#also the mom being the narrator is DEVASTATING

[avionvadion]

Just watched Ghibli’s Tale of Princess Kaguya.

That was emotionally devastating. Thanks.

[transhawks]

Top Ten Hawks Moments of 2023

For Keigo's Birthday and for the end of this year, I have decided to make my top ten Hawks moments for all the chapters published this year.

10. "Hawks" gets torn into shreds by AFO

we had a lot of near-deaths for Hawks this year, but I think this was the most memorable as it happened, giving a very needed burst of humor to the AFO vs Hawks and the Heroes fight. Tokoyami's reaction was particularity heartbreaking.

9. Whatever Level of Gay was Achieved Here

This entire chapter was framed in a way that constantly put Hawks and AFO contrasting and melding and there are panels where their thoughts connect. I thought it was a very good way for Hori to make their dynamic fighting each other stand out. Also, the fight was ridiculously homoerotic.

8. Hawks Reminds Us It's About Connections, Stupid.

A theme for the post-Jaku part of this manga has always been heroes needing to bridge that gap and see if they can connect with the villains. It's interesting that Hawks has been the canon mouthpiece among the adults for that view when he so utterly failed his own narrative-assigned connection. I know there was so much pushback in this moment because Keigo again thought of Endeavor, but it stood out to me in repeating this allegory of OFA linking everyone as the solution to the conflict in the first place.

7. Realizing They All Have the Power to Make Their Own Narrative

Against a villain like One For All who wants to believe he's in his own light-novel, Keigo's own issues distinguishing reality and fantasies managed to settle down. He's always resigned himself to being a caged bird and a martyr, so being pitted against a villain so into life being a foregone conclusion helped Keigo remember they all have more agency than they give them credit for.

6. I think all of Keigo's Rizz was in Fierce Wings

Seriously, this is his normal fake hero persona on STEROIDS? It's fascinating how naturally this stuff comes to him. Like damn, he even has his tongue out, mocking All For One as he gets hoisted by his own petard, and has an arm around a vestige lady who looks suspiciously like All For One's mom, which I am accepting as canon until told otherwise. Say what you want about Hawks, for all his failures and paradoxes, the dude has serious BDE. I'd rate this higher but he had a lot of good moments.

5. Nothing beside remains, round the decay

Probably one of the most striking panels this year, seeing a defeated, quirkless Keigo struggle to get up and meet the horde of encroaching Toga-Twice clones, holding the last remaining feather in a landscape of complete destruction made me think heavily of the Ozymandias poem. Keigo, who has always represented the hero system with his whole diamond-insignia carrying chest, seeing all the consequences of his actions and the futility of his actions in stopping the very future he'd allowed himself to commit murder to prevent. I wonder if it struck him how little it all meant as he faced his "presumed" doom.

4. Farewell, Fierce Wings!

we bid goodbye to the quirk that continued to fight even as it was stolen into the eldritchian amalgamation that is All For One! The look in the vestige's face is so resigned and bitter-sweet as he decays away. Keigo isn't his quirk, but it's remarkable how willing to face death both of them are.

3. What he really wants

The interesting thing is the narration implies that either Keigo was telling Naomasa that the aging made AFO stronger as the battle happened, or still had enough control over his emotional state after being left in the dirt to tell him what he observed. The latter is, well, not that surprising when it comes to Keigo, who won't let being quirkless or maimed or delimbed get in the way of being at his job, but that's not what Hori shows us.

No, Hori doesn't show us Keigo standing up or sitting up, no he shows us a Keigo clinging to Tokoyami, a complete break in the many masks he wears to show actual devastation and need for comfort.

There's no Keigo pretending he's okay. There's just one panel showing us a young man embracing his unconscious student after probably one of the most horrific experiences in his life. Keigo, who has been mentioned to be a person who puts so much distance himself and other people, is the one the one clinging to Fumikage.

2. He really was, wasn't he?

As the Twice clones disappear, we see a melting Toga-Twice on the brink of killing Keigo, who makes no move to stop her as she slices him open. No, he seems almost penitent as he accepts death, only pausing to tell her he knows why she's killing him. Make no mistake, the moment he saw Twice back, he knew what this was all about; killing Jin. In this moment, he doesn't hold himself back with saying killing Jin was necessary - the future Jin's murder was meant to prevent came about anyway, no, this is just Keigo being honest that he really liked Jin, anyway. This panel might show the first real regret we've gotten from him, which is likely why he was so open about not fighting back. Because Keigo knows that he does "deserve" this.

1. Haven’t you already done your best, Hawks?

Chapter 185, this panel introduces us to Hawks.

Two hundred chapters later and we finally see Hawks, for all intents and purposes, resoundingly defeated. His quirk is gone. The army he had as back up, defeated. His student lying defenseless beside him. His hero-partner having left to fight his own battles.

And yet, despite it all, despite losing his quirk, despite every sign of failure around him, especially as he now has to reckon with his own moral event horizon, Keigo's capable of saying one thing:

[waitmyturtles]

Love In The Big City: Reflections on the Novel, and Episodes 1 and 2 of the Television Series

(Writing this with big ups to the LITBC Book Club, led by @lurkingshan and @bengiyo -- I only wish my mom life allowed me to have participated in real time in that project! I am taking the LITBC club's lead and watching two episodes a week of this series. SPOILERS from the novel that may make their way into the series are below -- read at your peril if you're pacing yourself on the series.)

In the midst of my reading the novel version of Love In The Big City over the last two weeks, I've been posting news updates (here, here, and here) about South Korean conservatives, many of them (maybe all of them) Christian, trying to censor and prevent the airing of the subsequent drama series, which dropped this week on TVING and Viki.

I want to note how important and ironic it is, macro-systemically, to note that Christianity has such a looming presence outside of the story itself, with "protestors" (bigots) leveraging "Christian values" as a means of trying to keep this already-brilliant show from being aired.

And if you're pacing on the series like I am, and you *haven't* read the novel, then you've only gotten a little taste for how Christian zealotry, among other issues, has and will affect Go Young throughout this story.

But I'm getting ahead of myself: when I picked up the novel, I was more familiar with the noise and drama associated with the television series than I was with the story itself. I'm going to talk a little about my reactions to the novel, and then offer thoughts on the first two episodes.

I read Proust's In Search of Lost Time (yep, all of it) in my freshman year of college, and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises two years after. I felt the power of both of these stories strongly in Park Sang-young's novel, from the impact that memories and depression can have on a young man, to the permanence of medical conditions that can drive a young man's life towards otherwise unexplored cliffs of grief and pain.

Even reading a synopsis of In Search of Lost Time is a monumental feat, so let me just say that I felt Proust's madeleine-driven devices of memory, within the novel, from Young's frozen blueberries to the chill of the Marlboro Reds in the freezer. The impact of Young being really, really alone, as connected to the empty freezer and the dwindling blueberries after Jaehee's (Mi-ae in the series) wedding, caught me in a hole of loneliness that I felt for Young -- well before I knew enough of his backstory to be truly devastated.

I'm jumping ahead of myself vis à vis the series, but I also felt Proust even more heavily as I was reading about Philosopher Hipster Doofus Hyung, and I threw back to @lurkingshan as I was reading the book, "goddamn it, we are in yet another circle of hipster doom, huh," well before I learned about the medical turning point this story hinges on. Young's incessant attraction to that POS had me thinking about Proust's narrator's simultaneous incessant attraction and disdain for his companion, Albertine, who is a lesbian in early 20th-century France. While the story between the narrator and Albertine is ultimately a devastating one, Proust's narrator winds through the devastation with an equally devastating arm's-length distance, continually avoiding the true depth of pain that his obsessions would have otherwise rendered.

For me, it's such an apropos comparison to think about as we see Young, time and time again, rationalize the avoidance he has to commitment, all while throwing his energy into the relationships he's able to find himself in, ones that he essentially stumbled upon and never instigated.

The pain of his loneliness only grows as he grows into adulthood, and that, paired with his medical reveal, left me with a boulder in my stomach by the time I finished the novel.

Because I'm me (intergenerational trauma auntie), as soon as I finished the book, I couldn't help but think about Young's own boulders that he silently shouldered -- the thought that Young's medical Kylie would rear its head as a means of aiding Young in rationalizing his own assumptions about wanting vs. deserving long-lasting love, and his habit of taking commitment too lightly, even in the context of an already-established relationship with Gyu-ho.

But I also consider the lifelong trauma he suffered vis à vis his mother as an equally heavy boulder: the fact that Young absolutely internalized his mother's disdain for him as a gay man, his mother trying to "correct" his sexuality through conversion therapy, and then seemingly seeing past her son's reality, horrifically ignoring the emotional development of her son. Besides physical abuse, you couldn't do better than Young's mother in permanently psychologically traumatizing a young man who will already face obstacles as a queer individual in a highly conservative society.

All of this combined rendered me unsurprised -- but, of course, still equally devastated -- by Young's eventually pinball-style life, jumping from menial job to increasingly flippant flings.

What we are treated to in the novel are the thoughts that Young can put together as he steps back and assesses his life, especially at the crushing end of the novel. On the surface, someone on the street could absolutely write off Young as another aloof and aging hipster, disconnected with the world; but we know that that's not the case as Young assesses his dashed hopes for the kind of permanent love that he had once pooh-poohed.

Both Proust's narrator, and Hemingway's Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises, could join Young in that aloofness, and our own misreads of these men, to an extent. Not only is Barnes held back in life by a previous wartime injury (to me, this is screaming of inspiration to Park Sang Young's novel and the timing of Young's medical condition, but I'll never know if Park was directly inspired by Hemingway's book), but Barnes and Proust's narrator are also both young men growing into their adulthood, within circles of friends in impactful societies that seem to be full of intelligence and engagement, but are ultimately larded with loneliness and the pain of static ambition and conformity.

The last takeaway from the novel that I'll think about for now, one that I think is already leading beautifully into the television series, is the fallacy that we all have or had as young adults: that our youth would last forever. Young says, at the end of episode two,

"As I looked down at those blueberries, I realized that a time I had thought would last forever had come to an end."

Young has to reckon with the fact that his life, as it stands still in his early 30s, hasn't moved forward. It's only gone backwards, into deep habits of disconnection, despair, and loss. That youth itself could serve as a modality of movement for a young person to hopefully grow into a person with more potential is both heartening and brutal to consider -- especially as Young clearly could not take time in his life to take care of himself, as busy with his mother as he ends up being.

There's a lot more I'll likely say about the novel as the series unwinds, but I'm honestly still internally processing it. I'm also amazed to think that both In Search of Lost Time and The Sun Also Rises have significant connections to queer sexuality in both novels, and I just couldn't help going down this comparative literature brainrot cycle for a few minutes.

As to the first episodes of the series: what can I say? No one does it like South Korea. The acting, the cinematography, what Nam Yoon-su is bringing by way of his mere presence, let alone how he bodily channels Young's sexuality and personality. We're in prestige drama territory -- and already by episode 2, we've been taking into multiple facets of Young's internal strife, and his soon-to-be-revealed lifelong aloofness to commitment, while he still yearns for infinite love.

God, those internal contradictions, huh? In our real life, with our friends who are like that -- those friends drive us INSANE, RIGHT? Proust's narrator is SO THIS. A guy who sits in a chair and whines about what he wants, and complains even more when he HAS what he wants, because it's not perfect? He HAS Albertine at so many times, but he can't make her fully love him, because guess what, she's a lesbian, womp womp? Pick a battle, homey.

And yet. We're still devastated by Proust's narrator. Because one of his ultimate flaws is that he'll never remain still, he'll never be truly satisfied, and that conflict DOES keep him from being able to attain permanent happiness. At least we get to see him age, while we're left to wonder with Young and Jake Barnes.

I'm just too excited to see how Nam Yoon-su renders Young's own conflicts, as they simply grow, throughout his life in the series.

*****

I want to make one quick, totally unrelated note, about the airing of this series. At least to me, maybe only to me, the opening animated title cards of LITBC are really close to the imagery and symbolism of the title cards of Netflix Japan's The Boyfriend, a recent dating reality show featuring gay men in Japan trying to find permanent love. The ultimate pairing of DaiShun has been HUGE in Asia this year, with DaiShun doing fan meets across Asia, including in South Korea.

As @lurkingshan and others have emphasized: Love in the Big City is NOT a BL, it is NOT a romance. It is a deep exploration of the life of a gay man in the city of Seoul.

Inspired in part by Sex And The City? Probably. But LITBC is not nearly as flippant as SATC regarding social obstacles that its main characters face. LITBC delves painfully into the various obstacles that queer men face in Seoul, from social to medical discrimination.

The Boyfriend actually touched a lot on these obstacles as well. Some of the participants were out, but not all of them; one participant, Tae-heon, used the show itself as a means of coming out to his parents.

While some of us have seen the majority of queer content in Thailand turn very primarily towards BL romances, I still believe that Thailand can and will produce high-caliber media about queer life aside from romance, as it did in 2022's The Miracle of Teddy Bear (which I just finished this week, I'm fine, thanks for asking, devastated actually) and in other cinematic pieces. But I also want to note how incredibly refreshing it is to see Japan and South Korea also pick up this thread through The Boyfriend and LITBC, respectfully, producing content out of the usual romance loops that we've come to expect from BL media.

Anyway. If there's a connection between LITBC and The Boyfriend, with both entities talking MUCH more about holistic queer life in society, then I celebrate it, and I want more, more, more of it.

[infini-tree]

ok. assorted kfp4 thoughts.

i still don't think there's any reason why po can't be both oogway's successor and the dragon warrior even after watching the movie.

and here's the big fish to fry: the pacing. i know i've previously said that kfp3's pacing was rushed but kfp4 felt like it was speedrunning its own plot. by the time they got to the juniper palace i was baffled because the duo barely had a moment in the city and they were suddenly going to face the main villain?

a lot of it was left up to exposition about the characters' deal at you to try and make up for it. which made the big character twist suffer. and i do like the character twist! in theory,

so: basically zhen was initially founded/raised by thieves and criminals (and considered han her "old mentor"), and then was later raised by the chameleon after zhen showed a similar ruthlessness in her after trying to steal from her.

the underground criminals were mostly sidelined as a joke but the additional pacing issues doesn't really give you time to dwell on zhen and han's whole deal. and then suddenly you get an expository flashback later on, but there's not a lot of an emotional gutpunch to any of these reveals due to said pacing issues and han is relegated to being part of the crime comedy squad. he can do devastated dad figure! let him lean into waymond eeaao!

now for the rest of my thoughts on other minor stuff:

insert obligatory annoyance about the five being relegated to being non-speaking cameos in the credits. frankly i'm neutral about it in the grand scheme of the movie (there's bigger fish to fry as seen above), but they made me pay attention to that fact by doing that little lampshading joke in the beginning so i got a little irrationally ticked off by that line. you know i'm kind of glad they were off doing something else for this one.

li and ping were fun in this movie, don't get me wrong. but also they contributed to the weird pacing in this movie because instead of dealing with the main plot, we have to watch their sideplot of catching up to the main plot?

the staff mechanics of 'you can only use its powers if someone willingly gives you the staff'. also strange, but not in a way i can articulate. like, i guess it ties back to kfp3 and how oogway describes qi manipulation as 'giving/taking'?

chameleon's motivations re: being rejected to train in kung fu in every training hall because she was so small and feeble is... strange to me, seeing as mantis exists. who is an objectively smaller creature. maybe there's a level of her being an unreliable narrator (like how shen views that his parents never loved him), but that's not how they play that out so it just feels like a weird plot hole if you think about it too much.

surprisingly not as annoyed about po not being recognized. listen, china is a big place and news does not travel fast, i figure. i already had similar headcanons, but applied to oogway so this isn't as large of a leap of logic for me.

this is a nothingburger thought to add but: once again baffled by the concept of predation in this world. from the bunny sitting in a broth he has to stir(???) in the bar scene, to the fish living in his adopted pelican mom's mouth. its weird! i don't like thinking about how meat eaters work in this world!

[b4n3n4]

Gone Girl

"When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. […] And what’s inside it. I think of that too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy? The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?"

1. Roleplaying ♡

Since meeting her future husband, Nick, Amy knew what she had to do, portray herself as, a "cool girl,” a fake persona used in social events, slightly changing and adapting depending on the situation. Breaking that illusion slowly, changing to a more authentic Amy as Nick started to become lazy on his own, the marriage collapses day by day until she snaps and executes the crucial part of her plan, running away.

After running away, Amy modifies her illusion again to that of a weak innocent white woman who was kidnapped while pregnant. On the other hand her husband, Nick, also portrays himself as someone different, the perfect husband, this was achieved and perfected by Amy since they meet, his illusion was slowly broken until the point of no return (Amy finding out about the cheating with Andie), after Amy is reported missing Nick is suspected as Amy's killer due to his lies being exposed, he finds himself shape-shifting back to the "perfect husband" for his own sake.

2. Following the steps ♡

Nick mirrors the image of his dad, growing up with the fear of showing emotion or any kind of "feminine" characteristics, showing himself as self-centered and uncaring, constantly reminding himself of his father's words "Men don't cry" his daddy issues also make him a chronic people pleaser. Here comes into play the Madone-Whore complex we see in Nick: women are either saints with every virtue and a pure soul or prostitutes; it is the complete lack of empathy for the female gender, regarding women as objects of admiration or utter disgust, stripping them away from their complexity and humanity.

During the search for Amy Nick realizes how much his upbringing impacted his life, stating "I needed a child. I had to know that I could love a person unconditionally […] That I could be a different kind of father than my dad was. That I could raise a boy who wasn't like me". He understands that he has been behaving subconsciously like his father and ends up giving up his freedom(staying with Amy) to protect and raise his baby(unlike his father). On the other hand, Amy's parents marriage mirrors her own, a mask marrying a mask, their marriage was all built around the image of perfection for outsiders, having the same standards applied to Amy since her birth, her whole childhood being compared to the ideal version of herself(Amazing Amy)and the fear of not meeting those expectations "I can't fail to notice that whenever I screw something up, Amy does it right.”

3. Estrangement ♡

The big move from NYC to North Carthage had a deep impact on Amy, growing in the fast-paced, crowded, and cosmopolitan Big Apple. Amy's whole life shifts mood when they move back to Nick's hometown, marked by economic devastation and recession. Amy feels left out, like she does not belong there, reminding herself of the cuckoo clock she was gifted, something bustling with life and noise that belonged back in NYC that now feels trapped in their new home's quiet and depressing ambiance. This change in the environment also marks a shift in the tone of their marriage, with Nick becoming lazy, depending on Amy, as he used to depend on his mom as a kid, and Amy getting so fed up that her illusion starts to crack.

4. Unreliable narration ♡

The whole novel explores this idea of media sensationalism: everyone is an unreliable narrator, in the story and out of the story, even what is told to us. While characters often lie to each other throughout the novel we also get lied to, Amy's diary is a perfect example that fiction is not only written in Amazing Amy's books but also what information is given to us about what is going on, both Amy and Nick present their story in an untruthful way, This narrative technique not only adds suspense but also highlights how easily perceptions can be manipulated in relationships.

The media in the novel also does this; while Nick is not the culprit of Amy's disappearance, the whole country is led to believe so, media warps and shifts the focus of some aspects to press their point. Like Punch and Judy, the story is played by everyone like a puppet show; everyone is a mask on stage, portraying a certain role. Our life is a show, and the book is very much aware of this, making a satire of itself and media awareness.

5. Masks ♡

As stated before, everyone focuses on illusions and what the outside thinks. As Nick is portraying himself as the perfect husband again so the media believes his innocence, Amy sees a glimpse of the old illusion in him and regains faith in the relationship, don't get this wrong, she doesn't believe he changed his ways, all that matters to her is the illusion she is trying to portray, the perfect married couple

6. Cool Girl ♡

Like Amy describes it:

"Cool girl. Men always use that, don’t they? As their defining compliment. She’s a Cool girl. Cool girl is hot. Cool girl is game. Cool girl is fun. Cool girl never gets angry at her man. She only smiles in a chagrin-loving manner and then presents her mouth for fucking."

Amy knows that she plays a role, changing herself for others, having no actual sense of self (which is ironic since she writes personality quizzes for a living), shape-shifting, and dumbing herself to fit the role until she can no longer do it. The breaking of the cool girl is the unleashing of female rage; the unfairness of having to maintain a fake persona in a new place where she feels lost, while her husband broke his fake persona long ago, cheating and disregarding all of her emotions; and the gender roles that pressure women into being hollow objects in fear of complete disregard for their humanity, unable to speak her mind, and forced to accept the sheep mentality as their gender is only viewed as worthy when it is seen as pure.

Amy has become a small icon in the subculture of femcels, focusing on a deep dislike of males and the gender roles pressured in society. She reversed the predator/prey dynamics to benefit herself, using her white female status to seem innocent after committing such crimes.

Although her actions have caused deep pain to some unfortunate innocent characters like Go, her unborn baby, and even Desi, we have to take a look at the overall story as a sort of manifesto and not so literal. Amy represents the perfect female power fantasy to many readers or viewers of Gone Girl, being able to snap and take revenge when we cannot.

i might be insane

[thelioncourts]

Tbh I think you are the only white loustat fan Ive seen here who is actually interested in louis as a character and not just an extension of lestat? Once you realize most of the fandom only sees louis as part of lestat's story it makes sense why there's little to no loumand content.

Let me talk about Louis. Let. Me. Talk. About. Louis.

I have been a Louis fan since I read Interview for the first time. I was....15 (?), maybe 16, and had finally convinced myself I could read Iwtv. (For those that don't know, Iwtv has been part of my life since I was born; I was named after Kirsten Dunst in the movie (my parents were raging Tom Cruise fans in the '90s, this is how that all happened) and so my whole life was 'being named from some vampire movie.' Problem? I hated blood growing up; couldn't look at it on a screen, couldn't think about it, made me nauseous. So as cool as vampires were, it took me time to read and watch it because 🤢).

Anyway.

So I read Interview, and I don't just read it, I devour it. I was obsessed. My mom had me on a book-buying ban so I couldn't buy anymore of the series, so I just reread Interview over and over again.

2-3 years later, I'm in college and have a little bit of money of my own, and I buy TVL and QotD. And -- and it took me forever to read TVL. It wasn't anything against Lestat necessarily, but 1) anyone that has read these books knows it's kind of like whiplash when you go to TVL and Lestat's narration is...well, Lestat lol and 2) I had fallen in love, long ago, with Louis' way of speaking.

But I eventually power through (and I love TVL. Arguably the best book of the series (???)). But then. Then I start getting into TotBT. And it's great! Lestat and Louis have some amazing moments and I adored so many parts of it, and it may be the general funniest book of the series. But also David is introduced and I could feel myself worrying.

Anyway, to make my relationship with book-Louis shorter, I struggled tremendously to read the rest of the series. Louis started getting mentioned less and less and less, and it became obvious for a time that he and Lestat were just. On different paths, as it seemed, and wouldn't really cross again and I was heartbroken and devastated. I missed Louis. I missed his outlooks and the way he and Lestat spoke to one another and his beauty and the way Lestat talked about him. The final "trilogy" of Prince Lestat was a godsend for me, personally, because it brought Louis back, it brought Louis and Lestat back, and it felt better, felt complete.

But! Show Louis.

So I followed the production of IwtV religiously for a while. Anne sold rights in 2016 and it seemed like it was happening! Then there was nothing for some time. I remember a vague 2019 article about it and, at that point, I was just in the "I'll believe it when I see it" category.

All of a sudden, it's happening before I even know it. And casting is announced. And I was -- so hesitant at both Sam and Jacob's casting. Sam because Lestat is such a character that I really was just like, "Can this man embody Lestat in the way Lestat should exist in this world?" (The answer is a resounding yes, x336548483929299485577838291038475747372272884) and with Jacob, I hadn't known of the time change yet and I was like....what are y'all doing?

Then I learned of the time change and I got nervous all over again because change is, y'know, sometimes scary when you know things. And Louis is everything to me and I was like, "Please do justice by him."

Oh. My. God.

There are a couple of things to mention here, namely the writing and Jacob's acting.

When it comes to the writing, I want to kiss anyone and everyone involved in developing Louis' story the way they did. Everything -- from his profession to his relationship with Paul and religion and sexuality and his mother and Grace and just -- everything, is so nuanced and beautiful and complex and having multiple episodes that showcase what all Louis really went through (both before and after being a vampire) and what he lost through all of it is just stunning. And it's one of those things that Louis' race, in particular, has made him such a better character because of what his struggles bring to the table. He is a queer black man, something that is not shown a ton in media, and he is a queer black man born into Jim Crow America, making a name for himself in a world that doesn't want him to succeed in any capacity. And he pushes and works because he's doing what's best by his family, even if they don't see it that way sometimes, and he endures because it's the only way to survive, and when vampirism comes in this box of a beautiful man promising him the world, he takes it, and yet he still tries to do good by his name, he still tries to be what he considers to be morally good. And he may be misguided on what good is, and he may be doing the wrong thing sometimes, but he is always trying. And I just think he's beautiful; both physically and emotionally beautiful.

I've found myself thinking so long and so hard on Louis' past; what his dad may have been like, what it was like being the oldest sibling and knowing he was one of the only ones that truly saw Paul and loved him, knowing that he could never be himself because queer and black and godly don't go together and just ! What was the Pointe du Lac household like when Louis started working in Storyville? What exact experiences, beyond Jonah, did Louis have with men? How many were good, were bad, were scary perhaps? Did he ever come close to an actual relationship or was he too busy saving his family and trying not to disappoint a god that wasn't there for him? What was it like when Paul was in the hospital in Jackson? Did Louis go see him and read to him, like when they were kids? And now, in Louis' vampirism, how is he going to come to terms with his blood drinking? How exactly to we go from, what we can imagine to be, absolute suicidal devastation and emptiness after losing Claudia to the flirty enigmatic boy at the bar in the 1970s flashback? When will 2022!Louis fully break, and show us that LDPDL is still very much in there and full of that specific fight that drew Lestat to him in the first place?

And JACOB. I could never have asked for a better person to play Louis. He brings everything anyone could want to the table. He's Louis' beauty, he's Louis' quiet rage, he's Louis' tenderness, he's Louis' bookishness, he's Louis' love, he's Louis in every possible way. He brings such a complexity to Louis and, most importantly, he brings him to life. I cannot think of Louis now in any other capacity than Jacob Anderson. I am so grateful for him and for the work he's put in and the way his entire heart is in this role.

So, yes. I love Louis. I love Louis as a character all on his own because he's, quite literally, everything to me.

[besidesitstoowarm]

"Army of Ghosts" thoughts

i really need to stop doubting russell. he put his whole pussy into some of these episodes

so this is one of those stories i've never rewatched, ever. the ending to "doomsday" devastated me so severely in high school (11-ish years ago) that i shied away from ever returning to this story. so far, it bangs

it begins w narration from rose about nothing ever having happened to her in her entire life, you can actually hear billie smile when she says "and then i met a man called the doctor" and like. i really can't stress enough. rose is the insane one in their relationship. rose carries the brunt of the derangement. house/wilson, hannibal/will, i am a huge sucker for pairings where the "normal" half is the sickest person alive and that is the most interesting interpretation of rose, to me. she is so bored of normal life that she would literally rather die than return to it, and she LOVES it, she craves it, the danger is the appeal not the doctor. she obviously has feelings for him (mutual) but it doesn't matter if he's ancient or ugly or whatever, she needs this life. rose is insane. bless

i do love her kindness tho. her being very delicate and gentle w jackie over the ghosts thing, reminding her that her dad is dead, saying she wishes she could smell the same cigarette smoke but she doesn't

and the doctor's reaction to the ghosts. "don't you think it's beautiful?" "i think it's horrific" ouch. he's right but ouch. i do think jackie has a point, though not the one she thinks she's making. the fact that people have the capacity to love so deeply, so intently, that they see blurry figurines appear out of thin air and assign qualities and personalities and scents to them, they see a footprint and vividly reminisce about the boot, i do think that's beautiful. the human capacity for love even in the strangest circumstances is, to me (a historian by schooling, vet med by profession) one of the most endearing, admirable traits of humanity

rose blowing off jackie's concern for her new lifestyle by being like "i worked in a SHOP" [ie my previous life had no meaning or value] and jackie defensively saying "i've worked in shops" yes girl. retail workers have value and are in fact braver than any us marine (source: worked in macy's on black friday). rose has this nice dichotomy that feels deeply real, where she is kind of ashamed of her life (living at home, working retail) but also protective of it (defends her mom, always makes a point to talk to "the help")

we get our first allons-y this episode

we also get the resolution to 1000 mentions of torchwood this season. my boyfriend actually didn't know torchwood was a dw spinoff before he started this watch w me, which is kind of funny. torchwood isn't really worth all the buildup, tbh. it's not worth the hype. huge shoutout to burn gorman tho, wildly underrated as an actor. "we must defend our border against the alien" and wanting to harness the power of the hole between worlds in order to "never depend on the middle east again" wow really not subtle here. even ignoring the plans to reinstate the british empire. davies is virulently anti-establishment in this show (and i assume irl) and it's deeply refreshing; i think doctor who can be a little too liberal-centrist for my tastes at times (capaldi zygon two-parter my beloathed grrrrrrrrrrr) so i really respect how often he went whole-hog acab fuck the government. it's one of the biggest reasons i'm excited to have him BACK

oh also hi mickey again

anyway part 2! can't wait to die!!

[the-haunted-office]

From this meme. Answered for Stanley Johnson.

A♥️ - Who was the first person your muse ever fell in love with?

Stanley fell in love with a girl in fifth grade named Angie Stevens. She was pretty and loved animals and was kind and patient with him, even though he was quite awkward. She moved away a few months into the school year, though, and he sadly never saw her again.

2♥️ - What’s your muse’s family like?

Stanley doesn't remember, but they were quite plain. Your stereotypical American nuclear family. Mom, Dad, two children, a dog, middle income house, and yes, there was a white picket fence. Stanley's dad worked hard and his mom worked even harder, raising him and his sister, Sally. Things were quite ordinary for them. Ordinary in just about every way you can think of.

3♥️ - How would your muse react to a confession of love?

It would largely depend on who the confession was coming from, but on the whole I think he'd be extremely bashful about it and be sort of in denial. Someone? In love? With him? How could that be possible? He's just... Stanley. Just... Stanley. Nothing special about him. He's just a regular guy, with nothing special or outstanding about him. He has no future, no past (that he can remember). He lives in an Office, for christ's sakes! Why or how could anyone love him? I think he'd be shocked speechless.

4♥️ - What are your muse’s thoughts on starting/raising a family?

He really really wants a family, but he doesn't know if he's capable. He doesn't know if he's physically capable, for one, knowing how many times his body has been cloned and his consciousness transferred by his own Narrator. And he also is nervous about how good of a father he'd be. It terrifies him, the idea of raising a child and making a mistake and screwing up another human being. I think he'd be super excited and terrified at the same time. It'd take a lot of convincing from his partner.

5♥️ - What was your muse’s most heartbreaking separation/divorce/etc?

Stanley has only ever been in one serious relationship, and it ended a little while before he started working at the Office and before the Parable began. Her name was Sheila Mandy, and she ended things because Stanley wouldn't commit to her. He was content with their "stagnant" relationship, while she wanted to get married and start a family, and when she confronted him he got nervous about committing and so she broke things off with him. Stanley was devastated, but didn't know how to deal with it. So he just... kept going to work.

[storylover9134]

^^^this 1000%. the kids are doing good with what they were given but it feels like we're missing SO much depth from Annabeths character with the spiders and architecture loss - both at the arch and the casino. the arch especially because we learn how badly she wants to build a monument to her mother (and herself) and this hints at her fatal flaw and we saw percy's fatal flaw at the arch when he sacrificed himself to the Chimera. why not show her pride too? and overall she - and percy too - are too perfect and know what's going on or guess WAY too much of the time so there's no suspense.

also for all that people are talking about this being a kids show - why are they cutting out so much of the humor that really made the books? where is gladoria the poodle? and annabeth and percy's love ride being broadcast to Olympus? the car wash iris call to camp? and percy talking to the zebra to establish his horse powers? and grover shouting "die nasty humans die" at his game in the lotus? (okay that last one might be a bit much for kids, but you get the idea). i'm glad people like the scene of percy driving but i am personally devastated that I will never see Annabeths little moment where the taxi driver calls her 'your highness'.

i like that grover's getting more screen time and especially liked him manipulating ares, but I feel like it's at the expense of Annabeth. all of her moments are her explaining stuff or revealing other people's personal info - like luke and his mom which she would never have given away before his betrayal, or they're percabeth moments. and i squeal and love the percabeth but - she's not just her relationship with Percy, especially in the first book when they're just getting to know each other. i feel like she's being treated as a plot/narration device and percy's future gf, when she is so so much more than that.

also everyone's criticizing the kids acting/casting and i literally don't get it. 100% of my acting/casting criticism goes to the adults. Medusa and Dionysus are the only ones who i think really killed it in their roles so far. everyone else was so-so, way over dramatized, or meh.

I was also originally skeptical of people's claims of 'performative' diversity - also to all the haters Leah is annabeth not bc Uncle rick said so but because one look at the steely look in her eyes even in the promo posters is enough to tell you she's athena's daughter. BUT after recent reflection I would like some answers because the inclusion of the kid in the wheelchair was great but WHERE are: grover's crutches to help him blend in, the braces on Hephaestus's legs, the moment where neither annabeth or percy can read the auntie Ems sign because it's written in cursive font, etc.

also people say some of these things make sense for an adaptation - really? the showing up of a god every episode does not - hermes and Hephaestus absolutely unequivocally should not have happened because luke and every other demigod who joins the gods whole issue is that they mostly ignore the hero's, and their kids. they get some help here and there - but almost never for free or without an ulterior motivation. no hellhound during capture the flag to foreshadow that someone within camp specifically poses a danger to percy? why suspect ares now instead of finding out with the master bolt in the backpack in the underworld? why give percy 4 pearls when that also removes the hard choice he has to make which showcases the first time he puts a quest over personal loyalty his fatal flaw? why make it so he saves sally instead of her saving herself because as she says "if my life is going to mean anything, i have to live it myself" and not be saved by gods? too many things result in fumbling of major plot points and themes.

the majority of my criticism is for the writers of this who i think just read the Wiki synopsis and went from there. seriously disappointed in some of these choices and I'm not sure how much say Riordan actually got but i kinda feel a little betrayed by him. the show was supposed to be better, but so far i think only 2 was really good, 1&3 okay, and i've been getting gradually more and more disappointed as the show goes on.

Twitter is throwing a tantrum that TikTokkers are struggling to infer Annabeth's love of architecture from the show, saying that they have no literacy comprehension.

Except the TikTokkers are right lol

Annabeth lists ten facts about a building and immediately says it's a temple to Athena. She doesn't sound excited when she says it, she sounds mildly interested. She doesn't derail the group's quest because she's always wanted to visit, she brings them there because Percy's been poisoned.

To the regular viewer, it does not sound like she has an obsession with architecture. It sounds like she just knows this stuff because 1) She's an Athena child and it's a temple to Athena, 2) because the show told her she was smart in like episode two.

Annabeth doesn't rush around giddily, looking around and staring. She just kinda stands there. Where's the excitement and enthusiasm? Leah is a great actor, but these directors and writers are ass. We don't need to see Annabeth in stoic, calm dramatic silence. We need to see her be excited about her literal obsession, her literal hyperfixation!

It's also worth noting that Annabeth only talks about buildings ONCE. She doesn't say she likes architecture, she doesn't read her architecture books, we don't see her talking about the buildings they pass, we don't hear anything about Athena being the goddess of architecture, NOTHING. This is the FIRST time we've ever heard Annabeth talk about architecture and she is literally just listing facts.

Every time a new episode comes out, I become firmly more and more convinced that Twitter is watching a different show to me. Stop sucking this shows dick and actually THINK about the complaints.

[starsaroundsaturn]

what i really liked about the hunger games

reading the hunger games (specifically Mockingjay) and that bloody scene. that scene where Katniss makes Johanna a sachet of pine needles because she thinks that the smell might remind her of home. it nearly made me cry.

like suzanne collins did such a good job of walking the line. Making Katniss so stubborn, making her such an unreliable narrator, hate herself so much that all she can think is that she’s an evil person, that she’s responsible for all the death around her. She did such a realistic portrayal of trauma and depression and PTSD with Katniss. Like there are many “tough girls” in literature that I really disliked and couldn’t understand why they were given the importance in the story that they were, but Katniss makes so much sense.

like, she’s been in traumatic circumstances since she was a child. We should talk about her ace (adverse childhood experiences) first. These are toxic stress experiences that are likely to create a lasting impact on children. Neglect: emotional and physical. That’s 2 right there. Her mother couldn’t be there for her little sister and herself. She took on the role of caretaker (which is ENORMOUS in terms of stress and pressure) for her younger sister and herself when she was 11. This was not intentional neglect on her mother’s part, but the experience was awful. Her mother had a mental illness, depression. That’s 3. The reason for her mother’s depression was death of a relative, their father, there’s 4. An ACE score of 4 makes triples your likelihood to experience chronic depression, to have a serious problem working, makes you 4 times more likely to experience alcohol addiction, and actually makes you more likely to experience physical illnesses like heart disease or a stroke. Even without the arena, Katniss’s life experience was devastating.

Then they put her in the Hunger Games. She experiences a war zone. She experiences her trauma being broadcast for people to enjoy. She’s pressured into romantic relationships. (Not by Peeta, really: he isn’t trying to manipulate her in any way, but the capital certainly is, and the one male mentor/father figure other than Cinna that Katniss has in her life is pressuring her too. Gale does put some pressure on Katniss as well. He’s trying to get her to choose him when what Katniss really really needs is space to take care of her mental health. The last thing she wants is marriage). I think we could also add substance addiction by a family member to Katniss’s ace score here since she views Haymitch as a mentor, almost family figure and she’s still under 17 at this point. 

Her experience of PTSD and trauma explains so many things. She doesn’t want kids: she saw what happened when her mom lost her dad, and she sees people loosing their kids all the time. She doesn’t want a romantic relationship: she sees the damage that loosing one has done to her mom. Her nearly immediate attachment to Cinna? I’d say she’s subconsciously seeking a dependable, trustworthy father figure and he’s the first one she has. Her work avoidance in book 3? Probably trauma. Her anger all the way through? Trauma. It’s a very good portrayal. 

The unfortunate thing is that these things could make her seem very toxic and cold as a person when she’s instead extremely traumatized if you don’t know about ACE or PTSD. 

But even then, there’s things like I mentioned at the beginning. Flowers for Rue. Her concern for the avoxes. Those pine needles and bark for Johanna. Her joking with Finnick in Mockingjay. There are all of these absolutely silent things she does to be kind, without even thinking about them as kind. Giving food to strangers at the lake. She doesn’t do them for notoriety. Most people don’t even notice that she’s doing them. I would say that’s what I like most about Katniss as a character. I think probably the only people who notice those silent things about her are her friends and family.  They’re tiny, thoughtful things, and they make her who she is. I think that’s why I think she’s really a hero. Not because she does brave or courageous things, but because she does things no one will notice when no one else will think to.

[ineffectualdemon]

Hello....I'm not the anon who asked YOI & SVSSS, but can I ask the same questions (fave characters/why you love them and fave moments) but this time about MDZS? Thanks if you want to answer.....

Absolutely happy to answer!

Top 5 MDZS characters!

5. A-Yuan/Lan Sizhui: baby A-Yuan was so so cute and fun but I also really enjoy how he's just this good guy. He's calm and patient and kind but he's also not like outstanding or a genius. He's just a dutiful nice young man with two dads and a dead uncle. Anyway he just makes me happy

4. Lan Wangji: controversial I know to put him so low. I do love him just not as much as some of the other characters. I love how autistic he's coded since I am autistic. I love how he basically wrote Wei Wuxian a note that said "get out of my school" because he couldn't handle his crush but was devastated when Wei Wuxian got out of his school.

I love his desperate attempts to help Wei Wuxian. I especially love how he had grown in the years of their separation. While Wei Wuxian always saw him as confident before Wei Wuxian's death I see a Lan Wangji who was unsure and uncomfortable and not clear on how to help or what to do.

Whereas Lan Wangji post Wei Wuxian's resurrection is completely confident in himself and his decisions. He's able to tease and flutter Wei Wuxian the way he had flustered Lan Wangji before. It's a realistic maturity he's been granted

3. Wei Wuxian: I love his energy and how morally grey he is. He has strong convictions and does what he thinks is right but (at least in his first life) he also believes that his ends justify his means.

He is impulsive, charming, oblivious to his own sexuality to an incredibly familiar degree, and can dish out teasing but can't take it

He loves with his whole being but he also hates with his whole being. He's a creature of absolutes which I love

He also really needed to explain things better to people in his life holy fuck

I also like how death matured him. He has regrets and wishes he did some things differently and is just calmer post resurrection which is good

I also like how he is very much an unreliable narrator because his perception and reality are not at all the same

2. Lan Jingyi: the most un-Lanlike Lan to ever Lan. He picks fights with everyone, he's loud, he'd abrasive, he picks on Jin Ling, he picks fights with sect leaders!

I love him

1. Jiang Cheng: he is a complete asshole but I love him. I just feel for him with his story. His mom was abusive, his dad was neglectful of him, he felt unwanted and a failure and everything impressive or good that he did was overshadowed by Wei Wuxian who he still loved! And tried to help and protect in his own way for a long time only for it to feel like it had all been thrown back in his face in favour of strangers

Like if you really think about the story from his perspective it's hard not to feel for Jiang Cheng. He's angry and hurt and an asshole but also he loves his close ones, especially Jin Ling, so much. And Jin Ling feels so safe with him. He never worries that Jiang Cheng will harm him but he's worried about disappointing him. But the way Jin Ling is loyal to Jiang Cheng speaks volumes

Jiang Cheng is selfish. In thst he wants to protect what's his and only that but that's also what makes him interesting

There is a lot I identity with when it comes to Jiang Cheng and feel like at the end of the novel there is a door open for him and Wei Wuxian to heal even though it will never be what it was

Top 5 moments

5. When Young Wei Wuxian first meets Lan Wangji and in particular the aftermath where he says out of no where about Lan Wangji not liking him "he's not that pretty" only to internally realise he is that pretty and ignore the pouty feeling Lan Wangji ignoring him gives him

Like that is so incredibly gay and the fact he doesn't realise it is just...I was like that at 15 I get it

4. When Lan Wangji in the cave is done with Wei Wuxian's shit and bites him. How can you not love that scene?

3. Jiang Cheng being physically restrained trying to protect Wei Wuxian from his mother in front of the Wens. As badly as it goes I really think that's an insight into his real character and a moment that highlights why they were willing to go to such lengths for each other (cause remember Jiang Cheng only lost his core because he got caught so Wei Wuxian could escape)

2. The Kiss on Phoenix Mountain: I mean it's iconic isn't it? Also definitely opened a door for Wei Wuxian I'm just saying. Someone acquired a kink that day ...

1. The confession scene. Again it's just iconic with Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji ruining Jin Guangyao's villain moment by being gay and in love is just *chefs kiss* actually the whole temple scene where Wei Wuxian's various relationship drama is aired out while Jin Guangyao is like "hello? This was my big emotional moment?" Is just brilliant

[chaotic-theatrical-weaver]

Rereading To Kill a Mockingbird and just finished Part 1!

Most of this is me just reiterating things I said two years ago when I read this for class and marveling at them, though I expand somewhat in some areas. I don’t think my perspective changed as drastically this time around compared to the way it did in between my first and second reads, but that’s probably because when I read it first, I didn’t quite catch every single implication, whereas upon reading it for class, my teacher explained a lot. Anyway, without further ado:

The narration by an adult Scout? P E R F E C T. She gives so much insight into the mind of a child while also being able to provide us readers with more insight than her younger self could.

The children...oh my goodness, them and their superstitions as a motif in Part One? That really contrasts Part Two. From an adult perspective, their fears are irrational, and rather than relating to large, abstract evils like racism, they’re more related to smaller, concrete things that they’ve judged as evil based on folklore and rumors and half-truths. 

This proclivity towards judgment is almost innate, as children this young are engaging in it. While it’s low-stakes and less harmful for children playing games, it’s still destructive, which is why Atticus cares so much about weeding it out early and preventing them from making fun of, bothering, or otherwise othering Boo Radley. This almost-innate tendency to judge is something the racists of Maycomb encourage, and he will not stand for the town corrupting his children.

Honestly, I love that Part One largely chronicles the children’s carefree summer romps and really only contrasts it with school when necessary. Within this contrast is another contrast between knowledge and experience, textbook learning and life lessons. It’s very telling that Scout remembers more of her firsthand experiences and lessons from life than the ones from school.

The constant reiterations from Atticus about empathy. Just the constant reiterations about empathy. They’re everything and I love how Scout spends the entire novel trying to refine and apply her knowledge.

In one of my web weaving posts, I used that quote from Atticus about real courage being “knowing you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what” and how “[y]ou rarely win, but sometimes you do.” It just hit me that perhaps the children still believe Atticus can win because they saw Mrs. Dubose win, and Mrs. Dubose wasn’t even the best of people, so how much more capable is Atticus of doing the same? Sadly, their innocence means that they don’t fully realize just yet how severely poisonous racism is and how it can overpower and shout down the words of good men, and once they realize, it’s devastating.

These lessons are largely preparations for the trial in Part Two, as Atticus hopes he can get his children through it with their hope for the world and beliefs in equality intact--he doesn’t want them to become bitter or racist, and that’s really what marks him as a good parent.

Jem’s line, “I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but I ain’t so sure now!” always gets me--even if it’s disrespectful, it’s actually pretty funny. It got me when I read it the first time at my mom’s suggestion, reread it for class two years ago, and am rereading for class now.

Dill. Just everything about him and how he copes with humor. It’s kinda sad when you think about it.

Love love love Miss Maudie, as always. She’s just so sweet and caring...also, while we’re at it, can I give Calpurnia a shoutout for being so protective of the children and of the town in Chapter 10 when the rabid dog Tim Johnson becomes a threat? 

The rabid dog as a symbol of the town’s racism and how the trial later parallels Atticus shooting the dog...how both attack when least expected and in the least expected ways and it’s on Atticus to fight back...how the dog is an immediate concern but racism in Maycomb is far more extensive and widespread with serious, long-term ramifications... And I think that’s all I have to say for now.

[wingzoffeather]

Xie Lian is an unreliable narrator (like all of MXTX's protags). How we see Mu Qing, at this part of the story, is entirely how Xie Lian, and Xie Lian only, sees him. Xie Lian is at his lowest at this point, but he's also been waaayyy more sheltered than Mu Qing. Xie Lian truly can't comprehend why someone he considers a friend would prioritize his mom over his own struggling ***friend BECAUSE he's never had to worry about such choices, before. (And no one that he cares about has ever NOT prioritized him). Xie Lian isn't a brat like Qi Rong, but he def doesn't have the experience, nor emotional capacity at this point, to really see the context of his former privilege for what it was.

***To Xie Lian at this point in the story, he feels he has always treated Mu Qing as an equal and as a friend. But he fails to see the inherent systemic power imbalance in their relationship as crown prince and servant, one that disregards his own personal and naive feelings on the matter.

Throughout the Xianle flashbacks, we see how Mu Qing's commoner status affects how he is treated by the Xianle elite, especially with his blunt back-talking personality. He's treated often with scorn. Xie Lian observes this. But he thinks the strength of his overtures of friendship towards Mu Qing, alone, is enough to nullify Mu Qing's feelings, and real consequences, on being treated like this. It doesn't occur to him, that that's not how it works????

And that's why, he is so utterly devestated and confused and angry, when Mu Qing leaves him to take care of his mother. His friendship wasn't enough to nullify the reality of Mu Qing's own situation. And he's at the lowest point in his life and just can't comprehend that Mu Qing would have anything in his life that must take priority over their friendship. Afterall, in Xie Lian's view, he'd always defended Mu Qing.... shouldn't Mu Qing reciprocate their bond by helping him in his time of need? His noticable simmering resentment over the years has always felt blown out of proportion & unfounded, to boot. So, since we only see Xie Lian's pov here, we start to read Mu Qing as selfish and uncaring; a terrible friend. It seems My Qing never wanted to be friends....

But we learn by the end of the novel, Mu Qing did always WANT to truly be friends with Xie Lian. He finally admits it out loud, and THAT'S when the dots finally all connect in Xie Lian's pov. Mu Qing never could consider him a friend before he ascended, cuz they would never truly be equals until he was no longer treated as Xie Lian's servant. Even Xie Lian, as sheltered as his has been in that point of the story, cluelessly continues to hold the biases and subtleties of this rank difference as they manage their banishment. So in Mu Qing's view, he was ultimately walking away from an employer, rather than a friend. An employer who is blind to his own inability to truly empathize, even on good days, despite the best of intentions.

Afterall Mu Qing has the same problem as Xie Lian going on; devastating poverty and a parent that needs to be cared for. And Xie Lian is just wasting time that they could be using to gradually turn their situation around, just getting increasingly depressed and apathetic to their plight. Mu Qing does CARE. But he's gotta start putting his mom first. And tbf, he wasn't gonna completely walk out on them....until Feng Xin antagonized him & Xie Lian finally lashed out too.

As for Feng Xin, he doesn't exactly consider Xie Lian a friend either, at least not one of equals, the way Xie Lian views him. For the same systemic reasons as Mu Qing. But the difference is, Feng Xin is cool with the inherent power imbalance in their friendly relationship. And HE can't comprehend why Mu Qing isn't cool with it (and not grateful for everything his closeness with Xie Lian has brought him, scornful treatment from nobility aside). However, Feng Xin had been raised to be Xie Lian's guard. He'd never been beholden to anything else. He's also sheltered in this respect, so he too lacks the knowledge & experience to understand My Qing's point of view. But even he starts to have to face the negative side of this kind of relationship with Xie Lian, once he has a prospective wife on the horizon to provide for. Someone else he's beholden to. And THAT comes to a head as well.

And all this illustrates Xie Lian's fatal flaw at the beginning of the main timeline. That he's completely blind to the nuance present in the personal lives of his people. He can't 'help all the common people', if he's not wise to the full context of their situations. Something the State Preceptor had been tryna tell him all along. He was never trying to discourage him from pursuing those lofty goals per se, just warning him to learn & study these nuances & potential consequences before charging in.

Xie Lian doesn't even fully comprehend the full context behind his relationships with those closest to him, never mind "all the common people"...He would never have truly got on the path of gaining this wisdom, if Mu Qing & Feng Xin had continued to follow him the whole way thru his first banishment, maintaining the status quo of always putting Xie Lian before themselves.

And it's not ANY ONE of them's fault, truly, that group parted so bitterly. It's just that they all had different needs and priorities. Xie Lian, Mu Qing, and Feng Xin still care about each other. But they all have different needs and priorities that pull them apart at this point. It was the very stability of the master/servant dynamic that kept them close and supporting each other (mostly supporting Xie Lian). But cuz of that, they never got the chance to be equal friends, and Xie Lian's illusion in this regard is shattered when it comes out that they do NOT yet know how to understand, communicate, and support one another as equals. And unfortunately, while grieving the loss Xianle and dealing with extreme poverty, the timing for them to start learning and building this friendship of equals couldn't have been worse. Xie Lian in particular, was not in the right frame of mind to gain this perspective, just yet.

Anyway, they all get on the same page at the end, grow a lot more emotionally mature, and start truly being friends, so yay!

Nothing will ever piss me off more than just how badly ppl drag the "mu qing left xie lian at his lowest" that it has to come up at every single talking point and is twisted at every turn to make Mu Qing into an irredeemable monster. like yes you're so right. Mu Qing should have let his mother die all alone. Mu Qing should have priorized his employers over the only family he had left. Mu Qing definitely wasn't at the lowest point of his life either. Only Mu Qing should never be forgiven for anything "bad" he ever did. For whatever reason. Literally fuck off.

[from-the-dark-past]

Interview with Anders Ohlin in The Black Metal Murders: English translation

Translator’s note: Black metal-morden (English: The Black Metal Murders) is a radio documentary from 2017 produced by Radio Sweden (download). It’s about Mayhem and the Norwegian black metal scene in the ‘90s and contains interviews with Jørn “Necrobutcher” Stubberud, Kjetil Manheim, Eirik “Messiah” Norheim and Anders Ohlin (Pelle Ohlin’s younger brother). 

Here, I’ve translated the parts where Anders Ohlin speaks into English (from Swedish). I’ve added time-stamps and short descriptions for the different sections of the interview. 

I am working on translating the interviews with Necrobutcher, Manheim and Messiah and will post them soon. 

1:51 - 6:35 [Talking about him and Pelle getting into extreme metal]

Anders: We’d started listening to hard rock and it was… We’d, like, worked through all of those… Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. 

Narrator: It’s the mid-1980s in Västerhaninge, a suburb of Stockholm. Pelle Ohlin lives here. He plays in the extreme metal band Morbid and his stage name is Dead. Pelle has introduced his five-years-younger brother to hard rock. Together, they’ve worked through all of the main bands. 

Anders: And you, like, hungered for this… This Other. 

Narrator: The ‘Other’ that younger brother Anders is talking about is extreme metal; music that is faster, darker and harder. A progression of hard rock. Music that isn’t easy to get your hands on at this time. Anders is in his early teens and has gotten his first girlfriend. 

Anders: It was my first relationship and it was super-exciting, and I was at her house, she lived in Jordbro, which is, like, the neighbouring suburb. 

Narrator: Anders’ girlfriend’s older sister has an LP that Anders simply must show his older brother Pelle. 

Anders: It was, like, you knew it was good music, and it was that Destruction record. 

Narrator: Anders sees the German death metal band Destruction’s cover and it’s enough for him to understand that this must be good music. [...] 

Anders: This. This here isn’t Judas Priest and it isn’t Iron Maiden; it’s something else. I’ve got show this fucking record to Pelle. 

Narrator: Anders nags [his girlfriend’s older sister] to borrow the LP. He’s allowed to, but only for the day, so he bikes home in the rain from Jordbro to Västerhaninge as quickly as he can. 

Anders: And it was like [excited noise], like a cartoon; the evil wolf, their eyes bulge out and we both ran -- because we hadn’t heard the LP, only seen the cover -- ran to the record player och then Mom walks up and is like: ‘Stop! You’re forbidden from using the gramophone.’ And it was like, fucking hell, is it going to die here and then we explained to Mom -- ‘This is an extreme record and we’ve borrowed it for the day and it’s going back tomorrow,’ -- and Mom was super-harsh and was like: ‘It doesn’t matter. [...]’ And then we started negotiating and agreed that we could record the LP onto cassette [because you don’t need volume for that]. So, it was on full-blast the entire night and we recorded it and stood bent over the record scratches and were like,‘Shit, this is good stuff’. 

Narrator: Pelles hard rock style stands out against the usual sweatpant-Bagheera-jacket [style], not least the music. 

Anders: The ideals that existed at that time were that you were supposed to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, which neither he nor I did [laughs]. You were supposed to be handsome and cool and have some fucking helipad on your head. 

Translator’s note: Anders is talking about a flat-top haircut commonly referred to as a ‘helikopterplattafrisyr’ -- helipad haircut -- in Sweden. Think H.R. Haldeman. I’m not sure what the English term for this haircut is. 

Narrator: Anders and Pelle are apart of a small subculture; extreme metal, with subgenres such as trash metal, death metal and black metal, which provokes with its satanic and morbid symbols. Pelle’s band Morbid pushes the limits of what music can sound like. With his stage-name Dead, Pelle sings on the demo December Moon. The new subculture is not embraced by the adult world. 

Anders: Like, we faced this fucking cultural oppression as hardrockers. It was that time-period… And especially if you wanted to do something that was worse than hard rock; it was completely judged. 

14:52 - 15:53 [Talking about Pelle being bullied] 

Anders: He was beaten at school and to such an extent that he actually died for a while, or however you put it. 

Narrator: There’s an explanation to Pelle’s obsession with death. At 13, he was bullied at school and once, he was beaten so badly that his spleen burst. Pelle’s brother Anders Ohlin tells the story.

Anders: He was beaten to death and had some near-death experience as he was laying in the hospital and he kept coming back to that all the time, and I think you can see that as some sort of theme in his songs too. Like, it’s always about the fact that he was actually there and touched something that he doesn’t know what it is, and that was the engine in all that. He was definitely [at the bottom of the pecking order] at school, precisely because he was a bit… He had his special... his special style and was, like, uncompromising, and that was what singled him out, I’d say, markedly from other teenagers. 

18:07 - 18:30 [Talking about Pelle’s depression]

Anders: He would neglect to eat, just to get a cassette tape out or arrange a gig somewhere. 

Narrator: Anders Ohlin, Pelle’s brother. 

Anders: To be a bit harsh, I think that the others gave up at some point. And that’s my personal interpretation. That he suddenly turns around and notices that he hasn’t got the gang with him. And I think that destroyed him. 

21:50 - 22:30 [Talking about Pelle’s suicide] 

Anders: At first, I was actually really pissed at him… Or, like, angry, enraged. I thought that he’d abandoned us -- which he has. That it was so shitty of him; to just take off and leave this big fucking abscess to the rest of us that just kept growing and growing as the years passed. 

Narrator: Christmases become especially painful for the Ohlin family, because that was the time Pelle usually came home. 

Anders: No one felt good on Christmas Eve. It was like a fucking ghost all Christmas. Brutal. So, I remember that I couldn’t celebrate Christmas at all for a very long time. 

1:06:39 - 1:09:31 [Talking about how he and Pelle’s Swedish friends remember him and his life today]

Anders: All of his Swedish friends see him as this exuberantly happy guy that spews ideas and is funny and has a sense of humor and stuff. Then, it’s like a line is drawn when he goes to Norway and they see him as introverted and mysterious and, like, difficult. And that’s two opposite images. 

Narrator: The Pelle Myth is associated with a lot of darkness and death but that’s not how his brother Anders and Pelle’s Swedish friends remember him.  

Anders: I think that’s been the devastating part, but it, like, helped him build… strengthen that myth. It’s hard being that funny dude and saying that you’re, like, Satan. It’s hard, it becomes, like, silly. 

Narrator: Anders is often reminded of Pelle. Usually because of happy memories but also because of that image that he is fighting to remove; the image that Øystein took of Pelle’s corpse which spread because it became the album cover of a Mayhem bootleg, Dawn of the Black Hearts. The image lives its own life on the internet. 

Anders: It’s difficult. It’s very difficult. 

Narrator: Pelle’s fans often want to become Facebook friends with Anders; he receives 3-5 friend requests per day. Sometimes, the people sending the friend requests have themselves shared the image on their social channels. 

Anders: You say you want to be my friend yet you have an image of my brother from when he’s just killed himself and like… body parts all over the wall. Would you think it was okay if I had an image of your brother like that? ‘What,’ they excuse themselves. ‘Oh, fuck, I’d forgotten that I had that image, that’s… Of course, I’ll remove it and I’m ashamed.’ 

Narrator: When Anders asks people to remove the image, most do. 

Anders: I’m terrified for when my children will start to Google those images… Øystein’s parents inherited the rights after Øystein died and [Øystein’s dad] has destroyed the images and I’ve received the rights, gotten to take over the rights from Øystein’s dad, so if anyone uses them in any form is printed media, I can sue the shit out of them. 

Narrator: It’s a small comfort every time one of Pelle’s fans tells Anders how much Pelle means. 

Anders: Most often, they have some story. They tell me how they’ve had a tough period in life and how they’ve, like, really been at a crossroads or something and feel that they received guidance from Pelle’s music. That warms -- That makes you happy. That really warms your heart. 

Narrator: Pelle’s grave is well-visited and every now and then, there’s a handwritten letter or a box of snus by it. 

[jimalim]

Potential Devastating Theory for Martha’s Season 2 Arc:

This is a long post, so buckle up! @outinthewildspodcast and I tag teamed this post to share with y’all the potential devastating theory that maybe Martha kills/injures one of the girls, most likely Nora. We had a field day in our DMs a while back developing this theory and I think it’s about high time y’all join us in our pain lol I want to caveat this by saying, none of us want this to be true, but the evidence is so compelling, we have a hard time ruling it out-

So, what if the reason Gretchen and co are looking for evidence to use against Martha is because she snaps and kills/hurts someone (Nora or even possibly Shelby?) because if Martha was dead, why would they be looking to discredit her with the perjury info?

If you rewatch the scenes in episode 9 between Detective Young and Gretchen, there is so much ambiguity in the pieces they discuss. Detective Young is being asked to find them a way out of “this one” and to find a “creative solution so the family can’t sue”. Both of these obscure what he is actually looking to protect Gretchen from. The first point to unpack is about the box that Detective Young is going through. It’s posed to us as containing Martha’s belongings (the frog cape, her hedgehog slippers), but something that definitely doesn’t belong in there is Nora’s journal. Yet it’s the first thing we see. This builds that initial link between Nora and Martha (and hold the fact that journal is there… we’ll come back to it). 

The second piece is when Young talks about the family suing. WHOSE family? They never actually specify.

We assume it’s Martha’s Mom looking to sue, but if that were the case, and they are looking for some kind of blackmail to use as leverage, how would Martha committing perjury help them at all? No one is ever going to prosecute or blame that young girl for not being ready to talk about her trauma. And I think canon makes it clear that Bernice knows she lied, so why would she care? So, while yes, she did commit perjury-no prosecutor would go after her. It’s such bad press. And it’s incredibly weak leverage.

But, if you consider the possibility of Marty snapping and killing/injuring someone, say for the content of this post Nora for example, Gretchen could use the perjury and whatever other information they can find to discredit Martha and paint her as unstable. They could use that as a way to displace any responsibility from themselves onto Martha herself. So, if Nora gets injured, and her parents want to sue, Gretchen and her team could use this information to put the blame solely on Martha and absolve themselves (despite arguably contributing to the atmosphere/conditions that ultimately lead to Martha breaking down in the first place.) Now, let’s bring Nora’s journal back. We know that Nora was documenting everything, including the mental state of all of the girls. That journal would have important information about how Martha was doing and if Nora was growing concerned about her.

It’s also important to note, based off the context clues in the dialogue of that scene, it’s clear they are trying to get ahead of it before the family can place the blame on Gretchen. There’s no actual suit being charged against them yet, but they are aware there’s an incident that might warrant that kind of reaction from “the family” once they find out. They are in damage control mode.

This brings me to a post I made a while back, about the storyline between Faber and Leah in episode 6. If you divorce Leah’s narration from the visuals you see in this episode, it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s talking about day twelve (title of ep.) The dialogue in these scenes could very easily fit the events from episode 10 where Leah follows Nora into the woods and falls into the pit. We know the point of Faber’s actions in this episode is to make Leah feel guilty about what happened to Martha-we assume how she got very sick from the muscles and Leah lost the medicine. But if we think about these scenes in context of Leah following Nora in ep 10, not Shelby in ep 6, Faber could be making Leah feel guilty about what happened with Martha (her potentially harming Nora) because Leah would have been the one who told the girls that Nora was a confederate. She’s the only one who had that information of Nora being the confederate, and by revealing it, made Nora a target for Martha’s aggression. They want Leah to feel guilty. To feel responsible. To question whether her revealing that information put everyone else at risk. Gaslighting her into thinking she imagined Nora as a confederate? It ties in with Young and Faber speaking to Shelby about the “unfortunate instances” that happened on the Island. There was clearly an escalation of violence in the group, which can be connected not only to the characters who are missing from the bunker, but also to injuries we see (Shelby’s head and twisted ankle to name a few). 

BUT WHY WOULD MARTY DO SUCH A THING? You ask?!

Martha is in such a bad way at the end of ep10. It’s evident she is not okay by her scenes with Dot and Rachel back at camp afterwards. Martha has spent her whole life (post Dr. Ted) using kindness and clinging to this childlike wonder as a coping mechanism. She shattered that façade when she killed the goat. The way that scene is shot, shifting between Island Marty and Marty in her jingle dress, the one she was going to wear to the ADULT jingle competition really highlights this transition from childlike naivety to “growing up.” By walking out on her adult dance competition, Martha was subconsciously refusing to grow up and accept the reality of the horrible things that happened to her. And so, the façade was built. Killing the goat is what brings it crumbling down, and now years of pushing off that trauma is catching up to her, no longer walled off.

Martha’s arc is incredibly incomplete. We have this moment of catharsis when she kills the goat, but only see the start of her struggle afterwards. She’s in a bad way in Episode 10 and she’s going to be in a really bad way in Season 2. It’d be understandable to see her lash out, and channel the rage she’s probably had gently simmering deep below the surface finally come boiling over. Coming to terms with trauma you have experienced is messy, it’s painful and it can enhance the pain you’ve held down for years. If Leah tells the girls about the events from ep 10 (the tree camera, the pit, etc.) It’s very plausible Nora becomes a target for Martha’s misplaced rage as she blames her for putting her on the Island (where she had to come to terms with her trauma) in the first place. Martha was probably very happy (on a surface level at least) ignoring the truth of her trauma. Now, out here, she’s forced to face it, and she’s not happy about it.

Now, I’m sure you might be thinking, that’s a bit of a jump. Martha isn’t perceived as violent; Leah mentioned how “every creature meant something to her,” she’s a vegetarian, she doesn’t like that Shelby hunts, she’s adamantly adverse to the idea of killing the goat at first. She’d never hurt someone intentionally. But you can’t separate that from her fear of becoming like the person who caused her harm. She holds onto that kindness because it’s connected with her childhood (and all the ways she is stuck as a 12 year old), but also because she never wants to imitate the harm that was done to her. She sees herself in those animals. So her entire world shifted when she became what she would classify as a predator, or someone who causes harm. 

There is a sinister feeling behind the smile Martha gets when she does inevitably kill the goat. We assume it’s a response to an emotional release. But what if? Could it be the start of her breaking point? What if the violence ramps up, using the justification for survival to carry out more and more?

You might think it’s a big jump to go from killing the goat to harming Nora. But a possible step in between is Rachel’s hand amputation. I know we mostly all assume Dot is the one who ends up having to amputate Rachel's hand (assuming the shark bites it and leaves it too mangled instead of cleanly biting it off.) But Dot is struggling too at the end of Season 1. What if she tries and can’t bring herself to do it? What if it's Martha that volunteers to do it? I could see a scene (if they were to show something so graphic) of Martha with the axe that parallels her with the rock she killed the goat with. Maybe that is the next step in Martha losing control, her violence (though justifiable in her mind, killing the goat for survival, amputating Rachel's hand so she doesn't die) just keeps ratcheting up. And maybe, it feels good? Years of suppressing such a deeply traumatic event finally being released with each hit.

So, when it's perceived that Nora is a threat, Martha feels she has to take her out to save the rest of them. For survival. To protect the others. Because no one was able to protect her. 

[zeldanyx]

Some thoughts on Euphoria (S1, special episodes and S2) in no particular order:

The actors look so old, it’s way beyond believable that their characters are high schoolers. Why not just set it in college? Life doesn’t end after High School. The only logical reason I can see is that Nate/Jules had to be underage for the story, but c’mon. Especially in the beginning of S1 I was so bothered by this.

I don’t really see why some people claim the show glamorizes drug use. Sure, there are aestetically pleasing visualisations of being high, but generally it’s always treated as something destructive for Rue and her surroundings.

The framework for Rue’s narration is weird. Yes, she knows these people, some of them are her friends. Yes, it is mentioned that she feels like she has a visionary power when she’s on drugs. But all the details in her narration that she can’t possibly know, that might of course be true, because they fit in well with what she really does know about these people for a fact - these details and backstories are sold as factual to the viewer? I mean, the narration and what is visually shown about the backstory of the people is always the same. So, is it just Rue’s imagination to go in line of what she is saying? Otherwise Rue kinda has to be an all-knowing narrator. And that’s a really odd choice, in my opinion. But maybe I’m just overthinking this.

My favourite characters in s1 were Cassie and Kat. No wonder s2 was disappointing.

All these people have such beautiful make-up ahhhh. I need to buy glitter eyeliner now.

Very beautifully shot.

I enjoyed the special episodes. They were unlike anything I’ve seen before and so well written.

S2 episode 5 was so intense. Having to watch Rue destroy every good relationship in her life was so heavy and devastating.

I’ve heard people say Cassie was the villain of season 2. Why, though? I never would have interpreted her character that way. Just... needy of therapy like everyone else in this show. From the beginning on she felt bad for what she was doing to Maddy, and I know that doesn’t justify her behaviour, but there was no malicious intent inside her, only the twisted obsession for Nate.

Kat’s break-up with Ethan was so cringy, help me. 

Generally, Kat. S1 kinda portrayed her evolution as “empowering”, which is problematic as she is literally underage. The show never explored the damaging side effects the sex work must have on her views on sex and intimacy. It was hinted at, occasionally, but never became a storyline, which is a real shame I think. Her struggles with maintaining her relationship with Ethan could have been presented under that light. It really wouldn’t have been difficult.

So many of Rue’s actions didn’t have repercussions. All the things she damaged in E5, the money she owned Laurie ... But well, I hope this comes up in S3 again.

I think it’s sad that the themes of Jules’ solo episode weren’t explored more, her relationship to femininity and such. Again, only hinted at, but Jules wasn’t as fleshed out in S2 anymore.

Am I the only one who didn’t think it was okay that Lexi performed her play at the school? Let me explain. So, the way her play was, there would have been a time and a place for it to be okay. Some years in the future, when most of the at the time on-going conflicts between the people portayed are resolved, on any stage that is not the one in their High School. But performing an autofictional play with literally no changes except for the names in front of an audience full of people portayed without their consent while the conflicts are still present? Like, she literally included the carousel scene with Cassie. I, too, would have felt so mocked, even if the majority of the audience didn’t know it was about me. I get that it was about “Lexi taking action” or whatever, but it felt impious to me. Also, she didn’t really do much with the story in terms of creative processing, it’s just like her diary. At least her Mom had fun and it helped Rue. But I don’t think she deserves to be treated like a saint for bringing this play to the stage and into the story.

Some visualisations of drug use reminded me of my all time favourite series “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo”. I’ve seen articles comparing the two before and I can agree, in a good way.