#sunriseseance

[faerileee]

Hehehehe Charlie Collateral by @sunriseseance ! Collateral Savior shipping chart.

[hermitreunited]

Give us the spicy Ben takes. You know you want to. Like putting too much Sriracha on your eggs, you want to tempt this fandom. Tell me, Roo

You are either the worst influence, or the best. You are both. Both of those things. 

Well shit, okay, it’s Spicy Ben Takes time!

So you know that thing in fandom where Ben gets credited as Klaus’ babysitter, the voice of reason that has managed to keep Klaus alive all these years? The viewpoint that Klaus is going to fall apart post-s2 without Ben there to help take care of him? I’m here to say that canon suggests the opposite is true.

Having someone watching you limits your freedom to make your own choices — or to put it another way, having someone watching you is an extra factor to weigh during the decision-making process. Unfortunately, people are complicated and messy and the Hargreeves are especially so, and so that extra factor is not always going to weigh in favor of making better choices.

And Ben and Klaus are siblings. 

There might be nothing more powerful than sibling-induced stubbornness. There was some musical artist that my older sister liked that I said was bad, and then when I realized they were good actually, I kept pretending to hate them until some time after we’d both graduated high school. In turn, because I listened mostly to movie scores, my little brother declared that any music without lyrics was bad and all sounded the same. He had to listen to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and the opening track to The Dark Knight and tell us that they sounded so alike that he couldn’t tell them apart. 

He HAD TO do this. I don’t have a name as good as the Cain Instinct to describe it, but I submit that the inability to admit fault in front of a sibling runs as deep, if not deeper. It’s something to do with pride, probably, and more importantly the second part of this phrase: you can’t admit that you’re wrong or you’ll never hear the end of it. You aren’t going to fall out of touch when you graduate or whatever, this person will be around for the rest of your life reminding you of this fuckup whenever it benefits them, for forever.

(okay a read more because this is looooong sorrrrryyy)

So, to take a common fandom scenario, if Ben says Klaus should go to rehab and get clean? Klaus can’t just do that, especially if Ben has said it before and Klaus established that his side of issue was that he didn’t want to. If Klaus decides he does want to go to rehab after Ben has been on his case about it, then Ben can claim for the rest of forever that he’s the reason that Klaus is sober now, and that would be super fucking annoying when dealing with addiction is such deeply personal work. It’s a lose scenario however you slice it (which is very typical for sibling stupidity — it’s a fight that you lose as soon you decide it’s worth fighting over).

Now okay, let’s back up and be clear here. Klaus falling prey to sibling-induced stubbornness isn’t Ben’s fault. I’m not suggesting that Ben is actively standing in Klaus’ way, or that Klaus would have made the choice on his own to go to rehab had Ben not suggested it first. I’m saying that Ben’s presence simply makes it a harder thing to do, a larger mountain for Klaus to climb, on a journey that is already intimidating enough on its own.

And Ben is always there. There’s no space for Klaus to go off on his own and cool down and admit to himself that he is being stupid. Irritation can only build and build for years with no relief — irritation on both sides. 

So, yeah. Very unintentionally, Ben advocating for Klaus’ sobriety may in fact be a hinderance to that sobriety being achieved in actuality. Klaus might have more motivation to make good choices and less inclination to make bad choices when he doesn’t have a brother constantly watching over his shoulder.

But don’t just take my word for it! There are a few spots in canon that bear this interpretation out. I first got this in my head when I compared the ending of s1 and s2 — instead of leaving Vanya alone, Klaus comes out to join her in s2, which prompts the others to come as well and seems to turn out better than s1. No moons are exploded in the making of s2. Of course Ben is not the only difference in the situation, and of course we don’t know if Klaus would have made a similar choice if Ben was there advocating for it. What we do know for sure is that Klaus is capable of making good choices on his own.

We also see a couple of times that following Ben’s advice is not always a great choice. In s2, telling the cult the truth doesn’t do anything useful, and going after Luther in 1x07 gets Klaus killed. It seems like the time that Klaus was living his most well-adjusted healthiest life was when he was in Vietnam, without Ben. 

This is all to say that no, Klaus does not need Ben to be able to take care of himself. There’s more reasons to believe that Klaus will fare better without Ben’s constant presence. Surely there are aspects of his life that will be sadder, and emptier, without the brother that was such a fixture of his life for so long. But there will absolutely be parts of his life that are better, too. That’s one of those things that makes loss and grief so painful and guilty, isn’t it?

So actually maybe this is all to say, I would really love to see some more fandom takes that explore this complicated, flawed dynamic, and less of the one-dimensional ‘Babysitter Ben’ trope. Ben Is a Nuanced Individual With Flaws and Whose Actions Sometimes Cause Unintended and Unfortunate Consequences, and All of This Makes Him More Interesting and None of it Makes Him Evil 2k21!! (is that still a thing people do?)

[apocalypse-gang]

Thoughts on how funny it is that Five's ego is so big he lied about not liking sweets

Definitely it is a bit of ego. Like, dude, a fluffernutter sandwich is sweets. Part of it could also be that he doesn't like sweets but his feral brain is like "food is food is food".

He definitely loves Fudge Nutters after the 1950s candy Handler gave him, and he wanted another. And he couldn't get that so he stole cake frosting, the unsanitary geezer.

He definitely was definitely traumatised by that apocalypse twinkie. He'll never have those again.

[beetlemancy]

sunriseseance replied to your post “i disagree with your post bc one of those possibilities is a ship that...”

I think anon is demanding that the cast say exactly who they're talking about because one of the possible "her[s]" triggers their anxiety. I could be wrong, but I don't think this is about you. This is about the show. And if I'm right.... Oof. I think stop watching is the right move regardless. This is a show about letting the wind pick you up and take you. That's not for everyone.

I don’t want to assume what the anon was saying because it confused the f out of me but if this IS what they were saying - YES PLEASE! STOP WATCHING! If your anxiety is so high that you get to the point where you demand creators to stop creating, you need to AVOID those creators! Its okay to say that a show or a fandom is not for you. It’s okay to move on for your health or even because you just feel like it! Heavy improv is definitely not for everyone because of the unknown and because of the trope-breaking and because it sometimes goes to places you may not be able to handle and that’s neither problematic NOR a reason to get mad at the media itself - but it is a very valid reason to curate your intake!

[apocalypse-gang]

Thoughts on Diego saying he doesn't have a hero complex OR daddy issues

Oh it makes soooo much sense he thinks that. Diego is fully aware of their father's abuse and even how it effects his siblings, but he is in complete denial of how they truly affects him. He'll always call out horrible things Reginald has done to the others, but not to him or how he feels about it.

Part of it because if Diego admits their father hurt him, he's admitting to being a victim. And he can't let himself be a victim.

Diego was taught vulnerability is weakness, his sorrow and sadness becomes anger.

He's allows himself small moments for others to be vulnerabe with him, but he has to be the strong one. The few moments he was truly vulnerable in s1 was when he was losing people he loved.

In s2, we see he's not as angy. Yeah he's still pissed off a lot, cuz he's Diego, but he isn't automatically becoming angry when he's sad. Maybe part of that is therapy, maybe because he's was around his father, maybe because of Eudora and Lila. He's definitely becoming more vulnerable, though he's also a Hargreeves. But he was open enough to admit that he loves his family and loves Lila to everyone.

I think not saving JFK is the start to something. Maybe he knows he has those issues and now he's going to accept it. And he'll figure out who else his fight for instead; His family, Lila, the world, and himself.

[apocalypse-gang]

Hi! Once you get this you have to say five things you like about yourself, publicly, then send this to ten of your favorite followers (nonnegotiable) SPREAD POSITIVITY! 💌🥰

Oh man you sent this forever ago but here

Uhhh 1. My eyes are neat

2. I'm told I'm funny

3. I'm told I'm nice

4. Sometimes my voice is completely gender euphoria

5. My legs are great

[apocalypse-gang]

Thoughts on the phrase "get my buzz on"

Only a person who has never gotten their buzz on would say that

[apocalypse-gang]

Because Dune sucks, what book would you have Dave like instead?

Ooooohhhhh my almost immediate thought was Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, for a lot of reasons.

We know Dave likes sci-fi and this is a good example of it. It also explores sex and gender which, I feel like he wouldn't even understand why he likes that but he does.

I was reading the wikipedia article, and it was published in 1969 so he probably couldn'thave read it. And some stuff the feminist theorists saw to be possibly homphobic, because the masculine characters not getting to explore their attraction physically, and the heteronormativity in a planet where their is no fixed sex. But, it is something Le Guin had acknowledge and apologized for.

Le Guin is such an underrated author despite doing some great and even popular novels. What sucks is her works often get butchered and whitewashed in adaptations.

I'm trying to think of other novels he enjoyed. He definitely enjoyed lot of the deep and classic scifi novels of his time, like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Some of the non-sci-fi I could think I'm not even sure he would know.

Honestly I wanna hear your thoughts on this? What would his other favorites be?