#It's because there was a ghost in the narrative who cared so deeply about people and now he's gone

[hephaestuscrew]

By the way, I am still thinking about the Greater Boston Season 4 finale, and I am obsessed with the idea that when you have days where you wake feeling strange and unsettled without any identifiable cause, it might be because someone who you never met but who would have narrated you kindly has passed on out of the world.

[eelclaw]

the protagonists of the broken code. who's rootspring

i am tbc's number 1 hater! negative thoughts below

shadowsight: other characters sometimes acknowledge that he was manipulated by ashfur, but the narrative puts all of the blame for the ashfur situation on him, neglecting that (a) he did exactly what he was supposed to do as a healer (obey and take messages from a starclan cat), and (b) the codebreaker hysteria was far more a product of clan culture than the actions of a single apprentice. he isn't treated like the victim that he is, and it is frustrating and not cathartic.

bristlefrost: what the hell does she even do. what does her spy arc accomplish or contribute (like mother, like daughter). she finds out that bramblestar isn't bramblestar far too early. she's so perfect and she has no flaws and she's so empty. i want her to be worse. how much more interesting would she be if she was sneaky and selfish? if she was loyal to the imposter because she truly believed in what he was saying? not to mention how she reciprocates rootspring's feelings with literally zero warning, and ceases to have what little character she'd had to begin with. i genuinely don't care that she dies, they did nothing to make her an engaging character. miss bristlefrost, i'm sorry they did you so bad.

rootspring: first rootpaw thinks he's weird because of his father. i hate this because i hate tree. later, rootpaw thinks he's weird because he can see ghosts. so they give him this "i just want to be normal" deal, and the clans suddenly pretend that ghosts are silly and not real. sure, rootspring and tree are the first clan cats with this specific power. and i get that the clans have very rigid beliefs, and they are afraid of anything that contradicts those beliefs, and that's interesting! but ghosts have been appearing to clan cats all the way back to tpb. fireheart tries to kill clawface at one point and he senses spottedleaf's spirit beside him, there to avenge her death. so rootspring's issue is stupid and he's nothingburger to me.

bramblestar: the arc really depends on me giving a shit about what happens to him. which i don't.

i think bramblestar is unintentionally a bad person and a great character. he proves himself by rejecting tigerstar, but he's still deeply insecure. he makes mistake after mistake (conspiring with tigerstar; hesitating to save firestar from the fox trap; forsaking his children after finding out they're not biologically his; using his power over squirrelflight as a warrior, deputy, and leader to control her), and for none of these mistakes is he held accountable (no thunderclan cat except leafpool learns that he plotted with tigerstar; he is allowed to remain deputy; his children think he was the best father ever; in every situation, squirrelflight seems to bear the consequences of his actions).

in other words, bramblestar gets chance after chance to redeem himself, and he keeps fucking it up. again, that's interesting! there is a story here about how difficult childhoods affect adults, and how powerful men are not held responsible for hurting people. except that's not how he's written. he's written as a completely good person, a brave and noble leader, and all of the clans respect him and they need to get him back.

there's a crazy amount of bramblestar worship in this arc. even rootspring, a brand new skyclan apprentice, thinks about how important bramblestar, the thunderclan leader, is, and how all the clans wouldn't be the same without him. i can't take it seriously.

graystripe: graystripe also got a crazy amount of worship. i couldn't stand reading every few paragraphs about how great he is.

side note: shadowsight, bristlefrost, and rootspring all want the same thing. they advocate against killing bramblestar's body. wouldn't it be more interesting if the protagonists had different perspectives and opinions? if they wanted different things? for example, it makes sense that shadowsight wouldn't want bramblestar dead. he feels like the only way to make up for his mistake is to recover bramblestar alive. but bristlefrost could be in favor of killing bramblestar, because the only way to make up for her mistake (supporting the imposter) is to get rid of him. putting our protagonists at odds would generate some interesting conflict.

conclusion: i also have problems with ashfur (why does ashfur try to stir up trouble with codebreaking which will certainly get him caught when he could just take over bramblestar's body and live quietly with squirrelflight), tigerheartstar, mothwing, starclan, the dark forest insta-death water, firestar possessing rootspring, the pacing (oh my god! they were debating whether to kill bramblestar for like three books! and for three more books they were running in circles in the dark forest!), etc. but i've already written a lot and i'm out of steam lol.

let me finish by saying these are kids books, and i'm not expecting them to be the cream of the crop, but there are a lot of writing choices which are incredibly misogynistic and/or completely baffling from a narrative standpoint. i still have a soft spot for this series though. dammit. okay bye

[dtmsrpfcringe]

We don't hate women. We hate women who are abusive towards their partners.

Michael and David both deserve better and just because you want to buy into what PR and social media tells you, you don't have to attack other people for being upset over actors they care about possibly not being happy.

David wouldn't leave Georgia, they are married and have children, so he feels responsible. He always puts other people before himself. And Anna played it well with the babies, as harsh as it sounds. Michael would feel terrible leaving the girls. People staying in relationships doesn't prove you right, sadly. It's no sign of anything other than commitment and commitment doesn't always come from a place of love.

By saying that Michael and David shippers want to see them unhappy in their relationship, you show that you're missing the point. The whole point of shipping them is wanting them to be happy. You just want to be hateful towards people who don't suppprt your narrative, it seems.

GOD I WISH TUMBLR WOULD LET ME ADD TEXTS BEFORE ASKS SO I COULD SAY “Warning: you’re about to hear one of the most moronic takes I have ever heard” *insert gif of amanojaku from ghost stories here* okay let’s…we have to break this down it’s too much for me to just laugh at and go “wow this is dumb as hell”

“We don’t hate women, we just make up stuff so we can justify hating them”- you. where’s…where’s any shred of proof that either women are even a little bit abusive? I mean don’t you think we would have seen some of that by now? And no, enty lawyer doesn’t count as proof and neither does random screenshots of a bit of text with zero context. Also neither do jokes online with your partner when they’re okay with it (and make the same jokes quite literally all the time) and nobody sees a problem with it except the people that conveniently hate these women.

2. “Michael and David both deserve better” yes I’m sure the rich white middle aged men who are two of the most popular actors in their countries who have girlfriends/wives and kids who love and adore them are surely hurting because some weirdo on tumblr says it.

3. Hate to tell you this but married people with children divorce all the time. It’s not like if they divorce he is going to suddenly vanish in a puff of smoke babe.

4. Even if that’s true, your theory of him only staying out of responsibility is bullshit. Someone who stays for the kids isn’t going to dip their wife into a kiss on the red carpet and look at her like a hozier song sounds. If there’s any event or interview where he can find a way to praise Georgia, he does it. He always talks about her. After events they’ve been seen kissing deeply and walking arm in arm honeymoon style.

5. as for Anna and Michael, (David and Georgia too but they seem more open to pda) they don’t owe you pda. Michael has been more than adamant about defending his girlfriend on twitter and good for him about it.

6. if you guys were genuinely concerned with Michael and David’s impending relationship crashes, why is it always tied to their love for one another? The only people who see This rampant “abuse and unhappiness” is this group of people who believe David and Michael are actually in love and want to elope together. Nobody else. Not even other Sheenant shippers. You guys literally just hate them, I mean Invisibleicewands has been talking shit on Anna since she posted her first photo with Michael back in 2019 and hasn’t stopped.

7. “And Anna played it well with the babies, as harsh as it sounds.” seriously what the absolute crap is this supposed to mean my dude? I’ve gotta be honest….you know how smex works right? Michael could absolutely choose to use protection!!! Why is it on her? Not on him. He’s had kids before I think he knows that a stork doesn’t bring the baby. Holy hell you people make my eyes hurt

8. (finally) funny you should bring up narratives, you know considering you’re part of the group that thinks any affection towards anybody else that isn’t them is PR (thinking of the Joseph Fiennes hug fiasco) that lied about Georgia and Anna being abusive, that has tried time and time again and moved the goalpost, that fabricates evidence and tries to send death threats to people who speak out, and then lie about it, that your group is the one who can’t handle women working together and have to call everything PR. The same group that ignores the fact that Anna and Georgia are friends, to talk grave shit on them. Newsflash sweetheart, we aren’t the ones pushing the narrative here. You only want to see David and Michael happy as long as it aligns with your delusion. Have the day you deserve.

anyways, I think this is going to be my pinned post. Mostly because I want this to be embarrassing if you ever try to come back here and lie on Betty whites internet again, but also because I think this addresses so many tin hat talking points at once. Just because we love aziraphale and crowley doesn't mean we get the right to insert ourselves into their personal lives, you wouldn't want someone else praying for your relationship to fail.

[wardensantoineandevka]

To expand on a prior post I've made, it is really fun and it makes a lot of sense and it feels ultimately natural that Spahr is here at the end, in this last confrontation with Weepe, because he and Weepe are rivals. They're, almost unexpectedly, foils.

They're arrogant men who allow and enable awful things to happen to others to protect and increase their social standing. They hurt the people they care about most for self-serving reasons—but in the end, only one of them takes responsibility for that. (Trustfall and Ghosts are inverse parallels, and this post discusses a portion that is most relevant here.) Weepe increasingly identifies with the Trust as Spahr is increasingly disillusioned with it, and Weepe rises to power at the same rate that Spahr falls into disgrace. Just as Weepe is convinced that he will always be an awful person and fatalistically believes he cannot ever do better, Spahr has been convinced he has a self-evident righteousness but eventually sees that not only does he not, but he can and must do better.

Beyond that, they're narratively tied together. Weepe is in the Highest Light because Spahr agrees to bring him. Spahr helps Imelda lock Weepe in the Arca, and he does it in part for smug satisfaction because of his personal dislike for Weepe. He wronged Weepe by participating in engineering the circumstances that led to his torture and by failing to intervene against it out of fear for himself, and the fact that he wronged Weepe is something that Spahr is explicitly aware of and is something that weighs heavily on his conscience. It is through the Arca that Spahr traces Weepe's ascension to Tripotentiary as a direct result of his actions; he believes that he failed to stop, or even facilitated, Weepe's rise and everything that results from it.

For much of the narrative, they're racing to the same goal, even sometimes without knowing. Spahr is on Midst specifically to find the Breach centerpoint, and Weepe identifies it as the cabaret and turns it over to the Trust before Spahr has any chance to start looking. Weepe pulls the Fuze-Loxlee investigation out from underneath Spahr when he convinces Sherman to name Fuze's murderer, ultimately succeeding where Spahr fails. He takes the information to the Upper Trust himself after Spahr was removed from the investigation for, simplistically, lack of progress. Sherman chooses to trust Weepe over Spahr, and Weepe wipes his debt before Spahr can.

When Spahr is court-martialed, he is given the opportunity (read: pressured) into donating all Valor accrued during his tenure to his successor — and then that donation apparently goes to Weepe as part of a series of donations to help set him up as Most Valorous. The role of the Prime Consector gets folded under the new position of Tripotentiary, and without a Prime Consector appointed, Weepe is the sole direction that the Company has. Weepe even moves into the residence held by the Prime Consector, as we're often reminded that Spahr lived there before Weepe did. Weepe is Spahr's successor in all but literal title.

Spahr waits until Weepe repeats the order to bring Lark and Phineas to refuse. At the moment where Weepe is at his most elevated and Spahr at his most diminished, when they are such extreme ends in the hierarchy, it is to Weepe that Spahr says, finally, "No."

As Prime Consector, Spahr was ideologically (though not materially) the truest manifestation of Valor. A Consector's job is to hunt, to pursue those who have escaped the Trust and restore them to the Trust. At this point, Weepe is all that is left of the Trust, its only manifestation, and all he does now is hunt Lark and those who aid her, to rebalance and to restore what is felt lost.

As funny as it is that Spahr is here at the end as the only one who isn't a protagonist, it makes so much sense that he is here in the confrontation against Weepe. He has to be. They're foils to one another, one of their many. Their actions have deeply entangled themselves in one another's arc. Over the course of the story, very slowly, there's been a changing of places between Weepe and Spahr.

Of course Spahr is here too. He was a razor's edge from being the one bearing down on that cabin. He was very, terrifyingly close to being on Weepe's side of the door.

[frankendykez]

What r ur oc stories about?

OMG HIHI I NEVER HAD SOMEONE OUTSIDE OF MY CURRENT FRIENDS ACTUALLY ASK BEFORE UMMMM OKAY SO. i have 3! main oc stories that i Really care about at the moment but im Deeply fixated on mainly 1 of them but im gonna start with the one ive been liek "promoting" the most in a sense!! under read more cuz im gonna try to exlain all three of them bless. sorry if i seem overly passionate oops i was TRYING to summarise im sorry its so long u rlly dont Have to read All of it

Forgotten Man's Symphony

his (louis manoir) character is basically a spin off from a character mentioned in the novel frankensetin exactly (1) time by name in elizabeth's letter and by far he is the most organised oc of mine cuz we do actually have a clean, understandable summary doc (thought it is a tad bit outdated but its okay). shes like the most Normal narrative-wise i suppose so i'm not exactly sure on how to explain the plot of forgotten man's symphony it's just like??? him ruining his life in front of the reader and then #Healing?? i guess?? the story is an epistolary that starts with louis' Suicide Letter. so like. yeah. BUT!! i suppose i would say his story very much concerns the concept of like identity (including gender and such she would be considred either transfemme/bigender by the modern world but also idfk cuz i made her complicated and confusing on purpose) and also the lack thereof + the negative impact that comes with trying so hard to fit into the societal norms and what people Want you to be but you just Can't be, cutting away bits of yourself to fit through some sort of hole representing the perfect version of you until theres nothing left of Who You Are expect a palatable and small version yk?? and the the endless pursuit of wanting to be loved that leads yourself to changing and changing for people who just wont care or love you for realsies + @rosaniruby 's words "making it even like that so its not YOU who is loving and being loved but the dim visage of a version of you that fits the picture of what society loves; that it's not a love between individuals, it's the love for a society that cannot ever love anything because it was made to hate. and who believes that portrayal of love will not find it and forever be stuck. smth like society loves what it deems as perfect and hates the imperfect, since perfect doesn't exist it can only do the second one. and louis wanted to love perfect victor, hated his own imperfect self. but the perfect victor doesnt exists, and neither does any version of louis."

i like her he's great. sorry if that was less telling u WHAT his story is and more like Explaining the "themes" as theyre called of the story but idrk how to describe nromal stuff so TAKE WHAT U CAN GET!!! anyways,

Domus Carnis: The Transmutation of Guinevere Manor

idk if you're aware but i have a hyperfix on architectural horror and i DON'T MEAN SCARY GHOSTS AND SERIAL ILLERS IN AN ABANDONED HOUSE I MEAN HAUNTED HOUSES THAT ARE ALIVE THAT IS A METAPHOR FOR PTSD FROM CHILDHOOD TRAUMA ETC ETC!! this story By making it started my whole obsession with the House it's crazy... scary even.. (i recommend you watch jacob geller's video essay about houses) i really do like domus carnis but it's. Messy to say the least. i do feel as if i ought to change the time period it's set in to avoid talking about the wars going on in the time period i accidentally set it in without realising but im procrastinating on that rn. it was Suppose to be late 1800s to early 1900s..

in a few simple words: flesh-and-bone made lesbian sex house. does that get your attention yet. bless

domus carnis (which literally means flesh house in latin or something) will be written in the POV of a 40ish year old widowed woman by the name of harriet wren's diary entries, occasionally switching to the POV of her 20-something year old godson percival who is like old timey jake paul and hes like either a journalistt or a radio host depending if i choose to change the time period or not. we follow them after harriet's husband dies of whatever and they find out he has a large property in a foreign country of which they had not known of prior

somewhere in germany there is a house of ex-aristocrats that no longer live there that is Alive. the House becomes alive because it is in a sense "possesed" (not haunted) the ghost of kathryna von guinevere who was the last one to die in the house, who, in life, was incredibly obsessed with The House for reasons that i fear are too long to explain without boring you and going into info pre-story?? anyways, when she "posseses" the house, the materials of the house shift to flesh, blood and bone because it Materially becomes her body. now, it would be hard to accurately label what represents what body part, because it's all strangely jumbled up and isn't like really human anatomy either cuz kathryna Can in fact see inside herself?? anyways whatever. now, the house is now both her body AND her mind. i have taken the phrase "haunted by memories/trauma" and turned it literal. the house IS haunted, but most of the ghosts aren't ghosts, theyre mostly all manifestation of Memory from her life because she actively is replaying the speech and actions of other people IN her mind to process the (typically traumatic) events of which she's seen or experienced. the ghosts CANNOT do as they please because they only exist at all Due to kathryna remembering them in these specific scenes. the hauntings include scenes of people, sounds, and shadows. unless the "scene" has a mirror, you cannot see kathy directly because you are witnessin things through HER eyes, which makes memories from wee childhood interesting because im wondering if i should make the "people" seem wayy bigger than the viewer if stuff is replayed from childhood..

i really like the fact that a lot of this is based on memory because it opens a lot of doors to me when it comes to the appearance of hauntings. my friend showed me this video depicting neurons forgetting how a face looks like, and i feel as if i could use that in the story because well, realistically kathy isnt going to have a Pristine memory cuz she Was just a human before, not to mention the fact shes already suppose to have issues on facial recognition/rememberance (my friend with these sisues suggetsed htis). the alteration of the ghosts' bodies could be fucked with even more if i try to make use and research into the way that people (mostly children) can in fact like.... change the image of something traumatic in their brain and make it less scary bc the brain is trying to protect them? yeah. AND ALSO the fact that a lot of people forgets certain aspects of their trauma due to their brain trying to protect them as well but still have this feeling of Unease when it comes o specific things that they cant explain, i could incorporate this feeling in certain areas of the House, the strange uneasiness. i experience that myself so i hope ill portray it right!!

i Think that's it?? at least that should be the bare bones of the story... i have a pin board tho if u want to check it out!!

The Epinicium

THIS is the stupid fucking thnag thats ruining my entire life rn. i love it i hate it whagever man. THIS ONE ill keep short and simple because im too fucking mentally ill about it to explain in depth without being asked questions

so basically its fantasy world but not like. Completely new high fantasy i very loosely based the countries off of like real countries and stuff bc lazy as shite so its like mid fantasy maybe HOWEVER

basically its set in this world where theres a shit ton of religions and gods and shit and theres three categories of religions (the world is veyr uhnm. Categorical idk): earth, science and the arts. basically the arts religions are the majority and the gods of those religions are called the muses so thats what i'll be calling them from now on. the basic plot of epinicium is about the muses of the music religion declaring that humanity doesnt treat music as "holy enough" anymore and taking it away as a whole (songbirds go extinct as well which is importnat) which also fucks up the other arts religionsdue to the fact that artforms are very connected but they still exist yk and centuries later our main cast attempts to bring it back!!! we have this server with a channel that has the "summary" but its not a real summary its just an already outdated infodump but we are Trying to fill this doc but we're failing really hard but friendship is magic idk.

fin.

anyways thats. pretty much it i think im sorry its too long once again 😭😭 feel free to ask question esp on the epinicium!! id love to hear abt ur ocs btw ive yapped so much oops

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 5, Poll 6

Please be civil in the notes. We will block people if we feel it is necessary. A character being canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included. This is not a competition of who is better representation.

Check out the other polls in this round here.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus-The Locked Tomb

Qualifications:

She's a lesbian and the author Tamsyn Muir has confirmed she's written as schizophrenic, based on her own experience.

Okay SO Harrow is a necromancer nun who is also a huge lesbian. She spends the books of TLT series being super gay and repressed about her emotions for 1. Butch lesbian Jesus and 2. Human Barbie the death of God. She narrates the second book (Harrow the Ninth) and is author-confirmed schizophrenic. She experiences hallucinations thru the whole book and has since childhood. She’s also WIDELY headcannoned as autistic by the fandom (me too) because. Because she IS SO FUCKING AUTISTIC (source: I am autistic too)

Schizophrenic lesbian with a traumatic brain injury

Schizophrenic and sapphic

canonically a schizophrenic lesbian. neither word is used in series, she isn't in a position to get a diagnosis and queer identities are so normalised in the universe that labels just don't get mentioned, but she is written as both by an author who is also both.

Canon schizophrenia

Canon lesbian with canon schizophrenia

She's a schizophrenic lesbian with a traumatic brain injury

Propaganda:

The Locked Tomb is pretty popular on tumblr but I might as well submit her anyway

She’s a lesbian necromancer nun. She’s a saint and also woke up the death of God, who is a human Barbie, who she is in love with, tho she’s also kind of married to lesbian Jesus. She’s schizophrenic. She’s scrungly. She puts bread in a drawer. She’s even autistic

Harrow first started hallucinating (visual and auditory) when she was ten years old! The traumatic brain injury and seizures are much more recent. Unironically gotta love a pov protagonist who makes you struggle along with her in sorting out hallucination and false memory to figure out what's going on. Also while Harrow's disability shapes the narrative, the book isn't at all about her being disabled. It's a fantasy/scifi gothic horror novel about being trapped at a work retreat with God.

so many women want her but she’s determined to be in love with the soul of the dead earth trapped in a 10ft barbie doll instead. she’s a lesbian disaster and is trying to deal with both schizophrenia and over 200 actual ghosts haunting her.

a schizophrenic lesbian, written by a schizophrenic lesbian! she's in love with multiple dead women, but she's also a necromancer so that's not as big of an obstacle as it sounds. weird little bone-obsessed necromancer lesbian. I care about her deeply

Author Tamsyn Muir has discussed how Harrow's schizophrenia is modeled after her own experiences. It matters a lot in her eponymous novel, where her inability to trust what she sees and hears is compounded by her self-inflicted lobotomy to save her girlfriend's soul from getting absorbed into her own.

Harrow is one of the protagonists of her series & both her lesbianism & her schizophrenia play major parts in the story. The author has spoken about how she wrote Harrow based on her own experiences, and the authenticity comes through strongly. Beyond that, she's a teenage gothic nun in love with a holy corpse & she's the greatest bone magician ever born. What more needs be said.

She's a lesbian, she's psychotic, she has seizures, she faints regularly and can't rely on her own memory worth shit. And the only reason she's not going to kill god is so she and her girl can escape the cycle of violence. Basically, Harrowhark Nonagesimus is the entire package.

Anything Else?:

Listen. Listen. I’m not doing Harrow justice here. I LOVE her (Submitter 2)

The author is also schizophrenic! Which is pretty cool. (Submitter 3)

The author of the series is openly schizophrenic, and has mentioned in interviews that she's drawing on that experience when writing Harrow :) (Submitter 8)

Wei Wuxian-The Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi

Qualifications:

Goes through a somewhat unethical organ transplant (in that the person he is giving the organ to doesn't realize that's what's going on) where he gives up his "golden core." This is like his center of power and by giving it up, not only is he not able to do most of the more "magic" things he could do before, but he's also noticeably physically weaker and gets injured much more easily (and takes longer to recover) as well as faints more often (iirc he only faints once pre-golden core removal and that was after sustaining major injuries and going on for a significant time without any healing while also fighting and traveling). Like he finds ways around it and invents new methods so that he can still do some things that he did before, just via a very different method. In the show we don't really see any characters who aren't cultivators, or at least part of that world, so Wei Wuxian is like the only character we really get to see without a golden core.

Also gotta say that this boy is severely depressed. Like "I'm-going-to-ask-my-doctor-friend-to-perform-a-mutliple-day-long-surgery-on-myself-in-which-I-will-be-awake-where-she'll-rip-out-the-core-of-my-being-and-transplant-it-into-my-adopted-brother-who-I'll-make-sure-never-finds-out-what-happened-even-though-he'll-come-to-hate-me" depressed. he has no value for his own life other than what he can give to others, even if it's his own body. like I think some fans unfairly classify him as being insane when he's really just depressed as all hell and having the worst possible things happen to him one after another and every time he breaks down it causes more trouble and usually people end up dying because of him.

Propaganda:

https://youtu.be/swbXAVADjxY ^ok this clip kinda explains the whole thing better (and obvs spoilers)

https://youtu.be/2wO5nsnkSBk ^and this video is just for fun but it's a little thing about Wei Wuxian & Jiang Cheng because their relationship makes me unwell

Additional Qualifications/Propaganda by @transparent-internet-maker

Kinda surprised ADHD!Wei Wuxian isn't included I thought that was a popular hc. There are several signs: He seems to forget a lot of things, but at the same time he clearly remembers other things that happened a long time ago. He invented a. lot. of things. His mind is almost never where he physically is and he's really smart in that thinks-way-too-much-out-of-the-box-in-a-short-time way. (1/2)

Then there is the fact that he's actually knowledgable, more than most of the others at times, but we see him doing whatever else he wants to instead of studying more often than not. The inventions point and this put together hint at him not being focused and having hyperfixations. And the general view of not studious but still smarter than everyone else just clear adhd I think. NOT trying to hate anyone, I thought I'd just mention this since I've seen a lot of adhd wwx.

[t4tpumpkinduo]

um. cschlatt finds out shes transfem post revival. is this anything.

AUGH IT'S EVERYTHING it'suwgwudgdhgh. hold on let me explain.

i think the cschlatt transfem throughline is, again, soso easy to read theres sm to dig into and chew on. i'm genuinely bewildered it's not smthng ppl hve picked up on more because it seems so v clear to me.

guy refuses to accept help bcs he sees it as weakness makes it v clear his narrative lesson is -> he should allow himself support and compassion w/o recoiling, because he's allowed to want it and need it, w/o masking it in disgust or irony.

on that point, guy refuses to see himself as disabled despite having very very blatent disabilities that leave him in horror of himself -> a panicked assertion of power to take back "control". ok ,what is he in "control" of, what can he wield, what can he have a narrative over.

guy likes being called a pretty princess and wears dresses "as a joke", using that same irony coated sheen he uses w a Lot of the things he's afraid of being more earnest in, like his care for other people or his wants. he likes being wined and dined and cooed at, and then reacts to "feminine" things, the possibility of being "not a man", in the same wild rejection as the other two, the rejection of the body. a real man doesn't care if he's betrayed, that's why he takes it so personally. a real man doesn't care abt sm partner, who needs 'em, and thats why the bow shot becomes a canon death that he feels personally heartbroken abt. a real man isn't scared and panicked and a real man isn't disabled and isn't needy. and he definitely isn't afraid. and he doesn't like the dresses. -> well. yknow how it is.

even the gym...we don't know his limbo specifically but i think it's pretty easy to infer that the gym is at least partially a manifestation of it? ghosts are confirmed to be able to be tied to locations, like mexican dream w el rapids. and in his, he has that "control", surrounded by that ideal figure, here he's powerful and on top and sooooo intouchable. the mask worked. and it doesn't actually because it still doesn't match up w how he acts. a "real man" doesn't need anything, doesn't care about anything, and glatt is still still still so deeply needy and clingy and longing for connection, and still tries to mask it w things like "spanish lessons" and "horror mansions" tht end up just being an excuse to throw little parties in. uuwgh. who even ca(blows up 320 walls with my mind)

additionally ppl forget that limbo is supposed t like..not actually be hell lmao? it's torturous for sure but it isn't like. supposed to represent their worse nightmare? it's supposed to, i think, represent a state of being unable to move on. the train that won't ever pick you up. a existence of blankness where you can't feel a thing except waiting for the other shoe to drop. a gym full of idols that you will never be able to "live up to".

bcs of that schlatt is bigender (✌️) to me specifically...cuz he clearly likes Parts of masculinity. the little conman shtick, the big guy-isms. it's smthing he enjoys, but he's v clearly fearful and panicked abt the "Ideal Masculine Figure™️", the mythologized toxic version in his quest for control. the conman thing is fun and easy, and the freaked out assertion of "i'm a man, i'm not weak or scared, i'm not like them." is smthng else entirely.

(and again the symbolism WHATT the fuck was going on in the writer's room. the gym is handled like a trap that he can't get out of by himself, and being in the sun, being visible is tangibly equivalent to being burned. Fucking Excuse Me? Answer My Emails.)

anyways this is very brief and i could talk abt this for 53 years and counting but the thesis statement is estrogen and anti psychotics could've saved her 👍and she does eventually get revived and accepts it abt herself and he's so happy and loved. forever and ever. happy tgirl cschlatt tuesday‼️

[eddiediazismyhusband]

Wait was edy confirmed to have been filming last night??? PLEASEE WHEN CAN SHE JUST BE GONE

I don’t think she was 100% confirmed to be filming last night or not in all honesty- I blocked her transphobic ass a while ago so the only information i get about her whereabouts on set are from what i’m told by other people, but i think the big theory going around right now is that she always posts after others post about being on set, and people think she may be piggybacking trying to make it look like she’s there when she actually isn’t… of course this is just a theory and like i said i blocked her. a while ago so i don’t see her posts to confirm nor deny the plausibility of this, but knowing her attention-seeking attitude i wouldn’t put it past her.

And i would not fear too much anon, actors are often contracted for a specific number of episodes, so her being there does not mean her days aren’t numbered. Obviously we don’t know anything for sure, but I have my own theories- we know the time that she posted herself crying on her story and then started talking about auditioning again was around the time the show was picked up for season 8, so obviously contracts would begin being discussed at that time. My personal opinion is that she was told then that she would not be returning for season 8, and that is what sparked this attempt to stay relevant in the fandom (following cast members she never followed before, constantly posting about being on set and how “thankful” she is to have a job, interacting with people bashing the show for being “too gay,” etc.) to me it all reads as someone who is desperately trying to cling to the quickly unraveling thread that is her place on that show and it’s only a matter of time before she’s gone.

i mean ryan himself called her a ‘filler’ relationship for eddie. even the plotlines she’s been involved in this season she’s barely been there. eddie was quite literally on the verge of breaking up with her in 7x5 before his advice to buck made him decide to simply start over their relationship. My theory now is that “ghost of a second chance” has a double meaning of us seeing the ghost of a past relationship that eddie is still grappling with (maybe shannon, maybe someone else…. an old “army buddy” perhaps who he had never really understood his feelings for?) while also pertaining to the “second chance” he gave their relationship being dead. I mean the man brought his grandmother who lives in texas to his coworker’s wedding, and he barely trusts her with his kid (christopher is always being watched by someone else, he says things like “she’s already babysat this week” as if watching your significant other’s children is a burden to her) and like i said he was on the verge of ending things in 7x5…. i think it’s safe to say that their relationship is bones, and there’s no other logical direction for them to take it in, considering the fact that marisol is barely a character anyway, the fans don’t like e*y (for good reason), and they know that if they try to keep her on they will receive backlash (which we know tim sees after the karaoke debacle)

i am fully preaching to the choir here, because i have massive anxiety and the constant stress of speculating about where eddie’s (and buck’s) story goes is something that always runs my nerves up a wall… for reasons i won’t get into, eddie is a character i relate to deeply and i want to see his storyline handled with care and attention, so while the idea of the show sticking him with something as lackluster as marisol (played by a problematic untalented actress) obviously makes me stress out too, i try my best to remind myself just how little sense narratively it would make sense to keep eddie with marisol, since she is a wash rinse repeat of every romantic interest he’s had before- something they keep bringing up in eddie’s story as a bad thing.

so stay strong, dear anon… the light at the end if the tunnel has not gone out— there are things happening that none of us know, and it will do us no good to focus on the possible negative outcome when the positive outcome seems so much more likely in this situation.

Sorry to completely hijack your ask into an explanation of eddie, but if you know me you know i’m obsessed w the man so 🤷

Thank you for the ask, anon! 💕💕

[solreads]

Compound Fracture - Review

Title: Compound Fracture

Author: Andrew Joseph White

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans boy POV character

  Nonbinary queerplatonic love interest

  Trans side character

Summary: In the mountains of West Virginia, a hundred-year feud between the Abernathys and Davies sweeps up to sixteen-year-old trans boy, Miles Abernathy, as the violence reignites for a new generation. 

Stemming from the murder of Miles’ ancestor Saint Abernathy by law enforcement after a miners’ rebellion, the conflict still rages along the same lines – the Abernathys and the poor residents of Twist Creek in a desperate struggle against the oppressive power of the Sheriff and his supporters. Miles, in possession of evidence of the Sheriff’s crimes against his parents and the activists of their generation, is eager to expose him and bring an end to it all. However, a bloodless end is not in sight for Twist Creek. An attempted murder by the Sheriff’s son leaves him brutalized, threatened into silence, and seeing the ghost of his long-dead ancestor.

Joining the cycle of retribution and violence only becomes more inevitable as the conflict heats up again and the accidental death of one of the boys who attacked him falls on his hands.

Reflections: I was excited about this one and thrilled to get an advanced copy. The history and culture of Appalachia interest me a lot, in part because of my proximity to it. There’s been a history of socialist movements and worker solidarity in many areas that still permeates the culture, but also a strongly conservative lean in the impoverished rural communities that could (and have in patches of history) benefit most from these movements. The book description seemed to promise a nuanced exploration of these elements without glorification or erasure of the bigotry just because the people perpetuating it are victims in their own right. The cycle of violence, and the lofty ideals struggling to manifest in a dirty reality, all weaved through a thriller/horror plot line literally haunted by the bloody, cyclic history (not to mention the bonus of exploring trans and queer culture and identity in this environment through a gay, aromantic trans protagonist), what a pitch.

It just didn’t fully stick the landing in my opinion. While Miles has a strong sense of his principles, politically, and awareness of the large-scale issues in his community, the morality and motivations for the violence done in the story proper by him and his generation were shallower. A lot of complexity was left to the past and to infodumps about history, culture, and ideologies, rather than deeply integrated into the narrative.

It came to a head with the ending where I felt the underlying problems of Miles’ community that went beyond the sheriff and his abuse of power were somewhat brushed off. All the handful of bad people who were really seduced by violence (unlike Miles who only liked it a little) were gone and so the conservative populace would rally behind the socialists and queers? I know that’s not exactly what the ending wants to say. It’s trying to be a hard-won, but hopeful look at the cycle of violence finally ending and a marginalized person being able to carve out space for himself in a home he cares for. But (despite the literal gore and death) it was maybe too clean for a story that paid lip service to many complexities. There are acknowledgments of the racism, misogyny, queerphobia, and all the hatred, trauma, and pain that go far beyond and far deeper than the feud that gets the main focus and the resolution in the end. With all that put out in the open earlier in the story, but not worked on, I’m wondering where it all went.

Sometimes I think I’m asking the wrong thing from a story when I’m unsatisfied with the direction or the ending, but in this case, I do believe I wanted mostly the same thing the story was trying to give, I just wanted it to go deeper and to give more.

There was a lot to like — the portrayal of the setting, the political awareness, Miles’ journey to understanding himself as autistic, his pride in his home and insistence on making it better, the realistic writing of his family’s imperfect yet unconditional love — but also potential left untouched.

Warnings: Depictions of transphobia, misgendering, deadnaming, and public outing.

Notes on Rep: MC identifies explicitly, on-page as a transgender boy. 

[eroguron0nsense]

Brook, Moria, and Loss

Writing another meta kind of got me thinking of Thriller Bark and its broader purpose in the narrative/the possibilities it presents about what the worst conceivable ending for the Straw Hats looks like (made all the more significant considering that it's immediately followed by the trauma of Sabaody and the first time we're really confronted with the possibility that the Straw Hats could be torn apart by forces far stronger than them), and the nature of grief. To recap, we're presented with two former captains in Brook and Moria who've both "survived" their respective crews' annihilations, and who are quite literally drifting through the dark and fog and surrounded by grief/trauma/ghosts at the start of it. Brook, who's holding on only for the sake of possibly reclaiming his shadow and finally reuniting with the only friend he has left from his life, is ecstatic to meet the Straw Hats even if he feels can't join them; he does it eventually, but only once he's confronted his shadow and gone through a proper adventure with people who are more than happy to bring him across the rest of the Grand Line and see Laboon together. Moria, by contrast, is so deeply shattered by survivor's guilt and trauma after the battle with Kaidou that he cannot bring himself to risk the possibility of forming another (mortal, living, autonomous) crew and spends years building countless undead slaves with whichever bodies he can get for Hogback to desecrate and the shadows of whoever's lives he can ruin in the name of fulfilling his ambitions. (Ironically, this isn't a project he can undertake on his own: he needs the support of the few living pirates he actually keeps around, and–as we'll see later when Blackbeard kills Absalom–he does actually have friends he cares for and regularly interacts with, however execrable most of them are as people. But he's still hung up on his greatest trauma, and deludes himself into thinking that by depriving himself of a crew he can actually connect with, he's somehow made himself less vulnerable than before.) Brook's never going to escape the ghosts of his past, or fully get over the 50 years of grief and isolation he spent in the Florian Triangle, but he's willing and able to join the Straw Hats once he realizes that acting on his desire to spend more time these wonderful people he's met and already loves won't break his promise. He's held on to his desire to keep his word to Laboon, he's found a new crew to love (they'll never replace the Rumbar Pirates, but they're his precious friends all the same), and he won't let himself be held back from living his second life to the fullest because of the possibility of the worst-case scenario or having to grieve again. Moria's trapped, and when he's confronted with the fact that he can't escape that, that one of his friends is in danger despite all his avoidance and futile self preservation/isolation, all his efforts to spare himself that loss fail.

[londonspirit]

Our Flag Means Death has just wrapped up its sophomore season, and it’s time to say goodbye to our favorite pirates for, well, at least another year. Streaming service MAX hasn’t renewed the workplace comedy/action-adventure show for a third season, but if the numbers are anything to go by, they would be foolish not to start talking about it.

David Jenkins, the writer/creator and sometime director of Our Flag Means Death, did a finale postmortem interview with io9, and we talk endings, piracy, and how comic actors and serious actors mesh. A quick warning, this interview is literally about the last episode of Our Flag Means Death, and contains spoilers. Proceed with caution.

So, here’s the thing; Jenkins and I have spoken a few times about Our Flag Means Death. He knows that I adore this show. He also knows that I adore Izzy Hands (Con O’Neill), the beleaguered first mate and jilted lover of the central couple of Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) and Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby). He has also been keeping a secret from me for months: In this last episode of season 2, Izzy Hands dies.

“Are you mad at me?” Jenkins asked, almost plaintive as we said our ‘Hello’s under the auspices of the designated MAX PR person. “Oh, well. I’m not really mad at you, but I am disappointed,” I responded. “I think I’m sad at you.” This, he said, is worse.

At the end of the season, Izzy Hands dies in Blackbeard’s arms, giving Blackbeard permission not only to “be himself” but to leave piracy behind for good. It happened in the kind of cruelly random way that people often die in this genre of action/adventure stories. That didn’t make it any easier though. And at the end of the season, Blackbeard’s inability to save Izzy meant that there was simply no more reason for him to be a pirate anymore. Who was he doing it for? What more did he have to prove?

Regardless of the narrative reasons why Izzy Hands died, I was devastated. Did it make sense in the context of the show? Yes. Was it a deeply moving and incredibly well-acted moment? Also yes. Was his death made all the more affective because of how Izzy had been ingratiated, accepted, trusted, and even, at points, loved by his crew? Absolutely. So, of course I teared up a little.

Jenkins looked slightly sad himself, saying that “Ghosts exist in this world.” I told him not to make promises he couldn’t keep. At this point such a comment feels like it was made to make me, personally, feel better. I’m not sure Izzy could make a return at some point, nothing is certain about Our Flag Means Death’s future right now. It almost feels like Jenkins feels bad that he made me sad. I don’t know if he realizes how sad he’s going to make a lot of people.

This isn’t going to be an interview entirely about Izzy Hands, but he’s a big part of it—after all, his death is arguably one of the show’s biggest shocks yet. Looking back at Izzy’s arc over the two seasons, Jenkins said that he doesn’t see Izzy as a pure antagonist in season one because on some level… Izzy was right in his hesitations about Stede. “His boss is falling for this manic pixie dream girl, and he’s got to keep his boss safe because that’s his job,” Jenkins explains. “And then he has to get this ship to operate like a normal ship would operate. And they’re all weirdos. So he’s got the worst middle management position. And on top of that, his boss is a lunatic.”

Towards the end of season one, Izzy does have a turn away from ‘reasonably upset at Blackbeard’ to ‘serious antagonistic force’. But when he gets what he wanted–Blackbeard back to legendary form–it doesn’t really work out. “Be careful what you ask your God for, because you just might get it,” Jenkins warned. “Izzy gets it and it turns on him. That toxic relationship that he wished were all his, becomes all his… he’s crushed by it, and both he and Blackbeard both have to rebuild themselves.”

In Izzy’s case, the rebuilding is quite literal–his leg is amputated and replaced with a wooden prosthetic, carved from the unicorn figurehead of the Revenge. After this, he has to go through a transformation, Jenkins said he has to ask himself “What am I going to do with myself? You know, who am I going to be? After [the crew] makes him the Unicorn leg, I think he kind of sees like, ‘oh, this crew cares for me’. And I don’t think he’s ever felt cared for in that way.”

This season also saw a lot of Izzy interacting with Stede, often in more fun situations than the snipes back and forth in the first season. When asked about how Con O’Neill and Rhys Darby got along on set, Jenkins just laughed. “I really love building a show with really funny actors and then really serious actors. And the funny people are usually scared of the real serious people. And the real serious people are scared of the funny people. They terrify each other.”

For those that might not know, Darby is a stand up comedian and has been in many of Waititi’s darkly comic films. O’Neill, on the other hand, has been taking dramatic roles since his twenties, and has recently appeared in productions like The Batman and Chernobyl. “I think from the beginning people saw Con and were like, ‘Oh, man, I got to be like, really have to be in my game’,” Jenkins said, imitating Taika Waititi’s lilting Kiwi accent. “And then Con was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know what he’s doing, he saying I should just follow along with the improvisations’—” again, imitating O’Neill’s raspy drawl. “And then they’re both so good that by the end of the season they’re not scaring each other as much. But that admiration remains, and I think that was very much true between Rhys and Con.”

The decision to have Izzy die wasn’t one that Jenkins took lightly. “It was hard. It was hard to kill off Izzy. It was hard to tell Con that he was going to die. And he was so lovely about it. But, at the same time, he took it hard,” Jenkins said. “Like this thing we built together is going to die. It’s one thing to write it, it’s another thing to produce it, and to see Con carry that knowledge through the episodes, knowing what was going to happen to that character. Con took it really seriously.”

Jenkins also thinks that Izzy was able to say exactly what he needed to at the end of the show. “I think he gives his own eulogy. It’s about belonging to something. And that we do this for each other, you know? He came to view piracy as a thing we do for one another. And being on a crew is something you do for each other… he gets to a place where he eventually sees that it works because everybody is helping each other. Everybody cares for each other, and there needs to be some structure, but for him, it became less about dominance and more about belonging to something.”

The final shot of the season is actually Izzy’s grave, outside of Ed and Stede’s cottage. “I think him being buried near them is a lovely image,” he said. “And there’s a reason that that happened. I think they both were sad to see their friend go. And I think they’re both thinking, ‘let’s make this work not just for us, but in memory of Izzy’.”

One of the prevalent rumors about Our Flag Means Death this season was that it was originally supposed to be 10 episodes rather than 8. But Jenkins says no; it was always going to be 8. They were looking for ways to cut budget, and moving the production to New Zealand and cutting down the episodes really helped with the bottom line, as well as being better for the cast and crew. “It takes so much to make one episode happen. Every department is strung out by the time you get to the end of the season,” he explained.

“The story of Stede and Blackbeard is a three-season story,” Jenkins said, looking ahead to where the show could go from here. When asked if the ending of season two–Frenchie taking over as Captain of the Revenge, Stede and Ed in a shack on the beach, preparing to open their inn, and Izzy Hands buried in front of their home–was a kind of “safeguard” in case the series didn’t get that third season, Jenkins shrugged. “In a way,” he said. “The first season ends on such a downer, so it made sense to end the second season in a kinder spot.”

But he says that he “still has questions” about what happens next. The Republic of Pirates has been destroyed, Izzy’s killer is still out there, and does Frenchie have what it takes to captain a pirate crew? Our Flag Means Death is not a complete story yet. “I think there’s plenty of story left for season three, but I think that it was important to end this as if it was the end of the show, and on upbeat note and avoid the kind of “kill your gays” trope. I don’t want to see Steve and Ed punished for giving it a go. I want to see them really say, ‘yeah, we’re going to we’re going to try to have a relationship’.”

When asked how he would approach the third season , Jenkins thought about it for a few seconds before answering. “I would very much like to see pirates come to America. Historically, they were in New York City and the Carolinas. And now, in the story, the Republic of Pirates is gone… I think that stories about piracy are a little bit like stories about the West. They’re stories about these things that are going to end inevitably,” he said this sadly, like the inevitability comes from looking back on the past and thinking the present couldn’t come out any other way. It’s a bit of a eulogy. “In some ways, I think then seeing them have to deal with some of these things in a country that’s coming together would be good. And I think it would be a good way to end the season, and see how they adjust to it.”

The final scene with Izzy and Blackbeard is incredibly, desperately sad, and clearly required a lot from both O’Neill and Waititi in the moment. “When Izzy died, I said, ‘Would you like to play music on set?’” Jenkins recalled. “ He went ‘Yeah’. And so I made an Izzy Death playlist and put it on during the takes.”

This is the second time I have been teased with an Our Flag Means Death playlist. The first time was from music supervisor Maggie Phillips after the first season had ended. I had to ask for this playlist, but Jenkins didn’t want to share. He mentioned Carole King, implying that “Bitter with the Sweet” was played. I was not doing well with this information, especially after I put my face in my hands. He tried, once again, to console me but I was lost in my Izzy Hands feelings. Maybe taking the good with the bad was personal advice. Or, more honestly, I just think he felt a little sad too.

[buckybarnesss]

It is so weird being an Allison fan and trying to explain that while yes, I hate that she died she just died so well!

Her death had impact. No one forgot her (unlike Erica and Boyd). Her spector loomed large, to the extent that Scott credits her with stopping the beast of Gevaudan.

It's one of the things I love about the show and her arc: yes, she died, and it was sad but it had impact on the characters and on the narrative.

allison's death was one of the reasons i stopped watching the show after 3b. it was a straw on the camel's back for a lot of people.

when i returned to the show a few years later to watch s4 and s5 (still haven't really done s6 yet (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞) allison's death was one of the few things that carried narrative weight and significance past the seasons she appeared in.

allison still meant something to the characters even after she was gone unlike nearly every other character that had died or left. she had a legacy. she gave them pause. she was the ghost just out of sight.

the promo for season 4 lives in my head rent free because of how well it referenced the loss of a lead character.

lydia's entire character arc in both season 4 and 5 at it's very heart is about the loss of allison and how she failed to prevent it. meredith enacted her plan in season 4 because she heard lydia's death wail for allison. lydia figures out her powers to save malia because malia is going to die and lydia desperately cannot let another person she cares for die. she is desperate to get stiles back after the wild hunt takes him. lydia's love for allison and her friendship with her changed her profoundly from the mean girl we met in season 1.

i think the one unspoken thing that really hangs between scott and stiles in their season 5 divorce is allison's death. was it really about donovan? on the surface yes it was about donovan and theo and the miscommunication but the whole thing had been building a while. the real argument under it was about did scott believe stiles was capable of murder? especially in the way it was being suggested that it was purposeful and in cold blood.

season 5 was the delayed response to the nogitsune possession and how it changed stiles. his temperament, his perspective, fears and drive but it also was about how his loved ones had a changed perspective of him.

scott is forever haunted by allison. his first great love and perhaps something he considers his greatest failure. scott's unreasonable standards to save people achieves new heights after allison's death and it's because he sees himself as having failed to save her so he wants to save everyone to compensate. it's an impossible task with a huge margin of error and high failure rate. it didn't escape my notice that scott wanted to save mason very, very badly from possession from the beast because he couldn't save stiles from the nogitsune, that he bit hayden so liam wouldn't lose her like he lost allison. (it was a bumpy ass ride there though).

hell, one of the realest scenes with kate after her return is that she's grieving allison. as fucked up, as horrible and terrible kate argent is she was devested allison died. allison was the only person kate argent actually loved in her black, black heart.

chris's entire post season 3 arc is all about allison. he's trying to honor her legacy and he's willing to go to great lengths to help the people she loved and laid her life down for.

allison was a flawed person. she made heavy and grave mistakes that led to erica eventually dying. she was reckless and rash. she wasn't perfect. she was trying to reconcile her family's legacy and overcome her own demons but she never got a chance to. she died at 17 trying to save people she cared about but she was loved so deeply by those that knew her.

unlike laura hale who we know nothing about, unlike erica and boyd who are eventually forgotten, isaac is never spoken about again allison gets to have an impact on the narrative. ally a gets to save the day after she's gone and saves scott's life from sebastian valet.

all of this is flawed. it's not perfect because well teen wolf is messy but allison's death and the way she subsequently is still mentioned and that her life and death had lasting consequences is one of the things they did right.

[incesthemes]

final thoughts: supernatural season 12

i've been nursing a terrible headache all day and so i freely admit my opinions of this season may be negatively influenced by this. maybe tomorrow i'll wake up and realize it wasn't actually that bad and the real enemy was my brain all along. such is life.

i'll say upfront that i liked this season much, much more than season 11. not hard to do and the bar is in hell, but i think it's a good perspective for me to keep in mind while i write this. let's go.

i'm going to talk about mary first. i really like what she brought to the table. she created such natural conflict just by existing, and that's damn good writing. she was handled with so much nuance and care, and i'm extremely pleased by this because i pretty much hate everything else in this season, and actually i'm surprised with how well they handled mary compared to how poorly they handled everything else. that's just bizarre. pick a struggle guys you're hurting my brain.

but no, i love how she's developed as her own person, and how she gets to go off on her own and leave her kids and how that has major consequences but she's still not painted as a bad or neglectful mother for doing that. in fact she's not relegated to the flattened role of "mother" at all, and that's genuinely something special for this show, since it tends to keep their side characters to reductive caricatures that best suit their purposes. that would have been a really easy trap for the writers to step into, since that's the role she's had for the entire show up to now, the ghost of a mother haunting the narrative. she had very little character outside of that (except for her kickass part in 4.03, have i ever mentioned how much i love in the beginning? fuck man). but still the writers let her transcend that role and become something far more complex. i really love that :)

an aside: all of the winchesters, actually, get this incredibly nuanced treatment that hardly any of the other characters do. i like how much care and attention are put into crafting this fucked-up little family. it's definitely one of my favorite dynamics in fiction, probably ever. every one of the winchesters has so many layers to peel back and explore, such complex identities, and contradictory, human personalities. i love what connects them and drives them apart and how that's so often the same thing. they're really great characters who fit into their roles well, never too over- or underused. the family is very well done.

anyway back to season 12. i've been holding this in all day but now i'm finally going to complain about the british men of letters. because i'm sorry but they're kind of stupid 😭 and by that i mean their operation makes very little sense, and the rapid developments of their plan are so unattainable and nonsensical. you're going to wipe out every single american hunter? with your little team of 10 people? and to what end? i get they want to exert control, but first of all, this is missing the whole entire point of (american-style) hunting, from a doylian AND watsonian perspective:

hunting thus far has been presented as a deeply traumatic, solitary life decision individuals have made after experiencing a tragic loss or otherwise had a life-changing encounter with the supernatural. they're not recruited, they have very little support, they have an old-fashioned, underdeveloped communications network, and again: they're solitary creatures. they make their own decisions, play by their own rules, hunt their own game. it's suggested that most or a majority of hunters seem to go after exclusively the supernatural entity that got them into hunting in the first place, and only the more prolific hunters have a wide range of skillsets.

this isn't something that can be controlled. and by that i mean, wiping out every hunter isn't going to stop hunters from existing. because as long as there are monsters, people will continue to be traumatized, and people will continue to hunt. even if you wipe out an entire generation, you can't stop a random individual from having her family eaten by werewolves and deciding to hunt werewolves down from now on. no matter what the BMoL try, this is an impossible thing to control, and it's stupid to try. again, from both a watsonian and doylian perspective.

the actual motives and objectives of the BMoL are so all over the place and messy that it's really difficult to follow throughout the season, too. first you're going to torture sam for information—all the while bragging about how much intel you have access to and how much you know about the winchesters. if you know sam so well, why don't you know any other hunters, huh? why do you need him to tell you? but i digress. then you're trying to recruit hunters to work for the men of letters, and it's all friendly and inviting and organized. then you're going to exterminate all the hunters because they don't want to listen to a foreign organization no one's ever even heard of and has only been in the states for like 5 months? they're portrayed as nothing better than petulant children who can't stand that the girl on the playground wouldn't give them her dolly.

and honestly that would be fine, in isolation, i guess, if the whole portrayal of the UK didn't weird me out on so many levels. i don't know what goes on in the UK, and also i didn't read harry potter, but the whole "secret magic school" and "secret magic society" thing feels so reductive and bland. like okay you have a real-world hogwarts. sure. can you at least try to be more creative about this. i was fine with the men of letters existing outside of the US, that's to be expected and i was actually excited to see what would come of that. but as soon as they put in a fucking magic school they lost me.

like first of all, why is the UK soooooo developed in this area where the US lags behind? are other countries following the UK's example? is europe equally monster-free? is the US the last haven for monsters??? and if the BMoL are so advanced, where the hell have they been for ummmm (bad at math) what, 60-ish years now? they just let the US chapter die and cut off communications? no attempt to support the country whatsoever? leave the US to rot? until just now, after some random americans kicked off 2.5 apocalypses. yeah sure. i can get behind that (heavy sarcasm). it's just—be realistic. if you're going to make such an advanced and all-powerful organization, where the fuck have they been all this time? the scale should match the presence.

my ideal for the BMoL would have been a much smaller scale organization that utilizes black and white ideology to train killers, preferably infiltrating judicial organizations to maintain peace and provide cover for hunters. they shouldn't be like. running the fucking government or whatever this all-encompassing scale is that the show presented. it was a cool and interesting idea to bring in the men of letters. it was not a cool and interesting execution. it barely holds up to any scrutiny and requires so much handwaving and excuse-making that i just cannot get myself to like it at all.

ok. rant over. i've already mentioned all of the other plotty things that annoyed me about this season in other posts, so i'll move on from my complaining.

i'm going back to mary because i love mary. what i like is how sam's relationship to mary throughout his life is, in a big way, paralleled with sam's relationship to mary after her resurrection. he never gets to confront her abut what she did to him and what she caused. the only person who ever gets to talk about this is dean, both in 12.14 and in 12.23. and maybe other people disagree with this choice, but i really like it. i like the distance between sam and mary, because that's who they are to each other. they never got a chance to know each other, but they are the impetus for each other's suffering. sam never got to know his mom except through dean, who acted as a medium to impart acceptable knowledge to his brother. mary never got to know her son at all. and when she comes back to life, this dynamic, this chasmic distance, remains between them. and dean is caught in the middle of them, just like he's always been throughout his entire life. i think by making mary's presence in season 12 so dean-centric, the show managed to highlight just how wide that chasm is between her and sam. sam doesn't get to speak up for himself or talk about his past or tell mary anything about himself or who he is. dean tells her for him. just like mary never got to tell sam anything about herself; dean told him for her. the dynamic persists, and dean remains caught in the middle, ever sam's protector and shield and greatest advocate.

sam was actually pretty damn wonderful this season. i'm clinging onto sam's character arc to distract from my angry disappointment with the british men of letters. the transition and development from mid-season 11 to 12.23 was awesome and well-paced, which is frankly something i didn't know the show knew how to do anymore. so i'm extremely happy with how subtle and natural the buildup was, especially for a show that doesn't have the word "subtle" in its dictionary. i don't think i have nearly any complaints about how sam was handled this season honestly. maybe some nitpicks, but no serious complaints. he was just great. he reclaimed agency and willpower for himself in a really unique way that didn't compromise his enmeshment with dean (and thus didn't backtrack on any of the previous toxic relationship developments that have happened, like i'd feared would happen), and he grew in a very positive and interesting way that i really enjoyed. go sammy :)

the whole apocalypse world ending in 12.23 was way too drawn out and overdramatic, also i still hate lucifer's rewritten character, also i think it was deeply unnecessary to lock mary in there with him, also why was cas even there at all he did Literally Nothing and then died immediately, also why did it take so long for the portal to close after crowley died, that's so unbelievably contrived and stupid as hell—

BUT. otherwise i liked the finale. if i ignore the whole apocalypse world thing it was great, even. big win for me since i did not like season 11's finale (big shocker). i'm really tickled that sam was the one to find jack; i think that will create some interesting developments in season 13 so i'm looking forward to that. i hope jack imprints on sam like a duck. based on posts i've seen floating around tumblr, that's more or less what happens so i'm excited about that lmao.

anyway. this was the longest 4.5 days of my life. i'm going to detox like hell after this, because lord knows i need it. i haven't decided what i'll watch, so it might be more movies or maybe a miniseries. who knows. but i desperately need to funnel some wincest fanfiction directly into my mouth now. something to cleanse me of this season. thank you and god bless 🙏

[solarisdog]

while i have spoken to those behind the scenes of this account, regarding the abuse that i dealt with and tolerated from solarisgod for over 2 years (and even now, as i have been told they continue to post slander about me, vagues etc), and have gone into great detail of every single experience that i had faced regarding this abuser, i initially was going to leave it at that. as this is an extremely triggering, harmful thing for me to communicate. however after thinking about for it for a while and talking with my partners, i want to confess about - off anon and publicly on this blog, not created by myself but by others that have unfortunately suffered the harmful effects of solaris' abuse - the major talking point of their twisted, sick and manipulative narrative that has been blanketed over me for over 2 years.

while we had a small history before this moment, me and solaris reconnected due to me seeing their blog in my FYP and me sending them an anon saying that i missed the connection we had, and other pleasantries that came to mind, having their blog presented in front of me. from this, they expressed for me to come off-anon and chat and i did. which led to us becoming close roleplay partners, and what i believed to be good friends. they were 10 years younger than me, but tumblr RPC is full of people from ages 18-30 and beyond so that wasn't a problem for me. we also shared similar interests and i felt a connection with them, on a completely platonic level, which i at the time treasured. i cared about solaris, but that was to my detriment.

we were in contact for a few months, i believe, and we were very close especially in regards to talking on discord. at one point, we started sharing voice memos via Vocaroo to each other. there was one message i received where solaris had burst into tears, sobbing through this message about how they didn't want to lose me, and that the thought of them being away from me scared them. to end it, they asked me via this voice message if i wanted to be their girlfriend. i expressed via a voice message in response that i didn't want to be their girlfriend, and to please never call me that. but what i thought us to be was platonic soulmates, a term i expressed to solarisgod on several occasions.

i am a happily married and committed person, who has two beautiful partners. one i have been with since i was a teenager and am not currently married to (but will!) and another who has been with me since i was 21 and i am happily married to them. while i am polyamorous for another person only, and would accept having a boyfriend or girlfriend as part of our partnership with my two other partners, i never had ANY romantic feelings for solarisgod. not only because of the age gap thing, which is a pretty big deal and not something i look for in a partner (i prefer them older), but they are not my type on any level. while we had things in common, they are extremely childish and immature and that would be an instant turn-off if they were around my age. but they weren't, and i had no thoughts or wants for that level of relationship whatsoever. hence why i told them - no to girlfriends, absolutely yes to PLATONIC soulmates only.

anyway, one night i was spending time with my mother who i care for, playing video games with her and was enjoying company with my only parent just like i did every night. when that had finished, i had come online to discord and found out that solarisgod had ghosted me. initially because 'this wasn't working out and it's in our best interests to move on and have different writing partners.' I was devastated, as i always put my heart and soul into friendships, even on tumblr and whenever i get hurt or ghosted, that shit hurts me deeply. but yanno, what could i do? they had blocked me on discord, on tumblr, that was that.

then i wake up the next morning and the cycle of abuse begins. they start posting callouts on their blog, which i was told by another close roleplay partner at the time named D (first letter of their name), and constant vagues about how unsafe i was for the community. that i had 'groomed, stalked, and manipulated them into a relationship' from the very start. that 'after some time thinking about this' i was their stalker. that i had planned this from the beginning. that when i offered to send them a crow pendant during our friendship, that was apparently a way to gain their address so i could hunt them down and murder them. this was solaris' words over a long period of time. i was told there were screenshots posted of solaris fawning over me in their group servers, about how i was their girlfriend and how happy they were (even though i expressed NO to that, absolutely do not want to be your damn girlfriend) yet provided no screenshots of me actually saying this to them in discord. surely if we were 'dating' over a long period of time, there would be evidence of that in our private chats, right? but no evidence of that was provided.

i was told by my partners, specifically my future wife who is more tech-savvy than my husband, that they were obsessed with me. it was blatantly obvious. and the fact that i had said no to dating, had put them into a spiral where they had no choice but to ghost me and create a narrative that suited them, for their own healing of me rejecting them or whatever. this made sense to me over time. i couldn't believe it but there were several reasons why this theory seemed true.

several roleplayers came to me privately when solaris continued to post callouts and vagues, so angry that i wasn't pushed off the tumblr site yet with my maverick blog and my personal project blogs, telling me that solaris had come to EVERY SINGLE ONE of my mutuals to warn them away from me. that this went beyond a DNI on their rules page, this was harassment in contacting everyone that i had written with and warning them about me, with their lies and newly created narrative. these people told me that they found solarisgod to be frenzied, and obsessive towards me, and that their behaviour was extremely concerning and toxic. that if they were so afraid of me, why were they constantly talking about me? that was a relief, at the time, knowing that i wasn't alone in feeling this horrendous energy that was constantly being poured out from solaris.

over time, i felt pushed away from the RPC. not because people wouldn't interact with me, anyone that knew me personally and heard my side of the story believed me. but i was sick of feeling eyes on me, being stalked, having this constant weight of harm over something that i loved doing - writing with other people. so i left the RPC a few months later. which was okay because i had my partners to write with, but it was still a blow as i loved writing with other people so much. the fun didn't stop there.

every single blog that i have ever made since leaving the RPC nearly two years ago has been instantly called out by solaris. every single one. even my own personal blog that i created in april that wasn't even related to roleplay was monitored. blogs that didn't even show up in the tags and were made only a few hours previously, solaris knew about and posted about on their blogs. i know this because i had friends on discord at the time who were protecting me. when i made a callout around 12-18 months ago, since deleted, expressing why i am the apparent stalker when all they do is stalk me? they responded saying they kept tabs on me to protect the RPC. stalking me, to protect others.

why stalk someone that has caused you such mental distress, nightmares, emotional damage as solaris has put it throughout this time? when in fact, according to my partners and other roleplayers, it comes from a place of obsession. even contacting my ex-girlfriend on her personal roleplay account to ''warn'' about me, in the form of anons. not even one message but at least 15-20 of them.

the only thread in their 'im a groomer' narrative that has any semblance of truth (even though they twisted it to suit their manipulative narrative) is regarding el vis and priscilla. the former being something that i love dearly since i was a child. when me and solaris were friends (and nothing more) i watched the latest movie, and in my frantic hyper fixation, i told solaris that the bond elvis and priscilla had before dating in the movie reminded me of them. i have since told other people that have approached me regarding this, that out of context - definitely sounds bad on a romantic level. but me and solaris were never romantic. it was more of a 'despite age, we can still be close' approach when i mentioned the movie, but in hindsight, i do regret speaking that and the only thing that have done ''wrong'' ever to solarisgod. solaris at the time said that they didn't like being compared to real people, i said i was sorry and nothing else was mentioned about it. other people's perceptions on this are that it was used to twist their narrative, as they had fallen in love with me. had i accepted their feelings and got into a relationship with them, none of this callout stuff would have ever happened. that's the theory from those around me anyway.

but i have to stress, i have never been a groomer of a minor. i have never asked for a relationship for someone below age. child abuse on a sexual level - that i have personally experienced - is not something i would ever do. i find it disgusting, disturbing and beyond horrendous. the amount of PTSD and shakes i get just from speaking about this is something i might not ever heal from, not for a long time anyway, because this was an orchestrated attack over several years and i have never felt so worthless and ostracized as i have because of solaris.

this is only a small slice of the pie of abuse that solaris has done to me. but it's the most important thing to address and what makes me sick to my stomach to this day. constantly being called their 'ex-girlfriend' in their callouts before being known as simply 'the stalker' has given me so much mental stress, and agony that my partners were extremely worried for me. i also sought legal advice only to reach a dead-end due to conflicts being in different countries. i have dealt with racism, accusations of copying PSDs, pinterest boards, characters, plotlines, them and their friends going through my entire Pinterest to look at 'problematic faceclaims' and documenting why they were problematic. again, stalking me even though i'm the apparent stalker. faceclaims ( like tom cruise ) that weren't a problem from them when we were close and i had a tom FC for my rp blog, they even drew their muse with mine who had the Tom FC! and then it was suddenly a you always made me uncomfortable with that FC and you always pressured me into writing with them. never did solaris express any concerns with me until it suited their callout of lies and manipulation. even the terribly farfetched accusation of bestiality! where apparently because they told me they were hypersexual, i responded that they could have sex with a hedgehog and they would still be worthy! now, that's hilariously unhinged. my partner is hypersexual and i would never say anything so damn disgusting as that. but again, it's all part of a huge web solarisgod has created regarding me that makes their the ultimate victim, when in fact, they are the ultimate abuser. i could write essays on each of these points mentioned but like i say, these aren't important asides from the confession i am posting here.

they are clever, i give them that, they almost won. but now people are coming forward to give their stories, and that speaks wonders. i am not the only poor soul that has had abuse from solaris and i'm afraid i won't be the last. and i am sorry for anyone else that has been manipulated by solaris, pushed to the side and ultimately, out of the roleplay community. you thought they were being kind, loving, caring with their constant love bombing and shared interests, but in fact, they are planning your demise.

stay safe everyone.

Thank you for sending in your story. I am sorry for all that you went through.

[wildelydawn]

You had final thoughts for I’ll Ignite for You. Do you have any for Your Look Through this Lens?

Hi there; you asked this in August, and now it’s October. I waited so long because I didn't have an answer for you. And I still don’t know if I have an answer for you, but I think I’ll try anyway.

I want to first say that having final thoughts on II4Y was infinitely easier because of the nature of the story. Nothing happens in II4Y besides a conversation over the span of three days; and it’s a story that brings Kim and Porchay together and makes them part and then brings them back together when Kim is ready. (Even though II4Y is technically canon divergence, it could very well still take place after canon because I don’t believe Porchay needs to respond to the video. They just need to see each other, and that same spark/intensity from episode 4 would reignite, and that’s still up to Kim to do, in my opinion.)

Thoughts on YLTTL are different. One, I wrote from Porchay’s point of view, and while he’s not innocent or oblivious, he chooses to remain blissfully passive about the many inconsistencies with WIK. Porchay knows there’s something more to WIK, but he never asks because he knows that he’s not going to be WIK’s photographer forever. He knows he’s on a time limit. He has always known that; he’s ready to leave from the beginning of the story. @emberfaye asked me what the first part of Chapter 1 means and when it takes place. In that section, Porchay thinks about how unlucky he is to have the perfect subject because there's nothing to perfect. There is an ending; Porchay assumes the ending to all of this is WIK gets famous and moves on from him. So he's prepared (and maybe, in a meta way, this was my warning to readers to also prepare for the ending of YLTTL.)

The person who’s unprepared is Kim, and that’s borrowed from canon when Kim is looking at the polaroids of KimChay. And in YLTTL, I capitalized on that. He’s wildly unprepared for the fact that even the nicest feelings or moments don’t last forever. He's also unprepared in regards to the lies he tells, both in canon and in YLTTL. But he should be. He’s in the mafia. He knows nothing is permanent. But in YLTTL, he’s not ready for his music career to take off or even to leave the mafia. Chay is ready for the ending, though; he counts down the days every chapter. So, I guess the first thought is this idea of time: how much do you have of it? When will you be ready? When is the right time for whatever is it that you want to do?

Two, even if they were ready, circumstance isn’t on their side. This is just a fact of life. Kim asks Chay if things would have been different if they met at a grocery store. YLTTL was based on the idea that even in an AU, Kim and Chay don’t end up together. But that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. I personally don’t think the canon ending of KimChay means they don’t love each other, and I think I wrote YLTTL to explore that idea a bit more deeply.

Three: And like I said in this post about Amelia, there’s a (potentially harmful) narrative that you should stop loving someone once you’re not with them. Oddly, I think I love Amelia more than ever; I can safely say she still cares about me too! But we know it’s better to move forward and to accept that there’s no love lost. She’s not this ghost in my life. I talk about her with my current partner. I dedicate IRL works and fandom works to her. This surprises people, but she’s not just a muse. Similarly, Chay is not just a muse for Kim. They are always going to be tangled with one another. Their story doesn’t end just because things like marriage, distance, time, circumstance, exist. Kim is going to find Chay in every crowd, every hotel room, he’s going to hope that every person behind every camera is Chay, and Chay will take everything he learned about photography and apply it to every subject that comes after WIK, he’ll admit to people that he wishes he could photograph WIK some more, he’s going to hold his breath every time he opens his camera bag and then sigh in relief when he doesn’t see anything from Kim there because that means Kim is doing what Chay asked him to do. And even when they can’t see each other, they don’t have to go very far to see each other. The photographs will always be there. You don’t have to see love to feel love, in my opinion. Just because you feel lonely doesn’t mean you’re alone.

Anyways. I don’t think this answered your question at all tbh because YLTTL is a KimChay story and also, in a very twisted way, a story about time and loneliness. But I’ve left you sitting in my inbox for too long, and I hope this was somewhat satisfactory for you. Thank you for reading YLTTL! And thank you for being interested in my thoughts beyond the story! 🖤

[haleigh-sloth]

In your opinion, do you think Hori's decision to put Tokoyami as Hawks' intern is a good idea? What prompted this ask is that recently in the wake of newest chapter, I saw a thread (twitter) that says Uraraka should be Hawks' intern because Uraraka is the designated Toga savior and her seeing Jin's corpse in Tokoyami's place would be better to give Uraraka any context than current situation when Uraraka doesn't know anything about Jin and Hawks. The thing is, I saw similar thread a while back that says Shouto should intern with Hawks since Hawks is tied deeply with Todoroki plot and they said it will be narratively better if Shouto is the one who saves Hawks from Dabi, with the reveal and black bubble and all. On Dark Deku era, I saw quite some Deku fanboys say that if Deku interned with Hawks instead of Sir Nighteye or Endeavor, he will integrate with PLW plot better as MC, use Hawks' sensory to train Danger Sense, the whole Dark Deku arc with Lady Nagant will be better if Hawks and Deku have deeper relationship, also now that Hawks is likely one of Vestige inside AFO and one of few who interact with AFO the most.

My reaction to those threads are : 1. Why Hawks is in high demand don't you guys see how absolutely terrible that chicken is as mentor figure, 2. what they said makes sense, honestly I can't refute it and probably any of those ways will be better for the plot, but as Hawks' kinnie it's kinda refreshing to see Hawks and Tokoyami relationship that came with zero emotional baggage (at least except the ghosting that the chicken stupidly brought it upon himself), and 3. frankly Hori puts Hawks in too many plot threads when he still failed to express his genuine emotion in even just one of his conflicts, the savior trio listening to Hawks with the same devotion Tokoyami has for Hawks will bound to be disaster, but the same disaster probably can make the situation more interesting.

So as an expert on savior plots (afaik hehe) and someone who has no problem with putting Hawks in more wringer or two, I wanna know your opinion, do you think that one of savior kids should intern with Hawks for it to run better? The usual complaints for savior kids' plots are that Uraraka doesn't know/have any thought about Jin's death, Shoto doesn't understand Touya's deep attachment to Endeavor, and Deku as MC is mostly clueless about LOV and Tenko (frankly I don't think Hawks can help this), do you think they can be fixed if Hawks became one of their mentor?

...there is so much here I don't even know where to begin lol

I really can't even completely address a lot of the "points" in the first paragraph. Like who freaking cares about how Deku trains danger sense. It came at the time it did for a reason, why does that have to change. Also him interning with Hawks has no impact on how integrated he is into the PLW arc. Literally all of his actions would have played out the same. His fight with Tomura is the same. Hawks literally never even joined the battlefield with Tomura so how does this make anything better? Him interning with Endeavor served the purpose of spicing up the Todoroki plot and introducing Endeavor's new ambition--atonement. With Izuku's comment about how he sees Shouto trying with his dad and sees his uncertainty in forgiving--> called him kind for trying--> unintentionally hurt Natsuo's feelings because Natsuo feels like he himself isn't trying--> Endeavor calls Natsuo kind and acknowledges Natsuo's efforts, something nobody else in the family had done before that--> Endeavor says he doesn't want forgiveness as a response to hearing Deku--> says he wants atonement which is the whole basis of his arc from there on out. Everything served a purpose. How changing any of that would have "bettered the plot" is just beyond me, I don't understand it.

I'll start with explaining why Hawks absolutely should not have been placed with any savior squad kids--> because Hawks himself, is a savior squad kid at heart. I don't know if people realize this, but Hawks is the FIRST ONE to introduce the concept of saving a villain into the story. He beat the kids to the punch. Hawks to Jin is what Ochacko is to Toga and Izuku is to Tomura.

Hawks was supposed to be Jin's hero but he failed. But his purpose was to introduce that concept into the story. Like hey, this is something that someone in Hawks's position can consider. Hey, heroes can get close to villains and want them to be happy too.... He did his job there. But he was supposed to fail. He failed because of his background, his training, and his inflexible thinking when it comes to Jin's (problematic) philosophies. His background plays a part because Hawks has very little attachments in life. His attachment to Endeavor is entirely parasocial, his attachment to Tokoyami is very distant and closed off, because Hawks has issues.

Having any of the savior squad kids work under him imo would have been entirely too clustered. The reason Hawks failed in his role as a savior squad kid himself is because he has refused to let attachments run deep with him, except for one (Endeavor, which again parasocial). So putting the savior squad kids, whose arcs are all entirely based on strong bonds and attachments and relationships throughout the story, with Hawks, whose entire character is based on refusing attachments and bonds and relationships, would have been silly. Tokoyami up until NOW has always paid more attention to Hawks. It's been a very lop-sided relationship. Hawks dodged his calls, texts, outreaches, etc. Which is hilarious considering how Hawks views Endeavor. It's supposed to be that way because during the current arc Hawks finally pays attention to Tokoyami after he's been beaten to shit. What benefit does it serve to put Ochacko or Izuku in that position? Also Izuku spent the entire rogue arc with Hawks so....the lack of communication is pointless. Also Izuku has his somewhat complicated relationship with All Might so like....this idea is just silly to me. Idk.

As for Ochacko---she doesn't need to know shit about Twice. Honestly. Toga's BACKSTORY and the ACTUAL reason Toga has been struggling since she was a toddler is not because of Twice. Her backstory focuses on the emotional abuse endured from her parents. Ochacko has been paying attention to Toga's words and actions ever since the PLF arc and coming to her own conclusions on that. Ochacko is supposed to reach Toga by connecting with her and addressing her personal pain that Toga can't seem to get anybody to understand. Ochacko didn't kill Twice, she had nothing to do with him, and Twice isn't THE source of Toga's issues. It's just icing on the cake. What is Ochacko supposed to say regarding Twice? She didn't kill him. It's not like she needs to apologize for what happened. And Tsu already addressed the concept of killing vs. connecting and it didn't stop Toga. Simply just NOT killing Toga isn't working, it's not the solution Toga is looking for. So connecting Ochacko to Twice really serves no purpose here. Yes, not killing Toga does play into it, it answers Toga's question "Am I a person". But Toga's question also dates back to her parents literally calling her inhuman, so the notion that Ochacko somehow having something super important to say about Twice is the end all be all or the deal breaker makes no sense. Toga needs more than just "I promise I won't kill you 🙏🏼".

So I mean...yeah idk. My answer is yes putting Hawks and Tokoyami together was a good idea. Tokoyami isn't a main character so his spot as that side-dynamic that Hawks can start to allow himself to feel feelings over has been pretty well executed imo. Hawks didn't start seriously putting work into their dynamic until this war when Tokoyami put his all into fighting AFO and protecting Hawks. Hawks cradling Tokoyami because he's down for the count is supposed to be a big moment. Putting one of the main kids down for the count doesn't work. None of that works for the kids nor Hawks himself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My last point is that I'm SO tired of the "the kids don't know anything about the LOV trio!" complaint. The point of being a hero is to save someone even if you don't know them. Making the effort to GET to know them. How is the one biological sibling dynamic containing two bio siblings who are LITERALLY strangers and before the PLF war had probably exchanged less words in their life time than Izuku in Tomura THEIR lifetime, not a clear indicator that "knowing each other" is not a prequesite to saving each other.

No, the kids don't know the villains. But the villains have been watching the kids and dropping hints they want something from the kids. It's supposed to be that way. The villains are desperate and are so desperate that they're willing to idealize these complete strangers, high schoolers, they've had chance encounters with that were impactful enough to have left a long-lasting impression on them, to the point of idealizing them as someone who would save them, if such a thing was possible in their minds (right now, it's not a possible thing in their minds). These kiddos are tasked with something nobody else in the story is tasked with which is the point. Save someone even if they're not asking for it.

Thank you for the ask!