#I CANNOT be the only person who read that story and came to the conclusion that they were in a polycule

[jonnywaistcoat]

What’s your opinion on the contrast between “silly” and “serious” spaces? Do you think people can have very serious interpretations about a genuine piece of media and also be goofy about it? I’m asking this particularly because I’ve seen people in the Magnus podcast fandoms fight about people “misinterpreting” characters you, Alex, and the many other authors have written. Are you okay with the blorbofication or do you really wish the media you’ve written would be “taken seriously” 100% of the time?

And follow up question, what do you think about the whole “it’s up to the reader (or in some cases, listener) to make their own conclusions and interpretations and that does not make them wrong”, versus the “it was written this way because the author intended it this way, and we should respect that” argument?

This is a question I've given a lot of thought over the years, to the point where I don't know how much I can respond without it becoming a literal essay. But I'll try.

My main principle for this stuff boils roughly down to: "The only incorrect way to respond to art is to try and police the responses of others." Art is an intensely subjective, personal thing, and I think a lot of online spaces that engage with media are somewhat antithetical to what is, to me, a key part of it, which is sitting alone with your response to a story, a character, a scene or an image and allowing yourself to explore it's effect on you. To feel your feelings and think about them in relation to the text.

Now, this is not to say that jokes and goofiness about a piece of art aren't fucking great. I love to watch The Thing and drink in the vibes or arctic desolation and paranoia, or think about the picture it paints of masculinity as a sublimely lonely thing where the most terrible threat is that of an imposed, alien intimacy. And that actually makes me laugh even more the jokey shitpost "Do you think the guys in The Thing ever explored each other's bodies? Yeah but watch out". Silly and serious don't have to be in opposition, and I often find the best jokes about a piece of media come from those who have really engaged with it.

And in terms of interpreting characters? Interpreting and responding to fictional characters is one of the key functions of stories. They're not real people, there is no objective truth to who they are or what they do or why they do it. They are artificial constructs and the life they are given is given by you, the reader/listener/viewer, etc. Your interpetation of them can't be wrong, because your interpretation of them is all that there is, they have no existence outside of that.

And obviously your interpretation will be different to other people's, because your brain, your life, your associations - the building blocks from which the voices you hear on a podcast become realised people in your mind - are entirely your own. Thus you cannot say anyone else's is wrong. You can say "That's not how it came across to me" or "I have a very different reading of that character", but that's it. I suppose if someone is fundamentally missing something (like saying "x character would never use violence" when x character strangles a man to death in chapter 4) you could say "I think that's a significant misreading of the text", but that's only to be reserved for if you have the evidence to back it up and are feeling really savage.

I think this is one of the things that saddens me a bit about some aspects of fandom culture - it has a tendency to police or standardise responses or interpretations, turning them from personal experiences to be explored into public takes to be argued over. It also has the occasional moralistic strain, and if there's one thing I wish I could carve in stone on every fan space it's that Your Responses to a Piece of Art Carry No Intrinsic Moral Weight.

As for authorial intention, that's a simpler one: who gives a shit? Even the author doesn't know their own intentions half the time. There is intentionality there, of course, but often it's a chaotic and shifting mix of theme and story and character which rarely sticks in the mind in the exact form it had during writing. If you ask me what my intention was in a scene from five years ago, I'll give you an answer, but it will be my own current interpretation of a half-remembered thing, altered and warped by my own changing relationship to the work and five years of consideration and change within myself. Or I might not remember at all and just have a guess. And I'm a best case scenario because I'm still alive. Thinking about a writers possible or stated intentions is interesting and can often lead to some compelling discussion or examination, but to try and hold it up as any sort of "truth" is, to my mind, deeply misguided.

Authorial statements can provide interesting context to a work, or suggest possible readings, but they have no actual transformative effect on the text. If an author says of a book that they always imagined y character being black, despite it never being mentioned in the text, that's interesting - what happens if we read that character as black? How does it change our responses to the that character actions and position? How does it affect the wider themes and story? It doesn't, however, actually make y character black because in the text itself their race remains nonspecific. The author lost the ability to make that change the moment it was published. It's not solely theirs anymore.

So yeah, that was a fuckin essay. In conclusion, serious and silly are both good, but serious does not mean yelling at other people about "misinterpretations", it means sitting with your personal explorations of a piece of art. All interpretations are valid unless they've legitimately missed a major part of the text (and even then they're still valid interpretations of whatever incomplete or odd version of the text exists inside that person's brain). Authorial intent is interesting to think about but ultimately unknowable, untrustworthy and certainly not a source of truth. Phew.

Oh, and blorbofication is fine, though it does to my mind sometimes pair with a certain shallowness to one's exploration of the work in question.

[consistentscreaming]

I'm relistening to The Magnus Archives, and I made a list of Actual Canonical Details we as a fandom forget about

- sasha gets coffee from a specific coffee shop every morning

- Jon has an excellent sense of direction

- canonically in artifact storage there is: a wardrobe light cannot penetrate, a carved rock eye that interferes with the video cameras and therefore is kept in a black velvet bag, and a scalpel ride with disease no matter what they use to sterilize it, kept in a hermetically sealed plastic box

- during halloween week, they have to call in the archives as backup due to the influx of statements. jon canonically gets a good nights sleep after disproving these statements.

- Jon sincerely believes he is far too unlucky for statements to just be a hallucination

- Not-sasha asked not to be recorded multiple times

- when told he benifited from gertrude's death, jons only response was "...I didn't?"

- [daisy became police in ~2002, almost 15 years before the story starts...meaning she is canonically late thirties/early 40s

- even when compared with the paranormal, daisy considers car accidents worse

- mary keay made an eye pun "i know the institute and i haven't always seen eye to eye, as it were"

- jon noticed when ghost hunt uk stopped updating

- sasha is taller than not-sasha

- annabelle dresses like a vintage clothing store exploded on her, has bleach blonde hair and dark skin

- annabelle looked "like the type of person that talked to cleaners as if they were actual people"

- annabelle looms over the cleaner by almost a full foot, meaning she Tall

- "the moment i die will feel just the same as this one" is not just a georgie thing, it's an End thing in general, as proved in ep 70

- not-sasha tends to stay late

- martin worked at the institute in 2009

- micheal has curly sandy blonde hair

-micheal is tall

- melanie and jon are on the same wavelength, and when working together they both came to the same conclusions with the same evidence

- elias does not think daisy is smart

- georgie is observant, and pays attention to peoples behavior

- melanie thought jon killing someone with a pipe was "wildly out of character" for him

- georgie and jon have a mutual friend named Jess who thinks Hungarian food is "too Soviet"

- jon borrowed georgie's coat when he went to meet jude perry

- jon tells jude to kill him as an ultimatum every five minutes

- elias tells tim that when presented with horrors, he finds comfort in beaurocrocy

- jared hopworth is handsome with cheekbones and a jawline to die for

- georgie was canonically willing to cover for jon to the police with no context after an unpleasant breakup and after no contact for almost 5 years

- georgie grew up poor in liverpool, and had a scouse accent until she went to oxford

- basira is a huge nerd and will talk about what she's reading to anyone who will listen

- nikola makes an allusion to not having a face

- martin and melanie got along fantastically

- georgie told jon that he needs anchors

- "if something happened to you, or-or god forbid, The Admiral, I-"

- "Don't be a Stranger." georgie thinks she's funny

- michael had a childhood friend who was taken by something like michael (schizophrenic) and that's what drove him to the magnus institut-he never you over what he saw or didn't see

- Hannah is a black woman who works in the library, had a "Thing With The Milk In The Breakroom" in april 2016. Went on maternal leave to have a baby in June of 2017.

- elias enjoys scheduling

- martin zones out when he has to read a statement, and often takes little notice of his surroundings when doing so/about to do so

- martin was looking for a book called "marvelous spiritualism and the circus in tge 19th century" and a guy named tom said tim had it checked out

- danny and tim didn't talk much, but were still close

- Abigail Ellison-who tim calls abby- is a mutual friend of tim and danny's from "back home"

- tim shipped danny and abby

- out of the two of them, danny was more assertive and tim "had never been able to stand in the way of his confidence"

- tim has a big armchair, a printer, and a couch

- melanie has made everyone in the archives cry

- [basira loved wtg until it "took a weird turn in season 3" when they introduced something she thought was odd

- melanie, basira, and martin used to go out for drinks, and martin and basira were gossip buddies

- Melanie's dad had dementia relatively young, but he always remembered her. He called her "Little Moth", and her mothers life insurance helped pay for him to be put into Ivy Meadows Care Home-where he was killed by the Corruption at the hands of John Amherst before Julia and Trevor burnt it down.

- julia is in her early thirties and wears nondescript hard wearing denim

- jon thought that reading statements could be a classical addiction, but decided that even if it was he had no time to, as he put it, "experiment"

- Peter was surprised that elias killed people kimself-implying elias has people to do murders for him. what other murders did he commission

- martin and basira both noticed something wrong with melanie after the Elias Incidint when her work started to deteriorate-martin said she'd always been "quite conscientious"

- right after being told by basira that standing by with a cup of tea wasnt enough, when melanie entered the room Martin immediately offered her a cup of tea.

- Martin knocked over a stack of papers and defended himself by saying that they shouldn't have been there. the absolute madlad

- after micheal stabbed jon, jon told martin he stabbed himself with a bread knife; and martin then proceeded to A) believe him and B) not trust him with anything sharp after that

- Gerry didn't care abt what happened in the unknowing bc he's a book. jon asked if he was serious. Gerry responded that he was, in fact, dead serious.

- gerry teases jon by saying he doesn't know anything before rescinding that statement avd giving the vaguest hint possible. he's such a dickhead i love him

- gerard didn't trust gertrude-he wanted to, but she reminded him of his mother

- gerard called trevor and julia "the van helsings"

- gerry was jealous of lietner bc his mom paid so much attention to them

- mary haunted gerard for 5 years before gertrude destroyed her, and gerry cried with relief when gertrude gave him back the destroyed book

- before the unknowing, daisy was running around killing mannequins and other Strangers

- tim didn't think they would be able to stope the unknowing

- jon would rather have tim where he could see him-which is why he let tim come (guilt guilt guilt guilt GUILT GUILT GUIL GU

- basiras dad couldn't stand people who passively whined about their problems. he always said "If you don't like something, you accept it and you adapt, or you fight, and you change it. Whining doesn't help."

- Melanie was depressed before the unknowing

- jon rambles about his latest insights and melanie wants to punch him.

- martin: "it felt good, weaving my own little web." "Also, i get to burn some stuff, so that's cool"

- basira was the one to suggest that they not tell Melanie they were doing surgery

-Daisy made jon listen to the Archers. "I hate it. but it feels... good, to hate something that can't hurt me"

[narwhalandchill]

how are we feeling about this project amber update

assuming this is in relation to childe bc who the fuck else JWDJWJKDJKW anon im so sorry if not. also so so sorry for how out of hand this got. i am simply unwell about him.

But! Well. there certainly are thoughts

(obviously 4.6 datamine of arle SQ and her voicelines; This Will Not Spoil Anything Abt The Main SQ Plot, i only discuss the relevant parts. also some p Heavy negativity towards fanon ooc at the start youve been warned dont @ me)

(i mean i didnt even read anything of the SQ but The scene w childe so idek the main plot of the quest rly either lmao. tho go at ur own risk if u wanna check the dialogue out; its the 2nd quest log but it does hint at the greater story)

TLDR: how i feel abt his appearance in a vaccuum? quite solid despite the briefness, actually. accounting for the way fanon is 100% likely going to be reading into this and turning it into the Lets Infantilize Ajax Even More 2024 championship? conflicted.

in other words; a certified labyrinth warriors moment - theyve expanded on childes character in a very interesting and quite a compelling way and while i Do like the potential in what im seeing from hoyos end theyve also done it so that its going to be misinterpreted to hell and back by fanon so i kinda have an immediate jaded love-hate moment going on JJWJDKJDKJWJDWKJ

its literally just labyrinth warriors flashbacks - that event has some of my ALL TIME favorite insights into who ajax is and how he views the world and himself but when the event came out all everyone cared abt was to warp it into baby boy stuck in scawwy paper boy dungeon dehumanizes himself by calling himself a weapon and doesnt love himself he is such a sad trauma meowkitten 🥺🥺so yeah

bc like lets look at this properly for a bit; okay he went back to fontaine to look for skirk still somewhat injured and waa waa my 286 month infant baby cannot Make decisions like that!!!!!11! which is to say. i am tired of him getting this shit every time.

is it smart of him to get on the move immediately with just the bare minimum of rest? no. do i like that hes straining himself before proper recovery? not particularly no. do i feel the particular need to psychoanalyze this grown man and feared warrior whos 100% survived Way Worse in Way More Extreme Situations for it? hell fucking no.

while not at all the course of action a medical professional would approve of. from childes POV its perfectly logical hes priorizing going back for skirk when its literally the FIRST TIME shes showed up in like. a Decade. when hes been looking for her all this time are you kidding me 😭😭😭 but fanon must keep fanoning for their widdle baby girl so what does a hater like me know

anyway. seething and venting over im gonna try to avoid bringing up how much i hate this kinda infantilization of ajax now im sorry for bringing it up so much on ur innocent ask anon KJWDJKWKJDJDKWJKD. neutral discussion moment. i Promise

so it seems that theyre going for the pulcinella-is-shady-about-ajax (and prolly his family) angle for good and like. personally for me as long as the only real source of that claim was scara (a cynical edgelord who doesnt believe in non-exploitative human relationships, mind you) i was rather skeptical towards just instantly drawing that conclusion, but well. with the scene in arles AQ it appears to be sth theyre building towards

i actually really fucking loved that scene bc while theres outsider perspectives (scara obvi; and even arles line for him has that vibe. and ppl still take that shit face value 💀💀) and a lot of fandom assuming childes like. completely clueless and naive and ignorant towards the potential risks involved with trusting pulcinella. this is actually a very clever demonstration of quite the opposite? and showcasing how despite his aversion towards schemes and lies hes still intelligent and knows the kind of people hes dealing with when it comes to his fellow harbingers

like. childe has a negative opinion of arle based on what pulcinella has told him about her because at face value many of her deeds are in heavy conflict with his values of loyalty and family. and because he does not have the further context behind her actions and what the HotH under her is really like. Obviously hed hold a very hostile and wary view towards arlecchino

(ESPECIALLY when with all this biased intel hes still going to run into kids from the house!!! and then hes going wtf? these are good kids. what the hell is that knave doing with them??? blink twice if you need help i will start a civil war for yall like thats how he is with kids!!!!)

so YES. pulcinella has given him if not false then at least misleading intel based on the political tension between himself and arlecchino and the wider HotH. and childes taken that at face value! sure! he is close with pulcinella of course he would!

BUT. THEN. he returns to fontaine and seeks arlecchinos help looking for skirk. and observes her behavior and modus operandi for himself as well as the kids. does he go "nah she must be just hiding the crazy evil shit i would never distrust pulcinella" and leave it at that when reality doesnt completely match his expectations?

NO. because when offered the opportunity through the traveler asking about the HotH childe immediately capitalizes on the opportunity to prod for answers and see if pulcinella is lying to him!!!!

and hes so fucking smart with the way he does it too???? i LOVE his intelligence. the entire thing is so simple yet elegant; it Completely relies on his reputation as the kinda gullible harbinger whod Never scheme or hide Anything to indirectly affirm or deny his suspicions. he doesnt Need to Pretend to care about the possibility of arle betraying the kids bc he genuinely does!! and when she pushes back against the accusation he doesnt Need to fake admitting to her that well, actually, its all just rumors so he could be completely wrong. and so on. like he navigates the entire thing so effortlessly. and whats the end result?

childe has Confirmation of pulcinellas possible ulterior motives in action AND that arlecchino is a much more reliable ally than he initially assumed. all the while appearing as just The Straightforward 11th. like obviously id need to hear it voiced first to be sure but in text it v much gives the impression hes almost kinda just. playing up the threats towards arle and being "dumb" on Purpose?? to get the answers he wanted out of arle without appearing like hes fishing for anything particular. and i just hhhhhhhhhhh

i love when he does this so muchhhh!!!!!! 😭😭 he doesnt need to become some machiavellian schemer to be able to strategize !!!!!! he avoids scheming bc he Dislikes it not bc hes incapable of it like this has Always been the case Since Liyue AQ and i love whenever they show that side of himm . my Beloved

so anyway. while i do still think the like "pulcinella is bad and has his family hostage" is still kind of a generic plotline and i hope the writing regarding the whole thing wont ultimately turn out to be sth That simplified and black and white. its p clear theyre doing Something with pulcinellas motivations and as they are. im Really glad theyre letting it show that childes not just some completely passive party being manipulated in this all. he Is thinking abt this stuff and his position among the harbingers. ig we shall see where it goes - not the greatest fan of the concept still, but canon text supports it becoming a thing way more than when it was just scaras word we had for it. hope theyll surprise me positively w how they go about it!

then briefly for the rest uhh

also loved arle and childe just shittalking the rest of the harbingers it was amazing. i wasnt expecting this kinda dynamic between them at all but its great lmao. also i wanna see childe hang out w the HotH kids

as for project stuzha; so we dont really get anything solid on it other than being summoned back to snezhnaya for it is apparently a Big Deal. but still very interested. let my man have his endgame significance Trust

childes appearance was obviously v brief ultimately but that was clear from his leaked linecount to begin with - i am pretty satisfied with what they seem to have done w him. like its not The Best but also i wasnt expecting his lore to get some massive expansion in another harbingers SQ . the worst i feared was that it was just going to be a flashback of arle returning his vision which did Not happen so massive W. i am super hyped to hear this scene voice acted proper and happy to see him again, i really hope he gets to appear at least once more in an interlude or dains quest or something before going on hiatus again but idk if thats too much to ask LKKWJDJWDJWD

also: i am never changing my namecard after this patch drops. oh my godddddddd its So Fucking Beautiful 😭😭😭😭

But. Yeah. lots of good stuff. unfortunately lots of it will get misinterpreted and fanon will get obnoxious about it. but i still love getting to see him again and i am speedrunning that namecard day fucking one mutuals and/or followers in EU please add me (UID 711090267) ill need coop buddies for the world bosses

thank youuuuuuu for the ask i hope this monstrosity of a monologue doesnt scare u off 💀💀💀

[hms-no-fun]

so, (SPOILERS FOR FIONNA AND CAKE but its relevant to the question but im gonna put a bunch of line breaks just in case lol)

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so fionna and cake ended with fionna basically being like, you know, youre RIGHT god, if magic came back my wish would simply be twisted and it would suck, there will be no rule breaking miracles! I will now work as a struggling minimum wage employee in seattle and Be Happy about it. i sure am glad the threat of losing everyone i know and love set me straight!! sorry to send u this really random thing the ending just felt like such a slap in the face and i wanted to ask someone who knows that exact Seattle Struggle. this is absolutely me appealing to the Writing Gods to back me up that the ending wasnt very good lmao but if i have a direct line to the craftsgoat i simply must use it for something stupid at least once

FULL SERIES SPOILERS FOR FIONNA & CAKE AFTER THE BREAK!!!

i really disagree with your read on the ending. it didn't feel like "just struggle with seattle minimum wage forever and be happy about it" at all to me! the whole instigating incident was that fionna wanted to transform reality into something that she personally thought would be better, without taking into account the fact that other people exist and have internal lives just as complex as hers. she comes back to her original world to find marshall and gary holding hands, explains to them the magical adventure she's been on and the fact that their world is about to transform into something unrecognizably magical, and they receive this with abject horror! fionna doesn't know whether simon becoming ice king again will erase marhsall & gary's burgeoning relationship, which makes her realize that in her quest to escape the boring, oppressive reality of working odd jobs to make ends meet, she's only ever focused that energy on how to make things better for her.

i really want to dig into this because it's a key theme of the show. there is a destructive selfishness innate to the "heroes" of this universe, who feel entitled to the joyous empowerment of being able to defeat anyone and everyone they see in open combat. cake has a whole musical number about this! simon's arc in the last two episodes was betty grabbing him and shaking him until he finally asked himself, how would my life have been different if i'd just once let the woman i loved steer the ship for a while? and then of course we see the lich in a reality where he succeeded in eradicating all life, only to find himself desiccated and without purpose, begging the god of chaos for an answer it cannot give. brian david gilbert's ice prince seems perfectly put together and successful, until the reveal that he's outsourced his madness to someone who didn't accept the terms of the crown's curse. this didn't solve the fundamental problem, it just inverted the roles of its expression by making princess bubblegum into the mad candy queen. nothing about the status quo has changed, simon has simply given himself a more dignified role in it.

this is a story about what happens when people in struggle behave as though they are the protagonist of reality. when fionna says "this is the world i want to fight for" she's not fighting for the right to get another shitty minimum wage job. i think you've really missed something by accepting that conclusion when cake the cat is right there saying that her magical self IS the version of herself she wants to live as. being a normal house cat for her was, arguably, a form of body dysmorphia, and the show lets her keep that magic at the end! the thing is, their world IS changed by the events of the show! the status quo is altered!

like, what do we actually see everyone DOING when the credits approach? we see this entire disconnected community banding together to rebuild the city together, and we see a huge crowd of protesters outside marshall's mom's place demanding that she lower rents. we see people connecting with other people, including three outcasts from other universes escaping to this more boring one for their own safety. i loved this ending honestly, because it felt to me like an attempted refutation of the very idea that you can magically transform reality into something better overnight. if fionna'd gotten her original wish and made her world into, like, candy world, then... what? let's say they play it as like, at last people are freed from the shackles of capitalism and everyone just gets to be weird funky critters going on adventures or whatever. what would that, as art, actually say? what would that mean to us in the real world? if we're going into this cartoon looking for some kind of revolutionary energy (which IS present in the text, much to its credit), what actionable or symbolically resonant message are we supposed to take from a story that resolves its problems with magic? at that point, it ceases to be relevant as anything more than pure fantasy, because it has abandoned any connection to the material reality WE are trapped in.

i don't want to magically transform the world overnight. this whole show goes out of its way to explore how trying to transform the world overnight, in a world where such a thing is possible, is a really fucking bad idea for a whole host of reasons. regardless, such things aren't possible in our world. so going into the finale, my worry was that they WOULD turn fionna's world into another candy world and just say, ah, the revolution is when you think the right things so hard that the material plane bends to your will.

that's neoliberal thinking. that's like the essence of the failed leftist project of the "end of history" era from the 90s onwards, when marxism was systematically rooted out of academic cultural analysis and replaced with the delusion that if you can just get people thinking the right things, you can affect change in the world. well here we are, it's 2023 and all that magical thinking has got us is a world on fire and a civilization of human beings so thoroughly disempowered that they would literally rather pretend to be a tortured anime protagonist than exist in this boring, shitty, violent reality. you can't think your way out of oppression. raising labor consciousness is, at best, step one. you want to know why unions are winning big right now when they've been completely useless in this country for decades? it's because they've stopped giving a shit about optics they can't control and remembered that the boss's value does not exist without labor. you do not necessarily need marxism for this, marxism is simply the most accurate articulation of the fact that workers who make the things a capitalist sells can kneecap the capitalist by refusing to make the things they want to sell. change doesn't happen with the publishing of a book or whatever, it happens when enough people in real life press their material demands hard enough that someone in charge is left no choice but to listen.

so for me, fionna & cake ending the way it did was a huge relief, because it wasn't espousing magical thinking. the solution to fionna's ennui and economic anxiety was not to just get another job and be happy to live in the world as it was-- it was to create a sense of shared community and struggle, uniting the not-seattleites in their survival of a near-apocalypse and using it as a jumping off point for fundamentally transforming the state of that world as it exists. fionna had to realize that her problems are everyone's problems, and that making her life personally better at the expense of everyone else's agency is just an act of kicking the can of responsibility down the road indefinitely. no one who gets their wish in this show is happy to have gotten it, or avoids punishing others who didn't ask to be involved.

the "canonization" of fionna & cake felt like a reaction to the idea that we in our world are permanently isolated from the fictional realities we create where change seems to come so easy, and the powerlessness that can engender. instead this show is saying, okay, let's say we are in continuity with these fantastical realities. what do we actually DO with that? how do we make this world more fun, more interesting, more fulfilling for everyone to live in? the answer is the same as it's always been, and no other answer would ever feel satisfying: you do it by organizing the workers against the current arrangement of the state with the explicit goal of transforming it for the better.

what does simon do at the end when he gives fionna her world to her? he says that no one person should have that responsibility, that it's been in one person's hands for too long. so he gives it to her in the form of a dandelion, whose blown seeds merge with and become part of everyone trying to survive the scarab's attack. the idea here is that while no single person ever possesses the power to transform the world on their own, the world itself belongs to all of us, and it is within our power to transform it together. those who hoard power want us to believe that this is not the case precisely because the basis of their power is fraudulent and maintained through the violence of the state.

as someone who does live in seattle for better and worse, as much as i do wish i could make literally anything better right the fuck now by whatever means necessary... the fact is i can't. and it does no one any good to labor under the assumption that i or any other individual has that kind of absolute transformative power. the solutions are all right there, and they are simple, materialist propositions whose only difficulty lies in how successfully we've been propagandized to think that the individual is God, or at least speaks on His behalf. there's no thinking our way out of this pickle, and no one's gonna do the hard work for us.

as to the question of how you actually get people in real life to get together and do all that hard work... well, personally i think it's unfair to ask a 10 episode cartoon show to give you any kind of actionable advice on that front. i might even go so far as to say that such an expectation is an expression of the very same magical thinking which the show tries to push back against! in any case i liked it quite a lot and i hope this rambling answer encourages you to revisit the show and reconsider some of your takeaways

[svtminji]

𐙚 ‧ JOHNJI ─── news article

I 𝓲. I johnny (nct) x oc ୨୧ dating news

╰ dispatch reveals their second couple of 2019: seventeen’s minji and nct’s johnny.

﹙  DECEMBER 31ST, 2018  ﹚— Every year, Korean news outlet Dispatch rings in the new year by revealing new celebrity couples to the public. Girls’ Generation’s Yoona and Lee Seung Gi, Rain and Kim Tae Hee, and EXID’s Hani and JYJ’s Junsu all had their first reports come from Dispatch.

Along with the previous couple exposed today, Blackpink's Jennie and EXO's Kai, the pair was exposed by a close friend of theirs. The mutual stated that they had been dating for a few months and were seeing each other regularly. Photos were sent to us by the friend and we will not be disclosing due to privacy. Whether Dispatch will disclose the photos or not, their interactions at events are something else to look at to confirm their relationship. Thus being said, perhaps fans of both groups will look into the SEVENTEEN and NCT interactions.

Minji has posted many photos on her personal Instagram account, doimizu, with NCT’s Johnny. Although most of the photos were mere Instagram stories, it definitely added insight into what the idols were doing together. Whether Minji meant to make her relationship public by sharing her moments with Johnny, these stories were captured a few weeks before they started officially dating, according to the close friend.

Both SM and Pledis Entertainment have not addressed anything currently about the matter, especially SM Entertainment with two of their artists dating life being exposed.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ 민지 ⠀𓍼⠀⠀⠀𝐉.⠀⠀⠀쟈니

╰ sm entertainment comfirms nct’s johnny and seventeen’s minji relationship.

While looking through with each artist, both of their agencies responded with these statements:

Hello, this is SM Entertainment. We talked to our artist, Johnny, and came to the conclusion that he is in-fact dating SEVENTEEN’s Minji. We would also like to confirm that they had been dating prior to the announcement. We cannot interfere with his life outside of idol activities, so we ask fans to support the couple. Thank you.

Hello, this is Pledis Entertainment. Looking over with SM Entertainment, we came to the same conclusion. We hope everyone can support the couple and withhold their negative views.

Although it was not needed, Minji made a personal statement on her Instagram.

Hi. This is Minji from Seventeen and I am deeply sorry for announcing this after seeing the current news. I’ve always wanted to announce my relationship with Johnny and being beaten to it really hurt me. This relationship was built from a friendship that I hope lasts even after we depart from each other, if that does happen. Both of us were made aware of the news as soon as it was released to the public. I didn’t want to feel the same pressure as every other artist who was exposed by the fated news, but unfortunately, I am standing in their shoes as well. I hope everyone understands that I am truly sorry for having to announce this. Thank you for your understanding.

The post’s comment section was filled with both support and hate, which later became silenced with Minji disabling comments. We truly offer our condolences to the couple and we wish them a very safe and healthy relationship!

reaction : 🎑. ─── fan

reaction : 🎑. ─── k-net

[+290, -34] pledis not giving a complete response and only agreeing with sm is crazy ㅋㅋ

[+150, -23] minji writing a longer statement than pledis about the relationship is outrageous

[+101, -2] i hope dispatch burns

[+52, -1] i’ve always felt that what dispatch is doing is no different to stalking.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ 민지 ⠀𓍼⠀⠀⠀𝐉.⠀⠀⠀쟈니

thank you for reading this news article 😭 i decided to give it a new update and i decided to republish it ! — sap1ing

[mirai-desu]

On the MSATD News

I didn't have time to post a knee-jerk reaction (which those of you from the Downton days know I was apt to do - thank you to all my long term mutuals of my side blog for sticking with me through those days), as I saw the news as I was getting ready to head out for work and it's been… a bit of a day.

Suffice it to say… I am devastated. And my initial reaction was (well after cursing), that it should have ended with S4, but with a different (happier) conclusion. It's called Miss Scarlet AND THE DUKE for a reason. And after all that happened in S4… it really feels like… what was it all for?? Especially if they knew WHEN FILMING THIS?? "Goodbye for now" is NOT "goodbye forever." They really, really really fumbled this.

There's a lot of theories going around, and I will admit it's too hard for me to listen to Stuart's new interview, but going off what other's have said and the parts of the transcript I did manage to read… I just cannot feel like this was actually his decision unless there's something else going on with him (either in his personal life or maybe he has some secret role he's got, because supposedly he hasn't worked since he did ADR on S4). He's been the captain of the ship, and he has always been enthusiastic with discussing the show and had just great insight into playing William. It doesn't feel like he himself was ready to move onto other things (and that's not even how it's worded - some BS about how the show needed it him to be gone for ~longevity~ of the show), like I've seen with other actors are on shows (e.g. Dan Stevens). He still promoted S3 (which came out in the UK after they filmed S4), he still even promoted S4! He was an executive producer for S4!!! Nothing makes sense!

So if it's due to RN… why keep having the other characters say William was only going to be gone a year? Why bother to have the flashback? why bother to have him stay at at Eliza's to recover?? hell I'm surprised they just didn't keep in the coma then--

But really, why even bother to have Eliza write to him? Or have Ivy say what she said to her?? The time apart was supposed to be them looking at their options. They literally foreshadowed him joining Eliza at her agency upon his return. So… what happened?

If it was actually for personal reasons that Stuart left, he has a right to his privacy. But then they should have rewritten S4 to be the end then, since they knew all this time. I can't believe we are getting the full story on this, one way or the other. The more and more I think about it... I do think it was RN's doing though.

Just two nights ago I drafted up a whole meta extolling how one of the best things this show has done has been how they developed William and how he grew as a character. The progression he made as he not only accepted Eliza having a career but encouraging her. His mentorship of Fitzroy. How he came from nothing, from a teenager living on the streets, to become an inspector at Scotland Yard. But they have chosen to toss that all out the window.

Who knows, maybe S5 ends with Eliza deciding to go to New York. But it doesn't seem like they are handling this like Babington's absence in Sanditon. They will make Eliza quickly fall for someone else, and slap fans in the face who have been following their friends to lovers slow burn for five years (because we had to wait for S2 in the first place thanks to the pandemic). And what sucks is that we still got promo saying they are in love with each other. From Stuart, from Kate, from Rachael New herself. We have still gotten promo promoting the romance. Why not have them have a big fight then or something, idk. They gave us hope. And you know what Fellowes says about false hope.

So I'm just supposed to believe that William gives up on Eliza and doesn't return…? No, I cannot. As much as we hated the deaths on DA when they wrote out actors, at least those characters still died in love with their spouses. And while I'd still be foaming at the mouth in anger if they killed him off… yeah.

William's last lines of the show is a flashback including him saying "is it all worth it?" And the answer is… no it's not.

[mellkellyismyhero]

Jonathan Stroud and Kipps

You know, as a kid reading Lockwood and Co., I LOVED Lucy, George, Lockwood, and Holly. They were all my age! Every time a new book came out I’d imagine Lucy was growing up with me.

But that meant that I didn’t have much of a connection with Kipps, who was kind of L&Co.’s punching bag (affectionate). I liked him, but I never loved him the way I loved everyone else.

Now, I’m older than L&Co. Reading the books and watching the show feels like revisiting my younger self. I was expecting to love the L&Co. trio dynamic- and I did! But one thing I really wasn’t expecting was my newfound appreciation for Kipps.

Jonathan Stroud’s decision to focus on Kipps’ transition from brilliant teen agent to terrified, washed-up adult... It didn’t speak to me as a kid because I was too busy identifying with how cool Lucy’s Talent was. But now that I’m in Kipps’ age range, I identify with Kipps a lot more over Lucy. I can’t really put it in words- this is probably going to be the first of many posts of me spewing emotions and love for Jonathan Stroud’s writing skill- but I’m going to try.

Minor Kipps-related spoilers for L&Co. books under the cut.

Kipps, in the show and books, is 20-22 years old. He’s college-aged. And he cannot do the one thing that he has trained his entire life for, and needs to adjust to that. As a kid, I just kind of saw that as the same kind of “kids rule, adults drool” thing that happens in all kids adventure stories. Can’t have the responsible adults ruining the kids’ fun!

But Kipps was unusual in that you get to SEE him go from ‘competent rival agent’ to ‘technically a useless adult’. He’s straddling the line in the way that other series, where kids get to have magic because they’re good and pure or whatever don’t.

The thing is, it would’ve been easy for Kipps to be forgotten. Just let him fade into the background and never be mentioned again after book 2. But he’s there in book 3, and 4, and 5, still doing his best to fight ghosts even if he can’t see them. As a kid, I was just like ‘huh, okay, that’s a choice’ and kind of ignored him. Who cares what Kipps is doing when Lucy and Holly are having an epic argument that’s going to bring a million ghosts down on their heads?

As an adult, I LOVE that Stroud chose to keep Kipps around. I love that Kipps found a new way to keep fighting (the goggles). I love that Kipps kind of became a member of Lockwood and Co. I love that Stroud made the readers and the characters confront the reality that one day our beloved main characters would lose their Talents too, that even Lucy would go deaf one day, instead of just ignoring the generous but very real time limit the characters had hanging over their heads.

(Side note: part of my love for this series might be stemming from my complicated feelings about the Seven Wonders book series, where a kid is told he has less than a year to live and will likely spend months in debilitating pain and then... spends that year fucking around looking for magical artifacts and not actually having any kind of physical consequences for LITERALLY HAVING A DEADLY ILLNESS-)

Anyway.

Kipps is fantastic. The way he represents the inevitable future of Lockwood and Co... the way he represents the thousands of other agents who grew too old to sense ghosts and couldn’t keep fighting even if they wanted to... the way that he tries so hard to keep the kids he’s in charge of alive but can’t because he’s only one person and he’s losing his Talent...

He’s going through such a major transition and doesn’t know what his place in the world is anymore, and honestly, what early-twenties person does? There’s something there about Talents and childhood trauma and taking your first few steps into adulthood without the tools that saved your life as a child because they don’t work anymore...

In conclusion: Kipps was an amazing character, and I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate him sooner.

[queergaygaygaygay]

Don’t know if this has blown up on Tumblr but, in the new Spiderverse film (spoilers), we see Gwen’s room which features a trans pride flag above her door. We also see a smaller flag sowed into her father’s police jacket.

They have been some theories sparked off by this with people speculating if Gwen is trans or just an ally. I find the argument about allyship to not quite hold up given where the flag is located. Someone’s bedroom is a very personal space and Gwen has only had one friend before Miles so it seems like the flag isn’t a social indicator for allyship but something more personal.

It’s perfectly possible that Gwen feels such close allyship that she keeps a pride flag in her room but I can’t really think of a justification for this. This level of passion for allyship would probably come out of a personal connection to a trans person but Gwen has very few people she feels close to (especially at the start of the film), namely: Peter Parker and her dad. These are the only people that could’ve inspired her allyship and it is possible for these characters to be trans, and one or both of these characters being trans would explain the trans flag on her dad’s police uniform since Peter was close with her dad, however I cannot find any further evidence of these character’s transness though it is possible.

It is semi-plausible to say Gwen saw trans people struggling online, and her father was convinced by this to wear a pride flag on his uniform to show allyship, though I personally don’t know any allies who have pride flags in their room.

This also seems like a strange detail for a film that is so purposeful in its visual nuances so I would imagine the reasoning behind this is less convulated than the allyship theories.

Another clue to her possible transness could be in her universe’s animation style which uses blues, purples, whites and pinks- the colours of the trans pride flag.

When I was watching the film, I spotted the trans flag and thought it was interesting. I hadn’t heard the rumours or even watched the full trailer. As the plot unfolded, I made some comparisons between Gwen Stacy’s expierience in the film and my own trans experience; the alienation from society, the anger at the world, the search for a community, the disconnect with family and the eventual acceptance of family. This made me feel a rather intimate connection with the character and her story and I think it’s actually encouraging me to come out to my mother but I haven’t yet (I asked if I could go to pride with friends and she said yes so hopefully that gives me the confidence).

This subtle but poignant dropping of the trans flag into the film, the film’s nature of making every detail significant and the clear comparison between her character arc and the general trans experience gives me the impression that the team behind the film intended for Gwen to be allegorically, or even canonically, trans and, if so, I hope they do more with this since I was genuinely brought to tears.

Whilst we can not prove Gwen is trans, we can’t prove she isn’t trans and, as explained, it isn’t impossible. I read through the reddit post and found a lot of people, unsurprisingly, saying that this is just Twitter making everyone think everyone is trans and she is conclusively not trans but I don’t use Twitter (as a loyal Tumblr girl) or had heard anything about Gwen’s story arc so my experience was as organic as anyone’s experience who came out of the cinema thinking she was cis. This stubborness to not believe Gwen could be trans is ignorant, from my perspective, because there’s no reason to say she isn’t trans. It’s more logical to assume characters are cis because most people are cis statistically but, here, we have evidence for possible transness so it feels more like a Shrödinger’s transgender- where a character could be trans, due to non-conclusive evidence, or could be cis, depending on what the writers (in regards to cannon) and fans (in regards to headcannon and fan works) choose.

Thanks for reading. I love the film regardless of this detail and would happily nerd out with any fans. If you want any citations, I’ll hand you them through dms. I would add them here but I don’t know if that would be unusual.

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

Hello, an anon with long question had arrived! 😭 I've brought some virtual foods and drinks so you won't be bored on what I'm about to ask you~~~ 🍔🍟🍕 🥤🧋

I don't know if this would interest you, but what do you think about the perception of magic in SVE? (I'm basing my question on my Farmer's lore below.)

My Farmer's parents despise magic, viewing it as a destructive force that can only harm others, based on their past experiences, particularly with Farmer's grandmother (RSV lore). Because of this, Farmer grows up avoiding magic and initially fears it due to his parents' influence. However, his views start to change over time.

Farmer sees Rasmodius using magic to protect Pelican Town, encounters the benevolent Junimo restoring old buildings, and witnesses a fairy enchanting his crops. In Castle Village, he observes battle mages using magic to defend the weak and elixirs with diverse medical uses. Additionally, magic has practical everyday uses. It can summon bubbles without soap, animate puppets for traveling performers, enhance sound for festivals, even had a very simple spells such as all-purpose cleaning, birthday reminders, or sweetening placebos spells for those who cannot consume sugar!

Ultimately, Farmer realizes that magic, like weapons, can be used for both good and ill. The witch who curses his plants at night is one of the proof of the latter. But alas, he understands that like weapon, when used by the right people, magic can improve lives.

... This turns out to be ramblings about my Farmer, and I'm sorry.

But in conclusion, how do different people's perceptions of magic affect their lives, just like Farmer's did? Are there others like Farmer's parents who hate magic? Or are there families who see magic as a special status, where greater understanding of magic elevates social status in the mage world? (It would be an interesting headcanon if either mages in the game like Ras, Lance, Camilla, or Jadu came from such families but disagreed with their views and chose to keep their distance from them.)

Dear anon, don't apologise for this, I love all your discussions and theories about my favourite game, especially this mod and your Farmer OCs 😭💕 And thanks for the virtual food! (gosh, I miss pizza so much! 🍕😋). Have a wonderful day! (Send you some virtual cookies 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪)

_________________________________________

First of all, thanks again for sharing your Farmer OC and his lore, it was interesting to read! We have quite similar views and headcanons on SDV/SVE/RSV lore, and I tried to describe all my thoughts about it here (apologise for a very, very long text 😅)

So, about your ask....

You're absolutely right about magic being both a tool and a weapon. There was an interesting quote I remember about magic, but I don't remember if it was a quote from a video game or if one of my friends said it to me when we were discussing game lore (not SDV). Basically, magic was compared to an axe, but it's up to the individual to decide whether to chop wood for the winter with that axe or kill their neighbour. It is the same with magic: it can be used as a useful tool in everyday life, or as a way to bring chaos and destruction - all depends on the person. But, as it often happens in fantasy world, people who are not familiar with the concept of magic at all, are afraid of incomprehensible power, and if they had negative stories in their past (witch curse, for example), they will definitely consider all those who are somehow connected with magic as evil.

About the question of how magic has affected people's lives and whether or not it's being treated as only evil... If you're referring specifically to the inhabitants of the Stardew Valley, dear anon, it's pretty ambiguous. Looking back at the vanilla lore, some villagers simply denied the existence of magic (Shane in his dialogue at the Feast of the Winter Star), some were frightened by the strange noise coming from Magnus's tower and showed fear and distrust (Marnie). And at the same time, no one had any preconceptions about the maze in Spirits Eve, which miraculously appeared in just one day. "Yeah, that weird ourple dude did it all," and no one would show any concern. Not even the same Shane (free food and pumpkin cider, so he doesn't care too much, I guess 🤷). Also the fact that almost everyone considers the life elixir a universal liked gift. I don't know if I can attribute monsters to this as well, because in my mind, where there are monsters there is dark magic, but maybe the inhabitants see them differently (like mutated animals or something).

As for the Expanded mod specifically, nothing much has changed here either in terms of the vanilla game's residents. But! Victor, our beloved spaghetti man, stands out among all of them. In his event we are already introduced to the fact that Victor openly and directly reveals that he knows for the existence of adventurer clans, and that they - attention! - use magic to fight monsters and to protect people. Also worth noting is his separate dialogue where he tells Farmer that the Ferngill Republic government want to cut down the magical forest here in order to find useful things that can help in the war with the Gotoro Empire. And, most interestingly, as I quote, "that wizard won't let them do it." "That wizard." A wizard! Not "strange man", but a wizard. So, he believes in magic, and he's a man from big city with modern technology. Victor is not speaking negatively about magic in these examples, but more angry at the realisation that the government is intent on greedily gnawing at any opportunity to achieve its goals, in this case at the cost of the unique ecosystem of the Stardew Valley. But Magnus isn't giving them that. This means that people (at least some) also realise that magic exists. I wonder though: if the local authorities respect Magnus's word that it's strictly forbidden to cut down the forest, or if they're just afraid he'll send them away with fireballs if they go into the Valley without asking? I'm leaning more towards the second scenario.

With the Ridgeside Village mod, coming to a conclusion about people's attitudes (both in Pelican Town and Ridgeside Village, and in the rest of the world) is a little easier. And it's all because of Gabriella, the main antagonist of the RSV mod. As far as I understood correctly, her goal is to wreak havoc in the whole world (for what purpose - Hell knows, probably for funnies or whatever), and her minions, soulless shel, faithfully serve their dark queen: killing local politicians (all politicians, not to be confused with the Cult of the Lady with the Red Tail), committing attacks, cursing forests and sources of magic, as it was with Spirit's Realm. Of course, ordinary people who are either victims themselves, or their family/relatives/friends who are affected by it, will see magic only in a negative way and consider it the source of all their troubles. And most won't realise that it's all up to the person (Gabriella isn't a person at all): magic is evil, period. No buts. Because for them, it's easier to deal with pain and loss, to protect yourself and your loved ones.

The moment where wizards and witches lead a rather secretive life from the rest of the (modern) population only adds fuel to the fire of the problem with distrust. Consequently, some magicians also distrust people due to this discrimination. And so the endless wheel of distrust goes on.

People like our Farmer, who in their work as farmer/fisherman/gatherer/adventurer/miner use both magic and modern technology, can be the ones who help these two different social societies find common ground. Or on the contrary, the Farmer will be considered an outsider everywhere, despite helping both modern society (improving Pelican Town's economy, rebuilding many important buildings) and magical society (protecting people from monsters and fighting renegade wizard/witches).

What about our SVE mages...

I used to hold the idea that Lance was NC/LC (no contact/low contact) with his parents for just such a reason. That he, a man with a "gift", was at odds with the views of his parents, who shunned magic like a plague. But over time, I like the idea of his parents being retired noble adventurers with magic better (*looking at my mutuals with their lovely headcanons 👁️👁️💕), so Lance had no problem with that.

Jadu on the other hand, fits more into the category of someone whose views on magic have changed over time. I think he suffered the same fate as Morgan, Magnus' apprentice, when they were taken away from their parents and not even allowed to contact them. Naturally, when you, a child, are taken away from your parents or guardian so abruptly, you're going to see wizards as a source of evil because they came to your home, almost forcefully and threateningly took you from your parents' nest and sent you to who knows where and who knows who, "to learn the arcane knowledge". Even in a fantasy world, that sounds very sus. The witches and mages themselves, under whose wing the young talents were given, can be both the reason for the child's revision of the concept of magic (magic not bad, but also good), and make the situation worse. Later, this can then lead to the formation of renegade mages, thirsty for revenge, they hurt ordinary people in the process of revenge, and the fear of magic in general will be even stronger.

I like to think that Camilla was so determined and opinionated that she wasn't the one they came for, but she somehow fucking came to the Ministry and was like, "teach me!" At least it's sounds funny 😅

Magnus, oh well... I honestly don't know, but he was probably taken into the care of a wizard when he was young to learn spells and alchemy to protect people and help adventurers with "monsters clean up".

Got a bit of a chaotic answer again, but I hope I've answered all the questions!

[feelbetterlove-books]

Oughhhh okay first of all, I am SO happy to see Bucktommy back on our screens and I WILL be mass reblogging things about them soon, fair warning! I took a bit after the ep to stop jumping up and down about how good it was, but then I came across the subject of this post and so first, to get it out of my system: a rant! It's not about the episode, probably not of any interest to most people, especially Bucktommy fans trying to protect their peace, so feel absolutely free to ignore this, I'll put it under a cut, I just have to get it out. I've been holding my tongue where bobs are concerned for the most part because I don't want to be mean/have a bunch of negativity on my blog/have any of them find and come after me like they're known to do, but idc rn.

So, there's this author I follow on insta, have followed for years, have read a few of her books and had the rest on my tbr. The ones I've read weren't mind-blowing or anything tbh, but for contemporary romances (not my usual genre) I had fun with them. What I really liked about her was that she is so outspoken about all of her books having bi characters: f/f and m/f. Bi4bi m/f, bi woman x straight man, bi woman x lesbian etc. I love to see bi rep and her efforts to make bi characters visible are great, I respected her for it and I found out last season, she's also a 911 fan! A Buck fan! Cool! She ships B*ddi3 but usually idc ship and let ship, I didn't think she was a Bucktommy hater.

That is, until tonight when I went on insta and saw her post. Bee cupcakes as the first pic, I went oh cute, for 911!! But then I scroll through the post and find this bingo card, the more I looked at it, the more I was like 😬 oh so she's a bob, huh? She only cares about Buck and his bisexuality if he's with E**ie? I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but then there's this in her stories (edits by me to highlight what I'm on about):

And I've blocked a LOT of blogs to try and avoid Tommy/Bucktommy hate so getting blindsided by this when I was in such a good mood enjoying our favorite guy's scene sucked. I literally felt sick about it for a while afterwards and I've decided to unfollow her and unhaul the books I own without reading more. It's not the first time I've stopped supporting an artist I was a fan of, granted this reasoning may seem dumb or petty to other people but I just can't get over it, I mean-

You're a romance author with 5 books published, I didn't think it was a stretch to assume you at least had some decent media literacy and appreciation for a good story/a sweet, queer, rom-com inspired ship. But you hate Tommy just because he's in the way of your ship? You champion bi characters, but will hate on the gay boyfriend of one who is breaking stereotypes and making people feel represented because you think his straight best friend would be a better match? Seriously?

And it's not only these two things, I looked her up on tw*tter, which I'm never usually on, but had logged into today to look at Lou's posts, and I found that she follows multiple people who I know to be particularly nasty Tommy haters/bobs. So. Yeah. I'm out of there, I just can't look at her the same anymore, not to be parasocial or whatever but she always seemed cool, I liked her, I wanted to support her work, I HAVE supported her work personally and as someone who works as a bookseller, I've pointed people to her books and sold them.

But now I just have a bad taste in my mouth. There has been SO much hate towards Tommy, Bucktommy, and worse, the real people who ship them, Lou, and even Oliver over the last few months, because it's constantly being stirred up by this kind of B*ddi3 shipper. I would feel sorry for them for how desperate and bitter they are if not for the fact that I simply cannot stand them anymore. They are miserable and determined to make Bucktommy shippers miserable, too.

I just don't get why people can't stay in their fandom lane and leave others alone?? Like, getting mad that Buck's ESTABLISHED BOYFRIEND and E**ie's FRIEND, WHO HE LIKES, was in one (1) scene, when it narratively made sense for him to be there to remind the ga of him, is pathetic. Tommy came to support E at the virtual birthday party of his estranged teenager, and make a heavy scene lighter and you're acting like he's some kind of monster. I can't even, I'm done!

I hope all the bestie boos will start to leave the fandom soon, when Tommy sticks around, because tbh they only care about one thing that's never going to happen and they don't even seem to have fun on their side of the "ship war". They're too busy being nasty all the time, can't talk about their ship without dragging ours down.

Anyway this rant is becoming more generalized than what I planned to say about that person and has already gotten sooo long, so I'm just going to post it to throw all my anger and frustration out there with it and then bury it with happy Bucktommy posts!! If any Bucktommy fan for some reason actually reads this 1. Oof. Sorry! 2. I 💙 you, Bucktommy fans are the best and I'm so glad to be in this fandom despite everything!!

[auspicious-manner]

Can i request newsies era mike trying to cheer up the reader on a bad day?

a year ago today, i uploaded my very first story on tumblr :,) i’ve written on other platforms before, but when i made this account a year ago, i was hoping for a fresh start. i didn’t know if people would like my writing, but i told myself it was worth a shot. and it’s been so worth it.

to everyone who reads my stories, interacts with it, follows me, and sends in request, i thank you. i write for you guys, and knowing that i’ve made others happy is truly such a gift. in honor of my one year anniversary, enjoy this mike story! it seems only fitting that i upload a mike story exactly a year after i uploaded my first mike story 😁

also, i recently got a request for a taglist for my stories! if any of you want to be added to my taglist for any of my stories/fandoms, pls just let me know! i never thought that would be something people would be interested in, so i never proposed it before 😅

fem reader x mike faist

warnings: sickness, accidents

mike taglist: @diorgirl444

Unlucky

•

the universe was clearly against you. there could be no other explanation. every event leading up to the show on this particular day led you one step closer to full fledged insanity.

you and mike were in newsies on broadway at the same time. he was one of the delancey brothers, an understudy for jack, and a newsie. you were a bowery beauty, nun, and an understudy for katherine. given that you and mike were so close and had the same schedule, a month prior you two had decided to move in together.

mike was your comfort person. you weren’t dating, but you weren’t friends. you were somewhere in the middle with him, but the two of you had never actually talked out your feelings. you both seemed to be happy with where you were.

on the fateful morning, you woke up and immediately sat up in your bed. your throat was scratchy. you frowned, immediately thinking of the worst. you took a sip of water and the pain was worse. not only that, but you were shivering under the weight of three blankets and a hoodie, and you felt like your head was going to split open at any second.

you had a fever.

you laid back down, groaning. you had a show tonight, and it was an important show. you had friends and family from out of town coming to support you, and they had been planning this trip for weeks.

“mike!” you called out, your voice slightly hoarse. there was no reply.

“mike!” you yelled a bit louder, your hands immediately going to hold your throat from the pain.

finally, when he didn’t reply again, you rolled over to get your phone to call him. he answered, almost annoyed. “Y/N, what do you want?”

“where are you?” you asked.

“i ran out to the store.”

you coughed gently. “are you still there?”

“no, why?”

you sighed, closing your eyes. “i’m sick and i wanted some cold medicine.”

there was silence for a few moments. “oh, are you okay?” mike asked, his tone immediately switching from one of annoyance to one of genuine concern.

“i’m fine, i just need to get better before the show starts tonight,” you replied, putting a hand on your forehead. you were burning up.

mike sighed. “you shouldn’t go on tonight if you’re sick, Y/N. it’s not worth it.”

“my family and friends from home are coming tonight. i absolutely cannot miss this.”

mike paused, like he was thinking about what to do. “okay, fine, i’ll go back to the store and bring you home some medicine.”

“thanks mike, see you soon.”

you hung up the call and laid your phone on the nightstand by your bed. after another fifteen minutes of zoning out, you came to the conclusion that there was no use in laying around being miserable all day. you figured that if you got up and made yourself useful you’d feel better.

you gently sat up, and slowly moved to put your feet on the floor. the cold hardwood beneath your feet made you even colder than you already were. you walked to the kitchen, feeling more fatigued than you ever had before. even though you weren’t hungry, you got out the ingredients to make an omelet. you were so focused on your cooking skills that the rest of the world faded into silence, but it also could have been the fact that you couldn’t hear because your sinuses were clogged.

as you were flipping the omelet in the pan, you heard a loud “boo!” in your ear and someone gently shoving you. you gasped, accidentally touching the side of the burning pan with your fingers. you yelped in pain and threw the pan back down on the stove, turning around to see mike with a grin on his face. however, the grin quickly faded when he saw not only your burnt fingers but also how sickly and pale you looked.

“mike, what the hell?” you croaked, holding your fingers as you walked to the freezer to grab some ice. it felt like the tips of your fingers had burned off.

mike put down his plastic grocery bag on the counter. “dammit, Y/N, i’m sorry. i didn’t realize you were this bad,” he said sadly.

you rolled your eyes, the coldness of the ice counteracting the burns on your fingers. “did you think i was kidding about being sick?”

“no, i just didn’t know you felt that terrible,” he paused. “are you sure you can perform tonight?”

you nodded. “i can’t miss it.”

mike gave you a look like he didn’t believe you, and that he didn’t like your stubborn decision. you both went silent before mike stepped closer to you, glancing at your burnt fingers. “now i feel bad for scaring you.”

you couldn’t help but crack a smile at mike. even though he scared you and caused you to burn three fingers, he always knew how to make you smile. “you should feel bad. my fingertips are in pain.”

you finished making your omelet and took some of the medicine mike had brought home. you planned to take some more medicine shortly before the show.

after the cold medicine kicked in and your fever was suppressed, you actually felt relatively okay. in order to convince yourself that you were better, you agreed to go to the park with mike for some fresh air.

walking around central park with mike was good for your soul. you loved the fresh air and the nature of it all, but having mike by your side made it so much better. as often as he got on your nerves, he was your best friend. he made you giddy and excited, and every time he complimented you after a show it would make you nervous and give you butterflies. he knew it did too, thats why he kept doing it; he liked making you flustered.

you layered on jackets in the brisk autumn air, as you still had a leftover chill in your body from your sickness.

“how are you feeling? better?” mike asked as you both walked.

“yeah, a lot better, but i know when that medicine wears off i’m going to feel like crap again. and wrapping my fingertips has made them feel a little bit better,” you said, glancing at your fingers that were wrapped in a thin layer of gauze and medical tape.

“is there anything i can do? you know, to help?”

you smiled to yourself. “no, mike, thank you though,” you said quietly and sweetly. “having you here is enough.”

mike blushed lightly, putting an arm lazily around your shoulders. “stop being so sappy.”

you continued like that for a while longer, with you under his arm enjoying the park around you. not long later, mike told you he was going to run to the bathroom, and you told him you’d wait by a tree for him.

as you waited, you people watched everyone around you. you thought about how everyone there had their own stories. their own lives. just as you were sick and preparing to perform in front of your closest friends and family for the first time, these other people had their own life problems to attend to, and no one would be the wiser. it was oddly peaceful knowing that there are so many stories being written around you.

suddenly, you were pulled out of your daydream by a soccer ball being kicked into the side of your head. you may have been people watching, but the kids playing with the ball seemed to come out of nowhere for you.

you held the side of your head and groaned as the sound of small footsteps approached you. “sorry, miss,” a little boy’s voice said as he grabbed the ball and ran back to his friends.

not long later, mike came back and saw you sitting against the tree, rubbing the side of your head.

“are you okay?” mike asked, reaching down to help you stand.

“some little brats kicked a soccer ball at my head,” you groaned. standing up made you feel a bit dizzy.

mike gently brushed the part of your head that was hit, and you winced. “god, Y/N, today is just not your day. that’s definitely going to bruise, let’s get you home.”

you walked back to your apartment together, and rested until it was time to head to the theater. you packed a backpack with everything you might need and you and mike headed off to the subway station.

as you boarded the subway, you tripped over a small ledge on the edge of the subway and began to fall, but luckily, mike was in front of you and you caught yourself on his back. you hoped no one noticed, but as you looked around, the people already sitting down were staring, and an old man snickered at your misfortune.

mike maneuvered himself so he was behind you, guiding you to an open spot. “what was that about?”

you were on the verge of tears. “i’m so unlucky today.”

mike hesitated before grabbing your hand and squeezing it tight. “hey, just think, tonight is going to be a great show, you have family and friends in the audience,” mike said close to your ear. “soon enough, everything that’s happened today won’t matter.”

you nodded. “i just hope the show goes well.”

you both arrived at the theater, checking yourselves in and preparing to head to your separate dressing rooms. before you parted ways, mike pulled you aside and brushed a strand of hair out of your face with his fingers. he could tell you were nervous.

“you’ll be just fine, Y/N. i’ll see you soon.”

in your dressing room, you unraveled the bandages over your fingers, and the skin was raw and tender. you weren’t exactly sure how to cover it for the show, but you dabbed some skin colored makeup onto it in hopes that it would be unnoticeable.

you looked at yourself in the mirror; you really did seem out of it. your head hurt, you fingers hurt, and your cold medicine was beginning to wear off. you reached into your backpack to find the medicine and you took it, hoping for some type of relief.

not long before the show started, you warmed up your voice as you got your costume on. there was a knock at the door and you yelled “come in!” to whoever it was. the door swung open and you found mike in his newsie/delancey costume and makeup. you always thought he looked so good in his costumes.

“how are you feeling?” mike asked, walking up to you. you were in your nun costume, so you didn’t seem as flattering as you would have liked.

“well, my fingers are sore, my head hurts, and my ego is bruised from almost falling earlier. but at least my medicine is working,” you said sarcastically. you tried to play it off as something funny, but inside you were a nervous, painful wreck. you were trying to fake it ‘til you made it, but mike saw right through you.

his blue eyes softened, and he rubbed your shoulders comfortingly. “i know you’re nervous, and i know you are having a rough day. but breathe, and stay focused. you’re the most talented person i know. you can get through this.”

you closed your eyes and breathed out. he instantly made you feel better. the cold medicine helped to an extent, but mike was your ultimate cure for all ailments.

“will i see you after the show?” you asked. a lot of times, mike was able to leave the theater earlier than you after the show, and more often than not, you liked to chat with everyone and stick around for longer. you didn’t mind that mike never seemed to hang around much after the show.

“you’ve got friends and family to see, so i’ll probably head home right after. is that okay?” he asked gently, like he didn’t want to be the next thing to set you off.

you nodded understandingly. “of course, mike. i’ll see you during the show.”

mike smiled and patted your shoulder before heading out.

the show began, and you waited in the wings for your first scene. your first scene was during carrying the banner, where the three nuns feed the newsie boys.

as you went out on stage, your mind seemed to be in a blur. you felt like you couldn’t concentrate. the goal was for muscle memory to kick in, and you didn’t have to worry about anything. sadly, it didn’t, and during your part of carrying the banner, your voice cracked due to your sickness, and it felt sharp and out of place against the angelic voices of the other nuns.

your eyes widened, and you prayed nobody heard it despite it being insanely obvious. you fought the urge to cry onstage.

at the end of that segment, you headed off the stage and had no time to think about your mistake before hurriedly getting into your bowery beauty costume. you wanted to go home. you wanted to be with mike. at this point, you didn’t even care to see your friends and family from out of town. there was only one person that mattered.

you got into costume and looked at yourself in the mirror. you tried to pull yourself together, since you had friends and family in the audience that undoubtedly saw your screw up. you had to bring it back.

as your time approached for the scene in medda’s theater, you waited in the wings, trying to calm yourself down. you tried your hardest to ignore the pain on your head and your fingers.

finally, it was time to go onstage, and everything was going just fine. you didn’t want to get too confident, however, because you had a feeling if you did it would all come crashing down again.

you got through your bowery beauty scene in one piece, with no mishaps. you were feeling better mentally and physically.

you waited in your dressing room for curtain call, and as you walked out on stage to take your bow, you raised your arm and smiled into the crowd. as you brought your arm down to bow, your arm hit the back of your wig, and it slid down over your head. you quickly and nervously attempted to cover your mistake, and you slid the wig back up before walking to the back of the stage.

that seemed to be the last straw for you. a stray tear escaped your eye and you hoped no one saw. this was the worst day possible. you had friends and family in the audience and you wanted everything to be perfect, but it was far from it. you felt like crap, your head and fingers ached, and you were embarrassed. as you watched mike take his bow on stage, you wanted nothing more than to be comforted by him. you needed him by your side.

however, nothing was ever that easy, and you still had to get out of makeup and costume and talk with the people that came to see you all while holding back the tears that were inevitably going to come out.

you took off your costume as fast as possible, avoiding conversations with your other cast mates at all costs. there was only one that you needed.

you met your friends and family by the stage door, and they congratulated you on your performance despite it being subpar. you tried to keep the conversations to the minimum. when you finally felt like you were on the verge of a full fledged breakdown, you excused yourself, telling them you were tired and needed to go home. you thanked them for coming before turning to the direction of the station and never looking back.

on your ride home, you kept your mind free of thoughts in order to keep the intrusive ones away. you knew if you kept thinking about what went wrong, you’d go crazy.

finally, at last, you arrived at your apartment and unlocked the door. mike was sitting on the couch, practically ready to doze off.

“mike, you could have gone to bed,” you said quietly.

he stared at you like that was a dumb thing to even consider. “i was waiting for you to get home.”

at that moment, you felt your heart melt. throughout everything that had happened, mike was your one constant. he was the calm within the storm of events that unfolded throughout the day.

you broke down, and began to cry. mike sat up on the couch and held out his arms. “oh, sweetheart, come here.”

you obliged, and sat down on the couch next to him. almost instinctively, you leaned into his body, resting your head on his chest. he wrapped both of his arms around you comfortingly, and he placed his hand on the side of your head. as you laid in his arms, you just cried.

“i wanted everything to be perfect today. first i got sick, then i burnt myself, then i hit my head, and then i tripped on the subway,” you swallowed, trying to talk clearly despite the tears. “a-and the one thing i could control, the one thing i could save, i fumbled. i messed up twice on stage.”

mike rubbed your head gently. “i know, Y/N, i’m sorry. i know how important this was. if it makes you feel any better, i barely noticed your mistakes.”

“i-i’m not sure how,” you said, sniffling. “they were pretty bad. i’m just…embarrassed.”

mike sat up, causing you to come with him. part of you was sad that you had to leave the comfy position you were in. mike looked into your eyes briefly before lightly placing his hands on either side of your face.

“Y/N, we’re performers. we make mistakes. trust me, there’s so many people even in our company that have made worse mistakes. take me, for example,” mike started, breaking eye contact briefly. “remember when i got my leg stuck in a chair during king of new york?”

you giggled. “y-yeah, i do. you turned so red.”

mike smiled. “there’s that signature Y/N smile again.”

you blushed, and mike used his thumbs to brush away stray tears. he removed his hands from your face and held your hands. “we all have off days. you’re the strongest person i know, and you got through today like a champ. you may not be happy with yourself, but i’m always proud of you, mistakes and all. do you understand?”

when you looked down, you noticed he was rubbing the tops of your hands with his thumbs. “yeah, mike. thank you, genuinely. if it weren’t for your help today, i probably would have exploded.”

mike grinned, and you went back to your position on the couch in his arms. to you, it felt like nothing mattered and nothing would matter ever again. all you could see in that moment was you and him.

mike laughed. “if it weren’t for me, your fingers wouldn’t be sore right now.”

[mae-i-scribble]

One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to fandom/media interpretation in general is that seemingly whenever something tries to explore the emotion of love in a nuanced or non-straightforward manner everyone and their mother jumps to the conclusion that it’s inherently romantic in nature. I don’t know if this is my aroace brain speaking, but it’s something I’ve never understood when clearly the author doesn’t mean it in a romantic sense. The two examples I’m thinking of are Violet Evergarden and Ancient Magus Bride.

Violet Evergarden is about a child soldier, Violet post-war trying to discover what emotions are, so that she can better understand the major who sacrificed his life for her. She’s specifically fixated on the notion of love, because the major told her once that he loved her and she’s struggled to understand what he meant by that. As the show goes on, she begins to discover just what these emotions mean, both to other people and to herself. Now, it needs to be said again that she was a child soldier, the major was around 30 if I remember correctly. Either way very much an established adult when he found Violet when she was like 8-10. Naturally he meant that he loves her in a familial way, everything the show does supports this interpretation, the only obscurity comes from Violet’s perspective because she doesn’t understand his meaning at first. Take a big fat guess as to half the posts I saw about their relationship framed it. Yep, “oh how gross he was in love with a child,” “this show is gross,” “its so sad how he was in love but now they can never be together T-T.” Like. What the fuck y’all. What the actual fuck. Did we watch the same show????? It’s legitimately baffling that just because the word love is used that is the assumption made in direct contradiction to what canon is saying.

Ancient Magus Bride has it much, much worse unfortunately, because it’s a much more,,, morally suspect look at what love is, or more specifically, the nature of human relationships. Chise and Elias have a bond that cannot be easily summed up in a few words (which is the entire point), and they see a lot of various twists and turns in their dynamic as they learn  not only to live with each other but come into their own and grow. Now, a lot of people assume Ancient Magus Bride is a romance because of how it starts out, with Elias stating that he bought Chise to be his bride. However, as you read further, specifically into the 40′s, Elias reveals that he only said the word bride because he understood it to be people who spend their lives together, and wanted to cut corners by making his student and bride the same thing. Elias, as an inhuman creature, does not have the capability for empathy or understanding emotions/concepts as humans do, which is what leads to a lot of the suspect situations in the beginning of the story because he doesn’t get the implications of what he’s doing.The author herself has even mentioned in official interviews that she doesn’t see their relationship as romantic (not that it stopped anyone), along with the entire story rejecting such an interpretation because shoving Chise and Elias into such a box goes against what it’s saying about the messy nature of relationships. Additionally, much like Violet Evergarden but worse, Chise is 16 while Elias is a being 100s of years old (although without the emotional intelligence to match). Either way though, their dynamic for the beginning of the show is very much of Elias trying to control Chise. He withholds information from her, manipulates her into trusting him more easily, does things behind her back that he knows she wouldn’t approve of. And that is important, I appreciate that aspect being there because it’s all completely necessary to show just what kind of person Elias is, and how his standards are vastly different compared to human ones. But a lot of the whole “EliasxChise is soooo good” hype came from anime only watchers- and is that really the dynamic yall wanted? Really? Especially when the anime watered down the resolution to that conflict? More importantly, imagine being braindead and also having no taste at all simultaneously. You take so many interesting aspects of their dynamic by just going “and theyre in love UwU” because you ignore their complexities. On top of being really fucking gross in my opinion.

And these two aren’t the only example of this. In general I think plenty of relationships would be far better off being explored as the nuanced, complex things that they are without slapping an “in love” label on them. (Jayce and Viktor from Arcane come to mind for me, what they have going on as friends and the importance the narrative places on that friendships is so much more valuable to me then any shipping). And again, I’m left wondering if this is an aroace thing, bc talking with a friend who is also aroace about her experiences in researching romance literature and what allo people find rewarding about a romance is like reading about an alien species. Do yall just live like this???? It’s so sad you are missing out on so much

[bestworstcase]

@nightmare-foundation from here

To be completely fair Salem has kinda been harassing, killing, and ruining Oz's lives for millennia 😭 she tortured a 15 year old boy who wants nothing to do with her, and it's directly stated by jinn that Salem manipulated Oz. I love Salem as a character, but as a person she's repulsive. Oz isn't perfect but he's infinitely better than her (no pun intended lol, also not looking for an argument or anything)

not out to pick a fight here, just want to lay out my thoughts:

the question ruby asks is "what is ozpin hiding from us?" and the answer jinn gives her is couched explicitly as a fairytale ("once upon a time, there stood a lonely tower..." and of course the episode itself is named the lost fable). this in a narrative where the veracity of fairytales is consistently questioned and ozpin explicitly leverages fairytale and legend to conceal information and control the narrative.

(see also 'the story of the seasons' and 'the two brothers.')

moreover, in "fairytales of remnant" ozpin's commentaries on 'the infinite man' and 'the girl in the tower' specifically discuss propaganda and the importance of skepticism: "no one who wasn't there could know what really happened. and even then, they would only have a small part of the story." and "one must always be prepared to think about and question everything they read or hear, especially if they are told it is the absolute truth."

likewise, "question everything" is a key theme of V5 and that theme largely centers around ozpin's dishonesty. so this is the narrative context in which TLF occurs: is jinn an objective narrator, or... is she answering exactly the question ruby answered, and telling the story as ozpin remembers it?

i think TLF sits firmly in the "ozpin's side of the story" camp, and i read it with the presupposition that the narrator is unreliable.

so, with that in mind: jinn insinuates that salem lied to ozma ("salem, fearing ozma would reject her, blamed the end of the world on the gods") and draws a rhetorical equivalence between salem's rebellion and what she tells ozma they should do ("the hearts of men are easily swayed.") the implication that salem manipulated him is quite clear.

however: TLF is what ozpin was hiding.

by definition, you cannot hide things you don't know; ergo, none of the information revealed in TLF was unknown to ozma prior to ruby asking jinn this question.

it follows that either salem told him the whole story, including her own part in it, or ozma asked jinn what happened. given ozma's utilitarian usage of the lamp ("where are the other relics? what powers do they possess? how can i destroy salem?") and the effort he devotes to burying the past, i think it is much more likely that he heard it from salem.

further, what salem told ozma according to jinn isn't a lie. in fact, salem blaming the gods for the end of the world corroborates the explanation the god of light gave to ozma ("a... tragedy has befallen your home at the hands of my brother"). yet: "ozma, still unsure of where the truth lay, kept his task and the relics a secret."

salem's account of what happened differed significantly enough from what the god of light told him for ozma to doubt her; where light blamed his brother, salem blamed both gods.

the scenario that i find most likely is that salem initially glossed over the rebellion but told ozma everything else: that she petitioned the brothers to bring him back, that they cursed her, and that they eventually decided this wasn't punishment enough, declared humanity a failed experiment, and wiped everyone out. then, later on, she admitted that she incited rebellion against them and told ozma why she hid that from him at first.

after all, "salem blamed the end of the world on the gods" tells us absolutely nothing about how much detail salem went into. just the conclusion she came to about who was to blame.

meanwhile, we do know exactly what secrets ozma kept from her: he didn't tell her about his task or the relics. this is important, because ozma later voices concern about humanity being "more divided than ever," and salem answers without having the full context.

"we could become the gods of this world. [...] we can mold these lands into whatever we want—what you want!—create the paradise that the old gods could not." <- this is a course of action she suggests in response to ozma bringing up "humanity is divided" as a problem he would like to solve. from salem's perspective, ozma just told her that he has an ambition (uniting the world) that dovetails with her own desire to make a better world without the gods, and she really does believe they can do it!

but what ozma actually wants is to unite the world on behalf of the gods, then summon the brothers back to remnant to judge whether humankind has earned redemption or not. his true goal is the exact opposite of what salem proposed, but he doesn't tell her!

"the hearts of men are easily swayed"—but she did not exactly twist ozma's arm, here. all she does is enthusiastically go "we could fix that!" in answer to ozma fretting about the state of the world, and ozma... doesn't object, at all. her wording makes it abundantly clear that she would never accept the divine mandate, so he... keeps that a secret from her. for years!!

one of them is being manipulative here. it isn't salem.

and—well, look at how she reacts when he finally does object.

"are we sure this is right?" <- he's explicitly asking for her opinion.

"you said we needed to bring humanity together; in order to do that, we need to spread our word, and destroy those who would deny it." this is an indirect answer: whether right or wrong, their actions now are what's necessary to achieve his stated goal. but is it a manipulative answer? does she intend to shut him down?

or is she trying to broaden the discussion? he asks, "is what we're doing right?" and she answers, "well, it follows from our objective. does the end justify the means?"

he says, "this isn't what he asked of me." <- hard objection.

she says, "what did you say?" <- request for clarification.

he tells her everything: "the true reason the god of light had brought him back, the relics that lay scattered around the world, and the day of judgment he had been told to prepare for."

salem—though visibly unhappy—listens calmly, without interruption, until he's finished and turns to her for an answer. and of course her answer is to reject the mandate altogether ("don't you see? none of that matters anymore!") because in her view the brothers are tyrannical monsters and the world is better off without them, as she made crystal clear from the very beginning.

but she doesn't reject ozma; she holds out her hand and asks him to forsake his task and try things her way.

and what stands out the most to me about this whole scene is that at no point does salem appear to be unwilling to have the discussion. she answers his first question in a very open-ended way, asks him a question when he says something she doesn't understand, sets her own feelings aside to hear him out, and then couches her rejection as a question—why does it matter what the gods told you, why should we try to "redeem" these humans?—whilst making a gesture that very explicitly invites ozma to engage with what she's saying.

but like, at no point in either scene does ozma reciprocate that; he doesn't push back at the start, and when he doesn't like the answer she gives him he appeals to divine authority rather than engage with what she actually said, and when she questions the mandate he straight up just walks out. is that salem's fault? does it make sense to read this as learned behavior caused by salem's treatment of him when he acts the exact same way from the start?

in the real world we call this missionary dating.

just as ozma isn't to blame for salem attacking him, salem isn't to blame for ozma doing this to her.

anyway, as for the idea that salem has been hunting him and tormenting him ever since:

jinn says, "no matter where or how he lived, her presence was always felt"—and what we see is two beowolves attacking the town.

but:

salem does not control every grimm in the world, and there are many, many examples throughout the story of grimm attacks happening without her knowledge or control. most notably, grimm attack the argus express, with oscar on it, at a point in time where salem doesn't even know ozpin is back yet.

as per 9.10, twelve years ago, ozpin's last-minute secret urgent missions so regularly turned out to be false alarms that he had a catchphrase about it. his own inner circle told inside jokes about his paranoia! and the sheer level of destruction salem has achieved in just two years calls into question the assumption that this is a normal state of affairs.

over the course of the show, we've seen ozpin make several grievous miscalculations based on the assumption that salem will prefer to remain in the shadows. her first move involves orchestrating a massive terrorist attack on an internationally-televised sporting event. she openly lays siege to atlas and smiles while she watches ruby reveal her existence to the world.

ozma sees salem's hand in every grimm attack and every crisis he's weathered throughout the years. he also very badly misjudges her strategy and tactics when she actually goes to war.

do we trust his perception that salem is the mastermind behind everything bad that has ever happened in his vicinity?

on the other hand, ozma explicitly believes that "if humanity were ever to stand a chance of being united," salem has to be destroyed. he explicitly decided to search for the relics in order to "rid the world of her." and after asking where to find those relics and what they could do, the third question he asks jinn upon finding her is "how can i destroy salem?"

there is zero ambiguity about this. for thousands of years, his main goal has been to get rid of her. and... considering that she was legendary when ozma first returned ("during his years of travel, he heard the same frightened whispers that spoke of a terrifying sorceress who commanded dark powers in the wilds among the beasts and monsters..."), he's been quite phenomenally successful in eradicating her influence and presence even though he cannot, of course, actually get rid of her.

the point of this is not to justify any of the things salem has actually done—ozma is no more responsible for her actions than she is for his—but to argue that she is justifiably angry at him.

i think the text makes it quite clear that salem was profoundly traumatized by the way he treated her, because he took advantage of her trust to lie and manipulate her into serving gods she vocally rejected and then spent thousands of years crusading to get rid of her. i think the common fanon—that salem is a spoiled brat who abused ozma while they were married, "ruined her own happy ending," and now unfairly blames him and wants to destroy the world to spite him or punish him for "leaving" her—is flatly countertextual.

[satanismeng]

Answer to the question regarding my journey to Satanism.

Recalling moments from my childhood, I remember that my parents were quite religious, and I always questioned who God was and what his purpose was. However, since I was only nine years old, I couldn't fundamentally contemplate this question and asked people older than me what they thought about it.

The answers varied, but they all shared one motif - after death, for sins, you'll go to hell, where there will be cauldrons, demons, and so on. (Everyone around me was believers.) As the years went by, I became more and more doubtful because what was called "sin" was permissible for everyone if they went to the priest afterward, gave him money, and confessed their sins. I understood that even for a free religion, money was needed, and that a person cannot avoid these sins themselves.

At roughly the same age, I discovered the word "atheist" for myself and stopped going to church under any pretext. My parents reacted negatively to this because with my chronic illnesses, I had to visit the church until that moment to "recover." As you understand, nothing of the sort happened, and to this day, I remain with the same health issues. However, unlike the times when I believed in miracle healing through prayers, now, being a Satanist and ardently adhering to life's views, I have become much healthier. To delve into details, exacerbations and spontaneous attacks of my illnesses have ceased, and I no longer carry medicine with me. However, doctors' opinions about my health have not changed.

At the age of fourteen, after becoming closely acquainted with the word "Death," I began to understand my actions instead of childish pranks, and started reading a lot of literature from exact sciences to Nietzsche, then decided to revisit religions and search for answers to my questions. After reading their "sacred" books, I came to the following conclusion. In my eyes, religions began to look like instruments of control and management over people, rather than a source of spiritual enlightenment. I realized that many religious doctrines contradict scientific facts and logical reasoning.

For example, the teaching that the world was created in 7 days, when in reality, it took millions of years for the formation of the planet Earth. Or the teaching that man is the center of the universe when in reality, we live on a tiny planet in a vast Universe. I began to ponder about the meaning of life and what happens after death. But unlike religion, I did not find answers in mythical beings and heavenly kingdoms. I decided to seek answers in scientific and philosophical works, as well as in my inner world.

When I learned about Satanism, many of its principles seemed logical to me and aligned with my views on life. For example, the idea that each person chooses their own path and is responsible for their actions, as well as the principles, rules, commandments, and sins.

In conclusion, after years of observation from childhood, I came to the conclusion that the favorite pastime of religious people is shifting their responsibility onto God. Whether it works out or not, it's all "God's will," they cannot realize that all their failures are due to their own incompetence, and words like self-blame, self-criticism, and the like are unknown to them. All failures are seen as tests from God.

End of story.

[rmu-vincent]

Dear Mr. Edgeworth,

I was honoured to discover that you have noticed my post regarding the mythology of the g-districts. For now, it is my pride and my joy, given the time and amount of thought I put into it; however, at the same time I worry if I came off as, what people these days call "unhinged" for my ramblings. Have you any further thoughts? You seem to be a person who is knowledgeable about these sorts of things.

I give my thanks and wish you well in your studies.

– @voorice-corp

Dear Ms Seraphine,

Thank you for the flattering words and kind wishes, I sincerely appreciate your message.

First of all, I would like to mention that your dedication to carefully putting together such a clear and concise piece of detailed analysis is worthy of respect. Please be informed that your writing strikes me as elaborate and thoughtful, and I enjoy reading your thoughts. I recall your discussion of the Leviathan under one of my posts; I might not agree with all of the statements there, but I cannot deny that you seem to be a great debate opponent.

Secondly, please note that I have never been the one to rely on mythology and fairytales, so my opinion is affected by my general beliefs. Myths are integral to any culture, and ours is no exception. However, with the rapid development of technology and the constant changing of our world, those stories, to my mind, are outdated at the very least. It does not matter if there was a Great God or a Liveiataan, what we have now is the present and our freedom of choice. Of course, some people are not ready to create their own destiny and choose to blindly follow the directions given by others. Ultimately, I would say that there definitely are some people who are more likely to succeed in life, to "ascend Arrat," as you put it, but it is only their choices that determine their fate.

Still, I would like to point out that you referenced Liveiataan as "a symbol of power and perfect government". It is not my place to discuss it in terms of religion, as I am the farthest one could be from believing in any sort of dieties both because of my stances on life and my predominantly non-religious peers (out of people I know, the one connected the most with mythological concepts such as God would probably be Victor, who is not actively practicing any religion), but I could assess it in relation to the book Leviathan. According to Thomas Hobbes, the perfect government is absolute and thus provides the ultimate form of safety for its people. There are those who have the right to choose and those whose faith is to obey orders. Hobbes mentions God imposing the ten commandments as well as other rules, but ultimately failing to realise that to hear his words, people would have to break his regulations; Liveiataan being the force that is able to challenge God himself makes sense.

In conclusion, I am much more knowledgeable on other subjects, but I am always open to reading and discussing matters similar to these. Your writing is delightful, and I look forward to seeing more of it in the future.

Best regards,

Vincent Edgeworth

[greenbirdtrash]

Decided to post some of my clothing analysis of the musical Once-ler. Most of my takes here are outdated (since i didn't had a chance to get acquainted with the script back then, but now i've got a better understanding of some things and the exact timeline, so lots of updated info and the contexts will be added when needed), but some of the listed speculations here are still pretty interesting to think about. It's actually kinda crazy how i came to that, building my own imaginary character profile and the timeline without the chance to watch the entire show, but just from analysing the available photos and the reviews. And the fun thing is..some of my speculations actually fit the story quite well. So..

Part one: Introduction.

[July, 23]

"Again, my conclusions may be wrong because of the fact that I only saw the fragments and photos from this musical, I cannot be completely sure that the slight difference in some of details and elements is present due to a certain story arc or the fact that the "test show" was performed in a different place and with slightly different props, but it's hard not to notice that during the course of events, the clothes of our beloved problematic capitalist change, maybe not as drastically as in the 2012 movie, for example, but this undoubtedly plays an important role in his development as a character (especially considering that we are looking at a stage adaptation with its own nuances, but more on that later) and reflects a certain kind of changes that he goes through in the process. Why is this so important? I'll try to explain.

Working with perception through colors and shapes is one of the most basic things in design that always works, and even being in some cases comically exaggerated, it remains effective because a person somehow always builds a certain association based on the things they saw. Like, we look at the warm green color, and it immediately reminds us of leaves, etc, etc.. Long story short, the aspect of different clothing, colors and patterns on a character who's going through different phases will be very important here. I saw someone else pointing the same thing out in one of the reviews, can't remember which one tho. Anyway, my huge thanks to Rob Howell for giving us all these amazing designs.

What I always loved in stage performances of all kinds and the theater as a whole concept, is the fact that you won't find there such thing as "narrow cinematic frame" in which you can just remove or cut out everything that simply "does not fit" into it, oh no.

In stage performances and musicals, the whole color extravaganza of the stage and the carefully carved environment will talk to you (yes, talk!), and actors are required to do much more than just show a certain face at a certain moment. Nope, it's completely different here, and most of the theatre actors are just built different as well. Spent some of my best years near them, that was an amazing experience. Anyway-

Being able to play simply with with your voice and face is not enough to be a good actor here, especially considering that even if you're lucky to have the most magnificent facial expressions......they are not particularly visible even from the middle rows. Even though most projects and plays are recorded with professional equipment from the close range (mostly for archive purposes), and for some plays you can even get the binoculars with no problem, it is impossible to rely solely on facial expressions.

And here's where costumes and choreography come into play.

So, the costumes...

From what I saw and read, I would say, we are introduced to this Onceler in a pretty interesting way.

At the time of his departure from home in search of a better fate, we are looking at a very ambitious young dreamer who just.. let's say, he doesn't fit into his original environment, neither by his character traits, nor by his ideas about inventions, nor visually. The visual clearly emphasizes this, and I got the impression that among all the green riot of chaotic colorful prints that prevail in his family's clothes, in his tailcoat he kinda looks like a "black sheep" among them, even despite the fact that he shares the same green aesthetic, but his design is not "too much" or hard to look at. In fact, we are still able to spot him even when he's surrounded by his family. According to this adaptation's background, their family is VERY poor, and all they own is an old mill(?) on which they all work tirelessly. Not a particularly wide space for revelry and elements symbolizing prosperity or luxury (yk, tailcoats are quite expensive), so to speak. Things were not going great for them, so perhaps such an expensive thing as a tailcoat in their conditions is some kind of a reference to the guitar of the 2012 version (for which, according to some information available on the web, the 2012 Onceler has been saving up for a long time). Perhaps (and most likely this guess will be more correct) our hero slept and saw himself in a completely different society - with a much higher and richer status [UPD: This guess was partially confirmed after i saw the script, so I will take this as canon. After all, in the stageplay, the young Onceler literally devotes an entire scene to the song about his dream of getting rich on his great idea], and perhaps he also believed that "clothes make the man" and planned searching for glory in the same outfit, I can't tell you for sure, but the fact is that visually he does not fit into his environment at all, he's "an oddball" with his head hovering somewhere in the clouds, and his clothes, among other things, help us draw a imaginary line which separates him from his surroundings and giving us a subconscious signal that he is just different. Not like them. We all faced rejection in one way or another, and we know what not being able to fit feels like, and it also kinda helps us to put ourselves in his shoes, feel his ambitions, and to start sympathizing with him as a character. [UPD: It works really well within the canons of this adaptation, I couldn't remain indifferent to it, and David Greig turned him into exactly that kind of beautifully written tragic deep character that I wanted to see, and at the end of his story, it broke my heart..in a good way, of course.]

Also, there's something really silly about how he looks at the start, he spots the funky striped fingerless gloves (Not the canon long ones, but still..That's a nice touch, every Onceler needs his gloves, and also it looks like he also has a watch on his left arm? Interesting..), some kind of a vintage green fedora, very fluffy green hair, green shirt and green pants with a slightly different "cold" color, brown suspenders and even a bright green neckerchief for some reason, so his green aesthetic is pretty much complete. Idk, his whole look during this phase kinda gives me the countryside vibes, maybe it was actualy intended? Especially considering what his family does for life?[UPD: It kinda was.]

Actually, he leaves the house just because his room and his bed is suddenly rented out for some pennies [UPD: Everything turned out to be much worse and funnier at the same time, he was literally kicked out by his family (You can literally feel their low expectations for him) just for them to take in a random person with "more reasonable ideas", but despite this, all his interactions with the "Bed-stealer" during the first act made me smile and giggle a lot, Small Ed is a great character addition and a pure comedic relief], and this probably becomes his last reason in favor of collecting all of his not very vast possessions and go seek his fate in the hopes that somewhere in this world there will be a better place for him.."