still fucks me up that faulkner as a character is deeply driven by the desire to find something or someone, be it a group or single entity, who will love him forever no matter what and how after maybe a month of knowing him over the span of two years carpenter presents him with that genuine literal i-don’t-care-that-you-killed-people-and-almost-me-too-you’re-still-my-brother unconditional love and he’s too far gone to even process it, let alone accept it. fuck!!
SO FUN. SUCH A FUN DYNAMIC. avid is right about everything but unfortunately for him he has the misfortune of targeting scott, who is better at the social game than anyone else here by a long shot. and now scott is targeting him right back without compunction. none of this is avid’s fault! he didn’t do anything wrong! but the world is against him now, thanks to scott, and that’s not going to be easy to claw back. probably it’s already too late for him.
I’ve actually been really enjoying vsmp so much, and I love the dynamic between scott and avid because it’s the same shit scott does everywhere (life series, xlife, among us, escape rooms, any video he’s in on jimmy’s channel ever), just amped up to eleven because he’s leaning into it. he’s not even amoral—he clearly feels some sense of obligation or even affection towards the other vampires, as evidenced by how he does keep risking his own life and livelihood for their common benefit—but he’s intentionally playing a cruel and callous character. he’s being evil on purpose, and having a GREAT time! meanwhile avid is going to lose his mind from stress.
which is exactly what scott wants, of course. in the absence of his usual favourite punching bags, he’s found a new one, and is gleefully tormenting him. it was genuinely really impressive how scott managed not only to convince everyone that he was wearing a skull just to fuck with avid, but also to persuade everyone that this was acceptable and even admirable behaviour, to the point that multiple other people did the same thing. avid’s right about vampires and right about scott in particular, but it doesn’t matter, does it? because everyone has decided he’s in the wrong. people love a scapegoat, and avid is a perfect one, because he’s just annoying and persistent enough that people can feel justified in disliking him or turning against him. avid hasn’t actually done anything, but he’s now branded as the crazy person of the group, to the point that scott has convinced other people that they should consider exiling or even killing him. it’s a bit horrifying actually, but I do greatly enjoy watching it all unfold. genuine gaslighting and manipulation and psychological torture. it’s awful. it’s awesome
I hope avid is the last human standing because scott doesn’t want to sully his mouth with his blood. I hope scott keeps toying with him like a cat torturing a mouse. I hope everyone else, deluded and paranoid, continues to ignore his warnings and treat him horribly because it makes them feel better about themselves. I hope it all gets worse and Worse and WORSE
I've seen a few folk wondering why, if Remmick is so ancient, why is he so 'recognisable' to us? why does his jig look familiar, rather than unfamiliar? Why doesn't he speak Old Irish, have any signs of having capacity to read Ogham, using lingual terms or cultural flairs of his time?
IMO the easiest two explanations are: he is the main antagonist of Sinners but his entire life story is not actually necessary. All of the necessary substance is there. Coogler and the film team did an excellent job of littering the film with details that imply and provoke rather than spell out.
Secondarily, imho there are very limited historical resources on the time of the druids and early pagan Irish society compared to other resources we have on other civilisations because the Gaelic society of the first millenia CE (where Remmick is supposedly from) would not have used written records at all. Traditions, history, and legend would be passed down through oral traditions (by the filí), whose especially trained stories, poems, fables and songs would be how they preserved culture and history, and passed it down through generations and to the populace. All written preserved history about Gaelic society is recorded in manuscripts by Christian Irish Monks, or secondary sources like the Romans speaking about Ireland.
Slim pickings to know how the Druids would dance.
So why is Remmick so recognisable to us, a man and monster of potentially 1600 years?
But I think that can be explained pretty succinctly, in universe, by his pressure to survive. He simple MUST fit in to the common culture, or he will literally die. He doesn’t have riches, a castle and a list of servants to get him what he needs. He must live with the very people he must prey upon - his own countrymen he is watching warp and disappear from people he can truly recognise.
Imagine the loss of identity both in yourself, and in your home, as you stay alive? Your own culture shifting beyond recognition to the point in front of your very eyes, to the glacial drip of time, that it no longer feels like home? The horror of that fucking fascinates me.
I think he’s deeply warped by time and by the profoundly inconceivable psychological horror of things that matter deeply to you becoming completely unrecognisable - and being ultimately helpless to stop it. Times witness. The complete degradation of the ability to feel ‘part’ of his own country, while simultaneously having to adapt to it just to exploit the living. It’s so many layers of deliciously fucked up.
He must destroy what he covets but in a far more emotionally and psychologically significant context than the usual vampire stories.
There are so many fae-like ironies in his tormented, futile existence. To be a filidh and to literally be witnessing history, and it change, and having no one to truly share it with. To maybe being the only surviving primary source on Gaelic society over 1000 years ago, directly, and his knowledge dies with him right in front of us.
"I want your stories, and i want your songs. And you'll have mine."
It is, metaphysically and literally in universe, the most intimate Exchange of Knowing possible for Remmick to want to convert Sammie. A true equal, but an untainted one. Loneliness that old and that animal? Union? Cultural exchange? Sickening (both positive and negative).
The very idea he has been actually fulfilling his original duty and tradition of storytelling and history giving this entire time. Every conversion, he is making an audience. He is sharing Knowledge (both literally and figurative).
A man of oral traditions sharing songs and stories, who kills and maligns the community he needs to have, killed when finding a true equal? It's justice, tragedy and liberation all in one. Mr Coogler the man that you are.
I don’t think he’s as ‘and here is a list of things I went through’ kind of man/monster. He is the sum result of centuries, over a millenia, of cultural, psychological and personal erosion. I think he is both deeply, sickeningly alienated from his own homeland because of time itself and the nature of what he is. I think it has fantastic parallels folding in on itself like a tesseract.
I think what we see is never, ever close to the real pagan man from the first millennia. He’s become too fragmented by survival, being a monster, how he must hunt, what hunting does to him. What we see, when he dances in jubilation, is a fragment of the original man in the corpse of a monster.
He is, in essence, being truly conjured by Sammie as well. A real part of him. Is it not possible that vampires int his context count as spirits of the past. beyond the veil?
As someone who has seen modern performamce irish jigs, Remmick's motions are loose, of the body; engaged with space and the earth. Organic. Of the people, not a competitive, strict standard. He kicks up the earth and he swings his upper body. That is, in essence, to me, a hint of the Druidic era men he once was.
the Weird Route is becoming like, the Deltarune fandom's Original Sin.
fym "it was US that did the weird route"? "when WE abused Noelle"?? I don't fucking remember doing any of that! Don't get me involved on the shit that YOU choose to do
Thinking about heart / star imagery between Kris and the Knight for a moment
Kris points and hearts come out. The Knight points and a deadly corridor of swords stars come out.
Kris has their SOUL, their little heart-shaped object. Their kart in Chapter 3's chariot battle has a bunch of hearts on its side.
A book in chapter 4's "Roots" room refers to a fallen star that weeps and makes a river, from which grows something like glass. Following the idea that the Knight is the source of the Shadow Crystals, which are like glass, the Knight would be the fallen star in this passage.
On characters with heart/star imagery, there's also... Tenna and Spamton???
Tenna wants to be a star— to be given attention, to be watched— Spamton wants Kris's [HeartShapedObject]. They both have bullet patterns with these respective iconography, as well. I even wonder if Tenna's rimshot attack isn't supposed to mirror Spamton's beautiful [Heart] attack. The most prominent bullets have their faces on them.
Another Thing in the piles of spamtenna mirrors, I suppose.
ykw im gonna say it....!!! the idea that matespritship is "the closest to human romance" is fundamentally misunderstood by a majority of the hs fandom! matespritship is "closest to human romance" [karkats words] in the sense that its closest to the human concept of *dating.* the concupiscent quadrants are provocation based, and more align with the ideas of "going out on dates and having sex / one night stands" with people, rather than longterm human romance.
the actual thing closest to "human romance" was the relationship between the signless and the disciple that "transcended all four quadrants"; if i had to pick a quadrant closest to "human marriage" or a longterm relationship, it would be ***moiraillegiance!!!***
moirails are conciliatory yes, but more than that they are *balanced equals, matched pairs.* theyre the closest quadrant to the traditional human soul mate. the one who perfectly completes you and keeps you on an even keel. the idea that moirails are platonic or qpr is just fundamentally wrong. *some* moirails can be qprs somewhat, but it literally is textually just a different form of romance, the same way that dating somebody vs being married to them for a decade are different forms of romance!!!
when youre married to someone for a long time, they often stop surprising you (not in the sense of "i bought you a gift!" but in the sense of the feelings that provokes. when youre first dating somebody, youd be surprised and pleased and a little awed that they went out their way for you. when youve been married a long time, youre still surprised and pleased, but its with this undercurrent of "hah, of course they would do this for me; they *love* me!"); moiraillegiance is the deepest quadrant and the most complex, which is why the presentation of moiraillegiance varies so wildly! look at depictions of matesprits, and youll see they all follow the same patterns of "shallowish romance between two people that have been dating for awhile"; moirails vary wildly!
the two extremes are definitely nepeta and equius vs folykl and kuprum. both pairs are equally balanced and a matched pair, its just that theyre on opposite ends of the "moirail spectrum" in what ways they provide for and ease their quadrantmates. the idea that matespritship is "human romance" is so wrong its laughable and thats why davekat is destined to fail if they dont deepen their relationship from matesprits to smeared moirails or human romance altogether IN THIS ESSAY I WILL
in a canon only reading; davekat COULD WORK and thats what drives me crazy. if they communicated better and changed their relationship it COULD WORK! but communication in romance is fundamentally incompatible w both of their characters! so i froth at the mouth
