#(and therefore if even *she* was grossed out by it then it was obviously objectively gross)

[somekindafairy]

for being a "no shave hippy ✌️🏞️🫘" my mom was actually really anti-hair huh

[cleverthylacine]

Netflix's bastardisation of Three-Body

Oh yeah. I haven't said anything about this. Probably because I've been screaming at people on reddit about it for weeks.

Extensive spoilers below of why you don't want to watch this show if you like the books and should watch the C-drama by Tencent Pictures instead. If you like both you can have fun screaming at this show except that after about 4 episodes even that stops being fun.

The first problem with this show is that they decided to set it in mostly England instead of mostly China, and then cleverly made most of the main characters nonwhite as well as non-Chinese, so that they could point at that as evidence that they're not racist for turning a book set in China with mostly Chinese characters into a show set in England with mostly characters who grew up in the global west (even Cheng Jin/Xin has been raised in New Zealand).

The second problem with this show is that they're adapting a trilogy of 500+ page books and they shoved the first book into 5 episodes and the first part of the second book into 3 episodes. A lot of important and interesting material got cut.

The third problem with this show is that the main character of the novel and the C-Drama is Wang Miao, who is a very sensitive, nonjudgemental and caring male character, the kind of male MC we rarely get. He's also a good husband and father and he's adorable with his daughter. Wang Miao is able to make many connections between people and information because he is able to listen to people, even when he knows they're dangerous, with empathy and refrain from judging them at least until they've finished telling him the stuff that he actually wanted and needed to know.

The character they replaced him with is argumentative, judgemental, and angry. Auggie frequently storms out of conversations with key people in the story in high moral dudgeon without having learned a thing.

Cleverly, they made her female, so that anyone who dares criticise her for being generally terrible is hit with accusations of Skylar White syndrome and being unable to handle angry WOC.

The fourth problem is that they changed the relationship between Mike Evans and Ye Wenjie and in so doing obliterated the internal conflict within the Earth-Trisolaran organisation.

Ye Wenjie is significantly older than Mike Evans and serves as a mentor and sympathetic ear to him while he's in China. She already has had her daughter by her late husband.

in the English show she's his lover and it's gross. I am not even someone who generally objects to age gaps in fiction or even reality as long as everyone's an adult, but this is gross. For one thing, Evans is obviously mentally ill and vulnerable. He becomes the father of her daughter. They then obliterate the faction war that started between Wenjie and Evans. This is important and awful because Wenjie's faction wants aliens to come to Earth and save us from our own idiocy. Evans' faction is anti-human and wants the aliens to come to Earth and save the planet from humans. (Why he thinks they will preserve the animals he values more than people, I don't know. These aliens are fucking ruthless.)

The result of this is that they portray the secretive and malevolent eco-terrorist Evans as a cute elderly space-obsessed grandpa surrounded by little kids that his antinatalist ass would have never supported his followers having (and that anyone who followed him would never have.)

The upshot of this is that we get to see dead children's severed limbs after Our Heroes retrieve crucial information. And we don't know that it is crucial information because they have Wenjie in custody and it is therefore not clear that Evans has been talking to the aliens, they no longer talk to Wenjie, and what they're trying to take is the records of all the conversations Evans had with the aliens, which could maybe be important if you wanted to know in advance how bad the aliens are and what they are planning to do.

I don't want to see murdered children. There is enough of that on the news, thanks. It's an emotionally manipulative choice on the part of the writers. It does make Auggie's worst temper tantrum understandable, but if they had made her the kind of character Wang Miao was, that wouldn't have been necessary. Wang Miao did object to all the adults-only carnage, but he also was able to understand that there were plot-related reasons all those grown-ass ecoterrorist assholes had to die.

So now everyone who thinks Auggie is a rotten replacement for Wang Miao is not only a misogynist but pro-murdered children. And the neckbeards who actually haven't studied cults are all like "of course they put kids on the boat! a cult should have kids!" because they're not aware that there are cults other than the FLDS and the Branch Davidians. Aside from the ecoterrorism aspect, the recent cult that Evans' group is most like is Heaven's Gate, who were so anti-sex and anti-breeding that some of them castrated themselves.

They also added a white male character who was rich. Sadly, he was hilarious and entertaining in a very Seth Rogan/James Franco kinda way, so of course he was one of the first main characters to die.

The usual suspects are claiming that the adaptation was fucked up by "wokeness". I don't believe that, but I do wonder exactly why the extreme environmentalist/animal rights/super vegan/anti-natalist/anti-human bad guys were written out of the story.

Because climate change is important and the environment is important and we really have to fix it. We really do. We have to save our planet, we're the people who live here!

But all good movements have their dangerous fringe people, and people who would do what Mike Evans did in the books exist. For instance, there were animal liberationists who let prion infected squirrels loose 20 years ago and suddenly now in Appalachia, where poor people hunt squirrel, we have an epidemic of prion-related dementia.

(And those of you who read me regularly and know that I've worked in medical research schools most of my life know that I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate these kinds of "environmentalists" so yeah I'm a little bit mad that I didn't get to see Evans die horribly lmao.)

In other words: this show is so bad that it actually makes me contemplate right-wing Hollywood conspiracy theories for a hot second before dismissing them.

They also added a lot more explosions and a lot more interpersonal drama, because that's what Americans like. Yeah fuck you Netflix.

[djretard]

Enter The Guys......... putting them under a readmore

Jack McNeil — 16, small guy he's the shortest at the school he's 4'11". He hails from the local trailer park, Angel Lynn, and is ERMMM... a social outcast Lol. Common trend here. So the reasoning for this is that he was born during the initial murders back in the 70's-80's and no one knows who his parents are which makes the whole town suspicious and judgemental. In Bethel is very important who your family is. Apparently, Jack was given over to his adoptive parents in the middle of the night, and his adoptive parents REFUSE to tell anyone, even Jack, who his parents are. A popular theory is that Jack is the secret love child of Tom and Lydia, who the town believes were having an affair with one another. Frankie shoots this theory down all the time as he finds it disrespectful, but still, people still spread the rumor. As a person, though Jack dresses according to the punk aesthetic, he isn't really "punk" at all. He's introverted and hates conflict to the point of just going along with what anyone around him wants to happen. That said, he is very intelligent and observational, which perhaps derives from his adoptive mother, Renee, being a PI. He is also a close friend of Juliet Taylor leading up to her disappearance, which is his primary connection to the main plot. INTP. if that matters. erm... song for him would be "heaven knows I'm miserable now" by the smiths 👍

Kodali Rivers — 18. Pretty girl with dyed pink hair. Her style is inspired by the riot grrrl movement of the 90's.... she's a lover of all things alternative/punk/gross/scary/loud/gory. Completely out of control, constantly rebelling against her father and her step-mom, who largely favor her twin sister, Katie Rivers. She was kicked off of the cheer squad last year and also failed the prior year, making her a Junior for a second time around. While Jack finds misery in his ostracization, Kodali more or less revels in it, and finds great enjoyment of running around being a nuisance to everyone around her. She makes it her job. That said, much of this is a coping mechanism. She has self-esteem issues as well as trauma from back as a child. Kodali was the one who found Mari's eviscerated corpse, at only age 5. The people of Bethel idolize Mari, and her children are expected to "make her proud" from beyond the grave. Kodali, to the people's eyes, is nothing like her mother and therefore less important than, say, Katie. Kodali also idolizes her mother, and though she can't help herself when it comes to who she is, she does feel grief for "letting her mother down" by acting as she does. But! Mari kept a lot of secrets, so who knows how different they truly are... also a song obviously we have to go with "dead mom" from the beetlejuice musical lawl

Steven Belmont — 17, a junior. Spitting image of his parents, for Frankie it's physical, for Lydia it's in his personality. Like our prior two protagonists, Steven is a social reject. This is largely due to his mother and her apparent involvement in the murders. However, he gets a lot less objective "bullying" by the residents of the town due to his father's protective nature and his status as a Belmont. Jack finds misery in his ostracization, Kodali revels in it, and Steven simply exists like a ghost to the town. His personality is strange even to the already strange aura of the town. He speaks in riddles, or sometimes just in a style that is not of this time or place. He is frequently spaced out not present in the moment. Keeps to himself, but very sensitive to others, and to the environment. Lover of nature and of animals, though his primary interest is of ghosts, and the supernatural. He has a lot of missing time in his life, especially around the time of the murders. In fact, he has never been able to relay a single memory of his time spent with Tom and Lydia. Even thinking too hard about either one of them causes him to get dizzy, gives him a headache. He is still very interested in the new murders despite this. However, he goes about it in a guarded way. And ERMMM so he claims to Jack and Kodali that he has dreams that are sort of like premonitions, and on the night Juliet went missing he had a dream where he "saw the ghost of the moon take her away..." and he says he had a similar dream wayyyy back when his neighbor, Raina, went missing. He likes to fit a ghost into any given conversation but this one he seems oddly serious about. Not much else I can say other than he doesn't attend school much these days, the bullying has gotten marginally worse and Frankie is worried about that so he keeps him right at his hip. Even moreso after the murders start up again, as he worried Steven would be a potential target. songs in this particular order ↓

fishing bird is ERM. my voice headcanon for him. he sings like his mama and writes poetry and sings and stuff... not important

ermmm so steven and kodali are unlikely friends as of the start of the school year. she's like ummmm I'm gonna need this autistic freak to be my friend right neow. and he follows her around and tries to keep her out of trouble. like I said before, jack and juliet were friends, then she goes missing. jack and kodali meet in ISS and that's where kodali learns about his connection to the missing girl. kodali meets up with steven after school to walk home together and he starts freaking it and going on about the ghost dream and boldly claims that he knows where to find her. kodali is like okay chill also this little boy in ISS said he knew her and jack conveniently is just getting out of school too so she rushes him and is like HEY my friend says he knows where to find your friend :-) let's follow him he like about to pee himself. and they all go and walk, and steven leads them to an active crime scene with police present. they try and shield the kids but oh my god I forgot to mention katie and sawyer. oh well next post. anyways kodali starts bitching at the cop (David Belmont... Steven's grandpa) and Jack is able to slip by him and he finds the bones. and then well the story starts

[laufire]

yeah I hated sansa’s season 5 plotline, but the reaction, ie. that it was bad not because it happened but because it happened to sansa specifically, that it would have been fine if it had happened to jeyne was…terrible. and honestly I found the book plot with jeyne just as awful and gratuitous as the show plot. i’m obviously not defending the sansa/Ramsey plot because it was gross as fuck, but there was a huge contrast in how the audience reacted to Sansa’s rape vs rape and sexual violence against dany, cersei, and the other women on game of thrones. in fact i literally saw a sansa stan say something like “y’all are mad the show killed of your white savior fave but you said nothing when sansa was raped” and I was thinking like what? Daenerys was literally raped in the first episode, why are you implying she was immune to the show’s misogyny. (also people are allowed to be mad about dany being murdered through intimate partner violence, holy shit)

I think "I love this character, specifically, more than I love other characters, therefore I don't want them to have a poorly done or hurtful storyline" is a more than reasonable stance. "It bothers me when a character I have strong affection for is the target of sexual violence" is, also, perfectly reasonable! Trust me, I understand! I have a terrible track record when it comes to this (Caroline Forbes, Black Sails' Max, Buffy Summers, Mellie Grant, Bela Talbot, Castiel, Priya and Tony in Dollhouse, the characters in Reign... I Get It).

I can even understand "I was less uncomfortable when it happened to secondary characters and I could brush it off". I think a statement like that deserves some deep self-reflection, and that if anything, it makes giving such a story to a lead character all the more poignant -in a show that at least pretends it wants to start a conversation about sexual violence, it'd be an easy cop-out to only limit that storyline to unnamed women or prop characters with little incidence on the narrative when the audience has proven perfectly capable of ignoring it while patting themselves in the back for, idek. Recognising it happened or not reacting in the worst possible way.

(sidenote: "authors should never write about rape" is never going to be a statement I can agree with. There are many reasons for this, but probably the most important one is a similar sentiment of some posts I reblogged semi-recently and now can't find in typical tumblr fashion, about how naïve, myopic and privileged is to want children's books to never include any of the dark realities of life, as if there aren't real, living children experiencing such in this very moment. Maybe, just maybe, not every story's existence has to revolve around. Maybe, just maybe, some people need different things from fiction than you do. It's everyone's prerogative to refuse to engage with such storylines! But their existence itself is a different matter.)

In shows like Game of Thrones or Reign, especially, there's something insidious in how people will use the "not for a lead!" argument (even putting aside how ridiculous it is in GOT, where the two other lead women were already rape victims). Namely, that the leads are high-born, and the secondary characters they argue should be the ones suffering those storylines are seen as "beneath" them in the social hierarchy.

It's impossible to deny this influenced audience's reactions, because there were people straight up arguing that Ramsay shouldn't have felt entitled to do that to Sansa, and not Jeyne, because she was highborn (???). Or that objected to Mary's rape in Reign because she was a ~queen. Look, of course certain privileges can help you avoid violence. Social class can be a shield, in particular. But it can become useless when you come face to face with a predator and he decides you're his next target. By that point, the title of lady means absolutely nothing.

Like you, I have no desire to defend the Sansa-Ramsey storyline (among other reasons, I never watched it and I tried not to pronounce definite judgements in storylines I don't have direct experience with). For what I know, D&D were practically eager to jump at the chance to put the actress on such scenes once she was old enough. And, to put it bluntly, I just don't give male creators writing about misogyny and violence against women the benefit of the doubt, not anymore. They have to prove themselves beyond doubt first.

But frankly? I don't give that benefit of the doubt to audiences either. I can't think of a single time that, at the moment a rape storyline occurred, didn't react in appalling, offensive ways. In a lot of fandoms that can evolve with time, or at least in recent years it seems people have grown more prudent about how they come across. But when it came to present-time reactions? Fans have an awful track record, IMO.

“y’all are mad the show killed of your white savior fave but you said nothing when sansa was raped”

This is fucking vile for the exact reasons you listed, jfc.

[bullet-ant]

im going to try to describe in as few words as i possibly can why i think i developed avoidant personality disorder and offer some insight into how it has affected me personally. (i apologize if its constructed messily Lol)

first, i am going to quickly describe a memory and discuss my dad because i think it gives some good backstory to the points im about to describe:

when i was five years old, i had just received some incredibly good news while i was at home with my father who had just got the news too

i was absolutely brimming with so much joy and love and adoration for my dad in that moment that i wanted to tell him i loved him. i knew better than to do so, because he would always withdraw and wretch at me when i did, but i was just so happy and full of love. i thought maybe, since the news was good, he wouldnt wretch at me for saying it this time, so i took the risk and said it. "i love you", saturated with pools and pools of my deepest love and affection for him—it came bursting out of my heart.

he did immediately proceed to wretch at me, right in my face, and the joy and love i felt was instantaneously extinguished. suddenly i no longer cared about the good news. i never said those words to anyone ever again (even to this day as an adult i have not uttered that phrase to anyone since LOL). from this, i internalized my fathers disgust for me—for my identity—as something inherently wrong and gross with me at my core.

this was just one memory of thousands. my dad humiliated and degraded me in millions of other ways my entire childhood—it was chronic—and he let me know everyday that i was unloved.

every time i made the mistake of expressing myself in front of him he would reject me, so i put myself on lockdown and learned not to give anyone anything to humiliate or degrade or reject me with. if i give my dad nothing—if i express no feeling—hell, if i just turn all my feelings off—then i'll never experience the urge to express myself, and therefore will never experience the rejection that i know is imminent.

i perceive everything as though its an attack on my identity because that is all i ever knew. being myself never once yielded me love—it only ever yielded certain rejection and subsequently utter humiliation. in everyone i see daily reminders of who i was to my dad—cringeworthy, disgusting, shameful, humiliating, and most importantly, unlovable.

there was a certain point where i decided that, if that was how everyone was going to see me, it wasnt worth being seen at all. i decided that the only person worthy of knowing me was me. i shut down and split myself into two selves. my "false self"—whose job it is to handle all people-related dealings and guard the "true self"—the version of me that is really me.

when i am acting as the "false self", i am anhedonic. i struggle with the flat effect and to put the correct facial expressions on my face at the right times. the false self is mild, phony, and unfeeling. her job is to nod her head and always say all the right things without ever having to say too much; she says just enough to get people off my back. i am always acting as the false self so long as i am around another person—be it my family, friends, coworkers, etc. It is impossible for me to trust or even love anybody no matter how "close" they are to me because I am burdened with the knowledge that none of these people could ever truly love me back. they can (and will) reject me at any moment i let my guard down.

i often have a tendency to aggressively lash out at everyone because by default i assume their primary objective in trying to know me is just to reject (and further humiliate) me. obviously this is a problematic behavior, and it only serves to make me even less easy to love while also driving more and more people out of my life

when i expressed to my father that i loved him and he rejected me, humiliation and rejection became a trigger for me. nobody likes rejection—this is true—but i dont like rejection because i experienced it chronically, every waking day of my childhood. that is much different from someone who only experienced the normal amount of rejection on occasion or every so often. when rejection is chronic, it becomes impossible to separate it from who you are. it will make you feel as though you are on fire—i believe it's why avoidants fear it so viscerally

these are just a few of my thoughts; if you read this far thank you!!! please feel welcome to add your own insights or ideas (if any). this disorder is a massive iceberg, this post cant even begin to cover every way it has degraded the quality of my life. if you have any your own thoughts dont be afraid to share them👋

[shinidamachu]

I’m sorry but literally no other Inuyasha pairing, canon or not canon, had the same dynamic as 𝕤𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕣𝕚𝕟. Literally no one. This alone should have been enough clue about how misplaced (to say the very least) a romantic relationship between Rin and Sesshomaru would be.

When shippers say “Inukag had an age gap too” they’re making a point they either: 

a) don’t actually believe in, but know that most of the fandom ships Inukag, so using Inuyasha and Kagome as a “gotcha” by equating them to 𝕤𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕣𝕚𝕟 is their best chance to “win” the argument because they know we’re not gonna stop shipping Inukag and therefore we’re the hypocrites for not supporting 𝕤𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕣𝕚𝕟 too when they know damn well the circumstances couldn’t be more different.

or

b) actually believe in, but that can be due to lack of critical thinking or the possibility they need to keep believing Inukag and 𝕤𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕣𝕚𝕟 are the same so they don’t have to deal with the fact that their ship is problematic to an unhealthy level.

Kagome was a 15yo teenager when she met Inuyasha. Rin was a literal child when she met Sesshomaru. Kagome was already her own person, mostly (because she is still a teen) capable of seeing things objectively and making her own decisions. Rin was a kid, impressionable and manipulable, with her personality starting to form. Kagome was obviously Inuyasha’s love interest because emotionally and physically speaking, they’re in the same playing field. Rin was a plot device to help Sesshomaru’s character development because emotionally and physically speaking he was an adult and she was the kid he took under his wing. Whatever you want to label it, there was a power imbalance, there was a hierarchy. Saying there wasn’t is straight up erasing canon and creating your own facts (which is fine, unless you start to get mad at others for not accepting them as undeniable truth) and this power imbalance won’t cease to exist just because Rin grew up.

No other Inuyasha pairing had the same dynamic as 𝕤𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕣𝕚𝕟.

Shippers also argue about Koga and Ayame. Granted, they met when he saved her life and she was a kid too. But as much as his “proposal” can and should be frowned upon, they parted ways right after, while Sesshomaru and Rin sticked together. In fact, Koga forgot all about Ayame until they met again, when she was about Kagome’s age (at least in appearance). For his part, Sesshomaru kept Rin around as his ward, protecting and caring deeply for her until leaving her at Kaede’s, but still visiting her and bringing her gifts. Koga never did such things: after their interaction ended, it ended. And we know Ayame didn’t cross his mind because he fell in love with Kagome. Koga actually fell in love with someone else (someone with a proper age to be his romantic interest, may I add) instead of waiting around for Ayame to grow up, which shippers seem to claim it was what Sesshomaru did with Rin.

Futhermore, we know teenager Ayame. She romanticized Koga over that one moment she shared with him when he saved her, even without seeing him for years, but when they met again, he didn’t quite live up to her expectations at first. I vaguely remember some animosity between them and then Ayame leaving or something of the sorts. We do not know teenager Rin, though. If Ayame romanticized Koga over a single memory, well... We know Rin had a lot more than that with Sesshomaru and the time they spent together was way more meaningful. So where does that leave Rin? Would she ever realize she romanticized Sesshomaru? Would she ever admit he has flaws? Would she stand her ground against him if necessary, stand up for herself, tell him off, leave? Or would she submit to whatever he says?

Anyway... Every Koga/Ayame criticism is valid! There are no convincing excuses for not introducing Ayame as a teenager in the flashback she meets Koga (like she was for most of her screen time) or for not making Koga a kid then too. But then again, it was 2002. Shouldn’t we be trying to do better now? Sunrise wrote Koga/Ayame this way and “got away” with it, does that give them a blank check? Are they free of criticism forever? I don’t think that’s how it works. Besides, Ayame played a way smaller part in Inuyasha than Rin would play in the sequel if she turns out to be Sesshomaru’s wife. One of the biggest misteries of the show is precisely the mother of the twins. That’s impacting. That’s what people will remember.

Lastly, shippers like to use Mirsan too. Miroku, because his pervert behavior towards Sango and other women are also harmful. Sango, because canonically she got pregnant very young and this was a normal thing in Feudal Era Japan. Well, I agree about Miroku. His behavior towards women was gross. However, he is constantly being called out on it. By the narrative. By Kagome. By Sango herself. Even Inuyasha! It might be portrayed as comic relief, but it is pretty obvious his actions are wrong. Sessrin becoming canon, on the other hand, would have tons of unexcusable behavior portrayed in a good light. That’s harmful and dangerous. As for Sango, she did have kids young. With her equally young partner. Again, emotionally and physically speaking: in the same playing field. And in their case, you might even say chronologically too, since they are both humans and time affects them the same way, with their age gap being small enough to be irrelevant. Also, I’m not sure a show with actual demons, ghosts and time traveling was really worried about historical accuracy.

Insisting that other Inuyasha couples are just as problematic as 𝕤𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕣𝕚𝕟 is a waste of your time and ours. You’re not fooling anyone but yourselves.

[highly-flammable]

Reacting to Legacies 3x03 (SPOILERS):

1. So ARE we FINALLY getting to some proper firstborn Mikaelson witch breakdowns?

2. Oh well, apparently no. They'll just try to wave it off as some one time thing probably.

3. So Hope and Landon are on a break. Okay. TBH watching them sass each other is interesting.

4. The guidance counselor is pretty much a compulsion monster, is that it? Well, I do like his wardrobe.

5. Alyssa's concern for MG is so fake I can't.

6. Nobody other than Jed read for Stefan? THE DISRESPECT.

7. Lizzie playing Caroline makes total sense but them asking Josie to play the lead without even an audition looks a bit bad TBH. Like, give the other interested people a chance, at least.

8. I find it a bit repetitive how there are mind-controlling monsters popping out again and again.

9. So MG is basically going through a phase similar to what Cami was going through when Klaus used to compel her at the beginning of TO. Considering Quincy's fondness for Cami, he must have liked playing that.

10. I understand that Landon is supposed to be a capable songwriter in-universe but it takes more than that to write and direct a musical and it's very weird that they didn't even find a guest star to pose as a Drama or English teacher who is guiding him or something. WHERE ARE ALL THE TEACHERS?

11. I kinda feel like some of the lead characters in this show are colour-coded. I see Hope and Landon in red and blue a lot (the two gowns we have seen Hope wearing also fall into this pattern) and Josie wears yellow in like, every other episode. If I recall correctly, Lizzie wears a lot of white, too. I wonder what the reasoning behind these choices are.

12. Well, I liked Hope and Landon's relationship in S1, I have no idea what was going on with it in S2, and I still don't know what to think about it.

13. Lizzie casts herself in Caroline's role and then chokes at rehearsal. Not totally unrealistic but still feels a bit forced to me. Would have been better if Landon cast her because she's Caroline's daughter and Lizzie was a bit apprehensive in the first place because she didn't want to mess up the role.

14. I appreciate the show taking a moment to talk about Lizzie's bipolar disorder though. It's been a while.

15. "Bonnie just disappears for long periods of time"? Dude, she's still super important and you're putting her in the play. Right? RIGHT?!

16. Landon, THANK YOU for pointing out how weird Caroline and Alaric's relationship was. The guy deadass got engaged to her and had a pissing contest over her with Stefan, that will never not gross me out.

17. So the monster is mind controlling Landon to put Klaus into the play. Saw this coming IG.

18. Hope is painting again, like her dad used to do when he felt things were going out of control. I've been rewatching TO and this is making me so emotional. I MISS KLAUS AND HIS SHENANIGANS. And not a single character on Legacies comes close to Klaus, Elijah and Hayley for me. (Sorry if this hurts anyone's feelings but Legacies really is a downgrade from TVD and TO)

19. Ugh, why would he use the contents of the letter as lyrics? Dude, is it because you're mind-controlled? No, I don't like this. Klaus loved Hope to the ends of the earth and wanted everyone to know but Hope wants to keep things private, and her wishes should have been respected.

20. So apparently Landon tries not to put Klaus' villainous antics into the show. Well, okay, it's definitely a copout but since he is Hope's boyfriend, makes sense. But I don't understand why the musical HAS TO BE about the Salvatore school. The accreditation excuse is lazy, writers! Also, Landon, my dude, Klaus was a major donor of the school. Put that in instead of the other things, stop pissing off your girlfriend FFS. Even if you're mind-controlled 🤦🏻‍♀️

21. I do find it funny how Landon is all gaga over Klaus' use of language though. The guy really did have the best lines, didn't he? (Tied with Elijah, I suppose, for me)

22. The other singers of the first song are really good so Kaylee sounds a bit rusty in comparison. Also, she reminds me too much of Dark!Josie with the hair and makeup. From a distance, she can be mistaken for Nina though.

23. I love that the backstage activities are being shown.

24. I'm digging Jed as Stefan and I really like his singing voice. And the Hero Hair wig cracked me up. Kaleb is obviously good at singing at it's nice to hear more from him. I also like how Chris Lee didn't try to exactly emulate Ian and played Damon how someone who has only heard about him might play him.

25. Is Hope painting herself before the pit or something? Or is this supposed to symbolize her despair at her parents' loss? ALSO, I WANT SOMEONE TO MENTION HAYLEY :( Why is Hayley so ignored?!

26. The same person probably wrote MG's notes and Caroline's letter IRL and therefore, in-universe, MG has Caroline's handwriting and it's funny to me.

27. Jenny sings well, I like it. I don't understand the song though, was Caroline actually ever feeling this insecure? I feel like the song became a lot more about Lizzie than her mother. (It's been forever since I watched TVD, if anyone has yet to guess, I prefer watching TO)

28. The doppelganger thing cracked me up.

29. Wait why did the monster attack Josie?! Ohhhh he's forcing Landon to improvise and put Klaus' song at the end. Well, I guess it makes it seem a bit less like Landon's fault. But would Hope know that?

30. It's hilarious how they lowkey make a call back to Nina leaving TVD and them having to put Elena in a sleep spell though.

31. Landon having a hissy fit is funny to me. Aria needs more comedic scenes.

32. Wait, where did Jade come from? Has she been in the school all these weeks?

33. While the scene seems a bit shabby to me, Klaus talking to Hope reminds me of their scene from TO 4X03. I needed more of Summer Fontana and Joseph Morgan together. Also, the donation did get mentioned, YASSSS. Man did some horrific things but he did fund the school so maybe a little less badmouthing in the presence of his daughter now that you know the story, eh, students?

34. The fact that the guidance counselor actually wore a leather jacket and a henley is cracking me up. It's really bizarre.

35. "Terrible painter" XD Klaus would have eaten you for saying that if he were alive.

36. Um, Hope, wouldn't you ask your family if you are doing enough to make your father proud, instead of this random bloke who supposedly met him once?! Maybe call Freya or Rebekah.

37. Why is this monster being nice to Hope? Doesn't it try to break people up or something? You'd think he'd try to piss her off even more and ruin her relationship with Landon.

38. Stefan was trying to be more like Damon by sacrificing himself? Um, what?

39. Well, this musical at least gave Stefan and Caroline a goodbye scene. I wonder how much the twins remember Stefan, must have been a bit emotional for Lizzie to play that. Jenny's singing was gooood, really liked it.

40. JED WAS GONNA KISS LIZZIE AND I WANTED IT TO HAPPEN. But a forehead kiss does work.

41. Hope's playing Elena now? What?

42. Ngl I want Hope and Jed to be friends. She needs more of a connection to her wolf side. Both of her parents wanted her to be surrounded by wolves and she's barely interacting with the wolves in this show, which always makes me sad.

43. So this monster can also do little spells and move physical objects eh? Whatever, this is random.

44. And this monster brings people back together? Why?

45. So when Hope is singing, is she doing it as Elena or Hope? She came on stage as Elena, but I thought the song is about Hope. So WHAT IS IT?

46. Oh Damon's on stage, so Hope is singing as Elena and it's a call back to the graveyard scene from the TVD finale.

47. Danielle sings pretty well. It's good she decided to perform this time.

48. Okay, that lifting up scene was adorable. I feel like Hope and Landon are at their cutest when they're a bit spontaneous. But she's Elena on stage and it lowkey looks like Landon crashed her romantic scene with Damon to kiss her so I'm cackling.

49. How much older is Jade supposed to be than Josie?

50. So is Josie going to leave the school for a while and that's why Ethan will be back in the picture?

51. Jade used to babysit Josie? Okay, it is hella awkward.

52. Josie why, don't do this, yikes. Kissing her once doesn't make it non-creepy.

53. The Sheriff feels kinda shoehorned to me. Also, I don't care for Matt Davis or his character.

54. So Candice did the voiceover for Caroline's letter. That's nice for the show. I still don't understand why the letter showed up in Hope's fireplace though LOL.

55. This episode should have spent more time exploring the aftermath of the loss of Rafael. The abrupt shift from the last episode wasn't nice.

56. Yeah, kids, talk out your problems, thanks.

57. I feel like Klaus is too much of a controversial figure that Hope's conflict about her father's reputation would be resolved in one day. This is feeling undercooked. Speaking of, when is one of Klaus' or Hayley's enemies coming after Hope, because she did inherit all of them. Would make for better storytelling than this monster of the week nonsense. And yeah, still no mention of Hayley, I hate this.

58. The monster's characterization was really odd to me and I am so tired of this format SMH.

59. So they toyed with MG for weeks to get a vampire for the spell? That sounds like too much effort. There are tons of vampires from Klaus and Rebekah's bloodline, they couldn't find another? Also, I wonder who is the wolf that they will use.

Well, I felt like this episode was mostly okay, but not that well-cooked or epic or whatever. What is horrific is that they didn't show Bonnie, though. They could have at least gotten a female black guest character who is one of the witch students or something. This is very offensive.

Also, I don't think it makes sense for the show to do any more musicals in the future. This ain't Riverdale.

[catty-words]

Why Not Just Anyone Will Get Their Own Narration

Or, the narration meta no one asked for.

Never Have I Ever shifting the POV to Ben Gross for an episode was a pleasant surprise for most viewers—certainly was for me!—and, as a result, I’ve seen/heard the other cast members get asked who would narrate their own POV episode. And as much as I love the speculation, I’ve noticed a pattern in the narration that makes me a) think not just anyone will get a breakout POV and b) appreciate the way Ben getting his own is, not forecasted, exactly, but highlights an internal consistency in the universe that I really enjoy.

To start, let’s take a look at how McEnroe discusses Kamala—the best example of what I mean from the first episode.

Intro: That’s Devi’s cousin Kamala. She moved in after Mohan’s passing to complete her PhD at CalTech. Devi is not a fan.

Later in the Ep: Kamala was expected to have an arranged marriage after she finished her studies abroad, but she felt less than enthusiastic about that idea.

The intro is similar to what most characters get in the first episode—a brief rundown of why they’re in Devi’s orbit and a hint at their main personality traits. And, in addition to this intro being framed in how Kamala relates back to Devi, we get the bit of insight that Devi doesn’t like her. It’s all very much grounded in Devi’s head.

McEnroe popping in during the Vishwakumar family dinner, on the other hand, deviates from Devi’s perspective. Even though Kamala is clearly sarcastic about finding the potential-husband news exciting, it’s also clear that Devi is too self-involved to pick up on this. Instead of frowning sympathetically at Kamala’s clear frustration, Devi excuses herself from the table because Kamala “[doing] nothing and [getting] a full husband in the mail” niggles at her insecurity about being undesirable.

Contrast that with the Ben-centric narration from the episode.

This disgusted reaction, belongs to Ben Gross, Devi’s nemesis. … Ben Gross’s father, Howard, whom he idolized, was a top entertainment attorney in Beverly Hills. This allowed Ben Gross to dine out for years on the fact that Blake Griffin was at his Bar Mitzvah. And he and Devi have been vying for the number one spot in the class every year since first grade.

We learn of his relationship with Devi, but we don’t actually get additional insight to his thoughts and feelings. The fact that his dad’s a lawyer and that Blake Griffin was at his Bar Mitzvah are both bits of common knowledge around the school. If anything, the slightly mocking tone in which this information is delivered makes this bit of narration even more grounded in Devi’s POV rather than Ben’s.

Kamala goes on to get a couple more moments of character-building in the narration that go beyond what Devi notices about her cousin. 1.04 is a prime example (As the aunties praised her, Kamala had a sinking feeling. She didn’t want to get married, but she put on a happy face, like I did at the trophy ceremony when I lost the French Open to Ivan Lendl in 1984).

McEnroe also gives us insight to Fabiola’s inner life—insights that Devi couldn’t be said to know because, even though she concedes that it makes a lot of sense in 1.07, Devi’s clearly finds Fabiola’s coming out to be a revelation.

1.03: As a scientist, Fabiola was used to a clear-cut, data-driven life. Which is why she was struggling with these new, complicated emotions.

1.05: We’re gonna jump ship and check in on Fabiola, who has much more interesting things going on. Fabiola had told no one she was gay, except her robot, Gears Brosnan. She knew the next logical step was to come out to some humans, specifically her family.

McEnroe even makes it explicit that we’re leaving focus on Devi to tune into Fabiola’s life in the episode-five narration.

The narration over scenes involving Ben in these episodes, on the other hand, goes like this.

1.03: What made Devi most sad wasn’t seeing Paxton all over the hottest girl in her grade. It was that she let herself believe she actually had a shot with him. … Drunk and rude, Devi was indulging in what I would call self-destructive behavior.

1.05: Years ago, Devi and Ben split all extracurriculars down the middle, except for sports, which required too much locker room nudity for either of them. // Devi was panicking. How did Ben find out about her lie? Simple. Her friends told him.

In 1.03, even though Ben is present, the narration over the scene is all about Devi. If anything, Ben interjects into/interrupts the discussion of Devi’s mental state, and she promptly ignores him in favor of being “self-destructive.”

And even though we get the insight that Ben isn’t comfortable with locker room nudity, it’s—again—something Devi obviously knows/intuited because of the pact.

The second bit of narration I included from 1.05 tells us something Devi doesn’t know—that it was her friends who told Ben about her lie—but rather than being a special insight to Ben’s POV, it’s simply expository. An in-case-you-forgot bit of narration.

The only other bit of narration involving Ben after 1.06 comes in the final episode of the season, where McEnroe sets up another in-case-you-forgot exposition flashback, which makes me curious to know how McEnroe-provided narration involving Ben might evolve for season two.

Eleanor and Nalini land somewhere in an ambiguous middle in terms of McEnroe knowing their inner thoughts and feelings.

For Eleanor, the only bit we have to go off of comes in the second episode.

Devi strode off, confident her friends had believed this bullshit story. Fabiola and Eleanor were confident their friend had become completely unhinged.

This line obviously steps outside Devi’s POV, but it’s also not solely Eleanor’s moment. Everything else that would be—involving her mother—is the same expository, facts-Devi-would-know style of narration. Therefore, I think Eleanor’s still totally in the running for her own POV episode.

As for Nalini, we get these moments in 1.04.

Nalini was a little on edge. This was the first puja they had gone to since Mohan’s untimely death and Devi’s paralysis.

The day had been a long one for Nalini, and she needed a win, even if it was a small one.

They’re grounded in the isolation Nalini feels and one of the major conflicts of the season is that Devi doesn’t have access to the fact that Nalini’s struggling as much as she is. So, we can probably call this a step outside Devi’s POV. It’s simply not as dramatic a break as for Kamala or Fabiola.

Of course, for episode ten to have the emotional impact it does, it makes sense we wouldn’t spend the season discussing Nalini’s heartbreak. It has to be more subtly communicated to the audience via Poorna Jagannathan’s acting and the flashbacks we’re given. Therefore, I think it’s unlikely that Nalini would get her own episode, but definitely not out of the question.

And, finally, there’s Paxton. As the object of Devi’s desire, so much of the narration revolves around Paxton—far too much for me to compile here or discuss individually, since I’m looking to wrap up this meta in, like, a hundred words.

So, here are the bits I’ve pulled out.

1.02: Whoa, Paxton speaks Japanese? Guess his last name makes more sense now.

1.09: Even though Nalini was talking out her frustration more than anything else, Paxton was stung by these little digs at his intelligence.

In 1.02, our narrator is actively surprised by new information, which makes a pretty solid case for the fact that McEnroe doesn’t have access to Paxton’s inner-life. And that makes sense because, when I call him the object of Devi’s desire, I’m putting a lot of emphasis on object. Devi doesn’t fully let herself acknowledge that Paxton’s more than a fantasy, so of course McEnroe—the voice inside her head—wouldn’t be super concerned with his personhood, either.

The line from 1.09 seems to throw a bit of a wrench into the works, since Paxton being insecure about his intelligence has every appearance of being a special insight. And I’m not going to go all the way and say that’s not the case, but I will bring up Devi’s line from 1.05: “Paxton’s not dumb, okay? He’s just…consistently bad at school!”

Obviously, Devi’s at least semi-aware that intelligence is Something to Paxton. On the other hand, she’s saying the line to fend off criticism from Ben, so it could just as easily be posturing as protectiveness over Paxton’s insecurity rather than actual knowledge the insecurity exists.

In summation, I still think Paxton’s the most likely candidate for a breakout POV episode in season two—boy desperately needs some interiority, so this is certainly high on my s2 wish list—with Eleanor a close second and Nalini a potential third. I think it’s unlikely that the show will (or would even consider) writing one for every character, though.

[go-ldy]

I have zero self-control, so, if you're up to it: best and worst episode(s) of Riverdale?

I love this question! Sorry for the delay in answering, I have had to give this the deep thought and contemplation it deserves! Best episodes is easier for me tbh because there are only maybe one or two episodes of Riverdale that I did not like. I’ve decided to break it down into my best/worst for each season.

I’ve tried to approach this being as objective as possible but.... you know, I am only human, and I am easily swayed when Betty and Jughead make out a lot. 

Season 1

Best

1x10 or 1x11 with 1x11 having a slight edge. Obviously, the bughead angst content in both is A++ and what I am here for, but I also think that 1x11 in particular does a good job of moving the plot along while developing the characters at the same time (Riverdale is not always good at this ok so it is important to remark on it when it meets this bar!). We have Homecoming, and the incredibly awkward Cooper-Jones pre-Homecoming dinner, and Varchie sneaking into FP’s trailer behind Betty and Jughead’s back, and Veronica desperately trying to determine if her father had a role to play in Jason’s murder, and FP’s arrest (!!!) and Jughead running off at the end in a funk. There is a lot that happens AND everyone goes to a dance! It is sadly rare to have a Riverdale episode where everyone feels intertwined to the main story and where the Core 4 get to interact and develop. Plus, Jughead is so adorably excited about his and Betty’s family meeting even though they are 16 and have been dating for like two months. MY HEART. He was already planning their wedding.

Worst

1x09. It is the only episode of season 1 that felt filler. And I would still rank it higher than the other “worst” episodes on this list. But the main plot of Archie being used by the Blossom family is ehhhhhh. And frankly uncomfortable given his all too real recent past of being used by Ms. Grundy with no acknowledgment from the show whatsoever that these gross adults keep using this 16 year-old kid to serve their own purposes. So yeah, probably the worst of season 1.

Season 2

Best

I have to go with 2x14. Okay, okay 2x05/2x06 are probably better written and better plotted and have less dialogue that makes me want to end myself, but hear me out. 2x14 is the absolute essence of Riverdale packed into 40 glorious minutes:

Each couple has a spat with each other and then against each other, we get Betty versus Jughead, Archie versus Veronica, Bughead versus Varchie, and it is great???? yeah, you all fight over Hiram’s nefarious plot to buy up all the newspapers in town. 

Bughead listens to Varchie have sex and the vice-versa like an hour later as normal friends do.

Betty and Veronica talk about abuelita (I must know more about abuelita!).

An entire scene where Archie wakes up early to chop wood?? At someone else’s house? Even though he’s only there for a weekend?? Again, very normal, every day teenage behaviour. And Veronica pervs on him while sipping coffee. Get it, V.

Some of the worst, cringiest dialogue this show has ever had, and that is a HIGH BAR including: “A Vughead Kiss? Right now, in the present, might be precisely what it takes to save a future Bughead from imploding.” THIS IS THE WORST LINE OF DIALOGUE EVER WRITTEN, LIKE OF ALL TIME, I CAN BARELY WATCH. IT IS NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD, END ME.

Archie doing push ups in his bedroom, because OF COURSE ARCHIE RANDOMLY DOES PUSHUPS BEFORE BED AND ALSO WHEN UPSET HAVE YOU SEEN HIM. And then Veronica propositions him for sex and Archie, still mad about Vughead, turns her down. And this is an actual scene that takes up time in a 40 minutes episode??? I love it.

Lodge Lodge

They play monopoly

And then get attacked by home invaders!!!

Who Archie chases into the woods only for one of them to be killed by Andre so that Hiram can later frame Archie for a murder he didn’t commit.

anyway 2x14 is the best episode of Riverdale maybe ever, tell your friends.

Worst

2x11 for the reasons @arsenicpanda has articulated before - mostly involving the clumsy way that the writers tried to parallel the Serpents to the plight of Native Americans. And Jughead’s awkward white saviour plotline, eugh. Although bonus points for Archie trying to wrestle to impress Hiram for some reason?? I can’t hate it.

Season 3

Best

Season 3 has a lot of contenders. I’m torn between the parentale breakfast club episode (which also featured crazy-G&G-Jughead, a fave of mine) and the Prom episode, but I’m going to go with 3x20, Prom Night because this episode is a sheer delight from start to finish. Hal Cooper fakes his own death by cutting off his hand and then he replaces it with a hook - legends only. CHONI FOR PROM QUEENS until the dream is killed by Edgar. U KNOW that is when Cheryl started reconsidering the whole Farm business even with the whole being able to talk to Jason’s corpse thing. 

Bughead investigate shit and make great faces. Varchie go to prom as the least platonic “friends” ever and it is adorable. Everybody somehow wears the best outfits even though Bughead changed the Prom theme the night before. Betty being chased through the school by the Black Hood/her dad is legitimately terrifying. 10/10.

Worst

3x09, hands down. I have a lot of beef with this episode. My main beef is that 3x08 ends on this great cliffhanger and there is zero payoff? Jughead and FP come home to find the town is under QUARANTINE, no one is allowed IN OR OUT, and then in 3x09, he is snuggling in bed with Betty and it was like????? but what about the quarantine?? how did you get back in?? honestly the first time I watched 3x09, I thought I must have skipped an episode, but NOPE, the quarantine cliffhanger was waved off and I will never forgive them for this.

Secondly, most of this episode is spent in Archie’s feverish dream/hallucination and I just find dream episodes real dull, sorry Archie. I love that Archie tried to box a bear, I mean good for him, but the the dream sequences are boring.

Season 4

Best

A tie between 4x14 and 4x15. I just love these two episodes. The Preppies are legit the best villains this show has ever had (especially Donna, my love <333). There were real stakes for the Core 4, and even though I was pretty sure Jughead was not dead, I was still insanely happy to see him again in 4x15. Betty threatening Donna in the woods while wearing Jughead’s sherpa is a total bamf move, MARRY ME, BETTY COOPER. Jughead’s faux funeral is a+. Even the BA fake dating scheme (before it went horribly awry in the following episodes) is hilarious to me. Like, what kind of horrible plan is this?? if Betty seriously dated Archie following Jughead’s death, she would need therapy STAT, but the town of Riverdale is just like “oh ok I guess Jughead is dead.” Okay, sure. Plus Donna taunting Betty over the fact that she apparently can’t go two hours without needing to bone Jughead and therefore Betty’s plan was doomed to failure. How was this a real scene that happened. Oh my god, these episodes are so great.

Worst.

4x17. I mean, obviously. Please don’t make me have to explain.

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Reaction to ‘Wizards’

There were some elements of Wizards that I was quite pleased with and others I found disappointing.

Here are some notes I took while watching it: 

“I was busy,” says the guy who was ASLEEP.

Cuckoo clock in bookstore looks like Bular’s head.

Green Knight can teleport, confirming potential parallel character to Angor Rot and Tronos Madu, both yellow-eyed assassins with teleportation and tragic backstories (later confirmed, yes, there are parallels between this character and those two besides the visual one)

Jim always tips at the cafe; yup, that sounds like Jim 

Gunmar saving Jim: irony. Is Jim going to go to the Gumm-Gumm camp now? 

Confirmation that portrait was Arthur and Guinevere and she is “gone”, presumably by magic or killed by a troll - is she dead or did she just leave? (Later confirmed, dead)

Morgana’s name is carved on the tree under Arthur’s and Guinevere’s - was she in love with Guinevere too? 

Is that Nari with Morgana and Guinevere? (Later confirmed, yes)

Stone doll Callista finds looks like Angor’s totems - same village? He said it was “Gunmar’s war” that destroyed it, and she says it was a human attack, but Angor might’ve seen it as a retaliatory attack by the humans which Gunmar’s actions had provoked?

Arthur being the one to cut off Morgana’s hand makes Merlin SLIGHTLY less of an asshole for using it in the Amulet, but a lot of this still could’ve been avoided if Merlin had been willing to shut up and listen. 

Oh, except it wasn’t Arthur who cut off Morgana’s hand the first time anyway? 

Episode 3 ends without Steve getting knocked on his back, so that scene must’ve been his sparring match with Lancelot in Episode 2 instead of keeping it an Episode 3 tradition (like how Zuko and Iroh hug in Episode 18 of each season of Avatar the Last Airbender)

Why would Douxie be grossed out at the idea of swimming naked? Swimsuits have only been around for, what, 80 years? Presumably it was a specific lack of desire to see Steve naked.

Neat take on the Lady of the Lake. 

AAARRRGGHH used to have a triple set of horns - what happened to the other two? Receded, amputated, knocked off? Also, Gunmar says AAARRRGGHH is ‘holding back’ when they spar and has yet to win against him - if AAARRRGGHH was doing that on purpose, this supports my theory that he was debating how safe it was to stay on Gunmar’s side for some time before deserting. 

Morgana possessed? 

Angor Rot saved Morgana/recovers her body and gives a funerary-sounding blessing, showing he was sympathetic to humans before losing his soul  

Oh, and Nari gave her the new hand 

Wait, so who steals Angor’s soul in this timeline? 

Called it on that servant guy being a Changeling - he appears in the background of, like, every scene that episode where they’re talking about Morgana using unexpected strategies to sneak into Camelot. 

Wait, except his human form is an adult - so is he a polymorph? Or Familiars can be taken as adults but babies are easier to contain and have less ‘established personality’ to match after replacing them? Or has Morgana already been creating Changelings? AAARRRGGHH calls Jim “impure” when they meet in Dwoza, suggesting Gumm-Gumms already know what Changelings are, except Morgana wasn’t working with them yet

Is Callista going to be Deya? (Later confirmed, yes)

Show seems to be matching up with old theories about Deya being the first Trollhunter, confirming that the show, comics, and novels are all separate continuities (since comics and novels show pre-Deya Trollhunters). 

Gumm-Gumm berserkers - mind-controlled or grit-shaka’d (talisman of “no fear”), to throw themselves into sunlight like that?

Steve seems ready to refer to any half-decent older man as his dad, like when he refers to Merlin as ‘Wizard-Dad’. Maybe it’s because I was watching Brooklyn 99 recently but I’m reminded of Jake Peralta.

Big Jim’s crystal neck protrusions look like Strickler’s knife collar back when I thought that was part of his body. Glowy lines look like Gunmar; tie-in to Gunmar born of a “corrupted Heartstone” since Jim is “corrupted” now?

Aw, Krel called Ricky his dad. 

How did AAARRRGGHH fit through the HexTech door to the backroom?

“Cat and mouse” line cuts to a shot of Archie obviously imitating Nari (confirmed a few minutes later)

Toby has obviously seen Ghostbusters. “When someone asks you if you are a god, you say YES!”

Decoration in bookshop looks like Angor’s head.

Was that lightshow of Nari searching the world for Jim’s soul just a visual metaphor for her powers or did literally everyone on Earth see that?

“There’s a force neither of us can escape - gravity!” says the woman who can fly.

Morgana’s occasional echo-y voice in Trollhunters matches Bellroc and Skael - possession/magical-influence related?

So did Merlin have that book on him or did his body turn into the book?

Are all dragons fluffy and/or shapeshifters in this universe? 

Might’ve been smarter to keep Merlin’s staff intact and destroy the Grimoire so the Arcane Order never knows where to find the Genesis Seals, just saying.

If Morgana didn’t become “the Eldritch Queen” until, like, IMMEDIATELY before Angor approached her (therefore days earlier at most in the unaltered timeline), how had he heard of her to seek her aid? Was he actually reaching out to the Arcane Order? At least this explains why he didn’t go to the Trollhunter for help - there was no Trollhunter to approach yet.

Big Jim ‘dies’ in the same pose as AAARRRGGHH in Trollhunters Season 1 and Draal in Unbecoming, both false death scenes, for five-second foreshadowing Jim was alive. 

Mixed feelings about him being human again - like I’ve said, I didn’t think the Troll Jim subplot was well-executed but I also felt like, now that it’s been established, the show needs to stick with it. Since everything’s over I’m going to headcanon Jim having shapeshifting powers now and being able to switch between human and troll at will, he just didn’t think to try to do so on-camera.

Also, I feel like Jim’s relationship with Claire is once again completely overshadowing his relationship with Toby, instead of them being different kinds of relationships with equal weight. 

Barbara is going to be pretty shocked when her human son shows up again. She and Strickler don’t appear at all in this series, even in cameo. 

Maybe Jim’s not a troll anymore because, with Merlin and Morgana both dead, their magic is “broken” and that’s what was holding his transformation in place? Merlin’s through the potion, Morgana’s through the Changeling femur, both through the Amulet.

Is Jim still going back to New Jersey? Blinky’s got to, unless the trolls there have elected a new leader or they’re bringing the New Jersey Heartstone back to Arcadia.

Series ending scene also would work as the final scene of a movie, setting up a sequel hook even though it’s supposed to be over now. 

Seems like wizards are long-lived and age really slowly? Possibly a “will not die but can be killed” situation, like vampires, or unicorns (at least in The Last Unicorn) 

Additional thoughts after finishing the show and thinking for a while: 

I don’t get how Morgana could end up with such a reputation among trolls - enough to have superstitions about her, seen when Dictatious objects to Usurna saying her name - when they only interacted with her for like a few days at most. I guess she made a pretty strong impression on Gunmar, who passed that on to everyone else? Or maybe she cultivated that reputation over time via the Changelings?

Speaking of the Changelings, does this mean that, while Morgana designed the process to create them, she doesn’t make each individual one? Otherwise she would’ve had to pre-make a bunch in the time between getting her new hand and being trapped in the Heartstone. Although, if she can steal Angor’s soul remotely (with the idea she was already trapped in the Heartstone when that happened), she can probably also make Changelings remotely. 

I’m kind of sorry the Changelings got invented so quickly; I figured there would be some trial-and-error to that process.

How I think the Original Timeline went: 

Morgana would’ve turned to the Arcane Order seeking magic allies, later in the day that gets changed when the time-travelers arrive. Possibly she seeks out Nari, specifically, remembering her from childhood. 

Merlin then sees Morgana as the Future Threat and he or one of the knights (not Arthur) cut off her hand in the resulting fight. 

Merlin makes the Amulet. It chooses Callista, who is still in Camelot’s dungeon at the time, and she agrees to fight Gunmar in exchange for her freedom. 

She fully intending to go back on the deal and run for it, but then something-something-something and she learns her original name and saves the world anyway. Probably she’s the one who took down and imprisoned AAARRRGGHH in Dwoza, which inspired the other trolls there to follow her. 

Morgana finds out about the Trollhunter shortly before Angor arrives to ask her for magic, which is why she orders him to hunt the Trollhunters down.

Arthur thinks Merlin killed Morgana and wants to avenge her, leading him to the Arcane Order for the original not-time-loop-prompted attack.  

Show did a good job establishing and developing Douxie’s relationship with Merlin

Also, how did that bookshop end up a center of Merlin’s power? He’s only been in the modern world for a few months. Did he set a shop up off-camera while the trolls were travelling to New Jersey and the Akiridions were discovering Earth? 

How did Ricky Blank lose his head, anyway? Can Hex Tech fix him? Krel says magic and Akiridion tech combine harmoniously. 

[houseplant-central]

Padme Amidala part one; why did the madonna/whore complex give this woman sharpshooting skills?

This is going to be part one of a two part post about the star wars prequel films (sorry in advance about that), specifically Padme and her role as the only important female character in the 90s triliogy. This post will talk about the first two films, and the next post will talk about the third and final film. Keep in mind that I did not see the prequel films until I was an adult (which is kind of weird, since the prequels have a lot more kid oriented jokes (from C3PO getting assembled wrong on the assembly line in film two and making a series of bad puns to everything about jar jar binks (which, as a side note, YIKES we dont stan racist comedy here, but the "humor" with him was clearly directed at kids)). That being said I think the three films over all are a hilarious product of the 90s and I'm not trying to start discourse about wether they're objectively good or bad-- they are both, and that's okay. What I'm interested in is Padme. The "Madonna"/"Whore" dicotemy is a freudian idea. I don't neccisarily believe that it happens with all men in real life, and I certainly don't think we should excuse it in real life, but I DO think it is previlant in writing, and the way female characters are written (both presently and in the past). The madonna/whore dicotemy basically boils down to the idea that men view women either as "good" virtuous people (the madonna, a maternal figure and an eternal virgin) whom they love but could never sexualize, OR as sexually interesting companions (the whore), whome they desire but could never love. This of course, in the real world is a bullshit excuse for putting women into patriarical boxes based on their outwards apperance and if any man ever gives you "well now I genuinely care about you so I feel like I can't sexualize you" it's time to go because that sexualization inherently included violence if he's now worried about thinking like that around you. There is plenty of feminist literature written about this concept and I highly reccomend a look into it because it's fascinating (try starting with even just the abstract for this paper: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-04940-001). However! What I'm here to talk about today is how writers unconciously use this dicotemy with their female characters, and why, specifically, when Padme gets graduated from Madonna to Whore in Attack of the Clones, she suddenly knows how to fight when she couldn't before. My aim is not to conclusively say why, because I've been analyzing these films for the past couple days and I still have no idea why, but rather just to bring the question up, and provide evidence, as it is a fascinating phenonmeon of the 90s that I feel many female characters got treated to (with Padme as a prime example). Lets talk about Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones and the Madonna/ Whore. In Phantom Menace we're introduced to Padme (Natalie Portman) as an intellegent diplomat. When she's not done up in her planet's traditional leader's dress, she's in long sleeved simple dresses, tights and braids. She wears natural make up in her "maid disguise" for which she is in ninty percent of the film, and in the famously creepy "tucking in anakin" scene she is for some reason in the whole royal maid getup which includes gloves and covering her hair. Cultural modesty for the royal maids was written in to the worldbuilding, but it seems to have been done larely so that they could get away with having Natalie Portman play young Padme in this film and not be "sexy" until film two in which she is teenage Padme. Padme plays an extremely maternal role for Anakin in Phantom Menace, from physically protecting him to the aformentioned tuck in scene at 1:19:30 where she quite literally tucks him in for bed. This of course has been analyzed all to hell already as exceedingly WEIRD because the two eventually marry and have children together (so the freud analysis here is valid). We'll take a quick break for a digression here on Padme's age. I've refered to her in Phantom Menace as "young Padme", but realistically she is just Portman minus the makeup she's allowed to wear in later films. We know that she's the "child-ruler" of her nation, but she also realistically feels like she's in her early teens in Phantom Menace, and is certainly treated like an adult by her peers; we see her throughout the film making decisions on foriegn policy, wartime politics and wartime sacrifices. Anakin was most definietly a child in the first film, and was replaced by an adult actor in the subsequent films as his character aged, and this difference makes it feel like there's a very large and very weird age gap between the two characters. But fully back to the matter at hand, Padme is a very maternal, modest character in Phantom Menace both in apperance and in dialouge, and she clearly establishes that she views Anakin as a child. In Attack of the Clones, when the romance plotline starts, suddenly Padme is allowed to be sexy (by 90s standards anyways). She gets jewlery, she gets makeup, and she gets a whole lot more ARMS and shoulders showing that she was previously allowed (specifically see 44:30 when they travel back to Naboo). Of course this is to coincide with her growing up, but the fact of the matter is that Padme gets to be attractive when the script calls for Anakin to be attracted to her. There are still some traditional queenly outfits, but by the time they're ready to go rescue Obi Wan, she's in a skin tight white jumpsuit (which eventually, at 1:47:06, becomes a crop top when a monster somehow slices her back and makes her entire shirt cut in half). For the next 15 minutes we then see Natalie portman running around in a white crop top while fighting). We get such lines from Anakin as "I am in agony... if you are suffering as much as I am, please, tell me" and "we could keep it a secret" at 55:10 in a darkly lit room with Padme's weird black leather dress and gloves combo. (Yes, I know Padme tells Anakin she doesn't want a relationship with him in this scene, but the scene's whole function is to establish why society says they shouldn't be together, but why Anakin is attracted to her anyways, and for this Padme is presented to the viewer as an inherently sexual object which Anakin can't have which A) gross but B) fits into the whore achetype of characterization). In both physical presentation and characterization Padme flips to the other end of the dicotemy and Attack of the Clones now gives us Whore Padme. The other huge character change that happens at the same time for Padme is her ability to fight. In Phantom Menace she's primarily a diplomat; she has a few moments of sprinting around and brandishing a weapon, but she almost never uses it. In Attack of the Clones we get a direct quote from her at 1:36:00 that she's "not interested in getting into a war" and that she'll find a "diplomatic solution out of this mess". However she then proceeds to pick the lock to her shackles, pick up a gun she's never used before, and fight off not just monsters, but also hold her own with the literal jedi against the enroaching droids. The movie leads up to this scene in terms of their relationship, and when Padme admits to Anakin that she loves him too she is somehow also graced with the ability to fight. Again, I'm not really sure why; my best guess is that the other female love interests of the 90s were extremely capable women (ie. good at things like fighting and even fighting in crop tops), and that the capable women who was still romantically submissive was so dominant of an archtype it just bled into her charactization without any writer stopping to consider that she's never cannonically been trained to fight like the jedi characters and therefor should be way out of her depth in this battle. I'm all for female character who are physically strong and capable (obviously), but having her develop fighting skills as a side effect of wearing sexier outfits is very weird writing. Padme of course goes back to falling off things and needing saving during the climax of the film and indeed she'll do it again in film three, but for this moment of romantic tension finally resolved and Padme fulling moving from motherly figure to sexy love interest, she can suddenly fight. Food for thought and I'd love to hear any suggestions as to why you think it might be.

[whitehotharlots]

Castle of Delusion: The theft of the 2020 caucus and the liberal worship of failure

 I attended Iowa Democratic caucuses in 2000, 2004, 2008, and then 2020. I’ll spare you the narrative details, but immediately after Monday’s caucus I remarked about how smoothly the new system ran. The cumbersome head count voting process of past years was replaced with an easily grasped card system that allowed supporters of viable candidates to leave after casting their fist vote (previously, they’d have to stay through re-alignment and a second head count, a process that took us about 3 hours in 2008). So cards were easier, clearer, and came with the added bonus of a paper trail. Things seemed great.

In my precinct, Sanders tied delegate-wise with Pete and Biden. This precinct was, even by Iowa’s august standards, incredibly old and incredibly white, so a tie for Bernie boded very well. Everyone was convivial. Aside from the Yang supporters being unable to perform basic arithmetic after the initial vote, there were no delays or hitches. Sure, no one knew how the reporting app was going to work—information regarding as much had never materialized, in spite of repeated promises that they’d be on top of it—but it was figured that the county chair would simply report the votes via telephone, as had been the process as far back as everyone could remember.

Post-caucus, my stomach was shot and I was as emotionally drained as I’d ever been, so I got back to my parent’s house and commenced playing video games—staying away from social media and cable news until I could be certain the results had been called. Come midnight, I saw what everyone else saw: something bad had happened, something no one could quite describe, and so they weren’t going to release votes that night. Rachel Maddow’s weird gross skeleton face was beaming with relief: this is great news for the party, she said, because it was great news for Michael Bloomberg. I commenced to get blackout drunk and post threats on social media.

At first, I went against my personal experience (and intuition, and common sense) and blamed the failure on run-of-the-mill incompetence. We are now, however, more than 40 hours past the point when most votes were cast, and 24 hours past the Polk County chair confirming that his results—in one of Iowa’s largest districts, where Sanders was projected to dominate—had been submitted. The state party is simply refusing to count votes. They are rigging their own election, disenfranchising their own voters.

I’m not going to speculate on the strategic thinking of the mental defectives who have risen to leadership positions with state and national Democratic parties. Maybe they’ll never count the Polk County votes. Maybe they’ll only do so weeks from now, so as to deny Sanders any momentum and allow that rat-faced piece of shit Mayor Pete to continue to falsely claim victory. Maybe this is meant to protect the Biden campaign from total collapse. Maybe it’s meant to boost Bloomberg. Who knows, who cares. The point is, these people are cheating in plain sight. They are doing so brazenly. They are literally refusing to count the votes of members of their own party so as to squelch an election result they find unfavorable.

Partisan corruption is nothing new, and certainly not exclusive to the contemporary Democratic party. What’s striking about this, however, is the nakedness of both its machinations and the disdain the party is showing to its own voters. Yes, Mayor Daley most likely destroyed Nixon votes to shore up Illinois for Kennedy. Yes, the Bush campaign ginned up astroturf protests to prevent a full recount in Florida. Yes, the AP called the entire primary for Hillary the day before California was set to vote, so as to depress turn out. All of these acts were disgusting, the sort of raw cynicism that destroys the few remaining vestiges of legitimacy of this awful and broken country of ours. But all of these were done to seize power.  They all contained some element of deniability, some sense of awareness of the need to control public perception, to not so obviously telegraph the actors’ hatred toward democracy.

The theft of the 2020 Iowa Caucus is, in short, an act so proudly and openly corrupt that it has no fair parallel in modern American history. No reasonable observer can conclude anything other than that the Democratic party is run by some of the stupidest and most corrupt people alive. And the fact that the party does not seem to realize this is a profound indictment of how deeply our few remaining liberal institutions are in the grip of a sort of suicidal delusion, a form of illiberal madness that worships its own destruction.

The only reasonable question is how? How did the Democratic party and its media allies come to be dominated by idiots who derive psychological gratification from failure, people whose hubris and self-certainty is so strong they think everyone else is dumb enough to not see that they’re cheating in plain sight?  

Like many other of the most malignant aspects of contemporary liberalism, this suicidal delusion was born in the darkest corners of academe. The thrust of the last few decades of cultural studies has been to demand that people reject understandings of the world that are traditional, intuitive, and commonsensical—even when these understandings aren’t materially malignant, and especially when they are backed up through empirical measurements.

Sometimes this has led to what most decent people would consider progress. It’s good, for example, that we’ve destigmatized homosexuality. But many more assertions—particularly those that have been argued for the most viciously throughout the last decade or so—are either objectively untrue or so far divorced from the lived reality of most people that very few of us actually believe them. Most people don’t believe that there exist no biological differences between men and women, for example, or that fatness doesn’t come with health consequences and/or isn’t correlated with diet and exercise. We don’t honestly believe that whiteness is a metaphysical force that is the true cause of all the world’s problems, nor that an implicit bias test is a fair measurement of anything, nor that person’s worth is more a matter of their collective identity markers than of their beliefs and actions. These assertions are all incredibly fringe, despicable to anyone who cares about empirical reality or possesses a moral compass that’s not founded entirely in self-serving relativism.

There exists a small caste of delusionists, however, who have forged careers from making these and other assertions. They are very prominent within their own, closed circles, and they receive no material pushback for their beliefs, even from the vast majority of people who have not been initiated into their cult. This is due to the solipsistic validation mechanisms of contemporary cultural studies, a milieu which suggests, simply, that its purveyors are right, everyone who doesn’t defer to them is some variety of fascist, and the fact that disagreement exists is fundamental proof of the righteousness of their claims. To members of this caste, delusion isn’t merely a virtue; it’s a currency. The more they anger and confuse outsiders, the more correct and admirable they become, and the higher their position of prominence within liberal institutions. 

This is the lesson of the “Sokal Squared” hoax, in which a team of authors managed to get several nonsense articles past peer reviewers at cultural studies journals, making arguments which ranged from incredibly offensive to beyond the realm of plausibility. Or, if you’ve fallen for the woke apologia and believe these works to be unworthy of consideration, let’s look at a more earnest piece, in which an author argues that drone bombing “queers” warfare. It’s reductive to merely call these arguments stupid. They are delusional. They are absurd and offensive in manner that’s all but guaranteed to confuse and anger a large majority of people. They go against basic common sense and decency and can in most cases be disproven empirically—and that’s exactly why they got through peer review so easily. The value here isn’t in attempting to adjudicate reality or even morality; it’s instead found in giving its purveyors a chance to revel in one another’s unboundedness to reality. Radicalism can no longer be differentiated from simple stupidity. The point is to announce one’s membership in the delusional caste. It’s good to be insane. It’s good to be revolting. It’s good to fail, because then you know you’re good.

The caste’s members eventually reach a plane of delusion so all-encompassing that they begin to disdain those of us who still possess a desire to engage with the world in honest or rational terms. These people—the hoard, the uninitiated, the rubes—they only exist to confirm the righteousness of the insiders. What they think they see therefore doesn’t matter. Their opinions don’t matter. Their votes, especially, do not matter. We’ll tell them what to think. We’ll tell them how the world exists. And if they disagree, well, that’s just evidence of how wrong they are...

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Bonus 3.1 - Dangan Salmon Team (Kaito Edition)

This is postgame content, so people shouldn’t be reading this without having already finished the main game anyway. But just to be safe: while this is non-canon character stuff, I will sometimes be mentioning events that happened in the main story, so there will be spoilers for the main game.

First of all, can we talk about the ridiculous title of this game mode? “Love Across the Universe: Dangan Salmon Team”. Or, in Japanese, “Year-round Space Variety Love Show: Dangan Red Salmon Gang”. The salmon part is just your average Danganronpa weirdness, but on the other hand I do like the inexplicable space theme they’ve also got going. I like to think this is less because of the fake story about them being on a spaceship, since they don’t try and push that angle at all in this AU, and more just because Kaito, did you know Kaito is the most important character.

The title screen of this mode really leans into that space theme, too. It’s even got a rocket! And most importantly the rocket has a window, remember how Very Important it is for all rockets to have windows.

(In other Inexplicable Space Theming for this game, there’s a BGM piece used during trials that’s called “Class Trial Space Edition”. SPACE. Space is important in this game, you guys.)

For clarification, since the title does not remotely explain the point of this, this is the social interaction side mode in which you can get the FTEs of everyone you didn’t do during the main story (not that that’s what I’m here for) and then also some extra bonus interactions. Those bonus bits are what I’m here for, specifically with Kaito, because it’s me, and Kaito is the only character I like to such an extent that I even want to cover this bonus fluff for him. The title is about space, so clearly spending even more time with Kaito in particular is the entire point of this game mode, right?

This mode has the most half-assed introduction explaining its premise which I’m not going to go into in detail because it doesn’t deserve it. The gist is that things begin as they do in canon, except then Monokuma abruptly decides to cancel the killing game and have a reality dating show instead because apparently that’s what the outside world would prefer. The couples who end up together get to leave!! which is gross and manipulative and amatonormative and unfortunately very believable as something a shallow audience like this one might want to see. And, sure, it is an improvement on them being made to kill each other, but this is definitely still some level of fucked up. If any romances did form during this, how could the people involved be sure their partners’ feelings were really real and not just faked so that the two of them could escape? How could they even be completely sure about that for their own feelings? This would result in the most unhealthy of relationships.

Kaito:  “Hey, what the hell are you talking about!? Telling us to fall in love or whatever? What do you want us to do!?”

Okay I said I wouldn’t do this in detail but I do like that it’s Kaito in particular who objects to this specific idea. If people are being forced to fall in love, then it’s not people acting on their own feelings at all! Kaito doesn’t have any specific opinions about romance that we’ve ever heard, but this is from his principles about being true to yourself.

So… that’s the thing about this mode. While it makes sense with the overarching V3 twist that this is just to entertain a shallow TV audience, it leaves things with this uncomfortable patina of being all about romance. Even though the free time events are exactly as they are in the main story, and most of what the game calls “dates” aren’t explicitly romantic either, that’s still apparently supposed to be the goal. And while I just talked about how messed-up this setup is for forming romances, which could at least be potentially interesting to explore if they acknowledged that, the narrative plays it completely straight because of course it fucking does. It’s not only the in-universe audience that’s being amatonormative here.

Kaede’s FTEs in particular, since they only exist in this Amatonormativity Mode, really lay on the romance more heavily than I think they would in any other context, which makes me not want to cover them even though I otherwise might like to because Kaede’s one of my favourite characters. (As far as I remember, they’re not bad or anything, it’s just Not My Jam.) And it seems that some of the characters’ ending scenes for this mode also embrace this annoying idea and shoehorn more romance in them than they really should have. For example Maki’s ending scene is mostly fine until it suddenly insists that she and Shuichi are romantically into each other, which is provably not in line with canon because Maki becomes equally close to Shuichi in the main story and there are no romantic feelings on either end there so why should this be any different. And it’s not just her ending scene: a small handful of Maki’s dates and other dialogue specific to this mode try and make her all stereotypically tsundere towards Shuichi in what I can only assume is a very tiresome attempt to hint at romance between them, and ugh no get it away leave Maki the fuck alone she does not deserve this.

However, this game is also reasonably heteronormative, and while heteronormativity is of course objectively terrible and needs to go away, it does mean that when things are also being amatonormative (another thing that is equally terrible and equally needs to go away), there’s only 50% as much amatonormativity as there could be. So, since Shuichi and Kaito both happen to be guys, all of Kaito’s scenes in this mode remain completely platonic. While Monokuma didn’t mention this and everything in the flavouring of this mode is trying to pretend this is totally all about romance, apparently any people who become epic inseparable platonic friends also get to leave? Which I am very happy about, because I would not want to cover this otherwise. I don’t like it when my adorable friendships are diminished with romance, dammit.

So now to complain about the other awkward thing about this mode, which is how horrendously artificial and inorganic it feels to actually play. For one thing, we’re playing as Shuichi, but he’s already removed his hat and is apparently also already Kaito’s sidekick as we’ll be seeing, even though literally none of the character development and interactions that were required for Shuichi to make that progress has happened. And that shouldn’t have had time to happen offscreen either, since Monokuma declared that there’ll be a 10-day time limit for people to partner up, and then you get dropped into the game on Day 1. It’s just really hard to buy this AU as a properly justified and backed-up story.

Then there’s the fact that all the other characters you can hang out with just stand in a fixed spot in the courtyard – always the same spot every day – apparently just waiting for Shuichi to come and talk to them. If you do an FTE and not a “date”, they will then stay in this exact spot (apart from rare exceptions in which the FTE itself involves going somewhere in particular) for the whole event, despite that this might be awkwardly in earshot of another student who’s busy standing unmoving in their own spot nearby. There’s no sense of this being a story and not just a game – no hints of any kind of other friendships or community forming or any of these characters acting like people beyond just existing for Shuichi to get close to.

Which, okay, is pretty understandable since this is just a hasty bonus mode mostly slapped in here to make getting everyone’s FTEs easier than replaying chapters of the main story. But even so, there’s Kaede’s and Rantaro’s FTEs and then all of the “date” scenes and graduation scenes which are all scenes that only exist in this AU – that’s precisely why I’m here covering Kaito’s ones in this commentary – and so it would be really nice if they’d actually put, like, any effort at all into making this AU feel like a real story to give these scenes a more robust context. As it is, these scenes mostly just feel like context-less snippets of character insight, and if anything really needs more context then you have to use your imagination and come up with it all yourself.

But anyway, I’m here to talk about practically everything Kaito ever says and does, and I’m damn well going to do it regardless of how little context I get for it.

First, actually, while wandering around the courtyard I learned that you can talk to the two Exisals that are at work there, one of which is the good old red Exisal, and Monotaro actually has something kind of interesting to say. (Shocking, I know.)

Monotaro:  “I’m the red Monokub! That means I’m a main character, so I don’t tell lies! …Hm? But then, why do they call them ‘bright red lies’? Are lies red? Does that mean I’m a liar?”

Obviously I always figured that Kaito got the red Exisal because it’s the main character’s one and therefore the most fitting for a hero like Kaito (plus there wasn’t a purple option). But this is an interesting potential extra reason why they chose that colour! I can only assume this is a Japanese saying because I’ve never heard it before, but that’s neat if it’s really a thing.

Kaito’s designated Unmoving Courtyard Spot is sadly not the training spot. Instead, it is worryingly close to the gates to the casino. Kaito, no.

Dates Hangouts

So the main bulk of content unique to this mode is a series of mini-scenes you can get with each character after having maxed out their FTEs. The game refers to these as “dates”, but screw that, I’m going to refer to them as “hangouts” despite what the game calls them because the romantic connotations of the word “date” annoy me. Let’s hang out with Kaito! In a… slightly different sense of hanging out than what happens for his FTEs.

You get to choose one of five locations to hang out in, and then the game gives you a set of three options to pick for that place, which will vary in how much your hangout partner enjoys it. If you then later hang out with that person in the same place, it’ll give you a second set of three options, and then a third set the next time. Once you’ve had all three sets for a given location, it won’t give you any more options and you’ll just get a generic “we hung out for a while” textbox. So within one playthrough of this mode, for each character, you can only see three out of the nine mini-scenes for each place, or only fifteen out of the forty-five in total. Which is fine if you’re just trying to max someone out and get their ending, because that takes a minimum of five scenes if you get the best outcomes. But if you’re trying to see all the scenes, it’s a bit inconvenient.

What I’m saying is that I’m going to have to do three separate playthroughs of this mode to get all of these for Kaito. I do not envy whichever wiki writer went and compiled these for literally every character, but I am definitely thankful to them for removing the need for anyone else to do this, and for allowing me to see all these scenes beforehand without doing this myself. (I’m doing it myself here anyway because it feels more natural to me to transcribe the lines from my Vita after doing it for the whole game, but at least I wouldn’t have had to if I didn’t want to.)

Some of these are just going to be me fairly superficially going “hee look at Kaito being a dork”, and some will be me discussing how Good Kaito’s principles and outlook are some more. But the biggest reason I wanted to do this is that some of them go deeper than that and are relevant to his issues in some interesting way. They’re pretty delightfully subtle about it, as Kaito’s issues usually are because he refuses to talk about them, but they’re very present even in this context of just hanging out with Shuichi, since Kaito’s issues revolve heavily around his relationship with his sidekick.

For the sake of not having this be a completely disjointed read, I’ve grouped these hangouts not by the arbitrary categories of which location they take place in, but rather by some of the general ideas relating to Kaito’s character or outlook that I end up discussing with them.

First, though, just a couple of odd ones out that didn’t quite fit into any of the upcoming categories.

[A/V Room]

-      Watch a horror movie

Kaito:  “L-Like I’d watch something so uncool. What’s so fun about watching fake g-g-ghosts? Don’t get me wrong! I’m not s-scared or anything!”

Yep, this was of course a bad idea. The purpose of Kaito being written with his phobia is irrelevant in this non-killing-game AU, but since the writers changed their minds about doing the killing game after creating the characters, he still has it anyway.

While a player would choose this knowing full well it’s the wrong option, at least this isn’t Shuichi deliberately being a dick, because in this AU he wouldn’t know about Kaito’s phobia. He probably innocently thought Kaito might enjoy the thrill or something.

(Observe how “Kaito has a phobia of ghosts” is something that doesn’t fit into any of the categories I’ll be having here, which all have some kind of connection to meaningful parts of his character. Tsumugi, you’re a bad writer.)

[Library]

-      “Let’s make a tower of books”

There’s only one thing of note about this one, which is this:

Kaito:  “Let’s make a tower of books that’ll pierce the heavens!”

This is a delightfully blatant Gurren Lagann reference and I love it. They knew. They knew exactly what they were doing with Kaito’s character, and then some.

Astronauts and space

Obviously a necessary category for Kaito. Let’s talk about SPACE and his astronaut training!

[A/V Room]

-      Watch a documentary on athletes

Kaito:  “Seeing this makes me remember my astronaut training. Astronaut training involves just as much exercise as athletes do.”

It’s neat that he enjoys this because it reminds him of his own training. Kaito really would not normally slack off with exercise; the only reason it seemed like he was doing that in the main storyline is because he was sick!

Kaito:  “I wonder how all those guys who trained with me are doing…”

Yeah, uh, about that…

Kaito:  “Alright! Thinking about that made me super motivated! We’re definitely gonna get out of this place, you got it!?”

Oh dear, Kaito now especially wants to get out of here so he can see his friends from astronaut training again. They… don’t exist. Neither do his grandparents. When everyone escapes in this AU, they are all going to very abruptly learn that they’re “fictional” and none of their loved ones are waiting for them at all. That is not going to be fun for them. (And they’re going to learn that off-camera, in a way that is no longer part of this “story”, so the audience isn’t going to see how fucked-up this is and nothing is going to change.)

Since they’ll still have memories of their loved ones that feel real to them, and yet they can’t ever actually see them again, it’s basically going to be feel equivalent to if their loved ones had all died while they were in here. They’re going to be grieving for people they know in their heads never even existed. That did also apply to Shuichi, Maki and Himiko in the canon ending, but it’d have been a lot less significant next to all their grief for the real people whose deaths they actually experienced. In this AU, though, it’d be a much bigger thing.

(On the other hand, their pasts being fictional is still a good thing for Maki at least (whose best friend was already dead in her memories). And Kaito would still definitely take that opportunity to be happy for her even as he’s reeling from his own loss.)

[A/V Room]

-      Watch a documentary on aliens

You’d think this’d be the one Kaito would enjoy the most of the three options it’s part of, but it really, really isn’t.

Kaito:  “I totally get why you’d be interested in this documentary.”

Of course. Everyone should be interested in aliens, right?

But, alas, he goes on to say that he found out some time after having watched it himself that it was all fake.

Kaito:  “The day I found that out… I’ve never felt despair like I did that day… How dare they mess with my adventurous heart…”

Turns out, the only way to make Kaito feel despair is to give him false hope that aliens exist, and then take it away. That’s adorable.

(Obviously he doesn’t mean real, proper despair, though. Kaito is literally incapable of feeling that; it’s like his superpower – remember when he convinced himself the destroyed outside world maybe wasn’t the truth with no evidence purely for the sake of not giving up? But still, it’s amusing that he uses that word.)

I wonder how convincing the documentary even was in the first place. Wouldn’t surprise me if it emphatically wasn’t and Kaito only believed it out of childlike optimism when he really should have been able to tell it was fake already, because he’s a dork like that.

[A/V Room]

-      Watch a documentary on bugs

Kaito:  “I remember a while back there was some theory that bugs came from space. All life came from the ocean and as far as I know, there aren’t any bugs there.”

Kaito, no, that is not how evolution works. Apparently whatever science credentials he has do not extend into biology. There being almost no bugs in the ocean any more doesn’t change the fact that they evolved from ocean-dwelling organisms just like all life did. There are no humans who live in the ocean either, but that doesn’t make humans aliens.

Kaito should sit down with Gonta sometime and learn about the evolutionary biology of bugs. He’d find it interesting (even if it does mean no bug-aliens), because he finds everything interesting! And it’d mean Gonta would have someone he could actually talk to about bugs who’s genuinely interested and not secretly squirming from revulsion.

Kaito:  “That theory got shot down, but I always get so pumped up by stuff like that!”

I should hope it got shot down, because it didn’t make any goddamn sense. It can’t have even been a proper scientific theory in the first place. But of course Kaito just liked to be able to imagine there’s already aliens on Earth. Nothing’s stopping him from still pretending bugs could be secret aliens just to amuse himself! Fictions are exciting even though you know they’re not true!

[Dining Hall]

-      Drinking green tea after a meal

Kaito:  “Yeah! Green tea’s great! A piping hot cup of fresh brewed tea is seriously the best.”

While I’m emphatically not an expert on these things because I don’t drink either beverage, I would have pegged Kaito as more of a coffee person than a tea person. Maybe it’s just because tea is a lot more of a thing in Japan than coffee. Or he gets it from his grandparents.

Kaito:  “But now that I think about it, you can’t drink fresh tea out in space, huh? It’s so obvious, I never even considered it… Well then! I’ll just enjoy it as much as I can on Earth!”

Oh no, what do you mean that going to space might be kind of harsh and empty of luxuries and not the best thing ever in every conceivable way!? He really has not wanted to consider any of the downsides of it at all. But at least he keeps a positive outlook about it now that he’s realised it, because he’s Kaito.

(Maybe Kaito likes tea so much that making himself a nice cuppa is one of the first things he does when he gets back to Earth… and then he promptly drops and breaks the cup because what is gravity.)

[Library]

-      “Let’s study”

Kaito:  “Yeah! In order to become an astronaut, you gotta study hard!”

Reminder: Kaito is not an idiot, and despite being kind of oblivious about certain things, is actually very book-smart!

Kaito:  “Let’s start by studying language! And don’t let me hear you say you don’t need it.”

And it’s so him that this is the thing he wants to encourage Shuichi to study. Communication is vital in all walks of life, not just in being an astronaut!

Kaito:  “There’s nothing unnecessary in this world!”

I still love this philosophy of his. Kaito is so good.

[Library]

-      “Let’s look through photographs”

Kaito:  “Photographs of the planets, huh?”

Yes, Kaito, Shuichi definitely meant this, he couldn’t possibly have been interested in any other kinds of photographs except those of SPACE.

Kaito:  “When I think about actually being there and seeing them… I get the chills!”

THE ROCKET HAVING A WINDOW WAS VERY IMPORTANT

(not that he saw planets through it, but just being there and seeing it himself was so so worth it for any part of space)

Kaito:  “Just you wait, planets! I, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars, am gonna see you with my own two eyes!”

He’s such an optimistic dork. Just like with his bold claims to Kaede about how he’s going to meet aliens, this is probably not a thing that’ll happen within his lifetime. Maybe Mars, but not, like, multiple planets. But hey, let him dream!

[Courtyard]

-      “Let’s relax in the sun”

Kaito:  “It’s been a while since I was able to get some sun. Ever since I was a kid, I’d think about the universe while sunbathing.”

Oh, Kaito. He would turn sunbathing into an excuse to think about space, even though he can’t see the stars when the sun’s out.

Kaito:  “But these days, I’ve been so busy with training, I haven’t had time to relax. Thanks to you, I remembered how important it is to relax sometimes!”

Yes, Kaito, it is important to rest sometimes and to not push yourself too hard. Of course that’s something he’d only think about when somebody else reminds him of it.

[Library]

-      “I’m getting sleepy”

Kaito:  “Yeah, it’s pretty quiet in here. But the silence of a library is nothing compared to the universe, y’know?”

Somehow, Kaito finds an excuse to make this about space, too. What a dork.

Kaito:  “After all, the universe is just one big silent room. If you went up there, you’d probably be sleepy all the time.”

You’re… not doing a great job of making space sound inviting, Kaito. What happened to all the passion and adventure there’s supposed to be out there?

[A/V Room]

-      Play dominoes with the movie boxes

Kaito:  “I may not seem like it, but I’m pretty good at setting up dominoes! During astronaut training, we had to do dexterity exercises.”

More fun little tibits about the kind of skills astronauts have to learn!

Kaito:  “I, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars, will make a domino setup that will shock even you!”

But even so, it’s not the “Ultimate Astronaut” but rather the Luminary of the Stars who’s good at this, because he still much prefers the latter title for himself.

Also,  the “even you” is interesting. Why would Shuichi in particular not usually be shocked by an epic domino setup? Does Kaito’s secret idolisation of Shuichi even extend to thinking he’d be inexplicably good at this? (Kaito’s secret idolisation of Shuichi shouldn’t even be nearly as much of a thing in this trial-less AU, though.)

[Dining Hall]

-      “Let’s go in the freezer”

This is one of those very odd, why-would-Shuichi-ever-actually-suggest-this options. But it works on Kaito!

Kaito:  “Did you know… In astronaut training, you have to be able to survive in subzero temperatures! If it’s a competition to see who can hold out the longest, I won’t lose!”

More astronaut training things! And of course Kaito would turn it into a competition. Though it is a bit much of him to think that Shuichi should do this even though he has no need to train in this particular dangerous way, but Shuichi did inexplicably suggest it, so, uh.

Kaito:  “The loser has to say how many girls he’s had a crush on!”

…I don’t know about this line, though. While I don’t headcanon Kaito very strongly this way because there isn’t any actual evidence relevant to it like there is for Maki, I like to believe it could at least be possible for Kaito to be aromantic. This might just be me wanting to project onto him, admittedly, but the way he puts so much investment into his platonic relationships, including having an especially committed type of them in the hero-and-sidekick thing, is very enjoyably non-amatonormative of him. It just doesn’t feel right to me that Kaito would care that much about crushes – and, in particular, even less so that he would care about someone else’s crushes, which are really none of his business unless they choose to tell him about them. Peer pressuring Shuichi into admitting to anything of that nature when he might not be comfortable doing so really, really doesn’t seem to me like the kind of thing Kaito would do.

I don’t really have any actual evidence with which to argue that this is definitely out of character for Kaito, so this could just be me here – but it seems quite possible that this is an example of a line that kinda belongs in this next section.

The clueless intern

Remember that clueless intern last post who somehow ended up writing a handful of Kaito’s lines in the demo despite having only a very shallow grasp of his character that misses everything important about him? (That’s totally why those out-of-character parts in the demo happened, shush.) Well, apparently they were also given a few of his hangouts to write, as well. I feel it’s important to point out which few of these involve things that Kaito shouldn’t actually be saying.

[Gym]

-      “Let’s play basketball”

Kaito:  “You got guts to challenge me at basketball! Didn’t I tell you? My basketball skills are universe-tier.”

So why wasn’t Kaito in the basketball club in middle school? Because Ryoma needed to die, of course. (I suggested soccer as his alternate favourite sport in my Kaito-isn’t-into-tennis AU, but basketball, as another team sport, would make just as much sense.)

Kaito:  “World-class athletes try to be my apprentice just to steal my skills.”

It’s potentially interesting to see him use the word “apprentice” here, when really that word would be a much more accurate and representative word for what he calls a “sidekick”. I guess in Kaito’s head, an apprentice is something totally different and only there to learn tangible skills such as this, without any kind of emotional support being involved? …Orrr the writer for this hangout just doesn’t know what they’re doing at all; that’s also possible.

Kaito:  “But… my muscles are cramping, so I can’t really play basketball right now.”

See, I don’t like this. This whole thing was Kaito boasting about something he knows is not true with no intention of ever even trying to back it up, and making an excuse that is blatantly nothing but a lie. That is not remotely what Kaito is like, despite that he might seem that way at a glance. He may talk big, but the intent behind his words is always genuine, and for every instance in canon of him making what seems like an excuse to get out of backing up his words, it’s actually because he is literally sick and doesn’t want his sidekicks to know that. Meanwhile, this here seems like it was written by someone who knew almost nothing about Kaito’s character, briefly saw the part where he talks big, and interpreted it in the most superficial and typical way possible rather than actually understanding him at all.

[Dining Hall]

-      “Let’s bake something”

Kaito:  “Sorry, I’m not really in the mood for sweets. I need something… more manly. Something that’s gonna fill me up.”

This is the only actual time in the whole game, aside from the very first Misogyny Bullet that was also provably out of character, where Kaito talks about manliness in a way that seemingly is about stereotypically masculine things, if sweets apparently aren’t. This really isn’t his usual definition of the concept, and as such it also reads as out of character that he’d use that word here.

Kaito:  “If you eat too many sweets, you’ll become a spoiled person.”

Still, at least he also has a more meaningful reason for not liking sweets much. Plus, you’d think that as an astronaut, he’d want to eat healthier stuff that’d keep his strength up.

(All this said, though, based on his gift preferences, Kaito does at least like ice cream.)

[Gym]

-      “Ah, maybe we should take off our clothes?”

Another one that, what the hell, writers, Shuichi would be way too shy and awkward to actually suggest this even if he did secretly want to, this is blatantly just in there for some eyerolly shipbait. I would ignore this one entirely, but… we kinda need to talk about this.

Kaito:  “Huh!? What are you talking about!? Save that stuff for the girls! Or wait, did you come out or something and not tell me!?”

Okay, so originally my plan for talking about this line was to say that I have no idea where the hell some people get the idea that Kaito is homophobic. This is the only line of his in the entire game that actually addresses the topic of homosexuality at all, and it’s apparently him being upset at the idea that Shuichi would have come out and not told him. His sidekick’s supposed to be able to tell him anything! He’d want Shuichi to trust him enough to be the first person he tells about something like this! Of course he’d be supportive about who Shuichi is!

…But the expression Kaito’s actually making for these lines is a kind-of-horrified face which definitely does not allow for that reading of it, and no, fuck off, fuck you, game, Kaito is better than this, he would be supportive of his sidekick, and of everyone, no matter what. This is Danganronpa’s occasionally-shitty writing temporarily affecting Kaito in a way that is not in character for him and I will hear nothing else.

See, okay, maybe I can accept Kaito having passively picked up bigotry like this through cultural osmosis as he was growing up (perhaps through his grandparents’ old-fashioned views, although people use his grandparents to justify Kaito’s supposed bigotry way too much when they should just be pointing out that it’s not actually in character for him to think that way at all as I’m about to do here and have done previously on the topic of misogyny). But that’s only a view Kaito would ever have in the background without really thinking about it. Kaito’s principles (his concept of manliness, even!) put a lot of focus on thinking for yourself and not just mindlessly going along with what other people think without deciding on your own if you agree with it. So as soon as a situation came along in which he actually consciously noticed his passive bigotry, Kaito would question why he even thinks that way and realise it’s wrong.

Remember, Kaito believes more strongly than anything that everyone is important and amazing and deserves to be the hero of their own story. He puts so much value in communication and co-operation between all different walks of life (he speaks English and Russian fluently and learned the cultures along with the languages), and even hopes for communication between humans and aliens if they exist out there. The moment Kaito were to consciously catch himself feeling inclined to think that some people apparently don’t deserve respect just because of something arbitrary about them that isn’t hurting anyone else, he would immediately stop, go “what the hell is wrong with me, that’s bullshit”, and work on training his brain to stop thinking that way at all. Kaito’s not perfect, but he’s always trying to be the best he can be, and this would be no exception. Anyone who thinks Kaito wouldn’t do this doesn’t properly appreciate his character, and that includes the writers of this game when they’re being like this.

[Library]

-      “Let’s read a dirty book”

Another one that Shuichi shouldn’t actually have any in-character reason to pick, because he is evidently not this kind of person, remember when that was literally a vital plot point?

Kaito:  “Hehe! Of course! It’s weird for guys to not look for those kinds of books in a library!”

The way Kaito phrases this… kind of almost suggests that he’s not actually doing this because he wants to, but just because peer pressure and society has made him think he’s supposed to want to. I’d like to say this is something the writers are deliberately trying to hint at, but that makes very little sense for Kaito in particular, because that’s not thinking for himself.

And if Kaito is supposed to genuinely believe that obviously all guys should be like this… then that’s also kind of gross and another thing I refuse to accept is actually in-character for Kaito to think. Shitty Danganronpa writing, leave Kaito alone.

Mentions of manliness

But anyway, let’s move on from those brief instances of out-universe bad writing and see some more examples of what Kaito’s concept of manliness actually means. He brings it up in a few of these hangouts, and all but that earlier one have a perfectly good understanding of it.

[Courtyard]

-      “Let’s get some fresh air”

Kaito:  “Yeah, it’s a hundred times better than the stale air inside. A man’s gotta be in a wide-open space, y’know? Staying indoors for too long will turn you into a narrow-minded person.”

Oh, look, Kaito explicitly does not want to be a narrow-minded person. Cough cough like not a sexist or a homophobe, cough! He even connects being open-minded to his concept of manliness, because of course this is along similar lines to that! Be true to yourself – and to do that, think for yourself!

Kaito:  “That’s why I’m gonna go to the universe and be a universe-minded guy!”

Also, SPACE. But this actually makes a lot more sense than you might think – some astronauts have described something called the Overview Effect. It’s an overwhelming feeling they get when first seeing the Earth from space: the sense that all of the fights and prejudices and differences between humans down there are so insignificant in the grand scheme of how beautiful our planet is and how small we are in the vastness of space, and that we need to work together to protect our precious tiny blue dot. Did you know that astronauts are good? It’s not just Kaito; all astronauts are good.

[A/V Room]

-      “We should focus on reality, not movies”

Kaito:  “Right on! That’s my sidekick! A man should chase real passions, not sit around watching fake stuff!”

Since Kaito’s idea of being a man is all about being true to yourself, it follows that he’d also think a man should focus more on things that are real! At least, I guess, in terms of “chasing passions”, aka the things he wants to do with his life. We already know plenty about how much Kaito enjoys believing in fictional things like magic and kids’ games just because they’re fun.

Kaito:  “Hell yeah! I’m fired up like crazy now! I’ll teach you all about the universe as I imagine it!”

Kaito. Buddy. The universe as you imagine it is not reality either. You dork.

[Courtyard]

-      “Let’s go back inside”

Kaito:  “Huh? Why’d you pick this place if you were just gonna go back? It’s not manly to keep changing your mind like that!”

Be sure of yourself! Only decide on something if you know you’re going to stick to it, and if you do change your mind after that, it should be for a good reason!

[Dining Hall]

-      Sleeping after a meal

Kaito:  “Yeah, you get it! As expected from my sidekick! They say sleeping after eating makes you fat, but you can’t fight instinct!”

Oh, dear. According to Ryoma’s comments on this same option (and you’d think he’d know better than Kaito), sleeping after eating is indeed unhealthy. But Kaito tells himself it’s a good thing to do anyway because it’s what he feels like he wants to do. And he’s happy that Shuichi agrees with him on this, even though it’s not actually a good thing to agree with him on.

Kaito:  “And now that I said that… I’m feeling sleepy myself… Alright! I’m gonna listen to my instincts and sleep like a man!”

Sounds ridiculous, but actually a correct use of Kaito’s concept of manliness! He’s listening to what his body wants him to do, which totally means he’s being true to himself, right? …Even though in this instance he apparently shouldn’t be.

Exercise and training

This being Kaito, the options suggesting some kind of exercise are some of his favourites. Well… usually.

[Dining Hall]

-      Exercising after a meal

Kaito:  “I know that’s best, but don’t you get sleepy after you eat?”

Apparently Kaito is perfectly aware that it’s a bad habit of his to sleep after meals. Come on, Kaito, if you know it’s bad, you should be trying to break that habit, instead of justifying it to yourself because it can technically be argued to be manliness!

This hangout is one of the bad-outcome ones, and maybe the reason why is just that Kaito apparently really wanted to be validated by not being the only one with this bad habit.

Kaito:  “I guess even though you’re my sidekick, we’re pretty different sometimes…”

But… it seems like it might just be the more general thought that he’s different from Shuichi that’s bothering Kaito here, as if he’s worried Shuichi might be less inclined to be his friend if he felt Kaito was too different from him. (Hold this thought – there’ll be more along these lines in the next post.) Being different doesn’t stop you from being friends, though, Kaito! He and Shuichi are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but that’s what makes them such a good team, because they complement each others’ weaknesses so well.

[Gym]

-      “Let’s warm up a bit”

Kaito:  “Yeah, it’d suck if I got injured and had to give up on being an astronaut. Let’s work on our warm ups, then. Oh, hold on. Is it possible to get injured doing warm ups? If that’s the case, then we better do some pre-warm up warm ups.”

Kaito… does not seem to be all that knowledgeable about how physical training actually works. (See also: his totally very “systematic method” for his sidekicks’ training.) Maybe he really should watch that documentary about athletes. Or sit down with Ryoma and learn a thing or two from him… except, ha ha, that’s not going to happen very easily now is it.

(…Not that I know any better myself whether Kaito’s right to be worried here. I may do daily exercise now thanks to Kaito, but I also have a very systematic method for it, which is of course to say that I don’t and have no idea what I’m doing.)

You’d think Kaito should know this stuff, but, well, maybe his in-universe writers were slacking off while giving him memories of the physical part of astronaut training. Which should have been a difficult mistake to make when you consider that Team Danganronpa must have this character-creation thing down to a science by now and that sport-based talents are very common. They should have a standard “general athlete knowledge base” section of Flashback Light data that they put into every sporty character’s Flashback Light, which should have included Kaito; they’re clearly aware that astronauts train just as much as athletes since they gave him knowledge of that fact. But apparently someone was sleeping on the job.

[Courtyard]

-      “Let’s dance!”

Kaito:  “Huh? Dance with you? Why? It’s not like I don’t want to, but… Well, whatever! If you’re suggesting it, I’m sure you’ve got a good reason!”

Let’s pretend Shuichi was suggesting this as a different kind of exercise, even though Kaito should probably have realised that’s why and have said so and been on board with it for that specific reason. Kaito should enjoy dancing in particular, too, because it’s all about expressing yourself!

(Honestly, the lack of Shuichi having any of his own dialogue in these past the initial options, leaving the hangout partner essentially just talking to thin air, is kind of awkward sometimes.)

[Gym]

-      “Let’s do some muscle training”

The obviously correct choice for when you are in a gym with Kaito!

Kaito:  “Alright! Let’s do 500 push-ups! We’re gonna go non-stop, so get ready!”

That is a big number. I can maybe imagine reaching 500 with a lot of breaks to rest – like, a lot – but non-stop? Yikes. Especially for Shuichi, who’s still new to this.

Kaito:  “Huh? That’s too many? 500 should be a piece of cake for my sidekick! Don’t complain, just do it!”

But of course Kaito pushes Shuichi into at least trying anyway.

Kaito:  “The impossible is possible! All you gotta do is make it so!”

Ayyyy! He still wants this to be known even in the bonus mode. If Shuichi believes 500 non-stop push-ups are possible, he’s a lot more likely to be able to do it than if he’s already written it off as impossible, after all!

…I doubt Shuichi managed to get anywhere close to 500. But then, I also doubt that Kaito did either, so after they both inevitably collapsed in exhaustion, they probably agreed to get there more slowly with breaks after all.

(If Maki were here too, though, she could totally do 500 non-stop without breaking a sweat.)

[Courtyard]

-      “Let’s go for a run”

Kaito:  “Yeah, sounds good! I haven’t been able to do my daily training since we came here.”

Surely he has been doing his daily training since he started training Shuichi under whatever circumstances kicked that off in this AU? Ugggh this AU and its lack of a proper contextual story for any of this.

Kaito:  “Let’s run like we’re chasing our pasts!”

Usually when Kaito has a line that appears kind of ridiculous and there-to-sound-cool, there is actually some kind of meaningful substance to it that makes sense in his head. But I’m not sure what he could mean with this one here. Kaito’s generally more about people putting their pasts behind them and looking to the future, after all.

Kaito:  “Detectives need stamina too, right?”

Well, they do if they’re going to be having cases that involve things like capturing alligators, apparently. (Man, Shuichi should tell Kaito about that case. He’d enjoy a story like that, no doubt.)

Principles and advice

Some of these hangouts lead to Kaito showing his delightful principles about keeping a positive outlook on things. (This is partly because quite a few of the obvious-bad-hangout-partner options involve Shuichi grumpily complaining for no good reason, which Kaito would obviously take issue with.)

[A/V Room]

-      Watch a comedy movie

Kaito:  “Movies like this are great for turning your mood around. When you’re down, all you gotta do is let out a laugh and everything’s good!”

It’s interesting that Kaito apparently likes comedy movies not exactly for their own sake, but rather because they’re good for cheering you up. What Kaito has just implied here (definitely without having meant to) is that he can in fact feel down sometimes and has found that things like this work for pulling him out of it.

Kaito:  “If you’re down all the time, then your dreams might get away from you!”

After all, you shouldn’t just wallow in your sadness when you could be doing whatever you can to stay positive!

[Gym]

-      “Let’s train… our minds…”

Kaito:  “Yeah! It’s got nothing to do with exercising, but your mind’s important!”

Of course Kaito thinks this! Although, what does he mean it’s got nothing to do with exercising? The whole point of him getting his sidekicks to exercise is to help with their mental health!

Kaito:  “If you can’t visualize your goals, you’ll never be able to achieve them.”

If you can’t believe the impossible is possible, you’ll never be able to make it so!

Kaito:  “That’s just what I’d expect from my sidekick! You get what’s important!”

Aww, he’s so happy that his sidekick already understands the type of mindset he likes to advocate.

(Fun irrelevant fact: I had Kaito use the sentence “You get what’s important!” in a piece of extremely silly Kaito content on my main blog just because it sounded like the kind of thing he might say, while not remembering at the time that he says that exact sentence in the actual game. I was quite amused when I saw this line again.)

[A/V Room]

-      “I might fall asleep…”

Kaito:  “Well, sure. If you grab some boring movie or something. But if you decide that’s gonna happen from the start, then it probably will. If you always expect the worst, then you’ll always get the worst!”

Kaito’s philosophy is just so good. He always encourages people to try and have a positive outlook, not just because it’ll help them feel better, but because it actually matters to what they’ll be able to achieve. You have to believe the impossible is possible before you’ll ever be able to make it so!

[Library]

-      “This is boring…”

(This is another one that doesn’t make any sense for Shuichi to say. He likes novels; he would not be bored in a library.)

Kaito:  “Really? There are so many books here, there’s gotta be some that interest you. Before you start complaining, try looking around a bit more.”

Don’t just pointlessly complain when there’s something you could be doing to make things better! Don’t give up before you’ve even tried!

[Library]

-      “Sure is dusty in here”

Kaito:  “Yeah, but instead of complaining, you should do something about it. If you’re gonna be my sidekick, then you gotta know that much.”

I like that this one isn’t just Kaito’s don’t-complain principle, but is also him asserting that any sidekick of his should already know about this principle of his and be trying to follow that advice. People only become Kaito’s sidekicks once they’ve made the choice to try and change themselves and make their situation better, after all. His principles about not complaining when you could be doing something are basically the same idea as that.

[Gym]

-      “I’m tired…”

Kaito:  “Huh? You haven’t even done anything yet. If you keep talking like that, I won’t hold back, even if you are my sidekick!”

This is presumably more of Kaito’s don’t-complain principle going on here, except this time he’s not even mentioning the principle itself and is just assuming his sidekick should know better and being annoyed that he’s still complaining anyway.

I should note, though, that if Shuichi complained about being tired in a different context, Kaito would definitely take it very differently and see it as a sign that something’s wrong with him and offer help like always. But in this context, in which Shuichi has just invited him to hang out in the gym and then immediately gone “oh but I’m tired” before they’ve even done anything, it does just come across like he’s being lazy and flaky and doesn’t actually want to exercise, in which case why even come here if you’re only going to complain?

Somewhat relevant to this is Kaito’s stock dialogue when a hangout has the worst possible outcome, which the above hangout is one example of.

[Worst outcome]

Kaito:  “C’mon, man… Don’t go forgetting a sidekick’s responsibilities. I’m heading back…”

He expected his sidekick to know better than to change his mind and complain for no reason like this! A sidekick doesn’t have nearly as many responsibilities as the hero does, but Kaito does expect them to understand some of the most frequent advice he gives and be making at least an effort to follow it. To be his sidekick, they’ve got to be trying to change.

There are literally only four hangouts that have a “worst” outcome for Kaito, so it’s really not often at all that Kaito gives this response that implies that he’s disappointed in Shuichi like this. One of the others is the one from the manliness section where Shuichi wanted to go back inside as soon as they’d gone to the courtyard, which is a similar thing of changing his mind and complaining about the decision he literally just made – the kind of thing that Kaito already expected his sidekick to know better than to do.

(Another of the worst outcomes was Shuichi suggesting a horror movie – that one’s not at all Shuichi’s fault and has nothing to do with Kaito’s principles, but I can understand Kaito getting upset enough about it that he somewhat forgets himself in his reaction to it. The fourth one is one that’s coming up later.) 

Heroes and sidekicks

My favourite category! Time for some hangouts that hint at Kaito’s issues about heroes and sidekicks, either in a general sense or specifically in regards to his relationship with Shuichi.

First, though, Kaito’s response when a hangout has only a bad-but-not-worst outcome is relevant to this topic as well. As I mentioned, the worst outcome is very rare – most of the time, if he doesn’t have a good time, he’ll just say this:

[Bad outcome]

Kaito:  “Are you tired or something? If you’re not feeling well, just rest. My sidekick’s fatigue is my fatigue. I’m… gonna head back first.”

Obviously, it’s not that the hangout made Kaito feel bad or anything. It’s just that apparently Shuichi looks tired, and Kaito’s looking out for his sidekick by suggesting he should go back and rest! And then it’s totally just a coincidence that Kaito heads back first.

(“I’ve projected my own fatigue onto you in order to hide the fact that I’m the one feeling tired” sure is one way for the phrase “my sidekick’s fatigue is my fatigue” to technically be true.)

On some level this could be Kaito trying to hide the fact that Shuichi showed him a bad time so as to not make Shuichi feel guilty for being a bad host – after all, it’s only very rarely that he gives the worst-outcome dialogue that makes it seem like Shuichi did anything wrong. I feel like if that was the only issue, though, Kaito would be more open about it and just say something like “I didn’t have a great time, but hey, it’s not your fault, don’t worry about it, I’m still up for hanging out with you again”. But that would still be Kaito all but admitting that something actually made him feel down at all. Which is obviously not a thing that ever happens to Kaito, right?

[A/V Room]

-      Watch an action movie

Kaito:  “Action movies are fun cuz you don’t have to think too hard to enjoy them.”

…Because they tend to just have the heroes winning by saving the day in cool ways and being uncomplicatedly awesome?

It is such a delightfully relevant detail that Kaito prefers his fiction simple. If he appreciated more nuanced fiction, if his favourite kinds of stories were instead the ones where the hero’s character is more of a focus and you watch him go through hardships and struggle and grow and still manage to be a hero in the end anyway, then things in canon would have been very, very different.

Kaito:  “And there’s a bunch of ‘em that use the universe as their stage!”

Of course, this is an even better reason to like action movies: because SPACE.

(The writers could so easily have had this hangout be nothing but Kaito taking the excuse to talk about space movies, and nothing would have seemed amiss. But they put that first comment he made in there too. I love Kaito’s writers so much.)

Kaito:  “Alright! I’m gonna tell you all about my favorites! You ready to take notes!?”

And then… they don’t even watch any space action movies, it just turns into Kaito excitedly telling Shuichi all about his favourite ones. What a dork.

(At least, if Shuichi really did take notes, he can use that list when they’re living a normal life on the outside and he suggests a space movie marathon with Kaito on the 31st of October for no particular reason.)

[Library]

-      “Let’s read manga

Kaito:  “Adventure manga are the best! They’ve got so much passion in them!”

Heh, of course Kaito’s favourite genre of manga would be that.

Kaito:  “You should read all the famous adventure manga, Shuichi! Since we’re pals, it’d be great to read through some together.”

And then it’s cute that he wants to bring Shuichi into this thing he’s interested in, too! Shuichi does like novels, so while maybe he doesn’t usually read much manga, he should still be able to enjoy them! It makes me happy to think of them doing regular kinda-nerdy friend things together like this. Kaito even referred to them as “pals” and not “hero and sidekick”, which is very rare for him!

(I’m imagining, as they read through one of Kaito’s favourite manga, that Shuichi with his more nuanced appreciation of fiction comments that the hero isn’t very interesting because he keeps winning too easily without much effort. And Kaito is internally all “???????? He seems like a perfectly good hero to me??? Why does Shuichi think he’s supposed to be struggling?”)

[Dining Hall]

-      “Let’s cook something”

Kaito:  “Oh? You can cook, Shuichi? That means I can cook too! My sidekick’s skills are my skills, and my skills are my sidekick’s skills!”

Uhhhh Kaito that’s not how this works. “Your X is my X, my X is your X” definitely does not apply to this. Does that also mean that Shuichi can speak fluent English and Russian and pilot a spaceship?

Being happy that your friend can cook because then you can enjoy his food whenever he feels up to making something is one thing, but this is not quite how you express that, you dork.

(Ask him to teach you, Kaito! It’d be a fun thing to learn, just like how to build a crossbow!)

[Dining Hall]

-      “Let’s drink something”

Kaito:  “H-How did you know I was thirsty? Insight like that is just what I’d expect from the Ultimate Detective.”

Really? Because insight about the way someone’s feeling is really more the kind of thing that one would expect from you, Kaito.

Kaito:  “Or maybe… it was your sidekick powers that tipped you off! If that’s the case, then I’m proud to have such a great sidekick!”

What does “sidekick powers” even mean? …Perhaps it’s Kaito-speak for Shuichi being such a great friend that he can pick up on his friend’s needs. But even if that’s what he means, Kaito has to word it in a way that’s about Shuichi being his sidekick, because he very rarely actually refers to Shuichi as his “friend”.

…The third and by far most likely option, of course, is that it’s pure dumb luck and Shuichi just happened to want a drink himself without realising Kaito did too. But Kaito has to go and make this about the sidekick thing and use it as an excuse to shower praise onto Shuichi like the encouraging hero he is. He’s such a dork.

[Gym]

-      “I’ll be the referee”

Kaito:  “Huh? If you’re the referee, does that mean I’ll just be exercising by myself?”

Saying you’ll be the referee is probably supposed to be interpreted as the lazy way out of having to do any exercise yourself. But somehow Kaito doesn’t take it that way and admonish Shuichi for not wanting to train.

Kaito:  “Haha! So the sidekick wants to see the hero’s full potential? Then why didn’t you say so!? I’ll show you everything I got!”

Because he takes it this way instead. Obviously Shuichi wants to see how awesome the hero is! Being the most awesome so that he can set an example and inspire his sidekicks to try and reach his heights is exactly what a hero is supposed to do!

I love the “why didn’t you say so?”, implying that this really is not at all why Shuichi suggested this, yet Kaito is automatically assuming it is because that’s definitely how heroes and sidekicks work.

[Dining Hall]

-      “Let’s have some tea”

Kaito:  “Yeah, let’s grab some tea and have a heart-to-heart.”

Yes, this is totally going to be a two-directional outpouring of emotions and issues here.

Kaito:  “Don’t you keep any secrets from me! Sidekicks and heroes shouldn’t have secrets between them, y’know?”

Oh, Kaito, you wonderful hypocrite.

It is a little surprising that he’s so adamant that Shuichi shouldn’t be keeping anything at all from him, since he advocated during trial 3 that people are always going to have some secrets and that doesn’t mean they’re keeping them out of malice. But I suppose since Shuichi is his sidekick, the whole point is that Shuichi is supposed to trust him with anything and everything, and if there was something Shuichi wasn’t willing to talk to him about, it’d mean Kaito’s not being a good enough hero.

And obviously, as the hero, Kaito definitely also trusts Shuichi with everything that’s going on in his head, right? Definitely.

[Library]

-      “I want to scream really loud!”

Kaito:  “Huh? That’s not like you, Shuichi. You’re not the type to be rude like that. You don’t gotta force yourself, y’know?”

Pfft, look at Kaito pointing out for us that this is one of the out-of-character options for Shuichi. It’s kind of a shame that he doesn’t take this further like he does for some others that we’re about to see.

[Dining Hall]

-      “Let’s try fasting”

Kaito:  “What!? If you do that, you’ll die for sure!”

…I feel like this might be an odd translation thing, because fasting is obviously not something that kills people. Kaito is open to other cultures enough that he should perfectly well know this.

Kaito:  “Do you have a fever? Don’t push yourself, alright?”

Yeah, if you’re sick, you shouldn’t push yourself, Kaito.

(…It’s not clear whether or not Kaito actually has the virus in this AU, because that would depend on whether Team Danganronpa changed their minds about doing the killing game before or after infecting him with it. But even if he does, his symptoms wouldn’t quite get far enough along for him to realise he’s dying within the ten days this takes place. And since he’s going to get out of here in ten days, that’s plenty of time to get himself to a hospital once he’s outside, so he’d be fine.)

Kaito:  “If you’re not feeling well, it’s because of my poor management.”

It is very Kaito that he turns this into assuming something must be wrong if Shuichi is inexplicably suggesting something like this, and so he starts worrying about him. It’s also very painfully Kaito that he’s blaming himself for it – he considers himself thoroughly responsible for his sidekicks’ wellbeing, and so if something’s wrong, it must be his fault somehow for not being a good enough hero, right?

[Gym]

-      “Let’s burn this place to the ground”

Another “what the hell, Shuichi?” option. But this one Kaito takes quite seriously.

Kaito:  “What? Hey, c’mon, that’s not you, man. What’s wrong?”

Which is to say, he immediately takes it as a sign that something wrong with Shuichi, because Kaito is good and always concerned about his sidekick’s wellbeing. If Shuichi actually did ever suggest this, it probably would be because he’s very upset about something.

Kaito:  “If something’s wrong, all you gotta do is talk to me about it. If it’s something you won’t talk to me about, then there’s nothing I can do…”

And I love that this then turns into Kaito being really worried that there might be a problem that Shuichi won’t talk to him about, which would mean he’d be powerless to fix it. He can’t bear the idea of not being able to help, especially not when it’s his sidekick, whom he’s always supposed to be able to help.

(It’s almost like someone not talking about their issues and therefore being impossible to help is precisely the problem with you, Kaito! But of course that’s not an analogous problem, Kaito’s the hero so he’s not supposed to need help, what are you talking about.)

Unfortunately, since this is a “what the hell, Shuichi” option, and since Shuichi gets no further lines in these, there’s not really anything that’s actually wrong with him and so we can’t further explore this idea of Kaito feeling like he’s unable to help his sidekick. It’s just a fun look at how the possibility of being powerless like that is something he’s really scared of.

(The wiki says this option is a worst outcome, which would be an extra sign of just how awful Kaito feels about this… but the wiki is wrong and this is actually only a bad outcome. The worst outcome dialogue, about Shuichi forgetting “a sidekick’s responsibilities”, could sort of work here – one of his sidekick’s responsibilities is to tell him whenever something’s wrong, isn’t it? But on the other hand, this hangout lingers on the note of Kaito feeling helpless to support Shuichi, which is not a state of mind in which he would want to blame Shuichi for anything. Meanwhile, the “you’re totally the one feeling tired, right, and there’s nothing at all wrong with me” bad-outcome dialogue is perfect for this situation. So maybe this is why this is nominally only a “bad” outcome even though it would definitely be making Kaito feel more awful than any of the “worst” ones do. I am totally not overthinking this.)

[Courtyard]

-      “I want to get outside as soon as I can”

Kaito:  “Well, that’s obvious. What’s really on your mind, man? If there’s something you’re worried about, just talk to me.”

Here’s some more Kaito delightfully deciding that Shuichi must clearly have a different problem to this that’s what he really wants to talk about. Perhaps the reason he decides that is because the problem of getting out of here isn’t something Kaito can actually help with other than being positive about it, so he wants to turn the conversation onto something he can help with.

Kaito:  “Your worry is my worry! My worry is your worry!”

Hee. He only says this once in canon, but I love that it’s here again. It is still so delightfully hypocritical.

Kaito:  “If I can ease your worries, mine will be eased too!”

This is extremely true and accurate, though. A lot more literally so than it would be for most friends who support each other, because almost all of Kaito’s own worries revolve around whether he’s able to help Shuichi with his. The best way for Kaito to feel better really is for him to know that Shuichi is okay and that he helped Shuichi be okay. The counterpoint to this, of course, is that if Kaito feels like he can’t ease Shuichi’s worries, then his own will only get worse.

In fact, this basically proves that when Kaito says “My worry is your worry,” he really is just thinking of it as another way of wording “Your worry is my worry”. He’s saying that what he worries about the most is how to help with whatever’s bothering Shuichi. That line is not and never was Kaito trying to actually claim that he’d be happy to share if he had problems of his own.

And even when Kaito does have worries entirely of his own, like when he’s dying in canon, the feeling of being able to support Shuichi means so much to him that it at least manages to distract him from his own worries and therefore sort of ease them in a sense. Though what that really ends up doing is making Kaito increasingly convinced that his own worries are insignificant next to Shuichi’s, which is incredibly not healthy and part of the reason he died.

Being stuck here

And finally, to finish off this post, a few of the hangouts actually reference the vague semblance of a “story” we’ve got going on by mentioning the fact that they’re trapped in here.

[Gym]

-      “Let’s renovate the place”

Kaito:  “What, you wanna make this place more comfortable or something? What if you start liking it here? Weren’t we gonna work together and escape this academy?”

It’s neat how Kaito makes this about escaping and warns Shuichi not to get too attached to this place.

I guess by “work together” to escape, given the context, Kaito’s specifically talking about how they’re working towards escaping by hanging out and becoming close enough friends with each other? (let’s keep pretending Monokuma mentioned platonic relationships at all, shush)

[Courtyard]

-      “I’ve gotten used to being here”

Kaito:  “Yeah, me too. But that doesn’t change the fact that I wanna escape!”

Despite the previous one that had Kaito asserting it’d be bad for Shuichi to get used to being here, in this one he’s willing to acknowledge that he’s done that too, even though he doesn’t like it.

Kaito:  “Life is short! I don’t have time to waste loafing around here.”

did you know Kaito’s parents died

Kaito:  “Don’t get complacent! If you start to enjoy a place like this, then you’ll never find new horizons!”

Here’s more of Kaito just having a generally Good outlook on life. People shouldn’t be telling themselves they’re okay with a situation that isn’t what they really want (just like Maki was doing before she met him), because then they’ll get stuck in that rut and never be able to get themselves out of it! And so, even though he is finding himself getting used to this place, Kaito’s determined not to let that stop him from wanting to move on and not look back once they get out of here.

[Courtyard]

-      “What a great view…”

Kaito:  “Really? I don’t think so. I mean, I’m the guy who’s gonna fly off into the universe. I can’t be content with a view like this. I gotta see bigger and better things!”

I’m going to assume this is meant as basically an extension of the idea that Kaito doesn’t want them to get used to being stuck here and not try to escape; the view from the Academy isn’t anything particularly special, after all. Because it’d be sad if Kaito wasn’t able to let himself enjoy some of the prettier views on Earth just because they’re not space. You can still enjoy a thing even if you know there’s an even better thing out there! Kaito is definitely the kind of person who should be able to understand that. There’s nothing unnecessary in this world!

(but also have I mentioned how very important it is that the rocket had a window)

[Courtyard]

-      “Staying here forever wouldn’t be so bad”

Kaito:  “Huh!? What the hell are you talking about!? No way we’re staying here forever! Even if you are my sidekick, I won’t let you off the hook for saying that!”

This one reads to me less like Kaito’s trying to encourage Shuichi to be less defeatist and more like Kaito is angry on his own behalf. It’s almost as if Shuichi is trying to tell him to give up on getting out of here. Hey, Kaito, what’s so great about space anyway? Maybe you should just never go there after all.

(This is the last of the rare absolute worst outcomes. Kaito does not approve of having this idea suggested to him, and his sidekick should obviously have known better than to try and make him be okay with giving up like this.)

And while you might think Kaito is so optimistic that the thought of staying here forever would never have even occurred to him, it is a thought that’s been plaguing him, even though he’d never admit it out loud. More on that next time when we reach the main event here.

[timeoutforthee]

Like It or Not-Chapter 20

Taglist: @itsausernamenotafobsong, @sea-blue-child, @iaminmultiplefandoms, @princeanxious, @uwillbeefoundtonight, @zaidiashipper, @arandompasserby, @levyredfox3, @falsett0, @error-i-dunno-what-went-wrong, @scrapbookofsketches, @podcastsandcoffee, @helloisthisusernametaken, @amuthefunperson, @michealawithana, @yamihatarou, @heck-im-lost, @unlikelynightmareconnoisseur, @idkaurl, @bubblycricket, @fnp-alizay, @neonbluetiefling, @comicsimpson, @a-little-bit-of-ace

Summary: Logan, Patton, Roman, and Virgil are all struggling in their recovery. Their doctors, Thomas Sanders and Emile Picani think they can help each other out.

Aka Group Therapy AU

Trigger Warnings:  purging (skip from "why did he bother?" to "are you okay?"), reference to child abuse

Read it on AO3!

“How’d your session go?” Violet asks. She always asks, as soon as Virgil shuts the door to the car, before he can put on his headphones. He never answers with anything besides-

“Fine,” he says, immediately pulling out his iPod. Then he pauses.

Violet glances over at him as they pull out of the parking lot.

“I mean…,” Virgil wants to put it off. A part of him wants to think that if he puts it off enough, he might just forget. But he knows better.

Like a band-aid, he tells himself, Just rip it off.

“It went better than the last session,” Virgil admits.

“Really?” Violet asks, trying to keep her tone steady, “What happened last session?”

A part of her tells her not to press, that it’s going to end in a growl and silence, but instead Virgil sighs.

“I told Dr. Picani about Dad.”

“Really?” she still keeps her tone steady, though she’s having a much more difficult time now.

“Not everything,” Virgil says quickly, “But you know...I told him that Dad used to hit me.”

Violet thinks back. She doesn’t think Virgil has said those words out loud to anyone, ever. Not even her, even though she obviously knew.

“I haven’t told anyone else, not even the guys in group, maybe I will eventually, but I-” Virgil cuts himself off, shoving his iPod back in his pocket. If he was going to do this, he had to commit.

“I still don’t like to tell people,” he admits, “Like it was the secret I had to protect, to take to the grave, and now there’s no point.” And it’s my fault.

Violet’s heart twists at how loyal Virgil still is to his dad. She knows how hard it is to walk away, to stay away, to realize they let you down, and in such a cruel way. A part of her brain latches on to “to take to the grave,” and she wonders if Virgil was planning on that being soon.

“It’s amazing you felt comfortable enough to tell him,” she says, tucking all that away for now.

“I wouldn’t call it amazing-”

“I would,” Violet says, immediately, offering no room for argument.

“So, you said this session was easier, what did you talk about this time?”

“Goals, mostly,” he says, “And Roman was talking about his brother, about how he was trying...and it kinda made me think about you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah...look,” Virgil tugs a hand through his hair. “I know you’re trying. A lot harder than should be expected of you, and I...I really appreciate it. Even though I don’t show it. It’s just...hard for me. It’s hard and I don’t know why.”

“I appreciate you saying that,” Violet says, “But the thing I want you to understand is I want to try this hard, whether it “should be” expected or not, you’ve been through a lot-”

“It wasn’t that bad-”

“You’ve been through a lot,” she repeats, using her “I’m not fucking around” voice, “And...I could’ve made it easier all those years ago, and I didn’t,” she swallows, still attempting to keep her voice even. The last thing Virgil needs is for her to start crying on him, “And I can’t go back and fix that. The best thing I can do now is be here for you, when you’re ready.”

They pull into the apartment complex and she glances over at Virgil. He finally tears his eyes away from the front window and looks back at her. They sit there a second, and Virgil smiles at her.

“Thanks,” he says, simply, and with that, they head upstairs.

^

He should have said no, he should have said no, what the fuck was he thinking-

“Roman, are you okay?” Max asks, as he climbs into the driver’s seat.

“Fine,” his voice shakes.

Max thought it would be a good idea to go out for dinner, since everyone at home had probably already eaten. Roman was also pretty sure this was his form of an apology for their previous conversation, so how could he say no? He thought he could handle it, he had handled the pizza before. He’d probably find something on the menu that was at least a bit healthy.

But when the food came there was just so much of it. He felt like everyone was staring at him. He should have saved some, but he was just so hungry. He could feel everyone’s eyes staring at him while he ate, he must have looked like an animal.

“Are you sure?” Max asks, “You barely ate anything during dinner.”

….what?

“I just...don’t feel so great,” Roman says. It’s not a complete lie. His goal for the week flashes in his head, but he can’t do that. Not yet.

“Okay, well,” Max says, pulling out of the parking lot. “We’re only about fifteen minutes from home.”

Thankfully, those fifteen minutes pass quickly, and when they get home, Roman bolts up the stairs to the bathroom.

He’s sweating. He can still taste it on his tongue, and it fills him with regret. Why did he bother?

A thought comes to him. He has to get rid of it. He has to.

Before he can think about it too much, he turns to the toilet and shoves his finger back his throat. The response is almost immediate.

Better is not the word Roman would use to describe how he’s feeling. Gross is probably more accurate, but to be fair, he felt gross before, too. So, this scenario was definitely better.

“Ro?”

Oh, shit.

“Are you okay?” Max calls, because of course it’s fucking Max. “I thought I heard you throwing up.”

Roman flushes to give himself time to think. Then he washes his hands to stall even longer. Then he pauses for just a little longer, hoping he can maybe wait him out. But, nope, when he opens the door, Max is still standing there.

“Are you okay?” he repeats, his hand going to Roman’s forehead. Roman shoves his hand away.

“Who are you? Mom? I’m fine,” Roman says, trying to brush it off quickly. “I guess the food just wasn’t that great.”

“...oh,” Max says, as if he’s disappointed, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Roman says, trying to reassure him. “It happens.”

“You’re right, it just sucks,” Max says, turning back down the hall. He’s about to disappear down the stairs when he pauses and turns around, “But you’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Roman says, smiling.

^

Here’s the thing: Patton loves everybody. And he doesn’t get hung up on shallow things, like appearances. He loves everybody, and he loves everybody’s body. Whether they were thin or fat, or tall or short, covered in freckles or clear-skinned, he thought everyone was beautiful.

Everyone, that is, except for himself.

When it came to himself, he hated everything.

“Patton?” Thomas asks. Patton snaps his head up and immediately smiles. “I asked what you like about yourself. What are some things you can think about for your affirmations?”

“I don’t know, doc, don’t you think affirmations are a little silly?”

“No,” his therapist responds, uncharacteristically serious, “I think they work.”

“Oh...okay, well-how do they work?”

“It’s an attempt to retrain your brain, right now you probably have a lot of shame and such surrounding yourself, and you can talk badly to yourself, so affirmations are a way to add positivity back to that mix, to try and even out the playing field a bit.”

“Ah, so what if I don’t talk badly to myself?”

“Well, then I would have to ask why you’re bingeing and purging in the first place?”

“I haven’t done that!” Patton lies, “Not recently, anyway.”

“I’m sorry, I misspoke, why did you start bingeing and purging in the first place?”

And, really, Patton can’t remember, it’s been so long.

“I...don’t remember.”

“Okay, I know it’s been a while, but try and think back to when you were using these behaviors. How’d you feel right before they happened?”

“I don’t think I was feeling much of anything,” It’s not a lie. Patton always feels numb when he starts. Then regret sets in after.

“Then let’s start here,” Thomas says, turning to grab a binder. As he flips through the pages, he continues talking, “Because numbness is not the lack of emotion. It’s what happens when you’re feeling so overwhelmed that your defense is to shut it all down.”

“Really?”

“Yep,” Thomas says, “Here it is. There are other emotions we can look at, but I think that this one may be the most accurate.”

At the top of the worksheet, the title is “Shame.”

As Patton reads through the “symptoms,” he finds that more and more fit when he wakes up at night, right before he binges.

“You see, in the simplest terms, shame is when we feel like we’ve done something bad, and therefore we are a bad person.”

“So, what would I do?”

Thomas flips a few more pages and lands on one that says “Check the facts.”

“You would do this,” he says, “You would see if your emotions and intensity fit the facts.”

“And if they didn’t…?”

“You would do the opposite action, which is exposing the thing that you think you should be ashamed of, in a safe space, where people won’t reject you,” Thomas says. “Here, let’s break it down a little bit.”

Thomas lays out all the different ways to interpret an action, about how you would check the facts objectively, but the trick is you have to be honest about the way you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it.

“So, in theory, if I were still bingeing and purging, this could stop it?”

“DBT and CBT is helpful for many patients, so I think it’s worth a try,” Thomas says, “And you have plenty of people who are safe to talk to, Patton. You have me, the group, and your mom. Do you think you could talk to one of them if you’re feeling ashamed?”

“I...I guess I could,” Patton goes quiet, “Hey, Dr. Sanders?” his voice quivers a bit.

“Yes?”

“I...I lied. I’m sorry. But I haven’t stopped. I never stopped.”

A few tears fall down his face. He’s met with silence, so he looks up and sees his therapist giving him a gentle smile.

“That’s okay, Patton,” he says, “We can work on it.”

Patton takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. “Okay.”

[cards-onthetable]

An Elusive Computer Post

Y’all, 99.999% of the time, I exist on my phone and tablet. It’s very rare that I do any Fandom Stuff or social media on my laptop. But tonight, after This Episode, I had to break out the big guns. I need to be able to type as fast as my brain screams words. tl;dr: EVERYTHING IS THE WORST AND I HATE IT. Hey I’ll do a fun little page break so you don’t have to scroll past this whole thing if you don’t want to. How nice of me. 

Erin

OPENING SCENE AND ERIN’S ALREADY YELLING AT PEOPLE. COOL. 

JUST DON’T with this foster parent (allegedly) killing a foster child thing. Foster parents have enough of a negative perception as it is... a foster parent who “cracked” and killed a child in her care certainly won’t help. And I know this won’t turn into a well-done, thoughtful Discourse on the lack of support and resources for foster parents who are caring for children with complex needs. So I hate it. 

I’m so, so, so sad for this child.

Sidenote re: Sam saying “I’ve already got a mom” (explaining why he didn’t call his foster parent “mom”) - okay, BB, one actual sensitive portrayal here, thumbs up. 

Welp Erin’s boss is an asshole but so’s everyone else on this show. What else is new? 

And now Sam is locked out of his new foster home. Another nice tally in the Negative Portrayal column. This is disgusting. His appreciation for his previous foster parent is obvious (this kid’s a ten times better actor than fucking Will “Dead Face” Estes at this point) and I hate this entire concept. At least the show’s portrayal of the child in foster care himself is positive. 

Now Sam’s at Anthony’s house and this is off topic, but for half a second can we appreciate that Sam is also a bajillion times better at apologies than Jamie Reagan? Nice. 

If Anthony becomes Sam’s foster parent I will be SO ANNOYED. One, because I’m sure the show won’t even hint at an accurate process - it’ll be insta-parent, Anthony walks into some caseworker’s office and walks out with physical custody of a child (fun fact: it takes three months or longer to get licensed as a foster parent). Two, because it’s kind of another blow to the reputation of foster parents that this episode is painting - like the only suitable foster parent in a whole city of veteran, trained, experienced FPs is this newbie? This does not taste good. 

This is a cute scene. Rather than Anthony being Sam’s foster parent, how about he becomes his mentor? 

OH. NICE. EXACTLY WHAT I DIDN’T WANT. “I’m going to sign the papers later today. I’m going to foster Sam myself.” Can we please get some follow-up on this, BB? Let’s please see Anthony trying to navigate the waters of parenting a teenager who likely has attachment-related diagnoses and other challenges. Is Anthony going to get trauma-informed care training? Or is he just going to wing it and hope that it’s all magical and swell? Does he have a sensitive, non-snarky bone in his body? I’m on the edge of my seat. (LOL @ Erin being the voice of reason here.)

OH. WHOA WHOA WHOA. “It’s not like I always wanted a son, but one came knocking and I answered the door.” Remember that line above where Sam reminded us that he has a mom? Do you understand why this line made me gag? There’s a fine line you walk as a foster parent, where you’re performing all the duties of parenting this child as if they’re your own - but you have to remember and be sensitive to the fact that they’re not. Kids in foster care are a package deal, yo, they come with a whole other family too. For teenagers this is an especially important Issue. 

This entire storyline was terrible. 0/10. 

Fat Shaming (Frank and co)

Poor Witten, you guys. That is awful and terrible and dangerous that her partner can’t even make it up 4 flights of stairs. “I’m here and you’re fine” - but what if she wasn’t? 

Did Sid Gormley just use the word “fat shaming” and argue that physical fitness does not affect a cop’s ability to do their job? 

Cops who are on the beat should be able to pass a fairly high standard for physical fitness. The end, basically.

Family dinner (tossed in here due to the topic of conversation): Seriously? Henry’s going to talk about it being discrimination to require cops to meet a physical fitness standard that is a pretty basic aspect of their ability to do their job? Nice. 

Oh, magical, Frank has come up with a Compromise that Makes Everybody Happy. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. 

Danny

TBH I hardly noticed this storyline at all. I’m much too busy angrily scribbling all of the examples of Dismissive Jamie on my whiteboard. Oh well, win some lose some. 

Jamko

The way Jamie brushes Eddie off during this whole New Partner Discussion is gross. Refer to yesterday’s Two Pronged Complaint for the details. 

The Biggest Issues: Jamie minimizing Eddie’s experience on the job, and being too protective of her/failing to be an objective boss. Et cetera. 

“wHaT eLsE dOn’T I kNoW?” suck a dick, Jamie Reagan.  

Peep those obviously empty coffee cups that probably have a piece of dry ice at the bottom to make the “steam.” A+. 

I’m going to keep track of how many times “female empowerment” is said in this episode. I’ll keep you updated. 

So this “fraternal organization” that we’ve all been so stressed about Eddie joining is...basically a women’s intramural sports league? LOLOL so I’m super excited to watch Jamie sputter about how Joe died playing softball* and therefore Eddie shouldn’t join. 

LOOK AT EDDIE. She is legitimately excited about the idea of playing softball, dude. That smile is as much personality as we’ve gotten out of her all season. CAN’T WAIT TO WATCH JAMIE “WET BLANKET” REAGAN SNUFF THAT RIGHT OUT. 

This ~date night~ situation is hilarious in a Young Childless Couple way. 

OH, so NOW Jamie’s interested in a legitimate conversation with Eddie, engaged and responding... with questions in a demanding, rude tone? I’m so annoyed at his whole handling of the Eddie’s-new-partner thing.

GOD why is everything a Female Empowerment Thing? Can’t women just... enjoy playing sports? 

OH HERE’S WHERE IT GETS FUN HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS 

BAD IDEA

YOU’RE ABOUT TO BECOME A REAGAN

THAT’S A NO-GO

NOW YOU’RE JUST BEING STUBBORN

“No, I’m being astonished that my fiancé is trying to tell me what I can and cannot do” SAME, EDDIE 

I’m so angry that the scene cuts off there. Did they just go about their stupid dinner date with this Tension floating palpably in the air between them? Did Eddie pull out an “I think I’ll sleep at my place tonight” and stalk away in that red? satin? dress? ? I hope she poured his stupid ON TAP IPA (objectively the worst type of beer, btw) down his shirt and walked out. 

I AM SO SAD watching this scene of Eddie backing out of softball. 

“I’m not much of a joiner” is a DUMB RIDICULOUS LINE and Eddie says it TWICE, folks. 

Witten doesn’t bring up Jamie at all - I therefore assume she doesn’t know Eddie’s a Future Reagan (which is a whole other issue, but anyway.) . Witten thinks Eddie’s backing out so as to avoid associating with Witten. So I assume Witten’s intentions with the softball invite were totally pure. IMAGINE THAT! A woman who wants to be friends with another woman, one who she works with and respects and wants to get to know better! With no ulterior motive! Someone please hit Jamie Reagan in the nostril with a dart. 

I like Witten more and more. Can we replace all the Reagan storylines with Witten, Sam, and Old Eddie in dark jeans and a studded jacket?

A LAUNDROMAT? ONE: Shouldn’t Jamie, as A Reagan, have laundry in his building?* TWO: It he didn’t, why wouldn’t they do laundry for free at Frank’s house every week?*

I CAN SMELL THE TENSION and I am legitimately curious how they’ve coexisted between the date and now. How’s that working out, hmm - that “keeping work and home separate” thing? 

“I DIDN’T TELL YOU TO, I ASKED” says Jamie. Shall we go back a few bullet points to when he told her it’s a “no-go”? 

I NEED TO KNOW WHAT ELSE I NEED TO KNOW - Same, Eddie. Do I really need to reiterate how ridiculous this whole thing is - that they’re engaged without dating, and now finding out that maybe there’s a reason people date first, even if they’re best friends, because this is the kind of stuff you work out before you start shopping for your dress.

“Are we talking, or are we just talking smack?” SOME ACCUSATION from the dumbass who said ALL THE THINGS IN THOSE BULLETS UP ABOVE. 

Finally, for once, Eddie is voicing some real and legitimate concerns. Are we going to get any sort of resolution or mature adult discussion of these things? NOPE! 

Did he seriously just tell her to cut it out? I hate him so much. I hope somebody duct tapes him to the front of those washer/dryers and pulls out each individual eyebrow hair with tweezers. 

This laundromat scene just exemplifies so many of the issues I’ve been rage blogging about all damn season. Jamie ultimately brushing off Eddie’s concerns without ever giving her real answers. Not having the respect for her to even take her thoughts into account. Barking orders like he knows it all, and Eddie isn’t capable of making her own decisions. At least this time that’s the actual point of the scene rather than the nasty subtext. 

EDDIE AND DANNY SCENE: I’m actually surprised that this is the first time Joe has been mentioned. Watching the sneak peek I figured Jamie’s main argument against Eddie joining an organization would be that it’s what got his brother killed (being vague, obviously, since Eddie clearly didn’t know the details). Not that it’s improper As A Reagan. I hoped the context of the episode would make me feel a little better about this scene but it just feels even more out of place and poorly/choppily written. I like Eddie and Danny together - I’d like them to interact more. But this didn’t do it for me. Gotta meet that Joe Mention Quota* on the season, I guess. 

FINAL SCENE: in summary, FUCK THIS. 

Sidenote: When is someone going to get suspicious @ how often Eddie gets pulled into Sarge’s office? 

For the record, I anticipated an eye-rolly “Ohhkay, maybe I overreacted...” speech. 

WHAT WE GOT FELL BELOW EVEN THAT VERY LOW BAR. 

Jamie explains himself. Fine, he has a right to do that, and it’s constructive in helping Eddie understand the man she’s about to marry (god don’t even remind me). BUT HE DOES NOT ADMIT ANY WRONGDOING. 

THERE IS NO APOLOGY

THERE IS NO ADMISSION THAT HE MADE MISTAKES in how he spoke to her, ordered her around, and didn’t even stop for eight seconds to listen to what she had to say

THERE IS NOT EVEN THE VERY MINIMAL “I overreacted” type of acknowledgment. 

“So maybe if I forget sometimes, you can remind me” THIS IS GROSS TOO because it essentially puts the burden on Eddie to teach/remind Jamie how to HAVE AN ADULT CONVERSATION AND NOT BE AN ASS. He could AT LEAST take responsibility for his own improvement in the Future. 

Eddie said literally two words in this entire scene. There was no mutual understanding, no real agreement, no genuine Development in their relationship. 

THIS IS NOT A SATISFACTORY RESOLUTION TO THIS CONFLICT. 

This episode is called Rectify but NOTHING HAS BEEN RECTIFIED. 

ALSO, this seems like an awfully Personal conversation to be having in uniform, Sarge. Are they even trying anymore? 

HE JUST THREW A SOFTBALL GLOVE AT HER. Is that supposed to be... sweet? Touching? An admission of guilt/mistake/wrongdoing? TRY AGAIN, BB. NONE OF THE ABOVE. 

WELL. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you’re as disgruntled as I am. Seems like plenty of y’all were quite unhappy with this episode as well. I’m enjoying your tweets and sadness. I’ve been the queen of this club for almost a year now. Welcome, make yourselves comfortable, there’s plenty of ice cream in the freezer. Just don’t sit on the far end of the couch. That’s my dog’s favorite spot. 

*These four hilarious lines were taken from two important Outside Sources. Thanks for your contribution, Outside Sources. 

[lancetuckershairgel]

The Family Secret: A Superfamily AU

Eleanor is forced to face Steve when he returns home unexpectedly from his mission. Loki takes Eleanor to a Broadway play despite Steve’s objection.

Loki and I had a nice time at The Bean Tap, a hole in the wall hipster coffee shop close to school. We discussed the current books we’re reading, the ones for leisure not school, and both realized that we like different time periods better than the one we are currently in. I sipped my latte as I listened to him go on about Shakespeare and he drank his coffee, which he took black, as I went into detail about Gone With the Wind, one of my favorite novels that he hadn’t read. When it was time for both of us to go home, we exchanged numbers and parted. I headed down West 42nd Street, toward our towering home and realized as I approached the door that I hadn’t stopped smiling since I left the coffee shop.

Loki wasn’t like a lot of the boys in our school. He seemed mature, confident, slightly arrogant, and knowledgeable about things other than the latest Vines and sports. We had a lot of things in common too, from our love of historical fiction to our view on current events going on in the country. It was nice to have someone my age to share these things with, and I had to admit he was pretty cute. I had never been interested in boys much, mostly because they were all immature dorks like my brother, but my dad was always over protective of me. He prefered that I focused on my studies and get into a good college instead of boys. He’d find something wrong with any boy at school Peter said had an interest in me, therefore I couldn’t have an interest in them.

I sighed blissfully as I walked through the front door. I entered the large living room and stopped short, greeted by a group of people. Peter, Tony, Happy, and Pepper were there, but so were my Aunt Natasha, Uncle Clint, Rhodey and my dad.

“Oh…hi” I said, swallowing as I looked at my father who was leaning against the door frame.

“I thought you’d be happier to see me, Sweetheart” Dad said, smiling at me

“Oh..of course I am I just wasn’t expecting you to be home already” I stammered

I recovered quickly and pushed all of my raging emotions down deep. Now wasn’t the time to bring up anything and I didn’t want to act suspicious. I walked up to my dad and gave him a hug, wrapping my arms around his neck as he pulled me to him tightly. I closed my eyes and for a moment it felt like it was just the two of us in the room. I felt tears form in my eyes and I blinked them away. I had so many questions for him, many I had already made up answers to which caused a slew of negative emotions. I held onto him for a minute longer, knowing that the hug might be the last one we’d share. I finally let go and wiped my eyes before quickly going over to Clint to give him a hug.

“Hey, doll”

My uncle gave me a quick kiss on the top of my head before I moved on to my aunt and finally to Rhodey. I sat down next to Peter and half listened to the adults talk to each other, half thinking about how I was going to bring up the birth certificate to Dad. I realized that I hadn’t put it back in his office yet and quietly left to go upstairs. I went into my bedroom and opened my desk drawer. My eyes lingered on the piece of paper for a moment before I picked it up and quickly ran it to the office. Once it was back in it’s place, I made sure the office door was closed and went back to my room. I pulled out my phone and saw I had a text from Loki.

“I really enjoyed our date today. I do hope it’s alright that I call it that.”

My mouth was agape as I read the words, and I felt myself blushing. I bit my lip as I typed a reply.

“I enjoyed it too. I’m not sure if that counts as a date, maybe we should have a real one?”

“What am I doing?” I said aloud after I hit send

“Talking to yourself” Peter said from the doorway

I jumped and threw my phone under my pillow. Why, I don’t know.

“You ok?” Peter asked as he joined me on the bed

“I’m fine”

“I can tell when you’re lying” Peter raised his eyebrows

“It’s girl stuff” I lied

“Oh. Ew” Peter’s wrinkled

“Not that girl stuff.” I hit his shoulder

“Oh.” Peter said with relief “So like, boys?”

“Maybe.”

“Ooooh” Peter grinned

“Shut up.” I hit him again “And don’t tell Dad”

“I won’t”

“I’m serious Peter”

“I said I won’t. Sheesh. Anyway, pizza’s here”

I grabbed my phone and went downstairs to the dining room. Pizza boxes were spread out across the table with paper plates at each seat, obviously placed by Pepper because of the way the napkins were properly folded and set on beside them. I sat down at my usual spot and grabbed a slice of Hawaiian.

“How was school today, kids?” Dad asked as everyone else came into the room and began to sit down

“It was ok” Peter said as he grabbed four slices of various pizza

“El? How was your day?” Dad asked me

“It was fine.” I said, looking down at my plate

“Volleyball practice?” he continued

“Fine.” I said again

“She got hit in the face with the ball” Peter said

“How do you know that?” I looked at him

“MmmJaahh” he shrugged

“Peter, seriously kid, swallow your food before you speak” Tony shook his head

“Sorry.” Peter said after he swallowed “MJ told me”

“Of course she did” I rolled my eyes and bit into my pizza

“You weren’t with MJ after practice?” Dad asked puzzled

“Crap” I thought to myself

“She had a date!” Peter said cheerfully, apparently our conversation moments ago already forgotten

“A what?” Dad asked

“Oh boy” Tony’s hand instantly went to his face as he rolled his eyes

“Oops” Peter said as he quickly shoved more pizza into his mouth to prevent himself from saying something else

“It wasn’t a date” I said defensively “I just had coffee with a friend”

“What friend? Was it a boy?”

“Here we go” Clint muttered and Dad shot him a glare

“Yes, it was a boy.” I sighed “He’s new at school and I was being friendly. We discussed literature”

“I don’t like it” Dad said, but let it go

I quickly finished my pizza and excused myself from the table. I ran back upstairs to my room and closed the door. I made a mental note to kill Peter in his sleep later and pulled out my phone, reading another text from Loki.

“I would very much like to take you out on a proper date. Are you available Friday night? Are there any Broadway plays you’d like to see?”

I couldn’t believe his idea of a first date was Broadway. Those tickets were crazy expensive and hard to get a hold of on short notice.

“I’d love to see Anastasia, but I wouldn’t expect you to want to see that. Are there any that interest you?”

“Anastasia sounds wonderful. I will pick you up at six thirty. Goodnight, Eleanor.”

I immediately called MJ and we spent the rest of the evening talking about what was to come Friday night. She agreed to come over after school, as she and Ned always did on Fridays, and help me get ready.

It seemed like it took weeks for Friday to finally arrive. Between school, avoiding my dad as much as I could without it being obvious that something was wrong, and the anticipation of my first date, time went by painfully slow. I practically dragged MJ all the way home from school Friday afternoon, and we ran straight to my room. We began throwing clothes out of the closet and onto my bed, trying to find the right outfit to wear. I settled on a knee length red dress that I had bought around Christmas when I went to a work party with Dad. It was cute, but classy, and paired great with my black pumps. As MJ worked on curling my hair while I did my makeup she asked me all sorts of questions.

“Are you going to kiss him?”

“I don’t know” “I wonder what kind of car he has...or are you taking the subway?”

“I hope we don’t take the subway. Not in this dress”

“If you do kiss him are you going to slip him tongue?”

“Oh my god, MJ, stop!”

“What? I’m just asking”

When six thirty drew near, I began to get nervous. What if Tony and Dad were in the living room when I went to leave? Should I go out the back door and through the alley? Will we really be taking the subway?

MJ noticed that I was nervous and asked if I was afraid of getting caught. I admitted I was but then a rebellious spirit rose up inside of me and I became determined that I didn’t care if Dad found out. I was sixteen. I was a Sophmore in highschool and my grades were good. I wasn’t planning on sleeping with Loki. I was mature and responsible. It was time I went on a date. Besides, he could possibly have been lying to me for the last sixteen years and that made me angry at him.

“Glad I’m not Steve’s kid” MJ said as she popped some sour gummies into her mouth

“I might not be either” I reminded her, half joking

“True. What’s happening with that?” she asked

“Nothing.” I shrugged as I stuck an earring through my ear lobe “I don’t know what to say to him”

Six twenty came and I decided that it was time to go downstairs. If I could get through the front door without being noticed, I’d wait for Loki on the front stoop. MJ and I walked down the hallway and I thanked the stars that Peter’s door was closed. We could hear him and Ned yelling at whatever video game they were playing and I knew that I would be safe from his blabbing mouth. We quietly descended the stairs and MJ poked her head around the corner to see if the coast was clear.

“Dude. Your dads are watching a movie”

“Crap” I said under my breath and pressed my back against the wall

“And they’re cuddling. Gross”

I ignored her comment. I didn’t want Loki to arrive and ring the buzzer, so I had to think of something quick.

“If we walk fast maybe they won’t notice that I’m dressed up and you’re not” I said

“Your funeral” MJ shrugged

We bolted toward the door. Well, MJ bolted, I walked as fast as I could in heels. I had made it past Dad and Tony on the couch and was almost to the front door. I breathed a sigh of relief as my hand went for the handle.

“Where are you two heading?” Tony asked

“So close” MJ whispered “Well, see ya”

MJ ran out of the door and I slowly turned around. Both of them were turned on the couch, facing me. I had to think quick because I could see Dad looking at my outfit and piecing things together.

“I’m going out” I said

“Where are you going wearing that?”

“To see Anastasia.”

“Did you get tickets?” Dad turned to Tony who shook his head

“I’m going with a friend, and I’m going to be late”

“What friend?” Dad asked “Is it that boy you were with Wednesday?”

“Screw it” I said to myself, feeling a burst of defiance rush over me again

“Yes, actually, it is, and his name is Loki.”

“Loki?” Tony laughed

“You’re not going anywhere” Dad stood up from the couch

“Steve…” Tony groaned “We were having a nice night”

“Yes, I am” I said as my shoulders stiffened

“Young lady..” Dad began, crossing his arms and furrowing his eyebrows in disappointment

“I don’t understand why I can’t go. I’m sixteen. I’m a good kid” I exclaimed

“Exactly. You’re a kid” Dad said, stepping closer to me

“I’m not a little kid, though. I can take care of myself. I’m mature and responsible” I protested “Why don’t you trust me?”

“It’s not you that I don’t trust. I know what teenage boys want”

“You don’t know Loki”

“You’ve got to stop saying his name” Tony said, unable to hide his amused smirk

“I’m going to the play” I said as I turned around

“No you’re not” Dad said

I turned back around and saw that he had began walking closer to me.

“Yes. I. Am.” I said

“Listen, young lady!” Dad raised his voice

“No you listen!” my voice raised louder “I am going on this date and you can’t stop me!”

Dad blinked and took a step back. He looked at Tony who just shrugged. By this time Peter and Ned had come downstairs and Pepper and Happy had emerged from their quarters to see what the fuss was about.

“Don’t ever talk to me in that tone of voice again, Eleanor” Dad said “I’m your father and-”

“No you’re not!” I laughed sarcastically

“Excuse me?” Dad asked

“Wait, what?” Peter asked

“Oh shit.” Tony said

“What did you just say?” Dad asked, his brows now raised like they do when he’s surprised

“You heard me. I said you’re not my father”

I spun on my heel and walked as quickly as I could out the door and down the sidewalk. Loki had just stepped out of a black sedan and was making his way toward me with a smile.

“Let’s go. Hurry” I said as I let myself into his car

Confused, Loki got into the drivers side and we pulled away from the curb as Dad was walking down the front steps. I looked in the side mirror to see him and Tony standing on the sidewalk. As we made our distance away from the building, I saw Dad lean into Tony’s chest.