#People got no smarts no nuance no anything it's always “my side is right and the other side is wrong on EVERYTHING”

[gastlygallows]

Had a little over a week with my bf and spent the whole time smoking weed but now he's back home (2000 miles away) and it's time to take a break from the smook and focus on my Career Writing

Imma be honest with ya chat I struggle with a staggering insecurity despite the fact that I know I've got talent People enjoy my fanfiction and what original stuff I've published sits at 4.5 stars minimum on the kindle store

Imposter Syndrome is real and I wish I could share my original work more casually but with how cancellation is a thing and people freak out over the least little shit and also because I'm white (nothing worse to openly be in a creative field than white)

I absolutely must separate me the original author from me the fanfic author :( and it means that I suffer alone a lot on that front

[that-ari-blogger]

Shallow Beauty (Welcome To Heaven)

I’m going to let you in on a secret. Complexity isn’t always the best fit for a story.

Don’t get me wrong, I love nuanced characters and ideas and judging by the popularity of Arcane, a show that will be getting a second season by the time this post goes live, I think most people enjoy that kind of story as well.

But there is a debate going on as to what is better in a story, complexity and nuance, or simplicity and readability. Honestly, I find this debate frustrating because the answer is neither and both. The sides act as if any attempt at the other is sacrilege when the truth is unfortunately more complicated. Sometimes a story needs twists and surprises, and sometimes a story needs to look you in the eye and say “here’s what I am talking about”.

Case and point, Welcome to Heaven.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (Hazbin Hotel)

I honestly don’t have much to say about this song. It’s not the most popular in the musical and I’m not going to argue that it should be. The song is shallow, and that’s the point.

I think the entirety of this song exists to point out how vibrant Heaven looks, but how empty it feels.

Because starting with the voice acting. St. Peter is voiced by Darren Criss, a man with a gorgeous singing voice. But notice something different between him and, for example, Lucifer. St. Peter's singing is technically perfect.

Perfect is a self-fulfilling adjective. It is the absence of imperfections, with imperfections being defined simply as “things that make something not perfect”. Perfect, especially when used in relation to people, has no meaning.

But singing can be perfect. It can hit all the right notes in just the right way. You can play things safe, and there is the kicker.

Imperfections are character beats. Lucifer’s insistence on jumping the gun with every note says something about him as a person. But St. Peter has none of that. He is a blank slate. He doesn’t have any character, and neither does heaven. But in a paradoxical way, that says a lot about him, doesn’t it?

“’Cause here, we got no worries, got no burglaries, no strife, It's the perfect afterlife.”

Really? Nobody disagrees on anything? Nobody worries? Nobody is stressed?

Two things about that.

The linework on heaven's buildings is done in white, giving it a bright feel, The Colours are pastel, sure, but if the linework was black instead, this would have a different vibe. It differentiates it from Hell and creates a distinct atmosphere.

First, how do you have the resources to upkeep a place where everyone has all their needs met? Like, if it’s magic, can you share that with the people who literally live in hell nearby you. Maybe give them food and stuff if you clearly have stuff to spare.

But second, I call bullshit. Nobody is without worry. Even people who are told they are amazing all their life internalise that unhealthily. And besides, you live next door to hell, a place you feel the need to exterminate once a year. No chance are you all unbothered by everything. Those who benefit the most from the status quo are always the ones terrified of it changing.

Or is it that you aren’t allowed to worry? Do depression, anxiety or even being bipolar get you disqualified from ever going here?

Come to think of it, what does get people into heaven?

"We've got the best and brightest, the politest of the lot And everyone is hot.”

That’s the summary of the people in Heaven. Smart, polite, attractive. Those aren’t moral characteristics.

I can use long words and count to twelve and a half. I can be polite when I need to be. My partner tells me I am attractive, and I think he has the ultimate authority on this kind of thing. But I don’t think any of that makes me morally upstanding, they are just nice things to be.

It’s also worth noting that these things are all subjective. Intelligence comes in different forms and someone who can memorise stuff and someone who can do calculus in their head are smart in different ways. If you are testing for only one of the two, you are missing out on everyone else who has their own field of expertise.

On the other hand, conventional ideas of attraction are seriously flawed and skewed in some uncomfortable directions that society is currently recovering from. Besides that, everyone has their own idea of beauty, and romantic, sexual, and aesthetic attraction are different things.

Also, everyone is hot is not a distinction the show can make. Last I checked, Heaven wasn’t the place with the succubi.

This actually translates into the music, which is standard pop. It sounds like the type of music people who don’t like pop think the genre is made entirely out of. “Life is great, la di da di da.” But it’s disingenuous.

There are emotions that inspire music beyond rage, but contentment and perfection aren’t that. Wonder, joy, love, pride, even catharsis. But contentment?

Pop is all about these emotions. It gets to the soul of its listeners on a real level. The pain of a breakup, the ambition of competing for love, the exhilaration of one incredible night.

Contentment is the emotion for the lowest common denominator, the type of song that plays it safe and doesn’t do anything interesting. Contentment is the emotion antagonistic towards change.

We have already seen that antagonism in full force through Adam. Locations are characters in their own right, and Adam is heaven fighting to conserve its stability. It is addicted to the contentment to the point where it will hold everyone down to stay at the top.

But, it’s self-sabotaging. If Heaven stopped holding people down to stay in place, it could work with everyone else to move forward together and get to an even better place than it is now.

But no, it is static, and boring, and perfect, and polite.

Final Thoughts

I harbour a deep seated contempt for people who put emphasis on politeness for its own sake. Being polite is a tool, it allows you to be clear with someone without letting emotions like anger sabotage yourself. It works when it is needed.

When being polite is not needed and people insist on enforcing rules of conversation that don’t matter, I find that immensely frustrating. Talk how you want, don’t be an asshole, but don’t feel the need to round your vowels for the sake of it.

That’s honestly my take on Welcome To Heaven, it’s pretty for the sake of it and nothing more. It’s simple and shallow. There is nothing behind the “sick décor.” Being polite is fine, but looking down on people who aren’t is just a recipe for disaster.

Next week, however, I will be talking about You Didn’t Know, a song that is anything but simple. So, stick around if that interests you.

[autumn-foxfire]

Is it so hard for people to admit that Hawks killed Twice just because he thought it was his best and only option at the time with no other strings attached, completely of his own violation instead of saying the HPSC ordered it and that he did it because he wanted to validate his existence like Touya and was upset he didn't get public approval from doing so? How do you misread a character that badly. I know they're narrative foils, but not everything about them has to be, and that panel was taken seriously out of context. It was Hawks telling All Might why he wanted to know about OFA, because the citizens would be fighting against heroes too, and if it was connected to Midoriya, then with all the misinformation about it and heroes betraying intel to the media, it could spell trouble if they don't settle that matter with clear facts. What it wasn't, was Hawks subtly whining about not being praised for his actions.

And he got his own self stuck in this narrative mess 🙄 not because of anything the HPSC did, it's funny. You kill one guy and all of a sudden you're part of the "heroes save villains plot chaos and AFO enabling you to face your demons with tons of juicy self-reflection, foiling, and childhood trauma habits dragged to the surface" when all you wanted was a simple, practical war. And besides. The only way "he did it on orders" works is if he's an idiot who "head empty-ily" relays info to the HPSC, waits for their super smart agents to think about it and hold a meeting, and then give him step by step baby instructions on how to proceed with his mission and who to focus on and kill. Like uh-huh, as if he wasn't alone in the shark's den improvising every interaction. Last I checked, the HPSC wasn't ringing him up on the next best action to take when ReDestro cornered him like that. We'd have gotten "should I follow orders?" angst thoughts from him, or the HPSC telling him Twice was dangerous instead of him coming to that conclusion on his own from Deika. The most involvement they'd have had was getting Keigo familiar with killing and past his reservations about it from not wanting to be like his dad and wherever his, "When neither side gives up." comes from, which is clearly part of the "In my experience, villains with wills of steel refuse to go down." storytelling. Either hero work or training simulations, or past hero stories from other people. Hell, Nagant knew about AFO right? He was her mission. The HPSC helped cover up All Might's fight with AFO, maybe they told Hawks that story, how All Might was forced to kill. Even the Symbol of Peace.

At this point, I think the Hawks people speak about in meta is one that fandom made up to support their agenda about the villains, who they also don't want to accept that the nuance behind their actions isn't some self-sacrificing mission to save the world from the truly evil heroes.

Many don't believe to think Hawks is capable of independant thought when the tragedy of his character is that he is but he's stuck in a situation that's demanding him otherwise. Yet, despite this he tries to do things his own way and against any orders given regardless as he doesn't want to be a caged bird.

If Hawks had been told to kill Twice, it would have been referenced in the manga already firstly and if was a brainless lackey, he wouldn't have tried to approach Twice with the option of him turning himself in. He would have just killed him. But no, Hawks is an independant character who made his own decisions because that's what he has always done.

Hell, Hawks decision when he was finally out of the cage is to continue being the man he was! To be the hero and shining light that he had always wanted to be!

This fandom doesn't deserve Hawks at all.

[wearespecialuniqueandimportant]

WHERE'S MY ATTENTION? THAT IS POLICE THAT BANNED US REPORT BUTTON POLICE BEHAVIOUR THAT KILLS PEOPLE. REPORT ONLINE REPORT IN REAL LIFE SIMPLE AS THAT. Btw Transformers Earthspark Isn't The Only Transformers That Fucked Starscream's Character The So Praised Prime Did The Same Excact Thing. He's Written Into An Abusive Relationship With Megatron And In The End He Dies Than Anything Else. That Sucked The Dragon Robots Were Boring As Hell. I Never Liked The Prime Movie. Or The Final Season. They Were Both Rushed. And The Villains Have Bad Endings. I Don't Like That. I Was Never Smiling Sadistically The Message Is Fuck Broken People. The Decepticons In Modern Transformers Keep Being Crazy And Traumatized. Sanist Stereotypes... They're Even Sometimes Radical. They Shouldn't Be Beat In The Face Then. The Autobot Are Literally Cops Which Makes Them Unlikable As Hell. I Never Rooted For Them Truly. I Was Always On The Decepticons Side. Afterall They're Allowed To Be Crazy And Traumatized. Their Unique Behaviour And Morals Genetic In Certain Humans Would Be Policed And Edited (Eugenics) On The Autobot Side. I Almost Felt Deaf Torwards Most Of The Good Characters. And Feel Like If The Death Was A Little More Balanced On Both Sides Wouldn't Have Been Bad. There's So Many Good Characters In Prime I Barely Cared About. Bumblebee Bulkhead Wheeljack Ultra Magnus. Woah What A Number And They're All Dudes. Overall Bumblebee Getting His Voice Back Always Makes Him Boring They're "Fixing" The Unique Disabled Character. Besides The Humans Were Important To The Characters Their Absence Stinks.

Btw Aracnid Beatifull. Too Beatifull To Die. Soundwave Didn't Die No Need To Forget Like He Doesn't Exist. Shockwave Death Was So Bad And Knockout Is Kindoff A Backstabber Now. Megatron's Ending Was Allright But He Turns "Good" Like That's The Only Ending Possible What About Morally Gray Endings? Especially For Starscream And The Only Woman? Even Evil Oo They Got Away And Get To Continue Their Thing Elsewhere Would Be Real And Crazy... Aren't They In The End Judged By People Incapable Of Doing Any Judging? People That Didn't Do Anything Which Caused The Cybetron War Like Their Values Of "Good" Are Turd Shit Only For Optimus To Be A Boring Murderer Like In The Movies As Character Development. So You Admit That Sucks Okay Can You Idk Explore That Than Make Him Into A Dude Always Right Despite Being A Hypocritical Bland Ass Police? Prime Overrated. Always Called Perfect And Like Anything Else Transformers Is Less Or Something. Shouldn't All This Say A Different Thing And Like That's A Bad Thing To Base Things On A Gold Standard That Turns Every Other Transformers Material Into An Edgy Gore Fest Where The Police Are Always Right And Can Kill And Oppressed Crazy People Always Wrong And They Kill Murder Bad!!!! Earthspark Doesn't Seem So Bad Season 1 That Being. If The BUT THAT ISN'T PRIME!!!! Garbage Didn't Exist... Maybe Stuff Like That Would Be A Little More Liked. Isn't That Kinda Weird Optimus Is A Cop And His "Flaw" Is Being Kind To His Enemies? Shouldn't That Ring Alarms? You're Uh Supposed To Feel Bad For Him While He's Doing The Policing Giving Empathy For The Wrong Person Cuz Of What HE SHOULD'VE BEEN MEANER LIKE A REAL COP!!!! Wtf... That's Straight Up Gross... I Think Prime Kinda Sucks Bruh And The Smart Narrative Looking Like This And Lack Of Idk Makes The Entire Thing Kinda Huh 😵. The Creators Wanted An Action Movie Like The Bay Ones They Wanted A Shooter Videogame (Political Propaganda) They Wanted All That And Wrote So This Is Where That Always Stays At And Any Nuance Must Die For A Cool Finisher!!!! Headshot!!!! Get Over Here!!!! Aaaaahhhh!!!!! In Prime Starscream Gets Called An Abuser No Different From Megatron. While Megatron Walks Away Free To Do As He Wants. That's No Different From Earthspark. They Make Such A Deal About Aurobot Casualties But They Murder Decepticons For Breakfast. And Like A Batman Story That's The Underlings That Are Probably The Least Evil And Most Relatable. Meanwhile The Lesson They Send Is "OPTIMUS SHOULD'VE JUST KILLED MEGATRON WHEN HE COULD'VE!!!! BEING KIND MAKES YOU A HERO THAT'S WHY MEGATRON COULDN'T BE ONE BUT HEY HE WAS GOING TO CAUSE A WAR WHO CARES 🤷‍♀️!!!!" Than Be Nice To Him So He Doesn't Snap. Infact Even In The Backstory The So Heroic "Kindness" Is A Weakness That Causes Everything. Doesn't That Kinda Remove The Point Of Optimus's Character? "But Megatron Rejected Him 🤪!!!!" I Mean Does Optimus Even Accept Him And Give Him What He Needs? Besides Let's State The Obvious That's A Trauma Response Often Villanized To Paint Crazy People As Evil And The Decepticons Are Very Crazy Megatron Included. Btw My Favorite Part Of Prime Was When They Were Scared Of Those Stupid Dragons They Were Potrayed As Having Feelings And Weakness And That Made Me Have Sadistic Fun Against Those Fucker Dragons!!!! I DON'T CARE STARSCREAM HURT HIM 1 HE'S BEEN HURT AND NOBODY CARED 2 PEOPLE HURT ANIMALS ALL THE TIME AND NOBODY CARES!!!! SOUNDS LIKE TRAUMA AND INSANITY TO ME!!!! AGAIN THINGS OFTEN PAINTED AS EVIL!!!!

Is See Transformers Prime Being Painted As Anti Woke And Back When Transformers Wasn't Sjw So That Only Adds To My Point.

When If Anything Prime Was So Lacking In Many Things. Btw I Hate The Comics The "Cute" Energy Makes Me Feel Sick That's Like When The Decepticons Are Only Accepted When They Turn "Good" I Doubt Paraphilia And Crazy People Are Potrayed Very Nicely And More.

Because When That's "Disgusting" Than "Cute" That's Bad. And Megatron Has To Die To "Prove" He's A "Good" Person Yeah Uh I'd Rather Be A Decepticon Thanks 😓😅😇😇... Police Propaganda. This Is What "Flaws" And "Character Consequence" Usually Lead To. I Don't Get Off From Watching Characters Face Police Punishment And Be Told Go To Therapy Thank You Very Much. I Think The Appeal Of The Decepticons Is Freedom I Feel Mixed About Them Now But Back When I Didn't Know They're Nazis I Think That Was The Appeal. That's Funny Optimus Goes About Freedom When He's Against Human Things And Believes In Eugenics Even Disabled People Aren't Safe From. But The Erasure Of All Diversity Is Kinda The Point. Hm. Where Could The Woman Transformers Be At? Why's The Only 2 Alive Like This? Megatron's Death Wasn't Awesome Bumblebee Is Just Some Nobody Atleast Optimus Is Someone He Sees As His Equal. After That Starscream And Shockwave Escape Only For The Police (That Have Murdered So Many People Aswell) To Find Them Aswell. And Give Them The "Consequence" "Their Actions" "Deserve" Well Sorry I Was Born A Psychopath Do I HAVE TO BE KILLED For This?

There's More Politics In Human Domestication Guide Than Many Other Things Obvious. The Terrible Racism Narrative. The Empty Story About Trans Identity. The Imperialist Affini Terribly Written... Because There's So Much I Have Been Able To Focus On That Alone So Much Unlike Other Things That Usually Get Just 1 Post Like This.

Btw Robin's Song In Umk Doesn't Deserve The Hate That's Just Misogny. He's Giving His Woman Fans A Pretty Soft Fantasy They Have Been Wanting For Years. Songs Like Ciccioliina And Ruoskaa Have So Much More Sexuality And Stuff Like Portion Boys As A Whole Sexism. There's No Neutral. This Is Relevant. Why's That Suddenly Brought Up If They Were Plugged In Machines Before? Meanwhile Bananas Gets Called Safe Despite Being So Bold. There's Alot Of Lgbt The Others Don't Have And Lgbt Is Literally Being Erased And Something Being Lgbt Is Progressive And Brave Than Anything Else. In Other Words If This Is Suddenly "Sabotage" Because The Straight Song Didn't Win They're Just Queerphobic LOL. Both Lost Though :o. Bananas Should've Won 🔥🔥🔥🔥. And Keira 🔥🔥🔥🔥...

I Didn't Deserve To Be Attacked By Human Domestication Waste.

Btw Stuff Like Eurovision Are Still Nationalist Propaganda. I'm Just Trying To Have Fun With Them Iguess.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I listened to Alun Cochrane’s episode of the Comedian’s Comedian podcast yesterday, and it’s still bothering me. It was a good episode. He was a really smart guy, he always had interesting things to say. And I really like some of his old comedy routines. Observational comedy for people who think most observational comedy is too bland. Observational comedy but going pretty dark for observational comedy, asking more questions than he answered but asking them in a really funny way. The persona of the guy who’s just being really frank and straightforward, the conversational style. I like his stand-up enough to even enjoy the parenthood bits sometimes.

What I heard yesterday wasn’t his stand-up, it was him talking about his stand-up, for an hour in 2012. It was one of the first Comedian’s Comedian podcast episodes ever recorded, episode number 9 out of the over 400 that now exist. He and Stuart Goldsmith played off each other so well, got interesting stuff out of each other. Goldsmith was the interviewer so they weren’t really supposed to getting stuff out of each other, but they were clearly good friends in real life, enough so that episode felt more like a conversation than an interview, and interesting stuff got said on both sides. Thoughtful, analytical things about the comedy industry. He was so smart. Alun Cochrane was so smart, it came through in stand-up and interviews.

I might be overstating it a bit. I wasn’t, like, some massive Alun Cochrane fan who was incredibly disappointed when he went right-wing. It wouldn’t be like if Andy Zaltzman suddenly announced he’s doing a gig on Comedy Unleashed. Alun Cochrane wasn’t one of my favourite comedians, it’s wasn’t that level of disappointment. I just like him, or I like the pre-2017-ish versions of him. Even time I hear him, I’m reminded of how very much I like him. How he was good in general, but also specifically a type of comedian I really like.

What a fucking waste. That’s what I got me, over and over listening to that podcast episode. What an absolute waste of talent and intelligence and a good perspective and decent comedy, with what Stuart Goldsmith called quality control. What a lot of good stuff to throw away.

I'm doing, you know, fine and everything. But I am currently lying awake unable to sleep even though I have to work early tomorrow, and being annoyed about Alun Cochrane seems like a better use of my brainpower than my other current options, which are worrying about whether I have cancer and worrying about how I think I've lost my wallet.

So instead I'm being annoyed about that podcast episode I heard yesterday, and I decided to re-watch that compilation video I made late last year. I know exactly what day I made it, actually. December 1st. Which I know because I broke up with my girlfriend on November 30th, and the next day, I was in a very normal mood and decided to spend all day making a very normal thing that was definitely not a permanent record of an emotional breakdown.

Spending an entire day collecting all those clips and putting them together felt very:

I hate a waste of talent. Looking back, I maintain that the radio show was great, but it's possible that as an actual comedian, Russell Howard was never anything all that special. I did enjoy a lot of his stuff over the last few years, but if you listen to his stand-up while not already liking him, you realize pretty quickly how much he used likeability as a substitute for good material. Not all the time. But definitely sometimes.

I'm annoyed that I can't enjoy Alun Cochrane's stuff, though. Some of that is funny even though I don't like him, which might be a way to know it was actually good. What an absolute waste of a perfectly good comedian.

It's fine, I will at some point go to sleep.

[sabrondabrainrot]

eeeEEEE EEEHEE Making Friday the 13th special!!!

You can literally yap forever to me!!! I really like it especially your thoughts and analysis it's just so neat. 🙏 The essay had me kicking my feet the entire way home.

You also pointed out stuff I didn't think about. It's really cool and smart and observational!!! Plus it's always fun for me to read what people have to say about their blorbo. Your bingy bongus. Your special little meow meow.

You saying my art is nice , really makes my day 👉👈 hee hee thank you ❤️

Hfgghvhhb I love thissss

I don't really have a disclaimer. I might just end up repeating a lot of the opinions already stated? Might just be a ✨lil echo-chamber moment ✨

Honestly just agree with everything that you're pointing out.

I'm not a little hater (that energy takes a lot to bring forth) but I see both sides of the situation and it's a lot more gray than people want it to be. Like you were saying it has 20x more nuanced than a black and white situation. It's so much easier when stuff is black and white but this type of situation just can't be.

I trust the writers, they have the character's best interest at heart. New Moon/Nexus' story won't end at being a villain or a misunderstood tradegy. If the likes of Eclipse, Old Moon, Monty, and Puppet have grounds to be redeemed then so does Nexus (not that Nexus has ever done anything wrong)

LMAO I love the little guy but I'm so scared for him at the same time, cause I don't know what Dark Sun has in store for him. (Dark Sun so sexy aha~ 🤭 /j). Dark Sun needs him and is using him but I still can't get a read on for what yet. There's a lot of theories and while I adore them, Dark Sun doesn't seem the type to kill Nexus? It's fun to consider he's using Nexus to feed the Witherstorm dragon thing but.... There's so many easier ways to do that than to take in Nexus.

I still can't get over how he used the phrase "You're one of the dead ones" but something I haven't seen pointed out yet, that's Dark Sun's personal terminology. No one else ever considered Nexus "a dead one". I think New Moon actually started spiraling as early as then. Dark Sun planted that seed of disent intentionally.

He's basically a baby and was just getting along with his new bestie and his siblings and then someone wearing the face of his big brother just casually implied he's a zombie. Nothing but an echo. A walking corpse.

I would be scared of what I am too.

*slaps Nexus* this bad boy can hold so much identity crisis.

Also the thing on Earth just 👌 mwah. The entire p&s convo was dramatic AF. Couldn't get over how Sun warned Earth.... And he was so right about it all....I just, man....Earth, girlie pop.... What was said was not harsh...

I should add, I actually really like Earth and wish we had more female characters in media, but also I will say she did kind of drop the ball on this. Again it's sticky. She's not perfect and I love her for that but she also turned harsh to the wrong person. There's a time and place to be stern and unforgiving and I think it's not when someone is literally terrified and on the brink. (Like you said!!!)

So idk..... The immediate disowning that everyone did? That was harsh. Except Sun, my little pookie, he hasn't disowned him. Sun just suffers from an unfortunate negative communication stat. He puts his foot in his mouth a lot. I'm a Sun simp but even I agree he didn't handle stuff right. In his defense, I got the vibes he just wanted to help Moon but he needed help to him and no one wanted to give it. He went to Earth for help and it actually made it worse. In fact, Sun's entire support system completely failed him.

Isn't that just crazy?

While I don't hold Sun or Earth responsible, I do hold the likes of Monty, Puppet and Foxy responsible. Especially Monty. I'm also upset Lunar just hung back..... He even said he wasn't close to NM....I get vibes Lunar is lying to protect himself and not have to face feelings but... ouch

Anyways back to New Moon/Nexus, there has to be something going on there cause it just wasn't right. He's such a sweetheart and so very different from New Moon.

I see NM/Nexus as the baby who has big shoes to fill. Solar took those shoes from him so he could be more of his awkward sweet self. He screamed at Sun way back when he thought Sun was going to accidentally hurt/ kill himself with Star Power because he was so soul crushingly scared of losing his big brother (and he was extra upset that Sun's reason to hide it from him because he was unconsciously comparing NM to OM). He also went out of his way to make sure Solar would be ok in the final Eclipse showdown by shoving him into the portal while he laser striked the guy.

What crazy to me about NM/Nexus literally seconds after coming to life, was threatened by Eclipse. He woke up fighting what was essentially a God that hated him and his whole family. His breaking point for him wasn't that he lost Solar, it was that he couldn't bring him back. There's so much terror and fear in that kind of loss of control.

You literally opened my eyes so much when you pointed out "he's killing himself to make the pain of caring stop"

MY HEART

😭😭😭

I hope they save the little pookie.

(i started this on Friday but you caught me when I was going home from work and I ended up falling asleep while writing this so I'm posting it now! 🤣)

((ps. One of the fics I like updated so I reread the first chapter and the second and in the fic Ruin called Nexus "baby Moon" and i haven't been over it))

Morning peachy!

Happy Friday, I was scrolling through your blog and literally didn't realize you were the one that made the Nexus design that lives in my head rent free. I love your art and vibes ❤️🥰❤️

I'm at the part when Old Moon is back and met Earth it's SO AWKWARD

I don't like it (not mad he's back but it's just the entire lead up has me upset)

I was watching Baby Moon/New Moon and Earth like you said and idk, I think it's really messed up how everything went down. Earth seemed to jump to a lot of conclusions about New Moon and she seemed really upset but also I don't think what New Moon said to push her away was actually that mean. Maybe it's just me?

I also didn't like how Sun went to others for help because he's so lost on what to do with New Moon and everyone was just "let's kill him"

I'm so messed up over this....

What's your thoughts on this? I want to know your observations 👀✍️

First off,

SNIFFS. bro your art and your vibes are INCREDIBLE so that compliment means a whole lot to me. tysm <3

Second off, oh-ho-ho. my friend, you've just opened up pandora's box for me. this response is gonna be a long one, let's see how incomprehensible it will get-

(Also, just so anyone who doesn't know me knows, I'm currently not watching the security breach shows due to a bit of burnout, but mostly due to me not liking the current sams arc. I'm just avoiding it for the sake of me mental health. sooo if I bring up something that has already been acknowledged/fixed/changed in canon, forgive me <3. for sams, I have knowledge up to about "brothers REUNITE in vrchat", so. just go into this knowing that lol)

OKAY. AHEM. DISCLAIMERS DONE. HERE WE GO.

Don't have much to say about "I don't like it (not mad he's back but it's just the entire lead up has me upset)" other than I 1000% agree. I (again, personally) actually don't like that he's back, mostly because the lead up to O.M's return felt very rushed, it makes O.M's original sacrifice for K.C completely in vain, and O.M has essentially just taken N.M's role in the family now that N.M is where he is now, as Nexus. it was all very frustrating to see happen.

And, whooh, I can go on and on and on about how O.M has shown many signs that he hasn't actually improved as a person/brother as much as he claims to have, but I think that harpers on spoiler territory for you Sab so I'll save that for another day dkjfhsdfsd but as for the SECOND part of your statement...

"...I think it's really messed up how everything went down. Earth seemed to jump to a lot of conclusions about New Moon and she seemed really upset but also I don't think what New Moon said to push her away was actually that mean. Maybe it's just me?"

IT 👏 IS 👏 NOT 👏 JUST 👏 YOU 👏

From what I can tell, actually a lot of people agree with you!!! (me included). this leads to kind of a divide in-fandom between people who are on the families side, and those who are on New Moon's/Nexus'. and from what I've seen, even the people who aren't on either side just kind of find Nexus pathetic and emo. which is 100% fair and understandable, considering his "villain arc" was built off of shakey ground lol. AND while I am 100% a N.M/Nexus apologist, that wont stop me from acknowledging that he fucked up bad in some places sdkfjhsdjfk really, everyone messed up a lot to get into the situation they are now story-wise. it's not just one sides fault, and it's draining seeing people trying to make the dilemma one of black and white morals when it is 20x more complex than that. OKAY MINI RANT OVER, ONTO WHAT YOU REFERENCED SKFJDHSDF so. did Earth have every right to be hurt by what New Moon said? oh, 100% yeah, her brother just insulted and demeaned her to her face, ofc it would hurt.

But what really confuses me is how personally she took his insults??? Right before, genuinely, right before that confrontation; Sun warned her that Moon might say something he didn't mean. he warned her, because he knows from experience.

and yet Earth took it to heart??? w. why??? she knows a lot about mental health stuff, or she's supposed to, right??? surely she'd understand that it's a very common trauma/fear response for people to become aggressive and lash out, even against those who they love and care for??? right???

And I also agree that she was jumping to conclusions, or at least misinterpreting N.M's goals/intentions/reasonings. when N.M called her "not a real therapist", she took the greatest offense to that. but. the thing is. he wasn't??? wrong???? did he say it in a rude as hell and aggressive way??? yup, no denying that! but he's not wrong.

Earth isn't a licensed therapist. she is an animatronic with downloaded protocols and processes given to her by the Creator in attempts to try and be a therapist. but she literally admits it to herself multiple times in the show that she's not a real therapist, she just does her best. so it always confused me why she took N.M's statement to heart, because genuinely, for him, her best (or more specifically, her kind and patient style of therapy) wasn't enough. which is v tragic, much ow, big pain.

At the time of being confronted, N.M was exhausted, desperate, spiraling, hallucinating, not wanting to ask for help, lying to both himself and the family, in mourning- basically holding on by a thread. so when cornered, (literally, he physically was cornered in P&S) he lashed out and said mean things to be able to push those he cared about away and "get to safety". it was wrong of him to do, yes, but considering everything we knew about how Moon's (both New and Old) react to stressful situations from prior tragedies, it was to be expected.

BUT THEN??? EVERYONE JUST KIND OF GAVE UP ON HIM AFTER THAT????? he made one mistake. one. one mistake. and suddenly everyone was all like "alright, we've got to kill him." I??? DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK THAT'S A LITTLE BIT FUCKED UP??? HELLO?????

I'm not denying that N.M was becoming unstable. I'm not denying that he was becoming aggressive. he was, and that's why he needed help. he needed someone to stick by him even as he was pushing them away, to love him even at his lowest, and no one did. Imo, at least Sun has the excuse of being traumatized by Old Moon's past actions, which could explain why he was so desperate for everyone else's input, but Earth and Lunar??? Monty and Puppet too??? hello???? why the hell are you doing your brother/friend (who is doing all of this TO GET SOLAR BACK BECAUSE HE WANTS TO MAKE THEM ALL HAPPY, MIND YOU) like this???? HELLO????

And I'm also bringing up that Nexus still hasn't really. done anything??? in the current point of the story??? the worst thing he's done so far is rough up O.M a bit. but other than that, all he did was say cruel/threatening things to/about the other Celestials. he's yet to act on.. anything?? he hasn't killed a single person. and you know who have killed people?? Sun, Lunar, Solar, Old Moon, Puppet, Monty... and yet?? some people see him as an irredeemable monster???? it's. strange to me. it's obvious he's hurting, it's obvious he still cares. and he's literally killing himself to try and make the pain that comes with caring stop- isolating himself, poisoning himself, and literally ripping out his own emotions, idk guys, those don't seem like the actions of an irredeemable villain, but maybe it's just me sdkfljhsdf

As expected, this turned into an essay. BUT I'm done now, me-me needs to go take a shower gkfdjhhfgjsd thank you for the excuse to yap, Sabronda!!! I love New Moon/Nexus so much they're my ultimate cringefail. I'm certain they have an edgy Sonic OC somewhere in that evil lab of theirs

[purrincess-chat]

So I have three criticisms about the fandom:

1. Why tf do people call Marinette a creepy stalker? They do realize she’s 14 right? She’s a young girl with a crush, not some s*x offender.

2. I don’t get why there are fights over the Lovesquare when it’s literally the same two people. At the end of the day, it’s the same fucking dynamic.

3. The way this fandom treats the creator like he owes them something is absolutely disgusting. They act like a bunch of self-important, entitled karens.

1. People forget what it's like to be a teenager with a crush. That and there is a trend in fandoms as of late that exercises this black and white thinking pattern. Either something is so morally pure and devoid of any wrongdoing or it's completely problematic and anyone that enjoys or consumes it is just enabling harmful narratives. There's no room for nuance. ML is written by someone who grew up watching old, old superhero cartoons and watching old, old superhero comics. That's evident in a lot of jokes and references and tropes that they use. The creator himself worked on several shows in the early 2000s, and you can see evidence of that time period in ML. While that objectively wasn't that long ago, the early 2000s were a much different time on TV. The teen girl practically basing her whole identity around being in love with her crush was a common trope around that time (see: Helga from Hey Arnold. Seriously yall Marinette ain't got nothing on Helga and her motherfucking chewed gum shrine shaped like Arnold's head). A lot of her behavior is meant to be exaggerated for the joke (as was Helga's). That's just how things were. 🤷‍♀️ But some people, especially if they didn't grow up in that era watching those types of shows or if they're not as socially competent and can't understand hyperbole, then that's likely where the Marinette is a stalker thing comes from. Also can have a lot to do with mob mentality. Someone people deem cool or smart says it once, so a bunch of underlings follow without actually thinking about whether it's objectively true or bothering to question it. It's a problem in society at large (I mean look at the American political system, or any political system rn honestly)

2. You and me both, nonny. Yet every time I go into the ladrien tag to find content to queue for ladrien Wednesday, I scroll past at least 3 "ranking the love square sides" posts and ladrien is always at the bottom because of some arbitrary, made up, noncanon reason that they've convinced themselves is true. I've said for years people just need to watch the show with their eyes open and employ at least a single brain cell, maybe go outside and touch some grass, talk to real people. Just as a start. 🤷‍♀️

3. That's not exclusive to ML sadly. People have been harassing creators and musicians for years. Not to be a Swiftie on main, but Taylor has put out 5 albums since 2020. And that's still not enough for some of her fans. People are still demanding she announce her next rerecord rather than just sitting and enjoying all of the shit she's already given us. Entitlement has become a societal problem that bleeds into fandom. Everyone wants things bigger, better, faster. Capitalism really did a number on humanity.

Anyway, that's just my take on things. I've been here a long time, and just because I don't always point things out or say anything as of late doesn't mean I don't still notice it. I've just gotten jaded I think. It is what it is, so I stay in my corner with my friends and just have as good of a time as we can. 🤷‍♀️

[asset35-maya]

It’s been a while, so allow me to present:

More Nines headcanons.

Slightly edgy this time, but could be read as a follow up to my original Nines HC post :)

//

1. Subverts expectations

Nines is intentionally anything but the lethal military robot he was designed to be.

He woke up deviant. He never had a mission programmed into him. But something about his appearance screams cold, calculating machine. He’s fucking tired of the terrified glances… the commuters who move into the next train carriage if he’s the only one there… the people who walk on the other side of the street… the vapid fools on dating apps who jokingly ask if he’s ever killed anyone…

So he becomes very conscious of not leaning into his programming too much. He disables some of his analytics and prediction software. He lives in the moment. He smiles and laughs at nothing at all. He starts wearing bright colours and bold fabrics and jewellery and makeup and… eventually he realises that he kind of likes it. Picking things for no reason other than their aesthetics. Being light and easygoing and even irresponsible.

People like him like that. Gavin likes him like that. And hell, he likes himself like that too.

//

2. Makes questionable choices

He doesn’t like making real decisions and he doesn’t like consequences. Don’t even try to force them on him.

Nines will talk for hours about the shade and texture of his designer French curtains or the special gloss on his Milanese furniture. He has the most nuanced, curated taste. He knows what he wants in everything… but real life.

Career choice? Arbitrary. Nines just tagged along with Connor one day and liked the look of the detective with a scar on his face.

Lifestyle choice? Partyyyy. It was fun and it made him seem cool and less like that horrible thing Cyberlife had built to fight wars. Never mind the exorbitant table charges and bottle service rates at Detroit’s top clubs…

Life partner choice…? Someone accomplished and attractive. Smart and thrilling to be around. But also an emotionally-stunted workaholic. Impulsive, temperamental and at times… violent.

//

3. Careless & unapologetic

He does the job because it’s easy and it pays. But that doesn’t mean he does it well.

“What the phck is wrong with you?”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Gavin.”

“I’m being very calm considering we just let a multiple homicide suspect walk on account of your mislabeled evidence.”

“I didn’t mislabel. I just have my own methods.”

“Like procrastination and last minute scrambles?”

“Are you questioning millions of dollars of Cyberlife R&D right now?”

“I’m questioning why you decided to switch your genius brain off and be good for nothing but bending over my desk.”

//

4. Kinda self-hating

Nines knows he’s messed up. He’s got no right to be. And he hates himself for that.

Sure Nines hadn’t initially endeared himself to the general population, but ever since his colourful transformation, he’s been the life of the party. Everyone likes being around him and having a laugh at his snarky comments. And apart from that, there’s so many people he loves, who love him right back. Connor and Hank. Gavin and Tina. Even old Captain Fowler, despite the number of disciplinary warnings.

It’s a safe and comfortable life he lives. But still. Nines can’t seem to stop dropping the ball and screwing things up. He disappoints and lets people down on the regular, but he can’t understand why.

All he needs to do is follow the simplest of instructions and he’d be fine. But he’s not.

The writing on the wall is that he’s spoilt. SELFISH. A lazy motherfucker who cost a fortune to build.

//

5. Repentant in only one way

Nines feels the need to be punished, to repay some kind of debt. So to restore balance in the universe, he lets his lover take charge.

Their bedroom is a shrine, and Nines’ body an offering. To appease all the gods he might have angered with his vanity and ego. The priest, the only one who can deliver him from sin, is Gavin.

Nines is always prone. On his back, or on his front. Under Gavin. Or on the floor, at his feet.

Nines is always used. Pinned down, or tied up. Cuffed. Choked. And sometimes gagged.

Nines is always sorry. Very very sorry. He hopes he can be forgiven. He’ll do better next time. He promises! Actually, probably not. Tomorrow never comes. But at least Gavin does.

“You’re good, Nines. You were absolutely magnificent. Shhh… Shhh… Stop crying…”

[nothorses]

Lmk if this is hijacking also, but I wanted to add some extra sprinkling of nuance:

I was less of an official "gifted kid" (my schools didn't have those programs) and more of an unofficial Good Kid "pleasure to have in class" who was, in general, well-read, well-spoken, etc. I did take a couple of honors classes, I got into a really good alternative high school kind of proto-running-start program for a bit, all that jazz; I did well on tests, I didn't need to study, I made work teachers liked. When I was able to make work. And in classes that didn't involve numbers.

What I'm saying is that I was the 2000's WA equivelant of a "gifted kid". And like, I wasn't good at school, is the thing about it. I was genuinely unable to do any work after I left school for the day, I straight up could not do math for shit, and I had a GPA under a 1.0 for a year of high school. I entered senior year as a junior because I failed so many classes. I had to take summer classes to make up the credits, and I busted my ass in senior year exclusively because I REALLY couldn't keep living with my parents.

And I didn't get diagnosed until I was 22, and I had to do that myself, after the university I transferred to wouldn't accept the accommodations my community college gave me through a free learning disability testing program.

And like, my brother was the other side of the coin here, too. He was diagnosed at like 5 or 6 years old, my mom took months off work to stay home with him all day and support him, he got therapy for years, medication, all the stuff they said he needed. He was literally my mother's favorite; it's not really a perception thing so much as a legitimate fact she's gotten as close to saying as she could without incriminating herself. He got away with more, he got more support, he got WAY more attention, and it drove a HUGE wedge between us from an extremely young age.

He also dropped out of high school and didn't get his GED until 4 or 5 years later, he has always been the "bad kid", and he's still struggling because of this. And I'm getting my masters degree.

What I'm getting at is just... look. My brother DID get all the shit "gifted kids" think people who are diagnosed young get. Like, actually. Probably a lot more than any of them imagine. And you know what good it did him?

Fuckall!! None! I can recognize now that if I had gotten those things, I would have probably been in a similar situation; therapy didn't help because he was in a situation he had no control over, and he couldn't improve his life in order to grow. Attention and favoritism didn't help because it taught him that consequences didn't apply to him in a meaningful way, and left him entirely unequipped to deal with rejection, fault, mistakes, or for co-habitating with literally anyone.

And for me, being the "gifted kid" or whatever didn't actually help me, either. I clawed my way through graduation with like a 1.5 GPA and summer classes, fueled by fear and spite alone. It is a fucking miracle I didn't drop out. I went to community college for 3.5 years, transferred into a school with a high acceptance rate, and didn't start doing well until I got medicated my very last year of undergrad (and started taking only classes for my major that I actually cared about).

If anything, being seen as "smart" just meant that my failures were viewed as a personal, moral failing; I was just lazy, and I could do better if I really cared. Meanwhile, my brother was a Misunderstood Genius who failed because school was wrong for him, and he would do great if he could just get the right meds and therapy and teachers. And he still struggled.

And the only real difference between us was, in the end, that my goals meant I needed to get through it, and he decided his didn't. And like... both of us were right. He isn't a failure or a disappointment for dropping out; if anything, my family admires him and is constantly rooting for him about it, and like, I'm over the bitter immaturity enough now that I really agree with them. And I'm not special or better for going to school for longer; I'm just doing what's right for me, the same way he is.

Point being that it's not really the binary people want to make it out to be. All of this shit hurts all of us. Getting diagnosed younger might have made things better for Gifted Kids, but it also might have labeled you Destined To Fail and made you a target for abuse. Being a Gifted Kid might have given you more opportunities, but it also might have caused people to resent you as "lazy" as your elementary school success faded into high school anxiety attacks and depression.

It's not a perfect dichotomy from any angle, and the "gifted kids" turning their bitterness over not getting that treatment sooner toward those that did need to start listening to the people who lived that reality about how fucked up it was.

You didn't Just Need One Thing. There's no easy fix. It's a complicated problem, and you have no idea what things would have been like if you Just Got That One Thing, because you didn't. Accept that shit & get over your petty resentment- it's not about you.

i kinda have beef with the way some folks with adhd portray different adhd experiences. specifically, the “gifted kid” adhders who will say stuff like “the kids who failed got diagnosed and accommodated while we, the Gifted Kids, suffered in undiagnosed silence” and i just wanna remind y’all that this fantasy y’all have of the adhders who showed stereotypical signs of adhd getting noticed immediately and accommodated is just not true to reality for most of us.

i was one of those adhders who failed instead of continuing on the Gifted Kid route, and i didn’t get diagnosed until i was in my mid 20’s. didn’t get accommodations, didn’t get any help, i just got told i was lazy and not trying hard enough. i had teachers and professors treat me like hot fucking garbage bc they “could see i had so much potential i wasn’t living up to”, but never thought to actually like fucking help me or ask what was going on. i managed to graduate high school and get into college, but in college it got so bad that i had to take an extra year and barely graduated. even for adhders who do get accommodations, it’s rare that they’re actually respected or taken seriously. this is the reality for most of the people you’re talking about.

and i don’t deny that there’s a unique struggle the Gifted Kid Crowd faces with not getting diagnosed and living with that anxiety, but the fact is y’all have more opportunities than we do because y’all did well in school. y’all are less likely to be unemployed or poor or be able to get higher level and higher paying jobs. so please think for two seconds before commenting on the experiences of other adhders like that.

[bleulone]

Can we talk about about how Colin looked in ep 1 when he first saw Marina compared to how he looked when he saw Pen in ep 8. Almost the exact same look! Of course his look to Penelope is probably more about his guilt because he brushed her off when she tried to warn him but still..progress! Lol and then when he's getting ready to leave for Greece, he glanced towards Penelope's home. I think they're having Colin's feelings for her grow gradually in the show instead of all of a sudden like in the books.

Hey! Thank you for this insightful ask of yours :) Sorry for the late answer, I took a long time to write this— without further ado, here we go!

Indeed, Polin is first and foremost a story of gazes, those gazes being of many natures. Whether they are love ones, friendly ones, admirative ones or lustful ones, looking imposes itself to be a huge parameter in Penelope and Colin’s love story.

In order to understand that on screen, film-making has at its disposal a very rich and smart langage of its own. Sometimes, comparision helps to underlines the differences between one character’s relationship with person A mirorring person B. I feel like Shondaland and Chris Van Dussen wanted to introduce the audience to the evolution of our Bridgerton men’s perception of Love. For instance, while Anthony views attachement— to Siena— as a way to escape his responsibilities before becoming his villain (...until our queen ma’am Kate Sheffield comes to the picture), Benedict doesn’t comprehend this universal concept and prefers to enjoy the many physical pleasures life can offer. In other words, the older brothers already explored their sexuality here and there, making them the infamous rakes that they are. As for Colin, it’s a complete other thing.

Colin is young. Very young. At 21, he’s just left Eton College and barely knows anything of the world nor women. Like Anthony said in 1x06, Colin hasn’t been taken to brothels which is a very important step in the building of young men’s sentimental and sexual education during that time period. Since he missed this essential step, our sweet/immature boy has no clue about how to deal sagaciously with his feelings and his “foolish” impulses, baring his naivety. At this point of the story, we can easily come to the conclusion that Colin is a virgin who can’t drive XD. He’s just a child overcame by his passions, a hopelessly romantic who rushes things without taking the time to properly court or know his significant other. And his off-screen flirtation with those supposed numerous girls in London isn’t of any help to justify his (oh so little) experience. So when he sees Marina, he’s so struck by her... mainly by her alluring appearance. And he doesn’t seem to let his eyes nor mind go beyond her exquisite beauty.

In this perspective, the whole Colin/Marina storyline can be perceived as a parallelism to the Pen/Colin’s one. In 1x01, he is immediatley smitten with a dancing Miss Thompson, which happens to be ironically the same case with a 17 year-old Pen but with him. We got to see her, a few moments ago, dreamily looking at him from the back of the dancefloor (echoeing the episode where she fell madly in love with him after he fell off his horse at Hyde Park). She’s charmed by his dashing look and his kindness, yet she doesn’t seem to know anything else about him considering the rare conversations they share. Her burning gaze fits the original story from Julia Quinn’s books because in Romancing Mister Bridgerton, the 28 year-old spinster Penelope do realize later on that Colin is more than a good looking man : he’s a human who possesses a temper and flaws.

Either way, both of our boos are portrayed as hopelessly young people in love who childishly idealize the objects of their affection.

In 1x08, it’s the other way around. It’s Colin who sees Pen first, her who appears to wear the yellow dress’ lookalike from the pilot—what an interesting call back ^^. With his mouth slightly agape and his eyes wide open, we can catch sight of the timid spark of a change in his gaze : Colin Bridgerton notices Penelope Featherington. He‘s touched by the realization that she cares about him. It would be rather inappropriate of me to say that Colin is already in love with her. However, in the finale, I do believe that he’s more struck by her high level of deep care for him than her beauty.

We are thus able to spot two big differences in Colin’s relationship with women in this season : when his attraction to Marina was purely physical and rushed, his attraction with Penelope is more emotional and slow. And for now, he comes to cherish his special bond with her, especially after she tried to warn him of the dangerous trap he was about to fall into. Even if he just sees her as his younger sister’s best friend right now, Pen matters in his life. And it’s still a little yet important progress for sure.

Speaking of which, I agree with you that this look of awe as well as realization is mostly mixed up with guilt. Since he didn’t take into account her words, he felt the strong need to apologize. But bear in mind that guilt formulates a considerable part in Colin’s feelings for Pen... and it’s only the very beginning. In the future, he’ll blame himself for not seeing her as the beautiful goddess and siren that she is in the first place. He’ll blame himself for not reciprocating the feelings for her.... Though at the moment, due to his lack of experience with women, Colin is oblivious to Pen’s obvious signs of sorrow when he told her he’s leaving for Greece/Cyprus. Next time, he’ll detect her sadness and won’t let her go, I’m sure of it (if he doesn’t I’ll riot).

Furthermore, I’m so glad you brought up the scene where Colin glances at the Featherington house. I had the same thought as well. When you put this still and the one where Pen is crying while looking at her window side by side, it even seems like they’re looking at each other. In a way, it implicitly confirms Pen’s key role in his final decision... After all, she’s the one who inadvertently inspired him right ?

The act of traveling has always been seen as cathartic since leaving home to discover yourself allows you to heal your broken heart and soul. It’s natural for Colin to do this. To make his first real steps into the world. His choice is quite relatable more than it is essential for his arc in the series. I can’t wait for him to come back all changed, hot ^^ and mature. I think, like you said, they are planning on making him progressively falling in love with her. Colin’s feelings will gradually leave the platonic zone to explore and officially stay in the intimate zone throughout the seasons.

Overall, the Colin/Marina and Colin/Penelope parallel in s1 mostly helps viewers to compare the way Colin evolves from being a stubborn naive boy to a heartbroken young man who’s aware of his crutial need for Experience. His coming of age, just like Pen’s, has just begun. And they will surely lead to our boy changing himself into the true charming rake that he’s meant to be and our girl into a more confident woman. Consequently, I think their story won’t take 10 years but rather at the very least 5 years perhaps to fit the TV timeline. Once Polin will finally be able to discuss, we’ll hopefully get to see more interesting nuances and shades added to the portrait they painted of one another over the years. They’re indispensable to the slow build up of their emotions/attraction as well as the shattering of their childish idealization/perception of each other.

All in all, I’m so loving the fact that season 1 beautifully sets up the importance of the gaze in Polin’s love story. This first installment is like an expository scene of a play. It leaves a trail of clues and pieces of information here and there at the reach every viewers who can pick them up and analyze what can be the main themes which will determine one character’s story arc/romance. With Polin we have : admiration, wit, love and friendship, desillusionment. (I know they are more but it’s all I can think of rn lol).

If we’re already emotional messes just with the mere power of them looking at each other, imagine when they’ll actually talk and share real conversations. It’s going to be a long way to canon but luv me some good fluffy angsty steamy slow burn :) ✨ I hope this long of mine answers your ask ahah, even if I talked about many things other than just Polin’s looks. Also, sorry if you spot some grammatical mistakes, English is not my first language.

[ramblingguy54]

True Colors: An Emotionally Fantastic Serious Game Changer.

If we’re to look back at Reunion as Season 1′s dramatic pay off for Amphibia’s message of toxic friendships, as Anne & Sasha’s conflicting dynamic showed us, then True Colors is a colossal expansive note on this big theme of the series. True Colors makes Season 1′s finale look like a walk in the park for what angst goes down between our three main heroins in Season 2′s climatic resolution. Everything that can go wrong does go oh so painfully wrong for these three kids. Anne, to no one’s surprise, gets double crossed by Sasha leaving things between them a Hell of a lot more bitter than they were previously, as if that couldn’t already be topped when Sasha tried to kill the Plantars before. Anne has had enough of her lies and manipulation not being afraid to tell Sasha straight up how awful of a friend she’s been in general, even hitting her where it hurts most of all saying, “No, I’m done listening to you! I’m done trusting you! You’re a horrible person and I am done being FRIENDS with you!”, going so far as to get a shaken reaction out of Sasha dropping her brave face act, making this girl try to wipe away the frog family.

Right off the bat, True Colors makes it highly evident this isn’t just another story of stopping a bigger threat, but one hitting much closer to home, overall. Yes, King Andrias is certainly a dangerous villain, who makes his presence and intimidating nature known to the others by True Color’s final act, which despite this Amphibia isn’t entirely putting him at the forefront, rather focusing on a more intimate study of Anne, Sasha, and Marcy’s big emotional conflict. This finale knows exactly where to put its focus of importance on, so I love that instead of it being action packed we’re getting the spotlight shined on just how screwed up these three of a friendship have, in spite of Marcy claiming in The Dinner episode, “We’re supposed to be friends for life. We don’t split up!’ . Very ironic stuff right there, indeed.

True Colors’ most powerful strength it adds to Amphibia’s ongoing profound story about healthy friendships is the thorough deconstruction of these girls defined “ideal relationship” as people. Before Anne came to the world of Amphibia this kid was afraid to stand up for what she believed in, even knowing especially well that stealing the calamity box was morally questionable, but did it anyway. Sasha was super manipulative, abusive, and used her power to control people, like she did a lot of toward Anne in their lives. Marcy, while very smart, wasn’t the most competent physically, who soon grew into being more independent without needing to rely on Anne always having to be there for her. These three were changed immensely by the events of being thrust into this world of sentient amphibian creatures. Anne benefited morally most out out of all three in taking up the mantle of responsibility and ironing out her own issues. She’s become a much stronger person all around. 

This episode asks us an important question though in nutshell with, “Have Sasha & Marcy truly changed for the better?”, since Anne has reached a point in her arc feeling genuinely content with who she’s become and the bonds that have been made with the Plantar family shown most notably with Sprig Plantar. Hence the whole purpose behind the song, It’s No Big Deal, with Anne feeling proud for who she is, yet not noticing a bigger issue right underneath her nose. That previous episode was meant to bring Anne’s happiness up only to bring it all crashing down in a devastating display of new revelations in True Colors. Every dramatic emotional beat isn’t just earned. Each significant moment is completely knocked out of the park by terrific voice acting, beautiful animation, and music composition that gave me serious emotional goosebumps. True Colors did exactly as Not What He Seems accomplished for Gravity Falls in shaking up its own respective dramatic stakes just when you thought it couldn’t get any higher for these protagonists. Shit seriously hits the fan here.

Did it ever occur to you, Anne? Sasha? That one of you knew more, than she was letting on? That ONE of you might’ve gotten you stranded in Amphibia on purpose...?

The big bombshell twist of Marcy playing a part too in getting them into this whole debacle completely flips everything upside down. Sasha pushed Anne into taking the Calamity Box, yes, but if Marcy never sent that photo because of her desire to stay with them together forever, then they wouldn’t have been stranded in basically a world full of dangerous creatures and who knows what else. Easily my favorite part of the episode, considering it adds more nuance to a situation that defined Amphibia’s story. It wasn’t just one person’s fault at the end of the day. Sasha bullied Anne into taking the box, Anne didn’t put her foot down to make a stand for something morally questionable, and Marcy took advantage of them both to benefit her own selfish desires for supposedly a “happy ending” not involving them staying apart, due to her parents moving away for a new job. All three girls played an important part on why they got landed into Amphiba. It’s why Anne’s statement to King Andrias, “The three of us may have made some mistake, but you...You’re evil and I’m gonna stop you!”, holds such a real weight to it, as this story continues to solidify how genuinely fleshed out their dynamic is.

Marcy’s super desperate plea to be understood by Anne & Sasha when Andrias revealed her getting them thrown into Amphibia purposefully was hard to watch. On one hand, I felt for Marcy because she didn’t want real life circumstances to tear apart that close connection she had to Sasha & Anne. Sure, she could’ve just kept in touch with them over the phone or chatting online, too. However, Marcy had known them since very early childhood. When you’ve been so attached to someone it can be a devastating thing, depending on just how vulnerable you are emotionally, to start drifting apart. Marcy represents that embodiment of toxic need for togetherness and couldn’t bear to let a possibility, like moving away, throw a wrench into her happiness and friendship, as well.

Never mind Marcy wanting to stay permanently in a different reality, rather than face her’s, but it made this person feel like something more. It gave her a chance to feel truly special in being able to live out a fantasy dream of having such power and freedom that a kid, like herself, couldn’t have had. The freedom to know she is plenty capable of making it out there on her own without Anne having to watch this kid like a hawk. So, to have someone, or something, try taking it away from her terrified Marcy of facing a terrible truth. That she isn’t strong enough after all to live a life without Anne & Sasha by her side completely, where Marcy will never feel truly worthy enough to blossom into her own person. It’s why that line, “I just...didn’t want to be alone...”, carries such a deep pain to it all. Marcy just crumbles into pieces accepting her greatest weakness. As much as Marcy fumbled the ball big time, it’s so easy to empathize with her on the idea of feeling competent enough. Marcy never meant to hurt Anne or Sasha, but the sad crushing punchline is she very much did.

Speaking of which, Anne had every right to be upset and mad, obviously. Anne has been missing so many things from her life before everything went off the wall. Hopping Mall especially highlighted Anne’s emotional desire to give anything just to hear her mother’s singing again. This teenager has been really dealing with a lot of grief in general quite honestly. Anne got into a high stakes battle against Sasha to save new friends, who’d practically became like an adopted family, which left the poor girl traumatized and heartbroken over the end result. She thought finding Marcy would help compensate for it and eventually be able to mend those complications with Sasha to boot. It’s simply painful to see it all blow up in Anne’s face to know not only Sasha betrayed her trust yet again, but realizing Marcy also played a part of responsibility in getting them thrown here. Matt Braly really just decided to slap future trust issues onto Anne finding out Hop Pop, Sasha, and Marcy were all super dishonest in their intentions at one point or another. Damn, I feel so bad for her.

It makes their embracing hug back in Marcy At The Gates so much harder to watch. Anne was super glad to see her again. Anne had wondered what became of Marcy or even possibly started to think she could even be alive at all. Then come to find out later on Marcy having intentionally ripped her away from a normal life must’ve felt worse then what happened with Sasha. Anne, already done with all of Sasha’s bullshit, thought she could at least expect better from Marcy not letting her down, but that too wasn’t the case. Marcy is very much as flawed as Sasha in what she has done. To think, Anne wanted so badly to get back home, yet she’s staring the very person dead in the eye, who ripped her away from it to begin with. Marcy knew Sasha would talk Anne into taking the box from that thrift shop, even if she wasn’t completely certain it would successfully teleport them away. Regardless of whatever good intentions someone can have in why they did what they did, it still doesn’t absolve them of said mistake. Fact of the matter is, Marcy tragically made her own bed, by choosing to mess with forces she couldn’t begin to comprehend and now has to face consequences, in spite of her not deserving them.

What really got to me was when Marcy tried to spin around Anne’s personal growth and close friendship with the Plantars as all entirely thanks to her. When she said, “I gave you this! I gave you everything!”, I was like, “Nope, that couldn’t be any further from the truth.”, seeing everything that has culminated in Anne’s journey of bettering herself. Marcy didn’t give Anne anything, but a one way ticket to cutting the kid off from her family, presuming she’d be fine with this idea. It’s all kinds of messed up, however what it boils down to is Marcy undermining Anne’s independence and agency. Anne’s moral judgement in decision making was what allowed her to create this new life she made for herself in Amphibia. Anne’s honesty as a whole led her down a path of togetherness, while Marcy’s lying landed her in a result of not wanting to be alone, costing her so much.

“I don’t believe this. We were so focused on each other we couldn’t see what was right in front of us!”

True Colors excels at earning each of its emotional beats because they line up with character motivations down to the last letter. Anne doesn’t want to trust Sasha anymore because of their already rocky past, which leads to her helping King Andrias regain control of his kingdom. Sasha not keeping a lid on her temper, wanting to rule over Amphibia, and trying to reinforce that power dynamic with Anne & Marcy only made things worse for her image of a changed good friend. There wasn’t a chance in Hell Anne would hear Sasha’s reasoning after she flat out tried to take away her frog family, by attempting to use the Calamity Box a bit ago in the episode. Marcy wanted to believe there was a happily ever after in seeing this world traveling idea as their only chance for salvation as friends for life, but it turned out to be something much more sinister, when learning of Andrias’ backstory and his true scumbag nature. All three of their motivations come clashing together, blinding them from a much bigger danger. Something that effectively puts everyone at stake.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale works so excellently, given it covers important dramatic elements it’s been stirring around since Season 1′s early rumblings. Amphibia is a story centered around people’s need for emotional connections. True Colors builds miraculously off what Reunion already did quite well in showing friendships can become rough and they are never easy to deal with. When you have to make a stand it can be a tough pill to swallow on the reality check of maybe this “good friend” of your’s isn’t as nice as you previously thought them to be. Anne having been hurt one too many times now by her former friend sends that message close to home, so much so even Sasha begins to question her morality as a human being. It poignantly encapsulates how this trio’s complex friendship is a serious growing issue needing to be reexamined, overall.

What if Anne’s right..? What if I am a horrible person...?

Something I absolutely love to pieces about True Colors, also a testament to Season 2′s darn good writing, is how much introspective we get from each character on what they’re feeling. We’ve seen plenty of Sasha’s vulnerability before in other episodes centered on her issues, but now we’re getting to the root of it. Sasha is really taking everything more to heart, little by little. Sasha’s understanding what kind of an effect she has on people, seeing the damage it has caused made evident by Percy and Braddock in Barrel’s Warhammer. Grime once told her, “Some dreams have a price and not everyone is willing to pay it.”, where she’s questioning that idealism every passing minute the invasion plan proceeds further into reaching success. Sasha isn’t sure what to do with herself anymore feeling aimless. Those previous episodes had a real impact on her priorities more than she cared to let on with Sasha’s typical tough girl act. This kid has let her guard down more, which scares and confuses Sasha. She’s always used to playing the role of protector it contradicts everything Sasha stands for when the roles are totally reversed because now Anne has made her feel the tremendous change in their growth as individuals.

Sasha’s lifestyle has been all about control that after somewhat learning to be more considerate to Anne & Marcy’s feelings she feels beyond conflicted about what truly matters to her. The most screwed up part of it all is Sasha didn’t want to fight anymore, taking up a pacifist approach after seeing what King Andrias had been hiding from everyone. It’s a fitting punishment for Sasha to try bringing Anne over to work together once more, but getting her pleas for companionship outright ignored. Anne was correct that Sasha had wasted all the chances to be reasonable. Boonchuy tried to hear out Sasha before at The Third Temple. One wanted to start things over again to iron out their serious issues, but the other was driven by bitterness, while only remorseful to a degree at best, of seeing their once weak friend become so independent, mature, and stronger that it drove her up wall. Sasha wanted to take away that “problem” being the Plantars, since in her eyes they’re the source of Anne’s strength, driving a wedge further between the two girls in their heated Reunion 2.0 battle.

True Colors demonstrates the horrific price of no trust, communication, nor teamwork from the three main girls that Andrias smoothly took advantage of, as if they were fiddles. 

“That’s the thing about friends isn’t it? The more you love them, the more it hurts when they go.”

King Andrias is quite literally what I wanted Lunaris to be, where DuckTales’ Season 2 finale didn’t impress me on doing. He’s a serious big baddie to the main cast, who follows through on his threats of violence to demonstrate his wide array of arsenal and power. Andrias doesn’t just emotionally manipulate characters, like poor Marcy, but utterly crush them without an ounce of remorse for his actions. When he dropped Sprig out that window after Anne willingly let him have the Calamity Box back I thought they were legit gonna kill this boy off. The way Anne’s flashback montage of her good times with Sprig were eerily shot really didn’t help either on that note. Anne’s Calamity power finally activating is easily up there among stuff, like Dewey risking his life for Della’s disappearance in Last Crash, where the cinematography is shot and animated brilliantly. You feel Anne’s blind raging sadness in every hit she landed on those robots and Andrias. If anyone didn’t believe Sprig was like a little brother to Anne, then I dunno how anyone couldn’t view their bond anymore as such after this hugely defining scene. Anne went bloodthirsty when she believed Sprig to be dead further evidenced when she hugged him in relief afterwards exclaiming, “Sprig!? You’re alive!? Oh, thank goodness...”, which cuts deep so damn much.

Anne was ready to fight every one of Andrias’ troops in that castle to the death, if need be. Before Sprig came back from falling, thanks to Marcy’s quick acting, to comfort Anne, her only goal was to slaughter every opponent in that throne room, along with making Andrias pay dearly for even daring to lay a single finger on anyone of the Plantars. I’m not gonna lie, this pivotal power up reminded me so much Gohan turning Super Saiyan 2 after Cell curb stomped Android 16 into pieces with a smirk on his face. Anne Boonchuy’s maddening outburst is a classic testament to the idea of, “Piss off the nicest person and they’ll make it their mission to instill the biggest kind of fear/terror into you.”. showing this kid at her most vulnerable mental state, yet. Sprig & Anne’s cathartic embrace really messed me up in reinforcing just how these two respect, love, and would go above any of their limitations to help the other out. Sprig’s “death” scene was a masterful bait by the writers into making us think someone was gonna die and it was gonna be a poor kid, no less.  

However, it was actually all just a bait and switch for the real, “Oh, shit. They really just did that”, moment with Marcy unexpectedly getting run through with Andrias’ gigantic sword. In a last ditch effort, Marcy wanted to atone for what she had a hand in getting them all into. Marcy was ironclad determined in making her own stand for what was right trying to save the people she endangered. Akin to what Sasha did in Reunion for saving Anne’s life, Marcy does the exact same here. Although, unfortunately this time, no one is here to protect Marcy from escaping death, like Grime catching Sasha from plummeting at Toad Tower. Marcy couldn’t react in time because she was so focused on helping her dear friends out. She wanted to prove to herself at least one time, “I’ve screwed up so much stuff with my friends. Maybe, just maybe. If I get my friends back home, it’ll prove I’m not an entirely crappy person for setting these events into motion.”. Marcy’s own deep seeded remorse is what saved Anne & the Plantars, while being the cause of her own untimely demise at Andrias’ hands.

This scene is what no doubt encouraged the warning sign for younger viewers Disney decided to make for them. It’s impressive how far Matt and his crew are willing to go for intense dramatic content. Andrias trying to crush Polly with his fist after destroying Frobo with casual ease, dropping Sprig out of the window from up sky high, and stabbing Marcy with his powerful sword displays his cold blooded brutality. Doesn’t matter who you are. If you get in the way of Andrias’ plans for multiverse domination, then he’ll throw anyone into their own grave, be it man, woman, or child. That’s the mark of a truly terrifying antagonist.

Andrias didn’t care who had to be hurt or manipulated to get back the box, so he could invade other worlds with Earth being his next prime target for invasion. Marcy’s fate is a horrifyingly poetic statement, since Sasha stated to Anne in a flashback from Marcy At The Gates, “One of these days, she’s gonna get herself killed.”, with True Colors tying back to this line in a disturbing manner. Something that sends chills down my spine is we get to see the full extent of how far Andrias shoved the sword through her body. We don’t just see the entry point of where it hit her, but it even zooms out to show the whole thing. Real talk, I got serious Avatar The Last Airbender vibes from this scene. Reminded me so much of Aang getting suddenly zapped with lightning by Azula when he tried to enter the Avatar state. Marcy didn’t want to be alone so badly she ended up inevitably dying alone trying to send Anne back home to their reality. One Hell of a way to close off Marcy’s last moments in Season 2, until her inevitable resurrection happens in Season 3 now that King Andrias has her in a tube tank that looks tied to his master.

True Colors ends on a deeply bittersweet cliffhanger leaving the fates of Sasha & Grime totally unknown if they’ll get away by the skin of their teeth, or get captured by Andrias’ soldiers and robots. Anne finally returned home with the Plantars, but at a deadly cost of leaving her other close friends behind in Amphibia. After all the isolation, heartbreak, and endurance she went through with her frog family Anne finds herself at a total loss for words. Once again, Anne is in a state of solitude of not knowing if her friends are really okay or not, mirroring the start of Season 1 when she landed into Amphibia’s world. It’s safe to say to say that, “Finally me and it’s no big deal.”, lyrics have aged terribly for Anne’s realization of finding her own identity came at the expense of getting separated from friends she’s known since kindergarten. Definitely see Anne becoming a lot more protective of the Plantars now more than ever after watching Marcy drop to the ground from being stabbed in front of her eyes.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale is exactly how you capitalize on a winning story telling formula of dramatic writing, lovable characters with layered depth, and increasing the stakes of your story in an organic manner. True Colors is a finale that should be talked about for a long time to come, as it not only showed how worth the wait it was, but reinforces why Amphibia is a truly great series. It’s unafraid to take its characters to dark places in a way that feels totally earned.

Amphibia Season 2 is everything a sequel to a first film should be.

[ethrenisnotthehero]

@hogwartsmystory is a predator (final)

If you haven’t read the other parts of this callout, I encourage you to start here. As in both previous posts, the normal tags are not included in order to allow this to reach as many people as possible. Potential triggers are listed below, and the main content is hidden to keep sensitive individuals from being unintentionally exposed.

TW: Pedophilia, Abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual Assault, Self Harm, Suicide, NSFW Topics, Faked Illness, Faked Mental Illness, Faked Death, Victim Blaming

Originally, I intended to craft this final part to you, the reader, as an emotional appeal. To be wholly honest, there’s only so much evidence that can be utilized without either forcing Jill to relive unnecessary trauma or exposing deeply intimate or personal parts of her life. Until now, everything I’ve told you and everything I’ve shown you is what was enough to convince me when Jill first reached out to me. If you, the reader, don’t believe the factual information that’s been presented so far, then I don’t think that you will. If you, the reader, believe Jill and her story, then no further evidence is going to magically make her story more true.

However, I don’t have to. Instead, I can let the friends-- the family--that Ren created on his website speak for themselves, and show you with their own testimony just the kind of person he was. Jill wasn’t the only person that Ren hurt. Jill wasn’t even the only person Ren preyed on as a sexual predator. Many people on staff, and many people outside of it, knew Ren and grew to have what they thought was a close relationship with him. People regarded him as someone to look up to, to find comfort in, to aspire after, to lean on; people thought of him as a friend and a hero in his community.

On April 12, 2021, at 9:57 AM Greenwhich Mean Time, the current administrators of Advanced Scribes issued a statement addressing Ren’s actions and his faked death. An additional announcement was made the following day. While the announcements themselves and the replies (including moderator statements) are publicly available, I have saved a print-to-PDF versions on Google for you to browse at your leisure. 

I intentionally waited until the initial panic and outrage died out a little to let the most important statements come to light. Included in the PDF are sentiments that I personally thought were the most important sentiments; edits have been made and pages have been deleted, so you can see the current state of the conversations by visiting them directly. You can find the first discussion at https://advanced-scribes.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=42100#p1454263 and the second discussion at https://advanced-scribes.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=42107#p1454361.

Before you continue reading, please look over the statements and replies. The words of former staff former friends say more than I can ever hope to about Ren and the kind of reality that he stood for. Additionally, Jill herself has added to the conversation (username Rakuen), so you can read a bit from her perspective by looking into these announcements. After you’ve taken a look, continue below and I will sum up my final thoughts on this predator and his legacy.

Advanced Scribes • Our Statement (PDF)

Advanced Scribes • Change (PDF)

The Act of Grooming, Part 3: Entrapment

One of the reasons that predators get away with their crimes for so long is because they trap their victims. When they gain access to and successfully lure in their prey, they then engage in entrapment behavior to separate victims from other people and build reliance. The reason why kids are so prone to predation is because of how vulnerable they are. Young people just want to belong. They just want to have community, security, and affection. When they can’t get those things in their lives, they seek it out and take it where they can get it even when the situation is obviously bad. Kids can’t be held accountable for being smart because they’re kids. Jill was vulnerable. She wanted belonging and support. She fell into Ren’s lures, and he trapped her. He used his affection as a tool to solicit sexual favors and pictures from her, but never shared his face with her. She was always chasing his love, and all the while he was simultaneously preying on other individuals in the community. For God’s sake, this man had a selfie thread where underage girls would send pictures of themselves publicly on the site for him to look at, and he even intentionally disabled the website’s COPPA features.

Before Jill, there was Buttercup. Buttercup was also an admin, and she was also 13 when she met Ren. While Ren was a minor during he and Buttercup’s relationship, his behavior with her was just as predatory and Buttercup attempted to warn Jill via PM before she ended her relationship with him.

The picture he sent Buttercup wasn’t even him.

The entire time that Ren was convincing Jill that Buttercup was evil, and jealous, and a spiteful, hateful person, he was manipulating her the same way he was manipulating Jill. Ren is a predator who knows what he’s doing; he always has. He draws in his victims and makes everyone hate them so that he’s the only person they have. He makes them so desperate for his approval that they let him screw them over time and time again, and for what? Just to see his face. Think about what you read. He didn’t just do this to Jill and Buttercup. He did this to every person he cheated with or got close enough to get a grip on. Even if he didn’t sexually exploit someone, he emotionally did. An entire community of people suffered through this over and over and over again. Read the statements again. If you only read the live version, read the PDF. 

I also want you to bear in mind that everyone on staff was equally a victim as they were an enabler. It doesn’t erase their responsibility, but their roles in this story or more nuanced than “moderator bad, burn the witch!” Some of Ren’s supporters were as young or younger than Jill when they met him. The two people most notorious for standing at his side right now were both “rewarded” with a relationship with him in the fallout of his faked death.  

At some point, this man looked at his behavior and not only decided that he didn’t need to take responsibility, but that his victims daring to try and claim some kind of ownership over their own story was a personal affront to him. 

Ren is a monster of his own creation. He chose to be that monster again, and again, and again.

What makes his enablers equally to blame is when they became adults and made a conscious choice to ignore what was happening, which brings us to the next topic.

Finally... How Old Was Jill?

Despite everything I’ve said and shared so far, I still get this question in my inbox.

How old was Jill? Did she lie about her age? Is she free of guilt because she was a kid? Did he know how old she was? Was she legal in her country?

I gave you all everything I had. There were some things I just couldn’t confirm because there was no proof either way. However, all of that changed when the announcements were released. I now know exactly how old Jill was when they began dating, exactly how old she was when people knew about their relationship, and even that Ren was public with all of this information. I also know that staff knew everything, and chose to do nothing.

As you can see in the screenshots above of Buttercup’s message, it was sent on Jun 17, 2015. At that time, Jill was 14 years old. By Buttercup’s estimation, they had been dating for around a few months, which is how I was able to discern the previous exact age of 14 years old at the time they began dating.

However, Ren himself refutes that fact in a Valentine’s post for Jill. As pointed out in the “Our Statement” thread, the post that user amnesia. references includes very sexual and disgustingly graphic descriptions of Ren’s activity with her. It also says this:

As per the timestamp of this particular post (as seen below), Jill was 16 at the time. Ren, a man claiming to be twenty-five years old at the time, was proud to admit that he had been with Jill since she was 13.

You can view the full PDF of this post to see what else he said here, but please be warned that his descriptions are NSFW and absolutely disgusting. 

Warm Fuzzies Post (PDF)

No adult should talk about a kid like that. In the statements, several staff members admit that they knew that the two were dating when she was 16, and that it grossed them out. But none of them did anything. To amnesia.’s credit, they claim they tried to pursue legal action but found no viable routes. 

From the discussions and statements, we can discern five things:

1. Jill was 13 when she started dating Ren. 2. She did not lie about her age. 3. Ren did not lie about her age. 4. Ren knew how old she was. 5. Staff knew how old she was.

Jill’s feelings and her opinions on staff and their behavior are separate from my own. She does not share my beliefs here, and I need to make it very clear that what I’m saying next is entirely my own opinion.

To everyone who was staff at that time: shame on you. It’s one thing to be a victim yourself and to not understand how or when to stand up for what’s right, especially when you’re young; it’s another to become an adult and to have let something like this permeate your legacy and your community for all this time. From what I understand, none of you are completely innocent in this. Ren wasn’t secret, he was loud and proud and he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. Everyone who was an adult then and is an adult now shares some responsibility for that. Those of you who mean your apologies, thank you, but those of you who are using this event as a stepping stone to make that website into your own personal playground know who you are. Stop. There’s an entire generation of kids between AS and CS who have lost years of their childhoods to this shit and the only right thing at this point would be to turn the site over to the police so that Ren can answer for his crimes the right way.

To everyone else: protect the people around you. People like Ren don’t think about how other people think or feel. They don’t care who gets hurt or who they trample under their feet. Look around at your community, and ask yourself if those who interact with you know that you are safe. Inevitably, someone is going to get hurt. Are you the kind of person that they can come to when it happens, or are you the kind of person who will turn your head away? 

Be the person that everyone knows they can come to, because, eventually, someone’s going to need you.

[fallenhero-rebirth]

Brain update

First, let me say that this isn't about what anybody has done. My reactions are not in proportion to anything that has happened, and might be considered odd, weird and sensitive to people involved.

So let me explain.

I'm an Aspie (what we call ourselves in Sweden), on the autism spectrum. Yeah, might have guessed that from the story I'm writing, Sidestep is not the only one trying to figure out how people work.

Over the years I have built up an arsenal of knowledge and analysis to be able to pretend to be neurotypical, something that I can manage alright most days, but which breaks down once you get to know me better. I'm open with this at my current job, and luckily both my bosses seem to be okay dealing with open communication and just telling me what I need to do.

It was not always like this, and that is one of the reasons why I had a breakdown and needed to get off discord/tumblr.

Back in the late nineties, I had finally got my dream job. I was a product developer in the food industry, part of a rather small department of middle-class academics. I was the new hire, everyone else had worked there for years, and things were going well. Or so I assumed. I got cool projects, got along well with one of the sales people, and well, my boss was weird but bosses always are.

Three years later. Our parent company wanted to sell us off, everyone was starting to get worried about their job. We tried to expand into things were weren't equipped to do (you don't bring spices into a fruit jam line, will be hell to clean) and while I did the projects, I also raised an (in retrospect) too big stink about the fact that we were wasting time developing things we couldn't produce without expanding. My boss (who I had learned was a devout christian) started to get really weird, I got called in and he wondered if I was a member of a cult (I was often wearing a headscarf at the time because pressure on my head is good for stress relief). I also got told off for wearing army boots to work (we had lab shoes in the lab), because (I kid you not) if we had danish visitors to the lab (we didn't have visitors) they could be offended since they had once been occupied by Nazis. Yes, at the time I was an Antifa metalhead/satanist, it was a very volatile time in sweden and nazis were everywhere. Now they're a political party, go figure.

It all came to a head when I was confronted with a folder one of the secretaries of the department had where she had written down every odd and strange thing that I did, and there were a lot of accusations of things I quite frankly blocked out. Around this time I was suffering from bad burnout, had memory loss, my hair was falling out and I lost two bikes because I forgot where I parked them. All because of workplace hostility.

So for the first time ever, I went to the company doctor, who immediately sent me on a one month sick leave, and gave a reference to a therapist. When I went and told my boss, his reaction was "It can't be anything at work," in a dismissive tone. I wrote my resignation right then and there, left the building, snuck back a Saturday to clean out my stuff so I didn't have to meet anyone. Luckily I was backed up by my union, so I got unemployment despite quitting, and the therapist helped me get back on my feet and hook me up with some antidepressants.

Still, I was a wreck for years.

At the time, I had NO idea I was an Aspie. It weren't talked about, the only thing I knew about Autism, was from the various portrayals in movies, and well, in the nineties you can guess. Rainman pretty much was it.

What destroyed me the most was not that people disliked me, I didn't like them either, we didn't have anything in common, and middle-class people always scared me. No, what broke me was the fact that my system failed.

See, I had built up myself over ten years into someone I wanted to be. Smart. Capable. Metalhead. Researcher. Activist. I thought I knew the rules. How to interact.

It turned out I knew nothing. People had been talking behind my back for years, and I didn't know. Getting annoyed by my ticks, and I had no idea. Nobody ever brought anything up to my face until it exploded one day out of the blue. This is why I have ranted about anons on this tumblr. This is why I have been so openly against passive aggressive posts and bullying, especially the anonymous kind, because it destroys people and I don't think the people who does it knows the impact they can have. I hope they don't.

I have never gone back to the lab. I can't. I'm having heart palpitations just thinking about it when I'm writing this. I retrained. Became a machinist. Back to the working class I came from. Eventually started writing.

And this is exactly what these last months have felt like.

I thought I understood things. I was pretty open with being old, an Aspie, not understanding memes, or humor, or tik tok, or certain aspects of people's behavior like jealousy, but the problem with joking about this is that it's so easy to take as just a joke. That I'm just making fun of myself (oh it's that too). I got advice from some of you, which I ignored, because I thought that I could be different. That there was no danger in getting close. That I could be just another voice in the crowd. An occasionally evil avocado. That this couldn't blow up in my face, that everything was cool.

And then it did. And I was wrong. And the talking started, and things were coming out that I had no idea that was going on. That I was being held responsible for. Opinions that were spoken in my name. Events I was supposed to have been aware of and supported. All of a sudden I was omniscient, aware of the true passive aggressive meaning of every reblog, aware of every post in every room in the discord I wasn't even running. Wasn't even a mod on. All of a sudden I had power, and I had used it to hurt people. The people I cared about. Everything I wrote was taken in the worst possible way, twisted into things I never meant, and the more I tried to talk to people, the worse it went.

Look. I know this was at heart a war between people that just doesn't like each other and the things they do/the ways they behave. I'm still not entirely sure who's been involved, and I'm not interested in finding out. I tried to build a supportive space, reblog everyone's art and fics, encourage people to make their own things, get a kofi, get some money, make some friends.

And herein lies my problem.

I thought I understood how to be, and now I don't. I have no idea who hates my guts and who doesn't (well, except some who has very vocally let me know). I can't trust anything. I can't trust anyone. And it sucks. Someone I trusted stabbed be in the back because they were convinced I stabbed them in the back and that sucks more than I can describe. Every time I make a comment on AO3 or twitter it's after psyching myself up for half an hour, and I'm usually a wreck afterwards, because my brain doesn't know if they hate me too, and if I am imposing on them and making their day bad.

So yeah. I need to figure out how to be. How not to have a nausea attack every time I accidentally click open tumblr from pure reflex, looking away from the screen just not to see how may messages I have.

I never wanted to be the aloof author, but maybe I have to be. The question is if I can. I have been told I can't comment on pics or fics, because then I have favorites. And that makes people jealous. And it makes people think I take sides. I have been told I can't be on the discord, because then I will be held responsible for what the mods do there, and everything that's said even when I'm not around. I should apparently have someone manage the tumblr, it's not something that I, an author should do.

I now understand the authors who just stay away and remain distant, because people give themselves the power to write the narrative for you.

Part of me wants to tell people what I've told my current bosses, don't assume, just talk to me. I don't pick up/do passive aggression, I don't understand hints, I have trouble with nuance, I don't listen to gossip, I don't interact enough to know anything that's going on. Just ask before assuming.

Except that right now I can't. I can't talk about any of this. It's too close. It sets me off. It's getting better, sure, I'm on medication again, but the smallest thing still can ruin my entire day. I have no idea how long it will take me to recover and come back to some semblance of normality. I'm not posting this myself (my partner does). Writing is going well, because it lets me not be myself. I need those walls again. The therapy of writing about pain.

I'll rebuild them. I'm not entirely sure who I'll be on the other end of it. We'll see.

I have consciously not spoken about any details because those could be misunderstood, this is not a passive aggressive callout to anybody. I have no hard feelings towards anyone, I am not angry or upset, just confused and sad. I am truly so very, very, very sorry that I've hurt people, both by action and inaction. It was never my intention. I will do my best to do better in the future.

Still working on how to do that.

[luna-tiel]

What Entrapdak Means to Me

On the eve of Entrapdak Positivity Month, I thought it was as good a time as any to share my rambling thoughts on a ship that’s affected me in a way I didn’t think was possible. 

Entrapdak is the first ship I have ever been invested in. It’s such a new experience for me that it’s taken me the last few months to wrap my head around the whole thing. I may relate to the characters in a show, but when they form romantic attachments I view it with a degree of passive distance. I don’t understand what it’s like to have those sorts of feelings for someone (I am aromantic and ace as a brick), and, well, I’m honestly not curious enough to give the subject a thorough study. My mind tends to fixate on other things. 

What does this have to do with Entrapdak, you ask? Long story short for people who don’t want to read my meandering essay -- I relate a lot to these characters, and the way they bonded together struck a deep chord in me that I can’t ignore. 

Let’s start with the characters. I knew going in that Entrapta was neurodivergent-coded, but I took it with a grain of salt. When I actually watched the show, however, I found myself relating to her so deeply it shocked me. Never have I felt such a kinship with a fictional character! We don’t share every trait, but it was still like seeing my brain put to life on screen. I related to her enthusiasm over her special interests, her struggles to fit in, her desire to make friends who accept and understand her for who she is. 

The fact Entrapta is completely herself is something I love about her. Over the years of growing up undiagnosed, I developed a lot of masking strategies. Human psychology is one of my special interests, and even with all that accumulated knowledge, masking isn’t easy. It’s extremely mentally taxing. Masking can certainly look easy -- I can, when I have the drive and energy, “pass” as neurotypical, and only people who know me extremely well can tell I’m dying inside. All that effort is taken for granted by a lot of NTs because that’s how people are “supposed to” act, and surely I can “do the bare minimum.” The accumulated stress of near constant masking has led me to the darkest moments I’ve had in my life.

Entrapta’s struggle with leaving Beast Island hit me hard. It threw me back to a time when my feelings of isolation and worthlessness got so bad that I lost the energy to do anything, even the creative pursuits that were the obsession of my life. I retreated so deeply into my inner world that I hardly interacted with anyone. That total apathy shocked my family into getting me professional help, which gave me my autism diagnosis, the coping skills to move forward, and a good start on the road to self-acceptance. It also opened a channel between my family and I, allowing me to feel heard and understood. (An important side note on mental health: if you or someone you love needs professional help, please seek it! Sometimes you have to try out several therapists -- it took me three to find a good fit -- but you are worth it!)

It took me longer to realize, but I also relate to Hordak in some ways. Mercifully I was not raised in an extremist cult environment. However, I know what it’s like to feel defective next to a sibling that seems perfect. I was constantly being compared to my younger brother, and in all areas but art, he was superior. He was smart, athletic, and above all, he fit in with everyone. I didn’t hate him for this -- I hated myself. Trying to measure up to his standard is what caused me to develop such strong masking strategies. Underneath it all, I felt the despair of knowing my peers would reject me as soon as the mask cracked. I also live with chronic joint pain, starting at around age seven. The jury is still out on what’s causing that (the worst of it was due to a previously unknown food allergy, but the pain still comes and goes, even though it’s a lot more manageable than it used to be). This cocktail of pain, stress, and sensory issues I had to deal with gave me a very short fuse at times. 

As an aside, just because I sympathize with Hordak does not mean I am excusing his actions. He is still going to have to face the consequences of his choices, and work to adjust to life post-Prime. The series end gave him a new beginning, the opportunity to be redeemed, and I prefer this to a rushed redemption arc. 

What I love most about Hordak and Entrapta’s relationship is how they accept each other as they are. Hordak gives Entrapta near free reign of his sanctum, he listens to her when she talks, and he respects her opinions. Even when he pushes her away, he still considers the logic of what she tells him, and sometimes ends up doing things her way despite his initial instincts. This is something I do in my own life; I am easily overwhelmed by new information, so my initial response to an idea/activity is almost always a firm (and sometimes rude) “no,” until I have time to properly process and think about it. Hordak is the first person in Entrapta’s life that truly listens to her. He still has things he needs to work on, but it’s a lot better than how most of the princesses are with Entrapta. The Alliance treats her as someone to be managed -- she is useful, but unreliable. Hordak, in contrast, trusts her to get things done in her own way. 

On the other side, Entrapta is the first person in Hordak’s life to accept him without judgment. Hordak spends so much of his energy putting up a front of strength and intimidation, and Entrapta cuts right through that. She’s not frightened by his appearance, and even his outbursts have little effect on her until the two of them start to bond. Entrapta doesn’t come into their interactions with any preconceived ideas of what Hordak is like, or more importantly, what he should be like. This lack of expectation leaves her completely open to accepting whatever Hordak does and says, and it also relieves Hordak of the burden of needing to put on a front around her. When Entrapta sees him at his most vulnerable, she reaches out to him with compassion, something he has never felt before. Entrapta also does this in a way that doesn’t belittle Hordak. His imperfections are not something to pity, they are a valuable part of who he is. 

I loved watching their friendship develop. Entrapta and Hordak’s shared time together evolved slowly into a bond that gave each of them a sense of belonging they had never experienced before with anyone else. It gave me the hope that, despite what an oddball mess I am, perhaps I could find someone who understands me too. 

When a romance subplot inserts itself into a story, I tend to gloss over and ignore it (if I pick up on it at all). I’m even less interested in sex. Way back when I was first getting into fandom I was so excited to go online and meet fellow fans of the books and shows I liked, only to discover the spaces being dominated by arguments over character pairings. I was baffled. This is what people are most interested in? Oh well… back to the hermit cave I go! 

I was late to the party with SPoP. I’d watched a few episodes, but the show didn’t really hook me. This was partially because all I ever heard people talk about online was Catradora, and if that was the main appeal of the show, I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it (sorry Catradora shippers, romance is not going to entice me to watch a show, even if it’s rep). Quarantine was the ultimate cause for me embracing my curiosity and diving headfirst into SPoP, binging the entire thing a few months before the release of season 5.

I vaguely knew about Entrapdak as a ship going into the show, and I admit, had I not been primed for it, I probably would have missed the romantic potential entirely. In no way did I expect to become invested. I was immediately intrigued by their dynamic, and as they got closer, I found myself thinking “oh, I see why people ship these two.” I didn’t understand this realization until months later. I was relating to the characters, and for the first time in my life, I was relating to their relationship.

I headcanon Entrapta and Hordak as an asexual couple. I’ll elaborate on this at a later time (asexuality is a spectrum with a lot of nuance, and this post is plenty long already), but at the core of it, I find joy in imagining these characters in a loving platonic relationship, something I hope to find myself one day. I hope this love comes across in my artwork and in my fanfictions <3

To those of you that read this far, wow, you must be patient! Have an imaginary cookie! I hope this ramble has provided a decent picture for why I, as an aro ace on the autism spectrum, have come to cherish Hordak and Entrapta’s relationship. It’s my first and only OTP… I’m still in shock thinking about that… I guess we’ll see where things go from here!

Take care of yourselves out there!

[dangermousie]

Heelo mousie! Love your blog! Do you mind recommending some of your favourite Chinese BL novels or shows?

I've seen the untamed and read it. I'm currently reading heaven's official blessing and I saw the donghua. Anything other than these two?

Awww, thank you!

Novels: I am gonna be lazy and literally copy/paste the entire danmei section of my top 10 web novels post (except MXTX’s stuff since you are already reading it.) Let me know if you need help finding any of these.

Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor   antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both  as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men   always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be  friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest  parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is  also finding the middle path between their two very different  philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or  dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and  setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period  setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with  character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our   protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant,   sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s  servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as  we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and  occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named   Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers  and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both  out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely  likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two  take up farming, get involved in  the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

The Wife is First - OK, this one did not make my top 10 web novels but it’s a sweet, fun gay cottagecore fest. Our ML, a royal prince, and his spouse, a smart if delicate aristocrat, keep house, eat noodles, play with their pet tiger, make out and spoil each other rotten, while occasionally fighting battles and outwitting their court enemies. It’s so very mellow. That couple redefines low drama - they are both nice and functional and use their brains. It’s as if a nice jock and a nice nerd got together and then proceeded to be wholesome all over the place.

I mean, the set up could be dramatic - our ML the prince, lost his fight for the throne and is about to be killed. The only person who stayed loyal to him is his arranged husband the aristocrat guy who ML never treated nicely since he resented marrying him (marrying a man in that world is done to remove someone from the ability to inherit the throne.) And yet the husband stood by him not out of love but beliefs in loyalty blah blah. Anyway, he transmigrates back into the past right after their wedding night and is all “I got a second chance OMG! I don’t want the throne what is even the point? I want to live a good long life and treat the only person who stood by me really well!” And he proceeds to do so to the shock of the aristocrat who had a very unpleasant wedding night and generally can tell the man he just married would rather eat nails than be married to him. But soon enough (no seriously, it’s not many chapters at all) he believes the prince is sincere blah blah and then  they get together and they pretty much become cottagecore goals.

In terms of dramas, I only do period dramas (or novels) so I am not the person to be able to recommend any modern BLs. There is a flood of upcoming (hopefully) period BL dramas but it’s relatively thin on the ground now. The two I will recommend is Word of Honor (which is AMAZING) and Winter Begonia (which I just started watching but which owns me already.) I have a tag for both - the one for the former is huge and I cannot recommend either strongly enough. I’ve heard good things about The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, but I am not big on mysteries so haven’t watched it for myself.

In terms of the upcoming BLs, the ones I am most looking forward to are Immortality and Winner Is King, but The Society of the Four Leaves also looks promising.

[tundrainafrica]

Hi Sav! Hope you’re doing well these days. Anyways, I came to ask for your opinion, to which I hope is alright with you as I enjoy your constant analyses on certain matters in SNK, on a controversial take that I arrived after much thinking, debate, and reflection with myself and others on the basis of character writing is that Floch > Hange. [Please note that it isn’t in any intention of mine to spark any debate or spread hate.] (Pt. 1); TBC—

This really ended up much longer than expected, so I’m hiding my answers to all these under ‘Keep Reading’

Thanks for the ask anon. And sorry for the long wait. I mean this is such a big brain ask when I first saw this my brain kinda went on overdrive like do you want a political analysis on AOT? A philosophical analysis? 

And I found myself thinking, really? Am I qualified to do any of those? 

So disclaimer: 

I'm neither a philosophy major nor a political science major nor do I have a master's or a PhD on anything so my analyses of it ever goes into any of those of realms or any realms in general may appear flawed, may actually seem uninformed for people who actually live and breathe the humanities and the soft sciences so heads up for that really. 

I guess this is a heads up as well for people who do read my analyses to take these with a grain of salt. I try my best not to make these sound like a word of god or anything. I'm just dropping my own takes of this based on my own beliefs, personal experiences, my own stock knowledge and an attempt to just make sense of it. And possibly to help others form their own analysis and interpretations? 

(This is a disclaimer for anything I write really.)

Okay first question...

Floch > Hänge Character Development?

No. Sorry I don't agree with that. I'm a Hänge Stan, I hate Floch but after thinking long and hard about this, I don't think I can rate Floch's character to be better written than Hange. I mean the whole basis I’m seeing behind this notion is the fact that Hange’s character path seemed like a mess? 

Which I guess I agree to a degree. There was no path set out for Hange, or the path which was given to Hange didn’t seem what she was meant for anyway from the start. But I did mention before that the nuances of Hange’s character were more subtle compared to others and I still found her development pretty reasonable and I found the way Hange did react to whatever she was doing, the way she was handling it valid.

But do I consider Floch character development or his overall character to be bad? No I don’t. I think Floch does his part to be a well written character too and if you were going to put me in a situation where I did have to pick, I would put them as equals or Floch a little less in my scale of well-written. 

Because I think their arcs and the developments of their characters have so many parallels that I couldn’t help but just deem them as of equal depth? Just in completely different directions? 

Okay, first things first before I go in depth to as to why I consider both their characters well written, let's ask ourselves, what makes a good character? 

I have always been a fan of characters and overarching plots. I think I have had this talk with people multiple times but I have never been a fan of flash fiction or anthologies. If I wanna get into something, I get in hard, I virtually make friends with all of the characters in my head, I write fanfiction, I hc. And I always have to relate so hard to at least one character before I even say I enjoy something. 

And as a consumer of fiction and a simp for the characters more than the actual plotlines at times, I would consider well-written characters to be characters so relatable, those that develop so naturally that they can evoke emotions in readers, they feel real. And what I consider SPECTACULARLY well written characters as those that not just evoke emotions but do do their part to help me reflect on my views on certain topics and help me refine my views to at least make them a little more nuanced and to help keep me informed on other views so at least I can tackle future challengs, problems and situations with a new way of thinking or with a new perspective.

I mean, in the simplest of words, the most well-written characters are those that can teach a lesson and they do it by helping the readers and the audiences walk in their shoes, and they do it by evoking, sympathy, empathy and almost friendly intimacy. 

And of course, all Hange stans agree. Hange has made us feel things. Tbh, Hange’s death literally made me feel like a lost a pet or maybe even a good friend, I did have a hard time getting out of bed for a few days after 132. So Hange, did touch me in ways that other characters didn’t. So that does mean that Hange’s well written? Right? 

Okay then people might ask, then why didn’t you feel the same way for Floch, that means he wasn’t well written right? No. It doesn’t. Floch did his job. He made people angry. He made people seethe. And I think the fact that Floch made people feel so many things even with his very limited screentime and his very underwhelming achievements (yo, the man had to ride on the main protagonists fame to get anywhere), I think he did amazingly to leave his mark. And although he does leave us all seething while rereading 132 and while reflecting on Hange and meta-ing her death. If we even the playing field by considering the disparity in screentime and depth and overall achievements between the two, we have to admit that Floch did evoke emotions in us and he did make us reflect maybe (ON HOW MUCH OF AN ASSHOLE JAEGERISTS ARE...) and he turned out to be a pretty memorable character.  And maybe he is at least, close to the other characters or even Hange or on par at least in the scale of well written. 

And that’s just the emotions. There are also so many things I wanted to point out about both their developments. If we consider the AOT narrative, it is a huge conglomerate and sometimes it does get messy. I mean Yams as like fifty if not a hundred characters he has to give depth to at a time given the overall plot. And the thing is, he did ease into the story the depth of each character incredibly slowly. 

I have been watching AOT since 2013 for example but I never really started writing fanfiction until last year when I managed to get the whole story in one whole binge. I thought about this for a while and I did read a few reviews on just season 1 and a commonality I found among a lot of reviews was the fact that the characters weren’t… engaging? Most were forgettable and faded to the back of EMA and to a degree, Levi. 

I mean, 2013 me was a Levi simp and I shipped him with Petra because I low key wanted to explore the softie in him before I fell off the earth of fangirling coz college happened. Then I did realize, Season 1 did fail to give a lot of characters as much depth and as much exposition compared to the later seasons (for good reason). I think the whole point of season 1 really was to set the tone, set the setting and introduce the characters. 

More relevant to this essay is the depth of Hange’s characters actually, and the first time I did notice it was around season 2 maybe with the appearance of pastor NIck because that was when we started to see her more serious side. And we started to see that maybe she had a genius and a brain which surpassed even her nerdy and crazy titan demeanor. I mean sure, I did know she was a genius and she had to be smart since Season 1 since she was a researcher and that had been touched on multiple times in Season 1 but the fact that she knew how to lead and the fact that she took the reins when pushed comes to shove, that she could become serious and she could still deliver in times like those, cemented her as a more nuanced character I genuinely liked to explore more.

And Hange’s development was incredibly natural, very believable and it did evoke emotions in me (especially with the later episodes). I’m suspecting that the reason people found it ‘messy’ I guess or ‘all-over-the place’ generally was because as I mentioned before, it was subtle. Hange had no one to talk to, Hange wasn’t the type either to give her own exposition right? When has Hange ever talked about herself in the story? When has she ever justified her actions? 

When has anyone actually stopped to explain Hange’s actions. Like I feel like literally, we have had exposition on other characters except Hange, it’s like even the characters take Hange’s actions for granted. And I guess the reason behind it is because Hange has never done anything too questionable to even need a freudian excuse or a justification and if that doesn’t say anything about how kind hearted her character is overall, i dunno anymore man.

And Floch had some good development to, and I think the reason why Floch had that ‘exposition’ which made his overall character arc and the development more ‘clean’ or ‘obvious’ is because Floch was incredibly vocal about it. I mean with Erwin’s death and his actions and his saying ‘only a demon can lead,’ we get a glimpse of Floch’s ideologies from the start. 

This is compared to Hange. As you noticed in early Season 4, Hange never discusses her ideologies. I mean we know she’s kind hearted and we know she does have preferences like ALL other people. All we got from Hange though when Erwin died and Levi picked Armin was… “I would have picked Erwin too.” and during the actual pivotal scene, she had been too busy comforting MIkasa that we never really get indepth crumbs on how Hange would have picked it. 

It was only natural she would because it was more of the strategic option. But do we get a lot  metas on why Hange would pick Erwin? Not enough crumbs to make it worth while besides we have the strategic reason and maybe the ‘he’s our friend’ reason but Hange just never seemed selfish enough to be like that. Anyway, the only time Hange does explicitly mention her dreams after like early season 4 of her just keeping away from reporters, strategizing as a commander and just… being tired was when the survey corps was actually split up. WHen Hange was put in a position where she had to actively say her own ideologies to get whatever people could be on her side and that was in ch. 126, after the forest scene. 

It was as if with the betrayal, she realized she had to more actively hold on to her idealogy to get shit done because she needed to band together with similar thinkers at least who believed the rumbling was wrong. 

Anyway, I believe their developments were incredibly natural and I honestly think these developments were incredibly crucial to the story to show one crucial point on society and human nature as a whole. 

Which brings me to my next point: 

 Was it a deliberate decision by Isayama to create chaos in s4? What purpose (like in the movement of the actual plot because it’s obvious that her role is that of a commander of the SC) does her character arc serve in s4? Just to create the Alliance? To bind together the “opposition force” against Eren? To temporarily keep the commander position warm before Armin takes it?

I want to talk about something. I mean this has been weighing on me for a while and I really think to a degree that whatever I noticed could have just been reaching but whatever, I’m just gonna entertain this possibility now and just never talk about it again. Probably. 

There are parallels between Hange and Floch. There must have been a reason behind the circumstances and most importantly the timeline of their death. They died right after the other. Floch had been the reason for Hange’s eventual sacrifice and after Hange’s sacrifice, the final battle did start right? 

And there was a message Yams wanted to definitely give with the death of the two factions of the survey corps: 

The first thing which I thought of was, the two factions of the survey corps died and they acted like the ‘wings of freedom’ to make the final battle possible and to make the plane fly which is a culmination of the whole build up of what the survey corps was in the first place. 

And if I remember correctly, Hange wore the last cloak. She had been the last one wearing the wings of freedom insygnia when she died. If we look back at everyone else fighting post 132, none of them were wearing anything reminiscent of the old survey corps right? So I couldn’t help but think, with Hange and Floch’s death, the survey corps died with them. And the survey corps and their wings of freedom dream died to get the protagonist and the alliance to fly and fight Eren.

And when I thought about this, I was thinking, Hange and Floch must have represented something much more important for the survey corps. When the survey corps had a common enemy in titans they were united. They had a common goal. They had freedom. And when their enemies are mindless giants, there’s nothing much to reflect on. The main emotion the average soldier would probably feel towards the other is disgust right? The thing is (and this is a fairly common message in AOT) when the enemy becomes humans, it gets a little more complicated. 

And lemme try to explain why I think hate runs much deeper when dealing with a human enemy than a mindless eating giant. Some people would think. “They’re human, why would you hate them more than a mindless eating giant?” 

The most general thinking process I would come up with, when trying to make sense of the hate that humans tend to feel when faced with an other which is also human is this: 

“You eat just like me. You sleep just like me. YOu shit just like me. But why don’t you agree with me? Why are your principles all over the place? Why do you not hold the same ideals close as I do? Aren’t we both human? Aren’t we of the same background? The same species? WHY DON’T YOU AGREE WITH ME?”

And this realization that humans can have beliefs in the whole other side of the spectrum, tends to have people thinking THEN YOU MUST BE PURE EVIL. The thing is, when faced with an unknown creature, humans have a tendency to be more open and more accepting with how one navigates the world. But when their enemy is just like them but just navigates the world so differently, humans just can’t stomach it because it’s like ‘I’m supposed to understand this person because I’m a person too... but I don’t’ and I think that’s generally why hate and why ostracization is just SO much more prevalent in humans. 

And that same hate, possibly fueled flock and the jaegerists further in the first place. And before that, maybe that same thought process did lay out the foundation of hate and for calling the Eldian’s in Paradis the island devils. And to makemy point of ‘the more alike, the more hate they probably feel’ who hates the Eldians more than the… Eldians? Right? 

Anyway, yes this hate only exists because humans have different way on how they choose to navigate their beliefs and how they choose to navigate their lives and it is a huge fuel for hate as mentioned above but now, I want to address another point as a good segue to the whole ‘how did Floch and Hange create this faction in the first place.’ 

The chaos was deliberate but at the same time, it was the most natural progression for whatever shit was going on there. When all they were fighting were titans, there was no idealogy to question there was no Otherworldly creature to reflect on. And the thing is, going back to my thoughts above, they were alike yet they were so different which gave them the best environment for a little political tension. 

I mean to prove my point on how much variety there is in political beliefs and ideologies in this world despite all of us being the same race, lemme just drop a simple political compass quiz as a link for anyone who’s interested. I’m not gonna go in depth into that but yes, I’m pretty sure we’re all familiar with right, left, the liberatarian, conservative and everything in between.

But anyway the point is, people look for different things in any political environment. People look for many different things in leaders. No single leader is going to please everyone. Erwin did get his own fair share of flack because people hated that he was so easily sacrificing his soldiers. Remember in season 1 when the guy called Erwin heartless because he left the body? 

Hange just happened to be on the other side of the spectrum (or maybe she was too moderate. I believe that the far right and the far left have more in common really than moderates vs radicals)

Maybe Hange did have too much of a heart, maybe sacrificing soldiers didn’t come as easily for her. I mean sure casualties are inevitable but I found Hange’s approach to keeping casualties to a minimum, much more proactive than Erwin’s efforts have ever been if you get what I mean. With the raid on Marley for example, I had this convo with my friend on how generally back in the world wars when they sent paratroopers to a place, there was kinda an acceptance that the paratroopers wouldn’t make it since paratroopers are hard to collect. 

But the fact that Hange went through all that as to get lights set up and a blimp there just to save as much people as she can? Compared to Erwin’s expeditions where he just let people die left and right?

And you get the huge culmination of all that when Hange says that freedom isn’t worth the price of the rumbling. And Hange’s road to freedom had been the conventional, safe and slow option of diplomacy. 

(I don’t wanna go into a meta now on whether or not Erwin would have approved the rumbling but he probably wouldn’t but maybe anther time? I dunno?)

So the point is, Hange had a more conservative approach towards the ‘freedom’ which the survey corps has been fighting for so long. And only naturally, not everyone would have agreed to such an approach especially after a hundred years of suffering, after finding out that Marley still wanted to continue the war and especially when they are completely aware that they have the trump card of rumbling right at their fingertips in the form of one Eren Jaegar. So the formation of the Jaegerists was very reasonable and Floch of all people of course who was told to march to his death, who  experienced the deaths of 200 soldiers first hand to an honorary Marleyan, to monsters of the outside world would be the one to see marching to death, to giving away lives for a cause to be reasonable.  

And civil unrest is a fact of life. As long as you get enough people who don’t agree with whoever’s in power, power struggle will exist. And with the variety of points on the political compass, all types of people with different beliefs, ideologies and ways of thinking will exist so by extension, power struggles will always exist and it was only natural that something will have sprung up in the survey corps anyway. 

There’s actually a theory that can explain this. It’s called a social contract theory if I remember correctly. There is a social contract between the powerful and the non-powerful. The powerful has to make the non-powerful at least somewhat satisfied. Because the moment, the powerful becomes unbearably abusive, unwilling to even let the beliefs of the non-powerful to slide, if they never let the people under them get their way at least once, then the non-powerful/ the masses will fight back and we have seen the breaking of this ’social contract’ in action countless times in history.

And that was possibly what happened between Hange and the Jaegerists 

Hange and Floch represented two different ways the belief and the fight for freedom had evolved with the opening up of Paradis. Floch was Hange’s antithesis. A fight for freedom can be violent. But a fight for freedom can also be diplomatic.

And if I do compare it to one discourse in history...

And I think the final To Rumble or NOT to rumble debate is actually very similar to the Revolution vs. Reformation debates which tend to pop up in a lot of history lessons, especially those that discuss post colonialism from the point of view of the colonies. 

I’m from the Philippines which was a colony of Spain, Japan and the US so the reformation vs. revolution debate did come up a lot and I did have to study it. 

We had a really famous reformist during the Spanish period who wrote two books which Filipino students are all required to read in high school. A lot of Filipinos started pointing out how the main character of the book was incredibly similar to Eren. That in the first book, Noli Me Tangere, he was pretty hopeful, tried to build a school, tried to change from the inside out, then he had a character development towards the second book which was similar to Eren’s. 

In El Filibusterismo, the main character, Simuon who is pretty much their Eren, had a plan similar to the rumbling where he planted a bomb in a wedding full of rich people. If I remember correctly, it was a lamp and the moment they light the lamp it explodes. 

There was one character named Isagani who crashed the party and stole the lamp before it could explode. I guess narrative wise, he did remind me of Hange. 

Okay, fine Isagani did it because he had a crush on their girl and he didn’t want her to die. But back when I did watch the play, I remember so many people back then, we’re incredibly frustrated about the fact that the lamp didn’t explode. I remember people were screaming as Isagani ran in and stole the lamp before the bride could light it. As a high school student, I was frustrated too. I kinda wanted the lamp to explode and kill everyone there because all the people in the wedding were assholes the whole story anyway.

Looking back at it. I couldn’t help but think, hasn’t Hange been trying to do the same thing since the start of the story? And I guess when I started to look at the parallels, I thought of the fact that maybe one reason I am so against the rumbling despite everything that has been happening, despite sympathizing so much in the Eldians and even after completely understanding everything behind it is because my favorite characters were also so adamant about it? 

Or it could have been reversed. Would they have been my favorite characters? The ones I’d like to emulate the most if they weren’t against it? 

Anyway, I just wanted to end this long ass essay on positive note but the most well written characters are those that can make us change our views, make us reflect, constantly think and refine our own personal views. 

And now that I think about it, if the show ended anticlimactically with Hange doing something similar to Isagani’s lamp stealing. If Hange just did something before the rumbling even started, maybe I wouldn’t have been as frustrated with AOT as high school me had been when El Filibusterismo ended. 

Maybe because, Hange and her ideologies had already rubbed off on me a long time ago, and if that’s not a sign of a well written character then I guess I don’t know what well-written means then.