What Made Me Like The Emperor Is The Perspective That He Acts In A Lot Of Ways More Like A "player" Than

i don't understand why it's even a question whether sauron was reaching for galadriel or nenya.

i think it's obvious that sauron's desire to possess nenya is a metaphor for his desire to have galadriel. nenya = galadriel.

if nenya just represented a ring and all sauron wanted was that ring, he would have snatched that thing away from galadriel the moment he saw it, and he had many opportunities to take it away. he wanted galadriel to give him nenya herself, bc that meant her giving in to him as well.

he was so desperate and teary while asking galadriel to give him nenya after stabbing her bc he hurt her far worse than he wanted to, trying to bring her to the point where she would give in, but she kept resisting and i believe he just didn't want to keep on hurting her. yet he would continue until she willingly gave him what he wanted. that is why he was so relieved and the most overjoyed we have seen him when he thought she finally believed he wanted to heal the middle-earth (+her) and was about to give him nenya (=herself).

the whole thing was so obviously a psychological game sprinkled with morgoth tactics sauron played on galadriel in a desperate hope of breaking her defenses down till she willingly gave herself to him.

and he changed the position of his hand to reach for her wrist, that way he would have been able to pull her back. if he had just reached for the ring, he would have tried to reach from below of her hand (where his hand was already positioned) to open her palm and quickly snatch the ring.

What if this is Gortash's way of having a plan to betray the others. Just as Durge is planning to end the world, with himself and Gortash as the last living beings, what if Gortash was planning on "liberating" Durge from their bhaalspawn flesh and blood. Durge would be a part of Enver's perfect order. Maybe both of them are hatching plans to subvert the other for their cause, tyranny and murder respectively. This is a wild rabbit hole indeed.

Let's say, Durge somehow defies daddy Bhaal and Gortash does not bite the grass.

Let's say, despite tireless efforts Bhaal doesn't rly like letting go of his kids, esp not those crafted from his own flesh and blood.

Let's also say, Gortash, the mad unethical scientist, would find 'ways' for Durge to get rid of the burden that is their Bhaalspawn body (essence may be gone but that body still Bhaals property technically).

And now, cuz I'm feeling funny, what if the Steelwatch and the whole consciousness/souls bit Gortash got going on is precisely with that in mind? After all, Gortash is a tyrant obsessed with freedom. And Durge is his equal. So of course he'd assist in their escape from their own hell, too. And if what they need is a new vessel to store their consciousness, well, Gortash and his mechanical puppets are happy to oblige.

I'm onto smth I know it (and this is definitely not just a scrapped ending that I've been reconsidering again)

Danny not confronting Lisa's authority really sells how little confidence he has on himself as a parent. The guy just keeps making mistakes.

you know what. im going to follow my heart so we can move on with the wormread and just copy-paste what i said about danny in chapter 6.9 on discord with some minimal editing because it's not pretty but the general thesis is there and i don't feel like making it into proper paragraph form

okay so the thing thats fucking killing me abotu 6.9 is that danny is literally like. he tries to call taylor a nickname only her mom called her once he realizes he's fucked up bad and is trying to recover whichi s insane [because it's obviously going to be upsetting to her by reminding her of her mom being gone, and it also indicates that his fall-back for something going wrong w/ taylor is to try to appeal to her by poorly copying someone else's parenting style] and he also randomly tells her about how her mom wanted to move her a grade ahead but he wanted her to stay in school with emma to make her happy. and he's been Stewing On That despite knowing it's objectively not his fault (and i am reminded of how in his interlude he spends time Stewing about how he wishes annette were there to give advice) and he also cops up to the fact that that the whole thing about "being her parent and not her ally" (<- demented thing to say for obvious reasons) wherein he locks her in a room and demands emotional vulnerability from her even as she's becoming visibly upset & compares his actions to emma's was her grandmother's idea and then. here's the real kicker. once lisa shows up and prepares to take taylor away there are any number of actions a parent confident that they're doing the right thing for their child would normally do in response--not, like, Good actions, but things that a parent would be likely to pull. threatening to call the cops bc blah blah you're my daughter, wanting to speak to lisa's parents, any form of power move pulled over these two teenage girls but instead he speaks to lisa like she's an equal authority over taylor and seriously asks if she's "okay with this" (i should remind you of the concussion chapter where lisa is doing some insane power move shit over taylors dad covertly establishing herself as more competent at caring 4 her than him lmao) which is just like. it's so glaringly wildly obvious how this guy has Zero confidence in himself as a parent so he generally does nothing and then while he's doing nothing he oscillates btwn rationalizing it to himself as allowing her privacy/dignity, getting angry at himself/calling himself a coward, or getting mad at TAYLOR and blaming HER for not being the one to take initiation to be vulnerable with him and, like. he literally does make functional decisions prior to this for a bit! he's good and supportive at the meeting with the school board about the bullying!!! but it doesn't immediately solve literal years of distance between them that have led to taylor having to take decisionmaking for her wellbeing entirely into her own hands w/o being able to tell him about it [& having literally no route for human connection or support other than the undersiders] so he just completely crumbles on his own calls and seeks out/takes completely shit advice from taylor's grandma instead so i very much think what's insinuated here is like. especially given that he knows he has anger issues and never wants to Be Scary with them. he might have frequently leaned on annette for parenting decisions before she died and/or is really fucking haunted by the time(s) he didn't listen to her and it went wrong and now that she's gone he's just kinda floundering and trying to toss the baton for parental decisionmaking onto anyone else, including, at one point, the literal teenage girl who shows up to help taylor run away from his house. insane ! also. thinking about how taylor says her grandma (maternal) never liked her dad. that man would literally rather talk to the mother of his dead wife, who hates him, and take her advice than go 'yeah ithink im gonna keep using my own judgement for compassion towards my daughter' fucking worst anyones ever done it this guy has the spine of a twizzler it's great

...and then doing All That & severely triggering taylor's trauma from the bullying in the process completely shatters any trust he had built with her, catalyzing her realization that she wants to be able to have meaningful relationships with the undersiders & leading to her running away to leave with them! i don't think anyone can say for sure whether or not danny Not doing this would have led to taylor turning the undersiders in before realizing that she would regret it, but oh fucking boy does he make SURE she doesn't go thru with it. and it would be bad to call the cops on a bunch of systematically neglected traumatized teenagers regardless of how much crime they're doing so you know what maybe we should actually thank danny for his Shit Parenting stopping taylor from being a narc

Just the possibility of Venom Victoria is amazing. The following mental struggle between the Wretch, her Warrior Monk philosophy and the symbiote third-wheeling in is simply too good to pass up.

I do think Taylor would enjoy the Batman rogue's gallery more. The struggles between territory, once in a while S9-like attacks and the lack of trustworthy authority figures in Gotham would make her feel right at home.

Hmm.

Odd question, which one fits better for Taylor and Victoria: fighting Batman Rogues Gallery or Spider-Man Rogue Gallery (and why?)

getting other people into rarepairs is so hard. wtf am i supposed to show them?? the 30k+ multichapter fic… written by ME?? the multiple pieces of fullbody fanart… ALSO by me?? the 12hr long spotify playlist… curated by ME?? i don’t think so. nuh-uh. no sir.

Gortash has a 'love' for humanity and it's making me sick cuz that's perhaps why I even like him. Cuz it's twisted and messed up and rotten, so fucking rotten, but it's there, and his every step and every plan of his strives towards the betterment of the status quo in some way and advancement of humanity in a way that's just making me sick.

In this essay I will-

Jack Slash goes full barber only to accidentally summon Barbatorem. The two have a standoff, it doesn't end well.

the only thing to complete jack slash's aesthetic would be scissors

If Amy actually did this she would instantly become one of my favorite characters. Insanely good take right here.

Now, being a healer cape is extremely exhausting, just, in general. Mentally, and also physically, because I am not in great shape, and I suspect I never will be. And, uh, being a healer that can heal pretty much anything (except brain stuff), it pretty much quadruples the pressure. You ask me how I cope?

Well, I, personally, sneak around town and turn people into vampires.

But Panacea, you say. That's unethical! And vampires are evil!

And I say you are a fucking moron. One, vampires are entirely sapient creatures, so they are inherently morally neutral. Two, have you seen Brockton Bay? This city has shape-shifting metallic nazis, dragon gangsters and Brandish. What do the normal people have? Nothing, exactly. Regeneration, speed, no aging, cool fangs and ability to climb walls like a gecko for some mild rash in the sunlight is a fucking bargain. And people shouldn't be entering people's homes uninvited anyway, that's just good manners. And a precaution against assholes.

Also, the way that Danny is seen as a bad parant are the sort of things people are used to seeing as byproducts of the genre Worm takes place in. He fundamentally lacks control over Taylor, to such an extent that he can't stop her from sneaking out to rob banks or fight in a gang war.

He shares these traits with a lot of parant figures in media, who are often not portraited as moral failures. People are rarely mad at Aunt May for negligence over Peter Parker, after all.

When it comes to him confronting Taylor, he is pretty much out of options. The readers also know Taylor actually holds all the power in their relationship, even if she doesn't want to use it. Thus him wanting her to really tell him what's going on, and stopping her from leaving unitil she does, isn't seen in such a bad light.

Danny is written as a flawed person, but we know from both his and Taylor's thoughts, that they care about each other. Danny's flaws both allow the story to happen and create interesting conflict for Taylor, without framing him as a bad person. As a story parent, I would say he is alright.

can you fucking believe there are people who voted that danny is a good parent in that one poll a while back

🎶you will remember me…remember me for centuries🎶