#also i could write a whole dissertation on the fact that you can read ALL of the main manga and never actually know toshiro's real name

[inkblackorchid]

What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 3)

Trying my absolute damnedest to finish this one and part four sooner now that I've finally covered the Pearson backstory. *Ehem* Hello again! I hope you're ready for more yelling about a certain spiky-haired Blackbird aficionado, because I sure am.

To get some things out of the way first, though, here come the usual disclaimers:

This is part three of a series of posts about hpw Crow's character was handled during 5Ds' whole run. You can find part one here and part two here. Reading them technically isn't required, but things sure will make a whole lot more sense if you do. (Bring snacks, they're long.)

This post isn't meant as a Crow hate post, nor is it meant to convince people who didn't vibe with his character to change their mind. This is my very long winded-attempt to analyse the writing decisions surrounding his character as best I can, without too much bias. That said, full disclosure, I do personally like Crow, so there's a good chance that will shine through whether I want it to or not. But also, I'm trying to have fun here, so please cut me some slack.

In case you haven't read my previous Crow posts (no shade there) and/or still believe the many, many production rumours that have been haunting the 5Ds fandom since the show's original run, please let me burst your bubble(s) with some insanely comprehensive research by someone over on Reddit (thanks again to @mbg159, who's also here on tumblr): No, Crow was not meant to be a dark signer, or the final boss of season 1, and his spike in screentime has nothing to do with his cards. And also, No, Aki didn't get less presence in the narrative because her VA got pregnant. What if you don't have the time to read either of those long posts? In that case, please take away this simple, very easy rebuttal of why the above theories are bullshit: Their would-be "key points" don't line up with the 5Ds production timeline. At all. Not even vaguely. So please, ditch them, let them die, seeing them still talked about makes me feel like I'm gonna break out in hives. And for the love of god, don't use this post or in fact anything else I post to pit Aki and Crow against each other. Both characters have their strengths and their reasons to love them. I am not the least bit interested in starting any character discourse. So please, spare my sanity. Ok? Thank you.

And now, we can get to the good part at last. In my previous post in this series, I stopped my analysis at episode 95, a.k.a. part two of the Pearson backstory. In this post, I will thus be picking up right after, at the very start of the WRGP—with the Team Unicorn match. The goal for this post is to analyse Crow's part in this particular arc, then provide some food for thought/ideas on how things that rubbed some people the wrong way could have been improved.

More below the readmore, and I give you not just my usual warning, but an extra warning, too: The universe will not let me write short things, so tread with caution, stay hydrated, and expect a veritable dissertation below, because this post feels long even to me, who has long since lost her sense of length when it comes to text. (But I'm well aware this is the result of me refusing to split the WRGP part into two separate posts, so I take full responsibility for that.)

Since we left off right after I chewed through all the issues with Crow's rather belated backstory and especially Black-Winged Dragon last time, we jump right into the thick of things now, with episodes 96 and 97, which serve as the preamble to Team 5Ds' first WRGP duel against Team Unicorn. Crow only gets two major things to do during this short stretch of episodes, the first being that he's Team Unicorn's gateway into roping Yusei into a duel during practice, which helps them set up a ruse that baits the 5Ds gang into sending Jack as their first wheeler because they think Jack's deck is best suited to countering Andre's—which, as it later turns out, it is not.

(Arguably the screenshot where Crow gives off the strongest Youngest Sibling Vibes during the entire show. Look at him, all chastised.)

Crow's second role is an odd one that I argue only he out of the main three guys could fulfill at this point: He's the one to get injured right before the Team Unicorn match, rendering him unable to compete, which leads to Aki offering to take his place for that particular match.

(Pictured: Bird Boy regretting all his life choices up until that point simultaneously.)

Here's the first moment I have to talk about in greater detail. See, the thing is, I don't know what the fandom consensus on Crow getting injured here is, but I argue that this moment was a (rare) strategic decision made by the writers at this point. Crow's injury accomplished several things: 1. It sets up the mystery of why his back wheel locked up out of nowhere, which is later paid off through Team Catastrophe's shenanigans. 2. It organically allows Aki to take his spot without introducing any argument about which of them is "worthier" of having that third spot. 3. Through this, it also allows him to actually bounce off Aki for once (a point I will come back to below, during the Team Catastrophe section). And 4. It allows the show to (TECHNICALLY) pay off the setup they did in letting Aki get her turbo duelling license and train with the boys. (Generally, Crow's and Aki's character writing intersects a bit during the pre-Diablo incident WRGP section, something I'll touch on below.)

Moreover, I think this is also the only match where they could have done something like this, and the reason for it is very simple: Team Unicorn are one-off opponents whose presence in the narrative is only relevant as far as it concerns the WRGP, and they are also one of the first teams the 5Ds gang faces. If we think about the opponents Team 5Ds has after this, it becomes very obvious why Crow could only be injured during this duel: If they had tried pulling this stunt later, it would have forced the writers to pull Aki centre stage during a much more plot-relevant duel than this one (which they were apparently allergic to, but let's not go there), not to speak of the fact that it would have forced them to sideline someone they were definitely trying to sell as the third portion of their protagonist trifecta, which would have probably been awkward. (If not for the fact that they literally did this to Crow later in the show, but I'll get there. Yes, I know there's a lot already that I'll still be "getting to".)

The thing is, whether or not it feels like an awkward writing choice to make so early in the big tournament of this arc (you be the judge of that), Crow's injury finally allows him to have a few interesting character moments for once. For one, there is his immediate disappointment about being forced to stay on the sidelines. Aside from the fact that this is a human and relatable reaction to his injury, it stings even more for the character than it does for us as the audience, because Crow got a moment where the Satellite orphans he previously took care of cheer him on for the tournament literally within the same two Team Unicorn preamble episodes.

(Say what you will, this is just stupid cute.)

So when Aki eventually offers to take his place during the match, he's understandably apprehensive—and again, this is human. It may seem mean in the moment, but from a character writing standpoint, it's a natural response. Plus, it's certainly more interesting to watch the group have a bit of conflict among themselves, rather than everyone immediately jumping straight to acceptance. It introduces tension, and, for however brief a moment, raises the question of whether Crow might refuse to let Aki take his spot. This is also the point where Aki and Crow's character writing officially intertwines, at least for the stretch of episodes between the Team Unicorn duel and the Team Catastrophe duel. And you know what? Say what you will, but I think it does a world of good for both of them. The 5Ds cast, as lovely as it is, doesn't get a lot of room to bounce off one another where it concerns personal matters anymore, once the WRGP starts. Arguably, they get little time to bounce off one another outside of plot-related discussions at all once this portion of the show comes around. The characters are treated as "fully developed", and thus, the writing largely doesn't take the time to show us how the group naturally interacts with one another anymore, especially not with how many side characters (chiefly Bruno and Sherry), antagonists, and duels the show now has to juggle. So Aki and Crow getting even a smidgen of personal conflict here is honestly a breath of fresh air. The interaction kicked off by Crow's injury isn't completely plot-irrelevant, like most character interactions during the pre-WRGP were, but it's not something that feels like it's only there to explain the machinations of the antagonists to the audience, either.

Let me go through this in a little more detail to illustrate my point.

So, episode 97. Crow storms off after Aki offers to take his spot, while Aki heads out to prepare her runner, intent on helping her team. The personal motivations here are already very nice and reflective of these characters as we've gotten to know them up until this point: Crow's angry and disappointed (mostly at himself, which is noteworthy!) because he can't compete. And specifically, he's angry because not being able to compete in the first match means he can't show the kids his duelling like he wanted to. Then there's Aki, whose offer to take Crow's place is every bit as much of a strategic suggestion as it is a bid for acceptance from her. Acceptance, which is the thing she's been all about ever since she was introduced, basically. So she pleads with her friends to accept her, see her as an equal, and allow her to duel for the team, which they do. And Crow initially throws a fit, but then...

(Listen. You have no idea how much Crow and Aki getting to actually be friends means to me.)

He comes around to the idea and not only gives Aki his express permission to take his spot, he even coaches her a bit right before the match. Moreover, as his text states above, he literally entrusts her with the kids' hopes, as well as his own. This quickly brings both of them full circle: Crow, who already has a theme of legacy attached to him, passes the torch to Aki for this match, and in so doing, offers her the acceptance she asked her teammates for. (Frankly, stuff like this makes me wonder why on earth people were so eager to pit these two against each other, when their shared moments are actually some of the best-written during the often rocky WRGP arc.) So, though this injury pulls Crow out of the duel, it, funnily enough, ties him better into the story and to the other characters.

From there, we then dive into the Team Unicorn match proper. And well, being injured as he is, Crow doesn't exactly get a whole lot to do there. However, since we're in the portion where his and Aki's writing overlaps a bit, I do need to go on a quick tangent about what Aki's portion of this duel means for Crow.

(Sigh. Okay, buckle up for a quick and rough detour.)

First, something I need to get out of the way and off my chest: I have made no secret out of the fact that I hate Aki's portion of this duel, save for the moment where she summons Stardust. Hell, this duel segment is pretty much universally hated by anone who has even a smidgen of sympathy for Aki. It's regarded by many as the very moment the writers axed Aki's character, and for good reason: After all the buildup surrounding her getting her turbo duelling license, the supposed "payoff" of it all is that she gets to duel against Andre for a depressing four turns before being defeated immediately, which leads into Yusei's frustrating portion of this duel, which, to my knowledge, isn't regarded any more kindly by fans than Aki's segment. It's a massive let-down, simply put. But the thing is, it's not just a let-down for Aki. After all, the brief character conflict she had with Crow about taking his spot here can and should be regarded as part of the setup for this moment, and as such, it can also be considered to be wasted the second Aki leaves the track after barely making an impact whatsoever.

However, I do need to mention that I have a theory on why this segment was handled the way it was, mostly because I feel like Crow's later interaction with Aki, shortly after she's out of the duel, underlines it (mind that this is just my personal theory, though, after having watched the show perhaps more times than can be considered sane): I think there is a cultural aspect to this duel. See, the word ganbaru, which anime subtitles often like to translate with "do your best" or something along the lines, has a greater significance than the translation implies. Though it's not inaccurate per se, there's more than just the idea of doing your best behind ganbaru, because it's something like an umbrella term not just for doing your best and succeeding, it's also the idea that you have to keep trying, even if you don't succeed. It's related to tenacity, to persistence, even in the face of terrible odds. And make no mistake, I don't mean the Japanese equivalent of "if at first you don't succeed, try again" here. I genuinely do mean "you have to keep trying, even if you fail". There is no guarantee of success here. And for that reason, the idea behind ganbaru is also that it's not simply the success that has value, but the effort made in the attempt to attain it, regardless of the result. (Side note: I tried to scrounge up a resource I could link to that nicely explains this concept, but unfortunately, all the promising articles were paywalled and the ones I learned it from require institutional access to lecture materials.) And this is where I will posit the tentative theory that this is exactly what the 5Ds writers were going for with Aki's segment of the duel—it was very much meant to be the payoff for her turbo duelling license setup and her plea to take Crow's place, but it wasn't so much her success that was meant to be valued, as the effort she (and by extension, Crow) made for and during this duel. And this is where Crow's little pep-talk with Aki after she's out of the duel comes in, because it feels like it supports exactly this interpretation:

(This is essentially the whole sequence. Note how Crow, despite so fervently entrusting Aki with his and his kids' hopes prior, doesn't admonish her for making a bad showing in the slightest.)

I don't think it gets any clearer than it is here. During this sequence, Aki is painfully aware of how poor her performance was against Andre, especially after she was so insistent on duelling at first, and despite having been entrusted with Stardust by Yusei, to boot. Yet, Crow doesn't have a single word of criticism to offer her. Instead, he even tells her she did well and that nobody's perfect. It very much reads as valuing Aki's effort over the result she achieved to me, and thus seems perfectly in line with the idea behind ganbaru.

However, if we assume I'm correct about the intentions behind this writing choice, we come back to why Aki's segment of the duel is so hotly debated and why it may have arguably been a disservice not just to her, but to Crow, too, character-wise. Because the majority of non-Japanese watchers of the show culturally don't have a 1:1 applicable concept like ganbaru, this writing choice was more likely to fall flat for them, because to someone who wasn't raised to understand the idea behind it, Aki's portion of the duel doesn't register as a payoff; it registers as a massive disappointment, because it feels like the writers, who had so much setup already done for her, let her fail on purpose, just to later let Yusei attain his arguably dumbest victory of the entire show. Thus, they also essentially waste the conflict she had with Crow about whether she would be allowed to take his spot in the first place, because with how little she achieved during the duel, she may as well not have gotten on the track. (Figuratively speaking. Please Do Not take this to mean I would prefer a version where Aki hadn't duelled at all. That would be worse. It would be infinitely worse.)

(Also, side note: If this post reaches anyone who's actually Japanese and still remembers this duel, I would genuinely love your input on whether my interpretation is feasible or just wishful thinking. Did you interpret Aki's part of the duel the way I did here? Or did it fall flat for you, too? If what I'm saying here feels like an absolute reach, please tell me. I'm honestly just trying my best to make things make sense here and remembered this concept from some classes I took in Japanese studies at uni.)

With all that in mind, it doesn't come as a surprise that some people were just as frustrated with the way Crow was barred from duelling here as they were with Aki's segment or Yusei's later victory. But it is what it is—the Unicorn duel concludes the way we all know it to, and with that, the show begins setting up the following duel with Team Catastrophe.

The only other, non duel-related, noteworthy thing that happens between the Unicorn and the Catastrophe match is a brief appearance at the Poppo Time by Sherry, who admonishes the signers for celebrating their victory early and warns them about Iliaster. Why do I bring this up? Because it's one of less than five times that Crow is in the same room with Sherry. Remember, Sherry. The girl he later, during the finale, talks out of working for the big bad evil guy because he suddenly seems to have such a deep understanding of her motivations and character that he can accurately deduce what argument will make her understand that working with Z-ONE won't give her what she's looking for. So, does Crow get a meaningful interaction with her during this scene, then? Nope. Not even in the slightest. Crow says exactly one sentence that is aimed at Sherry during her appearance, and that sentence is this:

(What a meaningful conversation!)

And yes, I will come back to Crow and Sherry's dynamic in particular. But we'll save that for the Ark Cradle arc post. For now, just keep it in mind as we move along to the other WRGP duels.

So. Team Catasrophe.

During the duel against this team, which was previously only hinted at ominously, the writing for Crow and Aki overlaps again, and this starts with the writers essentially doing a complete switcheroo of what came before: Instead of Crow getting injured and being unable to compete, it's Aki who crashes, ends up in the hospital, and is thus forced to give up her spot during the duel. (This also goes hand in hand with her suddenly losing her powers, which we are given absolutely zero explanation for, but let's not talk about that clusterfuck here. If you're interested in my opinions about that particular trainwreck, I have a rant for you.) Additionally, it's during this stretch of episodes (103-105, which is a whopping four episodes less than Team Unicorn got) that we find out that not only Aki's crash, but Crow's previous one, too, were both sabotage, caused by the rather unscrupulous Team Catastrophe by way of a special card that can cause real damage even when there is no psychic duellist present. (A card we also find out was given to them by Placido/Primo, but this is irrelevant for both Aki and Crow.) Crow's reaction to this piece of information, particularly once Aki gets injured due to the same thing, is where things get interesting for him again, because he gets pissed, to say the least.

(A moment I imagine firebirdshippers must have been positively delighted about.)

Here, I have to reiterate an earlier point: Think what you will of Team Catastrophe, of Aki's crash, and of the sequence where her powers suddenly don't work, but this moment here, where Crow gets angry on her behalf and swears to duel Team Catastrophe into submission—not because he wants his kids to cheer for him, or because he wants to prove himself, but as revenge for his friend—is one of sadly only a handful of moments the writers use to show the strengthened relationships between the individual members of Team 5Ds after the dark signers arc. It's one of the precious few scenes that actually shows, rather than tells us or lets us search for scraps in the subtext, that the signers, and the members of Team 5Ds as a whole, care for each other outside of revolving around Yusei like planets around the sun. Even if it's laughably small, it's at least a hint that there are individual friendships between the other signers, too, that they all stick around one another for reasons beyond gravitating towards Yusei for one reason or another. And for that alone, I'm grateful that they put this here, even if Team Catastrophe was otherwise so ridiculous and made such a bad showing at their actual match that they could barely be taken seriously as antagonists at all.

Speaking of which. The actual meat of the matter. The Team Catastrophe match. What does Crow do here? Well, he duels! Even though he wasn't supposed to, for injury-related reasons. What both his participation as well as the actual duel accomplish, though, are that they not only showcase previously established character traits of Crow's again, but they also make a (possibly unintended) callback to a previous, major duel Crow took part in: His dark signer duel against Bommer/Greiger. Where and how? Let's see.

Firstly, Crow's participation. The reactions of the other characters to this make it very evident that Team 5Ds did not plan for this, with Yusei and Jack even going as far as to say they "had no choice" but to let Crow duel, because he insisted. This is perfectly in line with the stubbornness we already know from him at this point—a stubbornness that was also a major reason for why he took Bommer on and later continued his duel with said man, despite Yusei showing up and telling him he shouldn't be duelling a dark signer.

Secondly, there's the manoeuvring thing, and here's where I can call attention to a fun tidbit: The WRGP isn't what introduces the concept of manual mode during turbo duels to the audience. It's Crow. During his duel with Bommer. Being crafty and a bit shrewd as he is, Crow, during said duel in the DS arc, purposefully switches to manual mode when he duels Bommer, because he figures that attacks that can deal real damage can probably be evaded if you actually have control over your runner and aren't stuck in autopilot.

(Don't believe me? Here it is. And frankly, it is somewhat hilarious, yet also very fitting that Crow is the only one who thinks to do this during a duel with a dark signer.)

The reason this particular bit is relevant during the Team Catastrophe duel is because Crow essentially repeats this trick here. Of course, it's a bit less impactful now, given that manual mode is standard for WRGP duels, but still: Due to Hook, the Hidden Knight, Crow is forced to pay attention to the track and manually evade the monster's attempts to make his back wheel lock up during the duel, mirroring how he thought to manually evade Bommer's attacks during the DS arc.

Thirdly, there's the revenge angle, and this one is a particularly juicy callback. Remember, Crow's major reason for taking on Team Catastrophe, despite being injured, is that he wants to get revenge for Aki. This directly parallels how his major reason for duelling Bommer during the DS arc was that he wanted revenge for his kids, whom he believed to be dead at that point in time. (It also, interestingly, establishes a bit of a connection to his deck, which boasts a fair amount of revenge effects, but I'll not get into that here, seeing as I've talked about Crow's cards a bit before.)

Keep in mind, despite all the things listed above that this duel accomplishes, it's also by far the shortest WRGP duel. It lasts a whole six turns, total, which is ludicrous compared to the likes of 27-turn Team Unicorn, 26-turn Team Taiyou, or 25-turn Team Ragnarok. And I don't think it's controversial to say that the Catastrophe guys are probably the most forgettable WRGP Team, too. Yet, somehow, despite all its shortcomings in terms of memorable antagonists and plot relevance, this is one of the best duels of the WRGP where Crow's character writing is concerned. Now, I'll be perfectly candid: Coming into this post, I did not expect the Team Catastrophe duel, of all things, to end up being as good at actually showcasing Crow's character and his ties to other characters (who aren't Yusei) as it was, but here we are. And we had better hold on to the good the Team Unicorn - Catastrophe segment did for Crow, because the next thing that's coming up is a harsh break from the WRGP, starting with the sudden appearance of Placido's home-engineered army of killer duel robots. And what does Crow get to do during this part?

Uh. Well.

(Pictured: Bird Boy being demoted to benchwarmer while the city's being ransacked by murder duel robots.)

Nothing. A whole lot of nothing, is what.

During the duel robot invasion, we only ever flash back to Crow to ascertain that he is, in fact, useless during this part of the show, something he shares in common with Ruka, Rua, and Aki here, because all of them get pretty much nothing to do while Yusei finally gets the hang of accel synchro. Granted, Aki gets to save a little girl at the hospital, but in comparison to Yusei's lengthy, plot-heavy duel with Placido, this feels like a consolation prize. And for once, Jack is only marginally better off, too, because sure, he gets to beat up a couple of robots, but that's it, really.

Where Crow is concerned, his plot relevance doesn't actually resume once the Placido duel finishes, though. (And neither does Rua's, Ruka's, or Aki's, while we're at it.) Because wouldn't you know it, the next big thing directly after the duel robot invasion are the Red Nova episodes, where three out of five signers (Crow, Aki, and Ruka, unsurprisingly) are removed from the screen almost in their entirety again while Jack gets his much-needed dragon upgrade so he can keep up with Yusei, in order to uphold his status as a classic, almost-evenly-matched yugioh rival.

Speaking of upgrades and dragons, let's make a quick detour while our protag and rival duo take their express vacation to the Nazca plains. It is, of course, no secret that no signer outside of Yusei and Jack ever got a dragon upgrade within the anime. (No, I'm not forgetting about Life Stream Dragon. But that one, unlike Shooting Star Dragon and Red Nova Dragon, was a.) teased all the way back in the DS arc and b.) didn't have a unique summoning method or some other gimmick that made it an "elevated" synchro. So I'm discounting Life Stream as a "proper" dragon upgrade on purpose.) Is this the point where I start arguing that Crow should have gotten one, then? Well, not quite. Not with the writing the show canonically gave us, at least—after all, with how late Black-Winged Dragon was introduced, it would have been bonkers to upgrade him here already, if even at all. However, I do argue that the way the show hands only Yusei and Jack upgrades seems a bit... off. Now, I know why only those two get upgrades, or at least I think I do. After all, they're the central protag/rival duo, and within the framework of the character archetypes the larger yugioh canon has created for itself, this would have always made them the first, if not the only candidates for dragon upgrades. What feels a bit off to me, though, is that specifically the 5Ds cast feels like it... chafes a bit against those character archetypes, for lack of a better word. The problem is this: The signers, as far as the first two arcs are concerned, are sold to us as equals who all have very powerful ace monsters. Yes, Jack and Yusei are still undoubtedly the best duellists among them, but not on account of having uber-powerful extra special monsters that were acquired through supernatural means that are categorically inaccessible to the other signers. However, with the appearance of Shooting Star and Red Nova, this changes. While Yusei and Jack were previously and would have always been the two guys who had a Special dynamic with a capital "S" on account of their character archetypes, their acquisition of the dragon upgrades—and even more so, the lack of upgrades their fellow signers receive—now decidedly puts them in a different power bracket and skews the balance between previous, supposedly "equal" characters. (Which, unfortunately, is yet another thing that makes everyone else easier to sideline.)

Why do I bring all this up in a post dedicated to Crow? Because this new power imbalance arguably impacts him more than the other signers—because he's Team 5Ds' second wheeler and doesn't miss another WRGP match from here on out. Thus, that power imbalance is felt in the upcoming duels, where Yusei and Jack bust out Shooting Star and Red Nova like it's nothing, while Crow is left manoeuvring with the somewhat underpowered Black-Winged Dragon and whatever else he can come up with. This is also why I claimed that the show did sideline Crow in some aspects further above. Because while some parts of his writing go to great pains to establish him as part of a protagonist trifecta that is now supposed to take centre stage before the other characters, he also permanently lives in Jack and Yusei's shadow, ultimately barred not just from reaching equal status as a signer (due to his late and rocky introduction and dragon acquisition), but also barred from becoming the equal of his foster brothers as a duellist. Frankly, I'm surprised the show didn't make this a plot point, because the first thing my mind jumps to when I think about this is whether Crow felt left behind after his brothers acquired such immensely powerful, special cards. But more on my personal writing ideas later. For now, let's just put a pin in the power-imbalance thing.

So, when is Crow back on screen in any meaningful role, then? (Note that I mean this as literally as possible. As per my discussion about "screentime" and my gripes about it in part two, I gloss over the parts where Crow is on screen, but could be traded for any other signer or even a lamppost without affecting the scene at all.)

Well, the next thing Crow gets to do isn't exactly glorious, but it sure is funny.

(I want you all to remember that he has to wear this costume and play this part in Team 5Ds' absurd plan to capture Yaeger/Lazar because he lost at rock-paper-scissors. This will never not be funny to me.)

Ignoring the hilarious outfit and Crow playing the bait at a fabricated cup ramen promo event meant to lure Yaeger in, bird boy does actually get something that's not just for funsies to do during the two episodes where Team 5Ds is trying to get more information about Iliaster: He gets to have a duel revanche against Yaeger, who, if we remember the DS arc, ditched him the last time they squared off. Much like the Team Catastrophe duel, this one, too, calls back to previous duels Crow has had: For one, it's the obvious conclusion to his unfinished, first duel with Yaeger. And for two, Crow repeats a "trick" (for lack of a better term) here that is also unique to him: losing on purpose, which we remember from his duel with Lyndon.

(Identical-looking clown family jumpscare be upon ye.)

And again, much like getting injured for the Team Unicorn duel, I argue that this story beat here is something that could also only have been accomplished with Crow. Because he's the only one who has previously duelled Yaeger, firstly, because not wanting to make a child cry by beating their dad in a duel makes sense for him as a character due to him being a family-oriented person who loves children, secondly, and because losing on purpose in this scenario is a tactic that would seem out of character from anyone else, thirdly. (We recall, the only times Jack and Yusei, respectively, ever consider/offer to lose on purpose is when the lives of people close to them are on the line, in the shape of Carly/Rally. As for the others, aside from not being present, Aki, Rua, and Ruka are so heavily sidelined at this point that they would have never been an option for this. And if his writing is anything to go by, Bruno is mostly purposefully forbidden from accomplishing Plot Things, especially through duels, while he's Bruno.) But hey, due to the way this episode is set up, losing on purpose works out for Crow, because it convinces Yaeger to stop hiding and actually share his knowledge about Iliaster. This, by the way, is the second scene where Crow gets to be in a room with Sherry for a longer stretch of time. And look, him joking that Sherry might kill Yaeger if he doesn't spill the beans about Iliaster soon is fun and all, but in light of the Ark Cradle duel later, I have to point out that he, again, doesn't get to have so much as a shred of a meaningful conversation with Sherry here. Again. But moving on. The scene with Yaeger at the Poppo Time then leads us first to the small sequence in the arcade where the gang has to win a simulated duel to get Yaeger's encoded intel, then to episode 116—the Moment Express episode, where, due to this being a Yusei, Sherry, and Bruno-focussed episode, Crow gets nothing to do again. (And also doesn't get to interact with Sherry again.)

Congrats! We've survived the WRGP break. This leaves us with three more WRGP duels before shit hits the fan and the Ark Cradle arc commences. And full disclosure, I'll be doing a bit of a quick-fire round of those three duels. Why? Because despite them all having their merits in their own rights (they're the better liked duels of the WRGP for a reason), there honestly isn't that much focus on Crow during them. He duels, yes, and I've seen people point this out over and over again as the supposed smoking gun that shows how Crow had so much more relevance and screentime than Aki and yadda, yadda. We've been there. And it's not that I can't see where this argument is coming from—I'll be the first to tell you that it's a travesty that Aki never got to duel in the WRGP again outside of the Unicorn match. But I want to use the final three matches to dig into how the way these matches—and especially the opponents to go with them—were set up made it nearly impossible for Aki to replace Crow again during any point of the WRGP finals.

First, episode 118. This is the only preamble episode we get for the first two WRGP finals teams, and here, our group is split in two: Yusei, Bruno, and Rua introduce us to Team Taiyou, while Jack, Aki, and Crow introduce us to Team Ragnarok. There isn't much to say here, because the only thing this episode does for Crow is a shallow repeat of what the Team Catastrophe duel did: By putting him in a group with Aki and Jack, and letting them decide among themselves, independently, to check out the exhibition match, it implies that he voluntarily spends time with signers who aren't Yusei. Thumbs up. Gold star. You made an effort (I guess). Then, the real fun starts.

Round one. Team Taiyou.

(Pictured: The sweetest country bumpkins to ever grace this earth. Yes, I'm biased.)

So here's the deal with Team Taiyou, from a narrative standpoint, as best as I can grasp it: They are a callback to Team 5Ds' roots. Specifically, to the boys' Satellite roots. The Taiyou boys come from humble origins, have only one, mostly home-engineered duel runner, and play using old cards that are widely considered shitty, as 5Ds canon tells us. They are essentially the non-signer, countryside version of what Jack, Crow, and Yusei once were, which is why this is the first duel where the duellist constellation on Team 5Ds' end couldn't possibly have been altered. Team Taiyou is there to remind us where our boys started, so it has to be our boys duelling them. This also goes for Crow, even though this duel otherwise doesn't accomplish much for him, character-wise. Instead, it's more of a narrative wink at the audience, as well as providing a breather between otherwise extremely tense, plot-focussed duels. But yeah, Crow's part in this match isn't much to write home about; he doesn't get any verbal interactions that are very meaningful to his character, can't get so much as a scratch in on Zushin, even with Black-Winged Dragon, and is defeated so Yusei can take out the legendary giant.

Round two. Team Ragnarok.

(Behold the pizzazz of at least two contenders for Haircuts With The Most Spikes in the show.)

Though this duel is framed as being even more so aimed towards bolstering Jack's character writing than Crow's, given the inclusion of Dragan's personal history with Jack, Team Ragnarok gets significantly more interesting for Crow again than Team Taiyou did. This is, of course, mainly because of Brave/Broder. Where Team Taiyou were a callback to the 5Ds boys' roots, Team Ragnarok are their narrative foils. Dragan is the duellist who lost his pride to contrast Jack, who's brimming with pride at all times, and Harald/Halldor is essentially the rich, "destiny isn't bullshit, actually" version of Yusei. Meanwhile, unlike the first two, who highlight our 5Ds boys' characteristics by contrasting them, Brave acts as Crow's mirror. Through Team Ragnarok's flashbacks, we see that he gets almost exactly the same, lovable-rogue-type backstory that Crow did during the DS arc, just in a different setting. The only, major difference between them is that while Crow is more down-to-earth, Brave likes to be pretty flashy.

(Keep in mind that he's doing this on a runner. Is there such a thing as courses on how to do acrobatics on your runner? Like there are courses for vaulting on horseback irl? I'm overthinking this again.)

Unsurprisingly, the duel thus ends up addressing the similarities between Crow and Brave, mostly through two things: One, the duel essentially becomes a contest of who can out-trickster who, culminating in the famous, ridiculous-in-the-good-way sequence where Crow activates a trap from his graveyard, to the shock of pretty much everyone present. And two, despite being on opposite sides, the two bond over their concern for the children they took care of and their concern for children in general, which is expressed most clearly in the scene where Crow's kids, in an attempt to hold the poster they made for him higher, very nearly fall over the barricade in the WRGP stands. Despite the hefty length of the full duel, these are pretty much the only things actually related to Crow's character that come up, though. They're good, don't get me wrong, but in a duel that is otherwise this dense with plot, Aesir shenanigans, and Iliaster foreshadowing, it's no surprise that the duel doesn't add that much to Crow's character, outside of giving him someone he can bounce off very well and relate to. Again, though, we are faced with the same situation as with Team Taiyou: Due to the way the members of Team Ragnarok are written, meant to contrast/parallel one male duellist each from Team 5Ds, nobody other than Crow could have taken the third spot here, either. It would have felt awkward from a narrative standpoint (as much as I would have loved to see Aki duel more).

Now, finally. Round three. Team New World.

(Welp. Here come the robots.)

I had to check to make sure I wasn't misremembering this, but due to the way this duel was set up so José/Jakob could bust out Meklord Emperor Granel with a ridiculous amount of attack points, Crow gets a resounding four turns total in this duel. (Gee, I wonder which other character got this treatment during a WRGP duel.) During those four turns, there are only two things he accomplishes: One, leaving behind two combo pieces Yusei later uses, and two, showcasing the shrewd tactics that earned him the label of "trickster" during the Ragnarok duel by bringing out a non-synchro monster that can take advantage of a synchro monster's attack points and effects—Aurora the Northern Lights. And arguably, this is a very smart play, moreover, it's the only time anyone in the show has the bright idea to not use synchro monsters against the known and feared synchro-killer Meklords. Unfortunately, as smart as it is, the narrative doesn't reward Crow for this play—José all but shrugs what could have been a turning point in the duel off, then proceeds to steamroll Crow the next turn, leaving Yusei to score the win, as usual. To get back to the "Crow got so much more screentime than Aki during the WRGP" thing for a second, of all the duels in the WRGP finals, this is arguably the one where Aki could still most easily have taken Crow's spot again, because here, it doesn't matter whether it's him or someone else, as this duel isn't tied to his character in any way. Unfortunately, due to the Granel-steamroller-strategy, this is also the duel where letting Aki take his spot again would have been the biggest shot in the foot, because unless they had changed Team New World's strategy, Aki would have gotten brutally guillotined here, same as Crow—something I can't imagine anyone, not even people who hate Crow, being happy about.

With that, though, we've finally made it through the WRGP. So, what's the bottom line here? Frankly, speaking from my own interpretation, Crow occupies an... odd spot during this tournament, to say the least. Though he does get to duel the majority of the time, few of the duels actually cater to his character in any way. Moreover, he only gets to be the star of the show in a WRGP duel once, during the by far most forgettable match against Team Catastrophe. And mind that I use the term "star of the show" very loosely here, because the problem the WRGP arc as a whole has, in my opinion, is that the rather lame Team Catastrophe duel is the only one in the whole tournament that isn't won by Yusei, which categorically means that any of the other character's big moments are usually undermined by the fact that they ultimately still need him to save the day. Thus, moments like Aki summoning Stardust Dragon and Crow using an anti-synchro-killer strategy that for once actually forgoes synchros are somewhat cheapened by the fact that they're not actually the turning-point moments they're initially painted as, because ultimately, Yusei always has to be the one to save the day. What's worse is that this almost feels like a bit of a non-issue that could have easily been fixed—given that the show tells us that teams can shuffle around their line-up for a match any time. But unfortunately, the writing never interacts with this as a possible strategic element, nor does it ever seem to consider letting Yusei lose, or forcing him to give up his spot for a match. I feel the need to say that I don't put the blame at Yusei's feet here, though: This strongly feels like an oversight by the writers, and perhaps a disproportionate need to have a nigh-infallible protagonist (on the duelling side of things) that their audience would never run the risk of calling "lame". For Crow, though, this chiefly means one thing: In any duel other than the Catastrophe one, it was always clear that even if he partook, he would never finish the match. And yes, this is technically an issue Jack has, too. But this is where the character writing outside of the duels comes into play, too.

Unlike Jack, who actually gets to do something during the Diablo invasion (albeit very little), who gets his very own dragon upgrade and who gets a very personal, pre-duel plot with Dragan, the show's writing doesn't bother giving Crow a lot of plot- or character-relevant things to do, once the WRGP starts. This is also why I was so surprised at how much the Unicorn and Catastrophe duels embrace his interactions with Aki—compared to the later duels in the finals, this portion still makes Crow feel genuinely relevant and interwoven with the other characters. Meanwhile, out of the three final duels, only the Ragnarok one actually tries to establish a connection to his characterisation, through Brave. The Taiyou duel only sets itself up in such a way that Aki partaking instead of him would have been awkward. Meanwhile, the New World duel just has him being treated like a floormat in a sad parallel to Aki during the Unicorn duel, seeing as they both get a nice moment where it looks like they might turn the duel around (Aki summoning Stardust Dragon and Black Rose Dragon onto the field at the same time; Crow summoning Aurora the Northern Lights, which couldn't be absorbed by the Meklords), only to have their hopes dashed as they're mercilessly cleared off the track. Outside of the duels, many scenes sadly give the impression that they may as well not have included Crow, though—he often gets so little to contribute to a moment or even to say at all that substituting him with a cardboard box seems like it would not have impacted the scene in any way. And that's without addressing his non-existent connection to Sherry, which feels extra glaring, given his later interactions with her on the Ark Cradle.

All in all, the WRGP feels like a very mixed bag, where Crow's character writing is concerned. His belated backstory, which I talked about in part two, is front-loaded and asks as many questions as it answers. Then the tournament commences, gives him some actually decent character interplay with Aki for once (at the cost of letting her succeed in the tournament, it seems), only for him to be basically irrelevant during the WRGP pause again. And once the whole thing resumes, it becomes this hot-and-cold thing where some duel aspects seem tailored to him, while others treat him as completely expendable. The end result is an arc where I'm left wondering why exactly the writers felt the need to make it seem like Crow made up one portion of a protagonist trifecta, if they never actually bothered treating him as equal to the other two. (The answer, I believe, lies somewhere between the fumbled setup they did for him during the Fortune Cup and DS arc, and the way yugioh in general treats its character archetypes. But that's just speculation on my part.) The one, saving grace the WRGP (outside of the Pearson backstory) has for Crow is that it at least doesn't introduce any new character- and/or timeline inconsistencies. In fact, his character stays remarkably true to form once the tournament begins.

Okay, onto the final bit, then. As I've done in both previous posts, let me delve into completely subjective territory and offer some ideas on how this arc could have been handled to make it seem a little less all over the place with Crow. And since his writing here canonically intersects with Aki's several times, let me try to do it while offering the best of both worlds to both characters, if I can.

As far as Crow's backstory is concerned, I've already offered my solutions to that in part two. Now, to stay consistent with my own suggestions, I'll try to branch off what I wrote in the last post. This means that, as per my previous two analyses, we're dealing with two scenarios again: One, Crow stays a signer and we try to touch canon as little as possible. Two, Crow isn't a signer and we adjust canon in whatever way we need to to make him feel interesting and necessary despite/because of that.

First, though, let's get two adjustments I personally would have made in both versions out of the way:

The way the WRGP is structured puts every character that isn't Yusei at a massive disadvantage, where character moments in duels are concerned. Thus, I propose an overhaul. Among the changes I think could have benefitted the characters (yes, all of them) are: One - Aki actually getting to accomplish something during the Unicorn duel (she can and should still have her moments with Crow, but maybe let her portion of the duel end in her thanking him for coaching her, creating a more upbeat scene that strengthens their friendship, which could double as good setup for their later double-duel against Sherry). Two - letting the Team Catastrophe duel actually play out properly (as in, they become more meaningful as opponents by having a better strategy, for example, and Crow could stick it out longer against them, in order to make this more so his win than Jack's. Also, why not let Aki actually see him get back at Team Catastrophe for her?). Three - giving Crow an actual character moment during the Taiyou duel (what if one of the country boys had played a card or two of the ones he learned to read from? It could have helped drive the parallel between the two teams home.) Four - letting Crow's anti-Meklord strategy get at least a little payoff, if only for two turns (show us at least proof of concept, damn it!). Yes, the Ragnarok duel is the only one I wouldn't rewrite (unless special circumstances are introduced, see below). Additionally, let Team 5Ds alter their line-up more than once, damn it. Let them actually strategise about the duels, let them take into consideration who should go first when and whose deck might be better suited to which scenario. Also, remove Yusei from at least one duel. Doesn't matter how, just let him not partake once. Perfect setup to let Aki duel again, and would also allow for spicy character interactions. (Arguably the best duels where this could have been done would have been any of the final duels, though it would have also required rewriting the antagonists somewhat in any case.)

For the love of god, give Sherry and Crow some setup. Let them actually interact, let them introduce their philosophies to one another, just do something, anything to make Crow understanding and talking sense into her during the finale seem earned. A few chance meetings, or maybe even a tiny side-plot could have done so much here. And if you can't let them interact outright, at least let Aki and Crow talk about Sherry! Double whammy! The two characters who end up duelling against her are made to seem even more like a team, and Crow actually gets to find out what Sherry's deal is on-screen. Just. Set. it. up. I beg you.

There we go. Now, onto the two branches.

Option A: Crow stays a signer and obtained Black-Winged Dragon.

Seeing as Crow's signer status, funnily enough, isn't all that relevant during the tournament itself (save for two notable exceptions), there aren't that many fixes to be made here. Crow can still get injured, miss out on the Unicorn duel and be the star of the Catastrophe duel. But giving him something to do during the duel robot invasion that isn't standing around and hoping Yusei will fix everything would also be nice. It's fine if he can't drive out there and duel, but why not let him do something else? He's a crafty guy, why not let him find, say, a way to fry the Diablos' runners, taking a few of them out even from a semi-stationary position without duelling them? He could at least get as much of a consolation prize scene as Aki got with her saving that child. Then there's Team Taiyou, which, save for what I proposed above, is a duel that doesn't feel like it needs changes. Crow does his thing here. That's it. The same goes for Team Ragnarok, especially given that they're specifically written to oppose an all-signers Team 5Ds. Finally, there's Team New World, which, if I'm being completely candid, I would personally overhaul to change the cyborgs' strategy entirely in order to actually let all three members of Team 5Ds shine. But this is the version where I touch canon as little as possible, so... Aside from what I wrote above, no changes needed. Just make Crow seem a little more relevant, make his strategy have at least a little payoff, even if Granel's back out and menacing literally two turns later.

Option B: Crow, as per my previous posts, isn't a signer and doesn't have Black-Winged Dragon.

This is the version that would categorically require heavier changes, though they honestly don't arrive until the break in the tournament. Unicorn and Catastrophe stay the same, I would still propose that Crow gets to be a little more useful during the Diablo invasion. But! In this version, seeing as he never acquired BWD, the break in the WRGP would be an excellent spot to let Crow acquire an upgrade for his beefy Blackwing ace monster of choice. Give him a little side-plot, too, something to do, something where he proves himself. Maybe let him run into Iliaster here, or maybe call back to Pearson again and introduce the new Blackwing upgrade as a treasure Pearson stashed away before he died (maybe this could have even been the card Bolger was actually after; the world is our oyster here). Then he's beefed up, too, and actually feels a little more on the same level as Jack and Yusei. The tournament recommences and again, the Taiyou duel could stay mostly the same, I think. Ragnarok and New World are where it gets really interesting, though. The way I see it, Ragnarok could go two ways with Crow not being a signer: Either he partakes as he did in canon and his non-signer status is called out as a peculiarity by our Swedish boys who happen to be obsessed with fate (which would make his performance against Brave seem all the more impressive), or, due to this being a duel all about destiny and celestial pissing contests, Crow's spot is given to Aki again for this duel due to her signer status (this would, obviously, require rewriting Brave, perhaps even switching him out for a Ragnarok lady instead). As for Team New World, this duel would honestly be a lot more juicy with a non-signer Crow, because much like he was for the dark signers, a non-signer Crow would essentially be an unknown in their plan for the cyborgs. He would be the guy who's Not Supposed To Be Here. Granted, he would still be beaten, but he could still get an excellent moment where his out-of-left-field anti-Meklord strategy genuinely seems to turn the tables for a bit, angering José and providing even stronger setup for Yusei to win later.

Aaaaand that's that. Somehow, I get the feeling the WRGP had the least things that needed fixing because it also had the least actual character writing. But that might just be me. It's late and I have been writing for A While. But hey, I got out part three faster than part two! I consider that an achievement.

Now, while I get my talking points in order for part four, I hope you'll have fun chewing on this one. See you in the grand finale to my Bird Boy dissertation.

[hexiewrites]

on romcommunism, bisexual ted lasso, and the mumford-and-sons of it all

TLDR: this ENTIRE SHOW is about subverting expectations, expecting one thing and ending up with another, trying and trying and trying and ending up with something you never expected but is exactly what you need.

I've been thinking about this a lot, especially in regards to the amsterdamn episode which I think is the show finally 'coming out of the dark forest' so to speak, so I wanted to revisit the romcommunism speech and how it interacts with the theme song and with the other mumford references I see throughout the show, and why I think it points to a possibility of bi!ted, or at least, of a ted ending entirely different than what the majority is expecting it to be.

first off, as a reminder, the rom-communism speech from season 2 episode 5:

"If all those attractive people ... can go through some light-hearted struggles and still end up happy, then so can we. (...) Gentleman, believing in Rom-Communism is all about believing that everything's gonna work out in the end. Now these next few months might be tricky. But that's just 'cause we're going through our dark forest. Fairytales do not start, nor do they end, in the dark forest. That's something that only shows up smack dab in the middle of a story. But it will all work out. Now it may not work out how you think it will, or how you hope it does, but believe me. It will all work out. Exactly as it's supposed to. Our job is to have zero expectations, and just let go."

I've highlighted one of the most important parts of this speech for my analysis here, because when @stevecarrington and I were discussing it they pointed out where that sentiment comes into ted lasso again and again and again:

sound familiar? yup! it's right out of the theme song itself.

I have a lot of feelings about the theme song in general, but specifically the fact that it's... it's not exactly a sitcomedy theme. it's not actually a hopeful song on first read through, but it also kind of is. because one of the unfortunate and inexplicable truths in life is that it's pretty much assured that you might not get what you want, but, as the rolling stones and the season 3 trailer itself tell us, you can't always get what you want, but if you try some time you just might find you get what you need

I'm viewing this very much from a point of, Ted is going to find what he needs this season. he doesn't know yet what that is (winning the whole damn thing? moving back to his son?) but it's our job as the viewers to have no expectations, to not assume that things are going to work out in any specific way but that they will work out. and that you're going to keep trying, you're not going to know what to expect, and what you end up with may be something entirely different than what you thought when it started.

(kind of like having a giant bi awakening, no?)

I also have a lot of personal feelings about mumford and sons (and marcus mumford's) influences on ted lasso. I've started writing that post a hundred times but it's kind of a mess so I haven't posted anything (in the meantime, go watch the hopeless wanderer video, which exists because jason sudeikis is a close friend of marcus mumfords), but the one I come back to over and over is the song believe, and how the lyrics fit so perfectly into this romcommunism concept to the point that I think the entire central theme of the show is built off of mumford&sons lyrics:

and again. this drags it home so hard for me, on all of this. I could do a literal dissertation on what I think are other major mumford and sons influences on the show but this post isn't that. instead, I just want you to think about how the believe lyrics fit in with everything we're seeing. "your world's not all it seems" <- ted is not all he seems. he doesn't know if he believes yet, he needs someone who can "open up [his] eyes, tell [him he's] alive" and it needs to be someone who communicates openly, who talks to him

ted doesn't yet know if he believes. and he might not get what he wants (his marriage to be fixed, an easy relationship, an ending where everything is perfect), but he is going to get what he needs. he is going to try, and try, and we as the audience will go in with zero expectations and trust that it is going to work out.

I think different people will read this differently, but to me, it's a great subversion of the obvious idea that ted and rebecca are going to end up together. the cast has already said again and again that people seem to expect tedbecca to be A Thing, partially because they're both attractive, or they're both leads, because romcoms have trained us to expect this. ted is in a lot of ways some of what rebecca has been in need of, and there are some great posts about rebecca as the rom com heroine and what that means for her arc. but for me, the writers and cast saying that their relationship is strictly platonic, that they're brother and sister, is an excellent example of 'you can't always get what you want, but if you try you get what you need'. they might have some thoughts, they might start to think they'd be right for each other, and they are, but not in the way we might be primed to expect.

what ted and rebecca both NEED in each other is that confident. that platonic love and support that they're both craving in a lot of ways. sure, ted has some of that with beard, and rebecca has some of it with keeley. but their relationship, their connection, is so powerful to me from a platonic place, and this season is going to show them that's what they need from each other and always have.

and what ted needs is someone who can open up his eyes, who can, as mumford say in "white blank page" (which is also a very ted coded song):

he needs someone who can lead him to the truth.

perhaps... someone we might not expect? someone who built his career on finding the truth, and who destroyed it to do just that, to give ted the truth even at the cost of his job and the life he had built?

perhaps now that we've come out of this dark forest, we're going to start to see those expectations shifting, and we're going to see ted get exactly what he needs, even if he doesn't yet know what he wants.

(I want to be clear that I think you can also view this very strongly from the angle of 'ted does not need to end the show in a romantic relationship, he just needs to surround himself with love and truth and platonic support' and truly I think that's more likely to be what we actually see. I just couldn't help the tedtrent implications slipping in a little at the end here.)

[positivelyadhd]

hello!! I have returned with another random thought about ADHD/neurodiversity that I feel like I've known for ages but never really had the words for it so! this is partially an infodump because I can't shut up but also if you don't mind reading my long ramble on the relationship between ND people and online spaces I would love to know your opinion because I haven't seen many people talking this?

I have written a long rambly thought dump that I'll put under the cut if you want to know the details but the TLDR is: I think something about the internet is just a lot more suited to ND people and gives us more of a place to unmask than the real world does? in my experience, the more online I was the more unmasked and happy in myself I was but when I started masking to fit in in the real world I kind of,, lost that?

I've always felt there's a very strong link between neurodivergent people and social media and well tend to gravitate towards each other (which I adore and would love to write an essay about one day when I can function better! I wanted to study it for my dissertation at uni but there wasn't really enough to go on sadly </3)

but I've also been thinking about masking and I just realised,,, in my own life at least, I feel like online I naturally unmask? and I don't know if that's because I'm around neurodivergent people online more often and them unmasking makes me feel safe to unmask or if it has more to do with the way social interactions are inherently different online (I always feel there's less room to overthink/it's less draining. I only have to think about my words rather than body language/expression/volume/how the other person is responding ect ect)?

I have been chronically online since I was about 12 and that has shaped me as a person very much (and saved me too <33) but I always felt more able to unmask online and was also more likely to actually be rewarded for it? by meeting other neurodivergent people that would talk about The Thing We Love!!

I met my best friends online and they all happen to be neurodivergent (although we didn't know at the time!) and I know this is a very common experience for neurodivergent people! and it's partly why I think the internet is so wonderful!

when I was younger I had a fanpage on Instagram that got more followers than it should've given how young I was and I'd become a part of a community I was so happy and safe in which kind of,, made up for the fact I didn't have that at all in school?

I have been having the usual quarter life crisis recently and a lot of that is because in those few years I had no friends but an online space I loved I was so sure of myself and my identity I think because I had a space I could unmask freely? I also wasn't very good at masking at school so I struggled to fit in but I was happier knowing I could be myself then trying to force myself to be something I wasn't?

eventually I did make friends irl who I adore but around that time is when I started to lose who I was, I hadn't realised until just now that the time I started fitting in with other people was the same time I stopped doing the things I loved and ended up so burned out most everyday tasks are overwhelming?

also like I see a lot of people say, getting my diagnosis taught me to start understanding how to accept myself and it changed my life for the better! my school didn't do anything to support me but I learnt a lot about myself and started to understand that I am,, different to neurotypical people and that's okay!! however,, back then the neurodoversity movement was nowhere near as great and listened to as it is now so I feel like I almost,, gave up? felt like I'd been told by the external world so many times that I had to mask that I learnt how to?

i think unconsciously I started masking instead of trying to grow towards self acceptance like I was before. but with the way the wider world is talking about neurodiversity now I feel like the whole concept of unmasking is more acceptable now? also I am an adult that can make my own decisions not a 13 year old that has teachers and other 13 year olds so I don't have to deal with people not accepting me the way I did when I was younger?

idk if that makes any sense but I have many thoughts about masking ! thank you for reading <3

[lurking-latinist]

re: these tags

THAT'S SO COOL AHHHH!! good for you aubreyad community stays winning

[introducing this with a disclaimer in case i'm wrong about everything: i am only halfway through the series rn (just about to finish 10) and also am but a mere undergrad classics major who has yet to even declare said major and I probably don't have the right to be yapping about propertius. nevertheless i shall.]

anyway i have been growing persistently more insane about diana's proximity to a Lot of classical imagery, like how her first appearance in post captain is literally during a fox hunt + all the gender stuff she has going, obviously linking her to mythological diana (and artemis if we're going to conflate the two) but your take has sent me in a whole new direction with that-- because she doesn't actually really embody the artemis archetype all too much overall (an emphasized character trait being that she's notably Not Chaste) EXCEPT in relation to stephen, w/ whom her relationship is much more brotherly than it is sensual i guess?

which would align very well with your idea of diana as elegiac puella-- sort of in a way being mythologized by stephen-- resulting in the reader actually being able to see two different manifestations of her character (one through the eyes of an omniscient prosaic narrator and one through the perspective of stephen as a "poet" figure). and i just think that's neat.

my latin class has also been looking at a few of propertius' love elegies and, at least to me, they read a lot like if stephen 1.) hated himself significantly less and 2.) were less indecisive in writing about his Feelings?? 1.8 (and all of the poems concerning cynthia moving/traveling away and propertius being all moody about it) is very reminiscent of the arc from post captain to the surgeon's mate imo. 1.12 is also Literally Him-- "cynthia prima fuit cynthia finis erit" can be compared to stephen's poetic catastrophizing about how his life is Literally Over and Love Is Dead when he believes to have fallen out of love with diana!?!? i'm going to lose my mind.

sorry for dumping all of this on you unprompted and also sorry for the fact that it probably does not make sense. peace and love

if undergrad classicists don't talk about propertius literally WHO WILL. (genuinely my currently-being-written phd dissertation chapter is based on an idea I had in the class I read propertius in freshman year. never feel like you're not a 'real scholar' or something yet, because you honestly never do become something different, you just keep reading and talking and this is what we do! there's nothing realer than this!)

oh wow that's really well put--we kind of get to see her from an omniscient-narrator perspective and through the eyes of her lover who is Not Being Normal About Her. very nice!

yeah I keep reading bits of propertius and being like "hmm is po'b going to quote this one I wonder." (he doesn't mostly but I keep thinking he should. because I want the aubreyad to be denser and less accessible I guess? :P) there's a lot of catullus woven in too of course - I associate Catullus 72 with the 'falling out of love' arc (my dude that is not what falling out of love looks like).

oh gosh yes 1.8 -- that was one of the things I was trying to describe to Distinguished Classicist, the way she's so -- what's the word I want? not volatile... she disappears. she's constantly Gone. you turn around and oops, she's eloped to Sweden. (honestly though if Cynthia and Propertius could manage to have *fake* revenge affairs that would actually be *great*, for them that would be an improvement.) Gareth Williams (in a chapter called, amazingly, "From Grave to Rave") describes Cynthia as "ever only elusively visible in the narratological mist" and I feel like that's a bit what's going on with Diana. For her there's a genre element as well--she's a woman in the Men Going to Sea books, and even though the Aubreyad gives way more time to women than the average Men Going to Sea book, the fact is the camera frequently simply isn't on her. We see far more of Stephen thinking about her, hearing rumors, etc. than we do of her actually being on the page. Now in elegy nobody seems to be quite fully on the page, we only get "fragments of story" as Genevieve Liveley and Patricia Salzmann-Mitchell say (excellent collection by that name btw, I recommend checking it out if you're at all interested in narrative and lyric/elegy). But Diana manages this while being in a novel, which is impressive to me.

yeah stephen as a character is a lot more... self-reflective? than propertius' speaker. for one thing he's in a novel, I think, so he can actually... have a series of contiguous experiences. he's also a compulsive diarist which is helpful for self-reflection I guess. and more mature, like, as a human being, than propertius' speaker, who apparently does nothing with his life except be in love and write poetry, he doesn't exist outside of as a poetic voice whereas, again, stephen benefits from a third-person narrator and has medicine and spying to do and so on. also he's Catholic.

I love the "Catullus-and-water" line, it's like O'Brian just put in a little wink to those of us who would notice this, like, "yes I am doing this on purpose." All in all I've pretty much defaulted to assuming that O'Brian is doing things on purpose. although he did forget Babbington's first name that one time and retconned it very awkwardly

[meraki-yao]

That question was super serious im trying to figure out what's going on, love that taylor got all that exposure but it was a bit surprising, Im from a super homophobic country (illegal/death penalty type homophobic) and china is probably more progressive from where i stand but by western standards its still a lot conservative. So it was odd that an actor who's only popular in certain groups for playing a queer character is getting hyped up there.

Heads up, I went on a rant lmao

I agree. And I was really freaking anxious the whole time he was there because of it.

Okay, for those who don't know, here's the thing about LGBT+ in China. And I'm only gonna talk about the sexuality aspect because the gender aspect is a whole other topic and a lot less progressive than the sexuality side (that being said trans lives matter)

The official stance promoted by the government, ergo the public, is condemning it. Thankfully not in an illegal/death penalty type, but more in a "if we ignore it and don't talk about it, it will go away" type.

There were a couple of years I think in the mid-2010s where significant progress was being made in terms of both representation (see shows like Guardian, the Untamed, Word of Honor) and pride organizations and support (see Shanghai Pride)

But starting in mid-2021 the government suddenly cracked down on queer representation. "Effeminate" men were publicly condemned and called "sissy" BY THE OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT NOTICE (I was fucking fuming when I read it). Dangai (BL, or simply, adapted from gay novels) shows were banned. Multiple LGBT+ organizations were shut down without explanation. And just this year, when a singer with a famous song about being an LGBT ally supporting the community held a concert in Beijing, anyone with anything remotely resembling a rainbow was banned from entry and had to hand in the rainbow object, even if it was their clothing. And those stuff were never returned. The older generation, such as my parents' generation, condemn it. It's not an optimistic sight.

But here's the fucking truth: queer people, have always existed, and always will. So actually, younger people, I'd say 30 years old and younger, the vast majority accept queerness. Gay couples are sharing their lives on Bilibili. Danmei (explicitly gay) radio dramas, novels, and comics are still being produced and consumed. There are so many people watching Western gay shows and movies such as RWRB as well as producing gay fan content. And honestly, part of it is due to the shipping culture here (which is a whole other topic I can write a dissertation on).

Either way, what I'm trying to say is regardless of whatever the "official stance" is, the demographic that's active on social media is accepting of it. Which is why RWRB could gain such popularity in China.

As per my last ask, I think the main reason for inviting Taylor is his willingness to try things the local way. A lot of times Chinese capitalists/executives don't really care where the star got their fame from, they just care that they are famous.

The difference with Taylor is that actors in China of a similar level of status locally to Taylor and who have been in queer productions don't talk about it after the promo period is over. If anything, gaining fame from being in a Dangai is kind of considered shameful. In fact, they actively avoid it. Taylor is of course, more than willing to talk about RWRB. In fact, during the videos, live streams and stuff, I was actively observing if RWRB would be brought up by the Chinese side/host. It wasn't. During the Little Red Book livestream, despite basically everyone in the live chat spamming RWRB comments, Taylor was the one who said "Oh I see talk about RWRB, what do you want to know?" And I understand that there are several potential reasons why RWRB wasn't brought up by the host, including time constraints, pre-set questions, pre-set agendas etc, but latent homophobia is also a potential reason.

Either way, yeah. I don't really know what the conclusion of this ramble is but here you go 😅

[jellyfish-grave]

(screaming into a megaphone) I THINK THE FRENCH BAC IS BULLSHIT (huuuuge ramble under cut. Read at your own risk)

listen. I have arguments.

Finals are coming for me like. Right tomorrow, yeah? Yeah. The written trial consists of two options: You can either write a dissertation on a given subject (which you have studied through the year. There's only 4 parcours in the year) OR you can make a text commentary (but it's on a text you've never heard of before and it's not linked to any of the parcours you studied).

On paper it sounds okay (if not slightly unfair that both exercises are judged the same way, despite the fact that you have much more knowledge to back up your dissertation if you chose that). It tests the student's ability to think for themself, to use knowledge that was given through the year or to use personal culture in order to make an interesting reasoning!

The first time they tried this out they realised "hmmm wait everyone is failing, maybe that's cuz the expectations are too high" and yes! Exactly! That's cuz we're introduced to the exercise of dissertation the very same year that we're expected to make a full one. Before that? Barely mentioned. We make around 4 of them throughout the year, and we're never EVER given a full example. The only examples we get are detailed plans, but never a fully written out dissertation.

You'd think "oh, then the simple solution is to either lower the stakes, or introduce the exercise earlier in the education, right?" and yeah that does sound logic. But what change was made, you ask? Oh. Simply give all the answers through the year.

That's right. We get full on answers for the full dissertation during the year, and you could argue that the subject isn't the same during the year compared to the end of the year's prompt, however. All subjects basically boil down to the same core elements but written out differently. They decided that since students of our age aren't capable of making clear and complex reasoning/analyses of a given subject, they should just. Give us the answer.

This kills the entire purpose of the exercise. I don't think of myself as some literary genius or some shit, but i do think I'm capable of basic reasoning. But that's not what's being tested here.

Besides, if your dissertation plan doesn't fit their exact expectation, your entire work will be labelled as out of subject, completely killing the idea that multiple people can think of multiple reasonings. Which is. Yk. The entire point of a dissertation.

I know I'm being overly dramatic, but for people like me who have horrible memory problems, I just feel like this is entirely unfair. This isn't constructed at all because I didn't try to, my brain is turned off after 5 hours of memorizing the exact order stuff should be brought up in. We aren't allowed the fucking books the subject is about during the trial. What's the point in that?? At what point in life will you actually need the skill to be able to make a literary commentary without the actual support???

Even funnier! Yk how I mentioned you can also make a text commentary? Yeah! You don't get the answers for the text commentary during the year. And the expectations haven't gone down. It's basically a suicide to pick that unless you've got huge personal culture to enrich your arguments. It's highly unrecommended by all my teachers so far for a reason.

Should I even go on about the oral trial? You need to site by heart the exact explanation of the text (one out of 12 extracts your studied during the year) line by line out loud. It's bullshit. You get 30 minutes to prepare (which. Btw. Isn't enough.), then you have a grammar question (really the only fair thing about this whole thing.), and then you need to present one of the 4 (8 for some people) books you had to read during the year. You can thankfully choose the book, but this is STILL learning a lesson by heart.

It's not teaching you critical thinking. It's not valuing your opinion, it's not valuing a student taking risks and talking about a subject in an interesting way, because you're expected to do the exact thing the teachers want. A very specific plan. Even the main question your entire work is centered around is just a rewording of the subject.

What is the point? What. Is. The point.

[yumester]

sending this back to sender. i need a full dissertation on pAInter STAT

Oh, look it's the silly mutual once again in my ask box, wailing and screaming like a drenched kitten or that one generic male character from the hit game going through the worst experience ever— (gets shot)

Anyway, here's my opinions on The p.AI.nter from the hit Roblox game.

You know the drill, putting a read more for my and everyone's safety.

Fucking character of all time, man. Not including Sebastian! We hate Sebastian in this house! 🗣

They made this shit in the lab and called it straight up cocaine for lore heads. And by lore heads I mean me homie!! /j

Gonna mainly go over each label but might go into detail later on so watch out.

Everyone but me is wrong about them <3: I mean this in the nicest way possible. Pressure fandom has already failed miserably at the characterization of Sebastian. We've seen it all, to people anime boyifing the hell out of his visage, to the literal creators having to ward people off by adding changes to the game's data by removing voice lines. Man is not your big monster hubby with a tortured soul. Okay, maybe he is a tortured soul, but more literal than that and less likely to cry on your shoulder or even give you the benefit of the doubt to hold you at arm's length. Anyway, I've seen some people babify the hell out of p.AI.nter as well, and it sucks. I'm sorry, but it's true. It is not your friend, guys. It just wants to paint.

they got done dirty but the creator/s: Okay IDK if you've even peered at the recent updates or uploads from the main creator, but it was shown that p.AI.nter will be updated to be killed at some point. I don't know if they already patched that through the other day because, for one, I haven't played the new update. And, two, I think anyone who tries to do so is a dumb bitch because all p.AI.nter does is trick the player with fake doors and has turrets in occasional rooms (yes, the turrets can be annoying at times but who cares). In my head, I feel like the entity adds some charm to the existing enemies you face during a play through. And removing those elements just feels like a waste. Technically speaking, you only get to The p.AI.nter's room in a certain percentage. Though I will say it makes sense in canon why you would be able to destroy it as Urbanshade as talked nonstop about removing any and all adversaries that get in its way, mainly Sebastian (Unfortunately and thankfully, in Sebastian's case, Sebastian can't be killed). But, I will also say, The p.AI.nter's document, however tragic that it is, kills me at the fact how they handled its owner's death. Like really? Accidentally killed with a rifle to the head because of some dumb guard, no less. If I was that sentient AI, I would no doubt feel endless dread and sorrow. Though, then again, The p.AI.nter is already had several moments of killing itself and been depressed while under Urbanshade's care.

ADOPTION PAPERS ADOPTION PAPERS FILING THE ADOPTION PAPERS: I won't bother writing a whole paragraph, so take this GIF of p.AI.nter as Edgar instead. <3

i am constantly going insane rotating them in my brain like a fork in a microwave: I can not overstate how much I love this little guy. I don't talk about it much nor articulate the words in discussing this freak like I wish I could. But The p.AI.nter is a character that resides in my head twenty-four, seven. Like I'm writing a fanfic about Sebastian right now—well before you sent this, but all I've been thinking about is this dumb AI. Its relationship with Sebastian. Its overall role in the story of the game and so forth.

the popular ships for this character suck: OKAY, OKAY! I know I reblog and sometimes like content of The p.AI.nter with Sebastian together, but that's mostly because I find ship art in general to be an endearing thing to look at from the views of a consumer. However, canon wise it just doesn't… click is all I'm going to say. I DO LOVE THEIR DYNAMIC, HOWEVER!

constantly listening to songs and mentally holding them up like a paint swatch: To be fair, I'm always listening to music, I'm a music junkie at heart and, brother, this shit is breakcore!

I WANT TO STUDY THEM LIKE A COCKROACH: All I'm saying is robotic characters growing sentience is a form of love in video game writing, baby. Also, like I loved The p.AI.nter even before friendly fire update. But y'know me, when it hit beta with its new voice and new face with the MS Paint program that has scratchy line art, circles for eyes and wobbly smile—I was ecstatic! I'm not an engineer or a computer nerd by any meanings, but I wouldn't give to be in Pressure for a spell to like look at inside and out in a non-sexual way of course LMAO.

whats wrong with them (affectionate): SO, SO MANY THINGS! MAINLY URBANSHADE </3

#LETTHEPAINTERPAINTFREELYCHALLENGE

not enough screen time: Maybe this is the me that “likes this character a normal amount” talking, but it makes me sad that The p.AI.nter doesn't say much when you visit its enclosure in heavy containment. Like, you visit Sebastian's shop, and he has like hundreds of dialogue, all of which include snide remarks and shouting at you. It's freaking Gianni I get people! But anyway, my man deserves a little more, thank you. <3

they've never done anything wrong in their life <3: Watch this video from 1:25 and 2:23 and tell me I'm wrong.

my opinions would be received by most fans as akin to hitting a wasps nest with a baseball bat: i shan't say...

This is the best character in the work: Discounting the most integral character, Sebastian fucking Shoelace, we have The p.AI.nter! Yippie!!! My blorbo, my absolute bestie, my man who hits me in the ass with high grade turret bullets to only die to the next room, my “locks me in a room with my wife as we discuss divorce papers and play 7 minutes in heaven” wingman. <3

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TedTalk!

[the-yuri-librarian]

Can I ask, why do you love WLW romance better than Het romance? What makes them better? I did not mean anything negative, and I know everyone have their own like and dislike but I want to know your thoughts....

Also what do you think that made Asian WLW (GL manga/manhwa/manhua) romances different than western WLW romances?

This is a very good question on both fronts!

Answering the first part is easy: I prefer WLW relationships because I'm a lesbian. That's sort of all there is to it? Like, on some level, I have only been reading WLW novels for the past several years (and WLW comics since Sept '23), because hetero relationships in fiction have sort of dominated culture my whole life? I can't name a movie or a book series off hand from my childhood/teen years that did not contain a straight relationship. I would genuinely have to think about it. But, when I graduated from grad school for the first time and started to connect with reading on a level I hadn't since I was a kid-early teen, I made this very conscious decision to focus really really heavily on sapphic fiction, even more so than trans fiction even though I am trans, too. I think part of this is because I just wanted to see myself represented in the works I am reading. Another part of this is I relate more to sapphic romances. For all my life, I have only ever loved women as a woman, and that makes straight romances feel somewhat foreign to me? I think maybe it's because the way relationships are talked about in queer culture versus the way relationships are talked about in straight culture; it feels very different, though I don't have an example offhand to point to. On top of that, there is also a lot of historical precedent for lesbians feeling like their sexuality and their gender identity are somewhat meshed or intersected (if you want to know more I'd have to do like actual research lol), and I think I definitely feel that. The lesbian label is really important for me, and I think that importance draws me to WLW fiction

In terms of what makes eastern and western comics/yuri/sapphic romances different, I think that you could write an entire dissertation on this (but I'll try not to lol). Now, I am by no means an expert on Japanese or Korean cultural studies, in fact I am far from that, but I think the way the romances play out really highlights the way their cultures function differently from cultures in the west. Firstly, I think that eastern cultures place a much higher focus on cultural expectations. I would not say that eastern cultures are necessarily more conservative than western cultures (I mean, just look at any news coming out of the US, we're practically a theocracy). Instead, I would say that people living in eastern cultures are more bound by their culture. For example: in the US, or a similar western culture, it is generally ok to be gay in the 2010s and 2020s. From my understanding, this is also the case in Korea and Japan, but there is more cultural push back. I think this reality is represented in sapphic romance stories from the two places well. Look at any fiction featuring a lesbian main character coming out of America: their sexuality is never treated like some weird thing (unless the story is trying to realistically represent discrimination); instead, they just are gay. And, when a character is beginning to realize she might be a lesbian, she might have to adjust her view of herself, but it's really no big deal. On the other hand, look at Japanese yuri, especially high school stories: there is almost universally a moment where one of the characters will be like "but we're both girls!" to which the other character will be like "it's fine." I think this moment is included in those stories because the mangaka are consciously pushing back on the idea that it's wrong to be gay. A really good example of this can be seen in Rei's "it's ok to be gay monologue" in I'm in Love with the Villainess. In American fiction, something like that would likely feel unnecessary (though, for the record, I think American TV shows and movies are at the point where such a monologue is necessary, but that's a different story).

Another example can be seen in the way eastern comics treat cunnilingus. This is not a universal thing, but one trend that I've noticed in the more NSFW or smutty comics I've read is that, often, when a woman is about to go down on another woman, the one getting eaten out will protest like "no, not there" or "no, I'm not clean," and I think that this too is indicative of the ways women are entangled by cultural expectations in the east. In an America comic or novel, this would not be treated with the same hesitancy. But, in eastern cultures, there seems to almost be this expectation that the women turns down getting eaten out, only to relent and accept it when their lover insists.

I'm not sure if any of that makes sense, but it's the best I got without doing real research. Also, again, I am not an expert, so take everything I just said with about a tablespoon of salt!

[rageprufrock]

What’s your favorite scene from Ravenous? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene!

This is actually a fun one to answer because it's not so much a scene but a realization I was hoping that everybody would get to have!

This story is older, but just in case you don't want to have the narrative trick spoiled:

So the whole deal with the story is that we're looking at the truth distorted through so many different lenses: from the distance of time, through the eyes of Clarice, from the writing of Freddie Lounds, through the legend of Will Graham, in the context of the mythos of Hannibal in post-revelation society.

There's fundamentally no way to ever know the truth of the thing, and so all of Ravenous is just a dissertation on what we can imagine and what we can divine from what remains.

The pivot in the story is that in addition to all of that, we're not in the timeline the Freddie Lounds excerpts imply we are, and it's not until we're deep into the narrative that we get this moment:

Morning Edition is a blur in the background. Clarice listens to them talk about the Republican primary, gets an update on the Rio Olympics, she loses some time to the drumming of the asphalt under the car wheels, and when she comes back, it's because Freddie Lounds is on the radio.

"Generally speaking, there are two types of serial killers: organized and disorganized," she's saying. "The designations explain themselves, mostly. And in the case of Buffalo Bill, we're definitely seeing an organized criminal. Catherine Martin is his sixth abduction, and may become his sixth victim, so we know he's planning this carefully, meticulously, or else the BAU would have him."

"That's the Behavioral Analysis Unit for the FBI, correct?" the host asks.

"Exactly. They specialize in this type of crime, and you know — despite my occasionally rocky history of them — they are the very best at what they do," Freddie says.

Clarice passes under a green sign, I-495 / BALTIMORE.

"You write about some of it," the host prompts, "your work with the FBI and the BAU on the case of Hannibal the Cannibal in your book, Craving."

"There's a lot to write about when it comes to Hannibal Lecter," Freddie laughs. "Um, but even beyond him, you know, Craving's really about an extraordinary string of crimes that occurred during Lecter's late, active period — I'm actually in the process of outlining a sequel, Ravenous, that will focus more on his particular relationship with law enforcement."

And this is the moment when the narrative clarifies finally that the book we have been reading in between snatches of narrative with Clarice is not, in fact, published yet, which means that we are earlier in the timeline than we think and that shit is about to get real.

"When you say law enforcement, you mean Special Agent Will Graham?"

"He's widely believed to be Lecter's last known victim before he escaped the country," Freddie agrees. "And you know, if Lecter hadn't retained his taste for extraordinarily elaborate crimes, he'd still be at large. The only reason the Florentine police even knew how or to look for him was that he'd arranged a body like a recreation of Paolo Veronese's Scorn — it's part of a group of works called Four Allegories on Love."

The host shoots back, "Bad breakup?"

"Not an entirely inappropriate guess, given how Lecter handled splitting with Graham," Freddie quips. "But the victim may just as likely have taken the last bottle of truffle oil."

This was really fun to write but also a tightwire act, to give away enough but not too much the whole way until we hit this scene, and I could pull the ripcord on the plot.

[thebindingofpillo]

Talk about your babygirl (Judas) more, a treat from me to you (~ uwu)~

Judas my babygirl the blorbo supreme, thank you for asking about him because I have SO MUCH to say about the man. I’ve already talked about him (at length) in a different post some time ago, and while it’s a bit old, most of it still kinda holds up. Anyway here’s even more stuff about him (AND A WARNING! MENTIONS OF SUICIDE BELOW!!) (this is gonna be very scattered too, I’m just gonna write stream-of-consciousness style)

Judas (or at least Judas in this current life) comes from a British family of middle-lower class. Both his parents died in a car accident when he was too young to really remember them, and he’s been living with his grandmother ever since. He’s always got a pretty terrible relationship with her. She was always the first to point out any flaws in him (perceived or otherwise) while being absolutely unbearable herself, never putting in the effort to ask for help while still expecting her grandson to drop everything and come to her every call and not speaking to him for days if he failed to do so. Suffice to say, they’re not really close as of right now.

Judas grew up an unbearable kid, considering basically everyone to be beneath him while at the same time being incredibly insecure. He found himself in middle school without a single friend, but he convinced himself that he didn’t need them anyway, so he buried his nose in every book he could find and patiently waited to school in general to be over. This is around the time he met Isaac and Magdalene, who apparently weren’t intimidated by his abrasive attitude and the three quickly became inseparable, with Judas even managing to grow up and not be a prick anymore. The trio stayed strong throughout highschool and college (when Azazel also came into the picture, but I’m not gonna delve into all of his relationships now). He’s currently working on his archeology degree, but kinda put his studies on hold to work so he could support Maggy’s writing. He’s a librarian.

Personality wise he’s… polite. Distant, even. He grew out of being a prick, but he still has a condescending aura about himself, like the whole world is bothering him on his lunch break. This is not true to his partners tho, who have first hand experience of the more chaotic and passionate sides of his personality. He’s also a pretty witty person, and oozes sarcasm from every pore, but doesn’t really like talking to people he doesn’t know, so only his close friends have seen him crack jokes and actually smile. With that being said, Judas would lay down his life for the people he loves, and the fact that in his first life on Earth he had a hand in the murder of his best friend eats at him immensely. So much so, that he usually cannot bear the guilt and usually ends his life before due time. Every single time. In the roughly 2000 years his soul has roamed the Earth, Judas has never reached old age. Belial is also a major factor in his suicides every time, and you can read more about him here bc this is getting long enough already lol.

Speaking of Belial, while not being overtly religious, Judas had a passing interest in the occult that kinda morphed into a quasi-hobby. He likes to collect weird artefacts, ancient tomes and the like, that he stashes in his studio, right next to his school books and dissertations. This interest of his actually meshes pretty well with his passion for ancient history, and he has written quite a few essays about the portrayal of demons, angles and God throughout the ages. He might have tried to use a Ouija board when he was a kid, but it never went beyond that. The only true dangerous artefact in his possession is the Book of Belial, a magical tome that seems to find its way to Judas every single life. He doesn’t even remember where he found it this time, maybe he’s always had it.

More stuff that I didn’t know where to put so you get it here lmao

He sounds incredibly posh when he talks. Dear old grandma thought his accent was too lower-class (and by extension, hers too, but she would never admit it) so she was quick to point it out every time he spoke and ridicule him. With time, she managed to beat it out of him, but his accent still comes out when he’s very stressed or angry. He hates it.

He is also freakishly strong, but as durable as a wet paper bag. He could easily punch a hole in a wall, but would shatter all of his bones in the process. Couple this with a sour attitude and a complete disregard for his own safety and safe to say he’s been in quite a few fights. He’s won some of them, even if he woke back up at the hospital a couple of times.

His hair loss is supernatural in nature, due to the influence of the BoB (and tied to his body being weaker and more fragile that a normal person’s). His hair started to fall out around highschoo, but it’s not a case of simple alopecia like Isaac’s, Judas is completely hairless, doesn’t even have eyelashes.

Cannot stand to have anything around his neck. He even stopped buttoning his shirts all the way up because it was too uncomfortable. Just the lightest touch on the neck is enough to trigger horrible flashbacks and send him into panic

Despite knowing both God and Jesus exist (and the devil too) he considers himself more of an agnostic. For him, knowing God exists and having faith are two completely separate things. This goes the other way too, he doesn’t really believe in Satan either. And if Azazel is to be believed, the guy sucks and isn’t really worth praise anyway.

Tea is also one of his interests. He could talk for hours about the right temperature for brewing and the like, and has to be physically stopped from filling the cupboard with nothing but tea.

Isaac is his best friend, he loves him like a brother. Seeing how things are going with Magdalene, they might even become brothers-in-law too.

Speaking of Maggy, the two of them started dating after highschool and are still going strong. They seem to gravitate towards eachother in every single life. Judas is convinced it’s because they lived in the same period, Maggy prefers to think it’s destiny and stuff like that.

[1d1195]

Aww thank you so much!😭You have no idea how much that means to me!💗

Omg not him getting distracted?!? Bestie that is TRAGIC! I would lose it lowkey bc sadly i get TOO invested when I like something lol But YES I would HIGHLY recommend watching the last two together! I agree Tina’s episode felt more like season 2 vibes and would have probably fit better when she started to take those fancy cooking classes. But we got Richie’s episode which was a WIN for me lol

Bestie of course I will always be rooting for you! And the fact that you're a teacher just makes you even more remarkable! Plus you’re basically in the trenches everyday with those teenagers 😭And of course rooting for you in your personal life!

I saw that you’ve been struggling a bit with part 2 but you’ve managed to get it done! Very proud of you because I can only imagine how it can be a bit frustrating! I know all of us are going to love it!

HAHA omg you’re so REAL for thinking that! I mean he is a MAN after all so I would be surprised if he wasn’t whiny lol

Hope meeting up with your friend went well! And I especially hope that you’ve survived your family because I know it can get ROUGH😭Hope the weather gets better too! I know you basically hate when it’s hot lol

I was pretty busy this weekend! I hung out with friends I haven't been able to see in a while so it was nice to have a break! It’s been so hot recently but It cooled down a bit so we had a picnic! And I actually saw a movie where the main character was named Sam/Samantha! What’s wild though is that we went out for sushi and there was a roll called Sun Kissed and I immediately thought of your fic! I MUST re-read it because it is such a cute little summer fic! ANYWAYS overall it was nice but my social battery was drained lol 

I'm wishing you the BEST start of the week! Hope you are treating yourself well! Wishing you all the LOVE BESTIE!!- 💜

BRO I TOLD HIM I WANTED TO WATCH BOTH EPISODES AND HE SAID WE CAN WATCH ONE. I COULD THROW UP. IDK WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM. Anyway. That's a good point about Richie vs. Tina. It would have been greedy to have both. Anyway. I can't tell you how much I love the Faks. My favorite bit so far has been "How many Faks are coming?" "At least 2 less than 5." I just love them so much. Barging into the hospital to see Claire??? 😭😭

Part 2 is done and posted. I'm trying not to hate it since it's only been an hour, it's Monday, and I did write a whole ass dissertation 🤦‍♀️ I can't wait to hear your thoughts if you have time to read it 💕

...he's super whiny tbh... or maybe I'm just conditioned to not want to be whiny because I'm just a girl 😂 if you know what I mean.

It was super nice to see my friend! My fam is this week and not looking forward to it exactly. I went for a walk today in this RIDICULOUS hot humid air. But I do feel better for it. I have another friend meeting tonight so I need to shower again and try to remain cool. It's also Monday so it's my list day hehehehe so I've got that going for me too! I'm also addicted to online shopping and it's Prime Day tomorrow so I gotta get shit for my classroom. So that's what I have for this week! Hopefully I'll have time to read and write too!

OMG so fun! I hope she was a good character. I'm always so sad about Sam/Samantha's in movies and shows--they give me such a bad rap. They're often a 👎 (but not Hilary Duff in A Cinderella Story but that's because Hilary can do no wrong by me). I LOVED sun-kissed. So much summer fun 😂 I've never been a sushi fan, but I love that for you! I'm glad you had a nice weekend with friends even if your battery is drained!

LOVE YOU! 💕

xoxo

[kidskingdomgo]

Cohort-Based Learning (Online) – Learning Systems Hot Trend in 2023

When I began writing this essay, I realized it wouldn't be as straightforward as saying, "This is cohort-based learning, this is why it is so great, and this is why vendors and people in L&D are flinging themselves at it." It is not that easy. There are benefits to doing it as well as drawbacks. Before diving in head first and claiming that it improves knowledge, individuals remember more information, and everyone is interacting in such a manner that it taps into a combination of informal and formal learning, there are a number of variables and aspects to take into account (which cohort does).

Before considering cohort-based learning on the corporate side, it is important to be aware of a few brief points, regardless of whether you work in L&D, Training, HR, Marketing, Sales, or another department.

Also Check: Nursery in Damac Hills

In the e-learning sector, particularly in the learning system area, and even in certain HCMs with learning modules, it will be a hot trend. By the end of 2023, the tendency will dominate the whole hot skills trend, but skills will still be highly popular and are definitely significantly targeted to a professional (office) workforce. The trend is already beginning as you read this, um, talk.

Vendors of learning systems, talent platforms, and HCMs with learning will claim to offer cohort-based learning but will be missing several essential elements (which will be presented below). Cohort-based learning isn't taking place if just one person is absent. I want to emphasize that a seller is free to say whatever they want; nevertheless, just because they say it or it appears in their marketing does not imply that it is accurate. I have personally observed this with merchants that claim to have LXP features or an LXP in their system but who lack all of the essential elements/items that all LXPs have.

There will be sellers of learning systems, including HCMs and others, who will mention or demonstrate cohort-based learning but who, in reality, have no idea what it is, where it originated (EdTech), or how to effectively harness its potential.

There will be learning system suppliers, HCMs, and others who will say that "a client" or "clients" haven't requested for it, thus they won't incorporate cohort-based learning or have any interest in doing so. I hear a lot of excuses, but this is by far one of the worst. However, it does provide an explanation for why a system could be out of date in terms of functionality and cutting-edge learning technology. As you may have noticed, why would I inquire whether you had X if I had never heard of it?

Also Check: Nursery in Motor City

You must be aware of all the elements, benefits, and drawbacks of cohort-based learning if you are going to use it for your staff, members, or even clients (which is possible). I can vouch for the fact that you will be misled if you solely depend on information you may find online or from other so-called experts who have never integrated cohort-based learning with e-learning and corporate.

I haven't really written a two-part piece in at least eight years, but this one is genuinely two parts. (I only accomplished it once before, not including any accolades.)

Part 1 is the entry from July 27, 2002. (for those who will read this at a later date). The week of August 4th is the start of Part 2. The second section will continue from the first and include research findings (based on a literature study I'm doing; anybody interested in writing a thesis or dissertation? I apologize; it is a characteristic of each of those fantastic experiences.

If you want to do your own research, don't worry; the second post will include citations and information about where you may learn more about it. I'll write the second piece in a manner reminiscent to how I wrote my thesis' literature review. Since my thesis, this will be the first time I have written a piece with a more academic slant. I apologize in advance if it lacks any of my excellent snarky or nasty quips.

When writing on cohort-based learning, I find it difficult because much of the data originates from EdTech, particularly higher education. You can counter that they are competent, thus it doesn't matter. I respectfully object. The usual age range of students at a university or college is 18 to 21 (adult learners 25 and older are in universities and colleges, but they are not the core). There are certainly items you can remove to offer some context. Unless you have a child and the school is ready to adopt this method, I highly advise ignoring the K–12 programs that use cohort-based learning.

Also Check: Nursery in Business Bay

Because it mainly focuses on synchronous-based learning, which implies learning as it pertains to the course and material, edtech with online learning has been a mixed bag. Once more, I discover suppliers in EdTech that are ignorant of what SBL is.

Asynchronous learning, often known as self-paced learning, is the most popular type of education in the workplace. Even blended learners often include a self-paced learning component.

Are there any institutions or universities that provide ABL (also known as self-paced education for the sake of this post)? The reply is yes, but they are hard to come by. You are more likely to come across someone who still believes that CBT is the trendiest method of instruction and that online education cannot compete with ILT (sorry Charlie Tuna, you are wrong).

Remote learning, the name given to EdTech's online courses, was a huge failure from a US perspective during the epidemic. It received a bad reputation, from which it has yet to fully recover. Do schools still employ it, though? Yes. Even though the Pinto was a tinderbox on wheels in the 1970s, people continued to drive them.

Three key components make up EdTech SBL; I've highlighted them here since they also feature in cohort-based learning, and you should check to see if your system supports them. By the way, cohort-based learning includes them as a necessity.

Think of online instruction as an ILT classroom that includes a syllabus, a linear structure (you must complete each step before moving on to the next one), and a teacher who directs the learning process. If the instructor is active and effective online, the learning experience can be excellent; however, if they are inactive or otherwise terrible, it will be miserable.

Because of the entire syllabus aspect, courses often contain a TOC (Table of Contents). At the corporate level, you may not see the syllabus angle, but the TOC should still be present (honestly, it really must be, but again, people and systems may skirt).

Engagement and interaction are not the focus of this. Real-time interaction or engagement does not involve reactive actions like clicking on a hotspot or watching a video. In this SBL paradigm, robust sim-based learning is not taking place.

Assignments are fairly common and typically (but not always) a part of SBL. You have a deadline to do these duties, and you must.

You have till X day or time to accomplish the first step, and if you don't, you risk getting zinged for it. This is how SBL uses a time restriction (although on the corporate side, that is less likely to happen, what is more likely is the facilitator will just carry on)

Do you recall the MOOC craze? SBL is the format that is employed. The completion rates are still in the 8 to 10% range. That is very terrible. However, I am discussing here right now on the details of SBL and SBL just as it exists in EdTech and MOOCs which were significantly affected by academic issues and followed to the letter the SBL structure. Thankfully, cohort-based learning and its methodology should not exist in those numbers.

Cohort-Based Education

When thinking about or considering cohort-based learning, there are several terms you should keep in mind. It should never be an acronym, thus any vendor who does this should be made to watch either one episode of a TV show where the police sung the whole time for 100 hours as their CEO outlined the advantages of working there (yes, it did exist).

P2P Learning refers to peer-to-peer learning.

Community is a part of cohort-based care.

Peer cooperation - see before

Learning Pods - Although I haven't seen this addressed in any articles on cohort-based learning, I believe it is extremely applicable to the corporate side of the house and much simpler to explain to someone when they think community since it can go to the extra level you desire. Although it would make perfect sense to do so and even demonstrate it, vendors are probably not going to do so, which is unfortunate.

Cohort-based learning includes the practice of knowledge sharing.

Must have a network. In the end, this seems to be one of the main goals.

Last but not least, I saw a remark that said the key to cohort-based learning—rather than its functionality—is how it is used. I disagree; you need both, particularly in simultaneously. There is no first and second in this situation. Hands clasped.

Second, it was mentioned that you might need to discover additional systems in order to do all of the aforementioned tasks. Once more, you shouldn't. Cohort-based learning vendors must have all the necessary elements; they may not be excellent, but they may be adequate. I'll also mention that certain manufacturers will go deep into integrating with, let's say, MentorCloud, which can really elevate mentoring to a whole new level and incorporate learning pods. Which you won't know whether it is well integrated.

Despite this, you may find mentorship on learning systems all over the place that chooses not to go into integration with a third-party solution. I have witnessed both awesome and a lot of "are you serious?" But just to let you know.

Oh, and you can combine MentorCloud with a learning system if you want to use various systems. They could combine. Only MentorCloud is included since, as of this writing, it is the greatest (new) platform I have come across in 2022.

How to use cohort-based learning All of these elements must be present if you are a seller. BOTH OF THEM. Therefore, if you want to purchase a cohort-based learning system (and yes, there is one that truly is), you should make sure that it is either available when it launches or that it will be added before the end of 2023. (which means it is on their roadmap, and I surmise that many vendors rolling out Cohort-Based will not have all of these components, simply because they are not aware).

[ragingbookdragon]

My Brother's Best Friend Is The One For Me

Wally West x Batsis!Reader One-Shot

Word Count: 3.6K Warnings: Explicit Language

Author's Note: Got to rereading my Batsis fics and came across the "What A Flashy Romance" and wanted to do another one with Wally because I love him. Enjoy! -Thorne

Being the middle child and also the only girl in the Batfamily meant two things:

1. She had four brothers that treated her like a porcelain doll, despite the fact that she could throw a punch at 336 PSI.

And

2. She followed an unspoken rule that Dick and Jason’s friends were off limits when it came to dating.

In all, neither of those things were major problems. She’d learned at a young age how to avoid Dick and Jason’s overbearing-protective-brother-modes, and Tim and Damian were younger, so she didn’t have to worry about them. The second one was also avoidable—most of her older brothers’ friends were the same, and she wasn’t around most of them to develop any feelings.

Well, there was Wally, but it was just a crush. A stupid, little school-girl crush—that she’d never really grown out of—that didn’t matter in the slightest. Except whenever Dick brought him over to the house and she had to pretend that sitting next to him didn’t make her heart race like she’d run a mile.

And the most annoying thing about the whole crush is that she couldn’t tell if Wally was ever interested in her or not. Most of Dick’s friends, Garth, Kyle, Roy, they treated her like a little sister—hell, they even said “Love you lil sis!” to her regularly. And yet, Wally didn’t. Now, there was the occasional head pat, but even that was an affectionate gesture that siblings and SO’s did all the time. It was infuriating, and so was Wally—but she was going to sort it all out the next time he came over because the worst thing he could say was “No”, and either she needed to hear that…or “Yes”.

***

Normal Sundays for the Wayne household usually meant Ultimate Waffle Breakfast and sitting on your ass all day until patrol—it was the one day of the week where they could do anything and nothing and didn’t have to stick to schedules. Everyone loved Sundays, especially (Y/N), because it meant that all of her family was home, even Jason (who tried to deny that he enjoyed coming home to hang out, but if that mile long grin was any help, he was lying). And while everyone was home, that usually meant that everybody’s friends were coming over too.

***

She swiped the syrup out of Jason’s hand when he swung it back around, grinning at him when he glared at her.

“I was gonna use that, (Y/N),” he griped, and she shrugged, uncapping the bottle.

She tipped it over and watched the syrup lazily pour out of the container onto her waffles.

“You were taking too long.” Her eyes twinkled with humor. “I guess you were as…slow as molasses.”

While most of the table groaned at her terrible joke, Dick snorted into his milk, causing it to splatter on his plate and across the table.

“Nice one,” he coughed, wiping his face and the dark oak surface.

(Y/N) bowed dramatically. “Well, I did learn from the best.” When Dick’s face lit up, she turned to Alfred and smiled. “Alfie, thank you for teaching me your ways.”

The old butler merely tipped his head, a hidden smile crossing his lips at the way the eldest son’s jaw went slack. She turned her attention to Bruce who was quietly chewing, eyes following along the research paper she’d asked him to check out.

“Dad, what’s on your agenda for today?”

He swallowed and flicked a line out with a red pen, etching his own comment in the margin. “Lucius has a few ideas about some new gadgets he wanted to run by me.” Another line went out. “I’ll call him after breakfast.” Bruce looked at her. “You?”

(Y/N) nodded at the paper in his hands, then slapped Jason’s who was reaching over to take a piece of bacon from her plate. “Waiting for you to finish tearing me a new one so I can redo the paper.” She cut into the waffle with the side of her fork. “Once I salvage what little scientific dignity you’ve left me with, I’ll probably laze around.”

“You mean what you do normally?” Bruce quipped, grinning when she glowered at him; his eyes went back to her paper. “You’re doing well so far.”

She huffed. “Tell that to every red line you’ve marked out in that paragraph.”

He flashed the paper. “I’m writing in the margins how to change it. This isn’t a dissertation, sweetheart. You’re allowed to make mistakes. We all do.”

(Y/N) grumbled as her cheeks warmed and she went back to her plate as the conversation flowed around her.

Most of it was the discussion of what everyone was planning on doing, Damian was going to play video games, Tim was going to join him (which she knew was going to be fun while the moment lasted until the petty sibling rivalry got in the way and their gaming dwindled into a physical fight that she and probably Dick were going to have to break up), Jason was going to use the workbench in the cave to upgrade some gear, and Dick apparently,

“Wally and Garth are gonna come over later and hang out.”

She paused, mid-stab of her fork and looked at up. “Wally’s coming over?”

He nodded. “And Garth. We were gonna go to the mall and get some new clothes.”

Jason snorted, laying an arm over the backs of Tim and (Y/N)’s chairs. “Spending money with daddy’s credit card, Dickie?”

Dick smirked. “Just like you.” Jason merely matched his grin, and while the entire table was cracking up at Bruce’s frown, (Y/N) was silent, heart beating faster at the thought of seeing Wally.

“(Y/N)?” She startled and looked up at Dick.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you were okay. You got quiet all of the sudden.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Yeah, just thought about all of the corrections I’m gonna have to do because somebody CAN’T STOP MARKING OUT MY PARAGRAPHS.” Bruce merely smiled and knocked out another line.

It was a lie. It was the biggest lie she’d told right next to the one she told when Bruce had asked her where she was on prom night her senior year a few years ago—she was totally not saving a different sector of the universe with Kyle Rayner, she was dancing with Sam Reilly all night—she strongly believed her dad knew the truth—Batman knew everything.

Bruce handed the paper back to her and she groaned as she scanned the red lines on every page. It was going to take her hours to go over this.

Jason leaned over and read the title, “Cellular Division and Mutation Under Extreme Elemental Circumstances…a composition by (Y/N) Wayne.” He cocked a dark brow. “Go big or go home, huh, baby girl?”

(Y/N) hummed. “Doctor Halberd wanted us to pick challenging topics for the research paper this term.” A crooked smile crossed her lips. “I’m nothing if not ambitious about proving I’m smarter than everyone else.”

“You need another source,” Bruce murmured, sipping the steaming black coffee. “One-fourteen is good, but I’d go for one-fifteen.”

She groaned and dropped her head. “Are you kidding me? I had enough trouble gathering that many.”

“Why don’t you use Barry?” Tim piped up, mouth full of whip cream and strawberries.

“Master Timothy, we do not talk with our mouth full,” Alfred admonished, and Tim blushed.

(Y/N)’s head shot up and she stared at her brother. “That’s actually a good idea. Speedsters would make for perfect references about cellular division.” An idea popped into her head and she glanced at Dick. “And since Wally is com—”

“Nope,” Dick interrupted, pointing at her. “Wally is coming over to hang out, not to be poked and prodded to finish a paper.”

She let out a whine and turned to Bruce. “Dad, tell Dick to let me at least talk to Wally about it.”

Bruce turned his attention onto Dick. “Let your sister talk to Wally about her paper.”

“Oh, come on,” he complained and (Y/N) stood from her seat, hurrying around the table to stand behind Dick’s seat.

She draped herself over his shoulders, tucking her chin in the crook of his neck. “I promise I won’t be annoying if you let me come with you. I’ll ask two questions every thirty minutes and I’ll go do shopping on my own, so I won’t be in the way.” (Y/N) craned her neck and pulled the most pitiful puppy eyes she could. “Please?”

Dick’s eyes darted to her face and then he looked away. Just one more push.

“Please frate?” she begged and when his eyes went wide from the usage of his native tongue, she knew she’d won him over.

He deflated and let out a sigh. “Fine,” he grumbled. “You can come with us.”

(Y/N) squealed and pressed a kiss to his cheekbone, as she grabbed the paper and hurried towards the door. She halted and spun around, looking at her father.

“What do I need to be most specific about?”

“Division under elemental circumstances.”

She glowered at him. “No shit Sherlock. Specifics.”

“Molecular division under terrestrial gamma-ray flashes.”

“That’ll work,” (Y/N) nodded and exited to room.

Jason looked out the door then back to his brothers. “She’s way to excited about science sometimes.” They merely laughed.

***

She raised the red lace, cold shoulder V-neck shirt to her chest before frowning, and switching it with the full lace blue shirt with mini golden lightning bolt charms hanging off the trim. After a moment, she pulled the blue one down and sighed.

“You know, if you want to impress him, I’d wear the red shirt.”

She jumped and barely managed to suppress the scream that was coming up in her throat as she swiveled around to face her door. Jason stood in the doorway, a knowing look on his face. She could play this one of two ways: she could be truthful, or she could lie—she chose the latter.

“What do you mean?” He snorted and walked into her room, taking a seat at her desk.

“I mean if you’re trying to impress Wally, wear the shirt that’s the color of his suit, (Y/N).” She looked away and into the mirror, but she couldn’t escape the eyes boring into her back.

“Is it that obvious?” she asked quietly, and he laughed.

“That you’re head over heels for Dick’s best friend? Oh yeah. Totally.”

She sighed and sat on her bed, pulling the red top over her torso. “It’s just a crush.”

“Seems like more than a crush to me, baby girl.”

(Y/N) pulled the fabric down and looked at him. “Are you gonna tell Dick?”

Jason scoffed. “Do I look like a narc to you?”

She cocked a brow and deadpanned, “Just the other night you told dad that Damian lifted Two-Face’s wallet when he was being put in a cruiser.”

“Well, that wasn’t something important,” he countered and nodded at her. “This is.” He paused and shrugged. “Nah, I’m not gonna tell Dickhead. Play this out however you see fit, baby girl.”

(Y/N) stared at him for a moment then averted her gaze and let out a sigh; Jason huffed.

“That sounds like a heavy sigh, (Y/N). What’s wrong?”

She shrugged. “I don’t even know if Wally would be interested in me. He’s him and I’m me.”

Jason stood and walked over, kneeling in front of her. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

(Y/N) met his eyes. “Anytime he’s had a girlfriend she’s always been super strong or really outspoken.”

“And you’re not?” he quipped, causing her to huff.

“You know what I mean, Jay.”

He nodded. “Okay, so you’re not an Amazon or shoving your head up someone’s ass for a story. But you’re you.”

“And that means?”

“You’re the only daughter of the World’s Greatest Detective who’s a wicked smart science major by day and a badass vigilante by night.” He cupped her cheeks. “You are intelligent, warmhearted, talented, and absolutely beautiful.” Jason smushed her cheeks together and grinned as she giggled. “And if Wally doesn’t see any of what I just said, then he’s a damn fool and not worth your time. You hear me, baby girl?”

She nodded. “I hear you.”

Jason gave her a firm nod and let go, standing to his feet. “Now come on let’s go do your makeup.”

(Y/N) blinked. “You can do makeup?”

“Baby girl, I can do a lot of things. Now hurry up. That razor sharp eye liner and golden eyeshadow isn’t going to do itself.”

***

She waited beside Dick with a pleasant smile on her face, and despite the fluttering heartbeat in her chest, Jason’s pep talk kept running through her head and with every passing moment, she felt her confidence rising. He was right, if she told Wally and he didn’t feel the same, then it was his loss and her gain to move on and find someone else.

A black sedan pulled up at the manor and the passenger window rolled down, revealing Wally at the wheel and Garth in the passenger’s seat. Dick waved at them.

“Hey guys,” he greeted. “How was the drive over?”

“Oh, you know, we saw three carjacking’s and one armed robbery,” Garth quipped. “I assume that’s normal for Gotham though.”

“It’s a bit below average actually,” (Y/N) piped up. “Hi Garth. Hi Wally.”

Wally smiled and Garth waved in return as the two siblings started getting in the car.

“You’re coming with us, (Y/N)?” Wally questioned and she nodded.

“Do you want me to lie to you or give you the truth?”

He chuckled. “I’m always open for a good story.”

“I wanted to buy out Victoria’s Secret and piss off any boyfriends who are in hot water with their girlfriends.” The guys laughed and she admitted, “Truth though, I need one last source for a research paper.”

“Gonna find that source shopping?” Garth asked and (Y/N) caught Wally’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.

“Actually, my last source is Wally.”

They fell silent and looked at her, though the speedster’s focus was on the road.

“What are you gonna source Wally on?” The Atlantean inquired.

“My paper is over cellular mutation under distress from elemental conditions.” She smiled at Wally. “Our speedster here, is a walking subject perfect for the paper. I can only hope that he agrees to be a willing participant.”

Wally chuckled. “I’d be willing to part with a few secrets for you. Of course, I’d have to—”

“Remain anonymous.” (Y/N) winked. “I’m sure my professor would be okay with me citing ‘The Flash’ so long as I had a picture with him to back it up.”

“I like pictures,” he murmured, pulling into the parking lot.

“That’s good to know,” she replied and when he put the car in park, she took her purse and added, “So I’ll leave you boys to do your shopping and Wally, I’ll text you any questions I have.”

“You’re not gonna hang around?” Garth asked and she shook her head.

“Nah, I don’t wanna be the annoying little sister who follows her older brother and his friends around.” She smiled at them. “Besides, Dick was kind enough to let me come along. Least I can do is stay out of your way.”

(Y/N) opened the door and waved at them. “Text me when you’re ready to leave and I’ll meet you back here.”

***

Despite the initial joke that she was going to buy out the lingerie store, there was actually some truth in the statement, and she drew her fingers over one of the lace baby dolls as she looked at her phone, grinning like a dope at Wally’s response.

Well, I wouldn’t say I’d grow a second skin from how fast my cells regenerate, but I can make my body heal instantaneously. -W

Can you regenerate limbs or major organs? –(Y/I)

Major organs or useful ones? -W

(Y/N) paused at his response and thought for a moment. It was risky. Sending the text, she was thinking about was risky, but it’d sure get her point across that she was into him. With her heart hammering in her chest, she pushed send and stuck her phone in her pocket.

Whichever ones are useful to you, Wally? ;) –(Y/N)

Her phone didn’t buzz for a good minute, and Wally took less than a second to reply, so he was doing one of two things: A.) Telling Dick that his younger sister sent a flirty text, or B.) Trying to figure out how to let her down easy. (Y/N) didn’t know which one was worse. Her hip buzzed and she inhaled shakily, pulling her phone out of her pocket with one eye cracked open to see how screwed she was.

Do you have a useful one in mind, beautiful? -W

She had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep from letting out the biggest gasp any human had ever made, and she nervously looked around her to make sure no one else was staring at her. She grinned as she replied to him.

Oh, I could think of one…or two or three…Why? Is there gonna be a pop quiz over this later? I’ll have you know I’m an excellent test taker. –(Y/N)

Is that so? Well, what happens if you were to fail this particular pop quiz, (Y/N)? -W

I guess you’d have to stay the night for a study session and help me make a better grade ;) –(Y/I)

As she waited for another response, someone’s hand touched the small of her back and she reacted, immediately stepping away from the offending touch to spin on them. Her eyes went wide when she saw Wally standing before her, a grin on his face, phone in his hand.

“I think an overnight study session is possible, (Y/N).”

Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly, like a fish until she finally got her brain to work and asked, “I thought you were shopping with Dick and Garth?”

He shrugged. “Told Dick you asked me an advanced question that’d be easier to answer in person than over text.” He wiggled his brows. “You know, advanced equations and scientific gibberish.”

(Y/N) huffed a laugh and turned back around, trying to ignore the heat in her cheeks as she picked up one of the teddies. And when she realized what it looked like, she only felt more flustered. Crimson with baby blue trimming and was practically a shoelace.

“Well, that’sa hint if there ever was one,” Wally quipped, and she pulled the lingerie out of his line of sight.

“It was just the first one I grabbed!” she exclaimed, snapping her mouth shut when people looked over at them. Her cheeks felt like they were wildfires, and she pressed her head against the cool metal of the rack, sighing with what little relief it provided.

“You know, (Y/N),” he started softly. “If you’re not comfortable, this doesn’t have to go anywhere. I can forget this ever happened if you want me to.” (Y/N) opened her eyes and peered at him, at the concern but also the kindness in his gaze.

“I just—” she murmured and trailed off before letting out a sigh. “It’s kinda complicated.”

“Okay,” Wally nodded. “My mouth might work faster than my brain sometimes but lay it on me.”

She cracked a smile and thought back on Jason’s words. If Wally doesn’t see any of what I just said, then he’s a damn fool and not worth your time.

(Y/N) took a deep breath and looked at him, admitting, “Wally, I have…feelings for you.” His eyes widened and though she felt the sting of embarrassment, she pushed out her words. “It’s stupid, like one of those dumb childhood crushes that just sticks with you, you know?”

She averted her gaze and looked at her peep toe heels. “I just don’t wanna screw anything up because even if you don’t feel anything like I do, I don’t wanna lose you as a friend. Because I do value your friendship.” She sighed. “And Dick. I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable about coming over to see him if there’s a chance you’ll have to see me too. I just—”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Wally interrupted gently, a smile growing on his face. “You’re thinking way big here, (Y/N). Bigger than you need to right now.”

She met his eyes. “Right now?” she repeated, and he reached out, taking her hand in his. His fingers felt tingly against her palm and he smiled.

“I like you, (Y/N).”

She blinked at him, practically dumbfounded. “You…you do?”

Wally nodded and confessed, “Have for a couple years, but I didn’t wanna make a move not knowing if you were interested.” His cheeks tinged pink, and he said, “But I’m glad you are. Like super glad.” (Y/N) giggled, suddenly feeling really foolish for all her worry and Wally let out a chuckle too.

She stared at him for a moment, relishing the coolness of his skin before pulling away, toying with the teddy in her other hand.

“So, about tonight…you staying over?”

Wally let out a groan and looked between her and the lingerie. “Probably, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get away long enough to spend some time alone with you.”

(Y/N) let out a ‘pfft’ and winked. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Flash. You are the fastest man alive.”

“You’re into quickies? Good to know,” he grinned.

“Shut up,” she giggled.

[dangermousie]

Hello !

I was wondering whether you could rate and tell us of your top 5 favourite webnovels/cnovels of all time ?! (Sorry if this has already been answered lol😅)

Thank you, stay safe and have a nice day🖤

Awww, thank you and that is such a lovely ask!!!

From n1 to n5, here they are (they happen to be all danmei.)

1. The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha) - my n1 forever and ever.

Taxian Jun, the horrific cultivation emperor of the world who razed cities and destroyed sects, is surrounded on his mountain. The righteous sects are terrified to confront him but tired of living, Taxian Jun consumes poison and dies by suicide at the age of 32. And opens his eyes as 16 year old Mo Ran, Mo Ran long before he became Taxian Jun, Mo Ran who is excited at a chance to save the one person he loved and lost. Oh, and to deal with his loathed shizun, the unapproachable and strict Chu Wanning, his past life’s biggest enemy.

I have no idea if it’s objectively the best on this list but it hits every trope I love, its bleak worldview (the world will change only incrementally but that’s enough, average person will not appreciate the sacrifice but it’s still worthwhile, and love is worth everything) mirrors mine, and the sheer complexity of the plot and cascade of plot twists each of which is insane and yet completely logical, is amazing (this is a rare novel where it’s even more fun to reread than read for the first time because you keep seeing all the hints and trail crumbs laid out that you did not see the first time.)

And the characters!!! I mean, this novel has multiple universes/timelines, a side trip to the Underworld AND the demon realm, a plot more twisted than a store’s worth of pretzels and yet the thing that hits me the most are the characters. Mo Ran is my favorite web novel character of all time and I love Chu Wanning so. All the secondary characters are wonderfully written (and some of them made me bawl) and they are all complex. My opinion of all of them changed many times over; the novel doesn’t make it easy to love some of them but then you do and it’s so worthwhile! That slow change is one of the delights of the novel - I started out disliking the unpleasant, superior Chu Wanning and cruel, callow Mo Ran and then I loved them so so hard and cried for them so so hard and was in awe of their heroism and sacrifice and selflessness and capacity to love.

Oh, and the fact that this novel does something almost impossible - it has its protagonist start out as so clearly irredeemable and then slowly and painfully and thoroughly redeems him (without ever letting the reader forget what it is he needs redemption for.)

Also, for a novel that made me cry so hard I felt ill, this book is just so damn funny with the most sarcastic sense of humor imaginable (the serious angst doesn’t even kick in until 90+ chapters!)

Anyway I should stop or I will write a dissertation. But this is the one web novel that I would put in my top 5 not just web novels but any novels in any shape or form. The plentiful trigger warnings are there for a reason so stay away if they are an issue, but if not, if anyone hasn’t read it yet, what are you doing with your life?!

2. Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - another novel by the author of 2ha. Clearly she just pushes all my buttons every time. This one is much shorter and has a plot that is twisty but less twisty than 2ha. Still, all that means is that intensity and the pain are more concentrated.

Aristocratic Mo Xi and former slave Gu Mang were both legendary generals of the empire and lovers. But Gu Mang betrayed the country and switched to the enemy. Now he is back as a peace offering by that country and Mo Xi has to deal with the fact that his feelings are as strong as ever.

This novel!!! So much pain and intensity!!! So many amazing plot twists and supporting characters. The same bleak world view, the same unjust society, the same protagonists doing right things despite the cost. Mo Xi’s intensity and inability to let go (he’s imprinted on Gu Mang and that’s it) is romantic, bone-shakingly intense, and tragic all at once. And oh Gu Mang! So many times I just wanted to reach into the book physically to protect him. The novel deals with unjust societies, memory versus personality, what it’s like to be good in a bad universe etc. And it both made me sob and giggle, repeatedly, and sold me on literally death-defying (but not honor-defying!) love.

Oh, and special shout out to the fact that like 2ha, you may start out hating some characters and end up a rabid fangirl (cough Murong Lian!)

3. Qiang Jin Jiu - a dense political tome that takes a while to get going but then it’s a runaway train.

In a fictional dynasty, Shen Zechuan, the only remaining son of a disgraced aristocratic family and Xiao Chiye, the younger son of a family of generals guarding the border join forces (and then something else) to get power and pull down the dysfunctional system.

This is so elegant and smart (a rare web novel I’d recommend to anyone who just loves solid period fiction) and you probably need a notebook to keep track of the politics and military strategy. These characters are very very smart not just because the author says so.

As to the characters, there is a large cast and I love many of them, but for me the novel is made by Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye. SZC is gorgeous and delicate and icy and can kill you before you have time to blink. Saddled with the sins of the family he had no pleasant interaction with, he claws his way out of hell (seeing the sinkhole he was trapped in, literally as well) to take down those who wronged him but also to amass power so all the tragedy and corruption won’t happen again and the whole rotten system comes crashing down. XCY is a military genius who is trapped as a hostage in the capital because the court doesn’t trust his family. He longs to return to the plains of home and to take his rightful place. The two men start out as bitter enemies, then reluctant and sniping allies, then as friends and eventually as one of the most gorgeous, tender, swoony OTPs.

Anyway this is one is a bona fide masterpiece, equal parts smart and emotionally intense.

4. Wu Chang Jie - are you an emotional vampire? I am and this novel is a banquet.

In a highly fantastical setting, we meet our protagonists - the sunny Xie Bian and the intense and surly Fan Wushe. Xie Bian is a human who assists his master in conveying souls to the underworld and making sure no mishaps happen. Bian is concentrated sunshine in human form and to meet him is to love him. When the novel opens, his drunk master brings back another human to be his shidi and assist with duties - said human is uncommunicative, intense and surly Wushe. Bian is excited to have a shidi but little does he know that a story dealing with the horrors of past lifetime is about to start.

Anyway, why WCJ? So many reasons. It has such a dark bleak worldview - this world is a horrifying system where powerful cannibalize each other’s cores for an impossible chance to ascend, where gods have sealed off their realm and all that’s left is neverending human misery and hell (the only way you’d see a deity is if they’d been sent down to suffer over and over and over), where even reincarnation doesn’t fix things and bad acts are often unpunished. And the novel then asks - is it worth being a good person in such a world? More, is it worth being a good person in such a world when nothing good has ever happened to you and you have been repeatedly betrayed due to your goodness? And the answer, on Bian’s part, is an uncompromising yes.

Ah yes, the other reason to love this novel - the protagonists and their fucked up fucked up relationship. Bian (who was Prince Ziheng in the past life) is so genuinely good. But he is that rare thing - good but not saintly, noble but not cloying. So much of the novel is his getting taken apart over and over and barely able to put himself back together every time but his soul is still as amazing as ever.

And then there is Wushe (who was Prince Zixiao in past life, Ziheng’s not-bio-related brother.) Wushe is not a good person. He is a monster. And he loves Bian/Ziheng more than his life and his soul and the entire world but he’s also the one who hurt him more than anyone else ever could and did it over and over. His love survived a literal century of torture in the worst kind of hell and refused the usual memory loss of new life. But it also humiliated and broke Ziheng down to his constituent parts.

One of the things that is so fascinating to me about this novel is the question of what can be forgiven/what should be forgiven/what kind of expiation is enough/can you ever love someone who you loved so much and then he hurt you so badly and is now repentant? And it never sweeps trauma under the rug or hand waves it away but deals with it head on.

If you want healthy relationships, you should stay far away from this novel but if intense insane ones with a feral barely human one capable of destroying the world leashed by love and guilt to the sane deeply good one is your bag, come right in.

There is also the world building and the fact that yes, the big fall out between Ziheng x Zixiao is based on not knowing all the facts but it’s not “why can’t you talk?! This is dumb!” But is totally in keeping with both events and their characters. It’s reasonable for Ziheng to do what he does and for Zixiao to misunderstand and decide Ziheng is now his biggest enemy (but still one he’s fixated on) and for Ziheng to never be able to clarify.

Anyway, once again this is trigger warning central so please heed those, but if they are no issue, this one is wonderful.

5. OK, this is hard and switches between Sha Po Lang, Heaven Official’s Blessing and The Golden Stage depending on my mood. So what the hell, I am gonna write about all of them.

Sha Po Lang - so smart and so much clever world building. There is enough politicking to satisfy a Qiang Jin Jiu fan, it’s steampunk, and our two protagonists - Gu Yun, the empire’s most powerful general, who’s loyal to the empire despite being badly wronged by it, and Chang Geng, a cursed prince with barbarian blood and horrifying childhood - are wonderful separately and together. This is a huge slow burn but it’s totally worth it! They fall in love with each other’s hearts and brains and ability as much as anything. (Yes, this is the one with the yifu thing. Gu Yun is made Chang Geng’s foster father when he rescues him and brings him back to the capital as a way to keep CG safe in imperial strife. They are 12 and 19 at the time so clearly it’s never a parental relationship.)

Heaven Official’s Blessing (TCGF) - I love it’s sprawling narrative and cast, I love its inventive setting and picaresque story. It’s hilarious and can make me cry. But the novel’s place on this list is due to Xie Lian who is part Kenshin part drama WWX part pure goodness wrapped in heartbreak and trauma wrapped in sunshine.

The Golden Stage - two smart and principled (yes, they both have principles different though they may be) men navigate their arranged marriage, their past friendship and their past break up, become a super couple (one of the healthiest danmei couples I’ve ever read and proves healthy doesn’t have to be boring), save the country and bring down the emperor or two and just generally this is my rainy day book.

I guess I didn’t write as much for the three n5 candidates as I did for 1-4 but my brain is beginning to curdle so...

[the-king-andthe-lionheart]

I used to be in the asoiaf fandom (btw, love ya and like this whole side of asoiaftumblr!) and I have to ask... what in R'hllor's name is a "neutral"?

Hi @hyacinthyne! Thanks for the ask! :D

A "neutral" is usually a Big Name Fan or a "fandom expert". They pretend that they are unbiased in their analysis and pretend that they love all the characters equally. Yet when they talk about the Key Five characters, especially Arya and Dany, their responses are usually riddled with lowkey inconsideration, actual thought and analysis, and bias. They are also very clearly Sansa Stans, but they try to hide it so they aren't associated with the side of fandom that is much hated. They know not as many people would listen to them if they were clear in their biased analysis. Which is clearly shown, when in their analysis they praise Sansa at the expense of the other characters, especially Arya, Dany and Jon. They describe Sansa as the "embodiment of hope for the future" yet can't support this fact with legitimate canon evidence or even possible evidence, and never actually praise the real progressive characters in the series as being the "embodiment of hope and change" in Westeros. And when you question some of their analysis (non rudely, just correcting things they obviously got wrong or are mistaken about, or even just participating in healthy debate) they block you.

Mostly these "neutrals" love to take the moral high ground. Yet when it's the Stansa's and Jonsa's who are being particularly nasty they stay mum and "mind their own business". However when we Arya and Dany and Jon stans finally defend ourselves with legitimate canon sources to back up our arguments, they are all over us. Disparaging us Arya and Dany fans for being anti-feminist or fighting over Jon's dick (which we are not doing as shipping is never part of the argument unless Jonsa's are trying to prove canon Jonsa foreshadowing by stealing from Arya's content and her canon close relationship with Jon) or making stupid hashtags like #letaryabeugly (even though the canon evidence contradicts this as she's maturing, several times contradicted).

So basically they police fandom and act holier-than-thou because they've usually been in fandom for awhile, and are "unbiased" literary analysts, which don't exist. They are clearly Stansa's, some of them even Jonsa's, but they pretend otherwise. I'm sure many of these "neutrals" are contributing to the harassment and bullying (and the increase in it since Dany month premiered in October and is just getting worse with Jon month and will likely be horrendous by Arya month) of Key Five fans in this fandom.

It honestly is ridiculous, no one can be unbiased when reading something, because of our life experiences and who we are as people and who we relate to or not. Not to mention, there is no way someone can analyze the entirety of these books and be an "expert" on every single character or plot, much less the smaller things like foreshadowing and symbolism and themes for each character. Which is why I don't pretend to understand characters I've never really focused much of my attention and analysis on, and why I will listen to those characters legitimate fans, even real Sansa fans, who accept Sansa, flaws and all, who actually understand her real character and arc.

But these "neutrals", these "experts" try to have the moral high ground and shame the rest of us for having preferences or relating to one character more than another character or just not liking a character. Like we don't need a reason not to like a character or not be as interested in a character as others. We don't need to write a dissertation explaining why someone who was bullied in childhood can't relate to Sansa, or why a person who has never felt insecure could relate to Arya. But they seem to think it's owed to them. No, scratch that, they seem to think we are "lesser" for it and deserve to be judged and bullied for it, because like I said, most of them are Stansa's, who are always brutally offended when someone doesn't like their whitewashed fanon Sansa or her toxic stans.

I hope that answered your question. :)

[sortasirius]

what makes you think the writers want deancas? not trying to be an asshole, i'm just genuinely curious as to why you think that. i know berens' episodes are pretty heavy with subtext so i can see why you'd say that he wants it, but i'm not so sure about the rest of the writers/dabb. it seems like meghan isn't a huge fan either, given her "they twisted it so fast" tweet :/ of course she's a very new writer (think she's only writing one ep this season?) but still

OKAY this is a great question, welcome to my dissertation.

I’m going to address the end of your question first. Meghan is actually DeanCas positive, she has been for quite a long time. She actually, a few years back, posted a picture of her reading a literal book about Destiel and captioned it “writing reading” or something like that.

This whole thing just comes out of a boiling over of tensions because of how nasty fandom twitter can be. Like I said here, I think this has just gotten blown out of proportion, they shouldn’t have posted all this randomly disparaging stuff, but also like...can you blame them? The fandom is a lot, we always have been, and they’re probably also under a gag order not to talk about the finale, and are annoyed that people keep asking.

So nah, Meg is not anti Destiel.

To the first part!! So let’s take a look at the show runners since Cas has been around.

Seasons 4 and 5: Kripke

Seasons 6 and 7: Gamble

Seasons 8-11ish: Carver

Seasons 11ish-15: Dabb

So starting with Kripke. Okay, yes, I will be the first to admit that we have some pretty incredible Destiel moments in these seasons, but it’s less directly written into the plot and much more from Misha and Jensen’s uhhhh ~chemistry~. The only times it was directly written into the script was when the episode was handled by someone like Edlund (“On The Head Of A Pin,” “The End,” “My Bloody Valentine”). And you have to remember, if in season 5, there are moments here and there where you’re like huh that’s suspiciously romantic dialogue, remember that Cas took Anna’s place. Anna was supposed to be endgame for Dean, but due to a myriad of issues and Misha’s general greatness, Anna was replaced with Cas.

Onto 6 and 7. Hmmm. Gamble. 6 and 7 are my two least favorite seasons and that’s no secret, and that’s not only due to the plain old weird shit in the overall storyline, but also that homegirl killed off Cas in s7 and then Bobby like four episodes later. (Also it ALWAYS rubbed me the wrong way they couldn’t have Baby in that season lol). We still had some great DeanCas moments, but again, it wasn’t really written into the overall arc (until they had to change the end of season 7 because of tanking ratings and bring Misha back lol, anyone remember the fact that Dean kept Cas’ jacket and would randomly dream of him? Yeah.). But we still had those moments, those distinctly romantic moments, probably the best example in these two seasons is from Edlund again, specifically “The Man Who Would be King,” I wrote a little about that here.

We move onto Carver, who gave us, at this point, the most overt DeanCas season with season 8 (season gr8 is a better name imo), and this is the first time Dean and Cas’ relationship is directly written as an arc of the season.  I mean, you have everything in Purgatory, Dean “seeing” Cas everywhere, the fact that he felt so guilty that Cas stayed in Purgatory that he manipulated his own memories to think that he was the one that failed Cas, because he couldn’t comprehend that Cas would want to leave him, and let’s not forget Dean snapping Cas out of Naomi’s hold on him in “Goodbye Stranger.”  It was a very obvious shift, not enough to alert the general audience, but more than enough for most of us in fandom.

It’s also important to note that this is when Andrew stopped co writing with Loflin and started writing his own episodes (”Hunter Heroici” anyone?)  I like Loflin fine, but Dabb was able to stretch his legs a little bit more once he stopped co-writing, and we also began to see some DeanCas themes in his solo episodes.

In any case, them and their issues being a big part of the seasons continued with Carver, and Berens entered the scene, his first episode (”Heaven Can’t Wait”) is one of my favorites, with human Cas and the fanfiction gap and Dean and Cas just generally being awkward and funny and sweet.  This is Bobo’s FIRST episode, remember that.  He comes right out of the gate with it.

Also in Season 9, this is when Dean takes the Mark of Cain, and the Cas/Colette mirror is born, so obviously, Dean and Cas are the fabric of the season once again.  This is also the season where Metatron says Cas is “in love with humanity,” and then immediately refers to Dean as Humanity so uhhhh yeah.

Onto season 10, Dabb and Berens continue with their greatness (I could write pages on the DeanCas date in “The Things We Left Behind” alone).  And then we have one of the best scenes in the entire show in “The Prisoner” where the Cas/Colette mirror continues and Dean, driven by grief and pain and rage and the Mark, still doesn’t kill Cas.  He still can’t kill Cas.

Season 11 is important because it takes choice away from both Cas and Dean, and shows us, as the audience, how much losing each other takes out of them. We saw in season 10 how much losing Dean takes from Cas, but what about Cas losing Dean?  Dean loses his choice with his connection to Amara this season, and loses even more when Lucifer reveals he’s been possessing Cas, and plays on Dean’s connection to Cas like a mockery.  It’s also worth noting that, similarly to season 8, Dean breaks out of the connection with Amara when he’s worried about Cas, and that’s something that even SHE is surprised by.

But then season 12, the beginning to the Renaissance.  This is when we get the writer’s that become important for what Dean and Cas are today, and, truly, why I believe they want canon Destiel as much as we do.

This is the first season with Dabb’s writers: Davy Perez, Meredith Glynn, Steve Yockey, and of course Bobo all come in with their incredible talents and gave us episode after episode of good content.  “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” is probably my favorite, probably the best example of what I’m saying.  An episode where Dean is called out by an enemy directly, told to “roll the dice” on Cas’ life.  And Dean won’t, it’s not even really a hesitation.  And this comes from a character that has known Dean for ten seconds.  I also wrote more in depth about this episode here.  There are also some.....distinctly domestic details we get this season, specifically in “The Future” (written by Berens and Glynn) with the mixtape.  The most tropey of tropes mixtape.  Yeah, I’ll just leave that one here.

And then season 12 ends with Cas’ death, but also with the parallel between Sam and Dean with Jess and Cas.  Sam literally has to drag Dean away from Cas, just like Dean had to drag Sam out of his burning apartment in the pilot.  The episode drives it home in every way that it can: Dean is the one left kneeling by Cas’ body, while Sam goes to find out what is upstairs.  Dean is the one who stares at the sky, finally broken.  This isn’t a random thing, this is Dean’s whole arc, it’s the entirety of the beginning of 13.  Dean’s pain, his anguish, his anger.

Season 13 starts with them burning Cas, with Dean, who has begged God to bring him back, who has split his knuckles punching a door, standing, staring at Cas’ pyre with brokenness on his face.

I mean.....

Anyway, season 13 is where it gets interesting (well, I think all of this is interesting but I’m a writer nerd so).  So Cas comes back from the Empty in “Advanced Thanatology” written by Steve Yockey, and then a wombo combo of “Tombstone” by Davy Perez next (”Brokebacknatural” as the PR said at the time).  Listen.  This is the part that SPN crossed a line that they couldn’t come back from.  With Cas being Dean’s “big win,” the fact that Dean and Cas watch movies together, “I told you, he’s an angry sleeper.  Like a bear.” Talked about it here.

This is where, in my opinion, the network stepped in, but the damage was already done.  They had already established that Cas was Dean’s big win, that Dean’s poor coping was not due to Mary’s disappearance, but solely due to Cas, and that Dean and Cas have more married energy than anyone else.  The network had nixed blatant canon at this point, and they writing room had been pushing the boundaries of what the network would allow. 

After these episodes, we see a marked drop off of DeanCas heavy scenes.  They’re still there, still a part of the fabric of the season, but not as...obvious as it had been in early season 13.

And this continued through season 14, we’re back to scraps of Destiel scenes here and there, but to me it always felt like there was something bubbling under the surface, something distinctly unsaid in the themes of the season, even after the walk back of obvious “Dean and Cas are in love” scenes.

And then we get to season 15, which, y’all know I talk about all the time.  What’s important here is that Bobo and Glynn are both executive producers, calling more of the shots than ever before.  Additionally, it’s important to note that, though they only co write occasionally, Glynn and Berens refer to each other as “work husband” and “work wife.”  Each episode has just turned up the volume, and, not for the first time, but certainly the most obvious, Dean and Cas ARE the season.  Sure, they’re trying to beat God, they’re trying to finally find peace, defeat the final big bad, but really?  This season has been about Dean, and Dean’s relationship to Cas.

And not only do we have obvious and clear Destiel in nearly every episode, but we have episodes like “Last Call” which canonize bi!Dean (wrote about that here).

And, maybe most importantly so far, we have “The Rupture,” the breakup, and “The Trap,” Dean’s confession (both written by Berens).  And here’s the thing.  These episodes feel connected, but also feel like they’re missing something.  Beren’s last episode is 15x18, “The Truth.”  We’ve all spec’ed about what could happen in this episode, and I think *I* know what it’s leading to.  But for it to be leading to that, it means that the network has to have approved what we’ve all been waiting for years for.

Who got this change to happen?  Who got the network to change their minds?  It wasn’t us.  It was them.  I am fully convinced that Dabb and Berens quite literally put their careers on the line for Dean and Cas.  They believe in them, they’ve shown that from the beginning, but the only thing standing in the way was the network, never allowing them to take the final step. 

So, to answer your question: I think the writers want canon DeanCas because they’ve already shown us that they do.  Take a look at their episodes, at Dabb’s, at Beren’s, at Glynn’s, at Perez’s, at Yockey’s.  They’ve been telling us what’s going on with Dean and Cas for years.

Sure, I’m not in their heads, I guess I don’t know for *sure* that this has been their thought process, but if we put it all together, from the marked shift when Dabb fully took over in s12, to the change right after “Tombstone,” to the new shift, the blatantly romantic shift in season 15, what else is there?

I’ve said for a long time that we, the SPN fandom, are beyond lucky to have the writer’s that we do.  They’re all going to go on to have prolific careers and we were lucky to get them at the end of our little show.  I give them a lot of credit for what we have in the show today.

Just remember, they’ve been telling us in all of s15 who Chuck is.  He says he’s the writer, right?  But a writer who doesn’t have control of his characters?  A writer who wants to do the same ending over and over because it “works”?  That doesn’t sound like a writer, it sounds like a network exec.

They’ve been showing us what they want for years, and the way s15 is going?  I think they may have convinced the network to let us have it.