#cal reads comics | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

weirdmageddon · 8 months

Text

i love these tags this person is so right

actually, can you imagine if dave was raised by B1 roxy?

i wanna get into this actually

(ok i had to spend a few hours rewriting this because IT DIDNT FUCKING SAVE AFTER FIVE HOURS OF WRITING WHEN MY COMPUTER UPDATED WHILE I WAS AFK so it would mean a lot to show this post some appreciation. i LOVEEE hearing what other people have to say)

even though these things mom does are presented in an extravagant, kitsch, jokey way, her intentions always came from a place of sincerity. she is simply Funnie

but rose reads too far into it and assumes things that aren't there, that her mother is passive-aggressively feigning interest in rose's interests simply because the things she does are so extra. "why do all of this if not to mock me"

im telling you right now if dave lived in this household he wouldn't assume antagonism, he'd go,

don’t forget who LITERALLY patented tangible jpeg artifacts as their post-scratch adult self and scattered shitty scummed up statue of liberties all over the planet. theres no way some of that overboard artful shit wasnt post-ironic / circling back around to genuine funny sincerity

dave's natural state is funny sincerity like roxy. he's had the natural capacity for this type of humor from the start and this is the direction he goes towards when he grows out of his brother's shadow by the end of the comic. dave and roxy share an earnest “so bad its good” type of humor

(lots more under the cut; the length of this meta analysis just got unwieldly with all the pictures and whatnot)

despite the alcoholism, roxy is a supportive mother. she's not the ideal guardian but hells of a lot more supportive of her kid than bro is. if she knew dave's interests she would totally indulge in them with some over the top silly goofy haha shit as a genuine gesture simply because she loves him

rose isn't too keen on it though. but she is more similar to dirk in her natural state of thinking of overthinking shit and assuming the worst, like the tags said

and yes dave got the sweet cuddly yet sometimes backhanded ouppy gene from roxy, probably even moreso lol

roxy's even said rose "sounds like girl dirk"

side tangent here, but this is something i wanna talk about.

i dont think bro should ever be in custody of children ever but if theres anyone who would be up to the task it's rose probably. i know she'd be able to keep up with him. not only does she have a defined personality (dave is more malleable and absorbs his environment like a sponge), if anyone can pick apart B1 dirk's batshit brain and probably be right on the money it's her. lil cal has been pumping patriarchal nonsense into bro's head and rose would be able to bring the fucking facts to the table without losing her own and being a living example of a badass little girl. i also don't think bro would try to force masculine roles onto rose like he did with dave, seeing as she is a girl, so she would actually have more of a leg up and get some passes that dave was never afforded. and rose wouldn't stand idly and accept any bullshit; she is no doormat. and i think this would earn bro's respect

but anyway, from this, couldn't we conclude roxy "sounds like girl dave"?

yeah okay. we havent even gotten into their penchant for funny typos or misspeaks, deliberate or otherwise

so, dave's environment

the sentiment "god you hope you can be as good as your bro at this some day" might have been genuine at the time when he idolized bro but of course he's not able to express that in any sort of sincere fashion because he's in dirk's fucking household. and this level 10 irony shit isnt doing dave any favors

his role models were the Internet and a vague idea of what Bro was like. So he built up his facade based on irony–not the literary definition of irony, as Rose might be quick to point out, but a popular concept of irony based on the idea that things that didn’t make sense actually made sense in some roundabout way. As a master of irony, Dave probably reasoned, he could see in a way other people couldn’t why a world that was scary and didn’t make sense really did make sense, and could therefore convince those people that he was superior to them. And he would wield his knowledge to maintain the appearance of superiority by calling everything ironic and pretending he didn’t care about things that didn’t make sense, and he would use walls of vaguely rhyming words to keep everyone at arm’s length so they wouldn’t discover his insecurities (source)

roxy's style is the embodiment of post-irony. being raised by mom lalonde would be like being raised by joel vinesauce ok

what can i say ….. (getting meta about this actually, hussie got these jpeg wizard wallpapers from a spyware website. link takes some time to load because internet archive)

rose is quick to read post-irony as actually being a joke/insincere, which in bro's case would be true. but i believe dave's natural instinct, outside of the influence of bro, is to read post-irony as genuine, which is exactly how mom serves it. we see this as early as act 3 from him; he understands her motives better than rose does herself:

and in act 6 intermission 2 i think it's pretty clear

but the thing is, it's always genuine from her. dave wouldn't have to second guess it because he's not one to naturally second guess someone's sincerity; that was learned due to his bro being virtually unassailable

there two types of ironies at play here:

seems like a joke, is actually genuine (roxy)

doesnt seem like a joke, is actually a joke (dirk)

you can make the argument that the second is is more psychologically destructive because it makes you question the reality of what is genuine sentiment and what isn't. dave never knew what was genuine and what was irony so he just sort of existed in this sincerity-ironic limbo and always did the opposite of what he genuinely felt on principle even if it always did originate from a genuine place.

"it just a joke bro i was just being ironic i dont actually x" is so much more trust-breaking and psychologically damaging than "wait are you being serious" / "i am being so fucking fr rn davy gravy" / "ok thats actually pretty fucking awesome. giant ass wizard statue" / "RIGHT"

how much about dave would change do you think? his character arc would be completely different for one thing, i think he'd have it good aside from mom's alcohol issues. he'd be left with the sweet and funny parts of him that we see at the end of the comic. the fake coolguy stuff is out, but this remains. this is dave in his element and we see it as early as act 1

he'd probably have no shades growing up in the lalonde residence* either cause those were given to him by bro straight out of the crater as an extension of his own cool image. and john gave dave ben stiller’s aviators for his 13th birthday to replace them so he could “spread his wings”

dave said he was wearing them for the ironies but i kind of doubt it. maybe post-irony but there was some reacharound to it being genuine because dave never put those pointy anime shades on his face again.

*though... it’s kind of hard to imagine him without his shades at all? B2 dave still got stiller’s shades from stiller himself so maybe getting them is a universal constant. i can imagine mom getting him them as a birthday gift cause shes pretty wealthy and probably could buy it out in an auction. but also itd be cool if john still gave him it as a gift

dave is actually a lot more genuine and easy to read than he lets on even when grappling with his upbringing with B1 dirk (again, see this post). this can be seen all throughout he comic but a good example is the evolution of thoughts about his interest in the preserved dead things in his room:

if B1 roxy was dave's guardian he probably WOULD have pursued paleontology because she wouldve indulged him in it and probably find it cool and worthwhile to pursue, instead of allowing dave to flounder under ironic detachment, being poisoned by irony to the point of gaslighting himself into believing he doesnt actually believe he thinks this shit is cool. even if it was indulged in this such a way; a superficially kitsch and ironic appearing presentation, it comes from a genuine place and inspires genuine interest. just read the comments.

basically, i think if B1 roxy raised dave, their relationship would have a surface level appearance of being bizarre or over-the-top but they’d have an unsaid mutual understanding that it’s completely in earnest and just build on each other's funny and absurd gestures of affection. rather than seeing it as one-upping each other, it'd more like collaboration of some silly bullshit that you take a step back and look at full and just say, "fucking incredible"

speaking of paleontology, mom had the proto-ectobiology lab. maybe they'd be able to use the equipment to appearify paradox ghost imprints of the dead shit to create paradox clones of things from the cambrian era??? sounds like a fun mother son bonding activity. and theyd actually put the sciencey shit in the household to use

oh god i know exactly the kinds of music shed listen too also growing up as a teen in the 80s. she on that (post)-punk/art rock/new wave/new romantic mtv stuff. XTC shit fr. this is a B-52S HOUSEHOLD. maybe the associates for the campy melodramatic flair. so he gets to keep the record on his shirt cause he is an enjoyer of the shit in her vinyl collection. dave would still gravitate towards musical expression and music itself but of more variety outside of just rap, with an 80s-90s, even 70s flavor due to mom’s influence. see this for perhaps a glimpse. she probably visited new york city a lot for business trips and because the music scene was cool as hell around that time, imports came straight from jfk airport, she probably got in on that a bit and have remnants in the form of vinyls and cassettes. in this way she could be distributing void to dave (influencing him with forgotten / presently irrelevant music). now he can REALLY rave about bands none of his friends have heard of. “hey davy grvay watcha listenin to” (he holds up vinyl cover) “omg snakefinger”

btw dave lalonde would look like this to me

#homestuck #homestuck meta #dave strider #mom lalonde #roxy lalonde #hs #strilonde guardian swap

6K notes · View notes

celaenaeiln · 3 months

Text

I think I really need to explain what it’s like having Jason be mad at Dick about not reaching out or whatever according to fanon because this is really bothering me.

So in Canon, Dick comes over and gives Jason his number and tells him to call whenever possible if he needs or wants anything. And Jason says okay. After that they don’t meet often except for a few instances and that’s that.

But for some reason this fact has been used a symbol of Dick being a bad brother??

Let me put this into perspective here: imagine having your older sibling attending Cal Tech in California, studying astrophysics, participating in 7 different clubs, being the leader of all those clubs, maintains his grades and goals, struggling with mental health, dealing with relationships, and then AS AN OUTSIDER getting mad at him for not dropping by to say hi to his younger sibling in New Jersey in the middle of the semester. Only in Dick’s case, he built the university, invited the students and colleagues, and ran the place both as the owner, administrator, and student. When people are struggling with one job he’s dealing with three.

Like actually how are you gonna pin any blame on him realistically. When reading the comics he’s so busy with the titans that you as the reader forget Bruce even exists so how are you gonna be mad at him for not showing up with toys for a brother you and he both know is safe and well taken care of. How?

“He could’ve called.”

WELL SO COULD JASON. I believe Dick’s words were “call me.” So how are you going to sit there saying that Dick should’ve been a better brother when it is it impossible for anyone to do better than he did.

Let’s continue with the previous analogy. The younger sibling ends up calling once but the older brother is in fucking Russia! But unfortunately the younger brother called the university, not the direct line which the older brother wouldn’t have been able to pick up anyway because depending on the country +1 (US) numbers don’t work on international calls! So how do you expect Dick to any way be held responsible??

Let’s be real here. There’s just no possible, conceivable way to call Dick a bad brother.

Dick has a guilt complex but that doesn’t mean he’s actually guilty of something. It just means he thinks he is because that’s the way he copes with living when others don’t.

#rant post #good brother dick grayson #dick grayson #nightwing #jason todd #robin jason todd #red hood #it’s 1am and I’m so mad #I am DONE with bad brother dick grayson lies

702 notes · View notes

pikapeppa · 2 months

Text

Tiefling anatomy and headcanons

Someone else has probably done this already and in more detail, but ALAS, I could not find anything to fit my very specific smut-related needs. So I went ahead and labelled some diagrams.

Our handsome model for this post is Dammon! 🥰 SADLY, I don't know the source of the photos I used (they were sent to me by a friend and a Goog search did not help), so if anyone knows who I can credit the source images to, please let me know!

Terms and headcanons are mine. If they're well-established elsewhere/used by others, it's pure coincidence.

Within-image text will follow below, for those using screenreaders/if the font is too small (SORRY, I was in a rush). I also put a cut before the third image, since it's got Dammon's bum in it. 🥰

The first image depicts sternal ridges ("sternum" meaning "breastbone") and costal ridges ("costal" meaning "relating to the ribs"). I headcanon that the sharp-looking, pointed parts of these ridges are not actually sharp or hard, but rather, cartilage covered in skin (like ears!).

The second image depicts spinal ridges (prominences on the vertebrae) and wingtips, tiny little hooks of cartilage on the shoulder blades. I headcanon that some tieflings see larger wingtips as being good luck, or even a sign that you'll be able to fly in your next life.

The third image shows anatomy of the tail, which is grossly divided into the upper tail and the lower tail. The upper tail, also called the tail base or tail root, is where the tail attaches to the body, just above the bum. I headcanon that this area of the tail is a "private area", off-limits for being touched except by lovers or romantic partners. The lower tail, including the tip of the tail, is okay to be touched by friends and close family. Tieflings partners might link their lower tails together in an affectionate gesture, like holding hands. Siblings and friends might slap or pull each other's lower tails when they're playfighting (we're looking at you, Cal and Lia and Rolan). The tail tip might also be called a "tail-barb", depending on dialect differences.

Some other random tiefling-body headcanons, some of which are NSFW (be warned):

They have nails: not claws, not talons, but nails. 'Claws' and 'talons' are considered offensive terms, like equating tieflings to animals.

Touching a tiefling's horns is off-limits except for very close friends/family/partners. It's not necessarily romantic to touch or caress a tiefling's horns, but it often is, not unlike stroking someone's hair.

Tiefling tails are partially prehensile. Thus, they can use them during sex. 😏

Contrary to popular belief, tieflings are adept at giving and receiving finger penetration (i.e. finger-fucking SORRY TO BE CRUDE) with long nails, and don't need to cut them for sex reasons. They know their bodies, and they can easily learn how to finger-fuck without hurting anyone.

Tiefling tails can broadcast emotions, like cats' tails (though some tiefs may not like being compared to animals -- see above). I've seen at least two fantastic comics about this, here and here (MY FAVOURITE).

Thank you for reading if you came this far! And feel free to use these headcanons in fic writing, if you like, with a nod to yours truly if you're feeling kindly 🥰

If you'd like to read some tieflings fics where these headcanons come into play, you can check out my Karlach/Dammon fic here, and my Rolan/f!Tav fic here. Both are rated E for smut.

-- love from your friendly neighbourhood Pika! xoxo

#tieflings #tiefling #tiefling anatomy #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #dungeons and dragons #dnd #dnd headcanon #tiefling headcanon #pikapeppa writes

234 notes · View notes

anonymouspuzzler · 1 year

Text

a bunch of sasha & milla art (+ a little ollie 'n cal) before I subject you all to The Endless Loboto-ening!! this group of fools and their collective friendship means everything to me I think they are so silly fun

(alt text/image IDs under the cut!!)

[Image 1 ID: Bust-up ink drawings of Sasha (left) and Milla (right). Sasha is straight-faced with a cigarette floating next to him and text reading "hello I am emotionally repressed". Milla has her eyes closed and grinning widely, waving with her left hand, with text next to her reading "me too but in a fun way!"]

[Image 2 ID: Sasha, left, and Milla, right, doing yoga together. Sasha is in a t-shirt, shorts and socks, doing a downward dog pose and visibly shaking, shirt riding up slightly. Milla is wearing a long, flowy tank top over open-toed tights and has her hair up in a loose, sloppy bun, smiling serenely in a tree pose.]

[Image 3 ID: A two-panel comic. In the first panel, Sasha, visibly grimacing, is in the Lady Lucktopus Casino air vents with the fan going loudly, shouting, "OH MY GOD WHERE IS HOLLIS". The second panel, denoted with a text box reading "MEANWHILE", shows a smiling Raz bouncing around in the Pillinko minigame, unaware of the horrors of the outside world.]

[Image 4 ID: A smiling Raz holding a baby on his left hip, pointing to the side to show off something. The baby has crooked square glasses and flippy hair in a short bob; they are grabbing at the strap of Raz's helmet and chewing on it.]

[Image 5 ID: A drawing of Milla, Sasha and Oleander dressed as, respectively, Jesse, James, and Meowth. Milla is posing with one leg bent at the knee, holding a Pokeball and winking; Sasha has his arms crossed, a cigarette in one hand; Oleander looks utterly miserable, wearing a kitty ear headband and holding up one hand in a cat-paw pose.]

[Image 6-8 IDs: A sketchy 3-panel comic based on a Tumblr thread, with speech bubbles represented by screenshots of posts in the thread. In the first panel, Oleander, wearing a t-shirt, is cooking something in a pan on the stovetop while Milla sits at a table in the background, head resting on one hand, smiling smugly. Milla says (via screenshot of a post by heartshapedbasil) "your man doesn't have the mental strength to caramelize onions"; Oleander replies (via screenshot of a post by maplebungus) "your man thinks it takes 5-10 minutes to caramelize onions". In the next panel Sasha, smoking a cigarette, enters and stands by the table, saying (via screenshot of a post by hozey-nevergoingtochurch) "Who's fucking carmelizing onions? Have you sociopaths forgotten that apples exist?", causing Oleander and Milla to look back at him incredulously. In the final panel, Milla, launching up to grab Sasha's face in both hands, says (via screenshot of a post by fuckdamn) "do you think caramelizing onions is putting caramel on onions", while Oleander, turning back to the stove, adds (via screenshot of a post by thetrashchronicles) "Your man thinks caramelizing onions means putting caramel on onions".]

[Image 9-11 IDs: A two-panel comic with a two-panel "bonus" follow-up. In the first, Milla is flossing (the dance move) in demonstration for Sasha, who is utterly fucking it up, sweating and looking frustrated as he awkwardly shakes his arms around. In the background, Oleander, sitting on a long pillow with his arms crossed, and Loboto, sitting on the ground leaning against the pillow next to him, look on in disbelief. The second panel cuts up closer to Oleander and Loboto; Loboto, cringing and raising his hand to his chin, says "Why would God give him THOSE hips and NO rhythm?" Oleander, gesturing with both hands and looking frustrated, replies, "I've been SAYING," while Sasha, in the far foreground, retorts with a cut-off speech bubble, "PLEASE LEAVE". The final page shows two bonus panels of Milla, sitting on the long pillow, and Loboto, sitting on the floor to her left and leaning back against the pillow. In the first panel, Milla, smiling, asks, "Caligosto, can you floss?" In the second panel, Loboto, looking at her in confusion, replies, "... I'm a dentist, Camilla." Milla, looking exactly how you probably feel processing that pun, responds simply "right".]

[Image 12 ID: A sketchy four-panel comic based on a scene from the Scooby Doo movie. In the first panel, Raz, wearing his outfit from Psychonauts 2 and tugging on the lapels of his jacket, is smiling nervously, saying, "Sorry, Milla, your boots didn't fit... ...me..." In the second panel, Loboto appears and slams one leg up on the table in Sasha's lab, wearing a long dress over a sweater that is riding up his leg to reveal (apparently Milla's) platform heeled boots. Raz, next to him, looks on in mild concern, while in the background, Sasha, holding one of his helmets and smoking a cigarette, looks perplexed. The third panel shows Oleander, sitting in an office chair in the background, looking wide-eyed and blushing while sipping a coffee; Milla, in the foreground, lifts both hands to her face in horror and shouts, "GASP! Caligosto!!" The final panel shows her walking over to the table, one hand on her hip and the other gesturing to Loboto's leg, saying seriously, "Those boots do NOT match this sweater, darling." Loboto, shrugging and grimacing, responds, "I'm nine feet tall, Camilla, I work with what I got here."]

[Image 13-15 IDs: A three-panel comic based on screenshots from Futurama. Hollis, seen from behind, and Truman, standing behind her with a clipboard looking concern, are staring at Milla. In the first panel, she has her face in her hands, sobbing; in the second, she suddenly stands back upright, grinning, winking and gesturing at herself with both thumbs, saying "Nah, I'm just kidding. My [written over scribbled-out text: nerd boytoy] helped me through my grief." In the final panel, she turns and walks away with her arms swinging jauntily, scatting.]

[Image 16 ID: A color drawing based on a meme, showing Milla, in a black tank top and white pencil skirt, lying on the beach on her side near the tide, one arm out in front of her, the other holding a glass of wine in the water.]

#anonymous puzzler art #psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #some very very minor psychonauts 2 spoilers #tw for alcohol and smoking #most of my art is of loboto and/or oleander but don't y'all worry i love sasha and milla too #i basically love all characters in psychonauts they're very charming

805 notes · View notes

arwainian · 2 years

Text

i think that tim drake should own really stupid looking merch, including this In Universe shirt that exists

id in alt text

#tim drake #artwainian #dc #batfam #robin dc #cal reads comics

52 notes · View notes

llumimoon · 7 months

Text

i wish i could do nothing else but draw for the rest of my life

#cal rambles #guy who misses doing art for himaelf again #cries screams. i mean i still draw but its not the SAMEEE sketchbook doodles in class isnt the same was working on a full piece #and art class projects arent the same as making my own comic #i miss it but im too tired and i dont have the time for it anymore and. cries screams explodwa #baba if ur reading this no worries im still working on ur gift and it actually falls under the same kinda art i miss doing #ough. wailing

4 notes · View notes

agentsofmarvel · 1 year

Text

some of my favorite agents of shield fun facts (season 2 edition)

part two!!! [part one is on my page!]

- to show the difference of coulson as the director of shield instead of an agent, they specially tailored each suit, used expensive slim ties, and even tailored his collar to make it higher. they also only made five suits for clark to wear the entire season.

- the cast and crew loved simon kassianides as bakshi so much that they kept his character in the story much longer than planned. he ended up dying five episodes after he was originally supposed to.

- in the episode “Face to Face” where coulson and may are undercover at the party, they made may’s undercover personality based on ming-na wen’s actual personality. a lot of the scenes of may at the party hanging out were unscripted.

- the writers modeled coulson in season two after nick fury, as the new director of shield. the writers made his previous role as a high ranking agent protective of the younger agents more akin to may’s character.

- bobbi wears blue, black, and grey constantly to represent her comic book mockingbird suit. she wears red two twice: while undercover at hydra & when she’s in japan (where she’s pretending to still work for hydra) to show the contrast in her undercover persona and real self.

- the crew and writers modeled the ward family somewhat after the Kennedy’s…what.

- the episode where ward confronts his past is called “The Things We Bury” which is a play on words for a book called “The Things They Carried”, which is a book written about the Vietnam War from the point of view of a soldier (i’ve read the book for a class, it’s a true story).

- the cast (other than adrienne and henry) had no idea mack and bobbi were working for another shield until the episode for the script was sent.

- the day chloe found out that skye would be an inhuman was on the day in season one that an earthquake hit the set. SHE FOUND OUT SHE WOULD PLAY AN INHUMAN WITH QUAKE POWERS THE DAY AN EARTHQUAKE HIT!!

- chloe knew her character existed as a superhero in the comics since she got the role, but she didn’t know which one. at first she thought she could be she-hulk or even mantis but after researching comics she realized she was playing quake a few days before the writers told her she was quake.

- a camera typically films at 24 frames per second. in the scene where skye breaks out of the cocoon in the underground city in puerto rico, the scene was filmed at 1,500 frames per second.

- after trip’s death a lot of the cast thought he would come back again because they said it’s marvel and people come back from dying all the time.

- in the scene filmed on the football field in “One Of Us” it was actually 45° F, which was the record coldest day (at the time of filming) in Los Angeles since 1885.

- lincoln’s character was literally created to give skye a break. they literally realized she’s been through so much in one season that they wrote in a possible boyfriend to make her happy for once.

- one of the writer’s favorite scenes to write was the dinner scene between cal, jaiying, and skye.

- coulson was almost an inhuman. yep. the idea was brought up in the writers room but they decided against it because they liked the idea of coulson being the average man within the craziness that is shield.

this wraps up season two fun facts! i’ll probably post season three when i can!! i don’t really have any plans for the rest of the seasons though :)

299 notes · View notes

inquisitor-apologist · 2 months

Note

hi I would personally LOVE to read thousands of essays on your thoughts about the inquisitors, so if you feel comfy posting them just know they will be received with gratitude :)

Alright, I’ve got a 4-hour car ride, so nothing but time.

The first thing that I’d say is absolutely essential to my understanding of/obsession with the Inquisitorius is that they’re expendable. Both in-text and out-of-text, they’re disposable and that is absolutely essential to their whole existence.

On the Doylist level, the Rebels team created them/reincorporated them to canon to be the replaceable early series antagonists. They're there to build the characters up to face the real threats of Maul’s temptation to the dark and Thrawn’s existential threat to the Rebel cause. The rest of the Star Wars media that shows them only reinforces this.

In Kenobi, they're there in the background, to set up Reva (who is, in the show, functionally not an Inquisitor) and Vader, in J:FO they're scary bad guys meant to be defeated and killed for Cal's growth (though, notably, J:FO is one of the only pieces of Inquisitor media that views them as victims worthy of empathy), and, while I haven't read (all of) the Vader comics, they're in the Vader comics, not in their own stories.

On the Watsonian level, they’re a sort of… buffer between the true power of the Sith and the public. They’re the one attacking the regular Force-sensitives and taking babies (someone much more qualified than me could probably talk a LOT about the very interesting ways the Jedi, Empire, and Inquisition (like, come on) parallel and draw from Judaism and historical antisemitism) and they’re the ones the Rebellion direct their anger about the Jedi Purge at. It’s easy for the two masterminds and main perpetrators to hide behind the atrocities of a dozen faceless subordinates.

This is really clearly shown in Kenobi, where the Inquisitors are dismissed as “Jedi who turned to the dark side. Now, they hunt their own kind”. They’re not seen as victims who’ve been forced into self-destructive monsters, but as the perpetrators of their own genocide, personas that they readily claim. I mean, Reva is literally a survivor of the Temple Massacre who was turned into one of the Inquisitors that Obi-Wan dismisses as traitors. They’re very convenient, effective, scapegoats.

That’s honestly a very underrated part of Palpatine’s genius; one of his most important traits is his ability to manipulate the media. By creating the Inquisitors and delegating most of the work of completing the Purge to them, he distances both himself and Vader from any public outcry against the actions of the Inquisitorius (and, to some extent, their own actions), allowing Vader to be seen as a more legitimate military officer and extension of the Emperor’s will, which is itself legitimized by that distance.

The lines between the Emperor, Vader, and the Inquisitors are also very important. There's a very clear distinction between the Sith and the Inquisitors in of autonomy, which is the second thing that defines my view of the Inquisitors. The Inquisitors are largely pawns for Palpatine’s ends, manipulated and indoctrinated kids, and as such there’s kind of a spectrum of the Empire’s Force-sensitive hierarchy between Sidious, Vader, and the Inquisitors.

Sidious is the first extreme, where he chose everything; he Fell on purpose, became a Sith on purpose, consolidated power and killed the Jedi on purpose, became Emperor on purpose. And then there’s Vader, who very much chose to Fall, kill the Jedi, and become a Sith, but he was manipulated and pushed to it by Sidious. He chose, but Sidious kind of underlies all those choices, driving him to them. Lastly, the Inquisitors chose nothing; they were hunted and persecuted by Vader and the Sith, then tortured and indoctrinated to serve Sidious, brainwashed into continuing to serve. It’s really a gradient of autonomy, if you think about it; Sidious is the only Dark Sider afforded full choice, both by the narrative and in-universe.

The Inquisitors are, fundamentally, kids ripped from their family and people, tortured and indoctrinated into self-loathing and anger. They don’t get names; they’re told they were born wrong and tortured until they believe it, then pressed into service, because, while they might have been born wrong, they were also born useful.

This is why I kind of hate the idea of Inquisitors who choose to join, and one of the reasons I’m not particularly inclined to read the new Inquisitor book (also it apparently implies that the tortured inquisitors were actually just. Force-brainwashed??). One of the most interesting and most fundamental things about them is that they are victims of horrific genocide coerced into becoming their own oppressors. If you take that away, you make them so much less interesting—they turn into stock evil traitors.

The protagonist of the new Inquisitor book is, from what I’ve gathered, a jerk who was already half-fallen in the Clone Wars and who seized the chance to gain more power with the Empire. That’s just diet Vader, and I, personally, have seen too much of both real Vader and diet vaders, so I’m not interested.

So, uh, @stellanslashgeode, you asked me for my thoughts on Iskat Akaris, here they are. Sorry it’s probably not what you wanted.

So, like, there’s my opinion on the fandom-and-canon obsession with Inquisitors who chose the Empire. We literally haven’t seen pretty much anything about how the normal inquisitors join, can we focus on the actually interesting stuff? The Inquisitors' lack of autonomy, their lack of choice, is a huge part of what fascinates me so much about them, because it's very unique. Let's not take that away.

Another piece of why I think the Inquisitors are so interesting is how their abuse at the hands of the Empire shapes them, though this part has more speculation than the stuff above due to lack of clear information.

In canon, we know that inquisitors go through fucking hellish initiation criteria (“Isolation! Torture! Mutilation!”), stuff that absolutely breaks them until they no longer believe that the Empire can be stopped at all (“You can’t stop the Empire!” “She said something about becoming an Inquisitor… like it’s inevitable”). We also know that, however it happens, it's very fast and effective. The Vader Comics are set just months after Order 66, and there's already at least ten fully initiated Inquisitors.

Unfortunately, we never directly see the exact initiation protocols the Inquisitors are subject to, but we do get quick glimpses, like in the flashbacks from J:FO, and with Reva in Kenobi. Right now, I want to look at what those flashbacks from J:FO, together with the dialogue above, tells us about what exactly happens to Inquisitors.

In the flashback, we see Trilla, strapped to the torture chair that Cere's in later in the flashback, being subjected to Star Wars' favorite kind of torture, weird electricity chairs. I'm going to call them shockseats, just to distinguish them from real-life electric chairs. We transition from the torture to some time later, when Second Sister has been fully turned, wearing the Inquisitor uniform and everything.

That, annoyingly enough, is all we get to work with. It's basically the "Being tortured makes you evil" trope, but Ninth Sister's dialogue gives it some nuance. She says "Isolation! Torture! Mutilation!", and, well, we just saw the torture part, and I'm guessing the mutilation is the whole thing in the comics where Vader teaches the Inquisitors by cutting their limbs off, so that leaves isolation, which I think is probably a very significant part of the process.

Based on the vault vision and the Fortress Inquisitorius section in J:FO, most of the Fortress's prison has a kind-of panopticon feel, with see-through energy shields, guards everywhere, and several prisoners in one cell, so I'm guessing there are probably some deeper isolation cells. The isolation is probably where most of the indoctrination happens, because we never hear anyone saying anything during the torture scenes.

This is mostly headcanon from the scraps we get, but I'd say initiation probably goes something like this: 1. a survivor is captured 2. They're taken to Nur, and tortured on the way there (per Rebels) 3 The timeline here is annoyingly unclear but I think the ‘isolation’/indoctrination comes before the rest? 4. They're tortured in an attempt to get them to turn to the Dark Side 5. They're somehow fully initiated into the Inquisitorius with their full title and uniform 6. They're trained ('mutilation') 7. They're a full Inquisitor

obv I have headcanons (ie a full-on not-really canon-compliant system that I think works better than the disjointed 'being tortured makes you evil' bits we have now, but I'm trying to stay as canon-compliant here as possible) but I think this is about what we get in canon, and it’s kind of necessary to have a vague idea about what probably happens in order to understand them, and dang is this very important to basically their entire self-concepts.

In Kenobi, Third Sister is hated by all the others, probably for not going through what they did. We see throughout the show that she’s just as good, or better, than most of them, but because she wasn’t tortured (or, at least, not to the same extent), the rest despise her. She does the exact same things we've consistently seen all the other Inquisitor's do, but she's punished and derided for it. In J:FO, Second Sister goes out and threatens civilians in order to draw Cal out, and everyone’s fine with it, but when Reva does it, everyone hates her.

There’s no rational reason; she does exactly what they do , what she’s been taught to do, but she’s treated differently. The only reason for this, in-universe, is that she’s the only Inquisitor we know of that wasn’t brought in for being a Jedi—she explicitly hides that she was one. The rest of the Inquisitors clearly do hate each other, but it’s on a different level with her, because they do not see her as one of them. She wasn’t a Jedi, and thus she didn’t go through the same things they did. There seems to be a sort-of trauma-induced bond between the other Inquisitors. They hate each other, but they all see each other as Inquisitors, largely the same as them. They don’t share that with Reva because whatever happened to them didn’t happen to her, to the same extent.

Connecting to my earlier point about Inquisitors who chose to join, I think that that's WAY more interesting than a bunch of jerk coworkers who just decided to be evil.

These people were family in the Jedi, and then their whole family died as they watched and heard and felt it in their brains, and they were chased and hunted and tortured until they broke and brought back together, warped and different and told to call each other siblings—and at this point, aren’t they? They were raised together in the bowels of Nur, subjected to the same horror and misery; they’ve been through everything together, in the worst way possible, constantly competing and fighting and killing for anything they can get. Who else could understand them in any meaningful way?

I'm getting off-topic, but the physical abuse and torture of the Inquisitors seems fundamental to their identity, even if we don't know exactly what it entailed.

So, with the isolation and indoctrination, I think it's fair to say that there's probably quite a lot of mental abuse there. The Dark Side, in itself, is pretty horrible mental health-wise (the Jedi actively use cognitive behavioral therapy just to prevent the possibility of the Dark) and being literally tortured and forced into it must be like. so much worse. Plus, isolation has been shown to be really fucking awful for your brain and the Inquisitor’s utter hopelessness (they literally do not believe that the Empire can be stopped and are really angry at anyone who tries) kind of seems like the whole being unable to believe that things can be better and getting angry at people who try to help part of depression?

Basically I don’t really know enough about mental health to say definitively, but I’m guessing a core part of Inquisitor Initiation is like. Insane mental abuse to get them to crack.

This last bit is less supported, and I know even less about it, so I’m going to keep this real brief, but I think there’s a possibility of some sexual abuse as well? This is a pretty big thing in fanon with the Grand Inquisitor, and then there’s all the creepy pervy stuff with Seventh Sister that she did not learn from the Jedi, but that’s as much as I’ll say for that because I know nothing about this kind of thing.

So, those are really the three things that define the Inquisitors to me: their expendability, lack of autonomy, and how their abuse defines them. I could write more on this, but this post took a fucking month already, so I’ll stick to those points.

32 notes · View notes