#But I don't.... actually feel like they told that story. The mere existence of the pieces doesn't mean that is the story being told.

[wardensantoineandevka]

this is relevant to a lot of fanspaces, but I'm feeling it most with CritRole C3 right now, though it applies to a lot of other works too: I feel like a lot of fans mistake "the work had the potential to expound on XYZ themes and tell a narrative about such-and-such with these particular building blocks" for the work actually telling that narrative and working with those themes

the building blocks merely existing in a text does not necessarily mean that the text has that particular narrative at all, let alone is telling that narrative well. a lot of the time, a text has the potential for it but is not using those elements to actually tell that story and is just plain ol' missed opportunity

[marcyvamp1re-blog]

i don't know if you do platonic yanderes , but I want to request how platonic yandere gambit would be with a darling

BLACK SHEEP.

pairings ⸺ Yandere! Remy LeBeau x Mutant! Reader. (Platonic Fic)

¿Request? Yes!

This is a Headcanon!

warnings ⸺ mdni! Dark themes, violence/death, blood, insolation, invasion of privacy, scars, delusion, Angst, ¿OOC Gambit? Idk, fights, Disturbing Content, Unhealthy Obsession, Gaslight, Mental Illness, Corruption, Isolation, Paranoia, Manipulation.

sinopsis ⸺ Marked by a past of solitude and betrayal, his affection for you is a poisonous blend of devotion and control, always teetering on the edge between tenderness and obsession. For Remy, you are everything, his only family, and losing you would mean his ruin... so he will do whatever it takes to keep you by his side, even if it means locking you in a cage made of his possessive love.

A/N ── English is not my first language—Spanish is—Thank you for placing the order! I really appreciate your trust and enthusiasm. Your support means a lot to me, and I’m excited to work on it. If you have any specific ideas or details you'd like to include, please feel free to let me know.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... actually knew who you were before you even exchanged a glance. Charles Xavier, Beast, and Logan talked about you often, in conversations filled with worry and caution. Your destructive powers had isolated you, and it was a tragic accident that took your parents' lives while they tried to protect you from yourself. That story resonated with him. A broken soul, chained to a gift that society did not understand nor could accept. Remy was always drawn to broken things; they were like pieces of a puzzle he needed to complete. The first time he saw you, hidden among the bushes in the garden, covered in dirt and fear, his heart beat faster. He knew that the moment he reached you, he would never let you go.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... was not intimidated by the hurtful words you threw at him, desperate attempts to make him leave, to protect him from you and what you were capable of. “Don’t touch me!” you shouted, with tears that dared not fall from your eyes. But he did not move. Instead, he smiled softly, that mischievous, almost playful smile that hid a dark depth that few could see. “Cher, Gambit isn’t going anywhere. You don’t scare me. In fact, I think you and I are more alike than you think.” The words sounded soft, almost hypnotic, as if they were designed to disarm you. And, little by little, they began to work.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... slipped into your life without you realizing, appearing in the most mundane moments, when you tried to find a bit of peace in the chaos of your existence. At first, he did it subtly: he listened as you lamented about your family and your life before your mutation, his jacket over your shoulders when the cold hit you, or staying with you in that corner. He made sure you saw him as someone trustworthy, someone who wouldn’t back away out of fear. But always, in the background, there was something more. A glimmer in his eyes that told you his presence was not merely accidental, that he was watching.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... used his story to soften you, to connect with you on that deeper level that always seemed inaccessible. He knew you were broken inside, hurt by the loss of your parents and consumed by fear of your own power, so little by little, he began to open up. He told you how he too had been an outsider, an orphaned boy raised on the streets of New Orleans. How he had been rejected even by those who took him in, feared for his own gift, a gift he could not control either. “Tu sais, I wasn’t always like this, chérie,” he would say with a melancholic smile, as his fingers played with a deck of cards. “Everything i am now is because Gambit had to learn to survive. In this world, if you don’t have anyone, you are nothing.” And with every story he shared, you felt the wall you had built begin to crack. Remy, with his soft words and warm gaze, was slowly digging into that shell you had fought so hard to maintain.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... made you feel less alone, but never in the way you desired. He knew when you were about to break, and there he was, holding you before you could fall. “You can’t get rid of me so easily, chérie,” he whispered as his hands found yours, strong but gentle. He made you feel safe, but there was something suffocating about his constant presence, something you could not name.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... began to take up more space in your life, even in your most painful moments. When your nightmares woke you up at night, sweaty and echoing with the explosions that never stopped resonating in your mind, he was there. You didn’t ask how he knew you were awake, nor why he was always so close. But his touch, his soft words, wrapped around you until the terror dissipated, only for another kind of unease to grow in its place. “You’re never going to be alone again, Gambit promise you,” he said, almost like a vow.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... started to make you doubt everything. When you tried to pull away, when you wanted to put distance between your destructive powers and those around you, he whispered in your ear: “No one else is going to understand you like I do, chérie. No one else can bear what you carry inside.” His words sank into you like sweet poison, until the idea of being without him began to seem more terrifying than the idea of destroying everything around you. Who else could face your power? Who else would keep loving you after everything you had lost?

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... carefully decided who you could associate with, selecting only those he considered “safe.” He encouraged you to get close to Jubilee, with her sparkling and carefree energy, because he knew that she posed no threat to his control. “Elle est bonne pour ti, chérie. She has a good heart,” he would say when you saw her, and little by little you convinced yourself that he just wanted what was best for you. Ororo was also welcome in your little circle; her calm, motherly nature made him feel that she was not a dangerous influence. And of course, Rogue was always nearby, though you could never shake the feeling of tension between her and Remy. He justified her presence by saying they were old friends, but there was something in the way he looked at her when you were around that made Rogue keep her distance, while Morph, Bobby, and others like them were completely off-limits.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... whispered words of comfort in your ear when your darkest memories suffocated you. “It wasn’t your fault, chérie. Your parents didn’t know what they were doing, but I did. I would never leave you.” And though those words should have eased you, there was something in his tone that made you feel trapped, as if there were no escape from the invisible cage he was building around you.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... didn’t want you to associate with people who could “corrupt” your view of the world. Bobby tried to talk to you once, casually, while you were in the kitchen. His easy smile and relaxed nature made you laugh, something that didn’t happen often. But it wasn’t long before Remy noticed. “What was he doing with you, huh?” His tone was as smooth as a knife's edge, his eyes burning with something you hadn’t seen before. “I don’t like you getting close to him.” And though you knew that wasn’t true, you felt the coldness of his control wrap around you. The situation exploded when Remy and Bobby ended up in a violent fight, sharp words and barely veiled threats exchanged until Jean and Scott had to separate them. You, however, saw him as a friend, someone who could help you forget for a while how dangerous you were. But over time, even Bobby began to avoid you, and the few friendships you had dwindled down to those Remy approved of.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... enjoyed the simple things with you, those that seemed harmless on the surface. He liked to take you to shopping malls, where he could walk beside you and make sure you felt safe, but always under his watchful eye. “Choose whatever you want, ma belle. Whatever it is, it’s yours.” He let you pick out clothes, books, little decorations for your room. But even in those moments, there was an underlying control. The options he offered you were carefully selected; he made you feel you had freedom, but it was always within the limits he set.

Yandere Remy LeBeau who... loved to see you smile, and one of his favorite ways to achieve that was by playing board games with you. He was charming, relaxed, and playful during those moments. “Allez, chérie, you’re going to have to try harder if you want to beat me,” he challenged you while a carefree laugh filled the room. Those were the moments that made you doubt, that made you think that maybe Remy just wanted what was best for you, that his closeness was a good thing. When you laughed, when for a second you forgot your destructive powers, he looked at you with devotion. But behind those crimson eyes, there was an insatiable hunger, a need for control.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... took his time decorating your room, making sure everything was to your liking, but always with his touch. “It’s important that you feel comfortable, mon coeur,” he would say as he placed a soft lamp by your bed or adjusted the curtains so that the light came in just as you liked it. But even here, there was a shadow of possession. The things he chose for you always reflected his own taste, his vision of who you should be. It was not just your space; it was a reflection of his influence over you.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... could not stand the idea of anyone else entering your intimate life. The thought of you falling in love with someone else filled him with a silent fury. “If you ever find someone,” he said in one of those moments where he seemed casual, almost brotherly, “it has to be someone Gambit approve of. Someone who will take care of you like I would. Not just anyone can be with you, chérie.” And even though he said it with a smile, there was something in his tone that chilled you. You couldn’t imagine Remy sharing that control with anyone else.

Yandere Remy LeBeau who... as time passed, that possibility grew even more distant. The few attempts you made to get close to someone were sabotaged before they could blossom. Remy made sure that any connection broke before it could grow strong. He would tell you it was for your safety, that your power made you too dangerous to be with anyone. “They can’t handle what you are, mon amour. But I can. I always will.”

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... hated it when you rebelled against his control, when you tried to challenge him and do things your way. The arguments began with soft words and gentle warnings, but soon intensified when you refused to obey. One night, you tried to go out alone to practice your powers, tired of feeling constantly watched. But before you could get too far, Remy intercepted you. His hand gripped your arm tightly, his eyes shining with a mix of fear and rage. “You’re not going out alone, chérie, not like this.” His grip was rougher than you expected from him, and you tried to break free, but it was in vain. “You don’t understand how dangerous it is. I won’t let you take that risk, I can’t.” His words were severe, his tone more dominant than usual. But when he saw you trembling, when he saw the fear and frustration in your eyes, his hardness faded, replaced by a desperate plea.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... immediately apologized after those episodes of harsh control. He hugged you tightly, his trembling hands, as if he feared you might disappear at any moment. “I’m sorry, ma belle,” he murmured against your hair, his voice filled with remorse. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but I can’t lose you. Not after all we’ve been through. You’re all I have.” In those moments, when his hardness crumbled and only a broken man remained inside, vulnerable to the fear of losing the only person who meant something to him, it was hard for you to push him away. His need for you, that connection that made you feel like you were his anchor, enveloped you, confusing you. Was it love? Was it protection? Or something much darker?

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... never let conversations about other guys last long. If he saw you interested, he subtly changed the subject or found a way to make you feel guilty for even thinking of opening up to someone else. “Personne ne te comprendra jamais comme je le fais.” His words became more intense over time, more definitive. The world outside, he told you, was too cruel, too fragile for you. But he, he was your refuge, the only constant.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... felt deeply affected the first time you went on a mission with the X-Men. He knew this day would come, but he wasn’t ready for the unbearable anxiety that invaded him. “I know you can take care of yourself, but I can’t help but worry,” he had told you before you left, with a carefree tone that hid how much he hated the idea of you exposing yourself to any danger. But when you returned, injured, all trace of his usual charm disappeared. His gaze burned with a fury and desperation you hadn’t seen before. “Merde, chérie! What did they do to you? Who did this to you?” He enveloped you in his arms protectively, almost suffocating, as his fingers traced the cuts and bruises on your skin. You could feel the tension in his body, as if he were on the verge of exploding.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... went mad when he saw you hurt, his mind filled with images of what could have happened if you hadn’t returned. “Je ne veux pas te perdre,” he said in a hoarse voice, almost inaudible, as he held you tightly. “You are my family. You have no idea what I would do if something happened to you.” There was something dark and disturbing in his words, in the intensity with which he held you close, but you couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of comfort in his desperation. It was as if, in his twisted and possessive love, Remy was capable of doing anything to keep you safe.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... did not allow his possessiveness to ruin the moments of tranquility you shared. On quiet nights, when you lay in bed, emotionally exhausted, he was there, sitting in a nearby chair, watching you with that mix of devotion and control. “Dors bien, ma belle. I’ll be here to take care of you.” And though those words should have comforted you, sometimes you felt as if those invisible walls he had built around you closed in a little more each night.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... always found a way to soften his behavior after moments like those. He took you to quiet places, away from the tensions of the mutant world, to strolls through the mall or parks where there was no immediate danger. He loved to see you laugh, as if that could erase any trace of the darkness that lay between you. “Look, ma chérie, this is how it should always be, right? No worries, no fears.” And in those moments, when it seemed like it was just you and him, you could forget, at least for a while, how invasive his presence had become.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... never let you forget that, for him, you were family. He constantly reminded you how alone he had been before meeting you, how you had filled a void in his life that no one else could fill. “I don’t know what I would do without you, ma chérie. If you ever drift away from me, if I lose you...” He never finished the sentence, but the weight of those words needed no ending. It was a warning, a reminder that his love for you was so intense that any possibility of losing you pushed him to the brink of despair.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... had a special way of softening his manipulations, of making you feel that everything he did was out of love, for your well-being. After a fight, he would always come back with a repentant smile, hugging you and telling you he never meant to hurt you. “Je suis désolé,” he whispered, with a tenderness in his voice that left you speechless. “But, mon coeur, you don’t understand. Gambit can’t live without you. You are my family, the only thing I have.” And though you knew there was something unhealthy in all of this, his words pierced deep into your heart. You had lost so much, and while his love was suffocating, it was also the closest you had to feeling loved.

Yandere! Remy LeBeau who... looked at you as if you were a broken work of art, one he was determined to rebuild, but only in his image. And, in his mind, he did it out of love.

A/N ─── I love you, Remy, you're divine, I don't care what anyone says. Now, I adore Remy, he's charismatic and handsome, what more can I say? I love writing in French. Although I’ve had some less pleasant experiences with the language and culture, in Remy's case, French sounds almost like a caress. It's part of his essence!

He has that irresistible charm that makes him stand out, not just for his looks but for his heart full of complexities. Who wouldn’t fall in love with someone who, despite living in the shadows, always tries to bring light to others?

If you have any problems knowing the meaning of a phrase in French, tell me in the comments and I will be happy to answer you.

Don't hesitate to ask me anything if you want.

take a bath!

[chireikiden]

do we know whether zun writes the script for each official manga word for word, or if he gives the artists a detailed outline and they write the dialogue? i often wonder this because i feel like the writing styles of each manga can differ quite a lot, and some of them feel really different from the way zun writes dialogue in the games.

I don't think we can say for sure how he works with each individual manga. However, the largest sample we have is from this spring's Dai Touhou Project Expedition, which included some of ZUN's scripts for Lotus Eaters. As photography was banned in this section, afaik we only have the recreated text in this blog post here, in Japanese of course.

In these examples, the dialogue is the one thing that ZUN does include word-for-word, while most other descriptions are very brief. This matches how the artists clearly draw e.g. characters' reactions and general behavior very differently.

The scripts have been reframed a bit for the expo, and Mizutaki's comments are a later addition, but we can assume the contents themselves are pretty unedited (or else there'd be very little point in displaying them as a showpiece). I'm gonna go through a couple.

Here we have the script for the first few pages of Lotus Eaters chapter 4. The Japanese dialogue is word-for-word identical between the script and the finished manga, and though this could be a change made for the expo, I doubt they did that. I've borrowed Alpha Beta Kappa's translation for the dialogue, but the point is to illustrate what is and isn't in the script:

Chapters 4–5｜"The Haughty Grab Even the Red Ape" (Part 1–2) Page 95 ― ZUN's Script ――Night-time cherry blossoms at the Hakurei Shrine. Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, Remilia, Youmu, and some other usual characters may or may not be there. Everyone's already had some drink, and the party is in full swing. Sakuya brings out a dessert on a large tray. Marisa: "What's this?" Sakuya: "I tried my hand at a dessert. In the Outside World, it's called tarte soleil, or 'tart of the sun'. Supposedly it's quite popular for it's sunlike appearance. Although as the sun hardly suits my mistress, I tried rearranging it for a night theme. I call it the tarte lune. It's not too sweet, so enjoy." Everyone's excited. Sakuya looks proud. Marisa: "Fits right in your hand!" Reimu: "This is wonderful." Everyone happily finishes dessert as well. No one's looking at the cherry blossoms at this point. Reimu: "Jeez, your cooking's so good. I'm glad we asked you for help again, Sakuya." Sakuya: "Oh, it's nothing. I merely prepared it to entertain the mistress. Perhaps this is the best the shrine could hope for, but it really is nothing praiseworthy. To think you'd be so easily pleased." Reimu and Marisa smile awkwardly. Reimu: "R-Right... Well—" Marisa: "Y-Yeah, that's right!" Mizutaki's Comments ZUN-san's script didn't really clarify what this tarte lune was supposed to look like, so I just came up with something tasty-looking based on the appearance of the real-life tarte soleil. It says that Sakuya made this for dessert for Remilia, yet Remilia doesn't actually have any lines here. Luckily she's a pretty easy character to make move on page.

Obviously this is a pretty simple, dialogue-based scene, with not much else happening plot-wise, but it shows how all the little interactions on page and even what characters are present is left to the artist's discretion. Sometimes the script for an entire page is like "Miyoi's cleaning happily, when suddenly there's some noise at the door", and sometimes the script ends up becoming a different number of pages than expected. Because the whole point is to be the script for the story, though, it can also be pure description when that's what the story is being told through:

Chapters 11-12｜"Love the Customer, Hate the Sin" (Part 1–2) Pages 106–107 ― ZUN's Script Mamizou and Komachi begin to exchange information. Mamizou keeps the existence of Sanshoku Geidontei a secret, but tells her about the fake name customer. Komachi recognizes what she's talking about! And shares what she knows. Mamizou looks like she understands everything now, and seems satisfied with herself, but her face is also a little solemn. Mizutaki's Comments This scene had no dialogue, only ZUN-san's description of Mamizou and Komachi's conversation. Figuring out how to draw stuff like this is difficult, and I feel a bit lost sometimes, but it's also fun in some ways. Since the location wasn't specified, I wanted to give the feeling that they're hiding themselves from humans but doing so right under their noses, so I chose the underside of a bridge across the river (canal) that runs through the Village. Where else would Komachi be but a "river", after all!

In general, we have Mizutaki's word for the scripts being a bit vague sometimes, but being able to discuss them with ZUN during the process:

Chapters 1–3｜"A Drunken Evening Leaves no Memories" (Part 1–3) Page 77 ― ZUN's Script Suika: "Ah, yeah. I just figured she was that sorta youkai. The kind that always appears at bars. Getting people drunk and then wasting 'em. Good sake makes for a good suima. Bad sake makes for a bad one. And an oni's sake, well..." Reimu: "Well what?" Suika drinks directly from the gourd. She laps up the last bits of the bottomless Ibuki Gourd. Looking drunk and very smug, she goes: Suika: "That makes for... the strongest kind of suima. Unmatched, and unparalleled." Mizutaki's Comments At the time that I got the script, this scene had basically no stage directions. When I tried asking ZUN at our meeting what the mood was supposed to be like, he suggested that Suika blow an alcohol-laden breath at Reimu, so the end result is what you see. (*We were usually also drinking during our meetings, and it's not like I really have any clear notes from them, so there's also a good chance that I'll misremember things. Please read with that in mind...)

We don't get to know how much of the embellished fight scene against the dream-pig that follows was in the script, and how much of it is Mizutaki's creation. But it's already easy to see that with directions like this, any scene can be drawn in many different ways.

If this is representative of the other manga too, it seems that the dialogue itself is straight from ZUN, but almost everything else we see on page is just drawn based on his very general directions. This means that even if the text is pure ZUN, it can still be greatly affected by the context, and the less dialogue there is going on, the more of the page is made up whole-cloth by the artist.

Presumably there are differences in how he works with different artists for different manga, and CDS for example has far less dialogue than most of his other manga, but I must assume that is on purpose. For example, he's said on some show or other (don't ask me to dig up the source, sorry) that he enjoys how he can just kinda tell Akimaki to stick in a fight scene and cut loose (which tells us both that it's Akimaki's doing, but also ZUN-approved).

I can't say with confidence that the dialogue in CDS or any other manga is also word-for-word from ZUN's script, but I think it's plausible and likely, and the artists just have a lot of room to put their own spin on it even without touching a word of it.

There's also other factors in the dialogue pipeline, of course, such as:

ZUN himself is writing in a very different format in the games than in the manga, and the manga generally have a lot more and lengthier dialogues.

The text is split up very differently (into small text boxes vs. across multiple bubbles and pages). And believe me, if you've never translated Japanese, the way things like periods, ellipses, commas and conjuctions are placed is half translator preference and half trying to wrestle with the way the text is split.

The game translations are generally massaged by a number of translators, while the manga are hammered out by individual translators in a couple days with maybe proofreading at most, meaning that their individual styles also affect things more directly.

[simplysamiblog]

We are all pebbles on the side of the road

A "One Piece Fan Letter" personal review.

Have you ever thought, while watching or reading One Piece, "Wow, there are so many Marines. So many!" Like during the battle of Marineford in the war for supremacy. Or, in the more recent saga of Wa no Kuni, as I read the chapters, I always thought, "But how many subordinates does Kaido have exactly? Hundreds... thousands?" Moreover, what struck me most was how these crowds were nothing more than that: crowds. A bunch of characters or people thrown in quite carelessly, as if to make up the numbers, or as props. They could be like a forest or a city skyline. Often reduced to mere extras for some tacky gag or a punching bag for the enemy of the moment who occasionally made a hundred of them fly into the air with the flick of a finger. To be clear, I am not referring to marginal characters who actually have a role in the story, or subjects of kingdoms under the rule of an evil monarch. I refer to those extras drawn in the space of a single panel, on a single page, without name or role. You may have noticed them. No? I'm not surprised. The truth is that habituation has taken its course and over time these extras have practically become invisible. Sometimes in my mind they were just phrases, no longer even people. Like:

"The Straw Hats!! They are the Straw Hats!!" "There they are, get them!" "GYAAAAAAA!" "RUN!" And so on. My feeling was that these bunch of people were essentially dehumanized in our eyes. You have certainly seen hundreds of Marines, pirates and maybe civilians, perhaps injured or terrified in the world of One Piece, but unless the scene focused on one of them, essentially (as far as I am concerned, of course) I didn't even see them. Not anymore. They were there to show how strong this or that character was, or to make up the numbers.

It is not a bad thing, indeed. They can be a means of communication to the reader, so useful, but... well, quite boring. I realized that the special episode of One Piece "Fan Letter" would please me very much already after the first minute of playback. After the usual introduction we all know: "Wealth, fame, power..." etc. etc. the narrator's voice suddenly added this phrase to the usual spiel:

"Even in such times, the majority of people do not aspire to be pirates and do not pursue the One Piece. Just like them..."

I won't spoil it, but the episode showed something we didn't know we needed in One Piece: the human side of ordinary people. Of those extras, of those phrases that we sometimes don't even read or hear. Of how wars, clashes, involve people in a devastating and horrible way. In this episode (told from the perspective of ordinary people, not under the dominion of usurpers or pirates with delusions of grandeur) men and women like the Straw Hats, like the members of the Seven Warlords or like the Marine top brass, appear for what we sometimes forget they are: beings with strength and power akin to creatures not belonging to this world.

We enter the everyday lives of those who are not writing history, but see it unfold and come to pass before their eyes, involved in it willingly or unwillingly, for better or worse. Where the Straw Hats, if you are lucky, you can only catch a glimpse of them as they sail away forever. Of whom you only know the name, of these pirates so far away that sometimes you wonder if they actually exist.

And I really realized how much we needed this perspective, after so much time seeing it through the eyes of the hero. To discover once again how these characters appeared to our eyes, with superhuman powers, questionable combat techniques (do you really need three swords?) and the admiration and inspiration they brought us. Of how, even though of the Marines or mere civilians, the story of these pebbles is there, present, breathing and fighting, even at the margins. Not just words on a page. But heart and blood and fear and love. And joy... and pain. For some, the Straw Hats are just strangers glimpsed on a newspaper page, among the streets of a city or petty thieves making trouble on the other side of the world. And I don't know about you, but I find this absolutely fascinating. It's like watching someone experience One Piece for the first time. We were all there once, we just forgot.

It might seem disheartening to feel 'small,' to sense that your life doesn't make a difference, being that pebble on the side of the road. But the truth is, it is on this road that the 'great ones' pass, and we pebbles make them legends as they leave it forever. It's their story, our story. The story of everyone.

And that gives life and meaning to adventures.

[seneon]

all mine ──── reo mikage x gn! reader.

about. two souls who are oblivious to each other's feelings. | ib all mine, plaza. fluffy but not rly fluff..? wc of 690+

notes. whenever i listen to that song, it reminds me of reo idk why. AND Y'ALL THOUGHT I FORGOT ABOUT BLUE LOCK HUH SHAME ON U

popular mikage reo is loved amongst students, perhaps even hated. who knows. but there were only two sides, love and hate. all the girls in school wanted mikage reo and all the boys wanted to be like mikage reo. to put simply, he is the dream of everyone.

he gets everything he wants. money, success, fame, women, nagi seishirou. whatever that he desires, he gets.

so what happens when he doesn't get what he wants?

more like, what would happen if a student that wants him, ends up not wanting him anymore…?

reo mikage is oblivious to the times where you tried so hard to talk to him or be in his presence. to even get his attention through a crowd of dedicated fangirls and haterboys is just so hard. so not even one week of attempting to express your feelings, you have completely cut them off like cutting a mere thread.

sometime after you left, reo mikage started to notice you. how ironic is that? the popular mikage reo finally notices you, quite a popular student too. you were popular for your performing arts talent, often seen performing for school events or even outside of school.

the mikage attempted a chase and attract challenge for quite some time. but there was not even once where you would look his way and smile or blush or anything. now he felt like his desires weren't going to be fulfilled. he should've paid you more mind when you used to like him.

“yo mikage! you ever get the news on why l/n doesn't fawn over you like everyone else?”

he does. in fact, he wonders about it all the damn time. it was shocking that there are actually people who don't pay any mind to the mikage.

“they said l/n used to like you but gave up because you're wayyy too popular, man. they don't want you anymore.”

oh. talented y/n used to like reo mikage. that's a little disappointing. maybe a bit more disappointing. okay reo is lying to himself. he is extremely disappointed. he is disappointed at himself for how he never paid you any attention when you used to like him. if only he wasn't so oblivious then only would he make things work.

he could have you all for himself this entire time. he could have told people that talented y/n is all his. he would say “y/n is all mine” proudly.

is there a second chance for him in your heart? he is eager to know. so reo mikage is going to try to get your attention now. will he succeed or not? oh reo mikage prays. if not, he will do even the most ridiculous of stunts to get you to look at him just once. at least once.

truth is, he didn't even have to try. he was always in your heart. you'll only look his way whenever he isn't looking so you'd admire him from afar. how pathetic talented y/n is, to think that you have no chance with ace student reo mikage.

will this complex love story ever be solved?

yeah.

“will you ever look my way, y/n?! i've been trying so hard to talk to you. why won't you notice my feelings for you?!” reo mikage loses his patience and snaps at you.

in class, right where you sat completing your music sheet. and the mikage who snapped all of a sudden in the middle of a free period where the entire class paused at the outburst.

“i like you y/n, please just acknowledge my existence!”

oh dear. someone's angry.

“not like i don't acknowledge your existence. you're very much known to me. but the feelings part is not what i expected,” you said, looking at your music sheet and at reo. “i like you too.”

and that was all it took for two oblivious souls to acknowledge their feelings for each other. it isn't that hard to just... go up and talk. another day, and reo mikage gets to finally call the school's most talented performer “all mine.”

© SENEON 2024 ♰ do not repost, alter, or translate.

[moralesmilesanhour]

Every time i think about atsv and its themes, my mind keeps going back to the scene with Miles and his parents in that college counselor’s office, and what its purpose is.

It establishes the strain that being Spider-Man has put on their relationship, yes - it also establishes that Miles feels trapped and limited, yes - but a lot of fandom discussion overlooks the important parallel that that scene sets in motion between racism in academia and Miles' rejection from Spider Society.

By now, everyone has already figured out that the issue with the 'Canon Event' theory is that it assumes that trauma - specifically experiencing the "right" traumatic events - is what makes a Spider-Man, and it is wrong for Miles to be required to accept this. It isn't enough that he had his uncle die, his father must die also because then he will have sacrificed "enough" to keep the canon intact. No one questions why arbitrary sacrifice is required at all.

The concept of the personal statement being required for college applications, I would like to argue, has the exact same issue.

Miles even says so in the beginning of the movie: "Having 'a story' in the first place sounds gross" (notice how Miles vocally critiques elite academia contantly and has been from the get-go. He is not an apolitical character like some might portray him to be).

It is not enough that Miles is an exceptional student with a variety of interests (art and science), he must have the appropriate traumatic "story" for white academic institutions to find him interesting enough as an applicant, even if the story they want him to tell is not actually his story (no, he is not from a "struggling immigrant family". They own an apartment floor and PR is in the United States). Just like the "Canon events" that Miguel describes are not Miles' story, and Miles does not want them to be because it requires the preventable deaths of innocent people.

In a similar way that has been touched upon more in wider fandom, Rio gives Miles a speech telling him not to let the people in these overwhelmingly-white spaces that he will be entering tell him that he doesn't belong. That speech, as we all know, ends up being a direct parallel to the way Spider Society treats him: he is simultaneously a charity case and a threat just by his mere presence. His very existence is disruptive to the canon: The spider wasn't "supposed" to bite him, he just got lucky. There is a reason why the visual of the ball with Miles' lottery number is constantly paired with the number on the spider that bit him; they are one and the same.

(Side note: this is also what makes Hobie's function as a character so interesting - The idea that you can just simply quit. You do not HAVE to be in these privileged spaces if they don't have your best interests in mind. You don't have to prove yourself to these people to be who you are. But that's a post for another day)

The reason I've been thinking about all this is because I feel like no one really touches upon why Miles' character exists. Like, on a thematic level. Yes, he's there to show that "anyone can wear the mask", but there's a lack of specificity in that statement that I wanted to address with this post.

Miles is a love letter to every black kid that's been told that they're only in the spaces they're in because they "got lucky". He's for every black kid that's ever looked at a college app and been told that they have to take their trauma and put it on display for some white admissions officer to shed a tear over. He's there to argue that you don't have to bend towards any of society's attempts to make a spectacle or a serviceable machine out of you, and that you can just be.

TL;DR: it was never just about the mask MWAH 🫶���

[queen0fm0nsterz]

So, if you are accepting any asks, I have a small question.

Who do you think was longer in The Spiral? And which kids were "born" there? Sorry if this is a stupid ask, or if someone already asked it.

Feel free to ignore! I just really like how you analyze and theorize 'bout everything of The Little Nightmares world; you realize things that most people most likely don't notice, and that's admirable to me!

Thank you so much!!! This makes me very happy to hear, I'm very grateful you enjoy my interpretations of the games. Your question is not stupid at all; it's a very good one, and I see there is a few misconceptions about children who are Nowhere born and children who come from other worlds.

I have seen argued that most children we meet must be kids of the Nowhere due to their ability to survive; for example, a child as young as the Toddler was able to survive for at least a while before being snatched away. However this is not an indicator of them actually being Nowhere born.

Noone herself explains how this is possible in episode one of the podcast. Quoting:

"I turned away from the window, which was only a hole in the stone wall of the curved passageway, that stretched on a long ways. This- odd feeling, told me to get up. But I couldn’t stand because the ceiling was so low."

(...)

"That same feeling told me I was lost inside a giant."

They are being guided by this strong instinct. Which explains why children as young as a Toddler can get around without dying near instantly: they inherently seem to know what to do and they are constantly on the move. If anything, children who are stagnant are more likely to be Residents or becoming Residents; they are the odd ones out. Remaining still means certain death, after all, unless you intend to join the Nowhere.

Here's a diagram to show in short who is what based on what we know about the world. The ones with the * are those who are uncertain.

Visitors

These are the most common kind of children one can meet in the Nowhere: the ones brought from outside, either by the Ferryman or from other forces. Remember; the Ferryman is a guide, not the means.

In Episode 3, Noone was pulled into the Mall, an outside force, and in Episode 4 the Ferryman was not present at all. He is not the only way for one to get inside the Nowhere, he's merely somebody with enough power to intercept some of the children coming in to bring them away with him. I don't doubt that his role is incredibly important, as he's the reason why many children even reach the Nowhere alive, but... he's a harbinger of death, no doubt.

All these children are the nameless ones. The ones whose full journeys we'll never get to see: just segments and fractions. We saw the beginning of Noone's, and the end of RCG's and RK's. Nothing more, and nothing less.

The campfire children in particular are highlighted because of two reasons:

The comics were confirmed to be partially not canonical. Obviously not everything was cut from the comics, since the Ferryman and Mirror Man are both physically there and implied to exist, but due to the vague answer we were given, we'll have to take their tales with a grain of salt.

We could only hear two of four stories; as such, only the Humpback Girl's testimony can be counted as her not being a child of the Nowhere. We can attest this because of a few lines given from her friends:

This place is haunted, though, as well as being sealed. Someone locked the mirrors away a long time ago, but! Interestingly enough, they did not break them. Maybe whoever sealed this place away was hoping for someone to come back?

Considering that Low and Alone are also involved with mirrors, I wonder if Mirror Man's abilities are on par with the Ferryman's, meaning he too can cross the bridge between realities. It could be a reason as to why the Ferryman does not intervene until the very end here. This post is not about him though, so moving on!

Nowhere Children/Residents

Now we're getting to the interesting part of the ask. As you can see in the diagram, we only know a few children who are Nowhere born, and of them, only one of them is 100% factual. Let's go through them one by one.

The Pretender was born and raised in the Nowhere. Period. She has her own mansion, pictures with her parents, and on top of that her family at the very least part of the bourgeoisie.

While powers are not necessarily an indicator of one's belonging to the Nowhere (if Low's powers are of any indication), the Pretender herself has quite the number of supernatural abilities that seem to have been present since her youth, making it hard for her to form meaningful connections with others. She's a very lonely child. This means that these powers most likely developed from her naturally rather than being acquired from the outside, like Six's and possibly even Low's.

(Even then, one can make a small argument to counter with Six developing a small power of her own... but there's a reason as to why I set her aside from everyone else.)

Now, here's someone a lot more interesting to discuss (both on this topic and in general): Mono.

He's a real special little guy. Taking into context the etymology of his name, the meanings we get always tie back to the idea of there being one of him. A single, unique little boy. Looking at the descriptions we were given of Mono, we can find out some more about him and his backstory:

Interesting as this is on a character perspective, what I would like to direct your attention on here is the mentions of the world. Here, it's mentioned that Mono is aware that the world outside hates him. Being a single minded child living in the Nowhere this makes a lot of sense; what is interesting here is the wording.

There is never the mention of "another world" in Mono's descriptions, unlike Six's descriptions in which it is directly mentions her not originating from the Nowhere.

For Mono, it's not a world: it's the world. Almost as if there is no other world he knows by now.

His nature is also rather unique. You see, Mono is a glitch. Not in the traditional Glitching Remain way, but still not entire enough to be considered a human being. For one, he quite literally glitches multiple times: we see it happen everytime he is near a Remain and is about to absorb them, whenever he gets too close to the Thin Man, he even glitches as he channels his powers to use them.

The Thin Man causing him to glitch is especially interesting because when he motions to grab him, Mono does not split in two like Six does. There is no body to be left behind: instead, he flies into Thin Man's hand and you can visibly see his body go both entirely glitchy and instantly limp.

(You can see it for yourself in this video; pay attention to him struggling when other enemies grab him vs how quickly he stops moving as soon as the Thin Man gets his hands on him.)

This indicates his nature as not being human the same way Six is, for example, but rather a product of the Nowhere. Due to how his cycle works, this makes sense: for the Tower to have a continuous of energy supply and access to the power of the Transmission, Mono needs to live through this experience over and over for as long they deem fit. This could also explain some other odd factors of his, such as not having to take a break when running and his almost grayish skintone.

While it can be argued that at the beginning of this whole mess Mono was a Visitor rather than a Resident, at this point in time many factors point to the version of him we play as being a Nowhere child.

The Refugee Boy is, as for the campfire kids... complicated to expand on due to the dubious nature of his story: nevertheless, I will still bring forth my evidence.

When the children begin telling Six their stories, the Refugee is the first to narrate his tale and he begins doing so by showing her a memento of his previous life outside of the Maw. This comes across as being peculiar on its own as no other child that we know of has anything of the like.

As you can read here, children in his village are given charm against the North Wind that one day suddenly stop working. This implies that, unlike the Mirror Man, the North Wind has always been a tangible threat looming over their birth land.

It could be easy to chalk this up to N.W. being a local legend where the boy used to live and he had a nightmare about him, but it is then mentioned that he and his sister have been running away from him for years. Much longer than any of the dreams Noone ever had.

This was a long pursuit. We know thanks to the LN III trailer that "normal" looking adults and cities existed in the Nowhere; this explains away both the Refugee's village existing and the other groups of people that chased them away when they brought around the North Wind.

While this evidence is good enough to stand on its own, it has a couple of points against it, which is why I marked the Refugee as "unsure".

The narrator could be considered unreliable. In this same screenshot I added right above, the narrator states that the siblings were welcomed everywhere, but we can visibly see them be chased away by the villagers. This can be interpreted as meaning "they were originally welcomed, but when the North Wind arrived as a consequence, they were chased off", but we don't have enough substance to back this up.

^ Supporting the above take, the narrator also says that the children have been running for years, but we visibly see that they remain the same during all this time. The sister not changing makes sense as the Ferryman has taken her place, but the Refugee also doesn't change at all. We don't know how fast time passes in the Nowhere, so it could also be attributed to that, but it must be mentioned for fairness' sake.

The Refugee's words: I'm not running anymore. This sentiment has never been echoed before, nor will it ever be echoed again. As I said earlier, being stale in the Nowhere only leads to two things: death or permanence. His surrendering could indicate that he has chose to remain in the Nowhere after being stuck in it for a long time, thus becoming an official Resident. If this is the case, he could classify as a "Visitor turned Resident".

With this, I suggest we move on to our last and currently final segment:

Visitors turned Residents

This one is an interesting breed. We don't get to see the act of a child turning into a permanent part of the Nowhere all that often; Noone could count as that, but we don't yet know if she ultimately decides to be still in the Nowhere or if she'll regret her choice.

We do have the most importantly character of this narrative as an example to this, however.

Six, my dearly beloved... what a terrible path she's gone down to. I have already displayed the evidence stating that Six is from a different world than the Nowhere up un Mono's section so I won't dwell on it.

Thin Man splitting her in two is what doomed her and, as hard as she tried to fight it, her trip to the Maw was the nail in the coffin. No matter how far away from it she gets: she will never be free from the influence it had on her person. When it comes to the LN I ending, this is what the writers had to say on it:

(From this interview. It's an interesting one; they also confirm that the Signal Tower and the Maw were not places that were "built" but that exist for various reasons, which supports the idea that they are entities rather than buildings.)

I think Six is not leaving the Nowhere anytime soon. If at all. She might have left the Maw, but at this point, she's ventured too far in to turn back to the person she was before. To think none of this is even her fault is saddening, to say the least, but horrifically realistic.

Sisi... is an incognita. I've only put her in this category to be fair, since we don't know anything about her. There is a possibility that she has grown up to become a Resident, but it's just as likely that she may have died off somewhere, like many others before and after her.

I will not be dwelling into the adults for now, but we do have reason to believe that some of them are most definitely Visitors turned Residents. Most notable is the Lady who, in her character description, directly expresses discomfort with how nonsensical the Nowhere is － a sentiment only someone who knows alternatives to it can have.

It also indicates a surprising level of self awareness to some extent; most Nowhere inhabitants do not question the nature of their world, not even important and powerful beings like, say, the Thin Man.

I hope this answers your question!

[utilitycaster]

A few recent books I've read and disliked led me to this conclusion but it feels like there's been this switch over time with queer stories. It used to be that queer relationships (or queerness in general) had to be Show Don't Tell because, well, you could not make them textual! So you get, for example, shows like Legend of Korra, or Xena: Warrior Princess, where you have women who are clearly devoted to each other to a degree that goes beyond mere friendship, and a ton of effort and care is put into that depiction because they can't actually be shown in an explicitly stated relationship. And as a result, these relationships, while they never receive confirmation in the show, are rich and complex.

Now not only is it much easier to make explicitly queer stories outside of niche areas; it's even popular (and, cynically, a marketing tactic). The problem is I've run into a bunch of stories that are marketed very clearly as A Queer Story that forget to like...be a story, or show me why these characters should be in a relationship. It's All Tell No Show: I'm told that the characters are gay and are in a relationship, but no work is done to actually explain why I should care about this beyond "well they are gay and in a gay relationship."

I'm not going to rehash what I discussed here, but Baru Cormorant is an example of those books where I'm given no real reason to care. The protagonist is a lesbian but the prose reads like a phone book. On the other hand, while Starless has a queer disabled woman as a one of the two protagonists, it also provides her with traits other than "queer, disabled, woman, important" and grants her a rich interiority (even though the story is told entirely from the first person point of view of the other protagonist.)

And the thing about the good examples in that link (Starless, Teixcalaan): they show and tell. It's both explicit that these are queer stories with a canon romantic relationship, but the little moments that make up the tapestry of a relationship are given the time that moments in a subtextual - or frankly, even a queerbaiting work are. That's the real tragedy; for queerbaiting to work, you have to actually make the relationship compelling enough for people follow it until you pull the rug out from under them; whereas you can slap a cold fish kiss on a cold fish queer relationship and technically you are Better because it was Explicit Representation even though everything about it was poorly constructed. I would rather have an lazy and shoddy explicit relationship than queerbait just on principle; but honestly I'd rather have a good story that does neither.

One of my more cynical interpretations of this is that writers are either intentionally or inadvertently taking advantage of the legacy of the Show Don't Tell era of queer coding to place the burden of those small moments on the audience. They know that people looking for queer relationships in fiction are used to having to dig for moments and subtext; but instead of providing that subtext, they set up the clunky text and assume the subtext to support it will emerge from the fandom. Or perhaps, more generously, especially for younger queer writers, they are just so used to having to provide that work themselves that they forget they are doing the writing and are able to (and should) layer subtext and text together and weave something actually good.

Either way, it's this that's led to the "Lesbian necromancers in space, need I say more"* era of recommendations, taglines, and writing, in which explicit representation is, if not plentiful, at least available; but a worrying amount of it forgets to actually write realized characters or a relationship with chemistry or a plot that makes sense.

I should also note: there's obviously a TON of straight romances and books that range from mediocre to abominable. I am under no circumstances arguing that "gayboring" media shouldn't exist. But while I don't think queer stories should be held to a higher standard, I don't think I should be obligated to settle for a lower standard either simply because it's gay. I know it's fraught, in that we're at risk of publishers and producers taking away the message "people hate this because it's gay" rather than "people hate this because it's poorly developed," but like...at the very least, could we recommend things in terms of "this is a great book that has a wonderful queer romance" and "this show is gay but it is also deeply mediocre, and if it weren't gay I wouldn't recommend it at all; do what you will with this information."

*I should note: I happen to like The Locked Tomb (of Lesbian Necromancers in Space fame) a lot! I know it's not for everyone; I know it can feel very gimmicky at times. But no matter how you feel, that tagline is DIRE and does a miserable job of representing the books. Like, that premise could suck, actually (and plenty of people find it does) if you're not sold on the mere fact that it's got lesbians, necromancy, or space in it. Worth noting that neither Starless nor the Teixcalaan books were heavily marketed as Queer Romance Fantasy/SF even though both very much are, which does further make me think this is a case of people writing good books that are queer, vs. people writing books with the intention to be on some New Queer SF list or, god forbid, Booktok.

[dingodad]

Since Hussie only exists because Universe C exists, do you think that technically means that the author in the story only exists because the main characters created them? The author creates the characters and the characters create the author? Is the reason Hussie is able to be the author, because universe C is outside canon, therefore canon can be influenced (commanded) from there like how Trollian allows you to view and influence any point on a timeline from the outside of it?

I don't feel so confident that your fundamental assumption here is necessarily correct.

It's true that Hussie's world is alluded to as some kind of higher dimension separated from Homestuck's world by a fifth wall and outside of the green sun's domain, and the presence of one of his curtains on Caliborn's Earth can be taken as suggesting Hussie lived on Earth at some point in its history. On some thematic level Universe C is more the "real world" than Homestuck is, so it does make sense for the story to have been written there.

BUT, there were also two different Andrew Hussies with two different personal histories in the pre- and post-scratch timelines of Universe B. So my assessment is that we're not necessarily supposed to come to the conclusion that Hussie is anything more than a normal human from normal earth.

Because I maintain that the ability to "be the author" within Homestuck's setting is not necessarily some supernatural power. All you need to do to be Homestuck's author is just sit down and write Homestuck! That's what Scratch does, after all - and the manifestations of the author within the story do all their authoring not from some higher dimension but rather up close and personal. Scratch separates himself from events by staying on the green moon, but that's not because of some special properties the moon has, and even though he DOES have extremely powerful supernatural abilities, he performs his most potent acts of "authoring" merely by talking - whether that's to the characters or to us the audience.

The whole point of Homestuck shining the spotlight on the "narrative" and the role of "narrator" is that we CAN'T assume Hussie was actually influencing or commanding the characters in the story in some supernatural fashion. He's just sitting at a typewriter/command terminal/computer and relaying their story to us, and because that's our only source we're forced to take it at their word that this is how events actually happened. The trolls can watch events unfold, but their influence only extends as far as asking nicely. The same is true of the exiles, even if their interactions with the story are literally referred to as "commands". Scratch can't actually mind control his characters into doing anything; all he has control over is how the events are told, and we should assume that this is exactly the same level of influence Hussie is exerting.

[sillypiratelife]

You need to read the live action, the manga and the anime as different canons. It's healthier to the fandom's brains AND it's also better for analyzing properly what is going on.

One Piece is the type of story that relies heavily on the medium it is presented on. Hm actually, let me correct myself: One Piece is the type of story that celebrates and understands and was born to be told in that specific medium. The form and the content don't exist as separate entities, but are rather intertwined to elevate the narrative. That the characters are soooo cartoonish is not a mere style choice— it holds meaning, it complements what the author is trying to transmit.

One of the first things that I learned in college while studying storytelling was that there's a max point for tension in any story. There's a top to how tense you can keep the audience. If you reach that point, you won't be able to intensify the emotions; that's it, you need to introduce a breather or you'd end up with a stagnant narrative.

In manga/comics and cartoons/anime it's easier to walk that line. The power to make some silly joke or have the characters acting stupid is in the hands of the mangaka. I bet any manga reader or anime watcher can think of a moment in their fav series when the characters were in the middle of a seriously important moment, just to be involved in something ridiculous that breaks the tension.

It's fantastic. Mangas and animes love to make fun of their mediums, introducing satire to allow the audience some laughs. It's not until later when the reader/watcher sits and realizes how fucked up the whole situation was. A delayed punch to the gut, something to keep the mind working and thinking of their series until they wait for the next chapter/episode.

How to make the audience feel the impact of a character? Well, you can allow the audience to empathize with the character by explaining their reasons or backstories, you can show the world through their eyes. You can also show them all goofy and happy, so when the hammer strikes the readers/watchers will be nostalgic for the good times, mourning the fact they will not get more of that and becoming nostalgic. There are so many ways to keep a character haunting a story...

Oda is aware of all the manga medium can and cannot do. For people like him, the limitations are actually just more tools to play with. If you want to double check what I'm saying, go reread the panels where Luffy awakened Gear 5. Only manga could offer what went down in those panels; when the very nature of Luffy's powers are revealed to the audience and the characters, the manga gets self-aware and voices it out: "hey, this is the type of thing that only happens in comics, right?"

The anime allows a different range of tropes and shapes the story, correctly translating it. It's true that the best translations mind the public and the medium, adapting the jokes and references. It's also true that every translation is a little betrayal to the original, a unique creation in its own right. A good example of that is the way that the fillers shape the perspective of the watchers when it comes to the characters' dynamics. If the anime has a filler arc where the fight, a new tension will be present in the next manga canon arc. If the anime shows a filler where characters are close friends, it's gonna be weird when they start acting all distance back at the manga canon events. Not all fillers are meant to be considered part of the main storyline, of course. You have OVAs and you have movies and fillers and all types of media that are considered separated.

On the other hand, you have the visual changes: imagine that the anime changes the angle of a scene where two characters used to stand close and put more distance between them. What the manga could mean as a subtle implication that those characters cared about each other could turn into cold tolerance of the other's presence. Even the best of animes have those changes!!!!

In One Piece's case, turning the story into a live action series must change almost everything. It'd be impossible to maintain the cartoonist aspects of the story (unless they decided to go full Looney Tunes in that movie with Brendan Fraser lol). The choice was the following: we can try to keep the original elements even when they translate poorly to the new medium so we can please the original fans that are used to the story —OR we can try to translate the essence of the story and change all that needs to be changed, so that we keep the storyline and storytelling coherent and cohesive, at the cost of creating something not necessarily alien, but still new.

Violence in OPLA is way more serious.

You know how in the manga/anime characters would get fatally wounded and come back like it was just a minor injury? Or how they'd heal with no major medical intervention? That's a liberty of the medium. Your brain doesn't process the same way when you see a drawing wounded and when you see a real life person wounded. In OPLA, the suspension of disbelief is harder to achieve. Even and because the story was already introducing Luffy's powers and other fantastic elements, they needed to be careful to not overdo it. One option was to make people actually die— to know that in the live action not everything is so silly? It raises the stakes. OPLA discards some elements that are natural of a manga and in consequence, the story turns out to be darker. You have no fillers or little stripes of silly drawings or author comments or openings and endings. You'll have to do with what you do have and tell a story worthy of being told in that new medium.

That's a good translation right there, made by someone who understands that you cannot copy and paste things recklessly. That's the formula that made so many live actions fail, in fact.

You'll see many fans complaining because they don't understand any of what I just explained. For them it's easier to justify their opinions by saying that "they did this bad and that's why I don't like it" than admit that "they did this correctly but it's not my thing anyway".

One big example? Fanservice cannot be carried out from manga/anime to a live action. It's not the same to exaggerate the proportions of a body in a drawing (we can discuss the morals of this later) than ask of it from a human person. It's not the same to use some sexual traits in fiction as a way to appeal to the audience than to carry out those implications to a live action (again, I'm not saying it's good or bad because that's a discussion for another time).

Actors are humans. They will never have the same characteristics as an animation or a drawing, no matter how advanced technology is. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you appreciate art for what it is in its medium.

So really, what's the healthiest option? It'd be to approach each version as exactly that, a version of the story. As foreign as it can sound to some fandoms, the audience doesn't have to justify their opinions on something. Opinions are not professional reviews or art analysis. You can be as subjective as you want! To perceive each version as its own little world is easier: you can say "I like this better" without invalidating the opinion of anyone else. There's also the fun in exploring the different implications (they look like friends in this version but like lovers in this other) and playing with the divergences. Fans do that all the time in their art (literature, visual art, music, etc)

You can also analyze different versions of what is going on and contrast them. Do the differences change the form and content of the story or just one of those things? How does this new element change the dynamic between these characters? Are the characters written well but get thrown into a new setting? Is the setting the same but the characters feels more like ocs than the characters from the original story?

Knowing how much One Piece values symbolism, it'd be interesting to see how they could translate the constant influx of symbols in the manga or in the anime to the live action. The live action might show just the most important parts, cutting all the rest for lack of both space, time and budget. What does the author consider to be vital to the story and what can be cut down?

To have three parallel Luffy's in different stages of the story is fascinating to me, more so than the idea of trying to mix three formats that won't even match, mind you.

[mask131]

So…I followed your advice in researching Greek Myths and learning them via the Authors. And uhm…I was curious because something bugged me.

Now I’m bad at history, but as far as I knew, Laurel Wreaths were mostly common in Rome, rather than Greece? (I could be wrong) so I had like a nagging feeling. And found out that the Daphne and Apollo myth (And probably also Hyacinthus I’m looking into that) was told in Ovid’s Metamorphosis? I could be wrong, so far I’ve only seen Ovid as the original author.

Sorry- I saw your post about Arachne and thought about what other myths were originally purely Roman then were mistaken for Greek Myths and wanted to add this into a possibility-

A LOT of stuff were invented by Ovid! Myself I learned only a month ago that Morpheus was "invented" by Ovid and I was like... wow. (There were dream-gods in Greek mythology, but they were not singularized, and the persona of Morpheus as the individual god of dreams was invented by Ovid)

Now, I don't know much about the specific use of laurel in Ancient Greece vs the Roman empire, but if you ask about the origin of the story of Daphne and Apollo, they are definitively Greek and Ovid did not invent her (though he told the story in a very, very different way).

The story of Daphne's numerous misadventures was recorded by Greek authors - and while it was quite late records, which would make us wonder if it isn't a late development or invention, they all rely on older sources attesting a presence of Daphne's legend for quite a long time. The two major records of Daphne's legend by Greeks are Pausanias' Description of Greece (2nd century CE), and Parthenius of Nicea's "Erotica Pathemata" (1st century BCE). BUT Pausanias explains that the legend he collects has been known for a very long time in the area around the Ladon river, to the point of implementing itself within the worship of Apollo, while Parthenius begins his story by pointing out he is merely retranscribing the text of older sources - a book from a 3rd century BCE historian named Phylarkhos, and an elegiac poem by Diodoros of Elaia. But given these two older texts were lost, we only have the latest record, hence this feeling of "novelty" when the story is actually at least around since the 3rd century BCE...

In fact, the existence of Daphne in Greek mythology long before Ovid's Metamorphoses is also proven by how massively different the Greek records of Daphne's life are from Ovid's tale. Everybody knows the story of Daphne through Ovid, since it was the most popular and widespread one... But both Pausanias and Parthenius report the same legend, which is very different from Ovid's rewrite.

In Ovid's tale, Daphne is said to have been Apollo's first love, and that the god's feelings were caused by Cupid as a way to take revenge after being mocked (Apollo, as a talented archer-god, mocked Cupid's own archery talents). Cupid shot a love-killing arrow in Daphne's heart so that the nymph would reject all forms of love, and she became "like Diana" - by refusing any form of marriage or romance, and fleeing the company of men and rejecting all her suitors, preferring the loneliness of the woods and the pleasure of the hunt - her father, the river-god, insisted on her giving him a son-in-law and grandchildren but she insisted she wanted to remain endlessly virgin like Diana. Meanwhile Apollo had received a love-inflamming arrow, one that not only caused a deep desire and mad love within the god for Daphne, but also made this attraction stronger and more obsessive each time the god saw the nymph. As such, Apollo tried all he could to please her and woo her and seduce her, but each time he tried the love-repelling spell on Daphne caused her to flee in fear and disgust and terror ; and the more she fled, the more Apollo found her beautiful and desirable, thanks to Cupid's curse ; and thus he followed her, but the more he pursued and insisted the more she fled. Their respective love and hate kept growing and growing until Daphne, exhausted and not wanting to flee anymore, stopped by the shore of her father the river-god and begged him to transform her so that her beauty would be gone, and she would not be loved anymore. Her father turned her into a laurel-tree, but it was no use, as Cupid's power as too strong: Apollo was still in love with the beauty and radiance of the tree, and he could feel Daphne's heart beating in the plant; and similarly Daphne's hate still lived on, as when Apollo embraced the tree and kissed its branches, the tree shivered and was repelled away from the god's body. But Apollo ultimately decided that if she could not be his bride, he would make Daphne his official tree and symbol - and to this, Daphne actually agreed as she offered her "leafy branches" to the god.

That's the Roman story of Daphne invented by Ovid. What is the difference with the Greek story he took inspiration from? (Because it is very clear that Ovid's source was the story twice told by Pausanias and Parthenius ; and told by others before whose name were lost...

1: In Ovid's story, Daphne simply admires and imitates Diana's behavior. In the Greek legend Daphne was ACTUALLY one of the huntresses of Artemis. Or to be more precise Parthenius explains that Artemis found Daphne "dear" to her because she shared the goddess' life-choices, refusing to live in cities, not hanging out with other girls, hunting in the mountains with a large pack of hounds... And Artemis loved Daphne so much she offered her a gift: she would always shoot straight at her target and never miss.

2: There's no Cupid/Eros in the Greek legend. Daphne is not Apollo's first love, she is not cursed with rejecting all love, he was not cursed to love her to insanity - this whole episode was invented by Ovid. Apollo is still in love with Daphne in the Greek legend, but it is just a regular love.

3: The Greek legend has a character that Ovid completely erased. Leucippus. Leucippus was another man who was in love with Daphne but knew that she was a lonely huntress closely linked to Artemis... Understanding he could not seduce her in a conventional way, Leucippus put up a convoluted plan to win the girl's heart. He dressed himself as a woman and created for himself a female persona. He approached Daphne and pretended to be a fellow huntress ; Daphne agreed to let her join her hunting party, and she soon grew to admire this bold, strong woman so unlike the other girls of Greece and whose strength and hunting talents far surpassed those of a common maiden... In fact she grew such affection and admiration for the fake-huntress that Daphne developed a dear and solid friendship with her: it was said she was always by Leucippus' side, refused to let Leucippus away from her, and kept embracing him/her and clinging to his/her body. However, since Apollo was also in love with Daphne he grew both jealous and angry (since, as the god of truth, he knew of Leucippus' deceit), and decided to reveal the truth. He implanted in Daphne's mind the idea that she had to bathe in a given stream: she went there with her "attendant maidens" and female servants/fellow huntresses (Daphne is never said explicitely to be part of the huntresses of Artemis, but she herself lives in a group of "wild women" very similar to Artemis' huntresses so... it is strongly implied she is one of them, especially since she literaly lives like the goddess and has been gifted by her). Leucippus of course refused to bathe, despite the other girls' insistence, and since he refused still, they tore his clothes away from him... discovering he was a man all along. And since this group of women act on a Artemis' huntress logic, they did what seemed the most reasonable thing to do... kill Leucippus by plunging in his body all of their spears.

4: The Greek legend does agree that Daphne begged a third-party god to turn her into the laurel tree to escape Apollo's love-hunt, but the details are different from Ovid's tale and the story is more lacking in explanations... All we know, from Parthenius' record is that Apollo appeared to Daphne right after Leucippus was killed. Why? We don't know, but he clearly came to profit off the fact his romantic rival had been killed in shame/crime, and that he had a part to play in the "reveal" of Leucippus' deceit... But all we know is that Daphne fled Apollo, and he pursued her, and to avoid being caught by him she begged to be hidden from his sight, and thus she was turned into a laurel tree. But in the Greek legend she doesn't beg her father the river-god... she begs Zeus, and he is the one who grants her request and protects her from his own son.

Things are even worse in Pausanias' record, since he stops after Leucippus death and there is no story of Apollo hunting down Daphne in any way... He doesn't even speak of any metamorphosis ; and yet he does mention that Daphne was associated with the laurel, and that the heavy use of laurel in Apollonian rituals and games was because of the god's love for Daphne. (But from yet other sources contemporary to Pausanias' writings, such as the "Life of Apollonius of Tyana", we know that the story of Daphne being somehow "replaced" by a laurel-tree was well-known, though it wasn't always said why such a thing happened)

In conclusion, as usual with how Ovid tweaks the Greek legends, it is interesting to see how he shift the character and what the character is supposed to be about. Thanks to Ovid the image we keep of Daphne is the one of a victim fleeing in fright and fear, and her relationship with Apollo is depicted as a frightening and cruel tragedy orchestrated by Cupid... And yet, we do know that Daphne started out as a badass huntress of Artemis, and that her original story was about a man changing his gender in hope of winning her heart - to the point the involvment of Apollo was seen as a side-detail that could be omitted (Pausanias even claims that Apollo's involvment in the legend was an addition by the priests of the god, and not present in the main folktale)

Mind you I am not at all an expert on Daphne's character or story - and I am sure others are more informed than me... But that's the few things I know

[reyraereads]

💗💗💗🙌🙌🙌! HEY! I read your latest chapter on your fic, and I'm really hooked on it, so badly 😭! But I just wanted to ask three questions, if you don't mind.

1) "Speaking of his nephew, the passing of his supposed name-day allowed him to relax slightly. Knowing the boy that replaced him might no longer exist gave him some respite.."

Assuming his actions had either belated or changed courses of events, for example, Laena's death happened much later than the original. Does this mean Aegon the Younger was born much later into the year alongside his brother Viserys? Does this change the order or manner of Rhaenyra's children with Daemon being born too with Aegon's initiative of taking action — Visenya living or still being stillborn?

I don't know, but I re-read the chapter again and saw that and thought, oh crap did he erase his existence lol 💀

2) Aside from Aegon's growth progress, I was wondering if Sunfyre grows much bigger and stronger in this timeline than og?

I mean, it would only be natural that he would grow bigger — a lot of the characters like Daemon, Baela, who was a kid, and Viserys mentioned how big Sunfyre was. Does Sunfyre and Aegon's daily flying training every day affect his growth. I always assumed Sunfyre was quite big anyway, especially in the show, but I was wondering now does that of that show in your timeline, too. It's just mere curiosity anyway. Naturally, dragons grow big every year, but I can assume the more often you fly with them and leave them in open space on the daily would help their growth.

3) Would Aegon eventually span his influence across the other regions? Like actually go visit Oldtown or even White Harbour(to chat with that Mendrick fellow)?

It would be the most rational course if Aegon wanted to spread his influence and build up rapport with the other houses and to show he is a good contender for the throne. Seeing as he mentioned never went on a royal progress himself, because Viserys was too ill and his mother and Otto often took charge of the kingdom.

In this timeline, Viserys is in good health, and so far, the other lords — particularly the Lannisters, Hightowers, Baratheons, and all in the Small Council - are in good favour of him. I would not be surprised if they would be more than happy to help Aegon out if he asked to stay over. Plus, in this timeline, Aegon is more than eager to show a helping hand when he said he could help with Ironrod and Greyjoys. I am assuming he might, if he wanted, did end up doing that.

Plus, I feel the Manderlys would be Aegon's key in garnering some support from the North — or just House Manderly in general. They are the wealthiest house and are going to have a big fleet (a fleet, Aegon really, really needs if he is going to deal with the Velaryons) at the North and act more Southern than the average Northerner. Maybe getting a good rapport with them and mainly Mendrick would aid his cause.

(The hints on Daemion and Daeron Velaryon is making me feel they are going to be a big hand to Aegon, if the dance does go forth).

Hi! Sorry, I’m replying late, and don’t apologize. I love getting asks!

For the first one I won’t spoil anything, and we’ll find out who Rhaenyra gives birth to in Chapter 19 but butterfly effects happen in my story. Like, Aemond claiming Vermithor instead of Vhagar since Leana was alive a bit longer.

Yeah, Sunfyre would grow pretty big. He was already formidable by the dance, and now he’s more trained than before.

The plan is for Aegon to visit parts of the realm. In Part 3, he visits different regions of the realm. I find it odd how book and show Aegon have never left the Crownlands. It’s easy to blame it on Viserys health but you’re telling me no one told Aegon to go to a tourney even just to watch. I mean, he has a dragon.

The Manderlys (Torrhern and Medrick) are important because they’re close to Aegon’s age, and like you said they’re a gateway to the North.

In the book, Daeron, Daemion and the other Velaryons supported the Greens in the books and considering Daeron’s daughter Daenaera is younger than Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. I assume that Daeron is close to Aegon’s age or at most 5 years older than him.

I just find it bizarre how there are so many canon characters — Medrick, Cregan, Daeron, Daemion who are close to Aegon in age yet they’d never interacted with him or their on the opposing side for plot reasons.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Chapter 38: Maidens of the Spear

The Maidens will stab you if you complain about spoilers when you read this post. You're clicking "Keep reading" with full knowledge that I can and will spoil anything and everything about this whole series and any others I feel like.

This chapter starts with the Wheel-and-serpent icon because this is an important chance meeting.

Men were sometimes silly enough to think a woman was harmless merely because she was a woman; Egwene had no such illusions.

I assume these silly men are not counting women with ageless faces among the harmless but purely the average, non-channeling woman because otherwise they'd be jumping far past "silly" and into "suicidal".

Except maybe a fully trained sister, she admitted. But certainly not one woman, even if she is Aiel.

Egwene betrays her ignorance here. As her story goes on, she spends very little time being actually thwarted by any fully trained sisters and has a lot more difficulties with virtually everyone else.

“You have not the look in your faces, but we saw the rings. In your lands, you have women much like our Wise Ones, the women called Aes Sedai. Are you women of the White Tower, or not?”

Note that TECHNICALLY Aviendha isn't committing the same ageless face continuity error as in book 2. Not sure if that means it's already resolved or what.

“We are women of the White Tower,” Nynaeve said calmly. She was very obvious in not looking around for other Aiel. Even Elayne was peering about. “Whether you would consider any of us wise is another matter,” Nynaeve went on.

Nynaeve's statement wouldn't trigger the Oath Rod if she were already sworn to it, so good job! Also it's really quite impressive that she's so good at dealing with the Aiel. Unlike the other gals, she already knows that if they're surrounded, they're fucked, so why worry about an additional ambush when there seems to be a way to leave the conversation peaceably?

A friend of hers is dying? She sounds as if she is asking if we’ll lend her a cup of barley flour!

Egwene grows up a LOT, doesn't she?

And what if Nynaeve can’t Heal their friend? I wish she would ask before she makes these decisions that involve all of us!

I think Egwene is probably the last member of the party to come to the conclusion that the Aiel have no interest in fucking with them, and looks particularly immature to worry that the Aiel might kill them for honest failure but not for uncharitable refusal to help.

“I am Egwene al’Vere,” she told them. They seemed to expect more, so she added, “Daughter of Marin al’Vere, of Emond’s Field, in the Two Rivers.” That seemed to satisfy them, in a way, but she would have bet they understood it no more than she did all these septs and clans.

Egwene, it's obvious what being the daughter of someone means, and context explains the rest, though almost no one knows where the Two Rivers is.

“Then why do you not speak the words before your Wise Ones?” Chiad asked. “Bain and I became first-sisters.”

Because Elayne's saving herself for the right sister and she's right there, you homewreckers!

Bain knotted her brow in thought. “What you say comes near truth, yet misses it completely. When we wed the spear, we pledge to be bound to no man or child. Some do give up the spear, for a man or a child”—her expression said she herself did not understand this—“but once given up, the spear cannot be taken back.”

So obviously trying to apply modern labels of sexuality to people who don't exist in modern western culture is usually a mistake, even if their culture only exists in the fiction of western culture, but... Bain's a lesbian, right? I legit don't believe her when she says she doesn't NOT like men, she seems to be mostly in denial. (Also it's great getting to watch the Aiel go, "Holy shit you wetlanders are dumb." I look forward to this coming up more and more.)

“Yes, they do.” Chiad sounded as though she and Bain were sharing something between them.

They're laughing at Aviendha.

“Yes,” Egwene said faintly. She glanced at Elayne and saw the bewilderment in her blue eyes she knew must be in her own.

Egwene is so deeply into the White Tower that she can't even conceptualize organizations of people outside it anymore. That's deeply worrying.

But we do not share him, Elayne. We can neither of us have him.

Is this a Perrin chapter? Because I am just non-stop dunking on the stupidity of the POV character. EGWENE. Wake. the. fuck. up.

“Some of those fools that the oath-breaking treekillers call soldiers thought we were another handful of the bandits who infest this land. We had to kill them to convince them otherwise, but Dailin. . . . Can you heal her, Aes Sedai?”

That's... that's not how you convince people of facts, Aviendha. That's just how you stop them from harassing you.

Chiad and Bain stepped to the river’s edge and returned together. Their faces never changed, but Egwene thought they had almost expected the river to reach up and grab them.

Again we can see how our characters are very early on their personal journeys because even the random NPCs have better emotional and facial control than they do.

“She truly does sound like a Wise One,” Chiad told Bain softly, and the other woman gave a tight nod.

I'd like to see Nynaeve go to Rhuidean and probably break the initial ter'angreal because she's so fucking constant it can't come up with any alternate futures based on other things she could have done.

The Stones River. . . . Some claim it had water in it once, but that is only boasting. There are only the stones. The oldest records of the Wise Ones and the clan chief say there was never anything but stones since the first day our sept broke off from the High Plain sept and claimed that land.

Probably the initial Aiel who discovered the area still had remnant knowledge from the AoL and thus the ability to recognize the signs of a river destroyed by climate change.

“I would never harm an Aes Sedai,” Aviendha said abruptly. “I would have you know that. Whether Dailin lives or dies, it makes no difference in that. I would never use this”—she lifted one short spear a trifle—“against any woman. And you are Aes Sedai.”

Aviendha is of course concerned that Egwene is grabbing the One Power out of nowhere. Egwene can't even conceive of Aiel channelers and again she's barely spent any time with the White Tower.

Just because Elayne had been taught something did not mean it was true, even if the Aiel said the same thing.

This isn't a bad instinct to have, but Egwene only has it when it comes to her two equals in the party, not when it comes to the knowledge she's been taught at home and the Tower.

“Balefire,” Egwene said. “Aviendha, what is balefire?”

It's a good thing that these Aiel are on the up and up or Egwene would have just blabbed on herself in an incredibly stupid way. Also, I guess the Aiel have a better cultural memory of balefire than westerners because of Rhuidean. I don't remember if it's explicitly used in Rand's genetic memories though.

She was not sure she had even been able to make out all the many flows, much less the way Nynaeve had woven them together. What Nynaeve had done in those few seconds had seemed like weaving four carpets at once while blindfolded.

Egwene won't admit it even to herself, but she is deeply concerned with how ahead of her in channeling Nynaeve is.

Next time: The girls get kidnapped. Again!

[secularprolifeconspectus]

I personally wouldn't care if I had been aborted (because I wouldn't exist to care), and oftentimes I wish that I was aborted. If I ever got pregnant and couldn't get an abortion, I would probably end my own life because the mere thought of this entity growing in my body that is genetically half me and half someone else is utterly horrifying and disturbing and I would rather die than go through that.

Well yeah, you wouldn't care if you'd been aborted because you would be dead. You would have existed and have been murdered. "You" would stop existing, and your body would be rotting in a sewer... or, burned for electricity... or, dissolved with acid... or, preserved in a jar of formaldehyde... or, buried 6 feet under. You would be dead.

It's sad that you wish you had been murdered. If you need help and you're in the US, call #988.

Look, I don't know how old you are, but you sound young to me. Maybe that's because what you're saying reminds me of how I felt in my teens and early 20s. I'm now 27, and I don't know if it's two years of studying how pregnancy works and working around pregnant people, or if it's just my instinctual reproductive hormones kicking in, or if it's healing from childhood sexual abuse... but, I find myself feeling different about pregnancy now. I was so afraid of it and disgusted by my body. But now, I actually have dreams about having a baby, and feeling them within me, and miscarrying that baby, and mourning their loss. I've never been pregnant, but, it seems something inside of me has shifted.

So I don't have any sure-fire advice for you... all I can say is, after listening to so many women tell me their stories of pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, and abortion, I now understand that pregnancy changes you. Yeah, when you think about it as an abstract concept removed from your body, it sounds horrifying. But from what I've been told, when you're pregnant, it... hits different. Your body WANTS to be pregnant. And it will release hormones to make you want it as well. So, I believe if you ever find yourself pregnant, you will feel very different about it emotionally because your brain chemistry will change.

And from women who have had crisis pregnancies, I've heard soooo many say that birthing their child actually saved their lives. It gave them something to live for. They learned unconditional love, and what it feels like to be unconditionally loved. As for the women who have had abortions, I've heard so many women say it drove them to destroy themselves with alcohol, drugs, abusive relationships... and studies have found that women are twice as likely to die by suicide after aborting in their teens than their peers who become teen moms.

You're on a journey. I can't tell you where to go next. But, I hope hearing some of my own journey from fearing my fertility to loving myself might challenge you, and maybe even offer you hope.

You deserve to live. And if you ever conceive a child, that child deserves better than murder. You deserve better than to have your body used by a capitalist industry as a vessel for violence. Your baby is a part of you, and you deserve to live. You would be a good mom.

Here's a quote from my favorite show:

"You were this tiny seed buried in darkness fighting your way to the light. You wanted to live. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. Do you still have that in you? I look at you now chasing down death at every corner, and sweetheart, where is that gorgeous piece of you pushing to be a part of this world?"

You matter.

[ladysomething]

you got me late. just so you know, the last time my brother and I shared a bed was in 2015. funny enough, this same day (were I am is July 18) and we were also crying. actually not funny, our mamma had just told. us about Jules Bianchi. that was before, because today, we were crying, sharing covers and in the same bed as well. (my bed is what some might call a relic: 75 years old and still going)

oh maddie. I have a theory, one I shall consider a tad to close to being right. I've wroten it down along today's date, because if I don't get this one I'll change my name.

this one is going to be different. a 2+1 I'll call it. I'm just way to sad to add more. I'm drained.

1. I'm still terrified about the next chapter. but not as much as I was as I have sort of an idea of where I'm getting into. I, also, still hate fucking everyone. fuck the FIA bunch of useless horsecrap. fuck Lando for being the teacher's pet. fuck Matthew for his mere existence, it angers me. fuck Fred for his mindset and stupid ideas. yeah, fuck everyone. (as much as I don't enjoy (? I don't know if there's a word for what I mean in English) Lewis, (sorry about that, I respect him ofc he's one of my goats, I just don't like him that much. this is between me, british drivers with their fandoms and media) good for him speaking about omega's rights and that. good Lulu)

2. even though I had a little hunch about Sophie and her character in this story, I did not expect that punch to hit so strongly. I cried for 20 minutes. my brother cried for 13.

+1. oh love, I'm italianaa and for what it seems also older than you. being a tifosa is what patriotism means for me (that and the one article of gli eterni rivali. I've never been so proud of coming from the same place that produced that masterpiece). I think we can manage some more time. my nonna (whose bed I once read wygig in) is 90. ny nonno is 94. italian as well and they bleed rosso corsa. they've survived so far so. we can do it 💞💪🏼

loved the chapter as always, (can)'t wait for the next one 🙌🏼

hello darling!

I know I usually go through these one by one, but honestly my biggest takeaway is just how much emotion you were obviously feeling when you wrote this.

sometimes I forget that there are real people on the other end of this story, feeling real things, so this was a good and beautiful reminder for me.

I hope you guys are both feeling a little less heavy now.

[sharonisthebettercarter]

contemplated at shooting annie (which he unnecessarily did)

punched Hughie for stopping him from killing Kimiko’s brother, Kenji, right in front of her. Then said if he got in the way of him reuniting with Becca, he’d kill Hughie too.

Used an infant as a weapon and threatened to kill them

Is a hypocrite himself (obviously)

Killed a whale

Drugged Marvin

He was willing to sell Ryan to Vought knowing that it would likely mean another Homelander. He didn't care, because it meant he would have Becca.

Insulted Ryan, TO BECCA'S FACE (honestly, Becca should've never tried to make Billy like, let alone tolerate Ryan if she knew that Billy has a weak connection with children and is distrustworthy around them. Like she should've just told him to kick rocks and make sure he won't have a hand in raising Ryan either)

He said that Becca could just "have another kid", not understanding that kids aren't replaceable, like objects (jewelry, cars, houses, etc.) That attitude is fucking horrifying if you're a parent, and I'd worry that he would have that attitude towards any kids (whether mere mortal or supe)

He betrayed his team multiple times

Threatened to kill hughie multiple times

doesn’t care who he hurts in the process

Gaslighted ryan

Let's also add the fact that he CHEATED ON BECCA WHEN THEY WERE TOGETHER

Attempts to kidnap Zoe (based on what the trailers implying)

UNALIVES 2 CHARACTERS AT LEAST (ONE MAIN CHARACTER) wouldn't surprise me if it turns out to be Hughie, considering he threated to unalive Hughie numerous of times.

In all honesty, I hope he hallucinates an angry Becca and Becca's ghost haunts him in the next seasons, like Rhonda's ghost haunted Anika in "Empire".

don't forget unnecessarily attempted to blow up teddy stillwell~!

this shit would be why i roll my eyes anytime someone calls billy an 'aNtI-hErO' or 'gOoD', leik Y'ALL--

lol oh no dear gawd you poor bitch, my dear sweet beautiful angel baby child~<3

just wait until we get to the end of the story or even just a *little* bit further along... this ain't even the half of it...

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the ever expanding shit list on butcher can make homie look tame at times, but yeah no~. def not a good guy, def not right in anyway, one of the big main points of the story is proving butcher wrong and showing just how far his own head was up his own ass.

he's a secondary villain to the series, primary being h--VOUGHT (but also since people forget our *actual* hero is HUGHIE, and that the supes themselves are a SYMPTOM not the actual source of the problems *cough*cough*HEY REMEMBER STARLIGHT WHO EXISTS??* OR THIS WHOLE ASS ABUSIVE FUCKIN' COMPANY THAT EXPLOITS CHILDREN AND EXPERIMENTS ON BABIES LIKE NOBODY'S BUSINESS??????) and leik. he is *made* specifically to disappoint and prove the reader/viewer *wrong* about him (apart from prove himself wrong) by being his absolute worst with zero excuses for it at legit every chance he gets. mainly by being a serial killer butt~

he's *designed* to toy with our emotions and the hope that we see some *good* in him or give him the benefit of the doubt, because we are seeing the story mostly from *hughie's* perspective, and that is specifically how *HUGHIE* feels about him. and some are def blind to it (like hughie lmao) but some can see through butcher's bullshit (like *annie*)

like his whole damn niche is *dragging* homelander down to his level and causing chaos beyond his own wildest wet dreams at the *expense* of everyone else, and homie clocked that motherfucker before giving him the promise of that ticking time bomb explosion because butcher ain't the only one pushing him too far--but he is certainly the most devoted.

his *obsession* with homie completely consumes his life and everything he does. homelander *hardly* cares about billy beyond his being a persistent thorn in his side that *occasionally* provides *some* level of interest.

i think an easy gauge at what's really going on is to look no further than annie's perspective. many people are more than willing to overlook butcher's bullshit, but annie describes what's going on probably better than anyone i've seen.

for homie? she specifically says. "there's something *wrong* with homelander", but with butcher she just gets fuckin' mad MAD because HE. KNOWS. BETTER. and does worse.

the framing there isn't a mistake. leik at all.

post gen v, i saw a bunch of people calling for the gen v kids to join the boys or for butcher to 'adopt' them and the only thing i could think was 'dear fuckin' satan, for the love of GAWD, PLEASE NO' because the only thing butcher does and *would* do is~

ABUSE.

USE.

MURDER WHEN THEY ARE NO LONGER OF USE.

LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT.

it is LITERALLY all he does the WHOLE fuckin' time, and it's comin' to a head cause there is only so much bullshit his team will tolerate, and i--.

MM IS BETTER ANYWAY AND IF ANYONE SHOULD BE DOING ANY ADOPTING--

i need butcher... to stay THE FUCK *away* from the gen v kids because *when* he hurts them i will lose my shit--

i don't think hughie will die. given the comic, he's actually one of the few people i would say is actually guaranteed to survive (again, goes back to people forgetting *hughie* is our protagonist, NOT butcher), but he may be the one who ends up killing butcher, def not before billy does a ton of damage to showcase what an irredeemable scumbag he really is (i love him, i really do BUTT JESUS fuckin' CHRIST MAN--)

when it comes to ryan, that's a whole 'nother can o worms, but there's a part of me that honestly feels billy only protected him--not because he actually gives a shit about ryan specifically (let's not forget that moment he was about to beat ryan to death when becca died), but because he actually does care specifically about *keeping his promise to becca* and the leverage that ryan *is* over homelander.

and while i do think it's possible that through that and in his own twisted round about way, he *cares* for ryan in a similar way he cares for hughie (mostly just the connection to becca tho), i also think it's pretty likely there is a part of him that deeply resents ryan *specifically*, i think its SUPER duper fuckin' likely that as soon as billy gets the idea in his head that:

'ryan is a lost cause and can't be saved'?

*and* he's no longer of use to billy?

that poor kid's gonna fall to the 'just another supe freak/only worth somethin' dead' list for billy. :/

and i get it, it is fuckin' infuriating but he is supposed to be infuriating because we're supposed to realize just how full of shit and actually evil he really is under the bravado. he's just another extremist opposite of homelander to the point where even their desires and presentation, inner and outer, ring opposite.

boi is a wannabe frank castle with ZERO fuckin' principles.

but yeah, once you get to the point of trying to BLOW UP A FUCKIN' BABY, i--