#ON MY REALLY OLD ACCOUNT I USE TO BE SOMEWHAT WELL KNOWN IN THE FANDOM IN THE EARLY DAYS

[withmytailtotheworld]

LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[ruija]

A trip down memory lane - TMNT 2003

So. The 20th anniversary of 2003 Ninja turtles was a little while ago, but I didn’t have time to draw anything for it 👉👈💦 BUT, I wanted to do SOMETHING for it, even a bit late. 

For context, TMNT 2003 was my introducion to the franchise. Back when it started airing, I was 9yo and was immediately hooked. I think it’s the series/fandom that has stuck with me the strongest across the years. Even if I’d have long periods, even couple year brakes from it, I always dip back at some point. Usually it’d happen by me suddenly having a dream about the turtles, and then going like “Oh, is it that time again? Guess I’ll go check some fanworks, then.” ANYWAY, I thought it’d be fun to dig up some old art and do some redrawing hehheh. Hopefully yall find these somewhat entertaining, I’ve been equal parts cackling and cringing lmao!

Here we have THE FIRST EVER Leonardo I’ve ever drawn! (Made when I was 9) I’m honestly very charmed and kinda impressed by it. Like, he looks really funky and dynamic! That pose and the way the bandanna tails are flying adds really nice movement and energy to the drawing! It was really fun to use it as a base, because the elements of it were already working well!

Also there’s Splinter I drew around that same time. He also has a lot of funny personality haha! (Sorry Splints for being too lazy to redraw you)

(More art and reminiscing under read more!)

BY THE WAY. I’m FUCKING DEVASTATED that I was not able to find a third drawing I remember from this period. It featured Splinter being drunk while Leo looks on horrified. Why? I don’t know. Little Ruija thought it was really funny I guess. Anyway, here’s an imitation piece for demonstration:

Truly shocking. Bad Parent Splinter AU? (I have a suspicion the original is MIA, because I got too embarrassed by it at some point. But I will not lose hope, maybe it’ll turn up someday🙏)

I think the next time I drew fanart of ninja nurtles was when I was 11-12yo and joined Devianart. The account I used to have doesn’t exist anymore, so I wasn’t able to recover files from that time. My only hope is to come across some originals in my old art folders  💦 💦 I have really fond memories from that time. Was quite active in the Sonic and TMNT fandom.

This was drawn when I was 13, I think. I’m sensing... a bit of a fictional crush there. And- Wait a minute. Is that...? ENHANCE

DONNIE?!

Biblically accurate recreation.

Karai from same time period. It’s probably a lesser known fact, that in several iterations, she’s usually among my fave characters.

Grumpy Raph my beloved! This is from when I was 14. Those thighs are tragically skinny! This obviously had to be rectified.

Somewhere in the 14-15yo range. I think I had already picked up a special fondness for Leo+Mikey dynamic <3

And then... I got kind of a whiplash when this piece jumped out from my folders:

What a weird experience. I guess this particular visual spoke to me even 13 years ago.

Well, here’s another one to the pile.

Last piece has a bit of a timeskip! It’s from 2013 ( I was 18yo) and the original post is actually on this blog!

I’ve actually been wanting to redraw this piece anyway, but with my HC of Donnie being really tall, haha. (I keep squinting at Leo and how he turned out very femme in this... Oh well, he/she’s just rocking some transswag)

--

PHEW! This was fun! Made me feel extremely fond, thinking about how excited my younger selves would be to see these redrawings haha.

Earlier I said I didn’t have any works archived from my old DA account, but surprisingly I had a couple screenshots like this:

Back then (2005-2007 in this case) personal websites were common, including ones dedicated to fandom-content. A Japanese tmnt fan going by Sakan-san also had one called FREAKfreak. (She was also on DA) Her art was gorgeous and I thought she was like the best and coolest tmnt artist ever. 

Her webpage had this PAINTchat on it and both Japanese and Western fans would gather there to draw together. Sakan-san would often post the collabs in her gallery afterwards. There were a couple times I was able to join a session with them too, which I was over the moon about! (In the screenshot the bottom right segment was mine lol). It was really cool, that they included a novice artist with extremely broken english amongst them.

Seeing these screenshorts made me remember how much I admired Sakan-san and wanted to draw like her. And then realizing, that now I can✨

--

Another memorable interaction from that time is when I was chatting with some older fans. By the time I got on DA, my country had only dubbed and aired the first two seasons of the 2003 series. I kept seeing fanart of Leo with his shellscar and got curious. I asked the others where he gets it.

They told me he put dynamite on it.

And then said it’s better if I go watch the episodes myself. Fortunately I was able to find and watch rest of the series after that, haha.

--

Maybe that’s enough reminiscing for now! Thanks for the company and all the lovely memories TMNT 2003 <3

I hope you all can also keep creating and having fun within this fandom, for years to come!  💙❤️💜🧡💚

[shadowredfeline]

Two in One Post

For my Filipino Friend's On this Day Post

I played Excitebike too. I have played the NES Version a lot. I also played the Nintendo 64 one too, but it was tricky to get used to the controls and the gameplay. And this can be just like when Rita was also competing in the Motocross tournament while she was pregnant. Either before or after.

Debby 😺📱🖥️: Do your Best Rita! I know you're the greatest Cross Driver ever. And maybe Windy and I can watch you compete just like how we watch our sons compete in the racing games too.

And for a Response to both my A-Pal and my Filipino Friend

Yeah maybe if there's another Nintendo Direct, I bet we can both voice chat together if we want to. Because when I watched Nintendo Direct a few days ago, I couldn't tell if I would watch it alone, or watch it with some YouTubers or watch it by voice chatting with friends. And also I understand how you feel when Rare was just a subsidiary by Microsoft, it's a bit like how Atlus and Rovio are both subsidiaries to Sega. Because even with so many companies selling franchises to their companies, like Angry Birds, Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei Persona, and when we find out who owns it, sure enough, they call around saying that Sega owns them. Much like with Bayonetta, it used to be made by Sega, they call around saying Nintendo owns it even though Platinum Games is the ones that own the series despite Nintendo publishing the game. So Bayonetta was counted as a Somewhat known Title, which is what Nintendo makes besides games based on their properties like Mario, Animal Crossing and Zelda. And back to Rare, what's also bizarre is that not only Microsoft had Rare as the developers, but I just heard that they made Sea of Thieves on a different system like the PlayStation 5. And when I just watched the Direct, I heard Horizons, a PlayStation title is gonna be on the Switch, but in Lego style. It was kinda confusing that so many of their titles owned by their own companies are now being shown on all the different systems. Because with Xbox Titles, they're usually only for both Xbox and PC, and I also heard when for classic Nintendo 64 titles, I know they just put in some M Rated titles like Perfect Dark and Turok, and what's confusing is why not buy the remastered version of Turok on the eShop? I talked about it with Deev on Discord voice chat last night and he said it was a stupid idea. Because we can just buy the remastered version because it was better and we can also buy their sequels too. Even when we can get Turok on different systems like PlayStation, Xbox or PC. And it would be confusing if they brought more M Rated Titles to Nintendo 64 like Conker's Bad Fur Day, Resident Evil 2, and Mortal Kombat 4. And ever since I got the Rare Replays for our A-Pal for his birthday, I know he's trying some of the Rareware titles when I last check on what he's up to.

Speedy 😺👟: We sure are, Mrs. Windy! And normally Grandpa wanted to try it, but he wanted to stick with being a PC player and rarely play a console.

Paul 😺⚔️⚒️: Well it's something. Sorry Guys, but I hope I'll try playing the consoles if I get the chance. Normally I've only played the original Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, and i haven't played 3 Corruptions and neither has Shadow. Plus I know the Multiplayer of Metroid Prime 2 Echoes is good since Shadow, Speedy and I played it together as well as for Caleb.

Speedy 😺👟: Yeah the Multiplayer is really fun. I sure played it a lot with Dad and Uncle Caleb. And maybe we should try it out together too, Mrs. Windy.

[bizarrequazar]

I'm new to the WoH fandom and for a month I was in heaven, but this whole ZZH situation has very quickly left a sour taste in my mouth. Recently he confirmed on his under-cover account that GJ has not texted him even once since 813, and there is no friendship between them. It just makes me feel so sick and sad after everything ZZH promised to GJ on that stage last May that there was no reciprocation. I don't think I can even watch old footage of them together without getting upset.

Hello! I'm afraid the situation is likely a lot more complicated than that. I'll preface this by saying that I've been here since before August and have been following things very closely. I’ll also preface that I’m a fan of both of them, but I’m foremost a fan of Zhang Zhehan.

We have no confirmation that the Zhang Sanjian account is him, and there's a lot of reason to doubt it. Personally I'm of the opinion that it's not.

It's obvious that whoever made the account intended for people to think that Zhang Zhehan is the one behind it, regardless of if it really is him. It's very important to remember that he is actively involved in a criminal investigation where he undoubtedly has legal advisors—we know from Li Xuezheng that multiple legal bodies were already eager to take his case in late November. Doing something like creating that account right now is extremely inadvisable, and if it really was him I have a hard time believing that anyone helping him legally wouldn't immediately make him shut it down. He has not even unprivated or posted on his Instagram since it was reactivated. In everything we've seen that has his confirmed involvement, he has been very cautious about what he's done and said. He was very careful with his words in the interview he did with Li Xuezheng in January—the only time we're certain of where he's been able to speak publicly since 813—and we know from Li Xuezheng that press, legal bodies, and government officials were present during that interview, and that more was discussed than we have been made privy to. 

As well, the fact that the very first post was the one you're mentioning where he said that "a coworker who called him laoshi" hadn't texted him is extremely suspect. Namely, it comes across as intentionally inflammatory, especially considering there's an unfortunately long history of Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun's solo fans fighting against each other. There have been many examples since (and before) August of antis trying to incite hate against Gong Jun and involve him as well. There is currently reason to believe 813 might have been motivated by competition, in which case Gong Jun is also likely a target.

Previous accounts pretending to be Zhang Zhehan have popped up before this. Something to note in particular is that as soon as this one appeared, it was spread widely by news sites that ignored even major updates that happened prior, paid accounts, and accounts that have been known to post against Zhang Zhehan in the past. Comparatively, many of the accounts up to now who have defended him, including Li Xuezheng who has been the main player in allowing Zhang Zhehan to defend himself, have had their posts and accounts suppressed by Weibo.

EDIT: People in the replies have also brought up the topic of Zhang Zhehan’s image. Since August, images of him (including partial body parts and his voice, with such accuracy that some have suspected AI use) have been systematically taken down from Chinese social media sites. The exception is that posts against him with his image are often the ones to stay up. This has lessened somewhat since November, but is still ongoing. One person tested the Zhang Sanjian account by posting one of their photos and one of Zhang Zhehan, and only Zhang Zhehan’s was taken down.

As for Gong Jun himself, it's very important to remember that he's in a position where he can't say anything directly—anything he says openly absolutely WILL be used against him and undoubtedly will damage his career. With that being said, he has shown support for Zhang Zhehan as much as he is able to. The most blatant example was in January when he posted a video summary of 2021 on his studio Weibo and completely left out August despite there being many things he could have included, as well as a week later when a KFC commercial he did was released where it showed him ripping dates off a calendar but skipped 1 and 5, 511 being Zhang Zhehan's birthday and thus a number that both he and Gong Jun have given great significance to in the past.

We know irrefutably that Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun were very close prior to 813—much more than is immediately apparent, honestly. Even as close to 813 as July 17th there was an example of Gong Jun intentionally trying to divert online hate away from Zhang Zhehan. The only reason I can imagine for why Gong Jun wouldn't have contacted Zhang Zhehan in the immediate fallout of 813 is if Gong Jun's own legal team didn't allow him to. It absolutely would not have been because he didn't care, and personally I have zero doubts that Zhang Zhehan would have understood that. These are grown men who have been in the industry for years, they know better than anyone how it works.

Gong Jun was devastated after 813. We know that. Photos from him going to work in the days following (below, worth noting that several of these have been edited to remove eyebags) show him visibly upset (puffy eyes, avoided interaction with fans, was wearing earbuds on several days). There is also a commercial that was filmed on 813 itself where he likewise looks like he’s barely holding himself together, and we have testimony from staff who were present during its filming that he had to do numerous retakes (very unusual for him) and he had to stop several times due to what was likely being on the verge of a breakdown.

What I have mentioned is only a very very small number of examples of Gong Jun showing that he cares about what happened to Zhang Zhehan in August. I will not deny the possibility that Zhang Sanjian is Zhang Zhehan, but I would be very surprised if it is, both because of his own character and Gong Jun's. It is very likely that Zhang Sanjian is an imposter account intended to incite fanwars. One of the last things Li Xuezheng said when he was muted was to avoid fan conflicts and focus on what is important, and yet Zhang Sanjian has done the exact opposite.

This is only the latest chapter of what started with a very organazied campaign to sway public opinion. With any new information that comes out that isn’t from a trusted source, always ask: Why now? Who does this benefit?

Focus on what is important right now. Focus on Zhang Zhehan getting justice. Any issues involving Gong Jun, whether or not they truly exist, can wait until Zhang Zhehan is able to OPENLY speak for himself again.

[samantha-and-her-chaotic-desires]

EDIT: 9/1/24:

[These purple dividers now being used are by @/strangergraphics-archive !! Go and check them out :3 specifically this set is used]

Welcome to the craziness!

Name: Samantha/Sam

Pronouns: she/her (I don't really care though LMAO)

Other names: Chaotic, Chaotic_Desires, etc.

Below is my Meet The Artist! [outdated]

I enjoy writing, drawing, and overall any creative content I can get my grubby lil hands on. Anything you wanna share with me? Please do!

I have quite a few hyperfixations! You can see me screeching over delicious content happily posting about my favorite fandoms and crackships, as well as advertising my AO3 account!

I have multiple side blogs! If you wish to give them a follow, here you go:

@ask-the-sexyman-squad [Tumblr Sexymen side blog/story driven ask blog]

@ask-the-rose-brigade [somewhat inactive]

@a-chaotic-and-tired-mess [spam blog if need be]

@sxmxntha-is-unfiltered [confessions blog]

@hellcat-mordecai-heller [Sinner!Mordecai Heller aka Hellcat!Mordecai AU Blog: The Other Side of Paradise]

@crushed-crown-official [original series blog! still a work in progress]

The background image I'm using is by @/mememan93 !! Here it is below for better viewing:

I have a new upcoming series called Crushed♕Crown that I wish to develop fully! The premise below:

"Six college students—and best friends—visit their old high school during winter break, only to discover it's now abandoned. It dials back to last year's prom, which ended in bloody terror—they wouldn't have known because they graduated a year before, and prefer to not look back on their dreadful highschool years. College is supposed to be fresh start!

Follow Macintosh "Mac" Jennings, Janelle Hart, Akasha Kotarski, Daniel Sasaki, Dolores Arbelo-Estrada, and Ezra Agresti as they uncover dirty secrets, clues, and hidden details about last years horrific high school tragedy...

All with facing the past that they never wanted to look back at."

[CARRD BEING REVAMPED]

Here is some stuff you need to know!

PLEASE don't call me Chaos! It's potentially triggering for me.

I come off brutally honest! It may seem like I'm being mean, but I'm really not. I mean well and I would like you do know that.

I HAVE A BOYFRIEND! Do not flirt with me because A) I don't know you irl and B) I'm not comfortable with that.

Neither a proshipper or anti. I detest ships like some other people, but I have a few ships I get weird looks over too. (i.e Alastor x Double Trouble (She Ra)/RadioTrouble, Mordecai x Ghirahim, Bill Cipher x The Once-Ler, etc etc).

I am HEAVILY against Stolitz. I do not want to explain.

Please don't send me snarky asks. I only had that happen once but please be mindful.

IF YOU NEED ME TO CLEAR SOMETHING UP, PLEASE SEND ME AN INBOX MESSAGE!!!! I am always happy to clear something up if something happens. I wish to be honest with everyone here.

ONCE AGAIN: I AM NOT A PROSHIPPER OR ANTISHIPPER.

As of 6/6/24: MLP GrimDarks I need to get around to reading/listening to!

(Crossed out is what I already read/listened to!)

An Apple Sleep Experiment

Cupcakes

Rocket To Insanity

Something Sweet To Bite

(MORE TBA)

Below are userboxes made by @/jeweledviolets and @/xxx-ang3l-w1th-a-sh0tgun-xxx

Have a few gifs of my all-time fav characters! They are as followed

Alastor - Hazbin Hotel (pilot version)

Double Trouble - She Ra (2018 version)

Rippen - Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero

Mordecai Heller - Lackadaisy

Hope you enjoy your stay! <3

[true-blue-megamind]

FAN THEORY SUPPOSITION SUNDAY: The Warden

SPOILER WARNING!  It’s still a thing, and, if you haven’t yet, you still need to watch Megamind.  (If you have seen it already, however, you need to see it again.  Because it’s awesome.)

Yes, yes, the post is three days late this time.  Real life has to take priority and such. So sue me.  (Don’t really do that.  LOL!)

For that same reason—or more accurately because this week has exhausted me—I will attempt to make this post shorter than usual.  We’ll see how that goes.  My money is on “not well.”  LOL.

Anyway, today we’re going to look at a subject that often divides the Megamind fandom: the Warden and his relationship with Megamind. There are several fan theories—I mean, suppositions—surrounding this, but I’m going to be focusing on a few of the main ones.

The first of these is that the Warden was actually a father figure to Megamind when he was young, allowing him to be raised in jail not out of cruelty or disinterest, but because it was the only way to keep him safe from shadowy government agencies that otherwise would have performed all sorts of experiments on the blue alien.  This both accounts for why a child would be allowed to grow up in what is clearly a high-security prison for dangerous adult criminals—something that, admittedly, needs some sort of explanation—and fits with widely accepted sci-fi and comic book tropes. (From Area 51 to mysterious “Men in Black” type organizations, fiction is full of government agencies created to study extraterrestrial life and technology.)  Some even go so far as to suggest that the Warden may have tried to adopt Megamind officially, but was blocked from doing so by these same entities. On top of this, such an idea also offers room to re-imagine the Warden as a much more interesting, complex, and sympathetic character.  Indeed, there has been some excellent fan fiction written about this pseudo-parental relationship.

Art: Fathers And Sons Day by tabbydragon

There is some evidence to support this.  The first is that, although the Warden behaves harshly toward Megamind in the “jail-break” scene near the beginning of the film, Megamind himself seems to be trying to engage in a playful exchange: pranking the older man, wishing him a good morning, and even teasing him.  While some say that this is simply Megamind’s personality as well as his determination to always appear indominable, others suggest that, perhaps, the blue man is trying to recapture a lost amiability between himself and the prison Warden.  It is possible that, when he was younger and less villainous, Megamind might have exchanged friendly jokes and greetings with the man in charge of the jail he called home.  It has even been suggested that the Warden is so hard on the blue man at the beginning of the film not because he hates Megamind, but because Megamind’s life choices have hurt and alienated his father figure. This idea finds some support in the facts that, when Megamind leaves jail to confront Titan, the Warden wished him good luck, and at the end of the movie, that same man seems genuinely happy as he watches the television broadcast of his one-time prisoner being named Defender of Metro City.  Finally, there is some evidence from the comics which, although not truly considered canon, as I’ve mentioned before, do offer some material for fan theories.  In the “episode” entitled Bad Minion! Bad! Megamind runs into the Warden in a bar, and the latter offers the former advice.  There is certainly a somewhat fatherly feel to the scene.

The second theory is exactly the opposite: that the Warden either did not care for or outright disliked the former supervillain.  Unfortunately, as fun as the Warden/Father Figure concept is, this second, darker idea has far stronger evidence to support it in the film itself.  (Try not to hate me, everyone.)  These clues range from the obvious to the subtle, but there are quite a few of them to be found.

During the first scene in which we see Warden interact with Megamind, he doesn’t behave like an angry, disappointed father—at least not a good one.  He isn’t merely surly toward Megamind; he is absolutely nasty. The Warden verbally condemns the alien, telling him that he’ll “always be a villain,” and essentially steals what he believes is a gift for the blue man, even taunting him by saying: “I think I’ll keep it!”  This hardly seems like the actions of someone who once felt any sort of affection for the extraterrestrial.  That same portion of the movie holds another clue as well: the screens monitoring Megamind’s brain activity.  Indeed, in original concept art for the film, the system appears both more invasive and more nightmarish.  It seems that, far from protecting Megamind, the Warden may have actually allowed him to be experimented upon.

Next, there is the newspaper article at the beginning of the title sequence, which bears the headline “Hometown Boy Makes Bad.” It’s hard to see what the paper says, of course, even if you bother to really notice it, but luckily for us Liz (Demishock) wrote a wonderfully thorough blog post which, among other things, provides a transcript of the “news story.”  In it, the Warden is quoted as referring to young Megamind as a born villain as well as abnormal.  

You don't know this kid. I've watched the little criminal since he was in diapers. This kid is just a bad seed. I've got experienced, hardened criminals in here who are afraid of him - I mean, have you seen the size of his head?…  It's not like he's a normal kid… I mean, have you gotten a good look at his gigantic blue head? I don't know where you come from, but where I come it's just not right.

Granted, there seems to be some truth to what the Warden is saying, as the article also mentions that Megamind, who can hardly have been more than seven years old at the time, has basically been put into solitary confinement for the safety of other prisoners following an unnamed incident, adding that the other inmates “refused to point fingers for fear of retaliation.”  (This fits with the fan theory that young Megamind would have had to both fight and develop a fearsome reputation in order to protect himself. You can read more about that in the post How Strong is Megamind?) However, the Warden seems to dwell a lot on the fact that Megamind looks alien, and he displays an obvious dislike for the young boy.

Finally, there is evidence hidden in the school scene, although it’s easy to miss. In an amazing two-part video series, Megamind: A City of Deception. YouTuber The Theorizer illustrates several hidden clues about Megamind’s early life and how it it led him to embrace villainy.  (I will very likely write another post going into more detail about that at a later date.)  One thing that The Theorizer discovered is a seemingly innocuous detail in the background during the popcorn scene.  Take a moment to examine the images below.  Look closely at the blackboard and you’ll see a paper cut out of a school bus.  Look even more closely at that and you’ll find something odd: the bus is full of crayon-drawn children except for one figure: an adult male, riding in the back of the bus, who looks suspiciously like the Warden as he appears at the beginning of the film. 

In a movie where so much attention is given to small things—I mean, seriously, the animation team actually went through the trouble to write a news story for a paper that was on the screen less than ten seconds—this cannot possibly be a coincidence.  (You can learn more about the artists’ amazing dedication to detail in my post What’s Hidden in the Animation?)  Although it is vaguely possible that Megamind, painfully aware of how much his appearance was despised, chose to draw the Warden’s face instead of his own, most fans believe there is a darker reason for this oddity.  

Think about it: the Li’l Gifted School for Li’l Gifted Kids is built close by a jail with a strangely similar name: Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted.   It’s clearly a small academy, yet the only two known aliens in the city—who, by the way, have extremely different social backgrounds—both just happen to attend there.  And now the prison warden appears to be somehow involved with the elementary school?  It’s bizarre.  Add to this the fact that the young alien adopted by a privileged family—a boy who possessed super-strength and laser vision—seemed inclined to be a bully, (as is made obvious by the kickball scene,) and a disturbing fan theory emerges.  Adults realized that Wayne Smith, the child who would eventually become Metro Man, might prove dangerous if left unchecked, and came up with a plan to turn him into a hero instead.  Wayne was showered with praise, conditioning him to seek public approval, but a superhero needs a nemesis.  The strange-looking, unwanted blue boy who’d already been labeled a criminal would have seemed like the obvious choice.  If this is true, then Megamind was purposefully, albeit covertly, groomed to become a supervillain from a young age, and the Warden played a major role in doing that.

So there you have it.  Two competing fan theories concerning the Warden’s connection with Megamind.  Both have some evidence supporting them, and there are fans who are firmly dedicated to one or the other.  Which is true?  Did the Warden care for Megamind like a son but distance himself when the boy turned to villainy?  Or did he judge and despise Megamind but come around to liking him when he finally realized what sort of person the blue man was deep down?  The fact is that those questions can be argued for hours on end.  No matter which of these suppositions you prefer, however, the mere fact that even a minor supporting character is complex enough to offer room for this debate speaks to the impressive amount of work and devotion that went into creating this amazing animated film.

[millenniumblog]

[ID: A chart describing the core values of each of the nine Enneagram personality types with YuGiOh characters correlated to each of the types.]

YuGiOh Enneagram Analysis, Part #1

Please note that this is the “boring” informational post about Enneagram with the Types listed and explained as well as a few other things. The next post is what has the actual, in-depth character profiles promised!

Introduction & Motivation

Over the past several months, I have been trying to analyze my strengths and weaknesses as a writer and learn more. I have been writing fanfiction since I was a little kid, making my first FF.net account in 2003 when I would have been twelve years old. Even before that, I was a lurker and wrote fics to share with my childhood best friend on paper or floppy discs.

YuGiOh came into my life at some point shortly thereafter. I know this, because I spent my thirteenth birthday in a comic book shop, mostly watching some of my male friends play the trading card game. I had some of the cards, but I was never much of a player, unable to keep up with the seemingly rapid rule changes. Besides that, I was always way more interested in the story and characters than I was in the card game. I remember I even wanted to call “YuGiOh cards” “Duel Monsters” instead to make it seem a little closer to tween-y LARPing.

Eventually, I gave up on collecting cards or trying to ply the game. I felt that while my male friends didn’t mind me being around when they played, they weren’t extremely interested in helping me learn or keep up. I felt I had other strengths, so I started carrying around a notebook even more than I already did. I started my fledgling forays into online fandom. And YuGiOh was a big part of the beginning of that.

I can’t remember posting any YuGiOh fic in particular, and I’m sure that if I had it would make me cringe now. What I do remember is reading some and also spending a lot of time lying on my bed, headphones plugged into a small purple stereo, listening to the first of the two American-released CDs with YuGiOh-inspired music on them. In particular, the last three tracks were pieces of music from the original score composed for the 4Kids dub, which is - for some reason - different from the original Japanese music.

During that time, I would fantasize and conjure my own YuGiOh plots in my head, most of which were focused on the Ancient Egyptian and more spooky, spiritual, and horror themes in the show. I was really fascinated with the reincarnation angle, though my understanding of and opinions on how that works have grown with time.

Years went by, and I didn’t think about YuGiOh much at all. Then, something happened in 2018. I don’t know what got in my head, but it was like all the joy I once found in thinking about the YuGiOh characters came back in a giddy conversation with my childhood best friend. Then, for a little while, it wouldn’t leave me alone.

I started writing for the fandom then, and after several detours, I’m trying to get back in the groove of it.

My approach to the tone of YuGiOh-fanning is that it’s a bit serious, but it’s also with a tongue placed in my cheek because of how incomprehensible or silly the plot can be on a meta level. Sometimes, it almost brings tears to my eyes by being so over-the-top about something that, in the real world, would make no sense at all. But the drama, in the context of the universe, somehow rings true.

I think that’s all owing to how most of the primary characters are just... really freaking great characters.

It has often puzzled me. Like, did Takahashi do all this layering on purpose? Is it really there, or did earnest fanon just make it seem like it? And, as a person, I am always here for a good fan-and-canon symbiosis.

This post is going to be, from here on, an effort to match the YuGiOh characters to the 9 Enneagram Personality Types. I am writing this for my own benefit as I continue to work on my pet YuGiOh fanfiction project, It’s Always Sunny in Domino City, which is a mixture of YGOTAS-vibes-and-concepts taken seriously and a sincere take on fanfiction for the actual canon. It’s dramedy about a sizeable chunk of the main cast a few years post-canon with some canon divergence such as the Memory World arc not yet and possibly never-happening. If that sounds like something you’d like, I would humbly request you check it out!

Either way, this will be an in-depth character analysis cheatsheet for all of the characters above, based on my observations, opinions, and feelings. I invite discussion, but it’s fine if we need to agree to totally disagree!

If you are interested and enjoy what’s below the Read More and in the coming second post, then you are welcome to utilize the character analyses to aid you in your own fanwork!

Enneagram

What is Enneagram, and why am I using it?

Enneagram is a personality categorization system that one might compare to the somewhat better-known MBTI. However, in the words of excellent writing-advice YouTuber, Abbie Emmons:

MBTI shows us how we behave.

Enneagram shows us what we believe.

I will be referencing Abbie’s video Using The ENNEAGRAM To Write CONFLICTED CHARACTERS and her free Enneagram-cheatsheet, available in the description of the linked video. Whether it’s before you continue reading or after, if you’re interested in writing, I would highly recommend you check out her channel!

The Enneagram system has nine basic personality types that overlap and interact in really interesting ways. It is not a hard science, and it’s not a horoscope. Instead, it’s supposed to be “based on conventional wisdom and modern psychology.” All I can say is that with every set of characters I’ve tried it with, it works! Once you get the hang of it, it feels kind of like ~✰~magic~✰~!

Below, I will list Abbie’s simplified definitions of each of the personality types, in order:

Type 1: The Reformer

The Rational, Idealistic Type:

Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic

Basic Fear: Of being corrupt/evil, defective

Basic Desire: To be good, to have integrity, to be balanced

Key Motivations: Want to be right, to strive higher and improve everything, to be consistent with their ideals, to justify themselves, to be beyond criticism so as not to be condemned by anyone.

Type 2: The Helper

The Caring, Interpersonal Type:

Generous, Demonstrative, People-Pleasing, and Possessive

Basic Fear: Of being unwanted, unworthy of being loved

Basic Desire: To feel loved

Key Motivations: Want to be loved, to express their feelings for others, to be needed and appreciated, to get others to respond to them, to vindicate their claims about themselves.

Type 3: The Achiever

The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type:

Adaptable, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious

Basic Fear: Of being worthless

Basic Desire: To feel valuable and worthwhile

Key Motivations: Want to be affirmed, to distinguish themselves from others, to have attention, to be admired, and to impress others.

Type 4: The Individualist

The Sensitive, Introspective Type:

Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental

Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance

Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an identity)

Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer."

Type 5: The Investigator

The Intense, Cerebral Type:

Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated

Basic Fear: Being useless, helpless, or incapable

Basic Desire: To be capable and competent

Key Motivations: Want to possess knowledge, to understand the environment, to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from threats from the environment.

Type 6: The Loyalist

The Committed, Security-Oriented Type:

Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious

Basic Fear: Of being without support and guidance

Basic Desire: To have security and support

Key Motivations: Want to have security, to feel supported by others, to have certitude and reassurance, to test the attitudes of others toward them, to fight against anxiety and insecurity.

Type 7: The Enthusiast

The Busy, Variety-Seeking Type:

Spontaneous, Versatile, Acquisitive, and Scattered

Basic Fear: Of being deprived and in pain

Basic Desire: To be satisfied and content—to have their needs fulfilled

Key Motivations: Want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain.

Type 8: The Challenger

The Powerful, Dominating Type:

Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational

Basic Fear: Of being harmed or controlled by others

Basic Desire: To protect themselves (to be in control of their own life and destiny)

Key Motivations: Want to be self-reliant, to prove their strength and resist weakness, to be important in their world, to dominate the environment, and to stay in control of their situation.

Type 9: The Peacemaker

The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type:

Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent

Basic Fear: Of loss and separation

Basic Desire: To have inner stability, "peace of mind"

Key Motivations: Want to create harmony in their environment, to avoid conflicts and tension, to preserve things as they are, to resist whatever would upset or disturb them.

Now that you’ve seen all those, what do you think your favorite character is? In YuGiOh or anything else! It works great for original characters and even yourself and your loved ones.

The actual Character Profiles will be in coming post(s), but continue reading if you want me to explain more about how and why the Enneagram is a great personality typing system. #nonspon, or whatever.

The Enneagram Chart

Now, you could just go to the Enneagram Institute’s page on How the System Works, but below I’ll cut it down to only the parts I’m interested in and explain those in a way that helps me.

Unlike in astrology or MBTI, which are both more restrictive in different ways, the relative position of each type matters a bit on the Enneagram chart, because it can be used to visualize a lot of things about a person!

The Basic Chart

The Types are shown in a clockwise fashion with “1″ in the 1 o’clock position on an analog clock. The interior lines mean things, but I have trouble reading it without further delineation.

Centers of Response

Below are two small charts, displayed side-by-side. (If it’s too small, try right-click, open in new tab!)

The chart on the left shows the three “centers.” The “centers” indicate the first ‘processing language’ a person would use to respond to stimuli.

Type 8, Type 9, and Type 1 respond first based on instinct (primal, gut-feeling). If you want to go Freudian, this is from the id.

Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4 respond first based on feelings (social or personal desires, the heart). If you want to go Freudian, this is from the ego.

Type 5, Type 6, and Type 7 respond first based on thoughts (analytical rather than emotional, the head). If you want to go Freudian, this is from the superego.

Remember that, of course, every single type and person engages their instincts, their emotions, and their thoughts at different times and to different degrees, and some of these are learned or changed behaviors. This is about what their innate drive toward that would be.

Likewise, the same “centers” can also be used for the chart on the right. You will notice that all three of these are defined by what is typically considered a negative emotion. This is because this is about a person’s instinctive, not particularly conscious emotional response when they are backed into a corner and deprived of something that is core to the needs of their personality type.

Type 8, Type 9, and Type 1 tend to respond to a threat to their psychic well-being with anger/rage.

Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4 tend to respond to a threat to their psychic well-being with shame.

Type 5, Type 6, and Type 7 tend to respond to a threat to their psychic well-being with fear.

Stress vs. Growth

We all know that there are times when a person isn’t acting like themselves, for better or for worse. Usually, “You’re not acting like yourself,” means that a person is behaving badly. Of course, it’s way easier to withdraw and bristle and defend rather than growing in the midst of adversity. However, it is certainly possible to experience character growth in response to experiences, good and bad. Unlike a lot of other personality typing schemes, the Enneagram has a way to display and predict what stress and growth do to a person.

The Enneagram never suggests that any Type is an island unto itself. Every person contains multitudes, but a person’s Type is likely to remain relatively stable throughout their lives, once they have had a chance to develop any personality at all. This means that when a person is stressed or growing that they do not become the type they emulate. Rather, they are more highly expressing that aspects of their personality that reflect those drives and desires but in a way that is either fraught, sickly, or unwell (in the case of stress), or aspirational, flying-high, and incorporating the hard-lessons into who a person is going to be going forward (in the case of growth). The latter, especially, isn’t a sustainable mode, while a stressed person can become more entrenched in their bad habits and defensive coping mechanisms.

Stress

Note the white, directional arrows. Each number has an arrow point pointing to it and an arrow leading away from it. The point indicates that this is the stress manifestation for the Type at the origin of that arrow. The origin of each arrow indicates the Type being described.

Confused? Let me finally give you a YuGiOh example.

When I was trying to identify the Types of the characters, defining Marik was difficult, because he has a “Yami,” or Dark Side, which has its own personality and will but which is not its own separate soul or person than Marik himself. Rather, it’s a kind of fantasy/magic-assisted personality splintering where Yami Marik is a full manifestation of the negative traits Marik needed to embody to survive.

So, for reference:

When stressed, Type 1 behaves more like Type 4. 

When stressed, Type 2 behaves more like Type 8.

When stressed, Type 3 behaves more like Type 9.

When stressed, Type 4 behaves more like Type 2.

When stressed, Type 5 behaves more like Type 7.

When stressed, Type 6 behaves more like Type 3.

When stressed, Type 7 behaves more like Type 1.

When stressed, Type 8 behaves more like Type 5.

When stressed, Type 9 behaves more like Type 6.

Alternatively, you can use these sequences to follow the stress lines:

1-4-2-8-5-7-1

9-6-3-9

Growth

Think of the above-explanation in reverse.

The sequence:

1-7-5-8-2-4-1

9-3-6-9

As a Type 1 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 7.

As a Type 2 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 4.

As a Type 3 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 6.

As a Type 4 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 1.

As a Type 5 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 8.

As a Type 6 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 9.

As a Type 7 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 5.

As a Type 8 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 2.

As a Type 9 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 3.

Wings

The final thing to know about the Enneagram chart for my purposes is about wings. The wing of your personality traits accounts for the complementary and contradictory aspects of your personality. They are the inconsistencies that make you human, predicted and jumped in. Typically, a person is not thought to have both possible wings but one or the other. A wing is one of the two adjacent Types to yours, the number before, or the number after, and it is annotated, for example:

Type 1, Wing 2: 1w2

Type 1, Wing 9: 1w9

Link to Part 2 Here!

[a-froger-epic]

About the Interview

Since I posted the interview with J - a woman who has described herself to me as one of Queen’s first “groupies” - there has naturally been a lot of discussion about the veracity of the interview, the source, and my own motivations in posting it. I fully expected that, and I will say once more that nobody (apart from a small handful of anonymous trolls) has behaved inappropriately in these discussions. I have not received any “hate” because of this. There is no “drama”. Nobody is wrong, or a party-pooper, or attacking me by expressing their doubts. I have seen some awful bile spat at people anonymously recently, and that kind of behaviour has got to stop.

Now, if you don't think I am genuine, there is obviously nothing I can do about that. 

However, what I am hoping to do here is add as much transparency as I can in regard to how and why the interview happened, and also share my own full thoughts on it with you. 

First things first. No unverified, anonymous source can be seen as definitive proof of anything, ever. That is my stance. I have myself been criticised for so much as suggesting that other anonymous sources tied in with Freddie’s history are not 100% proof of one thing or another. But for me, an anonymous source can never mean more than at best: this seems very likely, but we can’t be 100% certain.

Perhaps I was naive to think that what I considered to be enough of a disclaimer at the beginning of the interview, was enough. My intention was to express that while I, personally, believe J to be a) the person she says she is and b) genuine about what she remembers, that does not mean I believe everything she has told me is fact or happened in that exact way. I thought this was obvious. Perhaps I was unclear, and I apologise for that. 

So let me be clear. There is nobody in the world who has perfect, factual recollections of what happened to them almost 50 years ago. Not even J herself claims for one moment that this is the case. She mentions several times that these are old memories from when she was very young, that she indulged in recreational drugs at the time, and that her views - of course - carry a personal bias. All this, I thought, would be enough for readers to know not to take everything they read at face value.

All of the above is why I kept my own thoughts and notes to a minimum within the interview, why I didn’t correct or point out obvious mistakes. I simply assumed that everybody would go away and read the interview against all the sources and information they already have, as I have done myself.

But maybe that was somewhat irresponsible of me, and I should have been the first person to dig into how J’s memories fit in (or don’t) with the information which is already out there, and how to put the two together. While I refrained from sharing all my thoughts alongside the interview (although I have fragmentally done so in response to other people since), others like @quirkysubject​ (here), @iwilltrytobereasonable​ (here), @emmaandorlando​ (here), @sarinataylor​ and @talkingismylifewrites​ (here) all had some very good things to say. All of them make excellent points. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SEND THEM NASTY MESSAGES. I frankly can’t believe I have to say this at all.

I found myself in a difficult position, because as the person who had spoken to J and asked her all these questions, I did not feel as though I could dissect her words as freely as anybody else. She has put a lot of trust in me, and I do not want her to think that I question her honesty and intentions. Because I don’t. If I hadn’t felt as sure as I reasonably can be that she is the person she says she is, and that her story is genuine from her perspective, if I had been in any doubt about that, I would not have made it public.

Here's the thing:

Even if you don't believe J knew the boys, her recollections of the time period alone are still valuable and incredibly interesting, giving us a glimpse of early 1970s London. 

But I do believe J. Why?

Before I answer that, let me just say: I fully realise that of course the fact that it was my story J happened across, and me she decided to speak to because of it, makes me more inclined to want to believe her. However, other authors I'm friends with, as well as myself, have received messages from older people several times before. It does trigger nostalgia when a story is very strongly rooted in a time somebody has lived through. There are older people in the fandom. (I recently ran a poll and all age groups were represented even here on Tumblr.) 

Now, on to the reasons why my communication with J has felt nothing but authentic to me.

1. She was never in any rush to get in touch with me or relate information to me. It took her a few days to email me after she first spoke to me in the comment section, where I begged her to please get in touch. She then sent me the same email five times, over two days, because she couldn’t quite work my email address out at first. 

I ended up asking several questions more than once to get an answer because they were overlooked. The conversation went off on tangents, and we chatted about her weekend at her friend’s house (and I was presented with a beautiful snapshot of the beach), the memory box her daughter made for her, her work and other things. There were stretches of days at a time when J simply didn’t find the time to get back to me. And I may have badgered her with a few too many emails asking her to please remember to answer my questions when she has a moment. In short, it was the opposite of somebody rushing to share their story. I was doing all the rushing. (I realise that I am asking you to take my word for this, but this did not all happen in a vacuum. @plainxte​, @quirkysubject​, @fingersfallingupwards​, @onegoldenglance​ and @freddieofhearts​ witnessed the process first-hand, as well as my excitement and some of J’s original emails.)

2. J was very trusting. I know her full name, where she lives and her place of work. She sent me current pictures of herself and her husband unprompted. At no point did she ask me not to reveal her identity, that is a call I made because I did not want to expose her to any possible harassment.

3. There were a few things in her account of what she remembered which were so obviously at odds with what we know to be true - it’s well-known John is a bit taller than Roger, for example, but J remembered him shorter, Queen went to Sydney in ‘85, J remember it as ‘84 - that I couldn’t help but think, if I was somebody who was trying to convince others of a made up story, the first thing I would surely do is make absolutely certain to get the facts which are easily findable right. Instead, J always lead with: this was all a long time ago, I’m sorry, I’m doing my best trying to remember.

I realise that a very clever hoaxer could do all this and convince me. But here the question has to be, to what end? This would be quite an act for someone to arrange, to make it seem quite so naturalistic. Nobody would go through the trouble of doing that for nothing. There’s no monetary gain. Scandal? There is nothing scandalous in the interview. Attention? J is barely an active member of the fandom. She has managed to create a Tumblr though: @since72​. There is one post currently. 

It also took her a couple of days to get back to me after I posted the interview.

In brief, I have no logical explanation for why somebody would go to these lengths and fool me so cleverly, with such attention to detail, when there seems to be nothing in it for them. Why then did J bother to talk to me at all? What was her motivation? Well, after I thanked her profusely for doing this, she simply said that she felt she owed me as reading my story had brought back so many memories for her.

All of the above is why I strongly feel that J is very much real and genuine. But I completely understand that it all hinges on the fact that in order to believe everything I say is true, you would have to trust me. And I know that as I am just another person on the internet, you have no reason to do that. But I’ll get to me in a moment.

Here are a few more doubts which I have seen come up with regard to J.

Why would she be reading fanfiction about people she knew? That’s weird.

To be perfectly honest, exactly that was my first reaction, too. But then I thought about it and talked to friends about it. 

Firstly, J says herself that she was never a close friend. I agree that it would be far weirder to read fanfiction about somebody you knew very well. Having said that, John Deacon’s son has been known to read Queen fanfic about his father (and read it out on his YouTube channel). But I think given that it’s been half a century and J has been watching Queen in the public eye ever since, it isn’t really all that strange to read about fictional versions of them.

Secondly, a friend of mine noticed that it seems as though older people in the fandom find J overall more credible than younger people. I’m 35, and it is true that the older we get, the more we look for the things which remind us of our younger years. There is an urge to remember and re-live. You can trust me on this, or you can ask anyone over the age of 30 or 40. Nostalgia is real, and it only comes to you with age. Why would somebody who had briefly brushed shoulders with people who later became celebrities not take an interest in them later? It seems natural that she would. As J says, she never stopped being a fan of Queen’s music and came across fanfic when she looked up Adam Lambert. Is it really so strange that she would find fanfic about them entertaining? Having given it all this thought, I really don’t think so.

It’s unrealistic that she was so young.

This is something I have to disagree with. Times were different. Pete Townshend entered Ealing Art School at age 16, according to Wikipedia. My mother (currently 62) moved 600km away from home at the age of 15 to study piano at music college. I myself moved out from home at 17 (no tragic reasons whatsoever), but that’s beside the point. I have seen it framed in a way where it was said that “It isn’t realistic that a 16-year-old was hanging out with Queen who were all in their 20s”. I agree, it would be a little strange if the story was that one 16-year-old girl was hanging out with Queen by herself as their good buddy. But that is not the story. (Even though it is well-known that during the 60s and 70s, young teenaged groupies did in fact hang out with rock groups very frequently. Of course, J was not that kind of groupie.) She was simply part of a large circle of friends, by her own admission not a close friend of the band. Personally, I struggle to see how this is unrealistic in any way. 

It seems super suspicious that she lost her photos in a flood.

Yes, it does. I agree. J realises that, too. 

Like @quirkysubject​ said in her post, I don’t blame anyone who is too sceptical at this point. But there actually was a pretty bad flood in Australia in 1988.

There are mistakes in J’s story!

Yes, there are! Let me point them out to you. I already mentioned John’s height and Queen being in Australia in ‘85, not ‘84. I also think that her perception that Freddie was taller than Roger in ‘72, but no longer in the 80s, had everything to do with platform shoes. I have to say that I did ask J some questions which I knew were things which are almost impossible to remember about people you weren’t particularly close to. I knew there was no way she would be able to accurately recall their heights, but I still wanted to know what the impression was which she had come away with. I don’t for one moment think she could possibly know why and if Freddie’s nickname was really ‘Freddie Baby’ at EAS well before she went there. But I still wanted to hear what she thought of that. This is why I stated specifically that this entire interview consists of one woman’s subjective opinions and memories. That alone means you can absolutely not take any of it as definitive fact. That just isn’t how memory works.

Kensington Market and the stall:

J’s answers on this one thoroughly confused me. Not only did she say that while she saw Freddie at the market a lot, Roger was hardly ever there, but there was also some Indian man working at the stall during the week (who I don’t think could have been Freddie’s father). She saw Freddie at multiple stalls, a girl named Jill also worked at the stall… and J was under the impression that Roger and Freddie hadn’t even started the stall. None of this made a whole lot of sense to me, until somebody pointed out that the original stall owned by Roger and Freddie must have closed in the second half of 1971. (Sources: Queen in Cornwall & Queen: As it Began)

It is confirmed (same sources as above) that Freddie worked at the market until as late as 1974. I think it is therefore entirely possible that J would have seen him working at Alan’s stall, or helping out at other stalls, and the likelihood that Roger would have come to hang out with him on a weekend is fairly high, in my opinion. Later, reading about Freddie and Roger running a stall, J would have had no reason to think that this wasn’t the same stall she had seen them at. And yes, this is of course only a theory.

The gay pride march:

@rushingheadlong​, who has recently done a lot of fantastic research about Tim, confirms that there’s no chance (as far as we know) that Tim could have been at the march. Did any of them really go? Is J misremembering entirely? Could it be that one of them or two of them went, and looking back, J remembers it as all of them (minus John, however) because she was used to mostly seeing them all together? Does she remember them from another protest march and got it mixed up with the gay rights march? I can’t say. The march and who exactly went is a big question mark. Even J herself is only “pretty sure” that they were all there, and I have to say, I can’t tell you who was where exactly when I think back to when I was 16. Certainly not when there was a big group of people around. And that was only 20 years ago for me.

Lastly, I’m going to try and use the guide our awesome local historian @emmaandorlando​ provided on how to analyse new sources. Of course, I’m not a historian (and I’m also partly the source by being the interviewer, so I can perhaps only do this impertectly), but let’s give it a go.

1. Who wrote this document? 

‘Written historical records were created by individuals in a specific historical setting for a particular purpose. Until you know who created the document you have read, you cannot know why it was created or what meanings its author intended to impart by creating it’.

In this case, the answer is two-fold because essentially I wrote the interview, in as far as that I asked the questions, I gave it shape and presented it in the form in which it came, but the answers are J’s. I completely understand that this is already a big stumbling block for many, because not only am I presenting her as an anonymous source, but many of you don’t know anything about me. If you follow me on Tumblr, you will know that I have shared more with the internet than is probably wise. But still, I am somebody you know little about, presenting to you a person you know even less about. Whether you trust me or not is entirely down to your own judgement and instinct, and that will be different for everybody.

(I’ve seen it said that I’m plugging my own work through this interview. If that was my plan, I’m afraid it’s failed miserably. I looked, and DoA has gained a whopping 2 or 3 kudos.)

2. Who is the intended audience?

‘The relationship between author and audience is one of the most basic elements of communication and one that will tell you much about the purpose of the document. Think of the difference between the audience for a novel and that for a diary, or for a law and for a secret treaty. Knowing the audience allows you to begin to ask important questions, such as; “Should I believe what I am being told?”’

The intended audience is the Queen fandom on Tumblr and AO3. I have no interest in sharing this anywhere else because I’m not familiar with the other fan communities (Facebook? Instagram?) and wouldn’t know how to go about it. For J, the intended audience was mostly me, an author she likes who was very interested in her memories.

3. Why was this document written?

‘Everything is written for a reason. Understanding the purpose of a historical document is critical to analysing the strategies that the author employs within it. A document intended to convince will employ logic; a document intended to entertain will employ fancy; a document attempting to motivate will employ emotional appeals. In order to find these strategies, you must know what purpose the document was intended to serve.’

I got really, really excited. That is the reason. When J got in touch with me, I had a decision to make. I could ask her all the questions I wanted privately and share her answers only with my "inner circle” of fandom friends, or I could share everything with the fandom spaces where I’ve been very active in the last two years. I wanted to share the excitement and decided to do the latter.

I also wanted to present the interview in a way where it would be an engaging, well-structured read and not simply all of her emails to me dumped here with a quick ‘there you go’. So I tried to wrap it in a beautiful “package”, which is why I asked her for her art, for example.

4. What type of document is this?

‘The form of a document is vital to its purpose. The form or genre in which a document appears is always carefully chosen. Genre contains its own conventions, which fulfil the expectations of author and audience.’

An interview, written by somebody who has never interviewed anyone before.

5. Can I believe this document?

‘To be successful, a document designed to persuade, to recount events, or to motivate people to action must be believable to its audience. For the critical historical reader, it is that very believability that must be examined. Every author has a point of view, and exposing the assumptions of the document is an essential task for the reader. 

You must treat all claims sceptically (even while admiring audacity, rhetorical tricks, and clever comparisons). One question you certainly want to ask is, “is this a likely story?” Testing the credibility of a document means looking at it from the other side.’

This is for all of you to decide for yourselves, and that was always the case. Far be it from me to be upset with anyone who straight up doesn’t believe a word I say, doesn’t believe J is real or any other scepticism. I’ll say it again, DO NOT harass anyone for expressing their opinions on this! It is NOT WRONG to discuss a new source! It’s wonderful that people are doing it!

And so, we come to that last question: Is this a likely story? 

Personally, I can firmly answer that with: Yes. In my personal opinion, it is. I find J’s story very likely and there is close to nothing that makes me question that these are indeed her real memories. But given the nature of human memory, they are just as imperfect as anybody else’s and do not, and should not, supersede any factual, verified information we already have.

With that, I hope to have provided a bit more clarity and transparency, and leave you - as before - to make up your own minds.

[aegialia]

self-indulgent reflection on being on tumblr

so i recently hit 1000 followers on here and this blog has existed for almost exactly 8 years, so i wanted to ramble about tumblr and my experience of it for awhile. under the cut so definitely feel free to ignore this.

i started this blog right around when i was fourteen and had just started high school. at that point, i was out to my parents (and no one else) as bi, i had an inkling i was Struggling with something but i had no idea what and felt like i couldnt actually acknowledge it, and i had left leaning but very vague politics. tumblr definitely has shaped my journey around sexuality/gender/mental health/politics, both for good and for ill. 

for good: 

seeing other ppl talk about being lesbians helped me realize i could be a lesbian w/o being a traitor to the concept of bisexuality. hearing trans ppl talk about their experiences and explaining non-binary stuff and dysphoria helped me understand what i was going through 

i don’t like talking about my mental health stuff in detail on here, but suffice to say, i was Going Through it in high school. i’m still going through it now, but i am in a much better place (thank you medication and 7 years of therapy!). seeing ppl talk about the weird, dumb, awful parts of mental illness let me acknowledge that i was going through those things too, that i wasnt like evil for feeling like that, that i could change. people talking about adhd/autism was particularly helpful---being able to identify why i’d always felt like my brain just didn’t work right is the first step in the (ongoing) process of not hating myself for the way my brain works

politics is definitely the area where i think tumblr was the best for me. i got exposed to so many opinions i definitely wasn’t hearing in school, from intelligent, well-read people who could articulate theory in ways i could understand. tumblr didn’t give me my politics and i didn’t learn everything i know about theory from it, but the communities of people i was around pointed me in the right directions. tumblr was also a good place to learn how to react to criticism. this doesn’t seem to be most people’s experience, but getting called out over minor things on tumblr genuinely helped me learn how to take a step back, look at my behavior, apologize, and try to change, which, as it turns out, is a helpful skill irl as well

for ill:

wrt sexuality and gender, it’s probably pretty obvious someone who’s journey is ‘cis bi girl -> cis with a million different microlabels -> nb w a million different microlabels for both sexuality and gender -> nb butch lesbian who’s not super into romance’ would have some bad times on tumblr. the bi circles i was in made being a lesbian seem like an immoral choice, the ‘’’mogai’’’ (or whatever u wanna call them) circles made me feel like i had to divy up and perfectly label every aspect of myself in a way that really wasn’t helpful for me, the lesbian circles i was in made me feel like being a lesbian was about ending up in a monogamous butch/femme cottagecore relationship and that there was something wrong with me for not really wanting that. to be clear i think microlabels can be very helpful for people/a monogamous butch/femme relationship is a perfectly fine thing to want, they just didn’t work for me. im very very glad ive reached a point in my life where i dont feel the need to stay up to date on the latest discourse and am more focused on finding a way to exist that is comfortable for me and supporting my community irl. 10/10 would recommend to everyone

not going to get deep into it, but social media is. not good for my brain in general. i still enjoy using tumblr, but these days im pretty careful to step back from it frequently and treat it as an occasional hobby. 

the cons of political stuff on tumblr are probably also very obvious. there are some just awful discussions on here and the culture surrounding the way we handle bad behavior and justice and accountability and working to become a better person and make up for the harm you’ve caused has historically been fucking awful and trying to unlearn it and find new ways to engage with this stuff is exhausting. 

for all that i’ve changed over the course of having this blog, this blog has stayed pretty fucking static. i started out being super into diana wynne jones and the iliad and those are still two of my biggest interests and things i talk about the most on here. there are definitely specific things that have petered away (i started this blog almost entirely to keep up with good omens fan stuff and i pretty much haven’t touched it since the miniseries came out, i haven’t sought out pacific rim/supernatural/elementary/mcu content in years), but im still pretty much interested in the same things. i like relatively small fandoms, i like weird side characters, i like to be a grumpy child playing with my toys in the corner. when a fandom im in gets popular, i tend to stop engaging with it entirely (hello rqg/tma/good omens/enola holmes!). i dont think its a pretentious ‘i liked it before it was cool’ thing so much as a ‘people get Weird and awful when a fandom hits a certain level of popularity and there’s too much content and i really, really hate the bad faith arguments larger fandoms tend to spawn’ thing. i’ll consume content from big fandoms, but i pretty much refuse to actually engage with them at this point.

one of the stranger parts of my experience of tumblr is the social side. i’ve never really known how people make friends online---how do you go from liking each other’s posts and occasionally replying to them to actually being friends who communicate off social media? i’ve had conversations with ppl on tumblr and i’ve had sort-of friendships that are contained to tumblr where i’d like to get to know them better, but i’ve never figured out how to do that. my best friend’s job is pretty much to make friends/connections on the internet (she’s an activist and artist), my dad knows people everywhere in the world from twitter, and i’m just sitting here like a little old grandpa who doesn’t understand how you can have internet friends. 

at this point in my life, i’m fine with this, but this has made me feel real fucking bad in the past---like, if everyone online, even the ppl who say they’re weird and brainbad in a similar way to me, can make friends on the internet, what’s wrong with me? particularly in high school and my first year of college, when i was just horribly lonely all the time, it made me feel super disconnected and like there was something fundamentally bad about me. these days, i’m a lot chiller about it. i use social media to engage with stuff i enjoy and share my thoughts about it. it’s okay that my social difficulties extend to me not knowing how to use the internet to socialize.

on a somewhat related topic, it’s wild that i have 1000 followers. obviously, that’s not an actually super large number and a huge number of them are probably bots or inactive. if you post consistently for eight years and follow lots of people, like i do, it’s not a surprise to end up with this many followers. it is also, thankfully, the sort of followers that are not fans. probably most ppl following this blog dont remember why they followed and dont know anything about me or my interests. this sounds like its meant to be depressing but it’s not. i like that my way of engaging w the internet lets me do pretty much whatever i want and no one will care. the mere concept of being. like. tumblr famous in any capacity, even just in one community/fandom, is viscerally horrifying to me. 

i really enjoy the space i’ve created for myself on here. on one hand, going back through my blog is obviously embarrassing and full of hating my past self. on the other hand, i now have a very nice collection of things i enjoy in this blog. i like seeing what i’ve been interested in and (when i’m in a good mental health place) i like to be able to remember how i thought and talked about the things i loved when i was younger. im not at the place in my life where i can love a younger version of myself, but sometimes i can laugh at zir with a level of fondness. 

i’ve always been paranoid about sharing details about my life on here (and the fact that my parents have always been able to see it certainly contributed), so the version of jack on here is a carefully curated version, who’s super enthusiastic about the things they love, was very conscientious about apologizing and trying to do better when ze messed up, and tried to be polite to others. that’s a younger version of myself that i’m closer to being able to have compassion for than the version i find in essays and poems and memories. 

i’m starting grad school in ten days and i’m still using the blog i started when i began high school. tumblr has helped me in a lot of ways and hurt me in a lot of ways, but i still have to admit that it’s been a significant factor in shaping me. i’d be incredibly embarrassed to admit that irl, but it’s true. other than my family and like one friend, this blog is one of the only things that’s ‘known’ me since i started high school. i’ve changed so much in that time and im glad to have this weird little record of myself throughout those changes, even if i’d probably warn my younger self away from tumblr if i could go back in time.

tl;dr i have had a mixed experience on tumblr and i have mixed feelings about that experience. no idea if anyone read any of this very long, very rambling internet memoir

p.s. fun facts about this blog:

i’ve never changed my icon or blog title

i recently got a second version of the poster i got my blog title from. i chose my blog title by looking at what was hanging on the wall directly in front of me. 

my original url was gloomthkin. this was not, as you’d probably assume, an otherkin thing. i had literally no idea what otherkin was at that point. i’d just learned the word gloomth from a bill bryson book and thought it would be cool n edgy to be the child of the quality of gloom. i changed my url after i learned what otherkin was and realized everyone probably assumed something about me that wasn’t true which i hated (not bc i had an issue w otherkin, just bc i don’t like ppl thinking untrue things about me)

during my good omens days, i once sent a tumblr ask to nail guyman which, in retrospect, was kinda rude. i stand by the content but id never send an ask like that now. he replied to it privately in a way that so deeply embarrassed and shamed 15 year old me that i’ve never gotten over it. i still get nervous and embarrassed when i see anything about him or his books

[lovelivingmydreams]

My nieces are fanders

Summary: When you meet a super cute guy and land a date with him, you definitively want to gush about him with someone. In Nico’s case that someone is his oldest sister. The visit holds a surprise for him though.

This is part of a bigger story which starts here

Nico was humming to himself as he walked up the driveway to his older sister’s house.

“I can’t wait to tell Marcia all about Thomas!” Félix gushed. It’d been a week since they met him and while they had yet to look him up, deciding it was cheating a little to watch his content and maybe accidentally see more than Thomas wanted to share before they even went on their first date. Ràmon, his morally flexible, deceptive facet, still thought they should at least just check his accounts to make sure he didn’t oversell himself. “I’m sort of known on youtube” might just have been an exaggeration to impress him. Léon, his fury, was already working himself up over being misled when the others came to Thomas’ defense. He seemed rather humble about all his accomplishments. He deserved the benefit of the doubt. “She’ll be so excited for us!” Fabio, his heart, gushed. “Hope mom and dad won’t be too upset that they aren’t the first we told…” Alejo worried as he bit his lip. “We will tell them about Thomas if we come to a stage where we are ‘officially’ dating him,” Diego, his logic, reminds him. It was how they did things. His parents were a bit too supportive sometimes. If he mentioned Thomas, mom would start insisting he come over for dinner no matter how Nico insisted they weren’t that serious yet. His father would ask questions he didn’t have answers for and he would feel entirely too pressured… Best to tell them after he and Thomas got a bit farther. And he really hoped he would get to tell them about him soon. He rang the bell and soon the door opened to reveal a beaming Marcia. “You smelled my cooking didn’t you?” she asked. Nico chuckled. “You caught me,” he confessed as he threw his hands up in surrender while letting her embrace him. “It’s good to see you again hermanito,” she sighed before letting him go and leading him inside. “Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Yi will be home soon and he’ll entertain the kids afterwards so you can tell me what’s got you sparkling like the fourth of July.” Marcia looked back at him and quirked a brow curiously. Nico blushed a little. He was that obvious huh? His sisters eyes lit up and she was grinning like th cat that got the cream. Well he just confirmed her suspicion. “Okay, sounds good,” he muttered casually. Luckily Marcia let it go for now. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “Just a glass of water is fine,” Nico assured her while he leaned against the kitchen counter to watch her work. “Tio Nico!” Nico looked up and saw Marcia’s oldest, his 15 year old niece Carla run up towards him to give him a hug. He embraced his niece with a smile and ruffled her hair. “How are you kids doing?” he asked as the teen girl let go. “Fine. Felicia hasn’t finished her homework yet, but she will be down in a minute.” Nico nodded taking note of cousin’s pronouns for today. It had been an adjustment for everyone when Fabien came out of his room wearing a skirt for the first time and asked to be called Felicia on days she felt more feminine, but they hardly slipped up anymore. “We have something awesome to show you!” Carla continued her eyes sparking with excitement. “Oh?” he asked curiously. “What is it?” “Don’t start without me!” Felicia exclaimed as she rushed through the door and hugged Nico as well. “Now I’m getting nervous,” Nico chuckled as he let his nieces push him into a chair and sit down next to him. Carla was looking something up on her phone while Felicia seemed to be using hers to film him. “Tio Nico. Have you ever been serenaded by a stranger?” Felicia asked. The general confusion in Nico’s head left him with no other response other than cocking his head. “Um… no…?” he replied. His nieces giggled. And then Carla pushed her phone in front of him and they shoved earbuds into his ears. She pressed play and before he knew it he was faced with…. “Thomas!!!!” Félix  screeched in his head. It was unfair of him to look so handsome. And then he started singing! “Nico, radiant and pure. Always so, accepting and secure. Never knew anyone so kind. So funny and sharp of mind. All this to say… Have a nice day.” And then he winked! Nico’s nieces were giggling at his flustered face. Alejo inspected the screen and found a description in the corner. “This week’s #shout out Sunday goes to all the nice Nico’s of the world” he read out as he slowly relaxed. Nothing that insinuated Thomas was thinking of a particular Nico. His nieces had probably just thought it was fun to show him the video. Perhaps they thought he’d be enchanted by the handsome stranger with the voice of an angel seemingly singing for him. They weren’t entirely wrong. “That’s Thomas Sanders. He’s our favorite youtuber,” Felicia explained. Nico nodded a little dumbfounded. “He’s a singer?” he guessed, though he knew he was more than that. But he was not ready to tell his nieces he’d met this man and was going on a date with him next week. “And an actor, and the nicest person alive!” Clara explained. “He lives in Florida and he is gay…” Félicia added not too subtle, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Stop teasing your uncle girls. Set the table. We’ll be eating soon.” Nico was relieved. The rest of the evening he struggled to pay attention to the conversations at the dinner table. His mind was absolute chaos “He serenaded us! Actually serenaded us!” Felix gushed dancing around unable to contain his elation. “And it does sound like he is somewhat successful in entertaining his audience. He was telling the truth it seems,” Ràmon allowed. Leon nodded, calming down significantly. Leon had been part of the deeper recesses of Nico’s mind for a long time. Until one day he was called by a panicked Carla who was hiding from bigots with her sister. Nico had hurried over and gotten them out. But he’d been so close to hitting one of those kids. It had been Alejo who, in his worry for the girls’ well-being, had managed to hold Leon back enough to allow Fabio to reason with him. His writings had taken a much angrier tone for a few days after. Ever since that day,  Nico was aware that he could get violent when angry and he’d been working on managing Leon without pushing him away. Like Alejo he was mostly overprotective of the others and Nico’s loved ones. He just jumped more on Alejo’s fight aspect than the flight part. “He was so nice!” Fabio gushed. “Does he really think all that about us?” Alejo wondered flustered. “It seems quite likely that he does,” Diego concluded. “Just as we have made some observations about him that may or may not be accurate,” he added, soothing Alejo’s worry a bit. Shifting him more to the excited side of his spectrum. “Well? Spill!” Marcia insisted when they found themselves alone on the patio after dinner. Nico sipped from his glass and didn’t look at his sister while he just spilled the truth. “I met a really cute guy at the mall this week, and we’re going out for lunch in two days.” Marcia barely contained her squealing. “Finally! Tell me everything!” she demanded. And just like that, his excitement at being able to gush about the whole meeting returned. Marcia was a good listener. She knew the story ended well but she acted like she actually thought he might miss his shot with his determination to get some work done and not to bother the mysterious stranger. When he got to Thomas’ confession she was vibrating with excitement. “He sounds so adorable!” Nico flushed. “Yeah… He’s an actor and singer…” “Ooooh, someone to sing your songs!” she exclaimed. “And his name is Thomas Sanders…” Maricia’s eyes widened as understanding dawned on her. “Now that explains the look on your face when you saw that video…Wait that was for you? If mama ever sees it then she’ll insist you marry him you know that right?” she laughed. So not only did she know of Thomas, she had seen the video in question. “Yeah… She probably will. Have you seen anything else of his?” “I try to be aware of what my kids are watching online. He has two channels and about 3,4 million ‘Fanders’ last I checked.” “Oh my god!!!!” Felix gushed. Overwhelmed by both the cute fandom name and the dazzling number of fans. “Definitely not a liar,” Ràmon breathed in relief. He had been reluctant to get his hopes up until now. He was cautious, wary of things that were too good to be true. Just like Alejo. But their anxious look out was, in his eyes at least, compromised on the subject due to his close tie to the butterflies clouding all their feelings and thoughts. Now however, it seemed that his biggest doubts were adressed, he felt free to look forwrad to the date like everyone else. “He is a good guy, going by his content. And he is really cute.” Nico chuckled. “Yeah he is,” he agreed.

When he got home he was actually planning to freak out a bit more and debate over whether or not to watch some video’s. If for no other reason than to just see him do something he loved. Was that stalkerish? Luckily his phone alerted him to a text. Thomas. It was a cute dog picture. Nico smiled. He did that sometimes. Sent him things just to make him smile. N: You are such a dork. TS: I refuse to apologize for that! TS: I can’t wait until our lunch date! Nico hesitated for a moment. But then he went all in. N: Missing my radiant presence that much? God that was cheesy. Was it too cheesy? He is not like this! Not usually. Or maybe he was and Thomas just brought it out of him. TS: OMG you saw!!!!? N: My nieces thought it would be funny to see how I’d react when a ‘stranger’ serenades me. TS: Fanders!? Oh my goodness that is amazing! TS: You weren’t bothered? I get that it might seem a bit weird. “He is so precious!!!!” Fabio squealed. “I know right? This is not healthy for us! It can’t be,” Félix exclaimed clutching his heart and leaning on Alejo for support. Who promptly stepped away and let him fall to the floor with a grin. “Not a couch,” he reminded his friend who was pouting for a bout two seconds before his excitement overpowered his annoyance. N: It was awesome, don’t worry. I was very flattered. Your singing voice is amazing. TS: Thanks. Should he ask? If Thomas says it’s okay then it’s fine right? N: Okay if I watch some more of your singing? There he asked. No backing out. TS: Of course! Fair warning, if you find vines, some are cringy and sometimes I play a straight man. Vines huh? Wow, that felt like ages ago. Thomas had mentioned his misleading complements when they talked. N: Okay. I’ll keep that in mind. Goodnight. TS: Goodnight. “Are we really doing this?” Alejo wondered as Nico typed in ‘Thomas Sanders Vines’ in the search bar of Youtube. One look at the results had Nico in stitches. “He’s such a goofball!” Fabio squealed clapping his hands as he saw Thomas’ smiling face on every thumbnail in various goofy situations. How was he supposed to choose? “Oooh! That one is him reacting!” Félix exclaimed pointing at a three year old video.  Nico nodded in agreement and clicked on the video. First this and then see if he could find some more videos of Thomas singing. He didn’t know it. But he was in for a wild ride.

I might write one more chapter, but then it’s over until Thomas posts his next video in three years. I want to stick to the canon as much as possible. You’ll hear from me if that changes though! Enjoy!

@rich-flower-17 @maryann-draws @selenechris @meowthefluffy @chibibunnis @whatishappeningrightnow @floofyconfusednerd @destinyiscallingus  @98prilla @catsarebestest @falpiancaraxus @queer-mattress-king @verysharkbakerydeputy​ @sarenicide @kitcatgirl600 @stariimayplayz @queer-devil @celestialviper @hennehennehennehoo​ @1americaninapool @firstorderfilms @xxmoonmorquanxx @naturallyunstablegamer @ciannathegiver58 @reeaninenine @pdvzh2 @rubixcubes-and-crowbars @not-a-possum-i-swear @nadja-chamack16 @ayidakira @theclassyghost @such-as-we-are-made-such-we-be @theblackveilinreverse @lucasdrawblog @erinriver5 @theshortgothicpunk @titheinironside @shipsarebeautiful @hoppe-ideas @i-died-50-years-ago @just-a-thing-to-do @the-magicalpotato @ rosethevoid @justfinsworld @supanxietysworld @kay-is-kid @devoteddeceit @friskthefallenmonster @liveonmercury @impalasquiptyseven @frida0043 @meow-face @baguettewoman2020 @sing-it-for-the-gays @perfectly-princely-emo-nightmare @snowcatwhiteangel @to-many-hotpockets @greenlasagagramfel @elliwashere @errors-in-my-heart @xxstill-i-risexx @ontheground15 @stubbornness-and-spite @potatiowatchingyoutube @nina-maee @sablesides @alias290 @s0n-of-a-peach @starlightnyx @idrawdumbstffsometime @shadowqueen88 @stars656 @lets-go-emma-of-the-100-fandoms @avocados26 @hanna10hanna10 @astrozei @thunderboldt1312 @galaxy-girl1999 @toknowaliar @musicobsessed1505 @tired-yeetling @athenashipsthings @firegirl156 @pomegranate-ghost @jerasings @strangest-loser @kittylikesflowers @pollyparrot8 @atdffpetra @altheaudaku @amberpeltsstuff @smallwaffle224 @cdragontogacotar @angelic-cali @fandoms1reality0 @contemplativespectrum @hedgiehoggles @alicethetrueunicorn @disasterlesbon @marguii-14 @emo-nightmare-without-the-emo @onecannotbebrave @confused-bi-and-ready-to-die @aelingalathynius6 @hetacon @booksfoodmusic-minion @maya-custodios-dionach @iwispkid @virgofoxy @simplification @emoghost-boy @hickledickle @crackedcurse @softballobsessed @hi-fellow-demons @mygenderisbees @lavenderchaitea @greekgeekgoddess @kuroyurishion @pauleyester

[duchessofostergotlands]

So I don’t want to sound like a Kate stan (I’m not...I’m mainly here for the drama, and you can judge me for that if you like! I do feel a bit bad about it)

But I find the Buzzfeed articles disingenuous for the same reasons! Thank you so much for that write up. It felt cathartic to see it written out with so much clarity from such a trusted source.

One thing I do have to point out - I *have* been seeing people call Kate an “anorexic bitch slut” as well as “doormat”, “haggard”, “boring”, “jealous” and “gold digger” more than ever. I’m surprised you haven’t! While she might be the mass media darling now...honestly, I’ve seen some pretty vile things. I’ve been following the gossip sites for a long time and have seen a marked difference in the way Kate is being talked about; and while Twitter somewhat ignored her, any time her name comes up now it is some sexist remark that gloats that she looks old, is hopelessly dull, and is a Stepford wife that deserved to get cheated on (a rumour which makes them very happy). It’s weird to see her loved on one platform and reviled on another.

Without getting into the terrible treatment Meghan has and is still receiving from all media outlets, which I could write an essay about, I did want to point out that sexism towards Kate is rife as well. I should really stop giving my time to such websites, I know. I can barely handle Twitter anymore.

You’ve been quite polite and sound like someone I'd probably get on with so I’m not coming at this in an antagonistic way and I hope that comes across. But I'm not saying that people don’t say those things about her. I have seen it - I have never claimed that I haven’t. What I’m saying is that I don’t have to defend her against that in the same way I used to. I’m not on Twitter and have never been a royal account on Twitter so I have no idea how it feels to be posting about her on that platform. It doesn’t impact me in any way. And more than that, I don’t feel the need to defend her against those things anymore because the vast majority of people who keep the royals in power like her and the press is overwhelmingly positive. It’s never ok to talk about people the way some people do on Twitter in particular. But I personally feel no need to seek out those posts and respond to them anymore because it’s all noise, it doesn’t impact anything. Whereas before the fandom was reflecting how everyone was talking about Kate and it was the one way I could make it known that wasn’t ok. Does that make sense? Basically I am not saying that people don’t say that anymore on other platforms but just that it’s so drowned out by all the positive things - which simply weren’t there before - that I can go about my day without seeing anything negative or having hundreds of messages in my inbox about how much of a piece of shit she is. 

It literally did change overnight. Bloggers who had spent years arguing with me about how terrible she was literally within 24 hours became Kate stans posting about how she was the greatest royal in the universe the moment Meghan arrived

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Bits & Pieces, Themes & Evidence

Morning Everyone! So, below are just a bunch of bits and pieces that me, my fellow theorists and/or others in the fandom have come up. They don’t really fit into one, cohesive theory, but they’re most about or have come out of 10x18. I keep joking that this is the episode that just keeps on giving. We’re STILL talking about it and figuring things out about it.

Leah as a Hallucination/Daryl’s PTSD:

It’s been suggested that in 10x18, Dog never actually left Daryl. The episode is cut in a way to suggest that Daryl went long periods without seeing Dog (which is symbolic, of course) but maybe that’s not true and Dog was always there. Not only is that super interesting, but it works with one of my first observations. When I first watched the episode, I thought that the second time he sees Dog, first time as a grown dog and not a pup, and meets Leah, he didn't seem surprised to see Dog. So, I thought maybe he'd seen Dog a lot by then. I changed my mind for the sake of the symbolism. If it represents Grady, it makes more sense that Daryl simply recognized him as the pup me once met, but really had been separated from his for awhile. But I’m just saying this hallucination theory and the idea of Dog being there all along, just backs up my first impressions. That's all.

Also, weapon13whitefang left a long comment on my Tumblr post about Leah being a hallucination. It's really not so much about the show as about PTSD because they have some experience with it. I found it really interesting and enlightening, so it might interest some of you. You can read it HERE under the comments.

Why He Got Defensive at the Idea of Leah Leaving Him

A couple of my friends were talking about this, and this is just my contribution to the conversation. I think it's directly because Leah is predicated on his time with Beth. Even if he's not consciously aware of the delusion, some part of his UNconscious brain knows that Leah = Beth. And he knows Beth wouldn't have willingly left him. Not only because she said that, but because when she DID disappear, it wasn't her fault or her choice either time. So, when Carol says, "maybe she just left," Daryl's brain rails against that and he gets really defensive. And the interesting thing is that it's really not about him taking it personally or about his ego. It's about what he knows to be true of Beth. It's actually his brain being really logical in the midst of the delusion.

The Talk Dead to Me Podcast with Lynn Collins

I listened to the Talk Dead to me Podcast and this week’s guest was—no surprise—Lynn Collins. No huge TD smoking guns or anything, but it was interesting nonetheless. First of all, one of the really big C@ryl accounts was pretty much called out for being a toxic troll.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Lynn Collins gave a different interview a few days back (not this podcast; just a different one) in which she mentioned that Daryl and Carol’s relationship is very mother/son. Just after that, I won’t say the name but one of the most well known C@ryl accounts who can be REALLY nasty to…well…I was gonna say other shippers but pretty much anyone in the fandom who dares disagree with her, called Lynn an ageist for saying that Carol was mothering Daryl.

So, when the podcast began, Johnny O’Dell, who is the host, said that most TWD fans are super cool but a lot of the shippers can be toxic. He doesn't mention any particular ships in accordance to that (I actually think he briefly mentions all of them, saying people ship Daryl with Carol, Beth, Connie, and Rosita the most) but then after saying SOME of the shippers can be toxic, he talked about the post she made calling Lynn Collins ageist and said that was ridiculous and toxic and that we need to be cool to the actors. So, it's very obvious it was her comment he was talking about.

And of course, the ageist thing she accused Lynn Collins of is ridiculous. Not only is it true that Carol and Daryl’s relationship can be very mother/son at times, but saying so is not an insult to Carol. It’s a comment on the nature of the relationship, not on anyone’s actual age. Of course Carol isn’t old enough to be Daryl’s mom. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t mother him.

Then when Lynn Collins came onto the podcast, she addressed the ageist comment. She basically said everything I said above in more detail. She talked about how she was taken aback by being called that because, being a woman over 40 in Hollywood, she actually deals with a lot of ageism. And about how she's a mother, but became one a little later in life (in her thirties, rather than her twenties) and she was shocked that being called a mother can actually be derogatory to some people. It REALLY shouldn’t be. It’s really sad that people would take that as an insult. And then she went on to say that any character can be maternal, even if they're not the biological mother of the person they're mothering. She even said Daryl is somewhat paternal to Carol, teaching her how to gut a fish and everything.

Now, maybe this is neither here nor there when it comes to TD stuff. But one thing I thought was really interesting was that Lynn Collins said when she first started watching the show in S2 or S3, she was actually a Caryler. She wanted them together originally. She also said that eventually she realized that's not where they were going with it and kind of moved on. 

But the thing is, it just proves to me even more that she's being told to talk about it in a particular way. If everything she's said is true: that she was a raging fan and has been in the tags and talking about it a ton (and she says that on the podcast again; that she would get really excited about it and watch with friends and they would tell her to chill, lol) then why on earth would you talk about Daryl and Carol as a mother/son relationship...unless you were instructed to. 

She knows how passionate and sometimes toxic the Caryl ship is because she used to be one of them. So that just drove home for me that this isn't something she would just come up with on her own. And I did like what she said and how she said it. I honestly think she's trying to help the Carylers feel better about things, but also let them down gently. And of course there are some hardcore Carylers, like that account that said the ageist thing, that are just never going to give it up. Not much anyone can do about that.

The only other thing that struck me about the podcast, and also brought to mind stuff said on TTD, is that I'm more and more sure that everyone knows what's up with Leah's character. If she's an illusion (and I'll assume she is until we know different) I think everyone knows that. I think Lynn knows it, Norman, Melissa, all of them. 

For one thing, she said in this podcast that she didn't know if or when she'd be back. That was kind of a slip of the tongue, I think, because we already know she's signed on for S11, and she's announced it. And they're filming. So that's just untrue. And I thought that about Melissa on TTD, too. She said she didn't know what the Leah story line would be, they only told her a little bit back in Bonds when she had to say "her dog." But Melissa is a long time, mainstream cast member. I just don't believe that she doesn't know where the story is going. Again, just something they're instructed to say. But something else occurred to me, too.

When Melissa talked about the "her dog" line on TTD, she said, "there was a line that became a thing." From that, I have to assume she meant that people started to obsess about it online and wonder what the "her" was about. I honestly don't know if anyone other than TD picked out that line, but they might have. Either way, between this, and their reaction to the Caryler's "ageist" comment, it proves that they read the online theories. And of course we all already know that, but there's proof. That ageist comment was posted like 24 hours ago. And already they're addressing it and obviously don't like it and don't want people thinking the show or its actors are associated with that sort of thing.

Which is exactly why I think they HAVE to know about our Leah-is-a-hallucination theory. Even others outside our fandom suspect it. But the writers aren't addressing that. And don't get me wrong: I don't think they will. The Bonds line was literally MONTHS ago, and they waited until the Leah episode to address it. Because otherwise, they'd have to give spoilers and they weren't going to do that. But my point is, if the hallucination theory was not a thing (kind of like Rick being on TWB was not a thing and Lynn Collins being an ageist is not a thing and Beth not being BBQed at Terminus was not a thing) they would be addressing and discrediting it. They aren't. I’m definitely side-eyeing that.

Daryl’s Search for Rick/Beth’s Search for Liquor

This is something my fellow theorists and I were discussing back and forth for a few days. I’m not going to give you the entire conversation, but someone said something about Beth searching for liquor in Still and couldn’t that be a foreshadow? See—you’ll probably hear more about this in coming weeks—but we’ve been rewatching old episodes like Still, Alone, and others, with an eye toward what we’ve learned from S10 and especially the bonus episodes. And we’re realizing there’s a lot more foreshadowing in them than we ever realized before. Most of what’s in them we’ve looked at in terms of the Bethyl romance and of course Beth’s return, but I for one have never thought to go beyond that. Yeah, I REALLY should have.

So here’s the thing. We always talk about Daryl searching for people, but Beth was searching for liquor in that episode. I've never really thought to connect those two things. It either represents the same template of Daryl's search for her, or it might represent her searching for him. But then, those two templates may be one and the same. I need to think on it more and make more connections.

One thing it did make me think of, though, is that there's a theme about not accepting the first and only thing that comes your way, because there's something bigger, better, happier, more fulfilling down the road. So, Daryl didn't want Beth to drink the peach schnapps because that's a weak drink. He wanted her to have a REAL drink. And of course we've talked about this theme in terms of the peach schnapps before.

But we kind of see it everywhere, including in relationships. The small, short term relationships all follow this pattern. Maybe it’s not a terrible relationship, but it’s not true love, either. So they need to move on from it and find the more perfect relationship for them. The locations or homes do, too. So, in 4b, we saw each of the groups stop somewhere and try to stay. And it wasn't so much that they chose not to. More often than not, circumstances forced them to leave. But still. The theme is that it was better that they moved on so a bigger reunion could take place.

And on that note, Leah really still does fit the short-term relationship pattern. If the point was to always show short term relationships that weren't ideal and something better coming down the road, that's why they wanted to do something like this for Daryl. Beth is obviously going to be the much better, more fitting, more fulfilling relationship, where he belongs, etc. But I think they knew they couldn't do that without doing a disservice to Daryl's character. The only way to satisfy both criteria was to make her a hallucination. So the pattern is still there, but for him, it's not a real or literal relationship.

Find Me Theme

So, @wdway​ is the one who reminded me of this. Back in 9x05, Rick gets hurt and starts hallucinating right before blowing up the bridge and being taken to the CRM by Jadis, right? All on the same page? Well, in that episode, there’s a huge theme about Rick finding his family. In every hallucination, he tells the people he sees—Shane, Hershel, etc—that he’s looking for his family and needs to find them. Near the end, he hallucinates Michonne and the others being with him on the bridge, and Michonne tells him that they’re his family and he did find them. Then, just before he shoots the dynamite, he says, “I found them.”

And now we have this episode called “Find Me” where Daryl is obsessively searching for Rick, and there’s a ridiculous amount of Beth symbolism thrown in. Are we seeing the over-arching theme?

So, what does this mean? I don’t think I’ve really pinned it all down, yet. But I do think this is an over-arching theme for the entire show. I think in some ways, “home” and “family” are synonymous, because home is wherever your family is. It’s not a physical location.

But we started out with Rick looking for Carl and Lori. Then Merle went missing, and Daryl searched for him. Everyone searched for Sophia when she disappeared. And the list goes on and on. So it’s a big theme. I’ve always said Andy didn’t leave the show just to spend more time with his family. That’s a happy bonus, I’m sure. But this was always a planned part of the story. Now Michonne is actively looking for Rick, we see Daryl searching for his body. And the reason Beth symbolism is thrown in is because he searched for her, but they didn’t show us that and won’t because it would be spoilery. And Beth is alive, even if Daryl doesn’t know it. And yeah, I could go on and on. Just wanted to point out this theme and how important it is. Which leads me to….

The Three Spikes

The last thing I’ll mention is the grouping of the three spikes he sees both by the door and on the outside of the house that we’ve all been trying to interpret. I kind of had a breakthrough the other night. But the thing is, it’s not just a breakthrough on the three spikes.

It’s kind of a breakthrough on the ENTIRE rule of threes theme. It’s actually kind of epic.

So here’s how I came to this. I was going over the template in my head, yet again, that I mentioned is shown both here, in 6x03, and that will be in the spinoff. So let’s run through it. We’ll use this episode, 10x18, as the example. So, Daryl is searching for Rick, right? And Carol wants him to stop and come back with her to where Zeke and Henry are. Those are two possible choices for him. But there’s also a third: staying with Leah.

Similarly, in 6x03, Daryl goes searching for Rick, rather than staying with Sasha and Abraham. Those are the two things he’s trying to decide between, and he eventually goes back to Sashraham. 

Now, there is actually a third choice there. It’s just that Daryl doesn’t seriously consider it. The third choice is going back to Alexandria to help them. And this IS addressed in the episode because they talk about how they don’t know what happened, but some loud noise pulled half the herd off the road. We, the viewers, know it’s the Wolves, but Daryl, Sasha, and Abe really didn’t know what was going on there. And who is back in Alexandria, spear-heading the defensive against the wolves? Carol!

So you see what I mean. There are three possible choices there: find Rick, go with Carol, or stay with Sashraham. And I’ve said forever that Sashraham = Beth/Bethyl. And of course so does Leah. So the third choice is always the one that represents Beth.

Do you see where I’m going with this? If not, I’ll just tell you. This represents three different paths for Daryl. They’ll diverge at some point and he’ll have to make a choice about which one to take. And then I realized—duh!—they’re all actually represented for us here in this episode. Not only because of what I said above, but because Leah lays them out in her ultimatum. Where do you belong 1) out looking endlessly for your brother 2) back at the communities with your family (i.e. Carol) or 3) here with me.

So those are the three paths that he’ll have to choose between during the spinoff. That’s what the spikes are about, because they specifically dealt with his three choices in this episode. But that may even be the reason they used the rule of threes around Beth to begin with. She’s the third and correct path.

Want more proof this is a thing? @wdway​ sent me this pic after I first told her about it:

And guys, go back and watch this. When he gets to the crossroads, the camera pans around him, showing him being unsure about which path to take.

Then, while writing this up, I remembered that this did this in 6x03 as well:

On the left is Daryl on his bike, rejoining Sasha and Abraham who are coming down from the top.

Yeah, 3 paths. 3 spikes. Rule of 3s. Who’s excited for the spinoff? 🙋

Now, just one more thing not add to this I think you all will like. In re-watching 9x05, there’s the part where Rick hallucinates Shane, right? Well, part of their conversation there is about the “third man.” And I’ve talked about this before, but probably not nearly enough, because it’s more important than most of us give it credit for. Rick and Shane talk about when Rick was shot in 1x01 before the apocalypse hit. They say they thought there was only 2 men, but there was a third they didn’t know about and “that changed everything.”

I always saw that as perhaps a statement about Grady. Because they should have had three prisoners for the hostage exchange, where Dawn only had two (Carol and Beth). But after Rick killed Lambson, they only had two. If they’d had three, Dawn wouldn’t have been able to demand Noah back, because it would have been an even exchange. So the third man would have changed everything.

Another way to think about it is that, if the shot that hit Beth didn’t come from Dawn—and it REALLY didn’t, y’all) then there was another threat somewhere that they couldn’t see and didn’t know about. If they had, they might have been able to guard against it. See what I mean? I genuinely believe they used Rick’s arc in 1x01 as a jumping off point for planning what happened at Grady.

So, when I rewatched 9x05 and heard this conversation between Rick and Shane yet again, it made me think of the three spikes and Daryl’s 3 paths. So what if he only knows about the two paths he can take: look for Rick or go with Carol. But there’s a third path he’s not aware of, yet. But the third path changes everything. Because that’s where/how he’ll find Beth.

Eh, eh?

Okay, well, I’ve given you enough to chew on today. These are just some things we’ve been discussing from the episode that just keeps on giving. ;D Meanwhile, episode 19 will be airing in a few days, and it will be fabulous, too. Probably not quite as epic as 10x18, but still fabulous. ;D Thoughts?

[lyta-roca]

Fictober - Day 1: “No, come back”

Fictober- Day 1: “No, come back” // Fanfiction.

Fandom: Ducktales (2017)

Warnings/Tags: None 

________________

“No, come back”

The fact that B.O.Y.D. visiting the lab from time to time was no problem for Gyro. In fact, it used to be somewhat reassuring to know that even though the little one legally had "fathers", he will still consider him a father figure. The visits consist only of talking about their new projects, a review to see that no B.O.Y.D. was failing and sometimes, (to everyone's surprise), he used to go out with the little one for a walk or two.

But what was a problem, is that it came just when he needed to be more focused on a new invention (which he hoped it would not turn evil), in addition to that he did not have the assistance of Manny (as he had decided to take the day free), nor Fenton's, since he was in the streets doing his daily patrol, and that he came accompanied by McPato's red nephew.

- So, Dr. Gearloose, what are you working on today? - Asked B.O.Y.D. politely, giving that look of curiosity and tenderness

- It's not something important, B.O.Y.D. - Gyro replied trying not to sound brusque, as he had been managing his attitude with other people. He had repeated to himself several times that he had made that decision on his own account and not because of Fenton's current insistence on doing so.

- Is everything okay, Dr. Gearloose?

- Yes, it seems that he is somewhat tired and in a bad mood (well, more than normal) - Huey added to the observation

- I just need to finish this project, that's all - he replied after a few seconds

- And you don't have someone to help you? - Huey spoke - Where's Manny?

- Unfortunately Manny's day off is today

- What about Dr. Crackshell-Cabrera? - B.O.Y.D's sweet and innocent voice felt like a dagger stabbing near his feathers as he asked that question.

- H-He's outside. So no, I don't have anyone to help me. And no, don't even think I'll let either of you get close to this - he commented when he saw in their eyes the characteristic glow of planning something. Obviously his comment was met with a pout from both of them.

The talk seemed to be over as no one else said anything in what seemed like perhaps ten minutes. But as is well known, a child (especially if it is a nephew of McPato and a creation of Gearloose) cannot go long without trying to find something to talk about or learn about.

- You like spending time with Dr. Crackshell-Cabrera, right?

Finally. The arrow had been fired and by no one else and no less than innocent little B.O.Y.D. I knew that from his little knowledge of this kind of thing and from the way in which he had asked the question, that he had not done it with any malicious intention, but that did not mean that it was something he did not want to talk about at that precise moment. .

But if, lately, it seemed that his relationship with Fenton (as they had agreed he would call it now), had been changing. It started with the fact that she would now call him by his name, just as Fenton would call him by his. This had only been a problem when Gyro forgot or when there were moments of sheer stress when he really just wanted to yell at the world and revert to the old habits of calling him only by his last names or simply "intern". His attitude around Fenton was also one of the things that changed. At first, why this had insisted that he should change his attitude with his "public relations", since it was more than obvious that the cards that McPato had given him were not serving any purpose. So they began (reluctantly by Gyro) to work together to change some aspects of how they act and treat others. Its progress had been somewhat slow but it looked promising (in Fenton's words). Which became more apparent when he responded to Fenton's jokes, even to Gyro, doing this was a very comfortable and comforting thing to do when he was around Fenton. It was something he didn't want to admit out loud, because he knew that once he did, there would be no going back and the truth was, he didn't want to screw things up.

Gyro inhaled deeply trying to accommodate the words he would use next. I knew kids were just trying to find a conversation piece, but I really didn't have time (and didn't want to) talk about it.

- He is a good colleague who has shown himself capable of several things

Gyro's own answer had come out perfect, but to both boys it had sounded somewhat forced. They both shared a knowing look.

"Yes, but I mean outside of the workplace, Dr. Gearloose," B.O.Y.D.

"Yes, you know how to talk, go out for walks with him, those things," Huey added in the most innocent way possible.

Both children may have been somewhat oblivious to some things that were going on around them, like McQuack's little affection that grew day by day with this Drake Mallard, but of course, Gyro must have assumed that the children would be more interested in his newfound discovery of feelings for Fenton.

Look, kids, I'm too busy to talk right now. - I knew that I should end this conversation once and for all, because if I continued it might end in something that I would later regret - So I will ask you both to withdraw. Go bother someone else.

- I don't think it's a bad thing to open up to your feelings, Dr. Gearloose - Huey commented - After all, every time he's with Fenton he seems more relaxed

- Yes, especially when they both take me to the park - added B.O.Y.D. remembering all those times Fenton had accompanied them on their outings. It was kind of comforting to see the usual tension in Gyro's shoulders disappear with Fenton's presence.

Gyro sighed with some irony and rage. Despite his attempts to ignore his recent feelings for Fenton, he knew there would be something that would push him to the limit.

- I just don't want to talk about it! - He exploded desperately - Besides, the fact that I am accepting Cabrera's company is simply because McPato ordered me to! Also, she didn't trust him to take good care of the armor on his own!

He looked at both children with some disgust and anger but quickly changed to confusion as soon as he saw that their expression was one of discomfort and fear, and that they were not looking at him.

Almost robotically he followed the children's gaze until he met Fenton's eyes of disappointment mixed with anger and sadness. Apparently he hadn't been there long, as he was still wearing parts of the suit, but it was clear that he had heard everything he had said.

Fenton just watched him, as if waiting for Gyro to say or do something. Gyro wanted to speak, to say that nothing he said had been true, that it had only been an outburst of the moment, but he couldn't get a word out.

So much for B.O.Y.D. as it was more than obvious to Huey that the place had been sucked into an atmosphere of discomfort. They felt like intruders.

Without saying a word, Fenton placed the suit in the bag and placed it on the desk where Gyro had been working and without doing or saying more took the elevator to leave the place.

The last thing Gyro saw before the metal doors closed were some treacherous tears streaming from Fenton's eyes.

He had really screwed it up.

_____________

By the time the day was done, Gyro was already running as fast as he could towards Fenton's direction. As much as he knew the project he was working on was important, he couldn't focus on it again, instead he had spent the rest of the day thinking about how he could fix everything he had said.

He would rather tell Fenton the truth a thousand times than for him to believe that all those things he had heard were true. He knew it was a risky move, but remembering the disappointment in his eyes, he could only think of fixing things.

When he reached the threshold of the door, his body abruptly stopped.

And what was I supposed to say?

He had been so desperate to try to explain what he had said but never stopped to think what he would say. He was good at many things but when it came to talking to people he was the worst, especially if it included a sentimental streak.

But there was no turning back. Determined, he finally knocked on the door and waited as patiently as he could for someone to answer.

For what seemed like hours to Gyro, the door was finally opened. He mentally thanked whoever was listening to his thoughts that it was Fenton who came to the door and not his mother, because if that had been the case, he knew things would end too badly for him.

It was a bit painful to see Fenton's characteristic expression of kindness change drastically to a mixture of hatred and sadness at the sight of him.

- Me...

- Whatever your intention of having come to my home, Dr. Gearloose, I do not want to know - he interrupted - I think he made it very clear that you are only forced to work with me by Mr. McPato

- I know what I said and it was wrong - he quickly admitted before Fenton said anything else - And yes, I deserve your hate, you have the right to yell at me and offend me all you want

- What good would that do? - He questioned - I could yell at you right now that you are a horrible person or I could just tell you all your flaws in order to (minimum) try to get out of my frustration but tell me, Ciro, what the hell would that do? I think that will give you more satisfaction than me knowing that your actions affect me, when it seems that nothing does

For the second time that day, Gyro was speechless.

- Now, if there is nothing more to discuss, have a good night Dr. Gearloose

Despite Fenton's determined action to close his door, Cyrus for once in his life acted without thinking. He stopped the door before it closed completely and entered the residence.

- Gyro! But what...

- Listens! - He spoke decisively - I know that all the things I said were wrong, but believe me when I tell you that none of that was serious. I just ... - never before in his life did he think that at some point he would find himself in this situation - He didn't want to lose what we had formed.

- What?

- I mean our routine. - He tried to explain in the best possible way - It is very easy for me to feel comfortable with you, and I never thought that one day I will be making and answering jokes with someone.

Without either of them noticing, they were both face to face and kept getting closer to the other. The angry expression had completely left Fenton, being changed by surprise.

- You were so friendly with everyone, and you always try to see a positive side in everything, even when it is more than obvious that it does not have it. - Noticing that he had left the subject under his eyes somewhat embarrassed - What I want to get to is that I think I have developed a much stronger feeling for you, and I was afraid to express it because I know that there is a risk that you do not feel it same for me. I said all those things because I refused to say it out loud.

After that explanation, the only thing that could be heard was the light breathing of both and some other noise from the street.

- Did you think I would not accept you? - Gyro looked up again and although it was not noticeable with the naked eye, there was some hope in his eyes - Gyro, regardless of what I had answered, you should have said how you felt. Hiding those kinds of things only leads to worse.

By this time, the two of them were only inches apart. And without a second thought, Fenton took Gyro by his cheeks and kissed him. At first Gyro was surprised at the new touch, but once he found himself enjoying it, he wrapped his arms around Fenton's waist. For his first kiss, he admitted that it was a very good thing (removing the discomfort at the difference in height between them).

By the time the kiss ended, the two of them saw each other directly. Gyro had heard around, that a look says more than a thousand words, he had never believed in that until now.

[zerochanges]

Robotech: Unboxing + Rant

Anime licensing and localization has come a long way since the dark ages of the medium where you had to track down old fan subbed VHS tapes or hope you can catch some heavily edited version of a show on one of your local networks before cable was even a thing. The latter describes the place in history that Robotech holds, and for many it was a landmark experience and a gateway into anime--and that should have been its legacy whole stop but well, corporate greed is a bitch. I’m sure I don’t have to sit here and explain the myriad of ways license holder Harmony Gold has more or less been super scummy. From downright patent trolling, to blocking any attempt at localizing certain series and even preventing video game releases; they have become infamous in the anime fandom--so much so to the point where I just don’t want to talk about Robotech anymore. 

Which is a damn shame! Robotech is legitimately a fairly fascinating and well crafted attempt at bringing over anime for its time. The writing is sharp, the voice acting holds up surprisingly well--and it is some of the earliest known roles for a bunch of now prolific voice actors in the anime dubbing community like Tony Oliver and Wendee Lee. Most importantly however the material is treated with respect, and while a bit clumsy at times, there is an obvious love from the staff being put into the work. It’s easy to see how generations grew up with this Frankenstein of an adaptation and became lifelong fans of anime. 

For me personally Robotech will always occupy the same part of my heart that loves the work of Ted Woolsey and other earlier localization figures who took a mess of bland too literal translations (sometimes ones that didn’t even make sense in English) and reworked them with a lot of character and charm despite some really insane restraints of the time. It’s not for everyone, but I do enjoy these early localizations for what they were.

Sadly it seemed Robotech would only be remembered in infamy for Harmony Gold and its (very well documented) downright criminal powers-that-be. Until this past April, where out of nowhere anime fans’ prayers seemingly have been answered. Now the agreement between the three companies is still not fully understood, and it’s hard to say for sure where this will go but for now I like to have goodwill that things will be different from now on. Which is what I want, I easily do love Robotech, and this new agreement brining new Robotech blu-rays is great, but I also want Macross blu-rays too! Hell, I don’t want just that but also Southern Cross and Mospeada releases too, even if they have to be on SD-BD. Over the recent years we have seen blu-rays for all kinds of tangentially related Robotech properties: Megazone 23, Zilion, Orguss, it would be great to have all of Macross as well as the main three series that comprise Robotech to go alongside with them on my blu-ray shelf.

With all that out of the way, I will stop ranting now and show off the most recent Robotech Collector’s Edition from Funimation as well as some comparisons to a past set I posses. 

The box itself is absolutely gorgeous and the contents inside of high quality too. The asking price may be a bit steep but for fans it really does pay off. 

I was especially impressed with the figure which I had no real interest in (and will still keep stuffed in the box lol) but was shocked to find out it can indeed transform between the three iconic forms of the Veritech fighter.

The blu-rays themselves are housed in a nice sturdy chipboard box and each set has unique art separate from the standard retail release.

Anyone familiar with Funimation’s previous release of the anime series Zillion will easily notice the similar “retro” (or maybe even VHS???) look of the packaging. 

I was somewhat annoyed at this graphic design choice when Zillion came out. I love older anime art and want to appreciate it for all its worth. I get how the vintage VHS look is a fun idea but still! Despite saying that however I ended up really liking it for this latest Robotech set. Probably helps that the o-cards aren’t made of the usual glossy paper stock and are instead really heavy and thick cardboard giving them an almost old book type feel. 

The interior art for the amaray cases as well as the disc art are all great looking. I was especially impressed with the art used for the Masters Saga set which opted to feature protagonist Dana instead of a mech.

The earlier mentioned chipboard box. The entire set looks great in it but it does lead to my major complaint for Funimation about the packaging; it’s all Macross. Yes, the Macross Saga is great, hell it’s a common sentiment amongst fans that “The Macross portion of Robotech is the best part”. But really what makes Robotech what it is was the mixing of multiple shows. Really bummed out that Southern Cross or Mospeada got no love this time. 

The Collector’s Edition blu-ray standing next to the 2013 A&E DVD set, which was the only one I could really find laying around at the time of this writing. 

The first of these two images is a screenshot directly taken from the 2013 A&E DVD set, and the second of the two is a screenshot taken directly from the 2021 BD from Funimation. This pattern will be followed for all subsequent comparison shots; DVD on top then BD below it. 

The colors really pop when the image is done right--with darker frames advantaging the most while brighter ones are too oversaturated.  

Overall there is greater detail and the colors presented better reflect the original animation work in the BD but it isn’t too uncommon for it to look a bit garish and oversaturated at times too. 

I’d still say this BD upscale is a noticeable improvement at least from the 2013 DVD set I had on hand but well any fan of DBZ will know the song and dance with Funimation and how they remaster old footage. The similar issue of them working off a copy of a master and not the original film itself probably also is equally in play here as it is for their many botched DBZ sets. I’d also argue this set is a bit too heavy on grain (and I say that as a huge lover of grain) but the oversaturation may be the true culprit behind that feeling. 

Overall Funimation’s BD is a nice upgrade but I don’t see myself dipping any more into Robotech unless they actually can recreate the show from the original film master, by this point any more work will just be negligible.

It’s a steep price tag, and the entire series is fairly easy to stream now too if you have a Funimation account, but for the right kind of fan it makes a great piece for your collection. Until next time, let us all hold out hope for potential Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada blu-rays.

[diyeoracha]

IwaOi Master Fic Rec List (50+ Fics)

Hello! In celebration accumulating over 190+ bookmarks on my AO3 account featuring IwaOi and Iwaizumi coming back into the manga (and for his (almost) birthday), I decided to create a masterlist of all of my favorite fanfictions in order to keep myself organized as well as contributing to more traffic on those works! I decided to split the works up by my own self-imposed genres, such as angst, coming-of-age (or the childhood-friends-to-lovers trope that we all love which depicts how their relationship changes as they grow up and will mostly be canon-compliant), and alternate universe. With the revival of Iwaizumi in the manga, alternate universes will be broken down into adulting AU where he and Oikawa’s diverge differs from in canon and actual, legit AU where there’s basically no volleyball.

I’ll include the title, link, word count, fic summary, and my own commentary (mostly for my own personal entertainment). While the AO3 fandom has been going strong since 2014, I personally have only been reading IwaOi fics for about 3 months, so I will most likely be recommending some cult-favorites, especially since I’ve been reading my fics by sorting through the tag with the most kudos.

My absolute favorites (or the ones where I personally push onto my IRL haikyuu friends) will be denoted with ♡ in increments of 1-3 with 3 ♡ being an absolute must-read. Fics marked with a * indicate that Iwaizumi or Oikawa or both are professional athletes because that’s honestly my Favorite Trope. This is incomplete as I got distracted while re-reading a lot of these and have only gone through half of my bookmarks, but feel free to check my own page here for the rest of them! This took me about 9 days to compile (aka this was in my drafts for about 9 days) but I do hope you guys enjoy reading these and leave comments and kudos!

Adulting AU 

*♡♡Thirty Years and Change (the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad)

Word count: 19k

Summary: It’s July 10th, 2024, and Oikawa Tooru is an Olympian. His smiling face airs on an NHK promo every 45 seconds. He’s captain of the national men’s volleyball team, reigning star of the professional leagues, and he hasn't spoken to Iwaizumi Hajime in two years.

Thoughts: THIS IS IT. THIS FIC IS GOD TIER. They’ve been separated but now are falling back into old habits and there’s a confession on the line? Akaashi is in here and he’s pretty funny. I reread this all the time.

*♡♡♡the courtship ritual of the hercules beetle

Word count: 66k

Summary: Tooru is pretty sure he could manage the mating habits of a mosquito. It’s the mating habits of people he can’t seem to get right.

Thoughts: Absolutely the best IwaOi fic I’ve ever read. I’ve reread this about 4x and I always pay attention to a new sentence or detail that leaves me breathless. The characterization is pretty spot on, and I have to admit that this fic made me appreciate IwaOi a little more. I’ve cried countless times too. A cult-favorite but it doesn’t have nearly as many hits as it deserves.

♡days fall away

Word count: 17k

Summary: Except now he’s back home, so close to his old haunts and to Oikawa himself, and it's—weird.

Thoughts: They’ve separated for a bit but now they’re back in the same city and learning to be around each other again. Cue teasing from the biological and Seijoh family

it's been so long (nobody knows me the way you do)

Word count: 8k

Summary: Tooru hums, only half-listening. Somewhere along the way, Hajime’s palm has settled itself over the curve of Tooru’s cheek, thumb tracing over the line of his jaw.

Thoughts: They’re living together post-college feat. snapshots from their lives before getting together and their Seijoh team! It’s really soft but it manages a humorous tone as well.

Time

Word count: 5k

Summary: When they're twenty-three, their story only begins.

Thoughts: A piecewise fic told from Oikawa’s point of view. The tone is almost chatty but it really fits the pacing of the work as you get snippets and sentences of their relationship throughout the years

♡Almost a Stranger

Word count: 16k

Summary: Iwa-chan's leaving Japan. Tooru's not sure he can forgive him, but he's not going to admit his long-held feelings, either. A trip to Miyajima complicates everything.

Thoughts: They go on vacation right before Iwaizumi leaves Oikawa for a year. Oikawa ponders their relationship.

where fireflies never die

Word count: 4k

Summary: >>Oikawa: Hey Iwa-chan >>Oikawa: Did I ruin it?

Thoughts: Oikawa is a mangaka and basically writes his best selling series based off of him and Iwaizumi. This was pretty angsty ngl with a lot of introspection and second-guessing.

In the Business of Love

Word count: 22k

Summary: Meet Oikawa Tooru: He's a best-selling shoujo manga artist, a hardcore romantic and you won't believe where he's getting his lovey dovey fodder from...Enter Iwaizumi Hajime: He's Oikawa's best friend, a realist who also happens to be a wedding magazine writer despite not believing in romance...

Thoughts: Mangaka Oikawa but this is basically a rom-com lmao

Alternate Universe

Even Heroes (have the right to dream) 

Word count: 20k 

Summary: Oikawa Tooru, ace reporter of the superhero beat of Asahi Shimbun, hates superheroes. Or maybe he just hasn’t met the knight one yet. 

Thoughts: Superhero-hiding-his-identity-Iwaizumi and begrudging Oikawa? Sign me up. This fic spent a little more time on worldbuilding than eventual romance, but it is still absolutely unique and entertaining

The secret omega

Word count: 17k

Summary: Iwaizumi’s annoying as fuck best friend. Who absolutely, definitely, no matter what, cannot find out that Iwaizumi is an omega.

Thoughts: A/B/O dynamics where Iwa is the omega and Oikawa is the alpha. 90% plot building which is pretty nice.

Conquering the Great King

Word count: 105k

Summary: Oikawa's lips twitched into a smirk and he brought them hovering just over Iwaizumi's, "One time thing, Two time thing, what's it matter as long as it's not a Relationship thing?"

Thoughts: Malicious and flirtatious Oikawa meet immovable object Iwaizumi. They’re businessmen trying to navigate friends-with-benefits and love all at the same time. A+ sex scenes tbh. 

♡Infinite Risks

Word count: 8k

Summary: “It’s my fate,” Oikawa responds slowly. He’s crying.“It’s too lonely,” Iwaizumi’s heart sounded broken. “And I’m not there with you. Not really.”

Thoughts: Edge of Tomorrow AU!!!!! Please watch Edge of Tomorrow first because it’s truly a brilliant movie that I wholly enjoyed and this fic reflects that. This also made me really sad so Beware

*♡Something Like Us

Word count: 28k

Summary: Friends since childhood, Oikawa and Iwaizumi now live together, both playing for the National Team. It's no secret that athletes who are bonded perform better. So if the two of them happen to bond...It'd be for the good of the team, right?

Thoughts: ABO dynamics (and somewhat canon-compliant) as they’re roommates, on the national team, and try to navigate being “fake” mated while harboring feelings

And All the Prince’s Men

Word count: 65k

Summary: “Father only loves that which he owns, and I am the one thing that can never truly be his.”

Thoughts: Royal bastard son Oikawa and his servant Iwaizumi. An enthralling read and universe. The romance takes a secondary seat here as it focuses more on plot and world-building. 

♡long nights, no peace

Word count: 18k

Summary: It's the steady knowledge that Iwaizumi Hajime will always be someone that he can rely on, that no matter what the world throws at the two of them, they share in a piece of each other's soul.

Thoughts: Pacific Rim! AU. Otherwise known as my favorite types of AUs because they’re basically soulmates (platonic or not,, but they’re not platonic here)

♡(sing with me) A Song of Conquest and Fate

Word count: 26k

Summary: When Seijou receives a missive from Aobajousai to discuss a potential peace, its emperor Oikawa Tooru could not have foreseen the series of events that would follow.

Thoughts: Warring states/historical fantasy AU. The world building is amazing and this author has great control over her language use

Cotton Breathing

Word count: 13k

Summary: 

Thoughts: Long-distance and summer only but childhood friends Iwaoi!!! A dreamy summer piece and reading it almost makes me feel like I’m in a Studio Ghibli movie because of the mood it puts me in

Similar Creatures

Word count: 53k

Summary: "What's your name?" "Whatever you want it to be."(Or, Oikawa gets directions from an attractive stranger on a street corner.)

Thoughts: Iwaizumi is an escort and Oikawa needs a fancy date

Space

Word count: 44k

Summary: Tries not to think of his rooftop garden, or the apartment he used to inhabit, or Hajime’s broken expression on the night they whispered their goodbyes before Tooru’s launch, attempting to push it all to the back of his mind behind visions of this alien world terraformed

Thoughts: Oikawa’s in outerspace. They’re separated. This left me feeling pretty empty ngl.

♡here comes your man 

Word count: 8k

Summary: Iwa-chan, it reads, Have a good day today! Good luck! <3 <3 <3Suga chokes. It’s hard to imagine anyone calling the scowling and fierce Doctor Iwaizumi “Iwa-chan.” But marriage probably comes with all sorts of liberties.

Thoughts: Doctor AU where Iwaizumi and Oikawa’s relationship is pondered by Suga

In the Telling

Word count: 6k

Summary: Muggleborn Iwaizumi could not be less impressed with pureblood Oikawa Tooru.

Thoughts: Harry Potter AU where they’re in the same year and aren’t really friends but are also friends

♡♡The Loyalty of A Traitor

Word count: 76k

Summary: Iwaizumi Hajime was an undercover officer with a single objective: Infiltrate the Seijoh Syndicate of the Yakuza and tear them down from the inside out. His primary target was the boss, Oikawa Tooru. The job itself was simple enough, until Iwaizumi got in too deep and absconded not only from the mission, but from the city itself.

Thoughts: Oh fuck this was Good. Yakuza boss Oikawa???? Disgraced Iwaizumi??? Do they fall in love (again)?

and suddenly, we were traitors

Word count: 17k

Summary: "sorry, it's just... you’ve been amazingly kind to me these past few days. ...but i'm still not sure who you are.”

Thoughts: The amnesia fic this fandom needed

Trial by Fire

Word count: 78k

Summary: (lawyer!AU - in which Iwaizumi loves his objections, Oikawa is beautiful, and they have more chemistry than two opposing attorneys probably should.)

Thoughts: Hot

dear diary, i met a boy

Word count: 15k

Summary: Iwaizumi's first impression of his upstairs neighbor involves getting woken up at two in the morning to the sound of Oikawa singing along to trashy pop music. He'd thought it would get better, but it all just goes downhill from there.

Thoughts: Model Oikawa and salaryman Iwaizumi meet and try to make it work

on shipwreck shore

Word count: 8k

Summary: “I’m going to murder you in cold blood and feed you to the basilisks,” Iwaizumi says conversationally.“You can’t do that, I’m your boss,” Oikawa sings, positively sparkling. “Also we’re partners, which means,” he points at Iwaizumi and leans in, “you’re stuck with me.”

Thoughts: Detectives but they’re actually funny

♡Lockdown

Word count: 72k

Summary: Within the first few months of his stay, Oikawa gets caught up in a war between cellblocks, becomes a prime target, and must decide just how far he's willing to go to protect Iwaizumi Hajime.

Thoughts: Orange is the New Black AU!!! Im a sl*t for tatted Iwaizumi

an allegory of all the things we could’ve been

Word count: 16k

Summary: “I don’t know anything about some red string,” Iwaizumi murmurs into the cracks of Oikawa’s skin, “or even about lifetimes or fate. But no matter where you are, I’ll find you. Gods or otherwise.”

Thoughts: Reincarnation AU throughout the timelines. A good soft read that leaves you sort of empty

Angst

Timeless (We Have 30 Days)

Word count: 12k

Summary: Or AU where you're branded 50 days before you die. But Oikawa doesn't tell anyone so now there's only 30 days left.

Thoughts: Ahhhhhhhhh tears

the weight of water

Word count: 6k

Summary: “Again,” he says, the smallest tremor in his voice, and Oikawa blinks at him a moment before smiling, soft and sweet. “Iwa-chan,” he replies, and Iwaizumi closes his eyes. “Again.” “Iwa-chan.”

Thoughts: Death fic 

open when

Word count: 1k

Summary: Iwaizumi knew it was coming, but it still hurt. It still hurt when he opens one letter and drowns it in the tears he cannot keep at bay.

Thoughts: It takes only 1.6k words to make me cry

Canon Compliant/Coming-Of-Age

♡♡i sing the body electric

Word count: 8k

Summary: It was never part of the plan, falling in love with his best friend, but then again, most things in Iwaizumi’s life that involve Oikawa rarely unfold the way he thinks they will.

Thoughts: A beautifully introspective piece told from Iwaizumi’s point of view. It’s wholly intimate and it toes along the lines of pining and soft angst. It’s told in snippets from their lives growing up together. 

♡we can do better than that

Word count: 16k

Summary: Oikawa and Iwaizumi go on a road trip during the summer after their high school graduation. It doesn't go as expected, but maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

Thoughts: There’s a lot of character analysis and it takes a step away from the casual banter they’re always portrayed to have and focuses on the intricacies of their relationship. The tone is almost a little more melancholy. (also they have to share a bed! trope)

♡when it starts to rain, they go inside

Word count: 33k

Summary: “Where?” starts Iwaizumi.“My parent’s old lakehouse, silly, didn’t you hear me the first time?”OR: Oikawa takes Iwaizumi to his lakehouse for two weeks, post-graduation.

Thoughts: Oh This Is It IwaOi stans. This fic really solidified my own headcanon for Oikawa (spoiler alert, OP isn’t too fond of Oikawa but she fleshes out his character and his idiosyncrasies so well that you can’t help but be drawn into all of his imperfection) and this fic respects Iwaizumi as well. It has absolutely great characterization and the fic ends on an ambiguous note. 

to be first, to be best

Word count: 26k

Summary: Hajime is apparently something of a masochist, and as he stares down at the tie-dyed AREA51 T-shirt in his hands, he thinks “I’m totally in love with this asshole, aren't I?”

Thoughts: College roommates trying to navigate having feelings for each other while also dating others and not realizing that they’re jealous? A cult favorite.

♡things that change, things that stay the same

Word count: 8k

Summary: Oikawa realizes he's in love with his best friend; it sucks for a while. (But only a while.)

Thoughts: Ahh a slow burn featuring daily moments between Oikawa and Iwaizumi, and Oikawa starts to notice the little things. This was a cute read because Oikawa just comes off as wonderfully earnest. My first Iwaoi fic! And a great one because it really set the standard to how I interpreted their relationship.

it’s better than words

Word count: 3k

Summary: [ or : oikawa makes iwaizumi participate in three bonding activities for new friends, and iwaizumi just wants to know why oikawa's being so weird about this]

Thoughts: Soft pining, fluff, banter, and whispered confessions. This fic really nailed the banter of high school students really well.

♡shiver

Word count: 16k

Summary: Oikawa was always the brave one. Hajime just followed two paces behind.

Thoughts: Oikawa falls first and but Iwaizumi realizes his feelings later on! So soft, so slow burn, so much pining. We get to see their relationship through Iwaizumi’s eyes and actually read him analyze his own feelings.

♡we shine like diamonds

Word count: 26k

Summary: "You know Abe-kun from class?" they snicker, hands cupped around their mouths like they're passing along a filthy secret. "I hear his older brother is... gay."

Thoughts: Character analysis, homophobia, and coming of age makes a good and angsty iwaoi fic

terrarium

Word count: 11k

Summary: At this point, is he really happy with just staying best friends forever? Will he be writing journals and collecting rocks forever (he will, he knows, but that is aside from the point)?

Thoughts: Oikawa has a terrarium and names all of the rocks he puts in (that Iwaizumi gave him) “Iwa-chan #_”

Chasing Paper Suns

Word count: 10k

Summary: Post-high school, Oikawa makes it to the national volleyball team but Iwaizumi doesn't. The next three years become an exercise in growing up without growing apart.

Thoughts: This was pretty sad tbh. Of what it means to grow up together and then suddenly having to adjust to living without each other’s presence.

with every second that you could give

Word count: 9k

Summary: The journey of Iwaizumi and Oikawa going for gold.

Thoughts: Of growing up together, making decisions for each other, and wanting to be together

Only the jellyfish know

Word count: 6k

Summary: Their third and final year at Aoba Jousai has come to an end, and the guys decide to go to the beach the day after graduation.That day, the ocean water is salty, the watermelon is sweet, and the people are sweeter.

Thoughts: Established relationship

Smut

strange.

Word count: 1k

Summary: "god, i fucking hate you."oikawa smiles, cause he knows it's not true. he knows iwaizumi loves him, knows iwaizumi adores him. but he plays along."i hate you too,"

Thoughts: It’s hot

Say My Name 

Word count: 2k

Summary: “Hey, have you ever tried saying my first name?” Iwaizumi blurts, and the thought jumps out of his subconscious only after he's posed the question.

Thoughts:

No Touching Allowed

Word count: 10k

Summary: “You’ve got one rule,” Iwaizumi winks at him.

Thoughts: ExoticDancer!Iwaizumi and stressed out/repressed businessman Oikawa also an AU.

Honorable Mentions

things wikipedia doesn’t tell you

pillow

Phone Home

Share my life, it’s yours to keep

in progress to you

no sleep in the city

The PDA jar

Kissmarked

[the-face-in-the-mirror]

Stranger Things 4 Theory/Prediction: The Clocks Symbolize Memories

Well shit, here we go again.

So obviously everybody has been going off about the recently released Season 4 announcement, with that crazy heckin’ video with the Upside Down, and the clock, and the light in the distance, and all that good stuff. And naturally, people have been making theories, so I decided to make one of my own, using evidence and clues from the announcement trailer, and evidence from previous theories (about the current three seasons) made by other theorists in the fandom.

So, obviously, the most prominent theory in the Fandom at this point (concerning Season 4) is that there’s going to be a time travel element. And I can see how some people would think that, especially with the clock in the trailer, the Twitter account posting the tweet with the clock, Back To The Future in Season 3, and Hopper’s speech mentioning that he wishes he could “turn back the clock.” However, I myself don’t see how this could make any sense, and time travel would inevitably serve to only make the show more unnecessarily complicated and filled with holes, as time travel is not an easy thing to get right and can be portrayed poorly without very careful planning.

My theory, on the other hand, is that Season 4, and all the clues about clocks and turning back the clock, has nothing to do with time travel, but rather Will’s plotline and his relationship with Mike.

Hear me out:

First, let’s examine this still from the announcement trailer.

Obviously this isn’t the best quality, but there are a few key things that we can single out: the clock, the Welcome To Hawkins sign, Will’s bike (in the iconic position that everyone has known since Season 1), and what appears to be a newspaper strewn across it. There’s also the light in the distance which could either be Hopper’s cabin, or Hopper himself, but I’ll refrain from talking about that since that’s not what this theory is about.

So the clock is obvious, and it’s been hinted that we are directly supposed to focus on the clock and that clocks and time have something significant to do with this season, primarily due to this tweet:

Now let’s talk about this tweet.

Again, there’s the clock - this clock coupled with the other clock shows that they’re important somehow, which is obvious by this point. But there’s one thing from this tweet that I never see anyone talking about, and that’s what is placed right next to the clock: an upside-down smiley face.

The announcement trailer takes place in the Upside Down, where we already know time to be somewhat skewed. Mr. Clarke even said himself in Season 1 that the Gate can affect magnetic fields (the magnets and compasses), the environment (the dying crops), gravity, and even time itself. This is very subtly touched on in Season 2 when Will sees the Mind Flayer at his house for the first time, where the clock on the wall is shown to be ticking rapidly - much faster than it should be.

This could possibly be in relation to what has been happening with Hopper and his time in the Upside Down, but again, that’s not what this theory is about.

Now, this is all well in good, but I think it means something else aside from that. And sure, Time Travel theory is slightly plausible, but, personally, I don’t think that’s what these clues are hinting towards at all - or at least not in the traditional sense. So here’s my theory: the clock and all the hints of turning it back have nothing to do with literal time travel, but rather a way of “turning back the clock” that is far more intimate and relevant to Stranger Things itself - memory.

Ever since Season 2, and even in elements of Season 1, memory has played a big part in fighting against the Mind Flayer. While he was in the Upside Down, Will sung Should I Stay Or Should I Go to himself for comfort, clinging to the memory of listening to it with Jonathan to keep himself sane. When Will was possessed by the Mind Flayer it was the memories of his childhood from Joyce, Jonathan, and Mike that allowed him to continue fighting the Mind Flayer as much as he did. The same method is applicable to Billy, who is able to break free of the Mind Flayer’s control when he is reminded of his happiest memory with his mother. Not to mention that El is able to actively look into peoples’ memories, as she does with both Billy and her own mother.

Memory plays an important part in this show, and it especially plays a key role with Will and his relationship with Mike, and how it’s going to develop in Season 4.

Let’s start with my first point: memories being important to Will’s storyline.

Warning: Mentions of abuse and sexual assault ahead.

For the purpose of this theory, I’m going off of @kaypeace21​‘s theory that the Mind Flayer represents Will's dad, and that a grand majority of the events on the show represent the past sexual abuse that Will can’t remember due to dissociative amnesia. You can read more about that here and here. Kaypeace does an amazing job on it and goes super in-depth into details I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, so I would definitely suggest reading it if you haven’t.

Throughout season 2 Will constantly references what he says are “like old memories, in the back of [his] head,” and that his Now Memories from the Mind Flayer are “like when you have a dream” and “you can’t remember it unless you think really hard.” This is quite common with survivors of sexual assault, especially if the abuse occurred when they were children. I don’t think I even need to point out the r*pe parallels of Will getting possessed at this stage, so we’ll move on. The point is that Will’s memories of his abuse are there, he just can’t remember them properly - he’s “forgotten” them, in a sense; stored them so deep in the back of his psyche that he can’t bring them back up - and they’re represented with the Mind Flayer who abstractly plays out scenarios that parallel abuse; abuse that Will has gone through in the past.

So in terms of memory, here’s what I theorize is going to happen:

El - likely with her powers returned - is going to end up looking into Will’s memories, just as she did with Terry and Billy, and he’s going to end up remembering everything he repressed.

This definitely isn’t a pleasant idea, not in the slightest, especially with how that will affect Will in the long run; however, recovering repressed memories through clinical hypnotism is an actual method used by therapists for treating people with dissociative disorders. It definitely isn’t the best method of therapy, and is even known to be controversial due to the possibility of creating false memories, but, at times, it still helps people with dissociative disorders to come to terms with what happened in their past and begin to heal from it. Hypnotism is even slightly related to the show with the concept of MKUltra, even if we never directly see it. You can read more about Dissociative Amnesia and treatments for it here.

And why do I think this will happen? Because of another thing I haven’t yet seen people talking about in their posts concerning the announcement teaser: Will’s bike.

Will crashing his bike in Season 1 marks a moment where everything changes - where he’s dragged into the Upside Down, representing his own trauma as a whole along with El’s. And when his bike is found, that changes everything for both his family and his friends - to realize that something happened to him, that he didn’t just skip school or run away. The (what seems to be) newspaper strewn across it is representative of Will’s life changing as well; suddenly everyone in Hawkins knows who he is. He’s the boy who died in the quarry, and then the boy who came back to life, and people are paying attention to him (both good and bad) whether he likes it or not. He’s the most interesting thing that has ever happened in Hawkins, a mystery, a spectacle, and it’s clear that he hates it. Hawkins has never been welcoming to him, and with the Upside Down and everyone looking at him like he’s even “more of a freak” due to his disappearance, Hawkins is the last place he wants to be welcomed back to.

Will’s bike being in the Upside Down in the trailer shows us that, as hard as he is trying to recover and move on, he’s still stuck in that moment. He’s still between the View-Master slides, both in the Upside Down and not, and as much as he’s trying to move on he can’t, not until he’s finally able to face his abuser (the Mind Flayer/his dad).

This leads to my second point:

How memories are important in Mike and Will’s relationship.

Of everyone that shares memories in the shed in Season 2, Mike’s memory of when he first met Will is the one that really gets through to him, allowing him to break free of the Mind Flayer’s control just enough to send a message. From the camera angles, the lighting, and the acting of it alone, it’s obvious that it’s a very intimate moment between the two of them,

where Mike is at his most vulnerable

to bring Will back -

he’s sharing the most personal memory he has, the one that means the most to him.

And that is significant.

That scene gives us insight into how long Mike and Will have been friends, an indication of

how deep their story goes

, how close they were with each other. It’s not a memory that includes Dustin, or Lucas, or even any of their family members - it’s just them. The scene itself reflects that. They’re close, and they always have been.

And it isnt just that scene either; there are many instances, from Mike going through Will’s drawings after they pull the fake body out of the quarry to a photo - a tangible memory - of the Party (with emphasis on Mike and Will) being what makes Mike realize that El could be the key to finding Will.

Their memories are important to them - their past and their story are important to them; and, therefore, they’re important to the show. Crucial to the show.

Now fast-forward to Season 3, where Mike has done almost a complete 180 and focuses all of his time on El due to his perception that that’s what he has to do - he has a girlfriend now, he’s grown up (in his own eyes), and that’s all that matters. Mike’s main theme in the season is “we’re not kids anymore,” which he says to Will in the carport - Will, who wants to go back to their younger days; Will, who wants to relive a little bit of what he lost due to his trauma; Will, who wants to turn back that clock, who misses playing board games every night, who doesn’t want things to change.

Hopper, in his speech, wishes he could go back to a simpler time where he and El were closer than they are in Season 3 - when they spent more time together, weren’t distant from each other, talked to each other. And that’s what Will wants, too, throughout the entirety of the third season. He wants to go back to a simpler time where he wasn’t distant from everyone, and didn’t have to worry about the Upside Down or the Mind Flayer, or his friends - Mike - leaving him because they’re getting girlfriends and growing up and he’s stuck by himself - the lonely little gay kid in love with his best friend.

And it’s Mike’s words, and Will looking at the picture - the memory - of them from Halloween when Mike promised that he and Will would “go crazy together,” that finally send Will past his breaking point, causing him to rip the picture directly in half, symbolizing the rift between him and Mike.

With all this damage done, Mike and Will are a tattered reflection of what they used to be - what we were told about in Season 1 and what we saw in Season 2 - and Season 3 never truly takes the time to amend it. The end of the season shows that they’re clearly on good terms again (what with Will’s flirting and Mike’s fond smile towards him), but that’s not good enough. Not after that catastrophic fight that led to the destruction of Castle Byers and a clear rift in their friendship - that’s not something you can resolve offscreen.

Therefore, I believe that Season 4 will see the proper reparation of Mike and Will’s relationship.

Finally, they’ll talk. They’ll talk about everything - growing distant from each other, barely talking to each other, and the feelings that both of them, Mike especially, have been trying to ignore for years. They can fix the picture, fix the tear between them; the picture will never be exactly the same, but it’ll still be there, and Mike will retell the memory of when he first met Will, paralleling the scene in the shed, but without the Mind Flayer, and without the impending doom. And through this, they can turn back the clock, go back, in a way, to how things once were. They can recreate a time when they were closer, when it was just the two them sitting on the swings, and they can bring back what was so special about their relationship to begin with.

And with the two of them back together and stronger than ever before, Will can finally fully accept himself as he is, for his past and his present, and face the Mind Flayer (his father) once and for all.

This was a really long theory, and one that took me a bit to fully put together myself, but after a lot of research and rereading of multiple theories from Kaypeace, I think I’ve got something pretty solid here. It’s a lot, especially considering that I’m going off of a singular tweet and a 30-second announcement trailer, and there are a couple things that might be a reach, but I think it still has some weight to it. 

Obviously it’s way too early to tell if any of this could be true, so we’ll have to wait for more content, but after all of the theories I’ve read from some of you guys I have no doubt that it’s entirely plausible for some of this theory to be true. Now let’s just hope the Duffers don’t screw us over (which they might, but I will choose to believe they still have half a braincell between them), and pray that we’re on to something. Which, inevitably, we are.