#I like this idea a lot it’s very interesting to think about

[glypt0don]

So, this is quite a rant. You can skip to the bottom, if you want to know my opinion but don't want to read that much... But I worked hard on it and I think it's important, so it would make me very happy if you read through the whole text.

So this fits into something I wanted to post about anyway: a broader theme of why do we frame things as wars? Like, why is it culture war, specifically. First I liked the concept, I thought it described something quite complicated reasonably easily. But I pondered on it a bit more and I think there's more going on.

It's pretty trivial, that most societies went through a huge change over the last half century. It's not just feminism. I could make a whole list of things we as a people took on. Anti-racism and civil rights, religious acceptance, global trade, reinterpreting the meaning of peace, connecting the word through the world-wide web, etc. We ( or, as I am barely an adult and have no idea how to change things for the better, I should say you, or maybe chat) decided it was time for change, so change came. You brought it about.

And I agree. Change WAS and IS necessary. What that change should entail, well, we all have our ideas, right? And they have the ugly tendency to differ from each other. The question then is, how do we coincide our contradictory ideas on society? The answer is both worrying and very important.

To be fair, our race doesn't have a great track record on solving these kinds of issues. I dug into my historical knowledge, since, you know, those who don't learn from it, repeat it... The only thing I can compare to what's happening today would be the Reformation (which probably says a lot about my historical knowledge). That's the only time I know, where societal assumptions were altered so much in such a short time. That time it was specifically about the Catholic church (if you don't know, what I'm talking about, you really should, so Google it), and the result was a series of wars, that ultimately may have wiped out about a fifth of Europes population. The wars were of course led by powerful men, who capitalised on the divide to further their own goals.

As back then, now too, we can't rely on institutions to tame the public. Many media and political identities have a direct interest in polarising society. Because that's what happens. All these contentious issues about gender, class, or foreign policy become dividing lines between folks who are supposed to be parts of the same whole (call it community, state, nation or humanity, depending on how wide you can think). You know, how it works, probably saw it a few times, whatever your interests are. It's literally everywhere! We fight it out with the perceived enemy of the week sometimes, when there is an election, something notable happens, or it's simply Pride Month. Then everyone goes back to their respective corners, where they vehemently agree with themselves. We don't talk a lot, just throw words at each other, like Buggs Bunny, playing tennis with a dynamite.

I should say, this post is a notable and refreshing outlier. Thanks, @trans-androgyne , for starting a discussion for a change!

I know, it's a bit like nuclear armament. You can't just stop, because THEY won't, and then they win, and you can't allow that. It's life and death! And I don't have some magic pill to make it all go right, or believe me, I wouldn't sit here, typing this out at 3 in the morning Central European Time. But let me propose this: don't call it a war! Neither culture war, nor gender war, nor anything like that. Because this isn't a war. Just ask anyone in the middle east! They can tell you, what is war, and THIS IS NOT IT! And also, because it may not be guns and destruction yet, but nothing guarantees, that it stays that way. We already had multiple attempted takeovers of capital buildings since this cursed decade began, because our social reality became so fragmented, that you can't accept the results of a popular election anymore. That should raise alarm bells. I know it does, but it can be much worse! Learn from history, do not repeat it! Hit the Wiki page on the Huguenot war! On the siege of Magdeburg. Or, if that's not your cup of tea, watch Civil War! I genuinely think it's the best movie of the year.

Call it Social Discourse! That sounds much more manageable, doesn't it? Or you can come up with something else, as long as it isn't some warmongering bullshit. And maybe the next time you meet someone with sexist, homophobic, racist, or maybe radical left and anarchistic views (whatever you're opposing), don't attack them with your words! Those aren't weapons. Try to talk to them instead! Try talking about feelings! Listen to theirs, make them understand yours! I say feelings, because you both have those. Try finding a common ground, however small, and build up from there. Like Minecraft Skyblock. It can be hard in a challenging way, instead of making you want to shoot yourself in the head. Remember, you aren't fighting a war. You are having a discourse.

All of it is to say, the world and society are changing, wether you like it or not, and we have to change with it, to survive. That is the simple fact. If you call that change a war, that's just gonna make the whole thing unnecessarily painful for everyone involved.

This was sociopolitical advice from a giant armadillo.

Genuinely, what happened to “feminism is for everyone”?

That’s the feminism I grew up with: encouraging people to recognize that fighting sexism and restrictive gender roles helps folks of every gender. We’d push back on the idea that feminists hate men, pointing to inclusive feminist literature and how many men are feminists.

Now, there are so many people insisting that the solution to patriarchy is to openly hate and ostracize men no matter what. Why? What is the benefit? It’s certainly not effective in fighting oppressive structures to exclude half the population from your cause on the basis of immutable traits. It may feel cathartic to say horrible things about men and try to punish them for your frustrations with patriarchy. But the only actual effect I see is the increasing right-wing radicalization of young men, who are being told that the left hates them for the way they were born and presented with an abundance of proof that it’s true.

Why are we going back to treating men and women as different species? It doesn’t fix things to say “well women are the good gender and men are the bad one” this time. If you sincerely want to dismantle sexism, you’re going to have to unpack and let go of all sex and gender essentialism—even that which considers women inherently pure and men inherently immoral.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

ok but i need the evrart claire essay

Okay just be warned that this is gonna be less of an "essay" and more of a loose collection of thoughts, and I don't know how fresh or novel any of these ideas are going to be when it pertains to popular Disco Elysium fan discourse because I don't really do fandom, you know?

Anyway, I think the most obvious factet of Evrart's character is how he very intentionally calls to mind a caricature of corrupt union leaders, the image of a sleazy mobster who only cares about his own personal gain but pays lip service to leftist politics and pretends to care about the interests of workers as a way to obtain and maintain his power. And I think a lot of people straightforwardly read him as such, because that's the way he carries himself and the type of character the game is riffing on. There's also the question of how much of Evrart's manipulative, duplicitous attitude is just how he normally acts and how much of it is him specifically acting that way towards Harry and Kim specifically, it's important to have in mind that your main character is a cop and that would definitely play a role in making Evrart go out of his way to be a bit more of a bastard and toy with you a bit before he decides to actually do anything helpful.

However, once you dig a little deeper into his characterization, it becomes clear that he's pulling a very interesting double bluff, because it becomes apparent that the shady mobster who only cares about his personal gain is an act he's putting on. He's very self-aware about the fact that he's playing the villain, he seems to actively revel in it, but ultimately, it seems like he does it because playing the villain is the way he gets shit done.

This is not to say he's not actually corrupt, or that he's not ALSO involved in all sorts of shady stuff and taking advantage of his position of power, but the game does make it apparent that on some level he DOES have the interests of the people of Martinaise at heart.

For example, it is textually stated that the harbor doesn't need a night watchman, and Evrart created the position specifically to provide a source of income for René. He knows the pension Rene gets is not enough for him to live on, but he's also aware that René is the sort of right-wing guy who would rather starve to death than take a handout (especially from those dirty union commies), so Evrart created a job position which pretty much involves doing nothing for a few hours every night so he could help him with his economic troubles in a way he wouldn't refuse out of principle. René hates his guts, ideologically stands against everything his organization represents, and is generally an unlikeable asshole and a fascist prick, but he's also a disadvantaged member of the community and that seems to matter more.

Even when he asks you to get the signatures to build the community center, which is definitely one of the most morally questionable things he does during the events of the game (as it will improve the community, but at the same time displace the people from the fishing village), his intentions seem to be ultimately good. Due to the very nature of his character and the act he puts on, it's purposefully hard to tell when he's being sincere and when he's being manipulative. However, if Harry's drama and empathy skills are high enough when he's confronted about it, you'll be able to tell that he's not lying about his motives for wanting to build a community center or about the fact that he intends to provide better housing for the people displaced by the project, and that he feels genuine rage about their current living conditions. It can still be said that he's ignoring their self-determination and essentially forcing these people out of their current homes, but he does seem to have good intentions and think he's doing a good thing for them in the long run, even if his methods are morally questionable at best.

In that way, the Union is an extension of him in this regard too. They're pretty unapologetic about the fact that they're openly operating as a crime syndicate, but the game doesn't give you any reasons to believe they're lying when they say they're doing it as a way to muslce out all the more dangerous gangs and crime organizations out of Martinaise, or that their involvement in the drug trade is at least partially motivated by a desire to make sure it's not controlled by more dangerous and violent crime organizations. Again, they're playing the villain as a way to fill that power vacuum and make sure more dangerous people don't fill that role (but of course, that doesn't erase the fact that, noble as their intentions may be, they're still involved in all these shady activities and turning a pretty substantial profit from them too)

Of course, on the other hand, just because the game seems to hint at the fact that Evrart and the Union are, deep down, a force for good, doesn't erase the fact that he's done plenty of bad shit to further his interests, and the game doesn't shy away from this. He's still extremely corrupt, his long-term plan to wrestle control of the harbor away from the company and turn it into a worker-owned operation (which *would* massively improve the material conditions of the dockworkers if succesful) involves endangering the lives of a lot of his own workers, he and his brother Edgar pass the position of union foreman back and forth between each other to circumvent the term limit and keep themselves in power indefinitely, and if you explore all dialogue options with the Deserter it's all but explicitly stated that they rose to power by getting him to assassinate the previous Union forewoman.

These are things that Evrart himself would probably rationalize as sacrifices that need to be made for the greater good. After all, it is implied that the previous union forewoman was also corrupt, except in favor of the company's interests, and might have even been a company plant. However, this doesn't make those things morally right. Good intentions nonwithstanding, it's clear that the Claire brothers are very "the ends justify the means" kind of people, they probably see getting the previous Union leader killed or endangering the lives of the dockworkers to overthrow the company that exploits them as "pulling the lever" in the trolley problem, which is extremely callous at best.

Here's where we get a little more into "disjointed thoughts" territory, but Evrart can also be seen as a critique of the limits of trade unionism and social democrat politics. Something that I completely missed in my first playthrough but was able to catch on during my second is that the people of the fishing village refuse to unionize, and as a result they don't get the same level of support and protection that the union provides to the people of the more urban section of Martinaise. This is apparently widely known enough for characters other than Evrart to comment on (I forget what character I learned this from, but it was definitely not Evrart). So it's clear that Evrart and the Union put their interests of the members of their own organization over those of other working class people, which is one criticism that can be leveraged against the way a lot of leftists seem to treat unions as the ultimate tool for worker class liberation.

Similarly, when Evrart tells you his long-term plans, it's clear that his ultimate goals don't involve complete worker liberation. As far as the game shows, he's a socdem who's still looking to work within the confines of capitalism. There are more radically left wing characters in Disco Elysium, but Evrart is the only one with any actual power to affect change, which kinda speaks to the lack of presence of more hardline leftist positions in mainstream politics. As someone living in Latin America, I kinda ended up seeing a bit of a lot of our currrent socdem politicians in him in that respect, I guess, but i'd need more time to articulate this thought properly, I guess.

Ultimately, I think Evrart is an amazingly crafted character. He evokes a well-known archetype of a shady, corrupt, power-hungry union leader, but he adds a lot of depth, self-awareness, and nuance to it and subverts that characterization in several ways. I think he atually serves an important role of ideologically challenging players who share the developers' and writers' political leanings. I think it would have been very self-congratulatory and autocomplacent to make the most influential leftist character in the game an unambiguously good paragon of workers' rights and working class liberation. By instead giving us someone who's an absolute callous bastard who definitely has a bit of blood on his hands, who's a socdem at best and a self-serving mob boss at worst, but can ultimately be interpreted as a force for good, and asking the players to decide what they think of him I think it brings interesting questions to the table of our commitment to material gains, what sorts of people we're willing to work with, and the sort of acts we're willing to tolerate, and makes the game a lot more thematically rich.

I also think a good analysis of Evrart is incomplete without an analysis of the ways in which he serves a a charater foil for Joyce, but I don't feel like getting into that rn.

[astriiformes]

Okay as promised earlier, a post about Marty McFly and gender.

The reason I find a trans reading of Marty specifically so compelling beyond some of the superficial things--like the fact that he's smaller and wears a lot of layers and generally looks the way a lot of younger trans men do--is because if you interpret him as trans, there are other parts of his character that become extremely interesting.

Because, like, Marty is a decent guy. I am not the first to comment on the fact that, when compared to a lot of other young, male 80s protagonists especially, he comes across as much kinder & more empathetic, generally a lot more earnest, and less complicit in certain kinds of toxicity. But a huge huge aspect of that is that he is generally pretty respectful of the female characters in the series. Which is pretty noteworthy considering most of the other male characters have some pretty big blips in that department -- George spies on Lorraine, Doc is dismissive of Jennifer and treats women like a mystery to be solved, Biff is, well, Biff.

--And I will say that I could write a completely separate essay on masculinity in Back to the Future in general, because the other male protagonists, at least, do end up having whole character arcs about this (George coming to Lorraine's rescue at the dance and Doc realizing that he has a lot in common with Clara are both genuinely good examples of how men who have certain flaws courtesy of the patriarchy can learn to be better!) But Marty has a totally different arc related to masculinity, that stems from something else entirely, and it's a very interesting contrast!

Marty's problem is that he's insecure about being seen as weak or cowardly, which is why he's so easily goaded into doing dangerous, stupid things just because another guy dared him to (and it's very noteworthy, I think, that it's always other guys). His character arc revolves much more around accepting that it's okay to follow his conscience in those situations, and also learning to let go of other people's perception of him.

So like. You could very easily read him (as was intended) as a young cis man who has generally been raised to stand up for and treat women well but still has some very teenager insecurities. BUT. There is so, so much going with him on if you instead look at him through the lens of transmasculinity. Suddenly what you have instead is a character who probably has personal experiences with misogyny that make him sympathetic towards the women he knows, but who has very complicated, deep-seated insecurities around being seen as "enough" of a man. It explains why being a jerk to women is not only a line he won't cross, but something he actively calls other people out for, while still being deeply entrenched in other toxic ideas about what being a man looks like -- of course a trans Marty would be insecure about being seen weak or less masculine compared to other guys! He's had to fight to be seen as a man in the past, and doesn't know when and where to draw the line!

I just think it's a reading that has so much rich, interesting stuff going on--in part because the Back to the Future movies, as I said in my other post, are actually extremely full of Gender and so Marty is caught up in that already--and I am rotating him in my mind constantly. Do you understand.

[ordinaryschmuck]

With Gooseworx all but confirming that the Jax being an AI thing is bullshit, I personally want to talk about an interesting part about Jax that a lot of theorists used as "evidence" that validates the theory:

Jax's fourth wall breaks are a common topic brought up amongst the "Jax is an NPC" theory. After all, Caine broke the fourth wall in the pilot, knowing full well that the world of The Amazing Digital Circus isn't real and is talking to some unseen viewer as he introduces the Circus Crew.

There's also this bit of official art surrounding Jax's pin:

Where everyone else is inside their room, Jax is outside as pieces of the circus fall apart around him and all of reality to crash. Certainly lends itself to this idea that Jax knows he's not a real person and that his presence could cause great disruption to this world. And he doesn't care because none of it is real. Might as well have fun and cause chaos in a world that doesn't exist.

And I'll admit, all of this seems like valid claims for how the theory could be true. I saw it all and thought that it surely COULD be possible...but there are some things that stop me from being convinced.

Firstly, Caine breaking the fourth wall in the pilot doesn't really seem like an AI talking to the audience. It looks more like an AI programmed to talk to a player as a game boots up. What we saw in the opening could be more like a morning routine that he has to do at least once a day. Plus, we've yet to see any other NPC talk to the audience like Jax has. He explicitly called out the viewers in episode three, knowing full well he's being watched by SOMEONE. Or, at the very least, acting like he is. What do I mean by that? Well, to explain, I'd like to use one of my favorite fourth wall breakers as an example:

Deadpool, in most adaptations, knows fully well that he's a fictional character. He'll talk to the readers/viewers, move the camera around, and constantly talk shit to the writers/studio for occasionally screwing him over. It's all in good (Sometimes bloody) fun...but there's a canonical reason for this. It's not like She-Hulk where the fourth wall breaks are a way to tell HER stories HER way. You see, Deadpool...is just fucking insane.

No, really, that's the reason. Due to the trauma of gaining his powers, Deadpool's mind breaks and he's led to believe that he MUST be a fictional character. In comics, he actually gets voices in his head that makes him think he must be some comic book superhero, and the movies implied that something similar happened given how he never broke the fourth wall ONCE before getting his powers. This means him breaking the fourth wall could be seen as a coping mechanism. After all, it's better to believe you're a fictional character designed to entertain some invisible audience than believe that all of the shitty things that happened to you and people close to you is just a cruel joke from the universe.

Sound familiar?

Going back to the pilot, remember how Pomni's first instinct was to say that the Circus was all just a dream? To her, it's better to live in a lie that everything around her isn't real than to accept the reality that she's stuck in digital purgatory. Jax very well could be going through something similar, but unlike Pomni who seemed to just accept her reality, Jax never did. The trauma of being stuck in the Circus had led to his mind breaking just like Pomni's, Kinger's, and anyone else's. It's just that, for him, he thinks he's coping with it better because he discovered the secret that no one else did: None of this is real.

They're not actually people trapped in some hellscape while an AI unintentionally tortures them. They're all just fictional characters whose tragedies and silly antics are used to entertain viewers. I mean, it's either that or they're real people forever trapped in the circus with the closest thing to death being a full, psychotic break as they give up their sanity because they no longer want to exist in this hell anymore...But that possibly can't be true. Because if that IS true, then Jax has to face that he's a real person stuck in a real, awful situation that he can't joke his way out of. So, it's best to think nothing is real and nothing they do matter. So, might as well have fun with it.

Going back to the pin...

I don't think this is damning evidence about Jax being an NPC. Actually, it perfectly captures who he is as a character. He knows the circus isn't real. He even thinks HE isn't real. So instead of grappling with that, Jax lets himself believe that if nothing is real than nothing he does matters. He can break things, ruin lives, and assist in torturing the others in the circus. It's what he thinks will make the show more entertaining, even though all he's really entertaining is himself so his mind doesn't break more than it does.

Now, could the same apply if he's an NPC? Well...maybe. Gumigoo definitely proves how far someone could fall when they're told their world is fake. He was about ready to give up on life because he didn't think he had one. If Jax was an NPC, I could see him having a similar break, but going in the far opposite direction where, instead of giving up on life, he chooses to live the way HE wants it. Instead of being some one-off NPC for a lame adventure, he could go off on adventures of his own and ruin the lives of others now that his is thoroughly ruined.

However, Gooseworx makes a good point: "...a lot of people come up with theories based on how unexpected they'd be, and not because they make sense or align with the show's themes."

If Jax is an NPC, it would harm the overall message of the show. That there's meaning to be found in a stagnant life, and you find that meaning with people close to you who make that life worth living. Jax represents a sort of foil to that idea, with his way of coping with the madness being pure chaos and breaking others. It's his coping mechanism, and it works because it shows how human Jax really is. They're ALL human and they have human desires and wants, with the Circus pretty much stripping that away and leaving them...as they are now. They're emotionally broken, their sanity is decreasing, and some of them are losing all sense of self. By making Jax an NPC, it would definitely be surprising, but it would take away from that idea. It no longer makes him a human facing his own tragedy but instead an AI that's just as broken as Gummigoo. More than that, it gives the others an easy out. All the crew has to do is tell Caine that Jax is an NPC and POOF! No more annoyance. So making him someone who HAS to stay with the others and they're forever forced to deal with him also adds more to THEIR tragedy and torture.

Jax being an NPC is an interesting theory, but I don't think it's one that SHOULD be true. To me, it's more fascinating watching Jax treat the world around him as meaningless knowing he's a human instead of a rogue NPC breaking everything. And Gooseworx made it clear how they feel about it. Now, could it potentially be a mislead to get fans off the trail? Genuinely...I don't think so. That sounded very "I don't like this idea so it's not gonna happen" type of response. Still, we won't know until the show wraps up. Anything can happen, but don't get your hopes up if a character who does bad things to people that don't deserve it is more human than you think.

[cheshiresense]

Starrk time travels with Ichigo to TBTP is everything I never knew I needed! The pain of surviving again, of still being too strong to die- to give up and rest with Shunsui is chef’s kiss beautiful.

I have questions, ideas, thoughts- feel free to ignore any of them lol. First is do you think Hollows/Arrancars have pack instincts/pack bonds. I can imagine the horrible aching emptiness of reaching for friends and family who aren’t there anymore. Pack is forever, should be forever- but now they have to go on looking in the faces of people who loved them once and see nothing in their eyes. No pack bond or instincts that used to link them.

Second is do you think Starrk and Ichigo would eventually start napping together once they settle in a bit more? Starrk might be able to control it now, but I feel like there would be something reassuring about the fact that Ichigo could take it, wouldn’t buckle under the pressure. And then there’s the fact they’re the only ones who know, who understand the weight of it all.

Third is do you have an idea of who you’d ship Ichigo with in this au? I myself am partial to Koyonagi, but I can also see Shinji noticing something off and prowling around like the big cat he pretends he isn’t to investigate. I also imagine that not a few people would assume Starrk and Ichigo are in a relationship lol.

Lastly is I think it would be really interesting if Starrk and Ichigo ended up in the same division, especially since the draw to join the Eighth would be even more tempting. Do you think they’d stick together or try to spread out to be able to investigate/access more.

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it! And I haven't even gotten to the ShunStarrk parts yet but the prospect of it is incentive to write more lmao.

This got a bit long so I'll shove it under the cut:

1) I haven't thought much on this particular aspect of Hollows, although I do see it around a lot, it seems a pretty common headcanon. I def do think they have pack instincts, because even in canon you see Harribel and Grimmjow and others forming "packs" but idk if I'd go all the way to pack bonds. For me it would prob depend on where I want to take that particular fic. In this AU, I imagine Hollows do have pack instincts (again, that's basically canon) and Hollows in general are more sensitive to the reiatsu of pack members, but Starrk's gone so long without them that he's used to the pain of not having anyone. Plus he's like part wolf so I think that makes it worse, but after a thousand years he's probably numb to it. Then of course he got Shunsui for a while, and I imagine he kind of adopted the Fourth as his own and probably a few other Shinigami he'd grown close to, and now all of them are gone. He's in the same situation as Ichigo and grieving that loss, but it prob also feels physically worse for him. He knows what it's like to have pack now, and then he loses them all, and yeah he can sense Shunsui's reiatsu signature halfway across the Seireitei, and half the Fourth is a comfortable bubble at the edge of his awareness, but at the same time, they're not the same and his instincts can tell that too, so it's basically just a constant reminder of everything he no longer has. But he has a thousand years of experience at ignoring this sort of thing, and it's easy to fall back on it, he has to fall back on it because it's not like he can do anything about it anyway. His people, his pack, are gone, and like all the other things he was never able to change over the course of his long life, he can only resign himself to it and shoulder it as best he can.

But Shunsui in particular is a relentless ache in his chest, at the back of his mind, in the pulse of his very reiatsu, like pressure on a bruise on the days he can force himself to ignore it, like a gushing wound when he can't. It's still okay when he's at the Academy and doesn't actually have to see the man. Then Ichigo goes and picks up a stray who just so happens to be Shunsui's family, damn you too Mimihagi may you suffer from carpal tunnel for the rest of eternity, and because his luck has never been what anyone would call good, Starrk's practically expecting it the first time Ichigo awkwardly pesters him into joining their tutoring sessions behind the Eighth Division compound because Ichigo's excellent at Shunpou but he's never quite managed Yoruichi's flawless execution of it, and even before they'd become allies, Starrk's Sonido had been her equivalent, which had seamlessly translated over to Hohou once he'd gained the ability to learn it. Fujiwara's decent enough at it for an Academy student, but still far too slow for Ichigo's liking and also stupidly clumsy and Ichigo can't for the life of him figure out why, so can Starrk please come take a look and see if he can spot the problem or just tell him that there is no problem and all Academy students are just hopeless like this. Starrk wants to say no, but for all that Ichigo gets irritated with his own family for not being able to take no for an answer, the kid himself is actually no better than them, he's just a little more self-conscious about it, but the family resemblance is definitely there beyond just the appearance. Repeatedly refusing would take energy Starrk doesn't have, and he supposes it's nice too to see Ichigo starting to make friends again in this time period, starting to look past his grief. Starrk knows if he really puts his foot down, Ichigo will back off, but he doesn't want to set the kid back in case Ichigo gets the idea to also return to being a perpetual shut-in just because Starrk is, and if that means indulging Ichigo's whims, then so be it. He'd been sent back to serve as babysitter anyway so he may as well do the whole thing properly. And because his luck is just like that, the first time he goes, he finds that Ichigo has already somehow managed to lure his nosy Shiba cousin, his cousin's captain, and the Eighth Division captain Starrk's Shinigami but no he isn't not really not anymore never again to the training grounds even though it's the middle of the afternoon and they should all be at work. At least, judging by the disgruntled expression on Ichigo's face, this hadn't been Ichigo's idea of a good time either. Familiar grey eyes meet his from across the clearing, and for a moment, Starrk is certain someone's ripped his heart out again, leaving only an empty gaping hole in its wake once more, but a thousand times worse than it had ever felt when he'd still been just a Hollow and had never known anything else.

-

2) Honestly Ichigo already spends like 70% of his time in Starrk's room, his own is there just to gather dust and like fake out Kaien cuz the guy either hasn't thought to or at least still has enough manners to refrain from invading Starrk's room too (for now). So like two weeks into the Academy and Ichigo spending five days out of seven crashing on Starrk's floor, Starrk just gives up and goes out to buy an extra futon (and even more pillows because he's a pillow fiend and you can never have too many in his opinion) and Ichigo basically moves in after that. It's definitely comforting for both of them to have the other close by, especially Ichigo because his reikaku abilities are still hit or miss some days. Starrk can relax because his control hasn't been anything less than perfect since his Aizen days but occasionally he still worries about slipping up, except Ichigo is one of the few who can bear the brunt of it so it wouldn't matter even if he does. And Ichigo can relax because he's never really been one for subterfuge, it's actually killing him a little that he can't just bust out his Bankai and either beat Aizen to death or beat some sense into him over the skies of Soul Society like the good old days, but there's nothing he has to hide from Starrk, and Starrk's one of the ones - the only one left now - who's seen Ichigo at his very worst, and likewise it would take a lot of conscious effort on his part to actually hurt Starrk. Lashing out in the midst of a nightmare would wake Starrk but otherwise wouldn't even make him blink.

They can lower their guard around each other in a way they can't anywhere else outside of their room, and with Starrk's habit of carpeting most of the floor with soft things to sleep on, it's only natural to go to sleep next to each other and wake up - in the middle of the night or in the early morning when dawn hasn't even broken yet because it's easier to stare at the ceiling than spend another minute dreaming of faces they'll never truly see again - the same way. Neither of them really moves much when unconscious, and their instincts mark each other as safe, so these days, they sleep best in each other's company.

(This aches too though, sometimes, even though Starrk won't ever voice such a thing out loud. But sleeping with someone else beside him, even when they don't touch beyond an accidental brush of shoulders or a nightmare-fueled flail of a limb digging into his gut, reminds him of another warm body he'd spent close to a decade sleeping beside, half-draped over him or plastered against his back or letting him curl around them in return. It's another thing he'll never have again, but that's hardly Ichigo's fault, and he knows the kid doesn't do well alone either - who in this world does? - so Starrk's hardly going to say anything that would definitely chase Ichigo away because the kid's stupid like that. He locks the sense-memories behind his teeth instead, even when it keeps him up all night or wakes him in the morning just to make him feel like shit all over again when he remembers where and when he is. And it's not always bad. In this era, Ichigo is the only truly familiar thing that doesn't make Starrk's instincts bristle, which means he can sleep more deeply than he would allow himself anywhere else, and that's a comfort in and of itself.)

-

3) This I actually don't know, even in SP I don't really have a ship for Ichigo. But ship candidates are a dime a dozen for him lol. Kisuke's always my go-to for him but I guess he hasn't really been that prominent, although I can def steer things that way. I've written a few KoyoIchi so that's def also a possibility. Shinji is equally likely, and if they could give past!Aizen future!Aizen's memories, I could even pull off AiIchi, although if they could do that, I'd just do the same with Shunsui and then we would have less angst lmao. And it might be weird but I'm not opposed to Ichigo/Asuka but in a platonic neither of us are interested in other ppl and don't want to be bothered by marriage offers so let's just get engaged and it'll even be good for clan politics close friends sort of way. They might develop feelings for each other sometime down the road, but arranged marriage AU would be how it would start (this is actually a wip idea I've had for a long time that I've just never written). Also I just feel like Starrk would be vaguely amused by how they both got attached to Kyourakus (or Kyouraku-adjacent I guess), like what is it about that family 😂 But yeah nothing really concrete yet. Ppl might assume that Starrk and Ichigo are a thing because Ichigo doesn't hang out with anyone else at first, and Starrk basically only leaves school grounds to accompany Ichigo somewhere, but I imagine that would clear up after like thirty minutes of watching them interact, esp once Rangiku and Asuka and Gin are more permanent fixtures in their group and Starrk's just trailing after them like a long-suffering dad, the generational gap would be pretty obvious.

-

4) Oh man I've definitely thought about this. So unlike SP where Ichigo's like It Is My Duty To Go To The Fifth Just To Keep An Eye On Aizen's Shenanigans Even If That Means Self-Inflicted Emotional Torture The Entire Time, Starrk puts a stop to that nonsense in this AU. He doesn't actually care where Ichigo wants to go, Ichigo can take care of himself even if Aizen breaks cover and goes all traitor on them a hundred years early, and he's not here to tell the kid what to do anyway, but when Ichigo's waffling between the Eighth or the Fifth, and it becomes pretty fucking clear that he only wants to go to the Fifth because he thinks he has to, because there's no other way to keep track of Aizen, and he starts getting tunnel vision the way he does when he's brooding and obsessing over protecting people, that's when Starrk steps in.

"It's one thing if you want to go because you want to," Starrk says, watching the kid pace their room like a caged tiger. "But I don't think you do, not with the way you behave around Hirako. Besides, are you even going to be able to get anything done when you'll be constantly stressed out by being so close to Aizen?" He pauses, then adds with a ghost of a smile, "And then there's the fact that you're a really bad liar."

Ichigo swings around to splutter indignantly at him. "I am not! I can lie!"

Starrk shrugs. "Good enough to fool Hirako and Aizen when they'll be right there observing you up close every single day?"

Ichigo opens his mouth, then closes it again. Good, at least he's self-aware.

Starrk lets him think it over for a moment, tracking the conflicted shift of emotions across Ichigo's face - and he wants to play spy in front of the likes of Aizen like this? - before continuing quietly, "This is it, you know."

Ichigo blinks at him, thrown by the non-sequitur.

Starrk sighs and leans back against the windowsill at his back, slanting his gaze to the sky outside, winter-pale but clear. "What we're doing--it isn't a job with an end date. We don't get to go back home once we're done. There's no home to go back to."

In his peripheral, Ichigo is suddenly very still.

"This is it," Starrk repeats without taking his eyes off the distant horizon. "And you gain nothing from focusing all your energy on one man who won't even be showing his hand anytime soon. If anything, finding out you're suspicious of him will only move up his timeline or cause him to do something drastic, and then we might not be able to predict him at all. And that's not even getting into what the Quincy might do if you show your hand too soon, with or without their king. But even that's beside the point."

He turns back to Ichigo, taking in the weary grief in the furrow of his brow and the bitter curve of his mouth, and he knows Ichigo already understands. Still, he finishes as gently as he knows how, "This is where we live now, and maybe it isn't home yet, but maybe it's time to start thinking about what it will take to make it one. How do you want to live, Ichigo? Once everything is over, what kind of life will you have built for yourself by then? Or will you let Aizen dictate that too?"

A minute flinch ripples across Ichigo's shoulders. Starrk presses on, as ruthless as he'd learned from Aizen, from Shunsui even more. "Will you let him hound you all the way to your final grave? Or will you let Yhwach do it again? Your mother died to save you. Your friends died protecting you. Is their love for you only worth yet another suicide run at a bunch of madmen and would-be-gods? Do you think that this was all you were worth to them?"

Ichigo flinches again, and for a split second, his expression scrunches like he wants to take a swing at Starrk.

Starrk waits him out, because Ichigo isn't an idiot, but sometimes, it's like he just can't understand certain things without them being spelled out for him. And some things, Starrk thinks, should be heard, should be said.

He wonders if anyone's ever told this kid that he's allowed to live for himself too.

(He also wonders how much of a hypocrite every word coming out of his mouth right now is going to make him in the future.

But it's different, with Ichigo. Starrk is over a thousand years old. At this point, going to his grave isn't a big deal. But Ichigo hasn't even reached three decades, and he's spent a solid ten of those years on one battlefield or another. If one of them has to die at the end of all this, it definitely shouldn't be Ichigo.

This kid needs to learn how to live. There's no time like the present to start, and if that means Starrk has to hit where it hurts, well, infections must be lanced sooner or later.)

At last, Ichigo's shoulders slump, and he deflates like a balloon, anger and hurt deserting him, leaving only exhaustion in their wake.

"Sometimes, you sound so much like Kyouraku-san it's scary," Ichigo informs him, flopping bonelessly onto a nearby pile of pillows.

Starrk says nothing. If that had been meant to hurt, well, he probably deserves it.

"Aizen does need to be watched," Ichigo persists, but he sounds almost relieved at the possibility that he won't have to be the one to do it.

Starrk grunts dismissively. "I can sense him from here. I know when he's in his office, and when he leaves a double and takes off for Rukongai. I think that's enough for now."

Ichigo's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "His hypnosis isn't affecting you?"

Starrk tips a glance at him. "The soul remembers. It doesn't affect you either, does it?"

"That's true," Ichigo concedes. "But wait, did he never show you his Shikai? Or you touched his blade somehow?"

"My reiatsu ate it," Starrk summarizes succinctly, then clarifies with a flicker of exasperation at the wide-eyed look he gets, "His hypnosis, not his blade. He never put much effort into hypnotizing the Espada, just enough to make sure we'd obey without too much fuss. And when it comes down to it, even Zanpakutou abilities is just reiatsu cast in a specific shape. It was easy enough to get rid of it after I was whole again."

He thinks of Lilynette and breathes through that particular ache, old now, more scar than open wound, but there all the same.

Ichigo makes a comprehending sound. "That's pretty handy. Can your reiatsu eat it if it's cast on someone else?"

Starrk nods. He'd done as much for Shunsui, and a few others as necessary. Aizen had never been able to affect the Captain-Commander again after he'd been let out of Muken. And for all that they'd been nominally on the same side, Aizen had actually tried a few times. Starrk thinks he'd probably just wanted to see if he could, because after each attempt, he'd turn and look at Starrk with something like amusement and something like contempt.

(Once, he'd remarked in private that Starrk certainly had a preference for kneeling at the feet of Shinigami masters, and he'd asked what made Shunsui the better one to serve, if perhaps he also should've forced Starrk to spread his legs for him, if that would've succeeded in breaking Starrk further, in making him even more eager to please, as much as Shunsui had clearly accomplished with him.

Shunsui had overheard. On hindsight, Starrk's fairly certain Aizen had wanted him to, had waited for him to get close enough to hear everything, though for what purpose even Starrk hadn't been able to figure out, because the resulting confrontation hadn't been pretty. It'd been one of the few times Starrk had seen his Shinigami lose his temper, his wrath a silent deadly creature no one would expect, and in that moment, the shadows around them had almost devoured Aizen whole. They'd certainly left their mark in the aftermath, Aizen's flesh cracked open with scars as black as the void. Even then, Starrk doesn't think Aizen had truly been intimidated, but he'd also never said another word of the sort to Starrk ever again.)

"I'd have to get closer to detect his more intricate workings," Starrk admits. "But I think between that and being able to sense him, it's enough of a safeguard without needing to join the Fifth as well. There isn't much of a point to that anyway. It's not like we don't already have a general idea of what he's doing, or where he's doing it. He isn't the sort to leave evidence lying around either so I doubt you'd be able to gather any."

He glances at Ichigo again, finally letting himself relax when he sees the kid nodding along, albeit with a rather grumpy expression.

"For now," Starrk concludes. "It's best to establish our presence here in this time, make connections, make allies, and eventually make sure we have enough people on our side to tip the scales in our favour. Aizen is one thing, but even the two of us can't take down the entire Wandenreich on our own. When the time comes, there must be people willing to believe us even without concrete proof of the Quincy's existence."

He catches Ichigo's eye, intent to get this point across, if nothing else. "No matter how powerful, there is only so much one can do alone. And you are not alone, Ichigo."

Ichigo's face crumples a little, and for a half a heartbeat, Starrk is terrified he's about to cry. Thankfully, that doesn't happen, and a moment later, Ichigo nods, his eyes a little brighter now, his shoulders a little less weighed down.

"Okay," Ichigo says decisively. "Then… I think I want to go to the Eighth." He smiles a bit wryly. "You're both bastards, but somehow, I like that about you guys. And if it's Kyouraku-san, it wouldn't be hard to work under his command."

He stops and grows more solemn, his gaze a little too sympathetic this time. "Will you join the Eighth too?"

"No," Starrk doesn't hesitate. He's already thought about it, had already made up his mind months ago, even before he'd met Shunsui again. His answer had only cemented further after meeting him. Besides, "I'm going to the Fourth."

He thinks of the agreement he'd hashed out with Mimihagi. He thinks of one of the things that had immediately come to mind when time travel of all things had been proposed to him. He thinks of the things he can do, the things he can create.

He thinks of the life he'd bargained for.

"Back in our time," Starrk only says in the end, meeting Ichigo's gaze calmly. "I was told by everyone who knew her that Unohana-taichou was the best healer in living memory. Now she is alive again, so that's what I want. I want to learn from her."

Ichigo snickers, oblivious. "Well, you are a huge medical nerd so I should've known. So long as you're happy I guess. Try not to take over the division again within the year. I wouldn't bet on your odds against Unohana-san."

Starrk rolls his eyes because honestly Kotetsu had practically gift-wrapped her division for him, he hadn't meant to take over, he hadn't even been a halfway respectable healer at the time, he'd just been strong, with the manpower to support the actual healers, and apparently, that'd been enough. He'd been horrified when Shunsui had sided with them.

Ichigo laughs outright, Starrk shakes his head, and with their choices made, the future begins to take shape once more.

[gem-de-lune]

Daily Vibe Check 11/21

Brief energy checks and then quick check-in for MAMA LA

Seunghan

Queen of Swords

Feeling rather excitable, he is interested in the results. He has high hopes for what will transpire within the next 24-48 hours. Almost like something is riding on this. He is paying attention to a lot of trends and data. If you are wondering if he monitors his social media acct yes he does. He is just hoping the data supports what he wants to transpire. Generally positive vibes for the 21st.

Wonbin

5 of Wands + 6 of Swords

These two go together in that he is moving away from previous obstacles and conflict. Stepping into tomorrow will feel like stepping into the light for him. He sees everything that may transpire as a positive change of pace. Like I said before, they feel extremely free here. His feelings about tomorrow seek that same positive change- he hopes to see something that guides him away from hopeless thoughts. I think he is also anticipating physical and data based results.

Sohee

King of Wands

He is almost envisioning something large, grand, and creative. He is expecting A LOT. Like he legit is extremely excited in this feeling. I think he may have seen something online? That sparked this vision like one of those images depicting the orange flags? He has this grandiose feeling of pride and excitement going on to witness something great (omg pls dont let him be disappointed- fighting guys!! Impress Sohee!! ����)

Anton

Ace of Wands

The card is very similar to Sohee's and so is the vibe. Very very excited but this indicates a will to participate if that makes sense. While Sohee is witnessing things while basking in it all, it seems Anton will be an active participant or will at least try to be in a way. He may be very outwardly expressive and encouraging. He is just very excited for the change in vibe from Korea/China.

Eunseok

2 of Pentacles + Knight of Swords + The World

Very heavy and very jittery feelings here. He is evisioning as well, thinking about all the things that could transpire, a plan A, B, and C. He seems to be inspired and is anticipating that feeling to grow. He too, is thinking about and anticipating results of some kind. He sees the event as a challenge that he will be witnessing and has encouraging feelings towards the ordeal. I think he is looking at projects? The word projects pops out. He is a but worried about them being turned away? He is wondering if they will be able to pull through.

Shotaro

The Hyerophant

He is ALSO sitting in the feeling of anticipation here. There is something he feels is morally correct or just about the events that will transpire tomorrow. He believes that maybe this is the way things should have been. Whenever I read for Taro he always has something sassy af to say....this time it was "watch and learn" 😭😭

His feelings are rather simple he just wants to see the heroes prevail and "show them how it's done" (Good god).

Sungchan

Ace of Pentacles + 4 of Pentacles

He is also anticipating something incredible and something they still have never seen before. But he is a bit more concerned than the others, it seems. It looks like he is worried about timing and other things- hard work going to waste, etc...so similarly to Eunseok maybe I think he is highly worried about certain constraints and protection of tangible items that could be disposed of before they are seen.

MAMA LA Check-In

Ace of Swords + Queen of Coins

This is about empowerment and the very peak of it: morality, what is right, creativity and ideas. With the queen of coins here she is telling us to make sure to use that feeling to protect it.

The energy surrounding MAMA LA is giving us an opportunity to quite literally cause a ruckus in the best way possible to protect those we care about in a morally just way. There is potential here for EXTREMELY great success. But the most important thing is to take care of ourselves physically. If you have a ticket- do NOT engage in physical altercations near security or inside. TRY not to START them at all whatsoever. Be CAREFUL, do not let your projects, banners, etc.. get taken.

Final Notes:

This is a big moment, everyone. I know there are still some stragglers on the fence, and I know some one you think the protests will harm the boys. All I have to say to that is: we shall see.

I said before that you will have to deal with your decisions and be confident. I am. I am betting everything I have on my knowing*** they want Seunghan back and vise versa. And i will be willing to accept it if they clearly state they don't. Because i will take responsibility for my thoughts, choices, and decisions. Will you?

For everyone else... Fight hard. Be bold. Be mindful. Be LOUD when you need to be. This is one of our last opportunities to truly show they how much we love Seunghan. And this is one of the last opportunities for RIIZE to also show that PUBLICLY too.

[sunderwight]

Not to theorize on Arcane with only three episodes left to go or anything, but I do think that there's a reason why the scenes we get of Viktor where he's actually acting like his old self, with Sky also acting reasonably human, are in some kind of theater of the mind/magical space/etc, rather than just Viktor in-person talking to Hallucination Sky in his shimmer dome or something.

Like, think about it. The first few scenes we have of Viktor post-cocoon, he sees Sky as a hallucination in physical reality, and it's disjointed and an obvious sign that something has gone Wrong. It's creepy, and weird. He's got one foot in physical reality and one somewhere else (and it's styled very differently from Jinx's hallucinations, too, which handily indicates that this is not the same sort of thing).

But then, after Jayce returns and we see that Viktor has established his cult, his personality seems to be entirely contained within this otherworldly space. He can perceive reality, but it's no longer overlapping. He has become somewhat quarantined from himself, with Sky there as well, acting way more like "herself" than she did as a hallucination before but also essentially chaperoning Viktor's consciousness. Like a golden retriever put in with a zoo cheetah to keep it calm.

What's interesting is that, internal Viktor is pretty much the usual Viktor he's been since S1, more or less. Like, that's definitely Viktor, who worries about Jayce and focuses on complex problems and wants to help people. But in-person Viktor is weirder. He's not a completely different guy by any means, but he doesn't emote the way that the internal Viktor does, and he says more weird shit in weird tones. Based on the decisions he ultimately makes, I think the internal Viktor is still calling the shots -- but I also think that he's increasingly on his way out.

He's been disconnected from his own physical reality by several degrees, observing it more than interacting with it. And though he sees that there's another influence on Jayce, there are heavy hints (such as Sky appearing right when he says that) that he's in the same boat. But because the process is happening gradually, and is happening within him, he can't recognize it. Every time he tries to, he is presented with a new distraction, or discussion, or there is a reassuring concession that seems to validate that he's still in control. Plus it's probably just difficult to perceive because it does seem to be basing a lot of its outlook on things off of his own. How do you discern the "wrongness" in something when it's the same flavor of wrong that you yourself tend to be?

It's difficult from the outside to definitively say whether this is just Viktor undergoing some funky character development, or if Viktor's another victim of something else. Maybe Viktor's just sequestering his own humanity a bit? Maybe it's all just intended to depict how he navigates through magical energy?

But I think another big indication that it's not just Viktor, is Salo. When Jayce comes back and asks if Salo's still in there after Viktor talks through him, Salo just calmly reasserts himself, and acts as if the idea that he's being forcefully subjugated is absurd. He's not being attacked or imprisoned, he's just engaged in a willing partnership with a benevolent power. If we didn't know what he was like before, or if the old Salo had been a very calm and altruistic individual to being with, it might even be convincing. But the disconnect is way more obvious here because the character we met in past episodes is way further removed from the serene cultist we see Jayce smash with his big hammer. We know that even a grateful Salo is not the kind of person who is going to put on a beige tunic, forgo his many vices and fancy parties, and join a commune just to thank his benefactor. No matter how happy he was to have his legs back, it would only be because it got him his life back -- he wouldn't want to regain his mobility just to up and abandon that life.

Outwardly it would seem that the thing that has subverted Salo's will is Viktor. But if Viktor is also being gradually quarantined, if the same thing is happening to him, then that further implies that another will is at play. One that is disguising itself as Viktor, or if you will as an evolution of Viktor.

Okay and now to actually theorized I guess -- I think that this might be where Singed's assertions about Warwick/Vander being a necessary component of Viktor's evolution will come into play. Because Viktor himself is not going to sacrifice a man to achieve that, but whatever else is part of Viktor does want to evolve. And then it just so happens that Jayce comes out of nowhere, ostensibly being controlled or influenced by something else, and shoots Viktor dead. At which point it seems like the human part of Viktor goes out, and the Machine Evolution guy fully supplants him.

Yeah, I kind of think that Jayce did do a bad thing, but that the twist will be that when he touched the arcane, "Viktor" showed him a vision or gave him some kind of time travel-y experience that convinced him he had to go back and destroy him, so that Jayce would unwittingly kill the only thing holding it back before Viktor finished helping Vander, probably ran out of juice and died in the process, and quietly took this thing out with him. It would, unfortunately, be very on-brand for Jayce to take a decisive and violent action to try and prevent catastrophe, only to unintentionally make it worse. This show on the whole has stuck to the idea that shooting your big flashy magic weapon at a thing is a great way to make a complicated problem much much worse.

I'm not sure they'd break the pattern for this one.

[the-warlock-syndicate]

What is the purpose of a sex scene? Well on a completely literal level, it is to depict a character having sex. And if you only watch films on a completely literal level with no nuance or examination, I expect sex scenes would be as pointless as eating or sleeping.

It is an interesting question though. Departing from that framing, sex scenes can convey an awfully large range of themes and messages. But, the more interesting piece of the question, which I think you are right to contribute, is where exactly do we think the messages effectiveness is enhanced by a full sex scene rather than fade to black?

I remember Oppenheimer in theaters, and thinking that the sex scene was overdone. I don't quite recall how explict it was, but it seemed over the top, and exposing a historical event which gave insight to his character was not really added to by drawing it out.

On the other hand, there are movies and shows where the full explicit sex scene is narratively important. This is not to suggest anything about the writing chops of the directors, but rather that the plot, the way it is arranged, benefits more from an explicit sex scene than fade to black.

Horror films in general, and Jason in particular, make a lot more sense to have explicit sex scenes. They are generally operating off an old fashioned puritan idea of sexuality, and the logic of the movie is that the characters brought it upon themselves for being so slutty. Which is why the virginal good girl ends up living. The sex scene is important for the message, as something for the movie to rail against. Sure, leaving things ambiguous might have implied the teens were fucking, but that is pretty weak when the subtext is that extra-marital sex is bad. Its like a movie with an anti-drug subtext, but the main character who looks like a stoner is never actually depicted lighting up.

Since Netflix is on my mind, let's talk about a couple animated shows. I've joked with friends that a lot of Netflix shows have a 'Netflix Syndrome', which I use to mean that a somewhat more lax approach to what gets greenlit means a corresponding increase in blood, murder and sex, because it is perceived to be allowed. Particularly with 'adult animation', which needs to prove to its audience that it can be a cool and grownup artistic medium, and swings the pendulum a bit far in the other direction of edginess by overcompensating.

The two shows that spring to mind here are Castlevania, and Blue-Eye Samurai. Now, Castlevania, while I did enjoy it, I think does swing heavily into the Netflix Syndrome arena. Edgy for the sake of differentiating from children's shows, to the point where it feels like overcompensating out of insecurity. There are a fair couple sexy scenes that I think were unnecessary, with fade to black being better options. Also grimderp plot twists lmao. But I do think that one of the biggest sex scenes, Alucard in the BDSM threesome, had its message enhanced by the explicit nature. Spoiler alert, Alucard is lost and directionless, opens his heart and his home to strangers to make friends. One thing leads to another, they are all in bed together, in what should be a culminating moment for him to get out of his depressive funk, see the light and joy in the world, and open up. And when he is at his most vulnerable, being tied up in a particularly kinky threesome, they betray and try to murder him, and he tries to murder them back. Now, there are other ways to write a story in which one gets betrayed while vulnerable. But if you are going to have a sex scene, the scene is better served by going through with the whole thing, instead of fade to black, which deeply weakens the impact.

Blue-Eye Samurai has a couple of sex scenes, which I think work, because the titular character has a lot to work through with regards to her sexuality. Between not being comfortable with female norms and behaviors in a still very male dominated society, crossdressing as a man 90% of the time, and having a particularly odd relationship with her sexuality as an object of desire, owing to her mixed race Japanese-European status which has people see her as a hideous abomination or 'exotic' beauty, full sex scenes exploring these dynamics I think are warranted. Particularly the one with spoiler again, her husband, and the feeling that she could reclaim a degree of femininity in being desired sexually, before being betrayed for her masculine qualities.

I'm not the biggest film buff, so I struggle to name more movies, because there are truly an abundance of movies with no sex whatsoever, and the ones with sex do utilize a lot of fade to black themselves.

"sex scenes have no narrative purpose" is such a funny take on so many levels. people will really believe that the whole human experience is valuable to portray artistically except sex, which of course has never held emotional weight or significance for anybody

[myeagleexpert]

What do you think about this?

I've been following TWST for about 3 years now, and it's one of the games I admire the most. The idea is excellent, the design is impeccable, the story and background of each character is extremely rich and detailed, they're adding more and more interesting stories that fit in very well with Disney's lore. But there's something that really bothers me: Yuu's lack of protagonism.

The game doesn't need to be Otome for Yuu to participate more, assert himself, do something significant or interesting. We have the "blank slate" that is Yuu and it's a fact explored even in many fics on Tumblr and other platforms, but the fact that a being without magic, coming from a world without magic (ours) and without memories, transforming into a beast-tamer and fighting against over-blots is interesting material to develop a LOT of story, especially because we're talking about a universe where he's a high school student.

“Oh but Yuu was kidnapped on Halloween this year and the year before” “Oh but Yuu did this at the fairy event” “Oh but this and that” And yes, you are right. In some chapters, Yuu participates in the plan, does something, Grim helps and so on… but in the end, it seems like we are more observers than active characters, like ghosts, just saying one thing or another and that’s it. I installed the game but only lasted until Book 3 with Octeville, because Yuu did almost nothing and we players didn’t have much of a choice other than tapping the screen to continue the story.

We have interactions between the lines of the game, I even made this post and there is this video here. But, as a player, even though the boys are cute and have interesting stories, it’s been a while since I saw a change in their behavior, I really wanted an event focused on Yuu, some moment with the first years, something more interactive, some scene with the leaders where they are closer, some trouble with the teachers… anyway.

I WANT MORE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN YUU AND GRIM AND THE FIRST YEARS.

IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR A SCENE WITH ALL OF THEM TOGETHER?

I DON'T NEED TWST TO BE AN OTOME GAME I JUST NEED YUU TO BE INVOLVED IN THE PLOT

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

Below is a video of the story of the partner who interacts with Yuu:

[pillowbugs]

idea: submas au(?) where pre-battle subway, both of them were already somewhat known on the internet, but for different reasons. maybe not super famous, but definitely notable in their various circles.

let's say emmet has a blog / vlog (iamemmet) where he and a couple friends (elesa, burgh, etc) just mess around and battle and stuff (think online / showdown battle videos on yt except they're actually irl). he does talk about trains sometimes, and is visibly excited whenever he does, but most of his fans are there to watch him battle more than anything.

meanwhile, ingo runs a train blog (Conductor I) where he posts long and detailed writeups of virtually anything to do with trains. he is known to be quite passionate, and has gotten into various extremely heated arguments with other railfans on internet forums over the merits of certain trains and railfan etiquette. maybe he collabs with other blogs covering other topics run by his friends (e.g. trains vs planes annual debate feat. highflyinggirl (skyla), starlight express review feat. spectralscribe (shauntal), etc). overall, though, he's fairly guarded regarding his personal life, and most of what people know about him, excluding his train-related opinions, is from whenever he collabs with other people.

they have collaborated with each other before, so people absolutely know they're twins. there is a running joke about how emmet's fans might actually know more about ingo than his own fans, simply because emmet is much more open with his personal life and inevitably that includes a lot of stuff involving his brother.

so one day, they both announce that they're taking an indefinite hiatus from their blogs because of a project. after almost a year of speculation - oh, look, there's a new battle facility in unova! wait, these guys look familiar... and it does happen to be a facility integrated into the subway...

so of course, their existing fans congratulate both of them on their new positions, everyone's celebrating. both of them do return to posting on their blogs after things have settled a bit more (albeit less frequently than before the hiatus, because they have a job now). however, with their newfound mainstream fame, comes a gigantic new wave of fans from the battle subway.

and this is where things get incredibly messy within the fandom. maybe less so on emmet's end - he's quite open on his blog about being a subway boss, and vice versa, and he acts more or less the same way on both accounts, so within his fanbase, the question is just "when did you find him?" because he's been the same throughout. he is emmet. that's it. though, there is of course still a bit of fan elitism from those who found him before the subway and know all the "deep lore" about him.

ingo's fanbase, however, is an absolute bloodbath. there are actual factions. the two most notorious are the subway-onlies, the ones who are most likely to be called fake fans by the rest because they're only interested in his persona as a subway boss; and the conductor purists, who only enjoy his blog and forum presence but not his irl job, and think he has gone downhill after achieving mainstream success. in fact, many of the subway-onlies don't even realise ingo has a 'personal' blog, or any social media presence besides his official account as a subway boss, while the most diehard conductor purists have disavowed the battle subway because in their minds, it's taking attention away from the blog.

a big reason for the divide is that ingo gives a very different image on his blog and as a subway boss; a passionate, friendly railfan who can be quite verbose especially in roasting people online, versus the professional, polite facility head with a serious demeanour. many fans who found him through the subway are surprised at the content of his blog, even if most of them also love seeing this side of him. a certain subset of the fandom is very insistent that the blog shows his 'real' personality, while his being a subway boss is entirely an act.

in short, big fanbase = problems. many people looking in are genuinely terrified and confused as to whatever the hell is going on in there. there is Drama. get the popcorn.

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Ooh interesting topic of conversation.

I definitely think that there is something to be said about the dynamics between Jedi and between Clones as well. Neither of them really understand parental dynamics because they either a) never had parents to begin with (as is true for the clones) or b) were taken into the Jedi Order early enough that they don't really remember the relationship they had with their own parents. Anakin was taken in at an old enough age that he remembered his bond with his mother, and that loss affects his deeply. It's hard to say how much the others understand that grief because they wouldn't necessarily understand the difference between the loss of someone you deeply care about and the loss of a mother specifically.

And for the clones, I think everyone gets sorted into "Brother" (or sister) or "General". Imagine someone explaining what it's like having a father to the Wolf Pack and them just being like "oh, so he's basically like a General then?" because the closest thing they've had to a father figure is Plo.

I do love your point, Phi, of whether they could understand different family lineages. Because if you tried explaining cousins to the clones I think they'd just get very confused. Take Rex for example. The closest thing a lot of the clones have to parents are their Generals (and even then you couldn't necessarily call it a parental relationship for a lot of them). So if you introduced the idea of "parent's sibling's child" to him, the closest he could get to a cousin in terms of his own life is Cody. But Cody is his brother, so I feel like that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to him. And let's not even get them started on "cousins twice removed" because omg I think they'd have a brain aneurysm.

tired of jedi characters comparing their relationship to their master with a parent-child dynamic. they dont KNOW that dynamic!

give me more jedi comparing a non-jedi's familial relationship to that of an apprentice and a master - at least that would make sense!

jedi going "yeah, an adult who guides and protects you and you're supposed to listen to them? yeah thats a master- oh, your mom is like that too? neat :)"

more jedi not really understanding non-jedi family dynamics. more jedi being horrified at the concept of someone being rejected or mistreated by their parent, because "why did they choose to have you then???"

there's a lot of interesting parallels between master-padawan dynamics and parental/familial dynamics. i just want to see more of the comparison going the other way.

[bambi-kinos]

Thank you so much for replying to my ask! Sorry for the long reply back but I just love discussing these two.

Yes the rock and roll lifestyle and Paul’s infamous cheating before Linda has me very sceptical about him being 100% faithful to Linda too. That Jane Asher story is insane! The idea of Wings being a way to keep an eye on it is very interesting and not implausible at all. However in my opinion, Linda gives me the impression of someone with a strong sense of self, who would decide to walk instead of being disrespected in that way.

I also find it strange that decades and decades on, no one has said anything other than Paul being absolutely devoted to Linda. Not even anonymously, someone who doesn’t like Paul could seriously hurt his reputation spilling that information, not to mention the potential money, fame from it ect. This goes hand in hand with having a sexual relationship with John. I mean, surely they couldn’t have hidden it from everyone. Some people must of known, and not just an inner circle of loyal friends. Take tour managers or hotel staff for example.

So why do you think nothing has come out all these years later?

What comes to mind is the phone call Paul had with a biographer very soon after John’s death (I’m sorry I’ve forgotten his exact name) where he secretly recorded all he said and later published it. (Ouch!) Paul’s completely baffled at Yoko’s statement that no one had hurt John more than Paul had. (Said by John himself)

If they had a sexual, emotionally intense relationship, wouldn’t Paul have known that it was this John was referring too? He comes across as very smart, surely he could have put the dots together? His bewilderment seems completely sincere, not a pr trick. What’s your opinion?

I honestly go back and forth on this because I can see a relationship between those two being way more than just platonic. On and off hook ups in the 70s amongst the angst could also explain John’s sporadic comments about Paul throughout this decade. One day praising him, the other cursing him. Both parties not being brave enough (and a whole host of other factors) to not commit or acknowledge what was going on fully would have been very confusing to say the least.

But I still can’t get my head around the points I made earlier that counter this argument. Would love to hear your take on things!

EXTREMELY based ask anon, your mind is very sharp and I love it!

okayyyy there's a lot here so let's take it bit by bit

However in my opinion, Linda gives me the impression of someone with a strong sense of self, who would decide to walk instead of being disrespected in that way.

If we're anywhere close to the ballpark then Linda nearly called off the wedding when Paul told her about him and John. But then after that, she would chaperone Paul when he went to see John and hang out with him like when they went to LA. It's hard to say what Linda would or wouldn't stand for IMO because she saw the real Paul, all of him, and stuck that out for over twenty years.

I don't think that Linda would be okay with Paul cheating on her necessarily but I wouldn't write off her pretending not to see when he was sneaking out under her nose. It's not the same thing as having an open relationship but she and Paul had agreed to try for Mary sometime in 1968 before she knew about him and John and witnessed the messy break up. She doesn't strike me as the vindictive type so I wonder if knowing she was pregnant and wanting her kid to know who her father was played any role in her decision. And Linda purportedly didn't like the idea of getting married again according to a quote floating around here -- Paul had to convince her it was a good idea, not the other way around. There's reason to believe that Linda may have been happy just being a common law couple or whatever the UK's equivalent is and that Paul insisted on getting married.

I'm not saying definitively one way or another, Linda is much more opaque than Paul. But I'm hesitant to say that she wouldn't tolerate cheating or she wouldn't look the other way on it, because why else did she let Paul visit John so much otherwise? She knew what was going on.

Just something to think about I guess.

I also find it strange that decades and decades on, no one has said anything other than Paul being absolutely devoted to Linda. Not even anonymously, someone who doesn’t like Paul could seriously hurt his reputation spilling that information, not to mention the potential money, fame from it ect. This goes hand in hand with having a sexual relationship with John. I mean, surely they couldn’t have hidden it from everyone. Some people must of known, and not just an inner circle of loyal friends. Take tour managers or hotel staff for example.

So why do you think nothing has come out all these years later?

The biggest reason is that The Beatles worked very hard as a unit to cover up their infidelities. Paul was two paternity accusations lodged against him, one was the German girl and the other was Liverpool girl. Blood tests proved that both of these paternity claims were false (and Anita later admitted that she had a second boyfriend concurrent to Paul at the time, she just didn't think he was actually the dad until her son spilled the beans that Paul's paternity test proved false.) Despite these two paternity suits being lodged against Paul, he still paid the girls hush money through Brian. There's another story of a paternity claim being lodged against John that Brian paid to go away. The hookers they engaged with in the hotels were also paid for their time and to not launch any paternity suits against The Beatles. And so on.

The most encompassing answer is simply that Paul and the other Beatles paid off their babymamas AND that they have lots of legal representation on their side to make offers that can't be refused. I have long thought that the sudden muzzling of Heather Mills was the result of a super injunction, a feature of British law where a person with enough money and influence can forcibly shut someone up. A super injunction is, to put it mildly, a massive pain in the ass to obtain yet Paul is well positioned to have used one to make her shut her mouth and stop libeling him in the press. If Paul is ruthless enough to use something like that against his ex wife and mother to his child then he is absolutely willing to turn it on lays from the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the time I would bet he does not have to; we all have a price and for a sufficient amount of money, I wouldn't bother Paul with a paternity suit either.

Then there's just love and personal loyalty. The Beatles inspire incredible loyalty in their fans and their hook ups. Peggy Lipton went completely insane for Paul after meeting him only a handful of times including showing up at his hotel in a swimsuit hoping to be taken on Paul's Dirty Weekend with Linda. Now imagine that loyalty in a 19 year old girl who hooked up with Paul during 1966. Why would she say shit to anyone about having sex with Paul or getting pregnant by him? She would absolutely feel inspired to protect him. I think this would be just as true in 1976, the loyalty that the boys inspired in their fans is remarkable.

And think about it: if you had slept with one of the Beatles, would you out him to anyone? Or would you keep it a secret? Think carefully about it. By outing him, you are also outing yourself. Especially if Paul was married at the time. Do you want to admit you're complicit in Paul McCartney's adultery? That sounds like a very unpleasant prospect to me and besides, you want to keep a little piece of him to yourself.

Tour managers and hotel staff likely suspected something but it was truly a whirlwind for them too and I think a lot of them just second guess what they know. Homosexual activity was completely unthinkable and virtually unknown in the 60s and 70s. The only people who would truly know is the housekeeping staff. They would see the telltale signs of who slept where and what they were doing; those room manifests don't tell us shit because we can be sure that the boys swapped beds and rooms all the time depending on what they wanted. For John and Paul especially, I imagine there was a lot of wandering in the night and seeking each other out.

Take that story of Ringo disappearing during the 1964 tour to go on a joyride with a police man with Paul waking up and alerting Mal and Neil that he was gone. Why was Paul awake in the night? Why didn't he just go ask John and George where Ringo was first thing? Surely if your third band member goes missing your first instinct would be to ask the other two if they've seen him but instead Paul, for some reason, seems to have known immediately that Ringo was not with John and George in their hotel room and promptly tattled to the roadies. This is despite the room set up which was supposed to be Paul/Ringo and George/John. Hm!

Only housekeeping would know the truth of the situation and those men and women are dead or lost in the crowd. However even then we don't have reason to think they had proof: John and Paul being intimate would only leave behind the remains of...sex. And the truth is that The Beatles liked having sex with girls while they were in the same room together, including switching. What reason was there to think that it was just two guys boning instead of two guys and two girls?

What I'm driving at is that tour managers and hotel staff and housekeeping servicewomen had a lot of circumstantial evidence but unless they caught John and Paul in the act, then they had no reason to understand what they were seeing. Anyone who did catch them would have been paid off with the brown paper bag money Brian picked up from the bootleg merch vendors that sold fanmerch outside their concerts. And if that failed then yes legal action would have been launched through Capitol's legal arm because Capitol had plenty of superstars before The Beatles that had to be managed. They knew the drill, they weren't angels. Managing sex addicts and homosexual activity was business as usual for a suit even in 1964. They wouldn't want to scuttle that secret either because if Paul throws a fit and buys out his song catalogue then it's good night Felicia.

So in between those three things -- personal loyalty, bribes, and the threat of legal action especially since Paul has rich boy privileges -- no one is saying shit. Not any of the groupies, none of the women Paul was probably hanging out with while married, no one who ever caught him with John. It's just not worth it.

What comes to mind is the phone call Paul had with a biographer very soon after John’s death (I’m sorry I’ve forgotten his exact name) where he secretly recorded all he said and later published it. (Ouch!) Paul’s completely baffled at Yoko’s statement that no one had hurt John more than Paul had. (Said by John himself)

If they had a sexual, emotionally intense relationship, wouldn’t Paul have known that it was this John was referring too? He comes across as very smart, surely he could have put the dots together? His bewilderment seems completely sincere, not a pr trick. What’s your opinion?

Hunter Davies. The phone call with Hunter Davies is very interesting because he was someone Paul knew...but otoh he's still a reporter. Paul knows that. Hearing more about the Lennon McCartney feud soon after John's death was a hot story so could Paul reasonably assume that Hunter would write up the story.

I posit that Paul, in an act of true cynicism and spite towards Yoko, deliberately leaked some of his issues with John in order to spit in Yoko's eye. Especially with that pointed line about how he knows things about John that Yoko never knew...and that he won't publish them until after she is dead. You want to talk about ouch?!

I think that Paul is being genuine when he's confused about how he could have hurt John which makes me think @menlove is right and that India may have been a nothingburger or didn't feature Paul getting cold feet about John.

There are a couple of candidates for "John said no one hurt him like Paul did." We'll probably never know what they are but these are my personal options:

John asked for a relationship with Paul in India; Paul did something John interpreted as a rejection especially in light of Paul self destructing and John going on a multi-day bender when he got home.

Paul suddenly bringing Linda into the limo during the New York City trip to promote Apple. John seems genuinely baffled and confused about this with the "and next thing I know she's married to him" line. It was completely out of left field and John was caught by surprise.

Paul getting the drop on John with regards to announcing the Beatles break up. John expressed bitterness about this (because it was a ploy to force Paul to stay with him, Paul wasn't actually supposed to follow through with it) because it humiliated him publicly.

John was still hung up on the Family Way score and was destroyed by that and by Paul going "fuck it we'll do it live" and recording so much stuff solo for the White Album.

You may have spotted a problem with this already: there are multiple instances where Paul could have profoundly hurt John that would linger in John's memory. How can you possibly choose just one?

What if it was all of these and that eventually the hurt and abandonment mounted and John couldn't take it anymore?

Ultimately though I think Paul is/was confused and angry because the narrative was all about how Paul hurt John, and nothing about how John hurt Paul, another thing Paul brought up with Hunter during the interview. If John was pissy about Paul announcing the break up first, then why was no attention paid to John announcing "I want a divorce"? Why is it so important to sweep John being a dickhead under the rug? I think that's what had Paul so confused and pissed off, to the point that he couldn't really pinpoint one single thing that could have hurt John. 'Are you serious, I hurt him when he's the one who abandoned me multiple times through out our relationship and never apologized for any of it?' That would piss me off monumentally if I were Paul, I'd deny all knowledge of hurting John too since he refused to own up to hurting Paul in the first place.

I honestly go back and forth on this because I can see a relationship between those two being way more than just platonic. On and off hook ups in the 70s amongst the angst could also explain John’s sporadic comments about Paul throughout this decade. One day praising him, the other cursing him. Both parties not being brave enough (and a whole host of other factors) to not commit or acknowledge what was going on fully would have been very confusing to say the least.

That's pretty much it. Keeping in mind that Yoko kept John hooked on drugs to keep him from making up with Paul as well.

I think the confusion and frustration Paul expressed/expresses is a byproduct of the fog of war. He's too close to the subject matter, he can't figure it out because he can't see the big picture.

[nthspecialll]

A lot of blame is put on John for being a negligent father to Jack, but would any of the other gang members have reacted differently had they been the father?

This is assuming John is already the father of Jack, which… he is. Javier joined too late to be a possibility and Bill is implied to be gay, so I don’t believe it’s realistic that any other person could’ve been—but I think it’s an interesting thought.

This isn’t a theory, I just want to see your thoughts on the other gang members. Personally, while John was absent during Jack’s infancy, I don’t think any of the other men would’ve acted differently despite their ribbing (besides Arthur). I don’t think the issue of being a poor father is specifically John’s, but a shared trait amongst all the men in the gang.

I actually think Javier would make a good father. He shows a lot of love for his family, literally starting a whole revolution because they got mistreated, fleeing a country for them, so on and so forth, and he mourns having lost them, suddenly having a child would give him a new family, someone new to fight for and he would fight for them. He also loves to fish and is eager to share his tricks with Arthur, so there is a bonding moment idea.

Bill.... Bad father I think, would be protective and would probably love but I don't think he would know how to handle being a father and would end up in some way fucking it up.

Dutch would love his child like he loves Jack, he loves them because he is expected to love them and it heightens people's idea of him. Aka he loves them not as an individual but as their use to him, but when that is he would be a great father.

Hosea... Depends. He is a big lover, we know that, but in the past he was a big menace and he was unable to break his criminal ways, he would steal and he would kill and he believed it to be right. While he would absolutely love the child, he would be a danger to it like John was to Jack. If it was old man Hosea however, fantastic dad, amazing advice, good balance of protective and loving.

Charles (unrealistic due to timing but we just talking how they would react to being a father in this envioment) quite similar to Hosea. Noshir hints at Charles having been quite a violent man in the past, like with the newly dropped bomb that he did something probably very bad to his father or his interview at the New York Comic Con stating that Charles is seeking redemption. That kind of man, I would be careful, very careful, especially considering that he was a lone wolf so I don't know how present Charles would be. The Charles we know in game though? He wants a family, he would be a good father and I think he would be amazing at teaching his child all nessesary life skills.

Micah, watch out for the daddy issues. Would likely raise his child like he was raised, Micah Bell Jr Jr or something, life of crime with no mercy and the wheel keeps rolling.

Sean, I don't think he would know how to act. He shows great love to Jack but I think the idea of having his own would be very confusing to him and it would take a long adjustment period.

Lenny would be a great father and would make sure that his kid knew how to handle racist remarks by making them the smartest person in the god damn county, loving man who would protect both child and mother.

That is what I believe just looking at how they talk about their families, how they act around Jack and so on, but we will never know.

[ae-neon]

Okay, ramble about Feyris (part 1?)

Please keep in mind that this idea isn't tailored to your or sjms versions of the characters but more the concepts and themes of the books as well as what would have made for a more sensible and cohesive work (imo)

The concept of acomaf as a whole was the transformation of Feyre as well as the "reveal" of Rhysand's character. I say reveal tho I think it was also more of a transformation, because we're gonna respect what the work was TRYING to do

Eris actually has the better set-up for an enemies to lovers, villain is misunderstood, villain wins etc arc

Whatever fans might say, TAR is still the first installment of the series. It matters.

And while Rhysand himself is pretty well established as one of the main characters, he plays an awkward role - a complex, morally ambiguous character caught up in a very black and white plot. In terms of worldbuilding the night court is not given much and almost everything Rhysand does is retconned later anyway. He's interesting, yes, but it's almost painfully obvious that sjm had a change of heart halfway and a lot of the plot is retroactively built around him being endgame

Eris is not in TAR or at least appears very minimally (it's been years, forgive me) but the strings that might later connect him to Feyre are very solidly established in book 1 : her friendship with Lucien, her being helped utm by LoA and Beron being the first to offer his power to revive her. Even her being with Tamlin but I'll come back to that.

One of my personal gripes with the standard romantasy couple where the FMC is introduced to a new world is that she is socially cocooned, which diminishes her as a character. And yes, Feyre has her sisters and for 0.5 points out of 10, I'll count Isaac Hale but her parents, her village, her whole fucking country go unnamed. The worldbuilding around her is almost nonexistent. So her having these connections to Eris, through these third parties, creates a social web that while not completely isolated from him, still BELONGS TO HER. the connections she forms with these people might be influenced by him but they are established outside of him

The same cannot be said from the IC and Rhysand which is why it's sad but unsurprising they betray her to her possible death. They BELONG TO HIM and no amount of boozed up Christmas montages is gonna change that.

And mind you I said Eris had the better SET-UP and that Rhysand would have benefitted from being in the book less. The set-up being that Feyre's best Fae Friend Forever, Lucien - someone the audience won't question and feels for - vouches that his brother is a power hungry monster. Eris as the endgame would leave MAF more room to explore because we are still setting him up as a villain AND subverting that with Moments™ or inconsistencies, interactions etc

Whereas in canon, halfway through TAR Rhysand shows up to the party and immediately reveals he isn't "actually" evil - which disqualifies MAF from the Villain Wins AND slow burn categories. Their romance is also immediately hinted at by the flirting and Rhysand's YOURE MY MATE 😱 moment at the end so it's not like we even enter MAF with any real guesses on what's gonna happen. By WAR all the tension in the series sits on Nessian moments, the idea that something might happen to Feyre in Spring and the hope/dread that one of the IC might die. None of those things happened btw. WAR was anti-climactic trash

But Imagine WAR including some autumn scheming, hinged on Eris betraying Beron in the thick of the war and getting away with it, or setting up his brothers to die in a way that didn't implicate him so his mom wouldn't hate him - all this while Feyris is still in their will they won't they stage

And like I said in the other post Eris unlike Rhysand actually has the material conditions necessary to create and maintain this Mask of cruelty. He is under the thumb of his father, he cannot trust his brothers, he does not want to lose his mother, the place where he lives is not some locked away liberal paradise but a cutthroat and ruthless Court - making a pawn out of then falling in love with The Cursebreaker™ on top of all of that would be INTERESTING and stressful

Rhysand post TAR is just fucking around?? Every plan he has is objectively stupid because he creates his own hurdles?? and fails?? which retroactively kills his mysterious scheming mastermind vibe. Most powerful HL and can't even get an artifact from his own subject, MIND YOU HES A DAEMATI!! Oh but let Keir say whore and suddenly it's easy to control him, SHUT THE FU-

ANYWAYS

Imagine part of MAF or WAR being Feyre and Lucien deepening their friendship because she bridged the divide between the first and last born Vanserras? That's meaningful character content for all three. Not like a 4 page coming out to a girl you've known for 6 months because you apparently can't trust your "family" of 500 years...

Rounding this back to Tamlin, sorry but the Spring vs Night family feud is boring and I don't care about it because we don't know anyone involved. Oh his nameless, faceless mom and sister died? Oh...😕 Well...

But with the Lucien, Jesminda, Vanserra bros etc we at least have Lucien who is alive and BOTH THE AUDIENCE AND FEYRE care about independently from Eris

That would make Feyre trusting Eris so much more of a risk and maybe even an initial betrayal to Lucien - putting her friendship at risk. REAL STAKES, REAL WEIGHT BEHIND HER DECISIONS

The Vanserras relationships are also a good parallel for the complicated feelings Feyre has about her own family, which would help her dark maga moment feeling like she belongs in Autumn and not Spring feel more organic and rooted in her character and worldbuilding rather than just switching aesthetics to fit in with her love interest

*

ADD and tiredness kicking in but I think I'll post about them again sometime soon

[wemlygust]

It's also reinforced by countless published authors and scriptwriters all saying that people should, "make your villain relatable! Don't make them just evil for evil's sake. The reader should be able to understand why they're doing what they're doing. A tragic villain doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is more compelling and more interesting than a flat villain being evil because evil." People take that advice. And they overdo it and make the villain's reasons make too much sense, oh no, we have to make it evil somehow... Okay also they kill babies! See! Evil! Which, funnily enough, undermines the original goal of making the villain relatable/realistic/interesting/not-evil-for-evil's-sake, because it's literally making the villain evil for evil's sake, except also they have good ideas sometimes. So the remaining, accidental, moral, is just that villains can be right about some stuff. And that the heroes are heroic even if, having delivered passionate speeches about how the villain's methods are unacceptable and how they're doing all the wrong things even if it's for the right reason... they continue to do nothing whatsoever about the underlying problems that inspired the existence of the supervillain in the first place (accidental realism there). My Hero Academia is especially frustrating in this regard. I love that show, don't get me wrong. But it comes SO CLOSE to actually addressing the villains' arguments - which largely about their society's and government's deep inequality problems - seriously, and then just... doesn't. Like. The villains in MHA are all social outcasts for reasons beyond their control. One was raised by a villain. Another is a trans woman (who is fridged pretty early on, but also her teammates use the right pronouns and correct people who misgender her much later on in the show, which is still a surprising/unusual inclusion for a anime/manga, especially for shonen). Another just looks like a lizard and has been discriminated against for that. Multiple were born with powers that, without proper support, can accidentally cause harm, or which other people are alarmed by. They are absolutely intentionally a band of rejects from mainstream society who have been in many ways pushed into becoming villains. They get an entire villain season/arc that *focuses on their perspective and follows them instead of the heroes*. And even after aaaaaall that.... the show STILL never actually has the heroes confront the problems that the villains are very clearly very correct about. It's so frustrating because there are so many points where it feels like it gets so close to that. To maybe having superheroes realize that their society - which they themselves absolutely benefit from in the form of fame and money - has deep flaws that need to be fixed so that the society stops creating villains in the first place. To maybe going in interesting directions with that. But it DOESN'T. It's SO FRUSTRATING ARGH.

... Still a great show though. Anyway I really think a lot of neigh-universal writing advice tidbits like that "make villains' motivations make sense and be relatable, doing anything else is flat and boring" just tends to create 1) a new wave of same-y fiction that all does the same thing and becomes boring after a while, and 2) unintended consequences of various kinds, like this one. (granted this issue with the portrayal of supervillains as "makes a lot of good points but also kills kittens for fun so we can just ignore everything they say I'm sure it's fine" is also deeply rooted in the history of the superhero genre, American media's portrayals of cops (including the in-media-acceptability of cops spying, breaking and entering without a warrant, torturing people and having that be effective), and so on. /rant

[daddyelliott1979]

Good morning littles, middles and bigs!

It's been a while since we've posted, life has been super busy and whilst we still play daily but haven't really had the chance to share much!

The last month has seen a massive shift in our dynamic, something that I want to preface with a story.

For me a true Dom must process one specific character trait that most of these so called Alpha Dom's lack- they lack a lot, in particular humility.

See a true Dom understands that their primary function to create the space for the sun to explode their submission and their fantasies.

Without humility, a Dom won't see that! We exist for you, not the other way round. Which brings us to this story.

Now my Boy is perfect, and amazing, we are always looking for ways to deepen his little space. I was sat one Sunday morning thinking about all of this and I cooked up the perfect way to do this!

Once he was up, had his morning nappy change and bottle, during our morning cuddles I put to @squirtdaboi my idea. That one day a month I will switch and submit to him, this would help me stay humble. It also enables me to role model babyish behaviour and set expectations in his behaviour.

So on our first day of my submission to my boy, aka us switching in which he had licence to do as he pleased with zero limits! And I had to do as he wanted.

I spent that first day fully padded, dressed like a baby, I was forbidden from acting big. I was spanked, I got tied up, tortured and eventually I had to Bottom for him!

Now the cheeky monkey didn't to use to his advantage- he said if I had to do as he said then he was making this a week long thing!!!!

Ofcourse I reminded him that once this was over I would make him pay - I got spanked for my cheekiness!

So began my week long stint as his baby, full nappies, lots of bottles, baby food and early nights. I had to satisfy his sexual urges multiple times a day. I Bottomed for him every night, sometimes multiple times in one day!

It was actually a ton of fun, I learnt a lot about myself, as a Dom, apparently as a Switch, most importantly I became aware of how much I had let things slip at times.

And apparently I do miss occasionally getting to be little! Because I'm still wearing nappies full time. But our dynamic is very fluid.

I Bottom for him more often too, nothing better than seeing your boy with his nappy half off, drooling around his dummy as he pounds you!

It's been an interesting month to say the least!

But at the heart of it all he's the love of my life, my boy, my baby, my little son, and I love him more now that I have ever done!

Sadly he's got all the pics, so maybe @squirtdaboi will share some!

Love and respect Tumblr Fam