#<- i tried to make it ambiguous but i guess it could be interpreted as romantic

[wemlygust]

In the earliest few Riddler comics at least, he's just a chronic cheater. He cheats his way into being thought of as a genius as puzzles, and he starts believing it himself, at least to some degree. Then he starts designing "puzzles", except the puzzles he makes have ambiguous answers/more than one possible valid answer, so Batman and Robin basically just have to guess the meaning and can get it wrong by pure random chance. And Riddler tries to guess which answer is the one that Batman and Robin will decide is correct, so that he can make a different interpretation the "right" solution. And Batman and Robin try to predict what Riddler will predict they will do lol. It's like Riddler weaponizes shitty game design. Entirely unfair questions that cannot truly be solved. Which, to be fair, is the kind of thing that feels diabolical and maddening when you're playing a badly designed puzzle video game. Also, Riddler locks them in a bulletproof glass maze and tells them to find the exit, but he designed the maze to have no exit. Then Batman and Robin manage to break out (iirc I think they take out one of the supports/joins between the glass panels instead of attacking the glass? hard to remember), thereby solving a puzzle Riddler intended to be unsolvable by finding a solution he could not imagine. Because he is just a cheater and is bad at puzzles. Honestly it's a fantastic and fun idea for a villain imo. A lot more fun than I imagined him before I went and read some of those very early Batman comics. P.S. Two-Face is WAAAAY more fun as originally imagined than in the Dark Knight movies, too. Like oh my god, they murdered that character's entire concept. Unless I'm misremembering those movies, I guess. But if I'm misremembering those movies, then the very unmemorableness of their interpretation of this character is in and of itself a damning feat. /ramble ramble ramble I imagine the characters may have changed a lot in later iterations however. I haven't gotten there yet though so idk.

Starting to think we told children that The Fair Folk were out there to trap you in twisted words and doublespeak and clever traps that take what you say and turn it against you for cruel and mischievous purposes just to drive home the importance of critical thinking and analytical skills

If we don’t start putting funding back into the education system I’m gonna invent a creepy pasta that steals your face if you can’t recognize media bias

[jikookuntold]

What Is Like Crazy About?

Since the day "Like Crazy" was released, I wanted to post about it, but couldn't get the time to focus and do a comprehensive analysis. Finally, right before the first anniversary of this masterpiece, I got the time, and the post is ready now. Before starting off, I have to remind you of the fact that a work of art can be interpreted in many different ways, and none of those interpretations are necessarily right or wrong. Every work of art contains a message that is the artist’s main intention from that creation, but the artist doesn’t have to explain it to the audience because a true work of art speaks for itself, even though not all audiences can receive it thoroughly.

I know that in the past year, so many different types of analyses and theories were made by fans to explain this song, and most definitely, I couldn’t keep up with all of them. Therefore, I’m not claiming my analysis to be a breakthrough, and you might have read most parts of it somewhere else. In this post, we are going to discuss “Like Crazy” from a lyrical and conceptual point of view, trying to find out what message or messages Jimin wanted to convey by creating it.

About “Like Crazy”

“Like Crazy” as the title track for Jimin's first solo album, "FACE", stole the hearts of millions of fans and locals around the world, and inarguably became one of the most successful pop songs of the year 2023. I can talk for hours about how beautiful and successful “Like Crazy” is, and how it broke KPop boundaries and countless records. But, in this post, we are going to break to the surface and talk about the meanings and motivations behind this song and answer the questions like “How this song was made?” “What was Jimin's intention in writing these romantic lyrics?”

As I mentioned earlier, artists usually don’t directly address their main message and their intention in creating a form of art, but many of them speak about the motivations and inspirations that led them to the creation. Jimin hasn’t talked much about the sources of inspiration behind individual tracks of “FACE”, but I guess “Like Crazy” was an exception for him because he revealed on several occasions that he was inspired by “Like Crazy”, the movie. And this piece of information is the key to our analysis:

"I tried to express the feelings of that movie. You know, the somewhat complex, somewhat lonely, somewhat happy emotions. I tried to express all these ambiguous and subtle emotions in a slightly sexy way, but I’m not sure how it’ll end up being received by people.”

Like Crazy, The Movie

First of all, we need to keep in mind that “Like Crazy” is a completely original song, and Jimin has not used or sampled any songs, lines, or dialogues from the movie in his lyrical or visual concepts (even the intro and outro dialogues in the song were original and not from the movie). If Jimin had not stated his source of inspiration directly, the only hint that could have led us to it would be the title of the song, which duplicates the title of the movie since the title never appears in the lyrics.

So, Jimin chose this specific name for his song and announced his source of inspiration to make it clear that there is a straight and strong connection between the song and the movie. He made it clear that this connection is 100% conceptual and emotional, and if we want to know what “Like Crazy” is about, and what ambiguous and subtle feelings Jimin is talking about, we have to redirect the analysis to the concept of the movie, “Like Crazy”.

As we all know, “Like Crazy” is a romantic movie, and Drake Doremus directed it casting "Felicity Jones" and the late "Anton Yelchin" as the main characters, Anna and Jacob. Doremus based the storyline of this low-budget movie on his experience being in a long-distance relationship with his partner and developed it into a 90-minute-long movie, which was released in 2011 and became relatively successful.

Anna and Jacob

A few days before the release of “FACE”, I was informed that the title track, “Like Crazy” is based on a movie of the same name. After learning this fact, I had to re-watch it because I couldn’t remember anything after a decade, and I had some questions like: “What was in this movie that made it so special for Jimin?” “How would Jimin feel watching this?”. Having this mindset helped me to see the movie differently, but before explaining those new insights we need a short storyline of the movie:

Anna is a British exchange student in LA, where she falls in love with Jacob, an American student, and they start dating. Anna, blinded by her love for Jacob, overstays her student visa and consequently gets banned from re-entering the United States. After experiencing a forced LDR, Jacob flies to London to visit Anna, and her father suggests that getting married might resolve the issue, but they are not ready for this big step. Jacob goes back to LA and basically chooses his job over Anna, but after some time, they realize that they can’t be apart, and they decide to get married. Six months after the marriage, when the time for the appeal of Anna’s ban comes, it gets rejected, and they lose their last hope of being together. Again, they go back to their sad lives, but after some time, Anna is finally offered a visa, and she leaves everything behind to reunite with Jacob. The ending scene shows how this separation has damaged their relationship, and things will never be the same.

The movie portrays the hardships of a long-distance relationship and the damage the separation can do to two souls and their connection. I think the recent movie by "Celine Song" named "Past Lives" was partially similar to like crazy, but also there was a big difference; unlike Nora and Haesung in “Past Lives”, Anna and Jacob don’t leave it to fate, they don’t forget about each other and don’t settle down with others just because their love seemed difficult or impossible.

They found true happiness only next to each other and did everything against all odds (especially Anna) to take that back. Maybe if Anna and Jacob weren’t in love like crazy and were more mature and realistic, they would end up like Nora and Haesung (Sorry if this spoiled that movie for you), but they didn’t and made their own bittersweet ending.

Many people claim that “Like Crazy” is a breakup movie with a sad ending, therefore, Jimin’s song also must be a breakup song. But, first of all, the ending can somehow be considered an open ending. We don’t know what happens after the shower scene, but we see them together, in each other’s arms, and this is not a totally sad ending by any movie standards. Other than that, Anna and Jacob became separated a few times, but they don't officially break up by choice, their separation is the result of contractual rules and laws, made by society.

This movie, as its director explained, might be originally about a long-distance relationship, but also the main relationship in this movie can be seen as a relationship that gets strained by laws and regulations, it’s about the rules and imaginary borders that decide if two people can be together or ban them from it. It’s a story of the “love against law”.

A Heterosexual Love Story?

When “Like Crazy” was released in theatres back in 2011, it got positive reviews for good acting that made the movie feel sweet and intimate with mostly improvised dialogues. Meanwhile, the negative reviews were focused on the plotline of this drama, calling it far from reality. Other than the fact that Jacob could have easily resolved this issue by taking his job from LA to London, in reality, the couple wouldn’t have faced this much difficulty over the legal complications, especially after getting married.

The fact is, straight couples usually never face this kind of hardship, and governments take that easy on them otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many sham marriages around the world just to get citizenship. So, the idea of a couple getting separated by law is not common, and that’s why many people called this movie implausible. But, a queer person can familiarly receive this implausibility, like when they want to be with someone forever, but the laws don’t let them.

Could it be this feeling that made “Like Crazy” special and a source of inspiration for Jimin? Or was it something smaller like the Santa Monica beach scene? I have no answer, I only make theories, and I think it’s better to leave the movie here and start the lyrical interpretation to see how these words and feelings can get connected.

The Lyrics

[Intro]

(I think we could last forever (I'm afraid that everything will disappear Just trust me)

As I said earlier, this intro is not a dialogue from the movie, but the narrators were told to do it based on the audio from the movie that was sent to them. So, hypothetically, it’s Anna and Jacob having this conversation. He is afraid of losing everything, but Anna assures him that if he trusts her, they can last forever. In the MV, we see Jimin standing in the crowd, but the time goes in reverse, and through a transition into his eyes, we see him sitting alone. Weirdly, the outro of the song is playing in the background here, but we will figure out the reason later.

[Verse 1]

Korean Version, Translated

She's saying Baby, don't think about it There's not a bad thing here tonight Baby, it's fine if you leave Stay with me, just for today

English Version

She's saying, Baby, come and follow me There's not a bad thing here tonight Save your reasons all for later Stay with me a little while

Anna asks him to follow her and assures him that everything is fine, it’s fine if this is not going to last long. It’s not the time for reason and overthinking. The gendered pronoun here refers to Anna, but we will know more about her in the next verses. It is worth mentioning that in the primary handwritten lyrics by Jimin, there was no “She” and it was modified later considering the dialogues added to the intro. Anyway, we know Jimin didn’t release these drafts in his album for no reason.

In this part of the MV, we see Jimin sitting alone in a room, and with a flicker of lights, the room is filled with mud. Suddenly, a muddy hand of a girl grabs Jimin’s hand and leads him to a party. There are several symbols in this part, the lonely room is Jimin’s reality, and the party is his dream. The mud symbolizes dreams and desires that leave their trace on your life and soul.

[Verse 2]

Korean Version, Translated

Watch me go Drenching myself all night (Away) So that even the morning Gets drunk and doesn't arrive

English Version

Watch me go Now, I sink down, all alone away Where am I? A dark haze clouding up my eyes

From here, we don’t see the girl because Jimin and the girl became one. She was her reflection from the beginning, the side that leads him out of his loneliness, and allures him to his dreams and desires, tempts him to be careless and stop thinking too much. Some say she is Jimin’s Anima, but these lyrics never go to the deep levels of the subconscious to reach the Anima. She is his feminine side that is a tangible side of him, and Jimin’s asymmetric makeup gives it away. Also, the mirrored moves between Jimin and the female dancer in “Like Crazy’s” choreography made it clear that the feminine presence in this song is Jimin’s reflection.

[Pre-Chorus]

Korean Version, Translated

As the loud music I get faded out A cliché story like a drama I get used to it Have I come too far to find the me that you used to know Yeah, I know You know I know (Ooh)

English Version

I can hear the voices listening Don't know who they are Trying to take the pressure off Been reaching for the stars Tell me, will I find myself again? When I go too far? Yeah, I know You know, I know (Ooh)

Jimin enters the party and starts drinking, dancing, and having fun with the others. He laughs and enjoys himself in the crowd and trusts the supposed strangers, but the confusion doesn’t leave him alone. He feels lost, and as the lyrics say, he is worried about going too far and not finding himself again. The two opposite sides of him are conflicting. It’s the contradiction between "fear and desire", between "pain and numbness", between "loneliness and losing yourself", and between "reason and dream" that leaves him confused.

[Chorus and Post Chorus]

Korean Version, Translated

I'd rather be Lost in the lights, Lost in the lights I'm outta my mind Hold onto the end of the night Every night You spin me up high The moon with you in its arms Let me have a taste Give me a good ride (Oh, I'm fallin', I'm fallin', I'm fallin') Oh, it's gon' be a good night (Oh, I'm fallin') Forever, you and I

English Version

I'd rather be Lost in the lights, lost in the lights I'm outta my mind Can you help me numb the pain? Each night, you spin me up high Emotions on ice Let me have a taste Give me a good ride (Oh, I'm fallin', I'm fallin', I'm fallin') Oh, it's gon' be a good night (Oh, I'm fallin') Forever, you and I

In this part, he confesses which side he really wants to follow. He wants to go out of his mind, lose himself to the desire, and leave the reason behind. It’s the escapism that saves him from loneliness and the pain of real life. The chorus is the sexy and at the same time, the most poetic part of this song, especially where he is spinning up high in the arms of the moon.

The last line of the post-chorus, “Forever you and I” which also repeats in the last part of the interlude, is crucial because it declares that Jimin is not talking about vagrancy or promiscuity. He wants it all with his significant other, the only one who can help him numb the pain of real life and escape it. But this escapism has its consequences, and we see all that mud flush out of every corner symbolizing it. This scene artistically ends with Jimin facing his reflection in the crowd. The question is, is this reflection the same significant other, or is it Jimin himself? We will get the answer in the next part.

[Verse 3]

Korean Version, Translated

The me, reflected in the mirror Is going crazy endlessly I'm feelin' so alive, wasting time

English Version

All my reflections, I Can't even recognize I'm feelin' so alive, wasting time

His fear of losing himself was true, and it's happening now. This duality confuses him and makes him question his reality. Which side is the true Jimin? He doesn't care anymore because this escapism makes him feel alive.

Here in the MV, we see Jimin facing the reflection, and it immediately cuts to the restroom scene where he faces his literal reflection in the mirror and talks to him about not recognizing him anymore. Then, the restroom being dismantled symbolizes his state of mind. "The reflection of myself in an unfamiliar appearance" was the concept of "his "FACE" which was a whole album about Jimin himself.

[Outro]

This will break me This is gonna break me (Break me) No, don't you wake me (Wake me) I wanna stay in this dream, don't save me Don't you try to save me (Save me) I need a way we (Way we) I need a way we can dream on (On, on, on) (Alone again What's the point?)

Jimin knows the consequences of losing himself but embraces it. He knows it's gonna break him but doesn't want to wake up from his dream. He knows everything will collapse but doesn't need a savior. He wants to stay in that dream, but he knows it's impossible, and sooner or later, he will be dragged out of it.

Is there a way to cut all the connections to the real world of loneliness and stay in this dream forever? We get the answer in the MV, and it's not positive because suddenly, everything goes backward in speed, to where we started (remember the outro being played in the beginning? That was the clue).

He goes back to his lonely room with a muddy hand. Did his hand get dirty from a touch of his reflection, or was the muddy hand in the beginning his own hand? Is he trapped in a loop? Maybe. Maybe this wasn't his first or the last time coming back from that dreamland, and it was the reason for so much mud accumulated in his room. He is a regular in that dreamland and he can't quit.

Conclusion

It's understandable if this analysis of the movie, lyrics, and the MV didn't guide you in any direction, and maybe you are even more confused after reading it all. But don't blame yourself because Jimin already told us that, his emotions for this movie are complex. So, don't look for just one answer, maybe we are not supposed to end up with one conclusion, and this song also can have multiple interpretations and meanings. But what are these meanings?

If you pay attention to the lyrics and the MV you will realize that despite them being aligned and in sync, the lyrics have more connection to the movie. While filming the MV, Jimin mentioned that things (scenes of the MV) didn't happen like this in real life, which was an obvious fact, because this song is clearly not about being the life of the party and stuff like that, and has more internal meanings.

In "Like Crazy", Jimin talks about the loneliness of his real life, the isolation and limitations he experienced during the pandemic, and maybe other times. But Jimin finds an alternate reality, where he can be himself, be free and careless, and forget about the future. This alternate reality is rooted in two possibilities: The feminine side, and the significant other. The feminine side is what we face in the MV, and there are not many signs of it in the lyrics.

The feminine side appears as a muddy hand and a presence at the part that faces Jimin and becomes one with him as his reflection. The idea of "bigender" is nothing new in the concepts that Jimin has offered on different occasions, from his fake tattoos in ARMY-Zip 2019 to the performance of "Filter" in 2020 and his photopholio in 2022, he has expressed this fluidity in his work, and I think the visual concept of "Like Crazy" with his different makeup in the MV and the choreography was the epitome of it.

What about the significant other? As I mentioned in the analysis of chorus parts, "Forever You and I" Can only be interpreted as his exclusiveness to someone who is his significant other. This person is the one who saves Jimin from his loneliness and assures him about their happy ending. This person has no doubt in them lasting forever and only wants Jimin to trust him to take the lead and let that happen.

He keeps saying to his significant other that there is no future. They can't be together forever, this is just a temporary situation, and despite finding comfort in each other, they should not get attached because they will forced to be separated. It's not like Jimin doesn't believe in this love, he does and has the same wishes and dreams, but he keeps getting dragged to the real world where the rules govern.

This part is just a personal opinion as a Jikooker, but I did this analysis in my head last year when "Like Crazy" was newly released and had no intention of making a connection between this and Jikook, until "Seven" came out. We all know JK had no hand in making the sexy lyrics of "Seven", but after watching the MV (which had nothing to do with the lyrics), I couldn't unsee the fact that the concept of Seven's MV looked so much like a response to "Like Crazy's" lyrics. Still, we don't know if JK gave any ideas for the concept of the MV, but considering his record of working as an MV director, it's not impossible.

The End.

This is all I could say about "Like Crazy", a masterpiece that is still thriving in the charts and still touches people's hearts because it comes from real and deep emotions that Jimin had in his heart. That emotion got us the moment we listened to it for the first time, even though verbalizing it, is never easy, no matter how many analyses and reviews we write.

[demonsonthemoon]

Arospec headcanon: Daniela Velasquez from Sense8

I headcanon Dani as aromantic and allosexual. I have also always felt like the show failed to properly explore her character and how she forms relationships. So here is a very short exploration of that headcanon:

Dani clearly sees romantic attachment as leverage, something she can use. Of course, this fits well with her career in show-business, but she seems surprisingly happy to forego any romantic attachment once she settles into her friendship with Lito and Hernando. In the same way, she seems to be using her sexuality to navigate her relationships: she cheats on Joaquin as a way to try and escape their relationship, then immediately tries to have sex with Lito in order to cement their relationship and gain protection. There's some self-destructiveness in her behavior, but I also feel like this shows someone who feels in control of her sexuality, whereas she has a much harder time using the codes of romance to her advantage, even if she tries to.

I've always been sad that the development of her relationship with Lito and Hernando was never explicitally explored. I guess relationship negotiation doesn't make for good television? Still, there are some definite hints that they have a non-traditional friendship, which could be interpreted as a queerplatonic relationship. There's some ambiguity in the series about Dani's photos of Lito and Hernando, but I've always felt as though the two men weren't actually surprised at the existence of the photos, and only afraid of the risk of them being leaked. This makes me feel as though Dani's part in their sexuality (the way she watches and masturbates as they have sex), is something that's been acknowledged and accepted by the two men. They certainly make space for her in their domestic lives when they all move in together, in a way that goes way beyond just protecting Dani and all of their reputations.

I want to read Dani as allo-aro. I want to see her as someone who's been enduring what people have called “love” because she thought that was necessary to get what she wants (sex, safety, affection,...) I want to grieve for the way she's been traumatized by an abusive relationship, in which someone could call violence and obsession love and no one would correct him. I understand how, for someone like her, Lito and Hernando's relationship could be a safe heaven. Lito is someone who does not feel attracted to her, but who still acts caringly towards her and can offer her the protection she needs. More than that, Lito and Hernando's relationship is an example of truly caring love, one that can help her heal from her trauma but which – very importantly – doesn't need her to put her boundaries on the line to do so. She doesn't need to fall in love to learn that love can be kind. She doesn't need to fall in love ever, because she no longer needs a romantic relationship in order to not be alone. I think this reading is much kinder to the character, instead of the way the show brushes off her connection to Lito and Hernando as “gay fetishism” in the first season (while simultaneously also asserting that Hernando genuinely cares for her as a friend.)

In the end, headcanoning Dani as aro is important to me because she's not alone. Her relationship with Lito and Hernando goes against the narrative that it's normal for romantic love to isolate you (inside your closed off couple bubble), which leads to the idea that it's normal for arospec people to be left behind, to always be treated as second best. Instead, we see Hernando break off his relationship with Lito based on how the latter treats Dani. And I want every arospec people to get what Dani gets: relationships that are mutually supportive and which are open to intimacy even if they aren't romantic.

[evony256]

SPOILERS FOR DRDT CHAPTER 2 EPISODE 13

TW: SUICIDE

I just wanted to share my thoughts on the episode too since I've seen a lot of people do that

By the way I had to watch this like 7 hours after it was released and I have not scrolled through Tumblr yet so I might bring up stuff that have already been discussed. Also all of these notes were written down while I was watching the episode so yeah

-Levi just moved up so much on my kin list it's insane like omg…

- This was one bad day for Acevi fans, huh. I guess the Xanvid came at a price

-Whit I can now see why David told you to shut up I like you but that was bad 💀 (he was probably left affected by how David reacted in episode 12 and is either really uncomfortable or somewhat intimidated by David now)

-Nah nah nah that's definitely not Teruko's secret so I'm gonna start theorizing now. Teruko might have most of the secrets. It's not like they belong to her, but if you think back to episode 8 she said that she doesn't know which secret is hers because so many things have happened in her life. She probably said that she got the family secret because she thought that was the most likely one. Hu's secret might also be accurate to her considering the fact that, in episode 4, she told Arei that failed suicide attempts are painful, hinting at the fact that she might have tried to kill herself at some point (also backed up by the fact that, in episode 3, she says "why save my life if you're just going to ruin it afterwards?" when talking about her medical debt). The idea that she has most (if not all, but I doubt that) of the secrets might tie in with the killing game secret since it says "How could I even select what secret to be your motive?". The wording here is very ambiguous since it could be interpreted as "secrets about your life" or "secrets that are on the board", like the ones that the other cast members have, the latter being something that I bet that nobody in the fandom thought about until this episode. Anyway theory over back to saying stupid shit

-AREI ILYSM YOU ARE MAKING ME CRY YET FEEL HAPPY THAT'S WHY YOU'RE MY FAVORITEEEEE 😭😭😭

-SHE GOT NEW SPRITES TOO SHE IS SO PRETTY

-I MADE AN AUDIBLE GASP NOISE WHEN THAT CG WITH EDEN SHOWED UP HOLY SHIT!!!! I think she might have hurt or killed the girl she kissed? Unless she killed Arei, which is still a posibility, or Levi lied about his secret for Eden’s sake (idea which could contribute to the "Eden killer Levi accomplice" theory), though Charles would have also needed to lie for Eden since he had her secret. Also, if we're going with Eden remorseless murderer theory, in my opinion, it wouldn't make sense for Eden to be a remorseless killer after what Arei said about her making a mistake "that she couldn't take back" (showing that she probably felt remorse for what she did). Also also this is a good time for me to bring up the note with "Eden's motive" that Charles gave to Teruko. That note could be proof of whether or not Eden really does have the girl kisser secret and I want to mention that the note could be anything since we only have Charles' word to rely on. I really hope we get to see what it says because it's been making me more suspicious of Charles (I personally think that Charles is somewhat suspicious so I might make a post about it soon even though there isn't much proper evidence to say that he has something to do with the killing game, there's still a couple of questionable things about what he's done/said). Okay yap session number two over

-Arei moved up even more on my kin list how is that even possible…. I also love how her voice changed so much in this episode. Even in prior episodes, her voice seemed so cheerful and energetic, yet in this one, it's much calmer. Showing that she truly is feeling relieved that there are other bad people in the world like her and that she might have a chance to redeem herself if so. God damnit Mokaui (Arei's VA) did such a good job with all of her voice lines she needs to be credited more

-THE AREI CG I AM CRYING AREI YOU ARE EVERYTHING TO ME ILYSM I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE BONUS EPISODE AFTER THIS

-They're finally talking about the murder method this is a new evolution for humanity

-Monotv causally breaking the forth wall, now we can blame it on the cast that they were talking about the secrets for an entire year because they didn't watch the Chapter 2 recap

-YESSS FINALLY A MINIGAME I’VE MISSED THESE SO MUCHHHH

-Ooh so that's what the broken handles meant also that Veronika art is so pretty

-I wonder why they would want to break her neck though, it doesn't seem like it would help with the murder at all, but maybe the killer was trying to cause confusion

-This is proving a theory that I've had for a while. If Arei was hung from the ceiling of the playground, then that could be tied in with the broken lights and the movie screening room above the playground. How would they be able to get her into the playground from the movie screening room though…

-J 💀 (that's all I’ve got to say literally)

-That's a lot of very precise information Whit I can understand Veronika but why would you know all that. Care to share something with the class?

-The text animations in the debate are so unique like the question marks with Rose and the one that circles around the top of Levi’s head those look so cool. Also getting to hear a lot of characters talk in a row feels amazing. It gives them a lot of depth showing the contrast between those characters’ tones of voice.

-Also there goes my screening room theory damn

-Everyone just roasting Teruko again is the best thing out of this episode /j

-We got puppy Whit 10/10 episode

-Also THREE CGS AND TWO MINIGANES IN ONE EPISODE??? DRDTDEV YOU HAVE BEEN COOKING 🔥🔥🔥 YOU CAN STOP NOW THE KITCHEN IS ON FIRE (IN THE GOOD WAY). YOU MADE AN ENTIRE BUFFET. THIS IS AN ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT YOU CAN STOP NOW-

-Ooooo she's talking about Ace's attempted murder

-(Probably) Nico and Ace focused episode next week Nico and Ace fans are gonna be eating good

Overall, this might be my favourite episode so far. Not like I had a favourite episode before but still this was SO good

Also I just checked my Tumblr notifications why are there 50 like oh my lord 💀

[revcnqe]

SPOILERS for The Boys Season 4

I'm still processing the final episode but here are some of my random thoughts, in no particular order. It was a wild ride and I enjoyed it for the most part. The season had its lows for sure and I'll never forgive the writers for how they treated Hughie. I'm still fucking mad about everything they did to him after episode 5. I also felt like they wasted a lot of potential with Annie's arc. She's been through a lot after season 3 and I loved the idea of her having an identity crisis but it was just so poorly executed. It all felt messy and as if the writers had no conclusion in mind for both her and Hughie's plotlines. Unfortunately I couldn't find myself caring a lot about Frenchie's and Kimiko's subplots which is sad because I love these two. I was hoping they get to kill that bitch Little Nina and Kimiko getting her revenge on the SLLA. Both could have happened this season before they got separated in the end. Instead we've been put on hold to wait if these plots get resolved at all. Firecracker and Sage were great additions, I loved to hate Firecracker and Sage gives off endboss vibes for me. I still feel like she's gonna betray Homelander in the end. Can't wait for "phase two". A-Train's arc was great, he truly redeemed himself and him showing up at the flat iron to save the others was proof enough for me how serious he was about doing the right thing. I liked all of his scenes with MM, too. I loved Ashley this season, I hope she gains some badass powers and kicks everyone's ass. I've seen some complaints about Homelander being nerfed - are we watching the same show? He is fucking unhinged and more terrifying than ever. He is basically god by the end of the season and can (and will) do whatever the fuck he wants with no one in his way. Someone telling me that's not scary?! He is and always will be one of the best villains in tv history. Poor kid Ryan, he deserved better. How is he ever supposed to feel safe around Homelander and Butcher phrasing it that way was downright evil and manipulative towards the boy because he knew it would make Ryan feel insecure and cornered. Him pushing and killing Grace was in self-defense. His reaction afterwards however is concerning and I guess ambiguous for interpretation on purpose. I still don't get how some people in the fandom could hate on a 12 year old child so much, leave the kid alone.

Where do I start when it comes to Butcher? I have many thoughts and this text is already long but I'll give it a shot anyway. Obviously I'm biased because I love this man and will defend him to the very end. I think his arc was one of the better aspects, he is still one of the best written characters on the show. What I always loved about him was him being truly morally grey and the ambiguity in his words and actions. He cannot be trusted. I don't know if it's me but Karl's performance makes him actually a lot more likeable than he deserves. He is a bad person and I don't think this is negotiable. I have thought about this so many times in made-up scenarios and I stick with my opinion that there's no fixing him and there never was. I have tried to stay away from fandom discourse as much as I could for my own well-being but I don't get how people act surprised and as a result hate over his behavior and decisions. I think most were true to his character and also him killing Neuman made perfect sense and was a well-deserved payoff narratively. Not that I'm not mad at him for doing so! I loved Vicky and she was such an interesting character. But his final words in season 3 were "that bitch has to go" and one of his main goals across the whole season was to get that virus to kill her. He was absolutely clear about it and worked towards this goal on his own terms, not even under the influence of Kessler. Certainly Kessler pushed him to commit some of his atrocities but it matched with what he wanted himself. He drew the line when it came to supe genocide and was conflicted about it initially but one of his core themes is doing whatever it takes and losing his humanity on his chosen path. Since he is highly intelligent he knows very well what's wrong with him what emphasises even more that he actively chooses to do bad things rather than being impulsive and regretful afterwards. I personally loved his turn at the end and I am eager to see his villain arc. What's not to love about evil daddy?! I could go on about some of the dynamics between him and Kessler but I'll do that in another post maybe.

[starlightmeissa]

Hi, me again! Just saw the Fluffy Clouds art you posted a bit ago, and I was wondering - the Haori Seiko was wearing, since it has the two symbols on each shoulder in the front like that, means it's specifically a male/masculine presenting one. Is this deliberate as an expression of Seiko's gender identity in the future or is this more 'i found a jacket and it's comfy leave me alone I'm poor'.

Both are cool, i just kinda fixated on that detail since Seiko seems to have a similar body type to mine (just less chubby 😅) and I'm non binary myself, so I immediately went '!!!' (Insert pointing meme).

I'm also wondering if I'm picking up the correct subtext of Seiko ending up a sort of Queer Platonic Life Partner to the other two? Or even romantic partner (clear into the future when that's appropriate)? Hi this is me being Ace and possibly projecting twice in one Ask 😅😅😅

It does give me questions and ideas about Seiko's relationship with Kakashi though. Step parent/Auntie shaped questions and ideas.

If it does go that way I imagine Jiraiya is going to be punched very hard over another 'ladies man' comment. Mentioning Jiraiya is wonder if his relationship with the team gets obviously bad enough, his own team will intervene? Tsunade obviously, but if it catches Orochimaru's interest in a 'you idiot not like that do this instead' way it could really lead to an interesting timeline. Possibly with little Anko? If nothing else it means Orochimaru would absolutely Get Got by Seiko if he ever hurt her.

I have two settings, wholesome and angst as you can see

Hope you're having a nice time, i like the new username!

oh my gosh i love this ask. lemme answer each thing you talked about in order!

warnings for spoilers related to fluffy clouds below, as well as gratuitously long explanations. continue at your own risk :D

the Haori Seiko was wearing, since it has the two symbols on each shoulder in the front like that, means it's specifically a male/masculine presenting one. Is this deliberate as an expression of Seiko's gender identity in the future or is this more 'i found a jacket and it's comfy leave me alone I'm poor'.

the meta answer to this is i wanted to have her strong allegiance to the uzumaki clan very obvious to anyone who looks at her, and didn't realize that her style of haori was more masculine. BUT! your thoughts also do not at all go against my personal interpretation of seiko's gender identity. in fact this adds to it.

seiko is very much a self insert for me, she thinks and feels about many things in the same way that i do. so i would say her gender identity, like mine, is likely agender or something similarly ambiguous. i've kind of made it a point to show that she looks fairly androgenous as a child and will likely continue to do so as she becomes an adult. she also dresses fairly masculinely as well, which adds to that.

so what i'll say is, you are not wrong to recognize some gender fuckery, and you can absolutely interpret her as nb! i use she/her pronouns for her, but honestly i think she would have been the Exact Same Person and fine with using he/him or they/them pronouns depending on what was easiest for her to deal with in her society. she only really cares about womanhood and gender insomuch as it can benefit her or make her life more annoying.

tldr: it is both because the haori is cheaper in a masculine style AND because seiko does not care about gender!

I'm picking up the correct subtext of Seiko ending up a sort of Queer Platonic Life Partner to the other two? Or even romantic partner (clear into the future when that's appropriate)?

i've tried not to talk about the "end pairing" stuff too much in the interest of not spoiling people, but if you're in my discord server you know how i personally feel like this will end. i think one commenter i got MONTHS ago pretty accurately guessed my thoughts.

"i'm not convinced seiko would even be into that (romance), or enjoy it. i feel like she'd have several extremely close platonic relationships - maybe even sexual partners that are also close friends, but i just don't know if romantic love is something i would associate with her characterization as described so far.) (there's also the mental age gap to consider)" - via slippedonair on ch11

seiko is somewhere on the aro spectrum. i have hinted at this but not outright stated it since it's not really something she worries about.

there will likely be sexual, platonic, and even romantic relationships in fluffy clouds, but they will all be heavily influenced by the fact that seiko does not seek out nor experience romantic attraction. a lot of people have gotten pretty invested in future possible pairings, which i really enjoy and encourage, though i wasn't expecting it when i initially wrote fluffy clouds.

in short: yes, seiko will become a kind of queer platonic life partner to the two of them, and yes, that relationship may be sexual or romantic in places. likely because the other two DO experience romantic attraction and seiko does not.

this also means that seiko will likely have other, deep platonic and/or sexual relationships with other people who aren't kushina and minato. i've already shown that seiko DOES care about other people like mikoto and ayako in very specific ways. they and others will have their places in this fic.

but i think in my head the core of this fic is seiko, kushina, and minato. it'll always be those three, in the end. even if there may be hiccups before then. they will love each other like breathing, like bleeding, like eating, and nothing can ever change that.

It does give me questions and ideas about Seiko's relationship with Kakashi though. Step parent/Auntie shaped questions and ideas.

kakashi has only JUST been born in the current timeline of the fic, but i have Plans for him. i wonder how a unreasonably competent genius child reacts to being given a genius teacher. i wonder how he reacts to his genius teacher's teammate (who minato is always comparing himself to) who does not care about the ninja rules unless it's to her benefit.

yeah, they're gonna be fun together. i can't wait.

Mentioning Jiraiya is wonder if his relationship with the team gets obviously bad enough, his own team will intervene?

i think i will say that it get's worse before it get's better, and that tsunade and orochimaru absolutely are side-eyeing him the whole time. especially tsunade, who, through butterflies, is a little more invested in kushina as a person than she was in canon.

in my head, tsunade was not very interested in being around kushina after her brother's death due to their similarity in temperament/personality. but in fluffy clouds, kushina actively seeks out tsunade more for "how do i destroy my rival tsu-oba" reasons and tsunade is forced to give more of a shit.

orochimaru though. well. i dont know if you can tell but every time i write him in this fic i'm just like "wow you are fascinating i want to dissect your brain in a lab. or see what you do to a therapist." i think when i show him more it will be clear why i considered him as seiko's jonin teacher, and in fact i think you'll also see why that would have never worked for either of them.

(listen i realize i answered like nothing ab what they'll do but i can't show you aaaalll my cards)

Hope you're having a nice time, i like the new username!

TY!!! i was really worried about stupid stuff like branding, and it kept me from changing my user for a really long time. "TheOneKrafter" has started feeling really childish and ill fitting as i get older, and i figured my core readers wouldn't care ab a bit of a name change anyways. i'm glad you like it!!

[xekutozoren]

My version of Aqua x Sephiroth (explanation rant updated with mush)

Felt like explaining how I got into it. It's interesting how Tumblr seems to support it quite a bit but Pinterest is like ??? to it.

I guess I initially just wanted a character that wasn't really involved in the main KH story to appreciate Aqua for who she is and what she does. Aqua seems to give a lot to others to the point where she sacrifices her own ideals and herself. And the in-game characters don't do much for her imo.

I do still acknowledge Terraqua so it's Sephqua in a universe where Terra never ends up reciprocating her feelings. I can't deny how many times I got annoyed at Terra for not really showing he cares about Aqua like, at all.

And then KH3 happened and a lot of stuff in it made me annoyed too. Examples include no apologies happening between her and the Wayfinder trio, Ven not showing much appreciation for her, her getting tossed around after vamping her up and bringing her back, the game shifting the focus onto Riku when she was finally pouring out her feelings, Sora and Kairi not even remembering her etc. I get that a lot of these things could have happened offscreen/isn't really justified but it still made me feel the game just kind of abandoned her/treated her as a plot device.

After seeing some fanmade content about Sephqua I tried exploring it myself. I admit that I haven't actually played/watched FF7 so I really only know Sephiroth based off his wiki page and existing Sephqua content. My interpretation of him is also a bit loose and more working off his KH2 almost non-existent screen time as an excuse for doing what I want with his character. At this point he would be similar to his pre-Nibelheim self with a touch of snark. He sees visions sometimes of his canon-verse self but hasn't gone through all of that in this universe and is still capable of redemption. He's merely "the darkness of Cloud" as the KH verse called it, trying to find his purpose in my makeshift universe. His age would be more ambiguous to make the pairing work better (though Aqua being stuck down there for 12 years makes up for the difference anyway)

And one of the biggest things was ANGST COMFORT FOR AQUA'S PAIN.

I like the idea of him meeting her in the Realm of Darkness, intrigued why she refuses to give up despite no one seeming to really care about her, etc. At first, he'd just treat her as something to pass the time and not really care about her well-being but that changes eventually. >w> He is also drawn to her strength both physically and mentally.

I imagine she would be guarded towards him at first but eventually let her walls down a tinsy bit. But then she'd be furious with herself for going against Master Eraqus' ideologies and being worried what he might think of her being acquainted with someone who's full of darkness. But she eventually learns to go after what she wants, not what someone else expects of her. I like that dynamic of Sephiroth teaching her to be more selfish and her helping him find his light again.

In the AU, I'd like to see something play out that didn't in KH, which was Aqua being saved after the others. Though it wouldn't really make sense how they'd reach Ven first but it would be satisfying to see the other two do something for her for once. Sephiroth would be with her getting out of there and have to earn the trust of the keyblade gang/get over the fact that he's with warriors of light. His god complex eventually fades overtime as his feelings develop for her.

I like the idea of the two of them learning each other's vulnerabilities overtime as well as how to trust each other. It would be really interesting to see Aqua helping Sephiroth uncover the truth behind his biological parents too.

Sephiroth's need for comfort with the lack of a proper motherly figure and Aqua's need for someone to properly appreciate and acknowledge her. They love each other for who they are, not who they're expected to be.

Another big thing for me is how their interactions would go.

At the beginning, Sephiroth would be awkward and Aqua would be the more affectionate one - he's a broken man after all and scarred by lies and betrayals. Aqua will heal those wounds one by one. c:

I'm a simple woman and like banter in relationships. > w < After he's more comfortable and settled in, Sephiroth would tease her a lot and Aqua would get embarrassed easily.

That and I notice Aqua likes physical affection like hand holding and head patting in the games so it would be nice to have someone like Sephiroth who I imagine would be more hands on with her after he learns to trust again.

Not sure if anything I wrote here made sense. I typed this up pretty late. Gonna leave it there with one more doodle.

Refs are from Positively Yours, hana and a username that I don't really want to type publicly ^^;

Thanks for reading my spam! ; A ;

[kris-and-the-pnictogens]

narrator Chara

I consider myself something of a narrator, or at least a raconteur. I like telling stories, and I like being the person on the spot with an epigram or witticism. People with that sort of ability tend not to be remembered, though, except vaguely. They might get a terse mention here and there as a "humorist" or a "wit". Dave Barry has about that level of fame. How many people here have heard of Artemus Ward or Petroleum V. Nasby? Probably not many.

I don't know how "Chara" I am any more. Everything seemed so much clearer, so many years ago. Now I'm someone with a life, responsibilities, family, a household to keep up with. I've been afraid of Undertale screwing that up. But I guess it's time to grapple with the big questions. I must confront my own Creator, so to speak.

I have Opinions™ about the game of course and interpreting things. I have tried to be as objective as possible in my assessment of Undertale (and Deltarune) which...has certain implications. Undertale is told very elliptically, i.e. there's little information to go on. There's hints, suggestions, some plot threads, but the gaps in the storytelling are enormous—and surely this is quite deliberate. My own instinct is that Fox would like to draw the player's attention to this incompleteness. It's significant that there's so little information to go on. It means we should all be cautious about jumping to unwarranted conclusions.

(A glimmer from somewhere of Tamamo-hime. Well...Toby Fox is named Fox.)

I must apply this to myself: it's been a while since I've seen Undertale last and my memories could be tricking me, but I don't see enough evidence in the game to sort out whether Chara (never explicitly named) is the narrative voice. The red text in the "No Mercy" timeline makes things especially unclear, because that red text seems to be Chara's voice breaking through ("my room" etc.) in which case, the usual narrative text can't be Chara, right?

And then there's the perplexing moment of "It's me, Chara." Is that Frisk saying "that's my reflection in the mirror, Chara"? Is it Chara asserting who they are? Is it something else?

I will dare to suggest that this conundrum is not intended to have a solution, and that Fox has indicated this with a supremely ambiguous moment in the "No Mercy" timeline of Undertale. This moment is impossible to interpret, I say. It is not meant to be interpreted. It is, in fact, the mystery of the Trinity in a game—a moment when the player of a game induces a character in the game to look into a mirror and interact with their own reflection. It's like the famous hall-of-mirrors shot in Citizen Kane, near the end of Kane's life. Welles is suggesting that Kane is unknowable. Perhaps this issue of Chara's narration is also unknowable.

~Chara of Pnictogen

[wavytam]

Hi! First of all thank you for your always on point theories and overall amazing Sanami content! <33

I've noticed that we've probably seen all the original main cast characters being romantically (or at least hinted to be so) connected to another character, even if the connection was one-sided. Nami was nowhere seen in a similar situation, except the gag-full marriage with Absalom. The manga is already on it's final saga and there's no sign of her having reciprocated or one-sided feelings towards another character, male or female. Personally, I think it would have been at least logical to make her reject Sanji somehow, if nothing is planned between them. He's been head over heels, willing to die for her for quite a long time and we don't see any signs or development from Nami's side, neither positive, nor negative. As of now, do you think there might be a future change in Nami's feelings or will her undefined position towards Sanji remain till the end, as we haven't seen anything after the WCI events?

Thank you once again and sorry for this long text lol!

Hello!! Oh! Thank you so much for your kind words!! I really appreciate it! 🥰☺️

About Nami not having any crush on anyone up until this point: this is a good point.

Now, about your question. "Do you think there might be a future change in Nami's feelings or will her undefined position towards Sanji remain till the end?"

(Okay, I'm really sorry for how long it got! I tried to shorten it the best that I could!!)

I think that by the end of the manga, we will find out whether she likes Sanji romantically or not.

I don't think Oda will leave this unsolved, but I do think that (if Nami does reciprocate Sanji's feelings) he might make it happen very discretly, and maybe not even give much panel time for that. Similar to when, all of a sudden, Oda gave us a coverpage of Mister 9 and Miss Monday happily together... with a kid. It was so out of the blue, and we didn't really even see any moment between them that even hinted they had a mutual interest in one another.

Of course, with SaNami, from Sanji's part it's obvious he is interested in her romantically, but what we need now is for it to be mutual, and that's the part I think that might happen "offscreen".

I know this isn't something we, SaNami fans want things to go, but I there are to reasons for me to think that:

A) The "offscreen" route seems like the standard for how shonen mangas deal with romance. Shonen Jump still focuses on content for boys, and they don't think boys want to read about romance as much as girls. So my guess is that, even if Oda wanted to portray a romantic relationship amongst the crew (I don't think he does tho) I don't think he would be able to write that many romantic scenes - so a lot of the romantic development would have to happen offscreen.

I'll give you an example: Sasu Saku in Naruto. Please consider that I am not comparing the characters themselves with Nami and Sanji, I am just analysing how another mangaka from Shonen Jump developed the relationship of an endgame couple in his story and how it might be how Oda writes it too (because he is also a mangaka writing for the same company).

For the entirety of the manga, Saku had a crush on Sasu, but we never really knew whether he reciprocicated her feelings or not. He cared about her, obviously, but for years, fans had to rely on small hints that could be interpreted either as platonic or romantic from Sasu's part.

Only by the end of the manga did the author let us know that Sasu did, in fact, like Saku romantically. And if you rearead the manga knowing that, the moments between them that before were seen as ambiguous become mostly romantic.

(Please, do not interpret this wrong, I know Kishimoto and Oda are two completely different mangakas, with completely different writting styles, but they are writing for the same company, have the same audience and therefore have to follow the same set of rules)

B) I have a feeling that Oda doesn't want to shift the dynamic between the crew.

I myself am a very romantic person, but to be honest, I'm very picky when it comes to romance being portrayed in adventures. I've always liked to ship characters and read fanfics about them, but when it comes to the official content I don't like it when romance takes too much of a story that isn't supposed to focus on it. It's a weird thing from me, I know. Go figure.

Anyway, I think that Oda is afraid of that happening to his story. One Piece is about a group of friends helping one another to pursue their dreams. If we add romance in the mix, the "family" dynamic in the story shifts, and it doesn't really add to the main message anyway, which, to me, is "found family" and "freedom". Otherwaise, the fandom would also get into bigger fights, saying things like "W character loves x character more than y" "W character would rather let y die than character x because he/she loves her/him more" when these things don't really matter.

I know that there are people out there who do that anyway, but I think Oda wants to keep himself away from that type of discussions to focus more on the fraternal love the Strawhats clearly have for one another.

Obviously, it won't stop anyone from shipping (lol here I am, writing this huge text about SaNami even with all the warning from Oda himself), but maybe the wars could be even worse if Oda chose to portray romance. If that's the reason, I really understand where his mindset comes from.

With those two points in mind, my guess is: if Nami does reciprocate Sanji's feelings and they do end up together, not only do I think it will happen doscretly but I also think it's going to be only at the end of the story.

For now, I think Oda will keep on writting ambiguous moments between Nami and Sanji (with Sanji being the one crazy in love), trying to preserve the dynamic they already have until the very last arc, and only change it when the story comes to an end.

That way, romance amongst the crew won't be portrayed during the entirety of One Piece.

Okay, sorry for the big text!! But I hope I answered what you wanted to know!!

[blindrapture]

july 28, again.

got asked a question about the july 28th log.

here's a transcription:

Dr0Shadow 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 — Today at 3:42 PM

@DJay did you just throw Elon Musk into the rapture and reference those dumb cars tesla made like a decade before they wouldve been invented

DJay — Today at 5:02 PM it was definitely a nod to the real-life present day. there are some of those in the final draft. but elon musk was already CEO of Tesla, he became CEO in 2004.

the log sorta implies that the Judge chose him sorta arbitrarily-- as he puts it, he's not even from San Francisco. I imagine he wasn't in it at the time and was just, like, whisked away to that court scene. so in some ways it's a demonstration of a "greater" logic being used by Xanadu's judgement (with the Judge as the vessel of that) that greater logic being something like… "this is a name more people in the world will know (even in 2011)." but the Attached for that log more overtly draws attention to real-life shit. the Attached makes a pretty obvious allusion in "tweet tweet" and "Now I'm for the birds." though it's still "ambiguous" enough that one can instead read a non-twitter interpretation out of it. poetry, and all. I seem to have landed on the font for that Attached being Georgia (for the website, and "Chat"/courier new for tumblr), which is the Tiresias/Thoth font. though there exist other Attacheds in a specific other font that are exclusively written by real-life author me, and I could have used that for this. I think, if I had used real-life-author-me font for that Attached, then we could just call this a cute anachronism. but I didn't want to do that. and I didn't do that. I elected more for Poetry. what does it really mean??? I dunno. sincerely. it's the kind of thing that, if I sat down and really concentrated, and rambled at you for an hour, I could reason out a convincing interpretation. and if I had to guess, like. the short answer is, like with the Fears themselves, "it's more about this deeper pattern that real-life Elon Musk is just one iteration of." "Elon Musk is one frond on a big hyperdimensional plant. Rapture depicts other fronds of it and shows how they connect to the Elon Musk frond, and Rapture tries to imply the deeper stem."

but. but yeah. the surface intent is "what if elon musk gets trapped in a car and thrown off a cliff. what if the fictional world gives justice for something that happened in a different world." the surface intent is for you to get a good chuckle out of it. rapture actually has a fair few instances of…….. Real-Life Bad People in completely different contexts. like there's Attacheds, including ones we haven't gotten to yet, saying that, like, "comcast really stepped up when the apocalypse came; they provided free internet for everyone and worked overtime, volunteered, to keep the servers running" and "Rupert Murdoch had a change of heart, seeing the planet collapse. he saved a fucking bus of orphans. and gave his newspaper offices to be used by squatters, pro bono." in those cases they're more like really dry black comedy. the joke is they would never do that. and, if they ever read rapture themselves, they'd be struck with a window into a world where they actually did something people liked. elon musk could have gotten something like that. but I elected to not even give him the chance. maybe we can read this as a Dante kinda thing. how Dante wrote real-life people into his Comedy. how he handled the bad people. and rapture has been compared to the Comedy before, by people who are not me!

it has never been my desire to make rapture into the Comedy. even after I read and learned to appreciate the Comedy. I deeply admire the thing, and I take inspiration from it in some broad ways. but I am willing to have moments in rapture that give you, like, a window into a world where rapture was like a different book. that works really well with rapture as a whole. gels well with it. lots of windows into other worlds. in some ways rapture is a hell of a lot like rick and morty. and that wasn't intentional either! but it's honestly one of the closest analogues I can think of. and I've tried.

[girl4music]

I miss with everything in me TV shows/movies and visual art/entertainment of any kind that are self-referential in a clever campy, fourth wall breaking, lampshading way. Basically visual art/entertainment that is able to and has the balls to take the piss out of itself and can admit where it goes wrong within the narrative itself. Honest, transparent clever meta TV.

Everything is just so fucking serious and dramatic now. Even when it’s a comedy, there’s still an urgency and a need to make you laugh that really takes the fun out of watching it. I don’t know if this will make any sense but I feel like TV visual media today just tries too hard. And it’s probably because it’s no longer just TV. What’s the word I’m looking for in explaining what I mean by this? I can’t think of it. Contrived? Forced? No, that’s not it. I don’t know how to articulate it.

It’s like you just can’t help but notice that there is a goal or an agenda to it while watching it so it takes you out of the experience of interacting/engaging with it when it’s supposed to pull you further in. ‘Xena’, ‘Buffy’ and ‘Charmed’ had it down so fucking well. Yes, all of them have their flaws and controversies but it was exceptional writing to the point where you feel like you’re part of it. Like you’re up close and personal with the characters and the environments and you feel like family. Like you belong with them and it. No TV show or movie has made me feel like that since. I’ve tried. I tried with ‘Sense8’, I tried with ‘First Kill’, I tried with ‘Santa Clarita Diet’, I tried with ‘Warrior Nun’. And I know that it was happening ever so slowly, but in the next second it was ripped away from under me. I didn’t even get chance to become a part of any of them, let alone let them become a part of me. I mean you wouldn’t really call fantasy or supernatural shows like Xena, Buffy and Charmed realistic storytelling. It’s some of the wackiest, most over-the-top, ridiculous shit ever for much of each respective show’s run. But all of them really feel more real to me than anything I could watch today on a streaming service of any kind. It feels real because it feels like me. Who I am, what I care about, how I perceive the world, where I stand. Makes me feel like I’m at home. When everything else I watch just makes me feel even more alienated. And it really is hard to explain how special these 3 are. How they’re just leagues ahead in my heart and mind over all else.

I both miss the realism in the absurdity in TV as well as I when it was about learning something significant. I miss the balance in the comedy and the drama. And I really miss when it never took itself too seriously yet was still able to get the point across without forcing it. You know, the way it both grows within and with you. The way it began with you and never leaves you. I guess what I really mean is I miss character-driven. I miss those episodes that had nothing to do with plot but told you more about the characters because of it. When the TV show wasn’t necessarily or specifically about anything. It was just the characters. They are that show. You know? Yeah, that’s what I mean. 😌

I’m always talking about how ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ especially doesn’t really have any point to it. What it means and what it stands for is entirely up to you. I always say that it’s magic is in its ambiguity. How you’re supposed to interpret it over just watch it. And it’s just one big fucking headcanon that never ends. And they’re all like that in their own ways. All 3 shows. If they weren’t they wouldn’t be such cult classics. People wouldn’t still be watching them years after the very last episode aired. So timeless and so special. Unlike anything you could even find in visual media today. You can put it down to nostalgia but I think it’s more than that. I think they’re lightning in a bottle. With amazing chemistry between the actors and exceptional writing in storytelling and metaphor meaning. And with the fact they gave you room to create in it all that matters to you as a sentient being. To say I’m passionate about them is an understatement. I feel like I’ll never know anything that knows and fulfils and satisfies me completely like these 3 incredible shows do: Xena/Buffy/Charmed.

[loopy777]

So one of the more ambiguous parts of later MHA is Dabi's actual relationship with the league, and how he truly thinks of them, especially Twice.

In particularly, his extreme reaction to Twice death serving as the decisive turning point where he once and for all went completely off the rails as utterly nuts, leaving any bit of sanity behind, can be read two ways.

Either his words can be taken at face value, and he never gave a damn about the league, and was only pissed because twice was the single biggest ace in the hole for his ultimate goal, and his death put a massive dent in it, or he is simply coping with suddenly feeling real sadness and despair by distancing himself from Twice by saying of course i didn't care about him, of course I'm not in any emotional pain right now, and by extension emotionally distancing himself from the rest of the league(Who's potential deaths could hurt him just as much).

Adding fuel to this is how he seems to emotionally get and connect with Toga while burning down her childhood home.

Of these two interpretations, it's one or the other.

In any case, which do you find to be the more likely one?

I've wondered about this myself, and had to discuss it with my brother because I'm so conflicted about it. The thing that really stands out to me about the whole matter is that Dabi doesn't seem to blame Twice for falling for Hawks' deception and even tries to comfort the guy. I mean, in that situation -- Twice falling for a second time for someone who exploited his trust to hurt the League, and this time so disastrously that it might lead to the end of everything -- I'd probably have a level of anger at a friend for doing it, but Dabi purely blames Hawks and even acts like he's there to support Twice in the wake of the betrayal.

At the same time, I don't feel like Dabi is merely covering up his hurt at Twice's death. I think Dabi really is obsessed with his whole revenge quest, and he has such a degree of emotional detachment from other people that I don't believe he's capable of forming bonds and friendships the way normal people can. I don't think he could be such a proliferate murderer, and so blase about it, without that dysfunction. Honestly, I don't think Dabi values human life enough to make real friendships; I don't think he even fully values his own life, never mind that of his buddies in the League.

So I guess I'm splitting the difference and saying that Dabi is complicated in a very messed up kind of way, where he really is capable of seeing similarities between himself and others who aren't standing in the way of his goals, and can identify and express sympathy when they're hurt, but at the same time he doesn't really value those people enough to feel hurt from losing them. He's not a chess master considering other people as resources, he just has no capacity for grief.

Maybe the key comes down to Loss. Dabi no longer responds to it, perhaps because he already feels like he's lost everything, so all the comings and goings in his life are just rounding errors.

He can look at someone like Twice or Toga and say, "Hey, we were all hurt in the same way and that makes us cool (as long as you don't get in my way), but all of us are just dead men walking so I'm not going to climb out of my grave to attend your funeral."

Anyway, that's just my speculation. I think it's great that Twice's subplot climaxes in such a way that is so rich and rewarding for all the characters entangled in it. It makes us ponder them all in new ways, and so might be one of the best in all of MHA.

[aikoiya]

Werewolf the Apocalpse uses Gaia as the name of the spiritual entity that represents planet earths ability to sustain life, some werewolves worship it as a god (and historically might've inspired the mythological figure in ancient greece), some see stewerding it as a responsibility/chore, a few want it deader faster, and in the latest iteration of the game some werewolves believe it's already died and we're all persisting on the rotting remains of a corpse, waiting for the end to come to all things

None of these are confirmed as definitively true to the World of Darkness so individual groups can tell the stories mkst interesting to them and in world the ambiguity is chalked up to the fact that even in the literally mythical prelapsarian werewolf past (that probably never existed) Gaia was largely unreachable, its presence felt by some garou and its believed to have created the werewolves and other shifting breeds but for what purpose (and how) can only be guessed at

Also it's believed that werewolves tried to extinct humans in prehistory and there's a couple factions of werewolved that wanna try that again but with guns this time

I have to say, this is utterly fascinating.

And, I think I like this interpretation more now with context.

Though, now I'm just wondering about werewolf history. Like, have you ever heard of Courtaud? Historically speaking, in 1450 during the hundred year war between England & France, there were a great many bodies left out in the open. This resulted in the wolves getting a taste for human flesh & led to Paris being besieged by a pack of wolves & ran roughshod through the streets of Paris for weeks, killing a bunch of people.

What if that's just the cover story in WoD? Imagine if it was a pack of werewolves instead? Not eating the people, but murdering them. (Which, BTW, why has no one gotten to making a semi-horror movie about this?)

And, maybe there's a degree of truth to the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Just the wolf was a werewolf instead.

Like, maybe that's how the foggy memory could fit in? People "forget werewolves," but the information still left an impression & those impressions can manifest in different ways? Such as in the form of stories.

I'd find that remarkably interesting!

Also, it makes me wonder if it's possible to gain control of their berserk button? Like, is there a special werewolf anger management class in the mountains of Tibet where they meditate or something? That could be cool to play with.

But, for all I know, these questions have already been answered in the actual lore of WoD.

[nodutra19]

I dunno if I should even say this given I don't speak Japanese, but the change of "revolutionize the world" here really bothers me.

One of the things I like about Ikuhara is how he creates complex parallelisms, and I think the Black Rose Council is meant to parallel the Student Council, which is why they both speak of revolutionizing the world.

Another thing I like is his "boiling frog" approach. He lures you in with something seemingly nice, and then slowly but surely introduces odder and odder elements, occasionally jarring you until eventually you land yourself somewhere really bizarre. The Black Rose Saga does that very well and marks a shift in tone.

I get the impetus behind the change, but I've always interpreted the use of "revolutionize the world" as ambiguous, and in this case it's really meant to make you question what their revolution even brings. If this underhanded stranger can speak of the same thing as the "heroes," then what is it those heroes actually speak of? This disconcerting man also has a Rose Bride and seeks to usurp the powers that be...

But to what end? If his desire is the same, what does that say of the Student Council, and especially of Utena herself? They both don pink hair and off-puttingly similar Rose Brides, after all, and even similar uniforms. What do they actually want to replace these power structures with? Cuz Mikage just wants his Rose Bride to take Anthy's place and to unlock eternity for himself.

My only translation experience has been through a few songs, but changing a specific phrase like that doesn't seem right to me.

Not only that, but Mikage, and, for the viewer on a rewatch, the Student Council, give cult vibes. Mikage reduces people to their most basic and awful urges and ideas in order to turn them into weapons, and when he finally has them on the precipice, he ushers himself in and says:

You have no choice but to revolutionize the world.

Which reminds me of an actual cult.

I take this from Haruki Murakami's Underground, as translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel:

Around that time I went to the Aum dojo at Setagaya. They explained my situation to me and told me right then and there how to treat it. I tried the breathing exercises they taught me, and I couldn't believe how quickly I got better. For two months after that I didn't go to the dojo very much, but then I started going regularly, doing volunteer work, folding leaflets and stuff. Soon after there was a "Secret Yoga" session where you could talk directly to the Leader [Shoko Asahara], and I asked him what I should do about my poor health. "You need to become a renunciate," he told me. It was like he saw the real me at a glance. People were amazed because he'd never said that to anyone before—so I felt I had no choice but to leave school and become a renunciate. I was 22.

(Bold emphasis mine)

Ikuhara also mentions Aum sometime in 1998, I can't remember if it was an interview or DVD commentary. Given one of his later works, the parallels are very clear.

I guess to make a more normal comparison, think of how many men complain about how "women don't allow men to express their feelings" or the "male loneliness epidemic." But you also know that most of them go back to old and harmful ways. They squirm at terms like "patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity," and when you ask them what causes these things and what they desire to replace it with, you begin to understand that these men fundamentally misunderstand the issues at hand. That doesn't invalidate their complaints, but you can't let that justifiable complaint blind you from what they truly want: to be the ones on top.

This is gonna be a really out of pocket comparison, but even P. Diddy complained about how white dominated companies are. But what did he actually do? Hearing him say that made my own skin crawl as a person of color, even though I agree with it. I just don't let that agreement blind myself from what people like him actually do and offer to the world. I've had that example on mind because of the recent F.D Signifier video on Diddy.

I think that's what the Black Rose Saga introduces to the series, and why I think changing this line doesn't make sense. I personally think it's meant to be flaccid coming from him, it's meant to be jarring just judging by Ikuhara's style (although I've only gone through RGU and MPD). If there absolutely must be a change, maybe "You have no choice but to overthrow the world around you" would work as a neater and more direct parallelism, although given "revolutionize the world" doesn't seem to be an idiom or some play on words in Japanese (other than "revolution" also meaning a cycle, as in the revolution of the moon around the Earth), I really don't see much reason for the change.

Of course, I don't speak Japanese nor do I know much about translation. And this is just my interpretation of Ikuhara.

I know this seems like a lot, but it's really bugged me. Other than that, I like this translation and adore the various corrections/creativities like "almglocken" for "cowbell."

Fansub Release + Analysis of Utena Ep 14

This is a big one!!

My fansub release posts aren't usually like this, but this episode is so jam packed with stuff I want to talk about that I had to write my translation notes as a series of essays. It's longer than usual so strap in!

First, a word on “The Mikage Seminar”

I’ve always found the translation “the Mikage Seminar” very strange. In English, a seminar is an event — a lecture. Yet “the Mikage Seminar” is discussed as though it’s not a recurring lecture, but a society or a school of therapy, or a cult (like scientology). In fact I did a bit of reading about scientology to try and find an alternative translation, and discovered that the origins of scientology, namely a set of ideas and practices called Dianetics, bears a lot of similarities to “the Mikage Seminar”. Both involve a type of therapy where one person looks into their mind and talks to an “auditor”.

The auditor coaxes the preclear to recall as much as possible. — Wikipedia

This in particular stood out to me! Mikage often says 「深く。もっと深く」 during his interviews (”Deeper. Dig deeper.”).

The Japanese word ゼミナール doesn’t actually come from the English “seminar” but the German “Seminar” (capitalised). According to Wikipedia, in Germany, and often in Japan, Seminar/ゼミナール is used to refer to a university course that includes a thesis project. So ゼミナール refers to a course of learning, rather than a talk or lecture. And it would make a lot of sense to call a system like Dianetics a “course”. Almost like a “course” of medicine — a “course” of psychological practices that you can join but never complete.

So it would make sense to translate it as “the Mikage Course”. But “course” has more meanings in English than just this, and in the context of a university this makes it sound more like a mundane teaching course. So I tried some other words: the Mikage Sessions, the Mikage Method, Mikage Psychotherapy, Mikage Therapy, the Mikage Movement. None seemed quite right. Until I remembered this post. ゼミナール is a foreign word in Japanese, why not find a foreign word for the translation? And so I settled on this:

The Mikage Seminarium, AKA The Society of the Black Rose…

Seminarium is Latin, and is where both the German and English derive seminar from. Its original meaning is “seed plot”, but it’s also just the Polish word for seminar. I really like how the Latin makes its meaning ambiguous — it kind of sounds like a location, kind of sounds like a society, and kind of sounds like a learning course. Because it is all of these things.

Anthy: では、香苗さん。失礼します。 Kanae: ね、あたしの事、お姉さんって呼んでいいのよ。もうすぐわたしはあなたの本当のお姉さんになるんだから。

A more literal translation:

Anthy: Thank you for having us, Kanae-san. Kanae: Please… you can just call me “sister”. I’m going to be your real sister soon enough anyway.

The translation I ended up going with:

Anthy: Thank you for having us, Miss Ohtori. Kanae: Please... you can just call me Kanae. We're going to be family soon. There's no need for the formalities.

Japanese honorifics strike again!

In English, sisters-in-law don’t ask to be called “sister”. That would be super weird in most scenarios, and this scene is trying to evoke a particular familiar feeling of closing a distance gap in a relationship. The audience is meant to relate. Changing how Anthy addresses Kanae was pivotal to this scene working properly.

わかりました。あなたは世界を革命するしかないでしょ。

I understand. Your only choice is to force the world to change around you.

This line is translated as “Your only choice is to revolutionise the world” by basically every other translation. The reason is clear — the Japanese is the same as when Utena pulls the sword out of Anthy, or when any of the other characters talk about “revolutionising the world”. However, in this context, I don’t like it. The nuance of the English phrase is quite different to the Japanese phrase. In English, it’s often used to describe new commercial products: “This new device will revolutionise the world!” It comes with an implied “for the better”, but has used to describe technological developments so unexciting that it can also feel hollow. When the student council talk of revolutionising the world, they sound like revolutionaries — the context makes it work. But in this context, it comes out of nowhere and doesn’t have any of that fervour, which makes it sound hollow and flaccid when it should sound sinister and manipulative.

I think a pervading throughline for all the Black Rose duelists is that they see their problems as caused by other people, with themselves being blameless. Rather than change how they approach their situation, Mikage tells them they’re in the right.

Your behaviour will set you down a path. If that path leads to your goals, well done! However, if your path does not lead to your goals, there’s only two ways you can achieve them.

The first is to change your behaviour so that it does align with your goals. The second, impossible way, is for the rest of the world to change such that your current path DOES end up leading to your goals. This second way is not possible in the real world. But it is possible in Utena.

Also I’ll just leave this here: “around you” → “revolve” → “revolution” 👀

Kanae tried to build a relationship with Anthy in a passive, non-confrontational, extremely Japanese way — the way she has been taught to behave, the “proper” way, a mechanical following of the social scripts. We don’t see a lot of their relationship, but the way she behaved and spoke of behaving towards Anthy is very very similar to the way my Japanese grandmother has behaved towards my and my brother’s partners.

It was unthinkable to her to change this pattern of behaviour. Her only choice was to change Anthy, change the rest of the world, so that her behaviour would lead to the outcomes she wants. You could describe this forceful bending of reality to be “revolutionising the world”.

この黒薔薇のある限り、私はこれから嘘の私を演じなくて住む。

As long as I have this Black Rose, I'm free from the lie I was living before.

Besides gender, growing up, and resisting change (which exist as separate themes but also all intertwine as one), another major theme present in Utena is the self and subjective reality. The self is explored within those first major three themes, but also in terms of how the self dictates reality with the Black Rose duellists.

Black Rose Kanae says that her past self was a lie.

It reminds me of all the times when I’ve been going through a personal trial and I’ve looked back on my past self and thought “How naive I was. I understand things better now.” And then after a while I realise I was wrong, and my first self was more right. And then later still, maybe I re-realise that the second self was more right! And so on! The reality of truth (or to use Kanae’s language, “lies”) is so subjective.

Who dictates knowledge production? Who decides what is true; what is valid knowledge? This is a question of sociology - and at the moment that answer is "science does, kinda". But science and academic systems are supported by capitalist structures and tainted by capitalistic incentives — needing to be published in a journal, issues of replicability, the barrier to entry into academia in the first place, etc, etc. In the future we may find our current way of organising knowledge to be archaic and primitive in the same way we look back at medieval scholars.

But what about organising self-knowledge? Knowledge where the only one who can really decide what is true is yourself. And the only one that can decide what yourself even IS is yourself. I feel like I have looked back on my old ways of conceptualising myself many times (not even counting the gender-based revelations) and thought it primitive and archaic, and NOW I truly understand who I am and how to think of myself and how my thoughts interact with my other thoughts. But I have no doubt that I’ll look back on this current self of mine and reject their way of thinking too.

After their heart is replaced by the Black Rose, the duellists themselves frame this change as a moment of self realisation, of clarity. Once the rose is inside them, they wake up from themselves, like I have countless times. Kanae says herself, “This is the true me.” Honestly, I don’t doubt it. I think that version of Kanae was her true self at that moment, given the things influencing her. Being brainwashed doesn’t make you less of a person, or less yourself. It just makes you organise your reality differently.

心を凍結させて作っただけの間に合わせのデュエリストでは、彼女は破れないな。

We won't be able to defeat her by simply freezing someone's heart and forcing them to duel.

Anya and I discussed this in depth. I originally translated 心 as “mind”, because that was the first thing that popped into my head and I thought that was the simple part of the translation. However, Anya pointed out that it didn’t make sense with the themes of self and subjective reality, and I strongly agreed, so I changed it to “heart” instead.

Anya suggested “conscious mind” instead of “heart” but I think heart is more accurate. 心 (kokoro) can mean heart or mind in Japanese (I find it interesting that those two things are portrayed as opposites in English), and that kanji is found in the word for biological heart, 心臓 (shinzou). When they say of the Black Rose "This is your new heart" they use 心臓. They also say "Your new 命 (life/lifeforce)" which I translated as soul since it sounded more hardcore and because "your new life" is a set phrase in English meaning a new chapter in your life rather than your life force. I think the idea is that they're freezing the duellists' ability to love and feel empathy, which in my opinion is necessary for them to commit to the unbelievably selfish act of revolutionising/reconstructing/bending the entire structure of the world for their own convenience.

A very special thanks to @dontbe-lasanya for being there to talk through all these themes and ideas. I'm incredibly proud of this episode's translation and I wouldn't have been able to do it without them.

If you want to see more analysis like this, let me know! And also follow this blog to see episodes of the fansub as they're released. You can find all episodes released so far here:

Rose divider taken from this post

[voidsumbrella]

rotating elden ring endings...

(under a cut because it got long lol)

i did most of my liveposting on twitter, so if you saw that you'll know that i:

tried/am trying to do¹ as much of the content as possible in my first run of the game

savescummed to see all 4 endings i had unlocked (fracture/duskborn/despair/stars)

Did Not Like Most Of Them.

im sure this is a common take, but going through this amazing intensive journey just for a 20 second cutscene was a huge letdown; im so glad i savescummed for the elden lord endings back to back, bc if i had fully replayed a longass game to see the same thing reskinned with almost no dialogue changes i would have been fucking furious. im a little less mad now- having fun in the dlc cemented the journey > destination aspect- but im still spending a lot of time analyzing the missed potential there.

from a purely technical perspective i guess it kind of makes sense that they had to be vague and brief. 90% of the story and worldbuilding is up to the player to find and interpret, and the 10% that's directly conveyed by the mandatory plot is nearly always colored by what perspective it's coming from- it would be hard to go into any detail about the repercussions of your actions without telling you information you're supposed to find on your own³. still, they could have at least shown more of the world than just leyendell. it's not like we don't do any mainline exploring.

the main wobbly bit for me is, obviously, the content of the endings. it fully makes sense that age of fracture is bland as shit. it's the ending you get if you, the player, don't engage with the world: you speak to who you have to and no one else, do what is asked of you and no more, accept what you are told without examining it or questioning it- and are rewarded with the cycle continuing. the ambiguous power of your rule has nothing to do with you, and the world remains suspended in its decay. same as it ever was. i didn't get the age of order ending⁴ but from what i can tell from external resources it also makes sense for that to be Off as well. the basis is that the cycle is perpetuated not just by marika and the golden order, but as an extension of the greater will itself, and things are only screwed up now because everyone up to now just didn't do it right. but, y'know, you're special, you're chosen, you understand it all- surely you'll be the one to succeed! and then you don't, because the world is like this by design.

blessing of despair being an elden lord ending makes substantially more sense in light of the dlc. granted, i had a lot of detail comprehension issues on this one, bc it didn't click for me that the curse was omen related⁵ until someone pointed it out way later and i checked the wiki. even then, it was still confusing as to how that existed within the existing power framework, because fucking with the rebirth cycle seems like it's going if not directly against the greater will's hold on things, then at least yanking it off course. but! the introduction of the hornsent makes it crystal clear that the notion of horns being a curse at all is a cultural thing⁶ specifically because marika has personal beef with them. spreading omen-ness as a ~horrifyingly evil defilement~ only works within the existing framework, and by itself doesn't require any significant structural changes. same shit as always, but more people have horns now.

that being said: this being an elden lord ending is boring as hell. like it works, it lines up lore-wise, but it's got a lot of missed potential. without retrofitting the dlc lore the closest tie the omens have is to the crucible itself, which is totally powerful enough to exist in opposition to the greater will, we could have had a total return to the primordial ending, that would have been really cool!! the tree could have sprouted horns!! dlc could imply the hornsent being revived as a culture in the way that age of stars implies the nox coming back!!!! it would be coooooool-

anyway. im bitter that the duskborn was an elden lord ending. im still sorting through the specifics of death/destined death/death getting split in half, so i don't have a concrete argument for why it's bullshit or what the alternative would be, i just think that quest was way too involved for it to get the same 20 seconds of nothing that the other 3 got. if you're going to kill off 3 of the best characters in the game you could at least have the decency to give some sort of payoff <- objective sentence written by someone with no biases. (¬_¬).

i completely get why people are Like That about ranni- she wasn't even my favorite character while i was playing, but my affection towards her skyrocketed because the age of stars ending is so blatantly The Good One!! that and lord of frenzied flame⁷ are the only two that are anything!!! it didn't have to be like this!!!!

this has completely devolved into bitching. oops. anyway. i don't really have a closing statement for this or anything, im just halfway through compiling a timeline/lore dump and wanted to jot down my thoughts, and then make them everyone else's problem lmao.

-----

¹ not done with the dlc yet, my save got corrupted² partway through shadow keep and i had to restart from the backup i used to savescum. ² fun fact: if your computer crashes/shuts down unexpectedly while the save file is loading it irreparably fucks your data ³ a bitch can dream about what it would have been like if they filtered the ending dialogue by tracking exactly what you found and who you spoke to but that's a MASSIVE undertaking development wise, they were never gonna fucking do that. ⁴ corhyn left the hold and i forgot he existed lol. i tried to find him when i realized he was Actually Relevant, but i didn't immediately spot him and didn't care enough to try harder. sorry goldmask, im sure you're chill. or something. ⁵ i didn't visually parse the seedbeds as having horns, and since i didn't do seluvius's subquest or reload the area after getting the rune, i never got his armor, which tells you directly what was up. i kinda thought he was covered in teeth. ⁶ the game actually does a pretty decent job pointing out that the human vs nonhuman dichotomy is more like... tribalistic? there's probably a better word for it- than anything else. the misbegotten aren't attacking everyone on sight because they're animalistic ane inherently evil, they're violently rebelling because humans have been keeping them as slaves. the "not saints, just on the losing side of a war" comment leda makes applies to pretty much all sides, including the ones we relate to. ⁷ i'm actively avoiding looking into that one too much, because im planning on getting it my second playthrough and i want to go in with clean eyes. which is surprisingly easy to do, it's super split off from the stuff im trying to dissect.

[amrass]

Excited for Barbwired Tumbleweed! For your consideration: (1) Dutch/Arthur, grooming; snippets from a real fucked up relationship. Bonus points for the cycle continuing with John and/or Jack. (2) Sadie/Kieran, hate sex/noncon. (3) Charles/Molly, sex as self-harm.

I hope your excitement remains, anon 😈 Ah, I like your ideas!

I went with your first suggestion, and I've called the piece Cydonian Apples, because ofc there must be a reference to Ancient Greek practises when the theme is grooming. (Heed the tags. All characters are 16/17 in the fic itself, but stuff is implied, and depending on your country this can be underage and/or non-con.) I went for the most bonus points possible, so there is one snippet of Dutch/Arthur, one of Arthur/John, and a short one with ambiguous John & Jack.

Some more thoughts on the requests after the cut (I liked thinking about them! Warning for Amras going full Pennywise mode) ...

The first request was a bit out of my comfort zone, verging on the "innocence" I dislike writing (but can enjoy reading), buuut I adore challenges so I guess I tried to create a disquiet mixed with a calming quiet, to create fucked-up-ness through the contrast. I'm kind of writing blind, so I don't know if I succeeded. Anyway everyone please go read My Country Has No Borders, the best Vandermorgan fanfic of all time in my humble opinion, the writer nails ambivalence.

For the Sadie/Kieran one, I recommend my friend Purl's Adrenaline Rush, because I'd probably write something similar to that fic, even with Kieran, as I write him rougher than the common fanon interpretation. I would also make Sadie piss on him at the end. And then another gang member (someone who dislikes O'Driscolls) would find him when he's lying there covered in filth. "Aw, did I come too late? I was hoping for a show, but ... I guess a fuck is just as good."

For the third one with Charles/Molly, aaahhhh, I know exactly how I'd write that one, but it's too angsty for me 💀 I'd make the story happen in Clemens Point or Shady Belle after a party, during a storm, both of them drunk and heartsore. Molly seeks out Charles because she thinks he has a big penis that she will use to punish herself, then she's so disappointed (also in herself) because he's average sized. But when she realizes he's a virgin, she convinces him anal sex is normal without lube or any kind of prep, and gets her self-harm that way, but harms him in the process .......... Ensue a lot of pain, confusion and guilt. I see no way out of this but angst galore. Sometimes I want to write really fucked up ideas and wish I could just steal an angst writer to keep in my pocket, dictating that stuff, while I revel in the horror.

Someone else can try their hand, if they want to!

Thanks for reading 🤡