#Me who wants talk to people vs me who afraids of social interactions

[marinusart]

"I don't think Tremor likes me very much. That doesn't really matter, because I don't really like him, either."

No one asked me but I'll show the sketch too. I have a strange feeling that it looks better than the final picture...

[maleyanderecafe]

Courtin' Cowboys (Visual Novel)

Created by: Mr Fishess, jd

Genre: Horror

I know this game came out a while ago, but I finally was able to play it and man is it fun. It reminds me of a smaller scale DOL or even something like The Snake's Taken a Spouse. There are three yanders that are in this game, though it definitely follows more of a porn game logic for yanderes. I will explain that in a bit. This game has a lot of violence and sex, and is r18, so please be wary if you do play it.

The MC basically starts out staying at a town in Summerfield. They rent a motel there. The game allows you to meet people at the saloon, the store, the sheriff's office, out in the pastures and in the woods. You can also decide to leave at any point as well. There are a lot of things you can do in the game besides interact with other characters, including buying and cooking food, going fishing, foraging and catching snakes for money. You can also buy different outfits and customize your looks.

While there are many characters, we will be going over the three yanderes in the game, Dijon, Jak and Will. I'm not sure if I was able to get everything for them, but I was able to at least get all of the endings, so we'll start with that. A lot of the endings usually involve them competing with other yandere characters so we'll cover those as well.

Dijon is the farmer that lives in the pasture. When first meeting him, he will talk about how he can't tell if he's missing sheep because he can't count higher than 10. After helping him, we go hunt for his lost sheep, which has run off into the woods and then go into the farm to have sex with him (I finally get to be the dom in one of these games, heck yes). Most of his endings generally involve sleeping with another character, only for Dijon to kidnap you and bring you back to his farm, where I guess you can just leave afterwards. Each time, it seems like he believes you are like a sheep, having strayed too far from home, getting a bit more paranoid every time that you leave. He can do this upwards of about three times. After sleeping with the fourth person, Dijon will get angry and chain the MC up in the barn, before the MC is able to escape. Dijon runs after them only to hear a loud noise. Afterwards it seems Dijon kind of just continues what he's doing as if nothing has happened.

Jak is the drunk that hangs out in the bar. If you flirt with him before buying him a drink, the two of you can have sex outside in a camp. If you sleep with enough other characters, Jak will actually kill the last person you slept with before being sent to jail. From what I remember, he is also one of the main characters in the creator's other game, Lover's Trophy, though I have yet to play that game.

Will is a clown man that is found in the woods. The MC will end up trying to chase after him finding a bunch of bones set up in a way that resembles a tea party. Depending on options, Will can either end up killing the MC or growing obsessed when the two talk. We learn that he lives in the woods and wears clown makeup because he's afraid of social interactions and wants to make it easier to approach people (thus the clown makeup). We also see he's sort of the groundskeeper of the woods, burying bodies to let them be eaten clean to the bone. After talking to him and not dying, he ends up stalking the MC. During one of the other interactions when the MC is investigating a robbery, they talk to the dancer, Magnolia. If the MC brings up Will as the possible thief, Magnolia will defend Will, stating their history together as childhood friends before drifting apart. In another ending, Will is able to save the MC from the beast in the woods called the Bastard, a man who basically acts like an unkillable animal and wanders the woods. There is also an event where Will sneaks into the MC's room at night and kind of noncons them. This is a random event.

There are two competitions that occur with the yanderes in the game, one being Jak vs Dijon and the other being Dijon vs Will.

When sleeping with both Jak and Dijon, the two of them will end up attempting to kidnap the MC during the night. Upon waking up, the two will end up forcing the MC to choose one of them. Choosing Dijon ends with Jak attempting to shoot him, with the MC having the choice to push him out of the way, thus getting themselves killed. Otherwise, Dijon will be shot and Jak kidnaps the MC into the forest to noncon them. The MC can run away, causing the Bastard to come and kill Jak. Choosing Jak will cause Dijon to sadly walk away, allowing Jak to take care of the MC. Jak will end up shooting Dijon regardless and once again drag them back to camp to noncon them. Through gun play, I believe the MC can still be shot and killed, and the same bastard ending will still apply.

When interacting with both Dijon and Will, the two of them will end up the MC's room at night. The MC will wake up to the two of them talking at the end of the bed. At first it seems to be some sort of banter, the two insulting each other's ages and their weaknesses before Dijon attempts to take out a gun and kill Will. If the MC warns Will and then takes the gun, they can attempt to shoot as a warning, to which the bullet will miss and end up killing the MC instead, or they will simply threaten them and they will leave. If they don't warn Will, Dijon will end up shooting Will and dragging his dead body out, whereas if you do, Will can end up stabbing and killing Dijon.

As a whole, the game is very well put together and has a lot of features. You can basically date every character except three of them (that being the innkeeper, Mortom and the Bastard), each with it's own CGs and endings, along with various mini games, and an entire cooking and inventory system. On a technical basis, this game is done very well and it is pretty fun running around and doing a lot of these tasks. Still, as much as the individual components are very fun, I feel like there's not really any reason to do any of the mini games for the plot. You can basically ignore the entire portion of it if you are simply just seeing what the character plots would be like, which is kind of unfortunate. The cooking system is supposed to tie in with the stamina system, which is a good idea, but talking to people doesn't deplete stamina, only gathering items. In this way, it feels very disjointed from the rest of the game, as not even stuff like money is really needed to play. I think at least an easy fix for the money system would be similar to how DOL forces the player to pay Bailey, so in this game, you would be forced to pay the innkeeper money for every day that you stay there (which, you know, does make sense if you want to stay at the inn) thereby forcing you to spend time getting money and having to cook food to be able to get energy to make money. Unfortunately with the implementation that I see at least, it seems to be lacking in attempting to make a game play loop with these cool mini games. While it's not the worst thing in the world, I think it does make these minigames kind of pointless since you can basically completely ignore them.

Storywise, while I do think it's very nice that you are able to get more of a solid look at a lot of characters, I do feel like there isn't really anything satisfying for the end of a lot of them. When they are killed, there is no reaction for most of the other characters (with the exception of a handful of them). It's hard to say where certain events will happen unless you have a guide and while there is one on the fandom page, there is none on the itchio or steam page that helps you (which is unfortunate for people like me who generally rely on a walkthrough to try to get everything). I think that was the point of having a lot of characters all with their own story, but I feel like there could have been more to place more of an arc for each them.

Dijion as a yandere is mostly pretty light. He actually is probably the most harmless out of all of them considering that he only really kidnaps the player when sleeping with another character (unless it's with Jak or Will). He seems to delusionally believe that the MC is a sort of "lost sheep", which is why he keeps bringing them back to the barn. It is unfortunate that he doesn't actually end up trying to harm or even properly trap the MC (well, he tries, but they run away again, with seemingly no consequence). He does manage to kill Will in one of the endings, however, it's strange to me that he wasn't able to do so with other characters such as Jak or even any of the other characters that the MC might end up sleeping with. Still, I think I do quite like Dijion as a character, he's very puppy like, similar to a dog herder who is trying to get his sheep back. His running gag of not being able to count (especially when Will calls him out on it) is pretty funny, though I wish it was brought up more.

Jak is probably the most extreme out of the yandere characters considering that he is the most violent and most forceful of the three. When choosing between Jak and Dijon, Jak will outright shoot Dijon if the MC doesn't protect him and he can kill either Magnolia or Jade as well, sending him straight to jail as well as fighting and possibly killing the Bastard in one of the endings. I'm not sure how close he is to his counterpart in Lover's Trophy, but he is very violent in this version, with it often leading to his own detriment, like when he is killed by the Bastard after being taken when choosing between Dijon and him, or when he is jailed for killing either of the girls. He also definitely has a very intimidating presence with the game emphasizing just how tall he is and how generally strong he is. He definitely feels like he fits very well in this type of murder horror type game given his general behavior and intimidating presence.

Will as a yandere generally just stalks the player, and doesn't have nearly as many endings as Jak or Dijion. Still, I do think the scenes we do get give a bigger impression of what he's actually like. From what I've seen, although we generally don't see him in the game, it is implied that he stalks the player quite often, as we see him save the MC from the bastard and sneak into the MC's place at night. Given that he's rather aloof and is uncomfortable with most human interactions, it does make sense that we barely ever see him, only really gaining more insight from Magnolia as the two seem to be friends. I kind of wish that we had more personal encounters with him like maybe hanging out with him with his bone collection (thing), but I do think even with the little information that we do learn about him he's a pretty solid character. Plus if you talk to him wrong, he straight up kills you which is kind of entertaining.

In terms of what I mean by porn game yandere, I basically have to turn again to DOL for this. While I get it's not really fair comparing two of these games as they are going for different things, what I mean in this case is that in general, yanderes are not usually okay with their love interests sleeping with other characters. This usually results in murder of some sort or at least some sort of separation of their lover with the person that they're sleeping with. However, in games like DOL, while Kylar and Eden can get jealous or otherwise kidnap the MC, they aren't allowed to kill the other characters that they sleep with and in essence, the MC can just kind of have a poly relationship with all of the love interests if they want. While I'm not saying poly yanderes can't exist, they generally have certain specifications on how they act (at least in my opinion). Obviously for gameplay wise, if the player is not into any of the yandere characters and ends up sleeping with with by accident or on purpose, it would be a big pain if they ended up murdering or getting rid of the other characters gameplay wise, and considering both of the characters, it also doesn't seem fair to also just exclude them just because you are allowed to sleep with other characters, which is why I kind of call it porn game logic since for the sake of not making the gameplay bad for the player, I will make an exception for it in this context. Anyways, going back to Courtin' Cowboys, while unlike DOL you can have characters killed, they don't usually get that far. A good example is with Jak who is able to kill one of the characters (either Magnolia or Jade if you sleep with them) before getting captured (which is fine). Meanwhile a character like Dijon seems pretty light, having the player sleep with three different characters only leads to Dijon basically telling the player not to get lost again after being kidnapped and Dijon just...letting them go. Will also doesn't have that much yandere actions either considering that outside of the versus, protecting the MC from the bastard and the random encounter of him breaking into the inn and sleeping with you.

Still despite what kind of possible tweaks and missing things I have for Courtin' Cowboys, it is undoubtedly a fun game. There is so much in it that I probably didn't even get to see, plus every time you play you can have a different experience. The customization and general aesthetic of being a cowboy is really nice and the fact that you have all these minigames in the first place is very impressive along with the sheer amount of characters that you can date/interact with is very cool. It's a great entry into the murder sim type genre with a bunch of fun yanderes to boot. If you haven't played it yet, I would highly recommend it.

[angryracoon92]

I've been reading ACOTAR again these last days and I can't stop thinking about Elain, as a person, and Elain with Lucien. 

I've been out of the fandom for a while, and I think we're completely missing something big with the ship war going on with Elucien and Elriel. I think SJM has an insane opportunity to give such a message to her readers. I'm mature enough now to take some steps back on the story, but it might not be the case for everybody. At least it wasn't the case for my younger self. 

Elain gets a lot of hate because of misogyny, right? Because she's traditionally feminine, loves her flowers and her baking, is a very social person, and isn't a strong empowered warrior protagonist. I'm not saying those carcters are bad. They are necessary to break gender stereotypes and inspire girls to do what they want in life and  not to be afraid to be themselves if they don't align with the stereotypes. But I've noticed that this type of caracter has become so mainstream now that it has lost its meaning and is no longer a perspective of choice but an expectation. 

This ship war reminded me of Twilight. If I remember right, Bella says at some point that choosing between Edward and Jacob is more about choosing what version of herself is the one she wants to be. So, of course, she chooses an extraordinary life, rebels against the norms, and becomes a vampire. That's good for her. It carried the right message at that time. 

But with Elain, SJM can completely change that message around. If Elain chooses Azriel, she chooses an extraordinary life too. She gets to become an active member of the Night Court, probably will be trained as a warrior or a spy at some point and become a revelant political figure with her seer abilities. That's an attractive life, and would probably allow her character to evolve a lot. But it once again perpetuate that idea that you have to become a very warrior type of character for you to have some value. So we're teaching teens that they have to be extraordinary for people to love them and value them, putting a lot of pressure on them, and encouraging them to, in the end, embody the new stereotype of women that we have created. 

All the beauty of the idea lies there. If Elain chooses Lucien, she won't have to have that dark, alluring life but can choose an ordinary one. She won't be expected to stop her gardening, to act or speak differently. She doesn't have to completely change her personality, and she is still loved and cherished, but for exactly who she is. Even if she can become that super cool person, but not in alignment with herself. It could show that you can be loved even as an ordinary person with an ordinary life. That quiet lives are just as important as epic ones. And that a simple life can still be filled with happiness and beauty. It's a tolkienesque idea, but it's so important to celebrate ordinary lives.

If SJM writes Elucien, she can create a whole spectrum of representation. You can be a queen, a warrior, or a lover, and each of them is just as good as the other if it feels right to you.

And, by writing all of this, I don't even want to take part in this Lucien vs Azriel thing, or even go deeper in the characters. It's not about the characters themselves. There are a lot of amazing people who have done precise analysis of the canon text already. I just felt that it was important for me to share it somewhere, and I've seen no one talking about it already.

Please don't hesitate to interact with this post because I would love to talk about it with someone. Thanks for reading if you made it that far :)

[madarasgirl]

Madara Romance HC Ramble

While I sometimes read (and enjoy) a MUCH more intense version of Madara than I would write for my own work, I strongly believe he would NOT BE DEGRADING or abusive to his S/O. He's all about love. Accuse me of wearing rose-tinted glasses, but here's my take.

Madara is difficult to write since he's so complex. He isn't some static character who's always optimistic, gloomy, violent, or whatever. He changes with time, growing more cynical and bitter as he lived through his tragic life and came to conclusions about the truths of the world. I will try to consolidate what we know about him and extrapolate that into what romance with Madara might generally be like.

Respects the S/O

It’s really easy to make him out to be arrogant and demeaning, or controlling. He's allowed to be arrogant when he's stronger than 99.99% of the world. Go re-watch his fight vs the Shinobi Alliance or the 5 Kage if you don’t think he has grounds for arrogance. He is simultaneously the hardest on himself. He's extremely self-deprecating when reminiscing on his past failures and transgressions, both as a child and an adult in interactions with Hashirama. Part of him likely believes he doesn't deserve you or to be loved. Of course he would naturally cherish you when you finally become a part of his life. How could he constantly insult or degrade you?

He is 'controlling' in the sense that he likes knowing where you will be/your schedule. It helps him plan when he can spend time with you. It also better helps him keep you safe. Remember Madara is so strong because he wanted to protect what's important to him, but he didn’t even force his clan to follow him when they abandoned him. Madara wants people to CHOOSE him. He wouldn’t force you into things. He wouldn't beat or coerce you either, especially not when that was what was painfully done to him.

By the way, he'll remember those special dates better than you will.

Observant and Sensitive to S/O

During kid Madara’s 2nd meeting with Hashirama, he was able to tell Hashi was feeling down from behind before even talking. And then Mads repeatedly tried to get him to spill what was bothering him in an attempt to console a potential enemy shinobi! Deep down, Madara is a kind sweetheart. He'll be there for you when you need him and there in the background when you don't realize it. He will support you in your endeavors through thick and thin.

He absolutely teases you though, in good faith. Whatever he’s mocking you about is one of your quirks that endears you to him, not something he actually judges you negatively for. The same cheekiness from his younger days is still alive in him somewhere. Don’t worry, he won't roast you as hard as he can where he knows it hurts. Hmm unless you're in a bad fight and he's feeling REALLY petty, then I can maybe see him doing that. His words could cut more than his fists.

Almost a Different Person with His Loved Ones

This is another reason he’s hard to write. While there’s no doubt he can be terrifying (which was how almost everyone in the world saw him), he can be kind of silly with those he’s closer to. He is indifferent or aloof with strangers. He was likely at least civil with others he had to deal with in public and condescending and/or hostile with those who gave him a reason to be. This man’s presence is felt wherever he goes, so of course the average person would have reason to find him intimidating.

In fact, you might occasionally find Madara intimidating too when he's in one of his moods or contemplative. It's how he is, even when not trying to be hostile or domineering. He's still softer with his loved ones than anyone outside his small inner circle. It would break his heart if you were truly afraid of him.

On the other hand, he may be awkward at times. His inability to effectively express his strong emotions to you frustrates him. He wishes he had a better grasp at social interactions, in particular when it comes to you. This guy is just too intense and doesn't know how to chill. 

Cherishes the S/O

He doesn't have much preference when it comes to appearances (body type, skin, hair colour, etc). He wants someone who's easy enough on the eyes? But beyond that, looks are superficial to him. Some people think he is vain because of how he mocked Hashi and his bowl cut/fashion sense. But really? We all know Mads held Hashirama in higher regards than he did anyone else. Madara connects through more intangible traits like values, the mind, strength, and such. He’d enjoy whatever fell out of your clothes if he loves you and doesn’t understand stuff like body insecurities. His "type" would be someone who is family-oriented, placing their children and kin above other priorities, someone who likewise supports him and wants to build a life with him. And someone who can challenge him a little.

Madara is loyal. He values his bonds and was honest until the end. Once you're his, he's also yours. You'd be super precious to him, the light of his life kind of thing. Your presence in his life inspires him to be better than he is.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi, reading your posts made me realize I’m likely an INFJ in a terrible loop. For the last 6 months i’ve been reading about mbti I thought I was INTJ, and every test i tried said it too, but i didnt and still don’t understand Fe vs Te, even after reading your posts. But INFJ in a loop sounds a lot like me. So let’s go with that.

My auxiliary function is suffering. When I’m outside I have this tendency to observe people, the room, their behavior and enjoy dwelling in it, as if I’m reading a novel. It bothers me when someone says or acts rude, when a man bothers a woman like a creep.

In my head i’m so criticizing of other people. And if i’m not criticizing, im acting as if i can read everything about another person. I know this sounds horrible and very narcissistic, but i want to be honest to fix myself. And I know i’m doing this overthinking in social situations to defend myself by acting as if im superior.

But i just observe, i never interact. I havent talked to a single person in my class in university, since im a few years older (24 in a room of 21yo people). Even though i know if i want to socialize thats the right place. I start thinking: if i talk to them, they will get to know me, they will find that i failed or that i dont have a lot of my shit together, and then i will be judged. So why bother. And i know that its so flimsy and stupid. I only made one friend in my old uni before changing courses.

This is not only at university btw. I dont go out in the evenings, or try to meet new people, because i literally have no fucking idea of how to do it without looking like a misfit. My old friends are all very distant now, and while I know many people everything I never really dated, and while i have this insane void of emotional intimacy, i keep rationalising every attempt of experiencing life. I live in a shell.

And the fact i haven’t dated and i’m 24, is so scary. I’m not even ugly or that uninteresting or without hobbies, because people told me the opposite many times, but i dont know why i cant come out of my shell. This is not only about dating, but in general. Im always distant emotionally and end up thinking about it instead of living it. Because im a grown man scared of being judged for my smiles,tears and my love.

I think i have some trauma issues from my teens, when i talked to a girl on facebook for 2 years listening to her problems because i liked her, without ever approaching her irl (because i was a scared teenager idk why). It was a one way thing. I was basically her diary in human form. When i told her my feelings it was too late. After that i ended in a 1 yr depression, and it definitely marked me as a person. I never really opened myself emotionally with anyone else after. Maybe this is not even trauma, it actually feels demeaning to call it as such when other people have suffered more.

This post is a mess. Maybe im just overthinking, and you’ll probably read this and think i need therapy and/or im mistyped . But I really want to break these chains, and hearing an insight from someone who understand people very well could help.

------------------------

If I understand correctly, the main problem is you are closed off and unable to open up. It sounds like you are very afraid of socializing, most likely because you are afraid of being hurt by other people's negative judgments of you (it is a common problem related to unhealthy Fe). There are several factors that may be contributing to this problem:

- Low Self-Worth: You exhibit oversensitivity that arises from using other people's judgments to define your identity and/or determine your personal worth. If you're always worried about how you're being perceived, then you will of course feel anxious about interacting with anyone you're unsure about. This makes it very difficult to meet new people and expand your social circle.

- "Mindreading": You presume to know what others think, without any evidence, easily jumping straight to the worst case scenario. This is a defense mechanism that gives you a false sense of control, as though you're preparing yourself for the worst to happen. As such, you manage to talk yourself out of socializing, losing every opportunity to learn and grow socially.

- Unresolved Past: You've had negative relationship experiences in the past. When you don't resolve negative feelings, learn the right lessons from them, and consciously put the past behind you, you will take the past and project it into the future, expecting it to happen again. This means you are out of touch with reality because you never treat people as NEW people and give them the benefit of the doubt. You assume that people are out to hurt you and you build walls of protection, which conveniently prevents anyone from knowing you and getting close enough to want a relationship with you.

- Lack of Social Skills: It's hard to feel confident when you're incompetent. Even if you were to work up the courage to meet new people, it sounds like you would still lack the skills required to develop the relationship. Immature INFJs often suffer in relationships because of unrealistic ideas and/or unreasonable expectations, which is often related to faulty reasoning patterns (Ti loop). Social skills are called "skills" because anyone can learn and improve them. If you care about being a better version of yourself, you have to be honest about your deficits and apply yourself to learn the knowledge and skills that you need to move forward in life. See the recommended books on the resources page.

While it's possible to work on these issues on your own, it's the more difficult path to take. When you have a serious problem like social anxiety that prevents you from living the life you hope to live, then, yes, it is best to reach out for professional expertise and assistance. People aren't born knowing everything, so everyone needs help at some point and there is no shame in getting it. As long as you keep trying to convince yourself that your needs don't matter or that your problems aren't as serious or serious enough to warrant attention, you will continue to dig your own grave of unhappiness. How long do you want to go through life with these problems weighing you down and holding you back?

[huntinglove]

Sorry in advance for the long ask; feel free to delete without even reading the whole thing, I just really need to voice this somewhere and if by chance you did want to reply I’d massively appreciate your perspective.

I just was wondering… do you have any advice for finally ditching the plausible deniability of being “neutral” or “just anti-harassment” while existing on the selfship side of tumblr?

When I first joined the community I had genuinely never heard of proship vs antiship before, so I took a year or so researching and deciding where I stand on the matter. After witnessing the insanity of antis in action over and over and finding a much more rational community on Aethy and elsewhere in proship spaces, I’ve found I definitely come down on the proship side of the line. In recent months especially, I’ve found myself blocking more and more of my former mutuals or people I used to follow because of their “proship DNI” banners or the way they talk about other people who aren’t up to their standards… the trouble is, I’m not finding anyone new to fill my dashboard from proselfship tumblr, either.

I’m down to a handful of selfship blogs followed, and feel like I can’t reblog almost anything selfship-related because everything is polarized and I’d either be reblogging stuff that’s yelling “proship DNI” at the bottom, or else painting a target on my back and the backs my mutuals and whoever I reblog from by reblogging from proship blogs to an audience that I feel certain still contains a lot of antis but can’t possibly weed out entirely.

I’m not sure what to do. I think I’d be very easily identifiable if I just made an entirely new blog and turned the old one into an archive, so it would only be delaying the issue to take that route. Just slapping “btw this blog is proship now” might cause asshole antis to decide to harass not only me but anyone I associate with. I’ve never felt quite so badly “stuck” as I do now in terms of social issues.

Any advice would be welcome, but if you don’t have any, then thank you for taking the time just to read this. I hope you have an awesome day, and remember that your f/os adore you. 💙

It's a very complicated situation, I'm really sorry nonny!

Well, I've been there before. My main blog grew way more than I wanted it to, getting to over 1.5K followers, so I also felt cornered and unable to reblog the things I liked or interact with the people I wanted to.

It may be scary but the best advice I have is to make an entirely new blog and take your time warming up to the new waters. If you're afraid that you'll be recognized on Tumblr, then the communities over on Mastodon might be a bit better for you to gain confidence! If you're an adult and comfortable with NSFW content, I strongly suggest Baraag.

If you prefer to keep your original blog, it's a bit more complicated if you have constant/active interactions with your anti mutuals, because the safest option would be to block them. If you do, change your settings so that only mutuals can message you and so you won't be able to receive asks with media or anon asks, so you can avoid harassment.

I suggest slowly distancing yourself from antis until you feel it's safe to block them, instead of doing it right away, because people may block-evade you to see what's been going on in your blog after a sudden block.

As for only finding a couple of people to follow, you don't have to worry about it! If you follow five people, they'll interact with other accounts that will eventually catch your eye and so on. That's how your community and online spaces grow!

I really hope you find these tips helpful and I wish you the best! If you ever need to vent, my inbox is always open 💙

[prowerprojects]

Heh, it somehow wouldn't surprise me if Sage ends up with more interactions with Cream or Omega, than she ever does with Tails.

Right? Even how Sonic praises Tails with him giving credit where credit is due, versus any praise Eggman gives Sage [and other creations of his] just comes back the doctor patting himself on the back. Sonic would never restrict Tails, even if their mindsets are not align at times. Eggman WILL do that if anything he made crosses or challenges him. (And I can see Tails pitying that, even vowing to never do that with his [and adopted] inventions. Sentient or not. Maybe extending a hand to Sage? {Likely to no avail, but the door is always open}.)

Technopathy vs gadgets? Sounds like a good means for a fight. Or sparring. Whatever they're feeling at the moment.

Speaking as someone who doesn't particularly care for romance in media where it's not the main focus and can get burnt out when it bleeds over the original context; be it in canon or fanon, I totally get it. (Whether the bond between characters is platonic or romantic, I care about chemistry the most in either scenario. Cause even if someone doesn't ship certain ships, they can understand why these characters have the connection that they have and why it's beloved in fandom. That said, this will not stop me from side-eyeing those who think Sonic and Amy getting together means Sonic and Tails' bond just drops off into oblivion.)

True, I mean usually with smart characters, they do have their own personal social circle that's either a means to feel "more among their people", to decompress from their usual life, or opens their eyes to the world in a down-to-earth state. (This isn't to say it's not done with the friends he already has, but definitely not done enough to leave a noticeable impression in the fandom. Professor Pickles is a start, but it needs to expand from there to really flesh him out. And who knows, those experiences can end up inspiring future creations of his.)

Awww man! But I suppose I would love for Cream and Omega to have more relevancy, so... I'll just have to take it. (And I would love for Tails to interact with them more as well, you'd think based on their character roles they would, but... not really?)

Right... while they have similar issues, they're in different situations. Like. Yeah, Tails does focus a lot of his self-esteem on Sonic's opinion on him, but we also know that Sonic thinks that Tails is the coolest person in the world (Even if he doesn't always express it in the ways that get through to Tails, I don't think Sonic fully realizes how important it is to Tails (when you think someone is really cool, you wouldn't think they consider themselves a failure), and he's just not the kind of person that talks about his feelings a lot. But when he does realize that Tails needs reassurance, he's happy to provide).

While Sage seeks love and connection with Eggman, but his relationship to his robots is like. If you're doing good, it's because you were made by a genius. If you're doing bad, it's your fault and I wasted my time and resources on making you. (Not unlike how a lot of parents treat their children irl unfortunately)

However, he doesn't really treat them as children, Eggman sees his creations as beneath him and as the means to an end, perfectly ready to change their programming if they don't perform the way he wants them to, take them apart for parts, or just straight up scrap them. Irl, this is what you would do with a machine, but since we know that they are sentient, it takes on a different light. He does however acknowledge Sage as a daughter.

But even if we imagine that he would treat Sage better than the others, it would still have an impact on her. For example, she had already accepted Orbot and Cubot as her siblings, what would she think when she sees him hitting them? I'm afraid this has the potential to evolve into a golden child/scapegoat dynamic.

It's a pity that despite technically being the Good Counterpart to Eggman at least when mechanical skills are concerned, we rarely see Tails expressing opinions on the way he treats his creations (or at least contrast it with the way Tails treats the ex-Eggman robots like Omega and Gemerl), and this is one of the reasons why I'm hoping for an exploration of the Tails & Sage dynamic. (Though I also miss Tails being impressed by Eggman's creations/achievements, it added an interesting angle to their dynamic. Adaptations often give Tails "mentors" in engineering/scientific fields (one thing Sonic can't be too much of help with), and while I think it's sweet, I also think it's kind of cool that in canon Tails doesn't really have anyone to look up to in that department other than the man he hates the most. Fun stuff)

(Personally have a headcanon that Tails would never try to create a self-aware ai on purpose. Just because of the way Eggman treats his, and because bringing a sentient being into the world just so they could serve you just doesn't seem like something Tails would do. (Maybe if he just wanted to also make a kid for himself, or just tried to do it to see if he could. But not to subject them to a life of servitude. (Actually one of the reasons why I don't vibe with the "Tails created Omochao" headcanon, even if Omochao is a force of nature at this point and cannot be contained)

Yep. I don't imagine Sage would engage in direct combat, but if we do have a fight with her, it's an easy way to do it. Plus, could be interesting to explore outside of the gameplay elements too.

Yeah, I really enjoy the way Sonic media, when it does acknowledge romance, does it very lightly. Partially because I really enjoy the relationships that thither on the verge of romantic and platonic for being their own thing, but usually in media it's just a precursor for the relationship turning unambiguously romantic, which is not as fun to me. Sometimes characters getting together kills the reasons why I enjoyed the relationship in the first place and turns a very nuanced and interesting one into stereotypical romance roles (This happens in fanworks constantly, but there's a difference between fans just having fun and it becoming canon. Funny you should bring up Sonamy, because I quite like the direction they're taking with them in canon, but I almost never read fic because I almost never see their dynamic written the way I personally enjoy it)

Really? I don't think I've noticed, but I suppose it makes sense. I'm always up for Tails having more friends!

[girlboss-enthusiast]

I posted 3,519 times in 2022

That's 3,251 more posts than 2021!

350 posts created (10%)

3,169 posts reblogged (90%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@magnetictapedatastorage

@gonegirldiscourse

@lifewithchronicpain

@girlsmoonsandstars

@nansheonearth

I tagged 3,345 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#fav - 283 posts

#laugh tag - 224 posts

#self.txt - 206 posts

#art - 164 posts

#gender ideology - 114 posts

#cute - 98 posts

#dogs - 69 posts

#ref - 69 posts

#reminders - 55 posts

#radical feminism - 49 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#that's literally how you grow as a person...protecting your kid from it might feel good in the moment but it's not right or good for the kid

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

A well-known rapper recently switched his IG pronouns to they/them. He hasn't made a statement yet, but people are swooning over this and talking about how he's "bringing gender diversity to hip-hop" and is "so brave," etc.

Oh, did I mention he was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend and threatening her with a firearm earlier this year? I bet this is totally unrelated.

Male abusers come out as non-binary now and the public immediately forgives them - if people even cared about their violence in the first place. Gender ideology is a great way for men to avoid social consequences.

863 notes - Posted July 17, 2022

#4

It’s amazing how many normie women will agree with the basic concepts of radical feminism if you don’t frame them as Radical Feminism(tm). Things like porn culture, sex vs gender, male violence, are all observable and radfem conclusions are logical. It’s just when you start bringing out the theory of why it’s like this that women get skittish. Which is understandable—fully understanding the breadth and depth of misogyny is scary, and for a lot of women, it’s too much, and they will disengage.

But some women won’t, and while they might not read Dworkin or call themselves radfems, they’ll be more aware of how to protect and love themselves and other women, and might become politically active if they weren’t already. That’s the end goal for me—I don’t really care what women call themselves, I’m just happy they’re striving for female solidarity and class consciousness, even if they don’t use those words.

892 notes - Posted November 23, 2022

#3

You know what, I really do think social media, maybe the internet in general, is rotting people's brains. Like "terminally online" and "brain worms" are not half-ironic jokes. It's destroying our attention spans and ability to interact with each other or form bonds, it's putting us in a social panopticon with no opportunity for privacy or ability to think for ourselves without fearing the judgment of our peers. People's boundaries are being eroded by the twin pressures/desires of fitting in and going viral. Sexual harassment is getting worse and worse, partially because of those two pressures. Corporations know more about us than we know about ourselves. Kindergartners arrive at school without the motor skills to hold pencils or the spatial awareness to play with Lego bc they were raised with tablets. Our eyesight is getting worse; our rates of depression and anxiety are skyrocketing; in fact, our physical and mental health are both plummeting. We are polarized, afraid, subject to groupthink, slowly being subsumed.

And you know, this is all linked to capitalism, bc who is benefiting from this? Who wants a tame and distractible populace? This particular analysis has been done by ppl better equipped than me, but the total ignorance/avoidance of this fact is simply playing into the hands of the capitalists. It scares me, honestly. I worry it's not going to get better.

tl;dr delete your social media

1,077 notes - Posted July 31, 2022

#2

So sick and tired of people calling everyone they don't like Nazis. Sorry you don't like JK Rowling or whoever the fuck, but making that comparison is laughable and frankly offensive. Do you actually know what the Nazis did, or is it just a story to you? Because some people sling the word around with such ease, I wonder if they think it's fiction.

1,121 notes - Posted September 17, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

See the full post

2,232 notes - Posted May 30, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[funisanecessity]

Responsibility towards vs. Responsibility for the gaps, holes, and pits of life.

"Life has a gap in it—it just does. You don't go crazy trying to fill it like some lunatic."

I have a tendency to browse libraries, pulling interesting things off shelves.

During college I pulled out a copy of Take This Waltz, thinking it would be about dancing (I love dancing), but it turned out to be a fascinating novel-like musing on love, life, addiction, fidelity, art, and the ways we try to fill the gap, the hole, the pit that is that aching part of consciousness. I was in the midst of what would become an almost five-year relationship when I watched the movie alone in an empty seminar room, rapt.

I can't remember a whole lot about the movie. There was cooking. There was a gym. There were swimming classes and two competing partners and the artsy, unsafe one won out and there was more sex than my prudish brain was comfortable with at the end so I kind of fastforwarded through, terrified and fascinated.

But the stickiest stuck thing was that first quote about the gappiness of life. ***

I was talking with my therapist today, having a very triggered six-on-the-enneagram conversation about a fear of my social world dropping out from under me if I managed to do enough unusual things to be deemed wholly unacceptable.

She asked what I was really afraid of, and I said The Pit. The pit of depression, but also the pit of loneliness, of having to do this inhumane task of living on a planet in the face of death and suffering alone, without people who know, who care.

And she asked me about the worst case scenario, about what it said about me if that happened.

And it was oddly calming? Like if the worst case scenario happens I'm no longer falling, I've fallen, and there's a bottom.

What drives me a bit mad is the uncertainty.

Like I know there's a bottom, or strongly suspect, due to the whole mortality thing, but this interim period of doing life, so full of love and loss is so tricky.

And I've bought into the whole free will thing, I'm willing to play the game that assumes that my choices matter. Which is freeing and hopeful but also rife with responsibility.

To myself, to other people. That was another thing Kelly, my therapist, pointed out. That I seemed to be very interested in responsibility. She talked about being responsible towards people as being different than being responsible for people and their reactions, which felt really liberating.

We talked about ways to interact with people with whom I'd had very gappy/holey/pitty relationships. Ones I valued, but ones that didn't always hold my weight.

I talked about ways to be responsible towards them without being responsible for them. I could act within my values, then step back, hoping for the best, but expecting nothing.

****

Dear Person,

I have seen the ways you've tried to get in contact with me.

I would like to say "Don't worry, I'm not avoiding you," but the thing is,

I am avoiding you, and while I don't want you to worry (the world has enough to worry about), I do want you to think.

I haven't been in touch with you because I have felt like you decided that something about me was unacceptable to you.

According to you, have a partner isn't smart enough for me. You have a history of judging people's partners, and that makes me feel like you're unlikely to change. I know you want the best for me, but your version of "the best" left you in a very abusive relationship, so I want you to keep your opinions to yourself, and I also want healing for you, but I don't know how to tell you that without hurting you, and I don't want to hurt you, so I've been silent.

According to you, I owe you thanks and attention simply for doing part of what you said you would do, then breaking your promises in other ways. You expect me to move on when you lie, with minimal if any accountability. I've tried telling you what would help heal those tears in trust, but you haven't engaged in ways that show progress. I want to keep trying, but it hurts my heart to fall in a similar hole again and again. I'm done for a while. I'm not going to tell you that, though. I'm just going to keep my distance. We'll be on a need-to-know basis, and I'll watch and pray for signs of transformation.

We haven't talked in ages because the last time we talked you seemed resentful that I wasn't more responsive. You've talked about resenting other people who stopped talking to you. You said stuff about a friend who has significant struggles not struggling in real ways, not struggling as much as you. And I do not know whether or not you were joking, because if you weren't joking, your idea of your own pain is pretty wild. I am not comfortable in our friendship if that's where you're at, though I am guessing life has hurt you terribly for you to be there. I haven't wanted to tell you directly because I don't want to hurt you worse by giving you my reasons for my silence, and I don't want to lie to you either just to smooth things over. I want the distance I've created, unless something significant has changed for you. That said, I know we'll run into each other eventually because our friend groups overlap and I want to set some intentions. I like our shared hobbies, we have some nice memories, but I'm not available to be responsible to you in the ways I've observed are important to you, and I understand that that might not feel good to hear. I don't mean to hurt you, and I do wish you well. I hope we'll be able to interact well when our paths cross, and if you find that you have a genuine openness to casual interaction, I appreciate it. I'm sorry I'd seen down for traveling to visit you in the past then hadn't followed through. The desire was there both times, but my willingness to spend money and complete the logistics, paired with some concern about how we'd coexist in the context you invited me to just wasn't able to make the visits happen. I hope I'll have the courage to ask for clarity or be clear on my no's rather than lingering if there are future encounters between us.

I know I agreed to be responsive to our mentoring, and I suggested a time frame when I would be able to do our next meeting. You wanted it to be sooner, which is fair to request, and I tried to stretch, but we weren't able to find a date. I'm game to re-engage after the original time I'd suggested for one of these three times (1, 2, 3). If none of those are available, could you suggest some that are? I understand if the scheduling aspect of our mentoring collaboration has become unwieldy--it's okay if it's a goodbye for now. I'm sure many others will benefit from your time and I am grateful you are doing work that seems to nourish you and while also benefitting others.

I am checking in about the question regarding filing locations and timings, and touching base about the upcoming application. I'll be in NYC as of September 18th at _____TIME____ and am hoping to get my application turned in and biometrics completed as soon as possible. I saw there were requests for further information, and a few more documents to complete. I've completed those requirements as best as possible, and here are my remaining questions: What if I don't know my return date? How many family/community statements are helpful/recommended?

Hi there, thank you for your patience with delays in communication. I'm grateful for your grace and for your willingness to share your expertise. I'll be home by early October and would love to schedule a time to check in with our investment relationship, to see how my accounts are doing, and to plan for some values-based investing and immigration planning in coming years.

****

I think these notes may help sew patches across some of the holes, plug up some of the gaps, or toss plywood over the pits.

I think they'll meet my responsibilities towards communicating with reasonable promptness with people without me making myself responsible for their feelings.

And I hope they might help you build some bridges in your own life. These are real drafts of messages I hope to send or speak.

I wish you gentleness for your days, and good rest tonight,

ANM

[putschki1969]

What do you think can happen if let's say Wakana exit Space Craft? I want to see Wakana appear on YK events, but I have doubts about their relation. Maybe you have more insights about Wakana and YK's relationship. From my amateur observation I see that YK doesn't follow Wakana on Twitter, so I think they are not on good terms. The thing is, YK follows people like Lisa, Aimer, Junna etc who she just recently work with. She doesn't follow Wakana who she had been working since forever, why is that?

Hello there anon! I am afraid you've hit a sore spot with your ask...I really don't mean to come off as rude but I am so tired of these specific questions. Why is it that I keep getting them on a regular basis? Have you all been living under a freaking rock for the past five years? Are you on my blog for the first time? Is no one bothering to check out my extensive coverage of this topic? Don't get me wrong, I am always happy to answer questions and to help fellow fans out but I'd appreciate it if people actually invested some time to do a tiny bit of research. I've talked ad nauseam about the whole situation with Space Craft/Wakana vs. YK so there is more than enough reading material to satisfy your curiosity. For example, you can go HERE, HERE and HERE to check out my most recent posts about it.

I will still try to give you an overview〈(•ˇ‿ˇ•)-→

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, it all boils down to Japanese society being very non-confrontational. Instead of dealing with conflicts like sensible adults, issues are simply swept under the rug and everyone just pretends they do not exist. It’s all about keeping up appearances and not losing face. The fragile sensibilities of old men with outdated mindsets are put above everything else because those men continue to hold power and make decisions in Japan. The infamous herd-mentality forces everyone else involved to just ignore common sense and roll with it.

Basically, this all started with a bunch of old dudes in Space Craft’s management being butt-hurt about stupid stuff. One of those old guys (Yasunori Mori - who happened to be in charge of YK’s and Kalafina’s management) decided to abandon the agency and out of loyalty, YK left with him to join him at his new agency. The rest is history as they say. You have to take into account that lifetime loyalty is still very much a common thing in Japan. So when people decide to leave, it can easily be seen as a form of treachery, especially if it isn’t a consensual agreement. We don’t know any of the details of course but it is obvious that some sort of incident has resulted in a rift between Space Craft and Mori/YK.

Seeing as Wakana is still signed up with Space Craft, it would be beyond improper for her to publicly associate with anyone from the YK family and vice versa. I would assume there is some sort of non-interaction clause in Wakana’s contract, or at the very least, some unwritten rule to not openly engage with any of them. I know from an outsider’s point of view, this might come across as grade-school level pettiness but this is literally the reality in Japan. As I said, it’s all about not losing face and protecting fragile sensibilities. For this exact reason, it was possible for Haruna Luna to publicly attend YKs live as soon as her departure from Space Craft had been announced.

Now, we must not conflate public displays with actual relationships. What is being presented to us via official channels is merely a contrived act to keep up appearances. None of this reflects how Wakana and the YK family really feel about each other. It’s true, they don’t follow each other on social media accounts, they don’t openly support each other, there are no pictures of them together, etc...But if you follow any of them closely or just check my blog on a regular basis, you will realise that you can’t just take everything at face value. You have to pay attention to their less official interviews, posts and appearances! You will quickly notice that they still refer to each other with fondness and respect. There is no doubt in my mind that when Wakana finally decides to leave Space Craft behind, she would be welcomed back with open arms into the YK family. Not that she would actually have to be “welcomed back” because let’s be real here, in everyone’s mind she is most definitely still considered an important member. But you know, as far as public appearance is concerned, it would seem like Wakana was the lost daughter returning. On a side note, YK has made no secret of the fact that Wakana has always been one of her biggest muses so I am sure she would be thrilled to work with her again (in whatever capacity).

I hope this shed some light on the matter. I would encourage you and everyone else to read up on my other posts about this. Most of them can be found under the following tags: #reply, #yuki kajiura and #space craft; You will have to browse through quite a lot of stuff but I think it will help you get a better understanding of the situation.

[bitegore]

I would love to hear of your combiner blorbos. Anything about them you'd really like to talk about?

okay okay like so i am like. literally foaming at the mouth about motormaster all the time lately. for like the last two? weeks ? something like that.

anyway i love this fucking truck so much. he is awful and he sucks, and for some reason this is deeply endearing to me personally. I llove him. I have feelings for and about him. I am going to kill him to dead with my own two bare human hands and he can't stop me. because I love him.

anyway one of the things that makes the stunticons as a whole interesting to me is that they're very young, relatively speaking! they have very little life experience. they're like the terrans in earthspark (fucking psyched to see that by the way) in that they have never seen prewar cybertron, they have never spent any time outside the decpeticons on earth, and they don't really know anything about their past, their culture, their history, or, frankly, anything else. You learn from experience and most of their experience is being kind of ignored and left to their own devices when they're not being ordered to do stuff for megatron. Who's gonna teach them shit?

and like motormaster SUCKS but at least in part because he's like if you gave a 25 year old a giant sword, told him he was meant to be in charge of other people by nature, and then made sure he had zero experience socializing with anyone ever. Like they come out of vector sigma knowing how to fight, but they are not functional people. they suck and they are useless and Motormaster is in charge of them and also the worst, because he's technically an officer so he doesn't have to learn to play nice with the rank and file the same way the others do, and he also doesn't have to work with teammates to avoid getting in trouble like the others do.

Like okay listen. listen. He's stupid as fuck and he's very naive and the Decepticons say their thing is might makes right even though it's really not just might makes right and i hit you if you don't listen, right? They run around lying and cheating and stealing through most of g1 but might makes right. okay sure lord megatron totally. whatever. but this man is ten minutes old and smart as a brick. of course hes gonna buy in. Do you think he has the necessary level of experience to say "my authority figure is lying to me"?

and, like, living on might makes right alone under the thumb makes it really obvious how much of "might makes right" is nonsense, actually. Where under "might makes right" is "hey i got something you want and ill swap it to you if you cover my ass when motormaster asks who broke his cd player", you know? So much of human interaction and simple basic behavior does not fit into the paradigm and its pretty obvious IF YOU ARE UNDER IT. But Motormaster is not under it. And motormaster has no fucking friends.

like. it rots the fuck. it rots your brain. it rots your ability to relate to people when you're classing them "i could beat you" vs "you could beat me" and not "we are both people on the same side who want the same shit". it fucks your ability to socialize when everything is a power game and anything that isnt a fistfight is a prelude to what is obviously the relevant social posturing, aka, a fistfight. it fucks up your ability to even have a normal conversation when you need to hide all your insecurities so you stay on top, and make no mistake, motormaster does not even see an option outside staying on top.

like

like.

if he were older and had a little more going on under the hood id say he were afraid of not being on top but i dont think he's even grasped that that was an OPTION like. i do not think he understands what might makes right MEANS. i don't think he understands that if someone gets the better of him that he's now down under the thumb with the rest of them. I don't think he has ever thought about it. Why should he? He's stronger and they're weaker and that's the natural and correct order of these things, when would that ever change?

(When someone gets a gun, historically speaking.... not exactly a challenge for a fucking decepticon......)

like a lot of these thoughts are really so complex that i cant even communicate them properly in words i have to write fic about it to pin down what i mean. when i say i write fic instead of meta this is what i mean. the relationships the stunticons have are all like. they genuinely clearly care about each other or they would have fucking killed each other within ten minutes of experiencing each other's company i am fucking telling you. breakdown or drag strip would've done it, they're the ones with the most obvious stress lines that motormaster and the others are always pressing on. so there is some reason they haven't done it. and they all seem to really buy into the Cause and the Decepticon Line and for the most part that means they buy into might makes right. whoever strikes the first felling blow wins.

BUT IT DOESNT like the ritual fucking combat between Megatron and Starscream is clearly like

I. I don't know in g1 the violence they do on each other is actually really pretty low-key all things told. more people and more eloquent than i ahve talked about how weird it is that megatron "lets" starscream live but if you assume its pageantry for the troops to remind you that Leader is Strongest(tm) or whatever and Starscream, the only one willing to strike out against Leader, is bold enough to be second in command. when starscream really gets bold about it megatron really escalates too but that's rare for them. they don't do that often. you can sort of put it in as a ritual, it seems like it is, like it's real combat but it's a game. they're not really meaning it every single time. and its clearly on display for a REASON or starscream would just poison Megatron and be done with it. He's probably got his name in the will, you know? SIC inherits if Commander dies unless something is UP.

And we see it with TFTM too. When Megatron is dying and the Decepticons start arguing over who should be leader its couched in terms of strongest-

BUT THEY DON'T ACT LIKE THAT

THEY DON'T THEY JUST DO NOT ACT LIKE MIGHT MAKES PROPER RIGHT. THEY DO NOT. so it doesn't make SENSE to say that the whole army is like that. but its how leadership is transferred and i think it IS reasonable to say that the stunticons don't really get the pageantry yet. So they think Motormaster has to die, and it's sort of allowed, like it's not really but its how it works. And they haven't killed him yet, so there's something else there, like, despite everything they actually give a shit about this stupid idiot truck in charge of them

and i think there's another side to it, too, which is that he understands what his job and the expectations he's meant to meet are very clearly. he is in charge of his team so he represents his team. if his team fucks up that means HE fucks up. If command wants to take it up with anyone they can take it up with HIM (even though he'll go back and take that out on all four of his subordinates because he's mad and hitting them really hard is a convenient outlet. he sucks). His job is to be the guy who Command gives orders to because he is the strongest and he is the guy who Command gives punishment to because he is the strongest. He is the guy who is supposed to defend and stand up for the rest of the team because he is the strongest. Like, he definitely sees himself as like, 'earning' the right to beat the shit out of the other four by defending them from being beaten on by anyone else. If anyone tries to hassle HIS dumbfuck cars they get to fight HIM and he will hurt them until they will not do that ever again. Because that is his job. Because he is the strongest.

I think the other four know this, but like, they still resent him for the rest of it. It's not worth it. At least if they were being picked on by the rest of the faction they could lock them out. Motormaster lives with them. He's inside their heads. There is nowhere for them to go when they need a break unless he decides they deserve one. As you may imagine, no one is happy with this situation except Motormaster

except like he's NOT

he's not happy with this EITHER like you can SEE it he's so fucking unfulfilled and he thinks it's because his team gets in his way and they aren't respected enough and that might be part of it but i really don't think it is. he has no positive social contacts. He has his team but they kind of hate and fear him more than just about anything else, even if they do care about him somewhere in there. He's too busy being competitive and keeping his spot on the pile to have friends outside the faction. And he's too conscious about who lives underneath him and is a subordinate and a target to have any friends in the rank and file. He has cut himself off from every possible angle of positive social feedback and he is too fucking naive and inexperienced to see it because as far as he knows this is just his life! this is how it's always been! why should he want different? what even is there to change?

and the answer is, like, a lot of things, but nothing he thinks is important, you know? Friends is an autobot thing, that's for losers, and he doesn't need anyone anyway. he has his team. and they have him... right?

and then the like. the other bit that gets me is that like. he has no choice. he is this way because he is, not because he chose to be. So it's hard to know what he'd be like if you gave him options. But I don't think he'd choose to be any different now that he's gotten a taste. he likes being on top too much. The minute you concede that might doesn't make right, he loses a lot of the position he has, because he has to admit that the people under him have some kind of right, too, and they can get to him and if he fucks up they can fuck him up even though they're superficially physically weaker. He's got reason to maintain these beliefs. He likes being on top of the pile and I don't think he likes feeling like there's anywhere else he might be.

anyway i am going to eat him like a fucking candy bar. i love him. he sucks.

[army-of-mai-lovers]

Jet and Yue’s Deaths: Were They Necessary?

Two of the most common ideas I see for aus in this fandom are the Jet lives au, and the Yue lives au. I’ve written both of these myself, and I’ve seen many others write them. And while yes, fanfiction can be a great way to explore ideas that didn’t necessarily have to be explored in canon (I’m mad at bryke for a lot of things, but not including a Toph and Bumi I friendship is not one of them, even though I wrote a fic about it), it seems to me that people are mad that Yue and Jet are dead, to varying degrees. There’s a lot to talk about regarding their deaths from a sociopolitical perspective (the fact that two of the darker-skinned characters in the show are the ones that died, and all the light-skinned characters lived, is ah... an interesting choice), but I don’t want to look at it that way, at least for right now. I want to look at it as a writer, and discuss whether these deaths were a) necessary for the plot and themes of ATLA in any way whatsoever and b) whether it was necessary for them to unfold in the way that they did, or if they would have been more impactful had they occurred in a different way. 

(meta under the cut, this got really, really, really long)

Death in Children’s Media

When I first started thinking about this meta, I had this idea to compare Jet and Yue’s deaths to deaths in an animated children’s show that I found satisfying. And in theory, that was a great idea. Problem is: there aren’t very many permanent deaths in children’s animation, and the ones that do exist aren’t especially well-written. This may be an odd thing to say in what is ostensibly a piece of atla crit, but Yue’s death is probably the best written death in a piece of children’s animation that I can think of. That’s not a compliment. Rather, it’s a condemnation of the way other pieces of children’s animation featuring permanent character death have handled their storylines. 

I’ve talked about this before, but my favorite show growing up was Young Justice, and my favorite character on that show was far and away Mr. Wally West. So when he died at the end of season 2, it broke me emotionally. Shortly thereafter, Cartoon Network canceled the show, and I started getting on fan forums to mourn. Everybody on these fan forums was convinced that had Cartoon Network not canceled the show, Wally would have been brought back. And that is a narrative that I internalized for years. Eventually, the show was brought back via DC’s new streaming service, and I tuned in, waiting for Wally to also be brought back, only to discover that that wasn’t in the cards. Wally was dead. Permanently. 

So now that I know that, I can talk about why killing him off was fucking stupid. Wally’s death occurs at the end of season 2, after the main s2 conflict, the Reach, has been defeated, save for these pods that they set up all over the world to destroy Earth. Our heroes split up in teams of two to destroy the pods, and they destroy all of them, except for a secret one in Antartica. It can only be neutralized by speedsters, so Wally, Bart, and Barry team up to destroy it. It’s established in canon that Wally is slower than Bart and Barry, and it’s been played for laughs earlier in the season, but for reasons unexplained, the pod is better able to target Wally because he’s slower than Bart and Barry, and it kills him. After the emotional arc of the season has wrapped up, a literal main character dies. There’s some indication at the end of that season that his death is going to cause Artemis to spiral and become a villain, but when season 3 picks up, she’s doing the right thing, with seemingly no qualms about her position in life as a hero. In the comics, something like this happens to Wally, but then he goes into the Speed Force and becomes faster and stronger even than Barry, in which case, yes, this would have advanced the plot, but that’s probably not in the cards either. 

In summary, Wally’s death doesn’t work as a story beat, not because it made me mad, but because it doesn’t advance the plot, nor does it develop character. Only including things that advance plot or develop character is one of the golden rules of writing. Like most golden rules of writing, however, it’s not absolute. There is a lot of fun to be had in jokey little one off adventures (in atla, Sokka’s haiku competition) or in fun worldbuilding threads that add depth to your setting but don’t really come up (in atla, the existence of Whaletail Island, which is described in really juicy ways, even though the characters never go there.) But in general, when it comes to things like character death, events should happen to develop the plot or advance character. Avatar, for all of its flaws, is really well structured, and a lot of its story beats advance plot and develop character at the same time. However, the show also bears the burden of being a show directed at children, and thus needing to be appropriate for children. And as we know, Nickelodeon and bryke butted heads over this: the death scene that we see for Jet is a compromise, one that implicitly confirms his death without explicitly showing it. So bryke tasked themselves with creating a show about imperialism and war that would do those themes justice while also being appropriate for American children and palatable to their parents. 

The Themes of Avatar vs. Its Audience

So, Avatar is a show about a lone survivor of genocide stopping an imperialist patriarchal society from decimating the rest of the world. It’s also a show about found family and staying true to yourself and doing your best to improve the world. These don’t necessarily conflict with each other, and it is possible for children to understand and enjoy shows about complex themes. And in a lot of cases, bryke doesn’t hold back in showing what the costs of war against an imperialist nation are: losing loved ones, losing yourself, prison, etc. But when it comes to death, the show is incredibly hesitant. None of the main characters that we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know die (not even Iroh, even though he was old and it would have made sense and his VA died before the show was over--but that’s a topic for another day.) This makes sense. I can totally imagine a seven year-old watching Avatar as it was coming out and feeling really sad or scared if a major character died. I was six years older than that when Wally died, and it’s still sad and terrifying to me to this day. However, in a show about war, it would be unrealistic to have no one die. Bryke’s stated reason for killing off Jet is to show the costs of war. I’ve seen a lot of posts about Jet’s death that reiterate some version of this same point--that the great tragedy of his character is that he spent his life fighting the Fire Nation, only to die at the hands of his own country. Similarly, I’ve seen people argue in favor of Yue’s death by saying that it was a great tragedy, but it showed the sacrifices that must be made in a war effort. 

Yue

When we first meet Yue, she is a somewhat reserved, kind individual held back by the rigid social structures of the NWT*. She and Sokka have an immediate attraction to one another, but Yue reveals that she is engaged to Hahn. The Fire Nation invasion happens, Zhao kills Tui, and Yue gives up her life to save her people and the world, and to restore balance. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know Yue, this is framed less as Yue’s sacrifice and more as Sokka’s loss. Sokka is the one who cares for Yue, Sokka is the only one of the gaang who really interacts a lot with Yue on screen, and Sokka is the one we’ve spent a whole season getting to know. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Yue a prop character (i.e. a character who could be replaced by an object with little change to the narrative), she is certainly underdeveloped. She exists to be unambiguously likable and good, so we can root for her and Sokka, and feel Sokka’s pain when she dies. In my opinion, this is probably also why a lot of fic that features Yue depicts her as a Mary Sue--because as she is depicted in the show, she kind of is. We don’t get to see her hidden depths because she is written to die. 

In light of what we’ve established earlier in this meta, this makes sense. Killing off a fully-realized character whom the audience has really gotten to know and care about on their own terms, rather than through the eyes of another character, could be really sad and scary for the kids watching, but not killing anyone off would be an unrealistic depiction of war and imperialism. On the face of it, killing off an underdeveloped, unambiguously likable and good character, whom one of our MCs has a deep but short connection with, is the perfect compromise. 

But let’s go back to the golden rule for a second. Does Yue’s death a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to the first is yes: Yue’s death prompts Aang to use the Avatar State to fight off the Fire navy, which has implications for his ability to control the Avatar State that form one of the major arcs of book 2. The answer to the second? A little more ambiguous. You would think that Yue’s death would have some lasting impact on Sokka that is explored as part of his character arc in book 2, that he may be more afraid to trust, more scared of losing the people he loves, but outside of a few episodes (really, just one I can think of, “The Swamp”) it doesn’t seem to affect him that much. He even asks about Suki in a way that is clearly romantically motivated in “Avatar Day.” I don’t know about you, but if someone I loved sacrificed herself to become the moon, I don’t think I would be seeking out another romantic entanglement a few weeks after her death. Of course, everybody processes grief differently, and one could argue that Sokka has already lost important people in his life, and thus would be accustomed to moving on from that loss and not letting himself dwell on it. But to that, I’d say that moving on by throwing himself into protecting others has already shown itself to be an unhealthy coping mechanism. Remember, Sokka’s misogyny at the beginning of b1 is in part motivated by the fact that his mother died at the hands of the Fire Nation and his father left shortly thereafter to fight the Fire Nation, and he responds to those things by throwing himself into the role of being the “man” of the village and protecting the people he loves who are still with him. Like with Yue, he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on his mother’s death. This could have been the beginning of a really interesting b2 arc for Sokka, in which he throws himself into being the Avatar’s companion to get away from the grief of losing Yue, but this time, through the events of the show, he’s forced to acknowledge that this is an unhealthy coping mechanism. And maybe this is what bryke was going for with “The Swamp”, but this confines his whole process of grief to one episode, where it could have been a season-long arc that really emphasized the effect Yue’s had on his life. 

In the case of Yue, I do lean toward saying that her death was necessary for the story that they wanted to tell (although, I will never turn down a good old-fashioned Yue lives au that really gets into her dynamism as a character, those are awesome.) However, the way they wrote Sokka following Yue’s death reduced her significance. The fact that Yue seemed to have so little impact on Sokka is precisely what makes her death feel unnecessary, even if it isn’t. 

Jet

Okay. Here we go. 

If you know my blog, you know I love Jet. You know I love Jet lives aus. Perhaps you know that I’m in the process of writing a multichapter Jet fic in which he lives after Lake Laogai. So it’s reasonable to assume that, in a discussion of whether or not Jet’s death was necessary, I’m gonna be mega-biased. And yeah, that’s probably true. But up until recently, I wasn’t really all that mad about Jet dying, at least conceptually. As I said earlier, bryke says that in the case of Jet’s death, they wanted to kill a character off that people knew and would care about, so that they could further show the tragedies of war and imperialism. Okay. That is not, in and of itself, a bad idea. 

My issue lies with the execution of said idea. First of all, the framing of Jet’s original episode is so bad. Jet is part of a long line of cartoon villains who resist imperialism and other forms of oppression through violence and are punished for it. This is actually a really common sort of villain for atla/lok, as we see this play out again with Hama, Amon, and the Red Lotus. To paraphrase hbomberguy’s description of this type of villain, basically liberal white creators are saying, “yeah, oppression is bad, but have you tried writing to your Congressman about it?” With Jet, since we have so little information about the village he’s trying to flood, there are a number of different angles that would explain his actions and give them more nuance. My preferred hc is that the citizens of Gaipan are a mix of Earth civilians, Fire citizens, and FN soldiers, and that the Earth citizens refused to feed or house Jet and the other Freedom Fighters because they were orphans and, as we see in the Kyoshi Novels, Earth families stick to their own. Thus, when Jet decides to flood Gaipan, he’s focused on ridding the valley of Fire Nation, but he doesn’t really care about what happens to the Earth citizens of Gaipan because they actively wronged him when he was a kid. That’s just one interpretation, and there have been others: Gaipan was fully Fire Nation, Gaipan was both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation but Jet decided that the benefits of flooding the valley and getting rid of the Fire Nation outweighed the costs of losing the EK families, etc, etc. There are ways to rewrite that scenario so that Jet is not framed as an unambiguously bloodthirsty monster. In the context of Jet’s death, this initial framing reduces the possible impact that his death could have. Where Yue was unambiguously good, Jet is at the very least morally gray when we see him again in the ferry. And where we are connected to Yue through Sokka, the gaang’s active hatred of Jet hinders our ability to connect with him. This isn’t impossible to overcome--the gaang hates Zuko, and yet to an extent the audience roots for him--but Jet’s lack of screentime and nuanced framing (both of which Zuko gets in all three seasons) makes overcoming his initially flawed framing really difficult. 

So how much can it really be said, that by the time we get to Jet’s death, he’s a character that we know and care about? So much about him is still unknown (what happened to the Freedom Fighters? what prompted Jet’s offscreen redemption? who knows, fam, who knows.) Moreover, most of what we see of him in Ba Sing Se is him actively opposing Zuko and Iroh. These are both characters that at the very least the show wants us to care about. At this point, we know almost everything there is to know about them, we’ve been following them and to an extent rooting for them for two seasons, and who have had nuanced and often sympathetic framing a number of times. So much of the argument I’ve seen regarding Jet centers around the fact that he was right to expose Zuko and Iroh as Firebenders, but the reason we have to have that argument in the first place is because it’s not framed in Jet’s favor. In terms of who the audience cares about more, who the audience has more of an emotional attachment towards, Zuko and Iroh win every time. Whether Jet’s actually in the right or not is irrelevant, because emotionally speaking, we’re primed to root for Zuko and Iroh. In terms of who the framing is biased towards, Jet may as well be Zhao. So when he’s taken by the Dai Li and brainwashed, the audience isn’t necessarily going to see this as a bad thing, because it means Zuko and Iroh are safe.

The only real bit of sympathetic framing Jet gets are those initial moments on the ferry, and the moments after he and the gaang meet again. So about five, ten minutes of the show, total. And then, he sacrifices himself for the gaang. And just like Yue, his death has little to no impact on the characters in the episodes following. Katara is shown crying for four frames immediately following his death, and they bring him up once in “The Southern Raiders” to call him a monster, and once in “The Ember Island Players”, a joke episode in which his death is a joke. 

So, let’s ask again. Does this a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to both is no. It shows that the Dai Li is super evil and cruel, which we already knew and which basically becomes irrelevant in book 3, and that is really the only plot-significant thing I can think of. As far as character, well, it could have been a really interesting moment in Katara’s development in forgiving someone who hurt her in the past, which could have foreshadowed her forgiving Zuko in b3, but considering she calls Jet a monster in TSR, that doesn’t track. There could have been something with Sokka realizing that his snap judgment of Jet in b1 was wrong, but considering that he brings up Jet to criticize Katara in TSR, that also does not track. And honestly, neither of these possible character arcs require Jet to die. What requires Jet to die is the ~themes~. 

Let’s look at this theme again, shall we? The cost of war. We already covered it with Yue, but it’s clearly something that bryke wants to return to and shed new light on. The obvious angle they’re going for is that sometimes, you don’t know who your real enemy is. Jet thought that his enemy was the Fire Nation, but in the end, he was taken down by his own countryman. Wow. So deep. Except, while it’s clear that Jet was always fighting against the Fire Nation, I never got the sense that Jet was fighting for the Earth Kingdom. After all, isn’t the whole bad thing about him in the beginning is that he wants to kill civilians, some of whom we assume to be Earth Kingdom? Why would it matter then that he got killed by an EK leader, when he didn’t seem to ever be too hot on those dudes? But okay, maybe the angle is not that he was killed by someone from the Earth Kingdom, but that he wasn’t killed by someone from the Fire Nation. Okay, but we’ve already seen him be diametrically opposed to the only living Air Nomad and people from the Water Tribes. Jet fighting with and losing to people who aren’t Fire Nation is not a new and exciting development for him. Jet has been enemies with non-FN characters for most of the show’s run at this point. There is no thematic level on which the execution of this holds any water. 

The reason I got to thinking about this, really analyzing what Jet’s death means (and doesn’t mean) for the show, was this conversation I was having with @the-hot-zone in discord dms. We were talking about book 2 and ways it could have been better, and Zone said that they thought that Jet would have been a stronger character to parallel with Zuko’s redemption than Iroh and that seeing more of the narrative from Jet’s perspective could have strengthened the show’s themes. And when it came to the question of Jet’s death, they said, “And if we are going with Jet dying, then I want it to hurt. I want it to hurt just as much as if a main character like Sokka had died. I want the viewer to see Jet's struggles, his triumphs, the facets of Jet that make him compelling and important to the show.” And all of that just hit me. Because we don’t get that, do we? Jet’s death barely leaves a mark. Jet himself barely leaves a mark. His death isn’t plot-significant, doesn’t inspire character growth in any of our MCs, and doesn’t even accomplish the thematic relevance that it claims to. So what was the point? 

Conclusion

Much as I dislike it, Yue’s death actually added something to atla. It could have added much, much more, in the hands of writers who gave more of a shit about their Brown female characters and were less intent on seeing them suffer and knocking them down a peg, but, in my opinion, it did work for what it was trying to do. Jet? Jet? Nah, fam. Jet never got the chance to really develop into a likable character because he was always put at odds with characters we already liked, and the framing skewed their way, not his. The dude never really had a chance.        

*multiple people have spoken about how the NWT as depicted in atla is not reminiscent of real life Inuit and Yupik people and culture. I am not the person to go into detail about this, but I encourage you to check out Native-run blogs for more info!

[incorrectlumityquotes]

FULL REVIEWS: “Enchanting Grom Fright”

The hype for this episode was unreal. We got the crew telling us that we weren’t ready on social media. It was a madhouse. To think that the little ship that could would have this big a leap in canon is unreal. Let’s just get to it.

The cold open starts with Luz trying to find more glyphs in her off time. I thinks it really shows her development so far. Now she’s willing to do the work to figure out her kind of magic, as oppose to say episode two where she just wanted to be great because she was “chosen.”

“My glyph skills are blossoming”

But then reality ensues...

Using the portal to let the wifi signal into The Owl House is not the dumbest reason I’ve heard to open an interdimensional portal between worlds but it is one of the most mundane. SOMEHOW, Luz can still receive texts from her mom FROM ANOTHER WORLD. Not that it makes too much of a difference since Luz barely answers them. 

As much fun as it is to focus on the magic and the shipping and the friendship and the curse, Luz still knows that she’s still lying to her mom. The guilt is there, but luckily being a main character keeps her too busy to think about it.

“Luz, time to fill that darling head of yours with...huuh huuh huuh HAKKK, mmm, mmm, mmh, delicious knowledge.”

Never change, Hooty.

It’s that time of year again that Luz doesn’t know about yet, Grom: The Boiling Isles’ weird version of prom. Every fantasy world has one. 

*hiss*

Amity bumps into Luz, and I know this is going to sound weird, but I really like Amity’s “Watch it, nitwit.” Amity’s character has changed and developed from our perspective which is the perspective of Luz and The Owl House fam. But she’s not a completely different character. Amity still has a bit of a temper and gets agitated easily. It makes sense to me and I’m glad I haven’t found anyone be like “Hey if Amity is nicer, why did she get mad when she bumped into someone?” 

Amity is nicer to Luz and co. because she’s gotten to know Luz and co. You don’t treat everyone in your life the same. Amity is one of those people that you need to defrost with first. Belief is backed up by experience and so are people’s personas. (Not that persona. I’m being serious here.) Because of Amity’s experiences, she’s believed that in order to survive she has to put people at arm’s length, then when she gets to know you, she’ll decide if she wants to let you in or not. So I guess that means that based on her interactions with Luz, Amity has decided...

You know what? I’ll save that for my Lumity meta.

The popular theory is that Amity was going to put her note in Luz’s locker, hence why she bumped into them. But actually seeing Luz and being announced as grom queen probably made her lose her nerve.

“Embrace your dreams...”

Amity is announced to be this year’s grom queen. Luz is happy for her before Amity runs in shock and embarrassment. Okay.

Luz discovers the gym’s weapons cache (not a thing I thought I would ever type) and Amity explains grom. Since Luz is from the human world and all that.

Grom is a monster that lives under the school and needs to be defeated every year so it doesn’t invade the town. It’s a classic shape-shifting fear monster. Odd are I have (and so have you) at least seen three or four of these in our lives already. Amity doesn’t want to show the entire school her greatest fear, especially since she already knows what it is. Luz suggest talking to Bump and Amity says she’ll try.

Another scene of Eda and King laughing and mocking Luz. Because I liked it so much the first time.

Eda gets dressed up herself because she’s volunteered to chaperone grom. Luz tells her that Amity is grom queen but wishes that she could take her place. We get...you know and Luz walks off. 

“I think we should kiss to ease the tension.”

Luz randomly meets up with Amity in the woods because I guess Amity had the same idea to take a walk to clear her head. Whatever. Amity tells Luz that Bump wasn’t going to change his mind unless Amity found a replacement. Luz volunteers because...she’s Luz, friend to all.

Except maybe that spider.

Top 10 Anime Betrayals

The Blight Siblings try to help Luz train against grom only for Eda to find out about their little plan. Here’s where we find out why Eda volunteered to chaperone a Hexside event even though she hates that place:

“What’s the fun in watching a kid get eaten by a monster if it’s my kid?”

That’s hilarious. To me. 

Luz and Amity have a moment before Luz’s debut and Amity thanks Luz for everything she’s done. They have more adorable banter before Luz takes the stage. 

“Wish me luck.”

“Luck.”

I’m guessing that’s not an expression in The Boiling Isles.

Luz faces Grom and it seems to be going better than everyone predicted until...you know

“Mija, this would be such a good shot for the trailer.”

Yup, we all predicted this. Luz’s greatest fear is her mom finding out that she’s been lying to her. Luz panics and takes off with Eda and Amity to chase after her.

Eda comes in for the save when Amity bursts in the scene saying “Boy let me tell you what.” She doesn’t really I just like saying that. You know, in my head. I mean, if you heard the way I was saying it out loud you’d probably think it was funny too but you know...text.

Grom gets a hold of Amity and transforms into her greatest fear. And we see why Amity didn’t want to face Grom in front of the whole school. She didn’t want everyone to see that Amity’s fear is very...emotional. Not physical. She’s not afraid of a giant spider or anything. It’s a little closer to the heart.

Amity clutching at her dress like a little kid is both the cutest and the saddest thing. This fear of hers is so bad it makes this fourteen year old feel like she’s four. I’m so sure she was about to cry right there. Or maybe that’s me. Could be both.

Luz picks up the note and discovers that Amity was trying to ask somebody out before she was announced as grom queen. Amity was afraid of being rejected. Luz tries to ease her fears by asking her out to grom. 

Trying seeing it from Luz’s point of view. She has no idea who Amity wants to ask out. Luz doesn’t even consider that it could be her because again, belief is backed by experience. Luz was considered a weirdo with no friends in the human world. She even said earlier in the episode that she got kicked out of her last school dance for dressing like an otter. Luz has no reason to believe that someone would like her romantically. She would like to. It is a fantasy of hers, but her experience tells her that other people don’t see her that way so she doesn’t consider that Amity wanted to ask Luz out.

I’ll save the rest for another blog post, although I did talk about this last year too.

But since Amity did want to ask Luz out and Luz asked her out instead, Amity’s fears are eased. Grom does what every fear monster does when their target overcomes their fears and says “Screw it, I’m just going to kick your ass!”

And then this happens:

As a Star vs the Forces of Evil fan, let me just say this is our Blood Moon Ball moment. The moment that the show tells the audience in John Oliver’s voice, “Yup this is the ship we’re doing so strap in folks.”

Luz and Amity work together to combine magic to take down Grom. It also helps that they eased each others’ fears. Luz can’t think about her mom if she’s focused on helping Amity. 

Luz and Amity defeat Grom in a blaze of glory. Luz being Luz, decides to ask Amity who she wanted to ask out just to see if she would tell you. Amity brushes it off.

“It doesn’t matter. After all, I already got to dance with the girl I like.”

Everyone celebrates but when Luz gets home she’s more tired than anything.

Maybe it was Grom, but Luz decides to give her mom a real answer. It’s been tough but it’s also been fun. There are good and bad days. Sometimes she feels like she doesn’t belong. But she has friends. They care about her, she cares about them, and that’s more than enough reason to stay. 

THEN THIS SHIT HAPPENS!

Yeah, the Meteora moment in Star vs the Forces of Evil. The moment where the show went “Never mind that shit. Here comes a complete change in the status quo.” 

Someone or something is sending Luz’s mom letters. It’s Luz’s handwriting, but it’s clearly not Luz since she can’t spell her name right. Season one already finished and we still have no idea what this is. 

I was all happy a second ago. Now I’m nervous as all hell. It’s a madhouse I tells ya. A madhouse!

FINAL SCORE: 5 - LOVED IT!

Wow. Just wow. This episode had everything. Jokes, plot, romance, character development, cameos, dancing, girls, MOM(?), crashing on your couch because technically I’m homeless.

I shipped Lumity before this, but this was the episode that told me that yes it was going to happen. We’re all in. 

But it’s not perfect.

Yeah, did any of you noticed that I didn’t even mention the B-plot? I’m going to be honest. The reason is...

I hate it.

I hate the B-plot so much that I skip it every time I watch this episode. I still don’t think Gus is that funny or interesting. Hell, Skara’s mini plot with her date and/or boyfriend was funnier.

But everything else about the episode more than outshines the B-plot so I still give it a five.

Next time we finish up the lumity trilogy next time.

Dammit I said next time twice.

[mrpenguinpants]

I am a firm believer that Childe is indeed younger than Keqing and has no form of respect for her regardless.

It’s moreso a form of me establishing that the Keqing is a short adult in her mid to early twenties who has to inevitably deal with the constant neck pain she gets from having to look up at her co-workers just to make eye contact. She curses either herself for it for never growing an inch or curses everyone around her or, well, both. Regardless, she can occassionally be found in her office stomping the floor and feeling like the battle is her against the world LMAO

As a side note, I loved the little headcanons of the boys as children you included! It was a different thing that would’ve never came to mind otherwise. While I’m totally ride or die on the “four men accidentally hire themselves a babysitter and a daily slander machine (she does it out of love)” train, I do appreciate different variations to the idea.

Oh and seeing myself on the anon list makes me feel a bit warm, it feels like I’m being acknowledged as family for crashing this wonderful blog with brainworms lmaooo— on a much serious note, I really appreciate hearing me out whenever I have an idea or two to share.

Sincerely, Keqing harem brainrot anon

(I felt like using a dash was too orthodox, and these are basically my mini love letters to you for being an overwhelming amount of seretonin, so I figured why not give it a little twist)

Minor Spoilers for Character Backgrounds

I wrote some more on this here: Genshin: Royalty AU HCs

---

FUCKING CATCH ME CRYING IN THE CLUB AS I HOLD THIS PRECIOUS ASK IN MY HANDS. I THOUGHT YOU DIED. I WAS SO UPSET. REMEMBER THAT ANON ASK THAT I JUST REPLIED TO WHERE ANON FELT LIKE THEY WERE COMING HOME? THAT. THAT IS HOW I FEEL RN.

Yes. I know anons have lives outside of tumblr. Am I a parent penguin now? Yes. Yes I am. I’m fucking crying, it does feel like I’m seeing my family again.

---

Out of all the “adult” genshin characters, I firmly believe Childe is the youngest. He is just hovering that adult status because of his height. Can I also say how much I love that the “culturally insensitive white boy” idea came from people on twitter getting tired of Chili fanart where Childe calls Zhongli “sensei” even tho the mans Chinese? 

Speaking of short people, and because I will never shut up about this, XIAO IS 5′2. Ty for coming to my ted talk. I can literally astral project and visualize Zhongli being Keqing’s boss or co-worker that’s super respectful - but lowkey a bit slow because he keeps forgetting his wallet and Keqing is too nice to leave him without lunch - but when he’s spitting facts about the ancient art of ink blocks she’s cursing him in her mind. Why is this man so tall?? She can feel the neck muscles in her neck crying out in pain that when she finally relaxes and stares forward rather than upward, she get’s a killer cramp and ends up dying on the floor (I HATE THAT FEELING BTW). She’s out here googling ways to grow taller after puberty and chugs milk cartoons like it’s air. 

This is why I absolutely love sharing ideas with others. There is so much food to be brought to the table so I always try and encourage others to share their ideas. Plus it let’s me get my over-active brainworms out haha. 

I just love the dual personality of younger vs older genshin characters. We got to see a little bit of young Diluc in the manga (pls..I know it’s completed but crumbs. I beg of you) where he was this starry eyed and friendly knight attitude. Actual sweetheart. Your typical childhood boy next door type of vibe that was sweet and polite but was a lot smarter than he looked. He has a pet turtle (or tortoise?) and I find that so cute. I can totally see Diluc being hard working to make his father proud but also slacks hard and watches his turtle awkwardly eat a strawberry most of the time haha. He would both die for his turtle and go to war for it. Honestly, I just love the idea of child Diluc being a bit of a slacker compared to his older self, who is trying to speed run his life.  

As for Kaeya, I’m going to say this now. I fully believe in the art of shy and quiet Kaeya when he was a child. It makes sense in terms of the lore since he was basically shoved into an unknown world and all alone. Poor guy probably has a lot of insecurities and is super standoffish to happy and loud children his age. He might come off as rude but he just doesn’t know how to socially interact. As sad as this may sound, he probably mimics other children as his way of expressing emotions. Since he spent most of his time with Diluc, he probably tried to mimic Diluc’s mannerism to try and fit in but Diluc is smart and caught on. It was actually a really wholesome connection of Diluc trying to help Kaeya express himself rather than copying others. Until well, the incident that separated them. 

Complete side note since I know we’re talking about a modern au but: I know I’m stretching this super thin and this doesn’t hold up in the lore at all but I really like the idea that Kaeya is secretly the Prince of Khaenri’ah and Khaenri’ah is a code word for the Abyss. This is basically me saying I want the Abyss mages and Kaeya to actually get along but due to moving in with Diluc’s family and the world’s view on monsters. He has to talk and play with them in secret. I think it’s kinda cute haha. 

As for Childe, actual angel. Have you seen Teucer? Who is this pure innocent soul and what the FUCK happened to create this Grade A Brat? He got too many vitamin gummies and became a gorilla. I mean, both younger and older Childe would walk an old lady across the street but only older Childe would then try to 1v1 the old lady. I’m actually crippled by the idea that Childe used to be this scrawny kid that decided to bulk up due to deep insecure attitudes towards himself or protection ideas for his younger siblings. Fighting became a need to survive and he hated it at first until he met his Master and found the fun in it because it was his way of having control of a situation. Though of course, while this man has two braincells, he’s still sensible. Childe may be a clown but he’s a good big brother. 

Then there’s Zhongli. In my mind, he was basically like Kaeya. Probably came from royalty as well. He didn’t know how to express himself except his boy was actually hollow. A complete husk of a person that was just doing what he was told to absolute perfection. That was until Guizhong, who I completely headcanon as someone older than Zhongli and acts as a sister figure (fucking fight me), grew concerned for this poor child and tried her best to teach him how to have fun. That there was life outside his studies and duties. While it didn’t work out perfectly and Zhongli is still a bit slow on the uptake, he genuinely is thankful to her and her help. I can see him have a little notebook of all her advice and teachings - heck, drawings of human emotions - that he sometimes has to turn to because he’s lost. (why..do i keep making Zhongli’s part so sad). 

BUT ASIDE FROM MY BRAINWORMS. “Four men accidently hire themselves a babysister and a daily slander machine” IS SUCH A CONCEPT. I want them all to have the worst habits. Childe LICKS the yogurt peel in front of Keqing slowly because he knows it absolutely disgusts her, Zhongli eat’s his sandwiches vertically, Diluc blends coffee with 5 hours energy and doesn’t tell anyone (so everyone has the worst hangover 3 hours later because they all leech off each other), and Kaeya, for the love of god, cover your tit window. It’s too early to get arrested for public indecency. 

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I’m happy my anon list made you feel fuzzy 💕💕. I’m probably missing a lot of anons on that list because I have the memory of a goldfish so I just listed the ones I could remember. Since you know, you’re some of the few that came back to talk to me which I honestly really appreciate. I know you all have lives outside of this small blog so it does make me really happy seeing you all come back. I’ve mentioned it before but don’t be afraid to chat with me about anything, doesn’t even have to be genshin^^ but I absolutely love the stuff you come up with. 

I never thought of an anon list acting like a family acknowledgement (more as a literal list) but I’m fully on board with that. I went back to my older anon asks to see if I missed anyone (and I probably have since the tumblr search tag is garbage) but I hope they are all still around on this blog and wanna drop by to say hi^^ 

I’m going to go change my anon list to pengu family because holy fuck that’s cute. But with that said, 

Welcome back home keqing harem brainrot anon!

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: INFP with social anxiety here. I have a therapist but we're focusing on some other issues right now. In the meantime, I was wondering if you had some advice for me. I know you're not a professional (you say that multiple times in your posts) and of course I'm not asking you for a fix for my social anxiety with this - I'm just asking your help to understand what part my cognition could be playing in all of this cause I'm really curious.

Basically, my problem is the time frame right BEFORE I meet someone and, sometimes, immediately after. I don't really have problems socializing in the "middle", if you get what I mean; I'm easily adaptable and once I'm relaxed, once I realize no one is there to attack me, my mind starts getting ideas and I kind of know what to say, even though I'm a bit out of practice and I still have problems convincing other people of my emotions (like, mirroring their emotions so that they know I agree with them and stuff like that; for some reason they never ---believe me when I say it with words).

When I make plans, anyway, and I still haven't met the person, I get this anxiety: like I would rather stay home than go there because it's going to be "boring" and I'm probably going to feel like an idiot or make some sort of social gaffe. I mean, I do kinda get bored after a while anyway, but I also know I tend to overestimate that level of "future boredom" to the point it hurts me to even think about showing up and forcing myself to think of stuff I can-- say.

I get anxious because I start thinking about the way people used to treat me in the past (I've always been the black sheep of my family and/or my social circles and I vividly remember some bad things they used to say to me) and I start worrying that, deep down, they still think of me like that and they're never going to forget that "preconception of my identity" and open their eyes to who I am now, or I guess to who I've always been.

I do realize it doesn't make much sense, this "who I ----really am" part - but I've always had the impression that I was a bit different than the "me" they percieved, maybe because after many, many years of being accused of "selfishness" and "inability to tune in with the emotional atmosphere" I learned that in order not to ruin the "social mood" I should've adapted myself to the group - but the problems is that I suppressed "myself" in the meantime (and with myself I mean, like, my real interests, the things I'd like to talk about for ages without-- having to be interrupted or looked down on because, quote unquote, "ok, cool, but we don't really care").

I understand now that if they don't give me hints of actually caring about the subject I should stop rambling like a fool, but this is making me feel like I have nothing "useful" to offer them and therefore bringing the anxiety I'm struggling with. It makes me scared that I'll never be able to be myself around them because of the "social rules" I want to respect to be accepted, & to make----it worse I'm out of practice like I said before and sometimes it just gets too awkward and I want to get out of there.

I bet I'm doing something wrong because friendships and relationships in general are not supposed to be "boring", am I right? And yet until I don't get distracted by the actual conversation, I feel like it's going to be really boring and uncomfortable and sometimes going through it is SO horrible... most of the time I end up making up some excuse to go home earlier and talk----my internet friends instead (thank God for the internet!!!!). Anyway, thank you if you'll answer! And have a good summer vacation c:

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The first thing I notice is that your thought process bears a very striking resemblance to many INFJs who struggle with social anxiety due to poor Fe development (see past posts). As a general rule, if I have good reason to suspect that someone might be mistyped, I won't provide info about function development until they undergo a proper type assessment. Otherwise, they might adopt the wrong method of improvement.

You say you want to understand what part your cognition plays in the social anxiety you experience, so I will mention the aspects of your cognition that seem most significant:

1) No Chill: You overthink things to an extreme, to the point of self-sabotage, perhaps even creating a self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e. when expecting the negative actually makes the negative happen). Overthinking means that you're not confronting the real obstacle getting in the way of your socializing. You're constantly trying to envision, imagine, or predict what will happen in a social interaction? WHY? What's the point of that overthinking? It's how you avoid confronting your fear head on.

2) Insecure: Your "predictions" are too often faulty because of being tainted by your underlying insecurities. You're insecure about being attacked, being accused, being misjudged, doing something wrong, being deemed of no value or unworthy of care, not being accepted or acceptable, dying of awkwardness, feeling bored, feeling uncomfortable, and on and on. You've described your thought process in detail. But nowhere do I see you confronting your insecurities, digging deeper into them, in order to understand the root of them. Insecurities are a manifestation of fear.

3) Control: Irrational anxiety is oftentimes about trying to control things that you shouldn't be trying to control or cannot have any control over - it wastes mental energy and leads to futile behavior. As long as you're trying to control social situations and their outcome, you are either trying too hard to make reality match up with your expectations or you're fumbling whenever reality unfolds outside of your expectations - you become rigid and frail. You claim to be "adaptable" but everything you say after that only proves you don't know the meaning of the word. You can't handle unpredictability, hence, the attempt to be in control by trying to "predict" everything. Do your attempts to control actually work? Do they help or hinder you? If they mostly hinder you, then isn't it time to change your strategy? Anxious people often believe that having more knowledge or control is the answer to their fear. But, in your case, the huge cost of being controlling is being incompetent. What's worse, the fear is still right there running the show.

4) Unresolved Trauma: You attribute your troubles to your past. Fair enough. Growing up in a social environment that did not respect and appreciate you is painful, even extremely traumatic for certain personality types. It also makes people too hungry for validation. It's natural that you wouldn't want to feel the pain of it again. However, if that pain remains unexamined and unresolved, you will unconsciously keep seeking to resolve it, which means re-enacting the trauma over and over again throughout life. The proof? Every time you meet someone, your first stance is defensive, because the first thing that comes into your mind is that you don't want to be attacked or invalidated. That old pain is running the whole show because you are deeply afraid of experiencing it again, yet you don't realize that YOU are the one calling it back up and rehashing it. What are you doing to resolve the pain rather than indulge the fear?

5) Self-absorbed: Social anxiety makes people too absorbed in their own thoughts, feelings, hopes, and expectations. They are too preoccupied with what they want, what will happen, how they will be perceived, how they might make a mistake, how they might be attacked, etc. This means they're not truly present with people, so the relationship can't really go far. Driven by fear and insecurity, they are always behind a wall, too difficult to reach.

Even if you happen to meet the right people, do you make it easy for them to befriend you? It seems that you can't open up with ease, you can't go with the flow of the other person when they don't live up to your expectations, you can't keep your emotions in check and misjudge situations, you get bored when it's not about you, you run away instead of making things better. Looking at yourself objectively from the outside, would you want to be friends with someone like that?

If you want to have good friends, you first have to BE a good friend. You want care, love, and validation? We all do. The best way to receive it is to be the first to give it. By being more aware of other people's needs and doing more to show that you care about them, you put them in a better position to care about you and meet your needs in return. This is the difference between actively trying to "make" a friend vs passively wishing for a friend to drop into your lap.

Being a friend isn't about what "value" you have, as though you're some kind of object being appraised and sold. Being a good friend is quite a simple matter of putting out the energy to care and show that you care. When you meet someone who's moved by your care, they will care for you in return. When you meet someone who's unmoved by your care, figure out the real reason why, in order to determine whether you should keep trying or put your energy elsewhere.

You never really know who you'll hit it off with. One of my favorite experiences in life is making a friend in the unlikeliest of places. As an adult, meeting new people is a numbers game. All you can do is keep pushing yourself to meet new people. The more people you meet, the greater the odds of clicking with someone. If you're looking to meet like-minded people, go to places that are likely to have people who share your interests. If you don't hit it off with someone, simply move along. You don't have to be friends with everyone, do you?

Yet, you take every little social interaction so seriously that each step is like life or death - that's what makes socializing tiring, laborious, and unfun. Why not enter into every social interaction with an open mind and an open heart? Why not truly go with the flow, without having to undergo the repetitive ritual of predicting what will happen or fussing over what did happen?

6) Poor Emotional Intelligence: This point is the common thread that runs through the previous points, which is why I keep repeating the word "fear". You have extremely low tolerance for negative feelings and emotions, which means you really need to work on learning how to deal with your emotional life better. Any little sign that things won't turn out the way you want and you start to panic, overthink, blame, or flee. Why do you recoil from yourself and your own feelings and emotions? Why are you so easily shaken by boredom, awkwardness, invalidation, failing, other people's negativity, etc? Why do you react so badly to these things (when others just brush it off and keep going)?

7) Low Self-Awareness: It's not enough to just name the fear ("I'm afraid of____"). Does the label explain why you have this particular fear and not some other fear? It's not enough to blame the past ("It's because of ____"). Why did someone else with a similar past as yours not develop this fear? To get to the root of fear, you have to identify, in exact terms:

what aspect of you has to change to overcome the fear

what aspect of your identity has to "die" (i.e. be let go of) in order to evaporate the fear

Until you answer the fear properly, it won't go away.

[awesome-cookies-and-cream]

Reki and Langa’s dynamic

It’s speculation at my part and a shameless rant on what i like about sk8 just to get it off my chest I’ve been so fixated help

it’s 5am I’m at uni and i have a shit ton to do, am I really gonna make an essay about sk8 instead? yes abso-fucking-lutely. strap on to your metaphorical skateboards kids. this is going to be long ride

this isn’t to call out anyone lol so in case you get that impression I’m sorry. I understand everyone is out to interpret media in whatever they like and that’s fine, but sometimes i feel like either some missed some points of the story? anyway here are my thoughts tho

alright so what i absolutely love about sk8 is how they didn’t make anyone into a genius.Genius is a mockery of the hardships everyone does to attain that level of skills. And no Langa is not a genius or a prodigy which I will explain later. I’ve seen enough shounen animes back in the day and usually it’s ‘annoying heart of gold beginner vs. calm and collected genius’ they usually hate each other’s guts and bicker all the time though secretly, deep down care for each other but would rather die than admit it dynamic. While I’m glad we’re moving past that, I really thought Reki and Langa would be like that so....

imagine my surprise when Langa was the ‘beginner’ in skating. He has the potential to be a second sasuke here lol. (blue, handsome, cool) but no he isn’t. he’s an adorable idiot, an airhead, head empty only skating dude and i love it. 

Reki as well. He could have been the usual protagonist. (sucks at his sport, loud, hardworking, and by the power of friendship he suddenly beats everyone else which i think is pretty overused at this point, don’t you think?) some people complain how Reki despite being the MC isn’t given screentime and hasn’t won a single beef. (and sure that’s true. he should have won some and langa lose some but we only have 12 eps so lol) but he’s not the usual protagonist you know? and sk8 isn’t about winning. if it was, I think they would have focused on the techniques. the hows and the what to do.

Idk if you noticed, but sports anime with winning in its goal would often explain in detail certain techniques. (see haikyuu) but shows like Free and Yuri on Ice isn’t exactly talking about how to win that seriously as Haikyuu did. It’s more focusing on the feelings and how their lives are affected with their passion for this sport. it’s about the character development!!! and i think SK8 is something like that too. It explores the character’s feelings rather than sport. (like what i tell my sister, they use the sport as a character device if that makes sense?)

this was literally in the opening lol. it’s really about the feelings you know?

so anyway it’s been pointed out several times that Reki was already feeling insecure about his skills in skating since ep 1 way before Langa came. But he still likes to skate and despite feeling never enough, he still enjoyed it. (some also pointed out that Reki’s reason of going into a beef against Shadow has been because he insulted his way of skating not because he wanted to be the best) so the show from the get go was already hinting at his self esteem issues.

this also implies that Reki has always been feeling like this in a while, added with his tendencies to bottle things up, it makes sense that he’ll blow up at some point and he’ll need to release all of those feelings. (so yeah i think this is just the right amount of eps for their fall out. i see some people complaining shush. otherwise it would also feel too rushed. this is years weighing him)

and i guess it’s also implied in here he’s had days like these too in the past! seriously it’s an ongoing problem he’s been carrying. i think 3 eps is pretty good enough pace to internalize it

so point: Reki was already down way before Langa came. langa just added to that. And don’t go blaming Langa cause the boy did nothing wrong.

Consider that Langa just lost his dad (i think we need more backstory on this though. please sdsjkdksl i need little Langa and his dad interactions) he just moved countries, and the only connection to his dad (snowboarding) is gone cause it doesn’t snow in OKinawa

though one also argues that Langa hasn’t been snowboarding since his dad was gone.

so for Langa, Reki introducing skating to him was revolutionary. You’re someone grieving over the death of what is probably the most important person in your life, the thing you love the most no longer gives you joy (as was shown in the flashbacks and basically Langa going ‘it’s the same’) and you’re in a new country with a language you barely are fluent. you can’t even read or write, and you barely have friends granted you don’t have much back in the day. it’s horrible.

and then this guy you barely know talks to you, befriends you, helps you get a job, and teaches you something you thought you’ve lost and through that you made more friends??

yeah you see why Langa likes Reki. You also see why he’s obsessed with skating. It’s kind of like a coping, a fixation. plus he’s bad with social cues i guess? the interview says he’s likely to get dumped for being too inattentive lmao and that’s what makes him interesting!

also the thing that really surprised me when they first interacted was how supportive Reki is to Langa. it also got to me with how much Langa thinks highly of Reki. Again a deviation to the ‘i say i hate you but deep down i care for you’ trope. they’re full on supportive and protective. i like that. it’s fresh to me. I thought Reki was going to the tsundere ‘hmph that’s not a big deal’ route at the start of ep 2 but he’s really amazed. (kinda also says he’s been very desperate for someone to share skating with but that’s another topic)

so Reki teaches Langa how to skate. and Langa sucks. Which was interesting to me because I thought Langa would be some flawless prince-like character. But nah. He trips and faints at his own blood lol. He’s so uncool and i love it.

Some people say Langa is over powered with a thick ass plot armor which gets him to win (which is why i see people saying he should have won against Joe and I actually agree that Langa should lose some beefs but again only 12 eps, so little time)

but I still wanna talk about it anyway so it’s revealed Langa was snowboarding since 2. That’s 15 years. I think that should be around the same time Joe and Cherry should be skating. and i think if you start earlier as a kid, your body develops differently. (should Langa, “an amateur” win against Joe a pro? the question falls more on whether you can classify Langa as an amateur) i think it’s like Langa being very used to motorcycle tricks from age 2 then suddenly he’s using a regular bicycle, and sure the feeling is mostly the same but there’s just something off. Your body doesn’t easily forget what you know, especially if it did it for 15 years. and so Reki customizes a board for Langa so it’ll feel exactly like snowboarding

So Langa has a customized board that he needed to get used to before he went pro. He really sucked the first few eps lmao. but that’s more of him getting used to the new rules. he pretty much told Reki in ep 2 that he can’t do a skateboard ollie, but he can do a snowboard one bec it’s attached to his feet.

(i may just want to add that one thing i also like about sk8 is that it really doesn’t care what you need for accommodation? if that’s how you do it best, then go for it. When Langa says to Reki he can’t do the ollie without the board attached to his feet, Reki immediately goes his way to accommodate him. usually people in real life might say ‘it’s not real skateboarding if you need a modification etc. but look at Cherry with a freaking AI board and people are like yeah whatever do what you want man. whatever rolls your board.)

so anyway Langa vs. Joe with Langa winning despite being an amateur? if you can even call him an amateur that is. Plus all his tricks are snowboarding tricks lol. everything he’s done is testament to his 15 years of snowboarding?? We don’t even know how good Langa is in snowboarding. Someone make a post about how difficult the snowboarding equivalent of those tricks Langa has done just to show people it means he’s pretty pro (I’ll even argue maybe Langa’s real talent is his creative ways of going around things which kind of why Adam is highkey obsessed, and calls Cherry who calculates everything to the last second boring but that’s a different can of worms I’m opening later) plus Langa barely won against Joe so there’s not much difference in level i think. Should Langa have lost though?

I think some have missed the point of that beef in Reki’s pov. and if the Renga reconciliation is done well, it would be worth it.

that beef got Reki to realize he what he really wants! that it’ll kill him if he can’t skate anymore! that he doesn’t wanna only cheer on for others and be a support! THAT HE WANTS TO SKATE BY LANGA’S SIDE WHICH IS THE REASON FOR ALL THIS INSECURITIES if Langa lost, that cathartic realization might not have happened. He might have gone to Langa and cheered him up, brushed off his insecurities and, made up with Langa halfheartedly without addressing his problems

I’m going to go back to Reki’s insecurities. In ep 6 he’s been afraid of being left behind, and sure Langa came back for him but he still forgot until midway. (will that parallel how Langa got too excited with the idea of skating, the same feeling he thought he lost forever. The same thing that he thinks connects him with his dad, and might have left Reki behind, but later remembers and goes back to chase him? hopefully) in ep 4 it’s obvious he’s afraid of the near death experience Adam gave him, and he’s just realized how different their skills were. in ep 5 he worries about Langa, enough to get nightmares about it. mixed with his friend getting hurt. it’s obvious the feelings are very very muddled there.

So he begs Langa not to skate with Adam.

And what did Langa do? say that he wanted to skate with Adam. (again he’s not the most attentive. he probably thinks he’s just skating with his best friend, all is good then boom. Reki leaves. as a person shit with dealing with other people, i don’t blame him at all) he’s trying to fix it though, but his bond with Reki primarily revolves around skating! how else was he going to warm up with Reki? He also doesn’t know that Reki has self esteem issues that’s always been there since the beginning. He probably doesn’t understand it too because he holds Reki up highly. in ep 6 when Reki was going over his board, Langa thinks he’s pretty cool. he didn’t hear what other said to Reki. He’s earnestly having fun with his friend

We should also note that Reki was never angry at Langa’s skills, he wasn’t resentful that Langa was far ahead. Again he’s been nothing but supportive. He doesn’t want to pull Langa down. He wasn’t like Miya’s friends that lashed out at Miya for being better. in ep 7 he tries his best to follow Langa

it feels like he’s mostly regretful that he can’t catch up. he doesn’t want Langa to slow down, he wants to go faster and meet him where he was. So it makes the realization that all he wants to do was be in equal with Langa more frustrating because he thinks he can’t keep up. (and this only ever started when he heard he’s like Langa’s plus one. there’s that daunting feeling about being pulled around. not being his equal) 

if you need further proof, when Langa and Joe were having a beef, he wasn’t aggressively hoping Langa would lose. in fact he encouraged him. He worries deeply He calls him out when he was doing badly. Still very supportive as ever. So really the frustration isn’t to Langa, again, it’s all internal. He wants to be better

so he’s feeling shit and Langa goes to him in the middle of the rain, bless langa for trying, thinking talking about skating (what he thinks Reki loves and would probably cheer him up, not knowing that’s exactly his problem) tells him

which is probably the worst he could say.

THAT’S what got Reki mad, not really Reki being insecure though that’s part of it, that’s what they’re fighting about, Reki is angry he’s breaking his promise. He thinks Langa doesn’t care about Reki, that he’ll easily break a promise between them that Reki obviously cares about just so he can go skate with Adam who is way better than him. It blows to the self esteem. Reki probably also think that if only he was better, langa wouldn’t bother skating with someone that dangerous. it doesn’t help at all.

but langa doesn’t know this. he doesn’t see all this. Langa might have been too up the high of skating like in ep 6, he sorta left Reki behind again.

it kinda makes Langa’s mom’s words hit harder though

and he did just that. he got too engrossed.

It parallels adam, cherry and joe’s friendship then probably tadahsi’s too but who knows? reki and langa, and tadashi and adam might parallel too, the master and the student thingy Adam might have gotten too obsessed. So Joe trying his best to make sure Reki and Langa won’t end up like them hits a little harder in my chest ;’)

but Langa won’t be to engrossed i think

because unlike Adam who’s aggressively looking for his ‘equal’, Langa is just looking for someone who makes his heart beat, to make him feel like he’s skating with his dad again, someone he loves dearly. (there’s a parallel about loves here too between Adam’s and Langa’s. but I can’t write it now) and he probably already thinks Reki is his equal anyway. He just wants to have fun. he doesn’t think much about the skills.

maybe at first he does. that’s why he’s drawn to Adam but from ep 9, it was pretty much shown that skills really doesn’t matter from when he skated against Joe

if Adam easily discarded his friends because he think they’re boring (which was why the whole skateboard to the face thing with Cherry), langa doesn’t think like that

if anything Reki is important to Langa because he only has fun skating with Reki, who taught him how to skate and made his board. (his board that was customized to fit his style btw, and arguably the only reason he could skate that well. without it, he might as well be a beginner once again.) so without reki, langa is left with nothing. especially with his broken board

no fun in skating, no way of skating. He’s only manage to get this far because of Reki and he knows that now. All of it would be pointless if he doesn’t have Reki (and either he gets so obsessed in chasing that feeling again, or he stops completely) but in case you haven’t noticed it, Langa’s motivation revolves around having fun with skating no matter the skill or place. And he’s having most fun with Reki.

But Reki obviously doesn't know Langa’s feelings. He thinks Langa was forever looking for someone better. So he’s still caught up in the idea that Langa won’t want to skate with him (even though Langa has never shown this) and he left S entirely, thinking what he wants is impossible. fucking just talk you two motherfucker

(I also wanna point out that Reki has always been shown from episode one to be good at making boards. And that’s amazing? We need some support recognition and appreciation, seriously) I think maybe most who find problem with Reki not winning beefs like the usual shounen protags aren’t used to the nuance and perspective of being someone ‘ordinary’. Reki’s character is relatable because most of us feel ordinary, never enough, surrounded by geniuses, ‘inferior’. And if we’re being realistic since a lot are saying joe should have won because langa winning is unrealistic and you want realism so bad no I’m not salty at all there will always be someone better than you. ALWAYS. but what’s important is for you to have fun in what you love! in what makes you happy! AND even if you’re not good at one thing (in Reki’s part, skating) he’s also good at other things (making boards) so does he need to stop one for the other? no. He’s shown to enjoy skating with Langa, he doesn’t wanna stop it hurts him so much he quit. But he can also hone his skills in making boards as well as skate. He’s equal with Langa in a way he doesn’t even notice when he made that board for Langa, but even Reki’s presence alone makes Langa enjoy skating the way Reki also wants Langa by his side.

So I think the next ep is the best time to confront all these feelings. And how it happens might be what’s tricky. Like romantic or not, i personally can read it both ways though i prefer if they do become canon. (idk if it’s queerbaiting. i guess friends can care as deeply as that but ngl, these shounen bestfriends having deep connections that are written off as friends while also giving us bland af hetero love interests who did nothing but exist and be straight really is messing with my perception of romantic and platonic love irl) anyway their talk better be done really well, or else all those episodes of tension would be for nothing

It’s a nice perspective to give a shounen protagonist this time. It’s new, it’s fresh. How many incarnations of underdog turned the best at their craft can you take? variety is nice! and if you don’t like it, there are always a dozen other animes like that for you to turn to. to conclude, IT ALL GOES BACK TO THE START: WHAT IS YOUR HAPPINESS???! AND FOR THEM IT’S THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP BUT IN A VERY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE. FRIENDSHIP DOESN’T  SUDDENLY GET YOU TO LEVEL 100000000000 TO DEFEAT THE FINAL BOSS. FRIENDSHIP IS WHAT MAKES DEFEATING THE FINAL BOSS WORTHWHILE

Anyway tldr; maybe the real Eve is the friends we made along the way :D  and idk if I’m making sense but obviously I’m head empty only sk8. Renga needs to talk, i can’t believe they have the audacity to make a recap episode as if i wasn’t head empty only sk8 since february, and if there’s more emotional edging to come, i will burn some of the palm trees outside my house