#[ he has MAJOR self-worth issues and his break-up made everything A LOT worse ]

[despairforme]

hi toby! ive been a fan of your writing for a long time and the threads you had with your now deactivated partner, lexie, and i was wondering on why does nnoitra keep constantly thinking about grimmjow when nnoitra, himself, cheated on him and thinks that hes that deserving of having any form of relationship when he's a bad person. isn't he supposed to be this masculine guy that doesn't let stupid stuff get to him? wouldn't he just move on when grimmjow wants nothing to do with him? curious.

Ah, FUCK. He sure as shit didn't want to talk ( or think ) about this.

Isn't he supposed to be this masculine guy that doesn't let stupid stuff get to him?

Damn, he sure as hell wished things were that easy. If he could choose to NOT let stuff bother him, he'd have the best life ever. Unfortunately, he wasn't like that. He wasn't sure whether or not that had anything to do with his masculinity though. It wasn't like he was whining about his old relationship. He did think about Grimmjow quite a lot though, that was true. Was he not allowed to even think about him? His relationship with Grimmjow hadn't been some fling. It had been a deep, committed relationship. A connection that had lasted for many years. And Nnoitra had never loved ANYONE like he'd loved ( and, in a way, still loved ) Grimmjow.

First things first - the cheating.

Yeah, he'd cheated on Grimmjow, but that was not the full story. People usually said there was no excuse for cheating, and Nnoitra would agree. However, there was an explanation.

His relationship with Grimmjow had been falling apart. Not through arguments, but through a growing distance. Grimmjow had simply stopped giving him attention. Going without sex had been one thing ( Nnoitra had a huge sex drive, he needed to get laid ), but going without affection had been worse. Living with a person who didn't give him any attention what-so-ever. Feeling Grimmjow's love for him dwindle. Fade away. Nnoitra had ALWAYS feared that deep down, Grimmjow couldn't forgive him for what he'd done, and that that would eventually lead him to fall out of love with him. Having this fear unfold before him had been the worst. Nnoitra had never felt more unlovable than during those months. Yet, he'd held on. Hoping. That maybe Grimmjow would come back to him. Would look at him again. Touch him. Tell him: Sorry, I was going through something, but it's not your fault, I still love you. Of course, that didn't happen. It was just a fucking fantasy. OF COURSE Grimmjow would fall out of love with him. If he ever even loved him in the first place. Maybe their whole relationship was just built on Grimmjow trying to somehow cope with the trauma Nnoitra had caused him. Like a fucked up sort of Stockholm syndrome.

When Nnoitra had gotten a text from his ex, Kyota, asking to meet up, Nnoitra had hesitated. Even meeting up with Kyota while he was dating Grimmjow had felt wrong, but - in the end, he'd just NEEDED to see a friendly face. When he'd met up with Kyota at the bar, he hadn't had any plans of going to bed with him. Cheating on Grimmjow with Kyota hadn't been the plan.

But, when faced with Kyota's kindness, and the straight-forward invitation for a good fuck? Nnoitra hadn't resisted. He'd known he was throwing everything he had with Grimmjow away, and he'd chosen that. Just to feel close to someone. Just to feel good, for the first time in months.

He'd never told Grimmjow about the cheating, but maybe the other had figured it out somehow. In any case, one night Nnoitra had come home from work - Grimmjow had been gone. No goodbye. Nothing.

Why did his relationships always end with people leaving him without a word? Nnoitra had asked himself that many times. He wondered if the answer was that his partners were afraid of him. Maybe they were afraid he'd hurt them. Grimmjow had every reason to believe that, so Nnoitra couldn't blame him. Kyota too had left him like that. Without a word, even though Nnoitra had never hurt him. Perhaps he'd been able to see it anyway. See what kind of person Nnoitra was.

That was the story of how he'd cheated on Grimmjow. It wasn't like he'd excuse his behavior. However, he knew that if his relationship with Grimmjow had been good, he never would've done it.

Then, next - it was the matter of him thinking he was DESERVING of a relationship. This was simply not true. Nnoitra DIDN'T think he deserved to be loved. He knew he was a bad person. The worst kind of person, and there was no way he could ever hide that from anyone ( not that he even tried ). If someone managed to fall in love with him ( it could happen, since it had happened before ), they'd fall out of love with him when they saw his true self. There was only so long someone could lie to themselves about what Nnoitra was.

He didn't understand why this stranger thought he thought that he deserved a relationship. He WANTED one, sure. But that didn't mean he thought it was what he deserved. People usually didn't get what they deserved. They just got whatever random shit the universe decided for them. He'd pay for his sins when he died and ended up in hell. In the meantime... He sure would like to at least feel loved again. If only for a little bit.

Why was he so HUNG UP on Grimmjow? Why didn't he "just move on"? That sounded like some shit advice from someone who didn't understand. It was a cliche to say that, he supposed. He just didn't think that how things had turned out with Grimmjow could be classified as "stupid stuff". Stupid stuff was... When you dropped your phone, or someone gave you the wrong drink, or the bus didn't drop you off at your stop.

Having your fear of not being lovable confirmed by the person you loved the most in the entire world - that was not "stupid stuff". Moving past it wasn't that easy. ESPECIALLY when he hadn't gotten ANY sort of closure. It would've been easier if Grimmjow had broken up with him. Had told him everything straight out. Nnoitra would've preferred to hear him say: I DON'T LOVE YOU. Somehow, being left without a word was an even worse type of rejection.

It was unfair to say that he wasn't moving on at all, because - he was. He WAS looking ( though halfheartedly ) for a new partner. Be it a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Sure, he thought about Grimmjow from time to time, but not nearly as much as he had done a year ago. What was he supposed to do? Forget all about him? That wasn't happening. He'd known him since they were fifteen. How do you forget a person like that? He didn't even WANT to forget. He did want to move on though - or, to keep moving on. It was a process. It wasn't like stubbing your toe and "deciding to walk it off".

[ghosthan]

hello!! i saw that you made a lot of stuff for 1872 and i was wondering if 1872 tony is similar to regular comics tony?? i know mcu and comics tony are different and i want to get into 616, but if 1872 comics are more easy to read i might try those first! 😅

Hello, hello! 

Thank you for asking, and sorry it took me so long to get back to you! I wanted to think about it and put together a thoughtful response because I am desperately trying to convert MCU fans to 1872. Or comics fans who just haven’t gotten into 1872.

This post will contain some 1872 spoilers, but not the Big Spoiler that you probably already know about anyways. 

Anyways, let’s get into it. Yeehaw.

What is 1872? It’s Steve/Tony in the wild west.

1872 comics are very easy to read, very short, and you need absolutely no prior knowledge to get into them; I highly recommend these as a start point for MCU fans who are curious about dipping their toes into some of the other Steve/Tony universes. And 1872 is, indeed, a Steve/Tony universe. It’s really gay, (and dramatic.) Uh. So gay, in fact, that one of the comic artists who drew pages even occasionally shares Steve/Tony shipping memes. So.

Marvel 1872 is a four issue series released as a part of the Secret Wars event; you really do not need to know anything about this to enjoy 1872, because it is a self-contained alternate universe in a “pocket dimension”, meaning it’s totally separate from the 616 cannon but technically exists in the expanse of the multiverse!

Here’s the summary:

In the Battleworld zone of 1872, Sheriff Steve Rogers faces corruption and fear in the boom town of Timely. Can Anthony Stark pull Rogers' fat from the fire? Probably not, since the only thing he seems capable of pulling is a cork from a bottle. Things in Timely are bad, and getting worse — and when a stranger arrives in town, Timely will be changed forever.

Now, to compare “regular comics Tony”, or 616 Tony, with 1872 Tony.

The main difference? 616 Tony wears this sexy little under suit (or nothing) under his armor, like this:

And 1872 Tony wears dirty, stinky one-piece pajamas under his armor (not sexy):

He’s so gross, he’s a mess. I love him. You’ll love him, too. 

No, okay. Being serious.

 616!Tony’s backstory is a lot more complicated just due to how long the character has existed, and the decades of cannon (much of it self-contradictory at points.) Like MCU Tony, 616 Tony used to manufacture weapons, experiences something life-changing, and becomes who he is as a result of this as a catalyst. 616 Tony’s backstory has been rebooted a few times, and I’m definitely not the definitive source on Iron Man lore compared to people who have read all of his comics, but I’ll try to touch on the basics.

Originally, 616 Tony Stark is shaped by his experience in the Vietnam War. This is later rebooted and changed to war in the middle East (we see this in the MCU when Tony is held captive in Afghanistan.) In both circumstances, he is taken captive after being in the air for war technology, and then he creates the suit to save his own life (losing a beloved mentor in the process, the guilt of which stays with him after.)

Tales of Suspense #39

In 1872, Tony’s formative event is the Civil War in some ways, but in other ways, this is only half of it, because this is not the event which causes him to build armor or set him onto his “become a better person” trajectory, like in the other comics. Mainly, the Civil War functions to cause Tony to stop weapons manufacturing and throw his life away down a bottle.

We get a flashback of Tony in the year 1862 with his female companion, picnicking and about to watch a battle, (rich people from the North did this in real life. If you’re interested, read more here!) We don’t get much of his past, but we discover that he is a rifle manufacturer and that he has created something called the ‘Stark Repeating Rifle’, and it seems that he has done so with the hope of encouraging a cease-fire, more than a slaughter.

Well. We don’t always get what we ask for.

Tony vows to actually never touch a weapon ever again, and this personal oath means so much to him that he gets creative at times during 1872 when he’s being chased by baddies:

Witnessing the extreme bloodshed of the Civil War, and feeling responsible for a huge amount of deaths, Tony turns to drinking, (and presumably moves to the west to escape the Pain of his Past, but this is not shown explicitly on panel; I have assumed, though, that Tony’s weapons manufacturing company was in the East, probably Boston or New York, since he comes from family money and because the American West was still “young” at this point in time so it would be unlikely that an established business would be supplying a war from lawless territory with little infrastructure.)

In 616, it’s worth noting that Tony builds the armor to save himself from danger in a war scenario; this is not the case in 1872, things unfold a bit differently. The Civil War certainly sets in motion the chain of events that eventually lead to the creation of Tony’s armor, but he’s not in physical danger or physically traumatized by the war in this verse as he is in other verses, and 616 Tony seems to have a stronger sense of duty than 1872 Tony, but this might be a complication of the depression/apathy related to the alcoholism.

What I mean by this is that both iterations of Tony struggle with alcoholism, but differently. Mainly, while 616 Tony has several alcohol themed arcs, and hits rock bottom with his alcoholism to cope with his trauma, he is sober more than he is drunk in the comics. His drinking almost kills him, and he almost loses everything because of the drink. It’s a source of enormous shame for him.

In fact, during this time in 616, I think Tony at his lowest reminds me a lot of 1872 Tony; 616 Tony is not an apathetic person and he holds himself accountable for an obscene amount of responsibility, but during what is referred to in fandom as The Second Drinking Arc, Tony basically gives up. This is the most “like” 1872 Tony, at least at the start of his arc. Rhodey takes over the mantle of Iron Man, and 616 Tony spirals, not caring whether he lives or dies, not hero-ing certainly.

We see both versions of Tony express similar sentiments, a certain cavalier attitude about their lives (and outright suicidality at other points) with nothing left but the drink.

Iron Man Vol. 1 #182

Compare with:

And you can certainly see a resemblance between this set of panels from IM v.1 #176 and in 1872:

Iron Man Vol. 1 #176 and Marvel 1872 #1

It’s a little different in 1872, where his drinking really is purely a result of his existing despair, and it doesn’t cause enormous problems for him, (minor problems, sure. He spends a lot of time drunkenly singing to Sheriff Rogers, or bothering him from the inside of a jail cell.) But this Tony lives at rock bottom, whereas 616 Tony only stays at rock bottom long enough to get his life back together (as many times as it takes.)

This Tony really doesn’t show any outward shame about his drinking; presumably, the people he knows in Timely have only ever known Tony as a drunk, and none of the people from his old life are here to see him like this. 

This is a Tony who has essentially given up on himself and has moved out West to hide from his shame and his past; this is not a Tony who is scared of letting down his friends by drinking, or scared of shirking his “duty”, because this Tony has moved away from all of his friends and has given himself no duties. He’s a bit more apathetic, but I would argue that this is not because he inherently is a less moral version of Tony, but because in this verse, he was drinking for a very long time and circumstances unfolded differently so it took him a longer time to find that sense of purpose and responsibility (beyond just shutting down manufacturing guns,) which is awakened in him by Steve Rogers. 

616 Tony’s sobriety is a major part of his character, and a conscious choice that he makes, even during some lowest points:

Civil War: The Confession

He takes some amount of pride in his sobriety, and when he does fall off the wagon at times (or magic makes everyone think he did,) it absolutely tears him up because 616 Tony cares very, very much about his sobriety and does not like who he is when he’s drinking. We do not know if 1872 Tony’s father had been a drunk or not, but we know 616 Tony’s father was, and that the drink lead to him treating Tony abusively.

Iron Man Vol. 1 #285 

Avengers Disassembled #1 (This was when ~magic~ made Tony drunk and it wrecked him breaking sobriety without ever having actually drank. Oof.)

616 Tony’s long struggle with alcoholism is a major part of his character and he has had relapses over the years and throughout the reboots, but in general, he does not drink.

1872 Tony starts drinking in 1862 and doesn’t stop until the last pages of the story, so in terms of the cannon we have for him, he is a current drunk, rather than a former drunk. This isn’t to say he doesn’t stop; but since it’s in the last page or so, it sets the reader up to imagine his sober future, rather than exploring his sobriety as 616 does. (Calling all fanfic writers!)

Anyways, both Tony’s are excellent. Both are damaged and traumatized, both are Iron Man in their own ways, both (eventually) find sobriety, both have some cute, quippy dialogue (though 616 Tony tends to be more reserved/polite for sure, in general). 

The last thing I’ll point out, is that both Tonys’ narratives are intertwined with and influenced by their respective Steve Rogers. I’m not saying soulmates but I’m saying soulmates.

Anyways. Sorry this post got super long, and I apologize if any of it is confusing or redundant, I am not functioning at my highest capacity currently. Please read 1872. Let it rock your world. Create & consume the fanworks, I would love to see a boom of 1872 content (more than the fics and art I keep making!) And my ask-box is always open!

[thewriterowl]

How about some truly, truly angst headcanons about Luke?

Because angst Luke is the best Luke

Oh no, Luke-angst. I can give you the Luke-angst. Now some of this is mine, some of this is cannon and some of this is EU and possible, and i heard from @elloitselmo it's major oof

So, this is more cannon...but have you considered how Luke has pretty much witnessed the death of pretty much everyone he cares about? Though just born, he saw his mother die. He saw the remains of his aunt and uncle and knew they did not have a good death. He saw Obi-Wan die. He saw Biggs die. Saw his beloved Tauntaun die. He saw Dak, his comrade in siege of Hoth, die. He probably made a lot more friends in the rebellion he saw die. He was a leader in the rebellion and he saw his followers die. He saw Yoda die. He saw his father die.

He was bullied. Called names. Probably beat up. Had very little friends.

Owen refused to let Luke feel fully like family (for his own fear of him ending up like his father) so he was kept at arm's length from the one man who could've been a close father-figure for 19-years of his life.

Tatooine was apparently pretty miserable to him and he was very unhappy and lonely there.

He's been kidnapped a few times. Potentially more than what we know of.

Has clearly been tortured.

He tried to kill himself when he found out Darth Vader was his father.

His father has been responsible for horrendous atrocities and inhumane actions. He was nearly killed by said father. His hand was cut off by said father when the man KNEW Luke was his son. Very likely haunted Luke as well as hunted him after they parted.

Luke had, consciously or unconsciously, put a lot of his self-worth into his unknown father--wanting to know more of him and try to be like this image he made up in his head of what he figured his father would be. A lot of his view of himself as a person was greatly shattered after the revelation.

Apparently held this secret and clear depression to himself for three years. No one, not even his trusted friends, knew what he was dealing with. No force ghost came to him either.

Was very likely badly wounded after Palpatine but still dragged his massive, dying father a distances to help save him. Then had to watch him die, then had to be alone with his body in a ship, then had to burn and mourn him alone.

Is likely he suffers from the trauma, physical and mental, from his time in the rebellion and facing the Emperor.

Did not stop giving himself to the galaxy, even when he was exhausted and burnt-out. Probably never took a break either.

In the EU, he tried to save thousands of people...they died. He sort of pushed himself with all of them, feeling them die, probably experiencing their death, so they wouldn't be alone. Blames himself despite the fact he didn't have anything to do with it.

Would not be surprise if he does this often.

Do not see himself as a hero. Probably sees himself as a monster. Is probably viewed as a god to many, which is something that disturbs him and makes him ill.

In the EU, he was called the Emperor by Imps since he killed the other and that made him seem the rightful heir (which is probably worse than being seen as a god, being compared to Palpatine)

Has probably suffered many mental breakdowns on his own and has never told anyone.

Had to deal with a huge surge go power in his body over a short time of like, five years. that was probably incredibly uncomfortable.

Is probably terrified of going Dark and being like his father. Even though he already face that choice and still came out good, he probably feels that because he lost his temper and hurt his father he wasn't good or in the Light as much as he would hope to be in.

Probably has an unhealthy relationship with food. And sleep. not sure if he gets much of either.

Is so empathetic he probably feels a lot of pan from other people all the time.

Someone has tried to kill him because of being Vader's child. Very possible others have made him a scapegoat for their hatred of Vader, even though Luke is seen as the one who brought down the Emperor and Vader.

He had to tell Leia that, hey Vader, the guy who ruined so much of your life, the guy who literally held you and made you watch as your planet was killed?? That's your dad. He probably had to provide a lot of support for her with that horrible news.

Probably seen as his father's son, and Leia as her mother's daughter, and is compared to him a lot despite him being so much more like Padme. Another reason he has a lot of issues because apparently no one sees any good in him that his mother had.

The sequels. Nuff said.

Has no self-worth, probably no self-love. Berates himself constantly. Probably feels pretty unloveable.

Probably takes a lot of missions that could end in his death but he isn't bothered cause he isn't worth much and he needs to save people.

So much of this isn't a personal head cannon but stuff that has probably happened to him.

And hey, he still manages to be the kindest man with the brightest smile for anyone!

Haha, everything hurts.

[ryoryeonggu]

Okay, I’ve just finished 13 reasons why in one day. Despite everything people else have to say, I love it ♥♥♥  I love it so much ♥♥♥ I had planned to finish it as soon as possible, but when it’s truly over, my heart’s really crushing because from now on, I have to let it go forever :( I will miss this show so much along with all the characters (even those ones I once hated so much like Bryce and Monty)

Let me talk about a few thing I love and also leave me heartbroken in this season:

First of all, Clay. Ofc, people tend to say he’s annoying, but I really love him, knowing all of his flaws and his mistakes. He’s sometimes aggressive, he’s sometimes too controlling and overreacting and has hero complex. He’s an idiot. But all I have seen is a boy who cares too much about the others and it finally breaks and destroys him. He always is the one who protects, the one taking care of others, so when of course, he also had his own problems, he had his own issues, so people tended to not likely notice that or help him like the way he helped them because he’s supposed to be strong one, and he also wanted to be strong for his friends so he rarely let it out. And don’t forget he’s having very serious mental illness (I don’t believe that’s only depression and anxiety, it could be also schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder, since he has illusion of Hannah way before Monty and Bryce “ghosts” tortured him). And not only his friends and his family hardly recognized his issues, a lot of people in fandom kinda are ignoring it as well. Despite how he acted or what he had done was right or wrong, he had tried and done a lot of people, like not for him, a lot of people would have ended up dead or worse. Because of Clay and his courage, Tyler would have become a school shooter and suicide, the rape case of Hannah and Jessica would have remained in silence, Justin would never have found a home and been happy and had a chance to become a better person, Alex would have killed himself again out of guilt… and the most important thing, they wouldn’t been friends and stayed strong together like the ending. So, to me, Clay is still the greatest friend that no one could ever be and I adore him with all my heart. And I can see myself in him: a kid with anxiety and depression that love living with fantasies, trying so hard to be strong, to be a good person and a good friend, and thinking that I could never love anyone and no one could ever love me back.

Then Alex. My favorite of my favorite character in this show. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything good happened to him in this season. But turns out, it was even so much better that what I had been imagining. He’s still sad and depressing, he still thought low of himself and blamed himself for everything, thought he was not good enough. But he found love, and was happy. And they really make him BI! Like, I was hoping it but I never thought they would really do it. And he kissed three guys, and I ship it all lol.

About Zalex, honestly, I never really shipped it until season 4 came out. From what I saw, I believe Alex did have real feelings for Zach and this kiss really meant something, for both of them. The way Zach didn’t pull away from the kiss, the way he asked Winston that if he really was in love with Alex or what he saw in him (like a jealous idiot), the way he corrected Alex right away (in front of Alex’s BOYFRIEND lol) that that kiss wasn’t a disaster at all, his sad look watching Alex and Charlie holding hands, yeah, not mention “why are you with me but not with Charlie?”. So from all of that, I don’t think that feeling was only one-sided. But like everything else happened in Zach’s life, when his life got shit, especially when it came to love, Zach tended to be a coward and did everything to hide from his own feeling and his complicated situation. Like in this season, the way he used alcohols and casually having sex – not giving a shit about anything like the way to hide from his problems, instead of actually dealing with the problems. Like he lose Hannah because of it. And now he also lost the chance to be with Alex. I think in the end, he did realize that he had feelings with Alex too, but it was way too late. And I also believe that Alex will always love him, like the way he also love Charlie. You can love both, if you believe or not.

A lot of people say that if Alex had been there and had helped Zach like the Zach had done to him in season 2, Zalex could have been ended up with each other and had been endgame. But, no, I don’t think it will. Alex chose to be with Charlie is the best and realistic choice, because Charlie was good for him. Yeah, Zach was depressed with trauma, in the deepest ship of his life and he needed helps, ofc, but so did Alex. Don’t forget Alex in this season wasn’t in the better situation to help anyone, he murdered someone and blamed himself so much for everything was happening, and he was also really self-loathing like Zach was. So he needed someone, like Charlie, someone’s positive, confident and had healthy energy, someone who made him feel he was loved, he was taken care of, and someone would be able to remind him everyday that he’s worth being loved and deserved all the happiness in the world. Not a mirror to see how fucked up and destructive he was like Zach. All Alex’s life problems was trying to be tough, to be man up to be able to take care of and be with a girl; and with Charlie, he didn’t have to do it anymore. He was safe, he was loved, and he was happy. Alex loved Zach, but sometimes, love isn’t the answer. Sometimes you have to choose what’s good for you, so despite it wasn’t built up as deep as Zalex, the relationship between Alex and Charlie was still one of the best relationships in the show and I love it. Alex and Zach clearly was in love with each other, but they just miss the right time and now it’s only regrets. And moreover, even also in the messy shit of his own head, except the coach and sometimes Charlie, Alex was the only one who tried to help Zach and never gave up on him. In fact, those words from Alex about how he helped him and made him feel safe was one of the major effects that brought Zach back to life. 

The same goes with Winston and Alex, another “what we could have been but it was too late”, they just met in the wrong time and the wrong circumstance then lost each other forever. But I do believe that their feelings was genuine, even it’s only for some short of time (at least from Winston, since he dropped his revenge which he was obsessed with the entire time all just for Alex, how sweet).

And Justin!!! OMG Justin!!! My heart really ached so much with all the scenes he’s in hospital. Not only because Clay lost a brother, another important person in his life, their group lost a very good friend, but also the most hurting part, that he could have gone to the college, he could have had a future, he could finally have had a good life, but then it was completely wrecked in one go (especially right in the moment he was finally happy and had everything that he had ever wanted). I almost cried when he said he’s scared (we should have known since the show dropped a number of time Justin kept saying he wanted to be live, how fucked up and depressing it is) and wanted Clay to hold his hand. Even Clay acting like a dick and pushing Justin away a lot, the bromance between them was still the best and the most memorable one (and now thinking about it only wanted me to punch my chest so hard and cried). Life is fucking not fair and he definitely deserves so much better.

And finally Ani. She actually grew on me in this season since the last season she annoyed me so much. I like how she finally admitted that she was wrong when he slept with Bryce and finally apologized to Jessica about it (which really made it up to the whole shitty storyline of her in the previous season). I love how Clay and her finally broke up and admitted to each other that they were not fit and weren’t ready to be in any relationship (f**k thanks god, finally, because they was never fit, like at all). And I also like the way she always got Jessica’s back and was there for her everytime (I even almost ship them with the scene Ani asked Jess to go to Prom with her, it’s so adorable ♥♥♥)

And I love Tony, I love Tyler, I love Jess... basically I love everyone ♥ ♥ ♥

Okay “my thumbs got tired”. I would probably write another essay about what I love about this series, someday, probably.

[raguna-blade]

So this just occurred to me to think about but shared symbols in the persona series. I’m sure there are others that I miss, especially relevant to the first two games, and right now i’m looking at just the one, but there should be SOME right?

And in this case the one i’m thinking about is glasses. So in persona 4, the glasses the characters wear are used specifically to be able to see through the fog in the other world, that is to be able to better navigate the world that is hidden and obscured right?

Heck, a critical scene in the game shows the absurd difference wearing them makes early on and Narukami hot flinging them away in the final scene is an indication of him more or less coming to fully understand the situation and having “true” sight of what’s going on around him. Which is cool!

But what’s interesting is that none of the Investigation team actually wear glasses in their day to day which is fine really. It’s as much a design thing as a story beat but what i’m getting at is going into persona 5 then, there can be this expectation that if one is wearing glasses they have a degree of special insight/ability to see things as they really are right? Not strictly, but as part of the same story family it’s not like those symbols disappear as a thing in play strictly, they just wouldn’t be emphasized because that’s not really the theme here.

So it’s interesting to me then that every single character who wears glasses normally in this game (with normal including their metaverse selves should they have one) demonstrably has special insight into the world or events going on, or else just general insight. Literally all of them, i’m not joking.

We’ll go in order here, Phantom Thieves>Allies>Foes>Maruki, and there’s probably more i could go into here but for the moment it’s kinda idle thoughts so forgive that.

Protag: So the thing to note is that his glasses are fake right so that may off the bat give you the vibe that this is wrong but well, that literally doesn’t matter for our purposes here. That Protag definitely has special insight into the world and events however is inarguable. Having been cast out of the standard safety net of society he gets a front row seat to a lot of weird things that aren’t immediately obvious. He see’s through the masks of all of the targets to some greater or lesser degree (admittedly not unique to him, but the thieves as a whole), get’s to understand to workings of the world and how it specifically fails outcasts, has inside knowledge on several of the major players (Shido, Maruki and Akechi most notably) that isn’t immediately obvious that they themselves aren’t aware of all the time, and as seen through the Confidants specifically he’s a remarkable judge of character and an expert and understanding people, something he does consistently.

That his glasses are fake actually, now that I think about it, is actually an interesting trait here. They exist solely to put him under the radar, which actually works so there’s that element of understanding appearances, but the fact that he really DOES NOT actually need the glasses to “see” the world accurately perhaps rolls back to his Designated Role as the Trickster (or at least one of them, We will get to Akechi in a second), and his ability to understand how the world works or specifically does not.

Akechi: Akechi is interesting here because in the real world he doesn’t wear glasses, as Prince!Crow he doesn’t either. So...Where does he wear glasses?

As Black Mask. And notably, they’re red tinted lenses, which actually lines up with another thing here. He does have true insight (and he’s sharp as hell we can’t possibly deny that) but he also, notably, has a crazy distorted view of things. As was kinda pointed out during his whole mental break down in the boat, he didn’t have to do like...any of the fucked up things that he did to achieve his goals. Even if he still wanted to kill his dad or just ruin his life he didn’t have to do it the way he did. He’s, one, literally seeing red, but two for all that his vision is keen it’s also more than a little distorted.

But also, as the other Trickster, the more destructive one at that, he also has keen understanding of the world and how it works, breaks down, and utterly screws over those who fall outside of it. Indeed, his insight is miles better than Our protags given he was more or less kicked out of the system from the get go due to family matters and had to actively claw his way back into the system in the first place. But of course, going back to his red lenses, as opposed to Akira who more or less rejects the system and wants to see it broken down one way or the other, Akechi desires to be part of it despite knowing intimately it’s copious failings. He has the vision and the ability to see but also fails to act on it (a thing he explicitly states more or less)

Futaba: Futaba is perhaps the most straightforward here. Does she have inside knowledge of events? Some, given her understanding of Cognitive Psience for sure, but her talents lean specifically in computer stuff, and the varying ways of getting information and such there. Of everyone here her glasses as symbol match up the cleanest with the Persona 4 use, in that her clear view vision is related to the world of cyberspace and how all of that works. That they carry over into her Rebellion outfit likely has to do with her understanding of cognitive psience as well, which while (relatively) basic is still far better than pretty much everyone else in the cast save 1 or maybe 2. It’s worth pointing out that, if I recall things correctly, she basically was the one who put together that entire escape plan for Joker to not get hot shot in the face.

Sumire: Now here’s a fun one! She doesn’t get her glasses until the very very end of the game, when she stops being Kasumi and starts being herself. Another straightforward one in two ways. One, she is able to actually accurately percieve herself as herself indicating clear and unobstructed vision for her self. Easy peasey, but also, of the group she’s the one who most understands what Maruki is doing and why. Despite having issues with his end game, she also makes it abundantly clear that if it weren’t for what he did she probably would have killed herself. It’s an understanding that the others have a little of, but they also don’t have quite as deeply for as long as it went on with her.

Ohya: Straightforward again. She’s an investigative reporter, and a damn good one. She was on her way to cracking something with Madarame, before the story even began she and her partner had some dirt on Shido (which seems on one hand easy cause Shido is kinda sloppy, but also considering the range of influence he has even getting a bit is wild), knows Kaneshiro as a mafia boss despite him not really being arrested, and yeah she just get’s it. She’s sharp.

It’s also noticeable that her glasses are also distorted, in that they’re sunglasses.That’s not “clear” vision since they shift colors. Obviously, she’s going to see things a bit off, and in her case it’s less general insight and more specific to her present circumstances. Relating to sunglasses, at the start of confidant she’s stuck working entertainment stuff which she hates and isn’t fond of, but she doesn’t feel she has other options or the ability to follow her true passions in journalism. And she’s not...really wrong actually. She does have a correct view of the situation, because if she doesn’t stick to what’s what, she’s going to lose her job, but at the same time the degree of resignation is well also wrong, as she get’s into pretty quickly. She still has options, but at the moment she couldn’t really see em.

That they are amber sunglasses and she’s seemingly a depressed drunk i’m sure has no relation.

Sojiro: Sojiro is straightforward really. He understands the world, how it works, how it breaks down, how various things look, has a keen insight into people and events in general, and has insight on the main villain specifically. He’s not exactly trying to upset things no, but he’s made the system work for him to have a peaceful life with his daughter and ward, which is perhaps super impressive given how absolutely obnoxiously petty Shido is.

Kunikazu Okumura: Very simple, he knows exactly who’s involved with the conspiracy. Also tied with that, as he’s also a member of the conspiracy, is a knowledge of how the world as it is works, for better or worse. Like...It’s fucked up, but unambiguously everything he does do actually does advance his goals. As much as it hurt people, as much as it hurt his daughter, it worked. It’s awful, but it worked.

Shido: So...Shido is interesting. He’s especially interesting in comparison to the last glasses boy Maruki, but Shido is interesting especially because well...

Shido is right? Like, his view of the world as it is is kind of unambiguously correct. People in power have the ability to manipulate and reshape the world as they please, avoid the consequences of their actions, the world really is going to shit, and he has the ability to save whoever he wants, and he has connections and power that would allow him to basically reshape things as he see’s fit.

He’s unambiguously correct in this. He understands the world and the systems at play intimately. He understands the people he works with Intimately, to the extent that not only are their cognitive forms almost indistinguishable from absolutely normal humans, but they behave in ways that don’t even necessarily benefit him even in their assigned roles in the cognitive space. I mean look at the Cleaner. He damn near let the phantom thieves walk if Yusuke would have agreed to be his personal artist, and the moment he got his ass whooped he just left.

It is, frankly, a terrifying amount of insight.

But again, his glasses are off color. His view of the situation is, in some way, incorrect, despite this insight. So where does he go wrong?

Once again, as seems to be the case with all of the tinted glasses now that i think about it, the issue lies in self reflection. His view of the outside world and such is correct, but where he makes his biggest mistake lies in both his view of himself as untouchable (he’s not) and that his method of salvation is at all the only one available, or even perhaps tenable.

The second point is perhaps the more critical one. Had Shido used his connections, insight and knowledge for good he could very easily change the situation that was leading to the disaster that he saw himself saving others from. He could make things better if he wanted to, if he thought to, but his failing is that he didn’t and perhaps couldn’t. And critically, his belief that he and his would be able to be safe on that ship for any period of time when the world around it has been utterly devastated is well...short sighted.

Maruki: Last but not least, Maruki. While his insight isn’t perhaps as broad about things, what he knows and what he talks about is...Well. It’s another version of Salvation for sure, but it’s one that the phantom thieves and I think the players have to argue with. Maruki says it extremely clear, it’s better for you to overcome your hardships yourself, it’s better to face your problems head on and fix them that way....But sometimes you can’t. Sometimes you really just cannot do it, you cannot surmount the challenge no matter how much you may need or want to, sometimes you’re just going to be broken and hurt and in incalculable pain and that’s extremely fucked up.And if that’s the case, if that’s how the world is, shouldn’t it change? If the system is broken, if the way the world is is wrong, shouldn’t it be changed?

It’s not unlike the phantom thieves, although the direction and end goal are different.

[modestybae]

I wrote a recent post that made what I thought was a simple, uncontroversial point about early marriage as a solution for avoiding zina and all kinds of concomitant sins and social ills.

I've been absolutely *shocked* at the kinds of opposing statements some people have made, at the leaps of logic, at the vehemence of some people's disagreements with this fairly straightforward point.

Let's break this issue down a bit more, as there seems to be a need.

My initial claim: We as Muslim parents should try (as a collective) to facilitate marriage for young Muslim men and women so that they have less of a need/ excuse to go behind parents' backs and hook up/ date/ have a boyfriend or girlfriend/ watch porn.

Less haram stuff, more halal stuff.

Seems like a no-brainer. Or so I thought!

Some people's reactions:

-No, they should masturbate instead of getting married early.

This is one of the most shocking things I've ever heard a fellow Muslim say with a straight face. *Multiple* people have commented recommending masturbation while shooting down marriage as a solution for young adults.

A brother: "just have a wank, bro."

A sister: young men "should lower their gaze and are permitted by some scholars to relieve themselves (masturbate) as long as it doesn't become a habit. It's that simple."

Really? That simple, huh?

How have we come to this??

Anyway, let's continue.

-No, because divorce is worse than zina. Just "try getting divorced in today's society!"

-No, because "marriage doesn't prevent zina."

-No, because "marriage is not only for fulfilling sexual desires."

-No, because easy come easy go. Anything that comes too easily "won't be appreciated." You "can't have everything on a silver platter."

-No, because what about the children?

-No, because late-teen or college students are not emotionally mature and have no communication skills.

-No, because they first need to be settled and have built something to prove their competence.

-No, this solution is "too simple and idealistic."

-No, because "marriage steals childhood." (???)

-No, because who is going to provide?

-No, because you can't "deflect to earlier Islamic cultural practices" that are only "idealistic, simplistic, and unrealistic" for our modern times. Plus, "romanticized ideals from earlier times is not going to solve the problem of youth."

-No, because you just need self control and you need to learn to "regulate your behavior."

-No, because this "supports the trend of ghosting" and teaches people to "walk away from relationships."

-No, because people in their early 20's don't really know themselves and might change.

-No, we should instead "teach our kids to self-soothe as babies and teach them delayed gratification. Rape is a classic example of what happens when people don't have patience and want instant gratification. Marital rape included."

-No, because sexual urges "are actually quite easy for a lot of people to control!" And "if you can't stop yourself from having sex or you can't control your sexual desires, then there is something inherently wrong with your ability to self regulate your behavior."

-No, because marriage solves nothing. "Sexually deviant people will continue to be sexually deviant whilst married."

-No, because "it's difficult and problematic to compare today's society to the society of the Sahaba and the Prophet SAW."

-No, because "young girls shouldn't be groomed for marriage from the age of 12 just because horny testosterone plagued boys can't control themselves." And also, I "don't want my daughter's youth cut short just to save a young boy who can't control his sexual desires just because he has more testosterone than her."

-No. "Sex isn't everything!"

This sums up the majority of the reasons people brought up to disagree.

It would make this already-long post much too long to respond to each point individually, but here is my general reaction:

1. Marriage, Sex, and Zina:

Marriage is, in fact, one of the strongest and most primary ways to avoid zina. Yes. This is true. I cannot understand how some people try to deny this basic fact.

There are certainly some people who cheat even though they are married. I know this happens. Yet these outliers still do not invalidate the institution of marriage as a way that *on the whole* protects one from falling into zina. Islam encourages marriage as the default for most human beings, as this is more virtuous and safeguards against a plethora of كبائر, grave sins.

2. Masturbation:

How is masturbation a serious solution that some people prefer over marriage?? I am still astounded.

I think people may be confusing the idea that masturbation is preferable to zina, and make the blunder of asserting that masturbation must also therefore be preferable to getting married early. This is false. Masturbation and zina are both sins. There are degrees of sins, and zina has a hadd and is a graver sin than masturbation (which is ALSO still a sin). Getting married early is not a sin.

3. Marriage and Babies:

When I talk about early marriage for young adults (age range of 17-22), that doesn't mean I'm also recommending that they start having children immediately. You can be married and wait for several years before having kids. We all know this is very possible, right? It is a leap in logic to assume that marriage = instant parenthood.

4. Maturity, Readiness, and Preparation for Marriage:

Recommending early marriage does not preclude recommending proper childrearing (including teaching kids early on delayed gratification, patience, self-control, taqwa of Allah, healthy boundaries, etc) or proper marital training, anger management, healthy communication, emotional and psychosocial skills. All of these aspects are important. But they can all work together, no?

It is a leap in logic to assume that we have to choose between marrying as a young adult and emotional maturity.

When I recommend marriage for 17-22 age range, I am in no way trying to say marriage is a joke or a light matter to be played around with. It can be done in this age range with all due seriousness and responsibility and readiness.

5. Severity of Zina:

Zina is classed as a كبيرة , a major sin. Allah commands us clearly and severely not only to avoid falling into zina, but actually to avoid COMING NEAR zina.

وَلَا تَقْرَبُواْ ٱلزِّنَىٰٓ ۖ إِنَّهُۥ كَانَ فَٰحِشَةً وَسَآءَ سَبِيلًا.

"Do not go near adultery. It is truly a shameful deed and an evil way." (Surat Al-Isra', 32)

There are different types of zina, as we know from the hadith: zina of the eyes, zina of the hands, zina of the feet.

The reality is that zina comes with a whole host of concomitant sins. It doesn't just happen by itself. There are precursors to zina. It comes with خلوة (khalwa, blameworthy seclusion), تبرج (tabarruj, displaying feminine beauty), إختلاط (ikhtilat, inter-gender casual mixing), flirting, sexting, porn, masturbation.

And people get addicted. Some youths have serious porn addictions, others are addicted to masturbation, while others are addicted to the haram relationships they're in. They can't get out.

Knowing that "I can get married soon; I don't have to wait another whole decade before I am allowed a halal outlet" really helps young people. It gives hope. There's light at the end of the tunnel for them.

Making marriage difficult to attain is one way to shut the door in their faces, and so, in despair and spurred on by a gleeful Shaytan, they just shrug and masturbate/ watch porn/ hook up.

6. Libido: Girls vs Guys:

Some people are under the mistaken impression that early marriage serves only men. They seem to think that teenage girls and young women have little to no sexual urges and only teenage boys have those. This is false.

Many girls (starting from the onset of puberty and through young adulthood) have high libidos and strong sexual desires. Marrying earlier would tremendously help these girls and satisfy their desires and protect them from falling into sins. Marriage is NOT just a tool to help "horny testosterone plagued boys" at the expense of poor abused girls.

I know that anecdotal evidence may not count, but for what it's worth: I personally have known and worked with many girls and young women who have either skirted the territory of zina or fallen headfirst into it.

One Muslim girl who was a sophomore in high school (15 years old) joined the drama club just to meet after school with a non-Muslim male classmate so they could make out without her parents finding out.

One Muslim girl I know went to college deliberately far from her parents with the express purpose of going to parties and having sex. She "experimented" sexually with both men and women. She became so promiscuous that even her non-Muslim friends worried about her.

One young Muslim girl started secretly texting online with a non-Muslim American guy. She was 14 and he was 19. Now she's 21 and he's 26, still talking daily. She occassionally flies to meet him in a different state under the guise of visiting her older married siblings so that her parents don't find out. She goes out with him to eat, smoke weed, and chill. She knows that zina is a very bad sin, so she hasn't had sex with him, but she takes off her hijab when she's with him and wears crop tops that show her midsection and show off the bellybutton ring she secretly got.

Please open your eyes and see the reality of the young Muslim men and women raised in this secular society surrounded by promiscuity and hypersexuality.

Please don't deceive yourself or others regarding the enormity of kaba'ir like zina and masturbation. Don't minimize the gravity of these destroyers.

Please help Muslim youth.

- Umm Khalid

[fmdtaeyong]

restructuring update prompts

a prologue to officially re-introducing ash kwon // aka i decided to re-do this because i changed some parts of ash’s backstory and established career claims after i did this the first time and half of this wasn’t really true anymore rip

also there’s nowhere for me to put this in the answers anymore so i’ll put it here: circles is ash’s best song

content warning: mentions of alcohol abuse and drug use / abuse, but none of it is in-depth

assuming your muse has changed in some way, be it internally or as a result of a change of the external factors around them, how is your muse different?

for the most part, ash’s general personality and character has stayed the same. he’s the same angsty, creative, romantic dude at heart, but he’s a little more jaded in some ways.

ash moved around before he became a trainee now. he lived in san francisco, sydney, and seattle. when he lived in sydney, it was just him and his mom and he grew really close to her during that time. he doesn’t really feel like he has a home at all since seoul is the longest he’s ever lived somewhere, but he’s less happy so that’s not home either.

ash is a better technical singer now ig, being a main vocal. he focused more on singing as a trainee now instead of dancing. his ankle injury in 2018 was a little more serious now, which is why he doesn’t dance much in his solo music anymore. it’s also why he’s less interested in dance, but, at the same time, i think it leaves more potential for him to re-develop some love for it again.

he’s also now the maknae, although it’s a common joke in the fandom that he doesn’t act like it. he debuted a year and three months younger than before and he feels a lot more beholden to the industry now. has even less of an idea of what he’d be outside of it at this point, even though he got closer to actually leaving it than previous ash ever did.

he’s still had a couple of minor attitude controversies in titan’s early days caused by cultural differences. he was in public relationships in 2016 and 2019. neither were received well for their own reasons. his clubbing habit has gotten him into some controversy, though bc has never issued a statement on it beyond that one time they had to confirm the woman in a picture of him clubbing was his girlfriend because people were trying to accuse him of cheating. he has a passionate anti gallery and obsessive sasaengs that make his life a living hell.

since renewing his contract, ash has also had a few hiatuses of varying lengths due to his physical or mental health. this was true before with how he naturally developed, but it’s more tied together now as a result of generally poor physical and mental health he’s been experiencing for a few years now after his dating scandals and his ankle injury in 2018.

his image is more streamlined now too! he never really had the era of being pushed as a cleancut boyfriend that old ash had around 2018. he’s been marketed as a musical genius / sexy bad boy rockstar / artist with a tortured soul for as long as he’s been majorly pushed individually. this means he’s still very sexualized, but he hates his image a little less because he can be a little more himself as far as personal style and self-expression through tattoos and piercings goes.

what does your muse think of their company and their group?

this hasn’t really changed. ash has no real love for bc entertainment and wouldn’t really care if titan disbanded tomorrow. some of their music is good and some isn’t (though he considers less of it terrible without wolf and gorilla in the mix lmao), but he feels he’s mostly outgrown it as an artist. not that it’s below him, but it’s not what he connects with creatively, which is far more important to him now than it had been when he’d first debuted. he doesn’t hold ill will toward his groupmates unless he feels they’ve given him an individual reason to, and actually feels more guilty toward them for getting involved in scandals and taking hiatuses more than anything, but they’re also not his best friends. he views titan as a purely work endeavor and he doesn’t feel bad about the fact he got about as close as possible to leaving them without actually doing so that he could back during contract renewals. after all, they’d be fine without him. he’s a main vocal, but they’ve got two others. he’s a dancer, but they’ve got two others. he can write music, but titan has never been his main priority there and others are more than capable of doing it. he wants out of both the group and the company but is starkly aware of the fact that he did this to himself when he re-signed out of what he now perceives to have been impulse and greed.

since titan is the seniormost active group under bc, ash tries to be a good senior to his company juniors in general, but there are certainly more welcoming alternatives than him. he worries about them from a distance more than anything else.

is your muse on their first contract or their second? if they’ve renewed, what were their feelings around that at the time and what were their hopes for their second contract?

he’s on his second contract and he definitely regrets renewing. he hadn’t planned to renew for the longest time the lack of privacy and the public criticism and the hate he’d received were just too much, and he had plans that would require him to stop being an active idol, namely marrying his girlfriend of two and a half years at the time. their relationship wasn’t stable enough at the time for that to be a good idea and that was proven when they broke up shortly before final negotiations for contract renewals, but ash wanted an excuse to escape and the idea of a happy, normal life more than he wanted to be rational.

spite after the (very brief lmao) break up was part of his decision to renew, but bc entertainment also offered to support him as a songwriter and producer in addition to allowing him to regularly release solo music. he still really loved music and his first taste of promoting as a solo artist had been right before renewals as a proposal to sway him into re-signing, so he was swayed to sign on for seven more years. they followed through on their promises, but he struggles to weigh the recognition he’s earned as a solo artist and songwriter-producer against signing his life away again and doing a number on his physicla and mental health. most of his health issues and his hiatuses have happened during his second contract, as well as several behind-the-scenes situations that could have become scandals if they’d had any less luck, mostly stemming from ash drinking too much and his occasional recreational drug use, so he’s not sure bc even really feels the contract renewal was entirely worth it.

what are your muse’s goals and motivations?

if you asked ash this, he wouldn’t know what to answer. he doesn’t feel very motivated these days and pretty much feels like he only does anything because he’s contractually obligated to. making music as a form of expression has long been his main drive, and beyond that, the desire to make a mark on the world he can be remembered by through his music, but he often oscillates now between feeling like there’s not much more he can realistically achieve and the sense of hopelessness that he can try as hard as he wants, but his music’s never going to be what he’s defined by when he’s a public figure with an image.

he also feels a duty to make his parents proud. though i could argue that might be less now than it was in the previous iteration of ash, it’s still very much there. they let him come to seoul when he’d just turned thirteen to follow a dream that many never get to follow all the way through to the end and they believed in him fully. they express how proud they are of him when they do talk, but he doesn’t know that he believes them. he doesn’t feel that anything he’s done has been deserving of paying them back for everything they’ve given to him.

right now, he wants to be able to feel excited about his life and what he’s making again. he’s trying to better himself internally in regards to the way he views himself and his mental health, although he’s more prone to still taking steps backwards there than he was at this point previously. a lot of the ways ash has found to feel that excitement and creativity he wants (such as recreational drugs and excessive alcohol consumption and fleeting, sometimes toxic, relationships) do damage to his mental wellbeing, so it’s a balancing act at the moment.

what is one conflict, internal or external, that your muse is currently dealing with, has recently dealt with, or will need to deal with in the future?

i covered this partially with the last one, but one major conflict remains his internal conflict about his passion for music. this was very much where ash was before as well, but now that i’m really pushing songwriting and producing as his main career path, it presents a more equal professional and personal challenge for him.

more than having truly lost joy in making music, he’s burnt out. his latest album lovesick was emotionally exhausting because it was a partially rushed, deeply personal and vulnerable album exclusively based on an unhealthy relationship that had stretched its hold on him out over for almost six years, and then he went into making music that he couldn’t relate to at all and didn’t really fit his image all because bc thought it would sell well.

the burn out in his personal life has affected the burn out in his professional life he would be feeling anyway and made it ten times worse. it feels more hopeless because he doesn’t have much else going for him. in the past few months, his relationship with alcohol and drugs also reverted back to unhealthy after he was doing better with it for a while, not helped by a really bad stint with his mental health. all of this was at its worse in june before he went on hiatus, and in this universe, his behavior was more of a factor in his hiatus than him practically begging to leave the group because ash is more resigned to the fact that he chose to sign back on with bc and that that’s on him. instead, there was more of a push by his manager, who knew that ash was on the road to a major scandal if action wasn’t taken.

almost all of his conflicts are internal right now. he’s become successful enough that external factors other than the large umbrella of having to remain in titan can be negotiated, but he’s too tired to do so because of everything going on inside of him. there’s a lot of negative feelings going on inside of him, and he’s trying to deal with them one by one, but it’s hard to see the weight of them easing that way.

if your muse has established career claims, what are their thoughts on their career so far? if they do not, how do they feel about not having individual activities yet? what would they like to do in the future, if anything? if they don’t have ambitions for individual activities, explain why.

ash has been able to establish himself a little more as a songwriter and producer outside of his solo music. he wrote “universe” for titan in 2017, and after that, as promised, bc hooking him up with the right opportunities and connections to establish himself more. since then, in addition to his heavy involvement in his solo music (his 2020 album lovesick was entirely written/composed/produced by him alone), he’s worked on calypso’s “rollin’” in 2018, polaris’s “fake love” (a korean music awards song of the year!) and “the truth untold” in 2019, and lily’s “i’m so sick” this year. i’m planning on more being added there with these extra ecp and maybe some refunded since i think i’m going to drop some of his points claims to streamline his career better.

his canon discography creative claims reflect his progression as a songwriter, from very earnest and romantic to more sensual to very uhhh angsty and personal to developing a more polished and professional sound as he grew in experience as a songwriter and producer.

ash is praised for having several representative works as a songwriter that all speak to his individual style, and ash is happy with what he’s gotten to do since he does genuinely enjoy working as a songwriter and producer.

he’s planning to continue branching out in this direction, so look for quite a lot of ash dabbling in canon discographies in the future. before, i’d say ash’s primary push was solo music, but my plan for him is for songwriting and producing to be his main career path from now on with solo music as a close secondary.

[enduringsea]

( rules: you can usually tell a lot about a person by the kind of music they listen to! put your music on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, then tag 10 people! no skipping! ) / tagged by @yellowcrumpet​ ╭( ･ㅂ･)و )))

Thanks for the tag! I LOVE these things-- I don’t rlly have a playlist either though, just a mess of music files on a device I haven’t updated so I’ll be checking my YouTube history too lol. There’s a uhhh.... pattern to be found, mainly relating to Code Vein or other OCs.... which isn’t surprising ._. ;; I made it a separate post bc I knew this was going to get long and rambly with lyric snippets and crying about fictional characters, sorry :D

1. Repeat Until Death - Novo Amor don’t go / you’re half of me now / but i’m hardly stood proud / i said it, almost oh i’ve been low / but damn it i bet it don’t show / it was heaven a moment ago oh i can’t seem to let myself leave you / but i can’t breathe anymore This one gives me Loubeth vibes ok, partially bad end route ;-; While Elizabeth is a very strong person, her friends are the most prominent reason she tries to do anything at all & isn’t living day-to-day in a monotonous grind to survive without a solid purpose other than ‘help random ppl bc it’s the right thing to do’. If she loses them, it’d ruin her & hammers into her head how everything she’s ever done has been a failure. She suffered a major betrayal by her boss before the Collapse, she was unable to fully participate in proj. queen despite her incredible test results, she failed to defeat Cruz and take her blood during Operation Queenslayer, and if she fails to protect the people she’s finally found meaning with? She’d break down completely & destroy herself to save them. She’s always had some level of abandonment issues, and without her family around it’s so much worse, even if it isn’t the most obvious because she’s generally seen as very well put together-- I really can’t express how much it would hurt her to lose Louis, Yakumo, and the others. She’s just not one to show just how bad it can truly get for her mentally and emotionally-- she’s resilient as hell, she’s been through hell repeatedly and survived it all, so it’s easy for others to assume she’s fine all things considered. It makes her feel weak and ashamed of herself if she shows any level of vulnerability, so she doesn’t; she swallows it down and is afraid of disappointing those who look up to her as a fighter and friend-- of course, no one at Home Base would blame her for being vulnerable, they all have their moments, Bethy just sets herself to such a high standard it’s difficult for her to talk about her own suffering in spite of how well-versed she is in getting her thoughts and feelings across otherwise. Louis is the one most keen to how deeply she’s hurting, but he doesn’t understand just how deeply until she finally does fall apart. The final swell of the song and its desperate lyrics really relays the pain they both feel-- Louis too would not fare well if something happened to Elizabeth, because he blames himself she was even involved in Operation Queenslayer for a long time, I honestly did so bad in explaining coherently, this song just has so much emotion and hurt behind it adklfjdfdff </3

2. Looking Out For You - Joy Again this is a love song for a girl who will never know it’s about her she's beaming that smile / all the while i’m all tripped up on my own throat i guess there is no hope This song reminds me of Elizabeth & my friend’s character Takashi Fujioka, who gets-- vERY...FRIENDZONED, for lack of a better word, by Elizabeth in his story, it’s really summed up best as tragic (;﹏;) Before the Collapse they were hitting it off, then the Collapse happened, they were separated, he lost his sisters, Mido happened, he was experimented on + became a revenant, etc, etc; years have passed since then & she’s gotten her life together as much as one can in a world like Vein, but for Takashi it’s like no time has passed at all. Elizabeth is subtly older in appearance, she’s been working w Lou & Co. for a long time; Loubeth blatantly have a connection, & rather than bringing up his feelings + making it awkward bc he values their friendships, he just kinda. chokes on them & does his best to help out the team. It doesn’t help he can’t even be jealous bc Louis is a really solid friend to him too, IT’S JUST A MESS OF A SITUATION & the death of what could have been if things were different.

3. Closer - Teagan And Sara ( no lengthy explanation for this one thank goodness, I’ve just been watching BoJack Horseman again and I really like some of the songs they add in, I like listening to this one on loop when mindlessly coloring something )

4. Brutal - Olivia Rodrigo  all I did was try my best / this the kind of thanks I get? they say these are the golden years / but I wish I could disappear ego crush is so severe / god, it's brutal out here I have it on a playlist for Elizabeth somewhere, not all of it applies to her but it reflects some of her struggles she has both before & after the collapse. She’s-- always kind of been a mess while under immense pressure + has serious self image issues, this song hits that side of her well. She’s been held to humanly impossible standards by both herself and her family bc frankly? She can reach them, she’s NOT exactly human. She was born into her position as a hunter & intends to keep it for as long as she lives (like revenants, her kind is very much ‘either gets killed or lives 5ever), even if some days she really feels how heavy the burden can be. She didn’t have a normal childhood and she’s fine with it for the most part, but it alienates her from most of her peers-- she never got to date anyone, never had a close group of friends, never went to parties that weren’t formals, etc., while she feels a little childish about it, she does envy ‘normal’ and understands the pressure she’s lived under her entire life has caused damage-- she has been exploited for her abilities, there’s just not much she can do about it but to keep going, rlly.

5. Freaks - Surf Curse  don't kill me / just help me run away from everyone  i need a place to stay / where i can cover up my face don't cry / i am just a freak / i am just a freak UhhhHHH this song really makes me think of Oliver Collins :D;; thank TikTok for showing it to me. It makes me think of how scared he was, of both the world and the revenants who captured him. The song’s use of the word ‘parasites’ really makes me think of Revenants and the BOR parasites XD I’m hoping when I poke my video editor again, I can record some Oliver footage to make a short video to this song. Oliver deserves so much better, I wish you could save him, but that’s what AUs are for, hahah.... The second half of the lyrics make me think of the AU I have where he lives and has to grapple with the guilt of surviving and the things he did to other revenants to get by too.

6. All Eyes On Me - Bo Burnham you say the ocean’s rising / like i give a shit you say the whole world’s ending / honey it already did you’re not gonna slow it / heaven knows you tried got it? good / now get inside I haven’t seen the Netflix special yet but I’ve had this song on repeat since my move started. The lyrics hit too hard & resonate with my existential dread, covid exhaustion, and extreme burnout in my 20s, but bc I have Damage I can also relate it to CV ._. ‘you’re not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried. got it? good now get inside’ makes me think of--;; the bad end route again, and Elizabeth’s desperation to keep her found family together. It’s not like her to completely stop caring about an issue, but in the moment she realizes what’s being taken from her? She doesn’t want to save all of revenant-kind if it means she’s going to wind up alone all over again, her world is effectively over if she’s forced to be alone again. The MC frenzying means the only immediately identifiable hope she had of saving everyone else is gone, so why not just go home? If they’re all doomed, she wants to at least be together for a little while longer, it’s fine if they use her blood to survive & everyone else in the mist is out of luck, it’s soul-crushing bc I’ve never had her in a situation where she’s been this reckless, despondent/hopeless, and thinking irrationally where it’d impact more than herself-- especially when she’s normally goal-oriented, organized, meticulous, so on so forth: she’s not one to act without thinking something through first, but that last breath of light just got sucker-punched out of her. All she wants is home, comfort, and family, and ultimately in the bad end route she does manage to preserve their lives, maintain the mist, and supply blood beads, but her own condition leaves her on the throne-- it’s a mix of the bad, neutral, and true ending rlly ldkfjdf BUT YEAH enough rambling on that :D;; This song’s really good and touches a lot of different thoughts and ideas both in real life and my ocs, kind of embarrassing--;; thank u bo burnham for ruining me with this beautiful song

7. Yellow - Coldplay look at the stars / look how they shine for you / and everything you do your skin / oh yeah, your skin and bones / turn in to something beautiful do you know / for you I'd bleed myself dry Does this song make me think about JackEva? Yes. Yes it does. Star / night sky symbolism? Bam. Sappy lyrics about love and finding the person you’re with absolutely mesmerizing and worth dying for? BAM. If JackEva were capable of using their own blood to save each other, I can see it-- hJNGn they just care about each other so much, Jack cries for her even though they both knew that eventually one of them would succumb to their duty, and if the roles were reversed I can see Eva doing the same, I adore them beyond human language. On my CV RP blog, my Jack’s not shippable bc-- Eva, my friend even have them looking after his nephew (an oc--) at one point. I should seriously drop some headcanons down eventually....

8. Louder Than Thunder - The Devil Wears Prada  are we meant to be empty-handed? / i know i could, i could be better i don't think i deserve it / selflessness, find your way into my heart all stars could be brighter / all hearts could be warmer 

LMFAO throwback to my middle school playlist, I’m old-- I’ve applied this song to a lot of things back in the day, but I really connect it to Loubeth now, especially Louis. Lou & Bethy are both functional idiots who are too hard on themselves & have trouble recognizing their worth beyond what they can do for others. They’re trying to be better-- to make up for what they perceived wrongs they’ve done, but it’s hard, they don’t believe they’re worthy of the love and support the other gives, but they still yearn for that sense of security. After Louis’ memories are returned, he finally understands the guilt he’s felt since he became a revenant and it really skews his self-perception; he blames himself for so many things & Elizabeth, who has always been able to kill when necessary, sets it straight-- “It’s not your fault”, and it takes Louis some time to properly absorb that message. He thinks she’s just trying to comfort him, which she is tbh, but she’s not wrong: “It’s not your fault you couldn’t kill someone. It was never your job to kill anyone.” It’s up to people like her to do those sort of things-- Elizabeth may not have been present when Cruz frenzied, but if she had been? It would have been over before it started, that’s something she has regrets over, even if nothing could have been done since she was already on the field. Actually, she’s actually really quite angry that security failed to monitor Cruz properly and has a few select words for the ones there who could have actually done something before it got out of hand-- civilians and doctors are exempt from her shtlist bc they’re not meant to be killers (so don’t worry Artorias, she’s not ready to bite your head off!), but they had to have some kinda security detail rite o-q??? They’re probably hiding from her wrath-- BUT ANYWAY, she insists she’ll never blame Louis for not being able to do something as serious as killing another person. He was a normal human being who cared about his friend, not a failure, and he couldn’t have been expected to do something that shouldn’t have fallen on his shoulders in the first place. As many times as it takes, she’ll reaffirm that it wasn’t his fault, she’s not angry, he’s always done his best and her opinion of him hasn’t changed. He’s a good person and she loves him through all the hurt, though she doesn’t drop the word ‘love’ for a long time. It just-- takes Louis a while to accept she views him as someone worthy of the love and respect she has for him. It’s kind of ironic she’s so adamant on Louis not blaming himself considering she’s the one privately blaming herself for-- wow there’s too much to unpack, she feels guilty she was even born?? im so broken over these two. I love them and yet they SUFFER... 

9. What I’ve Done - Linkin Park i'll face myself / to cross out what i’ve become erase myself / and let go of what i’ve done today this ends / i'm forgiving what i’ve done

I have Louis Amamiya brainrot and I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thinks that this song fits him super well & it needs to become an AMV dsjfkldsfd. I’m a near life-long Linkin Park fan and this fits with Lou so well thematically. As much as I’ve gone on about Louis’ guilt, he does steel himself to keep going forward in spite of it and make things right, for everyone. Maybe it wasn’t really his fault, but at the end of the day his inability to kill Cruz in that moment left a disaster in its wake that got a countless number of people killed-- the MC included with Karen and Aurora. He doesn’t want to run away from the truth, doesn’t want to make excuses, he wants to take responsibility for it and he’ll work himself to death if it means things will be better-- it’s both admirable he’s got a strong resolve and VERY concerning with how willing he is to die for the cause, please don’t overdo it, Lou, you’ll break mine and Bethy’s hearts ._.;; It won’t always be easy, there are moments the grief gnaws at him, but in the end he does overcome it (and uh. as in the bad ending, we know he can actually do it this time). I know we can’t see everything, but I would have loved deeper character interactions, especially with Louis with an emphasis on grieving + forgiving himself properly-- but this song really is nice with the whole ‘I’m going to face my mistakes head on, forgive myself, and keep moving forward’. It’s what Louis deserves: self forgiveness and a damn break ‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )‧º·˚

10. Call of Silence - Hiroyuki Sawano you will know you're reborn tonight / must be rough but i’ll stay by your side even if my body's bleached to the bones / i don't want go through that ever again so cry no more / oh my beloved ngl idk if those are the correct lyrics, buuuuuuut....... im a weenie and am internally weeping abt loubeth after midnight, what else is new lmfao- i’ll at least try to be brief :D I also used to really like Attack on Titan when I was in high school, I dropped the anime years ago because I was waiting for s2 and never got back to it once it started airing again, I thought I’d finish it once the anime was complete since I eventually caught up with the manga, such a good series BUT ANYWAY-- I think it’s a really pretty song and Loubeth fit with the tender lyrics. IT’S LATE, idk what to say about them other than what I’ve said already dsklfjdslf im sorry I really ramble a LOT and I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t had the chance to >w>;;

[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy 235 & 236:  Clint Eastwood as a postal delivery man and our pirate has domestic desires . . .

Hello all, I apologize for the delay in my posts.  I am one of the many people who had to change from a job of going into work to working entirely from home and online only.  I have found the transition to be incredibly difficult - I have always had a strict division in my work/home balance.  Add on top of that the fact that I live alone with my cat, my parents are almost 2,000 miles away and my brother is currently in Tokyo has made things very stressful.  I don’t mean to dump this on you [readers], but sometimes I think it is better to at least say these things since a lot of other people are dealing with this or some version of these situations.  It sucks, it is messing with my life and I am trying to deal with this situation.

Okay, enough about me, let’s get to GK.

Chapter 235 starts with Boutarou and Sugimoto about to have a showdown (to the death since Sugimoto just wants his skin). It starts out with Boutarou sizing up Shiraishi, he appears a bit playful and curious that Shiraishi is still in Hokkaido - based on Shiraishi pre-Asirpa/Sugimoto/Kiro he really was a self interested guy.  You’d expect he’d make his way back to Honshu and have some fun going to red light districts.  The fact that Shiraishi has a pensive look means he’s trying to think a way to deal with this situation and also reacting to the assumption of his personality.  He immediately sees Sugimoto reaching for his bayonet and realizes they need to ask him if he know more information.

I really have grown to like Shiraishi - he was a successful escape artist, indicative of being a smarter than average guy and he’s already putting the pieces together that Boutarou would have more information on the Ainu as he sees Sugimoto in his murder mode.

Shiraishi is able to de-escalate the situation by calming stating an assumption on his part.  It is gamble, but based on what he learned from Heita, it is a good gamble since the thought things over pretty well.

This is enough information to get the pirate to stop and then he’s excited that they are thinking the same thing as him.  Shiraishi is close enough to Boutarou to keep Sugimoto at bay who in this panel looks like a predator coming in for a kill after stalking.  Sugimoto is hunched over, almost creeping forward like a cat while Shiraishi is upright and super relaxed.

Shiraishi’s statement is enough to get more information out of Boutarou, he then tells them that there is a rumor that the tattoos are useless to figuring out the code.  This is enough to snap Sugimoto out of his murder mode.  Excellently played Shiraishi!

They are interrupted by the fact that the pirate gang notices another paddle boat is coming the opposite direction and there are soldiers on it and if they are from the 7th it would be bad news.  Only then does Sugimoto realize that of course Boutarou would have men working for him and it causes him to pause.

Boutarou has an excellent reaction to things, he calmly gets the boat moving again, and his men, keep the passengers under control.  The postman is the introduced, our Clint Eastwood stand in as he’s armed to protect valuables sent via the post.

We can see where this is going . .  . there will be a shoot out on the boat and Asirpa is still out cold.  It looks like they will be in the clear, they pass by the other boat as they wave over.

Shiraishi is nervous as he hopes the plan works with little issues.  Asirpa then wakes up as the postman readies his handgun.  The postman thinks he took out one of the pirate gang members and causes enough of a commotion that the other boat notices the gunshot.

Unfortunately, his “excellent” aim had nothing to do with him.  Instead, it was all from Vasily sniping them one by one from the boat with the horses.  This is the worst outcome possible, it makes a huge scene, escalates the entire situation, and takes out most of the pirate gang a disadvantage to Boutarou.

Sadly, our inexperienced postman makes terrible decisions wasting his ammo from his revolver for no reason and then someone finds Sugimoto’s lost rifle.  Cue Ogata lecture.  Oh wait, Ogata isn’t present, yet we as readers can hear his “tch” sound.  In the meantime, due to Vasily’s sniping, the other boat is worried about saving the passengers and turns back around.

Thankfully, Boutarou thinks quickly on his feet.  He takes control of the boat and he turns it so that he can ram into the paddle wheel of the other boat.

By incapacitating the drive system of the other boat, they can leave them stuck in the river.  Very clever moves and it additionally, breaks the rope that kept Vasily tied to the boat.  He’s now stuck in a small boat as they escape from him.

This all in all is a good situation for Vasily even if he doesn’t realize it, keeping him away from the rest of the group means, there won’t be another shoot first, ask no questions later situation.  The man he should have sniped was the postman, not the pirate gang.  As usual he goes for clean head shots, indicating he doesn’t snipe the same way as Ogata, who frequently thinks about his most effective way to do things.

Back to the action where our postman from hell now has Sugimoto’s rifle is and still fighting back awkwardly and is under the indication that his men were shot by him.  He goes into a calm mode as he looks at his options to take out the man.  Meanwhile, Sugimoto is just trying to dodge him and not die due to the man’s recklessness.

Boutarou has an expression of complete seriousness, he cares for his gang and he’s going to do what it takes.  Being the wild man that he is, he manages to swing the anchor into the passenger galley and Sugimoto luckily is able to yell to Asirpa to protect her as she gets the man down as he goes for the backpack.

Of course Sugimoto goes back to angry murder mode as Boutarou hits him in the face with the anchor as he gets close enough to punch him in the stomach under the pretense that he may have hurt Asirpa.

Yes, Sugimoto, you lost your rifle, and your inability to keep an eye on your firearms lead to this entire situation and he’s now back to “who cares - kill the man and skin him” mindset.

Quick summary of the chapter

1.) Shiraishi remains the brains of their group.  He was on the path for the most information and least amount of violence, but that didn’t work out. 

2.)  Boutarou is a clever guy.  He has a good balance of using his brain and calmly and effectively making decisions.  The fact that he’s friendly with Shiraishi tells me that he is a more complicated convict that some of the others and will continue to be a major force in this story arc.

3.) Vasily is a giant liability.  He can’t effectively communicate with the rest of the group.  He snipes the wrong people resulting in a more complicated situation and he eventually gets ditched.  His sniping style is clearly one of simple execution.   There is no way that he’s as intelligent as Ogata and lacks the ability to play a long game at all.  In a way, he may even make Sugimoto feel good about him being around b/c he can write off snipers as being all like Vasily and therefore, puts Ogata in that category even though he’s no way close to it.  The fact he wasn’t with the rest of the group to see what was happening made things far worse, what did he gain by sniping some of the pirate crew?  Nothing. 

4.) Sugimoto put Asirpa in danger.  By rushing off to deal with things and leaving her out of his sight, losing his rifle and being stuck in murder mode, he endangered her.  If he truly wants to protect her, he can’t just leave her out of his sight.  He deflects everything in the name of always following short term actions.

Chapter 236 starts with several pages of Boutarou and Sugimoto fighting each other.  Both of them have white murder eyes as they beat the shit out of each other.

I think the fight between these two is to show us how tenacious they are.  They are able to put everything into the fight - it is a brutal all out brawl between them and they hold nothing back.

In the meantime, the postman wastes his last shot with Sugimoto’s rifle and Asirpa is able to cleverly kick him off into the water.  Then Asirpa is able to stop Sugimoto as she gets onto the deck with her bow at hand (not sure where she put his rifle).  Sugimoto’s eyes return to round and black with a little sparkle in them, indicating that he’s out of his murder mode.

By her actions, she was able to get the postman off the boat and all the commotion can calm down, it gives Shiraishi the opportunity to also get Sugimoto to stop with reason to talk to Boutarou.

Boutarou seems unfazed by Sugimoto’s switch from murder to normal.  To me it indicates that they must have a lot in common as he looks at him with some sort of “kindred spirit” vibe.  It may just be me, but both men appear to have on/off switches for their murder modes.

Shiraishi then asks him about the rumor to be unable to solve the code, and Boutarou gives him what he knows.  We finally learn the origin of the Baroto skin; Wakayama had found one of the other convicts; he killed him and skinned him.

We get an extra image of a naked Boutarou as he reveals he lost it via gambling.  Wakayama states the odds of all of the convicts being alive to be found and skinned is too to low as two of our previous convicts are shown how they died.  He was confident that was a moot point and even went as far to see how Wilk may have just messed with everyone, because he could.

This then connects to what the candy peddler said - that Wakayama was disappointed; likely due to the fact he lost the skin and also the fact that if he thought about what happened to other convicts, it really is a pointless quest.

Despite all of the skins they’ve found, Wakayama and Boutarou have valid points.  Boutarou tells them that it gave him a reason to give up on trying to find the skins, but thought if he tried to figure out where Wilk hid the gold, it would be worth the effort.  He then asks them if they’d like to join forces with him.

To keep them intrigued in him and his goals, Boutarou tells them what he wants to do with the gold.  He wants to leave Hokkaido, move someplace warmer in SE Asia and then become a major producer of agricultural products.  He sees himself making himself the ruler and he wants to start a large family.

His idea is exceptionally childish and still is mis-placed colonial/imperial feelings but it is coming from his own personal experience.  Shiraishi is less than amused and Sugimoto tries to almost hide his feelings on the idea of why everyone wants the gold to rule a country.  Boutarou is very perceptive he asks Sugimoto about his family.  As Sugimoto states he has none, it leads him to ask what caused them to die and Sugimoto tells him it was due to TB.  He then reveals that his own family died of smallpox.  This lead to his childish dream of creating his own family that wouldn’t be shunned due to disease and he used this concept as the way to keep him going - the side effect is that he used his dream as his way to push through everything.

All of a sudden their brutal fight makes so much sense - neither of them have something to lose related to their family.  Their lack of a family back home allows them to be reckless idiots.  And this leads to a much awaited Sugimoto flashback!  Finally!  I have to admit that I’ve been waiting for this for a loooooooong time.  I was thinking it would happen on Karafuto due to Sugimoto’s vision during the snow squall - this just shows us how deep his denial of this is.

With Sugimoto’s dead looking black eyes, we can tell that even before his father died, he had reached the same mental state as many of our other characters where they “broke” inside.  Ogata around age 9, Tsurumi with the death of Fina and Olga etc etc.  We learn that Sugimoto’s family have a weakness for being kind and caring towards others, so his father feels bad for his situation.

I want to know exactly what his dad did that leads him to say that he was always helping people even if he shouldn’t.    Does this mean that his father got overly involved in things?  That he was also overly emotional and rushed into things without thinking them through.  Argh!  I want to know more about Sugi-dad.

Sugimoto sits outside of the house as a cat approaches him.  As stated in the footnotes at the end of the chapter, the cat is supposed to prevent TB.  Sugimoto then wonders if due to the cat’s aloof nature, perhaps it isn’t helping with curing his sick dad.  He tells that cat that it is useless too, this implies that Sugimoto himself feels useless to help his father. 

The cat then walks off to do its cat things as Sugimoto stands up and prepares himself.  His clenched fists and determined expression in the last panel show that he’s made a decision.  In an attempt to give him ‘release’ his father tells him to leave their home.

He is told that for him to live for his own sake isn’t a bad thing.  This tells us that Sugimoto has a hard time being selfish, he’s clearly done actions for the sake of his family without any regard for his own feelings and self care.  He leaves the house as his father coughs in the room.  He’s nervous and unsure of the decision at first.  He’s sweating as he holds his feelings in.  But the wind blows through the trees and he makes his verbal commitment to not lose.  He begins to cheer himself up and it leads to the dramatic panel.  He declares that he’s immortal!

So, before his father has died and he burns the house down, he has made his first declaration of how he will live his life - he will be immortal.  We now know this attitude was created before he enlisted in the 1st and fought in the war. 

He then snaps back to the present as Boutarou asks him what his dreams are.  The facial expression of Sugimoto is one of almost confusion/panic/thought

The fact that Sugimoto can’t answer him easily, indicates that Sugimoto has been living without any dreams for himself.  Just living without a long term goal.  His various shades of his eyes show us that he’s never been asked this question before so directly.  It isn’t about Umeko and Toraji.  It is about him.  And thus, his father’s statement makes more sense now; Sugimoto doesn’t want things to be about him; then he’d have to face himself.

The chapter then ends with them arriving at their destination.  Again, Boutarou is reasonable with the passengers; they just take the registered mail money and leave the passengers with their money and unharmed. 

Since the postman was looking in Sugimoto’s backpack he revealed what was inside of it.  Heita’s skin and his tobacco case.  So now, Boutarou knows that they ran into Heita and he’s clearly not alive anymore.  Good eye, Boutarou!

Clearly, the next chapter will have more drama in relation to this discovery.

Quick summary and conclusions;

1.) Sugimoto is most similar to Boutarou.  He spends so much of his time othering and making the convicts inhuman; just the skins.  Boutarou has too much in common with him.  The tenacity to fight to the death, carrying the PTSD from losing their families to disease and the feeling of helplessness.  The difference is that Boutarou thought deeply about his childhood motivation and has accepted it for his future plans and motivation.  Boutarou has the ability to self-reflect and use it in a pro-active fashion.  Sugimoto has revealed that he has been running away from facing himself since before his father died.  This is terrible - it tells us that Sugimoto’s problems go back even further than we originally realized and he went to war already wounded and broken.  No wonder he continues to be reckless; he was as broken as Ogata was going to war.  The Ogata-Sugimoto similarities gain another point for how they were both broken before enlisting in the army.

2.) Sugimoto clearly hates cats and the link to Toraji’s nickname of Tora-chan and Ogata add to it.  The black cat let him down unable to help his father recover from TB.  He’s been surrounded by cats, people with cat nicknames, or cat like characteristics.  It is obvious that he’d lash out a those with the overlap and Ogata is our most obvious easy target.  A random black house cat let him down.  All other future cats will let him down.  The link to Ogata is so obvious with his aloof attitude and ability to float between groups with little attachment.

3.) We finally learn the origin of the Barato skin.  I’m glad to know that it was a skin that was lost by Wakayama.  It shows that many of the more rational convicts knew when to give up with the hunt for the skins and it was key in highlighting the Hijikata-Ogata alliance of convenience.  It also highlights that with Asirpa knowing the code, it is likely that not all of the skins are critical.  @goldenkamuyhunting​ had an excellent meta post about what this could mean for the hunt for the skins.  I reblogged it before this post if you missed it.

That’s pretty much all I have for now!

[thesummerstorms]

Rev Recaps Hard Contact (Chapter 7)

CW: mass execution

TL;DR Recap: Niner & Omega watch the Separatists murder Hokan’s old militia. Etain and Darman meet and it’s incredibly awkward. Hokan takes time to gloat. The truth finally comes out about Atin.

Beginning Kal Count: 10 Ending Kal Count: 12 (or 12.5)

THIS RECAP IS THE LONGEST YET. Everything seems to happen in this chapter.

So we open with Niner being bored, Fi being Fi, and Atin being cheerful because he’s up to his elbows in electronic guts. The scene starts pretty quiet before a massive tonal change, but it’s honestly the front half that’s my favorite, just for character reasons.

Niner is bored and grumpy, so logically he’s thinking about how to revise the training manual. Plus his little “if one precaution was good, two were better.” Good old Niner.  Fi being amused that Atin is made content by shredding a computer to pieces. I don’t know, it’s just the little things about their dynamic that makes me happy.

Niner is still upset with Atin, but he’s also curious. He doesn’t have long to think about it though, because the Separatist troops assigned to Uthan along with some of the battle droids assigned to the planet start approaching Hokan’s old Weequay militia. The squad watches as the Separatist officer and the droids proceed to murder every single one of Hokan’s old “associates” in visual range with no warning then retreat back to their base, which Niner finds understandably worrying. 

We switch then to Etain, who is frustrated and paranoid and is building herself an emergency exist by loosening the boards in the back wall of the barn where Jinart has been hiding her. She’s yet again frustrated that she can’t do more with her Force powers, and her lack of self-esteem really comes out in full measure.

“She wondered why Jedi blood had bothered to manifest itself in someone who was so fallible.” Sweetheart...

Jinart arrives to take her somewhere and lets Etain finally feel her presence in the Force. But when Etain mistakes Jinart for a Jedi and asks why Jinart didn’t tell her what she was... Jinart tells Etain to shut up.

“And given your competence, I’m the one who’s most at risk. Now, silence.”

Okay, listen, if you could give her even like three seconds of genuine explanation rather than just attacking her for not trusting you after her teacher was literally sold out and then tortured to death, then you wouldn’t need to tell her to STFU. I’m just saying, Jinart.

Anyway, Jinart tells Etain that there’s a soldier waiting up ahead for her, so Etain heads in that direction, despite Jinart still being extremely shady. She’s about to meet Darman, and while I love them both dearly, while this ship is my OTP, it’s... really fucking awkward.

Listen. This is just weird as hell, okay? I’m gonna admit it. I also pretend it ... wasn’t written like this. Because while Darman is naive and inexperienced, he still has enough neurological development (and enough experiences that go beyond the pale of normal adulthood even) that this weird framing of him as “childlike” just comes off creepy. So I ignore it. That’s really all I have to say about it.

Etain feels Darman’s scope or his attention through the scope or whatever, and decides “well, I’m going to fuck someone up before I die, if I can”, which to be fair, is a very Etain thing to do.

Darman sees her lighstaber is like “oh, finally a Jedi”, and tries to greet her politely. Except this is Etain, who really has no idea what the fuck is going on except that she’s been on this planet for three or more months, the only person she trusted was murdered, and there’s an evil Mandalorian somewhere who wants to hurt her badly.

So naturally when her vision clears (Darman blinded her with some kind of light), she see his helmet, assumes Jinart’s shadiness was in fact the prelude to a betrayal and that this is Hokan...

Darman getting worried now:

And Etain being Etain,she launches herself at him.  (ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง

It... doesn’t go well. Darman deflects most of her attacks pretty easily and literally dumps her in the river, continuing to try and calm her down to no avail, but she’s reached her breaking point and is pretty much in a blind rage.

“and when she was frightened and desperate and angry that was very hard indeed. She hadn’t know it until now.”

Listen, it’s a very un-Jedi-like but very Etain thing to do, and also who can really blame her given what she thought was happening and the kind of time she’s had on this planet so far. But Darman is exasperated, and I’m pretty Etain was embarrassed looking back at this for the remainder of her very short life.

Anyway, Darman finally manages to calm her down enough to let him talk, and in the process, he tries to smooth things over by taking the blame. He didn’t identify himself, it’s his fault, etc. He introduces himself (with the wrong designation- KT uses CC 1136, which would make him a Commander, rather than RC 1136) but in doing so, he uses terms of ranks, confusing the hell out of her. She asks when they got a Grand Army and-

We get the iconic “handing her back her lightsaber from the river” scene, except the official art for that picture always neglects to depict the fact that as gentlemanly as he’s trying to be, she’s dripping wet with her hair plastered in her face and desperately trying to politely ask her not to either get herself shot or go after him with a lightsaber again.

Instead of “meet cute” it’s more of a “meet extremely awkward”.

Anyway, this is all coming on the heels of several really bad months for Etain and the utter dismissal she just got from Jinart, so her insecurity really comes out in this conversation. It’s not really pretty.

(Side note, for once I do have to give KT some points on effectively carrying a tiny world building thing: Dar was embarrassed when Jusik asked for his name, he’s embarrassed that Etain is doing it now, and he’s going to be embarrassed again when she asks the rest of his squad.)

“talking army gibberish” lmao.

Again, self-esteem issues. But to be honest, as embarrassed as I am for Etain in this scene (she really doesn’t give her best here) it’s probably because I can relate a hell of a lot to her emotions?

Like, imagine. You’ve already got major issues with your self-worth from a lifetime of not being good enough for the people and the system that raised you, you just got dragged by an old woman after months of struggling behind enemy lines, you failed in your mission to protect the one person who gave a shit about you, and some (to your knowledge) regular human just successfully took you down without too much struggle when Jedi are supposed to be more than human, the best of the best. Then he turns to you with wide-eyed confidence and insists you are now his commanding officer, and you almost feel worse because he’s trying to absolve you of any fault. 

I’d be kind of prickly and asshole-ish, too, if I’m honest.

Again, we start with her having trouble with some wounded pride. But... we end on that bomb shell, and I would not blame Etain for short-circuiting at being told a 10 year old had been “bred to serve [her]. It’s a hell of a lot.

Anyway, I’m aware I copied and pasted almost the entire scene, but there’s a lot there, okay? But next comes more Hokan, and he’s basically just gloating that he’s now more powerful than Ankkit.

*long, exasperated sigh*

Listen, I could write a college essay about characterization just focusing on this man’s use of the word decadent, holy fuck. Also, the gloating is “vulgar” but all he does for pretty much his entire appearance in this chapter is gloat.

You know who Hokan would have gotten on with? Vizsla. Wait- no. Even Vizsla kicked him out. Anyway, Hokan finishes gloating and then goes off to murder a farmer for not divulging important information quickly enough/trying to trade it for booze.

This chapter is long and I know I’ve made this post really long, but we cut back to Niner and Fi again. They’ve made their way to one of the rendezvous points, only to find the trees that should be there aren’t. Fi eventually guesses that they’ve been logging and makes a disparaging comment about intel. Niner gives a little bit more exposition on how terrible the Kaminoans were, including a rumor about clones with impaired eyesight who disappeared and a comment about how Jedi giving orders is different from Kaminoans because Kaminoans are the only things he fears.

Fi is sighing, and eventually Niner prods at him:

And we get our biggest Kal Count yet. Technically this is one continuing remembrance, but it’s also long as hell and includes lots of little memories, so I almost want to include it as 1.5 towards our Kal Count, bringing us to a total of 11 (or 11.5). I’m way more interested in their conversation before Kal is brought up than after, honestly. But the reminiscing gets broken up when Omega is suddenly shot at by a few Separatist officers and a bunch of battle droids:

Please, please imagine this moment with the cartoon B1 battle droid voices from The Clone Wars. Please, I’m begging you.

Atin saves Niner’s life, which is honestly the most positive thing that has happened between the two of them so far and marks a turning point for them in general. It’s also the first time we get to see Fi jump in as squad medic, but he’s super efficient about it. Also, he snarks at Atin as he’s actively trying to decide if Atin is dying or not:

Niner offers to carry Atin’s pack for him until he’s doing better, which means he’s probably carrying something like 300 lbs now, even if Atin did save his life. And I know my screenshots for this post have been ridiculously long, but Niner finally, finally reconciles with Atin enough to figure out why Atin has been an asshole about Darman this whole time (minus the Vau thing):

It’s a pretty nice closing line to the scene, honestly. Also, technically speaking our Kal Count just jumped to 12.

I’ll spare you most of the closing scene because it’s just Hokan being pissed and thinking it’s impossible clones could have done this, but:

a) Mandalorian. Honor. Complex. You’d think Mandalore the Ultimate had been in charge for the last few years instead of Jango.

b) seriously. What is it with the word “decadent”??????

But it’s over quickly with Hokan making the wry observation that if he didn’t know better he would think he was being haunted by Jango’s ghost.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Over Analysis ‘The Gawas will be the Death of Me’ Stage 1: The (1st) Fight

Okay. So. This is gonna be a long post, so I will condense it immediately. Are we ready?

Who am I kidding. Absolutely not.

Warning: rambling be below this point.

We start out w/ Hiden Manufacturing being blown up. Not much to say here other than Fuwa being fond big brother is sweet, Yua looks awfully chill for standing in the ruins of an exploded building, and Jin is doing his best Ankh impression (Nakagawa, honey, I love you, but there is only one Ankh). Until Aruto says:

Jin is surprised a complete stranger is showing more concern for his family than he has been.

I know I complain about Aruto’s characterisation a lot, but I liked this (enough that I think it should have been what Jin brought up when talking to MBR). Ignoring, for the moment, my other issues and pretending that this friendship developed how it could have, this would be a really great scene, esp considering the stuff Jin did previously. Aruto wanting to save the other three in contrast to Jin’s decision to just sacrifice them would be an interesting thing. I wish we got more on it, honestly. It was one of the ways they could have developed from each other. Either way, this comment has an effect on Jin, and when shit starts exploding, he takes off on his own.

MetsuBouRai, meanwhile, are brooding about the MBJR base bc the Ark isn’t talking to them. Raiden’s angry, Naki is dejected, but Horobi is just… Sitting there. Watching, I believe, the same thing Yua is watching on her phone during this stuff, going by the animation.

Naki says this, but it cuts to each of them. Horobi’s head actually turns slightly, while Raiden looks morose for a moment before laughing bitterly and taking out his frustration on that mind hacking helmet (which breaks yet again). Raiden’s always been the most expressive of the three, but Horobi’s reaction also feels import bc of how long he’s been under the Ark’s control, brainwashed into believing that the Ark was the path to saving HumaGear. He’s never once been able to consider the Ark might turn on them or abandon them. Naki and Raiden haven’t been under so long, so while they’re still hacked, they don’t have the same mindless devotion. Naki can question and Raiden can be mocking. But this feels very much like a ‘wait, what?’ moment for Horobi.

… That his conditioning has to immediately reject, insisting that the Ark will come back for them, is really going to save HumaGear. Oh, sweetie.

*I know that the show (? Or at least most sub groups) are referring to the Ark as ‘he,’ I’m just stubborn and like saying ‘she.’ Being voiced by Charden Flamberg won’t stop me.

Jin shows up, announcing, ‘you’re wrong’ and that the Ark can’t be trusted (when did we stop saying ‘the’ Ark?), and it looks like he didn’t stop to shower or anything en route. Come to think… How would he repair that suit? Anyway, he spends the majority of this scene looking right at Horobi, who…

… Doesn’t react. It’s Naki who says something. Jin and Horobi just… Stare at each other. Raiden looks like he thinks he’s interrupting. Lots of tension here. It’s up in the air whether Horobi doesn’t know how to react, or if he actually can’t in the state he’s in at this point. The Ark’s being going at how he processes situations w/ a chainsaw for years, he may be completely unable to figure out how to respond.

Horobi doesn’t even move… Until Jin starts apologising. I don’t we ever saw Baby Jin apologising for anything? Not even when he didn’t get the Mammoth Key back. All three of them seem confused by the apology, but it’s enough to get Horobi out of his game of statue. Obviously he doesn’t think raising the Ark is something to apologise for bc of his enforced loyalty to her. But he doesn’t seem to consider Jin to have to done anything worth apologising for.

As for Jin, this is a moment that makes me inclined to buy that he’s realised he fucked up. I would have appreciated going into that a little more, bc wtf dude, that plan was a clusterfuck even aside from the whole ‘murder my dad for being brainwashed,’ but this ep heavily indicated he realises what he did. And boy is he paying for it.

Jin talks about the plan to destroy the Ark, then goes very quiet and walks up level w/ Horobi, and the shot closes in on the two of them again. It takes him a second to actually look at Horobi… My guess is bc he knows what he’ll see.

… And the award for an absolutely terrible plan goes to… But in all seriousness, Nakagawa Daisuke, everyone, the kid can act. The way he says it, and how he kinda seems to be wavering on his feet, gives the impression he’s just barely keeping it together. I’ve debated about him saying this point blank like this, and on one hand, ouch, on the other… Given my interpretation that Horobi views lying as a human thing and absolutely detests it… Jin might be hoping being straight up w/ him will work better. Or maybe he’s hoping to gauge Horobi’s reaction, bc rather heartbreakingly…

… Horobi doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest. In the hopes of keeping images to a minimum, I didn’t include another thing I noticed while going through—Naki doesn’t look back to Horobi until he starts talking, but just seconds before Horobi speaks, Raiden’s gaze switches to him, w/ that kinda concerned look. Just before he talks, Horobi’s head also turns like he’s glancing at the other two, but it’s hard to tell, he’s out of focus (oh, so painfully much), which is actually a little interesting considering he’s being totally calm about his son saying he was trying to kill him. Is it bc the idea of the Ark failing never occurred to him? Or… Does he have so little self worth that he’s completely indifferent to the idea of his death? To me… Probably both. Horobi has lived his entire life for other people, has been brainwashed into a tool of the Ark—and we see what happens when he wavers or tries to be something else later in this ep. While the idea that the Ark would betray them has never been able to occur to him, he’s shown multiple times to be completely calm about the possibility of dying, and this is Jin saying he was going to kill him. But Horobi doesn’t even seem surprised. He just accepts it.

Which I have to feel like is the reaction Jin expected. Why he was so reluctant to look up, bc he knew Horobi would just be… Blank. Bc he knows what the Ark has taken from Horobi, and now he’s actually facing the fact that he made it worse.

When you tell your dad you were planning to kill him and he doesn’t even care. But seriously. He doesn’t even remark on it. Horobi doesn’t care about his own life to the point Jin can point blank say he was planning to kill him and Horobi won’t even blink, much less get upset. Jin’s guilt here, to me, likely isn’t just ‘I helped the Ark rise and now everything is shit,’ but also facing the fact that he’s… ‘Re-reduced’ Horobi to being the Ark’s mere puppet again, esp right after Horobi was actually starting to have some clarity. Gotta wonder if he’s flashing back to that ‘why did I do that?’ moment in episode 35?

I made a comment about Horobi being out of focus when talking about Jin planning to kill him… He comes abruptly into focus when Jin brings up Aruto. Is this about Soreo’s data? Aruto talking about him wanting to be Jin’s father? I have opinions about the way Aruto is talked about in this scene and the things Jin chooses to bring up, and mainly… I just thought this was curious. And… Sunagawa has a very nice profile, so sue me. ^^; (you have no idea how many of these shots just turned into ‘I think this shot is cool! I may share some at the end of this).

When Jin says Aruto can defeat the Ark, Horobi isn’t happy. But he… Looks around weirdly while talking? Starts out looking at Jin, then looks down like he does when he’s thinking, then back up at Jin by the end.

… I have nothing else for this. What? An excuse to use more pictures of Sunagawa? … Leave me alone!

Look at Nakagawa hunching again. Is that to fit everyone in the shot, or is he just doing that?

Jin persists and Horobi… Shouts. And then he doesn’t just shout, he dives forward and grabs Jin’s collar. It’s hard to see in my crappy screen shot, but Jin seems surprised by this, and w/ good reason, Horobi’s not usually emotional. I believe this is only the second time we’ve ever heard him shout… And both times were at Jin about humans. Trying to reject what he possibly sees as their growing influence over his son.

… I wonder. What makes him so desperate to make Jin stop in this moment? Their dynamic may have shifted w/ Jin’s revival, but Jin’s still the person… Well, second to the Ark, he’s the person w/ the most influence over Horobi. Aruto and Fuwa both made slight headway, but when it comes down to it, Jin is Horobi’s, well, singularity point. Why react this way? Even at this point, neither Naki or Raiden were jumping at it. Did the Ark’s engrained influence just want to reject the words, some personal experience w/ humans. Is it the words themselves, or the fact that they’re coming out of Jin? It’s more emotion than he showed on the subject of his own death. Honestly, maybe more emotion than he’s ever shown. Is he rejecting blasphemy against the Ark… Or what he perceives as human influence and control over his son?

But then something interesting happens.

At first, Horobi is clearly furious—but then…

… The Ark… Abruptly stops hacking? Not… Technically weird, but pretty suspicious considering that immediately after…

… Horobi abruptly… Goes back to being passive. He even lets go of Jin’s suit. Did the Ark do something? Giving direct orders or not, he’s still connected. Or did he just not know what to do once he got in there? He and Jin stare at each other for a moment. Did his soft spot for Jin kick back in?

He keeps this much calmer attitude, and is even still looking down when he speaks again.

Who are you trying to convince and why, Horobi?

Jin has apparently forgotten how ‘hacking’ works. Being right on the second point doesn’t excuse the first one, sweetie.

Is it important that it’s just them in this shot? I’d like to think so. My theory is that this whole scenario actually stole something very personal from them that’s never going to really come back, the chance to be a proper family, for Jin to grow up as a child and for Horobi to actually be a proper father. Is the implication that they are ‘HumaGears’ to each other? Until pried from my cold dead hands (break my fingers, Takahashi, break them, I dare you), my interpretation is that Horobi’s actions next time are centred around wanting a world where Jin will be completely safe (someone please tell him there’s no such thing, bc there isn’t, before it gets him killed), that while the goal is safety and peace for all HumaGear… It’s his personal motivation to do it for Jin.

Either way… Putting aside the question of whether Jin is actually as free as he seems to think he is… I was waiting for him to say this to Horobi. Bc hell yes, Horobi deserves to be free of the Ark, and Jin should know that better than anyone. She had Horobi under closer control than anyone else, bc she wanted/needed him to manipulate Jin. He was her tool to move her pawn. And that’s fucked his mental state to hell and back.

Horobi isn’t even able to respond to the concept of ‘free,’ It’s Naki who steps in again.

Jin keeps going, and eventually brings up dreams. I don’t know if that specifically has to do w/ Horobi’s reaction… In my theory, assuming he actually remembered a bit about his past, I can def see ‘our own dreams’ setting of ‘Ark bells’ and making him compulsively reject the notion.

Interestingly, he turns slightly to face the corner before speaking further.

… Well don’t that just sound robotic. ‘Brainwash victim’ alarums go off again.

Jin has another small somber moment. This one feels less ‘messy emotions/wracked w/ guilt’ and more just… Sad. Regretful, too, but not the same exactly? This isn’t so much ‘what have I done?’ anymore as ‘I did this.’

He failed to try at all before. That’s not me being mean, that’s me saying I think that’s what’s going through his head. He might not be thrilled about fighting Horobi as Horobi, but bc he let them down before, he has to power through.

Naki: Do you think they’ll notice if we back towards the door?

Raiden: Trust me, I’m thinking about it.

They fight and Jin loses. Horobi’s got experience, a positively self-destructive lack of self preservation, and I do think Jin was holding back. Making himself fight Horobi as the Ark is one thing, he can just tell himself it’s the Ark, probably easier to be like ‘Horobi can’t be saved’ like that, too (even though Jin bloody reconnected them), but fighting Horobi as Horobi… That’s something else. Esp w/ the knowledge that Horobi is so blankly devoted to the Ark right now bc of something he did.

Jin kinda tries to shuffle away as Horobi approaches… I don’t blame him, that’s Takaiwa Seiji. Don’t fuck w/ Takaiwa Seiji.

Horobi says… But then just stands there, perfectly still, giving no indication that he intends to move, for another ten whole seconds (yes, I counted). He says that, but then doesn’t do anything. Almost like he’s hit a wall. And he has, hasn’t he? The Ark’s influence over him wants to erase anyone who defies it… But Horobi himself has shown multiple times that his actual instinct is to protect Jin. So what does he do when he has a chance to destroy someone vocally against the Ark, but… It’s Jin? He freezes, apparently.

Jin looks up at him like this, kinda pleadingly, and I like the idea that he’s looking… Essentially, for his father. Hesitation, feeling. Any reaction. But while I do see Horobi freezing as a sign of his inability to follow through w/ the threat… It also shows he has no idea how to follow that up. He can’t get beyond the instinctive ‘don’t do this.’ So he just starts playing statue again. That’s gotta be rough for Jin to see, esp w/ the knowledge that he contributed to rendering Horobi this messed up. Again.

When he sees nothing, he looks away again. Maybe trying to gather nerve in the face of the nigh zombie-like state he’s seeing his father in. We cut a few times between him and Horobi as he starts talking, between Jin being more emotional, and Horobi’s continually blank countenance.

Jin doesn’t look back up until he asks if killing him is something Horobi wants. This expression doesn’t read hopeful either way. Does he want Horobi to indicate it’s not, bc he wants his father to still care about him, or does he want Horobi to be upset that he tried to kill him, to show some sign of self worth/preservation? Hard to know, but it’s definitely pleading again.

Naturally, the first words that come to Horobi’s mind. And, yes, it is. The Ark wants detractors to disappear. But in this situation… That conflicts w/ what Horobi himself truly wants. And he reacts. He’s directly confront ed w/ a contradiction, w/ the realisation that the Ark’s will hasn’t completely replaced his own. He’s conditioned to follow the Ark’s will no matter what, he doesn’t want to kill Jin. He’s in disagreement w/ the Ark’s will. Big no no. What he’s saying ‘no’ to is a little unclear, but I like thinking that he’s realising he doesn’t want what the Ark would want. It’s also interesting how the focus shifts from him to Naki and Raiden. Presumably, they are effected by seeing Horobi be uncertain about the Ark’s will, and that contributes to everyone’s reactions.

I love Jin’s reaction to Horobi lowering the bow. He makes this emotional little sound, and watches the bow for a moment before looking anxiously up at Horobi—looking for a reaction again, if there’s anything more. But Horobi’s just… In a daze. I still don’t know if Jin is relieved by this, or if he was hoping Horobi would be personally angry at him. Kind of puts me in mind of a moment from Prince of Persia where Dastan tells his brother that the dagger rewinds time and then stabs himself, and when his brother uses it and tells Dastan he died right in front of him, Dastan’s reaction is a breathless ‘you used it!’ from the relief that his brother cared/trusted him enough. Jin’s reaction kind of makes me think of that, amazement and relief and even kind of gladness that he matters enough to Horobi that this would actually cause his father to waver from his brainwashing. Which, while really sweet and a testament to what Jin genuinely means to Horobi, is also heart breaking and shows off just what the Ark (and thus Gai, by creating it) took from them, that this is how we see that Jin is important to Horobi. It should just be bc he’s his dad, bc hugs and family times. But the Ark took that from them. It shows that Horobi cares about Jin, but it’s also glaring show of what they lost/missed out on bc of the Ark.

There’s also something else about Jin’s reaction if you look closely at his hands.

His right hand shifts, lifting up slightly, like his first instinct was to reach out to Horobi, try to solidify whatever’s happening—but in the end, he doesn’t commit, and…

Horobi wanders off, in some sort of confused trance. We don’t see his face at all here.

It’s been pointed out to me that these two are always reaching out to each other and never quite making it, and… Accurate. Feels like yet another example of just how badly they’ve been fucked over and what was taken from them. I just really hope they finally get to connect before… Whatever happens.

[bigskydreaming]

All right, you have officially sold me on Bobby Drake. Where do I start reading?

Its a good question, lol! Honestly, it mostly just depends on how far back you want to go. I mean, he’s been around for sixty years, lol, so there’s a shit ton of appearances to wade through, and it depends on how familiar you are with the X-Men as a whole. 

If you’re not familiar with the X-Men or Marvel in general, this is actually a really good time to jump in with reading the current books without much prior knowledge. Just last year the X-books underwent a huge status quo shakeup in the two limited series House of X and Powers of X, that pretty much like....transformed their entire place in the Marvel Universe as a whole and gave them a whole new playing field that was all pretty clearly laid out within just those two series. So its a really good starting point to kinda catch up quick to where things stand now and then just branch out from there to whatever catches your interest. 

Bobby’s a main character in a book called Marauders currently, which is only on issue #6 or #7 right now, and the book is pretty central to the major happenings in the X-Men’s corner of the universe. Plus a lot of great characters in the rest of the cast - Storm, Bishop, Emma Frost, etc.

If you want to start from way far back and have a good long, consistent read, the original X-Factor (the first series, vol 1) is where I would go. I don’t think anyone really needs to read the original X-Men series from the 60s to get a handle on the characters or universe, and personally I’ve always found X-Factor a much better read using all the same characters except with the added bonus of no Xavier. As he is. The Worst. 

Between the original X-Men run and X-Factor’s debut, Bobby, Angel and Beast popped up on various other superteams, like Bobby and Angel were on the Champions together for a bit, and then the three of them were on a team called the Defenders for a while...if you can find old Defenders issues online (this would have been back in the 70s/early 80s), they’re worth checking out just for Bobby’s brief romance with a shapeshifting character named Cloud who he first met as a woman but later shifted into a man. And while they decided to just be friends at that point, given that this was the era of the Comics Code when gay relationships were ‘frowned upon,’ this was the earliest and most blatant gay-coding of Bobby, literal decades before he was made canon gay in the comics. Plus, they’re just pretty fun stories and Bobby and Cloud were super cute together.

But yeah, then X-Factor ran for a number of years without interruption, staying consistent with the same core cast of just the original five X-Men and the supporting characters they introduced in that series, like Rictor (another future famous gay X-character, just a wee punk teenager at the time, lol). It was pretty fun overall, IMO, should give anyone new to the Marvel U a pretty solid grasp of all the major players in it, and its where a lot of big names like Apocalypse made their debut. And of course, I think Bobby was well written throughout it. X-Factor was also where a couple of the things I mentioned in that post happened, like the storyline where Loki kidnapped Bobby to use his powers to make his army.

After that.....basically, the original X-Men left that title to rejoin the X-Men when Marvel relaunched the X-Men line with a brand new X-Men #1 in the early 90s....and at the same time, they kept the already existing Uncanny X-Men title going, which was around #280 at that time. 

Since they had such a huge cast of characters at that point, they split the X-Men into two fairly iconic lineups, the Blue and the Gold....the Blue team were the chronicled in the adjectiveless X-Men book, and featured Cyclops, Gambit, Psylocke, Beast, Wolverine, Rogue and others, while the Gold team were the main characters of the continuing Uncanny X-Men title from again, around #280 and onward. The Gold team was Bobby, Jean Grey, Colossus, Storm, Archangel, and then later Bishop as well, etc. 

This era was where a lot of the best Bobby stories took place, IMO. Very early after the Gold team was formed, Bobby had a mishap with Mikhail Rasputin, the older brother of Colossus, whose powers shifted Bobby into his organic ice form for the very first time, where he became living ice that he could control and shapeshift and heal, rather than just cover himself with ice. This was the beginning of them exploring the versatility of Bobby’s powers and what eventually led to them making him an omega level mutant, though even back in X-Factor they’d established that he was far more powerful than anyone had realized before that.

Then Uncanny X-Men #311 continued this and launched one of the most pivotal periods in Bobby’s development. An accident led to a comatose Emma Frost’s mind jumping into Bobby’s body and taking control, and she used his body and powers to seek revenge for the deaths of her own students, and in the process pushed his powers even further than anyone had thought possible. This is where he came to realize he could literally teleport by melting into any body of water and recreating himself anywhere else connected to that body of water, like traveling from one end of a river to another, or even across oceans instantly....as well as proving to him that he could literally get holes blown in his ice form and just fill them up with new ice and transform back into his flesh and blood self, none the worse for wear. 

This period also led to him showing up in Generation X a lot, where Emma became one of the teachers for that generation of young mutants, because during this time, Bobby and Emma like....clashed a lot, because Bobby had a lot of issues about her hijacking his body and then taking it on what was essentially a suicide run at the time, and was also resentful of her being instantly able to do things with his powers he hadn’t even conceived of with years of training with them, and Emma was....prickly at the best of times, back then even moreso than now, so she tended to taunt him with this and push his buttons by insinuating she knew more about him than he did himself, and she knew what really was holding him back all these years, etc, etc....but then they eventually formed a very unconventional but real rapport, and decades later, they still have this weird thing where they’d probably never admit to even liking each other, but they probably respect each other more than just about any other of their teammates combined. (Also, the Christian that Bobby is currently with in the comics is Emma’s older brother).

Back to Uncanny X-Men....to take his mind off of everything that the body-jacking by Emma had brought up for him, and because Rogue was having a lot of similar issues due to her new relationship with Gambit and the glimpse of various secrets of his that she’d gotten via her own powers....Bobby and Rogue decided to take a road trip together, that went on for about a dozen issues all in all, and are some of my all time favorite Bobby stories. This includes Uncanny #319, where they go visit Bobby’s parents together and Bobby tells off his dad in epic fashion (this was literally the first comic I ever read, and still one of my faves today, lol....also he made a giant ice palace off the coastline that was as big as a city and that has nothing to do with anything except for the fact that it was very pretty and very gay. Foreshadowing!)

Then there were a couple of big iconic crossover events that took over all the titles for awhile - the first was the alternate universe Age of Apocalypse event - and its worth tracking down and reading in its entirety, IMO. Definitely one of the most pivotal ‘events’ in Marvel history, but it was actually pretty good, too? LOL. And the Age of Apocalypse version of Bobby was pretty bad ass. (He returned in Rick Remender’s X-Force title about fifteen years later, but we don’t speak of Rick Remender or that return, for both are bad and wrong).

Then reality was restored, and the Onslaught crossover happened, and like.....really the only thing you need to know about that is its basically where the entire Marvel Universe teamed up to fight the evil brain baby slash hatechild of Professor X and Magneto. I’m just saying. Read it at your own peril. I’m not even saying its BAD, I’m just saying. Read it at your own peril.

Then in Uncanny X-Men #340.....that’s the issue where Bobby left the team for awhile to take care of his dad after he was almost killed at that hate rally I mentioned in one of my Bobby posts today, so I forget where the whole ‘going undercover in Graydon Creed’s campaign’ storyline started, but back up a bit from there and you’d be good to go. He and Sam (Cannonball) went undercover together and that was basically the start of the epic Bobby and Sam bromance slash subtextual romance that I still love to this day, too.

Then he was out of the books for awhile, off taking care of his dad, and didn’t really return until this big event called Operation: Zero Tolerance happened, wherein the government went after the X-Men directly and captured pretty much all their big guns, and Bobby came back to help and had to single-handedly rescue a bunch of random mutants from Sentinels and make an interim team with which to like, save the day themselves. O:ZT is actually a really good story for him, I really like how competent he was portrayed there, and also it was the introduction of Dr. CeCe Reyes, who is also a fave. She was also briefly a sorta/not sorta love interest for Bobby, that of course didn’t ultimately go anywhere. On account of, y’know. His Massive Gayness.

Then Bobby left the team again to go return to taking care of his dad, and also because certain writers hated him (though tbh, Bobby’s actually one of the longest running heroes in the Marvel U, as in....he’s spent the longest consecutive times active in various books/teams without taking breaks, compared to pretty much all other characters who aren’t Wolverine, Captain America or Spider-man. He was a constant presence in books pretty much from his creation up until the mid-90s, so like, he was due for some time-off. I GUESS. WHATEVER).

From this point, he didn’t return until a storyline called The Twelve. It was very bad, and very dumb, and you should not read it. Your brain cells will thank me later.

Then there was a miniseries called X-Men Forever - this you SHOULD read, as its where the term omega mutant was essentially coined for the first time in the way its been used ever since, and its where both Bobby and Jean found out they were omega level mutants for the first time. And Mystique and Toad and Juggernaut were also there because....idk, tbh. That was all very strange to me. But! Still! Worth a read!

Then came a veeeeery underrated Iceman solo miniseries of four issues, that is weird but also very worth tracking down as it was a great Bobby, very poignant and also kinda sad, but like. I’d highly recommend. Especially as it was pretty much the last good Bobby for awhile, with the exception of Joe Casey, who wrote a decent Bobby but a terrible Everyone Else.

Then we enter the Dark Ages of Bobby. Where everything is bad and all the writers are the worst.

First up is Chuck Austen. Bobby was a core member of his X-Men lineup, throughout his run. This is not a good reason to read Chuck Austen’s run. Do not read Chuck Austen’s run. You’re welcome.

Then there was Peter Milligan’s run. Peter Milligan’s run was not as bad as Austen’s run. This is not a good reason to read Peter Milligan’s run. Do not read Peter Milligan’s run. You’re welcome.

Then Mike Carey took over. You CAN read Mike Carey’s run. You probably even SHOULD read Mike Carey’s run. He is not perfect, but he liked Bobby and we like him for liking Bobby. His Bobby actually spoke in complete sentences and displayed more than one emotion per issue. And Supernovas is a pretty good arc and was actually where the Children of the Vault were first introduced, and they were just brought back in the most recent X-Men issue to be a recurring antagonist, so they’re like. Relevant and stuff.

And then there’s Messiah Complex, which is basically the Advent of Oh Hai, Everything’s About To Get Just Fucking AWFUL For Mutants From Here For the Next Ten Years Or So, and there’s like....blechness with Bobby and Mystique, which...I mean....all else aside, she’s Rogue’s MOM, but WHATEVER. Look, there were....plot reasons. Kinda. So. Whatever. Just blink rapidly and move on from that as quickly as you can.

You can pretty safely jump ship at that point, because Divided We Stand is No, Second Coming is Ugh, and Schism is Why. And also there’s Age of X in there somewhere, which is to be avoided because Age of X basically just wanted to be Age of Apocalypse and its not Age of Apocalypse. Just like Age of X-Man is similarly not Age of Apocalypse, and even Age of Apocalypse 2.0 is not Age of Apocalypse. Stop trying to be Age of Apocalypse, everybody. NONE OF YOU ARE AGE OF APOCALYPSE.

You may have one (1) year of Marjorie M. Liu writing Astonishing X-Men, as a treat. She wrote a great Bobby, this was where the whole ‘freezing the whole Earth, whoopsie’ thing happened, and it was a great and very underrated story.

Then post Schism there’s stuff like Wolverine and the X-Men, where Bobby’s a main character after being lured to take Logan’s side in the Schism instead of Scott’s, with the promise of Being Relevant. ‘Twas a lie. Bobby ‘twas there, but hardly relevant. And Jason Aaron is not as good a writer as advertised, since he’s mostly the one doing the advertising and like.....dude should not trust his own hype. There’s weird and whimsical, and then there’s just plain WEIRD, and most of Wolverine and the X-Men is the latter, claiming to be the former, and like. You can’t trust anyone these days.

Then comes the Era of Bendis. Die, Era of Bendis, Die. 

Do not read the Era of Bendis. Do not speak of the Era of Bendis. If the Era of Bendis bursts into flames on the street next to you, look pointedly away, and trip anyone who runs up to try and douse the Era of Bendis with a bucket of water.

Just trust me. The Bendis, and then the Hopeless (that’s the name of the actual writer who took over on All New X-Men, but it pretty well sums up the feelings of Bobby fans on the matter too, ‘twas fate), and then the Bendis again....bad, bad, bad and also Superbad, but not the movie.

You will hear promises, siren songs, of a young, teenage time-displaced Bobby Drake having his first boyfriend, an Inhuman named Romeo. THIS IS A LIE. ITS A TRICK! A TRAP! DO NOT FALL FOR IT! 

Basically everything is blah blah blahful for awhile....until the Bobby solo series by Sina Grace, which gets a bad rap, but I maintain its worth the read. Like, I’m not going to call it my favorite take on him or anything like that, but its still good fun and a vastly more competent and compelling Bobby than anything Bendis ever eked out.

And that basically catches us up to the present, where we’re at with Marauders.

So!

There you go! Umm....this was supposed to be just a brief list of arc titles to check out, but then I went and hyper-fixated like a BUFFOON, so....umm. Yeah! Have at it!

[youngbloodbuzz]

Tell me about your characters! Answer 10 of your favorite of those questions!

sagklsdjfsndf bro thank you! i love talking about my kids

23.  If your character could go back in time and change one thing about their life, what would it be?

venia: she would have run away from her normal life as the royal princess earlier after spending her entire life living in fear as a born fire sorcerer in a kingdom where using magic is punishable by death. instead now she’s on the run from being found out and having to fight her way out the palace. 

andromeda: she would run deeper into the underdark instead of risking the life of the man who died saving her and breaking the heart of his wife, who andy highly admires and respects

theodora: i don’t think she would. she isn’t a believer in fate or destiny but she knows that everything she’s done, she’d do all over again. though i think maybe she’d try to talk to her brother more about what they had been through to get where they are now, as migrants and refugees. 

33. What person does your character admire most?

venia: she had once admired her father as a child, but then she’d witnessed his reign of terror as she got older. then it was her mother, who she emulated to survive the court and life in general, but then her mother turned out to have known about ven’s magic the entire time and never said anything. and then her eldest cousin, the only person she ever willingly told about her magic as a young kid and encouraged it, comes rushing to save her at a moments notice and they escape the kingdom together, and... at this point ven’s trying not to keep her hopes up anymore. 

andromeda: without a doubt hands down it’s professor essaris, a wizard and headmaster/teacher of her own school and the wife of the man, maximus, who died helping to save andy in the underdark. andy wants more than anything to live up to the expectations of max dying for her to octavia but octavia has her own complex issues with andy since she’s the reason her husband is dead even as she’s been trying to help her through her amnesia. it’s....a Lot. 

theodora: it was once her older brother, jaxon. the one person who stood side by side with her in agreement of how to save the group and helped her do the dirty work. but it’s been months and months later now and one day she wakes to find him gone, leaving her a single letter telling her he can’t face what he’s done anymore and he’s off to find his own fortune somewhere far away. she burns the letter. 

36.  What would be your character’s theme song/favorite band/favorite genre of music?

venia: oh i have playlsits for all of them. she has a few but if i had to choose, ven’s theme song would be it’s a fire by portishead, but also instrumentally it’d be the winds of winter by ramin djawadi. maybe i was inspired by dany. what of it. 

andromeda: televangelist and conversation piece by julien baker; i cannot choose one, my poor girl is so depressed lmao. and dead before the dawn by ramin djawadi which genuinely helped me form the idea of how she saw the sunrise for the first time as an amnesiac when climbing out of the underdark after being trapped there for two years. 

theodora: angel by massive attack and caleb’s seduction by mark koven. her life is lowkey a horror movie. 

41. Does your character care about how they’re perceived by others? How do they change themselves to fit in with other people?

venia: as a born royal first in line to the throne, she sure does. it’s almost an inherent trait from her mother, where she learned to control her emotions, her expressions, how to speak in court. it’s second nature at this point. 

andromeda: being a six foot tall tiefling with grey-purplish skin, she makes an immediate impression but that’s not what worries her. she tries to come off as worldly and normal and not like a person who has amnesia and intelligence of 8 but it’s kind of hard when she assumes/lies in front of other people about knowing something when it’s actually wrong or not true. 

theodora: for the most part, she couldn’t a shit tbh. mostly she wears a mask of whatever she knows will appease others to get her way. 

51. Is your character the most swayed by ethos, pathos, or logos?

venia: i think at first it’d be ethos because of the way she was raised to respect arguments of such, but over time away from that kind of environment, it’d be in-between pathos and logos but mostly pathos. 

andromeda: pathos undoubtedly. she wears her heart on her sleeve, she’s ruled by it. probably to the detriment of her own health and safety. 

theodora: logos. it’s literally how she rationalized her way into saving herself and the group she was traveling with during a disastrous migration across uncharted territory in the winter (think donner party levels of disaster...)

54. How does your character feel about keeping secrets from the rest of the party?

venia: all day every day she keeps secrets. her entire life and existence is a secret. venia isn’t her real name. zen is in fact her cousin, not her brother. she’s terrified and paranoid, but on the surface she’s reserved sweet charm and smiles.  

andromeda: for someone who’s generally an open book, andy keeps many things to herself, but it’s all always to protect herself and her heart from the shame of the truth. her amnesia and low intelligence and her experiences at the essaris grammar school did a number on her self-esteem and self-worth.

theodora: she has no issues with it at all. she’ll do it for the sake of herself and the group if she believes if it’s for the right reasons. 

59. Does your character value their own best interest more than the party’s?

venia: at a certain point, yes. she grew up a privileged princess, and even though she has a good empathetic and diplomatic heart, she still has a lot to learn. and she’s just been thrust in a world that doesn’t care about her with zero warning or preparation so she’s going in cold turkey.

andromeda: oh andy....my dear sweet depressed andy. if it came down to staying safe or risking her life for someone, or even worse, a child, she would gladly lay down her life. no hesitations, no questions asked.

theodora: she’s alive for a reason and it’s because she made the hard choice, the only logical choice. she likes to think she did it to save the group, and her small family in particular who were a part of this venture, but really, she’d do anything for her own best interest. including cannibalism. no she doesn’t regret it.

73. If your character knew that they were going to die in a month, how would they spend the rest of their life?

venia: well. if she’s going to die, she’s going to die fighting in a blaze of righteous fury. she’ll find the fastest way home and find some way, any way, to convince her father to stop his tyranny. even if that means starting a revolution and dying a martyr. 

andromeda: god. it would be such a quiet resignation and acceptance. like she knows she’s cheated death. knows it in her very bones, knows she should have died and not maximus. she would go back to those that took care of her in her first few months back into the world and say her goodbyes, but in a way where an unsuspecting person wouldn’t realize it was happening. she’d spend as much time as possible with them, and exploring the city, spending time in the temple of pelor where she felt most at peace. she’d think about trying one last time to find her real family but would consider it a lost cause. and then on the second last day, she would pack her bag with her journal and her favourite books of history and poetry, and quietly walk into the wilderness never to be seen again.

theodora: like hell she’s dying. she’s an undying warlock, she’d sell her soul double time to her patron to prevent it from happening. if that won’t work, she’d look for some other entity. it’s not happening. she will literally do anything to prevent it. 

81. What does your character’s name represent to them? (Or: why as a player did you choose your character’s name?)

venia: ven’s name i specifically chose for an incredibly niche plot reason. venia means “forgiveness. consent, permission, approval,” and the etymology derives from the name venus, which as a goddess represents “prosperity,” and as a planet is also called the morning star and is one of the brightest objects in the sky. venus also represents lucifer, the light-bringer, a being who fell far from heaven. there is also a long held belief, a prophecy, in venia’s home kingdom for centuries that “the morning star will rise to bring the kingdom to ashes and bring forth a new world aflame.” a prophecy that’s driven the line of king’s mad with paranoia. and guess who was born as a phoenix sorcerer. 

andromeda: honestly? i just really liked the name lmao she’s a haunted one who was born under a dark star, i figured a good astrology name would be fitting. 

theodora: i also thought this was just a really good name but i mean, her full name is theodora cane which means gift of god and warlike respectively and when you put it together....i mean..... not too bad.  

85. What would be your character’s major in college?

venia: political science and law. 

andromeda: english and library sciences.

theodora: theo’s my newest so it’s tough to nail her down but i think she’d try for a medical degree but then drop out to become a private investigator 

[stupidspaceseven]

A Memori Fic Rec

Hi Friends! In the spirit of celebrating memori engagement week I’ve decided to celebrate some of my favorite fics! Under the cut are a range of fics in different genres and ratings, divided between canon fics and AUs. It’s long but by no means exhaustive. All these fics are completed ;) Happy reading!

Canon Compliant Fics

How All This, And Love Too, Will Ruin Us by biextroverts

Rating: T, One-shot; Genre: Found Family/Angst

Emori finds a family and loses a lover on the Ring.

A great Ring fic that covers the six years in space. I’ve only read it once because it made me That Sad, which is really a testament to how well writting and IC it is, so if you’re a sucker for angst and raven&emori friendship definitely give this a read. 

The Lotus Eaters by maelidify: @maelidpoetree​

Rating: M (no smut), One shot; Genre: Fluff, Character Study

“I don’t like this place, John,” she said. “We’re not safe here.”

Am I partial to this fic because it was a gift to me? Yes, but I firmly believe that more people need to read it and that the author deserves more recognition in general! This pre 4.08 science island fic is sweet and romantic but explores inner conflicts of nature in such a beautiful way (with some awesome anecdotes and metaphors). All her writing is beautiful and poetic and it’s worth your while to go through her memori tag to find/read the stuff she hasn’t posted on AO3.

Cataclysmic by maelidify; @maelidpoetree​

Rating: E (by author request don’t read if you’re not 18+) One-shot, Genre: Angst

She’s looking up at him, half angry, half looking for permission for something. For what—?

Oh.

More breakup angst!! This remains the best Murphy POV I’ve read, it’s messy and angry and sad and the fic tears me up a little every time. I’d even recommend this to people who don’t like/read smut because, while present, it’s tasteful and really this fic is about all the emotions. If the two fics in a row haven’t clued you in just read everything Liz writes, because I don’t have space to talk about all her fics but they are all worth your time!!

First Impressions by interlude; @bombshellsandbluebells

Rating: T, One-shot; Genre: Drama

John Murphy comes back to Arkadia with an unfamiliar grounder woman. The Arkadians and former delinquents react.

(Or: Memori seen from different points of view. Takes places between 4x03 and 4x04.)

Personally I’m a big sucker for outsider POV fics, and the author does a great job with keeping all those outsiders in character and addressing their most pressing motivations while keeping memori in the spotlight of the fic. The story has all the urgency present in s4 and fills in some of the gaps nicely!

The Wild by Debate; @stupidspaceseven

Rated: M, Multichapter; Genre: Fluff

When Emori points up at the sky, it’s with a pointer finger twice the width of his own. He locks away the knowledge that she trusts him deep inside his chest.

[Post Wanheda 2, detailing Murphy and Emori's early season 3 adventures as they grow to mean the world to each other.]

This one is a shameless self-promotion, but I’m recommending it because I think it’s really good!! Fun shenanigans, theft, first kisses, angsty backstory reveals, smut, this fic basically has the works, and I’m like, 98% sure it’s the longest memori canon complaint fic out there. (I have a host of other memori fics, canon compliant and otherwise if you want to check those out too, but this one’s my personal favorite).

Canon Divergent AUs

Her What If List by the_most_beautiful_broom; @the-most-beautiful-broom​

Rating: G, One-shot; Genre: Meet Cute/Ugly

Memori Appreciation Week: Day One: Canon Divergence

Emori and Otan's latest robbery goes awry when the mark ends up being very much awake, but all's well that end's well, and an unexpected connection is made in the middle of the desert.

And she wonders if his eyes weren’t just sad, that they were just asleep. Because maybe it’s the fire, or the fading adrenaline, but now Emori can swear his eyes are sparkling. Which is a stupid thing to think. She’s in the middle of the dead zone, with a gun that isn’t a gun, and a man who could be conning her just like she’s trying to con him.

A really imaginative AU with Grounder!Murphy. This puts our characters in a familiar situation but makes it new and unique. Emori’s POV is both critical and vulnerable and the memori banter is amazing!

home is what the heart protects by emperor_bell

Rating: G, One-shot; Genre: Family/Friendship

"John Murphy had lived a hundred lifetimes in his year on the ground and yet still, somehow, after a year of living in space again, nineteen year old John Murphy hears the word “dad” and his first thought is 'I’m too young.'"

I'm obsessed with the thought of Emori having a baby in space, and I set out to write Memori parents. Instead I wrote 2k words of John Murphy feelings. Enjoy.

More messy feelings! The dialogue here and what characters (mostly Murphy) do versus what they think and say is really interesting and makes for an engaging read. Plus a look at how complicated memori as parents would be and a super angsty sequel if that’s the kind of thing you’re into!

Taking A Village by Zaffie

Rated: M, Multichapter; Genre: Found Family/Survival

Once they get it all sorted, the technical aspect of living on the Ring turns out to be the easy part. It's the rest which is hard. Everyone's got their personal demons to face - except when you're seven people trapped together for five-plus years, "personal" is easier said than done.

This one is much less memori-centric than spacekru-centric, but it’s probably my favorite Ring fic, and the AU aspects just make it better. Both Murphy and Emori are incredibly in character and their chapter is beautiful and sad. If you happen to also be a big Spacekru or Raven fan this fic is a must. Also there’s a great sequel in the works!

I know the sound of your heart by dylanobrienisbatman; @dylanobrienisbatman

Rating: G, One-shot; Genre: Fluff

Bellamy fought hard, and got them the 80 acres on the edge of the valley. They built a house, big enough for all of them, they had a farm, they were happy and safe. Emori should be happy, she should feel like it was enough, but it wasn't. She and John were still apart, and their history made her scared to try.

But as time went on, she watched as John became part of the group. She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but the longer she waited, the more it seemed like he was really better.

Was it time to give him another chance?

The soft spacekru feels in this one are almost as great as the memori ones which feature reconciliation and addressing their s5 issues in a healthy way. The lead up to them getting back together is as good the second go around as in the first.

eat, drink, and be merry by flowermasters

Rating: G, One-shot; Genre: Fluff

Murphy and Emori do what they can to improve morale.

So this is the wedding fic that everybody needs in these hours. There’s a healthy dose of spacekru to make it all the ore sweeter and Murphy and Emori are adorably in love while trying to maintain their aloof and uncaring reputations. This fic did so much to heal my soul while in the depth of the s5 angst. 

In This Valley by Kats_watermelon; @katswatermelon​

Rating: T, One-shot; Genre: Angst/Fluff/Kidfic

written for day 1 of memori week, prompt: canon divergence 

This is mostly a really fun spec fic if God Complex went worse and Murphy and Emori got six years alone on Earth. There are big shifts in tone from the start to the end of the fic, but they feel earned and memori have a cure kid in addition to Madi and you get to see them square up with Diyoza asap. Something for everyone!

Life After the Mountain by Ghelik; @ghelikblack 

Rating: T, Series of One-shots; Genre: Hurt/Comfort

The Mountain falls and the grounders keep their distance, because the Sky-People are soldiers that have earned their respect and the lands of the Mountain that they have conquered. Which is good, because skaikru might need a break.

Series of one-shots in an AU where season 3 kind of didn't happen, but elements of it might be borrowed from.

This one is a little different because it’s a series of one shots and not all of them deal with memori but the fair majority of them do, and it’s a great what-if of how Murphy and Emori learn to function in society in a (sort of) kinder world. There’s lots of angst and vulnerability and feelings of inadequacy as well as fluff and healing. The fics span genres so there’s probably something for everybody!

Burn brighter than we ever have before by Zoadgo; @jonnmurphy

Rating: G, One-shot; Genre: Drama

Murphy flees an unknown threat in the Promised Land, running right back to the desert that almost killed him the first time he crossed it. It seems intent on fixing its past failures, and Murphy isn't strong enough to fight it on his own, this time. But someone from his past offers him a chance to survive, and even to prosper in the Dead Zone. That is, if he can bring himself to trust someone who has already betrayed him once.

Another great Murphy POV with additional cool (or hot, rather) desert descriptions and personal conflict. It’s a cool what-if and explores how things could have gone down if t100 didn’t go full scifi. Most of all Murphy and Emori’s understandings of each other/immediate connection shine through. 

Show Them the Mercy They Won’t Find on Earth by berxnica

Rating: NA (no smut), One-shot; Genre: Drama

she just showed up swollen and scared, eyes so impossibly big that they left no room for a smile. she pulled murphy aside and removed the blanket that she previously was clutching to her stomach. and there it was, her stomach, swollen and full and round with the promise of life.

Another memori becoming parents fic, but in a different era. The character understanding shines through in the prose here. Our faves are suspicious and afraid and angry while still being soft with one another. If kidfic is your thing at all it’s def worth your time!

Earth Skills: Reap What You Sow by BeaRyan

Rating: E, Multichapter; Genre: Crack/Smut

That week everyone got high on mutant corn and John Murphy realized juvenile prison might not have taught him everything he needed to know about how to please a woman. Canon adjacent.

This is a Memori story from John Murphy's snark-tastic POV and as such contains minor whomp of everyone. Complete.

This story contains a multitude of side pairings, but it is really good for a laugh, and despite being cracky Murphy and Emori’s feelings are very real and present and sweet. A grand ‘ole fic.  

AUs

Litany by infernalandmortal; @infernalandmortal

Rating: T, Mulichapter; Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

After leaving an abusive relationship, Murphy moves into his best friend's house. He's fine, really. Their new roommate comes with more than enough baggage of her own.

(A Memori college AU)

If you read memori fic chances are you’ve read this, but it’s definitely worth reiterating! Great writing really brings forth raw emotions from both Murphy and Emori’s POVs and a lot of reading this fic is like getting sucker punched in the best way. There’s also a nice side helping of found family feels, and you get it all in Amanda’s lovely prose (her setting descriptions? kill me) truly a must read.

Little Beast by infernalandmortal: @infernalandmortal

Rating: T, Multichapter

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

John meets her eyes from across the room. What are you running from? his eyes ask.

Nothing, she blinks back. Everything.

“Will I see you again?” His eyes are trying not to be earnest. They are a strange shade of blue-green in the flickering yellow street light outside her house. They are uncomfortably difficult to read.

“Maybe.” It’s all she can give. She’s supposed to fear boys like this. “I’d like to.”

(A Memori-centric small-town AU. Title and opening excerpts from Little Beast by Richard Siken.)

Less angsty than Litany, but no less emotional, this fic is *chef’s kiss*. The fic features Murphy and Emori growing together and becoming family with one another while trying to manage their pasts. The growth the characters have through the fic is amazing and the ending make me feel all kinds of Soft. There are also bonus drabbles in the same ‘verse. And after you read those you might as well read everything else by this author because her stories are numerous and amazing. 

Don’t be surprised if I love you (for all that you are) by not_a_total_basket_case; @raven-reyes-of-sunshine​

Rating: G, One-shot

Genre: Fluff

Emori doens't want to find her soulmate, she wants to make that choice herself.

Who doesn’t like a good soulmate AU? The mechanics of soulmates in this AU are really unique and structured in a way to make the payoff at the end all the better. It’s a great friends to lovers story, and the supporting cast is lovely too, this fic make you feel all warm inside. 

Tired of Yourself and All of Your Creations by Chash

Rating: T, One-shot

Genre: Fluff/Drama

Murphy didn't ask to be successful and relatively wealthy and friends with people in good standing in society. It just sort of happened, and now there are all these families who apparently think he'd be a good match for their daughters. Being a respectable member of society is a pain, really.

I certainly didn’t know I needed a memori Regancy!AU until I read this, but the characterizations were picture perfect and the plot quick and smart without getting pulled down by the type of dialogue common in regency writing. A very fun AU!

Quiet Thought Come Floating Down and Settle by LayALioness

Rating: T, One-shot; Genre: Drama/Fluff

When Murphy meets the girl, it’s not under the best circumstances.

A great example of canon transferred to modern AU well with prickly Murphy and mysterious Emori. The story is fast paced and all of Murphy’s inner musings and snark are highly amusing. 

traitors never win by Kats_watermelon; @katswatermelon​

Rating: T, Multichapter; Genre: Crime/Drama

Murphy's been kicked out of his crew. Emori's been alone for a while now. They both have a knack for robbery and dreams bigger than their pasts, and they're willing to steal from anyone and everyone to prove it.

If you like the high drama this is for you, a very edge of your seat read with a great payoff at the end. Lovely dialogue as well and a combo of both Murphy’s and Emori’s POVs.

Golden by frikdreina;

Rating: E, One-shot; Genre: Smut/Fluff

It was their two years anniversary and Emori had planned this for weeks. Murphy would be at her place after seven and Emori skipped her last period so she could get everything done before he got there. Her heart was pounding as she unlocked the door to her apartment, the thrill of anticipation taking over her. It was like if electricity was running through her veins and she couldn’t get enough of it, with her mind drifting to the way he kissed her and how his touch had always felt right on her skin.

If you’re just looking for some hot and sweet memori smut this is the fic for you! Doesn’t get into anything too kinky and remains intimate throughout with great descriptions. 

she’s the tear in my heart by flowermasters

Rating: M, One-shot; Genre: Fluff/Drama

Murphy is in love with the girl he's sleeping with, and is incredibly bad at handling it.

Oh man This Fic. The banter is amazing and full of little call backs and tie ins, the descriptions speak to Murphy and Emori so well and transfer to a modern AU so easily. The fic is lovely and if you want something where Murphy and Emori are just dumb about their feelings than this is for you. Another author to keep your eye on if you like memori (or becho) fics. 

[mbti-notes]

1/4 / INTP, having trouble communicating with IxFJ boyfriend because we respond differently when stressed. He likes to talk through his problems with me right after they happen as it helps him destress. Im happy to listen but personally like to distract myself from a problem first, solve it when I have a detached view, then talk about it later. This created a rift between us. He has a habit of venting in the car after work, then asking me about my problems.

[con’t: But rehashing difficulties when I haven’t resolved them stresses me worse so I don’t go into detail. Even though I have explained to him that venting does not help me like it helps him, he interprets this as me being secretive, not trusting him with my problems and thinking of him as weak for talking about problems out loud (his words). I have never said or implied this. But though he complains about this, he also doesn’t take me seriously when I ask for help. He said its because “he didn’t think it was urgent because I didn’t look stressed”. It’s true, I am not very expressive, but I know this, so I try to make my requests very clear. Ex: “please help me with these forms due tomorrow, I am under pressure”, but he takes it lightly until I’m stressed to tears, only then does he realize the problem is serious. This also happens when we argue. He says if I look and talk so calm, I must not care, even if I say I’m upset. or when I’m under pressure and trying to distract myself with my hobbies, he assumes I’m wasting time. Am I misinterpreting him or doing something wrong? He only seems to take me seriously after I’m past my breaking point, but I don’t want to be pushed there every time I need to make my needs clear. Do you have advice for communicating with him? Thanks.]

It seems you are trying your best but the message isn’t getting through because he’s prone to making assumptions about you due to projecting his own worldview (i.e. expecting you to be the same as him). Additionally, if auxiliary Fe isn’t well-developed, a person is more likely to misread emotional cues. It is difficult to communicate with someone when you always have to break through the wall of their faulty assumptions. Unless he’s willing to acknowledge this problem and work on it directly, I doubt it will improve on its own. However, there are still aspects of the problem that are well within your power to address.

I was once told about an intp who suffered a devastating loss of a loved one. As you said, intps like to process and solve problems on their own, so everyone around him left him to grieve and process on his own. After some time had passed and he was back on his feet, he complained about how no one stepped up to help him and he felt like he didn’t have any real friends or support. Of course, this was kind of insulting to his friends because they made great efforts to set aside their natural inclination to get involved in order to allow him to do things at his own pace on his own terms. In other words, they were trying to show him that they understood him and respected his natural self-sufficiency, but he perceived it as quite the opposite. He wasn’t able to communicate to them what was really happening and what he really needed from them, so they could only guess at what to do. Hopefully, this simple but very common example illuminates how intps contribute to the problem of being misunderstood. Individuals of every type encounter communication problems that manifest from their own development issues. There are two major stumbling blocks in communication that intps tend to be unaware of due to their development issues:

1) Poor attentiveness to detail (from lack of Si development). Ns don’t like details because oftentimes they don’t have a good grasp of them; they have messy minds in that respect. Therefore, when they communicate, they don’t get detailed enough and they don’t explain well enough. This easily creates an unconscious expectation that other people should be mindreaders who are able to “connect the dots” and fill in everything you haven’t said out loud - this is an unreasonable expectation. You have to accept the fact that different people think differently, otherwise, you’ll always have trouble communicating. You can always work on being more detailed and try to provide fuller explanations. For example, when you say, “I am under pressure”, try to give a FULL STORY, in an ORDERLY fashion from beginning to end, that details exactly why you are under pressure AND what the consequences will be should you fail to meet your goal or remain under too much pressure. Now, if after reading that sentence, your kneejerk reaction is that people are stupid if they can’t understand what being under pressure means, then you are falling into the trap of expecting people to magically know everything that you know about your situation. When you are detailed and give full explanations, people take you more seriously because they have a fuller and deeper understanding of where you’re coming from. In other words, people understand you better when you help them understand. This is especially important when the other person is your functional opposite (i.e. your higher functions are their lower functions). The two of you are speaking different languages, therefore, translation is often necessary.

2) Expressing facts or thoughts rather than feelings (due to lack of Fe development). Ts often don’t understand what it means to express feelings explicitly. Let me play devil’s advocate and interpret your words through an FJs ears: “I am under pressure” is not an expression of feeling but rather a statement of fact. The problem with this statement is that it’s quite common to be under pressure, especially in work-related contexts, and it’s normal to feel under pressure when you have deadlines or a lot on your plate. Furthermore, if I’ve observed you to consistently handle pressure very well most of the time, then “I am under pressure” is no big deal, right? There is nothing in this statement that really conveys abnormal levels of urgency, so the statement doesn’t do enough to make clear your exact emotional state. 

It’s always better to use the word “feel” in your sentence when you want to convey your emotional state, e.g., “I am feeling very stressed right now and I need help” is much more to the point. If you want people to take your emotions seriously, you have to take them seriously enough to convey them effectively via explicit feeling statements. Feeling statements express your urgency but also, more importantly, your vulnerability to pain, and that is what makes it easier for FJs to move quickly from passive sympathizing into active helping. When FJs feel that you are in pain or soon to be in pain, they’ll jump to help you, but they can’t feel it when you don’t express it such that they can feel it. Ts often trip up when talking about feelings because, unconsciously, they don’t want to confront or expose their emotional vulnerability. In masking your feelings behind factual statements, you do your emotional life a disservice and you make it harder for people to know what’s really going on with you. The fact that you are so afraid of “feeling worse” implies an avoidance of that aspect of yourself. If you can’t fully face up to your feelings, how can you express them fully?

FJs, due to higher Fe, predominantly speak through the language of feelings, which means that they understand feelings in terms of how they manifest via face, body, and words, though a mature FJ should be aware that not everyone speaks this language fluently and make adjustments. Remember that FJs won’t be able to gauge your emotional state very well without those cues, and you shouldn’t expect them to, because then you’d be forcing them to speculate and make assumptions, which exacerbates the original problem you’ve described of jumping to conclusions. A blank face and matter-of-fact tone can have multiple possible interpretations, and if that’s what you present to them, it’s not really fair to blame them for guessing it wrong. How can someone know how you feel when there is no agreement or common language to communicate that information? You can’t have it both ways: You can’t say that people should accept your emotional inexpressiveness (and any unwillingness to change it) and then also expect that they should still magically know exactly how you feel. The breakdown of communication is caused by you if that’s the case. 

Communication is a two-way street. Ideally, when opposites communicate, both sides should make an effort to translate themselves well to the other person, and it sounds like many more couple discussions are needed about how to bridge your Ti vs Fe cognitive differences. When the other side isn’t capable of meeting you halfway, then you sometimes have to work twice as hard to make yourself heard. It’s not an insurmountable problem, but it’s hard work to develop the right strategies and put them into practice. It’s worth it, though, because it also helps you with your function growth and development.

[amazildoessomethingstupid]

Chapter 96: Unspoken Rule

Man I thought it would be a lot longer before I did another of these, but as it turns out I fucking hate in between pages.  Y’know, those pages between the actual good and interesting shit?  Y’know the parts that are in between the fun parts, but you have to have them to actually move characters to the good parts? The parts that are boring and filler?  Yeah as an artist/writer I hate those too and it took me most of the week to come up with a page to make it not boring as sin.  Sadly this means, ANOTHER RANT!  And this time we are taking a look at Unspoken Rule. But before we do, I’d like to share with you the bit of panic that set in and what kind of pressure I had on me when trying to force an update.  For a second I thought that this rant was going to be about…

And I was very, very, scared.

Thankfully a friend notified me that I don’t know how to count, so we’re talking about this chapter instead!  Boy what a relief that was, I thought.  But it seemed a bit disappointing.  I hadn’t heard anything of this page, seems like it’ll be a short rant.  That won’t do.  So I figured, “hey if there’s not much to say.  Fuck it, we’ll do a double feature with the carnival…”

Sadly, I have something to say.

And we start with a good lighthearted joke.  Although, that expression in the first panel throws it off a bit.  The dialogue on the initial read says snark and sassy, but the face says honest concern, but then we show it is snarky.  So the face is just, confusing.  Not worth kicking up a fuss about, but definitely a headscratcher.

Anyway, on to what’s actually happening.  Which is Mike is being nervous and back and forth about wanting to talk to Lucy and apologize.  And it’s so weird to me.  This is such a serious plot point, and major conflict in the story, yet this is played for laughs. And not even good laughs, just hollow jokes it feels almost tasteless.  But not as tasteless as this:

BIG OOF  

Alright guys, see this?

I am absolved of this being uncharacteristically brash and open.  If Taeshi can do that kind of rudeness, so can I.  Lucy is just so cold now, it feels bad.  Not out of character, not unrealistic, just…bad.

But moving from that, we get into these two.   And…

Awww…th-this is actually pretty sad. And engaging.

HEY! I SEE YOU REACHING FOR MY HEARTSTRINGS! YOU STAY THE FUCK AWAY!

But seriously, this a very nice scene. It’s kind of touching, and it’s a moment I wish we had more of.  

It’s…actually very nice. The characters are finally airing their grievances, and we’re getting somewhere. I…I actually like th-

OH YOU BACKSTABBING, HACK WRITING, BITCH! ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! WHY ARE YOU STICKING YOUR DICK IN A GAS STATION MILKSHAKE?! BITCH,

ARE YOU FUCKING F’REAL SHAKES RIGHT NOW?!  WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU FEEL THE NEED TO ADD THAT?!  THIS JUST DESTROYS ALL IMMERSION, I ALMOST FELT SOMETHING THERE FOR A SECOND! BUT THEN YOU HAD TO DO SOMETHING SO DUMB!  THIS ISN’T EVEN ON THE CHARACTER, THIS IS A STRAIGHT UP WRITING ISSUE!  EVEN I WOULDN’T DO SOMETHING THIS DUMB!  IT’S SO OUT OF PLACE!  IT GIVES ME MENTAL WHIPLASH CAUSE I HAVE TO DO A DOUBLE TAKE TO MAKE SURE I’M NOT JUST FUCKING SEEING SHIT! AND YOU KNOW WHAT’S THE WORST PART ABOUT THIS FUCKING PANEL?!

IT’S IN THE PRINTED BOOK! Taeshi saw this, drew it, posted it, and got whatever feedback from it.  Then later came back, saw it, and edited a bunch of things for the book, and decided, “No that’s fine.  We’ll leave it there, that’s perfectly okay.”  And just left it there!  WHY?!  You had a good scene, an actual honest to god, good scene.  And you had to just make a dumb joke, and ruin the whole mood.  This is the sort of bad run and gun cheap gag sort of shtick that you’d expect to see from Volume 1!  Except, even Volume 1 knew when to take itself seriously, and maintain that serious tone!  I mean imagine if this happened in something like Zach’s talk with Lucy.

Any good graces this scene had, in setting up these two working out their problems and moving in a nice direction is thrown out the window now, and for what?!  What’s the purpose?  Why would yo-

Oh…Oh no…

Please, have mercy! You already stabbed my back, please don’t stab me in the heart! Please, not like this!

Aaaugh, no!  Not like this!  Poor Rachel!  It’s not fair I can’-

Wait….

I-is…Is that it?

Are you kidding me?

That’s it?  Two pages?  Really? That’s how you’re breaking it off?  This is how you’re going to stab me? Look, there’s like 3 more inches left in the knife, come on.  Push it deeper.  Twist it, I know you want to.  WHY ARE YOU HOLDING BACK? FUCKING WORK THIS SCENE AND MAKE ME CRY!  

NO FUCK YOU, WE’RE NOT MOVING PAST THIS!

YOU WROTE RACHEL’S BREAK UP. IN

TWO

FUCKING

PAGES!?

YOU WROTE OUT ONE OF THE MOST GROUNDED, HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN YOUR COMIC IN TWO PAGES LIKE IT WAS NOTHING!  WITH A HORRIBLE ONE-SIDED DIALOGUE, WHERE RACHEL IS TALKING TO PAULO WHO HAS SUDDENLY INHERITED THE EMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING OF A BRICK WALL!  HOW COULD YOU DO THAT AFTER EVERYTHING YOU DID IN BUILDING THIS CHARACTER’S ENTIRE ARC AND DEVELOPMENT!?  AFTER TRANSFORMING A CHARACTER WHO WAS PORTRAYED AS UNLIKABLE, BITCHY, ANNOYING, SLUTTY, AND DUMB.

To fleshing her out, to be deep, thoughtful, caring, and supportive.  Rachel is my favorite character, and it’s not because she’s a slut it’s because she represented something in this comic that had been absent.  

Natural character development.  That wasn’t brought on by some big event shaking their entire core, and changing them. In fact, one of the best things about Rachel is that despite how differently her character’s reception is from Volume 6 compared to Volume 1, her personality, her attitude, and her core is mostly unchanged.  

She’s still slutty, she’s overweight, she’s silly.  But a big part of why I love her as a character, and why I think many others do as well, is because never does it seem to be a negative to her.  We don’t see her get upset, or self-conscious about her weight, or her sexual behavior, because she’s confident in herself and accepts herself. Not only that, but she’s shown to take charge, stand up and not be afraid to call out what she sees is wrong. And outside of her character…

She was a role model for Paulo.  Unlike Jasmine whose relationship was more Paulo bending himself to fit her lifestyle, Rachel was a character who accepted and supported Paulo’s lifestyle, but at the same time helped steer him to do the right thing.  And in a comic where almost every fucking character is so intent on dancing around their issues and waiting until it blows up in their face, Rachel served as an example of someone who had it together.  A proactive person, who didn’t want to see these characters get worse.

I have ranted and gone off on a lot of decisions and actions that these characters have done, but not once did I ever scratch my head or think twice about something that Rachel did. Her character didn’t need a bunch of insight, and excuses about hormones or “they’re teenagers, lol!” to understand her.  She simply was who she was, and I respect that.

In short…

Despite everything that my history with this comic gave me, the feelings I developed from all the bullshit that has happened in this story, despite all of that.  It was this one character, what she brought to the table, and what she did for the comic and its characters, that gave me something I thought I’d long lost, and never thought I’d ever regain.

She gave me hope in this comic.  That it would finally have its characters be proactive, regain its humor, and bring itself out of the slump it made for itself.  With this character, and the writing behind her, I believed Taeshi was finally on the right track, and was setting up something great that would grow the characters and build upon them naturally.

But that’s not what we got. And the real bitch of it is, this could’ve been a real emotional moment. A well executed front-stab.  We knew it was coming, we saw the writing on the wall, but we still needed to face the music.  It was set up to be a wonderful tragedy, where both parties are well aware of the futility of their relationship.  They understand each other, and why it won’t work, but also don’t want to let go.  And I was going to make a comparison to Two Kinds, because they had a similar scenario with Trace’s wife and the whole idea of moving on is a recurring theme… But looking back I realized something.  I don’t need to bring a comparison to Two Kinds or someone else’s comic, and no I’m not even going to draw a comparison of what I would’ve done in this situation by drawing a comparison to False Idol’s future scene (although I was thinking about that).  No, we don’t need to look too far because you know what the real sad part about this is?

We’ve had this conversation before.

And just look at it. Look how heartbreaking this is.  This is how it should’ve been.  You see that Paulo understands what she’s saying, he knows what she means and how bittersweet their relationship is.  It is one of the best moments from the newer volumes, and their inevitable breakup should’ve been a turning point.  It should’ve marked a big life-changing moment for Paulo.  Where he is sad about how he’s making Rachel feel, but he’s unsure about his own feelings. Maybe Rachel makes the decision for him and breaks it off, and Paulo realizes how hurtful his behavior is, and that he can’t play games with people anymore, that it’s not fair.  It could be the moment Paulo turns a new leaf and becomes more mature, and in seeing that; Rachel can let go taking some solace in knowing that he is a better person now.

But instead we got this…

We’re not even halfway through this god damn chapter. Well where is it taking us now?

Huh…and it seems that the writing is not going to change pace either, I wonder where this is going.

Oh boy, everyone’s getting into teams!  And oh man, Lucy’s going up against Mike!  And boy is this contrived.  And what’s even worse, is that despite how much Taeshi has shunned Volume 1 and its stupid sense of humor, and how shoddy it was.  Volume 1 wasn’t THIS contrived, and when it was, it was pretty tongue in cheek about it.  In fact!

This sounds like something Volume 1 would MAKE FUN OF.  But let’s give the benefit of the doubt maybe it’s not that bad.  It might have something going on, an-

(It’s interesting, I think I have like 3 reaction pics of Sam trying to shoot herself, but this one just can not be matched.  And it’s not even meant for the rants.)

You know what?  I’m not even gonna bother going over this part. No one will be seated during the harrowing “Will they won’t they” inconsequential dodgeball fight. Although I will say,

Not gonna lie, that actually got a laugh out of me.  Good job. Anyway, Lucy catches the ball and wins the game who cares.  But then…

First of all

Look at those arms. Damn Lucy what happened?  You’re looking like two toothpicks in a marshmallow.   But more than that.  Did I read that right?

Yeah!  It’s not like you stopped practicing Martial Arts!  Why would you?  It’s not like you had some serious physical trauma happen to stop you-

OH WAIT!

RECOVERY PERIOD? PHYSICAL THERAPY?  PFFFT WHO THE FUCK NEEDS THAT?  YEAH SURE, YOU’RE TOTALLY FINE AND CAPABLE BEING A FUCKING BLACK BELT IN TAE KWON DO.  SURE!  NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! WHAT THE FUCK ARE STITCHES AM I RIGHT?

But I’m just combing cotton here, this all just fluff.  There’s really only one thing left to talk about here.

And I’ll be honest.

This.

Is…

Pretty good.

This is honestly really well done.  There’s nothing I can say about this.  It’s a very serious moment, I can feel Taeshi reaching for my heartstrings but I…I’m okay with it.  This was the moment I wanted to see.  Finally these characters air out some of their grievances.  We get insight to how they feel, we are finally getting somewhere. It’s not nice, but it’s progress an-

…

THAT’S THE TH-….

*sigh*

Fuck you too, Taeshi.

Three times.

Three fucking times in one chapter, that you set up something good.  Had a good thing going, and then decided to fuck it up at the end. That’s a new record.  Even when I expected nothing out of this chapter, you manage to let me down.  You astound me with how much you disappoint me.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were doing it to intentionally troll me. But I’m not that vain.  Fuck you Taeshi, I’ve said this before but always with the tone of hyperbole, and a bit of optimistic cynicism.  But this time I really mean it.  I have no more faith in you as a writer.  Whatever you come up with, however this ride ends.  I don’t think you will pull it off anymore.  I don’t think you have the competence to tie this up in a proper way.  At one point you could’ve.  At one point, I think you had it in you with the mindset, the creativity, and the emotional drive to tell a well-crafted story.  But not anymore, and I despise what you’ve become.    Let’s get this stupid chapter over with.

What’s next?  What are we doing huh?  What are we getting at?

Oh…

I see.  This is where we’re going huh? That’s what all this was for?

ALRIGHT! Y’KNOW WHAT? FINE! I GUESS THIS IS WHAT WE’RE DOING BOYS!  THIS IS THE NEW DIRECTION FOR BCB!  LOOK! SHE CALLED PAULO CUTE! OMG THE SHIP IS SAILING, DON’T YOU GET IT?  IT’S JUST SHIPPING! THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS! THAT’S HOW WE’RE DRIVING THE PLOT!

FUCK ALL THAT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, THIS IS WHY RACHEL GOT DROPPED!  IT WASN’T CAUSE OF CHARACTERS NATURALLY CONCLUDING RELATIONSHIPS, IT’S ALL BECAUSE LUCY’S HERE AND WE CAN’T HAVE PAULO’S RELATIONSHIP WITH RACHEL CLASH WITH THAT!  SHE’S OUTLIVED HER USEFULNESS! NOW IT’S ALL ABOUT PAULO X LUCY, OR PAULO X DAISY WHICH IS IT?  THIS IS THE REAL DRAMA YOU ALL ARE LOOKING FOR!  THIS IS HOW WE REALLY MOVE THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS!  CHOO CHOO BOYS!  ALL ABOARD THE SHIP!  LET’S JUST GO ALONG FOR THE RIDE WHERE WE GOING TAESHI?  I’M READY!  I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING LEFT TO FUCKING LOOK FORWARD TO OR LIVE FOR!  SO COME ON, WHERE ARE YOU SAILING US?

I give it a 2/10.  Until next time, guys.