#a meta post wow

[orionali]

Vampyr: this game certainly deserves it, but it won't have a sequel

We, beyond any shadow of a doubt, desire a sequel to Vampyr. I myself feel like the game's endings – yes, all four of them – are open-ended and many questions, to this day, remain unanswered. And even from a classical gameplay standpoint, I feel this game deserves continuation.

However, after doing some research I have come to a conclusion: the chances of us getting a sequel are slim. Like, exceedingly slim, judging from the language Don't Nod's been using in their financial documents.

More under the cut.

Yes, they want to grant us a total of eight games from 2023 to 2025. These are Projects 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Project M1, and two external co-production publishing projects. We now know that Banishers (Action RPG co-production, slatted for late 2023) is Project 8, and Harmony (visual novel, June 2023) is, presumably, Project 7. Project M1 is a mobile game that's being developed in their Montréal office, and the two external games I do not view as a “genuine Don't Nod product.” Banishers is the only game in their line-up that's a co-production; all leftover projects will be self-published.

Why is this relevant? Vampyr is a co-production. 40% of the IP belongs to Don't Nod and 60% belongs to Focus1. Focus is the one calling the shots. And since 40% of the game belongs to Don't Nod, Focus cannot just waddle over to another developer and get them to pump out a sequel. And Don't Nod hasn't publicly cataloged any more co-productions, so I think it would be safe to assume Vampyr 2 isn't being worked on.

From what I can gather, taking into account every piece of information above, Vampyr 2 could still technically be a thing if Focus outright sells its share to Don't Nod. Then Don't Nod would own 100% of the game and would be able to list it as a self-published title on their next earnings call.

I think the most mystifying part of all this is the 'why?' If the game had bombed then I'd understand the lack of a follow-up. But it didn't. In fact, it sold over 2mil units – at a median price of €352 it's still over 70mil in gross revenue – drew in over 6mil players, and Don't Nod had proudly called it their “biggest financial success since LiS1.” In this day and age, common sense dictates they'd be more than interested in creating more of the thing that sells. Back in 2019-2020 when I got to interview one of the writers on Vampyr, I was essentially told that the game's finale had been reworked due to tight budgetary constraints and that they wanted to bundle the missing "chapters" of the game where you get to play as McCullum as DLC.

So, either Focus is not letting them for some ungodly reason3 or something's cooking behind the scenes. It depends on what you want to believe. If I am disproven one day, then I will be the happiest person on this earth.

1 I can no longer find the source for these numbers, but that doesn't change the fact Focus had slapped a “Vampyr and its logo are registered trademarks of Focus Entertainment” all over the only piece of merchandise we've got: the vinyl record. On top of that, in all their presentations Don't Nod has depicted themselves as the “minority” when talking about Vampyr's ownership.

2 At release the game was €50, but I'm considering all the sales the game had gone on since.

3 Focus had commissioned Asobo to make a sequel to the Plague Tale game, and the first Plague Tale game sold less than Vampyr. At least to my knowledge.

[callmeizukunotdeku]

I was a kid with a Hunger Games hyperfixation and, from time to time, I'll get reminded of the books. With Trump's inauguration and the TikTok ban and unban, I can't stop thinking about a political tactic called panem et circenses, or bread and circuses.

In Mockingjay, Collins writes "'It’s a saying from thousands of years ago, written in a language called Latin about a place called Rome,' he explains. 'Panem et Circenses translates into "Bread and Circuses." The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power.'"

In Collins' world, the Hunger Games was the entertainment. In ours, it's social media. Twitter, Meta, TikTok, are all controlled by political powers. Musk, Zuckerberg. TikTok is owned by Yiming and Rubo, but with the ban and unban, the content it shows in America is filtered to fit Trump's political agenda.

It's entertainment at the cost of information.

[secriden]

Just going to cry again (see: my previous post about the parallels between the storage room scene and the abandoned factory scene) about parallels and juxtapositions in the store room scene vs the one in Styles bedroom:

Both these scenes have such a tone of desperation and are characterised by an overflowing of emotions, but in drastically opposite directions.

(Note, some of what I say in this post directly relates to concepts and themes I talked about here, so it may not wholly make sense without that context.)

The scene in the storeroom is filled with frustrated desire. Fadel kisses Style because he wants Style's body and also wants to take his frustrations at Style out on his body. He doesn't need to look Style in the eye (and in fact very intentionally only does so only in small snatches) because this isn't about a connection as much as it is about a release. Fadel's kisses come fast, hard, and are intended to bruise more than to adore.

But episode 5's scene is filled with much more quiet and tender sort of desire. Style is kissing Fadel so much more slowly and purposefully. He keeps looking back at Fadel, checking in to see how he feels and whether Fadel is enjoying it. Everything Style wanted in Episode 3, he now gives to Fadel here, pours the secrets of his knowing and choosing Fadel anyway into the way he presses his lips onto Fadel's skin. His kisses linger, they carry a weight but are somehow infinitely gentle still; Style's kisses contain a purpose that Fadel's kisses couldn't in Episode 3 because in all honesty they were relative strangers back then.

There's also the way there's such a ferocity and carelessness in the way Fadel starts the encounter in episode 3 that is juxtaposed beautifully by the slow, tender, almost hesitant way Style slides his lips onto Fadel's. Both of them are in such different headspaces, between these episodes and its especially evident in the way they care so much more about the other person's comfort and how intentionally they showed that to the audience.

There's hunger present in both scenes but what this hunger is focused on is so drastically different. In the storeroom, they're both mainly focused on a physical release; its primal and visceral but lacked emotional resonance. Fadel gives Style what he knows Style wants (that hint of danger, with the hand on his neck), but its not because he really cares about what Style wants on anything more than a physical level. In Style's bedroom, however, Fadel is drunk (intentionally and by his own design) and desperate to open himself up to Style on an emotional level. Meanwhile, Style wants that desperately too, but knows that Fadel shouldn't because of his own terrible secret. So this kiss is what they both will allow themselves - an honesty and a hunger for this deeper connection they can only share in act but not in words.

In the storeroom, Style wants Fadel to want more than his body but knows (or thinks) he can't push for it yet, so he remains passive, lets Fadel do whatever he wants, lets him turn and shove and place Style how he wants because at this point, this is all Fadel will give him. Here, Style is passive in spite of what he wants. But in the bedroom, Fadel is passive because it's what he wants; he wants to let Style do whatever he desires to and with Fadel's body. He wants to lay himself as bare as he possibly can, which is only physical, and so he does.

And because the encounter in Episode 3 lacked that emotional connection, the focus is merely their respective releases. There's a sense of two people trying to find pleasure and 'finish' while remaining emotionally disconnected despite actively having sex with each other. Because in some ways, they didn't really need each other in that moment to get there (there's actually a lot of truth in what Fadel says about it being easier to just jerk off alone). In sharp contrast, the scene in Episode 5 isn't focused on the destination but on the journey. Style is taking his time and Fadel is letting him - Style is choosing to worship Fadel's body, with his fingers, with his lips, to respond to his vulnerability with gentleness and tenderness and adoration. The goal has stopped being about finding a release, it's about allowing both these men to revel in the giving and receiving of pleasure.

The point of these scenes is to show to us the ways in which Fadel and Style have grown to care for and, dare I say it, love each other in ways that are so purposefully portrayed by showing the nature of their physical connection. Because the ways in which these scenes are the same and yet so wholly different showcases how their touches are now no longer merely tied to their senses any longer, but also to their hearts as well.

[jojo-schmo]

I’m just really happy right now, okay?!

[gossippool]

so i do think it's very interesting how, at least from what i've observed, people see/depict worst logan as kind of different from the x men logan in terms of their propensity for violence, or rather how this violence is released. i think it has to do with a couple of things:

as many have pointed out, wade is the only one who has ever been able to match him in a fight. so it makes sense that people would headcanon their relationship as involving fights on the regular. but also;

most of what we see from him in the movie is him fighting, and so we assume that he has a tendency towards it, especially since the past he's trying to escape from is exactly that: him being violent towards others, including those who don't deserve it. i think this has definitely subconsciously shaped some people's perception of him in some way.

but i think it's good to remember that what we are shown isn't proportionate to who he is, because the movie necessarily can't develop his character much outside of the plot. i don't think worst logan and x-men logan are different at all in the sense of x-men logan being "gentler", because not only have we just not had the chance to see worst logan act otherwise, but x-men logan also has this same animalistic violence in him. we can see how quickly he unleashes himself in the movies when the situation calls for it, and even when he's doing it to protect, there's still that rage underneath it all.

worst logan is violent towards wade because 1. he's projecting, and 2. wade can take it. but also it's a symptom of something else that he hasn't worked through, possibly decades of trauma he hasn't worked through. i'm working on a fic that explores this rn, but my headcanon is that his post-x-men rampage was a sort of addiction for him because of the release it gave him, which he then replaced with getting shitfaced, and finding someone who could take him in a fight (wade) could be a reversion to the former addiction if he doesn't work on it. (i think that especially with superhero movies, it's so easy to brush off violence as just another normal thing, but realistically, a failure to unpack all that baggage could escalate his problems into something way worse.)

so imo i think worst logan is practically the same, if not very similar, to x-men logan, just that he's a variant that was dealt the worst card, but we interpret his character differently because all we're shown is what he became because of it. we all know logan is gentle with his lovers, and i think that unless wade shows that he enjoys it, logan would not be violent towards him just because wade can take it. just because you can doesn't mean you should, and i think he of all people would understand that

[fantastic-nonsense]

I think people who genuinely wanted Percy to rebel against the gods and overthrow the system kind of...miss the whole point of the series

The question is not whether or not the gods deserve to rule; the books are kind of unambiguous that they don't! That the gods are generally undeserving of their children's loyalty is the one thing that Percy and Luke both agree on! But PJO is less about divine right to rule vs. ruling via consent of the governed and more about improving dysfunctional family systems. It's not about whether unfair rulers deserve to continue ruling; it's about forcing the gods to be better, fairer rulers and a better, fairer family given limited alternatives.

Because what are the alternatives, as presented to us within the scope of the original PJO series?

Option 1: allow Kronos to topple Olympus and take over. Clearly not a viable alternative for all of the reasons the books show us.

Option 2: the demigods overthrow the Olympians and rule the world themselves. Okay. How's that going to work out long-term, given demigods are mortal and cannot control or protect their parents' domains? Demigods will die out within a generation or two, so that's potentially a one-generation short-term solution, and then everyone's right back where they started. Except worse, because now the world has been out of divine balance for a century and the gods have a completely legitimate bone to pick with all demigods. Materially worse outcome.

Option 3: demigods ignore the gods and their will entirely. They integrate into the mortal world, refuse to participate in quests or talk to their parents, and pretend prophecies don't exist. Except that's clearly not a viable option, since we see that demigods usually can't safely exist in the mortal world without monsters coming after them, the gods are cruel enough to use blackmail and engage in hostage situations to get demigods to act as heroes, and prophecies have a way of coming true regardless of everyone's best attempts to circumvent them. Again: materially worse outcome.

And for Percy, for the demigods at Camp Half-Blood, for Luke and for everyone else who defected....for the most part, they don't actually have an inherent problem with the gods ruling them. They just want to be acknowledged, valued, and loved by their families, to be treated as more than a tool for their parents to wield whenever their services are needed. That was the core thesis of the demigod rebellion, which was wholly separate from Kronos' specific motivations for overthrowing the Olympians, and it's why Percy's asks at the end of TLO were what they were.

The point was always that had Percy grown up in a slightly more dysfunctional family environment...had he grown up with Frederick Chase's seemingly conditional love or May Castellan's madness instead of Sally Jackson's steady, quiet, unconditional love...he could have turned out like Luke. Like Ethan. Like the dozens of demigods who defected from camp to join Luke's cause. Percy could have turned out just as a bitter and angry and vengeful. Just as ready to tear down the system. Just as willing to betray and kill his own family for the sake of making a point.

But instead, Percy openly reprimands the gods for abandoning their families and using them as cannon fodder in their own petty disagreements. He forces them to acknowledge and claim their children. He demands that everyone who is part of the godly family be recognized and accepted, not just those related to the Twelve Olympians. He asks for those unjustly punished (like Calypso) to be set free and accepted back into the family. Because that's the point at the end of the day: not forcing bad rulers to step down, but changing an insanely dysfunctional family system that the gods and demigods are all members of into a better, safer, and more accepting environment for demigods to grow up and live in.

Overthrowing the gods wouldn't solve the problem at the heart of the series, which is the gods' shitty parenting and family management skills. It would only exacerbate the massive familial fault-lines that Kronos exploited and leave the demigods open to more godly manipulation. Which is why the series ends as it does, with Percy using his wish to tangibly improve the lives of his family instead of selfishly improving his own life (via accepting immortality/godhood) or overthrowing the gods. Because the conflict isn't about the gods as rulers. It's about the gods as parents.

PJO's core thesis is Percy, who grew up knowing unconditional familial love, looking at this whole world of children who didn't and saying "that's not fair. Gods should be better than this!" But instead of destroying them the way Luke wants to, instead of overthrowing them and putting himself on the throne, he instead challenges them to be better parents and family members. To be part of the solution instead of the problem. And Percy's demands don't solve everything, but they were necessary first steps! Without forcing the gods to acknowledge a bare minimum floor of inclusion, the cycle would simply begin all over again the next time a major conflict popped up.

So that's the problem Percy solves and how he successfully fulfills the prophecy: by believing that the gods had the capacity to change and forcing them to break the cycle of familial abandonment, he preserves Olympus and takes the first steps towards a new status quo, one that is objectively better for demigods than the one he grew up in. That's why he succeeds, and it's why Percy overthrowing the gods would have made for a much less satisfying ending than what actually happened.

[thedaythatwas]

on nagito komaeda and love

I just think it’s sort of funny that for a character whose (arguably) most well-recognized CG is this: 

komaeda’s narrative so heavily centers love. and I don’t just say this because I’ve had komahina brainrot for years (though this is true!!). even if you don’t care about komahina, it’s tough to deny komaeda is a walking tragedy in large part because of the role that love plays in his life. his characterization is driven by the way his luck has denied him love, and how he seeks it out regardless. in that sense, I think that without understanding komahina as at least one-sided, you miss out on one of the juiciest, most miserable pieces of komaeda’s character development.

tldr; a love-centered reading of komaeda makes sense, recognizing komahina as “a thing” in DR2 (whether you ship it or not) is pretty important to understanding how komaeda operates, and I’ll try to prove it right here under this page break!!

Part 1: Komaeda’s Love Life (or, his life without love)

I think it’s safe to assume that if you clicked here, you know about komaeda’s absurdly miserable, tumultuous childhood, but I’ll do a quick recap just in case! meteor kills his parents on a plane, he inherits a ton of money. he’s kidnapped by a serial killer, he finds a winning lottery ticket in the garbage bag he’s thrown out in. he’s diagnosed with terminal cancer and dementia, he gets into hope’s peak.

in his free time events, komaeda *explicitly* frames his luck cycle as something that takes away the people he loves. it only “takes action” against him after his relatives have died (for the sake of this essay, let’s assume that komaeda loved his parents, or would have at least been hurt by their passing). by way of other close connections… well, his wording here implies that by the time of his diagnosis, he didn’t really have anybody in his life. 

either komaeda didn’t allow himself to get close to anyone after the meteor incident, or he did, and they were taken away by his luck. at some point during his childhood, komaeda learned he should view himself as a death sentence.

so, how does this loss of love shape the komaeda we know? I’ll talk about this in terms of four of his defining (and connected!) traits in DR2 canon – the ones that really make his actions make sense: his self-loathing, his hope-seeking, his learned helplessness, and his certainty that his existence poses a threat to those around him. komaeda’s experience with loss makes him view himself as a source of death, which in turn fuels these tenets of his character. ultimately, his loss and the complexes that arise from it give him good incentive to push people away.

his self-loathing

komaeda hates himself. he views himself as worthless outside of his potential to serve as a “stepping stone” for the hope of the ultimates. he claims that this is driven by his beliefs around talent, which are in turn linked to the way his worldview rests on viewing hope as “absolute good.” the talentless (himself included) are only good for advancing the hope of the talented. still, his self-loathing is a bit more personal than that. take what he says and dig just below the surface, and it’s a clean cut trauma response all the way down. which leads us directly to…

his hope-seeking

komaeda is willing to do literally anything to serve hope. on the island, this (in short) means dying. this is where I prod at komaeda’s reasoning a bit more: komaeda’s willingness to act the way he does in canon also stems from his belief that his dying would be a net good for the world. his existence kills the people around him. his illness will kill him anyway. he has less than no value, and hope is invaluable. to go out for the sake of hope would give his wretched life purpose; it’s his dream come true.

and it’s no mystery why komaeda cares so much about hope: again, it’s a coping mechanism! komaeda’s belief that all bad luck is a necessary precursor for good luck and that hope will always triumph over despair is (as he himself says!) the only reason he’s managed to stay alive. I’ll say it again because I really can’t emphasize it enough – komaeda thinks that just by existing, he kills the people he loves. ouch!

learned helplessness / his existence as a threat

komaeda has, essentially, learned to submit to his luck cycle. all bad luck is good luck in the end – isn’t that amazing?! almost paradoxically, he’s hyper-vigilant about the negative impact his luck has on those around him. this is a tricky one. I make sense of it this way: komaeda’s perception of how much his luck impacts the people close to him isn’t inflated, like, at all. the supernatural way the world bends around komaeda to screw him over really does pose a danger to himself and others, and he takes measures to minimize that danger. his stated acceptance of his luck cycle is… well, again, he’s coping. 

if komaeda really thought that all bad luck is ultimately good luck, he wouldn’t try to protect his classmates from his bad luck. but, as we see in island mode, he does!

but really, who could blame komaeda for lying to himself? I’ll restate the facts. komaeda thinks that luck is absolute power. he says that he’s powerless against it. his luck has taken his family, and it’s left him with nothing but money that he doesn’t want. he’s certain he’s a curse, and there’s no end to that in sight: so long as komaeda exists, he’ll keep on losing – murdering – everything he loves. 

in the face of all of that despair, what can you do but abandon your self-esteem and pray for something good to come out of all of it? how else could somebody possibly survive carrying that burden, truly believing that load will never be lightened?

tldr; komaeda thinks his existence is a threat, and a big chunk of his personality is a frankensteined way of surviving the pain that comes with that. still, we should question how much of his worldview komaeda has really internalized without inner conflict. 

Part 2: Enter Hajime Hinata

we get some answers on that front when we see that despite the clear and obvious danger it poses, nagito komaeda still finds himself falling hard for hajime hinata. that’s really, really loud.

I’ll preface this part by saying that you don’t need to actively ship komahina to understand what I’m trying to get at here. this said, I’ll be recapping an argument you’ve almost definitely seen before: komahina is definitely “a thing” – at the very least as a one-sided thing. to this, I’ll add the (perhaps bold?) claim that without recognizing that much as true, you’re missing out on a big part of what makes komaeda so interesting.

komaeda’s FTEs make it abundantly clear that komaeda has feelings for hinata. apart from his famed failed love confession, the fact that komaeda is willing to allow hinata to get close enough to learn about his views on hope and luck is telling. 

(the smoking gun here hinges on trusting that komaeda was telling the truth during the time you spent with him; in so many words, that he only lied about lying. so, for the sake of argument, let’s assume this is true! there’s good proof for it, anyway.)

if you read his final FTE as komaeda flashing his soul to hinata and making a decision at the very last second to retreat, turning to old coping mechanisms to protect hinata from his luck, it’s sort of a komahina bombshell. that capitulation spells out for us that komaeda understands sharing his life experiences with hinata to be one of the most intimate things he could possibly do.

he recognizes the exact moment he lets hinata get too close – when his life story is finally told – and he does what he’s learned he needs to do to get them both out of that situation safely: he tries to make hinata hate him, and tells himself (and hinata!) that he did it for the sake of hope.

(and yet, komaeda let hinata approach him every FTE, knowing damn well that they were both playing with fire… very interesting.)

now, let’s say you don’t consider the FTEs to be integral to canon. I mean, you can really easily miss out on all of komaeda’s content if you choose not to hang out with him in chapter 1! so, for the skeptic, in the unskippable main story, komaeda tells hinata this:

komaeda cares about hinata despite everything. and I really, truly mean despite everything. at this point in the story, the fact that he still cares about hinata calls into question basically every single one of his core beliefs. he’s read his final dead room prize – not only does hinata not have a talent, we can presume that komaeda also knows hinata became ultimate despair along with the rest of them. 

hinata has continually sought out komaeda’s company, even though komaeda knows himself to be worthless at best, lethal at worst. komaeda was willing to let him get closer, even though he knows how dangerous that is for hinata. he can’t help but let hinata try to know him. 

isn’t he awful? to want what he knows he can’t have, even though that wanting has never done anything but cause pain? he’s really the lowest of the low, to love someone who destroyed the world, who makes him question the views that will allow him to do the only good thing he’s ever been able to do for it: to die for hope. 

and yet, it’s a nod to how incredibly capable of love komaeda is that he’s still willing to reach out for it, no matter how many times it’s burned him in the past, and how much it hurts him in the present to want it. he understands more than anyone that his feelings can only result in disaster. reading komaeda as someone who can’t help but go on loving anyway makes his story hurt so much worse. 

but, you miss a whole lot of that without an eye for komahina. seeing hinata as the eye of komaeda’s emotional hurricane (and keeping tabs on their connection accordingly) allows us to glimpse past the cracks in komaeda’s front. we see that komaeda’s worldview is less stable than he presents it as – hinata is where komaeda’s coping mechanisms, for better or worse, run up against a wall. that tends to be uncomfortable for a guy who’s just barely coping in the first place. then again, growth is supposed to be uncomfortable, isn’t it?

Part 3: The Future He Chooses

so, all of this considered, I think one of the most interesting ways you can flesh komaeda out post-canon is by asking how he’d find himself willing to accept love. whether that love is from hinata or the ultimates, whether it’s platonic or romantic, love is the thing that komaeda wants AND fears in equal measure more than anything. it’s the source of his self-loathing and his obsession with hope. it’s the reason he’s lived the way that he has for so long – lonely, and afraid of being anything but.

getting into a relationship wouldn’t solve komaeda’s problems for him, and that’s a good thing. it would force him to confront old ones, and probably create dozens of new issues for him, too. writing him through that makes for great character study!

hinata (or anyone else, for that matter) can’t love komaeda into loving himself, but he can give him a shoulder to cry on while he works through 22 years of fear and sorts through the wreckage of a worldview that’s long since stopped serving him. I don’t think his progress would be linear. but, I think that he could do it. komaeda learning to accept care is what his healing looks like. 

(well. and physically recovering from cancer and dementia. but that’s neither here nor there!)

a post-canon komaeda learning to love narrative is also in line with the themes of DR2. hinata leads the survivors out of the neo world program because he makes the decision to choose his own future, creating a new version of “hope” for himself and his classmates. likewise, komaeda can make the decision to save himself. that is, if he trusts himself enough to actually touch and hold the thing that he’s never been able to stop reaching out for, anyway.

after all, hinata is lucky too. (and if it turns out he isn’t… y'all like angst fics, right?)

(shoutout to @cynopter for looking this over and confirming that I'm not spouting nonsense <33 thank you for reading my thesis of the week <33)

[tealvenetianmask]

Moxxie and His Weapons Grade Daddy Issues (Part 1)

I keep saying it, and now I'm going to explain what I mean. It's worse than it seems. Really. Blitz and Stolas get most of the attention for being our favorite disaster men™, but Moxxie's underlying issues are just as bad. And eventually shit is going to hit the fan.

Disclaimer: I love Moxxie and M&M, and Moxxie and Blitz as friends. I'm about to shit on how Moxxie is overly dependent on these relationships. And this is not a "they should ditch him" situation. It's more- the guy needs to understand his own worth and do some serious growing.

Prologue: Crimson is the worst, obviously.

He taught Moxxie two main lessons.

You have to be stereotypically masculine. Everything it entails. Tough, good at violence, straight. That's the only way to have value. Oh, and the reason this all doesn't come naturally to you is because you're a weakling.

2. Be loyal or be killed. Fucking literally.

Moxxie found a new life, but the lessons from his dad stuck with him.

He didn't internalize EVERYTHING his dad taught him about masculinity. He's open about being bi, and about liking musicals and baking and generally being a sweet guy. I think it's been really helpful for Millie to show time and time again that she loves him this way.

BUT I think his self-acceptance has a side that masks his serious lack of confidence. Is it great that Millie can be "the strong one" in the relationship and they can defy gender stereotypes? Yes. It's ALSO really worrying that he doesn't believe he's strong himself- he deserves to feel strong too, and not as a "tough guy-" as himself.

We see Millie and Blitz save Moxxie a bunch, and the times when he's given a chance to prove himself (see Murder Family, The Harvest Moon Festival, and Unhappy Campers), the guy completely freaks out. I'm not using a screenshot from the fucking penguin short (because I'm still salty) but there's even a moment in there where Moxxie has the chance to take the kill shot on the seal, and even though he DOES pull it off, he looks really scared beforehand . . .

Moxxie WANTS to prove that he's strong and competent, but the issue is so weighty for him that the moment he tries, his brain goes haywire. Over and over again.

2. He got himself out from under Crimson's thumb, and even learned to stand up the guy a bit. I think it's really telling that the moment he first trusted Blitz to lead him was when Blitz told him he had to get out of jail for his daughter.

Moxxie has learned that he wants something different from what he grew up with. It's also worth noting that Moxxie feels comfortable arguing with Blitz, criticizing him, and talking back, in a way couldn't have gotten away with when following Crimson.

And the "strong" woman he married, who protects him? She's a total sweetheart, and they have fun together all the time. She doesn't tell him what to do. She supports him pretty much unconditionally, as we see in Unhappy Campers.

BUT here's the problem. Moxxie's thinking is still kind of authoritarian, in that he seems most comfortable when someone else is in charge.

He calls Blitz "Sir." And yeah, it's sort of iconic at this point. It was pretty much the only thing he called Blitz, until--

I think that Moxxie really liked the idea of Blitz asking him to use his name. He wants to be on even ground and have a real friendship. But he DOES keep saying "Sir." Not exclusively anymore (people make a big deal of him saying "Blitz" in the van in Mastermind), and this isn't a full tally, but...

It's pretty obvious who else was Sir . . .

Moxxie was raised to follow, under threat of death. I think it makes sense that someone with that experience would have kind of contradictory feelings toward their boss...

Moxxie WANTS to challenge authority. He WANTS to offer input on missions. He WANTS Blitz to see him as a friend and an equal, but at the same time, whenever Blitz is unable to lead. Well.

A shallow reading of any Moxxie-centric episode has Moxxie fixing his problems. I've seen multiple reaction youtubers getting confused when he still struggles in subsequent episodes- didn't he just get over that? But the realizations he comes to really are baby steps. He practices his skills for building independence and confidence but doesn't quite get there . . . he's saved either physically or emotionally by Millie or Blitz (even Loona in Ghostfuckers, though that's more of a joke). And then the underlying problems remain.

I want to get deeper into the M&M dynamic and what this all might mean for the pregnancy plotline and their relationship going forward in another post. But for now, I guess I'll conclude by saying that there's some problem avoidance happening, which gives fans a false sense of security, and Moxxie's mental health situation might get worse before it can truly get better.

Update: Part 2 is here.

[trianglesimpfordpines]

gotta say. i'm 100% on board with celestabellebethabelle gettin socked. i disagree when people say she had a point about mabel. first of all, mabel wasn't "just doing good deeds to make herself look better," she genuinely took c-beth's judgement to heart, declared herself "slacking in the goodness department," and set out to do good deeds because she wanted to be a better person!

but even more importantly, the whole reason she wanted the unicorn hair in the first place was to protect her family! that is, in and of itself, a good and selfless motivation.

so like, this 12-year-old girl shows up, with a totally reasonable request, motivated by wanting to protect the people she loves, and this equine asshole is just like "umm no, also you're a bad person lol," and some people apparently think the horse was right?? nah son that horse needed to get humbled. i'm actually so glad it turned out the whole "pure of heart" thing was just a straight-up scam in universe fr

[pikahlua]

Uh oh, it's sleepy grumpy Pika. Y'all know what that means, right?

It means I have no filter for my opinions.

If you're dissatisfied with the way Katsuki's bullying of Izuku is handled in MHA because you expected him to be confronted by someone else about it in some way, it's probably because you are unaware of the difference between bullying and attitudes towards it in Japan versus in your country of origin. I believe everyone would benefit from researching bullying in Japan. They do NOT view it the same way the west does, y'all.

And I guarantee when you learn about it, you're gonna find some stuff that makes you uncomfortable and horrified, because it's gonna take a while for you to get enough information to give context to a lot of the history and attitudes you'll find. AND EVEN THEN, EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE THAT CONTEXT, you're still definitely not going to like it.

However, with any luck, you'll see how MHA's portrayal of Katsuki's bullying is shockingly sympathetic and heartwarming to many people. It's because, from the perspective of a Japanese audience, Izuku was not targeted and bullied by Katsuki in the way we're used to seeing such situations portrayed in the west. Izuku was bullied by everyone. His classmates, his teachers, the pro heroes he encountered, and society in general ALL participated in the bullying of Izuku, because societal pressures to conform in Japan are MASSIVE, and that can often manifest as one form of bullying or another.

Katsuki's bullying is just the one that the story chooses to flesh out. It's the one that Horikoshi develops. Katsuki is the bully that changes his own perspective first and drastically, the one who realizes the greatness in Izuku and accepts that and comes to his side long before the rest of society can catch up. It is largely understood by the Japanese audience that Katsuki in middle school didn't seek Izuku out and follow him home every day to beat him up; Katsuki mostly ignored Izuku until Izuku would do something to remind Katsuki of his insecurities, and so he would lash out. And no one else at let's say Izuku's middle school would understand the true reason why Katsuki would lash out because what he does resembles what all of Izuku's bullies do to him: pressure him to conform. Pre-One For All Izuku stands out as different and constantly tries to rise above his position to become something society decrees he cannot be. Therefore, a significant part of Japanese society will generally approve of attempts to make him conform, even when some of those attempts are harsh and cruel and unreasonable and reactionary. MHA presents a caricature of that in the form of Izuku's middle school.

The fact that Katsuki identifies this toxic behavior in himself later in the story and decides to actively do something to change it IS the radical part. It's the piece that fits into the themes of MHA. It highlights a generally-accepted behavior in society that maybe society should rethink. It's asking for society to reconsider how it pressures people to conform, that sometimes nonconformity is good or at least should be tolerated to some degree. That's why Katsuki's story focuses so much on how his old behavior stems from fear. From the perspective of a "properly-functioning" collectivist society, pressure to conform should be done for the good of everyone in the society, not out of fear and misunderstanding. Katsuki's character arc provides one potential map for others in society to see the light and get to where he does.

And that's to say nothing of how Japan's versions of confrontation or retribution often look different from how they do in the west, that many of the forms of confrontation some people in the western fandom cry out for with regards to Katsuki sound absurd to an audience in the know. The karmic punishments Katsuki endures throughout the story are often overlooked by western readers, and is it any surprise? That readers from some societies--societies that laud nonconformity, tolerate counterculture, openly criticize the systems that be, preach about individual freedom and responsibility and justice and fairness, and watch and make movies and TV shows and other media about how victims of bullies achieve their righteous revenge--often miss how MHA doles out subtle, divine, poetic, karmic consequences for Katsuki's actions? That such readers often don't feel satisfied by MHA's dramatic ironies which serve more to guide Katsuki in a harmonious, productive direction rather than vindictively punish him and rest on its laurels as it laughs at his deserved misfortune? I don't blame anyone for feeling unsatisfied when their own societies have built up their expectations in such ways, but I do hope to draw your attention to it.

Now, does that mean you have to like and accept the Japanese attitudes about bullying? That you have to agree with the framing of pressure to conform as beneficial and productive? That, if you're triggered by the lack of overt condemnation of bullying in the story, you still have to like MHA? That, if you have personal traumatic experiences with Japan's bullying situation, you should shut up about it and accept that it's a good thing? No! In fact, I personally would hope that you don't! I think everyone should always have their perspectives on ANYTHING challenged so they can rethink and improve them, and Japan's attitude towards bullying is no exception! (And MHA actually does that in its own way!)

(And even saying that, I will always acknowledge that my perspective and opinions on this issue are heavily colored by my own experiences in life and the society in which I grew up and the ideas to which I've been exposed. This is and always will be my bias.)

But the question of what's the correct take on bullying is an entirely different beast. The question at hand here is about understanding the story and its characters as presented in MHA. If you don't come at this with a basic acknowledgement of how Katsuki's story reads to a Japanese audience in-context, you're going to be upset about what you see (which is a reasonable reaction). But I think if you're going to read a story, it's only due courtesy to understand the context surrounding its creation before you try to hold it to far-removed, foreign standards. There's a reason literature classes go over the history and context surrounding the older works they study. MHA is a Japanese story written for a Japanese audience. To focus on how it does not adhere to the typical western narrative of a bully's character arc is to miss the point entirely. If you are reading the story outside of Japan in a language other than Japanese, it is being translated so that you can read a Japanese story, not a story from your own culture. It's rude and self-defeating to expect stories from other cultures to suddenly cater to your own.

TL;DR Understanding the social context that informs bullying in MHA just might actually make the story more comprehensible and enjoyable for anyone who dares to learn about it, what do you have to lose?

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Something I haven't seen anyone talk about yet is the small detail that shows Gi-hun only found the games again because the Frontman/In-ho wanted him to. The entirety of the games this year was built around Gi-hun.

In S1, the first card we see has the number 010-034. The number is reversed for the next year's games, which Gi-hun intercepts at the end of S1 (becoming 034-010). He then has two years of looking for the recruiter/the games to no avail.

Suddenly, after months of trying the same thing over and over again, he finds the recruiter. The recruiter meets him at his house with an invitation pre-prepared, dated for Gi-hun's birthday. He meets the Frontman, who encourages him to forget the games, but hardly seems surprised when Gi-hun suggests his rejoining--because he knew that's what Gi-hun would do. After two years of avoiding him and seeing his efforts only grow more intense, the Frontman decided Gi-hun was enough of a problem to address, and enough of a potential asset to be worthwhile converting. So he let him succeed.

The recruiter gave a card to the man in the subway. Gi-hun never saw it, but the number this time was 456-010.

[chasedeys]

Oh thank you for that thorough response!! Are there any other Joemarr lore moments I should know about as a new fan? Any sources you recommend I look through?

oh sure no problem!!! 🥰🫶 not that thorough really akdjfjfk BUT yeah pretty crazy articles to drop lmao

um not to like self-promote (???? is it) lmao but may i direct you to my first ever insane ass long answer to an innocent joemarr ask of my fav joemarr moment that definitely need to be updated with the 2024 season 😮‍💨 you can definitely scroll through my joemarr meta tag too which is like where i store all my bullshit joemarr long answers! you can skip reading the long-winded analysis if you’d rather like form your own thoughts on them but there are dozens of linked moments there you can scroll through so i’d recommend that for sure 😊 oh and maybe my fav tag too! not necessarily joemarr but i usually keep my fav posts there that really catch my interest!

and heavilyyyyyy recommend scrolling through @cementcornfield's joemarr (joe’marr) tag toooo she says her organization's a mess but ive literally learned all there is about joemarr the first few weeks through her blog so 😔🫶 a staple tbh lol and you can branch out all the other blogs that post bengals content too!! soooo many now really it’s kind of wild i can’t keep up at times 😭 here is her post on it if you'd like to see more recommended blogs!

oh and some essential lore mention!! lets see several big ass mentions um

the clothes saga and the entire post-sb loss coaxing out of bed for like a vegas date maybe

kc game shove

lakers date

their pinky shake

lsu natty game ball and ja’marrs bratty ass bragging of it

joe wearing ja'marr's game-worn jersey (top 3 moments btw)

the refusal to play without each other

the ufc fights

that’s my qb not theirs (yeah...)

them being neighborssssss this is truly insane read through carmen's tags no really it’ll drive you insane. what the fuck. no really the fuck.

the whole article is kind of crazy but like the boat thing in particular. 'we did a lot but not on a boat'. okay ja'marr. it also birthed my favorite delusional babble of like. ja’marr choosing to stay in ohio for joe in the future but not being sure of verbalizing it.

DONUT INCIDENTTT with a little handsy moment beforehand (so many angles of the donut incident i cannot possibly link them all sorry)

oh this helmet slam celly vs this helmet slam celly when you take in account how these were their first long touchdowns since joe's wrist injury and like compare it to their first nfl touchdown celly Thoughts truly Thoughtssssssssss 😮‍💨 (the first td celly loooook at joe grippinggg at his waistttt holy shittttttt)

joe on ja'marr's rookie preseason drops (the first link is another angle and longer clip of the first td celly btw where you can see joe finally pushing ja'marr away god the fuck is wrong with them i adore that clip truly top 10 moments and alsoooo the presser with the pinky shake of all times as a fuck you to all those reporters and haters top 5 pinky shakes moment btw)

the lsu staring saga

the lsu warm skin recount

joe's first griddy where their account was nearly the same word for word and ja’marr was severely biased and joe was all ‘i just saw you and i got to’ okay.....

also id link like the whole qb1 pat who thing but i cant be assed to search chiefs anything anywhere else rn sorry 😭 but ja'marr's thing with the chiefs is honestly ripe with joemarr and like joe as his qb1 etc etc

etc etccccccc im sure im missing a lot lmao but like. truly if you do a deep dive of their lore it's crazy they've got 6-7 years of this shit (real quote btw: ja'marr has said so. i've been with him what. 6-7 years? i've lost count.) so like. if you have the time and vigorous enough obsession you can definitely catch up with their entire thing 😔🤚 i wish you the best lol.

anyways hope you enjoy scrolling watching reading through all these moments!! (if anyone else wants to rb and add moments go right aheaddd btwwww please do!!)

[jemmo]

Making sense of love for love's sake: the game

Despite all the things i absolutely adore about how the plot unravels and expands in love by love's sake, upon first watch, there's some things i couldn't piece together, which @lurkingshan echoes in their post:

'The way the author was messing with Myungha and forcing cruel choices on him really does not track with a desire to help him find happiness.'

And to preface, this is not something i fully get yet either. I think i'll need a good month and a sizeable reading list of relevant resources to understand just what/who this author/sunbae is and what his role is and how he is associated with myungha. But as always with the best shows for meta (aka bad buddy), as a plot unfolds, you can always find a better understanding by looking backwards and re-contextualising what you've already seen. so i watched ep 1, specifically the scene between myungha and his sunbae at the bar. And i will talk about how everything said in this scene has a whole new meaning now we know the full story, but for now i wanna focus on that question that they keep coming back to; "Then... will you change it for him?".

When you watch the show for the first time, your brain follows the simplest, most obvious version of the story you're being told, one where myungha has been pulled into the world of his sunbae's novel that's being turned into a game and given the opportunity to fix the thing he didn't like about it; making yeowoon happy, and thus you just think the rules of the game are imposed by the author, and so when these cruel choices first come up, you see them as the difficult roadblocks that are nevertheless necessary to any kind of game, forcing the player to make an impossible choice so that the game can continue in a certain direction and its only after that you learn whether it was the right choice or not, or there is no right choice, it simply changes the game you are playing.

And when its revealed what this game actually is, at first i tried to interpret these cruel choices, namely the choice between yeonwoon and myungha's grandma, and at best i could come up with the concept of this being a choice between staying stuck to the past aka choosing his grandma, even though he knows that choice doesn't mean she's safe bc he knows the future where he loses here, its an inevitability, but thats the small happiness he knew before it was taken away and thus that happiness is known and safe, theres no risk, versus choosing to pursue a new happiness, a love of yeowoon and thus himself, which he doesn't know, he hasn't experienced yet, and could be risky. Its a happiness that isn't guaranteed like his grandma, but its a happiness that looks to the future and has hope in it that he can find a new happiness to pursue despite what has happened in his past.

And that fits nice, okayish. But then i watched ep 1 and heard that question "Then... will you change it for him?" And watching through the rest of the eps, we come back to this scene at the bar and each time we get a new run up to the author asking this question, either new dialogue is added or we hear a different piece of the conversation entirely. It starts at the beginning of ep 1 as:

"Because Cha Yeowoon is the only one who's miserable." "It can't be helped that some people's lives are like that" "The fact that some people are destined to live that kind of life is what's vile."

Then a bit later in ep 1 we go back and its expanded.

"It can't be helped that some people's lives are like that" "The fact that some people are destined to live that kind of life is what's vile." "Why? Do you think you'd write it differently?" "Yes, definately. Someone like Cha Yeowoon, or someone like me with an awful life, can also be happy."

And then all the way on in ep 6, we get this new dialogue.

"I don't like talking about destiny." "Why?" "Because it means everything is predestined." "Then do you not believe in fate?" "Fate and destiny are the same. My grandma likes to say that. She said life is like a written book, and how you'll live and die are written in it. (...)I don't like things like this. Even if fate is already destined, I think it can still be changed. Otherwise, there's no point in trying." "Really? Then Myungha..."

And while we don't hear the author ask the same question, I feel like him getting cut off like that insinuates that the conversation leads to that same ending point. All that is to say, every time we hear this question being asked, its like we learn more and more about what this whole thing is, what the game is, what myungha is saying he will do by agreeing to do what the author asks. And every time, we see myungha being more defiant against the idea of yeowoon being resigned to his miserable ending. He starts off thinking that kind of life is destined, and while it's miserable, its not something he can fight. Then he says he'd want to write the story differently, bc yeowoon, or even him, could be happy. He challenges the idea that yeowoon, and thus himself, is fated to be miserable, and opens up the possibility for happiness for them both, but doesn't yet have the means or resolve to do it, its like he knows its possible on a fundamental level, but doesn't see it as something he can actually achieve. But then we circle back to the idea of destiny and books, both of which came up in the previous quote, and seems incredibly pertinent seen as this whole thing is about a novel this author has written. Myungha talks about how he hates the idea that life is a book where everything written is predestined to happen, from the moment you live to the moment you die. He says "Even if fate is already destined, I think it can still be changed. Otherwise, there's no point in trying." That vile way of life he described before that he said was destined, he is now saying it can be changed, and that possibility is now something he's holding onto, its what he sees hope in so that he can keep trying, bc now he finally is trying, he has the resolve, he's trying to realise this thing, this impossibility of rewriting the life he thought was destined through the way he loves yeowoon.

And coming back to those cruel choices, given this fresh context, it made me think. bc this isn't actually a game that myungha has been put into where the rules are dictated by an author completely separate from him. He said himself, he'd rewrite it, he'd change things for yeowoon. And when you start to think of it less as him fighting against a rigid, removed system and more like him being a character in a story he is trying to rewrite himself, that has both the author and his own limitations, or just his own if you're in the school of thought that the author is some figment or part of myungha himself or his conciousness, then you can start to see where these cruel choices might come from. They could be myungha, the author making edits to this new story, imposing his own doubts and limitations on himself. When he says he has to pick between Yeowoon and his grandma, what if that's the new author myungha seeing this story unfold and thinking no this isn't right, he can't have it all, i'm not deserving of this much happiness.

And what makes me like this idea even more is that when we get that second choice between ending after 14 days or getting 100 days back at the cost of resetting Yeowoon's affection to 0, that whole conversation happens in what I think the bar actually is which is this frozen moment in time where myungha is in the water with this extension of a voice in his head that is talking through these things. That conversation in itself needs its own post, but when you look at it both as a decision to break up or not or a decision to hold onto life or not, you can see how the author is just this soundboard relaying the decisions myungha is going through in his head. The author's voice is his own, weighing up his decisions. And if he is the author here, it only reinforces that the person making the rules of this game is him. You can even extend it further to the idea of the debuffs, where he puts in place this thing that makes it so he causes harm to yeowoon when he's around, and its only by garnering affection that he can prevent it. He gives himself a reason from the get go to stay away from yeowoon and reason it as him doing it for yeowoon's safety, when in fact the only way to make yeowoon safe is to increase his affection, which he can only do by being near him. Its a system that at first gives myungha a reason to stay away aka not like himself, but ultimately says the only way you're going to make yeowoon like you, or the only way you can like yourself, is if you accept risk. And that in itself screams to me of a myungha writing in these game systems that are trying to encourage his own-self love while falling at the hurdle of his own lack of self-worth.

The idea is still messy in my head even for me, but i just really like the idea that myungha could be trying to fix this thing both as a character and game master, and that both these versions of him have these flaws that manifest in their different ways to cause the events we see. It kinda is the definition of being your own worst enemy, the idea that in order to work towards loving yourself, the biggest obstacle you have to encounter is yourself, bc we are the ones holding ourselves back, making all these rules that make it harder to like ourselves and pursue our own happiness. The voices in our head telling us that we aren't good enough and aren't deserving are our own, and while the things that happen to us can inform what they say, we're the one's reinforcing those words. And what this show teaches us is that, if we're the one holding that pen all along, we can choose to change what those words are. If we make the rules, you don't have to create a game with concrete ultimatums, you can create a game where rules don't control you. Instead, you make the decisions, and you can make the ones that make you happy.

[secriden]

It flays me open to see the way Style is so clearly choosing to love Fadel. The way he does this with eyes wide open, fully seeing and knowing and understanding that Fadel is very much a man with parts at war within himself, who is far from perfect and moreover who will stubbornly cling to his flawed perspectives -- and yet Style chooses and keeps choosing to love Fadel anyway.

And while there is a helplessness to Fadel's love for Style, it is juxtaposed so very beautifully with the way Style's love for Fadel is filled with intention.

It's kind of wonderful how there's nothing idealistic about Style's perception of Fadel. Watch how long Style freezes when Fadel first pulls the gun on Popcorn and Jimmy. Even as they're starting to run away, Style remains petrified, his whole focus fixed on Fadel's hand, on the gun with a (steady, this time) finger on the trigger.

And again, when Fadel threatens to shoot Jimmy, Style's whole body actually jerks in alarm, hands hovering as if he's caught in indecision, before he stands up and tries to physically stay Fadel's hand. Style is acutely aware of the violence that Fadel is capable of and it legitimately terrifies him. Not just because of the physical training that makes Fadel so effortlessly, instinctively lethal, but even more what it says about his metal state and the emotional scars he carries to be able to hurt without thought or care.

It's easy to forget that Style's boldness and defiance in the face of Fadel's threats does not mean that he is unaware or in denial about the deaths which Fadel has orchestrated and been involved with. The choice to keep Popcorn and Jimmy alive is only significant if Style understood that Fadel was fully capable of clinical murder given the justification of being attacked by them.

He's also unflinchingly honest about questioning if Fadel's moral judgement is one that should be trusted. And even more significant is that he calls out how wrong it is that Fadel thinks he has the right to stand as judge and jury at all. It’s kind of wonderful how Style’s love not only doesn’t blind him to Fadel’s faults, it even makes him see the situation more clearly because he so genuinely wants what is best for Fadel.

And we find out this episode that Style is absolutely right to ask those questions!! Fadel has been lied to, used, manipulated; but there's an undeniable aspect of Fadel on some subconscious level choosing to turn a blind eye and trust that Lilly was giving them the 'right' targets in spite of the fact that he knows Lilly isn't a good woman (because we've seen Fadel's fear of her in the way he tries to protect Bison from their 'loving' mother). I remember wondering in episode 1 if the supposedly ethical 'cause' is one which Fadel truly believes in, and I think the fact that he has already tried to leave once tells us that on some level, a quiet voice inside Fadel whispered that there was a falseness at the centre of his crusade.

But the Fadel of right now isn't willing to face this truth just yet. He is still reeling from the discovery of Style and Bison’s double betrayals, still hurting from what he thinks is his unreciprocated love. Right now, Fadel still wants, still needs to feel like he has some control, still needs the wilful self-deception of thinking that his life before Style (without Style) was enough to make him happy. And Fadel would rather pay the price of loneliness (and continuing to hurt someone he knows he still loves) if it means feeling as if the ground he's standing on is solid.

But Fadel has never prepared for someone coming into his life with not only the unwavering determination to look beyond his mask of hostility, but also the ravenous desire and tender care to search and reach for the soft fragility of the light inside his heart. Because as much as Style was challenging and questioning Fadel in this scene, he was also so very clear about the things he sees in Fadel that are worth treasuring. Just look at the gentleness in Style's eyes and the soft way he says "you're pretty decent at your core". The way Style refuses to let Fadel maintain his facade of careless cruelty and clinical detachment to killing, but claims with unshakable certainty that Fadel has never been that self-serving as to kill solely for money.

Style desperately wants Fadel to see the good in himself and to understand and acknowledge that he is so very, very worthy of the adoration Style wants to give him. Can we just pause and take in for a moment: the weight of Style's affection as he presses worshipful kisses to Fadel's injured arm; a silent apology for the hurts already inflicted and wordless promise to care for all of Fadel's injuries in the future.

Style (rock concert; episode 6): "You're doing a lot of second jobs aren't you?" and "Try being someone you want to be."

But Stye's love for Fadel also gives him the courage want better for Fadel. He isn't content to just accept Fadel's life as a hitman; and now that all the secrets are gone, he dares to bluntly ask the questions that he had to hide behind veiled words in episode 6. Style is determined to hold a mirror up to the life Fadel has been living and force Fadel to see the ways it has been eating Fadel up on the inside.

Style is forcing Fadel to face the reality that he does have a choice, that he has options outside of merely surviving this horrible life he feels bound to by fate. (And once again he is right!! Because oh, the harrowing knowledge we, as the audience, now have that it wasn't even fate -- it was the machinations of an evil, scheming, conniving woman who took two grieving and traumatised children and twisted them for her own use! T_T).

But the best part? The part that absolutely fills me with an almost hysterical delight? Style makes it absolutely clear that he isn't asking Fadel to face any of this alone. Because Style understands that Fadel is genuinely terrified -- Style is asking for Fadel to reach for a future together with him beyond this life of a killer, to step off the edge and choose to trust Style again when neither of them know what they'll find at the bottom of that fall.

So Style takes that drop first because what Style does this episode makes me truly feel insane:

He freely calls Fadel faen and owns the unspoken implications of love, commitment, and devotion in that term of address. He promises, over and over that he won't run from Fadel; that his continued presence by Fadel's side is a choice and not a reaction to the gun Style is careful to show he is not intimidated by. He stays unflinchingly honest in everything he does throughout their journey: from his frank desire for Fadel's kiss, to the harrowing vulnerability of his very real fear of death; from the way he obeys Fadel's order to push the car, and also how exhausted he was from the exertion, to the way he stares at the water Fadel is drinking and pointedly says nothing (refuses to ask for any water himself) and then calls out that Fadel offered it to him without prompting.

Style wants Fadel to know that he's seeing everything, that he can hear the silent cries of reluctant care from Fadel's heart, even if Fadel's words are still filled with cold and cruel dismissals, because it makes Style's declarations of love and devotion all the more weighty.

When Style said, "I promise that no matter who you are, I'll still like you" in episode 5, Fadel couldn't trust his words because he didn't have the context of Style already Knowing. But Style has been freed from the shackles of his own lies now; freed to give his promises to Fadel anew with the knowledge that both their secrets have already been stripped bare.

And this time, Style fully respects the boundaries Fadel sets, and acknowledges the storm of anger and hurt in his heart. He isn't demanding for Fadel's forgiveness, nor is he denying that Fadel feels that he deserves recompense.

I remember reading a few takes that Style is simply "restarting" or "continuing" his courtship and episode 8 has totally shifted my perspective on that.

This courtship isn't a parallel, this is a juxtaposition; and the biggest indication of that is the way Style refuses to take anything that Fadel does not give him freely. Style will put himself on display, will offer is body and his heart and ask for Fadel's touch, Fadel's lips, Fadel's heart -- but yet at each crucial moment when Fadel rejects him or turns away, Style's reaction is only one of understanding and compassion and acceptance. Look at the stark difference in these two moments. Look at Style's selfish determination to take in episode 2 as compared to his selfless acceptance of Fadel's right to reject his offer of affection in episode 8.

Because this time his love is real. This time, it's not just empty words dangled to bait a trap accidentally designed to work uniquely for Fadel's fragile heart. This time, Style will place all of his vulnerability in Fadel's hands and take the risk that Fadel will hurt him, that Fadel will be cruel to him, hell that Fadel may actually still kill him at the end of their journey, because Style has made the choice to put Fadel's happiness first. And this is so fucking incredible because I don't think Fadel has had anyone to do that for him since his parents died. Khun Mae certainly didn't, and Bison is his younger brother and the one Fadel has to care for, the one he's responsible for. Who, then, has been around to truly look at Fadel, to see into his heart and the things he desires in his darkest moments, and give him not only what he thinks he wants, but what is best for him?

But the beauty of their narrative is that love has given Style eyes to see true; to see behind Fadel's walls and masks and cruel facade, to the heart of the a man who is still bound up in his trauma and old hurts and isn't ready to let go of his past for the future Style wants to offer him. And all that he saw was worth enough that even with Fadel's gun at hand, even with Fadel sitting literally naked and vulnerable and partially incapacitated because of his broken arm, Style's choice is still to stay.

And I am brought to my knees by this choice because it isn't a thoughtless or careless one: Style literally vows to give his life on his quest to win Fadel back. This is a promise to stay by Fadel side until Fadel either kills him or becomes ready to walk away from his life of violence, because they both know now that these are the only options left.

But Style sees enough in Fadel to make wagering his very life worthwhile, because there's no price Style isn't willing to pay if it means the chance to hold Fadel in his arms again and receive a kiss freely given from the lips of the man he loves.

[i-heart-hxh]

Thinking of all the ways Gon and Killua are symbolically portrayed as a pair:

Black/White

Dog/Cat

Gold/Silver (see this post)

Hikoboshi/Orihime (see this post)

Sun/Moon

Yin/Yang

Enhancer/Transmuter (according to Hisoka's nen type personality analysis)

Taurus/Cancer (see this post)

Earth/Sky (their color palettes)

[mochiajclayne]

how do I even explain that law had been saying homosexual coded stuff about him and luffy as early as marineford like sir what do you mean your meeting with strawhat was fate 🤨