GOD. The way that Norah's father just doesn't listen to her at all, or give her a chance to speak. He's so quick to offer his own story and relate to her that he doesn't even take the time to understand her perspective.
take all my thoughts AGH
Sure, he noticed that something was wrong with her, but then he jumped to conclusions without giving her a chance to explain. He decides what he thinks she needs to feel better without even hearing what she's feeling or what she wants in the moment, he just latches right onto her playing the flute or fixing her problems the way he once did.
With how her father just vents to her about how stressful it is at the hospital, I can only imagine the pressure she feels not to add to that stress. Her parents indirectly downplay her own wants and needs every time they do this, like raising her isn't as important as their work, like they shouldn't need to worry about her.
It makes me wonder how much of her life her parents have been around for. He seems to feel this obligation to be at the hospital constantly as a doctor, but not to be there for his DAUGHTER as a father? I was literally thinking about this just days ago.
You can tell Bizly and Milo have really discussed this because god the way he plays Norah's dad really just explains a lot about her character. The feeling of being misunderstood by your own parents,, gah
Guys…. don’t think of the physical injuries Gillion must have gotten from Odelath’s meddling in his training. He moves a rock so Young Gillion topples off a ledge he was balancing on, crashing into the ground. A training sword becomes a bit heavier, unbalanced, causing it to slip and cut the little fishy boy. Odelath’s hidden smug satisfaction at every failed trial, every injury. Don’t think about Celeste scolding him about being more careful and sending him to the infirmary. Don’t think about Odelath being the one to comfort him, the one to patch up and bandage his wounds. Don’t think of just how many of Gillion’s scars were because of Odelath. How he must have equated them with failure, seen them as a physical reminder of his shortcomings rather than proof of what he’s gone through and what he’s overcome.
Old post I dug out of my drafts from when I was watching episode 100 of Riptide (Hot Dads In Your Area) and the thing I am struck most by with Jayson disowning Jay is that he doesn't even do it over her being a pirate. He does it when she stands up to him.
Like. He just doesn't listen to her. He constantly denies her both the autonomy of her own choices (being a pirate) and also the acknowledgment of her having autonomy at all. She didn't choose to become a pirate, her friends corrupted her. She's not doing this out of some deeply held belief (in freedom, in doing good and the inability of the Navy to be a vessel for that, a love of adventure), she can't have her her own reasons for making this choice. He doesn't try to understand, not just in the way that he can't support her choices, but in that he doesn't even attempt to conceive of her having actual reasons at all. He doesn't care why she's doing this, only that it isn't what he thinks she's meant to be doing.
He says 'we were family', but its only after Jay affirms this, not by rejecting him but by reminding him of his own words to her in the B.L.O.C.K that he says he means it. "Now that I have seen how much you've changed, I mean it."
How much she's changed isn't being a pirate, it's that she stood up against him instead of immediately crumbling in the face of his anger and displeasure.
She's not an adult. She's not an independent person who can make her own choices. She's his daughter, that is the only role available to her, she will act in a specific way and do what he thinks she should do and she is unable to exist outside of that and to do otherwise is disobedient.
Jay has always been scared of her father. The primary emotion associated with her relationship with him is fear. He is her father, she is her daughter, she is afraid of him. When she stops being afraid of him, she stops being his daughter. And I think that's really tragic for both of them.
Jay's grandmother is apparently terrifying. She's Jayson's commanding officer, not to be disobeyed. What does that say about Jayson and how he thinks about family?
Had a thought born from one of your reblogs where you mentioned Mrs Wisp being a generally kind and loving mother character, but still facilitating Isaac’s abuse by not looking into it and would it be that much of a stretch to say that her willfulness to look away and miss the Obvious could have also helped facilitate the dynamic William and David have in Grayscale . Thinking on how Vyncent had to Push William to confront David after they realized that the two’s parents were going to Also be there, William’s mom almost genuinely shooing Vyncent away and out of the apartment, how much William had to even just beg her to listen to him . Just a thought
Oh that is not a stretch in the slightest, if anything it's impressive consistency with character on Bizly's side for two portrayals of a minor side character separated by like three years. She's a good person and mother, very legitimately, but she also believes that the people close to her Must be too and refuses to look at any evidence to the contrary.
Honestly, I think that's fitting for what the metaphor of Deadwood is supposed to be. It's a small, rural, religious town where everyone knows everyone, So if you start to notice that something is wrong with the priest, or your friend's dad, or the nice young man down the street, nobody will believe you. If anything, you will be the rude one for wrongly accusing a good man of something that serious (and we know it's wrong Because He's A Good Man). The only unrealistic thing about the series is the fact that the priest Happens to be an acid-vomiting bug vampire, and he preys on children in a more literal sense than the typical real life equivalent. And of course, David Bell is evil in a painfully realistic way, befitting the fact that he is both not quite twisted in the same way as the monsters in Deadwood but also possibly worse than any of them.
And if im wrong about anything i am sorry :( also this might be nothing but i need to say this somewhere
Chip and his lack of control over his own fate is so interesting to me. The guy who tells gillion tidestrider “I didn’t believe in destiny before i met you” is somehow, out of the three of them, the one who is seemingly following a predetermined path set out for him.
Gillion, whilst being the chosen one, struggles with this identity and was exiled, which may be in his destiny but was clearly not intended by the elders.
Jay has her prophecy (type thing I know its not exactly a prophecy) but it has no clear path for her specifically to follow.
Chip, however, was destined to end up back at the hole in the sea, but barely remembers actually being there in the first place, and yet when he does return to the black sea, there is a message from Rose from a decade prior knowing not only that he would return, but that he would be there looking for them after their disappearance. (i dont have the brainpower to go into how insane that message makes me so just know i think about it at least once a day). Even chips search for arlin, which was originally his own, was used against him and taken advantage of by Niklaus (with whatever the fuck he is planning im not smart enough to figure that out im just insane) making what was originally a goal into an “incessant urge to not only find the other members but also do what you [chip] were told and return to the hole in the sea”.
Not only that, there is also the compass, which is further twisting and intensifying chips desire to find arlin and return to the hole in the sea (niklaus also told chip to stop using the compass but yknow) so not even his desires, his main motivations that have led him to where he is now, arent truly his own. ( interestingly despite rose knowing he would go back to the black sea, still urges him to leave behind the legacy of the black rose pirates and do something greater)
Even his death he had no part in, no crucial mistake, nothing he could have done differently to avoid it, he was simply chosen and made an example of for the sake of making a point of how fucked they were against captain widow, yet again a pawn in something he had no control over.
And then, when they do finally reach the hole in the sea, chip is led by the compass (THE FUCKIGN COMPASSSSS) and (im getting into insane territory here) has strange parallels to captain rose. He is separated from his crew (namely the only other black rose pirate, drey), made a deal with niklaus regarding the hole in the sea has the hole in his chest (idc if its not there in canon its there to me) however what is he met with? “Welcome home”. Now what does that mean? I dont fuckign know but it makes me very insane and this is long enough already so i hope you enjoyed my incoherent chip just roll with it ramble :D
queer reading riptide number bajillion or whatever:
Finn's writing on relationships on the oversea, after leaving behind his research career to join a pirate crew, reads to me as somewhat analogous to the stories of older people who come out as queer much later in life, after already starting a family. Entering a new exploratory period of life.
Rose-tinted glasses being part study, part semi-autobiographical treatise on relationships, compared to the stricter norms of Trench. And his explicit (notably overtly queer) work being locked away in a trunk.
This is a big analysis of the events in Arthur's life, based on what we know as far as episode 9.
If you just want the timeline here it is. However, I go through my methodology below the cut, so stick around for that if you would like!
Year campaign takes place: 2023
Year of birth: 1887
Year of Embrace: 1912
Year of immigration: 1918
Arthur's current age: 136
Arthur's visual age: 25
Quick warning for suicide a bit further down.
Facts we know:
Arthur is a little younger than 140
He left England in 1918, specifically right after World War 1 ended
He had younger twin siblings (that were smaller than adult size, yes this is important)
So, with this information I made a few assumptions. We are placing the timeline such that it is 2023 (year of recording) when this campaign is taking place. There are jokes in the episode about it taking place in 2012, but that makes the ages not line up well, especially with World War 1.
Another assumption: We are taking Arthur's true age to be 136. It is the lowest estimate for "a little younger than 140" I am comfortable with making.
And thus begins the timeline shenanigans.
Arthur was born in 1887, which makes him 136 in 2023.
His siblings would have to be under the age of about 11 to be smaller than their full grown, adult sizes. If Arthur were to be turned in 1918, he would have been 31. 20+ years difference is much quite a large gap between siblings, so he must have turned before 1918.
However, it was said that he left soon after being turned. But what is important to mention is that Arthur is within the age range to enlist in the British Army.
This seems out of character, but it really wouldn't be. He would have very recently killed his whole family. He wants to die. Being killed in a war is seen much more favorably than trying to kill himself. He already knows that trying to burn himself in the sun will just lead to Frenzy that will eventually get him out of harm's way.
So he joined the British military in 1914. He could have been turned right before enlisting and be 27 at the time of his Embrace, but that also seems unlikely.
Arthur wouldn't want to leave the country without checking for Anya everywhere he can. So he looked for her in all of England, while avoiding London as much as he possibly could. After the graves were dug, he didn't return until over a century later.
I say that two years is enough time to look for her in England, meaning the year he was turned was 1912. He would be 25.
This makes sense for his siblings ages as well. They could be 11 years old and only have a 14 year age gap. This is still somewhat large, but much more reasonable than 20. I know many people with this large of an age gap between siblings. A friend of mine has an age gap of 15 years and my mom has one of 16 (both with no siblings being born in between).
At 25, Arthur could still reasonably be living at home. He could be learning the Vampire Hunting trade from his father as an apprentice. His siblings would be young enough to have a small grave.
RECAP:
Arthur is currently 136. He was turned into a vampire before WW1 in 1912 and searched Great Britain for Anya for 2 years before volunteering for the British army, where he stayed for 4 years. Once the war ended in 1918, he left for the United States as soon as he could.
ok so because it seems riptide is gonna be coming up on a VERY interesting point in the story in regards to reveals, with them on their way to the hole in the sea and on their way to arlin and etc etc etc, i figured i might as well put this hunch of mine here as a monument to see whether it’ll get disproven or not.
i have a feeling that chip is far more important to the story than we’ve been led to believe, not just to the story as we know it, but the WORLD of mana as a whole, or at the VERY LEAST with everything going on with the hole in the sea.
a lot of stuff is up in the air and very ambiguous, especially in regards to what actually happened to chip when down there; however, from what i remember it seems incredibly likely that he somehow learned celestial when down there, and is the only one of the og black rose pirate crew that we know of who can speak celestial and READ THE MAPS.
IN CELESTIAL.
ON CHIP, DRE, AND FINN’S AS BACKS.
from what we know, or at least what i remember, lizzy also doesn’t speak celestial. dre can’t speak celestial. finn probably doesn’t speak celestial.
it also seems that whatever caused all of them to not remember most of what happened in the black sea was INTENTIONAL.
there’s a near complete absence of memory for pretty much everyone after a certain point. with how the black sea canonically messed with dre, finn, and arlin’s memories in the one shot, corrupting their perception of their memories to make important moments to them instead be painful (as seen with arlins memory of picking up chip and taking him onto the crew being ruined with a sense of betrayal as an adult chip stabbed arlin, which i won’t even get into how that could make chip reuniting w arlin that much more tragic because arlin can only associate chip w betrayal now coupled w how many more of his memories might’ve been corrupted over the course of the past DECADE in the hole in the sea with him apparently being the most susceptible to failing the necessary save to not have his memories corrupted) which makes it incredibly likely that whatever influence the black sea has not only impacts MEMORY but also DESIRES.
this tracks w how almost all of niklaus’ deals involve people’s desires and twisting them, and when their desires corrupt them enough they begin to die and spew BLACK OOZE.
SUCH AS A CERTAIN OTHER LARGE BODY OF LIQUID COLORED SIMILARLY WITH CORRUPTIVE PROPERTIES AND TIES TO DESIRE.
in the one shot the weird egg thing and the entire area they were in dealt heavily in desire.
when corrupted people in the black sea are slain their strongest desires from when they were alive were passed on to the person who killed them (jays newfound desire to find the dread queens tomb, gillions desire to help the tree, and whatever chips desire was cuz i’ve completely forgotten but it’s probably incredibly relevant 😅).
whatever chips ties are to the hole in the sea, and possibly to the prophecy, and the entirety of the black rose pirates legacy, i feel like we’re gonna find that a lot of the things regarding chips past is gonna be a whole lot more important to mana than we thought.
