#and even then - anything nuanced on the absolute basic goes over her head (but she won't tolerate other people's mistakes lol)

[slippery-minghus]

*sighs* made it home ok and now have a purring lump on my lap. i took a panic pill as soon as i got home and i think it's helping. after how stressful work was and then electrolysis, i'm feeling post-meltdown exhaustion. i got a little food in me but i'm just so tired. i really hope tomorrow's a better day.

[na-ta-sh-aa]

This was so beautiful, their domesticity and their evening together melted my heart with beauty, I love them! At the end of the last chapter when Meredith was mentioned I was afraid that she might bring trouble, but instead I was very surprised by the conversation between her and Bradley.

“You let Noah play out in the rain with Skittles for approximately five minutes while you stood inside the backdoor and watched. He had bugged so long and so hard, you caved. But as soon as you heard a rumble of thunder, you ran out and picked him up where he was splashing in a puddle in his dinosaur rain boots while the tiny pup barked. You got soaked all over again in the process, but you carried him inside as lightning flashed across the sky.”

Aww I loved this part so much🥹

“There was no sign of Bradley, but when you texted and asked him to bring pizza home, he agreed right away.”

“Anything my Princess wants.”

Bradley's sweetness and love towards Princess always makes me so happy, I love seeing how important she is to him and how since she entered Bradley and Noah's life they have completed each other right away.

“Skittles was the first one who jumped down from the couch. "Daddy!" Noah launched off of your lap and ran to the door as Bradley kicked it open. His hair and flight suit were basically soaked, but he was holding a pizza and a container of salad with a coffee cup balanced on the top. His handwriting on the cup was wet, and the marker was starting to run, but you could still read Princess. And he looked absolutely exhausted.”

Bradley in the wet flight suit (🫠) bringing home the pizza and the cup of coffee with the word princess strictly written on it is the best thing of the whole day🥹

“You swallowed down the discomfort you felt and whispered, "You loved her then. And she loved you. And Noah. I mean... she was his mom."

I think it wasn't easy for Princess to say this, thinking of everything Meredith has done, but I loved how Princess reassured and understood Bradley's decision.

“Bradley lifted his head up and tightened his grip around your waist. "You are Noah's mom," he insisted, and you immediately burst into tears. "That's how I want it. That's how Noah wants it. That's how you told me you want it. And that's not going to change. But I just feel like Noah should have this money from Meredith."

The way Bradley immediately corrected Princess by saying that she is Noah's mother literally made me cry, it was such a beautiful and meaningful gesture in my opinion🥹

“You were struck once again by the way Bradley made all of his decisions for you and with you. He treated you with respect when he made plans, and he valued your opinion.”

This trait of Bradley will never stop filling my heart with joy🥹

"And every cent goes into a savings account for college tuition for him. A university or a trade school or something. Anything except the Navy. And none of it goes to that disgusting little slut you're living with now."

I found it really interesting to see this side of Meredith, how she wanted to emphasize and be sure that that money would be for Noah, obviously that doesn't erase all the horrible things she's done but at least it gave me the impression that she's not really completely indifferent towards Noah.

This chapter was really intriguing, I loved how you wrote and went into even more depth, adding different nuances to the characters. I found Bradley's gesture of wanting to talk to Meredith about the savings account for Noah very noble, I loved how he was so respectful with Meredith, despite everything she put him through, the fact that he wanted to consult her still shows what an extraordinary man Bradley is. I also loved how understanding Princess was and how Bradley reiterated and made it clear what his priorities are! I can't wait to see how the air show goes! This was truly wonderful to read💗✨

The Younger Kind Part 48 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Bradley is just trying to make it to the weekend. When he realizes he needs to visit Meredith, he's starting to feel like his sanity is hanging on by a thread. At least he has you, and he knows he can trust you implicitly. And maybe this will give him the kind of closure he didn't know he needed.

Warnings: Swearing, angst, fluff, mention of abortion, and age gap (18+)

Length: 4800 words

Pairing: Single dad!Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x babysitter!female reader

Check out my masterlist for more! The Younger Kind masterlist.

Afternoon rain clouds had rolled in, making the city look darker than normal. You noticed right away that the usual sunlight wasn't coming in the windows at work, and it was putting everyone in a strange mood. Even the tiny patients you were taking care of seemed to be crying a little bit more than usual. 

You needed to leave soon to pick up Noah which required you to cancel your nail appointment. Bradley didn't even tell you why he'd be late, he just said he would be. It wasn't that you didn't trust him, you just wanted to know that he was okay, but you hadn't heard from him again.

As soon as you walked outside and headed for your car, it started pouring rain. It was so unexpected, you started laughing. You couldn't even remember the last time you'd had a rainy day. Maybe if the lightning and thunder held off, you could take Noah outside to play in it. But as you opened your car door and ducked inside, a streak of jagged light went shooting across the sky. 

"Damn," you muttered, carefully driving through the parking lot. You thought about Skittles home alone in her crate. She must be terrified all alone right now, and at this rate, it was going to take you longer than usual to get to Noah. Traffic was backed up like crazy, because nobody knew how to drive in this. You sat at the same red light for three cycles before you were finally able to move at all, and by the time you reached Noah's daycare, it was almost time for them to close.

You dashed out through the rain and inside the building where you were confronted with Casey while you looked like a drowned rat. "Common sense would tell you to use an umbrella when it's raining," she said sweetly as you started to shiver in the air conditioning. 

"It's San Diego," you replied coolly. "It never rains here."

She made a production of leaning past you to look out the door. "I think you're wrong, but I can't be certain." She set the clipboard down on the counter and turned away from you as she said, "Poor Noah is going to get completely soaked."

You rolled your eyes as you signed your name a little bit aggressively. It's not like the child would melt. If Bradley came to pick him up instead of you, there was no doubt in your mind that Casey would have bent over backwards to make sure there was an umbrella for him to use. But since it was you, she just stood there with her arms crossed as you scooped Noah up.

"You ready to get a little wet, sweet Noah?" you asked him, kissing his cheek. "It's really raining hard."

He squealed in delight as you ran to your car with him, but you ended up getting a lot more soaked than he did. Your scrubs were clinging to your body when you finally closed the drivers' door behind you. "How about we go home, get dried off and snuggle under a blanket while we watch Mickey Mouse?"

"Yes!" cheered Noah. Maybe you'd just order a pizza later when Bradley got home. You were wet and tired and just wanted to relax. 

"Okay. Here we go."

---------------------------

Bradley was a nervous mess on his way to see Tracy. "Come on," he groaned, trying to fight his way through the traffic downtown to get to her office in the rain. He should have left base as soon as he was grounded for the rest of the afternoon, but everyone started talking shop, including the admirals, and he didn't want to leave too early. 

The array of invasive thoughts plaguing him at the moment was making his stomach churn. Every image in his mind was worse than the last. He was itching to call the First Bank of San Diego, but he thought he'd better talk to Tracy about it first. Reeking of jet fuel that was only made worse by getting his flight suit soaked in the rain, he rode the elevator up to her office. It was kind of late, and the building was mostly empty, but sure enough, the lights were shining brightly in her suite. 

When he walked through the first set of glass doors, Tracy leaned out of her office door with a completely neutral expression on her face. "Hi. Come on back."

Bradley closed the distance in a few long strides. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I really didn't want to have to see you today. And I don't have my checkbook with me."

Tracy shook her head and gestured toward the small conference table before she grabbed a Red Bull from her refrigerator. "I'm not billing you for this."

Bradley's heart took a nosedive as he sank down into one of the chairs. If she wasn't even collecting payment, this must be worse than he thought. "Just get it over with, please. What's going on? Did Meredith open an account in my name or something?" he asked. Then he gripped the edge of the table. "In Noah's name? Fuck! Did she figure out a way to fucking bankrupt me?"

He was about to be sick. Once again, he was kicking himself for never taking all of these precautions earlier, right after Meredith left him with a three month old. There would have been ways to safeguard both of them from this sort of thing, but he would have never believed Meredith was capable of doing what she did before. She probably took out a mortgage or opened a credit card. She would have had easy access to Bradley's banking information and social security number. It had been ages since he checked his credit score.

Tracy was offering him a Red Bull, but she slowly pulled it away from him like it was the last thing in the world he needed as he gripped her table so hard, the whole thing was vibrating a little bit.

"Take a deep breath, Bradley. It's nothing so extreme," she assured him in a calm voice as she pried his fingers away from her furniture. "Meredith opened an account right after Noah was born and put a few thousand dollars into it."

Bradley clasped his hands in his lap and thought back a few years. Meredith had been happy for a little while. She seemed to warm up to the idea of Noah, and after he was born and they had a tiny newborn at home, she was very involved. But as the weeks wore on, Bradley noticed her involvement slipping while he was the one picking up all the loose ends and working full time. 

"I don't remember anything about a bank account," he told Tracy. "What does this have to do with me exactly?"

She took a drink before she said, "You're listed as a custodian on the account. Technically the money was put in Noah's name, but since he's a minor, he can't handle it himself."

His brow was furrowed as he shook his head. "I'm still confused. Isn't it Meredith's account?"

"Yes and no," she replied. "Once she put your name and social security number on the line below hers, she made you liable for the money, too. And the bank must have uncovered that Meredith is incarcerated. This happens from time to time. When they couldn't reach her, they found her lawyer's information on the court docket. And then her lawyer called me. Apparently your address wasn't listed."

Bradley felt like his head was swimming with information. "So you're telling me I can go to the Coronado branch of the First Bank of San Diego tomorrow and get this money out?"

"Potentially," she replied mildly.

He thought for a beat before he asked, "Is Meredith still entitled to the money? Even though I have sole custody of Noah?"

"Sure. Her name is also on the account." She shrugged and checked the time. "It's not quite six yet. Should we call the bank and find out exactly what's going on?"

"Yeah," he agreed, reaching for his phone. It would be better to do this with her here so he could make sure he got all the information he needed. "Should I just put it on speaker?"

She nodded as she finished her drink and tossed the can into her already overflowing recycle bin. He tapped on the number of the missed calls from earlier and waited while it rang. "First Bank of San Diego corporate offices, this is Belinda. How can I help you?"

Bradley cleared his throat. "Uh, hi, Belinda. My name is Bradley Bradshaw, and I missed some phone calls earlier? I... was hoping you could answer some questions about an account?"

"Please hold."

He looked at Tracy who seemed completely unfazed by all of this as she examined her manicure. It was great that she was always able to stay so calm, but his heart was thundering up into his throat. He wasn't about to believe there weren't a thousand credit cards maxed out in his name until he investigated it all for himself.

"This is Barry."

Bradley didn't know quite what to say as he cleared his throat again. "Hi, this is Bradley Bradshaw. I'm actually here with my lawyer, and I missed some calls earlier?"

"Right, yes," came the man's voice along with the sound of him typing on a keyboard. "We were trying to reach you regarding an account that was opened with your minor child listed as a beneficiary. Information would have been mailed to you, but we did not have an associated address on file."

"Can you tell us more about the account?" Tracy asked, and Bradley was relieved that she knew what to do.

"Well, I can tell you that once an account reaches over $15,000 without any activity in the prior three years, we make a courtesy phone call to see if the owner wants to move any of the funds."

"Fifteen thousand?" Bradley asked, running his fingers through his hair anxiously. "That account has fifteen thousand dollars in it? And she never touched it?"

Barry was silent for a beat. "I really can't provide much more information unless you visit one of our branches in person, sir."

"Shit," Bradley muttered, leaning back in his seat and staring at the ceiling. 

"Sounds great, Barry. Thanks for your time," Tracy said before she ended the call for him. "You need to go to the bank. Can you go tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Bradley grunted. "So... there's money just sitting there that potentially belongs to Noah through me?"

"Sounds like it."

Bradley met her eyes. "And I can just take it out? And move it into a different account?"

Now she looked a little apprehensive. "I wouldn't advise you to do it quite that way."

-----------------------------

You let Noah play out in the rain with Skittles for approximately five minutes while you stood inside the backdoor and watched. He had bugged so long and so hard, you caved. But as soon as you heard a rumble of thunder, you ran out and picked him up where he was splashing in a puddle in his dinosaur rain boots while the tiny pup barked. You got soaked all over again in the process, but you carried him inside as lightning flashed across the sky. 

"It's getting too stormy!" you told him over all the noise. "Time to go in!"

You grabbed a towel from the stack you left on the kitchen table, and Noah let you fuss over him. You wrapped Skittles in a towel when she started to shake from the cold air conditioned temperature inside, and eventually all three of you ended up on the couch under a blanket with cartoons playing. There was no sign of Bradley, but when you texted and asked him to bring pizza home, he agreed right away. 

Anything my Princess wants.

You smiled at your phone as you sat with Noah on your lap and Skittles on his lap. Every few minutes, you buried your nose in his fresh smelling hair and inhaled as you gave him a squeeze. "When's Daddy coming home?" he asked as the sky outside just got darker as the evening wore on. "I'm hungry."

"Soon," you promised him, but it had gotten so late, you were about to make Noah a snack when you finally heard a key in the front door lock. 

Skittles was the first one who jumped down from the couch. "Daddy!" Noah launched off of your lap and ran to the door as Bradley kicked it open. His hair and flight suit were basically soaked, but he was holding a pizza and a container of salad with a coffee cup balanced on the top. His handwriting on the cup was wet, and the marker was starting to run, but you could still read Princess. And he looked absolutely exhausted. 

"Hey, Bub," he mumbled, kneeling to kiss Noah while he balanced everything in one hand. "You having fun with Mommy?"

Even Bradley's voice was laced with fatigue that you could practically feel as you stood and went to him. You kissed his wet cheek and whispered, "Thank you," as you took the food and your coffee cup from his hand. He just looked at you and nodded, and you gave him a minute with Noah and Skittles as you took the food to the kitchen and got more clean towels. He was just taking off his boots when you returned and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

He grunted as he took the towels from you and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Can we wait until Noah's in bed?"

You really did not want to wait another hour, but you agreed anyway, and Bradley kissed your lips before he ran a towel over his face and hair. "Thanks, Baby," he whispered as you gave him a minute to get changed. You took Noah into the kitchen and started to cut up a slice of pizza for him. You were just adding a liberal amount of dressing onto the salad when Bradley walked in wearing gym shorts and a black undershirt that hugged his perfect torso, fresh from a quick shower.

"I love that about you," he crooned next to your ear, his hands soft on your waist as he nodded at the salad.

You laughed and said, "I know you do, Daddy." You were tempted to crawl onto his lap and try to make him feel better while he ate, because he'd clearly had a stressful day. With a quick glance at Noah where he was getting sauce all over his face, you decided to settle into your own seat with a piece of pizza and half of the salad. Bradley stacked two slices together and ate them at the same time in about ten bites. 

"You really had a bad day, huh?" you asked, breaking off a piece of your crust and eating it. 

He shook his head, brow scrunched in something like concern as he watched his son eat. "Not exactly. Just very long."

Once all the food was gone, you sipped your coffee while you cleaned up. Bradley would have normally done that, but when Noah asked to play blocks with him, you sent them into the living room. You could hear the block towers go clattering to the floor over and over again as Noah giggled. The rain hadn't tapered off, and you were already starting to yawn by eight o'clock. That's when Bradley poked his head into the kitchen with Skittles held in one big hand.

"Hey, Baby. I'm going to get Noah ready for bed, and then we can talk in the living room?"

You nodded and finished loading the dishwasher before curling up with the blanket on the couch. Bradley brought Noah in for a goodnight kiss and then vanished again. By the time he returned empty handed, you were half asleep, but you climbed onto his lap after he sat down. "What's going on?" you asked, your cheek cradled on his shoulder and your lips brushing his neck. You could feel his soft length against your thigh through his gym shorts, and you let your hand settle low on his abs.

He cleared his throat softly and whispered, "I need to go to Las Colinas Detention Facility either tomorrow or Wednesday." A chill rippled through your body even though you were tucked in his warm embrace. You jerked yourself back so you were looking him in the eye as he added, "I need to talk to Meredith."

All you could picture was the stress you saw on his face months ago when she dragged him through the court battle over Noah. You grabbed at your arm where you'd gotten all cut up when you fell in the parking lot at Meyer Park. You could practically still feel and hear all of the pieces of broken glass crunching beneath your feet when you found that your apartment had been broken into. 

"Why?" you gasped as tears stung at your eyes. A sick feeling settled into your belly, and all you could do was repeat the question, "Why?"

"Shh. It's okay, Princess," he promised, kissing your cheeks and the tears you weren't even aware you'd shed. "I'm going to make sure it's okay."

You were nodding and shaking a little bit as you listened to him explain that Meredith had opened an account when Noah was a baby. Apparently there was a substantial amount of money now, and Bradley's name was also on the account. "It makes me feel like, even just for a little while, Meredith actually cared about Noah," he whispered, and now you saw tears in his eyes too before he tipped his head back against the couch. "I have a lot of mixed feelings about this, but I guess it's not all bad."

You swallowed down the discomfort you felt and whispered, "You loved her then. And she loved you. And Noah. I mean... she was his mom."

Bradley lifted his head up and tightened his grip around your waist. "You are Noah's mom," he insisted, and you immediately burst into tears. "That's how I want it. That's how Noah wants it. That's how you told me you want it. And that's not going to change. But I just feel like Noah should have this money from Meredith."

You nodded as he wiped at your tears. "He should," you sobbed. "But why do you have to go to Las Colinas? Why can't you just withdraw it?"

Now Bradley let his forehead come to rest on your shoulder, like he needed the comfort associated with being close to you. "I could do that, but I stopped to talk to Tracy, and she thinks that would do more harm than good. There's a simple form I can get from the bank tomorrow after I talk to someone about the exact amount in the account. The plan is for me to take the form to Las Colinas myself, talk to Meredith, and ask her to sign it and effectively forfeit the funds over to me. That way there could be no questions asked."

"And what if she won't sign it?"

He kissed your cheek. "Then you and I can decide if I should withdraw the cash and move it to a different account or just leave it there and pretend it doesn't exist."

You were struck once again by the way Bradley made all of his decisions for you and with you. He treated you with respect when he made plans, and he valued your opinion. "Do you want me to come with you? To the bank or to see Meredith? So you don't have to do it alone?"

His lips and mustache were tickling your jaw as he said, "No. Tracy and I agreed I should go alone. And I really want you to take care of Noah after work so that's one less thing I have to worry about." He kissed you softly. "But thank you for offering."

And that's how you fell asleep, on his lap with his lips pressed to your skin.

------------------------------

Bradley couldn't be sure if it was his khaki uniform, but it definitely seemed to help his cause. When he got to the bank after work on Tuesday, he was called right back to a small office where an agent started helping him. "Okay, Lieutenant Bradshaw, let's check this account balance for you," she said as she typed in his social security number. "You are looking at $17,271.28. Would you like to transfer it to a different account?"

He just gaped at her. That could pay for a year of college for Noah. "Actually... I'm going to need to think about it," he replied, and a little while later he left her office with a single piece of paper. 

He started the thirty minute drive out of the city to the women's correctional facility. You were probably leaving work right now. Maybe you were pulling into the daycare parking lot. Either way, he didn't have to worry about his son when he was with you. Instead, he could focus on what he needed to do right now, because he was having some mixed feelings about taking this money at all. But if it was actually intended to be used for Noah, then he wanted to give Meredith the opportunity to do the right thing. 

After he parked, he waited in line to be searched before entering the building. Here, his uniform did absolutely nothing. In fact, he had to remove his belt and all of his pins and leave them in a little tray in the front office before going though another metal detector. When an officer asked who he was there to see, she looked surprised when he said Meredith's name. 

"Right," she replied, leading him toward a small waiting area. "Sit in here, and I'll call you in if she wants to see you."

He eased himself down onto a metal chair that was bolted to the floor and started to sweat. If Meredith wouldn't even talk to him, then he was going to have to leave the money where it was. He wouldn't be able to bring himself to touch it. He was starting to resent even coming here, because this week was supposed to have been a fun one with the air show coming up on Saturday and the hospital tour on Friday night. He could have just told Tracy and everyone at the bank that he didn't care about the money.

"Bradshaw?" called a different officer, and Bradley stood. Well. Apparently she was willing to talk to him after all. A door was held open for him and then another one. He was scanned into a narrow hallway, and once that door closed behind him, he was scanned into a room with a large number '3' on it. 

And there sat his ex in a gray jumpsuit with her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her sleeves were rolled up her forearms, her hair was longer now, and frankly she looked a lot better than he was expecting. Her eyes tracked his every move as she crossed her arms over her chest and said, "Bradley."

He sat in one of the two chairs that were once again bolted to the floor, and his knees almost hit hers as he did so. "Meredith. How are things?" he asked for a lack of anything better coming to his mind.

"What are you doing here?" she asked immediately, leaning a little closer to him. "What do you want?" When he hesitated with his answer, she laughed and shook her head. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't need something from me, so just spit it out."

He shifted in his seat and withdrew the sheet of folded paper from his pocket. "You opened a savings account for Noah right after he was born? I had no idea it existed. The bank just started trying to reach out to me, because you put my name on the account as well," he stated as he tried to hand her the paper. 

She stared at him, eyes wide as her cheeks flushed pink, but she said nothing, and she didn't move at all. 

"I'm assuming you forgot about it," he added. 

Meredith finally took the paper from him as she said, "Why didn't you just take the money then?" She seemed to begrudgingly move her icy stare from his face to the page as she unfolded it and started to read. Bradley knew if she signed it, she would be willingly forfeiting the funds. She would know the exact amount of money and offer it up on her own. He knew he shouldn't feel guilty about asking her to do this, but he kind of did anyway. And now that he was looking at her, he knew he couldn't just do it behind her back if she didn't sign.

"I wanted you to know about it before I did it," he told her softly. "I wanted to ask you why you put the money in the account in the first place."

She refolded the paper and once again met his gaze. "I originally opened the account so someday Noah could go to business school like me instead of joining the Navy like you."

Bradley nodded and almost wanted to smile. "Makes a lot of sense." He took a deep breath and whispered, "You were excited when you were pregnant. You were excited when he was a newborn."

Meredith closed her eyes and shook her head as she held her hand up in front of her. She didn't look at him as she said, "I tried, but I couldn't do it. You were better at all of it than I was, and I fucking hated it more and more every day. I hate being at home. I hated having to feed Noah and change diapers while you went back to work. I hated it so much. The four months that I took off completely ruined my career, and I was never able to recover. And that's where I was happiest."

Bradley nodded and clasped his hands in his lap. Her next sentence hurt him to hear, but she had every right to say it. "I think it would have been better for me if I'd had abortion. I think I could have been happy right now if I did." She kind of shrugged, barely looked at him and then turned toward the corner of the ceiling. Bradley followed her gaze as she loudly said into a camera, "Can somebody bring me a pen? I swear I won't stab him with it."

Bradley was afraid to say anything yet, and nobody appeared with a pen right away. Meredith read over the sheet of paper again, and eventually she said, "This was the only account I added your name to. Don't go sniffing around my bank for more, because you won't get it."

"Right," he replied, finding her words almost comical since she was the one trying to fleece him earlier this year. 

"And every cent goes into a savings account for college tuition for him. A university or a trade school or something. Anything except the Navy. And none of it goes to that disgusting little slut you're living with now."

Bradley had to bite back his response as the door opened, and an officer walked in with one black ink pen. She handed it to Meredith and stood next to her while she signed the form, and then the officer collected the pen once more before leaving the room. He was honestly a little shocked, but he accepted the paper when she handed it to him.

"Thank you," he told her, deciding not to mention that you were going to be his wife and Noah's legal parent sooner rather than later if he had anything to say about it. She really didn't need to know about that, because she didn't have any say in the matter. "I'll save it for Noah for school. And if he wants to join the Navy like a real idiot, then I'll donate it all to your alma mater. But just... thanks for signing for it."

She nodded. "You were going to be able to take it anyway. At least now you'll cooperate with its original intended purpose."

Once again, he wasn't going to waste his time arguing with her by trying to say that he would have left the money untouched. He didn't need her to believe anything he said except that he'd save her money for Noah. "I will absolutely do that."

"I know you will."

-------------------------------

Well, well, well. What do we have here? Proof that Meredith cared at one time? Please ignore any financial inaccuracies, I tried my best. Aaaaand, onward to the air show. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

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[youareinlovees]

Hi do you mind doing like a breakdown analysis or just a general summary of what cruel summer’s about? I’ve been able to price together bits and pieces from your blog but could really use some help understanding the overall storyline

Sure! It started off as a general summary but I realised it would be easier if I went through line-by-line instead. 

-

Fever dream high in the quiet of the night

You know that I caught it

She’s setting the scene here – it’s the middle of the night and she’s experiencing some kind of intense feeling that makes everything seem like a fever dream. Is it an emotional high because she’s so happy or maybe a drug trip or some kind of ~other high? There’s no clear cut answer but she says the other person ~knows she’s feeling this way, so make that of what you will.

Bad, bad boy, shiny toy with a price

By referring to him as a toy, she’s establishing that this is a no-strings attached, almost transactional situationship. It’s similar to “toying with them older guys / just playthings for me to use” – a line that’s heavily influenced by the public’s perception of her, so she’s saying that a) it’s set around the same timeframe, ergo 2016, and b) once she gets him out of her system, she’ll ditch and move on just like all those times before.

You know that I bought it

He’s well aware that they’re ~friends and this isn’t a defined relationship. Maybe it was something they agreed on, or maybe it’s an unspoken understanding, we don’t know.

Killing me slow, out the window

I'm always waiting for you to be waiting below

This actually reminds me of Tangled, like the idea of some sheltered princess falling for a normie who shows her a whole new world, and ultimately deciding to leave her life in the tower behind and run away with him? I could be reading into things too much but it’s a fun parallel for sure.

Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes

This is about her thought process: one part of her is deciding to take a gamble on the relationship – she might get hurt later, or the world might find out she’s seeing yet another guy and burn her alive for it, but she figures the risks are worth it. But at the same time, she’s like “here we go again 🙄” and doesn’t like that she’s so invested all of a sudden.

What doesn't kill me makes me want you more

The “what” in this line could be referring to a number of things. Maybe she’s talking about all the mess that’s happened this year and how shitty it’s been, and she’s using him as stress relief now. Maybe it’s about the lack of labels on their relationship and how that’s killing her, but makes her even more determined to get him to commit somehow. Or maybe it’s the general feeling of being so attracted to someone you think you might die.

And it's new, the shape of your body

It's blue, the feeling I've got

And it's ooh, whoa oh

It's a cruel summer

This is fairly straightforward, like they’ve only just started seeing each other so his body’s new and she feels blue because… 2016.

It's cool, that's what I tell 'em

No rules in breakable heaven

This is more of a general commentary on how she goes about a fwb situation, like it doesn’t have to be exclusive and pretty much anything goes. She also talks about the fragility of their relationship – they might be in heaven but it’s very much breakable and could end anytime.

Hang your head low in the glow of the vending machine

I'm not dying

I think this was meant in a literal sense, like they’re meeting up somewhere and he’s leaning against a vending machine and scrolling through his phone. She walks over and absolutely loses her mind over how hot he looks and realises that she’s down baaad. For a moment, in the midst of the ~cruel summer~, she’s not dying because she’s distracted by other priorities basically.

Alternatively, the snacks in a vending machine aren’t the healthiest way to deal with being hungry, and fucking your Words With Friends bestie isn’t exactly the healthiest coping strategy, but she really couldn’t care less.

We say that we'll just screw it up in these trying times

We're not trying

Both of them decided they didn’t want to get into a proper relationship, like she was fresh off two breakups and Going Through It, and his first movie was about to drop and he was going to head off to Asia for a promo tour soon. It doesn’t feel like the right time to define things, so why bother?

So cut the headlights, summer's a knife

I'm always waiting for you just to cut to the bone

The headlights being off represents them sneaking around and seeing each other in secret. She then says that although this summer’s already been so painful and shitty, he has the potential to hurt her the most by breaking things off or not reciprocating her feelings. And because she’s so cynical about love now, she’s expecting to get burned sooner or later.

And if I bleed, you'll be the last to know

If things do end badly, she’ll make sure she seems completely unaffected, because the last thing she wants is for him to think he broke her heart or whatever.

I'm drunk in the back of the car

And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar

This sounds super literal, and some people have connected it to the first verse in Cornelia Street, but I think this situation happens later on.

Said, "I'm fine," but it wasn't true

#TAYLOR: vulnerability 🤢 honesty 🤢 being upfront about how I feel 🤮

I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you

It’s killing her that she can’t tell him about how she actually feels, because what if he’s not on the same page and she scares him off? So in order to keep their relationship going, she has to keep it in.

And I snuck in through the garden gate

Every night that summer just to seal my fate

Basically, it was always inevitable that she would fall for him, but their constant meet-ups intensified those feelings even more.

The garden gate mention seems to be a continuation of the fairytale imagery in “I’m always waiting for you to be waiting below” except now she’s the one reaching out to him. It’s also reminiscent of “I sneak out to the garden to see you” in Love Story, which is all about fairytale endings. But now on Cruel Summer, she’s subverting that imagery because real life relationships are complicated and raw and nuanced, and not at all like the idealised perfect love she used to write about.

Also, because this lyric is between them being in the back of the car and her screaming I love you, it separates the two situations so they’re not necessarily about the same thing.

And I scream, "For whatever it's worth

I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?"

He looks up, grinning like a devil

And finally, it all becomes too much and she’s no longer able to hide her feelings, because she suddenly screams that she loves him. He looks up from whatever he’s doing, and is like 😁😁😁 because it turns out he’s equally as whipped, and the rest is history!

[writingpuddle]

The other night best friend and I (yes, that best friend) were riffing on trans Neil headcanons over the phone, but a realistic trans treatment of aftg gets dark real fast, so without further ado:

~The Mafia May Be Sexist (But It’s Not Transphobic!) AU ~

(tmmbsbintau, if you will)

Does this premise make sense? No, but if Nora can write about made up mafia sports, I can write a nonsense AU where transphobia doesn’t exist okay this is my party and ill be self-indulgent if i want to

We open with baby Neil, who was named after his maternal grandmother or smthg idk

Now lets say Neil is one of those “I always knew I was trans” kids

So even at a fairly young age he was like, nope this is wrong

For the most part his dad basically ignores him (what use is a girl to me???) but if he makes the mistake of getting in the way it’s the usual shit with knives and hot irons and basically Neil’s bog-standard Traumatic Childhood

His mom signs him up to play Exy to get him out of the house, and he loves it, because of course he does

Now tiny Neil may be terrified of his father

But remember transphobia isn’t real

So he when he’s about ten years old he tells his parents over dinner

His mom just puts her fork down and says that’s alright

But Nathan

Nathan

Nathan’s eyes start to glow

He has a son? Not a useless daughter?

He’s practically levitating with glee

And Neil, poor Neil, who has never had any positive reinforcement—from either parent, Mary, you’re not innocent in this—he soaks it up

Nathan puts both hands on his son’s—his son’s!—shoulders and dubs him Nathaniel

His son, his heir, his legacy

Mary takes one look at the possessive look in her husband’s eyes and thinks oh hell no

For the next few days Nathan absolutely showers Nathaniel with affection

He takes him to the hairdresser and buys him a whole new wardrobe, neglecting his mafia duties in order to dote upon his new son

It is possibly the happiest week of Nathaniel’s life

And then he wakes up in the night with his mother’s hand on his mouth and is given less than a minute to pack his things

Now he’s grown up in a criminal household; the notion of making a run for it isn’t exactly foreign to him

But it’s not until they’re in the car that Nathaniel realizes that his father is nowhere to be seen

Where’s dad? He asks

Shut up, his mother hisses, and slams the car into gear

From then on, he is never Nathaniel

His mother is 100% on board with his transition, but…not really anything beyond that

After all, people will be looking for a woman and a trans boy, which means Mary’s investment in Neil’s gender pretty much starts and ends with him passing as cis

She gets him all the medical treatments he needs (on the black market, since they’re on the run)—puberty blockers when he’s younger, testosterone when he’s older

But he’s never allowed to acknowledge being trans whatsoever

Not to his classmates, not to his teachers

He never gets the chance to have a queer community, or explore the nuances of his gender, because the only presentation they can afford for him to have is Masculine Cis Boy. The restriction is stifling. It’s suffocating.

Neil hates her for it

His life was, so briefly, perfect

He had his father’s love and approval for a day, a week, and he is both old enough to remember his father’s cruelty and young enough to believe that it could end

Nathan is incandescent

When he realizes what Mary has done he goes to the Moriyamas in a storm of fury

She stole my SON! He bellows

Now the Moriyama’s didn’t particularly care about Neil back when they thought he was a girl

Girls in the mafia are basically just for child-rearing, so he wasn’t a threat

So once they figure out what Nathan is talking about (this takes a sec, owing to Nathan having not previously gotten around to telling them about Nathaniel’s revelation), their first thought is that look, we might do the nepotism thing here in our family, but underlings don’t get to do the nepotism thing. Sorry, them’s the breaks

Obviously, Mary has to die—nobody’s disputing that, a woman who robbed her husband and stole his son? Only death will right that wrong—but Kengo tells Nathan that he’ll help find Nathaniel on the condition that he’s given to the Ravens upon capture

Nathan is utterly confident that his son—his son!—will perform admirably. He accepts the deal without a second thought

So they’re on the run for years and years, and Neil’s resentment towards his mother festers, but he never acts out too much, and he doesn’t contact his father

He almost does a couple times, but then he presses his hand to the iron scar on his shoulder and he can’t quite make himself go through with it

He’s sixteen when Nathan catches up with them in Seattle

There’s a shootout and Mary and Neil almost get away

But

Nathan arrives

Nathaniel! He shouts. My boy!

And Neil lurches to a stop

There is his father, walking towards him, his eyes still shining with the same fierce love and pride from when he was ten

Nathaniel, his father says. Hasn’t this gone on long enough?

Come home.

Mary is trying to drag Neil away, but he’s too fixated on his father

Can I? Neil asks. Can I really?

Of course, Nathan says. Everything is forgiven. I’ve even secured you a place on the Ravens. Didn’t you always love Exy? Come home with me, Nathaniel

Neil can barely believe it. His father is offering him everything he ever wanted. His mother has been keeping him from this, his whole life?

Why would they run?

And through this whole exchange Nathan has been getting closer, and Mary is pulling Neil back, and now he’s close enough to touch and the sound she makes is like something physical tears when she finally releases Neil and tries to flee

She isn’t fast enough

Nathan’s grin is as wide as the sun when his cleaver bites into Mary’s waist

Blood pours out

Neil screams

Mary clutches her side, staggering away, but it’s obvious she won’t make it far

Dad, no, Neil says. Don’t—

Shh, his father says. Don’t be afraid. She kept us apart all these years. She deserves to die.

And Neil—

Neil has hated his mother for most of his life

But he looks at the woman who has struggled so long to protect him—who has failed as often as she succeeded, but who fought anyway, everyday—and the man whose eyes are bright with glee at her pain

And he makes a choice

He only has a split second to see the betrayal in his father’s eyes before the pipe in his hand slams into his head and he pitches forward, unconscious

Neil does not wait to see if he survives

He grabs his mother and they run, her arm locked on his shoulder and her palm pressed to the wound on her side

Neil puts her in the passenger seat and jumps in, throwing the car in gear

You need a hospital, he says, frantic

No, she hisses, pinning a towel to her side. No hospitals

Guilt floods through him as he looks at her pale face

Sticky red handprints smear on everything she touches

I’m sorry, mom, he says, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—

Enough, she says. Drive

He drives

He drives, and drives, and he follows her instructions, and later he wouldn’t have been able to say if he actually thought she would survive; he believed it, because he had to, because he had never been without her; he knew better, because gut wounds are slow, but they are inexorable

He parks on the beach and there are tears pushing at his eyelids but he chokes them down

I’m sorry, he said, I never should have believed him. I’m sorry—

You never would have been enough for him, she says, and Neil flinches

Her hand finds his chin and she yanks him down to meet her eyes, her gaze fierce.

He never loved you, she says. He would have made you in his image, and when you failed he would have torn you apart. I would not—I would not watch him try to make my son a monster. Don’t—don’t waste it

Mom, what are you saying—

Promise me, she says

Promise you won’t go back to him

She is dying

Neil can’t refuse

He promises

She releases his face and her red fingerprints on his face burn like brands. He can feel them hours after the tears wash the blood away.

Her last few breaths are jagged as broken stones before she rattles to a stop, and Neil is alone

He burns her body and staggers out onto the road and he keeps moving, he keeps moving, because he knows if he stops he’ll shatter

His hesitation has cost him his mother’s life

But his action costs him his fathers love

In one blow, Neil broke the golden image Nathan had of his perfect son, and now all Nathan wants is to destroy him

He finds his way to Millport almost on instinct alone

He finds one of Mary’s contacts who can supply him with the hormones he needs to continue passing and squats in an empty house and speaks to none of his classmates

When the Exy team tryouts are announced, he goes, intending to only watch from a distance

Perhaps it is inevitable he’s sucked in

There is so little light in his life

Can he be forgiven for wanting one little spark?

The Foxes come for him in May, and Kevin doesn’t recognize him, because how would he? Even if they met as kids, Kevin never saw Neil post-transition

Wymack ends up telling him something about Kevin’s past and the truth about the Ravens, and Neil pales a little bit, remembering how his father had said he’d gotten Neil a place on their line-up and finally understanding why

And sometimes he looks at Kevin with blinding jealousy for the life Neil didn’t get to have, and sometimes he sees him nearly comatose with fear and drinking vodka like it’s water, and his stomach hurts thinking how cheerfully his father would have consigned him to the same fate

So canon proceeds and Neil still bitches Riko out on live TV, and Riko still manages to acquire Neil’s fingerprints

And would you believe that? The Foxes mouthy new rookie is [deadname], Nathan Wesninski’s brat?

Well, well, well

At the banquet Riko pokes and prods until Neil finally snaps, and as Dan drags the team away from the wreckage Jean grabs Neil’s arm and says, low and fast in French, You’ll meet with us later

Why the fuck would I do that? Neil demands

Because otherwise everyone will find out that the Butcher is your father

Neil can’t hide his flinch and Kevin’s eyes go wide

They flee the scene, but before they even reach Coach, Kevin is already rounding on Neil

Is it true? He croaks

Not now, Neil says

But Kevin reads confirmation in Neil’s deflection

I didn’t know [deadname] had a brother, he says

Now here is the thing

Names are obviously a touchy subject with a lot of trans people, and certainly with Neil in particular

But with everything that just happened, Neil is a bit preoccupied, and it’s been a long time since he’s associated himself with that name

Since before he stopped using it, truthfully

And so his response is out of his mouth before he can even think twice

“Who?”

Kevin nods seriously, because he is wise to the ways of mafia bosses, and it’s not exactly shocking that Nathan Wesninski had a mistress and a secret second child, especially considering his first child had been a girl

It’s several moments before Neil puts two and two together and realizes that he has inadvertently slipped through a perfect loophole

He’s failed his mother so many times, but at least this secret is still safe, and he clings to that

Neil’s gender doesn’t really affect his interpersonal relationships with the Foxes—he’s already changing out separately, so this isn’t even a whole other thing

It’s harder to hide his testosterone when he’s living in shared dorms, but he has everything in the safe and figures out the safest schedule to open it up when he’s sure Matt will be in class

Andrew finds out when they start hooking up

But remember transphobia isn’t real so it’s sort of more like Andrew goes to undo his pants and is like wait your dick is removeable? Okay.

And then he just gets on with it

So Binghamton and Baltimore happen as canon, and if Neil had ever harboured hopes that his father would forgive him and love him again, they’re broken for good when his father stalks in and sees him shivering and just grins

It is the smile of someone who has torn someone off a pedestal and is going to enjoy reducing them to dust

Nevermind that Nathan had been the one to put him on that pedestal in the first place

Stuart deus-ex-machinas us out of the maws of death and we end up back in that classic Baltimore scene with the Foxes, and they still claim him, and they still take him home

He tells them all about his mafia father and life on the run, and it doesn’t really click until later that he forgot to mention the trans thing

Not like he, you know, has to tell them, and being trans is hardly an issue in Exy since it’s co-ed, but it would probably be nice to see a real doctor instead of keep buying his hormones illegally

And moreover, he wants the Foxes to know him

So they hit the cabin in the mountains and everyone knows Neil doesn’t drink, but when Andrew pours him a shot, he takes it

Ooh, Nicky says, Is Neil about to start spilling his secrets?

Allison snorts. What secrets does he have left?

Uh, Neil says

Wait, Allison says. There’s more secrets????

Yeah, he says. Um, I’m trans

There’s a pause

Well, that’s no good, Allison said. We didn’t have a bet going on that

Everyone laughs, and Neil smiles, and he looks at the sunset and remembers his mother, and he remembers a life filled with hiding, and secrets, and loneliness

Bats swoop in the twilight beyond the cabin, and he turns towards the warmth and light inside, and he does not look back

[cosmicjoke]

Okay, onto chapter 7 of “No Regrets”, and there’s really no need for me to say that this is by far the most heartbreaking chapter.  I think, perhaps, the most tragic part of it all is that Levi made the choice that he did because he was actually trying to protect everyone.  Now I’m going to break his choice down and get into the details of that, so let’s just dive right in.

First off, I want to talk a little about, once more, the pivotal contrasts between the way Levi’s choice is presented here in the manga, and how it was presented in the visual novel, and why, like everything the manga’s done so far, it’s an immeasurable improvement in the manga.

Basically, the way Levi’s choice in the visual novel plays out doesn’t in any way relate to his later philosophy which serves as the driving force behind Levi’s character in the main SnK series, while the way his choice plays out in the manga relates to it completely.  

In the visual novel, it isn’t even really a choice at all.  There isn’t any consideration or struggle for Levi to choose one way or the other.  Levi acts purely on impulse, and as I stated in my analysis for chapter 6, he reacts to the sudden storm by wanting to use it as cover so he can go and kill Erwin. That’s it.  That’s his sole motivation for leaving his friends behind. He puts no thought into it, he doesn’t consider the ramifications, he doesn’t seemingly care about anything at all except killing Erwin, and to hell with the consequences.  Again, this is so wildly out of character for Levi, that I could hardly believe it while I was reading it.  To make matters worse, when Furlan tries arguing with him and tries to convince him to stay, the writing directly contradicts its earlier statement that Levi didn’t consider Furlan and Isabel to be his subordinates by having him snap back at Furlan that he’s (meaning Levi) the one who decides, almost rubbing his higher rank in their social interactions in Furlan’s face, before just riding off without another thought.  It’s just awful characterization.  And, as I said, completely severs any relation of Levi’s actions here to the philosophy he later develops and adheres to so strongly in the main series, indeed, the philosophy that he lives by and which governs his actions, the philosophy that serves as his character motif.  It turns it into a decision made purely through emotion, a purely selfish and thoughtless act taken, and indeed, the only lesson Levi would be able to take from that sort of impulsive decision making would be that he should put more thought into his actions in the future, because if he does that, then this sort of thing won’t happen again.

But that’s not the lesson Levi learns, and that’s not the foundation of his philosophy.

Levi’s entire philosophy revolves around him understanding and accepting that he can never know the outcome of any given choice he makes until after the fact, no matter how much effort and thought he puts into trying to make the right one, and finding a kind of freedom in relinquishing that control.  It is absolutely vital, then, in order for Levi’s choice in “No Regrets” to mean anything, and for it to in any way relate to the philosophy which governs him later, for it to have been a well thought out and deeply considered choice, and that’s exactly what it’s presented as in the manga.

Now I want to break his choice down here panel by panel to get into why.

First of all, the first key difference between the manga and visual novel, is here in the manga, Furlan is the one who first points out that the situation for them is bad, because in this weather, it’s likely Erwin will get eaten by a Titan, and if that happens, they won’t be able to get the papers they’ve been after this whole time.  Levi isn’t shown even THINKING about any of that up to this point.  He’s only shown concern for Furlan and Isabel, wanting to make sure they stay together, and sticking himself by their sides.  Furlan goes on to say here that in order to take the papers, they’re going to have to head to the center of the formation.  Furlan’s the one who brings the entire subject of Erwin and the documents up here, not Levi, and this is a huge and important difference.  

They hear Flagon fire the sound grenade, and realize he and Sairam aren’t far off.  Furlan says they might be able to join them somehow, but then he hesitates, and says “but… Levi.”

Furlan is looking to Levi here and asking him to make a decision for their group.  Do they go off together and try to get to Erwin before he gets eaten by a Titan and they lose their final opportunity to get the documents they need, or do they go and join Flagon.  Furlan puts the responsibility onto Levi’s shoulders here.

Now here’s where things get really complex, and we see how truly nuanced, considered, and thought out Levi’s choice really was, and ultimately, then, why it turning out to be the wrong choice is so deeply tragic.

Furlan and Isabel both are looking at Levi, waiting for him to choose, and we get to see Levi’s internal thoughts.

The first thing he thinks in this situation is to weigh the worth of the lives of his squad and his friends against his own, and this is so exactly like Levi, and once more shows infinitely better characterization of him than what was done in the visual novel. Levi thinks here “If the three of us go, the team we leave behind will be shorthanded.”  This is literally Levi showing private concern for the lives of Flagon and Sairam, knowing that if he takes Isabel and Furlan with him, those two’s chances of survival out in this weather diminish drastically.  He then thinks “If I go alone, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to find them again.” He’s considering his own chances of survival here, if he strikes out on his own.  He knows that if he does, his own chances of getting killed increase. So here we see Levi struggling with whether to prioritize the lives of his squad, or himself.  Ultimately, he decides to prioritize the lives of his squad. And I’ll get more into that in a moment.

But Levi continues to struggle.  He tells himself “Which is it?  Pick one.”, as the storm worsens around him.  He’s agonizing over it.  And then he closes his eyes, and he thinks of Isabel, remembers her saluting Flagon from the night before, and the understanding for the SC’s cause that she expressed, and how he himself understood it, and her sympathy, even her empathy with how they felt, saying she didn’t want to get in their way, meaning she didn’t want to compromise their mission.  Levi himself has been developing an attachment to these soldiers, and an admiration and understanding of their dedication, seeing how like his own desire to fight for and protect the lives of others it is.  To leave Flagon and Sairam to their fate and unprotected, then, would be both a betrayal to Isabel’s feelings and wishes, and his own. Levi doesn’t want to be the cause of Flagon’s and Saiyam’s deaths by taking Isabel and Furlan with him and leaving them by themselves.  Also, in remembering the way Isabel saluted Flagon and her enthusiasm for the SC’s dedication, Levi must also have realized, if he took Isabel with him to steal from and kill Erwin, it would destroy any future chance she might have of ever joining the SC again, if that was something she wanted.  To take her with him would implicate her in his crimes and rob her of that possible future.

Levi then thinks of Furlan and Isabel in the Underground, looking at him, and Furlan explaining to him his plans, his hopes and dreams of using this new found opportunity to make it to the world above and make for themselves better lives.  He’s remembering Furlan, and Furlan’s reliance on him to make that dream come true.  Remember how Furlan told Levi “With you here, we’ll really be able to raise hell.”. His plan always hinged on having Levi’s strength and ability in order to succeed.  Levi knows, then, if he chooses to not go after Erwin then and there, and get the documents from him, Furlan’s dreams will be dashed, and Levi will have failed to help make them come true.  And Levi has gone along with Furlan’s plans up to this point, against his own, better judgment, specifically because he wanted to help realize Furlan’s dream, to make it a reality.  To abandon it now, after all of that, must have seemed unacceptable to Levi.

And then Levi remembers Erwin, standing over him in the Underground, superior and smug, callous and uncaring for how he’s disrupted and threatened the lives of Levi and his friends. He remembers his anger at Erwin, his feeling of humiliation and rage.

And it’s this memory, finally, after all the others, after considering the lives of Flagon and Sairam, after considering Isabel’s wishes, and Furlan’s dream, that tips the scale for Levi in deciding that he has to go alone after Erwin.  It’s the weight of all those factors, the fear of letting Flagon and Sairam die, the fear of letting Furlan and Isabel down, on top of Levi’s own pain and anger, that decides it for him.  If he doesn’t go after Erwin alone, if he takes Furlan and Isabel with him, Flagon and Sairam will probably die, and both Furlan and Isabel will be implicated in the crime of theft and murder.  If he stays with Isabel and Furlan to join up with Flagon and Sairam, then Furlan’s and Isabel’s dreams likely go out the window.

This is no snap decision on Levi’s part.  It’s a deeply considered, thought out and in many ways selfless choice he makes.  And, again, that’s really what makes it so horribly tragic.  Levi was really TRYING to do the right thing here, was genuinely acting in a way he thought was for the best, for all parties involved.  He gave just as much, really MORE consideration to Furlan and Isabel and Flagon and Sairam than he did to himself.  It was the combined weight of the interests of all the other people involved that pushes Levi towards the choice he makes, and his desire for vengeance on Erwin is just the final straw which tips the scale in that direction, not the one and only deciding factor.  It is, from all angles of consideration, the best choice to make.  

So Levi tells them he’s going alone, and tells Furlan and Isabel to join up with Flagon.  He says he’ll get the documents, that’s the FIRST thing he’s going to do.  Not kill Erwin.  It’s the documents Levi is prioritizing here.  And since he’s going after Erwin to get the documents anyway, he’ll also, he says, be the one to kill him.  In Levi’s view, he’s being presented with a chance here to succeed in all their goals. In Levi’s view, this must be a win/win situation if he can find Erwin and do what needs to be done.

Furlan starts to protest, before Isabel cuts him off and says she’s going with Levi too, and Levi asks her, if she comes with him, who does she think is more likely to die, just him, or Flagon and Sairam.  He’s reminding her here of her desire to not get in the way of the SC soldiers, of her sympathy and empathy towards them, and is imploring her to realize that going with him will leave Flagon and Sairam vulnerable.  He’s telling Isabel that he can take care of himself, more than those two can.  He says, specifically, If the four of you stay together, it’ll raise their chances of survival.”.  He knows it’s dangerous to strike out on his own in this kind of weather, but he knows it increases his squad’s chances of survival if he does.  Levi makes the decision here to place the lives of Flagon and Sairam over his own, and to support Isabel’s own feelings in the process.

And then Furlan begins to protest again, telling Levi to keep his cool and think, trying to explain that if he just waits a little while, the fog might clear up.  He’s clearly afraid that if Levi goes out there on his own, he’ll get killed.

Levi asks Furlan then if he’s saying the Titans will wait until then, reminding Furlan that each moment they fail to act and go after Erwin, is another moment in which Erwin could get eaten, and risks Furlan’s dream being destroyed.

Furlan continues to protest, trying to impress on Levi how dangerous it is, to act alone, and Levi shouts back that he heard Furlan already, before insisting that he can do this by himself.  And then he screams at Furlan “Trust me!!”.  He’s putting the same request on Furlan that Furlan before put on Levi, asking for his trust, asking for his belief.  Furlan may be ready to give up on his dream for the sake of Levi’s safety, but Levi isn’t ready to give up on Furlan’s dream for the same.

They glare at each other, and then Furlan asks “Is that an order, Levi?”, and Levi’s reaction to that question speaks volumes.

He looks shocked at it, his expression one of clear surprise and confusion.

He then asks “An order…?” like he doesn’t understand why Furlan would even ask something like that, before saying “Why does it have to come to that?  I’m just… The two of you…”

This is in such sharp contrast to the way they had Levi acting in the visual novel and is, once more, infinitely superior.  

It shows so plainly that Levi doesn’t want to be considered Furlan’s and Isabel’s leader, he doesn’t want to be treated as their leader.  He only wants to be their friend, and for them to see him as their friend, and as someone they can depend and rely upon to always care about them and their dreams, as someone who will always fight for them and their dreams. He says “The two of you…” before trailing off, like he doesn’t know how to express any of that.  But that’s what Levi is trying to say, he just doesn’t know how, as usual.  He’s bad at expressing himself.  He’s trying to tell Furlan that he’s going after Erwin because he’s trying to still make their dreams come true, he’s trying to support them and protect them and ensure that this entire situation they’ve gotten themselves into isn’t in vain. Levi’s expression as he looks back at Furlan here is heartbreakingly earnest.  He looks open and vulnerable, as if imploring Furlan to understand.

And Furlan looks back, and finally realizes what Levi is trying to tell him.  And when he realizes it, he smiles, and laughs.  Because he realizes Levi is doing this for him, and for Isabel, and for Flagon and Sairam, even.  He realizes Levi truly means well here, and has made the choice he has after deep thought and consideration.  That this isn’t an impulsive or hotheaded choice, that he IS thinking clearly.  Levi is confused by his reaction, and Furlan keeps laughing along with Isabel, before telling Levi “Fine.  I’ll trust you.”, giving Levi the same regard Levi before showed him before, in agreeing to follow Furlan’s plan.  Furlan chooses to trust in Levi’s decision making, chooses to trust in Levi’s own plan now.  And then he tells Levi not to die, and Isabel tells him to make sure he comes back. They’re scared for him, but they’re choosing to trust him.

We get a significant panel then, as Furlan and Isabel fall back from him, and Levi looks back at them, as if still uncertain in his choice, despite all the thought he put into it. He’s still filled with self-doubt, even as Furlan had just moments before expressed belief in him.  Like he thinks there’s something he must be missing, even though he’s sure he thought out every possible scenario and reason for choosing as he did.

What’s important too, in understanding Levi’s choice, is that it never once occurs to him that Furlan and Isabel could die.  He thinks Flagon and Sairam potentially will, if they all leave them behind, and he thinks he himself might, if he strikes out on his own.  But he never thinks it a possibility that Furlan and Isabel could. He chooses then, in that moment, to also trust in the strength of his friends.  He shows absolute belief in Furlan’s and Isabel’s strength, to the point that he believes Flagon and Sairam need them, more than he does.  It isn’t even a thought Levi can entertain, that him choosing to leave will put Isabel and Furlan’s lives in danger.  With all the consideration he does, all the thought he puts into making the right choice, it simply isn’t conceivable to him, that his friends could die.  If he had thought that a possibility, if such a scenario had occurred to him, he never would have left.  He genuinely believed, if all four of them stuck together, they would be alright, even if he himself wasn’t.

A few others points of note in this chapter.

When Isabel and Furlan meet up with Flagon and Sairam again, and Sairam asks if Levi is dead, Isabel reacts violently, screaming “Of course he isn’t!!  Levi will come back.  Bet on it!”. This emphasizes, in a truly heartbreaking way, Isabel’s own faith in Levi, and her need to believe he’ll be alright. She insists that Levi will come back, and this builds off of Isabel’s continued refrain throughout the story of how Levi is “the strongest”, both below and above.  Levi is Isabel’s hero, and she clings to his perceived strength in this moment, needing to believe in it to comfort herself over his safety.

This runs parallel then to Levi coming upon the butchered squad from the first rank, and his horrified realization that there are at least four Titans that did this, and that they’re heading back the way Levi came from, meaning right for Isabel and Furlan and Flagon and Sairam.  He immediately turns around and tries in a frantic dash to make it back in time, thinking desperately to himself that there’s too many Titans, and they’ll be overwhelmed. And then he comes upon the sight of Sairam being eaten, and he cries out for Furlan and Isabel.  

Truly the most heartbreaking part about this entire scene is how Levi tries so desperately to make it to his friends in time, but how he just simply isn’t near enough too, and can only watch, then, as they die.  For Levi, who’s entire identity revolves around wanting to help others, to protect others, his own helplessness in this situation must be truly horrific for him. And especially, his own helplessness in watching the two people that mean the most in the world to him get eaten alive.

Another truly heartbreaking moment here is how Isabel decides, in Levi’s absence, that she’s going to take on his role as protector, and save everyone.  How Isabel’s admiration and hero worship of Levi is, indirectly, what gets her killed here.  She wants to be just like him, and in trying to be like him, she ends up dying.  All of this happens in front of Levi.  He has to watch Isabel die while trying to do the thing he’s made himself responsible for, which is protecting the lives of others. And the way she starts to call out for him, right before the Titan’s jaws close around her, is truly gut wrenching. Levi’s expression here is one of such utter horror and shock too, before it turns to sudden, murderous rage, and he tries once more to close the distance and make it in time, only to have to watch both Flagon, and then Furlan both get eaten too.

Levi thinks to himself, as Furlan’s being lifted to the Titan’s mouth “I’m going to end up letting everyone die.”  Before screaming out Furlan’s name.  Levi is already blaming himself, already feeling the abject weight of his failure. This is the moment when he realizes his choice was the wrong one.

Furlan, in one of the saddest moments of all, finally sees Levi and, as if to say ‘it’s okay.  This isn’t your fault’, waves to him in acknowledgment.

Maybe most cruel of all is how Levi, even in the face of his overwhelming fear and horror and self-hatred, clings desperately to hope, still trying with everything he has to make it in time to save at least one of his friends.  He thinks to himself “Come on, make it in time!!”, and only to make it more tragic still, he almost DOES make it in time, just barely a moment too late as he slices off the hand of the Titan that had been holding Furlan.  Levi misses saving Furlan’s life by mere moments. It’s truly the definition of tragic, and beyond traumatizing.  

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for chapter 7.  I’m off to read chapter 8 next, and that’ll be a wrap!

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Autistic Hiccup x ADHD Anna Headcanons

SO I’ve been really into the whole Autistic x ADHD ship dynamic and Hiccanna...highkey fits??? Like y’all know I will die on my “Anna has ADHD” hill, but after reading this post by @hobie-brown I’m like wait, the autistic Hiccup headcanon is wonderful too??? And blends SO WELL with ADHD Anna??? And I absolutely HAD to explore it more so BOOM headcanon time! Another special thanks to @hobie-brown for writing the super lovely autistic Hiccup headcanon masterpost that inspired me to do this!

Disclaimer: I myself am not on the spectrum (part of the reason I’ve always felt a little weird about definitively HCing characters as autistic unless I see actual autistic people HC them that way too), so most of the stuff here is stuff I know secondhand from my autistic friends! I do have ADHD, so I can always promise that ADHD Anna will be 100% authentic XD

~Anna absolutely gets into Hiccup’s special interests to try and impress him. The most obvious one being, of course, dragons, but also dinosaurs (extinct dragons), lizards (tiny dragons), and Dungeons and Dragons (An RPG game that does, in fact, include dragons). Hiccup absolutely had that dragonology book as a kid and got obsessed with it beyond all reasonability. Hilariously, Anna’s wooing strategy of indulging his special interests works like a charm--mainly because a) he’s pretty flattered that someone takes THAT much of an interest in what he likes and b) half the time, ANNA finds that she genuinely gets into whatever said special interest is and finds them easy to hyperfixate on. It helps that the more she obsesses over it herself, the more she has to talk to Hiccup about XD

~Specifically, Anna definitely joins a DnD campaign at some point so that Hiccup will think she’s a “cool gamer girl”--and then gets unironically obsessed with it and starts writing 10-page backstories for all of her characters. She later tells Hiccup it started out as a ruse to win his heart via nerdiness, and he absolutely loses his shit laughing.

~One of their overlapping special interests/hyperfixations is high fantasy. Hiccup is, unsurprisingly, all about the mythical creatures while Anna is more into the magic and the zesty political drama, but you dun best believe they catch every CGI-ridden fantasy movie that ever comes out. They’ve both spent a literal fortune on fantasy movie tickets, even moreso on watching them in 3D or Imax. How embarrassing for both of them.

~Another less-obvious overlapping interest is history. Hiccup gets into it while looking into the cultural mythos of dragons (he’s pretty fascinated by the fact that so many cultures around the world thought up similar creatures independently), while Anna gets into it because she grew up cooped up bored and lonely in a big house, and entertained herself by looking into the history behind some of the family paintings. They don’t seem it at first, but they’re actually both huge medieval and ancient civilization history buffs.

~Hiccup is THE most touch-repulsed person you will ever meet. This is unfortunate, as he is also SUPER touch-starved and absolutely does not realize it (I mean, I’ve never gotten the vibe Stoic was the super huggy type, considering his and Hicc’s relationship in HTTYD 1). This means he has absolutely no fucking clue what to make of Anna when they first meet meet. Anna’s the sort of person to give physical affection pretty freely, especially if she likes you--usually in the form of hugs, arm pats or playful swats, putting her elbow on your shoulder, etc etc. Hiccup is kinda just like “this is way too much touching but like??? I kinda like having her this close to me??? What do???”

~Anna, meanwhile, notices that Hiccup kinda stiffens up whenever she touches him and seems to not be crazy about it and she’s just immediately like “yo what’s wrong???” And as SOON as he admits he’s not all that crazy about being touched randomly she’s like “OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY” and never touches him without asking again.

~As soon as she finds out touch a kind of A Whole Thing for him, Anna is like...AGGRESSIVELY respectful of Hiccup’s boundaries when it comes to physical affection. Almost annoyingly so. She gets in the habit of basically never initiating any kind of physical touch without asking first--even long after they’ve started dating, and he’s told her it’s okay to initiate touching as long as she’s not smothery about it. She still refuses out of principle.

~They come up with a kind of “consent language” so Anna can pretty quickly determine when it’s all right to touch Hiccup--because Anna still really likes being physically affectionate with him, and he does actually like receiving physical affection a lot of the time (because, again, touch-starved), he’s just choosy about who does it. They work out a system based off of small, light touches that Hiccup doesn’t mind where it’s basically 2 taps on his shoulder for “can I hug you around the neck,” 2 taps on his side for “can I hug you around the waist,” 2 taps on his arm for “can I grab/lightly slap/punch your arm,” and 1 tap on is shoulder for “can I put my arm/elbow on your shoulder.” If he’s cool with it he’ll either nod or just say “yeah go ahead.” It works a lot quicker than asking “can I do such-and-such specific touch” every single time, and allows Anna to keep some of her spontaneity. They develop this during their friendship and it ends up rolling over into their relationship, even after Hiccup has basically told her she doesn’t need to ask permission for a lot of these anymore. She adds a new one after they start dating--she taps him a couple times wherever she wants to kiss him to ask if it’s cool to give him a smooch! It usually is.

~INFODUMPING. Literally SO. MUCH. INFODUMPING. Hiccup absolutely WILL NOT SHUT UP when he gets to talking about one of his special interests. Anna just will not shut up in general, but when the topic changes to one of her hyperfixations, it’s even worse. If you try to have a conversation with these two while they’re infodumping, you WILL get talked over. Honestly, left to their own devices, they could probably infodump to each other for literal days on end.

~Despite how much they both like to infodump, they’re both pretty good about being patient and indulging the other when it’s their partner’s turn to infodump in the conversation XD They are, however, notorious about accidentally triggering a barely-related infodump in the other person. It’s not uncommon for one of them to finish a rant and then the other goes “OH THAT REMINDS ME” and sets off on a completely different, barely-related rant.

~Hiccup actually really appreciates how overexpressive--and occasionally overdramatic--Anna tends to be. He never has to try and figure out what she’s thinking because she just says everything in her brain, and her body language basically always matches how she’s feeling to a ridiculous extent, so he never has to give himself a headache trying to read her. The fact that she’s the opposite of subtle and has no filter whatsoever works great for him, because he doesn’t have to drive himself insane trying to understand her. He gets her better than he gets most people because she’s an open goddamn book. The boy’s never been the best with social cues at all, never mind the nuanced, obscure ones, so Anna’s general straightforwardness and utter inability to hide her true feelings at literally any time is a breath of fresh air. What you see is basically what you get, and Hiccup wouldn’t have it any other way.

~People think when Anna and Hiccup start dating it’s gonna be a disaster, mainly because he’s so blunt and she can be...”oversensitive” (i.e. has a REALLY bad case of RSD). Turns out they’re dead wrong--because Hiccup has RSD too! (I mean, come ON--look how BADLY he wants to get his village’s approval! And how hard he takes it when his dad or someone else is mad at him--even if he tries to hide it with snark) He’s actually one of the few people who can be blunt enough with Anna that she realizes when she’s being a dumbass but tactful enough not to hurt her feelings or set off her RSD--because god, has he been there. When Anna is being especially difficult and has worked herself into a real bad funk, Hiccup (and sometimes Elsa) is the only people who can talk to her and get through to her without getting blown up at.

~They stim in similar ways!!! They both tend to fidget or kinda bounce up in down in place as a way to comfort themselves and calm themselves down (I see them both having a lot of anxiety and generally being kind of paranoid, although Anna is MUCH better at hiding this via putting on a cheerful face). They both do the leg bounce!!! Also if they get SUPER excited they’ll do a little awkward happy dance!!! They both also tend to stim by rubbing things in small, repetitive motions--with Hiccup, it’s usually his sketching pens, his ear, his head, or the back of his neck, while with Anna, it’s usually her other hand, her arm, her clothes, or really anything with kind of a comforting, consistent texture (some favorites are rubber, felt, and velvet). After they start dating, they actually will stim with each other’s hands while holding hands--usually by squeezing the other person’s hand in kind of a repetitive pattern or doing the thumb-rub thing on the back of the other person’s hand. It’s not uncommon for them to each be doing something completely unrelated while holding hands and just stimming on each other’s hands the entire time. Anna especially really loves when she feels Hiccup stimming on her, because it’s her little indicator that he’s happy and feels at peace and content in her presence and she LOVES being able to do that for him!

~They both stim by playing with hair too! Anna likes to play with her own to stim--mainly by figeting with the end of her braids or tucking hair behind her ear. She DOES love to ruffle Hiccup’s hair too (and she LOVES how fluffy it is!), but it’s usually not a stim thing. After they start dating, Anna does occasionally stim by massaging Hiccup’s hair/scalp, but she doesn’t usually do it for very long. Hiccup really loves braiding Anna’s hair, or just playing with it when it’s down. it helps him relax and clear his mind to have something fairly repetitive and/or mindless to do.

~Even after gaining some confidence, Hiccup still has a fair bit of social anxiety, so he and Anna basically always go to parties and social events together and stick with each other the whole time to make it less intimidating for him. Hiccup generally prefers to let Anna do the talking when they chat with people, and sometimes if he’s REALLY nervous he’ll sometimes even let her kinda talk for him (not in a condescending “speaking over” kinda way, but more in like a “I can sense you’re not comfortable speaking here so I’ll help you out as best I can” kinda way). She always makes sure to leave space in the conversation for him to take over talking if he wants. She’s also incredibly prone to bragging about his accomplishments to basically everyone they know. Hiccup is both embarrassed and flattered by this.

~When Anna finds out about meltdowns (probably through Hiccup mentioning it kind of offhandedly--“Eh, sorry I went AWOL last night, I was having a bit of a meltdown. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine now.”) she lowkey gets super anxious and frustrated because she REALLY wants to help, but has no idea how. Cue literal HOURS of research on the internet and AGGRESSIVE memorizing of any and all tips that she reads that she thinks would help. Which, of course, means several MORE hours spent going over flashcards like she’s studying for a goddamn test, because Anna has never been known for her sharp, expansive memory.

~The first time Hiccup ever has a meltdown in front of her (maybe after a really bad phone fight with his dad or something? Just general sensory overload?), she takes him to a secluded room and IMMEDIATELY gets rid of anything that could be agitating sensory-wise. She dims the lights! She closes the blinds! She throws a nearby clock, an alarm, a timer, and several other objects with only the slightest potential of making an annoying noise out of a nearby window in a fit of passion! She goes on a frenzied quest to find Hiccup’s noise-cancelling headphones--and finishes it in record time! Even in a state of emotional turmoil, Hiccup realizes that Anna’s being just a little too methodical in how she goes about all this--these are the kind of things that wouldn’t ever occur naturally to her to do. So as soon as he calms down a bit and has screamed into a pillow for a while, he’s like “...did you go on the internet to look up how to help with meltdowns?” and Anna’s like “...yes?” And Hiccup is lowkey so touched he starts crying all over again...and then, naturally, makes a long string of snarky comments to try and distract from it XD

~For their anniversary Anna saves up a bunch and buys Hiccup a lizard and a terrarium!!! She gets him a crocodile skink because, I quote, “Well, they always look annoyed, they’re kinda shy, they don’t like to be touched, and they look like tiny dragons, so they reminded me of you!!!” Hiccup screams like a goddamn fangirl, he’s SO excited. As luck would have it, Hiccup’s crocodile skink is a lot less skittish and prone to hiding than they usually are, and he actually lets Hiccup pick him up and pet him without much issue. Which is honestly great, because repeatedly touching something smooth and even like lizard scales helps calm Hiccup down when he’s agitated and helps with some of his sensory issues.

~Probably goes without saying, but Hiccup basically NEVER genuinely gives Anna a hard time about her memory problems or how she’s not always the quickest on the uptake, and if anyone tries to call her annoying, dumb, or immature he will absolutely roast them into oblivion. He does sometimes like...lightly tease her about jumping into things without thinking or never shutting up, but he never pushes it if he can tell she’s genuinely bothered by it (and, again, Anna is very easy to read, so it’s not hard to tell XD)

~I’ve seen other people in the fandom HC either Hiccup, Anna, or both of them as BOTH autistic and ADHD, and honestly...fuck yes!!! I’m down for this too! I love the idea of these two disaster ND kids just vibing with each other on so many damn levels that it’s like...incomprehensible to the average human XD Like man, they fuckin GET each other!!! I’m pretty happy with most combinations of ADHD + Autistic headcanons for Anna and Hiccup, so long as they end up vibing!!!

~THEY JUST. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER. SO MUCH. THEY LITERALLY WOULD DIE FOR EACH OTHER. I AM SURE OF IT. I’M CRYING. 

[kuboism]

Bleach Canon Vs. Studio Clown Episode 1 (Part 2)

So in the manga Ichigo, Number One Oniichan In town, Kurosaki arrives first to rescue his family, in his fancy silly socks and armed with a bat.

This scene is also missing, and I’m slightly saddened because you can also see the little tray of food with the label “For Ichigo-oniichan” which is clearly Yuzu delivering on her earlier promise to bring him some food since he decided to skip dinner bc of his dad.

Ichigo also catches a glimpse of a hollow for the first time. Tensions are high.

You sure sound nonchalant for a person trying to stop him from literally ripping his soul apart. Manga Rukia had some urgency in her smh.

I will admit - literally being “bound” by “words” of a spell is clever and a cool visual. Doesn’t improve the rest of the episode tho....

I’m also very mad that this encounter is changed in the anime. I guess since anime Ichigo had already seen a hollow he rushes in, but this brief moment of fear and hesitation is literally the theme of Bleach.

We fear what we cannot see. What we cannot see we don’t understand. Ichigo is encountering a hollow for the first time here, he is afraid, hesitant to face it. But his love for his family helps him overcome it. He is afraid - but he still has to protect them. He fears what he cannot see, but even so, he continues walking. Ichigo decides, in this moment, to be “brave”. (If you know - you know).

Anyway, Anime fishbone talks again, absolutely ruining the slow reveal of the “nature of the monster” that happens in later chapters, but what is Pierrot if not “subtle” lol.

This part is also removed for obvious reasons.

Some of the dialogue is changed for brevity which is reasonable, but some is also changed to adapt to that fuckin filler “previous day”.

(Not exactly but go off?)

(a brazen assumption)

Manga Rukia just builds up to the reveal.

Again, manga Ichigo’s Reiatsu wasn’t “completely” suppressed - it’s literally what prevented Rukia from finding Fishbone and stumbling into Ichigo’s room. (As per Aizen’s plan, but anyway). It’s unstable and underdeveloped - but like, there. They removed Rukia’s little comment about “unseen filters”, but she still stumbled into his room, and Grand fisher headed towards his house without detours.  Pierrot can move and change dialogue all they like - doesn’t mean it’ll add up lmao.

GIRL THATS SOME BOLD CONJECTURE......

Huh?

FDHGDF DO YOU NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY?? SHES LITERALLY FINE!

YEAH SAME, YOUR FAMILY LITERALLY GOT ATTACKED TOO DIPSHIT!

OH good YOU REMEMBER. Why start with a random ass girl THATS DEAD, YOUR SISTERS ARE ALIVE REMEMBER!!!

Anyway Manga Ichigo supremacy:

WHY IS HE CHARGING TOWARDS IT!

Instead of having Ichigo charge into battle like an idiot the manga gives Rukia an extremely human moment which changes the tide of the battle:

She didn’t mean to blame him. In the short time they’ve knowne each other,s he already feels for him, and doesn’t want him to get the wrong, self-deprecating message. She knows how it is. Her momentary sympathy towards Ichigo is what takes her out of the battle.

Which forces Ichigo, who now having seen the danger and fearing it and doesn’t charge in like an idiot, to feel responsible for the mess and get involved in the forefront of the battle. Albeit suicidal he plays it off like he can win. Which later on develops in his battle ethos - no matter how hopeless the battle, he won’t win because he’s stronger, but because he has to.

(viz translates this to “so come and kill me” completely missing the nuance of his actual line “Try and get it if you can kill me!” - It’s a brazen challenge. Ichigo, no matter how hopeless is stubbornly not suicidal. Again, it’s not about “can he win” - he “has to win”.)

Anime Ichigo is looking for a quick atonement suicidal fight 

and Rukia has to save his clown ass.

Injured manga Rukia saves a stranger that reminds her of her guilt.

In the manga Rukia’s own carelessness leads Ichigo to be forced into battle - him having to overcome fear in a really desperate position just to have a chance at saving his family. Rukia, similarly selfless, and later on as we find out, ridden with guilt, goes beyond her duty to protect him. 

Also funny how this moment is excluded in the anime, where it’s completely Ichigo’s fault that Rukia is injured, while in the manga both slowly contribute to their downfall and yet Ichigo still apologizes, coming to his senses, but ok....

Wish this moment wasn’t this bland in the anime, especially Rukia’s eyes softening, like she’s resigning that she’s about to do something extremely illegal and desperate, potentially fuelled by Ichigo’s emotional whirlwind at the moment.

Anime Ichigo seems mildly troubled by this situation.

Also didnt you like worry about a random girl’s life before your family’s, what’s with the sudden “OF COURSE I WANT TO SAVE MY FAMILY”.

This whole page of explanation 

is reduced to 

Which I can understand pacing wise, but like....I’ll take it over those 6 minutes of filler that derailed the logic of this episode so....? Also would’ve loved to hear Ichigo’s heartbeat overwhelm the scene.

Ichigo’s fear is ignored once again, and this heartwarming scene where his resolve is finally made is like, non-existent

Manga Ichigo supremacy.

They basically just skip to it in the anime lmao, thanks.

Also...confident much, Ichigo? Why??

Anime Ichigo can never live up to manga Ichigo’s charm sigh...

Sir show some emotions (nitpick)

Anyway yeah. End of episode 1. 

I didnt think this would be this draining, but here we are. 

If you’ve followed along you can see how in a world where the Bleach manga didnt exist...the anime would be fine. Yet at random ass steps they make these needless changes that just ripple throughout into nonsense. Those 6 minutes of screentime that they dedicated to Rukia and Ichigo meeting earlier could’ve just been used....for literally anything else they cut out. 

I’m so tired, thank you for reading this far!! Bye!!

[justmenoworries]

Let's see, for the character bingo... Glimmer !

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

[Image Description: It's the Character Opinion Bingo. The boxes "they are sooo cool-looking", "everyone but me is wrong about them <3", "wasted potential", "if they were real I would marry them", they got done DIRTY by the fans", "I want to carry them in a handbag like a tiny dog", "they're like a blorbo to me", "I like them enough to project my own issues onto them", "they've never done anything wrong in their live <33" and "they're deeper than they seem" are ticked off.]

Glimmer is one of the best things about SPOP and I say that completely unirconically. A plus-sized female character who is neither at the butt-end of fat-jokes all the time nor has her entire character revolve around her looks and how she feels they're insufficient? Nice! I love her design, both her princess and her queen one. The sparkles in the hair, the cape, the onesie - it looks cute and badass at the same time!

To be completely honest, when I watched SPOP for the first time I didn't really like Glimmer. I thought she was too loud, too bossy and overall annoying. But since then I learned what nuance and inentional character flaws are (and had a bit of time to reflect on my own internalized misogyny).

Glimmer is a character the fandom (and with the fandom I mean mostly Catr//dora-stannies) loves to hate. Because she's not perfect all the time and because she's a pretty realistic portrayal of what having to make hard decisions in a war looks like, people got it into their heads that she's just as, if not more, bad than the actual villains. I've seen more than a few people compare Glimmer in season 4 to C*tra and basically say they're one in the same now. Which couldn't be further from the truth.

Glimmer in season 4 was forced to prematurely rise to leadership (because C*tra's bullshit got her mom killed) and somehow figure out how to win a war that has been raging ever since she was born and that has only gotten more bloody and complicated over time. She had to make tough calls and look for help in unlikely and in some instances unsavory places. That doesn't make her a villain. That makes her someone willing to get off her ass and do anything she can to make sure her loved ones are safe. Were some of the decisions she made a bit questionable and maybe not all that squeaky-clean nice and heroic? Absolutely. Was she right to lash out at Adora like she did? No, of course not. Does that put her on the same level as someone who deliberately goes out of her way to cause as much pain and suffering as possible because she has mommy-issues and a weird semi-incestuous fixation with a member of the opposite faction? Hell. No.

I'm of the opinion that Glimmer was extremely underutilized and done wrong in season 5. She's the queen of Bright Moon and the de facto leader of the Princess Alliance, yet all she gets to do in season 5 is stand aside and twiddle her thumbs while the others figure everything out. And forced to play cheerleader for the person that has her mother's blood on her hands. I absolutely hated the C*tra/Glimmer "friendship" season 5 shoved down our throats.

Also, Adora and Glimmer had way more chemistry as a romantic pairing that C*tra and Adora ever had. Season 5 literally had to rip off Glimmadora scenes from previous seasons to make it look like Catr//Adora could even remotely work.

In conclusion, Glimmer is awesome, abusive cat-girl is overrated, SPOP would have benefitted immensely from more Glimmer.

[dillydedalus]

march reading

kinda forgot about this i guess. anyway feat. uh, magical ships, dubious mental health institutions (plural) & a parisian building with 99 rooms. 

the forever sea, joshua phillip johnson (forever sea #1) i firmly believe that more fantasy lit should be set on ships bc ships are inherently a sexy setting & you could have pirates which are extremely sexy. this has ships (and pirates) and also a sea made of grass? a magical plant sea on which ships sail via magical fires, so conceptually i’m very into it all. the plot is fine, but the protagonist kindred has a very bad case of Main Character Syndrome so prepare for mild annoyance throughout. also while i generally enjoy book magic vs wild magic i wish more works would treat them as two ends of a spectrum rather than ~book magic bad and boring, wild magic cool and *~natural*~. but overall i think this series has potential. 3/5

jagannath: stories, karin tidbeck ([partially?] translated from swedish by the author) really cool collection of sff stories by tidbeck, many of which veer into mild horror and some of which are influenced by swedish folklore and especially swedish fey stories. i enjoyed most of these a lot, especially the existential call centre horror story, the ‘god won’t let me die’ one, and a taxonomy of a cryptid that goes a little off the rails. 4/5

annette, ein heldinnenepos, anne weber a novel in verse about anne beaumanoir, a real person who was a résistance member during world war 2 and later supported the algerian national liberation front, for which she was sentenced to 10 years in prison (she escaped to tunisia and later algeria). she’s clearly a very impressive and interesting person & i conceptually enjoyed the idea of writing a modern hero(ine)’s epic, but i feel like the language could have been a bit more stylized to match the form. 3/5

salvage the bones, jesmyn ward (audio) bleak but ultimately hopeful novel about a black family in the days before and during hurricane katrina, although the focus is on the family dynamics, the 14-year-old narrator discovering that she is pregnant, and the kids trying to keep the puppies their dog china just had alive and well. enjoyed this, altho i did it a bit of a disservice but listening to it a lot of short chunks. 3.5/5

regeneration, pat barker (regeneration trilogy #1) set mostly at a military hospital for soldiers with shell shock during world war 1, this novel explores the existential horror of war, psychological treatment (& the horrible absurdity of treating traumatised men just enough so that you can send them straight back to Trauma Town), and the meeting between siegfried sassoon & wilfred owen. i find i don’t really have much to say about it, but it is very, very good. 4/5

how to pronounce knife, souvankham thammavongsa a short story collection mainly about refugees and migrants from laos to canada, many focusing on parent-child relationships and being forced to work in low-paid jobs, often ones that are damaging to their health. the stories are very well-observed and emotionally nuanced and detailed, but with 14 mostly very short stories, the collection as a whole felt a bit samey, which i guess is something i often experience with short story collections. 3/5

faces in the water, janet frame horrifying semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman stuck in new zealand’s mental health system, moving to different hospitals but mostly from ward to (more depressing) ward in the 40s/50s. while there is a shift in attitudes during her stay that sometimes makes the wards more tolerable, mostly the patients are neglected, abused, and the threat of electric shock therapy and lobotomy always hangs over them. 3/5

the upstairs house, julia fine fuck why did i read so many books about mental health conditions this month??? this is another entry in my casual ‘motherhood as horror’ reading project, in which a new mother develops post-partum psychosis & imagines the modernist children’s book writer she’s writing her dissertation on and her poet sometimes-lover haunting her and her child (margaret wise brown & michael strange, who are real people i was utterly unaware of). this does pretty good on the maternal horror front, but i wasn’t entirely sold on the literary haunting. 2/5

1000 serpentinen angst, olivia wenzel a very interesting novel about a woman struggling with grief over her brother’s suicide, an anxiety disorder, the (non)state of a (non)relationship and discrimination/marginalisation based on her identity as a black, east-german, bi woman (while also being, as she notes, financially privileged). much of the novel is written in a dialogue between the narrator and an unnamed (& probably internal) interlocutor, which was p effective for a novel more focused on introspection than much of a plot. 3/5

atlas: the archaeology of an imaginary city, dung kai-cheung (tr. from chinese by the author, anders hansson, bonnie mcdougall) fictitious theory about a slightly-left-of-reality version of hong kong and how maps (re)construct the city, very heavy on the postmodern poststructuralist postcolonial (and some other posts, i’m sure). in many ways my jam. unfortunately my favourite parts of this were the author’s preface and the first part (fictitious theory of mapping alternate hong kong); the rest felt very repetitive and not particularly interesting, altho i’m sure i was also just missing a lot of cultural context. 2.5/5

under the net, iris murdoch .........i liked the other two murdochs i’ve read (the sea, the sea & a severed head) quite a lot so either i was not in the mood for her very peculiar style of constructing novels and characters or, this being her first novel, she just wasn’t in full command of that peculiar style yet but man this was a slooooooooog. don’t stretch out your modern picaresque with an incredibly annoying narrator over more than 300 pages iris!!!! 2/5 bc this probably has some merit & i just wasn’t into it

the impossible revolution: making sense of the syrian tragedy, yassin al-haj saleh (tr. from arabic by i. rida mahmoud) collection of articles and essays saleh (a syrian intellectual & activist who spent 16 years in a syrian prison) wrote from 2011 to 2015, analysing the reasons for, potential and development of the revolution, as well as some background sociological discussion on the assads’ regime. very interesting, very dense, very depressing. wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as a first read on the topic tho. 3/5

angels in america: millenium approaches & perestroika, tony kushner the page to tumblr darling quote ratio in this is insane (”just mangled guts pretending” and so on) and also it just really slaps on every level. also managed to get me from 0 to crying several times. brilliant work of theatre, would love to see it staged (or filmed). 4/5

life: a user’s manual, georges perec (german tr. by eugen helmlé) 99 chapters, each corresponding with a single room in a parisian apartment block; some chapters are basically ‘here’s the room, here’s a long list of objects in the room, that’s it bye :)’, some are short insights into the lives of the people living there, some (the best, mostly) are long, absolutely wild tales that are sometimes only tangentially connected to the room in question. why are the french like this. 61/99 rooms 

sisters in hate: american women on the front lines of white nationalism, seyward darby (audio) nonfiction about women’s role in white nationalist hate movements, mainly based on the stories of three women who are or have been involved with various contemporary american alt-right/racist/neonazi hate groups, while also looking at general social trends and the history of white women’s role in white supremacy. interesting and engaging if you’re interested in this kind of thing. if you’re both politically aware and internet poisoned, it’s probably not much that is completely new to you but still worth reading. 3/5

starting in april i will be Gainfully Employed (ugh) & thus probably not read as much or read even more bc i have no energy for anything else 

[harry-sussex]

You're lovely, and I enjoy seeing your blog on my dashboard. I'm sorry this has been such a difficult thing to process. It's always really difficult to rework an image of someone you once thought you knew. However I'd like to just put it out there - sometimes (I think the large majority of the time) news is presented in the most sensationalist way, such that nowadays I make a point of de-sensationalizing any news I read in my head. In the case of the whole Harry's memoir thing- I can sympathize with Harry as a person possibly just wanting to take back some control of the narrative for himself. Not just in the most recent events with family (that I tend to think are less horrifying than the fandom/Twitter sussex squad discusses it anyway), but in all aspects of his life. I do not at all think he's going to put his family on blast. I can easily imagine Meghan reigning that dialogue in; she has the tendency to think before she speaks that he seems to lack. And he loves his family. Similar to The Interview promos, I imagine the publishing house knew to increase the interest by implying it to be a tell all memoir. I think he's just done a lot of growing up that he didn't know he had to do over a short period of time, esp re: implicit bias/racism in the setting of media's blatant attack on someone he loves, and is disappointed by the institution's and his family's response to it. I think he's emerged a more introspective and aware human, albeit a disillusioned one. Yes it breaks my heart to think that Meghan won't get a break from the tabloids any time soon. If I were him I'd counsel him to write it & sit on it for a few yrs. But I don't want to give the media the power to destroy Meghan in my mind, and I pray she & Harry won't either. I think she'll be okay. She's a strong one, and I think he's able to draw that same link for himself and be thoughtful about what he does. No one likes being misunderstood/misinterpreted, and I wouldn't be surprised if Harry's especially triggered by that given his history with the press. Maybe this idea emerged from therapy, idk. I can empathize with that, even if I wouldn't do it myself. I hope and pray Meghan gets the support she needs from him and her loved ones in the meantime. I'm honestly not going to read it. I think the less attention I give the BRF the better off they are, unless they're doing something immoral/illegal (see: Woking pizza alibi). And I think at the end of the day, people will unfairly judge other people, especially public figures that have tragic pasts and are publically fighting with the media. A lot of it is going to be noise and I'm not going to give my energy into figuring it out. I like to think I've got a good sense of who they are as people - flawed but ultimately well meaning and earnest. I'm a huge admirer of Meghan and think Harry got really lucky with this one and I'm proud of him for choosing her in more ways than one. I believe Harry and Meghan are lovely people, and I 100% believe their interview. I believe that there are people in the palace with a lot of unchecked power who deliberately uncovered her and Archie from BRF protection for reasons of believed superiority over Meg & Arch. And they're figuring out how to deal with that as a couple and a family. And it's none of my business past that imo. I pray for them and hope it'll eventually end in peace for them all. Just wanted to add another perspective, and hopefully some levity. xx M

Hi, dear. First thing’s first, I really appreciate that this is off anon lol. I love it when people own their opinions, and it says a lot that you did. So thank you for that.

Second of all, I really appreciate the nuance and perspective that is in this message. I agree that the news is sensationalist, and my initial reaction was based off of that. I did watch the promotional clips of the interview and I believe it did sour my expectations going into it when I watched it nearly a week after it aired. I did my best to stay away from Tumblr because I didn’t want that to hinder my view, but it was impossible to separate the promotions that presented the information one way from what it actually was, and thank you for bringing that up with respect to the memoir because I hadn’t considered it. I will say that my knee jerk reaction is pretty on par with the way I still feel about it 24 hours later, especially since I got the news directly, not from Tumblr or Twitter or anywhere else, but you’re right that it could have soured my view from the very start.

I appreciate that he wants to take back some of the narrative but I think that ship has sailed, tbh. He did that with the interview and now I just think it feels like information overload. At some point, people are going to get tired of hearing the wealthy, privileged, powerful Prince complain about his life while more than 4 million people have died due to a global pandemic in less than 2 years. Not to say that he doesn’t struggle - in the words of Roxane Gay, there is no oppression Olympics (and that can be extended to struggle Olympics) - but people view it that way and will get tired of it, if they haven’t already.

I also agree that Harry’s past with the press has tarnished the way he has handled the media and the public post-exit, when he’s finally in a position to strike back without being somewhat obliged to them as part of the circumstances of his birth. I understand and sympathize with him but I just don’t think the public does, and the public matters much, much more than the perspective of one single American fan, to whom he’s never been obliged, and I simply do not think the public will afford him that same understanding, sympathy, and leniency. The public and the media are critical to his humanitarian work - his mother never realized that towards the end of her life, and I truly don’t think she would have been the martyr/saint she is perceived to be now if she had lived, because she did not know how to meet the media in the middle and eventually that started to piss people off. He’s starting to piss people off now and if it doesn’t bother him personally (which it definitely does), I don’t want it to affect his causes. The Invictus Games, Sentebale, Walking with the Wounded, WellChild, Mayhew, Smartworks, Archewell, etc. deserve better than to suffer the wrath of the media and an apathetic public because their patrons simply will not shut up lol.

I guess my point is that they will be unfairly judged (regardless, but especially due to the way they’re handling things), and I think it would suit them better in the long run if they adopted a different strategy. I really sympathize with the fact that he feels frustrated with the narrative that has been manufactured but I really, really think the narrative will only get worse and worse as he continues to go on and on about how badly his life sucks, basically. Again, I don’t deny that he struggles - we all do, some more than others, especially when there are mental health issues - but the public, to me, simply does not care. My own therapist has told me to simply stop caring about the things that I discuss with him. Not to say that they’re not relevant, important, or worthy of discussion - they absolutely are - but his point is that you cannot change people and you are wasting your energy and struggling yourself because you want to change them so, so, so badly that you’re neglecting your own self care in the process. I hate that I do it to myself and I also hate that he appears to be doing it to himself. I’m sure a lot of this conversation has been brought up in his own therapy, and I’m no professional, but I’m doing my best to heed the advice of my own therapist - which is the opposite of what Harry is doing - and it’s done wonders for me, when I actually can do it.

If there’s anything I know from this whole thing, it’s that Harry is absolutely punching above his weight, love him as I may, and that he adores, adores, adores his wife. He has chosen her from the very second she came into his life and I couldn’t want anything more for him or from her. I’m not going to lie, I would have been in this thing for any wife that Harry chose, because I was here long before Meghan specifically came into his life. However, I am glad every day that he chose her, that he loves her, that he wants to protect her, that she loves him back, that he lives the life with her that he’s wanted as long as I (and I’m sure he) can remember. I love her because he loves her, and I would have no matter what, because at the end of the day, it’s his happiness and comfort that matters to me, that has mattered to me since I discovered him and how wonderful he can be more than 7 years ago. What more could I ask of Meghan? What more, as his fan to the end (annoy me as he may), could I want for him? Who could say anything about her in that regard? If there’s anything that has come of this mess, to me, it’s that Harry loves, loves, loves his wife. I will always be happy for him and I will always be proud of him for choosing her, even if I don’t always agree with the way he goes about it.

I’m looking forward to peace, too. I cannot wait for things to just die out, for them to work things out as a couple and as a family, and for everyone to move on. The family will still do their thing and the Sussexes can do theirs, but I cannot deal with this back and forth, tit for tat, petty nonsense anymore. They’re wonderful and flawed, like the rest of them (except Andrew), and I just hope that they can all come to some kind of agreement or terms that lets this die down. It’s exhausting for everyone - themselves included. If I’m this tired, I can only imagine how tired they all are.

Thanks for stopping by, and sorry for the essay (essays, these past 24 hours lol). I really appreciate your kindness in this message, your presence in my notifications (I do see them!), your nuanced perspective and like I said before, I really, really appreciate that you own it!

[grayhouse3]

SJTR is my villain origin story

So I finished Stalking Jack the Ripper.

Originally I told myself that I was going to just stick it out and read the next one (“Oh, it’s about vampires and Dracula. It’s probably more fun. You can forget all about the pain this one inflicted on you"). No. I got 12% of the way through and had to DNF. So here are my messily compiled thoughts on the book, basically expanded from the last post. Honestly, kind of feel free knowing I won’t be writing more about this series. (Also I am adding some TWs down below but don't know if I am doing them right!)

More on the exoticism, weirdness with Audrey Rose's Indian mother, and the British Empire:

In chapter 14, we read, "Dark strands of hair were piled atop my head, my eyes more mysterious somehow with the dark liner, and my lips were the bright crimson of freshly spilled blood … I thought of my mother and the saris she’d brought me to wear from Grandmama’s homeland. I felt just as stunning now as I did then, and the memory warmed me.” I am still trying to figure out why Maniscalco made Audrey Rose mixed race. Why is Audrey Rose’s grandmother from India? Literally, what did it add to the story? Was it nothing more than just a cute lil quirky fun character trait to her? I don’t think I missed any key moments where there were important conversations about race, imperialism, British occupation, etc., mostly because Audrey Rose’s father (a big fancy rich lord) is a white man and because Audrey Rose is white-passing. I can’t recall any moments in the book where she faces the realities/consequences of being a socially mobile POC WOMAN in LONDON IN THE 1880s. Honestly, if someone else can point out a passage I glossed over or explain some nuance I missed I would actually really appreciate it, because this drove me CRAZY.

(Audrey Rose and her brother also go visit a circus in town in chapter 15; of course these events existed purely for England/colonizing countries to exercise and display their power and to exoticize/exploit the communities/cultures that they came into contact with. Audrey Rose sees silks, beads, etc. that remind her of her grandmother’s saris, smells the foods of her family’s “homeland,” etc. Also in the same chapter there’s this great scene where her brother is describing their mother and father’s marriage: “Grandmama told me she’d refused him twenty times just for fun,” Nathaniel replied. “Said he squirmed like a cobra in a basket. That’s how she knew he was in love.” Uhhh … Is that supposed to be romantic?)

On the feminism stuff:

I am too *gestures vaguely* to write much more on this. Yeah, it’s heavy-handed. Yeah, it’s cringey. But at the end of the day, it’s not really that harmful, I guess. Here’s just a fun sampling of some of my favorite lines from the book:A few of my favorite bites from the book:

***“close-minded society” (chapter 21) Okay

***"Why turn a murderer of women into front-page news?” (chapter 15) Bro do you know how the media works

***"But what of her [mother’s] insistence that I could be both strong and beautiful? Surely Father had to be wrong.” (chapter 21) Yes girl you are strong and beautiful!

***"There would be no skirts or bustles to wrangle with anymore. I was through with things confining me” (chapter 22) Ugh down with corsets just another tool of the patriarchy amirite

On the violence against women, weird classism, and stuff about prostitution:

I was bound to be uncomfortable about a lot of this because I have weird feelings about true crime stuff, and this is historical fiction set around the Jack the Ripper murders. It was going to go sour somewhere.

Consistently Audrey Rose wants to be sympathetic, but is unable to connect all the parts of this situation together: she struggles to imagine the women (very real-life victims) beyond their lives of prostitution, poverty, squalor. When she does, we see something like this: "The women he murdered did matter ... They were daughters and wives and mothers and sisters” (chapter 28). Oftentimes she wishes she could continue to cut cadavers open in peace (women in science!) without having to think about how those cadavers came to be on her examination table: “I needed to get away from those women and their tragic lives before my emotions got the better of me” (chapter 25). Perhaps Maniscalco deserves more credit here, and perhaps I’m just being a bitch, because Audrey Rose is a very privileged girl and her actions and thoughts make that clear. It’s just that the conclusions she comes to in the name of feminism, justice, etc. weren’t at all satisfying to me.

Also: OH MY GOD. Oh my god. There is this one moment that is BRANDED AGAINST THE GRAY MATTER OF MY BRAIN FOREVER and I will never forget it. At one point, Audrey Rose and love interest Thomas decide the best thing they can do is go out and—yes—stalk Jack the Ripper. To do this, they know they need to “blend in” with the crowds in East End. So … like … cosplaying as poor people? Audrey Rose manages to find and wear the dress of ONE OF THE MURDER VICTIMS (long story short her medical doctor uncle was in a relationship with this woman and when she died he acquired her worldly possessions). It’s like, so fucked up, I can’t even describe my reaction when I read it. In chapter 25 we read, "The dress was a little too old, a little too ragged, a bit too big. If I were to wear this ghastly dress out, I’d look as if I belonged in the East End, begging for work to feed my addictions … It was absolutely perfect.” Oh my god. And THAT’S NOT EVEN THE WORST PART. While they’re “stalking Jack the Ripper” on this incredibly stupid mission, the two main characters just … make out in an alley. Like, okay. People are being murdered and you’re wearing a dead woman’s dress and you suspect your father of being guilty, but yeah, that kind of stuff makes us all a little horny. Super relatable. Absolutely no concept of reality or consequences or anything at all.

Another random note on class: I noticed the only time Maniscalco writes in dialects/accents, she’s writing seedy/working-class characters. Not saying this is a problem unique to Maniscalco’s writing by a longshot, but ... something to think on. (I think it’s ingrained in a lot of author’s writing habits/minds at this point.)

Weird stuff about the dad, the brother, and what justice means to Audrey Rose:

I had to add a whole new highlighting color for this stuff!

Any growth Audrey Rose might’ve shown over the course of the novel—anything about how these women mattered, and how they deserved justice as any “highborn” individual might, simply by dint of being humans—goes away when she and Thomas come to the conclusion that the Ripper murders must have been committed by Audrey Rose’s father. She realizes her moral dilemma when she contends with the harsh reality: if her father is the Ripper, can she turn him into the authorities? Audrey Rose worries how that might impact her own moral virtue: "They’d hang Father. Given who he was, they’d make it as public and brutal as possible. Just because blood might stain his hands did not mean I wanted his on mine. No matter if it was right or wrong” (chapter 24). First of all, BITCH. You have to. You have to report this kind of thing. No ifs, ands, or buts. I HAVE to imagine Maniscalco’s intended audience would feel the same? It’s? Serial murder? Second: Audrey Rose, baby, sweetie, honey. This is just a reminder that ACAB. I actually don’t know a whole lot about how the late Victorian criminal justice system functioned, but something tells me her family's public outlook would’ve been less bleak than she imagines here.

Lucky for Audrey Rose, her dad isn’t guilty in the end—but her brother sure is. He’s a mad scientist, using the brutalized bodies and souvenirs of his victims for Frankenstein-style experiments. Ultimately, he wants to reanimate the corpse of his and Audrey Rose’s long-dead mother, and he believes he can achieve this by transplanting fresh organs into ? Her dead and decomposed body? The thing is that, this moral dilemma persists for Audrey Rose—and her dad, too. He pressures her not to bring the little matter of Nathaniel’s issue—you know, his casual murder of a number of local women—to Scotland Yard: “They’ll have your brother hanged,” he said quietly. “Could you honestly watch that happen? As a family, have we not suffered enough?” (chapter 29). Nathaniel electrocutes himself to evade capture by the authorities, and Audrey Rose and her father feel relief. The book ends by confirming that "Lord Edmund covered up Nathaniel’s involvement, I didn’t ask how. One day I’d let everyone know the truth, but the pain was too raw now” (chapter 30).

((Side note: Listen. I knew Nathaniel had something sinister going on from the GET-GO (I’m not trying to be obnoxious) because he basically started some nighttime vigilante group called the Whitechapel Knights of Justice or whatever bullshit, I don’t know. All I know is that my red flags IMMEDIATELY started going off because that sounds exactly like the terrible and awful Crusader cosplay clubs from my (bad) Catholic childhood, where everyone thinks they’re a knight for Good but really they’re the bad guy.))

Overall, kind of ...

I think one of my biggest issues with this ending was … You have already stepped into a realm of fantastical revisionist history here in writing such a fictionalized version of these real-life events. (I know Maniscalco is far from the first to do it.) That means that the rules you are playing by are essentially your own—evidenced by the liberties she points out in her Author’s/Historical note (dates changed for convenience or storytelling purposes, real-life individuals changed for narrative purposes, etc.). So WHY would you not conclude this fantasy retelling of the Jack the Ripper murders by meting out some form of justice? I hear the counterargument: "Well, because we still don’t know the culprit today. This book would ring hollow if it named someone since historians, forensic scientists, etc. still don’t know who committed these crimes." My question: is that really a problem though? This is a work of fiction. Nothing in history happened the way it is written here. Is it crueler to the women who were murdered and who remain spectacles for true crime junkies and authors like this, less satisfying to readers who want some more concrete kind of closure, to not offer that up? I am asking this in earnest here, because I don’t know. Maybe it is insensitive to make up a murderer, to fill in the gaps in order to make sense of the violence that happened. But in my brain it feels almost like a responsibility at this point, since these murders served as the backdrop for the romance between Audrey Rose and Thomas, for the background to Audrey Rose’s empty feminist diatribes, and as inspiration for a book that went on far longer than it needed to. To me it kind of feels like the least an author could do, but I have no clue.

Anyways, I'm just glad I get to put this series to bed. No more.I truly lost sleep over it this weekend. Onto something better, please, for the love of god.

[searchingforbucky]

Fic Rec List (Part 9) :)

Hello! I’ve gotten MANY many requests for Mobster!Bucky, which is one of my favorite AU’s! (I say that about almost every AU, I know, I’m sorry, I cant help it) I just really like AUs obviously. ANYWAYS, on this list are some of my favorite mobster stories in no specific order! Yet again this is long, I hope you lovelies enjoy! If their are any mistakes im sorry!

Run to Me by @sgtjbuccky​

I fell in love with this story immediately. The dynamic Bucky and the reader have is wonderful. She doesn’t take any nonsense, and boy is he just smitten. The way the story represents Bucky is awesome, he is cocky and full of himself, but you see the west side, the insecurities and his heart. Its not one of those fics with a whole lot of angst, its just a genuinely good read. It makes you happy, and the DRABBLES oh god the drabbles that come along with it were so cute. Also, Salina has another spectacular Mobster Bucky story called **Disbarred https://sgtjbuccky.tumblr.com/post/180246739540/disbarred which a very, very good fic as well. Makes me want to get a mobster of my own lol.

Black Serpent Universe by @invisibleanonymousmonsters

LOVE love this series. This is the first mobster AU I think I ever read, and it is literally flawless. The universe is basically on every long oneshot and accompanying drabbles/HCs. The one shot is everything I could’ve asked for in a fic, its long, well thought out, detailed, exciting, heartbreaking, fluffy, and so so realistic. I know what you’re thinking, a mobster story realistic? Okay, so maybe not the mob aspect, but the real reactions and the slow burn, its true to life, they don’t just jump into things, they live through the build up. The emotions are practical and real and I feel like they were people and not characters. Its just, really freaking good.

Petals & Bullets by @revengingbarnes

This one is really unique, and it talks about sex slave so you know that's a trigger warning. anyways it's just really well done. And like I said I've never really read anything like it and I think that's what makes it great. And when you go into reading it you really think that it's going to be dark and hard to read because it's such heavy material, but the way it's written is really good because it gives that white and makes it worth it to read. It really makes you feel a lot of emotions that I couldn't honestly pinpoint because I was angry at the situation but I loved the characters, so all in all it was just a genuinely good read, and it was really really well done. Not many people could take that subject and turn it into a really good story like that.

Stay, Gold by @the-canary

You want some angst with a side of pain? Well heres the fic for you. This one HURT. There is not a happy ending, not even close. But with all of that being said, it was beautiful. As you read, you realize whats happening and you just hurt for them, they deserve better and you want them to have better, but thats not their fate. They are a pair of lovers unfortunately a part of a tragic story, but oh sort they make the most of what time that had. I cried, a lot, but I also loved the characters. They loved each other, so much, and you could feel it in your bones. Fantastic story. 

Tangier & Redux by @softlybarnes

Theres something about this one that I love, something so unique about the reader. She’s… mysterious, ethereal, and kinda sinister but most importantly damn powerful. The way she speaks, and talks, it reminds me of a witch. Its something that you don’t see a lot in stories like these, the reader being anything but ‘innocent’. She doesn’t take any less than she knows she deserves, and he fiercely wants whats best for her. Sometimes they don’t think those are the same thing. But the chemistry they have, its so nice to read. And the scene setting in this, its perfect, you can picture exactly what it would look like. And the personification of Bucky as well, he’s no wannabe mobster, he’s ruthless, and they fit together so well. 

Someday by @221bshrlocked

This one is really good, it's Rough and violent but like that's the whole point he's a mobster he's ruthless Yet it's perfectly balanced with the fluff that's in there because at first you don't really see it but as time goes on you see all of the small nuances to how much he really likes her and how soft he is actually on the inside and it's one of those stories that you can tell was just written naturally like there wasn't a lot of structured to it and I think that's some of the best stories because it's like real life you know it just happens and you go with the flow and there's nothing jarring that pulls you out of reading. The smut scenes are also perfectly balanced between being sexy yet sensual and sweet. Really awesome fic.

Truth Set Free by @propertyofpoeandbucky

It was so hard picking one of Leilanis story to focus on, because they’ve done some absolutely spectacular ones such as “Missin’ My Girl”, “Soft To The Core”, “Burst Of Anger”, “Maybe This Time”, “How Unlikely”, and of course a fan favorite “Good Business”. However, I decided to focus on the first one I read of theirs. Its such a cool piece, the way its set up is super good I the way that its picking up sort of like in the middle of the story but you’re not lost, you gather details as you go that forms the whole picture in your head. I love the whole secretive thing it has in it, it makes it kinda mysterious to read. Then you get to the second part, and besides the drama, its sweet, he knew they were gonna be together from the beginning. And this sweetness isnt even like explicitly said, you can just see the nuances from his actions. Really good fic, and so are all of the others. 

Lil’ Anthony by @tranquil--heart

My favorite part of the mobster Trope is the whole big bad mob boss who would do anything for those he loves. And this is a perfect example of that, because he's so hard and tough and a bad guy, but when he's with her he's soft and he just melts. the violence in this is the perfect mix of descriptive without being gory, it's realistic yet not exaggerated or too much to handle. it represents the truth well because it's not  ignoring the truth to mobsters. The way they use the other characters and it is why I was awesome because you get to see the comparison between who they are in the Fic and who they are in the movies. The sexy scenes are nice too lol, and knife kink alert lol, That must be said. 

World On Fire by @beckzorz

Alright so this one is super awesome, it's not done yet but what is done of it is too amazing to not include. it's like the perfect combination of two AUs: its mob boss Bucky, and 40s Bucky all in one. What else could you want honestly?The story keeps you on your toes, you know he's secretive she's in love with him oh, you don't really know what's happening next until it happens and then you think we'll of course that's the perfect way to take the story. the way she writes to is just so amazing, it feels like you're back in time and the way she uses those sensory details is just spectacular. In the reader has secrets to so it's like as your reading your findings these things out And it's just really interesting there is no boring aspect to it.

The White Wolf by @captain-ariel-barnes

Okay so this is the first like long mobster fix that I read and it was a really good introduction to that universe. The way every aspect of this story comes together is just really amazing the plot, the dynamic between the characters, the details, the emotion it makes you feel, it's just the perfect combination of pain and fluff in it just is a really good read. it was a roller coaster of emotions, but it was worth it there wasn't just any angst to have angst it was all plot driven and necessary. Also the way it circles back to the beginning at the end is just an example of really good writing it was believable and true to mobster universe is but it also really reference to the Cinematic Universe really well because it brought in those little details and twists from the movie. And I really really love the flower aspect of it, I just really like flowers, and the fact that he loved her so much from the beginning and you could just see that throughout the whole story was just beautiful. 

His Favorite Gal by @mycupoffanfiction

Okay so there's probably nothing in the world I love more than tough guy and the waitress trope.  and this is just a really good rendition of that, it was one of those stories that like was so good that you read it all in one go and then you get to the end and you're kind of like well damn now it's over and I don't really know what to do. He loved her so much and it was one of those stories that made you feel really powerful to be a woman because it wasn't ever demeaning and it was really empowering to see her go from being a waitress to the queen of New York like that, I really like how it represented how if you have a healthy relationship then you'll both grow to be better people (besides the whole mob aspect lol) 

A Business Deal by @em-imagines

So this one was super interesting, I really loved seeing as the story went on how they were falling for each other. And honestly just like the beginning of the story that plot twist was absolutely amazing, I really like how it showed how powerful the reader can be. Because a lot of the times and fix complex where he has all the power over her, but I really like seeing them on that sort of equal plane. The dynamic between the two was also really awesome because there wasn't ever any Real damsel-in-distress moment oh, they were both really independent and capable people who came together to form that's really nice relationship. It was just a really good story to read, and there are many like it out there.

Should’ve Listened by @becs-bunker

You know as I've been saying I really like the stories where the reader isn't just completely helpless, and this is another really good example because you know like it says the reader is truly a bad ass. When you think the world that she's in the middle of and how she reacts to it it's really empowering, and the way her and Bucky interact is really nice to see. And it's really interesting to read because you can literally feel the tension between them and when is it going to happen when is it going to happen oh, and I really hope there's another part to it lol. Its really well done, and a nice funread.

Kings by @kaunis-sielu

So this one I'm going to be honest and say I didn't know if I was going to like it because I'm not a huge fan of really helpless readers but the way this was done is just really sweet. because she's not just completely helpless like she's not incapable, she just needs help because this isn't the world she's used to being in. and you know the relationship moves fast but you never get the feeling of like that went so fast, you just really feel the love in their relationship. And you see her grow into the position she got put into as his girlfriend, because you feel her gain her confidence and she becomes a real badass in the end and I love how much he loves her it was a really sweet story.

Also check out some awesome drabbles at @empyreanwritings under #Mob Monday, and at @bucky-plums-barnes under #Mobster!Bucky

Thank you guys for reading until the end, i hope you love these as much as I do!💖💖

[serene-victory-77]

My Shadow and Bone Show Thoughts Cuz I’m Impressed

So I just finished watching it a few hours ago, and I think since everyone is throwing their thoughts out into the void that is tumblr, I will too! Warning, this is gonna be a long one Things That I Liked!

- Mal and Malina is incredibly redeemed! I know a lot of people, myself included, didn’t like Book Mal, but Show Mal is completely different and anything I could have ever wanted from his character. 

- Alina going “I made mistakes at the Little Palace” about the Darkling and Mal basically going “I don’t care/I’m not mad” and not holding it against her, and being so mature about it/really sweet to Alina was. Amazing.

- Malina doesn’t kiss and this is a plus for me because they’re still actually developing them!

- Baghra was amazing, and I especially loved her interactions with the Darkling. It was always one of the better parts of the triology, how complicated/nuance Baghra and the Darkling are, and I think the show did it justice!

- David and Genya. David and Genya at Alina’s presentation with Geyna looking at him, David looking away, and then when Genya looks away he looks at her? Precious. And Genya complimenting him.

- The Darkling is not nearly as much of a creep, but he’s still a villain. He has more depth, but I’m glad they’re not trying to “redeem” him.

- Side Note, favorite Darkling scene is when David lifts a finger to be called on, and the Darkling goes “You don’t have to- *sigh* Yes, David?” I don’t know why he seems to like David, but I’m here for it

- Show Zoya is still a bit of a bitch, like Book Zoya, but so much more interesting, and actually fun. She’s not “nicer” exactly, but I just liked her more.

- Idk why but I’m obsessed with the First Army scenes and the skiff scenes, they’re wonderful. 

Getting into more Crow territory here,

- Milo the Goat and everything he stands for. Milo saving Mal. Milo the emotional support goat. Who came up with that idea? I’d like to thank them.

- Jesper was incredible and absolutely stole any and all scenes he was in. The show never flunches away from it, and I loved every single moment. Any “Jesper Shooting His Guns” scene was absolutely amazing. 

- Inej’s outfits, Jesper’s red waistcoat/vest, Kaz’s black on black on black apparel, all good. 

- The Crows blended really well into the Grisha story and I’m officially impressed. I did have a hard time wrapping my head around Kaz and the Darkling being in the same frame, but still, I’m overall very happy with it

- Inej throwing a knife and stabbing the Darkling. Amazing. Also Inej lowkey fangirling over Alina, super cute!!

- Whatever communication Inej and Zoya were having on that skiff, I’m here for it. 

- Nina! I was nervous because Danielle Galligan wasn’t what I imagined for Nina, but she really got her spunk and attitude! She’s a bit more mature in how she reads...uh watches...? But still amazing, and I think she might have the most direct book quotes? 

- Matthias being a blushing maiden here and there :)

Things I Didn’t Like/Was Confused By!

- I still don’t get why Jesper has such little issue going to Ravka/the literal Little Palace

- Kaz has his moments but seems really far out of his depth. I mean he kinda is, it makes sense, but I love in-control, always-a-step-ahead Kaz, and I missed that. But we’ll probably get it in the next seasons

- Kaz isn’t nearly as good a brawler as in the books, I’m hoping there’s more of that later

- Why did the Darkling reveal his name so Alina so quickly? It was a bit boring and lackluster while in the books it’s a bigger deal, and I kinda missed that. It’s not really a problem, but just a bit of an odd choice

- I would still have infinitely preferred a super-true-to-the-books-Six-of-Crows-adaption over the mashup, but this is still good

- I’m genuinely not sure if non-book-readers can tell Kanej is even a thing? I’ve heard people say Kaz is too open in the show (Where?? Tell me, I don’t see it. You mean how in the last episode he kinda maybe sorta admits Inej had a point? 8 hours in? Is that it? That’s not being open or soft, he’s a prick the entire time, Freddy Carter just has an oddly soft/kind face even as Kaz), but I think they might’ve gone, oddly enough, a bit too light. Why are they close? If you don’t know the books, you don’t know what Kaz means about Inej watching over him, past killing the Inferni in the church. 

- Overall though, that’s mostly it! I don’t actively dislike many things, which is very, very impressive Favorite Scenes!

- Jesper shooting the Volcra while holding Milo the Goat

- Kaz stabbing the Volcra with the crow head trying to protect Inej

- Jesper watching Alina climb into a carriage trunk and just going “???” “Okay then!”

- Genya complimenting David

- Mal and Alina holding hands at any point  Concerns?

- I have no idea who they’re gonna cast as Wylan. I know people are a bit worked up about Nikolai, but finding a charming blond guy isn’t hard. How are they going to find a sweet/fluffy looking curly headed boy that doesn’t look creepily young in comparison to the others? I want him to fit in visually while still being the Wylan we know and love, and I’m a bit worried

- I have no idea what the Crows are gonna do once they’re back in Ketterdam

Other Thoughts: I think my favorite thing was that readers really had an edge. The adaptation jumps right into the world with very little exposition, and things are explained in the moment. I know adaptations should stand alone from the books, and it kinda does, but the fact that the readers don’t feel forgotten and that we do know what the Grisha are and their colors, the countries from the get go, we know why Kaz has gloves and a cane even if it isn’t explained in the show, we know what the Menagerie is and Inej’s situation, we know why Jesper is such an amazing shot, we get insight and I like that. 

I think people who haven’t read the books might need to look stuff up or ask a friend who does know what’s going on, and they can catch on after that easily enough, but the fact that it feels as if the readers are in on a joke/secret, especially catching book lines and stuff like that, was really neat. Not in a gatekeeping way (I kinda look forward to having my friends go ??? over some parts tbh), but just kinda knowing we’re enjoying an extra level to the entire story, and it’s still a really good show even if you haven’t read the books.

So yeah, go and watch it!! Idk if anyone will, but send an ask if you have any thoughts you’d like to share too!

[near-dareis-mai]

HDM Episode 1x07 recap

Recap of His Dark Materials Episode 1x07: The Fight to the Death

SO MUCH HAPPENS IN THIS EPISODE YOU GUYS

so we start with marisa standing alone in the ruins of the abadoned Bolvangar

obligatory Ruth Wilson Scream (TM)

marisa finds the handmaiden still hanging around, for some reason

then marisa goes absolutely apeshit on her for no real reason, bc that’s just how she be

the she calms down

then we turn to lyra, who’s miraculously unharmed after falling out of lee’s balloon

she hears growling in the distance, and thinks it might be iorek

but she’s so so wrong

then we get a glimpse of what is presumably the subtle knife in action, carving a gateway to will’s world

it’s B'Oréal of course

after that short scene (I told you a LOT gets covered in this episode), we’re back to Lyra, who’s being taken prisoner into Iofur’s fortress

there's blood on the steps to the fortress, and i have SO MANY QUESTIONS like how is the blood spilled so neatly without the snow being disturbed at all??? because no way could an actual fight or killing have taken place here without disturbing all those aesthetic snowdrifts

Anways Lyra gets locked up in the fortress. In true "child of asriel and marisa" fashion, she attempts to fight her way out of the cell

pan, who has braincells which i can only presume are inherited from stelmaria instead, suggests using the alethiomtere instead

at this point, the other prisoner in lyra's cell suddenly makes himself known

he introduces himself as jotham santelia, regius professor of cosmology at the university of gloucester

lyra finds out from the alethiometer that iorek is coming to save her, but he’ll most certainly be killed by iofur’s guards around the fortress

back in lyra's cell, jotham tells her that what iofur wants more than anything is to have a daemon like humans do

this gives lyra an idea and she wastes no time in putting it into action

back in “our” world, boreal is at it again

just like will in the last episode, he’s listening to one of john parry’s interviews

now, let me just stop here and say that we're 7 episodes in and I have still no fucking clue what Lord Boreal is really up to, but the actor puts so much nuance and thought into every expression that I somehow forget this everytime he's on screen

back to lyra, she's being led to iofur's throne room 

i know these bears are supposed to be scary and awe-inspiring but THEY'RE SO FWUFFY

lyra starts off her plan with such a breathtakingly blatant lie...

... which Iorek fully believes???

lyra convinces iofur that if he fights iorek in single combat, he'll win her as his daemon

to “prove” to iofur that she’s a daemon, lyra answers a question by him that only a daemon would know the answer to, using the help of her alethiometer

she gives the right answer to the question of who iofur’s first kill was, which was his own father

meanwhile, lord boreal is off to find john parry's letters, to see if he can find something about john's real goal in them

he forces his way into the house past will’s mom elaine, and i'm already like 🔪🔪🔪

boreal doesn’t waste time getting down to business

SHOUTOUT TO MRS. ELAINE PARRY WE STAN A QUEEN

ok if he wasn't such a snake i'd almost feel bad for boreal, he just CANNOT get ANYTHING done in our world... first he has to deal with parking tickets, then he gets his car clamped, then the people he's trying to threaten actually know their rights under the law... this man is so tired

then his snake daemon decides to make an appearance

anways he leaves elaine after that, and i really want him 🗡️🗡️🗡️ for trying to gaslight her like that

then boreal goes back to his car and asks his goons to get the letters from the parry house by any means necessary

back in lyra's world, iorek finally reaches her, and lyra lets him know of the single combat she's arranged between him and iofur

off we go to the fight, and it's a sign of how into this world i'm getting that i'm seeing a perfectly normal polar bear on my screen and i'm getting uNCOMFORTABLE

so the bears both take their armour off for the fight, which I do not remember happening in the books

At first, it looks like iofur defeats iorek pretty handily

Lyra mourns her fallen friend

iofur realizes that she was lying to him the whole time

then it turns out iorek was just faking his death, and he does a suprise attack on iofur and kills him, in a scene which mostly takes place off screen for some reason

back in our world, elaine is waiting for will when he gets out of school

back in lyra's world, iorek officially becomes king of the armoured bears

Iorek leads lyra to roger, who’ll be joining her to find and free asriel

lyra checks her alethiometer and finds out that her mother is coming after asriel too...

...and she makes a decision that i truly cannot understand

then we get a seemingly unencessary affirmation from Roger, and a lingering closeup on him, for NO REASON

back to marisa

we get an incredibly uncomfortable standoff between marisa and father macphail over her joining them to capture asriel, with what i'm quite sure are supposed to be sexual undertones to the dialogue

back in will's world, they realize their home has been broken into, so will leaves his mom with his boxing coach, and heads back to their home to investigate

shoutout to the coach for just taking all of this in stride

meanwhile, lin manuel scoresby did in fact make it out the crash alive, and is visited again by serafina pekkala

she gives him back his gun, and he agrees to basically be on call for whenever lyra needs him

then we get a really beautiful scene of lyra and roger riding on iorek towards lord asriel's lab

back to will, who's at home opening his letters from his father,when he's interrupted by boreal's goons

will tries to fight one of them, and the guy trips over moxie the cat, and falls over the stairs

meanwhile, marisa is getting ready to apprehend asriel with the magisterium, and we all know the magisterium are the bad guys, so of course lord asriel is the good guy, right?

...right?

we get a quick scene of will running away from his house without even saying goodbye to his mother. my poor son :(

lyra, roger and iorek finally reach lord asriel's lab

here it comes...

Oh.

then stelmaria alerts asriel to the fact that roger is also here

corporate has asked you to find the difference between these two pictures

(there is no difference. they are the same.)

And that’s what you missed last week on How To Traumatize Your Children In Eight Easy Episodes!

[homespork-review]

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 3

TW: """funny""" sexual and physical assault of a child by another child, extreme bullying, extreme ableism, a very brief discussion of shipping characters outside their canon sexuality.

CHEL: We get some implications of the part of troll culture we ended on last time when a slightly baffled-looking Nepeta, watching through the viewport, updates her SHIPPING WALL. Instead of hearts, some of the hypothetical pairings she’s painted are marked with diamonds. What this means will be explained shortly.

I can’t help but feel it’s slightly creepy to hypothetically matchmake your own friends, but I’m pretty sure the other trolls know at least that the shipping wall exists if not exactly which ships they’re in, and they do live in a society in which it’s stated later that mating is mandatory, so it would indeed be helpful to have at least emergency-doable matchmaking done well in advance and they might appreciate the help.

I’d like to take a moment to note a ship at the bottom row, left of centre; GA/Tavros. Hussie, on his Formspring, later said that GA was “obviously” a lesbian, or anyway was only interested in women, which doesn’t have a specific term for it in troll culture. It’s actually hard to tell going by what’s shown in canon, because she only displays specific interest in girls except for in a complicated case we’ll discuss later, but trolls are supposed to be bi-normative, plus it’s not like the male selection here is particularly inspiring, so, yeah, the evidence we actually see isn't conclusively "obvious". The fandom, knowing this, systematically harass anyone who even muses vaguely about the possibility of shipping her with a boy, even if they don't know about that Word of God. This is why I’m wondering whether the trolls knew about the shipping wall, because if they did, we can presume GA didn’t care. For the record, I’m sex-repulsed ace and have in fact written about.my own imaginary persona fucking (admittedly fucking an opposite sex clone of herself, it was a complicated injoke) and my reaction to someone else writing it would depend on context and reason, so I can imagine her reacting similarly, but not everyone would. A similar thing with a canonically gay male character explicitly on-screen not caring about hypothetical shipping of himself with girls comes up much later; he’s not a troll, but his upbringing was troll-influenced (long story).

BRIGHT: Harassing people over the ships they make content for always baffles me. It’s not like fanart/fanfic for a ship which contradicts canon has any effect on the canon, and playing around with character dynamics (often in a pornographic manner) is a major part of fanfic.

CHEL: On top of all this, gender and sexuality are really shaky concepts to even try to apply to a species which reproduces hermaphroditically. On this side of the fourth wall it’s obviously because Hussie is a not-very-reflective cisgender heterosexual man, and didn’t think about it any further than “girls wear skirts, right?” Plenty of people fanwank up possibilities for how it could happen on the other side. I think we may have to make a “What The Fuck Is Alternian Biology And Sociology” post or two separate from the sporking at the very end.

Discourse discussion over! Next page, we see some of the relevant terminology used in troll culture, though we still don’t get any explanation of what any of the words actually mean, which is a tad annoying for new readers. The context is a discussion between Karkat and Vriska about getting her into the game.

BRIGHT: Specifically, Karkat wants Vriska to get Tavros into the game, leading to this exchange…

CG: WHY DO YOU EVEN HATE HIM, IT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS. CG: IF ANYTHING YOU SHOULD PITY HIM. CG: ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PARALYZED HIM. AG: I know. I don't really understand it. AG: It's just a really special kind of h8! It never goes away and it doesn't make a lot of sense. CG: THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD TIME TO BE CONFIDING IN ME ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS OF BLACK ROMANCE BUT OK. AG: Oh god, what? CG: I MEAN IF YOU'RE REALLY IMPLYING TAVROS IS YOUR KISMESIS I THINK YOU'RE BRAYING UP THE WRONG FROND NUB. CG: BOTH PARTIES HAVE TO HATE EACH OTHER EQUALLY, I MEAN LIKE TRUE HATE. CG: MAYBE YOUR FEELINGS COME SOMEWHAT CLOSE TO FITTING THE BILL BUT I DON'T THINK HE CAN HATE ANYONE, IT'S WEIRD, HE'S KIND OF BROKEN IN THE HEAD.

Finally, our long-awaited introduction to troll romance!

And the introduction is an effective one. We now know that there’s something called ‘black romance’, that it concerns hate, and that one’s black-romantic partner is a ‘kismesis’. The conversation also flows naturally and fits the characters having it, rather than being an awkward as-you-know infodump, although brace yourselves, there’s one of those coming up. Thirteen is about right for kids starting to have romantic feelings and being confused about it, not wanting to talk about it is pretty normal, and Karkat lecturing people at a good opportunity is absolutely in character.

Karkat goes on to lecture Vriska about the emotions involved in different sorts of romantic relationships, and wow, it really says a lot about troll culture…

CG: OK, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T HAD THEIR LOBE STEM CAUTERIZED ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING THE TWO PRIMARY EMOTIONS, HATE AND PITY. CG: PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE. CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDNESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

CHEL: It’s never really clear if this is just Karkat’s idea of it or if this is how trolls actually work biologically. Trolls do use the word “love” later on, so I always interpreted it as “pity” being a euphemistic term because “love” in such a warlike and oppressive culture could be exploited as a weakness. Fandom has played it with their love actually being based on a weird form of sympathy/seeing the other as needing protection, which is also plausible.

FAILURE ARTIST: I have played with the pity thing before but in retrospect Karkat is the only one who seems to see it that way. Maybe this is all his fake deep teenager view of romance.

BRIGHT: Vriska makes a performance of how bored she is, but Karkat’s on a roll.

CG: A WELL BALANCED PERSON IS IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS. CG: HAVING A GOOD BALANCE KEEPS ALL THE EMOTIONS SHARPER, SEE I THINK THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. AG: Oh???????? AG: I hope you know I already wore out some good note-taking pens today. All the pens. AG: All of them. CG: SEE, MY HATE IS LIKE A FINELY TUNED INSTRUMENT BECAUSE I'M AWARE OF THESE PRINCIPLES. CG: I COULD HATE A HOLE IN PARADOX SPACE ITSELF, STRAIGHT THROUGH TO A NEW REALITY FRESH FOR THE HATING. AG: Hahahahahahahaha, you don't even know how much I'm laughing at this. CG: BUT SEE, YOU'RE TOO HEAVY ON THE HATE SIDE, OR AT LEAST YOU PRETEND TO BE WHICH IS MAYBE WORSE. AG: You aren't reading anything I say are you? You just want to talk and talk and talk. CG: AND YOU THINK YOU'RE HATING UP EVERYONE HARD WHEN YOU'RE REALLY JUST BURNING OUT THAT ENTIRE EMOTIONAL HEMISPHERE. CG: IT'S LIKE LUKEWARM HATE. PRETENDER'S HATE, WITH NO COUNTERPOINT AT ALL. CG: AS SUCH THERE'S NO REAL SUBSTANCE TO YOUR HATE, IT'S LIKE A CARDBOARD MOVIE PROP. CG: WHICH IS WHY YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN, KIND OF LIKE TAVROS'S BUT ON THE OPPOSITE HEMISPHERE I GUESS. CG: OR MAYBE YOUR BROKEN BRAIN LED TO THE IMBALANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I DON'T KNOW. CG: WHATEVER THE CASE IS, YOU'RE KIND OF EMOTIONALLY SCREWED, SORRY TO SAY. CG: YOUR HATE'S TOO DULL FOR A PROPER KISMESIS, IN MY OPINION. CG: AND I DON'T SEE ANYONE CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO BE YOUR MOIRAIL HONESTLY, UNLESS THERE'S SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO WOULD ACTUALLY BOTHER PITYING YOU. CG: AND LANDING A MATESPRIT? HAHAHAHA! CG: SERIOUSLY, LIKE THAT WOULD EVEN INTEREST YOU. CG: BASICALLY ANY FEATURE OF YOUR EMOTIONAL PROFILE THAT USUALLY MAKES SOMEONE VIABLE IN THE REDROM DEPARTMENT MUST BE TOTALLY FRIED. CG: YOUR BLACKROM POTENTIAL'S PROBABLY TOAST TOO.

Whew.

So now we have ‘kismesis’, ‘moirail’, and ‘matesprit’ as terms for romantic partners, as well as the concepts of black romance, red romance, and ‘moirallegiance’ as the relationship one has with a moirail. Troll romance is not going to get any less confusing for a while.

If Karkat’s grasp of psychology strikes you as amateurish, there’s a reason for that: He gets all his knowledge from romance movies.

AG: Hey asshole, stop watching movies for girls.

I think that’s another strike against the ‘girls are the dangerous ones on Alternia’ argument. Romance movies, per this exchange, are both female-coded and seen as inferior -- Karkat defends his viewing choices by saying they’re INTRIGUING SOCIOLOGICALLY, but Vriska isn’t buying it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 42 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 33

CHEL: I’m not sure an interest in the workings of romance should be a socially gendered thing in a society where, as it turns out, you have to have an acceptable romantic partner by a certain time or die. You’d think most kids would be trying as hard as they could to learn and put into practice everything they could about it, and you’d also think there’d be better information for them than romcoms.

BRIGHT: Has the mate-or-die part come up yet? I’m not sure when Hussie thought of it.

CHEL: I don’t know if he’d thought of it yet, but it does come up very soon.

BRIGHT: Karkat then moves on to the original reason he contacted Vriska -- he needs her and her mind powers in the game, because he’s just run into a double agent called Jack.

Over on the next panel, Karkat is still talking to Vriska, but he’s glancing back over his shoulder at Jack Noir. His hand is covered in blood, which keeps cycling through a range of colours. The blood, it transpires, is because Jack stabbed him. Karkat is amazingly calm about this.

CG: HE'S COOL, IT'S FINE I DON'T REALLY MIND THE STABBING, IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. CG: WELL OK I'M PRETTY SURE HE MEANT TO STAB ME. CG: BUT I KIND OF THINK THAT'S LIKE CG: THE WAY HE GREETS PEOPLE? AG: This game is so stupid. CG: IN ANY CASE I THINK HE'S PROBABLY ALL STABBED OUT.

This would be ridiculously chill even from someone who isn’t extremely cagey about his blood colour -- and it’s not that Karkat suddenly doesn’t care any more, because as soon as Vriska says she’ll ask Terezi or Jack what colour he’s bleeding, he tells her that he’s out of Terezi’s range, Jack is sworn to secrecy, and Sollux (who’s incommunicado) is the only one who knows how to make Trollian’s viewport feature work. (Given we saw how easy it is to use earlier, I’m surprised Vriska doesn’t try to figure it out herself.)

Over on the next panel, the viewer is now Jack, a few minutes prior to this conversation. Contrary to Karkat’s protestations, Jack stabs him because He's got a pretty sharp tongue and can't seem to keep it sheathed. He is curious when Karkat cares less about the wound and more about Jack seeing his blood colour, which is apparently some freakish mutation. Jack looks at his knife…

CHEL: While it’s not a realistic depiction of the colour, recall that this is the shade of red used in-comic to depict human blood. This reveal probably isn’t a surprise to anyone by now, if you’ve encountered fanart, and honestly it wasn’t a huge mindblowing revelation on my first read before I knew, but I do think it’s a clever little “aha, THAT’S why!” moment. Skilfully done.

It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something. Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

BRIGHT: Awww. That’s kind of sweet.

This little interchange gave rise to the ‘Stabdads’ fandom phenomenon, where Spades Slick is envisaged as Karkat’s father-figure. In Homestuck canon, it’s dubious how much affection Slick has for Karkat. He seems more irritated by him than anything else, but that’s about on par for how he treats the rest of the Midnight Crew. On the other hand, it clearly makes a massive impact on Karkat. We’ve seen how important blood colour is on Alternia and how insecure he is about his own; his sudden rush of fellow-feeling towards Jack is understandable, even if it does make him way too forgiving about having been stabbed.

CHEL: Karkat and Jack shake hands, and proceed to be in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Doodling on the defaced parking ticket from earlier, they draft OPERATION REGISURP.

Your whole team executes the plan along the course of its journey, employing espionage, mind control tactics, political sabotage, vicious interrogations and cold blooded assassinations. Everyone does their part and you begin to learn the true meaning of teamwork, as well as this troll disease called friendship.

Yeah, it actually happening is skipped over with one paragraph, but that’s probably a good thing with all the complexity already going on, and we do hear more details about it. First, we’re reminded of the existence and functions of the Queens’ Rings, the magic rings the queens of Derse and Prospit have which give them traits and powers from whatever the players put in their sprites. The trolls have put their lusii in their sprites, except for Aradia, whose lusus died long ago, so she got in the sprite herself. The Queen could put up with getting bits and pieces from eleven hideous monsters (well, ten hideous monsters and one adowable little fairybull thing oh my gosh it’s cuuuute) tacked onto her, but what she absolutely won’t stand for is the other thing Aradia put in her sprite…

She could not stand bearing the visage of the most loathsome creature known to existence. So vile is its appearance, so contemptible its purpose, all depictions of the creature let alone members of its population are permanently banned from any jurisdiction in the reach of her agents. Those of its kind go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.

Recall that AR thought of the hieroglyphs in the Frog Temple as “illegal pictography”. We’ll find out later why the Black Queen has such a revulsion for frogs, it’s important. But the important part right now is that she took the ring off. At the time of planning it’s in the ROYAL VAULT.

We briefly see a moment in the future of the Black Queen wrapped in rags, just like the human sessions’ White Queen, wandering the desert as the BANISHED QUASIROYAL, and the caption notes the plan was a success.

However, Doc Scratch appears in the desert in front of her, and it’s noted she was given a new purpose. This, it seems, is the origin of Snowman.

FAILURE ARTIST: I would like if there was some canon Homestuck material expanding on this REGISURP plot.

BRIGHT: Same! It sounds really interesting. One example of Homestuck’s idiosyncratic pacing, I suppose -- we spend pages and pages on trivial alchimeter nonsense, but skip over something more meaty.

CHEL: The Red Team work on that, while the Blue Team battle their own session… or so they think. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve all already figured it out, but the trolls hadn’t just yet. They note that their prototypes are affecting the opposite team’s underlings, and the readers are shown Alternia’s two Frog Temples, one near Aradia’s home and the other near Kanaya’s, each with six pillars outside (one seems to have five, but the sixth is hidden behind the building). Superimposed on each other, the pillars make a full ring of twelve.

The truth was it had always been the same session all along. That your teams were not competing, but cooperating toward a common goal. In the more drawn out form of this adventure's narrative, figuring this out would have been a huge deal. We would have been completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Wow. Same session all along. Really? Huh.

This is what Aradia’s been so mysterious about. She knew. We’re provided with a handy diagram, in case we haven’t been able to keep up.

After watching the phrases MOBIUS DOUBLE and REACH AROUND toggle for a few minutes while in a sort of stupor, you finally snap out of it.

(I just noticed, the Blue Team are the Derse dreamers and the Red Team are the Prospit dreamers. Neat!)

The reader’s attention is drawn instead to the Aquarius and Pisces symbols in the top left, belonging to characters we haven’t met yet, and the narration promises we’ll learn about them soon. Drawing attention again to GA’s Virgo symbol, the narration muses about her.

It will probably be quite some time before you get to be her. It could very well be pages and pages and pages.

Naturally, we jump right back to her.

GA’s intro is long, so we’ll take it piece by piece.

Your name is KANAYA MARYAM.

The Sanskrit name for Virgo is “Kanya”, and it’s also the name of a town in Japan. “Maryam” is the Arabic version of “Mary”, as in Jesus’ mother. It may also be a reference to Marya Zaleska, the title character of the movie “Dracula’s Daughter”.

You are one of the few of your kind who can withstand the BLISTERING ALTERNIAN SUN, and perhaps the only who enjoys the feel of its rays. As such, you are one of the few of your kind who has taken a shining to LANDSCAPING. You have cultivated a lush oasis around your hive, and in particular, you have honed your craft through the art of TOPIARY, sculpting your trees to match the PUFFY ORACLES from your dreams. You have embraced the tool of this trade, which conveniently is the weapon of choice for those who would hunt the HEINOUS BROODS OF THE UNDEAD which crawl from the sand at sunrise to feast on the light and the living.

Couple things established here; trolls are not only nocturnal but actively harmed by their planet’s sun, and undead beings other than ghosts exist. Said traditional weapon for hunting them is a chainsaw, which we can see lying against her bookshelf, a reference to the Evil Dead movies.

It would be convenient if you actually hunted them, but it is of course far too dangerous, every bit as suicidal as attempting to poach the terrible MUSCLEBEASTS who roam at night. So you indulge in your bright fascination with the grim through literature. Just before the sun goes down and you join your flora in rest, you immerse yourself in tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION.

Rainbow drinkers are, as discussed later on, troll vampires. I don’t think shadow droppers are ever expanded on, but they might be zombies or werebeasts. Troll goths, apparently, are the reverse of human goths, dressing in bright colours and staying up in the daytime, which makes sense for a species who can only safely go out at night.

You are one of the few of your kind with JADE GREEN BLOOD. As such you are one of the few who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent. She would defend you from desert threats, and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

Recall that the Mother Grub is required for troll reproduction.

You are a SEAMSTRESS or a RAGRIPPER or a TREETRIMMER or a LUMBERJACK, whichever you care to be, and your unique hive is equipped with a great supply of advanced technology to accommodate your interests. The technology and indeed the hive itself were all recovered from the ruins nearby when you were very young. The seed of your hive was deployed on the volcanic rocks beneath the sand with the assistance of your lusus and her remarkable burrowing skills, and you have lived there happily together since. You know the ruins and the hive and everything here that is not sand and rock originated from the world of your dreams. You also know that one day you will visit this world while you are awake. That day is today.

Like Jade, Kanaya has been awake on Prospit for years, and the technology in question is Skaian in origin, so that’s how she knows what’s going on with the game.

Kanaya is prompted to equip her chainsaw, which promptly turns into a lipstick in a Problem Sleuth reference. Like Jade, she has a Wardrobifier, set to randomise, which suddenly turns her black shirt and red skirt into a red leaf-print dress. She takes out the lipstick.

You can choose between your trademark jade or black. Even though a troll's lips are naturally black. But they can always be blacker, and a lady with a true sense of style knows this.

She goes with green, her dress turns into a blue kimono, and she’s messaged by someone with a fuschia Pisces symbol. This person, named cuttlefishCuller, turns out to be rather excitable, greeting her in all caps and following it up with Glub glub glub glub glub!

BRIGHT: This conversation is pretty sweet, with some friendly joking about CC’s quirk (they stick hyphens in front of their capital Es) and mention of their Collapsing And Expanding Bladder Based Aquatic Vascular System. There’s another mention of moirails, with CC saying they’ll have to join the game late to keep an eye on theirs.

It also turns out both CC and Kanaya are having some premonitions of what’s to come! Kanaya is seeing visions in the clouds of Skaia, the same way Jade does, but CC hears whispers from a mysterious ‘she’ who needs her voice keeping down. It’s implied to be CC’s lusus, as both Kanaya and CC are aware their lusii are going to die soon.

Kanaya hopes to be with her lusus as she dies, but looks out of the window to find the Virgin Mother Grub has already passed away, apparently of natural causes.

CHEL: The Mother Grub was seen briefly before; it’s a moth-like creature with a huge fat body the size of a bus, with wings too small to ever lift it, horns the same shape as Kanaya’s, and a skull-like head with big lips. The skull on Terezi’s Doomsday Scale was, we can tell now, a Mother Grub, except quite a lot bigger - presumably a breeding Grub.

BRIGHT: Kanaya changes back into her original outfit, and goes down to live up to her end of the bargain… which entails slicing a hole in her lusus with her chainsaw and pulling out a round object covered in spikes the colour of trolls’ horns, called a Matriorb. Kanaya stores it in her sylladex; she’s using a CHASTITY MODUS, which locks each card away, and the key will serendipitously be discovered when it’s time for the card to be unlocked. These modii are getting more and more esoteric.

Kanaya proceeds to have a conversation with her own moirail, Vriska, which we already read earlier.

You then proceed to have the rest of this conversation we already read, bugging and fussing and meddling through the special and magical union one can only describe as being in moirallegiance with another. At least, you guess that's how you would describe it. Maybe. Troll romance sure is confusing!

Yes, yes it is. (Spoiler: It’s not that confusing once it’s explained.)

Kanaya doesn’t have long to dwell on the conversation, as she’s contacted by caligulasAquarium, someone with a violet Aquarius symbol who she doesn’t seem to think highly of. It rapidly becomes apparent why.

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin GA: Who CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

CHEL: Trolls are supposed to come bi/pan as standard, so why does he need to specify “girl crush”? I wonder if Hussie hadn’t decided that yet when he wrote this part, but I’m not sure.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 34

CA’s gender hasn’t been revealed, but let’s not kid ourselves, we know from how he’s talking that he’s a dude. Nice Girls certainly exist but they don’t tend to get portrayed as so whiny in fiction, plus CC comes off as very girly, and that leaves us with six boy and six girl trolls. Balance and opposites and counterparts are a running theme throughout Homestuck. Not that there can’t be nonbinary characters, as some show up in Hiveswap; just that there would most likely have to be an even number of them, split evenly between the groups of players. Fine by me as a nonbinary person with a thing for balance and even numbers of my own.

Also, note that we’ve seen this guy, or at least his hand and foot, before. This is the litter-hater in the bowling shoes.

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very Cooperative GA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone does CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to GA: Why Do I Got To GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

BRIGHT: Oh hey, another troll romance term! ‘Auspisticing’ is the last of the lot, don’t worry.

CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her CA: i figure if youre going to auspisticize any twwo brinesuckers wwho sneer at each other a funny wway you might as wwell make it official and be ours right GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent

Funny words aside, Hussie does a good job at laying down context for what auspisticism is here; we now know that it involves mediating between two parties who dislike each other and that it’s a form of black romance. Meshing worldbuilding naturally into the dialogue is something Homestuck does really well at times.

Anyway, CA is trying to get in contact with Vriska because he asked her to make something for him and now she’s blowing him off.

GA: What Is It CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin CA: ok wwell not that obvviously CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

While CA is obviously a douche, there’s something funny about how over-the-top he is about it and how utterly oblivious he is to the idea that Kanaya might have a problem with a device that would kill all landdwellers, although the humour is inversely proportionate to how likely he is to pull it off.

CHEL: Maybe I’m strange, but I think he’s adorable. I get the impression of a small kid trying to puff himself up to adult size.

BRIGHT: There’s also more romance talk, and this next bit is one I find interesting:

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once CA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

I’m going to take a step back from Homestuck itself for a moment and talk about kismessitude as it’s portrayed in fandom. People tend to envision it in a variety of ways -- some see it as a BDSM relationship, some as a way of pushing a rival to be better, some as just straight-up hate-sex -- but most depictions show it as something that only affects the two people involved.

Here, though? CA’s talking about kismessitude as something that’s potentially really damn dangerous, to other people besides those involved, and cites history as a backup -- implying it can really be that dangerous, and it’s not just a teenager’s flight of fancy. (Although, that said, CA is clearly using this to try and get Kanaya in a relationship with him, so how sincere he is is questionable.)

CHEL: Later on we do see a little bit of one of the historical cases he might have been citing. We’ll discuss it more then. Also, I do like him saying “sunny” instead of “gloomy”. Makes sense!

Kanaya tells CA none of this matters, and he sneers about the “purity of the bloodline”. That’s an… uncomfortable turn of phrase, especially since he’s speaking to someone not covered by the “purity” standard, but since it applies to aliens and it’s in a society where that’s hammered into its inhabitants it’s not a Problematykks issue. Kanaya tells him it still won’t matter because their race will be wiped out entirely, and his reaction is remarkably understated:

CA: huh CA: wwell ok HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 11

CA says he knows Kanaya doesn’t lie except to herself, surprisingly perceptive for one so puffed-up otherwise. CA might be smarter than he’s letting on? He asks if her clouds told her that; that was the reader’s assumption too, but she says no, she has a different source. Uh-oh. We know what the last source of information was, and it cost Vriska an arm and an eye-sevenfold. CA’s own clouds “hide nothin but misfortune and monstrosities”, so we can guess she’s Prospit and he’s Derse. He goes back to nagging her to tell Vriska to talk to him, and when she continues to refuse he poutily steps off.

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that

Kanaya denies this, and CA says everyone knows, including Karkat.

GA: Its Unbelievable GA: Her Patience CA: wwhat CA: wwhoa wwait wwho GA: Never Mind CA: ok wwait did she talk to you today CA: wwhat did she say CA: or glub or wwhatevver

They’re talking about CC, if it wasn’t clear. Kanaya, in a callback to John’s comment to Terezi, facetiously tells him that she talked about Longing To Touch You Indiscretely and That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You. CA, flustered, picks up that she’s teasing him, and she tells him the truth, that CC’s just concerned as a moirail.

CA: if youre not savvvvy about howw you define yourself to people CA: you can just splash into the moirail zone before you knoww wwhich wways upwward

I’m going to comment on this attitude in a bit more detail when we get a clearer explanation of what moirallegiance actually is. CA leaves her with some arc words.

CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

Kanaya heads back to her room, planning to emphatically not meddle but help her friends, and consults her source; it’s fortunately not a Doc Scratch-related one at all. It is, in fact, Rose’s long-forgotten GameFAQ, saved on a server floating in the Furthest Ring, to which Prospit’s clouds directed her. I have to show you the panel for a moment though…

I’m sure there was a way we could see the screen without having it facing away from Kanaya who’s supposed to be reading it.

You can only assume this took place a long time ago. This race is likely ancient, preceding yours by millions of sweeps. Maybe billions! You like to try to imagine the adventures of these players. Were they successful in repopulating their race? Did they manage to protect their matriorb and hatch a new mother grub? Could they hold it together, or were they torn apart by the complex social dynamics, the matespritships and moirallegiences and auspisticisms and kismesissitudes that will surely plague your group along the way? You have little doubt they succeeded with flying colors.

Oh dear, dramatic irony. Kanaya fantasises about a troll version of Rose, thinking she must have been the leader of this supposedly long-ago group.

And yet they appear to have been the only of their kind to have risen to the challenge in a session stacked heavily against them.

Huh. So is this just because Kanaya can’t find more information, or are the four kids in fact the only humans who successfully got into the game? Picking four specifically white-coded kids to be the last of the human race due to supposedly their own competence is… not a good choice. And why the hell couldn’t other people succeed? This strikes me as more of the whole theme of “nobody matters except the people we’re focusing on”. A good lampshading of video game tropes, but in a literary story, that’s the opposite message to everything I’ve ever read, and it’s a creepy one.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 43 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 12 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 35

BRIGHT: I thiiiiiiiink it’s at least implied later on that there are other sessions going, it’s just that each session is a closed loop of players so we don’t see the others...although if that’s the case, does that mean Earth’s getting hit with meteors from multiple Skaias?

CHEL: That over with for the moment, we cut to Tavros’ house as you take your place as the PAGE OF BREATH in the LAND OF SAND AND ZEPHYR. Vriska, his server player, gets down to the business of building up his house towards the Gate…

… entirely out of staircases.

AT: i THINK THIS, iS, AT: pROBABLY MEANT TO ANTAGONIZE ME,

Okay, this probably makes me a bad person, but I’m crying with laughter at his expression and that line.

It’s more disability slapstick, but here the point of the joke comes off as being more that Vriska is a jerk and Tavros’ reaction is really understated than any reasonable person being supposed to assume Tavros is wrong for not being able to climb stairs. Emphasis on “comes off as”, unfortunately. I’m still gonna give a Problematykks point, and further experience with Hussie’s attitude to disability has soured the joke somewhat, even in just the next couple of pages.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 44

BRIGHT: Vriska tries to get Tavros to crawl up the stairs, first by telling him that he promised not to be boring anymore and then by saying that she’s trying to help him get stronger. She caps off the rant by demanding that he apologise.

AT: oKAY, AT: tHANKS, i GUESS, AT: bUT, AT: sORRY FOR WHAT, AG: For 8eing crippled, you ass! AT: yOU WANT ME TO APOLOGIZE, AT: fOR BEING PARALYZED, AG: Yes. AG: Say you're sorry. AT: i DON'T MEAN TO BE RUDE, oR bORING, AT: bUT THAT'S RIDICULOUS, gIVEN, AT: uH, tHE CIRCUMSTANCES, AG: 8ullshit! AG: It's something called 8asic decency and civility you fudge8looded 8oor. AG: Now get down on your useless wo88ly knees and apologize. AT: nO, i DON'T WANT TO, AG: >::::O

Vriska, what the fuck.

Tavros is really great here. He’s obviously not comfortable fighting with Vriska, and repeatedly tries to redirect her into building him ramps instead of engaging. But, at the same time, he holds his ground and doesn’t let her push him around, and won’t let go of solid hard reality in the face of Vriska trying to emotionally manipulate him.

FAILURE ARTIST: And yet people still call him a wimp.

BRIGHT: Vriska retaliates, because of course she does, by grabbing his wheelchair with her cursor and shaking it about. If Hussie left it at that, everything would be unobjectionable, at least in terms of narrative voice. Instead, well…

Now she's done it. She has awoken the mighty inner fury that is... RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

CHEL: It just occurred to me to mention that the name Rufio comes from a character in the movie Hook, the leader of the Lost Boys after Peter Pan left, played by Dante Basco. Tavros’ mental image of him is a reference to that character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dante Basco did read Homestuck, with hilarious results as we will see.

But unfortunately, Rufio is not real. He's imaginary. A fake. Like a made up friend, the way fairies are. You continue to be sad and alone.

BRIGHT: Eurgh.

Let me be clear: Tavros having no further recourse to deal with Vriska’s abuse beyond his visualised self-esteem is a problem for the character, but it’s not necessarily a narrative problem per se. Escapism is a thing. You could get a decent character arc out of Tavros learning better ways to deal with harassment he can’t escape. It is a narrative problem when the narrator mocks it and makes him out to be pathetic for even trying it.

CHEL: I’d consider this to be just Tavros’ own thought process, but, sadly, this kind of narrative sneering at him carries on throughout Tavros’ presence in the comic and the fandom seems to buy into it. Tavros gets a lot of hate for reasons which mostly boil down to him being a male abuse victim; there’s a feeling that he should “try harder” to fight back, despite him being physically disabled and a member of a caste out of sight beneath her on the social ladder and legally permitted to be killed by her on a whim. Might that count as a point for WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM, for Huss and the fandom not taking the social dynamics into account for why Tavros can’t defend himself?

BRIGHT: I don’t know if it’s fair to count against the fandom when we’re reviewing Homestuck proper, but we can definitely count against Hussie!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 36

CHEL: It’s also notable that the common fandom interpretation of Tavros is as Hispanic-coded, at least partly due to his Spanish username, and of Vriska as white-coded. That’s probably not helping.

Since Hussie appears to expect us to agree with Vriska that this is funny, I’m adding another to these as well.

ALL THE LUCK: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 45 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 3

BRIGHT: What’s weird about this whole mess is that Hussie doesn’t — yet — try to say that Tavros should be trying to get stronger; his disability is fully acknowledged. I feel like this kind of mockery is usually accompanied by the attitude that disabled people should just get over their disability, but Hussie’s clear that Tavros can’t. Which means he should do...what, exactly?

CHEL: Not have let Vriska disable him in the first place, presumably. Never mind that, you know, she has mind control powers so he didn’t really have a choice in that either. That is, however, an argument Vriska fans actually make. Apparently some of them actually blame him for not flying when she threw him off the cliff, which… well, unpowered flight is a thing that can happen in the comic but he certainly couldn’t do it then.

BRIGHT: ...Apparently I retain the capacity for surprise at how awful people can be. The fuck?

Back in the comic, Tavros fortunately does have one other means of recourse. Back in her hive, Vriska is suddenly prodded in the back with a flying toilet, courtesy of Kanaya.

GA: Just Presenting A Floating Reminder That Tavros Will Need Plenty Of Inclined Surfaces For His Ascent AG: That's silly. I made so many ramps, you wouldn't even 8elieve it. AG: I specifically decided I wanted to 8uild something ugly and 8oring. It is now the land of ramps and yawns. GA: Hes Reported Otherwise AG: That lousy snitch! May8e I should take his computer away so he can't go crying to fussyfangs anymore. GA: Maybe I Should Upend This Load Gaper Over Your Head AG: No, don't! GA: Im Still Learning The Interface GA: It Could Happen Accidentally At Any Moment AG: I'm only trying to help him. ::::( GA: Think Of Another Way To Help

CHEL: Did I mention Kanaya is my zodiac troll? I can only long to reach her heights of awesome. Of course the ability to levitate toilets would kinda help.

BRIGHT: Vriska heads down to her treasure vault and retrieves a pair of ROCKET SHOES. The captchalogue code for these is ‘PSHOOOES’, which amuses me greatly. Vriska sends the code to Tavros, who combines it with the code for his wheelchair to create a flying wheelchair. Now that is a good use of alchemising!

CHEL: Awww!

Tavros flies up to the Gate, and we cut back to him later on, leading an entourage of communed-with imps and ogres to move obstacles and help him solve puzzles. Using his skills well, I see! In another set of ruins the imps load jigsaw pieces of rock into a frog-shaped alcove,

Things, however, don’t continue to go so well, because Hussie hates this poor kid. I do not mean that facetiously. Statements he’s made elsewhere imply he has a hell of a lot of contempt for several of the characters he created, which I don’t understand at all. We’ll go into this after Act 7, but I get the sensation that the characters are merely tools to show off the complexity and meta references, which are the parts he really cares about.

BRIGHT: It’s not unknown for authors to dislike characters they wrote; the great Terry Pratchett reputedly hated his character Rincewind. The key difference is that in Pratchett’s case, the audience couldn’t tell. Hussie, on the other hand, tends to make his disdain pretty obvious, to the detriment of the story.

CHEL: That’s a point. Conan Doyle grew to hate Sherlock Holmes, too. He didn’t, however, set up situations solely to shit on Holmes in his books.

BRIGHT: I think that’s the key. I’ll forgive a multitude of failings as long as the author seems to be treating the characters fairly. That doesn’t mean that good things have to happen to them — plenty of bad things can happen and I’ll enjoy it — it just means that the author has to...respect how the character feels and would behave, I guess.

Of course, respect is Hussie’s antithesis, so.

Also, nothing so far has shown Vriska to be anything other than a (granted, entertaining) bully. I wasn’t around while Homestuck was updating, so I’m not sure when her fandom took off, but it has to be later than this, surely?

CHEL: I don’t know. I wasn’t around till about mid-Act 6.

What was I on about? Oh yes. Tavros is interrupted by Vriska again, who bitches him out for doing things the boring way and seeking the boring lore.

AG: The minds of your consorts are very soft and impressiona8le. AG: As easily manipul8ed as all those imps you've 8een 8ossing around. AG: I have picked apart their tiny little lizard 8rains and seen through all the smoke and mirrors of their riddles. AG: I have gotten to the truth they are guarding. The great 8ig mystery 8ehind this planet. And you know what it is, Tavros? AT: nO, AG: It's 8ullshit! AG: Meaningless, 8oring, fanciful 8ullshit wrapped in flowery poems to keep you guessing. AG: It all leads to one thing anyway, and that's what we should put our attention on. AG: Real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold. AG: They cheat, Tavros. AG: It is time you learned to start cheating.

Interesting theory. Tavros thinks befriending his monsters instead of killing them is cheating, and Vriska grudgingly agrees but is annoyed he isn’t killing anything. She claims to have designed a better and more challenging quest for him; he asks after her own quest, and she says she has time because Kanaya’s busy.

AG: Which is just as well 8ecause I was starting to get nannied HARD. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 37

Strange word choice for a species raised by animals, but okay. Vriska sends Tavros a map to the next Gate, and he sets off in his little rocket chair. Little does he know.

You proceed through what seems to be your second gate, into the LAND OF MAPS AND TREASURE. The THIEF OF LIGHT lies in wait.

In a callback to our last meeting of Breath and Light players, Tavros crashes through Vriska’s wall and is left hanging upside-down in the rocket chair from the large cobwebs across the room, while Vriska sleeps on a pile of broken eight-balls. Doesn’t look comfortable, but trolls rest in worse places later. Vriska wakes, and Tavros falls head-first onto the floor.

Here is where it gets incredibly uncomfortable, and we have to show it in detail to assign points properly and so that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening, so if you have any sexual assault, ableism, underage, mind control, or victim-blaming triggers you may want to skip this part. No clothing is removed but it’s very unpleasant to read and the attitude toward it is worse. Seriously, this is Taklamakan Zoo levels of bad.

(This heading below’s not part of the comic, I just put it there so you can skip. The sequence ends with the piece of fanart of Kanaya looking at the sideways screen.)

~*THE ASSAULT STARTS HERE*~

Vriska sits up. She’s wearing a very short strappy white Tinkerbell dress with her sign on it, and what look like over-the-knee socks, a commonly fetishised style of clothing. I remind you these characters are supposed to be thirteen years old. The dress is also the same as the one worn by the fairy in the artwork on Tavros’ desktop background. I don’t know if Vriska had seen that or not.

FAILURE ARTIST:

To be fair she’s just in an actually-more-modest version of what Peter Pan’s sidekick/love interest wears and the socks come off as more dorky than sexy.

Oh my! It appears Pupa Pan himself has flown through your window while you were asleep. How exciting! Surely he is here to take you away on the adventure of a lifetime. He is more dreamy and heroic than you ever imagined. But what's this?? It seems the legendary Boy-Skylark has misplaced his shadow. He is looking EVERYWHERE for it, to no avail. He is having a devil of a time, what with being paralyzed from the waist down and all. He clearly needs your help.

CHEL: Vriska is prompted to Help Pupa find shadow, and approaches Tavros with a nasty-looking grin on her face, while he lies on the floor, gritting his teeth in noticeable pain.

Pupa! You truly are a silly goose. Your shadow has been trapped underneath your useless torso the whole time! Honestly, where else would it be you stupid sack of shit?

Charming. Vriska proceeds to kick him in the head, or at least nudge him with her foot, while he lies unresponsive.

Of course, the secret to reuniting with your shadow is to get up and walk around. And play and dance and frolic! Your shadow will surely join in your gaiety. But it appears Pupa has lost the use of his legs. There will be no frolicking in this young man's future. ::::( Unless...

Everyone knows that just a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST along with a happy thought will allow any boy to get up and walk again. Everyone knows this because it is in the classic tale, PUPA PAN. Young Pupa flies through the window of a fairy girl's respiteblock, falls on the floor, and has trouble getting up like an enormous pansy. The fairy girl then helps him walk again, and in return, he teaches her to fly, even though she probably already knows how to fly. Because she's a fairy. They fly out of her window together, and have magical adventures for many sweeps thereafter. To be honest, you hardly know a damn thing about Pupa Pan. But you do not care.

Pupa remains as pathetic and useless as ever.

FAILURE ARTIST: The story just keeps mocking Tavros for being disabled.

CHEL: Not to mention for being interested in fairies. Because how dare a boy have a gender-nonstandard interest, or a young teenager enjoy whimsical escapism from an increasingly horrible and guaranteed-to-be-short life.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 39

I might be projecting because the fandom has made me loathe her, but it honestly comes off like Vriska dressed up like this in the first place less to seduce Tavros and more to make sure she thoroughly ruined his favourite thing to hurt him further, especially if the narration is supposed to be things she’s actually saying to him.

The stardust did nothing! Probably because it is just glittery powder with no magical properties whatsoever and is basically bullshit. Because in case it wasn't clear, magic isn't real, and neither are miracles. OR It could just be that Pupa has failed to have a happy thought! Your duty is clear. You will have to MAKE him have happy thoughts. Vriska: Make Pupa have happy thoughts.

He certainly doesn’t seem to be having happy thoughts now. Notice his expression, what we can see of it, looks terrified, he’s trembling, and let’s recall that he’s paralysed from the waist down. Even if he wasn’t, she’s of a far, far higher caste than him, legally permitted to do whatever she wants to him, including killing him if he tries to resist. It’s kind of gone back and forth on, but higher bloods are a few times stated to be a lot stronger than lower bloods, and if they work like humans, they’re in puberty right now, a time at which human girls tend to get taller and stronger sooner than boys. Again, it’s gone back and forth on, but a common interpretation is that female trolls are stronger than male trolls in general and/or have the social power advantage. Let’s also remember that, even if none of those factors apply, Vriska has mind control powers. There is no point here at which Tavros has the advantage, nothing he can use as leverage on her. She can do whatever the hell she wants, and she does.

BRIGHT: We’ve also been explicitly shown that Vriska has little to no respect for anyone else’s autonomy if she finds it inconvenient, and that Tavros is her favourite punching bag, and that his ability to stand up for himself when she gets going is extremely limited.

CHEL: Despite the odds stacked against him, Tavros struggles against the kiss forced on him, and when Vriska pushes him back, doesn’t respond with anything but a look of horror, though she appears to expect him to, as a flickering heart-spade with a question mark over it appears between them. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be the thought process of him or her or both.

Vriska hurls him onto the floor with some force...

… and activates her mind control, causing little hearts to light up in Tavros’ eyes.

BRIGHT: Vriska has used her mind-control powers on Tavros before, and when it happened she walked him off a cliff. There is basically no way that her doing it again isn’t going to be a traumatic experience for him, above and beyond the inherent horror of losing control over one’s body.

I’m inclined to think that forcibly altering his emotions is worse, though. Being paralysed was bad enough, but Tavros knows what happened and he knows how he feels about it. Making him fall in love with her is just…on one level, it’s a horrible assault on his autonomy as a person, and on another level, it’s tailor-made to make him doubt himself and believe the encounter was something he wanted.

FAILURE ARTIST: I hadn’t thought that he might now consider the encounter as consensual, which would explain his later reaction.

CHEL: Tavros paws at her legs, making kissy faces, and she looks vaguely concerned. Note the background still depicts wavy blue rays coming off her, showing her power is still active.

Looking defeated, she drops the control and dumps him on the floor again.

I’m not sure what she’s supposed to be thinking in this last panel. Is she feeling guilty? Is she disappointed that he didn’t like her under his own power? Has she just decided he’s too useless to be worth the effort? Any could be true.

BRIGHT: I read that as disappointment that even when he ‘liked’ her, he didn’t act the way she wanted. (And the way Tavros acted is kind of disturbing. ‘Mindlessly pawing at someone’ is not what I’d expect from him if he was legitimately attracted to someone.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The common interpretation these days was she was realizing she wasn’t into boys which okay that’s good for her but she should feel more bad about molesting him.

CHEL: That also makes no sense, because she shows interest in multiple boys later.

I’m also not entirely sure if Vriska had the intention of actually raping Tavros here (in the standard way, I mean, as one could argue that mind control is a form of rape), or just making out with him. The fact that she dressed up in vaguely fetishy clothing isn’t making it look good, though. Yes, she’s very young, but traumatised kids in particular have been known to lash out sexually like that. It’s a way of reasserting personal power, and I imagine it would be more prevalent in a society with no sapient adult supervision. While there are mitigating circumstances involved in their social situation and Vriska not really having ever had a chance to learn better, that doesn’t make this not a horrible thing to do, or not traumatising for Tavros.

BRIGHT: The clothing could potentially be down to Vriska wanting to look ‘adult’ without fully understanding why it looks adult. That does come up sometimes with teens — they want to experiment with clothing because that’s how adults dress, not because they want to look sexy, or they might dress a certain way for dates because that’s the social model they have for How Dates Work.

And if I read it like that, this basically looks like Vriska having the date equivalent of a dolls’ tea party. Which says volumes about how she views Tavros’s autonomy.

CHEL: Good point. Though honestly it would say volumes about same either way!

BRIGHT: I said earlier that Vriska is better than Equius at recognising when other people’s desires conflict with hers, and she is, but that doesn’t mean she respects those differences. She just recognises that they’re there, and overrides them. This is a prime example of Vriska viewing Tavros as something between a chew-toy and a prop. First she kicks him around and terrifies him, then she expects him to be able to get over those emotions at the drop of a hat and respond to her advances — and, moreover, she wants him to respond in a certain way, which Tavros has zero way of knowing. This is the first time she’s shown that sort of interest in him, unless her earlier behaviour was the Alternian equivalent of pigtail-pulling.

...I think maybe that was in fact Alternian pigtail-pulling. Or at least Vriska’s version of pigtail-pulling.

CHEL: That’ll actually make more sense, once we explain what the spade symbol means.

Okay, how many counts does this cover?

ALL THE LUCK: 12 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 31 CALL CPA PLEASE: 26 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 55 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 13

It also occurred to me during this sequence to think again about how Karkat contemptuously swears at and hangs up the phone on the injured Tavros. This, at first glance, seems to be very much at odds with the “cranky but caring” impression we’re supposed to have of Karkat… but it fits precisely with Hussie’s opinion of Tavros and how pathetic he is for allowing a much more powerful person to permanently disable him. I know at the moment it looks like I’m not separating the character from the author, but it’ll become clear as we go that that is what he thinks.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 14

Why didn’t we start a FUCK YOU, HUSSIE count?

BRIGHT: It would have ended up longer than all the other counts combined.

CHEL: The actual assault is over now, but there’s one more picture of it. The ramifications must continue to be discussed, so tread cautiously. The actual act is over now, though.

Said ramifications come pretty quickly. Kanaya, having dealt with getting herself into the game and prototyped her own lususprite, decides to check on Vriska.

Ideally she has not gotten herself into too much trouble. And ideally the dramatic irony has not gotten so thick you could draw a dotted line on it with a tube of lipstick and cut it in half with a chainsaw.

Of course, she sees the exact moment Vriska kisses Tavros.

(Fanart source has now been deleted, sadly.)

~*THE ASSAULT ENDS HERE*~

Humorous art aside over, let’s watch Kanaya’s reaction in more detail. She angrily looks at a copy of the Tinkerbell dress, which she presumably sent the alchemiter code for rather than the actual item to Vriska, hence why she still has it.

So THAT'S why she had you make this dress for her??? And you just went along with it like a sucker. Argh, you are such an IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Karkat, Kanaya is presented as the caring one, the protective one. The “mom friend” of the group. And yet, she looks at this, in which Tavros is clearly frightened and struggling, and her reaction is to be mad that Vriska didn’t want to wear the dress for a date with her. I’m not sure whether this says more about Hussie’s opinion of Tavros or the social system of Alternia or both, but it certainly says a lot.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 56 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 13 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 15

BRIGHT: Kanaya has had to corral Vriska on Tavros’s behalf already! Possibly more than once! She has all the information to realise that this is abusive, even leaving aside Tavros’s reaction! Sure, teens can be self-centred, but even so this is egregious.

CHEL: Kanaya’s Grubsprite comforts her and she throws the dress out the window.

Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.

Yes, I’m sure Tavros thinks so too.

Charles: "I know Sir can be prickly, but you have to understand he had a very terrible childhood."

Klaus: "I understand. I'm having a very terrible childhood right now."

-A Series of Unfortunate Events

[yutaya]

Iron Fist Rewatch 1x04: Eight Diagram Dragon Palm

Danny, struggling to pull himself onto that light post thing with his probably now bruised chest: "I dedicate myself to the service of all beings of K'un Lun-" *falls* So is this a recitation they do in training - is he trying to use that mindset to help him climb this beam? Is he doing some sort of traditional ask-the-gods-to-bless-me-with-strength thing?

Lol somehow I had remembered it as Danny crawling up again anyway after the initial push. I forgot they actually went and collected him. Guess that makes them look more favorable to him than my own recall though...

On the coffee table directly facing Danny when he wakes up, probably meant to be a sign to him about where he is and who has so kindly rescued and tended to him after his unfortunate tumble off a building: the formal pic of Harold and children, another photo hard to make out - my first thought was the vacation photo of the 6 of them but it's very sepia, could be something else. Maybe if I look back at other photos we've seen before I could match it.

Danny: "What happened to me? Last I remember I was climbing up-" Ward: "Yeah, like goddamn Daredevil." LOL

UGH THIS WHOLE HAROLD INTRO SCENE UGH Danny mad at Ward one second and then Harold appears and it's like the breath is punched out of him. Looking at Ward and Ward just calmly looking back because he clearly knows what's going on and Danny doesn't - it's as if they're bringing him into their confidence on something. This is a form of offering Danny something he wants - to be a part of something with the only family he thought he had left, not to mention the miracle of one of his parent-figures being alive again. (Wow, what a journey. From finding out Harold is dead and then Ward and Joy both quite clearly rejecting him and denying him a place in their lives to Joy actually doing something to indicate maybe at least she still wants him around after all? To wait, Ward and Harold bringing me in on something too? It's like the dream he clung to in K'un Lun got snatched away and now seems to be trickling back, and - UGH.) "You see him too?" because Danny thought he was seeing things that night at the hospital but this- this is real? Ward's sad, small nod because he knows so much more about Harold than Danny does, and he's seeing this innocent joy (word choice intended) while knowing himself to be wary and that this is almost definitely another manipulation (but what if it's not? What if-? But Harold is still dangerous, he can't help it, there's a reason Ward wants to protect Joy from him even while knowing that Harold favors her so dearly, because there are other ways to hurt your children-)

Harold calmly walking forward while wearing a black suit and confirming "I did die," followed by Danny's "You look the same age as when I last saw you..." - Vampire AU??? (Ugh but why did it have to be Harold? Not a fan of monsters as the bad guys.... need a non-evil vamp to balance him out....)

The way Ward just keeps looking silently between the both of them, like a witness, like - UGH.

"You're home now," GOD DAMMIT and Danny's relief and gratitude and Ward's somber look down I -

Cancer lasted 3 years

Ward: "Dad, are you sure you should be saying this?" Harold: "It's ok. Danny needs to know this." Casting Ward in the opposition role

Ward sits down in the chair adjacent to the couch Danny is on. Harold crosses over from where he was standing near the left side of the couch to sit on the farther right side instead - specifically sitting in between Danny and Ward.

Harold: "I still remember my last breath. Scariest shit I've ever experienced." Ward looks up and away, taking a breath, before turning back again. Combo of eye-roll at dramatics and genuine pain at the thought because that's his dad and Ward remembers those years of pain and decay and - ?

I forgot Danny originally thought of the Hand more like a fable than a reality - and finding out they're a real, present threat combines with being told it's not K'un Lun that they're threatening, but that this whole time, they've actually been digging their claws into his home?

Ward rolling his eyes with his whole body when Harold encourages Danny to think about this as ~embracing his destiny~ hahaha

Ward: No offense, but Danny has zero idea how to do business and therefore maybe shouldn't be running a company with again, absolutely zero training??? Harold: Don't mind Ward being a petulant brat who wants to keep you from your rightful place in our family, Danny. I need you. :)

Harold to Danny: "We've needed a fighter like you back in the family." - right in front of Ward, yet another small "unlike you, who are weak" jab. In line with the whole "Joy can close the deal, you, Ward, can not do anything" lines in the previous episode.

Ward warning Danny about Harold!! But not really doing it great so it could be taken as another 'othering' where Danny could hear 'Harold's not YOUR dad' instead of Ward's intended 'Harold's not your DAD' - made much better by his clarification that Harold only cares about Harold and helping to show he meant 'not a good supportive dad you can lean blindly on' than if he had just. left it at that. I'm glad for Ward's continuing with that line and for Danny's long, considering look at nothing afterward. Gives the sense that Danny feels that something is off, even if he's not sure what.

Colleeeeeeeeeeeeen and her shame and her truly believing in honoring the code of bushido and her teaching these children to get them "the scholarship" to help them in a legitimate, meaningful, honorable way (SOB) and believing that their skills should be about the code and not be about flashiness or showing off or being able to lord their power and ability over others or money -

Code of Bushido (Includes eight virtues, and this episode title is Eight Diagram Dragon Palm. Coincidence???)

1. Rectitude or Justice (refers to PERSONAL rectitude - “one’s power to decide upon a course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering” “the bone that gives firmness and stature...without Rectitude neither talent nor learning can make the human frame into a samurai.”)

2. Courage (Bushido distinguishes between bravery and courage - “Courage is doing what is right”)

3. Benevolence or Mercy (“Love, magnanimity, affection for others, sympathy and pity, are traits of Benevolence, the highest attribute of the human soul”)

4. Politeness (Courtesy is rooted in benevolence - “Politeness should be the expression of a benevolent regard for the feelings of others; it’s a poor virtue if it’s motivated only by a fear of offending good taste. In its highest form Politeness approaches love”)

5. Honesty and Sincerity (interestingly, rather than what *I* personally think of when I hear the words “honesty and sincerity”, the info in the Bushido code text about this virtue mostly centers around the idea of disdaining money and riches - probably what Colleen is talking about with her whole “fighting for money breaks the bushido code” thing)

6. Honor (referring to non-martial behavior)

7. Loyalty (bushido text about this seems mostly in context of loyalty to a superior, to your leader, to people you are indebted to. Applies tragically to Colleen and her personal experience with Hand culture. To me, of course, I am more interested in the idea of those leaders deserving your love and your loyalty hand-in-hand with it. Given the other virtues, this IS probably what the code meant to include, but from a modern standpoint it seems like one of those things where especially paramilitary organizations or cults like the Hand could twist the letter of it into an expectation of blindly following orders, even perhaps against your personal devotion to the other virtues)

8. Character and Self-Control (“Bushido teaches that men should behave according to an absolute moral standard, one that transcends logic. What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong. The difference between good and bad and between right and wrong are givens, not arguments subject to discussion or justification, and a man should know the difference.” I get the ideal of this, but something about the wording sits weirdly with me... maybe the implication that they can’t make a mistake?)

Ageless qualities of manliness: choosing compassion over confrontation, and benevolence over belligerence <3

“The tie might be a touch effeminate” Shut UP Ward

Danny, at a press conference: *waves at Jeri* “Hey.” Jeri: *shakes her head*

Danny: “Yes, I was in a mental hospital.” Joy, despairingly: “Oh, Danny”

Jeri smiling. Maybe she worked with Danny on how to handle the press conference and likely questions he would face? My headcanon from this anyway. Ward and Joy looking at each other, seems like in surprise at Danny’s answers and spin?

“Kindness is the eternal law”

The way Danny slips in to this conversation with Joy about the Red Hook property for his Hand investigation is very well done. Reminds me of watching the Netflix trailer and thinking that it made IF look like a show where Danny was some form of government agent going undercover as himself for an investigation.

SO CUTE how Danny goes “woah, I have a first appointment of the day? Who is it?” and then he turns around and it’s his friend Jeri! Hahaha. Danny: “J-money!!” *goes in for a hug* Jeri: “Woah, we don’t do that.”

Jeri: “Your father’s office. Even found his old desk.” Meaning she was the one working on this - Ward is the one who had to set Danny up there after his sarcastic remarks in the penthouse, but Jeri brought in the sentimentality. (Jeri, directly after basically admitting to putting a bunch of effort into a very sentimental gesture here: “Now don’t get all weepy on me.”) Jeri in IF is so soft I love it

Danny: “I pretty much had to raise the dead.” *smirks to himself at his own inside joke*

Jeri, trying to give Danny advice: “For most of these people, you are a hostile takeover.” Me: JERI, HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE NUANCES OF YOUR CORPORATE SPEAK.

Jeri asks if Danny wants the door open or closed. He chooses open. Open to Megan, open to all his new coworkers and employees. Danny is, at his core, for people.

LOL Did Danny just steal Ward’s chair?

Danny: *forces half the board to move so he can sit next to Joy* Me: DANNY

If these guys really wanted to persuade Danny to their point of view on the sell-at-cost thing, they should have emphasized the “funding new research” part of it instead of just repeating “this is just business” ad nauseam. Obviously Ward is actually trying to do the opposite right now and get Danny driven out, but idk what the rest of these people are thinking. Danny acknowledges that they can still make profits elsewhere, which is his side offering a dialogue to meet them. Their counter is that the WHO will be buying it from them and subsidizing it from other people. If they wanted to meet or even just appear to be meeting Danny partway, they could have suggested an initiative to work with the WHO on a program for that? Although since none of them want to actually do that and don’t really care what Danny thinks about it, I know why they didn’t.

Joy raising her eyebrow at Ward’s declaring that they’ll go to market at cost like “I see you Ward and how many times have I told you to leave the maneuvering to me you are unsubtle and unskilled”

Danny looking back at Ward significantly on his way to his discussion with Joy about the pier deal

Ward taking The Drugs before he has to answer Harold’s late night phone call

Harold: You did a great job today. Ward: *baffled expression* Harold: Now, son, this isn’t the time to point fingers, it’s the time for solutions. Ward: There it is. Harold: Also, you screwed up in the meeting and you need to make it up. Ward: *sigh*

Danny: white sneakers with the suit

Joy casually placing the monks and their traditional robes in a lower class position to them and their white collar formal business attire

Time for Joy to play the angle on Danny, curb his at-cost behavior for the future

The ringmaster choosing the second fighter for Colleen followed by that “look, you guys know all the rules” line - I like this guy. He probably remembers how the last dude Colleen fought was a rule-breaker and wants to keep all his fighters safe as possible in an already dangerous 2-on-1 fight like this.

Again with the camera slowing and the noise fading and the blood splattering camera work giving the “losing control” vibe

“The problem was, I never thought through WHY I wanted this job. I mistook my stubborn will for a sense of... destiny, or something.” (Danny, earlier: “My shifu would have called this destiny.”)

“Every moment was a struggle. Failure... led to a beating. Victory... led to another fighting style. To the next lesson.”

Joy flat out calls it abuse and Danny doesn’t deny it.

Vodka and tonic, light on the tonic.

Danny clearly still shaken by the borderline flashbacks to his life at K’un Lun.

Is this the first time the Hatchets appear? Just storming the apartment and punching Joy in the face? Danny and Joy must both be like “WHAT IS HAPPENING”

Joy tries punching one of them. Good for you, Joy.

Ah yes, Ward flat out telling one of the more shark-like reporters that the drug is a huge deal that would save millions of lives and that Rand was of course planning to really boost the price to make a “huge” profit. “That is a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars [that our one company wanted to make off of the millions of people who needed this drug to save their lives]. He’s worse than those bleeding-heart-liberal-trust-fund hipsters wandering around Williamsburg.” (Note: Williamsburg: hip neighborhood that draws the young and fashionable. Boutiques, cafes, street art, outdoor concerts and food markets. Dance clubs, bars, music halls. East Williamsburg is ranked one of the 5 most LGBTQ+ friendly neighborhoods in Brooklyn.)

“Ellison, don’t give the front page to Karen”

Ward just looks at her retreating back and rubs his hands together like “Ah yes, a job well done.” Biggest question for the viewers in this scene is probably: Did Ward tank this on purpose or is he really that far removed from the reality of the non-Elite?

Colleen: still bloody from her illegal cage fighting and hears noise outside her door. Last time she heard noise, it was attackers breaking in for what probably seemed to her like retaliation. Then it’s Danny and she has the relieved exasperation, but - oh ho, Joy Meachum?

“Wasn’t he stalking you?” “It was a misunderstanding.” “Right. I guess being a millionaire covers a multitude of sins.” (Danny: “Billionaire.” Colleen in the background: *disbelieving huff+head shake*)

TRIADS. Time for my triad rant: Every drama show ever to involve Asian-Americans - even just in one-episode specials - includes triads. I’m so sick of it. I know organized crime is a real problem that actually exists, but - why are the Asians always evil? It’s like having the mafia be a plotline every time an Italian character exists on screen. Plz diversify. Media colors perception.

Danny: literally just walks into a restaurant and says he needs to speak to the head of the crime gang. AND THEN NONE OF THEM EVEN BOTHER TRYING TO DENY IT. The Hatchets literally just open the door to their backroom where you can clearly see their illegal activity and come out to talk to Danny. What if he was working with the cops, guys?

It’s so scary how the Yangshi Gonsi react to the mention of the Hand. Well done, IF.

“Joke around the house was that Danny and I were pledged to be married.” (“In another life, this would have been romantic.”) (THIS CREEPS ME OUT THOUGH in a very personally specific triggering way as someone who spent their childhood running around with a boy that I found out later people thought was gonna “knock me up someday.” #BARF)

Colleen has a billionaire in her dojo learning how to punch on a dummy held together with duct tape because she can’t afford to fix it. (Also: Colleen's dojo is also for self-defense classes. Joy was just attacked by hatchet-wielders.)

Danny: "The hatchets won’t be a problem anymore." and then doesn’t elaborate. DANNY THAT SOUNDS SO SHADY. YOU LOOK SO SHADY RIGHT NOW.

Danny: *reaches out and touches Colleen’s hand* Colleen: *flinches back* What are you doing? DANNY. DANNY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. You seriously have no idea how you come across. Joy is watching all this like “wow....ok.”

Danny used to fight in illegal fight clubs on his way back from K’un Lun. Along with his obtaining an illegal fake ID. New headcanon: Danny is actually super connected to the criminal underground worldwide. Mob bosses everywhere have a soft spot for him. He’s somewhere on a mission with Ward/Colleen/Defenders/HfH and acting like he knows the area, someone recognizes him and he starts chatting cheerfully with them, suddenly they’re being greeted and helped out by people deep in the black market scene while Danny bear hugs someone that most people clearly fear and his companions look on with wide eyes.

Danny, a literal billionaire: Remember how I offered to pay you six months rent for helping me out? Colleen, broke as hell: My denial stands.

Danny: So how are we gonna tell Ward? (framing them - all three of them - as a team) Joy: lmao, are we thinking about the same Ward? You want to tell the most overprotective big brother in the world that men with hatchets attacked his sister? Do you remember what he did to those bullies when we were 8?

Gao: *black bags Harold, refuses to tell him where they’re taking him, doesn’t reveal that this particular instance is him landing on the ‘good’ side of the scale until the last possible second.*

Ugh, he just puts that sword back in the scabbard with all the blood still on it? Improper blade care

Oh yeah, I guess this is the audience’s first scene showing that Harold is capable of cold-blooded murder

I notice that this article may be the front page of the business section, but is NOT the front of the newspaper. Sorry, Jennifer.

[I had initially transcribed the article here, but have made it it's own post which can be found here. Notes on the article, though: Jennifer was very kind to the Meachums in it, given what Ward was actually saying. Also, which Bulletin employee fell down on grammar checking that thing?]

Danny’s Jeri-given apartment doesn’t have a number on the door, but does have some sort of cherry blossom branches etching in the plate?

The Hatchet box!!! (congrats again @Sholio LOL) Yang Hai-Qing wants Danny to get rid of the Hand too. He wasn’t gonna mess with them, explained they didn’t know about the Hand's involvement when they went after Joy, and apologized, but then the Hand came to his restaurant and killed one of his men anyway.

Ah yes, the great tattoo reveal. Also, is that a bullet’s pucker scar on Danny’s left shoulder?