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makotonaegiunderstander · 28 days

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something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.

“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”

#makoto naegi #Danganronpa character analysis #Danganronpa #danganronpa thh #danganronpa future arc #I fucking love Makoto Naegi man.#I think there’s a fine line of nuance to Makoto that’s easy to miss bc he doesn’t really make it known #he’s not a pushover and he’s not overpowered. he’s a people pleaser but he will say what needs to be said #he’s an immovable object and the exact opposite of Junko but he’s also just a normal guy who’s optimistic and (un)lucky #he isn’t invincible but he has immense power to his words the same way Junko did #if anything his superpower is being kind above all else. he’s compassionate to some of the worst people in the world.#he was even conpassionatr to an extent to Junko. he didnt want her to kill herself despite everything she’s done #and he still acknowledges that for years she was a classmate and friend.#I do think the more he learned abt what she did the more he’s come to actually hate her though #post the first game he always refers to her without a suffix to her name which is one of the most subtle rude things you can do #it means you have zero respect for the person you’re referring to #and he speaks about her with some venom he doesn’t use for anyone else in the future arc #he’s not incapable of feeling negative emotions #I really liked the future arc scene bc it showed that Makoto DID experience enough despair to have overcome him if he didn’t refuse #and that it still affects him deeply. people treat him like he’s either this perfect ideal Chad or this baby chick who’s so delicate #and no one really focuses on how makoto shoulders so much and yet is still vulnerable.#honestly that guy was DUE for a mental breakdown even without the tape. it would have happened eventually #I actually wrote one based on him finally hitting a breaking point after giving so much of himself away and keeping nothing for himself #that his issues that he shoves down constantly finally can’t be held down anymore. Hajime helps him bc he knows how that feels #it was a LONG time ago that I wrote that but honestly if I can remember where i was going w it I might finish it #it was initially an rp but I could make it a fic #anyway. the point is Makoto is SO much more complex than people give him credit for #the most fundamental thing about him is that he’s normal and that’s ok! that’s what helps him rise!

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r0semultiverse · 6 months

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Classpects & Canonicity (an observation & speculation)

Vrissy isn't the same classpect (thief of light) as Vriska or just can't have a classpect due to this timeline lacking canonicity; alternatively, the difference in classpect is in part due to the timeline falling outside of or (in other words) beyond canon.

Is that part of why Vriska can tell it's phony? The lack of Vrissy having her own classpect? Or is Vriska cosmically tuned-in somehow to knowing something is wrong? I mean some of the stuff that has happened is pretty wonky, but I feel like this is part of her powers as a character. She's always been a key point in moving things forward & now that things aren't moving much at all in regards to canon, she is here to steal the spotlight & shed some light on this whole thing.

When/if Vriska fixes the canon, will Vrissy vanish along with the other characters or become changed? Similar to the hypothetical dream sequence we see near the end of Adventure Time Fionna & Cake, perhaps. Alternatively, will classpects suddenly be thrust upon all the new characters & their existence as well as their personalities remain??

There's much to think about here, let me all know what you think! 💜

#also it was really cool to see Vrissy using her psychic powers like how Vriska does #poor tavros crocker though lmao stop making him do your silly dances 😂#I'm honestly very hyped to see where this comic is going #really feels like waiting for homestuck upd8s is back #I want to clarify this isn't me complaining; I missed the upd8 happening every so often; this is thrilling! Really brings me back lol #also obviously characters who already have classpects would keep them; that just seems to be how these timelines work #thank you james roach & team for the fun new update #also what did Jane mean by “POI;” is that point of impact?#mine #op #vriska maryam lalonde #vrissy maryam lalonde #homestuck beyond canon #homestuck^2 #homestuck 2 #homestuck #homestuck upd8 #homestuck spoilers #vriska serket

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buddiesmutslut · 7 days

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I’m being so ffr rn, if the show runners definitively show that Buddie is not going to happen?

I’m probably not going to be watching anymore.

I mean it when I say that they’re literally the sole reason I watched this show in the first place. I saw a billion TikTok edits of them & was like “Idek these characters I need to watch this show and see what’s going on over there.”

And like, it’s a fun show, I’m not saying it isn’t, but first responder shows are a dime a dozen. There are other shows that have queer characters and found family and wild adventures. Granted, they don’t have Buck & his bi arc, but I’d still read fanfics to get my Evan Buckley fix lol.

I don’t need them right now, I’m so down for the slow burn, will-they-won’t-they & the pining & the yearning & the build up and the GOOD foundation. I want to see Eddie figuring himself out and dealing with his repression and figuring out he’s queer (& Demi, pls God. I hope if I just say it enough, I can will it into existence somehow) before anything happens with the two of them, but if they take definitive steps to have one of them like, marry someone else or something, I think I’m gonna head out. Find me on ao3 for the rest of my days lol.

#911 abc #buddie #demisexual eddie diaz #also pls don’t come at me with “you don’t care about bi representation”. he’s already bi #he’s always been bi & I’ve loved watching him on this journey #but his & Eddie’s relationship is literally the only reason I started this show in the first place #and again if they find good LI’s & bring them more into focus #the time spent on the Buddie relationship will decrease. that’s just how tv & time limits work #and if my favorite relationship on the show goes away then why would I continue watching it religiously?#also I know I’m a bitch & would therefore hate any person they brought in to be the HEA for them & that’s not fun for anyone #not that I would bully the actor/actress bc im not an ASSHOLE #eddie diaz #evan buckley #I literally watched Booth & Bones take like 9 seasons to get together I am IN IT with a slow burn #unless they do what they did last season & shoehorn 2 LI’s in at the last second on the last episode then I guess I wouldn’t have a choice #Tim would’ve pulled a fast one on me #also I will watch literally anything else Oliver Stark is in SNOOKUMS I love you so much. come home the kids miss you 😂#& probably Lou also bc he’s so freaking cute irl I wanna die #with his curly hair and his silly faces and his muscles and his wanting to be held in the dark #LOU BABY ILL HOLD YOU IF THE POWER GOES OUT #I have spent too much of my life & time & energy to get 0 payout and it’s honestly unsustainable but that’s a whole different problem

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turtletoria · 1 year

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i was having some wordgirl reboot thoughts and then embarked on a 9+ hour straight journey i can never take back (my hands and back hurt so much) (i have never drawn so much in such a short period of time)

also im sorry the quality is so bad; i just hope theyre clear enough to see!

#turtlearts #wordgirl #wg #character design #character lineup #im not tagging all of them im sorry #it was so fuckin hard drawing them all and making sure they look to scale...... even now they look a little off #i want to color these but im not sure how long it will take because holy shit thats a lot!!!#chucks design is my favorite. hes supposed to have a picnic blanket patterned handkerchief thingy bc sandwich ahha #lady redundie is super techno now becuase i wanted her to look more like a copy machine. not sure if that came across right bc she just -#looks like a mettaton clone ToT sorry #also im so sorry but i gave everybody pockets because my kids... need snakcs. what if they want. to hold hting. item #also the tallest is miss power full stop. i wanted her to be the most physically intimidating #also damn shes hot. sorry #anyways if u read the tags this far feel free to suggest ur favorite wordgirl guy and i might add to this! its very fun #also im not sure if i did a good job but the kids are like. 14-15 here bc if wordgirl ever got rebooted itd be targeted for a somewhat-#older audience. bc all the wordgirl enjoyers are all in their teens and early 20s now LMAO #they look so baby here tho so im not sure i did a good job at that T_T #also i love rhyme and reason so much.#let me know what u think i care so much O_O #blease #now if youll excuse me im gonna go and explosion gif and fart with reverb sfx

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youregonnabeokay-kid · 1 month

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i really do hope that 911 ventures further into Chris’ abandonment issues and doesn’t just ignore it for the rest of the season

#also i think they should have expanded on the buck and chris scene #buck’s on-going storyline is allll about his abandonment issues #i love that eddie was there for chris but they really missed out on a good heart-to-heart between buck and chris #something about wanting better for your kids and working to make sure they don’t have the same trauma that you do #something about seeing too much of yourself in your kid and wanting better for them #something about doing everything in your power to ensure that your kid never goes through the same things that you did #something about raising your kids in an environment that helps them become a better person than you were #something about not wanting your kids to make the same mistakes that you did and doing everything you can to lead them down the right path #something about buck reassuring chris once again that he will never leave him #that he’s loved and he’ll always have a home #christopher diaz #evan buckley #911 abc #911 on abc #911 spoilers #buckley diaz family

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e-adlirez · 1 month

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Thea Stilton Treasure Seekers Review/Ramble

Behold, an impulsive ramble about a possibly-obscure trilogy that's been translated to English during quarantine-ish, adding to the obscurity.

So the Treasure Seekers, huh? :3

Coming out a little prior but more or less over the course of quarantine and thus a lot of people not having ready access to it, the Treasure Seekers is what turned out to be a trilogy of what it says on the tin: the girls hunting down cool treasures as a result of going down the world's biggest and highest-stakes scavenger hunt written a hundred-ish years prior to the present time.

Gonna be giving MAJOR spoilers for the first book in the trilogy, and there'll (probably) be one post per book in the trilogy. If you haven't read the book, here's a copy on the Internet Archive you can read before skipping ahead to the review, enjoy, it's pretty good. If you've already read the book or don't care about spoilers, please proceed below the cut :3

The story begins with the girls on summer vacation in Scotland. Shenanigans get started when they meet this old hermit woman who has in her house a mysterious heirloom tapestry with a mysterious poem on it.

The tapestry has this poem that talks about a place with sweet winds, petals that will lead you to something beneath them, something about midnight and birds, and an alabaster garden created for the "jewel of the palace" (like me to you), that is guarded by a friend with deep feet. Sounds like a whole lotta cryptic shnit the theory heads would enjoy :D

Anyway so the girls go visit Beitris (the hermit woman) the next day to return something they borrowed from her only to walk into a holdup :D

Said holdup-ers are these two grunts led by this mysterious lady hiding her identity under a black fedora and thick-framed Ray Bans. The girls deal with that situation real quick and get the guys to scarper (if you're wondering how they did that, "the police are coming"), and once it all blows over, they find that the thugs only stole the tapestry despite ransacking the entire place like raccoons. Such a realization leads to a revelation on Beitris's end, so she entrusts the girls with the tapestry's backstory in a segment I will describe as LAAANNNEEEE LOOOORRRREEEEEE (said in a MatPat voice, we'll miss you king :'])

The tapestry was a family heirloom passed down to Beitris by her grandmother Petra, who got it from her older sister Aurora Beatrix Lane, who is basically British Amelia Earhart. Wasn't into girly shnit, liked being outside and also archaeology, studied in the University of Cambridge as an Archaeology major and learned how to fly a plane, all while punting early 1900s gender norms into oblivion with her pants and motorcycle. Motorcycle queen, plane queen, archaeology queen, but then everything changed when this British Amelia Earhart did a British Amelia Earhart.

The context behind Aurora Beatrix Lane's disappearance is something relating to her work with her mentor Jan Von Klawitz, who was doing archaeology things with her and probably got up to some wild shnit, but we would never know because Aurora is very secretive about her plans and her destinations, and she only came home to the UK once, after her first trip, and that was when she gave smol child Petra the tapestry to guard because it led to "a very precious treasure", but she can't show it yet for the time being. The vibe was Aurora was planning on using the tapestry to show the treasure it hides once she's done with her archaeology shenanigans.

But then she did an Amelia Earhart but completely untraceable since she never revealed her destinations, so uh there's that :D

Back to the present, this little storytime from Beitris has gotten the girls sucked into a rabbit hole. They are now hyperfixated like nobody's business and this Aurora Beatrix Lane is JUST LIKE THEM FR, and as a result they decide that y'know what they still have a few days before classes in Mouseford starts, and while they're at it, they're gonna find Beitris's tapestry and maaayyyybeeee find the alabaster garden. First destination: Girton College at the University of Cambridge, Aurora Beatrix Lane's alma mater.

The girls take a quick jaunt to Girton by train and then by bus to have a lil' chat with the dean, who reveals to them that they're looking for the central archive if they're gonna be looking for the deets on a student from a hundred years ago, but uh the archive is closed for the day, please come tomorrow. (Wonder why, maybe it's because they rode from Scotland to Girton by train which takes a shnitload of time. /nsrs but fr tho I wonder if the original Italian had them drive over there by car-- they did rent an SUV, and going by car would be way faster, like it'll only take a seven-hour drive faster) They come back the next day, are let into the archives, and oop, they find a well-preserved diary with Aurora's initials hidden in the Stanley Library.

Y'know what that means, LANE LOOORRRREEEEE

So two months into her accompanying Jan on his excavations, she notes that Jan's been acting a bit sus lately-- being very nervous, being extremely protective over his luggage, being weird about hiding some of the relics he's found, and also a weird-ass incident where while exploring a small village's old castle, Aurora found a hidden chamber with a tome inside that Jan immediately snatched and was like "I'll take care of it don't worry, don't worry about the protocol stuff I'll be fine I'll take care of it". And then he went back to "normal" after that. Hmmmm.

A month later, while Jan was talking with one of his collaborators on their train to England, Aurora stumbled into the tome again, suspiciously in Jan's personal luggage instead of being properly archived and catalogued like it should've been. She read it, saw a thing about the Seven Treasures of the World, and that caused her protagonist genes to kick in since now she's now very tempted to look into finding them and showing them to the world.

After that, she went to some libraries to investigate and eventually decided to confront Jan about the whole treasures thing and his first reaction was he was pissed, calling Aurora a snoop and everything poking into his things. Then after calming down he said "just pretend to not see", but oh no, dear reader, Aurora was not gonna pretend to not see. She ain't gonna pretend to not see the fact that her mentor was actually a treasure hunter and collector who'd been using his occupation as an excuse to snatch some nifty treasures and keep them to himself like every European country who's stolen artifacts from Asian countries ever, ohohohooooo noooo, she's gonna do something about it.

The girls scuttle on over back to Scotland and Beitris, to find that uh oh dear, the thugs came back again and this time they were asking about the girls specifically. Beitris pulled the same trick the girls pulled to get them to leave. So NOW the thugs are looking for the girls for whatever reason and wanna know their deal. Anyway, the girls show Beitris Aurora's diary, tell her about the summary, and also that unfortunately some of the pages are missing, and the diary doesn't say shnit about the tapestry so far. Beitris helps by giving them a letter that Aurora sent to Petra about the tapestry and its treasure, but interestingly mentions that she should "only trust Robert".

Since I haven't mentioned him before, Robert Neville was Aurora's flight tutor, a flying medic, and was toootttallllyyyyy just friends with Aurora you guys they were totally just frie--

He is dead in the present time, but his nephew John Neville is a (former) lighthouse keeper for the Ar-Men lighthouse in the IÎe de Sein, Brittany, France. So the girls head on over there, land in France, insert a thing where Vi feels like she's being watched but is like "maybe it's just a me thing, I dunno".

They head over to the Île de Sein, find an old man who turns out to be John, are invited to his house, tell him about their situation, and John mentions that he himself has been researching like crazy too about Aurora ever since hers and Jan's simultaneous disappearance over the same place at the same time in the same terrible storm. And also the fact that Robert was totally devastated when he got the news and spent years looking for her. He gives them his notes that he's accumulated over decades of researching in his pastime (which amounts to just Aurora's trip to Mexico), and tells them that since Aurora was looking for seven treasures, they'll need to find out where her seven trips took place, which will not be easy because Aurora was extremely secretive, and she only made her first trip even remotely public.

First place is Mexico so might as well head on over-- oh god the holdup-ers are back to holdup.

The thugs snatch Aurora's diary and book it before the girls can do much besides get an impromptu ocean bath, and oh dear, the thugs' boss has them now, and it's not the mafia cosplayer lookin' woman. But that's something I'll address later :3

Nonetheless, they carry on since the thugs never stole John's notebook, and they use it to go to the Puuc Route in Mérida, Yucatán (sounds very specific until you realize that Mérida is the capital of the Yucatán, and one thing everyone and their mother knows about the Mayan ruins there like Chichen Itza) to find more clues.

They do some more research on the Puuc Route, find some clues about "an invisible place, guarded by the chattiest of creatures", discover that it means they have to go to Uxmal, get a dub against the unfortunately acrophobic thugs, and realize that yes, Aurora did in fact sneak another one of her diaries in there.

This one doesn't have as much Lane Lore to contribute besides a clue that the girls find leads to Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, India, a city known for its perfumes :3 sounds like "sweet winds", doesn't it? Oh and there's also something about a place with two lakes, which turns out to be Lakh Bahosi, a bird sanctuary about an hour's drive away from Kannauj. The girls head on over and try to do some investigating, but it doesn't take them that long to find a pair of grunts struggling under the weight of a very familiar tapestry while their boss was struggling to supervise them with her heels constantly digging into bird sanctuary dirt.

Anyway so the girls concoct a little scheme to steal the tapestry and the thugs fall for it like fish for a fishing lure, and they managed to scatter with the tapestry. After getting to a private space in the sanctuary, they find a clue that leads them to a set of coordinates that they find is a beeg tree. Oh and the treasure seems to be a present that was made for someone close to Mumtaz Mahal, as in "the jewel of the palace", the woman the Taj Mahal was made for; and the tapestry has a set of coordinates that is leading them to a beeg tree, with deep roots/feet. Oh hell yeah it's all comin' together.

They get to the tree, deal with the mafia lady for a little bit, find the treasure, and it turns out it's a very exquisite perfume bottle made of alabaster called "The Perfume of the Earth". They find a little note from Aurora explaining the treasure and its value and the significance of finding it, and now the girls have found the treasure Aurora had been searching for, and now's the time for a villain reveal?

So I haven't talked about him yet and have glossed over this guy for the entire ramble. See the mafia lady, Cassidy? Yeah she's not the big boss here. It's this guy who has a whole secret base in Denali National Park, Alaska, and has been overseeing everything behind the scenes. And by everything, I mean everything: He was alerted to the whole thing with Cassidy's first raid of Beitris's house, found out about the girls' involvement, and for a good half of the book, was trying to figure out what the girls' motives are for interfering with his line of work and what they might know about this whole thing he's looking for, which is the alabaster garden.

This guy has been keeping tabs on the girls through Cassidy and her thugs, who've been stalking the girls ever since France. He and Cassidy figured out in Paris that the girls are Mouseford students on vacation, and he was the one who gave the orders to snatch the journal from there. He was the one who told the goons to tail them to Mexico, and he was the one who managed to look up the girls' names, backgrounds, reasons for being in Scotland, all from the comfort of his base in Alaska. And only then, only then did he go to India himself to supervise and put a cap to his goons' buffoonery.

Who is this guy? Well, he is a treasure hunter who just wants to enjoy the treasures Aurora Beatrix Lane has hidden from his great-grandfather a hundred years ago. That's right, meet Luke Von Klawitz, the current heir to the Klawitz legacy and the treasure trove Jan Von Klawitz left behind in spite of his disappearance. Unfortunately Jan was better (and old enough) to secure a family legacy of greedy artifact hoarding.

So while the girls were in Lakh Bahosi, Luke was too with the goons and Cassidy (who is not his right-hand man and more just... a subordinate trying too hard to impress him), being the babysitter with these guys on leashes, as he tries to keep their stupidity under control. He intercepts the girls as they're about to leave Lakh Bahosi, blocking their path, and asks about the alabaster garden. The girls obviously don't spill and prolly would've gotten themselves blackbagged and interrogated had a friend they made prior to Lakh Bahosi not shown up in her dad's truck and came in clutch. (It sounds cliche and like it came out of nowhere but trust me it makes sense in-universe-- after the girls left the friend's family restaurant that they were hanging at, Luke's goons came over to interrogate them about the girls and where they went. Subtlety, who is she?)

The girls bring the perfume to a nearby university so it can be brought to a museum, send the tapestry back to Beitris, and return home to Whale Island, to read the last bits of Aurora's second journal and presumably to

So that's the book :D I put in a LOT of spoilers, but I'd say that reading the book is still worth it because you'll be able to get the connecting tissues that tie the organs of this story together. H-hopefully this all made sense . .'''

First things first, if you're not used to how Scholastic kids' novels are written, then uh, you might wanna get used to it, because the English translation of Thea Stilton is very... that. It's not beating the kids' book allegations in English, unfortunately. On the brighter side, though, it's pretty good for Scholastic standards! The pacing's very fast, but it feels about right-- gives me the same energy as diving deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole and going to all sorts of places because of the hyperfixation responsible for consuming their sanity for all of a week or so. The dialogue isn't nearly as atrocious as the worst it's capable of being (oh trust me we'll get to that). The tapestry puzzle and how the girls work towards solving it is very coherent and logical for the situation they are in at the beginning, and it's very satisfying to see everything come together and for things to slowly make more and more sense in the poem despite it being as vague and puzzle box-y as it was.

The Lane family lore is very well-thought-out, and Aurora Beatrix Lane is the perfect spiritual predecessor to the girls, what with her love for adventure, love for travel, strong moral compass, and the strong compulsion to elbow drop every single feminine social rule under the sun. I can totally buy her being someone the girls would totally hyperfixate on researching, because she feels like that kind of compelling character-- a passionate young archaeologist who decided to put her own safety on the line for the sake of what she believed in and to dunk on Klawitz and his selfish (and very illegal) goals of hoarding the treasures of the world to himself.

As for the villain, I'll be real gamers, Luke Von Klawitz is probably the most intimidating if not terrifying villain in the entire franchise. He has drones spying on every corner of the world for him, he has goons he can contact at any time and have them do his bidding (to mixed results it seems), he has cutting-edge technology that he uses for terrifying means, all in the safety and comfort of his secret underground base in Alaska where he has his little basement filled to the brim with historical artifacts he's kept all to himself to enjoy. Lemme run this through you again:

He was able to learn the girls names, the university they're studying in, and why they were in Scotland in the first place, all without ever meeting them face-to-face or having his goons interrogate them directly. All he needed to learn all of this was the (not very helpful) research by Cassidy, and a few commands put into his world-connected supercomputer.

Are you intimidated yet? I sure hope you are :D this guy's got a lotta potential is what I'm saying. He's a bit of a brat who wants what he wants and wants it immediately, but he's also a bit of a chess master who looks over things in the background while his minions do all the work for him. Really the only thing holding him back is the incompetency of his goons, and technically it's not even that they're very stupid-- Cassidy and her grunts Stan and Max are very good at swooping in out of nowhere to wreak havoc, dip in and get out before anyone can do anything about it. They're decent if not good at the job they're usually assigned: low-level grunt work. Unfortunately they're not good at much else, which drove Luke insane this entire book, haha.

The girls' dynamic with Cassidy, Stan and Max was refreshing in the sense that the girls aren't always getting punted by them, and the goons aren't always taking Ls just from physical contact with the girls. Cassidy and the goons always had the element of surprise on their side, being able to show up out of nowhere and do their thing before the girls have time to even blink; but once the girls figured out their whole shtick, it was easy to learn that they are easily outclass-able by five mouse Oxford students in braincell count and thus act accordingly. They force the girls to think fast and come up with some snappy plans on the spot, and the girls force Luke to realize he hired Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, and Tweedle Dummy as goons :D

Now uh, I have been complimenting this thing the entire time, but there is one little thing I have an issue within this book, and that is the whole... Power of Friendship thing they've got going on throughout the book.

Yes, unfortunately, the Friendship Curse has claimed this hardcover series too, and while it's not the worst here, it's still... it's still a bit atrocious :D

For instance, the conclusion Cassidy and Luke come to for the girls' reasons for interference is "friendship". Literally, Cassidy literally says to Luke, "It seems they did it out of friendship, Sir", and then Luke responds with an evil cackle and is like "FRIENDSHIP? THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP DOESN'T EXIST IN THIS WORLD! AIN'T NO WAAAAYYYYY THEY'RE NOT FIVE SCHEMERS WHO WANNA GET THE TREASURES THEMSELVES", which is like... I don't get that vibe from Luke anywhere else in the book? Luke values efficiency and getting what he wants-- he's not hired Cassidy to be all buddy-buddy with her, he hired her for a job and she has to work to fulfill said job. He just wants competent employees, and y'know what, that's valid. Not a single part in that have I seen "ew power of friendship". It's very villain for the sake of villainy kind of energy, which I don't think fits Luke with the other bits of information we get of him? He's following his great-granddad's footsteps-- not a single minute of that did that mean "the spirit of friendship doesn't exist get yo head outa the cotton candy"

Then there's... how this applies to the girls.

inhales

WHY DID THEY MAKE VIOLET THE GROUP'S FRIENDSHIP PROPHET GRAAAAHHHH

I probably would make a full-blown rant about this at some point, but one thing I never liked about any of the hardcovers was how Violet of all people is the group's assigned friendship prophet. She'd occasionally make a comment about how uh something something the power of love is the strongest of all, and every single time I don't like it :D

Sure fine you can chalk it up to character development since her early months in Mouseford, but in the earlier books it's heavily established that she's the pragmatic one, the braincell keeper, the one who keeps the girls' group ADHD on track or the one who reminds them that "hey we've been at this for a really long time and it's now 2AM, we should really turn in now". Being a friendship prophet is a Colette thing, not a Violet thing, and I'm not trying to insult Colette or anything like that. I would be far more okay with it if Colette was the one to go on about the "power of love" because she's literally the HOPELESS ROMANTIC! She's the one with her head in the clouds, the one most likely to fangirl about ships in movies, the one who chooses to ship Romeo and Juliet and pretend to not see the entire second act of said play for the sake of believing in love.

If Colette had a line where she gushed about the power of friendship, I would've just chalked it up to "that cheesy-ass statement is something she'd totally say ngl", as opposed to the jarring whiplash I get from seeing Violet of all people call upon the Power of Friendship.

Again, probably will rant about this at some point (lemme know if you're into that idea), but yeah -m-

Literally just chuck the power of friendship bits and replace them with something more practical/realistic/grounded/whateveryouwannacallit, and it's basically perfect! Even the bits where the girls make friends on their journey is believable! Those don't have to be altered at all! Geuh it drives me insane, almost to the point of wanting to do something about it....

Well, that's enough rambling for today. I can't use up all my steam on this first book-- I plan on making ramblings for the second and third books, after all.

See ya Stilton fans, and for the newcomers from Twitter, welcome :D I hope you enjoy your stay :D

#geronimo stilton #thea stilton #thea sisters #book review #book rant #book rambles #unfortunately treasure seekers 3 isn't available on the archive as far as I'm seeing :'3 #which is disappointing because GWAAAHHH #not gonna give any spoilers but it and book 1 are tied for my favorite in the trilogy #i remember reading the first treasure seekers and immediately feeling nostalgic because i severely missed the girls treasure hunting #high stakes and all that crazy stuff that the older books delivered #tangoing with some crazy villains with some hella power and not like the latter four graphic novels did #i missed that a lot so having it in treasure seekers made my at-the-time 15-year-old self very happy #ipads dieded rn but once i get it back and fixed and hopefully not factory reset i should draw some treasure seekers doodles fr #maybe something like i dunno aurora beatrix lane #who knows :]

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timeisacephalopod · 6 months

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The type of Christian who asks atheists how they don't like, murder people on the reg are so funny to me because they seem to think their religion makes them the Peak of Morality when statements like "if you don't believe in God how comes you don't do X thing" all but outright state they have no idea why shit like murder and rape is bad except that God doesn't like it lmao. Like way to admit you have no intrinsic sense of morality and need to be afraid of a higher power to be a decent person, but I promise if you're not a piece of shit it's actually very natural not to want to do heinous evil shit all the time potential punishment from a higher power or not 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

#winters ramblings #seriously its SO funny when that happens because every time its like ??? the FUCK kind of thoughts do you have #to ask HOW i resist doing evil shit all the time because i dont fear god because i dont believe in God??#what kind of fucked up person do you haveto be to only resist killing people because of fear of a higher power??#these are people to avoid because typically they also come with the issue of using their religion to make any action they want #perfectly Good and Moral because GOD said it its in the BIBLE whether thats true or not and like bible or no #if you have no intrinsic sense of morality i dont want to hear about atheist morality from you lmao #not that athiests lack issues i swear to god white dudes who evangelize atheism like its their new religion #have WILDLY missed the point and often suffer the same problem as the aforementioned Christians #wherein the onky thing thats ever given them any kind of pushback is the church so they decide RELIGION is horrible and bad as a whole #which isnt true religion can be a perfectly lovely amazing thing for people but that brand of atheist #doesnt seem to understand that people turned away from the church because of wide spread abuse and discrimination not because #believing in god makes you literally mentally ill like some of these fuckos act like. abelist AND shite to religious folks in one fowl swoop #so you know atheists have problems too but like they arent making laws in their beliefs images across the world so you know #temper the criticism with how influential the group actually is although richard dawkins types DID get a lot of space to spew their idiocy #like dawkims if you think youre SOOOO much smarter than christians how come you have ALL the same misogyny problems??#youre not that smart and logical if youve decided a whole kind of person is inherently less than you buddy. in fact thats very Christian #of him actually. funny when that happens but again if you dont actually know WHY something is a problem #its very easy to say Thats Bad and then literally do the exact same thing you just condemned because when YOU do it its no longer bad #because its got YOUR flavor of fucked up morality on it now instead of being like hmm maybe Christianity isnt a problem #because it EXISTS but because a lot of people use their religion as a pointed barb to discriminate against huge swaths of people #and often the intolerance becomes a legal issue when Christians and other religious majorities shove through laws based on EXCLUSIVELY their #religions and opinions and that doesnt mean religion should be dismantled it means we ahould tell religious folk who would know what #morality was if it fucked them up the ass to shut up and figure out what morality is outside of rekigion before they start legislating about #it and whatnot. also i wish extreme opinions werent ALL the news focused on exclusively on the political right #can we platform some NORMAL well adjusted christians who are god loving AND not a bunch of wingnuts #who are two steps away from arguing thou shall not kill only applies to people they LIKE because they dont seem to understand #maybe murder is bad when EVERYONE does it not just The Bad People??!?!

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kafkaguy · 4 months

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character wrapped 2023 💥

tagged by @davidtennantpussytulpa ^-^ i didn't know how many to do so i copied tara and did top 10. i know the severance guys are Four Of Them but i can't separate them theyre all equally important to me

will graham (hannibal), em haywood (nope), aziraphale (good omens), mark & dylan & helly & irving (severance), hawkeye pierce (mash), martha jones (doctor who), ivan karamazov (the brothers karamazov), kim kitsuragi (disco elysium), stewy hosseini (succession), ruescott melshi (andor/rogue one)

i will tag... @fagician @britomart @libraryfag @roadwhores @majorbaby @globuspolski @hadleyfraserfaggot @tenderscience if u want to ^-^

#and now i will explain them all in detail #cos i started watching hannibal back in like. january or february and will immediately set up camp in my head and started to settle there #*I* pay rent to *HIM*. he lives there permanently. sweating and monologuing constantly #em was not only the character of 2022 but also of 2023 and of 2024 and the rest of the decade and all decades to come #she had such an impact on me keke palmer's performance will live with me forever and i love nope so fucking much #i almost didnt include her because nope was more of a last year obsession. but she lives on #aziraphale.........no comment #severance.......i love them all so much and at first i wanted just irving and then just helly and then i realise i cried over mark this week #and then i realised i couldnt possibly leave out dylan when hes probably my favourite character. so then i settled for all of them #hawkeye is my fucking wife. enough said #martha... well i knew i had to have a doctor who character. i thought maybe the doctor but then i thought their companions mean more to me #sometimes at least. i did have a fourteen icon for a while but then i was like but Donna..... and then i thought. well #these past few months at least martha jones has been eating away at my heart. i go batshit insane when i think about her #her impact. her grace. her power. so she had to go on the list.it was a toss up between her and donna for sure though #then i figured i had to include a karamazov since reading that book took up half of my year. and ivan was my favourite of the 3. so <3 #kim goes without saying. literally nothing to be said hes the character Of All Time. to me #stewy also goes without saying ive had so many Stewy Save Me moments since the beginning of season 4 all the way to the end of the year #i miss him every day. he is the moment. i wish there was more of him all the time #and the last one is a bit of a wildcard cos all my insanity abt melshi has been on my andor sideblog.#but rest assured ive been thoroughly Not Normal about him. he literally side appears in 4 episodes and has 11 total minutes onscreen #but i love him. so much. and hes occupied most of my thoughts since september. once again his impact his power his grace. his homosexuality #enough said. that's all. thanks for reading. this was a great year for autism and madness #tag game #🍪

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givehimthemedicine · 2 years

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El and Lucas the Max Protectors™

a lot of people seem to hc Max as really protective, and I get it because that comes standard with the type of character that Max almost is. but Max is not protective. she's emotionally protective, she's physically supportive, but she's not physically protective. in a moment of danger you never see Max stepping out in front - you see her at the back of the group. and she never has a bruised ego about it. she never insists she doesn't need stupid boys to protect her and she never does the "ohh thank u kind sir lmaooo" thing with Lucas after the danger has passed.

I'm here to tell you that while Max might not readily admit to it, she likes to be protected. loves to be protected. not in a damsel way; we've seen her get out of some horrible situations on her own. she never really expects or seeks it out, but her friends just do protect her without her having to ask, and it means so much to her. because Max has felt unprotected all her life, and she craves it. can she even remember a time when she felt totally safe in her own home? she lives with two abusers and I can't imagine Max seeing her mother as any kind of of protector, after putting her in that situation. Max hasn't had anyone make her feel safe in a long time.

so I love that while Max is capable of taking care of herself, when something scary happens, you can find her unapologetically peeking out from behind that nerd boy and his little slingshot, the one who she made fun of for screaming like a little girl. I love that it seems like Max's character would be the one protective of her abused ingenue bff, but she's the one always standing back with awe while El bodily shields her from monster after monster. I think being protected like that makes Max feel very loved.

Bonus: El's protection means so much to Max that the literal last act of her life is to try to reciprocate and try to protect El when she needs it. i'm done, do not speak to me

#drugging billy and trying to stab vecna are her only truly physically protective acts that i can think of #this accidentally became an #elumax #gifset #elmax #el / max #i'm emotional about this #i'll never get over max's face when el says stay back #?? oh are we not both shitting ourselves rn? ok go get em girl I guess?? iloveyoubecareful??#outside the hospital does max have to trail her hand ALL the way down el's arm like that? no but she did #please also do not miss: max and lucas' hands on each others shoulders in the sauna #max over el's shoulder at the snowball kills me #👹 (if you touch her again i will kill you again)>😠🧍‍♀️#i'm curious what maxs protector/protectee dynamic with el would've been if el never had powers #character analysis #gifs #mine

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morninkim · 2 months

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Rise of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - The Future Pink Rangers, Kat Hillard and David "Davie" Hart

In this version of Rise' future, sometime after the original Rangers' graduation, an encounter with an alien warrior wielding the fabled Sword of Light split the Pink Power Coin in two!

Quick details on both of the Future Pink Rangers under the cut :33

Kat is mixed Indigenous Australian and the Angel Grove High Swim Team's coach, as well as a former Pan Global Games athlete and star ballerina back in Queensland, Australia - a good friend of the Harts and Taylor-Campbells, she becomes the Pink Ranger, with Australotitan power, after being approached by Olivia to join her team to help find her parents and the original Rangers following their disappearance.

Davie is Tommy and Kim's son and Olivia's little brother, he's excitable, and loves action and superheroes. He bonds with the second half of the Pink Power Coin and morphs in a moment of desperation to help his sister and her friends!

#my art #rotmmpr #rotmmpr future #mmpr #kat hillard #never found a spot to slot in kat anywhere in base rise and i felt bad bc i did have ideas for her so. using her here!#also before anyone asks yes! her zord is a light pink and white version of titanus #davie's named after tommy's bio brother david - who she'd meet sometime around her college years and become super close with #olivia also goes to visit her uncle david first thing when her parents' go missing to see if he knows anything #which ya!! rotmmpr future's plot revolves around the original rangers going missing and their kids taking up their powers to find them

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beyonddarkness · 10 months

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SAURON REBUILT

I cracked the code.

Sauron was rebuilt at the end of the first season. But HOW did he rebuild his power?

Think about this:

Who/what brought Sauron low in power?

Did he just wait things out, and let himself naturally rebuild?

What was required for him to rebuild his power?

The same questions may be asked for the Third Age (LOTR).

Why did Sauron have to rebuild his power?

Why was he incapable of naturally rebuilding over time?

What was the one thing he needed in order to rebuild?

First...

TIMELINE

J.D. and Patrick have not changed the timeline as much as so many assume. It is not jumbled, and it is not even compressed in the way that is widely accepted.

"What was important to the Tolkien estate was the principle of the narrative flow and the sequence of events, not the dates. The rings are made here, there's a war between Sauron and the elves after that, a later Sauron is taken to Númenor, Númenor falls, Gondor is established, and you end up with the Battle of the Last Alliance. Does it matter if a hundred or 500 years passed between those events? No" (Patrick McKay).

The "time compression" simply entails shifting the events that Patrick listed to the end of the Second Age, instead of spreading them out over three thousand years. Everything else stays the same. The anchor point is the Forging of the Rings, and every major event (which Patrick mentioned) would naturally follow suit—that is what they compressed. The actual duration of the Age has not changed.

We did not meet Sauron at the beginning of the Second Age, but at the tail end of it. (Sauron did not go sulk on a raft right after saying sorry to Eönwë; that obeisance was thousands of years ago.)

"Year gave way to year. Century gave way to century. And for many Elves, the pain of those days passed out of thought and mind" (Galadriel, 1x01).

"For, though Morgoth fell an age ago, some feared a new evil might arise from his shadow. So, for centuries now, these soldiers have swept across crag and crevice..." (Gil-galad, 1x01).

So, how much time passed between Adar's betrayal in Forodwaith and the raft? Thondir answers this question in the first episode:

"Surely it is lost to the ages now. Whatever happened here was long ago. [...] The mark is centuries old! Whoever left it could be long dead."

Even Charlie specified when Sauron was brought low, in his Deadline interview.

"At the beginning of the Second Age, [Sauron had] been brought low, and he lingered in Middle-earth, and his power then very slowly reemerged."

Sauron's weak and infirm state on the raft had been his lot since the beginning of the Second Age, which was millennia ago. If all he had to do was wait for his power to reload, why did we meet him at the same level to which Adar brought him centuries before? If his power grew naturally, we would have seen a much more powerful Sauron at the beginning of the season. Instead, Galadriel found him at his lowest state. And although he was at rock bottom for so long, he was REBUILT in a matter of months. How?

He was not able to rebuild his power until he met Galadriel, and he was not even fully rebuilt until Eregion. And it could not have been anyone's sheer presence that magically restored his power. He had to actively rebuild. The signs of his rebuilding lie in two scenes that I have talked about before.

But let's jump ahead to a time/story we are more familiar with.

REBUILDING IN THE THIRD AGE

Sauron was "brought low" in the Battle of the Last Alliance. The one thing he needed in order to regain his power in LOTR was the One Ring, which he sought for three thousand years.

"These Rings have a way of being found. In evil hands it might have done great evil. Worst of all, it might have fallen into the hands of the Enemy. Indeed it certainly would; for this is the One, and he is exerting all his power to find it or draw it to himself" (Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings [FOTR]: The Shadow of the Past).

Whoever had it in their possession would cherish it to the point of obsession, but "a Ring of Power looks after itself," Gandalf said. "It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself that decided things. The Ring left him." Sauron was "calling" the Ring to him; it wanted to be found and to return to its master. Pretty much all Sauron had to do was touch it, and he would be rebuilt.

Tolkien said in one of his letters:

"While [Sauron] wore [the Ring], his power on earth was actually enhanced. But even if he did not wear it, that power existed and was in 'rapport' with himself: he was not 'diminished.' Unless some other seized it and became possessed of it. If that happened, the new possessor could (if sufficiently strong and heroic by nature) challenge Sauron, become master of all that he had learned or done since the making of the One Ring, and so overthrow him and usurp his place. This was the essential weakness he had introduced into his situation in his effort (largely unsuccessful) to enslave the Elves, and in his desire to establish a control over the minds and wills of his servants."

So, in the event that he retrieved the Ring, he would be able to take it off without losing any of his power. But someone sufficiently strong and heroic by nature could get ahold of it and challenge him.

REBUILDING IN THE SECOND AGE: Power Storage

His attempt at rebuilding his power in the Third Age (though unsuccessful) was exactly the same as his (successful) attempt in the Second Age. Most of his power was in the One Ring, and he needed it back in order to rebuild. That means that in the Second Age, his power was stored somewhere else. He needed his power back, so where was it stored?

Keep in mind what he was doing in the North. He meddled with the powers of the Unseen World, in an attempt to find a way to craft the same power that would later make up the One Ring. He could not find the "shadow of dark knowledge," no matter how much blood he spilt in its pursuit, and Adar betrayed and split him open. (I firmly do not believe Adar killed him/separated his spirit from his physical form. My reasoning for that is on its way.)

If Sauron tried to craft the same power in the North as what he later crafted in Mordor (after finding the shadow of dark knowledge), chances are high that he successfully channeled a portion of his power into whatever he was using. That thing would be MITHRIL (evident by the above depiction of a Balrog, which was shown as Adar spoke of Sauron's experiments). But Sauron was split open by Adar and incapacitated before the work was able to continue, and his plans were forestalled.

In the meantime, he did as Galadriel suspected: "[...] lying in wait, gathering strength, perfecting whatever dark art eluded him here." Mithril did not contain all of his power. There is another object which contained the other portion.

We know with certainty that Sauron had been seeking for this power when Finrod died, long before Morgoth fell.

Galadriel: "No, you died along with countless others because of him." Sauron, as Finrod: "No, Galadriel. He was seeking a power. Not to destroy Middle-earth, but to heal it, just as your fellow-Elves are seeking to do this very moment" (1x08).

In Sauron's tower, Finrod and his company were stripped of all their possessions, then thrown into the pits, where Finrod died. Is it not logical, then, that Sauron was aware of the dagger? Sauron didn't know Finrod's identity, but perceived him to be a Noldo of great might and wisdom, "deemed that in him lay the secret of their errand," and purposed to keep him alive longer than the rest. But after Finrod gave his life for Beren, what was Sauron to do?

In order to perfect an art, it must be practiced. If the art he desired to perfect was for the express purpose of enslaving the Elves, he would not leave the dagger of a great and mighty Noldo untouched. If presented with the opportunity, he would want a prototype. When Galadriel first took the dagger, in no world are we to think that the hand of Sauron never touched it, especially since we know that it was he who marked Finrod's flesh—likely with the dagger.

"But Sauron found him first, and marked his flesh with a symbol—one whose meaning even our wisest could not discern."

Long story short, Sauron channeled a portion of his power into the dagger around the time of Finrod's death, as a prototype—a tab to allow him access to the Elves. It so happens that Finrod's sister was the one to receive it, and she immediately became obsessed with finding Sauron. Later, another portion was harnessed in mithril, right before Adar betrayed him. Both circumstances are the first two test runs of channeling his power into an object. He will later succeed in harnessing most of his power in the One Ring.

REBUILDING IN THE SECOND AGE: Power Retrieval

—THE DAGGER—

The Ring was called "mine" at least 9 times in LOTR (excluding "ours" or "my own"), by Frodo, Bilbo, Gollum, and even Boromir. When Galadriel first took the dagger, she said:

"And there, in the darkness, his vow became mine."

That moment, long before Morgoth fell, and literally millennia before she was in Forodwaith, marked the beginning of her obsession, "which character after character in the show tells her is not a good thing," said Patrick McKay. "Is [Sauron] calling her to him?" — YES! ("...he is exerting all his power to find it or draw it to himself.")

------sidenote------

Yes, Galadriel cherished the dagger because it once belonged to her dead brother, but throughout the season, we saw many indications that her attachment was a bit more peculiar—feel free to look back at every scene with the dagger; particularly... - The mutiny scene (1x01) - The Boat scene (1x01) - Galadriel waking up on Elendil's ship (1x03) - "Whose dagger was it, Galadriel?" (1x05) - Galadriel's conversation with Adar (1x06) - Her conversation with Sauron on the log (1x06) - "These lands are dead," with Theo in Mordor (1x07) - The entire Vision Sequence (1x08) - True Creation Requires Sacrifice (1x08).

------

Sauron had many reasons for calling Galadriel to him, but a major reason was obvious: his power had been diminished, and the dagger contained a portion of it. He needed it back, so just like with the Ring, he exerted what power he had to draw the dagger, and its possessor, to himself (see Chapter 4). Sure enough, when Galadriel met him on the raft, he was very run-down.

...then he found the dagger.

The last we saw of him in episode 2, he was resting.

Suddenly, his whole personality, demeanor, energy, physicality—his whole BEING changed in episode 3. He was no longer weak and bitter, but spry and lighthearted. What was behind the sudden rejuvenation?

He got the dagger back.

He retrieved that portion of his power, but the portion was small—only enough for him to get by, and keep Galadriel under his thumb by returning the dagger. Remember, he was able to take the One Ring off without being diminished; he would be able to part with the dagger because the power still existed and "was in 'rapport' with himself." However, if the hands of a naturally strong and heroic person obtained it, he could be challenged. Therefore, before he let go of the dagger, he parted with Galadriel on the following terms:

"And at the very least, do try not to make any new enemies."

—MITHRIL—

Celebrimbor's ambition was pretty strong in the beginning. He desired to craft something of real power, which motivation led him to believe at least two untrustworthy tales. In the same manner that Galadriel's one-track-mindedness was augmented by means of the dagger (especially after Sauron returned it), Celebrimbor was influenced by mithril (especially after Sauron returned it).

Charlie confirmed that Sauron injured himself in order to be taken to Eregion "because he understands that the only way he can be healed is through their power and magic." After the eruption, why would that be the only way for him to get things going?

Because the mithril contained the other portion of his power, and he knew exactly where that scrap was. He touched it, regained the remainder of his power, and gladly returned the scrap to Celebrimbor, saying:

"Call it a gift."

From there, Sauron kept Celebrimbor under his thumb.

Galadriel: "Those words. 'Power over flesh.' Where did you hear them?" Celebrimbor: "Uh... I was conferring with my smiths, I think... No, I believe those are my words." Galadriel: "Was Halbrand with you?" Celebrimbor: "What's it matter? It's over" (1x08).

CONCLUSION

THAT is why those two scenes were so similar.

They were not mere representations of him transferring his power into the objects, like I believed, but rather a sign that he was taking it (of course without removing it from the object). They were signs to the audience of how he was rebuilding his power—a precursor of his attempt to rebuild in the Third Age by means of the One Ring!

Let's answer the questions we asked at the beginning.

In the Third Age (LOTR)...

Why did Sauron have to rebuild his power? - He was "brought low" in the Battle of the Last Alliance.

Why was he not able to rebuild his power naturally? - Most of his power and essence were stored elsewhere.

What was the one thing he needed in order to rebuild? - The One Ring.

In the Second Age (TROP)...

Who/what brought Sauron low in power? - Adar, towards the beginning of the Age.

Did he just wait things out, and let himself naturally rebuild? - No. He had to actively regain his power.

What was required for him to rebuild his power? - The dagger and mithril, in which his power was stored.

The dagger and mithril are inseparably connected because both contained the two required pieces of Sauron's craft. That is why the only thing that could be alloyed with mithril was the dagger. The Three Elven Rings were never touched by the hand of Sauron, but the power within the elements that made them was Sauron's. That is why the Three are subject to the One.

Below are a couple of interesting patterns.

STRENGTH

—After the Dagger—

—After Mithril—

(Notice that after the dagger, having only the smaller portion of his power, he still exerted some effort in subduing four Men (I mean, he still broke an arm in a manner that J.D. suggested was superhuman); whereas after touching the mithril, having all of his power back, he not only effortlessly stopped an Elf, but warped her mind.)

FACE

—After the Dagger— "It's not poison, if that's your concern. Not for humans, anyway."

—After Mithril— "You believed in me. You saw strength in me. You pushed me to heights that no one else could have. I will never forget that. And I'll see to it that no one else does, either."

(Those were the first suspicious smirks he gave to Galadriel after he touched the dagger and mithril.)

(And this is the last smirk we see of him, when he is officially rebuilt.)

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