#and bad faith interpretations of their every move.

[embraceyourdestiny]

“Dean is abusive to Sam” is only so ridiculous to me because, in my opinion, it’s less about the content of that thought and more the idea that having any cut-and-dry, definitive interpretation of the Winchester brothers and their situation is ridiculous to me, because this is “The Nuance and Context and Complicated Issues and Situations Show” and it feels counterintuitive, like bad faith analysis, and very reductive to sum up either of these boys in a single, damming sentence that’s ignoring the text as a whole.

Dean and Sam aren’t angels. But they’re also not monsters either. That’s the point. I feel very strongly that, at least up until season 4-5, (because I am currently watching this show for the first time, so I don’t have all the knowledge, and truly a single scene can recontextualize everything very quickly, and that is happening pretty much every episode), Sam would not say that Dean abused him. But, at the same time, that’s a half truth and a half lie, because you can be blinded by faith and love and loyalty to things really going on. Dean at a certain point also would’ve never said John abused them either, and we all know that’s not reality. It’s all messy and complicated, is the point. Just as messy and complicated as real families are.

There’s also a difference between what the creators / narration is trying to tell us/get us to understand, what the characters are telling us, and what the audience can gleam from the text. I don’t believe the point the show runners are trying to make is that Dean is abusive to Sam. I really don’t. Yes, you can certainly extract that from the text, and the things they do to each other and what happens between then is fucked up and if any of that is happening to you in real life you should get out and get help, but this is also all relative when this is a fictional show and they are fighting literal monsters. Like, Sam has been tortured multiple times. I don’t think in the face of that he would call Dean one of his main abusers. But we are normal people with normal lives, so, yeah, it’s bad in that context. In their world, however, I think it’s fair to move the goalpost of severity a liiiitle bit considering. You know. They go to hell and fight the devil. Little different to typical family life.

It’s also not that serious, and I know that someone posting about their interpretations of a fictional situation between fictional characters on tv show does not automatically indicate their feelings on something so horrible and serious like abuse in real life, unless they state so, but that’s a different conversation.

Anyway. Nuance, babey!

[kismetconstellations]

Takashi Shirogane is and always was a gay man. If you can't accept that, you're probably homophobic.

[dionrevel]

been very lucky to have professors who understand that I'm autistic and that I take instructions VERY LITERALLY- and grade accordingly.

unfortunately struggling through a not-so-understanding professor who marked me down 50% because my organization of answers was "robotic" and i didn't pick up on IMPLIED INSTRUCTIONSSSS

[azatas]

feeling anxious about ever saying anything to my grandmother bc i don't know if/when she'll decide to take it badly and snap at me like wait a minute am i in a toxic living environment

[snowyh2o]

Just a random thought about how Alastor and Vox must’ve been really good friends before everything fell apart. Because Alastor knows how to make a video ad, he knows how to set things up for a movie/video shoot, things that had nothing to do with his medium, that he probably learned how to do because of Vox, because he was willing to try and learn from or for Vox. And Vox literally welcomes Alastor back home when he finds out he’s returned, has literally counted the years Alastor’s been missing when no one else seemed to know, and fashioned his clothing style to match Alastor’s (assuming it’s not just a case of everyone gets a pinstripe suit!), uses the same techniques Alastor taught Charlie about how smiling can be a tool to keep you ahead of the game.

And how it all fell apart and it wasn’t just Vox that was hurt in the process. Because you can’t tell me the man who hates TVs and modern tech due to its association with Vox doesn’t feel anything for what friendship they had and lost. Who snarls at the mere sight of him on a screen (admittedly while also dissing Alastor), who went straight back to his radio tower to diss Vox right back (and absolutely crush him lol), before threatening him against taking action, privately, twice. Alastor’s just better at hiding how much it’s affected him, and doesn’t let the bitterness of what used to be consume his every waking thought.

And maybe that’s the difference between how they view their old relationship and how the fandom seems to view it. Alastor’s upset about it, sure. He’s bitter now about Vox and everything Vox represents because he’s a past friendship that failed, but he’s also moved on with his life. Vox hasn’t. Vox still obsesses over Alastor, in the way he dresses, the way he talks, how he presents himself. It’s all reminiscent of Alastor. And when he finds out Alastor’s returned, the first thing he does is draw attention to how Alastor’s back! Talk in a roundabout way about how much he’s missed him! Has wondered where he’s been? Sends a spy into the hotel to, well, spy on Alastor! And when that doesn’t work, Vox continues to stalk Alastor through his drones instead. (And then gets off on seeing Alastor get beat up.)

Vox very much has not moved on from whatever friendship they’d had before. He hasn’t moved on from Alastor. (Or from his heavily implied obsessive crush).

We don’t know what happened between them, aside that it’s complicated and sad, that they were friends, and now they’re very much not, and that maybe part of the reason why is because Alastor rejected Vox’s request to join his team (upend his entire life to partner with Vox, assuming Alastor always worked solo and what the Vees currently have is what Vox had wanted with Alastor with his request). We can assume maybe part of why they fell apart was because Vox wanted something more from his relationship with Alastor, something Alastor could not and did not want to give him. Or maybe they just grew apart, grew distant. Vox constantly upgrading and changing and keeping up with the newest trends, chasing whatever new Thing that’ll keep him relevant, while Alastor remained set in his ways because he’s not looking for the approval of the masses.

Anyways, all this to say: when I, and I assume most other OneWayBroadcast fans talk about one-sided radiostatic, it is specifically about how Vox has a one-sided romantic/sexual attraction/crush on Alastor, that Alastor does not return, that has now turned into a one-sided obsession over Alastor. Not that their entire friendship was completely one-sided. I think saying that Vox was the only one who was ever invested in their relationship is a rather bad faith interpretation of Alastor’s character, but also does not do their relationship justice at all. It minimizes Vox’s responsibility in the fallout of their friendship, and puts the blame only on Alastor. It takes away all the juicy complexities of Vox’s character, how he’s bad person who’s done and is doing bad things, and paints him as an innocent victim to “Alastor’s manipulation”.

That’s not to say Alastor was completely innocent in the fallout either. But I hear a lot more about how the fandom woobifies Vox in their relationship than I do Alastor.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’m gonna loosely rant without direction for a minute.

I’ve been thinking a lot about being trans and religious in the last few days. I’m not exactly sure why. It’s just that this one thing keeps coming back to haunt me.

I’ve been happier and closer to God than ever before since I started transitioning. Never once have I felt that God had a problem with me being trans. My soul feels cleaner, happier, more open to the Holy Spirit even with all the other problems and anxieties in my life taken into account because even in my darkest moments now I’m still being my full self.

The thing that’s been bothering me is all these people out there who think I’m doing religion wrong because I’m not being who God made me to be or something when I feel like I’m being more of who God made me to be every day I get further away from the closet. God made my spirit and my mind just as much as he made my body so why is my body supposed to be the only factor in that?

What really bothers me is that people want me to give up what makes me happy, what strengthened my faith even, and go back to being sad and disconnected. And for what? Believing their interpretation of God is more valid than mine? For their comfort that’s for some reason more important than my comfort?

I would really like to work in a church or a religious college. I really would. But jobs with accepting congregations are few and far between. I feel like I have to spend my life moving between safe islands. I need to find my safe pockets and keep other Christians at a distance. And I hate that I have to do that. It weighs so heavily on me sometimes that they don’t believe my faith story.

I used to be the sort of person who would jump up and share my faith story at every opportunity with other Christians because I’m a convert that has stuck with my faith even through hard times. People love that shit. But now that my gender is a part of my story I feel like I either need to keep my mouth shut or lie. And I don’t want to lie so I keep my mouth shut.

I don’t really have a point to this I guess. I just wish I didn’t need to play a balancing act in order to be a queer Christian. Act less religious in queer spaces, act less queer in Christian spaces. There’s such small pockets of life I can fully be both in happily and loudly with no friction from other people.

Because all the friction between my faith and my queerness has always always come from other people. Never from my beliefs, never from my gender, never from my God. Other people. Other people keep trying to insert themselves in between me and God and go hey that’s not right you should feel bad about that. But like. I don’t. I can’t. I won’t and you can’t make me. The thing making me feel bad is that other people want me to feel bad. Other people want me to be miserable for their convenience. I hate that. That’s the worst bit for me about being queer and Christian. Is learning just how little other people value the happiness of strangers.

[kingofthewilderwest]

While I'm willing to give the live-action HTTYD a chance, I wish executives didn't play it safe and instead did spinoffs that do something new and exciting with it's world that helps expand it in the same vein as say Andor, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Better Call Saul, etc. How come they can't do that when it's a franchise with such potential for its world-building?

A non-comprehensive list of better ways to expand the HTTYD franchise without redoing a movie that's not old:

HTTYD faithful book series retelling in a 2D television show with one (on occasion two) episodes per book

HTTYD prequel with Valka and Stoick

HTTYD midquel with Valka's dragon lady adventures

HTTYD midquel with Drago's backstory

HTTYD movie short about Gobber's missing socks

HTTYD movie long about Gobber's missing socks

HTTYD movie spinoff about the Dragon Viking games

HTTYD spinoff in Ancient Rome

HTTYD spinoff in Ancient Persia

HTTYD spinoff in East Asia

HTTYD spinoff in Southeast Asia

HTTYD spinoff in South America

HTTYD spinoff in North Africa

HTTYD spinoff but in space (space dragons)

HTTYD musical stage play

HTTYD performative art exhibit

HTTYD M-rated Action RPG with story-altering choices and multiple endings

HTTYD puppet show with sock puppets made, written, and performed by 9-year-olds. Plot deviations encouraged

HTTYD as interpreted by a game of American football

HTTYD but it's a cooking show and no one knows how to make soufflé

HTTYD pornhub special

HTTYD worldwide scavenger hunt for Hiccup's prosthetic leg

HTTYD but presented as a true crime podcast

HTTYD but it's just Monty Python

HTTYD retold but it's steampunk, Toothless is an automaton that gains sentience, and Stoick wears a top hat and both Stoick and Gobber have long, elegant, up-curled mustaches

HTTYD retold but it's rated R and different characters live or die and the screen is so dark in the battle scenes that you're not sure what happened

HTTYD retold and it's live action but every actor is an actual kitten and they just mew and chase each other

HTTYD retold with actual lizards. The lizards barely move. They're sitting on their rock. Now they're sitting on each other. Now the gecko is licking its eyeball. Oh look there's a toad.

HTTYD crossover with Rise of the Guardians (never heard this idea before)

HTTYD crossover with Rise of the Guardians and Frozen and Brave (definitely never heard this idea before)

HTTYD crossover with Rise of the Guardians and Frozen and Brave and Big Hero 6 (never ever seen or heard of this)

HTTYD crossover with Shark Tale

HTTYD crossover with The Bee Movie

HTTYD crossover with Shark Tale and The Bee Movie

HTTYD but it's just an edit of every time a character says "the" "and" or "no" and the soundtrack has been replaced by the skibidi toilet song

HTTYD but it's the trilogy's script carved into the skin of a pear and written backwards

HTTYD but it's a workplace movie mockumentary as acted out by Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and the other composers. Toothless is played by Stravinsky.

HTTYD but it's a bimonthly curated box of snacks

Now. On a somewhat more serious note. It's not to say that a live action retelling in and of itself is good or bad. There are good live action retellings and they can be inspired and there are some worth receiving a chance.

But personally, I'm all about the carved pear option.

[hestzhyen]

Sunken Ships and SoRiku

Hi internet void. I went feral and maybe you'll read the result.

KH has made a lot of choices around SoRiku from a narrative perspective that, in isolation, wouldn't amount to much. A heart-to-heart here, a questionable line there, and so on. The usual things that one would do to court a queer shipping audience in an otherwise het or unromantic work. And SoRiku circles have painstakingly documented every instance to show something that looks more like a consistent and intentional effort rather than a few dollops here and there to keep shippers engaged. There's... a lot. But one stupid, insignificant thing really shook me up and made me a believer in SoRiku Endgame, Actually.

Silly as it is, it's Nomura's reaction to people shipping RikuNami that gets me the most.

Generally speaking a writer doesn't want to interact with fandom shipping unless it's to urgently course correct. As in it would be catastrophic to the narrative if the fandom had the wrong idea. Otherwise it's best to just take note of how people are interpreting things and adjust the next installment accordingly, or live and let live. Keep distant and don't risk accusations of retconning/bad writing/queerbaiting in bad faith. So the normal reaction from Nomura seeing people get excited over RikuNami would have been to just do nothing. But instead, the scene was patched to downplay the smile, and Nomura went on the record to clarify that it's not a setup for a romantic relationship between Riku and Namine.

That's insane.

Why is it so important that Riku remain romantically uninterested in a girl he'd have a natural connection to, huh? What about accidentally implying RikuNami was so detrimental to the story that it was changed and explicitly addressed like that? Even if it wasn't meant to be, surely letting it play out like AkuRoku did would be enough. Just gently clarify and move on with the story (which pretty much sunk the ship on it's own anyway). You don't wade into fandom shipping and launch nuclear warheads like Nomura did against RikuNami unless you want to leave no room for doubt.

Torpedoing RikuNami also doesn't help them keep up appearances in terms of straightness at this point. Leaving it intact would only help the case of Riku and Sora being bffs with the strongest bond 5ever- a huge boon for the writing team if they wanted to avoid things looking too gay. Nomura et. al. are absolutely aware of the impressions and jokes about how gay KH is. And KH definitely would not be the first series to play in to queer ship teasing for the lols until it's time to pair everyone up at the end.

But they did the one thing you're not supposed to do if you're just aiming to queerbait: undermining the plausible straight ship. You don't eliminate the only straight option for your character like that for the sake of "he so gay" jokes! Having a straight option available is vital to make the bait; they don't have to be compelling or important to the story, they just have to exist. Yet at this point, Riku's only option is Sora. They went out of their way to ensure we wouldn't think anything else makes sense for him.

Holy. Shit.

[artist-issues]

So if you believe every biblical word is 100% the word of your god, not to be questioned, only obeyed, regardless of how far humanity develops, how do you manage Ephesians 6:5-9?

Should human trafficking victims simply obey their captors “with a sincere heart” given that they are “servants of Christ” and the Bible urges bond servants to be “faithful and obedient?”

Hell, it promises obedient slaves will be rewarded in Heaven.

To anyone reading, seriously, check the whole verse, the context doesn’t make it better.

If your argument is that all in the Bible is above question, how do you account for that?

Nobody said "not to he questioned, only to he obeyed"—if what you MEAN by "not to be questioned," is "not to be carefully examined in order to get it right." The Bible straight-up says to carefully examine God's words. So don't be disingenuous.

Every Biblical word is 100% the Word of God, yeah. Ephesians 6:1-9 says:

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the integrity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, serving with good will as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him."

The chapter is talking about Christian-human relationships with other humans. Starts with the most basic human institution—family. Moves on to slaves and masters. Slaves, indentured servants, bond slaves, were all common in the time of the Bible being written. It was not cultural taboo to have people living with and working for you, or even being bought and sold by you—what the Bible is saying here is actually very counter-cultural. Because it means you have to keep treating them as equal humans, not objects or beasts of burden you can beat or mistreat however you want. Which is a low bar in our minds, but was an incredibly high bar back then. It's called "interpretation." You can't just take words written in a specific context and time period, for a specific intent, with a thousands-of-years-older vocabulary and culture, and go "oh, well in my time period and my language that word means this." It's about as dumb as saying the Wizard of Oz is about queer sex purely because of how many times the word "queer" is printed in the book.

Human trafficking victims are not the kind of "slaves" this verse is talking about, and I bet you know it.

In fact, there is too much anti-human-trafficking philosophy in the Bible for even the most ardent atheist to try the same little "discredit the Bible" smear tactic you're trying right now. Anyone who knows anything about history (beyond a mere 185 years ago, that is) and can see concepts beyond the far-West-ideology of "slavery bad" can have a more intelligent discussion than this.

I'm tired of the same old tripe.

Don't you see that God is using the same term, "slaves" to refer to Christians, HIS people, who are also called His "sheep, children, beloved, inheritors, heirs?" In this same verse? So then when the God who invented humanity uses the word "slave" can't you infer that maybe He doesn't mean it with the same baby-level-100 1/2-year-old connotations that you do? If He's using it to refer to the very same people He loves, protects, sacrificed His life for, and goes to unimaginable lengths to bless--then do you really think this verse is talking about people who are categorically worth being treated as less than human?

That doesn't make sense. You can see that it doesn't make sense.

Bottom line: if God said slavery was morally acceptable, guess what? It would be morally acceptable. He invented reality, your brain, and morality. But He didn't say that, so grow up and be serious. Instead, what He said was listed above: no matter your circumstances, be it as a child, father, slave, or master, remember and conduct yourself as if you're all slaves of God, and you're living to please Him, not each other or yourselves.

God condemns "man-stealing" in Exodus 21:16. Deuteronomy 22 condemns rape. The same God wrote 100% of the Bible through several different authors across centuries by the inspiration of the very words with His Spirit. No, this passage of Ephesians does not tell sexually trafficked victims to obey their kidnappers and rapists. And you know it. Got anything else?

[ilikekidsshows]

Ok. So. Maybe you can clarify something for me?

I've always had a hard time understanding Ladybug's level of self-confidence (or lack there-of), especially in Season 1. It borders on cocky at times (for example, the whole "I'm better than both of you" thing in Copycat, whistling her theme song confidently to herself in Puppeteer, generally the smug looks whenever she succeeds, etc) and I guess I have a hard time reconciling it with the Marinette who apparently doubts herself all the time (and constantly needs pep talks from Tikki, Chat Noir, Alya, Luka and etc. to function). If we especially take the movie songs into consideration, I understand her story is supposed to be about believing in oneself. But most the time this doesn't seem to be something she (at least as Ladybug) genuinely struggles with? Honestly I find her borderline arrogant at times.

....notable exceptions being the times she makes a mistake, does a complete 180 and calls herself the "worst" and requires a pep talk reaffirming her that she's the "best ladybug ever" or something similar to get going again. I guess this is where the whole "believe in yourself!" message is supposed to fit in.

So, why then, is she so self-assured otherwise? Is she confident in herself or not? Am I supposed to interpret that she's...faking the confidence? She doesn't really give me false bravado vibes, so I find this angle difficult to accept. It seems like she's genuinely impressed with herself and self-congratulatory a good chunk of the time.

The self-doubt just often feels forced to me. Like, in Stormy Weather: she's smirking confidently as she tells Chat Noir to "just follow my lead". Chronologically this is right after Origins, wherein she was apparently near crippled in fear that she couldn't do it. She just...gets over her self-doubt, near instantly, apparently? And is now a borderline arrogant girlboss?

What am I missing? I'm trying to find a better faith interpretation than just...bad writing, but I'm struggling.

---

I’m trying to remember how I interpreted this aspect of the character before the retool, and I think I saw it as another aspect of her being a coddled child. Her self-image is incredibly fragile, but she’s also getting constant consolation, support and praise so that her failures don’t really register long-term. This is why, when she messes up, she feels like it’s the first time every single time and she’s embarrassed and scared of what everyone will think of her, but, once she gets the reassurance that no one thinks badly of her, she can just brush it off like it didn’t happen, until it happens again. Children with coddling parents are very focused on what others think of them, because they’ve been raised to rely on external validation. Seeing the results of a working plan also grants her that external feedback.

The lack of confidence is also something that’s more closely tied to her life as Marinette. She never makes nightmare scenarios where she embarrasses herself in front of Adrien and has to move countries as Ladybug. This is the Spider-Man effect. As a superhero, she is anonymous, so anything she does doesn’t come to embarrass her as Marinette, which is where that smugness comes from. In the original show, Marinette barely acknowledges that she’s a superhero on the side as Marinette, because she’s separated everything about it from her day-to-day self. She feels untouchable, because she can always retreat back to being Marinette if she looks embarrassing. There’s also the fact that the Miraculous increases her physical capabilities so that she isn’t an embarrassing clutz as a hero.

There’s also another meta reason for it, however. Here’s where I remind people that Miraculous’ narrative structure is copied from elsewhere. In Miraculous, anything fantastical that happens is only relevant in how it affects the mundane aspects of our protagonist’s life, like her status in school and what the boy she likes thinks about her. This is why Gabriel can destroy the world but it’s a happy ending because Marinette gets to kiss Adrien in the end. This is actually a common aspect of the “my dear diary” sub genre of the school drama genre (like Dork Diaries). In the original book of the Princess Diary, the protagonist being a princess was only important in how it complicated her school life, with the actual princess side of things getting a lot less attention. This is also why Marinette doesn’t worry about consequences as Ladybug; it’s not narratively relevant. There’s even a writing tip about not including unnecessary details that’ll bog things down.

Here’s where my salt side comes in some more. I have repeatedly said that the Miraculous writers kind of want to have their cake and eat it too in terms of Marinette’s character. They want her simultaneously to be the greatest girlboss ever who needs no help ever, but also vulnerable so that she can win the audience’s sympathy. This is why Marinette can be downright arrogant in one moment, and a complete emotional wreck that constantly needs and gets validation in another. They want Marinette to be an admirable, competent hero, like the pop culture image of Batman, who the girls watching the show can look up to and want to roleplay as, because that’s how you sell a superhero character. However, they also want Marinette to be that pitiful social loser who never gets her way that school drama genre audiences always root for to just get a break, because that sells the protagonist in that genre. This creates a Frankenstein’s Monster of a protagonist, cobbled together from parts that don’t fit together when used this clumsily.

Astruc is a simple writing guy, he insists Miraculous as a simple show, but combining two completely different protagonists into one isn’t simple and it shows in how sloppy the result is. Because, here’s the thing: the show only has characters say things that lean into either of these presentations of Marinette, while never actually committing to them properly in what happens in the story. Marinette can say she’s better than Cat Noir and everyone can say she’s the best Ladybug ever all they want, but she’s still a complete nervous wreck when the chips are down who got the world destroyed through her incompetence. Ladybug doesn’t have many impressive accomplishments under her belt that would make her a competent hero. Similarly, the characters can act like she’s the perpetual bully victim, but that doesn’t change the fact that Marinette easily beats Chloé every single time outside of a single flashback. Marinette complains about every minor grievance she has, but almost every single character around her has worse problems and makes her look like a privileged whiner instead of someone actively suffering. Marinette doesn’t have real problems that would make her a “loser” as a character archetype.

The thing is, this type of protagonist combination can be worked with, and it is, in fact, one of the more common teen superhero archetypes. Look no further than Danny Phantom to find the perfect combination of a cool superhero and teen loser. Danny is a superhero who, while occasionally needing help, never makes the audience question his morals or competence. He's also a normal guy struggling through school life as one of the less popular kids in school who can’t seem to get the girl he likes to notice him and who never manages to improve his social standing long term, all culminating to him learning that he doesn’t have to be the most popular kid in school as long as he has real friends. He has actual fights with his friends that they need to discuss and work through instead of every conflict being resolved by him crying and being instantly forgiven. His parents are also loving but clearly don’t understand him, explaining him keeping his double life a secret from them and they often cause complications with their expectations, instead of catering to Danny's wants all the time. The only time Danny wanted to quit on something was in the grand finale, as the darkest hour moment. Danny's life is hard, but he'll still save the day.

As I said, the big problem is that the writers don’t commit to Marinette actually having a bad life that would make her a social loser as a civilian. She’s the most popular girl in school, she’s a rising star designer, she beats her bullies with ease every time, she has supportive parents who cater to her every whim, she has a great relationship with all the boys she likes and none of her friends ever get mad at her for anything. Marinette’s life is practically perfect once you actually stop to think about it instead of implanting the typical school drama mold onto her that she’s a miserable wretch who never gets enough support. You can’t even say she’s a loser as Ladybug because everyone is constantly giving her unearned praise, including herself. Every time she has a nervous breakdown, there’s people practically lining up to console her and make her feel good about her failure so that she never has to actually own up to it and grow from it.

The only thing about Marinette that makes her a “loser” is her incapability to accomplish her main goals as a protagonist, but no one in universe is meta enough to point that out. In-universe, Marinette isn’t a loser at all, even though, by all rights, she should be, because the writers are shielding her from having anything too bad happen to her. She always lies to and ghosts her friends and they are never even mildly offended. She hurts people every other episode, only to be instantly forgiven. She messes up important tasks but the people around her planned for that or coddle her through her failure. Every time she’s miserable, it’s a self-caused misery of thinking everyone will hate her and how bad she has it, and every time it gets resolved by some more consoling, validation and unearned praise.

I’ve never seen a fictional character get treated as gently as Marinette, and it’s so weird, because that’s not a trait of superhero or school drama protagonists. If anything, these two arc types both tend to have the worst of luck to get the conflict ball rolling. That’s what you get when you make the protagonist the child you thought you’d have one day; you get invested in her comfort over what makes sense as a story.

[maryfailstowrite]

Do you want to know who one of my favorite DRA characters is???? do you??? no, you don’t, but I’m telling you either way: it’s Kinji Uehara. Here’s why.

(obviously, spoilers for DRA ahead, so…. beware :))

So, to me, Uehara is an intriguing character from the start. When you hear the title “Ultimate Priest”, it makes you imagine a loud guy who is going to ramble on and on about God and religion and accepting Jesus Christ into your heart and all that… but you’re met with a quiet man that explicitly tells you that he doesn’t force his faith onto others. Even Yuki is a bit surprised, and this brief conversation leaves you wanting to find out more about him…

And oh man, do we find out more.

I think his first shining moment is in chapter two. When Kinjo is trying to start his dictatorship- I mean cult- Sorry, when Kinjo is trying to establish himself as leader of the group, and says that whoever doesn’t agree with his conditions must get out and will be seen as a preliminary criminal from now on. We see Mekaru get out and tell Kinjo he’s insane, which is a power move, by the way, but expected from her. This is Rei Mekaru we’re talking about, after all. She ain’t taking no one’s bullshit. Then Kizuna gets out (not without yelling and crying a bit before, of course), which was also expected given her mental state at the moment… And then there’s Uehara. He literally just gets up and leaves, and only explains himself because Inori asks him to.

So far, Uehara has been a pretty tame person. He got along with everyone, helped at the trial, and overall, he had never gone against anyone. But now he opposes himself (or, rather, Kinjo opposes the both groups against each other, but that’s another tale) against the main group of students, and decides, for some unknown reason to everyone, that being seen as a potential murderer is better than having to follow Kinjo’s rules.

His response to being asked why he’s leaving? This:

Then he walks out. Just like that.

Obviously, the Ultimate Priest would be a pretty moral-driven person, right? He’s supposed to be a spiritual leader, after all.

The first interpretation of this we make is that associating with Kinjo and following his orders would eventually make Uehara do something that goes against his moral compass. Even if Kinjo tries to make himself seem reasonable and reliable, it’s pretty damn obvious he’s not after the first trial. We know that he has a pretty black and white view on criminality, as far as thinking that all murderers (no matter their motive, circumstances, etc.) should die, a moral view that is a stark contrast to the Christian concepts of mercy and forgiveness. Concepts Uehara, as a priest, would base his world view on.

Kinjo and Uehara are basically opposites, morality wise. Kinjo would do anything (and in his case, it really is anything) to maintain the order he believes the world (in this context, the school and his classmates) should follow, and he’d go to any lengths to make sure justice finds every person he sees as ‘bad’, no matter how drastic or dark anyone else thinks his methods are. Uehara, on his end, doesn’t hold any grudges against any of the students that stopped talking to him after he left Kinjo’s group, and he doesn’t even hold a grudge against Kinjo, who is the whole reason why he’s been ostracized from his classmates. He still collaborates with the investigations and in the trials, and there’s nothing that points to him being mad at anyone for basically leaving him to his own luck in a killing game. He believes in and practices the mercy and forgiveness he’s been taught to have as a priest…

Or does he, though?

(Note: There is another interpretation to his response after being asked why he’s leaving. But we need to know what happens after chapter two to make it, so we’ll get to it later.)

Now, chapter three is his chapter. It’s his last chapter alive, and here’s where we get a more deep dive into him. But we can’t talk about any of this without talking about the murder itself, so… let’s get that out of the way.

The third murder case is incredibly gruesome (or at least it was for me), especially Inori’s death. You can hear her screaming for help inside the lab minutes before you open the door and find her tied up and burnt to death. It looks like an excessively cruel murder, especially considering there was no real reason to kill her in such a painful way. She was one of the weakest, if not the weakest character in the cast (physically speaking, of course), and she wouldn’t have shown much resistance if simply attacked (especially against someone like Uehara, who is double her size).

Plus, aside from Inori and Yamaguchi, two other people were attacked. Kinjo was left unconscious on the library floor, and Mekaru was taken out with chloroform and shoved into a locker. It feels unnecessary, and like attacking more people means the possibility of leaving more clues behind… but we’ll get to that later, so hang on for a moment.

Now, personally, after the victim reveals, I was conflicted. I had gotten spoiled, so I already knew who the killer was… and I was in denial about it. I wondered what could’ve driven Uehara to commit such a cruel and almost sadistic crime, and I was a bit scared they would pull the ‘oh my god, this character that seemed calm and collected up until this point is actually super insane and a cold-blooded murderer’ thing the original Danganronpa always does in chapter 3. In this aspect, I was pleasantly surprised.

Uehara being the traitor is a super surprising reveal. Even after ‘solving’ the murder case and voting correctly, it had never crossed anyone’s mind that Uehara was the traitor. Yet, that was exactly why the murders even happened in the first place. The motive video they had been given only existed to give Uehara instructions: If he killed now, the children Monokuma had kidnapped from Uehara’s cathedral would be freed, and if he didn’t get caught, he’d get to see them after getting out.

Of course, Uehara complied. Those kids were very dear to him. And we discover that originally, Uehara’s plan was far less gruesome: He kidnapped Inori from the infirmary and killed her with the spear while she was passed out (I assume he used the chloroform on her too, since she’s passed out when Yamaguchi finds her). But Yamaguchi’s appearance throws his whole plan away, and, as we see in the trial… Uehara breaks down easily under pressure. In other words, he panicked.

I think this is pretty important to understand why he did what he did. He never intended to kill anyone if it hadn’t been because Monokuma coerced him to, much less in such a horrible way. But after killing Yamaguchi “on accident” (wasn’t an accident, but it wasn’t his original plan), he probably started panicking and tried to bullshit his way out of it. He knew he couldn’t just let Inori go, because she’d immediately know he was the one that killed Yamaguchi. Even if she was passed out as he tried to save her, if a guy tried to kidnap you and someone else appeared dead a few hours later… it would be pretty suspicious. Plus, her coat was drenched in his blood, so… yeah, no way she wouldn’t put 2 and 2 together. So, Uehara started putting together a new plan with the first things he saw on the way. He had the phone on him, so his mind probably went there first, and then he started making up the rest of it from there.

Don’t take this as me trying to excuse his actions, though. Even if we think he didn’t realize just how painful his method was when he planned it, he still fucking electrocuted someone alive, which is horrible. He could’ve let Inori go and let her know he was the culprit, sacrificing himself, because the children would’ve still been released. He still had that selfishness in him to want to survive. But I think that imagining him making up a new plan on the way in a panicked state makes it easier to understand why he did things that seem completely unnecessary. And since we already know he’s not good under pressure because of the trial… I don’t think it’s hard to imagine him like that. He most likely acted on the first ideas he had using things he already had on him (the phone for Inori, the chloroform with Mekaru) or the first things he found, and that’s why his plan is so messy. Why did he drag Yamaguchi to the library when he could’ve just left him in the art room’s locker? To leave him next to Kinjo? He wanted to pin the murder on the guy that believes all murderers should die? While said guy was unconscious? Or was it just to confuse everyone and make them think the murders happened at the same time? And why did he shove Mekaru in the locker with the dried blood? That was basically leading the cast to an important clue. Why did he leave Inori’s coat in the art room’s trash? Knowing that they would investigate there, since that’s where they found Mekaru?

Like I said, the more murders/attacks, the more clues you potentially leave behind. And if we take into consideration that he was acting on the go, and that he didn’t have much time to cover up what he was doing (because he did a ton of shit)… It was impossible for him to get away with it. He probably knew this, but he held onto the hope that perhaps he’d be able to survive, and that’s why he breaks down when he realizes he’s cornered in the trial. But when he realizes that he’s been caught, he calms down because… at least the children are safe, right? Right?

One of the most heartbreaking moments in this chapter is the reveal that the children are, in fact, far from safe. Before killing Uehara, Monokuma shows him (and the whole cast) a video of the children’s dead, decomposing bodies, driving Uehara into a state of shock he dies in. I think this is a great way to make the cast’s fear and hate for the mastermind grow, but I feel like it’s also there to make a point. Uehara tried killing his classmates so that the kids could survive. He tried to choose by himself who lived and who died, and in the end, it only caused more deaths. This situation brings a pretty interesting debate to the table, and a pretty important one for the development of the game too.

And that’s what makes this case different from your usual chapter three double murder. The murders didn’t feel pointless. In the original Danganronpa series, it felt to me like some of the murders were just… there. Especially the third cases. They didn’t help develop anyone’s character, they didn’t help advance the overall plot, they just happened. For example, the third case of Trigger Happy Havoc. Celestia goes from being the “Queen of Liars”, a calm and collected woman that maintained her cool even when faced with the deaths of her classmates… to a horrible liar that was caught in, like, 5 seconds. Not to mention, her motive was money. Sure, I can perhaps sympathize with the fact that she wanted to make her dream come true with that money… but as the Ultimate Gambler, she could’ve won that money after getting out of the killing game. It isn’t a particularly strong motive, and it doesn’t make Celestia’s character better or more interesting. The reveal that Celestia was actually Taeko Yasuhiro is probably the most interesting part of this chapter, but we probably didn’t need two murders to happen to make that reveal, did we? Plus, she dies like, half an hour later, so it’s not like that reveal served for much. The deaths of Hifumi, Taka and Celestia don’t particularly develop anyone’s character, and they don’t push forward the overall plot either. They get rid of characters they didn’t want surviving, and that’s about it.

But DRA chapter three didn’t feel like that. And I think the main reason for this is, surprisingly enough, Kinjo.

The third trial is the start of Kinjo’s downfall. Like I’ve already stated before, Kinjo and Uehara are opposites when it comes to morality, so I believe it could only be him who pointed out Kinjo’s issues. And he does it in the only way Kinjo would listen to him: Using Kinjo’s arguments to support his own actions (and the murder he committed).

When Kinjo is going on and on about Uehara being a serial killer (which isn’t factually correct by the way, but sure, Mr. Cop), Uehara tells him that it’s strange Kinjo is showing such strong opposition to him and his actions when they were both using the same logic. Of course, Kinjo is a bit taken back by this, and asks Uehara to explain…

Uehara then responds with this:

He quotes Kinjo. He’s not only using the cop’s logic against him, no, he’s using the same phrase Kinjo used to defend himself and his actions to defend his crime.

After this, Uehara elaborates further: He explains that he sacrificed the lives of the fifteen students for the lives of 100 children. He just chose to save the most people, even if a few lives were lost in the way… Doesn’t that remind us of someone?

Kinjo deliberately chose to put a few people in danger for a chance at saving a higher number of them. He didn’t directly kill anyone, sure, but he wouldn’t have cared if they were killed. Kinjo protected everyone else and left the ones that didn’t agree with him to die, because he thought that was the way in which the most people would survive.

Uehara knows he wasn’t in the right. He knows murder is still an awful act, no matter what the reason was, and that he’ll have to pay for it in the afterlife. But Kinjo doesn’t. Kinjo thinks picking and choosing who survives and who doesn’t is the right thing to do. That’s what Uehara wants him to realize: That the reasoning that drove him to kill is the reasoning Kinjo was using as a leader, and that it would only drive Kinjo down the same path Uehara was dying in: a path of blood-stained hands, a path of guilt, and a path of death.

No one can play God. Not even the Ultimate Priest.

And Kinjo actually reconsiders his stance after the trial (and after everyone turns against him). Even if it was a dead end, because Kinjo ended up just standing stronger on what he believed in until the fourth trial, it makes him wonder about his actions, and it foreshadows what happens in chapter four. It lets us see that Kinjo doesn’t stand as strong and he seems, and that his views are bound to fall apart sooner or later.

Uehara and his murder case develop Kinjo’s character. He’s quiet after Uehara asks him to reconsider his stance so far (which is a lot, considering how much he bitched every time a murderer was found guilty), and he even asks Yuki if he’s wrong the next day. The trial, and especially the conversation with Yuki that it triggers later, helps us see Kinjo as a man who’s been put under too much pressure for too much time. A man that has been trying to protect everyone around him his whole life, but that had a completely wrong approach to it. Instead of the crazy bitch we see him as the whole time, we get closer to the actual person Kinjo is, not the leader he makes himself to be.

Of course, one could argue that having him just break down in chapter four would’ve led to the same series of events (aka him trying to kill himself, and therefore remembering everything and triggering the plot for the rest of the game), but… it wouldn’t have felt the same. If Kinjo had fainted in the fourth trial, then killed himself the next day, it would’ve just left us with a sense of helplessness. It would’ve felt like something that was bound to happen, because no one could’ve helped Kinjo… and that’s what case three brings to the table. Kinjo could’ve been helped. Uehara helps him question his actions, and if only Yuki had pushed Kinjo in the right direction when he opened up to him, perhaps we could’ve seen a much different Kinjo for the rest of the game. But that doesn’t happen. Case three makes us see Kinjo waver and falter, and it foreshadows what happens later on: it lets us know that Kinjo’s confidence wouldn’t last forever, and that he was going to break sooner or later. And it also adds to Yuki’s sense of despair when he sees Kinjo shoot himself in front of everyone: he knows it didn’t have to happen like that. He knows he could’ve helped, he knows he had the chance to, but he wasn’t capable to step up when Kinjo needed him. It makes the scene feel a lot different, and I really like what chapter three adds to the further development of the game.

But when has this turned to be about Kinjo, huh?! This post is about Uehara, so let me get back to him now. Remember the note I left after talking about chapter two? That there could be another interpretation to what he tells everyone when he leaves the group protected by Kinjo, but that we needed to know what happened in chapter three to talk about it? Yeah, let’s talk about it now.

“I always act in the way I believe is right”. We can still interpret this as him refusing to work under Kinjo’s leadership, since it would be a direct betrayal to his core values as a priest. But knowing now that he’s the traitor, it makes me think that perhaps it wasn’t so much about him not wanting to work with Kinjo as a leader, but rather about him wanting to distance himself from his classmates. I think that “doing what the believes is right” could mean causing the least harm he could to his classmates, and distancing himself from them was the only way he had to do that. Knowing he was the traitor would hurt much less if he didn’t get along with anyone in the first place, right?

We get to know the person Uehara is before the death game, even if briefly, from the flashbacks Yuki has in chapter six. We know he tried to think of the well-being of his classmates. We know he was the one that lead Inori and Yamaguchi to the warehouse while the Monokumas attacked the Kisaragi Laboratory in an attempt to protect them, and we know that even if he had a hard time adapting to a class environment when he first entered Hope’s Peak, he formed a bond with Yamaguchi because “he is a more warm-hearted man than any of them”. When one of the Monokumas enters the warehouse, and Yamaguchi holds him so that Inori and Uehara can escape, Uehara tells him that he’ll come back for him. And even in the killing game, we get to know him as a gentle-natured person, and we see just how deeply he cared about the kids he took care of at the cathedral (to the point of becoming completely numb when he finds out they’re dead). Even when he tried to kill, his original plan was to make the least harm possible… but that went horribly wrong, so not like it counts too much (again, I’m not trying to excuse his actions or take any responsibility from him, that murder was fucking awful). He was going to betray everyone sooner or later, sure, but I can imagine him trying to do it in the least harmful way he could. He was forced into a position where he had to do that to cause minimal damage, after all.

Uehara goes from being a quiet person that doesn’t seem like he’ll do much for the plot, to one of the most interesting (and important, in my opinion) characters in the narrative. DRA excels at creating characters with many layers, characters that feel human. There are few characters that can be considered a hundred percent good or bad, because… that’s not how humans work. It plays with the roles you expect the characters to have, it plays with your expectations, and it still allows room for a lot of interpretations of its characters and events (which is something I love in all pieces of media). And isn’t this the beauty of it? The humanity of media? Being able to see and reflect completely different ideas from the same content? In the end, all this doesn’t matter. I could write a whole book of interpretations and theories for the game, and it wouldn’t matter. What matters is that there is room for different interpretations, and that they all together build an independent and unrepeatable experience for the player. So, if there’s something you have to take from all this… enjoy your games. Write about them. Analyze them. Draw fanarts. Make AU’s. Cosplay. I don’t care how good or bad you’re at it, enjoy your favorite pieces of media to their fullest. Allow them to make you think. That’s the only thing that matters, after all. And that’s why I’m writing all this.

Oh, and also, love Kinji Uehara. That’s, like, super super important too. God bless you all, and see you next time.

[messymindofmine]

Fandoms and Marginalized Communities

Before I say anything, I want to make it known that everything I say, I am saying as Muslim WOC. I am also saying it as someone with a best friend who is the reason I got into Lone Star to begin with. This best friend is a gay, Jewish man who is also a recovering addict. One of the first things he said to me about the show was that it felt like TK Strand was written especially for him. However, my friend (who was in the fandom since the beginning) left a while back because he finally decided he was sick of feeling unsafe in the fandom. This was a feeling he had since the beginning that had gotten progressively worse.

As disappointing as it has been since s4 to see the way people turned on Carlos, I do appreciate how many people are calling it out. Even though I don't come from the same background as Carlos, I do know what it is like to come from a culture that pushes you into a heteronormative role and so I can empathize with Carlos on his reasoning for marrying Iris and then keeping it a secret even if I wish he had told TK sooner. But then of course he felt like he couldn't because when you have spent your whole life feeling like you could be rejected for revealing something about yourself, it's extremely hard to move beyond it.

That said, I do think it is important as a fandom to talk about reactions we have to characters and why we need to check our own biases. I'm not saying that people have to agree and love every single thing that Carlos does but we can and should give grace to him and consider why he is doing something. It is deeply problematic to assume that he is going to be a bad, neglectful husband the way people were prior to 5X05. Same with how people reacted towards him in s4. You can be upset about a character's decisions while also being compassionate about why they are behaving that way. To go "well they suck and are bad" and interpret every single thing they do with the worst-faith interpretation is deeply problematic when discussing a character of color.

I have been having conversations with the friend I mentioned before about all this stuff and one thing that he said to me that has stuck with me is how one big reason why he left the fandom was because he kept seeing people bring up the ableism TK has gotten since the start of the show in conversations about Carlos and racism and to him it felt deeply insulting because it felt like those people were just using ableism as a way to deflect from the conversation about Carlos and not because they actually care about the issue. Especially since so many of them are the same ones that never had anything to say about the ableism in the past and even indulged in it before s4 when they turned on Carlos. @paperstorm and I have also talked about this and how it's so frustrating that when a conversation is being had about racism, people who have never cared about ableism before will bring it up as a weapon. I do feel like it is extremely important to have conversations about ableism in the fandom because just like racism, misogyny and homophobia, it has been an issue in every fandom I have ever been a part of but bringing it up in the context of a conversation about racism towards Carlos is not the right time and only serves to diminish the seriousness of ableism as an issue. It is not a weapon to be used to deflect and silence people who are hurt by how Carlos has been treated since s4.

That said, I do want to acknowledge the frustration and hurt that I know a lot of people are feeling when it seems like conversations about Carlos are being had in a way that conversations about TK have never really been had. There are people who have talked about TK and ableism but those conversations have been on a pretty small scale. I get the hurt because I feel it too seeing big blogs talking about Carlos and racism and even unintentionally making it seem as though TK has always been favored by the fandom because he is white. I know that it can be hurtful to see people say that Carlos is only getting hate because he is no longer perfect for TK as though TK wasn't the one on the receiving end of hate since 1x02. It is important to acknowledge that Carlos was put on a pedestal right up until s4 and defense of him was done at the expense of TK. When 3x13 aired, people were outright accusing TK of cheating with Cooper and just generally hating on him because they felt he made Carlos sad by excluding him. This was actually deeply triggering for my friend because he is in recovery himself. Let me tell you, it was painful for me to see how much it hurt him seeing the way TK was called selfish and all kind of other things because it is something he has to live with on a daily basis in his own life. There have been so many times since the show first started that people have said things about how Carlos deserves better and how TK just doesn't love Carlos as much as Carlos loves him. How TK gets all the care and attention and he never does anything for Carlos. How TK gets special treatment from the fandom. All of these things and so much more. And then in s4, when these same people turned on Carlos and started using TK as a weapon, it became too much for my friend and he left the fandom. I know he is not the only one who did so for the same reason.

I just wish that people would understand that conversations about TK and Carlos can both be had and we can even talk about how bigotry towards different groups are ultimately the same in the way they are perpetuated. That is to say, it's not always they obvious ways of using slurs but in the way of microaggressions. I also think it is important when defending Carlos to not ignore the hate TK has gotten. I'm not saying we have to bring it up in detail in every conversation but simply just not making it seem like TK gets favored. There was a double standard against TK right from 1x02 and it's not fair to ignore that. Actually, even the way people weaponize TK is a big microaggression. To act like somehow he has no agency in his own marriage and that he is going to fall apart if he doesn't have Carlos' attention is a big microaggression because it leans into this idea of addicts being selfish and weak. The TK that exists in the show is the opposite of both these things and it is just as offensive to speak about him as though he is those things as it is to make Carlos out to be a terrible, neglectful husband.

Overall, we all need to be more careful about how we speak and write about characters. And even if our only intention for wanting a character to make a mistake is to maximize angst, we need to be careful about how we project our desire for angst. Wanting Carlos to mess up because the angst potential of it is exciting is still a microaggression both because it villainizes him unfairly and because it takes agency away from TK. The same applies the other way round too. Wanting TK to mess up for the sake of angst (as has happened) is also a microaggression because it villainizes him unfairly and it takes agency away from Carlos. When we talk about characters that represent marginalized communities of any kind, we need to take these things into consideration. We also need to listen to others when these issues are called out. If your response to someone pointing out something that is offensive is anger and deflection, that is on you. As someone who has been in this fandom since the beginning and has seen people leave because they feel unsafe for any reason, I don't want that to happen to anyone else. We can have fun and escape real life in fandom while also calling things out. We can also call out one issues without ignoring or minimizing others. I know it can be a hard thing to balance sometimes but the best thing for us to do when it comes to situations like this is to be open-minded and willing to learn and grow ourselves rather than lashing out at others for speaking up about something that hurts them.

[dykesynthezoid]

Granted I know there are Several reasons people might insist on viewing Armand with only the most bad faith interpretations possible and it must be noted he is also certainly guilty of Crimes, but as an autistic person who sees him as autistic, there is something so crazy about how people talk about him sometimes, they’ll be like look at him… sitting there like that… hatching his evil plans… he’s so alien…. so unnerving…. the way he moves… he doesn’t seem even remotely human… and it’ll be like. The natural body language I use every single day of my life

[ranticore]

Forward by the Author [Qedivar's research, prologue]

My friends, this biography almost killed me. At the conclusion of my thesis work and the culmination of months of dangerous study, I write to you now from my bower at an undisclosed location, where I currently rest with three broken limbs and more than a few shattered nerves.

Effete shortwing academics such as myself are not particularly known for venturing across the water to West, where land is so rare as to be the continent’s most precious resource. But this continent was where our ancestors first arrived to this world—and yes, it is now unequivocal truth that we are not natives to our planet, as I was first to discover at the ruins of Atom on that wretched continent.

The coarse facts have been spread throughout Intun and East at large, ferried by news-mongers who have yet to finish my associated published paper. They will soon realise that they have missed the most fascinating details of our history. Naysayers have already decried me a heretic and I regret to agree with them, but it is true that my findings are heretical. Is that necessarily a bad thing? I say that a little bit of heresy might vastly improve the quality of our lives and understanding of the world at large.

A martyr, however, I am not. For this reason I do not attach my name to this record. Shortwings being as we are – all quite alike and common as muck – I am confident in my ability to remain anonymous to my readers while still revealing enough to prove myself a credible source. You will need to take rather a lot on faith, when you read this. You will need to suspend your disbelief that we are aliens on Siren. And you will need to accept that every one of us is a product of intentional design – not by some god, and not by so-called ‘evolutionary theory’, but by the ancient first settlers at Atom.

I will write a detailed account of my explorations another time, when I have healed from their rigours. I felt it more important to release the results of my study first, rather than let it become a vanity project with myself its hero. Instead I will preface each chapter with a description of the relevant source texts, including where and in what condition they were found.

On to the source texts themselves. I have created this biography to provide an introduction to the first Sirenian, Ishmael. The phocids of the Southern Spiral know Ishmael as offspring of the moon of the same name, and the ruler of the high tide. The inhabitants of Odr’s Sleep in the far North take a less literal interpretation of Ishmael’s moon and consider him a common ancestor. Harpies in my home Spire know him less, though–without revealing too much of my own bower–we have a mythological figure of the same name; Ishmael, who arrives to punish the crime of hubris.

It was a great surprise to me to find that Ishmael was a real person, and indeed that he was the first person born on this planet. Others arrived, yes, but he took his first breath here, before anyone else. My phocid companion was remarkably unsurprised by the discovery, and could even provide a little local Spiral folklore to illustrate the stories told of Ishmael’s life, which I will include as footnotes in the relevant chapters.

My source texts are extremely varied. Some describe Ishmael from the point of view of those who settled in Atom. Some are his own writings. Some are even a format which projects moving images onto walls, which I will also describe in a coming paper to be published. The technologies many visored longwings preserve sit in rot and ruin in Atom, proving, once and for all, that it was a society more advanced than our own. For the purpose of this introduction and my prefaces, I will refer to this as Precursor society, though in the source text they did not refer to themselves as anything but ‘settlers’ or ‘colonists’.

In those ruins, my party and I discovered things which we still have no words to describe. As a result, many of my interpretations are direct and untranslated, in the hopes that later, with greater understanding, we might return to the source and make more accurate interpretations. Many of these concepts were considered so commonplace to Precursor life that no one bothered making concrete definitions for the benefit of the scholars who might once hope to study them. Precursor society stems largely from a place called ‘Earth’ which we surmise to be the Precursors’ location of origin.

From this, we move on to the most puzzling concept of all. The concept of Humans. I took it to be a clan name at first, given the texts’ referral to Ishmael, a type of proto-phocid unique at Atom, as Human when the other people in the records did not very much resemble Ishmael at all. But Humans were in fact a species. Humans were bipedal and lacked feathers, though their faces will be familiar to any modern Sirenian, because they resemble our own. Once I succeeded in translating the scientific notes surrounding Ishmael, all became clear, and it was this shocking truth which forces me to write under a pen name.

Every modern Sirenian is a Human. We descend from the first-born Sirenians, who were designed – by techniques as purposeful as an artist’s brushstrokes – to occupy the particular range of morphologies which we now inhabit.

Precursor Humans arrived here, to this world, and knew their bodies were poorly adapted to survive here, lacking mechanisms of flight or aquatic mobility and being unable to breathe our air, or eat any of the foods we take for granted. So they engineered those mechanisms to develop in other Humans, which were birthed and raised at Atom in its prime in a series of successive generations, the last of which will likely be my most controversial uncovering. The engineered Humans – Sirenians like you and I – were not privileged members of Atom. In fact, we were a sort of labour underclass to them, who would brave the sea and sky of Siren outside Atom’s bubble where the Precursor Humans could not venture.

Ishmael was the first of this underclass, and was originally intended as merely a first concept, a rough draft of what phocids and selkies would become. He was a fascinating person who I believe is deserving of the great length of this biography and worthy of being the first introduction to the lives of Precursors that many modern Sirenians will experience. Where at all possible I have avoided editorialising Ishmael’s life, instead presenting it as it happened. We find not a revolutionary hero or an icon of tidal vengeance but a person born into a state of great confusion and neglect. He was a Human like his peers but was treated as inherently lesser, hardly a person at all, and he did not conform to expectations of graceful victimhood.

Welcome to the beginning of the world.

[scoobydoodean]

Every time I say "man what Sam did to Kevin sucked" I get bombarded w people yelling about how it was Gadreel that killed him and how they're "so sick of everyone blaming Sam"... like bro, I was talking about Sam letting Kevin get kidnapped...

There are some pockets of fans in spnblr that believe everyone should have to walk around egg shells around them. They are overly sensitive to the point that they need to control what everyone else thinks and posts, so they reblog things they don't agree with (or that they have interpreted in bad faith) to start fights and try to belittle or intimidate the OP into silence instead of blocking or filtering and moving on with their lives. If they don't get what they want (you shutting up), they feel attacked even though they're the ones coming to your blog, being annoying and obtuse, and lashing out. Instead of creating personal boundaries to protect themselves from things that upset them (i.e., blocking and filtering) they believe it's your job to become psychically aware of all of their individual personal traumas and cater every thought in your head and every single thing you post to their feelings, opinions, and boundaries, and if you don't, you are a bad person who is "failing to mitigate harm". They will accuse you of hurting them and try to make you feel like a bad person... all over a TV show—because they are nasty, manipulative, miserable people.

This is unsolicited advice, but I would recommend blocking as many people like that as you need to until stuff like this stops happening. (If harassment continues from sock accounts after blocking, that's another matter, but usually people don't take it that far). People like this are not worth your time or energy to respond to or clarify things with because no matter what you do or how clearly you write down your thoughts, they will continuously respond emotionally and in bad faith. Over time, you can grow desensitized to this kind of thing and it may not bother you anymore, but if you are genuinely being bombarded and you aren't used to a number of people showing up at a time to be angry with you (especially over things you didn't say) then it can be very discouraging and affect what you feel like posting and cause you to walk on eggshells on your own blog to avoid upsetting some random weirdo who might happen to see it, which isn't something you deserve to feel no matter what your opinions are on a silly TV show.

[mxmarsbars]

i need specific songs on when the pawn and who they relate to on the life series immediately.

THIS IS MY TIME \^u^/

spoiler alert. most of them link back to either traffic!impulse/clock duo or traffic!pearl (and sometimes traffic!tango) because i’m crazy and am mentally ill about them specifically >_< sorry

this is also all just my interpretations and if you want to see if these songs are applicable to your favorite characters, LISTEN TO THE ALBUM. IT’S SO GOOD.

ANYWAYS here’s my list. explanations below the cut.

on the bound: impulse (clock duo?)

to your love: impulse (clock duo)

limp: impulse (clock duo), tango (tangdubs), pearl (her + scott/divorce quartet)

love ridden: impulse (clock duo)

paper bag: impulse (clock duo), pearl (her + scott)

a mistake: impulse, pearl, tango

fast as you can: pearl (her + scott/divorce quartet)

the way things are: impulse (clock duo), pearl (her + scott/divorce quartet)

get gone: impulse (clock duo)

i know: impulse (clock duo)

on the bound:

this one specifically reminds me of 3l and dl impulse kind of centering around him putting so much faith into certain things, bdubs specifically. these decisions have never ended well for him and often get him into even deeper trouble, but he still thinks it’ll do him some good. even if something inside of him is smart enough to know it won’t.

to your love:

very liml clock duo to me. impulse just trying so hard to move on and distance himself from bdubs but seeming to still have that soft spot for him. he tries to hold his ground, stick to the promises he’s made to himself, but bdubs always seems to make him break. think back to the clock giving scene that season, how impulse crumbles and shuts up when bdubs refuses to listen to him but is still so sweet to him. bdubs never takes him seriously and it makes cutting things off so hard. even with the distance and resistance, impulse folds.

limp:

what is something impulse, tango, and pearl all have in common? the people who have hurt them just seem to refuse to take accountability! ever! hell, they even egg them on just to get a rise out of them and to vilify them later.

bdubs is the common perpetrator for two of those three. impulse and tango never wronged bdubs, and yet he betrayed them mercilessly anyway. and then he tries to paint himself as a hero and saint later, deny his sins to their faces, laugh at them. he fondles their trigger and blames their gun. gives them a reason to get revenge and gets mad when they do it.

very similar with dl pearl, it’s kind of self explanatory. even if she wasn’t perfect, she’s never given any closure and her life is actively made worse by those just as bad as her. they claim to be above her, to have some moral high ground, even when they abandoned her just like they accused her of doing. and they never fail to hold it above her head.

love ridden:

more clock duo, just following their relationship as it slowly but surely falls apart. they just don’t work, no matter how hard they try to push down the problems and start over. they have such a beautiful relationship arc to me, and this song specifically reminds me of how liml serves as their breakup. impulse finally puts his foot down and realizes he can’t put up with bdubs anymore. he’s not his soulmate or husband anymore. he’s just bdubs. and that’s okay. they’ll both move on one day.

paper bag:

oh, the pain of wanting someone so badly but knowing you can’t because they only hurt you. even attempting to make things work is futile. all hope is done in vain. so maybe it’s better to not hope at all.

which is why i think it fits liml clock duo very well (the first verse being the disappointment impulse felt during either his 3l or dl death, you choose). impulse, despite everything, is desperate to make something work. and he tries, but bdubs just refuses to do the same. impulse and his trauma is the mess he doesn’t want to clean up. and every time he tries to get closure, to talk to bdubs about how he feels, it’s shut down. bdubs just doesn’t seem to understand and can’t take him seriously. impulse thought he was a man, but he was just a little boy. so he turns to starving, to distancing himself, to abandoning that hope. it hurts, but it works.

and dl pearl! funny coincidence that the song references a star and scott is associated with those. she’s still lingering on the good things they had in last life and has that hope that it might be the same this time around, but it isn’t. scott hates her, and y’know what? she hates him, too. because she has to. he denies her feelings and calls her crazy, how can she not hate him? she’s forced to distance herself for her own sake and his by extension. she’s the mess he doesn’t want to clean up. that he doesn’t want to face and accept. it’s killing them both, but if starving is what it takes to survive, she’ll do it. she has to. he left her no choice.

a mistake:

i love when normally relatively level headed and smart characters go batshit. that should happen a lot more often. please.

this song has and continues to remind me so much of traffic!impulse, specifically his ll, liml, and wl variants. he’s forced to be responsible and mature and good all the time, it’s exhausting. so when he starts going array, he can’t stop himself. it feels so good letting lose, dabbling in the chaos, letting that imperfection shine through. impulse is a kind person at heart, of course, but he’s just so tired. why does he have to always be the bigger person? why can’t he just make a mistake? and he will always be vilified for this, which is all the more encouragement. if they’re going to treat him like the bad guy, he might as well give them a reason.

this song reminds me of pearl (dl + wl) and tango (liml + wl) for very similar reasons. they are so often made out to be a bad person whenever they act out of line, even if that out of line is just acting like everybody else or having a valid reaction to being wronged or hurt. a person can only take so much demonization before they crack and be the villain they’re painted as. what’s the point in being good if nobody even cares?

fast as you can:

dl pearl time! she cannot catch a break and neither can her soulmate and the rest of the quartet (and anybody else caught in the crossfire). she is crazy and she is messy and she is ruthless. it’s all she’s allowed to be given her circumstances. and towards the end, when she has to band together with those people who drove her to that state, it’s hard. she can’t just forgive them for all they put her through, but she won’t deny that it’s nice having a place in the group. being taken care of. having someone sacrifice themself for you. but the fight is never over. she’ll always be choking on “why”s.

it also kind of reminds me of clock duo and tangdubs, but that’s just me being crazy. i don’t think it warrants an in-depth explanation.

the way things are:

imagining being stuck with someone who’s hurt you so badly, having to stomach being by their side because you can’t escape them. that could ABSOLUTELY be impulse and pearl.

honestly for clock duo, it reminds me more of liml than dl, despite the soulbound. but there’s definitely still some footing in the latter. impulse is still linked to bdubs, even if the soulbound is broken. and it’s hard being apart the next season, but it’s for the best, impulse knows that. he hopes that eventually all the pain and suffering will be worth it. that he’ll be able to move on. and y’know what? he does. he’s forced to bear every dismissed concern and unreasonable excuse and betrayal, and it hurts, but he moves on.

very similar for dl pearl, especially at the end of the season. she ends up teaming with the people she hates the most because she kind of has to. she knows it’s her best bet, even if it’s nauseating. and it’s hard, fighting on their behalf, by their side. but she manages. even with all the name calling and victim blaming and fighting, she moves on as well. maybe not entirely, but enough to get her through the season and the ones to follow.

get gone:

this is one of THE liml clock duo breakup anthems to me. impulse just wants bdubs gone. he’s put up with his shit for too long, and he can’t do it anymore, and he’s completely in the right for that. because he tried. he tried to make things work and talk about their issues and come back stronger, but bdubs just won’t listen. and impulse is tired of waiting for him to. he’s tired of sitting around, hoping bdubs will care, praying he’ll change. impulse knows now what is good for him, and it’s not bdubs. and he can only take so much of that man before he just can’t anymore. before that price needs to be paid. before he makes sure bdubs finally pays it.

i know:

clock duo are never beating the dysfunctional and miscommunication allegations. impulse knows what bdubs did. bdubs knows what he did, too. he just won’t admit it. and for a long while, impulse is able to handle that, even if it aches. he lets bdubs ignore their past, ignore all the mistakes he’s made, all of what he’s ruined. but eventually impulse realizes he can’t let him bury it any longer. it’s not helping either of them. he’ll be there if bdubs does confess, but if he doesn’t, that’s whatever. impulse will be gone by then. hopefully.