#I’m actually surprised at how accurate the fanon i had was

[ninyard]

remembered today I have a Jeremy Knox board on Pinterest that I can add canon things to now

[bestworstcase]

Maybe the cat wasn’t lying about what they did to the Herbalist but it’s still pretty sus that they popped in when they did, so I’m going with they told a truth and a lie. Can’t have Ruby taking shortcuts to the tree now.

we-ell

i have two layers of answer to this. the first is about how the cat’s power works mechanically (surprising Probably No One, i think the popular fanon is wrong); the second is about the cat’s role in the ever after (not their individual purpose, but the part they play in the broader scheme) and the specific way they’ve gone wrong as a consequence of their private agenda.

#1: the cat’s magic

my reading of the cat hasn’t actually hasn’t changed significantly outside the narrow scope of their desire to get to remnant and the level of desperation they feel (& how this drives their interactions with team rwby and jaune). i maintain it’s a huge reach to interpret what the cat does with other afterans as tantamount to brainwashing or puppetry, and frankly i’m skeptical that the tree would even allow that to happen if the cat tried it.

we have two (on screen) examples of the cat giving a bit of their heart to another afteran, and one counter-example of what it looks like when they wield that power maliciously. there’s also the hawker, but as that happens off-screen and involves a bit character about whom we know very little (although what we do know is interesting), he’s mostly here to cast unverifiable suspicion on the cat. like we have no idea what “i gave him something new to do” entailed, really. so i put a lot more weight on the incidents we’re allowed to see for ourselves.

the red prince: the cat (and to a lesser extent, the toy soldiers and the herbalist) all imply that the characterization of the red king in the book was more or less accurate to the real deal; he was politer and more reasonable, and he helped alyx after she beat him despite being “a crying mess” over losing. as the prince, he’s—well, he’s four, lol. his purpose is the same, but he lacks the emotional maturity and sense of fair play he once had.

nobody seems especially pleased about this change. the toy soldiers are nursing a lot of unspoken resentment toward humankind because of it, and the herbalist invokes the red king’s regression into the prince as an example of ascension gone wrong, specifically because the red king didn’t have a clear understanding of his purpose before he tried to change. (we can’t be completely sure that the cat wasn’t involved, but it really doesn’t seem like they were—it sounds like the king went to the herbalist for help, instead.)

so, the girls get into this spat with the prince over his game, the prince throws a tantrum, and the cat intervenes.

“you must be so distraught, not able to do the one thing you were put on this acre to do. i understand.” <- the cat is speaking both to the prince’s distress now and the king’s original crisis, which makes sense because the red prince is the king’s crisis. the red king ascended prematurely, without full understanding of his purpose—contrast the paper pleasers—and as a consequence his problem was magnified.

“surely you don’t want to behead them? they are but fragile things without a head. if you get angry and break them, they might not ever come back.” <- after expressing empathy (and articulating what the prince is feeling and why—defusing tantrums 101!), the cat gently reminds the prince that acting in anger will have consequences he doesn’t like. the prince responds to this quite well—he calms down and engages with what the cat said, and even though he’s whining it’s… pretty clear that the cat has already changed his mind, there’s just a lot of emotional inertia because he’s four.

“i know, your majesty. it truly isn’t fair. you must play your game and win at any cost. it must hurt your heart; let me help.” <- it is at this point that the cat gives him a bit of their heart. i think the timing is meaningful. the prince changes his mind before the cat shares their heart; “b-bu-b-but it’s my birthday! and they wouldn’t let me—” is how small children talk when they’re reluctantly coming down from a tantrum. he knows the cat is right, but he’s still upset, so he’s trying to come up with a reason that will persuade the cat. (<- adults do this also, but with little kids it’s more obvious bc little kids are a lot clumsier about it.)

the cat answers that post-tantrum squirming with more empathy talk, upon which the sharing of their heart is a punctuation mark, and then the prince flops down to cry. the cat’s heart doesn’t change his mind, it precipitates his release of emotion—the overwhelmed, sad, scared feeling underneath his more fleeting burst of temper. the pain the cat spoke to from the start. that feeling was always there, otherwise the prince wouldn’t have responded to the cat’s words the way he did, but it was kind of… stuck. the bit of the cat’s heart jostled it loose.

and how does the cat describe the red king after he lost his game? he “couldn’t cope […] a crying mess.” the cat interrupts and diverts the prince’s flash of temper, verbalizes the upset feelings underneath to help guide the prince out of the tantrum, and then—as i see it—reminded him of what he did before, as the red king, in this same situation. the red king cried, the prince could not, so the cat shared a little bit of memory to help him cry.

that the cat then advises ruby to leave before the prince changes his mind is also pretty telling. they didn’t fundamentally change anything about how the prince feels or what he wants, they merely diverted the tantrum and brought some of the underlying feeling out. but with the spineless toy soldiers fussing and trying to appease him, it’s probably not going to take very long for the prince to get worked up again.

that’s… not mind control, that’s parenting. that’s best practices for dealing with an overwrought small child, you empathize and talk about what they’re feeling in simple terms to help them process emotions that are too big for them to handle by themselves. the cat sharing their heart is just a heightened, magical representation of the empathy and guidance the cat gives with their words.

the herbalist: unlike the prince, the herbalist is an adult, and we don’t know anything about what he was before. but consider the way he introduces himself to the girls: “i am an herbalist. the herbalist, at least… hmm, until i’m not anymore.” immediately, as soon as we know who this character is, the idea that he’s not going to be the herbalist forever is there. in a world where people introduce themselves by declaring their purpose, the herbalist equivocates. “i am this… for now.”

he’s thinking about changing. it’s at the forefront of his mind. consider his general demeanor in that light. he’s more than a little curt with the girls, he doesn’t really pay attention to what they’re asking, he grumbles that “everyone needs help these days” and “this is how a king becomes a prince” and “my work is never done”—he does want to help them, but he is clearly NOT enjoying himself. he’s cranky and jaded and frustrated because he feels like everyone comes to him expecting him to just magically solve their problems without them having to do any work. (<- put a pin in that for part two.) he’s thinking pretty hard about calling it quits—hard enough that he essentially introduces himself as The Temporary Herbalist.

the herbalist is kind of the reverse of the paper pleasers: they’re ready to ascend and know exactly what they are (delicate) they want to become (pleasing but also resilient), but an external force is holding them back. conversely, the herbalist wants to ascend but isn’t ready yet because he doesn’t know quite what he is or what he wants to become. he knows he’s not happy, but why? how can he fix a problem he doesn’t know how to describe?

as with the prince, the herbalist’s mind is changed before he gets the bit of the cat’s heart—he coughs and exclaims “that’s a bit too much!” about his own handiwork before the cat even begins their speech. “oh, herb. look at you! you’re done. you’re supposed to be helping others find their way, but you’ve lost your own.” <- the cat is describing the problem outlined above; the herbalist is stuck and generally not having a good time and he knows it, but he’s been muddling around not really able to see what’s wrong.

but once the cat gives him a piece of their heart, it snaps into focus. “oh, i do apologize. i… always was a bit of a workaholic.”

always, eh?—now he might just be saying that idiomatically, sure, but it’s kind of a tantalizing word to drop in this context. afterans reincarnate in accordance with their choices, each life shaped by the desires or ambitions or mistakes of the one before. they don’t remember, but the heart rarely forgets. the cat gives the herbalist some of their heart, and the herbalist goes aha! i’ve always had this problem! bye! and bounces. and “workaholic” is hardly an inaccurate description of his behavior—“everyone needs help these days,” “my work is never done,” this isn’t a new idea the cat put in his head, it’s just a clarifying flash of insight.

the reason i trust what the cat says about what they did for the herbalist is because their explanation is accurate to what we see. “his heart had grown too weak to hear the ever after calling him, so i gave him a little of mine” is just a more poetic way of saying “he was stuck in a rut and miserable, so i gave him a little nudge to help him unstick himself.”

and ruby: obviously what the cat does to ruby is starkly different, but the specific thing i want to highlight is how the magic itself works, mechanically. the cat forces their paws INTO her chest. it’s violent and clearly extremely painful for her, but it also doesn’t really seem to… work? there’s a lot of glowing light and pixels flying everywhere, and it definitely takes a lot out of her physically—she goes limp—but it never settles or flows into her. unlike with the prince and the herbalist, whose own emotions were drawn out by the cat’s magic, the cat’s intention seems to have been to write-over ruby’s heart with a copy of their own, producing a human version of themself who could go to remnant and find their maker. i’m… not actually convinced that their magic can really Do That, and i think that’s probably why they decided possessing an empty vessel was a “much better solution”—they realized that Plan A just wouldn’t work, even if they had ruby to hand.

but, compare the mechanical workings of the cat’s assault of ruby with what they do to other afterans. with the afterans, there’s no force or violence, only a gentle touch. the magic/heart piece moves upward in a spiral around the recipient to their heart, and then kind of… poof. in the herbalist’s case it doesn’t even seem to go into him, it goes into the clasp of his mantle. and as it settles there’s this emotional release—the prince cries, the herbalist heaves a sigh of relief. also, for both of them, the cat’s magic is accompanied by a verbal offer: “let me help,” and “here, take a little bit of my heart.”

it’s impossible to say for certain—bc we don’t have any examples of the normal usage of this magic being refused—but all of this added together, plus the foundational importance of choice to the ever after generally, leaves me with the pretty strong impression that the cat can’t force their heart into someone who doesn’t want it. they try really hard to do it on the technicality of ruby saying “i don’t want to be me anymore,” but all they manage to do is hurt her physically and pile on more emotional trauma. they don’t actually make her into themself. because she doesn’t want to be them, either. similarly, the cat doesn’t make the prince or the herbalist more like themself, and they don’t plant thoughts or feelings that weren’t already there; the piece they offer to both characters is explicitly their insight, their ability to empathize with what the prince and the herbalist are feeling. this is why their heart releases feelings that were already stoppered up in the prince’s and the herbalist’s hearts.

it’s Magic Empathy.

and there’s nothing to suggest that someone who didn’t want to be empathized with couldn’t just brush it off—frankly jaune’s resolute hatred of the cat and the cat’s failure to wear him down is probably grounds enough on its own to conclude that the cat can’t brainwash people. it’s not like the cat didn’t have the time to gradually fill a crack here, replace a splinter there, small piece by small piece until most of jaune was actually the cat! jaune’s plenty broken enough for the cat to work at the small-scale level they do for the prince or the herbalist. they’re surely desperate enough to have tried that. and clearly it doesn’t work that way, because jaune is still very much entirely jaune. just as ruby was still entirely ruby after the cat did their damnedest to overwrite her.

#2: the cat’s role

my interpretation—as i’ve said before—is that the cat’s role in the ever after is to act as the collective memory. the harmony between the cat describing what they do as “giving little pieces of their heart” to other afterans, remarking that “the heart very rarely forgets” to explain how identities persist across lifetimes, and the blacksmith saying “nothing, no one, is ever truly lost” is striking—and i don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three occur together in one episode and that it’s the episode where ascension is conceptually outlined.

i think their narrative role (<- it bears repeating that i read the ever after itself as a fictional story brought to life, so while the afterans are sapient and autonomous beings, the fundament of their identities is what they were invented to do in the story, the themes and character arcs and plot developments they service) is to teach the lessons alyx needed to learn—namely, to teach her how to practice empathy and draw her out of her own head. the nature of their magic is a literal expression of that narrative role (<- semblance-adjacent, but in a more straightforward way suitable for a children’s story) and their character, their individual purpose, the thing that they are that makes them suitable for this narrative role, is insatiable curiosity because the greater part of empathy is asking questions and being truly interested in hearing the answers, and the cure for being too preoccupied with yourself to connect to the world around you is, likewise, becoming interested in how the world works and what happens in it outside of you.

and we do see that this is how the cat operates generally—they empathize with the prince and with the herbalist and defuse conflicts by encouraging self-reflection and consideration for others and their magic literally knocks bottled-up emotions lose, allowing them to be seen and understood and responded to.

i think this is probably why the cat keeps trying to “wear ruby down” by…. [checks notes] …standing up for her when she’s too distraught or confused to stand up for herself. or why they undercut their own jabs about ruby using them by saying in the same breath that they were wrong for treating her like an entertaining toy. gsvcgks the cat was literally DESIGNED to model empathy and constructive conflict-resolution, and they’re trying to manipulatively sand somebody down to the point of giving up and wanting to die, and it’s not going well for them. they make zero progress until they LEAVE! evil points for trying, but neo did all the heavy lifting and ruby’s actual friends hauled a lot more weight than the cat did simply because they, unlike the cat, couldn’t see what was wrong.

all of this to say, what twigged for me with the new context provided by 9.8 is what the herbalist said: “help getting… to the tree? ah, yes, everyone needs help these days. [darkly] everyone.”

the cat’s role—not their purpose, but their “job” in the ever after—is to remind people of things they’ve forgotten, help them solve problems that they can’t figure out by themselves. they aren’t an extension of the tree (like jaune seems to think), but by nature of what they are—a cat most curious, with the ability to share their heart, which is everyone’s heart!—they’re integral to the process of ascension, because in order to ascend without it going wrong, you need to understand the problem you have and the solution you want to achieve. to gain this understanding, you need to be able to see yourself with clear eyes. the herbalist explains the principle, and the paper pleasers demonstrate what it looks like in practice. the first step to ascending is to know yourself.

the herbalist is overworked and burnt out because the cat isn’t doing their job. the cat has become so obsessed with this one all-consuming question, this burning need to find a way to remnant so they can find out why their maker has left them here, that they’re not doing anything else. they haven’t been molding the other afterans to suit their whims—they’ve been IGNORING them, and the herbalist ran himself ragged trying to pick up the slack. everyone needs help, and these days the cat isn’t helping. they help the prince because rescuing the girls puts them on good terms with humans who might be more useful to them than jaune. they help the herbalist because the herbalist’s trial revealed which of the girls was most vulnerable, and a heroic return to save her would ameliorate any irritation provoked by their distractibility.

(the herbalist screwed that one up for them by dropkicking himself down to the tree without so much as a goodbye—i don’t understand why so many people seem to think that the cat forced him to ascend, because the herbalist’s ascension is unambiguously really bad for the cat! it opens a fissure between them and the girls and forces them to explain ascension itself in great detail in order to regain a fraction of the trust the girls had in them before. they’re NOT happy about it. they’re palpably irritated through the whole discussion on ascension, and that isn’t because they don’t like sharing information, it’s because the herbalist wasn’t supposed to DO THAT and now the girls are suspicious and uncomfortable.)

but the rest of the afterans? the cat is totally checked out. the only thing they want to do is LEAVE. and that’s how you get situations like the red king becoming the red prince—the cat took off with alyx and left the king a crying mess, and the herbalist wasn’t able to give him the help he needed because the herbalist’s purpose is to brew remedies, not to diagnose.

why was the red king so upset? he couldn’t cope after losing the game, says the cat. a crying mess. very sad. that’s what the king brought to the herbalist, and that’s what made him into the prince. but the problem wasn’t that he lost. when the girls ask why the prince was so much meaner, the cat lets the true reason slip: the red prince may not remember alyx’s deception, the heart very rarely forgets. the red king was devastated because alyx broke his trust. the cat understands this implicitly, because they know every one of the red king’s lifetimes and they can see the pattern very easily. the red king, evidently, did not, and without the cat to help him see more clearly, he became a toddler riddled with anxiety about his opponents cheating.

they’re not a puppet-master making the ever after dance to their tune. they’re neglectful. they’re supposed to be offering insight and empathy to people who can’t articulate what’s wrong, but they’re singularly focused on their own desire; lately they only help when they get something out of it.

and it’s not been long enough for it to really become a problem—the cat’s probably had this question smoldering quietly in the back of their mind for thousands of years, but until they met jaune there really wasn’t anything they could DO about it. but once there were people from remnant in the ever after, searching for a way back home? suddenly it became possible. maybe they could go back with these humans! maybe they could find their maker and finally ask! maybe—! and then alyx ditched them, and jaune wanted nothing to do with them, they lost their one chance, and i think they probably just… could not. handle that. there’s nothing in the world they want to know more than they want to know this, and they found a tiny spark of hope for the first time ever, and when that spark was extinguished again, that’s when the seed of obsession sprouted roots. and then it grew like mint.

so this hasn’t been going on for a very long time. a decade or two, at most. only since alyx left. that’s not enough time for a lot to change. but there’s some warning signs, here and there. the red king’s botched ascension. the herbalist stretched way too thin because everyone needs help these days, a kind of help he isn’t able to provide. the cracks are just beginning to show. for the ever after, it’s probably for the best that the cat is getting it out of their system now, instead of festering on it for centuries.

[groovycat18]

I got to episodes 6 and 7 last night but had no time to write my thoughts on them, so here they are now!

Episode 6 Dr. Teeth hugging Zoot so tightly is going to be the only Smooth Jazz content I get in this series, isn’t it? 

Always good to see Baby Animal, especially seeing him develop his interest in music. 

The band’s origin story was interesting, but I kind of wished they addressed the fact that Lips was a late addition to the band, cause the flashback with them painting the bus made it seem like he’d always been there. 

Also, interesting origin for how they got the Mayhem bus! Never put much thought into that before!

Also, is Teeth’s backstory that is revealed in this series going to affect “Everyone Matters”? No, cause I’m too fond of the fanon I developed or am borrowing for that story, but I do like the backstory they gave him in the show.

Episode 7: Again, how vast are Lips’ music connections?! He knows one of the Bangles (his “Walk like an Egyptian” dance was cute), he knows Paula Abdul (was he responsible for her being on Muppets Tonight?), and he knows Paul McCartney, and straight-up ignores his call when Nora decides they don’t need an actual Beatle for their documentary (which killed me XD). 

Zoot being unaware that certain celebrities are dead is pretty accurate, and I loved Morgan Freeman’s cameo. 

Ugh, please assure me Nora/JJ doesn’t happen! I’m on Team Moog!

Really, Peter Jackson? You do TRILOGIES? Where are Meet the Feebles 2 and 3 then??? 

Also, on the note of the Feebles, I’m surprised they were even referenced in this show, since their movie was beyond R-rated, and I’ve heard from somewhere that one of Henson’s kids (I think it was Cheryl) was disgusted by that movie and considered it an insult to her father’s legacy. 

Honestly, I’d like to know more of what happened when the Muppets met the Feebles. Why are two in witness protection and the rest in jail???

Gonna watch episodes 8 and 9 tonight!!!

[realbeefman]

Angus loyal follower here I love your posts I actually started reading hilson fic because of you even though I’ve never seen the show and I never will because once I heard Hugh lauries voice in a fancam and it was so unsexy also they filmed a lot of b roll at my school anyway Seeing your destiel post was so surprising to me please tell me more about your spn opinions I’m so curious I love discourse <3

very long answer so i’ve hidden it under a readmore for the sanity of casual dash scrollers and people who dont care

first off his american voice or his british voice? this is kind of controversial and may seem wild considering i spend a solid chunk of time thinking about what house would be like during sex but i ACTUALLY find him deeply unattractive. i’d love to have his face and wear his skin but never in my life would i consider him a sexual being. he’s too british for it. the only way british people can be sexy is if they are women this is my most political belief on foreign policy. however i do think hugh laurie’s AMERICAN voice is actually very normal and makes him very endearing to me. hilson fic is awesome but honestly!!! most hilson fic for me just does not hit the same unless u can visualize the creepiness with which house looks at wilson. it’s genuinely sickening. he talks about wilson in the softest voice. so many of the most iconic lines in the show just dont HIT the same if u dont listen to the way they’re delivered.

that is SO cool that they shot b roll at ur school though!!! honestly seems like a dream. if i knew i had walked the same halls the house film team had i think i would die. the camerawork on that show is just fucking PHENOMENAL. i could write entire essays fangirling over how they shoot certain scenes but i fear that would be chronically desperately boring

oh man my supernatural opinions… first off disclaimer i have not seen supernatural recently because i am a deeply paranoid individual and prone to delusions and when i first watched the show i genuinely convinced myself that the monsters were real so. i think my most controversial spn opinion would have to be that it’s a PSYCHOLOGICAL THREAT. have you ever met a normal supernatural fan? NOBODY HAS. BECAUSE THE SHOW DRIVES PEOPLE NUTS

other than that my opinions are pretty normal i thiunk. i actually dont have anything at all against destiel even though i am solidly on the wincestie side of fandom. i dont care for the ship and i think it sucks but OBJECTIVELY its a good ship and has strong canon support. i think my hatred comes because i have read SO many destiel fics and have yet to come across a genuinely good one that accurately portrays the characters. i dont understand why an objectively reasonable ship with strong canon support has created some of the middest fic ive ever read in my life. genuinely fascinating. it’s not even that the fic itself is not good or entertaining it just doesn’t feel anything like the actual canon dean and castiel! i have read like two genuinely entertaining destiel fics that felt realistic and BOTH were from authors who primarily write samdean so!!

other controversial spn opinions i have. the “chuck is god” stuff is by far the most entertaining late seasons retcon. objectively ridiculous but so goddamn amusing. i think season 8 and the leviathans was the peak of supernatural. by far the best season in my opinion. plotwise it was not the most believable but i strongly believe that what makes a story good is not it’s logical soundness nor it’s objective value but whether it is ENTERTAINING and COMPELLING and by god the leviathans were both of those things. what a season. also benny and dean were having sex. i loved castiel going insane. OH and i think endverse spn is overhyped both as an episode and in fanon! i did not understand what endverse referred to for so long because i couldnt comprehend that SO MANY PEOPLE could possibly by THAT fanatic over a very mid episode.

not a controversial opinion but rowena is hot. she should've been in every episode for this reason alone. last semester i set up an office meeting with my professor who looked JUST like her to shoot my shot and she literally died before the meeting could happen. i've always felt in my heart that these are related.

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

Rambling About Hunter (The Owl House)

Warnings: discussions of neglect/abuse & dehumanization. Kinda sad and angsty in general.

Basically I just binged The Owl House and I think I deserve to be a little autistic about it. Especially about my favourite character Hunter because he’s my special little meow meow or whatever. This all probably won’t hold up after the finale (I’m writing this on 24/05/22) but eh I have my speculations about his character and I want to ramble about them. Mostly about What he is and how badly he is dealing with it lol.

Canon-inspired fanon, angst, and spoilers (duh) under the cut

Ok so. Hunter. The Golden Guard. Caleb? Uh, whatever you wanna call the guy. He’s a grimwalker (that reveal got me in the heart) and he is messed up and I have a lot to say about him ok. Let’s go.

First I wanna talk about how Hunter doesn’t want Willow and Gus to know he’s a grimwalker. Like, we the audience know they wouldn’t care, but it seems like Hunter thinks they would. Like they would see him differently somehow knowing that he’s a grimwalker. Which leads me to believe he thinks he’s somehow less/different now because of what he is. He doesn’t even KNOW what he is, really, aside from that he’s a copy.

And copy is a really interesting word to me. I think Hunter uses it himself. It implies something unoriginal, replaceable, and perhaps even less valuable than the ‘original’. Although Belos calls him a ‘better version’ of the original, he also says that Hunter was the most accurate to the original, which has gotta mess with your sense of self, right? Individuality must be really confusing for him, like, who is he, what is he, and is he truly his own person if he is a copy of someone else. Of course he is, but does Hunter believe that? God, it makes me too sad let’s move on to sadder things.

He’s lived his whole life trying to impress Belos so that he won’t be replaced, because that’s his biggest fear (likely because being replaced means being Dead) and now he finds out there were potentially HUNDREDS of copies before him? (Belos has been alive for hundreds of years so, I would say he’s probably had quite a few Golden Guards). The shot of all the masks strewn across Belos’ mindscape with Hunter just looking at them, horrified, was honestly haunting to me. Being so innately replaceable must just have messed with Hunter, and Luz barely acknowledges it (fair enough, she had her own shit going on) so I’m not surprised that Hunter ran away after that and decided to start living out of the trash. He was already a mess before then. What kind of teenager fears his boss so much that he legitimately starts digging his own grave in defeat? Hey that’s some real PTSD type shit don’t think I forgot about that.

Hunter is also 16, by the way, which I kept being reminded of by the show itself. Thanks show. And that makes it way more horrific to me. Like, the other Golden Guards are implied to have not lasted very long either, so I doubt any of them made it to their 20s or 30s. Which is some legacy to live up to, right? As someone who never quite thought they would reach 20 (and it is getting closer every day oof) I understand what it feels like to look in the mirror and still see a child who doesn’t know how to handle all of this. And I think Hunter, being so young and put into such an important position, might also be feeling that way even before he found out he was a grimwalker. It’s sort of a live fast die young kinda job.

Also, this is pure speculation, but because Hunter was Created, and the grimwalker info in the book doesnt seem to imply a timeline, just illustrations, we have no way of knowing how old Hunter ACTUALLY is. Like, maybe grimwalkers are born and then mature in a matter of days/weeks. Because how would Belos have the foresight to make a new one 16 years or so before the current one dies? Hunter knows nothing about the previous grimwalker, and only really seems to mention his trials before entering the emperors coven, as part of his ‘childhood’. But what if he’s only been alive for a few years and his memories are fake, placed into his mind to make him believe he’s a generally normal witch? That is something I would be freaking out about if I was Hunter. It’s a lot to take in. Very Blade Runner.

Back to Willow and Gus. Is Hunter upset that Luz found out about the grimwalker thing at the same time as him? It doesn’t seem like he wants anyone to know about it, maybe because he’s worried they will also see him as replaceable (like Belos did) or that he will have to start proving his worth so they see him as an equal. God. I don’t think Hunter fully trusts all of our protagonists, he still has his guard up at all times (cough cough PTSD) and he’s visibly more nervous than when he was the Golden Guard. It’s just smthn to think about.

Also the fact Hunter has scars? When there’s a healing coven that can clearly heal wounds leaving no scars (we have seen this!). Like, yes there have been other characters with scars, but they seem to be characters who have been way more severely hurt (eg Eda’s dad) and more deeply scarred. I think there are three possibilities as to why Hunter has scars:

Belos didn’t let the healers help him after he got hurt, so the scars healed naturally

The scars were super severe but they look less bad now because of healing magic

Belos made Hunter wait a while before summoning healers, giving the wounds more time to become permanent before being healed and therefore leaving scars

The last option is the most “fun” (not really) to me because what I mean by it is, maybe Belos hurt Hunter (as is implied throughout the show) and didn’t want the healers coven to know he was the one who did the damage, so he made Hunter wait (because he couldn’t risk the healers noticing the pattern of Hunter visiting Belos and coming back with wounds) for a while then claimed he was hurt on a mission of some kind, to cover his tracks. OR it was pure neglect, Belos forgetting/being too busy to call the healers coven and leaving Hunter to deal with it by himself. Both options are fucked up but also lead on to my next point:

Hunter finally realising why Belos was careless with him, why he hurt him, why he sent him on dangerous missions despite Hunter being unable to perform competent magic. It was because he’s literally a replaceable clone. I don’t think Belos wants Hunter to die on a mission, purely because making a grimwalker seems difficult and this Hunter especially was apparently most like the original. But I think Belos doesn’t care that much- doesn’t care enough to make Hunter’s life particularly safe. That realisation must be fucking crushing for Hunter- the person he has looked up to all this time never cared about him, always saw him as a weapon/tool, and really just hurt him for the hell of it. Fuuuuuck.

And now Hunter is seeing all the love and appreciation and determination coming from his new friends, and he cares enough to help them like they help him and I think what he’s scared of is all of it being a lie. Like Belos. Who he is now terrified of (and perhaps always was). He doesn’t want them to see him in the same way Belos sees him. Ugh he has so many issues he needs so much therapy. God.

Anyway seeing all the love around him must fuckin. Be difficult. Like, Luz and Amity, obviously, but just like all of his friends. They care about each other and I don’t think he entirely trusts that yet? But he is getting there and I would die for him and... cries.

anyway puts him on the shelf of characters i will never shut up about. the end

P.S. the fucking palisman. flapjack my sweet boy. cries again.

[bigskydreaming]

I feel another fanon debunk session coming over me, and this one’s a BIG one. 

Let’s talk about the DickKory breakup, and why it happened.

Yup, we’re going there.

Before we get going though, I want to make one thing abundantly clear: this is NOT an invitation to bash on Kory. There will be no bashing of Kory on this post if I have anything to say about it, and its my post, so I do. So nyah nyah. But seriously like, don’t get my reasons for making this post wrong. I LOVE Kory. I SHIP Dick/Kory. And I don’t actually blame Kory for any of this, no matter how the page I’m about to show makes it appear, for reasons that I will get into later in this post, but like. I really truly don’t. I don’t think the Dick/Kory breakup ultimately was either of their fault. I think it was the painful end result of them both hitting rock bottom due to endless external fuckery with their lives and their minds during the tail end of their relationship, making it all but impossible for them to be there for each other the way they truly needed and WANTED to be....ultimately forcing them to break off and BOTH try and reorder their lives on their own. But IMO, this NEVER actually marked a dissolution of their feelings for each other, no matter what either (particularly Dick) eventually claimed in order to rationalize things to themselves.

I do however think some of the other Titans bear some culpability for not seeing things as they truly were here. I can understand given what they all went through during this time period like, how maybe it became easier to just blame Dick especially as he has a tendency to be so willing to accept blame? And so I think a lot of conclusions were jumped to that at other times they WOULD have spent more time thinking through. But here and now they didn’t simply because they were so relieved to HAVE an easy, simple explanation for things going wrong and someone to blame, someone who ACCEPTED blame. And thus more easily allowing them to speed through to the portion of events where they worked on ‘forgiving him’ for what he’d done so they could all move past it.

Okay, so let me stop talking in code for those of you who have only the faintest idea of what I’m talking about.

Traditional fanon states - and most wiki summaries I’ve seen actually CORROBORATE this, which drives me COMPLETELY up the wall because I would like to have WORDS with whomever wrote each of these wiki summaries - that ultimately, Dick and Kory broke up because they rushed into things with the wedding and both realized they weren’t actually ready to get married.

Let me be clear: this is totally and completely 100% true.

Fanon and wikis go ON however, to conclude that the ‘fault’ lies with Dick, because he was the one who jumped the gun in proposing, and that he only DID so, because he thought getting married would ‘help him finally grow up’ and ‘hit one of the milestones he thought he was missing while everyone else his age that he’d known in high school and stuff were graduating college and getting married and having kids right about now.’ And also that he eventually concluded that he didn’t actually love Kory the way he thought he did and needed to let her go for her sake.

Now let me also be clear: this is also MOSTLY true in the sense that he did eventually THINK these thoughts, some ten or fifteen issues after their crashed wedding, when he was off on his own and thinking through everything that was going on in his life and trying to make sense of the decisions he’d been making lately, most of which he was unhappy with.

The one part that ISN’T true is that last bit, which a lot of people extrapolate from and use as their basis for saying Dick ‘fell out of love with Kory’ and ‘realized that he no longer loved her the way he once had,’ with this leading into why they never got back together after Kory returned to Earth in the Titans revival series in the late 90s.

HOWEVER.

There’s a tiiiiiiiiiny little correction I must make to that last part, which might seem insignificant, but becomes ABUNDANTLY important when added to some other much needed - and much ignored overlooked - context:

Dick never ACTUALLY said or thought that he didn’t love Kory anymore, full stop. What he actually said, in its entirety, was that he realized “he never really loved Kory the way she deserved to be loved.”

Why is this distinction so important? Hang on just a sec, we’re almost there.

Now I would like to share with you, for those who have never seen this page or those who perhaps have forgotten it or its significance, the EXACT page where Dick proposes to Kory, from The New Titans #99, one issue before their wedding special in issue #100. (What’s that? You’re surprised that they got married the very issue after the proposal? You thought that they were engaged for a lengthier period of time? Ohhhh don’t worry, fair readers. We’ll get there. Ohhhh we’ll get there).

But first, those of you who have never actually read this page before, I would like you to take a look at it, and see if you can Where’s Waldo what it is about this page that makes my blood reach a boiling point in excess of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit every time someone utters the words “Dick rushed into marriage because he thought it would make him grow up or hit some important life milestone.”

Take a gander, what do you see:

See it? Get what I’m talking about?

Any talk of Dick and Kory breaking up because they weren’t ready to get married, and Dick having been the one to rush them into it before they were ready, COMPLETELY fails at accurately representing the events of that time if it fails to mention the fact that:

DICK ONLY PROPOSED WHEN HE DID BECAUSE HE WAS DESPERATE TO CONVINCE KORY, HIMSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE THAT HE LOVED HER AND ONLY HER AND SLEEPING WITH MIRAGE HAD MEANT NOTHING!

(Since, y’know, he didn’t actually sleep with her so much as he was raped by her).

I mean, your mileage may vary, but me, I happen to think that bit there is pretty CRITICAL FUCKING INTEL when it comes to this whole matter.

Claiming Dick is to blame because he rushed into marriage because he was looking to grow up or hit some milestone utterly FAILS as an analytical conclusion in EVERY POSSIBLE WAY....

When there is both ZERO indication from him BEFORE the proposal, that those are reasons or thoughts he has that has him leaning towards proposing.....

As well as ZERO reflection AFTER the failed wedding, that being desperate to convince everyone who thought he’d cheated on Kory that he really did love her, was at all a key motivating factor in him proposing when and how he did.

Like it or not, Mirage and the storyline surrounding that is utterly CRUCIAL to the DickKory breakup, because EVERY mention of that describes the cause of that breakup being rushing into marriage, and if you take away that storyline - and every character’s reaction to it - there is absolutely NO reason to even THINK Dick would still have proposed when he did.

And thus, leaving the Mirage story ENTIRELY out of all talk of the end of Dick and Kory’s relationship, is just....blatantly not indicative of what the story actually was.

Now, in addition, I know we tend to talk about this story as though DC sucks for never calling the rape what it was, and say that if DC’s not willing to treat these things as what they really are, they shouldn’t be using them as story points. First order of business: Yes DC sucks a lot and their handling of all this sucked.

BUT.

It is also not entirely accurate to say that they never TREATED this story as what it was.

Because while everyone else may have been fixated on it as Dick cheating on Kory....initially, at pretty much every point UNTIL the wedding....Dick at least was STEADFAST in not considering HIMSELF having cheated. I mean, look at his language in just the page above. He talks about being “repulsed” by what Mirage did. The writers might have never actually called what happened to Dick ‘rape,’ but initially they were VERY consistent in nevertheless writing him as someone who at least to some degree felt victimized by what happened, rather than culpable. He was trying to convince everyone ELSE to see it that way - until eventually he kinda gave up, and started to see it THEIR way. 

You can literally see him already starting to make the pivot towards rationalizing that POV to himself in the above page....he talks about ‘thinking with his hormones’ and that leading him to make a mistake, even though his hormones had nothing to do with whether what happened was wrong or not.....it was always entirely about: would he have consented to sex with Mirage IF he knew she wasn’t really Kory. Thinking with his hormones in no way addresses the fact that its completely unreasonable to expect anyone to be so on guard 24/7, even in the privacy of their own bedroom with their own girlfriend, that they have their eyes peeled for an impostor even there. 

In fact, imagine what the others would have all said if Dick hadn’t slept with Mirage that night, or else had confided in them later that it felt not right, that something was wrong, at some point BEFORE Mirage entered and told Dick in front of everyone that it had actually been her. How likely do you think it would have been that instead of taking Dick at face value, many of them would have instead viewed this as just another time Dick was exercising “Bat-paranoia” rather than allowing himself to be intimate with a loved one the way normal, non-Batfolk do, y’know? Do you think they would have automatically agreed with him that there was something up and he had reason to feel that ‘something wasn’t right about Kory’ when Dick probably still would have had no idea what for sure he felt was off, let alone that it wasn’t ACTUALLY her? Or would they have gotten on his case about how this is just him self-sabotaging again and letting his issues come between him and someone he cared about?

Tbh, one of the things that was greatest about Dick and Kory’s relationship IMO was that she was one of the best at getting him out of his own head. With Kory, when they weren’t both being jerked around by brainwashing plots and the like, Dick was better at just....letting go and just being himself around her. He didn’t feel like he had to constantly be on his guard or waiting for the other shoe to drop. Ironically, IMO, Dick DOES have a tendency to self-sabotage at times and let paranoia or other issues keep him from totally dropping his defenses and letting himself be vulnerable with other people.....meaning he probably would have been MORE likely to cue into something being off, if it had been anyone BUT Kory he’d been dating when Mirage replaced them.

So bottom line is, you can’t actually fully blame the writing for the others’ reactions to this story. Because whether they ever actually acknowledged it or not, for a good ten to fifteen issues up to the wedding, the writers pretty consistently depicted Dick as someone who was and felt victimized, even if he didn’t consciously realize it yet himself, let alone why. There were repeated moments between Kory initially breaking up with him after it happened through this proposal above, where it basically reads like Dick yelling “Ask me how violated I feel! Go on, ask me!” Except he never really got the chance because he was too busy replying to everyone around him that he hadn’t cheated on Kory, he thought he was WITH Kory, and that was the ONLY reason he had sex that night.

Slight tangent - this btw, is why I can never even get worked up enough about Nightwing Annual #2 to be like, defensive about it. That was the flashback issue written YEARS after all these events, where retroactively Andreyko inserted at some point between this proposal and the wedding - without changing anything else or the events he wrote ever being brought up or acknowledged again - a story where Dick went to visit Babs to personally deliver her wedding invitation....but only AFTER they slept together. And then when he gave her the invitation and she got furious about what had just happened, he just blithely said oh Kory won’t mind, and Babs was like yeah well I MIND!

Which was a totally valid reaction for Babs to have to those events as depicted, its just....I can’t remotely take them seriously, not when I’ve actually READ the events that by Andreyko’s own admission are meant to bookend that story. So you’re telling me, that right after Dick proposes to his longtime girlfriend SPECIFICALLY because he’s desperate to convince her he loves only her and would never willingly sleep with anyone else......he would go and sleep with someone else between then and the wedding? And then just without a hint of remorse say oh what’s the problem, Kory would be fine with it - when literally everything else about the wedding even HAPPENING was based on the fact that he knew for a fact that Kory would NOT in fact, be fine with that? Umm, make it make sense, except you can’t, because that story and the point where it makes sense are in two entirely different galactic quadrants. Green Lanterns couldn’t make it from Point A to Point B. So lol, sorry not sorry, I’m gonna stay not taking that story or claims that Dick is ACTUALLY a cheater, like, remotely seriously. I mean, your mileage may vary, but I especially don’t think anyone who can make excuses for Bruce’s many transgressions being OOC like, has any business trying to pass this particular story off as in character, but WHATEVS. Like, you CAN do it if you really want to, but I mean, I’m just gonna think that’s silly. I’ll be like OMG you’re so silly. Why are you so silly, can we just stop with all the silliness. And then like, I’ll go do something else or whatever. 

(Oh and for the record, the wedding was the issue after Dick proposed, but it wasn’t meant to be like, the day after or anything. BUT we do know it was still pretty damn soon after, like at most a week or two....because the concurrent storyline was Roy being upset because the government was trying to shut down the Titans and said they would unless Roy took leadership from Dick and ousted him, which Roy understandably was NOT keen to do, even and especially with everything going on as the Titans were a family first and foremost and he was stuck between trying to preserve them and keep them going and betraying everything they stood for by basically instigating a vote of no confidence in Dick’s leadership.....but point being, Roy kept stalling the government agent asking for his answer......when said agent was very impatient, and asked repeatedly both in issue #99 AND issue #100. So you’re never going to convince me Roy managed to stall said agent for months or whatever, or any longer than a couple weeks at most, to allow for Dick and everyone else to put together a shotgun wedding for him and Kory. Which just further adds to the make it make sense aspect of the above mentioned Annual, but I absofuckinglutely digress).

Anyway. 

NOW, let’s bring it back around to when I said like, don’t do the thing, don’t actually blame Kory for any of this, don’t you do it? /paraphrase

Yeah. So we’re there at that point now, and I reiterate once more for the court, like, hey, what if you just don’t? Y’know? Even if you’re looking at her dialogue in the above page I posted and are like, I’m feeling the urge, the urge to.....idk something that rhymes with urge but is bad I guess? Whatever. Just like. Don’t do it. Say nasty things about Kory because of this story three times in front of your computer and I will totally like, be conjured by that and crawl out of your screen all creepy girl from The Ring style. It will NOT be pretty. I am NOT meant to fit through there. I can NOT make it look good. You have been warned.

Okay so like, the reason I say none of this is on Kory even though I don’t make the same distinctions for the other Titans is threefold. No, lbr, its probably more on account of I can’t count and I’m always wrong about this shit. But let’s start with three.

1) The first thing we need to address is the fact that Dick WAS acting erratically and out of character through all of this time, even before what happened with Mirage. This was still in the near aftermath of Titans Hunt, and he was still reeling from that, and holding himself totally accountable. People who’ve followed me for awhile have probably seen me fixate on Titans Hunt before, but I honestly don’t think anyone who hasn’t read the full extent of comics from that storyline all the way through like....The New Titans #115 or so, like.....truly grasps the extent of just HOW much that single storyline affected Dick. He was at rock bottom because of it in a way that is probably only truly comparable with the Blockbuster storyline, but for even LONGER. Like the span of comics I referenced just now covers probably like....almost fifty issues. 

That’s fifty issues where Dick consistently brings up his failure to stop that and how much Joey and Charlie and Arella and everyone else’s deaths during that like, just weighs on him, and fucks with his confidence and just.....his overall sense of purpose and self. He WAS lost and aimless for a lot of that time. And he DID absolutely even recognize HIMSELF that it was affecting him. Like ten issues or so after the crashed wedding, when he’s on his own journey of self-discovery while looking for Kory in the Amazon (uh yeah, that’s a thing. I’ll get to that)....like, he acknowledges to himself that ever since the Titans Hunt he’s been getting crazier and more demanding (his words) and he doesn’t even recognize himself anymore...and he attributes all of that to not having come to terms with their deaths and his inability to prevent them. 

Now, notably, he DOESN’T ever at this time acknowledge that his behavior took an INCREASINGLY downward spiral ever since Mirage and specifically due to everyone blaming him for what he deep down felt wasn’t actually his fault but was losing conviction in. And quite frankly, even though he SAYS at this point he’s ready to move on from their losses, I don’t think that actually happened, but I’ll get back to both those things. First, the important point here, in terms of Kory, is that from her perspective, Dick had been increasingly unpredictable and not himself ever since the losses during Titans Hunt. Actually, given that she was the one who went with him to the Manor after Jason’s death and the only one who saw him come in and out and who thus knows the full extent of what transpired there - with this all happening not long before Titans Hunt - you could additionally say her awareness of that also has her almost prepared to expect the totally unexpected from Dick at this point.

Does that mean its right? No. But it does mean that its there.

2) Next. Kory was not actually offered the chance by the storyline to internalize what happened between Mirage and Dick from a stable, grounded headspace. Mirage KIDNAPPED Kory and replaced her before she slept with Dick. In the grand scheme of things, what happened to Kory specifically here is probably far from the worst thing that’s ever happened to her, but it couldn’t have been pleasant and I’m the first to yell NO TRAUMA OLYMPICS so in that spirit, fuck whether it was as bad as it COULD have been, and again, just acknowledge that it happened, and its reasonable and expected that it would have a negative effect on Kory. She was targeted and victimized by Mirage too. Not in the same way as Dick, but add that to the fact that unlike the other Titans, she was the one IN the relationship with Dick and thus the only one besides him that had a stake in what Mirage’s actions served as a catalyst for in that regard, like....she was not an impartial bystander to all this, and that needs to be considered. She was PART of it. It was her life that was hijacked by all this too.

3) Third.....it is extremely extremely EXTREMELY important here to acknowledge that Kory is herself a rape survivor. She has extensive trauma from her childhood in the Citadel, and that is bound to color her perceptions of what happened here, at least initially. I am 174% soooooo not here for vilifying another rape survivor in defense of a different rape survivor. Like, I’m just saying.....do not throw Kory under the bus for not acknowledging Dick’s trauma and trauma responses as a rape survivor in this story if you’re not also YOURSELF acknowledging Kory’s OWN trauma as a rape survivor.

This is key not because it says any opinions she had at this time don’t count, but rather that they simply don’t come from the same place as the VICTIM-BLAMING that is the central issue with others holding Dick accountable for his own rape. In Kory’s case, we have to consider the issue of projection. The ways in which her own experiences and how they’ve informed her DEFAULT perception of something that deeply affected her, might skew her initial reaction to experiences which share a LABEL, but not specific ELEMENTS.

What I mean here is both Kory and Dick, as of this point in time, are rape survivors. But they survived very very VERY different kinds of rape. Both were abundantly clear that they DID NOT WANT what happened to them, that they were not willing parties to what actually transpired....but what springs to Kory’s mind when someone says “I didn’t want the sex that happened” is understandably going to look VERY different from what Dick was describing when he said “I didn’t want the sex that happened.” So its not really all that unreasonable for Kory to hold those two things up in her head and say these are not the same, and from there jump to the unfortunate conclusion that Dick HAD wanted it on some level, else it would have looked more like her own experiences...especially because others around them were already voicing and affirming this opinion in various ways. 

Again, is this fair, or deserved? No. But I talk all the time with other characters and with Dick himself about how its just not reasonable to expect characters - especially ones with highly CHARGED emotions related to their own parallel experiences - to act from an unbiased state or POV and thus leap to the most ideal conclusion without at least first stumbling through some other ones. So with Kory, her own context with rape simply CAN NOT be divorced from the fact that recognizing the central issue of this later moment in time was that it was a rape. Her own experiences and the likely projection of them onto the moment at hand add a degree of context to conclusions she arrived at that other characters simply do not have....and thus, again, its not okay to paint her with the same brush as all those characters. And unless you’re already somehow making a distinction as to why her reaction is different from others despite superficially appearing the same......then like. You need to be. LOL. 

4) The other factor that’s important to consider here is that just like Kory was never offered the chance to RECEIVE information of what happened from a relatively grounded place and headspace....the stories never gave her any real time to think things through, process over time, and arrive at different conclusions from her earlier ones. Again, I talk all the time about how Dick’s experiences with the Titans pre-his time in Bludhaven were colored by multiple instances of brainwashing and his head being fucked with and being personally targeted and jerked around in a ton of ways? The same is true of Kory, and it needs to be given equal weight.

Their wedding was crashed by ‘the dark soul self’ of Raven - who they thought was dead - as she infected Kory with what she called a demon seed that was going to grow a new demon inside of her. Due to her possession, Kory spent weeks in a mental institutition, trying to overcome the entity inside her (with Dick sitting by her side and holding her hand through all of it, just FYI). When she finally did purge the entity from her, Kory took off and ended up in a village in the Amazon, with the ordeal having given her amnesia. Dick went after her, but he’d only just tracked her down when she took off again to foil an alien invasion using radio waves that she was uniquely suited to recognize due to being familiar with their tactics, but which pitted her against most of the rest of the world in like, the Ultimate Gaslighting Showdown as everyone kept telling her she was crazy (she was wearing a tinfoil hat to protect herself from the transmissions, the writers were deliberately not doing her any favors). 

Only after that was foiled did she regain her memories, and while off the page she agreed to meet with Dick to talk about their failed wedding and everything that happened afterward, as he’d returned from the Amazon by now, where he’d ultimately come to his own self-realizations about everything (or what we were told to accept were his realizations)....in the end she took off for Tamaran without meeting him, leaving him waiting where they’d agreed to rendezvous. Again, I say this not to vilify Kory, because I absolutely think she made the best choice for herself at the time, and should have, and I don’t think Dick has ever blamed her for that and tbh they both separately came to the same decisions about needing to be apart to recollect themselves and figure out who they were and where to go from here, like, without having to actually talk it out to arrive at the same point. I DO raise this point simply to put out there that in contrast to many other things I’ve seen said about the break up......they....never technically broke up?

Like I mean, don’t get me wrong. They DID. They both considered themselves broken up and eventually moved on with other people, Dick with Babs, and Kory with a general who she married back on New Tamaran before it was destroyed by the Sun Eater (again, Kory went through some SHIT after their break up. Dick wasn’t the only one.) But I just mean like.....it was LITERALLY the most mutual break-up that is possible for a break-up to be, because neither one of them ever actually communicated their intent to the other in order for them to both CLEARLY be on the same page. There was no “Dick called off the wedding” - that never actually happened, it was just....never revisited. There was no “Dick told her he no longer had feelings for her” - that was something that happened later, and yes, I’ll get to that too. OMG shut up me. But also shh I’m talking. 

But yeah like.....their break-up, despite being almost universally claimed as Dick’s choice and responsibility, with zero mention of Mirage’s role in it in any official accounting of it I’VE ever seen, and with Kory painted as being the victim of Dick’s wandering ways and not knowing what he wanted in the distant aftermath of their break-up, as it was said that due to being Tamaranean, she loved for life and thus would always be in love with Dick even though he after her return claimed he no longer loved her (like, I don’t blame Kory but I also don’t like takes that act like Dick DID all this to Kory somehow. Like that’s literally the entire point here, neither of them needs to be to blame or each other’s victim according to how the story ACTUALLY went).....

But yeah, despite all that.....it really was the most mutually arrived at decision ever, because neither one of them actually EVER EVEN SAID ‘WE NEED TO BREAK UP’ to the other. They both just....ended up there on their own. 

(And also because DC wanted them there in order to secure the rest of their push to put Nightwing solely back in the Batbooks for the next several years. With, don’t forget, this all coinciding with the government forcing him out of the Titans and putting Roy in charge and with this all culminating in Dick having his initial adventure in Bludhaven at Bruce’s ask, and then deciding to make that his new base of operations and kinda reinvent himself there, at the start of his solo title. Again, shout out to the myth of “Dick Grayson always runs from things because commitment issues” - not only did he NOT flee to Bludhaven because he just changed his mind about the wedding and said whoops sorry Kory, it wasn’t even his CHOICE to leave the Titans, even if eventually he agreed it was for the best right now. His ex went back to her home planet and he was asked to leave his team. Why the fuck WOULDN’T he go somewhere else?)

NEXT. (jfc he mumbled to himself under his breath. what the fuck did I start here).

Circling back around AGAIN, this time back to Dick’s STATED reasons for deciding things were over.

Two...umm, fuck it, ‘a number that is more than one’ things that need to be kept in mind HERE:

1) The most crucial bit of context when examining Dick’s journey of self-exploration in the Amazon while searching for Kory and what he comes to say and think about everything that’s happened and his own behavior....

Is that he is an EXTREMELY unreliable narrator at this point in time. Y’know how we talk about Dick having that tendency to take on more accountability than is actually earned and is way quicker to view himself as in need of apologizing than he is to view others needing to do that for him?

Yeah I mean, that’s a thing, I definitely have like a billion citations ready to go on a moment’s notice, but point is, being aware of that tendency means absolutely nothing if you don’t actively APPLY that awareness to Dick’s periods of self-reflection and like....compare and contrast what he THINKS about things he’s said or done with like....what he’s ACTUALLY said or done.

For instance, on the way to his so-called epiphanies about all this, he makes the claim that the entire time Kory was dealing with the demon entity inside of her, he was being so selfish because all he was doing was wishing she would wake up or be free of it so that she could help him with his problems instead. (And just for the record, I can provide actual panels for everything I reference in this post, I’m just limiting myself to a couple because I’m just trying to NOT beat War and Peace’s pagecount as it is. Will I succeed? No. Did I try? Yes.)

Now, Dick spending his time at his possessed fianceé’s side doing nothing but wishing she would snap out of it and focus on his problems instead.....is that selfish of him?

Well, yeah.

But is it TRUE?

I mean, you tell me:

This is right smack dab in the middle of that whole storyline, set only a few issues after the crashed wedding, and before Kory successfully evicts the demon entity and loses her memories. This is literally what Dick was ACTUALLY like the entire time. At the TIME, every single thing he said and did was focused on her.....the CLOSEST he came even in his internal monologue, to making it all about him, was him thinking about how this has shown him just how much he needs her.

Do people helping a loved one through something traumatic occasionally have selfish thoughts where their awareness of their own troubles momentarily supersedes their focus on their loved one? Yeah. Does this actually make them selfish if their ACTUAL focus and actions and words are aimed entirely at their loved ones the whole time, with no single actual detour to “hey, while you’re up, can we talk about me for a sec”?

Mmmmm....I feel like no, but I am open to you drawing other conclusions as long as you are aware that they are wrong and mine is right, kay. I mean okay, fine. You can disagree with me here but I’m still gonna disagree about your disagreement there and its just gonna be this whole big thing and its like, ugh, whatever, y’know?

But hey, you do you.

ANYWAY, point is, unless you draw the wrong conclusion here in which case PTTTHB!, like, I think its safe to say Dick thinking in the midst of his self-awareness deep dive that he was being nothing but selfish during that whole story and thus didn’t deserve Kory, like....whether or not the writers are actually AWARE of it or not, I mean......that’s still a pretty good context clue that his internal monologues at this point in time are maybe a little bit skewed towards being more about accepting blame than reflecting reality, right? Yes, no, maybe so?

Well then again, if you agree with me, then add to that awareness the added bit of trivia that every single other one of Dick’s ‘ultimate realizations’ (he just wanted to get married because he thought it would bring stability to his life, it would help him grow up, hit one of those aforementioned milestones, etc)....like every single one of them.....was an opinion that was FIRST offered by one of the other Titans. 

Every. Single. One.

(Wanted to get married for the stability was something Donna said she thought was his reasoning, to the other original Titans. The bit about thinking it would help him grow up was unfortunately ALSO Donna, but said to Kory before the wedding when Kory asked if she thought this was a mistake and if she thought Dick had proposed for the right reasons. The milestones thing was said by either Roy, Garth or Wally, I honestly forget which, but it was when the three of them went out to discuss the pending government takeover of the team and how to break this to Dick with everything else going on).

And with not a SINGLE one of these opinions present in ANY of Dick’s internal monologues BEFORE the proposal, hinting that they were anywhere near being on his radar at THAT point.

So....which makes more narrative sense? That Dick ultimately just realized that everything he THOUGHT was motivating him when he proposed was NOT true and that it was only his friends that clued into his actual reasons, which he must have overheard at some point and internalized in order to have replicated said opinions in his thoughts so exactly? Again with ZERO mention alongside any of this, that peoples’ views of what happened with Mirage was at ALL a factor in his thinking?

Or.....does it maybe better track, that over the course of Dick repeatedly expressing that he didn’t know it wasn’t Kory, that he never wanted to cheat on her, that he loved her and only her and would never knowingly do that....with NO ONE budging and everyone from Kory to all of his best friends acting like his adulterous guilt was an over and done with conclusion and they’d already long since moved on to the point of how willing or not they were to forgive him, based on everything else he’d been going through.....and with Dick thinking that how remorseful he appeared to be and how willing to ACCEPT accountability was likely to play a part in how much people were willing to look past all his recent fuck-ups here.......

Does it maaaaaaaybe actually make a little bit more sense that Dick’s total 180 into taking full responsibility and coming up with all these rationalizations for his actions that essentially just mimic theories everyone else had for his behavior has more to do with his deeply internalized acceptance that nobody was listening to his side of the story or what he was actually trying to say (without even real SELF awareness at the time that what he was feeling wasn’t just ‘I’m innocent of what you’re accusing me of’ but ‘I was violated and used’)?

That it was more about him finding ways to justify to himself getting on the same page everyone else ALREADY seemed to be on in regards to him and his recent behavior, as that seemed to be the only way to move forward, that he was tired of fighting everybody and feeling like he was in the wrong for it so honestly, maybe they were right?

Because from there.....

Its only a veeeeeery short hop, skip and a jump from “well I guess I DID do what they say and I SHOULD have known it wasn’t Kory”.....to.....”since the only thing I kept clinging to for how I couldn’t know was my insistence that I truly loved Kory, and it turns out that I still SHOULD have known anyway......doesn’t that mean that I didn’t really love Kory the way I thought I did? Or as much as I thought I did?”

“Did I never really love Kory as much as she deserved?”

Cuz uh, remember earlier when I talked about it being significant that Dick never ACTUALLY claimed during this time that he didn’t love Kory anymore or fell out of love with her or anything like that, but rather that his precise claim was “I didn’t love her AS MUCH AS SHE DESERVED”?

Aka.....”enough that I would have known it wasn’t actually Kory that I was with?”

Yeah. Uh, that. That’s the significance there. Yeah. So....

2) Now as to something else to keep in mind in regards to Dick’s eventual ‘self-realizations’ - this calls back to when I said earlier that Dick WAS acting erratically during this time, stemming all the way back to the Titans Hunt aftermath. He was overly aggressive, he was ready to fight anyone at a moment’s notice, he was tunnel-visioned.....in short, he was actually quite a lot how the fanon interpretations of his temper I rage about usually depict him. But the key thing here, and the reason why I wouldn’t have a problem with people drawing references from THIS time when talking about him behaving this way.....

Is that much like when Dick was behaving erratically during the Brother Blood storyline, it was with NARRATIVE INTENT.

There, Dick’s behavior led to the reveal that he was lashing out because he was fighting the Church of Blood’s mental conditioning. Here, Dick’s behavior is directly tied to his downward spiral resulting from the trauma of Titans Hunt and his guilt from that.

In both cases, I’d have zero issue with people referencing specific instances of this behavior....

As long as they ALSO reference and acknowledge the specific narrative context that was directly CONNECTED to that behavior. Its not about whether or not it excuses any specific thing he does, its about the fact that while these behaviors did happen, they shouldn’t be depicted as indicative of his OVERALL characterization, because they were specifically and deliberately written into his actions WITH INTENT by the writers, who were trying to use his DELIBERATELY out of the ordinary behavior to arrive at some narrative point or conclusion.

And here, for Dick, that was the eventual realization that he’d never fully dealt with his feelings about the losses during the Titans Hunt.

I don’t like how he acts in a lot of the issues around this time. Its ugly. But its MEANT to be ugly. I don’t like Dick’s fight with Roy when he tells him about taking over leadership because of the government’s interference. I don’t like it AT ALL. 

But what I DO like is how the very next page after the fight, after Donna follows Dick out of the room, Dick turns around and acknowledges how out of control he’d just been and said he felt it proved that everyone was right, things HAD gotten to him more than he’d realized or admitted to himself, and it probably was a sign he needed to take a step back, and besides, Kory needed him more than the team did right now anyway.

THAT’S one of the core things I like about Dick Grayson, that almost without exception, his worst actions or behaviors are almost immediately followed by his realization of this and a tangible action or change in his actions to address it. That’s not something every character can claim - in fact, its unfortunately pretty damn rare.

But here’s the problem with that, in this specific scenario:

Dick WAS spiraling, he DID act out in ways he was right to be called out on and to feel guilt about, and there WAS basis for him acknowledging that there was stuff he needed to address in his life and his head, and to take responsibility for.

Thing is though, nobody else at any point ever stood up to point to where in his willingness to hold himself accountable for his mistakes and try and do better in regards to his friends and teammates and overall relationships....

He additionally took on guilt that WASN’T deserved. Because the other Titans were the ones who in their overall rush to judgment about his behavior and the reasons why.....still erroneously lumped in with the rest, their conclusion as to how the situation with Mirage should be viewed.

And frankly, though this doesn’t make them look good, there’s plenty of places you can go with that which don’t make them heartless monsters either. They were wrong, not to listen to him about Mirage, and I maintain that this tangibly WORSENED his already existing downward spiral from Titans Hunt, because that was already stuff he really could have benefited from support for the others from....and then this other thing happened that he additionally really needed support about, rather than blame.

Problem is, the overall impression given off by the other Titans was that they thought they already WERE doing their best to be supportive, by being so willing to look PAST ‘what Dick had done with Mirage’ and FORGIVE Dick for that, make allowances for why it and other decisions they didn’t agree with, like his rush to marriage, might make sense based on what they were attributing as the reason for his out of character behavior....the fallout from Titans Hunt...but ONLY that.

Like to be clear, I’m aware that there is a flip side of things in fanon, where some stans overcorrect on Dick’s behalf and act like the Titans all universally slut-shamed Dick and were terrible to him. No. That’s not what happened either. There was ONE slut-shaming Titan and ONLY one....and that was Pantha, who to be frank, like.....she was literally written to be the button pusher in regards to everyone. She likely would have said the same thing no matter who was in that situation, because she honestly didn’t care, she was just interested in making the cheap jokes at their expense.

The other Titans though did not adopt a slut-shaming stance against Dick...just a victim-blaming one. Which makes some things better, but some things worse IMO.

Its easier to understand how they could have all fallen into this trap despite all being seasoned heroes who should have known better than to view these specific events the way they did....if you consider that their fatal flaw here was ironically that they were SO quick to try and find a reason that Dick might have done this that they felt they could forgive....that they never actually thought things through long enough to recognize how quick on the draw they’d been in their reactions. And then they failed to listen to Dick’s side of things because they’d kinda convinced themselves that they were ALREADY doing him a favor and hearing him out by having decided to look past what he’d done and make allowances for it....and so they kinda filtered everything he was saying through a lens of like...waiting for him to catch up to what they’d already decided had happened and onto the part where he did the Dick Grayson thing and apologized and accepted responsibility for it....at which point they, as his friends, would be honestly able to say “already forgiven, dude.”

You could additionally factor in the idea that their very respect for his capabilities and high opinion of his overall ‘on the ball-ness’ made what had happened easy to view as something that’d just slipped past his radar, a rare oversight that again, he could be forgiven for, rather than what it was....again, something that he should never have been expected to ‘catch’ in the first place, any more than they would have been.

Either way, the real problem was always just that they failed to support him in the ways he actually needed, because they were already busy forgiving him for things he didn’t actually need forgiveness for because they were never his to accept blame for in the first place. But then BECAUSE Dick was already primed to accept the blame for what he WAS right to accept responsibility for, he overextended and took on everything that was held against him, rather than first differentiating between where a mea culpa both was and WAS NOT due.

No matter how you slice it, the Titans WERE wrong on this front, and Dick absolutely DOES have canon grounds to nurse some bitterness and resentment about, towards them. Again, with a lot of ways that can be approached. Personally, when I think about fics tackling this subject, my big want is always gonna be like.....confrontation fics? Like that’s what I’ve always really wanted to see here....like there’s a lot of obviously valid catharsis to be had in fics that have someone walk Dick through what a more objective view of what happened back then and let him finally unburden himself of all that unearned guilt there...BUT all the focus there is typically on that realization of the truth for DICK, that like....there’s almost never any follow-up where that realization is further pursued and extended to the relevant Titans? And tbh, I’ve always viewed that as the far greater ‘crime’ this story executed in regards to Dick’s character....not an overall obliviousness to his own victimization, period, but the fact that he was basically pushed into ACCEPTING a culpable view of events when actually, he’d always KNOWN on some level that it wasn’t really his fault and he had every reason to feel repulsed and angry and violated.

Like, I do obviously view Dick as someone with a large degree of self-awareness, in no small part due to how often he DOES do these introspective deep dives and reflect on events and actions and behaviors, and even though I understand the viewpoint that things look different when applied to yourself than to others, I do think its perfectly likely that Dick would at some point come to his own realization about what had actually happened with Mirage and why he’d initially felt the way he did about it. Maybe not before the events with Tarantula, but in the aftermath? I think he absolutely would connect certain things then, even if just because of how FAMILIAR everything felt to that earlier time post-Titans Hunt. The Blockbuster arc was like, the most rock bottom Dick had ever been SINCE that point, and various similarities could have definitely been pinging all over for him....the losses he suffered reminding him of his guilt for the fallen Titans, the end of Dick and Babs’ relationship, while based on more reasons than just Tarantula kissing Dick, like, still including that as a reason and so thus bearing an uncomfortable similarity to the last time he was held accountable for his rapist and now eventual rapist’s actions, etc.

And I do think that Dick having some realizations of his own post-Blockbuster could explain a LOT about his later interactions with the Titans, who I honestly don’t think he was ever quite as close to again?

Which makes a ton of sense if you view the 1999 series, and how difficult it was for them to get Dick to join up, and how he was plenty ready to leave at any point...like, that makes a TON of sense if you consider that Dick might have at this point been quietly nursing hurt of his own that everyone was so eager and willing to let bygones be bygones and ‘forgive’ his mistakes of the past, that nobody still had ever realized what he’d had to realize all on his own....that THEY all had a perception of events and like, their friendships, that included forgiving Dick for a betrayal that Dick NEVER ACTUALLY ENACTED. Where its like, thanks, but I didn’t actually need that, what I needed was someone to listen to me. But at the same time its totally understandable why he wouldn’t ever want to bring that up himself....because he’d already TRIED expressing himself on this matter years before, and been shot down, and its totally reasonable that he worried history would just repeat there rather than bring him the closure he WANTED on that front. But again....the distance he keeps a lot of the Titans at after his return to the team pairs pretty damn well with him being both quietly resentful of forgiveness he never needed and wondering when it was everyone else’s turn to accept the accountability for wrongs done that everyone was always so quick to demand from him....as well as why the last thing in the world he’d want to do is bring this all up again himself.

Similarly, this is why I think he always expressed to Kory, ever since her return to Earth, that he wasn’t in love with her anymore.....I don’t think its necessarily true that his feelings ever fully went away, and I also don’t think he’d bear the same resentments towards her that he did the others, even though Kory too ‘forgave’ him for something he never needed absolution for. Because I think at the same time, he’s more aware than most of Kory’s own history, and he has too much empathy for what all that likely stirred up for her at the time as well as his awareness that she really did love him and always had and that she’d mourned their relationship just as much as he had. 

So I truly don’t think Dick blames her, in ways that can’t be said of the others, and I don’t think it was truly that he didn’t love her anymore, or that there was no longer anything there....I think he always just said that in order to protect himself, because he was still hurting from everything that had happened back then and how everyone had always painted it as his fault ever since, and his own traumas had only compounded those very specific feelings with later events like Tarantula and her impact on his life, and its just like......I think if it ever came out via someone else re-raising the issue, Dick would be like okay, yes, absolutely let’s finally talk about this....but I totally understand why Dick would never want to re-raise it himself because....he definitely did TRY to express his violation way back when. Why should he be the one to have to essentially.....retry his own case with his friends in order to finally get the verdict he should have had all along, y’know? 

Its one thing to get that its probably never going to happen without initiating it himself, but its another thing for that to get you past the hump of just not wanting to relive some of your worst moments when your best friends not believing in you or being so willing to believe something about you in some ways did just as much damage to you as the actual initial violation.

But again, all that said, I would absolutely like, rob the Louvre (Okay I’d also rob the Louvre just for money but like. You get it) for stories where one of the Titans has an ‘oh shit’ realization about everything with Mirage years later. And they tentatively try and bring it up with Dick in the hopes of ‘fixing things’ by correcting the damage they’d done when making him feel it was his to accept blame on.....and for Dick to just be like. “Yeah, uh, I was there. I figured all that out a long time ago, I just didn’t see the point in trying to convince everybody twice.” And them like....being like oh crap we have to figure out a way to make things right, like all this time we’ve thought things were kinda broken between us because of what Dick did but actually it was the other way around and about Dick’s feelings about what WE did.

Okay now like....don’t laugh but I’m literally still not done, because I had this whole other thing about how now we needed to finally talk about the Zitka in the room, which is that IMO its always been kinda backwards to view Tarantula as the focal point of Dick’s traumas here and what happened with Mirage as some kind of footnote kinda....personally I think it should be the other way around. That its Mirage that weighs on Dick the most because what she did was premeditated where with Catalina it was a crime of opportunity. With Miriam though, it was always going to happen no matter what, because it only happened because she MADE it happen. She like....stalked Dick pretty much from the time of her arrival in this timeline (or at least how that initially was viewed - the timeline thing, not the stalking thing. Forget it. Weird story is weird. Doesn’t matter). But like....Mirage went after Dick with intent. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she was willing to do whatever to make it happen, up to and including kidnapping Dick’s actual girlfriend and taking her place.

With Tarantula, like, she was more than quick to seize on the first opportunity to make it happen, but like...that’s still a different thing IMO from like...KNOWING that someone literally plotted out and premeditated one of the most disruptive traumas of your life without any care for what it would DO to your life, and you later carrying all the blame for that in everyone else’s eyes without anyone ever acknowledging what it did to YOU....even though MULTIPLE people know and its even affected your overall reputation. With Tarantula....I think that trauma absolutely compounded everything else that happened with Blockbuster but it was hardly limited to just that, but again with Mirage....that one specific act pretty much derailed the entire course of Dick’s life at the time. Because again....while you could absolutely claim that there are other issues Dick and Kory might have broken up because of later, even without Mirage’s actions, like....you have to MAKE the case for those reasons. You can’t just attribute their breakup to rushing into marriage, when again....Mirage was the literal catalyst for Dick proposing when he did.

Which again, to bring it all back to the start.....that’s why it will forever make me channel Gar Logan and turn into a green-hued screeching howler monkey every time people are like I absolutely agree that its not okay to blame Dick for his own rape at Mirage’s hands....but then turn around and be like okay, but Dick and Kory did break up because Dick rushed them into marriage before they were ready.

Cuz.

Like.

THEY’RE THE EXACT SAME THING!

The one is just the other but described from a different vantage point.

faslkfhaklfhaklfhkalfha

I get if people didn’t know that before now, but please please please can we like....push back against the misinformation on this particular topic because omggggg is it unpleasant to repeatedly hear people contradict themselves in the same paragraphs half the time because they literally don’t know that they’re talking about the same events in both cases.

Believe it or not, I actually had a lot more about Mirage and about other ways things could have gone differently for Dick and Kory if he’d had even just a little more support from someone else at the time, whether from Bruce or even just one of the Titans, like all it would have taken was just ONE person to try and view things from Dick’s perspective and be like okay everyone hold up, some bad fucking conclusions have been arrived at here.

BUT I am tired and this is long and literally just...whatever. I’ll do that some other time. LOL. And I bounce.

[percabethfeelsfandom]

How I’d rate the Gods/Goddesses(riordanverse)

This is my rating based off the way Rick Riordan portrayed them in the Riordanverse. The traditional myths have been taken into account but do not make up my entire opinion. 

Hestia:

10/10 would give my life for this goddess. In all aspects of the word, this goddess is a goddess. I want a novella of her watching over the hearth and watching out for her family and the heroes. I imagine her being a very comforting presence and warm like a hug, and maybe this is me projecting my mummy issues but I just want her to hug me. 

Dionysus:

A solid 7.35/10 for Mr D. Naturally he was a bit annoying, but we were never under the pretence that he he was meant to be anything more than what he provided and I respect that. Him caring about his kids at camp, and staying relatively loyal to his wife is always a plus. And I like his relatively humble beginnings being a hero and becoming a god and then not causing that much trouble in the series. Unlike some other pieces of shit. 

Hermes:

4/10. Mans had no right blaming Luke’s thirst for mass genocide on 16 year old Annabeth. Not cool man. Not cool. He gets the points he got because he did genuinely care about Maia, and Luke, but he lost the rest of them by having a blatant favourite (who literally caused so much destruction). However I do still like his line about family in sea of monsters and never giving up on them. Nice meaning. But he was still a shitty father and only intervened out of self interest most of the time. 

Aphrodite:

2/10. I hate how low I have to rank her. But my god did Rick do her dirty in his depiction. Just the misogyny, the lack of depth, and the untouched potential she has as a character, as a goddess, THE OLDEST GOD/GODDESS and Rick really made her throw rose petals around the battle fields on one of (what was meant to be) the biggest fights of the riordanverse. Absolute robbery. If I’m not mistaken as well, she was a huge contributor to the issues and obstacles percabeth went through and we do not Stan. HOWEVER, I love her as a goddess normally, and what she could represent if she’s written properly. 

Hephaestus:

8/10. I have no qualms with this man. I too prefer the company of inanimate objects to people and get stressed about social interaction. And I too have mummy issues. So me and Hephaestus are on the same page. Let this man tinker away in his little bunker. He never went out of his way to make things harder for demigods, and was helpful when they came to him for help which I can also respect. (Point deduction because it was on his land that Bianca died…if I’m not mistaken). 

Ares:

-12/10. This man was introduced as a bully, and gives off the vibes of every phobic, known to humanity. I do not vibe. I do not agree. I do not stan. ALSO his motorbike seat is apparently made from "Caucasian human skin”!!!!!!???? We as children never questioned this? We just went sure aight move on?! Please this man has the biggest small dick energy if I ever saw it and I despite him so much. Mans was also never helpful. Ever. I don’t think. I think Mars was better than him though so I’ll give him that. 

Artemis:

9.99/10 all hail queen of the lesbians. Mad respect to this woman. In what she stands for, who she protects and in her actions. She’s what I embody when I stand up for myself in fights and when I speak to have my voice heard. I like Rick’s depiction of her and I love seeing her and her hunters pop up in his books. Would love a couple books on the hunters and their adventures. Also I love archery. And I’m biased to the moon because I love the night so she gets extra points for all of that too. 

Apollo:

Prior to Trials of Apollo 7/10, after TOA 9.90/10. Yes it’s a big jump but my god did Lester grow on me. Prior to TOA he was pretty average. He was funny, always provided a good laugh to the plot and was always helping the demigods which I loved. But I know he’s an asshole full of himself so I can’t give him any higher than that until he had some character development, which we got in TOA (specifically after Burning Maze). And I really like who he is now and the type of character Rick shaped him out to be. In the myths he’s a big creep, and I still stand by that idea, hence why he doesn’t get a full 10. 

Athena:

3.5/10…ughhh I hate to say this. But part of it is the same reasoning I gave about Aphrodite. I just have so many issues with the way she’s portrayed and it’s not accurate to what I believe in my heart she should represent. And as a child of Athena, I feel like Rick then did her entire legacy dirty. She has her moments, but since I can’t even fully recall one right now, it just proves my point. As a goddess as a whole though, what she represents is everything I aspire to be in life. She’s my entire aesthetic of hard work, creativity, and strength and grit, without taking away of being a powerful female. Zeus’ lead strategist like shit, Rick could have done so much. But he did not. And I am thus sad about it. 

Demeter:

6/10. I have no issues with Demeter. Kinda boring. I think that’s what most of the fandom thinks as well. She just didn’t get enough screen time or development. I have no attachment to her. I think the powers that she has, and has passed on to her kids is cool though so there’s that. But in the series as well she doesn’t do much. She also (initially) doesn’t fight in the battle of Manhattan so maybe I’m slightly bitter there. But yeah, i’m indifferent. 

Hades:

8.99/10 Okay so hear me out I know this man gets so much bad rep in the myths and that’s part of why he doesn’t get a full 9. But I really really love the way he’s depicted in the riordanverse, especially with his entire arc with his kids/specially with Nico. Like literally one of my favourite quotes In the entire series is “my children are so rarely happy, I would like to see you be the exception.” Out of the gods listed here (and excluding Dionysus), he acts like a genuine parent to his kids and tries. And like there’s issues, sure, but he works on them. And since so much of the first series is about how the gods are neglectful, seeing him change and seeing him fight for Nico is my everything. 

Poseidon:

7.1/10. Honestly this feels too high considering mans was nearly If not just as bad as Zeus in keeping it in his dam pants. His points come from treating Sally like the queen she is, and trying with Percy (albeit too little too late but I can see the minimal effort). That being said, he’s really shitty in the myths so I can’t really give him anything higher than this. He’s barely a dad, and sees Percy more as an ally than an actual son or human being that needs attention. I like him more in Fanon and the way that I write him lmao because I humanise him. But I won’t lie he’s dilf material, and I still like rick’s depiction of him. 

Hera:

3/10 I’m surprising myself with this rating because tbh I might even push her to 4.5 just because she’s so consistent in her own goals and agenda, and that perseverance is very admirable even if it was at the cost of some of my favourite characters. She was very much two faced though and fucked around stuff that she should have stayed out of. Her hatred for literal children though is a bit problematic. I have no attachment to her but I admire how much she just wants a family. However she just really needs to assess how she approaches that since it’s a bit messed up.  

Zeus:

-5/10 I really don’t Zeus, his character, him in the myths, everything about him. He gives off the vibes of a man who abuses the power that he was given. And I don’t like that. It makes me uncomfortable and I don’t like him at all. His treatment of his children, of the demigods, and the way he governs Olympus. Not a fan. I could rule Olympus better and I’m a mentally unstable, serotonin deficient 20 year old with a hyper fixation on greek mythology and Minecraft. However despite not liking his character, I think Rick does a great job at depicting him accurately to how he was in the myths. 

[postmodernbeing]

Shingeki no Kyojin headcanons: 104th training corps (College AU)

Hello, Postmodernbeing here. This time I wanted to write about things that I actually know, since I’m a college student and I’m studing History and Social Sciences I found myself wondering about what would the 104th training corps focus their studies on if all of them had chosen humanities as their career. I hope you find this funny and at least a bit accurate.

IMPORTANT:  I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin, only these HCs are my own. // Might contain a few spoilers from the manga. // English is not my first language and I study uni at Latin America, so scientifical terms/words/concepts may vary. Anyhow, I thank you for reading and for your patience.

Eren Jaeger

He’s passionate about Military History, not to be confused with history of army. Eren’s rather focused in strategies, weapons and semiotics involved in military speech.

First started with books about great wars in modern era. The use of certain weapons took him by surprise due the technological development.

Then he took classes about discourse analysis, semiotics and such, and felt inspired by the discourse reflected in emblems, uniforms, flags, etc.

Eren doesn’t really have a preference between occidental or oriental, North or South, Modern or Ancient settings. He would simply devour all the books that deal with military strategy and warlike conflicts. Although he has more experience and information about great wars in modern era.

He’s fascinated with the inexhaustible human desire of freedom and the extent that it can reach. This fascination might not be very healthy, he concludes.

Also, finds a cruel beauty in violence when showed in freedom and ideals are protected over one’s own life. But he won’t tell his classmates or professors. He knows is a controversial opinion for he’s still aware the implications of massive conflicts and the abuse of power.

One thing led to another, Eren is now taking classes and reading about philosophy in war and anthropological perspectives about violence through time.

He’s so into social movements besides his main interest in college: “No one’s really free until all humanity is”, that’s his life motto pretty much.

Due his readings and researches he decided it was important to develop a political stance about the world’s problems. Eren strongly believes all lives worth the same, but systems and nations had imposed over others and vulnerated other human's lives.

Yes, Eren is anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

Mikasa Ackerman

Asian Studies Major / History Minor.

She thinks by studying these degrees, she pays honor to her heritage. Specially to her mother. Her family is the proudest for Mikasa is also the best student in her whole generation.

Mikasa received a scholarship thanks to Azumabito family, who are co-founders of an academic institution dedicated to Asian historical and cultural research. She might as well start working when she graduates.

Although she’s passionate about Japan’s history, she has written a few articles and essays about Asian Studies themselves and the importance of preserving but also divulging by means of art and sciences.

In her essays and research work, she likes to employ tools from many disciplines since she strongly believes all humanities and social sciences serve the very same purpose at scrutinize the social reality all the same. Might as well use demographics, ethnology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, archeology, and so on. For it proves to bring light into questions that history by itself could answer unsatisfactorily (in Mikasa’s opinion).

Even her professors wonder how she manages to organize that much information and pull it off successfully. She might as well be more brilliant than a few PhD’s students.

Armin Arlert

Prehistoric studies / Archeology

He’s so into the studies about the prehistoric humans and routes of migration.

Passionate about the ocean and natural wonders since kid, Armin believed his career would be environmentalist or geoscience related.

That was the agreement he had with his grandad since middleschool, until he read Paul Rivet’s “The Origins of the American Man” book and captured him thoroughly. The way the book explained logically the diverse theories about global migration and enlisted the challenges of modern archeology -for there are numerous mysteries- simply devoured his conscience.

He knew from the books he’d read that most evidence of the first settlements are deep under dirt or far away in the ocean whose level has risen over the centuries leaving primitive camps – and answers – unreachable. 

That’s the reason he is so eager to study and give his best to contribute both archeology and history disciplines. Also, he’ll forever love the ocean and nature, just leave him do all the fieldwork, please.

Jean Kirstein

History of industry / Industrial heritage / Historical materialism

Jean first started interested in capitalist industries and production development in first world countries. Kind of rejected other visions and explanations since he’d read about positivism studies.

His interest in such matters started when he was a just boy. He often found himself wondering how things were made and that question captured him ever since. As he grew up, he realized that machines and industrial processes were highly involved in the most mundane objects creation.

Nonetheless, he learnt that not always the best machinery was used, nor the best work conditions were available for mass production. From that moment he’d started to read about the First Industrial Revolution and his mind just took off with questions. Invariably, he learned about labour struggle and the transforming power due workforce.

Between his readings and university classes, he’d knew more about labour movements, unions. And in the theoretical aspect, he'd learned about historical materialism analysis.

One could say that Jean possesses a humanistic vision of the implications in mass production under capitalist system along history and nowadays.

Marco Bodt

Royalty's history / Medieval Studies 

I wanted to keep his canonical fascination to royalty and the best way to do that was including Medieval Studies.

Marco would study since the fall of Roman Empire until the latest gossip of royal families all across Europe.

Might get a bit of Eurocentric with his essays but in real life discussions he’s always open to debates about decolonization. He has even read Frantz Fanon books and possesses a critical thinking about colonial countries and their relations with the so named third world.

Nevertheless, Marco finds a strange beauty in the lives of monarchs and he’s interested in study from their education, hobbies, strategies, relationships, everything.

I’d say that his favorite historical period is probably the establishment of the descendants of the barbarian peoples in the new kingdoms such as the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, Vandals, Huns, Saxons, Angles and Jutes (holy shit, they're a lot).

Because this would transcend as the beginning of his favorite matter of analysis.

Sasha Braus

History of gastronomy, development of cooking, antropology and archeological studies.

Sasha’s interested in the history that shows human development of food and cooking. She finds wonders when she inquires into cultural aspects from the first farming till modern artistic expressions that would involve food.

Such as gastronomy. But her attention got caught in literature’s food representation too, with its symbols and allegories, also in paintings that belong in still life movement, but also Sasha finds interest when food is used as rhetorical devices (for example: the apple in Adam and Eve’s myth).

She’s curious about primitive systems of irrigation, cultivation, food distribution, adaptation of wild species; as well as the domestication of animals, the diversification of the diet and its link with sedentary life, as well as the subsequent division of labor once the need for food was assured in humanity’ first cities.

Sasha’s convinced that alimentation is the pilar of civilization as we know it. For it involves cultural, artistic, economic, emotion and social aspects. Food is a microcosm of analysis of humanity.

Sasha hasn’t a favorite historical period or setting. But she definitely has a special fascination for first civilizations and their link with alimentation. Also, she likes to study the development gastronomy in occident world around different regions, social classes, and time.

Although, let’s be honest, Sasha would devour (lol, couldn’t help it) ANY book about agriculture, cattle raising, cooking or gastronomy. 

Connie Springer

Micro-history / History of everyday life.

Connie loves his hometown, has a deep respect to his family and traditions. That’s why he finds himself wondering about the most ordinary events that developed in his dear Ragako. 

The book “The Cheese and the Worms” by Carlo Ginzburg changed the way he used to understand history and capture him into meaningful discussions about what he learned was called micro-history.

His favorite quote from that book is: “As with language, culture offers to the individual a horizon of latent possibilities—a flexible and invisible cage in which he can exercise his own conditional liberty.”

Once deep into studying the Italian historians and their works, he decided to give it a try, and ever since he’s mesmerized with the mundane vestiges craftsmen that worked in his village left behind.

Connie’s parents are so proud of him and his achivements, but mostly because he became a passionate academic over human and simple matters, (so down to earth our big baby).

His attitude towards his essays and research works truly shows his great heart and humility. Connie is aware that academic works have no use if they are not meant to teach us about ourselves too and current times.

Empathy and hard work, that’s how one could describe the elements that integrate his recently started academic career.

Historia Reiss

Political History / Statistician

Her father’s family pressured Historia since she was a little girl into studying History just like his dad. For he’s a very famous historian that had made important researches and books about the greatest statesmen of Paradis.

She thought in numerous ways that she could sabotage her career or study any other career without her family’s consent and end with her linage of historians. But she ended up enrolling in tuition and so far, she is trying her best in her studies. Historia swears this is the right path for her.

But don’t let the appearances fool you, even thought she studies her father’s career and the very same branch of history’s discipline, she has her own critical sense and she’s so talented on her own, very meticulous with her research papers.

Definitely wants a PhD about women, power and politics. We stand a Gender Studies Queen.

Her complementary disciplines are Political Sciences. Historia also has a talent for philosophy and owns a diary with all her thoughts about them. She hopes one day she would write a book or a manifesto about an innovative methodology for research and teaching History of Politic Thinking.

Ymir 

Religion’s History / Theology

Just like Historia, Ymir was pressured into studying History. And if she’s totally honest, she still has some doubts about it. Even if she couldn’t imagine herself studying anything else.

Anyways, Ymir thought that she could build her career around topics that she enjoys. So, she finally chose theology for unusual reasons.

Her classmates had grown up in religious families or had experience studying the doctrines they practiced. But she, being an agnostic, found satisfaction in unraveling belief systems in different cultures and time periods.

Albeit she studies in Paradis’ University, she currently has the opportunity of taking an academic exchange at Marley’s University. This only made Ymir more conflicted about her future, for she wants to stay (near Historia) but she’s aware that Marley would offer her more academic opportunities for her specialization.

Nowadays she’s working in some collaborative research paper with some people from Mythological Studies from the Literature department. She’s nailing it, writing some historical studies about titans in Greek mythology and its impact in shaping neoclassical poetry. Her brains ugh, love her.

Reiner Braun

Official History / Biographies of heroes and great wars.

His mother convinced him with numerous books about great national heroes, but mostly because she knew that would mean sure job to her son. All political administration in every level requires of an official chronicler. 

When he started his college courses, Reiner felt motivated and he was actually convinced that he had the vocation. But the more he read the less sure he felt that the academic world was for him. He wondered if he made the right choice. If he did it for him or for his mother.

Stories and myths about heroes have always cheered him up. That gave him purpose and consoled him when feeling down. Or at least it was like that when younger. Reiner truly didn’t feel like himself when regretting his choices, but he couldn’t help it for he was changing in more than a way.

That’s why he decided to experiment with other disciplines and with time he would find joy in historical novels. He would analyze them just as good as a litterateur and research about historical context in the written story AND study the artwork’s context itself.

His favorites theorical books are: “Historical Text as Literary Artifact” by Hayden White and Michel de Certeau’ “The Writing of History”.·        

Heroes stories would always accompany him, just differently now.

Bertolt Hoover

History of mentalities / Les Annales

Intimate relationships, basic habits and attitudes. / Culture

Bertie has always been a much reticent and shy guy. As he grew up, he consolidated his sullen personality, but maintained a friendly attitude towards anyone who needed him. That’s why he thought that the priority in his studies was to be at the service of his classmates.

So, although he was passionate about research and was a fan of the French Les Annales current, he considered his mission to be in the Archive. As a cataloger, organizer and curator of ancient documents.

But the ways of History are always mysterious, and Doctor Magath showed him that other way of being was possible. Before Bertolt picked his specialty, he met Theo Magath, a professor who recently had finished writing a book: “The Idea of Death in Liberio’s Ghetto in Marley During its War Against Eldia (Paradis)” (long-ass titles are historians specialty btw). After Magath ended his book’ presentation, Bertolt reached him. They talked for hours and finally, he felt inspired into pursuing his true passion. Magath gifted him “The Historian’s Craft” by Marc Bloch as a way to reminding him his way.

By the time Bertolt took History of Mentalities as optional class, he already had some basic notions about Les Annales, Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, Jacques Le Goff and such. 

Being the gentle giant he is, Bertolt finds joy in reading about different lifestyles in diverse cultures. He constantly wonders about the origin of social constructs and the way they shape thinking as much as identity.

This boy is a wonder, he might not be the best in oral presentations or  extracurricular activities but sure as hell he’ll graduate with honors.

Annie Leonhart

Oral history, about institutions. Particularly, police and justice system in early XXs.

Albeit she got into the same University than Bertolt and Reiner, even shared classes and hopes, Annie regularly felt disconnected from her studies. With time she realized it wasn't due her career itself but rather because of the currents that her professors had suggested her taking. Until now.

Talking with Hitch and Marlow about their doubts concerning subjects and departments it came up the topics of history and present time but also oral history. She’d never heard something like that before. So, that very same week, Annie started searching for information about that.

She ended up with more questions: is it all of this just academic journalism? Or maybe sociology? When we can talk about regular history and when it starts being present time? If she introduces interviews due oral history, then that makes it an interdisciplinary work? Which are the best systems for analyzing data? Definitely, she’ll need help from anthropology and sociology departments if she wants to keep going. 

Contrary to her initial prognostic, philosophy and history of historic writing became her new allies, and the text “Le temps présent et l'historiographie contemporaine” (Present Time and Contemporary Historiography) by Bédarida among others, provided Annie another perspective. 

Regarding her favorite topics, she wouldn’t say that she selected them freely. They were just practical preferences. For institutions own extensive archives and numerous functionaries. One way or another, she ended up tangled in judicial system and police issues.

With new tools and object for studying, one could find Annie having a blast as detective too. Even if her academic essays focus on institutions’ history and configuration, she’s also working in corruption and more. She doesn’t do it because she believes it’s the right thing, but besides, the thrill of the tea is spicy. Although she won’t admit it. 

[stomp-that-ho-regard]

Honestly the biggest problem BY had to overcome wasn't Ashleys absence, it was Ashleys presence. She's just not a very good RPer. It never feels like she's making choices 'as her character', it always feels like she's just doing the first/only thing she can think of, and she often has to be pushed to do even that. She's said in the past that she panics and her brain goes blank, and once you notice that's what's happening you can't stop noticing it. It never feels like her character speaking, it feels like Ashley. "I smell like a crayon" "do you have any Chinese throwing stars" "time is a weird soup" "there is a curse in my family, it's called diabetes" "I ruin people" "I'm learning how to people" "I just think that cleanliness and hygiene is very important" "Jazz is chaos". If you didn't know any better could you really accurately guess which of these lines was Pike/Yasha/Fearne? Probably not. She just says whatever comes to mind first, and it makes her a really unreliable scene partner. She does have some good moments with Yasha, namely "I have so many flowers to bring her" and "finish it champion", because those things actually feel like YASHA, not Ashley. But that's two lines in 141 episodes, so it's no surprise fanon has completely overwritten canon - there wasn't much to overwrite.

I agree. And thinking back, I realize it’s very true. 

For me, Ashley was the only instance where I could never see past her to her character, if you get what I mean?

Like, even when OOC goofing around would happen, once they’d go back to being serious, I could still watch the players and SEE the character in my mind’s eye. I could be looking at Marisha but see Beau, looking at Travis but see Fjord, looking at Laura but see Jester, and so on.

But I always had a hard time achieving that with Ashley and it’s exactly because of the reasons you described. 

The others were able to lose themselves completely inside their characters and it would translate to the viewers, but with Yasha, it never translated because Ashley was always essentially just playing as herself. (And not even a version of herself, just herself lol)

[bookwyrminspiration]

Half of the things that regarding Tam in Kotlc frustrate me honestly. It feels like he’s pushed aside in the series so frequently, and I feel like this really peaked when he was in the Neverseen in Legacy. First off, it kinda rubbed me the wrong way the way that half of the characters were acting like Tam betrayed them? And maybe I just horribly misread the scene in which he was taken to the Neverseen, but I would not say that was a consensual decision, like at all. Gisela basically just said “Hey come with me or I’m making an entire species extinct and killing your sister.” like that’s manipulation that’s not what an honest decision looks like. I just felt so bad for him because he was borderline kidnapped by this awful group and it felt like no one was taking it seriously. Sophie reached out to him once on her own, and then once again when Linh pushes her to. That’s about all she did to try to help Tam for pretty much the entire book, unless I’m forgetting something. It just frustrates me, especially considering how much she did to try to figure out who her parents were during that book. This isn’t a thing against Sophie, it’s just that the things she did during that book kinda make it seem like Sophie being able to get a matchmakers list is more important than Tam being kidnapped. I don’t know, I just feel bad for Tam it always feels like he’s getting the short end of the stick when he seems like he’s one of the characters who would need support the most? I mean, he’s got so much to deal with and half of his scenes just feel like “here’s a scarring situation for you Tam! Now go back home to Linh or something.” Also, the way they described Tam being chained and mind-controlled actually made me sick that’s really horrific. (Also I don’t know where to put this, but characters keep acting like Tam’s super-ultra edgy and I don’t really see it? This is probably just me, but he’s always seemed more like a really stressed out person to me, not necessarily edgy. This might just be because he’s in a stressful situation in like 80% of the scenes he’s in.) I’ll be honest, Tam just kind of feels like a punching-bag character half the time.

tam is one of my favorite characters so i'm looking forward to this one, nonsie

I do feel that Tam's situation was treated very similarly to Keefe's, though there was actually a lot differentiating the two, which makes it feel weird. To summarize, Keefe ran away to the Neverseen, actively making that choice, and Sophie decided to trust him with that decision. She thought it was dumb and that they'd have to rescue him, but it had been his choice. And she coordinated with him, reaching out nightly to see what was going on and to get a sense of how he was doing. She was actively doing what she could to monitor him and balance her other responsibilities

some of this mindset carried over into Tam, while I think he should've been approached differently. because this wasn't his choice. it wasn't coordinated, and he didn't want to be there. he wanted out, and he wanted to be out safely. My mind is linking it to that one conversation with Sophie you mentioned, the one with Linh. Specifically because he told Sophie not to reach out to him, and said "I. LIKE. IT. HERE[...]I'M EVEN MAKING FRIENDS," (Legacy 407). I think this kinda led us to the "Tam wants to be there the way Keefe did" connection that really isn't accurate. he was threatened into joining, and nothing he says after the fact will erase that.

additionally, while Tam was with the Neverseen, Gethen was back and could search his mind, which was why Sophie didn't reach out to him more than twice. it was a risk that could put Tam in direct danger, and he wouldn't know when it was coming and couldn't agree to that risk. so if the two paths of action we're applying to Keefe and tam are to try and physically remove them from the situation or keep tabs on them, since contacting him is off the table, you'd think they'd focus more heavily on trying to get him back. but they...didn't.

I agree with your assessment of her priorities as well. i don't fault her for trying to figure out who her bio parents are or for wanting to explore matchmaking, i'm judging her for her timing. because she's consistently been very motivated by her friends and keeping them safe, it feels a little off that she prioritized matchmaking over Tam's physical safety. i know the love triangle and romantic drama has a lot of draw for some of the younger fandom base, but I feel as though it was prioritized too much and actually betrayed some of Sophie's key values for publicity.

and going back to the "he always draws the short end of the stick," thing, I think you're exactly right. i honestly can't think of any scenes off the top of my head with Tam where he's allowed to just be a teenager and take a break. There's always drama with him, which I think in part comes from the "sarcastic dark aesthetic friend" he's kinda gotten boxed into. he's there to be dry and pessimistic and further the conversation. note: he doesn't actually seem like a dry/dark outlook person as much as a lot of us (myself included sometimes) make him out to be. yes, he uses a lot of sarcasm, but that's not synonymous with dark and edgy.

to me he sounds like..,bitter? and resigned? and just generally annoyed to be there but doesn't want to show it. i don't think that makes sense so let me expand on it. he feels like when one friend of yours has invited you into a group of theirs friends (none of whom you know) and you're just kinda existing in the same space but are slightly uncomfortable and don't know what to do with yourself, but you don't want to let it show and risk offending anyone. you talk and fake your way through it but it feels off and you just don't like it and don't want to be uncomfortable anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if he actually has a lot of anxiety that everyone around him just doesn't pick up on

his life changed drastically very quickly and he doesn't have a lot of friends. sure, there's the group, but they're not friends in that way. tell me, can you think of one person Tam would tell his worries or fears to? I can't. the most obvious might be linh, but I don't believe he'd tell her, because he'd want to protect her instead of burdening her with his worries. I think he's tied to her a lot and seen as a package deal in a lot of canon--and frequently in fanon--so it can be hard to separate them at times,

I might be jumping around a little, but back to the chains. those are incredibly fucked up, and I don't think they're given the appropriate emotional response they deserved. this is a teenager who has been physically chained for all hours of the day, for weeks. and he's just living with it, knowing he can't take them off. and when Sophie learns and tells Mr. Forkle, his response is that he's never heard of something like that before and would need to research it. Like?? excuse me?? one of the minors you let swear fealty to your organization is literally chained and you're 1. not trying to get him back 2. just saying you need to research it.

that's another thing! everything I remember (and I might be forgetting something) is the teenagers talking about Tam being missing and how they need a plan and want him back. But there are several adults in his life now who could step forward to take that responsibility. Tiergan. Mr. Forkle, Squall, the bodyguards, any dwarves working with the Black Swan, etc. You know, these adults with loads more resources and people at their disposal. they could do something, organize something, make an effort. A child was kidnapped and it feels like they went "wow that sucks. hope we get him back. anyways--" idk. that's just something that's bothered me.

he just keeps getting hurt again and again. it's like that's all we focus on with his character, him being sarcastic and dark in stressful situations and not him just existing. we see him fighting with his parents, fighting with the neverseen, being teased and singled out when he's around Keefe, like can he catch a break? can we just let him smile for once?

I, for one, think he deserves to be more than just a punching bag, nonsie

[hopeswriting]

I meant to do a post about my thoughts on the Daily Life Arc now that I finished rereading it, but I can't seem to find the time and it's been a while now, and if I keep it up I'll forget what my thoughts are to begin with lol, so here's the long story short:

I know it's a long arc, as in it starts being boring and more or less unbearable past some point, because the "gag of the chapter" format only takes you so far, and not actually very far if Amano's humor doesn't work on you much, if at all. I don't think it's an arc you can reread right away/soon either, lest you feel that one flaw even faster.

And I felt it too, starting with the fourty-something chapters I felt like it was dragging on too much, though to be fair that probably had to do too with the fact I knew things much more interesting were coming after that.

Still, all that said, like, it's an enjoyable arc. Amano's humor happens to work on me, and she does it really well, and I liked reading the arc. There are some chapters where you're really asking yourself why they were written for lol, but even then you read it for the characters, and it somehow keeps you going.

And like, even though I think Amano could have seen the fact the comedy was going to turn repetitive and thus boring at some point, and try to diversify it or something, it's just how comedy/humor/gags works? Some jokes land and some doesn't, but for me at least a lot more of them worked than not.

The DLA is a good enough arc is what I'm saying.

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On than note and on the contrary, of course it's fine if you think it's a bad arc, to each their opinion, but personally I really don't agree it's an unnecessary one.

I'm saying this because apparently it's not uncommon to advice new fans to skip the arc and directly start with the Kokuyo one? (Or so I learned on TV Tropes anyway, this might or might not be still relevent/accurate.)

Now don't get me wrong, the DLA does fail to hook the readers to the story for the reasons stated above, I agree with that, but it literally introduces the main character? And all the other characters, and gets us to know them, and establishes the dynamics between them and why they're the way they are, and, though only in a more or less superficial manner (and more than less) by design of the arc's purpose (not being deep in any way lol), it still gives us an insight into the characters and why they're the way they are. A glimpse into the core of their personality, the "stakes" of their characters, the flaws they have to overcome.

And all that in the context of their daily life, so if you skip it to go directly to the arc that challenges them, you can't appreciate fully how they rise to the challenge, how it shows their growth or reasserts their core values. You can't know how much or what it means, for example, off the top of my head, to have Yamamoto sacrifice his arm to beat Ken, when only a year ago he tried to kill himself over his broken arm. Or Hibari losing against Mukuro, thus telling us how much of a real threat he was. Or Tsuna screaming at Lancia for having hurt his friends, anger on his face, clearly despite himself, that Dame-Tsuna.

All these just wouldn't hit you the same, and it'd be such a shame? I mean I guess the ones who start with the Kokuyo arc go back to read the DLA, or you could compromise like the anime did by splitting the DLA between more serious arcs, but like I said I personally don't find the DLA that bad, so I still wouldn't advice it lol.

Even if, I suppose, it'd mean they might give up on the manga somewhere through the DLA, but like? Some mangas just don't speak to you, and that's fine, and it'd be a little of a shame from my POV as a KHR fan, but still, no big deal.

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I'm still very impressed with how smoothly Amano went from a gag manga to a shonen one, and how she made it so the DLA still fits with the rest. I mean the sudden change in tone/stakes/etc is jarring, sure, but it's all based on stuff she introduced in the DLA, which she presumably came up with with no intention to ever make it something deeper/more meaningful.

It's easy to believe the foreshadowing, and generally speaking the worldbuilding was planned all along, which, again, probably not, and like? Super impressive.

(Though once more don't get me wrong, there are inconsistencies/plot holes in Amano's plotlines and worldbuilding, but not, like, at their seams, if I can say it like that? It's more often in the details, and it's fairly easy to fill in the blanks ourselves.)

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Finally it was a lot of fun to rediscover the characters in a new light, and a bit of a disbelieving surprise tbh.

For context before I started my reread of the manga, all this time I was going with the time I read/watched it years ago plus the times I skimmed it, but mostly by all the fanon I was consuming. And it's not to say fanon is wrong per se, but it latched on one to three character's traits, or slapped an easy character archetype on them easy to "relate" to within, and apparently never looked back lol. And also often dialed up those traits (good or bad) in a very noticeable manner.

What I'm saying is, fanon is, in fact, wrong sometimes zldnslsz, and the characters are much more nuanced even in the DLA! (Which still leaves us at a more or less superficial level, because, you know lol, but still!)

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To name the ones that stood out to me the most:

Nana isn't abused by Iemitsu, nor is she unhappy in her marriage despite Iemitsu being an absent husband (which is not relevent in the context of the DLA, but still, you can tell). She isn't an abusive mother to Tsuna either, and she is literally never an airhead. She literally just isn't, she actually does react very normally to the crazy Reborn brings with him, but much like Yamamoto as long as no one gets hurt (or walks it off), she just brushes it off.

And she has friends she goes listen to piano recitals with, and tries to save on money by eating rests, and gets in two-way arguments with Tsuna, and raises his allowance if he gets better grades to push him to work harder, and all around is just your average mom that really didn't read as just The Mom, if you know what I mean.

She has her flaws, definitely, she's not a great mom, namely is apparently used to call Tsuna Dame-Tsuna, but she's not just that.

She takes care of him, worries over him, and seems to be the only one who hasn't given up on him yet when the story starts. She supports him (though sometimes in a tactless to hurtful way), praises him when he does well, and trusts him to watch over the kids.

She's not that bad is what I'm saying, and 100% redeemable (that is, if you think she needs to be redeemed to begin with, which I actually do think she does, calling Tsuna Dame of all things is just a really shitty thing to do.)

(Though it's interesting to note that she doesn't do it again after what happened with Kyoko iirc, even if she might very well still talk to him in a belittling way at times. I just wish Amano would have commit fully to acknowledge it and resolve it, what with already having made it Kyoko's Dying Will Regret.)

(Edit: I had forgotten but she literally forgets his birthday while preparing someone else's birthday, so I take back that she is 100% redeemable because it's being too nice. But my point still stands.)

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Haru is literally such a fun character, it makes me even more sad now to know what Amano did with her (nothing ansknslq 😭😂).

She's unhinged, has zero impulse control, does not reflect on the consequences of her lack of impulse control as Tsuna points it out, is ready and willing to throw hands at any given moment and is unapologetic of it, and is the one Amano actually calls an airhead.

The only problem she had with the mafia is that she thought Tsuna was forcing it on Reborn, and when she confirmed it was all true she literally didn't even blink at it, and immediately called herself the future Decimo's wife djosdkkd.

On that note she is literally mafia right from her first appearance, is more or less involved in almost all the mafia shenanigans, was right there with Tsuna & Co when they went to destroy the Tomaso's headquarters.

And like?? Amano could just have left it at that if she wasn't going to do anything else/more with it. Haru had so much potential, and not only Amano did nothing with it, she actually watered her down and took away all her distinct character's traits 😭.

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Hibari is so much more feral and playful than his fanon cool, overpowered, quiet badass counterpart. Which I love too, don't get me wrong, but these two sides of him don't have to be exclusive!

He talks and smiles and jokes often, and shows off and casually insults you, and licks the blood away from his lips after having beaten bloody other middle schoolers who dared to defy him (I know this happens in the Kokuyo arc, but it illustrates my point the best).

Not much more to add than that, we should just acknowledge that and put it in our works more often.

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Gokudera is a compelling character from the get go, and as far as the DLA goes, he's the most compelling character second to Tsuna. He's the only one to actually have flashbacks and a backstory. And what stood out to me the most that I don't see often in fanon, is that he's really a good friend.

Yes he has a short fuse and snaps easily and is easy to anger, but he's not always angry. And is seen having and being capable of positive exchanges outside of Tsuna (I'm thinking Yamamoto namely, who's made with Ryohei to be the one he gets angry with the most).

And yes he holds Tsuna on a pedestal and sees him through heavily tinted pink glasses, but even through that he's earnestly a good friend. And tries his best, and is hardworking and overachieving, so much so he messes up without meaning to, but he only ever has honest, straight-forward good intentions behind it all (well, maybe not always lol).

I love him a lot more now is what I'm saying.

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And Tsuna. I'm not sure I'll be able to articulate my thoughts properly, but like... he's just your average teenager. Which of course is his whole thing, and I'm saying it in a very not judgy way whatsoever, but he's often made to be at least a little more than that, namely about his bullying.

Like, it's kind of dramatised in fics? And I'm not going to elaborate on that more because it might come out wrong and I don't want that, but it's just, like—canonically he is just bullied, simple as that. Like many other teenagers are.

And it's all in a "chill" way (for unfortunate lack of a better word, I don't mean to trivialize bullying at all, it's wrong and unfair and never deserved or okay, just so we're clear), and by the time the story starts Tsuna is used to it and has given up fighting against it, and actually finds refuge and a twisted comfort in embracing his Dame-Tsuna's monicker, because at least he's not gonna hit rock bottom deeper than that if he does.

And I'm not actually going anywhere with this, it's just? It hit me how differently canon and fanon portray his bullying.

Back on the note of him being a (below) average teenager, Tsuna is not an uwu pure cinnamon roll too good for this world.

He's literally so quick to judge and criticise, whether in his head or out loud when he knows more the person (namely Haru lol, poor girl), it was actually a bit of a shock tbh lol. He snaps easily, and is lazy, does not want to try even one bit, and is happy to run away from his responsibilities whenever he can.

And not only I'm not saying that in a judgy way this time either, but I'm actually saying it in a good way. He really felt like your average middle schooler, and it was so refreshing to see. That, plus the fact the narrative never holds it against him, let alone punishes him for it even if he's made to grow out of these traits, and it's literally part of his character arc, is kind of unique for the shonen genre (maybe, I'm not exactly a specialist of shonen mangas lol).

And I can see why you'd want to change it in fics, but personally I think it really makes his character's arc even more meaningful.

[espressocomfort]

How I translate elvhen

In my post-modern character in Thedas fic Coiling Time, the time travelling protagonist Malika understands every language spoken or written. In a fantasy world, that’s quite handy, don’t you think?

The obvious downside — When Malika is present in canon scenes from Dragon Age: Inquisition, some of the dialogue is in untranslated conlangs — namely, qunlat and elvhen. I’m not complaining about the presence of languages we’re not supposed to understand; in the context of the games, it makes for an interesting tension that the character (and player) isn’t able to understand every single word around them. However, due to the magic of her time travelling apparatus, Malika is supposed to be able to parse the meaning out of these overheard conversations — which I, as a fanfic writer from Earth, do not. Cheesecake, it would seem I shot myself in the foot.

However, as I see it, untranslated passages of canon are an opportunity to surprise your canon-savvy readers through either decoding that which hasn’t been decoded before, or through imbuing it with new meanings and nuance to suit your needs. Elvhen, especially, is a wonderful conlang in that most words carry many meanings and possible interpretations.

Since I got through this process, and no readers have complained about my unauthorized translations, I thought I’d share how I did it. As an example, I’ll use the dialogue with the spirit guards we meet on one of the towers overlooking the fortress of Fen’Harel in the Dragon Age: Inquisition Trespasser DLC. These are sentences that, even if an Inquisitor drank from the Well of Sorrows, they do not understand — but my poor Malika had to know what the phantom elvhen says. So let’s take a look.

The goal here is to come not up with a translation that is accurate, but one that works for your story. As a caveat, this process goes against pretty much every single linguistics methodology I have ever heard of, and I don’t mean that in a good way. The first step already abandons a lot of what would be considered really important data.

Starting point: get the words down on paper

The first step for me is to get down whatever the subtitling of the scene says. A game writer friend at another AAA studio shared that the subtitling is usually the writing, as done by the actual writers of the game - it’s oftentimes easier that way to keep them in order, it prepares them for localization and recording, and they can be used to automate mouth movements, even. The reason I start by getting the subtitles, is that the actor speaking the lines? Barring some fantastical machinations, they’re not fluent in elvhen, and it’s also rather unlikely that the writer of the line was present during recording (been there as well). But do make a note of what the inflection is. It might also not quite hit the mark every time, but it can serve as a baseline of what the mood of the line is.

So, at this point we have the following two lines from the spirit guard:

Atish’all vallem, Fen’Harel elathadra.

Nuvenas mana helanin, dirth bellasa ma.

A branching outcome - depending on whether the Inquisitor took the Well:

(Well of Sorrows - good outcome)

Inquisitor: Ar-melana dirthavaren, Revas vir-anaris.

Guard: Amae lethalas.

(No well of Sorrows - bad outcome)

Guard: Virthar ma. Na din’an sahlin!

Screenshots are useful at this stage.

Compare to canon and fanon

Next up, I’ll scour Project Elvhen (P.E.) and the Fandom wiki to find a rough translation for most of the lines and copy it into my document. I’ll pick out any words that kind of make sense as being parts of the translation.

Project Elvhen is an absolutely amazing resource, in that it both collects canon translations and speculative ones (fanon), as well as delves into the grammar of this made up language. However… Based on BioWare Q&A streams (and my own experience with localization management) elvhen isn’t complete nor is it always spelled consistently in the games (if I remember correctly, Twitter discussions suggest that, for instance, apostrophes are sometimes left out). Rumor has it BioWare has its own internal Wiki for keeping track of things and another of sorts to keep track of their conlangs, but that doesn’t guarantee they’re always grammatically consistent.

Of course it’s also possible that some words, especially barks, would just be gibberish, but I still recommend assuming there is an intended meaning and canon translation of eah line, and trying to decipher enough of it to have a rough idea of what the writers might have intended. It also helps to think of how the line is used. Is it a greeting? An insult?  A command?

Amae lethalas.

Ama would be used when talking about protecting your daughter.

lethal n. kin, or family, specifically very close kin or family.


as - plural? innumerable?
(protect + family) (spec.)

Conclusion: (protect + family + many)

Virthar ma!

vir (a way path, route, or road)

tharia (wheel)

Ma pron. sb. sg. You

Conclusion: (a way + wheel (?) + you)

Na din’an sahlin!

na (you)

Din adj. adv. n. death, dead, no

an n. place

sahl'in adv. n. now, in this moment, currently

Conclusion: (you + death + place + now)

... ‘A way wheel you?’ Not to be too critical, but ‘You death place now’ doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, does it?

Context, to con through text

So, I have a rough translation of individual words. Now it’s time to do the dirty work. At this stage, I start looking at what I want the conversation to say, in the context of my story, and start adjusting the sentences. Nudging, if you will. Choose which option of the different meanings makes most sense.

After finding the rough words that could be some kind of match:

Atish’all vallem, Fen’Harel elathadra. (atish + alin + vallas, Fen’Harel + ela + unknown) (peace + stranger + writing, marking, Fen’Harel + be able to + unknown)

I make myself some options, twisting and turning the words:

Atish’all vallem, Fen’Harel elathadra.

Peace, stranger with the mark of Fen’Harel’s permission.

Peace, marked stranger. Do you have Fen’Harel’s permission?

Hello, marked stranger. Fen’Harel has given you the ability to enter.

Nuvenas mana helanin, dirth bellasa ma.

Unless you desire to fight indefinitely, say many permission you

Unless you desire a lengthy struggle, say the passphrase

I am half convinced this exchange is an inside joke of a log in process, asking for your username and password. It would be a very BioWare thing to do.

Ar-melana dirthavaren, Revas vir-anaris. (I + time + speak disappeared/promise, Freedom + path + countless years)

I promise my years, for the freedom of countless years ahead

I promise my years, for a path to freedom in the countless years ahead.

With this one, I’ve seen speculation that anaris would refer to one of the Forgotten Ones (Anaris), but, that doesn’t make much sense to me in context. It’s also not a capitalized word. So, I went with the assumption that anaris is an alternative spelling of annaris.

Based on how the other lines shaped up, the ending lines that made most sense to me were:

Amae lethalas.

Protect the people.

Virthar ma. Na din’an sahlin!

Have it your way. Die here and now.

And here’s how it looks in context with my final translations:

“Peace, marked stranger. Fen’Harel has given you permission to enter,” the leader speaks.   “Wait”, Lavellan says. “Is this... necromancy, Dorian?” “Not quite. It would seem the elves bound a spirit here. It feels… old. Very old.” “What does it want?” Lavellan asks. The spirit looks at her. “Unless you desire a lengthy struggle, say the passphrase.” “That’s elvhen, right?” Sera huffs. “Do your pool whisper thing, yeah?” “You... understand what he said?” I ask Lavellan. “Sort of. I never learnt fluent elvhen... but I can sort of feel the meaning, through the Well of Sorrows,” she says, taking another step. “And I think I know which words to say.” Lavellan looks back at us, but her eyes seem distant. She clears her throat. “I promise my years, for a path to freedom in the countless years ahead,” she says, but her voice sounds distorted, as if someone else was speaking the words along with her. “Protect the people,” the spirit replies, bowing his head, stepping aside. “Protect the people,” Lavellan agrees, as she walks past him and his archers.

In conclusion: the author is dead, go wild

We went through the process! 

Now, are these correct translations? No. Probably not. Maybe. Could be. But, more importantly, if they fit and don’t seem wildly out of place, who cares?

The purpose of my translations here isn’t to theory craft for DA4, or go on a deep dive into lore. The purpose isn’t to reveal new nooks of canon to prove my Fan Cred™️ to my readers. No.

They serve their one purpose, which is to support the story I want to tell with my fanfic. For instance, my translation of the secret greeting of the agents of Fen’Harel contains a promise, a pledge. That’s not necessarily correct, but for how this scene appears in Coiling Time, it’s crucial, since it makes this scene a source of information about the willingness of the elvhen to give up their immortality — their years — for the cause — freedom in the countless years ahead. It also makes for a plot point further ahead; Malika really does not want to repeat this phrase, since promises uttered by her are binding.

Similarly, I went with 'Protect the people’ for Amae lethalas, instead of Protect our kind, or Protect our family, which may be slightly more in line with canon — but that would fit the story poorly, so I threw that out. I didn’t want to put the reader on the path of considering Fen’Harel’s bloodline, for instance. All in all, I’m alright with what I came up with; it’s not perfect, but, hopefully, it gets that it needs done.

Another I wanted to be careful with was the tone of the English translation here; is it formal, is it familial. For the guard, I went with a bit of a robotic delivery, since in the way I imagine Coiling Time, the pre-Fade spirits — such as the Archivist — operate similarly to VI in Mass Effect.

Anyway, since I went through the trouble of doing this, I wanted to share some phrases:

Atish’all vallem, Fen’Harel elathadra. Peace, marked stranger. Fen’Harel has given you permission to enter.

Nuvenas mana helanin, dirth bellasa ma. Unless you desire a lengthy struggle, say the passphrase.

Ar-melana dirthavaren, Revas vir-anaris. I promise my years, for a path to Freedom in the countless years ahead

Amae lethalas. Protect the people

Virthar ma. Na din’an sahlin! Have it your way. Die here and now.

And for a bonus, a Librarian line as well:

Delltash! Seran Viar Malas Shivera Mellavar! Keep quiet! Return the loans that are long overdue!

I hope you find this useful. Again, the goal here isn’t to find the ultimate translation, but to lead the reader onto your path.

[shingia]

heya can i req kiyoomi with a reader whos also a germophobe? im not as,, intense as fanon omi but yeah lol thank you!!!!

𝐒𝐀𝐊𝐔𝐒𝐀 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀 𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐁𝐄 𝐒/𝐎

hii, you sure can ! i actually am part of a family of germophobes so i tried to base most of these on my personal experiences, hopefully it’s accurate :)

• he tried to tone it down when he first met you, because he had been told that it could be disconcerting

• little did he know that you were also trying to tone it down. and it took the both of you about two weeks to realize that you were actually very alike

• it created some kind of special bond between you two, because you had finally found someone who understood how you were feeling

• so it was pretty obvious that you two would start dating, precisely because you feel so comfortable around each other

• when he’s feeling overwhelmed by the amount of germs at a social gathering, he stays by your side like a lost puppy because he knows that you won’t do anything triggering for him

• and also because he thinks that maybe you feel comforted by his presence, it’s a mutual support really

• i’m a firm believer that sakusa’s love language is acts of services : he always remembers to check if you still have enough hand sanitizer in your bag, and if you don’t then he’ll go to the store and buy one (or five) that he knows you’ll like the smell of

• and obviously : matching hand sanitizers <33

• when he comes over after a long day he always vents about how the people he has been with were awfully gross and unhygienic, he knows that you’re the only person who won’t tell him that he’s being dramatic

• but you probably needs to talk some sense into him from time to time, and he actually listens to you because you know what you’re talking about, unlike other people who just tell him to « relax » or that « it’s not a big deal »

• winters are actually pretty hectic for the both of you. because as much as you love each other, the fear of winter viruses is stronger than the urge of cuddling so you’re basically just avoiding the other if they’re sick

• unless it’s something more serious and the other really can’t take care of themselves, i mean, you still have empathy

• sakusa is a bit more extreme than you and he insists on eating at different times, or in different places than you. he kinda feels bad for that but he can’t help it and really hopes you understand

• bUT as soon as you’re feeling better he’s more than happy to make up for lost time (he was tired of sleeping on the couch tbh) - so expect a surprising amount of cuddles, maybe even pda if you’ve been sick for a long time

🏷 taglist : @toworuu @catwithangerissues @miyumiya @livy384 @k0u-minamo2 @fullsundear @hsjvwq @boo-marie  @hiraeth-z @velvetvirgos

click here to be added to the taglist <3

[hajimeow-archived]

Yo Hajime talk abt ur kin mems

since there were no specifications on which ones i am going to start from the beginning and go where my brain takes me from there. they're all gonna be for hajime bc i physically cannot think about my other memories anymore jsyk

also! this ended up being so long i had to put a cut. i will not be apologizing because i feel no remorse.

so first the basic stuff, i remember having a med skin tone and a FUCK ton of freckles like those motherfuckers were everywhere i had skin. also i was 5'7 i think?? or 5'6. i still can't remember exactly but it's something like that. i was also alloaro, some form of mlm, unfortunately cis, and autistic and probably had some other stuff like adhd or depression or whatever but i forgot. also i was kinda muscle-y but also chubby at the same time. and i had light green eyes. basically i was fanon hajime JSJSKDJDKS

and i was going over the wiki recently and my personality was EXACTLY how they described it like i'm genuinely surprised they got it so accurate

i don't remember much pre-game and post game, most of my memories are in game but i do remember pre game chiaki really well, honestly i rly miss her :( she would always reassure me that i didn't need a talent and i never even cared when she beat me in games cus just simply playing them with her was so fun .,.,,;:,,...,,!:&:&:jsjdjskskck</3

anyways. in game. ok. i'm gonna skip over memories where i just know feelings and not specific things like strong feelings or ppl saying stuff or else this would be so long. also obvious sdr2 spoilers

so i remember the party & blackout in the beginning of the game pretty clearly. i was mostly just standing alone in the corner and watching everyone have fun, but it was really freeing to see the others able to enjoy themselves in such pressing circumstances. then the blackout-- it was kinda like all that happiness going away and the dread and denial immediately setting in .

anyways i remember like panicking and wanting to cry when i lifted the table cloth cus i really liked twogami. i'm p sure i did end up crying cus i really liked them for their realism and leadership skills, and the realization that one of us killed them and that the killing game was actually real etc etc

anyway i don't remember much from the investigation or trial besides being really freaked out when nagito basically admitted to being the killer n stuff, and pretty much all the body discoveries after that (besides ch 5) we're just like "ah shit here we go again" but i do remember mikans trial really freaking me out when she just straight up shifted completely, and i also remember being really proud of fuyuhiko for putting his walls down a bit and deciding to help everyone out while the despair disease was going around

anyway enough of the boring stuff, i spent basically all my free time with komaeda, chiaki and mikan (in order of frequency) and with mikan i mostly listened to her talk about medical stuff and i comforted her when she needed to vent, but i didn't hang out with her much because the constant apologizing n stuff started to bother me since i really liked seeing her happy. chiaki i would mostly play games with and we wouldn't talk much, but she gave me a really strong sense of familiarity like when we played games together it gave me a shit ton of deja vu

AND i've already talked a lot about komaeda but idc i'm doing it again. so we started talking cus of him waking me up on the beach obvs and i was pretty attached right off the bat, but i stopped talking to him for awhile because the way he acted in the first trial REALLY scared me so i just got a pit in my stomach even being around him

but he was the one who started approaching me first, i'm guessing since he couldn't rly sense anything was wrong he just kinda picked things up where they left off and started talking w me at breakfast n stuff and it was pretty weird at first, but i wanted to give him a chance and didn't wanna be rude so i accepted offers to hang out in his cottage n stuff

i remember he has surgery scars tho and i'm rly mad ppl don't draw him with any!! i think he had about 5 and i don't remember all of them but i know one was a skin graft on his leg and the one on his side/stomach that i touched wassssss for appendix removal maybe???? mmmm i'm not too sure about that one tho

also !!!! his death. hoooooly shit. ok so yunno the despair that junko always talks about ?????? yeah <3!! i remember like once i saw his body and took the reality in i just. straight up could NOT stand i like fell to my knees and jsut . cried. like i had no thoughts my head was so full that it was empty i just kinda sat there and silent cried while chiaki stood next to me it was so awful dude

later while investigating n stuff i felt really bad ab how i treated him and thought about him, and i thought a lot about our last interaction. it was the first time i had ever approached him myself cus usually he'd come to me. i was gonna hang out with chiaki but i wanted to check up on him first, so i did and he told me to go hang out with the others and i just. knew something terrible was about to happen.

OH AND THE FUNHOUSE OMG ok i literally. i usually didn't mind being around komaeda like he was chill most of the time when he wasn't ranting about hope but when he was acting like such a bitch in the funhouse i wanted to punch his stupid twink ass so bad like...... what BUSINESS does this dude have being such an asshole. he doesn't even know what face wash is. what the fuck. which is another fun fact! komaeda did shower every so often which is why he didn't smell that bad but his skin was always so dry cus he didn't know how to actually wash right and do proper skincare so he just washed his face w soap and left it like that

also he didn't need to cut his nails cus they were so brittle they would just break off on their own <3 plus he had a nail biting habit so they just never grew ever

OH AND THIS IS THE SADDEST THING i remember feeling so bad for this man bc i would like put my hand on his shoulder and he would lean into it. i mean i'd tap his shoulder for a SECOND and girl when i let go hed be lowkey so sad i could just sense it like??????dude he needed a hug SSO BAD like when i hugged him in my cuddling memory he was like holding on for dear life but also was like "u dOnT hAvE tO tOuCh TrAsH LiKe mE hAjImE" like dude it was the saddest shit. i want to hug him forever. like what the fuck what the fuck!!!!!!!!!

also a thing hed do when he started ranting ab hope n shit like he would just go on and on and yunno that one sprite where he's hugging himself yeah he literally did that shit. also sometimes hed just stare dead at me and start backing me into a corner ((ish-- we were usually sitting somewhere but he mostly just got super close to me) and it was the scariest shit i. bro if i saw him like that on the streets i'd return him to the mental hospital like i can remember it somewhat vividly and that shit was TERRIFYING i mean obvs after i shoved him away and told him to cool it he'd apologize and go back to the way he was but jeez dude ....

also a little fun fact the only reason i really kept hanging out with him (i had a few ofc but this was the most prominent) is cus he was hot in my stupid monkey brain. yes that's it. like that's literally pretty much it. i hate admitting it but this post is SO fucking long i doubt anyone's gonna read it anyway so i'm admitting it now lol

anyway i hope u enjoyed :) i'm glad u asked btw! i'm sure you regret it though!

[theniceandaccurategoodomensblog]

So, I find the popular fanon concept of a faithful (ed: as in maintaining faith in God) Crowley a bit disturbing. Like I don’t just disagree with the interpretation, it makes me feel uncomfortable. So, this is my attempt to walk through not just why I think it isn’t accurate but why it makes me uncomfortable.

Firstly though— you are all welcome you your own interpretations including not just interpretations that I disagree with but ones that make me personally feel uncomfortable. This isn’t a call out post. You do you.

So— when it comes to religious faith there are two kinds, both are important and they can be conflated:

(1) belief that God exists

(2) faith in God as in trust in God

For Crowley (and indeed, Aziraphale) the first is irrelevant. They know God exists. But (2) still matters. Good Omens is full of signs that Crowley lacks (2)— he fell for questioning, he sinks in the water entering the offices, he says that Aziraphale is being stupid for thinking that the Almighty will fix everything. The talking to God scene, which is often referenced as evidence of his faith, actually proves a lack of (2) faith IMHO because he is saying to God that he doesn’t believe in the Great Plan (yeah it shows he thinks God exists, but that isn’t relevant— he knows God exists).

Alright, so much for why I think a faithful Crowley is not accurate. Why does it make me feel uncomfortable? Well, I’m an athiest myself and not just the kind of athiest who lacks (1) but the kind of atheist who lacks (2) as well. I’m the kind of athiest who, if I die and discover I’m wrong, there is a God after all, will immediately badger God with a long list of questions. And here’s the thing: the questions that I will ask will be exactly the kinds of questions that Crowley asks in Good Omens. Like, seriously, I think: why the fuck do you kill kids? is a real contender for the most commonly asked question by athiests at the point of death and (surprise!) meeting God.

Crowley mirrors my own thoughts and feelings so perfectly it is like some of the lines are plucked right out of me. And it is out and out said that he fell for questioning. It is uncanny. To me, it seems quite obvious that Crowley is the angelic equivalent of a faithless human. Crowley is the angelic equivalent of a human athiest, the kind of human athiest, who doesn’t believe because they reason that any God who exists must be too cruel to be worth worshipping.

That is absolutely brilliant and aweome. Why? Because if us athiests are wrong we go to Hell. That’s the standard Christian doctrine. Yet— where else can you find us represented amongst the demons? Of course there should be demons who fell for simply lacking faith. Humans go to Hell for it all the time! Absolute genius of the highest order.

Now— if we jump out of Good Omens and consider the authors, the fact that Crowley’s views mirror athiest opinions so well makes all the sense in the world because Terry Pratchett was an athiest. Not just an athiest but an athiest who thought that the God of the Bible was cruel and not worth following even if they existed. So, a lot of Crowley’s thoughts, a lot of those lines that ring so true for me personally, are coming from Terry Pratchett’s own view of the world. I think Terry very much used Crowley as his mouthpiece in Good Omens.

So, here’s why a faithful Crowley interpretation is disturbing for me, I think: it feels like an erasure, not just of what, to me, is Crowley’s true position in the show or the book, but Terry’s views as one of the authors. Athiests are erased like that a lot. In fact, it even happened to Terry himself with news reports that he had found God following his Alzheimer’s diagnosis and here’s how he responded:

There’s also a kind of athiests = the ultimate evil in there too. Like, a literal demon is alright. Can do that. But a faithless demon? Oh whoa. Lacking faith— that’s the worst. Again, we athiests get that in real life. Seriously, there are people who’ve looked at me with such terror when I’ve said I’m an athiest I wonder if somehow the words got jumbled in the air and turned into “I kill babies and bathe in their blood”.

Finally, the thing I really love about Good Omens is to me it has a faithful and a faithless solution, represented by Aziraphale and Crowley respectively. Crowley, in my view, never gains faith in God and Aziraphale never loses it (he learns to let go of a misplaced faith in Heaven but I think maintains faith in God until the end). I would never squish Aziraphale into a faithless Aziraphale cause that’s more like me, I love him as he is. And I love the two solution end of Good Omens, I love that it can be read in both ways. A faithful Crowley destroys that.

[migleefulmoments]

lmao Abby is losing her shit because Darren is gonna be singing White Christmas with Lea on her new Christmas album. Apparently that song is "sacred" and can only be sang by Darren and Chris. She seriously needs to get a grip.

Anonymous said: "I can be upset, I think it is a complete slap in the face. there are like 3000 christmas songs, there are THREE that are sacred.   And yes, D should have sad no." Oh look Abby doesn't approve of something Darren is doing AGAIN. Seriously she claims to be his biggest fan but yet complains about everything he does.

Man, I didn’t see this coming. I’m amazed at how deeply emotional they are about a scripted, tv-show couple and a really old song! I might understand  if Abby was a lesbian teenager and this was 2011. It was empowering for gay, lesbian and bisexual kids and young adults to turn on network tv and see people that looked liked them. But times they have a changed. Klaine and Brittana pushed boundaries, but in 2019 there are LGBTQ characters on many shows, Netflix has LGBTQ programing and Ryan Murphy continues to create shows that specifically tell LGBTQ stories-ie Pose and he has created LGBTQ characters for all of his shows because that’s life. He’s continues to normalize LGBTQ characters on his shows: 911 has a main character who is a married lesbian, The Politician has gay characters and its been reported that Rock Hudson will be a character in Hollywood. 

So here we are in 2019 and Abby is devastated that the sacred White Christmas will be covered by Darren and Lea on her new Christmas album. First off, why is the song sacred? Abby mentioned the “Bryant Park riot”-a riot we know never happened. The people “holding the fandom together” were not in the cc fandom when Chris and Darren filmed in Bryant Park. Their “memories” of that day have all been created by watching a few moments of the 11-hour day. I’ve come to realize that the cc theory is built on slowed-down gifs and screenshots. Reality looks nothing like cc so they manipulate the facts to fit their needs. It’s a powerful method because it is so easy to con people into believing inane facts. I am sure that Abby and Flowers and Cassie and Leka fully believe everything they hold near and dear about CrissColfer.  It’s all a lie but they fully believe they are throwing out tried-and-true proven facts. Abby in particular is really baffled why we can’t see what she see. The difference between them and us is that we don’t listen with our eyes. We don’t get information about Darren and Mia by piecing together gifs. That’s it-gifs and screenshots from videos! Can you imagine if a lawyer a police officer  used a gif as evidence? 

Nobody set out to con the tinhatters into believing a fantasy that doesn’t exits-in fact, nobody is conning the fandom-they are conning themselves. They don’t look at the  evidence and form an opinion- they literally create the evidence. Zoom in a photo until you can crop out what you need or clip 1-2 seconds from a longer video, slow it down, add some text and suddenly *BAM* you have proof! Proof with all the drama and emotion to make it feel so much more important than it was. 

How the shit hit the fan:

Leka:

jaci3

I will definitely be purchasing this album! So much talent! Cynthia!! Darren!! Jonathan and Lea!!

notes-from-nowhere

I’m going to take this as a good news👍🏻

ajw720

But no, no, no no. Do not get me wrong, I am thrilled D is on the album, but no, no, no, not a K/laine song. Why?  There are so many Christmas songs out in the world and they chose a K/laine song?  

I have no interest, it can never live up.

I hate 2019.

DRAMA MUCH?

Thanks, but it’s a hard pass for me.

ajw720

I actually have tears in my eyes. This feels like a complete slap in the face. Sorry, but it is and it should not have been this song and I don’t care what you believe, Those songs are sacred to the K/laine fandom whether you think he is married to her or with C or something completely different.  

How many Christmas songs are there to choose from? If she wanted WC, she could have sang it with someone else.

With you @cassie1022 hard pass.  It may seem silly to be this upset about something, but this actually makes me angry.  I feel like K/laine fans are being discarded. That is his LEGACY, something he should be proud of, through that character and that pairing, he and C made a difference, and I do not understand why it needs to constantly be chipped away.  

I have to say the thing that strikes me the most is how obtuse she is about what Glee was the end. It was a mess. I loved Glee but most of the fun by the end was the amazing fanfiction, Fanon Klaine and fandom itself. It was fun to get the song sneak peeks and BTS photos and videos. It was amazing to be a part of a fandom of people who loved what I did. It is amazing to be part of the Chris and Darren stanclub.  But Glee...it was a disaster. .

Leka proves some context for “White Christmas is Sacred” and notice how how many are gifs: 

leka-1998

Excuse you.

WC is so much more than just a song.

(She does know this is a scripted moment right? Darren didn’t actually travel to NYC from Lima with Chris’s dad and someone told him when to skate, what to say, what to sing.). 

“It’s been a whirlwind, but amazing. We got to film at the ice skating rink in Bryant Park, which was just incredible. It was one of the best filming experiences I’ve ever had.”

- Ch/ris Col/fer

(Yes, Darren laid down on the carpet and took a picture of Chris which was  about the most cc thing that happened in 11 hours)

(I have no doubt that these three gifs were created from 1 or 2 seconds of real-time video. These images created the false impression that they spent the day together, gleefully skating and being intimate. Not too long ago, I read a cc post that claimed “Darren spent the day taking care of Chris”.  No, not true- see the videos below for a more realistic representation of the day). )  

#truly this really upsets me

(I guess she is reminding us of how much they mean to the world- eye roll.)  

I tried finding a long video on YouTube-ideally much of the day or even just big chucks of the day but *surprise* nobody bothered to upload that snooze fest. If the day was actually the cc riot the posse believes it was, there would be an 11-hour complication video.

I did find some video that accurately represents what I remember. Basically just imagine 11 hours of the following: 

Chris was pretty shaky when they started skating but by the time they filmed, he was much better. I cannot imagine being on skates for 11- shaky- hours.

Chris skating alone, trying to get more comfortable with skating before filming.

That’s it! That s the totality of what is posted on YouTube from the “Riot”.

The conversation continues; 

Anonymous asked:

White Christmas is literally one of the most cliché christmas songs. The album is just Lea's favorites. Darren has sung White Christmas before and he sounded amazing so it's only natural she would invite him to sing it with her. I get the a lot of things can be frustrating, but good god you all being THIS upset about it is the reason why everyone mock our fandom. It's not even baby it's could outside. At least we know for sure chris is going to be mentioned at some point during the promo.

ajw720 answered: (in victim mode)

Why do you care if I am this upset?  Seriously, let them mock me, they have blogs dedicated to hating me and posts multiple times a day.  I am over it, they are the ones with the sad lives who actually give me power.  

(Nope, not dedicated to “hating you”, I simply debunk your “facts” and “proof” beaus they are not evidence of CrissColfer; Yes, this is unfortunately a negative side effect to disproving your lies- you don’t care if the attention is negative or positive- you just like the attention. But pointing out the lies and misinformation is more important to me ) 

I can be upset, I think it is a complete slap in the face. there are like 3000 christmas songs, there are THREE that are sacred.   And yes, D should have sad no.  We sit here and swallow everything, including having “D” himself mock and yell at our fandom on SM.  And I virtually defend everything he does, probably to a fault, including holding out that person as his wife. This was easily avoidable.

(well at least you acknowledge that Darren calls out your fandom for their bad behavior on social media. Now would be a good time to really analyze why you think that is. Really sit down and think about why Darren would mock your fandom without a gif or a screenshot to zoom in on. What would drive him to be angry at a ccer?) . 

Sorry, not sorry, don’t like, post on your own blog and stop reading mine if you don’t like the way i represent. Happy to pace the torch. 

(Wow she is happy to pass the torch? Right. ) 

notes-from-nowhere

(Notes comes in and tries to soothe Abby’s fragile nerves).

So, I feel the need to say something. I’m not that much upset for the song mostly because I think it may be the song D picked out if those presented to him so I don’t fully like the idea but it could have been worse. At least all of the involved knows the meaning of the song.

What bothers me though is this kind of attitude, anon. This urgency to come here and to tell to another person what/how/when she should feel about something. Trying to put a weight on it or to dismissed the rightfulness of her feelings.

If this is how she (and everyone else) feels about this, she has the right and the freedom to say it out loud without having to face someone else’s judgement because maybe she has another opinion.

(and the anon has the right to say what she feels-see how that works?)

There are different ways to approach a person to communicate so please next time, think better.

ajw720

Thank you @notes-from-nowhere, hard to believe, the above was at least more respectful than this anon:

This is why I left the fucking fanbase. I still very much agree with the same views and ideas that all of you have, but jesus christ, it’s a SONG. Calm down. I’m just happy whenever D does something that doesn’t envolve PBB. Getting so upset because D is singing a song that he sang with C. Maybe he’s doing it because it reminds him of the Bryant Park shoot? Maybe? Good god, everything is the apocalypse to you guys. Leaving was the best thing I’ve ever done.

I want to remind everyone, I am the one, with a handful of people, keeping this fandom alive and supporting D&C daily,. And just like i can praise them, i can tell them when they hurt me.  This hurt. Maybe I am being overly dramatic and if this was isolated, i would say yes. This is not isolated, it is a continued effort to erase K/laine and CC.  As has been pointed out, not only did they offend K/laine fans in general, it is a knock at our fandom who still to this day celebrate the skating riot.

(Oh lord, she reminds us she is the HBIC, sacrificing everything to keep the fandom together. I love that she believes this is “supporting D&C daily”. Nobody needs to be told the suck everyday.  She support them and so she can criticize them but nonnie cannot criticize her. That makes perfect sense) 

Again literally THOUSANDS of songs to choose from.  Not even sure why L would EVER want to compete with C, but in this case, the fault doesn’t lie with her.  D should have said no.  

(I don’t think Lea is too worried about putting up her vocal chops against Chris’.  The both have great voices)

I am not going to say anything else and just accept that yet another of D’s 2019 projects is something i won’t ever see or hear.  

(once again it’s all about her and her hurt feelings. But this response is at least rationale-if you don’t like the project- skip it. It isn’t Darren’s responsibly to provide 100% Abby approved content)   

I really hope things are going to change, I really, really do.

(But they aren’t..they really aren’t.  This is Darren’s life and I know it’s super stressful because you are trying to hard to make his life work with yours and it just won't You both have very conflicting and opposing goals for Darren’s life. Here’s a protip: Go on a gif-free and zoomed-photo-free diet for a few months. Analyze the information at face value. Learn what PR really means and see how things look.If for no other reason than your own sanity. Stop trying to shove the square peg in the round hole 

#please do not send any more asks on this topic

#i am very upset

ajw720

My feelings aside, WHY in the world would LM EVER want to compete with this? Sorry, but it won’t be half as good. Stupid move and that is trying to remove my bias.

(Her thought processes never ceases to amaze me. Abby and Trump- they start criticizing and they just can’t stop. Lea gets to make her own decisions about what songs she sings, who she’s competitive with, whether she wants to take a chance and put herself out there or not. It just isn’t anyone else’s business. Chris has a beautiful voice but Lea has a stunning voice-she isn’t worried. This is right up there with her criticisms of TSG’s air conditioning, drink names, theme nights and every comment she’s made about a bar she will never go to.