azurestar

[strawberriesandstarsart]

Dead Wife Club

[actual-changeling]

when she sits grace down to first tell him that he's going to be part of the mission eva has already run through every. single. scenario.

she probably hasn't slept since the moment the research centre blew up, living off of caffeine and nothing else, knowing exactly what she has to do. and yet she refuses to accept it.

it's always been him. it can't be him.

so she looks at her list of possible replacements and carefully considers one after the other. none of them are even close to suitable. they're all self-sacrificial enough to volunteer, but it's never been about who does or doesn't want to die.

the question is, who, when flung out into space and travelling farther than any human ever has, can arrive at a planet to see what's up and then figure out how to save the sun?

eva never walked into that school expecting him to become her solution — useful, yes, sure, and he was. incredibly helpful.

and funny and anxious and someone who makes inappropriate jokes at the wrong time and talks more in a day than she does in a month. someone who wears silly shirts and has amazing ideas and once destroyed himself in front of dozens of people without backing down.

someone who calls her without considering the time, someone who knows her coffee order, someone who hates crowds and yet sticks to her side through every single meeting.

someone who let her drag him across the world with her, someone who never has to knock, someone who is always welcome. the only one who can make her smile, make her laugh, and gently pull the truth out of her without even trying.

he doesn't have immediate family.

he doesn't even have a dog.

he does have someone who cares about him, who wants to keep him right here on earth by her side while they watch the sun die in the sky; someone steady, someone selfish, someone lost and without a choice.

they're something undefinable, something colourful, something real.

eva needs him to stay.

the world needs him to go.

when she reaches the end of the list, she allows herself a single moment of humanity and buries her face in her arms before she screams.

she screams until all the air has left her lungs, until her throat hurts and her chest aches, until her voice breaks. no tears, not yet, not even in the privacy of what isn't really a home but a cage.

the mask of indifference is easier to put on in a crowded room, and she asks him despite knowing the answer. it's not question but a plea.

it all falls apart when they're alone, when she cannot look at him without tears in her eyes, when she knows she is no longer asking.

you are my solution.

he is the solution for everything, for herself, for the sun, for the world, and by god does she wish he wasn't.

he is something real, something colourful, something soft, something she wishes she could keep. something beautiful you get to hold for a single suspended moment knowing it will inevitably fade.

a rainbow in the sky before everything eventually goes dark.

[azurestar]

#scapegoat and sacrificial lamb#it makes me ill how much she feels#and no one but Grace ever takes the time to see it#and the one time she desperately needs him to see it#to consider her emotions and do something about it#he can’t and he won’t#the one person she could count on to care how she feels and try to make her feel better#and he won’t do it in the one moment when it could matter#the one person who has seen her as a person in the last four years is looking at her like a monster (@scapgoatandsacrificallamb)

[somepomegranatetea]

she's platonic about it but in my opinion, stratt 100% treats grace as her dead wife. she keeps a tacky fox trinket in her coat pocket. there's a framed photo of him in her study . he's grinning goofily in it (bc he's a dork). new guy like: is that her husband? / no, dumbass, it's dr. ryland grace, 1/3 of the hail mary mission. / oh, fuck. were they... ? / yeah, it's unclear. black-and-white montages of grace messing around in high-level meetings play every time stratt contemplates committing more environmental crimes. she looks up at the night sky and vaguely wonders if he's enjoying his space ramen. that's her dead wife. she killed him.

[bookie-the-reading-junkie]

– Directors' Commentary, Project Hail Mary (edited slightly)

[soupdwelling]

stratt makes me. so upset. she didn’t want to be seen as a monster, the cruel, calculating dictator with zero regard for morality even though that’s what she had to be. she tried so hard to fight it, in small ways, the boat parties, her song, all the art aboard the Hail Mary and the astronaut’s favorite clothes, pictures, and objects. The Earth beanbag, the stupid science shirts, the projection room and the karaoke machine. all the while she was desperately trying to prove she still cared, she could still be human and love and try to be kind where she could. and then when grace said no, forced her hand, it shattered whatever shred of humanity she had left. now she is undoubtedly the monster, the murderer. his last memories of her should have been kind, if it had gone as planned, it would have been as gentle as possible. but he had to go and ruin it, and now she has no hope of rising from that final, ruthless blow, severing her completely from the humanity she sacrificed everything to save.

[differenthistime]

been reading gotham knights

[corvidcorgi]

With three movies to compare between, I really appreciate how each Knives Out movie explores justice from a different thematic angle, not based on the murder that was committed but based on the cruelty that led to that murder.

In Knives Out, a compassionate, ethical young woman treats everyone around her with generosity, and the people around her repeatedly try to take advantage of her kindness to force her into losing the fortune that was gifted to her by a dear friend. There, justice means that she keeps the fortune and decides that actually, she doesn't have to be kind and giving to people who've proven themselves assholes.

In Glass Onion, a woman loses her sister to a gang of wealthy, successful people who've sacrificed their principles for the sake of ambition and ego. There, justice means that everyone involved will be made notorious: whatever their other accomplishments, they will forever be known for being complicit in the burning of the most famous painting in history.

In Wake Up Dead Man, the church takes advantage of a young girl's loyalty and faith to place her under a lifelong burden and fill her with guilt, shame, and hatred. Justice means helping her understand what was done to her and the women around her, and giving her compassion so she can find peace.

This is cool because it means the movies contradict each other! The compassionate justice of Wake Up Dead Man would be totally misplaced in Knives Out, and so would the toppling-monuments justice of Glass Onion. And because each movie has something different to say, they all stand on their own and feel fresh.

This is also why Benoit Blanc is the uniting figure but never the protagonist of these movies. He's an agent of legal justice in that he's the detective and it's his job to figure out whodunnit, but the protagonist -- Marta, Helen, and now Jud -- is always the character who delivers thematic justice.

[phantasm-echo]

Coping with the volume 2 trailer by drawing my silly guys totally surviving ueueueueueueue

[mycenalo]

middle-aged cass :)

[lomakes]

// Heavy is the Burden //

“I knew I would never see him as an old man. No, he’d leave us in a box, with jet black hair, and the only lines on his face would ones brought on by injury. You knew it wouldn’t end well. Despite all the training. All the brilliance. All the strength…Under it all there was just flesh, blood and bone. And a man who never feared death. You know as well as I do he was frightened by a great many things, but his own mortality barely made the top hundred list with him. I just…I…I just wasn’t ready to lose him.”

[littlefankingdom]

~ Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive?

Do y'all notice it? How Dick started with "you are an hypocrite because you don't follow the rules you made me follow" and shifted to "you are hypocritical because you get to protect me but you don't let me protect you"?

It started with "Why do you get to be Batman when I couldn't be Nightwing?" but becomes "Why don't you let me protect you?" because that's the thing Dick is mad about, not Bruce still being Batman when Dick had to make a new identity when he was suspected of murder.

Dick is like "I would fight the world for you! Let me do it! Let me fight the world for you! Let me protect you! Why are you not letting me fight for you?!"

[zxfzh6251]

Tim just chased the criminal all the way to Blüdhaven

since he's already here...

[wanderintofics]

Batman’s compassion for criminals and murderers is fascinating when put up against his anger and distrust and sometimes contempt for Jason and Helena, again and again the one thing he truly can’t stand is murder in the name of some greater good

he understands and forgives greed and anger and fear and desperation as a reason for killing but the second you try to smear a bit of righteousness over that death he is disgusted, he is actively less empathetic, he wants nothing to do with you personally

I think one of the key things here is also that Jason and Helena operate in Gotham and Bruce is driven enough by favouritism and territoriality that this contempt gets driven to the forefront and he feels he has more say in what goes on in his city

[umbrellajam]

[plutonicbees]

her hair probably full of secrets but also friendship and love

holiday gift exchange piece for @bellabaxtrrr <3

[kalgalen]

"i want them to make each other worse" i want them to have an impact on each other that's hard to define as objectively good or bad but is still sure to change the trajectory of their lives and alter their very being on a fundamental level forever

[salylockheart]

Batgirl

[anthurak]

Something I was always a little concerned about in the lead-up to Hazbin Hotel was that Charlie was going to be a bit too passive of a character, ie; leaning only into the ‘kind, optimistic Disney-Princess-in-Hell who just wants to help everyone’ vibe and not really have much else going on as a character. Which in turn would make her feel kind of bland next to the big, over-the-top or dramatic personalities like Angel Dust and Alastor.

But thankfully, that is not what happened and there’s actually a lot that I like about what the writers are doing with Charlie, particularly in the potential future development and reveals they seem to be setting up.

First off, I like how Charlie generally comes off more like an over-the-top caricature of that ‘Disney-Princess-in-Hell’ vibe, ie; SUPER energized, enthusiastic, affectionate and emotional, often to overbearing degrees that get on everyone’s nerves. It’s generally funny, or at least amusing, and lets Charlie stand out alongside the other big personalities in the cast. Funny enough, she’s actually a lot like Blitzo in this regard, minus the seesawing into extreme abrasiveness.

And more importantly, we’ve already gotten major hints all but confirming that this over-the-top personality is largely a façade, and that Charlie actually has some very clear issues and baggage that she’s working VERY hard to keep buried beneath the surface. Again, much like Blitzo.

Like how in the trust-fall exercise in episode three, despite asking everyone to reveal something personal, Charlie actually bullshits just as hard as Angel Dust and Sir Pentious with her whole ‘I love you all!’ bit. Sure, it’s not like she was lying or being insincere, but it’s clear that was NOT something truly personal for Charlie. And in episode 4 we have Husk straight-up calls out Charlie as ‘wanting to solve everyone’s problems but her own’.

Then of course we have the brief glimpses we’ve seen of Charlie getting angry. Both the times we’ve seen Charlie dealing with some truly despicable and horrendous characters, we’ve seen that rather than lacking the ability to get angry, Charlie is often working to hold herself back. In both her encounters with Adam and Valentino we see points where Charlie is clearly NOT intimidated or afraid of them at all and seems fully prepared to throw down, only being stopped by reigning herself in or by someone else (in this case Angel) stopping her.

Again, it all paints Charlie’s big, bubbly, hyperactive exuberance as something of a front, a way for her to bury a lot of thoughts, feelings and general baggage she doesn’t want to face. Just like what the show has already explored with Angel and Husk.

It actually raises some interesting questions as to what’s REALLY driving Charlie in running the hotel and trying to help Sinners. For one, Husk has already pegged Charlie as ‘wanting to solve everyone’s problems but her own’. And going back to thematic crossover with Helluva Boss, I can’t help but see some potential parallels between Charlie creating the Hazbin Hotel, and Blitzo creating Immediate Murder Professionals.

I think it’s pretty clear at this point that half the reason for creating I.M.P. was as a coping mechanism for Blitzo, or rather the assassination business in general. Something that we’ve gotten hints to as early as the second episode in Blitzo’s back and forth with the Robo-Fizz (“Does anyone love you, Blitzo?”/“No. But I’m really good with guns now!”). With the other half of the reason Blitzo created I.M.P. clearly seems to be to create a surrogate family, as seen with how much he tries to insert himself in the M&M’s lives. Possibly even a specific attempt to replace the family he unwittingly destroyed fifteen years ago.

So I really have to wonder if we’re going to find out that Charlie creating the hotel and her goal of redeeming sinners is in part likewise a coping mechanism and escape for her own baggage.

It’s actually really interesting how episode two first introduced the idea of people opening up with Sir Pentious, then episode four dived further into the concept of the walls and fake personas people put up to hide from their pain and trauma with Angel Dust and Husk. With those two opening up and starting to let their walls down to each other, and by extension we the audience, I think it makes Charlie’s own façade all the more noticeable. It’ll be pretty interesting if Charlie actually winds up being the toughest nut to crack when it comes to opening up about their real issues and baggage. Yet another interesting trait she shares with Blitzo.

All in all, I’m really liking what the show has been doing with Charlie as a protagonist. And I’m REALLY interested to see where the story is going to take her.

Particularly what’s going to happen when she reaches a breaking point…