#also just because i wrote this doesn't mean i feel very strongly about it

[semi-sketchy]

You know I said this on Twitter, but I think it bares repeating.

I think a lot of the arguments of the Sonic IDW comics lose nuance and frankly this recent debate about "there being too many OCs" is no different.

I don’t mind them adding OCs or even giving them some story focus, it’s just how they’re doing it that kinda bugs me. The great thing about Sonic being a static character is it more so focuses on how he influences others, (i.e. Tails, Amy, Blaze, Merlina, Chip, the list goes on) yet here it really feels like Sonic doesn’t matter. You could replace him with just about anyone and the OC’s journey wouldn’t change.

He’s essentially a background character in his own comic that features arcs revolving around the OCs rather than just including them. Surge is the obvious and most recent example. It is not every arc or issue, there are of course game character-centric storylines, although these OC driven ones have been cropping up more and more recently as they continuously expand the cast. There's a lack of balance between new and long-time characters.

These OCs are starting to feel like writer’s pets with how much they’re overshadowing the game cast rather than building from them, thus missing what makes a new Sonic character compelling. It’s not being Sonic’s new friend/rival that’s interesting; it’s seeing how he inspires them.

Many of these OCs that seemingly interact with Sonic and co. frequently don't appear to have that strong of a connection to them. Add that with their growing amount of story focus to establish the new characters, then yes, I agree there are too many OCs in the IDW comics.

There's also some arguments about how it's demeaning to call the characters introduced in IDW, OCs. OC stands for "original character" and these characters are original to the comics. OC is the proper term for them. It's only the stigma many people harbor towards specifically fan OCs that makes some perceive it as a negative term.

TL;DR: The conversation about the focus on OCs in the comics is missing the point when the issue more so lies with how they're being used and introduced. It rarely circles back around to the game cast, who the book is supposed to be about, leaving them with minimal ties to the series they supposedly belong to. Also OC is not an offensive term.

[7ndipity]

Fights with them

Ot7 x Reader

Summary: what they would be like during fights/arguments

Warnings: a lot of angst, not proofread

A/N: after days of struggling to work(hello executive disfunction) I got this request, and my brain decided to jump back into gear and I wrote this in like an hour, as well as half of another request!? 🤷idk, I'm not gonna question it, I'm just glad I'm writing again.

Masterlist

Requests are open

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Seokjin: as much as he bickers with the members, I think he has a rather avoidant personality when it comes to real conflict. He's said he allergic to seriousness, which can definitely become an issue if not careful, as it can one off as indifferent or dismissive. I think he usually ends up snapping and saying something short but pointed, and then walks away before things can escalate further. Always comes back all apologetic, and tries to work through things more calmly.

Yoongi: He's very upfront and sometimes blunt, and he's said before that he hates getting angry/fighting, so I think most issues would be resolved before they can turn into a full blown fight. But I also think he might have a tendency to ignore/avoid smaller issues until they build up. In the moment, he's not that loud, but he's very sharp with his words. Immediately regrets saying anything that might have hurt you afterwards. Definitely needs some time to himself to think and get his emotions under control, but would want to apologize and resolve everything as quickly as possible.

Hobi: He's almost to open too let a fight brew properly. He'll see it coming be like, "wait, let's step back and sort this out" before it gets out of hand. When they do happen though, he's loud only for a moment, and then the rest of the time, he's unnervingly quiet. As I said in his dating HCs, fights almost always culminate in tears because he can't stand y'all being upset with each other. Like, it causes him physical pain. Makes up the fastest out of all the members.

Namjoon: tbh, I think I would fight with him the most out of the members. He's soo stubborn and passive aggressive. Tries to dismiss the issue to de-escalate the situation, but that almost always backfires. Gets loud and slams things/doors, then gets mad at himself for letting his emotions get the better of him. Definitely needs time to cool off before coming back to talk to you; could be an hour, could be three days, depends on the situation. But he does always come back to talk it out with you.

Jimin: I know several of the big fight stories involve him, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's overly combative, I just think that when he feels strongly about something, he won't back down, which can be a good thing, until it isn't. If it's a smaller argument, he'll just say something snappish and then move on like nothing happened, but in bigger fights, he can rival Joon on volumeand intensity. He can also hold a grudge like you wouldn't believe, so communication is a super important part of resolving the issue so nothing brews into bitterness.

Taehyung: He has a tendency to get very wrapped up in the moment and take things personally, so even small fights can snowball into something bigger if you're not careful. Yells and tries to put up a tough exterior, but starts to crack pretty quick and will want to leave before his other emotions show too much. Another crier(same). Ultimately, can't stand being away from you for too long, the type that will climb in bed and hold you, but not speak because the wounds are still fresh. Will probably talk it out with you the next morning.

Jungkook: He's such a emotional and overly reactive person, so I see fights being a common occurrence with him tbh. With smaller fights, he stays pretty calm, but when things escalate, he's all over the place. Definitely an angry crier. For some reason, I don't see him really yelling during fights? He's more like Hobi in that, if he does, it only happens in bursts and the rest of the time, his tone is just slightly raised(like when he scolds ppl during lives). Does not like to walk away and wants to sort things out then and there, even though that's probably not the best idea, but he doesn't want to let the tension drag on longer than it has to.

[olivereliocorcordium1983]

This is one of the best interviews that I have seen since this whole thing started. Armie was very open, extremely transparent about everything from the text messages to bdsm in general which I applaud him for. He exposed the truth, he was very honest about what happened and I love that about this.

He now talking about all of this and he continues to own up to his behavior and all that is incredible to me. Because there are not many people who can or do own up to their own shit and are able to look in the mirror and is like "Okay, I did some really shitty things and I need to change it in order to not only help myself but to help myself grow into a better person."

I love the fact that he was able to come out and prove basically what most of the fandom if not all was saying to begin with. I can see the growth that has happen to him during all the craziness and that he is able to finally be okay with himself.

Through time and patience of course i strongly believe that with everything he will bounce back into movies. That is if he so chooses to do so, which I hope he does i do miss watching him. But if he doesn't and decides that he wants to do something else entirely then I am completely content as a fan of his for that also.

What I also love is the call me by your name references that he does twice. But the biggest one would have to be this quote.

Heraclitus: 'No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.'

I mean come on Armie! you say you don't remember who said it. But you remember. Just like Timmy you remember everything too. Speaking of which when he spoke about friends, about before he was famous then after getting famous and people leaving ect.

I would very much like to think that him and Tim are still close to each other. If not closer now since all of this happened and the aftermath. I mean yeah, I wrote a fanfic about that sure, but the fantasy doesn't really measure up to the reality of it.

Please continue to grow and changing Armie you are going in the right direction. I feel it you are going to continue to do great things and sooner or later when the world is ready.

Dude you will shine again. I know it.

[cotl-flower-crown]

My experience with Fang

My story in all of this is not that important, it's mostly just a petty drama between me and Fang. Please aim your support towards @catatombi and others mentioned in the original doc in their post: https://www.tumblr.com/catatombi/756286505510666240?source=share

I suppose since I'm somewhat involved in this and the other side seems to misinterpret my issue with fang, I feel compelled to explain myself. It might be a bit jumbled up, because I'm writing this in the middle of the night and I'm a bit sleepy.

cw: mentions of self harm and suicide

So me and Fanged met in a discord server that we were both in for a while. We and a few other wonderful individuals were hanging out, loving each other's art, talking and other stuff. We weren't exactly close, but we enjoyed each other's company.

One day I decided to share a story I wrote for my beloved Red District au (aka Gang au) which included an abuse scene between Grinder and Lambert. I have represented the two before as them having at least a sexual relationship (to be honest I do not remember if I ever depicted them as specifically romantic, I may have, but I cannot tell) and at the time I was toying with the idea of dipping into the dark side of the pairing. I was not trying to make it look like it was an romantic act (which that's what romanticizing means by the way), it was a scene straight up from a thriller. I left appropriate content warnings above the story. Fang saw them and read the story knowing that it would make him upset, he told us as much (sadly I do not have the screenshot to prove it, I don't know if that server still exists tbh). I felt really bad for him afterwards and it made me question myself. He later on appeared in my pms and from my perspective insinuated that I romanticize abuse, which I do not believe I did. The pms in question: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zYN84ZT1xIAsxrQ8WvdwSlwUviT7InoB I admit it's not the best look to draw nsfw art of an abusive couple, though I would like to make it clear, the dive into the dark side begun after I was already made those drawings, I did not made them with the potential abuse in mind. With the story, I was just experimenting with how realistic can this relationship become. The au had barely any debt at the time and I wanted to make something deep. I was never really given an opportunity to elaborate on that. At the moment of the pms, I was scared for Fang, because he reacted very strongly to that story and I was worried for him and ended up backing out completely from the direction I wanted to take. Him telling me that he had 4 panic attacks over my story didn't help in the slightest. It just made me want to agree with him more, so he would feel more comfortable. I don't want to hang this over his head, because in the end it was my decision to change things in my au to fit his preferences. It could be a lot darker than what I have now, but what I have now is also good, you know. However, I'm not sure how else to describe it, but I wish I was told at the moment "hey, it's ok, you don't have to feel compelled to change YOUR story to fit MY preferences, because it's not my story, it's yours and if I'm not comfortable with this, then I shouldn't get involved". But he didn't, instead he encouraged me to keep it "clean", because he thinks that Grinder is hot and therefore he can't be an abuser apparently (sarcasm). So... whoops. It's not something that breaks a friendship tbh. I just want to let everyone know that I wasn't romanticizing abuse, because Fang's friend in their responce insinuate that I do. I don't. It was Fang who implied it. I don't romanticize abuse, I don't condone it, I despise it. But at the same time I'm not gonna say that abuse doesn't have the highs that make the victim stay by his abuser. It can be about money, it can be about security, it can be about sex and romance too. Back then for Lambert it was for all of those reasons. It was because when there were no bad days, there were the good days, great days even. Days that would make him question his own sanity, make him think that "this isn't so bad" before reality hit him in the face with a crash. Sometimes I wish I could tell that story instead of the misunderstood cat boy and a wolf in sheep's clothing. The thing is that I wasn't doing anything wrong and Fang made me think I did. I guess it happens sometimes and I don't really hate him for it, tho I wish he didn't pm me that night. I hope he gets help he desperately needs and avoids the spaces that make him uncomfortable if he can.

What really broke off out friendship was the situation on Itaku. I was following him there because I thought of him as a friend and he makes lovely artwork. I knew that he made gore artwort, but I don't hate gore, so the fact that he was drawing it in general wasn't an issue. One day I scroll through the feed and BOOM, a graphic piece "assaults" my eyes. Made me squirm a little. Very well made artwork, but fuck, I sure wish I could consent to that view. There was very clearly no content warning, because if there was, I would be allowed to make a choice on whether or not I want to see gore. So I leave him a friendly comment, something like "Nice artwork, wish there was a content warning tho" and I thought that would be it. But instead it turned into a debate that ended with him blocking me on Itaku. The debate in question can be read here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1z0rC4gxUOzfI_qUu9BRcThOufc_uF9np I was confused and angry when I learned about it, because I ended the discussion with "agreeing to disagree" and yet he still blocked me. And admittedly in the petty glory I decided to block him back on all my social medias. I wanted to unblock him the next day, once my emotions cool down, and propose a compromise. Anyway, I log on to see that Fang left me a message in the one place I forgot to block him at that left a poor taste in my mouth and made me think "this man is full of shit and I don't want to deal with him". He tried to love-bomb me at first, specifically mentions that he wants to be unblocked on my nsfw account, doesn't really mention the other places, really showing where his priorities lay. Then he tries to excuse himself, saying that the PSA he made wasn't about me, but it appeared directly after our debate, how am I supposed to not take that as vague posting? So that was the first lie. He then mentions my art again, saying that he's gonna miss it, not me, a friend, tho I guess, I feel very valued by that, thanks (sarcasm). He makes excuses again, he "warns" me that there are a lot of medias does the same thing he does, including cotl itself, which isn't true, because most do actually have content warnings these days, including cotl. Besides, semi-realistic gore and cartoony gore don't exactly hit the same way. So that's another attempt to deflect. He then talks about how he doesn't know what he did wrong, which I straight up just don't believe him. I didn't know about the vents yet, but most of the conclusions could be deduced from the discussion itself.

Refearing to the vent posts now (they're in the link above) I never told him to censor his art. Itaku has an option to put a content warning, which basically covers up the piece with "warning" written on top and the reasons that the author can add manually. Clearly the tags are not enough, so why not use that? The only reason why Fang wouldn't want to use that tool that he was given, is that it would most likely lower his views. The line "I'm not going to de-boost my content" confirms it. I did not want to block the whole gore tag because I don't hate gore, it doesn't give me PTSD or anything, and it can be cool and beautiful when done right. Gore tag includes a lot of variety and blocking it ALL would feel like a waste. But also if your art makes me - someone who can take the blood and guts pretty well - imagine some random person, who cannot take the gore and has no idea about blocking the tags, stumbling onto your art and being met with an image of a bloody spinal cord. If there is a tool that allows you to warn your viewers that "hey, this one is a bit graphic", if I click on it anyway, that's on me. It's my choice to view it and I can't blame Fang for it. Fang, by refusing to put up a content warning, strips me and other viewers of that choice. A tag is not gonna fix it. I'm sure that those who wanted to follow Fanged for his other artwort, would appreciate the content warning as well. I said as much in the comments. Looking at it from the other side, remember that story I wrote about earlier? What if I decided not to put up content warnings? Bet Fang wouldn't be very happy about it either. So it's fine for ME to get disturbed without my consent, but when it's Fang that sees something graphic by his own volition, then he's allowed to be upset and come to me with a critique? But when I do it, then I get hit with a block? Very classy. The killjoy thing is so stupid, self-depricating humor is a thing and I was aware that my comment might be taken as less than fun, so I was trying to make a joke about it, to break the tension. It wasn't supposed to be hostile in any way. He complains that I don't appreciate him bringing his panic attacks into the discussion which are not related to the topic. If that's not guilt-tripping then what is it? Also the tweet does confirm that he blocked me because he got mad about it. So yeah, sure, PSA not being about me, my ass.

What I took from all this is that Fang wants everyone to respect his boundaries, but he's not gonna respect boundaries of others for his own gains and he will try to deflect blame, because he can't handle criticism. I don't need that toxicity in my life, so I just kept him blocked. One would assume that's what he would want as well, since he blocked me first. The nerve taken to try and wiggle his way into my graces for my nsfw doodles baffles me. I didn't hate him though, not being able to take criticism is not really an evil quality. But I tried to get through to him in the most polite way I could manage and he didn't take it. If that's too much then I can't do better unless I say "You're right and I'm wrong". If I can't express my true thoughts without him taking it as a threat to his safe space, then I'm not going to sacrifice mine for him.

And that was it for me for a while. I wasn't going to talk about this situation at all, unless asked, and people did ask. Because guess what, Fang can say all he wants about how his vent account is private, but that's bullshit. If people can see it, then it's not REALLY private. If you want to have a private space to vent, get yourself a diary. The internet is not a private space, no matter how private you try to make it. But yeah, I learned that Fang was talking shit about me, which was funny at first, until a few months later I learned from Cata about what he did to them and the others. I learned that I was one of the people he cut himself for. He cut himself. Because of this. I can be snarky and passive aggressive all around through this post, but I cannot laugh this off. This is not healthy. This isn't something to laugh about or ignore. It's not about me, it's about what Cata and the others had to go through. Learning about the self harming thing didn't feel good at all and I can only imagine how they felt through out his abuse.

Even now I don't want to hate him. That's not to say that I don't think he's not dangerous. If you've read Catatombi's call out, you know about the suicide pacts, pushing boundaries and just hurting people around him in general. He's definitelly a danger to himself as well as the people he surrounds himself with. But even then, I can get mad and sad about it, but I can't really hate him. This callout is not to hate on him, but warn others against his destructive behavior. In the end what he really needs is to get off the internet, get proffessional help and touch grass. I'm not sure whether or not Fang is actually taking steps to take care of his issues, I really do hope that he does and I cheer him on for it, even if we can't be friends anymore.

And for those who ended up being his victims, even if it wasn't intentional, I hope they can find their peace as well. That is all I really want in the end.

Now excuse me, it's almost 5 am and I need sleep. Goodnight.

[drdemonprince]

Any chance you'd expand on the hank hill trans guy post? (Sorry, best indicator I could come up with.) The concept interests me as I decidedly know my maleness, yet don't feel impeded by for the most part, any male gendered norms/boxes. I am fairly masculine, though I rarely use those kinds terms to describe myself. I have found I often do stray outside of what society pushed for me when I transitioned, yet I again do not feel it has taken from my right to maleness whatsoever. I am just me, who happens to be male. I have had friends try and suggest I am NB adjacent but I do not feel this way whatsoever. I feel more people are outliers to gender expectation than we care to admit and it's disappointing the way cis-people deny that. Hope this wasn't too long winded, I value your writing and perspective, and wanted to hear more of your thoughts on this.

Yeah, well so many things all get conflated by gender labels, and it's all so personal, you know? Masculinity does not have to mean maleness, and a person's gender identity might be a reflection of some innate quality they experience themselves as having, or a general summary of their tendencies, or their desired presentation, or their sense of affinity with other people, or an interpersonal tool, or something they just go along with because it was given to them by society, or any other number of things.

I think my recent substack piece on detransition goes into this pretty well, and I have an upcoming piece of what @pastimperfection calls "bilateral dysphoria" that comes out next week that delves into it too.

I think I mostly saw taking on a male identity as a means to an end more than any kind of innate reflection of who I was, though I did feel an affinity with effeminate men for a lot of reasons. I think I also discounted how much I have in common with my fellow nonbinary people of all stripes, because that identity became so strongly associated with being an annoying type of queer person that everybody else just wrote off as ultimately being their assigned gender at birth anyway no matter how much they protested. it doesn't help that 'nonbinary' is a catchall term for literally thousands if not millions of very distinct experiences and desires.

transitioning gave me control over how i was perceived, finally, but hormones are a throttle that only go in one very specific direction, and you don't really have all that much control over which changes kick in at which times and what people will make of you once you do start registering to them as some identity other than what you were first saddled with. it's an incredible gift to be able to toggle that throttle. but it's limited, not because medical transition isn't incredible and needed for so many, but because there is no escaping the goddamned binary cissexist logic that influences everything about how people treat you, how you navigate institutions, who finds you desirable and what they want out of you, and so much else.

if you're able to cast a lot of the external societal bullshit aside and feel strong in your maleness, maybe you're stronger than me or maybe our orientation to these things is just different, i don't know. i was never all that sensitive to feedback that i was doing the whole being-a-woman-thing all that wrong. i reveled in violating those rules to an extent. succeeding at being a woman despite my best attempts was what felt super dysphoric. and now i guess im succeeding at being a man, insofar as im always read as one, and it feels just as uncomfortable and objectifying and false. i thought that with manhood i could probably just grit my teeth and deal with it, but i'm finding that i can't.

ive always been very open that for me, gender is a thing I Do, and i guess to those who know me well it wouldnt be surprising to hear that i have gotten tired of Doing Being a Man and dont feel like playing that particular gendered game anymore. I tend to get bored of things! and find the flaws in things. and find my comfort in being fault-finding and contrarian and not being a joiner. and thats okay. i learned a lot along the way. not having to try any more is a huge relief. i can just do whatever. and know actively that people will more often than not be wrong in what they make of me.

maybe it was natural feeling for you to decidely 'know' your maleness without a care for masculine standards because that is the right identity for you! and maybe i only feel secure in the "not knowing" realm and in letting go of what people think of me or finding any kind of tidy categorization for it because that's the right spot for me. for now. until i find a new interesting way to be unhappy and striving for more and different again. :) that's just part of being alive, for me.

[charcubed]

Disneyland's Rogers: The Musical, propaganda that turns Steve Rogers into more myth than man, and revisionist history (possibly) to a purpose

Any of my thoughts in this post could just be me reading too far into things. I'm very aware of that, and please know that this post exists just because this sort of thing is fun for me! This is a thought exercise where we propose "What if we live in a world where the MCU is actually doing a cool and interesting thing as a longcon?" If you have anger at Marvel, that's valid and relatable, but please don't get angry at me or imply I'm an MCU stan who doesn't think critically about the mouse. Thanks!

Breaking news: I'm back on my bullshit!

A quick personal recap: I infamously hated Avengers: Endgame for a long list of reasons (and I even rewrote the movie). One of those reasons is that I've always taken issue with Steve's ending. But in the years since then, and as the MCU's phase 4 has evolved, my frustration at Steve's "ending" has turned into an ongoing and legitimate theory that the MCU could be slowly leading into a loosely adapted Secret Empire plot line. I know we've all been joking about Steve being trapped or about an imposter Steve since 2019, but uhhh, it's kind of not a joke to me anymore? It feels weirdly plausible at this point and so I enjoy discussing the potential.

You can find a full elaboration on that here, where I wrote out my "Steve was snatched by HYDRA" theory in 2021.

In that post, one of the things I mentioned at the time was Rogers: The Musical being in the Hawkeye trailer.

[The musical's] very existence is an example of how in-universe the stories of the lives of the heroes are being commodified, especially (in terms of how they’re framing it) for Steve’s. The heroes are no longer seen as people, if they ever were. They are, as Kate Bishop says to Clint in a recently released clip, more about “branding.” Sam Wilson will be redefining the shield moving forward in a Cap context, but simultaneously, the world is still enamored by Steve Rogers as a symbol in his own right. And that is ripe for manipulation as a Trojan horse to control public opinion… whether in the context of things like this by themselves (is the musical portraying Steve accurately, or is it painting an inaccurate picture of him the world accepts as fact?) or in future (is this propaganda that makes the public see Steve a certain way and continue to love him, to set up a fake or brainwashed Steve coming on the scene later?).

Now a form of the musical exists in full, at Disneyland and all over Youtube. Considering some of its baffling content – which I will break down below – this perspective seems even more strongly worth considering.

I have two main reasons for why I'm defending examining this musical so closely:

1. It is (arguably) an in-universe piece of media that has bearing on the MCU canon. It isn't like any other typical Disneyland attraction; its very existence is meta and it was in canon first. Obviously it's seen in Hawkeye, but there are also posters for it in several different phase 4 properties. It's lurking in the background indefinitely. So what can this musical tell us about what the wider public within the MCU is being told about the life story of Steve Rogers?

2. This Secret Empire graphic – which is animated in the center of the stage of a prolonged period of time – feels like a literal sign to pay attention.

Granted, this is obviously still ancillary material. 99% of the MCU audience will never see this musical, whether in person or on YouTube. But just because it isn't a vital piece doesn't mean it's automatically an entirely irrelevant piece.

They've given me an inch with that sign and I'm taking a mile.

So if you're interested, please join me on this journey :)

For the record, let me just say that I salute the creative team behind this show. It's pretty fun and the songs are catchy, the sets and costuming are cool, and the cast is overall very talented.

It's also fucking maddening. LMAO.

Why? Firstly, because of the seemingly deliberate ahistorical inaccuracies. We all know Ant-Man is wrongly shown in the Battle of New York, which originally "came from [the Hawkeye showrunner] and Marvel, as something to further aggravate Hawkeye as he watched the show, and also as a comment on how movies and articles and people always get something wrong." It seems like they expanded those meta nods, but most inaccuracies are now in service of glorifying Steve and Peggy's "love story." Yes, romance objectively makes for good theater; but again, I feel that this is worth examining considering the full context.

And secondly, Steve's ending is framed as an offer presented to him, convincing him it's the happy ending he deserves because he's tired. In my mind, these two big elements go together, and I'll walk you through the details of what happens in the musical before I tie the thought threads back around into some theorizing.

For your reference, here's a list of the main songs and story beats:

• "U-S-Opening Night" - the Starkettes (who are basically a Greek chorus) frame the show's story, and then it turns into an ensemble that loosely takes place at the Stark Expo. • "I Want You" – Steve's "I want" song about trying to enlist in the army. • "Star-Spangled Man With A Plan" – Steve performing on the USO tour obviously, and then there's a reprise with an added voiceover that (very briefly) covers the Howling Commandos' rescue + the war via comic book imagery. • "What You Missed" – Fury and the Starkettes tell Steve some pop culture things he missed while he was frozen, + they tell him about the Avengers. Then Fury goes down a list of other hero characters, including the Guardians? Doctor Strange? Wanda?? It plays loose and fast with time, because many non-2012 characters are bafflingly mentioned in this nonlinear Avengers list – including the Winter Soldier (???). • "Save the City" – this is the song seen in Hawkeye, with the civilians + the Avengers all involved, but it's slightly different here and expanded to also reference other battles. • "End of the Line" – Old Steve presents main Steve with the time stone as an opportunity for his happy ending, and they reflect on things together. (Yes, this is insane.) • "Just One Dance" – Steve and Peggy reunite and sing about their love. • And then there's basically a reprise of "Save the City," with the Starkettes and the whole cast closing the finale out.

Right out of the gate, let's address this: the main reason you're going to see some fans pissed about this musical is not only that Steve and Peggy's ~epic romance~ is made a pillar of the story... but also that Bucky's importance/involvement in Steve's life is minimized as much as possible.

And they took Bucky-related elements from canon and made them center more around Peggy instead.

• For some weird reason, Peggy is in the Stark Expo scene. When a soldier is hitting on the Starkettes ("hey sweetheart, I wanna dance!"), Steve tells the soldier to show the ladies some respect. The soldier grabs Steve and throws him down, and then Peggy swoops in to yell "Pick on someone your own size!" and punches the guy before walking away. So she's given Bucky's TFA line verbatim, and she is given the role he had of saving Steve from bullies. There is blatantly no reason they couldn't have had Bucky still serve that function and be truer to "history," because he briefly enters this scene in uniform less than a minute later to announce he's shipping out to the 107th – and then he spins off with a date on his arm. (We don't see Bucky on stage again until the full cast comes out for the finale!)

• After the Star-Spangled Man show, Peggy rushes in to talk to Steve. Steve is excited about his USO performance (???) but she urgently tells him to listen as she says that the 107th has been captured. Peggy apparently knows it's Bucky's division, and she knows Steve is going to go, so she tells him that she's already arranged transport for him. This is a subtle twist from the truth of how it went down in TFA, in which Steve recognized 107 as the number of Bucky's division, and his dogged determination inspired Peggy to relent and help his rescue mission. Here, Peggy is given a stronger role in the Cap origin story. And before Steve rushes off, Peggy sings a short untitled ballad hoping for their dance, so Steve pauses before he leaves to ask her to go on a date with her when he returns. • The most egregious Bucky-to-Peggy change of all is the song "End of the Line," in which the infamous Steve and Bucky line/promise (that broke Bucky's brainwashing...) is re-contextualized to be about ???? Peggy waiting for Steve in the past??? Old Man Steve and regular Steve sing it together. But we'll go back to that in a minute.

Again, I get it, yeah? It's for theater. Whatever. But in reality, the obvious logical truth is that Peggy is centered (to the point of taking elements from Bucky's story, and in turn Bucky is downplayed) because they needed to convince the audience that Steve going back in time to be with her makes sense. Steve's time travel ending had to be justified, so the Peggy and Steve "love story" had to be a pillar in this with everything else being given lesser weight.

And the inherent selfishness of him doing something as big as going back in time also had to be justified... which is why they do their best to convince you Steve fought so much he deserved it.

Let me elaborate on that by describing the lead-up to the "End of the Line" song.

So, right before "End of the Line" is "Save the City" – which includes Steve belting "I can do this all day!" repeatedly, of course. It's the 2012 Battle of New York as the Avengers come together to win.

As they begin to disperse, the song then transitions to a voiceover alert mentioning Sokovia being under attack by artificial intelligence (a.k.a. Age of Ultron). The Avengers group rushes back to center stage to say "Save the city! Help us win!" together for battle again.

And then things get fucking weird.

Because the next voiceover threat is "Washington DC. Attack: the Winter Soldier." This is not accurate to the order of events! The Winter Soldier events were before Age of Ultron; the public of the MCU would also know this.

And suddenly on stage Steve is now in the center while everyone else gestures to him. Instead of singing with him, they're telling him "Save the city! Help us win!"

Then, another voiceover: "Wakanda, under attack" (Infinity War) and again, Steve is centered while everyone else points to him. The ensemble says, "Save the city, help us win! Save us all from the state we're in! Got to hear you, got to hear you, got to hear you say..." as Steve is buckling to his knees under their pointing. And as the lights go down to one spotlight on him and everyone else leaves, he says "I can do this all day" one last time, but now it's subdued.

The implication is that Steve has been fighting and fighting, people leave him or he loses them, and he's tired.

And then fucking Old Man Steve arrives.

He says "On your left," because yes, they gave him Sam Wilson's line. BATSHIT.

So now there's two Steves on stage! There has been no mention of Thanos or infinity stones or anything up to this point! (I can only assume that's because in the MCU universe no one would want to be reminded of the trauma of "the Blip" – though it's pretty wild that they're allowed to know about magical time travel?)

Steve is baffled by Old Man Steve's arrival. I, too, was baffled by Old Man Steve's arrival.

As Steve questions how this is possible, Old Man Steve shows him the time stone from his pocket – and only the time stone – which Steve recognizes.

OLD MAN: "You've got to remember where you've been to know where you're going." STEVE: "Where am I going?" OLD MAN: "A date with destiny." STEVE: “Destiny. So we’re the hero till the end?” OLD MAN: “That’s the thing about endings, Steven. They can be rewritten.”

Lmao???????

Steve starts singing about how he hopes this means they "win" and calls himself a "tired hero."

STEVE: "But sometimes I wonder, who will save the savior? Can we really do this all day? So here I am, now and also then. Just a man, looking back at where he's been." OLD MAN: "The road is rough but wounds are healed by a thing called time. You can't forget what's waiting at the end of the line."

Me, watching this: the fact that he says this out of the blue makes absolutely no sense.

There's a bit more singing, including "end of the line" repetition, and then Old Man Steve pulls out the time stone to essentially show visions of... I don't fucking know. Past, present, and future?

That's pre-serum Steve, Steve with Mjolnir, and Sam Wilson as the new Cap. This is the only reference to Sam in the whole thing.

More singing, and then: Peggy's silhouette.

OLD MAN: "Can't forget who's waiting..." STEVE: "I can't forget who's waiting..." BOTH: "Don't forget who's waiting..." STEVE: "At the end of the line."

At this point I'm like, what in the hell?

Did Old Man Steve just brainwash normal Steve into thinking "end of the line" is now about Peggy? Because uhhhh, sorry, that's what it feels like!

Then Steve uses the stone to go back in time, reunites with Peggy, etc. etc. finale.

It's truly some crazy shit.

[drags hands down face]

Look... there's a lot to unpack here, and there's a lot that gets me about it. I know this is dramatized for the stage! I KNOW! But the fact that Old Man Steve shows up to convince Steve he should go back in time makes me want to gnaw on furniture.

Another person essentially uses the lure of a life with Peggy to tempt Steve into doing this, dramatized or not. That is how it's framed.

It's a hell of a way to frame it, and it makes Steve's ending stand in even starker contrast to so many other things in phase 4. Desperately trying to go backwards when you shouldn't or to bring back a lost lover is an evil temptation, and it results in a trap or negative cosmic consequences for basically all of the other characters in the MCU.

• In Shang-Chi, Wenwu is tempted by the Soul Eaters beyond the Dark Gate. They use the voice of his deceased wife to convince him to set them free. • In "What If" episode 4, Doctor Strange becomes evil in a desperate bid to save Christine and he destroys his universe. Along the way, he tries to tempt/trap the good Strange who's fighting him by using visions of Christine, but good Strange knows she isn't real. • Wanda's grief and desire to bring back Vision leads to – well, you know. • In No Way Home, Peter trying to undo things is what causes the multiverse problems.

And the fact that they frame it as Steve being tired, so basically the argument is he deserves that time travel ending (just like MCU fans who defend Endgame say in real life)... Well.

There's no way to make it hold up, especially because in "What If" they explicitly subverted that and had Captain Carter not go back in time despite how she felt she'd "earned" it.

Lastly, in this musical as Steve decides to pursue time travel as his course of action, he basically has the meaning or memory of "end of the line" rewritten for him. I refuse to not think that is some nefarious shit. Yes, it's not out of the realm of possibility that it's just some general Disney erasing Steve and Bucky nonsense.

But... this is on another level to me. I do think that it's a blatant choice that they had to be aware even general MCU fans would call bullshit on. Everyone knows it's inaccurate. "End of the line" is embedded in pop culture consciousness as being connected to Bucky. It just is! Surely that means it's not a stretch to theorize it could be deliberate meta commentary.

How, in the MCU world, would the in-universe playwrights even know the phrase "end of the line"? How the fuck would it be accidentally applied to Steve and Peggy? Not to sound like a crazy person, but who the fuck was rooting around in Steve and/or Bucky's personal business or their brains in order to obtain that knowledge and then remix it, and why? Neither of them would flippantly mention it in the public eye or interviews ever. So where did its inclusion come from?

And in the finale ensemble, this is Bucky's line when he comes out on stage and salutes + points to Steve: "Don't forget who's waiting..." And Old Man Steve completes it with "...at the end of the line."

What on God's green earth am I meant to do with THAT?

Smh.

The vibes are fucked, folks.

The MCU public wouldn't know enough to say the vibes are fucked. The MCU public wouldn't know the origin of "end of the line" as a phrase. But us? The ones who know the "true story" via the movies? We can call bullshit.

Whether the creative team behind this musical did every aspect of this consciously or not, in my opinion the fact that they had to tweak canon "history" to A) make Peggy's involvement in Steve's life more central and B) emphasize Steve as a tired hero all works as commentary on and almost a condemnation of Endgame's frustrating ending. In a way, it's also what Endgame did with the compass and 1973 moment with Peggy as well.

Steve's ending had to be convincing.

It's theater.

And so, maybe the same is true for the in-narrative perspective of this musical in the context of the MCU world. What purpose would it serve to tell the MCU public a feel-good narrative about how all Steve Rogers wanted was to no longer be a tragic man out of time and get to make a life with his best girl? To frame it as being about how he fought so hard for years and so he earned a happy ending? To minimize and nearly erase Bucky's importance in his life?

Who would want to do that sort of propaganda, and why?

The MCU civilians are given this happy explanation and maybe don't widely question it. Who cares about the details or logistics if it makes a good story, I guess. It's a stretch, but maybe they mostly applaud it. Maybe they're happy for "America's favorite son" (not unlike people who uncritically liked Endgame). In a way, it's even a rehabilitation of his image (after the Accords) like putting the shield on the Statue of Liberty. And maybe they'd even be ready and waiting to applaud if Steve ever made a dramatically selfless and de-aged return to the spotlight or a position of authority.

But mostly, the public is being conditioned to not know or to forget that anyone else like Bucky Barnes or Sam Wilson would possibly know Steve Rogers the person well enough in the modern day to call bullshit on any of this – or on his hypothetical miraculous future return.

So. Sure, it's probably nothing.

But what if it's not?

-------

UPDATE: @faeriecap added to this post with some incredible information and further behind-the-scenes context about the MCU/Marvel stuff at Disney parks! Check it out here :)

[duckiemimi]

hi i am going to ask a silly question as a newer fan. why do u (or other people) consider gojo morally grey? am I missing something about his characterization? i thought he was similar to yuji, but more "realistic", I suppose? i realize how crazy off that could be, I'm really asking out of curiosity!

hi! this isn't a silly question at all, don't worry!

to clarify, i don't quite consider him morally grey! i think of him as someone with motivations that align with the protagonists' big-picture ideology (i used to call them the "good guys," the colloquial way people usually refer to protags, but i think people get the wrong idea when i use that term, so i'll use "protagonists" from now on!). to put simply, his morality generally lies on the side of the perspective jjk is told from—a perspective pushed to be seen as favorable by us readers!

i think "morally grey" has become a buzzword people throw around to describe characters who aren't borderline altruistic or characters who don't have explicitly stated emotionally-driven motivations. could you really label a character "morally grey" if in their universe, combat is commonplace and power systems exist? what context-appropriate lines will we use to distinguish what's black, and white, and grey? we'll get to that later. now let's talk about the specifics: his individual motivations.

characterization-wise, i think most people consider gojo "morally grey" because of his teenage apathy and some of the less tactful things he's said (he's very point-blank and he doesn't sugarcoat). i also think that nanami's description of him in the afterlife scene retconned what was already established of him, in turn affecting the perception of his character as well (click for a post i wrote on this). and now the concept of "monstrosity" in relation to his character has been introduced into the story, too.

gojo is a very pragmatic character for the most part. i don't think gojo sees things through a rigid "right and wrong" lens. i think he sees them for their practicality in reference to what he already knows to be true. for more context, i'd say compared to geto (his foil), who put righteous meaning to his duty pre-defection and self-justified meaning to his ideals post-defection, gojo's idea of duty towards non-sorcerers is an extension of his learned role. it's not something he feels particularly strongly for—it's just something he was born and bred for.

but that doesn't mean he doesn't care! he does care, otherwise we wouldn't have a story in the first place. he just shows "care" differently, less towards the subject of jujutsu protection and more towards his peers, the people he's been surrounded by his whole life. but even then, he takes his duty of protecting non-sorcerers (protecting all of humanity, really) very seriously and that's apparent in the shibuya arc!

if we were to look at his actions (not surface-level attitude!) throughout the story, chapter 261 included, gojo has never done anything that isn't aligned with the protagonists' big-picture ideology. looking at it more abstractly, if we were to frame the major clashing ideologies in jjk on a "morality" spectrum with "good" on one end and "bad" on the other ("good" being analogous to the protagonists and "bad," the antagonists), then he'd be a relatively "good" person. he's never really been an ambiguous guy, i'd say. just emotionally constipated.

i think he could be compared to yuuji, yea! they both have this crippling tendency to place blame wholly on themselves. but i guess compared to yuuji, gojo is a very "do first, feel later" type of guy and he often compartmentalizes to operate. he's got the world on his shoulders—there's no time to think about what that means for himself, only for what it means for the world. alas, jujutsu's atlas has fallen. but yea! thanks for asking!

[crepes-suzette-373]

Another conspiracy theory posting.

It has been mentioned that the Nerona in Imu's name might be a reference to Nero. Or perhaps specifically, a painting titled "Pochodnie Nerona", which depicts Christian martyrdom.

Now, if this is correct and not coincidence, this specifically makes Jupiter's naming choice very very strange, because his name strongly alludes to Saint Peter the Apostle.

Jupiter's full name was Shepherd Juu Peter. Peter is Peter directly. The "juu" is written in kanji like this: 十. Literally it means the number 10, but it's also the shape of the cross. Cross-shaped objects, including the Christian cross, is referred to in Japanese as "juumonji", or "the shape of the kanji juu".

The Bible narrated that Jesus left a personal message to Peter alone. The wording may vary depending of the translation, but one of the forms used says "shepherd My sheep".

Apostle Peter was, according to tradition, executed by the order of Nero.

I've seen some comments in the fandom suggesting that someone among the Gorousei might actually be a turncoat, and I'm not sure what the existing theories were, but I wonder if this means that Jupiter is the one.

Certainly there's a few things about him that makes it feel like he's the odd man out. His beast form is not a "traditional Asian folklore beast", but a Western one. Possibly a relatively modern invention, even, since I wasn't able to find anything like a "sandworm" in older mythology. Far as I can tell, this was based on or adopted from Dune's sandworms.

The other Gorousei's faces were very very similar to their real life inspirations. Venus being based on Gandhi and Mercury based on Gorbachev is so dead-obvious it's not even funny. Jupiter's supposed "reference" was Abraham Lincoln, but unlike the other 4, the resemblance is not intuitive. I'm even personally of the opinion he doesn't look like Lincoln at all. There is the entire possibility he's not actually based on a real person at all, and if so, that's singling him out as different again.

And now for the wild guess that is mostly based on conjecture. I previously wrote that by the zodiac alignment, Jupiter's "beast" form should have been a dragon. You can stretch it and suppose that "sandworm" maybe counts as a "dragon" somehow (because wyrm and worm sounds similar), but unlike the other 4 this is not really intuitive either.

I have posted a couple of times saying that I have this theory that maybe before the World Noble Tenryuubito established themselves, there were a race of "real dragons" who may have lived on Red Line alongside the Lunarians. Maybe Jupiter's strange naming and his zodiac alignment hinted that he is actually a real dragon, and he's been hiding his true form to avoid being hunted.

It's not yet really explained why Lunarians are hunted, but it's not entirely off base to make a conjecture that: 1) there could be other ancient races on the red Line, and 2) they might have been hunted just like the Lunarians were. In which case, hiding one's identity is necessary.

Not to mention the strange scar he has on his neck. Sure, Saturn has a scar too, but the scar being on his neck really makes me wonder. I half-jokingly theorised that maybe he was the dragon Ryuuma cut down all those years ago.

The wording says "cut down" 斬り捨て. While this tends to imply "kill", this does not actually directly mean kill. It's just slashing the opponent with a critical blow. This still leaves the slimmest chance of the opponent being able to survive the strike.

The direction of the diagonal scar also is consistent with a standard samurai slash. Or any right-handed sword slash, even, since Zoro's scar from Mihawk also goes the same direction. I'm not entirely serious with this theory, but it's not impossible.

[hxhhasmysoul]

You've frequently said that Yuuji is like a shoujo protagonist. Could you elaborate on that? I don't read shoujo and the last shoujo anime I watched was years ago so I'm not very familiar with it but I'm very fascinated as to why you think Yuuji's like a shoujo heroine. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else describe him as such.

I think I've seen some people talk about him in the context of a shoujo manga, though it might have been more in the context of him being a shoujo love interest which from what I recall of shoujo isn't really apt, Megumi with his aloof personality fits that bill more. but maybe others compared him to a protag too.

As you can see I'm also not some shoujou manga, or any manga category, expert. And I'm sure there's at least one, but more likely several, in-depth academic analyses of shoujo as a category, or what a shoujo protagonist is. And as with any such broad category there are surely exceptions, possibly even very popular ones.

With the above caveats, what I mean when I say "Yuuji is a shoujo manga heroine" is that he kinda fits the bill of what I picture when I think of a shoujo heroine. But also it's a bit of a sad joke, because, le sigh, patriarchy.

So historically, and maybe even today, not an expert, the manga categories were very strongly targeted at very particular demographics. Which any form of media like that, you of course get a lot of stereotypes baked into it. Stereotypes about what these groups may want to see which are based on societal norms and expectations for these groups. And the main manga categories are gendered and divided by age into shoujo - manga for adolescent women, josei - manga for adult women, shounen - manga for young men, seinen - manga for adult men.

From what I've gathered, the adult categories, I think especially the seinen category, are more flexible in what they allow for in terms of topics. Like adults can be interested in whatever they want, especially when it comes to men.

The categories directed at the youth feel more rigid when it comes to what they should depict. In gross simplification, girls should be exposed to relationships while boys should be exposed to action.

It's not like you don't get any action in shoujo, like you can get a lot of it, but it's framed differently than what you get in shounen and I will get to that. But the relationship will be at the forefront, and there's usually romance as an important part of the story.

You also get relationships in shounen, the already cliche power of friendship and so on, though rather no romance. It's a running joke that we get epilogues where we find out the protag who had the most dramatic and kinda romantic moments with his male friend/rival/enemy is happily married to one of the girls that cheered on him from the sidelines. Heteronormativity needs to be maintained. It's also a cliche that any romance that happens in shounen is played for laughs and kinda cringe, or downright laced with some really creepy shit like pedophilia (older women taking interest in young boys usually but it's "just a joke" or even depicted as cool) or incel shit (like male characters harassing and stalking female characters).

Gege doesn't do any of that, and will be very good about it if they stay on course and not make the "and they were all heterosexual" epilogue. I wrote a more detailed post about it, one that also delves into a lot of gender stuff, though it's a bit of a questionable one due to its origins and it's a bit old, etc. etc., proceed with caution if you choose to check it out. (A side note too, Hell's Paradise is quite interesting with it's premise of the protag loving his wife even if it's not executed well. Generally Kaku tries a lot of interesting things, though doesn't always manage to stick the landing).

A shoujo heroine often isn't the brightest when it comes to school stuff, or strongest in terms of physical strength, if there's magic involved her powers usually don't seem to be the most devastating in their effects. What she will usually have is an ability to deliver moments of very high vulnerability. She will also usually have a huge heart and ability to bring people together. These 3 combined is how she usually will win fights. A shounen character often can also have the last two, but usually the vulnerability he delivers is a bit one note, sometimes feels almost performative with the "I'm not strong enough". (also I'm sure that there a plenty of shoujo that also fail these). And the shounen character uses his vulnerability moment to charge the final attack while a shoujo heroine can win just through being vulnerable. (There's obviously shounen which has done this too, like categories this big will have everything, Killua wins with Palm through showing vulnerability, he does that with Illumi too.)

You might already see where I'm going with this.

Yuuji is built around his very strong humanity, his compassion. It's in his name. He is extremely good at delivering moments of devastating vulnerability, moments that are not power ups for him at all. He's also built around his loneliness and desire for connection, for being surrounded by people. He's very people oriented, has a warm personality and brings people together. He's capable of deep compassion and love. He has very high emotional intelligence. And he's capable of winning a fight through that alone, actually.

I started to call him a shoujo heroine after the Junpei battle, because he literally wins that by making himself vulnerable in front of Junpei and talking Junpei down. That's why what happens next is all the more devastating. He makes himself vulnerable in front of Higuruma.

If you apply shounen logic to JJK you get all those fans shitting on Yuuji because he's not the strongest. Because he doesn't have flashy powers like Gojou or Sukuna or Megumi. The cold takes like: "he loses several battles, omg he's not really the protagonist", or "he doesn't get amazing power ups", or "he's not driven to be the strongest, he's not proactive in achieving some lofty goals, climbing to the top of the hierarchy", etc. etc. blah, blah.

However if you apply a more shoujo logic to JJK, Yuuji is the clear and only protagonist. He's the heart of the story, he's the most people-oriented, relationship-oriented, vulnerable character. People are drawn to his warmth, not his power (Toudou's fanfiction about Yuuji is about Yuuji being his emotional support, about Yuuji letting Toudou be vulnerable together!).

All of the themes of the story converge onto him. He's emotionally tied to both major villains, and to their victims. His subtle personal, highly vulnerable goal, screams shoujo manga.

That's why I call him a shoujo heroine.

Why I say this is all a bit of a sad joke. While everything I wrote above, I stand by with my full conviction, the joke is that it all hinges on buying into patriarchy.

The division between shounen and shoujo is based on the societal norms for the gender binary. The idea that girls should like certain things, should behave a certain way... boys should like other things, behave in a different way etc. etc. In a system like that even personality traits are gendered. Men are stoic, calm, collected, decisive, forward, intellectual, high-minded, practical, project strength, they should feel comfortable taking up space blah blah. Women are emotional, fragile, caring, supportive, they don't care about practicality but are interested in the trivial and pretty things, they should be shy and quiet, feel good in the background, blah blah blah.

One of the principal traits of a shoujo and shounen protagonists is their gender. Because girls should read about girls and boys should read about boys.

This is why it's a bit of a sad joke, because calling Yuuji a shoujo heroine feels a bit like calling him a girl. And while I do it with love, and with my highly internally processed views on gender, I do it in public. I do it on this website where so many people perform a lot of feminism or queer activism in ways that are full of internalised misogyny and queerphobia of various stripes. In a patriarchal society calling a boy a girl is an insult, it's a form of devaluing him because girls are seen as less than. It's implying that he's failing at being a man. And Yuuji gets a lot of shit from the fandom for not being strong enough, for failing as a shounen protag. For failing to be that idealised, aspirational version of a boy. One that can overcome anything, one that's always strong, that is always driven.

I will quote here what I wrote about Yuuji in the post I linked above not to repeat myself:

"Yuuji is written more like a female character than a male one if we take the gender stereotypes into consideration, especially those that pervade the shounen genre. He’s built around compassion, cooperation and orienting himself towards others. These are stereotypically female coded traits. He doesn’t have a self aggrandising goal like so many shounen protagonists. His goal is intimate, it’s about his emotional needs. I forgot to mention that Yuuji is quite passive compared to a typical shounen protag. He rarely takes action on his own and only when the situation really forces him to do it. He’s reactive not proactive. He has this goal of eating all fingers but he waits for instructions, follows them. He doesn’t go out in the world seeking out the fingers. Same goes for his missions to kill curses. The reality had to hurt him real bad for him to become more active and still even now he falls in line, he’s not driven in the way shounen protags usually are. Passivity is associated with the concpet yin, which is also associated with femininity. Why do I mention this concept? Because jujutsu sorceres are kinda the successors of onmyōji, or more literally the yin-and-yang masters. He doesn’t have much of an ego. He knows he’s good at fighting but he’s not arrogant about it like Gojou or Sukuna are. He’s tactile, he has an open body language. His best friend is Nobara. The way they are close is astounding. All their idiot to idiot moments. All their physical contact. The way they complement each other while fighting. The way Nobara can just text Yuuji to come and he does. Nobara being gone really affects Yuuji deeply, to the point where he uncharacteristically lashed out at Hana. And it’s completely not sexual or romantic. Compared to that his friendship with Megumi is pretty shit and not really close. He’s been very clearly socialised as a boy in a pretty misogynist society on shit like shounen manga. He has “a type” when it comes to girls, that he can invoke instantly because that’s how young boys are socialised, it’s expected of them. And yet that type is just an aesthetic preference. It’s not really what he’d even want from a potential girlfriend. He treats women like people. Naturally, instinctively not in the fake “nice guy” way. He’s such a well rounded role model of young masculinity. He is that because Gege doesn’t build him on the stereotypes of what masculinity should be according to the conservative patriarchal viewpoint. Yuuji is a human who’s entitled to emotions, who’s not a total victim of his socialisation, who doesn’t strive to live up to societal expectations. No status quo, the mantra of JJK."

In a world not steeped through with patriarchy this wouldn't matter. In a world without such rigid standards as to what is masculine and what is feminine, calling Yuuji a shoujo manga heroine wouldn't stand out. Because it wouldn't feel like a thing. Yuuji wouldn't draw anyone's disappointment or ire. There wouldn't be a feeling of him crossing gender norms because the norms either wouldn't exist or would've been very very wide and flexible.

_____

tldr: Yuuji is a shoujo manga heroine because he also has pink hair and is capable of extreme cuteness, and have you seen him holding the bunny so adorably? Very Usagi coded.

[afreakingdork]

Hello! Okay so based on your recent post we know you have no interest in tcest and such but not gonna lie, it also made me wonder why you decided to write the most recent fic, On the Spot. Your biggest strength from what I could tell is character exploration and you have already expounded on Leo's struggles with other methods so I was wondering why you chose to delve into incestous feelings as a product of traumatic experiences in particular in On the Spot? Was it just on a whim or did you have another reason?

I'm just asking because genuinely curious and hold no negative feelings against you, the writer, for writing it. In fact the only reason I read it was because I knew that if it came from your hands, the fic will be (in my eyes at least) always be a guaranteed banger, and I was intrigued at how you'd handle these darker topics in your work, and although I finished it I'm still left a bit confused why you made it.

Ahem. Sorry if my ask made you uncomfortable in anyway by the way, you don't have to answer anything you don't want to of course.

I appreciate your concern, but no, nothing you've written had made me uncomfortable and I'm sure people are curious. My ask box and messages are always open.

The following response is put under the cut not because the content discussed is explicit, but because it is triggering subject matter. Please keep yourselves safe.

I'll continue to be candid as that's my preferred method of living. For those who have read Weak Spot, you'll know there was a crest of Leo's trauma in it where he reveals that he loved (platonically) and still wished Donnie would become part of their family in spite of how many repercussions that brought upon him. Leo's struggles were a topic that @mothmans-left-nipple and I often discussed while I was writing. These messages came to a head around the wedding chapter of Weak Spot and moth mentioned something about how traumatizing the event must be for Leo.

In that moment, I was struck with the entire concept of this new fic. I know you say you believe that Leo's trauma was closed off in Weak Spot, but I never considered it that way. All that happened to Leo was that he became unstuck from where he was frozen in time. None of Leo's feelings about Donnie (again, platonically) are actually dealt with. I have plans to tackle more of Leo and Donnie's interactions going forward in Soft Spot, but overall it felt like a glaring hole in Leo's recovery and moth's comment opened up how traumatic that missed spot was.

The story I then penned delved directly into that darkness and what can happen when trauma is not dealt with. Leo's clinging necessity of spiraling out as he's thrust into this new world that he doesn't know how to navigate quickly becomes a battered thing. He doesn't know how to deal with his emotions and as such he quickly loses control of them. They get warped and malformed until the only way he can view his attachment is through the lens of the past even though no one is there. He's desperate for a modicum of control and release that he's been denied for decades. It manifested in the way it did because of everyone's both reluctance and enabling.

I by no means believe that incest is the only logical way these feelings or this scenario could be dealt with, but for the direction the story took with reader as a prominent character, that was the path that made the most sense in this case. I was very aware of the subject matter i was handling and by no means wanted to make light of it for survivors. My heart goes out to those who have suffered this fate or worse, but that's exactly why I felt strongly about posting this story.

Could it have taken another path?

Yes.

Should it have?

That's not for me to say.

All I can say is i wrote what I did and I stand by that decision.

[xuer]

kind eyes extended notes

for kind eyes on ao3

be prepared for the yap fest. please read this after the fic because there are spoilers.

1)

first of all, I wrote this fic very out of order because of several reasons. one, because my caffeine-addled brain couldn't string together a cohesive story or outline before it was begging me to put something down, and two, because I took a little bit of creative liberty with my characterization of oscar, which leads me into…

2)

oscar is usually a really analytical and cool/collected guy, very logical and realistic, but sometimes he just can't think around lando. he's in romantic/platonic love (reader's choice!), your honor. he never lets his emotions get the best of him, so when they do he has no idea how to handle it and can't even recognize it until hourssss later. his thoughts are a mess and he needs a bit of time to even begin to process what happened. when lando's in the vicinity, he's even more scattered. he's struggling to catch up, really, and he's trying desperately to read the social cues that lando is usually so open with but is kind of on and off with this time around.

he's also obsessed with lando's eyes. I mean OBSESSED. which, me too, I kind of projected hard on this part, but it shows through the fic because oscar is like, "lando look at me!" "lando please show me your eyes" "lando pay attention to me, don't avoid me" yada yada yada. it stems from lando being the kind of person where you can usually tell exactly how he's feeling. he doesn't shy away from showing his emotions on camera or in front of other people, even if they're very very ugly to look at. we kind of saw the peak of this in austria, where lando didn't mince his words AT ALL after the race despite knowing the backlash he would get (this kid will give me a stress induced heart attack one day I swear). we've seen his ups and downs, his high after scoring pole in barcelona and his crushing low after losing it, his fury after the on-track incident at the red bull ring, to his… honestly I want to say slow and steady loss of hope after silverstone. he still gives his everything in every race, he's still determined to go out there and do the best he can, but like you can tell the difference in his reaction after he got pole in spain vs in hungary - there was a very big difference and a lack of unfiltered excitement this time around. he knows what it's like to win and to be so so close to a win he can feel himself lose it. lando feels everything so strongly, and after so many disappointments and close calls he's kind of learned to protect himself in this way. going into budapest, he still expected and wanted to win, but his confidence has definitely taken a hit. oh my god this turned into a lando character analysis I'm so sorry let me cut it short and just say his eyes are so expressive and after hungary he was very subdued and oscar's internal lando alarm sounded and was like "show me your eyes!" "why won't you show me your eyes!" "even when you look at me I can't tell what you're thinking anymore something is wrong!!!" until lando does something very obvious with his face like smile at him. oscar you silly boy.

all this just to say in this fic oscar's just a bit of a dunce, and I mean that in the most affectionate, loving way possible. he doesn't know the full story getting out of the car (neither of them do) and all he cares about is if lando is mad at him, but he can't even admit that to himself so he just feels like a crazy person whenever it looks like lando might be upset and he doesn't even understand why. every bit about the dread he feels, the lightheadedness, nausea, feeling cold, etc. that's all his physical and visceral reactions to lando not looking happy, to him being scared his relationship with lando won't survive this. along the same lines, the pressure in his stomach easing up, the warmth he feels, being able to breathe and think (relatively) normally again, those are all reactions to him seeing lando react or interact with him positively. I'm sorry, but he's whipped and he has absolutely no clue. but yes, that's what the unreliable narrator tag is for.

3)

some other details I mentioned in the fic but didn't really expand on:

there's a lot of other parallels and barely touched upon details in this fic to be honest. besides the obvious and reoccurring mention of lando's eyes and oscar's desperation for eye contact throughout the whole thing, there's oscar seeing his reflection in lando's visor at the very beginning and in his own phone screen at the very end (he just wants to see lando's eyes but instead he's seeing his own, he wants to figure lando out and find out how upset he actually is with him but what he actually needs to do is look at himself and figure everything out from his own side first).

oscar doing everything on autopilot and muscle memory at the beginning because he's still sorting things out in his brain, cringing at himself a lot which isn't normal behavior but he genuinely does not know what to do or how to act in this situation, only rebooting just in time to give some non-answer to nico in his interview and barely coming fully back online when lando first actually talks to him, how it really doesn't hit him that he won (HE ACTUALLY WON. THIS TROPHY IS HIS.) until he's basically (almost) alone in a familiar setting after he has time to process everything.

lando procrastinating taking off his helmet because he, too, needs time to school his expression into something. decent.

lando being uncharacteristically quiet in the beginning, silently congratulating oscar in the car, silently acknowledging him. silently motioning for him to get to his interview, his first actual words being trivial and ultimately meaningless small talk ("no big fumbles. good interview.") he's still teasing oscar, he wants oscar to know they're okay, but he still needs time to process what he lost, lick his wounds a little, needs to cool off for a bit before he can start to actually be genuinely happy for oscar's achievement. it's why it takes him until after the interviews, the cooldown room, the podium, when they're both alone (3 hours later) for him to finally muster up the strength to text oscar an actual heartfelt congratulations.

and his simple "you will" at the end of the first section is his unwavering belief that oscar won't stop here, he'll keep rising, this is nowhere near his peak as a driver, despite what lando wants or wishes for in regards to his own career, wrapped up as a nice little generic reassurance. oscar catches the weight of the words, but he doesn't know what it means exactly. yet.

oscar in the cooldown room expecting to eventually get a verbal knockdown from lando (max his best friend on the grid someone he's known for a decade wasn't even safe a few weeks ago, oscar's nobody special in comparison, lando's definitely mad he got prickly at LEWIS OF ALL PEOPLE oscar is not safe) so he's trying to find the right thing to say but then lando notices him floundering and trying to fix things for him so he just deflates and apologizes to lewis and smiles at oscar.

mclaren social media admin (who is faceless and genderless and honestly only in this fic because of reasons discussed in section 5) mentioning that oscar seems happier alone just staring at his trophy, which, again, yeah it only just registered for him, but also, he's in the comfort of his driver room with no actually hostile cameras around so he isn't on high alert for every move he makes and lando isn't here so he can actually think! hurray!

another kind of obvious one is the texts. oscar's knee-jerk reaction to seeing a message from mark, someone who's supposed to be on his side all the time, is negative? he's very surprised at himself and he doesn't know it's because he knows mark dislikes lando and can already envision how his opinion will only worsen after today. he's like noooo don't hate him I don't even know why I'm defending him I'm upset at what he did too but I hate that you hate him. absolutely zero below-surface level thoughts. soooo real.

also oscar's contact names for them (bless his heart), how mark uses correct spelling and punctuation while lando's dyslexic ass just wings it (and how some of the only messages without misspells are his congratulation messages because he painstakingly typed those out ok?), lando calling oscar by name and not any of the stupid nicknames he came up with that oscar secretly hoards close to his heart, and the timestamps, ugh. and yes, mark's last message is a reference to red bull and multi 21. sorry, even the commentators mentioned it and you want me to not bring it up in the fic? [loud buzzer noise] never. lando is also very much running away from everything that's why he's hiding out on max's private jet they can both wallow and drink their sorrows and beef with their engineers away together 30,000 feet in the air.

throughout the fic as well, you can kind of note the changes in tone. the beginning focuses a lot on minuscule details, how oscar feels millisecond by millisecond, because that's all he's able to process at the time. as the fic progresses, oscar's internal monologue gets less self-judgy and gets its snark back. it goes from "god, he doesn't know how lando does it" and "what is wrong with him today?" and speeds up as he goes back to normal and starts being... well, funny again. "after lewis has enough of waterboarding them both" "his phone starts up its never-ending seizure of notifications again" like ok king we're so back.

and then it proceeds to all come crashing down again.

oscar's (loud QUOTE UNQUOTE) "sickness" (read: unintelligible mixed feelings) makes a reappearance when he's listening back on lando's radio messages because he had no idea to the extent of what will was saying to him and it is extremely shocking I'll give him that. even I was like. jaw on the floor when I found out. because your engineer, the little guy in your ear, is the one person you're supposed to be able to trust unconditionally. they are the ones keeping you out of harm's way, the ones keeping you from crashing, your direct and only link to the rest of the team connecting you to the mechanics and the pit wall, the person telling you the strategy, like. it's not the norm, but it is also not entirely uncommon for when a driver switches teams to literally take their engineer with them. that's how instrumental they are to a driver's race, and it takes a lot of time to build up that trust and rapport. mclaren has a separate underlying issue where lando for some odd reason has three different race engineers that just switch out between weekends and it's SO ODD but that's a whole different story. point is this - a driver's race engineer messing up and giving out of date/incorrect information to them by accident is one thing, but a driver's race engineer guilt tripping and straight up lying to their face is another, and it is a hugeeeee no no. will joseph did that to lando, and now that trust might be completely broken. as one driver to another, oscar knows exactly how big of a deal this was. it's something he never expected from them.

at the very end after oscar realizes what exactly happened during the race and watches the compilation video and realizes despite everything lando is still so so genuinely proud of him for winning, he feels so many mixed and indistinguishable emotions that he's just kind of in shock for lack of a better word, which is why it kind of just... ends like that. sorry guys, it's going to take him another few hours to work through that one as well.

and again, the eyes. the entire point of this fic is centered around lando's eyes and how he expresses his emotions through them, and how oscar is so used to looking at them to tell how lando is feeling, so that's why he's always so desperate to actually be able to see his eyes. lando is genuinely happy for oscar winning, but it's incredibly bittersweet (and I explain more why in section 4). the pit in oscar's stomach starts out as dread, that lando's pissed and won't continue to be on good terms with him, it fluctuates up and down whenever he thinks lando is happy for him or mad at him, and gnaws away at him for the rest of the fic before eventually settling on a combination of fear that their relationship will never be the same again and guilt that although what happened was something he couldn't control and wasn't even aware about until much later, it still happened, and despite it all lando still looks at him with the kindest eyes. it's sickening to think about.

4)

some things I didn't get to add into the fic because one, I couldn't figure out where to fit them, and/or two, my wrists are close to giving up and I need to clock out for the day. I have just used up all my writing inspiration for the next year.

anyways, part of the original reason why I wrote this in the first place was because I was reading some other new landoscar fics about what happened and (absolutely no shade to them!!!!! I want to stress) I didn't agree with some of the ways they portrayed lando or oscar. ultimately, they're both f1 drivers. they're both selfish, they wouldn't be on the grid if they weren't. lando didn't want to give up the position because he's selfish and is desperate for that second win. oscar wanted him to because this is the strategy they agreed on earlier that day and he also wants that first win, even though TECHNICALLY prioritizing the driver ahead in wdc rankings wouldn't necessarily be a wrong call. they're each other's closest competitors, all they have as an equal comparison is each other, and they know it. lando has his pride as someone older, more experienced, who has been with the team a much longer time than oscar has. he had to wait more than five years for his first win. oscar gets one almost dropped in his lap just a year and a half into his career when he didn't have to stick with a singular team through all their trials and tribulations, when he wasn't lugging a glorified shoebox into the points for all of 4 years amidst criticism of renewing with the same team again? it's not fair. oscar plays the team game because he's biding his time, he is intimately aware of his position in the team as the second driver, but he lucked out to be at a mclaren because it's currently the only front running team that acts like it's still in the midfield and prioritizes "being fair" over a championship. he knows if he follows the rules normally he can capitalize on them being "fair" again and he'll have a chance to prioritize himself. both of them know this and if there's an opportunity to win, no matter the situation, they'll capitalize it. it's not actually really fair to either of them, but that's the nature of f1, and no one should be blaming either of them for their line of thinking.

got a little away from me there again, but you get the point. neither of them really blame each other for acting the way they did in hungary, but at the same time both of them blame each other for not acting better, if that makes sense. oscar is not going to apologize for asking for team orders to be honored. lando is not going to apologize for waiting until the last possible minute to let him through. oscar was going to do anything for the race win. lando needed to prove his point. in f1, this is how it works. both of them are warring with emotions of happiness, guilt, pride, etc. and it just turns into a mess.

oscar is thrilled by his first win, but it's tainted by shame of the way he had to win it, how he wasn't really good or fast enough for it, and guilt of making lando give up the lead. lando is pissed that he lost out on yet another race win, genuine happiness at seeing oscar succeed, and crushed pride of being treated like a second driver and berated on live tv because of this so called fairness. still, deep inside, lando wishes he could have ignored that strategy call until the very end and just took the win. still, oscar does not regret winning this race, no matter how it ended up happening or what anyone else had to do.

there's also the whole thing about lando starting his interviews off with "the team messed up" and somehow progressing into "I didn't deserve to win", missing scenes from media pen interviews, the press conference, etc, how he blamed himself for his bad start while nico rosberg the man himself was like lol no that was not your fault??? and chewed andrea Stella out on live tv, backstory on mark's one sided beef with lando, events after oscar's immediate reaction when he realizes the truth and how he would war with himself but still end up being selfish and glad he won and feeling even more guilty about it, the tense team debrief, lando being miserable, the subdued meal with the rest of the team after lando hightailed it out of there at the earliest possible opportunity, oscar's lonely plane ride home, the possible dinner with mark, eventual confrontation or closure ("you never did answer nico properly back there, did you doubt I'd give the position back?"), and so many others... but I never planned on including a lando pov in the first place which a lot of these scenes wouldn't work without, and also oh my god my wrists.

I wish I could have included all of this in the fic somewhere, but disjointing rambling on tumblr will have to do instead.

5)

lastly, and I promise this is the very last section, I tried my best to stay as close to actual events possible for a lot of televised scenes, but f1 broadcasts are notoriously stingy with letting people rewatch things that didn't happen in the race itself, especially since I. do not pay to watch this stuff lol. so I had to scour social media and youtube for clips of lando's radio messages, the post-race interviews with nico, what happened in the cooldown room and on the podium (rip lando he's being torn to shreds right now but it's ok I support his rights and wrongs), etc etc etc

there are still some things I'm not too sure about (i.e. the order of events, some quotes, non-televised events) so I took a bit of creative liberty regarding those. I'm pretty??? sure??? it went both park in parc ferme > lando congratulates oscar while he's still in the car > lando doesn't go to the team while oscar goes to them > both get weighed > both do the outdoor interview for podium finishers with nico (in finish order so oscar, lando (paraphrased), and lewis (not pictured but just imagine him flirting with nico and that's basically what happened)) > cooldown room > podium > media pen interviews (not pictured because at this point I just wanted it all to be over and I didn't watch them anyways) > press conference (also not pictured for the same reason) > go back to drivers rooms and clean up > team debrief (also not pictured partially for the same reason and partially because what I had was already a decent stopping point)

so again for all of this I tried to base it on real footage as much as possible. it basically matches every single move for move from the beginning until the interviews with nico (the question nico asked and oscar's response are both real quotes, lando and oscar's little interaction at the tables afterwards is partially real but the dialogue was written by me because I couldn't hear what they were saying). the cooldown room scene was my own little fix-it for lando because god he stresses me out sometimes (lovingly) but the overall events written did happen.

the podium is more accurate to what actually happened. randy was actually up there, god forbid, but the broadcast angle gets really awkward and crops lando out of a lot of the celebrations because he goes into the corner, so I'd say it's almostttt move for move again.

for the driver room scene, the social media admin is literally only there because I needed to fit in the part where oscar just lovingly gazes at his trophy and soaks it in a little (this also did happen check mclaren social media) and for that I needed for one, the trophy to get to him somehow, and two, someone filming him while he's making his trademark heart eyes at a lump of ceramic. everything after that is obviously events I came up with. there's no one video I referenced for lando's radio messages but they're all real quotes and you can find them... multiple places online. the second video that oscar watches is completely made up, but it also probably exists somewhere. those two can't exactly take their eyes off each other.

aaaand I think that's it! honestly, this is just all rambling that couldn't fit within the character limit in the fic end notes, and like I stated above, won't make sense unless you read it. if you got this far thank you so much and also I'm so sorry for subjecting you to this. let me know what you think about the fic itself by commenting there or about these notes by replying here or sending an ask... at your earliest convenience! (hah.)

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

Stumbled upon your master list of SW meta you wrote, and enjoyed reading through some of them, especially the ones that examined and defended the jedi order. I point to the jedi order in particular because when you pointed out that the number of jedi in the galaxy are proportionally smaller compared to a planet with a population in the trillions, it reminded me of a bad take regarding the order (which is conflated with the whole "the jedi are actually the bad guys" in SW): that the jedi are eugenicists because their adoption of force sensitive children. This never sat right with me given that the jedi never seemed the type to be concerned with propagating their numbers in some form of "purity" (genetic or force sensitivity wise). Any chance you can gleam into the nitty-gritty of this take's unsavory implications?

OOf, that's an old ask, and that reminds me that I really need to update that masterlist 😅 (and me saying that is an even older draft, oops 😂)

Okay, the idea of the Jedi being *eugenicists* is SO out of left field that I feel like it doesn't even deserve to be really addressed so much as mocked, because words mean things.

To be quite fair, I don't think I've ever seen anybody seriously use that word. (It may very well have happened tho, I just can't remember somebody seriously making the claim and sticking to it.) Even the infamous KT rant (see below) doesn't call them that - the extremely weird and frankly absurd take is that they embody supremacist ideas and that people who are into them believe there is such a thing as an inherently superior person. She does use the word "Nazi" (just wow), but I don't think she was going for the eugenics part, just the run of the mill white supremacy theories. People on both sides of the argument may have misquoted/misinterpreted her on that though.

(Seriously woman, why were you even writing for Star Wars?! YOU DIDN'T EVEN LIKE IT!)

Now, eugenics? (This post is so weird to write, I can't even) ⇊

It is LAUGHABLE to use it in relation to the Jedi Order, because as you accurately put it, the Jedi just aren't interested in... making babies.

Do they force their members to procreate, even artificially? Absolutely not.

Are they seeking to improve the Order by only taking in the healthiest, strongest, most powerful children? No. They were ready to reject Anakin, for one thing.

Are they studying how to arrange reproduction in the rest of the galactic population? No.

Is there a ban on non-Jedi Force sensitives having children of their own? No. Are they forced or even strongly encouraged to have children of their own? No.

Do Jedi control who Force-sensitives are allowed to have children with? No.

Do Jedi test for Force-sensitivity and keep records of it? Yes. But they don't seem to keep genealogies - there's nothing that says the list in the Holocron is a permanent one either - rather, the way it's phrased and the way there's only babies on it, names are probably erased eventually. And the purpose of the list has nothing to do with increasing the occurence of Force-sensitivity.

Are non-Jedi Force sensitives forced by law to give up their kids? No.

Do Jedi automatically take in Force-sensitive children anyway? No. Bardotta and Dathomir are right there and nobody's bothering them.

Is the Order ableist? No. We even see plenty of disabled Jedi and nobody is throwing them out. (Amputees like Anakin and elderly people like Yoda and Tera Sinube, for starters. Also Prosset Dibs, or Tahl in Legends).

The Force isn't even proven to be reliably 'transmissible' from one generation to the next - the Force 'being strong' in particular families may just as easily be for more spiritual reasons depending on how you want to look at it. Because, you know, Star Wars isn't all literal.

IT'S JUST SO DUMB.

NOTHING ABOUT HOW THE ORDER WORKS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHAT THAT WORD MEANS.

(I'm sorry I'm not dissing you for the ask I just don't get how anybody could ever have said that 😂😭)

[thenightling]

DO NOT BUY THIS EDITION OF FRANKENSTEIN! This is a sexist and ignorant dog whistle and as a fan of the actual Frankenstein novel, I am furious.

1. First there is the false implication that Percy Shelley co-wrote Frankenstein. He did not. In fact Mary Shelley revised the 1818 text in 1831. That's AFTER Percy's Death.

This sexism was brought to you by such "reliable" books as "The Man who wrote Frankenstein" which was written by a very sexist conspiracy theorist who once claimed that AIDS was spread through pills. That conspiracy theorist used dummy accounts to positively review his self-published books on Amazon (seriously, go check if you want) and his main reason for believing Mary Shelley didn't really write Frankenstein is his claim that she was "uneducated."

Percy wasn't a novelist. He was a poet. Mary Shelley actually wrote many novels after Frankenstein, it's just that none were as successful as Frankenstein. Just because she wrote her greatest novel while her husband was alive doesn't mean her husband secretly wrote it.

He also claimed a woman cannot have written a man's perspective so well and she wrote from the perspective of three men. Victor Frankenstein, The Creature, and Captain Walton.

By that same reasoning Stan Rice must have written Interview with The Vampire, not Anne. It's a sexist and classist equivalent of the classist conspiracy theories that Shakespeare couldn't have written Shakespeare because he was "Too poor and ill-educated" to have been that creative.

2. One big problem with novels like Frankenstein and Dracula being in the public domain is anyone can re-publish them any way they want, even with this sleezy and misleading presentation.

3. Frankenstein wasn't really a science fiction novel even though Google and this blurb claim it is. Frankenstein, the novel, never warned about the advancement of technology.

There's no hard science in the book. Victor wasn't studying biology. He was studying metaphysics and he never graduated.

(Metaphysics degrees aren't even currently recognized in the US. You can only get an honorary one from institutions like ULC).

Victor found the secret of life while reading the works of Agrippa and Paracelsus. A self-proclaimed sorcerer and alchemist.

The Creature is more like a Dungeons and Dragons Flesh Golem with a soul than what you see in most of the movies.

Its main morals and themes had nothing to do with "Playing God" or "the advancement of science." No. That overly exonerates Victor Frankenstein and those The Creature interacted with. Victor's main crime was rejecting his creation as soon as he came to life, which may have been a metaphor for what we today call Postpartum depression.

The themes were about parental responsibility, the futility of revenge, and the need to forgive.

If you have a shred of integrity or respect for women do NOT buy this edition of Frankenstein that falsely credits Percy Shelley and feels like it was being described by someone who only watched the 1931 movie. (The more accurate to the book film adaptation is the 2004 Hallmark mini-series version starring Luke Goss as The Creature.) If you want a good edition of Frankenstein, I strongly recommend the 1831 version republished with Bernie Wrightson's gorgeous illustrations accompanying it. That one is exceptional and respectful to Mary Shelley without falsely crediting Percy Shelley.

Here's the blurb that was attached to the awful edition:

"That’s right, the very first science fiction novel is also a work of transhumanism, though I’m not sure Mary Shelley would have used the term. After all, the monster wouldn’t even exist without technology. So even the earliest sci-fi novel was trying to warn us about the dangers technology poses to our humanity."

[bitter-limelight]

Hello. So uh. I recently read The Vampire Armand, I've read a bunch of books after that, but there's this one thing in it I haven't been able to get out of my head and need to talk to someone about.

There's this one scene, before Armand becomes a vamp and he's with Marius. And Marius wants him to study or whatever, and Armand doesn't want that, and Marius like wips him. And it's described in great detail and Armand both dislikes it but also seems to enjoy it on some level.

And oh my god, it's obviously (BD)SM, right? And I don't think I've ever before read actual kink in an actual book. It was soo good.

And I felt so strongly that like this is written knowing that this is BDSM. It's written as someone intimately familiar with how impact play feels. And it made me feel seen.

And I also want to know if others also felt so strongly about this scene. If people thought about it like this when the book came out.

Anyway, thanks for being a target of my rant.

Hello!

You're in good company; many of us have a similair reaction to this scene and for good reason. Anne Rice wrote...a lot of kink. I haven't read her Sleeping Beauty books myself, or her Witching Hour books, but I know enough about what's in them, plus having read almost all of TVC, to know it's obvious that Anne is a kinky mofo at least on the page. And that's a good thing! Because books and art are a safe way to explore even the most taboo aspects of kink and sexuality.

Imo, Marius and Armand go through the dance of a recognizable romance novel BDSM or D/s dynamic. What I mean by this is a power exchange relationship run through the filter of a fantasy love story. People who was well versed in real life BDSM know all about consent, safe words, SSC, all that, but when it comes to fiction, we have a space where we can bend and play with those rules.

Marius is master, this is certain. He purchased Amadeo, he literally bought him. IRL we know this isn't an aspect of real BDSM but it plays well to represent the power imbalance on the page, same as Harlequin romance novels with Fabio on the cover as the pillaging Viking bringing back an unwilling war bride. This variety of forced marriage/relationship is a very old and common trope.

And we see that Amadeo takes to it well. He loves Marius. He welcomes the love Marius gives him. He loves him even as he's being disciplined. And that includes being whipped and punished. Punishment is a common aspect of a PE relationship, and this mirrors that concept in, again, the fantasy romance unfolding on the page. Antis like to point out that Amadeo isn't consenting to this and he's a victim, but once again that's why I'm reiterating that this is a *fantasy romance*, a historical one at that, and our real world ideas of what proper consent looks like don't apply here. This book is written for adults as an escapist fantasy, a rescue fantasy, just like people have been reading for decades.

As somebody who is in a type of PE relationship, who has always desired such a dynamic and who has been reading about practice and the community for 15+ years, I'm with you. M/A speaks to me, and it's kinky elements are a feature, not a bug.

INb4 someone tells me I'm promoting abuse, throws around the P word, insinuates I'm toxic and don't know what I'm talking about.

[bisolationist]

This is the part that makes me go. Oh. Hmm.

The response seemed more along the lines of "well OBVIOUSLY it's true that men being sexually assaulted is an immeasurably lesser crime on the spectrum but we should be nice because maybe individually they're really hurt by it uwu"

This is what I mean by how I'm tired of subjectivity-of-experience being a vaguery by which people concede that our trauma (subjective response) might be great while the harm (objective crime) is vastly lesser. I already wrote a very off-hand post about this and I can't believe we even got another assault comparison. Now this response wasn't nearly so bad as what I was referencing to there, but it's still the same pattern of buying into that rhetoric.

The OP's response is seemingly compassionate (and I think there's genuine compassion behind it!), but imo is a rhetorical dead-end and hollow of meaningful criticism.

Saying that someone's trauma-response to something might merit compassion is good of course, but it does nothing to combat the implication that it should be a far lesser crime in terms of punishment, and seems to implicitly concede the anon's rhetoric on it being a different magnitude of harm. People already know different people react to events differently. But if they see you reacting strongly to something they seem mild, they see you as weak, manipulative, or both. So to people like anon, I think this response doesn't refute any of the beliefs they are espousing, it just reinforces the idea that male SA victims that exhibit trauma responses are reacting strongly to something mild and should be treated accordingly.

All of this to say... uhm, like sorry but sometimes the correct response is to say "being sexually assaulted is not like breaking a fucking ankle being sexually assaulted is not like breaking a fucking ankle being sexually assaulted is not like breaking a fucking ankle", not to plead the case that broken-ankle victims might FEEL as bad as someone who was violently hatecrimed, because that implicitly concedes the premise.

Note on that: not lost on me that the example chosen, a broken ankle, is something more associated with accidents. I've also written before on how people are determined to view victimization they think is unimportant as accidents/collateral and go out of their way to examine it as such (I talk about biphobia being talked about this way too, but I think it carries over to a lot of experiences).

[kitkatopinions]

Out of curiosity, where do you stand on the "Edelgard is evil" debate? (I swear I'm not trying to start drama I'm just genuinely curious given your thoughts on how the RWBY writers handled Ironwood.)

I feel like every defense of Edelgard is people saying that Those Who Slither In The Dark and Rhea are worse and therefore her attempts to take them out means she's fine, but imo Edelgard is pretty indisputably a villain no matter what other people did. She's the 'sympathetic villain who has a point' kind of evil, the 'the end justifies the means' kind of evil, but it doesn't excuse her actions. She's kind of a conqueror who tries to set herself up as a dictator in charge of other countries that her army invaded. Iirc in the Crimson Flower path, you basically just sweep through Fodlan taking people out who stand in your way of conquering, with no regard to civilian life (and yeah, sometimes Edelgard is like 'that was sad, huh?' after a battle, but that's hardly enough) and then they tacked on a 'and then after that I guess they took out Those Who Slither in the Dark' to the epilogue. And then people kind of just decided that's the good path because they hate the Church of Seiros. I also have a problem with how the writers wrote Edelgard in Fire Emblem Three Hopes, especially in regards to how they basically made Claude's path a win for the Black Eagles (and made Edelgard a Sad Wide-Eyed Widdle Baby). It seemed like Fire Emblem Three Hopes strongly wanted to appeal to Edelgard fans, and I feel like it really hurt the game actually.

Edelgard is very different from Ironwood. She was a villain from the start, her arc wasn't rushed, they never acted like no one cared about her and they never hung all the problems around her neck as a way to dismiss the problems with the status quo. She was a nuanced villain, and that's the extent of it imo. She falls into the problem of 'the revolutionary person who has a problem with the system is actually also a horrible person who is just as bad as the people she's against,' which I do have some problems with, but I also feel like it's slightly more of a 'District 13 in the Hunger Games' situation rather than a White Fang situation.

But a lot of people look at the nuance involved and look at her being against the current system and use it as a reason to dismiss all her crimes and pretend she's only ever been the good guy who only ever does good things. So yeah, that's my general opinion on that whole discourse.