#{ Neither is mentioned in a bad light nor is this post written to be negative! }

[becauseimanicequeen]

In Defense of Ji from To Be Continued

(Or “Let’s Look at Characters From a More Non-Binary Perspective”)

I’ve been thinking about writing a post like this since the 5th episode last week (but haven’t gotten around to it). But after reading a couple of comments with the general consensus that Ji’s actions were at the risk of becoming irredeemable, I felt like there was no time like the present. Better late than never, right? (This is a long one, so I’ll put most of it after a break with a TL;DR at the end.)

(Btw, that purple light between them is so well placed. They're clearly not communicating, symbolized by that line being drawn between them. And the purple, a mix of blue (trust and loyalty) and red (love and fate), symbolizes the mysterious and unresolved feelings they're both having (or are beginning to have) towards each other. )

The response to Ji and Achi that I’ve seen has been interesting. The little response I’ve seen (since I haven’t seen this series being talked about that much, or perhaps I’m just bad at searching for it) was utter annoyance with Achi the first few episodes until we were shown that Ji made Achi cry in the past and (mostly) everyone I’ve seen writing about this turned on Ji all of a sudden.

(It’s hilarious to see how easily viewers change their opinions. I mean that genuinely. Some of that is more entertaining than many QLs I’ve watched.)

My mindset isn’t that binary, though. (I don’t see things in either black or white because that’s too limiting for me.) That means that I’m neither for nor against either Achi or Ji. (I can definitely like one character more than another, but that doesn’t mean that character is “better” than any other. And in this particular case, I like Ji and Achi equally.) It just annoys me a bit when a character gets torn to shreds for an isolated scene or situation (akin to the whole Non vs Jin situation in DFF, which got waaaaay out of hand).

(Obviously, this is by no means a call for deep analysis of characters–essay style–every time anyone wants to say something about a character. But I do feel like taking an isolated situation out of context means that the meaning, however differently all of us interpret that meaning, gets lost.)

Based on what we’ve seen so far in To Be Continued, both Achi and Ji have made mistakes (in the past and present), they are both terrible at communicating, both are clearly confused and/or terrified of their feelings (especially towards each other), and it seems like no one wants to be the first to fess up. That’s the general situation of their relationship in the series so far.

A discussion on who’s at “fault” for Ji and Achi’s current situation based on what I just listed is pretty much unnecessary because they’re both equally responsible. However, since it’s so easy to play the blame game and spread it like wildfire on the internet just because there’s a character one doesn’t like or see eye to eye with, I thought it was a good idea to include it in this post anyway. Especially since my answer is based on my non-binary way of thinking. (Spoiler alert: it’s not either/or, it’s both/and.)

(I’m putting fault between quotation marks because I feel like its connotation is too negative when something like responsible would suit better. But since fault is often thrown around when playing the blame game, I’ll stick to that word.)

If we look at Ji and Achi’s actions (the ones we’ve seen so far), I feel like 3 moments stand out:

Achi pestering Ji in the first few episodes even though Ji said he wanted nothing to do with Achi. (Present)

Ji asked Achi to introduce him to Pear. (Past)

The mixed signals both of them are giving each other. (Past and present)

I’ve previously written a post about Achi choosing not to respect Ji’s boundaries (even when clearly stated), so I won’t go too deep into that. What I will mention here, however, is that it doesn’t matter how desperate Achi is in trying to keep Ji close. Breaking someone else’s boundaries is not okay. Whenever someone needs space, it should (ideally) be respected.

Achi is being way too pushy in the first couple of episodes, and he’s not even communicating why that is. I think he says once (or twice?) that he’s missed Ji all these 10 years they’ve been apart and that he wants to know how Ji's been, but that’s no excuse.

If you doubt that some space would make any difference, look at how Ji reacted during that whole montage of Ji finding those bags with food (or whatever it was) that Achi hung on his door in ep. 5. And those notes they write to each other when exchanging those bags is probably the best line of communication they’ve had since they got to know each other. That’s how much can change if a person’s boundaries are respected.

(Sure, you could argue that it was a result of Ji showing respect first when he thanked Achi for coming over with food in the scene before the montage. Sometimes you need to first give what you want to get, and that “thank you” to Achi might've made Achi realize he could back off without being terrified of losing Ji (or whatever his reason for being so persistent is).)

When it comes to my second point above (Ji asking Achi to introduce him to Pear), it’s very interwoven with the third point (the mixed signals both of them are giving).

In the whole montage of them going on that day trip and playing games and stuff in the past (ep. 3), you can clearly see that there are feelings involved from both of them (whatever that may be; friendship, fondness, curiosity, love, whatever). But every time Ji looked at Achi (especially when they were at one of those lookout points with a beautiful view), Achi turned away. I mean, if you look at that whole jacket scene, you can see that he literally steps back and avoids Ji’s gaze.

Ji doesn’t seem to mind though, it’s not like he’s surprised or worried about it. But it still doesn’t change the fact that Achi is giving him mixed signals. Achi is both hot (giving Ji his jacket when Ji’s cold) and cold (stepping away and avoiding Ji’s gaze when Ji is looking and smiling at him).

And then there’s the scene on the pier/jetty at the end of episode 4 (which is also from the past). This happens after Ji asked Achi to introduce him to Pear (which I still believe was very innocent at first because Ji seemed genuinely interested in her, and there’s nothing wrong with that).

On that pier/jetty, Ji is tentatively trying to figure out how Achi is feeling because he can sense the tension (at least that’s how I interpret it). Ji does so by first asking Achi if he has feelings for Pear (because that could be a logical explanation for the tension), but Achi says he doesn’t. That’s when Ji has this look on his face:

It’s like he’s trying to think of another reason for the tension, which I think is what leads to the moment when he says that Achi’s got pretty eyes, nose, and lips.

I feel like he’s being genuine here. At the same time as he’s trying to figure out what the tension is all about, he’s also giving Achi an opportunity to clear things up, to be honest with Ji, and for both of them to get closer.

Then Ji lays his head on Achi’s chest as if to listen to his heartbeat (perhaps listening for an answer rather than being told, because we already know that their m.o. isn’t communication).

Achi is swayed for a moment, but he still chooses to change the subject and ends up leaving the pier/jetty (once again giving Ji mixed signals, especially after looking at Ji with heart eyes only moments before).

Achi’s reaction is probably based on a fear of being rejected since he thinks that Ji is interested in Pear, so it makes sense. But, even though his actions make sense, he’s still choosing to participate in giving off mixed signals.

(I mean, if someone looked at me with hearts in their eyes and then avoided me like the plague when I wanted to get closer, I would ditch the bitch. But, this isn’t about me…)

What’s interesting (and something I think some viewers are forgetting) is that this scene from the past is mirrored in the scene in Ji’s bedroom earlier in the same episode (which is in the present). In the present, it’s Achi who says that he thinks Ji’s eyes, nose, and lips are pretty (confessing to Ji only when he thinks Ji is sleeping, which seems to be his m.o., btw).

But then he repeats it when Ji asks him what he said.

I feel like Achi is trying to bring back that moment from the past because he knows he missed an opportunity to be honest about his feelings at that moment on the pier/jetty. The difference is that this time it leads to them kissing (a kiss that should never have happened until they had cleared up their shit, btw, but who can stop these two confused, love-sick, adorable idiots? Well, the screenwriters can, but what would be the fun in that? I digress…).

This time, Ji is the one who breaks the moment. He knows just as well as Achi where those words came from. He remembers that moment on the pier/jetty in the past just as well as Achi. And I swear that he remembers the rejection too.

It’s possible those memories were too much for Ji. It’s also possible that he realized the kiss wasn’t a good idea (he has shown previously that he’s not okay with Achi just kissing him, like in ep. 2). And as we saw with the previous kiss, it takes Ji a moment or two before he realizes what happens an/or realizes the implications of what’s happening (it took him a moment before he pushed Achi away in ep. 2, and the same here in ep. 4 before he pulled back).

So, who’s at “fault” here? Who’s at “fault” for creating more tension (and hurt feelings) between them?

Is Achi at “fault” considering he brought up the past when mirroring that moment on the pier/jetty? Is he at “fault” considering he initiated the kiss in Ji's bedroom (he was the one who leaned forward first and the one who held onto Ji with both hands/arms)?

Is Ji at “fault” considering he rejected Achi? Is he at “fault” considering he told Achi to leave his bedroom after the kiss (clearly needing some space)?

And don’t come at me with the whole “but Ji hurt Achi’s feelings by hitting on Pear, not to mention taking her to the same movie that Achi took Ji to.”

First of all, was that a conscious choice of Ji’s? Possibly. Was this the best way to go about it? Debatable. But it should be said that Ji got interested in Pear before he started sensing the tension between him and Achi. It was all good feelings before that (and it could be that Ji didn’t think his relationship with Achi was beyond friendship, because delusion and confusion are every teenager’s middle names).

Secondly, on that same pier/jetty in that same scene in ep. 4, Ji mentions that he doesn’t like romantic movies, whereas Achi says that it might be because he’s never been in love. Is it then so far-fetched that he takes Pear to that same movie (which I assume is a romance) to test out if he sees the movie with new eyes now that he’s with Pear? Not really.

(Could he have chosen another romantic movie? Sure. Was there another romance playing at the time? I have no fucking idea because this is fiction and they didn’t tell us and we’re probably supposed to read between the lines that it was a romance and that Ji was influenced by Achi’s words and I’m totally getting off track here…)

Thirdly, and probably the most important point: Let’s not forget that there’s actually a possibility that Ji is bi (the same goes for Achi who had some sort of relationship with… what’s her name, Mona?).

I know it’s difficult in this generally binary-thinking world to understand there’s a possibility of something in the middle of black or white. You’re either gay or straight, right? Wrong! There’s such a thing as bi- and pansexuality. And since we’re living in such a binary-thinking world, it’s easy to be hella confused as bi- or pansexual.

(I won’t go into the bi-hate that viewers spew out in comments and reactions to QLs, especially when the lead roles are bi (and especially when they are together with or hook up with the opposite sex), but it’s so fucking annoying. I want to write a post about this one day, or reblog someone else's post who might’ve written about it better than I ever will, so if anyone knows a post on this, send it my way.)

If Ji is a bi character, can you blame him for being confused? If he’s not bi but is having his gay awakening, can you blame him for being confused?

Can you blame him for asking Achi to introduce him to Pear, especially since Achi has never expressed his romantic interest in Ji and Ji seems genuinely interested in Pear? Can you really blame Ji for trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with Achi when he notices the tension between them?

Can you really blame Ji for not being able to read between the lines (has anyone forgotten he’s a teenager?)?

And I’m not saying all this to say that it’s Achi’s “fault” either. He’s just as confused as Ji. And none of them are brave enough to take the first step to clear things up either.

Again, it’s both Ji and Achi’s “fault” that things are the way they are. They are both responsible for their situation.

There’s still much to be revealed in this series, so a lot of it is still up for speculation right now. Clearly, however, something happened that made them go their separate ways and be out of contact with each other for 10 years.

If I were to put my money on a bet, it would be that they split because of a misunderstanding on both their parts. What that misunderstanding is, though, remains to be seen.

(If I were to guess I think they hooked up, Ji was confused and needed some space to process, and Achi took it as a rejection and left the country (since we’ve seen that his mother lives in the US). But I'm probably wrong.)

Ji's actions, so far, are not irredeemable (he’s not even on the verge of being irredeemable). And if they were, Achi’s actions would be just as irredeemable.

It’s easy to play the blame game, especially in today’s world. It’s a lot more difficult to be open-minded. But the latter will always be more rewarding.

TL;DR: Both Achi and Ji have made mistakes, they are both terrible at communicating, and both are clearly confused and/or terrified of their feelings. No one is at “fault” for their current situation because they’re both responsible for it.

*stepping down from my soapbox*

[aaetherius]

A tiny update under the cut (one of the personal/mental health/medication variety - it’s not negative, or venting or anything like that)! This is primarily for those I speak to OOC (though can apply slightly to the dash as well)! 

I never know what I should share or not, but I do try to address things when it’s something that impacts things related to threads or ooc communication (plus I sometimes think it can be nice to hear about things sometimes). This isn’t anything bad, more so just a heads up! 

Most of you who I am in ooc communication with know I started medication for my ADHD. I am also on depression medication. The issue being that we’re having a bit of a difficult time getting things to work/work together (I’ve actually always been very resistant to medication for some reason so this isn’t too unusual for me). So tldr, I mostly just want to slide on to say that the medications do influence, greatly, how much social energy I have available. 

The ADHD medication tends to make me more talkative, less tired, and more active on the dash (via ooc posts or just interacting with the dash in general such as sending memes, liking ooc posts, and whatnot). So, when the effects of the ADHD medication are active I can be very social (this is especially true on Discord/if I’m comfortable with someone) - reaching out on Discord/responding to ooc messages/whatnot. Normally I’m pretty shy/reserved and rarely message first ooc because I have terrible social anxiety and don’t wish to be a bother and am usually extremely tired. So I do worry that when I’m in a better and more social mood I might come off as too much as I can type/talk a lot/can be excitable (and sometimes I send cheesy pictures that remind me of people or I think you might like/find funny haha) when I’m usually very mellow, and if I do you are free to tell me you’re not in the mood to talk or just ignore me until you are (you do not have to respond to ooc messages quickly by any means)! So, there are times when I reach out multiple times or days in a row when this is happening. 

And, then, the depression medication does the opposite (see where the issue is coming in hgdufgkf), but helps me with focus/stopping my brain from going 100 miles a minute. It utterly exhausts me to the point where I, someone who has never taken a nap in their life, fall asleep randomly and can stay asleep for hours (aka I can totally pass out mid-conversation, and have fallen asleep at work. Thankfully I am a super light sleeper and pretty functional after just waking up so the phone ringing in my ear is enough to save me hguidflghu). I tend to do more writing when the impacts of this one are stronger. However, I also tend to be very reserved. I may not like things on the dash, send in memes, or might be slow ooc, and I’m very unlikely to reach out ooc first, and may get tired and leave you hanging during a conversation (that said, you’re always free to message me ooc and I will do my best to respond just know if I don’t or if I’m slow or if I stop after a bit it’s not personal, my social energy just died rhgkdu). So, in short, when the depression medication is kicking in, I could go a few days or longer without reaching out to someone if you’re someone I usually speak to/reach out to or, if I seem to like your posts randomly and then there are other times when I do not like them, it’s the medications flip-flopping on me. 

So, we keep trying various things to kind of control it/adjust it as needed. There was a time when I just took the depression meds, and a time when I just took the adhd meds (if I talk to you enough you might be able to guess because I kind of vanished ooc for a bit and I am so sorry gffjgkdgvg). Now we’re trying them at once (in the morning and at night), but that’s making my insomnia flare up despite the depression one being the one at night and tldr there’s a lot going on with figuring out the best system for me and it effects my ooc communication a lot. So, when I’m super active ooc vs when I am not active ooc at all are very random at the moment. Some days I will be, some days I won’t be. I couldn’t tell you the when or the how, we’re trying to get all sorted out, but it’s obviously trial and error.   

So, in short, I just want to say that if I ever go quiet on anyone or I seem to be less active on the dash in terms of things that involve social energy, I’m not mad at anyone and it is very much not personal at all. And, if I’m ever super social and being a bother, I am also sorry, you can always stop responding (there’s never any pressure or even just tell me you’re tired!). I’m me regardless, of course, it doesn’t change anything other than the amount of social energy I have basically which is why sometimes I seem super active on the dash and other times you can message me and I seem dead to the world ghruidfglu. 

Hopefully this explains things well enough/makes sense, I have zero knowledge of how medication works I just know how it impacts me personally so I just tried my best to put words to that so those who speak to me ooc know why I seem to flip-flop between being social and not being social! 

Also not super related, but for some reason I make more typos when the adhd meds are active I have no idea why, you have my apologies for that as well. 

Thank you for understanding, as always! I love all of you very much, and I hope your week is a wonderful one! 

[darkpoisonouslove]

I'm offering you an empty salt shaker - asks 2, 5, 6, 15 (go ahead, I know you have something XD), 16, 20, 25 (about Bloom searching for her parents storyline)

Starting this again because guess who accidentally hit the key combination for undo and lost half an answered ask! This bitch right here.

I answered 2 here.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

Not that I can think of. It’s usually the source material that ruins things and fandom is tasked with fixing them later.

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*

I didn’t hate it but Bloom x Icy was incomprehensible to me. Fics helped a lot and so did other posts from here and there and I can see it now. Also, I totally couldn’t see Griffin x Codatorta but that changed, too. Though, that was less fandom and more trashcankitty12 with an ask that made me think about it a little more in-depth so it was pretty much me roping up myself into yet another ship. But ooh, I also don’t think I had considered Palladium x Avalon before fandom but, yes, indeed, it is right there in canon. And I was so puzzled over the Riven x Nabu content I was seeing but after watching seasons 3 and 4, I can totally see where this is coming from. The people are right. That is a bromance right there.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

I have no idea what is popular and what isn’t (but you’re right that I have something aka A LOT) so I’ll just list my strong opinionsTM, okay? I will try not to dump on Bloom too much also because it is not a secret that I don’t like her so there is no need for me to go in too much detail.

4kids is the superior dub. That is probably the most controversial opinion I hold. But don’t worry, I’ll try to top it and up the ante. XD

I love Enchantix but it has so many flaws as a concept and even more as an execution and the thing that is really pissing me off is how obviously centered around Bloom’s arc it is. It was clearly created for the advancement of her character and the other girls’ stories came as an afterthought which is why Tecna’s Enchantix was total bullshit. And for having a transformation that is specifically created around Bloom, hers was bullshit as well. I think they should have let her reearn it in order for her to be able to use all of its functions like miniaturizing. Also also, at so many points it totally sounds like Bloom is not upset about the fact that Domino and all of its people were destroyed but about the fact that that means she won’t get her Enchantix. Which btw was a hasty conclusion because at the time Enchantix became a thing, she was still on a mission to find her parents which would have definitely been a way to earn her Enchantix and she had a sign that they were alive. So her angsting over not getting an Enchantix because of what happened on Domino was bad form on the writers’ part.

That spell for good decisions in 1x05 was one of the show’s lowest and most ridiculous moments. It was only included to flaunt in your face how naturally being a leader comes to Bloom because “See? See!!!!!! She can make a good decision without using magic to help her!” So can the majority of the population (note that we are talking about ONE good decision, not an unbreakable sequence of such). She ain’t all that special. Plus, Tecna was written wildly OOC there in order to boost Bloom’s stats so to speak. I’m sorry but Tecna would’ve known that three against four doesn’t give them advantage since they are freshmen and the Trix were seniors at the time. God, that scene was stupid.

Flora is the most boring character in seasons 1-3, fight me about it.

The writers totally had no idea what they were doing with the witches throughout most of season 1 which is why Griffin’s characterization in that season is so inconsistent. Also, wtf was that in 1x06? She straight up tried to kill a bunch of 15-year-old girls. Take a chill pill! I’m glad they figured out a much better balance with her later on.

Not using the fact that Cloud Tower is a living organism more was a fucking wasted opportunity. Especially in season 3 when Valtor took over it. That could have made everything so much better. Also, the witches should have been used more. They were interesting but deserved so much better in terms of development.

Sky should have just fucking died in 2x10. What were these resurrections and Bloom getting healing powers out of nowhere for a total of 5 seconds? You know, that could have been a good setup for a Bloom x Diaspro romance. It would have been so much better if they’d gotten together right after 1x17 and dumped Sky’s sorry ass. Also, Diaspro deserved better.

Riven is the best Specialist but he is especially better than Sky. Remember 1x22 when he was trying to escape CT? He was trapped deep in enemy territory with monsters everywhere and so high above the ground, yet he found his way out. Sky would’ve fucking died out in the open at Magix against one single monster if Bloom hadn’t shown up to rescue him. And the show has the gall to imply that Sky is a better Specialist than Riven is? Please!

The teachers should be fined and sued for emotional and physical damage they haven’t protected their students from. Especially the Alfea teachers who in 1x02 practically admitted that the witches might maim a fairy and they still won’t do shit about it. Nice one!

Griffin and Valtor is canonical subtext and I have nothing more to say about this. It is all there.

Valtor up until 3x18 and Valtor from 3x19 to 3x26 are two different people and the prior is superior in every way. The show ruined him in the last third of the season because there was no other way for Winx to defeat him.

Speaking about Valtor, his whole thing with the Trix is despicable and I hate it so much. It is extremely cringy on their part and extremely underhanded on his and I can’t stand it. Not to mention that it is wildly OOC for the Trix because they are obviously better than that.

I cannot understand saying that Bloom x Valtor is love-hate. I see only hate.

It is ridiculous how easily the Trix beat Griffin in season 6 and how they nearly take control over CT in season 2. And it is also ridiculous that she had to wait for Winx to unspell CT in season 3. She is a teacher, the headmistress of the most prestigious school for witches, a veteran and has been Valtor’s partner (and he himself admitted that together they were unstoppable which means that she has to be pretty powerful and even somewhere close to his level of power). Can the show stop acting like she is defenseless?

The teachers should have been used more. It would’ve been so much better if they were there to at least help Winx if not lead their battles. And it would have made much more sense. Also, how come Ediltrude and Zarathustra literally disappear when it’s convenient and then reappear again (like they did in season 1 when the witches went to Alfea)? That’s just bad writing.

Sky is adopted. He doesn’t resemble Erendor or Samara neither in appearance, nor in character and I hate them enough to headcanon that he was adopted but nobody knows because they don’t want to have claims that he is not an “official” heir of the throne because he isn’t part of the bloodline.

Mike and Vanessa are much more parents to Bloom than Marion and Oritel are, especially when the latter were first released from Obsidian, and the fact that Bloom starts calling them Mike and Vanessa instead of mom and dad after she learns she has other parents is abysmal. Also, they are literally the best parents ever and I love them to death. (I also like Marion and Oritel but Mike and Vanessa are definitely the superior pair of parents if we’re ranking them. I like the idea that the two couples are actually super close and love each other like relatives, in fact.)

What the fuck is up with the magic in this show? There is literally, like, NO FUCKING CONSISTENCY WHATSOEVER! You can’t blink without the rules of it changing in some way. But what am I saying? That would imply that there are any rules which is just not true. Also, there is no clear distinction of how powerful anyone is after season 1. The balance of powers especially between Winx and the Trix is pretty much whatever works for the episode. Same for Winx vs Valtor. The fuckery on that account is unreal. Plus, some of Bloom’s major power explosions happen due to her getting angry. According to the official Wiki - “While practicing or harnessing positive magic, one must keep a compassionate heart, primarily by keeping their thoughts and feelings clear of all negativity, making them capable of attracting positive energy more easily. Thus, if one is plagued with negative thoughts or feelings such as sadness, anger or fear, then their magic will grow   weaker until they may even be left incapable of casting magic until said feelings pass.“ Read that and then read it again, let it sink in. According to the rules of the Winx universe, during some of Bloom’s most powerful moments she was actually using dark magic, not light such because it was fueled by rage. Way to keep it fucking consistent. And that is not just Bloom! FLORA out of all people attacks the Trix in rage in 3x12 when they hurt her sister aka she was also using dark magic at that situation (and then you have Wizgiz scolding Mirta for it in SotLK like it is a sin to use dark magic, smh). In some instances I would argue that it was more of determination to protect rather than anger which I would say would still result in light magic. But The Flora thing, Bloom vs Stormy in 1x09 (Bloom even says she got so angry so that was not a case of protectiveness), Bloom vs Icy in 1x26 and Bloom vs Valtor in 3x14 were definitely rage aka dark magic. And then Bloom is all “fairies don’t have any demons”. Guess again, bitch! Also, writers, you need a dictionary to start comprehending the words you are actually writing?

Now that I think of it, the whole arc in the Resort Realm was bullshit. If it is a magic-free realm, nobody should have any magic in it, period! What is this bullshit that you can use Charmix and Gloomix there because they have higher magical energy? That absolutely doesn’t matter! If there isn’t any magic in the entire realm, having a higher amount of magic in you will not matter because you still can’t use it... because there isn’t any in the realm!!!!!! What the hell! Honestly, the writers can’t comprehend what words mean and that is not the only instance in which it shows.

Someone told me that SotLK is better than Magical Adventure and I don’t mean to offend but that is simply not true. Magical Adventure is leagues above SotLK even if it has some structural problems. Like, literally everything is better. Bloom and Sky are even likable and communicate!!!!!!!! Literally when have you ever seen a better moment for their relationship than in Magical Adventure? If it had been all like that, I would have liked them as a couple.

I think I got everything that comes to mind rn out. Might think of more at some point. I was done and then came back to rage some more because I remembered I had more material.

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

I would have them make smart decisions because 99% of the shit they pull is so stupid it is unreal. I literally cannot tell how they are still alive. Oh, no wait! Plot armor. Yep, that’s it.

But if I had to pick something specific? Bring Nabu back. I sure as hell wouldn’t have killed him. That was an asshole move and I have no idea what the hell the writers were thinking when they wrote that.

And my second choice is - implement a magical system into the series because there isn’t one. Magic always works the way the writers need it to work to pull off their bullshit plot even if it contradicts everything that we’ve seen before. Please, for the love of god! Consistency is already dead; stop stabbing its corpse!!!!

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom?

Purest ship? Lmao, asking me this question is underhanded. XD If you mean no drama, then Flora and Helia Mike and Vanessa. But I think my actual answer would be Griffin x Faragonda because they have been through so much that we know of or we can deduce and they still stuck together. Sure, they had their ups and downs but it is obviously a love for life that has lasted through so many obstacles and keeps lasting. The reason why I can’t say the same for Mike and Vanessa is because we don’t really know that much about their relationship with each other. But anyway I love both these ships so much.

If you’re talking about a canon ship, though, then Brandon and Stella (I do not recognize the stupid relationship drama in season 4 as canon). He did lie to her about his identity in season 1 but it was for his friendship with Sky (alternatively, for his job and duty as Sky’s squire). I just love how obviously in love Brandon is with Stella and how much Stella doesn’t care about anything but him. She didn’t care that he was a “commoner” and - one of my fave moments - in 1x08 she only cared about his well-being rather than the competition. It was adorable and they are adorable and I love them so much. Pure serotonin, right there!

25. How would you end the Bloom searching for her parents storyline/Would you change the ending?

I would certainly change the logistics of the whole thing because, boy, did it make no sense at all. As for the actual ending, I’d argue that physically finding them is not the end of that storyline and she needs to “find” them emotionally as well which would definitely take more time than SotLK cared to address. Like, she got them out of Obsidian and boom, everything’s fine! She literally doesn’t know them! Those are her parents and she doesn’t know anything about them! Their touch and their voices are unfamiliar to her even and they have missed on so much that they will never be able to get back and you’re saying that everything is fine? Yeah, right.

I would have had her spend a year on Domino with them before season 4. The school year that started in SotLK? She spends that with them. Possibly even the one that starts in Magical Adventure as well. She learns everything she can about them and the family history. She also learns how to be a proper royal because she is the Crown Princess now and she has no idea what the fuck she is doing. I would have made seasons 4 and possibly 5 about that and added more politics in it. Layla and Stella are also princesses who will run their kingdoms one day so we could have had adventures in political relations with Winx Club. They are pretty famous so I am sure there would be rulers of other lands that see them as threats and don’t like them. There could have been tension about that and the whole thing with Domino being the planet of the Dragon Fire could have been addressed. Who would dare oppose them when they are the most powerful force? Are they the most powerful force after the 17 years the planet spent as an ice block? Are there old alliances to be reforged? What is the political climate in the Magic Dimension? All absolutely fascinating questions that would have helped the worldbuilding and made place for Marion and Oritel in Bloom’s life and in the show. We could’ve gone back to the feel of season 1 when they also had other things going on besides the big baddie of the season and it could have been a little more episodical with a loose theme to connect the season and the overarching story of Bloom finding her parents and her place in the world she was born in. That could have been positively epic... And a great way to retain the cast because the Company of Light were allegedly friends so we could have seen Marion and Oritel reconnecting with Griffin, Faragonda, Saladin and Hagen. There could have been resurfacing debates left over from the war. Kingdoms angry at Domino for something that happened back then in order to include flashbacks with the events. AND that would work out with the fact that the Ancestral Witches were still around and could have led to another epic battle that wouldn’t end with the destruction of a whole planet. Like I said, there were amazing possibilities... and they were all wasted.

Well, this was long... and just what I needed. I hope some (civilized) discussion will spark out of that because I am tired of screaming in a void and I want people to talk to me.

[jokerownsmysoul]

“Another thing to love”, Joker x Reader // comfort, a little angst?

Summary: Reader is insecure about her body and her acne, this is why she takes distance from everyone. Joker loves her so much and is worried about her.

Warnings: insecurity, sad thoughts, mention of anxiety

Words: 2698

A/N: This is the first Joker x Reader I ever written so forgive me if it’s not the best. Also english is not my first language. I’ve written this fic in my native language, italian, and then I translated it in english, so I apologize for any typos. I studied english in high school and now that I go to university I’m still learning it on my own.

I got inspired by the request of @ajokeformur-ray​ I always read your fic and the other day I saw your post. I just felt I had to written your request. I love your writing and you always makes me feel better with your fic, so what better way to thank you than writing for you too? Also this gave me the courage to break the ice on my blog. I hope this doesn’t makes you feel uncomfortable but makes you feel better, just like you make me feel better, and all the people who read your stories too.

You’ve always had bad days in which you just don’t feel okay about yourself. Some days it takes little to get better. It’s enough put on your lips that lipstick you like so much, curl your hair or wear that short dress, that in other day you’d never wear, just to dance around the apartment as if your body is moving by is own will and letting Joker looks at you with a mischievous smile and a loving look in his eyes. Sometimes Joker joins you and both of you dance together in every corner of the apartment, your bodies coming together in a waltz held by the rhythm of your love that is never stable, but it’s always changing. Slow, fast. Slow, fast. Just like your love: in your love there is the absolute certainty of two bodies in one soul, but also the unpredictability that only such a great love can give. Other times he simply sits on the sofa keeping his eyes fixed on you not to miss a single move you make.

In these moments you can see the emotion he feels everytime you dance throughout the apartment without worrying about anything, as if existed only the two of you in the world. The emotion he feels every time you let yourself dance gracefully and you feel as free as he feels every time he dances. You dance as if you were made of lightness and grace, with your arms hovering in the air as if they wanted to touch the atmosphere all over around you, your legs which never stay for more than a minute on the same point which you let them go in sinuous moves. You are dancing for yourself, but also and above all for Joker and you both know that.

Most of the time in your moves he recognizes his moves and this is just another proof that you two have become one soul and two hearts that beat together at the same time. Your bodies and minds have now synchronized with each other. Each of you has extended into the other, there is such a poetic exchange of thoughts, emotion and habits bewteen you two that one has poured into the other, a mutual exchange that comes out of these small things. It comes out of your way of dancing, so similar to his, and of his way of stroking your hair, so similar to your way of stroking his green hair that you love so much.

But some days, like today, nothing seems to be enough to make you feel better. Neither the music you love, nor a dress that most of the time makes you feel pretty because it shows up your curves, not even comforting you with your favorite food doesn’t make you feel better.

On these days it’s not even enough to wear the Joker’s blazer, which you love as much as you love him and every time you wear it always makes you inevitably feel beautiful. These days you just avoid mirrors as much as possible, you lie down on the bed, watching your favorite movie hoping that those thoughts will go away as soon as possible but most of the time you will close in yourself, leaving no one to go beyond the armor that you have just built to protect yourself. Not even Joker can do such a thing, on these days.

The day was almost over and a part of you was happy to see the last lights of the sunset coloring the night and see that this bad day was coming to an end. You were lying on the bed and you could see the ragged walls of the room being wrapped in a bright red color, and in your heart you hoped that the next day would be easier to manage, and that the boulders deep in your heart would be lighter every day, until this insecurity was gone. Because no matter how unmanageable it may be, no matter how many days you can hear it, it leaves, sooner or later, as it happens every time it comes and manages to catch you. So you wait, motionless, patient, hoping that this time the insecurity will go away faster than the previous one.

Your mind was so buried in those negative thoughts, so committed to removing your insecurity and anxiety which woke you up in the morning as much as possible, that you didn’t even noticed whether the noise of the entrance door opened or the steps of Joker coming home, studying the apartment looking for you. At the exact moment he entered the house he was surprised not to find you in the living room, sitting at the table studying or on the sofa recording a Charlie Chaplin movie to watch together once he got back home. A slight shiver of anguish ran down his spine: it was Joker, but deep inside he was still Arthur and his insecurities had never left him, he was always tormented like the man he had been before. A man who had never really gone away. The only difference was that now all the torments that Arthur kept repressed within him were now entitled to carry a weight, thanks mostly to your presence that reminded him every day of how important his feelings were. He had been away from you for a long time and his only desire was to lie in bed wrapped in your embrace or to cradle you in his arms while you sitting on his lap, just as you both like.

By then he looked for you in every room of the apartment except in the bedroom and this is the reason why he hoped that you were there, and that nothing bad had happened to you in those 24 hours when he was not there to protect you. He opened the door and saw you lying in the bed hidden by a cocoon of blankets, the only thing he could see of your body were your forehead and a pile of hair coming out from the edge of the duvet. Although you heard the noise of the ruined door hinges when Joker opened the door wide with an impatience that brought out all his concern, you did not turn to him or even say hi. Joker sighed in relief seeing your figure in front of his eyes. He knows you love him, he always knew, but sometimes even the smallest thing is enough to bring out his deepest worries and fears, which he somehow always keeps in a grip.

“Y/N?” he asked, but getting no answer he approached you, sitting next to you. You were lying with your back turned to him and you could feel his buttock sitting on the bed and pressing against your back, only that simple contact was enough to let you understand how much you had missed him and how hungry your body was for his presence. Yet you stood still. I mean, what else could you have done? Joker made another attempt trying to lift one edge of the top blanket to stroke your shoulder.

“Y/N.” This time his tone of voice was imperative, decisive. He understood that something was wrong and with that single touch between you two you felt that his body froze: not because he was angry because you didn’t talk to him, but because you were in pain and this made him feel bad. Especially at that moment in which you didn’t communicate with him or didn’t give him your attention. Your pain was his pain. All the time of your long relationship he had always been particularly worried about your pain, actually more worried about yours than his own, and he would have done anything to make you smile again. Your pain was his pain, and that would never change.

“You can’t look at me, Joker.” You tugged the blanket so he had to let it go and you brought it back to you, covering yourself even more. Now your head was totally buried under that blanket and the only thing Joker could see of you now were only those wild strands of hair that your grip had spared.

You kept Joker as far away from you as possible, even if you were a meter away from him, and Joker knew you needed space; he always understood your needs, in fact he took his hand away and put it on your shoulder, but this time from above the blanket. “Y/N, my love, is there something wrong? Why can’t I look at you?”

Your body relaxed at the gentle touch of his hand on you. You hadn’t seen him since the night before and that day you had missed him so much that the only thing you wanted was his skin in contact with yours, his hugs, his warmth. With a broken voice you spoke still buried in the blanket so much that looked like your voice was behind the walls, and he barely understood what you said. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Like this?” He never forced you to explain anything you didn’t want to, but you knew that sooner or later he would do everything in his power just to know what happened to you and fix the problem, so you just decided to explain yourself. Joker had promised himself that he had to make you smile again, that your pain would be gone by night, whatever was the reason.

“I mean… ugly. I’m a total mess.” Joker could not stand the times you spoke badly of yourself, of the only person who had shown him kindness, compassion, merit in this disgusting city. The only person who ever showed love to him, and who had never stopped doing it since the first day you met. You showed him your love every second and every day of your life and by his touch you could feel his body burning because an angel like you didn’t deserve those words.

“Y/N! Why do you say such a thing?” The tone of his voice looked angry, but you knew him so well that you could understand his emotions by the way he spoke and you knew that actually he was only pained by the way you have just talked about yourself and he couldn’t stand it.

“Because… my acne… my body…” Joker smiled with a veil of sadness and love in his lips, understanding what the problem was. You couldn’t see him smiling because you were still with your back turned to him, but you could feel it. Joker was for you a music that you would never stop listening, every part of him was a melody that only you could hear and love with all of yourself, as if you were both like the kind of ultrasounds that only a particular kind of living being can hear. You both could hear each other’s music just like this.

“Oh, my love.” He approaches you so that he can tighten your waist with his arm. He couldn’t look at you in the eyes, but he could do it through your caresses. One of the many ways he had to make himself heard from you despite everything. “You could never do, have or say something that would lead me to love you less.”

The feeling of his arm holding you over the blankets and that understanding tone of voice melted you completely. By now the craving you had for him was so frustrating that you couldn’t do anything but turning slowly towards him looking for his presence in your eyes, your touch, your entire being. The love for him had become stronger than your insecurity and anxiety. The love you felt for him was always stronger than anything, and it was one of the few certainties that you had for each other. You sat down, the blankets still hiding your body, but your face was clearly visible.

“Look at me… look at my face.” You said to him in those tears that were starting to fall, as if the sight of your Joker was enough to let you go in that cry which you had been kept for a whole day. You understood at that moment that the only thing you needed was him, and you had kept it away. Joker looked carefully at your face. “I look at your face, my love, and I love every single thing about it,” he moved closer to you and cupped your face with his hands to take away the tears that were running down your cheeks with his thumbs. “I love every single thing except these tears.” You smiled in tears knowing that Joker had never loved seeing you cry. “But… my face is full of scars, pimples… and my acne-” Joker interrupted you as you spoke. “Your acne,” began to speak, getting even closer with the whole body so now only your breaths separated you and the short distance allowed Joker to print a kiss on one of your scars left by acne on your cheek, “it’s just one more reason to give you a lots of kisses.” He smiled and proving you what he just said he kissed every single mark on your face, starting from your cheeks and then every part of your face that could be reached. He kissed every scar, every mark, every sign that your acne had left on your beautiful face and also kissed your tears and your eyes. “Do you understand what I want to tell you?” he asked and you nodded.

Of course you understood. You two did not communicate only through words, you had your own language which also included kisses and caresses. Your bodies have the same frequency and there is nothing you could never understand. “So you understand that when I look at you I don’t see your acne, but I see my beautiful, wonderful Y/N? The woman who fights my demons next to me every day, the woman who in my nights of insomnia gently sneaks into the fridge and gives me the courage to go out and follow her in reality, just because that’s where I can find her and kiss her? The woman who saves me every day from myself and from the entire world with just a smile? The woman I love?“ Those words increased your tears but this time they weren’t caused by pain, but by love. All the love you felt for him was in that look you gave him as soon as he finished talking, and it was so overwhelming that you wondered how it was possible to feel such a strong feeling.

"I understand it, but… you still can see my acne anyway.” Joker grinned. “I see it, and for me it’s just one more thing I can love about you. It’s one more reason to love you, another reason to take care of you.”

You felt the whole body give in to him. In to the love you felt for him, in to his beautiful face that stared at you full of passion and tears held back for having seen you sad, in to his warm hands that had never stopped holding your face.

“Can you give me another kiss?” you asked in need, childish and impatient to feel him everywhere around you. With a grin on his face his lips were in a second already on yours, giving you that passionate kiss that you had craved for since he left the night before.

Some days it takes little to get better. Other days, like today, you just need your Joker to remember what’s like and how you feel when mostly your flaws are loved by the only person you care about.

Tomorrow you can wake up again with your insecurities in your heart, or in a week, or in two months. It doesn’t matter when they could wake you up. Joker will always be by your side like today, ready to hold your insecurities and help you manage them with you.

Until, one day, you will be able to love them too just as he loves them.

[the-bounce-back]

THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES PART V - CONFIDENCE IN YOUR CONFIDENCE

This is post 5/5 of my “Confidence Chronicles” series, in which I discuss the mindsets, actions and thought processes I’ve applied to build/rebuild my confidence in different aspects of my life. The goal of these 5 posts is for you readers to be able to apply relevant points to your own insecurities in order to combat them, and hopefully build your own confidence over time.

—————————————————————

So… we’re finally at the last post of the Confidence Chronicles. It’s taken its sweet (long-ass) time, but we finally got there in the end. Furthermore, it’s almost exactly a year ago since the idea for this series popped into my head, so this really has ended up coming full circle… albeit unintentionally. Not going to lie, it’s kind of a bittersweet feeling - it’s going to feel strange to not focus so heavily on confidence anymore, but on the other hand… I don’t have to focus so heavily on confidence anymore. Finally, I can bring my other post ideas that have been collecting dust in my drafts to life!

The funny thing is that although I started this series with a plan for what I was going to write about in each post, I never actually settled on what aspect of my confidence I wanted to end this series with. I figured that when the time came to write this, I would have a clear idea of what would be an appropriate note to wrap up the series on. 

Of course, at that point in time I didn’t know that the latter half of 2019 was going to turn my life upside down. I didn’t know that I was going to find myself in a massive slump due to stress, confusion and anxiety over my career, my direction and purpose in life and my role in the grand scheme of the world. I know it all sounds very melodramatic and like an excuse to not apply myself to complete my projects - which might be partially true - but the truth is that these questions have been weighing on me for a long time. Long before I started working on my mental health, long before I started this blog, long before moving back to the UK. I’ve been able to ignore these feelings for a long time, but lately they’ve been making themselves extremely hard to avoid. I think that the reason lies in that I’m soon going to be on what society likes to call the “wrong” side of 25, and that I still feel like I’m figuring out where my life is going… i.e. running around like a headless chicken.

However, this blog has really forced me to confront my fears in a way that counselling or confiding in someone I trust ever could - simply because it makes me work through my innermost thoughts and feelings alone. Attempting to address deeply buried issues in order to make my peace with them so I can move past it has been a very triggering process, and also extremely reliant on trial and error.

When you make an error in your healing process, it can be devastating and a major setback in your daily life. But when you get it right… the pain and hard work all becomes worth it. Trust me. There is nothing more satisfying than thinking of a past situation that used to make you feel like you had the weight of the world of the shoulders, and realising that although it felt like it at the time, it didn’t kill you. Hell, you’d even be able to go through it again and be confident you can make it through again, if you had to. One day you’ll even be able to laugh at the situations that once tore you down, and with your newfound confidence be able to realise that at the end of the day… it wasn’t that deep (or, at least, not deep enough to kill you).

For this reason, I want to tie the messages from the previous posts of this Confidence Chronicles series together to make this post - confidence in your newfound confidence. Once you build a solid foundation of confidence in all aspects of your life, the next step is learning to adjust to the newfound energy, positivity and motivation that this confidence manifests itself as. I personally learned (and - in certain cases - am still learning) how to harness this “power” in the following ways: 

1. Slowly but surely trusting myself to believe in my own capabilities.

Do you want to know something that’s funny but at the same time not  funny? If not, tough sh*t because here it comes: despite writing so extensively about confidence, my own levels of confidence are somewhat unreliable at best.

As I’ve mentioned countless times before, I never write blog posts when I’m in a bad place mentally. In fact, every single post (except one) on here is written when I’m in a great mood, my mind is clear, my confidence levels are unbeatable and I can write about my bad times in an objective manner that doesn’t end up making me sad. A quick scroll through my past posts prove that it’s so easy to assume that I’m 100% over the hard things that I’ve written about on here, simply because I’ve become so good at realising my own past mistakes and how I should move forward. However, in reality, there’s usually not a day that goes by without the topics crossing my mind.

I’ve been told many a time by friends that while I’m excellent at giving advice and knowing exactly what measures to take to get over a situation, I’m not very good at applying said advice to myself. It’s very true, and very frustrating - reading my own posts back makes me realise that I already have the tools and capabilities required to be able to heal, but so far I only seem to be able to use these tools when I’m in a good place. For this reason, I struggle a fair amount with self-doubt in my authenticity as a mental health blogger, because what’s the point of preaching about self-love, self-care and bettering your mental health if your own mental health is in a complete shambles from time to time?

However, it’s not all bad, because the more I apply myself to think of solutions, apply said solutions to my own life and start seeing the benefits of constantly working on myself, the more confident I become that one day I’ll get to a stage where I can confidently write about my issues without this nagging feeling that I’m a fraud. Additionally, g-checking myself from time to time and making sure that I am actually following my own advice makes me increasingly more secure in the knowledge that I am extremely emotionally intelligent and do have enough experience to change my own life, as well as others’. 

I think the main thing here is to keep on doing whatever it is you’re trying to improve upon, and allow yourself to appreciate how far you’ve come on your journey as opposed to solely focusing how long you have to go. Regardless of if you’re doubting your capabilities in the workplace, your body goals, your ability to adapt to new situations or your creative ventures - or a combination of all four - it’s important to acknowledge and celebrate your progress.

Giving yourself a well-deserved pat on the back and focusing on how far you have come since the beginning gives you the chance to fully appreciate the hard work you’ve put in towards bettering yourself - which leads to you gradually feeling confident in trusting the power in your own capabilities over time.

2. Stopping the negative self-talk.

As it so happens, I have quite a dark and self-deprecating sense of humour - and so do many of my friends and my sister. Calling myself and others every offensive name under the sun as a joke is something that used to occur on a near daily basis, under the guise that it was all harmless banter. I’ve literally been doing this for as long as I can remember, but the past few months or so, I’ve really been trying to stop for a few reasons.

The main reason is that regardless of how harmless belittling your intelligence and capabilities as a joke may seem, doing it on a regular basis can lead to you internalising these notions and gradually starting to believe them. Although I genuinely thought that I was mentally resilient enough to be able to separate jokes from reality, whenever I’d fall into a bit of slump the first things that would come into my head were the things I’d said about myself as a joke. They would sting a lot, because in those moments I would genuinely believe them.

“God, I’m such a dumb b*tch”.

“Ugh, when did I become such a d*ckhead?”

“I swear to God.... I f*cking hate myself”

“Oh, great, so on top of being a dumb b*tch - I’m also a fat b*tch. Excellent”.

The mad thing is that I’m actually laughing while writing this, simply because I’m in a positive state of mind and know that it’s all a joke. I know I’m neither dumb, a d*ckhead, or fat. Nor do I hate myself anymore. But as soon as that Sunday night sadness hits (I know you all know what I’m talking about!), there I am - trying to choke back tears because I’ve managed to delude myself into thinking that the above is, in fact, true. For this reason, I’ve also tried to stop doing it to my friends, because I’d hate to think that they may be internalising something mean that I’ve said to them as a jOkE.

It’s also interesting to think why self-deprecating humour comes so easily to a lot of us. I can only speak for myself and certain friends that are similar to me in this aspect, but I genuinely think it’s because we’ve - very sadly - grown accustomed to being verbally abused and/or having our weaknesses constantly being picked at during our formative years - either in our home environments, school environments, or both. Instead of devising healthier methods of coping with and eliminating these internalisations, we’ve become reliant on using humour as a source of escapism from our nagging insecurities cast upon us by people around us. 

When I started seeing self-deprecating humour in this light, it actually made me quite sad. There I was, thinking that I should get into comedy for being so hilarious, when really it turned out to be just me being too scared to deal with my own insecurities. That’s when I knew things needed to change, and I’ve been working on this ever since.

Personally, the easiest way for me to reduce my negative self-talk has been to try to visualise how I would feel if a stranger (it used to be friends, but then I remembered that most of my friends are as tapped as I am) was saying it to me. I soon realised that if it had come from anyone else but myself or my friends, I’d be ready to throw hands over this literal verbal abuse. I am now trying my best to speak to and treat myself in the same way that a stranger or acquaintance would - with dignity, respect, honesty and with a regard for my own feelings (because, lo and behold, it is possible to be brutally honest and kind at the same time).

Of course, this is so much easier said than done - especially if you, like me, love a cheeky self-drag and dragging others (out of love, of course). However, this doesn’t have to mean that you can stop having fun - I’ve found that an eloquently worded drag meant to act as a wake-up call for me/someone else to improve my/their situation without having to resort to insults and name-calling is infinitely more creative, satisfying and efficient. Furthermore, I’ve found that g-checks that are based on constructive criticism as opposed to cruel insults give you a clearer image of how to improve yourself moving forward - which can only be a good thing.

Basically, just be patient and kind to yourself and others. Take on the constructive criticism received from yourself and your friends/family to work towards bettering yourself, and your confidence will follow.

3. Learning to trust the feelings of positivity and self-love.

This is by far the hardest one for me - and for good reason. When you’ve spent a large part of your teenage years and early adulthood believing that your capabilities and strengths are inadequate, that you’re ugly, that you’re not worthy of love and happiness, that your life has no purpose and that your family and friends would be better off without you, it’s nearly impossible to break free from this toxic downward spiral and to unlearn all of the behaviours and thought processes that have manifested as a result of these feelings. 

The keyword here is nearly.

Obviously, I can only speak for myself, but I would like to think that this could be applied to others as well. When I started this jOuRnEy, I honestly thought I’d never get to a place where I genuinely love every aspect of myself. Despite this, I kept pushing myself through the extremely triggering task of unpacking my toxic feelings - until one day I suddenly didn’t have them anymore. Or, at the very least, they suddenly no longer hurt me. Seemingly out of nowhere... I felt okay.

The sad but still understandable thing about suddenly coming to terms with who you are, what you’ve been through and feeling confident enough to move forward is that you don’t trust the feeling at first. At all. You tell yourself that it’s just one of the little upswings before everything comes crashing down around you again, dragging you back to step one, and you try to mentally prepare yourself for said downfall to happen.

But it doesn’t.

Sure, you might have little dips every now and again. You know that healing isn’t a linear process, so you assume that these little dips will lead to you spiralling again. But, to your surprise, they don’t - and you find yourself picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and moving forward with your life relatively unscathed and with more experience and wisdom than before. You start to get suspicious and a little scared because things are actually going alright for once. You’ve become so used to your life being so riddled with anxiety, insecurity, sadness and chaos and the good times being fleeting, that this new reality is extremely alien to you. 

This is where things can go one out of two ways.

Either your anxiety kicks in and you start self-sabotaging in different ways because you’re afraid that the longer things are going well, the harder the fall is going to be - so you might as well save yourself the pain by not pursuing things that could allow you to be happy. Or, you are able to tentatively start trusting and accepting the waves of love and positivity as your new reality - making you find the strength and confidence to move forward despite the past pain and hurt.

Personally, it took several rounds of self-sabotaging before getting to the point of learning to trust the positive feelings and  my confidence in all aspects of myself. I try not to beat myself up over all the opportunities I’ve turned down simply due to genuinely believing that I’m not good/smart/pretty/talented enough, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t make me sad from time to time. However, the more time that passes I get more and more confident that new, even better opportunities will come up for me - and I’ll be confident enough to embrace them without any hesitation when the time comes.

To wrap up this whole Confidence Chronicles series, I want to leave you all with this simple but true statement:

It gets better - if you’re willing to put in the work.

Regardless of which of the posts resonated with you the most, I need you to understand that building confidence takes time. I would even go as far as saying that it’s a never-ending journey, and that the learning to fully love and trust yourself and your capabilities is a never-ending process as life progresses. However, the more you work hard on your own betterment, the easier and smaller the challenges that arise from time to time become.

My ultimate wish is that we all one day can get to a place where we can trust ourselves enough to be happy and confident, regardless of what life throws at us. That whenever things that would usually send us down that spiral again pop up, we can just take a deep breath, count to ten, and be confident in the knowledge that the situation no longer has power over us, and that we will easily be able to work through it.

Until that day comes - never stop fighting.

Love,

Liv

[forest-of-stories]

“They Won’t Let You Remember”: Obsession Before Fandom

[This is another round of extremely personal spelunking into my own fannish past that I sometimes do on this and other platforms, including Dreamwidth, which is where I first posted it.  Content warning for digressions into Fannish Discourse, and also brains - mostly mine - conflating fiction and reality in sometimes unhealthy ways.]

Not long ago, my mom asked me on the phone if I was aware that a new Men in Black movie would be out later this year. I told her that I knew, and added, “If I see it with other humans, they might have to hear how the original was one of the root causes of my mind control feelings.” Not the root cause, I should emphasize: those feelings could have come from any number of sources, but that number is probably greater than “one.” We both knew why she had brought up this particular franchise. There is a file cabinet in my childhood bedroom that once contained many, many handwritten stories – some co-written with middle school classmates, though most of them weren’t – that featured the titular secret organization, the protectors of the Earth from the scum of the universe, as the bad guys. I wrote those in order to deal with the sharp turn that my already present Mind Control Feelings took when a silly science fiction comedy featuring giant space bugs encouraged me to root for characters who maintained the status quo by erasing memories from ordinary people – people like me – on a regular basis. Some of you might be asking, “Wait, you knew it was only a movie, right?” And my answer would be, “Yes, but…” Since time and emotional distance have both clarified and obscured my understanding of how I used to think and behave, here is the best (and probably most long-winded) way that I can answer that question for both myself and others: I was an imaginative and overwhelmingly anxious child. On the one hand, my imaginative side desperately wanted magic and aliens and Weird Stuff to be real, which I still don’t think was always a bad thing. On the other hand, during my preteen and teenage years, my anxiety (which wouldn’t be linked to a diagnosis until much later in my life) manifested as “what if?” scenarios that were at least as convincing as reality… even if they were based in speculative fiction. Even if I didn’t believe that they would happen, I spent a lot of time telling myself stories about what might happen if they did, or even just thinking, “What if this is how the world is supposed to work, even if I don’t like it or want it and you can’t make me?” So, although I knew the difference between fiction and reality by the age of twelve, knew that Men in Black was Only A Movie, my “what if?” reflex kicked in hard the more I recognized its world as being much closer enough to my own than my previous, limited encounters with memory erasure in fiction. According to the rules of that world, if the Weird Stuff were real, I wouldn’t even know, and, according to the text, shouldn’t know. “Wasn’t the next line of the theme song ‘They won’t let you remember’?” Older Sister asked, the last time we talked about it. Yes. Yes, it was. The immediacy is right there in the song’s refrain (which, by the way, is still an earworm and a half). At one point, Tommy Lee Jones’ veteran agent character insists that, while Earth is constantly under extraterrestrial threat, humans can only live our lives peacefully if we don’t know about it. (Keeping in mind that humans do a pretty solid job of threatening life on Earth ourselves, I feel like that statement is also linked to questions about the supposedly blissful ignorance of privilege, which go beyond the scope of this post, but are still worth mentioning.) Maybe I reacted so strongly to that bit of dialogue because I believed that it wasn’t true, or because I feared that it was. I’m pretty sure that it was the combination of that scene and its message, with my recurring issues around authority and self-control, and my growing self-awareness about my misbehaving brain, that set my anxious imagination spinning. I would guess that I was wondering something like, “What if the only way that I could have peace of mind was if somebody or something else edited my thoughts and memories without my knowledge or consent?” That idea scared me. It made me angry. And since I was not mature enough to have any filters or sense of other people’s boundaries, I talked – loudly and incoherently – to anybody who would listen, and quite a few people who wouldn’t, about how scared and angry it made me. A lot of the things that I said and did are now difficult for me to understand (one might almost say… alien), and I’m not sure whether they helped with my worries or just made them worse. I do know that this was neither the first nor the last work of fiction about which some of my loved ones told me to shut up because I was too obsessed, resulting in screaming fights, sneering mockery, and tears. I was also old enough, you see, to understand that I wasn’t responding to fiction in the same way that a lot of my peers were, and to, perhaps, start feeling like there was something wrong with me. Not that this was enough to shut me, in fact, up. But I did something else, too: I started to write the stories that I mentioned above. Some of my point-of-view characters were disillusioned agents, others were characters from other media that I enjoyed; the more sources I could pull from, and the more surreal I could make the mix, the happier I was. Still other POV characters were authorial avatars who started out as innocent bystanders and narrowly escaped having their memories wiped. (A few of those self-insert fantasies also involved my earliest fictional crush, who just happened to be an alien from a certain book series that I loved at the time. I quite happily imagined scenarios in which my very knowledge of his true nature was forbidden and yet our love conquered all in the end, but I never put any of those scenarios on paper. I kind of wish I had.) Some of the storylines fizzled out after a few chapters, while others ended with my protagonists riding off into the sunset with their minds, for the time being, safe. I should stress that even my writing wasn't necessarily integrated into my life in a healthy way: I scribbled during my classes (yes, I got caught at least once), I wrote scenarios that crossed the line from nonsensical into offensive (why so many “man in a dress” jokes, younger self? Why even one?), and I buttonholed friends and classmates as audiences and even collaborators despite their probably being much less interested than I was. Even though I was discovering a third option besides “shut up forever” and “shut up never,” it would take several more years, at least two more obsessions, and the discovery of online fandom (I only somewhat knew what “online” was in the late 1990s, and “fandom” was nowhere near my vocabulary) before I sorted out the appropriate time and place for each of those options. But I was on my way there, even if I didn’t know what “there” was. When I questioned and pulled apart an established narrative to turn the heroes into villains and shine a light on viewpoints that I thought the original creators had overlooked, I was writing fanfiction, whether I knew it or not. When I finally did find my way to fandom communities, it was thanks to the Harry Potter books, whose world-building also relies on what TV Tropes calls “The Masquerade.” (If you look up the page for that trope, guess whose quote is right at the top? Yeah.) Which led me to recognize it in certain versions of X-Men, and The Incredibles, and Torchwood and The Vampire Diaries and and and… The more I saw of organized efforts to conceal the existence of Weird Stuff from the Oblivious Masses, the more I understood that the audience was meant to feel like we were in on the secret, but I couldn’t stop sympathizing with the people who weren’t. I still dislike and distrust that trope to this day, even in works that I otherwise enjoy, and storylines involving memory erasure – consensual or not, narratively endorsed or not – still push both good and bad buttons, sometimes both at once. And I believe that my explorations of mind control in fiction, from the beginning until now, have partly been informed by questions like, “What if I couldn’t trust my own mind, and was asked to believe that this was for my own good and/or the good of society?” And, since it bears mentioning: I hope that nobody interprets this recollection as, “A storytelling device warped Nevanna’s understanding of reality, and therefore stories can reprogram people’s behaviors and problematic fiction should be eliminated!” First of all, I object to that kind of black-and-white thinking, as a librarian, a writer, and someone who tries to thoughtfully consume media. Secondly, it’s more accurate that the dysfunction in my own brain once warped my understanding of reality; that even then, I was still responsible for my own actions; and although I have a history of giving fictional constructs an unhealthy amount of power over my own life, I grew out of it. And even though I have mixed feelings about the debate over Problematic Fiction, and I certainly do not condone harassment and shaming – because I’ve been there and done that, on both sides – I try to maintain that it is not my place to stop people from having negative emotions about stories. Even if I don’t agree, even when their objections make me uncomfortable, I can disagree with what they’re saying or doing without invalidating what they might be feeling. And I try to be better at doing so, because I am the last person in the world to deny that stories spark powerful emotions and thoughts, that sometimes they go against the creators’ intentions. Part of becoming a responsible consumer of media and participant in fandom is learning to manage those emotions constructively and make space for other people’s feelings and needs. I used to be angry at my younger self for being unable or unwilling to do that. I’m not anymore. That said, one of the differences between preteen Nevanna and thirty-something Nevanna is that nobody has to hear me talk about mind control unless they want to. (Although I’m happy that a noticeable number of people usually seem to want to.) I never saw the original Men in Black in the movie theater. I think it took me several tries (much to Younger Sister’s frustration) to sit through it on home video, and the ghost of who I was back then, as much as if not more than the actual content, has kept me from revisiting the 1997 movie in the intervening years. If I wanted to watch it again, I think that I would want (and here I'll paraphrase a fantasy series, also about aliens, that more or less avoids the Masquerade altogether) to prepare myself emotionally. I still haven’t watched the sequels or had much interest in doing so, and I never posted any fanfiction set in that universe. It has occurred to me that I might end up writing fic for the 2019 reimagining, if I see it (it wouldn’t be the first time in the recent past that I revisited fictional worlds from my childhood in new and surprising ways). But if I do write anything – and maybe even if I don’t – I will continue to feel pity and compassion and gratitude for the twelve-year-old believer in Weird Stuff who heard, “They won’t let you remember,” and responded, “What if I did anyway?”

[knightofbalance-13]

https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/178089028974/its-a-long-post-down-there-vvvvvmore-boy-you

Really, using Monika for this point?

You really don’t know what you talk about do you?

Boy you went on a long rant didn’t you? Must have alot of time on your hands; Okay….looking at all this these are long reaches to defend a hypocrite.

Wow your very first statement is a fallacy. You don’t even show their arguments before insulting them and saying they’re wrong for a specific reason.

And before someone claims that I am using the Fallacy Fallacy: Him being fallacious isn’t my entire point. My point is he’s being manipulative when he should be stating facts. That’s what an honorable debater does.

Here’s the thing ozpin runs the school and he states as do almost all the teaches that grimm can easily kill you, if she wasn’t prepared for a situation that’s no one fault that’s situational, no one can prepare for a situation on the fly they obviously weren’t prepared for.

Yeah but Ozpin can also reject whoever he wants from the schools just as he can accept anyone he wants. And he brings up Mt. Glenn as an example where Ozpin bends the rules but almost causes harm to his students for it. So obviously there is more to this argument.

That being said it’s a mission the one thing you’re suppose to do in a constant life or death situation is prepare to the best of your abilities that’s hardly ozpin’s fault cause if SHe didn’t see it coming then he definetly didn’t see it coming.

... How? Do you know the specifics of the mission? If not then how do you know what happened for sure?

If this is an interpretation issue then you have to argue that they are being WILLFULLY MISLEADING with their interpretations.

“How many kids must die for you while killing a kid is implying he takes no delight in it.”

Okay stop! Now you’re literally stretching it cause we can sit here all day implying  things, and that would be a subpar theory but there’s nothing supporting it.

Did you just make a theory yourself not one point ago?

Also you can use implications you just have to back them up with evidence from the show. Like mentioning subtle movements or little details. Those are all important in a show too mind you.

Hazel is literally holding a screaming nora by the head forcing her to look at oscar/ozpin he doesn’t care he clearly doesn’t cause if he did he would  try to kill her so she doesn’t suffer.

Okay, NOW this is disingenuous. “Care” and “delight” are two different things Soku. You claim to be a writer so you should know the first implies investiment and interest in general towards something (’I don’t care’ is neither positive nor negative remember) while ‘delight’ explictedly means to take pleasure from the action.

Your argument only works with that word change because then Hazel’s voice and demeanor and words show he doesn’t like it.

But he’s doing that to make a point cause all he cares about is his sister and his revenge. stop stretching and admit you didn’t either pay attention, cause you clearly didn’t.

Yeah...

Which is precisely the commentator’s point. Good job backing them up.

It;s totally hypocritical to scream about killing kids and to be murdering one is poor character motivation and if hazel avoided fighting the kids and went stragiht for ozpin and pinned him to a walk and pointed to all the losing battles then that be one thing, but he’s literally talking about how child murder is bad and trying to commit it as he’s talking. 

A. Him being a hypocrite is the fucking point Soku. He’s suppose to be hypocritical and wrong because he’s irrational. Fucking hell, I got this on my only view of the episode...

B.... Then that defeats the purpose of his character AKA “Man who doesn’t process his grief right”.

And C. Really, Hazel is arguing both ideas but you’re still not addressing his point.

You’re both idiots

If I showed this to someone fresh to the show they’ll call it hypocritical and it’s kinda funny considering your the only person batting for the wrong team, again even if you won this argument what do you win? You defended a terrorist with no personality or redeeming qualities congrats on wasting everyone’s time.

This coming from the guy who regularly dies on the hill of “The WF are completely justified!” when they’re being lead by Furry Hitler.

“We don’t know the full story.” We don’t have to!

He joined a criminal organization because he wanted revenge for his sister being killed by grimm and the boss he works for MAKES GRIMM! It’s bad writing, it’s like my sister getting killed by bees so I become a beekeeper.

You’re right on one thing it’s not you thinking too deep about it, you’re just not thinking period.

Okay:

A. Soku you bitch all the time about missing information and yet you go and assume Salem makes the Grimm. We don’t know what her connection to the Grimm IS YET. This is why you don’t make judgements before you get all the information.

B. Yeah let’s put this in another light. Hazel is grieving and desperate to blame someone for the death of his sister because the truth of the fact, that she died in a freak accident with no one to blame, gives him no comfort and the pain is too much to bear. So Salem comes along and feeds him what he wants to hear.

Same thing Cinder did to Adam: gave him exactly what he wanted to control him.

How do I know this? A. Salem clearly works off manipulating people with how she treats her underlings and how she treats Leo. B. Hazel’s Semblance is a VERY EASY metaphor for numbing yourself to pain instead of dealing with it C. His story directly parallels Yang’s and this is something yang was very close to doing if her dad hadn’t helped her and D. OZPIN PRETTY MUCH SAYS AS MUCH.

Gee, that seems like a lot of info to convey without actually saying most of it. Pretty good writing in my opinion (better than anything YOU’VE written).

And C. yeah, we don’t know what actually happened. For all we know, Ozpin IS lying. You never actually debate that.

Then again, you don’t think very often.

The bird scene adds nothing to this dicussion, oz literally said it was a choicd that the twins agreed on which both of them admit, back on topic.

... Soku, they literally just said they don’t think Ozpin is a trustworthy source. Arguing information from Ozpin is not gonna convince them. Translation: this is like if someone tried using what I said as evidence against you.

And no, Raven never said it was a choice. She implied it was FORCED on them. You could have brought up how Raven is a (shitty) manipulator and how it doesn’t make sense for Qrow to be so loyal to Ozpin then but nope, just gonna yell “NO, YUR WRONG!”

So you’re ont jumping the gun when we have the word of just raven saying don’t trust him with nothing concrete besides someone ELSE untrustworthy while hazel telling us she died on a mission, miles and kerry stating it was grimm and it was her choice and that fact that he’s murdering nora before our very eyes is?

Jesus Soku, my posts have less spelling errors than this...

A. Where did Hazel say she died on a mission, he just blamed Ozpin for it. He can’t hear Ozpin in Oscar’s head.

B. What other untrustworthy source is that? Seriously who? Hazel? You never said why he would lie so why should I believe you?

And C. Mind providing proof that Miles and Kerry said that? You yourself are not trustworthy when it comes to them.

And it’s me criticizing thr “wrong thing” like you’re the boss of what I should crirtize?

Funny that.

You just did the exact same thing dumbass.

Tell you what geywulf you make a rwde post criticizing what you want and I’ll come there to tell you your criticizing the “wrong thing”?

And yet when I do something similar you screech.

Grow up,smarten up and settle down, seriously.

‘smarten up’

That is such a fucking clunky ass phrase. You expect me to think you can write with THAT?

And seriously, you mocked him in the beginning, you’ve made numerous mistakes and failed to actually debate this guy and you made a whole post about it

You are not one to talk.

[terriblepersonextraordinaire]

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia’s Character Analysis of Faye

Unable to get Alm out of her mind, Faye returned to her old life in Ram Village. Eventually, she met and married a suitor who claimed he did not mind her pining for the king, though her habit of vanishing without notice for days at a time continued to worry her new family.When IntSoft decided to remake the black sheep of the series, Fire Emblem Gaiden, they decided to add in another character to the roster and to Alm’s villager friends. An original female character known as Faye in the West.

After her debut, she was met with comparisons to series’ previous Camilla and Tharja due to her odd lines and dubbed a Catria archetype--a young woman who falls in love with the main lord of the game and has her feelings unrequited. 

However, I feel as though there’s more to Faye than most of the fanbase says there is. Accusing her of being a shallow, yandere girl meant to be pander to the audience and the writer’s kinks is a large disservice to some of the most self-aware writing in Fire Emblem. There’s more to her, and while it all does tie back to Alm, there’s more to it than a simple crush played for laughs and endearment.

A disclaimer for his post is that I have only played the English version of Fates and lack access and the knowledge of the Japanese script. However, judging from the quality of the localization, it’s safe to assume that, for the most part, Faye’s character remains intact as the game traveled from east to west.

First, I want to talk about the collective fanbase’s perception of Faye as a continuation of Tharja and Camilla’s legacy as a clingy, obsessive girl meant to act as fanservice and her role as a Catria. To put it as bluntly as possible, Faye is 100% a Catria archetype. A young woman/girl in an unrequited romance with the protagonist/main lord of the game. However, as a successor of Tharja and Camilla, Faye could not be any different.

Tharja is a yandere and that makes her hot and attractive to people. Her obsession with Robin, her quirks regarding hexes, and her creepy demeanor are what made her such a standout and popular character in Awakening’s cast. However, Tharja’s unhealthy love and adoration towards Robin is never truly a flaw in her character. In two of her supports in particular, Tharja expresses her love for Robin and how it eclipses the love she has for her two potential partners, yet neither them nor the writing seem to call her out or present this as an awful thing to say. Henry’s alright with it, and all Libra can do is make a small joke about it. In her support with Robin, she curses the man in order to get her way with him, and it’s all played for laughs and humor.

For Camilla, it’s arguably worse, because her obsession doesn’t simply end with Corrin, but with potential love interests and her subordinate, such as Selena. A Youtuber already made a character analysis regarding Camilla’s twisted love, so I’ll link it here. 

To summarize, Camilla’s obsessive behavior is a core aspect of her character to the point that it slithers into nearly each and every single one of her supports, even the ones that don’t mention Corrin in any capacity. However, the writing and narrative don’t really give her any consequences for this controlling behavior. In fact, it makes light of it several times. Even when Corrin attempt to establish his/her independence, Camilla brushes it off and gets her way in the end anyway. Only when her family is torn apart by Hoshido in the non-canon Birthright ending does she wind up unhappy--but she’s not challenged nor held back by these explicitly unhealthy habits.

This is where Faye differs from the two, both in terms of her presentation and her execution. For starters, we need to take a look at Faye’s supports. While speaking with Alm, Faye says the typical, “Now, shall I head back out there and slay more of your enemies for you?” much like Camilla does with Corrin. Later, she says, “You touched my hand! I was up all night thinking about it.” Again, this is behavior that wouldn’t be too out of character for Tharja to say. So far, just your typical funny haha yandere character.

However, the support drops this line from Alm, “I’m worried about the toll this war is taking on her.”

It’s a this point that the player is given a hint that this type of behavior isn’t normal for anyone, and that the narrative is acknowledging it. The support ends quite sadly, with Alm rejecting Faye’s dream of the two of them returning to Ram village to live out their lives together--and in the process tells her that he doesn’t love her.

For her support with Silque, things start out rocky. When Silque approaches her, excited to find another girl in the army, Faye rejects any offer of friendship with, “I’d rather spend time with Alm than stand around gossiping,” and later, “talking about Alm isn’t fun unless Alm himself is there,” in their B rank. In other words, Faye isn’t interested in socializing if Alm or her friends aren’t involved. Yet, at the end of the support, Faye approaches Silque this time. “After you stopped approaching me...I realized I missed your company. I guess I needed a friend after all.”

Faye isn’t someone that wants to be alone, nor is she someone that’s bad at communicating with other people. However, her obsession with Alm keeps her from being social or from expressing herself in a healthy manner. She pushes Silque away, preferring her more stable relationship with Alm. It’s not only with Silque, but with her own family. In the game, Faye has three base conversations, and the last one is particularly interesting.

Faye: It’s so cold in the Rigelian Empire— nothing at all like Zofia. When we first left Ram, I never dreamed we would come so far. I hope Ma and Pa and Nana are doing all right without me… I send them letters, you know? Just the other day, I got one back. They said I talk too much about you. They want to know what’s happening with me, not you. But they don’t understand that I AM writing about myself! Or at least I’m writing about what matters to me…

In Fire Emblem Fates, Camilla is portrayed a motherly figure and is rather involved in her family’s lives. She is also able to form a wide variety of supports with the various different soldiers in. In Awakening, Tharja is established as a loner from the beginning, so her reluctance to make friends--even though she does--is independent of her love for Robin. In Echoes, Faye’s obsession directly interferes with her various relationships. Whether it’s establishing new ones such as with Silque or alienating her family with her ramblings about Alm, it’s shown as a negative aspect in her life.

It’s not an accidental part on the writers, either. The game mechanics themselves make this clear that her love of Alm has a negative impact on her. In the game, character gain bonuses for supporting with each other and standing close in battle. Faye is no exception. In fact, her supports with Alm give her quite a hefty bonus, with a +20 in Hit and +15 in crit. However, there’s something that makes Faye stand out in the game in terms of bonuses, and even in the entire series.

Faye gets a -15 Avoid bonus. 

She is the only character this happens to. Every other character in the game, and to my knowledge the entire series, never gets a negative support bonus. Her relationship with Alm, while still granting her benefits, negatively impacts her and her chances of survival.

It’s at this point that the writer’s intents become clear: they know that Faye’s love in unhealthy, and that speaks volumes about the self-awareness that went into crafting this character. It’s as though Faye was written in response to characters like Camilla and Tharja. Although love is a wonderful feeling that is present in quite a few of the relationships amongst the casts of FE games, here they portray what an obsessive love can do to a person, and how it can negatively impact her. 

While Tharja and Camilla’s obsessions were quirks that added to light-hearted scenes, it’s a legitimate flaw for Faye. It’s something that she needs to work on because it gets in the way of her relationships and her performance in battle. It threatens her life with the -15 Avoid bonuses, making her more prone to be hit by enemies in the battlefield.

The final piece of evidence I have is her ending.

Unable to get Alm out of her mind, Faye returned to her old life in Ram Village. Eventually, she met and married a suitor who claimed he did not mind her pining for the king, though her habit of vanishing without notice for days at a time continued to worry her new family.

Even after the war, Faye could not get over Alm, and that creates such a sad and tragic ending for her. It’s not a quirk, it’s a legitimate problem she has and cannot work around it. It interferes with her everyday life and makes it hard to form other relationships.

Faye is not a quirky yandere character. Her obsession is portrayed in an unhealthy manner and as a concern both by Alm and by the narrative. While at first it might’ve been amusing, the joke stops being funny once the player gets deeper in. By the end of the game, it’s heartrending how this girl attaches herself to this man she cannot have.

It’s quite sad as well how most of the fanbase doesn’t acknowledge how the poor girl really suffers because of how little screentime she gets as a minor character. However, it’s clear just how much time and effort the writers put into Faye to make her stand out. She’s not just another Tharja and Camilla, she’s a girl with a problem that she cannot overcome. It’s a legitimate flaw for her, and haunts her even into adulthood.

Love is a wonderful thing, and that’s something that’s expressed in Faye as well. She goes out into war out of love for Alm. Because of this, she transforms from a mere village girl to a soldier that successfully rebels against a god. This is illustrated by her monstrous bonuses in her support with Alm. It pushes her forward, and she is able to reach her true potential. However, her love also damns her. Faye is trapped in this obsession and really has no way to overcome it.  For the rest of her life, she’ll watch the new king reign on while she mourns her broken heart.

Faye is a tragic character and flawed character, and that’s what makes her such a complex unit despite having so little time. The self-awareness the writers had while making her went a long way to making a seemingly pointless addition and flat character into such a tragic yet subtle story about unrequited love and what obsession can do to a person.

TL;DR ur waifu a shit #Fayeisbae

[fromthedeskofelizabeththird]

Fracture 6/10

Please note that this chapter references torture

If you like Juyeon, go love on @yoosungshoodie, since Juyeon is her OC and gave me her blessing to use her. The banner comes from @kiserusmoke!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Epilogue | AO3| Masterlist

There’s something else. I believe that whoever left the note is an employee of C&R.

“C&R?”

Suddenly, Seven’s mouth was dry and he mourned the soda Vanderwood scrubbed from the floor.

“I asked my security team for the full details of who came and went to the apartment today and the last people to leave were Nari, Juyeon and housekeeping, in that order.”

“I’ll look into it!” He cried out, hoping his enthusiasm masked his concern. “Don’t worry about---”

He hung up before Jumin could even respond and hopped out of his chair to gather together as many maps and files as he could carry.

“Hey, hey,” protested Vanderwood, “what are you-” He flinched as Seven threw car keys in his direction.

“Come on! We have to go.” “Go? Go where?”

Seven frowned over the top of the mountain of research in his arms.

“If there’s a mole in C&R, we need to warn V. There’s no telling exactly how much they might know or use to their advantage...it could jeopardize the entire investigation,” he said. “There’s a safe house not too far from the castle, so come on, we need to hurry!”

Vanderwood frowned, glancing from the messy floor to his flustered expression. Neither mentioned that the safehouse Seven referred to came into their possession in the earlier days of the Mint Eye investigation, nor that every single team to use it was MIA.

“Fine,” he said. “But just so you know, this means the photographer guy owes us double.”

Jihyun arrived at the castle boundary at midnight, which was strangely apt the more he thought about it. The outhouse he had previously used as a camp had changed a good deal in the last few months, which he supposed made sense. It belonged to the cult in the castle, after all, perhaps intended as a sentry post or something far more sinister. Either way, the last time he saw it it contained little more than a handful of water bottles, a worn bible and a pamphlet or two. He had been careful not to disturb the shelves much on his last visit, sniffing at the water in the bottles before taking a tentative sip. Whether or not it was clean was anyone’s guess, but at the very least it didn’t make him sick. Now that he was back, it had a few new boxes filled with musty uniforms and somebody’s shoes. In the far corner was a crate of wine bottles, though he recognised none of the labels.

Assuming the inner workings of the castle had not changed too much, the guard rotation changed at five o’clock every morning. He did not have the luxury of time, though, and after taking the tarpaulin from the back seat of his car and stretching it across until he was satisfied its dark shape was almost invisible in the forest, he shrugged on one of the newer looking sets of robes from one of the outhouse boxes.

He reached for his phone before leaving, sighing at its low battery and reaching to dial Nari’s number. He paused, though, taking in each of his missed calls from both Luciel and Jumin. Even considering the best case scenario: that Luciel was the only person looking for him, Nari’s phone was not at all compromised and she was being kept in a relatively safe environment, he did not know her well enough to presume her response to the revelation she was in danger. The worst case scenario, on the other hand, was one he did not want to entertain: that he was being traced by multiple hackers and had been for some time, Nari’s phone was compromised and had been bugged since her death.

He threw his phone into the river, watching it disappear into the darkness as he pulled up the hood of his robes.

A few hours from then everything would be changed forever, and though the optimism of it was clear even to him, he hoped it was for the better.

Ordinarily, Jumin took his good instincts for granted; he was confident making increasingly difficult business decisions and planning the future of C&R in an ever changing climate. Items and industries that dominated their accounts in previous years no longer held any value and keeping the company ahead of the game was as much about intuition as it was careful research.

When it came to Nari, though, he felt scrambled; every negative possibility equally as plausible as the next. Deep in his gut he knew there was something strange about Nari’s disappearance. Perhaps she was in danger, or had left him the note only as an afterthought.

It seemed almost distasteful to prefer the scenario where she was in danger, and yet he spent the night waiting for a callback from Luciel that ultimately never came.

After their argument, he had scooped up Nari’s engagement ring, meaning to give it back to her when they next spoke. In her absence, though, he placed it on his bedside table and hoped that when he woke up it would all be a bad dream.

Come the next morning, Luciel had not returned his call and any to Nari went straight to answer machine. As much as he wanted to dial her over and over again until she answered, the off chance that she genuinely meant to leave held him back.

He hoped he was wrong, considered that as he put on his tie the next morning. Before leaving for work, he put the engagement ring in his pocket, smoothing his fingers across the metal in the backseat of his car.

It took him half the journey to draft a message and even then it was only half complete:

We need to talk.

Nari woke early, the time on her phone screen one that would ordinarily leave her groaning and pulling the covers over her face. This time, though, she all but flew out of bed, changing into her clothes from the previous day and carefully folding the itchy nightdress. To say it was a relief to be out of it was an understatement; as she rinsed her face in the bathroom mirror, she saw that her neck and collarbones were red and blotchy from the irritation.

After dressing for the day, she dialed Driver Kim’s number and sighed when he did not respond. She doubted he was still asleep, for that particular time of day perfectly matched Jumin’s daily departure for the office. Juyeon did not answer either and Nari sank onto the bed, logging in and out of the messenger to no avail. She remembered the number Ray had written down for her as an afterthought and for a moment or two considered calling him; he had, after all, offered her an ear morning or night. It was very early in the morning, though, and surely he had a home to go to.

By something of a coincidence, he answered her question not long afterwards; barreling into her room with a tea trolley while she scribbled notes in her organiser. She had several appointments that afternoon that quite possibly needed rearranging, though the scent of Darjeeling made it more difficult than usual to pay much thought to problems beyond the castle walls.

“Good morning,” said Ray, “did you sleep well?”

He lifted the teapot into his hands as he said so, only turning to pour the tea when she nodded.

“I feel much better today,” she said, accepting the cup he offered. “I’ll be out of your hair in no time!”

It was good tea; its warmth spreading from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. At first she did not notice Ray’s expression of conflict.

“About that,” he said, “I received word from your driver this morning.”

“Is he alright?”

“He will be better soon,” he said, “don’t you worry!”

He seemed reluctant to tell her any more than that and, as a consequence, her imagination ran wild. Suddenly all she could think of was Driver Kim standing in Jumin’s office describing the events of the previous day; Driver Kim bed bound with the flu; Driver Kim receiving word of an emergency in C&R. Each possibility was worse than the next and Nari cupped her hands around her teacup, pushing each dark thought to the back of her mind.

Even so, she did not know what Ray meant by ‘better’. 

“Our lady meant for you to take breakfast in the garden today,” said Ray, turning to her with a grin. “I wasn’t sure of your preferences, so I filled in a few of the blanks myself.”

“Will your boss be coming to eat with us?”

She had seen so little of the castle that she found herself increasingly curious of it. Were all of the rooms like her own? What sort of person was in charge? All she knew of the owner came from the few references Ray had made. Those small details were not particularly helpful in forming either an opinion or mental image, however, and Nari feared she had invented so much of the owner and her personality that the reality would leave her disappointed.

Ray had not expected her to ask such a question; it was written across his face. Almost immediately she wished she had never asked, for the owner surely had a busy schedule too and her overnight stay had inevitably left a few noses out of joint.

“Ah,” she said, “it doesn’t matter. I’ll grab my coat.”

When it came to his son, Chief Han liked to think that he knew him the best. Business was in the boy’s DNA and even as a child he had understood the proper order of proceedings for any given eventuality. His engagement to a commoner had come as a shock to everyone, Chief Han most of all.

Sometimes he forgot the circumstances of Jumin’s birth; forgot Jieun. Before Jumin, she had been the person he thought he knew best of all, only to learn otherwise when it was far too late.

“What was it you wanted to speak to me about?” He asked, sitting back in his chair to properly observe the man opposite. Jumin had skipped most pleasantries when they arrived at the restaurant, not even bothering to read the menu. In the end, Chief Han was the one to order coffee and light refreshments, wondering why he had been summoned for a meeting on such late notice.

“I wanted to talk about Nari,” said Jumin, his own cup untouched.

Retrospectively, he should have seen it coming. He had learned the hard way how difficult weddings were to organise, especially when the bride did not come from a privileged background as he had. More than one of his brides to be had ended their relationship without ever making it down the aisle, in part because of the influx of offers from media outlets and other companies. With this in mind, he had taken Jumin’s engagement as an opportunity to pursue every business deal and proposal he had previously dismissed. If the unreasonably short deadline didn’t strain their relationship, the more ridiculous of his suggestions surely would.

So far, Nari had not only been flexible, but almost excessively so. Chief Han knew it was only a matter of time before his requests became intolerable and doubtlessly that was why his son had insisted on a meeting. Perhaps the girl had already left him and his strategy had finally blossomed into fruition.

“I see,” he said, helping himself to coffee. “How is my future daughter in law?”

“Don’t speak as if you don’t know,” said Jumin, “I expected this sort of behaviour from my mother, not you.”

That was a low blow and Chief Han grimaced into his coffee cup before setting it down.

“I did not expect for my son to resort to petty insults,” he said, “and yet here we are.”

“As far as I can see, you have two options,” said Jumin, shrugging off the barb. “You give my wedding a wide berth and we start again with a clean slate.”

“Or?”

“Or I leave my post at C&R.”

Only then did Chief Han realise exactly how far he had underestimated his son. It was true that business was in Jumin’s DNA, but in his arrogance he had forgotten that outmaneuvering people was too. He had no idea if Jumin was serious or calling his bluff and that uncertainty was dangerous, as he was almost certainly aware.

Suddenly Chief Han was thirty eight again, with clammy hands and a fluttering stomach, staring down the mother of his son. It had been a long time since anyone backed him into a corner in such a fashion and for Jumin to do so twice in only a matter of months left him oddly sentimental, a fact that must have transferred to his face.

“Is something funny?”

“No, no,” he said, “it’s just that the way you said that...it reminded me of someone else.”

Only after he arrived at the castle did Jihyun realise any of the flaws in his plan. He had not thought very far beyond his arrival, heart thumping with adrenaline at the thought of breaking Nari out of one cell or another.

A lot had changed since his last visit to the castle, though. The staff he once knew by identification number had since been promoted, whether to a different division or rank, and many of the chambers that had been barricaded off were now fully realised. Worse, from what few tidbits of information he could glean from other acolytes, the saviour had devoted most of her attentions to the control room and a guest on the third floor.

The gardens were new; all manner of brightly coloured flowers where before there had been plain earth. There were mazes and archways, fountains carved out of stone and pathways so well worn that it was difficult to believe how recent they actually were.

Halfway through, towards the castle, he rested a hand against a tree and sucked in one breath and then two. His chest was tight, his mind foggy, and worst of all he did not know where he planned to go next.

No one he had talked to knew much about the mysterious guest on the third floor, only that she was important to the cause and being treated as a VIP. The obvious answer was Nari and Jihyun did not know if he should be relieved or not. Not one of the answers he had received confirmed or denied her involvement in the organisation and, as foolhardy as it was, he refused to accept it. There had to be a better explanation than Nari betraying the RFA.

He had thought about confronting Rika; begging and bartering for Nari’s life. Luciel’s words, though, were clear in his mind, that his plan was reckless to the point of suicide. Jihyun supposed he agreed with him, but there again, none of his imagined attempts at saving Nari ended with him going home. At some point, he had made peace with the fact that the chances of him leaving alive were slim to none.

If he was completely honest, he was ready to die; ready to rest his body and his conscience.

As if in response, someone called out from the garden.

“This place,” they said. “It must take you such a long time to maintain it!”

It took everything he had not to run to her the moment he saw her; Nari, her hair loose about her shoulders, hugging herself as she walked the main path to the pavilion in the center. Two steps ahead of her was a man in magenta clothes, pointing out individual flower beds as he walked.

“These are Lily of the Valley,” he said, stopping to kneel and lift one by the root. “Here-“

He twisted the stalk in his fingers as she turned to see, forming a simple chain that he lowered onto her head. Nari had not been expecting it, that much was clear and she took two steps back at his touch.

“Perfect,” said the man in magenta, turning to the side and giving Jihyun a clear view of his face. He had bleached his hair and his eyes were a different shade, but it was unmistakably him: Saeran. 

“Oh,” said Nari, reaching up to the flowers in her hair, “I...thank you!”

Jihyun had no idea what Saeran was doing in the castle, nor what exactly they had planned for Nari. She did not appear to be in any immediate danger, though, which left one possibility.

A possibility that became far more apparent as someone behind him clapped a hand to his shoulder.

Breakfast that morning was no less extravagant than the one from the day before. Someone, possibly Ray, had assembled a feast under a large pavilion in the center of the garden, surrounded by sweet smelling rose bushes.

Nari wished she had several more heads so that she could better admire the flowers, and her heart skipped a beat when Ray placed a crown of lilies on her head. She was not sure how to thank him for the gesture and stammered a thank you before approaching the breakfast table.

“Is something the matter?” Asked Ray, noticing her hesitant steps.

“Oh it’s...it’s nothing,” she said, blushing a bright red at her own transparency. “I just thought Juyeon would be here.”

The prospect of her own increasingly complicated schedule and the absence of Driver Kim left her more desperate than ever to see Juyeon. Perhaps Juyeon had passed on a message to either Jumin or C&R already. At minimum she must have gotten in touch with everyone they had arranged to meet.

“Oh, don’t worry, your assistant will be here soon,” said Ray, reaching to pull out a chair for her, “she told me that she had business to attend to and will join us as soon as she’s done.”

That did sound like Juyeon, though Nari hesitated before accepting the seat he offered. The castle, the grounds, Ray...it was all like something from a fairy tale and at the back of her mind she had a strange feeling about it. Perhaps because it was so idyllic, she felt more inclined to seek out its darkest secrets.

“Are you alright, Miss Song?” Ray asked after she had been silent for quite some time.

“I,” she said, a sudden rush of guilt when she noticed the concern on his face. “It’s nothing. Thank you for this meal!”

She accepted the chair he offered and watched as he reached for a tea set, preparing her Darjeeling just as he had before.

“If there is anything I can do to make you more comfortable, just say the word.”

Nari sighed at that, wondering how she could explain to him-to anyone- her feelings from the past few days.

“Do you ever just wish that you could live your life again? The same years, but with different choices,” she said, absentmindedly running her fingers over the empty spot where her engagement ring used to be.

It was a question that had lingered at the back of her mind even before she entered Rika’s apartment. Before she even graduated high school. Just saying it out loud made it seem like nonsense, though, and she chuckled as Ray positioned a fresh cup of tea in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, hiding her face behind the cup, “that probably sounds ridiculous...I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-“

“Oh no!” Ray said, snatching up her hands in his. “I understand completely. Before I came here, I was…”

He shuddered at the thought, though tried -and failed- to pass it off as laughter.

“I was weak before,” he said. “Our Lady, she gave me purpose again, showed me the truth. I only wish I had known then what I know now, but spreading the word about everything we’ve accomplished here..well...it’s comforting. Surely there are others waiting to be saved as I was.”

Nari had yet to meet the manager of the castle grounds, but she thought she got a feel for her as she glanced around the garden. Only someone with a good deal of ambition and a kind heart would build such a unique environment and reach out to those in need.

“I think,” said Nari, squeezing Ray’s hand, “I’m going to like your boss.”

Believer B401 was far from pleased and Jihyun did not need to know the inner workings of the castle to guess why. He had frogmarched him out of the garden without so much as a word, pushing him through a side door and locking it behind them both. At first Jihyun thought he had been caught, only for Believer B401 to chastise him about his lack of discretion in regards to their guest.

“How do you mean to explain your robes,” he snapped. “Mister Ray gave us clear instructions!”

In a way, he was grateful for the interruption. Left alone to his devices he would almost certainly have acted without thinking.

“I’m sorry,” said Jihyun, “I’m on the intelligence team and only returned to the castle today.”

As excuses went, it seemed to do the job. Believer B401 let out a sound of annoyance and hit him in the shoulder.

“Don’t let it happen again,” he said. “If you jeopardize the operation, the Saviour might never forgive you.”

“What’s so special about the girl?” Jihyun asked, knowing exactly why Nari was important, but willing the acolyte to reveal more. Did they plan to recruit her? Was she a hostage, as her picture had implied? Just how did Rika plan to use her?

Unfortunately, he was out of luck in that regard. The acolyte did not know anything.

“All I know,” said Believer B401, “is that they put her under the care of Mister Ray and Miss Jenny.”

“Mister Ray?” He repeated, louder than he meant to.

“Ah, of course, you probably missed the ceremony. Mister Ray was the man in the garden.”

“Mister Ray,” said Jihyun, sounding out the name and wondering at its origins. There had to be a reason Saeran had chosen such a name…

And then there was the other question burning away at the back of his mind. If Saeran was Mister Ray, then who was Miss Jenny?

“Ahhhh, I always get the dirty jobs.”

Believer C607 leaned her head against the bars of the cell, taking in the shivering form of the prisoner.

“Hey,” she said, giving him a tentative nudge with her toes, “hey wake up.”

Despite her efforts, he lay still and she motioned for the nearest acolyte to open up the door. The cell smelled quite strongly of sweat, medications and other things she did not want to think about and she wrinkled up her nose in disgust as she stepped inside, taking extra care not to dirty her shoes.

“You had better start talking,” she said, kicking over the bucket of water they had positioned in the corner. The prisoner gasped as water spread across the floor of his cell, chancing a look at her as he repostioned his weight.

He froze on the spot as he took in her face, eyes suddenly desperate with recognition.

“J-Juyeon,” gasped Driver Kim as he reached to grab her by the waist, crumpling the magenta fabric of her blazer, “Juyeon, we need to get out of here, Miss Song-“

He groaned as she kicked him away, realisation setting in too late.

“First of all, don’t touch me with those filthy hands,” she said. “And secondly-“

She stepped back out of the cell and smiled at the second acolyte; a new girl whose hands shook as she held up a tray of instruments.

“If you want to leave here alive,” said C607, taking a set of pliers, “you will call me Miss Jenny.”

AUTHOR’S NOTES:-

Jumin’s Mum’s name is Ji Eun and she shows up in my other fic The Other Woman

My headcanons for her (or rather the head canons and backstory I put together for vabverse) are thus:

Like basically she is also from a chaebol family except all of her brothers went into the top positions and her parents wanted her to get married because it was like?? The 70s?? Maybe even the 60s man idk how old she is anyway, she studied corporate law and took on a job with chief han, since he thought she was hot and she used him to get a job

She planned to use her position at C&R to prove she was good enough for a job at her parent’s own company, all while taking C&R apart from the inside

She fell for chief han though and agreed to marry him, later stabbing her family in the back and ruining their company instead

And then she had jumin and chief han started seeing another woman while she was pregnant

She left when jumin was like 3/4. She said if was for work and a new opening but in truth she wanted him (Chief Han) to change and see sense

I bet she made it super hard on chief han’s other girlfriends

Like they’d sneak around her and lie and she’d be like... Cut the bullshit, i know youre screwing my husband

Blackmailing them through various means. Paying them off.

Jieun works in business law and im betting she created So Many Contracts with the Worst fine print

Chief Han’s lovers (the ones who have illegitimate children) receive this tiny ass stipend but come public about it and they’ll be sued and lose their home

Eunha got her bitchiness from Ji Eun

I love her. 

[yelloskello]

personal ramblings below

so a lil bit earlier my friend n I were talking about Gay Stuff and I mentioned to them how I don’t really get hyped for it anymore because a: I see it everywhere, every day, all day, and b: I don’t really feel much solidarity with the community, and then my entire car ride home I was thinking about it, so here’s like a big post on my feelings on the matter

I am like a checklist of everything that makes a bad queer person that neither The Gays nor The Straights want. I’m bi (just pick a side) in a long-term “”””het”””” relationship (you’re basically just straight). I’m genderfluid (the fuck is this mogai shit) with no dysphoria and only mild euphoria (hackles raise among tru//scum). I’m ace (bad, fake, cringy) and gray-aro (bad, fake, cringy). 

Best case scenario, i’ve been watching The DiscourseTM on this shit for months, and i’m burnt the fuck out. I don’t feel wanted anywhere. I feel bitter. I feel no connection to a community that has such a vocal chunk of it telling me i’m not welcome for one of the litany of things listed above, if not more. Worst case scenario, I feel like if I do actively celebrate being a member of the community, i’ll be seen as a CisHet Invader, fake, just wanting to be oppressed so badly, i’m not really a member of the gay club, get the fuck out.

Objectively, on a societal level, shit getting gayer is great. Almost every webcomic I read is either super queer or ends up turning super queer after a while. Gay shit is permeating popular media quickly, especially cartoons and shows for kids. I see books at barnes and noble nowhere near the LGBT section that include info about the female protagonist having a female love interest on the back cover. This is awesome. I will fucking fight cis straight people who will moan about this.

On a personal level, though, I don’t see myself in this shit. The only ace or aro people I see are either shown in an entirely negative light, or are written from a misinformed or ignorant perspective with little nuance or variation of How You Can Be Ace/Aro. Bi people only matter when they’re in a relationship with the same gender, and half the time when that happens people just erase the bi part. Genderfluid representation doesn’t exist, and if it does, it sure as hell doesn’t look like me. So like while it’s cool for some lady character to get a girlfriend, it’s hard for me to be hyped about it personally, because I don’t... See myself in her. 

I didn’t realize I was bi until after I was already in a long-term relationship with a dude, who is great, and i’m not gonna fuck up a perfectly good relationship for the sake of exploring my sexuality. I may never get to experience dating women or nb people. I’ve even missed out on being single and feeling justified and valid in openly talking about how gay I am, because it’s always gonna be tainted with that feeling of faking it. It’s important for me to see bi people being able to enjoy relationships with multiple genders, including the “””opposite””” gender, for this reason.

all this to say when I see people reveling in queer culture, I just don’t really feel connected to it for the aforementioned reasons. I’m a Bad Queer who feels tired and unwelcome. I’ll support the normalization of LGBT stuff in popular culture, absofuckinglutely, but I just can’t get excited or feel included until I see stories like mine out there. i’m on the sidelines and I feel like that’s where people want me to be.

this is just my personal issues with my little plot of trees in a much greater forest. i’m tired my dudes.

[nancy-astorga]

Did Trump threaten to send US troops to fight Mexico’s drug war? Here’s what we know

On Wednesday, journalist Dolia Estevez reported that during a brief, blunt phone call the previous Friday, US President Donald Trump threatened and cajoled Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

According to Estevez, who cited “confidential information” obtained from sources on both sides of the call, Trump disparaged Mexico and Mexicans, threatened to levy taxes on Mexican imports, and went so far as to hint at sending US troops to confront drug traffickers who, Trump said, Mexico’s military had been incapable of stopping.

The incendiary comments attracted instant attention, both for their vitriol and for their verisimilitude, as Trump frequently inveighed against Mexico throughout his campaign and has kept up his harsh rhetoric during the first days of his administration.

Estevez’s report also characterized Peña Nieto’s response as “stammering.” Much of the Mexican public has been frustrated with Peña Nieto’s response to Trump’s attacks, and the Mexican president has seen his approval rating fall to 12% in recent weeks.

Estevez described Trump as threatening Mexico with a 35% tax “on those exports that hurt Mexico the most” and referred to White House spokesman Sean Spicer restating the 35% tax idea after the call.

However, while Trump has mentioned a 35% tariff on exports from US companies in Mexico, the most commonly floated number is a 20% tax on Mexican goods entering the US. The White House lists no press briefing by Spicer on January 27, the day of the call.

Hours after Estevez’s report surfaced, a report from The Associated Press corroborated some of the content of the conversation, but downplayed the tone.

“You have a bunch of bad hombres down there,” Trump told Peña Nieto, according to an excerpt seen by the AP. “You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

But, the AP said, the excerpt did not make clear who Trump was referring to as “bad hombres,” nor did it make evident the tone or context of Trump’s remark. Moreover, the excerpt did not include Peña Nieto’s response.

The Mexican government also issued a statement around the same time totally rejecting Estevez’s report.

“[It’s] necessary to clarify that the publication is based in absolute falsities and with evident ill intention,” Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Twitter.

“During the call, President Peña Nieto was clear and emphatic in signaling the differences of position in respect to some statements made by President Trump in public and which he repeated during their dialogue,” the ministry said, adding:

“You assert that you obtained information from confidential sources from ‘both sides of the border.'”

“Only [Peña Nieto] and the foreign minister participated in that call and neither of them remember knowing you or having spoken with you ever. Whoever has been your confidential source on this side of the border, lied to you.”

Eduardo Sanchez, Mexico’s presidential office spokesman, said the conversation was respectful, not hostile or humiliating, as described by Estevez.

“It is absolutely false that President Trump has threatened to send troops to the border,” he said during a Wednesday-night interview with Mexican journalist Carlos Loret de Mola.

Later on Wednesday, the Mexican government issued a statement disputing the AP’s initial report, saying the details of it “did not correspond to reality.”

“The negative expressions to which [the AP report] makes reference, did not happen during said telephone call,” the statement, posted on Twitter, said. “On the contrary, the tone was constructive …”

The White House also disputed the account of a contentious call between Trump and Peña Nieto.

“The White House tells me POTUS did not threaten to invade Mexico,” Andrew Beatty, the AFP’s White House correspondent, tweeted a little before 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

Jim Acosta, CNN’s senior White House correspondent, also tweeted a comment he attributed to a White House official: “Reports that the President threatened to invade Mexico are false. Even the Mexican government is disputing these reports.”

A more in-depth report from CNN published Wednesday night cited a transcript of the call that differed from the text published by the AP:

“You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with. We are willing to help with that big-league, but they have be knocked out and you have not done a good job knocking them out.”

A source told CNN that the AP’s report was based on a readout of the conversation between Trump and Peña Nieto written by aides, not on a transcript.

In a further qualification, the White House characterized Trump’s “bad hombres” remark as “lighthearted” to the AP in a story published on Thursday morning.

The White House said the comments were “part of a discussion about how the United States and Mexico could work collaboratively to combat drug cartels and other criminal elements, and make the border more secure.”

A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the AP the conversation was “pleasant and constructive.”

While both sides has downplayed the content of the conversation and dismissed the reportedly hostile tone, the exact nature of the phone call is still unclear, and may remain so until a full transcript or audio (which the Mexican government traditionally does not record) is revealed.

In any case, Trump’s dealings with foreign leaders during his first two weeks as president have been concerning for observers, both at home and abroad.

“(Trump’s) interactions are naive in that he keeps suggesting we will have the best relationship ever with a broad departure of countries, but there is no substance to back it up,” a government official with knowledge of Trump’s interactions with foreign leaders told CNN.

“Source familiar with Trump foreign leader calls says the POTUS convos are turning faces ‘white’ inside the” White House, Acosta tweeted late on Wednesday.

“When he encounters a policy challenge, like with Turnbull, he responds with a tantrum,” the official told CNN, referring to a phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

During that call, Trump bragged about his election victory and said Australia was going to send the US “the next Boston bombers” as part of an Obama-approved deal to taken in refugees held by Australia, which he criticized.

Descriptions of Trump’s calls are at odds with “sanitized” White House accounts, The Washington Post, which first reported the nature of the Turnbull call, said of Trump’s discussions with foreign leaders, adding:

“The characterizations provide insight into Trump’s temperament and approach to the diplomatic requirements of his job as the nation’s chief executive, a role in which he continues to employ both the uncompromising negotiating tactics he honed as a real estate developer and the bombastic style he exhibited as a reality television personality.”

The contentious nature of the Trump’s call with the Australian leader was especially troubling, in light of the longstanding and close-knit ties Washington and Canberra have developed over decades.

While the call with Mexico’s president appears to be less sensational that initially reported, that correction will likely do little to sooth the nerves of Mexicans and people of Mexican descent in Mexico and in the US.

Trump has made not indication of backing off his pledge to construct a border wall — Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has said the wall could be completed in two years, and Kelly is already traveling to the border area to study plans for the wall’s construction.

Moreover, Mexicans appear to have been caught up in the “extreme vetting” Trump has targeted at citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries.

“We have reports of Mexicans who have been held for more than 12 hours … We have a case of a family who were held for more than 10 hours and we’re looking into that,” Marcelino Miranda, consul for legal affairs at Mexico’s consulate in Chicago, said on Tuesday,

Miranda said he believed stringent questioning faced by those Mexicans had nothing to do with the newly intensified vetting process, though others from the country likely see it as part of a broader hostility to the US’s southern neighbor.

Trump “wants to make an example of Mexico to show how he will deal with countries around the world,” Maria Eugenia Valdes, a political scientist at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico, told journalist Ioan Grillo.

“This man is capable of anything,” she added.

“When you hear about the tough phone calls I’m having, don’t worry about it, just don’t worry about it,” Trump said during a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday morning.

“We’re going to straighten it out,” Trump added. “That’s what I do. I fix things.”

SEE ALSO: Report: In a ‘humiliating’ and ‘threatening’ tone, Trump lambasted Mexico’s president during a phone call

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