#Really think it suffered from not having the metaphors better handled?

[flaskoflethe]

I think the most significant metaphor in I Saw the TV Glow, if only in my interpretation, was the fucking inhaler. It's the device that gives enough temporary relief from the suffocation of being buried alive and not even knowing something's wrong, not by temporarily making it not wrong but by making you not notice that specific problem. It's still there, you're still suffocating and crushed under the ground dying alone and with your actual self torn out of you, while the fake version of you huffs the inhaler again and again with growing despair because it never addressed the problem, you were just told it would fix what was wrong

[thewritetofreespeech]

Tender Loving Care

pairing: Aemond x Reader

summary: after a training accident, Aemond's wife takes care of him. In more ways than one.

tags: heterosexual sex, cowgirl, massage, hand job, cum eating, cranky Aemond is a good boy for his wife, mentions of the other members of the Green but not present.

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Training accidents were as common as breathing if one wanted to master the sword.

If one wanted to hold a blade, then one must also be prepared to suffer its bite. Aemond was well aware of this. Even though it was just training, play fighting for the knights & instructors brought in from all over Westeros to teach the prince, he had been cut before. Nothing serious. Nothing like his eye. He wishes it had been. It would make this latest injury less wounding than the others.

A simple misstep, that was all. His own clumsiness was what put him in this bed. His leg wasn’t broken or maimed, but twisted in his fall, to the point that he could put no weight on it. Or at least that was what the maesters said.

2 weeks. That was the punishment for his own mistake. He was not to leave this bed save to relieve himself and the few moments a day he was granted to stand & test his legs progress. Each day was a new torment. Not for the pain, Aemond could handle that, but the failure of trying his leg and only have it betray him again & again. He wondered how his father did it all those years trapped in his bed. Aemond would have begged for death sooner.

“Husband,” the prince looked up from his window and thoughts of limping over to throw himself out of it, when his wife’s voice came into the room.

One of his few constant visitors during his confinement. Helaena came to visit him but was busy with her children. Aegon only came once, to taunt him about his trip more than anything before he left and a back handed ‘get better Aemond the Fierce!’. His mother came as well but flapped between concern and scolding for his ‘recklessness’. She was the only one who seemed genuinely concerned for him, though her concern was not needed. Aemond did not wish to feel more like an invalid than he already did. “What is it?”

“It is time to change the bandage on her leg.” To keep it straight. To keep him bound, he thought with a spat, although Aemond arched a brow at the comment.

“Where is the maester?” His wife was many things, but she was no practitioner of medicine nor magic.

She sighed. “Did you really expect them to come back willingly after last time?” Aemond pursed his lips.

Under the best of circumstances, Aemond was aware that he was not the most agreeable person in the realm. Could anyone really blame him? His existence had taught him over & over that it was better to lash out and cut first, lest you be the one who is sliced. Metaphorically, of course. He wasn’t a mad man like some of his ancestors. And attached to this bed the only weapon at his disposal was his words. He had cursed, jeered, and ranted, honestly uncharacteristic of himself, at the maester who had attended to his leg the day before and had the nerve to tell him his progress was splendid. If it was so splendid then why was he still in this bed? If he was such a great man of knowledge and skill, why hadn’t he healed him yet?! He should go back to whatever dung heap he crawled out of and beg alms for to the gods for wasting a fine Citadel education on an incompetent!!

The prince said a few more unkind things before he forbade any of them from touching him again. He did not think they would take him seriously.

“So, they sent you to do the work of a common barrio healer since they do not wish to do their jobs?”

“I think it was more that they thought you wouldn’t scratch at me. More fool they then, hn?”

Aemond sunk further into his pillows, sulking. He doesn’t mean to scratch at her. He doesn’t mean to scratch at any of them, honestly. He just wanted to get out of his bed and go on with his life. To have the world move on around him, to grow weak and irrelevant in this bed, was the real punishment. “I’m sorry.” He apologized. “…thank you…for helping me…”

“You’re welcome Aemond.”

How quick she was to accept his apology. How quick she was to help him, already coming to his side despite his scratching, when he needed her. No wonder he was always alone….

The prince did what he could for her as he raised his leg from the pillow propping it up and held it there while she unwrapped the old dressing. “Are you sure you know what you are doing?” It was not meant as a slight. Just a genuine curiosity on if she knew the proper way to wrap his injury.

His wife just chuckled. “Yes, Aemond. Despite not wanting to come in here on their own, the maesters did instruct me on how to do it properly.” Cowards, he thought. “There! All done.”

Aemond looked at his leg with his good eye and tried to flex at his foot. His nostrils flared at the persistent pain, but it was wrapped correctly. He was impressed. “Thank you.”

“Of course. I want you healed as soon as possible as well.” Her hand reached for his on the bed and clasped it. “In fact…I was told of another treatment….one that might help with the…circulation in your leg.”

“Oh?” Aemond was curious about that. Trapped in this bed, his legs were not getting the work out that they normally would. Training aside, the walk around the castle was enough exercise for most lords. He hadn’t been able to go more than a few steps for days. His legs teetered between weightlessness and the sharp pricks of falling asleep all the time. “Will it improve my condition?”

“It….could…” She seemed unconvinced. Avoiding, even. But perhaps that was because the last person who made remarks about the improvement of his condition was threatened to be fed to Vhagar. “Will you let me try it?”

What was there to lose, he thought, and Aemond nodded before he helped her take off his lower bed linens so both his legs were bare. A small vial appeared out from her pocket, and she poured some of its contents onto her hands before rubbing them together and placing them on his leg. “Just…try to relax for me.”

A hefty ask, but he does try. All he could do recently was ‘try to relax’. ‘Rest, my prince’, ‘you need time to heal’. It was all he had heard for the past days, to the point that any word close to ‘relax’ had almost the opposite effect on him. But for her, he does try. For her it worked a little. His shoulders finally untensing. Looking at her in the candlelight. Soft feelings swelling at the touch of her soft hands. “Does it feel good?”

“Yes.” He answered, almost without thinking. It did feel good. He didn’t realize how stiff his leg was until this moment.

Aemond let out a deep exhale. Not really a sigh, just the release of all the air in his lungs and tension built in his body. His eye closed as he laid back and let his wife work. They aren’t strong, but persistent. He continued to enjoy until he felt her hands shift up higher. Up his calf where his injury was to above his knee. “What are you doing?”

“What??” Her shocked face was particularly adorable in the soft light. Wide, wild eyes. Body frozen save for a soft tremble in her shoulders. “I..I’m rubbing your leg. I told you.”

“My injury is not there though.” He told her logically. Gaze still fixed on her for any kind of reveal.

“I…I know…” Her hands shift to seem to want to move away from him, but she willed them to stay still. “I just thought…maybe there was some other tension I could help you with….”

It was Aemond’s turn to be shocked, but he doesn’t show it on his face like she does. His wife was a lady. A demure, kind, noble one at that. Though she wasn’t nearly as boring & cow eyed as the other noble ladies on offer to him at the time of his betrothal, or so Aemond assumed as he didn’t pay much attention to any of them, boldness like this was not heard of in their marriage. She never denied him. Seemed fond of when they were together; or at least made all the right noises like she did. But it was always he who initiated such acts in their bedroom. To see her offer, and on offer, as he finally took in her appearance and the thin robe she had come to him in, Aemond would not deny that it was quite arousing.

Without another word, Aemond parted his legs further to give her room. If this was her intention, he would not deny her. There was a flush on her cheeks that bleed down her neck towards the V of her robe when he did this. Her resolve seeming to waiver, and disappointment started to drip into his chest at the prospect he may have ruined this too with his terrible attitude, but she continued.

The prince sighed. Gladdened to feel her hands on him again and closed his eye with a newfound desire for his treatment, now that he knew what was going on. “Higher.”

“Here?”

Her coquettish tone was a tonic to his ears. She was enjoying this. She was enjoying touching him and playing with him. His cock jumped as it filled fuller. More aroused by the fact that his wife truly did want him than her hands close, but not close enough, to his member. “Higher.”

“Here?”

Aemond opened his eye and genuinely growled at his wife. Though this game was amusing, enticing, it had been days since he’d found release. Being stuck in this bed did not really spur a person on towards desire. And though she laid with him at night like a good wife she had been spared from her ‘wifely duties’ for some time as Aemond was either still in too much pain from his leg, or unable to move it to perform the act, or in too bad of a mood to make the effort. Having her close. Feeling her touch. It was like the flood gates opened on a dam he had long since locked up and threw away the key on. “Please….”

His kind, noble, demure wife took pity on him, and also took his cock in her hand. Aemond’s head tilted back as he moaned. Her soft hands stroking his member from under his night shirt slowly, deliberately. She had touched him before, so she knew how he liked it, but honestly she could have touched him anyway she liked. Like a clumsy novice that first night they were together, and he still would have melted in her hands.

“Does it feel good?”

“Yes.” Again, without thought. But headier this time. More needy. He opened his eye to look upon his wife and found her staring at him. Those bright eyes darkened with desire. He’d never seen it before; mostly because when they were together her face was either buried in his chest, or shoulder, or in the pillows. Aemond bit his bottom lip hard. Trying not to cum at just the sight of her.

“It’s ok.” She told him in a whisper. Like it was a secret between the two of them. “You can let go husband. Will you let go for me?”

It was the softest command that Aemond had ever heard, and yet it forced him to obey more than any other. His back pressed further back into the pillows as his head tilted back again. His cock spasming in her hand as his seed leapt out from the tip. Covering her hand and perhaps getting some on her pretty robe by her knee. He would have to get her another one.

He opened his eye again after coming down from his high. Just in time to see her lick his seed off the palm of her hand. “What are you doing?”

“Well, the royal seed is sacred, is it not?” Her grin was soft, but mischievous. “We should not waste it.”

Aemond’s hand darted out to grab hold of her arm and drag her down to him in a deep, needy kiss. Apparently the flood gates he thought were released earlier were in truth just a leak in the levees. This was when the dam broke now. The need he had for her burning so hot that he could almost taste blood at the back of his tongue, his blood was boiling so hot.

He tried to spread his legs wider to make more room for his wife, but when he moved, he was reminded (painfully) of his injury. “Damnit!” The prince hissed against his wife’s lips. The throbbing in his leg almost in tandem with his cock.

“Sssh…it’s ok Aemond.” He wanted to bite at her soft words.

It was not ok! None of this was ok! He was injured, in pain, stuck in this bed, and now he couldn’t even fuck his wife! He felt useless. He felt angry. He felt humiliated not being able to do things as a man should, and he just wanted to get back to normal!

Before he could tell her any of this, however, his wife pulled back and removed her robe from her body. Mesmerizing in the fire light. No Valyrian alabaster, but still just as dazzling to Aemond. Shift discarded, his wife raised her hips and inched closer to hover them over his own. “The maester said not to move unless absolutely necessarily.” He wanted to argue that laying with his wife was absolutely necessarily, particularly in this moment, but all his words left him on a moan as she lowered herself onto him. “So you just stay there. L-Let me take care of you.” The little stammer in her voice as she started rolling her hips almost sent Aemond into a frenzy, but he endured.

He genuinely couldn’t move with her on top of him like this and his position on the bed. Though why would be want to? For the first time since his accident, Aemond was actually ecstatic to be stuck here in this bed. His wife lovingly impaling herself on his member. Riding him with skill just short of a dragon rider. If he had the wits still about him, he would have chuckled at his own joke. ‘Dragon rider’. As it was though he was stupid with lust. Dumb, witless, helpless at her mercy as she took from him everything and gave him back so much. He still had brains at least to return the favor.

His wife cried out when he reached up to cup her breast. The weight of them in his hands something he missed. Aemond does not get a lot of time to enjoy them, however, as his wife suddenly fell forward. Covering his body with her own. Hips still moving but at a much snappier pace with the depleted gap between them. He didn’t care though. His hands just repositioned themselves on her other mounds at her backside and pressed her to move faster.

“A-Aemond!” Her cries were his music. The tempo in which he set a new rhythm.

The wet sound of their sexes kissing along with their actual kissing fill the room, until it all stopped in one bright, shining moment of his wife shaking on top of him while her fists tried to fight his pillows and he spilled inside her this time.

He wished he could hold her like this for longer. Her weight a comfort, like a blanket, in his arms. But she rolled over onto his non-injured side to lay beside him. It was good enough. “Do you feel better now?”

Aemond looked down at her, having to turn his head completely as to not just look at her with the sapphire in his eye, realizing at last what this was about. Her idea of a good will effort. To lift his spirits and relieve his tension. Maybe keep him from trying to execute more of the maesters in the castle. “Yes. I’m feeling better.”

She smiled, then placed a soft kiss on his shoulder. “Good.”

The fingers from the hand around her own shoulders played with her hair as he stared at the ceiling. “Was this all just for me though?”

His wife looked at him with a perplexed look, but then realized what he was asking and blushed. She was smart enough to figure it out. “Not…all of it. I did want you to be in better spirits but…I have missed you.”

The corner of Aemond’s lips ticked up. Pleased, and pleased with himself. He did not think his sexual prowess was worth much compared to his prowess with a sword or strategy. But to hear that his wife wanted him, truly wanted him, was all the praise he would ever need. “So, you came up with this idea to satisfy both of us, ābrazyrys.”

“It wasn’t….all my idea…” Aemond arched a brow at his wife’s words. Curious now where she had got the idea from, as it had clearly come from somewhere. “Aegon commented on your bad mood and how someone should ‘cheer you up’. He gave me the idea, but the rest of it was all my doing.”

Aemond wasn’t sure which comment he was more shocked about. The fact that his brother knew how he was faring in his recovery, or the fact that he made lewd comments to his wife. He was battering between feelings of an odd sense of touched and white hot furry, but he decided to just let it go for now and enjoy his wife. “Well, thank you, regardless. In future I will try not to scratch at you while I am still confined to this bed. Lest you ask.”

She giggled when he kissed the top of her forehead. “And the maesters?”

“They are on their own.” Idiots. “I make no promises on their safety, but I will…endeavor to be of better character in the future.” At least not threaten to feed them to Vhagar. That seemed a reasonable adjustment.

[bonefall]

do you have any tips for writing a low empathy character who isn't evil? Or how to make an interesting apathetic character who's a thoughtless sort of evil? These are two different chatacters btw-

I tried looking up examples and stuff but uh. It's been a bit fruitless.

Honestly it's not too hard! Having low empathy just means we're bad at automatically "connecting" to the feelings of other people. You can come to understand it's not even a character flaw once you uncouple the idea that Empathy = Kindness. And apathy, well, that one's a bit more complicated imo.

Low Empathy

In English, it's just unfortunately super common to conflate Empathy and Compassion. To have compassion is to be aware of the suffering of another person, and ergo, want to help stop it. To be empathetic is to identify with and understand the feelings of another person. These are different things.

For an example in action; imagine a medic with a patient whose shoulder is dislocated, and xey'll need to pop that arm back in place in order for the patient to feel better.

A medic feeling EMPATHY for that patient is having an emotional response to what xey're seeing. Xey might have a tingly "ghost pain" thinking about the injury, and xey might feel guilty xey're going to put them in more agony, but also joy because this patient is going to feel much better in just a moment.

A medic feeling COMPASSION for that patient is thinking about how the shoulder must be causing a lot of pain, and knows xey have the skill to fix it. Xey know from xeir own experience that pain sucks and so it is a bad thing that needs to go away. It will hurt a little more for a moment, but then there will be immediate relief.

This is imo, why a lot of low empathy people are "bad at" comforting people without going to Autism College where they give you the scripts of Shit Neurotypicals Say. We're not trying to be selfish when we end up making "comfort sessions" about ourselves-- that's what we think empathy is, because we don't have a lot of it to really know what you want.

Like, doesn't it make sense to you? "I don't know what you're feeling. Here's a similar situation I've been though. I must know what you're feeling-- does that make you feel better? That you aren't alone? I think that's what empathy is, am I right?"

A LOT of low empathy people go into medical fields, the funeral industry, and disaster relief. We often really do want to help people so seek these fields out, or when we get there, just end up not getting burnt out like our high-empathy peers!

Apathy

As for the apathetic character, honestly, I'd suggest thinking about your story's themes. Villains are very special to me and I always try to handle them with care. What are you trying to say is bad to not care about in your work? How does their apathy play into the story you're trying to tell?

A Captain Planet villain is completely selfish, and exists only to benefit itself by exploiting nature in some way. Then the Planeteers show up and punch it in the face. Boiled down to its barest, most simple essentials; "We have conflicting goals and so I will stop you."

Personally I find total apathy to be something not especially compelling in villains, for that reason. Like, if you really don't care about anything, why bother with the trouble of going against the protag? Motivation is meant to be MOTIVATING.

(also ngl I'm on the Shadow As A Hero sort of bandwagon where I find it much funnier for the simple apathetic cool edgy guy to be the funniest person on your tennis team)

Dungeon Meshi has TWO characters who struggle with apathy, and are both antagonists at some points in the story, but never villains. Shuro and Mithrun. The theme of Dungeon Meshi is the beauty and complexity of life, the value of living, and how our connections to others changes the people we are. Food is a metaphor for bonding, self-care, and understanding.

For Shuro, he begins the story as someone who's both been encouraged to bottle up his emotions for the sake of other people, as well as to not actually consider the emotions of those lower-born than him. He's from a very different place than the other members of his party, and this causes friction as class, culture, and sophisticated, refined, weapons-grade autism clashes.

When the woman he loves is eaten by a dragon, he doesn't stop to tell her brother and """childhood friend""" what he's planning, as if they both wouldn't run in and get hurt. He owns demi-humans. He doesn't consider his own needs or the needs of his rescue team of loyal vassals. As a result, he's too weak to continue, losing a fistfight with one of the main characters, Laios.

After this, he connects with him for the very first time, and reaches out to him by giving him an important magic item. There's even a MASSIVE moment where he outright tells Laios that his ability to be so open (read: not have to mask his autism) is something he envies, breaking through that veil of apathy he wears.

The story Dungeon Meshi is telling here is that it is important to value the needs of yourself and of others. Shuro's apathy towards his own needs in a bid to prove his love weakened him. In acting like he was above his old teammates, he never spoke to them like people to smooth out his issues. He's never even noticed how much his vassals love and care for him.

(and the incredible irony is not lost on me, that Shuro's name is because Laios mispronounced it and was never corrected... while Shuro never noticed that Izutsumi had the unwanted name "Asebi" forced onto her when she was "taken in" and made his slave.)

See how that comes back to the theme? Shuro doesn't exist to just "be some asshole" or act like a villain. He has a full character arc that contributes to the narrative.

For Mithrun? I won't even spoil it. Go read Dungeon Meshi. Watch elf depression. We love a king with strabismus.

Anyway,

If you ever need good personal resources on any stigmatized mental condition, I've found it's usually productive to go into the #Actually (Thing) tag here on Tumblr. You can find people posting about basically anything. I found a lot of really good resources on NPD that way.

[sepublic]

Another thing I’ve noticed about Wittebane fans is that they would really rather speculate on an unseen dynamic and how codependent it was, or on Belos having religious trauma or being a socially awkward child (despite this conflicting with him being a confident, silver-tongued politician) over like. Discussing Belos’ character as he actually is onscreen.

And onscreen Belos is about Christian colonialism, he IS the religious trauma. He’s the white saviorism, the racism, the genocide, the arrogant delusions of Puritans. These are actually onscreen, and darker and deeper than like, the Wittebanes being Cain and Abel or Saturn devouring his son because what are you actually discussing here that’s topical?

But fans don’t want to talk about that, they don’t want to talk about what makes Belos his own character and what makes his writing work. They want to make Belos and Caleb into a racist, less interesting version of the Nocedas, Clawthorne sisters, Collector, etc. And when Belos doesn’t measure up to these standards because he’s a square peg being put through a round hole, fans get angry at the writers. It’s alienating to those who want to discuss Belos, the actual Belos.

And I think it boils down to fans being discomforted by topics such as colonialism and genocide, and facing just how intertwined Belos is with depicting it on a large and personal scale; He isn’t even a metaphor at this rate, but a literal example of a Christian white man from a 1600s American colony. These subjects are not something fans can romanticize, so they focus on the dynamic with his brother, on being codependent or tortured or suffering from religious trauma, etc.

It’s very faux-deep, it’s pretentious in a Dark Academia way, Cannibalism as a metaphor for love. It reminds me of fans who claim to love Dark Fics and can handle dark topics, but then implode when you ask them to discuss critical race theory. They think they’re being subversive and even punk but it’s just white guys in the end. It thinks itself deeper just for being ‘darker’ but it’s not even that dark compared to other things, it’s just edgy. King and Steve’s conversation as a stand-in for Dana’s ruminations on God are genuinely deeper than every Cain-Abel Wittebane fic.

There’s a Vtuber who just did an Owl House marathon and while she didn’t pick up on a lot, the discussion on Belos by fans who are explaining it to her is so refreshing, because there’s no mention of Caleb! There’s no mention of Belos being repressed or feeling abandoned. It’s all about how he actually is onscreen and is presented and what he does onscreen. It’s about the delusions and evil of those who practice Puritan ideology. And the actions that have far more impact than killing his brother.

And it makes me think, this is another reason why we don’t see Caleb; Because the writers knew fans would use him as a distraction from the actual things they’re discussing and satirizing through Belos. They would use him as a distraction from the true motives, the banality of evil, as Belos does; And Belos himself doesn’t even do it that much, he’s upfront about how he thinks witches are inherently evil and need to be killed in the name of God so even he is avoiding factoring Caleb into the discussion! Alas, the writers underestimate just how far fandom will go when they get even a scent of a possible white guy.

Can we talk about the Wittebanes as they actually are instead of retreading other characters’ old ground? The tragedy of the Wittebanes isn’t about some lonely orphan just wanting to be accepted by his community, being unable to handle the thought of his brother leaving, and not knowing any better because that’s just how things were back then; It’s about seeing your kid brother embrace the alt-right pipeline because white supremacy makes him feel special, and no matter how many years you spend trying to change his mind, he eventually, finally turns on you too.

[kustas]

Sorry for the incoming long rant.

I just rediscovered your blog, and I always enjoyed your thoughts on WHA and wanted to rant a little bit. I found a post of yours talking about how WHA is getting less nuanced and I feel the same way. I feel like in an effort to make every character feel like a person, the manga treats everyone’s issues as if they’re on the same level. I’m not sure if that entirely makes sense, but it feels like the manga is trying to make you sympathize with everyone to some extent, even though that doesn’t really work. For example, there is a chapter that pissed me off so much that I had to put the manga on pause. It’s the chapter where Coco shows off a spell that can clean water, and the townspeople are uninterested because they don’t need it. And the moral of the chapter is that Coco should make her spell for everyone. No. No no no. These people need to learn some damn compassion and realize that they need to help end what suffering that they are able to. The moral of the chapter should’ve been that these people need to stop thinking of only themselves. Everything else was aimed at them, so Coco’s spell didn’t need to be for them. It shouldn’t have been for them. There is also the situation with the knights. You went into this already but who gives a shit if they are offended by a grieving husband taking out his anger in them when they are a part of the system that caused his grief. The manga wants you to sympathize with everyone, and while I don’t think these people should be one dimensional their issues should not be treated on the same level as others. Anyway, sorry for the weird long rant, it’s just everyone treats this manga like it is The Most Flawlessly Progressive Manga Ever and your one of the few I’ve found who acknowledges is flaws without devaluing its strengths

Thank you for your ask! I agree with what you're saying and think you worded it very well. It's a bit of a shame it's so rare to find people openly critiquing the series in the community, while it's nothing serious (and minimized by being a bit of a hermit, lol) I've seen some animosity for doing it, I assume because many assume critiquing art means you don't like it or are opposed to what it's trying to do! Which isn't true. Granted Witch Hat Atelier contains many an obvious fantasy metaphor for real life social issues it should be under more scrutiny than normal if you ask me, because those are serious topics that affect people's real lives. I do have faith in the author's serious handling of touchy topics, but in the execution there are things I'd do differently for sure...

The manga wants you to sympathize with everyone, and while I don’t think these people should be one dimensional their issues should not be treated on the same level as others.

WHA has in its writing strong expectations from the reader regarding how you think of its cast I find hard to read through a lot - the latest arc in particular, comparatively, has much of its character based moments revolve around if they're good or bad in a way that implies it'll change how you think of a character and it disturbs me. Qifrey and Sasaran are two early examples of characters that do *not* play into that - Qifrey's beginning arcs simultaneously show him as a shady manipulator and genuinely good teacher who betters the life of his students, and it participates so much to the dramatic tension. Sasaran is a villain of the week who while shown to be a huge cunt, has a backstory that implies his original motives were not nefarious ones, and his life was not easy.

Compare this to a character like Dean who, as much as I'm a fan of his concept, falls rather flat because he's, depending on the chapter, pushed as good/bad to the reader, regarding his moral alignment. Characters who are just meant to be despicable don't have the same level of attention placed to their writing which is a similar issue. It feels insecure, like if the story was saying: we have those important characters, their role is to bring up difficult situations, please don't hate them, like them, see, they're nice too! And giving them chosen positive traits. People don't work like that and it feels cheap. Fandom's obsession with villains should show well a character being despicable doesn't make them unlikeable, and I'd like WHA's characters to be less "good"/"likeable" myself to make them a bit more human. This would detonate a fandom nuke given I still regularly see passionate debates about how mean and terrible characters like Agott or Custas are but hey

As for priorities in the depicted suffering of characters in universe - yeah, it's true some scenes feel a bit off in that department...the water cleaning scene you mention did not rub me the wrong way too hard, because it's centered around Coco, who's our main character, the story bending to give her a central role makes sense, and her unique position in witch society and how it relates to helping others are, with the responsibilities of witches, very important to the story. The apprentice backstories are an earlier example I had trouble taking too seriously because while they're all terrible, tiny silly Riche and her brother's experience with physical child abuse felt drawn with the same intensity as Agott being pushed to mental disarray by her rich fancy perfectionist family. It's all hard to complain about and might sting less if the writing was a bit less dramatic and preachy, but that might just be a me issue, I've seen many fans praise WHA's writing wholeheartedly, so...

What I am hoping is that the latest arc will conclude and lead to the shorter previous structure and we'll get individual attention brought to character stories, one after the other, instead of the all at once formula going on right now... We'll see!

[lee-hakhyun]

kim dokja answers lee hakhyun's question.

can anyone dream when they want to?

he's the oldest dream, the world's most omniscient yet powerless god.

...how many years has kim dokja been here, dreaming? is this still the kim dokja we know?

lhh tells kdj that he doesn't have to handle this. that was why hsy wrote this novel, to have everyone dream, to free him from this eternity. so why..?

「But I'm the only one watching this 'world' right now.」 「Do you think it's better for this world to disappear?」

in the star stream, stories that no one read disappear. if kim dokja wasn't watching this 41st regression, it would disappear. is it right for a world where the tragedy was predetermined to never begin in the first place?

lee hakhyun starts to say that this is still a real world, and if the world is about to end, with more saddess than joy- kim dokja cuts him off, asking if it's better without it.

lee hakhyun can't answer. even if the end is a tragedy, the sadness and joy will still exist. someone would find their own happiness in the destruction.

but someone has died because of this story. jung jaewoo, jung moonho, lee hakhyun can't forget their faces.

「But someone might have lived because of this story.」

people have died due to this story, but others have survived.

like kim dokja. if this story was not created, he wouldn't have survived. there are many kinds of stories. is a sad story bad, and a happy story good? is a story of destruction meaningless? is this world, a tragedy from the start, better off not existing?

tragedy isn't just the star stream's story. even in a world without scenarios, people suffered, starved, killed each other. people still died. is this universe really different from the star stream?

we're all in ruin. life and death are just stories in between. lee hakhyun understands that, but he can't accept it. he's afraid of death, he doesn't like being sad, he's afraid of people disappearing, so he wants to run away. all stories end. unlike him, kim dokja has accepted this. happy or sad, this world was just a story. he read, and he's reading. for an unimaginable amount of years. is this still the kim dokja we know?

he asks. are you still the reader he knows. he doesn't know if he wants kim dokja to lie. to say he's still the protagonist of this story, that he'll solve this somehow. that they'll see the end of the scenarios together.

he responds, "if that's what you think."

he doesn't take that well :(. lhh is nauseous. kim dokja, clearly standing in the snowfield, looked blurry to him. he asks why he's here. why the readers came here.

kim dokja doesn't answer. for some reason or another, he can't answer. there's something wrong with this snowfield. here, it feels like a fairy tale. they conversed like it was a fairy tale. in metaphors, and symbols. this snow garden was a metaphor for 'between the lines'. nothing is written down, but everything is in between. this kim dokja isn't really him. he's the 'oldest dream', scattered throughout the universe. so he must be meeting lhh through expedient. and then he says the most cryptic bs god DAMN it kdj you're making this really hard for me

「We are the ones that make the story, but at the same time, the story writes us. The answer you want, you'll know when you complete your story.」 「What was the asnwer you found? You already read 'WOS'.」 「I read it, and I never finished it.」

all stories are already written and being written at the same time. lee hakhyun has his reponse, now.

kim dokja's question. if stories of destruction are meaningless. he doesn't know the answer yet. but he knows one thing. at least for this world, he'll prevent the destruction. he remembers the readers. dansu ahjussi, kyung sein, killer king and literaturegirl, ye hyunwoo, koo sunah, kim kyungsik.

he will see the end of this world. he remembers jung heewon, who lost her father, and yoo joonghyuk, who suffered a terrible regression.

even if this results in even more changes to this worldline, he will struggle to the end, somehow. maybe his choice will lead to a bigger tragedy for the universe. maybe people will blame him for this. and maybe they're right.

but he's not the 'oldest dream'. he can't dream about such a wide universe.

all lee hakhyun sees is the world in front of him. people who read his story, and are living his story. a little happiness before the ruin.

「Cheon Inho.」 Kim Dokja said. 「No, Hakhyun-ah.」 In spite of myself, I looked up. There was Kim Dokja. The Kim Dokja I knew. Someone who loves stories more than anyone else was talking to me. 「Whatever it may be, tell me a happy story this time.」

he leaves the snow garden. waking up, he notices some changes. the star stream has noticed his existence. ☐☐ is subject to probability restrictions now. some features have been locked until he's qualified.

his 'loss' has been recorded on the 'final wall'.

two so far.

the final wall acknowledges his contribution, and his exclusive skill evolves.

...he will get additional benefits the more 'loss' he collects.

and, his new story has been created.

[The story 'Recorder of Things That Will Disappear' has been born.]

the end of this universe has already been determined. nevertheless, this story has just begun, and lee hakhyun has sentences to write. so he will write.

after all, he still loves this story.

[townofcadence]

What do you think is Artair's best trait - and what would you consider a weakness of said trait?

Likewise, what do you think is Artair's worst trait - and what would you consider a strength of said trait?

Ohhh another good one!!

I think the thing is that his best and worst trait are the same-- it's kindness, loyalty, love, protectiveness. Part of what I enjoy exploring with Artair is taking a trait seen typically as 'good' and showing it both as good and as bad, depending on the situation. It's kind of a reflection of how I feel-- that no trait is ever good or bad in the end, it's just how it effects the situation that can be a benefit or a detriment!

Like-- these traits are obviously good in many ways! It's wanting to help others, to connect to people and love them and want to see the best in them, that can often help others heal and find a way to hold the grief from the countless hurts they've suffered.It's love and loyalty and a desire to protect and comfort that can push people and motivate to acts the really--- save someone from a darker space sometimes. Both physically a danger for them in the literal sense, and a metaphorical emotional one. Kindness reaches people and can really help bring out the best in others. It's a listening ear, a hand in yours when you just need a lifeline, and a gentle touch at the right moment, or a shoulder to hold you when it's too much.

But conversely, that same kindness can go to extremes that-- hurt people. Artair cares SO much about other people and helping them, saving them, that he kills himself to do so, both metaphorically and not. He will take every blow he can, he will antagonize someone so they hurt and focus on him instead, he will get you out of the way. He will not call for your help, because it means putting you in a bad position, one where you might be hurt. He will throw himself into danger after danger, because if he stops it and he deals with it, then no one else has to. Any harm that comes to him feels like harm he prevented someone else from enduring. So he keeps going and going in this desperate need to save everyone, and blames himself and breaks himself to pieces when he fails, or perceives himself to have failed someone in any way.

Love and kindness fail when he sees everyone as so far above himself that his only value is what he can do to make their lives better, at the cost of himself. Loyalty and love are good traits, except when he devotes himself to people so much so that he loses himself in the process. Protection is great, except when always trying to keep someone from harm makes them feel they aren't trusted to handle hard things and they feel infantilized. Altruism and a willingness to sacrifice for others can be good, until he refuses any path that would do little harm to someone else, because they would get hurt at all, when he could take on more and greater suffering just to prevent it. It's also the sacrifice of himself to be the target of aggression and pain and rage because he can take it, and allowing himself to hurt to make others feel better. Hell, eve n offering to endure pain or suffering just to 'help'. Seeing himself as so monstrous he deserves all of it and just accepting it, and choosing it, and even seeking it, because no one but him deserves this pain. It's a senseless martyring.

And dying for people, sacrificing himself over and over.... ?

...it doesn't only effect him. The people he cares about have to deal with his loss, with seeing him destroy himself at every opportunity. With the pain of knowing they're not worth living for, and he's willing to throw himself away at a moment's notice for anything and anyone, until there's just no more of him left and then some. He's too busy playing Atlas with the world on his shoulders and blaming himself for every travesty as if anyone has the power to prevent it all, to realize how his destructive behaviors out of love and devotion and the desire to do good, no matter what, mean that all the people who come to care about him have to watch him destroy himself in their name and others.

He reaches many with kindness and compassion, but he also breaks those hearts he touches. It's the terrible downwards spiral he hasn't chosen to stop yet.

[coraniaid]

A few more thoughts on Surprise and Innocence.

As a plot device, the retcon that Angel’s curse can be undone if he experiences a moment of “true happiness” is a good one, I think.  The metaphor of Buffy’s boyfriend turning out to be a monster after she sleeps with him is perhaps a little on the nose, but the show handles it pretty well.  (And, despite some criticism I’ve seen, the show seems pretty keen to stress that this isn’t Buffy’s fault.)   I think the scene in Innocence where Buffy tearfully tells a soulless Angel that she loves him, only for him to respond with a flippant “love you too” as he saunters away, is basically the key to understanding every single one of Buffy’s future relationships (and not just the romantic ones either).

And this version of the Angel/Angelus split – where there’s a deliberate ambiguity about the extent to which Angel without a soul is a different person from Angel with a soul – makes a lot more sense than the version of Angelus the spin-off will later settle on (wherein the Angelus personality is so distinct that it even has its own memories).  Beyond anything else, if Angel the vampire with a soul isn’t the same person as Angelus the soulless vampire, what on earth is Angel actually trying to atone for?

That being said, as an actual curse it doesn’t quite make sense.  Who suffers if Angel loses his soul?  Not Angel, who (depending on the metaphysics) now either no longer exists or does exist but loves being evil.  In either case, he’s actually better off, no?  Isn’t he meant to be suffering? The show sort of gestures towards this by having Enyos say that he’s more interested in “vengeance” than justice, but – while this certainly isn’t just – it doesn’t really make sense as vengeance either. 

If Angel losing his soul is meant to be something that hurts Angel, then why was Jenny sent to spy on him and why does Enyos come to stop it happening?  If this is meant to be some sort of vindictive punishment, why are the people who arranged it trying to stop it?  This is something that I think actually works much better later on in Angel’s own show.  When Angel knows he can’t ever risk experiencing happiness, this new version of the curse makes a lot more sense.  The curse ends up forcing Angel to make himself suffer, something it clearly can’t do if it’s something he’s not aware of. 

But I don’t think there’s any suggestion in the show that Angel did know he was risking his soul by sleeping with Buffy, and the metaphorical reading obviously doesn’t work if he did.

(I think the way to fix this would be to position the “moment of true happiness” as an unintended loophole, maybe?  Say that the nature of the curse meant there had to be some way of breaking it, and the people who cast it chose “Angel stops suffering” because that was the one thing they wanted to avoid happening at all costs anyway?  But I don’t think that’s how it’s set up in the show itself)

Other thoughts:

I think this was the point I finally brought in a little to the Cordelia/Xander subplot.  I’m still not convinced it makes sense for Cordelia (yes, the show has previously suggested she finds her current level popularity somewhat hollow and unsatisfying, but we’ve also seen Cordelia date people she seems to like and who wouldn’t threaten her social standing and who also, unlike Xander Harris, occasionally say things to her that aren’t the most hurtful insults they can think of).  

But what starts working here is the way the show ties things back to Willow, and her long-running crush on Xander (compare “I can spend my life waiting for Xander to go out with every other girl in the world until he notices me” with “it just means you’d rather be with someone you hate than be with me”).  The show hasn’t quite moved beyond teasing the Willow/Xander subplot (and it will come back to it again next season), but I think this is the point where it becomes clear that Xander and Willow definitely aren’t going to end up together long term.  And I’m grateful enough that I can gloss over the Cordelia side of things for now (or at least, for a couple more episodes…) 

Speaking of Cordelia: I’m not at all sure if this was intentional – and looking around the internet, I don’t know if it’s a common reading – but I think the show actually suggests that Willow and Xander have known Cordelia since they were all very small.  Well before high school.  In The Dark Age Xander (whose age is given as seventeen in innocence) tells Cordelia “twelve years of you and I’m snapping”.  Which implies he’s basically known her (and Willow, at least as per Grave) since kindergarten, right?.  

I think that’s the closest the show directly addresses the question of when Cordelia and Willow first met, but at the end of next season Willow will say of Harmony that “she picked on me for ten years”.  So I think that the few crumbs we get support the reading that Willow, Xander, Cordelia and Harmony all knew each other in elementary school.

At least, I think that’s the context that the “We Hate Cordelia” Club is meant to be understood.  It doesn’t feel like something that could have been formed at any point in high school. Quite apart from how childish a name it is -- and how it suggests a level of standing up for herself that I don't think we see from Willow in Season 1 -- who apart from Willow and Xander would have joined?  Not Jesse, obviously.

But then, as I’ve mentioned before, the show has a history of inventing characters with long histories with the Scooby Gang from whole cloth for a single episode and then forgetting all about tem.  (Rodney Munsion beating Xander up “every day for five years” back in Inca Mummy Girl springs to mind.)  So I’m probably – well, definitely – reading too much into a couple of lines of dialogue and expecting the show to have a consistent past it never really has. 

[illmetkismet]

Do you think Leon managed to at least move on and let go of his past a bit after rescuing Ashley? Game seems to imply heavily the whole metaphor//theme about redemption loss and moving on and also the credits song too

curious to know what you think?

I really hope so!! On the one hand, the way they handled the end of the game is very different from the OG: like you said, they really paid off the theme of things being different this time, and Leon gets that cathartic smile with the sunrise on his face. On the other hand, as far as we know, Vendetta is still canon.... It's hard to know what Capcom has in store for Leon, how much they want to deviate from the established continuity, and judging from what they did with Chris in Village, I'm a little worried...

I do think Capcom has a huge tone problem, where there are so many different hands in the Resident Evil pot that it's hard to get a single coherent and definitive image of who their characters are supposed to be. Remake Leon is very different from Vendetta Leon and Death Island Leon and even Infinite Darkness Leon, which was made so close to the remakes that you'd think the two would give us a consistent characterization, but I don't think they do.

So who knows where they take him from here! I'm happy to continue thinking of the different versions of Leon kind of as separate characters, despite what Capcom might have to say about that, and if they take remake Leon in a direction that doesn't feel true to his arc so far, I'll happily fork his story into yet another version in my head.

I've said this before, but it's hard for me to imagine Leon getting a canonical happy ending I'd be satisfied with, and I've made my peace with that. I think if that's what you're hoping for too, we're just gonna have to roll up our sleeves and envision a future for him where he does move on and let go and reconcile with the past in a satisfying way (and not in the flippant Death Island 'it's a living' way...).

So I guess that's my answer - personally, and going off what they've done with the remakes so far, I do think that post re4r Leon is in a much better place than he was going into it. I like to think of it as like.... He's gone on so many horrible missions, both before and after Ashley, right? So why are we coming along with him on this one, in particular? Because, I think, this was his 'dark night of the soul', so to speak. He went into this mission at the end of his rope with it all - the pain, the loss, the sheer senseless of all the violence he'd witnessed - and he came out the other side with a little bit of hope and a clearer view of the path out of his suffering: trusting people, being able to rely on others, not giving into hopelessness.

It's so interesting to me when people say Saddler wasn't a compelling villain in the remake, because what was so menacing about him was deliciously metatextual to me. Yeah, he had his plan with Ashley and las plagas, but throughout the game his main role was to keep trying to convince Leon to give in, to submit and let go of fear. He was offering Leon a way out of his despair: a nothingness, a numbness, and that's what Leon was fighting against the whole game! He needed to face the source of his pain head on and arrive in a place of hope, instead of continuing to ineffectually push it all down, to numb himself.

I think at the end of re4r he did just that. He stood at a fork in the road and he chose hope over despair. So ok, I'll do the same, and allow myself to hope that his story keeps going down that road!

Thanks for the ask, and sorry for the goddamn journey my answer became lol....

[gunsatthaphan]

hello doreen ^_^

i just rewatched mlc and alangaipa still feels like a fever dream. to this day i still can't believe they happened. but tbh after rewatching, i have to say that the foreshadowing was pretty much there with gaipa being told by other characters, mainly his mom, that someone will walk into his life soon and him meeting alan at the funeral does feel like his mom actually sent alan to gaipa. but i guess back when mlc was airing, i was so sure alangaipa would not happen that i didn't think too much about the foreshadowing or that it would actually lead somewhere and turn out to be alan. but it makes sense now that i rewatched the show in one sitting with a clear and objective mind. like i initially didn't think they would be a good match but the show focused so much on establishing that they are both people who love deeply and want to be loved just as much, so maybe they are really meant to be. and maybe meeting at the funeral may seem a bit too much but for a show that especially made use of metaphors and symbolism and all, them meeting there does kind of signify that it was his mom's doing and that her wish for him to meet someone came true. it's sad that we may never get to see them actually being together but with the way the fandom acted with their 3 scenes (iykyk), i think it's okay if we don't get a continuation lol. mlc as a whole is truly a great show, like i loved it when i first watched it but after rewatching, i appreciate it a bit more. i hope gmmtv produces more shows like mlc, quality-wise.

hello nonny!!

I'm about to cry at work lmao I agree so much with all of this 🥺 I remember laughing at the people on twitter predicting AG when the show was airing bc I was like yall are delusional af but then aof said bitch u thought lmao it was glorious.

"him meeting alan at the funeral does feel like his mom actually sent alan to gaipa." wHY would you say things 😩😭 I never thought of that but also I did not pick up on any of the foreshadowing either lmao so all of this completely came out of the blue for me. you have a point though.

I just appreciate how subtly they handled + depicted it, it was such a nice wrap-up for both their individual stories where they found happiness in each other after suffering so many hardships. they did a great job at signalizing that they're meant to be, all without being pushy and without overshadowing the main plots. it was the outcome of excellent writing + acting. I was suffering for alan more than I was for gaipa - probably bc I related to him more - so seeing him smile like an idiot when gaipa showed up made me so happy 🥺

I have not rewatched anything from the show yet, mostly because I'm scared that it will make me sad again lmao but it sure was a special production. I felt more connected to these characters than with any other show tbh and I appreciate that they hired the best possible cast for this because I truly believe that no one could've done a better job at bringing these characters to life.

xxx

[poetzproblem]

Hi Poetz, hope you are feeling better! My fav DB chapter is Losing Myself In All That You Are when Rachel actually has the baby. What was writing that like? Could you give us the directors cut of the process and details of it?

Rachel’s pregnancy had been a thing that was often discussed here before I committed to writing it. Some of those discussions got pretty angsty, with Rachel having more serious complications, but DB is my happy place, so I couldn’t bring myself to follow any of those really angsty plot bunnies down a deep, dark, depressing rabbit hole. Still, there are echoes of those discussions in what eventually became ‘canon’ in the series. Rachel did lose her first pregnancy, and she did have some bloodpressure issues that they had to keep an eye on. And most notably, she has that moment while she’s in labor where she just doesn’t think she can get through it and needs to hear Quinn promise that she’s going to take care of Calliope and Celeste, who she’s desperately hoping she can manage to bring into the world. So I still made Quinn suffer through a little of that worst-case-scenario angst before everything turns out ok. 

I had done a lot of research on pregnancy and giving birth with Quinn’s pregnancy, so the research for this installment was a little less intensive in certain aspects. This time around, I was more interested in how parents handled the child(ren) they already had during labor. I also spent time looking up the different types of birthing beds and how they work. I even watched a number of videos that some people helpfully posted of their labors to see the different positions that they’d end up in while giving birth. 

I didn’t want Rachel’s labor to be too similar to Quinn’s, which is why she refused to be on her back. Of course, that meant Doctor Barnes had to be far more progressive in the birthing room than she was five years ago with Quinn. And I also couldn’t resist bringing back nurse Peggy, although I was very tempted to keep Cherry around so we could see more of Scary!Quinn going off on behalf of her suffering wife.  

The first half of the chapter was just Rachel Berry dealing with immense pain in her very dramatic way, which was kind of fun, and it was a chance to touch on what was happening ‘offscreen’ with Callie and Shelby and the Berrymen without going into too much detail because Rachel couldn’t be bothered to focus on the details. And because she’s so dramatic, I could use her to breeze through the worst of her labor with show business metaphors until she and Quinn could finally say hello to Celeste. 

Fun fact: I hadn’t fully settled on the nickname Rachel would call Celeste (Turtle Dove) until I was writing chapter four, but I’ve known from the moment I picked Celeste as a name that Calliope would call her Les because she couldn’t quite wrap her lisp around Celeste. It’s going to drive Rachel crazy but she can’t do a damn thing about her girls calling each other Les and Cal.

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

Looking back at my 2021 tok rev Tumblr post i was damn right my gut feeling about shinichiro sano being more deeper than just Takemichi Hanagaki spiritual successor. I love Wakui when he add that shin twist. God even back then i was always read dark shin fic i was FEEL right about this guy doing this stuff if he is push to far and I was dang right. Oh god. He need to a reason to continue and Manjiro is his reason. Take that reason away and he will be next villain of the world. Plus with how much responsibility he have to endure in short time and losing her mom and Manjiro in original timeline in short span of course he lose it. Plus there is a factor of grandpa sano being the kind of Japanese guy who doesn't seem to interested in talking with his grandson mental health. And a passive way he let Shin taking part in delinquency too factor in. I guess also because we don't see any Sano relatives who can support the Sano siblings if the Grandfather die. God. The amount of pressure on Shinichiro is tremendous. He is the one line of safety after his grandpa death and god this seek blood family even though he love Emma and Izana. His dedication to Manjiro is everything. Everything.

Also, your post in black dragons real life counterparts open my eyes. It is intentional. And the Shin we want to see is the same depressive fate Mikey have in canon. I love this guy but I want to see him break in further way. Mentally torture him with after his death how his fate originally for him pass to dear brother. Oh god, imagine this some twisted deity playing with his head and letting him know everything. Because i know damn sure takemichi and Mikey didn't tell the truth to Shin.

I WANT THIS MAN TO BREAK PART EVEN MORE

Suffer for my curiosity. I love him so much. He is in his comfort era too much right now it is hurt /no comfort era

Anon. Anon. Anon. I'm giving you the biggest platonic metaphorical forehead kiss rn. I. We share the same mind anon. You have no idea about the energy boost you gave me with that ask /srs

Honestly, reaching the Original Timeline, I wonder how many ppl still see Takemichi and Shinichiro as Basically the Same because they aren't. At least, we never saw Takemichi fall as deep as Shinichiro did. Plus, there's the fact one of Shinichiro's most important trait is being a (parentified) big brother and Takemichi is an only child.

He loves Emma and Izana, of course he does, but Mikey was there before Shinichiro lost his parents and had had to say goodbye to his normal life. Emma and Izana came afterward. There's only Takeomi and Mikey left from his (I assume peaceful) childhood.

Sometimes I think about how Shinichiro only left BD for Mikey to take over when he'll be old enough, and that it weirdly seems to coincide with the year their mom died and really, Shinichiro can go back to civilian life and being a shop owner, but without Mikey he wouldn't have. There's about half a year between their mom's passing and Mikey's accident and like... I think that, BD was such an emotional support for him during his teen years that he would've handle those four years better if they had remained together. If he had decided to fully go back to it (or to never leave) - and not just do shady things by himself - he'd have lived a more stable life - they'd have helped him sm - although Mikey would've still died (and Shinichiro would've probably met the same end since he can't accept loosing his younger brother).

I'm pretty sure Wakasa did (and other former members must have too) but Shinichiro really seems to have decided to take care of Mikey alone - like he has always done. I wonder how his and Takeomi's life were before it collapsed and they were left to figure out what to do by themselves.

Like you, I want to break him. I really want to observe how he act when he's fully broken; the manga didn't give us enough. He decided to name his gang like that when Mikey was still okay, that's a good clue to know he was already messed up from the start.

I have way too many fics to write and none near finished, but yeah, everyone (progressively, confusingly) remembering about their other lives in the final timeline is really, really tempting to write. They all (rightfully) freak out and Takemichi and Mikey really, really don't want them to remember but they have no power over it.

I just want to crush him under a comically huge cartoon hammer and turn him into a crêpe. He looks good covered in blood, and I need it to be both his and other ppl's blood. Let him go berserk dammit.

Rn the only WIP I have featuring a 'messed-up' Shinichiro has this synopsis/summary:

"In which Wakasa retraced his steps to where he left Shinichiro with the homeless man. They take over the world. Shinichiro takes it with him in his fall.

He dies and wakes up the year Mikey was born.

(The curse lingers on him and he won't be able to run away from it for long.)"

It's going to be such a longfic I have no idea how I'm going to manage it... but the prologue is at least there lol Let me know if you're interested

[sevensoulmates]

Aight...here's my thoughts on the season 6 finale. As a SEASON finale, yeah it was pretty decent. I enjoyed the bridge collapse as an emergency and I thought that the season character arc culmination was where it needed to be for most of the characters with two notable exceptions.

This is about to be long, so if you want to read my ranty thoughts, it's under the cut:

Now, if this actually ended up being the SERIES finale? It would've been Okay for everyone with the big glaring exception of Buck and Eddie.

If they really ended the show this way....dear god I would've been PISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDD.

And not just because "waah! I want buddie!" but because imho it doesn't work for the journey Buck and Eddie are on individually (or together). It felt like the writers were like okay, we may not get renewed after this so we're giving Buck and Eddie the potential for new relationships and that's that. But....these relationships don't actually feel like a "happy ending" or "potential for a happy ending" they feel very much like another stepping stone on a story for these two that is very much incomplete.

If it had ended here, I personally feel like it would've been a metaphorical death for these two characters. In the sense that they're still in the middle of learning what they need, what they want, where they actually want their lives to go. In real life, people die unexpectedly, in their middle of their life, and all of those loose ends never get tied, but in a TV show? The hope is that the writers know where they want the character arcs to go and how and that by the end of the show, they reach a satisfying conclusion to their individual arcs. The season 6 finale was not that. Fuck, the entirety of season 6 was not that. Season 6 felt like a transitionary season, almost like season 1 where the show was still getting its sea legs and figuring out a direction for the characters to go moving forward. Which is bad if this actually ended up being the very last season of the show.

In the show, Maddie, Chim, Bobby, Athena, Hen and Karen are all in much different places in their lives than Buck and Eddie. Everybody else knows who they are as characters, and all of their plotlines don't really revolve around "who am I?" but rather "how does [insert plot line here] fit into who I already am?" For Buck and Eddie, they are still very much on their "who am I?" journey. And it is far from over.

Eddie's character arc in season 6 was very much at the point where he's made it over the big emotional hurdles in his life that revolves around his trauma of losing Shannon, the PTSD of war, the emotional abuse he suffered at the hands of his parents, and the question of whether or not he's a good father for Chris. All that's left is the big "who am I?" and we started to see some of that in his storyline revolving around Chris starting to grow up and gain some independence, leaving space open in Eddie's life to start thinking about what he wants for himself. The show keeps on having external characters harping on Eddie that he needs to get a partner, and he keeps going around in circles with that ever since he started dating Ana. To me, this season did not show me that what Eddie actually needs is a perfect woman to swoop in and make him not lonely. In fact, it's shown quite the opposite. I get wanting Eddie to have something happy at the potential end of the series, but it feels weird given that the WHOLE SEASON the writing kept showing us that jumping back into dating and finding a good woman to settle down with is not actually the solution for him. I can't say whether or not this is setting up for queer realization arc, because I don't work for the show, but in terms of the actual writing itself....there's not much else that makes sense. ((This is also not to say Eddie is fully "healed" of his trauma, he's just in a better place in terms of handling it than Buck at the moment imo.))

As for Buck, the whole sperm donor storyline was a massive regression in terms of his personal journey. It was a trauma response at the very best. To me, Buck has not yet gotten to the point where Eddie is in terms of actually being able to heal his personal traumas and not let that hurt effect his current decisions. He's still very much in the thick of his pain. This sperm donor storyline is very obviously a manifestation of his guilt surrounding being a bone marrow donor baby, not being able to save his brother's life, still feeling like the only time his parents care is when he's injured or helping someone else out, and still feeling like he's the odd one out when it comes to the rest of the firefam who all have their own "individual families". To me, at this point in the series, the only part of Buck's story that has reached its natural resolution is his relationship with Bobby. Those two have worked it through and have reached a point where they can acknowledge how they feel about each other and not let their individual trauma affect their professional or personal relationship.

But good lord, Buck has not actually faced most of the other stuff. And having that baby on his couch was nothing if not a brand new trauma to add to the list. If the series ended with Buck as he is now, I would've been horrifically sad for him. Because literally nothing else of his story was resolved. I hope this is worked through in s7 and beyond.

All I have to say is hallelujah that the show didn't end there and that ABC swooped in and snatched them up. Hopefully with this new found freedom with ABC we can actually start to see these storylines come to their natural progressions instead of just pushing it off later and later until neither of them ever gets a happy ending.

[c0rpseductor]

also like its kind of funny bc in terms of video game franchises dragon age actually DOES do fairly (?) well when it comes to representation of lgbt characters. at least by sheer volume. and a lot of games whose writing i prefer fall extremely flat in comparison. so it probably seems silly that im so much more ready to tear da apart

like in ffxiv, emet-selch isn't actually gay despite how many posts i make about his loving joan crawford and dolly parton. he's heavily queercoded (ESPECIALLY in the localization) in order to remind you he's the bad guy. like, it's cheap; the best xiv can do in terms of lgbt rep among its cast is Heavily Imply a relationship between ryne and gaia, and i don't deny that it's really great that they did that, but it's also like...not much. and i think it does suffer from this pitfall of like, "we intentionally chose pretty teenage girls in a very chaste relationship to Imply Homosexuality About, because male homosexuality is gross." like i'm not saying Less Lesbian Rep Is Good or something or that it's a contest or some shit like that, i just think it's clear in this case they made this choice bc the devs have kind of evinced a bit of disgust toward gay men. most of the time (not all the time!) when male homosexuality or homoerotic imagery with men is brought up in the game i think it's sort of as a gross-out joke. also, as sort of an aside, transmisogyny is like. A Gag That Happens Way Too Much. However i think xiv is a much better-written game/series as a whole and i will be sucking it off until the end of time.

dragon age is like, nominally a lot less homophobic and transphobic, but i feel a lot more critical of and less generous toward its representation of lgbt characters because this is also a Big Selling Point for them. bioware i think has sort of built this image as like a really character-driven sensitive liberal crunchy kind of studio (i just really wanted to say crunchy lol) and seem to kind of pride themselves on having this really deep tactful groundbreaking lgbt rep. so if it falls short of those standards i'm going to be mad at being ripped off, naturally, and at bioware for patting their own asses for doing ultimately very little.

ffxiv did not at any point try to sell me Gay Rep. ffxiv did not say "hey, we're square enix and we're a really cool progressive company, we're going to make an mmo for the gays!" square enix looked me in the eyes and said "we have an mmo. our character creator has catgirls, and almost every single outfit in the base game is unconscionably hideous," and i said "HOLY SHIT CATGIRLS!!!" and have been playing it for nearly a decade now. i've never felt cheated out of sensitivity square promised me. i kind of know the score with them, as a company they can be pretty regressive and that often reflects in how they handle real-world issues in their games.

to use a food metaphor here, if i'm told i'm going to be given the most enormous delicious tasty stake ever and then it's like...good enough but ultimately very average, i'm going to feel a little cheated and probably be meaner about that steak than i would if i were simply told "i made steak. have some." i might even appreciate a kind of middling or even Not That Good steak without complaint if i'm not hyped up for no fucking reason first. this is kind of my feelings.

[copias-girl]

The bad part about TCAC is that it ENDS, and I will suffer waiting for the next chapter... aaaah it hurts 😩😩

The story is getting better and sexier after every single chapter, and this one specifically was sooooo good. The Satanic Mass was just 💋👌 CHEF'S KISS. My poor little pitiful ratman, he was never touched before.... by the way, I'm pretty excited to see a little about his past, if you will. My headcanon is that he had a sad and lonely childhood, for 3 reasons: his mismatched eyes, the fact that he didn't know his dad and because his mom was a single satanist woman, considered to be filthy, worthless and a sinner. Imagine being a single mom, satanist and much probably feminist in the 1960-1970s decade? Sister Imperator surely suffered a LOT (not counting Nihil's cheating) and so did her child. I think she was his only friend, Copia is mama's boy forever (yeah i think he knows she is his mother unlike the fandom usually theorizes, but he surelly doesnt know Nihil is his father). This is why he grew up so shy and used to be bullied and mistreated, even among his own people (satanists).

Look at that pretty shy boy. He is afraid of even looking to the reader, imagine when she finally decides to eat her prey? Kissing him in front of everyone? Finally fucking and giving him the most pleasurable love? Ooh he definitely will pass out, at least metaphorically. Imagine, after a great and satisfying fuck, Copia looking down at the sister while she sleeps with her head on his chest and hugging his body?? Imagine she kissing his squishy belly full of rigatoni and body-worshipping him to give him courage! OMFG this is killing me 😩😩

Anyway. I absolutely love your writing, guestie!! ❤️❤️

Awww!! That’s so sweet of you to say!! ♥︎ I’m gonna be dialling up the heat in the next chapters so I can’t wait to post that for you all! 😈🔥

And I’m happy you liked the mass chapter, it was so fun to write!! I’m enjoying writing all the little parts about daily life at the ministry! It really immerses me into the story and I hope it does the same for all my wonderful readers too!

But yes I do headcanon Copia to have been kind of a lonely child. He was raised alongside the other Emeritus brothers, but obviously he’s years younger than Terzo and Secondo so maybe they didn’t play together very much. And obviously Primo is way older than all of them. And yes I do think that if he was going out in the regular world, his mismatched eyes and gentle demeanour would have made him the target for some mean comments 🥺 ugh my poor baby, this is making my heart hurt 🖤

Personally I headcanon that he doesn’t know Sister Imperator is his mother, just because in the chapters she stops herself from saying it (in the doom call chapter) and also in the homecoming chapter she says she can’t call him Papa, and when she asks if he knows why he just says because of Nihil. And obviously Sister Imperator cares for him and is always in his corner, but Copia just thinking he’s an orphan makes him even more lonely and lovable 🥺

But omg YES Ghestie I am so excited to write that part!! If he can’t even handle reader in these chapters, imagine when she goes full force and is begging for his cock like?? Poor sweet rat man is gonna be going into cardiac arrest. And you KNOW reader is a lil exhibitionist sooooo yeah she’s definitely gonna be up for some public shenanigans 👀👀 AND YES HIS RIGATONI FILLED BELLY OMFG I LOVE IT SO SO MUCH LIKE- imagine him being kinda self conscious about his body and reader just worships the FUCK out of him 🤤🤤🤤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

[nayruwu]

idk if you are into tarot cards but I've been thinking about which tarot card fits which character in ons & putting aside the obvious sun moon star world, I think the devil card really embodies guren while the temperance is so shinya in his life & mahiru being the tower to him. If you get time to look up the meanings & what these card means to one another then I would like to know your thoughts even if you associate other cards with them I am interested to know your views as you always come up with angsty gureshin analysis I love reading them. :D

hellooo! :D sorry this took so long, but my knowledge of tarot cards was essentially zero so i had to do some research. i read up on the three you mentioned and then also on the sun & the moon because they did pique my interest as well. and i like your thinking!

just looking at the card of the devil itself is already enough to link it to guren. it represents your raw instincts and giving in to those pure unfiltered desires. the balance between good and evil. that's very guren. he has a pure heart, he has noble goals and yet there was no choice for him but to fall into darkness to achieve them. there is no way for him to be simply "good". he could not walk on the right path because he was too human. (there's also two people, a man and a woman, depicted at the devils' side, said to have fallen under his magnetic presence. and if you take that less metaphorically than it's meant it is absolutely hilarious)

now when you actually get that card in a reading, it means that there's some form of negative presence in your life that you've fallen victim to and don't think you can ever free yourself from. most of the time, this means addictions, bad habits or relationships that hold you back from becoming what you're meant to be. i wonder who that could be! but what else stood out to me here was that "with The Devil, you are choosing the path of instant gratification, even if it is at the expense of your long-term well-being". okay. give in to that weakness now and suffer tremendously for the next nine years. yeahhh.

the temperance represents patience as well as staying grounded and calm. knowing your path, knowing the outcome and being at peace with it. and yeah, shinya is definitely that levelheaded counterpart. stay human, stay weak and accept that it will kill you. stop struggling, stop fighting. "bound by the earth and natural law" - "but it's not like i could break free of my human limitations and become some sort of god". (i think it's also cute that the person on this card is an angel.)

... and then the tower is just absolute chaos. realising suddenly and horrifyingly as everyone he loves does that his path is a lie, it cannot be treaded, and he is pulled onto mahiru's road of insanity. he is questioning himself, his beliefs and his purpose. although i can't quite bring myself to agree with the "it's for your highest good" part. the tower says you will suffer but come out of it stronger and better. yes, maybe mahiru's path will lead guren to his goal, but it really is questionable whether it will all have been worth it in the end. the guilt will never leave him, his relationship with shinya is fucked even if a miracle happens and they make up somehow, and pretty much everything mahiru has done to those around her to get this far is irredeemable. so i'm a little split on that end. i wonder how the story will handle it... if at all with the speed we're going at.

i also like the sun and the moon with their naïvety and repressed feelings, but you're right, those other three do fit better!

this was a blast. i hope i didn't interpret anything the wrong way :>