#and they are constantly having to come up with justifications for being alive. it is not a foregone conclusion that being alive

[wellnoe]

this is not a finished thought. anyway i said a while ago that jjk is a show about people trying to justify why they are alive and that's just surface level true. its true for yuta its true for yuji. its true for characters like megumi and nanami. i think if you dig into most of the characters who we know anything about, there is a sense of wrongness to their life. there is someone or something telling them they should not be alive the way they are, they should be different, and they are trying to navigate how to live as themselves despite that. and then of course things are trying to kill them all the time........

[steveyockey]

I paid $5 to access séamus malekafzali’s latest substack on palestine, here’s the full text,

It is easy to be lulled into a state of complacency, even with military occupation.

Israel’s occupation of Palestine has gone on longer than many of us on Earth have been alive, now going on 75 years. The levels of that deplacement, blockading, and violence have ebbed and flowed over years and decades, but that hand around the neck has always remained, even if how much it constricts has a tendency to loosen and tighten. Over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israel this year in its occupation. News bulletins of them dying, oftentimes teenagers, come up through the headlines of Palestinian newspapers and channels as often as the weather. These deaths at the hands of Israeli security personnel are not isolated incidents, with soldiers materializing on roadsides and at checkpoints as unfortunate coincidence. They are constant spikes in the waveform of an incessant low-grade hum of humiliation, imprisonment, and destruction that has made daily life a forced agreement to constantly exist on the precipice of death.

This framing is not meant to be a tired retread of the conflict between Israel and Palestine or the nature of the Israeli occupation. This is meant to be a bulwark against the inevitable framing of this latest battle unfolding around Gaza, as it will appear in the Western media in the days to come.

There is a tendency, a deep-set one, to report Israel and Palestine as two countries that are on roughly the same playing field internationally, as you might report on a war that might involve Israel battling against a place like Jordan or Egypt. This kind of coverage obscures how deeply interlocked Israel’s military operations are with the fabric of the Palestinian society.

In the West Bank, settlements and checkpoints have made Palestinian land into a kind of comical archipelago, where in addition to being separated from Gaza by a huge land border, they are also separated from traveling to communities only a stone’s throw away from them without going through significant anguish. In Gaza, while no Israeli soldiers walk the streets, all their land borders are essentially sealed, their ports almost completely blockaded. Israel’s continued occupation has been so pinpoint and precise that its planes have gone as far as bombing bookstores, and its restrictions did not let up even when the COVID-19 pandemic reduced one health organization to carrying only as many tests of the deadly disease as could fit in a car.

This is not a matter of moral justification; one does not need to constantly busy themselves with having to make a full ideological conversion before understanding this. This is a matter of cause and effect.

What is the logical expectation, regardless of politics, ideology, culture, and creed, when a population of people is thrust into conditions that can only be described as an open-air prison, where every individual is a criminal in the eyes of the military occupying power regardless if they pick up a rifle or not, because there is supposedly always the threat that they will one day?

These are the basic conditions that have preceded the initiation of Operation al-Aqsa Storm this morning. As dawn broke on the morning of October 7, only one day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, launched a military operation of unprecedented scope in its history. Hamas fighters would not only attempt to enter Israeli territory proper with ground troops, already in of itself an intensely bold action (though not without precedent in the past decade). This operation would be a combined incursion into Israel by both land, sea, and even air. Ground forces would cut the border fence into settlements surrounding Gaza, speedboats would make landings in southern Israel, and fighters from a newly-inaugurated paraglider division would fly over the border fortifications and then further inland.

Threats of an invasion of Israeli territory proper have been a staple of speeches from Hamas and Hezbollah and groups like it for years. There was a long-standing perception by outside observers that it was fanciful. An intentionally lofty piece of propaganda that fires up supporters while the real military wheeling and dealing is done under far more subtle and controlled terms, as with most militant organizations. After all, no Israeli-administered town, the ones occupied in Palestine during the initial 1948 war, had ever been taken in any war against the Jewish state since its creation, even by a combined force of multiple Arab national militaries.

That notion now can no longer exist.

At sunrise, Hamas fired a gigantic barrage of rockets into Israeli territory, a staggering 5,000 in the first wave alone. As Israeli military and police forces were distracted by fires and rocket destruction in residential areas of the country, Palestinian forces in Gaza proceeded to make their primary move.

After the sun rose, Hamas cut through the border fence surrounding Israel and sent both fighters on foot and on motorcycles into Israel. Images released by the group seem to tell a story in frozen figures. Israeli soldiers, strewn dead, caught by surprise, one having even rushed out so quickly that he put on his military gear but no other clothes except his underwear. An even grimmer story could be found in one of the IDF military dormitories, where an entire room full of soldiers had been massacred, only having perhaps seconds earlier gotten the alarm that Hamas had breached the perimeter, many of them seemingly mid-way through getting out of bed.

From there, Hamas made unprecedented move after unprecedented move. Hamas fighters moved as far north into Zikim, built on the former Palestinian village of Hiribya, and moved as far east as Ofakim, built on the former hamlet of Khirbat Futais. The Erez Crossing, for years the only legal border crossing that Israel operated with the Gaza Strip, came under full Palestinian control. Sderot, a city where Israelis had once gathered on couches dragged to high peaks to watch the bombardment of Palestinians, now found themselves facing down Palestinian fighters in their own streets.

An additional shock would come in Israel’s initial response. Amidst cataclysmic scenes like hundreds of ravers in the desert near Gaza fleeing on foot, neither the Israeli president nor the prime minister spoke in those early hours in the morning.

The Israeli high command, despite the continuous insistence of Palestinian factions that they would one day attempt to take the fight into Israel itself, had become complacent. They, like many observers of Israel-Palestine, believed the occupation they had constructed could go on forever, unburdened by the need to adapt. Israeli soldiers after all were now more used to sniping reporters and unarmed protesters than engaging in military conflict. Entropy was what was propelling the military occupation complex of the Jewish state, not a wholly active effort.

Despite an ungodly amount of Western military equipment, highly advanced anti-aircraft systems programmed to shoot down thousands of rockets, an international reputation for tenacity and strategic knowhow, and multiple victories against Arab nations again and again and again, all of it ended up being useless against a Hamas fighter flying in on a box fan and a parachute.

This failure is two-fold, and both are closely related. One is the expectation that things could go on as before without addressing the root of the issue (that being a military occupation of an entire state), and the other in expectation that those being occupied had no capacity to learn from experience how Israel’s military strategy operates, people who could then going on to capitalize on that knowledge.

There is a fundamental flaw in the perception of Western powers toward the Middle East in general and Arabs in particular that because the groups fighting with Israel or the United States are irregular, bereft of highly professional uniforms and dedicated gigantic military headquarters, that they do not have the same ability to strategize and to confront the forces that are occupying their countries. Flashes of how faulty this thinking is rear their head again and again, from Iraq to Afghanistan and everywhere in-between and around, but still the idea, unspoken as it may be, remains that they are fundamentally unequipped compared to the might they are fighting against. But Hamas has military strategists of its own, ones that understand the asymmetric situation they are dealing with, and ones that understand what the actual capabilities of Israel are, versus what their perception is.

The perception of Israel’s invulnerability versus what has actually been displayed today could not have been more different. Instead of being forced to immediately pull back, in essence making today a raid, Hamas has instead actually contested several Israeli settlements, which are still being fought over at time of this writing many hours after the initial incursion from Gaza began. A single Israeli soldier captured and held in Gaza used to capture the Israeli imagination for years; now there are believed to be not only tens of soldiers captured by Hamas, but tens of Israeli civilians as well, all now being held within the Strip. Hamas has also brought Israeli military vehicles back into the Strip, the novelty of working IDF equipment now under Palestinian control a source of celebration within the territory. Over 100 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the first day of Hamas’ attack, and nearly 1000 injured, a shocking early casualty count in an ongoing conflict where casualties on the Palestinians’ side are usually far more lopsided.

Israel’s response so far to Hamas’ operation has been to escalate rhetorically, with Netanyahu now calling this a war, and escalating its usual military strategy with Gaza, with carpet bombing now on an intense, concentrated scale. At the time of this writing, almost 200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in only a few hours, with that number expected to rise significantly in the days to come. Already, news has come in of Israeli planes having leveled Gaza’s second-largest building, the Palestine Tower, which housed a plethora of media offices, in scenes reminiscent of Israel’s bombing of another tower block of media offices in 2021 that infamously took out the local bureau of the Associated Press.

As fighting continues into the night in ways never seen before since 1948, the question remains: after all these decades, why now?

The ostensible justifications of what the clincher was that sparked this operation are innumerable, but two appear to be most clearly illuminated: the recent increased activity of far-right Zionists at the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem (hence the name of the operation itself), but just as well the indications that the Saudi Arabia and Israel may be close to a normalization deal, which would be the largest such development in the Abraham Accords yet. Hezbollah mentioned this operation as being a “message” and a “decisive response” to Arab nations pursuing the idea of normalization with Israel. Still, it is important to recognize that pinning the undertaking of a completely gigantic operation of this scale as just a simple message to Saudi Arabia would be reductive. As the Los Angeles Times’ international correspondent Nabih Bulos says of the matter:

“To pretend that Hamas did this to be a spoiler of KSA-Israel normalization is just downright epic in its navel-gazing nonsense.”

What is important to always return to is that eternally governing line above everything: the low hum of constant occupation, and who has been causing its spikes. Israel’s government, its most far-right in its history, has been on the warpath almost immediately from its inauguration, with figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, now thrust to the forefront, doing everything large and small to provoke a Palestinian response. The hope is that the inevitable Palestinian response can mobilize the Israeli society, that it can be swiftly defeated by the Israeli military, and that the Israeli state can use such an opportunity to impose its sovereignty over what little of Palestine governed by Palestinians remains, and perhaps even what lies beyond it.

But that formula relies on the Palestinian side only accepting being provoked, themselves having no strategy of their own outside of firing rockets and yelling on television. Military occupation breeds a feeling of annihilation, but that annihilation is enclosed with it inevitable feelings of rabid and desperate hope, inspiring within irregular groups desires to try things never tried before. These are not always guaranteed to be successful: one may look at Aleppo when rebel groups managed to come together and break the siege on the city in the final stages of the battle, only for it to fall in the months to come anyway. Nevertheless, there is a real perception within Israel, communicated out to the world by its media and by its intelligentsia, that it is a nation on the verge of internal collapse, brought to the precipice by far-right forces it has let fester for decades without envisioning its eventual conclusion.

What does looking at how Israel is faring now communicate to Palestinian factions in Gaza? What do young people in Gaza, who make up 47% of the Strip’s population, imagine might lie ahead for them as they see these events unfold? What does a Hamas fighter imagine might be possible when, as the writer Josef Burton says, he exits a 25 by 7-mile space he’s never left in his entire life?

[illugremlins]

Every time someone says Dazai wasn't in the wrong when he slapped Atushi out of his state of derealisation/dissociation an Angel loses its wings, and I lose a bit more of my sanity.

Dazai isn't a good person. He isn't. Literally, the most fundamental core aspect of himself is that life is entirely meaningless, so he may as well align himself with the heroes because he doesn't see the point in living long anyway. He does, eventually, develop a more ethical moral compass, but it's til horribly skewed (as are most BSD characters' moral compasses).

To this day, he still uses Aktugawa's desperation for approval against him while pitting him and Atushi against each other to further his end goals. He wants to get things done his way and has no issues sacrificing or using people.

When he slaps Atsushi, it's making a point to remind people that, despite everything, Dazai isn't good. He didn't have to resort to violence, but it was the easiest and most efficient way. (He doesn't have to continually exploit Aktugawa, but he does because it's his most efficient way.)

I'm not saying he's the devil spawn, nor am I denying that his way of behaving is because of the cycle of abuse he went through at the hands of Mori and his overall environment. But, BSD makes a point to showcase that being abused is not a justification to perpetuate abuse, Atushi being the MC and prime example, especially when he breaks this cycle with Kyoka.

So no, it isn't a good thing that he slapped Atushi, it isn't justifiable, and it wasn't right. But life is meaningless in Dazai's own. Not just his life, but the very concept of being alive. This is why he doesn't care if he's good or bad. In the end, it's all meaningless. He slapped Atushi, and Atsuhi snapped out of it. It worked.

'Why should Atushi even bother pitying himself? Life is useless, anyway.'

I'm fully aware that Dazai isn't that cold-hearted, but he does, to an extent, believe so. I say to an extent, because he's still human, and still grieves others and cares for them. (Oda, Kunikida, Chuya, Atushi..etc).

Dazai isn't a good guy. He never was. He wouldn't be Dazai if he were, and we constantly see it in how he plans things and uses other people or his knowledge to his advantage, or how he comes up with solutions. We see it, I think, most obviously, in his treatment of Aktugawa.

But, IMO, no one, not even Atushi, really, in BSD is that morally righteous, and I can make an argument about why they all are lowkey not very good people when it comes down to it.

[weirdwildwonderland]

I know ppl downplay certain siblings trauma a lot but let me just reframe everyone’s for you based on the seasons

1) imagine the person you love the most sending you 185828282 miles away for 4 years to live on the moon. Completely alone. When you get back you find out that all the samples you put so much work into didn’t even get read or taken out. The person who sent you there tells you later that he put you there to guard the most precious thing in the universe but you can't help but think that he sent you up there because you died and came back looking like a monster. He left you on the operating table for two months and when he saw you again he couldn't even look at you.

Imagine being a little kid and being told you’re not special. And then living with 6 other people who are constantly praised because they’re more special than everyone else. Imagine them 30 years later still talking about you behind your back and blaming you for everything that went wrong.

Imagine being 12 and being so restless to see the world and to see what you can do that you go somewhere no one’s ever been. And it’s hell. And no one comes to save you. You think about how you saw your family dead in those first days. And it haunts you for those next 45 years.

2) imagine being transported back in time. You have powers that can kill people. And since you’re from the future you have history books on your side. You have the power to stop one of the most famous assassinations in history and prove to your dad (who’s alive now) that you’re GOOD. That you’re not the impulsive emotional crazy mess he always said you were. You just want him to love you, because whether you want to admit it or not, you want his love and validation more than anything else in the world. You don’t prevent the assassination.

Imagine having to witness all the stupid things your brother does. You just want to give up sometimes but you literally can’t. So you put up with his attitude and stupid justifications and you never get to hug those 5 other people that you miss so much. Your brother says that ghosts can’t time travel. You don't get to say goodbye to him. Even though you hated him sometimes he had a good heart and you miss that good heart all the time.

3) imagine going through brutal racism and dehumanization every single day. Not knowing if your husband is alive or in jail or not. Constantly on alert. Your husband is the only thing keeping you from losing it. And the thought that your daughter will be there when you get back. You didn’t get to see her before the first apocalypse. You failed her as a mother and she died that night not even hearing your voice. Your brother was on the phone for you. You leave your husband for her. It’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Except she isn’t there.

4) (speculation) you used to be immortal. You got really sick one time from walking barefoot in a field and from something you smoked. You got shot by a spear gun. You came back. You can drink however much you want. You can get run over by a bus and you heal in half an hour. Now that you don’t have your powers it’s different. Everything is terrifying on a new level. Salmonella from the canteloupe and liver poisoning from the alcohol and flu from your brother's new kid. The clorox wipes smell like a security blanke and you can't get close to anyone anymore. Not even your sister. Not even your niece. And it makes your brother sad. You don’t smoke anymore and you’re so, so quiet. No one notices. You’re finally quiet.

[catbountry]

Speaking as Straight White Male it is beyond tiring to see every minor viral social media post turn into justification for "actually this is why men are radicalized!" Like im sorry they thought the Bear was a safer option, im sorry that poisoned MnMs was something that hurt your feelings and so on but holy shit get some perspective. i had my little "Not all men!" phase too bu i was 19 or something. learn empathy, learn that "Men" is a demographic and not you personally. it always feels like some flavor of a lack of reading comprehension, like that time when there was that thing where there was a thing of people thinking toxic masculinity meant that all masculinity is toxic.

it seems so unreasonable to say "the way to stop white men from radicalization is for women and other minorities to take them by the hand and ask them to nicely consider them people" rather than "dudes need to learn to tamp down on their knee jerk reactions to group criticism and being exposed to people out of their demographic"

The fact that you were 19 years old and had that as a phase but got out of it. That's the thing I'm pointing to, and I feel like I've not done a good enough job at highlighting that as my point. It's not even about a lack of reading comprehension, I think a lot of people who retreat to the internet for most of their socialization are more likely to be lonely and recruited. How many fucking Twitter memes do we need to have of people reading far too much into innocuous statements to prove that yeah, it is a lack of reading comprehension, but a lack of reading comprehension is not something that happens in a vacuum. And there are people who are very eager to sell people bad ideas based on those misconstrued readings because they speak to a feeling of disenfranchisement.

When I talk about this sort of thing, it's in a preventative way. Most people don't arrive at being a moral and righteous person all on their own; usually they fuck up along the way, have to apologize, readjust their views with new information and new perspectives. Having been in anti-SJW spaces, and having that phase last far longer than I'm comfortable with... I wouldn't have gotten out if I hadn't had people who liked me push back on some of the dumb shit I was saying. Granted, I was not some kind of neo-Nazi; I was an edgelord and a transmedicalist who constantly felt like Padme in that one Star Wars meme; the one of her in the field with Anakin. It was a lot less of a leap to come to a lot of the views I hold now. But if those people around me had all cut me off? Who fucking knows how much worse I could have gotten? Who even knows if I'd still be alive, typing this right now? I got into those spaces in the first place because people proclaiming themselves to be progressive were bullying my friends and I, on top of me being depressed and then traumatized by losing my dad. I was a fucking mark.

I'm not coming at this from the angle of "oh, if we just hug and kiss all the horrible Nazis they'll realize how righteous we are, uwu," I'm coming at it from the perspective of wanting to be the kind of person I had around me that got me out to people who were in similar positions to myself. I'm not seeking these people out. I have no desire to do that. Hell, I don't even think most people should do this, but because of my own personal experiences... I at least have to try if I'm having an otherwise benign conversation with someone and they say something off. I at least want to see if they're just speaking out of ignorance and they're not really all that married to these ideologies, in which case they could be rehabilitated, or if they're just fully on board with the fascist incel shit, in which case I can't do shit for them.

I want to be the kind of person for people that I wish I had around me that could have helped get me out sooner. And if they don't want my help? Fuck 'em. I want to try and make up for some of the damage I did because it feels like the least I could possibly do. And if that means steering someone away from that pipeline before they reach the point of no return just through a pretty casual encounter through just being stupidly patient and nice? I'll try, because that's just the type of person I am. Forget everything I said about suggesting other people doing this because doing this has burnt me more times than I can count. But I think I have helped keep some guys normal, even if it's only in a very small way.

You can think that I'm stupid or naive for even bothering. I don't care. But I'm still friends with former KF people who helped me get out and we support each other. It's a lot easier to learn empathy when it's demonstrated to you.

I'm sorry, I just... this subject touches on a lot of very personal stuff for me. It's why I even bother with it in the first place.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 62 – The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings

This is the latest book I never would have heard of if it wasn’t for an award nomination (WFA for Best Novel, in this case). Overall, I was left dearly wishing I had liked it more than I did – it was so thoroughly soaked in imagery and references to a whole milieu I only barely know enough about to catch all the references flying over my head. Unfortunately by the final act the whole thing just collapses into a mess of spectacle without much in the way of connective tissue or context.

The story follows Perilous “Perry” Graves, his kid sister, and his best friend/crush Peaches (who is clearly an ersatz Pippy Longstocking but for some reason this is almost literally the only reference the book doesn’t explicitly acknowledge). They live in Nola, a fantastical alternate New Orleans full of zombies, animate graffiti, sky trolleys, and music that is indistinguishable from magic. After the magical songs that sustain the city escape/are stolen, it’s up to the three of them to get them back before Stagger Lee (the song) hunts down and kills the others for his mysterious partner. There’s also an extended subplot with Casey, a recently returned Katrina refugee in what seems to be our world, discovering that his and his cousin’s graffiti and other art is very literally magic and can come alive when he isn’t looking. Things just generally get messier and harder to explain from there.

Above everything else, the book’s a love letter to New Orleans. The sheer fascination and affection Jenning’s has for the place just about oozes out of every page. The geography and the culture and especially and overwhelmingly the art. Now I know barely anything about modern pop music and even less about classic jazz, but Jennings is either a massive fan or an incredibly confident bullshitter, and either way it’s an absolutely loadbearing part of the book – famous jazz musicians appear as magicians and ghosts, snatches and stanzas of different songs are quoted liberally, and of course the songs themselves are the driving engine of the plot. I, at least, just kind of let all the references wash over me and try to figure them out from context, and also started listening to the namedropped songs as I read. But even without really knowing the subject, the sheer love for the culture that just suffuses the book is really incredible endearing. Which is good, because it’s absolutely the main actual draw here.

The dialogue also deserves a shoutout – both because there’s a fun line you can draw between the characters that talk like actual people and the ones that intentionally present themselves like cartoon characters, and also because it’s the first book I can recall reading this year where people speak in AAVE. Plus, as a matter of style, when songs or certain ghosts were speaking telepathically the book used a different font for what they were saying, which is the sort of flourish that I always like when it’s not too overused.

While the surreal, exaggerated sort of magical absurdism works very well for the setting of Nola, the plot is...just kind of a mess. You almost get the sense the book was written in one sprint and then never revised – the protagonists are constantly getting help out of nowhere exactly as they need it to solve their latest problem, and revelations of plot critical information exactly when it’s needed to keep things moving abound, whether there’s any setup or justification for it or not. The metaphysics that underpin Nola are all vague and confused, which really wouldn’t be an issue if the entire third act didn’t turn on on the villain being wrong about them. The end result is a finale that feels like a bunch of big set piece scene the author had been looking forward to writing without any real connective tissue linking or supporting them.

Also, like – it is a major part of Perry’s arc that a year before the events of the book he had a run in with a monstrous caricature of a Jim Crow era hanging judge, and it has traumatized him sufficiently that he had steadfastly refused to try and do any magic since. The judge is later revealed to be an escaped bit of living graffiti, with absolutely zero relevance or deeper significance, and never appears on-screen again. Which just feels like some sort of narrative malpractice, honestly.

I’m also just left a bit disappointed with the villain – or, specifically, the wasted potential. Like, the idea of The Storm as this primeval elemental force that wants nothing more than to drown the world is a pretty great villain for a magical New Orleans, honestly. And there was something there of graffiti and music and just art being this engine of joyous hubris letting the city exist in defiance of its inevitable doom – but you really have to dig to get at it, and most of the other personal plots and heroes journey stuff burying it was far less compelling to me.

Anyway yeah, in the end this very much felt like it was style over substance, but on the other hand the style was excellent. In the end I kind of feel like this was ill-served as a book? Not that it’s necessarily impossible to write a novel that’s mostly about music, but this was really begging for a medium that could include a soundtrack.

[alls-fair-in-pride-and-prejudice]

My Gale obsession has progressed to playlist creation - something no individual character has achieved before - list of songs and their justifications for being included below the cut

Wizard of Waterdeep - the song was literally written about him it's going in

The Moon Will Sing - a song about being overshadowed by the one you love, always living for them rather than having your own life, apt for Gale's relationship with Mystra

Icarus - "Look who's digging their own grave/that is what they all say", "Icarus is flying too close to the sun/ and Icarus's life it has only just begun" a young Gale who is voraciously devouring every tome he can get his hands on, creating new spells, constantly pushing his limits again and again

Constellations - a song about the tower of Babel (an act of reaching for the heavens) only to fail and lose connection and communication, trying to grasp at meaning in the meaningless

Abigail's Song (Silence is all you know) - "When you're alone silence is all you know/ Let in the noise and let it grow" "When you're alone, silence is all you see/ when you're alone silence is all you'll be" representative of Gale's isolation in the aftermath of the orb, and clawing his way back to living again

Bitter Water - "I am not a fool entire/ no I know what's coming/ you'll bury me beneath the tree I climbed when I was a child/ I know I shouldn't love you/ I know I shouldn't love you but I do" the singer reflects on an abusive relationship, how it would lead to killing them but they still cannot fully let it go.

Venus - I love using astronomy imagery for Gale, especially given the way I've flavored my Tav romancing him. This is where he's opening up to new love, feeling like someone sees him, the man, rather than the great wizard.

Achilles Come Down - "You crave the applause/ yet hate the attention/ then miss it your act is a ruse" this song is the battle of his own desire to fulfill his goddess's wish of martyring himself and Tav's (and perhaps his own self preservation) saying that there is more to life and it is better to live

Cosmic Love - "The stars the moon/ they have all been blown out/ you left me in the dark" many potential meanings! Gale being abandoned by his goddess? Tav mourning that he left them for martyrdom?

As the World Caves In - "And here it is, our final night alive/ and as the earth burns to the ground/ oh girl it's you that I lie with" he conjures the stars because it might be his last night alive and he wants to spend it with Tav I have so many feelings

Wash My Dreams Away - the music that plays when he takes Tav to the astral plane!

Witchcraft - the comparison of falling in love to enchanting magic was too perfect to not include

Weaving Magic and Making Potions - there are no lyrics to this song, but it's all magical sounding and it's weaving magic yes I put this in as a pun

Mouth of the River - "I wanna live like that/ live the life of the faithful one/ wanna bow to floor/ with everyone else/ wanna be someone [...] oh it's the curse of the man/ I was living life living life/ living just to please" the contrast between wanting to be faithful, have a purpose, but also wanting to be the best, wanting to be loved for what you can do

Measure of a Man - "the measure of a man/ stands or falls with what he leaves behind/ gather on the sand / let your voices carry to the sky / let the gods look down on this and wonder" this is just the vibes. Tell me you can't imagine this playing as Gale sacrifices himself at the final battle with the Absolute. The gods look down and wonder why he refused to do this for his goddess, but chose to do this for those he leaves behind - his friends.

Fair - this whole song embodies the vibes of a romance with Gale. "it's not fair you make me laugh when I'm really cross with you" or the juxtoposition of this eternal devotion with the mundanity of love. Gale's romance is about loving him for the man he is, not the magic he wields - there is life changing devotion in the romance yes, but they are also just two mortals who love each other.

The Tower - "Got a neck so strong for the crown upon your head/ Don't think anyone will leave it when you're dead / There's a throng of men mightier than you / And they're waiting and they're watching 'til they fill your shoes" This suits his ending as god of ambition like, he's literally inspiring others to follow in his footsteps as someone who ascended to godhood! His power is in the crown of Karsus which a bunch of people wanted to get their hands on! His own followers are gonna be the type to try to usurp him just you wait

Slow Burn - "I don't have to die for you to love me" a love that comes after one fraught with expectations and pain, realizing that you don't have to martyr yourself to be loved by this person, you can just be with each other. This is his good ending, a slow burn and a gentle life.

I Want to Live - some may say this is Astarion's song, some may say it's Tav's, I think it belongs to all the companions. They're brought together by that need to live. They want, they have to survive this, and survive this they do.

[cryptic-underground]

What do you think what happened if wukong’s plan worked? Aka him getting all ALL FOUR SAMADHI FIRE INSIDE OF HIM

Plus how would the gang feel about it?

Especially mei,mk macaque and redson

First thought: fire rock. No, but really, in the original legend, the power of the Samadhi fire was one of the few things that could hurt; especially considering he's basically fireproof to most forms of fire. (I want to say it sad he's immune to earthly and heavenly fire, but I could be completely wrong!)

If Sun Wukong were to fuse the rings into his body, if it was even successful, he would be in sheer agony. Because he would be burning alive, forever! Or at least until there's something or someone to defeat him/the samadhi fire. This monkey is eighth times immortal. Even when really weakened, he's still stronger than most demons and celestials. I don't think Wukong has any self-regeneration abilities? Even in the book. If he's injured, he still needs recoup days even if it might be less than some people. But if he's constantly burning, he's not going to be able to heal. And he's supposedly made from clay rock, which even the more low-grade clay has very high melting points, but um- I don't it can last THE FIRE THAT COULD RIP THROUGH REALITY. So liquid monkey covered in fire, hehe.

But I think it would be similar (?) to the s3 finale, though Wukong would be doing what Mei did. In the case it was successful, since it's likely he wouldn't even be able to contain it.

However, the reactions to Wukong fusing himself with the rings would be very much negative. MK would just be devastated while I think Mei and Macaque would have similar reactions but not exactly the same, like in the same vein with each other. They both sorta see Wukong as someone grasping at anything for more power. They think this for different reasons. Mei, I can't fully find the words to describe why I believe this, I mainly made the connection because of I quote she says in the samadhi fire scene: "You're willing to tear me apart to get your stupid samadhi fire!"

(Parden, if I misquoted the quote).

From Mei's perspective, it seems like all Wukong cares about is the rings. Not anyone's well-beings, especially her's in that moment since he technically kept secret something that would most likely harm her. Though in his defense, he never had the chance to explain things before it escalated or could attempt to extract the ring from inside her.

My justification for Macaque, however, is due to both argument scene when Wukong was trapped under a mountain and when he's connecting to MK about the past; talking about how he just wanted to get stronger to protect the ones he loves. In the argument scene, Macaque claims a similar thing to Mei about Sun Wukong only caring about gaining more power( I don't know the exact quote). And thing this makes a clear through-line about Sun Wukong's character: the only reason he wants more power is always because of other people, and he subsequently also always loses sent of the main goal in some way. With Macaque, he had reached a strength point where he could have not went against heaven and been able to protect his friends with no real worry. But he ended up ruining it by obsessing over needing more strength, and the time where he can stop searching for ways to become more powerful will come eventually, just not now. And because of that, like the clay icarus he is, he flew too close to the Sun. With the samadhi fire, and in correlation Mei, he did the same thing but with added thing of him being so used to having to deal with everything on HIS OWN that he forgets to tell anyone any real information and burns his own foot in the process. He's so 6 on keeping everyone safe that he's not able to do that.

Long winded way of saying that I think his original plan would fall through just as fighting Lady Bone Demon alone failed, and everyone would rate it zero stars on Yelp. Mei and Macaque would both lose their shit in different fonts, and MK would probably cry(which would have Mei put up immortal monkey hunting season poster and would soon have a one of a kind collectible Monkey King fur rug).

[karkkidoeswriting]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! What about your story is currently plaguing your thoughts right this moment? A certain character? A plot point? A particular scene? A concept for something new? Be as vague or as detailed as you like!

Happy STS! Thank you for the question!!

Right now Faerathos and Marcus from BCC are living rent free in my mind. They have somewhat codependent and dysfunctional adoptive father-son relationship. Faerathos is one of the main siblings and after their clan got killed in a civil war 15 years prior, he was taken as a hostage to the court, to deter his uncle, who managed to escape, from coming back from exile to cause trouble. Marcus is his aunt's widow (she died years before the civil war) and the commander of their house guard, though there's barely anyone alive from their house, so now he is more just Faerathos' bodyguard.

Faerathos was pretty traumatized by the civil war at age 13 and after that he's been 15 years in the court under constant surveillance and control, so it's safe to say he's mentally not great. He does a lot of self-sabotaging by getting into bad and dangerous situation and fucking over his life and relationships by being shitty to people. He craves affection, but also doesn't think he deserves it, which leads him to do things like that. More than anything he wants affection from Marcus, who is very emotionally unavailable. He has also internalized having his every move scrutinized, so he's compulsively acting like he's totally fine, and therefore also unable to just ask help or support. So Marcus, who already has trouble reading people's emotions, doesn't even know what he needs.

Marcus was Faerathos' father's (Julius) lover for several years before he died (Faerathos' parents were platonically married), which Faerathos doesn't know. So when Julius died in the civil war, Marcus also took it pretty badly, but he couldn't ever really properly grieve, because he could not show weakness being constantly under the enemy's nose, and no one knew about it. He could not save Julius, so his life mission since has been to protect Julius' son, and he barely has any life outside Faerathos. He also believes he is cursed, because tragedies seems to follow him, and he is constantly afraid something will happen to Faerathos. This is partly an internal justification to be so emotionally distant (because he's like "maybe the curse won't work if I don't talk about my feelings" - Sure, Jan), because he really just fears emotional intimacy, which would require him to actually face his grief. So he deeply loves Faerathos as a son, but is unable to express it, which is the one thing Faerathos really needs from him. It's also painful for him to watch by as Faerathos for seemingly no reason just fuck over his life over and over again without being able to do anything. So sometimes he has to emotionally check out from their relationship and just keep Faerathos alive.

Despite all that they can also be affectionate. Marcus doesn't usually like to be touched, but Faerathos likes platonic physical intimacy, so the way Marcus shows his love (since emotional intimacy is off the table) is by affectionately touching Faerathos' hair or something or letting Faerathos nap against him. (To paint you the picture, Faerathos is 195 cm and Marcus 169 cm. His son is very overgrown.) When Faerathos was younger, they didn't have this tension, since a naturally parent-child relationship is not balanced, and Marcus could be there for Faerathos without having to be that open himself. But as Faerathos grew up, their relationship should have become more reciprocal, but with the combined effort of Marcus' emotional unavailability and Faerathos' self-destructive behavior, their relationship just become more dysfunctional. So on one hand they are very close, but on the other hand they can be very hurtful to each other, because they are so close.

To show you how rent free they live in my head here's a little sketch I made of baby Faerathos and Marcus having an "I'm guess I'm a father now" moment after they have become hostages because I could not stop thinking about them.

Sorry for the long answer, I have just endless amount to say about them :'D

[whoreishghost]

like how do i even articulate that no matter what i do and how hard i try its not getting better? i dont sleep rlly at all, maybe a 3 ish hours total on a good night given how often i wake up and how late i get to sleep. im not rlly eating either bc im never fucking hungry and everything feels idk Repulsive to even consider putting in my mouth even when i am. im in pain and it doesnt end no matter how gentle i am w myself. i am in a constant state of almost complete panic bc of how much i am having to manage in terms of admin and life issues bc those dont ever seem to end either. i havent been able to take my medication in almost a month bc of nhs incompetence and i Know its making me worse bc im so fucking irritable all the time. i feel so fucking existentially empty and devoid of purpose or meaning or justification for my existence. i am alive so that the like 7 ppl who only talk to me so i can get the hrt wont lose access. im only alive bc if im not itll be my fault if my wife dies and it doesnt matter if i wouldnt know it bc i was dead the thought, the guilt of it as a concept forces me to continue against every fucking screaming molecule of my body begging me to just fucking give up. im almost constantly overwhelmed by this feeling that is so completely indescribable that i dont even know where to begin to explain it to myself let alone to someone else. im in pain and its not just bc im overworked or burned out or whatever, the mental fucking suffering im forcing myself to endure every day so everyone else around me can be ok, can be happy, can thrive and do what they need feels like its fucking shredding my nerves and ripping through my flesh. and im fucking trying and no one fucking gets that. no amount of being told "the change comes from within" is going to do anything about the fact that this is as much as i can do this is as hard as i can try i have no more effort or energy than i am already forcing myself to keep using even when i feel like i am empty and there is nothing left for me to use to keep going. i do all the things i shld as much as i can. but the longer it goes on the harder it is for me to help myself and then i just get accused of "not trying hard enough to get better" as if i am not giving it my fucking all. u try spending every night alone, in pain, caught in spiraling obsession after spiraling obsession of ur own fucking inadequacy and failure and immorality. u try to manage the fucking effort of trying and trying and reaching out and begging for help and being so fucking explicit about how bad it is only to be told it cant be as bad u say or that its not bad enough for support but that even if it were ud be too damaged and unstable to access it. i feel like im dying, or more like, i feel like im fading, like soon there will be so little left of me of who i want to be who i put so much effort into being that even the fragments of damage that make up the core of who i am are coming apart and disintegrating. there is going to be nothing left and i feel like im watching myself slowly fucking evaporate and lose everything over and over again and vanish more and more from reality from existence from myself that it wont be much longer till theres nothing left to salvage. i try and tell myself its temporary. it wont last forever. i look at photos to remind myself when it wasnt this bad but i cant believe it i cant fucking trust that its true and even more than that i cant make myself understand that it can change, it can be that again. bc i know it cant. i know it at such a deep and intrinsic level of myself. and its not even like im gna kms. theres no point. what is left to kill?

[translationandbetrayals]

Baiken and Bedman; Arhat and Bodhisattva

Guilty Gear is a prolific fighting game franchise from Japan developed by Daisuke Ishiwatari and the game company Arcsystemworks. Throughout its 25 year run it has been praised mostly for its soundtrack, its tight fast combat, its heavy metal aesthetic and for pioneering the now commonplace "animefighter" look, first with its 2d sprite artwork and later with their now signature 3d models that try to imitate 2d artwork. For being such gameplay-focused games, Guilty Gear does actually discuss a lot of interesting themes and questions within its story modes, character design and music. I want to talk about two characters specifically, those being the unfaltaring awakaned samurai Baiken and the error-prone guardian machine Bedman, how those two characters were developed in the iteration Strive and how both are way more similar than usual.

Heaven or Hell

LET'S ROCK!

Wielding her opponent's strength as her own

Baiken was one of the original playable characters in the first Guilty Gear game, the missing link. A rough looking samurai, Baiken's family and entire japanese colony were massacred when she was still a child by the series main antagonist, who also left her alive but seriously mutilated. Her personal journey is one of violence and vengeance, she made her objective to hunt down and kill That Man, no matter the collateral damage or how much she has to suffer. Very little changed between the years, that was until she met a little girl called Delilah, who similarly was on her own path of revenge. Confronted with the possibility of helping a girl not unlike her past self avoid the road she now treads upon, Baiken reconsiders her own purpose in life.

Fighting heedless of its own destruction

Bedman now only refers to a broken robotic bed. In past games, however, Bedman was actually Delilah's big brother, Romeo. Both were born with a rare condition that, altough gave them hyper-intelligence and psychic capabilities, also forced them to control their own powers through great suffering. Romeo in particular had to be constantly sleeping otherwise his waking brain would "fry his entire body alive". Driven by the dream of creating a perfect world, where neither he or his sister would ever have to suffer again, Bedman would appear in Guilty Gear Xrd as an apocalyptic threat, a herald of the "absolute world", before being killed in the game's climax. Now only his broken (and allegedly possesed) bedframe remains.

Why Baiken and Bedman are the same character and what it means to escape the cycle

Superficially, there already a lot of similarities one can make between the two of them. Both are missing an eye as well as having their right arm severed and broken. Both fight aggresively and unrelentlessly, described in-game as "someone who actually wants to die during the match". Both endep up being Delilah's main parental figures. But it runs deeper than that. Both of them were introduced as secondary antagonists in their respective debuts, and stayed as overall morally grey characters, although Baiken was a full-on anti-hero while Bedman was more of a well-intentioned villain. Both had similar personal justifications for whatever atrocity they might be forced to commit to reach their goals; Baiken believed in budhist karma, and embraced all the bad karma her actions generated, fully accepting whatever torture would come her way if it meant getting the opportunity to get revenge, her actions were justified because whatever she did to other people, fate would do to her; Bedman realized that creating his absolute world would mean him getting full control of it, for every person he killed he would remember their names and details so he could later bring them back to life in the absolute world, he would do anything as long as it was for his sister, his actions were justified because whatever he took away, he would later force fate to give back. Both characters were stuck in a vicious circle of progressively worse violence, unwilling to escape due to their own personal beliefs, a circle that they wouldn't escape from until the events of Strive. Based primarily on their theme songs, its my personal theory that the circle both characters find themselves into could also well mean the Samsara, the circle of life and death. Lets start with Baiken:

Mirror of the world (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUlN4PkxqsM)

If that's what you call karma then I must be a demon

Baiken's theme has a literal budhist prayer as part of its lyrics, so it makes sense to start here.  The song showcases what we already know, that she is a karmic demon, willing to cut all ties with the living world to get revenge. She doesn't understand people loving and caring for her, as she has already come to terms with her own tragic demise as she sees herself as nothing more than a ghost of the past haunting the present. But at some point that changes. After meeting Delilah and convincing her that a life pursuing vengeance is not worth it and that she should never start that journey, Delilah on her part asks her if she can instead stay with her. Having family, for the first time since her childhood, awakens something in Baiken and forces her to make a decision. Being sure that staying in the cycle could in some way harm Delilha, Baiken foregoes revenge, she gives up on violence, she realizes that after all, there was always another way. She realizes that without that objective, she now needs to face her biggest challenge, finding true meaning in life. Although only explicitly about Baiken escaping the violent cycle of vengeance, there are strong budhist themes in Mirror of the world apart from the prayer, those being the idea of the destruction of the self to reach enlightenment. Baiken believed that finding death in battle would bring her nirvana, only to find that her idea of enlightenment by bloodshed was nothing more than a personal justification for violence. By abandoning her quest to live a different life, she has finally cut that last thread of self and is ready to follow the path to true enlightenment, she is ready to become a mirror of the world, she will be nothing and everything at the same time.

The circle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNyQdweaupY)

Consuming ten billion years in an instant and I'll come to you without a second thought

Bedman's theme, although not explicitly budhist at all, deals  with the same themes as Baiken's. Having the titular character being dead already, the song is sung from the perspective of the deceased Romeo trying to make sense of the afterlife. He talks of a circle, a very obvious Samsara reference, being the only thing after life, a circle that is absolute and infinite, black and white, finite and meaningless, all the same time, with no clear beginning or end, constantly repeating itself. We can assume that Bedman was not only trapped in a violent cycle of violence, but also is now trapped in the literal circle of life and death, despairing at the knowledge that eternal life and death exists, and that being trapped in its limbo, devoid of any divine warmth or choir, will make his existence meaningless. Unlike Baiken though, who tried and succeeded to escape it, Bedman instead ends up embracing and cherishing the eternal cycle for one simple reason. As long as he gets to reincarnate, he will get another chance at protecting and being with her beloved Delilah, as long as Delilah needs him, he will always come back to her, no matter how many endless limbos he has to go through to reach her again. Instead of fighting the circle, he gives in and accepts that, as long as the world needs him, he will not try to escape it. He finds purpose in the constant repetition of life and death, being always by Delilah's side.

Arhat and Bodhisattva

What I find really interesting about this is seeing two very similar characters go through the same crisis of faith and coming out with two different but not exclusive answers. When faced with the inminent Samsara, Baiken chose the path of the Arhat, reaching Nirvana through enlightenment, while Bedman chose the way of the Bodhisattva, a being that instead of choosing salvation for themselves, instead swore to liberate those around them to reach Nirvana alongside them. Quoting another Strive song What do you fight for "Everything in this world leads to soul enlightenment", what I find most endearing about this whole ordeal is how what made some of the most vicious characters in the series reconsider their own ways and drastically change the way they see their own spirituality wasn't a big life revelation or a magical cataclysm. It only was a little girl who missed her older brother and was looking for a big sister, nothing more than that, and it was enough to change at least 2 person's lives forever.

-Sergio Valtierra

[bunnnali]

umm okay well now that i’ve cleared that up i do still have an issue with the EoH thing which i don’t believe the same justification can be made for, and ultimately i do still disagree with nana’s decision to forgive nakajima being painted as a good thing. i actually believe it to be a very understandable decision for nana, a character whose self-loathing and sense of justice is so deeply engrained into her that she would do anything if she believes it will relieve her of some of her agony. i don’t want to go into a rant about the eoh thing today because frankly yapping about it will not relieve me of my own fucking agony i get just thinking about it. so i wont be talking about that but i will be talking about my feelings about how they’ve gone about nana’s development as well as briefly touching more on nakajima&hiiragi’s relationship. i’ll cut this post here so i don’t flood anyone’s fyp

at its core, talentless nana is about growing up with prejudices, and a misguided sense of justice. nana never saw herself as the villain, only a person doing what was necessary to achieve a better world. her work as an assassin could only happen after at least a decade of coordinated abuse to better manipulate her into being tsuruoka’s puppet. nana’s parents were killed by the talented (as far as she knows) and it was constantly engrained into her head that talented people were inherently born evil and would always be a threat to a peaceful civilization. in addition to this, she was lead to believe that her own life was worthless and undeserved unless she were making some sort of difference—something to compensate for her being alive.

nana starts off very morally grey, believing anything that needs to be done to ensure a fairer world is just. in which case, killing 30ish teenagers to prevent killing a billionish people of all ages seems reasonable.

despite this, she never felt right in her ‘mission’, from the moment she set foot on the island to now. right after killing nakajima, she found herself searching for validation, reassurance she had done the right thing. her confidence wavers further with each death, and even more when she’s forced to confront the consequences of her actions; nakajima coming back the way he was, michiru and ryuji dying after nana inspired another killer, her classmates grieving yuuka.

so when she discovers everything she had been taught regarding talents and those possessing them was a lie, and that her parents were killed by the very person who raised her, it makes sense nana makes a total 180 morally. tsuruoka told her killing is right if it’s necessary to achieve a goal, so nana decides killing is wrong always to anyone. tsuruoka tells her the talented people are evil, so nana decides to believe anyone can be redeemed. tsuruoka tells her to hate those who hurt her—so nana decides to forgive them.

it all sounds really awesome and good of nana for her to assume an entirely pacifistic stance but it goes beyond being reasonably pacifistic and instead her insisting the total opposite extreme in an attempt to redeem herself. and it makes sense, especially her insistence on ‘saving’ nakajima, because nana believes she and him are the same, and if she can’t save nakajima, then she herself is beyond redemption and forgiveness. she looks past all that he’s done to her, not for any intellectual reason, but because she thinks she deserves it.

again, nana is a traumatized girl who was raised to believe she has no right to be alive if she is not making herself useful, making some sort of difference. she almost kills herself once she discovers she hadn’t been!!! the only reason she doesn’t is when she finds out nakajima is alive, which in her mind gives her an opportunity for salvation. she goes as far as to tell jin that once she saves the talented, there’s no reason for her to stick around..with this in mind, it makes everything she’s been doing recently make total sense. her refusal to kill anyone, even characters who committed as vile acts as some of the characters she’s spared have. (cough soma cough) the fact even now the solution she’s aiming for is a peaceful agreement between her and tsuruoka??? it makes sense for her, but it should go without saying that it being an understandable conclusion for her to jump to does not make it any less of an unreasonable and unrealistic one.

i could see this being a very interesting and meaningful arc in nana’s character development if she were to find a balance between her past ideals and her current one, in understanding she can be kind and stern—that she needs to be both. to understand there is evil in the world as much as there is good. and for once, to find herself someone worth fighting for. nana will let anybody kick her, and she won’t stop them unless it’s for someone else. i can think of at least 5 or so moments off the top of my head where she gives someone else permission to kill her if it will satisfy them. 😭 that isn’t character development!!!!!that’s just her falling into the same problem on the opposite side!!!!!!!

i really had hoped with nakajima’s arc they would use the many parallels between him and nana as a way to help nana finally find her balance, or even a sort of peace with herself. nakajima represents everything nana feared—everything she still does. he represents her, and he represents her regrets. her mistakes. he’s everything nana hates about the world, and everything she hates about herself. he’s her reason to stay alive, and her reason she believes she shouldn’t.

frankly, nakajima is an irredeemable character. sorry! he is! he has committed atrocities on a much grander scale than nana, while understanding the consequences and weight of his actions; more than that, he derived pleasure from it. he takes responsibility for everything, yet feels no remorse. in addition to that, he’s done so many things to nana specifically that she should have every right to hate him for. you can like nakajima, there’s nothing wrong with that. he’s a very interesting character with his own complex motivations, but i won’t be hearing anybody out that he deserves a place in nana’s happy ending..

it would have been significantly more meaningful for nana to use nakajima as a lesson, to find her balance. that would have been significantly more conclusive. while i would have written nana killing him if i were looseboy i wont use this post to go into the details of that..rather, even if she spared him, for her to just realize something from him would have been fucking MAJOR. nana;s character development should not be her going from one extreme to the other, but instead for her to find worth in herself, to find her being born enough of a reason she deserves to live. for nana to fight for justice, and to understand that doesn’t always look pretty. for her to understand not everyone deserves redemption, and that this being true does not make it any less deserving for her.

‘UGH THIS POST IS SO FUCKING LONG IM HUSF SO MAD i hope i’m articulating myself well and not jsut vomiting words idk

but anyways that’s what pisses me off about this manga now. because this isn’t nanas development. because looseboy really believes nana going from “violence is the only solution” to “violence is NEVER okay!!!!!! everyone should be able to live freely and do whatever they want even when they killed my entire family and my girlfriend or when they made my friends beat me into unconsciousness and then they had me thrown into solitary confinement for a year and then thrown into a camp” is an actual good character conclusion. the fact that all of her friends are not only okay with her thinking this way but encouraging her. even to a point that’s out of character for them!,!?!?!?!? KYOUYA of all people is encouraging nana to think like this when he has shown on NUMEROUS occasions that he believes someone should do whatever they have to do to help the people they care about and that heroism is not blind forgiveness. kyouya used to be like “if you had a reason for killing those people i might side with you” but all of a sudden he’s like “yes nana killing is always bad! what you did was horrible regardless of your reasoning and i forgive u now but let’s never harm a single soul ever again” liek what the FUCK!!/!???

NO AND THE LATEST CHAPTER “guys we can’t steal a boat to save thousands of people that’s IMMORAL! let’s just make a giant fucking ice platform that might snap in 2 because the risks of that is surely better than stealing a big boat from someone who’s probably too rich to even notice it’s gone” LIKE WHAG THE FUCJ? MY NANA WOULD HAVE STOLEN A RANDOM CIVILIANS CAR IF SHE THOUGHT THE PROS OUTWEIGHED THE CONS 😭😭😭

Whatever. whatever. i’m soo chill. i’m sooooo sooooo chill rn.

post about me rambling about nakajimas arc in talentless nana but then halfway through i change my mind 😭

i think an issue i have with nakajima and his progression is also that it almost proves nana’s initial assessment to be correct. i’d argue the same applies for the EoH plot twist, though it’s still very vague what exactly they’re going for with that. thats something else entirely I could go on a rant about.

but with nakajima specifically nana targets him first because she believes even if he is good now, he is destined to become worse later. his talent has room to grow into something extremely potent and harmful, and he, with his desire to become a leader, can in turn become a powerful foe. she makes the decision to kill him first for this reason..

..then he survives the attack, his power develops into something uncontrollable, he becomes a leading force on the enemy side. everything she thought he’d be becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. and i can understand especially for nakajima fans that this being something . oh nevermind actually now that i’ve verbalized all this i’m seeing this is actually very symbolic and meaningful for nakajima’s character arc and makes for a very powerful development in nana’s character to see someone becoming what she perceived as the worst case scenario, a point of no return, as someone who is not beyond redemption. nana looking past her own biases and prejudices to make more informed decisions is a major part of talentless nana and the entire point of her character development ,.um…so i guess nevermind then.

[autisticandroids]

the thing about cas is that there are a lot of things he's done where like... maybe his culpability was slippery but i do think that it would be appropriate to want forgiveness. but almost none of those things were ever to dean.

the only really bad things that cas has done to dean that should require forgiveness are breaking sam's wall (yes i know that the primary victim here is sam but like. this was also harm to dean, and cas doesn't have any kind of mitigating justification here, he was really just lashing out. and like the anger behind the lashing out was justified but the lashing out was wildly disproportionate), beating dean up in an alley (similar story re: lashing out, but slightly more proportionate: dean was going to intentionally both get cas killed and render his defining life event meaningless; it's still wildly inappropriate that cas beat him up though), letting sam out of the panic room (this is stickier; cas was under pain of death, and he also immediately afterwards tries to rectify this and indeed dies for it, but i think holding it against him to some degree would still be reasonable. however, logistically, it doesn't work to have dean hold it against him, since dean never finds out cas did this), and various sort of inconsiderate, bad friend type things that cas did that don't rise to the level of life or death drama, (like leaving mid conversation, or giving terrible advice that comes off as kind of callous because cas is dumb), or being insufficiently sympathetic about soulless sam because he was too busy (these mostly but not exclusively occurred in seasons four through six, as cas is much more focused on maintaining dean's affection and approval later on).

every other bad thing cas has done to dean was either in some way the result of literal mind control (goodbye stranger etc.), something dean should not have been mad at cas for which he was only mad about because he has fucked up ideas about how relationships should work and cas' personhood (working with crowley; being alive instead of sam in swan song; spending time with other angels in season nine; the fucking snake), or something which while potentially bad for the world had literally zip to do with dean personally (godstiel stuff; wanting jack to be born).

but the thing is, cas has actually done a lot of bad in the world, and he knows this. he's hurt a lot of people, and his culpability in many of those instances was sticky: he was brainwashed or mind controlled or possessed or tricked or abused or tortured into compliance. but it's stuff that it makes sense to feel guilty for, even if a lot of it was mostly not his fault. and it's certainly stuff that other people have good reason to hate him for - if i was an angel i would still probably hate cas for godstiel, regardless of whether he was totally compos mentis or semi-possessed by leviathans and judgement impaired by being overloaded with soul power.

and cas knows this. he's very aware that he has hurt a lot of people, and a lot of them justifiably hate him for that, and he craves forgiveness even if it's not ever possible. and this is a tendency of cas' that dean constantly exploits. cas is extremely afraid of fucking up and hurting people, and dean uses that fear to control him by bringing up a list of his crimes and reminding him of all the bad things he's done every time he (cas) disobeys dean. because cas is so unsure of himself for reasons that genuinely make sense, and so justifiably afraid that he's going to keep making the world worse, he's very vulnerable to being told that he's fucking up, that he shouldn't trust himself, that what he's doing is wrong. and so dean is constantly using this to control and isolate him. like cas shouldn't really be seeking dean's forgiveness for anything much in the later seasons, certainly not the things that dean is constantly bringing up to remind him of what a fuck up he is so he'll listen to dean. but he does, because dean has leveraged his (cas') genuine feelings of guilt towards other people to get cas to unquestioningly accept that dean has been right every time he's ever gotten mad at him.

essentially in the end, dean "forgiving" cas in the trap without admitting that he should never have been mad in the first place just continues the cycle. it reinforces that cas did something to need "forgiveness" from dean. and because cas craves forgiveness in general, he's going to accept that uncritically, because it means that at least someone forgive him. but cas doesn't need to hear that dean forgives him, he needs to hear that dean was being irrational and there's nothing to forgive. anything else is just an attempt by dean to maintain control.

[captain-space-kin]

Baby Lloyd AU Headcanons!

Since y’all really liked the last baby Lloyd au stuff I did (315 notes jfc, thank you!) I have returned with more! None of this is final or anything, since the au is very much in it’s infancy (haha get it, cause babies).

Anyway! Stuff is under the cut, thanks for stopping by ���💜✨

p.s If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, send em my way! I crave interaction

So basic premise: The ninja find baby Lloyd somewhere a baby definitely shouldn’t be and decide to adopt him. This, of course, is the most logical course of action and only good things can come from it.

Kai -

Kai is the only one even remotely prepared for raising a baby because he took care of Nya growing up

However Nya was an easy baby and Lloyd is not to put it mildly. He doesn’t sleep regularly, is hungry all the time, and can’t be left alone lest he get upset or get into something

Kai is also Irresponsible™ one

His justification for doing Irresponsible™ things is that Nya turned out fine, despite the fact that he didn’t do half of the Irresponsible™ things with Nya

Nya did not turn out fine but that’s what happens when your parents disappear without trace so it’s not really Kai’s fault (he didn’t turn out fine either)

He’s the Chris Hemsworth half of that one meme where his dangling his kid by the ankles

Zane - 

Zane is Lloyd’s second favorite because Lloyd runs hot and Zane is cold all the time, and Zane has the most calming voice

He carries Lloyd around in one of those baby sling things cause Lloyd likes to go on adventures 

Zane is the Responsible™ one and has to babysit Kai babysitting Lloyd

It's not that Zane doesn't trust Kai, it’s just that doesn’t he trust Kai

He’s the Robert Downey Jr half of that one meme

Reads like every baby book available because, although it’s not super obvious with Zane, he is afraid that Lloyd will just keel over and die

Cole -

Cole is Lloyd’s favorite, I have no reason for this

You think the most anxious about the whole situation would be Jay, you’re wrong it’s Cole

Cole is also constantly worried that Lloyd is just gonna keel over and die

“Is he supposed to be that small? Are we sure he’s not sick? Is he supposed to be doing that?” etc etc

The first week or so Cole insisted that he take primary watch while the others worked on trying to figure out who Lloyd’s parents might be/get all necessary items needed to keep a baby alive. Then they forced him to trade shifts because he stopped sleeping

Cole sings a lot to Lloyd cause it calms him down, but shhhh it’s a secret

Has like major papa bear energy

Jay -

Jay is the one the found Lloyd, I don’t have a reason for this either

Jay is also Lloyd’s least favorite, sorry dude (he eventually warms up tho don’t worry)

This is because Lloyd naturally amplifies/is sensitive to the other’s powers, and since Jay’s power is also basically energy it’s just overwhelming (he is not upset about this what are you talking about Cole)

Jay just kinda has to hover around whenever he’s watching Lloyd solo for awhile

Lloyd learns how to say Jay’s name first since it’s mostly vowel sounds, he cried, and also holds it over everyone’s heads and brings it up whenever he can

He gets advice from his parents a lot!

Lloyd -

To no ones surprise he’s an absolute terror of a child

Had the worst teething phase ever (it’s the dragon genes ✊😔), nothing and no one was safe

Doesn’t get into things unless it’s obvious he’s not supposed to get into it (example: Didn’t even notice the wall sockets until covers were put on them, this is definitely not something I did)

Operates on his own schedule and will not do anything unless he wants to (example: the ninja try to teach him sign language because it’s recommended and all that, and Lloyd refused to do it until after they stopped trying, this is also definitely not something I did)

Being part oni and part dragon he’s got some non human features, like his little elf ears, Jay brings this up when they first obtain him, everyone else kinda shrugs it off, and it’s never brought up again

Nya - 

Is kinda confused at first because last time she visited there was definitely not a baby but she’s chill with whole situation

Cool aunt vibes 

Says she likes Lloyd better than Kai whenever he annoys her

Does that thing where she takes Lloyd out hypes him up on sugar and drops him off so the others have to deal with the consequences

Wu -

Wu is almost 100% sure that Lloyd is Garmadon’s son but refuses to tell anyone else because 1. He’s Wu and not telling people things is his thing and 2. If one of the ninja (Jay) accidentally lets it slip it’ll cause problems 

Wu goes on some inner peace journey shortly after because “holy shit I have a nephew wtf” so the ninja kinda get left on their own with no guidance

He’s just like “This baby’s aura is familiar” and then dips

[linkspooky]

Who is it who really needs saving? 

is the question Dabi asked when Tokoyami came to rescue Hawks in the middle of the raid war arc. Dabi asks this question just after Hawks stabbed twice in the back with the justification that it would save people, despite the fact that Twice was also a victim too, and also someone in need of saving. Dabi’s question is especially poignant because it asks who is hero society invested in saving, a question that is repeated by Twice who believes Hero Society only saves the good victims, and Himiko as well who asks if Heroes save people, then was Twice not a person. 

I bring this up because chapter 299/300 end on another parallel between Dabi and Hawks. Both of them have their backs being shown, however, Hawks is already healing due to the nature of his quirk, whereas the permanent burns on Dabi’s skin has already gotten worse. Hawks and Dabi also have opposite goals at this point, Hawks to support Endeavor, and Dabi’s ultimate goal is to bring him down. However, Rei’s words over Endeavor’s panel add another layer of complication to this. “Those regrets and guilt, the rest of those have borne that burden much more than you have.” Endeavor is suffering, but he’s not the one most in need of saving. I believe next chapter rightly, Rei is going to point out that the ones most in need of saving are the ones who suffered the most because of Endeavor’s actions. Endeavor was never the one in need of saving, and in need of redemption in the first place, rather it was Dabi. 

1. Started From the Bottom Now We’re Even Lower

Hawks and Dabi are seeming opposites even from their origin points. Hawks was born in a poor household the son to a minor villain, Touya a rich household the son of the number two hero. Hawks family name basically means nothing to the point where the hero commission easily erased it, whereas Dabi’s family name has dominated his entire life. Touya from a young age was given everything he needed to become a hero and his father even encouraged him, while Hawks was on the run from the law and couldn’t even leave his small house without getting yelled at. 

At first, Hawks was born with a quirk that both of his parents disapproved of as they constantly asked him what his wings were even for, and seemed disgusted by his mutation. While at the same time, Touya was born with a quirk that his father was happy with, a fire quirk even stronger than his own which Enji thought gave him enough of a potential that he didn’t need to worry about finding an ideal hybrid quirk. He could pass all his techniques onto his firstborn son who seemed eager to learn. 

The only real similarity between both of them was that for both children, Endeavor was clearly their favorite hero. Touya was eager to please his father and train with him in order to inherit his hero techniques, and when Endeavor captured Hawks father, it convinced Hawks that heroes were real. 

However, both of them experienced a sudden reversal of fate. This is where circumstances for both of them flipped. Touya’s quirk was in fact revealed to be a very harmful hybridization of his parents two quirks, he inherited his father’s flames but even hotter, while at the same time inheriting Rei’s sensitivity to fire which made th overheating flaw even worse on him causing his quirk to deliberately harm his body. Hawks however, is an ideali hybridization of both of his parents quirks. His mother Tomie has a quirk that creates eyeballs and seems ideal for searching, watching and locating things, while his father’s feather quirks on his arms that could sharpen into blades turned into wings on his back that were both capable of searching and detection like his mother’s eyeballs and sharpening into blades like his father’s. 

At first it seems destined that Touya was ging to become a hero, while Hawks had no hope for him, but because of the nature of their quirks the opposite happened. When Hawks was young he was able to save a busload of people from crashing which got him recruited by the hero commission. While it’s implied that Touya kept trying to train on his own even after Endeavor stopped the training and abandoned him in favor of Shoto, and because of that Touya had his training accident at Sekoto peek and burned to death. 

Dabi and Hawks are seeming opposites, but they’re actually quite similar if you think about it. Both of them grew up in abusive households that are intentionally paralleled, they have controlling and physically violent fathers, and mothers who are coded as mentally ill, Tomie was unfit to take care of a child, and Rei was eventually pushed to a breaking point where she was unable to anymore and then forcibly separated and institutionalized by her husband. Both, also experienced a separation from their mother, Rei was hospitalized around the time Toya finally died, and the Hero Commission promised Tomie support if she cut all ties from him. Both of them also dreamed of becoming heroes, and tried their best to, even Touya after his father rejected him kept training on their own. 

The only difference between them is circumstances, Hawks was saved because he was born with a useful quirk, Touya despite his father being the number two hero was never saved. 

2. We’re the Heroes, Who Don’t Do Anything

In fact it’s implied that Enji intentionally looked away and forced himself to forget Touya’s suffering. For instance, the first time Touya trains with Enji he’s shown wearing a sleeveless shirt. Every time after that, Touya has long jacket sleeves on. When he’s crying to Natsuo, when he’s pulling out his hair, and the last memory from before his death, every time Touya is shown hiding his arms. We also know that Dabi, has burns that go all the way up his arms which is exactly where his flames emerge from. It’s also the place where Touya burns himself when Enji remembers training with him for the first time. 

It’s likely that Touya was walking around with burns up his arms from the training he was inflicting on himself, and Enji simply didn’t notice because his unreliable narrator status, he forgets everything he has done to other members of his family, or intentionally downplays the severity of it in order to avoid the guilt and consequences of his actions. Hence why he can say things like “I never meant to neglect you” to Natsuo, when we saw him call Natsuo and the others failures from Shoto’s perspective, because in Enji’s perspective he’s just a good father who went wrong somewhere along the line, whereas from Natsuo’s perspective he never really acted like a father towards him at all.

Enji only ever sees his own intentions, and not the impact his actions had on others. He only saw his heroic ambitions, and not the way he taught Touya that his only value was his quirk, and then completely tossed him aside as a failure and ignored all his suffering when Touya kept trying to get his attention. That he intentionally neglected Touya until either an accident or a suicide claimed his life. 

Either way it’s a running theme that Endeavor hesitates when it comes to saving his own sons. Despite seeing himself as both a hero and a father, he completely fails in both roles to them. 

He froze when it came time to save Natsuo from Ending, and the second time when Shoto was begging Endeavor for help against Dabi, Endeavor chose not to do a single thing. In fact the only thing that moved him was Deku’s pep talk that exclusively stoked his ego and called him a good mentor, which caused Endeavor to finally move into action. 

Endeavor is a hero in name who has no interest in directly saving others, because his number one priority has always been to stand at the number one spot and feel like he’s accomplished something. He didn’t notice Touya was most likely continuing the training on his own, and was spiraling that badly until after Touya had died, and even after that happened he still continued the training with Shoto like nothing happened, even mentioning that Touya was a small mistake. 

When the wounds from Touya’s death were still fresh, it seemed like barely anything more than an afterthought to him. There are some people who even theorize that Enji only believed Touya was always alive because he had never truly faced the guilt of Touya’s death and his role in it, that it was a comfort to him to believe his son was still secretly alive out there. 

The signs were obvious that Touya was spiraling, but he was neglected so much that Endeavor the number two hero who prides himself on most cases resolved didn’t notice what was going wrong with his son until he literally burned himself alive, and even then that wasn’t enough to stop him from mistreating his other son and forcing him into painful training. 

Touya’s neglect is as much abuse as Shoto’s favoritism and training, that’s the point of the golden child / scapegoat dynamic, they are both being abused. Enji was the only parent in the household, and if his kid was burning himself, and injuring himself all the time and it got to the point where the child literally died because of a lack of adult supervision, Enji could be prosecuted for manslaughter in a court of law. There are cases where adults just, do absolutely nothing for their kids, and those kids sometimes die of neglect, starvation, because of their parents completely failing to take care of them. It’s just as sinister a form of abuse as physical abuse. In both cases a child’s needs aren’t being provided for by their parents. 

Dabi is someone who could have been easily saved by his father paying attention to him, and should have been saved by the man who prides himself as the number two hero, but he was left to rot. This is a running theme with Endeavor, he’s a hero who continually fails to save his family. 

Dabi’s situation is also a metaphor for hero society at large. Who are the types of people that Hero Society prefers to save? Those who are useful to it like Hawks. It intentionally turns a blind eye to cases like Touya, Tenko  or Twice. If Touya did have burns on his arms from training but was able to cover them up just by wearing long sleeves, and Natsuo was the only one who knew then that goes even further to explain Dabi’s specific obsession with discrediting Endeavor.

If Dabi’s father had just acted like a hero, or acted like a father then he would have been saved. If Dabi’s father had noticed the person most in need of saving was right next to him, the incident where he burned to death never would have happened. Which is why Dabi’s grudge is specifically against heroes who do not act like heroes. Heroes who, cannot save anyone because they are too self involved to perform the duty of saving. He shares Stain’s obsession with ideologically pure heroes, that only heroes who put saving others selflessly over everything else should be allowed to exist and the rest are pretenders to the title.

Notice how Dabi pulls on the scars on his face when begging the people to think about this, about who should really be allowed to call themselves heroes. 

Dabi’s entire arc revolves around this question. Who are the real victims? Who are the ones that really need to be saved? Dabi is a character of mystery and subversion who is constantly hiding his real feelings. 

Dabi is commented on being heartless about Twice’s death, but his actions contradict his words. Dabi goes out of his way trying to avenge Twice even after it’s already too late to save him, even burning up his own body to do so. He tried so hard we see literally there are new scars growing on his back the next time we see him Post-War Arc. 

I’d also like to bring up that while Hawks accuses Dabi of feeling nothing about Twice’s death, Hawks is the one who killed him, and who after the fact shows no regret in his actions because he’s completely justified it to himself. He even remembers Twice like he’s some kind of old friend he took inspiration from, and not a person he manipulated into trusting him then killed. My point is it’s a reversal, Hawks is set up as the one who cares about Twice as a friend, but really was only using him. Dabi claims he was only using him, but he’s the one who showed an actual emotional reaction to Twice’s death and made an effort to save him. 

If I were to say this is one more point of foiling between Dabi and Hawks. They both don’t see themselves as victims and because of that they deny the victimhood of the other. 

Dabi accuses Hawks of becoming a murderer because his father was a murderer. Hawks when he learns the truth about Enji, takes Enji’s side over Dabi’s, believing Endeavor being the true victim in need of help in that situation. This is because Dabi and Hawks both deny their own victimhood, and they project that on each other. Dabi denies his victimhood and pretends to be the villain instead, he’s the villain who is going to take down Endeavor and therefore he’s not suffering. Hawks denies his own victimhood and his abusive past and pretends to be a hero, he’s helping Endeavor become a better hero, so therefore all the abuse Endeavor committed is in the past so therefore he doesn’t have to think about it. Both deny themselves and therefore deny any similarity in one another. 

They’re also two people fatally wrapped up in their own circumstances they turn a blind eye to the suffering of others. Dabi assumes that Shoto is “good” and therefore, must have been raised with love and had it better than him and was raised with love. Whereas Hawks assumes that Twice is “good”, and therefore worthy of saving because he helps other people. In both cases, neither Dabi nor Hawks really understand Shoto or Twice, they’re just judging them by their own projected standards. Dabi only understands his childhood as Touya desperately trying to work for Enji’s attention, so Shoto who had Enji’s attention must have had it good. Hawks was saved because of the bus accident where he saved people as a hero, so obviously it makes sense he reach out to try to save another good person who just had bad luck. 

Despite the fact that both of them are pretty much emotionally dead and in deep denial of their true feelings. 

Dabi has also made a show of how little he cares about Natsuo, while at the same time his most famous line from the pro hero arc is “overthought things and snapped...” 

Dabi is also the only one who notices it’s dangerous to bring Tokoyami onto a battlefield. This is when he asks the question, who is it who needs saving. 

We learn at around the same time, the hope from the Pro Hero arc was intentionally a set up by Dabi to bring Endeavor down, and show everyone eventually that Endeavor hadn’t truly changed. 

These are all small details yes, but keep in mind we’ve really only gotten crumbs of Dabi’s characterization so far because his perspective is one that has deliberately been kept from us. We see his past through almost everyone else’s eyes but his own - because so far the focus has been on Endeavor.

Just like Dabi set up Endeavor’s earlier success only to bring him down, this might also lead to a reversal in the narratives. In 299, Hawks believed Endeavor to be the one in need of help. We are also as an audience set up to believe that the narrative arc will focus around Endeavor’s redemption. This is before the series revealed the circumstances of his son. 

However, Endeavor and Dabi are literal opposites. They’re inversions of each other. Dabi pretends he doesn’t care any more for his family and will go out of his way to hurt them, that all he cares about is revenge, but at the same his ideals are heroic. In his actions and ideals he’s the one calling for a better society. Dabi is the most independent and distant from the league it’s true, and so far he’s denied their friendship, but at the same time it’s Dabi who is the most idealistic of the league. Shigaraki wants to destroy the current society, Himiko wants a society that’s easier on her, but it’s Dabi who has the ideals for a society he wants, one where heroes are held to standards and act like Heroes. It’s dabi better than anyone else who makes the standards for mass appeal. Because, deep down Dabi still has heroic aspirations and drive even if it comes from Stain of all people he’s inspired by. He has some sort of ideals, a world he’s trying to create.

Whereas, Endeavor doesn’t have any heroic ideals at all. His idea of being a hero has always centered around fame, status and the ranking of number one. He’s a hero unconcerned with saving people, only defeating villains to prove his strength. Endeavor presents himself outwardly as someone who is trying to do what’s best for his family, and working towards being the best hero he can be but his intentions are revealed to be selfish, at the same time as Enji’s narration is revealed as unreliable. It may have been set up for an inversion all along, with the setup being that Enji is the one who needed to redeem himself, when Dabi was pushed to the background. Around this time Rei also tried to reassure others, that he was trying to carry his regrets with him. 

However, as soon as Touya’s identity is revealed, Rei’s stance reverses. Now she properly calls out that, Enji hasn’t been carrying his regrets at al.. Instead, he’s been forcing his family to carry the burden of it while he gets to go play hero in front of the public. 

As soon as Touya is revealed to be alive, it’s not Enji who is the center and focus of conversation but rather Touya. In 299, Hawks believes that it’s Endeavor whose in need of saving, but we’re shown that Endeavor only really seems to pity himself in this situation. 

It’s Rei who shows up to remind us, who really is in need of saving in this situation. Not Endeavor but rather those who have been burned the most by Endeavor’s actions. 

Which may be the ultimate parallel between Hawks and Dabi as well, Hawks can’t see himself as a victim so he can’t realize who the victims who need his help the most is. Whereas, Dabi in the future may receive the change of heart he needs to reopen his heart again and accept others, and therefore learn to accept himself. Dabi is set up for a reconciliation between his two selves, Touya the victim and Dabi the villain. While ultimately, Hawks will intentionally turn his back on Keigo the victim, because he can only ever see himself as a hero.

 I’m not suggesting that Dabi is good or Hawks is bad, or the other way around, not something as simple as that but that Dabi is open to change, and this will lead to him eventually opening up to others. Whereas, Hawks who is given practically every opportunity to change, and even escapes killing Twice with no permanent consequences, (his wings are growing back, and he even is freed from the hero commission) chooses to support Endeavor once again. It’s Dabi who calls others to think and reevaluate, and is actively trying to create a change in the world, whereas Hawks only interest is protecting other heroes and not the victims that heroes themselves create. Because in his mind heroes are good and that fact will never change. 

Because Dabi is the one trying to create change, while Hawks continues to cling to Endeavor I believe we’ll eventually receive a reversal for both of them. Just as the narrative around Dabi has changed from irredeemable villain to person in need of saving, we may see exactly what was foreshadowed in this panel happening. Dabi walking towards the light, while Hawks falls further and further into the shadows - because it’s Dabi who is looking for that light, while Hawks chooses to remain in the dark. Hawks was saved once, and now he believes that everyone who is good gets saved, unless they are unlucky like Twice. It’s Dabi who knows the truth, that there are heroes who don’t save people, and it’s Dabi who is at least trying to confront that truth head on and change it rather than just ignoring it. 

In a way Hawks is someone who has gone blind from looking too closely at Endeavor’s light, whereas because Dabi was failed by Endeavor and fell into the shadows he at least knows the truth about what it’s like for those who don’t get saved, and unlike Hawks can’t keep deluding himself that this is a world where everyone who deserves it gets saved. 

[lizlemonlacroix]

I have not been passive

It has been quite a long time. I won't lie, saying it hasn't been that long. I know it's been longer than it should have been. I fully understand that. Sometimes, you just have to go  in circles, knowing better but ignoring it. Doesn't that sum up reality, humanity? Eh, probably not. I won't lie about that either.

Ann told me to sit still and write. Then John said the same, more or less.

My journal has been screaming for me to do something. Any kind of something that will give me a stronger sense of identity.

But it's not like I've been passive this entire time I've been ignoring the pen, the keyboard. This isn't an excuse, but a justification to remind myself that I am the only one who is this hard on myself- so let me repeat the thought process since I've already interrupted--- I have not been passive. I have kept my mind active by reading. By reading complex stories and stupid stories. By following events and organizing how I feel about them. I have not been passive. I have been keeping a small person alive. Along with a partner, a dog, a cat and myself. Putting myself last just now isn't a commentary of how society is stomping me down; there's no hidden meaning here. I just listed myself last. This is not a blue-ink'd pen handwritten self reflective passage from AP Lit. I've gotten distracted. My anxiety is cruel that way. Constantly scanning, searching for something to be wrong. Alarm bells just waiting to explode at the slightest sense of unease or reason. It is reason? Is it reasonable?

I've been coming across a lot of web pages and newsletter topics on how to be comfortable with yourself, alone, but not "lonely." Naturally, those are starting points for other independent topics like singledom, coupledom, marriage, divorce. So much noise with it all. So much opinion. So much need to share. I can get behind the need to connect with those who are surviving similar experiences, whether that's being left out of friend groups as everyone couples up, marries off, has babies, all with you on the sidelines, forgetting to respond to your texts. Or in somewhat unhappy, uncomfortable moments in their relationships- platonic and/or romantic. It's unnerving to be at odds with your  best friend. It's damn hard to figure out how to fight fair or communicate openly and vulnerably when you have never had any practice doing any of it. There's never been a need. It's so deeply triggering to feel stuck in a past moment, inside another fight and basically another "you," all because someone you love and who also loves you firecely in return, haphazardly says or does something that hurts you, throwing you back to the darker timeline when you thought you'd kicked it for good. Then there's human flaws. Our cute and terrible quirks. All requiring everyone involved to sit up tall, take responsibility for their actions-- the cause and effect-- and apologize when necessary. This is where we need to be active. This is where I need to be better, more graceful, more mindful. How do I ask this from the ones I love in return? My parents? My siblings? My spouse? How do I ask them to stand up for themselves and for me?

Well, Sara, dammit you just ask them. It's time to  be active.