#and she doesn't have to feel conflicted about it

[minaharkerdailymirror]

Mina did not feel better when she woke. Instead what she felt was exhaustion followed by different waves of resentment and then nothing. She didn't go out of her way to comfort Daniel like she normally did. She didn't really talk to him at all other than let thim cuddle up to her or making small talk.

She was grateful the last leg of the cruise when Lestat came on board. She handed him the key to her room, took his from him and went back to the bar to drink.

Louis was there, "hi." Jesus Christ.

"Get Armand here and it's a vampire jamboree," she muttered.

He gave her an amused look and put his card down, 'Get the lady what she wants."

"I don't need your charity."

"It's not charity," he said, "I'm worried about you."

Mina nearly bit his head off but she was too tired, and really he had always been far more pleasant to her than she'd been to him. She just could never forgive him for all those men he'd killed in San Francisco.

"Get me whiskey," she said.

He watched her, "You're angry."

"I'm always angry."

"This is different."

She wanted to change the subject, "Daniel and Lestat are in the cabin, I can give you the number if you want."

"I'm not here for Daniel, I'm here for you."

"Oh, a double team is it?" she asked. Lestat gets one, Louis looks after the other.

He seemed amused, "Something like that."

"You two are nowhere near ready enough to be marriage councilors."

He broke into a grin and then laughed, "That is true, but when Daniel's in his spiral, you tend to get ignored. Sometimes thats your own doing, other times it isn't. We've been doing this dance for years now and yet you're the one holding off on being as close as you could be to the rest of us."

Mina was quiet, looked away a bit. What the hell, it was Louis. It wasn't like she was talking to someone outside their family. And it CERTAINLY wasn't like he was looking for anything intimate with her in exchange for talking, "My pain becomes his pain and I have to stifle it because it's suddenly his pain. I had a breakdown working through these memoirs I'm writing just for me and I had to comfort HIM because I was worried what HE would do. I tell him I need to get away, I need him with me. He's suddenly worried about Lestat. Perhaps i'm not a person to him, perhaps I'm just an addiction he has enough of so he focuses on the drug he doesn't have in front of him.'

"You know that's not true, You know he loves you."

Mina knew he was right. She knew Daniel was a complicated person. Very flawed, but she couldn't help but be angry and hurt by his behavior, "HE will give me the big wet eyes, say he's a piece of shit. And then where does my anger go then? It just sits there. I cannot talk to him like I want."

"Then talk to me," Louis said.

MIna hesitated....just for a moment...and then she just pushed herself through and talked to him. Working out her feelings in the past, how she felt about processing them now and the conflicting confusing feelings she had in the present as she dealt with everything around her.

“So, you want to interview vampires, so you?”

[meanbossart]

Hey, I was just thinking about Drow as a companion, you've talked a little about what you think he would be like. Have you thought about how he would act at the goblin vs. the tiefling party in act one?

Good question! Supporting the grove happens to be one of those unambiguously good choices that he is 100% behind. He finds Khaga (and the druids in general) to be insufferable, despises Minthara because she's a drow and a cultist, and most importantly cares about the tiefling children's safety. Because of this, he will likely be unhappy about the grove being raided... Yet, not enough to leave the party or strongly challenge a Tav on it. Massacring the grove would sate that blood-lust in himself, and he would draw pleasure from it, despite it going against his bare-bones morality. DU drow would be too conflicted about his own feelings about it to express himself strongly one way or another after the deed is done, kind of like Shadowheart reacts to the whole ordeal.

If you save the grove, you will find him sampling from Mol's secret wine stash. Mol tells you they cut a deal and you can either pay her the 100 gold you "owe" her for his antics, or tell her to sod off.

You can then find DU drow hidden away and drinking himself into a stupor. He's still coherent but occasionally slurring his words, clearly a really experienced drunk. He talks about Mol, how he thinks she's a riot and just thought he'd teach her a valuable lesson about business. If you ask him why he's isolated himself, he will jokingly say he's too humble to be showered in all this praise. You can succeed an insight check to find out that he's nervous about something.

If you ask what he thinks about what you've done, he's expresses indifference about the adults but, again, that he's glad the children are okay.

Tav: You're drinking like a man with a guilty conscience. Just to remind you - we're the good guys tonight. The drow: (Scoffs) The hellspawn aren't making it far. They are too... too bright-eyed. We've only put-off the inevitable. ...I only lament the fates of the children. The little sods didn't choose this life. Tav: They're clever enough. I'm sure they'll be alright. The drow: Cleverness can only get you so far. They're still little.

You can trigger his romance here, but you can't have sex with him yet. Through being flirtatious but not pushy he will promise you to pick this up another time, when he's not quite so indisposed. The scene would trigger during the next event-less long-rest.

In the goblin party, on the other hand, he will be found standing at his tent as normal. He's sober and there's no nervousness to be uncovered through any checks, in fact, he doesn't seem to be in too foul a mood - but he does treat you with a degree of coldness.

Tav: You seem a little pouty. Don't tell me you're sour about a few dozen dead tieflings. The drow: Not at all - the ceremony was quite lovely, I'm just finding the reception to be... Lackluster. Tav: Oh - the goblins aren't worth your company, your highness? The drow: They aren't even worth roasting for supper. To make no comment of the head-fanatic - you'd be spewing her out both ends for days, if you chose to indulge.

As long as you don't antagonize him for his diarrhea joke, you get to actually have sex with him that very night as well as trigger the romance.

As an addition - if he's in your party he will actually kill Minthara when she tries to turn against you in the middle of the night. You still have to fight all of the goblins after this, but she will have her throat slit by him during the cutscene. This means you can only recruit both of them if you knock her out at the goblin camp.

[markantonys]

@butterflydm observed that morgase's crown appears to be a match for the crown elayne is putting on in the trailer!

so now that we have confirmation that this crown is present in the white tower IRL at some point, i think the elayne scene takes place IRL rather than as an accepted test AU vision or anything like that (surely an AU vision of her becoming queen would be more likely to have her putting the crown on in caemlyn dressed in queenly regalia than in the white tower dressed as a novice/accepted).

my guess is elayne goes to morgase's white tower guest room to try the crown on, either sneakily while morgase isn't around or morgase tells her to try it on as a way to impress upon her the Weight Of Duty To Andor in the middle of a lecture about running off from the tower last season. either way, some kind of scene to build elayne's character a little more and show us that she's internally wrestling with the conflict between her duty to andor/her family and her duty to the white tower/her friends/hunting the black ajah.

i'm so excited! i always felt that elayne's queen side and aes sedai side should've had more Conflicts Of Interest than they did in the books, so i would LOVE if the show delved into that more and showed her sometimes feeling torn between them or having to sacrifice one set of duties in order to pursue the other set. and having morgase visit the tower along with the brothers and elaida is such a galaxy-brain idea that i never considered in all my s3 speculation; it allows us to see the FULL trakand family dynamic with all four of them in the same place together (doubly so with this probably being the focal storyline of ep2, along with elaida's "scores to settle" with both moiraine and siuan as teased in her character blurb), and getting to witness elayne's relationship with her mom firsthand in dedicated scene(s) will tell us so much about elayne's character and upbringing. even in the books, the only full trakand fam and elayne-morgase scene we get to witness firsthand (as opposed to elayne just recalling interactions she's had with her mom) is the EOTW sequence which is all through rand's eyes. we rarely got a direct look at the family behind closed doors! (not including the reunions with morgase and elayne/galad late in the series since i'm more thinking about seeing the "starting" family dynamics to show off the initial status quo before everybody's had their character development.) i can't wait to probably get some behind-closed-doors looks at the fam in s3!!!! if s2's handling of the damodred family story is anything to go by, we'll be in for a treat.

and, much as i've been dying to see the rest of the fam (especially gawyn <3), it works so well structure-wise to have saved them until s3. because s2 introduces elayne on her own as firmly a supporting character, with all her scenes having egwene and/or nynaeve as the "stars" and her as the scene partner for them to bounce off of. but now that the audience has come to know and like elayne as an extension of our established main characters, she can blossom into an established main character herself and start being the star of her own scenes instead of always being tied to one of the s1 mains.

this makes it the perfect time to only now start meeting the rest of her family and seeing what those dynamics are like. the show-only audience might not have cared as much if the entire family was introduced at once last season, but now that they've already known elayne for a whole season, they'll be more curious about meeting the rest of her family and seeing what she's like when they're around! (another difference with the EOTW scene - not only is it outsider POV, we also don't know any of these people and aren't particularly invested in observing the family dynamics.) the show doesn't shy away from the books' big cast of characters, but so far it has been very smart about bringing them in as a slow trickle and always making sure newcomers are linked to established characters at first before blossoming off into their own, so as not to overwhelm viewers or make them feel that too much time is being spent on new people they don't care about at the expense of the established characters.

[floofanflurr]

How would you feel about an AU that has Papyrus being Toriel's Door Buddy instead, and is the one that promised to protect Frisk (and unlike Sans, Papyrus does a decent job)? ;)

I'm now trying to figure out if you are an anon that's in my discord server, because otherwise the timing of this ask is INSANE, considering when this ask came in I was just talking about the absolute crack ship pairing of PapyrusxToriel (Torius) in order to have Mom times two. (Goat mom plus skelemom)

...ON THAT NOTE, I FREAKING LOVE THAT IDEA HOLY S H I T. Stars, i freaking love this concept so much?!?!?!??!?! ITS BRILLIANT. Is this a "there's a fic/AU like this out there and i'm reccing it" suggestion or a "hey you wanna write this" suggestion? ...BECAUSE IF ITS THE SECOND I HIGHKEY WANNA ADD IT TO MY PROMPT LISTS.

(Okay i rambled a lot more than i expected - sticking it under a cut)

Stars, I love it so much. I can just picture Papyrus running into Toriel - I do wonder - she would probably have to be the one to initiate the knock knock joke. But Papyrus would absolute keep coming back to humor her - both because he's lonely, but also because she reminds him of his brother in the worst (best) way. And then he would have another friend to add to his very, very short list, and Toriel would have consistent company and the best kinds of reactions (because what pun lover DOESN'T love getting groans in exchange for bad jokes?)

i wonder what kinds of conversations would pop up...? Because Papyrus is quite loud about his desire to be in the royal guard - and to capture a human. Would Toriel still bring up the promise in the same way? Would she be reluctant to befriend him? Perhaps she would, quite scathingly, decry the murder of children -human or otherwise - and force Papyrus to confront exactly what the guard does.

And the potential of Papyrus and Toriel being the ones to meet first and how that could play out- they're both such desperately lonely people. Their dynamic could also have some interesting things at play with Toriel's tendency to mother and smother, and Papyrus's existing experience with that with Undyne. Would Toriel smother him? How would that play out? Would Papyrus every confront her about it?

And, even with this interesting dynamic, inevitably, Papyrus would agree to her request to protect the human in a heartbeat, honestly. One of his very few friends asking him that? He would probably struggle with the idea at first, since this is directly opposed to Undyne (similarly to how he struggles in the game after he befriends frisk) but ultimately i think he would still lean immediately to protect, and therefore would agree to the promise. And then, of course, we get to Frisk actually showing up. He really would do a great job! I think he would still lead them through his puzzles, and we honestly might even still get a battle if he phrases it as training - but he would up and yoink frisk out of any Encounters before their HP got too low. Conflict resolution of the distinctly non-murdery kind!

Then we get waterfall....

I wonder if Papyrus would try to pull something a la "How to Protect a Human from Your Murderous Best Friend"? Would he lie? Would he try to sneak Frisk through? Would he fight Undyne...? Would he try to reason with her...? Reverse psychology a la Undyne date but early (and not nearly as effective without Frisk having spared her already)???

And the amount of Frisk and Papyrus interaction I could fit in!!! ALL the dad Papyrus content!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gosh I freaking love this idea so much. There's so much to consider!!! SO MANY WAYS IT COULD GO!

...and of course, i could fit in my crackship pair of Torius.

...I may come back to this later and actually plan it out better if this isn't already a thing.

[samhadjblog2]

I feel like this misses the crucial part about Caitlyns character that while yes she did show empathy to the Zaunites that doesn't mean she wasn't a selfish person.

The whole reason she was on the case of Jinx was because she chose to do her own investigation when she that wasn't she was ordered to do.She is someone who uses her family name in order to do whatever she wants. And its also clear that her grief is clouding her judgement.

And Sevika being appointed to the council isn't the "only" thing she did she also fought for Piltover and Zaun. She fought Ambessa in order to put an end the the conflict. And while sure it doesn't absolve her of all her crimes its still a goo start.

The real problems with all of this is that all of this comes back to the overly condense nature of season 2. We have Caitlyn commit war crimes in a montage, and then have her efforts to better herself be condense in an entire episode.

I will say that Caitlyn is one of the characters that had the bones of a great character arc however it was squandered by condensing so much in a short time.

I’m STILL not done with this because the downplaying of Jinx’s actions vs the exaggeration of Caitlyn’s is really bugging me.

Yes, Caitlyn uses the vents to pump the Grey into the undercity. But she does it in TARGETED strikes. That’s what a “strike force” IS. It’s a small group of soldiers who go in quickly and precisely to attack vulnerable spots.

In this case, Caitlyn and her crew literally use the same vents they’re pumping the Grey through to get in and out of their targeted locations. Meaning Caitlyn isn’t “gassing the undercity” at all. At best she’s filling a single building with the grey while they attack and then filtering it out when they leave.

“Oh but gas dissipates differently in the undercity than in Piltover because piltover is open air and the undercity is close together and tight.”

Cool… that’s definitely a concern. But we never see any negative side effects from these targeted attacks. It’s established multiple times that you can endure the grey for a while, it just makes it harder to breathe. And while there are immediate side effects of it, you won’t develop terminally ill Viktor-like symptoms unless you’re been exposed to it consistently for years.

Everything Caitlyn is doing is to MITIGATE the loss of innocent civilian lives. Heck, they stumble across a guy Jinx has tied upside down on top of a grey exposed vent for god knows how long and the first thing the strike force does is to try and save his life!

Now compare that to what Jinx does IN THE SAME EPISODE. She sets off a bomb that blasts the entirety of Piltover with the grey. Mixing it with the paint is an even greater act of cruelty because that just makes it harder to wash away and get rid of the toxicity of the grey.

Look at how WIDE SPREAD that attack ended up being! Absolutely NOTHING Caitlyn has been doing has affected the undercity on such a scale!

And this attack affects women, children, and the elderly. We are EXPLICITLY shown this.

AND we are shown what happens to the kids afterwards. I understand this is Ambessa using this child to plead her case for Martial Law, but that doesn’t change that this kid still suffered greatly because of Jinx’s actions.’

Now yes, what Caitlyn is doing is still wrong. Nobody is suggesting otherwise. Caitlyn shouldn’t be attacking the undercity at all. But this idea that Caitlyn is somehow akin to a Nazi gassing the poor people is a really disgusting exaggeration of her crimes AND mitigates the ACTUAL terrorist attack by Jinx that DOES hurt innocent civilians.

And a lot of the justification I’ve seen for the hate against Caitlyn using the grey is often speculation based on nothing the show provides us with answers to, or wild assumptions about the physics of this grey’s toxicity.

Oh and one more thing, in relation to Viktor’s illness… just MAYBE consider that one of the reasons his illness spreads more quickly in his body than, say, Sky’s or Vi or Jinx or Vander… is because as a child he spent a lot of his time IN A TOXIC FISSURE CAVE GIVING THE TOXIC PRECURSOR TO SHIMMER TO RIO.

I dunno, just a thought that MAYBE that contributed to his ultimate health decline? Sky is literally swimming in the dirty waters outside the cave and she is fine… Jinx is baptized by Silco in the same dirty water and she’s fine. Vander and Silco both worked in the mines where the grey was most potent and they’re fine. Silco’s eye is only because of being choked out in the dirty toxic water…

I just think people are being VERY SELECTIVE about how they choose to view the ways the grey affects people.

[osteoptimist]

Severance S2 spoilers up to episode 2:

After watching S2E1 I was REALLY worried that the show might be nosediving. When Helly R didn't tell the gang that she was an Eagan, my fear was that the writers were so desperate to get the show back to the status quo and create conflict within MDR that they were going to have Helly go from "I'm going to burn your company to the ground" to lying to the team out of fear they'd reject her and she'd lose her developing relationship with Mark S.

I've seen plenty of shows do this, and it's one of my biggest pet peeves in television writing. Characters lying for silly reasons just so the show has more drama.

BUT! After reading some discussions online, rewatching the episode, and now seeing E2, I'm confident that's not the case and the writers are still doing an awesome job.

In E1, there were a few pieces of evidence in Helly R's behavior that indicated she might actually be Helena, her outie. Her interactions with the team and especially Mark were a little awkward, but it's hard to be sure.

The most compelling piece of evidence was the shot at the end of the episode where they're all sitting back at their desks and she has to feel around for a second to find the switch to turn on her computer. That was a very deliberate shot, easy to miss but super obvious in hindsight, imo. To me, that very clearly indicates that this isn't Helly, who has known almost nothing except this office.

One of the most interesting, though, and one I haven't seen a lot of people talk about, was when Irv was in the bathroom. The group was talking and suddenly she looks up at the ceiling and asks "what happened to that security camera?"

THAT is a big hint to me, and fits with what we've seen of Helena in E2. My guess is in E3 (or maybe E4), we'll learn that Helena refuses to let her innie Helly take over, and comes to a compromise with the company that she'll go down in disguise as Helly, with the chip disabled so she doesn't switch going down the elevator.

That will require her to watch pretty much every moment of Helly's time on the severed floor, so she doesn't make any obvious mistakes.

Ergo, she probably spent a lot of time watching footage from that one (now missing) camera to see the team interacting. Then, when she's down on the severed floor and feeling uncertain, she looks to that camera and notices it's missing.

There's a lot else to unpack about Helena that we saw in S2, especially her watching Helly and Mark kiss at the elevator, but other people have talked about that.

I'm just glad the writers are still cooking, it was on me for not paying close enough attention in my first watch of E1.

I AM still a little worried about Dylan going along with Milkshake and not telling the team about the family visitation room, I'm not sure that follows from what we saw at the end of S1. We know that Dylan has been very concerned about rewards and perks, but I think that's mostly because he didn't have anything else to focus on, and once he met his son that completely changed. Maybe Lumon is making the right move combining those two motivations, I'm just not 100% sure he would buy the "don't tell your coworkers cause they're all single and might get jealous" part.

[bibibbon]

Hi, another idea. Delaware made a post talking about how Mina was anti gadget on the sport festival (she faced Aoayama who was wearing one, note how he doesn't anymore after that... maybe he does and I'm mistake) it was an Answer for an ask.

But it was noted how she think less of Aoayama and how no one in UA seems to care for Aoayama as a student till the big reveal.

It makes me think if Izu had a gadget...people would.hate on him. Many fics love make BK ruining his gadgets and I can see it but Mina went straight to the gadget (one may say that was a clever move on her part but it felt as if she was bullying him) so...I think if Izu was to use gadget ...he would be even more an odder duck.

I say this bc in my TTau. I want to have Izumi to wear gadgets to prevent her bones to shatter and we see A1 being shitty friends, ofc. Karma is coming to them.

Izumi sees how UA has no care in teaching how to use quirks and many heroes are content in use the basic. Mirio learned how to control his quirk alone (nighteye gets no credit here as he didn't lift a finger) and wonders what's the point in being a hero? Why do we need a hero anyway?

Hi @mikeellee 👋

I don't think mina is anti-gadget or she isn't anti-gadget on purpose, that is.

What I mean by this is that mina aimed for yuuga's belt because she thought it was the easiest way to take him out. Now, this is only fair as it definitely was the quickest way to win that fight as the problem with yuuga is that he is DEPENDENT on that support item and therefore he can't do much without it.

You can argue that her aiming for his support device is unfair, but that argument falls flat when the whole premise festival is to do whatever to win as long as it's not outright killing your opponent. The argument then falls flat again when you put this in a real-life villain vs. hero type of situation where people will do whatever, however cruel or nasty it may be, to win.

The thing is, yuuga still does wear his support item, but it blends in well with his hero costume, which is the only time he actually uses his quirk. The support item sticks out like a sore thumb when yuuga is in his sports kit, so maybe that's why you got confused.

I don't ever remember seeing mina stating or thinking that yuuga is less than her or anyone else because of his use of a support item.

Also, I think the lack of focus or care for yuuga before the traitor arc was both intentional and somewhat of a writing issue. Horikoshi deeply neglected the traitor plot surrounding yuuga, and because of that, we don't get much of yuuga or foreshadowing to his character arc. I also like to think that yuuga probably had a strong internal conflict within him due to the role he had to play and how he could never be who he wants to be due to the connections he has with AFO. Due to feelings of guilt and not wanting to cause harm by staying ignorant, yuuga probably tried and failed to distance himself from class 1A.

The argument kinda ends up falling apart when you do realise that in Canon izuku does have a gadget. Remeber the support item that Melissa made for his arm, yep izuku has that and he constantly wears it with his hero outfit and we don't see much comments on that.

All mights point to izuku was to not rely on support items which he has a point when it comes to that but does end up coming off as harmful advice if you take into account how All Might is as a character.

Again, I think it depends on the type of gadget that izuki would use for people to exploit it. Something such as his arm bands are okay because he can function without them, and honestly, the arm bands aren't easy to reach at all, not without izuku punching or hitting someone.

The TTAU sounds like a great way to tackle some of the issues that the narrative has. I do think that you should introduce a nuanced conversation when it comes to support equipment. Leading izumi to such a conclusion is also interesting because heroes are supposed to help, and hero schools are supposed to help you improve and strengthen your quirk, but ua does it with almost no direct support given to the students.

[ghost-of-morrowbright]

Thank you for your original post and thoughtful replies that I've been wanting to respond to.

Yes, absolutely agreed on Elrond not understanding Galadriel's articulation of her experiences of trauma and PTSD. I had forgotten Elrond's "wine of victory" line; that's such a great observation of his cluelessness. Because I absolutely agree that it's not that he doesn't care for her or her experience, but that he doesn't quite understand the trauma of war in the sense of having to participate in and witness so much death. There's also this great exchange. Even though she is specifies "evil", I think the more general ideas of violence or trauma could substitute and it would work just as well:

"After all you have endured, it is only natural to feel conflicted." "Conflicted? I am grateful you have not known evil as I have. But you have not seen what I have seen." "I have seen my share." "You have not seen what I have seen."

Have you seen the Rings and Realms interview with Benjamin Walker? I imagine you've likely already seen it, but if you haven't, I'd highly recommend it. He starts talking about Gil-galad's sense of what's coming down the pike at about the 13 minute mark, but the whole interview is great and adds quite a bit of insight into how he interprets the character.

I love both of your two possible questions of what he may be thinking, each both equally heartbreaking.

"Did I push him too fast and he's just not ready yet, so we'll do this differently for the War Against the Elves?"

"Or did I push too fast because I need him to be confident to lead us into battle without me, but I can't tell him that."

Gil-galad has been so much of a cipher until this battle. My thinking is that he may be dealing with his own form of PTSD, even if it is not something we have been shown. Certainly he has also seen his share of evil, violence, trauma and war. So, at risk of repeating myself and you, it will be interesting to see how his relationship with Elrond will continue to grow in the coming seasons.

I was to going to reference (and then reply to) @tvgirlsays' recent post about Elrond as healer, but it seems their blog has been deactivated. Hopefully they will return at some point, because I really liked their insights too. I am wondering if we are going to get some "wounded healer" motifs with Elrond as he founds Imladris. My memories on the details of the conversation between Arondir and Bronwyn are a bit hazy, but I am wondering if the show will revisit the theme of beauty as a means of encouraging elven self-healing.

Anyways thank you again for all your insights and letting me ramble on. I apologize for the delays in replying--I have issues with brain fog and word finding difficulty, so sometimes it takes longer to reply to wonderfully thinky posts like these.

Gil-galad sees Elrond showing legit signs of shock on the field in Eregion.

And I think Gil-galad is about to have more than one feeling about it.

Gil-galad gave Elrond command on the field in Ost-in-Edhel -- fully gave him command of all troops on the field. Elrond led their charge (Gil was right there beside him with an encouraging face, like "you call it, son, whenever you're ready, we go." Gil-galad pulled back during that charge, along with all other troops, at Elrond's command. Elrond was also the commander on the field who negotiated with Adar, general to general - Gil-galad was not involved, was not consulted on that conversation. I get no sense from show-universe that Elrond commanded large groups of troops before he led here. In fact, Adar calls out Elrond's lack of experience — though Adar notes he talks a good game.

This was Elrond’s show because Gil-galad asked him to run it. Promoted him to be there and lead at least 500 elves to battle.

And THIS is the exact moment that Gil-galad starts to see signs of Elrond's potential or growing PTSD*:

"Oh....oh, ope, yep, he's down. Yeah, no, buddy is down. Okay. Stay there, lil dude. Fuckin' Form Ranks, I guess, all twenty of you still mentally with me, let's ball YOLO (sorta)."

Yes, Elrond absolutely can swing a sword like a tank and led effectively and got it done, but that doesn't mean it's who he is and that it won't affect him. Gladriel talks about the sound of singing mocking the battle cries in her ears.

How easily can Elrond live with the choices he had to make that killed many, many elves who entrusted their fates to him? THAT was what broke him on the field, before they were captured or ever walked into the courtyard.

So...how easily will Gil-galad handle this additional pain he may have helped cause in this young man he loves?

*clarification: As someone with diagnosed, active PTSD under treatment, I’m not using the term lightly. Disclaimers of all kinds, as some have come into my blog before and oh-so-helpfully explained to me why I should not speak of my own diagnosis in certain terms. Well, Jan, it might not be the terms y’all use over there, but over here? When we see dissociation, we call it out as a flag. I’m the one with dreams so vivid I’m afraid to go to sleep. For fuck’s sake, Jan.

[bg3loredump]

Purge: a funny bit that turned into a legit tragedy

This is my Durge. Her name is Purge. She's based on the character Pearl from the movie Pearl. She's a barbarian, embrace durge, chaotic evil. This character honestly started out as a bit, but as I found out during her playthrough, the parallels between the stories of Pearl and the Dark Urge are very real and the resulting story was more tragic than I ever could have expected. So lemme break it all down.

I only knew snippets of the Dark Urge story when I thought of Purge as a concept - I really only knew that they were a Bhaalspawn and had seen their introduction monologue. The vibes of that monologue strongly reminded me of the movie Pearl; a killer who really doesn't want to be a killer, but something inside of them calls them to it against their will. Thus, the idea for Purge was born.

Lemme quickly sum up the movie for context: Pearl is an isolated farm girl that dreams of escaping her family's farm and dancing in the movies. She wants to be loved and adored by the masses like the "pretty girls in the pictures." Unfortunately, she's very obviously not OK in the head; she starts by killing small animals when she thinks no one is looking, and the more desperate she becomes to escape the farm and live out her dreams, the more she kills - and in her own words, the more "meaningful" her murders become. There's a FANTASTIC, chilling, extremely tense scene where her mother confronts her about "the things she does when she thinks no one is looking," basically doubling down on Pearl's deep dark fear that there is just something innately wrong with her and she'll never be adored in the way that she so desperately desires. And after she isn't selected at a dance audition that she sees as the one shot at her dreams, she crumbles and resigns herself to "making the best of what she has," which she expresses to her sister-in-law right before murdering her with an axe. There's a LOT more I could say about this movie but will hold back. I highly recommend watching it if you haven't already, it's truly a brilliant piece of art.

So, I bring up those scenes with the mom and the sister-in-law because they parallel the "nature vs. nurture" themes that are so prevalent in the Dark Urge's story; does this character - who was literally created for the sole purpose of being a murderer and being really, really good at it - resist and rise above what they were created to be? Or do they embrace the urge, resigning themselves to the purpose Bhaal intended for them? It's established pretty early on in the game that killing feels GREAT for Durge, so one could argue that embracing the urge is the "path of least resistance." But their introduction monologue and lines like "Was I sweet once?" make it clear that Durge does have a conscience and understands morality! And that's what makes the choice of embracing vs. resisting the urge a genuine conflict! 

So, with all that said, let's talk about Purge. For the first half of the game, she was a resist Durge. She wakes up only knowing two things about herself; that she's tortured by murderous impulses, and that she desperately wants to be loved. Everyone wants to be loved, but I mean she would do anything, for any reason, to be loved by anyone. Unfortunately, she's also prone to uncontrollable acts of murder and fits of rage which aren't exactly well-received by everyone. She kills a squirrel out of nowhere right in front of all her friends! That's not a good look! So the urges, even though they feel great to embrace (like she's "letting loose," if you will), are ultimately a source of great shame for her.

Given the context for this playthrough, I think the Alfira incident serendipitously works really well into Purge's story. Alfira is the epitome of what Purge wants to be, a beautiful and kind-hearted bard (SHE'S A STARRR!!!). So even though the in-game canon is that Durge kills Alfira unconsciously, it makes sense for Purge that her urges would subconsciously pick Alfira is a target. It sets up that Purge sees other people getting what she wants as her competition, and will literally kill to "win"... foreshadowing her eventual rivalry with Orin. Oh look, another parallel to the movie! Killing a sister figure! Who happens to be blonde! Wow!!!

I also went into the game knowing with absolute certainty that Purge would be romancing Wyll. First of all, he likes to dance. So does Pearl. Self-explanatory. But also, the parallels between Wyll and Pearl's husband Howard from the movie are UNCANNY. Both characters come from a well-off, high-status, comfortable background. Both have hearts of gold and make decisions that lead to them leaving their comfortable lives behind for what they think is the greater good. And both are incredibly forgiving of their batshit insane partners, willing to stick with them and make things work despite their many, MANY dangerous red flags (for context: Pearl is a prequel to a movie called X, in which Howard and Pearl are STILL TOGETHER 60 years later even though Howard KNOWS all that Pearl has done). Meanwhile, both Pearl and Purge are attracted to their partners because their comfortable, high status backgrounds promise the validation and lifestyle that they so desperately crave. Pearl and Purge also both know that their partners are objectively better people than them, and are grateful for their love despite feeling like they don't deserve it deep down. 

Despite all these parallels, I came up against one major contradiction when playing as a Pearl-inspired character in a Dnd world - the concept of killing, in a vacuum, isn't nearly as frowned upon in the Forgotten Realms as it is in 1910's America 😆. As a player,  I was not at all expecting the companions to be so forgiving and understanding when it comes to Durge. This makes me think that maybe in another life, Purge actually could have been a fully resist Durge because the acceptance and patience of Wyll and her companions would be enough to fulfill and heal her desperation for love. Sadly, this is not the way things went; it broke down completely the moment she learned that she was the child of Bhaal. After all, what could be more satisfying validation than having the blessing and approval of a literal god? As Bhaal's chosen, she would finally be the "star" she always dreamed of being! Furthermore, she could comfortably stop fighting the urges that caused her so much internal conflict, embracing who she was created to be; in her eyes, she would be "making the best of what she has," or rather, what she is. From there, Purge's fate was tragically sealed.

So obviously by Act 3 she has fully embraced the dark urge; she becomes an unholy assassin, kills Orin, becomes Bhaal's chosen, all much to the chagrin of Wyll (but he still proposes to her anyway 🤦‍♀️). Cut to the end; she betrays Orpheus and takes the Crown of Karsus in the name of Bhaal. Her first murder in her father's name is Wyll, who's final words are "I forgive you," because of course they are. Too forgiving for his own good, right up to the very end 😭.

The game ends with a vision of the future from Bhaal himself of Purge alone, the last being alive, surrounded by piles of bodies as far as the eye can see. The final line from the narrator in this scene shook me to my core:  "Then, and only then, father will be proud." Thus, the tragedy of Purge is this; she only wanted to be loved, and she was. She was loved by her companions, who expressed their faith in her on multiple occasions, encouraging her to rise above what she was made for and fight the urges. She was loved by Wyll, who wanted to share his life with her despite all she had done, and forgave her even when she had done the unforgivable. But instead she chased the love of her father, the glory and validation of being a god's chosen, killing all the people who already loved her in the process. Only to find out that Bhaal still won't extend the love she was chasing until all life is eradicated... presumably including her own.

(Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate you! 💜)

[hillbillyoracle]

So I am in a high conflict relationship for the forseeable future. I'm disabled and can't work, my family support is middling, and I am still COVIDing but have trouble living alone. It's a bad time.

But one of the things that's come out of it is that this situation combined with my near pathological optimism that I can figure it out to some degree means I have tried all of the advice out there for being a relationship with someone with treatment resistant NPD and ASPD/Psychopathy specifically and then some.

So if that sounds useful to you, let's chat.

Grey rocking - the near universal standard I see recommended everywhere - fucking blows. It's non-specific so it's difficult to know what you should be doing in any given situation, is mentally and emotionally draining, and can escalate the folks who have high impulsivity. I hate it.

The strategy that I return to time and time again, the only one that tends to stabilize things to any degree is called SMART contact from Marriage Helper. It's designed for people who are separated, in the process of divorcing, or similar who would like to reconcile. But it is so useful for high conflict relationships in general.

SMART is an acronym. It stands for:

Stop PUSH* behaviors

Manage shared business

Allow them to start conversations

Respond calm, strong, and gentle.

Take it one day at a time

PUSH is also an acronym. It stands for:

Pleading, begging, manipulating

Unnecessary crying

Starting fights

Hovering, tracking, monitoring

Basically "drama".

Consistently when things have started to get bad again in my relationship, I've realized I've stopped using this framework. Other techniques - like Dr. Ramani's DEEP technique (Don't defend, engage, explain, personalize) - make decent additions for the "Allow them to start conversations" part but without the other parts of the framework, it just doesn't work as well.

I prefer SMART over grey rocking for a few reasons but one in particular, is that while grey rocking can be quite nuanced, most of the examples I see get used ultimately involve not pushing back/letting the high conflict person do whatever they want in most regards. Dr. Ramani often talks about how you're already getting walked all over, the goal is to reduce the length of the walk over. And I personally am never going to feel safe, comfortable, or mentally resilient enough to spend the rest of my life being a better and better doormat.

I think if you've got solid friendships and relationships outside of that person, maybe grey rocking with just them wouldn't destroy you but if you're highly isolated like I am, I just have found that it makes me incredibly suicidal over the long term.

SMART doesn't seem to have the same impact on me. It doesn't require me to lack human emotions. It acknowledges that I will have to go out of my way to interact with her on occasion (to manage business items) and that that serves a purpose. It reminds me to focus on today to hem in eternity thinking which I find is far more damaging to me than say personalization alone. It also gives instructions for how to broach boundaries when I need to "calm, strong, and gentle".

And additional aspect of Marriage Helper's materials is what to focus on instead of fixating on the problem partner - another acronym called PIES. They use it to denote areas of attractiveness but I use it to remember my own needs that I often neglect or sacrifice to focus on conflicts with her.

PIES stands for:

Physical

Intellectual

Emotional

Spiritual

With SMART, PUSH, and PIES - I've got most of the daily ins and outs of living her covered. Is she rage baiting me? Respond calm, strong, and gentle/don't use PUSH behaviors. Has something broken around the house? Focus on managing the problem with her. Am I unsure if I should text her about something? Well if it's not about a shared business item then it's probably best to let it go or tell someone else. I feel a need to go do something? Work on my PIES.

Grey rocking doesn't cover nearly the same breadth in my opinion.

Anyways, I wanted to share it in case someone else finds it helpful.

[kaeyaswifefromsnezhnaya]

How Aoikane lack circumstances is just amazing. They have so much drama and I have to believe that it's because they're both just such weird kids who love each other so much, but it doesn't work that way. Like, if you don't look at their relationship as a love drama, then it still makes sense, but if you look at it from a Romeo and Juliet point of view...

Aoi is so withdrawn because she's withdrawn (I know she was bullied as a child, I know she's perceived purely for her looks, and her parents are divorced. That's what I'm talking about, she's so withdrawn that it should be her painful trait, special, so to speak, but no one talks about how hard it was for her in the context of her withdrawnness, she's just very secretive and distrustful, so Akane would crack her). And she's like that, purely so that she needs to be pursued, and she would refuse time after time, only because "what if he leaves me too." Your incredibly persistent boyfriend, who has been courting you for three years. What if he suddenly just dumps you, because what if he finds out the real you - you've literally known each other since you were three, really, what doesn't he know? Or how have you been friends all this time without getting close? As children, playing with conventions? What is this? The way Aoi has no will of her own, she almost never speaks directly, shows no emotion, is afraid of everyone, and you want to say that she is an ordinary schoolgirl and it is still fun.

Akane, on the other hand, is so loyal, so stubborn, took it upon himself to be Aoi's personal knight, and also just because? He loves her sooo much that he is ready to do something like this. An ordinary schoolboy suddenly became a hero from a fairy tale, and also because he is such a nice guy.

Their drama is heartbreaking, the stakes are too high, and their reasons for such behavior are just because. Not because their parents forbid them to date, not because one of them is traumatized, or both of them, not because they have some more significant reasons that need to be overcome than just the mistrust of silly Aoi. The conflict may be good, but it does not look good in the current easy conditions without adequate reasons. And when I bring up these reasons, I am told to put them down, because now their relationship does not look like a cute Romeo and Juliet story.

Although you know how good Aoikane is in the new timeline? Where they finally have a reason preventing them from being together that is really hard to overcome - the engagement with Minamoto. Now Aoi will have to act out of duty, now she can't talk about her feelings, but the funny thing is that in this world she talks about them much more freely. Because she grew up with Teru, who pulled her out of her shell and helped her become the girl who refused to leave the red house alone. And considering that the Akane from this world clearly couldn't lay claim to Aoi the same way as before, he probably didn't pester her with confessions and as a result she treats him much more loyally and strives to be with him herself. It's funny, but that's how it is. These are real circumstances, and not "they are like this because it has to be that way." In the new world they are finally those same soft and brave good guys, but this world will be erased and we will return to their original problems, which are passed off as imaginary soft comfort.

[wherevenusholdssomeofficespace]

Y'know, I think the reason I'm so receptive to the love triangle bullshit in Hamster and Gretel is it resolves quickly. We got a couple moments of foreshadowing of Lauren's crush before one episode where Lauren and Kevin flirt. And then one episode with the drama before Kevin… decides that he's not in a position to pursue a relationship with Lauren (well, also that he doesn't want to get with his friends crush), and then decides to clearly communicate that to her. And then Lauren is disappointed, but accepting. It both doesn't come out of nowhere, but doesn't overstay its welcome either, rather accentuating character relationships rather than overtaking them.

Now, it is possible it comes back, which would be annoying. Though I do like the idea of Kevin and Lauren. They have some parallels as the put upon older siblings of a superpowered person, whose actual interests are put in conflict with their superpowered family responsibilities. Both seem to have an interest in growing more independent, doing things like getting jobs/earning money/gaining approval from their peers. However, I even more so appreciate Lauren and Kevin having a frank talk, being (mostly) honest with each other, growing closer, even as their relationship move away from being romantic. Lauren revealed her identity to Kevin, and now Kevin can openly help her during fights, its only a matter of time before the Gretel secret gets spilled considering Kevin has been helping out Gretel even when they were enemies. They are well on their way to being part of the same superhero squad, which invites opportunities for their friendship to continue to develop.

Which does make me a little worried considering Hiromi is currently trying to figure out Kevin's secret identity/antagonistic to the superhero squad. Which is interesting, but I wonder if Hiromi will get the wrong idea about their relationship after Kevin has shut it down. I don't really want that, but then again I've been surprised by how much I like the relationship drama so who knows.

I DO think that if Hiromi and Kevin do eventually get together it will feel well earned considering the work they are going to have to put into it. Assuming it happens after she finds out the truth and they can work things out, taking the time to actually understand each other. It's not that either of them mean to hurt the other, and they aren't being stupid about it. Both of their perspectives on the situation make a lot of sense, and while Kevin does do a lot of stupid romance drama nonsense, he's really stuck between a rock and a hard place considering the superhero stuff, and he usually means well and learns his lesson in the end.

I mean it also probably helps that this isn't just the "Kevin's relationship drama" show, but also the Superhero show and Family show, which means we get plenty of other episode topics in here too, so it's not always front and center and doesn't completely define any of the characters, even Hiromi, while being mostly Kevin's love interest is also defined being Fred's friend and the schools resident overworked, increasingly bitter, doormat.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

The Most Toxic Situationship I have ever Seen...And I Loved Every Second

As far as sequels go, I cannot deny that this one rocked. It can be so, so hard to follow up a first book without it feeling like retreading old ground or that there is arbitrary or artificial conflict that doesn't feel natural. Xiran Jay Zhao did not have those problems. This book felt immediate, vibrant, and deeply fucked up in the best possible way. I loved how messy it was, and how it refused to make deeply morally, ethically, and organizationally messy things simple, instead giving us the chance to watch the mess unfold and force characters to make choices in situations where there is not right answer. Let's talk Heavenly Tyrant.

This is you SPOILER WARNING. If you go below the cut, I'm SPOILING THE END of the book in like the first two sentences. You've been warned.

Sooooooo...she fully stabbed Qin Zheng in the heart, which somehow radicalized him into a full-on misogynist and patriarchal asshole (although let's be fair, that wouldn't have happened if he wasn't already well on his way to this point), and Shimin is a mechanical bird now. That's a LOT to deal with, and we're going to get there, then this whole book was a LOT. You don't just casually wake up a historical hero, crown him emperor, end up in a toxic situationship with him where you both plan to take down the gods and then murder the hell out of him without a lot of other elements.

Oh also, there was a reign of terror in there that got a little out of hand before they reined it in.

Now, as a heads up for those of you who like all the sci fi stuff in these books: I'm not so much a sci fi girl, so I'm not really going to talk much about those elements of the book. They were well executed and fine, but I was here for other things, so if you want a deep dive into the more sci fi elements, this is not the review for you. My focus is really going to be character dynamics and the politics.

Zetian and Qin Zheng

Sooooooooooooooo. So so so so. These two. The absolute fuckery that is the power dynamic between Zetian and Zheng is unquestionably my favorite part of this whole book. She is out here without the education and experience he has, but the conviction that women are people, the end. He's over here being this weird combination of toxic Mr. Darcy who has the education and principles but SO MUCH PRIDE and patriarchal baggage that it fucks up his implementation and Phantom of the Opera who thinks women are property.

This is what we in the business call an irreconcileable difference. So naturally they have to rule Huaxia and defeat the gods together, which requires finding some way to WORK together. And they do, technically. They get into all these weird power and dominance struggles behind the scenes, but there are also some AMAZING saves because the truth is, they need each other for now. I'm thinking particularly of when Zetian saves Zheng's ass at her coronation and pulls off a "it was a tech glitch" cover for him low-key almost dropping dead mid-ceremony. That was an A-level situation save.

And then she goes around licking things in front of him to assert dominance, which...is a choice. That I kind of loved, not gonna lie.

That said, Zheng did that absolutely bonkers thing where he had to interact with Zetian every day, heard her advocate for women, and somehow STILL managed to think she'd be chill with being his personal fantasy of a tradwife? Like...my dude. She crushed a building of people who wanted that for her, and you think you're going to be the singular dude who changes her mind? And then he had the SHEER NERVE to be surprised when she stabbed him.

Qin Zheng. Sir. Zetian fought you tooth and nail this entire book and was in the single most mutually toxic situationship I have ever seen and you genuinely thought she LIKED YOU??? The cognitive dissonance and self-delusion there is astounding. And somehow also completely unsurprising. Although the fact that he went full paternalistic patriarch in the epilogue had me just DREADING what was coming for Zetian in the next book. And "After all, his son cannot grow up without a mother" is a HELL of a line from this man.

Now Zetian...Zetian learns SO MUCH in this book. She learns about building her own power base separate from Qin Zheng, but also she kept getting hit in the face with patriarchy. She kept getting "be a wife and mother" and "get pregnant" and "don't hurt the (extremely fake) baby" and "use your sexuality to get what you want." All of which are SO IRRITATING even as she learns to weaponize them. Literally patriarchy hurts everyone, and watching her having to use the tools of the patriarchy and hating it but having no recourse was painful and infuriating in the best way. And Qin Zheng somehow didn't see it coming because he didn't see Zetian as her own person.

I seriously want to shake this man.

Zetian and Yizhi

Yizhi just kept making me go, "Sir. SIR. Explain your damn self" through this entire book. Taking down his family made sense, but then he kept doing cloak-and-dagger secrets and betrayals and double and triple agenting, and SIR WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR ENDGAME HERE??? It seemed to be some combination of protecting Zetian as much as he could with what he was given, having a weirdly personal beef with Qin Zheng, and taking down capitalism, but I want this man's perspective and inner monologue because WHAT EVEN.

I did ADORE that he was over here quadruple agenting and conspiring to trick Zheng into thinking he would die horribly if not in isolation and mucking around with IVF procedures. Although the "Dammit Zetian, I'm a political and criminal mastermind, not a doctor" line when he said the baby PROBABLY isn't Zetian's was just...*chef's kiss*

That said...he did still definitely violate Zetian's bodily autonomy, even if it was to stop Sima Yi and Zheng from forcing her into having a biological child. It's...one of those situations that is so fucked up there just isn't a RIGHT answer, there's only the answer that you and the woman you love can (probably, we all hope) live with. I love how MESSY this whole thing was. Yizhi is a messy drama queen in the very best way possible.

And the vibes I got from how Yizhi said "entertainment establishments" on the giant-ass space station made my heart hurt for him. I was really impressed that Yizhi could be as hard and soft as he was simultaneously.

Zetian and Her Various Girl Squads

Zetian is absolutely correct that women need more autonomy. Does she go about this perfectly, or even in the most effective way possible? Big Sister showing up in a dream to ask what she's doing for the 97% of women who can't be pilots would suggest no, but we aren't going to be the people who stop trying because the solution we have in the moment isn't perfect. And one of the strengths Zetian has is that she pulls lots of different kinds of women around herself and she listens to them.

She reforms the Iron Widows and she takes as much of a personal interest as she can in these girls, helping them follow in her footsteps. Then she also brings Wan'er and Taiping into her circle and she takes the different perspectives in, synthesizes them, and does her best to advocate for them with Qin Zheng before they collectively figure out how to scaffold other structures and organizations to do that work independently. It's not perfect, and it's probably not going to be enough now that Zheng has decided he understands why binding women's feet is a GOOD idea, but Zetian made real, concrete strides forward to support and protect women.

I also love her relationships with Wan'er, Quielo, and Taiping, because again, this whole book is about fucked up situations and relationships, but Zetian does manage to make these real, valuable, and lovely connections that bring meaning to her life, both personally and publicly. I love a good girl squad, and Zetian manages to find hers, even after being surrounded by men and betrayed by a female mentor figure in the last book. That kind of resilience and willingness to see messy nuance and keep moving? Impressive as all hell.

The Shimin Thing and the State of the Polycule

Shimin is a metal bird now. Shimin is the Vermillion Bird. This honestly left me with more questions than anything else, because it's not entirely clear what Shimin is, where his head is at, or how he is. And it's not clear how Yizhi and Zetian are about getting him back in this form, in this way, especially after accepting that he was gone.

Not to mention that the Yizhi-Zetian size of the iron triangle is...a little rusted, to say the least, and Zetian had whatever the hell she had with Zheng too. Yes, she stabbed him. But that was complicated by the relief mixed in with the frustration when she didn't succeed in killing him. So uh...the triangle is doing something weird and we're going to need to address that more in the next book. None of them are ok, and they're ALL going to need to deal with the aftermath of the past year-ish.

The Politics

OK SO. The sheer amount of cognitive dissonance in Qin Zheng's whole "the products of labor should belong to the laborers" and the whole productivity fetish and the "don't be a money-grubbing capitalist" thing coexisting with "women aren't really people" thing is insane. Also, the whole, "your value in society is contingent upon the labor you provide" tends to rub me the wrong way because it does not take into account things like severe disabilities or illnesses and implies a devaluation of anyone who does not provide labor that society considers valuable. Which Zetian DOES address from a gender perspective, because Qin Zheng clearly misses the amount of labor women do that simply isn't acknowledged as such. And Zetian tried to ameliorate this. But I also wish just a little that the existence of a human life was valued more than anything else.

Zetian also learns how to perform politics in this book, which is a really interesting journey to watch, and having her go from randomly screaming slogans Wan'er feeds her to actually plotting photo ops and events is intriguing.

Overall, this was a FABULOUS book, and I cannot wait to see where these characters go and what Zhao will do next.

[shippyo]

Here are my silly bibble aa response ,not mad either by the way,i feel your response interesting actually so ill explain more u my points:

- I have used Metagala as a mere example/comparison of what would be "a toxic origin for a ship" and that people love it just the same because it doesn't matter, after all, people have fun and you don't have to think about it, the same with metasusie, people who enjoy the ship know what's there and what's not, but it's not worth thinking about anything more fishy or weird stuff ,obviously there's nothing wrong with Metagala by the way, it's just that, if we get nickpicky about how "clean" a ship's origin is in order to "be able to be shipped" then as an example Metagala would also be a bad ship and it's one with a certain popularity, which is absurd because it has no relation, the ship is not bad because the origin or the characters have a toxic origin or bad actions, I don't know if my explanation is better understood this way

With the other characters I wasn't talking about other specific ships but rather, many characters from the franchise, not to say almost all of them who are friends of Kirby has done bad things, Susie included, but it just so happens that these are so loved and then she, well... No, when many of these have made reprehensible things, example of MK again, which seems silly to me too because in the end, then you couldn't ship anyone because "how bad all the characters are, it doesn't make sense" just like being nickpicky on whether a character has interacted more or not with x, a ship is to enjoy not to overthink that much on how you wanna make it work unless you want to add your lore or stuff on it.

- And that's precisely it, it's a very toxic way of bringing up the fandom, it's a way of pointing out the ship itself and treating it like something bad when it's not, no matter how much you want to overthink it.

You surely dont know but,in the past, there have been not only crazy discussions to the point of harassing people who liked the ship, obviously you DON'T want that, but bringing back these discussions doesn't help the fandom and only makes it toxic or prone to discussions that are unnecessary, because in fact, it's horrible to see/cathegorize a ship in such way, is like I don't know how to say it...., to vandalize it by putting it in such a horrible category when literally from what I always see, everyone does nice or funny things like any other ship? Surely there are some awful people, but that always happened with any ship in any fandom not exclusive with this one.

- What was already said in the text, people don't owe you an explanation, why do you ship what you like? Because you like it, you don't have to make a text to explain it to do it, you like it and that's it.

People don't ignore canon, they know canon, what they like is making Susie and exploring her character and meta knight too and how they relate to each other after those events, in a more redeemed way or not, but that's it, ur getting upset over nothing when the answer is simply because they want to and that's it, you worry a lot about something that's not going to bring you any benefit when you could be enjoying what you really like XD

- And you misinterpret it because saying that Robobot is about colonization and capitalism is a very vague way of talking about the real story it has when it's not its center nor does it have to do with the story as a focus.

The story of Susie's father and her, how a bad action caused by technology to search for something bigger in Star dream made Haltmann lose the most loved, his daughter being Susie, Susie is a victim of her father and technology and Haltmann in search of what he loved most became corrupted and went crazy to the point of not being able to recognize even his daughter when he finally has her in front of him, being represented by the corruption of capitalism and how rotten it is and how such actions harm others who never had to do with that conflict,capitalistim and the harm that it produces to the enviroment and its citicens are an addition to the story not the real focus.

Susie is NOT a villain, nor did she formulate the invasion, that was her father because he went from planet to planet doing that and Susie simply played the role of 'secretary', after all she does not have a magic power or anything to deal with being mechanized.

Does that make Susie an angel? No, of course not, but she is a redeemable character who has done bad things like any other,like hecc even in official comics of the planet robobot if you search for those the creators make susie an actual goober with some silly traits because thats what she really is

Guys, I really need to rant about Metasusie rn. Like, I don't dislike thoses who ship it, but I have such an absolutly visceral hatred for the ship itself my hands are literally trembling right now. If you dont wanna hear me rambling about how much I hate it, then just pass. Chances are I won't be very polite and organised.

So as time progresses I keep seeing more Metasusie. I feel like now's a great time to remind people why this ship is so controversial in the first place by explaining why I and so many others dislike it. Here I go...

Okay. First off. Why the heck would you ship two characters if the only thing we know ever happened beetween them is one of them at the very least ordering (possibly more) the other to be captured, modified and enslaved against his will, and the others time we see thgem together, he literally can't interact of his own because of that, while she is either about to force him to exterminate his own friend, or she is straight up presenting him like he's a non sentient toy she's about to sell ??? Along with fact that Susie calls MK an it in the second cutscene , and that the only time we ever see them interact in game (albeit possibly not canon) is him running away from her, and her chasing him ?! The fact that some people wiew that as a cool starter to a ramantic relationship is is worrying to me.

I feel like some people ship Metasusie out of spite, if that makes sense. They see a ship that's hated on a lot and they want to play devil's advocate. I understand, really (my own "devil" has black, torn off wings) . But even then you still have to consider what makes the devil hated in the first place. There's a lot of wrong in this ship you just can't ignore.

Most of the fans ship them for natural reasons ; because they look cute together, or because of their common points, and they usually just ignore the implications it has. This is understandable, again, but, if you want to ship those two in a cute way, you have to staight up rip away all the unethical stuff. To do that, you have to undermine Susie's terrible actions (or pretend it never happened), to make her cute, to ignore her character. In other words, you have to woobify her. For Meta Knight, it's no less bad, because he's a victim of mechanisation, like many others, and implying it was'nt that important is just kinda dumb (If that was the case, why would the Haltman company be the game's villains anyways ?) . When I say you can't ship those two in that way, I mean that you have to either mischaracterize them heavily, or retcon what happened beetween them to make it work.

That, or they're sometimes homophobes who want to latch on the first heterosexual ship they see. They make those two stereotypical depiction of both genders. Those, are the absolute worse, for obvious reasons, and albeit they're not the only ones who turn Meta Knight and Susie into people they're not, they always do it in the worst possible way : making MK a strong, masculine knight character who can't feel pain and Susie a cute, feminine and smart scientist who needs to be protected and can do no wrong, so the pink character and the blue character are the most gratingly stereotypic ship to ever exist. I see it often, wether intentional or not. It's so wrong and sexist in both way and is probably the worst iteration of the ship to ever exist. Men can feel pain and have trauma, and women can do fucked up things for fucked reason and be fucked up.

This ship has yet another infortunate message. The Haltmans are obviously a metaphor for colonialists. A colonialist having romantic relationship with a person who was colonised, is basically what this ship is. And if you know the slightest bit about that in history, you've probably understood why I feel so icky about this ship, knowing this is a possible comparison.

There's also those who ship one sided, fucked up Metasusie. This is maybe the one of the two only ways to ship those two without mischaracterisation, and the only one I actally like. Not only because I love angst, but also because it actually acknowledges that the slavery, the kidnapping, the mind control, the colonisation, all of that, is fucked up, and that it should'nt be a relationship. (My own interpretation of this, if it interest you, is that Susie has such horrible trauma with her father that she does'nt know what a healthy relationship is anymore. In the absence of her father, she goes to the only person she has a speck of admiration for, and thinks it's love. In her skewed idea of love, the partner has to follow blindly what she says and constantly be under her control, so when he resists, she just think he needs to be "tamed" more. Meanwhile, MK is traumatised and just wants to escape. Eventually she learns that it's more coping than loving and leaves him alone.)

Altough. Some of those people treat the ship, in its unhealthy form, as a good thing. To them Soos and MK are inhuman people who love by hating. But like, unheatlthy relationships are not a good thing. I only like toxic Metasusie if it's treated as a bad thing.

Finally, some shippers actually give both Susie and Meta Knight character arcs, where she comes to understand she is wrong and he learns how to forgive her/cope with his trauma. Not my cup of tea, but honestly, that's based. Altough I like it (moderatly), I just don't understand why you'd ship that over stuff like Metadedede, where the characters have an at least friendly relation in canon.

That was long, but in the end, if I can't understand fully why it's shipped, I can stand Metasusie if it acknowledge both character's flaws and and Susie's terrible actions. It does'nt happen often however, as most instances I see are sadly just idealised, woobified, mischaracterised versions of them randomly loving eachother without context. I won't (and can't) stop people from shipping them that way, but I'll keep being against it.

Wow, after this, I actually kinda feel better. I ended up being more polite than I thought, too. I guess I needed to get this out of my chest somehow...

[supermarine-silvally]

Yara, did you attend the Reverie?

"It should provide some satisfactory entertainment for him-- at least for a little while. He'll mostly just be annoyed about having to find another gloomy castle to live in."

Ask Yara (or any of my OCs) anything!

[royalarchivist]

Jaiden: Cucurucho, you have a lot of power, right?

Cucurucho: ...I don't know. Maybe.

Roier: Ah... Yes, you know, don't act like a dumbass, you have it. You have it, man. Eh?

Jaiden: Is there a way for us to protect all the Eggs? Do you know? I don't want anything to happen to the Eggs that happened to Bobby.

Cucurucho: Ha ha ha

Roier: WHAT? [Smacks Cucurucho]

Jaiden: [Bops him] Headpats.

Cucurucho: Maybe.

Jaiden: [Continues to bop him] Headpats. C'mon, I can get it out of you! Headpats! Chin scratches! Belly rubs!

Roier: [Joins Jaiden in bopping Cucurucho, chuckling and laughs]

Jaiden: Yeah? He's comin' around!

[Jaiden and Roier both laugh]