are openly mocked online and told they're going to hell for not following a specific set of theological beliefs. Like Layton and Luke had to run to prevent from being arrested, people have had to do that in certain countries, as well.

In conclusion for point number 2, another lesson that we learn from Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright is that many people misuse religion and believe their religion is the absolute only way that anyone should live, and they go so far as to shame and hurt other people for the sake of spreading their religion.

Point number 3, the double standards in modern religion. In several modern religions, many, but not all, of their followers take a similar approach to their god or gods as the Labyrinthia citizens do to Arthur. When something goes great, they thank their god or gods. When something goes bad, they blame a negative figure in their religion, other people, or no one. Or, often, if they do attribute the cause of something going bad to their god or gods, they say that their god or gods had a good reason, or a purpose, behind what happened. While, if they blame an evil figure in their religion, that figure just did it because they were evil. If a person did it, they did so because they were misinformed or also evil.

I certainly understand why this approach is taken. We as humans, religious or not, all have bias. Me, personally, when my best friend does something wrong, I say "Well, we all make mistakes." When someone I don't like does something, I say "Well they're just a (insert one or several curse words here)." Though it's an understandable double standard, it's still a double standard.

In conclusion for point number 3, a lesson Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright teaches us is that the misuse of religion of a lack of critical thinking within can lead to it's followers having double standard about it's religious figures.

One last thing before I wrap this up. While writing the conclusions for each point, you'll notice I emphasized "the misuse of religion." Certainly, religion can be misused and terrible can and have resulted. But it is not always misused. Religion can and has been used to do wonderful things, too. My best friends mom, who is protestant, got cancer, and a group of Catholics paid for all of her medical treatment and even brought her groceries. People have used religion to publicly encourage the love and acceptance of others. Jesus, in the New Testament, preached about loving each other and about helping those in need. The United Church of Christ actively promotes LGBTQIA+ rights, diversity. Several religions promote helping people and being kind to others. Every Muslim I have every met has been nothing but sweet. Believing in a good afterlife helps a lot of peoples anxiety about death. Religion helps many people find community and friends, as it did for me, though my former religion and myself have largely parted ways now. And when I told my friends in church that I had left Christianity, I wasn't shunned or pushed away, I was loved and embraced with open arms. Critical thinking was and is still encouraged, as it anti-racism.

Case and point, religion does not always have to be a bad thing. It can be beautiful, and it can be horrid. But that's not just religion, that's almost anything, ever. The fault for bad things happening is, for the most part, not the religions, but the followers who misuse it. What Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright does is show us happens when religion is misused.

and er...that's my unprofessional essay lol. while we're on the topic of religion, Imma pray that this goes well LOL

#professor layton #hershel layton #phoenix wright #ace attorney #laywright #plvsaa #plvspw #professor layton vs ace attorney #professor layton vs phoenix wright #religion #theology

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