#another level discussion

[siriuslysatorusimping]

Okaeri (a scrapped 'Another Level' scene)

Hello!! I decided to post this old draft of Rinko and Gojo's reunion after he was released from the Prison Realm to give you guys a lil look at just how much changed from when I originally started writing Another Level to where we are now.

This draft was something I wrote very early on, and by the time we got Gojo out of the Prison Realm, it didn't fit the story at all.

I'll provide a breakdown at the end to give more context and commentary, but the primary thing you'll need to know before reading is that, originally, I had intended for Rinko to stay in hiding and completely isolated throughout almost the entire 19 days. So, that's where she's at in this draft that I eventually scrapped completely 🙃

Happy reading 💕

If you haven't already, you can read Another Level on AO3 😊

*This work contains possible JJK Manga spoilers. Gojo x Original Female Character. Uhhhh. Implied smut?

Okaeri

2018

Twenty days.

It had been twenty days since he’d been sealed. 

Well, technically, it was nineteen and a few hours.

A glance at the clock told her it was still the middle of the night.

Around day eleven, Rinko asked herself when she’d become the kind of person who counted days like this.

She used to go weeks without speaking to him. Months without seeing him. It never bothered her before.

Got somethin’ real important to tell ya.

It was because he was still their win condition. 

Because they couldn’t win this without him.

Got somethin’ real important-

Probably didn’t help that she hadn’t left his damn condo in almost fifteen days now. She’d gone to let Shoko reassess her injuries and get the all-clear afterward because, apparently even Shoko didn’t fucking know where Gojo lived.

Secretive little shit.

Rinko had since learned that the list was shorter than she originally thought, only including her, Yaga, and Nanami.

Well, it only included her now-

Got somethin’ real-

Having gotten enough basic food to last her for a long time when she’d gone to see Shoko, she’d been isolated since.

And going fucking crazy.

At least the dreams had stopped. Mercifully, they’d stopped a few days after her fucking delusional wet dream.

Got somethin’ real important to tell ya.

Releasing a heavy sigh, Rinko forced herself out of the torturous safety of the bed. She needed to shower and get dressed. Wear real clothes and feel like a fucking human instead of a walking corpse just because her- best friend was gone.

She’d received a text earlier telling her to meet Hime, Shoko, and Yoshinobu at the Tokyo Tech campus because they had news, but she’d been asleep. So, she’d texted Shoko to let her know she would head that way soon.

Her body ached from the strain of moving for the first time in what felt like days. But she knew that wasn’t true. She’d forced herself to make food the day prior, staring at the stove as she made herself eggs and toast, wondering how much longer she’d be able to force herself to live like this.

Unable to help. She’d had to learn about Megumi from Shoko, unable to do anything to help. Knowing it was partially because Tsumiki-

The shower drowned her sobs and amplified them at the same time.

Pulling another one of Gojo’s sweaters over her head, she realized she needed to do laundry. She’d quickly run out of her own shirts, which she hadn’t been too worried about. But she drew the line at wearing his pants.

Grumbling to herself, she looked through her bag on the floor of his closet before moving into the bedroom to search through the pile near the hamper. She was not going to wear his pants. Even if she had to wear a dirty, gross pair of her own.

As she rifled through the pile, swearing briefly when she couldn’t find any, she continued mumbling.

“Fucking swear, I know I brought more than one pair. Where the fuck are they?”

She let out a small cry of relief when she finally found a pair at the bottom of his hamper.

“S’legs are too fuckin long anyway,” she said to herself, sticking her right leg in. “Would fuckin trip before I could-”

A quiet chuckle cut her off, halting with her left leg halfway into the pants. She blinked slowly.

She was really fucking losing it.

There was another chuckle, this time causing Rinko to whip around to see him standing in the doorway, smiling at her.

He was wearing the same clothes she’d last seen him in, his jacket ripped to shreds. His hands were in his pockets as he stared at her, blindfold nowhere to be seen.

“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “Nope. Officially too far. Don’t care who it is on the council. I’ll just fucking- I’ll just kill all of them. I could do it. More than capable. Just a bunch of old fucks. I’ve gotta fucking leave this place.”

Yanking her pants the rest of the way on, she kept mumbling to herself as she refused to look at the specter in the doorway.

“Fucking hallucinating, great. Oh, Hime’s gonna fucking love this. Never let me fucking live it down. Know exactly what she’s gonna say, too: ‘I told you so, Rinko. I knew he’d drive you crazy someday.’ Fucking-”

Rinko cut off when she tried to walk through the door, ignoring the stupid apparition of her damned delusional, fucked up mind, only to find that this apparition was solid.

She blinked for a moment, staring straight at the hallucination’s chest.

Did she- was the door closed, and she just forgot? Had her crazy dumbass just fucking run into the door?

“Rinko,” it whispered, arms going around her waist as she stumbled. “Rinko-chan-”

“I have fucking lost it,” she breathed, tears in her eyes as it grasped her chin, forcing her to look up.

Bright blue eyes from her fucking nightmares at this point.

She closed her eyes immediately, squeezing them shut and willing herself to make it go away. To stop torturing herself.

“Rinko,” he repeated quietly. “I’m here. You might be crazy, sweetheart, but not that crazy-”

“Exactly what an insane person’s hallucination would say,” she stated.

Gojo laughed, the sound ripping her chest open. And she felt that void blow wide open with it as she realized she’d truly gone insane.

Completely broken and unhinged, and honestly, maybe Shoko would understand if she just crawled back into bed. Because, at this point, she couldn’t do it. Fully and truly, honestly couldn’t do it anymore.

“I always knew you liked me more than you admitted,” he teased, his voice sounding too real. “Open your eyes, baby.”

“You’re not fucking real,” she whispered, her voice cracking on the last word. “I-”

“Rinko,” he cut her off, his breath against her lips. “Rinko, baby, look at me.”

When she still didn’t open her eyes, he hummed quietly, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Baby,” his voice was amused now. “Don’t make me spank you-”

Her eyes shot open, irritation flooding her as she met his bright blue, glowing eyes as he grinned.

Only this asshole would-

“Thought that might get you to open them,” he murmured, chuckling when she scowled. “Baby, I’m here.”

Her face scrunched as he leaned even closer, nudging his nose against hers teasingly.

“Rinko-chan,” he breathed, his lips brushing hers. “I’m home.”

Not waiting for a reply, he pressed his lips to hers gently before moving his hand from her chin to tangle in her hair. His other arm stayed around her waist, pulling her so she was flush against him.

“Missed you,” he said, sucking her tongue into his mouth. “Missed you so much, baby.”

Tears were running down her cheeks, her mind still not believing what was in front of her was real. He ground his hips into her, moving to lick her neck and groaning when she whimpered quietly.

Giving in slowly, her hands grasped his shirt, fingers clenching the fabric as she sobbed.

“I- you were- I thought-”

“Couldn’t stay away from you,” he teased, sucking her pulse harshly, moaning as one of her hands went to his hair, tugging the strands lightly. “Had somethin’ important to tell you, remember?”

“You’re a fucking asshole,” she whined, feeling Gojo’s laugh rumble through her. “You can’t just-”

He silenced her by leaning back up, capturing her lips again, and slowly walking her backward.

“Shh, baby,” he hummed, biting her lip. “Just let me make you feel good. Been a bit, yeah? You miss me?”

-

Commentary

Obviously, this is very different from what we had in Something Important.

As I said before, I wrote this early on. So by the time we got to Shibuya, this draft no longer fit. It just didn't fit who Rinko was as a person anymore. With the growth she experienced, especially in the few months leading up to Shibuya, she wouldn't react this way.

I've mentioned a few times that I hadn't intended to really include the Culling Game arc. And I still didn't, not really. But having Rinko hiding away and being scared of the higher-ups just isn't who she is. Especially when it comes to her kids' safety. Like hell would Rinko have just sat in isolation with no updates on the kids. Hell no. If they'd tried to get her to, she'd have stormed one of the barriers herself and killed anyone who got in between her and her kids.

I also felt this draft made it seem way too much like Rinko's life revolved around Gojo when it doesn't. So, having her sit around and count the days just felt cheap.

There was no way Rinko would have sat by while her kids were fighting for their lives like this. And there was no way, after the realizations and the growth she'd gone through, that she would crumble like this and allow herself to sink into things like this.

But on top of that, there was no way that Rinko would be able to just welcome Gojo back as her fuck buddy without her heart completely breaking in half after all the loss that she'd experienced at this point.

Personally, this would have ended up feeling far to emotionally detached from all the trauma and loss that the two of them have gone through, and it would have negated any positive character development we'd had up until then as well.

The more I've read this back over to write this lil commentary, the more I fall in love with how Something Important turned out. Because it genuinely felt like the perfect reunion for these two after everything that had happened.

If I remember correctly, I wrote this way back before I wrote I Say "Sayonara." Soooo, that should tell you something about how much had changed 🙃

Also, you'll notice a few small details that I snuck into other installments once I realized that this one was going to have to be scrapped.

One of them being the joke about Gojo's legs being too long for her to wear his pants, which I included in Fragmented Reality instead.

SO. There's that. A small look behind the curtain of one of the original drafts that was completely scrapped in favor of something much better 😂😂

Did I MAKE ANY SENSE?? I FEEL LIKE I DIDN'T BUT HOPEFULLY I DID 🫠🫠

ALSO, I will include a fun lil extra blurb that I was never able to include anywhere, and that made me sad because I found it hilarious:

They lay there comfortably for a few minutes, focusing on each other’s breathing.

“Yoshinobu!” she suddenly gasped out, causing Gojo to scowl down at her when she tried to shove him away. “Hime! I was supposed to meet them-”

“They already knew you weren’t going to make it,” he cut her off, swatting her hands and putting them back into his hair. “I told them I’d update you and get back to them.”

“Oh,” she breathed, settling back once more.

He lifted his head back up to look her in the eye, his gaze serious.

“And don’t you ever yell Gakuganji’s name after I’ve just cum inside you,” he deadpanned, pulling a breathless laugh from her. “I mean it, Rinko. That’s enough to make my dick shrink forever.”

“I’m sorry!” she gasped, the weight in her chest lifting with each giggle.

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[txttletale]

Where does this "Wah wah revolution is impossible in the imperial core" come from anyway ? Are we going to pretend the Russian Czardom was impoverished backwater when it held several nations under imperialist yoke and was embroiled in expansionist wars with its neighbours for the better part of its last century ? Hell it was fighting one DURING the revolution with another imperial power !

the russian tsardom was in fact very notably an impoverished backwater, an agricultural economy in the age of industrialisation, which is one of the reasons why it was losing the eastern front of ww1 very badly. baffling how you would think this extremely documented fact, remarked upon at length by every single bolshevik writer, is self evidently absurd

[dykedvonte]

You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.

[throes-of-warm-tornadoes]

okay no offense but i’m not a fan of Five finding his “real life” dolores. like, that diva was literally a coping mechanism for him. a tangible reminder that he was so lonely that he made a literal piece of plastic his companion. i think the idea of it is sweet but at the end of the day i think that if Five did find someone romantically it should be someone that makes him feel silly and carefree, not someone that is a fleshy replica of an Apocalyptic Souvenir

[quietwingsinthesky]

it ever hit you out of nowhere that castiel is living in a dead guy's body and the show just does not care. it does not care. jimmy novak might as well not exist the moment he or claire is out of sight. cas stole a guy's body and his face and his life, and we can't ever talk about it or discuss it in detail because of how fucking horrifying it is that sam and dean's best friend just walks around in a dead guy suit. there's not even a human soul in there anymore. it's just a corpse. stone-cold body snatcher indeed.

[littlefankingdom]

~ Batman: Detective Comics (2016)

Sometimes, I see Jason's fans being annoyed when people say Cass would kick his ass. "Why wouldn't he win?" Well, because Cass would kick even Bruce's ass. And it has been established time and time again that the batboys cannot defeat Bruce in a one on one combat (the real deal). But Cass? Cass would win against Bruce ALONE. And that's something he is admitting here, but I pretty sure it was already implied in 2000.

[comikadraws]

Sasuke and the Final Battle

Alright! So personally, I dislike the conclusion that Sasuke's character got in canon. Here's why!

I am putting in pluses between panels to ensure nobody thinks those panels belong together.

The premise of the battle is as follows: Sasuke, motivated by the loss of his family, comes up with a plan to rectify the injustice he experienced which involves killing Naruto - not just because it promises him the power he seeks but also because he wants to cut that bond. It's a direct parallel to the first VotE fight.

Now, I still think Sasuke deserved better and I am very sorry to all Sasuke fans, but we need to get this one out of the way first.

While Sasuke's plans in the first VotE fight made a lot of sense, here, in the second fight, they are downright insane. He essentially plans to take over the world, become a dictator, and maintain his rule in neverending loneliness by becoming immortal. It doesn't need a genius to see that this should probably be considered tyrannical and self-destructive. And yes, he absolutely needed someone to knock some sense into him. But please keep in mind that the degree of Sasuke's insanity is a deliberate choice of the writer. A plot device for picking sides.

And it also makes a lot of sense for Konoha to be wary of him. Outside of this fight, he switched sides like five times. That's not something that would make you look particularly trustworthy or reliable.

It makes sense for Sasuke to feel guilty for his actions. He tried to kill his friends and comrades on multiple occasions. That's not something anybody would feel proud of.

But now, here are the issues I have with this battle and its conclusion:

Sasuke's core motivation is being glossed over

There's a huge bias going on in favor of Konoha and Naruto

Sasuke's sudden change of heart is abrupt and inconsistent with his character

The conclusion of Sasuke's character only exists in theory

Core Motivation

Sasuke's core motivation is the injustice experienced by the victims of the Uchiha massacre. His pain, loneliness, or even his wish for change are merely symptomatic, yet they are the only motivations ever acknowledged throughout the battle - even by Sasuke himself. I repeat: The systemic injustice that caused the massacre gets borderline ignored.

And if you ask me, there's a reason for that. Naruto needs to physically and ideologically defeat Sasuke - preferably without looking like the bad guy for shutting down a victim's cry for change and justice. But that only works by erasing and not ever talking about the corruption of the system. As a consequence, only Sasuke's "symptoms" remain - his detachment from everyone, the pain he embraces and causes, the unrealistic demands he has - and he ends up looking insane to the reader.

But defeating Sasuke and reducing his motivation to insanity like that, not acknowledging and condemning the injustice that motivates him, can only come at the cost of his depth, authenticity, and readability as a character.

The Konoha Bias

This also makes Kishimoto seem incredibly biased when it comes to Konoha. The crimes the village has committed, be it genocide, slavery, or child abuse, usually merely fulfill the purpose of "sad backstories" rather than being given the time and dignity to be properly identified, criticized, and rectified in the story. Injustice is allowed to be a character motivation or a flavor in the story, but it is not allowed to be a theme. That is no different here. Sasuke's traumas (though not their origin) are used to inform his actions but not shown as the result of the depravity of the system.

Aside from this linking back to Sasuke's character being deprived of his ideological value in the story (due to being a victim of the system and demanding change), this lack of attention and awareness toward the injustice reads like propaganda from an irl perspective. These are some of the most contemptworthy acts in existence we are talking about. And yet Konoha gets away unscathed.

Meanwhile, Sasuke, who is seemingly the only person demanding change, is intentionally characterized as "crazy", inevitably invalidating him and his desire for change. It basically reads as "yes, this system is rotten but everybody wanting to change it is evil". Change becomes evil by association. It's disheartening, demoralizing, and disappointing.

The Change of Heart

Now let's take a look at how his character actually progresses during this battle.

Sasuke wants to change the world even if that means killing Naruto or being lonely

Sasuke re-evaluates his relationship with Naruto

Sasuke realizes he no longer wants to kill Naruto or be lonely even if that means the world never changes

Now. Rethinking his self-destructive approach is, without question, a positive change. But that is not the problem here.

The problem is that this change in his character occurs rather unprompted. Sasuke, the entirety of the story, has ignored his own suffering in favor of justice. He has ignored every single character crying over him or telling him that they don't want him to ruin or endanger himself. But then Naruto basically says "it hurts to watch you suffer" and Sasuke suddenly rethinks his entire ideology. Naruto is basically only treating one of Sasuke's symptoms but not their origin.

This is unrealistic for his character and hurts his coherence (as well a invalidating him). It is a forced plot convenience to avoid any sort of compromise between Naruto and Sasuke. Both because Naruto has to come out on top due to genre conventions and also because Konoha cannot be questioned.

Missing Conclusion

Furthermore, this results in Sasuke's arc never coming to an actual "conclusion". As a victim, he should have been given justice. As someone who was supposedly suffering under his loneliness, he should have been given companionship. As a villain, somebody should have pointed out his hypocrisy and the wrongs he has committed.

None of that happened. Sasuke is not given justice and is even incarcerated in the most undignified and dehumanizing fashion possible in the anime. Afterward, he takes off alone. So in the end, even the "power of friendship" resolution that Kishimoto attempted to write only occurred on a surface level and failed in its execution. Sasuke is not changed because he realizes he is a hypocrite and doing more harm than good but because of a plot convenience. Sasuke internalized none of what he supposedly learned and practically had no conclusion whatsoever. He is still suffering. Nothing has changed.

The Point

And at this point, I'm just wondering "what was the point?". Clearly, the point of Sasuke's character wasn't to explore the darkness of the shinobi system. And it wasn't to seek justice for the horrors it has committed. It also wasn't about helping Sasuke heal from any of the hardships he's endured. Of course, all of these points were acknowledged by the story but never truly dealt with. A story can make as many promises as it wants and still follow up on none.

The point was, unfortunately, to be Naruto's trophy. Naruto is the main character, therefore he must remain ideologically unchallenged and perfect, he must have the strongest jutsu arsenal and he must have the most unwavering determination. Even if that means bending the other characters to the plot's needs. Sasuke is, thanks to genre conventions, not allowed to be right and Naruto cannot be wrong. A compromise or any justice at all become impossible unless they are a perfect match for Naruto's ideas of compromise and justice. While this doesn't mean that Kishimoto didn't care for Sasuke's story, Naruto's goal of saving Sasuke and becoming Hokage played a bigger role as compared to Sasuke's of changing the shinobi system, to the point that the latter was ignored whenever it inconvenienced Konoha's image.

[deepseaspriteblog]

Okay now I'm really thinking about the Victorian SBURB session

I need to find reliable Victorian photos immediately, I need to make at least one Victorian child.

I have no idea how the game portion of SBURB would work in this world but I'd like to think that the machines that you make in SBURB would have a more steampunk-esque look to them.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

David Simmons, “There’s a ton of lore on unicorns too”: Postmodernist Micro-Narratives and Supernatural in TV Goes to Hell: an Unofficial Roadmap of Supernatural

started writing this mostly as a reflection on the above chapter from TV Goes to Hell. the show from its initial outset is based around a particular formula. the brothers often rely on a postmodern patchwork of stories to 'solve' their monster-of-the-week. on this show, everything can be real all together, all at once: from alternate myths and histories, to movie monsters, to urban legends, cultural gods, and folk tales. this cultural melange gets 'tamed' through the frame of the show's monster-of-the-week format itself, where everything gets solved to fit a singular narrative: identify the monster, find a way to defeat it, and successfully eliminate it (there are rare exceptions to this formula: bugs is the standout)

there's a tension between the characters' research, drawing from unofficial sources, local legends and civilian accounts versus the show's format demanding, in a sense, that fear of the unknown (really a fear of difference) be conquered through the simplified logic of its formula. unofficial sources and beliefs become incorporated into an official narrative, so to speak. they gain legitimacy and authority through our heroes use of them, not the other way around. magic is evil when a witch uses it, but somehow the rituals and spellwork our heroes use to defeat them don't count. you feel me. and that same logic applies to what monsters count as real and what doesn't. on this show, everything becomes real when our protagonists are able to see it and kill it.

(1.01, 'Pilot')

so a common show critique i see tends to separate the more episodic plots of the early seasons (1-3) from the more serialised grand epic narratives of 4-5 onwards. well my argument is this - nah, that impulse was there from the start! the mystery of the show was always going to dissipate, because explaining away the mystery was always a part of its initial premise. the concept that - 'the monster under your bed is no longer scary when you can name what it is and learn how to kill it' - turns into -> a fear of death? heaven and hell and everything else in between are now real, tangible places! fear over external, powerful forces meddling in your lives? demons, angels, leviathans, god himself! now all real and tangible beings! the air of horror and mystery shrouding s1-2 was never gonna last. the murky horror was always a means to a defeatable end.

(5.19, 'Hammer of the Gods')

anyways. there's an obvious mythological hierarchy in this series and it's very funny to me. all gods and spirits and monsters, even the ones predating christian mythology, fall under its ruling (white, judeo-christian) narrative authority. the postmodern embrace of multiple narratives is a ruse. all incompatible things lead to a universal truth. the show doesn't dispell the existence of differences; rather everything is to be combined, united under a totalising front, despite the contradictory nature of that impulse. this narrative then, down to its bare bones formula, is a civilising mission. civilisation barreling in, banishing fear and uncertainty from the light. and in order to stay in that light, one must submit to its complete authority. by this show's logic, uniformity ultimately requires the subjugation of difference.

[havegaysex]

Why are you telling people to vote for the guy committing genocide :/

because voting is not an endorsement it's harm reduction.

Trump is going to be at best doing the same as Biden and likely much worse for Palestinians and all the countries suffering from American Imperialism than Biden is.

Republicans want to bring back child labor and get rid of social security, medicare, Medicaid. As someone who is surviving on Medicaid and social security I don't want those taken away. The Republican majority house already put a lot of limits on food stamps in this past term and I don't think we'll still have food stamps if we get a republican Congress and a Republican president.

They've made it pretty clear that if they get a republican Congress and a Republican president they're going to enact project 2025 and call a conference of states and try and take our rights back to the days when only wealthy white men had any rights when women and racial minorities had no rights, they want to make it illegal for LGBT+ folks to safely exist in public and get lifesaving healthcare.

In short

Do I support every single thing Biden has done as president?

No.

Do I like him?

Not particularly. But I'm still voting for him because apathy is not a choice.

Do I think that Joe Biden having another term means that we can actually make more progress for labor rights, trans healthcare, abortion access, advancement of the rights and protections for disabled people and so much more?

Yes absolutely.

Do I think that the genocide in Gaza needs to end and the United States needs to stop sending weapons to israel?

Yes, I think that un restricted flow of humanitarian aid into Palestine needs to happen, the siege needs to stop, and the country of Israel and the United States need to be held accountable at an international level. I think that the soldiers of the IDF/IOF need to be held accountable for their war crimes and pillaging that they continuously post evidence of on social medias. I'm trying to put a read more here so ce I've put a few linked articles and quotes from them.

A quote from the article below:

"While our map focuses solely on high school aged youth (age 13-17), some states, such as Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina, have considered banning care for transgender people up to 26 years of age. "

I've seen lawmakers in some states try to make it felony punishable by life in prison to get your trans child healthcare to keep them alive because they want to make it illegal for us to exist and a legal for anyone who helps us exist.

some quotes from the article above:

"Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president’s second term — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024. With a nearly 1,000-page “Project 2025” handbook and an “army” of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers. “We need to flood the zone with conservatives,” said Paul Dans, director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project and a former Trump administration official who speaks with historical flourish about the undertaking. “This is a clarion call to come to Washington,” he said. “People need to lay down their tools, and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.’” The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending. Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the “administrative state” from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing. The goal is to avoid the pitfalls of Trump’s first years in office, when the Republican president’s team was ill-prepared, his Cabinet nominees had trouble winning Senate confirmation and policies were met with resistance — by lawmakers, government workers and even Trump’s own appointees who refused to bend or break protocol, or in some cases violate laws, to achieve his goals. While many of the Project 2025 proposals are inspired by Trump, they are being echoed by GOP rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy and are gaining prominence among other Republicans. And if Trump wins a second term, the work from the Heritage coalition ensures the president will have the personnel to carry forward his unfinished White House business. “The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state,” said Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official involved in the effort who is now president at the conservative Center for Renewing America. Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired. Biden had rescinded the executive order upon taking office in 2021, but Trump — and other presidential hopefuls — now vow to reinstate it."

"There’s a “top to bottom overhaul” of the Department of Justice, particularly curbing its independence and ending FBI efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. It calls for stepped-up prosecution of anyone providing or distributing abortion pills by mail."

Personally I think that voting for Joe Biden is better than someone who wants to enact this stuff on day one. It's like they read handmaid's tale and want to make that the reality of this country.

"Chapter by chapter, the pages offer a how-to manual for the next president, similar to one Heritage produced 50 years ago, ahead of the Ronald Reagan administration. Authored by some of today’s most prominent thinkers in the conservative movement, it’s often sprinkled with apocalyptic language." Ronald Reagan is a big reason we have a lot of problems we have today with our economy and with a lot more things. The people that supported Ronald Reagan do not need another term in office.

A quote from the article linked below:

"Trump has given no indication that he would be more sympathetic to Palestinian claims, nor that he would place more pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire. “The approach of the United States would be that Israel needs to win this war, it was attacked brutally,” Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, describing how Trump would act. Friedman is now a campaign surrogate for Trump."

Personally I think Trump telling Israel to finish the job is indicators that another Trump presidency doesn't mean that weapons would stop being sent to Israel from United States

I fail to see how another term of Donald trump will be any better for the victims of the ongoing genocide in Palestine than President Joe Biden.

i think our system is absolutely messed up and broken but I don't think abstaining from voting is going to actually help.

[siriuslysatorusimping]

Another Level Author Discussion: Hollow Echoes

I absolutely LOVE that so many of you have so many thoughts about the most recent addition to Another Level! This part was incredibly challenging for me to write and I'm so very proud of how it came out and how the emotions came across.

I decided to post this because I was going to end up writing full-length books in the comments replying, and I thought this might be better lol For those who haven't read it yet, I'm putting the discussion below the cut so you can avoid spoilers!

If you haven't already and want to know more, you can find Another Level on AO3 :)

In all honesty, I struggled to write this part a lot because I already had the outcome planned. I knew from the start that this would be their first big fight and it would test them, but that they would come out stronger. I also knew that I wanted to keep Gojo as close to our real Gojo as possible, meaning that he's likely not going to apologize for hurting her. In his mind, he was justified in being upset, so whatever he did or said was justified as well.

You will see some of this in the upcoming chapter for Hollow Echoes.

Something I want to convey in this story as a whole is that people are messy. Humans are filled with lots of emotions, and pain is one of the hardest to work with because people in pain are typically unpredictable.

Gojo is human. And he is far from perfect. While he shouldn't have lashed out the way he did, it's very human of him to direct that anger at the first person he comes in contact with. It's actually why he had isolated himself in the first place because he knows he's not okay enough to be around people when he's like that even if he doesn't know how to say that. He doesn't want to risk ruining the persona he's built of being carefree and nonchalant by taking his anger out on others, so he shuts himself away for a few days to get a handle on his emotions and then slides his mask back in place. She caught him while he was still trying to find that mask again and it threw him off a lot. Hence his lashing out. 

He's also furious with Nanami. More than he's upset with Rinko, actually. Because Nanami overstepped quite a bit here. Well-intentioned, but he ignored the fact that Gojo clearly wanted to be left alone.

We're going to see that Nanami struggles with letting people handle things alone, he is a fixer. It's a trait that's pretty common in a lot of people even if they don't mean for it to be harmful: Your not being okay is making me not okay or is disrupting my life, so I need you to be okay again so I can be okay too. While many times it's because they care about that person, it rarely has good results, and this is a prime example of that.

Gojo missing jobs is disrupting Nanami's life because he's having to pick up some of the slack, and Yaga is getting angry as well. So, he does what he thinks will fix it: have Rinko talk to him. Because Gojo acts differently with her and is softer with her, Nanami thought that she would show up and things would just fix themselves. He's going to keep thinking that without meaning to.

So, while Rinko and Nanami both meant well, they blatantly disrespected Gojo's wish to be left alone.

Should he have communicated that he wanted to be left alone explicitly? Maybe. But they both should have realized that if he wasn't answering, that was him communicating his desire. Rinko did realize this, but she ignored that instinct in favor of listening to people who had known Gojo longer.

Nanami asking Rinko to cross a boundary by invading Gojo's space without permission - and her doing so - hurt Gojo quite a bit. Because it's what everyone else does and he didn't expect her to be like that. It's why she had a key to his place when literally no one else did. Because he thought he could trust her to not do exactly what she ended up doing.

I also made the purposeful choice to have her not mention in her messages that she was coming over. None of her messages even implied such, so he was truly blindsided by her showing up and entering without his permission.

Honestly, I have been on both ends of similar situations and it's really hard, so I'm happy with how this turned out because it starts to convey that complexity just a bit.

So, while being upset with him is completely understandable - and Rinko will be because she's also human and has emotions and is valid in them - his reaction makes sense from a purely human perspective. She also already knows that what she did was wrong, how she went about trying to check on him, and she'll acknowledge it. She knows he's human. Probably better than anyone else in his life at this point, and she understands what it's like to say and do things just because she's hurting.

He is going to admit to her that it's one of the things he likes most about her, appreciates about her. Because she sees a human with too much being asked of him when she looks at him instead of an untouchable god, like so many others do. He's going to tell her such, too.

Because if you'll remember, at this point, there are two people who have worn him down enough to land a hit on him: Toji Fushiguro and Rinko Kurisaki. And they did it days apart from each other, for completely different reasons. Gojo was escorting Riko Amanai less than a week after meeting Rinko. 

This was intentional. And it's a trait that irritates him while drawing him to her more. Her comment to Shoko about him being so different with her because of their first encounter? Not far off. She and Toji are cousins. First cousins. His father and her father were brothers. So, bastard or not, their blood relation is more direct than she ever talks about or wants to admit because it's the same amount of blood they'd have shared were she a legitimate child. And the fact that Toji was actually her first introduction to the Jujutsu world as a kid doesn't help with that.

Rinko has viewed herself as weak for multiple reasons and it's made her rely more on her brain than her cursed energy. After training a bit with Gojo, she's relying on both. 

But think back to their fight in Make a Good Bleed: she knew she couldn't beat him, so she focused on wearing him down and being annoying. And then when she saw an opening, she took it.

After just a few meetings with Toji, without him trying to teach her anything, she realized how useful having no cursed energy could be and learned to mask her own to make herself seem weaker. She is incredibly tactical and it will show even more over time. But what makes it even better is that she doesn't realize just how tactical she really is because she has believed what the main clan has told her since the day they met her: half-breeds are weak.

If you'll remember when she called herself a half-breed to Gojo, he clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes at her. That wasn't because he didn't like being bested, it was because he didn't like that she called herself that. What did he say to her after?

"Zenin's are strong." He doesn't differentiate that. She has Zenin blood, so she's strong, 'half-breed' or not. He'll hear Naoya call her this once, and he's going to lose his mind.

Does any of this mean he's off the hook? Oh hell no. But, it's one reason she reacted the way she did in how quickly she retreated and blamed herself there at the end.

TLDR: Humans are messy and imperfect, and Gojo is no exception even if he is the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer in the world.

[riickgrimes]

i can’t tell you how bitter i am that we didn’t get sydney and carmy’s taste testing food adventure i would have loved to see carmy and syd bouncing ideas off of each other, sharing their thoughts on the food they were trying, learning from each other, getting a deeper understanding of how the other views and understands the passion that they share

[wonder-worker]

Any judgement on (Richard III)’s reign has to be seen as provisional. The critic of the reign only has to consider how the Tudors would now be regarded if Henry VII lost at Stoke, to realize the dangers of too many assumptions about the intractability of Richard’s problems. But it would be equally unrealistic to ignore Richard’s unpopularity altogether. The fact that he generated opposition among men with little material reason for dissent, and that the disaffection then continued to spread among his own associates, says something about what contemporaries regarded as the acceptable parameters of political behaviour. There is no doubt that Richard’s deposition of his nephews was profoundly shocking. To anyone who did not accept the pre-contract story, which was probably the majority of observers, the usurpation was an act of disloyalty. Gloucester, both as uncle and protector, was bound to uphold his nephew’s interests and his failure to do so was dishonourable. Of all medieval depositions, it was the only one which, with whatever justification, could most easily be seen as an act of naked self-aggrandizement.

It was also the first pre-emptive deposition in English history. This raised enormous problems. Deposition was always a last resort, even when it could be justified by the manifest failings of a corrupt or ineffective regime. How could one sanction its use as a first resort, to remove a king who had not only not done [nothing] wrong but had not yet done anything at all?

-Rosemary Horrox, Richard III: A Study of Service

[dykedvonte]

I keep seeing fanarts of ppl's OC's being on the ship, so do you think that if there was 6st crewmember (specifically, another woman) Anya would've been more safe? Like, someone to actually call Jimmy's begaviour out, someone Anya might wanna trust? Is there a possibility something might have changed (even if a little) or it would not have mattered at all?

-💀

I feel like the game would make it part of the commentary on where she would believe and help Anya but still be sort of dismissive? Like the whole “don’t waste time crying and being scared keep going and move on, don’t let him win”. It’s supposed to be positive and reinforcing but sometimes it does more damage in those times of mourning and grief, it feels patronizing, like you don’t understand what you’re going through but they do. Even if they did call out his behavior it’s still on Curly to act and while another voice would help, it’s still 4 against 2 on guys that don’t get it until they have to vs women who always have to.

I don’t mind mouthwashing OCs but I do get a bit bored as they tend to be borderline saviors or like Jimmy aligned. They are either more complicit than Curly or just Jimmy haters for no reason, outside of what the creators know about what he did to Anya. I am never irked by OCs but in a story like mouthwashing you really need to think about what your character adds to the commentary, especially if they are there during the crash. It’s nice to have like characters on Anya’s side more whole heartedly and interesting to see characters who placate Jimmy but sometimes it’s one note.

I can’t and don’t want to police peoples OCs it’s never my intention when I comment on trends I notice, but I do feel like the way people make their OCs interact with these two characters and especially Curly, really show a grave misunderstanding of the narrative and these characters as people vs roles in the story. Still, I know people just make up characters for fun and that’s fine. Great even, but I guys I’m focusing more on OCs that are supposed to have those serious dynamics. My favs tend to be pretty-Tulpar or post-Tulpar au OCs.

The inevitably of the crash is on Jimmy. He did that not because he wasn’t stopped but because all his means to kill Anya were taken. The gun, the axe. Even if Curly did strip him of his co-pilot privileges and try to keep him contained there’s only so many people. An extra body helps but they have jobs they have to do, he’s the only one steering the whole ship and Jimmy would likely have an out: food, bathroom, etc. He’s not new and if he couldn’t crash the ship directly, who’s to say he wouldn’t sabotage something else? A clunker like the Tulpar wouldn’t take much. An extra person helps but it’s just another thing that prolongs what a person like Jimmy is willing to do to shirk responsibility.

It’s more than just needing someone to stand up to him and think that’s what is missing when it comes to inserting a character into the mouthwashing setting.

[ccaptain]

Also if you ever feel pressured to send me a meme and it stresses you out: don't be! My muse and many others live rent free in my head, following their whimsies and scenarios that I daydream about! Memes are irrelevant when I have infinite self-produced material!