IMO One Of The Most Oversimplified Parts Of Bioshock Discussion I've Seen Online Is The Difference Between

IMO one of the most oversimplified parts of bioshock discussion i've seen online is the difference between suchong and tenenbaum re: treatment of the little sisters. yeah suchong hates children and tenenbaum eventually redeems herself, but i wish more people talked about them within the context of the cycle of violence as a whole.

suchong and tenenbaum came of age during the second world war. both were victimized by the axis powers, losing their entire families. both were spared only by a combination of blind luck and their own wits, and both survived by collaborating with the enemy and experimenting on their own people. the cycle of violence is the literal structure of their lives. it's how they learned the world.

tenenbaum is only able to change because she understands her own place within this cycle. the little girls force her to see that you're not free from it simply by no longer being the one that's being hurt. it occurs to her after seeing jack's actions that there might be a chance at a life outside the language of violence. the effort of helping jack fills the chasm that abandoning your whole worldview might leave you with. it gives her a something to do with her own pain.

suchong cannot come to grips with this possibility, even when tenenbaum writes him a letter begging him to, because to acknowledge an alternative way of existence would require acknowledging the depths to which he has been hurt. in order to survive the war years he forms a theory of mankind that moving to rapture does not disprove at all: everyone is only in it for themselves. cruelty is the engine the world runs on, and you, in order to make it, must strike first, establish dominance, and become the mask. if the world is not "just like that", if everyone is not in on some kind of con, then what happened during the war was cruel, and abnormal, and there was no reason why.

the children freak both of them out because kids can tell when you're hiding something, even if they don't know the nature of what that something is. brigid eventually allows herself to crack before the innocent gaze of the children, but to suchong it's unbearable. it's a reminder of his own history of being trapped and powerless. as scientists, they do a lot of looking, but the girls look back.

Goro Akechi in chapter 5 of ex machina:

My brain:

OH NO! They're melting...

(Been reading @hhaeyeun's character swap au fic. It's a very fun time and this is the closest I am ever gonna get to making fanart. I do not draw much.)

I had not thought of Goro in those terms before but you might be onto something... For all we know Maruki could have actually not been the one to bring him back. Maybe instead Goro saw what Maruki was doing, said, "Well that's fucked up," and simply willed himself back into existence with the sole purpose of beating him up!

Characters not dying just because they refuse to is one of my absolute favorite tropes. (When it's done well that is, looking at you every Sith Lord in the entirety of Star Wars lore that is killed by the hero only to return in a few years and do nothing interesting other than die again.)

I'm gonna ramble for a second because I think about the following characters a lot. Forgive me.

Also, spoilers ahead for Knights of the Old Republic II, Pathologic: The Marble Nest, and Devil May Cry 5

The one time I know of, (there could be others, massive franchise and all), that Star Wars actually did it well with a Sith character was Darth Sion from Knights of the Old Republic II. He's literally known as "The Lord of Pain" because he's in constant pain. He has taken many fatal injuries and just kept on going and he looks like an actual zombie but crusty. The only reason he's still alive is that he is 100% fueled by hatred and anguish and holding himself together with the force. It's an absolutely miserable existence but he just keeps on trucking until the player character has to actually convince him to die in order to progress.

Then in Pathologic: The Marble Nest we have the "prickly prick" Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky who essentially gets himself caught in a little time loop of a single day trying to figure out what went wrong because he's made defeating death itself his number one goal in life as simply refuses to lose to it.

I feel like Vergil from Devil May Cry also falls into this. I mean, he "dies" every other game but he's still going. He cuts himself in half rather than accepting death. Good for him! (Disclaimer: I don't actually support the mass destruction Vergil causes. Guy needs to stop summoning trees and go to therapy.)

i constantly think about how, at this point, atlus has characterized goro akechi as a man who's literally too angry to stay dead. thats SO funny

Heres some silly Persona 5 Drawings (I finished the game and i think its really cool!)

also i know Joker’s glasses are fake but in my heart they’re real

Hope you enjoy, and have an AWESOME day!!

Post rank 8 be like-

Ah yes, me and my alter egos