AngstaholicLuser

"if it had to be anyone, i'm glad that it's you" remains one of my all-time winning dynamics btw. when the intimacy of trust is twisted by a desperate need for control into something possessive and uncomfortably dubiously consensual it's like masochist cocaine.

+ tbh it hits best there's no love or even lingering fondness to it, especially not romantic. like this isn't some cutesy enemies to lovers setup, it's a refusal to submit. it's a key turning in the lock to a door slammed shut in your face, unyielding no matter how hard you fling yourself against it and beg to be let in, and therein lies the appeal for me.

basically the best thing any character can do is decide they don't want to be afraid anymore - in fact they never want to be afraid of anything ever again - and take action so drastic they fail to realise that this too is a decision motivated by fear. or to account for the Consequences of that.

[with obvious perverted intent] hey. don't you want to release the safety catches on that character. don't you want to flip off all the switches holding them back and let the control rods go.

arranged political marriage narratives are for me similarly fraught to unplanned pregnancy in that they tend to skew towards a conservative, anti-choice sentiment regardless of the author's intentions or ideology, because the end goal is typically the realisation of an apparently empowering and subversive romantic fantasy where the characters involved experience compellingly turbulent and sexually charged conflict between normative expectations and their own desires, but ultimately find themselves fulfilled in and even healed by the acceptance of undeniably important and worthwhile but conventional (and oppressively gendered) roles like that of the loving husband and wife or parental figures. which is a shame because i Do think that there's some interesting and worthwhile commentary to be explored through these kinds of kinky fantasies that reflect the anxieties surrounding very real and enduring sociopolitical issues regarding autonomy and consent, but when that tension is ultimately resolved by settling into a role that's always been what's expected of you, even if it does allow you to manipulate certain social power dynamics in your favour, it just rings kind of hollow. all of which is a very long-winded way of saying that i wish there were more arranged marriage narratives where the participants never fall in love, but still come to care for and respect one another, and perform the marital duties expected of them out of that affection and desire to both help each other advance their sociopolitical countermoves to subvert the status quo and to survive, using the legal and social trappings that come with their marital status to their advantage to protect each other.

like i really Cannot stress enough how imperative it is that they never feel anything like romantic love for one another - nor are they really friends, although they may like each other's company and even actively prefer it to anyone else's. rather their relationship is comparable to that of two people covering each other's backs in a fight, or two prisoners in the same cell, and there's as much of the beauty of human connection to that as there is tragedy that those are the circumstances that brought them together. and they can absolutely have sexual tension and even consummate a sexual relationship and enjoy it, but it will be unavoidably dubiously consensual at best by design. no flinching from it.

arranged marriage where you love each other so much that you'd both shove the other person through a crack in the wall the moment it opened up in front of you while screaming at them to go, go now, run, and don't you dare look back

forced love confessions are whatever but forced hate confessions make me foam and froth at the mouth. show me someone visibly tormented by their own catharsis, wracked with the shame of losing a fight with themself. show me someone who leans in and twists the hand clutching the knife buried to the hilt inside them. cross the wires of desire and disgust with me.

+ don't forget to have them both throw up afterwards also

tired-fandom-ndn

Obsessed with characters who are chronic oversharers but in a way that conceals any real information about themselves. Characters who talk about everything but leave out everything that actually has meaning to them, who use their oversharing to hide all the things they're not talking about.

hylianane

functionally suicidal character saying “I would die for you” to their significant other and its like. I get the sentiment, honey, but if a hot dog vendor told me he’d sell hot dogs for me, I wouldn’t feel very moved now would I

redstonedust

characters who get the "i can fix him" urge not because theyre a saint who loves everyone inherently but because they think "if i can prove there's good in everyone, maybe i can start feeling like i'm worthy or being seen as good too."

amiya-shirou

The thing about I Portatori dei Velluti is that both its triggering incident and its resolution are unrelated coincidences, not something that happens with the specific purpose of affecting the greater plot - the car crash at the start of the story is ultimately just a simple accident, a banal aftereffect of the Fangs' fight and not something that was premeditated, but since Nuova Volsinii was still in a very precarious position slowly trying to force its way out of the swamp that is Siracusa the mere fact that it happened was more than enough to kick-start the entire chain of events that takes place during the event, like hitting the first piece of the domino. And this is relevant to the main argument of the arc, to the way Lappland is testing whether there's a real chance for things to get better or if Nuova Volsinii is just putting on a nice mask while things stay fundamentally the same (just like the mafia is shown to still be able to do the shit they were doing before as long as they learn how to keep themselves clean in the eye of the law, hiding everything under the surface), and in fact not only was a simple car crash enough to almost destroy a year's worth of the people's work towards the future, but the only reason it didn't destroy it was just another coincidence, Antonio being shot in an alley and the sound bringing Eirene back to her senses before the worst could happen and everyone put off their "masks".

But what's neat about it is that this is not just Lappland putting on her joker costume and successfully showing that we live in a society, that there's no difference between humans and wolves and Nuova Volsinii is a doomed project, because you can also say that a single gunshot was enough to stop the fight.

Lavinia, Leontuzzo, the citizens of Nuova Volsinii are all doing their best, but their city is still in the middle of the swamp, still not free from Siracusa's cycle, and as a result just a little push might very well be enough to ruin everything it stands for in just a few days, burying all the hopes of the new generation. But conversely, just a little push can also ensure that the ideals it's founded on can not only survive but also prevail. Is there any other city in Siracusa where that lone gunshot could have stopped such a fight? Where the mafiosi would have held back from shooting even for a moment? Where a don of one of the Dodici Famiglie could be imprisoned by the law? Is it that a fortunate coincidence was the only thing that stopped the worst possible result, or is it that a fortunate coincidence is all it took for things to end well? There's a reason if despite the way the fight was stopped Lappland still recognized that Texas won the bet.

It'd be easy for her to just be a Joker-like villain that gives a little push here and there to make society crumble and prove her point, but what makes her iconic is that both here and il Siracusano she acted to help, because if violence was just the natural state of things for Siracusa and escaping it was impossible, than it would happen regardless of her help. Instead she gives a little push here and there to make things better, testing Nuova Volsinii not because she wants to prove that it's going to fail but to see if it has a chance to swim through the swamp. She was one of its original investors, after all!

By the end of I Portatori dei Velluti, whatever the reason for that is, not only did the Carvenale go mostly as planned, but the city is freed of both the Fangs' game and two powerful Dons. Pretty much one of the most positive conclusions an Arknights' event ever had, not being limited to just putting the basis for societal change but actually producing very concrete results.

She really earned that medal.

the-cornuthaum

It's really nice of Babel to confirm basically every negative preconception I had of Theresis.

The man started undermining his sister's every effort decades - decades - ahead of the civil war because he could not stop dickriding his revanchist hard man rhethoric for a single fucking second, and then treats it all as a Very Mature Tragic Sacrifice he has to make.

He's completely sincere about it, which I appreciate greatly, because I hate the hollow hypocrisy ethnonationalist revanchists are usually ascribed in fiction. He's completely sincere about everything he says and does because from his PoV it is a very mature tragic sacrifice he must make for what he considers the good of all Sarkaz, but it built on him directly, and immediately, reneging his promise to Theresa to actually give her time to work.

I just hope that come Chapter 14/15, he does not actually survive the end of this arc and gets the gentle, quiet rest that Theresa and Amiya represent. Please, HG. Don't put him in a hole for future developments like Talulah and Kaschey, but actually cut that thread for good. Six feet under, as they say.

chryza

pondering how priestess despite ostensibly being a character who a story has sort of positioned as a potentially maternal figure--doctor's past romantic partner ʸᵉˢ ⁱᵗ ʷᵃˢ ʳᵒᵐᵃⁿᵗⁱᶜ ʷᵃᵗᶜʰ ᴬⁱᵐᵉʳ'ˢ ⁶ᵗʰ ᵃⁿⁿⁱ ˢᵒⁿᵍ, creating AMa-10, her interactions with hierda-- and yet in a game which excels at creating really complex mother figures she is afforded none of that. She is cast as invariably cold, rational to the point of uncaring, detached to a degree it's frightening when she does try to display some semblance of caring. "Long time no see" feels more like a threat than anything, and her callous disdain for Kal'tsit says all we need to know about any potentially motherly feelings she could possess. I think that's why the shot in the Critical Phase Transition trailer where she has a warm smile and an adoring pose feels so jarring. I mean true, that's priestess before she trapped herself in the Just Monika torment nexus for ten thousand years, but also she is just....not that at all. It's all an asset to her. Compare this to her opposition within the story. Theresa and Kal'tsit both are (as morally gray as they are) constantly represented as maternal figures. Theresa taking in Ascalon, Manfred, Amiya, her care for the children of Kazdel and Babel, it's like her most defining trait behind her idealism. Kal'tsit is less openly affectionate but Louisa, Elliot, Rosmontis, Amiya, she has a whole slew of children she cares about deeply too. "I believe the children are our future" is sort of a paramount Babel/Rhodes Island tenet. Theresa and Kal'tsit are not perfunctorily parental, it is intrinsic to their characters. They love in a way Priestess does not, cannot.

I don't think Priestess thinks maternal love is worth anything at all frankly. Any child she did have would be either perfectly molded in her own image or inexorably discarded, such is the way of her acute narcissism. And that extends to that I think she thinks she loves the doctor. They did rescue her so long ago and they equal her intelligence and passion and so she sees them as someone worthy of something like love. I don't think it means the same thing to her as it does to the doctor though. And that's why we're in this mess.

gillioncuntstrider

you ever think about amiya. she is so hopeful and so idealistic and you think she's naive, maybe, or an Anime Protagonist™ and then skullshatterer happens. and then patriot happens. and amiya is hopeful and idealistic and so so stubborn, but she's not naive at all. she's seen the worst of the world since she was very, very young. in blood and death a woman who was a second mother to her put a crown of suffering on her head and an incredible weight on her shoulders and forced her to carry them while another parent betrayed her and she's still hopeful and resilient and refusing to give up, over and over. you ever think of her.