An Emotional First Reaction To Arcane's Finale

Reed and Sue

WHAT FANDOM THINKS THEY’RE LIKE:

SUE: Reed, you are going too far! That person doesn’t deserve to be hurt! We should forgive them. 

REED: Oh, thank you for stopping me and saving me from myself and my logic. I never would have forgiven myself if I hurt them!

WHAT THEY’RE REALLY LIKE:

SUE: Honey, this bad guy tried to hurt our daughter. Hold my coat while I bash his skull in.

REED: Of course! Let me know if you need any help with that, sweetie. I support you completely.

SUE: Nah, I got it.

Ten years later:

REED: Honey, the bad guy who hurt our daughter ten years ago sounds like he’s really sorry now. Maybe we should forgive him?

SUE: Pftt. I love you, but you’re too naive. He hurt my daughter. I will not ever forgive him. He’s an asshole and I’m about two seconds away from bashing his skull in again just on principle. 

SUE: glares at former bad guy

FORMER BAD GUY: faints from sheer terror

REED: (sighs) Sometimes I think you like making them faint. 

SUE: It means they’re scared of me, and they should be scared of me, sweetie. I will hurt them.

horrortale comic I did month ago

more older gaang

so gemma was orpheus all along. when she looked back, called mark’s name, and asked him to come home.. innie mark realized he had no feelings for this woman. if she had stayed facing forward maybe the allegiance to his outie would have won out. but gemma turning around made him hesitate long enough for helly to appear. and when she called his name.. it was game over. eurydice embraced the underworld with open arms.

Waldemar Fink aka Waldemar Theophil Fink (Swiss, 1883/93-1948, b. Bern, Switzerland, d. Ibid) - Laternenlicht (Lantern Light), 1912, Paintings: Tempera

“You felt your sins crawling on your back.”

Can’t stop listing to Megalovania… > w >;;

Look, I know we in the Snapedom always talked about Severus as this genius prodigy and all that. We take a hollow comfort in his mastery of potions. He might be a lonely spy. He might not be able to have friends that he didn’t lie to half the time. But maybe he could be at peace while brewing some potions for the medical wing.

But this is sad Snape AU o’clock, so think about this:

As an overworked professor swamped with the mundane work of grading essays and supervising classes, does Severus still have the time to be a genius? To study, research, and innovate?

And if what some have theorised is true, and Severus for one reason or another didn’t publicise his research, imagine his feelings as his school-day discoveries were slowly found out by others and publicised by them.

Imagine him finding out the Ravenclaw that ranked just a bit under him in potion was now in Alaska, working with an international potion organisation to study the property of a rare magical herb in there.

Imagine him having to make the nth batch of headache potion. Gritting his teeth because he knew he could've done better than this.

Imagine him being so tired, stressed, and uninspired that even when he's on break he couldn't maintain any productivity.

Severus who tried to brew a high level potion or write a paper, but failed again and again.

Imagine a burnt out Severus.

Severus who wanted to be a DADA teacher because he couldn't even care about potion anymore.

Severus who lost his passion.

This part of Snape's memories that he gives to Harry has been talked to death, but please indulge me while I dig it back up because meta rests for no man. Emphases in the below excerpt are mine:

The corridor dissolved, and the scene took a little longer to reform: Harry seemed to fly through shifting shapes and colours until his surroundings solidified again and he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone … his fear infected Harry, too, even though he knew that he could not be harmed, and he looked over his shoulder, wondering what it was that Snape was waiting for - Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air: Harry thought of lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees and his wand had flown out of his hand. ‘Don’t kill me!’ ‘That was not my intention.’ Any sound of Dumbledore Apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. He stood before Snape with his robes whipping around him, and his face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand. ‘Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?' 'No - no message - I’m here on my own account!’ Snape was wringing his hands: he looked a little mad, with his straggling, black hair flying around him. ‘I - I come with a warning - no, a request - please -‘ Dumbledore flicked his wand. Though leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them, silence fell on the spot where he and Snape faced each other. ‘What request could a Death Eater make of me?’ ‘The - the prophecy … the prediction … Trelawney …’ ‘Ah, yes,’ said Dumbledore. ‘How much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?’ ‘Everything - everything I heard!’ said Snape. ‘That is why - it is for that reason - he thinks it means Lily Evans!’ ‘The prophecy did not refer to a woman,’ said Dumbledore. ‘It spoke of a boy born at the end of July -‘ ‘You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down - kill them all -‘ ‘If she means so much to you,’ said Dumbledore, ‘surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?' 'I have - I have asked him -‘ ‘You disgust me,’ said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. ‘You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?’ Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore. ‘Hide them all, then,’ he croaked. ‘Keep her - them - safe. Please.’ ‘And what will you give me in return, Severus?’ ‘In - in return?’ Snape gaped at Dumbledore, and Harry expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, ‘Anything.'

Firstly what stands out here is that that Snape is the first one to refer to Harry and James and not just Lily, not Dumbledore. Snape says, "he is going to hunt her down - kill them all" showing that from the outset he was aware of not just Lily's fate, but her husband's and son's as well. His warning to Dumbledore takes them into consideration too, so from the outset we see that Dumbledore's assumptions are likely biased.

It's Dumbledore who assumes Snape is only thinking about Lily and doesn't care about her family. Although Snape is clearly more invested in Lily, focusing on her as Voldemort's target when he first speaks, he doesn't exhibit the selfish tunnel vision Dumbledore accuses him of. In fact, immediately after Snape says "them all" it's Dumbledore who changes the conversation to be specifically about Lily again. It's understandable that Snape is more concerned about Lily - she's the one he grew up with and was friends with, although it's likely Dumbledore doesn't know this, and may never learn the full extent of Snape's relationship to her, not even to the extent that he shares with Harry in his final memories. Snape refers to her as Lily Evans, not Potter, likely because he's so used to Evans being her name, having spent his whole childhood knowing her by it. His relationship with James was one of victim to abuser, so it's understandable that in this moment of panic and anxiety, James Potter isn't the most important thing in Snape's mind.

It's important to how the dynamics between Snape and Dumbledore play out in this scene that Snape is terrified. He's described as "panting, turning on the spot" and his fear is so palpable that even Harry feels it, though he knows he's safe and in a memory where he can't be harmed. Snape is coming into this conversation out of desperation, and trusting a man who didn't seem to care much when Snape's life was threatened by a fellow student in his fifth year at Hogwarts. To Snape, Dumbledore is the man who let Sirius' prank slide even though it could have killed him. Years after this scene on the hilltop, when Sirius escapes from Azkaban, he still asserts with viciousness that Snape deserved to die just for being too nosy about him and his friends. So to Snape, Dumbledore is the man who let that attempt on his life slide, and who invited Sirius and James - both his attackers, as far as he's concerned - to join the original Order of the Phoenix.

To Snape, Dumbledore is someone who doesn't care if he lives or dies, and who trusts and respects people who, as far as Snape is concerned, are violent and ruthless. This is compounded by the time he's spent in Voldemort's ranks, where's he's seen firsthand what people like that - violent and ruthless - are capable of. He likely sees Dumbledore as a leader who is just as volatile as Voldemort. Since we know that Voldemort doesn't believe in light and dark, good or bad, only in power and weakness, we can assume that Snape has taken on some of these ideas. His perspective may also be informed by his experiences with the bullying of the Marauders, who claimed to hate his proclivity for "dark" magic while perverting innocent spells like scourgify to enact violence (if you've ever tried to eat soap as a kid, you can imagine how vile that might be, let alone if it's blocking the airflow in your trachea). So in Snape's eyes, Dumbledore is probably not the light to Voldemort's dark, but a rival wizard fighting for power, and therefore someone he likely assumes will resort to similar brutality.

As far as Snape is concerned, Dumbledore could strike him dead just for being there. And yet he walks into this meeting, the arrangement of which is already a mortal risk, knowing he might not leave it alive. His first words to the man are, "Don't kill me." Even if he were there just to plead for Lily's life and not care about her family, his willingness to sacrifice himself to save her is already an act of bravery and frankly, I think it's a much more complicated moral dilemma whether one can choose who to give their own life for than Dumbledore's harsh condemnation makes it seem. Can we expect a man to risk his life for a friend? That's a question with a complex and multi-faceted variety of answers. Can we expect him to risk his life for an enemy, or an abuser? That's a long and complex answer with even fewer clear conclusions.

Dumbledore, meanwhile, sees himself in Snape. We see through the HP series, especially in this reveal at the end, how intertwined his relationship with Snape became. We learn that Dumbledore spends his life carrying the guilt and pain of his sister's death and his direct or indirect role in it. It's a pretty common reading of his and Snape's relationship that Dumbledore understood the depth and irrevocability of Snape's regret and guilt firsthand. Knowing all this, it's hard to read Dumbledore's judgment of Snape on the hilltop, and his immediately conclusion that Snape is only interested in protecting Lily - despite warning that Voldemort intends to "kill them all" - as being objective. I read it as Dumbledore projecting his own guilt and anxiety onto Snape in that moment. In addition, as @said-snape-softly pointed out to me very aptly, the prophecy was overheard in the Hog's Head, which is run by Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, adding onto Dumbledore's personal baggage coming out in this moment. Dumbledore's own feelings are loaded and he makes assumptions about Snape's goals and motivations out of his own anxieties about himself.

And Snape lets him. He's been under Voldemort's thumb, a murderous sociopath who throws unforgivable curses around like most people sneeze. He's desperate and terrified and isn't going to argue with Dumbledore. Dumbledore says, "Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?" and Snape replies that he has. But as we've seen already, Snape has included Harry and James and Dumbledore - as the person with all the power and leverage in this conversation - has changed the subject to focus on Lily. Snape is in no position to argue about semantics in this moment. The same way he brought up Harry and James to Dumbledore only for them to be ignored by him, he may have brought them up to Voldemort only for him to react similarly.

Given what we know about Voldemort as a character, once he has decided to go after Harry and not Neville, there's no changing his mind. Any effort made to sway him would fail and only add the asker to the pile of bodies Voldemort leaves in his wake. James and Lily are both targets, because canonically they have defied Voldemort three times and are members of the Order fighting against his cause. Snape may be able to beg for Lily's life - and we see that Voldemort assumed it was because he "desired her" - but James' is almost impossible to argue on behalf of, even if he wanted to. Snape can't claim any intimate connection even if it's a lie, because James is in the Order and enough of an enemy to Voldemort that he was targeted on the basis of Trelawney's prophecy. The fact that Snape went to Dumbledore means that he is asking for Lily's whole family to be protected, not just her. It's not just extra insurance in case Voldemort decides to kill everyone in his path to Harry, it's an effort to save Lily and the people who matter to her as well. Snape knows that Dumbledore will give them a fighting chance where Voldemort won't.

When Dumbledore accuses Snape of not caring if they live or die, Snape says nothing. He doesn't confirm or deny this accusation, and as we've seen, he's terrified and Dumbledore has already twisted his words and judged him, so it's reasonable to assume Snape is worried that if he says the wrong thing, all will be lost. Dumbledore could have just accepted Snape's warning and told him to leave. He could have accepted the warning and asked why Snape gave it. Instead, he jumped to conclusions and threw them in Snape's face, a frightened man risking his life who learned quickly in this conversation that Dumbledore hates him and is judging him, and who learned while still at school that Dumbledore doesn't value his perspective or even his very life.

And then Dumbledore asks him, "what will you give me in return?" Snape is caught off guard, because as far as he knew, he was already doing Dumbledore a favor. He's offering him free information that will enable him to protect two of his Order members when the Death Eaters already outnumber them twenty to one, as Lupin said in OOtP. Again, Snape is risking his life - if Voldemort finds out he had this conversation with Dumbledore, he's definitely dead. As far as he knows, Dumbledore could kill him, as his opening sentence in this scene shows. And yet, Dumbledore turns this around - like the tactical, manipulative military leader he is - and posits the situation as being one in which he's doing Snape a favor by heeding his warning. As if he were choosing to protect Lily and her family for Snape's sake, not his own, and not theirs. Many years later, Dumbledore will ask Snape how many people he's watched die, and Snape answers, "lately only those I could not save." But in this moment on the hilltop, that's already what Snape is doing.

First off, disclaimer: This is less theory and more exploration of possible answers to the question of when Sigma’s accident occurred. Specifically, what do they mean for the larger world of overwatch and for Sigma?

The Facts

Sibren De Kuiper is 62 years old

He knows Winston is the creation of Dr Harold Winston. Whether by just knowing the details of Dr Winston’s experiments leading up to his own experiment (and subsequent accident) or by some other means after Dr Harold’s experiment started.

Winston is 29 years old

Gorillas are typically considered adults at about 6, meaning that either genetic modification stunted his growth temporarily (or spread it out?) or the Dr Winston flashbacks take place at least 23 years ago.

Sigma knows Dr Harold Winston is dead. (“Give Dr. Winston my regards.” is his elimination quote against Winston, though it’s unknown if he went into the experiment knowing Dr Winston was dead or if he was informed of this after the fact. Why he would have, I’m not sure? I guess Talon may have used that to throw him off-guard?)

Overwatch was disbanded 7 years ago

Zarya’s gravity well is a creation of or based on the work of “The Tobelsteins'”

Sigma can recognize it as such

Her particle cannon came off a armored vehicle during battle.

Reinhardt’s hero page says the Omnic Crisis happened over 30 years ago

Orisa’s says it was over 20 years ago.

Michael Chu claimed it was 25 years ago, “give or take a few years.”

UPDATE: Zarya’s page says it started “some 30 years ago”

Meaning it’s likely that it just ended 20/25 years ago

Meaning Winston has to have been born sometime during the war, since gorilla gestation takes less than a year and he’s only 29. It’s not impossible that they made giant gorillas first or that the moon gorilla’s where gestated artificially so it would take longer, but that’s way too much biology to be thinking about for a exploration of possible dates for Sigma’s experiment.

Unless the International Space Station changed it’s rules about the heights of crew members or was replaced with a larger version, Sigma is far too tall to be allowed up on it. (This doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t a international or government station, but it should be noted.)

The Speculation

Keep reading

I have to say that the idea that Talon is manipulating Sigma by using the “melody” that he always hears doesn’t seem to hold weight in canon. The “the melody is a harness” whisper that people have claimed to have heard backwards in his short is actually another repetition of him saying “gravity is a harness” so that one piece of evidence isn’t correct — also, he asks “what that melody?” long before Talon ever had a hold of him. So it’s related to whatever happened to the black hole on the space station, not Talon’s manipulations.

The music he’s hearing is probably a reference to “the music of the spheres” —

Kepler wasted his entire life trying to prove this theory about the planets having a musical kind of harmony, and his attempts to map out this theory looked like Sigma’s hyperspheres.

So his weapon, that he uses rhythmically like a musical conductor is like... a reference to a life of research wasted on enormous metaphysical explanations of the universe that seem just out of reach of even the greatest minds, and the idea is that he somehow grasps these ungraspable connections by actually being able to hear this “music of the spheres”